Illegal Immigration Scandal Explodes

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From the heart of our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., backed by the trusted voices of Team Fox, a clear, fresh voice cutting through the noise to tell the truth. It's Guy Benson with Guy Benson. It's Tuesday, September 30th, 2025. I'm Guy Benson. Welcome everyone to Guy Benson. Between 3 and 6 p.m. Eastern every weekday and around the clock for free on our podcast. We are so glad you are with us on this Tuesday. Thank you as always for listening. Guy Benson.com, Fox News Podcast.com, wherever you get your podcast, you have options there. I'm the political editor at townhall.com. A Fox News contributor, I'll be on the bottom line tonight. Guest co-hosting with Dagan, as we did last night together. Looking forward to that. Just after. This show ends. 6 p.m. Eastern Time Sharp Fox Business Network. Hope you will tune in for that. On the radio today, Jimmy Phala, our buddy, he'll join us later this hour. Katie Pavlach will join us in the next hour, as will the former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. We are ticking down to a government shutdown. The Democrats are forcing this one. I don't think they have any sort of plan, but their base wants a fight and their leaders want to show a fight. even though this might go very, very badly for them. Speaker McCarthy weighing in on that later on the program and then Mary Catherine Hamm. We'll be here in our last hour looking forward to that. Well, we opened the show today with some news. I saw this breaking just a little while ago that a senior official in Iowa's largest school district in Des Moines, Iowa, is resigning. This is the superintendent of schools out there who has been revealed by Homeland Security to be an illegal immigrant with a criminal record. as superintendent of a major school system in the United States of America. And there's a whole controversy swirling, as you might imagine. He is now stepping down, but he has a lot of defenders. Both on the ground, I saw there was a walkout from some of the students today in protest against ICE, and I guess in his favor. You're seeing some political forces in Iowa, certainly on the hard left. That does exist to some extent in places like Iowa. They're going to bat for him. And you're seeing a lot of the internet rallying to this guy's side and his cause. So I want to address.

this story because I think it really illustrates a number of things that are wrong in this country when it comes to immigration, when it comes to our discourse and conversation around the immigration issue. Backdrop is I saw a New York Times poll today that shows a clear substantial majority of Americans support detaining and deporting illegal immigrants to their countries of origin. No caveats about criminal record or violence or anything like that. Just if you're here illegally, you get deported. That is a majority position among the American people. It is definitely not a majority position among the Democratic Party. And their elected officials in many cases are just overtly pro-illegal immigration and pro-illegal immigrant. It's part of the reason why Donald Trump is president right now. So days ago, Bill Malugin broke this story at Fox, our colleague. Let me read to you his tweet, which sets the table for all of this. Breaking, a senior ICE official tells Fox News that today ICE arrested Superintendent of Des Moines Iowa Public Schools, Dr. Ian Andre John Roberts. who ICE says is an illegal alien from Guyana and an active ICE fugitive with a deportation order since May of 2024. Fox is told Dr. John Roberts fled from ICE agents in his car once they ID themselves as immigration agents, speeding away, then abandoning the car. He was found in a brushy area 200 yards away with the help of an Iowa state police canine. Per the ICE official, agents found a loaded gun, a fixed blade hunting knife, and thousands of dollars in cash in Dr. John Roberts' vehicle. Per a senior ICE official, John Roberts first entered the United States in 1999 on an F-1 student visa at St. John's University. He was ordered removed from the United States on May 22, 2024, with proceedings being held in abstentia. On April 24th of this year, 2025, an immigration judge in Dallas, Texas denied a motion to reopen his immigration case. Fox is also told Dr. John Roberts has a weapons arrest in 2020. The disposition of that charge and case currently unclear. More details as they come. And then he posts a mugshot. He said this mugshot is from the prior arrest, not the current arrest. So there are quite a few wow moments just in that tweet from Melugent. This guy was running the public school system in the largest city in Iowa. He wasn't just one of the school employees. He was the head honcho, the superintendent. He ran away. He fled from authorities when they identified themselves as. immigration officials. He sped away, then he ran away. He had multiple weapons, including a loaded gun in his car, and thousands of dollars in cash. This is just speculation on my part. So I'm going to give that caveat. But it seems to me like this guy was living in fear of being found out for this past, not being in the country legally, an illegal immigrant with a criminal record, and maybe had like a go bag or some contingency plans.

Like break glass type situation. Well, the glass was broken here. He was taken into custody. So he came into the country as a college student on a student visa. That's legal. What's not legal is staying beyond the visa. And then pretending to be a citizen, as he apparently and reportedly did repeatedly ever since. That is unlawful. That is fraudulent. That is dishonest. In addition to being an immigration violation. He was ordered to be deported last year, May 2024. May I ask everyone to put on their thinking caps. And remember, who was president in May of last year? Was that big old, mean old Donald Trump? No. During the Biden administration, this guy was given a final deportation order. Noted, by the way, by Malugian in absentia because he didn't show up for his hearing. They probably didn't know where he was. Certainly didn't know that he was running a school system in Iowa, a big one. He was ordered to be deported in abstentia last year. Then there was somehow some kind of an appeal or at least an attempt to get this to be reopened, reconsidered, and then this year a separate judge looked at the facts and said no, the deportation order stands. This is what we call, ladies and gentlemen, due process. This individual came to the country initially, legally, and then started breaking our laws many times over, not just the visa overstay, but all the apparent fraud, lying, weapons charges, and beyond after that. The fact that he was not identified and deported after the weapons arrest, I think is part of the problem that we're dealing with in this country. But either way, he was given due process, right? This is what we hear all the time from some on the left when it comes to deportations and other related issues. They scream about due process and the rule of law. But then when due process is granted even to people who are in the country illegally and exhausted, they still oppose consequences for those people. Their due process screaming, all this shouting and carrying on and carping, wrapping themselves to the language of due process and rule of law, it's all an act from so many of these activists and politicians and media members. They use those arguments when convenient. and discard them when convenient. If they can appeal to due process in the rule of law in order to help illegal immigrants and protect illegal immigration, they do so. When the due process and the rule of law is then fully implemented and exhausted, then it doesn't matter anymore because the priority is championing.

illegal immigrants and illegal immigration, including criminal illegal immigrants. Like that Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia guy had so much due process. And they've still fought tooth and nail like he's some sort of American hero, his removal from this country. There was one tweet that went really viral about this, millions and millions of views. I looked up the person. who wrote it, and this is a big Hamas fan Zohran Mamdani supporter in case you were curious. But in response to this story about the arrest and pending removal of this criminal illegal immigrant who is running a school district in Iowa, this left wing. Social media users said once again, they're not going after dangerous criminals. In this case, it's a liked and respected superintendent who worked as a special ed teacher, competed in the Olympics, and has lived and contributed to this country for at least three decades. This bleep is shameful. He was almost certainly brought here as a kid. People like this want to be above board and the immigration system is so broken, they haven't had the chance or the choice. Now they're being treated like garbage for having done everything else right. This is where they can just make things up. He was not brought here as a kid. As Bill's tweet even, he's quote tweeting Bill. Bill explains that he came here as a college student for the first time. Not as a child, not some innocent bystander. He came here as an adult in college as a student and then made the conscious decision to violate the terms of his status as an adult in this country and then lied about it ever since. In order to get all sorts of documents, apparently, it seems as though he was registered to vote. I'm seeing those reports registered to vote. I was reliably informed. That never happens. Illegal immigrants never can vote. How was this guy registered to vote? In order to get some of these jobs, he reportedly lied on various forms saying he's a citizen. As an illegal immigrant, you cannot have a gun. Not only did he have one, he was charged for a gun-related offense in 2020. lying and defrauding people, possessing and acquiring illegal weapons. He had been arrested already once. And the viral defense of him is he had done everything right. He's just a victim. No. Absolutely not. This is an illegal immigrant who is intentionally and purposefully in this country against our laws. He broke our laws on immigration and then other laws too. He has committed additional crimes to this. He has no business being in the country, let alone running a school system. Maybe otherwise he was a nice guy who is well liked. That is not what due process and the rule of law is about. If we cannot arrest and deport this person who had had a final deportation order against him during the Biden years, upheld during the Trump administration, and especially after another arrest, these people pretend to care about gun violence and illegal guns. This guy had one. He's not allowed to have one. They don't care. He's the victim who had done everything right as long as you ignore everything wrong and illegal he had done.

The fact that he allegedly was in this country illegally and registered to vote, that's another level of problem here, is it not? He also, this I saw this on social and then looked it up for myself. In 2023, he got a big write-up in the Des Moines Register, local newspaper, because he was spearheading an effort in Des Moines schools to. allow people with criminal records to now work in those schools. Now, maybe it turned out this was perhaps in his own self-interest because people didn't know his secret. But he was saying, I want people with criminal records to be able to come and work in schools. Now, I believe in giving people second chances. Maybe not fifth and seventh and twelfth chances. especially if they get violent, but I don't think that some nonviolent crimes early in your life should ruin your life or make you unemployable. I don't believe that. But I do think that if you have a criminal record, especially in certain areas, you should not be able to work with kids. I think that's a reasonable thing to believe. He worked to overturn that policy. Why? It was, and I'm quoting now from the Des Moines Register, another tool in reaching the district's long-term goal of diversifying its staff. There we go. So this is a scandal in Iowa. The guy is now resigned today. The Board of Education in Des Moines is in big-time damage control, CYA mode, including... a woman named Jackie Norris, who is the chair of the Board of Education in Des Moines, guess what she's up to these days? She's running for U.S. Senate as a Democrat. They were supposed to do their due diligence. Clearly, they did not do very good due diligence on this guy. Some of it might have been because he was lying. And it created through all these other crimes a backstory to get cleared to get a job like this. Some of it might have been their own negligence in this position. She's the board chair. And now she's saying, oh, what? We didn't know. Whoops, what? We didn't know any of this. We need radical empathy, but also, I mean, she is spinning. She's also trying to fundraise off of this for her Senate campaign as a Democrat. An encapsulation of so much of what is wrong when it comes to the left's approach to politics and immigration politics specifically. How about that bombshell out of Des Moines over the last week with the updates today? We open with that on Guy Benson. It's Tuesday here. We're glad you're with us. Stay tuned. New talk for a new generation, Guy Benson. For over two decades, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation has been there for our fallen and catastrophically injured first responders, military, and gold star families. Born from the tragedy of 9-11, Tunnel to Towers provides mortgage-free homes to Gold Star and fallen first responder families with young children and built specifically adapted smart homes for catastrophically injured veterans and first responders. The Foundation also offers scholarships for college and trade school programs.

for the children of Gold Star families, fallen first responders, and catastrophically injured veterans. And Tunnels to Tower is committed to eradicating veteran homelessness and helping America never forget September 11th. To learn more about the Foundation's mission, impact, and how you can support our nation's heroes, visit T2T.org. I'm Guy Benson, we're back. We're seeing some federal resources being deployed to various places where they're needed, frankly, violent places. Portland. Of course, we've seen the success in Washington, D.C. a battle in Illinois that we'll get to in a second. Other cities that have real crime problems, these are blue cities run by Democrats, but in red states, the governors are being more cooperative, like in Louisiana and Tennessee. Talked about that yesterday a bit with Marsha Blackburn. In Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, the governor, who wants to be president, apparently, he decided that he was going to respond to a small federal presence coming to... his state where, by the way, there's like a riot at an ice facility every night from these Antifa goons. Here's how the governor described federal law enforcement, cut 23. Our small businesses suffer when our residents and visitors who are shopping and eating are made to feel unsafe by the jackbooted thugs roaming around a peaceful downtown. Parents are now scared to send their kids to school, for fear the troops will grab their children. Students are afraid they'll come home and find their parents have been disappeared by ICE. This is no way to live. They aren't invading schools. They aren't dragging kids away. Jack booted thugs, he said, talking about federal law enforcement trying to do a necessary and dangerous because of the violence being directed at them. Being egged on, it would seem, by the likes of J.B. Pritzker. Thought we were supposed to bring the temperature down. We just had an anti-ice lunatic murdersome people last week. Jack booted thugs, says the governor of Illinois. Disgusting. This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly, the all-in-one creative studio with AI-powered image and video generation. Built for today's creative process, Firefly helps you generate, edit, and experiment fast, because the asks aren't getting smaller. And the timelines? Ooh, yeah, still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Learn more at Adobe.com slash Firefly.

Not the same talking points here, but Guy Benson. Back on Guy Benson. We're in New York. And with us here in studio at the worldwide headquarters of Fox News is Jimmy Fala, host of Fox Across America on Fox News Radio. Also host of Fox News Saturday night on the news channel 10 p.m. Eastern on weekends. Great to see you here on the radio. Yeah, great to be seen. And it's nice to be the away team today. You needed to be the home team in our friendship after Saturday night. So I was on your program. Not for the first time. I've been on your show once or twice before, but not since you guys moved to the live studio audience situation in like the big studio down there. So that was like not quite a debut, but it felt like half a debut. No, yeah. Great lineup. Right? It was Carly Shimkiss, Katie Pavlich, you, McBee's great. Great crowd, very fun. And... I hope I gave you what you were looking for. Oh, Guy, it was great. Come on, man. Both, the two best segments, it's funny. If we could do this right now, the audience can't see it, but we get back our demo chart on Tuesdays. Okay. Now, I want you to know this. Okay. It is, and I mean if we've done this show 65 times because it launched in January of last year, I don't know what that is. 80 weeks, the show's been on the air. Okay, the A block. demo is the highest rated block of the show for as long as we've had the show this past week it spiked in c and kept going up in d wow so c was guy on guy and d was that borderline racist segment with charles mc p that we love it was great it wasn't borderline races, but it went out, it shot to the moon. The kids, when the football ended, every kid in America threw it on because it was so risque and out to lunch. And like, that's the point of the show is it's really supposed to be an off-ram from everything else we consume in media all week. So it's like, here's a version of this, like the Funhouse version of the news. You know, you're looking at it in a mirror that distorts it a little bit. So the numbers were strong in the back half of the show. Yes. I mean, they were great in the front end. I mean, we won the demo across the board, but it's still spiked in the back end. I love to see that. And I debuted in the C block. Yeah, you did, Guy Benson. When the spike began. Can I just, without even getting you numbers, just look at the charts. Oh, I see it. Do you see that? I see it. That's crazy, though. That's the Guy Benson effect. It has nothing to do with the football ending. But this is specifically the demo. Look at the overall. So the overall is at its highest in the A. That's a stand-up block. But the demo itself, spikes, C, D, and actually stays high in E when we're all on set. Yeah. Come on, Guy Benson. It was fun. So in that C-block segment, it was the guy on guy concept where you wanted me to tell you if I were the cab driver, not you, would I pick up various celebrities who I would see trying to hail a cab? And...

You insisted this was not me saying, you know, which male celebrities I find attractive is who would I pick up in a taxi sort of way? For sure. Yeah. No, I do mean that. I mean, the concept of play on words, guy on guy, sounds like we're going to another direction. Yes, it kind of did. Entirely predicated on these. And all the celebrities were dudes as well as we pointed out guy on guy. But the thing is, and this is true, if you could run it by me, you can give me any celebrity, I would know whether or not they were good or not in the cab. Because of certain energies and social cues that good passengers have. And it's a vibe. Do you know how there are people you meet without even talking to them? You're actually uncomfortable? Yeah. Because they just have like an atmosphere that's negative. Or there's like cues, little cues. Yeah, that's what I mean. And that absolutely translates to taxi passengers. And I can tell you that from driving. I drove a lot of celebrities. And, um... They always universally either get in with the good or the bad vibe. The bad vibe being some people get in and they look at a cab driver as an affordable therapist. So they just get in and sigh. And going, how's your day going? And that's your cue to get out of the way and ask about theirs. Okay. And I can always tell who's going to do that. So I would put you in a celebrity passenger lane as a good passenger. And I could say that because I shared a cab with you once. We left Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s apartment. Do you remember it was me, you, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Mary Catherine Ham. Do you remember that? It was like two apartments ago. Mary Catherine Ham was at CNN at the time. Vaguely. Maybe. But I rode in a cab with you back here. Back here. Fun. I mean, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Apartments and cabs have very bad connotations to me because I left all of my belongings in the trunk of one of them once. So now I'm triggered. Okay, fair. I'm having those flashbacks. But yeah, so that was fun. And then the, what you called the borderline racist segment, it wasn't really, but it was racially tinged. It was called white noise. Yes. So McBee, as the black individual on the panel, he was going to be the arbiter of this. But the questions that you asked. the white people on the panel myself, included, of course, was, are these news stories or pop culture stories penetrating into black culture? Do they care? Yeah. And I just commented when you came to me that my favorite thing about your show is that there's an opportunity to be fired in every segment. Because it's like a high wire act. Oh, is it ever, man? With some of these things. Well, the flying well-enders of comedy. We get up there and have fun. Because the whole point is, and all I'm really am trying to do, because I'm new enough to this that I still care internally, and a lot of people don't, as I'm trying to give society permission to go back to consuming content the way we used to. Which is like, you know, when someone says like, okay, that joke was to this or that joke was to that.

The fact that the sentence includes the word joke is supposed to be your cue to not have any emotional investment. You might even say they're just jokes. Yeah. Amen. Title of my stand-up special. They're just jokes. That was a plug. So I'm trying to be the change I want to see in the world. Love to see it. Glad to be a small part of it. Glad that it worked out, ratings-wise. And I'm sure at some point I'll be contractually obligated to return. So a couple things I want to touch on here with you, a hodgepodge, a smorgas board of stories. Starting with this one, did you see the NHB. the U.K. Health Service promoted publicly, first cousin marriage, saying that marrying a first cousin leads to, quote, stronger extended family support system and economic advantages. Now, People went nuts over this. Yes, of course. Because there's many reasons, like the whole anti-incest thing, the genetic problems there, the quite natural social taboo, et cetera. But NHS decided their official health system to basically endorse it as being great for the family and for your bottom line, your pocketbook. After the outcry, they have apparently deleted it from the website after all. What was this about? That's very strange. Well, it's going to tank the number one dating app in Europe, which is ancestry.com. They're about the... Them and 23 and me just lost all their hookup culture. I mean, that's crazy. For all the time they spent yelling at us to follow the science, it is so psychotic to think the medical community is the one not doing it. And it's dangerous. And, you know, people try to... There's this real reductive nature to politics right now that if we push back... on their assessment. It's because we're somehow bigoted against the type of people they're trying to encourage to live that lifestyle. But we have encyclopedic knowledge of the high risks that you're exposing yourself in a baby to if you're having a first cousin marriage. So the idea that we find ourselves in this place, it's kind of mind-blowing. But what I've learned is that I feel like everything has become this negotiation where they take the most extreme position possible, knowing they might have to walk it back. but we're that much more closer to where they want us to be. Why do they want us to be there? Because I saw a number of people making the joke that this was just like a tip of the cap to the royal family. I like that. And some of the... in bad situations, you know, through the years at least. Well, my Twitter feed just says they're trying to placate a culture that they're, that's mass migrating on into Europe and that it's more normal in that maybe if they're calling it the Muslim community, the Pakistani community. I don't have the specific allegation, but that's what I seem to see a lot of it. Like a political correctness and like to say, oh, actually, actually the medical science says it's good. Yeah. Look, it's good for your financial stability and family ties. I guess it literally strengthens family ties in the creepiest, most disgusting way possible. Yeah, it's gross. I mean, that's my problem, one, but two is, again, they are abandoning biology. Like so many of their arguments can't be waged on substantive grounds. Do you know a lot of our politics now, it's not a debate over what Republicans are doing. It's a debate over what Democrats are repurposing it as.

You dig? It's not what they say. It's what they claim they're saying. Like if Trump wants to send troops into Chicago, okay, and maybe help get crime under control, it's pushed back as J.J.B. Pritzker saying, we're harassing people for not being white. I got to be honest, that's not the mission statement. But you see how reductive and cheap that is? And it's like Gavin Newsom saying, well, the troops are only there because he's going to cancel the midterms. That's not real. You know, he might cancel a few other things along the way. He doesn't even believe that. No, I know. But that's the point. He's saying it. Why? Because he thinks his people want to hear it. The NHS and UK, they think their base wants to hear that, that cousin marriage is fine. And Gavin Newsom thinks that his base wants to say there's not going to be a 2028 election. Yeah. And that's a weird thing now. Because everybody is communicating in their own little silo, but it denies them self-awareness, like to know that they sound nuts. With the cousin marriage story, first cousin marriage story, I seem to recall, did you not make a joke on your show involving a Minnesota congresswoman and a strange marriage? Oh, Ilhan Omar? Yeah. Well, we've all made it. I didn't make it this past week, but I know it comes up at some, oh, a few weeks ago. Yeah, Ilhan Omar. Yeah. Because she married her brother. Allegedly. Yeah, allegedly. But there's actually a fair amount of evidence. Yeah, there's a good amount. And I don't think that was like. I'm allegedly on your show right now. Right. I don't think that was an incest situation so much as a citizenship immigration violation. Yeah, work. But her denials have not been very good. And there is actual evidence there. So I know we don't really talk about it very much, but there it is. All right. So that's the cousin marriage story. We can move on to this other one. Do you remember a couple of years ago, the Bubba Watson? emergency with NASCAR. Yes. And the so-called news. Yeah. And the FBI came in and NASCAR put out all these statements and was like, oh my gosh, hate crime. And then it turned out that it kind of looked like a small news, but it was just a garage pull down on the garage door. That had been there for many weeks before it was ever even assigned to Bubba Watts and all that. And so they'd say, well, actually, false alarm. It wasn't actually. Okay. So in the Houston area, there's apparently as a Halloween decoration, someone has put up. a gallows with mannequins being hung from the gallows. The mannequins are wearing maga hats. And there's like Mexican flags all around this. I don't know what the situation is there. I don't know who's responsible for it. But I have not seen a national news story and an FBI investigation into it. Have you? Because that seems a little bit more aggressively problematic than the garage pole. Yeah, it seems a little more targeted just the same. But if you're talking about Houston, you're talking about an area that sent Jasmine Crockett to Congress. So if anything, they're going to get more trick-or-treaters and not less out of this sort of thing. By the way, I want to correct myself, Bubba Wallace. Yeah, yeah. Bubba Watson is the golfer. Yes. Bubble Wallace. Different athlete. Bubba Wallace, or as we call it, Jussie Smollett on wheels. It's like, what if we did this and put it on a racetrack? Although I think in defense of Bubba Wallace, I think he doubled down on some stuff and wrote some stuff that I didn't love. But.

I can at least understand walking into the garage and seeing that and wondering and like maybe having an issue with it at first. I think once you find out the truth, you have to be like, okay, maybe I overreacted. But Smollett just orchestrated a fake hate crime against himself. Made up the whole thing. Yes. Okay. You know what? Pay people to do it. You know what it tells you about Jesse Smollett? This is verifiable just the same. He had prior to staging this hate crime written a letter to the production company himself threatening his own life because his contract was up. And he didn't think he was going to get renewed on Empire. So he had made an initial threat that the studio put to bed knowing it was him. And when that didn't work, he went out and literally had himself beat up. Wait, so he tried to pretend? He tried to do this once before with like a hate letter. He had... From someone else, quote unquote, to the studio. In order to get sympathy to then make money. And this is what this is all, this is all a, you know, a problem and an outgrowth of. We'd gotten to the stupid place in society where victimhood was suddenly currency. Oh, like the highest currency. I am aggrieved. Give me something. And what happened to a guy like Bubba Wallace is when you say, I could understand going in the garage, seeing the pulldown and being like, hey, maybe. Yeah, what's this? But if you're a NASCAR driver, that thing, that pulldown is in every garage at that racetrack. So I can see walking in there and it's only in your garage. But it was in every garage is part of the problem. But because the element they want to sell is it's racist and it's maggot, it's white supremacy and everything in between. They're never going to let, as you say, the facts get in the way of that good race-baiting narrative. And I guess if you see in Texas the gallows with the mag of people being hung by the neck in effigy, basically, with Mexican flags everywhere, people are supposed to just kind of move on. Yes, it's a joke. Get over it. Yeah. And plus they're trying to claim that the people are the people who want to hang him or the oppressed people. So they're just speaking noose to power, if you will, which is bananas. We're going to get to this a little later in the show, and we're going to go around the horn with the team here talking about Super Bowl. And the halftime performer, this Bad Bunny character, I have heard of him. I have seen like a few sketches of his on SNL. I know that a lot of people really like him. I think most of his singing is in Spanish. I don't really care that much, but apparently a lot of people really do and are very, very mad. Do you have a take on this? I don't actually care. My frustration for the Super Bowl in this particular moment is, okay, it's being held in San Francisco, and there were so many good San Francisco acts that could be playing a halftime show, Metallica. Creedon's Clearwater Revival. Too Short. Digital Underground. They're there. Journey. So the options were there. Or like a medley. Yeah, maybe. Have a few of them. Like they did with the rap, the 90s rap stars a few years ago. Yeah. Which was great. That was cool. Bad Bunny sells a lot of records. Obviously, there's a people on, you know, the conservative right of Twitter that are losing their minds because you've got a cross-dresser who doesn't speak English doing the halftime show. It's a problem. But as I said on Waters last night. Does he wear dresses? Yes. Okay. But I said this on Waters last night. I said we should actually be thankful because if Kamala Harris won. This person would have a cabinet position. You wouldn't be getting 10 minutes of songs you don't understand. You'd get four years of policies nobody asked for. So in a roundabout way, I see it as progress. But the issue I think people have on the right is, you're like, well, the Super Bowl should be trying to unite America. They really don't care about that. Jay-Z produces the Super Bowl show. Beyonce was out there, if you remember doing formation at the Super Bowl like five years ago, which people took as anti-Trump. They want the thing talked about and they want big engagements. So for the NFL, this is a win.

People are going to pull it. I'm like, no, they're not. There's no way they're going to. Because it'll gin up more eyeballs just like they did with Kendrick Lamar last year. And it did well. Jimmy Phala, host of Fox Across America here on Fox News Radio. Check him out Saturday nights at 10 p.m. Eastern. Fox News Saturday night is the show there. Great to see you, sir. Thank you. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Same issues. But with a fresh perspective. Guy Benson. Hi, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Are you looking for a beach read this summer? May I suggest your big wireless bill? It's got suspense, mystery, a slightly flat, emotional arc, and a shocking twist where you realize you've been overpaying the entire time. Fortunately, though, Mint's story is better. Every plan, $15.15 dollars a month a month. Every plan, even $15 dollars a month a month. Even unlimited. That's it. That's it. See terms. Back here on Guy Benson, we're just talking about the UK, the NHS, that madness over there. There's so much madness across the pond in our cousins country. The United Kingdom is crazy. So like we talked about how the flag, their own flag, is now problematic. We're like you've got police confiscating flags. British flags. British police confiscating British flags from people. especially if they're too close to a Hamas rally. If you're holding a British flag near a Hamas rally, which they have all over the place, you fly the Palestinian flag in the United Kingdom, no problem. You fly your own country's flag, problem. And I've seen a few videos just in the last couple days of people like cops going up and snatching flags out of people's hands with like threats to arrest people. Someone else got a knock on the door from the police because he had tweeted negatively about Hamas. Hamas. Not Muslims, not Arabs, not even Palestinians, Hamas. And that got like, all right, let's see what you tweeted, right? Like this is the cops showing up at your door. It's crazy. And Mark Hemingway, Molly's husband, he's a really good writer in his own right, he was saying, if you have the police confiscating your own country's flag and that's now like a symbol of resistance in your own country, something has gone terribly wrong in that country. And something is going terribly wrong in that country. These are not, we had like seven other examples of this. Just last week we were talking with Douglas Murray about it. There are new examples seemingly on a daily basis coming out of the U.K. That's the bad news, and it is frightening because this is somewhere that they consider themselves, I guess, still a free society. The good news is the polling shows, I think there's more than 100 consecutive public polls showing that the Reform Party, the right populist Nigel Farage party, is in first place now and would become the majority in Parliament. if there were an election held soon. Nigel Farage's prime minister, this is what the establishment and especially the labor left-wing party has done to itself. In one of those recent polls, Keir Starmer, who's the Labor Prime Minister, presiding over all this stuff, you want to know, his approval rating, want to know what it is? It's 13%. 13% approve. Is that good? I'm new to politics. 79% disapprove.

That's like Brandon Johnson territory in Chicago. He deserves it. All right, keep an eye on that. So many other stories. Katie Pavitch is here coming up in a brand new hour. It's on deck. Don't go anywhere. Need a laptop that's built or perform and designed to last all day? Select Windows 11 PCs starting at 499 are now at Best Buy. Learn more at Best Buy.com. Best Buy. Imagine that. A new generation of conservative talk. Right here, right now. Fair, fun, and backed by the trusted voices and reporting resources of Fox News. Fox News. You're listening to Guy Benson. And now, here's your host, Guy Benson. Welcome into a brand new hour here on Guy Benson, our second hour of three on the program today, Tuesday edition. Thank you for listening. Guy Benson.com is our website. The podcast is free every day when the show is over. just at 6 p.m. Eastern, which is when I will be on the bottom line, co-hosting that show with Dagan McDowell, Fox Business Network. Please tune in for that. Fox News Alert as we enter the middle hour, the Dow surging just a little bit. In the green, 81 points up, finishing at 46,0397, as we are now just about eight hours away from a government shutdown that the Democrats appear determined to force for some reason. This is the Democrat Chuck Schumer shutdown. If it happens, no deal appears to be imminent. So that would be at midnight. And we will have Kevin McCarthy, the former House speaker here later this hour, talking about that. Joining us now, though, is our dear friend and colleague twice over. Katie Pavlach, editor at townhall.com and a Fox News contributor. Katie, great to have you back here. Hey, Guy. Thanks so much for having me. You bet. So you have been spending some of your time recently reporting on some major events, including President Trump's speech at Turtle Bay at the United Nations just a few days ago. And then you also were there covering this Middle East Gaza peace plan rollout yesterday, which we covered pretty extensively here. I know there's a few through lines in both of those events. Just give us some of your thoughts and takeaways observations from those two presidential events. Yeah, so it was super interesting to be at the United Nations where President Trump told a boom full of terrorist sympathizers that they were wrong about Hamas and demanded the release of the hostages. And as you know, for weeks now, he's been saying, look, we're not interested in any more negotiations of one hostage, two, two or three. We want all of them home, including the bodies that Hamas is still keeping. And also, quite frankly, Palestinian civilians are keeping inside of the Gaza Strip.

And then to move into the meeting that the press pool covered where President Trump was meeting with a number of the Arab states and also in addition Turkey. Didn't get to hear anything about what they were saying, but that was the big meeting before the president met with Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday at the White House and delivered this 20-point plan about how to move the Gaza Strip forward. And it's quite interesting to see that the culmination of the last eight months of the president having Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House four times, the Israel and the United States taking out a number of Iranian... assets, including the nuclear sites, but in addition, of course, Israel has taken out Hezbollah in Lebanon and a number of high-profile terrorists in the Middle East. So they really set the table for this to hopefully be a success, but the problem is that Hamas is still refusing to negotiate or come to the table on it. So we'll see what happens, but it was really interesting to watch all of this come together, both at the United Nations and yesterday at the White House for sure. Part of what was also interesting was Trump put out the plan and the Israelis. embraced it, right? Benjamin Netanyahu said, we support this plan. It aligns with our goals in terms of the war that Hamas started and in terms of the post-war vision that we've laid out to the Israeli people. So Israel once again said yes. TBD from Hamas. They always say, no, at least so far. But then we started to get some statements, and I want to start in the positive direction, a bunch of these foreign leaders, including some of these foreign leaders who have just recently, for reasons that boggled the mind, unilaterally just declared a Palestinian state, including the British Prime Minister and others, they came out and said, good, yes, we applaud this. This is very welcome, et cetera. Perhaps more relevant, Katie, was a bunch of... Muslim majority countries, those leaders, those regimes put out a joint statement, a bunch of them all together, kind of very positive singing the praises of the process, applauding President Trump, saying that they want to be a part of this. That, to me, unto itself, is movement in all of this, right? It's leverage and its pressure. Absolutely. And it really goes to the pre-October 7th posture of many of these states. Now, Turkey, let's be real about their posture. They've been harboring Hamas. They have been funding Hamas. Recep Tayyip Erdogan just last week on Special Report told Brett Bayer that he believes Hamas is not a terrorist organization, but rather a political entity. You have Qatar, of course, that funded October 7th and has been funding this.

psychological warfare online through social media, trying to turn public opinion against Israel and social media, et cetera. But generally, we're at a pre-October 7th posture where Arab and Gulf states wanted to build a new Middle East away from the hostage, being held hostage to the two-state delusion, which was put to its side, except for, of course. recently with these Western countries declaring a state, even though they did nothing to talk about, who would run it, where it would be, who the government would be, etc. and also blowing up negotiations in the process by declaring this reward for Hamas as they did that. So, you know, Saudi Arabia has been on their way to more modernization for many years. They were not in the Abraham Accords the first time around during the first Trump administration when Israel, Bahrain and the UAE came to the table and signed that agreement, the peace agreement at the White House in September of 2020.

They wanted to be, and they were working towards that. And if you really go behind the scenes and you listen to what these Arab leaders say in Gulf states, they've been trying to get away from the Palestinian issue for a very long time. And this new plan, which was derailed by two years of war as a result of Hamas starting one, with the backing of Iran, which has now been somewhat neutralized in terms of the ability to continue their access of terror all around the Middle East, causing all those issues and problems. These countries have been wanting to move on and get into real business beyond oil. They want to get into tech. They want to get into tourism. And they've been unable to do that a result of Iran's terrorism and being held hostage to this Palestinian two-state delusion. Katie, what I've also seen is a lot of whining and screaming from the, quote-unquote, a pro-Palestinian movement in the West, in the United States. They are very unhappy with Trump's proposal. And what's interesting about that, among other things, Katie, as you know, is... If accepted by Hamas, the hostages would get released. Unfortunately, a bunch of criminal terrorist murderers would get swapped out as well from the Israelis back to Gaza. But the war would stop in Gaza. The shooting would stop. The bombing would stop. Israel would still have this buffer zone for their own national security. But the IDF would in this staged way over the course of different phases. Withdraw. There would be all sorts of new abilities to bring in food and other aid into the Gaza Strip. It would be an end to what these people call a genocide, Katie. They've been calling it a genocide, some of them, since like October 10th of 2023. They've been using that word. It's caught fire. It is the talking point. in the, you know, Islamist slash left wing lexicon. It's a complete lie, but that's their lie. Their lie is that this is a genocide. Here is a 20-point plan that would end what they're calling a genocide. And those people are like, no, no, we don't want that, which suggests to me, number one, that they are. absolutely much more pro-Hamas, anti-Jewish state than they are pro-Palestinian, and that they don't actually believe their own rhetoric about famine and genocide, because if they did believe those things, they'd be desperate for any sort of productive ceasefire that would solve some of this stuff. Instead, many of them are rejecting it out of hand immediately. It's sort of like, again, belies the whole charade. This is what they did. They looked through this 20-point plan and they said, oh, where's the bullet point that says Israel will no longer exist and all the Jews will be wiped off the face of the earth? That's what they want. And they're willing to sacrifice as many people as they possibly can for this lie to meet their angle. And that's it. It's really quite simple. And I think that the idea that all these Arab states have...

have signed on to Trump's plan, which by the way, isn't necessarily great for Israel on every single point. There's a lot of points in there that are actually pretty devastating to Israel, but they're willing to do it, including releasing a number of convicted terrorists back into these communities so they could attack again, but they're willing to do it to get their people out and to move forward with this process of potentially having a safer and more prosperous Middle East. as a whole. But because they haven't gotten what they wanted, which is just destroying Israel and their leftist idea that it's an imperialist country that colonized the Middle East, that's why they're not on board with this. And they've been waging this warfare online and in the colleges for years to try and get this idea that this country doesn't have a right to exist and that its history only started in 1948 after World War II, which of course we know is bogus. This isn't a project that the university has been working on since the 1970s. It just has culminated with the use of social media after October 7th. And just finally, I would say it is wild how October 7th could happen and Israel not remain the victim of this. The idea that this has been turned on its head is so despicable and disgusting. And I hope that they can move forward in a way that is beneficial. But these people who have been protesting clearly. are either disingenuous or their motives are not being put out in front. But it's pretty easy to see what they are. Yeah, especially when they're like, oh, genocide, genocide, genocide. Okay, here's the plan to end it. No. They don't really believe what they're saying. They don't actually care about the Palestinian people. They care about Hamas and hating Jews and ending the Jewish state and ethnic cleansing and actual genocide, which is what Hamas would love to do. It's very, very transparent. I hope that some more fair-minded people who might be skeptics of Israel. If Hamas rejects this, recognize once again who is at fault. Over and over again, we learn that lesson. Katie Pavlach, always appreciate your time here. We'll talk soon. Thanks, Guy. Talk to you soon. More of Guy Benson coming up. Some audio you need to hear. Next. When it comes to my policy, Farmers gives it to me straight, so there's no surprises. It's your coverage. You should never be confused. You hear that? An insurance provider with a conscience. We're a choir, but yes, we have that too. Straightforward coverage you can literally understand. That's what you get when. You have farmers. Bump, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. Learn more at farmers.com. Underwritten by farmers truck or fire insurance exchanges or affiliate. Products not available in every state. I'm Guy Benson. We're back. Thank you for being here with us. Someone sent this to me on social media and I watched it with interest. This was a public comment speech by a citizen in Texas. Just recently, days ago, in Fort Worth, apparently one of the counselors, one of the local officials, had posted something repulsive after Charlie Kirk was murdered. And this guy decided to show up and say a few words about that with that official sitting right in front of him.

saying it to her face. You know that I have been sick and angry. I think a lot of us have over the celebrations, the justifications, the snark about that assassination. It's really appalling. It's infuriating. But I want to credit this guy for saying what needed to be said, but I think saying it in a way that was actually constructive. Like furiously condemning someone is justified. Does it work when it comes to bringing down on that person the shame, the actual shame that they have earned? So this guy's name is Jimmy von Thrawn. He's apparently a radio and podcast producer down there. And he started his public comment. This is at the city of Fort Worth Council meeting. He began it with a story. Cut six. In 2016, I met a young woman named Erica Francie. We became friends because we had similar passions and international mission work. As she worked directly with orphanages in Romania, and I did mission work in Honduras. And that woman would go on to become Erika Kirk, as she married Charlie Kirk and had two beautiful children. And I say this because I'm a husband and a father. And I can't imagine the pain my friend Erica has felt over the past two weeks. She had her spouse's execution broadcast on the internet. And now her kids have to grow up without their dad. And I just can't stop thinking about Erica's first public statement where she described her three-year-old asking where her dad is. It just wrecked me. You can hear the emotion in his voice. He knows Erica. He's feeling the empathy as a parent. He is humanizing himself, the victim, not that the Kirk's should need to be humanized, but unfortunately in a lot of quarters in this country, they need to be humanized because they were so dehumanized, Charlie in particular, that someone felt like it was fine to pick up a rifle and kill him in front of a crowd. And then a lot of people thought that was just grand, because they had dehumanized him and his family that much. And so fighting back against that with humanization, I think, is really important. So this guy, Jimmy, then, went on cut seven. Obviously, everyone knows. Counsel Women Beck saw that and made a post mocking Charlie. And I just don't get it. This is not a random Twitter troll. This is an elected leader whose salaries paid with our tax dollars. And I'm not angry. I'm just genuinely sad. I'm sad for this country. I'm sad for you, Councilwoman Beck. If someone's reaction to Charlie Kirk's assassination is to dunk on social media, like, you have anger in your heart that I can't comprehend, and that's just really sad. You can hear the slightly elevated sound of someone laughing in the background, laughing at him. But he is expressing, I think, profoundly and correctly, a sadness about how broken someone has to be. To have that mentality, to post what she did or to be laughing about this. Now, the actual council member is sitting directly in front of him, listening to this as he speaks. And apparently, reportedly, the person who is laughing is this person who runs a nonprofit in the area for children.

working with children, and this person was chuckling or laughing every time Charlie Kirk was mentioned and thought that was a good look. There's definitely a sickness here. He goes on, cut eight. So my friend Erica can forgive Charlie's murderer, then I can certainly forgive Councilwoman Beck, but the reaction by so many people in this country shows there's a sickness in this nation, and we need healing. And I know some people will disagree with this, but I'm a Christian, and I think this healing can only come through Christ. But whether you agree with that or not, I think everyone can agree. Something's deeply wrong with our country. So he finished his brief remarks here, cut night. And I know Councilwoman Beck took down the social media post. I haven't heard any statements since. I don't know where she stands. And I genuinely mean this. You're welcome at my church any time. Because I'm a sinner in need of a Savior, just like everyone here. And I pray for the hearts of all our leaders because it's a really dark time in our nation. And I'm here for my friend Erica, and I pray for her family. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. You could hear the little bell chime. His time was up. He used it very well. I have no idea what is lurking in the heart of this woman. But as she sat there and she listened to that man, say what he said, I think very magnanimously with forgiveness and an invitation, an expression of sadness, really more disappointment than anger. I think that was very effective. I hope she is not so calloused that this had no impact on her. It had an impact on me. I would be so ashamed of myself if I had done something like this and then someone came and approached this exact comment the way that he did. I hope it stirred something. I also think it's a really good example or a model that was set for how to communicate and how to deal with some of these things in a dark, fallen time and world. Congratulations to him for keeping his cool and approaching this the way that he did. And whether it impacts her in any positive way, I have no idea. I hope so, I pray so, or maybe some of the other people who might have seen this as the clip goes viral. More of Guy Benson coming up next. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy joins us on the government shutdown straight ahead. Cheers to America's 250th birthday. Get 20% off your first purchase at Fox Newswineshop.com with code FN Radio 20. 20% discount excludes wine club offers and cannot be combined with any other promotion. Expires July 31st, 2026. Must be 21 order to order. Please drink responsibly. Guy Benson, sponsored by Previgin. Previgin, made for your brain. It's the half point of Guy Benson Tuesday edition from New York. Glad you're listening. Guy Benson.com podcast always free.

With us now is former Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, at Speaker McCarthy on social. It's great to have you back, Mr. Speaker. Great, great to be back. I appreciate the opportunity. I want to talk about the politics of a government shutdown. We're barreling in that direction because Democrats are insisting upon it. And they're making all these demands. House Republicans have already passed a spending bill that is clean. It's just a continuing resolution at the levels that Democrats have supported for years, actually. Democrats have always insisted on clean funding bills to avoid shutdowns while attacking Republicans in the past for trying to add anything on to it, poison pills, other unrelated matters. And now they are doing exactly that themselves. But they're trying to pretend that this time. Even though they're the ones who would precipitate the shutdown, as Chuck Schumer also did a few years ago, this would be the fault of Republicans. Here is the House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, cut 16. Republicans control the House, Republicans control the Senate, and Donald Trump is the president. The government shuts down. It's because Republicans have decided to shut the government down and hurt the American people. Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, tweeted this shutdown is in Trump's hands. If the government shuts down, it's because Republicans would rather shut it down than help people afford health care. All right, if you could respond to those points and then explaining your experience how these things tend to play out. All right. Well, you have a highly educated audience because I know how you have educated them all. Let's just put this, take the politics out of it, and let me give you the real reason why this is happening. Two, Republicans control the House and the Senate and the White House, but it doesn't take 51 votes. It takes 60 votes. And if you watch, the whole reason this is happening is one person, Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer has always agreed just do a clean CR, which at the end of September 30th, just so everybody understands, that's the calendar year for government. That's the end of our year. They haven't done their appropriation bills. So do you keep funding government while you keep negotiating the bills? Everybody always says yesterday. The problem that Chuck Schumer has is his base is very upset. Now, let me be fair, this has happened to Republicans in the past. I've been there when it transpired. When you get into your second term as president, the... Opposite party feels very upset. And they don't care what you do, you're not fighting strong enough. We had a continuing resolution a little earlier in this year. Chuck Schumer said he was going to fight it, then he voted for it, and he had a book come out the next week, and he couldn't even go on a book tour. He's got Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who's a congresswoman from New York.

She's not just a congresswoman. She raises more money than anybody in Congress, a lot more than the speaker, more than Hakeem. She talks about maybe running for Senate or maybe running for president. Chuck's base won't let him vote for this. But he hasn't staked out. What is he fighting for? Every time you shut down, you lose because you give all the power to the executive branch. And what normally happens is about two weeks, people get excited when they shut down, then they realize they don't gain anything. It costs more money, and they took their power away. But even if you had some moderate Democrats who would, our common sense, I should call them, would vote for this, when their leader can't vote for it, they can't. So Chuck Schumer's only doing this for political purposes. Because if he says it's about Obamacare subsidies, that's not true. Those continue on in a CR. That's not till the end of the year. It's a dumb play on their part. If they were really smart even politically... They could make an argument, vote for the CR but say in seven weeks from now, when we're doing appropriations and the Obamacare provisions come up, if you don't, if we don't have an agreement then. We're shutting down. Then they're fighting for something. Right now, they're not fighting for anything, except this is where it shows how weak the Democrat leadership is right now. Hakeem Jeffries, look, I think there's two types of leaders. You're either a thermometer or a thermostat. A thermometer only tells you the temperature. A thermostat can tell you the temperature and change it. Both leaders are weak. They let the party... tell them what to do instead of leading the party they're both from new york they couldn't figure out who to be the mayor they can't figure out if whether they can endorse the current democrat nominee for mayor so this is kind of the worst scenario for republicans because they really don't have a democrat leader that can make a decision that's why they're stuck in a shutdown it probably goes two weeks till they realize they're not winning And then they haven't set up an off ramp to figure out how they get out of this. And they're going to really piss off their people who want the fight if they eventually surrender for nothing, which is what they're probably going to have to do. I mean, there's no foresight here. There's no plan. There's no end game. At least I'm not seeing it. New York Times has a new poll out that I just saw today. Question on whether Democrats should or should not shut down the government if their political demands are not met. The country says 65 percent should not do it. 27% says they should. So one out of four voters says go for it. Everyone else doesn't want it.

independence lopsidly against Republicans almost unanimously against Democrats, though, a plurality slightly more than take the other positions say yes, have the fight, shut down the government. And that's the loud part of the base that Chuck Schumer is worried about, right? They hate him because he's not fighting hard enough. They hate him because he's a Zionist, quote, unquote. He is scared of those people. And so it looks like he's going to give them what they want. But he's not going to actually win anything. So what does he think is going to happen in a few weeks? So, okay, so right now he's going to do just what he did before. He's going to tell him he's going to fight. They're going to get excited about him. And then two weeks from now, when he votes for this to move government open and he won nothing, they're going to be more upset with them than had he voted for a CR. This is where you have to be a leader. You can't sit there and worry about – look, if Ronald Reagan worried about where his polls were at every time he would never achieve anything, this is the problem with the Democratic Party today. They crave new leadership. That's why you watch – these new progressives are moving up because they're showing leadership. Now, if you ask the American people to shut down, what are they shutting down for? That's like asking them if Kamala Harris won the presidency, tell me the top three things she would have done. You couldn't name it. They're shutting the government down because they don't like it. Donald Trump is president. Donald Trump is doing nothing. He's over solving all these world problems. I told the president the only thing you should do is I'll negotiate with you once you open up government. I was with some Democrat senators the other day and they said, we've been saying in our side of our conference. We need to do what Kevin McCarthy did, what I did, to Biden, where I made him negotiate with me, but it took me three months. You prepare ahead of time. And then when you got to the debt ceiling, we got the others out. We got two trillion in cuts. We got the IRS agents out. We got welfare reform. Nothing that the Democrats wanted voted for, but they had to vote for at the end of the day. I believe, and I give a lot of credit to the Speaker and the Republicans in the House, they passed the continuing resolution. Had they not, it could have looked like it was their fault. Spoon has played it perfectly because he says, I'm not going to play games. I'll keep government exactly as it's open today, but you need 10 Democrats to vote with us. At the end of the day, they're going to have to. They're not going to gain anything. And their base is going to be more demoralized because they didn't put a strategy and seek out what they wanted to win. Look, they shot before they aimed. And who loses and all that? The American public. Here's the other thing, because as you and I both recall, Republicans have tried this in the not-so-distant past, including most notably probably in 2013. The Obamacare shutdown.

where the Republicans only controlled the House and they said, we're not going to fund the government unless we get these elements of Obamacare repealed or Obamacare repealed altogether. That was never going to happen with the Democratic Senate. It was never going to happen with Barack Obama in the White House. But that was the fight that some Republicans wanted to have in both chambers. So they had it. It didn't go well for them. And ultimately, they ended up caving. And then the Republicans, to their own credit, won in 2014 because I think by that point, a lot of it was in the rearview mirror. So I'm not sure how much of a lasting impact any of this has. But it wasn't exactly a resounding success by any means at the time for the Republican Party because they had a fight. They didn't get what they wanted. And then ultimately, the Democrats got to put the government back. on the tracks and say, look, these arsonists and these hostage takers lost and we stared them down. At that time, Barack Obama, as I mentioned, was president. And he lambasted Republicans for doing what they did. Here's part of what he said in Cut 19. At midnight last night, for the first time in 17 years, Republicans in Congress chose to shut down the federal government. Let me be more specific. one faction of one party in one House of Congress, in one branch of government, shut down major parts of the government, all because they didn't like one law. So once again, I urge House Republicans to reopen the government, restart the services Americans depend on, and allow the public servants who have been sent home to return to work. It's only going to happen when Republicans realize they don't get to hold the entire economy hostage over ideological demands. They don't get to hold the economy hostage over ideological demands. He went on to say that this is not how adults behave. It's going to cause great harm to the economy and to families, all of that. That was Barack Obama then. Barack Obama now seems to be cheering on this shutdown strategy when it is the exact mirror opposite. It is the same thing, just the opposite party that's trying to do it. This time it's his party. And the one difference I would say, Mr. Speaker, is back then he was saying, oh, it was only one half of one branch doing this. Right now, the Democrats don't even have one half of one branch. They lost everything in the last election. And because of this 60 vote threshold in the Senate, that's the leverage that they're using. To do the thing that has been their position for years is reckless and irresponsible and unconscionable. But now they're saying, actually, never mind, let's do it. Yeah, and there's one part of history that didn't get added in there. When we shut the government down, we lost. The only thing that saved us is Obamacare rollout was right after that, and it was a failure. Oh, face plan. Remember the honor. And that is why people forgot about it. But we were crucified during that time. When you shut the government down, you do not win. And it takes strong leadership to that.

I was in a place when I was speaker about shutting the government down. And I had one body. I voted to keep it open. A few people got mad at me. One slept with an underage woman. They made a motion to remove me because of it. It's the right thing to do to keep government open because it costs you more money when you shut it down. You give the power away to the White House. And there are moments in time when you have to explain to your base. That's your responsibility as an elected leader. It can't just be a headline. And what you need to do is you need to put an overall strategy. Our overall strategy in the dead swing. make government more efficient, make it cheaper, make it more accountable. We achieved all that sitting with a five-seat majority because we put a strategy behind it. Right now, Chuck Schumer's putting his own personal position ahead of the entire party and country. Because he is afraid, he can't vote for it right now. Watch, even yesterday. He was going privately to a few Democrats and said, hey, can we vote for a CR to keep it open? Because he knows it's the right thing to do, but he got blowback by the base. And so he says no. So he's letting that drive it. And remember, if you go back to Kipling, right? You want to keep your head in these type of situations. And this is where President Trump has played it correctly for the American public. He's out solving big problems, lowering drug prices today, right? Getting peace in Gaza. The only job these members have in there is keep government open and they can't do that. Former Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, our guest on Guy Benson. Mr. Speaker, appreciate your time and insights in that recent history lesson because everything old is new again. Thanks so much. Thank you, my friend. More of Guy Benson coming right up. A fresh perspective on the topics of the day. It's Guy Benson. We're back here on Guy Benson. Yesterday there was a hearing, a field hearing is what they call it, where members of Congress go down, hold a committee hearing somewhere outside of Washington, D.C. They went to North Carolina, which is where that poor woman arena. was slashed in the throat and murdered recently on public transit. He saw the video that came out. It's horrifying. Ukrainian immigrant, minding her own business, just killed senselessly by someone who had been arrested and then released 14 previous times, someone who was violently, dangerously criminal and mentally ill. And her fate is now very well known. So. A committee went down there to talk about crime and these problems. I know that the legislature in North Carolina is moving on a tough new crime bill. The governor, a Democrat, not really sure what to do about it. Democratic policies contributed to that madness. And during the hearing, at which only a handful of the Democrats actually showed up, most of the Democrats on that committee is what we reported on TV last night, did not attend, didn't bother to go.

and hear from the victim impact statements and hear some of these stories about the policies that unfortunately many of them have supported, aided, abetted, coddling these criminals. One of the witnesses was a man named Stephen Federico, his daughter, beautiful young woman, Logan, wanted to be a teacher. She was murdered. murdered in cold blood by someone with a very long criminal history. You can hear the anger and the grief in his voice, cut one. Begging for her life. Begging for her hero, her father, me that couldn't be there. She was five foot three. She weighed 115 pounds. Bang! Dead. Gone. Why? Because Alexander Devante Dickie, who was arrested 39 times, 25 felonies, was on the street. How about that? Arrested 39 times. Arrested and arrested and arrested and arrested and arrested and arrested and arrested and arrested and arrested and arrested and arrested and arrested. That's 10. There's 29 more to go. And then he murdered this woman. Ripped away from her family. How can such a system? How can these policies be defended by anyone? The grieving Mr. Federico was on America's newsroom this morning, and he made this vow cut four. Do you think they knew what they ran into when you opened your mouth this week? I think they found out real quick. I'm not going away. My daughter isn't going away. And we have to stop more Logan Federico's. I can't save her now. Buckle up. Put your helmet on. God bless him in that family. That's different than the Ukrainian woman. This is another example. In the Charlotte example that we mentioned, that was 14 prior arrests. This would be 39. That is madness. And by the way, in a lot of these cities, voters keep electing people. who believe in these soft on crime pro-criminal policies that are leading to atrocities like this. It is indefensible. Final hour of Guy Benson coming up next. Mary Catherine Ham will join us. An important conversation I hope you will stay tuned for. 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.

Happy hour time on Guy Benson, our final hour of three on today's program. We're in New York City. We're glad to have you here. Guy Benson.com, the website, podcast free, every day on demand, no charge at all. This radio hour is sponsored by the Finnish long drink. We love it over there. Big fans of theirs. They're fans of ours. We encourage you to check it out. Always drink responsibly, of course. 21 plus only the longdrink.com. Catch me tonight on the bottom line. I'll be co-hosting again with Dagan McDowell. That's coming up at the top of the hour, 6 p.m. Eastern on Fox Business Network. See you there. Joining us now is Best Friend of the Program, Mary Catherine Hamm, a Fox News contributor, outkick columnist, co-author of our book together, end of discussion at M.K. Hammer on social. Mary Catherine, welcome back to the show. Hello, thank you for having me. All right, so I wanted to stroll down memory lane with you about something that happened involving us four years ago in 2021, and it's relevant. Today, I would say, are newly relevant to have this conversation because I saw that Politico has been exposed for having a woman, a reporter, a journalist covering the Trump White House who publicly advertised her race-based... rage and despair when Donald Trump was elected. She put this out for the world to see on her social media, and now that person has been assigned to cover the Trump administration. And I seem to remember, Mary Katham, that you and I had a bit of a run in with that same publication Politico. We did. Back in 2021, can you refresh my memory? Yes, I believe what happened was that they had a couple groups of people and or like some of them write a center to write for the Politico playbook for a week because they had they were down some people. And they were like, let's do an experiment wherein we would we would expose people who read Politico, uh, to other points of view. And we would be frank about what we're doing and, you know, no big deal, right? Very big deal. And by the way, I do think if memory serves now, that they were going through some sort of leadership transition. And during that temporary period of time, they did exactly what you've described saying, hey, let's hand the reins over of Politico Playbook, which is their big, famous newsletter, will let different people in this industry guest blog, basically, guest write. the newsletter for one day each, and then we will roll out the new leadership team and go back kind of to business as usual. That is, I think, how this all went down. And we got a phone call. Did we not? We did. We got a phone call that we should be among those. And we're like, that makes sense. We're right of center and sane political people who understand politics and could bring information to the table. Great. Let's sign up for that. So we say yes. In the meantime, they run the first person.

that they chose, who was Ben Shapiro, and the revolt from the newsroom was such that political was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We can't do any more of this. No, no. M.K. and guys stand down. You're too much for our audience. You're too much for our newsroom. We can't do it. So we were disinvited from, and we had a date on the calendar. We were going to do it. I think they were going to pay us a little bit of money. It wasn't about that. It was like, hey, can you do this? Are you interested? We said, sure. Ben Shapiro did the exact same thing. And I think they were going to offer this to people across the spectrum. over this temporary solution that they had going on, the fact that Ben Shapiro was allowed to appear in Politico's space triggered an absolute mentee be, a mental breakdown in that newsroom. They lost it. They lost it. They had all these struggle sessions, emails, angry recriminations, meetings, tears, gnashing of teeth, all of this because Ben Shapiro was allowed. briefly, like once, to write for them. And because of that, we then got disinvited because apparently our ideas were just too toxic. Too much for Politico. That would be the same publication that is assigned to covering the Trump White House as a journalist, not a columnist or opinion. This is... straight news reporting, a woman of color who said basically that she felt physically afraid and discarded because of her identity when Trump won. And she had several tweets about this. The Washington Free Beacon has all those details. And that is just, I think, an encapsulation, Mary Catherine, of the way these newsrooms operate. We've seen it recently at CBS News when one of the journalists there, one of the anchors, asked some questions. of a left-wing sacred cow, and the journalists there lost their minds because someone they love, a hardcore left-winger was challenged on their air. Heaven for Fend. We saw it the New York Times multiple times over. I am reminded of an editor who lost his job because a U.S. Senator, Tom Cotton, a Republican, wrote an op-ed. that reflected a view that actually represented the majority of American voters at the time about the National Guard quelling, mass rioting, and unrest in the streets of the country. That was so triggering and infuriating to the journalists of the New York Times that the person who ran the op-ed from a sitting senator lost his job. On that point, Mary Catherine. I've noticed that in recent weeks since Charlie Kirk was assassinated, the New York Times has handed over their op-ed space to quite a few interesting characters, have they not?

Through the prism of free speech is actually quite dangerous. That's what she wrote. While in the process of repeating debunked libelous claims. about Charlie. He can't sue because he's dead, but she repeated the debunked claim that he called for gay people to be stoned to death, which is absolutely untrue. I don't know how that got past the editors unless they aren't editing her or they're afraid to edit her or they don't know that these things are false. All of those are completely reasonable theses about why that made it to print. But Mary Catherine, the man that they are attacking in print is not only dead, he was murdered. by a leftist, and they seem to really be going out of the way to find other people to write pieces in their newspaper, not quite justifying the murder, but kind of sort of explaining why he might have had it coming. Well, the thing is that lefty intellectuals are quite convinced that they are the victims of Charlie Kirk's murder. That's... what's happening here. Like the left does this thing where they reverse victim and offender, and they pretend, as these guys are in print in the New York Times, the New York Times is allowing them to, to assert once again that his speech was tantamount to violence and that therefore, hey, you know, these things happen. It's really grotesque. It is in itself anti-free speech. They smear him with false. accusations that are not corrected in order to get to this conclusion. And like, you would think that the bare minimum, particularly in press and in intellectual circles where you have to talk, would be that getting murdered for talking and saying your ideas out loud on a college campus, no less, would be the thing we would agree is just off limits, right? Like we could just full-throatedly say that is terrible. Nope, but they can't full-throatedly say it. They have to throw it clear. They have to distinguish themselves from Charlie, and they have to, they smear him. They just smear him to make this somehow less parable is their thesis, that he is now gone and cannot defend himself against their false accusation. It's so grotesque. I am not arguing that Nicole Hannah-Jay Jones or Mr. Coates should not be platformed in the New York Times. I'm not even saying that about Hasan Piker, even though I think he has some particularly odious pro-violence views. I'm not actually making a point about them and we are resisting their speech. We are refuting their speech. We are challenging their speech with our own, which is how this should work. I am just noting. That those people are all given these carte Todd Blanche opportunities to write these pieces in this moment after Charlie's murder. But Tom Cotton's op-ed created a meltdown at the New York Times and an editor responsible for running that piece got fired. And at Politico, you and I got disinvited because of the freak out over Ben Shapiro, whereas they have assigned an explicitly...

racially opposed to Donald Trump left winger to cover his White House as a journalist. I think it is fair for us to point out what is happening in these newsrooms to once again expose for our audience exactly how these places are run and dominated by the types of people who are at the extreme fringe of society while insisting that they. are the arbiters of truth. They are the ones who are protecting democracy from all these attacks. They are the ones who are guardians of free speech, when indeed they are none of those things in many, many cases. Well, and also they're protecting their ideological allies from the truth. That's the thing that they're ending up doing. Because like I said, all these people think that these insane ideas they've had since 2020 are totally acceptable to the American people that they're bullying one out, right? And there was reason to believe that in 2020 and 2021, that their bullying had worked and everybody was just going to shut up about it. But lo, the backlash did come eventually. And I have been listening to the likes of Taanasi Coates talking to Ezra Klein, who's gently trying to pry the 2020 mindset from national leaders in the Democratic Party and lesbian intellectuals. Like just get them a little bit more sane and they will not have it. Randy Weingarten will not have it. These national leaders. Love that 2020 vibe. They have been convinced by their peers that it is smart and good and being rewarded. And also it's so moral. It's so moral in their minds that any backtracking from it is immoral and in fact potentially evil. This is how they argue on that point. There are some audio soundbites that I want to play for you to illustrate this a little further. Let's do that right after this break. It's Guy Benson with Mary Catherine Ham. America is listening to Guy Benson.

We have Mary Catherine Hammond with us here on Guy Benson Happy Hour. Mary Catherine, you were just talking about this. Ezra Klein and Ta Nessi Coates had this now fairly famous discussion on a podcast about some of these excesses, including on some of the trans ideology, et cetera. And they just reach a stalemate because Ezra is gently trying to tug them in a more moderate sounding direction, at least. And coach just keeps bringing everything back to slavery and that kind of thing. That is his reference point for everything. And that's sort of how he always argues. He was racializing that issue. Another one of their influencers or voices is Don Lemon. He went on his show and said this in Cut 26. White men, something is broken. Something is cracked. Deep inside when so many of you believe the answer to fear, to loss, to change is violence. Are you listening to me? I hope I'm saying it loud enough for the people in the back. So that's addressed to white men. You also had Randy Weingarten. You referenced this. Who's the leader of one of the top teachers unions in the country. totally plugged in in every conceivable way like, you know, an octopus with her tentacles everywhere in the Democratic Party and the left wing coalition. She's, I guess, hawking a book, went on MSNBC and said this, cut 25. There is a reason why in Norway, when the Nazis took over Norway, that's why I'm wearing this paperclip. I wear two things now. The American flag, nobody can take patriotism away from me and a paperclip. What did the teachers in Norway do when there was a Nazi occupation? They started wearing paper clips. Yeah, the governor of Illinois talking about ICE as jackbooted thugs. The list goes on, Mary Catherine. They are addicted to this sort of political, so-called argument. And they're in this cul-de-sac, and I don't know if they can get out of it. Well, and they do this, and then they look at Charlie Terps' arguments, and they call that hate. Right. It is wild. They are just justifying their own inability to argue. That's what they're into. Randy Weingarten also has a lot of other stuff to cover up, including the fact that the National Report Card revealed that 12th graders' scores dropped to their lowest level in more than 20 years, and their reading scores are lower than they've. ever been. So in order to deflect from that, which she's paid some $600,000 and more to direct the actual education of your students through the teachers unions, in order to deflect from the fact that she doesn't do her job and in fact just does politics, she has to make everything a Nazi-level political crisis. Because how could you teach kids to read while this crisis is happening? Yeah, it's like, oh, the kids are failing. We're failing the kids. more accurately. But look over here. My Nazi paper clip, aren't I a good person? This is what they are mired in. And it is so unhealthy. And I don't know if they know how to get better.

if they can heal this in any way. It'll be an interesting fight to watch within that coalition, and then more broadly in our politics, I think for years to come. Mary Catherine Ham, Fox News contributor, outkick columnist. Read our book. End of discussion. Still very salient. At M.K. Hammer on social. Mary Catherine. Thank you. We'll be right back. In the swamp, not of the swamp. Guy Benson. In our first hour today, we took a spin on the radio with Jimmy Thaler, host of Fox Across America on Fox News Radio. Also, Fox News Saturday Night on the news channel. I was just on the program with him recently this past weekend. Here's part of that conversation with Jimmy, another wild one, a lot of fun. Listen. So the numbers were strong in the back half of the show. Yes. I mean, they were great in the front end. I mean, we won the demo across the board, but it's still spiked in the back end. I love to see that. And I debuted in the C block. Yeah, you did, Guy Benson. When the spike began. Can I just, without even getting you numbers, just look at the charts. Oh, I see it. Do you see that? I see it. That's crazy, though. That's the Guy Benson effect. It has nothing to do with the football ending. But this is specifically the demo. Look at the overall. So the overall is at its highest in the A. That's a stand-up block. But the demo itself, spikes, C, D, and actually stays high in E when we're all on set. Yeah. Come on, Guy Benson. It was fun. So in that C block segment, it was the guy on guy concept where you wanted me to tell you if I were the cab driver, not you, would I pick up various celebrities who I would see trying to hail a cab? And... You insisted this was not me saying, you know, which male celebrities I find attractive is who would I pick up in a taxi sort of way? For sure. Yeah. No, I do mean that. I mean, the concept of play on words, guy on guy, sounds like we're going to another direction. Yes, it kind of did. Entirely predicated. And all the celebrities were dudes as well as we pointed out of guy on guy. But the thing is, and this is true, if you could run it by me, you can give me any celebrity, I would know whether or not they were good or not in the cab. Because there's certain energies and social cues that good passengers have. And it's a vibe. Do you know how there are people you meet without even talking to them? You're actually uncomfortable? Yeah. Because they just have like an atmosphere that's negative. Or there's like cues, little cues. Yeah, that's what I mean. And that absolutely translates to taxi passengers. And I can tell you that from driving. I drove a lot of celebrities. And, um... They always universally either get in with the good or the bad vibe. The bad vibe being some people get in and they look at a cab driver as an affordable therapist. So they just get in and sigh. And going, how's your day going? And that's your cue to get out of the way and ask about theirs. Okay. And I can always tell who's going to do that. So I would put you in a celebrity passenger lane as a good passenger. And I can say that because I shared a cab with you once. We left Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s apartment. Do you remember it was me, you, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Mary Catherine Ham. Do you remember that? It was like two apartments ago. Mary Catherine Ham was at CNN at the time. Vaguely. Maybe. But I rode in a cab with you back here. Back here.

Fun. I mean, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Apartments and cabs have very bad connotations to me because I left all of my belongings in the trunk of one of them once. So now I'm triggered. Okay, fair. I'm having those flashbacks. But yeah, so that was fun. And then the, what you called the borderline racist segment, it wasn't really, but it was racially tinged. It was called white noise. Yes. So McBee, as the black individual on the panel, he was going to be the arbiter of this. But the questions that you asked. the white people on the panel myself, included, of course, was, are these news stories or pop culture stories penetrating into black culture, do they care? Yeah. And I just commented when you came to me that my favorite thing about your show is that there's an opportunity to be fired in every segment. True story. Because it's like a high wire act. Oh, is it ever, man. With some of these things. With the flying well-enders of comedy, we get up there and have fun. Because the whole point is, and all I'm really am trying to do, because I'm new enough to this that I still care internally, and a lot of people don't. as I'm trying to give society permission to go back to consuming content the way we used to, which is like, you know, when someone says like, okay, that joke was to this or that joke was to that, the fact that the sentence includes the word joke is supposed to be your cue to not have any emotional investment. You might even say they're just jokes. Yeah, amen. Title of my stand-up special. They're just jokes. That was a plug. So I am trying to be the change I want to see in the world. My full interview with Jimmy Phala, available online at Guy Benson.com, is part of that free podcast every day, on demand, no charge at all. Guy Benson.com, Fox Newspodcast.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back to the home stretch, producer Christine is angry. I mean, what's new? We'll tell you why. And we will also react to some Super Bowl halftime-related news. We'll go around the horn on that coming up. Miss a minute. Miss a lot. Guy Benson. And now it's time for your favorite segment of the day. Homestretch. I fear I failed as a producer. Guy Benson. Homestretch Guy Benson on this Tuesday. I'm about to go co-host the bottom line with Dagan McDowell, Fox Business Network in the next hour. Hope you can tune in for that or set your DVR. Here it's Guy Benson.com podcast, always free. If you're listening on the broadcast, that bumper music is a preview of a conversation we're about to have. But before we get to that, it's a day ending in why, and we have an angry cookie on our hands. Cooks. Are you angry because you watched Monday night football? I am. I am. I mean, I'm angry about a lot of things, but. You were very confident that your Jets were going to win, pick up their first win of the season. You said your sources told you they were going to win. Did you ask me who my sources were? How confident are you about tonight? Getting in the win column. Oh, very confident about tonight. Oh, why? Just, it's a hunch. Okay. I have a feeling. I have sources. Of course I'm going to watch. And I've had sources tell me that they're going to win. That was last night on the program. Your sources told you they were going to win. Did they? They came in second. In the game? Yeah. What's that called, Christine? Second place. It's a loss.

It's called silver. Oh, and four. Oh, and four. But let me tell you something, Guy Benson. Mm-hmm. They should have won. I think the refs made some horrible, horrible calls. Here we go. And I think Garrett Wilson, that touchdown should have been, what would you say, accepted? Appheld? I didn't see that. I don't know. You're a ref. I'm an umpire. Oh, isn't that the same thing? Is it a ref and an umpire the same thing? It's a different sport. It's a different official. Why is Dylan laughing then? Because, well, I think it speaks for itself. The laughter speaks for itself. I'm not laughing. Well, that's because you're so angry. I'm getting annoyed. I'm getting really angry. And I don't want to sound like a little shrill woman on the air. Oh. But. But I can't do this every week. Like I just like, please, for the love of God. You're going to have to specify, do what every week? I can't watch the Jets lose every week. Oh, the Jets. Yeah. Like, for the love of God, people. Like, if you're listening and you work for the Jets, like call me because we need to have a talk. I can't do this every week. I can't watch you lose every week. And you know what? Dylan and Justin said to me, maybe it's time for you to pick another team. And I said, I can't because I look good and green and I have a lot of costumes already. Well, like shirts and hats and... Memorabilia. Apparel. Yes, apparel. I spent a lot of money on it. We warned you about the Jets. No, not really. Yes, really. Instead of all the teams, you could have chosen, Jets just... It's like every week. Yeah. It's like just banging your head against a wall. Yeah. Is that how you feel when I don't listen to you? I guess I'm just used to it, as you will become as a Jets fan. So that leads me to my anger with another person that you normally I dearly love on this show. Oh, you're Andy. Well, I don't want to call him that right now. Andy McCarthy. Andrew C. McCarthy. Okay. Why are you so upset with Andy? He's a Jets fan. So Andrew. really should have warned me a little more. I thought we were buddies. I thought we were friends. I think he did. I think he tried to save you from yourself and you ignored him and me and everyone else. Well, he did say yesterday, we talked off air about the game and he said he was too busy worrying, I guess, about the Mets and that debacle to really focus on the Jets. Yeah. To go from the Mets to the Jets is not a treat. It's not a treat. But none of this is fun. I would like to enjoy maybe just a win. I'm not saying, listen, I know I lost the bet. I got it. I will never make another Jets bet again. I'll mark my word. Mark it. Mark that down. We'll see. Sources say that will not happen. Yes, my sources suggest that you might make some more bets. And every Sunday, every Sunday I go to church and I pray. I pray for a lot of things in this world, but I also pray for maybe a win from the Jets. No, 0 for 4 on that front so far. So that's why you're angry. I'm so angry. A lot of people are angry because the bumper music that we played at the beginning of the segment, that I guess is Bad Bunny. Was that a Bad Bunny song? Yes, it was. Bad Bunny will be the halftime featured artist at next year's Super Bowl, the next upcoming Super Bowl. I know that he's huge. I know that he has a massive following and is very famous. He's hosted SNL. I think he's going to do that again. A lot of people love him.

I'm not the demo, so I don't really know his music or anything like that. But I also sort of understand why people are bent out of shape because he is big but also niche to an extent. I think almost all of his music is in a foreign language, right, in Spanish. This is like not a lot of English language music in this great American halftime tradition. I don't really care about that. I don't get that bothered by these things. I just don't. Like, okay, he said some things about ICE and he's got politics. I don't care. I really don't. If I built my life around the politics of musical artists and actors and actresses, I wouldn't consume any popular culture at all because so much of it is so bad on that front. I just can't bring myself to get that mad about it. I just think, generally speaking, Super Bowl halftime shows are supposed to be kind of these unifying events that speak to a more broadly shared culture. And maybe we're just not really there anymore. And there are all these different segments of society where someone can be one of the most famous people walking the earth and a ton of people in the country have never heard of them at all. But I think you kind of have to mix it up from time to time. People noted that there has not been a country music featured halftime show since the early 90s. That's a lot of the country, right? They haven't gone with anyone in that genre headlining in decades. So I'm not going to sit here and be all mad about Bad Bunny. I probably won't watch the halftime show with great interest because I'm not a fan of his. But that got us thinking, What halftime show would we want to see if we could wave the wand and make it happen? I'll go last on this one. We'll go around the horn. Dylan, if you could pick a halftime performer for this upcoming Super Bowl as opposed to Bad Bunny, let's listen to your pick. Here's one of this person's or groups songs. I don't know what this is going to be. Cut 34.

Okay, yeah, don't stress, don't stress, baby. Uh, I keep creeping, I keep keeping, uh, a sweet demon, sweet demon, uh, should keep dreaming, I can't see him. Okay. I mean, that's a bop. I have no idea what it is or who is by. Dylan, who is that? You know, this person is a unifying force. I think in pop culture, Justin Bieber would be my pick. That's Bieber? That is Bieber. That's Bieber off his new album. Oh, I knew he had new music. I didn't know that was him. Yeah. Yeah, he actually released. He's released two albums this year. Swag and Swag 2. I am not surprised. that I thought it was a bob because he puts out a lot of bobs. Sure he does. I actually think Bieber at some point would probably be a pretty good pick for this. Not going to lie. Okay. See, I've learned something. And what I like about Bieber is he's done collapse. So maybe bring out Kid LaRoy or, you know, Ed Shear and like that could be fun. Mm-hmm. Your pick, Justin, is cut 35.

100% endorse. Miley Cyrus, like, oh, her politics, don't care. Put her out there. I'm all about it. I did just ask, Justin, I said, could we play that at the wedding? But then I thought we're going to be in Jamaica. It would be strange. So it would not be a party in the USA. I'm not sure my Jamaican boyfriend would know about Miley. Who's that? I don't know. Oh, you're going to find one. I told you on the plane. We're going to find one. Yeah. Sorry, Bobby. Hope you're enjoying the show. All right, Christine, cut 33. This is your pick. It's me. Hi. I'm the problem. It's me. At tea, time, everybody agrees. Your theme song. So that's Taylor Swift. And the Jets theme song. I think they are the problem. It's them. Taylor will do this at some point. I have no doubt. She's huge. I just feel like with her fiancé actively in the league, maybe with a chance to go back to the Super Bowl, although the Chiefs have looked a little suspect in some of these games, I just don't think that's happening yet. I agree with you. I wish it would. But here's another thing. The Super Bowl is at Levi Stadium in San Francisco, correct? Yes. We went there, by the way. That was my first NFL game. So maybe they should have thought of somebody from San Francisco. And so I started looking up bands. Like, it would have been cool. Listen, I don't agree with our politics at all. Green Day. Have they done it? No, I looked. Okay. Metallica. They're touring, I think. Journey, although Steve Perry's not in the band, so that might be a little strange. I'm generally a fan of classic rock. I think having a classic rock-based halftime show, again, because they've had it many times, but bring someone else in there, I like that idea. I'm a huge Billy Joel fan. I would definitely say Billy Joel, except he's... Sick right now. He's unable to perform, apparently. He cut his tour short, so I'm just praying for his recovery that he can get back at it someday. I'm such a fan of his. So I would mention him on the list. I would say maybe some country music stars at this point deserve it. Think of some other band from the 70s or 80s, although I think a lot of it is, who are you pandering to? You want nostalgia a lot of the time. You want the halftime show to be nostalgic for key demographics who are watching and spending their money. At this point, millennials are moving into the pander zone. They need to pander to us. And for that reason, for lack of a better solution here, and with a personal connection to this as well, I see no reason why the halftime show should not be performed by these guys.

Tell me why the Backstreet Boys haven't already done this. They speak to the late Xer, elder millennial crowd. They have enough huge hits that people would know a lot of them over the course of a halftime show. And some people would be bent out of shape about it, but they'll be secretly singing along. to I want it that way. So that's my pitch. Apparently NSYN did it way back in the day. Bring back the boys. They've had this sold out phenomenon in Vegas at the sphere. The residency that Cookie and I were invited to by one of the boys and his wife. By our friends, the Backstreet Boys. And Leanne. We had a great time. It was mind blowing. It became a social media sensation. It was everywhere. Seems like a good pick to me. Better, in my humble opinion, than Bad Bunny. But I don't make these decisions. Maybe for next year. Hopefully the decision makers are listening here to the home stretch. And next year, we can get a better halftime act. And Christina can lose another bet about the Jets heading into that Super Bowl, not this coming Super Bowl. She can go from Bad Bunny to another bad bet. Guy Benson back here tomorrow. Same time, same place. We'll talk to you then. Enjoy your evening. I'm getting really angry. And I don't want to sound like a little shrill woman on the air. Oh. But I can't do this every week.

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