Trade deals still pending as cargo ships arrive empty

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Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com slash special offer. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmead. Hi everyone, glad you're there. I hope you had a fantastic weekend.

Appreciate you tuning into the show again. Daniel Pletko will be on this hour. We have a good roster of guests too. We also have a lot to discuss today. The President of the United States will be busy.

He is, it's a day that many people are not looking forward to, but it's the right thing to do. Student loan collection starts today. Not talking about back, just start making payments. That's what he wants. And they're going to go after you if you don't, because the federal government has got to make ends meet.

Also, President has a major announcement to make regarding sports, and I believe it's this. The 2027 NFL draft will be in Washington at the National Mall.

So, I think they're going to make that announcement today with Josh Harris, the owner, and Roger Goodell. That would be kind of cool.

So, let's get to the big three. Number three. I mean, when you look at Iran's behavior around the region, imagine how much worse it would be if they had a nuclear weapon. And I very much hope that Iran starts to. take these talks and don't and they don't play this cat and mouse game.

Iran shows again why the talks on their nuke programs are understandable, but will never result in a legitimate agreement. As assassins are stopped in London, and Iran-sponsored Houthi rebels rocket Tel Aviv that they are everything that's wrong with the Middle East. Iran. Number two. What we're trying to address here is to ensure that we're winning back a generation and address the fact that the Democratic Party lost vote share with almost every single demographic last election cycle, except for duntling older people and the highly educated.

That is a problem for the future of our party, and it's not just a messaging problem. It is a messenger and brand problem. That's what we're trying to address here. As Biden comes out this week on The View and two books come out showing he was infirmed while running the country, we look at his party that he wants to lead and examine the future of the MAGA movement and who is best to lead it after Trump. He has some thoughts.

Number You're not taking the possibility that these tariffs could be permanent off the table.

Some of them. Oh, I wouldn't do that because if somebody thought they were going to come off the table, why would they build in the United States? That is President Trump weighing in on tariffs in China. Trade and the economy. That'll be the focus this week.

And we see if we get our trade deals with our friends and allies and see if anything's dialed back with China. I think both sides want to show some give. And here's where China gave some give. I thought it was very interesting on Friday where they had somebody speak out and say, I understand, President, the United States is concerned about fentanyl. We want to look into their legitimate concerns.

Remember, President, I think, threw up 25% tariffs on China just because of fentanyl trafficking. What role do they play? The precursors flow into Mexico. Mexico boils it down, sends it into the U.S. We've done a great job at stopping it.

Now stop making it. And if they actually want to use a face-saving measure that looks like they care about the welfare of Americans and illegal drugs, that would be one thing.

So if they say, we are cracking down in such and such ways and we ripped up these labs and we found out about the shipping and how they're getting out of port. Then President Trump gets to go, you know, judging by what I saw from China, we're going to go from 145 to 110. That could be one way in which they dial it back because they're already offering exemptions to each other, exemptions to each other for certain products that both sides need.

Now, when you talk about agricultural, that's going to be the one that hurts the most. President Trump most likely is going to write checks to farmers. They don't want checks. They want to be able to sell their goods. Right now, China's not buying them.

But when it comes to chips, China's buying them from us. There's certain things that we have. There's certain other products that they are not tariffing, which shows you it matters. The other problem is, and it was one of the stories in the New York Times today. China has never been trustworthy when you talk about economic numbers and unemployment and GDP growth, but we would ballpark it.

Now they have a different approach. They're not telling us anything. Unemployment 18 to 34, which we hear was so terrible, you don't hear about anything anymore, good or bad. Housing crisis, the money that's flooding in, the subsidized. We don't hear anything about it at all.

So We'll see if that changes. But on the economy, that's what most people want. They want to see if the market's going to respond to what happens today.

So far, it's down 228 points, mainly because Donald Trump said, I'm not looking to cut a deal with China right now. We'll see what happens. Mark Short weighed in on Meet the Press about what the president's been doing and what he should be worried about if these trade deals don't happen soon. Cut for. There's a sister interview at CNBC this week with the director of Los Angeles Port, and he walks through the fact that this week is really the first time you have 35% reduction in amount of goods coming to the United States.

It's a matter of this week probably when you'll begin to see port workers laid off. Truckers will be having about half a delivery load. In a couple weeks, they'll have no delivery loads. You'll have truckers laid off. And it's probably about four to five weeks before shelves are beginning to get empty as retailers have gone through their inventory.

That is a whole different site. And I think when you're beginning to tell Americans how many dolls they can have, I don't know if there was a restriction on what Ivanka or Tiffany could have. But I think that that is a change. It's sort of a let them eat cake moment.

So that was the president said, Look, you're going to get less stuff maybe for Christmas, but in the big picture, that is going to be okay. People have said, well, why don't you brace people for it? That's going to be a tough six months.

Well, Trump does it. We've got to see how long it lasts. Because not many, you know, two weeks ago, we talked about how much the market dropped. By Friday, we had nine straight days of growth, and they had their biggest surge, I think, in 15, 20 years. All the money came back.

So let's just see what happens. My sense is they're working at a template and India, South Korea and Japan are going to come in quickly. Charles Gasparino has been following this from the journalistic side, keeping opinion available. Where's this going? What are people worried about?

Cut eight. Listen, a recession generally is generally defined as two quarters of negative GDP growth.

However, you can have a lousy economy and not be in a recession. You could have layoffs, which is that's where I think you really have to start looking. Take out the GDP stuff. There's a lot of noise in that number, particularly that last number. I would just ignore the last GDP, the negative GDP number.

But I would look at are major corporations and small businesses, and you can track this, are they beginning to recoil? Are they, because of all the uncertainty, are they not spending? Are they not hiring? And are they laying people off? I think you will know that very soon, like the next two months.

All right. We will, I think, sooner than two months because the Big Beautiful bill, I think, is going to be done by July fourth. The House supposed to be done by Memorial Day. And then when that gets into play, that's going to be significant. I also thought it was important to bring up that In the Wall Street Journal today, the Treasury Secretary, everyone says, is the voice of reason in this administration when it comes to economic numbers, more than Lutnik, obviously, and Peter Navarro, it's not worthy paying attention to ever.

He causes more trouble than In his definitions and what he says is going on, doesn't resemble reality. He's uh he's a A professor who wrote a couple of books, got Trump's attention. But since that time, and of course, going to prison for Trump certainly is something that resonates with him. But Here's what the Treasury Secretary said. You got three things they're going for.

First off, when it comes to national security, when the COVID pandemic happened, they realized the problems with the supply chain. They realized about manufacturing. They realized about rare earth. They realize about pharmaceuticals. They have to bring that back.

Number two, on the 2017 tax cuts, it was a boon for the middle class. It helped actually rebalance a lot of the trade. 2017, the tax cuts need to be permanent from 2017, he says. Business would get that certainty they're looking for. They said during the last time when it first passed, workers and small businesses benefited most.

In the first term growth. The bottom 50% of households saw their net worth increase faster than 10%, than the top 10%. The administration is now working closely with Congress to do even better. And third, The third is the deregulation of the economy. These are the things: the power plants, the artificial intelligence, the data centers, reawaken industrial capacity, bringing incentives to buy machinery, have making them tax-deductible.

Things like that, he believes all three of those things will just put this economy on hyperspeed and turbocharge it. Let's hope. Let's see what happens. The other thing I thought was interesting is the president got a question that wasn't necessarily confrontational or accusational. And he got it from Meet the Press.

For some reason, he gave Meet the Press a third sit-down since he won the presidency. And they asked about the MAGA movement. Listen to this, cut 16. Do you think the MAGA movement can survive without you as its leader? Yes, I do.

What gives you? I think it's so strong, and I think we have tremendous people. I think we have a tremendous group of people. We talked about a number of them. You look at Marco, you look at JD Vance, who's fantastic.

You look at I could name ten, fifteen, twenty people right now just sitting here. No, I think we have a tremendous party. And he's right. And for him, they've just, you know, that's a respectful question. That to me is a normal question he asks the president.

You know, if you go on YouTube, and I guess that they do algorithm you and you, and you know, if you like history like I do, they'll show interviews with Mike Wallace way back in the black and white days with JFK when he was a senator. And you have JFK going on Jack Parr show. And you just see the way RFK after the assassination of his brother. They just had a whole different way of like a very respectful way of questioning, very direct, very, you know, some of some questions were: give me the color and give me the feel. Others were, tell me exactly who you're going to bomb.

And, you know, this is what Eisenhower said about you. That's the type of questions I'm used to. Having with presidents. Cut seventeen. I do have a vice president, and typically it would be in JD's doing a fantastic job.

He would be at the top of the list. It could very well be. I don't want to get involved in that. I think he's a fantastic, brilliant guy. Marco is great.

There's a lot of them that are great. I also see tremendous unity. But certainly, you would say that somebody's the VP. If that person is outstanding, I guess that person would have an advantage. But I think the other people would all stay in unbelievably high positions.

But, you know, it could be that he'd be challenged by somebody. We have a lot of good people in this party.

So if you're President Trump and it's only 2025. Would you even be talking about that yet? You know, he'll answer the question. If J.D. Vance is smart, he's extremely bright.

He is a workhorse in that administration. It's no vice president go to this ribbon cutting and go to this funeral. Those days are over, at least with Trump. Even though people profile him and he's the only one who makes a decision and he does not really. He listens to input and also J.D.

Vance gets things done.

So I think that J.D. Vance would be the guy, but what do you think? 1866-408-7669? I also think that President Trump is not going to endorse. I think he wants to see the whole thing play out.

And I have another theory about what Trump will be like when he's in fact done, if he's successful as I think he is going to be at the end of four years. We come back your phone calls 1866-408-7669 on who do you think is next. Also, two more books coming out on how infirmed Joe Biden was. We'll discuss it. Politics, current events, and news that affects you.

Brian's got a lot more to say. Stay with Brian Kilmead. It is time to take the quiz. It's five questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play along.

Let's see how you do. Take the quiz every day at thequiz.box. Then come back here to see how you did. Thank you for taking the quiz. A talk show that's real.

This is the Brian Kill Me Show. They're not cutting it. They're looking at fraud, waste, and abuse. And nobody minds that. If illegal immigrants are in the mix, if people that aren't supposed to be there, people that are non-citizens are in the mix, nobody minds that.

Waste, fraud, and abuse. But we're not cutting Medicaid. We're not cutting Medicare. And we're not cutting Social Security. The big, beautiful bill is they're grinding it out right now.

I'm not even talking to Democrats. But when it comes to Medicaid, this is the issue. The expanding of eligibility for Medicaid is way beyond what the program was designed for or affordable. That's why the expenditures of Medicaid, Medicare are... Four times what they're supposed to be.

90% of it's paid by the federal government.

So that's what guys like Chip Roy and others are saying. We got to look at this. We can't just greenlight all this Medicaid spending. The president said, I'm not cutting any of that.

Well, you could actually get away with not cutting it, but by saying we're going to bring back the original eligibility, which was expanded ridiculously by Joe Biden, who couldn't care less about money, and was put on the payroll for Barack Obama. He said to the states, if you just put out Obamacare, I will provide all this money for Medicaid to expand.

So he leaves, Trump comes in and goes, I'm not going to do that. Biden comes in and says, I'm going to go past that.

So now Trump is in the position: do you cut Medicaid? You're not really cutting it. You're making sure the eligibility is to the people who should be getting it, to people really old and people really sick, unable to work for a living. If you can work, you shouldn't be eligible for it. I'm sorry.

That's what Medicare is for, and there's other social safety nets there.

So that's the big. That's one of the big hurdles. The other thing is the SALT caucus. These blue see these Republicans in blue states want to be able to bring back the deduction for state taxes. And that's fine because most of their state taxes are through the roof, like in Illinois and California and New York.

Well, the reason why they were able to get this paid for in twenty seventeen is because they took away that salt tax. But Mike Lawler and others said, I can't win again. If I take this away, Don't expect my seat. I can't hold my seat.

So that's what's going to be the big debate. And that's why they're getting that's why people are. The Speaker Johnson's soldiering through. He says he's going to be able to do it, and he's confident they'll be able to pull it off. But he also knows how tough it's going to be.

Here he was last night with Trey, cut 29. We've had an ongoing process, and that's really key to this. You know, we meet, they call it the Big Six. We meet every week, and that's Leader Thune in the Senate, and I, and our top lieutenants on the committees of jurisdiction, Senator Crapo in the Senate, Jason Smith, the Ways and Means in the House, and the Treasury Secretary Besson is there, who's excellent. Kevin Hassett at NEC is there.

So, all the principal players on the key components of the tax piece of this and the things related to it. Constant communication. Leader Thune and I meet and talk regularly, multiple times a week, because we understand this is a one-team effort. And I know that's an innovation, Trey. I mean, in Washington, the House and the Senate don't typically work together in that fashion, as you well know.

But this is a new age and a new time. Yeah, let's hope so. They work it out. But you do want to be responsible. The other problem is, and I wasn't expecting this, and we should probably get Roger Wicker on this week because he's head of armed services.

They don't think there's enough money for defense. It barely keeps up with inflation. And even though you're adding more money, inflation went up.

So, how are you going to keep pace and how are you going to expand without substantial cutbacks in other programs in other areas and redundancies that I don't think have been identified yet?

So, we'll have to see. We'll have to see where that goes and where the debate is going to go because President Trump's going to weigh in. He's going to cajole people to try to get on the same page to pass something through. But other people, the Freedom Caucus in particular, are going to be a problem. I don't think there's any doubt about it.

Two more books come out this week talking about Joe Biden's failings. He's going to be on the view shortly, and he's going to try to rehab himself. But all this stuff is coming out, and we know how bad he was. We saw it in our own eyes. Evidently, Jen Saki, not willing to admit what she saw behind the scenes.

Listen to what she said, cut 18. I never saw that person, not a single time. And I was in the Oval Office every day that was on that debate stage. I'm not a doctor. Aging happens quite quickly.

Were things that people saw during that period of time that were similar to that or would have been in a category of that? I don't know. Cover-up is a very loaded term, I think. Right. And no one well, cover up, yeah, of course they covered it up.

But if you want evidence that they cover it up, just look at their actions. We could see what we say. We watched all this. We talked about it. No one seemed to acknowledge it.

It was like it was us being not nice to old people. And And now they're going to say that, well, we didn't notice this.

Well, if you didn't notice it, why were you keeping him from every interview? Why were you giving him little note cards with the name of his cabinet members on it? Why were you writing out the questions that reporters were going to ask ahead of time and handing it to them with pictures of the reporter? I mean, you had directions on a note card that said: walk in the room, don't shake hands, sit right in the open seat. I mean, that you're telling me you think that he's mentally confused if you have to write that.

So we'll talk about that with Daniel Pletko. We'll also talk about the direction of their Republican Party through all of this. Don't move. PMS, pregnancy, menopause, being a woman is a lot. Ollie supports you and yours with expert solutions for every age and life stage.

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This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. A radio show like no other. It's Brian Killmead. The president is being very transparent. As you said, Biden never sat down with Fox.

Trump has taken the fight to the enemy's camp every single day. He's sitting down, he's very transparent. His cabinet hearings or meetings are open to the public. He's constantly doing interviews. There were weeks upon weeks where Biden never even spoke to the press.

He sat down with ABC, with CBS, with NBC. He does one-on-one meetings with them, and yet they completely dismiss him. And they just continue to spread their narrative about the president rather than, as you said, show a little bit of gratitude that he's at least willing to sat down and talk to you when he shouldn't. Right. And, you know, you saw the brawl with Terry Moran.

I'm not going to play it back. I just don't think it's worth it. And I just wanted to contrast, too, this is the way he was treated almost on every interview outside. The ones with Adam Fox. And For the most part.

Terry Moran was just as bad as Stephanopoulos and just as Uh intolerant. As David Muir, as intolerable, I should say, as David Muir at the debate.

So I also pulled this. I could not believe. I've just watched the Sunday shows, right?

So I always say, okay, let me just find out who's going to be on the show and then see if I can fast forward. Like Donna Brazil, who I like, anytime she's on, I just fast forward. She doesn't mean anything she says. It's just worthless. It's not going to help me.

I don't care what point of view. I want to see what's going to help the show.

So you tell me if this is a way to start a s a a news show. The Trump administration is pushing a peace proposal that heavily favors Russia. Number one, that's not true. And the only thing they're trying to push right now is they're trying to push a 30-day peace proposal. The Russia wants a four-day peace proposal.

And in it, if you want to be accurate and up to date, Donald Trump losing patience with Russia this week after his one-on-one sit-down with Zelensky, but I digress. It's unclear what concessions the President's demanding from Putin. And back at home, President Trump's empowering the richest man, Elon Musk, to take a chainsaw to the federal workforce and agencies gutting foreign aid and science research. He found billions of dollars of fraud and abuse: $150 billion, maybe $250 billion. It's probably going to add up to more because he left his team behind.

Number two, did you talk about the modernization, getting off cobalt, being able to. Get people into work and bringing in incentives, having people be able to invoice, have invoice ins and out to where the money is going, giving people the opportunity to not pay people rather than automatic in comes automatic out.

So, do you describe Elon Musk taking a change of the federal workforce and agencies? Yes, some have been offered buyouts. And do you know we added 50,000 more jobs than we thought last month while losing 9,000 in the federal workforce. But I know it's a tease and you gotta be short, but you don't have to be negative.

So joining us now is Danielle Putka from this, from our Sunday show last night on One Nation, Senior Fellow at AEI and host of What the Hell is Going On with Mark Deeson. Danielle, and if you look at what ABC did yesterday, Face Nation was almost as bad, and what 60 Minutes did basically looked like an MSNBC show. The press has not learned anything. I think that's true. And I think the problem is there's really no demand anymore for journalists to be even-handed.

Everybody has chosen their team, and people are on Team D or Team R, Team Trump, or Team Hates Trump. And as a result, journalists like those at ABC News don't feel any pressure to. To do anything balanced at all because their audience, frankly, you listened to them, but I didn't. I only saw the news reports about it. I don't watch that.

And I think that's the way America is shaking out right now. But one of the first times I saw you was on the Sunday shows, you used to be a staple.

So I still have a contract with NBC, but and so nary a bad word will cross my lips about NBC and about Fristen Walker, who I like very much. But again, the problem for the problem for us, the The normal people is that there aren't a lot of places anymore where you can just get news. I listen to you, I listen to Mark, but mostly what I do is I'm on Substack, I'm on Twitter, and I'm looking, you know, because there are people who you trust, but the vast mass of journalism now is not trusted by the American people. And I share that view.

So if you want to do an honest report on Trump, do you get Mark Elias to be your voice of reason and legal perspective? There's no more partisan person in America than Mark Elias. Look, you know, for me, the ship sailed a long time ago with if it wasn't a problem during the Obama administration, which it was, and if it wasn't a problem during the first Trump administration, which it was, I lost so much faith. And I think so many people did during the Biden administration when we all saw with our eyes what was happening to the president, and we were told by mainstream media, don't believe your lying eyes, right? Believe the president's spokespeople who keep telling you he's as sharp as a tank.

You can't recover from that. That's the problem. There is no recovery.

So There's two more books coming out now, one by Alex Thompson, one by... With Jake Tapper, and there's another book out now that talks about how his advisors declined to have him take a cognitive test because the fact that he was taking it would be an admission that something's wrong. We know about the last two books that came out that talked about all the maneuverings behind the scenes to keep him out of the press, how he would end days early, how he really wasn't functioning.

So, how do you feel about these books coming out telling this story now? Oh, it's gross. I'm sorry. You know, something, again, you know, nothing personal against Jake Tapper, but where was he lost from? Where was he when the president was running for office?

Where were all of these people? Everybody in Washington knew. And I wrote a piece about this in February of 2024, and I had Democratic friends who unsubscribed from my substack because they were so mad at me that I was literally reporting what foreign diplomats were telling me, which is that the president was not there. Just not there. The one-on-one meeting.

So Pretty amazing. And yet, he evidently, in one of his last weeks, when people talked about the strategy he wanted, what he wanted to do at the end, all he wanted to talk about is how popular he was with NATO and how those other nations really looked to him for leadership. And one of his aides speculated: you know, you're not running for president of NATO.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, you're hearing what you're hearing. In terms of the next generation of politicians, What chances do you think of Kamala Harris giving another run? Look, you know, there's nothing like people in American politics to believe the mythology about themselves. She gave her first speech. Uh, sort of post-election just last week, and I gather that she displayed all of the things that were fatal to her during the election: the weird laughter, the weird explications.

But you know, in a place like California, she's she is polling number one if she runs for governor. You know, that's the other problem: there is absolutely no accountability for anybody, right? We talk about the media, how they covered up Biden's, you know, his failing mental health. We talk about Politicians who, again, have let the American people down, who lied to the American people. In this case, Vice President of the United States saw the President every day and lied to the American people about his health.

Why is there no accountability? I don't get it. I don't either. In terms of the party, where it's going, Ashley Ention, who I didn't know anything about, but former adviser Nancy Pelosi, talked about the difference and extensively about how Nancy Pelosi would be at least in charge. And that so far Keem Jeffries is not cut 20.

What I've been hearing from Um members is that To sort of sum it up, he thinks long, too long, and wrong about things. that he spends he takes too much counsel and then takes too long to make a decision. It might also suggest maybe you don't have a handle on the caucus or you don't have a handle on how to actually land some punches on Donald Trump. Have you heard this? I've heard that that Hakeem Jeffries is not decisive.

And I think, look, Nancy Pelosi, like her, hate her, was a very tough act to follow. And she had a vice-like grip on her caucus. And she led with fear. Hakeem Jeffries doesn't have that sort of sway over his caucus, and the Democratic Party itself is so lost right now, it's no surprise he doesn't know where to go. Does he follow Bernie Sanders?

Does he follow the moderates? What does he do? I feel sorry for the guy. This is a very, very difficult place to be if you are at the top of the Democratic Party because your party has no identity and no ideas right now. Danielle, I like to talk about Iran if we can.

You know, Iran had to postpone meetings. I have no idea why this weekend. And we know that everything the Houthis do, Iran is insured to be in lockstep, although they say they're the least compliant satellite or terror organization that they have.

So they sent a rocket right into Tel Aviv. For some reason, this rocket was able to miss David Sling, the Arrow, as well as Iron Dome, and went right into the Tel Aviv airport. President is already on the record saying when the Houthis attacked, we looked at that as Iran, and he ripped them today on Truth Social. How much longer and you know how impatient Israel is getting, and we know there's been mysterious explosions at critical places in Iran already. How long do you think, and I give President Trump credit for waiting, but how much longer do you think he can wait before he makes a decision?

to break off negotiations because I don't think they're they're serious at all.

Well, look, I have been worried about these negotiations from the get-go because the Iranians are really good at this. You know, they obviously got the best of the Obama administration. They managed to keep the Biden administration from doing anything, and they know what they want from these negotiations. I'm not persuaded that Steve Witkoff, who's the president's negotiator, can even manage the portfolio that the president has loaded onto him, dealing with Gaza, dealing with Russia and Ukraine, and dealing with Iran.

Now we've got an extra person. I think the reason the Iranians canceled is basically because when you draw the Venn diagram of what the United States will accept and what the Iranians will accept, our red lines don't intersect anywhere. In other words, there's nothing to talk about. And I guess the Iranians are seeing whether they can use the time to rebuild their air defenses and to deter the United States. I don't think Donald Trump is deterable.

I hope he's not. Because there's a faction within his administration that wants nothing to do with the Middle East. I know you've heard that. Oh yeah, there's no question that there is. Look, there is, you know, there are two sides to any political movement.

And inside the MAGA movement, there are people who believe that America needs to lead the world because America is the only country that is fit to do so. We don't want the Chinese doing it. We don't want the Russians doing it. And there are others who believe that we need to stay home and watch as the world changes and jump in if our national security at home is at risk. I don't happen to agree with them.

Everything, you know this, Brian, everything comes and finds us.

So when I see someone like Tucker say, what have the Iranians ever done to us? My answer is the Iranians have killed more Americans. Until 9-11, they had killed more Americans than any other group in the modern post-World War II era, post-Vietnam era. That's a lot of Americans, hundreds, even thousands in Iraq. These are dangerous guys, and we see that with the Houthis.

EFPs, IEDs on steroids. You just ask the people that serve there. They played a huge role. Undermining when we, after the surge, when up comes ISIS, they came back in. They never left Iraq.

Syria, they finally got pushed out between getting ripped up. The Hezbollah and Hamas getting ripped up. And now they've got their air defense destroyed after they already fired dozens of rockets, hundreds of rockets at Israel. They are more vulnerable than ever. And I think there's a huge contingent within Iran that knows they're being held hostage by a brutal government.

That's not a popular government in Iran. You're exactly right. Listen, the Iranian people love America. And the reason they love America is because we've always stood them against their tyrannical government. This is a government that hangs more people, that executes more people than almost any other in the world.

Forget Hezbollah, forget Hamas, forget the Houthis, forget terrorism. Everything about this regime is terrible for the Iranian people, terrible for the American people. And if we allow them to regain their strengths, We will be dealing with them. I don't know if you saw, but they arrested a whole bunch of Iranian agents inside the UK just this last weekend who were operating. Yeah.

So, you know, how long do we have to wait for it to be in New York or Washington or LA?

Well, we know there are assassination squads going after that Iranian journalist. Are right here in one of the boroughs here in New York.

So nobody wants war. And they want to say, oh, you're a warmonger. What are you talking about, warmonger? We have an enemy that continues to let us know on a daily basis they'll do anything to destroy Israel and us. Why do we need a wake-up call on that?

I don't get it. Daniel, thanks so much. Always a pleasure, Brian. Take care. You too.

1866-408-7669. We'll go around the horn when we get back. Also, Bill Belichick has made a bold move. It's Brian Killmeade. The more you listen, the more you'll know.

It's Brian Killmead. All right, what do we got today, Steve? What you got? All right, sir. This first order would bring back Columbus Day.

Oh, it's so important. That's right. We are bringing back Columbus Day back from the ashes. We have to protect Columbus Day for our great Italian-American friends like Tony Soprano, Minnie Blanco, and Childish Cambina. All right, what's next?

All right, sir. This order would reduce the number of interracial couples in TV commercials. It's just too many, right? You see them in the kitchen together making meal from HelloFresh. He's wearing loafers.

She's got tight braids. You're like, where'd they meet? You know, what do they even talk about? It's insane. Sir, this order will make it socially acceptable for a man in his 70s to date a 24-year-old.

That's right. We're calling it the Belichick Law. We're gonna make girlfriends young again, okay? Old men can now date far younger women. We like that.

It's hot. But in reverse, it's quite disgusting, right? Very dangerous. Ain't lying, you know. Ha ha ha.

Ha ha. That was pretty good. That was pretty funny. The cold open was excellent this weekend. Yeah, this is one weekend I did not watch, and I missed 60 Minutes too.

I had to make a decision. I won all Sunday shows, and it looks like 60 Minutes. I have watched it w the last 10 minutes eviscerate. With this guy Mark Elias. Who was the one who really started the whole Russia investigation?

This guy is dirty as it comes, and they're using him to talk about how corrupt Donald Trump is. You know, it's It's it's insane.

So w uh let's build on the Belijack thing.

So Bill Belijac, who obviously saw all the bad press and how embarrassing it was. He says, I don't watch this stuff. I don't care about this stuff. He's famous for not caring about the media, said this. The coaching legend is looking to hire a PR specialist in lieu of Hudson, his girlfriend, has been in talks with former Bears VP of Communications Brandon Faber for several months, according to Pro Football Talk.

The PR hire Would help manage both Belichick's new role as head coach of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his public image, which was badly bruised by Hudson's cringeworthy PR moves. Belichick appeared on CBS Sunday morning when all the wheels came off. That's smart. You gotta it's hard fi hard to find a good crisis manager, but don't you think that he should have a PR person? I mean, come on.

Who's working his book tour?

Well, clearly the girlfriend was until it went awry. Right. I mean, also, I mean, not for nothing, the publisher generally has a publicist that's doing all of this. Yeah, what happened with that? She probably scared him away.

She scared away HBO. That's almost impossible. She scared away HBO because he was going to do Hard Knocks, North Carolina, College Day. Crazy. Brian Kilmechillo.

Go to BrianKilme.com, find out how to see me on stage in Dayton, Richmond in September, and Dallas in August. BrianKilmey.com. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead. Hi, everyone.

Hope you had a fantastic weekend. Thanks for being with us today and hopefully every day. Big hour coming your way. We're going to have Charles Casparino, one of the finest business journalists in America. He's got real hooks into almost every major CEO and bank in the country, especially over here in Wall Street.

He also can reflect on the editorial from Scott Besant in the Wall Street Journal today. Michael Goodwin, the New York Post, is standing by talking about the media and how ridiculous they are when it comes to Trump. Of course, it's a big day. Every day is a big day with trade. The market's down about 100 points.

It's still over 41,200. All, everybody was talking about this. All the ground we lost when the President had his Liberation Day has been gained back. Not many people are talking about that, and they had a huge job numbers on Friday.

Now, there's some scary stuff coming, no doubt about it, if we can't start getting some trade deals, but just a sense of balance, because I don't think you're getting it anywhere else. Big three. Number three. I mean, when you look at Iran's behavior around the region, imagine how much worse it would be if they had a nuclear weapon. And I very much hope that Iran starts to.

take these talks and don't and they don't play this cat and mouse game. But they are Brian Hook, and you know they're always going to. Iran shows again why the talks on the nuke program are understandable, but will never result in a legitimate agreement as assassins are stopped in London and Iran-sponsored Houthi rebels send rockets into Tel Aviv. This is why they want us to believe that they sincerely want to stop financing their terror haunts as well as stop their nuclear weapons production. Forget it.

Number two. What we're trying to address here is to ensure that we're winning back a generation and address the fact that the Democratic Party lost vote share with almost every single demographic last election cycle, except for doubtless older people and the highly educated. That is a problem for the future of our party, and it's not just a messaging problem. It is a messenger and brand problem. And that's what we're trying to address here.

That is 25-year-old David Hogg, who has got a lot of problems with the management up at the DNC. As Biden comes out at this week on The View and two books come out showing he was infirmed while running the country. We look at his party, he wants to lead, and they examine the future of the MAGA movement. Who is best to lead after Trump? Number one.

You're not taking the possibility that these tariffs could be permanent off the table.

Some of them. Oh, I wouldn't do that because if somebody thought they were going to come off the table, why would they build in the United States? Tariffs, trade, and the economy. This will be the focus this week as we see if there are trade deals ready to roll and if China is ready to talk as all sides weigh in.

So there's a lot going on, including the president decides to give ABC an interview on Wednesday. It was an abomination, and I talked about it. It was my lead. in just um it was my lead in one nation I thought about Kristen Welco got her third interview. And I am a little jealous, absolutely, with Meet the Press.

I think she's more fair than the others, but still. Yeah, well, just a lack of curiosity about why Trump is successful. Michael Goodwin joins us now. I like the title of his column on Sunday, The Press Hates Trump More Than He Loves Than It Loves the Truth and the Hyperbolic Fear Mongering We've Seen is Proof. And basically, too, by the way, they talk about him.

It's insane that nothing has changed. Just from a survival point of view, Michael Goodwin. Good morning, Brian. Yes. I mean, I'm really struck by some of these headlines that I cited in the column from the New York Times, for example, a fuselage of actions that have upended American life.

Behind the rush to discard rules and reshape life, I mean has American life been upended? I mean, what planet is is that writer on to say that all of American life has been upended and all everything's been reshaped I mean, this is hyperbolic and it's It designed to scare people about Donald Trump. There's no other purpose behind that. And I hold this out as an example of how the legacy media is still up to its old tricks. Always looking for control, thinks that it should say what's right, what's wrong.

It's the gatekeeper. You can't come here without our approval kind of attitude.

Meanwhile, Trump two point zero is a very different cat than the first term where the media really had a free shot at him every day. He has now turned the tables, he's fighting back, he's and I think in the most important thing he's doing, he's democratizing access to the Oval Office. to the Presidency and to the Administration. And he's doing that by inviting in some of the m more modern podcasters, the the people, the bloggers, the new upstart uh establishments. And he's doing that because The media landscape has changed so much in the last decade.

not to mention in the last two decades, that you can't just talk to ten or twelve legacy media outlets and think you're reaching the country. That's not the way it works anymore, and those legacy outlets are fighting to hold on to their monopoly, but it's a losing battle.

So if you look at unemployment, it's at 4.2 percent too. You look at what the jobs numbers are, you look at the New York Post editorial today, they added 177,000 non-farm jobs added. Wow, okay. 50,000 more than you thought.

Well, the market loved that, but the networks didn't. The New York Times and Washington Post didn't.

So one thing the New York Post writes out and says this shows if you combine that with the federal government workers, they lost 9,500 in April and well over 100,000 since Trump took office and they hired Doge. And what's happening? It's not affecting employment. In fact, the numbers look better because these federal workers, in theory, are finding private sector jobs or they're going to work for their state because the state needs workers.

So why can't people write that story? Why do you need the editorial of the New York Post? Why would that not come up on any of the Sunday shows?

Well uh And also the GDP numbers, right, the way they were skewed. by the decline. By the decline in imports, right? That upset, it made it look like a negative GDP for the first quarter. In fact, it was positive.

It wasn't great, but it was positive despite the internal numbers were positive for the actual growth of our GDP within. And so all of these things point to this is not disaster, this is a challenge, this is an idea being put forth to secure America's strength. But when you when you write these kind of headlines or neglect these these important stories, you are tipping your hand as an advocate. You're no longer a a a media outlet. You're a partisan.

You are, as I call them, a Democrat with a press pass. And that's what's happened to our media outlets. And so when Trump goes after the PBS money, the NPR money, I think it's great. Why should American taxpayers be funding these groups that are just attacking America all the time.

So, you know, what Trump is doing too, on Truth Social, he came out. On Truth Social, he came out and he ripped Iran and basically said the Houthi rebels are answering to Iran.

So he let everybody know he also loses his patience with Russia. He had a good conversation with Zelensky. Will people acknowledge that Trump is going at this to try to bring both sides, but going in there by still with his eyes wide open? He's not saying that Vladimir Putin is not being obstinate, is being cooperative. He's trying to push both sides towards an agreement.

But they still want to write that he's pro-Russia. Look at this cold open on ABC. I just took I cut and pasted it. The Trump administration is pushing a peace proposal that heavily favors Russia. It's unclear what concessions the President's demanding of Putin.

And back at home, President Trump's empowering the world's richest men to take a chainsaw to the Federal workforce and agencies gutting foreign aid and science research. More than 250,000 Federal workers have been cut, will be cut, or took a buyout. Wow, that's an interesting way to start your week, isn't it? I mean, you talk about you talk about putting your hand on the scale about what to expect on a show. I know exactly what to expect.

Yeah.

It's more than you I should say, it's more than your thumb on the scale, it's your whole body. I mean, but that's their distortion. I mean, and it's because they are fighting to retain their monopoly. And I really believe that that's the way to view the mainstream media. It's a very valuable business, right?

If you have a monopoly, if you're one of a handful of outlets that gets access to the Oval Office, right, that gets to ask the questions of the press secretary. These are very valuable things that you sell effectively to your customers. uh whether it be uh affiliate T V stations or uh Other Newspapers, that buy your news services, that buy your opinions. These are all very valuable things, and Trump is breaking it up. He's breaking up the monopoly.

And I think it's long overdue, and I think it's much healthier for the country. You know, Brian, what's amazing is when the Times writes two full pages about the outlets that Caroline Levitt has led into the briefing room, the new ones, the podcasters, the bloggers, the YouTubers, that sort of thing. And the Times says that basically, they're not independent Well, what do they mean not independent? They're as independent as the reporters for the New York Times are who work for a publisher who hates Donald Trump. Where is the independence of the New York Times?

I mean, it's all made up. It's all just a facade to protect themselves and to hold the monopoly over what people read and hear. And I look, we have trust busters. Teddy Roosevelt was a famous trust buster. Donald Trump is a trust buster.

He's busting open the trust held by the legacy media, which has failed America. Remember, these are the same people who saw nothing wrong with Joe Biden. Until Trump demolished him in that debate, and then suddenly they all jumped on the bandwagon: oh, Joe Biden's too old, we need a new candidate. Why did they do that? Because they did not want Donald Trump to win.

They didn't care about America, they didn't care about having a cognitive decline in the White House, they only cared about the next election because Democrats favored the media and vice versa. Right. And by the way, when it comes to the failings, two more books are coming out about Joe Biden's cognitive failings. Jen Saki's still insisting she saw none of it. Listen to this, cut 18.

I never saw that person, not a single time. And I was in the Oval Office every day that was on that debate stage. I'm not a doctor. Aging happens quite quickly. Were things that people saw during that period of time that were similar to that or would have been in a category of that?

I don't know. Cover-up is a very loaded term, I think. Cover-up. You want to focus on that. Just tell me what you said.

Don't worry about it. I'm not talking about prosecuting the press secretary.

Well look, uh I don't believe her.

Well, I don't either. And let's just take her at face value. If she missed that story, how is she working for a news organization now? I mean, what is she missing now? I mean, there's no you cannot call yourself a journalist and have been either in the White House itself or being in a news organization with access to the you cannot call yourself a journalist if you didn't see Joe Biden's decline.

I have met Joe Biden once in my life, Brian, and that was long ago. But I saw him through the television, through the things he said, the quotes, the decisions he made. You didn't need to shake his hand to know that there's something wrong with him. You only had to see him stumble and mumble and not be able to complete a sentence. I mean, if that didn't scare you as an American, I don't know what would.

And yet none of these people saw it. I mean, it's one of those things, Brian. In the last few years, the mainstream media, the legacy media, they failed on the Biden family corruption. They failed on Russia, Russia, Russia. Right?

And they failed on Joe Biden's decline. I mean, what did they get right? And here they are screaming that Donald Trump is going to upend life in America. I mean, is the sun not going to rise? Are the oceans going to fall?

Suddenly wash away the continent? I mean, what are they talking about except they're trying to stop him? I hear you. Michael Goodwin, great column pointing out the media. Just point it out.

So hopefully, people will understand. You have to dig deeper to find out what's really going on in this country. Michael Goodwin, thanks so much. My pleasure. Brian, thank you.

Beyond the headlines, one of the headlines that was so deceptive this weekend: Donald Trump says he's not sure he has to follow the Constitution. Do you know what it was about? He says, when it comes to illegal aliens about them getting about them getting a trial, he says, I'm not sure that they qualify because there's expedited removal that Bill Clinton and Obama used, that his lawyers are working on because we can't get 8 million people into court. They all can't get a lawyer.

So there's got to be a way to get them out. That's his point. But the headline everywhere: Donald Trump doesn't have to follow the Constitution. Not only everywhere, but around the world. You wonder why he's a little ticked off.

You listen to Brian Kill Me Chow. 1866-408-7669. We'll get your calls next. Don't move. Coming to you on a need-to-know basis because Mandy, you need to know.

It's Brian Kilmead. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead. Donald Trump is the walking embodiment of everything that is wrong. With the American political system.

The fact is that these law firms are being told: if you don't play ball with us, maybe something really bad will happen to you. That is Mark Elias saying he's wrong. Everything wrong about the country is Donald Trump. Everything wrong about politics is Mark Elias using his legal know-how in order to further Democratic, crazy Democratic causes and try to destroy Republicans, making up he is all over the Russian hoax, all over the looking out for Hillary's email scandal. And the way to reverse it was go put it on Trump.

And make it up. Trey Gowdy followed up for Mark Elias on 60 Minutes last night. I mean, 60 Minutes Scott Pelley evidently is just running an insurrection within 60 Minutes. They said, we're trying to settle this lawsuit with President Trump and his campaign. Let's keep everything on an even keel.

Instead, Scott Pelley, after his executive producer quit, went off the reservation anti-Trump last week and did it again today, last night. Listen to Trey Gowdy. Cut 43. I really can't think of a worse witness. If you're trying to prove your case, Mark Elias was the architect of the whole steel dossier fiasco.

The guy you're looking at was responsible for laundering money from Hillary Clinton to a bunch of Russian operatives who made up stories about Donald Trump. Can you honestly think of a worse witness? What I'm waiting on, Bill, is the 60-minute special on all the law firms that were punished because they wanted to help Donald Trump. All the lawyers who were threatened by other clients because they wanted to help him during impeachment. That's the story I'm waiting on.

How about the lawyers that were threatened because they wanted to represent Donald Trump? Is the ABA concerned about that? Are all the Law Day celebrations concerned about the lawyers who were punished for helping Donald Trump? Or is it only the ones right now like Mark Elias who did more to undermine our rule of law? Think about what he did, laundered money.

From Hillary Clinton to a bunch of Russian sources who say Donald Trump likes golden showers. That's Mark Elias. If that's the best you can do, you ain't got much of a case. Right, and for them not to know that he has that in his past and use him as the focal point of a hit piece on Trump on 60 Minutes because it's the gold standard of journalism led by Scott Pelley, who thinks he's bigger than the channel and his bosses? I mean, I I think he's got his second lawsuit there.

All right, we come back. We're going to talk to Charles Casparino, get the latest business in the business world. What's going on with these trade deals, the market? Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show.

And I think as well, as far as showing how I think misguided this trade policy is, there's a part of your interview we talked about, Amazon and Jeff Bezos, and the president's call, and we're angry about that. Wasn't that the point of the tariffs? Wasn't the point to show that we want you to buy American? And the fact is, there'd be an extra amount if you're actually buying foreign goods. And so they want it both ways.

They want you to buy American, but at the same time, they don't want you to think there's actually an increase in costs, which of course there is.

So, do you think it's happening both ways? I don't know if I agree with that mindset, but they're trying to say is you didn't point out, look at the inflation numbers on Trump. You know, this is the price we'd have, but this is why it's higher because of inflation at 3%. Why do you feel like saying tariffs are the reason certain products are higher on Amazon? And just to give you context, President Trump picked up the phone, talked to Jeff Bezos, who's not running things day-to-day now, and they fixed it.

Charles Casparino joins us now, knows all about this, America's finest business journalist, and joins us. Hey, Charlie. Hey, Brian, how are you? Yeah.

No, I mean, he's uh listen, I you know, I'll be critical of the president on policy, on approach. although we all agree with his game his aims, his aims are noble, bring American jobs back, bring jobs back to America, particularly middle America, which got screwed on globalism. And that said, listen, where were the itemization of cost increases when Biden was printing money fiscally and the Federal Reserve was printing money monetarily Back in 2001, 2002, and spoke in inflation that everybody knew was coming and they lied about it. They called it transitory.

So meaning they, meaning the administration at the time and the media largely, which went along with it.

So he's right to call them out on a double standard. This is an easy one to call. Tariffs will cause some degree of price increases. Whether it filters into the CPI will remain to be seen, because remember, there's countervailing forces here. There is lower gas prices right now.

There's like certain foods. Food items are lower, eggs, for example. Yet, you know, we're going to be paying more for certain stuff because companies, small businesses, and and and large businesses source globally and there's tariffs.

So You know, just be prepared for potentially higher prices. But, you know, Amazon shouldn't be making a political statement out of it. I mean, who the hell do they think they are?

So Friday and Saturday, by the way, Trump's personal relationship helped. Instead of like last time, it was he was at war with Bezos. They have a relationship now, whether it's optimal. Yeah.

Yeah, the fruit zone. He said, and I asked him. I said, listen, he said, Mark Zuckerberg called him after his speech, and Bezos was going to Mar-a-Lago that weekend. And I said, what do you think? I'm like, do they change or do you change?

He goes, Brian. They're calling me because I'm hot right now. That's why. As if to say, you know, I I think he's right about that to a certain extent. I think these CEOs saw the way the country was going.

The far left of this country took it over culturally. economically. I mean, so all these guys, whether it's Bezos or Zuckerberg, when it really comes down to it, they they were one time, they were entrepreneurs, right? How did they build great businesses?

Well, they built great businesses the good old American way through meritocracy. right? They were Democrats, but they were meritocracies. They they believed in meritocracy. Then all of a sudden they were told that there were evil white men who oppressed, who have been oppressing people for centuries, and they don't deserve what they put their heart and soul and sweat and guts into and created great businesses.

And that's why they like Trump, because Trump offered an alternative to that.

Now, they're going to disagree with him on tariffs, this tariff stuff. I can't tell you where we're going to come out economically. It's all over the place. I can give you a good scenario. I can give you a really rough scenario, at least in the short term or the short to medium term.

But the bottom line is the cultural elements of what Trump represented, as opposed to what Biden and Harris and what the Democratic Party represented, literally turned off Democrats that were in this sort of that were businessmen and entrepreneurs. And that's why Donald Trump had so much support in Silicon Valley, more so than in the past.

So remember, yes, he's hot right now, and he should be skeptical of them. That's his business, not mine. But I'm telling you why the moderate democratic entrepreneurial base went to him. It's because he was a break from the leftism that was something that Mm-hmm. These guys never thought they'd.

I mean, they fed it and they financed it, right? Because they gave so much money to Obama and Biden and all these guys. They didn't see it coming until it came for their scalps, by the way. President Trump had an opportunity to say, We're very close to a deal with China. He says, We're not.

You know, he didn't say, Yeah, nothing's coming. But I guess we're not close to a deal with China. Just take that off.

Well, how about talk? How about talking? Because a couple of things are out there. Tell me what you think of them. One is: all of a sudden, China realized that fentanyl is a problem.

And we know they got 25 percent tariffs because Trump came out and said, because of fentanyl. We know the precursors are coming from China. You haven't stopped it.

So imagine if you're looking for an off-ramp while keeping your prestige and your pride. You say, What? You know what? I want to find out where the precursors are coming from. And then Trump could use that as an opportunity to say: okay, you know what?

They're making an effort, we got some proof of it.

So let's take 15 to 20 percent off the 145 on tariffs. And could that to be the beginning of an off-ramp to this? Yeah, I mean, listen, there's room for negotiation here. He wants stuff from them, they want stuff from us. Anytime you have that, and you do have a dialogue, you have two leaders that don't, you know.

don't have deep seated hatred for each other. I mean, they obviously kind of like each other, right, based on everything we know. I mean, you could have a de there's there's a deal to be had.

Now, how that comes about when you you know, when you draw the line as stark is Trump did in the beginning is, you know, it becomes much more, it becomes a little more, you know, becomes more difficult. You know, he put down the hammer. He basically said, I'm pausing on everybody except for China. Screw you, China. You're the bad guys.

I mean, that's kind of like a diss that the other side of the negotiation might not like too much, right?

So just remember, this is going to be a process with China. Listen, it's going to be a process with everybody. Brian, if this was really easy, I've been reporting for weeks that they're close to a deal with India. And by the way, it's borne out by the statements of Howard Luttnick. I mean, you know, I was the first to report it, but they're all confirming it now.

They all confirmed it last week. But every day we hear. The deal's coming. Where's the deal?

Now, I don't, the deal is not falling apart, just so you know. The I's need to be dotted, the T's need to be crossed. You know, there's a whole sort of. Political dynamic you have to do deal with in India. I guess the prime minister and the parliament and God knows how many agencies that government has.

This is not easy stuff. If you throw the extra layer of political and sort of uncertainty and sort of trends, two superpowers who are globally competing, because we're not exactly globally competing with India, China is something that some a country that we consider a menace and a foreign belligerent. This gets a lot more difficult. And that's kind of where we are right now.

So China is already exempting some of our products. They're assembling a list of products that would be exempt from its 125 percent tariffs. According to Reuters, Beijing also has exemptions on some U.S. pharmaceuticals, microchips and aircraft engines.

So they're realizing they need stuff. Apple and other companies as well as automobile companies such as Toyota Honda, GM and Stellantis have made multi-billion dollar commitments to bring their plants to the United States. This is all because of the President's move.

So there is movement out there, but what do you hear about the bare shelves problem? That's when it starts hitting people at home. We don't know yet. I mean, I, you know, I think. That is clearly a potential.

Um You know, there's so much of this we don't know, Brian. And, you know, it's hard to, like, you know, what do you hear? And, you know, what do you know? I can only tell you what I can report. I can report that, and by the way, I'm in LA, right?

One of the big ports in the United States is the Port of LA. I'm here for the Milken Conference. Um you know, they're talking about ships now coming without any without anything on them. from various places. And here's one of the problems.

When you kind of stop global trade, which it's kind of been throttled. it's hard to to reverse fast. It's like the Spanish Armada turning it around. You know what I'm saying? All this stuff takes weeks to to come over and then you got to put them on trucks and Ye so just remember, th you know, if if this thing ended tomorrow, like Suppose Trump turned around and said, you know what, zero tariffs.

Forget it. I just, you know, I tried and it didn't work. I'm not saying he's definitely not going to do that, but let's just say he did. This thing would take like a month to sort out. And you could get shelves that aren't filled and could get inflation.

or you could get certain price rises. Certain things are going to cost more. I don't think the president, I heard his remark that maybe you only get five toys instead of 30 or something like that. You know, this is you know, you start I understand what you're talking about.

Well, you know, my father would say the same thing. My dad, you know, my, you know, my dad's a borough guy like Donald Trump. But, you know, that sort of thing I don't know. If we, you know. It's more than that.

You know, it's it's it's it's farmers. US farmers sell a lot of their grain to to China. you know, at the market that won't be available to them. That's another issue. Are we?

He said, he suggested it at one point. Small, I was talking to a woman. I see, it's funny. I'm at the Milken Conference, which is like last night. I, you know, I had spent some time.

Here it's unbelievable. It's great. It's a high level conference, but I spent time with Scott Besant last night. Rick Rinnell did a really smart job, and he quickly assembled a sort of MAGA outpost here in Beverly Hills.

So you can see, you can listen to Scott Besson, and you can at least hear the administration side of the story because most of the stuff here is very corporate and it's CEOs and major companies and mainstream politicians. It's not the MAGA movement, but Rick did a smart job and he set this up. Yeah, that was Darren. Scott Bethson is a very smooth operator, smart guy. But before I came here, I went to the Job Creators Network Conference, which really is a small business conference.

It's Bernie Marcus, the late great Bernie Marcus of Home Depot fame, who was on our air a lot back in the day before he passed over the last year. He's a friend of mine. And Bernie created this thing to help small businesses.

So I got the taste of the small business community before I got here with the big business. And here's where they both kind of agree. They're both scared about tariffs. Like you would think small businesses, which is the sort of bedrock of MAGA Republican. You know, remember the Sam's Club Republicans.

I mean, these are people that have their small businesses hire American, want you to buy American. And why they're worried is a lot of these small businesses source their materials from various places, including China. And they're talking about their businesses being totally upended by this.

So remember, this is a difficult thing. It cuts a lot of different ways.

So I want you to hear what Warren Buffett said: this is causing news, cut six. Trade should not be a weapon. I don't think it's right and I don't think it's wise. That seemed to resonate everywhere, the 95-year-old retiring of Bershey High. Immense respect for Warren Buffett, but why can't it be used as a weapon?

And I don't mean it should be used as a weapon like a nuclear bomb. Why can't we use it as leverage? And I think that's maybe the problem with this whole thing is that, you know, I think you know, the President maybe mistook You should have used a scalpel and not a sledgehammer. Or, you know, maybe a. Been a sniper instead of using the nuclear bomb, you know what I'm saying?

There was a way of doing this. That didn't cause this much disruption.

Well, we need some trade help with the trade unit because they got to be drawing up these contracts and these new deals. I don't know how big these uh how what number they are, but Scott Beston said it's not me. You know, I'll I'll give the framework, but it's up to the trade guys to work out the details of this.

Well, it's it's more than that, it's the other country. That's what I mean. Yeah, I mean, like they have to like approve it on their end. And so, you know, is India's Foreign Ministry of Trade, have they? dotted the eyes and crossed the f I mean, these are all bureaucracies, these countries have.

So remember, you start throwing stuff in the air. And these are the easy ones. This is why I keep telling my conservative friends, my MAGA friends, and they are Legion. I tell them, you just be careful with this. Don't assume just because the market is up today, it's up on.

on you know, some exuberance about a deal. Don't you know I re don't don't assume long term gain because you got some short term gain here, right? There could be long term pain. And I remember the financial crisis. And by the way, it's not an and I'm not saying we're in the f we're going to a financial crisis, but you never know.

If people don't buy our debt, that could be a problem. But you know, during the financial crisis, right before it really hit, it went and w went into DEF CON, whatever level, the highest one. there was the stock market hit a historic high. And back then it was fourteen thousand, I believe, on the Dow. And then it went down.

And then it was just like nonstop, Bear Stearns, Lehman, you name it.

So remember that. You know, there is. You know, these they just don't don't don't don't get too high or too low. Especially the market, the stock market, the bond market. But the only thing we need, Charlie, is to report both sides.

Hey, it's terrible since Liberation Day, but nine days in a row, the market rose up and now it's over 41,000. Just report both sides. Don't take down when it goes green. And that's what other networks are doing. I was very critical of people.

You know, freaking out over the stock market declining like that. Because we were, you know, first off, the market was way overvalued. It looks for reasons to take to take to take losses when it's overvalued. You know, trade and uncertainty is a good reason. Biden pumped up the economy with excess spending at the end.

Trump kind of is scaling that back.

So there's good reasons why it should, you know, where it's not omerganet, it's just a correct. Yeah.

That being said, when I saw the bond market sell off, and the bond market really is the plumbing of the economy. That's when you knew this trade stuff was starting to have much more of an impact that was much more serious than just stocks trading off. Charles Casfarino, have a great time. You got to bring me to that conference one time. Oh, I'd love to.

You you'd have a gra a blast. And by the way, You know, It's Beverly Hills is an oasis in LA, just so you know. I know. If the cops are good, if it's clean. I know.

A lot of homeless. You're probably not going to get robbed today. Plus, Charlie, if you're going to pickpocket him, you're going to be in for a fight. Charlie Gasparino, thanks so much. Back in a moment.

You're with Brian Kilmead. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show, sponsored by Previgen. Previgin, made for your brain.

Some members of my family will never forgive me for writing a book. Of course, they will never forgive me for lots of things. I would love reconciliation with my family. I've always, I've, you know, there's no point in continuing to fight anymore. As I said, life is precious.

I don't know how much longer my father has. You know, he won't speak to me because of this security stuff. You believe this idiot? This guy breaks up with his family, writes a best-selling book on the inner workings of the family, makes millions of dollars off the family, feels bad that when his grandmother dies, who happens to be the queen, he isn't treated well. He was forced to maybe do his own dishes and live in a house that was too small, so he and his princess had to leave and go to the Duchess, had to leave and come to America.

I like it here, but still, it's no palace.

So now he's upset that he's not allowed back. And then he says his dad's about to die. What the hell? And also, I mean, he wants them to pay for all of his security. And that was the whole issue.

And that's why his dad's been also not talking to him because he's You know? Hey, Cynthia, you're in Florida. Hey, Cynthia, what's on your mind? Hey, good morning. Mark Elias.

casting dispersions on President Trump. Gee. that's the same as Beelzebub casting dispersions on Archangel Michael. I don't think we need to listen to anything he has to say. And the only thing that I'm worried about under the Trump administration Is what are the Democrats going to pull in the next election?

And I'm not just talking about presidential, I mean off. Your election. Let's see if we get voter ID passed. That would certainly help. It failed initially, but maybe they get something going next time around.

Listen to the Brian Killmee show. Go to BrianKilme.com. Find out how to see me in Dayton, Dallas, and Richmond. On stage with you. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show.

Brian Kilmead. Hi, everyone. So glad you're here. It's the Brian Kilmey Show coming your way. This hour we're going to be joined by Benedict Franke, who's the vice chair and CEO of the Munich Security Conference.

There are so many issues out to be discussed. And Gerard Baker, Wall Street Journal, editor-at-large, and free expression columnist, he's got a show too on Fox Business. Very effective. We know today the president's going to make an announcement, I think, sports-related, and I think he's going to say the NFL draft fund thing is going to be in Washington in 2027, which you saw hundreds of thousands, I mean, over 100,000 come out for Green Bay. You saw how many came out in Las Vegas.

This is going to be just huge in Washington. He'll make the announcement with Roger Goodell, as well as the Commander's owner.

So that'll be fun. And this is Small Business Association Week. They're trying to get small business up and running. And that's what Kelly LaFler will be focusing on as SBA chair.

So let's get to the big three. Number three. I mean, when you look at Iran's behavior around the region, imagine how much worse it would be if they had a nuclear weapon. And I very much hope that Iran starts to. take these talks and don't and they don't play this cat and mouse game.

That'll be interesting. Iran shows why the talks on the new program are understandable, but will not yield any results. They never do. There's an assassin, Iranian assassination squad caught in London, and they send Iranian rockets into Tel Aviv airport. Do you really think courtesy?

Of the Houthi rebels. You really think they're looking for a deal? Number two. What we're trying to address here is to ensure that we're winning back a generation and address the fact that the Democratic Party lost vote share with almost every single demographic last election cycle, except for definitely older people and the highly educated. That is a problem for the future of our party, and it's not just a messaging problem, it is a messenger and brand problem.

That's what we're trying to address here. As Biden comes out this week on The View, two books come out showing how infirmed he was while he was trying to run the country, or was he even trying?

Meanwhile, the future of the MAGA movement, Trump speaks out. Number one. You're not taking the possibility that these tariffs could be permanent off the table.

Some of them. Oh, I wouldn't do that because if somebody thought they were going to come off the table, why would they build in the United States? Tariffs, trade, and the economy. This will be the focus this week as we see if there are trade deals to roll out and if China is ready to start talking. The market right now is basically flat.

It's up slightly up 36. It was down as much as 200. Why? It's pretty obvious that Trump coming out yesterday saying no deal is imminent was a bit of a letdown for the market, but they've had nine straight days. Let's see if they end up in the green again.

Let's go out to. Benedict Frunk, who's the vice chair of the Munich Security Conference. Benedict, welcome back. Many thanks for having me back, Brian.

So what could you tell what could you tell us about the mood in Europe with the President saying we need to spend more on defense? And of course, over the weekend, Marco Rubio and Vice President Vance weighing in on what Germany is doing with their right wing party. Yeah, so you remember last time I was on your show, I said that Germany, the new German government that will actually take over tomorrow, is fully committed to doing more on defense. There is a mood of sort of positive optimism and expectation that our change to the debt break rule will make it easier to actually find the money, to buy equipment, hire soldiers, increase the size of the military and do what is needed to carry our fair share. Do you believe that there'll be people that would sign up if there are additional opportunities in the military?

This is a volunteer force, right? Yes, I mean we are talking about a sort of a soft conscription model at the moment, a bit like Sweden has introduced it. But yes, the military, the Bundeswehr, currently is one of Germany's most positively viewed employers. And I think you'll see even more opportunities coming up. We are currently at 180,000 people, the lowest we've ever been since the creation of the Bundeswehr, which obviously is not a good place to be in.

And I think you'll see many 10,000 of posts created in the next couple of years. Wow, that'll be very interesting. How do you feel about this right-wing party that the German government is looking to basically deplatform? and marginalize.

Okay.

So, this is a super important debate, and it's interesting to see how this debate is going in the US. First, I obviously can't speak for the government or the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, but I can help you. Try to understand how we Germans see this. First, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has done its job. That's what it's there for.

Like every good democracy, we have ways and means to protect our democratic processes. They have now said that the AFD, the most right-wing party in the parliament, currently second to the polls, many millions of committed voters, is an extremist. party. That is not the same as trying to ban the party. I'm surprised by the discussion in the US.

No one is trying to ban the AFD, but we don't like Nazis. You don't like Nazis, and there are some Nazis in that party. That is what the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has said. I do believe, and that is my personal opinion, that it was published in a bit of a clumsy way. Um it shouldn't have You know, sort of Kept from the public.

There's a 1100 page document detailing problems and troubles and quotes and infringements on the constitution. And we have only seen three quotes out of those, and those quotes aren't actually all that bad.

So there is a huge public debate in Germany. It is not correct that Germany wants to ban or the German government wants to ban that party. Last point on this, we will have a new government starting tomorrow. And they will have to face up to this problem. It's not a good way to start into a new administrative cycle.

It will keep all of us very busy. Benedict uh The one thing that's pretty uh Clear just by reading comments, not being in Germany. That They don't like the tone of President Trump saying, hey, guys, pay more of your fair share, has more of an even tone between Russia and Ukraine, even though it's starting to balance, he's starting to understand, I think, who he's dealing with with Vladimir Putin more than ever. But Germany says, we feel like we're if I could paraphrase, we feel like we're going to be on our own. Is that the sense is that the dominant feeling in Germany?

I don't think it is, Brian.

So I think that most Germans, and the Poles show that, are committed. Uh For doing more on our defense.

So let's separate that from our view of what President Trump is saying and doing around the world. I think we will do a lot more for our defense, not to please the US president, but because we should have done it long ago. We need to do it. It's the right thing to do. And so let's take this to one side.

I think that's a discussion that is. You know, is solved. There are obviously issues with Ukraine and Russia. We in Germany have stood at the side of the Ukrainians. For the last couple of years, probably again, not as strongly as we should have.

um as determined as we should have and we will continue to do so. you There is support. For speaking, and there is, I would say, Some realization that without President Trump's Intervention, we probably wouldn't see any talks at all. It should have been Europe. It should have been Europe, right, that got these two parties together.

Now we should be grateful for the Americans for trying.

However, as I've said last time, this must not come at the cost of the Ukrainians.

So if you would ask me in your next question, if Europe, if Germany has deserved a place at the table, I would say, no, we haven't. But that's also not our role these days. Our role is to make sure that Ukraine will get into these negotiations from the strongest possible negotiation position.

So let me ask you roughly: do you think that when it's time to bulk up and build up your weapons arsenal, will you be buying weapons from the United States? Of course. There is no question we've done so, Brian, for decades. I think we are absolutely committed to the transatlantic partnership. We at the Munich Security Conference, you know, we've been coming to DC for the last 60 years.

In fact, I'm in DC right now, where we will have a meeting over the next two days, attended by, amongst many others, the Vice President.

So we will keep this discussion ongoing. We are committed to strengthening the Transatlantic Alliance. And if this means buying American weapons, yes, we will do so. But At the same time, and you guys keep saying that rightly so, we need to spend more on building up our own defense industrial base. And I'm sure there are ways to combine the two.

Understood. Do you believe there's a legitimate threat of Russia expanding their aggression? Because people here in America say, well, this is a one-off. They've had a problem with Ukraine. Historically, they believe it's theirs, even though it's not true.

But those other nations have nothing to worry about. I think there's other things happening. If you ask the Baltic nations if they're worried about it, they pretty much say yes. If you ask Finland if they're worried about building an additional military base closer to their border, they seem worried about it. What should they be?

Yes, Brian, I think there are three quick things. We have seen over the last 30 years, so since the end of the Cold War, Russia breaking every single convention they've signed up to. States like Poland, the Baltics, the Scandinavians are rightly worried. Second, I think there is a component that we must not forget. There is a hybrid war going on already.

There is Russian ships cutting undersea cables. We keep catching Russian spies on sort of a daily occurrence these days. Russia is And hasn't played by the rules for a long time, and I see no way. Why we should suddenly believe that miraculously this will change. Hope is a shit strategy.

And so, what we will need to do is to walk a fine line between working. on having a Russia that is strong and committed to the global architecture and not intent on invading its neighbors. Yeah, that would be great. I mean, obviously, we would be more than wel happy to welcome them back in. You guys had Nord Stream one, Nord Nord Stream Two.

You would buy in their ru their oil and gas. Have we effectively, under Trump, Fulfilled your natural gas needs or helped fulfill your natural gas needs when you're usually buying from Europe, when you usually buy from Russia, rather. Yes, yes, you have. And I've been relatively critical of our past government, the one that is stepping down tomorrow. But what they have done is they have switched our dependency on Russian gas within a year.

We now export a lot more from you guys, from Morocco, Azerbaijan, Qatar. We have to be super careful not to replace one dependency with another, but I'd rather be dependent on your gas than on Russian gas. Yeah, so that certainly would help. With NATO, so you guys are going to get up to your 2%, is what you're saying. We we will surpass the two percent quite significantly, yes.

Okay, great. And we should have done this long ago. Your view right now on Russia's Uh offer to do a three-day ceasefire. You know, again, my personal view, but this is just ridiculous. If you can do a three day ceasefire, you can also do a thirty day ceasefire.

I mean, we must not forget that there is only one person who can end this war in a heartbeat, and that is President Putin. And I share the frustration, the growing frustration of President Trump with how he, you guys and we are being played by Putin once again. Right. on the whole uh Russia situation. When you have the United States, well, I guess our president's going to be going to the Middle East shortly to try to work out something there.

But. When it's all said and done, Poland's talking about building a wall. They are building a wall to wall off what would be an invasion. But what I've been really struck by is the innovative ways That Ukraine has fought this war. I mean, yesterday they took out a Russian jet.

With uh with a um With an underwater drone with a from where they were shot from underwater. I mean, the innovations they've done with drone technology, has it revolutionized war in real time? I think it has shown us many valuable lessons. And I've just heard that the British Army has sent people to Ukraine to learn. From the activities at the front line, we need to make sure that we at NATO learn everything that the Ukrainians have been so good at.

At the same time, Brian, there's always the saying that you always prepare for the last war. I think now we have a tendency to prepare for the war of the next. Currently, you don't see large-scale military operations at the front lines. Those aren't complex operations, you know, with air support and coordinated movements. This is piecemeal.

This is very slow and painful.

So, yes, there are some lessons to be learned about flexibility, creativity, speed of implementation, speed of scaling up. Things that work, but let's not. believe that this will solve our future problems.

So right now, do you think the Russians have exposed themselves of what kind of fighting force do you think the Russians have shown the world that they have? I think, you know, obviously President Putin was very surprised that his three-day gambit didn't work out. But, you know, let's also say that they have kept this war going for two and a half years. They have people say they lose thousands and thousands of soldiers per week. It doesn't seem to harm them all that much.

Russia has a much higher pain threshold than Ukraine, Europe, and the Western Alliance.

So what does it teach us? We need to be super careful because even a weakened Russia is a serious opponent. Because they throw numbers at it and they just grab people off the streets and put them in military uniforms. And I hear when they go back into civilian life, they turn really. They'll unleashing killers in their country.

So it's just been a terrible mistake. I don't know how Vladimir Putin could view this any other way. Benedik Franke, the Vice Chair and CEO of the Munich Security Conference, thanks so much for your view and for our listeners to get the real perspective over in Europe. Thanks, Brian. All right.

This is Brian Killmee Show. We went a little long, but I do have some time on the other side of the break to get to your calls: 1-866-408-7669. And then we go to Gerard Baker of the Wall Street General. Tell Move. This is the Brian Killme Show.

The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. There'll always be your favorite president, and perhaps your next poll. Conflict.

Well, it's been 100 years since I became president. Excuse me. Days. Wow. Feels longer, but people are saying that what I've done so far has single-handedly helped win people elections, mostly in Canada.

I've also signed 147 executive orders, everything from banning paper straws to defunding PBS. Yeah.

I understand Elmo has now been apprehended by ICE. Brought to you by the letter L for El Salvador. He's not coming back. We've got a few new executive orders, and here to help is Deputy Chief of Staff and Lord of the Shadows, Stephen Miller. Mr.

President, it's an absolute pleasure. to be here. Wow, even the nice things you say sound like Kylo Wren. All right, pretty funny. Cold Open lasted a while.

Did you watch any of the show? I didn't watch the show. I did go through the weekend update, which I always do. There's some funny stuff, but nothing that really worked for us this week. Nothing that worked.

But the Cold Open, thankfully, did. Oh, okay.

Well, that does work.

So it's good to have something work because the last one I saw, we really couldn't use anything.

So, yeah, they're they're hit or miss, they're hit or miss. But I will say, this guy that does Trump now, for the most part, he I feel like he gets him like their jokes might not land, but at least he sort of has the How d how do you feel about Bill Belichick's move? On what possibly hiring a crisis PR firm? He basically fired his girlfriend. As kinda.

Because he's because the disaster of his book rollout, she's interrupting, saying keep it to whatever, not talk about the relationship. All caught on camera. Could have been worse. Evidently, she stopped it seven times.

So now he's hiring somebody from the Bears. For communications. Evidently, he's been talking to her, talking to them for weeks.

Well, it's probably something he should have done earlier. Did you see the story last week how she was also in that Duncan commercial? Yes. And like how she probably weaseled her way in there. Suking for money.

So, how long before they break up? It depends. How's she going to handle this? Right? Do you remember being 24?

Did you date a 71-year-old when you were 24? You know what? I cannot check that off my bucket list. Right. So you can't be, you're no help to this settlement.

But I would say they survive. Survive. The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead. You're not taking the possibility that these tariffs could be permanent off the table.

Some of them. Oh, I wouldn't do that because if somebody thought they were going to come off the table, why would they build in the United States? That is President Trump sitting down to meet the press yesterday. Right now, Doc taking a step backwards when it comes to China, although we see a series of potential off-ramps on both sides that were kind of offered late last week. Gerard Baker joins us now, Wall Street Journal editor-at-large.

Jerry, welcome back. Thanks, Brian. Pleasure to be here.

So your thoughts about here we are since Liberation Day almost a month now. Your thoughts about how close these deals may be and where we're going with China.

So I've got two My main thoughts, Brian, and I've written my column for the Wall Street Journal today, which will be published this afternoon, on one of them. First thought is You know, we're now a month from Liberation Day. We've had some ups and downs, we know, and the President has gone back and forth quite a bit. Markets have gone up and then gone down and then back up again. I wonder if we and we've had some economic numbers, especially the jobs report for April, which despite all of the concerns and the fear and anxiety, actually showed the economy still growing strongly and things still looking pretty benign.

And I'm starting to wonder whether maybe some of the alarm has been a little overdone and whether in fact what people are adjusting to look, I don't think anybody thinks The President is going to keep the Liberation Day tariffs in play. He paused them. Obviously, I don't think anybody thinks they're coming back. We're not going to be imposing huge tariffs. on on countries like Australia and Japan and Korea.

But There's probably go I think the market is adjusting. I think the world is adjusting to the probability that we are going to have. You know, we're going to have some sort of higher tariffs. And one of the things I've written in my column today is: look, this is, you know, maybe this is part of a larger process here. of countries Most importantly, the United States, kind of taking back control over their own economy.

And, you know, for all of the challenges, and it will definitely hurt growth in the long term, there are some benefits to that too.

So I actually think that what the President's doing, while I think the way he's doing it has not been very wise, I think moving in the direction of an economy in which you have more control over your borders, you have more control over what happens here, maybe is the way the world is going. And I think maybe the markets and the world are adjusting to that. The second point, though, of course. Brian, is I think, yeah, he's gonna negotiate these these deals. Look, I think the big one obviously is with China.

You know, that's where the big tariffs are, basically a hundred and forty five percent tariff on China, which the US has means that there's there's no trade gonna happen. And and we're starting to get reports, rather worrying reports, you know, that uh there's basically, you know, ships are are not leaving Chinese ports, uh ships coming into LA and other ports are major ports. Are kind of basically slowing down or to almost to a halt, and all the ships are empty.

So there's going to need to be a deal of some sort. But China does have a lot of things it can do. It is an economy that's not open, that does the Chinese, frankly, do cheat. They do favor their own industries. They do subsidize them.

They do impose all these kind of non tariff barriers as well as tariff barriers on the US. And look, we I think the Journal had a report over the weekend saying, for example, on fentanyl. They're looking to do a deal they are responsible for a lot of fentanyl and the precursor products that cause fentanyl, that create fentanyl. They are responsible for that coming into the US and all the misery that that produces.

So we may be seeing, I think, some signs here that the President is going to be able to secure some deals, that we are going to get a better outcome, that in the end we'll have lower tariffs. And as I said in my first point, maybe this is, you know, this is this is part of this is the world we're going to have to adjust to. And instead of kind of, you know, panicking and thinking the world is coming to an end and the economy is going to crash, maybe we've just got to accept that we live in a world where we have less trade, we have less global economic cooperation, but we have more control over our own security, over our own borders, and the way in which our economy runs. And that may not be a bad thing. Yeah, and it looks like Germany feels the same way.

They're the engine, the economic engine of Europe. And they're saying, why are we so benevolent to our neighbors? Why aren't we keeping things home?

So this could be a trend. Very much so. Look, I mean, and it is a trip. And look, one of the things I mentioned in my column, I'm sorry to keep promoting my own column. One of the things I mentioned in my column today is that this is what Brexit, this is what Brexit was for Britain in 2016, when Britain voted to leave the European Union.

It had almost exactly the same effect actually as imposing tariffs, because Britain leaving the European Union meant that it could no longer trade with European Union countries. And by the way, trade for Britain with the European Union is enormously important. It's about half of its total exports and imports go there.

So what it did by voting for Brexit, by voting to take back control over its own economy, was to basically put up barriers to trade with its major trading partners, which is essentially what the US is doing right now. At the time, back in 2016, the same economists who said it's going to be saying today it's going to be a disaster for America if it does this, it's going to be a catastrophe. They were saying back in 2016 Brexit will be an absolute catastrophe. There'd be a depression. Mark Carney, by the way, who's just been elected Prime Minister of Canada, was governor of the Bank of England, the Central Bank of the UK.

At the time, warned that it would be a disaster, warned British disaster. It wasn't a disaster.

Now, it has led to slower growth, I think, over the long term. And again, that's part of this trade-off that I think we have to accept when we take back control over our economy. But it wasn't a disaster. It didn't lead to a depression. It didn't even lead to a recession.

So I think, you know, we are seeing, I think you're right, Brian. I think you're seeing Germany is doing that. More and more countries are understanding that the risks associated with having an open economy, all the problems that come from that, the fact that you do do damage to your manufacturing base, you do result, Brian, in tremendous inequality. One of the reasons we've got so much inequality in this country, and I think the President is concerned about this, and I know Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary, is concerned about this, is because we've had these very open markets where people with... resources and privileged people, advantaged people have done incredibly well out of a global economy where they've been able to make themselves a fortune.

People but many, many Americans have been left behind in that. And I think we're going to just move into a world in which We look more for more to protect the less advantaged in American society. And if that means that we have to sacrifice a little bit of trade and a little bit of growth, I think people are prepared to do that. Scott Besson, you're talking about, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal today his editorial, and he said these are the three things we're doing. And one of the things that he brought up is in the 2017 tax reform that Trump passed, more people, the middle class, gained more than the top 1%.

And it's always been the opposite. I think they got 50% more financial gain from 2017. And when Scott was on our show before he was Treasury Secretary, he said, I said, what bothers you the most right now? He goes, in the country? He said, I think income disparity.

You can't have too much with too few. It's not going to work for our country. And here's a rich guy, probably worth $500 million, and he's more worried about that. And that's almost patriotic. When you, okay, I'm going to go work for $200,000 and try to fix that.

It's not to make my friends richer. I think that's exactly right. Like you, I spent some time talking to Scott Bess, and I think he cares passionately about this stuff. And, you know, again, I. He's one of those Americans who's done incredibly well for himself, been very successful, and I think sees an obligation to pay back.

That's one of the great things about this country is that people do that. And again, look, you know, Brian, I've been on your show before, I'm not a fan of a lot of what President Trump has done on these tariffs, and I'm certainly not a fan of the way he's gone about it. But I do think this motivation of improving the lot of ordinary Americans, you know, some of the, by the way, some of these tariffs won't do that, and that's one of the reasons I'm concerned about it. But the larger objective of removing some of this inequality, you're right about the tax, you know, about the tax cut plan. And as Scott says in the Wall Street Journal today, yeah, that 2017 tax cut, which was hit hard by Democrats as being a tax cut for the rich, actually benefited the middle class.

And as you know, in that period, we had the lowest unemployment rate for African Americans, the lowest unemployment rate for Hispanics. We had real wage growth for three straight years, which is one of the strongest periods of real wage growth. for median wages, that is for average Americans, people on average p pay, did very well in that three year period.

So yeah, I think again, that there's there's a lot to this, that this is we have some real problems in our economy which have been Exacerbated, let's be really honest about it, by this open trade, by this open economy, open markets, by this companies frankly shipping their businesses off to low-wage countries. And I think there is a case for saying, you know what, we've got to stop that. Yeah, the TPP would have done even more. The president hates multilateral deals. Even though it was a hedge against China, it still would have put more manufacturing into these Southeast Asian countries and would have hurt the workers.

But as I just watched Mike Rowe point out, that there's 450,000 manufacturing jobs open in our country. Do we really want more? Real quick, on Donald Trump's announcement yesterday, 100% tariff on all foreign-produced movies. We want to bring movies made in America back again. And just said the movie industry is dying.

These other countries are undercutting us and subsidizing us. We have to keep the movies here. Is that the way to do it? No, uh Again, look, I think I find it slightly surprising that Donald Trump is kind of trying to support Hollywood. I mean, Hollywood has.

So, one of the things Hollywood has been doing for the last 10 years. Is expanding in China. And in the process, what it's been doing, Brian, and you and I have talked about this, I think, in the past. It's disgracefully abandoning American values. And it's basically, you know, it's been making movies that appeal to the Chinese.

And you know, the Chinese are no friends of ours, and basically it doesn't promote America or American values has been doing that.

So I'm a little surprised that the President thinks that Hollywood needs protection. I don't think Hollywood does need protection. I think what we need, frankly, is a culture change in Hollywood, where people start making movies like they used to that celebrate America and celebrate the country and celebrate freedom and don't kowtow to other countries. I don't think, look, I think if you this is a this is a big step in terms of it's not a big step in terms of overall money, but it's a big step to start imposing tariffs on this would be a basically a service. service sector.

And if we do that, other countries will retaliate. And look, That's it. as much as I loathe so much of the output of Hollywood, Hollywood, entertainment, drama, TV, we export masses of that to the world, Brian. That's an incredibly, I haven't got the numbers in front of me, but that's an incredibly, you know, in Donald Trump's term, profitable business for us because we sell much more than we import from overseas. And if we start, if we start imposing, you know, what would 100% tariff would be, in effect, a kind of a pretty strong, close to an embargo on foreign films, they're going to do the same to us, and we're going to lose all the opportunities that we have to promote a big American industry.

And Jerry, I'm not going to write for the Hollywood Insider, but I do know this is self-inflicted. I mean, the union demands the diversity with their cast, the type of red tape that exists in Los Angeles, push people to Georgia and Texas. And now other countries go, listen, if you want to come here, we'll get you a good deal.

So you go overseas, just like you good, to seek a profit, you know, to seek an opportunity to do something that's cost-effective because it's harder and harder to finance these movies.

So you can. You have to cut cour costs whenever you can. It is true. And in this context and the wider context of what's been going on In the US right now, a lot of them have gone to Canada, right? Canada's been a very attractive place, low-cost place for people to go.

But as you say, also to kind of, you know, there's a lot of movie production has moved out of Hollywood. That's, you know, and that's, again, by the way, not a bad thing because the culture, I'm actually in Hollywood, I'm in LA at the moment. The culture here is, you know, as we know, is producing things that are frankly inimical to America and to American interests. But again, I think that the bigger danger here is if we get in a trade war where we block, where other countries essentially start blocking our entertainment business, I think we're going to be the losers in that. Right, because they did it to themselves.

I mean, that's why I saw that Rob Lowe said, I have to leave Los Angeles and go to Ireland to do the floor. Because they can't do a game show in America.

So it's terrible. Jerry, thanks so much. We look forward to see how this turns out. Hopefully, we're going to be talking to you about analyzing trade deals in India, South Korea, and Japan soon. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Brian. And I look forward to your column this afternoon in the Wall Street Journal. We're back in a moment with your calls. Don't move. Increasing your intelligence quotient.

What the hell did you just say? It's Brian Kilmead. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Killmeade. Before Bukele gets to that point where he's dealing with another leader, we should consider worst-case scenarios, and I do think it's a reasonable theory that Donald Trump is not unlikely.

the spouse of someone who needs him perhaps for another. who then murders their former partner because if they can't have her, nobody can. And I think Donald Trump and his solipsism may have that relationship with the world. and that this destruction is in part a power play and also a literal intention of of his final out. You think he'll try to stay on?

I think he might try to destroy the world by the before it before he ages out of life.

So, do you? I totally agree with this. This makes total sense. By the way, I think Sean Penn is really onto something. Uh what is wrong with him?

He thinks he's going to blow up the world.

Well, now that I'm done being president, if I can't fix the Constitution. I think I'll just blow up the world. Sean Penn, you're right on the money. Genius. Howard Jules on WABC.

Yes, yes, hi, Brian. How are you? I have a comment just I don't know if you talked about it, about the Houthis and just based on their ability to continuously launch missiles, at Israel and also there seem to be controlling the Red Seas. I'm just wondering how much or if you think we underestimated their capabilities Well, I think they're getting a lot of help from China and Russia too, because China and Russia want to create maximum disruption in the area. And then you have Iran helping them with training, helping them with logistics, intelligence, as well as rockets.

So when you have a lot of people helping you, that certainly helps. But they're not even the most popular group in Yemen.

So I think that it's hard to get to them, I guess. It's a little bit harder than we thought, but we've been bombing them, I think, since March 14th. And they were still able to send that rocket to Tel Aviv. But I imagine they're experiencing a lot of strife. Keep in mind, everyone said you can't stop Al-Qaeda, stopped Al-Qaeda.

Yeah, they might be able to pull something off, but basically destroy their infrastructure. Can't stop ISIS, stopped ISIS. These guys are going to get stopped. Can't stop Hezbollah, they're the Tiffany network of terror. How'd that go?

And then you're in Hamas.

Well, you're never going to wipe them out entirely.

Well, Israel is in the process of doing that. They told everyone to leave the South. They're taking it and holding it. And every day that goes by, they're going to take more of Gaza until they get the hostages out.

So they will do it. And the Houthis will be next.

So far the Houthis have lost an ally with Syria. When the Russian war comes to an end, I imagine that could come to an end soon. If we say something to them, the effect of Russia, if you come to an end and this deal is done, you stop. Providing weapons to the Houthi rebels, number one. And number two is we're going to deal with Iran very shortly, one way or another.

And that's got to be part of it. Julie, listen on FM News Talk 97.1. Hey, Julie. Hey there. Hey, my grandpa used to say, can't never did anything.

We keep saying we can't manufacture here, we can't bring our supply chain home, but we really need to for nothing else if but our for our supply chain security. Did you know that Nike has a factory in St. Louis, Missouri, where I live, where it has 600 employees. It has another factory in Beaverton, Oregon. Everybody acts like it can't be done, but it can.

And if we bring manufacturing home, it's not the body-intensive factory of 30 years ago. There's a lot of automation, but it still requires intelligent employees to monitor, to service, to take care of. Right. So let's match it with vocational training. Mm-hmm.

Great idea. Yeah, let's match that at the same time. Mike Rowe's going to be on tomorrow.

So we'll be able to make sure you listen in. It'll be 10.06 your time. And we'll ask him about all that because he is seeing a big change, but he also sees a lot of open jobs. And he also sees a whole group, a whole sector of America who's not working. And they got to start working for the self-worth, whatever it is.

I don't care what kind of therapist you need, you have to work. for this society to work.

So I think it'll be a part of it too. And I think colleges being unaffordable is going to help sell the vocational story. Appreciate the call, Julie. And that's really nice of you to come in and talk about what I was just saying, that four hundred fifty thousand manufacturing jobs are open. I also think it's pretty hysterical I also think it's pretty hysterical.

We're talking about this Iran situation. You have the President of the United States who is. They say it's being too weak. He doesn't want to get involved in the Middle East war, and that's totally true. And then you go to bed thinking to yourself, okay, now that Michael Waltz, who they claim to be a hawk, is gone, there's no way he's going to get involved in the Middle East.

Now, I didn't think that, but that's how everyone's reporting it. I don't want anybody involved in the Middle East. I don't want to be there one day more day than we have to.

However, If you look at people that have a problem in the Middle East, it's all because of Iran. And what is Iran doing? Supplying the Houthi rebels. What are they doing? Trying to kill Israelis.

What are they doing? Sending terror groups in to assassinate people in London. The only way they're going to get stopped is to end that government, not that country. And I think Trump's coming to that conclusion. It is time to take the quiz.

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