The Brian Kilmeade Show

From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Killmee. I'm so glad you're here, Brian Killmee Show coming your way. This hour will be joined by Rich Lowry, who has a great column talking about now more than ever, the Golden Dome. I mean, who does not, can we get bipartisan support even separate from defense funding bill to get the Golden Dome going?

As you see missile defense, you see how costly these interceptors are. We got to make them massively. And what more important thing can you do as a president, Democrat or Republican, than protect your homeland? Remember when Donald Rumsfeld first brought it up. They said, oh, it's impossible.

to have this shield. And Runsfeld says, Well, we got to develop.

Well, we'll just develop them to stop a North Korean rocket.

Now what do you think? Let's get to the big three. Number three. The good news is this is the earliest primary on the calendar, right? We saw it here in March.

The runoff is in May. You will see there is plenty of time for them to run on their record and run on their message versus James Tellrico. Impactful primaries in Texas, as you just heard, the Senate seat held currently by John Cornyn and North Carolina as we look at the upsets and the runoffs. Number two. The American people want us to focus on making their life better, making their life more affordable, not getting involved in another endless war in the Middle East that is going to end in failure.

Have you ever heard a more anti-American phrase from a political leader than what Hakeem Jeffries just said? Politics of war. Dem's playing nothing but party politics as President Trump makes his case and communicates his objectives. We also look at the economic impact of it all around. And currently, the market is up 137 points.

Number one. Iran cannot outlast us. We're going to ensure through violence of action and our offensive capabilities and our defensive capabilities, as I said, that we set the tone and the tempo of this fight. Secretary of War, Pete Heitzeth, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Kane, just gave a briefing. We're now in day five of this war.

Which was 47 years in the making, as the U.S. is taking out countless targets and leaders in Iran, as well as the IDF focuses on Hezbollah in Lebanon. We have the latest from the war zone. What do we know after the briefing? How about this?

That we Iran has let off, shot off 500 ballistic missiles, 2,000 drones, with very little effect.

Meanwhile, one-way attack drones are down. One-way attack drones are down 73% so far. And we think that eighty four percent of their missile bil ability their missile ability to launch missiles has been degraded. That is pretty significant. Here is the Secretary of War Cut One.

Iran cannot outlast us. We're going to ensure through violence of action and our offensive capabilities and our defensive capabilities, as I said, that we set the tone and the tempo of this fight. That's why stories and speculation about different things that try to make it look like we're limited in what we can do. The only limits we have in this is President Trump's desire to achieve specific effects on behalf of the American people. And that's why we don't talk about, you know, you can say four weeks, but it could be six, it could be eight, it could be three.

Ultimately, we set the pace and the tempo. The enemy is off balance, and we're going to keep them off balance. And we know their ability to shoot versus our ability to defend, that difference gets wider and wider every day. Our defense gets better, their offensive capabilities diminish. As we are going into ammunitions that we, as we said, have tens of thousands of and can drop unlimited supplies on with even more effects than the standoff munitions we have now, which is why when we say the throttle's going up, the throttle's going up and it's going to stay on high.

You know, we're using these PRISM long-range. weapons, missiles that are long range, as I mentioned, that replace the attack'ems, which means get the attack'ems to the Ukrainians since we don't need them anymore. The Prisms have taken over, evidently extremely effective. The Ivy, the IDF, has taken out this Qatar 100. It's a two-stage missile rocket that Iranians had.

We took it out. And the IDF, I say we, I say the IDF, and 300 launchers have been taken out. It's estimated they have 500. That's the key. Take out their rockets, that's important, but taking out their launchers is more important.

Overall, this mission, 20% of the American public, excuse me, of the Democratics, of Democrats are for this mission. 84% Of Republicans are for this mission, only 40% of Independents are for this mission. But the better it is, the more efficient it is, the more effective it is, the more it's explained, those numbers will only go up. And that's what Democrats fear. And they want to take a vote today about a War Powers Act or tomorrow and saying the President what the President's doing is illegal.

Number one, it's going to fail. Number two, except for the Tom Masseys and Rand Pauls of the world. And number two, the President's going to veto if it gets to its desk anyway. And here's the rules, roughly, 48 hours, alert Congress to a military action. After 60 days, either re-up or get out.

I sense we don't need all 60 days, but we have to get to the point where the Iranians have a shot at picking their own government. I know people don't want to say regime change, I can. Here's President Trump on what he's been getting in terms of feedback and blowback. Cut for this, guys like Schumer who are losers, the Democrats, they're losers. That's why they're not here.

Uh guys like Schumer would say, well Uh you should have done this. In other words, if I did it, it's no good. If I didn't do it, they would have said the opposite, that you should have done this. But most people feel I I'll tell you what, I have never had more compliments on something I did. People felt it's something that ought to be done.

So if we have a little high oil prices for a little while. Uh but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop. I believe lower than even before. But shows the president has a plan for it. He said, look, we've got U.S.

insurance that's going to ensure those ships, those merchant ships to go through, and we're looking into escorting all those ships with natural gas and oil to 20% of the world's market. It really is going to affect Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and they know that. Admiral Brad Cooper put together this plan, Qat9. We are seeing Iran's ability to hit us and our partners is declining, while our combat power, on the other hand, is building. And my overall operational assessment is that we are ahead of our game plan.

Along the way, every single branch of our military is achieving unprecedented success. I'll talk about just a few of them. Our naval forces have deployed multiple waves of cruise missiles, obliterating Iranian command and control and air defense capabilities. And it goes into detail. And I know the numbers, after a while, you know, we've been through this first Persian Gulf War: how many sorties, how much damage.

It's tough to do from the air. But understand, this has already transcended. Uh shock and awe. Dead. Hit Iraq.

I'm not saying that was bad, but we've been between technology and accuracy and using the second best Air Force in the world. The Iranians, excuse me, the the Israelis Who have proven lethal and certainly helped. No offense to our European allies, but they're just not as equipped as the Israelis and as effective and as motivated. Bret Velikovich, cut sixteen. To me, two drones landing in Saudi with no one present doesn't feel like a real orchestrated attack.

It feels more like a tantrum from terrorists who just lost their supreme leader and half their command structure because I don't know who's left. Epic Fury has gutted their missile stocks, drowned their navy, turned their so-called elite IRGC into a headless, humiliated mess. And yeah, look, they're lashing out at soft spots in Saudi, Bahrain, Kuwait, anywhere they think they can scare us because they know the hammer's about to come down harder. Yeah, and they have Khamenei's son about to take over. Good, he'll be dead soon.

They had a meeting of the elders or experts to pick somebody. to replace Grand Diatoa uh Khomeini Khomeini. And they blew that up. Because they did it in the daylight and Obviously, the Mussad and CIA knows exactly what's going on. Word is they're using traffic cameras to be able to track all these higher-ups because they're all staying in Tehran or in their bunkers.

And we lost six guys and and one woman, five guys and one woman, and five others are hurt on a Oh, a drone strike. In Kuwait, and that's terrible. No one looks past and saying, no big deal. It is a huge deal. But also, we also know that Iran has been a problem for forty seven years, and you can't have a conflict without casualties.

But think about this. You have Russia have a war of choice and go into Ukraine for no reason and lose 30,000 a month, 1.2 million casualties, dead or injured, off the battlefield, forced to five years in.

Now they have a draft, and now they got to get the politician's sons in there. That's a disaster. But this is an enemy that's already killed Americans, six hundred and three during the Iraq war, and thousands have been wounded during the Iraq war on EFPs, IEDs and the training and accu accusa uh accus uh Execution of militia attacks on our forces through the twelve-year Iraq war. Uh and cause so much unrest.

So these guys had this coming. I have no idea why Democrats continue to play party politics in it. And I am surprised because I remember when it came to Libya. I remember Lindsey Graham and John McCain and It's all right, President Obama's Democrat, but this is necessary. We didn't know that he had absolutely no plan for after Gaddafi was ousted or after air cover was reinforced.

He had zero plan. They had no follow-through. And when they ignored the red line in Syria and Assad used sarin gas to kill everybody else, we lost all our credibility. And then in 2009, under Obama, when the Iranian people rose up, we did absolutely nothing because we didn't want to jeopardize a potential missile deal, the JCPOA, which he ultimately got signed, but nobody passed it. Even Democrats wouldn't pass it.

But here's an example. Politics. Pure politics. Taking over. Listen to the irresponsible Hakeem Jeffries and what he had to say earlier.

Listen to other Democrats and how they're handling it. Look, I'm not saying everything's been complete, it's been done, and any critic has got no reason to speak up. You could go speak up. But when people don't speak up about Libya or other actions that other presidents have taken, and knowing that no war resolution has passed since World War II, yet we've had Vietnam's War, Persian Gulf War, we had the Korean War, we had Grenada, we had I could rattle off all these military options and actions, but now it's Donald Trump. We've got to stop in his tracks.

And this was brought up by Bill Melusian. About Nancy Pelosi saying, we don't need a war powers act. And Hakeem Jeffries wasn't in Congress then, but he's got to have somebody that told him that you had no problem there was a Democratic president with similar military action, Cut 38. Back in 2011, Nancy Pelosi said that then President Obama didn't need congressional approval to bomb Libya.

Now House Democrats say President Trump needs that approval to bomb Iran. What's the difference?

Well, obviously, Libya and the circumstances connected to that were very different than the circumstance that we face in Iran right now. I mean, I don't even understand the genesis or basis of that question. I'm not suggesting that you're not asking it in good faith. Libya went on. As I've indicated, First of all, was not in Congress.

at the time.

So we're dealing with what we're dealing with right now. which is a catastrophic endless war as Donald Trump has characterized it. What are you talking about? Donald Trump says, yeah, I'm going to do an endless war in Iran, and I I j I doubt the sincerity of your question. He's saying that was a war effort, military effort, that lasted for seven months.

You said would be quick. That seemed necessary at the time, but I thought there would be a plan for the next day. By the way, Libya is one of the most. Unthought of military actions ever and resulted in our embassy being stormed and Americans being killed in Menghazi. But listen to Democrats just using this as an opportunity to do what they always do: beat up on Trump, cut 40.

I don't even understand the justification for what is taking place. You know, well, the real reason for this operation, please stand up. What is really going on here?

Well, I think the Pentagon doesn't know what the plan is. I'm not sure that the president even knows what the plan is. What's the goal here?

Well, what is President Trump trying to accomplish? They have no plan. They have no idea what they're getting themselves into. Did you watch any of the briefings? Did you listen to the president at all, his two remarks?

If you queue that up and watch that. And say to yourself, What's the plan and why are we doing this? You're just not paying attention. The question is, you don't have only one. Like, one thing that George Bush did that Gerald Ford, I remember, said was a mistake is that the President George W.

Bush went out and got U.N. Security Council approval and U.S. Senate approval, 70-plus votes for action in Iraq. He said it should be for weapons of mass destruction. He didn't have to say that.

He could have said one of the reasons is weapons of mass destruction. He lied last time and he had them. He had a nuclear program he denied that was blown up in the 80s by the Israelis, even though Ronald Reagan told him not to. And we now know he kicked out weapons inspectors multiple times. And Saddam Hussein says he has designs to taking over the Middle East.

But instead he said, let's just zero on one reason, weapons of mass destruction. And when they weren't found, he said, oh my God, you lied. There was a million reasons to go into Iraq. What the President's saying is Axios has that today.

Well We put an armada around there. We saw the annihilation of now, they say, 50,000. Innocent Iranians who stood up and spoke out against their horrible government and just were killed in cold blood, killed in their hospital beds. Parents charged for the bullets used to kill their children in order to get their bodies back and have a decent burial. Just horrific stories.

That's one. Number two is the mass production of ballistic missiles, short and long and medium. Why? China's helping them. But number two, they were building 100 a month.

If you have short and long term, long range missiles, you saw the damage that was done even with the exquisite missile defense that Israel had. You know Israel is queuing up to hit it again, and why are we going to let them get that? That will hold everybody else hostage. They'll end up in the hands of Hezbollah and Hamas. He'll be right back here in two or three years.

And then there's a nuclear program. They actually told our negotiators: we have enough enriched uranium to make 11 bombs, and we're not stopping. Really? And we're not even entertaining talks about ballistic missile reduction or elimination, okay? And we're going to continue to feed our proxies, that's our right.

Why are we talking? That's two. And number three, the nuclear program in two separate sites are reconstituting.

So pick one. There's not just one, there's multiple. Why did they do it when they did it? Here's why. Because CIA and Mossad, one or the other or both, CIA is the latest, was able to inform the President of the United States, Netanyahu spoke.

That Aito Khomeini was having a war meeting. And they told him the exact location. They've been tracking him for weeks through traffic cameras and other means.

So they blew it up. They go, we could start now, do it, kill all 40, and they did. They killed 40 and then killed nine more. 1-866-408-7669.

So that's the groundwork laid. I'm not going to talk about this. I want to talk about the primaries yesterday, pretty significant. And also take your calls. I know you have a lot to say.

1-866-408-7669.

Rich Lowry from Nash Review. In 15 minutes, your calls next. Don't move. Politics, current events, and news that affects you. Brian's got a lot more to say.

Stay with Brian Kilmead. 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.

From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Kilmead. It started when every European nation, at my request, paid 5%, which they should be doing. And everybody was enthusiastic about it, Germany, everybody. And Spain didn't do it. And now Spain uh Actually, said that we can't use their bases, and that's all right.

We don't want to, we could use their base if we want, we could just fly in and use it. Nobody's going to tell us not to use it.

So the president really got ticked off gradually. He's sitting there with Chancellor Merce of Germany, who's been good, and they're building up their defense while telling everybody: look, America's not going to watch our back like they used to. And you might think that Trump would be upset by that, but he's trying, he actually, that helped, that's helpful. Because how do you get your NATO allies? And if you're a politician, how do you spend more and tell your people you have to spend more money on defense?

If they know for a fact that America's going to watch your back and we don't have to, I need it for social programs. I need it to build up infrastructure. No, America has made it clear if you don't spend 5%, I'm not going to defend you. And you might not like that, but you know who doesn't mind it? The General Secretary of NATO, Mark Ruta.

But you know who's not into this? Paying 1.4%, 1.2% of their budget on defense, the left-wing woke president of Spain. He said, it's an illegal war. I don't want any part of it. Good.

Uh you're out.

So the problem with the President saying no more trade with Spain is that's no more trade with the EU. And that's what Chancellor Mertz said.

Now, he's getting some blowback for not standing up for the UK and Spain because the president was honest again and said this is not the era of Churchill. Why? 'Cause Stormer is a wallowing. I'm not going to get involved. This is an illegal war.

Meanwhile, he knows what Iran has done to the Middle East, roiling everything. He's worried about his anti-Israel base. He's worried about his left wing. of his left-wing government. Uh he's worried about the whole Epstein thing that could bring his government down.

So basically you lost your key ally. And I've been watching a lot of Sky TV and GBN news. Most Brits are really nervous now. They might have been critical of America. But they were always thoughtful, they've always had America.

Now with this guy, now with this president, you gotta earn it every day. And they have not earned it. Bridge Lowry next. A talk show that's real. This is the Brian Kill Me Show.

Many of you may remember the shock and awe strikes of 2003. The first 24 hours of this operation were nearly double the scale, and we continue with 24-7 strikes into Iran from seabed to space and cyberspace.

Now, we're less than 100 hours into this operation, and we've already struck nearly 2,000 targets with more than 2,000 munitions. We have severely degraded Iran's air defenses and destroyed hundreds of Iran's ballistic missiles, launchers and drones. And in simple terms, we're focused on shooting all the things that can shoot at us. That is Admiral Brad Cooper, CINCOM commander who had a lot to do with the design of this attack, and that's just a fact. You have a reason to be proud.

Democrats look at it as party politics, and I am surprised. You know, I am. People say, well, why am I surprised? Of course, I'm surprised. Because a run's been a problem, not for the last 18 months, but really 47 years.

And a lot of these guys are most of these guys in Washington are older than me, so they live this. And then they get the high tele uh the high select intelligence briefings and they come out and say, no plan, why now, not necessary. Focus on eggs and beef. Rich Lowry joins us now, editor of National Review. What about you?

Are you surprised, Rich? Are you surprised that Keem Jeffries says this is going to be a mission that will end in failure? No. Uh wh what else are they gonna say? Yeah, the the kind of the John Fetterman type Democrat, someone who's deeply hostile to our enemies, even if he doesn't like necessarily the the other party or everything the President of the United States is doing, that that that guy is gone, except for a couple of examples, veteran being the foremost among them.

So yeah, they they they were never going to be in favor of this. They opposed pretty much everything Trump did.

So about that, I'm not surprised.

So you write your column today about the Golden Dome. If anyone needs an explanation of the need for missile defense, they haven't been paying attention to what's taken place over the last five days. The interceptors knocking down drones and missiles and rockets with the Gulf states, Israel, of course, and us.

Now, there's a problem. We need more interceptors, but we also need a golden dome. This is the time to make the case, isn't it? Absolutely. I mean, this is really the age of missile defense coming into its own.

And we wouldn't be able to do this operation if it weren't for missile defense, right? Israel would get a ballistic missile every 15 minutes that would be hitting and killing a lot of people, and that would be intolerable. Our bases would be more vulnerable. We've lost six guys. That's horrible, but there'd be much more of that.

So this opened up the strategic vista for the Israel and the U.S. to hopefully end this nuclear program forever. And we just it's absurd to me that we the other side wants to us basically to have be defenseless if there's a major launch from Russia or China. We should obviously should be able to do everything we can to try to knock down ICBMs directed our way.

So you say that you believe if there's a Democrat elector in 2028, the whole research and development and implementation will stop. Why do you think? Oh, absolutely. I mean, that's the history of this. They're willing to accept a few ground based interceptors that we currently have in the ground, if there's a rogue North Korean launch.

But the history for the last fifty years is unremitting hostility from the left To this idea. Initially, they said that technology was impossible. You couldn't hit a bullet with a bullet, is what they used to say. We sit see bullets hitting bullets all the time, right? On cameras.

On social media and TV screens. Yeah, and then they say it's destabilizing. But what can be more destabilizing than the United States potentially being nuked by someone?

So we've seen the iron beam supposedly being deployed by Israel. This is like a lack of money. That's huge. That's a game changer. I haven't seen it work yet.

But these beams literally take a missile out of the sky at almost no cost. Yeah, and we had a program to do to put that on our planes, an airborne laser, that Obama defunded. They they just hate the very idea of it. It's perverse. But Trump needs to try to get as much going in the ground and especially in space as possible to trying to create facts they can't reverse.

But no, this will be one of the first things they cut. By the way, I was able to go uh to Uh In Denver, at CENTCOM, I think there's a different name for it now, and inside a mountain. And they told me it's absolutely doable. And the next day, the admiral that was briefing me was briefing the president about what the golden dome would look like. And I said, wait, it's not something like years away.

It's not something rudimentary, fundamentally, that we got to develop. He goes, no, no, we're ready. I can do it. But we're going to need it as a separate cost because the money will be almost equal to the whole defense budget. Yes, it's hugely expensive.

And to really make it work, we need to go into space and have space based lasers. I know it sounds crazy to say, but I think these kind of things are becoming technologically possible. And that's where you can shoot down a massive barrage, and that's what you'd hope to be able to do.

So let's take a look at the fight as we see it right now. The IDF is having great success. The PRISM long range missile is brand new and to the battlefield better than the Attack'ems. Hope we give the rest of the attackems to the Ukrainians. 2,000 targets hit in Iran.

100 hours into the operation, 50,000 troops, 200 fighters, two aircraft carrier strike groups are in action.

So we already saw, first time since World War II, we took out a boat with a submarine, a ship. We've wiped out 19 of their ships. We think it's basically the gist of their entire Navy. What's your assessment so far, Rich?

Well, the technical proficiency has just been astonishing. And this is a very good message to Russia and China. Just we have these capabilities and technology that they don't.

So please don't mess with us. I hope that deterrent message is being sent. I think, at the very least, we're flattening a lot of stuff.

So even if this ends tomorrow for some reason, I think we've set back their programs years and years and years. The big question, though, is will there be a more pliable regime or a different regime? And I think that's just very hard to do from the air.

So that part of it is kind of a shot in the dark.

So what they did is they contacted the Kurds over the weekend. The president said, stay in your house right now. It's too dangerous. I'm watching some international reporting. It says that people still are being questioned by the besiege to say, show me your phone.

Are you communicating happiness that the Grand Ayatollah is dead? If so, you're under arrest.

So they're still out there. The question is, they're going to go layer and layer deep until the people feel empowered enough to stand up and speak out. I hope there's a CIA Mossad operation to arm the people because that's careful. Yeah, well, that's the key thing.

So, whatever this level of support for this regime is, whether it's 70, 30 against, 80, 20 against whatever, the problem is the 20 or the 30 percent, they're the guys with the guns.

So, you either need the guys with the guns eventually to say, you know what, we don't believe in the system anymore, it's a failure, let's try something new, we're not going to shoot, which is what happened at the end of the Soviet Union, or you need some guy with a gun to say, you know what, I'm going to say I'm on the side of the population and I'm going to be the next guy in charge, and I'm going to forge a better future for my country. That can happen too, but neither of those things are guarantees.

So, Democrats are going after the president saying he's got too many reasons to have this, not one straight objective or mission. Cut six is Marco Rubio explaining it. The President systematically made a decision to systematically destroy this terroristic capability that they had, and we carried that out. I was very clear in that answer. This was a question of timing, of why this had to happen as a joint operation, not the question of the intent.

Once the President made a decision that negotiations were not going to work, that they were playing us on the negotiations, and that this was a threat that was untenable, the decision was made to strike them. That's what I said yesterday, and you guys need to play it. And if you're going to play these statements, you need to play the whole statement, not clip it, to reach the narrative that you want to do.

So, I mean, that's what we're really up against. You're really up against the media and Democrats who want to see this mission fail.

Well, yeah, and then some folks on the right, too, that were distorting what Rubia said the day before yesterday, where he seemed to suggest that Israel is going to do this, and that's why we had to go in, when he was actually addressing the timing, that we didn't want Israel to go first the way they did in June and come in after because we're going to get hit regardless. And he made that obvious in his initial statement, then came back to it yesterday to try to make it clear. But people are just intent because they want to make the case that we're on a caboose of a train driven by Israel and distorting what he originally said. I want you to hear, and I want to get some of the Texas primary in because there's some big news there. The President of the United States was asked about our allies.

You know, where's the UK?

Well, German's president chancellor was right next to him, merged. He says, You're doing all right. You're building up your military. You've been supportive. But Spain is a joke.

Cut 30. It started when every European nation, at my request, paid 5%, which they should be doing. And everybody was enthusiastic about it, Germany, everybody. And Spain didn't do it. And now Spain uh Actually, said that we can't use their bases, and that's all right.

We don't know, we could use their base if we want, we could just fly in and use it. Nobody's going to tell us not to use it.

But he came out and said, I'm going to stop all trade with Spain. That would affect the EU. I don't know how feasible that is, but I understand the anger. And then when he went up to the UK, too, he said basically this is not the year of Churchill. I mean, this guy is an absolute embarrassment, Stormer.

Oh, yeah. No, it's terrible. It's disgraceful. We don't ask a lot of them, right? But being able to use our bases when we're acting in our national interest to try to eliminate a threat to our security and ultimately Europe's security, you think they could at least do that, and they haven't been able to.

So let's talk about the primaries in Texas. Are we going to have a runoff of the Senate seat for the Republican nomination? John Cornyn, Ken Paxton. Cornyn won by about one point, but Wesley Hunt was in the race, got 14 percentage points. Therefore, they're going to have to spend millions of dollars leading up to May.

How do you see that coming out? And what do you think about the need for a runoff?

Well, it's kind of a worst case scenario, right? Because you got Tellerico emerging on the the Democratic side, whereas you'd hope for Crockett for cynical reasons because he'd be much easier to beat, and then a runoff, where regardless of how it turns out, these guys are going to maul each other. They've already been doing it.

Now Corn has made progress. I was surprised that he came out on top. Last night, and he's been absolutely nuking Paxton. I think he'll continue to do that. I agree with the conventional wisdom that Cornyn is a stronger general election candidate than Paxton because Paxton has so many vulnerabilities, but I don't know how the runoff's going to ultimately turn out.

Here's Cornyn last night, cut 47. I think he'll be an albatross around the neck of all of the Republican candidates, including the five new congressional seats that President Trump is depending on to win the majority in the House.

So that's what he's trying to say because he's got so many personal issues between his ugly divorce, multiple girlfriends, the accusations, the impeachment that he fought off. But he's been loyal to Trump, so Trump's gonna st he likes Cornyn too, but he's gonna stay out of it. Steve Toth beat Dan Crenshaw. In the primary, he was backed by Ted Cruz. Crenshaw is out.

Yeah, I liked Crenshaw a lot, but he alienated people, and this wasn't a fridge candidate of the sort he'd beaten back in the past to have the endorsement of Ted Cruz, and plus the district had been rewritten, giving him new voters he wasn't as familiar with.

So I'll miss him, but this is politics. Yeah, on the left, it looks like Crockett is out, so she's complaining about the Dallas count that I think is suing. But Tellerico is the stronger candidate, it seems. But pushed by the left, Stephen Colbert basically gave him millions of dollars and about five points in the polls by that fake controversy a couple of weeks ago. Why?

Yeah, I can't believe that worked. But it it did. It it apparently did help Tellerico. And, you know, I think it's probably a partisan play. They realize he's the strongest, stronger candidate, and they're right about that.

I think they're both frauds, Tell Rico and Crockett, Crockett with all our fake accents, and Tellerico, too, but he's not as vulnerable as she is. And unfortunately, Democrats just kind of realized that she would be giving up any chance of winning the seat, and the primary voters made a more rational choice. Michael Watley is going to be going against former Governor Roy Cooper now. Watley goes him as the underdog. And I think in most polls, he's trailing.

Can he make up the difference? Yeah. You know, I think it's tough. Cooper is just a proven vote editor and a good fit for the state, so I think that's a tough one. That could be a seat that's flipped.

Yeah, I mean, you begin to think, well, you know, I don't know about Susan Collins this time either.

So it begins to get, ah, you know, I've taken it as a given, as we've talked about several times, that we're going to Republicans are going to lose the House, but if the Senate goes, that would be a debacle. Yeah, I mean, you look at, I think they got a real shot in New Hampshire with Sununu, and with Rodgers in Michigan, those would be two areas that you would be able to flip, right? Yeah, you'd hope so. Yeah. And you're worried about main Susan Collins, but doesn't Susan Collins always trail?

She always trails and she always wins. I'm just wondering if this time will be different. I mean, it would be obviously no fun to have the guy with the Nazi tattoo in her place, but it could happen. All right. Thanks so much.

Rich Lowry, National Review. Appreciate it. Thanks, Brian. Technically. All right.

You got it. 1-866-408-7669.

We're looking at the oversight hearing now with Governor Waltz and Attorney General. Attorney General Ellison getting grilled for allowing corruption to run rampant. And in Ellison's case, caught on camera, caught on tape, seeming to take a bribe. Tom Emmer is questioning him now. We'll look back in a moment.

Where big stories meet bigger conversations. Stay informed and energized with the Brian Kilmeet Show. A radio show like no other. It's Brian Killmead. I don't think there's anybody in the hot tub, but I don't even, I haven't forgotten that there was anybody in the hot tub, but it was me, so.

We went out, I swam around, I slept in the hot tub for Five minutes, like whatever it was, and I got up and went to bed. And then after ask this, did you engage in any sexual activities with this person?

So embarrassing. Right? I mean, did you see some of this stuff, some of this testimony? Who's this young girl? I don't even know.

There were other people in the hot tub. I guess he had that answer. And then they asked him about what about Jeffrey Epstein's quote that says, I like him young.

Well, I don't know. It's not true. Like I'm young. They go, their interns young. Yes.

It's unbelievable how embarrassing this is. Ag I mean it's just the headline, I did not have sex in the hot tub, like President like Bill Clinton. Right. Like that's that's just all you see. Right.

And then is his wife going off the day before? I mean, I by the way, I think she's 100% right but it's being angry about Boebert. Agreed. I 100% uh back that up. But I want you to bring it to something else.

We haven't talked about the hockey team winning two weeks ago, but it's so ridiculous they got caught up in this turmoil because they didn't push back on a joke the president said in the locker room about the women. I got to invite the women. It's just a joke. He has nothing against female athletes. You could argue he's done more for female athletes than anybody else.

But among the people that think it's an absolute joke that you're criticizing the USA hockey team after winning the gold medal and going to the White House is Charles Barclay. That came up. Cut fifty nine. Everything is not Democrat, Republican, conservative or liberal. That's why we got this divided, screwed up country.

I'm not a Trump guy. But If I got invited to the White House, I would go. I'm not a Trump guy. I want to make that clear. I respect the office.

He's the President of the United States. Guy won twice. That's what Charles Barkley said. I mean, he likes to push back. He's got a logical quality to him.

You know, usually heaps it to basketball, but he also has logic. And I just thought you guys should hear that. But that's what's really going on. The U.S. hockey thing seems to be a month ago, but it was only two weeks ago.

They seem to be mainstreaming it now. I saw them on some late night shows. They're obviously staying away from politics on the tonight show, who's the least political of all, also the least interesting show of every late night show. I don't know why Jimmy Fallon's on. He's basically down to a 1.4.

We get a 1.4 at three in the morning. This is, and we're a cable network that could also be seen streaming on your app. But if we get a 1.4, that show gets canceled. He's on a late night show and he's not breaking a two. Everybody in the country gets NBC if you have a TV.

And they're saying, I'd rather go to bed or watch Gutfeld. Gutfeld gets a 3.9. Again, we're not seen in every house. You still have to beat someone who says, I need cable, which is a supplemental payment. And some people don't have it on regular cable.

And then now we have the streaming and all the different things on YouTube.

So I know it gets a little convoluted and equals the playing field a little bit for us. But just crazy. But they are having, people are getting over it, understanding it. I think the president should have the rest of the Olympic team there and see how many people go. I think a lot of people will choose not to go, and that'll be on them.

I do think, for the most part, there's another athlete that's going to be in Congress, Mark Teixeira.

So A really great player with the Rangers, was fantastic with the Yankees. He will now replace Chip Roy. He won the primary easily, and he'll go glide path right to the house. And look for him to be a favorite on our show and definitely a favorite of President Trump. Use the brain kill each other.

From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmead. Hi everyone, Brian Kilmead here. Thanks so much for listening. We're here at Midtown, New York, 48th and 6th.

We got Jackie Heinrich coming up from the White House shortly. Benjamin Hall, kind enough to stay in the studio. He's got a brand new book out, author of a brand new children's book called Read All About It. It also relates to war, but it's a great message for kids to get. We'll talk about that too.

And also, we just got briefed an hour and a half ago by the Secretary of War and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Got some important facts to get out there.

So we'll update you on the latest in the war and the counter strikes that seem to be diminishing, thankfully. But first, let's get to the big three. Number three. The good news is this is the earliest primary on the calendar, right? We saw it here in March.

The runoff is in May. You will see there is plenty of time for them to run on their record and run on their message versus James Tellrico. There is Aaron McGuire on Fox and Friends First, the impactful primaries in Texas and North Carolina, the upsets and the runoffs. We have the latest. Number two.

The American people want us to focus on making their life better, making their life more affordable, not getting involved in another endless war in the Middle East that is going to end in failure. Right. Can you believe that? A leader in America, as a politician, Hakeem Jeffries, saying failure and war in America. The politics award.

The Dem's playing nothing but party politics as President Trump makes his case and communicates his objectives. We also take a look at the economic impact of it all around the world. Number one. Iran cannot outlast us. We're going to ensure through violence of action and our offensive capabilities and our defensive capabilities, as I said, that we set the tone and the tempo of this fight.

That is true, and that is Secretary of War two hours ago. Day five of a war that was 47 years in the making. The U.S. is taking out countless targets and leaders in Iran. As the IDF focuses on Hezbollah and Lebanon, we have the latest from the war zone.

Benjamin Hall spent the majority of his career in the war zone. He's Fox News senior correspondent, author of that brand new book, Read All About It.

So, did you have a chance to see the briefing? I did. Yeah, I watched it.

So, a lot of stats thrown out, a lot of optimism. I think one of the things that stood out to me is. Uh That their ability to launch missiles is down 86%. And one way attack drone attacks are down seventy three percent. We're in day five.

Yes, and I think that the big question is not how many missiles, it's how the U. S. can destroy their launchers. And apparently, they are just watching from the skies. And every time they fire off one missile, Uh the infrared picks it up and the that launcher is destroyed.

almost straight away. I mean, they're watching every time one sets off.

So look, we're seeing Iran fire a lot less. My only word of caution is, is Iran trying to play a longer game? Are they holding back a bit because they know they are being hit so quickly? And we I'm not sure we know that yet. But certainly the stats look good.

A couple of things. The sad, though the way I think Iran says is, well, America doesn't have limitless munitions, and we see the divide at home. If we give them any type of casualties or any type of stress and this starts being very costly and the water and energy starts going up, America will buckle and they'll get bored and they'll move on. Exactly. Many of us were asking at the beginning, why on earth would Iran be attacking the Gulf states and Qatar and Saudi Arabia when those countries had initially said we don't want to get involved in this war, perhaps even telling the U.S.

they couldn't.

Well, we think the reason is that Iran felt that America and President Trump were afraid of two things. One is that this would become a much wider regional war, so that's why they're attacking these other countries. They're threatening that. And the other is oil prices.

So they're claiming to shut the Straits of Hormuz. They're not actually shut. And the oil prices are rising. But President Trump was saying just yesterday, yes, they're rising a little bit now, but they're down a lot from Biden, for example. And they will be even lower once this is over.

So neither of those two threats that Iran has put on President Trump are working. And in fact, I think they have backfired on Iran because many of these countries now want to join in with the U.S. They are getting actively involved and Iran is ever further on the back foot. Do you know they hit Turkey today? And Turkey was the one particular Potential ally in the area that was not saying things condemning Iran and was saying, We ought to stop these hostilities.

Today they hit Turkey.

Well, it's interesting to hear, and I think that they shot NATO, we're not sure which country, NATO forces shot down that ballistic missile before it hit Turkey. But there was an interesting question about whether Article 5 would be triggered if a NATO country was hit by Iran. Yes. You forget Turkey's a member of NATO. It is, absolutely.

But so again, I just think this is Iran lashing out and trying to escalate this war. And the other question is: who is making those decisions? Where is the command structure in Iran? You know, they talk about this mosaic.

So I don't think that it is one leader anymore. I think the different groups now have their own free will to fire as they wish, because if they talk, they are tracked by the U.S. and then they are targeted. Right. And you saw the apology come out from the foreign minister when they hit Oman.

So, okay, they said, well, the communication wasn't clear. I want you to hear Senator Jean Shaheen. She's somebody who's been critical. In the past, but I also want you to hear what some Democrats have been saying about all this, they're playing politics. Here's an example of Hakeem Jeffries.

I think this is so out of bounds. Also, Hakeem Jeffries was challenged. He was challenged on the fact that you're against this action, but you had nothing to say, or Democrats had nothing to say, when. Barack Obama went into Libya, Cut 38. Back in 2011, Nancy Pelosi said that then President Obama didn't need congressional approval to bomb Libya.

Now House Democrats say President Trump needs that approval to bomb Iran. What's the difference?

Well, obviously, Libya and the circumstances connected to that were very different than the circumstance that we face in Iran right now. I mean, I don't even understand the genesis or basis of that question. I'm not suggesting that you're not asking it in good faith. Libya went on. As I've indicated, First of all, was not in Congress.

at the time.

So we're dealing with what we're dealing with right now. which is a catastrophic endless war as Donald Trump has characterized it. He characterized it as an endless war? Yeah, and there's a clip of Nancy Pelosi back then being asked, so does President Obama not need to get approval? And she very clearly just says, that's right, that's what I'm saying.

And so how the tables have turned. But Hakeem Jeffries also said earlier, our failure. Madam Leader, you're saying that the President did not need authorization Initially and still does not need any authorization from Congress, one Libya. Yes. How can a politician just do such a U-turn for politics when there are lives involved, when the military is out there fighting, when you are ridding the world of this regime, and for the sake of politics, they just want to take a totally different line to the one that they embrace themselves?

I was talking to Senator Tom Barasso. I said, behind the scenes, before he went on the air, I said, behind the scenes, were Democrats outraged in the meeting when they were being briefed by the CIA director, the Secretary of War, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of State? And he goes, no. They had good questions, we had good questions, it was fine. And I go, what do you think when they went out to the microphones?

He goes, it's just pure politics. Humor coming out saying we don't have any answers. What answers do you need? And this has been a persistent problem. Yes, and I think also Hakeem Jeffery is saying a war which is absolutely going to end in failure.

But that's such a strange thing to say because failure for what? If the objective here is to demolish the missiles and the nuclear facilities Iran has, that is exactly what's happening. We're seeing it day by day. And so to call this a failure when everything at this point is going to plan and going faster than we expected is again pure politics because the objectives are being met. Doesn't mean there aren't questions about what comes next.

And I think we're still looking to that. But right now, the US has shown immense military ability, working hand in hand with Israel to defeat the threat to the region, to our allies and to everything else. And so for politicians to come out and say it is already a failure Is politics alone? I know, by the way, we have Benjamin Hall here. Ben, first off, I was watching some international reporting this morning.

And they were saying, so far on the streets, it's still locked down. Iran, that regime is very much in charge. Besieged is walking up and down streets, making sure people aren't even texting negative things about the Ayatollah or the government. We're celebrating. Yeah, it's a big question, what comes next?

And I know the regime has sent out text messages to every phone in Iran saying, if you come onto the streets, you will be, I can't remember the term exactly, but you will basically be killed. We will attack this as if you are the worst threat to the country.

So the people in Iran are staying inside right now. The question is, when can they rise up? What happens? To what degree does the regime have to be bombed before and weakened until they can rise up? You mentioned the besieged militia there.

I think it's important to point out that these are the guys you often see on motorbikes going around really at the forefront of killing the protesters, the 30 plus thousand who were killed. It's the besieged militia. And we haven't seen many of them hit yet. And I wonder if that's the next phase for the US and for the Israelis. You've got to hit the internal police force.

You know, as we heard in the briefing earlier, so far... They have had to gain air superiority, certainly in the south, moving inwards. Once they've got that, I think then they might focus on the domestic issues with Assaid in Iran. For now, it's been about stopping the attacks. Right.

I think the next phase is to get the next level of leaders. And also, when the Grand Ayatollah becomes the new Grand Ayatollah, the son of the dead Ayatollah, I'm sure he's going to be targeted too. Yesterday, they saw they took out a meeting that was looking to replace the Grand Ayatollah. Yeah. Took out everybody in that building.

Yeah, and it's interesting because the son of the Ayatollah, many people had talked of him being a successor even before this war began, but everyone had discounted it because he's known to be very, very corrupt. He's close to the IRGC. He doesn't have many followers inside Iran. And it just looks like nepotism to put the son in place.

So the fact that they have picked him is interesting. And it does mean that many people, even inside Iran and regime supporters, won't support him. But I think they wanted to convey the sense that the Ayatollah's dream continues. Everything the Ayatollah lived for will continue. But I don't think it's a good long-term plan for the regime itself picking this guy.

They say they got at most 15% approval with a country of 91 million. That's a lot of enemies. I'm not sure who wants that role right now, except they all want to be martyrs.

So, for that sake, they put themselves up and they'll probably lose their lives. All right, so here's Dave Ignatius, as you know, a Washington Post reporter who really knows this region. Cut 27. Several sources that I talked to, who were very much in the middle of this, say there is no evidence yet of regime fragmentation. That's what you look for if you're thinking about regime change.

You look for fissures at the top of the regime that suggest that you can pull people away into something different. To quote again, one of my sources: the regime is a fabric. Trump. as yet to unravel that weave. I thought that was a very clear statement of how Iran, despite all the pounding they're taking, still remains integrated at the top.

Well, they don't know if there's anywhere to go. The President says he's getting a lot of calls from people who are looking for amnesty. I don't know if that could be. Yeah, but we also keep forgetting, and again, the Secretary of War said this early, we are four days into this. This has just begun right now.

But yes, I do think that for the best and most efficient way for the regime to fall, you do need someone turning against the regime. You do need some kind of one of the groups moving against them. In 1979, it was the Air Force who were the people who rose up against the Shah and finally said, we're no longer with the Shah, and that created the cracks you need.

So, you know, we will be looking for which group inside Iran now, even if it begins with a localized police force, one group to start saying we are against them, that's where the cracks begin to fall. I want to get your take on the UK because that's where you're stationed. And the President said this is not the period of Churchill, couldn't be more disappointed. And Stormer, who's not going to do anything, and there's taking four days now to get a ship ready to go over and help people in Crete. But I saw this one woman kick.

Video column basically about how she sees things in Britain right now. And here it is, cut 32. It horrifies me to read that. And Jake is right, our amazing armed forces deserve all the credibility. They deserve good resources.

They deserve to have our full support. They deserve to be protected for crying out loud. We were exposed out there. We knew that there was going to be war in that region and we have left them undefended. And now France and Greece are having to run to our rescue.

Do you know what? I've got a message, not just for this Prime Minister, but all of you. All of you for the past 20 years. You have been self-indulgent. You have been naive.

Your policy principles have had totally the wrong priorities. It's been about keeping your seats, gaining your seats, pandering to communities who will never vote for you, who do not have our interests at heart. You didn't stop those pro-Palestine marches. You didn't prescribe the Muslim Brotherhood. You didn't prescribe the IRGC.

You were weak in support of Israel. You sabotaged our self-sufficiency when it comes to energy production, concreting those oil wells, banning exploratory. Drilling in the North Sea. What on earth do you think you're doing? You're domestic terrorists.

You're sabotaging this nation. You're compromising food security by attacking the farmers.

Well, guess what? When international maritime shipping routes close down, food can no longer reach our island. Everything that this government and, quite frankly, previous governments have been doing for far too long now has been pathetic, it's been weak-willed, it has had its eye off the ball, it has been narcissistic, it's been about looking good in public, and at the same time, you have put Britain in a desperately precarious situation. All right, I just want to give you an idea. Does that echo some of the people you know, Benjamin Hall, the frustration?

You know what? She said something really interesting right there. She's put a finger on it: that all these politicians in the UK are just trying to keep their own political seats. They're pandering. And many of the seats that Keir Starmer and the Labour politicians will be fighting for come from fairly Muslim parts of the country.

Muslim communities and they know that if you go against Israel if you don't support this war that you will win those votes but if you do support this war many Labour MPs are gonna lose their seats and in fact we just saw a by-election a few weeks ago in which the Green Party ran because they released their campaigning in Arabic are you kidding yeah not all of it but they are releasing Arabic policies for these people because that's how many of them win their votes in some parts some parts obviously not all of the UK but in some parts and so yes it is purely political Kier Starmer is on the back foot right now Peter Mandelson you have all these other issues which means he may well be out of his Epstein files Epstein files exactly out of 10 Downing Street at some point and then the weakness that they've shown in in the Middle East right now and finally the UK is getting involved because Iran attacked our air base in Cyprus and so finally we're on board and yet for the UK to stand up and say we will not allow our bases like Diego Garcia to be used by the US side by side when you're trying to remove this horrible regime which we've said all along we We want to get rid of their missiles. We want to get rid of their nuclear facilities, but we won't help you do it.

Well, now they are helping to a certain degree because they were hit. And so why create this difficulty, this break with the U.S. and President Trump when you were going to join them anyway? It just seems to be so badly played, not just in the UK, but in Europe as well. I mean, looking at Germany, Italy, Spain, not allowing its bases to be used.

America has had to pull its air tankers out of Spanish bases because they won't allow it. These countries need to stand side by side with a country who supports them, who pays for all their military spending in NATO. It's ridiculous. Not anymore. It backs up everything the president said.

If you're not going to spend to 2%, now you can't get them to spend two.

Now the new number is five. With 1.5 being infrastructure, you wouldn't even talk about the energy. You've capped your deep sea wells. You could have energy off your North Sea. We're buying it from Norway.

He's taking it from exactly the same place. Green Maniacs, back in a moment. From breaking news to big name guests, Brian brings you insight you won't hear anywhere else. You're listening. Listening to the Brian Kill Meat Show.

The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Killmead. Hey, we've got a few more minutes with Benjamin Hall. Benjamin, it's a tough week to bring out your book, but we do want to mention, because it is related to war, it's a new children's book. Read all about it.

And the premise is?

Well, I'll tell you, it's about a little hedgehog. He goes into the forest, he saves the day is the basic story, but it's based on this little hedgehog that I took with me to all the war zones I covered. And it reminded me of home. And then it was with me. I've got it here, actually.

Can you believe it? It was with me during the attack in Ukraine. It was inside my body armor. And this little hedgehog survived. And it was a few days later when I was just staying, trying to stay alive.

I held onto this little hedgehog, and it gave me the strength I needed. And I finally got to hospital, and I had all these facial injuries, and I didn't want my children to see them. And so, again, it was the hedgehog who sent messages to my daughters instead of me. And so this hedgehog became a really big part of our family. And it sent messages home.

And finally, I got home and I said, you know what? We're going to talk about the hedgehog goes around the world and he saves different things. And in the book, it's about saving the forest. About stopping the bear. And the main message compared with what we're seeing in the world right now is, and what I want to tell all children, including my children, is if something isn't going right, if something is doing the wrong thing, you stand up and you stop it.

You don't sit back and not do anything. You have to get involved. And I'm so concerned nowadays, you see people around the world just filming things. They don't get involved. They don't want to get in it to stop people doing anything.

That's part of the message of the book is You find a way of Stopping things that are evil. You get in there and you fix them.

So that's the main message, and it's about journalism, too. His dad is a journalist, and he uses the words to spread it around.

So, you know, it's a book about courage, hope, and resilience. And it's one that sounds great. Where do you get it? You can get it in bookstores, you can get it on Amazon, anywhere. It's called Read All About It, and it came out yesterday.

All right, Benjamin Hall, thanks so much. I'll talk to you again. You're going to be here for a little while, right? Yeah, a few more days.

Okay, thanks. Brian Kilmicho. Back in a moment. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead.

Something had to be done. And it's been 47 years. They've been Uh killing people all over the world for a long time. They were the The kings and fathers of the roadside bomb, Salome, we killed him last term. If we didn't, I think it might be a different story today.

They would have been much stronger and smarter than they are.

So the President of the United States talking yesterday with Chancellor Mertz by his side, talking about why they did the operation and the progress they were making. But some of the news that happened out of that was the President made it clear, Spain, he's furious with them. He says, I'm going to cut off trade. He also said the U.K., we're not in the year of Winston Churchill. Jackie Heinrich is there, senior White House correspondent, author of, you know, anchor of the Sunday Briefing, which would be a good book.

Jackie Heinrich, welcome back. Thanks, Brian. Good to talk to you. I know. Crazy intense times, I should say.

Chancellor Mertz is getting some criticism for sitting there while the President was going off. On all our allies not helping us. While watching that, were you surprised at the blowback he got? I was surprised at the blowback that MERS is getting because if you listen to Mark Rutte, for instance, he has been pretty darn clear that NATO supports what the President is doing here. I think he made a strong case for why taking out the regime is something that benefits everybody and provides security in in across the world.

I mean, this is a huge expense that the U.S. is undertaking to try to set back what could be you know the the most dangerous regime in the world. I think that it's a little bit silly that you know part of the debate is the president's authority to do this. If you look at you know the war powers resolution, it very clearly states that the president has authority to repel against an impending attack on the U.S. And I think the the Democrats who are criticizing President Trump are you know a little bit Off their off the ball there, especially if you look back to all of the acts that have been taken since the last war was declared, World War II by Congress.

There's been so many, you know, Gulf War, Vietnam, all of these wars happen without congressional authorization. But I do think the legitimate question that is being discussed right now is the risk to Americans in the region and why the notice didn't go out to them until day three that they need to get out right away. Yeah, by the way, if I'm going to Qatar and I notice we have an unprecedented military buildup, I might put it off and choose Aruba or Alaska. It might not be the best time. Here's the president yesterday on Spain, Cut 29.

Well, some of the European nations have been helpful and some haven't. And I'm, you know, s very surprised. Germany's been great. He's been Terrific. Uh others have been very good, terrific.

I think that The head of NATO, Mark, is fantastic, okay? Mark Ruta. I think he's fantastic, but some of the European, like Spain has been terrible. In fact, I told uh Scott To cut off all dealings with Spain.

Well, the problem, the complication is there, Spain's part of the EU.

So if you're cutting a trade deal with the EU, you can't really pull one out, right? Yeah, I think that what this really speaks to is why the administration is trying to determine access to Greenland that will not be disputed. Because when you have these alliances that depend on agreements and you've got the rest of NATO moving to that 2% commitment, making the 5% commitment, and Spain's the only outlier, and then they, in addition to that, which preceded Operation Epic Fury, now saying, hey, by the way, you can't use our bases for these strikes, they are out of step with the rest of the alliance. And so it sort of legitimizes the administration's desire to make sure that the US has unfettered access to whatever assets it needs, whatever areas it needs to secure world peace and take action when necessary, especially in the face of what the President has said was an imminent attack on the U.S. and its forces.

So here's some of the media's reaction since this action started four days ago. Cut 33. If this does extend three, four, six weeks, and the American death toll really accelerates, this is not just a defining moment for this president, but a real problem for his party in a midterm election year. We don't know why Donald Trump just started this war in Iran. Trump did it.

Basically, as a favor. Can President Trump really take out every dictator on his own without consulting Congress or getting them to vote? You know, there's something fishy about why he did it to me. It's a distraction, like a wag the dog situation.

So It's kinda interesting that Jake Tapper, who the president took his phone call And gave him a thorough insider view of why we're doing this action, would still. Go out of their way. He talked to Joe Scarborough. He talked to you. You make sense.

You're a reporter of the White House. He sees you every day. But he'll talk to everybody. Look, I'm not going to go public now. That eight-minute social media posting is what I'm going to do.

But you have some questions, I'll answer them. He does not get anything back for that. No, it seems like the criticism is coming where it usually comes from. And the Democrats are seizing on any little thing that they can use to upend Republicans in the midterms. I think that they want to seize on the President's previous messaging that the U.S.

would have no new wars, and they see a sort of fissure in the Republican base right now, and maybe that could harm turnout in the midterms. They want to take advantage of any of those kinds of liabilities. I think that the President has made very clear the risk that the regime posed, especially with regard to their nuclear ambitions, their ballistic missile program. I think the only sort of question mark that has spurred a round of questioning in the last 24 hours or so was after Marco Rubio briefed the Senate on Monday and he suggested in his commentary that Israel had planned an attack on Iran regardless and therefore the Iranians were going to retaliate against the U.S. and it was at that point that the U.S.

had to take action because Israel was going to take action. You know, when he was asked about that, the President said, no, they didn't force our hand. Israel didn't force our hand. If anything, I forced theirs. I believed that Iran was going to strike first, and so we got out ahead of that.

But we haven't heard sort of a a very clear timeline of when the intelligence said that this was likely to happen. And I think that the more the administration can make that clear in all of their efforts, the better it will be for them to have the American people understand why this needed to happen now, because the polling is mixed on it, even if everybody does agree that Iran poses a massive national security threat.

So the Fox News poll, Americans who say Iran poses a real national security threat, sixty one percent now. In June, seventy three percent. And it's been basically sixty plus percent dating back to two thousand six. Uh here's the other question. To the U.S.

military strikes on Iran, are you approving it? 50-50 overall. Only 20% of Democrats approve it. 84% of Republicans approve of it, Independents at 40%.

So this is going to be the polls are going to reflect, it's going to be outcome-based. And Jackie, I'm just wondering if this is a scenario where Everybody stays in power. They just temporarily have no missiles, rockets, or nuclear program. if that is a problem for the president.

Well, it it could be if the Iranian protesters who wanted to see this regime overthrown and obliterated don't like that. Um that could raise the question of was it worth it. There's also always the possibility, potential that sometime in the future this produces an emboldened replacement regime. I think that that's why the administration is working so hard to get rid of everyone who poses a threat. It's a little different than Venezuela.

These are ideologues. You don't have a lot of pragmatists in the regime. They're not known for that.

So it's unclear who potentially could emerge. And so far, we have not heard the administration say that they plan to back opposition leaders. Israel has also not said that. I interviewed a former Israeli prime minister and asked some current officials, you know, will you support opposition? And they said, look, we're not trying to do this for regime change.

We are focused entirely on eliminating the security risk.

So there is that sort of what happens next question. But I think as with everything, the polling was mixed on Venezuela also immediately after it happened. And now it's not. And also, you've got the president citing, look at this Venezuelan oil coming into the country. Thank goodness, because now that Iran's out of the picture, there's a lot of sort of fluctuation happening with global oil prices.

And he's saying he's not too worried about that here in the U.S., at least not in a serious way.

So I think it will be outcome-based, to your point. We'll see how it turns out. But I think that the more that they can make very clear the timeline of their decisions and the threat that was posed, it will be easier for the administration to take a victory lap when, if this succeeds, and then you've got all the Democrats in the background saying that we opposed it, you know, that that would be sort of a reversal of Who's got the advantage in messaging? And Jackie, what's on tap today? Do you know?

We have a briefing, actually, at 1 o'clock with Caroline Levitt.

So looking forward to that. And we had the Pentagon briefing this morning. It's sort of hour by hour. And the last time we had a briefing, I believe the President made a surprise appearance. We don't know of any guests today, but they have been doing more press.

You had the Vice President going out. You had Netanyahu interviewing with Sean Hannity.

So I think that they're trying to get people's understanding of this more aligned. Jackie, you had some good news. Are you president of the White House Correspondents Association? Yeah. Not yet, but in July I will be.

Okay, guess what? I guess part of the organization which you're a board member of will have the president back at the dais. How do you feel about that? Yes, it's great. You know, all of my college studies and diplomacy are finally paying off.

It's good. We invited him to be the speaker and be honored at the White House Correspondents Dinner. He breaks his long boycott of the dinner and will be joining us as we honor the First Amendment, the work of the White House Press Corps, and journalism at large. It'll be end of April, so right around the corner. And it's a roast, you know, so we'll see what he has to say about the press.

It should be colorful if we know. But will you have a comedian on? There's no comedian this year.

So the president of the association, which this year is Weeja Jang from CBS, makes the decision on the entertainer. She selected Oz Perlman, who's a mentalist, and he does sort of mind tricks. He's great. Yeah, he's great. People love him.

I've never seen him before, so I'm very excited. But I know that it'll be interesting. The last time I saw a mentalist was at Brett Bayer's Special Report Christmas party, and he accurately guessed Scott Bessant's phone password. It should be fascinating. Hopefully, he doesn't go for the nuclear codes, though.

I don't think we need that getting out. Right. Do we know Scott's code? Do you remember it? I don't remember.

That would have been great. But no, Oz is the best. No one's better than him. Yeah, it'll be great. He'll probably work the audience.

I think it will. It should be fun. Yeah, it should be great.

So, we're going to see the present there. I think I'm going to go pick out an outfit now. I think I'm going to go. I think that's bigger news. I think it is pretty big news.

And we believe the First Lady is also joining.

So yeah, and we always extend the invitation to the Vice President and Second Lady as well.

So it should be a really huge evening. And all the staff are also going. Caroline Levitt and Stephen Chung and cabinet secretaries, etc.

So there's a scramble right now among the outlets to get their guest tickets, you know, figure out who wants to come with who. But it should be a really great night. We're excited. Go get them. Jackie Heinrich, there's so many things she's got.

A lot of balls in the air and seemed to be handling it all. Thanks so much, Jackie. Thanks, Brian. Thank you. You got it.

Listen, back in a moment. I see you up there. Sandra, Jacob, Howard. I'll try to get to all your calls when we come back in the Brian Kill Meet Show. The headlines, the stories behind them, and the people who make them only on the Brian Kill Me Show.

Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. In terms of specific estimates, here's from one official in the Gulf that I spoke with this morning. The number of Iranian missile launches appears to be decreasing. There were 350 missiles launched on day one, 175 on day two, 120 on day three, and 50 yesterday.

They still have capability, in other words, there were reports this morning from Israel that both Lebanon and Iran had fired missiles into Israel today, this morning.

So there's still obviously some left. But those numbers give you a sense of what people in the field think is the decreasing missile capability of the Iranians. That is David Ignatius, no nonsense Washington Post reporter, and knows this region as well as anybody. That's the key, getting rid of the launchers and the rockets, and then we can move with impunity to kill as many of those higher-ups and government evil government officials as possible. Let's listen to more from Dave Ignatius.

Several sources that I talked to, who were very much in the middle of this, say there is no evidence yet of regime fragmentation. That's what you look for if you're thinking about regime change. You look for fissures at the top of the regime that suggest that you can pull people away into something different. To quote again one of my sources: the regime is a fabric. Trump as yet to unravel that weave.

I thought that was a very clear statement of how Iran, despite all the pounding they're taking, still remains integrated at the top.

It's day five. Hold on tight. Sandra, WABC in New Jersey. She's listening on ABC. Hey, Sandra.

Hey, Brian.

So I'm very, very happy about what Donald Trump did. There's no question about that. Three little points that I'd like to make. Simply, if these poor civilian people didn't agree with him, and as a result, they were slaughtered, we certainly don't agree with Ayatollah Khomeini, so we would be next. It's so obvious.

That's the first point. The second point is I was thinking about immortality. You know, nobody, if you are a leader and you have power without restraint, eventually You know, you lose that power, you have consequences for your actions.

So that's what I wanted to say about that. We're the ones who had to do it, Sandra. Look, the U.S. had to do it. We're the only ones, us and the Israelis.

And I think we're the two best fighting forces, pound for pound, in the world. Thanks so much. Uh Howard, you're in Maryland. Brian, got just one question for you. Iran's been at this for a minimum of 10 years, maybe 15 years.

Their allies have been China, Russia, North Korea. What makes us so sure that they don't already have a nuclear weapon? I don't hear anybody talking about that, but I don't understand why they don't have one after all this time.

Well, you never know. I have not heard that anyone thinks they had it. I think it would be somewhat detectable.

However, no one brings up the fact that they can make their own centrifuges. We used to be able to track how many they're buying, how many they're spinning.

Now we don't know because they make them themselves. That's the fear. They'll be able to do it like they do with drones. They came up with very good drone technology, so good it changed the battle landscape. Against Ukraine.

So, what else are they capable of? I don't think they have. a weapons grade uranium, although they said they have enough to make eleven bombs. But they haven't. I want you to hear what Michelle Bacca said.

For people who are outraged that Trump's doing this, she put into perspective what Obama did, Cut 45. It's a double standard. We all know if this was anyone else but President Trump, it would be a different story. And as you said, Trace, this is seven months in Libya. And it's not just Libya.

You look at Obama's presidency. He ordered airstrikes in seven different countries during that time. The good news is that President Trump has history and precedent on his side. It's not only the Obama administration, it's also Biden, Clinton. It isn't the first time this happened.

It's clearly a double standard, and it's the Democrats' elective outrage. Yeah, because of how many countries that Obama hit. And I got to tell you, there were a lot of Republicans in support of when Obama hit Libya, but many were stunned. There was absolutely no plan for the next day. Especially Hillary Clinton, been so critical of President Bush when it came to Iraq.

And it was her idea and pushed Obama into it by almost all accounts. You listen to the Brian Kill Me show. Go to BrianKillMe.com, find out how to see me at Evansville, Indiana in July. 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. It's the Brian Kilmey Show.

So much to discuss, so little time. This hour, Daniel Hopfin is going to be with us, former CIA station chief in Moscow, Iraq, Pakistan, South Asia, Europe. Obviously, he knows the area. He knows the problem of Iran. And he also knows what's been leaked out.

He would not share unless it was the great role CIA had in starting this conflict by pinpointing where 40 leaders were, including the Grand Ayatollah. This hour, I'm going to be joined by Canta Ahmed, senior fellow. Of the Independent Women's Forum and member of the Council on Foreign Relations. But before we get to her, let's get to the big three. Number three.

The good news is this is the earliest primary on the calendar, right? We saw it here in March. The runoff is in May. You will see there is plenty of time for them to run on their record and run on their message versus James Telrico. Aaron McGuire, the former Trump official, turned commentator, impactful primaries in Texas and North Carolina, will tell you about the upsets and the runoffs.

Number two. The American people want us to focus on making their life better, making their life more affordable, not getting involved in another endless war in the Middle East that is going to end in failure. Really? That is a minority leader saying end in failure? Politics of war.

Dems playing nothing but party politics as President Trump makes his case and communicates his objectives. We also look at the economic impact that's happening all around the world with your dollar and with your cents. Number one. Iran cannot outlast us. We're going to ensure through violence of action and our offensive capabilities and our defensive capabilities, as I said, that we set the tone and the tempo of this fight.

That is the Secretary of War this morning, day five, and here we are. This is a war 47 years in the making, and the U.S. is taking out countless targets and leaders in their effort to, I think, bring an end to the threat of Iran and hopefully the end of this regime. Let's bring in Dr. Canta Ahmed right now.

Dr. Ahmed, what's your thoughts about where we're at right now and the President's decision to go in? An enormously courageous decision that the President took, and I don't think there was anybody else who could take that decision. It's a high stakes, high risk decision with high reward. And I think he made it considered after carefully weighing up all of the options and examining Iran's behavior.

I was in Israel during the 12-day war, which was waged between Iran and Israel, and have full knowledge of those ballistic missiles that they were dropping on us throughout. And Iran has shown no retreat and no contrition since then. It is very much the case that Iran is heading towards nuclear capabilities with full intention to use them against Israel. And so this was the last exit President Trump took it.

So evidently they told our negotiators, Kushner and Witkoff, that they had enough enriched uranium for eleven bombs. And they didn't tend to do anything about it. I have no doubt, and we've watched this accumulate in plain view. There's been no mystery about that. And we also know that Iran had planned its entire foreign policy with the ring of fire, its proxies of Hezbollah, its proxies of Hamas and the Houthis, encircling the whole region in conflict, and now the conflict has come home to roost.

How's it being played? I know you travel extensively to the Middle East. How do these Gulf states feel about this? They've been targeted in Bahrain, in Kuwait, in Qatar, in Jordan, and in UAE. What's the reaction been?

So I was speaking to close friends in the region just a few hours ago. People are shocked. People are actually shocked at the actions of Iran. Speaking to friends in Oman, they're in particular disbelief because they were the mediators, they were neutral, they were trying to help conduct dialogue between Iran and the United States. To my mind, it means the Gulf states did not understand who Iran was.

Don't forget, I think it was March 2022, China brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran. And Saudi Arabia is a recipient of Iranian strikes.

So I think they're waking up to reality and learning about the adversary that had been trading its hostilities on Israel. Finally, they're getting a taste of the same type of treatment. Dr. Ahmed, how do you explain that they hit Turkey today? Turkey is their one that's the one country that has not been condemning them in their actions.

Not only that, but that is a NATO ally. And so to me, it means, and even from the beginning, you can see that the Iranian regime was losing its grip on reality, the incredible violence, dismembering of Iranians, the atrocities perpetrated on 400,000 wounded Iranians, 40,000 murdered. They were already losing their grip on power.

Now they're losing their sanity. They are not acting rationally. They're striking indiscriminately those that were neutral, those that were facilitators, and those that were uninvolved. And also, we have truly decapitated the regime. I was expecting that to happen in a few days.

It happened on day one. And they obviously have been prepared to act. Relatively independently, but they're not able to act cogently. That plus the New York Times reporting that some in Iran are trying to reach the CIA to see how to quickly deconflict tells me they're in full panic. Right.

Somehow, I know we can't use the word regime change, people's eyes roll in their heads. But this regime can't stay in power. And evidently, we're going for the first tier still. And now we're going to roll into the second tier, start to kill as many as possible or immobilize them. Admiral Brad Cooper on the game plan and where we're at right now, cut nine.

We are seeing Iran's ability to hit us and our partners is declining, while our combat power, on the other hand, is building. And my overall operational assessment is that we are ahead of our game plan. Along the way, every single branch of our military is achieving unprecedented success. I'll talk about just a few of them. Our naval forces have deployed multiple waves of cruise missiles, obliterating Iranian command and control and air defense capabilities.

He blew up their whole Navy. They got 19 ships, and we one ship was in international waters, and a submarine hit a torpedo, first time since World War II, and took it out. And now we said, when it comes to the Gulf of the Strait of Hormuz, We're going to start escorting ships. And fi and ensuring them. And the market seemed to like that possibility, and they're up 300 points.

Go ahead. Even on the day of the strike, the markets had factored in that the Ayatollah was over.

So I felt that the markets were very confident. And I think that's a brilliant financial move on President Trump's part. It once again will weaken Britain, which has been exceptionally disappointing in this conflict, as you've seen, because Britain is where much of the shipping insurance industry is based.

So I think that's the right thing to do. It is also evident to me from the 12-day war in Israel and the combination of America's signal intelligence, Israel's extraordinary intelligence, that we are layers and layers and layers deeply into control of the events in Iran. We don't just have dominance over their airspace, but there's been years and decades going into penetrating their military structures. There are Iranian secular military forces that are opposed to the regime. This level of being able to target 40-plus Iranian leaders in one place is impossible without some inside information, not only from intelligence.

So I think that we are in for many more successes in the days ahead. I do believe it's going to last for weeks, this conflict.

So when you talk about them rising up, it's very hard to do when you don't have guns or a militia.

So the president evidently is interacting with the Kurds of Iran. And I have such respect for what they've been able to do. I know there's different Kurds' sects and they're not liked by the Turks, obviously, and there's rivalries. But do you think there's more upside than downside in telling the Kurds, go for it?

Well, what I will say is, I know of no other fighters more valiant than the Kurdish fighters. I mean, they really are equivalent to our Israeli allies. They're extraordinary. They defeated ISIS. The Iraqi Kurds, they were absolutely almost eliminated by Saddam Hussein, and the United States created a no-fly zone.

So we have Iraqi Kurdistan that is thriving until today. I go there frequently. The Iranian Kurds are similarly a very noble people. They're on the border of Iraq. They are tremendously persecuted by the Iranian regime.

So the U.S. logic will be to arm the Iranian Kurds. And if they're willing, encourage them to begin holding autonomous territory and forming a kind of insurrection, which will then deplete the regime forces. Iranian regime forces will become stretched between defending themselves against the United States and Israel, trying to quell an insurrection. And that's how you get the regime to break.

you I would say to President Trump. Please remain a loyal advocate of the Kurds. We just abandoned them in Syria, and you know how painful that was for me. I think that was the wrong move. But if the Iranian Kurds are willing, the United States has to support them, not only transactionally, for the long term.

It would help and maybe get them a homeland once and for all. But what is your biggest worry? Because I'll tell you, the people who are plotting and planning and trying to get into Ronian's head, they feel as though we do not have endless munitions. They feel as though we're a country divided, and politics will have the president stop early if they could just withstand the barrage. That might be their game plan.

What is your worry? Yeah. I, in fact, feel very confident in our President. I think he really has to be commended for a man of extraordinary resolve who can withstand incredible pressure. And while we have President Trump Safely at the helm.

I think we're going to be very focused. You and I both know the Secretary of War well. I think he is well supported, and of course, Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

So I don't think we're going to waver. Yes, the oil markets and the energy markets are going to be fragile, but the United States is well prepared. We have almost half a trillion barrels in our strategic reserve. We're energy independent. Europe is going to feel the pain most because they're reliant on Qatari liquid natural gas.

And maybe, Brian, I've been thinking this is a chance to actually reduce the amount of Qatari influence on the United States and Europe, which would not be a bad thing if we succeed and remove the Iranian regime from its power. We now will be left with only one state sponsor of terrorism in that area. That would be Qatar. And I believe Qatar is going to change its stripes. It's going to realize that doesn't pay.

So there's so much to gain. There is. And no more Hamas living amongst them because Hamas is now getting a lot of attention, but there's nothing protecting them and nothing financing them. And Hezbollah is finding that out right now as the Lebanese government wants to take back Lebanon. Dr.

Ahmed, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Always a privilege, Brian. Thank you. All right.

Listen, we'll take a timeout, but just keep in mind, too, bottom of the hour, I'll talk to Dan Hoffman. I'll be able to get your calls next, I promise. But there's a lot going on. I thought that the Staff Sergeant David Bellavia, who is a Medal of Honor recipient, Uh put it correct. When he was talking about the stakes and the reason we're doing this, he is somebody who's definitely against endless wars and doesn't see that here.

Cut 20. When the thirteen were lost at Abbeygate, Do you know how easy it would have been for those American soldiers to just turn, take all that anger, that fear? That frustration and just open up on a crowd, that discipline, that true north of the American soldier, we hold that anger in. We don't take it out on the innocents. What does Iran do when they're threatened?

Iran goes and launches drones at hotels and apartment complexes, cluster bombs into open areas. There's a difference between America and the rest of the world. And we mourn with those families. We love those families. God bless you.

God bless everyone that knew those heroes. But right now, we have to internalize that and use that against the only thing we can in this fight. Which are the people that are trying to kill more Americans. And that's the Iranians. That is Staff Sergeant David Bellavia talking about the six that lost their lives.

You'll listen to the Brian Kill Meat Show. Back in a moment. From breaking news to big name guests, Brian brings you insight you won't hear anywhere else. You're listening to the Brian Kill Meat Show. Breaking news, unique opinions.

Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Joe. The American people want us to focus on making their life better, making their life more affordable, not getting involved in another endless war in the Middle East that is going to end in failure. End in failure.

So a 47-year enemy. Who was reconstituting their nuclear program? Who we blew up last year and had fruitless, aimless negotiations. We should just ignore it. Really?

Hezbollah Hamas, let him refinance, not your problem. 36,000 people get killed, maybe 50,000 should not be an issue. Keem Jeffery says, okay.

Well, the President of the United States is not only doing multiple things with the economy and other things, the market, by the way, is bouncing back today. Do you see he's also operating in Ecuador to stop the cartels that are operating there? You know what's happening in Venezuela? 50 million barrels of oil. We're basically splitting it 50-50 because we're refining it basically for free.

And now, Cuba is going to fall next at the same time, doing the best he can today. Today, he's signed at the White House. All these mega companies, this Meta, the uh Chat GPT, all these major uh AI organizations. Have a committing to when they come in with a data center to build their own energy source.

So it's no longer going to affect. any state. Any city Any county. Presents to a multiple thanks. And that's what you do if you want to be a historic president.

The other big thing is what happened in Texas last night, Corning. And Ken Paxson advanced to a runoff B in May. Ken Pax Center John Cornyn did better than many people uh thought. He won by about one and a half points, but didn't get fifty. And then Dan Crenshaw lost his seat pretty substantially by eight points.

And on the Democratic side over in Texas, Crockett loses. to uh ten credo Tellerico, rather, and he becomes the great hope that Stephen Colbert thinks can win that seat. And if Cornyn does not get the nomination, He is a much easier, he's got on a glide path if he gets the nomination in May, but Paxton with his personal faux pas and problems could be an issue, although he does win all the time. Jacob, you're over in Atlanta. Hey, Jacob.

Hey, Mr. Kilmey, good to talk to you. Hey, so the reason why I called was I was pretty concerned about seeing the results of that Texas primary last night. I don't know if you saw it. By the end of it, about twenty three thousand or more Democrats had voted in their primaries than the Republicans had.

There were over two point two, I think, million votes in the Democrat primary last night, which is tremendous. from my understanding for a primary turnout.

So that kind of scares me about Texas going forward. And I'm wondering if maybe the red sheen of Texas is finally starting to wear off. Um I doubt it. I don't know what changed much except for you could just say arbitrarily, regardless of where you stand on it, maybe too tough on immigration, Hispanics, and misinterpreting it. But I can't don't want to know what that has to do with people turning out.

But it's been pretty consistent since Trump won. That the turnout's been terrible. And I think they got to work on it. I mean, you got the Dallas Republican Party chair, Alan West, and others got to come together and find out what the issue is. And for the MAGA base, many don't love this war.

Uh this is conflict. Hopefully people will see that. But the president of the United States has got to make do some Texas visits. Here, at the very least, Jacob, you're not going to be able to focus on other states. You're going to have to put some time into Texas, regardless if it's Paxon.

Put a lot. And if it's Cornyn, you got to put a lot. Normally, you don't really have to worry about it.

However, Ted Cruz needed a lot of help to get across the finish line against Beto O'Rourke and against his last opponent, too.

So it does get difficult with certain candidates. And John Cornyn's looked at for somebody from the Mitch McConnell era. And Mitch McConnell is probably the least popular, powerful Republican at the age of 80-something. He's barely getting by. He's had some physical frailties.

So that's the issue.

However, generally, independents refer Cornyn. When we come back, what's the deal on the ground? Can we kill the next Ayatollah who did the last one? How prevalent is the CIA? And can we arm the opposition to get rid of this horrible regime once and for all in Iran?

Daniel Hoffman joins us. You'll listen to the Brian Kill Me Show. Don't move. The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead.

This was patient, methodical, intelligence-driven targeting. Imagine the humiliation of the Ayatollah rolling through Tehran, waving like the king, while Mossad and the CIA were watching literally from every street corner. This wasn't a rushed revenge. This was calculated, brilliant dominance that exposed the regime for their paper-thin dictatorship. It is.

And it tells me that we've got real capability. Our U.S. intelligence apparatus remains deeply capable and capable of long-term planning. And we're going to continue to strike them at the heart. And again, they're completely decapitated.

They are in chaos at the top of that regime right now. Brett Velkovich, who served in Iraq and spent considerable Time in Ukraine talking about what he's seen so far with Stuart Varney yesterday. What about Daniel Hoffman? Is he impressed with the level of intelligence? He's got a high standard.

He's a Fox News contributor, former CIA station chief in Moscow, Iraq, Pakistan, and just about everywhere else. Dan, have you been impressed with what you've seen so far? Yeah, absolutely impressed. But honestly, Brian, I'm not surprised. This is what our intelligence community does.

Uh we do the find part. And sixth part, when it comes to high value targets, whether they be terrorists or senior Iranian officials. And then, with precision strikes, the U.S. military does the finished part.

So, we've seen this. this capability where we fused Highly sophisticated intelligence, human source intelligence, which we combine with signals intelligence and overhead reconnaissance to produce. The information that the U.S. military needs to conduct these incredibly high-value operations, whether in Venezuela or in this case, against Iran.

So, Dan, the story's coming out now in Axios and other places. What happened? Why we started when we did. It looks like Prime Minister Netanyahu called Trump with a stunning tip that Iran's supreme leader and top advisors were set to meet in a single location in Tehran. It looks like the CIA had the same information, and he decided we're going to go, we're going to take him out.

That does that scenario surprise you that a guy Who knows he's being targeted would be so. out and about like that. Yeah, I mean, holding a daytime meeting and then gathering all of the senior leaders in one place at one time, all it takes is. for us to track one of those guys and everybody's at risk. This was a little reminiscent to me of the opening Salvo in our war on Iraq back in 2003 when we tried unsuccessfully.

To decapitate Saddam's regime. We had Saddam in our crosshairs and just missed him. But in this case, we were successful. And this was bad tradecraft on the part of the Iranians, an extraordinary success for us.

Now, we haven't typically launched daytime raids, we own the night. And Iran might have assumed, wrongly in this case, that we weren't going to strike during the daytime. It's not with, you know, beyond the realm of possibility that maybe their allies, the Russians, might have told them that no, the United States doesn't plan on striking you during the daytime. Who knows? They rely on the Russians a lot.

for tactical intelligence on the United States. That's Russia's currency when they're asking for things from Iran like drones or for Iran to set up a drone factory in Russia so the Russians can produce more of them. But what you've done.

So if we knock Iran out, does Russia have other ways to get their model drone, right? I mean, Russia's now created these factories inside Russia. They brought Iranians there. And now they've got an indig indigenous uh capability. But it's still not a good look for Russia or for China.

That after signing these strategic partnership deals for 25 years, that they have not been able to deter. the United States and Israel from launching what are existential strikes against the Iranian regime. And for whatever what's left of of the IRGC, and make no mistake, there's plenty of guys, tens of thousands of them with guns. They are, as Brett said, living in chaos and the fog of war. If they go up on their communications, They have to know they're taking a risk that we're going to collect that information and then find, fix, and finish them.

I want you to hear what General Keene said yesterday: cut 14. I mean the IDF, everyone knows how good they are, and we've seen them in action many times, and certainly Americans certainly appreciate how good the United States military is. Bringing these two together is really unprecedented. We've never done anything quite like this. And that is why we are going to systematically, step by step, shred this regime.

So and he goes on to say that they're going to take them out.

Now they're going for second-tier leaders. Though I understand too, according to reports, no one feels comfortable walking around the besieged that Gestapo-like internal security service is still threatening people.

So no one has freedom of movement yet. There's no organized resistance yet. How do you change that, Dan? Uh Well it's very difficult to bring real regime change with just an air campaign, but we're doing the best we can. with it.

And look, let's remember that US national security is based on dealing with Iran's nuclear program, their ballistic missiles and their support to proxy terrorists.

So, how we get to a place where Iran is no longer threatening the region and beyond. uh in those three ways, you know, that's has yet to be determined. It is possible that some elements of Iran security services may decide that they want to Strike a deal with the Trump administration in return for reducing or eliminating sanctions. They may allow inspectors in and they may promise. not to do, not to produce a nuclear weapon and to allow us to ensure they don't have ballistic missiles and they'll cut back on their support to proxy terrorists.

From the CIA's perspective, the CIA is responsible for human source intelligence so we can target Iranian officials. They're also responsible for battle damage assessment. How are we doing destroying Iran's drone factories and ballistic missiles and their nuclear program? But the CIA also does sensitive clandestine outreach. And based on my experience, having served as the CIA's director of the Near East division, I would say it's highly likely that the CIA is engaging in outreach with Iranian officials to gauge their interest, perhaps, in striking some sort of a deal.

So we might end up with a situation like we did in Venezuela, where we break off a piece of the Iranian security establishment and create the conditions for Iran to be. Less of a threat in the region and to our country. Dan Hoffman's with us, CIA background. Dan, what about the chances of arming the population? I mean, you got to arm them and train them.

So, I mean, this is the problem. They have no weapons. All they have is all heart.

So, what do you do with that? Have you ever had an experience trying to arm an un. Skilled Population. I have had experience doing that.

Some they're armed. I mean, look, they can get arms. There are opportunities to get arms. But the training is not just it's not just giving them weapons and teaching them how to use the weapons. But it's also training them in in basic Movement so that they can strike the enemy.

It's really hard to do that without some boots on the ground.

Now, you can do it with US Special Forces. It doesn't have to be one hundred thousand troops, but it's a commitment and it's a risk to our soldiers to put them in country and do that. You could outsource it. There are reportedly discussions going on right now. Where we're seeking assistance from the Kurds in Iran.

There are other ethnic groups in Iran who may be interested in. uh conducting operations against the Iranian government. But Again, I think Brian, at least based on experience, very hard. To enable an opposition, especially when you're talking about, for the most part, unarmed protesters who are going to have to find weapons wherever they can. To overthrow a regime that is entrenched and is fighting for their survival right now and is going to do anything they can.

Ruthlessly to attack these Iranians who want to bring a better future to their country.

So, for people listening right now who don't have the foreign policy background and obviously the background you have in surveillance and security, why does Iran matter? How bad was this regime? Yeah, I look, the the regime was was focused on building out a capability look a lot like what North Korea does in the in the Pacific. And that would have been extraordinarily destabilizing in the Middle East, would have risked our economic, our commercial interests In the region, it would have put our allies, our Gulf State allies of Israel, in the crosshairs. Iran would have essentially had immunity.

to conduct whatever terrorist operations they would have wanted, including controlling the Straits of Hormuz and using Yemen as a proxy terrorist surrogate to launch attacks on the United States and our allies. And so Look, it took us too long, frankly, to deal with this. I can tell you from my experience, having been in Iraq during the surge, frankly, I wish we had taken the fight to Iran. Early days, Iran was worried back in 2003 that we were going to finish the origin 10. is why they reportedly stopped their nuclear program and then restarted it years later.

But uh look i if we As the Israelis like to say, if if at the very least we mow the lawn, which is what the Israelis like to do to the terrorists uh You know, the terrorist proxy groups like Hamas and Hezbollah on a fairly regular basis, and we de-fang Iran for the next generation. That in and of itself is an accomplishment worth celebrating. These people just deserve their freedom. I don't care what kind of government they have, I just want them to have a say in it. Dan, people at home should understand what they were up to in Iraq.

How many they killed 603 of our guys, they maimed thousands. But how much harder did it make our job with this insurgency? What was their role in the insurgency? I mean, it continues to this day, Brian, we are dealing with the fallout of that. I can tell you, when I was in Iraq, Iran was providing assistance to the Shia militia groups, specifically Jaish al Mahdi.

They infiltrated the Iraqi government. They owned the Ministry of Interior. They absolutely made it impossible for the United States to build a functioning um government in Iraq. And to this day, we are paying the price for that. We had a two-front war.

We were fighting Iraq, in Iraq, against. Al-Qaeda, and at the same time, against these Sunni, against the Shia militia groups that were using these improvised explosive devices to kill and maim. Our soldiers. And the Iranians ensured that al-Qaeda had sanctuary in Syria from which to target us, and these Iranian militias enjoyed their sanctuary in Iran. And that was their strategy.

And we didn't deal with Iran back in those days. I always used to say, you can't.

Solve the insurgency in Iraq if you don't deal with the safe haven in Iran and in Syria. And we never did that. We're just doing it now. It's a little bit late, but if you're hopeful for a future in the Middle East, uh that isn't full of violence. maybe this is it.

It's a risky, dicey proposition because look, every time you operate in the Middle East, it's dynamic and hard to predict how things are going to turn out. But I think President Trump felt like the risk of doing nothing was worse than taking this sort of action. I know it, and I think he's 100% right. What he's doing is handling the major issues that presidents have faced for the last, I guess, four or five terms. Venezuela has been a problem for 20 years.

Cuba is about to fall since the 60s. I think we're a few months away from that imploding. And then Iran, since my whole life, since I was in high school, I've been reading about Iran. Uh and and and the problems. And then when you think about what happened in Iraq.

How much better things would have been had they not been there? Even today, they finally might have a chance to run their own company, their own country. If you can defang and get Iran out. And then Syria already did just that. And then you have two allies, two enemies of ours, Russia and China, said, We don't want to mess with the U.S.

There is multiple things that, if this ends the right way, that could come out of this. Yeah. I mean, I hate to tell you, you know, I'm never one to be optimistic about the Middle East. That's just based on my experience. Prove me wrong.

And hopeful that everything turns out better than we could expect. But I will tell you, just the bottom line. If you look at the fact and what we've accomplished, so far in terms of targeting Iran's leadership, their ballistic missiles, their drones, their nuclear program, those are all tangible, positive results. And the message is pretty clear to the rest of the world. It is.

For anyone who says that the president doesn't act and America will never put action behind their words. I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed. Nobody doubts that now. And our allies in the region have gotten hit. Instead of being mad at us, they want to fight with us.

So these are all good signs, Dan. I know you like to, you have to always think worst case scenario. That's how you've been trained. But I'm a little bit more optimistic, and that's why I want to keep checking in with you along the way. Dan Hoffman, thanks so much.

Yes, sir. Back in a moment. Keeping you informed, engaged, and always a step ahead. It's the Brian Kill Me Show. The talk show that's getting you talking.

You're with Brian Kilmead.

Sponsored by Previgen. Previgen made for your brain. Last night, we sunk their prize ship. the Solomani. Looks like POTUS got him twice.

Their navy, not a factor. Pick your adjective, it is no more. Yesterday, The leader of the unit who attempted to assassinate President Trump has been hunted down and killed. Iran tried to kill President Trump. And President Trump got the last laugh.

Yeah, you forget about how many assassination attempts took place against Trump. You don't know who they related. We had a Pakistani come to New York, got stopped. He was set up when they realized what he was up to. They made the arrest.

I think he's on trial today. And the president said it: I got you first. I had told Juan to kill him. They had people come over to kill him. This is where they were trying to kill Brian Hook, our guest yesterday, kind of killed John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and President Trump.

And I don't even know Mike Pence, but probably Mike Pence, too. I imagine they tried to kill everyone. They killed Soleimani. But if you don't kill Salamani, you no longer have that. If he's alive, they have different cutting-edge terror activities.

They never replaced him. They've had people, but no one had the network that he had. That's why it was so important for us to take him out when he became exposed. And not many people would have done it, became exposed over in Iraq. Think about that.

So I thought that Marco Rubio put it good yesterday to say: listen, whatever you see, it's going to get harder, it's going to get stronger, cut seven. You're about to see, you know, we're going to unleash Chang on these people in the next few hours and days. You're going to really begin to perceive a change in the scope and in the intensity of these attacks as, frankly, the two most powerful air forces in the world take apart this terroristic regime and defang it and take away its ability to threaten its neighbors or hide behind a zone of immunity that allows them to develop their nuclear ambitions.

So that's what's happening. If Ron thinks it's slowing up, they're going to wait us out. I think they're missing the boat. personally. And we have a way of getting munitions into the theater.

The interceptors are an issue with our allies. They're going to want them too because they're being targeted so prohibitively and consistently, but it's been going down. I think the number of missile attacks are down ninety one percent from day one of this contest.

Now the other thing they're trying to do is hurt us economically, hurt the world economically, and take 20% of the world's oil and gas reserves that go in and out of Trader Formuzz and shut it down. They tried doing that. And it didn't work. And now the world and the markets are beginning to believe it as they've gone up 300 points. Here's General Kellogg, cut 13.

What that really did is it really allowed you to maneuver through the States of Hormuz, which is a strait of about 20 miles wide, point to point, land to land, 80% of the oil comes through the Straits of Hormuz.

So by taking out their Navy, which is really good, putting them at the bottom of the sea, you kind of freed up one option.

Now that means they should have pretty good freedom of maneuver for the oil routes. It was a good move by the President. And to have insurance.

So, what happens is if you have a ship, it needs insurance or it doesn't float.

So, how do you do that?

Well, I didn't know this, but the British handle most of the insurance for maritime.

Well, we came in and said, we will insure these companies.

So, and to give them the courage and confidence to go through there.

Now, if you look at this trade-off, there are missiles that could come from. Land. on the strait because it's only 20 miles uh wide. No doubt about it. But if you got a ship, They got missile defense, and that missile defense will keep the merchant ship alive.

We're used to worrying about ships in that area being targeted by pirates. And by evil forces, and now it's one evil force, and that's Oran. Don't forget, go to BrianKillme.com, find out how to see me on stage. It's coming up the 30th of May in Reno. And then I can't wait to see you in Evansville, Indiana, streamed on Fox Nation.

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