Growing number of dems want Schumer out

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Mini Camera, Max Performance. Shop now at Amazon.com slash blink. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmead. All right, everyone, so glad you're there.

It's the Brian Kill Me Chow. I trust you had a fantastic weekend. We're lucky enough to have Lawrence Jones and Mark Thiessen in the studio, the bottom of the hour. Senator Mark Wayne Mullen is going to be joining us, which will be great. And of course, we'll take your calls at 1-866-408-7669.

And we've got a busy day, I think, starting now. Don't go now, but there's a big healthcare conference today. They're going to talk about longevity, talk about allergies, and talk about processed foods, how to get in shape. This is what RFK, really what he got appointed for, more than the vaccines, which are under fever debate, not this other stuff.

So, before we get to that, let's get to the big three. Number 3. The purchasing power dropped by about $3,000 under Joe Biden because the wages didn't keep up with prices. Under President Trump, it's already gone up by about $1,200. We understand that people still feel the pain of the high prices.

We're closing the gap and filling the gap fast. Yep, Trump team mobilized to make the economy work for everyone quickly. If they're not successful, midterms will be an electoral bloodbath. Number two. The question is, what is the future of Democratic leadership?

Who is going to be effective? And most Democrats around the country just don't think that person is Chuck Schumer. I mean, he doesn't inspire confidence. He's not bold. He's out of touch with the grassroots.

Roe Conna weighing in. Dems in disarray. Infighting has hit new highs, not only talking about who's running the country, but they are running to socialism. The party is actually embracing it instead of running from it. Sadly, we must start selling capitalism to counter it.

Number one. I said, why don't we just pay? This money Directly to the people of our country and let them buy their own health insurance. I am talking to some Democrats right now. about doing that.

People love it. Playing it smart. Finally, both sides talking about healthcare in an intelligent way. Might we finally be able to fix some or all of our system, which affects every American? All sides seem ready to admit Obamacare isn't working.

Mark and Lawrence, welcome. This is a reunion a little bit. You interviewed him on Fox's. Yeah, we just did this like three hours ago, and now we're going to do a replay. There you go.

No, this is going to be a whole half hour. I'm going to play role.

So that'll be a settlement. That'll change. That's part of the conversation. Right, yeah. We just kick him out and we just go over.

I mean, no doubt about it. No, but I think you need some testosterone.

So that's why I'm here. There you go. All right, so let's talk about healthcare. This is some staggering numbers. Do you know the average deductible for Obamacare is $6,000?

Can you imagine $6,000? Do you know that part of the reason this is all falling apart is not because of... It's not because of Republicans. Aetna pulled out of Obamacare. They expected to lose $400 million.

They said, screw that. 2016, United dropped out after losing a billion. UMANA dropped out in 2018. They said the pool of sick people didn't compare to the pool of healthy ones. It didn't make sense.

We're a publicly traded company. Cigna is only active in a handful of states.

So the competition was supposed to drive the prices down. They all bailed out, Lawrence. I realize that I'm going to be in a minority of this because I've been saying this for the last couple of weeks. With the exception of the president's idea to give the American people their money to figure out what they're going to do with their health care, I think it's a political loser to touch it. Every time Republicans have tried to deal with health care, it hasn't gone so well for them.

So I don't think that they should touch this issue. It should be about affordability. You shouldn't make the next election about the health care.

So, the problem is that we're not touching Obamacare. None of this is part of Obamacare. Literally, this is a part of the American Rescue Plan, the Biden COVID plus-ups. Ronald Reagan famously said there's nothing so near eternal life as a temporary federal program. This is supposed to be a temporary federal program.

But I think we have to find a way to solve the problem without extending these tax credits. I think the president has come up with the perfect solution, which is don't give the money to the insurance companies as a subsidy, give it to the American people. And what people are missing is he could do this right away without the Democrats. Because all he needs to do is do another reconciliation bill. He's allowed to do two reconciliation bills this year because the Democrats didn't pass a budget before.

So just do a mini reconciliation bill with Trump checks where you give them a rebate for the tariff revenue, give them money to subsidize their health care directly, and then challenge the Democrats to vote against it and say, if they vote no, they say, you voted against subsidizing health care. And and the Democrats wanted to give the money to the insurance companies. We wanted to give the money to you and we did it and they voted no and you take the issue away from them. I think it makes sense, but I want to I want to be optimistic and Lawrence would say naive. No, no, I'm not going to say naive.

I just think that's the only way You touch the issue of healthcare without getting into the minefield of the debates of. Fixing certain elements. I'm going to say that I I watch every Sunday show and being that the shutdown's over and the election's a year away. you have a chance to do something on a bipartisan level. They're going to have a closed door meeting or at the committee meeting with Cassidy leading it, and Barasso is obviously a doctor, and I feel less optimistic knowing Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are also on that.

But I do sense that everybody knows that all the rates are going up, Obamacare is not working, and I'm wondering if they can agree on certain things to get this across the line in a bipartisan way. Being that we're far enough away from the election, and we do have a president that said, I heard from Democrats. I was surprised even by that soundbite. That helps me on this. But I watched Tom Swase yesterday, I watched Bill Cassidy yesterday, I watched Don Bacon yesterday, and both sides said, oh, Tim Kaine, too.

All right. We know that the subsidies aren't going to solve the problem. Even if you gave the subsidies to them, the healthcare still sucks. The deductible is too high.

So, the healthcare accounts, by getting rid of fraud, for example, people paying 400% above the poverty line should no longer be eligible. That's 10% of the people receiving it. They agree to get rid of that.

Okay, fine. Then there's other ways to attack fraud. Then he says, What about the subsidies?

Well, I'm not going to give you subsidies. What we'll do is be able to Put them into healthcare accounts and then see what the Democrats want to do about this. But if you get doctors and healthcare experts and not politicians. Like, of course, you don't see the squad or anybody anywhere near this. But Brian, we both agree that the Democrats have said that they're going to make the next election about health care, right?

They pretty much said this is going to be this. They're not going to want to give the president, no matter how you spin it, whether it's the American people get a win, they're not going to give them a win on health care if they're making it already in the next election about health care. And also, they're going to demand a whole bunch of concessions that we don't want to give them. 100%.

So if you do it as a reconciliation bill, there's nothing that says a Democrat can't vote for the reconciliation bill. It's just you don't need 60 votes, right?

So let's say six Democrats come along and vote for this.

Okay, then great. Then it's bipartisan. You just need a couple of Democrats to make it bipartisan. Why let them strangle it? And also, I agree with Lawrence.

We don't want to get into a whole debate about reforming the health care system. It's incredibly complicated. And what they want is Medicare for all. They want socialism, right?

So we're not going to find middle ground on that. But what you can do is give people subsidies for their health care, and you can do it before the holidays. You don't think a Democrat would sign on to that? I think they would. I think if you did a reconciliation bill where we created Trump accounts and you gave people a subsidiary, Subsidy for their health care purchase, and they can go out and buy whatever health insurance they want.

It doesn't have to be Obamacare, it could be a subsidy for other insurance. I think some Democrats might vote for that. Yeah, especially when it would pass anyway through Ricky. I think veterans would vote for it. 100%.

Yeah, but what about in any of those eight? Like, for example, Gary Peters is retiring, Durbin's retiring. He's not reasonable. But, you know, I guess Gene Shaheen is showing that. She's not voting for them.

You can bring them on and negotiate with them. But what you don't want to do is give Chuck Schumer and AOC and Bernie Sanders a seat at the table, which is if you try and do it through the regular process, you give them a seat at the table and you need them.

So I want you to see which respective Ilvani Chen tends to be somewhat of a moderate out on the West Coast. He was on Meet the Press, Cut 15. I think affordability is going to be the key issue going into the midterm elections. We've seen that in poll after poll. And generally speaking, in American elections, the economy tends to be the top issue.

But for health care to be a problem for Republicans, it's been a vexing problem, I think, for the last 15 years. The reality is, Democrats opened the door. Republicans need to walk through it. They need to present some ideas that actually move this discussion forward. By the way, extending the ACA-enhanced subsidies would not have made affordability better in the long run.

So Republicans do have this opportunity now to present some ideas and actually get on the front foot on this issue. Am I the only one who agrees with him? No, I just think the affordability conversation is more than health care. Right? It's basic goods on a day-to-day basis.

And I think. Us making it about health care is walking into the Democrats' trap. They want to make it about health care. People care about the grocery prices, their gas bill. That now, some of this stuff is on the way.

The president passed tax reform, and we haven't felt that yet. Drilling is happening, but the oil hasn't been refined just yet.

So it's going to take some time of that. But the president needs to continue to make it about things on a day-to-day basis. That's my view. Yeah, but if, for example, healthcare is not working, but so many people who voted for Trump, it's not working for them.

So, if you just say, hey, Obamacare sucks, and I'm not going to bail you out, a lot of those people go, you know, that's politics, but can you help me out today? You know, you know, Trump's out there. He's a blue-collar guy. He's a blue-collar president.

So he sees that as an opportunity to go in there. You could just admit it, Obamacare is not working, or else I wouldn't be here. If it was working, it would have been off the table. And it's so easy to figure out who voted for it. All Democrats.

So I just think if you go in there and you try to, hey, I tried to fix your program. I try to get in with those subsidies. If they go, we're not going to go for healthcare accounts. This is what Gene Shaheen said. It's not going to be quick enough.

And we just need a quick okay when it comes to these subsidies. And it's going to be harder to get these healthcare accounts set up and then get it all through. Cassidy came back and says, no, it's not. And it's not going to be easy to put the subsidies through. Even if I said I'm going to set off with the subsidies.

So what I want is doctors, healthcare experts like Rick Scott. You know, going in there and say, listen, I know what it's like from the hospital perspective. I want the doctors, I want the insurance in there. I don't like vilifying any portion of this mess. I don't think there's necessarily any bad guys.

So it's very complicated, but all I want to know, all I want is the best healthcare system. I want the quality. If anything's hurting the quality, that's when you can count me out. Yeah, Lawrence is right, you're wrong. Can you kill his mic or can we are we on a deline?

Are we on a deline? I mean, back in a moment. You're gonna have to be on your show.

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You're with Brian Kilmead. This is the lowest the Supreme Court has been rated. And if you believe as I do, that we need faith in not just the executive or the congressional branch of government, but the Supreme Court. And it's not written anywhere in the Constitution. You have to have nine.

That's just a number they came up with. I think it went from seven to nine, but I'm not sure. And I think the way to cure that very quickly is expand it to 13. And get some balance on the court. You know, the Republicans won the popular vote, I think, two out of the last eight elections, and they have two-thirds of the Supreme Court justice.

Yeah, six out of out of nine. And that's absurd. It's a distortion.

So, that is James Carville, obviously. I'm with Kayleigh McEnany over the weekend, saying, Hey, my party's not in power, but I want to get rid of the filibuster. And I'm telling you, I'll tell you exactly I'm going to do: I'm going to add two states. He goes on to say that, and I'm going to pack the court to 13 Lawrence.

Well, to that point, though, Brian, do they realize this is not helpful? They're essentially making the president's argument. His argument the entire time: I don't want to get rid of the filibuster, but what I'm telling you is, I want to get rid of it if the Democrats plan on using it right after I'm president.

So, he's saying we might as well get rid of it now, have some leverage. Like I said, I've been very transparent about that. I go back and forth on this.

Some days I'm like, Yeah, get rid of it.

Sometimes I'm like, We got to hold our ground right here. Mark, I'm not sure that they don't want him to get rid of the filibuster, the Democrats, because what is he going to do? He's going to pass through everything on his agenda. Americans kind of like divided government, they like a little bit of gridlock, and so I think they're going to see it as two one party, and they think that that'll have a backlash, and then they're going to. Take power and they will use it to repeal everything that Trump does because what they do, they pass spending and entitlements, which we never repeal.

We still got the reason we still have Obamacare is because once you create a government entitlement, you never get rid of it. Our stuff you can repeal. And so they'll repeal everything he does. Then they'll expand the size of the Senate. They'll add Puerto Rico and D.C.

as states, maybe even Guam, which is Democratic. They want statehood. You could have six Democratic seats, which means we'll never get the Senate back. They'll expand the size of the House, which means that they will get more seats in the House because their states are more populous. That'll expand the size of the Electoral College in blue states, which means we can't win back the presidency.

Then they'll pack the Supreme Court, and that will support with liberal justice, it will support all their constitutional overreach. And then they'll pass their agenda. They'll have the Green New Deal, they'll have Medicare for All, they'll basically pass the Mamdami agenda, and we won't be able to repeal it.

So, you know, they're perfectly happy to see the filibuster go. I continue to say, Brian, I'm not sure that the Supreme Court is going to allow them to pact this. Can the Supreme Court stop them? They can say it's unconstitutional. They can say it's illegal.

Could they? But it's not. It can be a legal challenge, and when you have institutionalists there. I mean the I mean we can make the argument back and forth all day, but The court could rule and say it's not legal, especially when you have constitutionalists. The problem is that it's not in the Constitution.

It's the Senate rules. And the Senate can make whatever rules it wants. And so, unfortunately, they couldn't overturn it because that's the Senate's prerogative. They would defer to the Senate. But what they want is they want to pack the court so they have a bunch of justices who would do exactly that for them because they want liberal activist judges who are focused on the outcome.

And the problem with it is also that once they do all these things, you can never repeal it. Because if Supreme Court justice serves for life once you put them on the court, there's never been a state that had statehood repealed.

So once they make all these institutional changes, They're there forever.

So I just think this is like one of the last few institutional guardrails we have against a one-party state. And if we get rid of this guardrail, it will be a democratic one-party state for a long, long time. And that could lead to all sorts of problems. I don't think Carville's playing it correct for his party, by the way. By coming out and just saying this, he is like bait, unless instead of saying, well, why do we know that?

We don't know that for sure. He took that argument away from anyone who is going to bad for leaving the filibuster.

So that really helps Trump's argument to get rid of it. But, real quick, I get two foreign policy guys that understand it. Venezuela, we have this unprecedented military presence in the region. Over the weekend, the president said Maduro's government has reached out to him. They might have conversations.

What do you think those conversations are going to be like, Lawrence? About the peaceful way to leave. I mean, it's pretty much the president's done. When you send that amount of force to the region, Mark, what percentage of our Navy is? 10% of the Navy is there.

So, I mean, this is not a president that's playing games. There's only an off-ramp of leaving. The question is: the conversation is: where is he going to go? He's close to making a decision. What decision do you think he's close to making?

Well, first of all, on the legality of what he's doing. Barack Obama Killed 560 terrorists with drones, including an American citizen, including Anwar al-Awlaki, who was the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who is an American citizen.

So, anybody who's saying the president doesn't have the authority to do this, talk to Barack Obama. And by the way, there were other people that got killed that would just happen to be with that terrorist, too. Exactly.

So, this authority is absolutely clear. He's declared the cartels foreign terrorist organizations. He has all the legal authority he needs to do it. The problem in Venezuela is that it's not just cartels, it's a narco-terrorist regime.

So, it's a socialist country, but at the top, they're narco-capitalists. Maduro is a narco-capitalist, and they are all involved in the drug trade. And so, you can't stop the drug trade in Venezuela unless you change the regime.

So, Senator Murphy goes, Well, they don't make fentanyl there, they make cocaine there, and they go to the Caribbean en route to Europe.

So, that's me. Real quick, what does a military strike look like? Do you hit the cartels? Uh drug making factory, do you hit the armies? Barracks, do you what does an attack look like, Mark?

Yes. Both. Yeah, I mean, whatever target, all those targets are legitimate. I mean, it's, you know, and what you do is you threaten. I think what you want to do is you want to put military targets on the table because then the military might turn to Maduro and say, you know, hey, skedaddle.

So you tell him. 100%.

So you say, when we meet, let me just give you an idea of what I'm about to do. 100%.

I mean, pretty much there's already the largest bounty on him. Than any other person ever in our history. Do you know if Assad has bunk beds? Do you think he could stay with Assad and his family? Because in Russia, I mean, we got a lot of people in Russia.

As long as it's not on a high floor so they don't fall out of a window. Yeah, we know that. The Russians are great at that. Martise and Lawrence Jones, thanks for putting beside you the rivalry that you've had and making my show better.

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Stay protected and stay one step ahead with Simply Safe. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. What we're talking about, the shutdown was over, the enhanced premium tax credits. Policies have become so expensive under Obamacare that under Joe Biden, Democrats passed another subsidy on top of the first subsidy.

That's what we're fighting about. And what Republicans are saying, and I'd like to hope Democrats will too. Hey, wait a second. If we can have lower premiums and help people with their deductible by giving the money directly to the patient, by the way, 20% doesn't go for insurance company profit and overhead. 100% goes for health care.

Why don't we unite Republicans and Democrats in doing that?

So that is Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor who I think is going to lead the charge to try to get something done on health care. Should he pursue this? Or, as the conversation I just had with Lawrence and Mark Thiessen, are you bailing out and getting into trouble when you try to fix Obamacare? Senator Mark Waymoon is going to have that front and center. He's on armed services and appropriations, but knows that health care does matter because it affects people in Oklahoma and across the country, many of which.

Voted for Donald Trump and for Senator Mullen. Senator Mullen, welcome back. Thanks, Brian. I'm also on health too.

So I'm under I sit underneath Bill Cassie, he's my chairman, underneath health, education, labor and pension.

So we deal with this almost every week right now in his committee.

So nobody thinks Obamacare is working. They basically admitted it over the weekend. There's a sense that both sides there's some reasonable people on both sides that want to do something. Do you think that that's that this is a time to do something?

Well, there is people on both sides that want to do something. The problem is, can we keep it out of politics? If we allow politics to get in the way of the policy for good health care, then we'll never get anything done. And the question is, can the Democrats admit that affordable health care, aka Obamacare, that it's not working? I mean, we were promised by President Obama himself that the premiums would go down 25%.

Today, as we set, they're at two hundred twenty one percent, and that's before the people renew. And when they renew, the average policy is going to be up two hundred thirty four percent over when it first started ten years ago.

So can the Democrats start with the simple fact this isn't working. Let's get health care that works for the American people. And the first thing you got to take a look at is the mandates. When you have this across the board mandate that every policy has to have maternity care, every policy has to have catastrophic care, every policy has to cover a certain amount of deductibles based on the premium that you pay, based on the income that you have. Every premium has to cover long-term respiratory care that they pass during COVID, stuff that maybe not everybody needs.

You run the policies up.

So, if we can start with the basic principle, Brian, that it's not working, let's get back and let's have a guy that actually knows business. Listen, he doesn't have to know healthcare, that means President Trump. He knows business, he's not a community organizer, but he actually knows business, and let's sit down and have conversations with. Healthcare industry. Let's have conversations with individuals in the market, and let's have conversations with Congress.

And get a health care system that works, then yes, there's an appetite to do it. I just don't think we can make politics out of it. I just want people at home to understand this is facts. Aetna pulled out of Obamacare marketplace, said they were going to lose $400 million. In 2016, United dropped out after losing $1 billion.

UMANA dropped out in 2018. They said it's an unbalanced risk pool. Too many sick people compared to the healthy ones. And Insignia is only left in a few states. The deductible is $6,000.

That is not a Republican the Republicans didn't do that. They just said Obamacare is not working. Whatever you thought was going to do, it is not doing.

So I want you to hear this exchange with Tom Swasey, a Democrat, who's on the problem solvers with Margaret Brennan, Cut Eight. If insurance companies themselves are having problems with Obamacare, do Democrats need to be more open to broader reforms of the Affordable Care Act? Yeah, we absolutely shouldn't be looking at any kind of reform. I want to mend it, not end it. You know that over the past.

A decade that there have been over 70 attempts, mainly by the Republicans, not guys like Don Bacon, who's a very reasonable guy, to try and get rid of Obamacare. altogether. Uh we think that's a terrible idea. But if people want to try and make it a better system to make a health care more affordable in America and to get health care to more people, we should be doing that.

So does that give you hope, even though it's a ho on the house side?

Well, kind of, but I disagree that you can't just amend Obamacare. Listen, when you've got a limit of a vehicle, you can't fix it.

Sometimes you got to get rid of it. And when you blow a motor, you can't just simply repair it, you got to rebuild it. And that's the same concept we have right now. Obamacare doesn't work.

So if you want to keep it in name only, okay, fine. We'll keep it in name only. But the system doesn't work. Most of these Democrats that are trying to defend it, not Tom Swasey. Tom Swasey is actually a friend of mine.

He's, you know, I co-chair the No Labels, and he's there all the time. But if you start actually looking at Obamacare itself, they said they didn't even know what was in it. You remember Nancy Pelosi is the one that said you got to pass and read it before you can know what's in it.

So, you got to go back to the fact that it doesn't work. It's not working for the American people. And so, if they're okay with keeping it name only, then let's start working on it. President Trump has made it very, very clear. He wants healthcare that works for the American people.

And if the Democrats, which Thomas Falls, he's one of them, he does want to sit down. He legitly wants to talk about it. We've had hours and hours of conversations about it. Let's sit down and scrap it. Keep it name only, scrap what's going on, and give people choices.

Obamacare consolidated the industry. And when they consolidated our industry, it made less choices. And even another lie that President Obama said was if you like your policy, you can keep it. That immediately changed day one. I mean, so he said it was going to go down 25%.

He said you could keep your policy if you like it. All that changed because it was all mandated that these policies have test certain things.

So in order to bring the risk pull in, they consolidated the industry and consolidated your choices of insurance premiums that you wanted. And what it did is it pushed people out and drove the cost up. because less people are now competing for your business. The best thing to do is let's have a marketplace that the American people can choose which health care they want. A twenty five year old, healthy individual that works out every single day doesn't need the same health care as an individual that's fifty, overweight and smokes and drinks too much.

But that's the policies that we put people in because the insurance companies don't want to insure the 50-year-old that smokes and drinks too much because of his bad choices or her bad choices. And so they make the 25-year-old who can't really afford it but taking care of him or herself to offset the 50-year-old. That has to change. You should be just like cars, we get awarded for better driving. If you don't get speeding tickets, you're not having accidents, your premiums are cheaper than the person that drives like an idiot and totals a car every two years.

That's how healthcare should work. And that's the type of industry that we need to drive back into the healthcare industry to let people have choices and get rewarded for their choices.

So, talk affordability. If I'm going to believe these stats, and this is what we got from a study, coffee's up 15%, beef is up 14%, bananas 8%, steaks 10%, cupcakes 6%, lettuce, 6%, drinks, 4%, lunch meats, 4%, salad dressing, 3%, tomatoes, 3.4%, down are eggs and milk and some other things. But most of these prices are up. And you know that affects everyday people living. I guess the one out of four Americans who live paycheck to paycheck.

Here's what Scott Besson said: what they're doing: Cut 28. I think we are going to see a substantial acceleration in the economy in the first second quarter. And I think we're already seeing on many prices, as I said, we're bending that curve down. And the increase in real incomes, I think Americans are going to feel it in the first quarter, second quarter. I think 2026, thanks to President Trump's signature plans, is going to be a great year for working Americans, for the markets.

I call it parallel prosperity. Main Street and Wall Street can both do great, but I think Main Street's going to have a great year in 2026. And they're also removing some tariffs in Central and South America for bananas and for coffee and also on beef they're still negotiating. Your thoughts about what you might have learned from last week's election? And where do you think the country is at on affordability?

It seems like the President really understands it is the number one message.

Well, the election that we had, I guess it would be two weeks ago now, right? If you look at that, I don't really read a whole lot into it. We talked about Virginia that Kamala Harris won. We talked about New Jersey, Kamala Harris won. We talked about California, New York, who elected a communist.

These are all blue states.

So I don't look a whole lot into it. But if you go back and you look at the undertabs, economy was number one issue, which is interesting because economy was the number one issue a year ago, too. And we see that things are getting better for the American people. We see our Walmart came out and said that Thanksgiving this year is going to cost roughly 20% less than it did the year before. Energy is the backbone of our economy when you start looking at inflation, even though they don't necessarily use it as an index.

But you can't make a product and you can't deliver a product without factoring in the energy costs. Energy costs has went down. That means shipping costs is starting to come down. When you start looking at protein, protein is up. I'm a cow calve operator.

We sell a lot of cattle. Protein across the board, chicken, pork, beef, it continues to go up. The other products are starting to come back down, which is what Scott Bessett, who's extremely intelligent on these numbers, we see that, as he said, the curve, what you see is the peak. We inherited January 20th, we inherited an inflation rate that had averaged 4.5%, as the highest 9.1%. We're down to averaging 2.3% right now.

And so as the economy starts settling, the prices will eventually go down. And we're starting to see that. Walmart's seeing that. Amazon is seeing that, which are good metrics. Shipping, when you start looking at rail yards, BNSF, UP.

Which is Burlington Northern and Union Pacific, they're starting to see shipping costs come down. All those are factors to start seeing the numbers come down.

So, what Scott was saying, Brian, is we're right there. We're not even at the tip. We're already going over the top of the mountain, starting to go down, and we're going to see it better because we see wages, bring-home wages have increased for the American people. Real wages have increased, and so we're seeing and we're seeing manufacturing jobs come back and flock, which that's the middle class. Those are all good signs.

So a couple of things. When you look at the economy, you see oil gas is down, but not much compared to how much it is per barrel. Do you understand the business?

Well enough to understand, like, why is it that per barrel is going down, production is up, but we haven't seen it at the pump yet. What is it going to take to feel it at the pump? And then I got a lot of calls last week about diesel. Diesels with the trucks in, diesel's above gas. And I think it's because of the sulfur regulations, because sulfur is bad for the environment, and they got all these sulfur regulators on.

What are your thoughts on this?

Well, I drive a diesel every single day. Before we were in Congress, we had a whole bunch of trucks, semis on the road every day. diesel has been higher than gasoline now for almost a little over a decade because of environmental requirements. There's a lot that can be done with that. I've talked to Duffy, Secretary Duffy, about this.

I've talked to Oh my lord, my name just slipped me. He's going to kill me. EPA director. Oh, and as Lise Eldon. Lise Eldon, yeah.

Talked to Lise Eldon about this multiple times about what we can do about regulations to bring down that cost. But what we're seeing right now, barrel is barrel bowl is dropped Refineries, though, still had a surplus with certain contracts, and a lot of that contract is from overseas, unfortunately, because the Obama administration had cut production so much inside the United States. we started bringing in importing a tremendous amount of oil from OPEC, which is absurd when we have more reserves in the side of the United States than Saudi Arabia has, but yet we're importing because of our environmental issues. It was stupid because our consumption didn't go down. They were just regulating our businesses out and making another country wealthy.

Since those contracts are there, we've got to finish those contracts out. And then the process, we have a sweet crude, which is an easy, more affordable way to break it down and refine it. Heavy crude is what we have from Saudi Arabia. The refineries have to slightly retool to be able to do a different oil intake.

So, once these contracts end, which will happen in 26, we'll start being able to process our own oil again, and that's when you'll start seeing the price pumps even drop down.

Now, they're already down. They're down from their four-year high.

So, they're down the lowest they've been in four years, but they can go down more, and we will see that as they continue to drop. Yeah, we should build more refineries, but I don't even think that's on the table right now. It would certainly be a help. You're right about that. Real quick, give me a prediction on where we go from here with Venezuela.

You don't put that many assets in the region and not do anything or make them do something. What do you think happens?

Well, we're sending a signal to the region as a whole is, look, we're here. And we understand you're it's destabilizing because Venezuela used to be that example in the region that what wealth in Central and South America can look like, what good government used to look like. But we also see what happens when you allow a communist Socialist regime to come in that allows China, Russia, and Cuba to make heavy influences. It doesn't work. We've seen this story play over and over again.

I don't think we commit troops. There's not an appetite to commit troops. We're being very proactive on the drug front, which is keeping our loved ones safe in our streets. Keep in mind, we've lost more people in 2024 to fentanyl and drug overdose than we did in the entire Vietnam War. That means there is a war on drugs on our streets.

The President's being proactive on that. Thank you so much for doing that. In Venezuela, we're sending a message saying we're going to isolate you. If we're going to isolate you, we're not allowing you to go outside your area and you're going to make it making a decision. Listen, we'll let you leave, but we're not even going to kill you when you leave.

But your country needs to go back to the democracy that those people deserve and want to have. And we're here to support them. But I don't feel like we're in a position to be able to commit troops or even have a will to do so. Let's hope they choose to leave. Senator Mark Waymoin, a lot of topics as usual.

You're up to par. Thank you so much. Look forward to seeing you in Washington. Gotcha. Bye.

Back in a moment. Where big stories meet bigger conversations. Stay informed and energized with the Brian Kilmead Show. Hi, everyone. It's Brian Kilmead here.

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Uh Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show. The question is: What is the future of Democratic leadership? Who is going to be effective? And most Democrats around the country just don't think that person is Chuck Schumer.

I mean, he doesn't inspire confidence. He's not bold. He's out of touch with the grassroots. He's someone who cheerlead us into the war in Iraq. He doesn't have the moral clarity on Gaza.

He couldn't say Mamdani's name. And this was the final straw where he was not strong on fighting for healthcare. I don't want to defend him, but it was good that he didn't. He should have just come out for Cuomo and said, I've been friends for years, but not doing anything, terrible leadership. Not even ever acknowledging it, saying we're thinking about it, we're talking.

Keem Jeffries wasn't much better, but Rogue Conna just wants to be in the news. He wants to run for president. Nice guy, but you really think his Epstein pursuit is sincere?

Well, I want to get justice. Where was the justice for six years? I think he's been there for three terms. You weren't interested in justice at all when Joe Biden was there, Tom Massey as well, big rivalry with Trump because he doesn't vote for anything. He's the Rand Paul of the House.

So that's the same thing. Nobody thinks you're sincere. Number two. And by the way, the president came out today and said, vote to release the Epstein files. Enough.

Get it all out. I think that's pretty cool. Then AT tells the Senate and he signs it, well, can we get this thing over? And I have a few theories about why the president feels that way. Quick note: I finally failed, I did not know it was out, but I was getting some complaints that no one could order my past books on my website.

It was something that had to be updated, my bad.

So now it's all fixed.

So if you want anything done for the holiday season, go to BrianKilmey.com. You want to sign and send for Merry Christmas or anything for past books, go to BrianKilme.com and order. It is now up and running. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead.

Hi, everyone. So glad you're here. It's the Brian Killmead Show. Thanks so much for listening. I have this hour going to talk to Gordon Chang, one of America's foremost Chinese experts, and man, do we need that?

He's from the Gangstone Institute, senior fellow, author of Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America and the Coming Collapse of China and China's Going to War. We'll discuss all those things, including the breaking news. And Jonathan Turley at the bottom of the hour, also the president has weighed in and said, over the weekend, I'm urging the house. To pass and And vote for the release of all the Epstein files. Everything you have, put it out there.

That's a bit of a change.

So, before we get to Gordon, let's get to the big three. Number three. The purchasing power dropped by about $3,000 under Joe Biden because the wages didn't keep up with prices. Under President Trump, it's already gone up by about $1,200. We understand that people still feel the paying of the high prices.

We're closing the gap and filling the gap faster. And that is Kevin Hassett, of course, their economic expert, order affordability in action. Trump team mobilized to make the economy work for everyone. If they are not successful, midterms will be a Republican. A nonviolent bloodbath.

Number two. The question is, what is the future of Democratic leadership? Who is going to be effective? And most Democrats around the country just don't think that person is Chuck Schumer. I mean, he doesn't inspire confidence.

He's not bold. He's out of touch with the grassroots. Dems in disarray, infighting hits new heights. And not only are they now not running from socialism. They're embracing it, but is the country?

Sadly, we must start selling capitalism as a country to a whole new generation. Number one. This money directly to the people of our country and let them buy their own health insurance. I am talking to some Democrats right now. about doing that.

People love it. Yeah, I mean, now that the shutdown is over and the election's a year away, maybe they can do something non-political. Playing it smart. I'm watching doctors on both sides weigh in, healthcare experts like Rick Scott. I'm optimistic we might get something done because Republicans and Democrats have watched Obamacare fail them.

And I think Democrats, by begging for additional subsidies to fix their program that's 15 years old and not sustainable, really tells the story for any person thinking past politics. With me right now is Gordon Chang. Gordon, welcome back. Thank you so much, Brian.

So, Gordon, we watched Cash Patel go and visit. China meet with his counterpart, and now he's optimistic. They understand the chemicals and precursors. We're going to be all over it, and we're serious this time. And here's what he had to say about that meeting.

So, you believe that the Chinese will keep their commitment here, and you think we will see an immediate impact then? I do. We've already seen an immediate impact. And look, Maria, I don't think anyone has covered China better than you have. And I understand the skepticism, but I do also believe in President Trump's leadership to say, look, we have to engage with them and come to agreements where we can with them, especially if it saves American lives.

Why wouldn't we? We're not going to get to 100% on 100%. But if we can save tens of thousands of American lives, then it was worth it. And I think we're already seeing those results. And at least on the fentanyl front, they have committed to this.

They've kept their word on this. And we are saving American lives because of this once-in-a-lifetime historic engagement by President Trump with the Chinese.

Okay. Uh Gordon, what do you what do you think?

Well, I certainly hope that Director Patel is correct. We got to remember that he got a promise from Xi Jinping.

Now, Xi Jinping made a promise to stop fentanyl to President Obama in 2016. to President Trump in 2018. and to President Biden in 2023. And of course, he's violated all of those promises. You know, Patel said that this time we're serious, and I certainly hope that's the case.

The other thing you've got to be concerned about, Brian, is that China can, instead of sending the precursors for fentanyl, send the precursors for something even more deadly, and that is the netazines, which China's already been fueling a crisis.

So there's a lot to go here. I am confident that President Trump is going to hammer the Chinese if they don't honor their promises. But this is, of course, is gonna be just wait and see. Yeah, I mean, the focus is certainly there. They only do something if it's in their interest.

obviously.

So we know that it's in our interest to get off rare earth, our dependence on China. And I'm hearing that this is almost like a Marshall Plan to use other opportunities, including opportunities here, to mine and refine Rear Earth. and I'm hearing that we could do it in maybe eighteen months. How valuable would that be to our national security? Oh, that's absolutely critical, Brian.

And the president deserves kudos for this because he does have a Marshall Plan, and it's got a lot of elements to it. And I believe that if it's not 18 months, it'd be two years, three years, we will be free of the Chinese. And that is gonna be something that that is one of their two important points of leverage on us. The other are pharmaceuticals. That's also something that we need a martial plan on.

Wall Street Journal story last week didn't get a lot of attention that said the Chinese are holding back any rare earth that helps our military. Scott Besant was asked this by Maria. Here's what he said, Cut thirty six. Is China holding back rare earth magnets from companies tied to the U. S.

military right now? Yes, Maria, I think that Wall Street Journal reporting is not very accurate. We haven't even finished the agreement, which we hope to have done by Thanksgiving. And I am confident that post our meeting in Korea between the two leaders The President Trump, President Xi, that China will honor their agreements. Xi Jinping has great respect for President Trump.

The meeting was conducted very high level, and I am confident that they will honor their agreement. And if they don't, we have lots of levers.

So you're who's right, the Woolstreet Turner or Scott? Yeah, I don't know the answer to that question, Brian. A couple things. There's a White House fact sheet dated November 1, and that fact sheet says that the Chinese agreed to remove their October 9th end-user validation program on rare earths, which is what people in the Wall Street Journal have been talking about. That validation program will be used to prevent rare earths from going to companies that deal with the U.S.

defense industry. The second thing is that the fact sheet said that China would actually remove all rare earth restrictions imposed after 2023. In other words, in the last 23 months.

So we'll just see. And this is something that is, again, it's day by day. I hope the Treasury Secretary is correct. But this is verify only or trust only after verifying. Gordon, when does.

China live up to its word. In what circumstances? Only when there's no choice but to live up to its word. I mean, they've violated just about every agreement with us. And I can't think of an agreement that they've actually honored.

So this is time for the U.S. to use its leverage. President Trump knows that. I think that Trump has been giving the Chinese an off-ramp to sort of come back into the international community. And that's very generous of President Trump.

It's probably the right approach. But at some point, generosity has to move beyond that into no tolerance for Chinese cheating. There's a belief in the administration that they could pry China away from Russia. Do you hear the same thing? I am not optimistic of that, are you?

I'm absolutely not optimistic, and that view is naive. Yes, Nixon did pride China from the Soviet Union, but that's already after Mao Zedong's split with Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev. Right now, Vladimir Putin is absolutely critical to Xi Jinping's plans to disrupt the world. These two leaders, Putin and Xi Jinping, they're very close. They see the world in the same terms, they have the same objectives, and they identify the same enemy, which is us.

So, no, we can't pry them apart. We can maybe take Russia down. That's extraordinarily dangerous. But that's the only way to separate Moscow from Beijing at this point. They're terrible consumers.

They have no social safety net. They're not buying anything. They have all these incentives and their Cyber Mondays never stop. It's not working. They need us as consumers more than ever.

Give me an idea of what is the state of their economy today. It is not growing at the 4.8% pace that they reported for the third quarter of this year. It's probably zero, maybe a little bit above, maybe a little bit below. We're seeing all sorts of underlying indicators that show the Chinese economy is flatlining.

So, for instance, China right now has never been more export-dependent in its history. In October, exports fell 1.1%. But the big story there, Brian, is that exports to the US fell 25%. We are the world's consumer market. We account for about 34% of global consumer spending.

China needs us right now. And the sales that they have been making to the global south and to other places to compensate for not making sales to us, those have very thin or no margins at all.

So Chinese exporters are hurting, even though their volumes have sort of remained steady. They absolutely depended on President Trump's forgiveness. How far would they go in Venezuela to protect their evil ally?

Well, that's a great question. We saw that last week they announced a trade deal with Venezuela and China where there would be no tariffs from either China or Venezuela on 400 tariff codes. This means that China will dominate and decimate Venezuela's manufacturers. There are not that many of them, by the way, because Venezuela's really only export our crude oil and petroleum, coke, and other petroleum products. I don't think China has the military might to actually stop us, but China can do something elsewhere in the world to divert our attention.

And right now, we're seeing some very belligerent Chinese activity against both the Philippines and against Japan.

So that's how China will help Venezuela by taking our attention away from the Caribbean. We got as quick as we can get our assets back to where they belong and just get a resolve there in Venezuela. We're certainly showing enough muscle. Maybe they'll leave on their own. I want you to hear this.

Another big story is using AI to hack into our intelligence and into different people.

So They have a cy the cyber threat. It was done AI essentially was given a command to penetrate into the highest levels of American intelligence, and it was successful. Congressman Don Bacon is on the China committee, a former, I believe, general in the Army, CUT 38. China has replaced Russia as the most formidable cyber threat. They have much higher technology.

They are using AI, which gives you a lot more capability in finding weaknesses in your adversary's cyber defenses. What concerns me more than anything While China is attacking us every single day and Russia, We've had no commander in charge of Cyber Command for over eight months. You know, the White House or the President fired the Cyber Command commander over eight months ago and has not replaced him. By the way, I had no idea about that, but using AI to immediately hack us, that's exactly what everyone is worried about. Yes.

And you know, Brian, here, the story is not what the Chinese are doing. The story is that we don't have robust cyber defenses. And it's not just the problem of 2025. This problem goes back decades where we know what the Chinese are doing. We know the Chinese are extraordinarily successful.

And we do not defend ourselves. And this is not just cyber and AI, this is all sorts of stuff.

So, yeah, this is a U.S. issue. It's on us, Brian. It's a US issue, not a China one. Absolutely.

So, well, I guess we're going to see what happens real quick to see if there's any move taking place. But we also know that China, if they cut off Russia, that war ends the next day.

So, I'm curious to see how much they really want to deal with us. I know the president puts a lot of stock in his personal relationships, and he says that one of his takeaways were how unnerved all his people are around him. They are scared to death of him.

So when these trade delegations show up with President Xi, he says these people are these, his colleagues, excuse me, his subordinates are practically shaking. Can you give me an idea of how he's ruling that country?

Well, the question is, you know, that's absolutely true, what you just said. We're not exactly sure how much power Xi Jinping has right now. I think that he's lost substantial influence over the Chinese military. He has still control of China's civilians, but there's a lot of turmoil. There are a lot of purges.

And that means the Chinese political system is not exactly stable right now, which means it's even more dangerous than it's been in the past, which is the reason why these incidents against the Philippines and Japan can really spiral out of control. This is, China is in a state of turmoil right now. And you just said the most important thing: the Chinese regime right now is not stable. Taiwan is an example of what China could be. that little island with very few natural resources is thriving, a hub of technology and freedom.

That must be one of the hardest things for Xi to deal with every day, knowing that the peo his people know what their life could be. Don't you think? Yeah, absolutely. You know, the people in Taiwan don't think they're Chinese, but the people in China think the people in Taiwan are Chinese. And because of that, Taiwan poses an existential threat to the Communist Party, because the people in the mainland say, we're Chinese, they're Chinese, they get to govern themselves, they got a successful society, they're doing better than we are.

What's wrong with us? And that narrative just unnerves Xi Jinping right now. And it makes China even less stable than it would otherwise be. Gordon Chang, thanks so much. Really important topics, and they're all real fluid.

We'll find out by the end of this year, really, how serious China, if they really want to deal with us, even on a transactional basis. Gordon Chang, thank you.

Well, thank you so much, Brian. I really appreciate it. You got it. We're going to be back in a moment. Bottom of the hour, Jonathan Turley.

We're going to bring us inside the BBC story and how Trump is, despite the apology, is still going for the legal jugular. Don't move. Coming to you on a need-to-know basis, because Mandy, you need to know. It's Brian Kilmead. The fastest three hours in radio.

You're with Brian Kilmead. Democrats must recognize that Zoran Mom Dani is the future of the party. Unfortunately, it's the Republican Party. And if you missed his victory speech in last week's mayoral election in New York, don't worry. You'll see it in every attack ad for the next two years.

Thing is, socialism will f you. Because socialism, to put it simply, just doesn't work and has never worked. Democratic socialism is like a dating profile. Things look great until you meet up in the real world.

So I agree with Bill Moore. 100%.

But you know who doesn't? Gallop. Gallup revealed that 54% of Americans have a favorable view of capitalism. That is so low. It was at 60% two years ago.

39% of them like it.

Now, 66% of Democrats now and 51% of independents approve of socialism. Do you believe this? The independence kills me. And 66% of Democrats, the conservative Cato Institute, Did a study said that 62% of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 29, guess what? Drumroll, please.

Like socialism. Bernie Sanders is the most popular Democratic senator. He kind of rebranded himself. He's got the highest ratings of anybody in state. It's over seventy percent in the crazy state of Vermont.

That's socialism. When you see the mayor of Seattle, socialism. When you see the guy in Minneapolis that almost won, socialist. When you see the guy who's more of a and by the way, they lean Marxist. What is socialism in New York City?

And now you have AOC, who's the most popular politician. Sadly, in New York, who's favored to be the next senator? Do you think she's a socialist? Of course, she's a socialist.

Now it doesn't work anywhere. Norway is backing out of it. You saw what happened Venezuela. Cuba thinks it's 1950 in all their technology. Nobody likes it.

When they get it. It's you see what it's done to strangle and cut the hamstrings on all of Europe? They don't do anything. They don't innovate. They don't move.

They don't there's no ambition there. They don't lead in any area outside maybe wine in France.

So, yet, there hasn't been enough pushback by Republicans. They got to straighten it out. And maybe capitalism is not a great word. but maybe you talk about economic freedom more. And that's not what socialism gives you.

It brings everybody down, including your country and the rich, successful people, either go elsewhere or move elsewhere. Brian Kilmuccio. The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead. No one wants a war with Venezuela to the extent they're claiming it has something to do with the drug trade coming to the United States.

The majority of drugs don't come through the Caribbean. They come via a land route, a land route that the president is ignoring because he is so focused on this absurd, illegal military campaign against Venezuela.

So I don't think he'll find much support amongst Republicans or Democrats in this country for it. And by the way, it's wildly illegal. The president can't start a war with a nation without a congressional authorization. Is that true? That's really interesting that Senator Chris Murphy, who has turned out just to be a guy who's running for president, Cut 38 is where he was just talking to us about how everything's wildly illegal and the president wants to start a war.

He's got to come back to Congress. Jonathan Charlie, Fox News contributor, you know, he's a professor of public interest, law, public interest law at George Washington University and author of The Indispensable Right. Jonathan, your thoughts about what Senator Murphy says is illegal to do anything in Venezuela?

Well, first of all, what Senator Murphy is saying about a declaration of war is clearly not true. Presidents have unleashed the U. S. military on targets, individuals and groups for decades. Murphy never objected to Democratic presidents using the same authority.

President Clinton It took out camps in Afghanistan. President Obama claimed the right in his so called kill list policy to kill U. S. citizens at any time and anywhere if he viewed them as a imminent national security threat.

So it's just simply not true that this constitutes an act of war or a declaration of war against Venezuela.

Now, having said that, this is obviously something new. I mean, the President is extending the use of lethal force in a way that we have not seen before. He is declaring that all of these people who are carrying drugs are doing so with the intent to kill American citizens. And we have not had that Claim made before, and it's been very controversial. And there is some legitimate objection that.

You know, other countries could claim the same authority and take out ships that have US citizens on them. Under the same type of rationale.

So there are policy issues here, but we have to separate. whether this is a good policy from whether he has the authority to do it. Right, that would be separate. And, you know, if he wants to take flourish, if he identifies. Where they're making cocaine at different drug facilities.

Could he take a shot at that? Because he declared them a a terrorist nation? Yeah.

Well, obviously, that gets into a far more serious question in terms of national sovereignty, because you're attacking. the territory of these countries. And that could be viewed as an act of war by those countries. And the question is whether he wants to cross that Rubicon I would argue against it, quite frankly. I think that this could destabilize the position of a lot of countries.

It could also alienate many of our allies because once again, what we do could be replicated by some of our foes who could say the same thing, that in your territory is something that is causing harm to my territory, so I'm going to unleash an air attack or even a ground attack. Yeah, you worry about the precedent and what happens, like Taiwan, too. You know, so they consider that naturally theirs. The other big story, I expect them to do something in the next few days. Obviously, there's supposed to be a meeting for everyone to understand.

Venezuelan government reached out. Trump says, Yeah, maybe we'll meet. It might be: hey, when do you want to leave for Russia, today or tomorrow? That might be good. And you know, the top bunk is open with Bashir Asad.

I'm pretty sure that he'd be welcoming the little company.

So that would be the best way to do it because he actually lost an election by 70 to 30.

So it's not a matter of us picking a government. There is actually another government ready to go in. It depends on who the military is going to side with.

Well, I do think we have to keep in mind exactly as you note, that The Venezuelan government is not a lawfully elected government. It's a totalitarian regime. It's a regime that was brought into power by basically suppressing an election.

So there's no question that the United States has legitimate right to be pressuring Venezuela, particularly because there is ample evidence that a lot of these criminal operations are coming from Venezuela and that Venezuela is actively trying to harm the United States.

So the question is how much Monduro could can take. And he's obviously gotten support from places like Russia and China. It's just unclear when that pipeline is going to be cut off. Right.

So I want to bring over to the tariff fight. Yesterday we were talking to various people about it. There's no doubt about it from the President to his higher-ups. They're concerned they'll lose at the Supreme Court and invalidate those tariffs. It would be a disaster.

So asked about that, asked about that over the weekend. Here's what Scott Besset, the Treasury Secretary, said, CUP 33. I want to say this in the strongest possible terms. I think that there are three points here. One, this is one of President Trump's signature policies, signature policies, and traditionally the Supreme Court does not interfere.

With a President's signature policy. I don't think this ruling is going to go against us, but if it does, what's their plan for refunds? Because how is this going to get to consumers? Are they just going to hand some of these importers big windfalls? What if the exporters have given big discounts already?

And then you're going to give a refund on the tariff.

So they'd be making it on both sides.

So I don't think the Supreme Court wants to wade into a mess like that. Do you think they care? It seems like one of those questions Amy Crony Barrett had was to the plaintiff, what happens? How's this going to look? This will be a mess, right?

And she said that. It shows they're thinking about the ramifications of their order, right?

Okay. It does. And these are people who live in the real world. And so when Justice Barrett made that aside, I think it was on the minds of many justices. Ultimately, they're supposed to rule just on the Constitution, but you can't ignore the fact that this is going to be highly disruptive.

But I think most of the justices believe that this is a matter for the two political branches. Congress has not stepped in to say, you know what, we're going to essentially ratify these tariffs and we're going to pass legislation so that we don't have this type of refund at this juncture. It's not clear that the Democrats want to see that happen, that this will cause a lot of chaos. And for some of the Democratic members, they would apparently welcome that. But I think the justices view this as this is outside our bailiwig.

We have to decide on whether they're legal.

Now, having said that, I've long said that I thought the President was at a disadvantage on this, that IEPA has not been used this way, at least regularly. But there's an interesting thing that came out in the Supreme Court argument. I wrote a column saying there's a majority of justices, including conservatives, who are highly skeptical of the president's tariff claims. But if you look carefully, they're skeptical for different reasons.

So the question is how this is going to cycle out in terms of the vote and who they will concur with if they only concur in the outcome.

So you have people like Gorsuch, who was really very active and very strong in the argument. And he hit both sides very hard. He said, I think that this is a serious problem of delegation of a congressional power over tariffs. Uh but then he really hit uh the other side. How this is going to play out is a really tough question.

But you know, and you're the one who tells me this stuff. John Roberts took an active role in landing the plane with Obamacare and almost changed the definition, if I remember correctly, of Obamacare and what a tax is because he knew it would be chaotic if you took it away and blew it up, let alone political. The court would take a hit as a conservative court if they blew up the liberal president's signature issue. And they adjusted. Do they feel as compelled now?

Yeah, that's a good question because Roberts himself was a bit of a Curiosity. He came out really badly for the administration at the very outset of the questioning. He just said. tariffs or taxes. And that is not what the administration wants to argue.

But Roberts repeated it again and again. But Roberts also hit the other side. See, the problem for the challengers is that the predecessor of IEPA, the law that the President is acting under, was used by Presidents to impose tariffs. And that law had the specific terms used in IEPA.

So the law talked about the power of the President to regulate importations.

Well, they took so that the Supreme Court looked at that and said, yes, Nixon could use that to impose tariffs. then Congress passed the new law and used the same language.

So justices like Kafno were saying, well, okay, well, this is an ambiguous term, but we previously said a President could use it for tariffs. And on top of that, even Barrett, who was really tough on the administration, joined in by saying, let me get this straight. You're agreeing to the challengers that a president can basically shut down trade through quotas, through licensings. and bring it to a virtual halt. But you're saying he can't do the lesser of things and actually impose tariffs.

How does that track with logic?

So there are arguments there for the administration. And this gets back to my point. Once they go back in that conference room, it gets a little tougher when they try to decide not just why it's unlawful, whether it's unlawful, but why. And we're not, it's not clear.

So I would still say that the odds favor the challengers. But I'm I wouldn't put any money on this. Lastly, the BS yes, I know you it's a I think it's a real legitimate worry among the administration. They said they might have some remedies, but they don't even want to bring that up because it might get back to the justices if they don't feel as though they are the the ultimate arbitrator. But what is your take on James Carville saying what Democrats said last time they had power?

When we get power, we're going to get rid of the filibuster and go up to thirteen justices because our courts have never been so corrupt. You know, Brian, there's an old st Latin phrase called in vino veritas that basically with wine comes truth. The same thing comes from power, that is the minute the Democrats felt that they had won these last few elections, which all happened to be in blue states, They immediately started talking about packing the Supreme Court. And so it seemed like power sort of unleashed those tongues again. It's clear that the Democrats have never given up on this idea.

And we some academics on the left have said, we will never be able to make serious political changes Unless we get control of the Supreme Court.

So it's very obvious from Carville and others that if they take Congress and the White House, they are going to pack the Supreme Court, and then they're going to push through a lot of these radical agenda items. And I'm not saying that from my perspective. That's exactly what people like Carville has been saying.

So there's nothing to stop them either, right? If you get rid of the filibuster, the court can't rule that nine is enough. Cool. No, the Supreme Court, the number of justices is not set in the Constitution. In fact, the Supreme Court has been smaller and larger in previous years.

It used to be that the number of justices was set by the number of federal circuits we had.

So at one point, we had ten justices on the Supreme Court.

So yes, Congress can go ahead and expand the Supreme Court. But even for those of us who have suggested that the Supreme Court is too small, if you look at other countries, there's a difference between reforming and packing. What these Democrats are talking about is the sudden infusion of liberal justices to gain immediate control over the Supreme Court and then to reverse a lot of the decisions that have been made in the past ten years and to greenlight a lot of the structural changes they want. And you've got liberal academics suggesting on changing the Senate even without an amendment. That is a proposal that's out there as well as other radical changes that would guarantee that Democrats would never lose power again.

Yeah, I guess it for you as somebody who loves the law, Would you worry about that? Forget about your political ideology? Does that worry you? It's more than a worry, it's a nightmare. That is, we have the most stable democratic system in history.

And we're about to celebrate our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. It is just a crushing idea that after 250 years of a successful democracy, These members are planning to do these changes. That would gut that system and turn it into an unstable and unpredictable political system. And it is really terrible. I have a book coming out called Rage and the Republic, which is coming out for the 250th anniversary.

And that book looks at this and looks at some of these proposals. It looks back at why the U. S. democracy, why the American democracy was so unique. What was the secret sauce that allowed us so many centuries of these centuries of success And then looks forward at what some of these sort of new Jacobins are suggesting.

And what they are suggesting is to remove the very things that were the key to our success over the last two centuries. I can't wait for the book, Jonathan. I stumbled onto it, but there it is. I can't wait to read it. Jonathan Turley, Fox News contributor, appreciate it.

Thank you so much, Brian.

You got it. Back in a moment. Real talk, real guests, real insight. Where curiosity meets conversation. In the Brian Kill Meet Show.

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FirstNet, built with ATT. Learn more on firstnet.com/slash public safety first. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Kilmeade. In general, do you think after these midterms, are the Democrats in a good place?

I know you worry about this a lot.

Well, I noticed you and your columns use the word feckless, which is a term I never heard until the Democrats were I never heard that word until the Democrats started being it. I mean, I do worry about it. It's funny. We both kind of were harping on the same idea this week, which is that. Uh why can't either one of them be normal.

That was the end of my show tonight. We just had the World Series and there was an 18-inning game. and for the last nine innings, one whole game, neither side could score. That's what this reminds me of.

So He's just a very logical Democrat and I think Fareed Saqqaria is the exact same way. He did a whole column, which he basically did on television. He read the column out loud. And he's somebody that leans left, but he's got these great international contexts and no one contacts him. No one doubts his intellect.

But he used to be vehemently anti-Trump, and now he's somewhat open to it, in my view. And I wouldn't put words in his mouth just because I listened to him. Usually, uh, two or three times a month I'll catch a show.

So he wrote a column just saying that That he's extremely worried about the cities in this country. He says he travels the globe. He says all of our cities are in disarray and they're all run by Democrats and they're all done with these crazy policies and crime is rampant. There's regulations that are stopping building and progress. He walks through New York City.

All he sees is scaffolding. He says, no other city that is five times as old as New York City has all these projects that are halfway done. Mayor Adams says, I'm going to get through all the paperwork. It's almost impossible. Why?

These are all liberal cities. And this is Fareed Zakarius saying really what we're seeing from You know, we're seeing over and over again from various Democrats who worry about their party and worry how left and illogical they become. Chris Matthews said something very similar the other day. You know, so Bill Maher's got some company all of a sudden. 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. 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 there. It's the Brian Killmee Show. I trust you had a fantastic weekend. I'm back in action now, ready to go with you.

And this hour, we're going to be joined by Miranda Devine. Did you see her cover story in the New York Post? Talked about the big. Cyber footprint from Thomas Crooks. He is the would-be assassin of President Trump at Butler, who got himself killed.

Thankfully. But there's just a lot of mystery about what he was up to.

Now they looked at him and they said that this guy didn't have much of a footprint. Other people say he did. The investigation is still ongoing. But she did an expansive story about what they found online. And she's going to be with us shortly.

So, before we get to Miranda, who's standing by with her exclusive, let's get to the big three. Number three. The purchasing power dropped by about $3,000 under Joe Biden because the wages didn't keep up with prices. Under President Trump, it's already gone up by about $1,200. We understand that people still feel the pain of the high prices.

We're closing the gap and filling the gap fast. And that's what Kevin Haster says, and that is their big push with the Trump administration: affordability in action. Trump team mobilized to make the economy work for everyone. We'll talk about it. Number two.

The question is: What is the future of Democratic leadership? Who is going to be effective? And most Democrats around the country just don't think that person is Chuck Schumer. I mean, he doesn't inspire confidence. He's not bold.

He's out of touch with the grassroots. That is Rogana, who has nothing to do with the Senate but wants to be president. Demed in disarray in fighting new highs, and now only are they now not running from socialism, they are embracing it. Is socialism the key to success for Democrats? We'll discuss it.

Number one. I said, why don't we just pay? This money Directly to the people of our country and let them buy their own health insurance. I am talking to some Democrats right now. about doing that.

People love it. That is President Trump trying to solve the health care problem without giving flat-out subsidies for a failing program like Obamacare. Both sides seem to realize they have something that's really 16 years old and has been nothing but a problem. Will both sides legitimately try to fix something rapidly because rates are going up? Rates are going up rapidly.

Meanwhile, just a quick note, make sure if you want to listen to the show and you have to leave your local affiliate, you could always listen to the Fox News app. You could always get the podcast due wherever you're comfortable getting podcasts, BrianKillmeShow.com to be able to listen online. A little bit later in the show, we're going to talk to Gary Bevers. Gary is president of Bevers and Company. He is with Downstream Petroleum Solutions.

He was listening to our show last week and heard all the truckers calling in talking about the price of diesel. This is key to getting prices down. And also, why if we're getting oil down per the barrel globally? Why are we not seeing much more drop? Uh uh a lesser price at the pump.

And we'll talk about that.

So you got to see this story in the New York Post today. It is the cover, and it's definitely worthy. Trump Shooter's Secrets Exposed. Why didn't the FBI stop him earlier? This guy had a huge cyber footprint.

We heard it was scrubbed. We heard it didn't exist.

Well, Miranda Devine found out in an exclusive story it does exist. Miranda, welcome back. Thanks so much, Brian. Miranda, you wanted to pursue Thomas Cricks. You thought there was too much, there's too much we don't know about this guy.

What did you find? And without giving up your sources, how did you find it?

So somebody I know, a trusted contact, had been contacted by a client of his who had this information. A lot of it just he found on the internet using sort of private eye tools, but a lot of it was open source. And he was just a patriotic American, very fond of... Donald Trump and was horrified about the fact that there was no information coming out of the FBI.

So he started just doing some amateur sleuthing and what he found, he just assumed the authorities would eventually let out, but they didn't. And, you know, it got to the point where on the first anniversary of the Butler attempted assassination in July, Senator Ron Johnson had to subpoena the FBI, Trump's FBI, to try and get these documents he's been trying to, asking them politely to get for a year. And we know, obviously, that Christopher Wray was stonewalled. etc but it continued into the reign of the current FBI director Cash Patel.

So this source had all this information, tried to get to a few people and he eventually got it to Tucker Carlson did a terrific episode last week and I took it further today. And you know part of the revelations and that the FBI under Christopher Wray misled Congress over was that this guy Thomas Crooks, 20 years old, he did a complete backflip as shown on his YouTube and about 17 other accounts that were uncovered. He has gone from being rabidly anti-Trump, sorry, pro-Trump and anti-the Democrats, wanting to murder Democrats, very anti-the squad. And then in January of 2020, he's done a complete 180. It's bizarre.

He is now rabidly anti-Trump, calls Trump a racist. says that Trump's a disaster with the pandemic. And then he's escalating into increasingly violent and threatening rhetoric about bombing the government, committing terrorism, shooting people, etc. And he's involved himself with some very unsavory characters online, including this guy who goes under the name of Willy Tepas. I don't think that's his real name, but he is attached to a Norwegian neo-Nazi group that was just last year designated a terrorist group by the State Department.

And this Willy Tepez, who himself espouses a lot of violence, he seemed to encourage Crook's sort of growing violent rhetoric. And then, you know, around about the time Crook's rhetoric gets extremely violent, around August of 2020, he just drops off the map. There is no more social media. Very unusual for him. Because he was prolific before that, but he just has no footprint after that.

So he just becomes a ghost. And another interesting thing that my thought was. And by the way, they said he was on YouTube, Snapchat, Venmo, Zell, GroupMe, Discord, Google. Um Google Play Quizlet chess.com. And another one, I can't even read my own writing here.

So he was everywhere. To nowhere. In 2019, he was and he was pro-Trump. In 2020, he called it a cult. He talked about Fox News being a part of it.

He mentioned Jonathan Turley in this.

So you found all this stuff called Trump a racist. Um, and and called as I mentioned, called everybody a cult. Yes. And he also, my source found that he frequented a site called Deviant Art, which is one of the biggest online hubs for furry art and the furry community. And of course, a furry was also connected with the killer of Charlie Kirk, Tyler Robinson.

He lived with his lover was a furry. And a furry is a sort of sexual fetish or almost always a sexual fetish, someone who has an interest in animal characters that are sort of made human. And so Crookes had two accounts on deviant art. And there is an image he had with scantily clad cartoon characters that have got sort of male bodies, like Arnold Schwarzenegger-type bodies, but a female face.

So, you know, that just tells you a little bit. He also used the pronouns they, them on that platform.

So there are some parallels. Slim. But there are parallels.

So, Miranda, and there's so many more details that you have. It's an expansive story. Everyone's got to read it. But there's no way you believe the FBI didn't know about this guy before the shooting. You know, we see a lot of times with the Boston bombers, they interview the Boston bombers ahead of time, they end up becoming mass murderers.

So do you think the FBI knew about this guy? We're monitoring this guy? Look, I'm told by FBI current agents and former agents that it is impossible that this guy did not come to the attention of the FBI or the Secret Service.

Now, the FBI yesterday refused to comment when I asked if Crooks had ever been investigated by them or they visited him or he was some way brought to the attention of the Bureau before he tried to assassinate President Trump, so I got no comment there. Christopher Wray said that they didn't have any prior information about Crookes. That was when he testified to Congress. But he sort of did a very narrow denial. You know, he said the FBI ran a search for Crookes through its databases and he was not found.

So that's kind of a non-denial denial. And I got a message back late last night from Secret Service just saying that they would refer everything to the FBI if they found anything.

So I don't know that we've gotten anywhere with that, but I do know that, you know, I contacted a guy called Ron Swanson, who was a former FBI agent whose name was used by Crooks to open his PayPal account. It was the only alias Crooks used. And I thought, well, I'll give him a call. He knew nothing about it. He said he'd never met or talked to Crooks.

But he did tell me that he had been involved in the Vegas shooting. He'd left the FBI by then, but he was running Nevada's criminal investigation.

So he was involved peripherally. But he said that was another case of a horrific crime, and the FBI could find no motive, no online digital footprint, etc. The difference is with Crooks, we have found an online, quite extensive digital footprint. It's hard to imagine, Miranda, if someone's that involved. They're addicted to an online life.

How do you just give that up? Then you have absolute for four years. You gave up your online life? Is that possible? Or did someone coach him to do that?

Exactly.

Somebody must have intervened with this kid to tell him, hey, you I mean my my Because every FBI person I've talked to said he would have been contacted by law enforcement, Secret Service or FBI, perhaps that happened August 2020, around the time of his most violent rhetoric. He's talking about assassination, killing leaders, political leaders, military people, that he would have been contacted then. Maybe it was just a contact and that scared him and he went offline and continued with his plot. Or maybe there was ongoing contact and coaching. By whom, we don't know.

But I do think that to stop conspiracy theories, the FBI needs to be more transparent. And it's pretty outrageous that Senator Ron Johnson, who's a fantastic watchdog, is saying that he is being blockaded and slow walked by the FBI, by Trump's FBI, and he's had to issue a subpoena in July. And so he's unhappy. And if he's unhappy, we should be unhappy. That's true, but Miranda, something's going on because Berzian Trump is not unhappy with the investigation.

You did bring up. That's not true.

Okay. That's not true.

For a pretty good source.

Well, I talked to him personally on Saturday, and I just mentioned briefly I was doing this story and asked if he was satisfied, and he said he was unsatisfied with a lot of things.

So you said that the FBI had one testimony on Crooks. And at which time it was this guy named Paul Abati. And when asked, yeah, he said he only sees anti-Semitism. Here's some of that testimony. Listen.

Something just very recently uncovered that I want to share is a social media account which is believed to be associated with the shooter in about the twenty nineteen, twenty twenty timeframe. There were over seven hundred comments posted from this account.

Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect anti-Semitic and anti-immigration themes. to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature. While the investigative team is still working to verify this account to determine if it did in fact belong to the shooter, we believe it important to share and note it today, particularly given the general absence of other information to date from social media and other sources of information.

So he goes on, he only found that, that's all he talked about, but yet you found 2020. He found one in 219 with 700 comments. Yeah, I mean Paul Abate is telling the truth, but he's misled Congress by omission because he left out the entire part of Crook's online interactions from, you know, January 2020 when he did this ideological backflip and went from pro-Trump to anti-Trump.

So I don't understand why Abate would leave that out. You know, he's talking about the YouTube comments and those are the ones that I go into in detail, over 700. And, you know, the pattern is very clear. And why Abate would leave out the most important part of that pattern, which is the bizarre backflip. What happened to Crookes to make that backflip?

Now, we're talking about January 2020, COVID's just hit. Maybe that's what flipped him. He does talk about the pandemic later on, and he's very critical of Trump. But it's a pretty... Pretty severe backflip.

I mean, it's like he's been de-radicalized and reprogrammed, is the way it looks. I have no evidence to say who or whether that even happened, but that's certainly the way it looks. And that's where the investigation should continue. And lastly, I want you to hear what Hunter Biden said about you. There's no ethics in what, you know, like someone as, um, uh, Horrendously ugly as Miranda Devine, physically and in terms of her and in terms of her ethics.

does. I mean, she is, you know, a and and and and and that goes for, you know. You know, I mean, Daily Mail, and you know, but I mean, they're horrors. Your reaction because you wrote Laptop from Hell, it's all his finest work.

Well, look, he's lashing out, of course, in the most personal fashion he can because he can't criticize me on the actual facts of what I brought up about his laptop. He's denied it's his laptop. He's lied over and over about it. His father's now given him a sweeping pardon going back 11 years.

So I guess he feels that he can, you know, lash out with impunity. But it kind of shows that he has nothing since that's what he's attacking is my appearance. And he did so much to harm his family by being so out on drugs, dropping that laptop to a computer repair person and being too out of his mind to understand where he left it. That's his fault. Miranda Devine, you did a great job.

Another great reporting job. Pick up the New York Post today. Thanks, Miranda. Thanks so much, guys. Back in a moment.

Uh Information you want, truth you demand. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. And I also think that the Democrats are going to have to move to admit the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico states because right now. Yeah, because we're fifty 18% of the United States elects 52 senators. That's...

Not even close to a reflection of the democracy in the country and there's a way that you can address this imbalance. It's permitted under the Constitution.

So that is James Carville letting everybody know my recommendation, his recommendation as a Democrat, who's been around forever, is to get power, get rid of the filibuster, add two states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. That tiny little area becomes a state. Are you kidding me? They'll get two senators there, two senators in Puerto Rico, and they'll forever be in control of the Senate. They said they have to do it to save the country.

Supreme Court, he says, has never been in lower esteem.

So the only right thing to do is to put four liberal justices on there.

So that'll bring it up to 13. That's how dramatically the country should change. And I'm telling you, they're not going to get Republicans to go for the filibuster, and I don't think they should either. Because whatever they do, it's going to get undone as soon as they lose power. Four years, eight years, twelve years.

So, why do that? And just because you think someone's going to do something wrong, doesn't mean you should do it. Having said that, I do think it's something to run on. You don't elect me, your country will change forever. Brian Kill Meat Show.

From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Killmead. Hey, welcome back, everyone. You know, one of the big topics in everybody's life is oil and gas.

Now how much is it going to cost to put a gallon of gas in your in your car? And if people want a tax break, the easiest way to do it, since most people are in a car during the day, is to charge them less for gas. And one thing the President has made clear, he wants to drill. He wants to drill everywhere. I know to a degree, the oil and gas business doesn't want to drill too much because if it goes below, I think $54 a barrel, it doesn't make much money for them.

But they are looking to explore while still having to deal with environmentalist limitations, although things are starting to open up, I understand, in Alaska.

Well, the big question is: if oil is coming down around the globe, Why is gas not coming down more than a nickel or 10 cents since President Trump took over the last nine months? The other big question that we had that we took some calls for last week was: people said to me, if you want. To get the prices down at grocery stores and your delivery, and wherever you shop online. If you want to get it down, you got to get the diesel price down because most of these eighteen wheelers run almost all of them run on diesel. Of course, there's some on electric, which are not going too well.

Gary Bevers heard that. He's president of Bevers and Company, Downstream Petroleum Solutions, and he's an expert in the area and joins us now. Gary, great to see you. Uh maybe you can help us here. How is Trump doing?

Why is it that the price of oil is down per barrel, but we're not necessarily filling out the pump?

Well, the market's complicated for one thing. There are five or six components that make up the price of gasoline at the pump. The part about crude that everybody's talking about, crude going down, it at best makes up 48, 50 percent of the price. Taxes are twenty to thirty percent, and it's varied by state.

So that's why I go to LA and it's $6.10 and I just sold $2.89 on Long Island over the weekend. Yes, sir. All in taxes in California are over $1.20 something a gallon. A little bit different, lower for gasoline, higher for diesel fuel, because you referenced diesel. Texas, I'm paying $2.40, $2.60 a gallon for gas.

California, high for, sometimes $5.

So what has changed since Trump took over?

Well, the regulation part, regulations impact the fuel. It impacts a lot of things, but particularly on crude.

So being able to go drill. But drilling is not instant. You open up fields, it's a year before they're drilling there, sometimes longer than that. Once they drill it and bring it in, there's a transportation to get it to a refinery. It sits on a pipeline, could be three months, could be two months.

Some of it's shipped by rail from up in the Keystone area where we did not build a pipeline. That was the big impact there. Makes the freight take cost more, makes the transportation take longer.

So even when crude goes down, there's a delay. We get the crude in the refining from the refining, has to go to a mid-transportation point, ultimately ends up at a gas station, right?

So that's months of delay.

So the cycle, and I could send you some slides that would make your head hurt, but it shows there's not an exact correlation between crude price and refined product, which is the mid-part, and then the final. Retail. How much of a challenge is it that we don't haven't built a refinery in years? And is refinery and the lack of refinery capacity holding us back? No, it's a myth.

We haven't built a new refinery. We don't need them. The refineries we have, it's approximately 140 some odd refineries, but we expand the footprint on every single refinery.

So every year, the production of refined capacity goes up in the United States, and on the same footprint, and 40% of it approximately is in the Houston, you know, LA, I mean, Louisiana area.

So it's on the Gulf Coast.

So no, that's just a myth. There are a lot of myths about oil and gas, and most of them are definitely myths and they're false. I want to get to natural gas and fracking, but I do want you to hear what Mark Wayne Mullen said when I asked him about When I asked him about diesel, let's listen. I got a lot of calls last week about diesel. Diesel's with the trucks in, diesel's above gas.

And I think it's because of the sulfur regulations, because sulfur is bad for the environment, and they got all these sulfur regulators on. What are your thoughts on this?

Well, I drive a diesel every single day. Uh before we were in Congress, we got a whole bunch of trucks uh semis on the road every day. Diesel has been higher than gasoline now for almost a little over a decade because of environmental requirements. There's a lot that can be done with that. I've talked to Duffy, Secretary Duffy, about this.

I've talked to Lise Eldon about this multiple times, about what we can do about regulations to bring down that cost.

So want to enlighten us, Gary, on diesel? Do you want to center Mark Wayne Mullens on the money on that? Sure. Diesel used to be less expensive than gas. My dad used to drive trucks.

My uncles drive trucks. They all like diesel trucks. In 2006, they changed the regulation to take the sulfur out of diesel. Costs a lot of money for refineries to build these units called hydrocrackers. That's to treat and remove the sulfur.

That added a cost. People say it's only temporary, but it's not. It's a permanent refining cost. But there are other components of it. Everything in the fuel business is supply and demand.

Demand for diesel used to be less than gasoline. Gasoline was the big demand product. But since, and we joke about calling it the Amazon effect during the pandemic. We use so much trucking, and trucks all use diesel, the number of electric trucks on the road is nil. I mean, if they're there, they don't make a statistical difference, right?

But the big thing about diesel, diesel is a global product. We ship diesel out of the country.

So when you see those crude prices, when they talk about WTI, that is what it is in the market, not what it is locally, not here, not in our refineries, but what's being the price-driven. And like China uses a massive amount of diesel just to generate electricity.

So does Mexico, by the way.

So it's a product that has multiple changes. Uses, demand for diesel went up, supply is limited. A barrel of oil produces maybe 18% diesel and about almost double that of gasoline naturally.

So, for every barrel you're going to refine, you're going to get more gasoline, less diesel. Gary Bevers is with us now from Downstream Petroleum Solutions. Gary, when it comes to diesel and burning into the environment, Can you tell me about the sulfur, when the environmentalists got a hold of this, and were they right to try to limit it? Is there anything we could do that wouldn't affect the price while being conscious of the environment?

Well, number one, there's a lot of diesel that is already low sulfur.

So it's just produced that way. It comes out of the ground. Good. In some areas, there's a bunch of different grades, and in some areas, it comes out high sulfur. I'm not sure that sulfur actually is.

It's definitely, I don't think it's a carcinogen.

So I don't know that it's bad for the environment, just like CO2, carbon dioxide. They say that's bad for the environment. Yet you and I exhale carbon dioxide every day, right?

So again, a lot of myths, but it was decided to take out sulfur. They did that. Another product of that is it was high in lubricity. You have to have lubricant in fuels or it burns up the inside of an engine.

So now every gallon of diesel, not only does it cost more to refine it, you get less production, and you have to add a lubricity agent, which is an added cost for every gallon of diesel, to put the additive back that was taken out with the sulfur. Not saying it's bad to take out sulfur, but there's a cause and effect to every regulation, right? And nobody looks at the total effects on regulations.

So what do you hope? What would you advise? Um Doug Bergham. Chris Wright to do.

Well, if they said, hey, Gary, how do I get diesel responsibly get diesel prices down? What would you tell them?

Well, they come down. Again, I can send you charts. You can see in the year 2008, because supply and demand are the biggest pressures, regulation has a lot to do it. Number one, stop all the ridiculous taxes. You should see on a fuel bill, there are like some fuel bills have 27 fees and taxes.

There's only supposed to be excise tax, right? Federal and local. And there's a usage tax called IFA, which applies to diesel, IFTA, IFTA. And that makes diesel taxes higher. I mean, if you look at California, you're going to have $1.20 in taxes, and we want to have fuel down in the dollar range.

Because in 2008, at the beginning of the middle of the year, end of the year, we started at almost three, went to four, and got down to $1.63.

So, on average, again, those are averages because every part of the country has a different basis cost, depending on where you are. I'm in Houston, Texas, we get to have cheap fuel.

So overall, do you think the this administration gets it? And we'll do everything possible to get those prices down. Is there any frustration you have with the current administration? None, no. I mean, the idea, it's a commodity.

Right now, one of the bigger drivers of diesel fuel being high is the shutdown of Russian refineries.

So there is a shortage of diesel, and there's a demand for diesel. There's a global demand for diesel that's up.

So, anybody that can figure out how to change demand will be a genius and make a lot of money, but you can't. You can't predict how much people are going to drive cars. We know elasticity, if the price gets really high, people drive a little less, but people like me, The cost of fuel is not something I think about. Plenty of people do, but I'm not one of them. All right, Gary, just when it comes to fracking in natural gas, we seem to have some customers that want it more than ever, especially in Europe.

They seem to be open to it outside Hungary. Have you can you give us an idea of what the natural gas market looks like? With this administration's interest in sharing the natural gas wealth.

Well, natural gas has excess supply. When we go to drill a well, you in most cases, you get oil, crude oil, but you also get nat gas. If you're not on a pipeline, you can't do anything with that nat gas. I speak of this from personal experience, having owned a couple of wells.

So Nat gas is at a really low price at the moment, but again, supply is higher than demand. Fracking gets you a lot of gas. Fracking is also the big tool out in the Permian Basin in Texas for oil, right? It just increases the production from a given well.

So it's just a tool to frack, to break up the soil, to break up the rock, and get more production out of a well.

So that's interesting that you say the demand is low, but yet we know that we're urging all our allies to lay off. To lay off the Russian gas and oil. But you say that we have not been able to pick up the pace to the point where. Uh you know, we're not close to capacity, right?

Well, supply and demand is all local.

So where is it produced? What does it take to ship it? And where is it going to be consumed? If you're in the U.S., that's easy. If you're in Europe, the only way to ship natural gas or what is called LNG, liquefied natural gas, high, high compression, very dangerous.

It's dangerous to build the plants. You build ships, have those big round spheres on them. And again, regulatory environment things. The big thing about regulations is it slows up. It slows capitalism.

What makes capitalism is I open a store, people come in, I sell. Very transactional, very quick. If they quit buying, I close the store or move someplace else. billions of dollars to build infrastructure to move natural gas. It's not cheap and it takes years.

Even without regulations, it takes years. But the regulatory burden against refining, against transporting, Fossil fuels. We just have had such a culture that somehow fossil fuels is evil, and windmills and, you know, I think it's changing, Gary. I think it's changing, don't you? It is.

Yeah, it is, definitely, quite a bit because, one, the cost factor. When you make somebody's electricity go up, price go up, then they're not so excited about windmills. But in Texas, we have so many windmills you can't even imagine. And it mostly was a tax ploy. They could get the money to invest in them.

They're all over West Texas. It's funny. You'd think you're in California. Yeah, I I hear that. But wind hasn't produced like it was supposed to produce.

Like we're looking at New Jersey and Long Island with all these windmills now offshore. And lastly, Gary, I understand. that for oil and gas produces fifty-four $54 per gallon per barrel is what you guys want. You don't want it to go too low. And obviously, Too high, it hurts too many.

So, what is the number? It's There's not an actual number. There is a range. I mean, if it drops back down into the 40s, then it's not profitable for big oil companies to produce and refine, right? Bring it out of the ground.

So they leave it sitting in the ground. Same as I have half my family are farmers, right? We've regulated farm production forever. They pay my uncles to not grow corn. They pay them to dump milk out, to not end up with too much production on the market.

We don't have that in oil and gas, right? Other than I went through a long time ago when oil and gas crashed from in the 40s down to $8 and $10 a barrel.

So, me and all the other people like me became unemployed. That lasted for a really long time.

So, the oil companies are not going to allow themselves to be put in that circumstance again.

So, you just kind of slow down production, speed it up. Right.

Um it yeah. Again, it's all relative. I mean, the price on gasoline goes up, goes down. As it dropped, some of the states, in my opinion, took advantage of it to just add into the taxes because they could keep the price where it was and benefit from getting taxes on it. Taxes are supposed to be road use.

That's not where the taxes go. Right.

We should look into that. We should ask people how much and the least person and the least person to blame is really the gas station owner. The previous administration was blaming the gas station owners. Gas station owner has no control over anything. I had an uncle had a gas station.

Price goes up. He has to pay whatever the market charges. But there's like six stages to get from the ground all the way to a gas station. And three of four of them are transportation, just moving the product through its stages.

So it's the long supply chain. Every segment of it causes the price to go up. All right, Gary, so great to have an expert to spell and give us the true story about what it takes to get energy in this country. Gary Bevers, thanks so much. President of Bevers and Company and Downstream Petroleum Solutions.

Thanks, Gary. Thank you, Brian. Nice to see you again. Yep, back in a moment. Don't go anywhere.

Brian Kilmead will be right back. A talk show that's real. This is the Brian Kill Me Show, sponsored by Previgen. Previgen made for your brain. What happened to the Democrats?

Why did they lose so many young men? People of often think I have the answer. My nutshell is Generally, they were very anti Normal guys. Like, if you. What do you mean, normal guys?

It's okay. Are you saying there's only one way to be a guy? If that girl's hot, hey, that girl's hot. I want a drink. I want a party.

I like frat parties. I like that. That was all bad. Like, and to be honest, it's the white guy, and this sounds, but. Was the bad guy, became the bad guy.

And there's a lot of white dudes. Who are like, well, I'm not the bad guy. Like, what are you getting mad at me for? I wasn't here for colonialism or any of the stuff that you guys are complaining about 200 years ago.

Well wh what did I do? Exactly.

What did you do? Nothing. And it is so funny. He's on with CBS and they're trying to jump on him there. I don't know this guy, Tony DeCoppol, but he's like, well, guys, only one way to be a guy.

Thinking to himself, I got a headline. I got a gender headline. But you're talking to a guy, he knows the only reason he's struggling saying that because he's not on barstool. That's Dave Portnoy. If he's on barstool, he knows exactly what to say.

But he's just trying to say it in a way for a broader audience to understand that guys like going to sporting events, a lot of times using curse words and seeing attractive girls and saying something out loud, respectfully, in the best way possible. Not to act like Neanderthals, but to act like guys. And people just would be quiet or they're ignoring it. And we had to pretend to be tolerant over the trans men issues going into women's locker rooms. And he's like, screw that.

And the whole country sobered up, and Barstool's standing strong. And in the meantime, he said, yeah, I'm done with that party. He goes, I'll never get into politics. He says, I'm watching people shooting each other. No, Charlie Kirk, President Trump.

Forget it, I'm not going to do it. Quick see quick note. I have another season, my 10th season of What Made America Great. I got five new episodes that just dropped. If you want to feel good about this country, know more about this country in 40-minute documentaries.

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