Guy Benson ShowApril 21, 20262h 3m

Dem Senator in Hot Water Over Iran Comment

Transcript

296 segments
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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, April 21st, 2026. I'm Guy Benson. Welcome everyone to Guy Benson. Thank you so much for tuning in. We are here together for the next three hours between 3 and 6 p.m. Eastern. That's every weekday. And then it also becomes a podcast available around the clock, absolutely free of charge. Guy Benson.com, Fox News Podcast.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a Fox News political analyst, a senior columnist at the Washington Examiner. You can reach us here at the radio show, GBS at fox.com, our email address. You can also follow us on social at Guy Benson. Follow me while you're at it as well on a personal level at Guy Benson. On the program today, we'll get to our lead guest here in just a moment. Later this hour, U.S. Senator Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania. He'll be back on the show looking forward to that. Theo Wold on immigration in the next hour and the one and only Robert F. Kennedy Jr., our dear friend Fox News cultural icon, she'll be here in the happy hour just after 5 p.m. Eastern today. As we begin, though, it is Referendum Day in the Commonwealth of Virginia. I voted weeks ago, an early voter. I've been banging on this drum, really for months. Because I think not only is it a big day for Virginia, it's also a big day for the country for a number of reasons. And we will know tonight how this thing turns out. The yes side in favor of the Democrats' gerrymandering scheme has been leading narrowly in the public polls. And there are people out there who know Virginia politics very well who say the no side can still win, especially given some of the early voting numbers, but it would take a big, big, no vote today on election day. to possibly kill this awful partisan power grab that the Democrats have sprung very dishonestly on the people of Virginia. And with us now, to give us kind of a closing argument, I gave my monologue yesterday and just a sense of where things stand this afternoon is the former governor. of virginia glen Glenn Youngkin a republican who's been very involved in trying to defeat this referendum today which is a simple majority yes or no a snap election to change the constitution they call it fairness they want to take one of the fairest congressional maps in the country six to five and make it 10 to one you can just eyeball the map and see how ludicrous it is how insulting it is to attach the concept of fairness

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to what they're trying to do here, but that's their talking point. Governor Young and welcome back to the show. Guy, great to be with you. And thank you for allowing me to join you to once again explain and invite Virginians to stand strong against this gerrymandering referendum, which is this partisan power grab that really threatens the basic republic that Virginians fought for 250 years ago. And that's what this is all about. They have put forth an unconstitutional process. They have put forth an illegal process. And I will tell you, it's just so flat wrong. The maps that they have presented are the most gerrymandered maps in America. And they want those to replace in this unconstitutional process, maps that were drawn as a result of a constitutional amendment adopted six years ago with maps adopted five years ago by a... independent redistricting committee. And I'm going to say that again, independent. Virginians voted by two-thirds majority to get politics and politicians out of the map drawing business. And here we are right now because the partisan left feels like they can literally fool trick and deceive Virginians into believing something is fair when in fact it is wholly unfair. And we've traveled all around the Commonwealth over the last few weeks. and have spent most of our time explaining to people that no means keep the current fair maps. And yes, means to succumb to this partisan power grab and throw fairness out the door. It's a big day. I thought your summary was spot on. Listen, I think the early voting was stronger than we had last November. But we need a big day today. And that's why we have been burning up the phone lines and also pounding the pavement today to get people out to vote, to vote no, and reject this. terrible constitutional amendment on the ballot to gerryman virginia worse than any state in america you know i got to tell you governor it's funny because we've been bombarded with ads. The Democrats have been running these yes ads for months. And the no side has been totally outgunned and outspent. And that's a conversation for another day. But I have seen just a constant drumbeat of propaganda in favor of this thing. And yet they still don't have it in the bag to get this thing across the finish line. Also, there are people who might be on the fence. I just texted some of my neighbors.

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Who I know are, you know, not hardcore leftists. saying, hey, just in case anyone needs the other side of this argument, and I just sent them a column that I wrote in the Washington Examiner, today's the day, get out and vote, and three of them actually ended up going to vote, and two of them were not planning to, but then they did. So there are people listening to us right now, Governor, who live in Virginia. We have multiple stations in Virginia, and a large streaming audience here as well. They are listening to us right now. They might think that... Yeah, I don't like this idea. I would probably vote no, but I'm not really sure if it's worth going out. My understanding... is that the electorate is looking significantly more promising than it did last November. That's the good news. The bad news is last November was a blowout. The Democrats won by 15 points. So you really need not just marginal improvements in the early voting. You need a big clobbering on election day for the no side to come in and get it done. But we know it's possible because you literally did it, right? In 2021, it takes a special series of events for a candidate like yourself or the no effort today to win and those stars need to align and from what i've heard The stars seem to be aligning enough to keep the no side in the game and make this plausible to actually win today, depending on the turnout today. Are you seeing the same thing in the numbers that you're seeing and the people that you're talking to? And if there are people listening to our voices right now, Governor, who are inclined to agree with us, who live in Virginia, but they're not really sure it matters, especially given how bad things were last November. What's your message to them? Your vote matters. It matters in the most significant way because this is not about Republicans versus Democrats. This is just about fairness. And what's happened over the course of the last few months... is unconstitutional and it's illegal and it's wrong. It's unconstitutional because the process the Democrats used in order to get this amendment on the ballot violated the basic frameworks that are laid out in our Constitution for an amendment.

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It's illegal because they not only violated code, but because they violated the Constitution, this is something that should not even be on the ballot. We settled this six years ago. We threw the politicians and the politics out of map drawing, and we adopted a process that resulted in incredibly fair maps. And listen, guy, I don't love these maps. I mean, right now, the current map, which is viewed as one of the fairest, if not the fairest map in the country, has six Democrat Congressional representatives and five Republicans. Now, would I like to have a lot more Republicans? Yes, but the map is fair. And now what we're seen from the progressive left leadership in Richmond is an attempt to silence the voices of all Virginians, all of them, and ignore what was done during that well-run, well-supported process. By the way, that was supported by the current Democrat governor, Abigail Spanberger six years ago, supported by both of our senators, supported by Barack Obama to have fair math. And now they all... all of a sudden decide, well, we're not going to have that because we want more Democrats in Congress. And it's just wrong. It's just wrong. And what we I've seen across the Commonwealth guys, I have met with lots of people, lots of Republicans, lots of independence. And yes, a few Democrats. What people are really concerned about is the statement that this doesn't matter. It matters. It matters. so much to not just Virginia, but to the nation. We have a chance, like Virginia did 250 years ago, to stand up and lead, to stand up for this amazing republic that's the greatest country that's ever been formed and demonstrates that we are not going to be deceived and we are going to do what's right. And that's why I do think that voter turnout has been stronger in our rural counties. or rural counties are the ones who are going to be most disenfranchised. But we're also seeing a lot of independent voters show up who say, hey, I live in Hampton Roads, and I don't want someone representing me in Congress who lives in Northern Virginia. I want someone who lives near me, and I like the current maps. And so, yes, we need a big turnout day. And I'm hoping everyone and anyone who's listening to your show today, if you live in Virginia and you haven't voted, get out and vote, and please vote no. And if you don't live in Virginia, send text to five of your friends to say, hey, you should vote because this is a critical election, not just for Virginia, but for the country. And the thing is, governor, I would love to just defeat this thing outright. And from what I hear, depending on how the thing all breaks down, it is possible. So, you know, I was not feeling terribly sanguine back in November. and for good reason, it was not a good day for Republicans. This one feels a lot more hopeful and more doable. I don't know which way it's going to go. Some of the people on the left, some of their analysts are saying, yeah, I think yes is still favored, but I'm not super confident about it. So the time to get out there and vote is right now. If we can beat this thing straight up, amazing. But even, and this is just my thought, if it's really, really close.

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The Virginia Supreme Court still has to decide whether the whole thing was legal in the first place. They're doing it after the referendum happens. And I think the fact that in 2020, in a regularly scheduled presidential high turnout election in a ballot measure that was well... described and vetted and debated. It was a two-thirds majority of Virginians said, nope, we're taking this out of the hands of politicians, and it's going to be the independent bipartisan commission that you just described. That was the correct constitutional process. They have blown through the rules, the safeguards, the Constitution, arguably, to get this one and rush it on the ballot, like the snap election so they can gain four seats in November. I know that you and others believe that this has been done illegally. I think the Virginia Supreme Court might need some courage to actually do the obvious thing and strike the whole thing down if it does pass. And I think if it passes very narrowly. That might, I don't know, emboldened the justices to say, in 2020, they did it the right way, and the result is overwhelming. This time, they've skirted the issue. They've taken these shortcuts, and we have to take this very seriously, especially because it was such a close result one way or the other. And there's an NPR headline. I'm not sure if you saw this, Governor. This is from NPR, right? Not some right-wing outlet, obviously. Headline, voters say they feel confused and misled on Virginia's redistricting vote. And the story quotes a bunch of people saying, this is really confusing. They talk about the wording of the ballot question, which is outrageous that the Democrats have done to slant this thing in their direction. The whole thing just stinks. And whether it's defeating it today outright or defeating it. in the courts moving forward i think the more people in this commonwealth vote no the better all across the board that that's part of my case here Yeah, I think you are absolutely spot on. Listen, I just want to win today and put this thing to bed. Yep. I really do. And as you have, I think, appropriately outlined, it's all up to turnout today. We were behind, we were way behind. But the grassroots effort, and I think the dishonesty of this whole process by the yes campaign. which was called the most brazenly dishonest process by the Washington Post, again, not a bastion of conservative thinking. And they effectively endorse the no vote because of the dishonesty of all of this. So we are encouraging everybody to sit down and vote today. And then you couple that with the fact that our state Supreme Court will start receiving briefs later this week. Now listen, I'm really disappointed.

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that they didn't do this in advance of putting Virginia through this process. But they must hear this. And the idea that they wouldn't hear it, I think, is something that would undermine the credibility of the court. There was a very, very strong ruling in our district court that said this is unconstitutional and laid out numerous, numerous violations of our constitutional process and, of course, the Virginia Code. It was, of course, appealed immediately and it's at the Supreme Court, and they should hear this, and they should opine, and they should find it unconstitutional. But we can relieve that whole pressure by getting people out to vote today. And I do believe that if it's close and we fall short, guy, you're 100% right. I think it only bolsters the arguments that Virginians were confused. And I firmly believe that... So many folks have been confused. I've heard it from people. They've walked up to me and said, Governor, I'm against gerrymandering, and I think the map is terrible, but I'm worried that I voted yes mistakenly. I mean, this is happening, and it's just wrong, and it's the results of the deception that the far left used to set this whole thing up in the first place. Yep, and the strongest message that could be sent today is a no vote and killing this thing. right out of the gate. And I hope that's what happens. And there are still a few hours left if you live in Virginia to go vote. No. Governor Glenn Youngkin, former governor here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, our guest, leading off this Tuesday edition of Guy Benson. Governor, thank you very much. Guy, thank you. God bless you. And everybody get out and vote. No. We are just getting started on the program. So much more to get to, including from other places around the country and around the world. You don't want to miss any of it. Please stay tuned. Always Fresh, Always Fair. Guy Benson. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills. But it turns out... That's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upground payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. I'm Guy Benson. And this is a Fox News Alert. Democrat Congresswoman Sheila Sheriffillus McCormick of Florida has just moments ago tendered her resignation from Congress. She is out effective immediately. So that is the third resignation from Congress in just the span of what, a week or so, two weeks? Eric Swalwell, Democrat, California, Tony Gonzalez, Republican, Texas. Now, this woman from Florida, a Democrat, Just coming after Republicans were moving to consider her punishment after a House ethics panel, which is bipartisan, by the way. She was saying, oh, it's all so unfair and it's a witch hunt. This is a bipartisan panel. Found that she had committed all sorts of campaign finance and campaign reporting violations. And the Associated Press reminds everyone.

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That that committee, the ethics committee, had previously determined she committed 25 violations of house rules, ethical standards, including breaking campaign finance laws. And on top of that, she is facing federal criminal charges, accusing her of stealing $5 million in federal disaster funds and using some of the money to buy items such as a diamond ring for herself. So she was... found effectively guilty on dozens accounts by the ethics committee and is federally charged criminally for embezzling disaster relief funds. What a character. And now she's out of Congress. And now people are turning their attention to another congressman from Florida. Cory Mills, a Republican who could also be on very thin ice. So this might not be over, but another one bites the dust. She is out. More of Guy Benson coming up. Senator McCormick, no relation, is with us next. This is going to be an extremely busy month. I have to watch 104 soccer games. Follow the pregame, the post game, yell useless opinions at the TV. It's a lot. So I knew that when it comes to screening for colon cancer, the choice was clear. The Colagard Plus test. It can be used at home and can only take 15 minutes, so I can do it during halftime and not miss any action. If you are 45 or older and at average risk, ask your healthcare provider about screening for colon cancer with the Coligard test. You can also request a prescription at colagard.com.

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Talking about the issues you care about, Guy Benson. Welcome back to Guy Benson, Guy Benson.com. Podcast free every single day. We're very happy to welcome back to the show. U.S. Senator Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania. He sits on the Committee on Foreign Relations, among others. He's a combat veteran as well. Senator, great to have you here. Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. Oh, I saw that you had a busy day today. You were introducing Kevin Warsh as President Trump's nominee to become Fed Chair. I know you've known him for quite some time. Tell us about your background with Kevin Warsh and why you think he'd be a good pick. Yeah, I think the president made a great choice here because really three things. Number one, the Fed is in dire need of reform, and Kevin's got a reformer's heart. He's laid out the case for the reform. He's been a very big skeptic of the Fed sort of migrating into more political territory in this enormous quantitative easing. Second, you know, Kevin is incredibly qualified. He not only worked at the Fed, and that's how I know him. He and I worked closely together 20 years ago in the middle of the financial crisis. I was the undersecretter of Treasury, and he was on the Fed board, and he was a calm voice of reason in the middle of a very turbulent time. But then finally, the Fed and economic policy and monetary policy is really about the American dream. It's really about making sure that Americans have opportunity, that we keep inflation in check, full employment. And Kevin grew up in, you know, upstate New York, he went to public schools. He's lived the American dream and he understands what it means when, you know, the price of gas or mortgages go up or where unemployment ticks up. He's felt that because he grew up in a community where he had friends side by side and his family that was affected by it. So this is a guy who's going to come and shake things up and it comes at a time. When the fed's, you know, really in a risky position, it's overextended itself. It's balance sheet is out of control. It's sort of begun to migrate into a more political posture. It needs to be reformed, and Kevin's the guy to do it. Now, I've heard there are a number of your Republican colleagues who are fans of this pick and are inclined to support his confirmation, except they want some sort of resolution on what is viewed by many. very sympathetic to this view, that the investigation into the current Fed chair, Jerome Powell, is politicized and basically retribution from the Trump administration over political and policy differences. I have not really seen anything that.

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satisfies me that this is a legitimate investigation. And some of your colleagues reportedly agrees saying that needs to be cleared off the decks before they're willing to vote for anyone, even someone who's very qualified like Kevin Warsh. Where does that stand in your mind, that whole issue? hopeful that we'll get that resolve pretty quickly. My position has always been that, you know, I have real policy disagreements with Chairman Jerome Powell, and it does look to me like this building was spiraling out of control in terms of the cost, but I see no evidence of criminal... misconduct than the part of the chairman. And so I think this notion of some sort of criminal prosecution is not appropriate or warranted. And this is exactly the kind of thing that should be handled in the banking committee. We have subpoena power. We have oversight responsibility. And so what I'm hoping will happen. is that the Justice Department will refer this to the Senate Banking Committee. We, by the way, if we have any evidence of criminal activity, we can refer it back to the FBI or whomever. And we ensure the very thing that President Trump has been talking about, which is he wants to get to the bottom of this and make sure there's accountability. And so I'm hoping that can be part of the resolution where this is taken up by the chairman of the banking committee. Chairman Scott's ready to do that. I think that would probably... resolved the issues you mentioned about others on the banking committee, Republicans on the banking committee. And if we could do that, I think we'd have a pass forward. And listen, we've got to get a new Fed share in place before Chairman Jerome Powell's term ends, which is May 15th. And Kevin Warsh is the right guy to do it. We're a country in conflict in the Middle East with lots of uncertainty and economic policy. We need a new Fed share. Let's stick with the economy here for a moment. Last week, Tax Day, we talked about it here, a fair amount. I think that... Many in the media and on the Democrat side would be very happy to just skate right past one of the signature accomplishments, certainly one of your first in the U.S. Senate being involved in the so-called one big beautiful bill or the working families tax cut where you avoided one of the largest tax increases across the board on nearly all Americans and indeed extended tax cuts and further cut taxes specifically targeted at working people, no tax on tips over time, et cetera. And the data has come in showing. these

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Tax refunds, on average, significantly up over last year. That's a tangible achievement for American families, American businesses. I feel like it's getting somewhat short shrift at the moment. Is that something that Republicans can run on, for example, ahead of November? And is it something that the voters actually care about? Because often you'll see a problem solved or a crisis resolved. And people say, okay, glad the bad thing didn't happen, but there's not a lot of gratitude necessarily. when it comes to voting patterns as a result of that, what do you make of that? Well, we need to keep telling the story and making the case of the American people. But I was in Pennsylvania for five or six days over the last 10, and people feel it. I mean, it's 11% increase in their returns, $3,500 on average. You know, something like 23 million people took advantage of the tax break on no tax on overtime. Something like $25 million took advantage of the no tax on Social Security, $5.5 million on the no tax on tips. This is a big deal. And if you're a Pennsylvania making $52,000 a year, which is the median income, This is a big benefit. I think people are absolutely feeling that. The other thing I'd say, guy, which hasn't gotten enough attention in my mind, is what the president has done with lots of support from the Congress on fentanyl. If you said the two things I campaigned on, it was economic opportunity for working families, and it was closing the border and stopping the flow of fentanyl, which killed 4,000 people in 2024. I had the FBI director in Pennsylvania two weeks ago. We had all the law enforcement, the attorney general, U.S. attorney, and so forth. And we talked about what's happened on fentanyl because of the presence actions, closing the border, going after the cartels of military capability, stopping the flow of prefactors from China. The prediction, the projection, rather, the early projections on 2025 for fentanyl deaths are 1,600. in Pennsylvania from 4,600, down 60%. That's 1,600 tragedies too many. So we're not done yet. But these are the big things that are happening because we have the President, President Trump in the White House, and because we have a majority in the Senate and the House. And we've got to go make that case. Listen, politics is about touching the issues that matter most of people on the ground. doing real things to solve their problems and making sure they know it. And I think we've accomplished the first two, to some degree, we still have work to do, and we're probably falling short on the third piece, which is making sure they connect the dots and all the good work. that President Trump has done and their representatives have done since coming into office. Or the positive things outweigh whatever they're still frustrated about, right? That's part of the argument to be made because, I mean, you can say, hey, here's your big tax refund. That's money in your pocket that makes life more affordable for you. And by the way, look at these fentanyl death numbers. And by the way, look, we've closed the border, something that you guys were so upset about just a few months ago and now it's done. People can say, okay, cool, thank you.

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But now we're upset about these things, right? So it's the sort of constant give and take and tugging back in each direction. And I think Republicans probably need to do a better job. Certainly on selling and reminding people of it on a regular basis here heading into November. Meanwhile, and this is another one that's totally dropped off the radar, and yet it is still going on, the DHS shutdown is not over. Senator. I mean, you know this. Some of the worst disruptions have been at least temporarily jettisoned. And there were conversations around a solution that I think is coming at some point. But as far as I know, the DHS shutdown, the Democrats started and is still happening, is underway. How does that end? When does that end? Yeah, three point plan underway here to solve that problem. First of all, it's an absolute disgrace for the Democrats to hold us all hostage. by not paying the people who are serving us. And by the way, this isn't ICE or Border Patrol. They're being paid. It's the people in TSA, the Cyber Center, and so forth. So an absolute disgrace. And I'll never do that. No matter who's in charge and the majority, I'll never vote to shut the government down for political leverage. So President Trump acted, used the emergency authority to make sure people are getting paid. The Senate passed a bill, which... did not have the complete funding, but funded a lot of DHS, I hope and think that the House will pass that bill. And then we'll finally fill out all the funding and more for ICE and Border Patrol through the process of reconciliation. And what's going to happen there is we're going to pass funding that gets us passed. President Trump's term into the next president's term, so the Democrats can no longer use funding of DHS as a point of political leverage. And listen, it's indisputable that a big part of this is Trump derangement syndrome, and so we want to take that off the table. It's messy. There's been procedural differences between the House and Senate on how best to do it. I think we're all on the same page now, and I think this is the path that's going to make sure. The people that protect us are funded. By the way, this is at a moment where the risk is going up. So you talk about irresponsibility. The Democrats are doing this. Chuck Schumer is doing this at the moment where we have terrorist attacks at a synagogue in Michigan, where we have attacks in New York City, where we have a big cyber attack on striker medical, the biggest ever. This is absolutely irresponsible, and we're going to put an end to it. You just articulated your position that regardless of which party was in control of the White House and the various levers of power, you would not vote to shut down the government for political leverage. That is the position held currently by exactly one Democrat in the Senate, and that would be your colleague, John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, who's, that's been his very consistent position. He's voted that way. And he is just getting...

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beaten up by his own side for that and for his vocal support of Israel and like non-insanity on the border, openness to voter ID, even though he's against the Save America Act. I mean, this is a guy who votes with this party, what, 90 plus percent of the time, but he is being treated like he has gone to the dark side as some right winger. And based on what I've seen and some of the polling, it seems like they are chomping at the bit to throw him out and not even nominate him again for re-election. That seems to be the direction of the party over there. Do you have any sense? Does he have a future in that party? Is he going to run again? Might he leave that party? I don't want to get out in front of him, but you know him very well. You guys are friends. It's probably a strike against him, frankly, with that whole crowd. But it's not just the left-wing fringe. It seems like the whole party kind of hates him now. Well, listen, I think it does reflect how far. The Democratic Party has alerts to the left, excuse me, with these radicals that are staking out positions of anti-Semitism as an example where... The mainstream of the party is afraid to speak out because they're going to be punished by the radicals. And John Fetterman is the opposite of that. He's just a decent man of courage that wants to do the right thing for Pennsylvania and speaks his mind. I think he had a near-death experience that's made him say, listen, I've got no time, no toleration for the nonsense. So I respect him. I like him. We're good friends, and we look for ways to work together. I'm not sure what. the Democratic Party is thinking with regard to him. And I'm not sure what he's thinking. I've never pushed him on it. But I wouldn't underestimate him. I think he is, you know, everywhere I go, people say to me, the relationship you and John Fetterman have is unique. And I think there's people across the country and certainly across Pennsylvania that admire the positions he's taken. So I'm not sure what his political future is exactly, but I would bet that he has one. And I don't know, I don't expect he's going to come. to the Republican Party because if you look at his positions, he's voted, you know, 90% of the time as a Democrat. So it's not that he's a conservative, it's that he's a moderate, but a man of principle who speaks his mind. And that's no longer tolerable. in the uh in the democratic yeah i mean i saw one paul i believe recently where he was like in third place for to get renominated there were two people running ahead of him if he stuck with that party i wonder maybe would he run as an independent i guess that's something he'll he'll have a few years here to decide his popularity in pennsylvania across all parties across all political persuasions he'd be extremely popular yeah much stronger absolutely yeah i know hated within the party but liked in the state kind of an interesting dynamic there i mean it's tough he may be he may be more popular among republicans than you than yours truly but i but i you're the actual republican who votes conservatively before i let you go just a couple minutes another democrat senator

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Chris Murphy of Connecticut, in some hot water, he tweeted in response to an unverified and as it turns out false report, either misinformation or potentially even enemy disinformation, that at least 26 Iranian shadow fleet vessels had gotten around our U.S. naval blockade. Our colleague, Trey Yinks, reporting that's not true. But Chris Murphy not only amplified that information, but said awesome about it. He then went on and said, oh, he was just being sarcastic, but... This is evidence of bungled mismanagement of a disastrous war, and so it should end immediately. That is his explanation for that tweet. In the minute or so that we have left, your response, your reaction to that. You know, absolute political theater, how did you ever... No matter what, root for the other team if you're an American. And so the one thing that I have lost respect for in the Democratic Party is that whether you agree with the war or don't agree with the war, you've got to be pro or men and women who are putting themselves in harm ways. They're the greatest in the world. They're the best among us. And so any language, any behavior that is not in favor of our groups completing the mission that they've been assigned and coming home safely. is absolutely disgraceful. And so I hadn't seen that remark. But unfortunately, that's a prevalent sentiment on the part of many Democrats. And I think it's unbecoming and it's beneath them as members of the Senate who represent all Americans. And he's saying it's sarcasm, but I think, again, amplifying false information. even portraying the mission the way that he did. I'll have more to say about that later in the show, a bad look unto itself. Senator Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania, a Republican here on Guy Benson on this Tuesday, big day in Washington. Senator, always appreciate your time. We'll talk again soon. Thanks, Guy. Talk to you, and we will be right back after this short break. A fresh perspective on the topics of the day. It's Guy Benson. Need a laptop that's built to perform and designed to last all day? Select Windows 11 PCs starting at 49999 are now at Best Buy. Learn more at Best Buy.com. Best Buy. Imagine that. Back on the Guy Benson's show. Very happy that you're here with us. The Atlantic has an interesting story. San Francisco solved metro vandalism with one neat trick. And wouldn't you know what the one neat trick is just enforcing the law? I know it is a foreign concept to so many people on the left who run a lot of these cities. And then when you get some sane people back in there to do the same thing, the bare basics, good things happen. And whether that's done almost against the will of the leadership, like in Washington, D.C., where things have gotten so much better on public safety, here's San Francisco that is at least backed up a little bit from the brink of hardcore communist insanity out there. And wouldn't you know it? The stats, remarkable, they're public transit, Bart. They have new fare Bill Gates, right? So blocking people from just freeloading and then hopping the turnstile.

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That installation and enforcing the law has now led to a 1,000-hour decline in cleanup time, a 41% drop in crime in the BART system, and $10 million in increased projected revenue. Enforcing the law and responsible functional governance works. Pass it on. CC any number of cities. Another hour. Guy Benson. Up next, don't go anywhere. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha-chings from every channel, right in one spot, and turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today.

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Generation of Conservative Talk. Right here, right now. Fair, fun, and backed by the trusted voices and reporting resources of Fox News. 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. So happy that you're with us. Guy Benson.com is our website, the podcast, free every day on demand. As we enter this middle hour, let's bring you a Fox News alert and a market update Dow falling. Nearly 300 points, 292 to be exact, more uncertainty around Iran and the war. Will there be talks? That's very much up in the air. Dow closing at 49,149. So with us now is Theo Wald. He's former deputy assistant to President Trump and a former Solicitor General of the Great State of Idaho. Theo, good to have you here. It's good to be with you guys. Thanks for having me on. Sure. So I just want to talk about sanctuary policies here because this is a real pet peeve of mine. I think it's one of the most insane policy issues that we have on the map for the country right now, where you just see the difference between jurisdictions that will cooperate with the feds, especially when it comes to... dangerous violent criminal illegal immigrants and those who absolutely adamantly refuse and basically obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration laws as a matter of policy there's another horrible situation playing out that we've just found out about in houston texas where an illegal immigrant from venezuela has now been charged with using a sledgehammer of bludgeoning a co-worker to death. So that would be a murder. And because it's Texas, this person's going to face probably some very tough justice. But there's no way that an ICE detainer would be ignored in a place like Texas. Whereas you juxtapose that with New York City, this is a recent story in the New York Post, where officials in the Big Apple refusing an ICE hold request for an illegal immigrant who is accused of an arson. commission, a felony, that killed four people and injured seven more. So that's a multiple fatality arson incident. And even for that type of accused, violent, illegal immigrant criminal, New York City officials want to effectively protect that person with sanctuary status, juxtaposed with Texas. And I'm just going to keep highlighting these examples until something changes, Theo. And I wonder from a policy perspective, as you've seen it from your vantage point, how does this play out?

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Yeah, well, I think all the facts that just laid out, there are countless now stories. This just follows upon another story last week out of Arlington, Virginia, a neighborhood you know quite well. Many of young staffers who work in the administration on the hill live in Arlington and young woman was waiting for a ride share. to pick her up and she was assaulted by an illegal immigrant who entered the country illegally under President Biden. And thankfully the assault was broken up before there was a serious harm done to the young woman. But this is also Arlington, Virginia is also now a sort of a sanctuary jurisdiction with a local prosecutor who refuses to collaborate with the federal immigration authorities. So we see this playing out again and again in blue jurisdictions, blue cities and blue states. And I think the irony here is, as it was with Governor Walls, as it is with Governor Kathy Hochul, or now Mayor Zohran Mamdani, what they will say is, we're happy to work with the Trump administration on immigration enforcement as it relates to the worst of the worst. At the same time, their policies prevent ICE or any federal immigration authorities. from apprehending these individuals when they are released from prison. And so it's empty words. So isn't it worse than that? Isn't it a lie? If they're saying we want to work, we will, because they understand, I think, the polling. It looks bad to say that you won't help at all with the worst of the worst. But if the policy is, it doesn't matter how bad the criminal illegal immigrant is. We don't cooperate. That's the policy. So to claim that you're willing. to play ball sometimes. If your policy precludes that, it's not just empty words. To me, that's outright dishonesty. It's outright dishonesty. And unfortunately, the polling cuts both ways, right? The Democrats know that it would be bad for them electorally if they did not enforce some kind of measure against the worst of the worst of the illegal immigration population in the country. But also they know that Republicans in the idea of mass deportations are also behind the ball. So they want to say, hey, well, we want to just focus on, you know, the axe murderers and the guy who took the machete to the woman in the 7-11 parking lot. And unfortunately, the way this has played out until Republicans in Congress move to cut off funds, federal funding, whether it's HUD dollars, whether it's HHS block grant monies to sanctuary jurisdictions, they're just going to keep replicating this policy again and again. It's actually, and sadly, it's actually spreading. The number of sanctuary jurisdictions we had 10 years ago is only a fraction of the ones that we have now. You are an attorney, obviously, given... your pedigree, this is something that I still, it's just like it mystifies me whenever I think too hard about it. My brain starts to hurt. I understand that we have a federalist system and that there are different responsibilities, different roles of government for different levels of government. That's all good by design. I'm just trying to figure out how it is legal for sanctuary jurisdictions to exist at all.

45:55

We have federal laws that control immigration policy. It is the exclusive role the federal government to set those policies, and the Supreme Court has ruled on that. How can... cities or states be allowed to obstruct, because that's what this effectively is, to obstruct the enforcement of duly enacted federal immigration laws. I don't get how that's legal, and I say that as, you know, a committed federalist. Yeah, I mean, look, three weeks ago in the New Jersey Assembly, there was a, in her own words, a self-described, you know, homemaker, former accountant, who's now a legislator, Republican legislator, and she was debating on the floor there a bill proposed by the Democrat supermajority in New Jersey to ban ICE from being able to conduct operations in New Jersey. And she said, look. My colleagues, I don't know if you attended high school civics, but you do not have the authority to prohibit the enforcement of federal law. Anyone who's gone to, you know, a basic APUS history class knows this was tried. You know, John Calhoun tried this in South Carolina. It was asked and answered and definitively the supremacy clause was upheld, you know, through a war, in fact. So, I mean, I think this is one of those things that mystifies most Americans, which is. How do blue state may or blue city mayors, blue state governors have the authority to say, not here, we will not allow federal law to be enforced on our soil. And unfortunately, I think. The Republicans have allowed this to metastasize because we have not actually pulled the lever. They're cracking down a lot sooner. And it's like, you know, they might say, well, we're not going to cooperate with it, which I think is its own form of obstructionism. And then if you're like, well, it's not our job. Only the feds can do it. When the feds show up, they go crazy and encourage their like basically activist militias to harass and docks and chase and attack these people. So, I mean, it's. completely unacceptable and out of control. And by the way, some of those nutty bills in New Jersey passed and were signed a whole suite of them by Governor Cheryl, who, like Abigail Spanberger, campaigned as, you know, an affordability-minded moderate. And both of them went straight to the sanctuary stuff almost instantly as an actual governing priority. That's the way their party is headed. Theo Wold. Former deputy assistant to President Trump, former Solicitor General of Idaho on Guy Benson. Theo, thank you. Thanks for having me. You bet. Well, we just mentioned the New York City area. Zohran Mamdani, up to his usual tricks. I want to talk about that next. You're listening to a new generation of talk, Guy Benson.

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With the all-new Dynasty Blueprint in EA Sports College Football 27, you can build your program by earning Dynasty points to spend on NIL, staff, and more. But the fun doesn't end at graduation. With the EA Sports MVP bundle, get College Football 27, Mad at NFL 27, plus deluxe edition rewards in both games. Make your rise with the MVP bundle, available now at EA.com. Rated E for everyone with mild lyrics, user interact, and in-game purchases, includes random items, conditions, and restrictions apply. See the link for more info. I'm Guy Benson. We are back. The mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, was on Meet the Press. And he had some thoughts on the war against the death to America regime in Iran, surprises against that. And then he also had this sort of slogan that he spouted, a specious talking point that rhymes. And I'm sure many on the left would vigorously agree with nodding along, but it's absolutely bogus. Here's what he said. Listen to cut 28. You're looking to deliver relief to New Yorkers, Frank. even from before this war, because while this war has exacerbated a cost of living crisis, that is a crisis that existed from even before the time I was running for mayor. And it's reflected in the fact that we are the most expensive city in the United States of America. But I think your question also gets back to the fact that this is a war to not just be opposed on political grounds, on moral grounds, but even just on economic grounds. We are speaking about a federal administration that has spent upwards of $28 billion. killing thousands of people all the way over in the Middle East at a same time as we're being told that this money cannot be found to invest in working class Americans across this country. And I wish that the words of Tupac from the 90s weren't still prescient, but they continue to be true for too many, which is that we always have money for war and not to feed the poor. Okay, yeah, good. Dr. Sue's style rhyming there. It's also just not true. Now, I think that fighting the death to America regime and preventing them from having nuclear weapon is not just some weird errand that we're running that has no economic or moral impact on us and our future. I think that is a huge category error. I think it's a really weak argument. Unless you're comfortable with Iran having a nuclear weapon, maybe he is. I certainly am not. I'll have more to say about that, in fact, coming up later this hour. But he says, oh, look, we've spent billions of dollars killing thousands of people all the way over there. It's funny. He talks about the Middle East. It's as far away place. It's not really relevant to our lives. And, you know, why are we spending all that money over there? This is someone who is obsessed with a conflict in the Middle East. And we know which side of that conflict he comes down on when it comes to Israel. That's something that he and his people are animated by all the time. They fixate on it to the exclusion of stuff that's a lot closer to home. And he's a mayor of a city in the United States of America, spends a lot of his brain space, apparently, thinking about, speaking about a conflict elsewhere in the Middle East. But in this one, he's talking about killing thousands of people. What we're doing is killing the Iranian military, the IRGC, the hardened enemy that slaughters, for example, their own people. They hate us more than anyone.

52:08

But to keep power, they slaughter their own people by the tens of thousands. You think they'd have any compunction about killing as many of us as they possibly can with the tools to do so, given their record of killing us for decades? Notice he could not spare a thought for the tens of thousands just recently killed by the people we are killing in Iran. Couldn't spare a word for them in that answer that he just gave. But then he quotes Tupac. He wishes the rap still weren't prescient, but it is true. We always have money for war and not to feed the poor. I would simply note that the U.S. military budget is 12, 14 percent of the federal budget. We spend trillions. on entitlement and social welfare and other government programs that have nothing to do with war. We spend trillions of dollars at the state, local, and federal level on the types of programs he's talking about. A lot of it is misspent, mismanaged, and fraudulent. In fact, that's a big part of the problem, the fraud, as we're increasingly learning. But the idea that we don't have the money to do it, we're doing it all the time. I think we're spending the money badly. I think we could spend it a lot better and actually help people. But so, oh, well, it's going. $28 billion have been spent against Iran, and therefore we don't have money to feed the poor. The percentage of the budget that goes to the military is dwarfed by all the other spending, the type of spending that he would consider good. Of course, it's a constitutional imperative for us to provide for the common defense. So it seems like he's upset that we're actually funding the U.S. military to be the very finest in the world. I'm glad we're doing that. But it is simply untrue to pretend, as he does through these rap lyrics from decades ago, that, oh, gosh, we always have money for this, but never for these things. It's like when people decry and lament that we're just not spending nearly enough in education. Then you see the graphs. The education spending has gone nowhere but up. In all of, especially in these blue places for years, even as outcomes and enrollment go down. What's that about? That is about bad return on investment, which they never want us to think about. They never want us to talk about. It's just spend inexorably more money because that's the good, empathetic, progressive thing to do and don't ask any other questions. I'm not really interested in that kind of conversation. It's very, very weak stuff. Now, by the way, a few other things about Zohran Mamdani. Remember his explanation for the public government-run grocery store that he's building? The one in Manhattan is $30 million. It'll be ready in three years, which is insane. An insane timeline, an insane price tag. You could buy for a fraction of that money any number of grocery stores that exist right now that are currently for sale. But leave it to the government. to explode the cost and also say, you're going to be waiting three years for this to be complete, for us to have our first proof of concept on a concept, by the way, that has failed many other places, including, as we've talked about, in Kansas City, something our KCMO audience is very aware of. He called it a grand experiment as he was rolling this whole thing out. We've had the experiment. It doesn't work. But his rationale for doing it, as it turns out, per city journal,

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is actually a lie. Quoting, the mayor's rationale for his public grocery store venture, as stated in a recent press release, is that grocery prices in New York City have risen nearly 66% over the past decade significantly outpacing the national average. That, Wright City Journal, is a bogus statistic. And we can now trace how the mayor's staff made the error, and they go through and explain this was a math error. By, I know, imagine that by the communists in the Zohran Mamdani administration. The whole rationale, the whole explanation for why this failed grand experiment needs to be tried again in New York City at exorbitant costs on this crazy timeline is based on a stat that isn't even true. I know. Are you shocked? I'm so shocked. Finally, I saw Michelle Tandler. going through some of the books. She wrote, I'm digging into New York City's financials, not looking good, between 2019 and 2023. So this is obviously before Zohran Mamdani. New Yorkers who moved out, moved out of New York City, made $68 billion more than those who moved into New York City. So that's a net income loss of $68 billion in the red. And that, again, was before Zohran Mamdani land. 14 billion of it went to Florida, 2 billion went to Texas. Billions went elsewhere. This is out of New York City. Many of these people, she posits, aren't coming back. And I'm sure that's true, especially when they open up their social media and see Mr. Grinning Mayor bragging like this in Cut 31. When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich. Well, today, we're taxing. They've got their piettaire tax, and he went specifically after Ken Griffin, a billionaire. Kathy Hochul's begging a lot of these rich people to return, because so many of them left, as we just heard the statistic there, and even if they're open to that importuning from, I think, a really weak governor. who created this problem for herself, they then look at the guy running New York City, and he spends his tax day with this giant smile on his face boasting about how they're going to tax rich people even more. You think those people are going to come eagerly back to New York City with their many billions to have it confiscated by this guy? I don't think so. I think you're probably going to see more people on the way out taking their money with them, which becomes increasingly a math problem when the city's already, quote, beyond broke, as Zohran Mamdani has said. And your whole plan on how to fix everything is ever more government, ever more spending, paid for by the people who no longer live in the city and those few might drive out of it. Good luck. The slick videos probably appeal to a segment of the population. They do not equal. governance, they do not make the math work. Quite the opposite. More of Guy Benson upcoming. Don't go anywhere. Cheers to America's 250th birthday. Get 20% off your first purchase at Fox Newswineshop.com with code FM 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.

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Guy Benson, sponsored by Previgin. Previgin, made for your brain. Halfway through Guy Benson on this Tuesday, thank you for tuning in, Guy Benson.com, podcast always free. We touched on this earlier. I want to come back to the issue of Iran. A few questions surrounding the war, the enemy, some of the rhetoric coming from Americans on the war effort. Speaking of which, Fox News alert, President Trump just moments ago, Putting out a statement based on the fact that the government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so, and upon the request of the Prime Minister of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our attack on the country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal. I have therefore directed our military to continue the blockade, and in all other respects remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded one way or the other than signed President Donald J. Trump. So an indefinite extension of the ceasefire just announced from the president. That being said, on this broader subject of Iran and the war effort, there was this tweet by Senator Chris Murphy, one of the worst. Just freshly back, by the way, from an appearance at that Spanish conference, the confab of socialists and communists. We mentioned it yesterday. Tim Walz, the awful governor of Minnesota, was there thundering about fascism and Trump being feeble-minded and the war having no cause, all of that. Same conference. Chris Murphy was one of the invited American guests and he was there. Now he's apparently back home raising eyebrows with a tweet. where he responded to a report, an unconfirmed report. In fact, it appears a false enemy propaganda report that 26 Iranian so-called shadow fleet vessels were able to bypass the U.S. naval blockade. So that was put out there on social media by some dodgy source. A sitting U.S. senator left-wing Chris Murphy of Connecticut. He's the one who didn't at least lie about serving in a war for his entire adult life before he got caught in the lie. That's the other Democrat senator from Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal. This is the younger one, Chris Murphy. He saw that report and decided to amplify that report saying, awesome. That was his color commentary. So quite a few people saw that and said, okay, wow. Has he crossed into openly rooting for failure for the United States and effectively rooting for the enemy, the decapitated, shambolic, evil Iranian regime? Now, he, of course, has said that's not what he meant. He had to clarify. He said that this was evidence of bungled mismanagement of the war, but it's not awesome. The war is a disaster. He tweeted in this follow-up, it should be ended immediately. But the awesome comment he said is something called sarcasm. Now, let's give him the benefit of the doubt, which he rarely gives people who disagree with him. But I'm willing to accept the argument that when he said awesome, it was just tripping with sarcasm like, oh, awesome, here we go, more failure, except.

1:02:27

As we also addressed on the show yesterday, to look at what the military has achieved and call it failure is outrageous. He's like, oh, bungled mismanagement, disastrous. No, you can quibble with some of the decisions. You can say X, Y, or Z should have been done differently or better. You can say there are downsides. You can repeat, I think, the very lazy talking point, which is, well, Iran's losing the battle, but they're winning the war because the regime isn't completely gone yet, so they're winning. I think that's a load of garbage, actually. But it's at least an argument. And there could be little morsels and nuggets of truth in some of the critiques, right? I'm not just marching ahead, waving the pom-pom, saying everything's perfect. That's not what we do here. But I think it's... A real disservice to try to paint in the most negative light imaginable what we have achieved. Even if you hate the commander in chief, the people he is commanding and are allies, not just the Israelis, who some of these people obviously really hate, but the Arabs as well, it has been extraordinary. And I think it is really, really unfortunate to denigrate what we're doing, what we have accomplished. and effectively sort of blow smoke in terms of public opinion on behalf of this really evil enemy, who at the very least we have degraded their ability to project power and to threaten the world demonstrably and dramatically, dating back to Operation Midnight Hammer last summer through what we have done already in this conflict, and it might continue if the ceasefire does indeed expire tomorrow. Nevertheless, I'm saying let's give Chris Murphy the benefit of the doubt and say it was just sarcasm. It is still, as I just laid out, I think, wrongheaded, misleading, incorrect to say, oh, I was just being sarcastic in my critique of what has been a completely disastrous war, mismanaged, should end immediately. No, there's still some essential unfinished business inside Iran. Thank you very much. Disagreement there. The other thing, though, is you should not just as especially as United States Senator. I think I try to guard against this myself as a private citizen in the commentary space. I'm not a major elected official in the country. You shouldn't be looking at unverified, questionable, dodgy sources of information. purporting to share negative information or bad news for your country, for your country's military, assume that it's true and then put it out there into wider distribution, thus validating the claim that dozens of these shadow fleet vessels were able to get around our blockade. And as Trey Yanked, our colleague here at Fox News, based in the Middle East, as he reported this morning on Fox and Friends, that is false.

1:05:24

This was fake news, misinformation, perhaps even, I would go so far as to say, deliberate enemy disinformation. And we have a U.S. Senator sharing it because he wants to dunk on a president whose politics he doesn't like because he feels like that will further ingratiate himself with a base that he will try to appeal to, I think likely when he runs for president. That's the mindset. So there's not a piece of news out of the war bad enough to question in his mind. So he smashed the repost button, awesome, he added. Here's Trey Yinks this morning saying, yeah, actually the thing that he's bemoaning as supposed evidence of mismanagement and disastrous wartime outcomes for the U.S. isn't accurate. Cut 30. Yeah, the United States is allowing any vessels who are passing through this area to make their way to their final destination as long as they're not coming from Iranian ports. There were some reports overnight indicating that 26 vessels from Iran's shadow fleet were able to make it past the U.S. blockade. There is no evidence of that. And despite what one Democratic senator talked about, there is a concerted effort by the United States to ensure that any vessels that are coming from Iranian ports are turned around or seized, as we saw with that one cargo ship over the weekend. So, Trey, that was just Iranian propaganda, right? Yes, absolutely. And the shadow fleet that the senator is talking about is used to directly fund Iranian proxies across the Middle East, including Hamas, the Houthis, and Hezbollah, who are directly responsible for killing U.S. citizens. And so the shadow fleet is a very serious problem. It is not getting past the U.S. blockade. Not getting past the U.S. blockade, which is successful, is squeezing the life out of the economy of the regime, and also putting a lot of pressure on countries like China, another major adversary while we're at it. But Trey Yinks there, when asked in the follow-up question by Lawrence Jay Jones on TV this morning, that meaning the tweet that was shared and amplified by Chris Murphy was Iranian propaganda, yes, absolutely, said Trey Yenks. And there's, quote, no evidence from any of the credible reporting or his sourcing that any vessels have broken through the blockade. So even if you believe that Chris Murphy was just saying, awesome, sarcastically, he was doing so to validate something that was misinformation or overt enemy disinformation, which is an extremely bad look for him. On top of ignoring all of the really impressive achievements that this mission has already ticked off down the boxes. You can think overall this is a bad idea to close your eyes deliberately to the many, many wins that we are racking up and the real progress we are making and setting back this regime in a very serious way. That is a choice that does not speak well of people who are making it. As for the whole reason that we're doing this, by the way, and I'm glad that President Trump is doing it, as we've heard from other people, for decades, American presidents have said Iran can never be allowed to get a nuclear weapon. That is the bipartisan position of every single U.S. president since Iran started pursuing nuclear weapons.

1:08:41

And now, with the hour growing late in that regard, especially after the terrible deal that Barack Obama signed unilaterally without Congress's input because it was awful and would have been rejected as a treaty, now was the time to actually do something about it before Iran either got so close that they basically had the bomb or indeed had the bomb, or they were developing enough missiles and conventional weapons. to act as an umbrella or a shield for that program where it would be really, really difficult to impossible or would involve a lot of ground troops and bloodshed in order to shut it down. This was the moment to do it. And those two top objectives have been articulated over and over again by top administration officials. And I know that there are some people out there pretending that Iran hasn't been lying about all of this. We learned about one of their latest lies confirmed just a few weeks ago with their medium-range missiles going further than they said they ever had the capability to achieve, and they didn't even want missiles that flew that far. And then it turns out they had them and fired them at the Chegos Islands and Diego Garcia Naval Base down there in the Indian Ocean. As I've said before, you shoot them in the other direction. That's Europe. That's the range that we're talking about with those. deadly projectiles. And of course, with the nuclear program, they have lied endlessly about the program. They've been offered a civilian program. Hey, we will give you this material. You shut down your enrichment. We will give you a civilian nuclear program. By the way, as an oil-rich country. Maybe they're just really into nuclear power. They're really passionate. Nuclear power for civilian purposes is the Mullah's passion. Does that make any sense to you? Of course not. This has all been about pursuing the bomb. And if they had nukes, then imagine the scale of nuclear blackmail they could impose on the region and the world. You think what they're doing right now is disruptive with the Strait of Hormuz? What if they had nukes? There was a 60 Minutes report over the weekend, aired on Sunday. And here is one of the top experts who, as you see elsewhere in the interview, not necessarily a huge Trump fan, but someone who has been all over this issue now for many years, Matthew Bunn, one of the experts, who said this about the... compulsive lying of the regime about nuclear weapons for a very long time cut nine iran has been lying about its nuclear weapons effort for over 20 years now they have always claimed our program was 100% peaceful we were never pursuing nuclear weapons that's a lie and then once the international inspectors got in and started finding some things out um the iranians kept lying to them That's the whole ballgame. They wanted nuclear weapons. They've been pursuing them for years, and they lie at every turn about it. And they even brag to American negotiators at the onset of the most recent talks that they have enough highly enriched nuclear material for multiple bombs, I think 11 bombs, if they just enriched it a little bit further.

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That was their opening of their conversation, like, hey, look what we've done. And by the way, the enrichment process well, well past any conceivable, legitimate civilian purpose. This is what we are up against. This is why the strikes happened now. Now, that same expert, Matthew Bunn went on to say this is a difficult situation because you need to have a lot of monitoring and keeping a close eye on them, and that's going to be hard following the war. And we'll have this dilemma now for years to come. I think the fact that we have blown up their facilities, of course, is a huge, huge setback to the entire project that they're on. Now that nuclear dust, as Trump calls it, the highly enriched uranium, there is a question about do we go in and get it? even under fire? Is there a negotiation where we're allowed to go get it if Iran agrees to it if their back is up against the wall? Those are some of the open questions in all of this. Lastly, from the 60 Minutes report, Cecilia Vega is the correspondent for CBS News. She asks Vice Admiral Robert Hayward, whose deputy director of Sancom about this highly enriched uranium, cut 11. The war with Iran hinges on three letters, H.E.U. And it's believed Iran has enough of it underground to eventually make 10 nuclear bombs. What would it take for the U.S. to secure that highly enriched uranium? You'll hear about a covert mission that took place 32 years ago and why a similar operation in Iran would be so difficult. Would an operation like this be worth risking American lives? In my opinion, yes. That is, I think, an opinion worth listening to. I also think what Trump is hoping is one way or another we get our hands on that highly enriched uranium and get it out of the country. Whether it's by keeping an eye on that facility where we know it is, basically indefinitely and bomb anyone who tries to go excavate it from the regime, or there's regime change and we have more hospitable people there who will then let us in to go get it, or. There's a deal struck where the Iranians agree to our major demands. Seems like we're not really close to that yet. Or a risky mission. Not sure which door we open and which path we go down, but it is one of the core questions moving forward. With that, let me take a very quick break. Much more to come on Guy Benson. Keep it right here. Not the same talking points here, Guy Benson.

1:14:31

Back on Guy Benson, a few quick notes on Hamas, Gaza, the Israel-Palestinian issue. There's a Washington Free Beacon story about U.S. government documents showing that the Palestinian Authority, the so-called more moderate side of the Palestinian movement, that would be in the West Bank, as opposed to Hamas and Gaza. They are right back to their old tricks of this term known as pay to slay. where they pay the families of what they term martyrs or released terrorists themselves, including terrorists, convicted terrorists, who have been released from Israeli prisons after the October 2025 peace plan that was brokered by President Trump. So the Palestinian Authority, again, the less radicalized part of the Palestinian leadership, rewarding financially terrorism. Still. On and on it goes. Then there's this horrible story from the UK Daily Mail about widespread sexual violence against women in Gaza, Palestinian women, at the hands of Hamas. Women living under Hamas rule inside Gaza describing to the Daily Mail how they are sexually abused by the terror groups fighters and forced to have sex against their will in return for food and aid. The world has heard harrowing accounts of Israeli men and women sexually brutalized by Hamas in captivity, but now chilling new testimony is emerging from inside Gaza itself. Gazans living under Hamas rule, breaking their silence, describing sexual abuse by multiple men, sexual blackmail for aid or money, and abused by people in positions of power. They are victimizing and tormenting and terrorizing and raping their own people to enrich themselves. This is Hamas. I know we have a bunch of Hamas supporters and Hamas sympathizers who have denied Hamas using rape as a weapon against Israelis on October 7th. One of those conspiracy theorists, the rape denialist, appears to be Zohran Mamdani's own wife, and she's not alone. But you better believe if they're willing to rape their own Palestinian women, of course they're willing to rape Israeli and Jewish women. It's absolutely sick. These people are evil. And those who claim to be pro-Palestine and very worried about the lives of Palestinian women, or at least claiming to, are you going to hear one peep from them on this mass rape victimization of Palestinian women? So far, almost entirely crickets from that crowd, which tells you everything you need to know about them and what they're actually motivated by. final hour of Guy Benson coming up next. The Great Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be here when we come back.

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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 the longdrink.com. And now, here's Guy Benson. Happy hour time here on Guy Benson, our final hour of three on this Tuesday. So glad you're listening. Thank you for that. Guy Benson.com, the website, podcast free every day on demand. When the program ends in just about an hour, email us, GPS at Fox.com. Follow us on social, Guy Benson. You can follow me as well, Guy Benson. This radio hour brought to you by the Finnish long drink. We are big fans. Love it. Please drink responsibly always, 21 plus only always, the longdrink.com. But with us from our New York headquarters is our dear friend. And Fox News, cultural icon, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., host of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Saves the World, at Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Nation on social, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a delight. The delight is mine, Guy Benson. The delight is mutual. Happy to be in your presence, even if it is through the ether. Yes, but it counts, and I hear your voice, and it brings me joy. And I want to ask you on a personal level, as much as you want to share, because you were making an observation the other day I saw you in New York about your... wedding planning process and it's something that i'm very much looking forward to this coming summer in a very very beautiful place which is rather hard to get to but will be worth it and you were just talking about kind of your chill vibes heading into this one and where some people get into bride or groomzilla and micromanagement and all of that stress, you're kind of no stressed island timing this thing and like, you know what, whatever happens will be great. Walk us through your mentality and this process. Well, the nice thing about having a second wedding is, you know, really the idea of perfection in your first wedding. That is what you strive for. You want to have the day that is the ideal. And having been married and now being in this serious relationship, I know the difference between a wedding and a marriage. And the point here is to celebrate our marriage and our union with the people that we love most in the world. And, you know, will people remember the flowers? Will they remember the brand of champagne and wine that they sip? No, but they will remember the feeling. And so the most important thing for us is creating a great feeling. And how do you do that? Like, of course, we want good food, but we will leave it up to the venue. Yeah, the professionals. It's a good place, right? They're not going to do a bad job at a place like this. No. And it's like, I want a nice gluten-free cake, a dance.

1:20:38

floor, a DJ, and, you know, the people that we love, a small group of people around us. And everything else will fall into place. And I know people, they kill themselves wanting to have like the perfect favors and, you know, things at the table and all of these. this this flurry of perfection around them and my feeling is so many things can go wrong that don't aim for perfection trust the process and you know that's what we're doing and you know we also trust the people right because it's It's often about who's present with you. Yes. Right? That will make or break something. And I know this is a very curated, small group, very honored to be a part of it. And I'm sure the alcohol will be plentiful. I'm confident. I'm sure the food will be delicious. I'm confident. One thing that you might, and this is just, I'm curious, based on your MTV pedigree and your passion for music, is a playlist situation more along the lines. It's something that you would. micromanage or is that also just like no the playlist is important the playlist is one area where and we are taking input from our friends and family uh which is something we've done at a fourth of july party in the past is everyone submits three songs um that they love for fourth of july and here it's three songs that you want to dance to at a wedding oh and so and we are we are taking input from Everyone and every genre. And, you know, we will have the final edit. But people in our orbit fortunately love music. And, you know, all different kinds of music. So it's always fun to see what people select. I'm kind of thinking on my end, I'm going to start brainstorming. Definitely one Billy Joel. I've got a song already in mind. Nice. I love that. Then probably. one at least millennial pop hit that's age appropriate for me like high school college just out of college and then either an additional millennial pop hit or back to a classic rock those will probably be my three but get back to me on that but i love this crowdsourced idea yes are there certain songs that you would put on a do not playlist because my parents tell the story they had a band at their wedding and they've been married gosh for decades they've they've had a great marriage and it started with actually kind of one of those picture perfect weddings as far as i've heard of course i wasn't there but they had a band apparently very good and they had gone and watched the band to make sure that they did a good good job you know at other venues and they're like yep you're hired the one thing is we don't want you to play it was a very popular song at the time that was one of their staples and the band opened with that song at their wedding They opened with it. What's the song? Jeremiah was a bullfrog. And sort of like, I don't know, like, did they not make that note and forget? Maybe they were stoners. And they were like, I know they said something about Jeremiah was a bullfrog. They must love it because people love it when we play it. So we should. And like they said it so many times. Obviously, we have to play it. You made reference to your really famous Fourth of July parties.

1:23:59

out in Los Angeles at your beloved house in the palisades. And we know all about what happened there early last year and that ongoing ordeal that you and your neighbors and that whole community is still dealing with collectively to this day. And it's taking forever for all sorts of reasons. And it is playing into politics in that region. Of course, we had Spencer Pratt on this show just days ago. He joined us talking about his decision to run for mayor of Los Angeles and talking about the fact that a lot of people have just dismissed him as this, you know, reality show villain from the early 2000s and how that's not really who he is and what he's about. And his passion came through very strongly. He lost his house to the fire. So did his parents. But he said it's way beyond just the fires. It's all this other mismanagement. And whatever you think of him. He was, I think, very focused, quite informed. And speaking the language, I would imagine, of a lot of Angelinos who were just sick of the mess that the professional left politicians have created in that city. That's my positive spin on it. I also recognize reality, which is we're still talking about one of the bluest cities in one of the bluest states. And even though he's running as unaffiliated, he has been associated with the Republicans in the past. They're going to use that against him to the hilt. Is there enough dissatisfaction, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for a potential disruption election in L.A.? I've never seen a moment that was more ripe for a big... shocking election. And that was after seeing Gray Davis recalled when Arnold Schwarzenegger won the governorship back in 2003. And I think, you know, you're seeing a moment where it's not just the people on Altadena and Pacific Palisades who have been displaced. They have suffered so much loss. And it's the people who were not millionaires, people living in the condos that burned down, the people living in inherited homes. Their insurance is about to run out. So whatever money they were getting from the insurance company to rent a place, like that's gone. So they have had to make mortgage payments on homes that are either uninhabitable or no longer exist. And they're essentially going to get kicked out of wherever they're renting. And they are going to be forced to settle for pennies on the dollar with these horrific insurance companies. So you have a lot of dissatisfaction. And then. You know, in addition to that, you have people who are seeing more homelessness, more traffic, fear about the Los Angeles Olympics and how the city government can screw that up. High taxation from the state, barriers to entry for businesses.

1:26:53

you know, crime, carjackings, things like that, that people have not put behind them. They're very much top of mind. And it's a hard sell that the ultra-left progressives have made the state better. So you really need someone rational who's got a personal story to tell. And, you know, I think. The challenge for Spencer is really learning about and understanding the other aspects of the bureaucracy that need to be tackled, including things like pensions and schools and, you know, fire service and police officers. And I think he will do a good job of learning all of those things because he's obviously a smart person. He's a passionate person and the city has never had. a greater need for a rational disruptor to come in clean house and fix as much as he can. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from California politics to digital hygiene and mental health, a study I want to get your reaction to. I think it's really fascinating from a sociological standpoint. That's coming up. It's the happy hour on Guy Benson. Keep it here. America is listening to Guy Benson.

1:28:11

Our wonderful friend, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is with us. It's Guy Benson Happy Hour. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I want to ask you about something that I saw that was very interesting. And it was a tweet from David Danes, who's a guy doing a year unplugged of no screens. And he was highlighting related to this. And I'm not sure exactly how he would tweet away from a screen. Maybe he's completed the year. But he was sharing the results of a Stanford study that paid... 35,000 people to quit specifically the meta platforms, Facebook and Instagram for six weeks. So a month and a half, and you're not on those social media platforms. And across the board, the result that was very clear was overall levels of depression dropped, levels of anxiety dropped, happiness increased, women, younger women. In their 20s, on Instagram, in particular, saw the greatest emotional gains within those six weeks. And I just wonder what you make of that, because I think we are getting to a point where, as a society, we all recognize that the saturation of screens is bad for us and is addictive, and we are being fed algorithms to addict us. And even those of us who know it, aren't really necessarily changing our behavior or are slightly or thinking about what to do when it comes to rearing and raising kids and that sort of thing. But here is, I mean, a widespread study with thousands of people in it, just six weeks of not doing these particular things on your screen. was so helpful to mental health. I wonder when you hear data like that, what does that say to you in terms of just like personal decisions and habits? And then where does it become appropriate or does it ever become appropriate for government policy to get involved? Because I know that's a separate question, especially from a more libertarian standpoint that you have. I don't know that this is the function of government and that could be incredibly problematic for people who need to be on screens for, you know, potentially life-saving work. But as a culture, I do think it's probably healthier to put the pressure on ourselves to back away from the screens. And, you know, I do see younger parents like you learning the mistakes of people in my generation allowing kids to have phones too young. And, you know, I think, I don't think there's a parent my age who would say, yeah, I wish I had given my kids' phones sooner. And it's like, I wish I had given them flip phones. You know, because they were in New York City. I wanted them to be able to get a hold of us. But man, you know, it's like the, and even putting parental safeguards on the phones wasn't enough because my younger daughter would go over to a friend's house and her friend created a Snapchat account for her. And she was not allowed to have Snapchat. And it was my older daughter who knocked her out, which, you know, there's great utility in that. And I couldn't believe what was going on. And so I called...

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the other girl's mom, who, you know, became incredibly defensive. And I was like, hey, I'm not mad at you. I'm worried you don't know what your daughter's doing on Snapchat. You know, you think it's okay and innocuous, but she didn't have any safeguards on her daughter's Snapchat account. And, you know, then by... virtue neither did my daughter when she would go over to her house and you know it's like that and that is one of the toughest things about parenting it's not other kids it's other kids parents that can be you know give you the greatest heartburn Yeah, like undermine either directly or even indirectly the choices that you're trying to make to raise your own kid. It's all the many fun things I have to look forward to as my kid gets older. I will say just from a government standpoint, I am. fully on board with banning phones and schools. Like, I am totally fine with the government coming in and saying, we're not doing phones in schools. I think the data is so overwhelming. We've overcorrected so badly. I think, like, you drop your phone off. At the beginning of the day, you get at the end of the day, and just mental health, educational outcomes, all of that. I am writing pen on paper. Pen on paper. I am in favor of all of that. I think when it comes to your private life outside of school, then government getting involved, I'm much, much more skeptical of. Finally, relatedly, because we're talking about mental health issues. I saw these statistics. This is from the U.S. General Social Survey, the percentage of younger people diagnosed with some form of mental health problems. So it's not necessarily like severe mental illness, but anxiety or what have you, all the way down to much more severe things. And these were whites under the age of 30, so white people under the age of 40, excuse me. They chart the percentage of people who have been diagnosed with some sort of condition on mental health. And then they also break it down by political viewpoint. From strong Democrat to weak Democrat to independent to weak Republican to strong Republican. And there is just a very clear... at least correlation, that by far the group with the highest percentage of mental health issues are strong Democrat young people. These are specifically among whites. And then the strong Republican group is the lowest number, 15% as opposed to 56% among strong Democrats. And then the other group sort of like leaning one way or the other or neither, they're clumped together right around 35 to 40%.

1:34:04

Hardcore Dems versus Hardcore Republicans, there is a gulf there. And I wonder... Is that because you just have healthier, happier, younger people if they are raised to be conservative or Republican as opposed to all the neuroses that go into leftism and the tribalism? And if you're not doing all the woke stuff, then your friends turn on you. Is that a true phenomenon or is at least part of it, the idea that it's almost culturally expected on the left for you to have? anxieties because of all the terrible things happening in the world. So it's like almost performative to some extent. Where do you come down on that, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? One minute. I think that the left has to sell hysteria and fear in order to make any electoral inroads. And, you know, the people who gravitate toward that, the people who operate in fear, they're the ones who are more likely to identify and vote that way. And then in addition to that, you've got, you are lauded for. You know, talking openly about your mental health struggles in those fears. Right. Having some sort of struggle or grievance or victimhood is something that is very much prized. There is currency there, yes. Right on that end of the spectrum as opposed to the others. So I think there is a factor, very wise words. And somewhere that I expect to have little to no levels of fear or hysteria will be Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s wedding this summer. We will keep you posted on all of the signposts along the way to that. It's going to be a banger guy. Glorious day. I can't wait. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., we love you. Thank you. Love you, Guy. More of Guy Benson. Happy hour coming up.

1:35:59

Talking about the issues you care about, Guy Benson. In our first hour today, United States Senator Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania. He's a freshman in the upper chamber. He joined us, a combat veteran, a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations. Interesting conversation with Senator McCormick. If you miss it, here's part of it. Let's... Stick with the economy here for a moment. Last week, tax day. We talked about it here a fair amount. I think that many in the media and on the Democrat side would be very happy to just skate right past one of the signature accomplishments, certainly one of your first in the U.S. Senate being involved in the so-called one big beautiful bill or the working family's tax cut where you avoided. one of the largest tax increases across the board on nearly all Americans, and indeed extended tax cuts and further cut taxes specifically targeted at working people, no tax on tips, overtime, et cetera. And the data has come in showing these... Tax refunds, on average, significantly up over last year. That's a tangible achievement for American families, American businesses. I feel like it's getting somewhat short shrift at the moment. Is that something that Republicans can run on, for example, ahead of November? And is it something that the voters actually care about? Because often you'll see a problem solved or a crisis resolved. And people say, okay, glad the bad thing didn't happen, but there's not a lot of gratitude necessarily. when it comes to voting patterns as a result of that, what do you make of that? Well, we need to keep telling the story and making the case of the American people. But I was in Pennsylvania for five or six days over the last 10, and people feel it. I mean, it's 11% increase in their returns, $3,500 on average. You know, something like 23 million people took advantage of the tax break on no tax on overtime. Something like $25 million took advantage of the no tax on Social Security, $5.5 million on the no tax on tips. This is a big deal. And if you're a Pennsylvania making $52,000 a year, which is the median income, this is a big benefit. And I think people are absolutely feeling that. The other thing I'd say, which hasn't gotten enough attention in my mind, is what the president has done with lots of support from the Congress on fentanyl. If you said the two things I campaigned on, it was economic opportunity for working families. closing the border and stopping the flow of fentanyl, which killed 4,000 people in 2024. I had the FBI director in Pennsylvania two weeks ago. We had all the law enforcement, the Attorney General, U.S. attorney and so forth. And we talked about what's happened on fentanyl because of the presence actions, closing the border, going after the cartels of military capability, stopping the flow of prefactors from China. The prediction...

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The projection, rather, the early projections on 2025 for fentanyl deaths are 1,600 in Pennsylvania from 4,600, down 60%. That's 1,600 tragedies too many. So we're not done yet. But these are the big things that are happening because we have the President, President Trump in the White House, and because we have a majority in the Senate and the House. And we've got to go make that case. Listen, politics is about touching the issues that matter most of people on the ground, doing real things to solve their problems and making sure they know it. And I think we've accomplished the first two, to some degree, we still have work to do, and we're probably falling short on the third piece, which is making sure they connect the dots and all the good work. that President Trump has done and their representatives have done since coming into office. Or the positive things outweigh whatever they're still frustrated about, right? That's part of the argument to be made because, I mean, you can say, hey, here's your big tax refund. That's money in your pocket that makes life more affordable for you. And by the way, look at these fentanyl death numbers. And by the way, look, we've closed the border, something that you guys were so upset about just a few months ago and now it's done. People can say, okay, cool, thank you. But now we're upset about these things, right? So it's the sort of constant give and take and tugging back in each direction. And I think Republicans probably need to do a better job. Certainly on selling and reminding people of it on a regular basis here heading into November. Meanwhile, and this is another one that's totally dropped off the radar, and yet it is still going on, the DHS shutdown is not over. Senator. I mean, you know this. Some of the worst disruptions have been at least temporarily jettisoned. And there were conversations around a solution that I think is coming at some point. But as far as I know, the DHS shutdown, the Democrats started and is still happening, is underway. How does that end? When does that end? Yeah, three-point plan underway here to solve that problem. First of all, it's an absolute disgrace for the Democrats to hold us all hostage by not paying the people who are serving us. And by the way, this isn't ICE or Border Patrol. They're being paid. It's the people in TSA, the Cyber Center, and so forth. So an absolute disgrace. And I'll never do that. No matter who's in charge and the majority, I'll never vote to shut the government down for political leverage. So President Trump acted, used the emergency authority to make sure people are getting paid. The Senate passed a bill, which did not have the complete funding, but funded a lot of DHS, I hope and think that the House will pass that bill. And then we'll finally fill out all the funding and more. for ICE and Border Patrol through the process of reconciliation. And what's going to happen there is we're going to pass funding that gets us past.

1:42:02

President Trump's term into the next president's term, so the Democrats can no longer use funding of DHS as a point of political leverage. And listen, it's indisputable that a big part of this is Trump derangement syndrome, and so we want to take that off the table. It's messy. There's been procedural differences between the House and Senate on how best to do it. I think we're all on the same page now, and I think this is the path that's going to make sure. The people that protect us are funded. By the way, this is at a moment where the risk is going up. So you talk about irresponsibility. The Democrats are doing this. Chuck Schumer is doing this at the moment where we have terrorist attacks at a synagogue in Michigan, where we have attacks in New York City, where we have a big cyber attack on striker medical, the biggest ever. This is absolutely irresponsible, and we're going to put an end to it. You just articulated your position that regardless of which party was in control of the White House and the various levers of power, you would not vote to shut down the government for political leverage. That is the position held currently by exactly one Democrat in the Senate, and that would be your colleague, John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, who's, that's been his very consistent position. He's voted that way. And he is just getting... beaten up by his own side for that and for his vocal support of Israel and like non-insanity on the border, openness to voter ID, even though he's against the Save America Act. I mean, this is a guy who votes with his party, what, 90 plus percent of the time, but he's being treated like he has gone to the dark side as some right winger. And based on what I've seen and some of the polling, it seems like they are chomping at the bit to throw him out and not even nominate him again for reelection. That seems to be the direction of the... the party over there. Do you have any sense? Like, does he have a future in that party? Is he going to run again? Might he leave that party? I don't want to get out in front of him, but you know him very well. You guys are friends. It's probably a strike against him, frankly, with that whole crowd. But it's not just the left-wing fringe. It seems like the whole party kind of hates him now. Well, listen, I think it does reflect how far. The Democratic Party has alerts to the left, excuse me, with these radicals that are staking out positions of anti-Semitism as an example where... The mainstream of the party is afraid to speak out because they're going to be punished by the radicals. And John Fetterman is the opposite of that. He's just a decent man of courage. That full discussion with U.S. Senator Dave McCormick from the Keystone State, available online at Guy Benson.com. Part of the free podcast, every day on demand, no charge at all. And when we come back, the home stretch, a bit of a sentimental day in my household. A journey that snuck up on me. We'll explain that next. Same issues, but with a fresh perspective. Guy Benson.

1:45:14

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. Homestretch, you're on Guy Benson. It's our Tuesday edition. Thank you for tuning in Guy Benson.com as our website podcast is free every day on demand. Of course, well, it's now day two of this most recent cookie vacation. She's out for the week. I actually texted her earlier that I want her to book an alligator, a psychic, for next week, and she seemed at least somewhat amused by that. It's funny every day. We usually meet right before or right around lunchtime just to finalize the rundown and talk through the whole show. It's our daily meeting, and because it coincides with when I typically eat a hurried lunch, and I'm sitting across from my son. who's almost two and a half. And he's eating his lunch. That's what we've kind of made a routine out of, at least when I'm home. So that's how it coincides with his lunchtime. And he loves these meetings because he says hello to everyone on FaceTime. He shows off a little bit. He pretends to be shy. Then he isn't so shy. And he knows when he sees me getting my lunch together, he will start saying, it's cookie for the meeting. It's time for cookie in the meeting. He's also learned Dylan's name. He will learn Joel's name as well, but he associates lunch with a cookie meeting, which is funny because he'll also talk about it on Saturdays and Sundays. He hasn't quite grasped the concept of weekends just yet. He is starting to learn, though, about vacations because he'll often ask for a cookie in the meeting, and she's just not around because she's not working, right? So can you say vacation? So he's learning that in Cookie's honor. But we continue. We march forward here on the show, even during home stretches, even when Cookie isn't here with all of her antics and live stories, which are astoundingly all true. So I want to give you one of my own little life stories, and it happened today, and it actually refers to my aforementioned son, who is just the best and the cutest. We don't really post photos of his face publicly anymore. We did for the first year, but once he started looking like a little person, just for various reasons, I've been talking to friends about it, some people who are even a little bit in the public eye, and this is what we landed on. But it's a shame because he's so sweet and he's so cute, and of course we love him so much. And today, the two of us, Adam and I, took him for, and I can't even believe this, a little bit of a milestone, getting a little wistful already, we took him for a preschool visit. where we were going to go and tour a property and talk to the person who runs the school and learn all about it and ask all the questions. And this place had come very highly recommended. And it turns out that we actually have an inn and know one of the top people there. And she was absolutely delightful. I was so impressed with what I saw today. And I felt very, very comfortable. We're not even talking about imminent. It would be next school year.

1:48:31

You know how this works? I mean, especially in some places, if a place has a good reputation, there's long waiting lists and all this stuff. People start maneuvering the parents before they're even pregnant in some cases, right? Or the second they get a positive pregnancy test, they're like, oh, better call that school and get ready. We were not like that at all. And thankfully, we have this in at this place. So it looks like this will be an option, and I'm very high on this option. I think today was really great. I was, as I said, impressed. But it was also a bit jarring to already be showing up at a school with our kid because it feels like he was just born. How are we looking even at preschools already? And it was so sweet. So we showed up and there's actually, I think, pretty strong security, which I enjoyed. And we got in and he was very curious. He'd been saying, I'm going to school because we had told him that. And so he was repeating it, but didn't really know what it meant. So he was very interested. And there were tons of kids, and the kids just seemed great and very happy. The whole place just had a great vibe. But lots of kids. And they're all a little bit older than he is. So he went marching in, very, very confident, very, very curious, and kind of looked around it. It was a little loud and a little chaotic at first. Went from zero to 10. And also he didn't know any of them. And also they were a little bit older. And he went from very confident to all of a sudden, not so confident. And I saw his little face, his little lips start to quiver and it crumbled a little bit and he started to cry. And he could tell he was embarrassed to cry in front of the older kids. But he just felt a little overwhelmed and like, where's dad? What's going on? Am I staying here? So we had a little moment. But then we went out to, they have got a couple playgrounds. He loved the playgrounds and he started being again more of his very gregarious self. I don't know where he gets that. And that was great. Just fully happy and engaged and enthralled outside. Then we came back inside and he got a little scared again, little hesitant, but we went into a music class. And they were playing these drums. And you can imagine how. how loud that was but it was very cute and he got very into that so he sat in adam's lap and was playing his drum and really again i think warmed to the task and was just generally caught up in it and excited And then the tour was basically coming to an end. And so just two thumbs up. And I think we're probably going to go in that direction. And it's just this big moment. We're already, we're looking at paperwork and tuition and all this stuff for someone who isn't even three yet. And I just still can't believe you blink. And we're looking at preschool. So I had my own little moment.

1:51:33

And I was almost happy that he got sad for a second. He wasn't totally eager to go sprinting off away from us that easily. Just conflicted feelings. If you're a parent, I think you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. The other reason why I think him closing out the tour in the music room was such a plus is that he loves, loves, loves music. He loves watching classical music concerts. We don't really watch kids' shows, but some classical music concerts. He likes naming the instruments. It's very sweet. And he also likes to sing. And I just wanted to share with all of you because it's just the cutest thing, and I'm just a proud dad. He belts out sometimes certain songs. You'll recognize this one. We don't share his face on social, so this video isn't going anywhere. But the audio on the radio, that's different. So imagine our little son with like almost a more elaborate version of a baby rattle, and he is singing into it like it's a microphone, like he's performing. Again, I don't know where he gets any of this. And he is walking around, pacing around his room with this fake microphone, putting on a little show that I just wanted you all to hear. The sweetness. Cut 29.

1:53:25

I love how he sings Diamond in that clip especially. Oh, sorry if that was just like unnecessary. And it's just like a parent with my heart melting here. Like everyone's going to love this. Isn't this adorable? And you're just doing it for yourself. It's like, all right, that's your kid singing twinkle, twinkle. I hope that that little voice, it's just so sweet and innocent. I hope it put a smile on your face. Even though you probably haven't met him, trust me, he's great. So a sentimental day here in our household, and I just want to share a little tiny taste of it with you, including that gem, that audio gem on Guy Benson. Back here tomorrow. Wednesday edition coming your way. Have a great night. Your team just added its 67th AI tool and also your 67th security blind spot. The good news? The Vanta agent works like a GRC engineer in the background, finding every app your team uses, scoring the risk, and drafting fixes for you. Vanta is the platform used by over 16,000 fast-moving companies like Ramp, Cursor, and Harvey, who are shaping the future with AI and staying ahead of AI risk. Get started at Vanta.com. Listen to the show ad free on Fox News Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music with your prime membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.