Did Trump Just Win in Iran?

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From the heart of our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., backed by the trusted voices of Team Fox, a clear, fresh voice, cutting through the noise to tell the truth. It's Guy Benson with Guy Benson. It is Friday, April 17th, 2026. I'm Guy Benson. Welcome everyone to Guy Benson. Happy Friday. So glad to have you here. Guy Benson.com, our website, podcast free every day on demand. Plus, bonus Guy Benson on the weekends. That's at Guy Benson.com or Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. You can email us here, GBS at Fox.com. You can follow us on social. We encourage that. At Guy Benson. While you're there, follow me. at Guy Benson. I'm a political analyst here at Fox News and a senior columnist at the Washington Examiner scheduled to be on Gutfeld tonight, 10 p.m. Eastern Time. Fox News Channel, of course, for the full hour, always a lot of fun. And then over the weekend, 5 to 8 p.m. Eastern on Fox News Channel, Saturday and Sunday, co-hosting the big weekend show. Here on the radio side, later this hour, Daniel Hoffman. Former CIA station chief reacting to some of the major news today out of the Middle East, some big developments regarding Iran. We will also get reaction in the next hour from Eli Lake. His analysis coming. Joe Concha on the media, quite a few stories to tackle with him. And then because we're here in New York, and it's Friday, and I'm on Gutfeld. How about some Fridays with cat, cat, tymph, in the house, in studio, cannot wait. Well, I mentioned that I am in New York City. So we begin today with the mayor of New York City. A few things that I want to mention about Zohran Mamdani, one of which we very briefly mentioned yesterday. But I want to play more of this sound and explain a bit more of it to you because we just had a very quick snippet on tax day this week, April 15th. Zohran Mamdani put out a video basically just crowing about the fact and reveling in the reality that he is planning. to further tax the rich. Now, he's a communist, so this is what he believes in. They don't care whether it is counterproductive or unsuccessful or even a giant policy failure. The goal is to punish successful people. That's the ideology.

Now, he doesn't want that for his family in their massive mansion property and compound in Uganda or wherever that is, which apparently comes if you rent it with a bunch of servants or at least workers. You don't hear him talk about his immense wealth and privilege from his family. That's really not part of the brand. But lashing out at successful Americans, right, here's a guy who just became a citizen fairly recently. Came to the country and wants to radically transform the country is not a fan in many respects of this country, not a fan certainly of some of our key allies, to put it mildly, and not a fan of successful people who have helped build the country into what it is. He actually stands opposed to much of that. So it is a good in his mind unto itself, in and of itself. to punish success, and then to high-five his fellow comrades and fellow travelers that this is what they're doing. So he put out this video on tax day. wishing New Yorkers a happy tax day by assuring them, we're going to be taxing the rich. And it wasn't just a vague thing. And it wasn't just a policy prescription. It was actually a very targeted attack on one rich person in particular. Listen to cut 29. When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich. Well, today, we're taxing there. I'm thrilled to announce who secured a pia to tear tax, the first in New York's history. This is an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million whose owners do not live full-time in the city. Like for this penthouse. Which hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin bought for $238 million. This period of tear tax is specifically designed for the richest of the rich. Those restore their wealth in New York City real estate, but who don't actually live here. But even so, they're able to reap the huge financial rewards of owning property in, dare I say, the greatest city of the world. And most of the time, these units are sitting empty, since again, they don't actually live here. This is a fundamentally unfair system that hurts working New Yorkers. Now, it's coming to an end. This tax will raise at least $500 million directly for this. city. It'll help fund things like free childcare, cleaner streets, safer neighborhoods. As mayor, I believe everyone has a role to play in contributing to our city. And some, a little bit more than others. Happy Tax Day, New York. So that has gone everywhere. I saw members of his team cheering that it became their most watched video ever. Now, the problem for him is that among the people with eyeballs on the video, it wasn't just his hardcore pro-Hamas communist base. It was also people like Ken Griffin and other rich people who have been holding out and still investing on significant levels in the city of New York. Ken Griffin famously left Chicago.

because of the tax treatment and the bullying and the demonization. He said, you know what? I'm done with this place. And he left Chicago. And he was chased out of there by the left wing, envy politics, class warfare nonsense. That's so, so damaging on the left. These politicians can't help themselves. Got a lot of it, a heavy dose of it in Illinois. And down to Florida went Ken Griffin. Now, he still has... a lot of investments here in New York, including apparently a huge building that he's in the process of constructing and in all of that. He has this really nice place here in Manhattan. And notice in the video we just played that you heard the audio of it, you've got the mayor of the city standing outside the building. He's like, this is the penthouse owned by the CEO, Hedge fund CEO, Ken Griffin. He's talking about how much he paid for it. He's talking about that he's not living there all the time. He's not exactly doxing Ken Griffin, but he is advertising where this guy owns property and demonizing it like it's a problem, like it's so unfair. The guy spent hundreds of millions of dollars with all of the taxes that go into that. And the jobs that come with keeping a building like that ship shape. Renovations, the list goes on. He's talking about Ken Griffin's apartment like it's some sort of a front against New Yorkers. And as if he's just been living there tax-free. And it's so unfair. No, he has been taxed to the hilt in a place like New York City, which is why, by the way, you've got Kathy Hochul, the damn governor of this state. who was very much willing to... engage in this kind of class warfare rhetoric. We've talked about that in the past telling people and her opponents to get out of town, go down to Florida where you belong, all of that rhetoric from her last campaign. More recently, she gave an interview where she was basically begging them to come back. Or at least, please, please cut me checks so we can pay for all these generous welfare programs that we want. And services here in New York, here is the 180 from Kathy Hochul back in March, just last month, in case you missed it, cut 32. What I want to make sure we are smart about is having a system in place where it's not just taxing for the sake of taxing and being conscious of the facts that I need people who are high net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state. Right. Now, there are some patriotic millionaires who stepped up. Okay, cut me the checks. I mean, just if you want to be supportive, but maybe the first step should be go down to Palm Beach and see who you can bring back home because our tax base has been eroded. Cut me the checks. And I'm still amazed by that line. But she went on to say that because of remote work and other factors, people are no longer held, quote, captive in New York.

And so they've left because it's an unfavorable environment led by people like her and now this commie mayor here in the city. So she's trying to urge these people to come back. Practically on her knees begging, please come back. We need your revenue after all. And then here's the mayor of New York choosing a high profile billionaire. to criticize and to point literally at his building, basically saying like it's some sort of crime against fairness for him to have paid for this place and to live there when he sees fit. I will note, by the way, that when it came out that his wife, the first lady of New York City, had all these terrible social media posts. Zohran Mamdani downplayed it and said, oh, she's just a private citizen. Oh, she's not to be brought into this. That was his spin there for a while. Ken Griffin is a private citizen. And here he is putting him specifically on blast to celebrate more targeting of rich people in New York City, just as the governor, Kathy Hochul, is trying to convince these people to come back. I wonder how that's going to go for Mr. Zohran Mamdani. Sarah Eisen from CNBC notes, Ken Griffin employs thousands of people in New York City, is planning to build for now, I will add for now, the tallest office building on Park Avenue, investing billions more and creating thousands of jobs. Quote, for that reason, he's here in New York City a lot. So that is a CNBC host saying, does this really make sense to come after this guy? All the investments he's still making? here in New York, and you're turning into some sort of fiend or villain. Jamie Weinstein asking, how does Ken Griffin owning a $235 million condo in New York City, he only visits occasionally harm New Yorkers exactly? He pays an extraordinary high property tax to the city for the services he barely uses. Why ridicule him for that? Because it's the whole point. It is the ideology. It doesn't have to make... any sort of sense from a policy standpoint, that's a side note. In fact, we know that these are failed policies. Zohran Mamdani claims in the clip, oh, it's going to raise X amount of money for the city to pay for all these other services. Almost always when you come after people this way with various firms of wealth taxes, your revenues go down because people leave, which is why in Europe when they've done this, riding a wave of left-wing populism, they end up rescinding the taxes because they actively hurt the jurisdiction that's enacted them. But Zohran Mamdani does not care. He hates rich people more than almost any other group. There might be one other group. I'll let you fill in that blank. By the way, I will also note that Sarah Eisen from CNBC pointed out that Miami down in Florida is welcoming Ken Griffin and his firm with massive jobs and investment and the tax revenue he's bringing. They are rolling out the red carpet for him in Miami. She says here in New York, quote, making him feel unwelcome, demonizing him seems risky.

Ken left Chicago and moved Citadel HQ his company to Miami a few years ago because of bad policy, and he also sold his penthouse there. So we've seen this film before in Brandon Johnson land, and Zohran Mamdani seems absolutely dead set, hell-bent on potentially repeating the exact same catastrophic errors because it makes him feel good and makes his comrades feel good. One more thing, Ken Griffin donated $400 million, reportedly, to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. His name is on the building. Several people on social media noticing that factor and saying, you know, maybe the mayor of the city should actually be reaching out to someone like Ken Griffin thanking him for his incredible generosity, his life-changing generosity, and his ongoing. Deep investment in a place like New York when others have left. Instead, Zohran Mamdani's like, let's go get him and let's put him in our most watched video ever as the bogeyman. That is certainly a choice, is it not? And it's the one that this communist is making. Now, I mentioned Zohran Mamdani's wife, the very private person, private citizen. That was his excuse for why she wouldn't comment on her. Very problematic, in some cases, arguably bigoted, certainly pro-terrorism or terrorism sympathizing posts. Not just from her teenage years, I don't really care about that, but post-October 7th, as an adult, she was liking and amplifying, grotesque posts celebrating Hamas, doing the rape denialism thing for Hamas. She gave an interview, apparently, to some art publication. This very private person, of course, giving interviews. to cherry-picked, hand-picked media sources. And she kind of commented on this whole issue. And I want to bring you that update. There are a few thoughts to get to next. Not the same talking points here. Guy Benson. This is summer at its peak. Whole Foods Market's summer fruit fest is your invitation to eat the season. Fresh, organic, and bursting with flavor. Start your day with peaches and organic blueberries and yogurt. Build a grazing board with fresh fruit, prosciutto, and artisanal cheese. Then fire up the grill with no antibiotics ever proteins and fresh produce. Savor the season. Shop summer fruit fest at Whole Foods Market.

We're back on the Guy Benson's show. Okay, so Zohran Mamdani's wife, as I teased before the break, has now finally weighed in on this whole controversy and kerfuffle, vaguely saying that she regretted some of the things that she had posted in her teens, and because she was young isn't an excuse. She wasn't terribly specific on what she was apologizing for, but that was her way of at least briefly touching on it. And as I say, I don't really care about what she did as a teenager, as a minor. I care much more about what she has done much more recently as an adult, married to an elected official, for instance. So I would love for her to comment on that or have some follow-up questions on that. I'm not sure if she's going to. It's nice to see her, though, using her lady voice on her own behalf, as opposed to letting her man speak for her, which is what she has done over and over again throughout this controversy. Now, at a press conference this week, a reporter was like, hey, we see that your wife gave an interview and she was apologizing generally for some stuff, but what's she apologizing for? And by the way, you said that she's not a public figure, so she doesn't owe an explanation. Can you clarify this for us? And here was Zohran Mamdani's answer, cut 35. Yeah, so look, I think first and foremost I'll say that I made the decision to run for mayor and in doing so become an incredibly public figure. And this is also a decision that then has ramifications for those that I love and those that are around me. My wife made the decision to be an artist. And I think that these kinds of questions are part and parcel of what is coming with myself being the mayor of the city. But at the end of the day, It is my decision to be in this position. It is my responsibility to the people of New York City. I am grateful that much of the questions that she faces are also questions about her artistry and the work that she does because that is also who she is. You know, she shared some of her reflections in this interview. I won't add much to them. What I will say, however, is that... She is someone of incredible integrity. She's someone that I am lucky to be able to call my wife and that I am proud of her each and every day. All right. So that's 58 seconds of nothing. A lot of blathering there. And I think if she's going to give an interview about this and talk about a vague apology, I think it's fair to say, hey, can we get some follow-ups in here? What's she apologizing for precisely? Which posts and when? And he's like, well, she commented, I'm not going to add much to it. She's somewhat of incredible integrity. She does seem to be consistent in her support or sympathy for terrorists. That does seem consistent. You might call that integrity in a certain sort of perhaps twisted way. But it sounds like now they're going to clam back up on this whole issue. She said her piece, which was almost nothing in this artistry-related interview, and then that's the end of it. That's, I think, basically the upshot of that word salad there from Zohran Mamdani. Last point on all of this, Zohran Mamdani was saying that by taxing the rich and the Pietater Tax, first ever in city history, what a great thing. Happy Tax Day.

It will help pay for other services, and among other things, help keep the city safe. Yes, this is someone focused on safety. New York Post headline, New York City officials refuse ICE hold request for illegal immigrant accused in arson that killed four and injured seven per DHS. They say words like public safety keeping New Yorkers safe, and then they continue to cling. to sanctuary policies, even if it means helping to protect an arson murderer, illegal immigrant in their city. That is their definition of safety, it would seem. So a little New York City update from the Progress Chronicles to start the show. Much more to come, including big developments in the Middle East. We'll get to that next. Keep it right here. 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.

Talking about the issues you care about, Guy Benson. We are back on Guy Benson Friday, Guy Benson.com every day, podcast always free, bonus Guy Benson on the weekends as well. Well, it's a big day in terms of foreign policy and the war against Iran's regime, where it appears as though there's been a pretty substantial breakthrough. How good is the news today? Let's talk to Daniel Hoffman about that. He is a former CIA station chief. He's worked all over the world for the United States. He's now a Fox News contributor. Daniel, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on the program. All right. So let's talk through what was announced today. We had leading up to this, the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon and those peace talks slash recognition talks. We have this ongoing ceasefire with the Iranian regime, but obviously a lot of tension still going on. And then the foreign minister of Iran comes out this morning and says, actually, the Strait of Hormuz is now back open while our naval blockade remains in place. President Trump also posting on social media that things are moving along very, very well. The straits are open and that Iran has, quote, agreed to everything, sounding very, very optimistic. What do we know for sure right now? Yeah, well, what we know for sure is that the Strait of Hormuz is open. The Iranian said that it's open for passage through the Iranian military designated routes. What we don't know is whether any of the ship seeking to pass through the Strait of Hormuz are being required to pay tolls. I haven't seen any confirmation either way. We know that we're in the midst of this... ceasefire between the United States and Iran and that decision to open the Strait of Hormuz is what I would call a confidence building measure, an indication that Iran is motivated to continue negotiating with the United States to end this war. I think what was key to motivating them, aside from the blockade, was just the fact that the United States is very serious about resuming. military attacks when this ceasefire is over. I think for sure Iran wants to extend the ceasefire, and this is kind of the price they have to pay for doing it. Okay, so when Trump says that the Iranians have agreed to everything, That makes me at least very hopeful because we know, based on reporting, including from our colleague here, Lucas Tomlinson, what the U.S. demands were in Pakistan in those talks that went nowhere with Vice President JD Vance. And it was basically Iran had to completely swear off in Richmond, like totally, and dismantle their program. They would also have to give up the highly enriched uranium that they have buried in that mountain somewhere. And we would go in and get it. That was one of our demands as well, retrieving that material. And then they would also pursue peace within the region. They would stop supporting these terrorism groups, these proxies that they have for many, many years. Those are all the right demands for us to be making. They were rejected outright by the Iranians days ago.

If we're able to get them to say yes to all of that, to me it just seems like a total win. I'm just very skeptical that even if they are saying yes to all of it, they mean it because they lie all the time. So as you think about how this looks going forward, what comes to mind for you, Daniel? What are you going to be looking for? Well, so first of all, if... All of us have seen the way President Trump operates now for almost a decade. There have been many times where he will announce a deal, and it's kind of the deal that he wants. Right. And we haven't seen any comment from the other side, but he's framing the deal in advance. It's a little bit different than policymakers have operated in the past. But the president is saying Iran agreed not to have a nuclear weapon. Well, they've made that agreement before. They've just broken it. Right, right. And he said that they agreed to hand over the so-called nuclear dust, which is the roughly 1,000 pounds of a rich uranium. There have been back and forth about the United States demanding a 20-year time-based moratorium for no enrichment. And the president saying that wasn't enough, it had to be forever. The Iranians reportedly countering with only three years. We haven't seen a lot about their ballistic missile program, their support to proxy terrorists. Those things are still out there. I will tell you from my experience of having served as the CIA's, the director of the CIA's Near East Division and spent a lot of time in the Middle East, including serving an overseas tour, a couple of them in war zones, three years of my life. The Iranians kind of aren't done negotiating ever. Even after they sign the deal, they're not done negotiating. That's just kind of how they operate. And they will be painstaking about every detail. And they're seeking as much leverage as they can have in order to get the best deal possible. So we're in, I'm sorry to say, kind of early days here. But what I would say is that the ceasefire and opening the Strait of Hormuz is those are like the first steps towards building a framework for the negotiations that have to happen. If you expect these negotiations to be completed this weekend, I'm sorry to say I have a high level of confidence that's not going to be the case. Will we walk down the path towards potentially someday negotiating a deal? Yes. But keep in mind, this Iranian regime, it's the same regime as it was before. It's just a bunch of leaders have been decapitated. But it's the same IRGC, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps hardliners who are responsible for deciding. where Iran is headed. And they are hardliners and they hate the United States of America. They want to reduce or eliminate altogether our ability to project power in the Middle East. And the idea of sitting across the table from us is pretty much an anathema to them. But we've induced them to do so.

Here's the thing, though. And I would love to get a settlement here in which Iran really does give up everything. And then whatever happens on the ground, of course, I'm rooting for the people of Iran to throw off the shackles. It's been decades of oppression. But I just don't trust for the... reasons that you just stated daniel i don't trust this regime to do anything in good faith ever we have the israelis chomping at the bit still we've been told that there are a bunch of military targets that we still haven't hit many of them that we're aware of that we want to hit we have the support of the arab governments in the region as well Why make a deal with them if they aren't willing to effectively surrender? Why not just wait for the ceasefire to end and then resume bombing them and these targets to make them even weaker while keeping the blockade going, which is clearly squeezing them. They're really frantic about this blockade. If we keep that going plus resuming the attacks, wouldn't we have even more leverage? Might they cry uncle sooner? Do you think there's a possibility that we resume dropping the bomb soon? I think that's certainly a possibility. The president has said so. And I think whatever results we get from the negotiations, the president will be judged based on whether this deal is better than the JCPOA. So we better not see sunset clauses on Iran's nuclear program. Right. We should address their ballistic missile inventory and their support to proxy terrorists. Neither one of those things were addressed in the JCPOA. But what Iran has done well... is they've made, they've disrupted the global economy and they've made us feel pain in this country. How many people are talking about, you know, the stock market rebounding today? And we talk about the price of gas every day. When we do that. And even, frankly, I would say to the president this, the more that we talk about ending the war and how the war is over, well, that's just giving Iran positive feedback on their strategy to use the leverage they have of disrupting the global economy to get us to stop before the job is finished. And the president has said that a little bit of this economic commercial pain is worth the benefits strategically to our country. I think he's going to have to continue to address that if we don't get the deal we want and we may not. Because the question is, look, are we going to change the regime's behavior? We haven't changed the regime, but we might change their behavior, but we might not. And if we don't, as you said, what's the plan? So, look, we're in early days here. I'm sorry to say, and I know there's a lot of optimism and we want to be optimistic. And Iran sees that, and I fear that they are...

going to dig their heels in when they see how badly we so many segments of our elected officials in the congress so many people who want to come to a deal if we rush to that we may not get the deal that we need yeah and we know that Where the Israelis stand, obviously. You know, it's existential for them. But also, you know, the Emirates, the Saudis and others have been very outspokenly, both in public and then apparently reportedly in private as well, really urging our president saying, don't let them off the hook here. We've got them. So, you know, finish it, basically. And I guess. what that conclusion would look like very much remains to be seen, but I hope because we've achieved so much already. It seems crazy to let them off the hook with a bad deal at this point. And my strong hope is that we won't see that here from the administration. I want to ask you about China because they, of course, have an alliance. with the Iranians. There are some reports that they've been helping the Iranians with some military intelligence, but not helping them as much as they could. They're, of course, watching all of it closely. They are very dependent on the oil situation, so they've got some skin in the game there. How do you feel all of this is playing in Beijing? Yeah, it's kind of a win and a loss for Beijing, because the oil supply has been disrupted, and that's a problem for them, even though they have moved sectors of their economy to renewable energy. But Iran is their ally. That's this century's access of dictatorships, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China, all allied against us. We saw it in Ukraine, and we're seeing it right now in Iran. The Chinese have reportedly given the Iranians dual-use military equipment that supports the Iranian drone and ballistic missile program, intelligence, as you said, from Chinese spy satellites, and then reportedly, allegedly, shoulder-fired man pads. You know, that makes it pretty clear where the Chinese stand. President Trump has said he has a good relationship with Xi Jinping and he wants to strike some good deals with China. The way to do it, if you really talk about peace through strength, as President Reagan used to say, it's to hold China accountable for all of their nefarious activities and make them pay a price. If they do these things, then we will respond. We will make them feel pain so they don't do it anymore. How do we do that?

For sure. Because by the way, they're taking some hits economically recently, some of their numbers coming in really soft. I mean, the best way to do it is to win the war against Iran. Yeah. If the Iranian survived this as strong, strategically even stronger than they were before, that will drive up China's... leverage against us and Russia as well. So the first thing we got to do is beat down the Iranians and win. And win means getting everything we want. That is a clear like zero-sum game. I'm sorry, the Iranians have been responsible for too many deaths of Americans. And I can tell you from firsthand experience having served in Iraq, what they did to us there with their proxy Shia militia groups in Iraq with the improvised explosive devices that they were using roadside bombs, killing our soldiers, and denying Iraq. the sort of reconciliation they needed between all the ethnic groups there. But that's the first way we do it. And we can expose China for all that they're doing to support Iran publicly. The administration needs to speak up publicly about it. And then make them hurt. Double down on Taiwan. Sorry you don't like the fact that we're supporting. We're going to support them even more now. because of what you're doing to us in Iran. I mean, we need to make it hard on China. I'm sure that the National Security Council folks and Marco Rubio can come up with a whole bunch of good ideas and talk to the U.S. intelligence community about where China's pain points are and then make them feel pain for what they're doing to us. Because they should not get away with... making our mission more difficult or risking the lives of American servicemen and women. They should not get away with that. You shouldn't let them. If they're giving them weapons to shoot down our planes, I mean, that's pretty aggressive, right? And if that were to, God forbid, cost American lives. I mean, that could be a very serious situation. So your point is well taken. Finally, I want to ask you about this because Volodymyr Zelensky. Leader of Ukraine, obviously, he was speaking out rather forcefully against Iran because the Iranians were helping Russians kill his people, obviously. So he has a totally justifiable grudge. It's interesting to see the Europeans who loves Volodymyr Zelensky and fly the Ukrainian flag all over the place and they talk a lot about Ukraine. They've been, in many cases, useless or worse in this battle against Iran, which is allied with Russia. And now we see the Kremlin warning the Europeans saying, oh, if you get more involved with the Ukrainians and helping them with drones, then, you know, you better be careful, careful what you wish for, basically saber rattling. I wonder what you make of that whole dynamic. And are the Russians in any position at all to be threatening Europe, given the fact that they've been going backwards, it seems, in Ukraine lately? They can certainly threaten Europe with asymmetric operations. You know, they've launched. sabotage operations in Europe, and they have violated the airspace of European NATO members, Eastern European NATO members. So they could do all that. We need to fix the U.S. role in NATO, that relationship with our NATO partners. Our NATO partners didn't join us for our war in Vietnam, and they weren't interested in joining us for this one against Iran.

And that was their choice. But once the war began, it would have been a good idea for them to at least have allowed us overflight. Remember, the French didn't allow us overflight in 1986 when we bombed Gaddafi. Same thing. But they would have done well to let us use their bases and overflights. We're not asking for their troops or their weapons. We're just asking for some basic support. But we've got to figure that one out and do it, I think, privately so we don't expose ourselves. and create a situation where Russia doesn't believe that the United States would come to the assistance of a European NATO member whom the Russians might attack in some form. But I don't expect like a Russian invasion of Europe. I don't think they have the capacity or the capability to do it. However, Europe needs to be on high alert, especially their intelligence services, for these sorts of hybrid. operations. And Vladimir Putin's the KGB guy in the Kremlin. That's what he's going to do, cloak and dagger espionage operations, to show that he has some capability to inflict harm on Europe and try to induce the Europeans to reduce their support for Ukraine because right now it's all Europe. The United States is not providing assistance to Ukraine. It's on, it's all on European NATO members on the hook for that. And they're doing it. quite well. They're providing you with a lot of support. Daniel Hoffman, former CIA station chief. He's stationed all around the globe. He's now a Fox News contributor here at Daniel Hoffman, D.C. on social. Daniel, thank you very much. Well, thank you so much. Have a great weekend. Let's step aside and come right back after this very short break. Always fresh. Always fair. Guy Benson. Welcome to a new era of baseball's great spectacle. The T-Mobile Home Run Derby live on Netflix. The biggest sluggers in baseball put their talents to the test on All-Star Weekend. Raw power meets star power. Big swagger meets bigger slams. And you don't swing to make contact. You swing to make history. Watch the T-Mobile Home Run Derby live on Netflix this Monday, July 13th at 8 p.m. Eastern 5 p.m. Pacific.

Back here on Guy Benson, we've tracked DC crime for years on this program. It really spun rather out of control, especially during and just after the pandemic. And I saw a tweet highlighting the fact that DC is currently on pace for approximately 40 to 50 murders this calendar year, which would be the lowest since at least 1930. Just two years ago, there were 274 murders in Washington, D.C. Carjacking's down 44% right now. Now, some people pointing out, like Peter Moscoe, a criminologist, saying, well, Taking just four months worth of data and projecting it for the full year. Not a great idea. Murder sometimes pick up in the hot weather in the summer, so just hold off. But even if you get all the way to 100 murders, he says this year, that would be an outstanding improvement. Over just two years ago, 274, you see the carjacking is way down. The reasons are pretty simple. First and foremost, there has been a crackdown. The National Guard thing, which everyone freaked out about, it's Trump being an authoritarian. It has worked. A presence of armed officers has dissuaded criminals and freed up the D.C. police to do their job. They are also enforcing the law more aggressively because the personnel are more committed to that. And they've been ordered to do so at the federal level. It's not rocket science and it's working. And even a lot of left-wingers in D.C. who hate Trump might secretly, privately agree. A new hour coming up.

Thanks, yours too. What does RAV stand for anyway? To me, it's the remarkably advanced vehicle. Really? To me, it's the runway approved vehicle for its amazing style. What about remarkably adaptable vehicle because of its versatile cargo space? Or really admired vehicle? Oh, or really awesome vehicle. It really is the recreational activity vehicle. The stylish 2026 Toyota RAV4 Limited. What's your RAV4? generation of conservative talk right here right now fair fun and backed by the trusted voices and reporting resources of fox news you're listening to Guy Benson and now here's your host Guy Benson A new hour here on Guy Benson. Thanks for tuning in. We're live in New York City. Appreciate you listening. Guy Benson.com podcast, always free. I'll be on Gutfeld tonight, 10 p.m. Eastern time. Fox News channel for the full hour. It is going to be a very good one. Trust me, tune in for that one or set your DVRs. Fox News alert as we hit this middle hour. The Dow, not surprisingly, going gangbusters today. Soaring 869 points at the close, finishing at 49,447, while the price of oil has plunged. The market's loving the news out of the Middle East today, unsurprisingly. So that's part of the positivity and the good vibes around this. I have, of course, some of my trust but verify suspicions and skepticism, but some very good potential developments here. And I'm very curious to know what our next guest thinks about it. He is Eli Lake, reporter at the free press, host of the Breaking History podcast, contributing editor at commentary at Eli Lake on social. Eli, welcome back. Thanks so much for having me. All right. So we got the ceasefire with Lebanon and Israel. Now this news with the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump reportedly saying that Iran has agreed to everything, including an open-ended cessation of enriching uranium, and for us to go in and get the highly enriched uranium that does exist and all of that. If all of that... pans out well, I mean, my goodness, massive, massive victory. I'm just still saying, hold your horses because we're dealing with a regime that lies all the time. What is your overall take on this? Well, the first thing we have to keep in the front of our mind is that Iran, you know, 11 months ago had an industrial-sized nuclear program with multiple facilities to enrich uranium. And it doesn't have any of that anymore thanks to the fact that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu gave war a chance. And one of the things that this war or these two wars together accomplished was it demolished the Iranian nuclear program. So that is a win however you want to slice it. Yep.

The second point I would make is that the Trump card that the Iranians held was closing the Strait of Permouz and the threat to the global economy and particularly the price of oil. And they have now finally made good on their initial pledge that they would open it up for this period of negotiations. That's also really, really good. And I think that part of that is... because of the pressure from the blockade of the blockade, if you will. And so the straight is now opening up. So that's another big win. And all that is to the good. The question marks I have are as follows. First, was there some understanding? At least the Iranians believe there was that they would be able to dictate the terms of the war in Lebanon. Now, I don't think they really got that. Israelis did not stop the war when the U.S. Iran ceasefire came into effect. They managed to knock out some say more than 200 senior Hezbollah commanders and some epic bombing runs, I guess earlier in the week or last week. And the ceasefire announcement and the truth social posts today from Trump that said that he would prevent or prohibit Israel from bombing, from continuing to bomb in Lebanon. There was a very high level ambassadorial meeting to begin what looks like it could be a peace process between Israel and Lebanon, but that really is cover for negotiations between a very weak Lebanese government and Israel on. going about dismantling and disarming Hezbollah. That is all very good and very bad for Iran, although they will spin it as they still have sway and they were able to turn off the Israeli war machine in Lebanon, so to speak. That's how they'll spin it. My other questions are what about the missiles? Yep. What about what kind of sanctions relief and what kind of unfrozen assets will Iran get? Will it be enough for them to recover an economy that would be capable of rebuilding its war machine? I'd like to know that. And finally, what comes of Iran's historical sponsorship and funding of terrorist militias throughout the Middle East? Now, in some ways, their economy is in terrible shape right now. So maybe that's kind of, you know, they don't have to sign an agreement because they don't have enough money at this point. That would be nice. But how that all shakes out we'd like to see, because after there will be some kind of economic relief, I'm sure, for Iran. And, you know, if they decide to use that as they did after the JCPOA nuclear deal that Obama, you know, Obama's administration negotiated in 2015, most of the proceeds went to supercharging Hezbollah, Bashar al-Assad, who's no longer there in Syria.

the who sees in Yemen, and of course, Hamas. So all of that is of major concern at this point. But I think overall, I think it, you know, the signs point that this is a huge win. Remember, if this is, if we get what Trump is, if what Trump is saying is how the final deal looks. He managed to accomplish this with no American boots on the ground. There was no long-term occupation. There was a nation building. U.S. Marines were not, you know, watching the checkpoints. So all the things that led to the, made, turned the Iraq and Afghanistan wars into endless wars. are not here. This is the end of a war. We're not, we are not going to be rebuilding Iran. I think that's a, that's itself a kind of a win. So overall, I'd say, looking good, still have those questions, though, about Lebanon, sanctions, relief, missiles, and proxies. Yeah, terrorism. And those are a lot of questions, right? So that's why, that's why I'm sounding fairly optimistic, but also very much in a wait and C mode. I made that point on TV this morning with Martha McCallum and Bill Hemmer. I want to turn domestically, Eli, to a vote in the Senate this week. where there was a Bernie Sanders resolution to block the sale of military equipment to Israel, not us giving them stuff, selling them stuff, our partner in this war that has done so much good for the United States. They helped when we were recovering our guys that were stuck in Iran. This was a Bernie Sanders move to block the sale of military equipment to Israel. It was defeated, roughly. you know, 60, 40 against. But every single Democrat, except for seven, 40 out of their 47, voted in favor of this. And I mean, you look at the future, the special election in New Jersey last night, where he had this radical anti-Israel squad-style person win a special election easily, despite Jewish voters turning against her. Less than a minute, Eli, what this says about the direction of democratic politics, the latest breadcrumb. Two points really quick. One, it's a clueless position to take because Israel is now in a position to sell some of the best military and intelligence technology in the world that they have demonstrated since October 7th as they have fought their war against Iran and its proxies. And number two, notice the difference.

The threat of the socialism of Bernie Sanders emerges in 2015, 2016. Ten years later, that's the world that the socialists basically looks like in the process of taking over the party. A party has moved to Bernie. Yep. Trump is challenged by Tucker Carlson. Trump is challenged by a kind of... I agree, but we've got to run. Eli Lake, always appreciate it. We'll be right back. You're listening to a new generation of talk, Guy Benson. Adobe Firefly is the all-in-one creative studio with AI-powered image and video editing for today's creative process. Built for creators of every kind, Firefly helps you generate, edit, and experiment fast. Because the asks aren't getting smaller. The budgets aren't getting bigger. And the timelines, oh yeah, still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Unlock a better way to make with Adobe Firefly. I'm Guy Benson. We are back. I had to chuckle at this tweet and blaring headline from ABC News. Exclusive in all caps. Former President Barack Obama in a video shared exclusively with ABC News called on Virginians to vote in favor of a redistricting measure that could give Democrats a boost in the 2026 midterms if it passes. I'm sitting here like, that's not an exclusive. We know. We have been seeing that guy on our TV screens and our smaller screens for weeks on end lecturing us dishonestly about why everyone should vote yes on this. partisan gerrymandering scheme, even though, of course, the high and mighty Barack Obama was very against gerrymandering. They all were. It's an attack on democracy, yada, yada, yada, unless they do it, then it becomes essential for democracy. Funny how that works. I just think it's funny. I just think it's humorous to see a national news brand pretend that Barack Obama giving them yet another video of himself shilling for this partisan power grab. is somehow news. It's not like Barack Obama had a mystery viewpoint on this question. And then finally at the 11th hour, he descended from the mountaintop and deigned to inform us of what we ought to do. He has been telling us constantly everywhere to vote yes. In fact, as I said on this show, It was a Barack Obama ad that finally made me so fed up that I literally got up off the couch and walked to my polling place to vote no, to vote in the opposite direction. That was weeks ago, I told you about that. But ABC News has the exclusive that Barack Obama is for the partisan gerrymandering scheme of his party. By the way, just one more thing. Side note on Obama. Pet peeve of mine. He pretends to float above the fray. He always has done this. It is classic Obama. Like, oh, he can't be bothered with all that grubby politics nonsense. He is such a partisan hack on everything. But he pretends not to be. Like, oh, Obama in rare political statement comes out for, no, he's involved constantly with this stuff. And even going back to before he was president.

Right. His big principle, one of them was against money in politics. And he said, I'll take matching funds, public funded election. We're going to do away with this terrible situation where there's too much money poisoning our politics. And then the nanosecond, he realized he could massively dwarf the fundraising of John McCain. He sprinted away from his longtime position. his principle because it benefited him and his power and his ideology. That is Barack Obama on everything. He will in tone, in lecturing terms, these high-minded sermons about what the American people ought to do and how disappointing we are to him all the time. And then the second, again, he feels like, oh, the thing that I've said forever, actually, never mind it's going to benefit. My agenda, it's a 180. And of course, of course he's done this on gerrymandering. It's what he does. It's who he is. He's just, I think, better at it than a lot of the other flip-flopping politicians. He also has just a news media that still has a giant big boy crush on him. So that helped him every step of the way. With the shamelessness, it was covered with sort of this kid gloves, defensive, welcoming, approach because they all valorize him and adore him and all that. Anyway, I just thought that was amusing. Meanwhile, there was this teller rally that we mentioned yesterday. Big rally online for the gerrymandering scheme. And we told you that some of the famous invited guests included Elizabeth Warren and Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom said this to apparently a very paltry online audience. It was not impressive is what I read, but they had the stars out to push people for this thing, yet more propaganda. Gavin Newsom was saying that Trump is attempting a shock and awe smash and grab when it relates to free and fair elections. No, he's not. They keep using this word fair and fairness to describe the power grab that they're attempting for themselves, taking one of the fairest maps in the country to make it the least fair map in the country, six to five in Virginia versus 10 to 1. And they just apparently have decided maybe focus group this. If they just use the word fair and fairness often enough, people are going to believe it. This is a guy who's already, quote unquote, leveled the playing field by changing his state's constitution to retaliate against what Texas did. So the score has been settled. This is an escalation, as I keep saying in Virginia. Now, Abigail Spanberger, the governor. fake moderate, phony moderate, who was all in favor of the bipartisan commission taking this redistricting stuff out of the hands of politicians. Now she's gone completely back on her word, again, less artfully than Barack Obama. And she's saying, well, really, I just had to do this and it's temporary. It's really because Texas first launched this. That was a direct quote. We saw Texas first launch into a redistricting process. No.

New York Democrats actually went first. She also quoted President Trump in her little spiel saying that he said Trump that he was, quote, entitled to extra seats in Congress. I don't think that's the way to say it. But the point that at least in part Trump was making is one that I've made many times here. And it's absolutely true, which is in 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau badly screwed up the count. In roughly a dozen states, It wasn't a little tiny rounding error. They screwed it up badly. It was their whole job. And overwhelmingly, disproportionately, those counting errors of population benefited blue states and hurt red states. So nonpartisan experts look at the miscounts that they've now admitted to. It's not right wingers saying, look, we think they admitted and apologized for the miscounts. The Census Bureau did. It cost Republicans six to ten House seats and therefore electoral votes. Now, the Democrats never talk about this because it was an error, quote unquote. Let's just give them a benefit of the doubt and say it was an error that completely benefited them and they feel entitled to that. But when Trump's saying, actually, we deserve more seats, in this sense, he's absolutely right. The red states got absolutely screwed over in this process, and that cannot happen again in 2030. Last point on this during their sad little teller rally, and who knows, the polling shows the yes side has a very slight lead in the polls, four or five points, down to three and a few that I've seen. Hakeem Jeffries, who's pumped a ton of cash into this thing, the Democrat leader in the House of Representatives. He said, we can cut Donald Trump's presidency in half legislatively. It's all about winning the House back for them. They're not even pretending in this quote that it's about fairness. He's talking about just winning the House back. They're doing it by, I think, effectively stealing these seats. He said the race, this referendum on Tuesday, next Tuesday, the 21st, quote, has national and international implications because basically we can harm Trump. The thing that is frustrating to me is that the Democrats are treating this in Virginia like it has national and international implications, whereas the Republicans, some of them are doing their best. But as a party nationally, the fact that they've been almost completely swept in the on-air advertising space and there's been almost no persuasion against all their propaganda, the Dems have treated this like a big deal. with all their dishonesty, et cetera. The Republicans largely for weeks and weeks and weeks on end, crickets. And I feel like this is a fight that can be won if there was even like a decent attempt. And I'm not sure we've seen that. We'll see what happens on Tuesday. We will be talking about it all the way to the end because it does matter. Hakeem Jeffries is right about that. We'll be right back.

Cheers to America's 250th birthday. Get 20% off your first purchase at Fox Newswineshop.com with code FN Radio 20. 20% discount excludes wine club offers and cannot be combined with any other promotion. Expires July 31st, 2026. Must be 21 order to order. Please drink responsibly. Guy Benson, sponsored by Previgin. Previgin, made for your brain. Thank you, Prevagen, halfway through Guy Benson Friday edition. At the Friday, Guy Benson.com, podcast always free, bonus Guy Benson on the weekends. With us now is Joe Concha, Fox News contributor, author of the bestseller, The Greatest Comeback Ever. He's also a senior columnist at the Washington Examiner, As Am I. Joe, great to have you back on the show. Happy Friday, Guy. How are you? I'm good. We've got a new general manager for our New Jersey Devils, and I'm pretty much a fan of the hire. So I'm feeling good about that today. We can only go up at this point. We have Jack Hughes, and you don't make the playoffs. That's the problem, my friend. Yeah, some changes need to happen, and this was the number one change on my list, and now it has happened. So there you have it. All right, let's talk first about... this Eric Swalwell story. And I think we've said a lot of what there is to say about the scandal, the resignation, the impact on the gubernatorial race in California, all of that. There is a media angle to this that I think needs to be explored further. And I know it's being somewhat adjudicated on social media. It seems, Joe, that some press outlets were onto Eric Swalwell and were pursuing this story. Over the course of years, one journalist saying that there were sort of open secret rumors about him all the way back to his time on a city council. I mean, well over a decade ago. Others saying that Politico, for example, had a story brewing against him in 2019 when he was running for president. And then he dropped out of that race. So apparently the interest dried up. If it's true that there was a lot of smoke for a lot of years around what turns out to be allegedly a big fire, and the media kind of would pursue it a little bit and then not so much. What's your read on this? What does this say were they actively protecting him just because of his partisan identification? What's going on here? It's the letter next to his name, guy. You touched on it, certainly. If an R was next to Eric Swalwell's name and he had run for president, remember he ran for president in 2020, which is remarkable to think about now, they absolutely would have pursued these allegations to the fullest. But instead, I guess journalists feel that their job is to cover stories. with a pillow until it doesn't breathe. So, yeah, this was a protection racket. Because Eric Swalwell, I contacted my friend David Bozell over the media research center and said, hey, can you have your folks run the numbers on how many times Eric Swalwell appeared on CNN and MS now this year alone? So we're only four months in. He has appeared 50 times on those networks. He is a very useful person to put on cable news if your goal is to trash Trump as much as possible, the most provocative.

snarky ways. So they didn't want to lose one of their best customers, which is Eric Swalwell, who like Adam Schiff. His career is based on media appearances, and they don't want to take down a guy that, you know, provides them the kind of content that gives them the red meat for their audiences. I really think it's that simple, and as for publications that may have known, again, I think it's all about party affiliation and the fact that Eric Swalwell is somebody who, if you ran for California governor, which he was, and if he actually won, well, the next step if you're a California governor is to run for president, so maybe there were big plans for him, and then no one wanted to truly get in his way. Well, he'd run for president, as you mentioned already up to that point. trying to figure out if it's true that Politico was sniffing around in a significant way about this story, and then he dropped his bid for the White House. But he's still a sitting member of Congress. I'm just trying to figure out how that story becomes less of a story from a journalistic ethics standpoint. And then also just for the women, right, because there are some very disturbing allegations against him, including from a bunch of people who worked for him, his underlings. If you get a sense that there's a pattern of behavior here, are you not setting up potentially future victims to be abused if you decide not to follow through because whatever political agenda you might have has passed and so your editors aren't as interested anymore or whatever it might be? It's like you're kind of hanging potential at the very least future victims out to dry. Well, what a great point. And you're so right about that in the sense where guy that all we've heard for months and months is about the Epstein files. And we have to think of the victims. We have to think of all the women that obviously were subjected to what happened on that horrible island and at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and others. But then if they don't pursue something like this, it kind of tells me that's all performance art and it's all phony. So yeah, I mean, this could have been prevented many, many victims. a long time ago, including one woman, obviously, a former model who got in front of cameras a couple days ago, and actually described how Eric Swalwell allegedly drugged her drink, and then she woke up with him choking her to the point where she thought she was going to die. That could have been prevented if the story was pursued the way it should have. So, yeah, that's something a lot of people aren't talking about, and they should more, because, again, I want to say journalism gets a black eye here, but they're so banged up at this point. They look like Apollo Creed at the other Rocky, too. Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona was very, very close with Eric Swalwell, big, big buds, traveled a lot. And I had heard various things about Gallego through the years. And who knows what is true and what isn't. I wonder, given their close relationship and some of those whispers around Gallego, we know for a fact, for example, that he served divorce papers to his extremely pregnant wife to then go on and marry someone else or date someone else. So that might give you a little bit of an insight into what makes that man tick. Sounds like maybe he was peas in a pod in some ways with Eric Swalwell. Given...

His now sort of tearful public statement that he was just shocked by all of this and had no idea, despite what now more people are starting to say more publicly what might be out there, I underscore might, allegedly, right? I just want to be careful here. Do you think that is something that our dear friends in the so-called news media are going to aggressively pursue, or is Gallego still too important and therefore worthy of the force field, the protection racket? I think now that this has been exposed with Eric Swalwell and Gallego, who, again, for him to be shocked, totally shocked, that this was going on, and he didn't know that his best friend, very best friend, wasn't acting like this. Remember, it's not like Gallegos in Arizona and Eric Swalwell's in California, and their families go away together time and time. No, no, no. Gallego and Eric Swalwell were roommates in... Washington on Capitol Hill. And Gallego ran his 2020 presidential campaign that involved a lot of traveling and a lot of opportunities for these things to happen. So yeah, I have a feeling that. More journalists will grudgingly pursue any allegations against Gallego. Now we heard Anna Paulina Luna saying that she is going to be submitting some information to John Thune, obviously the Senate Majority Leader about Gallego and things that she is hearing and learning. So, yeah, I have a feeling that we'll be hearing more of Mr. Gallego's name. A 2028, by the way, possible presidential candidate, maybe not now, in the near future. Now, that has been rumored that he wants to run for president. as well. Every Senate seat also very valuable. He's not up this cycle, but still in a purple state. I don't know. Maybe you might be a little too optimistic about how the press is going to handle this, but I guess we shall see. All right, Joe, I want to turn to this late night comedy, and here's just a shameless plug. I'll be on Gutfeld tonight, but Jimmy Kimmel. the Democratic operative and part-time comedian, he went on a podcast and was discussing the criticism that he gets for his ultra-political fascination, obsession that his show basically is a like a cable political show, like a cable news political show with a laugh track. That's kind of what that show has become. And he was lashing out at the critics, cut 43. These are things that... I take very seriously. And of course, you know, I like to, I love telling jokes. I love being funny. I love when the audience laughs. There's nothing that's more exciting to me than that. But well-rounded human beings don't behave that way. And to say that, well, your job is this. It makes me, I bristle at that. Because first of all, Don't tell me what my job is. I don't tell you what your job is. My job is whatever I decide my job is, whatever my employer allows me to do. That's what my job is. One thing that he clearly takes very seriously is himself.

And he does actually tell people what their job should be all the time on his show. He went on to say, getting very political is actually a duty, and indeed it would be shameful not to do so on his supposed comedy show, cut 42. And you have so bravely and boldly used your platform to speak truth to power, as they would say. Well, thank you. I don't think of it as bravely. Boldly, maybe would be a good description. But to me... It just seems obvious and unavoidable. And I don't see that, I just can't imagine on those nights talking about anything other than what we are talking about. And I give a lot of credit to my colleagues for doing the same thing. I think it would be embarrassing if we didn't talk about this stuff. It would be shameful. Shameful. not to get super political. And of course, the podcast hosts are ming along. Last but not least, Kimmel decides that he's going to speak for Johnny Carson, pointing out that, well, other comedians have been political in the past. So it's ridiculous to claim that he shouldn't get political. And then he, I guess, conjures the ghost of Johnny Carson to say what he thinks Johnny would do in this era. Cut 44. Comedians have been... doing this for a long time. So true. And, you know, from my generation, George Carlin, Richard Pryor. It just shows a great deal of ignorance when it comes to comedy to say, well, Johnny Carson didn't do this. Like, well, first of all, we're living in a different time. And secondly, how do you know Johnny Carson wouldn't do it? I bet Johnny Carson would talk about it. I bet Johnny Carson would be absolutely mortified by what's going on. And I do think that he would probably have a greater impact than any of us do. All right, Joe. A lot there. I want to just let you react. Boldly and bravely. I'll start there first guy. It would be bold and brave because Arikimmel is saying that we should talk about politics on late night comedy shows more. Okay. So how many jokes has the bold and brave Jimmy Kimmel made about Eric Swalwell? Eric Swalwell, who announced his gubernatorial campaign on Kimmel's show, has been on there multiple times, and he won't tell one joke about that. So Michelle Obama is the podcast host there, by the way, and she's talking about how Eric Swalwell is speaking truth to power. Where is the truth to power when it comes to any Democrat criticism? There has not been a Republican on that show for years, not named Liz Cheney. And the same goes for Stephen Colbert as well. As for Carson.

And he would be talking about Donald Trump the way that Kimmel and Stephen Colbert do, which is 90% of their show, I bet you wouldn't. And guess what? He had six, seven times the audience Carson did on NBC back up until when he retired in the early 90s. So please, Jimmy Kimmel's the last person to be talking about this. And right now, speaking of ratings, he is a distant third, Greg Gutfeld, where you'll be tonight, number one by a country mile, because that show is actually funny. You know, he also said. in that exchange that he doesn't want to hear from anyone else how to do his job or what his job is. I don't tell you what your job is. But then he says if his counterparts in late night comedy didn't do the Trump obsessive thing that he does, it would be, quote, embarrassing and shameful. So there he is actually lecturing other people about how this ought to go. But he applauds them because, of course, they all do the exact same thing. So he's happy about that. If someone were not, and I guess there is one person that he's excluding from this, they don't really acknowledge Greg very much, he's basically saying it's shameful to do a show differently than the way he does it. And also this thing, this censorious, lecturing, finger-wagging posture of if you don't get very political in these times, you are doing a shameful thing in your comedy. career, that is exactly the kind of thing that I think turns a lot of people off the most. I don't really care. If this is what he wants to do on his own show, I never watch it. Fine, do whatever you want. It doesn't really bother me. It doesn't affect my life. But it's just this really super, you know, sermonizing, Joe, about how shameful it would be not to get hyperpolitical. It's just you roll your eyes so hard, you might pull a muscle. And I think maybe you were the one who came up with this nickname. I'm not 100% sure in this a couple years ago. The Pope of late night, was that you? Because... Somebody called him the Pope of latexia. I think I did call him that a few times, yeah. You did. I wrote it down, actually. That's very good. But yeah, Pope of late night means the piousness. It's the condescension. Yes. And what Jimmy Campbell thinks that there isn't enough? content out there on politics on TV these days, you literally have multiple 24-7 table news stations, which is basically the bread and butter of what they talk about. And again, it's fine. And if you want to do your show that way, Jimmy, it's totally fine. It's just the if you don't do it, then you're being shameful, where it's like, oh, give me a break. And speaking of breaks, let's take one right now very quickly. Joe Concha, more of this discussion coming up. Same issues, but with a fresh perspective. Guy Benson.

We are back. It's Guy Benson. Joe Concha sticking around for us. Joe, thank you for that. A couple more stories just to get to in the time that we have remaining here. Number one, I saw that there's a big headline that NPR has received $113 million in charitable gifts, including a single $80 million donation from a very wealthy woman. And my reaction to that is okay. That is someone's money that they are giving of their own volition to a platform that they enjoy or believe in. I am fine with that. I'm not an NPR fan. I'm just glad it is someone making the choice to give them that money rather than my money being extracted from me by the government and redistributed to a left-wing outlet. Yeah, I think great. They should take as many private donations as they like. Just don't take my money for obviously what is with PBS and NPR, which was under taxpayer funded. auspices for many, many years. But now, obviously, that that's no longer happening. So, yeah, take as many donations as you want, and they seem to be doing fine without our taxpayer dollars. So when you hear that, oh, boy, democracy is in peril. Right. Of course. Broadcast, I'm pretty sure they're going to be okay. Yeah. Anytime the left doesn't get its way, democracy is in peril. That's sort of the rule recently for years now, the rhetoric. It's just preposterous. Lastly, Joe. The Charlie Kirk assassination trial underway. We're getting more and more information about that horrible deed on that terrible day, including, apparently from court documents this confession letter from the alleged killer to his trans lover, and then also now bullet evidence matching. to the gun of this accused killer who's standing trial. And I just want to point this out yet again that the evidence is mounting overwhelmingly against this person who carried out apparently or allegedly this atrocity. There have been a lot of people making a lot of comments and making a lot of money off of conspiracy theories that are far afield from the actual facts. in evidence. And now that we're getting even more of those facts, I just think it bears pointing out that there are people who have been lying to their audiences consistently about this. And it has been, I mean, talk about shameful, a word that we were discussing earlier in our conversation. That is some truly shameful stuff. And I just wanted to give you the last word on that quickly. I'll say the name, Candace Owens, is a profoundly horrible human being to mock Erika Kirk on a daily basis at length. A woman who, in Fox & Friends weekend over last summer, Charlie actually guest hosted, and you see his two.

young children run to him at the end. They don't have a dad now. He was assassinated in front of the whole world. And Erika Kirk obviously doesn't have her husband of many years. And she just mocks her over and over again. And is this really worth it for a couple more clicks? And I guess going viral for all the wrong reasons. I just, you know, every, let's put it this way, and I'll leave it here. I'm running a book called Toxic Americans, 99 people we could really, really do without. And trust me, Candace Owens gets a very thick chapter in that book. She was such a star and was going in such a great direction. Now I think she has seriously mental issues that she has to address because this is not normal. It's very, very sick. And I think the best way to combat it is the truth, which is why I brought up this story here to wrap up our conversation for today. Joe Concha, thank you for your time. All right, thanks, Guy. Have a good one. Have good weekend. The final hour of Guy Benson on this Friday is on deck Fridays with Cat. Cat Timph. Up next.

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. the happy hour here on Guy Benson our final hour three on this friday broadcast thank you for tuning in Guy Benson.com the website podcast always free at Guy Benson.com the aforementioned website but also foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts gbs at fox.com the email address at Guy Benson you can follow us on social follow me as well at Guy Benson Catch me tonight on Gutfeld Fox News Channel 10 p.m. Eastern. Also co-hosting the big weekend show tomorrow and Sunday evenings, 5 to 8 p.m. each Eastern time that is on FNC. This radio hour, sponsored by the Finnish Longdrink. Very, very good, very delicious. Please drink responsibly, 21 plus only, thelongdrink.com. Well, since we're here in New York, and because it is Friday, it is time for Fridays with Kat. Kat, Tim, Fox News contributor, co-hosts of GotFa. We'll be on together tonight. Bestselling author, most recently of I used to like you until it's very good to see you, Kat. Welcome back. Great to see you. How's everything? Great. I saw that you hosted for Greg earlier in the week, right? Yeah, I did. How does that go for you? Because obviously you're used to the primary role on that show, which is like major sidekick situation. Yes. And then when you're thrust into the hosting role, that show has a tone to it and a point of view that's Greg's. And you don't always share the point of view, but you want to keep the spirit of the show going. So especially on the monologue. How do you kind of balance that? I mean, it's my point of view. Like whatever you want. Yeah, I mean, it is my point of view. I don't, it's completely not accurate to say whatever I want. It could not be whatever I want. But yeah, I mean, I definitely try to keep the spirit of it. If it was my own show, I would do things differently, probably. But yeah. You know, it's, I like hosting. It's really fun. I do something very different or one of the things I do different than Greg is I do less reading of the prompter. I still do a monologue, but I keep it shorter. I think the most fun part is the discussion and the things that can kind of arise in the discussion. Just a personal preference. I like the in the moment stuff more than the prompter stuff. So that's one way I'm different. Your own monologue or is it a collaboration thing? How does that work behind the scenes? I, I. always, always write my own except for the last one because the Eric Swalwell news broke like a couple hours before. So I've always, always written my own. And then that was like, we threw something together. Do you have a Eric Swalwell take? I don't like him. I know that's a bold stance. My goodness. Yeah. But that was actually tough because I've literally every time I've ever been on TV always written my own. Every time. And then this was.

Was that like all of a sudden it's showing up in the prompter and you've never seen it before? Were you able to sort of give notes to it? No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. People can do that. Like, there's people here who get, you know, Julie Bandaris is so good on a teleprompter. She's so good. When I first started here, she helped coach me because I was really bad at first. Promptor's harder than people think. People. And then everything people say to you about it makes it worse. If you look on the internet, people are like, just say it like you're, just say it like you're talking. Oh, really? Oh, really? Oh, thank you. That's what a note. That is what I'm supposed to do. I'm just supposed to say it naturally as if I'm talking. Well, that's like telling somebody who golfs, like you should just get a hole in one every time. Just swing and put it in the hole. Yeah, it's, yes, I get that that's what I'm supposed to do, but you don't understand. You try it. It's so much harder than it looks. It's hard. It's so hard. And I've gotten so much better at it. But I had never had any training in it. So I had to get a little bit of help. I was an intern here years and years ago. when I was a teenager, like late teenage years, late high school, early college. And I worked really long hours voluntarily because they would let me in between almost like my shifts, sit on the Sean Hannity and Combs set. Yeah. And read the telecombe. Exactly. And I wanted that practice. So I'm 17. And the way I justified it too was I was able to like catch little typos and stuff for the guys. That was the way I at least spun it for the. folks who ran the show but they let me do it and so i remember again i was young but thinking oh i got this i'm literate i know how to read words and then when it shows up in that format and it's scrolling in front of you it's it's not like how would i say this even though i am me and i wrote these words like i would write a whole monologue and then i'd be like how would i say this it's like you wrote it and you are yourself But it's so hard. I actually wrote about this in my second book about how I was having meltdowns about it. I was like, how do I? I can't do this. I can't do this. And then you start thinking about every athlete with a head injury that can do it. And then you're like, I'm even worse than that. Like I've never done any full contact sports. I have no CTE and I still can't do this. And but, you know, I've moved past it. I'm not, I'm, you know, I'm not the best in the world. But I think I'm capable at this point. I want to bring up one more Fox-related thing. And I saw that you had posted about it publicly, as did I. And I saw that we both got some pushback for it. So we're just going to talk about it here for a second. Our friend and colleague, Jessica Tarloff, has a book coming out called I Disagree. Right, right. And the subtitle is something like how to win arguments without losing friends, something like that. And she's very good at that. Yes. She works here. in a place where certainly in the opinion space, most on-air people disagree with her. Much of the audience disagrees with her, often passionately, often the president. Yeah. And.

She is extremely well-liked. Everyone likes her. In the building. Everyone in the building likes her. Because she is a thoughtful person in like interpersonal relationships. So we are both friends with her. Yeah. So I just want to like a, shout out the book that's coming. You can pre-order it now. I disagree. And I'm sure I will disagree with many things in it. Because I think she's wrong about most things when it comes to politics. That being said, like people getting really mad. At both of us. I didn't even see that. People are mad at me all the time. That is true. You're used to it. They're mad at us for like saying anything nice. Hey everyone. Newsflash. Jessica Tarlov is friends with Greg. Newsflash everyone. I wrote about that in my first book too. He's he like he, he reaches out to her for help with baby stuff. They are friends. And he will come after her hard on the fire. He invited her to his one year old's birthday party. They are friends. People need to relax. It's raudiculous. She's one of the nicest people I've ever met. I don't know anyone here on air who does not love her. I don't know anyone on air that. has the negative thing to say about who she is as a person. Yeah. And that's the thing we actually know her. And I think she generally does a good job representing her side. Sure. Right. And it's a tough gig when you're outnumbered that way every day. And much of the audience disagrees all that. I used to do MSNBC and CNN back in the day. And I know that feeling. And I think she's like, again, dead wrong on a lot of stuff. Of course I do I. Hash it out here on the show and whatever. But in terms of this being a human being. I just, like, I'll do speaking gigs around the country and almost without fail I'll get someone before or after being like, oh, I just like can't stand that Jessica Tarloff and I just have to mute the TV when she comes on. People say that and I just say she's my friend. That's what I always say. I'm like, well, I'm friends with her. And so is everyone. Yeah. And I think, I think people don't necessarily apply it to. our situation the way they would in their own life. Yeah, exactly. Almost everyone has friends that they disagree with in real life. And they just sort of like, oh, well, that's different because that's my friend. But then they see us on TV and it's sort of like they know that we're real people and they're fans of our shows and they watch and we're very grateful for all of that. But they kind of... forget maybe that the normal human interaction stuff among friends also applies to TV people. No kidding. No kidding. It's, yeah, absolutely. And it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course I don't post your book. Of course. I'm proud of you. Way to go. The cover. She looks so good. She looks great. And she's so, she's, I talk to her every day. You know, she's my, she's my friend. And I do. There was a ridiculous rumor about her on the internet. Oh my gosh. I remember that. And so I. I sent her a little note being like, oh, I'm sorry for this. It's so stupid. She's like, what are you talking about? So I was the one who brought it to her attention. I felt so bad. But then apparently like Waters did this. So like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I got out in front of it for her. It was a totally ridiculous baseless thing with a totally made up quote of hers. And.

She then thought it was hilarious because the allegation was that she was like having some affair with a congressman and that she had given a quote being like, of course, because we progressives have open marriages like or something. It's like ridiculous what people fall for. It's like so ridiculous. So obvious fake news slop. And a few people send me like, is this real? I'm like, definitely not. So I sent it to her. We're joking about it. And I did say for what it's worth Jessica, you could do better than this congressman. And she did laugh. And she's like, thank you for saying that. And yes, I could. By the way, she's funny. She is. She's really funny. That's the point of the story. Yeah. She wasn't wound up about it. She made a funny joke and we had like this little moment. That's just a little insight. She helped throw a baby shower for me. Yeah. And for our kid before he arrived here at Fox. She and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. teamed up for that. Yeah. And I just think it is sometimes if I sound a little annoyed, it's just because. She has a job to do. Correct. She does it well and she's a nice person. And even though it drives me crazy like nails on a chalkboard, some of her opinions, you just have to separate that from someone. And everyone does. And whenever I see, he'll be like, oh, you can tell Gottfeld is fed up with her. It's like, no, he's not. And as I said, he will definitely turn up the volume and like put her on blast sometimes. And those little rants are intense. Right. But their friends. Yeah, right. Their relationship doesn't crumble in real life. No. Which is not to say that what you're seeing on TV is fake. No. He is passionate. They're talking about political issues. Yes. It's got nothing to do with his view of her as a human being. It will get testy and that's okay. When we come back with Kat Tim, Fridays with Kat, on Guy Benson, a little small talk. We'll explain. Same issues, but with a fresh perspective. Guy Benson.

Back on Guy Benson, The Happy Hour Cat Timp with us in studio, Fridays with Cat. A lot of people hate small talk, but small talk is important. I see that you've waited on this. There was a study that has pointed out that small talk is good for human beings, and many people underestimate how we actually enjoy it, according to this story from NBC News. I think a lot of people bristle at the idea of small talk because in their mind it's like very superficial and inane. But you actually think it's a good thing. So I like small talk. Well, here's the thing. I will just say I was talking to Jim Norton about this. Just as stand-up comedians, I think that small talk, keeping it small is maybe hard for us. For example, I go on stage and I just talk to. you know, hundreds to over a thousand strangers about my mastectivate. Right, exactly. Greetings cheering crowds. Let me tell you about cancer. Yeah. And I mean, I'm making jokes about it. And I'm very open about very personal things. And so sometimes my small talk isn't very small. I'll be like, hey, people like, when people ask how I'm doing, I will tell them. Could you just basically chalk up all of your conversations with Greg as literally small talk? Because he's so teeny tiny. He's so tiny. Yeah, small talk with Greg. They could rebrand the show. But it is good for us to be talking to each other. It really is. I think there's just so much with the phones and I get it. I'm addicted to my phone too. But it's like you look at it and your whole life is passing you by as you're just staring at a screen. And I just don't want to be like that. So you know what? You can say, hey, the weather's nice. Yeah. And then sometimes I'll just be like, so what are you doing this weekend? And then, you know. And by the way, sometimes you ask those types of questions. And you get somewhere. Not really caring what the answer is, but it's small talk. But then you find out something really interesting. Right, exactly. There's actually a very funny story. I was on, gosh, a couple of years ago at this point, last few years. I was on America's Newsroom on a Friday, as I was today. And today I was opposite David Asman, but that day, a couple of years ago, it was Harold Ford Jr. And it was Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer. And I think Hammer in the commercial break asked me what I was doing that weekend. And I had, I forget what the answer was, but it was a pretty cool story. I think it might have been, I think it might have been the Backstreet Boys concert that I was invited to by a Backstreet Boy, which is really cool. Not to bring it up again or anything. Oh, I'm bringing it up. And so I was so proud to announce to the table that this was my plan. And so I was feeling pretty good about myself. And then I said, Harold. What are you doing this weekend? And then I immediately regretted asking the question because he said, oh, as soon as we're done here, I'm going to the airport to get on a private jet to Derek Jeter's 50th birthday party. Of course. I was like, you know what? Damn it. Yeah, of course. You win. Of course. He knows everybody. He knows everybody. I need to become better friends with him. Yeah, he knows everybody. But that's small talk. That's small talk. That went somewhere. Yeah.

I don't know how to do it. Now I'm seething with jealousy. I'll be like, hey, how's the weather? Like, oh, good, good. Are both your parents still alive? Oh, you're lucky. My mom's dead. She died when I was still. Like, but you know what? Whatever. Okay. I've made this a career. Speaking of. Potential deaths, dare I ask. Gene's is still alive. Okay. He's still alive, dude. Your cat is still with us. If he makes it to June, he will make it to what is the best estimate of his 16th birthday. That's really old. That's really old. And he's been sick for so long. Is that like a human equivalent of someone hitting 100 after having cancer since age 60? It's over 80, but also this cat has not been well for a very, very, very long time. He's been receiving. I mean, he's not, he has, I'm giving this cat an inhaler twice a day. Oh, no. Whenever I come to your apartment, there is some new, absurd thing that you were doing to this cat to keep him technically alive. Correct. And here's the thing, but he loves me. When I get into bed, he comes and crawls up and snuggles under my chin, you know, and like, how can you say no to him? And he's been doing that since I was 21 years old. Does he interact okay with your kid? Or is there no interaction? There is heavily supervised interaction. Okay. Because you don't really trust Cheens to... He's a street cat. He's a feral animal who lives in an apartment, right? He's not a domesticated animal by any stretch. He kind of should be at this point, I would say. He should be, but he was not socialized normally. You know, he was just six weeks old. He was just with me. So he doesn't really, you know. But I can, my son will put his little hand out and he'll smell it. He did nozzle him once for the first time yesterday actually, which is huge. Did your heart melt? Because I feel like that I almost cried. I almost cried. I almost cried. So this is small talk. I think we're having some small talk here. Now I'm about ready to take it somewhere weird. So whenever we are out of town and whoever is there, they are under specific instructions. Even if I'm out of town, like gone for the day or something, if Chines dies to call Cam and not me in case I'm about ready to get on stage, I don't want to know about it until after I'm done. So it's some, you know, whatever. When I'm on tour, sometimes I do bring my son. Sometimes I leave him with my dad. If my dad's there and then, or we have, you know, people come in to take care of him or my nanny is also a vet, long story, whatever. She has specific instructions. Do not call cat if this cat dies. It's like how the British government had an elaborate. plan to execute when the queen died. Yeah. In your household, that exists for your cat. Yeah. I think it was Operation London Bridge, something like that. This is the feline equivalent. I have been with this cat.

about 40% of the time I've been alive. Yeah. I mean, think about that. That is a long time. I don't really remember life before this cat. I mean, I do, but it's like I wasn't an adult. You know what I'm saying? Like my whole adult life, the one consistent thing in my crazy wild journey that I've had since I graduated from college has been this cat. I was a Boston market cashier when I got this cat. It's crazy. On that note, how about that weather? It is beautiful out. What are you doing this weekend? I don't know. I might have a drink this weekend. I haven't drank in like two months. But Cam was like, you have to drink. And then he also was like, Kat, if you don't start drinking again, you're going to lose all your gay friends. I mean, I mean, I'm just saying, let's have a drink. Let's have a drink. Not right now. I might have a drink. Okay. Let's follow up on that. Oh, I heard it. I heard it too. Maybe two, but not three. This is a bidding war now. I don't know. Not three. We'll see how it goes. Cat Tim Fridays with Cat. Love you. See you soon. More of Guy Benson. Up next.

Talking about the issues you care about, Guy Benson. In our first hour today, we welcomed into the show for the first time, Daniel Hoffman, former CIA station chief, talking about some major developments in the Middle East today. Here's part of that discussion. Listen. Okay, so when Trump says that the Iranians have agreed to everything, That makes me at least very hopeful because we know, based on reporting, including from our colleague here, Lucas Tomlinson, what the U.S. demands were in Pakistan in those talks that went nowhere with Vice President JD Vance. And it was basically Iran had to completely swear off in Richmond, like totally, and dismantle their program. They would also have to give up the highly enriched uranium that they have buried in that mountain somewhere. And we would go in and get it. That was one of our demands as well, retrieving that material. And then they would also pursue peace within the region. They would stop supporting these terrorism groups, these proxies that they have for many, many years. Those are all the right demands for us to be making. They were rejected outright by the Iranians days ago. If we're able to get them to say yes to all of that, to me it just seems like a total win. I'm just very skeptical that even if they are saying yes to all of it, they mean it because they lie all the time. So as you think about how this looks going forward, what comes to mind for you, Daniel? What are you going to be looking for? Well, so first of all, if... All of us have seen the way President Trump operates now for almost a decade. There have been many times where he will announce a deal, and it's kind of the deal that he wants. Right. And we haven't seen any comment from the other side, but he's framing the deal in advance. It's a little bit different than policymakers have operated in the past. But the president is saying Iran agreed not to have a nuclear weapon. Well, they've made that agreement before. They've just broken it. Right, right. And he said that they agreed to hand over the so-called nuclear dust, which is the roughly thousand pounds of a rich uranium. There have been back and forth about the United States demanding... a 20-year time-based moratorium for no enrichment. And the president saying that wasn't enough, it had to be forever. The Iranians reportedly countering with only three years. We haven't seen a lot about their ballistic missile program, their support to proxy terrorists. Those things are still out there. I will tell you from my experience of having served as the CIA's, the director of the CIA's Near East Division and spent a lot of time in the Middle East, including serving an overseas tour, a couple of them in war zones, three years of my life. The Iranians kind of aren't done negotiating ever. Even after they sign the deal, they're not done negotiating. That's just kind of how they operate.

And they will be painstaking about every detail. And they're seeking as much leverage as they can have in order to get the best deal possible. So we're in, I'm sorry to say, kind of early days here. But what I would say is that the ceasefire and opening the Strait of Hormuz is those are like the first steps towards building a framework for the negotiations that have to happen. If you expect these negotiations to be completed this weekend, I'm sorry to say I have a high level of confidence that's not going to be the case. Will we walk down the path towards potentially someday negotiating a deal? Yes. But keep in mind, this Iranian regime, it's the same regime as it was before. It's just a bunch of leaders have been decapitated. But it's the same IRGC, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps hardliners who are responsible for deciding. where Iran is headed. And they are hardliners and they hate the United States of America. They want to reduce or eliminate altogether our ability to project power in the Middle East. And the idea of sitting across the table from us is pretty much an anathema to them. But we've induced them to do so. Here's the thing, though. And I would love to get a settlement here in which Iran really does give up everything. And then whatever happens on the ground, of course, I'm rooting for the people of Iran to throw off the shackles. It's been decades of oppression. But I just don't trust for the... Reasons that you just stated, Daniel, I don't trust this regime to do anything in good faith ever. We have the Israelis chomping at the bit still. We've been told that there are a bunch of military targets that we still haven't hit, many of them that we're aware of that we want to hit. We have the support of the Arab governments in the region as well. Why make a deal with them if they aren't willing to effectively surrender? Why not just wait for the ceasefire to end and then resume? bombing them and these targets to make them even weaker while keeping the blockade going, which is clearly squeezing them. They're really frantic about this blockade. If we keep that going plus resuming the attacks, wouldn't we have even more leverage? Might they cry uncle sooner? Do you think there's a possibility that we resume dropping the bomb soon? I think that's certainly a possibility. The president has said so. And I think whatever results. we get from the negotiations. The president will be judged. based on whether this deal is better than the JCPOA. So we better not see sunset clauses on Iran's nuclear program. Right. We should address their ballistic missile inventory and their support to proxy terrorists. Neither one of those things were addressed in the JCPOA. But what Iran has done well is they've disrupted the global economy and they've made us feel pain in this country. How many people are talking about, you know, the stock market rebounding today? And we talk about the price of gas every day. When we do that...

And even, frankly, I would say the president at this, the more that we talk about ending the war and how the war is over, well, that's just giving Iran positive feedback on their strategy to use the leverage they have of disrupting the global economy to get us to stop before the job is finished. And the president has said that a little bit of this economic commercial pain is worth the benefits strategically to our country. I think he's going to have to continue to address that. If we don't get the deal we want, and we may not. Because the question is, look, are we going to change the regime's behavior? We haven't changed the regime, but we might change their behavior. But we might not. And if we don't, as you said, what's the plan? So look, we're in early days here. I'm sorry to say, and I know there's a lot of optimism. We want to be optimistic. My full interview with Daniel Hoffman and all of today's show, available online as part of the podcast, start to finish the entire program, absolutely free. Guy Benson.com, Fox Newspodcast.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, the home stretch, there's a little something coming involving yours truly and cookie. Tickets are available. Details next. Same issues, but with a fresh perspective. Guy Benson.

it's time for your favorite segment of the day. Home Stretch. It's basically the only segment I'm on, so I've declared it the audience's favorite segment. Guy Benson. Home Stretch on the Friday here on Guy Benson from New York City. Got fell tonight. Scheduled to be on the panel for the full hour. Also, supposed to be co-hosting the Big Weekend Show tomorrow and Sunday, Fox News Channel 5 to 8 p.m. Eastern each night. Guy Benson.com, the website here, podcast, always free, bonus Guy Benson over the weekends, all that good stuff. Well, a couple of things to talk about here, including the fact that Christine, you got from, was it two nights ago, a lot of feedback on your alligator fear situation. Has that been resolved? Are you planning? to go on this vacation and golf did you call the golf club the people need to know well first of all guy there was never a question of me not going on a vacation that was never no no i knew that you were definitely going on vacation as you often do i meant are you going on this vacation to golf in this location yes and you called the golf club i did not um because uh you said that was crazy and my husband really sealed the deal saying it was that bleep crazy okay so um many people wrote to me and said, I'm safe, I'm good. Don't forget, I decided to create a chat with Bob and his friends and me. Yes. That was not approved. They all said it's good. So we're good. We're going to go golfing. Now, I thought I could get Megan. She does not want to golf. Okay. So we'll work on that. But I will be golfing and there will be no alligators. But the fear I have, oh, you know what I should do? Do you remember? Seven years ago, I got hypnotized. What did I get hypnotized for? Do you remember? I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember a hypnotist. I really don't. Yes. And don't you remember? I found my spirit angel, George. I think I repressed it and just moved along. It's hard to keep track of all this stuff. You're into space now? Is that right? I'm so into space. I watched, what do we call it? Like the dropping into the sea, the plunge? Oh, the splashdown. That's like a, that's what it's called. You're our NASA correspondent, Cookie here on the Guy Benson show. I cried. I cried. How many glasses deep were you? It was a Friday night. I know. That's part of why I know. I'd ask the same exact question if it was Tuesday. It was 8 o'clock on a Friday. I lost count. You know, no. But I really. I, you know what I loved about it, that everybody was so proud of them, that we were all so proud. And it wasn't, you know, screaming about Republican and Trump and this and that. It was just, we were all so happy at what they accomplished. Would you go to space? Oh, yeah. Really? Oh, yeah. You wouldn't? I don't think so. Of course. If someone, why do you want me to go to space? I just realized.

I didn't say that. I said I wasn't go to space. I think you just put on me that I was rooting for you to go to space and then get sucked out the airlock and... I want to go to the moon again. We did it once before. You want to... Do you do it a couple times? Take one giant leap for cookie kind. How many times did we go to the moon? One giant leap for wine moms everywhere. They don't bring alcohol with them, do they? I don't think so, Christine. I don't think they would be allowed to. I don't think you would do well up there. Why not? It's very cramped. The bathroom situation, not good. No booze. Yeah, they had to fix the, the woman had to fix the toilet. I am just telling you, I don't think you have so many irrational fears. I think the more you thought about hurtling into space in a tiny little capsule. the more you'd have misgivings. But you know, come to think that I am, I'm for it. I want you spacewalking. I want you out there in the whole, the whole get up. But you're just like, you were as if you had just discovered space and NASA. Well, I mean, you know I did go to space camp, right? I did not know that. Yes. My uncle worked for NASA. So when I was 10 years old, I went to Huntsville. He lived in Huntsville, Alabama. And I went to space camp. What did you do at space camp? Cafeteria worker. I remember I loved that space ice cream, you know, the powdery stuff. Oh, yeah. I remember how much I loved it. I don't remember. How old were you? Ten. Okay, so you weren't on the hooch yet. No. As you were a child. I didn't know. You might have gone in college or something. No. I don't remember a ton about it, but I remember like being at NASA. Don't you have to be good at math and stuff to go to space camp? I had an inn. I had an uncle. You were a legacy admission. I had a full Italian uncle there. Come on now. Okay, fair enough. Christine, we have to tell the people about an event that's coming up. That is not out of this world. It is on this very planet, actually in a very beautiful place. So one of our great affiliates out on the West Coast, KSRO, which is in Sonoma, California, wine country, so beautiful, so fantastic. They've invited me. to help headline a big event, and it's coming up soon. It's May 14th. So if you're listening on KSRO right now, and many of you are, love to see you there, but also if you're just in that neck of the woods, you're in California or you want to come to an event, you're welcome. All are welcome to come. It is at the Paradise Ridge Winery. On Thursday evening, May 14th, 5 to 7 p.m. And we'll talk politics. We'll talk California. We're working on some special guests. Admission is $40, but that includes wine. That includes two glasses of wine. This is a limited capacity event. So early purchase, they're strongly encouraging that. It's less than a month away, right? It is May 14th, 5 p.m. at the Paradise Ridge Winery, Sonoma, California. 40 bucks to get in, which is the show plus two glasses of really good wine. You've got to be 21 plus because of the wine situation. And Christine, I am prepared to report to this audience.

that you will be joining this. And if there was ever, A trip I was going to be on that you were going to force yourself into. It was to wine country for Mama's Juice, and you've just finagled your way into the KSRO event on May 14th. Tickets, by the way, KSRO.com. You can't miss it. You go to the landing page, and there is my face right there. Buy your tickets, KSRO.com. If you're in NorCal or Pacific Northwest or just want to go. Let's say have a nice wine weekend. Like book yourself and your spouse or significant other. A nice wine weekend in Sonoma and Napa. Kick it off the Thursday night with us and then go enjoy that neck of the woods. It is gorgeous. I got married in one country. And I was there. You were. I still am amazed that that invite actually went out, but it did. So yes, May 14th, 5 p.m. Paradise Ridge Winery, KSRO.com, 40 bucks for the ticket, including two glasses of wine. You were a little frustrated by that. You were looking for a different tier of ticket. You were willing to pay more, but you were looking more for the two bottles of wine situation, I think. Yeah, what I'm thinking is that you can buy me two tickets. I'm not buying you any tickets, Christine. Hold on. If you buy me two tickets at $40, then it gets me four glasses of wine. You just did that math. That's very impressive. I feel like they might give you, and I don't want to hold them to this. I think you might get some free Mama's Juice because you're like the talent. Free hooch? Free hooch. Well, it doesn't say an evening with cookie. Can we change that? An evening with Guy Benson? No, they're trying to attract people to buy tickets. I probably shouldn't be telling anyone that you're coming, but you are. And best friend. Should we stay and do like a best friend weekend? No. You said make it a weekend. Yeah, but I can't. Why do you, why? I've got a lot of things happening. I'm very busy. Oh, we can go back to where you got married, where we got married. We did not get married. Adam and I did. Actually, I actually have both families coming in that weekend to D.C. The baby shower. Oh, we have to go to D.C. I have to go back to D.C., which is why I can't do the whole weekend with you. But we will be there for that event on May 14th, the Thursday night. KSRO.com, Sonoma, California. The ticket includes two really good glasses of wine. And by the way, I feel like one glass of wine for me before the event is okay. Second glass gets a little risky. Third glass, big mistake. So I will probably backload my wine enjoyment until after I'm off stage. But I'll have a little bit. Maybe I'll have a glass up there. You will have no such compunction. You'll just be sloshing around this event. Well, don't remember last time at KCMO.

the boss that I wasn't allowed to drink. Yeah, in Kansas City, and that was at a brewery. Christine, you keep coming to events featuring booze. It just occurred to me. We did a brewery in Kansas City, now a winery in California, and like, you're a sign me up, boss, and somehow the people say yes to this. That just occurred to me. And you were told by the boss here that you weren't supposed to drink at the beer event. Did you listen to that edict? No, you didn't. You sure didn't. with us come hang with two best friends what more could you want it is actually me really fun it's a great station ksro dot com get your tickets we'll probably remind you like one more time but get your tickets now because I wonder if any people are like, are these refundable now that they know you're coming? Stop. All tickets are final. No, it's going to be a lot of fun. Can't wait for that. See you all in a matter of weeks out there. And maybe Christine will be back from her vacation by that point. I don't know if that's true. How long is this Turks and Kako's trip supposed to be? I'm gone for the week, boys. So. You'll miss me. Just a week? Don't we have to go, Joelle? You are like got a flight to catch off to your latest vacation. Did the Cart's house send the PJ? That's for July. Oh, that's right. You are going. Back down to Mexico in July, something that we'll have to talk about in due time. But now we actually do have to run. Got fell tonight, big weekend show over the weekend, all of that. And then back here Monday for Guy Benson without cookies. So you definitely want to tune in for that. Enjoy your weekend, everyone. And good night. Hold on. If you buy me two tickets at $40, then it gets me four glasses of wine.

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