Trump to hit the road, tackle affordability

Ayatop, Fox News headquarters in New York City. Always seeking solutions, never sewing division. It's Brian Kilmeade. Hi, everyone, so glad you're there. Hope you had a fantastic weekend, getting your Christmas shopping done, or moving right through. Anyway, you got a couple of weeks. Don't panic. Senator Markwayne Mullin coming up shortly, and Lawrence Jay Jones has made his way to the studio. He has taken his overcoat off. We were just in 12-degree weather, I think. I mean, you would think this is... Yeah, you had no coat. No coat. You know what, but I'm Italian, so I have a hairy chest. And that keeps me warm, right? I did not expect that reaction. Right. I mean, and the thing is, I started college no chest hair, but all of a sudden I got a lot more. You were eating your weedies. Yeah, more. I'm not sure what it was. Could be genetics. We're going to look into that now. I put my best person on it. Before we get to Lawrence, let's get to the big three. Number three. It's really important that people see what it looks like when the full force of the United States military is turned on two guys who are clinging to a piece of wood and about to go under, just so that they have sort of a visceral feel for what it is that we're doing. It's illegal under international law. It's illegal under the Geneva Convention. Here we go again. Venezuela front and center is the American political scene as drug boats continue to get blown up and pressure on Maduro builds up while Dems once again take the side. of the drug runners. We talk about the new political hot topic. Number two. There are people who have been prosecuted and who have been sentenced. If there was a linkage in that the money that they had stolen going to terrorism, then that is a failure. of the FBI. Right. Don't take any responsibility as a congresswoman represent the area which is overrun with corruption. Blaine the FBI. Immigration culture clashes targets put on illegals in select cities and massive corruption in Minneapolis pioneered by the Somali community led by Elon Musk Omar. In the short run, it looks like the American consumer is doing fine, is chugging along, companies are making profits, stock markets are high, jobs are weakening, but just a little bit. Inflation is there and maybe not going down. Affordability, Trump style, as the historic president goes back on the campaign trail to possibly... feel your pain and talk about what his remedies are, and the success in his economic front will make or break, by the way, the midterms. So Lawrence, it doesn't matter. I think the president didn't have the best terminology when he said affordability is a hoax. My sense is he meant the Democrats claiming that as a hoax after they caused everything to be unaffordable. That's the part that drove him crazy. Can I add to the, it's not just the Democrats.

It's kind of like what I noted this morning. It's the media as well in combination that makes it a hope. Okay. So we've been talking about affordability for like the last four years, Brian. Talk to the people. We've been focused on it. And then suddenly, two months into the president's administration, you start seeing articles and media. hit about affordability. And I just don't think that's fair because it makes it seem like it's the president's fault that the affordability crisis is happening. Democrats can't break something and then expect the president to fix it within 10 months of his administration. That's just not fair. But you know, the president came out and he says, I'm going to fix this thing on day one. Well, he's putting places in place to do that. So now I think they got to fan out continue to talk about it. But, you know, as you keep hearing, well, it's up to, you know, Donald Trump to do it. You wonder what's up to other Republicans to do it. So listen to Senator John Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over the weekend, cut eight. You don't need to be you could to figure this out. A few years ago, we had 9% inflation. Prices were going up 9% a year. That inflation didn't originate in a bat. It was man-made, and that man's name is Joe Biden. President Biden was an inflation machine. Now, since then, the Trump administration, Republicans in Congress and the Federal Reserve have gotten inflation down from 9% to 3%. So things are better, but they're not well. The truth is, there are limited things that the executive branch can do. And you wanted to say, you know, flat out, they should be coming up with the reconciliation package on... to start stimulating the economy without printing money. Well, so they got the big beautiful bill done and that packed in a lot of stuff, but that hasn't gone into effect yet. Brian, honestly, just to be honest with you, and I know there's, I know Senator Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says the executive, but there's only so much government can do in general. That's part of the reason that got us this. In this mess, it's pumping so much money into the market that it caused inflation to skyrocket. What they can do, which the administration has already done, remove regulation, open up energy, get people tax cuts, get businesses tax cuts, and that's what they're doing right now. It's just Americans aren't feeling it all just yet. And, you know, you look at the negative press. For example, Marjorie Taylor Greene was the lead guest on 60 Minutes last night. Oh, yeah. Why would? Only when she becomes anti-Trump. Right. Remember Jewish space lasers were out to destroy the world? Right. The crazy stuff, she said couldn't even get on a committee and Democrats couldn't help her. They bring her right through. And then she says, well, the president said he does too much for foreign policy. He met with Mohammed bin Salman. He's not focusing on Obamacare and all these other things, giving subsidies. So she's now out. And now... By the way, I... I reject that characterization of... And you know me, Brian. I'm one of those people that say focus here at home as well. But the president at the same time as focusing on world peace, which has been very significant, he's been negotiating trade deals for our country as well, getting tax cuts, energy prices as well. So this idea that he's only focused on.

foreign policy, I just think he's a hatchet job. No, it is. But I also think when he even goes overseas to the Gulf states, they're all deals to come back economically. That's right. Economically. So that's the whole thing. Yeah. Does he work on Ukraine? Does he work on wars? Absolutely. Crazy if he doesn't try to bring an end to a war over in Gaza. Are you kidding that's causing so much unrest here in America? Right. And then cracking down to the colleges along the way, that's not domestic policy. But the Adam Kinsinger, Liz Cheney, you'd see them destroy their career by just going over the top anti-Trump. Look, Senator Cassie's been critical of Trump on different areas. Rand Paul over the top, he's getting to that area. You don't have to agree with Trump on everything, but going out of your way to become an enemy, which he's done. Right. So she's the lead guest with Leslie Stoll because she's doing that. So I think, too, just I think, too, the press is not going to help, but they should never expect the press to help. No, I mean, they haven't helped thus far. I just think it's so interesting that when there can be a media blackout against someone, like Marjorie Taylor Greene. And immediately when they become anti-Trump, suddenly they get booked on all the shows. I thought these are people that you had great contempt for it, that we should not be associated. But apparently people become likable when they're anti-Trump. It doesn't help the ratings. I can tell you that much. So what would you do when it comes to Obamacare? and the subsidies. You know, we disagree on this, Brian. I say, don't touch it. Give the money to the American people, let them pay for something. Well, no, that's touching it. So you give the same $22 billion. Yes. And you say you find a way to set up to the health care account. So that is doing something. But trying to. touching what I mean from a legislation standpoint of trying to redo health care and all that. I think it's a landmine. Yeah, don't do that. It's a landmine. But you only have like four weeks. Right. And then everyone's, and, you know, people who have paycheck to paycheck, those health care subsidies are about to double. They don't even like the health care coverage, the average deductibles, $6,000. So Senator Bill Cassidy is working across the aisle. I'm not sure anything would pass, but listen to what he's doing. Cut 10. I've been talking to Democrats. There's absolute interest. I'd like to say that some of them, you know, no American wants a fellow American to not to be able to afford health insurance. Now, we may disagree the threshold. The original Obamacare put the limit of precision in each of your income, I think it's like 9.8% or something like that. So we may argue about that. I think Bill Cassidy's intentions are right, and he's trying to do the right thing. But I think the thing that he underestimates is that the Democrats have already made it very clear that they're going to run on health care. That means they're not going to give the president a win on health care. So the bipartisanship of trying to get some package done, sure, you'll get a federal man there. You may get a Jeanne Shaheen to vote, but that's not enough votes. So. I don't see them being resourceful with trying to get overall legislation done. I'm not saying don't try. I'm just saying it's not going to work. Once they make something a campaign talking point, that ends the bipartisanship. You know what interesting is I saw on Jackie show over the weekend, Josh Gottheimer came out and said, no, we've been working on something with Brian Fitzpatrick on trying to.

Who's his fiancé to Jackie, obviously. The problem solvers caucus. He goes, we are working to something. And then one of the questions was right to him. He goes, yeah, I'm not looking for a political issue. Why do I believe him? Because he's in kind of a purple area of New Jersey, not an extreme area. So I think that him going across the aisle is not going to be detrimental. I don't think so much in the House because they realize that the votes right there, they're just not going to get it. But when it comes to the Senate, which used to be the adults in the room, they shut down the government over this. So you think they're going to give a win on this? Absolutely not. So here's what Bill Cassidy says. So Chuck Schumer says Republicans don't want to do a deal. Cut 12. As always, Chuck is wrong. The choice he is given is a false choice. The choice he wants to give American people is a $6,000 deductible, a system which we send $26 billion to insurance companies, and they take 20 percent, they take 20 percent of it for profit and overhead. No, give them that choice. Okay, you want a policy with a $6,000 deductible, you got it. We want to give an additional choice, one in which your premium is lower and that you have money in an account to help pay for it. He wants to give people that choice, I'm okay with that. But let's give them a side-by-side choice. Both on the exchanges, the patient makes the decision, not Chuck Schumer. Let the patient make the decision. That's the way it should be. Let the American have the power. Let the patient have the power. So great on that. But guess what? The Democrats aren't going to concede on the insurance company's point. Because if they concede on that, they have to admit that Obamacare failed. And you're never going to get Democrats to admit. we failed when it comes to Obama legislature. It is their signature, what they say, achievement. So they're never going to concede that they messed it all up by sending that amount of money to the health care companies. So in today's Wall Street Journal, the editorial report, it says, They try to do a test run. Listen to this. The GAO last fall began an undercover test in which had submitted insurance applications for fictitious individuals to the federal Obamacare Exchange and insurance brokers. Nearly all of its invented people. were able to enroll in subsidized plans despite submitting false or no records to verify their identities. 24 applicants, 23 approved, 18 enrollees were still covered in September, suggested the exchange in insurers didn't verify information even after enrollment. The subsidies paid to the insurance companies for those 18 applicants totaled more than $10,000 per month equivalent to $6,700 annually subsidy for each nominee. So they made it up to test it out. and they all failed. It shows you it's rampant with fraud. So that GAO for the audience, government accountability office, they track a lot of this stuff. I think it goes to the larger point, Brian. It's all about money. It was never about health care. They don't care about fraud because they still get paid.

They still get paid. And so you can't have affordable health care if you have this level of fraud. But the insurance company are never going to care as long as they still get the money. And that's why I say Republicans, don't touch this minefield. You need more than a couple months to fix this problem. So I want you to hear. They were going back and forth on this boat thing before you. I know you got to run out long. So we're going back and forth on this boat thing on ABC. So Stephanopoulos did one thing he never does. He hosted his own show. So they go after. They keep going after and saying, keep asking him the same question about this Honduras president who the president pardoned. So listen to Eric Schmidt, the senator from Missouri. Well, I'm curious about your pushback on that particular point. With your previous guest, you had zero pushback because he's giving the Democrat talking points like you spew every single week, which is probably why your ratings are so bad. But to make the point, what I'm saying is that you're trying to divert here the attention from what the American people actually support. 75% of Americans support us blowing narco terrorists out of the water in the Caribbean who are trying to poison Americans. There's no real legal debate about the ability to do that. It's true. But to go after him like that, I'll answer your question, but let's just make it clear. I just watch you let a Democrat skate right through an interview. That's right, because they're not being honest broker here. Let's just start with the headline. The Washington Post article that the headline was that he ordered a second strut to kill them all. Never happened. Never happened. And you haven't had any member of the Democratic Party to concede on that point. The New York Times completely debunked that entire story. The unclassified version of the video debunks this story because Pete Hegseth was even in the room. Right. Right. So there was no order to kill them all because he wasn't even there, Brian. But at the end of the day, the American people don't care. They want the people that are killing their kids and their loved ones dead. Dead. So we can debate from a foreign policy standpoint. You mean even if they're shipwrecked? Who cares? Who kept, Brian? Guess who wrecked their ship? You know me. I used to be huge libertarian. But you're not going to get any sympathy from me on people that are killing our people. The same when it comes from enhanced interrogation as well. The people that go after us and kill our people, we got to use all the tools in our toolbox. box to get them. Because guess what? The enemy is using every tool that they have as well. So they want this tape out. This is what's going to happen. By tomorrow, it's going to hit a fever pitch. They want this tape out like the end of the Epstein files. So they're going to need to get this out. We've got to get this out. Well, when the American people, I want to see some video of that wedding that Obama blew up or the wedding said he blew up. It's Alahuaki's car, which had his children in it. Or just cover even a little bit of the Americans that have died. at the hands of illegals as well, okay, and the damage that they do. Or how about you do an hour special of how the number one killer of people that are under 18, I'm sorry, 30 and below, is the drugs that they're being poison on. That's what they care about.

I love on ABC, they kept asking, excuse me, on CBS on Face the Nation, they kept asking about what was going on in Minneapolis with the president generalized by the Somali community. Any question at all about the corruption, the $1 billion that ended up in the hands? Well, we don't know if it ended up in terrorism. Well, they're also saying that it may be more than a billion dollars now. So again, their attention span is always the bouncing ball, not what matters to us. All right. bounce out of here. Lawrence Jay Jones, Fox and Friends co-host, you're going to get him in tomorrow? I'll see you tomorrow for the show, but then I'll see you for your radio show next week. Absolutely. Yeah, back on radio. Brian Kilmeade. Lawrence Jay Jones, about to leave the building. Back off, everybody. It's Brian Kilmeade. Cheers to America's 250th birthday. Get 20% off your first purchase at Fox Newswineshop.com with code FNRadio 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.

If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmeade. Yeah, I went a little long. I apologize. But I just thought, just watch for this. We've been through this before. And I'm going to play, I'm going to play a little bit about the Venezuelan drugboat strikes. But just I am not going to play the Russia hoax following the next inaccurate lead on the election mess and all these other things that are involved. I'm not going to do it. The whole Epstein files, it's an issue to the victims. That is it. Everybody else, from Thomas Massie to Rocana, it is all politics. The victims are the only real people that matter in that. And now you have somebody whose heart goes out to the Venezuelan drug runners. You really think I'm going to spend all my time focusing on the Venezuelan drug runners? How many people in America think if we hit them once? That's okay. But if we hit them twice, it's being cruel. Are you crazy? Now we have to worry about the precision weaponry of a boat on the wide open seas, going through waves. If you don't hit them once, just call it a day. Let him drown. Now, another time, there was a cutter in the area, and they picked them up, and they brought him back. The other time they said, well, they look like they're maneuvering to get on top of the boat. That's it. We're going to get rid of them and try to save some drugs. No one actually contends that there's no drugs in the boat. I was waiting for that. That's not a drug boat. But no one even contends at that because they see the drugs and they see everything floating. So just watch. And just don't play into it. I mean, there are real issues that you might want to criticize President Trump on it. I'll go over some of them in immigration. But this is not one of them. The Maduro standoff, how it's going to be. It's already been five months costing us a lot of money to be there. We're going to talk about all that. But don't get me into the drug boat thing. I won't fall for it.

Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kilmeade. There are people who have been prosecuted and who have been sentenced. If there was a linkage in that the money that they had stolen going to terrorism, then that is a failure of the FBI and our court system in not figuring that out. basically charging them with these charges. Isn't this unbelievable? I want to put this in context. That's Elon Musk Omar, you recognize her. And she was wrong-faced the nation to defend the Somali community after most of the 87 people involved with a billion dollar, a minimum billion dollar scam. were found out to be Somali, some peer legally, some green cards, some illegally, all scamming the system to the tune of a billion dollars out of a taxpayer money that should be going to children's autistic programs and... the poor chill and poor people's food programs, all these pandemic money that happened after. This happened in her district, and some of the people involved were directly attached to her. This Guad Hashi Saeed is a former campaign worker 2018 and 2020, who he'd guilty to running a fake food program, stole over $2 million for a personal benefit. So the restaurant where she holds fundraisers, co-owned this guy Omar held in 2018, hold the Congressional Victory Party there. This guy was convicted of serving phantom meals during COVID-19 and stole $12 million for her personal benefit. And guess what? He's got 35 seats in this restaurant. He made $18 million he requested for reimbursement and got most of it. So she's wondering why people are pointing to her. And now she's made of the FBI. If they're terror ties to this and the FBI is a failure of them to not realize the Somali community in which she's congressional, she's a congressional lawmaker is mailing money back or wiring it over to al-Shabaab in Somalia. And if it is in fact the case it's the FBI's problem. Senator Markwayne Mullin joins us now, Armed Services and Appropriations Committee. Senator, I was amazed at the audacity, and I was also amazed on Face the Nation. They didn't bring up these two linkages to her personally. Well, and it's, Brian, thanks for having me on your show, and it's bigger than that. First of all, Omar is an absolute liar, and we know this. I mean, she says anything that she can to spin it any other way. And right now, she's blamed it on the FBI. It's their fault, which if the FBI was investigating it, that she would be saying that FBI is discriminating this of Somalian government or Somalian people. The truth is, is that it's even bigger than that.

You're using the numbers, which are very conservative numbers. We're seeing numbers that it starts at a billion. It could run as high as $8 billion. Wow. Now, we're just starting it. And by the way, this restaurant owner, we know for a fact it's $12 million. But there is reports that he and she, the co-owners, could be connected to as much as $250 million, which, by the way. Omar had direct relationships with this, and we're not seeing this in Somalia communities outside of her district. This is happening inside her district. Great point. So to say that she is complacent would be very nice to say that she knew something was going on, would... I don't think it's too far out of line. I think you have to look into her and her involvement and how she may have coach these individuals on how to go and cheat the system. And I'm very serious. I'm not trying to be ugly towards it, but these individuals had to have some cover someplace to be that bold to, like you said, a restaurant that has 35 tables. Now, my wife and I, we were in the restaurant business. We had two restaurants, and we had a lot more than 35 tables. And we did nowhere near $12 to $18 million worth of sales a year, not even close. And so it's actually extremely scary. And then Al-Shabaab, keep in mind, I think a lot of your listeners are very informed individuals, but I think a lot of people think Al-Shabaab is an individual. Al-Shabaab is an ISIS-K organization. It is... It is ISIS. So it is a terrorist organization, not an individual. It's a terrorist organization that we know, we already know for a fact that a percentage of this money that was stolen from U.S. taxpayers was funneled into Somalia, which was directly following money straight into al-Shabaab, the organization. And keep in mind, we have special forces that over there right now fighting against al-Shabaab. So we're funding the enemy. We're fighting to the Somalia community that we open our doors to, to allow them to come into our country and chase the American dream. And what they do, they slapped us across the face, stole our money, and funneled it to a terrorist organization. And what people should understand, too, the Biden Justice Department. called it the largest COVID fraud scheme in the country, and that it was pocketing COVID-era welfare funds more than a billion dollars in taxpayer funds. So they started this, and now our Treasury is going to pick it up. And, you know, we can track down terrorists. We're good at tracking down money. Here's Scott Bessent, cut 22. The initial fraud that was discovered by the IRS, for which I'm the acting commissioner, is discovered by IRS criminal investigations unit. This was not an endogenous thing that the state of Minnesota decided we had to go in and clean up the mess for them, and this is part of the continued cleanup. A lot of money has been transferred from the individuals who committed this fraud, including those who donated to the government, governor donated to represent.

Omar donated to A.Keith Ellison. So he's pursuing it. He wouldn't say, hey, Al Shabab definitely, but you know what? He's working towards that. And I'm sure they're going to find a way. She came out. She did say one thing that I researched this morning. She said, I told the AG to investigate this back in 2022, and she did. But she actually told the USDA Governor Vilsack or former governor, Secretary Vilsack to look into it. She didn't tell the AG. She didn't tell the ag department in Minnesota look into it because a lot of this was food program. She thinks that's exonerates herself. So she's looking to cover herself. That's exactly right, Brian. She's covering herself. She is not someone that we can trust. And I have not been a fan of Walmart ever. It is absolutely absurd the way that she takes advantage of a country that gave her the opportunity. She could never be in a position that she's in. if she was still in Somalia. But we gave her this opportunity. We took her in. We took her family in. We allowed her to become a naturalized citizen back in 2018. And she should tell the American story. Instead, she fights America's principles every single step of the way. Instead of her embracing it and saying that, and then with the Somalian community and saying, look, we have an opportunity to make something to be better than what we ever had in a different country. She demonizes. the American government over and over again, which, you know, either were a nation of laws or were a homeless nation. I've said this over and over again. What separates from a third world country, what separates from Somalia, the reason why people left Somalia is because they feared their life. It was a lawless country. They came to a country of laws, and they take advantage of it. And then when we go to enforce it, You demonize it. And when you demonize us trying to enforce the laws of our nation, then that makes you not anti-police. That makes you anti-American. And I truly believe that's where she is at. And she, in 2022, when she did ask this, well, you're correct. But she asked it in a way of, hey, you may want to look into this, but then she left it alone. just enough to give her just a little bit of a cover, Brian, but she never pursued it. If she wanted, did she ever talk about it publicly one time? She spoke about it publicly one single time, and then it totally went away. The question is, why did it go away? And then when we started looking into it, when the Trump administration really started digging into this, the Biden administration started it, they stopped. They didn't pursue it. We picked it up. Immediately what we started doing is getting pushback from the Waltz administration, the state government. Now, we had state employees that were going outside of Tim Walz, Governor Waltz, and was working with us, which we call those whistleblowers. But they have reports where they were warning the governor and the attorney general, the state attorney general, that this was going on, and they decided to turn a blind eye to it during the entire presidential campaign.

I'm talking to Senator Mark William Mullen. Senator, now the big thing is we've seen this pattern before with the Epstein files, with the Russia situation, with the impeachment. Now they're going to harp on. We need that video of the second strike of the September 2nd hit on the Venezuelan drugboat. And I don't think, I hope the American people understand that this is going to be one of those things they're going to look to distract from. You have everyone weighing in on it. And I think the real story is, How do we get Maduro out of there? But I just want you to hear some of what Democrats are saying, cut 27. It's really important that people see what it looks like when the full force of the United States military is turned on two guys who are clinging to a piece of wood and about to go under, just so that they have sort of a visceral feel for what it is that we're doing. By the way, individuals in that boat were not even aimed at the United States. So everything that they've done is been illegal. It's illegal under international law. It's illegal under the Geneva Convention. And it certainly is even illegal under domestic law. It was essentially murdered with that double-tap strike. Do you agree with that? No. And somebody said they were hanging on to a piece of lumber is lying. Either they're lying or they didn't see the video. That's absolutely, positively, 100% a lie. And that person knows there's no, there's no shoes for being uninformed because everybody could be read in on this that they chose to. It takes time. You've got to go down to the skip. Right. You've got to request it. It's got to be walked over from the White House. And you've got to sit there and you've got to read documents after document, after document, which I've done. And then you can request to be briefed on it, which I have done. And you can watch the video if you want to see it. Their video does not need to be released. And there's for reasons behind that that I can't get into. But these people were not. clinging to a piece of lumber what they were trying to do is flip their boat back over and i can share this with you they were flipping trying to flip their boat back over and actively radioing another boat that was in the region that we were tracking to come pick them up now that is still a combatant and it is very clear that if there is a stranded person if it is an individual the navy has their own code of an individual is stranded and shipwreck we have an obligation to pick that person up but we in no way are an obligation to put our men and women at harm's way if we deem them still a threat. These individuals are actively still trying to get away. We know those boats had weapons in them. We know there's another boat in the area. We're not dispatching our men and women to save a terrorist butt who is still trying to fight against us. And I hope these individuals are truly on the bottom of the ocean and we never see or hear from them again because that is exactly where they deserve. Now, for these... For these Democrats that are out there trying to make something about this, the worst drug activity in the country is happening in these blue states' backyards. And they know it. And we've lost over 66,500 individuals in 2024 to drug overdoses. Now, the U.S. and the entire Vietnam War lost over just over 57,200 individuals. So we lost more last year from these terrorist organizations. poison our streets, poison our families, poison our friends, poison our communities. And we did in the entire Vietnam War. And the Democrats are trying to defend them saying that they have a right. These are terrorist organizations. 24 of these, Brian, the 24 cartels have been deemed a terrorist organization. And we're attacking them the same way that Obama attacked terrorist organizations. And he killed over a thousand individuals with drone strikes. And these Democrats said not one thing about that, not one thing.

And you know what? I was for Obama doing that. But part of the reason he did that, he didn't want to fill up Gitmo. We could have gotten intelligence from some of these people on a, you know, case-by-case basis. But he's like, I don't want to put him anywhere. I want to close Gitmo, which he never did. So that's why I wanted to kill him at their weddings and kill him, you know, driving and wipe out their families too. So I want to talk about the real issue. And that's getting Maduro out. How do you resolve this thing successfully? In the Washington Post today, the same, Maduro said fears. that he's going to be overthrown. But right now his inner circle is holding up. Both sides are looking for an off ramp. And here is what Elliot Abrams said should happen. Donald Trump's former U.S. Special Representative to Venezuela, cut 30. Well, this is not Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. First, those countries had zero history of democracy. Venezuela had 50 years of democracy after it overthrew a dictator in 1958. Second, those countries are all split, you know, Sunni, Shia, Kurd, Christian, Druze, not Venezuela, which is a pretty united country from that point of view. And it is surrounded in the Western hemisphere. by democracies. So I think the chances that this would lead to a democracy, as has happened in the rest of South America, are really much, much better. So, I mean, that's the goal to get Maduro out. Is there anything you could tell our audience about ending the standoff? Because this is the real issue. Maduro, we gave him an opportunity to leave. Now, we have a bounty on his head, but we have told him he could leave. We gave him an opportunity to go to Russia or to a couple other countries, but not in the... a region, in other words, he can't go to Cuba, not in the region to where he's at. And keep in mind, they had an election. Venezuela had an election. They elected a new president. And she is more than capable of running the country. Maduro decided to stay back. He's a dictator that needs to leave. And so we're saying, hey, man, if you want to go. We'll clear the airspace. We'll allow a play to come and pick you up and you go. We're not even going to try to come back through your money. We're going to take the bounty off your head. You go live your life. Allow Venezuela to become the democracy and the economic powerhouse that they used to be in the region again and stabilize that region because since Venezuela is destabilized, a lot of the region is now destabilizing around it. But I don't think we commit. troops to the country. In fact, I don't think we're not going to commit troops to the country. We're not going to do that. Now, we may have some strikes on some lab factories that are poisoned in our streets with these drugs, but we're not going to go in. The people are going to have to stand up, and when they do, we'll be happy to support the new government. Yeah. Do you see any end to this? You have a prediction? No, I don't have one. It's very hard to tell. We do have communications with people that are in Venezuela, but it's very difficult to say. It's Maduro's position to say, do I want to leave or not? Most of the time, dictators are not suicidal.

They have a will to live. And when a seat gets too hot and you give them an opportunity, they have to go. But we also let Maduro know that the door's closing. At some point, he's not going to have the opportunity to get out because we're not going to rescue him. He can fly out on his own, but if the timbers get too hot, that's on him. Got it. Hey, thanks so much. Appreciate it, Markwayne Mullin. Always a lot to talk about. Senator Markwayne Mullin. Hopefully we're going to see some resolve on a bunch of things and get things done. President starts as affordability push tomorrow night. Thanks, Senator. Thank you. You got it. 1-866-408-7669. A couple of minutes on the back end with some of your calls and some of your input from what you did over the weekend. Don't move. From breaking news to big name guests, Brian brings you insight you won't hear anywhere else. You're listening to The Brian Kilmeade.

Breaking news, unique opinions. Here it all on the Brian Kilmeade. The fear would be that we would no longer have control and that we would no longer be the apex species on the planet. This thing that we created would now be. Is that funny? No. I'm scared. It's not going to happen. I know you think it's not going to happen. But it could, right? It could. I just think it's extremely unlikely. Well, that is the head of NVIDIA. And that was when Jensen Huang was on with Joe Rogan. And he was just saying, you know, it's kind of scary. What could happen with AI? A lot of these experts are saying, look out. This is going to be really scary because they're going to be more powerful than us. And they might just decide that were in the way. And he laughed at that. But a lot of people are concerned about it. I mean, you have really smart people. Before this whole thing really took off, you had Elon Musk and Sam Altman saying they just could get out of control. Now they don't say it because they're so into beating China and I guess profiting off it. But now you have other people walking away saying, no, no, no, this is a problem. And we have to be able to control AI. We should do this with our eyes forward. And remember, Tristan Harris was in here. There's this guy, Nick Soros, who was at the bedrock of... AI, and he said this quote, if any company or group anywhere on the planet builds an artificial superintelligence using anything remotely like current technologies based on anything remotely like the present understanding of AI, then everyone everywhere on Earth will die. Besides that, I can't see much going wrong. He was in the Brian Kilmeade show, Brian Kilmeade.com to find out where I'll be next.

Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan. It's the fastest growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmeade. Hi, everyone, so glad you there. I come to you from 48th and 6 in Midtown Manhattan. Heard around the country, around the world. The city is overrun with Torres. But I talk to people who are actually owned businesses and restaurants, and unless it's the really high-end stuff, they're not really feeling the big push from the holidays and the crowds. You seem to have a lot of people, but not a lot of spenders. Molly Hemingway is here in studio, Fox's contributor, editor-in-chief of the Federalist, who I imagine is doing outnumbered today. I am doing outnumbered later. If you just waited until tomorrow, we could have been on together. Oh, that would be wonderful. You are my mother's absolute favorite. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. That's awesome. Meanwhile, before I get to Molly, let's get to the big three. Number three. It's really important that people see what it looks like when the full force of the United States military is turned on two guys who are clinging to a piece of wood and about to go under, just so that they have sort of a visceral feel for what it is that we're doing. It's illegal under international law. It's illegal under the Geneva Convention. That is Democrats. They've got a new issue. Then as well, front and center on the American political scene, as drug boats continue to get blown up and pressure on Maduro builds up, while Dems once again take the side of the drug runners. Anybody who's on the other side of Trump, we talk about the new political hot topic. Number two, there are people who have been prosecuted and who have been sentenced. If there was a linkage. in that the money that they had stolen going to terrorism, then that is a failure of the FBI. Elon Musk Omar blaming the FBI for the corruption in the Somali community in Minneapolis, immigration culture class, as targets put on illegals in select cities and massive corruption in Minneapolis pioneered by the Somali community, which is represented by Elon Musk Omar. We'll look at the linkages. In the short run, it looks like the American consumer is doing fine, is chugging along, companies are making profits, stock markets are high, jobs are weakening, but just a little bit. Inflation is there and maybe not going down. Affordability, Trump style, as the historic president goes back on the campaign trail to possibly feel your pain and talk about his remedies. The success on this economic front will make or break the midterms for Republicans and Democrats. Molly, your thoughts about the president going out tomorrow to Northeastern Pennsylvania.

For affordability. He's going to start speaking to the public first time since he won the election. He needs to talk about it a lot, but he also needs to change the way that he's talking about it. So he keeps on saying that affordability is some kind of hoax. He doesn't understand what people are talking about. And I understand his frustration in that we had under the Biden administration just rampant inflation. And the media would just flat out lie about it and say that there was nothing happening there. But at the same time, just because inflation has dropped quite a bit from where it was during the Biden administration doesn't mean that people aren't still feeling the effects of it. And whichever political party figures out that this is a real live issue and has policies to address it will benefit quite a bit. The second half. It means everything. Everybody knows it's a good word to use and resonates and is effective. But what you do to fix it is the key. That's what drives Trump nuts. You're going to tell me about affordability. You knew you handed me a hand grenade when I walked in here. The Wall Street Journal says this. In the Oval Office, AIDS presented Trump with surveys from one of the president's own posters detailing voters' concerns about the cost of living. His team had begun showing him social media posts that illustrate how Americans view the economy. Top aides have taken turns talking to the... their boss about his economic messaging and the need to emphasize what voters are feeling almost every senior White House official is involved in this effort. So I sense the president gets it. Well, I don't know because even just in the last couple of days, he's reverted to that claim about how this is not, that people are looking at this issue the wrong way. You can't tell people how they feel. Now, another thing that's a big issue for Trump is that he's actually the first president in forever to deal with this in a long term sense, working on repositioning our. Our infrastructure and, yeah, our business base relative to China. He's thinking about how people will be able to form families, build homes, all these things that we had a string of presidents and congresses from left and right. kind of get us into this problem. And he's trying to deal with some of this stuff. So I think he's also feeling frustrated that way. But it doesn't matter because elections are held every year or two. Right. And I think what the president does, he glistens to the crowd on certain buzz lines and sees the reaction. So if he comes out, And you can tell him whatever he wants. And he comes out and goes, the economy's doing great. Aren't we doing great? And there's a mellow reaction or a flatline. That will tell him something more than anything Tony Fabrizio, who's one of his key pollsters, could show. I want you to Doug Burgum was on One Nation on Sunday.

And he said this about the difference between the states blue and red, which might be tough for the president to tackle cut six. In some of these states like in New England that have got the highest electric prices in the country have been the ones that have been blocking natural gas coming from Pennsylvania next door. Some of the lowest gas prices in the world are coming out of Pennsylvania. We've got Europeans that are happy to buy Pennsylvania gas by the ship. And we've got states next door like New York that won't take it on a pipeline. that just crosses an imaginary line called that state border. So he's saying that, you know, the blue states might feel the pain. And there might not be anything the federal government can do about it substantially. Well, that is another thing that reminds me of how in the first administration, Trump... did a really good job of expanding our energy and making that something that was helpful to other countries as well. I just saw this thing about how Europe is giving so much more money to Russia, usually through energy than they are Ukraine, even though they're making a big deal about the Russia-Ukraine war. And when Biden kind of cut off a lot of our energy, that helped Russia, basically, in their war effort against Ukraine. You know, especially in natural gas. Yeah. We were setting up terminals to be able to feed Europe. And he said, no, we're going to get it from Venezuela. Let's cut a deal with Venezuela and let's empty our oil reserves. But it shows how when people are concerned about energy production and transfer of energy for environmental reasons, it also can have these like serious national security or international relations. Well, Chase just want to stop down from this conversation for a second. Your response, if I told you even three years ago that the green fever had broken. and that people are going to come to the realization that the world is not about to blow up and we're not destroying it with climate change, and that Bill Gates would come out and go, yeah, maybe we overstated it. And now we're seeing even Tom Steyer say, we have to message this if we're going to bring it up differently. You said, Brian, you're crazy. But I think the American people realize that that was a lark. This actually enrages me, and I've never been a climate alarmist, but seeing all of these. these billionaires change their tune on this at a time when there actually are some issues in playing with, you know, in order to have AI work, you have to have unbelievable energy, expansion of resources. And this is the time when if they really cared about anything they said that they believed about. they believed in. This would be a big issue. And instead, because they stand to make so much money from this, they're just changing their tune. And I don't have high regard for these people to begin with, but it's appalling to me. All the banks are stopping their whole zero climate push on the dime. J.P. Morgan was the first. They all just follow. Now all of a sudden, the oil and gas companies, it's no longer a four-letter word. And you can serve on there. And they're not letting these natural, these green activists become board members. it's unbelievable that this is happening. Now, and you see it in Europe too. It also shows that the repercussions for the loss of trust in institutions. So when people realize like, oh, these people never meant a word they said, they won't believe anything else they say going forward. Or, you know, you saw with the HEPB vaccine that came out last week, they're saying, we're no longer going to require it for all babies. It's actually a smart decision in that only...

children of prostitutes and intravenous drug users really need that happy vaccine. But it also shows that people had just gone along with whatever was recommended by public health officials. And then they realized, oh, they don't know what they're talking about. And so now they're just rejecting all of it. And that could be a problem, too. I hear you. That's looking big picture. Yeah. We're such a great columnist, too. But a couple of things. Did you see some of the pushback from Scott Gottlieb yesterday? They said, should you be, you know, for evidently when you're born, infants get like five to seven shots. And they want to stop that. And the happy Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. says, no. unless someone's an intravenous drug user, we're not going to do it. And there's a very small chance of them contracting this. It's not worth the risk. And he says, well, no, you want to get it down to zero. And zero to five, there's a 50% chance of happening. Five to ten is where it becomes a two percent happening. So there's a sense. I'm not saying everybody wants to benefit financially off vaccines, but there's essentially like, hold on everybody. Let's stop this. Well, first off, you can actually test for hep be in adult women fairly easily, which makes it easy to screen which babies should get this or not. But also, you know, there are a lot of people with interests in pharmaceutical companies that would like to keep having as many vaccines as possible. I think vaccines are a wonderful gift from God and my children received vaccines. But there's all that there also needs to be room for people to argue that it's just way too much or that unnecessary ones. Can you stagger them and now blitz the kid with them, the infant? and make a parent feel terrible and say, you can have your child born here unless you take all the vaccines. Exactly. So there's a lot going on. Healthcare. There seems to be some type of a compromise working. Here's Bill Cassidy, cut 11. If we can get to a framework where they give the American people a choice, they can stay with the policy they have with a $6,000 deductible or then go to another policy with a lower premium. and money in a health savings account for them to purchase that which they do? The rest is just political decisions. What dial do you turn here, dial you turn there in order to get your votes? I think we can do this if people are of our goodwill. I say we don't want a Republican solution, a Democratic solution. We want an American solution that works for Americans. If my Democratic friends believe that, we can do it. Now bring me inside Washington. What's going on? Well, I love... That general idea that Bill Cassidy just said about how Democrats and Republicans should come together to solve problems, we're about as far away from that in Washington, D.C. as is possible. Perhaps a reflection of how closely divided the Senate and the House are. But the real problem with this issue is that the way Obamacare was structured will create a system where you're... always going to be subsidizing health care insurance companies more and more and more. There's no way to stop that given the way that Obamacare was built. And that's part of the genius of the plan if you want government control of health care insurance and health care. But it's not going to get any better. So no one in Washington, D.C., Republicans in particular, seem to have the courage to address the underlying.

problem that will not be fixed by just throwing more money at it. Well, how do you feel about something being done timely? Well, yeah, the pressure is on and they don't, not only do we know that they need to get it done this month, they really want to get home before the holidays. And so that will help incentivize them to come up with an agreement. Nobody comes to bipartisanship better than when there's a chance to spend taxpayer money. So I have a feeling Republicans will cave fairly quickly on this. without any health savings, without anything. If they cave quickly, it'll look like the holdout, the lockdown, the shutdown was worth it for Democrats. Well, and who knows, I was just at a meeting on Friday where people were saying there were some good ideas, you know, that might have purchased and we'll know more about it this week. But. Having said that, that's still, the thing about the shutdown was that it was really helpful for shutting down all the progress the Trump administration had been making, which was politically favorable, and also created a crisis in northern Virginia that enabled some really big wins in Virginia and New Jersey. So it worked for Democrats, but not necessarily because of this issue. So I want you to hear what Senator John Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said. Enough about the president. We could do something ourselves, Cup 15. We need to reform the Obamacare. We need to go to site neutrality. We need PBM reform. There are a whole host of things we can do. And if I could do them on my own, I would, but I don't have control on the floor. And I have been preaching to my colleagues in the Senate for months now. that we need to do another reconciliation bill. And I'm going to chase them like they stole Christmas until they agree with me. I don't know why we're sitting here doing nothing. Your thoughts. This, again, is one of these situations where Republican voters for such a long time begged Republicans to have some way to... or return Obamacare or make some massive change to it. And they never really seem to have a plan that enough of them agree with to make anything of it. So perhaps John Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his colleagues will prove us wrong. But they need to have a plan. I'll agree on it and communicate it well. Yeah. I hear you. I just think that why would John Thune not be trying to do something? Why would Speaker Johnson not be trying to do something separate from anything? What else do you have? The big beautiful bill, vulnerable accomplishments. A lot was tied into it. I understand that. But what else are you doing? Like, what is, you know, you don't have to take everything, every message from the president. What about, what do you guys want to do? But also, you could take the message from the president. He's a very popular figure. You could do things that he's doing their popular. For instance, Donald Trump is working on this Venezuela situation. How hard would it be for Congress to provide support? Even Trump, I think, should go to Congress and ask for support for it, which would make it more.

legally strong and also would be the important debate that the way that Americans have debate is through Congress. They're supposed to be this great debating body and they never have any debates about anything about what we're doing, even if it's about going to war with another country. Well, I think that it became easier to just outsource everything to unelected bureaucrats in federal agencies and it just There are downsides to having debates that or coming up with solutions that are not always politically popular. And the more that they could outsource that to the executive branch, the easier it was for them. But Congress is almost completely broken. I mean, the last time that we saw any. real solutions coming out of that body. And it's our Article 1 branch. It means it's our most important branch or should be, but it's not. Yeah. Do you think it's because it would be embarrassing for John Thune or Johnson not to have votes on something they wanted to have votes on? Because there's so many people that don't agree. You've got the Rand Paul and others. I want to say in defense of both of these individuals, they are dealing with majorities that are the narrowest they've ever been. And they're also dealing with a political party that prides itself on independence of thought. Nancy Pelosi was very good at what she did, for instance, as speaker, but she was able to rule with an iron fist in a way that Republicans just generally don't allow their leaders to do. And so it's a bad situation. I would just say for both individuals. If they don't come up with a vision and start thinking about what would be beneficial for permanentizing some of these popular policies, they're going to lose so horribly in a year. It's not even going to be funny. Molly Hemingway, we'll see you on Outnumber. Is that okay? Take care. Thanks so much. Back in a moment. Real talk. Real guests. Real insight. Where curiosity meets conversation. It's the Brian Kilmeade.

The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmeade. Hey, we're back. You know, the other thing that the administration's going on that I think they have to adjust for the midterms, as much as I want all eight million people, maybe more that Joe Biden let in and the 1.5 million gotaways, want them all out. Obviously, if you're trying to get in, trying to avoid detection, maybe you're up to something, more than likely you are. I want to get the worst out first. That's it. But I don't think you should be going up to people just going at the Home Depot parking lots and say, show me your paperwork. You have to have reasonable suspicion to approach people. And you might say, well, legal, I can get through it. But it's an impossible position to put our ICE agents in, number one. And number two is you have the Hispanic community saying, look, I don't want you to harass us. I elected you to. Make sure the immigration is enforced. But I don't mean for you to just go up to people and say, show me your paperwork. Just because you're Hispanic, I'd say you might look or speak Spanish, speak broken English or Spanish, doesn't mean you should get pulled over. And I think the worst first will take you about two years. And then we could talk about everyone having to go, more people having to go, or the next phase having to go. And then maybe people have been here 20, 30 years who have a sponsor stay. Now, some people don't want to hear that. But also those same people probably don't want to lose the House and Senate. So even if you say to yourself, I want everybody out right now, understand that you'll lose the Hispanic community, which means you're going to lose all those seats who are supposed to gain in Texas. It means you're going to lose some ground over in Miami and around the Spanish sections in New York City. Any places where Congress has gone to Republicans in blue states? They were beginning to get all this. Trump was at 46, 48 percent of Hispanic votes.

The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmeade. Well, I'm curious about your pushback on that particular point. With your previous guest, you had zero pushback because he's... giving the Democrat talking points like you spew every single week, which is probably why your ratings are so bad. But to make the point, what I'm saying is that you're trying to divert here the attention from what the American people actually support. 75% of Americans support us blowing narco terrorists out of the water in the Caribbean who are trying to poison Americans. There's no real legal debate about the ability to do that. So that is Senator Eric Schmidt. And he was just on there as a guest talking about the Venezuela operation. And next thing, you know, they just keep pushing him on the pardon of the former. president of Honduras. I don't know why the president pardon him. Evidently, they feel as though he was overly charged or inaccurately charged by Joe Biden. It doesn't seem to have been a good move, but you could say it and move on. But George Sevenopoulos was relentless. As a matter what Eric Smith said, he said, three times he goes, so what do you think about that pardon? How could they be president against drugs, be against illegal drugs and be for a guy that was put in jail because of drugs? So he said, okay, what are you talking about? I already answered that. I have no idea about the pardon. I'm focusing on Venezuela and the operation. Getting out drugs is absolutely true. Nobody doubts that not even Democrats are downed that drugs are in that boat. They're not fishing. There are no rods. There's no other reason from the do it. No one's saying that these are the drug kingpins in there just because they're the just because they are the On the boat going to the Caribbean island. It doesn't mean they're not complicit in all this and play a vital role. For example, in a war. Why are you killing the soldiers? It's the generals and the presidents that got us into this war. Well, they're first. They got a gun. It's pointing towards us. Here's more from Eric Schmidt, because this guy would not let up. Cut 34. Now, you could have a policy discussion about it, which now you see the Democrats pivoting from the second strike and the war crimes allegation to really what this whole thing is about. Should we be doing it in the first place? I have way more sympathy for my friends, my cousins, my neighbors, those people who have been poisoned by these narco-terrorists, people have been skinned alive by these cartels that they bring people to the United States than I do for these narco-terrorists. I mean, that's just the reality of the situation. So there's legal justification for it. He's doing it. do have more of a focus on our interest now in the Western Hemisphere, and I'm thankful for that.

Yeah, so the real issue is what I thought was worthy of a debate is how do you get Maduro out? We've been there five months. It's cost us a lot of money. How do we break this standoff? Washington Post today, they point out a few important points. The inner circle is showing, and Maduro's inner circle, so showing no signs of imminent breakup. So that's a problem. Evidently, it's understood that there's genuine fear among Maduro that we're going to do something to his infrastructure or take him out specifically. That's why he never announces his appearance and he bulked up his personal security. Both sides are looking for an off-ramp. That's also basically agreed. And the two leaders agreed to speak again. Where could he end up in Qatar? He could end up in Iran. Most likely he could end up in Turkey and live that life. They say, look, we'll take you off the most wanted list. We'll take the bounty off your head. Just get out. at which time there'll be some problems trying to, you know, restructure the country, but not nearly as much as you would think with Libya and Iraq because you have a situation that's totally different. So yesterday with Fried Zakaria, he was ambassador to Venezuela, James Story was on, and he talked about where this whole thing is heading, and now there's a little bit of pressure on the president. Cut 32. I don't know how much Maduro can deliver on this because of the nature of the corrupt regime over which he presides. He's basically allowed the military to engage in all kinds of nefarious activity to include drug trafficking. I believe, going back to the question of what can you get from Maduro, I think his departure is the first order objective. And then the negotiation is about, well, how do we help the Venezuelan state reconstitute itself? How do you re-institutionalize the country? There's very little, I think, that Maduro can offer outside of his exit, which will end up redounding positively on our overall policy in the region, frankly. And if you get Maduro out and we've got to find out other leverage, other points of pressure, then no one's going to be talking about these narco boats. They'll be talking about some of them. Someone's going up September 2nd, the way to get Pete Egg set out. I got news for you. Pete's not going anywhere. You could say you don't think you like him. You think he's too aggressive, too much to provide. What doesn't matter what you think? He's in with the president almost every day. He's not doing things the president doesn't want him to do. It's not what's going on to the Pentagon? How come we haven't heard from Pete Hegseth's there every day. And a lot of it is, hey, can you do the get this done? And he gets it done. Unlike the other previous Secretary of Defense, there's not really much pushback. And there's more compliance, which I think is the goal when it comes to the president. You know, George Schultz and Reagan didn't always get along, but they always knew who was the Secretary of State, who was the Secretary of Defense, and who was the President of the United States. And I think that was important. So here's Elliot Abrams, someone from the Bush era that helped Trump out the first time in Venezuela and sees a lot of promise with this operation, cut 30. Well, this is not Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. First, those countries had zero history of democracy. Venezuela had 50 years of democracy after it overthrew a dictator in 1958. Second, those countries are all split, you know, Sunni, Shia, Kurd, Christian, Drews, not Venezuela, which is a pretty united country from that point of view. And it is surrounded in the Western hemisphere by democracies. So I think the chances that this would lead to a democracy, as has happened in the rest of South America, are really much, much better.

So there's a Brazilian official that could run interference between the two countries. He's beginning to do it. Now, look, I know nothing's ever going to be easy. But when you have an election and a person gets 75% of the vote and then you don't let her take office and that party take office. It's not the typical coup setting. It's, hey, you won. It looks like this guy's not leaving. He's got the guns. He's got the army. If you can get the army to flip sides or just stand down, then you have Venezuela looking to stand up again. And they lost about 8 million people. Just got out of the country because it's a disaster. So that's what we should be debating about. We should might not be debating about everything else. The other thing that went on on Friday, which I regret not being there, but the draw took place. in Washington, D.C., that decided who plays who, where, and when you got the sites for the American team is in Seattle and Los Angeles. They're going to be playing Paraguay and they're going to be playing Australia. Two teams they have beaten before. Why does that matter so much? Because in soccer, the U.S. team hasn't gotten past the quarterfinals. Now, here's the President of the United States talking on Friday. When you look at what has happened to football in the United States, again, soccer in the United States, we seem to never call it that because we have a little bit of a conflict with another thing that's called football. But when you think about it, shouldn't it really be called? I mean, this is football. There's no question about it. We have to come up with another name for the NFL stuff. It really doesn't make sense. It's true. The president's got this logic about him. Of course, it should not be football. But it's too late, Mr. President. Don't worry about that. That's key. But he also went on to say, look, we're not hosting alone. Let's listen. We've had a tremendous relationship, working relationship with Canada. We have our Prime Minister of Canada there, and we have our president of Mexico. And we've worked closely with those two countries. The coordination and friendship and relationship has been outstanding. And I want to thank you both very much and your country is very much. All right. That'll be good. So we'd have some co-hosts, but it's really clear who the host was and was Donald Trump. He got the Freedom Award. People had some fun with that. But overall... I think it was a good drawing. The whole world. I was wondering why it was at 1245 in the afternoon. It's because in Europe, this is prime time for Europe. But I just think that if we're going to host, why don't we go by our schedule? Why don't have to go by their schedule? So here is the coach of the team, Mauricio Poncecino. Pontechino. He was on CBS. Talk about how that team has been playing much better lately. He only got named a year ago. Cut 44. The message that I received, some people say, oh, coach, I want to play for you, and he's playing, I don't know where or not in the place of the world. But I think it's really that because I think we have a pool of 70-plus player that we were using in the last year. And I think the competition is there. What are you looking for? I want to know what gets your question. The best of the things is to be able, the player, you know, to let us to coach.

not to think too much, respect the rules, no, show commitment because I think, and the most important, like you say, that was perfect, the right player to defend our flag, our badge. Of course. It's our culture and all that represent that society, that is America, that you are a winner. Of course. I am a winner, too, because I come from Argentina. But I think that is the most important, is to represent in the best way, our values, no? So with that, we have to find out who the third team. You guarantee three games. And then you get out. But you want to get out as the number one seed because you'll play the lesser seed in another group, groups instead of divisions, okay? So if you want to come out in the top spot, we've never come out of a conference of group number one. But we went in as almost the number one seed because we're hosting. So to Canada and so did Mexico. So we got Australia. And we have another game against Paraguay. And a third game could either be Kosovo. It could be Kosovo. It could be Turkey. Or there's one other team. Oh, Slovakia. Slovakia. So they play that third game. These are all winnable games. I really believe the U.S. will never rally around a game where we can't potentially dominate. We don't go, whoa, look at that great team over in France. They're the best. We don't understand with all these kids playing and these league now thriving, why we can't be the best. That's why Americans are not going to ask to be – don't explain it to them. Just go get to the final four and then see what happens. And Parchitino, who couldn't get his captain to leave Italy, A.C. Milan and come back and play in the Gold Cup for the last few friendlies, said this about the team, Cup 45. Are you nervous? I want to know how you feel. Are you nervous? I know you're excited. I am excited. You are not. No, you're not nervous. No, but if you say to me, I have nervous, yes, but the normal nerves that make me be really competitive, I'm very aggressive, I'm very, you know, exciting about it. Okay, there you go. He's being trying to honest. He'll be able to do interviews. That would certainly help. If I was these guys, I would start singing the national anthem when you go out there. You're going to be in two of the most anti-American cities, Los Angeles and Seattle. That won't be helpful. Hopefully people come out of town. I don't know why they have to go on the West Coast. Why not put them in the South somewhere? You know, South Carolina. Why can't you put them in Dallas? but they're going to be in the northwest. So here we go. And in Southern California. So we'll see what happens. Believe it or not, I know you're saying, Brian, why are you talking about this in December? It'll be the number one story when the time May and June come up. It's going to be bigger than everything. You're not going to be talking about football training camps. You're not going to be talking about the... And Major League Baseball All-Star game at the beginning of the season. You've got to be only talking soccer. You just mark my words. You listen to the Brian Kilmeade. We'll come back and take some calls in just a moment. 1866-408-766-9. I'm already getting some emails in. I'll read them too. Don't go anywhere. Brian Kilmeade will be right back.

He's so busy. He'll make your headspin. It's Brian Kilmeade. I am closer to yes than I am, no. I will tell you that. But regardless of what people think, strategy matters and execution matters. And there are a lot of people that don't believe in Texas. And so for me, if I am going to tell people that they need to believe in Texas, I need to not only have numbers on a piece of paper, I need to be able to tell them this is exactly how we're going to get there. That is Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who might be redistricted out of the House so she wants to run for the Senate, you know, John Cornyn's seat. So will that be something that will fly? Do you think she has a shot? I'd be shocked if she could win something statewide because he's got the biggest name, but I don't think people respected her. Joining Jasmine Crockett was supposed to be James Talarico. He was on, seemed to have won over Joe Rogan. This is going to be a hot cycle because on the other side, you have the sitting attorney general who wants to run against John Cornyn. You have Wesley Clark who wants to run against... No, Wesley Hunt, who wants to run against John Cornyn for the Republican side. And you've got to be wondering what's going to be left after the primary. Now, CBS reports that Mark Vesey is now weighing a run for the seat that Jasmine Crockett would leave behind. Now, Congressman Cesar, Dagen and Johnson, and Quayar, Gonzalez, and Green, all face dramatic changes to their districts under the new map. Now, Quayar got pardoned by Trump and Trump in his... truth social posting, rip Kuiar for not being a Republican. He said to try to put you in jail. He says, but basically he regrets it. He regrets pardoning Kuiar, who is a moderate Democrat, who was indicted for doing something with Azerbaijan somewhere. I'm not sure if he's guilty or not, but the president got a letter from his daughters and said, you know what? I think Donald, I think that he was targeted because he was against Joe Biden's horrible border policies. So Kroc had put this on. on X, says, it is hilarious to me that me saying that I will announce what I plan to do in 12 on 128, mean today, like I've been saying is scarring the heck out of so many people. The attacks are hilarious. Note to those that don't know how politics works. Only the threat gets attacked. Again, my decision to go one way or another will be based upon facts and not feelings. Greg Abbott came in and said, Jasmine Crockett's about to learn the hard way. The most Texans are very different from her district, her base and her value. She'll be pummeled for her progressive socialist agenda and get crushed by the Republican nominee for Senate. The Texas political cemetery is filled with blowhards like her, who have no idea what it's like to run statewide. Looking forward to watching this circus and keeping the U.S. Senate seat red on the bright side for her. Maybe she'll end up with a job on the view. No kidding. I bet you she does end. But when you talk about politics and a cautionary tale, I bring you to Miami as a Democrat named Eileen Higgins, who serves in the county commissioner's office before winning a runoff spot to be the Democratic nominee. This is one of those mayor's spots. It's always gone to Republicans. But now it seems like this Democrat, like the Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia, are bucking conventional wisdom and are beginning to make gains.

And I think a lot of it personally is because of the aggressive way in which the Trump team is going into these Hispanic areas, looking just for Hispanics in some cases and not for illegal immigrants. You go for the warrants, you pull out a criminal, people love you, and those who don't can sit in a small bus. But Congressman Maria Alvira Salazar, a Republican whose district includes the city of Miami, called the elections elsewhere a wake-up call. She says the Florida senator who is in 2016, founded the group Latinas for Trump, has said about immigration arrest that we are witnessing is inhumane. That's a Republican saying in Miami, a Republican city, that what she's witnessing and what she's here in your community is in humane. If you could show Trump that he's now dropping in the 30s with Hispanics. and has no shot at winning the mid-turns that stays that way and they could draw a parallel, that would call Kristi Noem, who is not really getting along with Tom Homan, who Tom Homan was all for worst first. And the worst first, there are some bad people that are being pulled out, and I think that's great. But there's other people that are being targeted for different reasons. Holman is towing the party line for now. But here's Senator John Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the problem they're having in New Orleans with the crackdown, cut 18. Well, here's what's going on in New Orleans. Legal immigration is legal. Illegal immigration is illegal. Duh. And the president has sit in federal officials to enforce the law because local politicians in New Orleans won't. Many of the local politicians are friends of mine, but we just disagree. They are preternaturally and ferociously woke. They are. Many of them, I know them, many of them majored in online activism with a minor in puberty blockers. He's 100% right. So what they're doing in New Orleans, which is the city in dire need of cops and prisons and, you know, people that want to work in prisons. And you have a lot of legal immigrants there. Remember, in May. I was landing in New Orleans, and it turns out there's huge prison break. It took them like six months to get everybody. It turns out they were able to basically open up a hole in the wall and run out. So this is a city that should be welcoming law enforcement, and some are. But I think you get the perception they're really going for Hispanics. That's the issue. And it's not hard to fix that. I wouldn't think. Because the president got elected to crack down on immigration. Just don't go overboard. That's all. Brian Kilmeade.

Fox News headquarters in New York City. Always seeking solutions, never sewing division. It's Brian Kilmeade. Hi, one, so glad you're here. The Brian Kilmeade is moving your direction on this Monday a couple weeks before. We have a Christmas holiday, and whatever you're celebrating, it is a sprint, and I hope the economy really catches fire. I guess Democrats are hoping it's not. Selena Zito is going to be with us shortly. Brian Stern, former U.S. Army and Navy countertel, Intel Officer 9-11 First Responder, founder of the International Rescue, nonprofit Gray Bull Rescue. We're going to talk a little bit about... the whole Venezuela situation and what it can mean as well as the controversy around it. So just keep in mind, today's going to be a busy day for the president. He has got a, I guess a mini cabinet meeting happening. He's going to participate in a roundtable. It's going to be with his Australian counterparts. So the president's going to participate, the State Department there. And also they're going to have this defense, the war secretary with war secretary over in Australia. Melania Trump events are also plentiful. The First Lady partners with toys for Todd's charity drive at the Marine Corps base in Quantico today. So let's get to the big three. Number three. It's really important that people see what it looks like when the full force of the United States military is turned on two guys who are clinging to a piece of wood and about to go under, just so that they have sort of a visceral feel for what it is that we're doing. It's illegal under international law. It's illegal under the Geneva Convention. It's just so ridiculous. Democrats have their new Epstein files, and it is the... the drug boats. The second hit on a drug boat now has everyone clamoring on the left to release the tape. Here we go again. Please do not be distracted. The focus should be on Maduro's ouster. That's it. Number two. There are people who have been prosecuted and who have been sentenced. If there was a linkage in that the money that they had stolen going to terrorism, then that is a failure of the FBI. No, it's a failure of you and your district. Immigration culture clashes, targets put on illegals in select cities and massive corruption in Minneapolis, pioneered by the Somali community, led by Ilhan Omar in Congress. In the short run, it looks like the American consumer is doing fine, is chugging along, companies are making profits, stock markets are high, jobs are weakening, but just a little bit. Inflation is there and maybe not going down. There it is, Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan, affordability, Trump style, as the historic president goes back on the campaign trail to possibly feel your pain and talk about his remedies. The success of his economy on this economic front will make or break.

him in the midterms, no doubt about it. Where's he going to go? I believe Northeast Pennsylvania. Why is he doing that? Well, why speculate with me? We can go to Selena Zito, who knows so much about Pennsylvania politics as anyone in the country. Selena, welcome back. Hey, thanks so much for having me. So, Selena, why do you think the president chose Pennsylvania in that area in particular first? Well, I think it chose Pennsylvania because it's a great microcosm of the country. You have a mix of rural, meaning farmers and farming, the farming industry. You also have suburban, so you have C-suite and people in the executive sort of end of the economy. And you also have the working class, right? You have the people working in the energy industry, working in AI, working in manufacturing. And so going to a place like Pennsylvania, is sort of like Billy Joel singing Allentown, right? People can see themselves in the place that he's put himself. So I think that one thing is pretty clear is when he came out and just said the whole thing's a hoax, people were interpreting that as him saying there's no economic angst out there. Or people are things, people saying, well, people are just don't understand that they can make ends meet. That's not what the president meant. He meant that for Democrats to bring up affordability as if they had nothing to do with making things unaffordable was maddening to him. But evidently, according to the Wall Street Journal and the Oval Office, aides presented Trump with surveys from one of the president's own posters detailing voters concerned about the cost of living. His team had begun showing him social media posts that illustrate how Americans view it. Top aides have taken time, turning point, taking time with him about his economic messaging and the way to hone it. Do you think that's important for people that he trusts to tell him about the economic situation? Yeah, I think it's definitely important to have people that you trust, that they've been around you. People that also can say to you, look, we need to talk about this, right? One of the things that I've always found sort of interesting about President Trump and part of behind his success is his success is his ability to surround himself with people that can say, no, don't do that. or you better do this. You always see very successful CEOs that way, and he does the same thing. And so coming out and talking about affordability in a way that connects people with their problems, I think is really, really important. I suspect what we'll see today or tomorrow is he'll come out and say, look, these are the things that we have done to make things better. But things still aren't moving as fast as you would like. We know your bottom line is hurting. A lot of those costs are driven by health care, by the way. And here's what we're going to do to make things better. Right. Healthcare is taking a big chunk out of people's lives. And anybody who was covering Obamacare in 2010 and kept saying, this is not going to work out in the long run, is now sitting back and saying, see, I told you so. And on the Republican side, they say we don't want to bail it out because I think it's, and I understand that thought. They did this thing. I don't know if you had a chance to read the Wall Street Journal editorial page today, but it's pretty amazing.

They did this look, and the GAO, Government Accountability Office, decided to see where the fraud is with Obamacare. So they had 24 applications put out there, all fraudulent. They did this as a test pattern. So the GAO last fall began an undercover test in which it submitted insurance applications for fictitious individuals to the federal Obamacare Exchange and insurance brokers. All of these invented people are able to enroll in a subsidized plan despite submitting false or no records to verify their subsidies. So that means out of the 24 applications, 23 were approved, 18-year-rollers were still covered as of September. So 18 fake people. So they made no effort. They just did a test pattern. Do you realize how rough with fraud this thing is? Oh, yeah. I covered it back in 2009, 2010. There were a lot of holes in this system, right? And there were even Democrats. I forget they were called the Something Eleven who warned that this was going to be a problem. One of them was Jack Murtha, a Democrat. He's now the late Jack Murtha from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. And so this system that they were putting in place was always... brought with holes and the ability for people to do exactly what you just pointed out in that Wall Street Journal article. Yeah, so listen to this in 2023, one Social Security number was used to apply for more than 125 policies. And perhaps there was just identity that, but it also was possible for brokers submitting fake Social Security numbers to enroll ineligible or phantom people in plans. And they're cashing in. So. Anybody who says this isn't a problem, having said all that, do you think Republicans, from a political past standpoint, if they just don't do anything and allow the subsidies to evaporate like they were supposed to, the sunset, like when they passed, do you think they'll pay a political price? What do you think is the best political thing to do? Well, I think I would first of all make the point that it was the Democrats in power in 2021 who were the ones that sunsetted it, right? Because they erronely believe that they were going to be in power for the long run. Right? And John Fetterman, Senator John Fetterman from my state has been very explicit about pointing that out. But I think the Republicans need to say something like, look, I know you all are hurting with health care. This was caused by Obamacare. We're going to fix it. We're going to let this expire, and we're going to do a better job. But they better come up with a good plan. Yeah, I think whatever it's got to do, it's got to happen in the next few weeks. And Democrats might say, let's just make it impossible. I need this issue for next year during the midterms. And maybe will they be able to spot something, you know, be able to spot that as pure politics. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, oftentimes, you know, he's a supporter of President Trump, but we'll buck him sometimes. He's in the Problem Solvers Caucus. He says he's looking to do something and they're making some progress. Cut 13.

Time is obviously short. You know, affordability is an issue across the board, certainly with health care. And we have to make sure that we do not let prices go up at the end of the year. That's very, very important. There's not enough time to come up with a brand new construct. So I think we can get the best of both worlds here by having a short-term extension of the premium tax credits with guardrails, with income caps. And also... have HSAs in the mix where money will go directly to the individual rather than to the insurance company and construct HSAs in a way that allow them to be used for health insurance premiums. How do you feel about that? I think it's really smart. Look, part of the big problem with health care is the middleman, right? The middleman is what's driving the cost up. And that plan of his essentially takes that power away and takes that flow of income away and gives it back to the consumer, but also gives the consumer the health care coverage that they need for their family. Yeah. So, I mean, we'll see if they can work that through. Remember, President Trump was just going to renew it. And then his whole party said, no, don't do that. So we went on the sideline here. From what do you know, are the Freedom Caucus and others is going to be a no-go on this? I don't know. I think they're going to hear from their constituents, right? Their constituents are, it doesn't matter who they voted for. You know, even their conservative constituents are having problems with their health care. And the cost are going up. They have to address the issue. I think Fitzpatrick is presenting an issue that solves a lot of problems. Yeah, here's more from him. Cut 14. The one thing that I've shared with leadership, Mike, is do not put a single party bill on the floor because it's not going to pass the Senate with 60 votes. We already know that. So let's put a two-party bill together now that's going to pass that we'll address the cliff that we face at the end of the year, but we'll still deal with the long-term issues of getting to the true drivers of health care. I think that's something we can all agree on. So I think he's going to move forward with it. We'll see. I mean, the president, you know, they've clashed before, but subtly on Ukraine and other things. Yeah, they have clashed before. But also, you know, if we look at Trump and we look at his history with people that he has clashed with, but has also respected, right? And he is not somewhat, like I have this interview with him about changing his mind. He's not reluctant to change his mind on issues. He's not also reluctant to change his mind about people.

So I want to talk about Governor Josh Shapiro. Remember, he did an interview that was in the Atlantic that had, you know, it was from, I guess, a month ago, where they read an excerpt from Kamala Harris, is at that point her book wasn't released yet, at which time they said when he walked in as the vice presidential interview, he took control, made demands, and came off arrogant and petty. And he got very offended by that and used an expletive and walked himself back. you know, on that, but he showed a fire to him. Do you think he is marshalling what Axio seems to be to control the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania and maybe be ahead of the game when it comes to the Democratic nomination for president? Well, I think what he wants to do, I think his general plan is it, by the way, if people read the book Butler, they know that Josh Shapiro explicitly said he turned her down, right? So I think this has a lot to do with her having sour grapes towards him. And I interviewed him on that. I think that the Josh Shapiro is trying to, what he's attempting to do is have a robust win in Pennsylvania when he runs for governor. You look for him to announce in January that he's running again for the governor's seat. And to show that he can win in a state that Trump won, show that he can win in a state that Trump won, show that he can win. bring with him majorities in the state house and the state legislature and maybe flip a couple congressional seats. I think that's his plan and that if he's successful, then he would take that to the next level as being sort of the default leader of the party. But Josh Shapiro has shown that he can win a state like Pennsylvania. And I think you need to be a Democrat to do that. to run for president. Whereas if you look at Gavin Newsom, there's no way he could win Pennsylvania. Absolutely no way. Yeah, anybody who, you know, looks past his smooth style and looks for substance. But, you know, I just can't wait for Democrats to debate Democrats. I find him somewhat formulatic. I feel like he gets a formula, has a speech, can deliver a speech, you know, the Obama impersonator type thing. I'm not saying he's not smart. But I just don't find him very at ease in. In conversational, Josh Shapiro, what I've seen. What's he like? So I've covered him for 25 years. I've known him since he was a state rep. And he is, to your point, he does not, he rarely steps out of that formula, right? The answers come across very genuine. and very smooth and very authentic. But unless you have covered him for a very, very long time, it is very, very rare that you see him step out of that. I have been lucky in my coverage of him on numerous... hard issues like what he did with the Catholic priest in Pennsylvania, that was not an easy issue to take on as the Attorney General. But, you know, he is very, he's very disciplined and he's a very nimble political athlete. But people also want authenticity. Yeah. So that's going to be his challenge. And he doesn't get along with John Fetterman, right?

Pardon? He does not get along with John Fetterman, correct? Oh, no, they do not get along, no. Why? It has to do with the prison board. And it's a longstanding feud. And they're very cordial to each other in public. But personally, they don't, unless that has been amended. Not according to John Fetterman's book. It hasn't been. Yeah, yeah, right. By the way, his book was really, really good. I agree with you. I hope it did well. I know he sold it a lot here, but not many people were booking him elsewhere. Selena Zito, thanks so much. Appreciate it with the Washington Examiner. Always great. Thank you. Back in a moment. It's Brian Kilmeade. Information you want. Truth you demand. This is the Brian Kilmeade. I live in SA March 12th, 2024, and it talked about the three eyes. Immigration, interest rates, and inflation. Immigrant, mass unfettered immigration, depressed wages, calls housing prices to go up. The president has closed the border. That is fixed. Interest rates have come down. The bond market just had the best year since 2020. And now we are working on inflation. And I expect inflation to roll down strongly next year. And that's Scott Bessent, maybe the best spokesperson when it comes to the economy that I've seen over the last 10, 15 years. They say that Rick Rubin was great. Well, whatever his first name was my fault. Secretary of Treasury under Clinton explaining things, and that's when everything was booming. And we had the dot-com bubble. Then it burst, and he seemed a lot more human. And then we had the whole mortgage scam thing where put 2% down, pretend you put down 10% and what could go wrong and everything went wrong in 2008. But you have to communicate what they're doing. And basically he says the top 10% own 88% of the stocks. He's looking to balance out incomes. He's looking to balance out salaries. He says, I don't want it to haves and have not, even though he's a self-made multi-billionaire. And that's why he's the perfect person, the perfect time. He understands Trump too. But I think that if you're looking for economic gains, I think the president, this is what I've been listening to everything, trying to talk to everybody possible. The best thing he could do is update the USMCA, get some certainty with Mexico and Canada. I don't care about, you could do those other things and the drugs and the personalities. I get it. Trudeau is not there anymore. You say you like this guy better. So work it out. So you get some certainty there. That would immediately set us up for a better chance in a big time, 2026. When we come back, Brian Stern joins us. We talk about Venezuela. He is a nonprofit gray bull rescue. And he's got tremendous experience in Latin America.

From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Kilmeade. Last year, there was a real election in Venezuela, and Maduro tried to rig it, and he failed and lost in a massive landslide. The administration is now saying, well... this government really has to change. They don't use regime change. And I think Trump is not going to put boots on the ground. But he does seem to have decided, this is my hemisphere, this is our hemisphere. We can't have a hostile regime like this, engaged in criminal activities hooked up with Iran and Russia and China, and we're going to change it. So that is Elliot Abrams, who with a lot of experience in this region, talked about how it's never easy when you talk about pressuring somebody in our hemisphere. But the upside is getting China, Iran, Hezbollah, Russia, out of the area, Cuba, out of the region. We have to take control of our own backyard, which is extremely popular with the MAGA folks and should be. First off, you've got to stop the drug trade. That's how they're getting a lot of their... a lot of their revenues. So that's 22 boats blown up, 85 dead. We know about the controversy. I'm not interested in that. But in terms of getting Maduro out, it's not ousting a leader. It's a guy that lost an election, multiple elections, and this time he lost 70-30, and he's still able to stay in power and just abuse his people. And we've putting so much pressure on them. We have so much hardware there. 10% of our whole Navy is off the coast. What are our options? And the key for it would be no more strikes. except for boats, no strikes on land needed, or even the drug, the drug operations, but just get Maduro out. Brian Stern is here, former U.S. Army and Navy counterintelligence officer, 9-11 first responder, and founder of Gray Bull Rescue. That's a nonprofit. Hey, Brian, welcome. Hey, thanks, Brian. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. All right, first off, what are our options when it comes to Venezuela? This is the deal is we have a lot of options. You know, we're really good. The U.S. military and U.S. government is really awesome at projecting force. We're designed to be able to fight a war anywhere. And the reality is that this is about a hundred minutes from Miami to Caracas by air. So this is in our backyard, which is extremely advantageous. The weather is good. The food is good. The time zones are nice. So as far as the war part, we have every option on the table. The downside is the second and third order consequences to things. So if we pick a fight in the wrong way, we could absolutely have a domestic problem with Isbola and Treaddara Agla and Patels and the rest. That's an issue. The open border piece for years and years and years Venezuela was key to that. And there's enough bad guys out there where they can keep our hands busy for a while. So that's the downside. So Maduro's for five months, he's still been able to hold out. Could he be looking stronger if he is allowed to stay? Well, this is the thing. I think we need to do this in such a way. We need to get rid of Maduro in such a way where it's in his interest. Because if it's not in his interest, he's going to stay until it is. And there's a carrot and a stick.

President Trump is prepared to do both. But the messaging of that, I think we're, I think we're losing on the messaging piece a little bit. We're forcing him to dig in. And that, again, leads to things that may not be anologist. So, yeah, he's got to do some stuff on the ground. How do you get the military away from him? We know he's got Cubans as his Secret Service. But it's all about who's got the military. And so far, if you look at the vice president and the military commander that's near them, they seem to be solid. That's going to Washington Post. Yeah, and I think that's right. What you need to do is not make this about Venezuela. You need to make this about Maduro, meaning if we attack Venezuela, Even if we're right morally, ethically, legally, even if every Venezuelan out there hates Maduro and wants him gone, we're still attacking their homeland and we're still the aggressor. And that plays out poorly on the streets. We need to do this in such a way where this is good for the people of Venezuela, where they're happy that we're coming, where they're excited that we're coming, where they're cheering. And that will really defeat Maduro's ability to do this. That's what I would just. I mean, to me, he's not popular with the people. He's already shown that. So that's a big advantage. So Elliot Abrams also weighed in on could this be messy with the civil war? Cut 30. Well, this is not Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. First, those countries had zero history of democracy. Venezuela had 50 years of democracy after it overthrew a dictator in 1958. Second, those countries are all... split, you know, Sunni, Shia, Kurd, Christian, Drews, not Venezuela, which is a pretty united country from that point of view. And it is surrounded in the Western hemisphere by democracies. So I think the chances that this would lead to a democracy, as has happened in the rest of South America, are really much, much better. Do you agree, Brian's turn? Yeah, I think that's all true. The other side of that coin, though, is that Nicholas Maduro is basically a crime boss with a seat in the United Nations. So we can't look at this as only a government political issue or even a narcotics issue or just a terrorism issue. There's multi-layered. The reality is Nicholas Maduro is effective because of business. because of the narcotics business in this case. But at the end of the day, the people of Venezuela, they just thought what we want, which is to live, prosper, and if they can do that under Nicholas Paduro, so be it, if they can do that, which they're not, if they can do that with the democratic system, they're into that. At the end of the day, to get things to work, you need the buy-in of the Venezuelan people. And that's what Elliot Abrams is talking is. But they have no guns. The people to want democracy. But Elliot, Elliot Abrams points out that it would be great to overturn it. But they took the guns away from Venezuelan people 15, 20 years ago. So the people, you know, they could want everything they can. But the military still is the one who would make sure that he never leaves and ensure that they never leave.

which is why you need the military to turn on Maduro. That's the key. You have to get his, the people that are keeping him in business and the people that are keeping him safe and the people that are fighting for him, which are doing it not necessarily for honor, but doing it in most and for being part of the drugs and being part of a criminal syndicate. If you can get those people to flip, no difference in the way the FBI got people in LaCosa knows for it to flip. No different. But this is not a much bigger scale. If you can convince those people that there's a better way that is still lucrative and safe and better for their children, and you can flip a couple of those people, where Duro becomes surrounded by enemies, not by friends. So how do you feel about the drugboat hits? I mean, this is what Democrats are saying about the double tap, cut 27. It's really important that people see what it looks like when the full force of the United States military is turned on two guys who are clinging to a piece of wood and about to go under, just so that they have sort of a visceral feel for what it is that we're doing. By the way, the individuals in that boat were not even aimed at the United States. So everything that they've done is been illegal. It's illegal under international law. It's illegal under the Geneva Convention. And it certainly is even illegal under domestic law. It was essentially murdered with that double-tap strike. There's no fentanyl involved in what we're blowing up down in the Caribbean, even though the White House and others keep saying that. This is cocaine, which is a problem. But if you really wanted to get after this, you'd be putting pressure on China to stop the precursors. And you'd be putting pressure on Mexico where the fentanyl comes through. So that's Democrats wanting to see the second tape. How do you feel about this? Is it ever you going for a target in Iraq and Afghanistan or anywhere in Africa? Do you ever miss the first time and say, well, I guess I can't go back? Well, I'll put it to you this way. I've been a part of many, many, many, many, many of these kinds of operations. And one of the reasons why, even in law enforcement, when a SWAT team wants to go serve a warrant, they do it at 2 o'clock in the morning. And the reason why is because people are in their bed sleeping. That's why. We really try not to give bad guys a tactical advantage when we try and kill them. So it's, we don't want a fair fight. We want an unfair fight. Bad guys, I'm very sorry for their mothers and for their wives, but the reality is we didn't ask them to be bad. We didn't ask them to drive a drug vote. We didn't ask them, I don't care what's on a drug boat. Cocaine or fentanyl, that's kind of silly to me. That's, you know, what's yours, gonorrhea or chlamydia. I don't know. It's all bad. Like, I don't distinguish between the two, frankly. to suggest, well, it's only cocaine, so we shouldn't kill them because it's only cocaine, I think of comical. Thousands of Americans are thinking of cocaine, too, and diet cocaine. So what are we talking about? The idea that, you know, jeepers, creepers, these bad guys weren't able to defend themselves, I feel terrible about that, and that's a true statement.

But the reality is, is most bad guys can't defend themselves when we kill them. And that's how it's when Osama bin Laden was killed the night of May 1st, the morning of May 2nd. He was in his pajamas. Understood. So, you know, he was sleeping at night in his compounded in Abbottabad. And a bunch of really dangerous men made entry in there and shot up a whole bunch of people. And most of those people that got killed were unarmed. But they were threats to national security, threats to us. And we dealt with them as appropriate. And we have to be mature about this. I promise you, the bad guys aren't trying about Americans being killed. I hear you. Brian, lastly, if you could get Venezuela, it would be somewhat of a representative democracy and get Hezbo, Iran, Russia out of that country. What else could change in South America? I think anything can change. Getting rid of these bad actors, and in particular, Hisbola, in particular Hisbola, I think, is a national security imperative for these United States. And I think once that's done and the bright, shining light of American ingenuity, American creativity, American economic power, American diplomatic power, then the country of Venezuela and the people of Venezuela can benefit greatly. And so therefore, I think... You know, these people are bad. They need to be treated as bad. We need to be mature about it. And move out smartly and ask them once. Don't ask them twice. All right. Brian, can you tell me about the Great Bull Rescue? Grable Rescue, as you know, we're a donor-funded veteran-led international rescue organization. We're operating in the Caribbean. We've been in the Caribbean now for months and months and months, getting ready for this war. Hopefully U.S. troops are not boot on ground in Venezuela. Because of that, Americans that are in Venezuela will be stuck. Our intention is to rescue and evacuate those Americans as needed and allies as well. All right. Thanks so much. Great job. And go give the Gray Bull Rescue. It's a great organization. Brian Stern, stay safe. Thank you very much, brother. I appreciate you. All right, you got it. Back in a moment to wrap up this out on the Brian Kilmeade, including a clip from S&L. Where big stories meet bigger conversations. Stay informed and energized with the Brian Kilmeade.

A talk show that's real. This is the Brian Kilmeade. One relationship that's in the balance. It was Jimmy Kimball. I mean, I said it publicly, and I liked Jimmy a lot. And his wife wrote that thing that said, you know, she did. lose family members. She wrote them before the election and said, here's 10 reasons why you just can't vote for Trump. And then some of them, you know, just didn't follow that. And I was as kid gloves as I could. And I see they're mad at me. And I'm sorry. I mean, I was being, again, as respectful as I could, but I don't agree with that point of view. And since she went public with it, It wasn't out of school for me to go public with it. I love Jimmy. I always have. I don't know him that well, but he's a great guy. And we have a connection, like, we were both fired by ABC. And he took my, I had that time slot. So, like, it's so interesting. The same ABC, I mean, Disney executive, Candace, both. It's interesting, the connections. And so I hope we're friends forever. But I don't know, you know, the liberals and the woke, that's a schism. It just is. So that is Bill Maher. That's crazy because I understand that he could be, Adam Carolla is much more conservative than Bill Maher. Obviously, Bill Maher's not conservative at all. And he's able to be friends with Jimmy Kimmel, but I guess they feel like because he was critical of the letter that the wife wrote. And now you know why Jimmy Kimmel, I have no idea if he is as left as her. But the fact is she seems to be the motor engine behind it, considering she's heading the writers. So the writers are putting together that monologue, which he said that he fact checks. But the fact check was wrong, which ended up being the blow up that they lost all the affiliates and Sinclair and everything in that nature. We looked at SNL, by the way, and we realized nothing really funny this week. They, of course, just go after Trump. They have no idea how to or they choose not to go after the other side at all. But the other thing that I'm seeing more and more stuff on and was on AI, excuse me, he was on 60 Minutes last night and there was all these other specials, just about AI. And is it going to be smarter than us? I want you to hear Jensen Huang. Wong, Wang, who was on with Joe Rogan from Navidia. He's NVIDIA's president. Let's listen to this. The fear would be that we would no longer have control and that we would no longer be the apex species on the planet. This thing that we created would now be. Is that funny? No. I just think it's not going to happen. I know you think it's not going to happen. But it could, right? It could. I just think it's extremely unlikely. And that's a guy that would be at the foundation of it. Not going to be unhappy. By the way, it's interesting that Google chips ended up coming out. There might be Eagleton, Invidia, and there's talks that other countries might be have those chips. So invidia, which has been a blockbuster, might come down to Earth just a little bit. So I think that's pretty humorous. The other big story that we've been covering.

throughout the day is we have not really covered them much today. But when Donald Trump Jr. was talking about Ukraine in Doha, Qatar, I know, speaking in Qatar with some other people, he was asked to speak there. Look, President Trump says we're there an ally of ours. Here's what he said that's causing a stir. Cut 37. But is your hunch that President Trump is going to walk away? I think he may. What's good about my father and what's unique about my father is you don't know what he's going to do. The fact that he's not predictable, he's not following the playbook of every clown who's, again, been a bureaucrat for decades. You don't know. And so that forces everyone to actually deal in an intellectually honest capacity, which has not happened in far too long. So the fact is he says he doesn't know of his dad's going to walk away from Ukraine. That flies in the face of what's happening. We had a delegation working with Volodymyr Zelensky and his team over in Florida. There's a team working over with the Europeans in the UK today. And there's supposed to be a conversation between, which and Volodymyr Zelensky between the president. So he means he's not looking to walk away right now. And he knows he would look bad if he walked away right now. But the one thing I wanted to bring up is clear. I don't care where you stand. If we walk away and let Ukraine go. and maybe just continue to get carved up and take a beating. Don't tell me peace through strength again, because we're not showing any strength by walking away. And I don't think he's set to walk away. In fact, he was on the red carpet last night, setting to host the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Awards, and he met the press. Cut 38. So we've been speaking to President Vladimir Putin, and we've been speaking to Ukrainian leaders, including Volodymyr Zelensky, President Volodymyr Zelensky. And I have to say that I'm a little bit disappointed that President Volodymyr Zelensky hasn't yet read the proposal. That was as of a few hours ago. His people love it, but he has it. Russia's fine with it. Russia's, you know, Russia, I guess, would rather have the whole country when you think of it. But Russia is, I believe, fine with it. So Russia is not fine with it. They said that it's better. The European, they think, the European proposal, they said, is made to undermine the U.S. and Russia. So the 28-point plan was heavily Russia. The 19-point plan is a little bit in between. Volodymyr Zelensky said the call yesterday was long and substantive. He wrote that on X. Eddie Ukraine is determined to keep working in good faith with the American sides. He generally achieved priests. We agreed on the next step. So I don't think that's backing out, but everyone was writing today. Look what Donald Trump Jr. said about... maybe the president abandoning Ukraine. I don't see it. So I don't see also any legitimate interest in Vladimir Putin ending the fighting. I just don't know ceasefire. It's losing 7,000 a week, maybe more, doesn't care. So that's the problem. It's really not equal. It never was. One invaded the other. Hey, go to BrianKillme.com. I want to see you in person, February 14th. More dates coming. History of Liberty and Laugh streamed on Fox Nation, but I'll be in Fort Myers, Florida. So we're selling really well. Brian Killedme.com. Let's sell it out.