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Visit Samsung.com to learn more about Galaxy Z Fold 4. From the Fox News Radio Studios in New York City, giving you opinions and facts with a positive approach. It's Brian Kilmead. Thanks so much for being here, everybody. It's the Brian Kill Meet Show, 1866-408-7669.
You know, we're coming to you from New York, but heard around the country, and I hope heard around the world as people are focusing thankfully on the Ukraine. Even though many of you have never been there, most of you, 6,000 miles away from this country, you realize if you let this country fall, They're coming after the Baltic nations. They're coming after the NATO nations. And then who's going to have the stomach, the spine to take on Russia? Oh, we have to.
That's why they got to stop here. Rich Lowry joins us this hour, so let's get to the big three.
Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three: The State of the Union is strong because you, the American people, are strong. We are stronger today. We are stronger today than we were a year ago. Yeah, that is President Biden's State of the Union address.
It was just about an hour. It was uneven, unorganized, and for me, divorced from reality. What about you? Number two. The Biden administration continues to talk about how they're going to go hard after Vladimir Putin and they're really going to let him feel the full weight of sanctions, but they're not willing to touch his energy.
It's nuts. That's Rebecca Heinrichs, an expert in that field. Is America doing enough? No. What are we?
We are the number one buyer of Russian oil, and we have decided not to change that. We've also decided not to sanction their energy stocks or the banks that do that. They are refusing to increase drilling and fracking.
So, no, we are not doing enough. Number Overnight violence erupted once again across Ukraine as Russian forces continued their push not only from the south but also from the northeast. We saw in the city of Kherson Russian forces claiming that they've actually captured this city moving forward from Crimea. If confirmed, it would give them a significant area of land allowing them to bring more forces deeper into Ukraine. War rages in the Ukraine as two major cities are close to being surrounded, and the targets of attacks are mostly civilians and non-military structures, a blatant war crime.
Meanwhile, global sanctions and isolation starts to take a toll inside Russia and hopefully on Vladimir Putin.
So here's what's going on. It is estimated that the Russians have lost 1,500 people plus soldiers. They're military people, correct? Yes. Do you know what they're doing to show you how little regard they have for each other?
They're leaving the bodies in the battlefield. Can you imagine this? We have soldiers who give their lives to bring back remains. We are still dealing with getting remains back from Vietnam and. North Korea.
And they are leaving bodies not yet cold on the battlefield. That's how much they care for human life in Russia. And the Ukrainians have said they've lost 2,000 civilians to this point. Those are their numbers. They might even be higher.
And why wouldn't they be? Because the Russians, frustrated because the Ukrainians didn't give up. In fact, just the opposite. They fought with everything they had, from milit trained military. To just determined citizens, they realized their first battle plan was terrible.
Their logistics were awful. They couldn't get peo uh enough food to people. They couldn't get enough fuel to people. They couldn't get enough ammo. Their supply lines were way too big.
So now they're just going to roll in and do what they always do, just destroy cities. with kids, women, and children inside them. I mean, and while the president comes out and takes a bow last night, cut one. The State of the Union is strong because you, the American people, are strong. We are stronger today.
We are stronger today than we were a year ago. Well, I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed. I get it. We don't want a world war.
I understand that. But there's got to be other things we can do than watch people that want nothing more than to be in NATO and be in the European Union and get away from Russia, allow them to get annihilated because Russia has nuclear weapons and because they got a heartless, soulless thug running their country who might just be out of his mind. And the president of the United States talking about this cut three. I'm announcing that we will join our allies in closing off American airspace to all Russian flights, further isolating Russia and adding additional squeeze to on their economy.
Okay, right now the Russian forces are in control, they claim of Kherson, a key port city that allows them to link up with the other Adonbas region and Crimea to start slowly but surely creeping up the coast. They're starting to carve up that country and kill everyone that sticks around. In fact, Vladimir Putin said, get out. Because if you don't get out, I'm just going to kill you. Thankfully, the kill squad they sent into the Ukraine was killed themselves yesterday.
So literally, assassination teams have been sent in to Kyiv to kill Zelensky. Why couldn't the President of the United States pick up the phone and say, hands off this leader? He is now a global icon for what he's doing. The courage in which he's shown has people rallying in the streets for their cause who never even heard of the Ukraine. Everyone has liberal as Sean Penn to as conservative as Ted Cruz.
The President has an issue that unites, and sending just Stinger missiles and javelins and being so late on it is not okay. 500,000 in the streets of Berlin, a pacifist nation since their horrible war crimes of World War I and World War II, that should tell him something. And I don't think he's gotten the message. In fact, I know he hasn't because he's still talking about a green agenda. He's still talking about turning around an economy.
Right now, we're focused on global peace that even got our pacifist allies. put into action outside the UK.
So The reason why people are unhappy with the way the President is handled Uh Russia, thirty-four percent approval rating. The reason why people aren't happy with the tandem of the economy, 34% approval rating. Overall, according to Washington Post, friendly organization. 39% approval rating is because they just are slow to realize how good they have it. Listen to his.
Ron Klain, maybe the worst chief of staff. ever who thought the President's future should be with the squad, cut ten. Polls show that many Americans remain pessimistic about the economy. How do we change that perception?
Well, Rachel, thanks for your question. I think, look. I've worked in the White House twice before in times of economic recovery. And what I can tell you is that the economy comes back first. And voters internalize that second.
They need to see that the positive signs they're seeing. aren't just temporary. And I think that that progress needs to be fully internalized by the American people. I I think they just need to believe it's real. Is that unbelievable?
So, you have to fully internalize your happiness.
So, the master coming off. Your wages would have gone up 5.7% before taxes, but the problem is inflation is like 8%. Gas has gone up 40% a year. I guess if you count over the next month, because the gas price is now, it's going to be $110 a barrel. I guess you could say it's going to be up maybe 60% in a year.
When you try to buy a used car, it is significantly over sticker price. You can't get a used, you can't get a new car. It's virtually impossible.
So, if you're in the car industry, you might benefit if you're the owner of that lot, but not if you're a salesperson because you don't have much inventory to get rid of. But you got to realize how good you have it. I'm not saying that 5.7% growth on the GDP, or I think it might 5.8%, is not something to celebrate. But you can't tell people how to feel. And when they say they don't feel as though things are getting better, it's just because they don't realize how good they have it.
It is a nutty thing, especially because, and I will not turn away from it, the carnage that's about to take place in Kyiv and Kharkiv. You're talking about the displacement of tens of thousands of people. They expect 4 million to flood neighboring nations of Romania and Mostly Poland. Right now, as we speak, they are estimating that about 680,000 people. You talk about a massive refugee crisis.
It's going to be costly and have human toll, as well as A huge financial burden on these neighboring countries.
So, Poland, Romania. Moldova, get ready, Germany, get ready to accept a whole lot of people. Maybe Hungary, get ready to accept a whole lot. Why? Because Russia decided that they wanted to carve up the Ukraine, and we're outraged.
I believe that they have already given up on the Ukraine. I believe they're going to give them weapons, but they think they're hopeless. And I just think they underestimated the Ukrainian spirit to fight. They overestimated the Russians' ability to fight. And I don't believe that they understand what is next.
You leave Afghanistan an absolute wreck or a reputation.
Soiled maybe beyond Help for the next couple of decades. And then you see Russian aggression promised, predicted. And then Executed. Under your watch, can you imagine if President Trump Was in power when Afghanistan fell the way he did, with 13 Americans dying, a few couple of dozen being severely wounded, and then the Taliban taking over because Guhani left. We left all of our equipment there.
Don't need to tell you that. The president's numbers haven't recovered from that. And then you pivot over to Russia, where everyone said the president sold out to Vladimir Putin.
Well, he took Georgia under Bush. He took parts of Ukraine under Obama. And now he's taking the rest of Ukraine over Biden. What's missing? The Donald Trump era of four years.
Can you imagine if this happened during Trump? Adam Schiff. Morning Joe, the president gave up the Ukraine. He owed Vladimir Putin a favor because he had the Miss Universe pageant there or whatever crazy scheme they had to eventually build a hotel there. That's what have been the talk in America today, and so damaging beyond recognition.
But instead, you have a guy with fifty years of foreign policy experience who always seems out of his depth, especially last night. Are it really painful? I always like to play State of the Union things from the night before, regardless of what's happening in the country, regardless of who's president. I'll play some of it, but it's painful to listen to. Because I don't think they put nine seconds into the content of it.
I don't believe a word that he believes in it. He said to refund the police, not defund the police. Does any cop family believe he believes that? He said our border we're doing great things at the border with technology and uh and pressure on some Central American nations. Does anyone who works the border or sees Bill Melusian or or Griff Jenkins reports believe that for a second as the fence we paid for, the wall we bought, rusts in the desert?
Nobody believes it.
So I'm I didn't want to waste your time. 1-866-408-7669. I have a lot going on. We are tapped in. I got the best sources ever at Fox News about what's happening over in Kharkiv as well as Kiev.
Or Kiev. Kiev is what the Russians say, so we'll call it Kyiv. And it is virtually proven. It's getting ultimate confirmation, but people in the region say this. This horrific leader Has used a thermobaric bomb, which is a vacuum bomb, which basically vaporizes human beings from the inside out.
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Department of Justice is assembling a dedicated task force to go after the crimes of the Russian oligarchs. We're joining with European allies to find and seize their yachts, their luxury apartments, their private jets. We're coming for you ill-begotten gains.
Okay, so let me understand. One thing I love that he did that, I'm no problem. I don't know why you're waiting. Do you understand? If you watch the fighting, I don't see if you watch the fighting and don't go to Delaware all weekend and schedule one 230 meeting on Friday.
If you watch the fighting, you know that you should not wait one minute, let alone an hour, let alone a week, and say hold on for a month in the Ukraine because you have an enemy which is not worried about killing civilians. In fact, I would argue they are targeting them and they're just looking to wear down these Ukrainians who are begging for a no-fly zone, which we won't give them.
So now you have him handling when it comes to the oligarchs wealth and pressuring them to pressure Putin. Got it. What you should do is what's happening with private industry. You know what's happening in private industry? Refinery.
I am so hardened to find this out. It's in a Wall Street Journal today. Sweden and and uh Finland. have refineries, privately owned refineries, who are no longer refining. Royal oil and g uh Russia oil and gas.
You have banks that are no longer financing the transportation of Russian oil and gas, and that means these oils company. You have them devesting in Shell and BP. Then I find out a Texas refinery has said we're not going to refine Russian oil and gas.
So, what is the president waiting for? Private industry has stepped up from Netflix to Disney. to Apple. They're going, I'm not dealing with Russia. I'm not going to do it.
And the people have seen it. You haven't sold this to us. The government hasn't jammed this down our throats, hit us with ads, but we're billboards. We're watching this and saying this cannot stand. Jason listening on the Fox News Radio app in Kentucky.
Hey, Jason. Hey, Brian, I thought that was pretty cringeworthy last night. I mean, as I sit here with my teenage kids, they were even watching Pelosi as she acted like an eight-year-old who just found out she was going to Disneyland. But I think that hour-long capture of those three in the screen illuminated how weak we are in a leadership position. And lastly, I just found it, you know, as he was taking his victory lap, there was no mention of Afghanistan.
I felt really bad for those families. And really, this kind of that kind of just spotified what I saw. I mean, how can you, Jason, if you were a speechwriter or chief of staff, say, Mr. President, I know you don't want to talk about Afghanistan, but we've got to mention those families. It's the right thing to do.
Don't say, God bless our troops and ignore our troops, right? You sent him in there, 13 lose their lives, about 25 were wounded. We don't talk about that. They were in there because he could not come up with an exit strategy. And when asked, By Al Bordor, who was running the Taliban at the time, when they called back and they said, Are you gonna secure the capital or are we?
Because it's gonna get ransacked, we said we only wanted the airport. And then the Taliban provided our security on the outer ring of the airport. Then they told our men and women, don't go outside the wire to get people. That led to the bombing, which was predicted. Remember, hours before, we have word of a suicide bomber.
We don't know where and when. Boom, it happens. They die and they don't even get a mention on his first Date of the Union, 100%. Bob is listening in Atlanta. Hey, Bob.
Yeah, uh why don't the Ukrainians just blow up all the pipelines? Uh Obama welched on Clinton's ninety-four Budapest. Agreement. 20 years later, they don't owe the West anything. They got hundreds of miles of Russian pipeline.
Just blow the crap out of them. Not a bad idea. Let the Europeans. Uh, see what not doing anything did, because I mean, the promise of the United States of America anymore is just not working.
So, what do you say, Bobby? And, you know, the President keeps saying it's totally unnecessary. We know it's not going to put troops in. Why does he keep saying that no American troops will fight there? Really?
Do you know what even Loan did they just put that in the prompter and you don't even realize what you're saying? I'm going to do everything I can for the Ukrainians, but I'm not going to fight for you. Didn't we promise in ninety four to defend them? I mean, what is it? What is it even it it's just uh insane.
So did the UK and so did the Russian Blow up those pipelines. Let everybody in Europe Queue that one over. I hear you. Brandon listening in Philadelphia. Brandon.
Yeah, uh Brian, a big fan, man. I'm a truck driver in Pennsylvania, Parksman. Listen, man, I'm an immigrant and I came here legally. My father mother. Come here.
He had to wait 15 years, and this guy is letting all these illegals in. And next thing you know, that he's actually telling everyone that he's gonna fix the border and he needs to fix this, he needs to fix that. And next thing. You know I'm very disappointed in Ted Cruz. That guy's actually got up and applauding, and then he knows that right in his lying.
Well, I mean, he was applauding the issue, but I don't think I wasn't there for you know, I didn't talk to Ted Cruz, but you know he's strong on the border. I think he stood up because the President was mentioning it, but the President's done actually, I think it's his policy to open up the border because no one can be this inept. No one can be this inept. They tell you, Border Patrol, just process people, don't capture them. To fly them into airports, small airports in the middle of the night in Jacksonville, Florida, in Westchester, New York, and various cities throughout Pennsylvania.
That's a policy. that's anti-American and he actually bragged about how he's great on the board. I just think the American people are smarter than that. I give you men and women so much more credit than the president does. Precise, personal, powerful.
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This is Putin's war and we are very concerned and we are monitoring it. We are fully aware that if there is any intentional targeting of civilians that we are looking at the fact that there may be a violation, very well may be a violation of international law. Really? Targeting civilians. Blowing up hospitals.
Schools is a violation of international law. Yeah, let me go get a lawyer. I'm really confused about that. It's unbelievable how unprepared she is for every interview, and that was our vice president. Rich Lowry joins us now.
He's prepared for every interview, editor of the National Review, author of the case for nationalism. Rich, I can't believe how consistently out of her depth Kamala Harris is. That's just the lady's example. Yeah, well as everyone points out, it always feels as though she's reading a few talking points that have been prepared in advance and knows nothing else about what she's talking about. About and this crisis has hasn't been anything different.
Clearly, these are war crimes. You know, it doesn't mean you want to go to the International Criminal Court and charge them, because then there's no way out. You know, if you ever wants to step down or gets forced out, you don't want to make him into more of a cage animal than he already is. But clearly, just as a matter of common sense, we're all seeing the pictures of destroyed apartment buildings.
So I want you to hear a little of how he described the operations in Russia, cut to. Russia's Vladimir Putin sought to shake the very foundations of the free world. thinking he could make it bend. to his menacing ways. But he badly miscalculated.
He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead, he met with a wall of strength he never anticipated or imagined. He met the Ukrainian people.
So he went on to talk about this as if it's over. I know this is a unique situation, but in a time in which we're not fighting, and he keeps telling everyone we're not going to fight there. At a time in which he's now ramping up lethal weapons, so is the rest of the world when we had. Three years to do the same thing. He's almost taking a bow.
But what was your impression? Yeah, I think there's a tendency that we need to guard against there. And you see it on Twitter a lot. You see these ridiculous images of a Russian tank being towed away by a Ukrainian tractor and all these vehicles burning, Russian armored vehicles burning on the side of the road. And you're like, oh, the Ukrainians got this.
But it's just begun. And there's no way Putin's stopping until he gets into Kyiv, unless there's a miracle.
So we shouldn't be patting ourselves on the back. I do think the response has been hardening, and it has been stiffer than Putin expected, both on the ground from the Ukrainians. I mean, they've been truly inspiring from Zelensky on down, and from the West. The sanctions have been more severe than he counted on. But we shouldn't be spiking the football in the end zone by any means.
So think about this. The reports the Russians have lost at least 1,200 people. The ru the Ukrainians say it's higher, but let's say they they've lost sadly 1,200 people, mostly civilians with the Ukrainians, 1,200 soldiers. Do you know what they're doing? Just to show you how they view their conscripts or their forces, they leave them.
So like that that's somebody's kid. They're just leaving dead bodies in the field. You know, and it's not like they're in a war zone where it's World War I and they got to run out of the bunker and grab bodies. But we go ahead and negotiate for the remains of people that died decades ago. We have people give their lives to get a body back, get the remains back in a hot war zone, and they don't even care enough to scoop them up.
Doesn't that show you the mindset of these people? Yeah, it's stunningly dishonorable. And there's just something deeply human about you get your fallen, and you treat them with honor. I mean, this goes back to the Iliad. Just a huge element of the Iliad is a body being mistreated, a dead body, you know, which it hits you really hard.
And those families back in Russia, you've got to feel for them. You know, there'll be an emptiness. I mean, it's terrible to lose a service member in any circumstance, but an emptiness that's never fulfilled, just never getting that body back. And it's just another indication of just how unprofessional the Russians are. I'm not a military expert, but I was just watching Yeah.
Uh Kellard's talk. To Dana and Bill, just about just it's just been shocking how bad they are. You know, that 40-mile convoy that we've heard so much about would last all 50 minutes against a more robust military. I mean, we destroy it instantly. They're stuck on the roads.
Their guys won't go out of the armor to actually when you're attacked by men on foot, you need to get out of your armor and engage them on foot as well if you're going to defeat them. And they just haven't been willing to do that either because they're poorly trained or there's poor morale.
So, you know, there's some hope that this just ends up a total debacle for Putin on the ground. But as we're just discussing a minute ago, he's got the mass and he's got the will, and it just seems unlikely he's going to stop until he takes Kiev. I get it. And especially, they blew up that bridge to stop the armament from flowing in, but it's also stopped. Um of supplies from coming in.
So it makes it harder to get supplies in. I understand why they blew up the bridge to stop the Russians from taking the Capitol or going into Freedom Square.
So we understand the Russian stock market has remained closed. We know the ruble has lost thirty percent to forty percent of its value. Putin is also banning people from taking over what is the equivalent of $10,000 out of the bank.
So they know that yesterday they had jailed 411 people in 13 cities. Overall, around 7,000, they continue to rise up. We have some oligarchs who this guy, Olga Depresca, this billionaire industrialist, called for peace as soon as possible on Telegram. He's put it out there. This other embarrassing, you know Dmitry Peskov, the guy with the brown hair part in the middle, got the mustache?
He evidently, his kids are posting a black banner on social media saying no to war. They quickly took it down.
So the. My famous chess master, Grandmaster, has tweeted no war. They're going to have trouble holding on to their population when they realize they no longer are able to even get their number. They weren't going to feel in about a couple of weeks the fact that they can't even get their number one export financing it, and that's Russian gas and oil. And it looks like the Chinese are not stepping up as big as everyone thought to buy.
And the separate refineries are stepping up in Sweden and Finland and in Texas saying, we're not buying anything from you. Yeah, it's a real squeeze. People in Russia are feeling it. When you're in line at ATM and can't get cash out, that makes a real difference, obviously. Um To you and makes you hurt, and this is why this could be a threat to Putin's.
regime. It could be a threat to his Survival. And you kind of wonder what his end game here is. I'd imagine it's getting into Takiv and then saying, look, I got it, and let's negotiate now. And in that circumstance, you want to give him a way out.
But if it goes on like this, you know, and he's not successful on the ground militarily in Ukraine, and these sanctions continue to bite. You know, part of his whole justification for his rule is that he restored the Russian economy from the rubble it was in in the 1990s. And if it's vaporizing, you know, in front of our eyes again, that's just a threat to his legitimacy. Absolutely.
So think about this. And you might think it's minor, but it plays into the big picture. They're trying desperately to shield the Russian people away from what's happening in Ukraine, saying ridiculous things like, we're trying to denazify Ukraine and get rid of those people who are being led by drug addicts. And then when these soldiers go in there, they go, we don't have a problem with these people. Why am I at war?
I don't want to kill them. Plus, they have no experience. Their conscripts will have to serve at least two years.
So, the last time they're in a situation like this, they go, Well, I at least I go about my life. Not really. You can't get money out of the bank.
Now you have World Cup, kick them out of the World Cup. The United Skating, United, the World Skating Federation, kicked them out of the World Championships.
Now, you might say, what's the big deal? Formula One. is say we're not going to have events there. That's a big deal. Try to get an Apple phone.
You're not going to get it. A GM, a Ford. It's not going to happen. BP is pulling out. Shell is pulling out.
Switzerland is freezing money in banks. Even the rich are going to find themselves squeezed.
So the thing that I have a problem with is the pace in which it's happening. And, Rich, the elephant in the room is the 650 million barrels a day of oil we are buying from Russia. In reality, how long can Joe Biden rationalize doing this? Continue to buy the the oil? Yeah, I I would hope not long, but the problem is we don't have great options.
In the US we can stop buying that, but the Europeans are just dependent. Ukraine was at fifty percent sorry, Germany, fifty percent of their oil or gas comes from Russia.
So you you cut that off entirely and then you're rationing gas and oil in your own country and your people are feeling you're making a major sacrifice. But I think eventually, if this drags on, you're going to have to you're going to have to do this. And it just goes to the foolishness. of uh not having a uh all the above energy policy here in the US and the foolishness of of Germany and and others not having the foresight to not make themselves dependent on a a a dictator and his and his whims. And in terms of what's happening on the ground to Russians, the advantage Putin has is he totally controls the information environment, he controls the media.
But people will realize, right, you can't buy an iPhone. People are going to wonder wh what's going on. And it's not as though the history is you bomb a city and civilians Are suffering, it actually steals their will. It makes them more determined. But this isn't an excellent crisis like that for Russians, right?
They didn't even know this was happening until like the day before when Putin gave his cracked speeches.
So, how long are they going to be willing to sacrifice like this? And it reminds me, I'm reading a book right now on why Japan decided to hit Pearl Harbor. And it's a very similar situation. The Japanese government controlled the media. The media was very pro-government.
They were fighting this war with China. They were always saying, oh, it's going great. But then the rationing got more severe, and everything got harder. And then people kind of figured out, you know what? No matter what we're hearing from the government of the media, it's probably not going well.
And Russians are going to conclude the same thing.
So, just so you know, we're not alone, even though everyone was high-fiving for that speech yesterday, which I don't know anybody that would high-five a speech, I thought it was terribly written. It was haphazard. It looked like he was reading a list. It looked like he had the speech and then put the new news on Ukraine up top and just. Just sent the rest down.
But having said and then decided, okay, by the way, check with my scientists, time to take off a mask. Just the day of the State of the Union, which just underlines the farcical hygiene theater that we've been dealing with for two years and a year with this guy. But Richard Haas, who has a real sense of foreign policy, whether you agree or not, said this about the speech: There was a missed opportunity. Cut 29. I was not as thrilled with the speech as some others seem to be.
But I thought there was a real missed opportunity to speak to the people around Putin, to basically send messages that he, that this is not just Putin's war, but he was potentially leading this country over the cliff, that they would not be allowed to prevail. And if they continued, one way or another, Russian forces were not going to succeed in Ukraine. We would determine over time to basically do there whatever needed to be done, as we did in Afghanistan. Here, he went on to say this. The president, at one point, I thought was going to pivot right to Vladimir Putin, who I know is watching.
And let me give you this message. He didn't do anything like that, cut 30. I also would have sent a message to the Russian people. Oh, those brave people who are getting arrested and coming out in the streets would basically say, Our problem's not with you, the people of Russia. Russia's a great country.
We want Russia to be part of Europe. We want Russia to be a part of the world. Vladimir Putin, however, Is the threat. What I would try to do is encourage a movement, be it among the inner circle of generals and oligarchs who are paying an enormous price, or with the Russian people. That's one of the very few ways, Joe, this can end well.
Is that there's ultimately a move against Vladimir Putin either to constrain him or to replace him? I would have been reasonable about it. Negotiations offer an option. The one thing that's not going to happen, Russia is not going to be allowed to prevail through escalating through conventional arms, cyber, expanding to NATO, much less nuclear arms. I think there were messages that ought to have been sent last night that simply were not sent.
I mean, how hard would it have been, Rich, for him to pick up the phone and call some foreign policy experts to get a divergence of views? Instead, I think he stuck with Susan Rice. Ron Clain And him. Yeah, Richard makes fair points, but I thought the Ukraine stuff was pretty good. I mean, it was better than the rest of the speech.
And the opportunity, what Biden could have done with that speech is: I'm just talking, he could have just said at the top, you know what? It's time for national unity. I'm just going to talk about the things that I think are really important that we can all agree on. And this is going to be a speech about Ukraine. It's going to be a speech about getting back to normal on COVID.
And it's going to be a speech about how we need to reassert order in our city and fund and support police officers. And that actually might, you know, gotten people's attention. It might have attention. It might have made a different impression. But instead, you had some of that, but then it was all sandwiched in there in the middle was all this advocacy for build back better that's going nowhere, that is totally irrelevant to what most people are concerned about and just isn't going to happen.
So it was a missed opportunity in a presidency that is failing and has had missed opportunity after missed opportunity. And you'll hear there was a rebuttal to the rebuttal. Against the president, which was unbelievable from Democratic squad members.
So you hear that, and you also see where Joe Manchin was sitting on the Republican side. Very interesting. Rich, thanks so much. Hey, thanks, Brian. Have a great day.
186-408-7669. We come back. You're going to hear from AOC. and how she attacked the president too. Diving deep into today's top stories, it's Brian Kilmead 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. The more you listen, the more you'll know it's Brian Killmead. And I think that he was very strong. As was mentioned earlier, about pre-butting a lot of Republican talking points.
I do think that there are some things that were left unsaid in which we're really going to have to work on as a party in order to really speak to constituencies that have historically supported the president, whose turnout we need, and whose support we need right now and in the coming years, that perhaps haven't heard their issues spoken to in the way that they wanted to hear it. Things like student loan debt, our overall larger themes and crises in education, as well as the piece on immigration was really just glossed over. Right. And by the way, not glossed over because she wants border security, because she wants it wide open and wants people to stay. She believes that's what the people of Queens want.
Cut 27. You know, I think that It definitely was a lost opportunity because the entire country does support. There is profound bipartisan support to a long shirt, a long A long-term shift away from fossil fuels. The vast majority of Americans do support ending fossil fuel subsidies, for example. You know, what's happening right now, Russia is very, very much reliant on the rest of the world buying its oil.
We are releasing oil reserves right now in order to ease that, but we shouldn't be reliant on fossil fuels to begin with, and that would really solve a lot of these issues. Exactly. Does she understand that there is no green technology to heat homes of an entire country? There's not enough windmills or solar panels to do that, to the electric car and everything like that. Everything that she enjoys is, I'm sure she gets her private flights and goes over.
We're using jet fuel, according to many. That's what planes need in order to get her to Miami to party and get COVID herself.
So, in order to get off fossil fuels, maybe she should get off fossil fuels, maybe set a great example. And then maybe. Elon Musk can whisper in her ear, We don't really have anything reliable enough to mass market in terms of electric cars and electric cars fueled by coal plants. That's how we get electricity for the most part.
So, yeah, let's just get off fossil fuels. It's just a matter of checking a box. It's just a matter of going to the electric car lot and the electric plane instead of going to the gas plane and the jet fuel plane and the cut and the gas car.
So the the fundamental issue is not wow, wouldn't it be great to get off carbon? The fundamental issue, the technology is not there for us to get off that.
So who would you like to supply it? Us? or Iran and Russia, or Saudi Arabia. Can I choose? Can I beat you to the bunch?
Us. Maybe we'll get some from Canada, maybe from Mexico. Feel a lot better about that. I have no idea why she's in office. But that's the Joe Biden's that's really Joe Biden's problem.
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 Kilmead. Hi, and I'm Brian Kilmead. Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kilmead Show, coming to you from New York, heard around the country, heard around the world, and hopefully people are paying attention. Michael Rubin will be with us this hour.
Michael, you know him, he's a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, teaches classes on terrorism and the FBI, security policy. And also, we're going to be joined by. Oh, Britt Youman, a matter of a moment.
So let's get to the big three.
Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. The State of the Union is strong because you, the American people, are strong. We are stronger today. We are stronger today than we were a year ago.
President Biden's State of the Union address was to me uneven, unorganized, and divorced from reality. I want to hear what you think. Number two. The Biden administration continues to talk about how they're going to go hard after Vladimir Putin and they're really going to let him feel the full weight of sanctions, but they're not willing to touch his energy. Weird.
Is America doing enough? No, not by a long shot. We'll talk about the number one buyer of Russian oil is America. As long as that's happening and energy stocks and any type of sanction isn't on any energy bank, why do we feel as though we are doing enough? Number Overnight violence erupted once again across Ukraine as Russian forces continued their push not only from the south but also from the northeast.
We saw in the city of Kherson Russian forces claiming that they've actually captured this city moving forward from Crimea. If confirmed, it would give them a significant area of land allowing them to bring more forces deeper into Ukraine. It's getting ugly. That's Trey Yanks. War rages in the Ukraine as two major cities are almost totally surrounded and targets of attacks.
Mostly civilians right now are in the line of fire and non-military structures, which is a blatant war crime.
Meanwhile, global sanctions and isolation start to take a toll inside Russia, and the worst is yet to come. Hopefully, Vladimir Putin pays the price. Britt Hume, you've seen a lot of conflicts. Where does this rank on the scale of how serious Americans should take it? And thanks so much for joining us, by the way.
Um Brian, thank you. I think this is a very very major. development this war. this attack. of this invasion.
And I think that because First of all, it It it was a grave miscalculation on Vladimir Putin's part. In terms of what price he will pay for ultimately conquering Ukraine, which I think we're all now beginning to witness. Beginning, at least, of the endgame as Russian forces approach and surgical and precise. methods of attack, which I think he hoped would yield a quick victory, are giving way now to much cruder and more brutal tactics, attacks on civilian targets, attacks on monuments, as you mentioned. And it's going to get very ugly and bloody and tragic for the for the Ukrainian people who have been so remarkably valiant.
But it the dam and but the damage to Putin, who has turned his country now into a full on pariah state, Is going to be very great as well.
So I was looking at Zelensky, and I think I've been watching you. I know you're impressed with him too. He says, quote, if somebody wants to help us, everybody has to act swiftly. This is a moment, Zelensky went on to say. He said, if Ukraine fails, then all of these troops will be at your borders, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.
You'll be facing greater issues. There'll be more provocations after that. He's totally correct. Do you really think Russia's going to stop here? Yes, I do.
Um in fact, I mean, look, uh it's obviously will be ner uh unnerving to have uh Ukraine overtaken, occupied militarily by by Russia's uh army. But Um Putin has bit off more than he can chew on Ukraine. He's likely to be once. Once he establishes it uh his dominion there, if you will. He's going to face an insurgency that could last f a very long time, tie him down, uh and bleed his treasury, which is already going to be in s uh, facing severe problems because of the sanctions.
So for the in the near term, I think he's done for the moment. You know, if we worry about oth NATO nations that are vulnerable, we certainly have to look, I think, first of all, at the Baltics. those small countries up on Russia's border, uh, to the north, Uh which uh Jack Keene and others who are familiar with these things say that NATO is really not in a very good position to defend them, but I doubt he'll go there in the near term. Kalenkrad, actually General Keene was saying, is basically a weapons depot and it's this little red isol isolated area that Russia still has that is on the doorstep of Lithuania.
So all you have to do is go in there and open up the the storage locker and they're ready to go if they choose to do that. But the one thing one thing you have to say Brett, is that we make a big mistake, I think, through history, is trying to, especially of recent history, we try to rationalize with people that don't like us and have proven that they will act against us from Iran. And now, the best example is Saddam Hussein, and now the better example is Vladimir Putin. If we want to reset that relationship, we lost portions of Georgia. Then we try to recalibrate that relationship, we lose portions of Ukraine.
And then when we show weakness elsewhere, we might lose the entire country to a belligerent power. Do we have to recalculate? Do we have to stop trying to pretend? Our enemies have Western values. I think that's There's a lot of wisdom in that, Brian.
Uh I think we do. On the other hand, Um you you have to make the a calculation as to whether the person you're dealing with is rational or not. Values aside. Um And Putin throughout much of his time. Yeah.
has shown that he was at least rational.
Now I don't think there's any doubt that the wellspring of this Invasion is Putin's long standing path. Yeah. To restore. Mm-hmm. the empire that was once the Soviet Union.
Yeah. and that Russia of course was the head of. And I think that's the main thing here. And all this talk we've heard about NATO expansion uh uh being a problem n NATO's inclusion of Ukraine was really not in the cards at any foreseeable time in the near term, anyway. And so I think he acted uh not a that's a that's a rationalization.
It's it's It's not the real reason. He acted because this is who he wa this you know A Connolly's a rice. who we used to talk to when when she was Secretary of State fairly often, used to refer to Putin somewhat dismissively as Vlad the Great. Because she said he imagined himself to be uh like Catherine the Great, who so expanded Uh Russia.
So uh I think you know you have to keep that all that in mind. He had he had seemed to be rational.
Now, of course, he's made this terrible mistake. And its consequences are unfolding almost without regard to his state of mind. I mean, this is good this is a international economic disaster. Uh for Russia. It is a blot on the country's reputation worldwide and believe me, Russians want to be thought of as a decent people living in a great country.
They don't want to be thought of as a bully nation brutally subjugating its neighbors and Slaughtering civilians. That's that's not an And this will not go down well, I think, with the Russian people.
So there he is, isolated and trapped really by his own mistakes. I don't know enough about the inner workings, or I've even been able to interview people who know about the inner workings of this government in particular. We see these comical images of him sitting on a table that's 40 feet long with generals jammed into the corner. You see him trying to talk to Macron on the same table at the same time.
So it does not seem like we're watching somebody who's really got a sense of reality.
Now, when you look at the Russian stock market, it remains closed. When you look at the people, he's now banning people from taking out more than $10,000 of their currency, the equivalent of their bank. We've seen 411 people arrested yesterday, just about 7,000 around the country. They say in a couple of weeks, he's going to start to feel the pinch of people going elsewhere to buy their oil and gas. My question, from what we've seen so far, Britt, what will Ukraine look like in a couple of years?
couple of weeks while we wait for the sanctions to get traction.
Well, it will look like a war zone with devastation. throughout much of the country and especially and perhaps most tragically in its major cities. which is, you know, where his his military are now headed. We're seeing now on our morning television screens the pictures of the rubble from these attacks. in certain parts of the country, not yet so much in Kyiv or Kharkiv, but that's coming.
It's going to look terrible. The civilian casualties are likely to be staggering in number. The stories that will come out of this will be heartbreaking. um we're gonna s you know, this country is gonna will ultimately, I think, buckle under the pressure from the Kremlin. But this was not This was not by any means Brian.
what Vladimir Putin had in mind. He he thought he was gonna get a quick strike blitzkrieg kind of victory, uh wouldn't require the destruction of of uh of everything and say he'd simply go in there, take over, uh install some Quizling uh to run the place for him and and uh and that would be that. Uh is that it happened? Think of it this way, Brian, is that it happened? He'd been able to do that.
And calm was restored fairly quickly. Um No one would like what had happened. The world opinion would be against it. But not like it is now. Not after the valiant and persistence put up.
By the Ukrainian people and their military. That has changed the whole complexion of it. And has had very far-reaching consequences throughout the world, not only in terms of attitudes toward Russia, but toward attitudes toward their own domestic situation. Germany being a prime example, uh prepared for finally at long last To meet its full commitment to NATO on military spending. Germany now beginning to reverse its energy policies, which have been.
So foolish for so long.
So here we are. This is a turning point in the world, Brian. I don't think there's any doubt about it. Right. And I think you pointed out a good thing.
I just assumed that they would keep going. But if he gets gummed down here and just has to hold portions of the Ukraine like he did Donbass and Crimea, but only this time he'd have to keep his military in country to sustain these cities. He would be too sidetracked, judging by what we've seen, to go into Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, because he's already proven that he can't do it. And I'll give you a case in point. He's asking Belarus to send in forces.
He asked Kazakhstan to send in forces. He's called back the Wagner group from Africa. If you have plenty of infantry, you don't do those things, correct? I agree with that. I think he's I think he's bogged down here and this could go on for for quite a long time.
I don't I don't think there's any any question about that. This is This is going to get worse.
So let's look at our role right now. You see that we have stopped. I will let him say cut through. I'm announcing that we will join our allies in closing off American airspace to all Russian flights, further isolating Russia and adding additional squeeze to on their economy.
He goes on, cut four. The United States Department of Justice is assembling a dedicated task force to go after the crimes of the Russian oligarchs. We're joining with European allies to find and seize their yachts, their luxury apartments, their private jets. We're coming for you ill-begotten gains.
So Number one, your assessment of those moves.
Well Ref with specific reference to what he said last. about going after the oligarchs. The oligarchs might prove important here. There's at least an outside chance that these cronies of his have become so rich and have built their m their their palaces uh in western uh watering holes like the Riviera and so on. Um and have yachts and have have all this this grand living.
uh that no they've been afforded under under Putin's regime or Uh They might get Sick of this. uh his military Um We are looking at his continuing to do this. To this country, knowing that it is an illegitimate war and that war crimes are being committed, they may think better of this as well.
So there's at least some chance that the cronies and or the military might rise up and take him out. I don't I think it's a long shot, but it's at least a possibility. And it's the one thing I can think of That gives us hope that the poor Ukrainians will not have to withstand this onslaught. And all this and all the terrible killing and and maiming that's gonna be They estimate that Vladimir Putin makes $112,000 a year. And yet he's one of the richest men in the world by these Panama Papers.
Do you believe that they have a way to track down his wealth that could start really hitting him at home just from your experience?
Well, to some extent, yes, and you know, obviously he won't like that, um but um but you know, and and I you know, that's that goes under the heading of things that might Yeah, how did Deter him possibly. Yeah. I think for the moment he seems undeterred as far as Ukraine is concerned. And, you know, only only his overthrow, I think, would would end this Terrible, bloody conflict. Britt Hume, can't thank you enough.
Definitely need somebody with long-form vision of what we're going through because it's easy to take put up on the bottom. That's why, Sam, I'm an old man, but thank you, Brian. No, I didn't say that. I did. How dare you let me insult you?
Everyone's going to get mad at me then. I would never say that. No worries, man. You're in the prime, Britt. Thanks for having me all.
And you still got the fastball, even though we're not playing baseball. Back in a moment. Don't go anywhere. Brian Kilmead will be right back. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it.
You're with Brian Kilmead. You know, without Russian gas, in the short term, German industry is in problems. India, a very poor country, very low GDP per capita, are perhaps taking a rather selfish position. Either way, I think the truth of it is. That's what Putin has done is completely and utterly outrageous.
He is an international pariah. I've noticed already the big oligarchs, particularly those living in London, Have now publicly turned against him. We have seen one mutiny that took place in the Russian Navy. And we also hear the troops are extremely low morale. And there's a theory out there, and it's more than the theory, it's been in a Ukrainian account, been pretty consistent.
That if you look at this 40-mile, and they say it's 15,000 troops, 40 miles of armament that's streaming into Kiev, the reason why it's stopped is that these guys are kicking open their gas tanks and draining them, stopping people in front of them, and they're glued to the road. They say that is key for these military experts, that you have all these terrain vehicles, and it's winter. You should be able to go anywhere, but yet they're stuck on the road.
So what's happening there? Do they not know to go off-road? Is there not really an option? Because if spring breaks and it thaws, those farmlands become mud. Lynn, and they don't move.
Uh Lynn, you're in Missouri. Hey, Lynn. Yes, Brian. I was thinking about the Ukrainian issue, and then I was thinking. What would happen?
if and when China goes into Taiwan. Would the world back up Taiwan like they are now?
Well, you know what people have told me who are more cynical? They said that the world is so intertwined with China's economy that they would look the other way like they did with the Uyghurs, like they did with Hong Kong. I don't really believe that because Taiwan's been on its own for 60 years now, and they do have their own economy. They aren't part of a province. They are a country, even though we're not supposed to say country.
I actually believe what Britt Yoom was indicating before, intimating, and that China seeing this and saying, do I really want to deal with this? Do I want to deal with this isolation diplomatically? Do I want to screw up all my business relationships, my Belt and Road program? I think this, depending on how it comes out, is a warning shot for China not to do it. Final thought from you?
Yeah. Well, I I was thinking I cannot see Hollywood cutting their ties or NBA or Disney or all the major companies that You know. got their heart and soul now in China.
So, I just can't see them cutting ties.
So, I was just wondering how it would work. But then I see what you're saying, too. is it going to be worth it to China? You know, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. Absolutely.
Thanks so much, Lynn. Appreciate your perspective. These are times in which we have to listen every minute to get the latest from the battlefield and from the political field, especially with the midterms just around the corner as March is now here. We come back, we're going to have a chance to talk to Michael Rubin. Radio that makes you think.
This is the Brian Kill Me Show. I didn't prepare a speech.
Some So I'll talk from my heart. This is not a war. This is it. genocide. of the Ukrainian people.
By a crazy man who cannot. Gerova, that Ukrainian people do not want Socialism, Soviet Union, Communism. They want to be with the United States of America. They want to be free people. They want to be with the West.
And he cannot get over. That's Congresswoman Victoria Sports, born in Ukraine, now lives in Indiana, and she represents the people of Indiana. One of the great speeches, no notes, just talking about what she knows, the calls she's getting, and how her family is under siege. And at this hour, the two biggest cities are almost encircled and being just slaughtered by the Russians. The Ukrainians are fighting back, but they're surrounded.
Michael Rubin joins us now, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and also an expert in terrorism, understand security. Michael, welcome. How would you characterize what it's like probably like in Ukraine at this hour?
Well, you know, Brian, at this point, um It's hard to say anything other than depressing. It's depressing for the people of Ukraine because they see their freedom and they see their liberty at risk. And if you're a Russian soldier, it's also depressing simply because you didn't expect to be there. You were told there wouldn't be resistance and yet, frankly, there are. And if you're a Russian, it's also depressing because you see your life savings evaporate.
You see the economy going to tank and you see your own leader, Vladimir Putin, increasingly unstable but unwilling to step back and admit he was wrong. And knowing the way they fight, they go for total annihilation. They have no problem going after civilians, and that's what we're witnessing. The Ukrainian officials have said that at least 1,200 civilians have died already. And I know the Ukrainians are having great success considering what they have, but when you have 1,200 civilians dead in six days, you wonder what six weeks are going to look like.
Well, you're absolutely right, Brian. And really, it's only going to get worse. If you look back to the Chechen Wars, in which the Russians tried to seize the Chechen capital of Grozny, they couldn't. And they ended up leveling it.
Well, Kiev is much larger than Grozny. And what we've seen so far is the fact that the Russian military was a paper tiger. It really isn't much better than it was 20 years ago when they tried to take over Chechnya. And so, you know, things are looking pretty dark for the next several weeks. You believe, and by the way, I want to pay a little bit more from Victoria.
This is Cut 43. They're bombing, they couldn't take the city. They're bombing civilians non-stop. day and night. the whole city, they came into village, with a heavy machine gun, killed almost every Person in that village, and whatever people were left, women and children, they forced them to work in front of the tanks as a human shield.
Because they cannot. Take that city. And they can't. And that's how inept they seem to be and unmotivated. Evidently, motivation, the morale couldn't be worse.
A lot of them didn't know where they were going. I'm always susceptible to being caught up in another country's rhetoric, but I think it's pretty widely accepted and understood, and that they might be sabotaging their own vehicles in order to not go into Kyiv. And we see that 40-mile caravan, which consists of about 15,000 Russians, around Kyiv at this hour. What do you think is happening there?
Well, you know The worst case scenario is they could just be completing their encirclement and ready to go in. Let's not make any mistake. I mean, they have. not achieve their aims, but at the same time, they've occupied vast amounts of Ukrainian territory.
So it might be a tactical pause. But even if it's not, even if they've decided that they don't want to go into Kiev right away, Vladimir Putin isn't the man who's going to simply say, you know, let's pull back, let's forget this ever happened, let's go into serious negotiations. What we're not talking about, and what really worries me, Brian, is every time Putin Steers his economy into depression. He tries to distract the public with one of these invasions, with one of these nationalist crises, to wrap himself in the flag. But when he grabs huge chunks of territory, whether it's the Crimea, whether it's eastern Ukraine, whether it's parts of Georgia, he then has to subsidize those proxy states, and that only speeds up the cycle of Russia's economic decline.
I'm worried that whether he's successful or not with regard to Kyiv, this invasion of Ukraine isn't going to be the last, and the next invasion is going to be sooner than we think. It's interesting. About 15 minutes ago, I talked to Brady Euman. He says this has been so costly and embarrassing that he doesn't believe they're going to be capable of moving on to another country. You do?
Well, we saw that there's been some talk about Belarus. I'm sorry, some talk about Belarus moving into Moldova. And Belarus, at this point, is just basically a proxy state of Russia. There's this notion that you could have northern Kazakhstan, or, God forbid, the Baltics. Fortunately, I think that Vladimir Zarinsky, in many ways, has saved the world, because by rallying Europe, by rallying the United States, by not leading from behind, what he's done is show that perhaps the West is willing to stand up for NATO in the way that there may have been doubt just a few days ago.
But when it comes to Kazakhstan, when it comes to Moldova, we may be in trouble.
Well, when you see the urgency, we have 800,000 people have already are in exile. They had to evacuate and go into most the bulk of which are going into Poland. This is an emergency. This is not going to go away and just be a Ukrainian problem. And now you have the world economy because the Russians have, I believe, produced 7% of the entire world's Oil and gas.
We're their number one customer. But you see a lot of these banks stepping away from even the national policy and saying we don't want Russian gas. These refineries in Sweden and Finland say, forget it. There's a Texas refinery who said the same thing, we won't take it. And now there's a separate bank saying we won't finance these oil and gas purchases.
So they are going to be destabilized in a way that perhaps, you tell me if I'm wrong, Michael Rubin, in a way they weren't expecting.
Well, I think that's absolutely right. But one of the dangers is when you ratchet up sanctions slowly, and we're not talking just about the reputational risk of these companies which are stepping back, but on national policy, it just gives countries time to adjust To the hardships.
So that's where I think the Biden administration is making a mistake. But at the same time, the Russians have agency. They're trying to work with trapdoors in order to evade sanctions or set up a system to do that.
So for example, the second largest Russian oil company is called Luke Oil, and they just bought a large share in one of Azerbaijan's big gas fields.
Well, who does the United States look at as an alternative to Russian oil? It's Azerbaijan. And so you have a situation where the Russians are setting themselves up.
Now, if I look back at what happened in Tiananmen Square in China back in 1989, the world was united for a short period of time. But then this notion came forward that the only way in which we could actually de-escalate and address the problem was through engagement. And I still worry about the ability of Germany, the ability of Europe more broadly, and the ability of the United States to stand firm, not in the next week or two, but when we're talking six or seven months down the road. But right now, we've decided not to sanction their banks that do business with energy and not to slow down our purchases of oil and gas.
Well, you're absolutely right that this is a mistake. It almost seems that the logic of the Biden administration, Brian, is that when we revoke permits for Keystone XL or when we stop drilling in the United States, that's a benefit to combat climate change. But if we're talking about Russian oil, I mean, that doesn't impact climate change. I mean, the fact of the matter is, we are being strategically inept because the best way to ensure security is through energy independence. That's energy independence at home.
But then, what did the State Department and the White House do just about a month ago? They decided to pull the United States back from investment in the East Mediterranean gas field, which would have helped Greece, Cyprus and Israel, and provided a means to bypass. Russia and for that matter, Turkey. Unfortunately, we need to start looking with a big picture at what our national strategy is. We also got to recognize that it's all well and good to talk about climate change.
Never mind that if the models don't have predictive value, we shouldn't base policy on them. But when we look ahead, we've got to recognize that natural gas today isn't like natural gas thirty years ago. It's much cleaner. We have the technology to keep it clean, and we shouldn't shoot ourselves in the foot or lose sight of the big picture, which is the threat of Russia, the threat of China, the threat of Iran and al-Qaeda. Here is what Nigel Farage says, got that UK point of view, cut 49.
There are reports of Russian soldiers, albeit in small numbers, beginning to give up their arms. And I think where this leads to, actually, in the end, is a big uprising in Russia and probably the end of Putin. But here's the worry, and I repeat this point: if Putin has lost the rational function, and when you see him sitting at a table with the nearest person 40 feet away, you begin to wonder what's in his mind. You know, what could wounded dying animal do Given the nuclear capability that he's got.
So let's be frank about this. We're in a very, very Very serious situation. I have no idea who's close to Putin, how much access he has, and how destabilized he could be, and how that would even look. Do you?
Well, look, I'm a historian, so I get paid to predict the past, and my critics would say I only get that right 50% of the time. I don't have a crystal ball, but what I could say is that every Democrat wakes up knowing when their term in office is over. Every dictator wakes up worried that today could be his last. Even if Putin doesn't collapse because of the war, because remember, with these zombie regimes, they have an amazing ability to hold on to power. Think something like North Korea.
At the same time, Boris Yeltsin, the predecessor to Vladimir Putin, was a drunk, he was weak, but he crafted a system. Putin dismantled that systems. He cut off any competitor who showed any competence at the knees because he didn't want the threat to remain.
So, as soon as Vladimir Putin dies or is removed, you're going to have civil war in Russia. It's a nuclear state. We're entering into a very dangerous period. With all due respects to Fukuyama, we haven't hit the end of history, and it's going to get very bad very fast.
So, Michael, let me ask you: people don't remember what didn't live through World War II. Many people don't even know who was on whose side, sadly. And when people harken back and say, this reminds me of 1939 all over again, and the way their bombing style is similar to what the Allies did to Berlin. What do you say to people who go, that was then, this is now, this is a much different time? I see a lot of similarities.
Well, I see a lot of similarities too, Brian. Let me just hope, if there's any silver lining to this, that our college students, our young intellectuals, and some of our public intellectuals will realize that speech isn't violence. What Vladimir Putin is doing to Kiev is violence. Microaggressions aren't a real threat to society. What Vladimir Putin is doing to Ukraine, what President Xi Jinping is doing to the Uyghurs, that's a threat to society.
And when we talk about multipolarity, that's not a benefit. What we're talking about is empowering the people like Russia, Iran, and China. That when we have a vacuum develop, when the United States pulls back from the projection of power, it's not the forces of altruism which fill that vacuum. It's people like Vladimir Putin, and that's what should keep us awake at night. It's time we have perspective.
I do. And to see these people fight for freedom, I think they'll have people recalibrate and say, wait a second, on our worst day, we have taken for granted. Granted, what people are dying for, and that is the freedom to be wrong, to write, to protest, to have their voice heard. I think this could be a sobering wake-up call. There may, you know, something happening overseas to bring us together because there's obvious right and wrong here.
And I think I haven't met a person who doesn't think that Vladimir Putin's wrong. In fact, I think 190 countries would agree with us, along with 300 million Americans. I think you're absolutely right. And I keep looking back to what Winston Churchill said. The Americans always do the right thing even if they try everything else first.
And we're trying it. Michael Rubin, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. When we come back, I see you up there: 1-866-408-7669.
I'll get to your calls. Also, your emails. You want to write me, do it. BrianKillmead.com. Just click on comments.
Don't move. Learning something new every day on the Brian Kilmead Show. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show. Welcome back, everybody.
1-866-408-7669. Kamala Harris continues to. Befuddle. No matter what the issue is, she doesn't seem to have a handle on it. I'm talking about from the law, from foreign policy to domestic policy, to whether she's even running for re-election.
Case in point, a simple question from Sianna Savannah Guthrie of the Today Show. The Ukrainian ambassador has said the only way to really hit Putin where it hurts is to go after his oil and gas sector. And some senators agree, Republican and Democrat. Senator Joe Manchin, for example, mentioned that the U.S. is still currently buying approximately 600,000 barrels of crude and other petroleum products every single day.
Is that on the table? Is that something that the administration would continue, would consider in terms of further sanctions, cutting off the oil and gas part of the economy for Russia?
Well, as you know, that on this issue, for example, we applaud Germany in terms of what it has done as it relates to Nord Stream II, as it relates to what we need to do domestically as well as what we need to do in terms of this issue generally. We have, as the President said, reevaluated what we're doing in terms of the strategic oil reserve here in the United States to make sure that it will not have an impact or we can mitigate the impact on the American consumer. But let's take this one step at a time, understanding that right now on the issue of energy, our allies have stood firm and unified in a way that many of the pundits didn't predict would happen to ensure that we are unified in our approach to this issue. Embarrassing. She has no idea.
If you don't want to say, I'm looking to take 600, we're looking to stop buying 640 million barrels of oil a day from the Russians. Instead, we're going to, within the next two years, get the Keystone pipeline going, which would produce 850 and it would come from 850 barrels and it would come from Canada and be refined by a Texas refinery. You don't want to do that. There's so many ways around that. Why is it she can't answer any questions?
It's like she's trying to remember a collection of things for categories. And and then even I mean right, it took her what, five, seven seconds to even actually put together a sentence. I know. And thank you, Germany. It's crazy.
It's pathetic. And the thing is, with the longer you do this, you beget to know your relationships. You don't have to memorize it anymore. You get to know the people. She was just in Europe.
How could this not be something like indeli like embedded in her from the conversations she had with the people who were importing the oil and gas? Find out their perspective. I I don't get it. Bob was on WPTF in North Carolina. Hey, Bob.
Hey, Bryant. What's in your mind? All right, so I've got a little different take on why Putin may be doing this. All right. He's lost about thirteen million people sorry, seventeen million.
p people in this population in the last 20 years. He's talking about trying to bring all the Russians in. I think he's. Specifically, aiming at Ukraine. Besides that, he made a speech in 2005.
Saying that If you if Ukraine strives to go toward Europe, that's a red line for him. I think he feels like he was forced into it. And he warned us off. You talked about a change in attitude. It's the difference between a bully telling you don't cross that line and you cross and then you cross the line and then he takes a different attitude.
So I think that may be where we are. Hey, Bob, I love the fact that you went back and looked at this, but the only thing you're missing is we did not overturn the government in Ukraine. They decided they have free will. They don't have to answer to Russia. We could decide whether to put them in NATO or not if all 30 nations agree or the EU if all 27.
But they decided that they didn't want that schlub running their country and they wanted their own guy, Prushenko, in there. He went ahead and lost again. Right afterwards, and now we got Zelensky.
So that's their choice. It's not up to this thug to decide what happens to other countries.
So it's not up to us to worry about a bully or Ukraine. Fox News Radio Studios in New York City, fresh off the set of Fox and Friends, it's America's receptive voice. Brian Killmead. Hi, everyone. Brian Kilmead here.
Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kilmead Show. We're located in New York, heard around the country, and hopefully we're resonating around the world. You can always get the podcast BrianKilmead.com or Spotify or iTunes, iHeart, and you will never regret it. This way, you can be your own programmer. But right now, let's get to.
We've got two great guests: Jennifer Griffin to bring us the latest from the Pentagon, and Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg standing by, best-selling author, also really tapped into this region, knows what it's like to deal with the Ukrainian crisis as well as the ongoing Russia challenge. And I'm being kind. Let's get to the big three.
Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three: The State of the Union is strong because you, the American people, are strong. We are stronger today. We are stronger today than we were a year ago. Wow, President Biden's State of the Union.
I found it to be uneven, unorganized, and divorced from reality. Maybe you liked it. Number two, the Biden administration continues to talk about how they're going to go hard after Vladimir Putin and they're really going to let him feel the full weight of sanctions, but they're not willing to touch his energy. Rebecca Heinrichs weighs in. In America, are we doing enough?
No, we're not. Not when we are the number one customer of Russia when it comes to oil and gas. Not when we refuse to sanction the banks that finance his oil and gas industry. Why not when we continue to refuse to drill and frack? Number one.
Overnight violence erupted once again across Ukraine as Russian forces continued their push not only from the south, but also from the northeast. We saw in the city of Kherson Russian forces claiming that they've actually captured this city moving forward from Crimea. If confirmed, it would give them a significant area of land, allowing them to bring more forces deeper into Ukraine. That is Trey Yanks giving us the latest from the capital city of Kyiv. War rages in the Ukraine.
Two major cities are virtually surrounded. Blatant war crimes happening as they're doing everything that the Giva Convention says we don't. For example, Targeting citizens And going after civilian targets. That's exactly what's happening. And global global sanctions starting to really surround Vladimir Putin, which makes me wonder what's next.
That's why it was a great booking to have Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg give us a few moments of his time. General, welcome back. Brian, thanks for having me. Good to be with you today. I just worried.
I worry that I just feel like a bystander on the number one issue in the world where the people that are fighting for freedom are looking for us for help, and I feel like we're not doing enough. How do you feel?
Well, Brian, I wish we had started to do this over 10 months ago. When he started bulking up eat the Russians on the border, you you know he was up to no good because he's always he said repeatedly that he thought Ukraine was a threat to Russia.
So when he built up forces, He makes verbal comments like that. We should have responded immediately and said, okay, we're going to start to build up. uh the and bulk of his forces. You know, under under under Trump, we started giving him the javelins. We should have given him more.
We should have given him predators. We could have been training his Air Force even better. You know, it's contiguous. Ukraine is contiguous to three NATO countries: Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. we could have done a lot of equipment and set them up.
We just kind of made it frankly, an unsinkable aircraft carrier. And we didn't do that. We should have done it. And because of that, we're paying a price.
Now I will tell you, I think the Ukrainians are fighting with incredible courage. They're led by an incredibly charismatic leader, Inzielinski. And I will tell you, the way I look at it, I think You know, Zelensky stared in the face of death, and I think death just blinked. And because he told Putin, he said, when you attack, you will see our faces, you will not see our backs. And that's a courageous leader.
And when you put a courageous leader of courageous people with weapons, they can do great damage.
So we should have to answer your question again. We should have done that a lot earlier. We didn't do it. Right. They want a no-fly zone.
I don't think we're going to do that. But they say that we do. They do want weapons and we've pledged them. Could you Tyler talk about the challenge of getting weapons in in this current environment?
Well, I don't think you know, Brian, I think there's we we keep pushing them from Hungary, Poland and Slovakia to the three NATO countries, just keep pushing them into Lviv. which actually is their big training area, that big training base there. And then we push them forward into to into the outskirts uh of Lviv and push more towards the east toward Kyiv. I think there are still some routes to Indike, but right now that city is only going to be almost on its own. You know, he's got that huge column, which is a pretty tempting target, 40 miles long.
But he'll surround that city. That city won't give in. You do one thing in the military, Ryan. Militaries don't want to fight in cities because they eat up units. In other words, you put a battalion in there and a city block or two blocks will eat it up.
You try to put multiple units in there and you're going to have a big fight on your hand. The the Russians know that. They knew that from what happened in Stalingrad, and they saw what happened when we just brought the German army to a standstill in World War II.
So we can get the equipment to them. We keep pushing it east. towards those areas that are currently encircled. And I think we have it, but we have to push it hard. Do we have to keep pushing it now?
I heard today that it's about a 10-hour journey to get there, and we should be doing that. Unfortunately, we didn't do it earlier, but we still have time to do it. Right. So we're looking at. Two major cities that are surrounded, one of which, Kharkiv, that looks as though they've lost their ability to have water as well as energy, heat.
So they're beginning in the middle of winter, just March 1st now in the Ukraine.
So they're under tremendous strife and stress because they're being shelled on a regular basis and there's no target that's not ripe. Where whose ti is time on the Ukrainian side or on the Russian side? It's actually on the Ukrainian side. And here's what I mean by that, Brian. The longer this goes on, than Putin is seen for what he is, which is a thug.
And you look at a a nation of Russia and it's taking a beating internationally. It becomes a pariah nation. You see what he's going to do with his artillery in his cities, and people are going to turn so hard against him that they'll never forget this. And Zelensky reminds everybody that. As long as you've got to charismatically, you're doing this.
Speaking out like he's doing, it means an awful lot to the nation and to the world as well. You saw what he did when he went to the European Union, to the Congress there, and they gave him a standing innovation at the end of it.
So I think time is not on Russia's side. And every day that goes by, I think that Ukraine is winning. And by the way, I really believe if Russia eventually, by sheer weight of numbers, takes Kyiv. and and Git Zelensky, it's a period victory because overall they'll have lost the war. They it'll take for years for them to dig out of it.
And the other thing is, i the Russian army has now shown for what it is, not very good. These Brian, these are his first line units that he's thrown at. These aren't you know, they may a bunch of conscripts at the end, but the front units that are fighting are the best he's got, and they're not doing very well. And the fact is, he's got to ask Kazakhstan to put in troops, and Belarus says they'll put him troops. And why he has to pull back the Wagner group from Africa?
Doesn't that tell you that they don't have this well of infantry that they can just dip into? I was under the impression that they would just go on, especially with a draft. They have a draft. Yeah, they don't have the front line unit numbers and they don't want to be sending people back in body bags be in the Barushka's mothers of Russia will get pretty upset like they did in Afghanistan. I'm not worried too much about Belarus.
Belarus has got a 30,000-man army. It's not really good. They brought back the professionals, the the Wagner group with the mercenaries. But there's only so many of them. They actually have got put them already into the front lines.
He doesn't have what I would call reserves.
So, you know, it goes back to what you said earlier, Brian, which is a great question: is, you know, who's, you know, who would. His time favor, and it doesn't favor the Russians on this because he keeps throwing those units in there, they keep getting eaten up. Over time, they're going to wear out. And I think when you're fighting a pretty angry population, they're going to pay a terrible price. If he had gone in fast, and he was able to decapitate the government, in other words, Take out the leadership.
And seize Kiev in a matter of days, then frankly, probably the rest of the world will go, Okay, he did it again like he did in Crimea. But the longer this goes, The world rallies to Ukraine's side. I just don't understand this. He's a KGB guy who knows the other definition as intelligence. How did he not have the intelligence, not the smarts, but the intelligence to know that even places like Kharkiv, which is 98% Russian-speaking, do not want to be Russian?
They'd not know they were leaning to West, and they were alienated from 2014, even if they leaned a little Russian and had a sympathetic ear to them. How did a former KGB guy not get the good intelligence about what he'd be facing on the ground? Yeah, you know, it may be the one the Easter one thirty. It may be Russian speaking. But it's not Russians supporting.
And I think it's hubris. I think he he thought this was going to be an easy run. He thought he'll scare Zielensky. Zelensky will run and hide. The people go, okay, we'll just take it for what it's worth and we're just gonna s succumb to Russia.
And he didn't realize he got into a fight with a nation that wants to fight. You know, the Russians really haven't fought anybody like this. You know, they didn't find anybody like this in Chechnya, they didn't find anybody like this. In Georgia, and they sure didn't fight anywhere like this in Crimea, which is about 80% Russian. And now he's in a fight, and he's got people that don't like him.
And I think he was a little bit arrogant about it. And he's got a real problem on his hands. And I think I'd double up my bodyguards if I was him because the oligarchs or the generals or somebody's going to say we're a pariah nation right now and we've got to figure a way out of it. And we're not going to figure a way out of it as long as Putin's in charge. I mean, there's no doubt about it.
It's not our opinion. Really, if there's 195 countries in the world, 190 are against him. You know, even China has been somewhat ambivalent, and they're not doing a, even though we know they're an alliance and I get it, and they're an Axis, I understand it, they are not buying their oil like they did when the pandemic hit and the oil price dropped and they just hoarded it two years ago in 2019 when it became clear the world was going to stop moving and stop industrializing. They're not doing that now. And they've abstained in the UN.
I think that's also interesting. And they're not becoming, they're not overtly bailing out Russia. Yeah. Yeah, you look at President Xi, and President Xi is a pretty smart guy because he's been around for so long in dynastic and middle or he wants to stick around a lot longer too. I think he's looking and said, you know, I'm not too sure that I want this guy to be my partner.
I'll be there verbally, but I'm not going to give him a lot of support because then I become a pariah nation as well. And I think he's kind of stepping back a little bit. And you're absolutely right. When they abstained in the Security Council, that was like, ooh, that was a coded message. And it should have been messaged everybody that, you know, I'm you know, China's kinda telling Russia, Hey hey, Blad, you're on your own, dude.
I'm going to sit this one out and watch what's going to happen and and I'll come in if if you win, but I'm not going to come in if you don't win. I want you to hear what Nigel Farage said from what he sees sitting in the UK, COD 49. There are reports of Russian soldiers, albeit in small numbers, beginning to give up their arms. And I think where this leads to, actually, in the end, is a big uprising in Russia and probably the end of Putin. But here's the worry, and I repeat this point: if Putin has lost the rational function, and when you see him sitting at a table with the nearest person 40 feet away, you begin to wonder what's in his mind.
You know, what could A wounded Dying animal, do? Given the nuclear capability that he's got.
So let's be frank about this. We're in a very, very serious situation. You want to build on that or refute it? No, he's right. He's we are very dangerous because you don't know if he becomes irrational.
He does have sub Kiloton nuclear weapons. I mean, this is the kind of guy, and we don't think like that. The Russian philosophy on military philosophy is escalate to de-escalate. He may do something stupid. And what I mean by stupid, what if he took a small yield sub-kiloton weapon and exploded it in the middle of a field?
Okay, nowhere around anybody. But everybody then will go, you know, high level nuclear worry because we have teleton and megaton weapons. We don't have the weapons that he has. And they talk about using it. He may do something stupid like that.
And even Mlavrov is making idiotic comments about World War three. And you have to worry about somebody like a Putin that is a little bit off his game right now in in striking and reaching out. When Lavrov started addressing the United Nations Humanitarian Council. Over 140 diplomats got up and left. Started with the Ukrainian left, and you see them get up.
And you see them go through the turnstiles at the United Nations right here in New York City. I mean, I've never seen anything like that before. I've never seen the world so united in my lifetime like this about an offense. And you know what I'm so heartened by? You have these individual refineries in Sweden, in Finland, in Texas, and banks deciding on their own they don't want to finance oil transportation and they don't want to refine Russian oil.
That's going away from forgetting about the government policy, is they're deciding not to do it. Yes, and I'm hoping that the Europeans start to wean themselves off Russian oil because Russian energy is about thirty percent to forty percent. The European nations depend on it, and then Germany is like sixty percent because the pipelines are still flowing. They talk about Nord Stream too, that's fine, but they've still got What the major pipelines that are going through there are right now, the Atlantic pipeline and the Baltic pipeline.
So there's still fuel flowing and and they're gonna have to break themselves because that'll that'll break us back. Once you take away his energy money, then he's going to have some major, major problems. He can only hold on for so long. And the table's been turned on him. And boy, you're so right about the delegates leaving.
The lab robb's a little bit arrogant anyway. A couple of times I've met him, it was like, geez, what did gets into this guy? But it's I think they're on I really think Zelensky has got Putin on his heels. And I think the longer this goes, and you asked that question just a bit ago, the longer it goes, it's worse for Russia. Yeah.
And General Kherson's mayor came out and says, We're praying for a miracle. The Russians said they took the city already, and they said, No, they're still holding on, but they are looking for a miracle because women and children are actually on the target list. And apartment buildings are a preferred target.
So it's just stuff that we would never tolerate. And just real quick, as a military guy, what does it say to you that they're leaving their dead soldiers on the battlefield, not even trying to put them in body bags?
Well, what it tells you is they've got a very undisciplined force.
Well, that's one of the things that surprised me. I said at the top there, Brian, their army has just surprised me. It's not that good. You keep hearing about the Russian army and it's ten foot tall and it's probably five foot tall and I hate to insult them, but it's probably like the Vermont National Guard with nuclear weapons. It reminds me a lot of the First Gulf War.
When I was there, they were talking about how good the Iraqi army was because it fought Iran for so many years. They were nothing. And I'm beginning to think these guys had never fought a major war since major fights since World War II. They picked on some small guys, and now they're facing somebody who fights back. And I said, we're seeing they're not very good.
And this is what, you know, when it goes to Russia as a nation, not only becomes a pariah nation, but it's not the nation everybody thought it was. It really plays bad for them. Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, thanks so much. Pick up his book, War by Other Means. Thanks, General.
Thanks, Brian. It was great talking to you. I see the board is filled up. I'll get to your calls when we come back. You'll listen to the Brian Killmeat Show.
Giving you everything you need to know. You're with Brian Kilmead. The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. Hey, welcome back.
Rhonda is listening on the Fox News Radio app. Hey, Rhonda. Hey, Brian. Hey, I just wanted to mention some things I observed last night with Biden. Number one, he wants to increase manufacturing in the United States.
Number two, he wants to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. Number three, he wants to increase funding for the police. And number four, he wants to secure the border. I love that agenda. That's Trump's agenda.
Yeah, and he has to be able to do that. They demonized Trump for all those things But now they'll go and support Byzantine.
Well, the problem is, you know, when it comes to funding the cops, he doesn't mean it. You know, when it comes to the border, he hasn't shown it. The other two things make it America, besides Intel, please tell me your program. The only reason people are onshoring is because Trump cut the corporate tax rate in half. Brought it back down to a competitive level.
He, if he had his way, would have built back better, would have brought it way back up again.
So that's the issue. Neil, listening on the Fox News Radio app in Indiana. Hey, Neil. Yeah, man, I was just wondering, would Putin really have to send troops into the NATO countries surrounding him like Poland and Lithuania, Latvia, when they get so much percentage of their energy? I think Lithuania gets 100% of their energy from Russia.
Poland gets over 60% when it's considering natural gas. And if he does, just shut it off to him, then what do we do in response?
Well, we'd have to supply it. It's a good point, but militarily, we'd have to shut them down immediately. The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead. We are fighting back one of the most powerful armies in the world.
For the past six days, we are going through nightmares. I am very proud of our president. I'm very proud of our army. I'm very proud of Common people who Left. Their daily routine and went to territory defense points to get some weapons and protect their cities, protect their country, protect their families and their children.
But I should tell you that my country is coming, is going through a nightmare these days. Especially their two biggest cities. That's Helena Lichenko. She's a Ukrainian parliament member, and it's so important to get their story out so it humanizes this whole thing because we're just forced a lot of it to see it on social media. Jennifer Griffin joins us now, Fox News Senior Security Correspondent.
Jennifer, welcome back. Thank you, Brian. Jennifer, how would you describe the scene right now? Uh in g uh Kiev. Brian, it's very difficult to hear the first hand accounts.
You've heard the emotion in the Parliament members' voice. It was unprecedented yesterday when we heard the translator of President Zelensky, as he spoke to the EU, break down in tears. I've never heard that in my entire career of covering these kind of conflicts. What we are witnessing right now and the reports that we are getting in terms of the siege that is being laid on not only Kyiv, but also Kharkiv and the other cities inside Ukraine, these are the kind of tactics that Vladimir Putin and the Russian army used in Grozny and Chechnya. And if you look at those cities, there was nothing left when he was done.
It was rubble. It is the cut he is employing, and we just heard the US ambassador to the United Nations Outline how they are seeing evidence that he's using cluster munitions. Those are banned by international treaties. In 2008, there was a specific treaty signed by 107 nations banning these vicious, vicious cluster bombs. And more importantly, the Pentagon has seen evidence that thermobaric weapon launchers have been moved into the Ukraine conflict.
These are those vacuum bombs that are so vicious in terms of they explode above civilian areas and they kill everybody inside buildings, everyone within city blocks. It sucks the air out of their lungs. These are not banned by international treaties, but the targeting of civilians, hospitals, kindergartens with them, it's something that Vladimir Putin's army did in Syria. The world didn't stand up at that time and did not sanction him and didn't stop him in Grozny. They didn't stop him in Syria.
And now they're What he's capable of inside Europe.
So we're seeing that too, and we're seeing the fact that would you say it's universally accepted? That Phase one of this plan did not go as planned, or is that Western conjecture of how we conclude it?
Well, it was certainly, there appear to be indications that Western intelligence have gleaned that Vladimir Putin is frustrated. You see some of, we're back to criminology now in terms of reading the faces of his national security team and the speeches that he's been giving and public television appearances. But if you look at the fear and the berating of his defense minister, Shoigu, who is one of his close. Closest inner circle, General Gorasimov, who is the father of this hybrid warfare, this vicious military doctrine that the Russians are employing, he berated them earlier this week. It's well known that they had hoped to take the capital Kyiv within 48 hours.
That has not happened. There are reports now of Russian conscripts who are turning themselves over to the Ukraine military, surrendering without a fight, even poking holes in their fuel tanks so that their vehicles don't have to move forward. Nobody that I've spoken to who has access to the latest intelligence and has a military understanding of what's going on thinks that Putin's forces have stopped. They have paused at this moment. They maybe encountered more resistance than they anticipated.
They maybe have some fuel issues, some food, some sustainment, and logistics issues. But they are regrouping. They will move forward. They will encircle the capital, Kyiv, and they will destroy everything inside that city. Right.
And most of the people are underneath. And I understand it's got huge capacity as well as running water down there. The question is, and what I've heard from officials is their goal is to kill Zelensky. And that hit squad, it was confirmed by our reporters, went in there, and they got killed.
So Putin wants him directly. There will be more hit squads. The Chechen HIT squad maybe hit was pushed back by the Ukrainian special forces in two battles that we've been told about. But there are more hit squads out there. President Zelensky is the prize.
He knows he's working on borrowed time. The West knows he's on borrowed time. They offered to bring him out of the capital. He's bravely decided to stay. And every minute, every day, every appearance that he makes, every appeal to The outside world for help, he knows he's on borrowed time.
The question now is: what can be done? What can be done to stop Putin? Because these sanctions are as strong and as serious as the world has ever unified to, I mean, Russia has basically become North Korea or Iran overnight. They're cut off, but how much more damage can Putin do? He's not going to turn back.
His back is against the corner, and he's going to do what he did in Grozny and what he did in Syria. And the amount of destruction that he is capable of and that the Russian military, these are not precision munitions that they're using. They hit a Holocaust memorial yesterday. That was a symbol that they wanted to hit. They are sending a signal to Vladimir Zelensky, who is a Jew and whose family members perished in the Holocaust.
And that was an intentional strike yesterday. There's an element of psychological. Warfare going on. That's why you're hearing Putin threaten to put his nuclear weapons on high alert. The people I speak to at the Pentagon and elsewhere don't know what that means because the kind of language that he used is not part of Russia's nuclear doctrine.
This is, we are now being, you know, he's a famous. Vladimir Putin famously has has studied judo and and been and um uh trained in the arts of judo for since he was eight years old. We are now uh in Vladimir Putin's Uh-huh. World and mind worldview, trapped by his worldview, his distorted mind, and his vicious military.
So I was talking to Britt Yoon before, and he said, you know, I said that the fear is in the West, and do you feel it's justified, that if he's able to take the capital here and have this operation successful, however he views it, other nations are going to be in his crosshairs next. He says, I don't think so, because they're going to be so pinned down in this country, even if they do take the capital, that those other nations cannot be the focus. He is not capable of that. What is the consensus in the Pentagon?
Well, it's interesting. I think both things can be true. I agree with Britt that Putin's forces are going to be bogged down in Ukraine for years to come. We remember what Afghanistan was to the Soviet Union. It was a quagmire.
It was a quagmire for the US military. It was a graveyard for empires. That is what is going to happen to Putin's. Army. Remember, his army is a conscript army, and he has put 190,000 forces into Ukraine.
About 80% of those are now inside Ukraine. He doesn't have a large enough military to an occupation force for the country. Those forces were supposed to subdue Ukraine quickly and then be able to pull out, and Putin would put in a puppet government. That hasn't gone as planned. And so now he would have to call up all of his reserves and he would have to set up an occupation military force.
So his supply lines are already strained going into Ukraine. It's hard to imagine him thinking that he's going to want to fight on two fronts. And so far, the Russian Air Force hasn't exactly shown up. All those fourth and fifth generation fighters that we thought we would see in terms of shock and awe, they've been stymied for a variety of reasons. And so I don't think he's going, that's why he has to, he has.
To revert back to reminding the West that he has nuclear weapons because his conventional military hasn't performed that well. And so, while I do believe if you look at Putin's own words, Lithuania, Poland, the Baltics, they are all in his crosshairs. And he will not stop at Ukraine. And that is why it's so important for the West to draw a clear red line that cannot be crossed. And he now sees that NATO has been activated, NATO has been mobilized.
He thought NATO would fall apart. He thought Germany would break apart. He thought the new prime minister, Schultz, was a neophyte and that he could roll him. He miscalculated tactically, and now he's stuck with a quagmire in Ukraine that's going to bleed his country and drain his economy. And this is how it ends for Vladimir Putin.
The problem is, how much damage does he do in the meantime? And when you take the oligarchs and you freeze their stuff, and then you heard almost every industry of the pullout of these companies. From Apple to Disney to what we've seen around the world. I've never seen anything quite like it. And it seems as though when you tell people the money that they have in the bank account is now worth a third of what it was five days ago, if you're looking to get a nation that size exercised while not telling the truth about the nature of this action, saying something ridiculous, like they're Nazis and drug addicts.
I mean, do they not? I mean, the Russians are a well-educated people who know the Ukrainians. Many are related to them. Do you really expect the Russian people to buy that story? Absolutely not.
In fact, we saw Alexei Navalny, his opposition leader, who he tried to poison and kill on multiple occasions, who is now in a Russian gulag, a prison. He tweeted out today, calling for Russians to come to the streets every day at 2 p.m. to fill those city centers. This is the beginning, not the end, of the Russian people waking up to the danger that Vladimir Putin is. The problem is, they have been, he has very artfully, for the past 22 years, Basically, he controls the entire state apparatus of information inside Russia.
And so, four out of five Russians are watching state television. They don't know the truth. They aren't seeing the images on CNN and Fox and BBC that are being broadcast around the world. They are seeing state television and it is being whitewashed. The problem is, we are living in the 21st century, and it is impossible to keep information like this from somehow getting to those Russian people, those Russian young people.
I mean, already those brave scenes of Russians coming out into the streets being arrested, 6,000 people arrested. This is the beginning of the Russian people. They are going to wake up. They're not going to have their savings will not be a third. It will be worthless.
Their money is now going to be worthless. And trust me, all of those oligarchs and all of that inner circle realize this is a huge. huge strategic mistake. Um again Pluton controls the narrative inside Inside Russia for now, because he has been working for years with RT and all of those radio stations, all of those journalists that he's been buying off over the years. The one bright light of independent reporting inside of Russia, ECHO Moskvy, it was an independent radio station that was started when I was based there in Moscow from 1996 to 99 in the Yeltsin era.
And that was taken off the air yesterday because Putin thinks that he can keep this information from his people, but not in this modern age. This information is going to get to them. And the other thing that's going to get to them is the disappearance of their sons that were sent up to the front lines as conscripts. They didn't sign up for this war. They weren't told the truth about what they were going to be doing in Ukraine.
And let me tell you something. Once you wake the Russian mothers, the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers that was formed in 1989, those mothers are going to be the downfall of Vladimir Putin. We only have a minute left, but I'm seeing stuff on Facebook. I don't know how authentic it is. But it shows these captured Russian soldiers and the Facebook ads of these your kids.
Basically, you want to come and get them, and trying to tap into the moms, reading that text message out loud of a Russian soldier's final moment saying, I don't roughly, and I paraphrase, I don't know what I'm doing here. They told me there was exercises, and I'm really scared, and he died the next day. And they read that on the floor of the UN. These things are a direct appeal to the Russian moms to step up. Final thought on that, Jennifer?
Absolutely, and that will be the end of Vladimir Putin. It may take longer than we'd like, and the poor Ukrainian people are in the crosshairs tonight, and we must, must support them in whatever way we can. I know that there are certain things being done that we can't talk about. We are supporting them, but we must. This is a moral outrage what is happening in this day and age to watch a leader behave like we thought these types of leaders were in the dustbin of history.
We now realize that Putin has been unmasked and the world has now woken up. Listen, you get it, and I get it. I absolutely see this as a threat. A lot of people are saying, 6,000 miles away, what's the big deal? I hope the rest of the world understands it's a big deal.
I hope China realizes we would think taking Taiwan is a big deal. Jennifer, thanks so much. Thank you, Brian. When we come back, I'll take some of your calls. 1866-408-7669.
I'll give you the absolute latest. It is carnage. Don't move. Newsmakers and newsbreakers. Hear it first on the Brian Kill Me Show.
He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Killmeade. Putme circle Kyiv with tanks. but it'll never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people. Exactly, and that is true.
Although he's meant Ukraine. He's only the president, not much at stake. Joe, listen on WRCN of Long Island. Hey, Joe. Brian, good morning.
Questions. I think the Democrats and Biden have the blood on their hand. This war should never have happened. They caused this by closing our pipelines and enriching Russia. We are.
Stay fat. Killing these Ukrainians by funding them, and you said this, and you beat this down on your show, and Father Friends. By funding their war, by opening up their pipeline and giving them a billion dollars a day. Why would this man do this? The president's scared that if gas goes too high, he is going to get slaughtered the midterms.
I have news for him. He's going to get slaughtered anyway. Beth, WDGJ. Welcome, Beth.
Well, thank you. Um I I've heard that the US I mean, I'm not ha I mean I've just started paying attention to this, the US and NATO wanted to bait Russia into I mean, into war and there's a reason to go after Russia.
Well, different Newsweek is picking up different. If Newsweek says that, you should immediately throw it away. We have no interest in this. There's no benefit to watching the Ukrainian people get grinded up. Uh, women and children be forced to walk thousands of miles for freedom, uh, 800,000 to be displaced in Europe.
No way. Jerry, WSKY, Jerry. Good morning, Brian Daly listener. Great show, as always. I feel that the United States, as the leader of the free world, has a moral obligation to get more kinetic in this war.
I understand the The potential risk here.
However, what is the difference between the Gulf War in 1991 when we went in, rightfully so, to liberate Kuwait from an aggressor that being Iraq that invaded a sovereign nation, when these people, the Ukrainians, are not a perfect democracy, of course, but they are democratic leaning and they show that they're true patriots, willing to put it all out there on the line to fight for their freedoms, things that we take for granted. Jerry, the obvious, I hear you what you're saying, but the obvious difference is: one is Russia, which would mean nuclear war. And are we willing to put the planet at risk to do it? And they're trying to go around it, but if it was a NATO ally, we would be treaty obligated to do it. We wouldn't even have this conversation.
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Whisper: parakeet / 2025-07-09 23:37:45 / 2025-07-09 23:40:09 / 2