Biden Doubles Down, Refuses to Walk Back Putin Comment

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Visit Samsung.com to learn more about Galaxy Z Fold 4. From the Fox News Radio Studios in New York City, giving you opinions and facts with a positive approach. It's Brian Kilmead. Hi everyone, I'm Brian Kilmead. Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kilmead Show.

So glad you're here. We're out in Florida, having a good time. The show's on the road. No matter where we are, we do not want to not do the show, and we're privileged to be here. 1-866-408-7669.

Uh we're in the iHeart Studios, right? I'm not really sure what town, but it's nice and it's warm. In New York, it's about 30 degrees right now, right? But I'm still wearing long sleeves as a tribute to where I was born. Uh, Alan West will be with us at the bottom of the hour.

And, you know, he did not get the Republican nomination, but he's still back in action, a major player on the Republican side with about three decades in the military, who served over in Europe. Man, we have a lot to talk to him about, and of course, take your calls next.

So, let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three: This is a harbinger to see this happen in Hollywood. These people are the people that try to tell us how to be tolerant, tell us how to be nice to one another. They want to lecture America all the time about our shortcomings. But then you see this, they're hypocrites.

Nice. Vince Ellison weighing in. The Oscars. Slapgate continues. As Will Smith apologized to Chris Rock on this fallout, and the fallout on all sides was underappreciated to the class and composure of Chris Rock.

He showed unbelievable composure, gets slapped, and actually still introduces the documentary. And went back in the backstage, no one even checked on him. He's the one that got hit. I feel bad for everybody that produced that movie called King Richard, and I feel bad for the Williams family. This should have been their moment, and Will Smith.

took it from them. Number two. I've said it before. The answer is not to defund our police departments. It's to fund our police and give them all the tools they need, training.

and foundation. Right, nice try. Budget dead on arrival. We get a look at the Biden budget, first one. He's correct to fund the police, but otherwise it's no secret he tries to spend.

Doesn't address the atmosphere at the border. Does not talk about more and more Americans wanting to drill and attack inflation. Yeah, including Democrats. Nothing he submitted addresses which matters most, and that is the inflation and gas prices. Number The total number of ways, means of destruction that the Russian troops have used on our land against their people cannot be calculated.

But we can say that the intensity and brutality of hostilities have now reached a a level that is higher than it was during the Second World War. Is that incredible? I mean, look at this. War. Down goes Mariupol.

It looks like Russia now has that devastated city, but the Ukrainians are making huge progress. They took back two towns in the West. Talks begin in Turkey. We have some results. And Biden tries oddly to fix his misstep overseas with his little cards.

Did you see his note cards? Its no cards are ridiculous. Why did he need no cards to say things that should have been?

Something easily memorized. It's not like if he had to pronounce a town in Ukraine. No cards on how to walk back his four major missteps overseas. One saying to the 82nd Airborne, you'll be in Ukraine soon. Oops.

One saying, well, respond in kind to a chemical attack.

Sorry. The other calling Vladimir Putin a butcher. It's true, but it's really not the way presidents talk. It's not the way they were talked to. From Brezhnev to Khrushchev to, of course, Baris Yeltsin, Gorbachev, as well as Andropov.

I'm impressing you here, even though Andropov died after like a month. And then, of course, with Putin, as. As terrible as he is, and I think he's the Hitler of this generation, the Stalin of the Russian legacy, and he's happy about that comparison. I believe that's not going to accomplish your goal. Your goal is to allow the Ukrainians to humiliate them in their country, force them out, and the Russians will collapse under their own weight.

You don't want to be the excuse that Russians have to rally around that horrible man or the Kremlin in general.

So he does that, he does those three things, and of course makes the big mistake by calling by saying he must go to the Russian people, who in their sham elections, when you poison your opponents, you usually win elections. According to reports, I've not seen a Gallup survey on that. Or if you shoot them and then you pick the people you run against, you usually win elections. That's the story in Russia. But that's what they've got to deal with, not us.

So Mariupol Falls.

So what you should know, if you have a map in front of you, it connects Crimea and Donbas. And I believe they're there in some way. They put up their own provisional government in some way. I think there's about one hundred thousand Ukrainians still there. I'm not sure there's going to be a humanitarian corridor that anyone would trust.

So Zelensky is saying stay put. And I think Ukraine's got to come back and try to take it back. But in terms of the significance, General David Petraeus put it this way: cut six. But then you have the situation in Mariupol, which has become a bit of a Ukrainian alamo at this point in time. It's fighting to the last defender and pinning down multiple Russian battalions and so doing very heroically, but ultimately it looks as if it's going to have to collapse.

It's going to be taken. And when it does, that is a moment of some peril for Ukraine, because now that port can be used by the Russians. Yeah, he goes on cut seven. They'll now have quite a good port on the Sea of Azov out to the Black Sea. And then it will free up a number of battalions that were the ones that have been closing the circle, closing the noose on Mariupol, who can then push further north and perhaps enable Russia to achieve what it has now said as it's redefined its objectives to taking control of all of the Donuts and Luhansk Oblasts provinces, if you will, and then solidifying its grip on a land corridor from the Donbass, from those to Oblasts, all the way to Crimea.

Amazing. Uh so that's happened and it's been a tough fight, a tough slog. But Mikhail is holding steady. That is the corridor city to Odessa. Odessa so far.

Has not been touched for the most part. They are fortifying. They're ready to stop that barrage. But what General Petraeus fears, as he just said, is that if they do get Mariupol. It frees up troops to go attack further north.

So that would be the other thing. And plus, you just don't want to give up the south where. It seems as though the Russians really have their designs on. My fear is they'll say, look, look how much land we got. We won.

Meanwhile, everybody knows they've been humiliated. I mean, the number of I mean, I cannot believe what I'm seeing on the internet in terms of what they've blown up in terms of. Of trucks, in terms of tanks, in terms of helicopters. They've had a lot of success. The Ukrainian forces retook the city of Erpin, located 30 minutes from the city of Kyiv.

Their mayor says they're back Zelensky warned that Russian forces are trying to regroup after losing that area. A senior U.S. defense official says the U.S. believes the Ukrainians have also retaken the town of Trostinets, south of Sumy, in the east, which is significant because that's right on the border. And we'll see, because the Russians are putting more troops in, and we'll see where that goes.

Here's what I could tell you from the talks that have just ended. It looks like the Russians have been given some proposals from the Ukrainians. They said they're going to take it and examine it. Uh they said they have promised to decrease attacks in Kyiv and Cher uh Cherniv. In that area.

They also, the Ukrainians proposed having Israel, Turkey, and France guard their security.

So, should anything happen, that would trigger all those three countries to protect them. Interesting. I don't know what that means about demilitarization. I cannot picture the Ukrainians demilitarizing. This has also got to pass their version of Congress, their version of a parliament.

And they said they'll consult on Crimea for the next 15 years.

So we'll see where that goes. They're talking, and I think the Russians have to be sincere, not because they're to be trusted. It's because they're getting embarrassed. This is costing them tons, let alone the international sanctions. And I've been warned by people that say they know the Russian culture.

You're not going to bring them to their knees by denying them food or quality of life. They're not used to much quality of life.

So yesterday, the other thing that I thought was significant is the President of the United States wanted to release his budget, but also he wanted to talk about his missteps and what he gleaned from his NATO, EU, and G7 summits.

So he went out there. With his little note card, which I think is flat out pathetic. I don't care how old you are. I'm telling you right now, Bernie Sanders is older than him. He would not need no cards.

I don't think Henry Kissinger, I think Henry Kissinger is close to 100, would not need no cards. This guy has never been smooth, but he is continuing to not run his own government. But what's so odd is nobody in his administration seems to care. They don't have an aide with him anywhere to clarify, to screen. They don't seem to care that he keeps screwing up.

So listen to this exchange with Peter Deucey, Cut 19. Are you worried that other leaders in the world are going to start to doubt that America is back if some of these big things that you say on the world stage keep getting walked back. It made it sound like, just in the last couple days, uh it sounded like you told U.S. troops they were going to Ukraine. It sounded like you said it was possible the U.S.

would use a chemical weapon, and it sounded like you were calling for regime change in Russia, and we know None of the three occurred. None of the three. Are you nuts? I mean, on your card, it said they occurred. You are addressing your missteps on the card in your hand, and you could see a close-up shot of this in every newspaper in the country.

Of course he did all three of those things. Cut eleven. If chemical weapons were used in Ukraine, would that trigger a military response from NATO? It would trigger a response in kind. Ukrainian people have a lot of backbone.

We have a lot of guts. And I'm sure you're observing it. And you're going to see when you're there. For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power.

Okay, I gave you both cases. It never happened, or exactly what happened, what he said, what you just heard. This is pathetic. You know what the overarching thing is? Joe Biden was willing to give up Ukraine and Zelensky would be dead.

He goes, I'll get you a ride if you want. Remember that. That's no, and to take the president's phrase, it's no joke. He thought they were going to be steamrolled in a couple of days, give up Ukraine, and they've cut some copper deal back off Poland and all the Baltic nations.

So go ahead. And you know what happened? The Ukrainians had another plan. And because they because Zelensky was so charismatic, such a great communicator, he forced the rest of NATO, especially the US, to start responding to the request for massive arms and support, financial provisions as well as armaments. And they're still not getting what they deserve.

They did not arm them to sustain this fight. What kind of strategy is it? Two Not arm the Ukrainians who are taking on one of America's chief foes, the Russians. Every Russian that's taken out is a benefit to us. Every day that the Russians can't finish off a smaller, less armed neighbor is a benefit to us.

And every week that goes by is a benefit to us because people are seeing, you think you're going to go with Russia, the strong horse? They are nothing but a hollow Goliath. Back to Biden. Does it complicate things that you keep screwing up? Cut thirteen.

Does it complicate the diplomacy of this moment? No, I don't think it does. You know, uh the uh Uh The fact is that we're in a situation where uh Um What complicates the situation at the moment is the escalatory efforts of Putin. to uh continue and engage in carnage, the kind of behavior that uh that makes the whole world say, my God, what is this man doing? That's what complicates things a great deal.

Camel Harris just called and said, Mr. President, try to be a little bit more eloquent. Mean, how bad was that?

So, even on his note card he could not handle that question. Cut twelve. I'm not walking any back. The fact of the matter is I was expressing the more outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing and the actions of this man. Just just brutality in it.

half the children in Ukraine. I just come from being with those families. But I want to make it clear, I wasn't then, nor am I now, articulating a policy change. I was expressing moral outrage that I feel, and I make no apologies for it. All right, so this is what I prefer.

This is the way I want our government to run. I want him to have all those feelings and expressions, but instead of saying these things on the world stage that can be misconstrued and outrage our NATO partners from Germany to France. Instead of saying that, you go behind the scenes and I want to read this from Jennifer Griffin's report, and I want to find out about it in Axios and Play Political Playbook. And outraged and emotional, Joe Biden went to his defense secretary and said, You get these people the planes they need, you get these people the harpoons that are necessary, you get these people, you find a way through drones or through humanitarian drops to feed the people of Maripool who are starving to death. And dying of thirst, you find a way to get that and get this done now.

And then that's told in the story weeks later, months later, in a Bob Woodward book. But instead, we have an administration that has no inkling to do that, no guts to pull it off. In many cases, I believe the story is going to be holding back Poland and other allies from doing the things that they want to do because we have most of the money. We have the Patriots and the F-16s to back them up if they're able to give the MiGs and the S-300 defense systems. That's what I want to see.

But instead, I have a totally undisciplined president. And before we go to break, and I do want to take your calls next: 1-866-408-7669, I want to give you an idea of how this is playing on the world stage. And just to give you an idea, Pierce Morgo's in the studio yesterday, and he talks about not only how Joe Biden's screwing up. But how the media is trying desperately to cover for him, and that's evident even when he's in the UK, Cut 19. What I find also about this, which is I think is really unsettling, the desperate ways that the Democrats and many of the quite liberal skewed mainstream media Go out of their way to try and defend this.

Go out of their way to try and portray this as commanding leadership. When the polls, as we just heard, are crashing to new lows. When confidence in him, in trust in President Biden because of all these gaffes, is collapsing. I they've got to get a grip of this. Because if you can't trust a word he says, maybe because he can't even remember saying it.

then there's a problem. This guy's the leader of the free world. Good point. And I just love the outside perspective. Look.

He's not a conservative. Did you watch Pierce Morgan on CNN when he was there? He's just concerned. I mean, right at this point, I'm just concerned. I don't care about the election, what happened.

The guy won the election. And whether he did or not, it was a vote against Trump, even though Trump got more votes than any other Republican in the history of the party.

However you said it. He is clearly having issues. And there's too much at stake. In his presidency, to continue to leave him out there. And to be unstaffed and unsupervised.

When we come back, I'll take your calls on that. I'm going to propose that too to Lieutenant Colonel Alan West. I'm so glad you're here. This is the Brian Killmeat Show. Politics, current events, and news that affects you.

Brian's got a lot more to say. Stay with Brian Kilmead. From the Fox News Podcasts Network. I'm Janistine, Fox News Senior Meteorologist. Be sure to subscribe to the Janistine podcast at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

And don't forget to spread the sunshine. A talk show that's real. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. By a fairly large 71 to 28 percent margin, Americans say they do not have a lot of confidence in President Biden's ability to respond to this war. 57% say we are already at war with Russia or will be within a year, a very pessimistic view.

That is Chuck Todd just going over the NBC poll. 71% people believe, do not have little faith that Joe Biden can effectively run this war in the Ukraine. Unbelievable. Uh let's go to the phones, Joe. Ulysses on Long Island, one hundred three point nine.

Brian, good morning. This shit we This Biden, listen, these aren't just gas anymore. This is real scary, and this is why we vet Presidential candidates not hiding in the basement. Nobody should seem shocked. We had eight years of this Obama-Biden disaster.

Don't forget what he said: a minor incursion. That involved in Putin. Then he said other things. We put together the greatest election fraud ever, he blurted out. And I'll fake an illness, Kamala, and you'll take over as president.

As a country, we have to stop the madness. I like, you say undisciplined. I say the man shot. He's uh and I go vit vitriolic. I say brain dead at this point.

This is an embarrassment to America and the world. It is scary at this point. They need to, I don't care about take Kamala in at this point. This man is dangerous to our country, Brian. No, she's awful.

She doesn't study. I don't even think she knows where Europe is. They just tell her we're on the ground now and it's a different nation. She is his best insurance policy because nobody looks and turns around and says Kamala would be better. But the crazy thing is he does not have a good staff.

I mean, he does not have a good staff. Does anyone care about Jake Solve and Anthony Blinken and think they're competent? The answer is no. I mean, where is the competence? There was a lot of confidence around Obama, whether you like it or not.

From the Fox News Podcasts Network. I'm Ben Dominich, Fox News contributor and editor of the Transom.com daily newsletter, and I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week. It's the Ben Dominich Podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to FoxNewsPodcasts.com. A radio show like no other.

It's Brian Killmeade. My heart goes out to President Zelensky. Can you imagine trying to negotiate while your own life is at risk, civilians are being killed, your population is being displaced? I mean, talk about negotiating under duress and coercion. If the I mean Ukraine is either sovereign or they're not.

And if they're sovereign and they want to be neutral, that's fine. Finland and some other countries are neutral. But the notion that we're going to continue to kill your civilians. target civilians and continue to try to assassinate you unless you agree to something, that is textbook coercion. Would I say it to get them out of my country?

Probably, but I wouldn't mean it and I wouldn't own up to it. That is Trey Gowdy just speculated on what the talks are going to be like in Turkey. Round one, I believe, is done, and it looks like Russia will decrease attacks in Kyiv. Cherni Chernaev in that area. They also Ukraine says, I want to propose that Israel, Turkey and France provide our security interests, unlike the Budapest Agreement, which was supposed to be the US and Russia.

That didn't work out, did it? Kind of an insult to us, but I don't blame them. They also say let's all work out a begin to consult for the next 15 years on the fate of Crimea. And the bad news is Mariupol seems to have fallen into Russian hands after it's been devastated Stalin Grand style.

So let's welcome in Lieutenant Colonel Alan West, served in the military of Acosta three decades as well as been stationed in Europe at various times. Colonel, do you understand Trey Gowdy's point of view and you can really empathize with the Ukrainians? No, I absolutely understand Trey Gowdy's point of view. It's good to be with you, Brian. And what you just said, one of the things I think is a tragedy is the Budapest Agreement in nineteen ninety four.

It's a slap in the face of the United States of America because we did not own up to that agreement. And it is heinous and it is absurd that someone is at a negotiating table while they're still being bombarded. They still are being attacked. And as you said, President Zelensky is life is still at stake. Ukraine should be in a position of strength.

The world should be standing with Ukraine. They should be providing them the arms. And it should be the Russians that are trying to look at a way to back out of this. And we cannot allow them to have any type of success or moral high ground. But again, think about what happened to the Obama-Biden administration.

That's when Vladimir Putin came in and took over Eastern Europe and he took over and annexed Crimea. And look at what he has done now.

So slowly but surely, he's going to continue to press on as long as we have an administration that is reacting and not being proactive. A lot of rhetoric, but not a lot of action. Um Yeah, I mean, I just cannot believe. I'm getting some reports, and I just got to get confirmed that we're holding back a lot of this armaments from flowing in. Forget about the MiGs, they should be there already.

And my host is: we're going to talk less and they'll just appear. Number two is they want tanks. And I've asked a few people: I go, You've been to the border. Can you still get tanks in? They said, absolutely.

It's wide open. Really?

Okay, so there's going to be risk, obviously, but they they think they can get it through. Why we have said we're not getting them harpoons to blow up these ships so they're shooting their version of tomahawks into these cities is unbelievable to me. And We should just be making sure that there's some way to feed these people and get them the arms they need. We keep on. I think they are surprising us by sticking around and fighting so well.

So admit that we didn't think so. Admit that we were wrong about this. Admit the Russians aren't as strong as we thought and look to finish them off for the good of the West. Why don't people see this? I don't know.

And I will tell you that there are older generation M one Abrams tanks that we could give to the Ukraines. We need to be looking at a Berlin airlift type of situation where you can go back and dust off the plants with that. And that's how we support them. Colonel, can I just stop you? The A one Abrams tanks.

How long would it take to train somebody to use them?

Well, I would say it wouldn't take very long. And I think that within maybe a month of intense training, but I think that these people are very adept, and within a week, they could be able to utilize these M1 tanks to give some parity. But again, I don't understand why we have this Perplexing absurdity that we can give you manned portable air defense systems to shoot down airplanes, but yet we will not give you airplanes to shoot down airplanes because the end result is still the same. You're shooting down airplanes. Dumbest thing ever.

more than dumb. It's it's stuck on stupid, Brian. And so I don't see the that's again part of the rhetoric and the mixed messages that we're sending.

So, I want you to do what Rand Paul said yesterday. You know, this guy doesn't want to fight any war, just wants to be Fortress America. But he did point this out: Cut 21.

Well, you know, a lot of times when you're around somebody who's in cognitive decline, you find yourself trying to help them with the sentence, trying to help them complete it and say, oh no, that's not what you really mean. Let me help you complete the sentence. But we shouldn't have to do that for the commander-in-chief. And it is actually a national security risk because he's sending signals that no one in their right mind would want to send to Russia at this point. We aren't trying to replace Putin in Russia.

We aren't trying to have regime change. We're not sending troops into Ukraine. And we're not going to respond in kind with chemical weapons.

So none of those things are true, but he lives in an alternate universe where he just says they're not true and he didn't say them.

So I guess you're supposed to look the other way.

So he, in his walkback on his notes, at various times he denied saying these things to us, and then later he would, to other reporters, look at his notes and then read his walkback. Do you agree I mean, this was embarrassing. That was a decent speech, well written, well delivered. And then he ad-libs this I I the you know, this guy can't stay in power. All right, if that's your strategy, I would like to know you talked about it with the greatest minds in America, and then tell me what you're going to do, because it certainly changes our tactics.

Well, it absolutely does. And I think that's the problem when you have someone that does get off script and does get up there and rambles and does stay on point. This should be well understood. Our talking points, our foreign policy points should be well disseminated. But instead, we have a guy that's up there ad living, it seems.

And that's very detrimental to the morale of our troops first and foremost. They're right there in Poland.

So, Colonel, we're seeing these numbers, the generic ballot from the NBC poll. First time since 2014, Republicans are up. We're seeing everywhere that Democrats are plummeting. And then we see things, for example, most Democrats for this green technology. Do you know that 60% of the American people want us to drill for more of our own oil and gas?

Do you know that has to include De just by the sheer proportion? That includes Democrats? I mean, if they continue to not see the role that that's playing in inflation, gas prices, and lifestyle. And continue to spend it the way they're proposing. What do you think that's going to mean for the midterms?

Well, what it means for the midterms is that people are going to reject these policies that they've seen. Think about where we have come from in just, what, one year in about three, four months of the Biden administration. I mean, look at our foreign policy, look at our national security policy, our energy security policy, economic security, all of these things, the inflation. And these kitchen table issues are really hitting Americans because their dollar is not going as far as it should. Because you can talk about the wages rising, but the inflation is rising tantamount and far more than the wages are.

And then, of course, when you go to the pump, just not too long ago, we were energy independent. We were producing, consuming and exporting all of these energy resources, which would have been a great way to undermine Vladimir Putin. But then you come in with this Green New Deal policy that they're trying to backdoor on us by executive orders and things of this nature.

So The point is that the American people are going to vote against But the Republicans need to give the American people something to vote for. And that's why they need to have like a new Gingrich contract with America plan that should have been out a month ago or two months ago, because you want people to vote for you and not just against the other guy.

So it looks like Mitch McConnell doesn't want to do that. He's seeing the left blow themselves up and says, why do I want to put my agenda out there for criticism? Rick Scott has put one forward and he was really rebuked for that. Even though it looks like he's being pushed by the former President Trump to be the new leader of the party, here's what Tom Bevin said of Real Career Politics about what the Democrats are doing now and not doing. CUP 32.

The problem for this administration is they are not focused on what the American people care about. I mean, they care about inflation. And when you have a disease, you need to treat the disease. You can't pretend that you don't have the disease. You can't treat something else.

And the administration continues to not focus on addressing inflation, which is the disease, the political disease that this administration is facing. It's eroding them across the board, and they continue to not have a strategy to deal with it. They should be focused on that every single day from the White House podium. And instead, it's just not happening. And they're paying a political price for it.

I mean, but the thing is. I put put I know you're a rep a conservative Republican in every cell of your body. But why would you sit in a meeting? And talk about ways to be successful if you're a Democrat and not address these things. You're still trying to get Bill Back better through.

You're still trying to have a have a windfall tax on g oil and gas companies. They're going to be calling them in soon. You're still not telling these investment firms you can invest in our fossil fuel companies. And instead, you're telling Germany, who, by the way, is now going to the UAE and Oman to get more natural gas. And they actually have cut a deal.

They have now are going to import 10% less, and they're down to 25% natural gas from 35% from Russia. They killed Nordstream 2. I give them credit. We never thought we'd see this. And you would think the administration would just say, hey, listen.

I'm not going to do good in the midterms anyway. I might as well do what's right for the country and then make my argument Republicans aren't doing anything. But like you look at Tom Bevan, real capalty's like I can't even talk about their strategy. They don't even have one. And get this, they were trying to blame it on the Putin war, Putin's uh pay hike.

Only 8% in the recent NBC poll thought Putin was to blame for inflation and gas, and 34% Blame Biden. And the the others uh blame COVID.

So it's not working. Their messaging is not effective. Yeah, I guess that TikTok strategy messaging didn't pan out the market. Yes. But you think about this, Brian.

Texas is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. Why don't we open that up for us to be able and that would help our economic security as well. But the thing is that the Democrat Party is wedded to a progressive socialist leftist ideology, and they cannot get off that dime. They cannot get off that X. And they're going to continue to to try to hammer that until they all lose what is ha Well, they don't care.

They don't see themselves as losers. They see us as being too stupid to understand that it is Putin's fault, and we should listen to the TikTok influencers. I mean, this is how desperate they are. But the bottom line is that we have got to not just sit back. Imagine this on the battlefield, that I am not going to come up with a strategy to win a battle.

I'm just going to sit back and believe that my enemy is too stupid to be able to execute their strategy, and therefore I'll win. That's not how you win.

So, again, Republicans need to be out there right now and hammering a good, strong, constitutional conservative policy agenda that gives them the advantage, gives them the initiative, and gives people something to vote for. All right. First, Colonel, first time we've ever talked about something like this. Are you ready? Yeah, let's go.

It's the Oscars. It's 11:30 at night, and Brian Kimley's been asleep for 90 minutes because he has a morning show. And I missed this, Cut 36. Jada, I love you. G.I.

Jane 2, can't wait to see it. All right, Miss Jawaza, that was a nice one.

Okay, I'm out here. Oh, oh, wow. Wow, Will Smith just smacked the s ⁇ out of me. Dick likes the name. Out your mouth.

Wow, dude. It was a G.I. Jane jump. Keep my wife's Nay. Adams, you're f ⁇ ing.

No! I'm going to, okay? Would a number one Where do you set where do you fall on this? Is it okay to slap a host you don't like at the Oscars? No, I think that was very childish and immature, the actions of Will Smith.

You know, maybe Chris Rock should have been a former Army Lieutenant Colonel, a paratrooper. He would have had a different outcome than what he'll do.

So if he had hit you, if you were hosting the Oscars, Colonel, and Will Smith hit you, you would hit him back? Will Smith would not have landed a punch on me. He would have found himself, you know, looking up at me from the floor. But that's neither here nor there. I think it's very interesting that Will Smith is up there.

All of a sudden, he wants to defend his wife's honor when there have been some very interesting things that have happened in the past, reference to the honor of his marriage and his wife. I think his wife is dating one of his son's friends. Yeah, I mean, it's just weird. It's highly weird. That's what we saw in these Oscars.

But again, remember, second lowest ratings in the history of the Oscars. Nobody's watching this. And what we saw play out was just a bunch of amateurs' foolishness. And it just goes to show that people should not be looking toward Hollywood for their morals and their values. Yes.

I want to hear what Craig Melvin's on the Today Show, and he said this about what he observed. He's black, cut 38. It's really disappointing. If you're rearing a boy, especially in this country, you spend so much time talking to that kid about keeping your hands to yourself, controlling your emotions. And then there's also this, you know, this long-held perception in this country that, you know, men of color especially can't control their rage and their anger and just to see someone who's been that beloved for decades just it it it was it was troubling on so many levels.

You think race has anything to do with this? I don't, you know, I was surprised to hear that. Allison heard it and pulled this sound bite.

So, what do you think?

Well, look, I guess now in the military, remember when Gerald Milley said that we need to study white rays? I guess we need to study black rays now. I don't know. It's just a bunch of foolishness. And again, when you look at what is going on in our country, in our world, you look at the fact that we've had sixty-three percent increase of illegals coming across the border here in Texas, that's what we need to be focused on, not some silly exchange between Will Smith and Chris Rock.

Wow, you don't regret me bringing this up. You're not mad at me, are you? No, man, you know, me and you are tight. We all know you're tight. I just wanted to see if I could throw you off and make you comment on the Oscars.

I did see King Richard, it was awesome. He was fantastic in it. And I feel bad. The Williams Sisters have a great story. That was a great movie.

The producers deserve their moment. Finally a sports movie that was good. And he he ruined it. Good. And they went down to Nightaway.

Didn't he still get the best actor, Oscar, or something? That's true. I know, but still, they deserve the spotlight, not him. You know, he deserved the spotlight for a different reason. Colonel Allen West, we will focus on the border, I promise, next time and every day here on this show.

God bless, man. You take care, Brian. Oh, go get him.

Meanwhile, when we come back, I'll take your calls: 1-866-408-7669. You're listening to Brian Killmead Show. Glad you are. Learning something new every day on the Brian Killmead Show. Precise, personal, powerful.

Is America's weather team in the palm of your hands? Get Fox weather updates throughout your busy day, every day. Subscribe and listen now at FoxNewsPodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Kilmead.

We will kill them, drown them, he says. They have no options.

So, you don't think they can take Odessa? We will sink them, and it will be fish feeding season, he says, and our fish will grow fat. That's amazing. That's a Ukrainian naval officer, Vladislav Nazarov.

So he's a Ukrainian naval officer. And he says they're ready to fight to protect Odessa. They really want to keep that beach. And I don't blame them. Judging by the way it's described, obviously I've never been there.

They cannot be a landlocked country. That cannot be in the negotiations. The New York Times and Washington Post both writing progress was made in these talks today. Uh Russia vows to reduce attacks in the north. They agreed on that.

There are other developments. The deputy defense minister said on uh today that Russia would sharply reduce military activity near Kyiv and the northern Ukrainian city of Chernyev is the first signs of progress, as I mentioned. Russia also said it was prepared to accelerate the timeline of a possible meeting between President Putin and Vladimir Zelensky after the talks with the Ukrainian officials in Istanbul. I think the Russians are, not that I trust them, but they think they have to do something. And because I think they're losing their guys, they're losing a ton of money, let alone the sanctions.

And they have, if they're at 15,000, Families without soldiers coming home.

So, whether they bring the bodies home or put them in an incinerator, which is rumored, whether they just leave them in the battlefield, when they don't come home, Even Vladimir Putin. could feel it.

So, okay, so talks have made a little bit of progress, and it does look like, sadly, the Russians have Mariupol. Hopefully. The Ukrainians can get it back. Keep in mind, One Nation is now six days away, five days away. It'll be Saturday night, 8 o'clock and 11 o'clock.

And if you ever want to get a perspective on history that can't be replaced, go to BrianKillmee.com, order any of my books. From the Fox News Podcasts Network, in these ever-changing times, you can rely on Fox News for hourly updates for the very latest news and information on your time. Listen and download now at FoxNewsPodcast.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Live from the Fox News Radio Studios in New York City, fresh off the set of Fox and Friends, it's America's receptive voice. Brian Killmade.

Hi everyone, I'm Brian Kilmey, like the guy with the deep voice just said. I'm coming to you not from New York, but the studios located there where everyone gets paid a lot of money to run the show. I'm down in Florida, but I do not want to miss an episode, so we're coming to you live from the beautiful iHeart Studios. The number to call still works: 1-866-408-7669. And of course, there's a lot going on in New York City.

There's a huge debate going on about this no-cash bail. If you look at the talk to the, and by the way, this is a national debate. Why is it that we're leaning so criminal friendly? We tried that for a couple of years. What happened?

We're losing every major city, and most of you are running from the cities. In New York, this no-cash bail has no residence with the Democratic mayor of the city. with the Democratic governor now of this city because she wants to win an election. By the way, did you see that Cuomo's within like ten points of her? The disgraced former governor?

Governor Hoko, who seems way out of her depth. Uh real quick, so that is uh that is true. Uh and So far, 60% of the, even New York, wants to get rid of it. And so far, the legislature won't budge. And I hope people just start sobering up, put party aside, and family security first.

So let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. This is a harbinger to see this happen in Hollywood. These people are the people that try to tell us how to be tolerant, tell us how to be nice to one another. They want to lecture America all the time about our shortcomings.

But then you see this: they're hypocrites. Yeah, there's Vince Ellison weighing in on the Oscars and Slapgate will bring you the latest. Number two. I've said it before. The answer is not to defund our police departments.

It's to fund our police and give them all the tools they need, training. and foundation. Budget, dead on arrival. We've got to look at what Biden has in mind. He's correct to fund the police, but otherwise it's no secret he tries to spend, spend, spend.

He doesn't adjust the atmosphere at the border. He does not address well, more and more Americans want to drill and attack inflation at home. I'm talking about Democrats in these latest polls. Nothing submitted addresses the problems that matter most. Number The total number of ways means of destruction that the Russian troops have used on our land against their people cannot be calculated, but we can say that the intensity and brutality of hostilities have now reached a level that is higher than it was during the Second World War.

Does that show you the devastation? War goes down goes Mariupol to Russia, and it's devastating that the Ukrainians take back two towns in the West, so they're having success. Talks begin in Turkey, and there's some reason for optimism. Headline of the New York Times right now: signs of progress in the Russia-Ukraine talks. When they get close, both presidents will meet if it happens.

Mike Rogers knows all about international challenges. He knows about being chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, FBI guy for years, and joins us now and former chair, I should say, of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intel. Mike Rogers, welcome back. Brian, it's always good to be back.

So I'm just fascinated by how hard the Ukrainians are fighting and how frustrated they are about the lack of weapons. From what you know, And I know you're not being read in every day. Are the Ukrainians just trying to get more like any field commander would want to get more, or are we really letting them down with the snail's pace in which we're delivering what they need? We're letting them down, candidly. And so when you hear Biden give the press conferences, we're going to give them everything they need, and we're going to all of that.

Doesn't translate into surface to air, advanced surface-to-air missile systems on the ground. In and around even western Ukraine. And so, what they're saying and what they're promising is there's the gap. And that's why I think you see the Ukrainians so frustrated. They're saying, great, if you're saying you're going to give it to us, then give it to us.

And that's that slow pace, you can basically count in the number of lives lost in Ukraine for men, women, children, they're bombing hospitals, still going to go at it? Listen, they have lots of armament, they're getting ammunition, all of that's great. But they need sophisticated technology. Technological weapons to increase the pain. They're doing great with what they have.

Imagine if they had better weapon systems. Where they could Take out high-altitude aircraft that are causing them problems, or counter-battery fire, meaning go after the artillery units that are shooting at them around these villages. It would be hugely impactful. And we keep saying it's coming, but that checking in the mail is not very helpful to their cause. Congressman, you have to, and you have the Army background, you have the FBI background, you have the Congressional background.

You also understand how Joe Biden thinks. He's been around forever.

So, and hopefully, he thinks a little bit clearer because it's been pretty embarrassing over the last few days. But I hear not only are we not getting the weapon systems to them. But we're actually holding them back. And we know the prediction was Zelensky would fall, Ukraine wouldn't last two days. They were wrong about that.

They were wrong about the strength of the Russian military. Having said all that, I'll let that be in somebody's book that they want to sell in a couple of years. Right now, we could correct the course. And make the Russians pay the price through the Ukrainians as they fight for freedom. What is the school of thought?

What is the school of thought for not doing that?

Well, I have a hard time reconciling it because they're saying we're going to give you everything you want. And then I think in the back room, there's lots of hand wringing going on where, well, gosh, if we put this weapon system in or we give them five and not ten, somehow that won't make Putin mad. I you know, the problem is I they have they have shown that they've missed Putin's calculation From the very beginning, and nobody has taken that seriously, even though he has telegraphed he wanted to do this for years. And he made progress toward it when he took Crimea, when he took two provinces in the Donbest region, when he went after us in Syria against our interests, when he was doing clandestine activities in Iraq and Afghanistan that weren't in U.S. interests.

All of that was happening, and this administration. seem to miss the boat. On all of that intent. And so, what you see is: gosh, if we're just a little bit nicer, maybe something good will happen. That's just.

not how Putin thinks.

So, what we have to do is ramp up his pain. Because what he's doing now, Brian, is he's going to kill as many civilians as he can. He's going to blow up as much infrastructure as he can. He has got this scorched earth mentality mainly because he thinks if he doesn't now, right, he's backed himself in a corner. then he's his military is going to look uh exceptionally weak.

And he can't afford that.

So he's going to have to do a just punishing. Set of attacks, which he's doing. You saw it in Mariupol, you've seen it in Kyiv, you've seen it in other places where he just levels certain communities. And what we need to do, if you're going to fight back, if you want to get the negotiation right, and it's probably going to have to be a negotiated settlement, then you have got to give them the weapons they need to defend themselves. And some of that is sophisticated technology.

And ringing your hands isn't going to save one life. It's just going to cost a life.

So educate me on this. I don't understand the downside of letting people fight for their freedom. and let the Ukrainians do it to represent the West.

So we'll give them the Megs, we'll give them the harpoons, we'll give them the javelins, we'll give them what they need. Let them fight. We'll find a way to get them nourishment. And the downside, what is the downside to doing everything possible? The Russians are not going to turn around and hit Poland when they can't hit the Ukraine.

They're not going to turn around. They might take Moldova. They're not a NATO nation. If they're going to go rattle in the cage any of these Baltic countries, are you kidding? Are they going to be able to, I guess, put all a million men back in uniform, train them and get armament that doesn't exist and go attack a bunch of NATO nations?

Why is it not in our interest to bleed them dry as much as possible and let the Ukrainians humiliate them? I would like to have a good answer for you. I don't. Here's what they will tell you or at least try to indicate is that, gosh, if we do just a little bit more and he decides that that's enough and he breaks out chemical or biological or nuclear weapons, then we've made a strategic calculated mistake. And I do is I would agree that there is a threat, and it's a serious threat.

We've seen him use bioterror agents in the past. Against his adversaries and enemies.

So we do sense: okay, he's got that, that could happen. Uh but this notion that we we're we're gonna not be as strong as we can and allow the Ukrainians to fight is just wrong. If he uses a tactical nuclear weapon, then all bets are off. If he goes into any of the NATO countries, all bets are off. And I argue you can he already knows that we're supplying these things.

We are not going to ramp it up by giving them the kinds of weapons they need. Remember, the president came out and said, We're going to give you shoulder-fired weapons. That's great. Those are good to about 14,000 feet. That's great for helicopters.

We're knocking the hell out of the helicopter fleet of Vladimir Putin. Really good. But how about those higher altitude aircraft? fighters, bombers, other things that they're begging to get. The crazy thing is, the equipment is there.

You just got to move it forward and then backfill it with U. S. equipment. And just the sense the maddening sense of this is they're worried that that might push his button. I gotta be honest with you.

This guy's in a world of hurt. He's losing. If you're not in the, let me rephrase that. He's really not losing. He's taking heavy casualties.

He's going a lot slower, but he's inflicting a lot of pain on Ukrainians. And so, you know. We hand ring at the Ukrainians' lives' expense, and this is in broad bright daylight display of people fighting for their freedom, tyranny and autocracy against freedom fighters, is couldn't be any more clear. And so that's why I think we got to fight through this hand wringing thing that the administration is wrestling with. And by the way, I mean, think about what he's doing, Brian.

He's running around trying to talk tough. He wants to talk like Patton, but he's delivering like Peewee Herman on this stuff. I mean, he just can't. Quite get out of this way. I'm talking about our president, President Biden.

on doing the right thing for these weapons systems. It's just it's maddening. Look, I don't think I'd have to explain to a guy that's been doing this since he was 28 years old. He's now 79. The impact of a president's words.

He was chairman of foreign relations. I mean, the guy actually knows how to get around almost every capital in the world.

So and notes the people legitimately if he can remember them.

So, this guy is just as reckless as I've ever seen. And listen to his explanation on why he ad-libbed that last line saying he must go. Cut 15. I was talking about, I was talking to the Russian people. The last part of the speech was talking to the Russian people, telling what we thought.

And I was communicating this to not only the Russian people, but the whole world. This is just stating a simple fact that. This kind of behavior. is totally unacceptable. You feel better now?

No, no, I don't. And you know the the worst part is, so You know, he's Putin has has done something pretty clever here. He's pushed back to the United States where they're thinking, gosh, I can't give him this, I can't give him that, I won't give him that. And they and they publicly tell you that, right? They publicly tell Putin that.

And now the President of the United States basically says, we think you ought to be out of there. Once you come negotiate about pulling back on your military or uh or going for a ceasefire.

Now, if you're Putin who's already done this, right, which would defy some rational thought about what was going to happen there.

Now, what do you think he's thinking at that negotiation table? He's thinking, I got to extract a lot more pain. And that's why those words are so reckless. are we probably still going to get to a negotiated settlement at some point? But Putin can inflict a lot of pain, a lot of death, a lot of damage in the meantime.

And when the President, who I think was just trying to talk tough, Is that cavalier with the lives of so many Ukrainians? It just becomes a little bit dangerous. And of course, then his team runs out and says that's not really what he meant. Then he comes back and says, No, I think I kind of meant that, but not really the way you think I meant that. I mean, none of it is clear.

And right now we need resolve. We need purpose. And we absolutely need certainty. And right now, it's pretty hard to argue that we have all three of those going for us. And some notion that NATO is now in love with this president.

Listen, I talked to a lot of folks who are involved in that business. security, defense and other in and across Europe. And I will tell you, what they're saying is: yes, yes, yes, we appreciate the United States not completely falling apart on us. Yes, for helping on sanctions, that's all good. But you told us you were getting weapon systems.

Now we're not getting weapon systems. This is the most maddening thing we've experienced. And as people often say, Brian. Yeah. professionals talk logistics.

If you're telling them you're going to give them the SA three hundreds, then why aren't they there already? Remember, the U.S. military. Did a 20-year campaign in a landlocked country some 5,000 miles away. We didn't miss a beat.

We had all the materials we needed. We left it there. Beans, bullets. Yeah. Well, that's a whole nother.

I mean, if we gave them some of the Afghanistan hardware, we should have said, Taliban, hands-off. We're shipping it over. And they had 100,000 troops at the border. We could have put it in the country and go, yeah, Ukraine's our ally. They're our friends.

They're going to use our stuff. And they might not have had an invasion. But instead, we gave it to a terror organization called the Taliban who can't hold on to it.

So they're giving it to ISIS. You cannot have the worst fore have a foreign policy this bad if you tried.

So, and finally, Mike, the thing is, real quick, I'm already over, but if you're a Republican of rank and you see this and you feel the frustration that we're expressing, what could you actually do?

Well, what you end up doing is closing the gap between what the President is saying and what is being delivered. And by putting pressure on the Pentagon, and if it's a policy of hand wringing and trying to figure out who signs what as it passes through inboxes and gets stamps and all of the other I had a worse word. For that, but all the other things that happen, then that's where Congress can come in and cut through and just start pushing. And by the way, Congress, in an odd way, is pushing the president to get to a place. He says no, they say you shouldn't say that.

And over time, they wear him down and they actually do it. My argument is just go and start getting this stuff done, including putting small bills together that are really tailored and specific. Quit adding all the Christmas tree, quit adding all the other junk that goes on them. Really narrow and specific, saying, Well, okay, guess what? We're going to move this equipment to X.

And then I just keep up the beating. We're going to have to force. This administration to do the right thing about surviving. Yeah, hopefully, survive until November. Mike Rogers, thanks so much.

Always great. No, always great. Thanks, Brian. All right. I'll give you the latest on the round of talks.

We have some more information in Bottom of the Hour, Jack Keene. But next, your phone calls 1-866-408-7669. Brian Kill Meat Show. Expanding your knowledge base. It's the Brian Kill Me Show.

Hey, it's Will Kane, co-host of Fox and Friends Weekend. Join me as I share my thoughts on a wide range of topics from sports and pop culture to politics and business. The Will Kane Podcast. Subscribe and listen now at FoxNewsPodcasts.com. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it.

You're with Brian Kilmead. You can't win an election being in the 30s with all of the primary issues.

So I think it's just going to be like 2010 when Obama didn't pivot until the election results came in, or 94 when Clinton didn't pivot until the election results came in. That is Mark Penn talking about the fact, and I remember back to Bush. I remember Bush, for example, Ukraine war was not going, the Iraq war was not going great. And they got to the midterms. And when they didn't do well in the midterms, they immediately got rid of Rumsfeld and replaced him with Gates.

And everyone thought, why'd you wait for that? Why didn't you do it ahead of time? And by the way, why didn't you tell Dick Cheney ahead of time that was his best friend? And that caused a rift between them, but that's a minor point. But when you get to the midterms, you don't want to show panic.

You want to keep the course and see what the American people think. I'd have a different strategy to me. If I was looking at the polls honestly and dispassionately and I wanted to be successful and didn't worry about agenda, I would do some massive moves right now. I'm going to change the way I approach with drilling oil and gas. I'm going to be the best customer.

I'm going to be the best supplier that Europe has ever had. I'm going to give them a discount and I'm going to help our oil and gas companies stand up like we helped the pharmaceutical companies do what we needed them to do to save a country during the pandemic. Side note. I'm not upset. That China has locked down 25 million people.

You know why? There's like a handful of cases, almost all are asymptomatic, and they're overreacting. 25 million people. Good luck with that. When we come back, we are going to talk to Jack Keen about the new developments on the talks as well as this new strategy.

Don't worry. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Killmead Show. They'll now have quite a good port on the Sea of Azov, out to the Black Sea. And then it will free up a number of battalions that were the ones that have been closing the circle, closing the noose on Mariupol, who can then push further north and perhaps.

enable Russia to achieve what it has now said as it's redefined its objectives uh to taking control of all of the Donuts and Luhansk uh oblasts uh provinces, if you will. And then solidifying its grip on a land corridor from the Donbass from those to Oblast all the way to Crimea. That was General Petraeus talking about Mariupol, if it does, in fact, fall, and it looks like it has fallen. Uh maybe not officially, but the Russians are setting up their own form of government, not accepting rubles from Where they're setting up at a stack table, maybe in the middle of the street. But the Ukrainians have shown an ability to try to take back uh Areas in Kirasan's best example that they seemingly have lost, but it is.

strategically devastating If the Ukrainians Louis Mariopal. Joining us now, retired four-star general, chairman of the Institute of Study of War, which has been indispensable in understanding what's going on play by play, day by day in this battle for Ukraine, is General Jack Keene. General, welcome back. Delighted to be here, Brian, as always. General, do you believe Mariupol has fallen, as some have reported, are the people saying the same to you?

Um We're not we're not convinced, but uh listen, it it's within a day or two and um It It certainly is is is going to happen. It's a sad thing, certainly. It's been absolutely horrific what what has taken place there and the fighters in that city and around that city acquitted themselves so well standing up to the Russians. My God, you gotta give 'em a lot of credit. It remains to be seen what's going to happen, though.

I mean, the 150th Motorized Rifle Division. On the Russian side, has got responsibility for that, but their casualties have been quite significant.

So, um it it remains to be seen what they'll be able to do Once Once and it has officially fallen and they don't need to have all of those troops there. What kind of action they'll be able to do either. in the north and east or also to the west, Yeah. reinforce the forces that clearly uh were attempting to get Odessa and never were able to do that. I'm not just not sure how much combat power they're going to be able to generate.

It just remains to be seen.

So a couple of things I'd just like to update our audience on. Emmanuel Macron says he'll speak to Vladimir Putin today to talk about some type of humanitarian operation to the people of Mariupol to get them some type of aid. Nobody really believes that when they say there's this humanitarian highway to get out, they'll should do it. There's about 100,000 people left, we understand. We'll see how that goes.

What is your take on these reports that they had a relatively productive meeting today between both sides where evidently the Ukrainians came with a proposal that they would accept neutral status, not apply for NATO, that Israel, Turkey, and France would supply their security guarantees. Obviously, the Budapest Agreement didn't work out for them when we and Russia were supposed to do that. And now they set a 15 years pause on negotiations on Crimea. And there's the Donbass region somewhat on the table. The Russians have agreed to slow down their military activity in and around Kyiv.

So these are some of the things that are coming out of that meeting. What are your thoughts initially?

Well, I think that's positive. And it's more than frankly I had expected Yeah. I I was thinking uh the Russians certainly uh I think they wanted to grind things down a little bit further and gain a little bit more at territory than what they currently have. But maybe their assessment is is that That's That's not That's not in the cards given the problems they've been having. One of the things that's not clear to us.

is the kind of feedback that people at the top are getting in the Russian military and also Putin based on what's actually happening on the ground. And we knew initially for the first week or so, it was way off in terms of what they thought was happening, considerably more positive. what was happening on the ground. And that they are now getting the very realistic assessments on casualties and damage to equipment. and the lack of uh operational momentum and forward momentum.

then that could be significant pressure that is warranting some concessions on Putin's part. Normally, what Pluton always has uh Conducts diplomacy along with conflict. He does it largely for his audience at home.

So they know they b he sells to them that he's seeking peace. Um And most of it has been a subterfuge. Even the ceasefires that they've entered into. in Syria as well as in the and in the Donbass region. or ceasefires that are conducted largely Um Cook.

to advance tactically on the ground under the guise of a ceasefire. and they violate every ceasefire that they've ever been involved in.

So we really have to be not rush to too much judgment here on on what's taking place. but certainly the Ukrainians probably feel some degree of optimism as a result of this. And hopefully, Hopefully it works out. What we should be backing is what does Zelensky want to do? We don't need to put any pressure on him.

This is up to him and his leadership. In terms of how much territory they'd be willing to give up, what kind of concessions they want, this is up to them. And we should be supporting them in that effort.

So there's a lot of things. I'm just seeing some of this video. The Ukrainians have put out our resistance forces have taken and destroyed these Russian armored vehicles. I'm looking at them. They're they're real.

Russia is also sending in a um Mitsubishis and Toyotas into Mariupo, and they're wondering what happened to their military vehicles. Are they really that low? Uh they're supposed to be one of the world's top armies. And the West is going, why are they sitting there with uh with basically civilian uh Toyotas in a war zone? What does that show you, if anything?

Well, it shows you that there's been significant damage to that you know, to their combat vehicles. I mean, it it's been extraordinary. Uh You know how how How Core their performance has been. I mean, we call it tactics, techniques, and procedures, and They did just basic warfighting skills are just it looks like an amateurist organization. that has never realistically trained.

And that's why they've been so vulnerable to the Ukrainians. I mean, I give the Ukrainians a huge amount of credit in terms of their skill and their will. Um And certainly, the resources that we've been providing them have been very decisive. I'm not talking just from the United States, but from NATO writ large. I think they've hit more vehicles.

which which they refer to as the N Law. Which I think came out of Germany and uh and the UK, which doesn't have uh The range. and characteristics that a javelin has, but nonetheless it's it's been it's devastating. 'Cause those those systems got there in uh sufficient quantity very very early on. Yeah, it it's been astounding the amount of vehicles that have been damaged and also.

people wounded and killed. And the other thing that's also incredible Um isn't get doesn't get reported much, but they leave their dead on the battlefield. I mean, that is outrageous in terms of the impact it has on the morale of an organization. to walk away from the dead and the people that tell them to do that are certainly their officers. Um And that's why they've had some combat refusals.

Not just by individuals, but by units. And it's also an explanation of why there's so many generals. That have been killed. Two reasons. One is we pushed them off their secure nets by jamming them, the Ukrainians did.

and we were able to access you know, where they're located, where the headquarters are located because they're talking in the clear. And therefore, those headquarters are subjected to being attacked by drones and. and finders And secondly, Because of the combat refusals, Brian, the generals have had to get much closer to the menu. Of frontline tactical units that you would normally find a general at his headquarters to push those troops into combat. And they they they get caught in in uh in a fire fight.

So, General, what I don't understand is if everybody's got to serve in the military from 18 to 20 in Russia. And they have one hundred and fifty thousand, maybe one hundred seventy five thousand in and around Ukraine. They're having to beg Syrians to fight. They got the Wagner group showing up, these mercenaries. They're trying to get now they have to repurpose their military forces from Georgia and bring them over.

But if they have everybody that's once you serve, you go into reserves, couldn't they get a million men? Couldn't they get a million men and just try to fulfill their objective? Where are their forces? Yeah. Well The numbers aren't what they should be, and certainly the quality isn't what they should be.

I think what we're going to find. when the after action reviews and studies are done by various think tanks in terms of trying to explain why the Russian performance is so bad. I think it's going to be somewhat similar to what we experienced in Afghanistan. And by that I mean a s a s serious amount of corruption. people ripping off money.

Possibly the pay for headcounts that are not there. That was going on in Afghanistan in a very significant way. and people ripping off money in that whole echelon in in the military. and not paying for training, not paying for capabilities that should be there. And they're pocketing that money.

And they they the corruption supposedly is rampant. And I think that is going to be one of the explanation. It won't be the singular explanation, but it's going to be a major contributor and something that has just been coming to light recently as a result of this poor performance, and people are looking for answers.

So I can't get a straight answer on, and some of it is for intelligence purposes, but I don't know where the S-300s are or any of their in. Are we going to get those kamikaze drones in that we promised? Where are they? They say they're not there yet. And then they said they want tanks.

They say the border is wide open, that you could get tanks in. Why don't we give them tanks? They're sitting right there.

So. All you have to do is give them some of what they asked for. What is the reality? I don't know what the what the constipation is here. I mean, there's The S three hundreds, as best I understand, are not there.

I think if they were there, we would have heard about it from Admiral Kirby because the pressure's been on him every single day to answer that. we know why the MIGs aren't there and Most all of us disagree w with that for sure. Yep. You're referring to the laundering switchblade anti-tank weapons, which is Yeah, yeah. They've been given the three hundreds just arrived last week.

But the six hundreds are are the ones that can loiter. Um like a drone. even though it's a missile. And yeah, I I no explanation. Why we're having these kind of problems.

And this is why Zelensky is still filled with so much emotion about getting help, because He gets promises. And he doesn't get He doesn't there doesn't seem in his mind, there's not a sense of urgency to get this equipment to him. And that's the frustration that he and his And his leaders have. The promises have been there. but it just doesn't show up.

Right. I mean, I think one of the biggest parts of that NATO meeting should have been polling everybody in the room And getting them down on a piece of paper what they're going to deliver and when they're going to deliver it, and pushing them. to deliver. There's a number of Negro nations who aren't doing anything. And every one of them should have been put pressure on to deliver and put somebody in charge of it.

It it's all about the individual countries. as opposed to people trying to orchestrate it. Um and make certain that this stuff is fitting properly. Yeah, it it's it's k it But I understand your frustration. I can hear it in your voice.

And you can imagine how the Ukrainians feel about it. Because we promised them something, and it takes weeks to show. Show up. In a war where people are dying every single day. Big picture question and exit question.

We thought he'd last a couple of days and Kiev would fall within a week. And obviously, that was dead wrong. We didn't get them enough weapons ahead of time. That was a huge mistake. They've fought much better than we thought, and the Russians have fought much worse than we thought.

Having said all that. How come when these men and women sit in a room, they don't understand the benefit? of Russia paying the ultimate price in prestige and blood and treasure right now through Ukraine. All the mistakes have been made, but why not let them win now? When they've because there's so many positives to the Russians being uh being brought down to size, I can't see why we would uh allow this whole thing to wallow.

Yeah, I mean this I think goes right from the top in the administration, the president and his national security team. they've really been more interested right from the outset in terms of ending this. as opposed to winning it. And I can understand a little bit of that in the beginning when most people thought this would collapse pretty quickly, and we would likely be more involved and providing Uh arms and munitions to an insurgency. as opposed to an army that's still deployed on the battlefield conducting high end conventional warfare, which is what has happened.

Zelensky has provided the NATO and Europe an opportunity here to crush the Russian army. And it's the best deterrence we could possibly have against the Russian army conducting an attack against NATO. There's nothing better than the fact that we're destroying that military, and we should be destroying it as much as possible. And that's That should be the emphasis, in my judgment, coming out of the administration.

Now, do we want Do we want uh A political solution to this? Yes. But you'll get a much Faster political solution based on how much damage you're doing to Putin and also his ability to ever contemplate. uh invading Lithuania or L La Cabia or Or Poland based on what the Ukrainians are doing to them, because certainly NATO would have significant more impact. Then what the Ukrainians are doing?

All right, General Jack Keene, the latest on the talks, the latest on the battlefield and war, the Institute of Study of War. You have to get it if you want to know what's happening at the moment. Thanks so much, General. Yeah, great talking to you and your audience, Brian. Take care.

Go get them.

Next, talking about my audience, you guys are next. 1-866. 408-7669. You'll listen to the Brian Kilmead Show. Coming to you on a need-to-know basis because, man, do you need to know?

It's Brian Kilmead. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show. Today, we have good news. Our defenders are advancing in the Kyiv region.

regaining control over Ukrainian territory. Erpine was liberated.

Well done. That, of course, is the voiceover from us here, but the words are Vladimir Zelensky, and he is saying that. Irpine is back and they're pushing back in Kyiv, but the suburbs are taking a pounding. Mariupol is not going well, but the whole city's been destroyed. I do not think the Russians will be able to hold any city for too long.

Look at Kirasan. Uh Jeff is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hey, Jeff. Hey, how are you doing? Good, good.

You're talking about Chris Rock? Right. I guess I don't like how Will accent. But I think Chris. Rock.

joke was so low. It had to make a reaction. Does it change your name does it change your mind, Jeff, that he said he did not know she had a skin condition? She r thought she just wanted to wear her hair like that? But They're free to Sorry.

I think he knew. All right. Thanks so much. Dave, listen in Iowa. Hey, Dave.

Right. Hey, I I thi I think that was just to boost ratings. No, it was. You really think they would do something like that? Are you crazy?

Yeah, for next year. Yep. Yep. They were so low in the bucket that they got to do something. But no, it's too embarrassing.

The guy's crying as he accepts the award. Denzel Washington's huddling with him. Yeah, he was. Bradley Cooper's giving him a hug. Chris Rock.

Well, actually, Chris Rock, they say his ticket prices are through the roof. He's doing stand-up next week in Boston. They say they up the price. Everyone wants to pay to see Chris Rock. Talk about that big event.

It was real. There's no way that wasn't real. There's no way. And my main thing is, Chris Rock's not that good of an actor. He's never been able to pull it off.

He was not exactly brilliant in grown-ups. Or everybody hates Chris. Maybe everybody does hate Chris. Live from the Fox News Radio Studios in New York City, fresh off the set of Fox and Friends, it's America's receptive voice. Brian Killmead.

Thanks so much for being here, everybody. It's the Brand Kill Meet Show. We have a big hour coming your way. Howie Kurt standing by to talk about the media coverage of the president, who's gafftastic again, four major gaps overseas. He had a strong speech, but a bad ad-lib ending, and that's what people are talking about, even on other channels to a degree.

which is a bit surprising. And then Neil Ferguson, one of the deepest thinkers, smartest guys you'll ever hear from with the Hoover Institute now, Stanford University, and author of Doom, The Politics of Catastrophe. And right now we do have an update on the latest on the talks with Ukraine. As well as the Russians over in Turkey, Ukraine came with some proposals. The Russians are taking it in.

We'll give you the details in a matter of moments, but first let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. This is a harbinger to see this happen in Hollywood. These people are the people that try to tell us how to be tolerant, tell us how to be nice to one another. They want to lecture America all the time about our shortcomings.

But then you see this: they're hypocrites. Right, Slapgate continues as Will Smith apologizes to Chris Rock on Instagram, where every good apology should be. We'll talk about that and how this overshadowed the great movie King Richard, the great story of Serena and Venus Williams and Richard Williams. Everybody's overshadowed, but people are talking about the Oscars for the first time in years. But is this the right type of talk?

Number two. I've said it before. The answer is not to defund our police departments. It's to fund our police and give them all the tools they need, training. and foundation.

Really?

Does anyone tell that to Corey Bush or uh anybody else, Hakeem Jeffries? Uh not really, but the budget's in. It's dead on arrival. We'll get a look at what the budget pri the Biden priorities are. Uh as he says, I'll fund the police, but it doesn't address the uh situation at the border, doesn't really fund that.

More Americans, believe it or not, including Democrats, want him to drill and drill more at home and attack inflation. Does anything in that budget do that? The answer is no. Number The total number of ways, means of destruction that the Russian troops have used on our land against their people cannot be calculated, but we can say that the intensity and brutality of hostilities have now reached a level that is higher than it was during the Second World War. It's unbelievable war.

Down goes Maripol, it's reportedly. If not now, by tomorrow, devastating. The Ukrainians are taking back two major towns, though, in the east. Talks begin in Turkey. We'll bring you the latest.

And they're positive enough there where the market actually went up and oil prices actually went down. It looks as though some of the things that have been discussed, the Russians. Will decrease their attacks in the Kiev area. I'm not sure how generous that is because they were getting their butt kicks there.

Meanwhile, Ukraine wants Israel, Turkey and France to provide their security guarantees because the US and Russia doing that didn't really work out in the Budapest Agreement from the 90s, remember? They said they're going to put a pause on talks to get back Crimea for 15 years.

So these are some of the things that have the Russians saying that maybe we'll accelerate the meeting between Zelensky and Putin, if indeed that happens. What we do now, how we reinforce the Ukrainians, could give them the leverage they're looking for, but it doesn't seem to be happening. But joining me now to talk about this, how the media has been handling Joe Biden, this trip and more, as well as what happened at the Oscars, Howie Kurtz. He's the same Howie Kurtz that hosts Media Buzz Sundays from 11 to 12 and author of Media Madness. Howie, welcome back.

One of the same. Thanks, Brian. Yes. Howie, first off, kind of encouraging news, too, that the talks are making progress in Turkey. A little bit discouraging that they don't want the U.S.

a part of their security guarantee. You know, I haven't taken seriously any of the previous talks because I think Russia was just stalling for time, trying to get the invasion to make more progress. But as you said, I mean, the Russian military has been abysmal, suffering heavy casualties. If they're pulling back now from further trying to get to the center of Kiev, it's because they can't do it, because the Ukrainians have been fierce to Defenders of their country. But maybe we're at a moment because of that where there could at least be a ceasefire.

And Zelensky is talking about pledging neutrality for his country. I'd like to have some hope because this has been so heartbreaking to watch the civilian casualties that are deliberately ordered Day after day after day, the horrible atrocities by Vladimir Putin. Right, and are you surprised how he, first off, do you compare it to anything? The fact that 60% of this country wants to do more to support this war. But yet the President, by over by a combined 71 percent, is not looked at as a strong leader through this effort.

How can both match? I think part of it reflects the hyperpolarization in the country. I mean, I think. There are some Republicans who give President Biden credit at least for holding the NATO alliance together on the sanctions and so forth. I mean, he is performing on the world stage, but we're not seeing the typical rally round the president effect.

And I think it's because we want to do more, but he's still I think they're way too timid, U.S. and NATO and Biden, on providing more of the defensive weapons of these crazy. Crazy bureaucratic distinctions.

Well, you could have these javelins, but you can't have these Polish MiGs at a time when people are dying every single day in Ukraine. It's almost our perfect scenario in that America is not directly involved. They don't want us involved. All they want is our weaponry. And we're saying to and the American people go, Yeah, this guy is inspiring me.

The Ukrainian people are inspiring me. This seems to be an easy decision. I just don't understand it. We might provoke Vladimir Putin, and we can't have that. I mean, what worse could he do?

I mean, other than unleashing nuclear weapons.

So I do think even some bottom. Biden allies are saying We've got to be more aggressive in providing those weapons and in providing humanitarian aid to the people who are being starved to death in these encircled cities. I just thought from the civilian perspective, which I am, I just think we got this drone technology and we have drones that can carry missiles. Can't we get a drone to drop water and food onto these cities that are undetectable? And if they are taken down, it's not a casualty, it's weaponry.

I mean Green Borough. Right. I feel like Green Borrow. And I know that I've done features, we've done a couple of features with this group that drops uh medicine in the far reaches of Africa and drop medical supplies to these areas that are underprivileged through and I think it's called it's called Zipline. And I said, why can't that group get involved in this?

Has anyone thought to call them? And so I'm. Seeing what happens there. I want to bring you to the President's trip, very consequential. I'm always amazed, Howie, how the President's always alone.

There's no, maybe the first lady doesn't belong on a trip like this, but where's his key aids to kind of bring him through? He's always out there seemingly alone, and he's probably the ill-equipped at the age of 79, being what he's been through physically, to do this.

So I want you to hear some of the missteps that have been pointed out in the past. Cut 11. If chemical weapons were used in Ukraine, would that trigger a military response from NATO? It would be It would trigger a response in kind. Ukrainian people have a lot of backbone.

We have a lot of guts. And I'm sure you're observing it. And you're going to see when you're there, for God's sake, this man cannot remain. Power.

So he's got three or four things to walk back, including a lot of our allies did not like when he said Putin's a butcher. Whether you think it's right or not, it's not on the message of NATO.

So yesterday, what do you think the reason was for him to come out and have that press conference? First off, was it about the budget? Was it about a happy recap of a trip? Or was it about damage control? No, it was cleanup on aisle six.

I mean, of those verbal missteps which you played, and there are others, and throughout his career, Joe Biden has not been the most disciplined speaker. Those nine ad-lib words at the end of the speech, they weren't a gaffe, which just, you know, happens in Washington every day. They were a profound, you know, world-class blunder. It's not that I don't agree with him. I think most Americans agree.

We'd love to see Putin ousted from power. But when you're the president of the United States, you can't just come out and say it as an ad-lib and, in effect, call for regime change. And of course, then the White House had to scramble. No, he didn't mean that, of course.

Well, the words are unambiguous. It's clear.

So by yesterday, I think a decision was made. Let the reporters ask the questions, and Biden would come at it. And he did try to make... lemonade out of wemmers uh Saying, well, I was just expressing my. Outrage, and I'm not saying I'm calling for this, but this is how I feel or outraged at Putin.

He is a butcher, but a guy with as much foreign experience as Joe Biden, former foreign relations chairman in the Senate, former VP, should know better. Right. So let's tell me if uh what you think of this walk back. Uh Peter Ducey's question, Cut Tan. Are you worried that other leaders in the world are going to start to doubt that America is back if some of these big things that you say on the world stage keep getting walked back?

It made it sound like, just in the last couple days, it sounded like you told U.S. troops they were going to Ukraine. It sounded like you said it was possible the U.S. would use a chemical weapon, and it sounded like you were calling for regime change in Russia, and we know None of the three occurred. None of the three.

I mean, isn't that an odd response? Yeah, he's trying to have it both ways. I mean, he he has this fiction now that I was not calling for regime change, I was just, you know, venting uh, you know, as if A president can do that. What's fascinating is while some Biden allies have said, you know, that was a misstep, it was an unforced era. You've got this new Defense by Some of the big uh Joe Biden's supporters saying, oh, this was four-dimensional chess, and he always meant to do this.

No, well, the White House would walk it back, because still, Putin would get the message. I don't think so. I mean, it made him look weak, as Liz Clayman said on Media Buzz, to have to make that. Bold statement. I've heard the pundits love it.

It was, you know, Mr. Gorbachev to tear down this wall. And then, sorry, he didn't really mean that, even though that's what the word said. Right. So here he is.

uh about uh what that ad-lib comment meant.

So uh you know, the press was really asking the same question every day every outlet, CUT 15. I was talking about I was talking to them to the Russian people. The last part of the speech was talking to the Russian people, telling what we thought. And I was communicating this to not only the Russian people, but the whole world. This is just stating a simple fact that.

this kind of behavior. is totally unacceptable. Howie, was that on the card? I mean, he had to write that down on cards. And it was so obvious that, you know, it's in every paper what was on that card.

These were conversation pieces, not important. you know, nuclear codes or anything. I mean, that he had to have him write it down is a little scary, and the fact that he couldn't even answer right is even scarier.

Well, I don't care for users' notes, but I do care about the message. And It just was so muddled, you know, trying to walk this line between not provoking Putin, but providing support to Ukraine, but not providing enough support to Ukraine. And what's fascinating to me is now this, as I say, you know, majorly diplomatic misstep. First of all, it's given the Kremlin talking points. See, the U.S.

has always been out to get Russia. It's given, you know, the Kremlin PR Baghdad Bob something to talk about. And at the same time, it's kind of you know, reporters ask about it, it's kind of fading from the news because, to set you up for the next part of the conversation, everybody's talking about the Will Smith slap. which I think is a big deal, but it doesn't exactly have the same geopolitical consequences as what Biden did. Before I leave this, I want you to hear what Pierce Morgan said last night on the Five about what he s perceives overseas and now he's here of the press with Biden, CUD19.

What I find also about this, which I think is really unsettling, the desperate ways that the Democrats and many of the quite liberal skewed mainstream media Go out of their way to try and defend this. Go out of their way to try and portray this as commanding leadership. When the polls, as we just heard, are crashing to new lows. When confidence in him, in trust in President Biden because of all these gaffes, is collapsing. I they've got to get a grip of this.

Because if you can't trust a word he says, mainly because he can't even remember saying it. then there's a problem. This guy's the leader of the free world. That's an outsider's perceptive, and you worked with you know at CNN with him. You know he's not some right-wing firebrand, right?

No, Piers Morgan, but he does speak his mind. I mean, look, I'm going to make a distinction between President Biden's actions, which I think he's been fairly steady, even though he hasn't been as aggressive as I would like. And it's not easy to hold together the entire Western alliance and get sanctions to the point that they have, although they certainly could do more. And his words, where he keeps talking himself into trouble. And I think that is concerning because it's not like it's going to go away.

Somebody joked about, well, maybe there needs to be like a fifteen second delay. on finding the speeches where they can bleep out when he uh wanders off script. Here's what happened about 11:20, I think, when I was in bed at the Oscars, Cut 36. Jada, I love you. G.I.

Jane 2, can't wait to see it. All right? That was a nice one.

Okay, I'm out here. Oh, oh, wow. Wow! Will Smith just smacked the out of me. Out your f.

Wow, dude. It was a G.I. Jane jump. Bites. Name out your f ⁇ ing mouth!

I'm going to, okay? So obviously, he's crying later, feels apologetic, and a formal apology came out afterwards from Will Smith to Chris Rock. Violence is never the answer. Where does this go from here?

Well, it's got people talking about the Oscars again.

Well, first of all, the apology is complete and total BS. If you apologize to Chris Rock at The time, or certainly by that night, when you do it 24 hours later, it means you've been huddling with your damage control PR people, and I don't see it as sincere. Secondly, I know a lot of people are having great fun with this and everybody's weighing in on it and it was a shocking moment. But Will Smith assaulted him on national television over an admittedly bad and tasteless joke. And nothing happened to him.

He still wins his Oscar. People still applauded.

Some people defending him on Twitter. He went to the Vanity Fair party and danced the night away with his wife. It is stunning. I mean, he should have been booted out of that ceremony at the time. The investigation by the Academy is a joke.

What messages is he send to kids? It is just awful. And I think Chris Rock, you know, handled it pretty well considering that he'd just been booted. hummeled by the guy. And I think uh This is just absolutely shameful.

And, you know, he could have. I mean, there's a thousand things Will Smith could have done. He could have mouthed off without the F-bombs. Thank you very much. You know, in other words, using his words.

What do we tell Topus? Use your words as opposed to going up and saying. Slamming the guy, and when he, you just played the clip where he dropped the F-bomb, he was so full of rage sitting in there. And by the way, I understand defending his wife, she has this disease, her hair fell out. You know, it was a dumb thing for Rock to say, admittedly.

But this guy has got problems. I mean, this was seriously out of control. No. Absolutely. And a change in attitude.

Once he was laughing, looks at it, and then he goes up there. And by the way, Chris Rock said he had no idea that she had a Lopez show. That's what he said. Obviously, and I would take his word on that because we wouldn't have said it. It's not funny to make fun of an affliction.

Chris Rock's probably the most astute comedian in the country. His prices go up for tickets, but I will say there's a lot of comedy club owners who have all been interviewed in the New York Post story today. They're worried about other people in the audience saying, yeah, the guy just insulted me. I'm going hitting the stage. Howie Kurtz, we're going to watch on Media Buzz this weekend.

Is that okay? That would be great, Brian. All right. Go get him. Thanks, Howie.

All right. This is Brian Kill Me Chow. Back in a moment. The fastest growing talk show in America. You're with Brian Kilmead.

The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. Wear security. This is a live television event. Not one person came out.

Because he's Will Smith, this is how Trump gets away with. Will Smith and Trump are the same guy. He decided he's going to take matters into his own hands. You know, at a time when the world is at war. Bad timing, man.

By the way, I don't know what kind of analogy that was from Howard Stern. Walker's list on WABC in Jersey City. Hey, Walker. Hey, Brian. And you know, I I I I think of this as when you compare this to Don Rickles.

And what Don Rickles would say to people. It's it's pretty much the same thing. And I can't believe that Chris Rock didn't know about Jada Smith's. uh uh hair hair condition. And um If the camera stayed on Will Smith for another two seconds, you would have seen Jada Smith get really angry herself, and then that triggered Will Smith.

You did see her get exasperated, no doubt about it. Like, oh, here, shaking her head, like, here we go again. I didn't know. I don't really follow her career. Evidently, she's got a very popular podcast, and she talks about it all the time.

It's a Facebook live show. Red Table Talk, right? Yeah. All right. So I didn't know.

And I brought that up on the couch yesterday on Fox and Friends. Everyone's like, oh, of course everybody knew.

So they agree with you, Walker. I just don't, I think he's too smart and too funny to make fun of somebody who has some type of disease. You know, it doesn't, that's not what Chris Rock does, really, I didn't think. The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead.

It emboldens Putin with his own people. because he's been trying to sell them a message of, look, the Americans and the West. want to basically take us over. What more evidence do they need now than the President of the United States on the record, on camera, in front of the world's media? Representing NATO.

Saying, we've got to remove Vladimir Putin. That's what he said. We heard him say it. And this thing idea of him now walking back all the walk backs. I mean, I can't remember the last time I saw a world leader who takes time today to walk back.

the repeated warp backs of his own gaffes. And that was Pierce Morgan yesterday on the five.

So I do have some news in case you're just tuning in. Evidently, pretty productive, all things considered, day one of talks in Istanbul, Turkey. The Russians evidently have agreed to decrease their attacks in Kyiv and Chernihiv, and those two areas, in which, by the way, is where Ukraine's having a great success taking back territory. Ukraine also made it clear they want their security guaranteed by Israel, Turkey, and France, not the U.S. and Russia.

I don't blame them. They say that when it comes to Crimea, they'll put it on negotiations on pause for 15 years. They are also putting Donbass to a degree on the table.

Now, anything that these talks. Produce have to be okayed by the Ukrainian parliament, many of which are in country now being shelled and watching their success on the battlefield.

Now, what they have also said is to give up their ambition of joining NATO. Part of the reason. is NATO has no interest in signing them up.

So they set a neutral status much like Finland.

So there is some progress to the point where oil dropped around the world.

Now, I give the Germans great credit. Yesterday or last weekend, they went down two days ago. They spent in the Middle East trying to get different sources of natural gas, and they worked out some deals. Already, the Germans are taking one from 35% of natural gas purchases coming from Russia down to 25%. Joining me now from Hoover Institute is Neil Ferguson.

He's the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at Hoover, Stanford University, and author of Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe. Neil, welcome back. Hi, Brian. Good to be with you.

So I just gave, I don't know if you heard any of that. I'm just getting some, we're getting some reports from some progress on talks. Do you think the Russians uh have a reason to talk yet? Yes, I think they they do in the sense that It's clear that they are Yeah. Yeah.

their original objective, which was to take he even overthrow President Zelensky, they are pushing Yeah. to a much more limited military objective, which is to expand Their control over the east of the country, the Donbass region in particular. And I think if you assess the casualties and the equipment loss that they've suffered over the last four weeks. There really isn't much more fighting that they can do. I mean, maybe it's measurable in weeks.

certainly not months.

So I think from a narrowly military point of view, they need a ceasefire if only to regroup. And that, I think, is why these talks are now becoming more serious.

So here's what Zelensky said through an interpreter yesterday about the level of violence and destruction. Cut two. The total number of ways, means of destruction that the Russian troops have used on our land against their people cannot be calculated. But we can say that the intensity and brutality of hostilities that are being conducted against us have now reached a level that is higher than it was during the Second World War. And that's not the way you win over a population.

You they wanted to absorb the country. The hatred towards the Russians is exceeded by nothing on this planet, correct? Yeah, I think that's right. And I've even heard normally peace loving people like my friend the rock star Slava Vakatchuk saying, what's this new hatred I'm feeling, Putin's unintentionally brought national sentiment in Ukraine to a new high. It's almost a kind of birth of a nation.

If Ukrainians ever doubted about their national identity before, those doubts have been dispelled by Russian brutality. And I think in that sense, if Putin's ultimate goal was to kill off the idea of a viable independent Ukraine, he's almost completely failed and indeed achieved the opposite. If he takes a city, he's going to be shelled on that city through guerrilla warfare and tactics and through attacks for the foreseeable future. I mean, look, he took. Uh he took one Kirasan.

He has lost it.

Now he is taking Mariupol, and that's a key city. I get it. He's leveled the whole thing. And now they're setting up stack tables and putting up provisional governments and only accepting Russian rubles. Fine, for now.

There's a hundred thousand people left. That army still intact, the Ukrainian army. How long do they think they're going to be able to hold that in peace and conduct normal days' work and go back to normalcy of school and anything like that? Do you think that message? And that objective has gotten back to Putin.

What is certainly can't have missed the extent of the military failure. The the casualty numbers are are There's quite a wide range of estimates. Between 7,000 and 15,000? Right, but even the lower estimate suggests Terrible attrition, far worse performance actually than the Red Army when it went into Afghanistan at the end of 1979.

Now, I said before the war broke out that the Ukrainians would fight like the Afghans did in the 1980s. And a friend of mine, a Ukrainian friend, said, we'll be like the Mujahideen. And that was what Putin didn't get. He really was so cut off from Ukrainian reality that he failed to see how resistance would be and how tough and tenacious. the Ukrainian counterattack would be.

He also underestimated the effect of American training because let's not forget that since the invasion of twenty fourteen, we and others have been helping improve Ukraine's fighting capability and the Ukrainians have been fighting the Russians in a low intensity conflict in the east of the country.

So I think this has been a huge miscalculation on Putin's part. He overestimated his own military and gravely underestimated Ukraine's will to fight. And one of the things about you, Neil, is like you you don't get caught in today. You see big picture.

So, what comes out of this, regardless of the truce talks and how much of Ukraine is left? Do you think that gradually we forget about the brutality of this guy? Gradually we forget that his army is not nearly as efficient and effective as he said it was? Do you think gradually he becomes an okay guy to deal with again?

Well, I think the Biden administration's goals here have become somewhat unrealistic in the sense that they seem willing to let the war continue. They're not making any effort to bring this to in the belief that ultimately the combination of military losses and sanctions could topple Putin. And President Biden really gave the game away in his Warsaw speech over the weekend when he Spoke of Putin's being removed from power, I think that's an unrealistic objective. And even if it were successful, I'm not sure we would necessarily get the kind of brush that we would like. emerging from that kind of scenario.

The other thing that the administration has been trying to do, I think, is to signal to China, this is what happens if you cross the line, you face the mighty power of financial sanctions. I think this way of thinking about it is misguided, and it would be in the interest of the US to bring this war to a swift conclusion. Not least because of all the economic disruption that's flowing from it. I mean, the Ukrainian harvest is basically On this. year, the disruption caused by sanctions mean that there is really a big energy shock.

So food and energy prices are already skyrocketing because of this conflict, and that's going to have lots of consequences around the world. Look, Brian, I think the war will come to a conclusion there'll be a ceasefire of some kind in a matter of weeks. I don't know what kind of stable peace can emerge though, given how far apart the Ukrainians and the Russians are on the key issues of territory. And if anything, the positions have hardened because of all the deaths and destruction. It's not going to be at all easy to arrive at an enduring settlement.

I worry more that you end up with a ceasefire and then both sides regroup and the fighting maybe starts again at some point further down the line. It's going to be hard to stabilize after all the blood that's been shed, all the trust that's been lost and all the hatred that's been rekindled. You know, I get it. I want the killing to stop. I don't want it to have started.

But having said that, if the Russians are able to consolidate the Donbas region, Crimea, Mariupol, and maybe take Mikoliev as well as maybe, even though they haven't done it yet, take Edessa and leave that country landlocked, they'll declare a victory. They don't care about the 15,000 dead bodies. They leave them in the street. And then, what lesson is it? The lesson is: well, now Ukraine fought, it stood up, and it ends up half the size in which it was.

It loses its iron, its coal, its oil, its beaches. It loses its black, it loses the Black Sea. I think people on the play-by-play see the problems with Russia, but in the end, they will turn around and say, look at the victory. Yeah, I'm not sure.

Sorry. capable of taking Mikolaev and Odessa now, I think even those objectives look hard to get.

So he's going to have to declare a victory with quite a bit less than that. His problem is that he might even be claiming victory with basically what he started with back in 2014, Crimea and parts of the Donbass. There's going to be a hell of an argument about whether he can get more territory than that, because I don't think the Ukrainians are in any mood to make concessions. And although they may have agreed not to be part of NATO, which frankly was never going to happen, i.e. to accept some kind of neutral status, I think there's no room for agreement at this point on the territorial questions.

And let me add another point. One thing that the US has made a habit of over the years is imposing sanctions on countries, expecting regime change. And then when the regime doesn't happen, the sanctions stay in place. That happened in Cuba, it's happened with Iran, it's happened with North Korea, it's happened with Venezuela, and I think it's happening with Russia. But imposing sanctions on Russia for the long term, waiting for Putin to go, is going to really create quite an economic problem for the world because Russia is a pretty big economy to leave permanently under sanctions.

So I think we must really ask ourselves what kind of an endgame do we want here? Is it realistic to expect regime change in Russia? I don't think it is. I think that's a long shot. Who ultimately would benefit from the destabilizing of Russia?

Would it be the West or would it actually be China? Are we thinking enough about that question? I don't think we are. Because the SWIFT system makes them go to another system. And if Saudi Arabia goes to that other system and Iran goes to that other system, we now have some.

We now have some competition for the US dollar as the main currency of the world. I think I understand what you're saying. But we do love it. I love that the West is going to get off oil and gas. I think they got that message, Russian oil and gas.

Don't you agree? Right. And I mean, part of what's going on here is that we're realizing how unrealistic some of the Green New Deal ideas were about converting Europe and North America to an all renewables solar and wind energy system, that isn't going to happen because we now find that if we're going to sanction Russia on a permanent basis, What are we going to do?

Well, we're going to have to step up gas production in the United States, step up liquefaction. If the Europeans are going to give up on Russian gas and oil, then it's going to have to come from somewhere else. The other key point, Brian, that you've just raised is that while all of this has been going on, The Biden administration's policy in the Middle East has gone terribly wrong. Trying to resuscitate the Iran nuclear deal, which I think was a mistaken strategy, has alienated Israel, has alienated the Arab countries, and increasing their acting neutral in this conflict over Ukraine, are previously very dependable allies of the United States. If they are essentially going to shift their geopolitical position and even contemplate the possibility uh of selling oil in uh in in in rennimbi in the Chinese currency, then geopolitically I'm not sure that this is uh the big win that the Biden administration would like to present it as.

Of course it isn't. And having Russia be our chief negotiator and we're going to pay them to take their the the enriched uranium uh that's weapons grade out of Iran, it's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. And it's just on the undoing of the Abraham Accords, even though Israel and and this and the Arab nation seems to be continuing their relationship.

Now let me ask you, I I understand the Germans are considering buying the Israelis' Arrow three missile system. Could we be seeing a militarization and with defensive weapons among NATO countries again, because that's what their their takeaway is of Russia, of this Russian conflict?

Well, I think maybe the most important consequence of this war in Ukraine is that the Europeans have wakened up from decades of slumber about their own security, the assumption that the United States would indefinitely underwrite West European security. while countries like Germany, Spain And just over 1% of GDP on defense. That is all, I think, blown away now. And the newish German government, the Wolof Schulz, is committed to spending two percent of GDP. That means a big increase in German defense spending.

It means a big upgrade of Germany's military capabilities, which will take years, Brian, to be achieved because the Bundeswehr is It's barely credible as an armed force these days. But yeah, I think that's one of the big changes that maybe Putin didn't intend to bring about. Quite apart from turning Ukraine into a defiantly independent country, he's rearmed Germany. I don't think that was part of the Kremlin's master plan. I don't think so either.

Nord Stream 2 is now just like rusting in the ocean. Hopefully, it's never going to be implemented. And even Switzerland has gotten in on the sanctions.

So I know what you're saying. By leaving them on permanently is correct, but I would not want to be a customer of Russian oil on principle and of my own national security if I'm Western Europe. Neil, thanks so much. Thank you, Brian. Neil Ferguson, trying to keep it in perspective on this historic times.

When we come back, I'll try to squeeze in as many calls as possible. We're on the road, but we're still. I think we're in brilliant facilities out here in Florida, the iHeart Studios. I think there are probably house in what? Thirty studios in here?

At least. And there's there's only ten people. It's true. How about it? You could land a plane in the living room.

This is the Brian Kill Me Show. Diving deep into today's top stories. It's Brian Kilmead. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Killmeade.

Isn't that kind of fascinating? When I first got elected, I was being beat up because I supported the police too much for the previous 30 years.

Now, it's what I think. And now he's been told that he wants to defund the police. To his credit, he says, I never defunded the police. And then, but when he's not telling the told truth, is when he says, I gave money to all the states to give to the police. No, no, you gave money from the rescue plan, which proven that we didn't need.

To these states, and it's up to them to purpose it to the police if they choose. You can't take credit for that. That is just totally wrong. And the president submitted his budget yesterday. That's who he's referring to.

Some people say: why are you so pro-police? That is. That is his answer. Real quick, Thursday they uh Last week they found, they did a study, and they asked the majority of Americans across this country. Ah, do you believe What is the best way to bring down gasoline prices?

Increase domestic production.

Now, if 43% of the country are Democrats and 40% are Republicans, are you doing the math? That's saying that Democrats understand it. 8% believe the U.S. should buy more gas from foreign countries in order to get the gas prices down.

So 63% of Americans want the White House to drill more, and they won't. That includes 68% of those who identify as Independents and 42% as Democrats. That's pretty clear. 86% of those polls said they were personally affected by high gas prices, and that's true.

So then you look at the President's budget proposal, some bullet points, $5.8 trillion, that's it. $773 billion for the Department of Defense. That's an increase of 4%. Pretty good, except for the fact that inflation's taking away 8%.

So we're actually decreasing money. It's below the inflation rate. $682 million for Ukraine, $8.1 billion for immigration. And for law enforcement, that's what they're referring to, $17 billion.

So that's what's in the president's budget. That's what they're going to be discussing. That's what he's going to be negotiating. And let's see what gets passed. I see next to nothing, but there is a time limit on it.

They know the midterms are coming by November. That is for 2023, by the way.

So don't forget: One Nation coming up Saturday at 8, repeated at 11. Always keep it here on a daily basis. And also, if you ever miss it, our podcast is awesome: BrianKillmeShow.com. Go to Spotify, go to iTunes, or iHeart, wherever you get your podcasts. Put the power of over 100 meteorologists and the worldwide resources of Fox in your hands with the Fox Weather Podcast.

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