Will the U.S. Marines Take Control of the Strait of Hormuz?

From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Killmead. It's true. If you approach me, I will talk to you and I'll enjoy it. Hi, everyone.

It's going to be a big Friday show. It's been a consequential week. This hour, I'll be joined by Rebecca Heinrich, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, Nazi Moynihan. She's the Associate Fellow of Middle Eastern Institute, grew up in Iran, got great insight to what's really happening on the ground, so don't move a muscle. And of course, just a quick reminder: join Fox in supporting our troops for daily needs to global emergencies.

You know, we got about 50,000 deployed over in the Middle East right now, helping us to help them serve the best way you can. If you can serve, then go visit. Go Fox slash Red Cross to donate to service to the Armed Forces today.

So let's get to the big three. Number three. I need people who are High net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state. But maybe the first step should be to go down to Palm Beach and see who you can bring back home. Because our tax base has been eroded.

Who wants generous social programs? We don't want to waste our money. New York just doesn't get it. Losing their most successful, the governor makes a plea for the wealthy to come home. But why would they?

She wants the money that is not attractive for people to come back and give up what they earned. You think? Number two. Our party is governed by the TDS, and I would define that by epic fury. He could come out for ice cream and lazy Sundays, and now suddenly Democrats would hate it.

We would want to vote it down. It's so true, and that's a sensible Democrat obsessed with Trump. Dem saying life after Trump is still about Trump. It's bad for their party. It's bad for the country, but have at it.

Number one. The Iranians made a huge strategic mistake by firing into the Gulf. We're going after Gulf Arab assets. And now the Gulf Arabs and the United States are going to continue to pound the regime. It is less dangerous today after just 21 days, and it is not at its weakest yet.

Day 21 in the U.S. and Israel's mission to defang and destroy the Iran regime continues. While what's left of the IRGC continues to target energy of our Gulf states and our allies, making it more important than ever that we finish the job. And that's why I want to bring in Rebecca Heinrich, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute. Rebecca, it's kind of a race.

It's a race how much damage can Iran do to Gulf states energy resources before we can kill them all. Right.

Well, Brian, thanks for having me.

So I think that what's going on is the Iran regime is being so degraded. I mean, and that's putting it really lightly. I mean, the the United States with the Israelis has completely demand uh dismantled Their air force, we're going after their missiles, drones. Yes, the launchers so that they can't even launch missiles if they can rebuild missiles. But now we're going after their ability to even rebuild.

So, all of these tunnels that they have built underground to have these missile factories destroying that. And so, now what the IRGC is doing is it's trying to pressure the Gulf states, make this so painful for the Gulf states. If the Gulf states pressure the United States, that's why they're lashing out and hitting really civilian targets and energy-critical infrastructure in Saudi, Qatar, Bahrain, and so far and the Emirates. And of course, it's not working as you just heard Secretary Pompeo's voice there. He was saying, Look, it's backfiring.

You've got the Gulf states now partnering with the United States. This is all about now. The next kind of line of effort, Brian, is going to be the United States trying to find ways to stabilize the energy market and then to coerce the Iran regime sufficiently so they can no longer threaten the Strait of Hormuz. Right, that's a whole thing. Thing right now.

We got warthogs, we got blackhawks, we have our own drones policing that area, trying to blow up the fast boats and stop the drone attacks in the area. Because you hit one tanker, the insurers say we're not going to insure anybody going through. Yesterday, not one ship went through.

So we cannot leave this battle unless we find a way to stop the chokehold on the Strait of Ramuz.

So the president realizes that, Rebecca, for people who think the president was going to see the price of oil go high and then leave, they're mistaken. Yeah, no, I think that's you're exactly right. And also, there's this just lie, this myth. That the Trump administration somehow just didn't plan for the Iranians to do this, to threaten the, to close the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, I have been studying this issue for years and years in my own.

Work and every single war game exercise, tabletop exercise I've ever participated in regarding our potential strikes against the Iranian illegal nuclear facilities, it always accounts for the inevitability that the Iran regime will then try to terrorize the global markets by threatening the Strait of Hormuz.

So the Trump administration clearly knew that this was baked in. This is why in the first wave of attacks, the Trump administration or President Trump initiated the military campaign to go after all of those cruise missiles, the Navy, and to kind of look at the Iranian coastline.

So yes, so there's still a lot of work to be done here, but the Iranians can still terrorize us if it's just like you said, just a single drone or a single missile can spook these insurance companies, raise the prices, and you're not going to have people having the confidence. But I think we're going to get there, Brian. It's just a matter of time before we have sufficiently degraded the Iranians' ability. And then you'll see some naval escorts and then possibly even the United States taking even more action on PARG, that island there that the Iranians used to threaten. Because if we leave now, then all of a sudden the Arab states say we're vulnerable.

Number two, we didn't totally cripple the regime. And they say the message they get, we could stop America from acting again because of the threat on the energy cycle and of course the threat of the Strait of Hormuz. And the question is: what are we going to do with the USS Tripoli full of 2,500 Marines? The President was asked about troops on the ground, cut three. Mr.

President, do you intend to lift sanctions on Iranian oil and do you intend to potentially put U.S. troops or more troops in the region? No, I'm not putting troops anywhere. If I were, I certainly wouldn't tell you. But I'm not putting troops.

So we just don't know what the Marines are going to do. What do you think?

Well, I mean, I think that there is a very attractive option. This is all about. I mean, I think that the center of gravity at this point, Brian, is going to be who has control over the straits. And we want the United States and our partners and allies to have control over the strait. That would be just a monumental win if the United States could in some way plant the flag there.

And so I think that it would be very attractive for President Trump at this point to be looking at Carg Island and looking at this, these Marines that are being sent to the region. My understanding is upwards of 5,000 Marines. That's actually a small number if you think compared to what the United States did in Iraq. This is not a ground invasion to take Iran. This is specifically, I think, what they're looking at is how to take rest control over the strait.

So I think it's possible. Remember, just a couple of days ago, Admiral Corell, the leader of Central Command, who's carrying out this mission, leading it, he said that we destroyed 90% of the military capabilities the Iranians had on Karg.

So it's already sufficiently degraded. It's just now about who has control. And if the United States can get control of CARC, I think that that is the end of this.

Well, we could. Rebecca, what's the downside? The downside is we become targets, right?

So if they're able to shell the island or send some one-way drones and kill some Marines, not only is it tragic for their family, obviously, that first and foremost, but they're able to say, look, we know where to get the Americans. We got them on the ground. They said they weren't going to be on the ground and now they're targets. But it is a way to stop 90% of their oil. But at the same time, does that send a mixed message?

Because to keep the price of oil down, Scott Besson actually said we're going to let. The Iranians sell their oil.

So, if we stop their oil, are we working against our own? Game plan.

Well, I think that there's just you have to think about it sequencing. I think what Beston's trying to, he's trying to make sure that the price of oil kind of stays stabilized right now. And we're still, I mean, the price of oil is still lower now than it was during the Biden administration. And we're in the middle of a war against the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East.

So I think that there's a short-term game here, which is to kind of stabilize the price of oil. But the long-term strategy is to take away the Iranians' ability to coerce us. When you think about it, look at Venezuela. I mean, we took Maduro out of Venezuela. We now have a compliant Venezuelan regime.

We're still letting Venezuelan oil get out. The Venezuelan people are still going to have that oil.

So it positively impacted the oil markets. It's just that we want to be able to benefit from it and not have this country compelled by and coerced by our enemies. I think the same thing is what's going on with Iran. We want to make sure that the Iranian regime cannot terrorize global energy markets by threatening to hit these ships in the straits.

So that's what this is about.

So here is Tom Claza. He's the Gulf Oil Senior Advisor on what we are doing, Cut 16. It's marginal unless they reopen the strait. I mean, he mentioned 10 days, and it's about 10 days' supply of crude oil exiting the strait under normal circumstances.

So it's a problem. I think, you know, it probably raised a lot of eyebrows out there that you've pursued some policies that you hope benefit the Americans, but in the meantime, they're benefiting Russia and probably benefiting China and even Iran to some extent. One would hope. that when those supplies are sold, that it doesn't go into some sort of treasury where they can replenish weapons. Is that a worry?

Not for me. I mean, I think that this idea, you just heard Senator John Fennerman talking about Trump derangement syndrome. I mean, for anybody to kind of look at the situation right now and think that. That the current situation is benefiting the Chinese or the Iranians, even, is, I think, counterfactual. I do think that we are in a situation again, short term, where we have had to, the Trump administration decided to release some sanctions against Russian energy right now, again, in the short term, to stabilize markets.

But remember, Iran is still one of the greatest helps and partners of the Russians and the Chinese, not just in the Middle East, but for their geopolitical strategy to undermine the United States and our alliances. In the big picture here, if the United States can successfully degrade the regime, get a more compliant regime in there, let the Iranian people take back their own future and enable us to be the ones controlling energy. Again, we're going to need partners too, Brian. I really appreciate President Trump trying to get the Europeans to come alongside and help too now. The more help we can get, The sooner, I think it'll be better.

But again, I still think the benefits for what this mission is doing in Epic Fury is just outweighs any kind of short-term struggling we might have with markets. And if you see the way they're desperately trying to rattle the cages of our allies, you know how ruthless this regime is. They went to Beijing to sign basically a mutual pact of. A peace pact with Saudi Arabia. And what are they doing?

As soon as they're hit, Saudi Arabia gets shelled. And yesterday, they hit Saudi Arabia in one of their ports that they were supposed to use an alternative site in the Red Sea.

So the Saudi Arabia came out and says our patience is not bottomless. And I think they might be ready to act as well against Iran.

Now, my only concern with that with the Saudis is that they still have to follow our lead. I mean, what we don't want, we saw this whenever the United States was cooperating with the Saudis to go after the Houthis. We still want the Houthis aren't as good at targeting, I'll just put it that way. Or the Saudis aren't as good as targeting as the United States is. And so we want the Saudis to listen to the United States.

So if you're going to have these other players come in on the side of the U.S., that's great, but we still want to make sure that the United States is the one leading this effort and it's coordinated and collaborated really well. The other point I'll say to the benefit, to the credit of the Saudis, when the Iranians hit that other port, that terminal that the Saudis were using to sort of circumvent the strait, the Saudis assessed it and quickly got it right back open.

So very resilient. That's another thing we have to take into account. When the Iranians hit our Gulf partners' energy infrastructure, they've been pretty resilient at getting it back online because, well, they're on our side and they have the ability and the economic leeway to do that. The Iranians do not have that kind of advantage.

So when you saw this strike, this limited Israeli strike against this piece of this oil field in Iran I mean, that sent a message. Look, you guys are targeting energy infrastructure. You do not want the United States and Israel targeting yours because you will suffer far more than we will. That's the lifeblood that's keeping the regime having any kind of capacity at all.

So, a couple of things. It looks like the president's son is his advisor. He's 46 years old, and he's keeping a journal on Telegram. And you get an idea what's going on. And he says that the IRGC command are really in control right now, that the current Supreme leaders not doing anything.

Essentially, all the higher-ups that are alive are concerned they're going to be killed.

So they're hiding out and even not communicating with each other. There's this sense of panic amongst them. And there's a sense the war can end if enough of them are killed. This is according to the son of the president, who evidently tried to resign. The son didn't write that, but who tried to resign a couple of weeks ago.

And they say that they are really concerned that shelling and attacking our Gulf neighbors is going to blow up in their face.

So the things that we're speculating. That's what he's putting forward. Yeah, I mean it makes total sense. The other thing that I would say is it has backfired. These other Gulf states, again, are siding with the United States.

So that's kind of undermines another myth. In other kinds of media outlets, you'll see people say, oh my goodness, this war is spreading. It's growing because Iran is targeting other states, but it's not spreading and growing. There's nobody who's siding with the Iranians, except, of course, the Russians are providing some targeting for the Iranians. But that's the extent that the Russians are even willing to help Iran.

And so, and of course, the Chinese only helped Iran before this war in trying to help rebuild their air defenses. But that's Iran is isolated, Brian. The other thing that's really important about the internal dynamics in Iran is the IRGC are the ones that were really well armed and very ideological, part of the Islamic revolution, very committed to the Supreme Leader's goals and missions. The standing army in Iran, not so much. Those guys are much more, it's a larger force, more numerical than the IRGC, and they're more Iranian nationalists.

So, my hope is that you kill enough IRGC. Uh, individuals, leaders, and you can continue to hold out the hope of defections and providing monetary incentives to the standing army. That perhaps we could get some kind of Iranian Del Codriguez. I don't think that that's impossible or implausible, and I think that that's almost certainly what the Trump administration with the Israelis is trying to do. And by the way, just a note about Del Codriguez.

She just fired the brutal defense minister that everyone hated, even though I know she's not never going to win over people, and I don't know much about her except for she's listening to us. Right now. Firing the Defense Minister is an important step forward. Emptying your political, letting all your political prisoners out would certainly help. Rebecca, great stuff.

Great point. We'll look for that this weekend. Maybe we see some more public defections. The Treasury Secretary said that yesterday, that there's a lot of defections within the Army, and you just mentioned that they might be the most open to jumping ship. Rebecca Heinrichs, thank you.

Thanks, Brian. And by the way, I'm thoroughly for this operation. It is thoroughly for the risk. I'm also bringing up other points in order to get the best points out of my experts. But believe me, I am for this operation.

It's by far the President's toughest decision, and it's the one I possibly respect the most. Don't move. Where big stories meet bigger conversations. Stay informed and energized with the Brian Kilmead Show. Fox News is now streaming live on Fox One.

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Of course, we laugh about it because it's so preposterous, but it's our money. It's our money going on this.

So, you know, it's now, you know, the high-speed rail that actually part of that they're saying is now going to be a bus that you could get anyway that's going to, you know, decades late and $100 billion over budget. They can't finish the people move at LAX Airport in time for the Olympics. I mean, this state is easily, unquestionably, the worst-run state in America. And the governor that presides over it all now wants to be president. What a joke.

The more that we get this information out there, the more important it is because the whole country will see that you cannot have this guy anywhere near the Oval Office. And with that, is Steve Hilton running for governor? I think he's first or second in the running Republican. And he's talking about Gavin News. Gavin Newsome, who preposterously claimed that our taxes are lower in California than Florida.

You kidding? There's no state tax in Florida, you idiot. How about this? What they're referring to is a land bridge to allow butterflies and different animals to cross over the 405 freeway. It's $21 million over budget.

It was stretching 10 lanes over the 101 freeway in Southern California. The estimate cost has jumped $114 million, and they're still not done. They're just trying to get animals across a highway and at $114 million. And guess what? I don't think he even plans on finishing it up.

It's almost like a fake jobs program. Embarrassing. 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. A radio show like no other. It's Brian Killmead. We've obliterated their Navy. We've obliterated their just about everything there is to obliterate, including leadership.

Their Navy's gone, their Air Force is gone, their anti-aircraft equipment is gone. We're flying wherever we want. We have nobody even shooting at us. They have uh I mean, and as you know, their leadership is gone. Their leaders are gone.

They pick new leaders, they're gone, they pick new leaders, they're gone, and now they're looking for new leaders again.

So that was President United States saying the leaders are gone, the Air Force is gone, the Navy is gone, but now they're looking for new leaders. And they're digging into the depth, yard. Nazi Moynian is joining us now. She's Dr. Nazi Moynian.

She's the Assistant Associate Fellow at the Middle Eastern Institute and has a long history in Iran and still in touch with what's happening on the ground there. Nazi, great to see you again. Saw you on TV earlier this week. Good morning, Brian. I hope it looked okay.

Yo, you look great, and it's great to have you on radio. And we are streaming again now. Thank you. Nazi, what is your sense of what's happening on the ground right now? As we were speaking before, today is the first day of the new year, the Nowruz in Iran.

It's a huge celebration. It's not an Islamic celebration.

Nowruz is about 34,000 years old from the time of ancient Iran and the big emperors. This is a time people get together and celebrate. And there's much to celebrate this year because there's hope that they will rid themselves of the regime. But also, it's a time of anxiety and sadness because they've already coming through from losing. 30,000 people and Iranians are very tight-knit, very close-knit society.

So the loss of one person in one family is felt by two to three hundred people around them.

So imagine when you have 30,000 people killed, you plunge about 6 million people into mourning. And that's what's happening in Iran. And right now you have the killing of the 19-year-old wrestler and his friends, who they say killed two cops.

Now nobody thinks any of this is true. And they basically put him in a sham trial and hung him. And want everyone to see that. Why? They're trying to set an example.

The repression apparatus of this regime is very thorough, psychologically harmful, physically aggressive to the Iranians. It's not news to me that they have killed yet another three athletes. They've done that over the decades many, many, many times.

So we were just having to explain by one of the experts, Rebecca Heinrichs and others, who came out and said, look, there's a difference between the IRGC and the regular Army. That's true. And I want you to hear what the Treasury Secretary said that he heard and has been getting reports on about what's happening on the ground in Iran. We are seeing the defections at all levels as they're starting to sense what's going on with the regime. It doesn't get reported here in the U.S.

very well, but we are troubling them from the air and the regime will probably collapse within itself at Treasury. We've seen where they've wired their money out of the country. We're coming for that. We're going to get it back to the Iranian people. Mm-hmm.

So what is your view of the Army and would they would be are they vulnerable to or and open to maybe flipping?

So, the army has a historic past. It's called the Imperial Army or the Immortal Army in Farsi. It's about 2,500 years old. I mean, I'm stretching history a little bit because it ebbed and flowed, but it's the Imperial Guards of the Old Emperors of Achaemenid Dynasty and Parthian dynasty. It's a continuation of that philosophy.

It's not an army to safeguard. the revolution.

So I want the listeners to understand the difference between ROGC and the RTESH, which is the regular army. The ROGC is to safeguard both territorially and ideologically the well-being of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. They have three branches: Army, Navy, and Marines. I'm sorry, Air Force and Marines. The regular army, the RTESH, also has the three branches.

They're about 300,000, 350,000 strong. They are you know, they are not ideologically as fervent as the ROGC. Actually, a lot of them at the election of Khatami, the president who was considered moderate, Voted for Khatami.

So they have that tendency to be more moderate than anyone else. But they're also, you know, they're a conscript army.

So they are beholden to the regime that's setting the doctrines for them.

So, yeah, I mean, we heard about the communication. I don't know if you read the Wall Street Journal yesterday, but the IDF is on the ground and they're saying. You're on the blacklist. The only way not to be killed is to protect the people and flip. And the communication back was, help us.

Let me know where you are. I hear you and I'll listen to you. I'll put my guns down.

So that's some of the interaction because I sense that the Mossad might be there, but more importantly, there's Iranians working with them is the key. What do you know? I hear the same thing. A lot of the recent assassinations were information that was provided by Iranians on the street to Mossad. The operations were carried out because they knew the exact location.

For example, where they took Adlerjani, he had gone to Paradise to see his daughter. And that was an information, according to my sources, that was provided by Iranian civilians themselves. The fact that there are defections might be true. I'm not doubting the Treasury Secretary. It's far and few in between.

We need much more of that to happen. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 happened exactly. The flipping point was when the army put down their arms. And I remember the pictures on the screen that people were passing by the barrels of the guns of the army on the street, and they would put a red carnation into the barrel of the gun. uh thanking them for not shooting on them.

Do you think the IRGC could be in a fight with the regular army? That's a good question. Yeah, you know, the IRGC is, again, an ideologically driven yes. And the regular army is not.

So if it comes down to who's going to live, who's going to die, I I can't imagine a scenario where the two of them will get into a fight.

So, when you look at what's happening on the ground now, and I look at the other countries. Is it safe to say, even though they were not attacking them, the Iranian regime looked at the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, who are open to Western, open to investing in the West, open to different economic opportunities, as somebody it's a rival to them, a rival because they don't want their people getting this sense of entrepreneurship of the possibility of being open to Western investment. Like the UAE is, I think, 40% of their money comes from tourism from the West or from business from the West. And they're doing one Qatar is putting $1.4 trillion into American infrastructure. That's exactly right.

You know, when Iran, the Islamic regime attacked the Emirates, I was shocked. This is. Right next to Iran, and a lot of the Iranian rank and file, the regime rank-and-file, have apartment condo complexes.

So that just shows you how much the regime is able to absorb, how much loss it wants to absorb in order to survive. And if targeting UAE is one of the aims of the regime, then so be it. But also, you know, I was in Washington, D.C., and I was in one of the embassies of the Gulf countries. And they told me, the ambassador told me, that Araki, the foreign minister of Iran, had gone in a tour about two, three months prior to the war, alarming the countries that if U.S. attacks us, we're coming after you.

This was our part of the plan. Foreign Minister has said that, and he's the one kind of doing the taunting now that Ali Larajani is down, dead.

Now he's saying things, but reportedly, and we talked about this on television. He was texting with Steve Witkoff. Yes. Would that surprise you? Not at all.

Why? Do you think he is somebody that would land the plane here? No, I don't think that's going to ever happen. Does he have the power to? Um.

I can't speak to that if he can defect and come to the United States. He probably would like to at this point because if he doesn't have a target on his back, he will soon. He's the only spokesperson right now for the Islamic regime, and he somehow has to keep the face. That you know, I call it a um the Islamic Republic of uh bluster and blunder. They say whatever they need to say to just keep up the facade of worked for 47 years for the Islamic regime.

And uh and it's not going to work anymore because we've called their bluff. Actually, this president has called their bluff, and they know they can't continue to act with impunity.

So, when people talk about a threat, that was the story yesterday: how big a threat and how important is it? They were talking uranium. I want you to hear what Tulsi Gabbard said, his DNI, the congressman is Cohen, cut six. It is truly remarkable. It is years of work.

By the way, our primary. I'm sorry, CUD5. That's Mike Pompeo. Cut five. Does the IC know?

Where Iran's enriched uranium is. The IC has high confidence that we know where it is. And can you tell us that in classified We can speak more about this topic in the classified setting. Could it be do we have methods of of destroying it? Uh This is a conversation for a closed setting, sir.

So we think it's hidden or bombed out in those two areas to get that uranium. To get on the ground there and have to work that site would take a lot of security. It does. A lot of security, a lot of political will. This is not something that's going to come to any sort of conclusion over any short period of time.

We need to, if we ever decide to extract the highly enriched uranium that's under the rubble, we need to be there on some time because we don't know even how far down we have to go. We don't know what kind of machines we need to take to clear the pathway. We don't even know if it's radioactive when we get to where we want to go. We don't know if moisture has reached the canisters of highly enriched uranium. It's a complex process.

And I'm not sure if, Ms. Gabbard, Is forthright on this, but I don't know enough. But I know that there are people like David Albright that have spoken to the dangers. Weaven's inspector. Yes, to the dangers of the highly enriched uranium.

They know where it is, they know how to take it out. It doesn't need to be a classified setting for them to divulge a little bit more information.

So interesting. I know. Then there's a push and pull because we know John Radcliffe's all in for this operation reportedly. If you look at how Tulsi Gabbard ran for president and talked to her in the past, which I have a unique respect for her, but she's not for this operation. I mean, that to me is pretty obvious.

You're working for somebody, so you go along with it. Right.

But she is not somebody who thinks Iran's a threat, which I find stunning to you. Yes, as an Iranian and an American and Jew, I find it threatening three ways to the American security interests, obviously to Israel's existence, and also to the Iranians' well-being and their future. Of course, this is a regime that has turned the Middle East upside down since 1979. It has spread its tentacles all across the region, supported proxies. You know, Brian, it behooves me why we think this way, some of us.

It's not like IEDs planned themselves magically by the roadside in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's not like embassies and military bases in the region magically blow up either. And it's not like Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah are funded by Tooth Fairy. All of this converges on one point, and that point is the Islamic regime. And that's why the President's doing this operation.

Yes, it's a risk, but man, is it worth it? Do you see how it's all related? Dr. Nazi Moynian is going to stay with us for a few more minutes. Associate Fellow of Middle East Institute.

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Visit go.fox slash Red Cross to donate to service to the Armed Forces today. The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Kilmeid. A few more minutes with Dr. Nazi Moynen.

She's an associate fellow at the Middle Eastern Institute.

So, as we look to this weekend, Do you, my hope is that some of the New Year celebrations would lead to some consolidation and organization because it's expected there's a reason for you to be out in the streets to maybe help people organize. Do you think that? The ground is now set to possibly begin to organize to take over the country. Brian, I wish I could say yes. I know that the Iranians have passed their tests.

Listen, they've been out in 1999. They were sprayed upon with bullets. They were out again in 2009, protesting the vote. Where's my vote? Again, out in 2019 with the cutting of subsidies, and then 2022 with Woman Life Freedom Movement, and again now.

They have no fear of showing their discontent. And actually, hatred towards the regime. The regime only has about 10 to 15 percent base of support, but they're the ones that have the monopoly of violence. For us to ask Iranians to go out to the street and risk their lives and their livelihood and their eyes and their vital organs, they shoot them in their reproductive organs if they can't figure out where the head is moving.

So it's a regime that wants to do maximum damage. They've experienced it very recently. And I can't imagine a scenario where with no Internet access, no guns, no sense of Outlet at this point, they will say, you know, it's time to go back out in the streets. Support does the Crown Prince have? The Crown Prince.

The Crown Prince. Yes. He is the first son. of the late Shah of Iran. He is a fighter pilot, married with three kids, great family.

I know him personally. We've worked with each other before. I was speaking with a colleague last night, and he said if he runs today in a referendum, he gets the votes. But you know, also revolutions have ebbs and flows. Most of the times they don't finish how they start.

It was the same way when Khomeini came to power in 1979. He had to consolidate his power. It was not a given. I know you can look at the pictures, and there's massive black of turbaned people and women in hijab that had come out to greet him when he was coming off the plane Air France on the tour mark in Tehran.

So that's led. In 1979. In 1979, that image has been stirred into many people's minds, including mine. The crowd numbers were much bigger than they are on the street now, but that doesn't mean we can't get there. It's that ideology does that to people.

It brings them out. But if you could recommend anything, it's find a way to get that internet on. Find a way to get the internet on. Find a way to empower people. If there's a phase three to this war, it's to empower maximum empowerment of the Iranian citizens.

They have proven worthy. They have become one of the indispensable allies of the U.S. and Israel. And we want allies that can pull their own weights. And Iranian people are one of them.

Right.

So I have to say, for also, if Pahavi was to land on the ground right now, would that be something that would be a positive? He'd have to have huge security forces around him. He does. I was speaking to his daughter, Princess Noor, and it's her primary concern. She says, you know, sometimes I can't fall asleep because I'm so worried about my father.

So security is a huge deal. Again, it's a little premature to get to that point. This is only day 21 and 22 of the war. We bombed Libya for 77 days. I mean, give it time.

We're getting there. And I think for President Trump to have spent so much political capital. To start a war that needed to have started 40 years ago to bring a bad actor to justice, says a lot about this administration, and he has coalesced a good number of people that say the same thing. Prime Minister Netanyahu spends a lot of time broadcasting into Iran in Farsi. Right.

Translated, I'm not sure he speaks it. And I hear he's relatively popular there. Yes, yes. There are two very popular people. It's Bibi and Tanya.

You might not understand that.

Well, I hope they understand it after this because there are songs made for both of them. There are Zumba classes that are danced to the songs that are made for President Trump's victory or hopeful victory in Iran. And Bibi Natanya, who's speaking to Iranian people. But the one thing about President, if they are mimicking his dance, it's really not even exercise.

So if it is a dance exercise class, you're not going to even break a sweat. It's just kind of like a sway. Oh, Iran is not how to break a sweat. They are joy-food people. They love dancing.

You have to come to one of our parties. You will not see Daniel. In America. In America, and also in Iran. You know, their homes have become their fortresses.

So they have these wonderful parties and they're not in hijab. They're very European looking, actually. I hope to see it one day as common travel as it is to Aruba and Bahamas and around the world. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmead.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kilmey Show in 48th and 6th of Midtown Manhattan. Happy to be here. A lot going on today, including with having the latest move. There's a sense that maybe something's moving on the DHS shutdown, just some negotiations happening.

I'll talk about that with Mark Beckman. He'll bring me inside what's happening in Capitol Hill. He's also got a big announcement as a special advisor and agent to Melania Trump. John Spencer is standing by. He's chair of the war studies at the Madison Policy Forum.

John Spencer is going to be with us and we'll unwind what's happening in the war. It's going to be a big hour as we move through. Let's get to the big three. Number three. I need people who are high net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state.

But maybe the first step should be go down to Palm Beach and see who you can bring back home because our tax base has been eroded. Really? That's my job to go down and find out why rich people left? Maybe because, Governor, you have the highest state and taxes outside California in the country and an estate tax that will take everything should you die. That's why people left and enticement saying come back is not a good enough reason to come back.

Number two. Our party is governed by the TDS, and I would define that by epic fury. He could come out for ice cream and lazy Sundays, and now suddenly Democrats would hate it. We would want to vote it down. That is true.

Obsessed with Trump. Dem saying life after Trump is still about Trump. They're making moves to investigate the Trump people and himself once he's out of office. Do you believe that? That's their policy.

It's bad for their party. It's bad for our country. But have at it. Uh Number one. The Iranians made a huge strategic mistake by firing into the Gulf.

We're going after Gulf Arab assets. And now the Gulf Arabs and the United States are going to continue to pound the regime. It is less dangerous today after just 21 days, and it is not at its weakest yet. Yep, day 21, Mike Pompeo weighs in. The U.S.

and Israel's mission to defang and destroy the Iran regime continues. While what's left of the IRGC continues to target energy and their outlets of the Gulf states, the Allies are now suddenly realizing they should help us out. We'll see where that goes. Let's bring in John Spencer. John, first off, 21 days in.

What grade would you give our military in the strategy? Yeah.

So, good morning, Brian. I mean, if there was a great, of course, A, but we're off the chart here because what the United States and Israel is doing to Iran has no presidents. It's actually challenging some of the history of how you wage a war, how do you target people? way ahead of what they even planned, but I think this is a change in War and warfare, to be frank. What's changed?

What's so different about it?

So, first is just the ability to open the war and target. As of this morning, Israel had eliminated the Besiege head of intelligence, the IRGC spokesman. That ability to target the entire echelon of a political and military apparatus.

So, it's not just a decapitation strikes. They are hunting these individuals with extreme intelligence, both in what you can do with satellites, drones, human intelligence, but also precision.

So, once they find any of these individuals, of course, there's a $10 million bounty on every one of them, but their ability to strike them. I mean, I did the invasion of Iraq. We had a deck of cards.

Some of those people we didn't find for months later. You know, Saddam was nine months later. This changes how do you attack the will. War is a contest of will of your enemy, as well as defeating their capabilities. And what the United States Air Force and Israel Air Force has been doing to just dismantle, to include the industrial brace so they can never even build.

Another missile again is historic.

So today, the Warthogs, Blackhawks are as well as our ships are trying to destroy their fastboats and any of the assets that are keeping the Strait of Hermuz unpassable. What else could we do there? What is the mission there? Yeah, so it's about reducing the risk.

So, the fact that you have A-10 Warhogs, a tank in the sky, one, it's a signal of how much has already been done to defeat the enemy's air defense capabilities. You have Apaches with out-of-sight missiles they can launch. Their mission is to continue to reduce that risk, no matter what the Iranians say they can do, and make it so that international shipping and this global choke point can resume operations. But they're hunting, they're hunting drones, launching sites, they're hunting the boats, they're hunting the mine-laying equipment, anything that could interdict that Strait of Hormuz. And I think that the Allies will be able to contribute greatly as well.

When now, initially, they said no, and now you have so many European countries that will be a part of that.

So, John, right now they say, what's the big deal? Get a battleship, get a destroyer, and escort the barges. What makes it difficult? If I told you that we're going to send a destroyer through there and I want you to work with these tankers, Where do they go? How do they escort?

Sure. And it's not that we haven't done this before. I mean, of course, during at the end of the Iran-Iraq war, we did Operation Earnest Will. We did this exact operation, but the world has changed. The warfare has changed.

So you'd have to have capabilities like destroyers in front of a convoy of commercial ships and behind it, being able to interdict anything. Because even though Iran's missile launches are 90% degraded, 95% of the drones, if one drone gets through and hits, a commercial oil tanker in this choke point, right, 20 miles long, the shipping lanes are only two miles wide, that would be a significant hit to the ability to continue doing the escorts.

So you have to keep that basically a security bubble around this formation that you would escort through. I hope personally, I mean, I'm not saying that's what needs to happen. I mean, the continued destruction of the enemy's capabilities to the point where you have. Yeah, this isn't mowing the grass on the leadership. This is eliminating decades of thinking to where you get somebody who's willing to change their behavior so that this wouldn't be necessary, but you still have the capability to do it, Brian, by force if necessary.

We got War College Expert, Chair of War Studies with us now. His John Spencer, a great friend of the show.

So, John, I think you would agree with me that we can't end this war without. breaking the chokehold on the Strait of Hermuz that's been plaguing us for, what, forty, fifty years since oil became a big thing.

So if I put you in a classroom with other War College experts, how do we do that? Is it possible in the age of drones? Absolutely possible. Again, you have to you attack the the launcher, not the arrow.

So this is about changing the Islamic regime's use of Pointing a gun at the head of global commerce. There are other aspects as well as reducing the amount of oil that flows through the strait. All of those Gulf countries have pipes that make it so they can get a certain million barrels out of the country without having to go through the strait. That's another option. But I think ideally, and you can't forget the historic also.

I mean, we're on the precipice of potentially a world-changing event if this behavior of the Islamic regime, as great as the fall of the Berlin Wall, to be frank. You can't forget the global deals that Trump, President Trump administered in 2025. You know, $1.4 trillion with the UAE, $1.2 trillion with, I think, Kuwait, no, Qatar. This is not just about oil getting through the strait, it's about Prosperity, peace, and long lasting not needing to do this again. And right.

There's fertilizer and there's other things that go through there. But, John, and also pharmaceuticals, I understand it also transported through there. But, John, what you just brought up is so interesting because these are the capitalistic deals, the trade deals, that the President has worked out. If you're an Islamic extremist, a fundamentalist, you hate this. You despise this.

Prosperity and hope for people living on this planet instead of living for the next life? You know, that suicide pact, that death cult attitude. You hate what UAE and Qatar and Saudi Arabia is doing. Kuwait. You don't like this.

Absolutely. And this is the whole point of people talking about the Islamic regime in Iran versus the Iranian people. I mean, the the biggest estimate is that twenty percent are this Islamist ideology kind of people in Iran. That leaves Seventy million? Yes.

Seventy million that aren't and this is what we saw during the revolution.

So yes, you're right, that radicalized warping of Islam and To do this, to spend billions of dollars for 47 years for the sole purpose of terrorizing not just the region, but the world to build this Islamic caliphate that they want to build. Absolutely, you hate President Trump's deals with the Gulf states. And I think this is why the regime, struggling to survive, made a giant mistake by continuing to attack all of these Gulf states, whether Shia, Sunni, Dubai, you name it. You hate these deals, absolutely. But a couple of things.

I'll take their side of it. Hey, they're loving this. They're loving that the UAE doesn't feel comfortable walking the streets, that their natural gas and some of their energy outputs aren't functional. They love that Saudi Arabia has been stopped from one of their terminals out in the Red Sea and that they can't use this trade of Fermuz. They love that Kuwait's been hit so often.

They love that Oman's been hit, even though they were trying to broker some peace between us and them for the long time.

So they might be saying to themselves, we're going to outlast Trump. He's got midterms coming up. His economy is suffering. He's worried about it politically. All we have to do is outlast him and we win.

And this is a way of giving Trump and his allies economic pain since they can't beat us militarily. Absolutely. That could be their thinking. I think that's a failed strategy in logic because it's not just the United States. Of course, it's Israel.

And now, I mean, it's like the worst bar fight strategy you could do in the world: I'm fighting one person, I just start slapping everybody around me. And not only getting them to join the fight directly and to support in any way possible, but then to. Seat in the hearts of, and even the UN Security Council historic vote of 13 to zero condemnation with 140 countries. You're just signaling to the world that President Trump was right to launch this war. It was an imminent threat.

They are planning. To build a nuclear bomb, to build this ballistic shield, to do this proxy terrorism. It's all been dismantled over the last two years thanks to Israel and, of course, with President Trump and the Midnight Hammer and now this operation.

So they can think a lot of things, but they have to have the capability to do it. And they're just every day that capability, even in the idea that they'll outlast President Trump and force this economic coercion on us to stop. I think it'll be a failed strategy, but I don't predict the future, but I can see what's happening right now.

So Pete Hag said yesterday says the number could move, but I need $200 billion more. Chip Roy, not an interventionist, doesn't seem to me to want to do the war, but not against it. Uh he said this, cut 10. And I've been very supportive of the president. I am very supportive right now of what he's been doing in attacking the nuclear capabilities, the conventional capabilities, and ensuring we take out a lot of the bad guys at Iran, to quote Pete Hegseth, who have been destabilizing the world for five decades, undermining our national security, undermining the national security of Israel and our allies.

But on this question of the $200 billion, the administration needs to come forward and present a plan. You know, when we're talking about boots on the ground, when we're talking about putting our men and women in harm's way, the American people want to see us go take out the bad guys, but they really don't have a long tolerance for wanting to have any kind of an endless engagement in terms of being on the ground in Tehran and building soccer fields like we did in Baghdad. Yeah, so he wants to know what you're doing with the money. What what would you tell him? I mean, as much as you know, what would you say you'd need the 200 billion for?

Yeah, and I think Secretary Hegseff said it yesterday in the update on the war. That's to keep the U.S. military the strongest power on the planet and to replenish the stockpiles. Everybody wants a perfect bloodless war, there's no such thing, but the capabilities the United States has been demonstrating in Iran is historic in the investment that we make, unlike any country in the world, in our military. According to the Secretary, at this moment, of course, you want to, our elected leaders will go through it line item.

What are you buying? This war has expanded. Showed that we need these capabilities and we need to replenish the stockpile immediately because it's not just Iran that is the threat. Kind of this global international order relies on that security that the U.S. military provides and the deterrence that it provides.

I think it would be a big investment, plus the industrial base, right?

So, Ukraine war exposed that we had an industrial base problem in artillery rounds.

Now we're talking this higher echelon of precision-guided munitions or interceptors. What President Trump said yesterday is that high fourth level of interceptors and that third level, but also things that we don't even haven't even seen yet being deployed in Iran. That costs money. Saving lives costs money. We only got a couple minutes left, but John, you're right about China's really on the clock here, too, because they sold the missile defense system to Iran.

They're buying. oil at fourteen dollars a barrel from Iran for years with a four hundred billion dollar investment in return. And does it look like China's missile defense was too strong in twenty twenty five and it was inoperable in twenty twenty six.

So what does that tell you about America and China? Yeah, I mean it made in China it doesn't just apply to toys means cheap knockoff unreliable and that's what I've heard what I've seen around the world in all the battlefields I visit both Russian air defense systems and Chinese air defense systems are inferior to U.S.-Israeli technologies in solely so this is about maintaining that competitive advantage over these systems of course if you're an arms dealer I wouldn't buy China but if you're an enemy of the United States I want you to buy Chinese air defense systems and Russian air defense systems because it doesn't matter if it's Venezuela Ukraine Pakistan or now Iran they're inferior to these superior American weapons that cost money so so John people going well China must be laughing because we haven't finished them off yet after 21 days Aside from the rhetoric, what do you think China is really thinking about what America has shown? I think if you add in everything that the U.S. administration has done from the Panama Canal to Venezuela, now Iran, China's seen its grand strategy unravel in front of its face. Of course, Iran is its gas station, but also a big part, like you said, the $400 billion investment that they just signed with them is about their kind of Grand strategy of economic warfare against the United States, buying up all of the docks in South America, getting this agreement with Iran to destabilize.

I mean, where do you think Iran got the capabilities to enrich uranium and the capabilities to build longer-range missiles? It got it all from China.

So, China, in my opinion, is just seeing all of its work unraveling to include that grand strategy of the Belt and Road economic warfare. John, it's always great to talk to you. I know our audience really appreciates the chair of war studies, the Madison Policy Forum, Executive Director of the Urban Warfare Institute. He takes it like a science. And, man, there's a lot going on right now to study.

John, thank you. Thank you, Brian. You got it. Listen, when we come back, we'll have a few minutes on the other end. Bottom of the arrow, Mark Beckman joins us.

You're listening to the Brian Kill Me Show. Giving you everything you need to know. You're with Brian Kilmead. Uh I'll be right back. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it.

You're with Brian Kilmead. Got a couple of minutes here, and I want to just have some pretty exciting announcement. I have a book coming out in the first week in October, and I got stage shows to accompany it. And I got live shows of me on stage streamed on Fox Nation, but I want to see in person. You know about Reno, Nevada, May 30th.

That's going to be cool. July 11th, Pensacola, Florida. This is all brand new. You get to BrianKilmead.com. And then you go fast forward to October 16th, Red Bank, New Jersey.

That's a United States tour. It's also the name of my new book. Westbury, New York, the next day. Back-to-back shows.

So that's going to be in the round at Westbury Music Fair. That's going to be awesome. Then Clearwater, Florida always is a fantastic time. November 7th. And then November 8th, the next day, Jacksonville, Florida.

So I'll drive from one to the next. And we'll finish up at now. We might add a show in December, but right now, Chesterfield, Missouri, right around our great Uh St. Louis Station, KTFK. Uh, November 21st, uh, United States tour.

So that's at the factory again.

So that was an unbelievable venue. But we're gonna have new stuff in it, and of course, the new book that I think you're gonna love. It's all celebrating the 250th birthday of America. Go to briankilly.com and get tickets. Hopefully, I'm inner city anywhere near you because I want to meet you in person.

Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. Hi everyone, welcome back. We have a lot going on today. We're following it all, including, you know, Mark Wayne Mullen did get through the committee yesterday.

It looks like Monday he's going to get formally through. The question is, are we going to fund DHS? And there's no way the Senate should go home if you don't. I don't care who I know who's to blame. This is not one of those things where both have a side.

It is the Democrats because I mentioned before. The Republicans have given in. No more Christine Home, you didn't want him. No more Greg Brovino, you didn't want him. You want to body cameras?

You got it. No more roaming patrols. Tom Holman says it's out. He met with you yesterday. The only reason that's masks, and believe me, nobody wants to police in masks.

The only reason there's masks is because of doxy and fear of themselves and their family because of the targets you put on their back. And lastly, they're not going to do judicial warrants. It's impossible to do the job like judicial warrants. And you already know. When Mark Wayne Mullen comes out, he knows the Senate, if they were being honest, he'd get 85 votes in the Senate, almost as much as Mark Rubio.

He's going to do things differently. That's pretty clear. Joining us now, Mark Beckman, Melania Trump, the First Lady's advisor and agent, the CEO of DMA United, NYU, Senior Fellow, Emerging Technology, and author of Some Future Day: How AI is Going to Change Everything. Mark, great to see you. Good to see you.

You're always here with a big announcement. Yes. If it's not with the First Lady, it's with a big announcement about the First Lady. Yes, it's groundbreaking. We have this incredible moment in time that is coming.

It's next week, Fostering the Future Together. Last fall at the United Nations General Assembly, the First Lady announced her mission to build a global coalition to empower children through education and technology. And the inaugural meeting is this coming week on Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, it's at the State Department where private sector, best-in-class private sector companies will be assembling with almost 50 leaders, 50 nations from around the world. And then the big highlight of the week is when the First Lady brings in historic This is record-breaking.

Almost 50 nations into the White House in one day to host Fostering the Future. Is it First Ladies? It's all First Ladies from all over the world, almost every continent.

So we're going to see incredible countries: Poland, France, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, small nations from the Caribbean, St. Kitts. They're all coming together in this think tank type of atmosphere to see how to empower children.

So, how do you do it? I mean, for example, what's the program?

Well, I think what's critical right now is the fact that these countries have become members. This is a long-term vision for the First Lady. They're member states. And what she's doing is she's building out access to private sector technology to try to give some level of democratization across the globe. Countries, for example, that might not be able to afford access to technology from Palantir, Zoom, Adobe, Microsoft, Meta.

They'll all be present with us in D.C. And now they could collaborate firsthand, access to information. It's going to be, you're going to come up with things together. Correct. In other words, the door closes, the cameras go away, and let's, how do we do this?

It's a full-on think tank. The second day in the White House, Melania Trump has invited a select group of first ladies who are experts in their region with regards to technology and education to come in and provide what they're doing: solutions, advantages, legislative ideas, new innovation, risks, concerns, and beyond, all in this room, so that the entire world could be empowered by the leadership of Melania Trump.

So it's interesting. Poland's a country with the GDP on the rise as opposed to St. Kitts, which is a challenged island, right? Correct. So, how they have different needs.

How do you service both?

Well, this is the thing. It's not about America servicing, right? This is more about learning.

So, what's interesting with St. Kitts is that they went through a lot of issues during COVID. They were really alienated from the rest of the world at that moment in time, but they leveraged technology to really bolster up their educational platform. There are a lot of countries in the world that are far. Far away and also have populations like archipelagos that are far away from the mainland.

And what they could learn from a small nation like St. Kitts is how to leverage technology in classroom, how to teach, how to empower their teachers to have access to more data and information, and then as a result, impact their overall business sector.

So, Mark, you had an interesting challenge because we're at a time that we're beginning to have a generation who realizes maybe social media isn't the best thing for us. Maybe technology isn't the best thing for us. Maybe we have this excess communication that's been somewhat torturous and it actually gets in the way of education. How have you said I understand that, why kids, people are locking away their phones in school at the same time, you need it. Brian, there's no doubt about it.

And the First Lady has created this vision where if American children become best in class as it relates to technology fluency coupled with education, this generation has the ability to set the stage to provide America with dominance at an economic level. We could expand our GDP, we could attract foreign capital, and we could own what I think is the most important asset of the future. IP, intellectual property. And that level of technology is going to hit every business sector. This isn't just about technology and education.

It's about empowering the next generation so we could lead in defense, in agriculture, in healthcare across the board.

So what is the United Nations at a time in which the United Nations is maybe being sidelined by the administration? You're embracing it. How are you using that platform?

Well, here's what we did. For the first time in American history, in history of the UN, actually, for the first time, a First Lady went in, Melania Trump, when America took the presidency about two weeks ago and she addressed the Security Council. It was an incredible moment in time, an incredible moment for America, really. And what Melania Trump spoke about is this concept of peace through education, tolerance through wisdom. And she showed how by leveraging artificial intelligence, we have access to knowledge and that could democratize across the entire globe, every piece of that globe.

And that theme now, this concept of leveraging technology to empower the next generation will drive through fostering the future together next year. How receptive have the other countries been? They're pretty excited. I mean, we've never had, like I said, the White House has never had almost 50 nations come for the First Lady. Her leadership is incredible.

We have. Incredible countries coming from Middle East, from Europe. I mean, here's a great story. Think about this. In the middle of everything that's happening with Iran, UAE, as you know, is taking a lot of fire, incoming fire, incoming missiles.

And their royal family is flying in for this event.

So people really care. Yeah, and also they're staying with their investment. $1.2 trillion into the country. I think $1.4 for a Yucatar. That's the deal the President caught in 2025 when his first visit was through the Middle East.

I remember that. And there's no doubt about it. Saudi Arabia will be with us too. And those two nations, Saudi and UAE, are leaders in artificial intelligence because of that meeting. Yeah, Mark Beckman with us now.

So talk about Melania. You know her personally. You're friendly as well as working together. She has a real global perspective. She wasn't born here.

She knows what Europe thinks. She knows what Eastern Europe thinks. She understands what the wall was and how different it was. She hears it from her family, from her parents and her grandparents. What perspectives does she bring to the table that maybe someone born here doesn't, that doesn't travel as much as her?

Well, I could tell you this. She's definitely a child of the world, but when you start to think about America, she has a lot of respect for America. You could read in her book, for example, she discloses her entire journey as a person who is an immigrant. It's, you know, again, it's another groundbreaking moment for a First Lady, and that was a tough process for her. People think that she became an immigrant and was naturalized with her husband, but in fact, that entire process was begun independent of President Trump, and she's really proud of it.

And as a result, she has a lot of respect for our nation. She thinks that people that come into our country should really respect everything about it, respect our systems, and respect our Constitution.

So she cares a lot about being American. Understood.

So tell me about the. I know you weren't with her in the first term, but I got this fence: when everyone talked about the shock of Donald Trump's biggest upset in political history, beating Hillary Clinton, he comes to the White House, he had to learn a lot.

So he was the least experienced president, maybe, and now he comes in as the most experienced president. But for the first lady, as she told you, because if you weren't there, what it was like then as opposed to now, she came in really ready to go from day one, as opposed to the first time getting used to the fact, oh my goodness, my kid's still in school. I got to move to Washington. You know, there was so much change. For sure.

It's interesting that you say that because in the film, actually, in Melania, we look at this moment in time as she goes into 47, and she has clear visibility as to what she needs to do. And what she's doing with regards to 47 as opposed to 45 is transforming the office of the East Wing, transforming the First Lady's role. And what we're doing next week in D.C. further underscores this point.

So she's action-oriented now. She's not about waving the flag for policy. She's not about creating all the beautiful events at the White House. They're doing that, of course. And it takes a tremendous undertaking.

But if you think about her achievements in just the past. Year and a little bit more, all of it has been action-oriented and they're impacting people's lives.

So you could look at the reunification of the Ukrainian and Russian children and families. You could look at what she's doing with the foster care system domestically. You could look at what we're going to implement now with Fostering the Future together. She secured $30 million for American individuals and allocated it to HUD so that foster care individuals can have housing. I mean, what she's doing now is really transformative for the office because she's only focused on impact.

That's it.

Well, she also has a perspective on how the president's being covered and how she's being covered. She's got pretty thick skin. Because she has not gotten a fair shot, in my view. I don't think anybody thinks she's gotten a fair shot. First ladies usually walk on water.

Republican and Democrat. Let's leave them out of it. Nancy Reagan took some incoming because she was so involved with Ronald Reagan and the astrology, and we remember that. But she still was lauded. I don't think Melania has gotten that treatment.

She doesn't complain. I get it. That's the way she's made. But you must have noticed.

Well, look, I mean, we're living in a crazy time period. You have a woman here who is proud to be the first lady of the United States of America. She's impact-oriented, and all she does is good. She goes out and does good work every single day for Americans, and she's proud to do so. And yet, all of the things that we're talking about today won't be acknowledged by liberal media.

Does she have thick skin? Of course, she knows where things stand. She knows how the media operates, how the negative people, the haters are going to hate. That happens all the time. She's inspirational if you really look at it as a person that has like incoming arrows at her all the time.

But the reality is that it doesn't matter. She keeps her nose to the ground and just keeps on building month after month after month.

So there was a story, as you know, in the Wall Street Journal today, and the President said, look. It's going to have a reset when it comes to immigration. And Mark Wayne Mullen's going to lead that. And he said. Basically, the way it was perceived with the mass deportation, James Blair, a political expert insider, said, We're not going to use that term anymore.

Americans don't like it. Also, some of the things we did with rounding up people and putting them maybe into the El Salvador prison was not taken well by the American people.

So the president had his strongest issue kind of flip to be a negative issue when you saw what happened in Minneapolis. And one of the people that told him that along with James Blair was the first lady. And she said, Look, whatever you're trying to do, it's not being perceived that way. And you think you should change your approach. You're probably one of the few people who's not surprised.

by the influence she has. The first lady carries more influence over the president than people realize. At the end of the day, she's the last person he speaks to every single day. And I know that they have an amazing relationship. They're tight.

She's, you know, she looks at the world in a way that is intelligent. She's thoughtful. She takes the time to come up with ideas, concepts, and opinions as it relates to policy. And she'll share that with him. And I think her point of view matters.

She influences his decisions with regards to personnel, with geopolitics and behind. But I have to tell you, Brian, at the end of the day, you know President Trump. He makes his own decisions at all times. At the end of the day, it's President Trump who says, finally, this is what we're going to do. Which way I laugh out loud when I hear people on other channels say, Benjamin and other podcasts, Benjamin Netanyahu got him into this war.

Have you met? You can't have it both ways. One minute you say he's headstrong, doesn't listen to advice, and the next minute, oh, he's getting this. He's doing what Benjamin Netanyahu wants. Wants him to.

Come on, Mark. You know him as a person. There's nobody bulls President Trump to do anything. He is the most solid-minded person that I've ever met in my life. And I'll tell you this: instinctive.

There's no doubt about it. But think about how brave he is. He knows what is proper as it relates to moral quality and values. And right now, this war in Iran, I want to tell you, regardless of the midterms, regardless of the naysayers, he knows what's right, he knows what's wrong, and he's pursuing it. He doesn't care about what happens with polls and politics and media.

He's doing what he thinks is right. And I give him a lot of credit for that. We should all give him credit for that. Was the first lady at the formal dinner last night with the Japanese? She was not.

So how much is she looking forward to that ballroom being built? I think that she is looking forward to the ballroom, but it's, you know, unfortunately, you'll see. We'll be hosting a lot there.

Well, for sure, but it's going to, I think it's poised to open right as the end of the fourth year approaches. Yeah, I think so. They better pick up the ballroom. But we need it. I have to tell you, we need it because even for Fostering the Future together, these people are crazy that say we don't need this ballroom.

Anybody that's saying we don't need it? This room is too small. The East Room is too small. We have so many people from foreign nations saying we'd like to attend Fostering the Future together, delegations of these first ladies, and we can't, we have to limit it because there's not enough space.

So firsthand, I'm telling you from this experience, the ballroom is a great idea. Also, I had a chance to go to the Oval Office. Right after the State of the Union. That patio is a great idea too. It's amazing.

Because I mean, you have a chance you get the sense that there's like an activity, a bracket on the activity as opposed to sitting on the lawn. Edward loves going to the White House. I got it. But it's a practical Look at it, like hosting people at the White House. Look, the president is taking the lead.

He comes from architecture and design. He's taking the lead, and he's trying to make the space better, more functional for the next generations, and honestly, prettier.

So it's great. He's got an eye for everything, and I think he's doing it. Are you enjoying this? Because, I mean, you had a business going already, and now you're doing this. I appreciate you saying that.

Brian, I am doing the best work of my life. I have the ability, thanks to the First Lady, to impact people's lives in America, overseas. It's the best work I've ever done in my life. It's called Fostering the Future. And one more time, the two events you have coming up.

So Fostering the Future Together is in Washington, D.C.

next week. On the 24th, it's at the State Department. Our First Lady will be providing opening remarks to best-in-class corporations as well as almost 50 nations. And then day two on the 25th at the White House. Ambassador Waltz has been a help?

He's been amazing. He always helps. He's my man. He helped us with this too. He's incredible.

Yeah, I know. UN Ambassador. That's fantastic. Great to see you, Mark Beckman. Good to see you, too.

Back in a moment. From the Oval Office to the front lines, he talks to the people making history. This is the Brian Killmeat Show. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show.

Why didn't you tell US allies in Europe and Asia, like Japan, about the war before attacking Iran?

So we are very confused about Japanese civil wars. One thing you don't want to signal too much, you know, when we go in, we went in very hard. And we didn't tell anybody about it. Because we wanted Surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan?

Okay, why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor? That is fantastic. I love it.

Some people are criticizing him. I guess Jimmy Kimmel went off on him last night. What are you, an idiot? Do you remember that Tony Blair was walking through the White House with Bill Clinton, or it was George Bush? I forgot which one.

And he said, hey, sorry about burning down the White House. He goes, okay, we're over it. That's the British burning down the White House in the White House that was burned down. They were invading our country. That's a flat-out war.

And it was okay to do that. But to do it in front of a the the Prime Minister of Japan talk about Pearl Harbor, it's actually a great story because now we're allied with Pearl Harbor, okay? Allied with Japan, which I think George H.W. Bush was the first one to say, hey, you guys shot me out of the sky at the age of 19. I was saved when an aircraft carrier picked me up.

And now I'm the president of the United States and I'm with the Prime Minister of Japan. That's one of the cool things about what happens after war, we hope. By the way, some great news. Go to BrianKillme.com. I have the Uniting the States to our first history of Liberty and Laughs.

I got dates up there you have not seen before. Arena, Nevada, May 30th. July 11th, Pensacola. October 16th, Red Bank, New Jersey. October 17th, Westbury, New York.

Clearwater, Florida, November 7th. Jacksonville, Florida, November 8th. Chesterfield, Missouri. The St. Louis fans.

I'll be there November 21st. We'll probably add a date in December. BrianKillme.com for tickets. From Highway. Five.

Fox News headquarters in New York City. Always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead.

So glad you're there. It's the Brian Kilmead Show. This hour going to be joined by Senator Majority Leader Jon Thune. Man, he's got his hands full over in Washington, D.C. We hope to fund the DHS, and we also try to pass the Save America Act, and we'll see if we can kind of get that through.

President of the United States is now honoring, is honoring the Navy, who beat Army. And they, again, for the second straight year, finish out their year 11 and 2. And so the whole football team is there. And the President of the United States is having a great time. Of course, with Derek Van Orden, a veteran Navy SEAL from Annapolis, also present.

So we'll talk about that. Also, Nelson Dellis will be with us, six-time USA Memory Champion. If you want to learn how to not forget your keys and remember everybody in your room, you're going to love to hear from him.

So with us right now is Majority Leader Senator Jon Thune. Senator, welcome back. Thanks, Brian. Good to be with you. Man, you're one of the busiest guys in Washington.

What kind of progress have you made on the Save America Act?

Well, I think we're obviously had it on the floor now for most of this week. We're going to roll through the weekend on it into next week. And every day that we're debating it on the floor is another day that Democrats have to try and defend an indefensible position.

So, I mean, I just think that this is a, you know, it puts a spotlight on the Democrats' opposition to something that 80% of the American people and a huge majority of Democrats even support.

So, I mean, when you talk about voter ID, like you said, the numbers don't lie. Every single poll, between 75 and 85, depending on your party, they want to see it. To say that blacks or Asians can't get ID is an insult. And I think the people realize that. Would some say, for example, in your party, like Murkowski, come out and say, well, I need mail-in voting.

The president doesn't want mail-in voting. Is there a compromise there? She says she's got some people who live 400 miles away from a voting position over in a very rural state. I think there is, Brian. And what we tried to do is we tried to modify the mail-in voting provision in this to accommodate states like hers that give states a lot of latitude if there's a hardship, and they can define what that hardship is.

So what this whole provision is designed to get at, really, are the abuses and the places where fraud occurs voting. And that is it's ballot harvesting, it's these drop boxes, it's unsolicited mail-in ballots where people don't request one and they're shipping them out, and sometimes you're getting three or four at the same address. I mean, I think those are very real abuses that need to be curbed, and that's what this is targeted at. The things that, you know, states like Alaska, I know she has strong feelings about this, and I understand it's a very different state from the one most of the rest of us represent, but the language in there is really designed to give states the latitude that they need to address the unique, sometimes geographical challenges that they're doing. Their states face.

Senator, is it true that Chuck Schumer was somewhat talking to you guys behind the scenes about some type of voter ID?

Well, he said it, he's said it behind the scenes. He's also, he did say at his news conference the other day, Brian, when asked, it was sort of an offhand answer to a question, and he was getting asked about the Save America Act, and he made the comment: well, we're not opposed to photo ID.

Well, if they're not, then fine. Let's pass that. I mean, we're happy to narrow it down and get them on board and actually get an outcome or get a result here. We're going to test the proposition of whether or not they're serious. And we did that yesterday.

One of our colleagues from Ohio, John Houstead, offered a unanimous consent request to just pass photo ID, and the Democrats blocked it and objected to it.

So they're trying to, I think, pay lip service to this because they know how out of step they are with the American people and how commonsensical most Americans find this issue. But whether or not they'll actually come through and actually deliver the votes on getting us a result and getting something done is still an open question. You would have taken that. If it had passed, you might have done a version of the Save America Act as just photo ID. Totally.

And we've got we would take that. There are other pieces of this, obviously, that we want to get done too, and we can build out from there. But if that's something the Democrats would be willing to support, we take it in a New York minute. But I think we're going to find out whether or not they're serious. And like I said, I think he's saying some things right now because they're starting to feel some of the political pressure.

And hopefully, that will continue. They'll continue to feel that, and maybe they'll get to a point where they actually would work with us to enact, even if we don't get the rest of the pieces of this done, to get photo ID done. Where were you in 1996?

Well, I was running for Congress the first time.

Okay.

Well, I'm going to tell you what Chuck Schumer was. This is what he said. Let's admit the truth. Everywhere people go, they're asked for a social security card. In fact, one way to prove you're a bona fide person who can have a job is to ask for a driver's license and a social security card.

That's Chuck's humor. I mean, does he not know we're taping this? I mean, what does he say when you? I don't know if he's ever been confronted with this. Yeah, I mean, people, I think right now, I'm glad you're pulling it, and I hope that people, that more and more people become aware of that, of just the hypocrisy and the double talk that Democrats are engaging in right now.

I think part of it, Brian, too, is Schumer, like so many Democrats here in the Senate, is so susceptible to the far-left-wing base in this country, and they don't want to do anything. And part of it has to do with just Trump derangement syndrome and their blind hatred of the president. But I also think that there's a good contingent of Democrat, particularly special interest groups, these far-left special interest groups, who think they benefit from having non-citizens' vote in our elections and not having to have a photo ID.

So it's a combination of things. But if he is sincere and if he actually wants to be at all consistent with what he said in the past, maybe there's a path here where Schumer ultimately gets to where he says we're going to be. We're going to go along and at least get photo ID done. And I know, I guess, within a midterm election, they don't want to give the president a win. They don't even want to fully fund government.

But here's what the president said about you when I talked to him last Friday, COP28. The main thing I have to do is find out who's going to get the Save America Act approved.

Well, I guess Senator John Thune's kind of at a log jam. Look, I think he's a wonderful person, I do. But he seems to be Not that he doesn't want to do it, he doesn't think he can do it. And that's bad. I mean, how can you not get voter ID approved?

How can you not get citizenship approved? Proof of citizenship.

So he's frustrated. You can hear in his voice. You probably have heard that very conversation to your face. Yeah, many times. And I understand his passion, and we share it.

I mean, these are all things we all want to get done. And I tell people that I'm, in some cases, I have to be the, I don't say the grin reaper, but sometimes the bearer of bad news because I have to tell people what the vote count is. And, you know, as we test these issues, and obviously to pass something in the Senate, it takes 60 votes, not 51, on an issue like this. And that means you've got to have some Democrats.

Now, the President would just say, well, just nuke the legislative filibuster, and then you can pass everything at 51. But I think the, you know, that, again, that's another issue where the votes aren't there. And so they shouldn't be. We have to have a filibuster. Senator Thune, if we don't have a filibuster, people don't realize there's a day when Democrats will be in charge, and they're going to be a Democratic president.

And now the Senate will be like an executive order. Whatever the president wants will be the law of the land. And I don't think Republicans are going to be happy with that. No, and I'll tell you what, Brian, and again, it's part of the founders when they designed our checks and balances in our government. They created the three branches of government.

But in the legislative branch, the Article I branch, they divided power between the House and the Senate. And they created the Senate to give a voice to the minority in the country. And yeah, if you go to a simple majority, you become just like the House, only with longer terms. And then anything, when the Democrats get it, that agenda, we will own it. I mean, if we enable all the stuff that they do because we decide to blow up a legislative filibuster, we're going to rule the day that happens when they get control again.

So, one of the people that are not for the Save America Act is Mitch McConnell. He just doesn't, and you know, Keem Jeffrey said the same thing, but. He just says, I just don't think the federal government should be involved in state elections. Or in the election process, and he says that's not part of the Constitution. You must have heard that argument before.

Yeah, I mean, and that's the leader, I think, holds that position sincerely, although he did vote to get on this bill. You know, he was one of them, you know, to get on the bill that came over from the House that has photo ID and basically citizenship to register to vote. Senator McConnell voted with us.

So, you know, I don't know ultimately where he's going to be on the final on the final passage vote on this, but I do know, and there are, and I might put myself in this category. I'm what we call a Federalist. I believe in states' rights. I believe in distributed power. I think less power in Washington and more power to people around the country and state and local governments is a better, you get way better outcomes for our country.

But on this particular issue, where federal elections are concerned, we do have authority. And we ought to ensure, if nothing else, that non-citizens aren't voting in American elections. I think that's a straightforward issue and one that doesn't get you crosswise with a belief that We ought to preserve power for the states and I got the best analogy for you. You feel free to take it. It's like in baseball, football.

We do it even in soccer. There's videotape replay. It's not that you hate the refs. You just want to make sure the right team wins. And if it was a catch or a drop, we just want to find out what it was.

Even if Republicans lose every election, you're just saying, I want to make sure the right person wins.

So to me, it's videotape replay. It's not that I hate the refs, it's just that they're not perfect.

So let's just make sure that we can use technology in this case. to get the right, you know, to find out who the right winner should be. Right.

Well, and that's, and that's a, you know, and again, that's perfectly a good analogy or illustration because it's true. You want to make sure that the people voting in American elections are the people who are eligible to vote in America elections. And it's against our law to vote if you're not a citizen.

So why not make that a requirement and then, secondly, verify it at the ballot box by forcing somebody to produce a photo ID? I mean, I just think these are common sense solutions.

So, Senator, I got to bring you to funding the rest of the DHS. We know about TSA, we know about the Coast Guard, we know about the cyber unit. is all no they're not being funded. all because they want to reform ICE. I know Tom Holman was meeting with Democrats yesterday.

We know we have Mark Wayne Mullen, who's going to be taking over, I think, as early as Monday when the vote goes to the floor.

So I'm wondering, has there been enough progress made to say that we can fund the government this weekend. I mean, have you talked to anybody? We're going to find out real soon. When Tom Holman came up here, and by the way, Brian, that request for that meeting has been out there literally for weeks. I mean, in the 35 days of this shutdown, from day one, the White House has indicated a willingness to sit down with Democrat leadership and try and resolve this and get the government and all these agencies and really important functions of our government operating again.

And the Democrats have resisted. I mean, in fact, the last White House proposal, the Democrats sat on it for 18 days without responding.

So we're trying to force the issue. We pretty much shamed them into having this meeting yesterday.

So Holman comes up. We had some of our Republicans that are involved with that agency in the appropriations process there and senior Democrats to find out how serious they are. And I honestly think, I mean, the White House has been incredibly accommodating, trying to work with Democrats on reforms, and I think been very forthcoming and trying to get a deal here. The question is, do they have a partner? Democrats actually want a deal, or do they just want an issue?

And my impression, at least up until now, is this is all about politics for Chuck Schumann and the Democrats. The far-left base is demanding, again, that they fight the president. In the meantime, you've got a lot of important functions of government, a lot of people who aren't working, jobs that aren't getting done. And I have never seen this in my time in politics where one political party, their hatred of a president, actually surpasses what they know is in the clear interest of the safety and security of the American people.

So I heard there were progress yesterday. Would you characterize it the same way? And number two is: are the two issues the masks and judicial warrants? Yeah, I mean, I think those are the two issues. The White House has come a long ways on several issues.

I mean, on body-worn cameras, on identifying agents when they go in, if they're going to find people who are here illegally or who are criminally here. And then another thing they've also made, I think, significant headway on is Well, the mask issue, I think, is the one that's still the outstanding one. But I think in terms of just the other issues that are out there, I think the White House has done everything they can to try and get the Democrats the solution that sort of fits one. And I was going to say the other one is the limitations on where they go. And I think the White House has said, okay, churches, hospitals, schools, places like that, they're willing to make accommodations so that they're not going into those types of places.

And on the issue of warrants, it really comes down to personal residences and things like that. And I think, again, the administration is willing to work with the Democrats to try and get a solution there.

So those issues are, to me, there's deal space there, Brian, that's achievable. I think we can get an outcome. Regrettably, we don't have, at least right now, a partner at the table, but we're going to find out today if that partner is going to show up. Yeah, you have to. And lastly, on the run war, it looks like to Pete Hay.

That saying, the Secretary of War, you're going to need $200 billion more. Uh your thoughts.

Well, you know, look, I mean Which man? four years under Biden where defense spending didn't even keep up with the rate of inflation.

So things had fallen way behind, and we're trying to catch up now. And we are in a conflict with Iran that has it's no question about it, it has a cost associated with it. And I think we have to factor that in.

Now my view is that this isn't going to last all that long. I think that the objectives are being achieved. The mission is going to be accomplished here before long, at least in terms of what we needed to do there. But I do think that We've got to make sure that the munitions that have been depleted are replenished, our stockpiles are ready. We live in a dangerous world.

And I've always said, Ryan, if you don't get national security right, the rest is conversation. The other things that these other issues don't matter much if you can't defend the country.

So I don't know. We haven't seen the specifics of that request. That sounds like a big number to me. But once we get the details, we'll work through it and see what we need to do to make sure that our military is ready to meet whatever threats are out there. Yeah, this has been the menace of the Middle East really since the 80s, forever.

And I think the President made his most courageous decision by taking it on. If it ends in a few weeks, I don't think people are going to remember March and November. But I know you got your hands full selling affordability when the market has dropped 300 points today and oil is around $100. But I think it's for the right reason. Senator Thune, always great.

We really appreciate it. And so does our audience when you come on with us. Good to be with you. Thanks, Brian. Talk to you soon.

You got it. Back in a moment. Don't go anywhere. Brian Kilmead will be right back. Mm.

The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead. Our party is governed by the TDS, and now it's made it virtually impossible without being punished as a Democrat to agree something's good. I agree with the other side, and I would define that by epic fury. He could come out for ice cream and lazy Sundays, and now suddenly Democrats would hate it.

We would want to vote it down. That's so funny. I mean, this guy's a riot. I mean, he's unbelievable. If there were more Democrats like that, we did.

One thing, I think John Fetterman would get a lot of Republican votes, but Democrats want to kick him out of the party. I wonder if I hope he sticks around.

Meanwhile, I'm very excited because Fox Nation will stream it, and we're going to be having tour dates. Usually, I have one or two at a time.

Now we got them all.

So check this out. I'll be in Reno Nevada May 30th, the History of Librian laughs tour at Pensacola, Florida. History of Libyan laughs again, me on stage. And then in the fall, when the Madu book comes out, United the States, I named a tour after it, Red Bank, New Jersey, October 16th. The next day in Westbury, New York, that is going to be at the Westbury Music Fair.

WABC listeners, of course, I want to meet you in person. I'll drag Sid Rosenberg on that. Clearwater, Florida, United States tour, that'll be November 7th, followed by Jacksonville, Florida, back in the Florida Theater. It's a fantastic venue in the revitalized downtown Jacksonville. November 21st, Chesterfield, Missouri.

Hope to see everyone there. His mouth to your ears. It's Brian Kilmead.

All right, I'm Brian Kilmead. Welcome back. I got a special guest with me right now, Nelson Dellis. He's a six-time USA memory champion, two-time Guinness World Record Holder, grandmaster of memory, and the author of the brand new book, Everyday Genius Hacks, to Boost Your Memory, Focus, Problem Solving, and much more. Nelson, great to meet you.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Brian. All right, first off, when did you realize you had a great memory?

Well, actually, I wasn't born with a great memory. It's something that I trained myself to have after I saw my grandmother go through Alzheimer's and she passed away from it in 2009. And I started just diving into memory techniques, learning about these ancient techniques that have been around for thousands of years, and memory competitions where people put these techniques to the test. And I started training for those competitions. You watched her memory and her grasp for the memories, and you said, You didn't have an especially great memory, right?

No, I haven't. You didn't have a photographic memory? Definitely not. That made you curious about how the mind works? Yeah, I I was.

Fearful for my own future. I did not want the same thing to happen to my brain. And I was in my mid-20s that I thought, well, what could I be doing now to strengthen my mind and training my memory?

So, where'd you go? Where'd you go to find out more? I look.

Well, I first started reading general books about memory and how it works, and then kept seeing these asides in the books about curious memory competitions and the techniques they use. And that really. Piqued my interest.

So I found a audiobook by a former memory champion, Dominic O'Brien. Read his book, and he walks you through exercises. And I suddenly was realizing that, yes, I can do it too. And when I got to these memory competitions, just Got obsessed with the superpower that I unlocked, that anybody can unlock. And what were you doing prior to this?

I was in school uh studying. Uh uh I was had interest in being a physicist. I got my master's in uh computer science and was going to be a software engineer. And then you start going to these competitions. How did you do?

Yeah, well the first one I did okay, middle of the pack. Uh but I was So inspired, I came back the next year and won the thing. And won it six times over the last Can you give me an idea of what they would assign you in this competition? Yeah, it's pretty interesting. They have different events where it's timed and you have a certain amount of information to memorize.

Decks of cards, as fast as you can, a playing deck of playing cards. A 500-digit number, you get five minutes to study and remember as many digits. 500-digit number. Yeah, as many as you can. Names and faces, so memorizing a bunch of random headshots and their names, first and last.

Randomized poem. Previously unpublished poem, and then lists of words, things like that. Fascinating.

So, can you give us an idea in your book what you've relayed? Do you give away all your secrets? Yeah, you do.

So, you're not keeping anything for yourself. Not at all. So, give me idea. Like, you said you didn't have an extraordinary memory.

So, what are some of the things we could all do right now? Yeah.

And what are some of the techniques we can start developing? Yeah.

So, the book is all about building these genius skills, and memory is up there. If you can master your memory, a lot of people think that you might be a genius and you feel like you're a genius if you can tap into that control over your mind. And it all starts with thinking about information that you want to memorize as a picture in your mind. We remember pictures better than the abstract information that most stuff is these days: numbers, names, speeches, complicated. Concepts, you know?

So if you can turn that into a picture in our mind that we can visualize, that's. Sensory, emotional taps into things that are meaningful to us. That's what we remember.

So, for example, you get a monologue and they say to memorize this, so you got to give a speech, whether it's something technical which you majored in, or is something like the A TED Talk. Sure. And you want it verbatim. Yep, verbatim. How would you want to?

So if it's verbatim, then you recognize that every word on that page is some piece of information that needs to be logged in your memory.

So I would turn. Probably word for word, like looking at each single word and coming up with a picture is tricky. But what you could do is take little phrases or little chunks of words and turn it into a meaningful image and then connect them all in a little story, right? We remember stories very well.

So if you can take those pictures and weave them into a memorable story, you'll remember the order of the words you got to say.

So give me an example of a story that you could weave. Do you need to read something? For example, if you have a story. And you want to, let's say, do a biography on John Adams or something to that nature.

So you're reading John Adams' biography and you want to remember some of the things.

So do you picture his face? Do you picture Quincy, Massachusetts? But you want to do it in order and you want to remember what happened in his childhood. Do you picture him catching a fish? Do you picture him going to law school?

How do you, tell me an idea how you would. Yeah, so there's a few approaches. It's all based on this idea of coming up with a story. But more specifically, you can use what's called a memory palace where you take... a walk through a place that you know very well, maybe your house, let's say, from your front door through all the rooms to your bedroom.

Okay.

And that's something that we don't need to memorize. We do it every day. If you close your eyes, you could do that easily. And what that does is if you can imagine things for the things you want to remember about John Adams strewn about the house along that route, that route now preserves all of those bits of information in order.

So, you know, you might start with his name so that you remember his name and maybe what he looks like.

So you put John Adams in your house. Yeah, I'd put him on the front door.

Okay.

To remember the name, right? I mean, John Adams is pretty memorable. But then, let's say the next piece of information you're reading, his birthday or the years he served, right? Maybe you want to remember those.

So you would come up with an image for that information and then attach it to the next room in your house.

So, for example, let's say a birthday, May 11th, 1967. Sure. So, how would you remember something like that? What's the image? Yeah, so with numbers, very abstract.

A lot of memory athletes, and I mentioned we memorize 500 digits in five minutes.

Sounds crazy.

Sounds crazy.

I couldn't do it at one point. But we turn the numbers into pictures.

So there's a way to convert, say, the numbers to letters. It's a. A number system, they call it the major system, where we basically turn them into words. And then, once we have words, we can picture words very easily.

So, a birthday like May 11th, 1967, I would turn into a numerical version of it. And again, this is maybe a bit more advanced, but when you train your memory, this stuff can become very effortless.

So, May, I would picture five, the number five, fifth month. Eleven, I have a picture for 11. Then He wasn't born in 1967, but let's just say that's the date. 19, I could probably. Makes sense of it.

I don't need to remember 19. But do you need to see what happened in 1967? Not necessarily. No, no.

So I just have an image for 51167. And in my world, that is. Abraham Lincoln playing tennis with a guitar. Yeah.

That doesn't make sense to anybody out there, but I do have a system to turn those into pictures that are meaningful. And that's a silly picture that will represent those numbers: 0, 5, 11, 67, every single time.

So, when you do wedge, how many numbers did you have to memorize to win?

Well, you have a max of 500.

Okay.

So, I did about 400.

So, if I'm creating a picture for every number, right? Isn't it easy to forget an element of that picture, which would be forgetting one of those numbers? You think so, and of course it can't happen when you're doing a volume, a lot of numbers like that. But the way that you turn those pictures into memorable Sensory pieces of data in your mind, that's what makes it hard to forget.

So the stickier you make it, the less likely it is that you're going to forget those. Thanks. Nelson Dulles is here, six-time USA memory champion, and he's got a book out now called Everyday Genius: Hacks to Boost Your Memory Focus, Problem Solving, and Much More. For example, you walk into a bar. And they tell you as a good exercise.

Get everybody's name. Yeah.

So in that bar is how many people is your threshold that you could memorize?

Well, one of the records I have, I still have it, is 235 names in 15 minutes. Do you tell everyone don't move? Have you an order? Or no? Excuse me.

No, it doesn't have to do with the order necessarily because, yeah, people could mix and leave and Come back, I attach the name to the person. And a year from now, after you win that competition and name all those people and you see that person in the mall, will you remember their name? Yeah, in most cases I'm pretty good at remembering the people I meet at the moment. That sounds like magic. Because you have a picture.

You have 230 pictures in your head? Yep, but they're all memorable and that's and and there's a practice to it, right? If you if you train this, it becomes more of a well, I don't want to say effortless because you still have to make an effort, but it does become more intuitive to do it.

So do you think this is a technique or have you developed something in your brain to be To be more expansive. Did you worry neurologically? Did you approach this neurologically to find out how the brain functions, where it goes in the brain? Not necessarily. I learned the techniques.

These are techniques, but I think what happens is it does become neurological. There's actually a study I was a part of in St. Louis at a memory lab at Washington University in St. Louis where they The research has just come out this year where it shows um They did a scan on my brain and they show how. Rewired my brain is compared to the average person.

When I use my memory, it's using the whole thing in ways that most people don't think memory is being used. And that's because of all the years of training.

So, memory, training your memory actually does rewire your brain.

So, a lot of these processes are neurologically changed. Inside me.

So do you think so it's not necessarily your technique got better, your brain is actually adapting to what you're asking it to do. Yeah.

Now people can do the techniques and instantly see how it improves their memory. But then that long-term change is what happens when you train that skill. Do you ever lose your keys? Yeah, probably. My wife's over there.

She's laughing. Yes. It does happen.

So here's an example.

So they say one thing with memory. We should give people people something to take away with. They could all improve it.

So they say, oh, say, picture your keys on like when you go to put them down. Usually people do it unconsciously. That's how you lose it. Like picture your keys on top of the candle that's on your table. And like you'll just say, Where are my keys?

Oh, I remember because it exaggerated. I would never put my keys on the candle, but you exaggerated and you have them buy the candle. Is that roughly what you're doing? Yeah, and I think an even better technique for people who misplace their wallet or their keys is when they put it down or their phone, when they put it down, do a bizarre, out-of-the-norm. Movement.

Just like a snap or a little tap on the face. I know it's ridiculous. No, no, no. No, but what happens is when you do that, you're doing a couple of things. You're paying attention to the moment, which is often why we forget why we place these things so quickly and Lose them, but you're also kind of marking in your memory.

It's like a timestamp of something that pops out as weird.

So hit yourself with the put your keys down. Yeah, just something bizarre. That's the whole point. It's out of the ordinary. That isn't what you do typically.

Just, I don't know, do a spin, tap your knee, whatever. Just something bizarre that kind of will mark that in your memory. Because when you're thinking about it, so you're upstairs, you put your phone downstairs, but you slapped your cheek when you put your phone down. Yeah.

And that'll be that'll imprint. Yeah, that's it. It's super helpful. I mean, I think the first step is to try to find a dedicated place where you always put your keys, but that doesn't always work because sometimes you're in a rush, toss them over here. But it also tells you to be a little more present with more of your life, which again is hard to do.

But I think when you learn more about memory and train your memory and treat your memory right, you start to be more present. Around a lot of those things that are very mundane. And I know if you go out and get the book, and I hope you do, you pick up Everyday Genius, hacks to boost your memory, focus problem solving, and much more, you're going to get these. But for people, just give people an idea what you're going to get in the book. Can you give me two other techniques that could help people right now?

Yeah, so the book. Talks a lot about memory and learning more, but there's chapters on reading faster and remembering what you read. There's um chapters on intuition and creativity and problem solving, all sorts of stuff, mental calculation. Um what can I give you? Um yeah, for speed uh reading faster, I think a helpful thing that Uh Often overlook when they're reading is that their eyes will be moving back and forth.

So you're often moving or wasting time rereading passages or jumping all over the page. If you just give yourself a pointer, sometimes it could just be your finger, it could be a pencil, as you read, you'll find that your eyes will follow that thing and focus on moving. Forward in the book rather than always. Because one of the things that people do to slow them down, they try to mouth the words. Like they'll read every word, but your eyes can move quicker and your brain can pick up quicker.

Quicker than you think. And that's what the book is filled with: things that most people would assign as skills for someone who's special or genius or gifted, but it's stuff that we all can do. If you learn how to do it and Understand that it is possible for our minds. And Nelson, one of the things that people are listening to now, they said what prompted you is you had your was it your mom? My grandmother.

Your grandmother.

So I had. Alzheimer's. Is there anything that you've learned that might help someone when they're diagnosed to keep their brain as active as possible? Yeah, well, I think that's the key, is to keep your brain as active as possible as you age. I think in this year and moving forward, it's going to probably get worse, is there are so many things threatening to take away our own cognitive agency, where we don't have to think as much as we used to.

And while that's helpful, and I'm not saying to get rid of all tools out there in AI, there's definitely a place for it. I would encourage people to use their minds more or before they use one of those tools.

So yeah, how is technology affecting all that? A lot of times it's making you dumber. Yeah, yeah. And the research is still very new, but I think it's more and more apparent that it's making us dumber. I'll give you the best example.

I used to be really good at directions. When I first got my license, I wouldn't go anywhere without a map. I'd look at every trip before I looked at it. I would just look at a map and I would have a great sense of direction. Yeah, we had to.

Now I don't.

Now you look forward to it. I don't even, I just look, I look for the next turn. Yeah.

And it's crazy.

So that's one thing you worry about with AI. Yeah, is that we just get too complacent in letting our mind. Our cognitive abilities get outsourced. Right.

I imagine with law school, this would have been unbelievable if you decide to go. I found that. That's all they do is read. No, I'm happy with where I ended up. And what do you put?

The books out. Are you going to continue to go into these contests? Yeah, you know, I I always get this itch to to go back and Maybe not compete, but always try to maybe break a record or do some really big, challenging memory demonstration. Yes, it's part of me. I'm very competitive.

Nice. No kidding. Nelson Dallas, a six-time USA memory champion, out with a brand new book, Everyday Genius, Hacks to Boost Your Memory Focus, Problem Solving, and More. Thanks, Nelson. Thank you, Brian.

It's Brian Kilmade. Of Fast as Three Hours in Radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. More to know. Sponsored by Previgen.

Previgen, made for your brain.

So get this. California. First, you saw early in the week when we saw that. We were looking at the fraud in California and it's out of control with the number of hospices. I talked about that on One Nation on Sunday with Adam Carolla.

They're fake hospices where people go to die. They get money from the state, the federal government given out by the state, and it turns out they're not even there. People are going off the grift. Same thing with childcare. But Gavin Newsom says this is something that they cracked down on.

He thinks it's a joke and he's not taking it serious. Then it gets worse.

Now we're finding out about this land bridge to nowhere. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is bashing Governor Newsom because he's got an unfinished, get this, wildlife crossing bridge that's cost over $21 million over budget. Number one, $21 million on a dirt bridge that goes over the traffic for butterflies and different wildlife that goes over the 101 freeway. The video shows an incomplete bridge. It's intended to provide safe passage for animals, including butterflies, which, by the way, according to reports, can fly.

Construction on the Wallace-Annenberg-Wildcrife crossing was supposed to be wrapped up last year. With the total cost of $92 million, it is now over $114 million, and nobody thinks that's gonna be enough. It is a bridge to nowhere with his train to nowhere. This is an absolute outrage.

So instead of Gavin Newsom being embarrassed and explaining it, he said MAGA's outrage over the project. It literally saves lives, tells you everything. This freeway project, grounded in decades of research, restores a critical wildlife corridor and reduces deadly collisions on one of the busiest highways in the country. Number one, if it was going to do that, you have responsibility by doing that economically. Number two, you're using $77 million worth of state funds.

Go raise the money with all your environmental Hollywood nut jobs and go do it. And then that way, you're going to be wasting their money, not state money, let alone federal money. Then he blames Trump's tariffs, increased construction costs for the reason. It's mostly dirt. And increased construction costs, that's the 9% inflation that Joe Biden had.

This guy is the worst. If you Democrats think that he is the best, you got Because he thinks he's handsome, please. Pete Budajudge, by the way, is going to try to do something, address something that he was his Achilles heel, and there's a lot of them. Number one, he got rid of his pronouns, he grew a facial, he had some facial hair. And now he's trying to kiss up to the black community, so to speak, because he gets no black votes.

Not sure why.

So we'll see. He's gonna have a lot of competition. Pritzker thinks he's a front runner, terrible guy.

So, guys, I'm waiting for someone to emerge. Get John Fetterman to run.