Biden Dragging His Feet on Sanctions, Blames Putin for Inflation

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Visit Samsung.com to learn more about Galaxy Z Fold 4. 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, Kenya. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. It's going to be a big hour.

Thanks so much for being here, Benjamin Hall, in 15 minutes from Kyiv, capital of Ukraine. And we're going to talk to Collie Shimkis and find out what else there is going on in the world, as well as get some interesting insight onto what's happening with our economy while we try to somehow take the lead and get ahead of things in the Ukraine. Because things are heating up, but man, the Ukrainians are fighting like Spartans, like legendary warriors that they are. They know they can win the fight head to head. The question is, how many civilians will be killed in the process?

So let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. They finally have something that they think they can blame it on. But what was really notable about these numbers is that if you strip out some of the more volatile sectors like energy and food, the numbers are still eye-popping for everything else. And you certainly can't blame Vladimir Putin for rising restaurant prices or rising furniture.

prices. Yeah, you can't, Kimberly Strasso, but they will, as the Wall Street Journal expert weighs in. The economy, who's to blame for the sky-high inflation, sky-high gas prices, and our dependence on evil empires for energy. According to the administration, Vladimir Putin. Oil companies, you two are the bad guys.

I am not kidding. It's time for the oil companies at least to stand up and straighten out this administration. Number two. Nord Stream 2. The Swift sanctions.

The Stinger missiles. The banning of oil. What do all those things have in common? In each of those cases, the administration said no. In each case, they said no.

And in each case, the administration did a One eighty. And they now support those things. Senator Portman weighs in. And simply breaks it down. These are facts.

Suffocating American sanctions are an illusion. And the maddening decision that have the Biden administration happily leading us from behind is unacceptable. Not only are they trailing our allies on weapons and on economic attack plans, they are also lagging behind the Democrats in Congress. Number The Ukrainian army is actually winning on the ground. Despite the Russians did make some progress towards the biggest cities of Kiev, of Kharkiv, and of course they are holding blockade of Marupol, but they are not really able to proceed any further because the Ukrainian army is actually fighting back very, very hard.

Fight week day 16. Ukrainians gain strength. The Russians inflict pain on the most vulnerable, and the Russians hit two cities, their new cities, previously untouched. And Russia tries to range to strangle Kharkiv and Maropol. They are in need of heat.

They are in need of water. They are in need of food. We will have the latest. But they will not give up. They will not give in.

They will not be occupied by the Russian army, who really can't get together with a game plan. If I'm to tell you, if I was pressed right now to say what is next for them, clearly they want to take Kyiv, and I think they want to do it this weekend. At least they're trying to get close to doing that. And they have broken up that long caravan that they say was 40 miles long, that had 15 to 20,000. They kind of spread some of the tanks and personnel carriers, and they put them on the tree line just a little bit.

Here is President Zelensky with a message to the Russians. Cut to. You can still save yourselves if you just go home. Do not believe your commanders who say that you will still have a chance in Ukraine. Nothing but prison and death awaits you here.

You are taking our lives and will pay with yours. And he's not backing down. I mean, now he's walking outside again, cut one. Mariupol Mariupol and Volnavoka remain completely blocked. Although we did everything necessary to make the humanitarian corridor work, Russian troops did not cease fire.

Today they destroyed the building of the main department of the State Emergency Service in the Donetsk region. Right next to this building was the place where Mariupol residents were to gather for evacuation. This is outright terror, blatant terror, from experienced terrorists. The world needs to know that. It has to admit it.

We are all dealing with a terrorist state.

So the mayor, Vitaly Klishko, came out and said, if you're going to come and take Kyiv in a brutal way, get ready. Every street, every house, as I look at his tweet here, every street, every house is being fortified. From territorial defense, the territorial defense is joining. Even people who in their lives never intended to change their clothes, meaning uniforms, now they are in uniform with machine guns in their hands. There also Asking any foreign fighters who want to come in, about 20,000 there already.

And guess who else is asking foreign fighters how desperate the Russians are? They're asking for Syrians or any from the Middle East to come volunteer. Yesterday on camera, a tape, Vladimir Putin said, Yeah, if they want to come, they can come because nobody in Russia wants to do the urban fighting. They don't want to get out of their vehicles. I wouldn't either.

But then again, I don't want to invade another country simply because they want to be a democracy.

So I'm a little different than Vladimir Putin in that respect.

So you're going to go take a city? The only thing you can do is bring in other fighters. And I think that's what they're doing.

So they say if they want, this is a quote from Putin: if you see that there are these people who want their own record, not for money, just to come in and help the people living in Donbas, then we need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone, really. Help them get what they want. Vladimir Putin's really jailing you or fining you or punishing you if you use the term war or invasion. You have to say conflict. Or um You have to use the word Nazi for the reason they're in there to describe why they're having such issues with the Ukrainians when there really is no issues.

About the actual fight, the one thing that's pretty clear: the Russians will never be looked at the same militarily. Their equipment is old. Their troops are unmotivated. They are lightly trained. They are not organized.

Communication is terrible. And their ruthlessness and lack of conscience or going by any war rules is now evident for the world to see. Lieutenant Colonel Chuck Devore: about what he's seen so far and what we can expect to see. Cut seven. What I think we need to be prepared for is for a long war.

This war is going to go on longer and cause much more civilian suffering, millions more refugees than have already happened. And we need to do everything we can to keep Ukraine in this fight, to help them continue to fight Russian aggression. Yeah, and give the Ukrainians everything they need, including those MiGs. You got to be kidding me. Why did we end up in such an embarrassing kerfuffle on these MiGs?

These are 1980s version MiGs. They have the pilots. They have the room of the Air Force. They got the air bases still. Just deliver them.

Stop worrying about everything that everybody else did, Vladimir Putin, is doing. Why do we always worry about provoking Vladimir Putin? It makes no sense to me at all. And I think that Mitt Romney put it great. Not with no Phi zone may be a bridge too far.

But if you're going to give them stingers, you're going to give them javelins, you're going to give them food, you're going to give them fight out aid of billions of dollars, why not give them these? And I thought Mitt Romney put it great yesterday. Cut 28. The idea that somehow we're calculating what's effective for them to run their war and that our Stingers and our javelins are better than our aircraft, it makes no sense at all. They're better at running their own war.

They know what the conditions of the ground are. They're there, we're not. And further, our A tens would help. When did you get them A tens? That's the aircraft that's really ideally designed.

for this kind of warfare. Why are we dithering on that as well? This makes no sense to me at all. I thought he was 100% right. And do you consider Mitt Romney a warmonger?

When you look at Senator Portman, do you think he's a firebrand Republican who, like Ted Cruz, Republican, away right, or you're not right? That's not the way these guys are. That's why I played them. The other big story of the economy. I don't have to tell you that when where you ever go to shop, when you go to get gas, when you go to the supermarket, when you go to get clothes, when you go out to a restaurant, when you go into a cab, when you go into a car service, soon when you go into a plane, everything is more expensive.

Inflation and Energy costs. This has a lot to do with the green agenda. The President embraced his entire Presidency, Vice Presidency, John Kerry, the first ener green czar ever. All he talks about is green energy, but the technology is not there with renewables to dominate our economy. And now, whenever you hear an administration official talk, They talk about Putin's inflation.

Vladimir Putin's inflation. I know you don't buy that. I know you know better than that. But to for President Biden to not only blame it on Vladimir Putin on a conflict that started two weeks ago that we're not directly in, and now we go off Russian gas, which he's proudly said we only have 3% of our imports, you cannot say 8.9% inflation and gas that's up 40% in, I think, three months, that now in some places is $7 a gallon. I never thought I'd see that, is because of Vladimir Putin's war.

That makes absolutely no sense. And if you're going to say it's gouging by the oil companies and the refusal to take advantage of Leases they have to drill on private land. Forget it. When we come back, we're going to be joined by Benjamin Hall. He's going to bring us out to the war zone and tell us the latest.

It is so key that Vladimir Putin. Makes his last stand in Ukraine. Because if we don't stop him here. He's going to rearm. He's going to modernize.

And he's going to be back and more belligerent than ever. You're listening to Brian Kilmee Chow. Diving deep into today's top stories, it's Brian Kilmead. Precise, personal, powerful. Is America's Weather Team in the palm of your hands?

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Welcome back, everybody. Let's go out to the theater of Benjamin Hall, Fox News Senior State Department correspondent. He's out in Kiev where he's witnessing. I guess tensions get an all-time high. Benjamin, as you look around, I know we were with you all morning on Fox and Friends.

As you look around, people say that if that siege is going to happen of your capital city, it's going to happen this weekend. Is that echoed? Is that the feeling that you get talking to people? Absolutely, Brian, you know, but the thing is, we've been saying this for the last week. It was only a matter of days after the invasion started that Putin brought down that long convoy surrounded or tried to surround the city.

And they've been sitting ten miles away, ten to fifteen miles away for the last ten days. And it's a weird feeling in the city right now, because every day we've expected this invasion to come, or at least the artillery strikes to come. And every day they haven't. And I'll be honest, when you first come here and the air raid sirens go off, everyone is incredibly nervous and jumpy, but they become second nature now. You barely even pay heed to them.

So we're in this strange position where all the analysts, all the experts keep telling us It's happening today, it's happening today. We've seen the troop movements, we've seen the artillery places, we've seen what's happening elsewhere, it's happening today, but it doesn't come. And it has. It bemused a few people. Quite a lot of people are not sure why it's taken so long.

And yes, some people say it's because the Ukrainians have done so successfully in holding back the Russian forces. But if they wanted to fire cruise missiles at this city, they could have done that a long time ago and from very far away. If they wanted to shoot artillery at this city, they could have done that a long time ago. You've got ranges of 20, 30 miles to some of these artillery pieces.

So we expect it to come. The Institute for the Study of War says in the next 72 hours now.

So we wait, we wait. For what people say is inevitable, but we haven't seen it yet. We hear the bombing in the outskirts. There's no doubt that they are shelling and hitting the outskirts of the city very hard. But the capital itself, in the city center, there's only been a few artillery shells dropping on some key strategic sites like the T V Tower.

So, Ina Sovsan, she's a Ukrainian. Parliamentary member said this about what's happening on the ground. I want to see if you agree, Cov 5. Ukrainian army is actually winning on the ground, despite the Russians did make some progress towards the biggest cities of Kiev, of Kharkiv and of course they're holding blockade of Marupol, but they're not really able to proceed any further because the Ukrainian army is actually fighting back very, very hard. And just yesterday evening we did have a a very well, a good evening for the Ukrainian army because they they pushed Russians further on the northeast of Kiev.

I mean, is that rhetoric or is that is that reality? No, no, that's total reality. There's no doubt about it. The Ukrainians have held back the Russians for two reasons. First of all, the Ukrainians are motivated, they're brave and they're well armed with these javelins, in particular and these stingers, which can bring down the helicopters, the planes and crucially hold back the tanks.

But the other reason is, and every analyst and expert in the military agrees on this, the Russians have performed terribly. The kit that everyone spoke about, everyone said that they spent the last ten years building up a modern, brand new military. We haven't seen that. Their tanks are rusting and antiquated. Many people say it's the corruption in Russia, that all the money that people thought was going into the military was in fact just being siphoned off.

The other one is the conscripts. Most of the armed forces, the Russian armed forces, are eighteen-year-olds who didn't think they were coming into Ukraine to fight a war.

Some of them thought they were just going to Belarus to carry out manoeuvres. Others who did think they were coming into Ukraine thought they were doing so to liberate the country and therefore surprised that people were shooting back at them. They thought they would be welcomed with open arms. Tactically, they've been terrible.

Some soldiers telling us the other day that it's like in nineteen forty one. They've taken these huge convoys, driven them down a road and made it really easy for the Ukrainians to pick them off. The tit the front tank, the last tank, and you knock them out of easily. They don't have reconnaissance units. Any Western military has reconnaissance units, so you send small teams ahead to see where the traps are, where the um where the enemy might be waiting.

They don't do that. They just send their guys down. It does seem as if they are relying or they thought they could rely on the sheer scared of the Russian military, that with two hundred odd thousand troops, it didn't matter if you picked some off because they could just keep coming. And we do hear that from the Ukrainians. They're fighting bravely, they're doing well, but every time they kill Ukrainians and they knock out tanks, more keep coming.

So whether or not in the end the sheer scare of the Russian forces can overwhelm the bravery of the Ukrainians, we don't know. But there's no doubt about it. The Russians have performed terribly on the battlefield, which is why we've seen them bomb indiscriminately instead of going into cities. In fact, there's only one city in the country they're in. It's the city of Kherson.

It's not a huge city. If you look at the other bigger ones, Mariupol and Kharkiv, they've just resorted to bombing them indiscriminately. It's really the only thing that the Russians can do. But it is a playbook that Putin has used time and time again.

So yeah, Russia totally underperformed. And Putin, reportedly furious about it, so he sacked a number of his close military advisors as a result. It said eight generals have been fired, but that's according to Ukraine. I'm not saying that they're Baghdad Bob, but that is their side. You know, Russia's not admitting it.

I don't know if I would believe if they did.

So there's two places that got bombed yesterday, first time: Dnipro and Uh Lutzk. What was the significance of that? And do you think that that is softening up for something, or they just saw a city that hadn't been touched?

Well look it probably if you look at the map So far, the Russians have been quite successful in taking territory around the Russian border. Pushing into the heartland of Ukraine has been a lot harder. You talk about Dnipro.

Well, that would require and does require a sort of push north from where they hold the areas around Crimea and Mariupol. It's a strategically important city, it's on a river, and it would be like the first foray into the center of the country. And that's where they're honestly going to find real difficulties because once you push further in away from either Russia or Crimea, where you have more forces, you have to supply those. And the Russians have been terrible at giving logistics and supplies to their troops that are moving forward and into the country. Then, yes, we've also seen strikes further to the west.

That's really significant.

Some airfields around Lviv. um overnight were were struck. And we think that's to do with Trying to cut off supply lines. Right now, As many weapons as the West wants to send can get in. They're coming over land, they're coming in a big way.

So seeing the Russians strike in the West was significant. It's only airstrikes at the moment, and so And frankly, these weapons are not coming in by air. They're coming in over land and by rail.

So the airstrikes are one way of preventing them flying in. Perhaps it's a precursor, trying to stop those MiG jets that Poland is willing to give. That's probably where they would have flown into if they were going to come.

So you bomb those airfields, it makes it harder to bring those in. But Look, no one can quite read what Putin is trying to do tactically right now because it clearly hasn't gone his way.

So we watch every day to see where he's going to hit next. and what he might do. I will be honest and say that I think that he is struggling and he's not quite sure how to proceed. If he goes for Keeve now, he is all in and there's no way back. Wow.

And you know, the way you laid it, Benjamin up against the hard break, but the way you laid it out, he's not going to have success. It's going to be brutal and bloody. Benjamin Hall, you're the best. Thanks so much. Thanks, Brian.

Appreciate it. 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. 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. A radio show like no other. It's Brian Killmead. The Vice President's mission on this trip has been extremely straightforward.

Her goal has been to reassure NATO countries that the U.S. will stand up for their defense and to signal continued U.S. support, including for the humanitarian issues here in Poland, now facing a massive influx of refugees, the largest movement of displaced people in Europe since World War II. And by that relatively low bar, the vice president has succeeded on this trip with flying colors. Unbelievable.

The way people are spinning for this administration, it is really embarrassing. That is NBC. I believe.

Now What you don't see is Kamala Harris say anything of substance. She actually arrived in Poland and she had no explanation for why there was such a miscommunication between the two countries, none at all. She had no answer when asked, Are we going to accept refugees in? When she's sitting next to a guy that accepts 1.4 million refugees, they say, Will America lower their or have special provisions for Ukrainians, even if temporarily? Had no answer.

In fact, instead of having no answer, she just skated and answered a different question.

Now she's in Romania.

Now, remember, she got a question, a legitimate question, about refugees. This was her answer. Is the United States willing to make a specific allocation for Ukrainian refugees? And for President Duda, I wanted to know if you think and if you asked the United States to specifically accept more refugees.

Okay. A friend in need is a friend in need. Carly Shimkis joins us now. I saw you rolling this this morning. She's in Romania answering questions.

She's not going to the border. I hope she does. Carly, What's your take? You heard that NBC report. How could they actually spin that?

Yeah, listen. The question that Kamala Harris was asked, too, is such an easy one to answer because the reason she did this press conference, really the only thing of substance that she said yesterday was the Biden administration was giving $50 million more to the refugee crisis. That's all you have to say. Back to that. Listen, I just made the announcement we're giving more money to the refugees.

And yeah, of course, the United States is a welcoming country. We haven't worked out exactly how that's going to happen yet. But if there are people, if there are Ukrainians that want to come to the U.S., we're going to try and expedite that process. Done. That's it.

No laughter. This is not a laughing moment. And then you have Yulia Mandel, the former spokesperson for Vladimir Zelensky, posting that tweet. And, you know, Ukrainians are going through it right now. People are dying.

This is one of the most catastrophic things that anybody alive right now has seen. And to see her giggle like that and laugh in this time of great crisis, Yulia Mandel is saying, you know, if it would be a great tragedy if Kamala Harris ever became president. The world is watching. And these moments matter, and she is absolutely not meeting the moment. Yeah, well, I do.

It's just at the very least, she's a human being. I imagine she's got a compassion level. Can you go see it for yourself? You could not keep me away from the border if I was there. I'd say, I need to see what's going on, I need to see how you handle it.

You know why? Because when you come back and speak to the president and others, and you say, listen. The Poles are overwhelmed. Or they could say these guys have it handled, but they're reaching a threshold behind this. Just seeing that.

Well, I don't know if I completely fault her for not going to the border because she is the vice president. This is a very dangerous situation. I mean, she's really close to a war zone. Carly, when you're in Poland, it's not dangerous. I mean, you're in the border.

I'm sure that her security detail thinks it's dangerous.

Well, what is this? I mean, you have officials going to the border. It would be a nice moment for sure. It would be. But I think that logistically it could be a little bit more challenging than just going to the border the way we would.

But here's the thing: if you target. Poland All of NATO has got you in a war. She's in Poland. I'm not asking to go to Kyiv. I also don't understand really exactly why she's there.

Listen, I know that this is a display of NATO being united, and I respect that, and I think that's the right move. But you have to give the vice president something to say when she's there, other than we are united. You can only say that in so many ways, and that has been, you know, just the one thing that she said: we are united. I can't emphasize this enough. I mean, I was hoping that when she made that speech yesterday, standing next to President Duda, she was going to talk about the MiGs and say we've worked out a negotiation with getting these planes to Ukraine, planes that they desperately need.

So a couple of things, yeah, the planes they desperately need, and I just think it's kind of interesting. The people that are standing up and are acting outraged, they're not your normal cast of characters. It's not Senator Ted Cruz or Senator Josh Hawley calling out the administration because they do for everything. But Senator Rob Portman said this, Cut 33. Nord Stream two.

The Swift sanctions. The Stinger missiles. The banning of oil. What do all those things have in common? In each of those cases, the administration said no.

In each case they said no. And in each case, members of Congress, Republican and Democrat alike, took to this podium and the floor of the Senate and other places and talk to you in the media. And in each case, the administration did a One eighty. And they now support those things. So I'm not losing hope.

I think this makes sense. I think this is the right thing to do. But these are Democrats. Rob Portman is echoing what Nancy Pelosi said to do a lot of these things. You have other people who aren't necessarily military-minded, but they're Democrats who are like, I am not standing in their way.

This administration is so timid, they're so battened down with fear and reservations or lack of confidence. America's paying the price for this. Yeah. No, I actually completely agree with you in that. That attack in Lutsk overnight, attack of an airfield, that's where Ukrainians keep a lot of their planes, a lot of their MiGs.

And I don't know if any of those planes were destroyed, but this is a war.

So if the administration is saying, well, they don't need MiGs right now, they may need them in a week. And that's why Vladimir Zelensky has been desperately asking for those planes. And I do think that if this was a Republican administration, they would have gotten them. There's just a fundamental difference in risk assessment between Republicans and Democrats. You saw it with COVID.

foreign policy as well. And yes, a extremely timid response from the Biden administration. I respect the concern for escalation, but I also think that the thing that makes the most sense to me is what Mitt Romney said about About who should really be afraid of who. Yes, so let's listen to here was a senator Mitt Romney yesterday.

So let's listen to what he had to say about this situation. I simply do not understand the logic. for not getting the MiGs to the Ukrainians immediately. There is no logic which has been provided to this committee or to the nation. For the lack of rapidity in making this decision and getting them the MiGs.

It makes no sense. And if there are people in the administration that know the answer, I would suggest we get the occasion to meet with them, perhaps in a classified setting, but we need to know the reason why those MIGs have not been transferred already. Yeah. Yeah. And I also the mix has become so go ahead, Brian.

Yeah, it's who's saying it too. I mean, this is a mommy as well. He loves getting along with Joe Biden. He loves it. Yeah.

And you think about the overall scope of the war and the pictures that we've seen rolling in. I mean, people living in subways, running out of food, water, pregnant women, you know, who are about ready to give birth and now they're covered in blood because their hospital was, you know, bombed. And this is happening in a first world European country. And it just really feels like we could be doing more. And I pray that we are behind the scenes.

And, you know, who knows? This is just complete speculation on my part. But the thought did cross my mind: you know, what if there is going to be a MIG transfer of planes? The Biden administration is saying, no, we're not doing it made behind the scenes. They're working out a deal.

Get those planes to Ukraine under the cover of darkness. That would be a power move. And I hope something like that happens because Vladimir Zelensky. His people deserve that. They just simply deserve it.

And they deserve the Western world to have the stones and stand up to Putin at this point and have their back 100%. Yeah, here's Ambassador Mike McFaul, who was the Ambassador to Russia during the Obama years, Cut 24. We spent a little too much time talking about the details of those MiG-29s, right? And I think in some ways that got us in trouble. Instead, we should just quietly send the weapons he needs to help defend the air and defend against artillery.

Of course. Of course. So true. Right. I mean, what is going on?

It makes you look so inept. It looks like you're totally confused. And the fact that she goes over, the vice president, to Poland where all this miscommunication took place and wasn't prepared to answer anything about the miscommunication is nuts. Yeah, I think her preparation was just to avoid the topic and talk about how unified they are. But obviously that question was going to come up, and it did seem like she was unprepared to answer it.

And I completely agree with the fact that, you know, we're in the media. We want to talk about everything. We love the free exchange of information and ideas. But it does feel weird to have this much information about the planes that are being sent over to Ukraine. And now there's reporting.

On the S-300 missile system that I hope Ukraine gets. But these are things that really should be done behind the scenes. The fact that we have this information is odd.

Well, they gave us, they kind of surprised me when they told us all the intelligence. I thought it might be using the press to tell something more extreme in order to tell everybody ahead of time and kind of scare Russia from doing this because everyone knew ahead of time.

Well, it turns out everything they told us was true and happened. You know what they didn't do? They didn't spend all that time getting an S-300 system into their weapon system. They didn't spend all their time giving the 1980s Russian jets into theater. They didn't spend all this time stocking up on water and food and MREs.

And it just feels like everything's happening a little too late. Like this S-300 missile system, what this is, and I'm learning this as we go. Obviously, I'm not a military person, but it essentially can shoot a plane out of the sky in a plane that's flying higher than one that you can shoot out using a missile system. System that you carry on your shoulder, right? I remember I was talking to somebody in Ukraine on Fox and Friends First two weeks ago, and he was saying, That's what we need from America.

You know, these planes are one thing, but we need these missile systems. We need the Patriot missile system. And the fact that we're just getting around to it now, it just seems like we're behind the eight ball. Right. And you know what I love about it?

As Pete Hegsis was saying today, you know, it's up to Europe. They could take a lead. I'm fine with they want to take the lead. But they shouldn't take the lead because we didn't want to. They're taking the lead because we're not.

If they say, hey, listen, you mind if I take the lead here? We need to seem in charge. I need to show my population I care. I saw the demonstrations in the streets. I feel like we're I get it.

You got it. I'm on your team. But when they go, you're not going to step up, I guess I'll have to step up. That's my problem. We're acquiescing because we're not capable of making a quick decision.

And I am totally disappointed with our brain trust at the Pentagon. I could not be less impressed with the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Carly Shimkis is contractually obligated to be here one more segment. Are you going to fulfill that obligation? I will.

Back in a moment. Don't go anywhere. Brian Kilmead will be right back. The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Killmead.

If I did this, then it means that I stuck my fist in the fears of black Americans in this country for over 400 years and the fears of the LGBTQ community. Your Honor, I respect you and I respect what you're doing, but I did not do this. That is Jesse Smollett after getting lambasted for 45 minutes by a judge. Because we all know why, too, by the way. But you're not going to be able to do it.

I think in the face of a supply chain to learn that. I'm uh trying to get my the T V is coming back against me. Right here. There you go. I'm just gonna have to manually put the volume down.

But Carly Shimkis is here. And Carly, the one thing that, you know, normally it would be a bigger deal if we weren't witnessing a war in Ukraine and Russia, but Justice Smollett obviously staged his own hate crime at a time in which the country was already inflamed, at which time he exasperated racial tensions and everyone believed him. Kamala Harris ran to his defense. Every celebrity came out because he allegedly was a celebrity. I never heard of him.

And then he comes out and it turns out this is the worst concocted hate crime in the history of man. And the two people that did it, also black. uh from Nigeria. They explained the whole thing. This guy, everybody in the world knew he was lying.

And then he got destroyed by this judge. I know. I know. And I was surprised by his sentence. Five months in prison.

That's a big deal. I just assumed that he was gonna get probation and some, you know, a monetary fine. That's hu that's a huge deal. Yeah, and the judge, uh, This was all over Twitter. You turned your life upside down by your misconduct in shenanigans.

There's nothing that any sentencing judge can do to you that can compare to the damage you've already caused yourself. He went on to say something like: Jussie Smollett is now synonymous with the word lie. And it almost felt like it was part of Smollett's punishment. I think it was totally. I don't know the typical conduct of a judge, but in this case, I felt like that was completely appropriate.

It was just disgusting what he did. I'm just shocked if this is not a television show, why he would do it for 45 minutes. I believe everything he says here is your late-night joke, and everyone mocks you. But.

Okay. But why is a judge just lambasing him, saying, We know you lied repeatedly, a misdemeanor. I'm going to give you five months. Do you think he does have there's no cameras in the room? I don't know.

I don't know. I also don't know if it really matters. I mean, listen, I think that the greater deal here is the fact that he got the five months. He can it clearly he destroyed his own life. And this is just so outrageous because he was trying to inflame racial tensions.

Like you said, at a time when they were already, you know, peak inflamed. He tried to make conservatives and Trump supporters look like racists. He did this all to himself, and he's still sticking to the fact that he's innocent. I don't know. Maybe he has some psychological issues.

He clearly has some psychological issues. I mean, a sane person doesn't just do this. I was talking to my husband about it last night because he kind of makes fun of me for believing. I believe he's in the middle of the Chicago. Right, yeah, but the reason we're talking about it had nothing to do with that, but I believed him in the beginning, and my husband was like, Carly, this is clearly a lie.

And I just felt like, who would make this up? I mean, that's how crazy it is to me. Just who would make something like this up? And I was wrong. Right.

And he came out just to show you how nuts he is. He said, I would never shake my fist at 400 years of American injustice or black injustice. Yes, you did. You mocked it. And the next person that comes up and says that there's going to be a skeptical air about it.

People are going to really have to verify. And for Jesse Jackson and for Samuel L. Jackson, Al Sharpton to ask for leniency while not admitting this guy just lied and made their cause harder and their case harder to sell. I know. I just think that it would be just freeing for him.

I don't. Really care about how he feels, but it would be freeing for him if he just said, Listen, I screwed up. I did this. This was on me. I'm going to serve my time.

I apologize. And then maybe people can get over it. Maybe he can then rebuild his life, start getting the acting gigs. But as long as he's continuing to say that he is innocent and everybody knows he's not, it's just so weird and such a joke. Thank you.

Lastly, this is a little bit of a left turn, but there's one story percolating underneath that, regardless of how this war turns out, it's really going to matter. Keep your eye on Germany. This guy, Olaf Schultz, has already pledged 100 billion euros to start building up his defense, something they haven't done in 40 years. He also is saying they are going to start looking to that's 2% of their gross national product, looking to other avenue when it comes to oil and gas away from Russia, and then they're going to start rebuilding nuclear and start putting together a legitimate defense. I did not realize it.

But there's been an apologetic attitude in Germany since World War II to the degree it still exists in 2022. And they say that one way to show the world we have no interest in invading was to set up this relationship with Russia and why Donald Trump and others like us were exasperated. Why would you do this? It's like, well, I want to show there's no, I'm not going to invade again.

Now they can officially say We are, it's not our problem. They're the problem. And we are going to go elsewhere and no longer be economically tied to them. Keep your eye on this guy, Olav Schultz. He's the opposite of Angela Merkel, Angela Merkel, who created this deal with Russia, cut the defense spending, and now it feels like he's making up for lost time, doing the right thing.

Right. And she was born in East Germany. Maybe she never lost that Soviet mindset. Interesting perspective, Brian. Thank you very much.

I'll see you tomorrow on Fox and Friends 1st.

Sounds good. Daylight savings time. Don't oversleep. Can't wait. Back in a moment.

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 Brian Kilmicho. Come to you from New York, heard around the country, heard around the world, and of course, maybe really around the world.

Maybe people listening in the Ukraine just know we have their back. Could not be more impressed as they're under siege. By a Russian Military That, needless to say, is underperforming and overhyped. And maybe the biggest person the most surprised by how bad they're performing might just be Vladimir Putin. Geraldo Rivera is standing by, but before we get to Geraldo, let's see if there is indeed a big three.

Now with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. They finally have something that they think they can blame it on. But what was really notable about these numbers is that if you strip out some of the more volatile sectors like energy and food, the numbers are still eye-popping for everything else. And you certainly can't blame Vladimir Putin for rising restaurant prices or rising furniture prices.

That was Kimberly Strasso, Wall Street Journal, weighing in the economy. Who's to blame for the sky-high inflation, sky-rocketing gas prices, and our dependence on evil empires for energy? According to the administration, it is all Vladimir Putin and those evil oil companies. I have a different view. Number two.

Nord Stream 2. The SWIFT sanctions. The Stinger missiles. The banning of oil. What do all those things have in common?

In each of those cases, the administration said no. In each case, they said no. In each case, the administration did a 180. And they now support those things. Wow, suffocating American sanctions might be an illusion, and the maddening decision that have the Biden administration happily leading from behind is nuts.

Not only are we trailing our allies on weapons and economic attack plans, they're also lagging behind the Democrats in Congress. Number But they accuse us again that we are allegedly developing biological weapons. This makes me really worried because we've been repeatedly convinced. If you want to know Russia's plans, look at what Russia accuses others of. Here we go.

Here we are. Fight week two. Ukrainians gaining strength. The Russians inflict pain on the most vulnerable as they hit two cities previously untouched, and Russia tries to strangle Kharkiv and Maropol, who don't have heat, don't have water, don't have food. A guy who is no stranger to war zones himself, Geraldo Rivera, in studio at the bottom of the Arakal Rove.

Geraldo? First off, the biggest surprise to date about this conflict is now 16 days old. I think that's the biggest surprise. That in 16 days, not 24 hours, not 48 hours, but now into its third week, well into its third week, Russian forces have not in any way humbled Ukraine. They've inflicted awful suffering.

They've Devastated infrastructure. Their artillery, willy-nilly, has terrorized every city in eastern Ukraine. But look at Mariupol, for example, the city on the Black Sea. That city has been besieged with an iron vice. For two weeks, essentially.

And yet it holds. Yet the Ukrainian flag flies over Maripol, despite the fact that they are. Burying people in mass graves, despite the fact that they've blown up maternity hospitals, despite the fact that they've killed babies and torn open the stomachs of pregnant women, despite everything the Russians have done to terrorize that city, it holds. Ukraine holds.

Now they're encircling Kyiv, the capital. This will be the seminal battle. I don't know if the Russians have the spit anymore. I don't know th if they can. And if they do get into Kyiv.

With those Ukrainian fighters, with Klitschko, the boxer and his twin brother and all the rest of them, and then Zelensky. They're going to be grinding through that urban wasteland forever.

So I was always as usual when you asked the question, I got nine places to go. But one of which, when you talk about holding a city, I was shocked by this. Kearson is the only city that is held by By the Russians. And do you know what the Ukrainians are doing every day? They're protesting in the streets.

They're harassing the Russians.

So instead of them reconfiguring, reloading, and getting ready to take Mikolov, I think that's the way you say it, and then get set to take Odessa, they're bombing the heck out of Mikolaev. And at the same time, Kherson is not settled. That probably has everything to do with why Odessa is not hit. Odessa the big Port City, to where I trace my grandparents on my mom's side from Odessa. They fled the pogroms in the early 20th century.

So it's a city that is near and dear to you. Did you do that 23andMe? Did you know that? No, I did not know that, but I did 23andMe and found out. And actually, my nephew, Billy.

Presented me with the document. My niece, as you probably know, passed away. And so we were all talking about the family roots and everything. And we traced it back to Odessa. I mean, we knew, but then didn't specifically hone in on the fact that that's where the Friedman family hails from.

But it's just awful what's happening, right? It's stomach churning. And, you know, I heard the mention of the biological and the chemical weapons. I just want to say that there is no way. On God's green earth or God's convoluted earth, that the United States of America will allow chemical or biological weapons to be used.

Wow. That will be the red line that will unleash not only the MiG-29s, but an incremental jump in the U.S. contribution to the Ukrainian war effort. U.S. and they'll drag Western Europe in with them because this is.

Will not be tolerated. Civilization cannot sustain a biological or chemical weapon. I thought you were going to say the other way. I thought you were going to say there is no red line, there's no way on God's Green Earth we ever get involved there. But listen to Jen Saki answer that very question.

Why not consider some alternate strategy to communicate to Russia the consequence if they are to do a bio- or chemical weapon strike inside Ukraine? Like what? I'm asking you, in other words, why not communicate? You won't say if it's a red line, right? Because you won't say that it's not our intention right now.

So let me start there. Is there any red line for Russia that the U.S. would have some involvement when the military entered in Ukraine? I'm not going to get into red lines from here, Peter. What I would tell you is that when I said we have not let anything go unanswered, what I mean is that we have amped up a range of military and security assistance, a historic amount, to Ukraine, including a range of defensive weapons, which we've expedited the delivery.

Even in the last 10 days, we've delivered about $240 million of that. And also, we've provided a range of humanitarian assistance.

Okay, you got it.

So she's not going to answer the question. I don't necessarily blame her for that, but how do you strategize that? For example, we let everybody know every minute Article 5 is going to be reinforced. Article 5 is going to be reinforced. Just so you know, you hit Estonia, you hit Poland, we're bombing you back.

Got it? Understood. Do you say red line after Barack Obama used his Red Line line and didn't back it up and really pay we pay the price as a country for that? Once you draw the line in red, you have to you have to stand and back it up. I want you to remember the picture.

I think the photographer was Lindsay Adario on the front page of the New York Times on Monday. They had the family, the two children, and the mom and the neighbor. The four of them were with the suitcase after they crossed that hell bridge. And then they did profiles of them. But just remember the picture itself, the picture of the child.

And I never saw in the New York Times a picture of certainly not a white child, you know, because sometimes in Africa they put piles of victims of war crimes and so forth. But I've never seen it in Europe. I've never seen the faces of two little children who had been murdered by an artillery strike before. It was horrifying with their little quilted jackets and their knapsacks, their school knapsacks, murdered. Imagine now that same scene where their faces are distorted because they choked on gas.

Just imagine that scene. Two little children, their faces contorted. You brush me back by not acting. You say, Brian, you know, the war is hell. But you always brush me back when I say things like that, and I always respect it.

But now it seems as though. you feel differently. I do not believe the civilized world can tolerate that scene. I think that there is And at Mm. The rules of war are very uh they're interpreted opportunistically by whoever is on the decide being criticized.

The rules of war There is still some remnant. of civil civiliz civilized conduct. Gassing children is so far beyond that line, Brian. That I believe that it will. Escalate this conflict.

in a way that nobody knows where it stops. True. I am struck by a couple of things. With this administration Democratic-led House and Senate, When I played that Portman interview, there's a reason why I think it's significant that Portman said it. Mitt Romney sang it.

They go out of their way to reach across the aisle, especially in Portman's case. He's retiring. He's saying in every case, whether it's sanctions, whether it's not buying Russian oil, most favored nation trade status, whether it's going after Swift and Nordstrom II, the administration has said no. Congress said yes, and Europe has said yes. Are you comfortable with that?

To me, if you're elected president, it's incumbent on you to lead, not react to your own Congress and to Europe. I don't want to say I wish Mitt Romney was president right now, although I'm not mine. He is my favorite guy. Uh I trust what he is saying. I believe that he is a prudent Reasonable person.

Rob Portman, I like, you know, the retiring Ohio senator. I've interviewed him several times. Former OMB director, all of that. This Situation cannot stand where People are being wiped out. By an invading force, the United States has to stand.

for their survival. Romney's got it right. And I believe to answer your specific question about Joe Biden leading rather than or following rather than leading. And being timid. I'm much more tolerant of him.

And his prudence, and I understand the responsibility that he bears. And I thought he did a wonderful job in the run-up to the war where he released the intelligence, and we knew exactly when Russia was. But I was hoping they were arming Ukraine at the same time.

Well, I think they were by then arming Ukraine. They certainly weren't. That was in the last couple of weeks. But.

Is he the decisive war leader that we hope for? We have that person and his name is President Zelensky. Amazing. That's called leadership, instinctive leadership. Without notes, a guy that was, I guess, the storyline was he was a high school teacher who, through a tweet or through social media, captures everyone's attention, becomes president of Ukraine.

And then he goes, you know what, I'm going to run for president. And, you know, I'm doing this feature called Who is President Zelensky after who is Vladimir Putin. And in looking back at his background, I know why Putin thought he was a soft guy and an easy touch. Number one, he ran on I'm going to have better relations with Vladimir Putin. Number two, when he was coming up as a comic and as a performer, his goal was to play in Moscow.

And that was his goal. He looked up to Russia, and he was born in which was once the Soviet area.

So he didn't have that negative feeling. Plus, as a comic, Vladimir Putin's look at him and go, really? Do you know who you're dealing with? And now this guy stood up. And you could tell even when an actor is performing.

I can't, even Will Smith, I can tell when he's acting, except for the Richard Williams thing. That was unbelievable. He's not acting. This guy feels the leadership in his town. I I sense it.

But I I think there's an absence of imagination overall. I want you to hear Ambassador Michael McFaul, who was ambassador for 4-2 Russia, for Barack Obama, CUT 22. But if we can establish, and I think we have established, by the way, that Putin was more, that was more bark than bite, that he is not going to go on a suicide mission and launch a nuclear Holocaust, then you have to say, well, what is between where we're at now and below the threshold of nuclear Holocaust? It's a lot. And when we say we're in fear of escalation, I want some more fidelity to what that means because I don't think he can attack NATO right now for the reasons I already described.

Just as a posture, even the way we talk, we have to talk with more confidence about what we're doing. The world wants us to be stronger, not just the Ukrainians, but in the Middle East, in Asia. They want us to be stronger. And I think we need to understand that that has implications for what we do in Ukraine. If we lose in Ukraine, that has giant implications for our strategic posture around the world.

And I think rather than being cautious, we need to lean into that fight and do whatever we can. to not give Putin a victory in Ukraine. It's a diplomat. And I'm all for everything he said. And I think that that is true.

And I think that Putin understands that it is true. That's why I can't figure out what Putin had in mind when he did this. Why did he do it? Why did he invade Ukraine? He got away with Georgia.

He got away with Donbass and Crimea. And he thought, this is going to be the same thing. I'm just last thing really on this. One of the imaginative things one of these military guys came out and said, said, why don't we start getting them thinking about us? If they're going to take twenty thousand troops out of Syria, why don't we tell the Kurds to go get on the offensive?

Start moving on the Syrian capital. Make w make Russia think twice. Where are our chips deployed? Why aren't we somehow going into the Black Sea on maneuvers in international waters? Why don't we get them thinking about what we're up to?

Black Sea's uh Very difficult. And Turkey is in charge of who goes in and out of the Black Sea.

So it would be interesting what Erewhan would do. I don't know what the Turkish leader would do. I want to say, I've got to flash back to one thing: to Zelensky, where we started the segment. Zelensky cannot be killed now. It is impossible for him to die.

He will not ever die. He is immortal. He has made himself the Leonidas of Ukraine. He's indelible now in the history. If he dies, he'll be bigger than he is even in life.

And it could be that he can still win this, that he can be the Alamo, that Kiev can withstand the assault. And so far as what we do and how far we take this, Can you imagine? With Putin's army, his vaunted army, and all the all the video that they've released and all they've been playing, can you imagine him trying to go into Poland with that army? I hear you. He'd be chopped to pieces.

Yeah, only thing he could do is try to get China involved, and they won't do it. Roda Rivera sticks around for one more segment because I really force him to, because I teased that he's going to stick around for one more segment. I didn't even go over that with him back in a moment. Both sides, all opinions. It's Brian Killmead.

If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead. Geraldo Rivera is starving. He needs to get breakfast or lunch or both. Gerardo, do you have the five tonight?

Not tonight. No, I don't do Friday. But are you doing a special? Johnny Carson told me that. You should learn that.

Which is what? Try never to work on Friday. Right. Can you tell Suzanne Scott that? I did do Fox and Friends, but then I'm off.

Right. But it also had the opportunity for Dean Martin to fill in and Jay Leonard to fill in and other people. Joan Rivers. Right. And then, Joan, that worked out well.

Geraldo, Leslie, are you enjoying the five and all the specials you're doing and everything like that? I mean, you didn't plan on working this much, right? You wanted to be special, be a contributor. Yeah, they should have given that this damn job 10 years ago. I tell you that much.

You know, I never expected at age 78 to sign a long-term contract and get a gig on a big hit show. I didn't. That was never in my mind. Number one. Show number one show, often we go head to head with Tucker Carlson.

But it's a wonderful mix. You've done the show many times. You know, I love that there's the banter, but that is also a serious presentation, and the different ideological, philosophical, political points of view are all represented. And there's respect, there's mutual respect.

Sometimes, you know, it gets heated, but I think that's what it is. But it's all real. It's nothing not real. Nothing not real. Nothing not real.

And I think Harold Ford's a great example. Just Shanina's great. She's wonderful. But it doesn't cut on ideological lines. I know roughly, I don't know every time what Greg's going.

I don't know where you're going ever. I mean, I'm totally unpredictable. And I think there's a mutual respect there. But in all the shows that you've done, you're by yourself, being an ensemble, 2020. Why do you think the five worst?

Pull yourself out of it for a second. Why do you think? I think that's a great question. I think Roger Ails was a genius to have the idea. I really do think that it's the news and you get all the information you need, but it's not the end of the world every day.

Right. A little bit upbeat. A little bit upbeat. Right. All right, Geraldo, you can eat, and no, I will not pay for your lunch or your breakfast.

It's a radio show. I don't have that type of budget. It's a great my pleasure, buddy. All right, go get him, Geraldo. Thanks.

Back in a moment. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. Are you guys just gonna start blaming Putin? for everything.

Until the midterms?

Well, we've seen the price of gas go up at least 75 cents since President Putin lined up troops on the border of Ukraine. Last month, the statement didn't mention the Putin price hike. It mentioned inflation because of the pandemic. Why is that?

Well, Peter, last year, last two years, there was a pan global pandemic. Everyone who's global economists have all agreed that that has been the biggest contributor to date of inflation because of the impact on the supply chain. Obviously, global events impact the economy, the global economy, as well as global inflation. And the price hikes as a result that have escalated over the course of time of President Putin's further invasion, of the impact on the global oil markets, are, of course, having an impact.

Well, Larry Summers, among the people who do not believe. That uh uh believe that they are immune. Uh the The administration is not as immune. From Taking total responsibility for what's happening in inflation as well as what's happening with gas and oil prices. But he wants to blame Putin.

Will anyone buy that? A guy who's a master of messaging joined us now, Carl Rove. You know Karl Rove. He doesn't even need an introduction. Carl?

Can you appreciate how the administration is looking to pass the blame?

Well, I can understand they don't want to be responsible for it. But look, you mentioned Larry Summers. Larry Summers, in I think it was February of twenty twenty one, shortly after President Biden took office, Uh said inflation was not transitory and that the build back excuse me, the American Rescue Plan would make things worse. And he was right. The government spent between the summer of 2020 and the fall of 2021, the amount of government spending that was pumped into the economy was equal normally it's about 20% of GDP over the course of a year.

It was 100% of GDP during that period.

So the government was spending, by borrowing from the future, as much money as we normally have in our economy in a year. And What happened? we ended up with too much money chasing too few goods, and prices began to rise last year dramatically. In fact, the latest inflation numbers, 7.9% year over year, that's through February. That's before Putin.

That's before the invasion of Ukraine. And in the last three months, December, January and February, it's up eight point four percent. The bulk of the increase in oil prices and the bulk of the prices increase prices that we pay at the pump, they happened before Ukraine became an issue. And so blaming it on Putin, fine. Putin's responsible for a couple of for a little bit of it, but most of it is this administration's policies and the fiscal policy of the United States that is depreciating the value of the American currency by spending money we don't have and borrowing it.

Very true. And I think there's one other thing that's happening, and listen, I'm loving to see the Russians being unmasked as nothing but cruel behemoths who are not nearly the fighting force that everyone thought they were. It's great news for the entire region and especially for Western Europe and for the NATO alliance. But they have to pay the price here. And that's why it's so important that they cannot survive this intact and in the perfect world.

Vladimir Putin will be done, finished, he'll be through. Senator Rob Portman pointed something out. And I think you agree, Carl, he's probably the least political Republican, even less political than Mitt Romney. Cut 33. Nord Stream 2.

The Swift sanctions. The Stinger missiles. The banning of oil. What do all those things have in common? In each of those cases, the administration said no.

In each case they said no. And in each case, members of Congress, Republican and Democrat alike, took to this podium and the floor of the Senate And other places. and talk to you in the media. And in each case, the administration did a One eighty. And they now support those things.

So I'm not losing hope. I think this makes sense. I think this is the right thing to do. And he talked, and when he says the right thing to do is to give him MiGs. But he talked about how the Democratic-led Congress has pushed the president to act, not necessarily to do something different.

The president just, I guess, instinctively wants to do nothing all the time.

Well, I think I think he's absolutely right that the administration did a flip-flop. I'd add one other thing on it. And look, let me say this first. I applaud what the administration has done. I wish they had done it earlier.

I mean, to put yourself in Vladimir Putin's pro position. He's looking at, first of all, he he remembers well the Obama Biden years, where we were weak and feckless on the world stage. And so his inclination is that Biden is going to repeat the mistakes of not responding to Syria, of not responding when he moved in and took Crimea, being weak and flat feckless. In comes Biden, january twentieth, twenty twenty one. almost immediately cancels the Excel pipeline, almost immediately takes says we're going to pause on issuing permits to drill on federal land and federal water for our hydrocarbons.

Almost immediately. And he looks at that and says, you've achieved energy independence, which is a strategic weapon in the arsenal of democracy. Why are you taking it away? I'm glad you are, but why are you doing that? Then in March, they put out the defense budget, a 2% increase, less than inflation.

And not only that, but when they put out the defense budget, they herald what? All of the money that they're going to be spending on climate. We're going to have electric non-combat vehicles, and eventually we'll have electric combat vehicles. Yeah, yeah.

Sorry, General Patton, but the skies are clouded over the bulge, and we're not able to move the tanks because their solar panels haven't replenished.

So Then in May The President, without getting anything, removes the sanctions placed on Nord Stream two by the by Trump. It gets nothing out of it. Then in June, Because he's going to go see Putin. Easy. Pulse.

the tr transfer of lethal weapons to To Ukraine. Why? Because he's going to go see Putin. And Putin looks at all this and says, we can fetch less, and then along comes the retreat from Afghanistan, where we have less than 3,000 people. And the last combat death was almost a year and three quarters before, and we have no combat role, but our presence there is keeping the Taliban at bay.

And we give it up and pull out in the disaster that we all saw on our television cameras. And what does Vladimir Putin say? He says, even America will run. And so he miscalculated both about the Ukrainians and the United States and NATO. And the resistance that he would run into and the effectiveness of his own troops.

But there was a reason why he ended up doing what he did, and that is he looked as a rational actor at the Biden, the Obama-Biden administration, and then Biden's actions as president and said, I can get away with this. Absolutely. I think you're right on all those counts. And just the thing is, in life, Carl, with you and I, if you and I are in a fight, and my gesture to you would be, find something that you want get done and I get it done, that would be an overture of my outstretched hand. Vladimir Putin does not respond to that.

Remember, Barack Obama moves the missile shield from the Czech Republic and Poland without being asked, as a gesture of goodwill because it bothered him. He saw it as weakness. Remember when he leaned over and said, Tell Vladimir I can work with you, he saw it as weakness. In the West, we would think it as an alternative. Right.

But normally, if that's somebody you want to make peace with, a Democrat on the other side, hey, Chuck Schumer, if you're Mitch McConnell, maybe we could work together on immigration reform as. after the midterm election. That's how we work. But every time that we show that we want to work with Vladimir Putin, he looks at his weakness. And I did not know this, but one of the Zelensky ran on having better relations with Russia.

He says, I bet you I'm going to get along better with Vladimir Putin than you, Prashenko. And that helped him win. But guess how Vladimir Putin interpreted weakness. When you do this MIG deal, you would think you're being calculated and smart. He looks at it as weakness.

We have to understand our opponent. Do you agree? I totally agree. And look, I understand the Poles don't want to look like they are, you know, they want a lateral. it to us and be our decision.

But make our decision. I mean, we're already making this issue. You think Putin is sitting there saying, oh, yeah, the United States isn't doing anything. anything when it transfer when it transfers stingers uh and and and and and javelin anti-tank missiles they're they're they're you know when and so the ukrainians can defend themselves the But I'm going to b get really upset if they allow them to fly old Soviet aircraft. No.

I mean, he's already if he's going to be angry, he's already going to be angry. Carl, you know this is historic time. You know that we haven't had this opportunity since Gorbachev and Yeltin took over and gave indications that they were trying to be part of the world community. Then Putin came in and changed all that.

Now, whether you think in retrospect in the West, going ahead and allowing the Baltic nations and others to come into NATO, we can debate that in some think tank. But now, Vladimir Putin's put his best foot forward. He reportedly fired nine separate generals. If you believe some of the reports from Ukraine, let's say half for true, he's lost between 5,000 and 9,000 troops. That's more than Iraq and Afghanistan with us over the course of 15 to 20 years.

So you are being exposed now as NATO has never looked more unified, and Sweden and Finland are indicating they want in. What do you sh what is the message? to the American people now about why Ukraine matters. It it matters because If Putin suggested Succeeds. It says: if you are a strong man, if you are a dictator, an autocrat.

and you want to invade a sovereign neighbor and subjugate the them by violence, you have a license to do so. It says that Russia is on Yeah. and you better be on their side. or be friendly to them or accede to their demands. Fall into their orbit.

If you're in Central Europe or the same thing could happen to you. It also gives license to China to follow suit. If if Russia can pull it off, Surely they can pull it off. And the order that we have known since World War two, where there have been relatively few, relatively few. There's been no worldwide conquest, no worldwide war.

There's been no war in Europe outside of the war in the Balkans. Uh since World War II. That'll be ended. The international order as we know it. of respect for the borders of sovereign nations.

for mechanisms that allowed us to avoid war breaking out everywhere all the time. Those things will be diminished or gone entirely. See, my thing is is that we have an opportunity now. Or to confront this in every way possible without directly going against Russia because of this whole proxy war, Cold War, unsaid rules that we've practiced from Vietnam to Korea to Afghanistan. We'll supply the opposition, but we won't go directly at you.

And we could even make our stand here where it's going to be even harder in two or three years. It's going to be even much harder in five years. Can we do one thing for the next generation and help them out in one area?

Now, you know about messaging, and you know about blaming Vladimir Putin for oil and gas. You know the oil and gas industry, and they've been on their heels apologetic for spending their lives in fossil fuel. It is time for them to stand up and explain exactly what this administration has done to hurt them because they are vilifying them, saying, Look at all the leases that are left, look at all the opportunities we've had to look at how we've allowed all these other permits to take root. We have decided to let you drill as much as possible. We're drilling more this year than Trump's first year.

Oil and gas industry has to stand up and explain what this administration has actually done. Will they do it? I think so. And I know I've read a very strong letter, for example, from the head of the Largest natural gas company in America that he sent to the administration and to Elizabeth Warren saying. And you don't know what you're talking about when you blame us for high prices in New England.

Yeah. The real problem with natural gas prices in New England is there's no pipeline to send the gas there. That's why you pay 10 times as much. Much in New England that people pay in Ohio or pay. Pennsylvania.

or West Virginia. They're pipelines that bring the natural gas to them. But yeah, they need to step up. There's one other thing we need to do, though, as a country, and that is the same thing. is we need to stop running ourselves down.

We are the only military. Major industrialized economy in the world. that has done two things simultaneously. grown our economy and reduced for almost twenty years the absolute level of greenhouse gas emissions. almost every year, year over year.

for nearly for several decades. We're the only ones. We're the only ones that are doing it. If the rest of the world was doing what we are doing, remember. China's not even supposed to began reducing its emissions.

And greenhouse gases until 2035 or 2040. If they were doing what we were doing, This problem that if you have a problem about climate, if you're concerned about it and you want fewer greenhouse gas emissions, Then you ought to be applauding what the United States is doing and saying, how can we take what is happening in the US of A and get other countries to model their cells on us? because we're the only ones that are doing it.

So let's stop apologizing. If you're worried about greenhouse gases, look at the greenhouse. Look at the United States, and we're providing the leadership for the world. I repeat, the only major industrialized economy in the world that's both growing its economy so life is more prosperous for its people and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Another pie in the sky statement.

I think maybe on some level, as the American people are united in backing Ukraine. And see, they're just fighting for freedom. As imperfect as their government was, they are desperate to be part of the West, not the East. Do you think we're recalibrating and maybe understanding what we're taking for granted every day: a free and open democracy? Do you think at some point, the kitchen table, dining room, or the dinette set, they're talking about that?

Final thought? I think you're right. In fact, I wrote my column yesterday about The first poll that I've seen that had a lot of detail on Ukraine and the attitudes of the American people. And it surprised me looking at the partisan break. Yeah.

relatively united. Democrats, Republicans and Independents are about who's to blame for this. the necessity to stand with the people of Ukraine. the necessity of providing them arms and And Uh and and weapons and Yeah. And even on the question as controversial as refugees, how united we are that we have a moral obligation to to take some of the people who are suffering.

Uh and fleeing the violence. And welcome them to our country. Yep, Vladimir Putin brought together NATO, the European Union, and helped America. Thanks, Vladimir. I owe you one.

Thanks so much, Karl Rove. You bet. You got it. We're going to come back and wrap things up. Also, a special look at Germany and why they matter.

Politics, current events, and news that affects you. Brian's got a lot more to say. Stay with Brian Kilmead. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show.

We are clear. that any intentional attack are targeting. of civilians. It's a war crime. Period.

Full stop. That was Vice President Harris. Just in Romania and still not going to the border there. Quick thing: I do have something to announce. Number one, One Nation will be on at 8 and 11 o'clock.

We've got cutting-edge guests, including David Petraeus. He might be the best active, I guess he's retired, but the best general in modern American history, and then the most respected guy who mentored him is another great one, and that is General Jack Keene. Also, we have news: there's a problem with the Iranian talks. Why? Because it looks like.

The Russians are saying we will only do this and move forward with this terrible Iranian deal if we make Iran immune from further sanctions. That's a non-starter. Everyone left the room. Hopefully, it stops forever. Why does Germany matter?

Germany matters because it's made the most dramatic change of policies in the quickest period of time in my lifetime. They are now going to switch and start putting $100 billion into their defense to get over 2% of their defense. They are now going to make a conscience effort, an all-hands-on-deck effort to get off Russian oil and gas. And they're going to be looked to produce their own as well as start pushing nuclear energy. They're going to have a new stance, a leadership stance.

I don't want a muscular Germany. I want a Germany that's determined to protect the West and no longer be apologetic for what happened in World War I and World War II. This guy can do it. He's already done it. That's some more good news that's come out of this horrible conflict.

From the Fox News Radio Studios in New York City, giving you opinions and facts with a positive approach. It's Brian Kilmead. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. It's the Brian Kilmean Show 1866-408-7669. General Jack Keene, who's actually on television right now, will be joining us at the bottom of the hour.

Things are really moving in Ukraine as they begin to break up that convoy, start sending it into the woods in some cases for cloud for some cover, and others, other parts of the 40-mile convoy are going to ring around Kyiv. They're going to have a hard time if they're going to get into urban fighting. I'm talking about the Russians. I'm not saying they're not going to inflict some hurt because they have no values, they have no ethics. Do you know that they bombed two separate places?

Yesterday. One they aimed at a kindergarten, the other just at the middle of town square. Let's get to the big three.

Now with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. They finally have something that they think they can blame it on. But what was really notable about these numbers is that if you strip out some of the more volatile sectors like energy and food, the numbers are still eye-popping for everything else. And you certainly can't blame Vladimir Putin for rising restaurant prices or rising furniture prices.

The economy, who's to blame for the sky-high inflation, skyrocketing gas prices, and our dependence on evil empires for energy? According to the administration, Vladimir Putin, oil companies, and of course you. Number two. Nord Stream 2. The SWIFT sanctions.

The Stinger missiles. The banning of oil. What do all those things have in common? In each of those cases, the administration said no. In each case, they said no.

In each case, the administration did a 180. Suffocating American sanctions. It's kind of an illusion. And the manning decision that have been the Biden administration's happily leading from behind is embarrassing. Not only are they trailing our allies when it comes to weapons and economic attack plans, they're also lagging behind the Dems in Congress.

Number They accuse us again, us that we are allegedly developing biological weapons. This makes me really worried because we've been repeatedly convinced. If you want to know Russia's plans, look at what Russia accuses others of. Sadly, that might be right. Here we are, day 16, week two.

Ukrainians gaining strength. The Russians inflict pain on the most vulnerable people in Ukrainian society as they try to strangle Kharkiv and Maripol, but they cannot take either city. We have to find a way to supply both those places. With me right now is Dr. Marty McCary.

And Dr. McCary, in particular, I know we always focus on what's going on with COVID-19. But when you look at what's happening in these cities, They're living in rubble. There in the case of those two cities in particular, there is no food, there is no water. I mean, How much time do you have with neither one of the with either one of those things at your at your uh at your fingertips?

Well, Brian, it's really concerning because you can basically go about three days with zero water.

Now, assuming people have a little bit of water reserves, some bottles, may have filled up their bathroom tub with water, which is a known emergency strategy that people use. Maybe you can get a couple of weeks out of it, but not much more. And so that's the concern here. And my bigger concern was the bombing of the hospital. That is a line that's never been crossed in war until Syria.

That's when the first time we saw hospitals bombed. And you know who's coming into the fight? Syria, because the Russians are running out of troops. The other thing to keep in mind, too, is the virus is still out there. I was struck to see that China is now dealing with Omnicron.

And this might be, even though Omnicron, I guess, could be characterized as less virulent, it spreads easier, and they're having a real hard time arresting everyone that has it. Yeah, their vaccine that they really pushed hard on their citizens. Doesn't really work as well.

So, not only do they have Omicron, but they have immunity from the vaccine that's not as protective.

So, they cannot contain it. They've been playing whack-a-mole and they've been trying to do COVID-0 strategies. And we've been knowing that it's going to self-destruct at some point. You cannot use a COVID-0 policy in a country with over a billion people. One of the things that got under Vladimir Putin's skin is Zelensky says, I'm not going to use your vaccine.

I'm going to get mine from the West. And they got it from us. What is the their Sputnik vaccine like?

So they won't really disclose the data, but we've seen other countries have an experience with it. And we think the efficacy back when ours was about ninety percent efficacious, theirs was forty percent to sixty percent efficacious. And from there, it goes down with the different variants over time.

So a couple of studies that really stood out. Number one, I'm watching yesterday as people trying to figure out what was right and what was wrong about COVID. I want you to hear first off what CDC Director Walinski said about masks. The evidence is clear. Masks can help prevent the spread of COVID-19 by reducing your chance of infection by more than 80%.

In combination with other steps like getting your vaccination, hand washing, and keeping physical distance, wearing your mask is an important step you can take to keep us all healthy. Really? First off, that number was farcical. Has it proven to be as ludicrous? Uh we thought it was lunacris then.

Has is it proven to be that now? Yeah, I would say now there's more of a consensus. And there's more data to show that that is absolutely incorrect.

So this just feeds a long line. Of lies that people have been hearing for two years, and they want closure, they want an apology, they're sick of it. We heard lies about warning of the pandemic. Surface transmission of the virus. Cloth masks.

The three foot and six foot games, school closures, ignoring natural immunity, And the list is long.

So now they're making in New York and other various places. Preschoolers, two to four, wear masks. Uh what school of thought does Though those people s subscribe to. They're subscribing to the old concept that the vaccines. Eliminate transmission.

And so They're using an outdated concept to say that We can't allow them to transmit and because they can't get vaccinated, we have to cover their faces.

Well, they're ignoring the fact that the CDC has still never told us if any healthy child in the United States has ever died of COVID. In Germany, they gave us that result in a big study. It was zero healthy children. All the deaths were clustered in people with specific comorbidities.

So the The concern now is parents are looking at their kids. And the kids are sad. Smiles are contagious. happiness is contagious, and they're seeing a change. In the mood of their kids, and they're not happy.

So, there's a study that says young students have suffered the most. They have dropped in reading skills during the pandemic because those formative years they weren't able to do it.

Some didn't go to the remote school, especially in underserved communities. And now they're dealing with an emergency situation, right? It's not too late, but there has been a leveling off of traditional growth. of kids in America. That's right, the cloth masks did really nothing to reduce transmission, but what they did do is stunt child development.

And people are seeing through it now. They're seeing the kids, they're not right, right? The kids are not growing up the way that. kids in schools where they had no master growing up. And where's the study by the C D C Of the kid of the kids who were in schools that were open the entire time with no masks.

and the opposite, the kids Who had a lot of closures and then were wearing masks throughout? That is an easy study to do. But nobody in the government is interested in funding that study right now. It's pretty obvious what the results are and the results they don't want to know.

So the New York Times does a story, and they say the New York Times said vaccinations, boosters, shots, and masks have not caused a major difference in case rates between because parts of the country with different levels of COVID-19 precautions. This came out on Wednesday. The article compared COVID-19 cases for Democrats and Republican areas, noting that Dems were more likely to wear masks, get vaccinated, get boosted, and avoid public spaces. They found out that, noting that the Democrats are more likely to do all those things, they see these factors seem as if they should have caused large differences in case rates. They conclude they have not, and they haven't offered any clarity about the relative effectiveness of different COVID interventions.

So, what they're trying to say is those didn't work. We're not even sure what worked. You know, how hard would it be for public health officials to just say, You know we got something really wrong. We thought the vaccine was going to prevent you from getting it or spreading it. We were wrong.

What it really does is it downgrades the severity of illness if you get it. That that's not a a big uh confession. That's hard to make. As doctors, we often tell people: look, the data has changed, but we're not hearing that. And what you're seeing is sort of a digging in on their positions.

And they're alienating people.

So now we've got people who are distrustful, and they're saying, hey, you've also been ignoring therapeutics and other things.

So right now, you've got two entirely different perceptions. of the same public health establishment.

So they did a study of the people that watch Whatever Network and talk, do you trust the CDC? The highest CNN and MSNBC, 85% trust the CDC right now. It started off, everybody started off at the same place at 84%. For local, if you just follow local television, local news, you're around 60%. If you follow Fox, it's between 42% with a rapid drop in 2022.

Have you noticed the difference when you look at your patients, Dr. McCarry? From what you know, without saying, hey, by the way, what's your blood type and what news do you watch? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, um, I do notice a difference, and I did see that that poll that just came out.

And it's sort of like You know Do people trust the WHO? And early on, you had this sort of naivete where you had a lot of people just in good faith assumed this is a good institution. And other people started doing research and listening and learning and reading. And what they would find is that there's a lot of problems. You could say the same is true of the government or any government or China.

The more you learn, the more you start to ask questions. My parents grew up in a State control T V country, Egypt.

So they didn't believe anything the government was telling them. And so now people are recognizing, even the New York Times put out a piece saying the CDC has been hiding a lot of data. to promote their agenda. Finally, After two years of dangling fear to young people and Parroting whatever government health officials feed them. Even the New York Times is on to the CDC.

Although the 60 Minutes feature with the CDC director was the biggest wet kiss I've ever seen on 60 Minutes outside the Chris Appleton one. I was looking for a 1-800 number to donate to the CBC on time. Did you believe that? I mean, why not just hit her with a question of, you know, only 27% of the American adult population believes you. You've gotten quite a bit wrong.

And just let them defend themselves. But instead, you just talked about how much they've learned along the way. That should have been one-third of the story. 60 Minutes used to be a class in journalism.

Now it's a class in agenda politics in way too many cases. But I digress. Lastly, we're coming up on a year. I know I am since I've gotten vaccinated. What should we do about that?

My electronic pass is about to expire. A lot of people out there got Johnson and Johnson. They're about to expire.

So my second one is up April 17th. What do you think I should do? I think anyone, first of all, who got J and J should be getting at least a second dose, and that's for everybody. If you had the infection, Which is most Americans, you can hold off on doing anything else for now after your primary vaccine series. And for everybody else, that is people who have not had the infection and they've just had the two doses, if they're over 50.

I think it's important to get another dose right now because in the UK, they're starting to see a little uptick in hospitalizations, and that that's specifically in older folks because They believe the vaccine is starting to wear off a little bit. Uh Pfizer or or Moderna? I think if you're over age 30, Moderna is a good way to get a little extra. Strength. Otherwise, Pfizer is fine for somebody under 30.

Dr. McCarry, how much do I owe you for this session? It's going to be 15 cents. 15 cents.

So will you satisfy my deductible? Instead to see how much you use this year. All right, fantastic. Dr. Okari, appreciate it.

Have a great weekend. You got it. Listen, when we come back, there's some developments to go over. The Vice President of the United States is in Romania, expressed a display of unity. No word yet if we're going to be taking any of these refugees that have come from this war-torn country that have flooded the Romanian borders.

None like Poland overall, 2.5 million people have left Ukraine. There's 40 million there, and they're still under the fight. Also, keep in mind, two other cities were hit last night, so opening up the first expanded battlefield for the Russians in quite some time, who seem to be stuck in a lot of different cities. This is a key moment in this battle. It's a battle that Ukraine has to survive, and when they survive, they win.

Brian Killmead Show, don't move. You're called. This weekend, check out Brian's new show on Fox News Channel. His new Saturday show lets him ruin your weekends, too. Take it easy, Gutfeld.

That really hurts. One Nation with Brian Killmead. Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern on Fox News Channel. More of Brian coming up.

The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. The peace talks are up there, but let's be honest, uh there is very little room for compromise. Because as as the situation is, it's the following. The Russians want us dead and we want to stay alive.

There is no real compromise on those. Uh you can either be dead or alive. There is uh very little room for uh debating about that. That is a little of the feeling that is taking place right now in the battlefield, which is Ukraine. That is almost every city seems to be under siege or actually handling some devastating losses to a humiliated Vladimir Putin.

If he's being honest with himself and if he's getting honest reports from the field, that was Enon Suvan. She's a Ukrainian minister. And she is uh so holding out in Kyiv, the capital. Here's more from her. Cut for.

We are extremely sceptical about the potential talks in the future, and particularly because the Russians are putting demands that are just unthinkable. They want us to surrender, which is making no sense just because to begin with, we are fighting for our country. It's not possible for someone to say that Or you just have to surrender because we have uh come here and we bombarded your cities, so now you have to do what we tell you to do. Uh that is not acceptable to us, and that shouldn't be acceptable to the world community overall. Right.

Right now, I understand too. A couple of things have developed. The President of the United States has revoked the most favored trade status from Russia.

So little by little, trying to make things worse and worse, the ruble continues to drop. The stock market will not open. Julie listening on 971 in St. Louis. Hey, Julie.

Hey there. Hey, imagine if a few weeks ago Someone had said to Putin, if you do this, you will see a fire and fury like the world has never seen, which is what Trump said to North Korea. When you're dealing with somebody like that, you have to consider the ego. Once they make a bad decision, as Putin did, they don't care about anything but saving face and not looking like an idiot.

So you can't allow them to make that first move because Once the horse is out of the barn, they're not going back. You always have to think about that in a negotiation. You can't just let them come in and think that you will get them to leave because they're not rational actors. When ego takes over, the thing I don't understand is why Zelinski told everyone to remain calm. Like he as well, you know, if everybody had been united with all the sanctions.

and letting Russia know what would happen if they invaded, that all should have been mobilized in advance. I mean, I understood the school of thought saying if we get the sanctions without them going in, what would stop them from going in? We could have phased them in. Uh I understood it. He miscalculated.

We obviously would approach it differently. The one thing different, Julie, we said if he tried to hit us with missiles, we'll hit him back with a fire and fury he'll never understand. They're never, the Russia never threatened us. It was always another country. And that's where it was dicey.

And it was a country we didn't have a defensive alliance with. If we did, it probably wouldn't have happened. When we come back, we're going to talk to Jack King. We're gonna go latest in the war. The talk show that's getting you talking.

You're with Brian Kilmead. I think this administration has dropped the ball and invited this kind of aggression. But there's no off-ramp for Putin at this point. And he's facing, I think, a very humiliating endgame here. And I don't know how he's going to react to that.

There's a real threat of nuclear war? Personally, I I don't think it's there's that much of a threat of a nuclear war. Because that would mean, you know, the extinction of both the Russians and the American people. And I don't think Putin would go that far. That is William Barr weighing in.

I could not believe, in talking to him during the week, how conversant he is on world affairs and how tapped in he is, as well as his strong opinions on just about everything. William Barr's book is now out and doing exceedingly well. But it brings us to our topic of the day with our guest of the day, General Jack Keene, chairman of the Institute for the Study of War and Fox News Senior Strategic Analyst. General Keene, we have eliminated most favored trade status on On Russia, we continue to try to tighten the noose economically. We know that they have all types of restrictions.

As the West is leaving, they're starting to from McDonald's to Pepsi to Apple to Microsoft to American Express Visa to MasterCard. The list goes on, it's huge. They're going to start nationalizing different institutions. What do your sources say things are like in Russia?

Well, I Yeah. From what I understand Yeah. Yeah. The everyday Russian person has not been overwhelmingly affected by any of this. But it's that it's gradually starting.

Um And certainly the The people who are wealthier, who are into the stock market, I'm talking about the Russian stock market, who are. considerable amount of assets. Uh certainly they're impacted more. Working class people are less. But the truth is, all of the Russian economy over time.

will be impacted. And the other thing is, is that While me a number of the elites And and young people uh who are Very adept at using the internet, even though it's largely shut down now in Russia and international uh broadcasters and journalists are out of there. Um the working class people Um They never do much of that anyway. And so it's going to take some time for them to understand. the truth of what has taken place.

The overwhelming majority of the Russian people are still accepting the state narrative. That This Movement into Ukraine was completely justified by the Ukrainians committing genocide on Russians. And of course there there's more to the narrative than that, but y we get the drift here. It it's a big bold-faced lie. But eventually, that will catch up to the Russian people.

Uh the body's gonna have to be shipped home at some point. And it ev even a conservative estimate It tells you 5,000 killed. in a two-week period. That exceeds anything That the United States has done, I think you'd likely have to go back. That's World War II.

Possibly the Korean War, uh I'd have to go do some research. But nothing in the Vietnam War, any other conflict that we've been involved in comes close to anything like that.

So that is significant, and those casualties are going to mount, Brian. True. A couple of things changed. Last night, the Russians extended the battlefield. They targeted the city of Lotsk.

Uh, in the western area and uh Dnipro in central Ukraine. Why would they do that off the top of your head from what you know about those cities?

Well, from what I understand, particularly in the West, I don't know about Nepro. They finally got around to dealing with the operating airfields that Ukrainians are using for their air aircraft. They've got fifty six aircraft still flyable. And they've kept them, from what I understand, largely in the West, but I don't know that for certain. They possibly move them around as well to keep the Russians off guard.

But I I'm I'm a little surprised that it it took this long to go after all of those aircraft. But It may ha I don't know if it has anything to do with uh You know, the political football going on in the United States over MiGs out of Poland or not, but. Yes, that that was the primary target, not the people, i Ukrainian aircraft.

So a senior defense official said on Tuesday that most Ukraine is under an umbrella of Russian anti-aircraft, that some of these surface-to-air missiles have a range of up to 250 miles. How effective can an outdated MiG fighter be in Ukraine against Russian air defense? Not very effective. And that is why they're only flying five to six sorties a day.

So Ukrainian aircraft, while they have a lot of them, And I think the reason why they have a lot of them is because they're not flying them.

So what what is effective Um Certainly is when the when the Russian aircraft come down low, because they're using more gravity bombs than they're using joint direct attack munitions, which are GPS guided bombs where you can deliver those bombs from high altitude. When they come down low, they're susceptible to the Stinger missile. Which could knock them out, and they have been knocking them out and knocking out also. uh their helicopters But Russia owns the airspace. just about all of Ukraine is covered.

Uh by SAM radar and SAM missiles. And what that means, as soon as an aircraft takes off any place, Uh in Ukraine. just as it's airborne. I mean, they've got it. They know exactly.

Where that is, and obviously, they can track where it's going.

So. The Ukrainian Air Force While it's commendable that they've got that aircraft going. I I think we've probably been overstating its effectiveness because of the if they're only doing that many sorties a day, Obviously, they're very concerned about those SAMs. and being eliminated. And and I'm sure the casualty they took were largely all due to to the Russian Sams.

The A-10 Warthog. Here's Mitt Romney. He thinks it should be in theater. Cut 28. The idea that somehow we're calculating what's effective for them to run their war, and that our Stingers and our javelins are better than our aircraft, it makes no sense at all.

They're better at running their own war. They know what the conditions of the ground are. They're there, we're not. And further, our A10s would help. When do you get them A tens?

That's the aircraft that's really ideally designed. for this kind of warfare. Why are we dithering on that as well? This makes no sense to me at all. Anyone ought to say, you know, they got to start he's got to start worrying about us.

We ought to stop worrying about him. First on the A tens, do you think they're great for taking out tanks, but they're also easy targets? Yeah, they'd be an easy target for Sam's. There's no doubt about it. I mean, not everybody has the facts here, and I understand what's going on.

I mean, I totally. agree that we shouldn't We shouldn't act. you know, out of uh a fear of of Putin. and what he considers to be an escalation. I mean, That's not the way to deal with Putin.

you deal with Putin from a from a position of strength. and you stand up to them and you show some spine. That's the way to deal with it. But I mean I I I think Now we're too preoccupied with uh I mean, Zelensky asked for the aircraft, and everybody wants to give him what he wants. I mean, how can you not?

uh you know, given what the suffering that they're doing and and the strength of his inspirational leadership. I certainly understand Senator Romney and his desire to want to help him with everything we have. But in in the reality of it, Um those eight tens will go down pretty quick. A couple of things, General. We're not out of the woods yet by a long shot.

The Russians are trying to surround Kyiv as we speak. We don't know what their designs are when they're going to try to get to the Black Sea and Odessa, and we know they're leveling cities. But I think it's safe to say. At what we know now, it looks as though the Russian forces, the Russian equipment, the Russian generals, the Russian leaders, officers way overrated. And if the Ukrainian report's right and they fired nine generals already.

Can you tell me from what you could tell right now if I asked you to do a report about what you know, how did we overrate Russia to the degree we may have? Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. First of all, talking to senior defense official. They know of no single general that's been fired.

Okay. So I take that's a a Ukrainian report. Uh but I'm Take it on face value. I'm going to buy into what the senior defense official said. But listen, Brian, we've got a history of this, and I'm as guilty as anybody.

I mean, most of us during the Cold War, we overrated the Russians then. And then when the Soviet Union collapsed, and we got to do a lot of work with these guys all through the 90s. I was commanding the 101st Airborne Division and 18th Airborne Corps, which oversees the 82nd, 101st, a couple of other divisions. I spent a lot of time with these Russians. Yeah.

This week We came to grips. With the fact that they were far from 10 feet tall, they were like five feet tall, to tell you the truth, in terms of their. warfighting capacity, the the capabilities The the readiness rates of their equipment. A lot of it have been atrophying over the years because their economy i is so much in a tank. Russia has a strong military and they put a lot of money into that military, but they also struggled.

to keep it up during the Cold War. And we didn't realize How much that it had deteriorated. Fast forward to what we're dealing with here. I think most of us brought into the narrative that Putin. We're spending a lot of money professionalizing his military, about 40% of it.

And as a result of it, he would show off his weapons from time to time. But then when you get into it, you find out As we have now, because we're saying, well, how did we get all this wrong?

So everybody's going back. and try and understand why our analysis is off so bad. Yeah, well, one of the things he does is, you know, his number one priority is not to field. equipment to his units. His number one priority is to sell equipment others.

So that's why the SU three hundred, these are air defense systems, SU four hundred and other kinds of missiles. Are gets showcased quite a bit. But he's trying to make money. And so a lot of these units that we're dealing with now, the 190,000, when he mobilized them Yeah. this this employment in Ukraine They had a they had to pull equipment and people from a lot of other organizations.

to bring the units up to up to the strength the war fighting strength. And that's not unusual. The United States has done done that itself. But The other thing that's so lacking here is that Their leadership is Is the same as it was during the Cold War. Centralized leadership, Brian.

not providing delegating authority to the younger commanders who are down at the tactical level, giving them the freedom to decide what to do based on what they're facing. They're very controlling. It turns out that the discipline in the force is not very good. The morale is not very good. Their planning and executing a campaign theater of war is abysmal.

And uh And we were attacking it from the beginning, saying it was too ambitious, too complicated, didn't make any sense, four axes. none of them supporting each other, all requiring individual logistics lines, which would be significant. All of that has blown up in their faces. Yeah, so we we absolutely uh overrated them. Interesting.

I'm going to bring you to something else, just more the foreign policy. And tell me if I'm getting overstating it. And just reading about what Germany is going through right now with this leader, just like Zelensky has changed the perception, caught me by surprise, Olaf Schultz. I couldn't do his unauthorized biography leading into this, but taking over for Merkel, what he has done in a matter of weeks is pretty amazing. He is now creating a 100 billion Euro special defense budget to fund equipment purchases and upgrades in tandem to get to 2%.

He's got a massive movement to get off Russian oil and gas, and it's his big push now to go back to nuclear to try to give them a degree of independence. And they go, why did it take so long? And essentially, the psychology of World War I and World War II that keeps on going, the guilt they feel for causing both those wars. that is still permeated to this day that led them to create this alliance, this oil and gas alliance with Russia to kind of show them we don't want to fight anymore. And those days are over in light of what we're seeing in the demonstrations in Berlin.

Am I overstating the change in this economic powerhouse? Yeah, I mean, it it it is one of the most significant events that has occurred as a result of Putin's aggression here. The reawakening of of Germany. I mean, I if I understand the politics, and I'm not an expert at this even in my own country, much less. Um in Germany.

But I believe he's actually left of of Angela Merkel. The reason why the Germans reached out to the Russians that it's twofold. One is for their own economic benefit, and they sort of had a thought process that if you stay aligned with them economically. Then It will add to stability and security in Europe because this is a positive thing To be so integrated with a potential adversary. That was the same.

Train of thought, if you recall, Brian, that we in the United States had for 25 years in dealing with China. if we help them to economically reform Then political reform will follow, and that blew up in our face, obviously. But the other thing is a real pregnant issue, Brian, and I'm glad you brought it up. It's manifested in a lot of German's foreign policy. And it has to do with their guilt over particularly worldwide Two Which was the world's greatest calamity in the history of man.

You put both. specific and Europe together, one hundred million people killed, nothing compares to compares to that. you know, historically, and they were the driver of it for sure. And yes, so that That contributes to their passivity. I mean, that contributes to, listen, when they wanted to.

Come into Afghanistan and help us. what they said to us This is the Germans.

Well, you have to put us in an area where there's not going to be any combat. Right. Gotcha. And there were other countries that did stuff like that, too. I'm going to keep my eye on it.

Their military machine right now, there's been more. The the Russians have lost more ve combat vehicles been the Germans have in their in their army today. Wow. So they have a long way to go to get back to having some effectiveness. But I would say that's give the chancellor all the credit in the world for what he's doing here.

I love the way you pointed out a pretty perspective. General Jack Keene, thank you. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Killmeid. You can still save yourselves if you just go home.

Do not believe your commanders who say that you will still have a chance in Ukraine. Nothing but prison and death awaits you here. You are taking our lives, and will pay with yours. That is President Zelensky brilliantly communicating in various ways to ask the West for more while thanking the West for what we have, what they have. And then, number two, calling out the Russians, saying, listen, you.

You know where I am? I'm not running anywhere. I'm no, you know I'm not gonna leave. And I'm going to message them to let them know if the attitude continues where you have a lack of gumption to fight this war, you feel confused on why you're even in this war, let them know you can give yourself up and there won't be retribution. I think it's brilliant.

And a lot of times he gives messages in Russian. And because he's from that Russian region, he spent a lot of time in Moscow.

So he goes right to the Russian people, and he is so popular. He is so well known, it's really hard to hate that guy. This is from people who grew up in the area and knew him before he was president. And you'll see a special. Don't forget to watch One Nation 8 and 11 o'clock right here on Fox News Channel.

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