Lawfare Exposed: Jack Smith Testifies Before Congress

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. And what a busy day it is on Capitol Hill today. Welcome to the show. So great to have you with us. You have Jack Smith testifying. You also have a bipartisan vote to hold the Clintons in contempt of Congress. Man, it's going to be a busy one today. And the vice president's taking questions amid the continued... anti-ice uprising that you're seeing throughout the country today. So it's Rich Zioly host of the Rich Zioly podcast. Great to be with you this afternoon here on Guy Benson. I want to play a quick clip right out of the gate here. This is Representative James Comer, Chairman Comer, on Capitol Hill regarding the contempt vote against Bill and Hillary Clinton. He, of course, is chairman of the Oversight Committee. And then I have a great guest. Who's going to break it all down for us. But let's start with cut 27. Today was a big day for accountability. I'm very proud of the work the Oversight Committee has done thus far on the EPSC investigation. I'm very happy that we had a bipartisan vote today to hold the Clintons in contempt of Congress. And this shows that no one's above the law. And he continued by saying that the Clinton's offer to essentially not put things in writing was not in good faith. It was not actual negotiation. They were not acting in good faith here in any way, shape, reform, cut 28. I'm accusing the lawyers for the Clintons of not being truthful. They were not in good faith negotiating. They never made a proposal where there would be an actual transcript. And I don't think anyone in the media. would accept any type of interview without a transcript. Then you're going to have notes, and it's going to be Clinton's word, against my word, Garcia's word, against my word. That's no good. There should be a recorded, at the very least, transcript, if not audio and video, I would argue all three, of the deposition. And of course, on Capitol Hill ongoing today as well is former special counsel, if you call him that, depending on whether or not you think his appointment was constitutional or not, Jack Smith. This is what Speaker Mike Johnson said right before the hearing got underway earlier today of what they were expecting to hear from Jack Smith, cut 25. We've got a lot of answer for. You know, these are answers that have been, I think, long overdue. I think he weaponized the system. I think he did what could be permanent damage to the perception of justice in America. So I expect he's going to have some tough questions.

Well, let's get some tough answers with our buddy, Andrew McCarthy. Fox News contributor, former assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, author of Ball of Collusion, The Plots of Rig and Election and Destroy a Presidency. And of course, you can follow him at Andrew C. McCarthy. Andy, great to have you back on the show, my friend. It's been too long. How are you? Rich, I'm doing great. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm going to spring training in a couple weeks, so I'm really excited to see in the Phillies. I don't know how you're feeling about your Mets, but I'm at least just happy to escape the cold. I'm with you on that. I feel better about the Mets the last week or so, but it was a pretty dim winter up until then. Good, good. Where do you want to start? A dealer's choice. You want to start on the Clintons or you want to start on Jack Smith? Well, you know, I think there's kind of an overarching theme that ties them together, right? So it's almost like we're watching that 90s show if you think about it. But the remarkable thing, I think, with the Clintons is that for those of us who lived through the Clinton administration and were aware of the... the influence and power that he wielded over the Democratic Party at that time, it really is remarkable to see them basically abandon him. As the clip you played from Chairman Comer noted, this was a bipartisan vote to hold him and former secretary. very Clinton in contempt. That would have been inconceivable 20 years ago when they were running the Republican Party. He complained about the lawyers. The lawyers, the Clintons, aren't any different today. They're not doing anything different today than they did, you know, 20 years ago or in the various times that they've been investigated over the years. It's just they don't have the same suasion over their political support. And I think. That's an interesting development, but if I were the Trump people, I'd be a little bit concerned about it because I think the Democrats don't want to create any precedent that can be thrown back at them if they retake the House in the midterms and go scorched earth after the Trump people, which I think, you know, is there. So they didn't want to do anything with respect to Clinton that would make it more difficult for them to do that down the road. Yeah, there's no doubt that if the Democrats get control, it's going to be hearing after hearing and impeachment vote after impeachment vote. This is Representative Ianna Presley, Democrat of Massachusetts. She voted to hold former President Bill Clinton in contempt. The audio is not super great, but let's take a listen. Cut 26. You know, I just focused on the survivors as a survivor of sexual violence myself, and that's what informs my work. We want to hear from anyone that has information. That should not be limited to party lines.

All right. So the first thing comes to my mind is that they are setting a trap for the president, for President Donald Trump, which is that when they get control, they're going to say, hey, look, we cross party lines to bring in Bill Clinton over the Epstein stuff. So where are all you Republicans? Why are you not crossing party lines? And we've seen Republicans cross party lines on the issue in terms of voting to release the files. So is this all kind of a little trap they're setting? Well, it's not only a trap that's setting, I think, for the future, Rich, I think it's a, in a sense, it's a trap in the here and now, right? Because they like the Epstein stuff. And. You know, President Trump has complained a lot about why are they so focused on my relationship with Epstein when all these prominent Democrats, Clinton, chief among them, had a relationship with him. That kind of carping he's doing is like Plan B after Plan A didn't work, which is that he wanted everybody to stop talking about Epstein. The Democrats want to keep talking about Epstein because they think it helps them, even if they have to throw. of Clinton under the bus, so to speak, and they'd like to keep perpetuating the story. I think they realize that if you're going to give Clinton a pass, then it makes it much harder to make a big deal out of Epstein. So, you know, as between their political needs of the moment and whatever sentimental attachment they had to the Clintons, they went with the political needs of the moment. But they're doing it because they think Epstein is... terrible for Trump, which makes it good for them. All right, switching gears over to Jack Smith and his testimony today. I was watching, and I'm sure you're watching it as well. It's kind of what you'd expect, right? Democrats are essentially praising the guy as a hero who's a defender of the law, and Republicans are saying that the guy was the chief architect of the weaponization of government. It's kind of hard to think it would play out any differently when you have a public hearing here. with a lot of people who want to get their points made so that they can go viral and get some social media clips. Is there anything so far that came out of this today? It surprised you. No. I think it was a mistake for, you know, I think all the law fair stuff is a mistake. I thought it was a mistake when Smith was doing it. I really think it would have been much better for Trump to be the president who, you know, having. come out victorious over the lawfare and being elected, put all that in the rearview mirror instead. Obviously, he hasn't done that. And one of the things that results from that is that you get Jack Smith. And Republicans really didn't want to give him a public airing. I mean, they want to obviously make all the political arguments they've been making all along with him in the room about the politicized nature of the investigation. The problem I think you run into. Smith is really good at this. You know, I mean, there's a lot of things that lawyers and prosecutors aren't great at, but this is the kind of thing that you're trained for, you know, how to make arguments like this, how to parry questions, how to ask questions, and answer them effectively. And, you know, I think if they hadn't made such a big deal about the rush again,

the Clinton, I'm sorry, the Trump prosecutions, we'd be on to other things, but because they've wanted to perpetuate this because Trump's base wants accountability, even though I don't think they're going to get the kind of accountability they want, which is indictments of people like Jack Smith. It's kept the story alive, and I don't know that anything about it has changed in terms of either side, but I don't know that... I just don't think that keeping this alive and giving Smith a public forum to make a case against Trump that he never got to make while he was investigating him is probably not a great idea. Andy McCarthy's with us, Andrew C. McCarthy, of course, and it's great to have him on Guy Benson here with me, Rich Zioly filling in. Andy, of course, is the author of Ball of Collusion, the plots of rigging election and destroyer presidency. You can follow him on the platforms at Andrew C. McCarthy. I guess the flip-side argument to that would be, all right, look, this guy was weaponized to go after Trump, and there's a lot of unanswered questions in terms of... The money that was spent, the confidential witnesses, people that gave testimony and things that are not public, grand jury testimony and other things, isn't it better to get this all out there for the public view so that if the public's on the fence about this, they can make a judgment about whether or not the government really was weaponized against the former and now current president of the United States? Yeah, you know, I think that the problem is all that stuff is true. I think that the real weaponization with respect to is the timing of what he tried to do, which is basically keep Trump chained to criminal courtrooms for five or six months when he should have been out. If these trials had taken place, that's what would have happened. And that's when he should have been out campaigning. And then there's no legal reason to have pushed for a trial in the lead up to the election that was only to get like, you know, basically turn the evening news into political ads for... So all that stuff about abusing power and abusing the system is the lawfare stuff that we've been complaining about for years, and it's fair game and people want to hear it. The downside is, unlike the Alvin Bragg case, which was complete nonsense, and like the Letitia James case that was completely bogus in terms of the legal theory of it and all that stuff, there was actual misconduct that was involved in the two cases that... Smith was investigating, and I don't think it helps President Trump to have somebody who's very effective in articulating that come out and for the first time, because we didn't have trials in those cases, lay out in a very public forum what his case was. Because this is not the Alvin Bragg case. This is like there was like some... serious stuff that went on here. And I think he would have been better off. I think the administration would have been better off moving on from it rather than continuing to go there. Trump did win the election. You know, that was the most important thing. All this stuff doesn't really matter in the end because, you know, the public got asked what they thought about it and they returned Donald Trump to the White House. That should have been the end of this. And I don't think it helps anyone to perpetuate it.

Interesting. Very interesting analysis, my friend, nothing short of what we'd expect from you to think of it from outside the box like that. You have to wonder then, you know, if the Republicans made a mistake by bringing them in. Andy McCarthy, always a pleasure. Great catching up with you. It's been too long. So let's do it again soon, I hope. Okay. Thanks so much, Rich. Great to talk to you. Great to talk with you. And again, follow him at Andrew C. McCarthy. I have another theory, too, about what Jack Smith was really up to this entire time, what all of the Democrats were up to with this weaponization of government. I'll give you my theory on that. Straight ahead. filling in for Guy Benson, it's Rich Sealy. 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.

Now, I have another theory on Jack Smith, Eric Garland, the whole thing, and why they did what they did. My theory is that they wanted Donald Trump to get the nomination. And they thought that by going after him, it would actually help the Republican base rally around Trump and ensure he would become the nominee. Why? Because they thought he was the easiest one to be. I really believe that. I think it all really started, if you think about it, back in 2021, 2022. Trump was down in Florida. He's hanging out at Marlago. He's on true social. But the party had in many ways kind of moved on. It was a new star in town, and that was Governor Ron DeSantis, who crushed it in his reelection, flipped Miami-Dade County, won Florida by like 20 points. He had all these big money people coming out and saying that they were backing him. They were going to go with him. It was time to move on from Donald Trump. And then the lawfare starts. You know, the prosecution start. And all of a sudden, little by little, people who might have even turned away from Trump because of January 6th, for example, suddenly turned around and said, well, this isn't okay. They can't do this to him. Why are they doing this to him? They must be really terrified of him. And then when the raid at Mar-a-Lago happened, I think for many people, let's seal the deal. It was like, okay, well, now I've got to back this guy because clearly they're really worried about him getting back in power if they're doing all this to try to stop him. And I think it was a Democrats plan. I really do. At the time, remember, this was before inflation just destroyed the economy. This is before the disasters were withdrawal of Afghanistan. I think the Democrats thought if they spent like drunken sailors, if they did all this green energy nonsense and that the economy would be booming and everybody would be happy and Biden could beat Trump again and that would be the end of it. And boy, did they make a horrible, horrible calculation. They didn't calculate, although they were warned by people like Larry Summers and others. Look, this kind of spending is going to cause record inflation. You're going to get inflation that is going to destroy this economy. But they told us it was transitory. They lied. They said it was no big thing. They told you not to believe your grocery bill. Don't believe your gas bill. No big whoop. But Americans were very angry, very angry over the economy. And losing hope. And then all of a sudden, Trump becomes the nominee because the base did rally around him because of the lawfare and the weaponization. And then it becomes it's the economy stupid. And the economy matters way more to people than what happened on January 6th. It happens. It is the single most important issue. I mean, to quote James Carville, it's the economy stupid. So at that point, it was irrelevant how people felt about January 6th. They might have thought it was the worst day in American history, but they still think that when they go to the grocery store, that it's too expensive. And they can't stand it. And they want change. And Biden was the epitome of failure economically. And then they put in Kamala Harris, instead of getting an outsider, who's just the embodiment of the Biden policies. And then Trump wins in an absolute.

you know, domination. And I think the illegal immigration issue also played big because they were opening the borders and they were just letting in, you know, 5,000 people a day. Trump said this is crazy. I think the American people thought it was crazy. So all of the efforts by the Democrats to ensure he became the nominee was such a stupid gamble because whoever was the Republican nominee, I really believe this was going to win in 2024. Whoever won that nomination was going to wind up becoming president. I really truly believe that with all my heart. They thought, oh, if it's Trump, we'll beat him. Well, they made a really, really bad mistake. Coming up, Griff Jenkins is going to join us the latest with the craziness in Minnesota and accusations against ICE. It is Guy Benson. Don't go away. For Guy Benson, it's Rich Sealy. Oh, yeah, it is Guy Benson. It's a busy, busy day. Everything going on in Washington. We're all hunkering down for what could be Snowmageddon. Or maybe it's the French toast industrial complex doing their thing again. I don't know. We'll ask Griff Jenkins about it. Of course, co-hosts of Fox and Friends weekend. He's on social media at Griff Jenkins. And he's a great guy. Griff, is this surfing weather, my man? Oh, no, it is not. Let me tell you what, Rich. And, you know, uh, I did one time in my life, and I was a much younger man. I did surf. It snowed in the outer banks of North Carolina, and I was out with one buddy, and it started to snow, but the waves looked pretty good. We're like, we're going, and it was one of the coldest days ever. But no surfing for me. But, you know, it is going to be interesting because... I still, after 33 years, live in Washington, D.C., although I'm spending a lot of time in New York lately, but Washington, D.C. is notoriously, we get three flakes, and it will absolutely paralyze that city. It paralyzes the federal government. People can't drive their cars. So if we're literally going to get this sort of level of snow in Washington, I just feel for the poor nation's capital because they do not do well with an inch, and they are definitely not going to do well with. like three feet. You know, it's so funny you say. I went to school at the University of Maryland, and I remember we would have like a flake, and they would shut down campus, but the bars would open at 9 a.m. So we'd be over at the Voo at 9 a.m. and people would be dancing and drinking, and it was a terrible combination, and they'd just walk back to your dorm because it was absolutely fine. Yeah, but, you know, the thing is, like, I literally met my wife in a snowstorm because my roommates and I had wisely. pre-prepared lots of beer and bourbon and, you know, food. And so we had kind of like everybody our age hanging out there. But it is, it is, if we get literally feet of snow, it'll take a week or more to get that city back up. And, you know, by then two, three days, people are good with the snow party. But then they're hungover and they're in a bad mood and everything's difficult and the grocery stores are empty. I'll tell you, I don't mind snow. It's beautiful, but I don't like it, the levels of which we're about to get.

By the way, you know, it's funny, I'm hanging out here in New York, and of course I'm doing Fox and Friends weekend. But with the storm hitting, I've got all these shows going, hey, so are you floating around in case people get stuck? So it may be one of those days where people are throwing their shoes at the television because they're like, get this guy off the air. I'm the only guy in a hotel a few blocks from Fox. Well, they asked me if I could come up on Monday and do America's Newsroom, and I said, yeah, I guess I'll get like a sled dog that they're using Greenland and makes a trip. Yeah, get a snowmobile. That'd be fun. That'd be great. You were just in Maine, right? Yeah, so, you know, listen. ICE has now started an operation called Catch of the Day in Maine. They began 48 hours ago, and in the two days they've been doing it, today being a third day, I don't know what the total they got today, but so far they've arrested 126 illegal criminal aliens, and they include, I was there when we witnessed a man from Sudan that had more than a dozen criminal convictions in charges that ranged from aggravated assault to violation of protection order to false imprison. And, you know, it's as we see what's happening in Minneapolis and, of course, before that in Chicago and in Los Angeles, there is such a narrative being created by Democrats. It's, it's almost as if rich, the Democrats are approaching their narrative with, you know. Crossing the border illegally and then being deported because you can't be here legally is an optional thing. It's like, well, you know, we don't really like it. But when it comes to actually what ICE is doing, to be very clear, and it doesn't get said enough, every single individual on an ICE target list has been convicted of or is charged with committing crimes in the United States beyond. crossing the border illegally. And that is why they say in these sanctuary cities, and Maine is one, that if the local authorities will just cooperate and say, hey, We got Rich Zioly in your prison in Portland, Maine. He's committed 13 crimes to include aggravated assault. Can you please, we see that he's about to be released because of the proceedings of his court process. Could you just hand them to us in a garage or, you know, in a cell going from the local to the federal custody? That way nobody is endangered. It'll be so much smoother. But yet they don't. And they turn them loose at large. This guy was just roaming free on the street. to Portland, Maine, and that is why they have to go out. And when they have to go out and make at-large arrests and actually track these people down, it's more dangerous for the law enforcement, more dangerous for the migrants, and, of course, more dangerous for the public at large and the public safety when you see things like what's playing out in Minneapolis, where you have the mayor and the governor inciting people to go beyond getting their first amendment.

right on by just holding a sign if you don't agree with their immigration laws and you want to protest, you're happy to stand there, stand on the sidewalk, film them when you're on your phone, take pictures, do whatever we want. But once you begin to impede those and park your car in the way and assault law enforcement officers, they're going to arrest you. And sadly, tragically, in the case of Renee Good, you could be shot. Griff Jenkins, I also want to point out, that catch of the day, because Maine is a seafood state, you know, it's going to be so triggering to the left. And I just, I mean, I just don't want to let that point. I don't want to gloss that over. That's why I said, look, the current catch so far is 126. They got 56 caught on the first day, 70 the second. And of course, I'm sure the number is higher. And, you know, the deputy assistant director for ICE, Patricia Hyde, is who I was writing with. She's leading the operation. She said, look, We got like 1,400 targets, roughly. Everyone has committed a crime. They're criminal illegal aliens. And we're going to be here as long as it takes to get everyone. You're doing write-alongs with them on behalf of Fox News as the co-host of Fox and Friends Weekend. It's interesting, right? Because, I mean, when Obama was president, it was CNN doing ride-alongs with ICE and, you know, showing the great heroic works they were doing. And, of course, now CNN and the other networks are just pointing out, you know, that ICE is now terrorizing America and then running with all these false narratives and these false statements. The latest one is that ICE abducted a five-year-old child to use that child as bait. Yeah, just a preposterous lie. And that is because the child's father who chose to be to be illegal alien here and commit crimes was being arrested. And so when they arrested him in his car and he then fled on foot, he abandoned his five-year-old child to try and flee ICE. And so ICE. obviously took her into custody because you're not going to just leave a five-year-old child alone on the side of the road. And so that's a great case to point out. And, you know, by the way, this doesn't get pointed out enough either. This whole narrative that Trump's ICE operations are Nazis and Gestapo and all this other stuff because they're doing it entirely different. Well, guess who's running it? It's the borders are Tom Homan. Funny fact, though, under Obama, the deporter-in-chief, guess who ran ICE's ERO, enforcement and removal operations? The very guy... on the tip of the spear in charge of those Obama deportations was a guy named Tom Homan at that time. And you know what? President Obama put a presidential medal around his neck because of his ICE enforcement and deportation work. And so when I hear Democrats saying that, you know, it's different under Trump. It's mean and cruel. It's like, no, it's not. It's the same.

thing. What's different this time is back in those days, 2008, 2009, when Tom Homan was running things and getting presidential medals for his excellent work, now you have all of the Democrats who wanted to support border enforcement now, for whatever reason, the left, the shift of the left, just going 180 on whether or not we should allow illegal immigrants to cross the border and then be released in the country and then create sanctuary cities to protect. criminal illegal aliens. That all began to change. fundamentally under the Biden administration. That's why we have so many clips that are just so, you know, 180 hypocritical sort of positions of not only just, you know, what happened under Obama when he talks about border enforcement. And by the way, he's saying, look, we go after the criminals, but we're also going to go after families. If you're here illegally, you can't stay. But the Chuck Schumer, the actual same leaders of the Democrat Party like Chuck Schumer that's still here, he's now the one. helping lead the charge against the enforcement. And at the end of the day, look, President Trump got elected for getting the border situation, the border crisis under control. And he secured the border in an unprecedented way, eight months of zero releases. And Border Patrol deals with the southern border and northern border. But in the interior, it is ice that now has to go out. And President Trump is cleaning up the mess of the millions of the legal aliens that were released and are now being convicted or charged with crimes that have to be. removed from the country to make communities safer. Now, I don't have the full data that Axios just broke this story this afternoon, but Axios just put out a headline that the murder rate is the lowest it's been since 1900. And I would love to see all of that data and what they were analyzing, but I would... argue with you i would bet uh that that has got a lot to do with the fact that we have cracked out on the border yeah u.s murder rate hits lowest level since 1900 according to a report griff jenkins uh you know it's A point you just made, which I really want to emphasize here, which is that President Trump ran on this. It was his number one issue, that and, of course, rescuing the economy from Biden's inflation and the just reckless spending. He won every single swing state. He won the electoral college. He won the popular vote. He didn't campaign on amnesty. He didn't campaign on open borders. He didn't pull a switcheroo on inauguration day and they'll give a speech and say, ah.

I've fooled you. I'm now going after people who are here illegally. It was the signature issue of his campaign besides the fact that we are going to, you know, get this economy back again. And so nobody should be surprised about what he's doing. But you bring up Tom Homan and you bring up Obama pinning a medal around him. And I keep thinking about how they just demonize Tom Homan, who you've met, I've met, I've interviewed, you've interviewed. He's the nicest guy. He believes in what he's doing. And he's had so many horrible accusations that have been leveled against him. that were never leveled against him before. Nobody back then was suggesting that Tom Homan was just going around and randomly picking up people because they're brown. Nobody was suggesting back then that Tom Homan was denying people their due process rights. Yet you have this now going on time and time again. And I think about all these ICE agents and how they must feel. You know, I'm the son of a cop. And morale for law enforcement is tricky at best, you know, in certain places around this country. When you've got people spitting at them, calling them Nazis, accusing them being part of the Gestapo and everything. And they're just doing a job. They're fulfilling a duty that was passed by bipartisan congresses, multiple congresses over the years, who strengthened customs and border protection, created ICE in the first place. And of course, you know, there was a time when Democrats were also in on going after people. There's a clip of Diane Feinstein talking about two million illegal immigrants in California. It's unsustainable. And so now for these guys to be called all these horrific names now, because Democrats think, in my opinion, Griff, what they're doing is they're trying to recreate the summer of love, thinking that that politically and this now winter of discontent will somehow help them in midterms. Yeah, and it's preposterous. And, you know, it's funny, you talk about Tom Homan. Not only does Tom Homan believe in what he's doing and committed to the mandate that President Trump had after the election, but, you know, Tom Homan is a guy. that I talk to a lot. I'm very close to Tom Homan. And let me tell you, this has been very difficult for him because of the death threats that are constantly coming in. You know, he can't be sometimes at his home. He doesn't see his wife for days, sometimes weeks on end, depending on the situation. But it's not just Tom Homan. The left that has created, this environment of violence that we're seeing playing out in Minneapolis, it is also... creating an environment that has never been more dangerous for these ICE officers. And when I was riding around just a day ago in Maine with ICE officers, I was talking about their morale. I was like, how are you guys doing, man? This has got to be tough. Assaults up 1,300 percent, you know, death threats up 8,000 percent on them. It's just crazy. He said, listen, we understand the job we signed up for and we hate it. And we wish that all these people that have a problem with enforcing the law. and removing criminal illegal aliens. If they have a problem, why don't they go to Washington and get the laws changed? But on a personal level, he said, you know, Griff, just a couple of days ago, I was doxed. One of these Ice Watch groups put my picture of me with my family and my dog up on Facebook on one of these Ice Watch things because they had found me. I'd been doxed and they found my personal social media. Pulled the picture from that. And in the comments underneath that, where they were out.

outing this agent of whose I will not identify. One person wrote, quote, nothing a few snipers won't fix. I say aim for their families. They will bend if you push the right spot. That is flat out sickening and ought to be a crime. They should go out and arrest whoever posted that post because this is going to ultimately, if they continue to, if the Democrat politicians, like Mayor Frye, like Governor Walls, continue to vilify ICE in this way, it's going to lead to getting people killed, agents getting killed who are carrying out laws. They're real humans. They have families like your father. He was in law enforcement. Now it is putting a target on your back to be the good guy. that go out and do the law enforcement. And I see that sort of stuff and it just infuriates me and breaks my heart at the same time. Griff Jenkins, always a pleasure, my man. Great stuff. Really appreciate it. We'll look forward just watching you 24-7 on Fox News this weekend. She'll be the only guy. We'll see. Here comes us now. Rich Zoli. Great to be with you and tune into Fox & Friends Weekend this weekend. You got it. Thanks, Griff. It's Guy Benson. We're coming right back. Filling in for Guy Benson. It's Rich Zioli. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills. But it turns out... That's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upround payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for $12-1 plan required, $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes, me slow when network is busy. See terms. I'll tell you what, the amazing things about. politicians when they're leaving office is that they give pardons and clemency on their way out the door um this one is going to make you just it's disgusting but it needs to be brought up i it needs to be said it really does in new jersey Phil Murphy just left office one of the worst governors in the state's history but he has presidential ambitions So I want you to know about this so that we can remind America what this scumbag did on his last day in office. He granted clemency to a woman who killed her two children. The way she killed her children, a Union Beach woman, she was serving a 100-year prison sentence for killing her baby daughter and toddler son in 1994.

She poured gasoline on them and burned them to death while they were strapped to their car seats. The prosecutor in Monmouth County, New Jersey, named Raymond Santiago, said he was in revulsion and disbelief at former Governor Murphy's decision, saying, I cannot express strongly enough our office's collective revulsion and disbelief upon hearing this news. Providing this defendant the opportunity to apply for an early parole with a full half of her 100-year sentence still to be served is the polar opposite of justice. The only reason why she's serving a 100-year sentence is because they were going to use lethal injection, but then they decided against the death penalty. And this is a woman who should have been just executed for what she did here. I mean, these poor kids, helpless, defenseless, and what a gruesome, painful, horrible way to go. And I'm sorry to bring up such a sad story with you, such an awful story, but you need to know what people like Phil Murphy do. He also essentially got a kid off the hook, son of a wealthy donor who killed somebody with his car. That's right. Did that too. So that's the kind of person we're talking about here in Phil Murphy, the former governor of New Jersey. It will be back. It's Guy Benson's show. It's the only big hour straight ahead. Don't go away.

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 busy day here on the guy venson show and thank you so much for being part of the show we appreciate it today and i'm very very happy on this busy day in washington to welcome an expert in all things washington a man who knows the city who knows the politics and that of course is ari flesher former white house press secretary fox news contributor and presidents of r e flesher communications he's online at r e flesher on all things social And make sure you check out his latest books, suppression, deception, snobbery, and bias by the press gets so much wrong and just doesn't care. Ari Fleischer, great to have you here on Guy Benson. How are you? I'm good. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. There's a bunch of things to ask about, but obviously the big story right now is Greenland, and it is all the rage, the president being on the world stage at Davos. And look, you know, we're going to do this easy way or the hard way. I'm not going to do this militarily, but basically you're going to give me Greenland. You likened it to King Henry the Eighth's ambition for Scotland, which I thought it's a great analogy. I don't know how William Wallace would feel about that. I'm a brave heart aficionado, so, you know. Well, William Wallace was a couple hundred years earlier. But, you know, the amazing thing about what King Henry the 8th did with Scotland was it was called the Russell.

It's paradoxical, right? And that's what Donald Trump did here. I mean, there was the roughness to what he was doing. I was arguing that a little less rough, a little more wood will get it done. And ultimately, if he is able to bring around all these European leaders along the Arctic Circle to do this, isn't a tremendous accomplishment? A tremendous accomplishment indeed. Hello, are you there? filling in for Guy Benson it's rich zioli Sorry about that technical difficulty. It is Guy Benson with me, Rich Zioli. And Ari Fleischer was kind enough to hang on through the break. And Ari, former White House presbytery, of course, and Fox News contributor. We're talking about Scotland. We're talking about Henry VIII and the ambition here with President Trump and Greenland. Let me just kind of reset the question, the conversation. I'll just ask you this, Ari, to begin. Do you think the acquisition of Greenland is in America's best interest? Oh, there's no question about it. It's in our America's best interest, I think. And, you know, America is a changing country. Who says for 250 years our borders, our territories, our possessions are only one thing that were locked on a map and once done, always done? No, the country changes. American Samoa, Puerto Rico. There have been different parts of Alaska, Hawaii, of course. So it's new relatively for most of our lifetimes for something to come along that becomes a part of America. But that looks like what we're going to do for pockets, pieces of Greenland that really are going to be just military bases. I don't think it's going to change the life to people on Greenland. So a lot of this got exaggerated. A lot of it was overhyped. President Trump, as typical, goes in for a negotiation with a very over-the-top first offer, gets everybody all off balance, and then ends up with what he wants. And in this case... It's good for America. It's good for our national defense. It's good for NATO. Did you ever think he was going to go and invade Greenland to bring a bunch of dog sleds and guys in furry coats? No. I never thought he was going to go use military force to do so. If he had, it would have been horrible, absolutely horrible. But, you know, you need to do these things with the agreement of the people you're doing it with or two. You know, you don't want to put an American military base in a hostile environment. You want to have it somewhere where the people support it. And that's ultimately, I think, what's going to happen here. The Golden Dome concept of being able to use Greenland strategically to shoot down ICBMs, if they're coming from Russia or China. I mean, that's certainly in Europe's best interest, too. And you could see why NATO is on board with this now, finally. The resistance early on by NATO was surprising to me. It really was. And I don't know how much of that was them just trying to be tough. But I'll tell you what I think was one of the biggest political mistakes was California Governor Gavin Newsom coming out and essentially telling Europe to bring the knee pads and stand up to Donald Trump. It's like, dude, you know, politics may end at the water's edge. You've not only crossed the water's edge, you've gone and sided with the people who are against what's in the United States best interest and what's in Europe's best interest.

And what's so amazing having seen so many different United States presidents try to get NATO to increase spending, it took the bull in the China shot Donald Trump to actually get them to do it. Even after Russia invaded Ukraine, I mean, Europe will not stand up for itself. They need to be pushed and prodded to do so. And Donald Trump has broken the pattern. The normal diplomatic, nice, kind, say with a good heart to Europe, we really would like you to do this. They ignore us. They ignore the United States because they know the United States will always come to their bat with our national defense. And we pay the price as Americans. Donald Trump said we're not doing that anymore. And that's why he got results. Look, it's such a big pattern of Trumpism. Be the bull in the China shop. Be the one that everybody yells. How can you do that? You're breaking with the way things have always been done before, even though what was done before did not work. Trump just focuses on getting the bottom line done at his own political peril because he can be a little tough on people. Yes, he can be a little tough on people. And that's his style and that's his strategy, obviously. And yet he also is very good, I think, about bringing out the worst in his enemies. It's one of the things that I mean, our mutual friend Dana Prino has said before, Trump is blessed with the worst opposition. And in this case now, some of the worst opposition are some of these world leaders who have been condemning this. And they just, they just sound like. They're completely foolish. And now with NATO coming out and supporting this, they look really, really bad. I want to play a clip for you, Ari Fleischer, if I could. This is NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte Sr. saying that the president is doing exactly what he hoped he would do when he was reelected. This is cut number seven. If President Trump would not have been re-elected, no. And then in June in DeHague, we agreed on this 5% defense spending, including the 3.5% on core defense, equalizing with the U.S. Would that ever have happened? If President Trump would not have been re-elected as President 47 of the United States, absolutely not. And now today, this agreement on working collectively on this deal getting done on the Arctic region, I think where he can really commend him for taking. that leadership. He is the leader of the free world. He is the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, the biggest ally in NATO. He is doing exactly what I hope he would do when he was reelected, knowing him from his first term in office. I mean, for the guy in charge of NATO to say he's doing exactly what I hoped he would do, that's probably the best endorsement you could possibly get, considering that the left said he was going to destroy NATO. Yeah, he's going to get his EU passport revoked if he keeps talking like that. Yeah, I mean, it takes a military man. And Mark Bruté is a strong leader who wants NATO to be strong. And his problem is NATO consists of European nations, with the exceptions of pretty much Poland, Lithuania, Lafay, Estonia, and the United Kingdom.

Those are the only nations that have been spending money on national defense. Those are the only nations that have strong militaries. You know, when they sent a couple dozen troops to Greenland to reinforce it the other day, I was amazed they were even able to get transportation to Greenland. Europe can't fly. NATO in Europe cannot fly its own military into hotspots. The Europeans have decided to spend their money on social welfare, not on national defense. And they always, as I said, counted on the United States to bail them out. Now they need to spend their own money. And that finally is happening. That's why a guy like Herta is such a strong leader and a welcome voice, but he still has to work through the laggards. And Canada is the biggest and worst laggards. Spain is another laggard. Italy is a laggard. France is a laggard. Germany is a laggard. Much of Western Europe, you'll notice. The Eastern European nations... NATO nations, they understand the threat from Russia. They're spending on national defense. United Kingdom, they've always been different from the rest of Europe. But Canada and most of Europe, they still have a long way to go. It's almost like Ari Fleischer knew I was going to play a montage for him. Of some of the world leaders he just named. So without further ado, you are psychic, my friend. Here's cut number eight. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. But it's clear that we are reaching a time of instability of unbalances. You have the choice between your self-respect. Being a happy vessel is wanting. Being a miserable slave is something else. It is time to seize this opportunity and build a new independent Europe. I'd say it's, it's, it's, that was a murderer's row there. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, French President Emmanuel Macron, Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Weaver and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. I mean, it's exactly the point you just made and probably why the NATO Secretary General is going to have his EU passport revoked. And when I hear the EU Secretary General say build a new independent Europe, my reaction is, do it. If you can do. can build anything in Europe anymore, go ahead and do it. You won't be able to build it because your workers will all go on strike or they're on vacation. So Europe has so much fundamental to address. Now, the German chancellor today, he gave remarks where he said that Europe has bogged itself down and over-regulation, and we are making it so we cannot compete. And it was refreshing to hear that from a German leader. The German industry is still strong. Their military is not. But at least they still have an industrial base, unlike France, unlike several of these other nations. The morass of Europe, the weakness of Europe is deeply troubling. And Russia knows it. And that's why Russia is trying to take advantage. China knows that. That's why they're trying to take advantage. This is entirely brought on by Europeans themselves. And it's in pursuit of social welfare states. That's Europe's greatest problem. And thank goodness we Americans for 250 years have been different from the stock we came from. It's what's made America great. It's what's made America free. It's made us strong. And the biggest difference is we focus on the individual and on merit. They focus on the collective and all still have a tendency toward socialism.

And Ari Fleischer, when you think about guys like Gavin Newsom going over to Davos and just being so critical to Donald Trump, and obviously he's running for president. I mean, this is his big audition on the world stage here. And he's probably the frontrunner on the Democrat Party because I just, I do not believe that there's anyone coalescing around Kamala Harris. How does this make Gavin Newsom look in the eyes of other Democrats? Does this make him look like the strong guy who's going up against Donald Trump? Or does this make him look like he is? somebody who's going to hurt himself in the general election because he's being, I don't know, antithetical to what's in America's best interest. Well, I'm afraid that that beautiful phrase, politics ends at the water's edge stopped a couple decades ago. When the vitriol, that was said about George W. Bush, when Bush was abroad and then when other leaders went abroad and talked about Bush. That broke the seal, really. And it's gotten worse since then. Look, as far as the Democrats go, I think anybody who stands up to Donald Trump has seen well in democratic eyes. Their whole party is not defined by any ideas or ideology or ways to think things better in the United States. It's to stand up to Trump. It's to fight Trump all the time. So in that sense, it may have helped them moderately. I think, Rich, we're going to have some 10 to 15, maybe even 20 Democrats running. It's an open cycle for both sides, but on the Democrat side, wide open cycle, no frontrunner, and everybody is going to jockey and vie for position. I don't blame a publicity hunting presidential candidate from going to Switzerland to try to score points for his side. That's the way politics works. Gavin Newsom's got bigger problems, and that's his record in the state of California. That'll be a killer for him and a general. What do you think about John Fetterman? Senator John Fetterman coming out again today or yesterday coming out and saying, look, ICE is doing their job. And it's ridiculous the way that my party is going after them and attacking them. He's probably going to face the primary in Pennsylvania, no doubt about that. Oh, yeah. I mean, it would be crazy to think that he's going to avoid one. I guess the question is, how does he do it? And then contrast that Ari Fleischer, if you could, with... with Josh Shapiro, who, of course, is also running for president in 2028 and is taking a different tack. You know, he's taking the tack that Donald Trump is basically in using ICE, like they're thugs. You know, John Fetterman is a throwback to the way many Democrat senators wore 20 years ago. There used to be conservative, thoughtful Democrats. They were principal Democrats, but especially on foreign policy and law enforcement. They were conservative. John Fetterman was common some 20, 25 years ago. Now he's the last one standing, the only one left.

Josh, and I think he, I don't even know what his future is. I don't know that he can survive a primary in Pennsylvania. Josh Shapiro, he'll be one of those 10, 15, 20 candidates out there running. I think Josh Shapiro's biggest vulnerability, that Democrat Party is his face. Yeah. I just cannot see the Democrats supporting anybody who is Jewish. I mean, Joe Lieberman was the Jewish vice presidential nominee that I worked against. And when I worked for Bush Cheney against Gore. Lieberman. But it was not a question. It was not an issue to the man's faith. Now the Democrats won't support the nomination of anybody Jewish. I just can't imagine that happening because their basis shifted so much. So Josh Shapiro will be interesting. He is a record of accomplishment and bipartisanship in Pennsylvania. But as a first-time presidential candidate, I think he's a long shot. And have we gotten to the bottom of whether or not he was ever an Israeli double agent? Right? Yeah, that's a good question to ask, isn't it? I mean, unbelievable in that vetting that they asked him that. But yet, hey, look, he was still willing to go out there in campaign, right, and grandstand and use the opportunity to speak at the Democrat National Convention. So as offended as he claims to be in his new book, it's like, you know, Ophelia Doth protest too much. He had no problem going out there and backing Kamala Harris because it was good for Josh Shapiro at the time. Though I don't think he ever wanted to be on that ticket. I think he sabotaged his chances purposely. Because he knew that that train wreck, it was a train wreck dumpster fire of a political ticket. And Josh Shapiro's ambitious and nothing wrong with ambition. But I do not see him in any kind of mold as a moderate Democrat, a reasonable Democrat. He'll be just as liberal as he needs to be to win a nomination if that's what it takes. And when you think about the liberal positions that these Democrats have to take, the trans issue, I wrote the other day that I think it's the new third rail of Democrat politics, because obviously even he wouldn't answer the question of can a man become a woman and, you know, can a dude get pregnant? Rahm Emanuel being the only one who could, and he's not even a serious candidate for 2028. So they want this issue to go away, but it's not going to go away. It can't go away because the Democrat Party base. is still all in on this issue. And they're not willing to let it go. It's amazing to me, isn't it? I mean, just common sense, logic, I don't understand the thinking. I suppose it's just a pander to people who are trans, an important, small part of the Democratic base. And so they have to say it. I mean, they can't believe it in their hearts. So much for science. Right, right. So much for being the Party of Science. I guess it comes down to the fact that the Democrat Party let Crazy in, and now Crazy has become their base, and that's who you have to appeal to when you run in a primary, right? You got to appeal to your base. And I make the same case about the way they look at ice. You know, their goal here is to let people flood America coming over the borders illegally, which they wanted to have happened. And once they got here, did this declare them safe? Like it's a game of tag. Once you made it, you're on base and you can't leave. You can't be thrown out.

Their bigger goal is, of course, to have congressional representation that's based on the number of people in the United States. So illegals get Democrats, more members of Congress and cities. And then federal spending is based on the apportionment of the population. Ari Fleischer, check out his latest book, suppression, deception, snobbery, and bias why the press gets so much wrong and just doesn't care. Thanks, my man. This was great. Great to be with you. Thank you. Guy Benson coming right back. And for Guy Benson, it's Rich Zioli. We are in the epicenter of what could be Snowmageddon. It could be the storm of the century, but could it just be a bust? I don't know. We'll find out. Welcome back. So great to have you here in Guy Benson. Thank God, Keanu Lewis. Fox Weather meteorologist is here to talk about it with us today as 200 million people are in the path of a dangerous snow ice and, I don't know. End of time. Storm. Kiana, thanks so much for joining us. Hey, Rich. So great to be here with you. I know this is a huge storm, right? We have a lot of folks that are right in the line of seeing so many different layers of this. And I think that's what has everyone's head spinning. What's to come for this weekend? All right. Now, but is this just the French toast industrial complex doing what it does, Kiana, to get us all the rush out and buy bread and milk and eggs? I don't think. So not this time. I think for a lot of folks, this is a massive big storm. I think it definitely depends on where you are. I know that I've been seeing images coming in out of the Southern Plains already, where some of the Walmarts and the grocery stores are completely empty, same across the southeast. So I think it is safe to say that if you're in those areas, tonight is the night to go out, grab your groceries, get prepared for this storm. If you're in the Northeast, you do have maybe another 24 hours before that's your turn to. Okay. Let's talk about how a storm like this happens, that it's, we're affecting now 200 million people. So this is, this is not just one region of the country. This is multiple regions of the country. So what happens? Is this like the perfect storm where the storms are colliding? Is it just the storm moving across the country? How does this, how does this happen? I think this is the perfect setup. to the perfect storm, right? We have this Arctic air that's pushing in first. We've been seeing cold spells spill over the northern plains. And I think a lot of people across parts of Chicago and, you know, Minneapolis can attest to that. But now this cold air, this Arctic air, it's locked into place. It's moving as far south as Texas. And at the very same time, we have the moisture to work with that. So the two working in tandem do make the perfect setup for the storm, or at least the cold air, makes the setup for that storm. Why this is such a dangerous storm is both in size and impact. There's so many different layers. I mean, the South has a chance of seeing both freezing rain that could lead to some very dangerous ice, but then also some opportunities for snow. The Southeast is a place that we notoriously know does not do well with accumulating ice. And we could see about a quarter of an inch, maybe a half an inch of ice in areas like Georgia and the Carolina. So. Not so much the perfect storm and the impacts that we can get, but the setup certainly is perfect for the storm itself. When you say there's a low pressure system, I mean, low pressure to me sounds like, okay, it's low, but that's not a good thing, is it?

No, it's actually not a good thing at all. And high pressure could actually be seen as something that's not so good, especially with this particular storm as well. Low pressure system is the system and the driver in itself. So if we get a low rolling out of the Rockies like we do with this storm here and it's pushing into the environment of really cold air, well, we know with the low pressure system comes the opportunity for rain or some type of precept. And when we have cold air in place, it can come in different. types of rain or precip. So that could be rain across the deep south, where it's a little too warm. It could be freezing rain in an area like Dallas, where it's going to freeze on contact and lead to some really nasty ice, or it could be snow in an area like... Tennessee, where we're looking at several inches of snow initially pushing into some of those places. And then one thing I've always wondered, because when I was a kid, I'm a Gen Xer. I feel like I grew up with a lot of snow. And then there was this period of time where there just wasn't a lot of snow. Like we had winters where it didn't snow at all, at least where I live in New Jersey, you know, so I'm in the Northeast. And then this winter has been a lot more snow already for us. And they said it that was going to be. That was kind of the prediction. So. What changes that make it that certain winters have more snow than others? I think that's a very loaded question. One of the things that... Absolutely. No doubt. Because I don't know anything about this, so my questions are going to be loaded with ignorance. No, you're all good. Listen, that's what we're here for. Fox Weather got you through this. But when we think about, you know, to answer your question long and short, we have these periods where we are looking at different phases and what's playing out in the atmosphere. Right now, we are in this La Nina that's transitioning back to a neutral phase. And that does promote big opportunities not only... only for storms to get developed at this point in the season, but also cold air spells like we have now. Like I kind of said, you need the two of them to work together to get these big, you know, historic storms that we have playing out right now. So a lot of the times maybe there's a season where we're actually in El Nino. And again, these are phases that... are bigger than us, right? These are phases for the atmosphere. If we're in El Nino, that may promote an opportunity for a low to move through, but we don't really have the cold air. So we have these big opportunities for rain where we typically would be in December or January and we want snow. And we were talking about the La Nina being the cool phase of the El Nino Southern Oscillation climate pattern. I just, I Google that. That's okay. I hope you're impressed by my Googling. But no, but I mean, so when you when you say that this is, this affects the, you know, the atmosphere and it affects everything.

Does that mean then that if I were to travel to South America to get away from all this, if I were to go south of the equator and I wanted to get just away from all of this, is it really going to be hot down there? Like, is it the polar opposite of what we're dealing with here? In some cases, it could be, yeah. In some cases, depending on what season they are in. So right now, if we're in the winter, they're in the spring, it may not be necessarily hot, but it could be warmer than what we're expecting here or seeing here with our temperatures. It's so fascinating. And is there any chance that this? It turns out to be a bust. And always with weather, there's always the possibility, right? And I think meteorologists like yourself, Keanu Lewis, Fox Weather Meteorologists, I think you guys get a bad rap because you're doing your best. You're using models. You're using metrics. You're trying to get people the best information. If it doesn't pan out, people get mad. And they're like, oh, my God, you guys get this wrong. But you're right a lot. So there's always the caveat of, okay, it may not happen. This time around it seems like there's a very high degree of confidence that it's going to. But is there anything that you're looking at that could change the trajectory where it doesn't turn out to be a big deal? I think this, at this point in the forecast, especially depending on where you are, we're pretty much locked in. We're locked in. Yeah, we're locked in. We're about 90% sure that, you know, for one, we're locked in in the fact that this is going to be a big winter storm. And it does have that potential to be historic and numerics. But if you're in an area like the Northeast, I know you mentioned you're from the Northeast. So am I. I'm from Philadelphia. Well, that's where I broadcast out of is Philadelphia. Oh, wow. Where in Philly are you from? I'm from the north area, so northeast Philadelphia. Northeast Philly. I love Northeast Philly. Great food, great cheese steaks. Oh, yeah. We can do a whole show about that, no doubt. I know, right? You and I can definitely get down with that. But like you said, if you're from the Northeast and you're looking at maybe totals, I would say there's about a 90% chance that we're looking at at the minimum eight inches of snow, at the maximum of foot of snow. The reason why there's still a range in there is because depending on how south you get, I spend some time in the DMV, Washington, D.C., Virginia, we know that that's a very complex area. So there could be a moment where you don't get all snow in those areas. You see more of some freezing rain or some sleep that may shave down your totals. And I think that's where that 10% comes into play of still that uncertainty and locking in the numbers. Is your, my favorite storm, and I don't mean favorite in terms of like I'm so happy with the damage you did, but just in terms of just the awe of it, which still to this day astounds me, is probably Super Storm Sandy. And I remember that because I was broadcasting when.

Governor Chris Christie came out and warned everybody and said, you know, get the hell off the beach. This is going to be a bad one. And people didn't really take it seriously at first. And then, of course, the massive destruction that it caused. So for me, as I look at storms, I kind of think of that one as kind of being the gold standard of storms. Is there one in your world as a meteorologist that you really look to and you're like, well, that's the one that really impresses me? have so many that come across my mind. Ironically, Super Surim Standing is one of them. I remember studying in college at the time. And The whole college shut down for that. I went to school in Maryland. So, you know, all up and down the eastern seaboard, everyone was, this was at top of mind, Superstorm Standing. I think another one kind of more reminiscent to this one is back in 2016, almost year to date, year and one day to date. We had this big blockbuster storm that pushed through. And I was in D.C. at the time. And they got about a foot of snow. So here we go again, 10 years later. And it feels very similar in some ways. of seeing, you know, this big storm play out late January, looking at a foot of snow all up and down the I-95 quarter. Sandy was not a hurricane, though, right? It was a super storm and there's a difference. Well, Sandy derived, it came, it at one point was a hurricane. By the time it made its way to the northeast and, you know, New York, New York City, New Jersey. It at that point was at tropical storm status, I believe. Gotcha. All right. Well, it's fascinating stuff. Do they have a name for what this storm is going to be yet? No. You know, there might be a name that's thrown out there around in social media and things of that nature. We at Fox Weather do not name winter storms. We actually don't name hurricanes either. That comes from the National Hurricane Center. Gotcha. All right. And what's a Bobby Bobogenesis? What's that? Oh, bombogenesis. That's right. That's where the storm gets to a certain point, and it's very strong at that point. It almost bombs out. That's that low pressure system that we talked about, getting to its strongest point. Could we see that? I don't think with this particular storm. At this point in time, I don't see that playing out. How about thunder snow? No, I don't think we'll see thunderstorm either. There's no severity complex to this storm. This is a pure winter storm. Temperatures, you know, aren't going to be warm at any point at the surface that would support a thunderstorm. There will be opportunities in the atmosphere where temperatures are going to be a bit warmer, but that's where that wintry mix comes into play, not so much a severe weather threat. Before I let you go, my fifth grade son came home from school the other day. He said, Dad, did you know that we were able to see the northern lights, like as far down as Alabama or something like that, but they were red? Did that really happen or is he making this up? That did happen, actually. Yeah, he's on to something. Parts of the northern tier saw it the most brightest, I would say.

But yeah, we did have an opportunity. If you had clear skies as far south as, say, Alabama, down towards, I believe, Colorado, you had a good chance of seeing the Northern Lights play out. That's amazing. That's amazing. All right. Well, we're going to tune into Fox Weather for all the updates. And the bottom line is Keanu Lewis. Take this seriously. Get your preparations done and do it now and don't wait. And this is not going to be a Fugazi as my jersey Italian comes out. It's not going to be a Fugasian. It's not going to be the real thing. So, you know, be prepared. Absolutely. And Rich, one more thing I want to mention, you know, Fox Weather is going all out on this. We have crews that are going down through the Southern Plains. We have crews that are out in, you know, the southeast, up into the northeast. So we have 24-7 coverage playing out for this. Stay with us. If you can, you know, definitely get the latest details. every step with the way with this storm. All right. I said last question, but one more question. Okay. When you have to report in the middle of a storm. Like when you're out there and it's pouring rain or it's snowing or something and you're outside and you've got the microphone, you got the headset, the whole thing. Is that real or is that a green screen? Oh, that's real. That's real. Yes. And that is my least favorite part. I would imagine so, yeah. Being out on those elements, it gets really tricky. You know, there are times where it's not too bad, but And a storm like this where temperatures are in single digits, I am blessed to be in the studio. I will say that. Is there one that was the worst you ever experienced? Like one that really stands out, a little PTSD from it, maybe? Yes. Unfortunately, I think about my folks in Asheville, North Carolina. I was at, in Asheville, I should say, two hurricane seasons ago for Hurricane Helene. From the very beginning through the end, I stayed there for a total of 11 days, I believe. So that is one of the storms that still sticks out to me. very near term but my gosh well listen i hope you stay safe and everybody else on the fox weather team as they do their great job reporting for us and keeping us safe so uh we we appreciate you keanu lewis and follow her on x and social media at kiana lewis w x um philadelphia baby i appreciate the eagles i mean that was a You talk about a flame out. I mean, am I right? I'm sorry. That was just, that was, I don't want to talk about that. It's still too, too real. Keanu, thank you. You're absolutely welcome. Stay safe, guys. All right. So take it seriously. It's Guy Benson. It's Rich, in for Guy. Coming right back. Filling in for Guy Benson, it's Rich Zioli.

You know, one of the great things about filling in on Guy Benson is that the team here is outstanding. And Cookie and Justin and the whole team, everybody's just been doing a great job. And Dylan and Joel. And we'll talk to Dylan and Cookie and course in the towards the end of the show when we do our little, you know. What do you call it again, Cookie, the home stretch, Rich? The home stretch, right, the home stretch. Well, you yelled at me yesterday. I want to make sure I'm getting it right. We had a tech glitch, my fault. So, you know, I'm on thin ice and... Yes, you are. You know, there's more ice coming. But tomorrow I'll be, I'll be, like, physically in studio with you guys. Great, so I could just be the ice queen. And that's what you are. And that's how I think of you. So as the ice queen. Now, I'm going to be in studio tomorrow. Do you know the last time that I was in studio I was filling in for Fox Across America with Jimmy Phila and I brought my five-year-old, I'm my nine-year-old daughter, Claire with me. Did Maria Donovan tell you what happened that day? I did not know. this do tell well so i brought claire and then we went to see the rock cats because it was the the christmas spectacular so i said well let's go to new york together you know and um i did america's newsroom that morning and then we went up and we hung out and jimmy studio and i and i did the show and claire was watching one of her movies like i don't know annie or something like that and we got her chick fillet for lunch And I'm on a break and Maria walks into Jimmy's studio and says, your daughter just threw up, but don't worry, we're taking care of it. And I'm in the middle of a break with like two minutes to go before I get back on the air. So I run out there and she's standing in the hallway just losing her cookies. Shucky. And, you know, and she was fine. I guess she must have had like a bad piece of chicken or maybe too much candy. It's like I gave her everything in the Fox Green Room. So all the candy, all whatever snacks she wanted and she probably overdid it. And she was fine. We went to the Rockettes. But Maria is a friggin saint. I mean, my God, she took Claire to the bathroom. She cleaned her up. She, like, you know, and then they had to bring in the hazmat team, the Fox Hasmat team to lock down the area and secure it. and clear it up. So if you guys go outside the studio and see any standing in the rug, um, then, you know, she's amazing. She is such a mama bear here. We, we all love her. And I'm sure my nine-year-old just is happy that I just embarrassed her on national radio. Yeah, I mean, my daughter would not be happy if that was me right now. Yeah. But Claire was a trooper. And then we went over to see the Rockettes. And then I felt like throwing up. But no, I'm kidding. It was great. It was a wonderful show. Do you know, I'm taking my 12-year-old to the city Saturday. It's going to be very, very cold here. But we're finally, this was her big Christmas present. We're going to take her to see Hamilton.

See, now, I just, it's so funny, because I just had on a Fox Weather meteorologist, Keanu Lewis, who just said it's going to be a really, really bad storm on Saturday. Maybe you missed that segment, cookie? No. Sometimes. Maybe that's not the day. Sometimes guys say, I just segment. I'm just, I just did a segment on the weather. Sometimes Guy does that too. He'd be like, you know, we have a radio show here, Christine. And we were just talking about that that you're bringing up now and you're not paying attention to. But no, I was listening. I think this storm. Were you? A little bit. I think this storm is going to be worse on Sunday here. So listen, these tickets are non-refundable. They're third row center. I'm going no matter what. We might be the only two people in Hamilton, but we're going to Hamilton. I already told her because she said, mom, it's going to be like 15 degrees. I said, bundle up, sister, we're going. I love how I ask Keanu, like, is there any hope? And she's like, there's no hope. If you're in the Northeast, you have maybe 24 hours to stock up and then don't leave your house. And you're like, yeah, maybe Sunday, maybe Monday. I'm not worried. You know, I'm not worried about it. I mean, so much so. I'm going to take Megan, drop her off at a friend's house on Sunday. I'm going to get a hotel here so I can go to work. Let's find out what Gordon Shane thinks about, Gordon Chang thinks about weather in China. He's up straight ahead. It's Guy Benson. Barrel down. Don't go away.

Raise your glass to Guy Benson Happy Hour. Brought to you by the Finnish Long Drink. Finland's most popular alcoholic beverage is taking America by storm. Visit thelongdrink.com. And now, here's Guy Benson. Joining us now on Guy Benson, it's great to have him. Gordon Chang, author of Plan Red, China's project to destroy America, as well as the coming collapse of China. You can follow him on X at Gordon G. Chang. Hey, Gordon, it's Rich Zioli. Thanks so much for joining us today. Read your piece at foxnews.com. Trump shakes Europe. Wow, appeasing China won't save Europe. Trump's hard power just might. Thanks so much for being here today. Oh, thank you, Rich. It's great to have you. Trump is making the world safe for America in Europe, you point out. Talk to us about why China would be interested in the Arctic and the North Pole. And I assume it's more than just he's, they're worried about competing with all the toys Santa's making because they want them to be made by slave labor in Chinese sweatshops. Well, China and Russia want to control the Arctic for basically two reasons. First of all, there's great commercial value. As the Arctic ice cap recedes, then it opens up the shipping routes between Asia and Europe. It cuts it down, makes shipping a lot cheaper. It's really very important for China to get its goods to Europe that way. But also, there are minerals there that are now becoming commercially exploitable because the ice is going away. And also, from a military point of view, the Chinese and Russians can threaten North America because they can put their subs there and they would be much closer to the American homeland. So there are a lot of reasons why the Chinese and Russians want to dominate the North Pole. In thinking in terms of intercontinental ballistic missiles, and I saw this chart about this where essentially if China or Russia or even North Korea fired him, they would go over Greenland. So the idea of having the Golden Dome would shoot him down and Greenland becomes the strategic point for that as well. China, I know that they're looking to radically expand their fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, which I assume can also shoot nuclear missiles as well. So now, in thinking about the expansion of the Chinese Navy, Gordon Chang, how much of that plays a role into this in terms of them being able to occupy that part of the continent? Well, the Arctic is really important because a Chinese research submarine went under the Arctic ice cap for the first time in 2024. It was supposedly just sort of a civilian vessel, but really what they were doing is studying the feasibility of putting their ballistic missile submarines up there. They're studying the topography. They're studying the oceans, the currents, the salinity. All of that is important for hiding their subs from us.

plus also being able to move it themselves into position. So there's a really important military aspect to this. And we've been asleep. You know, we complain about the Denmark being asleep. Well, and we should complain about Canada being asleep. But we've been asleep as well because we have not defended our Arctic because we've got Alaska up there. So, for instance, we have very few icebreakers. Plus, also, we have no Navy base in Alaska. And this is at a time when the Chinese and Russian navies and the air forces of those two countries are patrolling our coast in the Arctic. That, you know, so, all right, they went under the ice for the first time. That's a big deal. In terms of technology and Chinese technology being used in various weapons systems and these minerals that you talk about and then being used in chips here in America. How concerned should we be about that going forward? Because, you know, one of the things that worries me, Gordon Chang, is that I'm doing this show right now using a modem and router that was made in China. And I know that, you know, China could very easily. If they wanted to, probably get into our electric grid, hijack these electric vehicles, spy on us, track us, monitor us, everything in our home, which is now smart. A smart device is made over there in China. How critical are these minerals for us being able to move the manufacturing of these highly sensitive electronic devices to the United States, or at least to a friendlier nation? You can't make many of these devices without the rare earths, and China dominates them. In general, they control something like 90% of the processing of the world's rare earths. maybe 80% of the mining. Now, the Trump administration and other countries are moving very fast to eliminate that dependency, but that'll take at least two and a half, three years to do that. And that means at a time, China can basically push the U.S. around, which it has been doing. So we can see how President Trump has given way to China on really important things. because he's concerned about that cutoff of rare earths. And by the way, we should be concerned about pharmaceuticals, too, because China's hold on pharmaceuticals is even more of a stranglehold than its control over rare earths. Gordon Chang is with us. Appeasing China won't save Europe. Trump's hard power just might. His latest piece over at foxnews.com. Trump is making the world safe for America and Europe. Give us an overview, Gordon, of Europe's appeasement towards China in the last several years.

Well, for a long time, you know, the United States has appeased China. And so the Europeans just followed our lead. But as we've seen in the first Trump administration and certainly in the second one, Trump has moved against Chinese interests. The Europeans still are behind us. You have, for instance, last month, French President Emmanuel Macron went to China. We're going to see the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, go there. By the way, he just approved China's mega embassy in the heart of London in order to get approval for his trip to Beijing. And then next month... We have the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz going to Beijing. So they're all trooping over there. And Europe has yet to be able to develop a coherent strategy to protect its economy and its security interest. Because you've got to remember that while all of this is going on, you have all these leaders going over to China. You also have the Chinese supporting the Russians in Ukraine across the board. And Russia wouldn't be in that war now, were it not for the Chinese. Europeans are still appeasing Beijing. And Beijing is defending solar, right? I mean, this is another thing that I've read recently. I mean, the president has been right to attack solar panels, wind turbines, all these things which are made in China. But China's doubling down on this. The point that he made yesterday in Davos during his speech, Gordon Chang, was when he said, you know, China makes all this stuff, but they don't actually use any of it. I thought that was fascinating, and not many people probably realize that. Well, a lot of people have pushed back on that and saying that's not factually accurate. But what is accurate, though, is that China does export a lot of the so-called green technology. And at home, what it's doing is it's building up its reliance on fossil fuels. They do have wind farms there, despite what the president said. They do. But the point is that the general thrust of our president's comments are correct. And in thinking in terms of energy use and going forward, is part of this. This kind of this idea of the United States of America, you know, doubling down again on the Arctic and Greenland. And does any of that have to do with oil and natural gas? Do we know about any of that up there in that part of the world? Because I would imagine it's got to be prevalent up there just given Alaska and how much oil is up there. Yes, and rare earths as well. But that's not the major part of it. The major part is strategic. And President Trump has made that clear.

And that's why we need to work with our NATO partners to defend that area. Because when you look at it, most of the four of the Arctic five, those are the five countries with littoral of the Arctic Ocean, total shores. Or if you look at the Arctic Eight, which are the eight countries with territory in the Arctic Circle, they're all NATO ones except for Russia. So we do have a natural advantage if we work with our partners, which is what we must do. Gordon Chang, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about the economy in China. You're an expert in this. You're an expert in all things China. It's so great to have you on the show today. China's economy is not doing so well, huh? No, it's not. I mean, earlier this week, they reported 5.0% growth for 2025. We don't really know what it is, Rich. Nobody knows. I don't even think the Chinese know. But it's probably closer to zero. And we see this from any number of underlying indicators, including the fact that general unemployment, overall unemployment in China, is probably around 20%. And then when you consider youth unemployment is going to be it. Wow. That's what people are saying. Of course, this is not precise for a lot of reasons. One of it is being China's being opaque, but that's the report of people who have come back from China. And when you consider that youth unemployment is probably double that, China has a problem on its hands. And there are other indicators that the economy is at zero growth or contracting. So, you know, we hear a lot about these high-tech companies and everything. That's a very small portion of the Chinese economy, somewhere between 6% and 15%. It's not enough to pull the rest of the economy, which is doing very, very badly out of the whole. So, yeah, it's a really bad situation over there, Rich. Gordon Chang, let me ask you another question, too, if I could. And that is the United States, this TikTok. I know the news just came out a short time ago. U.S. and China agreed to spin off TikTok's U.S. operation. China has been spying on us. China has obviously been trying very hard to infiltrate our communications at every single level. So this is a very popular app. It's used by, I mean, tens of millions of people here in the United States of America. It's probably among a certain generation even more popular than Facebook, meta, Instagram. How important is it to get China out of this, the TikTok app? Oh, it's absolutely essential, because we know that China does two things. First of all, it uses it to surreptitiously and illegally take data from Americans, 170 million of them, plus also it propagates narratives, communist party narratives, but also things like illicit drug use, self-harm, suicide, those things. And the deal that was announced by the Trump administration...

It's not clear that we are, we will take care of probably the data issues, but we're not taking care of China's control of the algorithm. And so this is not a deal, which I think is in the interest of the United States. Interesting. I thought the algorithm was the whole issue, right, Gordon? Well, it's one of two issues. It's the more important of the two issues. And it's the one that does not appear to be fully satisfied by the terms as they were announced by the Trump administration. We don't know how they're going to work out in practice, because there's a lot that is up in the air about how the curation algorithm is actually administered. right now we can't say with assurance that that deal is going to cure the algorithm problem. You know, that's kind of very disappointing to hear. But let me move on another topic why have you, because there's so, there's so many things to talk to Gordon Chang about. I mean, there's nobody better on this issue, and that's Taiwan. It's been kind of quiet lately, but maybe it's been quiet only because we just haven't been paying attention to what's going on over there. And we haven't been paying attention to China's interests over there. How much is China watch President Trump's movements in places like Venezuela and Greenland as it thinks about its own movements with regards to Taiwan? I think there are a significant factor. They're not the determinative factor. The determinative factors are internal to China. And those factors... indicate that China is not going to move on Taiwan. It'll huff and puff. It'll engage in very intimidating aerial and sea exercises. But I think that internally, the Chinese military is not ready to launch an invasion, and Xi Jinping is not willing to authorize that. As well as an invasion of Taiwan would be extremely unpopular among the Chinese people as a whole. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal, the Chinese spy machine infiltrating Taiwan's military. Beijing entices the island's military personnel to share intelligence and pledge allegiance to China. Is this their way of getting Taiwan to essentially acquiesce to wanting to become part of China? I mean, because I thought Taiwan doesn't want this. And is this kind of a backdoor to that? It's certainly a backdoor. Because China knows that it really can't invade, it wants to take the island without force. It wants to intimidate everybody into submission. And it basically wants, of course, to penetrate the Taiwanese military for two reasons. First of all the information, and it wants to degrade the capability of Taiwan's military.

But second of all, it wants to use that information to sort of intimidate the rest of Taiwan society into surrendering, saying you have no choice. So that story fit into a Communist Party narrative. I'm not saying the story's wrong. It isn't wrong at all. And I'm glad that they actually wrote it. But it does help the Communist Party intimidate the people in Taiwan. And you're right. Most people in Taiwan, they don't think they're Chinese. They think they're Taiwanese. And that's by enormous majority. About 80% believe that they're Taiwanese. Only three or four percent believe they're Chinese. But nonetheless, China's working on Taiwan society, trying to basically subvert it from the inside. And I saw one thing it said there was like somebody pretending to be a podcaster offering to pay $125 to anyone who's willing to give up military information. So that's kind of some of the ways that they're doing that. Do they do any of those things over here in the United States? Am I just trying to pay influencers or people like that to either spew information or maybe go soft on them? I think that it does. We know that China actually influences media in other ways, for sure, directly. But I'm sure that it pays influences because it funnels a lot of money into the United States to foment violence on our streets and to create division among Americans. So I'm, you know, I don't have evidence of it, but I'm sure that they do in some way influence influencers. Gordon Chang, it's been great having you on the show today. We really appreciate you joining us and excellent piece over at Fox News. Please follow Gordon on X at Gordon G. Chang. Thanks, my friend. Well, thank you so much, Rich. I really appreciate the opportunity. All right. As we continue here on Guy Benson, more to come. Jack Smith, of course, on the hot seat has been the big story today. What's the one thing that I was waiting to hear asked, and it was asked by our buddy Jeff Van Drew. Don't go away. Billing in for Guy Benson, it's Rich Zioli.

It is a busy day to day in Guy Benson. You know, Jack Smith, the special counsel, was on the hot seat all day to day. There was a really good exchange by our buddy Congressman Jeff Van Drew, great friend to Guy Benson, of course. And he made the point of saying, you know, when it comes to the National Guard, the president was willing and... offering up the National Guard and that it was Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker, who did not take the President up on the National Guard. And he said, I'm sick of history being rewritten about that point. I think it's a very good point to make because in the future we have to figure out, you know, on these kind of things. Like, who's in charge of the Capitol Building? Is it the President or is it the Speaker of the House? I mean, that debate that's going on today during the whole Jack Smith thing, kind of being overshadowed just a little bit. And I think it's something we've got to pay attention to. It's an important piece of history that obviously we have to keep in mind. All right, we've got a lot more to come here on Guy Benson with me, Rich Zoli, in for Guy. We're to talk a little bit. We've got, well, our buddy, Griff Jenkins. We're going to talk with him. Our replay, you're going to love that. So don't go away. And I got a great question for producer cookie in the home stretch. So still a big five o'clock hour straight ahead here on Guy Benson. Don't go away.

And for Guy Benson, it's Rich Sealy. And it's been a busy, busy Thursday. Earlier in the show, got a great chance to chat with our buddy Griff Jenkins, the latest, the craziness in Minnesota. Some real insane, I would say, I don't know, accusations against ICE that Griff was able to really shoot down. Great stuff. Let's take a listen. Griff Jenkins, I also want to point out that catch of the day, because Maine is a seafood state, you know, it's going to be so triggering to the left. And I just, I mean, I just don't want to let that point. I don't want to gloss that over. That's why I said, look, the current catch so far is 126. They got 56 caught on the first day, 70 the second. And, of course, I'm sure the number is higher. And, you know, the deputy assistant. director for ICE, Patricia Hyde, is who I was writing with. She's leading the operation. She said, look, we got like 1,400 targets, roughly. Everyone has committed a crime. They're criminal, illegal aliens, and we're going to be here as long as it takes to get everyone. You're doing write-alongs with them on behalf of Fox News as the co-host of Fox and Friends weekend. It's interesting, right? Because, I mean, when Obama was president, it was CNN doing right-alongs with ICE and, you know, showing the great heroic works they were doing. And, of course, now CNN and the other networks are just pointing out, you know, that ICE is now terrorizing America and then running with all these false narratives and these false statements. The latest one is that ICE abducted a five-year-old child to use that child as bait. Yeah, just a... preposterous lie. And that is because the child's father who chose to be to be to be an illegal alien here and commit crimes was being arrested. And so when they arrested him in his car and he that he then fled on foot, he abandoned his five year old child to try and flee ice. And so ice. obviously took care into custody because you're not going to just leave a five-year-old child alone on the side of the road. And so that's a great case to point out. And, you know, by the way, this doesn't get pointed out enough either. This whole narrative that Trump's ICE operations are Nazis and Gestapo and all this other stuff because they're doing it entirely different. Well, guess who's running it? It's the borders are Tom Homan. Funny fact, though, under Obama, the deporter-in-chief, guess who ran ICE's ERO, enforcement and removal operations? The very guy... on the tip of the spear in charge of those Obama deportations was a guy named Tom Homan at that time. And you know what? President Obama put a presidential medal around his neck because of his ICE enforcement and deportation work. And so when I hear Democrats saying that, you know, it's different under Trump. It's mean and cruel. It's like, no, it's not. It's the same.

thing. What's different this time is back in those days, 2008, 2009, when Tom Homan was running things and getting presidential medals for his excellent work, now you have all of the Democrats who wanted to support border enforcement now, for whatever reason, the left, the shift of the left, just going 180 on whether or not we should allow illegal immigrants to cross the border and then be released in the country and then create sanctuary cities to protect. criminal illegal aliens, that all began to change. fundamentally under the Biden administration. That's why we have so many clips that are just so, you know, 180 hypocritical sort of positions of not only just, you know, what happened under Obama when he talks about border enforcement. And by the way, he's saying, look, we go after the criminals, but we're also going to go after families. If you're here illegally, you can't stay. But the Chuck Schumer, the actual same leaders of the Democrat Party like Chuck Schumer that's still here, he's now the one. helping lead the charge against the enforcement. And at the end of the day, look, President Trump got elected for getting the border situation, the border crisis under control. And he secured the border in an unprecedented way, eight months of zero releases. And Border Patrol deals with the southern border and northern border. But in the interior, it is ice that now has to go out. And President Trump is cleaning up the mess of the millions of the legal aliens that were released and are now being convicted or charged with crimes that have to be. removed from the country to make communities safer. Now, I don't have the full data that Axios just broke this story this afternoon, but Axios just put out a headline that the murder rate is the lowest it's been since 1900. And I would love to see all of that data and what they were analyzing, but I would... argue with you, I would bet that that has got a lot to do with the fact that we have cracked down on the border. Yeah, U.S. murder rate hits the lowest level since 1900, according to a report, Griff Jenkins. Now, you know, it's... A point you just made, which I really want to emphasize here, which is that President Trump ran on this. It was his number one issue, that and, of course, rescuing the economy from Biden's inflation and the just reckless spending. He won every single swing state. He won the electoral college. He won the popular vote. He didn't campaign on amnesty. He didn't campaign on open borders. He didn't pull a switcheroo on inauguration day and give a speech and say, ah.

I've fooled you. I'm now going after people who are here illegally. It was the signature issue of his campaign besides the fact that we are going to get this economy back again. And so nobody should be surprised about what he's doing. But you bring up Tom Homan and you bring up Obama pinning a medal around him. And I keep thinking about how they are. And for more on that, please go to Guy Benson's show.com, Guy Benson's show.com to hear that and the entire show and all the interviews and all of it. All right, as we continue on this busy Thursday, the home stretch is straight ahead. Filling in for Guy Benson, it's Rich Zioli. And now 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. And I'm going to try Miss Homestretch to not get cursed at by producer Christine Cookie. Don't curse it. I don't deserve it. I think I've done a decent job the last two days. And we got tomorrow to go and be out of control and a disaster then. But at least for so far, I don't deserve this. Well, I mean, you're lucky it's radio and I'm not allowed to curse. So you'll be fine. But I see on the home stretch it says, Christine, is cookies going to curse at you? That's during the break. Oh, oh, during the break. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. All right, I understand. Is this because we were going to chat about cursive writing? Yeah, this is an interesting topic. You can set it up, and of course, I have some strong thoughts on this. Okay, I was asking you during the break earlier, your thoughts because in New Jersey, they just signed the bill, bringing back cursive writing, and then I read 25 states now require cursive writing for kids. And I have mixed feelings on this because I think cursive writing is important, but at the same time, I have the worst handwriting ever. And my fifth group, I'm sorry, my kindergartner, Reagan, the five-year-old, she also has really bad handwriting. And the very fur, the only see I ever got when I was a little kid was in handwriting, was in cursive handwriting. So I'm not good at it. And I don't have the brain connection for it. I also don't know if it's really necessary in today's day and age. But that said, I'm glad they're doing it. I'm glad they're bringing it back. See, I disagree. And this is coming from a mama whose daughter is in Catholic school. So she's learned cursive since, you know, she's been writing in cursive since second grade. And it's beautiful. Don't get me wrong. I'm happy that she knows it. But for the public school, first of all, Phil Murphy, he should have had other things to worry about. But sure, great. We'll do this. I think especially after COVID, these kids need to focus more maybe on math and science. Like maybe we should put more emphasis on that and less on cursive because let's be honest.

You don't really write anymore anyway. It's usually, you know, through text or a computer. And I know that's going to say, oh, well, you're then taking away their motor skills. Sure, great. We'll work on their penmanship, but it doesn't need to be cursive. And I don't think we need to add that on when we are behind on so many other things. It's just for me personally, I just think this is silly. Okay. What about the idea, though, that there's something, the lost art of handwritten notes, like handwritten thank you notes, for example. I am a huge, huge person on thank you notes handwritten. Me too. And my daughter gets so mad at me because I won't make, I have rules. I don't know if you do. Like, I don't make her write thank you notes safe for Christmas presents. if an aunt gets her something, you know. But if it's a birthday or if it's something, you know, out of the blue, like if her grandmother from Massachusetts sends her something, you know, just thinking of you and sends a little thing, I think it's very, very important to write a handwritten thank you card because to me... I've always done that and I still do. It shows that you actually generally care about that person and enough to take the time to say thank you. It gives a meaningful moment between two people that I think is lost because so many people now will either just text, oh, hey, thanks, got the check. Thanks a lot. Talk soon. Right, right, right, right. And also, too, if you're applying for a job, for example, Go on a job interview and you send a handwritten thank you note to somebody and you say thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for the interview. Had a great time meeting you. That's going to stand out a lot more than just another email because they're getting hundreds of emails. You know what I mean? Okay. Yes and no. That is tricky because if you are going on an interview, not that I have, because Guy Benson, I always threaten him. I say he's stuck with me forever. If I said that to you as a producer. That's a threat out of like a Stephen King horror movie. You realize that, right? Oh my gosh. Oh, other producers come and go. But for some reason, cookies stays. That's misery. That's what that is. Or a fatal attraction, you know. So I'm not out there looking for another job. Although sometimes guy always asks, and I'll say, I have news. He's like, you found something else? You're leaving? You get his hopes up? He always says that. But. With that, I don't know. I think you need to write that email really quickly because you don't, like, a handwritten letter might take a couple days to get to that person. So that might be a little different. And another thing I have to say with the handwritten thank you note, say my mom takes my daughter for the week, you know, on a vacation. I make Megan go through the vacation and put sentences of what she thought was the best part of the vacation or what she thought the highlight was all in this thank you card. And I've had so many, I've had people say to me, you can stop. You know, me personally, you can stop with the thank you cards. We don't need them. And I was kind of offended about that. Hmm. Why were you offended, though?

Well, because I get offended about everything. Okay. I mean, obviously I was going to get offended about a thank you card. Yeah, if you're going to get offended by anything, I guess you put that in the category. I guess. I understand that point. But all right, but let me play devil's advocate, though. Somebody sent you a thank you card and says something like, hey, cookie, it was great filling in for Guy Benson. Thanks for having me. Please have me again. A radio host does that. Say hypothetically speaking, just hypothetically speaking, and sends it to you. Is that a burden on your day that you got to open the envelope? You got to read the handwritten thank you note. When you could just turn around and be like, Zoli, why do you just text me and just say thank you? Why did you make me go out of, do all this time, all this work for this. This could have been a text. Well, I've never gotten a handwritten thank you note from you. So. And you're welcome. You're welcome. I didn't make you have to go through all that. No, I mean, I get it. I would never say like, oh, God, a thank you note, you know. But Dylan's going to laugh at me. I have sent a thank you note for the thank you note. You sent a thank you note for the thank you note? No, no, no, no. I hate people to do that. And some people do that expecting a thank you for the thank you note. And it's a ploy, it's a trap, it's a bait and switch, and I don't like it. No, no, no, no. Wait, wait, ready? Hold on. Dylan and I are going to, Dylan, ready? I'm ready? Okay. Dylan, um. You sent me, you know, a nice bouquet of flowers, hint, hint, because I'm such a great producer, hint, hint, interesting. Yeah, just one day. It's just a hypothetical. Just a hypothetical you and guy are like, you know what, cooks is so good at this job. We're just going to send her flowers for no reason. We're really living in fantasy here, but continue. Keep going. Dylan! No, let her go with her deranged fantasy. Finish, please, please. Yeah, play this out. Okay. So now. Are you expecting a thank you note? No. You're not. No. I mean, I don't know if, I mean, we've already established yesterday that Rich hates my generation. I hate your generation. With a passion. Right, right, right. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah. Couldn't hate me more for who I am for the time period I was born and hates me for every reason. But I don't, I don't send thank you cards. Of course not. I like that's not something I've I mean I grew up doing it like kind of like you have Megan do but I I don't I don't do that I text people and email people so like maybe like a text back if you if we sent you this lavish bouquet of flowers I'm talking huge bouquet huge maybe some candy who knows okay do you want anything else would you like would you like a Mercedes as well A Mercedes? I mean, Dylan, now you're just getting carried away. It's a little weird. Yeah, you go from flowers and candy to a frigging $80,000 vehicle. Do you see what you just did there? Well, it's just as likely to receive a Mercedes as any of the other things. Dylan, you were not, you're supposed to be nice to me, guys, not here this week. So you can, you know, be nicer. Well, it's not, well, it's not a bit. This is real. Well, my point. I like, I like your generation now.

Oh, because they're mean to me. Let's go. Let's go. But here's my point really quick, and we can wrap this up. Now, you send me that beautiful bouquet. I sent you a thank you note. I expect now you to text me and say, oh, got your thank you note, adorable. Okay, I would probably send a text and saying just to let you know that I got the note. But if I, I would never send a note back to you thanking you for the thank you note. Because when does that, when does that chain end? It's just an infinite chain of thank you. You know what, Rich and Dylan, my husband for years and I didn't believe him has always said I'm a difficult gal. Maybe, maybe. I should listen a little more. Does it sound like a lot? Does he text you that or write you that in a handwritten note? I'm just curious how that works. How does that work? Gosh. Okay, I don't know. Now, if he sends you a handwritten note saying you're very difficult, do you write a text back saying thank you? Well, he values a happy home, so he would never put that in writing. Of course, of course, not in writing. Okay, now you make a great point, though, about it in writing. So if you write something handwritten to somebody, like, I hate your guts and I hope you die. And I never want to see you ever again. And you write that, but don't sign it. Now I get into a handwriting expert to verify that versus if it's text or email, you got an electronic track record. You got a digital receipt. You see why cursive writing may actually be useful. Also for serial killers, it's much more, although they just cut out newspaper clippings and I guess really just use the font from that. Yeah, has a serial killer ever wrote like beautiful notes in cursive? I should look that up. Yeah, I know. Because the zodiac, I mean, he used literally like zodiac signs and symbols, right? So he didn't use that. Son of Sam, I think he just used a dog to talk. This is way before my time. Yeah. Well, what? You don't know serial killers? You gave the analogy to Guy Benson of, I'll never leave you. And if you try to get rid of me, I will chain you to a bed and break your ankles. I can tell you multiple players. What was your bunny guy? But you don't know. Okay. Listen, I can tell you multiple players in the mob from back to the 80s, but not about serial killers. And we are way off track. We probably should go. All right. We got to go. That's it. That's Guy Benson for today. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe to my podcast, Rich Zioli Show. Do that today, please. I would appreciate it. We're back tomorrow for a special Friday edition of Guy Benson. Thank you for listening. Well, I mean, you're lucky it's radio and I'm not allowed to curse. So that's during the break.

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