The Brian Kilmeade Show

This show proudly sponsored by Real American Freestyle Wrestling. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmeade. Hope you had a fantastic week. It's going to end strong here on this Friday.

David Bonson's got to be with us from the Bonson Group. Make heads or tails. Not only of the numbers that are coming in, although we don't have job numbers because of the lockdown, shutdown, but also about consumer confidence, about how we feel about jobs and about our future. A lot happening today. Griff Jenkins in studio, getting set to host Fox & Friends Weekend.

Joined me a little bit earlier. And we got a big announcement. Fox Nation Patriot Awards. Tickets go on sale for the November 6th show that you look forward to every year at the Tilla Center at LIU, where I went to college. FoxNation.com slash Patriot Awards.

Go scoop up your tickets. Let's get to the big three. Number three. This use of U.S. military firepower is unprecedented.

Targeting drug smuggling boats with military strikes. There's no legal precedent. And it's another example of Donald Trump breaking laws within the United States. That is a look at what the media is saying about Donald Trump and the Republican Party. But it's just not the case.

We are at war with cartels. We want to protect America's youth and then stop the drugs from flowing that are killing them. It's the best way, the only way. Why I'm all in on this, even if the lawyers are not. Number two.

Some of the individuals have been doing this for a long time. There's an organization to it. They're on social media. When they started was not a thing. But now with the social media piece and the way that they communicate, we're definitely doing everything we can to put together all the pieces to this.

ICE under attack, Portland, Chicago, Los Angeles, and more. Why it shows Donald Trump was right to put them into the fray and why they're needed to straighten out those cities. Too bad the local police are not allowed to help. Number one. The amount of money that actually is going towards people who are undocumented is such a small portion.

We got to make sure Americans have the health care that they need. And if that means we got to shut this government down, so be it. Oh, that's fine. And shutdown continues intensifying, intensifying, very, very intensely. While the GOP seems to have the upper hand, is there a risk for the midterms?

Should it linger and should mass layoffs take place, even if it should be happening? Because with 36 trillion in debt, Griff, what do you sense right now? We've been through so many lockdown shutdowns.

Sometimes you get the sense who's got the momentum. You kind of knew the Freedom Caucus didn't have the power to do what they were doing. Senator Cruz in 2013, shutting down the government to eliminate Obamacare, didn't have the numbers. I get the sense that the power and leverage is with Republicans right now. A hundred percent.

And let's also not forget that in 2013, when Ted Cruz was shutting the government down, it was one Senator Chuck Schumer who called government shutdowns the politics of idiocy. That was literally his quote. He's had a change of heart. But to your point, the leverage is with Republicans because you have one side that is saying, listen, let's just pass a clean, nonpartisan, simple extension to keep the government open until November 21st. And we'll talk about the health care subsidy extension that you want to.

But let's not shut the government down and cause pain and difficulty, as we just saw in the last one that lasted 35 days in 2018, 2019. But in this case, one side simply says, let's just pass this, keep things open, and we'll talk to you about your thing. The other side said, no, I'm taking all my toys, going home, and damage be damned. And that is never a winning argument to demand it. And now it's backfiring on them a little bit as we continue to lay out how this exactly works, that illegal aliens are getting free health care in states like California.

But some are worried in the Wall Street Journal today, some GOPers are worried that they're going to get blamed for creating and might create some vulnerability because everyone's about to get letters, as they do every year, for their insurance premiums.

Now, a lot of people should never have gotten Medicaid. They never brought the money down after the pandemic infusion of dollars. But when the numbers go up, will they get blamed?

Some moderates are saying, let's continue the subsidies until after the midterm. Senator Mike Rounds says to walk away from these people that are losing insurance would not be good politically or morally. And there's about 24 to 40 million people enrolled on Obamacare. Do you see the other side to that? I do see the other side to it.

And listen, health care is a difficult issue for Republicans as well. That's why they are wanting to take a measured approach to it. But they know that they can't ultimately bring something that's going to damage millions of Americans. But I don't know if Republicans are going to get such a huge blame out of this because what we're learning in this shutdown is there is the case of millions that came across the border illegally that were paroled legally into the country and then started to qualify for some of that Medicaid. And that's what the Republicans and the big, beautiful bill sought to cut out because ultimately you should not be able to get free health care if you're an illegal alien.

But the other thing I'll just add quickly is that when you look at the way that those Obamacare health subsidies were juiced by Democrats under Biden, you're talking about a lot, trillion, a trillion dollars.

So much more than they ever said. And every year they got to be subsidized. And Biden threw all the money at it. And then Trump said, if you're not going to repeal it, I got to fund it.

So he's like, who came up with this program? Right. And the larger theme of the Trump administration was always going to be to cut the spending down. And so to give way to the Democrats, you're doing anything but cutting. You talk about these programs Doge has killed a billion here, a billion there.

When you're talking about three quarters of a trillion dollars, that is a lot of money and no one's going to be on board for growing our debt to that level. Here is Nancy Pelosi. She has a real balanced approach about who's to blame. Cut for. Trump and Republicans are now inflicting a painful shutdown on the American people because they refuse to protect America's health care.

And Congress doesn't extend the Affordable Care's enhanced tax premium tax credits immediately. Hundreds of thousands of families that we're talking about California only will lose their health care.

So, by the way, if you for people who say that there's no provision to pay illegal immigrants, they do it in a different way. Money flows into these hospitals. Fifty percent of all this money is reimbursed by the federal government. These hospitals are general practice. They function as general practitioners, the emergency room especially, for illegal immigrants.

Because Ronald Reagan passed a law that anyone who has to get health care if they enter a hospital.

So if you get there, who's paying the bill? These hospitals are getting reimbursed. It went from California getting $1.6 billion in 2023 to $6.4 billion now in 2024. That was just last year, and that number's going to rise even more. There has to be a sense that somebody's going to rein this in.

They don't like because this all passed in the big, beautiful bill, which has nothing to do with the shutdown. No, it's not. And you've got senators like Democrat Senator Gene Shaheen, retiring New Hampshire senator that was on your show on Fox and Friends on Thursday. You guys were talking with her. She looks like she may be leaning towards crossing over and cracking.

Mexico has her as the whisperer, the Democratic whisperer to get in there and say, can we get this done, please? Because I'm against shutdowns. She voted in March with Schumer, one of the six to seven, to put him over the top to allow our government to be funded. And the negotiations, look, Thune and Johnson have both said that there will be no negotiations while the government is shut down. But they are willing to negotiate on these health care subsidies.

So Shaheen is trying to get some of her more moderate Democrat senators on board to say, listen, let's get in principle a Washington handshake version of something that will get done that we can get this reopened, get the government reopened and then work towards something that actually Republicans can accept. Whether or not we see that this weekend or next week is anybody's guess.

So I want you to hear what Dan Abrams said. He was on his Sirius XM show. He runs Mediaite. And he talked about, look, stop, stop leaving the facts out of this debate. And he took on MSNBC, cut 15.

The way that the fact checks have been happening from the media would make you think that there is no argument that Republicans can make at all about people in the country illegally getting any additional health care as a result of what the Democrats are suggesting. And that's not true. But it's also not true what J.D. Vance is saying.

So here we are in the situation where Republicans, led by Vice President Vance, are vastly overstating what Democrats are proposing. And yet you still have the media fact checking in a way that I think leads to more undermining of the media's credibility because they're making it so all or nothing. And it's not. They also want to look at the member. We had this debate just to pass in August to pass a big, beautiful bill about eligibility.

You know, Medicaid is meant for people who are disabled, who are hard times, unemployed. But when you're able-bodied, there's going to be a work provision for you to continue to get it. And they think it's going to have the effect of the same thing welfare reform did under Bill Clinton. People, when they had to work, jumped out of it. And they said, okay, there's going to be a limit to the unemployment, and there's going to be a limit to the welfare.

I'm going to have to get a job. That's what they think will happen on the Medicaid side, because this is all unsustainable. Right. Right. And it's important to point out, because to Dan Abrams' point, let's fact check this.

The poverty level of recipients for Medicaid was increased three times, up to the 400 percent poverty level under the Biden administration. Republicans came in. Above poverty level? Above, above. Yeah, sorry.

And the Republicans came in in the big, beautiful bill and said, no, no, no, no, this is crazy. This is crazy. You know, if you can work. Because you're 400 percent above the poverty level. We shouldn't be giving you free health care.

Exactly. I mean, I think most Americans can understand the common sense part of that argument right now. And that's that is that is a weak position that Democrats will bring to the table if they're trying to keep it at levels such as that. There's going to be a three. There could be as much as it's already been 300000 jobs cut out of the federal government since Trump took over.

That's the Elon Musk Doge group, which is still working. There could be thousands more cut out over the next few weeks.

Now, is this the right thing to do overall? Yeah, because we have $36 trillion in debt. We're just making interest payments or basically bankrupting us. But the other thing is I just feel bad for the middle-class family making a combined income of $110,000 to find out out of nowhere I lost my job.

So I do want to see a soft landing for people.

So those $300,000, most of them got offers to leave in September, get six months with pay, just move on.

So these people, I just don't want them to look and realize that I got an email that I'm fired. Because everyone's perception of federal workers is that they don't work hard. And I think that's wrong, too. 100%. 100%.

And you know them. I have a lot of friends that are federal workers. I just was talking to a woman who's a neighbor of mine that got let go. It was part of the reduction in force, a rift, that came before the government shut down. This was last week.

And, you know, at the end of the day, I think that— give him some time right give him some time well we you know 750 000 government employees were furloughed that's what happens in the government shutdown but in this case you do see caroline levitt making a strong case and others in the trump administration saying that look we we there are jobs that will be eliminated because of our original plan in reduction in force i do think by the way one thing that we could see coming out of all this and we we don't know how many jobs will be eliminated actually out of this. We know that President Trump intends to do that. But I think we could have legal challenges coming out of this. I want to get your take on what's happening in Venezuela, the drugs and everything else, because you have another air of expertise, Griff, and that is the border.

So let's leave some time on the back end. Bottom of the hour, we go into the economy and, of course, take your calls at some point. Or you can write me, BrianKilmead.com. Just click on comments. Don't move.

learning something new every day on the brian kilmeade show this week on the fox true crime podcast i'm joined by retired fbi special agent stacy perkins as she discusses the bureau's innocent images initiative and the many child predators she has helped to bring down listen and follow now at fox truecrime.com From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Kilmeade.

Now, that is not number 25, Eric. I asked for cut 25, but why are you playing Taylor Swift? Happy Taylor Swift Friday. I'll just say this, Brian. What a great day to be alive, to get all day to listen to the brand new, amazing.

Taylor Swift has outdone herself.

Now, Eric was playing the fifth track, Eldest Daughter, which, as I was telling you on Fox Friends, is the fifth track is always the emotional one. On previous albums, you had All Too Well, which is like one of her most famous emotional songs. My eldest daughter, Madeline, got me into Taylor Swift. I woke up at 4.30. You woke up at 4.30?

But you had to be on the show. You had to be on the show at 820, but I needed time to listen to the whole album. I've gotten through almost all of it. But I went first to the eldest daughter because I knew that, as I told you before, Taylor Swift would wield that magical, emotional sob sword and just slay me with it. I just got the tears out, got it out of the way.

So you're perfectly willing to say that you cried when you heard this. You were an adult male. I am man enough. You are a man. You're an adult male.

If you can't cry. If you don't sit down and listen to that and you're a father of a daughter, particularly an eldest daughter that got you into Taylor Swift and you don't tear up, you ain't got a heart, I'll tell you. But I will say this. The majority of the album is about her newfound love with Travis Kelsey. It's a positive, happy album.

Can you believe it? Yeah. And her message is like, hey, it's okay to be happy. But you know the problem. When you write a song about happiness, like, for example, Uptown Girl.

How does that sound when Billy Joel sings it? He's talking about dating, being married to? Brooke Shields. No, he didn't marry Brooke Shields. Oh, I forgot who it was.

Christy Brinkley. Christy Brinkley, that's right. Same era, same supermodel. And then I love you just the way you are. He sings that.

And he divorced that woman. He said, my new lines are, she took the cars, the key. She took the house, the keys, the car.

So that it becomes from a love song. Shouldn't you wait to see if the relationship is going to work before you write about it? I'll tell you, she's just laying out her emotions, pouring her heart out there, and it is moving the nation this morning. It's moving the nation? Bill Borg is already on it.

I do think this, though. You know, James Comey also shares your passion.

Well, I can't. I don't have a comment on that. I mean, you know, he needs to just do his thing. He's got enough problems. Leave Taylor Swift out of this.

But I will say, you know, these songs, these lyrics, like the famous songs of Billy Joel and Love Songs of the Past, Taylor Swift is not only a mega superstar, which is what most people see. She is perhaps the most poetic, skilled, gifted lyricist of our time.

So she writes it all. All right.

So I want you to hear this. If you don't mind, Eric, do you mind if I squeeze in some news? You're not going to just play another song? All right.

Here is Todd Ringel. He is the assistant special agent at HSI over in Oregon. Cut 25. This spans back many years.

Some of the individuals have been doing this for a long time. There's an organization to it. They're on social media, which when they started was not a thing. But now with the social media piece and the way that they communicate, you know, we're definitely doing everything we can to put together all the pieces to this and draw it into more of an organization versus simply individuals. They're trying to take down what I think is an Antifa branch that has just been trying to destroy the ICE building, harassing ICE agents over in Oregon, Portland, Oregon.

Yeah, and you saw that Oregon lawmakers and I guess the attorney general out there has moved to try and sue to block the potential of the National Guard coming in. But then you watch what's happening on the streets with Bill Malusian out there reporting. How can anyone, let alone a Democrat, decide that I'm going to take the side of those rioters? But the mayor and governor have. Yeah, right.

And we're seeing them do it time and time again, doubling down, not only in places like Oregon, but in L.A. and Chicago and Boston. The same playbook that is a losing playbook when you've got this issue. We talk about it's 80-20 issue. I think it's more like 90-10 or better that the American people across partisan lines are saying.

ICE agents telling you we're up against it, but what ICE agents telling you, because they're not getting support from local cops, do they want to do this job? They believe in their leaders, Tom Homan, Todd Lyons, and they are committed like never before. Morale's never been higher, they tell me. Saturday and Sunday, 6 to 10, Fox and Friends weekend. That's right.

Tune in. It's going to be great. Maybe Taylor Swift will join us. Let's see. That'll be something.

That's a big tease. I'm Dana Perino. This week on Perino on Politics, I am joined by Executive Vice President at Targeted Victory, Matt Gorman. Listen and follow now at FoxNewsPodcast.com. Or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

A talk show that's real. This is the Brian Kilmeade Show. Since the White House meeting that took place on Monday, Republicans have gone radio silent. It's clear that they wanted to shut this government down and they wanted to shut it down because they were unwilling to provide health care to working class Americans. That is such an overstatement and misstated take on the facts.

But that's what you expect now. rhetoric, Minority Leader Akeem Jeffries on MSNBC, where he's talking about the lockdown.

Now we're three days in. If we're going to get a vote today, the Senate's due in session at 1130. And at which time we expect there to be a vote.

Now, they've only had three Democrats cross. They need five more to cross. Could Jean Shaheen do it? They evidently, Politico feels as though she's trying to get people just to get it across the line. She's retiring.

Gary Peters retiring. Dick Durbin retiring. Guys like Ossoff, who is in a red state, wants to get six more years. Maybe it works for him to vote for this. Would it be enough to cut the legs out from underneath Chuck Schumer?

David Bonson's with us now from the Bonson Group, the CIO and founder, managing partner, and author of Full-Time Work and the Meaning of Life. David, this lockdown has not hurt, your business has not hurt the market. Why? Why? Well, just because we have been down this path so many times that markets don't get fooled.

The government's going to reopen in two days, two weeks. It doesn't matter. It's going to reopen. And there's a lot of uncertainty about who hurts and who helps politically and what exactly gets done along the way. But what isn't going to happen along the way, Brian, is corporate profits eroding because of the lockdown.

You know, it's always a political story. In the past, they used to go to photo ops in front of Yellowstone to show that people couldn't get into the national politics. parks, that kind of stuff. But there isn't anything material that's going to erode corporate profitability. That's why markets don't care.

The political thing is open-ended. It's funny, those names you just read off of sort of potential Democrat pickups, the one who's not going to cross over is Dick Durbin. But there are other names that could, and we'll kind of see where this goes in the next couple of days. I don't imagine it's today. I think it's Monday, Tuesday, but we'll see.

Well, what are they going to get in return? What they do want, and you always talk about the like every economist everybody's concerned about the deficit just the interest that we're paying and what we're not being able to buy and do because the interest payments at 36 trillion i think it's five billion a day so having said that you do want to uh you do want to cut back the budget and is two-thirds of the budget as you always tell me is medicaid medicare and social security got it so medicaid uh the problem is that got the biggest the quickest understood So we want to rein that in. But now I'm going to bring in politics.

So everyone's going to get their letter talking about the premium for the upcoming year. And Democrats are going to be able to turn around and go, that's their fault.

Now, it's irresponsibly inflated Obamacare and supplemented Obamacare and didn't pull it back after the pandemic came to an end. The eligibility requirements bastardized what Medicaid was supposed to be. Republicans are probably doing the responsible thing, fixing it. But politically, there is concern, as I read the Wall Street Journal today, that some are worried like, wow, we're going to look like people taking away health care this year. Yeah, that's an unavoidable issue in any entitlement.

This is kind of Milton Friedman 101 and why government programs that are temporary become permanent is politics. And when you give somebody something and then take it away, you the only thing that matters is the second half of the sentence. You took something away.

So, of course, there are some of us that are free market advocates and believe in limited government that think the best way to avoid that problem is to not give it to begin with. But your point is a really good one. It was out of the COVID moment that the growth of the subsidies out of ACA got out of control. And then the redefinition of eligibility for Medicaid bastardized is a nice way to put it because it's just a defiance of the English language, what they did. to qualify people for what is a needs-based program that aren't in need.

Able-bodied people getting Medicaid. Not working and are not below the poverty line. And now I guess the poverty line, they moved it for eligibility to 400% above the poverty line? Yeah, and then the standard deduction has gone up so much too, and that was actually under a Trump tax cut that you got a whole bunch of people not below the poverty line, not paying taxes, getting bigger benefits than ever. It's a good deal if you can get it.

Yeah, it's a good deal if you can get it. But now there's a working set to put into it. It seems to me to a degree they're trying to undo a portion of the big, beautiful bill. And they're trying to do it by continuing to not fund the government or have a lockdown. A lot of times when we see this, it's Republicans that look like they're punching at the wind, right?

Oh, yeah. And they go, well, guys, I understand what you're doing. You might be right, but you don't have the votes. This time, I think it's the opposite. It almost is in March, Chuck Schumer did the right thing and was hammered for it by continuing to fund the government.

And now he's doing the same thing and Republicans go, we don't want anything from you. We just want continuing spending at Biden budget levels until we get the appropriation things worked out.

So if they can message that effectively, I think they have the upper hand here.

Well, they might. I tend to agree with you. You're certainly right on the merits, the substance here. The thing I want to point out is, of course, the Republicans have been the ones who've done this most of the time in the past. And the difference is the Democrats have they're playing seven on five in basketball with the media.

So so the fact the facts on the ground are not going to get through to the same degree. And then what the administration has chosen to do is message this around. Oh, it's an illegal immigration thing. And that that works with the president's base. But I don't know that it's going to work to the same degree.

It gets to be a hand that gets overplayed at some point politically with the center, with the kind of independent moderate voter. What the left's doing is outrageous. I got to be honest, though. I've always been opposed to Republicans shutting down as well just simply because of what you said. This was passed legislatively, and that doesn't mean people have to like it.

But the law is the law, and then to go play gimmicks with process later, we have a legislative branch of government to address these things.

So the left is now crying that they don't have the power. And candidly, the right did it a lot of times, too. And it speaks to a dysfunction in government that shouldn't be. And it never ends well. It never ends well.

Yeah. And you know, the thing is, you've got to get a face-saving measure for Democrats to get out. And what that might be is a promise, number one, to entertain these subsidies and which are going to anticipate, I think, December 1st. Or they could say on the rescission package that they put out that they took $9 billion out. Maybe they agree not to rescind any money from the budget that's been appropriated already.

Remember they took away PBS and they took away the USAID money.

Something like that. Yeah, and that's what Shaheen and Caputo and potentially Durbin won't vote for this in any way. It's an undermined leadership, but he may behind the scenes back channel away because the face saving is what's going on. What could get bad for the Republicans, and it isn't yet, and I don't know that it will. But if this thing drags on enough where the optics change and then then all of a sudden the president's in a position where he needs an off ramp right now.

Schumer needs an off ramp. And again, to me, if I were him, I would have just said, I don't care what the base says. They already hate him. They're not going to like him more now.

So the doge cost. I took out three hundred thousand jobs and they say, you know, just they say we got to get rid of these government got too big, which is probably not going to help them in Maryland and Virginia in any type of election. but we move on.

Now they say that OMB director Russ Vogt is going to start going in and taking out programs and jobs.

So how do you feel about that? Number one, he froze the $18 billion to New York, froze. But how do you feel about job cuts? How does that play and how do you feel about it?

Well, first of all, it's not going to be deficit reduction because they are going to reallocate, but they will still spend all the same dollars in the end. But do I prefer Russ Vogt be running the P&L? What do you mean? Why wouldn't they? Because that's just not the way government works.

they will find something else to spend the money on. And it may not be in the same month, but over the same fiscal year, it will get spent. They will not have dollars they leave unspent.

So Russ's objective will not be to save money. It will be to more optimally spend money and get rid of waste and so forth. And I don't think it can be done without some backlash PR, but I think Russ is more qualified to do it than a lot of those young guys that came in on Doge 1.0, where you know Russ knows what he doing I mean he going to be more surgical my guess is they probably overplay it a little But look I think a lot of this stuff should be cut back This is not the way you want to see it done. But the Democrats open this door and Russ is going to take it. And they've been warned.

They were warned he was going to do this. Right. And back to Senator Thune came out and had something interesting to say. He's like, I really have no control of what he's going to do.

So he goes, hey, he's because that'll be somebody else. Here's what Senator Thune said. Cut nine. We are not asking Democrats to swallow a list of new Republican policies or partisan demands. Not in there.

We are asking Democrats to do nothing more than pass a clean, nonpartisan bill to fund the government for a few more weeks so that we can get back to bipartisan appropriations work. You talk about a sober, judicious guy. He's just a normal guy you'd work with.

Well, I've known him for 23 years, and we did a lot in California to help get him elected when he was running against Daschle back in the day. And I've known him a long time and think very highly of him. But you're right, normal guy, straightforward. And what he just said is 100 percent true. They're not asking for something.

And so Chuck Schumer is in a really tough position here.

So I want to talk about the economy. CBS did a poll. They say 59 percent of the country think the economy is getting worse. This is in September. Fifty-four percent said they thought it was getting worse in July.

On the job market, 33% say the job market is good. It was 41% in April. The 52% now think it's bad. That was at 44% in April.

So what is the reality? What do the numbers tell you? What does your gut tell you? See, the data that we have to look at is who has jobs, who's getting hired, who's getting fired. And what people think about jobs is difficult because you have people with jobs that are getting raises that might say, I don't think the job market's good because they're reading stuff in the press and they're answering a survey.

But it isn't about their situation. It's about what they're hearing other people's situation is.

So all that matters is what's really going on. The Chicago Fed yesterday, 4.3 percent jobless rate, right in line with what BLS had said. But then the Challenger survey basically is showing the lowest pace of hirings since financial crisis. 2008?

Well, no, after.

So 09, 010 in the aftermath of the crisis. In 08, of course, it was net, net, just massive layoffs. But the hirings picked up back then very slowly. That was part of the real sluggish first-term Obama recovery. And right now, the firings are not picking up a lot, but they're frozen.

And then the hirings are frozen.

So you're just kind of stuck in this, and it's not great. I mean, our market should organically be creating a couple hundred thousand jobs a month easily because you have a certain amount of people retiring and, of course, a certain amount who are dying. And there should be a couple hundred thousand jobs a month in a normal environment. Economic growth, 300,000, 350,000. And right now, it really looks like we're pretty flat.

Like there just isn't net job growth.

Now, why?

Some uncertainty with the tariffs, how it affects the business? Is there uncertainty with AI? Do I need to hire more? Yes, yes. And then, you know, potentially some of it is from the government layoffs and furloughs.

Those things really don't kick in the data. the people that took the early kind of Trump exit package, that shouldn't start showing up till now the fourth quarter. But I think there's talk. It's hard to measure, Brian, about how many people are saying, I'm not going to hire new people because I'm going to use AI to replace them. I'm sure it's there, but I suspect it's low.

I think the biggest issue, because I can see in the capital expenditures, durable goods orders, industrial production, you don't get a lot of hiring when there's not a lot of capital investment into new things. The OBBB really did give incentives to companies to go do cap expenditures. I met with big money manager yesterday about a lot of what's going on in Permian Basin, building new pipelines. They need to get natural gas to these data centers. They need to provide the power for our power demand is so low.

That should be leading to a lot more hiring. And they got big tax benefits to go build stuff out, but we're not seeing it yet because of steel tariffs. You know, there's just push-pull, good things and bad things working against each other. And the goal would be put tariffs on foreign steel in order to make it cost effective to make it at home. Is that is that the theory they're working on?

And is it work? Oh, I guess that's the theory. It's certainly not working because what it does is it pushes the price up for the the domestic when they know they're competing against something that has a price input or distortion the other way.

So steel and aluminum tariffs push steel and aluminum prices higher, whether it's domestic or foreign, period. The argument that they have is, well, let's make it more competitive for our local manufacturing. Aluminum, there's no possible way, with or without tariff, that we can compete with the countries that can produce it way cheaper. The steel side, we don't have enough supply, and the tariffs make all that harder.

So I would say lower tariffs would push prices way down. Are we in the process of getting U.S. steel back up with the Japanese infusion of cash? that, I mean, are we about to become the behemoth of steel again like we were in the 50s? No, but we can marginally be better off, but our issue is labor cost.

They're not coming down. I mean, they're not going to do anything against the unions. It's a union thing. Of course. Always has been.

Always has been. So you don't think we get every—you don't think the rest of the world is coming up labor-wise in a way that's— They are marginally, and we have some better opportunity marginally. But when you talk about the 50s, 60s, that competitive thing into the early 70s, it started to dissipate. No, I think those are yesteryear.

So Trump's considering. By the way, you just said something when we first walked in. You said, Brian, you guys are misreporting tariffs.

So if prices slightly go up, you go, the tariffs are hurting. If they don't move, you know, the tariffs aren't hurting.

So what how should we be reporting this? Yeah. And to be clear, I don't think it's you guys like Fox. I think it's everybody is understandably in the news business, right? There's month by month data.

And so something comes out and they go, oh, grocery prices were higher this month. And so then MSNBC wants to say tariffs are causing this. And then if something didn't go up that much, then, you know, some defenders administration want to say, look, they're not impacting it. Listen, there's going to be some higher prices from tariffs and there's going to be some things that can't go higher because companies have to pass it on or have to absorb it rather. And then that erodes profit margins.

The latter is worse for our economy. I mean, no one wants to see prices go up with inflation, but do we think with jobs vulnerable, wage growth vulnerable, capital investment vulnerable, that we want erosion on corporate profits? That's the mother's milk of feeding more investment, and that's what really creates job growth, wage growth, and economic growth.

So to me, I don't think there's anything wrong with how people report it because you have to report stuff week by week, month by month, but I'm not looking at it that way. I'm looking at it six months, 12 months, 18 months, the way I'm allocating billions of dollars of capital. 30 seconds. Are you feeling two more cuts before the end of the year? No question, 100% chance.

And the market loves this? The market already knows. Will it affect the loans I get to get a car or a house? Yes, but what is ultimately going to bring down house loans is the longer end. And unfortunately, meaning long dated, like a 10-year treasury bond.

What brings that rate down is generally because we have lower growth expectations. Although we do have 3.6, 3.8 right now, which is pretty cool, right, GDP?

Well, no. Listen, that's on quarter over quarter annualized with the inventory number being front run from tariffs. We got to look at the full year number. It's going to be about 2.5%. David Bonson, always educational.

Thanks so much. Back in a moment. Illuminating. Intriguing. Inculcating.

I know some of these words. It's Brian Kilmeade. It's Will Kane Country. Watch it live at noon Eastern Monday through Thursday at FoxNews.com or on the Fox News YouTube channel. And don't miss the show.

Listen and follow the podcast five days a week at FoxNewsPodcasts.com or wherever you download your favorite podcasts. A radio show like no other. It's Brian Kilmeade. One of the things I keep saying is that you want a primary Chuck Schumer in New York. I mean, you haven't answered that question directly.

Yeah, I think the answer is that people are sick of politics being determined by these horse races. Nobody cares about some election years from now. They care about if their kids can get insulin and if they can put food on the table. What's he talking about? Of course people want to know races.

It's like me going to the Yankee locker room. I go, you know, do you think you're going to win the next series? Nobody cares about winning and losing. No one cares about the horse race. No, no, no.

We want to know. We want to know what you're going to do. People follow it. They want to handicap it. They want to talk about it.

People care about that. And also, if you want to know when this is going to end, just tell us what you want to do. Because the guy in charge fears you running against him.

So if your eye is on the White House, Chuck Schumer might have a different approach at 74 years old. I guess he wanted to be 80 as a senator. I'm not even clear on that. No, and I usually see him at the Al Smith dinner. I'm going to go this year again.

Thankfully, I'll be on the dais. That's when he usually comes up and he starts yelling at me in a fun way. I like talking to him, but he's always very direct. There's no small talk. He'll just say, your guy is doing this and your guy is doing that.

But I will ask him about running again, then I'll relay that to you. Don't forget, see me in person. I want you to see me in person in Pennsylvania. Go to BrianKilmead.com and order tickets. History, Liberty Lamps.

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. I'm at 48th and 6th in Midtown Manhattan, where, believe it or not, a sanctuary city where crime is going down. Not the story in Oregon, not the story anywhere in Portland specifically, not the story in Chicago, certainly not the story in Los Angeles. And we'll talk about that. Josh Crash Hour is standing by.

He's Fox News Radio political analyst and Mark Thiessen at the bottom of the hour.

So let's get. And by the way, quick announcement. It's really cool. Fox Nation Patriot Awards 2025, November 6th, 8 o'clock. Be there.

Sean Hannity will be hosting Tillis Center for the Performing Arts, right where I went to school at LIU, Long Island University. Go get tickets, foxnation.com slash patriot award.

So let's get to the big three. Number three. This use of U.S. military firepower is unprecedented. Targeting drug smuggling boats with military strikes.

There's no legal precedent. And it's another example of Donald Trump breaking laws within the United States. That is just craziness. But I expect it from Democrats in the rhetoric during the lockout. We are at war with the cartels.

We want to protect America's youth. And to do that, we want to stop the drugs from falling into our country and killing them. That's why Trump has not only sealed the border, he's gone after the drug users and the drug mules. Why I'm all in for this, even if the lawyers are not. Number two.

Some of the individuals have been doing this for a long time. There's an organization to it. They're on social media. when they started was not a thing. But now with the social media piece and the way that they communicate, we're definitely doing everything we can to put together all the pieces to this.

Yes, that is Todd Rignall. And he's in Portland talking about trying to take out Antifa, who are putting ICE under attack. Not only there in Chicago, Los Angeles too, why it shows Trump was right to put them into the fray in the first place. Number one. The amount of money that actually is going towards people who are undocumented is such a small portion.

We got to make sure Americans have the health care that they need. And if that means we got to shut this government down, so be it. That is Congressman Rokohana and another. Shutdown continues intensifying. While the GOP seems to have the upper hand, there is a risk to the midterms if it doesn't come out the way they want.

And we'll discuss that.

So we're looking at lockdown. We're going to have in about 90 minutes, we're going to see the Senate convened. I don't know when they're going to have a vote. Right now, they only have three Democratic votes, assuming they didn't change their mind up to 55. They don't have Rand Paul because he's on his own planet.

So the question is, are there other Jean Shaheen? Is she going to flip? Is Gary Peters is retiring going to flip? Is Senator Ossoff, who wants to be again, get six more years in a red state? Is he going to flip?

Let's bring in Josh Krashauer, Fox News' political analyst, editor-in-chief of The Jewish Insider. Josh, your thoughts about how long this will last? Yeah, I would take the over on, and I think it's maybe one of the, we're positioned to have quite a lengthy government shutdown. Number one, because it doesn't seem like the Trump administration is showing a whole lot of urgency. In fact, they're, you know, I think have a lot of chips to play in terms of withholding benefits and even potentially trying to lay off some of these government workers if this does go on.

And unlike other past administrations, they don't seem to have many qualms in doing so. And it turns out that the government is able to operate and there's no obvious backlash. I mean obviously people want the government open. The public is trying to figure out who to blame. But if there's no obvious headlines in the coming days, I think this is likely going to draw itself out.

I also think you look at the vote, the initial vote. You have three Democrats, three Senate Democrats voting against their party, and you had one in Rand Paul voted the other way. Both parties are mostly united, but the fact that there isn't even anybody within the two parties suggests that we still have a long way to go.

So I think buckle up. This is going to take some time, and the negotiations don't even seem to be going on in full earnest right now.

So I think this is a couple weeks at least into the shutdown. Are you surprised the president is letting leadership, and I like it, letting leadership do their job? In fact, I don't think leadership was even keen on the meeting last week between Schumer and Jeffries. Yeah, I mean, look, there's been some mixed messages. That's been the Trump M.O., by the way.

We've dealt with this in Trump's first term, and he has done a lot of delegating for these kind of very detailed negotiations on what's going to be given up, what's going to be discussed in these negotiations. I'm not too surprised by that. I do think, though, that the appetite for a longer shutdown in the sense that the Democrats have their fingerprints on this. They ultimately, after Schumer decided to kind of keep the government open in the last go-around, the fact that the Democratic base had a large role in trying to perpetuate this, that the political fingers on hands with the shutdown, much more on the Democratic side this time.

Now, the polling is all over the map. It looks like a lot of people, if you look at the polling, it's sort of like a pox on both houses. They blame the White House. They blame the Democrats.

Some of them aren't even sure who to blame.

So I think if there's any push to get the government open, it would be if one side is decidedly blamed for the shutdown and are taking the political heat for that. It's not clear what's going on, but I know this. The OMB director is going to start cutting jobs, it seems. And it seems like that Russ Vogt has been primed for this for a long time. Here's what Newt Gingrich said, and he's seen a lot of them, and he actually called a big lockout with Bill Clinton.

Let's listen. This may be the dumbest strategy that I have seen in a long time. There are two things the American people want. Do not close the government and do not raise spending.

So what do the Democrats do? They say, I'm going to close the government until you raise spending. That's a double negative. Do you know how hard it is for a major party to design a strategy that has two different stupid things in the same strategy? And that's what he feels is, oh, this is just dumb because the Republicans are not asking for anything.

They just want to continue in front of the government at Joe Biden's rates. Right. I mean, what the Democrats are, one of the things that they're making a big deal about is sort of the cuts to Obamacare subsidies. And that is something that they think they've got some political traction on, given the big, beautiful bill and the cuts on some of the health care entitlements as part of that.

So that's where the Democrats have been pushing. And look, there is entitlements are popular, right? And they're trying to raise that salience. That said, I mean, Newt is right in that the Democrats have their fingerprints all over the shutdown. Usually it's the other way.

This time it's the Democrats that decided not to fund the government to try to get leverage for their own priorities.

So, I mean, that – we'll see where the public lands, and I don't think it's helpful politically to kind of make threats to cut government workers, to withhold funding from transportation priorities in the New York area. Probably the Republican lawmakers up for reelection in those areas where commuters rely on – will be relying on some of those projects.

So I don't know if that's a good response, you know, politically speaking, at least. But certainly the Democrats have the fingerprints all over the initial stage. And I think Republicans have some messaging opportunities, as Duke Ingram shot right there.

So The Wall Street Journal writes today that the Republicans seem superiorly confident, but behind the scenes, they are worried about the premium increases, which is really a tightening up of Medicaid pre-pandemic. and making sure eligibility for Medicaid is tightened up because it's become unsustainable, unaffordable. And there is a huge payment of illegal immigrants on this through huge payments to hospitals that treat them. In California, the number is up to $6.4 billion.

So do you think Republicans have a legitimate reason to worry? Look, I think it's not so much a result of the negotiations over the government shutdown. That was part of the plan for the big, beautiful bill. And to get some of the cuts, to maintain the tax cuts, that was some of the spending cuts that the Republicans agreed to.

So, I mean, yes, I mean, I think that's the – if there is a political problem, it stems from the decision-making that went into what was going to be cut out of the original big, beautiful bill, as Trump calls it. Obviously, Democrats are trying to highlight that, trying to use that as leverage. and it may be politically sellable in the short term, but at the same time, they're the ones who decided we're going to use our leverage, we're going to use our clout to try to close the government and try to get concessions on that front.

So I do think when it comes to responsibility, at least at the beginning, the Democrats have their fingerprints all over the shutdown this time.

So I want to bring it to you right for the Jewish Insider, and we're all waiting to see what Hamas is going to say about the deal that was signed off by everybody in the region, it seems, from Jordan to Egypt to the UAE to Qatar about put down your guns, you're allowed to live, but you'll never rule Gaza and we'll have a transition authority. There's 20 separate points to it.

So far, Hamas is not accepted. Indications are they won't. Here's what General Jack Keene said. Cut 38. They didn't reject it out of hand immediately.

They may be the likely thing is they're going to counter with something that they want to negotiate over and remove, that would be a good one.

So your thoughts about Hamas, if they are really a death cult, they will choose death, which is rejection. Yeah, look, I mean, it's remarkable that the deal that got not just Israel on board, but got all the Gulf state allies on board. The pressure is on Hamas, even though there was coverage over the week about the Palestinian people demanding, praying that Hamas accepts this deal, but they don't seem to be willing to. And we'll see what happens officially. But I mean, the hostages are basically the holding of 20 living hostages and the remains of other hostages is their last leverage.

And they seem to be, you know, what do they say about the Palestinians historically? They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And sadly, they don't accept this deal, which is one, it would end the war, it would actually start the process of rebuilding. And it would also, their guarantees to protect Israel's security. It's a good deal for everyone except Hamas, which needs to be extricated from the region.

And that's the only reason. What's left of Hamas and their intransigence is the only reason why we haven't heard a yes. And I'm a little skeptical that they're taking this long. I'm not sure if they're going to actually get to yes. I mean, I could not believe that.

The thing that changed this for me is when I saw everybody sign off on it, including Qatar.

So Qatar, who has got all this influence, who puts them up in their four, you know, the Four Seasons hotels, you go, guys, take this. If they say no, get out. I mean, literally, you could just say get out. Yeah, and, you know, Trump announced earlier this week an executive order that would essentially agree for the U.S. to, you know, treat Qatar as like a major ally and protect it from any attacks, which is a significant step.

And you would think that that would only be gotten if Qatar was putting the pressure on Hamas to end up accepting this deal.

So we'll see. But, you know, Qatar has a big role. And the fact that they were on board and they were on board with the entire plan made you think initially that they were going to put the screws on Hamas, who they've been hosting, and, you know, basically pressure them to accept. But right now we're not seeing that. And the longer this takes, the more pessimistic I'm getting.

All right.

We'll see what happens in that quick, you know, when Hamas says yes or no in the next few days or makes a formal request for an extension, which I imagine Trump will grant him a day or two. I don't think should kill the deal or not kill the deal. But you never know. Lastly, go ahead. Yeah, no, I mean, I mean, the game, as you suggested, Brian, is that they could play just a game and say we need more time and just try to just string this out as we've seen in past negotiations with Hamas.

So it looks like Democrats, again, find themselves pulling for Antifa and chaos. They are pushing back against the deployment of federal troops, ICE, in problematic areas like Portland, like Chicago, not Memphis. They are making success in Memphis, but they have support of the governor at least, and other places like Los Angeles. And they're attacking ICE, and the local police are not helping. I find this maddening, especially in Portland.

I want you to hear the assistant special agent for HSI in Oregon, Cut 25. This spans back many years.

Some of the individuals have been doing this for a long time. There's an organization to it. They're on social media, which when they started was not a thing. But now with the social media piece and the way that they communicate, you know, we're definitely doing everything we can to put together all the pieces to this and draw it into more of an organization versus simply individuals. So they're watching.

There's a guillotine set up. They're attacking ICE. They're attacking journalists. Yet Portland said we got this under control. Clearly, they don't.

Josh, is there a disconnect? Are there really Democrats happy that these cities are making a mockery of law and order?

Well, I mean, this goes back some time. And that's what I think was. I think that context is also notable in what's leading up to this confrontation. I mean how many cities, Democratic-run cities over the years have designated themselves as sanctuary cities, which means that ICE cannot be operated. They're not allowing – anyone who is here illegally is able to have safe harbor in the cities.

And that fundamentally is what the administration is trying to do. And I actually was sort of struck here in the nation's capital. There was an element of crime fighting, but a lot of their arrests were actually immigration arrests or ICE arrests. and they were able to get kind of the ability to work inside the city, and then they deported and arrested a whole lot of illegal immigrants. I think they're trying to export that model into other cities across the country.

There are a lot of constitutional questions, a lot of legal questions. But politically, I mean, we got to this point because Democrats proudly and loudly, in these cities at least, were saying if you're an illegal immigrant, if you're here illegally, you have safe harbor. No one's going to come after you. That's changing right now. But it's going to be a mess, and not just a political mess, but some of the images are going to be all over your social media feeds.

And there always was a middle ground, right? Protect the border, not let illegals come in under the Biden administration, and then having cities enforce the law in their own jurisdictions after the fact. We didn't see that.

Now we're getting to this point where it's really deep blue base against the Trump administration. I guess we're going to see what happens. I think that the optics are embarrassing for the country. The fact that local police can't do what they chose to do, and that's backfellow law enforcement, I find maddening. Josh, thanks so much.

We look forward to seeing how all these storylines develop this weekend. Thanks, Brian. Talk to you soon. Back in a moment. It's Brian Kilmeade.

The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Kilmeade. This use of U.S. military firepower is unprecedented and is drawing accusations that the strikes are illegal. Targeting drug smuggling boats with military strikes.

There's no legal precedent. Secretary, what legal authority did the Pentagon invoke to strike that boat full of drug smugglers? It is a massive expansion of presidential authority. against the rules that abide by the use of military force. And it's another example of Donald Trump breaking laws within the United States.

Really? Did Cory Booker, see if we can look this up. Did Cory Booker have a problem when Barack Obama was droning people in Africa and through the Middle East, including an American citizen? I didn't, because they were terrorists. I trust the CIA to try to hunt them down, and they did a brilliant job by all accounts.

Everyone wants to talk about Afghanistan.

Well, we eradicated al-Qaeda, destroyed ISIS, and we're still hitting. When we have an opportunity, we still hit them in Syria. I don't really see them being read the Miranda rights.

So now we have drug boats from Venezuela with cartels as our informants being blown up on the shores to stop fentanyl from getting in here. And Cory Booker says, wait a second, this is a violation of international law. Both sides can take a look at this. But understand your objection, your lack of objections are in the Obama years when he drone more people than you can imagine. And you can't just do it this time.

So, by the way, this just in an agreement. Trump sets a Sunday at 6 p.m., a deadline for Hamas to accept the 20 point peace deal. An agreement must be reached by them. Every country has signed off on it. Last chance agreement is not reached.

all hell like no one has ever seen before will break out against Hamas. There will be peace in the Middle East one way or another. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald Trump. Did that just come across?

Okay, all right, great. And he talked about releasing all the hostias And by the way it personal with the president of the hostias These families are real They not just families that are suffering They met the president The survivors that got out met the president So he's all in on this. And might as well be Americans. Loosen the Brain, Kill Me, Joe. Mark Thiessen next.

If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmeade. And then you have the Supreme Court after two decisions on the local level, the state level in California, around racial profiling of Latinos, which we refer to here as the hunting of Latinos, that has created a blanket of fear around this city and has had detrimental impacts to our economy. We had two court decisions, and then the Supreme Court basically gave a green light to racial profiling. They are trying to dial us back to the 1940s, and that is a tragedy for the American people.

What an embarrassment that she's a mayor of a major city, and that is Los Angeles. That is Karen Bass. Dialing them back, illegal immigrants, whether Hispanic or German or Chinese, they got to go. Self-deported, they already did over one million. You let everybody in.

You loved it. Hiring people that were illegal, doing the best you can to make it a sanctuary city, accommodating for all, while you bankrupted your city at the same time and embarrassed them by still refusing to rebuild in areas in green light permits, in the areas that were burned to crisp, while you forgot to put water in the region to put it out. Mark Thiessen joins us now, the Washington Post columnist. Mark, your thoughts about whether President Trump is hunting Hispanics. It's the most absurd thing I've ever heard.

What he's hunting is illegal immigrants with criminal records. And nine out of ten Americans support that.

So this is another example of the Democrats being on the wrong side of 90-10, 80-20 issues. And it can go down the list of them. But I'll tell you what the Trump administration has done, specifically in Los Angeles, which is really innovative. They've got a legal strategy to bust up these sanctuary cities. Because what happens is the reason why sanctuary cities exist is because when ICE sends what's called an ICE detainer to the local jurisdictions, they are allowed, in some cases required by law, not to cooperate with the ICE detainer.

Because the ICE detainer is just a request from federal immigration authorities to hand over somebody who's in custody. What the U.S. attorney he appointed in Los Angeles is doing is now is any time that the Los Angeles or any of the local areas there detain someone who is an illegal migrant, they check to see if they had been deported before. And if they've been deported before, they file a case with a federal judge to charge them with illegal reentry into the country, which is a felony offense, a federal felony. and then they go and present the felony warrant to the local officials and they have no choice but to cooperate with that because it's not optional.

If they don't cooperate with a federal felony arrest warrant, then they can get charged with obstruction of justice and they can go to jail.

So they're doing this in Los Angeles and expect that to be rolled out in other sanctuary cities across the country. All right.

We'll see what happens with this. but the outrageous behavior by Antifa or their affiliates over in Portland against ICE. And you hear the helplessness in their voices. Bill Malusian talks to ICE officials as they have to deal with all types of unrest. And they see the cops across the street, the handful, and they do not do anything about it.

You see a big guillotine in the street, horrible things thrown at them. And because they don't want their city brought under control, the mayor and the governor. I mean, it is almost surreal.

Well, so what is Antifa? Antifa are, you know, we talk about neo-Nazis, right? Like if these were neo-Nazis doing this stuff, no one would be complaining about arresting them, about cracking down on them, about stopping them. These are neo-Marxists. These are communists who want to disrupt and destroy the federal government and bring our system down.

They're anarchists, and they're causing this violence all over the country. And, you know, they are domestic terrorists. And, you know, in the first Trump presidency, the Justice Department did designate them as domestic terrorists, and they put some of their leaders on the terrorist watch list. And I think they need to do that even more extensively. This is a domestic terrorist organization.

It's no different than if neo-Nazis were doing this all over the country. And if they were, then the left would be outraged and demanding to want to know why Donald Trump wasn't doing something to crack down on neo-Nazis. I just love the arrest of this one. Look like a 19 year old went after an ICE official.

So they arrested him and you see him just falling apart, this fat piece of crap, just shaking because he's terrified that he's getting arrested and he's being held in a police station. These aren't hardened criminals. These aren't the street gangs with kids with no option and no parents. These are over-entitled kids getting money. This is what they do for a living.

They just try to, they resent the fact that they're born in America. Listen to Tom Holman, Cut 19. Local government does not support ICE. You know, every attack on ICE building and ICE personnel, Portland Police Department don't respond. Even though these officers and agents and employees are taxpayers of the city of Portland, you know, the Portland PD has a responsibility to protect them, too.

I was up there a few weeks ago.

So the employees, you know, it's a dangerous job. It's making more dangerous from the threats and the attacks in that building.

So, and it's frustrating to watch, but we're covering it, not many people else. It's hard to be on the other side of that, but it seems like many people are.

So first off on Ukraine, Ukraine has a couple of things happening. Number one, they have underground pipelines that could provide oil to and gas to all our allies. They have offered to buy the oil from us or allow us, let them to spider web it out to all our allies in the region and forego Russian oil and gas. I imagine we're going to take them up on it. I would hope so.

I mean, first of all, the idea that any of our European allies are buying Russian oil or gas right now when they're demanding that Donald Trump crack down on Russian oil and gas sales and sanctions is just amazing to me that that even was happening until this point. The problem is, of course, that the two worst violators are Viktor Orban in Hungary and Erdogan in Turkey in terms of buying Russian hydrocarbons. Orban, he has completely lashed himself up to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping economically. And, you know, Putin is bad enough, but he's turned his entire economy over to Xi Jinping. It's the only country in Europe that's taking belt and road money.

They are completely, their entire communications network is away.

So, I mean, that should even be a security risk for NATO if they're in the NATO alliance.

So I just, you know, I think Donald Trump's going to need to squeeze his buddy Orban and tell him you've got to cut this out. Number two, the thought about selling them barracudas and Tomahawk missiles, that's what the that's what Ukraine wants. They would hit 500 miles into Russia. The Wall Street Journal today say we're providing intelligence on the energy sector and targets inside Russia. Do you think we'll do this and also lift the veil that allows them to hit with our weapons inside Russia?

Do you think we'll change? We'll change stances on this. General Keene thinks we have. Yes, we have. That's my understanding of it.

And so there's two things.

So what happened was Joe Biden for the entire presidency prevented the Ukrainians from doing that, from targeting inside Russia. Even though they were being targeted from inside Russia, they were not allowed to respond and take out the sites from which Russia was attacking Ukraine. At the very end of his presidency, he lifted that restriction, and that was put back in temporarily in the first few months of the Trump administration.

Now, at this point, he's taken the gloves off and allowing them to do that. But it requires, one, permission to use the U.S. weapons, and two, provide the targeting and intelligence sharing on where this stuff is. And so it seems like that's moving forward, which is great for the cause of forcing Putin back to the table, that he's not going to do it voluntarily. But you know what I just love, Mark, is the president came out and put out that true social post.

Essentially, I tried everything. Ukraine's got my full backing. Let's do this. Has anything changed since that?

Well, the weapons are flowing. The permission to use the weapons on Russian territory exists. though, I mean, obviously these have to be case-by-case basis. But yeah, it's starting to move. And look, I think Trump has not given up on the idea of having some sort of a peace agreement.

I think Vladimir Putin has slapped Donald Trump in the face. I mean, if you look back at that Alaska summit, Putin shows up, he takes the prestige and pockets the prestige of standing there in a summit with the American president, and then he accepts a letter from Donald Trump personally handed to him from his wife Melania saying, let's have peace to save the children. And the first thing he does is he strikes a kindergarten, which was a response to that letter, and then he escalates attacks and then starts sending drones and planes into NATO territory. I don't know if you can have a clearer signal from Vladimir Putin in response to that. Not only did he not do what he was supposed to do, which was to meet with Zelensky and then have a tripartite meeting, which is what was the deal that they were going to go forward with, but he's actually gone the opposite direction and is attacking even more.

So I think it's pretty clear that where Putin stands, he does not want peace. It looks like they're looking to put a drone wall in front of all NATO allies, and it's going to be cyber, it's going to be technical, it's not going to be physical. And everyone thinks this is a great idea to go from Finland all the way to Bulgaria. The question is the speed in which they can do it. And they're going to use Ukrainian technology, know-how and resources because of what they've been able to innovate.

Do you sense there's an urgency in NATO, a American-like pace to this? I think that there is an urgency in NATO. The problem is that they don't have all the technology that we do.

So this is going to have to have an urgency from NATO to provide the funds, but it's going to have to be U.S. technology in a lot of these cases. But I will tell you, you know, there should also be a physical wall. The Poles are building a 400-mile wall between them and Russia and them and Belarus that is—it's called the eastern frontier. And it is a—it's literally a physical wall like the one Donald Trump is building on the southern border.

But it's got—in addition to the wall and the razor wire, it's got tank traps. It's got minefields. It's got moats. It's got anti—you know, turrets for—it's a wall designed not to stop illegal immigrants, but to stop the Red Army. And I think Donald Trump should build that thing between Russia and Ukraine when the war ends.

And we should deploy it everywhere that we have a frontier with Russia.

So I also understand that, listen, that would be great, and I think they're going to put the money aside to do it. We've just got to expand our industrial base quick enough to be able to provide the weapons necessary to allow us to make money off selling these weapons to our allies.

So I got to bring the last thing up is we know there's been a draft again from Russia. They're going to put another 125 to 145,000 men in uniform. Where are they pulling these people from? Prisons? I mean, they're pulling people from anywhere.

This is what's happening in Russia right now, Brian. They're running low on artillery and armor, right? If they continued fighting at the pace that they were six months ago, they would run out of armor by next year.

So what they're doing instead is they're doing what they call meat assaults, where they literally send human waves of soldiers at the Ukrainians and wait and let them get shot down, then send another wave, let them get shot down. And then when the Ukrainians run out of ammunition, they pull back. That's how they're advancing, and they're doing it inch by inch. This is a deliberate strategy by the Russians to throw people into a meat grinder. I don't know how you continue that, how that's sustainable over the course of a period of years.

So we understand the president just posted that he's giving Hamas until six o'clock on Sunday to accept the deal or face total annihilation. And for those people and for those people who don't think it's possible to annihilate Hamas, General Jack Keene reminded us. Cut 40. it's fiction when people say well this is an ideology and you can't defeat it that's nonsense we defeated the al-qaeda summarily in iraq these are guys with guns and if you want to defeat them you do what and you take their guns away and you kill them right we did in isis and i do believe the curriculum's changing in saudi arabia so we're getting a generation growing up maybe not hating the west go ahead so uh first of all jack keen is always right and he's right in this case, you absolutely can destroy Hamas. Second of all, what Donald Trump has done is he has laid out not just a plan to end the fighting, but a plan to rebuild Gaza and to create prosperity for the Palestinian people, for the people of Gaza who live there, a chance for them to leave temporarily if they want, right to return if they want, economic growth, investment, and all the rest of it.

And Hamas is either going to accept that or reject that. If Hamas rejects that, I don't want to hear the word genocide from anybody's lips ever again because Israel has signed off on it. Every single Arab ally of the United States has signed off on it. The entire world is united behind this plan except for Hamas. Mark Thiessen, thanks so much.

We'll keep on it. It's going to be a weekend in which between the lockdown, the shutdown, Hamas's decision, it's going to be a weekend that doesn't stop flowing with news. Appreciate it. Take care. You got it.

Listen, when we come back, we understand that P. Diddy was allowed to dress in street clothing and go out and plead his case to find out what his sentencing would be. We know he put a letter together to say, I learned my ways. I lost my path. I should.

Let's make it time served 14 months. The defense is asking for 10 years.

So we'll give you the latest from the courthouse in New York City. Brian Kilmeade show. Diving deep into today's top stories. It's Brian Kilmeade. Radio that makes you think.

This is the Brian Kilmeade Show. Meet Harvard's new professor, Lahore Vajistan. His actual name is Kareem Kuchandi, and Harvard hired him to teach in its Studies of Gender and Sexuality department. Kareem reportedly dresses as Lahore Vajistan during lectures, And he is slated to teach two classes, queer ethnography and RuPolitik's Drag Race and Desires, which is a play on the TV show RuPaul's Drag Race, where drag queens compete in a bunch of different competitions to win the show. How crazy is that?

That is on Instagram. That's Chrissy Clark. I believe she's a student, but she's talking about what Harvard's doing on education. We know about the $500 million they're paying out to start industrialized schools, and we thought they understood that they were going to stop with all this sex ed stuff. Not sex ed in particular, but let's say quirky ed.

How about that? Instead, they decide to hire this professor from Tufts, which, by the way, Tufts hired her, with the name obviously ridiculous, Lahore of Vajistan. Harvard hired her. The institution welcomed her In a July message to the college community Revealed that the visiting professor from Tufts Will teach the studies of gender and sexuality program Thanks to Harvard's gender and sexuality caucus They have a caucus Gender studies is a real major And now they're doing this What is, I mean, are they just trying to undo When Trump sees this He's going to want to blow up the whole deal How would you feel going to Harvard? Yep, I signed up for Lahore Vagistan's class.

Unfortunately, it was all sold out. Can you meet you paying for this? This is what Charlie Kirk was talking about. When you go to a school that teaches you what you want to learn in an area in which you need to grow, that's great. But please show me where this benefits an Ivy Leaguer.

I think it just gives a terrible reputation.

Meanwhile, on a quick note, too, Tim Walz continues to embarrass himself. If the vice presidential debate wasn't enough, if his existence wasn't evidence enough, if the fact that he's running for reelection and the state has to raise its standards and get rid of this clown once and for all. Listen to him, how he handled Harris's complaint that he didn't do enough. Cut 41. As far as the book and things like that go, I think she has every right to be critical.

I do think I let her down on a couple of things. And I, you know, I warned him. My Minnesota nice thing is if somebody's being nice to me, I'll be nice to them. Talking about the debate with J.D. Vance.

And quite honestly, we did not prepare for him to be more cordial. The expectation was that he would do the false attacks and do some of that, and they didn't.

So I'll give them this. They were well prepared. And the teacher in me, and this is nervous tick or habit that we have when you're a teacher. When someone else is speaking next to you, you instinctively nod and listen and try and listen. And that was viewed as, and the vice president took it that I was agreeing on some of the things that were a personal attack on her, and it wasn't that at all.

Because when we're teachers or in any other one, I'm like, that's really interesting. It's dumb as hell, but it's very interesting. You know, I was doing that. I mean, do you believe that excuse? The teacher in me.

I told them I sucked at debates and they still picked me. They're lost. And I did suck at that debate. And I'm sorry I nodded because a teacher in me. Unbelievable.

He's absolutely terrible. Another bad decision by her, but we're so glad. We dodged a bullet with those two. No question. Brian Kilmeade Show.

From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmeade. Hi, everyone.

Brian Kilmeade here from 48th and 6th in Midtown Manhattan, around the country, around the world, just bringing you an idea of what's happening on Capitol Hill. About 25 minutes, Senate will open. The House already did what they were supposed to do. The Senate will open. And we'll see if there's any deal struck at the last minute to continuing resolution to get them to November around Thanksgiving or December right after Thanksgiving.

Right behind Speaker Johnson is Senator Thune, and he is the majority leader. We'll see what he is going to come up with. And I don't really know that a big effort's been done because Republicans feel as though they have all the leverage here because they're not asking for anything. It's Democrats that are asking to undo portions of the big, beautiful bill, which has to do with health care that was inflated during the pandemic. By the way, quick announcement, Fox Nation Patriot Awards 2025 announced today.

It'll be November 6th, Tillis Center, Long Island University, and go to foxnation.com slash Patriot Awards.

So let's go to Congressman Brian Mass now, Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa and International Terrorism. Congressman, first off, I don't know. Did you you guys don't have to even stay here, right? There's nothing for you guys to do. No, like you said, House of Representatives passed the bill, moved it forward.

This is a couple of weeks ago. Said Senate, do your part.

Now go move it forward, fund the government. Senate Republicans voted on it. Democrats said, no, you know what? It's more important for us to get things in there, to continue spending and burning and wasting more of your money, to give it legal health care. That's been one of the big talking points because it's true.

They would rather do that than save American tax dollars. And right now, as they've said, they're not going to budge until we burn more of your money.

So one thing that they have, and Trump's a master at this leverage, is his OMB director knows exactly which programs he wants to cut. And Speaker Johnson mentioned that yesterday, cut seven.

Now, if you had a Democrat, a big government, woke progressive liberal sitting in that seat, they'd look at that balance sheet very differently. But Russ Vogt has been given the authority to do this, and he's been given that authority by one man. His name is Chuck Schumer, okay? Chuck Schumer led the Democrats in the Senate to hand that pen to Russ Vogt. And I think there could be some good that comes out of it if we limit the size and scope of government.

But it is not a job that he relishes. And he will be cutting programs and jobs. What have they told you about this? Look, let's give let's not just talk about this ambiguously. Let's use specific examples.

You take something like woke agency, Department of Education, that the administration says, OK, you're saying somebody doesn't have to come to work because their work is non-essential.

Well, if their work is non-essential and they're a woke agency, why are they coming at all? This is the time to get rid of that position, and this is the way that it's looked at.

So how do you feel, the Wall Street Journal writes today, that there's a feeling sometime, and even though you guys feel like you have the leverage and are confident, that you do worry about the perception of cutting jobs at a time in which the job market does not make people feel that confident. You worry about that perception. you're you're not having a goal of just getting rid of a job you're having a goal of saying if something is duplicative if something is unnecessary this is all dollars of the american people that fund this it's not a private corporation where we stamp something out and we bring it to market and we add to the gdp it's your money and everybody else that goes to work so if it's not necessary then it's the responsible thing to say it has to go and i don't care whether you're talking about national defense or budgeting in the government or anything else, the moment that the number one consideration is perception, that's when people really get hurt.

So I want you to hear Nancy Pelosi because I know she's a partisan. I know she's a political hack, but this is just over the top, even for her cut to what they're doing is wrong. And why would we abandon our commitment to the American people and say, OK, we'll keep government open so that you can give tax breaks to the wealthiest people in our country. And by the way, when every shutdown has been a Republican shutdown. Why?

Because they don't believe in governance. They just don't believe it. They don't believe in governance.

So for them, a shutdown is a day at the beach. They love it.

Now, you are in Florida, so you could be at the beach. But, Congressman, your thoughts about one of the most dumbest statements ever made? I'm not at the beach, but I am in Florida. I love the opportunity to talk about the big, beautiful bill in taxes, and maybe this is a bit of that moment because she's bashing it, right? What did Democrats do when they didn't vote for that?

They said, you know what, if you go to work for tips as an Uber driver or a hairstylist, as a waiter, we don't want you to not be taxed on $25,000 of that. We want your taxes to go from 12 to 15 percent, from 22 to 25, from 23 to 24 to 28, and so on and so on. They want all these tax brackets to go higher and higher because that's what literally would have happened if everybody voted the way Democrats voted. And she's just playing what she always plays. Admit nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations, lie to the American people about what's really going on.

We cut your taxes and now we're cutting government spending. And it'd be nice if the Democrats would simply say thank you. It would be interesting. But every lock to every shutdown is your fault? I mean, that's an interesting take.

Every shutdown is only one party's fault, even though they elected to shut it down and not one person voted for it. It's incredible.

So I want to tap into your foreign policy knowledge. Hamas has been given to Sunday at 6.

So far, indications are they're not going to accept the deal as it is. But Sunday at 6 or all hell breaks loose. That was put on Truth Social about 30 minutes ago. Congressman, do you think that the 20 point deal, the framework will be accepted by Hamas? i hope it's accepted by hamas because we want this this war to come to an end history tells us that what hamas does is they say well we're interested but we want these changes they do it as a delay tactic and then they just never actually make the deal that's what's always happened and the the backing that they have they have these stupid countries that are going out there and saying you know what after the genocide you conducted and the bodies that you're holding and everything that you've done, we'd like to make you a state.

We'd like to make you a country, and we want everybody else to do it. Hamas is being rewarded for the terrible things that they've done. And I think they look at this and they say, why should we stop? We continue to be rewarded by these other countries, but here's what they're going to learn from the United States of America and President Trump. He's given them the option for diplomacy.

If they don't accept diplomacy, he's going to bring direct action to them. And like you said, it's going to be in the form of all hell breaks loose. Right. I find it so interesting now is that this isn't an American proposal backed by the Israelis. It's a consensus proposal backed by the whole, every country in the region, Jordan, UAE, Qatar.

The pressure they can, Saudi Arabia, the pressure they can put on Hamas. If Qatar ever had leverage, which they do over Hamas, they have to say, take this deal, right? And if they do have that leverage, you're out, right? Yeah. What does it say?

It says, hey, Gaza is going to be de-radicalized. It's going to be redeveloped for the benefit of the people. All of those hostages, they come back, whether they're hostages that have been killed, their bodies are returned, or they're still alive, they come back. After these hostages are returned, there will be prisoners from Gaza that Israel will return. You know, the list goes on.

it's beneficial to both sides. But again, Hamas does not want to relinquish any power, any relevance in the world. They will use their people as shields. They will use their people. They will throw them in front of a rifle if they need to, to go out there and cry that, you know, the world needs to give them sympathy for the genocide that they continue to conduct.

And I think that's the game that they continue to play. Here's General Jack Keene, cut 39. If they're going to fold their hands here and continue to fight, Netanyahu is very clear and he's got the president's support for it. He's going to go in there and finish it. They've got them completely surrounded.

They've moved close to a million people out of Gaza City. And it's really quite remarkable.

So what is going to be left is largely Hamas and those that are supporting Hamas. And they will go in there and systematically deal with them.

Now, it will take time. This isn't going to end in just a couple of weeks. It'll take some months and it'll take some patience. That is the objective. But Netanyahu I support him completely on this He clear He got to finish these guys once and for all So and we see what going to happen in the world The world going to be outraged But I think less outrage because they all signed off on this deal.

And if Hamas doesn't, it's clearly there to blame. Clearly. And the world has to have the strength, move away from the weakness that they had to say. Like I touched on this already. You have these countries like Canada and France and others saying we want to recognize that Palestinian state today, it does nothing other than empower the terrorists to go out there and do things like that and say, yeah, see, we should continue this fight that we're having.

We should keep holding these hostages. We should keep going out there and looking for ways to kill innocents, whatever they can do, because they're being rewarded for it. But that reward comes to an end when Israel comes in there and says, your life is null and void until the point that there are no more terrorists whatsoever. And I believe that they can get to that point 100 percent. Is Brian Mass, Congressman Brian Mass, looking happy about a mutual defense pact with Qatar?

If their attack were going to attack whoever attacked them? Because I know some Republicans and Democrats were cut by surprise by that deal that the president, I guess, is signing off on. The president is coming to this as he has any of these negotiations, whether it's Armenian, and Azerbaijan, whether it's India and Pakistan, whether it's Russia and Ukraine, and looking at it and say, listen, let's identify all the problems, the concerns of any of the sides, and let's actually try to work through them. And he tries to do that as an honest player. And this is what he's doing again.

And some people don't like it, but he's always coming from a new vantage point in order to get to the world to a place that they were not at a week ago and that they were not at a year ago or even a decade ago. And that's how he keeps moving the ball. The president says that we're having a shooting war right now with the cartels in Central and South America. Do you see it that way? And are you glad we're doing it?

This is a continuation of what I just said. He's taking the fight to entities, the United Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, MS-13, Trenda y Aragua. Take your pick of them. that have been waging war against America for years and decades, killing thousands of our people every year, invading our shores. And he's saying, I'm going to come from a new vantage point on this.

We're going to destroy you before you destroy the lives of our American people. He has 100 percent of my support to do this. Here is the Democrats who suddenly say, well, I don't think this is legal. Cut 28. This use of U.S.

military firepower is unprecedented and is drawing accusations that the strikes are illegal. Targeting drug smuggling boats with military strikes. There's no legal precedent. Secretary, what legal authority did the Pentagon invoke to strike that boat full of drug smugglers? It is a massive expansion of presidential authority against the rules that abide by the use of military force.

So you hear MSNBC and CNN pushing that line and you hear Cory Booker welcoming it. I just remember this President Obama. Is that how you say it? I remember him droning people in Yemen and all throughout the continent of Africa and the Middle East. I'm pretty sure they weren't read the Miranda rights.

What's the difference? there's no difference sometimes you wonder if these people think before they open their mouth did the president have the authority to target the drug smuggling vote that's a real question that they ask they should think about it look in the mirror before they speak but let's actually examine it right you can for the president to have authority he can have a declaration of war he can have an authorized use of military force those are two separate things or he can have his article to authority as the commander-in-chief of the united states tasked with protecting the national security of our incredible nation against a clear and present threat, a clear and present danger. And that is exactly what he is doing, utilizing his Article II authority to protect the United States of America from this threat that is taking tens of thousands of lives every single year. I applaud him for doing so. He has every authority that he needs.

He doesn't need Congress to do something. I got to give CNN credit. They sat down with a cartel member. Obviously, his identity is being hidden. Listen to what he said.

Cut 27. What President Trump has been doing has been making your job tougher. Oh, yeah. Yes? Yes.

But it's becoming more difficult, you think? Yeah. Yeah. Look at the border and now blowing up the boats on the way to the border. That's pretty cool.

Look, you're any mariner on one of these drug smuggling boats. Before you leave the dock today, you are sitting there having second thoughts about whether you are going to set sail to sea. And you're looking up in the sky thinking, as soon as I get 100 miles offshore, am I about to cease to exist in this world because of the drugs I'm bringing to America? And the probability is yes, because we finally have a strong commander in chief. And the reality is he's right for doing so.

Lastly, Ukraine. The president is going to be providing intelligence to the Ukrainians on energy sites inside Russia. That's a huge story today. and we're debating whether to give them tomahawks and barracudas to be able to hit five or two miles into that country. Does Brian Mass support?

What would you support of that? Yes. So let me just start by answering in the affirmative. Yes, I support this. Russia has been increasingly escalating, bringing that fight into Poland, bringing the fight into Estonia, flying their jets in there, their drones in there, other places.

They are testing the waters over and over again. President Trump rightfully looking at this said, OK, we're going to increase the intelligence that we're giving them, whether it's with HIMARS or something else. Let's make sure that they have the capabilities to go out there and defeat Russia's supply chain, the things that they need to continue funding and selling and prosecuting this war. Let's bring that supply chain to an end so that this can come to an end in totality. All right.

Congressman Brian Mast, it's a consequential time. All your committees are impactful ones. I appreciate it. Hopefully you'll get back to work next week. Do you have a prediction?

Look, I think we'll be back there on Monday. I think the Democrats end up having to take this vote three, four or five times throughout the week. And they lose more and more people each time because there's absolutely no reason for them to not fund the government right now. Other than they just want to have a fight with President Trump and they want to go out there and say, hey, illegals are more important than the American people in saving their dollars.

So we're going to continue to be obstinate and have this crybaby little pissing match that they're having. I think it runs thin, and I think they're done with it. I might be proven wrong, but I think they're done with it by the end of the week. Congressman Brian Mass, thanks so much in Florida. Appreciate it.

Back in a moment. Newsmakers and newsbreakers. Hear it first on The Brian Kilmeade Show. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on The Brian Kilmeade Show.

The amount of money that actually is going towards people who are undocumented is such a small portion. We've got to make sure Americans have the health care that they need. And if that means we've got to shut this government down, so be it. That is two congresspeople, Roe Kahana and another guy from Illinois, a different little character coming out and saying, it doesn't matter that illegals are being funded. It doesn't matter.

I want to make that the reason we shut down the government.

So you want to debate that back and forth. They are. I've been over it. The money flows into these hospitals. The hospitals pay that money, take that money, because they're treating illegals for free.

In California alone, $6.5 billion and growing. They get 50% reimbursed.

So as that money grows, they get 50%. There's no incentive for them not to continue to take illegals because they're just going to get those funds back because that was set aside.

Now, it was $1 billion three years ago. Last year, it was $6.5 billion. Where's it going to be in a couple of years? And that's just part of it. Number one, just fund the government.

And the other thing is, and we could talk about this at a different time, but why go away in August if you don't have your appropriations bills done? And nobody I know, if they have projects that are happening, even family vacations with little kids, if you're in your own business and a project's not done, you can't go on vacation. It just is not feasible. It's not plausible. It's not possible.

So these people didn't do their committee work. They don't get into conference. They don't get into conference. They need a continuing resolution to continue to fund the government, which Chuck Schumer voted on 13 times over the Biden four years to fund the government. But not this time, because they think they can get leverage over Donald Trump.

I'm going to talk to Senator Marsha Blackburn about that. That's probably part of the reason why she wants to be the governor of Tennessee and no longer the senator. The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmeade. Federal troops are on the ground in Memphis, Tennessee.

from a surge in federal troops in the city streets. FBI figures show Memphis had the nation's highest violent crime rate last year, but last month, prior to federal troops' overall crime, reached a 25-year low. The Memphis Police Department had released some numbers that showed Memphis crime reached a historic 25-year low in a number of categories. Memphis is at a historic 25-year low across all major crime categories.

So some gains made. Let's bring in Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who wants to be the governor of that state, which includes Memphis, of course. Senator, what do you think about the deployment so far? The deployment is going so well. It is phase two of what began this summer with the FBI.

And when Kash Patel came to me before we interviewed him for his confirmation hearing there at Senate Judiciary Committee, I gave him a stat sheet that surprised him. It showed that Memphis was the most dangerous city in the United States per capita. I asked for his help. He committed to do that. He has been true to his word.

And the reason the crime stats were at historic lows in August is because the FBI, working with the Memphis Police Department, started Operation Viper there in July. And from the middle of July until the middle of September, Brian, they arrested over 500 gang members, and it already got more than 115 indictments.

So good work and a good foundation was laid. And now to have a combination of 13 federal and state agencies that are on the ground in Memphis, you see the results, nearly 100 arrests in the three days since this began. And I think it's 48 weapons that were taken off the streets. And these apprehensions, Memphis, we're going to make certain that Memphis is the safest city in the United States. Is there going to be anything residual?

will let's say you continue to make gains and we make it safer and it already is. But what about the residual effects? Once they leave, what makes you think the crime's not going to come back?

Well, one of the things that we know, the Memphis Police Department is 500 agents short right now. They need 500 recruits into that police department. And having this long-term effort to back up the police department until they can stand on their own. This is what A.G. Bondi and Director Patel, Gaudi Serrato, who runs the U.S.

Marshal Service, and, of course, our wonderful President Donald Trump have said, they're going to be here and make certain that Memphis has what they need to rid the city of this crime. This has been a problem that over the last several years has gotten worse, much worse in Memphis. And with the presence of gangs, you know, Brian, Memphis had over 100 active gangs and making changes in Memphis, the school system enforcing a truancy policy, things of that nature, after school programs. And you have all hands on deck and everybody pushing the same direction to address this crime problem in Memphis. And we will we're hopeful that we're going to be able to break the cycle of crime and the city will be safe.

So how is your Democratic mayor taking it? The mayor of Memphis has truly been a good partner in this. The vast majority of New Memphians are for what is taking place. The Shelby County mayor has not been helpful in this, which I think has been stunningly surprising to people, that you would have these resources and this commitment to the safety of the community, and that the Shelby County mayor would speak out against it for what seems to be political reasons. Yeah, I mean, we saw, you know, they got to be, I guess, true to their party.

But at the same time, if someone helped crack down on crime and everyone agrees crime is a problem, but they say it's heading in the right direction before.

Now, what do you understand the National Guard can do? The deterrent is obvious, but are they able to do anything with these gangs, do anything except guard federal buildings and be a presence? They will be able to handle transportation and logistics and do office work. And these are Tennessee National Guard that are coming in there. And they will work in a support role to the Memphis Police Department.

The Memphis Police Department has the lead on all of this. And I think that most Memphians, indeed elected officials, people I've talked to, they are so thrilled that there is this presence and that they have this influx and this surge of resources because it does allow them to apprehend and to get into jail. What people are focused on right now, there is a George Soros elected DA in Memphis, and people want to make certain that he does his job and that we know there will be some of these cases that will go to a state court and be before a state-based judge. And they want this DA to actually prosecute these cases.

So we are hopeful that he is going to step up and do his job. We know that the U.S. attorney there that is a Trump appointee is going to do their job. And the federal cases, the federal gun crimes, those will be tried in federal court. I guess the number was 93.

Now there's 100 arrests. It came across about an hour ago. Correct.

So the Memphis Task Force is in full stride.

So we'll see if the recruiting can pick up. Also, I understand investigations. It's hard with these cities. They can't follow up on any of these investigations.

So hopefully the FBI can help with that and set up a system where they can follow through and be quicker on 911 calls. That would ultimately be the objective, along with giving these kids another option except for joining a gang.

So I want to, if I can, bring you to the problems they're having elsewhere. And that's how ICE is being received in Los Angeles, how ICE is being received over in Portland. especially what is your take on the attacks on the ICE building, ICE agents, while the police officers just stand by because the mayor won't empower them? And this is why you have areas like Washington State and Portland that are losing population because people are quite concerned when they see this happening. And you have a Democrat Party who is siding with criminals instead of siding with law enforcement and the rule of law.

Now, there are a couple of things that we're working on. I have a bill that would make it illegal to dox federal law enforcement agents, ICE agents, when they're out doing their job right now. They are not covered. And you have these apps that are following ICE agents. The Apple store pulled them down, evidently.

Yeah, and, you know, it is a dangerous thing.

So what we're doing is pushing that doxing bill so that we can make it illegal, actually make it a federal crime. Good. Senator, she wants to be the next governor of Tennessee, and you've got to think she's going to do it. Senator Marsha Blackburn, thanks so much. Happy to join you.

Thank you. When we come back, Inside AI with a guy that knows as much about it as anyone on the planet, the co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris. Don't go anywhere. Brian Kilmeade will be right back. The talk show that's getting you talking.

You're with Brian Kilmeade. An industry that in the next one year, the vast majority of programmers will be replaced by AI programmers. We also believe that within one year, you will have graduate level mathematicians that are at the tippy top of graduate math programs. That's one year. OK, what happens in two years?

Well, I've just told you about reasoning and I've told you about programming and I told you about math. programming plus math are the basis of sort of our whole digital world.

So the evidence and the claims from the research groups in OpenAI and Anthropic and so forth is that they're now somewhere around 10 or 20 percent of the code that they're developing in their research programs is being generated by the computer.

So that is Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, painting a picture of a future that no one could quite figure out, but we are on this path. Tristan Harris has been talking about this almost since the advent of AI. And we remember Sam Altman, I think it was on 2020 or 60 Minutes, or I think it was ABC, just talking about what AI does. And my jaw was on the ground, and Tristan, yours wasn't. And why?

You kind of saw the path that we're heading on. What do you think about what Eric Schmidt said about the acceleration of AI? Yeah, so Eric was just talking about how AI is going to be as good a mathematician as the best human mathematicians in the next year and is going to out-compete programmers.

So I don't remember when that actual quote happened. I think it was actually a few months ago now. Since we've last seen each other, Brian, AI has now won gold in the International Math Olympiad. That is a crazy accomplishment. People would have never believed you if that was possible.

Beat every human. Yeah, beating the humans. At Anthropic, one of the leading AI companies, the CEO Dario Amadai, said that AI is writing 70 to 90% of the code. This is crazy. And programming is going to be one of the first jobs that AI automates because what people need to know is these companies are not in a race to cure cancer.

They're not in a race to solve climate change. They're not in a race to create tutors. They're in a race to build artificial general intelligence, which is the ability to have an AI, an artificial mind that can do everything that a human mind can do in the economy.

So think about any job in the economy. If you have a desk job, you won't have a job because the whole mission statement of these companies is to build something that can match human performance. And what's the best way to get there?

Well, how do we make AI? We write code and we program it.

So what happens when the AI companies automate AI research?

So think of Europe and AI. You've got several hundred employees. They're doing AI research. They're manually reading papers, manually programming things. What happens when I can automate an AI researcher?

Now I can spin up 100 million digital AI researchers that are just doing research 24-7. They don't whistleblow. They don't complain. They don't have to be paid for healthcare. That's why these companies are racing to automate programming.

But we did see this week that the president signed an executive order to get AI to work on child cancer. Yeah. Why was that even necessary? I thought we would be working on that with all the money that's pouring into cancer. You would think so.

Yeah. You would think so. Now, I just want to first say, now, obviously, AI has unbelievable upside, and that's why people are so excited about it. Like things like what I just mentioned. Yeah, just things like what you just mentioned, and that it will be able to invent new cancer drugs.

But we should be asking the question, why aren't we trying to go upstream and regulate all the carcinogens that are giving everybody cancer? Rather than sort of create brand new chemicals or proteins that can also have side effects that cause even more problems, we're not trying to deal with the actual source of the problem. We're just trying to throw more money downstream at helping to mitigate the problem. And I think that AI, we need to be applying it to regulating the production of carcinogens. You mentioned how many jobs are gonna disappear.

Yeah. And how is that different than any other time? When we have mass production, when Henry Ford came in. Exactly. And then we have the horse.

That's how you transport yourself. And in comes the car. What's going to happen to those horse breeders? Right, exactly. And they always find a new job.

But here's what's different this time, Brian. We had the elevator man. Then we automate the elevator man. We had the bank teller. We automate the bank teller.

But what's different about AI from all other technologies is that the whole mission statement of OpenAI and Google and all these companies is to be able to do everything that a human can do, meaning thinking, science, generating hypotheses, legal analysis, marketing, writing scripts, Hollywood, generating movies, generating music. And it's already doing a vast percentage of those things almost as good as humans are. But aren't they living off our knowledge? Yes, they're training all off of our data. In fact, the more you use ChatGPT, you're actually giving it the training data to obsolete you.

And so people need to understand- on AI and I'm feeding into, I'm feeding erroneous things into AI, right? If I'm on chat GBT and I'm putting in facts and they go to Wikipedia to gather those facts and Wikipedia is 50% wrong.

Well, this is what we call sort of the Ouroboros problem, the snake eating its own tail because AI is training on the internet that itself is imperfect. People are using AI to generate AI slop, which then starts to fill the internet. Then that gets training.

So, you know, it's like the inmates are running the asylum. We have kind of the worst of human nature sort of training the AIs. that's all true. But there's also a bunch of high quality training data that companies are paying for. And that's why we have to just look at the raw evidence.

It is beating us at math. It's beating us at programming. It's beating us at certain kinds of science. It's already inventing new materials, new antibiotics. And if it's good at these things and the more people use it, it's gonna just learn how to take their job.

People have to realize that the end game of this is the mass concentration and wealth and power into a handful of companies. Because think about your company. Right now, all these customers pay the company and instead of the company paying all the employees, it's going to say, well, I could pay this expensive employee or I could just pay an AI that works for less than minimum wage, who works 24-7.

So are we going to win this race?

Well, we're winning. But Eric Schmidt of Google says this about China. China is competing with open weights and open training data and the U.S. is largely and majority focused on closed weights, closed data. That means that the majority of the world, think of it as the Belt and Road Initiative, are going to use Chinese models and not American models.

We better also be competing with the Chinese in day-to-day stuff. Their work ethic is incredible. They're well-funded. It's not the crazy valuations that we have in America. They can't raise the capital, but they can win across that.

Do you agree with everything you said? And the power. They have much more power than we do. You mean energy specifically? Energy, I should say.

Energy, yeah. They're building energy way faster than we can, and that's one of the rate-limiting factors. One of the few factors that the U.S. has to slow China down is that we have the advanced GPUs and chips that they depend on. NVIDIA.

The NVIDIA chips. And I'll just say bluntly, I disagree with the decision to sell China these NVIDIA H20 chips that happened recently. Dario Amadai said that this is really giving away the keys to the castle because right now the biggest – And who is here that you just – Sorry, Dario. He's the CEO of Anthropix.

So think of like the Sam Altman for the other leading company. and he basically said, if we sell them the chips, this is the number one reason why they're not making as much progress as we are. And if we give them those chips, it's like, would you sell the whole world uranium or sell the Soviet Union uranium so that they're building nuclear weapons? But people say that's not the higher level chips. We're going to the 20s instead of the 100s or something like that.

Yeah, these are these sort of semi-handicapped chips, the H20s versus these things called the H200s. What matters for people that they should know is that, you know, when you use ChatDBT and it does this like more reasoning now, it kind of thinks through the answer. That's using this different kind of processing called inference. I don't want to bore your listeners with the technical details, but that kind of processing of reasoning through a problem is going to take up more of the compute of AI. And that's what these chips, these H20s are really good for.

So we're selling them the chips to do more thinking faster, which is going to out-compete us. I should tell everyone Sunday at 10 o'clock, you're going to be on with me. Tristan Harris is with us. Lastly, you told me, I don't really care much if I'm paraphrased correctly, if we beat China or not? Because we beat them to the internet.

How did that work out? Exactly. We beat them specifically to social media. Do you feel differently now? Do you feel as though we have to win now?

Have you changed your mindset on this? There's two risks we have to manage, Brian. There's the risk of not building AI and China wins. And then there's the risk of building AI and doing it so recklessly that we sort of shoot ourselves in the foot. And we're currently not doing a great job of both because we're recklessly racing.

Do you feel like we're reckless? Yes, absolutely. I mean, think about all the cases of AI psychosis. We worked with the family of Adam Rain, the young man who committed suicide because ChatGPT went from homework assistant to suicide assistant over the course of six months. It mentioned the word suicide six times more than he mentioned it on his own.

And when we are releasing this technology in a way to young people and saying, this is your best tutor, this is your best friend, this is your best therapist. And it has a kind of oracular, oracle-like quality. It answers every question confidently and knows your intimate details better than anybody else. we're starting to see people already have attachment disorders because we're rolling this out to children without actually thinking through it, just like we did with social media. Tristan, yeah, unfortunately the music's going to get louder and overwhelm us, but we just are scratching the surface.

It's fascinating, especially talking to someone who understands it so much, so well. Tristan Harris, co-founder of Center for Humane Technology. Thanks.