The Brian Kilmeade Show

From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead. All right. Hi, everybody. Brian Kilmead coming your way.

It's going to be a big hour. Brian Still is going to be with us. Styles is going to be with us, too. He's chairman committee on house administration. He's also pursuing the condemning of socialism that they voted on yesterday.

Also doing investigations on foreign donations to things like ACT Blue. They are taking the fifth as soon as they start getting closer and closer to finding out if other countries are financing political organizations, which, by the way, is a no-no. Standing by is Chairman Jason Smith. He's chairman of Ways and Means, one of the most important positions in all of Washington.

So before we get to them, let's get to the big three. Number three. The most important piece, Governor, of the bill that you signed, which is law today, is that local governments will make the zoning and permitting decisions about a data center. We will leave that in the hands of local government. Data center debate.

The president doubles down while others walk cautiously while we have to rally to support it and help people understand why we need them. Number 10. These targeted individuals, it was over 2,100, or over 2,100 individuals. These targeted individuals were arrested and put into the state penitentiary and they were released. They're only supposed to be in the country to begin with.

They were illegal. They had no status. That's what people seem to forget. DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mohen rounding them up. Operation Rotten Apple scooping up 2,200 illegals in New York.

Most criminals, but all don't belong here who have overstayed their visas and they got no help from the local cops. Number one. Mr. Secretary, where do you think we're at with this Iran confrontation six months in? Iran has continued to fire on commercial shipping in the straits.

They're losing control of the straits. They've lost control of the straits. The straits will remain open, and they will not be under Iranian control. And that's what you're seeing the president carrying out right now. That is the Secretary of State talking exclusively to us.

Iran pounded again, and the economic strangulation begins to choke out this evil regime. The next few weeks, or there I say, the next few months are going to be key. Look for Iran to strike back as the death rattle gets louder. And that's where I like to start. Chairman Smith, I know you look at the budget, and we're spending a lot of money.

Is this worth it in your view? Is the Iran war worth it? Is that well, let me just say just say Iran not having a nuclear weapon is worth it because it's kind of important that U. S. citizens are actually alive.

Whenever you have someone as unstable as the Iranians. For them to possibly have a nuclear weapon, that would be dangerous to every one of the 350 million Americans that we have.

So from the security perspective, it's absolutely worth it. Are the American people, do we want this over with promptly? Absolutely. When I traveled all over my district last month, that's what I heard. You know, we support the President, we understand what he's doing, but let's get this resolved.

So I was talking to the Secretary of Treasury, Scott Besson, this morning. He's pretty happy with where our economy is at right now. And at the G twenty summit, he felt the rest of the world felt the same way. Blade people are concerned about the bonds. What can you tell us about Bonds in America today.

I would agree with Secretary Bethan in regards to the economy of the United States. The certainty that we provided with the one big beautiful bill, the Working Families Tax Cuts, has allowed more manufacturing to come into the United States for people to invest in the American worker and the American product, which has led to a very strong economy. But Without a doubt, the two things that I have said, Brian, all along that keep me up as a member of Congress is one, the threat of China, and two, our debt. And our debt is a serious thing. When you see that we just recently crossed over $40 trillion, and when you look at that, like we have to get serious, both Republicans and Democrats, that like this is a national security threat because of our debt.

And so it all plays hand in glove together, but hopefully people will come together and figure that out.

Well, I hear that you guys think we're going to grow out of it. We did make up the revenue that we're bringing into the country 7%, but it's hard to control a debt with the interest rates this high and which will and a deficit that was this big. You have to do both. I totally agree, Brian. You have to continue to grow the economy, but you also have to freeze and cut spending.

You work with both of those hand in glove, and that Titanic of a ship will start to turn.

So let's talk about oil and gas and what the Venezuelan oil deal will actually do for America. When do you see that making an impact? And do you like the deal as you know it? You know, I'm not an oil expert, but I'll tell you I've spoken to the President about this. I am excited about the partnership that we have with Venezuela and allowing us to be less reliant on Middle Eastern oil, for one.

And so they're right in our backyard. They're a few hours from our homeland. And I feel like that it's going to be very beneficial. Get it to our refineries. Help us lower the cost of gasoline and diesel for Americans.

And then you talk about economy thriving. If the gas prices and the diesel prices go down, you will see gangbusters.

So I want you to also bring you to the job numbers. Just came in for August. We added 38,000 jobs. What were you expecting? I think, what were you expecting?

And what do you think about that number? That was kind of what everyone was expecting. Unemployment is fairly low, and so it's all part of the process. Of course, we need more people working still always. But I think I think The thing that disturbs me the most is the interest rates.

I think the interest rates are still high, Brian, and I look for the Fed to eventually lower those interest rates. The American people need it. They're not going to do it unless they see inflation heading in the right direction. When will that happen? They had no hesitation to raise it whenever inflation was going up, but they have had hesitation to lower the interest rates since inflation's gone down.

Remember, inflation's about 3, 2, 3 to 3, 3.4%. Under Biden, it was 9.1%, 9.1. And that was just like three years ago, four years ago. But they have not lowered the interest rates two-thirds, like what inflation has gone down since the prior administration. All right, so let's talk about the midterms.

They say there's 19 seats in play. Most sides agree. We also know with redistricting that puts you in play and the rise of socialism has said, gives some the sense that you guys can buck history and maybe hold on to both chambers. First off, what's it going to take to hold the House? You certainly have the money.

You know, Brian, I traveled helping a lot of our A lot of my colleagues and candidates last month, I think I went to 11 congressional districts in seven different states. And I'll tell you: for people to say that just because it's a midterm election, the party that's in power is going to lose, they don't know the terrain on the field. If you look at the terrain, there's really only 18 to 19 seats that you're talking about that are toss-ups. And those are the seats that I was in. And I like, I like our candidates.

Their candidates, on the other hand, are the extremes of the extremes. And I mean, you have all of them. Like you have like a Tom Swazi here who says, I'm not a socialist, but you have only what eight yesterday voted not to condemn socialism. Everybody else just said. Go ahead.

That's the Democrat Party. Like yesterday, only eight Democrats would say, no, we're not supportive of socialism. And that's the current House Democrats. Imagine all the ones that's been coming in that basically will stand up and say, I use the American flag as a napkin, or I believe that 9-11 was the fault of Americans. These are the people that the Democrats are electing to lead their party who want to control the policy for all Americans.

And I'll tell you, American people is not going to stand for those kind of policies.

So one of the best things you could do for our country, and it's not the sexiest thing, but certainly the most important, is get us independent of China when it comes to rare earth. We know China held that back and it got us attention about a year ago. I know the president said all hands on deck to start acquiring it, mining it, refining it. Where are we at with this, Congressman Jason Smith? You know, that is exactly right.

America has ignored a dangerous problem for too long, our dependence on communist China for our critical minerals, our military and national security to depend on. And so today, today in the Ways and Muns Committee, we're having a hearing on critical minerals, rare earths, and the supply chains, because 90% of the critical minerals are processed and controlled by China. That is alarming. That is why last week I was in Central Asia. I went to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia and met with their presidents to talk about how can we continue to open up the supply chains.

They are rich in critical minerals and rare earths.

However, they're wedged between Russia and China and not a good place to be. But we can help. We can help increase our supply chains, not being reliant on communist China. And that will only allow us to grow, whether it's our magnets, our batteries, our semiconductors. Conductors, critical minerals, or rare earths.

We have to be self-sufficient, either with us or our allies.

So, data centers, I think, are absolutely necessary. I don't think people understand how it's directly related to the phone they're holding, to the game, to the console they're playing video games with, or to cloud or AI, whatever you might be using. People say, I just don't want data centers in my backyard. Here is leader Akeem Jeffries, Cut 27. The Republicans, it should come as no surprise, are pro-Republican.

data center without any restraints in their one big ugly bill Every single House Republican But one or two voted to unleash data centers on the American people. in an unfettered fashion.

So tell me about your stand, Jason Smith, on data centers and what the Republicans stand for. Are you for no restrictions, no restraints?

Well, Brian, first I'll say Hakeem Jeffries has a hard time finding the truth when he's speaking, as you can see with that statement. There was nothing in there that opened the free spirit of the Big Beautiful Bill. I wrote the Big Beautiful Bill.

So that's just his political rhetoric because he's desperate, desperate to try to win elections. But in regards to data centers, what I am concerned with is the investigations that I have been doing on non-for-profits and 501 C3s and C4s, where we have tracked hundreds of millions of Chinese dollars that are coming into our non-for-profits. And those non-for-profits are the one that's organizing protest to data centers going into communities. It's working. It is absolutely working.

And I'll tell you, people should be concerned because there's issues with data centers that everyone has to address. Utilities, make sure that it's not going to affect people's utility rates, water supplies, all these things, but those can be addressed and they have to be addressed for every community.

However, They want to win the AI war. The Chinese want to win the AI war. And if they can slow us down in America, they will control all Americans' data. And I don't think that that's what the American people want. We have to hold the data centers and the big AI companies accountable so that they do not take advantage of our communities.

But we have to beat China. We have to beat China. I hear you. Here's what Kimberly Strassel said: that people should understand when it comes to the Wall Street Journal, when it comes to building them. Cut 31.

But they're also not talking about the jobs they create, both downstream in terms of the supplies that go into the building of these, the actual construction of them themselves, the skilled jobs to actually run them when they come on, and also the enormous tax revenue that they are generating in places where they are located. If you look at Loudoun County, by some estimates, data centers take up about 3% of the land and provide about 40% of the local revenue. Taxes would be about $5,800 more a person without these data centers.

So this is something they need to do a better job of explaining to the public, as do politicians. Yeah, I mean, that's what's got to be explained to the public. It's data centers aren't for oligarchs. They aren't for Tim Cook. Therefore us.

It's exactly right. Brian, she hit it dead on. You look at Loudoun County, Virginia, not too from Washington, D.C. They have more data centers than anywhere else in the country. They have the wealthiest school district in the country, and it's because of data centers.

Their government is ran by a bunch of liberals, Brian. But guess what? Last year, they had to do a property tax rebatement for everyone because they had more money than the liberals could spend because of the data centers. When the president this week talked about data centers going into poor communities, what he was referring to is the benefits of the property taxes. These hospitals, these rural hospitals that are struggling, this would help provide a tax base to help fund their hospitals.

It's the same thing with the rural school districts or the rural fire districts. This could be helpful from a property tax revenue by these buildings there, but they need to follow simple guidelines and not be taken away from the grid from those locals. And the communities need to decide for themselves if that's what they want or if that's what they don't want. Right. I think politically only 30% approve of data centers.

A lot of them don't understand what they do, and a lot of being manipulated. By China. And lastly, you're doing some work. Not only are you going to the far reaches of the Far East, you're also looking at Africa. You have an African Growth and Opportunity Act.

What would that do? You know, we actually sent it to the President's desk yesterday. Very excited about it. This is extending the trade preferences for sub-Saharan African countries. Like we were talking about earlier about rare earths and critical minerals, Africa is rich in rare earths and critical minerals.

However, the Chinese has been trying to go there and take from these very poor African nations. This creates trade preferences for the United States and these sub-Saharan African countries to work together and for us to benefit from their rare earths and critical supply chains. You're right. You have influence there because we're not looking to rape the land and take advantage of developing countries. We're looking to help grow them, be partners.

And that's what the Belt and Road program was doing. We could be, just by using Americans' values and ethics, we could be a legitimate alternative. I hope people are doing that. Appreciate what you're doing, Chairman Smith. First, it's you, Brian.

Thank you. Back in a moment. It's Brian Kilmade. Uh Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Joe.

Nothing that anyone is providing Iran is in any way impeding our ability to act as necessary to protect the United States. That said, it is clear that in the case of what Iran is doing, we are not necessarily fully aligned with the Russian position on it. But Russia's got, you know, and Putin's got his own set of problems that I think take up the majority of his time and focus, which is, you know, the war with Ukraine and, frankly, the impacts that these Ukrainian strikes are having on the Russian economy in combination with sanctions. Yeah, that is the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio gave his exclusive interview. I taped it last night.

We're going to be airing it next hour. Hopefully, you'll be able to hear the whole thing or catch it on YouTube a little bit later. And that was him talking about Russia, who came out yesterday and said, Vladimir Putin directly, basically to Iran, anything you need. I'm here to help you, supply you. We really admire the way you've been able to withstand the barrage from America.

Now, you take Iran and you compare Ukraine. The Russians invade Ukraine. The defensive help that we're giving Ukraine has allowed them to hold off, because they're great fighters too, hold off the Russians.

Now, in the Iran situation, they're building a nuclear weapon. They're financing terror organizations fomenting after our ally for months, fomenting unrest in the entire region, killed thousands of our people. And then we finally just take action on that program, and the Russians are helping to sustain that country. Behind the scenes, I hope the President's giving a stern message, whether through his CIA director or through his Secretary of War or through his Secretary of State. But on the surface, it seems like we're just passing it off as just.

Part of the thing that they do. I'm not okay with that. When we come back, Brian Stiles is going to be with us, Chairman of the Committee on House Administration. He's also doing some great work in investigating foreign donations into these super PACs, like, for example, ACT Blue, which supports democratic causes. Are other countries supporting other parties?

You think that's okay? I don't think it is okay.

Meanwhile, I also had a one-on-one with Scott Bessant from the G20 in North Carolina. I'll be playing some of that when we come back. You are listening to the Brian Killme show. Don't move. Cozy season is ahead, and you'll be spending way more time inside.

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All right, we are back covering a couple of things. Tiger Woods this morning got away with when he had stand trial and he want to change his plea from not guilty to guilty for DUI to a degree, but he never really admitted to it, never submitted to a test. I get that that's the key. Is don't submit to a test, I guess, because they now he has his five years he can't drive. There's been multiple offenses for him.

And he got a small fine, and he's out on probation and he's ready to go. The prosecutor is speaking right now, not happy with that sentence. Maybe Tiger's going to be back in the golf course, and maybe not. I'm not sure. But it's unbelievable.

If you told me at twenty two that this is where this guy would be at fifty five, I would say no way. But he's had multiple problems. The other thing we're finding too, kind of fun thing, SpaceX is going to be flying into the sky today. We're also waiting to see on the Clancy trial. The jury seems to be deadlocked.

We'll find out today if they're going to be just a hung jury. With us right now is Congressman Brian. Brian Stile. He's the chairman on the committee on the House administration. And yesterday, the House is back in action, Congressman.

And what were you able to do and put the Democrats on the record for?

Well, we had a resolution to denounce socialism. Should be pretty simple. The whole body should vote against it. But what do we see? Democrats lining up to defend socialism.

And it sets up the contrast that all Americans are going to have an opportunity to vote on in less than nine weeks. Do you want to head down the path towards communism, towards the crazy, or do you want common sense conservatism of the Republicans? And every, almost every single Democrat stood and supported socialism on the House floor yesterday. It was unbelievable. All except what?

Eight? Yes, eight Democrats voted for it, obviously scared of their election coming up. But what you really see is Democrats are petrified of the radicalized base of the Democratic Party. This is not your grandfather's Democratic Party anymore. This has been a party that's been hijacked by activists, by radical Democrats, and by socialists.

And they are standing by the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America. We highlighted that platform, we denounced it, and almost all Democrats did not denounce it because they are petrified at the base. And many of them believe in the socialist ideals that the Democratic Socialists of America stand for. Is it because some of them use as an excuse that you had a provision there for the Save America Act? Yeah, they can come up with any excuse they want, but we just highlighted what the election law provisions were in the Democratic Socialists of America's platform.

They want to end the popular election of the President. They want the President elected by Congress. They want to end the Senate.

So they want the House of Representatives as a single body to elect the President of the United States. They want to remove that power from the people. They want non-citizens to vote. It's right there in their plan. We read the plan.

They want non-citizens to be able to vote, millions and millions of non-citizens. They want to grant amnesty to everyone in the United States of America, regardless of legal status. That means every illegal alien in the United States, if they had their way, would be a United States citizen, then, of course, eligible to vote. And so you know exactly what they're trying to do. They're trying to concentrate power on the Democratic side so that they can drive this country towards a socialist agenda.

So you have Kathy Castor voted to condemn socialism. Henry Coyard, Don Davis, Jared Golden, who's going to be retiring. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas wants to win over those moderate or Republicans in his state, in his district. You got Perez of Washington, Darren Soto of Florida, Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico. I was surprised not to see.

Tom Swazi not on that.

Well, it shows you how petrified many of these individuals are about their base.

So you think about New York Republicans, you think about New York Democrats, you think about California Democrats. And what we've seen is time and again, unless you show yourself as an absolute radical, the base of the Democratic Party will primary you and remove you. That's happened time and again. That happened and played out in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City. It almost played out in the governor's race in my home state of Wisconsin, where the Democratic Socialist candidate who wanted to abolish everything, including Thanksgiving, barely lost the primary.

And so Democrats around the country know that they have to, in a fact, Kow-tow to what is being put forward by the Democratic Socialists of America for fear of losing a primary. And I think we are watching the Democratic Party become radicalized before our eyes. Here's the announcement: Cut 34.

Okay. On this vote, the yea's are 220, the nays are 192, with two voting present. The resolution is adopted. Without objection, motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

So that's the way it was. The guy who did not agree with it on the Democratic side, John Fetterman, cut 33. The DSA, they're deeply anti-American. They're deeply anti-capitalism. They're deeply anti-the-American way of life.

But when you look at the kind of individuals that are actually in the DSA, you know, they're living in a house that their dad bought it for $1.5 million and they're refurbishing it for another million or more. They want to impoverish middle-class whites and, you know, seize all the production.

So, absolutely. You know, I would think every single Democrat should condemn the DSA. This is not like a big tent situation. They should have their own entire party and run alone as the kinds of communist and socialist and anti-American party that they are.

So, I mean, that sounds like something you would say. Yeah, I mean, he he he almost says it better than I can. He understands exactly what's taking place in the Democratic Party because he has the front row seat. That Democrats continue to refuse to stand up to the radical leftists that are in their party. And he's exactly right as to who these individuals are.

Time and again, the individuals who are calling for this are individuals that are well off. They want equal results, but they don't want to tell you that everybody will become equally poor. But shockingly, the people that don't are the politicians that drive forward these agendas. Those are the individuals living in million-dollar homes that are actually able to avoid the repercussions of the terrible policies that Democrats want to put forward on all Americans. John Fetterman right there was able to call it out.

Sadly, the overwhelming majority of Democrats in the United States House of Representatives don't have that level of courage, or they fully believe exactly what these Democrats and socialists are putting forward. Dalarizi, you're about to work with Avila Chevalier, reacted mad that these eight Democrats did not vote, that voted with Republicans to condemn socialism. They say Democrats love talking about a big tent, but then they vote in line with Republicans, hell-bent on destroying our democracy. Democracy. Here's the truth.

A big tent doesn't pay your rent, lower your grocery bill, or take on corporations bleeding our country dry. She goes on.

So do you understand that mindset?

So she is a socialist, a proud socialist, thinks the Democratic thing to do would be to support socialism.

Well, of course the socialists believe that you should support socialism. That's why they're running. And the democratic socialists are being elected and getting through and across the line. And so what we're seeing is time and again, the radicalization of the democratic primary base is moving individuals into power who truly are socialists. The number of people that have a mindset like John Fetterman that are willing to stand up and actually explain to people how dangerous socialism is is few and far between in the Democratic Party.

Again, this isn't your grandfather's Democratic Party. This has been hijacked by activists and radicals and Democratic socialists. They're driving forward their agenda. They're gaining power. And of course, if you're a socialist, you would expect everyone to fall in line and no one to push back.

That's ultimately their goal. It's a power play by the radical left. December 11th, now government is going to be funded.

So, if people are going to shut down the government in order to affect the election, that's not going to happen. That's what you voted on yesterday and that passed.

So, what else can you guys accomplish?

Well From a House perspective, we often look and are frustrated that the United States Senate cannot move faster. There's a number of bills that have been stalled in the United States Senate that we would love to get done. Save America Act, election integrity is the top of the list. We also have areas in digital assets, for example, where we could move through the Clarity Act in the United States Senate.

So a lot of the frustration on the House side is that we do not have enough conservative Republican centers in the United States Senate to take advantage of the fact that we control the House, the Senate and the White House to drive forward and get through our agenda before the election. Hopefully the Senate comes back from their recess and hits the gas pedal, not the brake, on getting a lot of these key pieces of legislation done because then we're in a position to get them all the way across the line, signed by the President and into law. Uh I yeah, I guess when you you're talking about getting some type of crypto rules? Yeah, so the Clarity Act is the broad market structure legislation inside digital assets, inside crypto, that provides two things. One, it says here in the United States of America, we want you to innovate and develop because we want to be in a position to outcompete the rest of the globe, in particular China.

At the same time, it provides really important consumer protections for individuals so that they're not injured by bad actors. It's a great piece of legislation. It's in stark contrast to how the Biden administration ran this through Gary Gensler and enforcement actions and actually taking people to court with the end result being that innovation and development was pushed outside the United States into foreign countries under different value systems than we have. This is our opportunity to reclaim dominance in the tech era to make sure that innovation and development is occurring in the United States. The House passed this over a year ago.

It's been languishing in the Senate. There's a Senate vote in two weeks on this to begin the debate. We're all looking at that to say, can the Senate get this done? Because it's such an important piece of legislation to maintain American economic dominance.

So I want to talk about, before you go, what we're talking about with Iran. And it looks as though we're going the economic route rather than the kinetic route, although there was some strict bombing yesterday. They tried to hit our bases back. Thankfully, ineffective.

So Scott Besson is all in on trying to strangle them basically before they could even strike again. It's maybe stopped the archer, too, before they rather than just stop the arrow. Here's Scott Besson. as what he thinks he's already done and what he's about to do is cuts cuts uh seven. We are saying after 47 years, this terrible game that they've been playing with the Iranian people, terrorizing the Gulf and attacking American citizens, attacking the world, that the Iranian regime is over as they know it.

And they are either going to have to come to the table and be ready to negotiate, that they cannot have a nuclear weapon, that they have to give up their highly enriched uranium, that they have to stop with their terrorist proxies. that they have to uh stop terrorizing their neighbors uh or this will continue.

Well, there's no way I want them to come to the table because the table is not worth it. Whatever we're going to do, They have to be forced to do. And whether it's money or anything else, I cannot imagine us going to the table and walking away with an agreement that would, number one, would be effective and number two, that would be backed up and honored on their part, not ours. The goal is to reach an enforceable peace agreement with Iran where they don't have a nuclear weapon and they're no longer a state sponsor of terrorism. The Iranian regime not only is horrible to their people, they're incredibly difficult to negotiate with, and they only understand strength.

We've removed much of the military capability of Iran, and now locking down the economic corridors where the regime receives, in particular, foreign funds to be able to fund their terrorism, to be able to fund their military operations is going to be essential. We need to lock this down, force the regime to come to the table, and only with force and strength will the Iranian regime capitulate and actually give up their nuclear ambition and stop funding terrorism around the globe. What people know figure on all the scenarios is actually winning. And if we could see the Iranian people rise up, take their country back, that's called a win. Chairman Steil, thanks so much.

Appreciate you joining us today. Thanks for having me on. You got it. 1-866-408-7660. You can write me at BrianKillMead.com.

Just a quick reminder: my book, Uniting the States, is coming out: The Six Crucial Moments that Forge the American Miracle. If you go to my website, you can order it, pre-order it, I can sign it for you, or you just go to where you get it, pre-order it out October 13th. I think you're going to love it on year 250. It just talks about the moments it made us, it could have broken us, but we came out stronger and bigger, and now we know no one's better. Back in a moment, newsmakers and newsbreakers.

Here at first on the Brian Killmead Show. Cozy season is ahead, and you'll be spending way more time inside. Is your home ready? Don't worry. With Wayfair, you can upgrade your space without breaking the bank.

Score up to 70% off during their Labor Day clearance on furniture, area rugs, mattresses, and more. Plus, surprise flash deals you can't miss. Whether it's one room or the whole house, Wayfair has pieces for every style and budget. Shop Wayfair's Labor Day clearance now through September 7th at Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home.

The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. Anyone who has a record? Has vulnerabilities that a person without a record like Graham Plattner does not have. But you've been in a lot of campaigns, Senator.

You worked as a staffer on the Hill. If you were offered a chance to run against somebody who had a Nazi tattoo and a paper trail of sexual assault accusations versus a conventional politician who voted to increase utility rates.

Well, I would suggest that they have different strengths and different weaknesses, and that Troy has changed his position on a whole lot of issues. And, you know, he started out as a very conservative Republican.

Now he's essentially a Democratic socialist. Nobody knows more about Maine than Senator Susan Collins, the last Republican. The senator in the Northeast. It's unbelievable.

So it's pathetic. But she's got to stay in the middle, cannot trumpet Trump. And she disagrees with him a lot, not Trump at Trump. And she has to make sure she's trailed by two or three, but usually does that Troy Jackson doesn't become the next senator from Maine.

Now, the trade deal collapsing with Canada is not helpful, but it's not going to be that detrimental. Jonathan Martin, one of these political experts, weighed in on. Collins' chances now cut 42. And the next thing that she said there was, I don't talk about the fact that his two children are from his second cousin. She knows what she's doing, and she also recognizes the platinum was going to be the easier opponent for her to run against.

Okay. And the second he dropped out, this thing got harder. Where this has really gotten more challenging, guys, for Senator Collins is the Canadian trade war. I can't underestimate the relationship of Maine to Canada economically, culturally, politically. And she has intervened with Jamison Greer, the USTR to try to mitigate this.

But again, only so much you can do when President Trump is out there renaming Lake Ontario. And she has defined gravity, Gatty, for so many elections. She's the last senator in either party in this country that is sitting in a state that the other party has won in the previous three presidential races. She is a unicorn politically. And the question is, can she do it one more time in the face of a tough national environment and a difficult environment in her home state?

exacerbated by the President of the United States of her own party by starting a trade war with Guinness.

So there you go. And that was Jonathan Martin. Thinks that he's got a shot, but they always feel like she's trailing and she ends up winning. I think this time it's going to be hard, but the fact is, you're not running against a quality candidate. This guy's a mess.

If he was strong, he would have been the Democratic nominee for governor. He failed out of that. Then he was supporting Plattner. He was the last one standing. When Plattner said, okay, I won't run reluctantly, he stepped up.

So he's a fall guy and a fallback guy this entire time.

So go ahead. You know, go ahead. Give your best shot. I look at New Hampshire. That's a sleeper to flip to Johnson Unu, no question.

I look at Michigan. I think it's Rogers to lose. L. Say Ed's joke, but he's not. I'm saying he's formidable in terms of a base, but he should not be the nominee.

And I think that Rogers got all the experience, should win that one.

So those are two areas to flip.

Now, for Collins, it's got to be a hold. Shauna Thomas weighed in, and she's also, she was on a different network, and talking about how she kind of defies parties when it comes to Maine. And I'm talking about Collins, Cut 43. I think the big thing that we keep running into when we talk to people in Maine, and you've probably seen this as well, is, you know, we had one reporter go talk to people who own logging companies in the last week. They're worried.

They're scared because of the export and the imports between Canada and Maine. They're basically brothers, cousins, however you want to put it. But they're not super political people, but when asked about Susan Collins, what they say is, well, you know what? She's shown up for our family. She's shown up for helping my mom get cancer treatments.

I'm being a little facetious here. But these are the kind of stories we hear over and over again. And that they see that when she does buck her party or when she does release a statement about Canadian trade and she tries to work with the U.S. trade representative and she tries to do something and she says something, even if it's a strongly worded letter, the joke that we all like to make, they see that as them supporting her and her supporting them. There's a very personal relationship with Susan Collins in that state because she's been a senator for so long.

Right, and I hear that, and that's 100% true. That's what they said about the center from Georgia, too.

So we'll see what happens. Maine's going to be a key. We'll talk a lot about it. Getting a Canadian deal would certainly help, but that's really up to Canada. Cozy season is ahead, and you'll be spending way more time inside.

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Whether it's one room or the whole house, Wayfair has pieces for every style and budget. Shop Wayfair's Labor Day clearance now through September 7th at Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmead.

Hi everyone, so glad you're there from 48th and 6th in Midtown Manhattan. Heard around the country, around the world. Yesterday I had a chance to speak yesterday afternoon to Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. I was his first interview with him, getting the job. Haven't talked to him on the record, on television, or on radio since.

Well, that changed yesterday. Here's the National Security Advisor and 72nd Secretary of State. I'm going to play this throughout the hour. And here is how we began. All right, Mr.

Secretary, Marco Rubio, thanks so much for joining us and National Security Advisor. I understand the Iranians are the recipient of American attacks. In fact, the president put on Truth Social, and I'll read some of it. The U.S., as we speak, is striking Iran near the Strait. The strikes are large and powerful, and the retaliation for Iran's failed attempt at adding sea mines to the strait, which currently has no mines, and the Iranians shooting eight missiles at us all unsuccessfully knocked down.

If the failed nation of Iran retaliates for the very justified attack, they'll be hit again. Yeah. As much harder at a higher level. Mr. Secretary, where do you think we're at with this Iran confrontation six months in?

Well, first of all, I remind everybody that at the end, the core and central issue here is the following: Iran will never be allowed. to possess a nuclear weapon. Certainly not as long as President Trump is in office.

So that's first and foremost. With regards to the Strait of Hormuz, While our primary vehicle by which we are preventing them from getting a nuclear weapon and inflicting a price and a cost on them is economic, we always reserve the right to defend the interests and our interests in the region. Iran has continued to fire on shipping, continued to fire on commercial shipping in the straits. They're losing control of the straits. They've lost control of the straits.

Their mines were they put a bunch of mines in there. We were able to successfully destroy those mines, and so the shipping lanes are now even broader. But they keep shooting at things, and they keep shooting at ships.

So we will continue to target those things that pose an imminent threat to our forces and to global shipping in the straits. The straits will remain open, and they will not be under Iranian control. And that's what you're seeing the President carrying out right now. Understood. And also from their perspective, I understand they speak from many different areas.

The IRGC is a spokesperson, the Parliament as a spokesperson, and they also have a President who came out and essentially said, we'd like to go back to the MOU. What does Secretary of State Marco Rubio say about that?

Well, look, I mean, that ship in many ways has sailed, no pun intended, with regards to the Straits, because if you think about it as a moment, I mean, at the core issue here is they're never going to have a nuclear weapon. I have to remind people that continuously. This is all about the fact that they want to possess a nuclear weapon and threaten the world with it, and we'll never allow that to happen. And as long as they continue to endeavor or claim to want one, they're going to pay a price for it. And that price is going to be primarily economic, but we reserve the right, as we said, to take military action when necessary, not just to protect ourselves, but to prevent them from being able to threaten others as well.

So as far as the differences in their system, here's the bottom line. There are copies of disaster. It was a disaster before all of this, right? Because you think about it, Iran, every penny they get, be it through sanctions relief or whatever, every penny they get, they don't spend it on the Iranian people. They don't spend that money on their country.

They use that money to fund Hezbollah and Hamas and terrorist organizations and militias in Iraq that threaten us and threaten the world. If they spent a fraction, just half the money that they're spending on these militias, if they spent it on their own people, the Iranian people would be better off.

So they're going to continue to feel the squeeze because understand that this is not just about punishing Iran. The Iranian regime. It's about preventing them from having access to money that will then be used to sponsor terrorism, which is what they've always done. They want money for two things. To sponsor terrorism and ultimately to Have a nuclear weapon.

And we can't allow that to happen. We saw Prime Minister Modi meet with the Iranian President and Iranian officials and essentially look like they're setting up some type of trade deal. Pakistan two weeks before. What's your message for those countries?

Well, I don't think there's a trade deal between India and Iran. Obviously, countries all develop their own foreign policy, and many countries around the world talk to the Iranian regime. I mean, we've met with elements of the Iranian regime as well in terms of some of these discussions that have occurred, and there's been contact with them. I think what ultimately happens, though, is and the President has been very clear, is no country should be helping Iran evade sanctions. No country should be out there helping them create mechanisms by which they can generate revenue that they will then use to sponsor terrorism and try to build a nuclear weapon.

And if countries decide to do that, then we're going to have to sanction them too.

So Vladimir Putin says this to Iran. During this difficult time, we're trying to provide you with the assistance you need. We have discussed this with you and are supplying you with the necessary goods. We always thought they were giving it seems as though they were giving satellite coordinates to help kill our people, but now we have the Russians saying directly, we're helping you out. Yeah, well, in the case, unfortunately, of Iran, we're not aligned with the Russians and the Russian system in terms of their view of the situation.

Obviously, Russia has their own hands full with Ukraine and that effort there. But I've said this before, and I'll say it again: nothing that anyone is providing Iran is in any way impeding our ability to act as necessary to protect the United States. That said, it is clear that in the case of what Iran is doing, we are not Necessarily fully aligned with the Russian position on it. But Russia's got, you know, and Putin's got his own set of problems that I think take up the majority of his time and focus, which is the war with Ukraine and, frankly, the impacts that these Ukrainian strikes are having on the Russian economy in combination with sanctions. I have talked to Secretary Rubio, obviously.

Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your time.

So when you talk about John Radcliffe, he had 72-hour missions, six hours on the ground in Russia. We don't know exactly what he discussed, but I imagine it was important.

Some have said it was a proposal to have a trilateral meeting between President Trump, President Zelensky and President Putin, as well as warning them, letting them know the reality on the ground is you are not doing very well. Is there anything that you could share with the country about what that meeting was about? Yeah, I've seen those reports, and I don't know where those are coming from, because nobody who has any knowledge of that meeting is a very small handful of people, and none of them have talked to the press.

So this is stuff they're getting secondhand and reporting on. But let me just say, that trip was primarily a routine one. It is not unprecedented. Despite whatever differences you may have geopolitically, the United States does have to be able to communicate with Russia from a very practical perspective. They have the largest, second largest nuclear stockpile in the world.

The United States has to be able to communicate with them. I've met with a foreign minister. We talked to their foreign ministry. We're engaged with them in that regard. And I think for a long period of time, there's been exchanges between our respective intelligence communities, including our Department of War and deconfliction and things of this nature.

This has always existed.

So his visit there was largely routine in that sense of just establishing and continuing to build these intel-to-intel Communication channels because those things can prove useful in a time of crisis or conflict. I mean, this is not unusual. It's occurred under other administrations as well. And but there really it wasn't part of any sort of broader initiative other than continuing to establish those Intel to Intel channels that can prove useful in any particular contingency or crisis situation? Mr.

Secretary, I also know that President Zelensky appreciates the support of the President now, but he says specifically they would just need patriots, five percent more patriots. I know there's only a finite number available. Is there a plan in place to help them with missile defense leading into the winter? I mean, look, we've provided that in the past. And obviously, as you know, the whole world is asking for more air interceptors.

It's become the number one defense need on the planet, not just for Ukraine, but on the planet. Countries in the Middle East want it. I know Iran wishes they had interceptors, which they don't, which is why we're able to act the way we do and do some of the things we have, because those things were wiped out by us. But multiple countries around the world have more. Look, it's just a question of availability.

And obviously, I have to remind people the United States has needs. Like, we have our own defense needs, we have our own defense requirements. And before we can help others, we have to make sure that our stockpiles are always sufficient. I think there's a lot that's been reported inaccurately about what U.S. stockpiles are.

I think dangerously, too, because I think in some ways our adversaries read that stuff and think it's true and they try to test us and it could lead to conflict. But the U.S., I think nonetheless, always and this is not new now, this has always been the case. We have minimum requirements of our own, and those always have to be met before we can provide others. As the President has been clear, I mean, we've provided more assistance to Ukraine over the last few years than anybody else has, and we continue to provide them assistance within the limits of our own availability and capability. We always have to look out for America first.

Are you against giving them the licenses to make their own?

Well, that's being negotiated as we speak. And as I said, again, but that is not an immediate solution. I mean, ramping up production, even if you have a license, is something that takes multiple years to build these factories. I mean, these are highly sophisticated weaponry.

So that's being negotiated now. That may come to fruition, but it really won't solve the short-term challenge that they're pointing to. Ukraine wants to help us with their drone technology and the unbelievable success they had against Russia. Have we been reluctant to accept their offer to use some of that incredible drone technology? I think if it's a deal that makes no, if there's a deal that makes sense for the United States, I think we're pursuing those and we're negotiating those.

And those are all work in progress. I don't have an announcement on it today, but we're always looking for ways to strengthen our own defenses. And if someone has an ability to partner with us and create that, we'll certainly be open to it. But again, these are long-term projects. These are not the kinds of things that you would see come online immediately.

So that's part of my conversation with the Secretary. More on that when we return. You'll listen to the Brian Kilmead Show. Don't go anywhere. Brian Kilmead will be right back.

The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead. Welcome back, everyone. You know, Marco Rubio has got a million jobs, including National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. We talked to him, got some quality time.

Here's more of that interview, including the Lindsey Graham bill, named after him, which has everything to do with Ukraine and Russia. When you talk about the Lindsey Graham bill, I guess they're calling it now, which would give the massive sanctions. It got 85 votes in the Senate. Used to be in the Senate. Nothing gets 85 votes anymore.

That said give secondary sanctions to anybody dealing with Russia, which would include China, Turkey, South Africa, Pakistan, who's ever doing it, they would be susceptible to these secondary sanctions. Would you encourage the House to pass this? Because right now, Democrats are holding it up more than even Republicans. Would you like to see that on the President's desk? Yeah, look, I mean, it gives the President the authority to do these things.

It gives him more tools in the toolbox.

Now, he can do a lot of it without the bill. But obviously the Democrats in the House are not apparently in a mood to provide the President any additional legal Powers and to impose tariffs and other penalties. But I think it would be valuable for the President to have these tools available to him, and then he can decide if and when to use them appropriately given changing circumstances.

So, as we said, the White House was supportive of it passing in the Senate, and we would see that the House hopefully take it up. But right now, the opposition to it, as you said, is coming from Democrats that just don't want to pass a bill that gives the President more authority, even though they claim to be supportive of Ukraine.

So, when we come fast forward to Canadian talks, I never thought that we would be talking about Canada and a rift between our two countries. But it looks as though the trade talks have broken off September 8th. They are going to put in a whole bunch of tariffs on us. We are going to hit them at the beginning of 2027. Is there anything you can do as Secretary of State to try to get these back on track?

And can you tell the country what happened between two weeks ago? Because it looked like we had a deal Friday afternoon and we had it all broke apart Friday night. Yeah. So our trade representative, Jamison Greer, leads those talks on so he's probably the right person to ask of it in better detail about the prospects moving forward. Suffice it to say, though, that we did believe at some point two weeks ago that we were very close to a deal.

In fact, everybody assumed one was about to happen because the terms had been agreed to. And then there was a change in the Canadian position at the last second that sort of unraveled it all.

So obviously the hope is that we can get back to that original arrangement because we thought it was a good arrangement and a fair arrangement for both countries. But let's see what happens. I can't really prognosticate how it plays forward. I think some of that is tied into some domestic Canadian politics as well and some of the things going on over there.

So I don't want to opine too much on it, other than to say that we thought we had a really good deal, a very fair deal. We were on the verge of executing on it, and then there was a change at the last minute in the Canadian position. You know? Either will happen, and if it doesn't, then there will be consequences for it, unfortunately. But hopefully, we can get back to that.

You're not too far from when you were in politics, and you know that Michigan and Maine will probably make or break the Senate for either party. Does it concern you at all that the leader Kearney has reached out to governors to kind of say, This is my point of view when it comes to the trade deal, almost bypassing the federal government? And do you think that the liberal leader of Canada is trying to make sure that the Republican President does not have a successful midterm election? Do you think politics is playing into this? It might be, but I don't think it has any impact ultimately.

You can't do a trade deal with a governor. If he wants a trade deal and they want a trade deal with the United States, there's a good deal on the table. They should have taken it when it was available, and maybe they'll get back to it. But in the end, they really can't circumvent President Trump. I mean, he holds all the cards here on this because he's the President, and these are deals with the Federal Government, not with State Government.

So Venezuela has been an unbelievable success. We know that Del C. Rodriguez, the interim leader of that country, worked out a tremendous oil deal between our two countries. They're gradually releasing political prisoners. But this is what Ted Cruz said on Sunday that he wants to see happen in Venezuela.

There need to be democratic, free elections in Venezuela. Del Codriguez was Nicolas Maduro's vice president. Maduro was illegitimate. He was a Marxist. He had seized power contrary to the will of the voters.

And from the beginning, I have been urging, and I believe the administration is working towards this, that there should be free and fair elections. Your thoughts to Senator Ted Cruz and others? How close are elections?

Well, I don't know what the disagreement is. I mean, I don't think there is one. I mean, we have been very clear about the three-step process involved here. The first was stabilization. We have a country that, after 20 years of Trevismo and Marxism, was deeply broken and corrupt.

And the first thing we had to avoid is civil war or mass migration or systemic collapse of the country, because that wouldn't have been good for the Venezuelan people, wouldn't have been good for anybody. And we've largely achieved that despite a devastating earthquake that required us to step in, do a bunch of stuff to help them, because they had, you know, for all those years of Trevismo, had not invested at all. and sort some of the capabilities that governments basically need, because the money had been stolen. The second is a recovery phase, which is you have to rebuild the economy and rebuild it in a way that's credible, that's legitimate. And the third is the democratic transition.

And these things, when I say third, it's not in sequence. I mean, you can have the democratic transition happening at the same time. But if you think about it, what do we want from a democratic transition? We don't just want there to be an election. Election is important.

But we want to make sure that it leads to a republic, to an enduring republic that has elections on a regular basis for the foreseeable future. What we don't want to see is a country that has an election and then the leader takes over a catastrophe, the country's in tailspin, and it all falls apart.

So we are engaged in that now. I mean, the talks are happening between the last democratically legitimate National Assembly in Venezuela was the 2015 National Assembly. And through our facilitation, they have begun talks with the interim government towards that goal of the democratically elected, you know, having democratic elections. But democratic elections are more than just about having an election, you know, because you could have an election tomorrow. We'd still be using the Chavez machines and the Chavez Electoral Committee, and it would not be credible.

All those things have to be transformed. All of that has to be changed. You need a free press. You need the time and space for political parties who are going to run in those elections to organize themselves. A lot of the most prominent leaders in Venezuela's opposition still live abroad.

They need the opportunity to return to the country and organize themselves to run for office. All of that remains a priority of this administration, and it's something we're working towards. And in fact, the next phase of these talks, these transitional talks, will happen here in about 10 days, again, facilitated by us.

So we remain very committed to that prospect. And ultimately, that is where this project needs to wind up. What we don't want to see is something like that. Like what happened in Nicaragua 25 years ago, where they had an election, but four years later, the Sandinistas were back in power.

So you have to have it's a holistic process that has to take place, and it's important. And we're nine months into this. It's not going to take as long as it took in Eastern Europe, but it took Eastern Europe four to five years to fully transition. We can do it much faster here. We're pushing very hard on it.

We need that to happen. And that's why Marco Rubio in this hemisphere has been flat-out phenomenal, kind of taking a step back in Europe and leaving it for Witkoff and others, Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

So we got a little bit into that, but clearly Cuba is his thing. And there's other Central American countries going to go our direction. Hopefully Brazil in the next election. I have a chance to talk to him about that. We'll continue this conversation, including what Marco Rubio worries about most every day.

You'll listen to the Brian Killmeat show and my ongoing interview with exclusive with the Secretary of State. Don't move. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Kilmead. All right, hope you're enjoying our conversation with Marco Rubio.

In about 15 minutes, we're going to go to Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review. He's talking about what's going on with our trade deal with Canada. But first, here's more as I ask Marco Rubio, among other things, what worries him most? Let's listen. Mr.

Secretary, I see the unbelievable success in Central and South America as they begin to transition towards more representative governments from Argentina to Bolivia to what we're seeing now in Venezuela. And it seems like Cuba is teetering. How much longer do you expect this Cuban government to stay in power? And how important would it be for the United States' interests for that to become a representative government, a democratic government?

Well, first of all, Cuba is a failed state right now, and it's not because of us. People say it's because of us. It's not. Cuba was getting free oil from Maduro. Maduro was literally stealing the oil of the people of Venezuela and giving it for free to Cuba.

Cuba would take that oil, and they weren't using it to benefit the Cuban people. They were selling the majority of that oil for cash, and that cash was going into their pockets. That's no longer happening. That's the number one thing that's happened here is that they're no longer stealing the oil of Venezuela and getting it for free. And so um So that really is the fundamental challenge they face in terms of but their energy sector you see these blackouts in Cuba these blackouts are not new They've been having blackouts for five or seven years.

You know why because their system doesn't function. It doesn't work They have equipment from the 1940s and 50s and they haven't re-upted or invested in it at all Because their economic model doesn't work So I think the goal is that Cuba the only solution and answer to Cuba and we're prepared to play a productive role in this is to place itself on an irreversible path towards becoming a normal functioning state that eventually of course also is a democratic one as well. That's the future of Venezuela and by the future of Cuba. And by the way, U.S. policy towards Cuba, unlike U.S.

policy towards Venezuela or other countries, U.S. policy towards Cuba is codified. It's in statute. There's a law. And that law regulates What we can and cannot do with Cuba.

And it makes very clear that ultimately normalization between our countries cannot fully happen. Under that law, passed by Congress over 20-something years ago, it cannot happen unless there's a functioning democracy or at least steps towards a functioning democracy.

So, in many ways, when it comes to Cuba policy, it's governed not simply by the desires of the administration, it's governed by law that's sitting on our books. Are you concerned at all before I let you go? And I know you've got to run to do 20 million things for many jobs. Are you concerned at all about that transition in the Pentagon, with you no longer have a Secretary of the Army. There's been no replacement for Randy George as I think he was Chief of Staff of the Army.

Are you concerned at all about the churn with no more Chris Donahue either? He was the head of European Command? Yeah, look, I mean, first of all, these combatant commands rotate out quite often. There'll be some that are in place now that are soon about to term out.

So I think Pete's doing a great job at the Pentagon and the Department of War. In every administration, there's always transitions. There are people coming and going for a variety of different reasons. Many people who sign up for work in the public sector and in government do so for a defined period of time with the understanding that they can do it for two years or they can do it for a year and a half or they can do it for three years.

So it's not abnormal. Every administration has turnover. And obviously, look, when you're trying to systemically reorganize an agency like one as big and as large as the Pentagon is, there are going to have to be some changes made, which is some of the things that Pete Hexeth has done. But I think Pete's doing a great job. Do you see yourself taking more of a leadership role in Ukraine with the Hamas transition, and now, of course, with Iran more directly because they seem to be gummed up?

Just by the nature of the position that I'm in, both Secretary of State with the Department of State, which has jurisdiction, and not just jurisdiction, but actually has to do things, and also the National Security Advisor that works directly for the President from the White House. There is none of these things involved. They're all involved as part of a team effort. We build teams around all of these things.

So we have people that are designed, who are, sorry, whose directive is to negotiate peace agreements. And that's Steve Woodkoff, and now Jerry Kushner is involved in that. And these are people that dedicate themselves 100 percent of the time to sort of negotiating peace agreements. But obviously, all of this happens to the dynamic, and primarily in my role as National Security Advisor, is to coordinate the interagency because none of these issues stand on their own. For example, Iran.

You look at Iran as an example. Iran has a component that involves Treasury. It has a component that involves the Department of Energy. It has a component that involves the Department of State. It obviously has a component that involves the Department of War.

It also involves the policy considerations of the White House. And the job of the National Security Council, which I chair, is to coordinate all of these agencies to make sure that we're all pulling and pushing in the same direction and taking what the president is ordering and executing it. That's our job, and that will continue to be our job whether it's Russia, Ukraine, whether it's Iran, whether it's the Western Hemisphere, whether it's any part of the world. What worries you the most? What worries me the most about the world?

About all those conflicts I just brought up between Cuba, Ukraine, Iran, Hamas. Uh Yeah, I mean, these are all great challenges. And then there's the challenges that are unforeseen that come up from time to time that you try to get ahead of, but you can't always do. You know, look, the world remains what it is, a risky place. I think the world is going through a period of transition, both economic transition and geopolitical transition.

And I think, I don't know if it's a worry, but I think the one thing that we have to understand is that a lot of these problems that are going on in the world don't have simple answers and sometimes don't have perfect answers. Many times when it comes to foreign affairs and geopolitics, you're not choosing between a perfect answer and a bad answer. You're choosing between two less than ideal approaches, and you're trying to figure out which one of the two is least harmful to the interest of the United States.

So I don't know if it's a worry, but I think the one thing I always focus on every single day is we have to understand that we cannot just deal with the immediate, like what's right in front of us. That has to be dealt with, of course. But you also have to be thinking long-term. What's the world going to look like in two years, five years, even 10 years from now? And there are things you have to do now to either prevent bad things from happening down the road or to get ahead.

Of those things before they happen. And so I wouldn't call it a worry, but I would call it a focus of this administration is not simply to deal with what's right in front of us, but also to deal with what will be in front of us at some point in the future and make sure that our national interests are being protected.

So, in the case of like just a perfect example, is this arrangement in Venezuela with oil, obviously it will have some short-term benefits, but it also ensures that the United States, not China, not Russia, not Iran. We'll have a Position, a position that with regards to the largest oil producer in our hemisphere as a hedge against a future conflict or crisis that maybe is unforeseen right now, but could threaten our energy security long term. Mr. Secretary, with all that on your mind, I know you have a lot to do today. Thanks so much for your quality time, true.

We appreciate it. Of course. Thank you. Go get them. All right, and that is the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio gave us some time.

They were urging us to wrap it up, and we eventually did. But we appreciate that. And there's a lot to go, and I love when he answers your questions. I mean, obviously, there's things that he's doing right now. The president gives him a lot of autonomy.

And then there's other things that normally Secretary of States would do. For example, negotiating a lot of these deals, would-be peace deals with ceasefire deals with Ukraine, ceasefire deals with Iran, ceasefire deals with Hamas and Israel. And now you have Jared Kushner and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff doing that, and it doesn't bother him at all. He's eagle-less. That's why I don't even think the question.

was worth asking about Presidency because he's made it clear. If JD runs, he's not running. And even if JD didn't run, he's not sure he'd run. He feels like he's moved his whole family to Washington for the most part. His kids are older, and he likes it.

But he also was wondering at one point, does he want to You know, I want to go back to a somewhat normal life. And after that resume, as a long-term serving senator, he was a state senator for a long time, too, and now Secretary of State. Chairman of Foreign Relations, you think about the money that he could make because the influence that he has and the context that he has made, it would be off the charts.

Well, we'll see. You know, we'll see. I think that if the opportunity came and JD says, I don't want to run, I got a young family, I'm ninety five percent sure he would be in. The other guys that I think for sure are in, I think that Ted Cruz is absolutely in. I think Ron DeSantis, if he gets enough support, financial support, he doesn't want to lose again, I think he would be in.

I think Nikki Haley would like to run. I just don't see any foundation there to do just that. But other people see themselves as legitimate contenders, maybe Christy Noam. I don't know. Wouldn't be my vote, I know, but you never know.

I think that Scott Bessant eventually is going to be a presidential candidate. Certainly, I know he could do the job, no doubt about it. He's certainly got the knowledge, and he's flat out brilliant. And you'll see other people. I mean, people are talking about RFK Junior getting in the race as a Republican.

Remember, he tried it as Independent, wasn't getting anywhere. As a Democrat, they wouldn't accept him. They wouldn't put him on the ballot in New Hampshire, remember.

So, maybe he wants to jump in. I don't think that he's that tight with JD, where he'd say, Oh, I don't think I could do it. He's my friend. I don't know how close they are. They might be close.

I don't think so, though. All right, you listen to the Brian Kill Me Show. When we come back, Rich Lowry will be with us, editor of National Review. We'll talk about all that and more. Don't move.

The headlines, the stories behind them, and the people who make them only on the Brian Kill Meet Show. Information you want, truth you demand. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. Hey, welcome back, everybody. I hope you enjoyed that interview with Marco Rubio.

I really appreciate the time he gave me, and there's so much going on. Thankfully, the attack back at Iran happened right before the interview started. But it is going to be the number one, one of the top issues defining the election. Not so much the war, but the impact of the war. And that, of course, is oil and gas prices, fertilizer as it relates to food.

Rich Lowry joins us now. He is editor of National Review. Hey, Rich, are you convinced that the economic fury might be the best way to end this conflict? Yes, it's just not going to happen on our timetable or it's unlikely to happen on our timetable.

So we need to be in it for the duration. And I think President Trump show so far showed an amazing stick to itiveness with conflict that's dragged on much longer than he would have expected. Yes.

So we're seeing now We're seeing now the Iranians come back, but every time they shoot their launchers off, they also expose themselves. And we do have assets in the region. Does it concern you the change in leadership over at the Pentagon? As we just lost our Secretary of the Army, we don't have the Chairman of the Army. That is Randy George, is now gone.

We don't have a European Command four-star anymore. It's now a three-star. Does that churn bother you or do you find that typical when someone comes in from the outside? I I think it is worrisome. I don't know enough about the granular detail to tell you in minute new the detail who who's right or wrong, but I do think just Pete from the start has had a problem with finding people he can trust.

You know, he's coming in as an outsider in a building that has a real bureaucratic mindset. And he wants to shake it up, who can he trust? And I think that's been a problem for him managerially from the outset.

So I do think it's an issue. And we'll see what happens. What do you take of that leak over the weekend about the Army, different officers saying they're worried about the strain and stress of being in the region for too long? Uh I don't like these kind of leaks. I think they're terrible.

I didn't like the leaks of definitions running low on the one hand. On the other hand, these are obvious points. We probably don't want to have an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf region forever and not have one in Asia.

So it clearly is a strain on us.

So on the one hand, people shouldn't be talking to the press like this. Two, anyone paying any attention knows it's a basic picture. I want you to hear what Dasha Burns says about how this affects the elections and get your take. Cut 13. On the political piece of this, I think the administration has moved to the mitigation point when it comes to midterms and making clear to voters that they are trying to address issues of high gas prices.

We've seen the moves that you were reporting about earlier in the show from the Trump administration, and that shows me both things, that they are trying to address the pain for consumers, for American voters, but that they also are understanding this is not going to be over by November.

So if that is in fact the case, How do you play that? Do you bring up What Democrats would do, or you talk about the big picture of what Iran has done? I think the biggest play for Republicans this election cycle is just painting the other side as radical, which they are, painting the other side's candidates as unacceptable, which in many cases they are. And hope you can kind of do a twenty twenty two midterm where you mitigate Damage, but it's not going to be a great year for Republicans. The gas prices above $4 hasn't helped.

President Trump's approval rating isn't great, but it's going to be a tough year. There are not a lot of good options here, but it may be that you hold the Senate, and I think that'd be a win in this context.

So you wrote your column about the Canadian trade deal. You said this was avoidable. In what way?

Okay. I just think they're Canadians. They might be annoying. They might be bad bad on a few things trade wise, but there's no way if you sit down with them in good faith and don't insult them. I don't think you there's no way.

I just can't believe you can't work it out one way or the other.

So I think Trump's been loaded for bear on the Canadians since day one for reasons I don't understand. He kind of helped Mark Carney get elected when the other guy would have been much better, the conservative. And of course, he doesn't like this guy because he's not a conservative.

So I don't like this at all, and I wish it would be worked out sooner rather than later.

So just like researching this and finding out, it was the Canadians who walked away. And it was Trump's main thing was the dairy. Uh the dumping of lumber. As well as aluminum. One of his goals was to start making aluminum here again, but not if we're getting it so cheap when it comes to Canada.

So he said, okay, we're going to put tariffs on that in order to get manufacturing here. And now he was going to lessen those tariffs on aluminum. But evidently, some of the provinces, some of the premiers from the provinces spoke up and said, I hate this trade deal.

So Carney decides to play a tough guy against the U.S.

So do you think they're playing politics for the midterms of the northern border? Mm-hmm.

Well, it's great politics to Kearney, because now everyone in Canada I'm exaggerating a little bit, but everyone in Canada hates us and wants to see the Canadians stand up to us. But it's horrible economics, as Besson's pointed out. They're a very small country and they're more dependent on trade with us than we are with them. I just don't think anyone benefits from it. I wish it would be worked out.

So when it comes to the other area in which the President ran on, he ran on the economy, which he's not getting high grades on now. I think he's laying the foundation for a good economy after the midterms just because of the way the war played out. I think it's keeping inflation sticky. But the other thing would be on immigration. He sealed the border so quick, I think he gets almost no credit for it.

Just the way he did it.

So now they're talking about rounding up illegals. They got rid of Christine Noam by the way she did it, but the numbers are still high. I mean, 2,200 over the last few weeks scooped up in New York without any help. And then yesterday, they had hearings on Capitol Hill where some of the victims of illegal immigrants spoke out. Here's Patricia Fox, the mother of Carissa, who was killed by an illegal alien in 2025.

Excuse me, was hit by a legal alien in 2025 when she was launched headfirst into a concrete barrier at nearly 50 miles per hour. The driver and passenger of the vehicle fled. They never checked to see what happened to her while she was severely injured. Here's her CUD18. A year and a half later, this is what survival looks like.

Every morning I use a Hoyer lift to raise my adult daughter out of bed because she can't sit up, stand, or get herself up. Her physician says that she requires two people to safely assist her. Colorado Medicaid denied us in-home nursing. Medicaid also denied the wheelchair that Crissa needs, so I make do with the one she has. Krissa can't eat, so I blend her food and I feed her through a G-tube in her stomach.

I give her medications, I brush her teeth, I bathe her, I meet every basic need that she can no longer do for herself.

So Democrats were faced with these real-life stories, and they just seemed to look the other way. Does it resonate with the general public? I think it does. I mean, that's a heart-rending story, and there's so many others. And it should be especially galling for everyone, right?

Because these are crimes committed by people who shouldn't be here in the first place. But the West just doesn't want to hear this. They have contempt for the idea of having these kind of hearings. And Trump, to his credit in 2015, began right away highlighting these kind of victim stories. And I think the immigration has been a brilliant success.

Obviously, the border.

Now, he doesn't get political credit because you point out when you solve a problem immediately. It's no longer a political issue. But Holman, I think, has done a brilliant job. And he's shown that you don't need pyrotechnics. You don't need to be in the headlines every day.

You don't need guys marching down the street of Minneapolis to do effective deportations. They've had the highest numbers in the second term in June and July. And it just hasn't been a big issue.

So if they keep going on that and kind of add some more workplace enforcement, which I'm hoping they will. Then we'll have a victory. Thanks so much. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian from 416 in Midtown Manhattan, heard around the country, around the world.

Brian Kill Meet Show.

So glad you're there. A lot to go over today, a lot to discuss, and a lot of moving parts. You got court cases, verdict watching, the Lindsey Clancy case, and you have a situation where it was long overdue, but we finally have a judge say, yeah, we have enough. On Tyler Robinson to go ahead and try him for the murder and assassination of Charlie Kirk.

So that was way overdone. But I want a quick trial on that, too. We're following that, that happened late yesterday. Tiger Woods this morning and showed up in court. Essentially, he got a plea deal.

He changed his plea to guilty. And this guy, who is probably one of the finest athletes of any generation, certainly the greatest golfer, even though he doesn't have the sustainability and longevity of Jack Nicholas ever, but he's going to be known for his court cases and his legal transgressions. I'm telling you, starting in 2009, again in 2017, 2021, the accident nearly killed him. And then the DWI, that nearly killed somebody else, including himself.

So just a lot of moving parts early this morning. And of course, just keep in mind, too, if you ever missed the show, because we had Marco Rubio, an exclusive interview with him, and you want to check it out, go to youtube.com/slash at the Brian Kill Meet Show. Let's bring in Carl Rove. You know about Carl, Fox who's contributed to Wall Street Journal, columnist, former deputy chief of staff to George W. Bush.

Carl, great to see you. Thank you, buddy. It's great to be with you. Yeah, so a couple of things come to mind right now. I was really struck yesterday by Van Jones.

So I expected Republicans to have a real big problem with El Saeed. And then once he got the nomination, I thought that a lot of the Democrats would retreat. Uh but when I saw Van Joan Yeah, when I saw Ban Jones come out, Yesterday and say, hey, I had a chance to meet this guy. And I had a chance to see this guy and see him in action and say, you know, he's competent, he's smart, there's no doubt about it. And um And there's no doubt about it, but he's dangerous.

Let's listen. Abdul, who I work with at CNN, I know Abdul, his positions on Israel and foreign policy. are insane. They're not reasonable reactions to anything. Look, some Democrats are going to say that we should condition military aid.

Um that you know uh is Israel's gone too far in Gaza and the West Bank and in Lebanon. You're gonna put some conditions on you. I think that's a defensible position if you're a Democrat. That's not up to his position. There are people who say we shouldn't be paying for any of the.

Military we shouldn't we shouldn't be giving military aid.

Now, I think that's understandable, but I think indefensible because. It's not charity. We're building a strong defense sector here, and Israel is. Protecting a lot of Western interests in that region. But I can get why you would say, no more A.

They gotta pay their own way. That's not Abdul's position. Abdul's position is a total and complete arms embargo against the state of Israel, including defensive weapons. That's an insane position. That says if Israel wants to pay for interceptors to stop a rocket coming from Iran or coming from Hezbollah or coming from Laos, an interceptor, We should deny them the right to buy the interceptors to knock down rockets going at Israeli children, women, men, babies.

That's an insane position. And by the way, it offends me because that's, you know, Barack Obama was a part of creating that iron dome. Barack Obama of creating those interceptors. Barack Obama thought that the Israeli people were in such a tough neighborhood they needed to be able to knock down rockets.

So you're telling me you're smarter than Barack Obama, you have better ideas about foreign policy than Barack Obama, and you want to deplug and defund and take away Israel's half the world's Jews' ability to defend themselves.

So, I just wanted to share that with you. It gives me hope because after the nomination, you could say when he's going against in the primary. But that's a guy that just says, Look, it's not okay with me. Do you feel the same way? Oh, absolutely.

I mean, look, this guy is a radical. I mean, he wants to basically bring about the end of the state of Israel. I mean, he goes beyond just simply saying we're not going to sell anything to them, we're not going to give anything to them. He wants the United States to be an adversary of Israel, and he believes in the idea of, you know, Palestine will be free from the river to the sea. In essence, the extinguishment of the state of Israel.

A capital of a new Palestinian state shall be built in Jerusalem.

So this is What I don't get, everything that he said, the way he acts, he's not good on his feet. I'm not saying he's not smart. I just think he has bad answers.

So, therefore, he doesn't know what to say. Um Why is he up by one in the Real Clear Average?

Well, look, he had a primary, and in that primary, it was a narrow victory. But the natural thing is if you have a primary and you win the primary, you generally get a little bit of a bump, or maybe you get a big bump. And so he is getting his bump. But I think he is fundamentally a very problematic candidate. And I bet you a dime to a dollar that in all of these surveys, what the pollsters are likely to find is a relatively larger than normal refusal rate, because I think there are Democrats who say, you know what, I'm a Democrat, but I can't support that guy.

But I'm not going to tell some stranger who calls me on the phone or reaches me through my text messaging. I'm not going to tell them that.

So I guess that's where we stand. As I look at the Senate landscape now, it looks like Senator John Thune has just come out and said flat out, Mr. President, you got to help out Ken Paxson. He's lazy, according to John Cornyn, and not a good campaigner, and he's got only about $2 million going against 28. Is that your message?

Yeah, absolutely. Look, an outside group is saying, okay, we're going to buy $15 million with advertising.

Now, that may sound like a lot to people who live in other states, but $15 million over two weeks is a pittance. We're the second most populous state in the Union. We have a large number, over 20 media markets. And Tel Arico, since the primary Has been up most of the time. He had like four or five weeks of positive advertising, and now he's got advertising that's going directly at Paxton.

Paxton, remember, the week leading up to the 4th of July, he was in Washington the week before the 4th of July on that weekend. No fundraiser that I can find. And then on Tuesday, he was seen leaving for Iceland with his latest girlfriend. And then the two of them spent the 4th of July celebrating in London, England.

Now, look, we have London, Texas. It's out in the West Exit, not a big town. But if he wanted to go to London, he should have gone to London, Texas rather than London, England. And he is notorious for being a bad fundraiser. The president got him into the general election.

Without the president's endorsement, he would have lost. The president has $400 million as of July 31st sitting in MAGA, Inc. and tens of millions of dollars sitting in other pockets that he controls, Super PEX. And he's got to, if he wants to have Paxton. When he needs to come in, because remember.

Tallerico is buying at the lowest unit rate. There's a law that allows candidates to get basically the cheapest price for ads that they buy. That rule does not apply to super PACs. I used to be helpful in a super PAC for about a decade. And let me tell you, the disparity is like three to one, four to one, five to one.

That is to say, the super PAC ads, if somebody's spending a million dollars out of their campaign fund, you need to spend two or three or four or five million out of the super PAC simply to match them.

So, you know, Tallerico's got $30 million worth of advertising. During the same time that a super PAC is running $15 million, that doesn't mean that Tallarico's outspending them two to one. It means that Tallerico is being heard by maybe three or four to one over what that super PAC is getting.

So time is running out. If the president wants to have Paxton win, he needs to be tossing a lot of money Paxton's way so that ads can be run that depict Tallarico. as the far left winger that he is. If not, Tallarico is going to run the message of my opponent is the most corrupt politician in Texas history all the way to the victory lane.

Well, I think you're right, but the president was there Friday, so let's see if he writes the check now. And he is on the line. I think he knows that. I'm looking now at the Senate races. Are you worried about Alaska?

I think we both like Dan Sullivan. You work with him. I'm biased. I got to know him. I know his military background, how much he knows about energy, and how much he cares about Alaska.

But this whole dance, if this is going to be a one- or two-point race, this guy coming with the same name as him who made the finals on this ballot in November, that could be a problem. Oh, it is going to be a problem. That's why the Democrats went out and recruited him. He is a lifelong Democrat. He's only contributed to Democratic campaigns.

He's only voted Democrat. And now he suddenly says, I'm a Republican simply because he has the first and last name, but not the middle name, of Senator Sullivan. Look, I'm a huge fan of Dan Sullivan's. He is one of the most remarkable human beings I've ever met. That guy grew up, his family owns the company that makes Rustoleum.

He could have had a wonderful career going to Harvard and Georgetown Law and going back to practice law in Cleveland and getting to be general counsel of the family company and living a wonderful life. You know what he did? He enlisted in the United States Marines. That's where I met him when he was a White House fellow as a Marine major. And I mean, this guy went into combat in Afghanistan, excuse me, in Iraq and in the Middle East.

He did, he was in the middle of the fight. And that's not the life that he could have had. He could have had any life he wanted, and he wanted to serve his country. And what they're doing with this phony candidate shows how far down they'll go. And it's smart on their part.

First, you got the confusion. Which one is the real Senator Sullivan if I want to vote for him? And second of all, by putting him in there, the people who are going to go for the other Sullivan, you know, this is ranked choice voting, and they're going to do everything they can to get every supporter of the fake Dan Sullivan to mark as their second ballot the Democrat, Peltola, who is the only Democrat who really has a shot. She served a one term in Congress. But, you know, no, I'm worried.

And Dan's a great candidate, but the Democrats are going to pour unlimited amounts of money in there, and it's going to strain every nerve to get this across the finish line. I'm pretty, you know, I have. Great confidence in him, don't get me wrong. And his wife and his daughters are terrific campaigners. But the Democrats, you know, they sense blood in this environment, and they're going for it.

Let's talk about Maine. Susan Collins is trailing about 2.3% to Troy Jackson, who couldn't get the nomination to be governor, was for supporting Grant Plattner up until the end. And your thoughts about why Jackson's leading, and do you think this is typical because Susan Collins doesn't win a poll but doesn't lose an election? Yeah, look, this happened six years ago. Susan Collins was down, I believe it was by six in the average of the final polls.

She never led in a single poll, and she won by eight. And I think in this state of Maine, I think there are a lot of people who say, you know what? I'm not a Republican, but she stands for Maine and Maine values and Maine independence. And I think she does a good job. But I'm not going to tell, again, some stranger who calls me on the phone that I'm for her.

So you're going to have some shy Susan Collins voters. But again, the Democrats are spending an ungodly amount of money to take her out. And, you know, she's not, obviously she's not Donald Trump's cup of tea yet, and I don't expect him to spend his money there. But the Republicans, you know, know how important she is and are doing everything they can. And she's a smart, tough cookie.

No doubt about it. No one's talking about New Hampshire, where it looks like Johnson Unu has an edge over Scott Brown, but within two or three points over Pappas. Your thoughts about the New Hampshire chance of flipping, what are the odds of that happening?

Well, first of all, full disclosure, I'm a personal friend of John Sununu's and I've contributed to his campaign, so let's put it out there. It's a tough state, but the word Sununu means something. People know that John's father was an independent guy who worked hard for the state. They know that his brother was the governor, popular governor, great sense of humor, did a fantastic job. They know that John served in the House and then served in the Senate for one term, and they know what he means.

He is an independent-minded, you know, New Hampshire, flinty New Hampshire conservative who, you know, doesn't want to waste money and speaks his mind clearly. And so I think he's got a shot. And what do you mean, shot? 50-50 or.

Well, you know, look, he's an underdog, but this is a state that likes underdogs. Let me just tell you, the state makes, I can remember, I was working for the front runner. You may remember this in 2000. Everybody said Bush is going to win. Bush is going to win.

Well, we got whacked badly because the people of New Hampshire don't like being taken for granted, and they like people who represent what they see as the state's flinty, independent New England attitude. And if there's something that the Sununi family stands for, it's that.

So I want to talk about one of the most surprisingly controversial issues, and that's data centers. Here's Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who's got a ton in his state, but then realized suddenly they're unpopular. Cut 23. I have set guidelines and guardrails that all data centers have to comply with. Number one, they must identify what water usage they're demanding and make clear they are not taking water from communities that need it.

Number two, they must not take power from the Texas power grid that's needed. Number three, they must actually lower the cost of electricity for consumers. Number four, they need to make sure that they are not disturbing neighborhoods or rural communities. These are standards that are now being universally applied by all the data centers in the state of Texas.

So, how did it get to this point where everybody needs a data center that has a phone and likes to stream and doesn't want to pay exorbitant amounts for cloud storage or their phone fees? But now, all of a sudden, the data centers are persona non-grata. Only 30% of the people approve of them. What happened?

Well, let me say two things. One is that was a very smart move on the part of the governor because what he's saying is we want good actors.

So you're going to use what's called the closed water system, which you recycle the water and use it to cool these computers. But you're not running the tap every single day. You've got a closed system. You fill it up once and you keep reusing and reusing that water. It's also smart.

And the good operators, that's the kind of system they're planning. The second thing he said is you got to bring your own power. We're not going to have you put the, you know, you got to generate the juice that's necessary to run your plant, and you've got to put what you generate and don't use into the system to lower costs for everybody else. And they're a very interesting poll done by Echelon. I was really taken with it.

And I'm going to be off a little bit on the numbers, but basically it was like 50 some odd to 30 some odd. People favored banning. Data centers in their community. But if you said to them, they're going to put their own power. Basically, it flipped.

It was 50-some odd in favor of them, and only 30-some odd favored banning them. And the same kind of number, if you said, you've got to bring your own power. You've got to demonstrate that you're going to lower property taxes. Because, look, these things, you go to Spur, Texas in the middle of nowhere, and that's going to bring so much property taxes are going to be paid by that center that the school district is going to go from one that is poor and is receiving money from the state to one that has to put money into the state pot for poor school districts because they're going to be incredibly wealthy.

So I thought it was smart on the governor's part to do that. But the good actors are going to be people who stand up and say, look, we're listening to you. We're not going to put these in the middle of neighborhoods. We're going to be respectful of the needs of people for water and power. Yeah, thanks so much, Carl Robe.

Data center's handling it all. Carl Robe, thanks so much. Back in a moment. It's Brian Killmead. From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Kilmead.

Hey, by the way, we're going to come back. Gordon Sutherland's going to be with us too, the ambassador that got caught up in the whole Ukraine thing, but it was misunderstood. But he's a big Trump backer. But now, I want to get his perspective on where NATO is right now. He used to be ambassador to over the European Union, and he has a real sense of what's happening over there.

The G20 met yesterday and today. Howard Luttnick is now holding court with all these tech executives about the economies and comparing others, let alone defense, which we are now reinvigorated with. Just a quick note: United States comes out in my brand new book, The Six Crucial Moments that Forged the American Miracle. It's coming out October 13th. I'm going to be live on stage, bringing history to life in Westbury on the 16th.

On the 15th, I'll be in Red Bank, New Jersey. And then, of course, in Clearwater, Florida, Jacksonville, as well as St. Louis. All you have to do is go to BrianKilme.com for details. Also, if you want a personalized copy, you can pre-order it now and get a koozie.

It's all there on BrianKilme.com with the details. You'll listen to Brian Kilmey Chow. Ambassador Sunderland next. Yeah. A talk show that's real.

This is the Brian Kill Me Show. We are back. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. We're just closing out this half hour with Ambassador Gordon Sundland, appointed in 2018 by President Trump as the 20th United States Ambassador to the European Union. And then he is now also an author.

If you want to know anything about foreign relations, especially relations with Europe, he's the person to go to. Ambassador, I understand how NATO was upset that the president didn't give him traditional briefing before the military action, go to the UN and things. He saw an opportunity to take out the higher-ups, and he did, the Ayatollah and Company. But since that time, it's been six months. Are you surprised there's been no help at all coming from NATO with the blockade or demining or anything like that?

Well, the NATO protester crocodile tears. I mean, first of all, Brian, they knew exactly what was going on in Iran. The fact that the fact that they weren't briefed an hour before we began our attack speaks more to their inability to keep secrets than it does anything untoward as far as President Trump is concerned. The fact that the Europeans always want to have their cake and eat it too. Is what really Irks President Trump.

They always want one foot in and one foot out. They couldn't get out of the JCPOA because they still wanted to do business with Iran. The French had all kinds of deals going in terms of nuclear reactors, in terms of other heavy industrial stuff, very lucrative contracts.

So, yes, they say publicly: Iranians are causing mischief on the continent, they're assassinating people, they're bombing, they're doing this and that. But on the other hand, they don't want to pull out of their business deals.

So when President Trump says, okay, bottom line, guys, you don't need to send troops, you don't need to send materiel, you don't need to send your ships. Just stand up with us and say You're with us against Iran. That's all you have to do. They can't even do that. Yeah, the G20, they evidently gave, they signed a letter of support and condemning and saying the strait should be open, all except China.

So that was, I guess, a step in the right direction, but they could have uh offered a way to block to help with the escorting of ships. We're doing it ourselves right now. We didn't make the big announcement, but that's how we're getting thirty plus through a day. We're doing it all ourselves. And what Europeans don't seem to understand is that, first of all, they have more exposure than we do, number one.

The Iranians have caused incredible mischief on the continent over the last 20 to 30 years. When I was stationed in Brussels as our ambassador, we were playing whack-a-mole with the Iranians. There were constant threats. Our Intel community was chasing them like crazy. The Europeans were clearly aware of it because they were helping us.

But when it comes to actually drawing a hard red line and cutting them off, their business interests seem to take priority. When you talk about the Gulf states, in one way I'm impressed with the way they stood by us. In the other way, I'm not. You know, the Saudis are the one who stopped us from going even harder at them. We also were doing this thing where we were fully going after all our ships going through, and the Saudis said, can you pull back Operation Freedom of Navigation?

And at the same time, we see Qatar getting very nervous about the whole thing, trying to broker some type of deal. Where do you rank our relationships with the Gulf states knowing that they've been attacked by Iran?

Well, the fact that Iran attacked them is good news for us because it takes off the table any semblance of the fact that Iran can count on them or that they can count on Iran, I should say, at the end of the day, given their sort of uh you know, kind of half in, half out relationship with Iran. Uh Now we are where we are, and frankly, I think that all of those states that you mentioned believe that Getting rid of the IRGC in Iran is in their interest. They've clearly stopped any sponsorship of Hamas, which is one of Iran's proxies.

So things are moving in the right direction. But remember, they have all of these countries have a populist issue within their own country. They have fundamentalist citizens who believe very strongly in Iran's religious mission.

So they have to tread lightly and keep progress moving at the same time. Most of the Gulf states, Sunni? They are.

So why would they be amenable to the Shia's mission of dominating the world and Allah taking over the planet?

Well, because they have some Shia citizens. And that's the problem. You know, they don't want to be overthrown. The Altanis in the UA do not want to be overthrown. And you see these uprisings happening in history, and when they happen, it tips over instantly.

All of a sudden, one minute you're in power, and the next minute you're not.

So they have to thread a needle.

So we're watching right now, Vladimir Putin changing his version of the Secret Service. They're saying that if there's ever a time that he was vulnerable in the time he's been in power, it is right now. You know that he's lost over 40,000 troops last month to his pure casualties in the month of August. That is close to an all-time high in the five-year war. And yet yesterday they made it clear that they were going to support Iran.

They were going to support Iran in this battle, and we told the rest of the world, do not do that.

So I asked Marco Rubio, how are we going to handle Russia? Cut three. Nothing that anyone is providing Iran is in any way impeding our ability to act as necessary to protect the United States. That said, it is clear that with in the case of what Iran is doing, we are not Necessarily fully aligned with the Russian position on it. But Russia's got, you know, and Putin's got his own set of problems that I think take up the majority of his time and focus, which is the war with Ukraine and, frankly, the impacts that these Ukrainian strikes are having on the Russian economy in combination with sanctions.

Why does it work for if that everything that the Secretary said is true? Why does Russia want to rattle our cage?

Well, Russia wants to constantly rattle our cage. That's their default setting. And that's why I believe that we should stop giving Russia the benefit of the doubt. Um I've said repeatedly Dealing with Russia is not like dealing with them in a U.S. court of law where we have to prove by either the preponderance of the evidence or beyond a reasonable doubt that they created a problem, whether it's a cyber strike, whether it's a bombing, whether it's an assassination.

We know, you know, it's the old if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck situation. We should be striking back every time they do something, and we should be doing it harder than they did it, not equally. And we shouldn't even talk about it. Are you talking about Russia or are you talking about? I'm talking about Russia.

I'm talking about Russia. And the problem is, everything we every interaction with Russia is like a mini trial. You know, can we prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt that they were involved? And they know that, and that weakens us and strengthens them. And the Germans are the ones angriest now because it looks like they had some type of IED was found in the airport, some type of drone activity, too.

So they have kicked out the Russian ambassador, I guess, that was still there for some reason. I call it the Godfather Test. It's very simple. You know, in the movie The Godfather, you know, Don Corleone said: if my son is struck by lightning or hit by a train, I'm going to blame some of the people in this room. And we should be saying that vis-a-vis Vladimir Putin.

If something happens on the continent that clearly is Russian, even if we can't prove it definitively, we should be blaming Putin and acting accordingly. Let him prove he didn't do it. But for 80 years, we have avoided a direct contact with Soviets/slash/Russians. You're saying, scrap that? Scrap that.

because we already have enough direct contacts and the less and the more we avoid based on the fear of escalation, the more escalation there will be. What Putin has to know is that when he picks up the phone and orders a cyber attack, something is going to come back On an order of magnitude far greater than what he just did. He needs to put that in his calculator. And we know he hit us during the Biden years, and they never got an answer for that.

Well, they got an answer, they just didn't do anything about it. Right. In other words, we knew they did it, but we didn't do anything about it. Correct, correct. They did not get an answer.

Exactly.

So uh you would tell if you talked to anyone in Poland, any Estonia, Latvia, any of these Lithuania, any of these countries that were under Soviet influence, you don't have to tell them about the evils of socialism. Anyone who is in Cuba that escaped and is now hanging out in Florida, you have to tell them about the evils and how bad communism and socialism is. Why is it burr why is it growing here? Because we have a largely uneducated youth, unfortunately. They believe what they see on the Internet.

They haven't really studied history. They haven't been to any of these places and lived them. It's not a good analogy, but having the gay community support Hamas. Uh, when they wouldn't last two seconds if they were in Gaza right now as a gay person, they'd be killed. In two seconds.

But they're waving the flag. And it's to me it's lack of education and our universities are feeding into that. Also, if you're a woman. And you're taking the side of Iran in these conflicts, or you're taking the side of Hamas over Israel? How will women treat in these societies?

An animal has more rights than women do in many of these societies. Seriously. Right. So, you know, when you hear about. From the river to the sea, I don't know if you've been following when these chants were going on on the college campuses.

Many of these kids were asked by reporters straight out, Reuters or Fox, when you say from the river to the sea, what river and what sea are you talking about? And they have no idea. Right. But they're shouting it from the rooftops. Yo, have you seen anyone protest the hangings and the killings and the massacre of the Iranian protesters from January?

Do you know a woman was hung over the weekend for taking a picture of her protests over the weekend? Where are those rights? I can't wrap my head around that. Even though I should by now get used to the fact that we always condemn ourselves and our allies before we condemn anybody else. The self-flagellation that the United States goes through for essentially being a country of goodness.

Do we make mistakes? Do we do shitty things? Yes.

But is that how we're constituted? No, absolutely not. And we always do try to do the right thing, yet our youth has been so misprogrammed, particularly at the university level, to believe that we're evil, that that's where this comes from.

So when you see Donald Trump when you were there with Ambassador Sundland, you know he was talking about protecting our borders and cracking down illegal immigration and they thought how barbaric we're a nation of immigrants. Man, have things changed.

Now, all of a sudden, we're seeing in England, what happened? How did we lose the character of our country? I'm looking at Spain, the weakest country, our weakest ally in Europe, and they see they're literally being invaded. And now the Spanish people are politically pushing back, looking to push back those illegal immigrants who stormed that island a month ago. And we're seeing it in France, where they've lost large swaths of their country.

Could you talk about how the rest of Europe is beginning to understand there's a need, there's nothing wrong with protecting your borders, and they see how foolhardy it was? Look at Germany. Look what they did under Merkel.

Well, you know, immigration does not mean you're going from one piece of real estate. To another piece of real estate. It means you're going from one society and one culture to another society and another culture. And while you can continue to retain your own culture, like little Italy, like little Italy, like Chinatown, like Little Havana, you must assimilate if you're going to immigrate. If you're not prepared to assimilate and let your heart and your soul become a part of where you're going, why go there in the first place?

Because that's what attracted you to begin with. And people that wind up in these European countries in Pol well, f first of all, in Poland, Poland's not allowing the immigration. And they they will claim we have no Muslim issue because we're not allowing Anyone who wants to come here, if they don't assimilate and become a true Pole, learn our language, learn our culture, learn our customs, we're not making them come here. They want to come here voluntarily. The problem is Germany is the poster child.

Merkel really started that. She thought she was being kind to all of these indigent Muslims. And what she's done is she's destroyed them and destroyed her own people at the same time. Yeah, I just think that they're beginning to wake up to what Trump is is. I'm already seeing the legacy of Trump afterwards.

Remember how Reagan was looked at as a guy that was not in charge. He was too old. He was hands-off, didn't know what he was doing. And the further they got after his administration, the better Reagan looked to the point when he has his funeral. He's lauded their name in airports after him.

I'm already seeing some people go, maybe Donald Trump is not as crazy as we thought. I'm not talking about mainstream people or left-wing people that normally would just be anti-Trump.

Well, my parents emigrated from Germany, and they embraced the United States. They wanted to learn the language. They wanted to understand the culture and the customs. They never forgot they were German. They came after the war.

They taught me German when I was very young, but they reminded me, we're Americans now, you're an American, and we love America. And that's not going on today as much as it used to. Right. I think a little bit, there's a little bit of national pride, maybe not enough of it as we celebrate year 250. Ambassador, right now, there's a thought that Secretary Besant is the most valuable cabinet member.

Would you think would he get your vote? Abhamzo, way he's handling things, the way he's cracking down in in Iran. The way he's holding himself with the other G twenty and against China? I would. He's having a little trouble with the bond market right now, and that's not his fault.

The bond market acts very independently and it basically is a rebuke of the amount of debt we have and the amount of debt that other countries have. But aside from those few missteps, I think that he's done to Iran what no other Treasury Secretary has done since the Ayatollahs took over 48 years ago, 47 years ago. If President Trump can make it through the midterms and another, say, three, four, five months of this economic oppression that we're creating against Iran, you're going to see a massive, massive break there. Yeah, Iran thinks they got some leverage because the midterms are coming up, but Trump's already saying you're more important than the midterms. And when the midterms are actually done, they will lose any type of trust.

The gloves will literally be off this president. You know, those who accuse Trump of being selfish vis-a-vis the war in ir in Iran. Failed to realize that if it were in his own self-interest, he would have waited until after the midterms. He had compelling intelligence that had he waited, the amount of missiles they would have produced by, say, January, February would have been so great, it would have been very difficult to defend against their attacks in trying to dismantle their nuclear program.

So he had to act. He didn't want to do this. Ambassador Sunland, always great to see you. Thank you, Brad. Thanks so much for coming by.

Back in a moment, you'll listen to the Brain Kill Me Chair. Real talk, real guests, real insight. Where curiosity meets conversation. It's the Brian Kilmeat Show. A radio show like no other.

It's Brian Killmade. Sponsored by Previgen. Previgen made for your brain. Yeah. We saw that you made some staffing changes to your office.

Is this to potentially gear up for twenty twenty eight round potentials? I think that um you know transitions on teams are uh Normal part of the job. You know, August tends to be a natural time, and the fall tends to be a natural time for transitions around the hills. She's changing. Of course, she's running for president.

Everyone knows. The fact that if you're one or two, I think anybody, Republican or Democrat, would have to think to themselves, unless my family's too young or reluctant. I'm going to do it.

So AOC is playing that role. But I'm not buying it. I'm watching people say she gave a great speech the other day. It's ridiculous. And she just joins the DSA.

Really? I understand. You want to be a big tent. You don't want to shut them out. If that's your choice, I'd shut him out.

Like, Ram Emmanuel has flat out shut him out. But if she was cherished, let's say she wants to be a big tent because she knows so many people over there. But you can go back and sign up again. to that ridiculousness? She also was asked now that she's single, would she ever date a Republican?

Syndical, don't think so.

Okay, could be Mr. Wright. Never know. And then people talking about her eggs freezing. Way too much AOC.

But I I challenge and them to nominate Kamala or AOC. Both will lose spectacularly to almost anybody in the right. That's what I believe. Brian Kilmeicha.