Is it time for the U.S. to ban social media for kids under 16?

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of any purchase of a hundred dollars or more. That's promo code BRIAN. Yeah. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City. Always seeking solutions, never sowing division.

It's Brian Killmead. Hi, everyone.

So glad you're there. Ready for an exciting Wednesday show. Rich Lowry will be here, National Review, bring us inside the Republican divide the Trump doctrine when it comes to Venezuela. You know, we're watching Jon Stewart, other Chuck Schumer come down and say this is Iraq again. Uh really, you can make that analogy.

Brett Baer is going to be with us shortly, and we'll be discussing all that.

Meanwhile, the President of the United States was out and about yesterday, acting in campaign mode, seemed to love it. Uh and before we get to Brett Baer, let's get to the big three. Number three. Take it out. It's about time for bed, okay?

Okay.

Well, remember. There's a box in the corner over there with all the pornographic material that's ever been made in the world. Even the really weird stuff that could scar you for life. I'm trusting you not to look in there, okay?

Okay.

Yeah, there's an ad about smartphones and the dangers of social media and the ban for kids. Is that coming to the United States of America? Do you want it? If Australia went ahead and did it, as Congress admits they failed to protect a generation of children, will they act? Number two.

It was a very unsatisfying briefing. I asked Secretary Heckseth Would he let every member of Congress see the unedited videos of the September 2nd strike? His answer, we have to study it. Yeah, Chuck Schumer trying to make the next Epstein files, Russia hoax, make it the double-tap strike of a drug boat. Venezuelan showdown, stare down, putting pressure on all sides as Dems demand to see a game plan, and Trump says Maduro's days are numbered.

Number one. I wonder what grade you would give. A plus. A plus. Yeah, A plus, plus, plus, plus, plus.

The word affordability. Prices are coming down substantially. It's been 10 months. It's amazing what we've done. President Trump is back on stage talking an economic game plan.

As numbers show, the public is impatient with his progress. Is this the path to turning it all around as he hones in on his message of Biden broke it? And I will fix it.

So, Brett Baird, you got your show in last night. It didn't look like you were going to get your whole show in. Were you surprised? Was the president running late? He was, yeah, they told us um Originally, they told us like 620 he was going to be there, and then we got worried about when he landed and ten minutes drive and before you knew it, it was the end of the show.

So we were planning on taking it live. Laura eventually did.

So his message sounded like this. I mean, basically, he was on the stump. And he was saying that he understands and he hears the people. Here's what he said in Pennsylvania last night: cut five. And I have no higher priority than making America affordable again.

That's what we're going to do. And again, they caused the high prices, and we're bringing them down. It's a simple message. If I had one message tonight, you know, this is being covered like all over the world. This is crazy.

Because I haven't made a speech in a little while. You know, when you win, when you win, you say, oh, I can now rest. No, you can't.

So far, the numbers are real clear. Politics say that he's got a 34.8% approval rating when it comes to the economy, when it comes to handling inflation. CBS poll says sixty percent of voters say Trump is describes the economic conditions as better than they really are, and thirty six percent are approving over the overall economy.

So these are numbers that are clearly correctable, and many things the President's doing is almost priming the pump For next year, that's this upcoming year. Uh Yeah, listen, I think that this is going to be a full court press all throughout the year. Whenever you see Susie Wiles out on television, it's a rare event. And she's saying we haven't told him yet, but he's going to be out on the stump a lot. And essentially, he's going to be on the ballot.

And that's different for a midterm. You know, I think the Federal Reserve today, Brian, is going to. It's probably going to cut rates, and maybe by a half point, they're looking at labor, not inflation. And having talked to people in that realm, They see a really big Q1, Q2. If if that happens.

It becomes a different story. It becomes like a. you know, i i the polls come back turn quickly if everybody is you know all boats are rising.

So I looked at some of these stats in the Wall Street Journal today. They say overall inflation is at 3%. Which they got to get it to two. It's close, but it's significant. They say if you have 2% unemployment, the number, the price of products doesn't double until 36 years.

If it's at 3%, it doubles in 24 years. Shelter costs overall, rents and mortgages up 3.6%. Insurance costs on average up 8%. Average electricity cost up 11%.

So this is some of the things that people are feeling on a daily basis. They say, for example, coffee, $9.14 a pound. It was $6.47 last year.

So that the president's took action on already. And beef, $664 a pound, up 12% from a year ago.

So those are the numbers I think the president has to see that he knows it isn't spin.

So those numbers are hard numbers.

So I think he's going to be out there telling the story. Do you think this is going to be a weekly thing? I don't know if it's weekly, but it's definitely every other week he'll be out in some swing state or some important state telling the story. And those rallies get a lot of attention. They get a lot of people.

They get a lot of eyeballs. And You know, I think he's going to do it. And at 79, you know, uh Under a barrage of stories about his health and questions about it. That's another reason that I bet they put him out there, which is really something. Affordability is big, right?

And both sides agree on that.

Now, the question is: when Trump was saying hoax, it was because he feels the Democrats caused it. They have no plan to fix it, but they want to blame him for it. That's why he was using the term hoax. I think it was misinterpreted, just because I think we all understand as a country Trump speak a little bit better. But the one thing that I don't think they can afford to ignore, in my humble opinion, is the rise of health care costs because of the subsidies evaporating.

There's got to be some addressing of it. Both leaders are trying to get something done, I think. Uh before Christmas, here's Thune and Schumer yesterday, cut twenty-two.

So there will be something out there that Republicans will be able to talk about and support and vote for, and then we'll see. I do know that we want this issue of affordability to be front and center. Their plan is a non-starter. They even know it themselves. Their plan would allow the tax credits to expire.

It's not when he's saying the tax credits. When you talk about the subsidies, I know you got Bill Cassidy working across the aisle talking about health care, putting it to health care accounts. You have the Problem Solvers Caucus saying one year extension on these subsidies while they wait to get things done and crack down on eligibility and fraud. Do you hear any plan getting momentum? You know, I think that the the crepo Cassidy plan has some steam on the Republican side.

The president talked about it last night on Air Force One. It's. It uses health savings accounts. It's empowers people to make the choices. The the problem is is that, you know, there is this effort to by the Democrats to just extend for three years no changes.

And this is an environment where we're dealing with You know, massive fraud investigations in Minnesota. And I'm told that that's just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, there are many other states. Where that's going to happen. And I think you're going to have Mehmet Oz and others come out and say, here's what we're finding.

And We're talking billions and billions of dollars. There's not an acknowledgment of that on the Democratic side. And I think the Republicans are saying we have to do something yet. We we have to address this fraud.

So just switching over to Venezuela because it's another hot topic. The President of the United States was asked by Politico yesterday about Maduro, Nicolas Maduro and how and what's happening with this standoff, CUP twenty five.

So how far would you go to take Maduro out of office? I don't want to say that, but uh But you want to see him out? His days are numbered.

So that's the key. I mean, what's going to stop this stare-down standoff? He looks like he's surrounding himself with Cuban special forces or whatever they are, and he's moving his bed every day. He doesn't do any scheduled appearances. But he's confident that he can outlast Trump.

So the CIA is on the ground. This is going to be interesting because if Maduro stays in power, he can honestly say he won. Yeah, I think this is a dangerous thing to keep on saying that we're going in. and not go in. You know what I mean?

This is echoes of Barack Obama when he said Bashra al-Assad's days are numbered. You know, he didn't say that the days. Numbered were like 2,750. You know, I mean, he the You can't keep saying that you're going to take out the dictator. and then not take out the dictator.

So, I do think that the pressure is building. I do think that there's a possibility that Maduro takes the golden parachute. You can't keep teasing action. and not have action. I'm not advocating for action one way or another.

I'm just saying that historically, the person who survives that actually has the upper hand. We do know that yesterday our F-16s breached their airspace for consider for about 30 minutes.

So that does show a slight escalation. And they're already evidently looking at different drug sites. That they would take action on because they say that drugs, they look at these drug cartels as terrorists, so they declare them that way.

So maybe I'll take action there. But you do have some Republicans expressing concern, like Roger Wicker, of course, Rand Paul, when is he not, going against the President these days? And others saying we kind of, Josh Hawley, kind of need to know what's going on. Yeah. And I think that there's growing concern about what the plan is.

With that much firepower in one place, you know, the possibilities of escalation increase. I think that I did talk to somebody the other day with knowledge who said all of this stuff about the boats Is noise because the intel that they have about the people and the material. on those boats. Is exquisite. That's what I was told.

It's like, you know, the person, their family. How tied they are to the cartel, exactly, like really detailed. And I'd like to believe that's true, and that's what I was told. I heard they had their 13th briefing yesterday, and of course Chuck Schumer came out and said it wasn't good enough. We kind of expected that.

They're trying to jump on the double-tap hit and make that the new Epstein files. Have you noticed? Need the video. Yeah, because they don't want to put it out, or, you know, it's something that's not going to happen. I think eventually it's going to happen.

And, you know, listen to. Tom Cotton's take on the video and Chris Coons' take on the video. I mean, it's night and day. We've talked about this last week. I think it was.

You know, Cotton looks at that as Dealing with an enemy that was trying to turn over the boat and save the the cargo. And Coons looks at it completely differently. All right, Brett, go out and pick up Brett's book. It is still available, bestseller, Teddy Roosevelt and the Birth of a Superpower. It is to rescue the American Spirit.

Go grab it now. Brett, thanks so much. Always appreciate it. Have a good one. Check out his show tonight at 6 o'clock and see him all over the channel.

Rich Lowry at the bottom of the air. We come back. Your calls are 1-866-408-7669. Much more to discuss, including the president coming out saying interesting things about Ukraine. You'll be surprised.

Don't move. Giving you everything you need to know. You're with Brian Kilmead. Every day, America's first responders stand ready. Firefighters, law enforcement, paramedics, doctors, dispatchers, and people who put themselves on the line for public safety.

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FirstNet, built with ATT. Learn more on FirstNet.com slash publicsafety first. Uh A radio show like no other. It's Brian Killmead. Nate and I have the talk of the table today about a guy who everybody's been whispering about in our hallways, in and out of the building.

Whispering, Gil, you've been yelling. Coming in and saying, anyone have news? Anyone have news? Talking about it online. Yeah, tag me in, Gil.

Tag me in. All right, cool.

So we're in a unique position to clear up some rumors about him. That's right, this guy right here. Can we cue that music up again? That's right, moving on up. Tony DeCoppol, or as open, Tony Barone is moving from the table to the desk as the new anchor of CBS Evening News.

Congratulations! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So that Barry Weiss putting her mark on the network and Tony DeCoppol, he does a good job.

He seems, I only see him in clitz because I'm working at the same time, but he seems to do a really good job in the morning, right? Yeah, he's definitely solid. I just feel like at this point, I know it's such an institution like the CBS Evening News, but I feel like it's a career killer. Who's been there more than two years and has been successful?

Well, let's think about it. Nora O'Donnell's gone. Scott Pelly. Yeah. Scott Pelly didn't do well.

Back in the day, Katie Kirk moved over there. It was a big deal. What about the dual anchors? One guy just disappeared. Evidently, he just said like on a Friday, he just didn't show up the next day.

How do you leave that? Can you imagine Dan Rowler going, where's Dan? Oh, he left. They said. They said Maurice didn't surprise them, but who knows?

But yeah, I mean, it is that they are trying to change, you know, their new slants and whatnot.

So you know what? But judging by her. Uh you know why he got it? But Barry Weiss, you're saying? Yeah, why judging by her?

Because he pushes back.

Sometimes he will, yes. I don't know all the time, but the things that make the vi go viral. Who was the author? It was on Black Nationalist author. And he pushed back on that.

And he pushed back on his views on Jewish. And then CBS got a lot of backlash because They were like, How dare Tony do that?

So. Yeah. Which is good. I think there was another time too.

So that's what he that's there was another time I don't remember off the top of my head.

So I guess, but and it's just amazing how many I watched uh Connie Chung on another podcast. And she says what they're doing to CBS and their reputation and Reputation. They got the last place morning show. They have not been good on they have not been strong on uh of in the evening news for 25 years. Yeah.

You know, for 20 since Dan Rather left and he wasn't in first place when he left. I believe Peter Jennings was in first. When you knew those three talk show hosts, you knew those three anchors. Everybody knew the three anchors. Uh Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings.

And Dan Rather. You had them forever there in a competition. For the biggest guests at all times at presence.

Now it's rotated so much, it's no longer the institution. Completely. But the media landscape has changed so much, too. I mean, you can get your news everywhere and you don't need to turn on the evening news. But they're still getting, like, you know, I saw ABC, Bill Muir, still getting between seven and eight million.

Which is solid.

Well, yeah, which is, I mean, these get changed. Not what it used to be, but yeah. Right. But like the Tonight Show doesn't get 8 million. Like they used to get maybe 6.

Maybe Carson left it $5 million, but they don't get that anymore. I mean, they get a one, one, five, or whatever. It will be interesting how it all evolves, I will say that. But yeah, I mean, do I think I'm going to turn it on to check it out? Maybe, but it's not going to be like scheduled programming.

I mean, the question is, is Barry Weiss gonna make herself the face of the network?

Well, I mean, that's what people write about, saying like it's but she's also still with the free press.

So I think she's actually doing something with Erica Kirk. Um, and they were saying it's it's very Did an interview, right? Yeah, and it's gonna be like I think it's tomorrow, or maybe it's getting published tomorrow, but a big like she's being the face of it, and usually someone with her role is now behind the scenes. Real quick on the on the Warner Brothers merger, uh, with uh possibly going to Netflix or to Paramount. Uh, to Paramount.

It looks like It's uh Oracle is the Oracle founder is extremely tight. With the president of the United States. And one thing they're saying that, hey, if this merger goes through, They'll get CNN and they'll get rid of all the terrible anchors.

So, I hope that's not true because the president has to excuse himself if that is indeed true. Agreed. Because, you know, as a business. You know, are you taking too much of the market share? Is it good for the economy?

Should be the focus. But that is their opinions on something. But CNN seems just by an afterthought. No one seems to care where that goes. Correct.

Yeah, neither do I. It depends on the show, but yes. Yes. Back in a moment. With the holidays coming, that means more gift buying and more deliveries to the front door.

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It's Brian Killmead. I wonder what grade you would give. A plus. A plus. Yeah, A plus plus plus plus plus.

The word affordability. I inherited a mess. I inherited a total mess. Prices were at an all-time high when I came in. Prices are coming down substantially.

It's been 10 months. It's amazing what we've done. So the President of the United States says that. He's not saying the economy is an A plus plus, but he's saying what he did is an A plus plus. Why?

Because he's done some massive drilling, right? He's doing natural gas, trying to upgrade that production, also becoming the number one supplier over to Europe. You see what he's doing in terms of pipelines, trying to get those queued up.

So when it comes to energy, and then when he comes to deregulation, he's making progress. But all this is akin to priming the pump. It doesn't really produce instant results. Much of this stuff has not been felt because you're not going to feel until you get your taxes back at the end and get more. Of a refund.

You're not going to feel it until no tax on tips and no tax on overtime. The average blue-collar worker really benefits from that. And you saw some examples last night. But they want to spin it. Many people want to spin it that the president thinks the economy is an A.

But I think he gets it. The message last night was pretty clear. Uh The economy is a mess, and I'm trying to fix it. As opposed to it's fine. And it's all a hoax.

Rich Lowry joins us now, winner of Nash Review. Rich, how effective was step one in pushing back against Donald Trump's ruining the economy?

Well, I think this is the message they have to have, and there's a lot of truth to it. They inherited a mess and they're trying to clean it up, and the battleship doesn't turn instantly. But before the President got more on this message, Scott Besant and J.D. Vance were saying this.

So I think it's the right thing to say. Just the question is whether Bessant is right that people will be feeling it, feeling the difference, the positive difference next year or not. If they do, that'll help. A lot politically, at least you hope so. If they don't, it's going to be really bad.

And it's just not good, Brian, that on the economy, Trump's ratings are the lowest they've ever been. This is a signature issue, something he prides himself on. And that's a flashing red light for the midterms.

So, the real clear average on the economy is approval when it comes to inflation is 34% approval on inflation, 62% disapprove. CBS did a poll. They found that 60% of voters say Trump describes economic conditions better than they are. 36% approve on the economy, according to CBS.

So that's roughly where he is. But my analogy is: imagine if the Buffalo Bills open up the first six weeks of the season and they were ranked maybe the 25th offense. You know, you have a healthy Josh Allen. They're going to turn it around. It's just a matter of when, unless there's a bunch of injuries.

And I would say injuries are akin to a natural disaster or an economic, you know, or a pandemic type thing.

So I just think that Trump looks at that and goes, you really want you, you know, if you, that is my strength.

So, if you want me on my strength and the ratings are low, I'm not saying the numbers are lying, I'll be there in the end for you. And the Bills are certainly going to make the playoffs, unlike the Chiefs. Yeah, I think the problem Trump has is inflation is down. But that's not really what people aren't Tracking the inflation rate every month, right? They're tracking what prices are, and prices are up because inflation accumulates over time.

And it's what the economists call the nominal price that matters. The price of bacon is higher than it was three years ago when you go to the grocery store.

So that's what people feel. They don't feel that it's a 3% inflation rate or whatever it is instead of 8%. It's just what the actual price is.

So it's a little bit like the problem with the Josh Allen analogy, I think, is if the bills were 0-17 last year, right, and are showing progress this year, but you had a cumulative record that took account of last year, even though you didn't have nothing to do with this year, that's where Trump is. But the Biden thing still weighs on him because people feel the Biden effect on those prices.

So again, timing is huge. What the actual conditions are is huge because on this issue, Brian, I don't think it really matters that much what you say. It's how people feel it. And that's what's going to tell. On the election.

So here is his interview with Politico when he was asked about tariffs because he is reducing tariffs to get certain prices down on coffee and fruit. Cut nine. Would you consider more carve-outs on other goods that Americans find too expensive?

Well, some carve-outs, you mean from tariffs? From tariffs, yeah, like coffee, like bananas. I've done that already with coffee. They're very small carve-outs. It's not a big deal.

So would you rule out reducing tariffs on any more goods? On some, and on some I'll increase tariffs.

So what do you think the tariffs, what's their role in in this whole economic system? Two things. One, it has a political, psychological effect in that usually you come in, you can say, here's my tax bill. Congress is going to pass it in a couple of months, hopefully, and then it takes effect next year.

So just wait. And they're saying that to some extent. But on the tariffs, it was instantaneous. It's like I just posted on Truth Social a week from now, tariffs are going up.

So it was a way of kind of taking ownership of the economy instantly.

So I think when Trump, of all people, Given his big persona, given how much he's done, how hyperactive he is, when he says, I need more time. I think people tend to say, wait a minute, we thought you were in charge. We thought you were already doing everything.

Well, I think that's a little bit of a problem. And then also, it pushes upward on prices, certainly on certain products, or they wouldn't have lifted those coffee and food tariffs.

So I think that's a problem. I would have done the tax bill first and then done tariffs in a more measured way, but he's a big believer in tariffs and loves them. And I think at the margins, it's hurt him.

Well, a couple of things. A lot of it's used as leverage to get people's attention. You know, fentanyl in China, for example, the border in Mexico, and the USMCA, you know. We have to update it anyway. It doesn't matter if the president was for tariffs or not.

They have to update it.

So, the one thing you could do is start bringing some of these trade deals in with Canada and Mexico. Get it done. And that's one thing I would say. What I hear a lot is we trade so much North and South. that if you just gave people certainty That would juice the economy in a major way, in a macro way.

Yeah. So the irony here is that the sector that hates the tariffs the most is the manufacturing sector, because there's certain elements of industry in the US that likes the tariffs. They're great for this domestic steel industry. They've raised prices. But for everyone else, 50% of the stuff that comes in here that we're tariffing is inputs into build other stuff, make other stuff in the United States.

So yes, you might get some reshoring over time, but the immediate effect is making everything to manufacturers more expensive, which they hate. No doubt about it. Let's talk about where we're going with Venezuela. Here's the President yesterday, Cut 24. Could we see American troops on the ground in Venezuela?

I don't comment on that. I wouldn't say that one way or the other. I can say this: that he sent us millions of people. Many from prisons, many drug dealers and drug lords. Uh mental institution, people in mental institutions.

So and he went on to say, and I got to say that, but they did have our fighter jets breach the airspace for thirty minutes yesterday, blew up I think we had eighty dead and multiple I think we're in the twenties now in terms of boats have been blown up.

So, a lot of Republicans get nervous about where this is heading. I would love for Venezuela to be out. There would be a communist plug to pull out of there that the ripple effect could really benefit America, especially when it comes to Cuba and other socialist regimes in the area. The influence of China, Russia, and Iran is clear. Hezbollah in the region, all that could begin to dissipate with the rightful leader of that country who legitimately won an election.

Yeah, it'd be great if he could go. We've talked about this before. It'd be great if Trump could just kind of force him out, intimidate him out. I don't think that's going to happen just because usually you're one of these dictators and you leave your you leave the country and you end up dead or in jail. And the other thing is that look at Assad.

Assad's living a fine life. Yeah, but do you really want to live in Russia if you're a non-Russian speaker? You'd prefer to be there.

So I'm just not sure he's going to be intimidated out. And then I don't know. I go back and forth. We've talked about this, too, about whether Trump's really going to pull the trigger militarily if that's what it takes. Certainly, everything he said is the kind of thing he would say if he is going to pull the trigger.

But then again, that's what he wants Maduro to think, right?

So I just don't know. Here's why I'm convinced. There's a legitimate end game. Radcliffe is involved, and Rubio. Two of the most respected people who are experienced, understand Congress, understand inpatience, understand things that might have gone wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan and other situations.

Libya, for example, they've seen it.

So they're not ideologues who just have a mission statement, but they do know the practicality of it. And the fact that Rubio pushed Grinnell out in order to be more aggressive to get Maduro out makes me feel that the right people are in charge. And Rubio is a real has been a hawk on this issue for a very long time. And this is something I think that's great about the national security document, the whole idea of reviving the Monroe Doctrine. And this is just scandalous.

We've let China, Russia, Hezbollah have so much influence in our backyard. And if Maduro went and you had something better replacing him, now you always get to say that's an if, but I think there'd be pretty good odds. And you get that Russian and Chinese influence and Iranian influence out of there, that's fantastic for us and for the region and for Venezuela. A couple of things. Rich Larry, our guest, national review.

So, Rich, let's go to Ukraine where the President's losing patience with Ukraine. I'm amazed he's not more critical of Vladimir Putin, a little more than disappointed with this. Cut 46. Is Zelensky responsible for the stalled progress, or what's going on there?

Well, he's got to read the proposal. He hadn't written, really, he hasn't read it. The most recent draft. That's as of yesterday. Maybe he's read it over the night.

It would be nice if we would read it. You know, a lot of people are dying, so it would be really good if he'd read it. His people loved the proposal, they really liked it. Lieutenants, his top people, they liked it. But they said he hasn't read it yet.

I think he should find time to read it.

So they are having productive meetings in Miami, but it looks like I don't know in any way the Russians have shown any. Interest in ending this. They just say some things that the European deal is bad and they're trying to poison any type of deal, but the Russians have done nothing. Yeah, so long as they're gaining on the battlefield and so long as they think if there's no peace, Ukraine might get blamed by Trump and Trump might constrain our aid or cut it off. They have every incentive to keep going.

And unfortunately, I just think that's the dynamic until Trump changes the game on them, and I'm not sure he's going to. Your thoughts about the Europeans running their own parallel peace process.

Well, you know, they're frustrated by what we're doing. It's just they don't have the cards to play, right? If we don't go along with it, it's not happening.

So I understand why they're doing it, but it's a dead end, I believe.

So your thoughts about the President of the United States saying Zelensky should really have elections? And he said, all right, I'll have them. You know, constitutionally, during a war, they're not supposed to have them. But he goes, all right, I'll have them. I think it'd be good to have elections.

We had elections during the Civil War. I know their constitution is different, but and they fear Russian interference in the election. That's something different than our election during the Civil War. We weren't worried about the British or someone putting a thumb on the scale the way the Russians will try to in this case. But I think it's just a very good look for Ukraine, actually, to have elections.

Go ahead. I think he'll do fine. Bottom line is: Parliament has to pass any peace proposal. And giving up the rest of the Donbass region, that 30% is still in play and it's well fortified. They've been trying to take it since 2018.

Why give it to him? Yeah, I don't understand why you just don't take the map, you draw the line, right down the line of current conflict, current contact, and that's it. It just seems very easy. But if you're Russia, why wouldn't you? If you think you can get it all, why wouldn't you?

And this is really defensible territory that Ukraine has built up over time. If you can take that and prepare for the third bite at the apple years from now, why wouldn't you? But we have to convince them they're just not going to get it. And we haven't yet. Right.

There's a couple of things that are still going. I mean, Gaza obviously is making incremental progress. We have not seen a flare-up. That's a major victory for the President to get to this point. And this would be the next one.

We're down to 19 points, but I just have not seen Russia play ball at all. And I don't think they're a living - I mean, $7,000 a week in winning?

Okay.

So we'll see. I would love for us to deliver Tomahawks and more Patriots and say, hey, you know what? They're going to use them. If we don't see some progress, Russia, in the last next two weeks, They paid for them. They're going to be able to use 'em.

So that means Moscow will be targeted. Right. Yeah. No, totally agree. But the problem is every day Ukraine's getting wrecked a little bit more.

So that's why I think they need a peace deal, but it has to be an acceptable one that they can sell to their own public, which is going to be difficult in any circumstance, but certainly selling this could result in a revolution. And I'm costing my next segment, but real quick, how bad do you think the divide on the right? With the extreme podcast comments and those people getting clicks as opposed to Trump MAGA people, traditional MAGA people or conservatives. How bad is the divide in the right compared to the socialists? uh moderate liberals on the left.

Yes, that's a great question. I think it's bad and it's meaningful, but what you have going on on the left is resulting in candidates being nominated who aren't good fits for various places, right? Probably Jasmine Crockett down in Texas.

So we're not nominating anti-Semitic or anti-Semitic adjacent Republican candidates.

So that hasn't happened. And Trump just. He's a huge factor for the coherence of MAGA. Everyone always says, Oh, MAGA's splitting up, or there's a huge divide. There is a divide, but Trump ultimately is what everyone supports and gets around.

What he says ultimately goes. I think when he is exiting the stage, that's when these divides really could be meaningful. You're right. With JD probably representing. Yeah, please.

I guess the MAGA crowd, and then what happens after that. Rich Lowry, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thanks, Brian. All right, and have a great holiday.

We'll talk to you next week. Back in a moment. I'll have some calls at the other half of the hour and get some emails. BrianKillmee.com. Both sides, all opinions.

It's Brian Killmead. Hi, everyone.

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That's promo code BRIAN. Um If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead. Paramount's proposal is superior across every dimension. We're proposing a full company acquisition, not a cartup.

The Netflix deal leaves shareholders with a highly levered, declining global network stub. creating value uncertainty for value. Our offer is $30 a share, all cash. six dollars and seventy five cents more per share.

So the Oracle Hostel? Offer Comes in higher Then Warner Brothers. Excuse me, our four Warner Brothers. Then Paramount. Mm-hmm.

Excuse me, then Netflix.

So here we go. Game on. We'll see what happens. Usually presidents don't really weigh in on this. We'll see if this one actually is going to go.

Through on that. Real quick, when it comes to politics, a lot of people understand that the ratings are rising with Gavin Newsom, but the people that know him are getting to panic because people think he does a good job because he looks the part. Lorenzo Lamas, not Haley Berry last week, and now Lorenzo Lamas this week. Listen, cut 44. A President Newsom, God forbid.

I mean, you have to look at the state of California. Do the voters out there in our wonderful, beautiful nation wanna wanna elect a person who's failed the state of California so pitifully? I hope not. I hope not too. But his ratings went up about seven to ten points since he started taking on Trump.

The other story yesterday is the Miami mayor's race. For the first time in thirty years, a Democrat won as mayor of Miami. Yes, you see someone is moderate. Yes, she was known as moderate, and she did have her district was in Little Havana. But to trounce a Republican in that area, I think you put it to immigration.

And I think not the border. Everyone backs the border. The president got elected after reinforcing the border and talking about the need to stop illegal immigration. But I think the way it's being done and portrayed in these city streets. Not getting after the worst of the worst, but going beyond that.

That's how it's being interpreted in the Hispanic community. That to me is a warning sign. Do you think so? People say, well, it's really apolitical in Miami. I don't know.

Was it apolitical when every Republican won for three decades? No one said that. They just said: look at how Republicans are winning over in Miami. That's all. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show.

Brian Kilmead. Hi, everyone.

So glad you're here. I'm at 48th and 6th in Midtown Manhattan, where we are waiting for Zora Mandani to take over and ruin the place. Anyone who thought that he might not be as bad as you thought? If you have some moments, just Google his transition team. It's pretty terrible.

Bottom of the hour, we're going to talk a little soccer, World Cup soccer, Alexi Lawis, Fox Sports soccer analyst, and Congressman Andy Barr in about 15 minutes. He's chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions, Foreign Affairs Committee, House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. and China, especially. China's got evidently still have a huge trade, we have still have a huge trade deficit to them, and they're beginning to flood everyone with their manufacturing because those billion people are not buying anything. They're so scared they're, I guess, they have no safety net.

They're not investing in their own country.

So let's get to the big three. Uh Number three. Hey, kiddo, it's about time for bed, okay?

Okay.

Well, remember. There's a box in the corner over there with all the pornographic material that's ever been made in the world. Even the really weird stuff that could scar you for life. I'm trusting you not to look in there, okay?

Okay.

Right, that's an ad talking about the dangers of obviously smartphone use and social media ban for kids. Is that coming? Do you want that to happen? Australia has it, they went ahead and did it. Everybody, 16 and under, no kid in Australia can use that.

Doesn't matter what the parents want. Do you want that here? 1-866-408-7669. Number two. I asked Secretary Hickseth.

Would he let every member of Congress see the unedited videos of the September 2nd strike. His answer, we have to study it. Chuck Schumer, pretending as if it matters. Venezuela's showdown, stare down, putting pressure on all sides as Dems demand to see a game plan, and Trump says Maduro's days are numbered. Number one.

I wonder what grade you would give A. A plus. Yeah, A plus plus plus plus plus. The word affordability. Prices are coming down substantially.

It's been 10 months. It's amazing what we've done. President Trump is back on stage talking economic gains and game plans. As the numbers show, the public is impatient with progress or lack thereof. Is this the path to turning it all around as he hones his message?

Uh and it essentially is this. Biden broke it. I'm trying to fix it. And that's what he was saying last night for over two hours.

Now I flipped around. I think people initially started with it. We're the only ones to stick with it. It basically plowed through almost all of Jesse's show and most of the Ingram angle. He was President Trump yesterday.

On stage talking about what his priorities are, Cut Five. And I have no higher priority than making America affordable again. That's what we're going to do. And again, they caused the high prices and we're bringing them down. It's a simple message.

If I had one message tonight, you know, this is being covered like all over the world. This is crazy because I haven't made a speech in a little while. You know, when you win, when you win, you say, oh, I can now rest. Right. So he went on.

He had a big message. He had people come up, a waitress come up and talk about how great it's going to be, no taxes on tips. And then he had somebody talk about overtime. A blue-collar worker came up and said what great it is, not going to get taxed on overtime. And then people and businesses are going to get big rebates when it comes to they build manufacturing plants.

They're going to get a tax rebate retroactive back to the Biden years.

So they feel this thing could really turn around the first two quarters of next year. But listen to David Axelrod: a word of caution on CNN, cut three.

Well I'll tell you what, if I were his Advisors, his political advisors, the people who actually go out and poll and do this, I would be cringing watching this whole day unfold because this was an exercise in denial. You know what is plus, plus, plus, plus, plus? That's people looking at their bills. That's how they feel. You cannot jawbone people into feeling what their life experience is telling them isn't true.

See, a couple of things. He says, How am I doing on the economy, A, the things he is doing economically? A plus plus. He didn't say the economy. is A plus Plus.

What he's trying to do is get the drilling down, get the regulations down, start cutting international trade deals, start rebalancing our trade relationships, bringing in tariff revenue. But he's not saying What he was saying last week, and I think inartfully, Saying this whole thing, affordability, is a hoax. It's a hoax because the Democrats are pretending like they didn't cause it.

So I can't agree with that. But his polls show he's about 35% approval on the economy. But he's so strong economically with his knowledge and his team. I think it's almost as if you got off. I love my analogy.

You got off the season. You have a high-powered offense like the Buffalo Bills have, Josh Allen. Let's say he opens up one and four and he's the 20th ranked team offense. If the whole team's healthy and they're just off to a bad start, don't worry, they're coming back. And I think that's what the President's doing, installing a new offense for twenty twenty six.

And if it doesn't, it doesn't matter what he says on the stump, it doesn't matter what David Axelrod says in the studio. People won't respond. But things begin to turn around. They go, Yeah, that's what I remember. You know, a guy going about to try to turn things around instead of flooding the zone with green energy.

Infrastructure about green energy and renewables, and about just giving money to people, many of which you have to add toner to the printer to get it out.

So that's a little of it.

So lawmakers are going back and forth about Trump. Not knowing or not paying attention to what's happening. But yesterday was all about. him understanding, people understanding that my foreign trips Everything I'm doing. You know, the peace is one thing, but if I could stop spending on these wars, if I could stop having to arm Ukraine and the Israelis, we could start focusing here.

Also, when he travels abroad, People were saying, you know, he should be home. Like Marjorie Taylor Greene on 60 Minutes. He wanted to make it clear exactly what happened on those trips. Cut eight. If somebody complained that I was making a foreign trip, I went to Saudi Arabia.

Guitar. NUAE. I brought back four trillion dollars. They said, he shouldn't be traveling. He should focus on home.

What the hell do you think I'm doing? And 250 Boeing jets. I brought back so much everything. Then they say, he should, you know, the stupid people, they say, he shouldn't be leaving our country. Yeah, let's sit around and twiddle our thumbs.

It's uh no, it's sorta crazy, right?

So, this is what the President is saying is so important, but I'd go to the next step.

So, with that money, where is it?

Well, it's going to go into data centers, let's say, in Baton Rouge. I go to Baton Rouge. Is there anything to see there? Yes, they're framing out the data center. Anything to free?

Yes, they're interviewing people, plumbers and pipe fitters and electricians, and they're those are people going to be hired right away and they got to start in about three weeks.

Okay, go there. The other thing is you did, Mr. President, you shut down the border.

Now we don't see it at all. Even our guys, we've pulled Bill Melusia, we put him in Washington. There's nothing to do.

So we put him in Washington. It was an elevation, so maybe that's something to do with it. But we have nobody replacing him because nothing's happening. Mr. President, you go down there.

You talk to Border Patrol. You got to see this new wall that's being built, hammered in. Let's see the electronics involved in it. Most people are going to cover that. The trip down there, you're going to have a huge press corps.

You get out, you look at that wall, you talk to different people, you talk to people in the border communities. Any enterprising reporter in somewhat of a fair institution, you know, like the Daily Mail or the Daily Wire or Or the free press. Along with Fox. Anybody who does that trip would say, Okay, let me just go into Let me go into some of these cities. In Arizona.

Let me go check out some of these cities in Texas. Let's see how they feel. If they feel additional security in the towns, are they no longer concerned about crime? What is it like?

So he's going to be out there, but I would also put him out in smaller venues, not just in big settings. Susie Wiles did a rare interview, and she talked about what the President's going to be doing this year, Cut 14.

So many of those low propensity voters are Trump voters. Yes, they are. And we saw a week ago Tuesday what happens when he's not on the ballot and not active.

So I haven't quite broken it to him yet, but he's going to campaign like it's 2024 again. He's certainly a turnout machine. Yeah, and he's going to show up and he's going to do it. And I think with the everyday people that hop behind the microphone, it's going to be key.

So we'll see. Blaming President Biden is not really going to be that effective these days, but pointing out the different policies. I would never even say the name Joe Biden again. I really don't. You know, the president just had such President Biden had such disdain for Trump, he never mentioned his name.

But everybody knew he was bigger and more popular than Joe Biden ever was. But now that he's in there making decisions, it just brings people back down to a time when you really had somebody invisible in the Oval Office and the president is so dramatically different Than his approach, I would not even bring it up. Till JD and Marco Rubio and Yunkin and all these guys get on the stump and want to plead their p uh put their case out there. put their case out there to be the next president.

So and we'll talk more about that. When we come back, I want to save some time for Congressman Andy Barr. I got to talk about the NVIDIA selling these high end chips to China. I'm not for it. And China's reaction to it is bizarre.

And then number two is I want to talk about even should these shiny students, 600,000 be allowed into our school? I'm not happy with 200,000. Why would we go up that much? Brian Kilmicho. It's Brian Kilmade.

Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. Hey, we are back everybody and I'd like to bring in Congressman Andy Barr. He's the chair of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions, Foreign Affairs Committee, House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. and Chinese Communist Party.

Congressman, first off, before we talk about those things, let's tap into your foreign affairs. Where do you think we're heading in Venezuela?

Well, Brian, good to be with you. Look, you know, the president did the right thing in designating these narco-terrorist groups, these cartels, as foreign terrorist organizations. We have been inundated over the last number of years with the open borders policy of deadly narcotics that have killed literally a generation of Americans. The number one cause of death of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 years old, these synthetic opioids. And so the president is recognizing this a public health and national security challenge.

And so he's getting tough, not only on China and terrorists and cartels in Mexico and in Central America, but also in Venezuela, the source of a lot of these drugs.

So, having said that, if Maduro stays, he's going to come out stronger or be under the perception that he withstood. uh be the pressure from fifteen percent of our Of our military. And we yesterday, I know we had some fighter jets breach his airspace. But don't you think we gotta find a way to get him out of there?

Well, regime change would be ultimately a step in the right direction, positive, but I think that the number one national security and public health objective is to prevent the continuous flow of these deadly narcotics into our country, to interdict these vessels that continue to try and defy American military deterrence and send these drugs into our country. It's about time that we had a president. like President Trump, who takes this Threat from these cartels and from Venezuela seriously, and I'm glad he's doing it.

So, when critics say, And to be candid, I'm not one of them, that this is going to be Oglivia and Iraq a lot more difficult than people say. Do you see a difference? Between this and Iraq, and operation, like what Barack Obama did in Libya. Yeah, I mean, I don't look, I think what I understand from the administration is the objective is to stop these drug runners. And to stop the flow of illegal narcotics into our country.

That is in the national security interest of the United States in protecting the American people. Regime change? What would be positive for the people of Venezuela, but that is not the primary objective, as I understand the administration's policy. Should it be, though? I mean, when you talk about a country that's sustaining Cuba, that plays, allows Hezbollah, Iran, China, and Russia to run wild in its country, which is counter to us.

Should we not be pushing for Maduro to get out because he lost an election 70-30 and he just sits there? No doubt a bad actor in every respect and certainly an ally of our adversaries.

So look, I think we should bring to bear all of the tools in the toolbox, the diplomatic toolbox, whether it comes to sanctions. And we do have sanctions on Maduro. Uh Look, Venezuela is a very oil-rich country, and American investment into Venezuela would actually be a good thing to counter China. But ultimately, the United States will benefit greater in the long run if there is a change in leadership there. The question is whether or not we want to actually intervene to that extent.

And I don't think that is the administration's policy. We'll set up a trade deal with that. Maximum pressure on Maduro and preventing these deadly drugs into our country, I think, is the right policy. Yeah, we sent him to Turkey for a leader to be named later. How about that?

Let's talk about the UR pushing for on the verge of delivering the strongest China sanctions law in history and codifying President Trump's America First Investment Policy into law. Talk about that. Yeah, so in the National Defense Authorization Act, we are codifying President Trump's America First Investment Policy. Unfortunately, Americans have been unwittingly financing the Chinese military-industrial complex billions and billions of dollars annually through U.S. index funds, other passive investments, and then more direct investments like venture capital and private equity flowing into Chinese entities and technologies of national security concern.

We are addressing this problem. We've given the Chinese access to our capital markets, the deepest, most liquid capital markets in the world. And that has actually helped finance the civil-military fusion and the surveillance state in China. We should not be giving the Chinese the rope to hang us. We need to protect American investors and we need to stop the flow of capital into China in ways that threaten our national security.

So that's what the bill does that's included in the NDAA. It has three basic components. Number one, it authorizes the Treasury Department to impose tough sanctions on these Chinese military-industrial complex companies. Number two, it puts in place some significant restrictions. On US investment into technologies of concern like artificial intelligence, hypersonics, microelectronics, semiconductors.

artificial intelligence that could be militarized. And then the third thing it does is it requires a periodic review. by the US government. Yeah. These Chinese entities, and whether or not they should be added to these sanctions lists.

There's a lot of different lists across the the government, from the Commerce Department to the Defense Department to the Treasury. We want to make sure that we're harmonizing that list as much as possible and making sure that we're targeting Those Chinese military surveillance companies that threaten our national security. Two things to cover yet. Real quick, should we be allowing NVIDIA to sell the top-level chips to China?

Well, the one thing that is not getting as much coverage in the media is the important national security screening that will happen as a prerequisite to the sale of those very Very sophisticated chips.

So that is a very important kind of condition, a precondition to the sale of those chips. But there's no question about it. We, just like we need to screen outbound capital flows into China, we need to be very careful with and implementing export controls on these very sensitive chips. We are in a race, an AI race with the Chinese Communist Party, and we need to win that race. And we don't need to be sharing the most sophisticated technologies.

We need to be leading and winning that race for AIW. And Congressman, you're also pushing to put the President Trump on the $250 bill for our 250th birthday. Why not? You're not pushing anyone off. You're just creating one, right?

That's right. I mean, as we celebrate our 250th anniversary, let's. I love it. Thanks so much. Breaking news, unique opinions.

Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show. When you look at what has happened to Football in the United States. It's again soccer in the United States. We seem to never call it that because we have a little bit of a conflict with another thing that's called football. But when you think about it, Shouldn't it really be called?

I mean, this is football, there's no question about it. We have to come up with another name for the NFL stuff. It really doesn't make sense.

So for more on that and strong-arming the NFL to give up the name football, here's the guy that can make it happen, Alexi Lawless, also of Fox Sports. Alexey, have you made progress with Roger Goodell trying to get the name football and then just give him soccer, I guess? Actually, Brian, by the way, it's great to see and hear you. I disagree with our president when it comes to this. I think that we should be proud and loud about calling it soccer.

We should lean into it. And I think it makes us look at times weak or capitulating to change what is historically football here in the United States. It's not a problem. Don't ever apologize for calling it soccer. And that's what I would tell President Trump or anybody else out there.

But he's also a very smart man in that moment, in that instance, in front of that audience, a global audience. He knows how to create a narrative. He knows how to create a story. He knows how to poke at the bear out there. And that's exactly what people are talking about.

And it's fine. And look, ultimately, this is about. Spreading the news about what is coming next summer. And when it comes to President Trump, I think there is no more bigger fan for what is about to come next summer. I've called him, when all is said and done, I think he's going to go down as the soccer president in terms of the just sheer amount of soccer that emanates from the White House and the Oval Office and obviously from President Trump.

And I think he is a smart politician and a smart man and recognizes the platform, the opportunity, and the responsibility for next summer, regardless of what people call it. All right.

So, Lexi, 94, we had the World Cup. It was in Las Vegas, the big draw. Yes, last week it was in Washington, D.C., and now the country is well aware of the magic of soccer. What did you think of the draw, the coverage, the pageantry, the celebrities? Bring us behind the scenes.

Well, it generated a tremendous amount of news, which is what it was designed to do. I was down there in D.C., and it was crazy from start to finish. Everywhere you looked, there was somebody else, whether it was former legends, whether it was celebrities, whether it was musicians, obviously politicians, and there was something for everybody on that stage, backstage, on the side of the stage, and everywhere else. But ultimately, the groups were decided. And so it became very, very real for a lot of people.

a lot of people including the teams and the coaches who were there as to who they're going to play. But I think it also kind of cut through into the mainstream so that everybody recognizes that in what 180 some days, this is coming back to our shores. It is our responsibility and our opportunity next summer. And I think a lot of people that maybe didn't know about it now know about it. But on that stage, it was nuttiness from start to finish.

Right. So we know you explained it so effectively. We were in the pot with the number one seeds because we're the host country and we and we do. You go in with getting, we know we're going to play Australia. And we know we're going to play Paraguay, two teams we recently beat.

On the third team, we're still waiting. But first, on those two games, your thoughts.

So, when Group D, which is what the U.S. is going to be in, and keep in mind that there are 12 groups of four in the World Cup, and it's round-robin in group play.

So, you'll play three games, and then the best, the top two teams from your group go out, and then potentially have the best third-place teams. But listen, when I saw this group, I started to compare it in history. I'm an old guy, I started to compare it to all the other groups the U.S. has had in previous World Cups. I cannot, for the life of me, find another group that's even close in terms of salivating for opportunity here.

Now, I know people don't like to say it's easy. All right, no group is easy. I get that, but there are groups that are easier. This is not just a winnable group, but I think you should expect your team under new coach Mauricio Pochettino to win this group. As you mentioned, Paraguay, Australia, and then a team to be named later in March from Europe.

But all three games are going to be winnable. All three games you should expect your team to win and ultimately come out first in that group. Not saying it's going to be easy, I'm not saying they can't screw it up, but I'm sorry, I'm sick and tired. Tired of low expectations when it comes to this team. And I don't think I'm being unfair by saying that they should win this group.

So here's the coach who was on CBS on Monday, I think it was, talking about the team. Go to the top one if you can, Eric. The message that I received, some people say, Oh, coach, I want to play for you and he's playing I don't know where, no, in the rest of the world, but I think it's really tough because I think we have a pool of seventy plus players that we were using in the last in the last year and I think the competition is there. What are you looking for? I want to know what the best of the things is is to be able, the player, you know, to let us to coach, uh, not to sing too much, respect the rules, no, show commitment because I think and the most important, like you say, that was perfect, the right player to defend our flag, our batch, is our culture and all that represent that society, that is America, that you are a winner.

Of course. I am a winner too because I come from Argentina. But I think that is the most important is to represent in the best way our our values, you know.

So that's interesting that he's tapping into American values as a coach from elsewhere. And you have told me that you think the team's playing a lot better. Yeah, I'm in a much more bullish place than I was even a few months ago. And at times I've been critical, I think fairly so of Mauricio Pochitino, but I actually think I'm coming around to whatever madness there is. I think there is a method to it.

But it's interesting, you know, also in some of the interviews that Mauricio Pochitino has done, he's referenced the movie Miracle. And, you know, look, I think he recognizes that there is a core ethos there when it comes to a national team and a team that's going to represent the United States. Isn't about the best players. It's about the best collection of players. And I think that's what he has gone about doing and reconfirming the fact that it doesn't matter where you play, doesn't matter how much money you make, doesn't matter who your girlfriend is or anything like that.

All he cares about is you're going to run through a wall. All he cares about is there's a ruthlessness in your play. And so you could be a player from Major League Soccer. You could be a player that's playing over in Serie A. It doesn't matter to him.

And I think ultimately, when that team takes the field next summer, he will have done his due diligence and amassed the best collection of players to represent. What I feel is the greatest country in the world. By the way, on her 250th birthday. Right. So I'll know that they're ready to win if I see them singing the national anthem like other countries, that they care about it that much, maybe somewhere in the flag.

You know, five years ago, we were hoping they would stand. You know, now we're just hoping they pay attention and maybe sing it. I know they know the words. A lot of times they put them on the scoreboard if they don't. Yeah, I mean, you think it's a simple moment, and it is a simple moment, but it's incredibly powerful.

And for example, I remember a couple of World Cups ago when Panama went to the World Cup for the first time. All right, they got their ass kicked. But it doesn't matter because all I remember is in that moment when the camera panned down the line of players as they stood there waiting to play their first game in history, and they were singing that national anthem, and tears were streaming down the players' faces. I saw the pride that they had in their country, in their country men and women, and the opportunity on a global stage to represent their country. And we want that from a U.S.

team. At times, we have not seen that. I hope we see it this summer, and I hope that when people tune in, they see a team that they can fall in love with and they can be proud of from the moment that that song starts till the final whistle of the game. Who could likely could be that team, the third game? Is it Turkey, Kosovo, or Slovakia?

And when do we have to go to the United States? Slovakia, Kosovo, Turkey, and we call it, by the way, it's Turkey A now. They have rebranded, so it's Turkey A, and then Romania. And those are all beatable teams. And yeah, they could come in and do some damage here.

But again, you should be going to sleep tonight feeling much better about the chances of this U.S. team next summer relative to the group that they got down in D.C. at the draw.

So here's what I'm worried about. You they picked the two most un-American cities in America, Los Angeles, I mean, and Seattle. I mean, are they going to even be cheering for us, or is it going to be like an away game? I mean, you know, Seattle's going to Seattle. And look, I live in Los Angeles.

Somebody's got to go, you know, behind lines there and try to fight for what's common. When you play there, let me ask you something. You know the teams we're playing. Do you really think we'll get a majority American audience? It's not like we're playing a South American team.

Will they be cheering for us in Los Angeles? I do think that the U.S. is going to have a pro-U.S. crowd when it comes to, and keep in mind, yeah, first game, like you said, is against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium in L.A. Second game against Australia is up in Seattle.

And that third game with that team to be named later is back in Los Angeles. And a lot of the games that the U.S. progresses through are going to be on the West Coast for the U.S. They've tried to regionalize to limit travel out there. Yes, I do think that there is going to be support.

But to your point, you know, for example, in Group A, South Korea, okay?

South Korea has actually been placed in Group A, which is Mexico's group, which means that South Korea has to play all three of their group games down in Mexico. I didn't want to play South Korea in the United States because we've seen time and time again the incredible South Korean-American community out there. They come out in droves, and the potential for it to be an away game, and this doesn't just apply to South Korea, it applies to a lot of teams. I think they're going to have some home games here just because of the diversity that we have when it comes to all the nationalities that we have here. It's very unique.

And we're talking to Lexi Lollis, if you're listening on the radio, but if you're watching the stream, Lexi has a great podcast and he's on television right now.

So we're streaming together.

So, Lexi, a couple other things. It's important to come in first, right? Don't just get through to the knockout round, which means one and done. You lose, you're out.

So, you got to come in first because then you play that third-place team if you're the best in the other group.

So, you want to avoid England? Argentina Brazil And Spain, right? Would you say those are the big four? Those are the monsters when you need the miracle like. Victory.

Yeah, I'd put France in there too, certainly, in terms of the elite. And look, at some point, we're going to have to beat an elite team. But you want that pathway to get to that point as clear as possible. And keep in mind, this is the largest World Cup in history.

Okay.

As we mentioned, 48 teams, 104 games. It also adds another knockout round.

So there's a round of 32. And if the U.S. finishes first, they're going to get an... quote-unquote easier opponent in that knockout round in the round of 32 and then you win the round of 32 you get to the round of 16 which is always where the u.s has kind of faltered where we go up against teams that people assume are better than us so i think there is a wonderful pathway for this u.s team given the group that we have but at some point they're going to have to live up to the expectations that we have again not unrealistic expectations and do things that we haven't seen before so i don't like to get you blindsided but do we know their practice schedule do we know their their friendly games that they have lined up building up to this Yeah, in March they have Portugal and Belgium. And then right before the World Cup, which is a little hard because you're trying not to get hurt, they have Germany and Senegal.

So some really good teams as far as warm-ups going forward. They will be, like I said, training in Southern California, in Los Angeles, because that will be their kind of home base, as a lot of teams will have home bases either in or around the cities that they're playing in.

So it's going to be fun. It's going to be a really interesting summer of soccer next summer. Will you go out to the training sessions? And if you do, what do you look for? Knowing that people are trying out as well as gelling?

Yeah, I mean, you know, coaches don't like to give too much away. It's really interesting when they talk about training sites because being sequestered and secluded is really important to a lot of these teams. And some of them are kind of, you know, there's too much viewing. And so they really like to be private and keep everything in-house before they get to the actual games. But to the extent that they will let us watch training, that's great because you try to find some sort of little thing here.

The interesting thing from this World Cup is I think that yours truly and those of us that do studio, rather than being kind of stagnant, I think we're going to be on the road a whole lot more. And that makes sense given the size of this World Cup with Canada and Mexico involved and all these different places and all these different host cities that are having games.

So what kind of per diem does Alexei Lawless get? I mean, what did you build into your contract when you travel? Come on, man. This is a labor of love here. I would pay to be able to do this.

I have the best job in the world. They can pry it from my cold, dead, red-headed American hands, and they're all coming. All the young ones are coming, my friend. But you know what? I can fight them off here at least for a little longer.

Oh, you got a lot of time left. But I just could imagine. I need a suite. I need a penthouse. I need an ocean view.

Does that sound familiar like some of the writers? I'm a man of the people, bro. I'm here. I'm hanging out. I'm having beers.

I mean, this is a party here. I want to be involved. Yes, I got to do my job, and I will do it well, but I also want to, you know, kind of feel and smell and taste the sounds of a World Cup. And lastly, this is just curious. I know that Barkley and I don't think Shaq, but I know Barkley sometimes can be very critical in the NBA of players, and they get mad at him.

You are also very outspoken. Have the players have different, you know, that you haven't, now that you're a commentator, have they let you have it? Like, hey, I don't think you're being fair to me. Have they got mad at you when you actually go out and see them? Sure.

And it means you're kind of over the target if that's happening. I have had. Players, I have had coaches, I have had front office people, I have had wives, girlfriends, parents, grandparents, children at some point come to me and vent their frustration with something that I have said. Oftentimes, I will forget what I have said. And in that moment, and I'm sure Charles or anybody else would say, you just got to let them get it off their chest.

And when they do, things are a whole lot better. And it comes with the territory. My job isn't to tell you what you want to hear. My job isn't to sugarcoat anything. It is to be honest with the American people when it comes to what I see.

You can agree, you can disagree. That's what makes America great. And then we go from there. And do you still get very nervous when you talk to me? Or is that you over that?

I'm a little bit starstruck each and every time that I come on your show, given your prowess and your status in the industry. But you make it so comfortable for all of your guests that come on the show, and you're a soccer guy at heart.

So thanks for picking up when I said a year and a half ago that David Beckham knew the language when he came over because he spoke English. And you went to Batman. I was being sarcastic because he only spoke British. And you were the only one to go, Brian's being sarcastic. Oh goodness.

Well, you know, I got your back, my friend. I got your back. Appreciate it. It won't be the last time you say something controversial. I mean, you're right there with me.

Yes, Google me. There you go. Lexi, thanks so much. Great job. Over the weekend.

I also love the, I also love the MLS Cup. I thought that was awesome. It looked for a while like Miami was on the ropes and they were done, and they ended up scoring two goals. Congratulations to Messi and Beckham and Jorge Maas down there and what they've done. Pretty and pink down there.

Finally, Messi thinks it could break in his way. You know, he's gone through such a cold streak. Alexei Lollis, thanks so much. Back in a moment. Thank you, my friend.

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The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. As a mom. You know, you work so diligently to keep your children safe. and used to you would get them home at night and you would lock the doors and you'd be able to kind of exhale.

And now The enemy is inside our home. The people who want to do our children harm are in the palm of their hand. And if we can't do this as Congress, I mean, what are we here for? All right, there you go. That's the big story.

that's really rocking parents' world, I guess or country society, is what Australia did. They banned social media for 16 and under, and they just ke took it into place. And there's all these stories about they could go around it. Yeah, they could go around it. There's kids under 18 who's drinking, even though they they're the age over there is 18 and under to drink.

But it doesn't mean you don't have laws on driving and drinking. And now it's social media going to the extreme to say no social media.

Now, people have also told me: look, it doesn't mean no laptops, it doesn't mean no phones, it means no apps.

So social media apps.

So if you are. in a group with let's say on a soccer team or baseball team and you want to communicate with other mothers and parents about away games, you can still do that on the web. It's just getting people off social media apps. Is it indeed possible? It's amazing to me, that was Katie Britt, that so many senators, Republicans and Democrats, are admitting that they totally let everybody down, a generation of parents down.

A generation of parents down because they did nothing to stop. Uh the the the social media apps in this and yesterday they had On the Senate side. They had all these parents come forward and talked about How their kids, in many cases, took their own life. because of what happened on social media. And now we're here.

The additional danger, everyone's talking about the pluses, the danger of AI. AI, these bots pop up. And these figures pop up and they make their kids, they make things markedly worse for the children.

So, all this is coming down the pike. Are you for that band? Just go to briankilme.com, click on comments. Are you for a ban if social media is 16 and under? Do you think it's indeed possible to do?

I think it's definitely possible. Australia, our society is very similar. We're more like them than we even are like England. And if they can do it, this comes out well. I think ultimately kids are going to fight it and then they're going to love it.

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It's Brian Kilmead. Hi, everyone.

So glad you're there. It's the Brian Killmead Show coming your way. Jared Cooney Hervarth will be with us, neuroscientist and author of the book, The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Tech Harms Our Kids Learning and How to Help Them Thrive Again. And one of the things, a lot of people have. You know, a Chromebook.

You know, a lot of people are told: bring an iPad to class and use it. Or most classes.

Well, is that bad? Should we go back to the spiral notebook and go back to chalk? We'll find out about what the debilitating effects are because now we have a real-life study and we have Australia making major moves. Bruce Blakeman is standing by, Nassau County executive over on Long Island, New York, who's going to, who made it clear yesterday on Fox and Friends, he is going to run for the Republican nomination and ultimately try to be the first Republican governor in New York since George Pataki.

So before we get to Bruce, let's get to the big three. Number three. Hey kiddo, it's about time for bed, okay?

Okay.

Well, remember. There's a box in the corner over there with all the pornographic material that's ever been made in the world. Even the really weird stuff that could scar you for life. I'm trusting you not to look in there, okay?

Yeah, there was a commercial talking about smartphones and the dangers.

Social media ban for kids. Is that coming? Do you want it? Australia did it yesterday. Are we going to follow in their footsteps?

Do you think they'll be able to pull it off? No wrong answers. I just want your answers. Number two. It was a very unsatisfying briefing.

I asked Secretary Hekseth. would he let every member of Congress see the unedited videos of the September 2nd strike. His answer, we have to study it. Yes, we have to study it, and no reason you should get it. Venezuelan showdown, stare down, putting pressure on all sides as Dems demand to see a game plan, as Trump says Maduro's days are numbered.

Number one. I wonder what grade you would give A. A plus. Yeah, A plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. The word affordability.

Prices are coming down substantially. It's been 10 months. It's amazing what we've done. Donald Trump is back on the stage taking his economic game plan as numbers show the public is impatient with progress on the economy. Is this the path to turning it all around, explaining what he's doing and what he inherited?

Because Biden broke it, the message is he will fix it. And Bruce Blakeman joins us right now. I was off a major win in what was a very bad election, off-year election for Republicans. And Bruce is a Republican in Assault County, mostly Democrats, was successful. Bruce, welcome.

Hey, Brian, it's great to be on with you.

Well, thanks for joining us. First off, I don't know what you were able to catch of the President's message yesterday. Do you think it's important for him to get out there? I think it's very important. Nobody can sell Trump policy better than Donald Trump.

And I think he's absolutely right. The way to make our country more affordable and the way to make the state of New York more affordable is to create economic development, which creates prosperity and gives people more money to spend, not only on necessities, but on things like taking their kids on vacation. Buying that party dress. doing the things that families want to do to make their life a little better. And he's talking about economic development.

He's talking about cheap energy. He's talking about putting people back to work. I was with a bunch of union leaders last night, Brian, and they are very dissatisfied with Kathy Hochl and her policies. They're very unhappy with the Biden administration's policies. And again, I think the President is absolutely right.

Let's create an opportunity to put people back to work, to get higher wages, to get better benefits. That's what people want, not handouts, not free bus rides.

So, what the administration has not effectively brought down costs as much as they thought they would. Home insurance rates are up 8 percent. I don't know what the president is supposed to do about that, but it's still on his baseball card. Shelter costs up 3.6 percent. Average electricity costs up an average of 11 percent.

So overall inflation is around three, which is so much better than the inherited, but it's still not two.

So these numbers are there. From what you can see, what do you think the effect of the President's plan this upcoming year with the Big Beautiful Bill passing in September will be next year? I think that we will have a lot of economic growth because people will have more money. in their pocket, and that means they'll be able to afford Things for their family, and that's what affordability is about. It's not about necessarily.

uh trying to control the economy in a way that artificially brings prices down. But it's what the President's talking about, cheap energy. That's something that the government can get involved in by letting businesses do things that can create more supply So as we know with demand and supply, the more supply The less the prices, the cheaper the prices are. That's what the President's done with gasoline. Look at the gasoline prices now.

They're the lowest they've been in two years. And that's one of the biggest costs for families.

So I think we've got to give the president Time to turn this around. Once the big, beautiful bill kicks into effect. I think that you'll see a material change. And again, inflation was running about six percent under Biden. It's now Closer to three percent, probably aimed towards two percent.

I think that the president has done an outstanding job. And if we let him do what he wants to do, he'll bring prosperity and affordability To all Americans. What you want to do is run for governor after your very impressive win, your second straight win in Nassau County. Uh why did you decide to make that move?

Well, you know, I started hearing from business leaders around the state, from union leaders, from community leaders, political leaders, who felt that I had the best chance to win and that I would be the best governor.

So in a county with one hundred ten thousand more Democrats than Republicans in a night that was bleak for Republicans everywhere else around America, in Nassau County, I want in a landslide. And I won by thirty six thousand votes. I beat uh uh my challenger who had 110,000 registered voter advantage. And how did I do that? I did it by not backing away from Republican principles and American values.

I stood up for them, not backing away from President Trump because New Yorkers can spot a phony from a mile away I reached out to communities that may not agree with me on some issues, but I tried to find common ground and help them with issues that were important to them.

So I got 56% of the Hispanic and Latino vote. I got a record thirty two percent of the African American vote when most Republicans only get about nine percent of the African American vote. I won with independent women. I won independent men. I won the Asian American vote.

So you have to have these coalitions and this broad base for a Republican to win a statewide office in New York. I've demonstrated it in a county that's larger than eight to ten states. And therefore, I think that I'm the best candidate. And I know, based on my track record, I can make people happy again in New York State because they're miserable under Governor Hochul.

So I want you to hear what President Trump said two days ago when asked about you running because he's also tight with Elise Stefanik, who made it clear a month ago, came on this show too, that she's running for the Republican nomination, too. Listen. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik is among those who is running for New York governor. Bruce Blakeman, who you also know is also great. Are you planning on making any endorsements?

But he's great and she's great. They're both great people. We have a lot of great people of the Republican Party.

So President Trump says you're both great.

So, do you want him to stay out of it? I know you prefer him to endorse you. Do you think he will stay out of it?

Well, I agree with him. I think we're both great, but I think basically on the record, I've been a chief executive officer Of a county that's larger than eight to ten states.

So I think I would make a better governor. I think I'd make a better candidate for governor. And he said we're both great. Listen, I I have utmost respect for Elise. I think she's very bright.

She's a good legislator. But I have the executive experience, and I think President Trump. is going to take a wait and see attitude and see who emerges as the one that is in the best position to beat Kathy Hochl. And I don't pretend to speak for the President. You heard it from him out of his mouth and He left it at that, and that's fine with me.

So at least Stephonic spokesperson came out when it became clear that you're running. She said, Even those in Astar County who are closest to Bruce will tell you that everyone knows he has no shot and is putting his raging ego first and New Yorkers last as he blows up the best opportunity in a generation to save New York. Bruce's failed statewide electoral record speaks for itself, and he has lost every statewide primary in general over the last three decades in smashing fashion. Yeah, um, so uh Vinasso County. Chairman, and he's also the National Republican Committeeman.

Joe Cairo came out and endorsed me.

So I have the support of my county. They elected me with a victory of over 36,000 more votes than my opponent.

So I'm very confident about that. And listen, I'm not running against Elise. I'm running against Kathy Hochl. And what I would say to Democrats who are unhappy with Kathy Hochl and independent. Voters that are unhappy with Kathy Hochl.

You know, what do you got to lose? I have the track record. Vote for me. I have the record, and basically, I have the plan to make New York prosperous again, safe again. And make people happy again, and that's what elected officials are supposed to do.

Bruce Blakeman with us now, who's going to be running for governor for the Republican nomination, and then against Kathy Hochul, if she can win her primary, and she's expected to do it.

So, Bruce, the other story is. What is the format? I know in every jurisdiction it's different. It's not just typical primary. There's a convention first in February.

Yes. So there'll be a convention in February. And at that time, the party committee people will get together. and they will make a designation which is like a recommendation. And then if one of the parties that didn't get the designation feels that they want to enter into a primary and put it before all the Republican and Conservative voters in the state, then they have that opportunity to do that, and that primary would be in June.

I'm taking one day at a time, one step at a time. I'm focused on the convention. We'll see how it plays out, and then I'll make a decision After the convention, what I want to do, and I'm sure that if I win the convention, Elise will. try to figure out what she wants to do. The fact of the matter is, right now, she's been in the race for eleven months.

I've been in the race for twenty four hours. I was very proud to make my announcement on Fox and Friends with you, Brian, and I'm going to take my case to the voters.

So, I want to bring you up to another thing that I think the best chance for a Republican to win is because of who the mayor is, the mayor-elect is. Zoram M. Donny, if anybody thought that he was going to moderate when he gets the job, I have not seen any indications of that. Listen to what he decided to do: cut a tape to tell legal immigrants how to avoid ICE. I would say that to follow the letter of the law, the sanctuary city policies that we have, and to ensure that we never again open the door on the idea of the NYPD doing civil immigration enforcement, I think the NYPD's job is to keep order, but it's not to assist immigration agents in the work that they are doing, it's to protect New Yorkers.

So he considers illegal immigrants New Yorkers. Then he cut a tape and said, Hey, Ice, you don't have to answer the door. You don't have to give your right name. They're allowed to lie to you. You can lie to them.

Can you picture Bruce Blakeman ever cutting a how-to with illegal immigrants, how to avoid being picked up by Nassau County police?

Well, this is a subject I know a lot about because I was the first county in America that entered into a comprehensive agreement with ICE with both our police and our sheriff's department. I fully support ICE and their mission. And I went to the Hispanic and Latino communities in my county. And I explained to them why I've been doing that. I said I want to make it a safer county, even though U.S.

News and World Report. Says we're the safest county in America, but that's why I'm hiring more cops. That's why I'm letting our Commissioner Pat Ryder do his job. Uh but you know When I went to the Hispanic and Latino community, they had a lot of questions. But in the final analysis, They supported me because they knew the reason I was doing this is to protect their communities, to protect their children, to make sure there's not overcrowding in their schools, to make sure there's not homelessness.

in their neighborhoods. And as a result, I got fifty six percent Of the Hispanic, American and Latino vote, which is a very high number for a Republican.

So they like what I'm doing. And I think the people of the state of New York have had enough with the migrant program, where Governor Hochl has spent $4 billion of taxpayer money on people who've been here for 15 minutes when we could have spent that money on hospitals. Education, our schools and infrastructure. And again, I was with union leaders last night. They want to know why that money wasn't spent on producing jobs and better wages and benefits in our state.

So last night, Democrats flipped a seat in Miami, the Miami mayor's office, first time in 30 years that Democrats won.

So this woman, Higgins, was successful. She defeated Gonzalez by about 20 points. Is that a warning sign for Republicans, just like the off-year election was for most, that maybe in the Hispanic community, which is heavily Hispanic in Miami, obviously, that they're not liking the aggressive tactics that are taking place in these cities, or is it just. Time to flip a seat with a moderate Democrat. No, I think it's a wake-up call for Republicans because I think Republicans Have had the wrong messaging.

When you talk about affordability, we've got to talk about producing economic development. and prosperity for people. Put more money in their pocket. make sure that they have the things necessary to live a better life and create a better life for their children and grandchildren. And we haven't been talking about that.

And that's why it's great that President Trump is out on the campaign trail And he's talking about economic development and creating wealth and prosperity. I think he understands, and he's the best one. With that message that we need to start talking about issues that are important to people. Republicans don't do that enough. And uh certainly I've shown That is a prescription for success.

As again, in a Democrat county, I've won in a landslide.

So when everybody else is losing, I'm winning.

So obviously, I have the right message and I'm doing the right thing. And Elise Devonic, a very successful congresswoman upstate, will be your competition in February. Wish the best for both. Bruce Blakeman, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

And congratulations on the decision.

Now the fun starts. Thanks, Brian. Go, Chiefs. Yep, Matt Speaker, Chiefs. And Matt Speaker's back in the news, too, because they're suing Letitia James.

Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Back in a moment. It's Brian Killmead. This is Ainslie Earhart.

Thank you for joining me for the 52-episode podcast series, The Life of Jesus. A listening experience that will provide hope, comfort, and understanding of the greatest story ever told. Listen and follow now at FoxNewsPodcasts.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Okay.

The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead. I was in the Obama White House during the Great Recession. We got there at the peak of it, and we thought we were making progress, but every time you try to claim progress, people resented it because they were living the reality of the crisis, and they didn't feel as if we were coming out of it. And that's, you know, he is completely digging a hole.

The other people who should be worried are Republican members of Congress who have to run next year, some of your old colleagues, because this is doing them no good. But it is. I have a totally different interpretation than David Axelite. If the President kept saying that there is no affordability crisis. That is a problem.

But he never said that. He said the attack line from Democrats were, but he should have put it better. It was inartful.

So then he fixed it last night. He goes, Yes, I inherited a mess, but I'm fixing it. It is, America's not affordable now because that's what we inherited, but I'm fixing it. That's the message. When he gave himself an A, he said, on the stuff I've done to prime the pump to get the economy turned around.

That's what he did. He doesn't really feel like he failed in any way. He took his entire economic agenda, including making tax cuts permanent, and wrapped it into one.

So there's not a series of victories, it was one huge victory. But they gotta pick it up from here. There's other stuff they can do. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Killmade.

Hey, welcome back, everybody. In about 20 minutes, we're even gonna open up the phones, but right now, I want to bring in Jared Cooney Forbat, neurologist and author of The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Tech Harms Our Kids Learning and How to Help Them Thrive Again. This in the wake of the big move over the weekend, excuse me, over the last 48 hours, and that is Australia banning all social media. For anyone until 16 and under. And then we're seeing more and more schools buying phones all day long, and very little blowback.

And in fact, it's not even discernible. Jared, welcome. Thank you so much for having me on. It's great to be here.

So Jared, if I brought up five years ago, let's go band phones from the classroom and forget about social media for kids, that would have been a niche audience that supported me. How did things change? I think we spent more time with our kids on these tools, and everything started to go haywire. I think parents kind of got sick of it, and more importantly, for the educational sector, teachers got sick of it too. The amount of behavioral problems and emotional problems and developmental stunting we were seeing was just getting out of control.

We've never seen anything like it in the past, so we figured something's got to be done, and a lot of it is kind of coming back to the tools we're using, this kind of tech stuff. And you also don't believe, you don't even like the fact that I know for a fact in my middle school, they tell everyone to get Chromebooks.

So everyone gets a Chromebook. You have a problem with that too, don't you? Oh, it's not a problem so much as it's just straight data. We've had data since the turn of about 2002 was when the first one-to-one laptop program really started.

So that's kind of the marker where we say EdTech, tech really started entering schools. And that was almost the exact same time we saw a downturn in basically every cognitive skill in the next generation.

So believe it or not, Gen Z is the first generation in recorded history to be scoring less and lower on their parents on measures of memory, attention, general IQ, creative ability, critical thinking, you name it. Everything turned. And the only thing we can draw it back to is this dang tool we brought into the classroom. Is it because the act of writing notes with your hand? Is that part of it?

That's how you remember things to write it out? Absolutely.

So there's a lot of biological mechanisms that we have for learning. You can assume we've evolved 150,000 years to learn in one very particular way, and tech by and large just doesn't align with that way.

So exactly like you said, one idea is if you type notes out, most people will start doing what they just call verbatim typing. Basically a stenographer. Hear a word, write a word. Which means you remember nothing. But when you're handwriting notes, what's happening is by definition, you have to summarize.

You have to make sense of what's coming at you in order to get it down on paper. Then it becomes deeper. It becomes a little bit more you, and all of a sudden, you learn it. It's not just writing. It's an act of actual exploration and learning.

So all these kind of analog methods that we've been using in the past are just simply more aligned to biology, work better than a lot of the digital versions of those methods.

So for example, you even like reading a book or reading something with paper as opposed to reading a book online? Yeah, believe it or not, there's a.

So, one of the key aspects of human memory is space. Where in space did something occur? That becomes part of the memory reform.

So, if any of your listeners right now, if you are avid readers, you'll recognize this. When you finish reading a book, you might not remember verbatim every word you just read, but you will remember where in the book something occurred. Like your favorite scene, you'll be able to flip right to it. Oh, it's a left page, top left hand side, halfway through. When we read on a screen, there is no spatial location.

The words start at the bottom of the screen, go through the middle, go out the top. An entire aspect of human memory just gets dumped.

So, this is why, whenever I work with college freshmen, all the research is really heavy on this. If they say, hey, what is the number one study technique you can tell me? One thing to make learning better. Buy a printer. Change nothing else about your life, but read on paper versus a screen, you will remember more, comprehend better than we do on this thing.

Okay, so not only writing, but reading on a paper rather than. On uh On a screen, even though you can make notes on that screen, you're just not physically, you don't know where it is in the book. Exactly. It all just becomes that kind of matter of spacing. If you try and annotate on a screen, you kind of lose it.

So what we find is at about the five-minute point of reading online, most people will switch to just skimming. We can track how their eyes move and they basically just start looking down lines to look for keywords, in which case you're not really reading for learning anymore. But if you want to hear something kind of scary about this, though, by the way?

So the SATs, chances are we've all taken the SATs. When we were all growing up, the SATs had a reading comprehension section. Basically, it was read five, 750-word passages, answer 10 to 12 questions about each one, off you go. Last year the SATs moved online. It became a digital version and we know people can't really read online.

So what happened is the new reading comprehension test, if your kids take the SATs, instead of having long passages, they will now have 54 single sentences of about 75 words each with one question tied to each sentence. And we're calling that reading comprehension.

So rather than adapting the tool to fit what we want from our kids, we're adapting our kids to fit to how the tool works. and redefining terms that we've been using for decades to mean one thing to mean something much lesser.

So that actually, that worries the daylights out of me. I mean, it shows you, too, they know what you know. They know that kids are saying they can't even pretend that they don't agree with you. There's no hiding it. And one of the scariest things is: so, with all these national and international tests.

We know scores have been going down since 2002, but what we don't know and what people It's hard to find out is that once tests go digital, so like PISA is an international test that went digital in 2015, NEEP went digital in like 2022. Any time a test goes digital, scores drop significantly. It's just what we do, we use statistics to do what's called renorming, and we basically hide it.

So if scores are getting worse, you can possibly add on another 5% to 10% worse. That's genuinely what's going on once we move onto screens. We just don't see it. Thank you, statistics.

So, how long has this information been available? Believe it or not, the very first meta-analysis we have on EdTech basically was from 1962. And it has the exact same effect size then as it does today.

So we've known for about six decades that these tools aren't good for learning. But it was really only about the turn of the century that the digital stuff really started showing up. And we're like, look, that was when everyone said it will be better. The new computers will be better. Give us one more year.

Give us more software. And it's just never gotten better. There's a big researcher I work with. His famous quote is: he says, Digital technology is the educational revolution we've been waiting for for 50 years, and we're going to be waiting another 50. It's just not working.

Jared Cooney Horvath is with us now, neurologist and author of The Digital Delusion, How Classroom Tech Harms Our Kids Learning and How to Help Them Thrive Again. Before we get to the how to help them thrive again, why do you think there are so many Chromebooks in the school or so many laptops in the school still if these stats are so available? There's two things on that: is one, most people don't have access to the stats or they just don't care about them. But on the back of that, I'd also say data, believe it or not, really never changes minds. Like, if you think about something like asbestos, we knew for a couple of decades that if you worked with asbestos, you were going to have a chance of cancer much higher than people who didn't work with it.

But nobody cared. It was only once we had a mechanism, once researchers came in and said, oh, look, little pieces of asbestos can lodge into your lung, cause tumors, that's the mechanism. That's when people started to change, laws started to happen, things worked.

So I think with a lot of this ed tech data, a lot of people don't know the data and they also don't know the mechanisms. They don't know enough about human learning to recognize why it would be bad.

So they just kind of keep going about their business, assuming because we were told it was good, it's going to be good. And if you want to get really cynical about it, At the end of the day, big tech is big tech. It's a company, and companies exist to make money. I don't fault anyone for that, that's what they do. When they give free Chromebooks, when they give free laptops to kids, it looks as though they're being altruistic.

They're not. What happens is, when you learn on a device, your learning becomes tied to that device. It's an issue called transfer. It becomes very difficult for you to move your learning away from that device.

So, in a very real sense, these people know that if I get students using them now, For the rest of their life, they will be tied to this machine in order to access the learning they did as kids.

So it is a really strong business move on their part to say, hey, every kid needs one of these, and now I've just built basically a lifelong customer. Right, and that's what it's a profit margin. I'm not going to. It is. Yeah.

Uh Okay, the other thing would be: this is just me talking. Is it better for a teacher to go back to a chalkboard? But if if you just look at the straight statistics, yes. But it's I think there's a good kind of Line we can draw here is you've got kind of teacher-led tech and you've got student-facing tech. Anytime students are using the tech, put it away.

It's not working. If a teacher is driving the tech, like we've got a, I don't know, a PowerPoint design or I'm showing you things on a board, so long as I have complete control over what you're seeing and thinking, then we can use these tools effectively.

So I think teachers still have an argument to be made. Good, okay.

So tell me how people listening right now, they might even be teachers or principals, parents, when they have to pick a school, now you have school choice in a lot of these states. How do we get the kids to thrive again? Step one is to get tech out of the classroom. I think banning cell phones is step one. Step two is going to be the wider.

We don't need the laptops, we don't need the tablets, that goes away.

So, if you're looking at a school, say, one of the first things I look for is: do you have a computer lab?

So, by all means, we need to teach computer skills. But there's a difference between curriculum and pedagogy. Curriculum is what we teach, pedagogy is how we teach. To say that we need to teach computers, fine. To say we now need to teach all classes, math, English, science, through a computer, That's pedagogy, that's wrong.

So, typically, if a school has a computer lab where we have computers, but they're set up in a very specific space, that means they're very deliberate with tech. That means the teachers are explicitly choosing: today we will get up, we will leave our classroom, I've signed us out, we will go use tech.

So, those are the schools that tend to be tech-intentional. You know they're using it well. But any school who's advertising to you, their selling point is every kid gets a laptop. That's one of the worst things we can think of when it comes to student learning.

So, try and walk away from those if you can. And, Jared, what about AI worries you the most, if anything? AI is a production tool. AI is a tool for experts to do what's called offloading.

So think about like I'm a statistician, well, not a statistician, I'm a researcher, so I've had to study stats all my life. I can do stats, I just hate doing it. It takes me about two hours to do one stat set. I don't want to do it.

So, what I can do is I can use AI to do that in two minutes instead. But the only reason it works is because I can vet the output immediately. I know so much about the process that as soon as AI spits something out, I can say, yep, that's accurate, or no, that's wrong. Uh-oh, I must have typed in something different. Boom.

So, it's an expert production tool. It is not a learning tool for novices. When you let students use this as a means of trying to achieve expertise, they start offloading skills that they never developed in the first place, which means they will never develop the skill itself.

So, by all means, they can copy-paste what it says to them, but that's not a learning tool.

So, so long as we remember AI is a production tool for experts, not a learning tool for novices, then we can think about when's the best time to bring that. Should AI be part of the curriculum with the that kids should learn about. No, one of the weirder things about digital tools is they're so wickedly easy that, I mean, think about it. I'm 40 plus. AI came out three years ago.

I can use it. It's a box. You type words in it. It's not hard.

So if you teach a kid how to use a tool, they'll be able to use that tool, but they won't be able to use any other tool. If instead you teach a kid how to think and learn, and then you bring the tool in, They'll be able to use any tool and they'll be able to adapt.

So, the key to adaptation with an unknowable future and changing work structure is a generalized K through 12 education. Do not teach kids tools. Teach kids how to think. Then they can adapt that to any tool that comes their way. And AI is potentially going to replace your thinking.

I know it will. Already doing it. Yeah, I know when it comes to directions. I used to be really good at directions. I would always check a map before I leave.

I would recognize things.

Now I don't even think about where I'm going. Isn't it crazy? And then, if you visit a new city and you use your GPS, you go home and you're like. I couldn't tell you anything about it. I was not paying attention to anything.

Yeah. So I already see how I used to be good with directions, but no one will know it. Because we're all stuck on apps. And I know if I don't have them, I feel lost. And then we redefine it.

All of a sudden, we'll redefine good spatial awareness as someone who can use a GPS and we'll never recognize that. No, 20 years ago, that meant something else. And it meant something much bigger, much more important than the way we're using that term now. And that's my big fear: the more we use tech, we're going to start redefining educational terms into something much less. And all of a sudden, we're going to have a generation that is beneath any other generation before, but we're not noticing it because, hey, at least they're aligning with the tools.

And my last question is: are you optimistic that things are changing your direction? That people are understanding. It's not your agenda. These are the facts? Yeah, and that's I think if you Jonathan Heights' The Anxious Generation was kind of that watershed moment where we've been trying for a couple of years to get cellphones out of school and people finally said, Oh, we can do that.

And I think with that domino falling, Ed tech, this larger ed movement in education, is going to start falling after it.

So I think we're moving in the right direction. I am optimistic. A little bit, isn't it counterintuitive? Progress, progress, progress, right? Horses, cars, you know, planes.

Make the plane better, make it faster.

Okay, we got the digital devolution, make it better. Give me an iPad, put away the pad, keep your spiral notebook. But all of a sudden, when it comes to learning, hold off.

So that's interesting. It's a little d it's an anomaly in the way we're used to living life, right? Yeah, and you got to think all the tools you just mentioned are for adults, they're for experts, they're for us. Kids aren't mini adults. A lot of the times, we try and treat kids like they're little us.

They're the same as us, they're just smaller with smaller hands. They are nothing like us. And I think we're forgetting that what it takes to become an effective adult is very different than what it means to be an effective adult. And what we're doing with progress up here doesn't change what they're going to need to do to achieve adulthood humanhood in this realm out here. And superintendents are being pushed to take on this tech.

Is that correct? Yes, absolutely.

Now, it's funny. What you'll see is most of the leaders are the biggest tech advocates.

So, I work primarily in schools, and I would estimate, and this is just a personal estimation, this isn't real data, 70% of the teachers I've worked with are totally over tech. They hate it. They just use it because it's the higher-ups, the people who aren't actually in the classroom, the people without feet on the ground, are the ones pushing this. But as soon as you're in a classroom and you're the one who has to deal with the repercussions, ask any teacher who's been in a classroom for longer than 10 years: are your kids doing better or worse today than 10 years ago? To a man, they will tell you worse.

So the teachers know it's just the leaders who haven't quite figured it out yet. But you did, and thanks so much. Go pick up his book, especially if you're a parent and you're wondering about these same topics: The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Tech Harms Our Kids' Learning. Jared, Cooney, Horvath, thanks so much, Doctor. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Have a good afternoon. All right, great conversation. Back in a moment. You're with Brian Kilmead.

Okay.

Information you want, truth you demand. This is the Brian Kill Me Show, sponsored by Previgen. Previgin made for your brain. I gave money to a kid, I won't mention who. I've done it one time.

At UCLA. Never met the young man. He was there a year. He left after the year. Uh I wrote a sizable check.

And he went to another school. Uh, I didn't even get so much as a thank you note, you know, so. Um It's one of those deals to where I'm done with NIL. I mean, I I want to see UCLA be successful, but I'm I'm done with it. And can you imagine that writing a check, getting it from a Hall of Famer Troy Aikman, four Super Bowls, and you just leave the school?

And that's the issue. Remember, Nick Sabin first brought my attention to it, and probably last to the party, when he lost in the championship game. And he's thinking to himself, how am I going to build this team? You know, what am I going to say to these guys? And they came up to him and said, you know, if I don't get more money, I'm leaving.

What? If I don't get more money next year, I'm going to go to a different school. As opposed to understanding the lost, how to try to get better and develop.

So he said that was the final nail. He was done.

Now he's in broadcasting. Here's more from Aikman. I've always felt that if a coach is able to pick up and leave, that a player then should have the same opportunity if a coach, in fact, leaves. And what's happened, obviously, over the years since I got out of college football is that in recent years with NIL, there's been no accountability on the players.

So the players pick up and now they're leaving all the time. Whereas before it was typically the coach, the player used to have to sit out a year.

Now the players can up and go, regardless of whether or not they've been paid. It's every man for himself. And I think it has created somewhat of a culture with that mentality to where the idea of team, whether it's from the staff or from the players, just seems like it's a harder thing to put together. Look, right now it's the Wild West. The pros have teams and they're getting much more than the college players.

So you could still do it, but right now it's built a system of entrepreneurs and mercenaries, from coaches to players. And I tell you, the people that are being abused are the fans. They just don't realize it yet. Brian Kilmicho.