War of Words Heats Up With Russia, Ukraine Invasion Likely

Live from the Fox News Radio Studios in New York City, fresh off the set of Fox and Friends, it's America's receptive voice. Brian Killmead. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Jennifer Griffin standing by from the Pentagon will get her take on what's happening overseas. And of course, take your calls after 1-866-4-08-7669.

So, we have a lot to discuss today. The president's going to be in Ohio talking about infrastructure, but I'm sure a lot of his focus and worry will be about what is happening with Russia to Ukraine. We are getting such differing signals. Jennifer will make heads or tails of that. But first, let's get to the three things that matter most.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three: number three: it's a dumpster fire. Honestly. I mean. The school board's focused on everything except reopening schools. or on quality education.

They're focused on renaming schools, using kids as subjects for their social experiments. That's Robert Kuttner, a school board member, talking about what's happening in San Francisco. Whacking wokeism in the canceled culture. The first blow, three Board of Education members are recalled in San Fran, and an elite sportscaster, fresh off the Super Bowl, calls it quits.

So, to quote her, she can freely speak her mind. We'll talk about it. Number two.

Now Canada has spun so much out of control that they're actually making American politics and American politicians look same, which is a sign of how badly Justin Trudeau is running things right now in Canada. Clay Travis weighing in D-Day perhaps for Freedom Caravan as emotions boil in and around the clueless Justin Trudeau in Canada. What trouble is heading the trucker's way and why their fight is really our fight as we effort to get back to normal? Number one. In recent weeks, and even in recent dates.

More Russian forces, not fewer, are at the border, and they are moving, concerningly, into fighting positions. This is cause for profound concern. There you go It's come to this, a war on words between the US and Russia. But for me, I just want the real story. Are Russians pulling back as they claim?

Or bulking up at the border as we claim? Jennifer Griffin, Fox News National Security correspondent, welcome. Hi, Brian.

So I guess part of our tactic is to say everything that we know. Let's not say the CIA is making, as they say, as transparent as possible. Are we de-escalating or escalating? in the Ukraine or I should say is Russia escalating or de-escalating in the region? Brian, what we are witnessing right now is, as one U.S.

official put it, the most perilous moment for peace in Europe since the Cold War. I would argue back since World War II. What we are seeing right now, and this is based on conversations that I'm having with very senior U.S. officials as well as NATO officials and Western intelligence officials, what we are seeing right now is there was a little bit of a fake feint by the Russians yesterday to pull a few troops back to their barracks. This was not a significant movement.

You've heard U.S. officials, you just heard the NATO Secretary General say that they do not believe Russia is pulling back. Do not be duped by this move by the Russians. The Russians often do these kind of deceptive moves as they are also moving forward. What we do know is that they moved significantly 7,000 more attack troops closer to the border.

They are moving closer to attack positions. T-80 tanks. These are the special Russian tanks that can endure the very low temperatures that we see in Ukraine right now. Remember that on February 15th, that's Tuesday, the ground was at peak freeze. That will change at the end of March.

So there is a limited window in which Russia can carry out this invasion. I am told that with near certainty that Russia is planning to invade Ukraine, and what you saw in Luhansk today with the initial shelling of that kindergarten in which three people were injured, that is the beginning.

Now there is shelling back and forth between Ukrainian and Russian-backed forces. This we expected when lawmakers were given the Classified intelligence briefing two weeks ago. This is what was laid out. This was Putin's plan. The U.S.

has exquisite intelligence about Putin's planning and what the plans were. And so far, from everything I heard two weeks ago, this is all moving exactly like clockwork. And I sit here at the Pentagon and I can tell you the mood is extremely sober, and there is a feeling that we are in uncharted territory from here forward.

So there's some video out which you were referring to initially saying that the Russians are pulling out some of their heavy equipment. There they are, some tanks on rails, and they're pulling back. And then you find out the 7,000 troops, according to our side, no, have been added, and NATO's backed us up. And then you're referring to this shelling of a kindergarten in the Ukrainian-controlled territory. It took a direct hit by Russian-backed separatists.

So they shell that area. And I guess the word is amongst the Ukrainians, do not. Because that would be the provocation so the Russians could say, Hey, you know, I don't know what they're talking about. They started telling us we had no choice.

Something else happened. They built that bridge last night. Could you tell us about this pontoon bridge? Yeah, we've seen through Maxar satellite imagery that what's different about this war is that not only are we getting real-time Not only TikTok videos, but videos from people. Every person on the ground has an iPhone.

You also have satellite imagery. You have all of the U.S. aerial surveillance that can survey, you know, that is over, above Ukraine, along the borders, watching Russian troop movements and military movements. And so the real-time intelligence is different than any. Build up to war that we've seen to this point.

The heavy military armaments that are being put into position. You're talking electronic warfare, artillery, Iskander missiles. These are cruise missiles that are very powerful. These are all these are all being being put into position. You mentioned the pontoon bridge that you could see from the Maxar satellite photo photos.

That pontoon bridge has been built across the river on the Belarus border with Ukraine. Remember, that is a mere sixty mile drive down to Kiev from the Belarus border. We heard also overnight that the President of Belarus has said that the Russians may keep military equipment, Iskander missile brigades in Belarus, just 60 miles north of Kiev, after the military exercises that Russia is carrying out right now that were supposed to end on February 20th. They're going to keep them there. That is a change from what we had heard from Lukashenko just days before.

These are all eyes right now are on February 20th. That's when the Olympics ends. That's what I just see that there's news that has just come in that the young fifteen year old Russian ice skater has fallen and has fallen into fourth place and will not meddle. That that young skater would be the pride of Vladimir Putin and his attempt to present Russia as as being a world leader right now. But the Olympics end on the 20th.

The Belarusian Russian military exercises were supposed to end on February 20th. And the Munich Security Conference, this is a very significant security conference with world leaders in Munich, including Vladimir Zelensky. The the Ukraine president is supposed to speak there. Vice President Kamala Harris will be there. But notably, the Russians, for the first time in more than a decade, will not be at the Munich Security Forum.

That ends on February 20th.

So right now, all eyes are still on the day or two after February 20th. What you're going to see in the next three days, I expect, is increasing provocations, increasing deception, increasing disinformation coming out of Russian TASS and RTL and other RT other Russian media outlets are going to be suggesting that Ukrainians are the aggressors and that there is, you've heard President Putin say worryingly that there is genocide taking place in the Russian separatist areas inside Ukraine. That is not true, but these are the kind of things that the Russian people are hearing. And it all is part of what was laid out to members of Congress as what Putin's plan would be if he were carrying out a full-scale invasion. And we've seen no evidence that he's pulling troops back in any significant way.

So, Jen, as you know better than anyone, the propaganda a lot of times takes place before a war, whether it's muscle flexing or trying to look like the good guy or bad guy, when you get this intelligence at these briefings, we saw the sparring with an AP reporter last week. They'll say, we got reports. And you have no idea where those reports are from, but you know there's a State Department spokesman or Defense Department spokesperson telling you them. Are we to believe Everything they say, or are they also playing the PR game, not a PR game, but a deceptive game, a propaganda game, in order to avoid conflict?

So, Brian, it's a very fair question. I would tell you, and you've known me for many years now, I've been here for over 14 years in the Pentagon. And what we are being told is not from spokesmen. It is not from this this is more serious than anything I've seen in my adult lifetime in terms of the yes, you're right, it's very unusual for them to be sharing this kind of declassified intelligence with the media. But I think it it suggests that there's a great deal of concern that the President has said, and rightly so, NATO has said that they will not be sending troops into Ukraine to fight against Russian troops.

They do not want a war between NATO and Russia. These are nuclear powers that are this is not the Taliban, this is not Syria where the U.S. can overwhelm their air defenses.

So, they are in a very delicate dance trying to impart To people to know what they are seeing because the Russians are masters of deception. And they wanted to make sure that everybody was seeing what they were seeing so that in the event that diplomacy could work, but as the hours tick on, diplomacy is not working. That is why you're seeing Secretary of State Antony Blinken delay his trip to Europe to speak at the UN Security Council right now. Very difficult timing because the UN Security Council right now, the Presidency is in Russia's hands. They have veto power.

But that is a significant speech that will be occurring at the UN today. Unfortunately, it looks like diplomacy is at its at its End and what many people feared, and the intelligence that they started receiving. Remember, Brian, this goes back to early December. This has been laid out. Everything that I've been told has come true in the time frame that it was laid out to us.

So it is this is very different. It's a fair question that you ask because clearly the media is in the information space, and both Russia and NATO. We are part of this very buildup.

However, Based on my sources and the people who I'm speaking to, these are not spokesmen that are simply sharing information with us. There is a great deal of concern at the highest levels of our government and the governments in NATO right now. And Jen, this is the one thing I have to keep reminding myself. This is totally unprovoked. The Ukrainians did nothing except for express a willingness to be more Western-oriented, of course, an aspiration, it wasn't close, to join NATO.

It's not as if they're provoking Russia. They did this. Russia, Putin, this is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Soviet Union. Red Army Day is on February 23rd. Putin laid out his plans and what he planned to do with regards to Ukraine, how he views Ukraine as part of Russia, as part of the former Soviet Union, in July, in a speech in July.

Putin has been laying the groundwork for this since the 2014 invasion, certainly, but this is part of his grand scheme to redraw the map of Europe, to extend the borders of Russia out to the former Soviet bloc countries, and that is why you are seeing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin heading to Poland. The U.S. has added 5,000 troops to Poland. Poland, Romania, they are right on the border with Ukraine, Belarus, and it is to say, and they are Article 5, NATO countries, unlike Ukraine, and it is to say, do not step one inch into a NATO country. There are grave concerns.

Russia right now already controls Belarus. That is now a vassal state. If they keep their Iskander missile brigades there, if they keep their troops in Belarus, that means he's already redrawn the map of Europe. And don't forget, as you know, in Georgia, what he's done with the Donbass region. And when Kazakhstan asked for his help, he gave it.

So that leader is now subservient and owes Vladimir Putin.

So Putin is on the mood move and he senses uh he he was testing NATO. He thought maybe that NATO would fall apart in these last six weeks to two months.

So far NATO is holding strong. In fact, if anything, it's been a shot of adrenaline to NATO, which had been somewhat weakened over the last decade or so. Right. I'm up against that. I just got to ask you, did you get anything positive for the readouts from the German Chancellor meeting with Vladimir Putin on Monday?

I think that there's been a lot of misreporting. I think the Germans are side by side with the U.S. based on German officials that I speak to, and there has been no weakening in German's position. Nordstream 2 will not go ahead if Russia invades. And I think Olaf Schultz is getting a real, you know, he's a new Chancellor, but he now sees what he's up against with Putin.

And I think that the reaction from Germany is very strong, and they're very much allied with the U.S., Britain, and France right now. Jan, I know it's hard to get to sleep when the story is moving like this.

So thanks so much for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Brian. You got it.

1866-408-7669. Man, this is serious stuff. Back with your take on that and more. You're listening to the Brian Kilmeat Show. Coming to you on a need-to-know basis because man, do you need to know?

It's Brian Kilmead. From the Fox News Podcasts Network. I'm Janistine, Fox News Senior Meteorologist. Be sure to subscribe to the Janistine podcast at FoxNewsPodcast.com or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And don't forget to spread the sunshine.

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If Canadians are to trust their government, their government needs to trust Canadians. Those are the words of the Prime Minister in 2015. These people, very often misogynistic, racist, women haters, science deniers, the fringe. Same Prime Minister six years later as he fans the flames of an unjustified national emergency.

So, Mr. Speaker, when did the Prime Minister lose his way? When did it happen? Conservative Party members can stand with people who wave swastikas. They can stand with people who wave.

the Confederate flag. We will choose to stand with the Canadians. who deserve to be able to get to their job. We'll be able to Get their lives back.

So, can you imagine this? This is a Jewish lawmaker in Canada. I guess they have a very similar system, the parliamentary system of the British, where they're able to yell, get up, sit down, yell, get you know, scream and shout. When we do that, that's usually out of order. But this Melinso Lanceman, it turns out she's Jewish.

So not only is Justin Trudeau mischaracterizing what has been for the most part an extremely peaceful, delightful, family oriented twenty day standoff in Ottawa. He said fringe, and instead of understanding that he had it wrong, he goes and says they're Nazi and Confederate flag flying Extremists. And if you agree with the Truckers, that's what you are.

So Melissa Landsman is is Saying, I want an apology. And by the way, I think she's the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor.

So that's double down.

So this guy can't do anything right because his instincts are all wrong. You would think he would understand. If I'm on the wrong side of blue-collar workers, truck drivers, if you know you're on the other side of Omnicron, if you know that five to six to seven provinces are loosening up on all their mandates and masked requirements. Why would you not meet with them? Show Justin Trudeau, the white-collar guy can see eye to eye with the blue collar guy instead.

He has further alienated himself. Just how not to lead. And when I see New Zealand and Australia, I wonder what they're thinking. Man, as crazy as we are, I'm glad we're here. I'm glad we have some in.

inalienable rights. Back with College Impious in a moment. From the Fox News Podcasts Network. I'm Ben Dominich, Fox News contributor and editor of the Transom.com daily newsletter, and I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week. It's the Ben Dominich Podcast.

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

A radio show like no other. It's Brian Killmead. This is a factual political discussion that if you give the Republicans the ability to point to Democrats as this super woke culture focused on the wrong things that don't matter to voters, that don't matter to them putting food on the table, that don't matter their kids going to school, that don't matter their higher wages. you're gonna lose. And it's that simple.

So you need to step away from super wokeness. But the problem is they haven't. They're desperately trying to now. And that, of course, is Donny Does on MSNBC. What am I saying?

Of course, you probably don't even never heard of him before, but he's actually a guy that just despises Trump, used to love him. Bless you, Carly Shimkiss, who I haven't introduced yet. And he came out and said, Look, what's happening in San Francisco is emblematic, as the LA Times said, of what is happening around the country in a lot of these urban environments. These woke Board of Education people are discounting the impact of masks and mandates on kids in schools, especially. And in turn, parents, apolitical maybe by nature, not like us who are in it every day, are taking a stand.

And it's against the wokeness. And that's why three Board of Education members got voted out, yeah, recalled in San Francisco. Carly Shimkis, this is not new news to you, but I just wanted to outline. those thoughts because Democrats are getting panicky because the polls are coming and the election is coming, and they'll pay the price for this because people are really ticked off. Yes.

Just think about I mean, I don't think that you can You cannot highlight what happened in San Francisco enough because it's the most liberal place in America. And those liberal parents voted to oust three liberal school board members for so many reasons. And it's insane what was going on there. No surprise. They were trying to rename schools from George Washington High School, Abraham Lincoln High School, Diane Feinstein.

They tried to rename a school because they didn't like her. She was too conservative. She's their senator, former girl. But that wasn't it. That wasn't the only thing.

They were also spending hours debating if a gay father with a biracial daughter was too not a minority enough to sit on some panel. They also went from a merit-based system to a lottery system in one of their really prestigious schools because they wanted to make it more diverse. And all this is going on during the pandemic when they need to be focusing on getting kids back in schools. Parents just Got sick of it. What do you make of the fact that the mayor, as liberal as he gets, said, Yeah, I'm for this recall.

They're too liberal for me. Nancy Pelosi hopping on the Sunday shows going, I'm not for, we're not for defund the police. God bless Corey Bush, a fellow Democrat, who our listeners on KTFK in St. Louis know all about in Missouri. But she's like, yeah, I'm for defunding the police, defaming the police, Ilian Olmar.

Yeah, and Nancy Pelosi, lead guest, George Stephanopoulos. We're not for that. Yeah.

Well, when it comes to. You're panicking, I think.

Well, when it comes to London Breed, she got to pick the three replacements.

So I don't know. She could have an ulterior motive. She could have an ulterior motive, but everybody else is trying to move so past so far away from the defund the police movement because it's insane. I mean, what happened with the Democratic Party, and it really ramped up over the last three years. They just let the loud minority of woesters take over.

If they weren't crazy, they wouldn't be in this place. Defund the police is an insane concept. Masking everybody, even when the CDC is saying that masks don't work, is nuts.

So people are just, even Democrats are saying this is just too much. Like you played with James Carville saying the same thing. Hillary Clinton is saying the same thing now.

So, you know, there's a movement farther to more to the center now. Carly, do you notice we've seen a lot less Anthony Fauci? We don't see the president saying, get boosted. Come on. Don't be very little of that.

Yeah, very little of that now. Because, number one, good news. Omnicron 2, the next variant of the variant, not virulent at all. Omnicron, everyone knows the numbers. Like, they're down 75% in New York City overall.

Cases and deaths and everything like that. And a lot of these people, you're going to find out these deaths numbers are way inflated. Remember, I said it here. Do you have a pen? Oh, yes I do.

Now you can speak. Go ahead. Right. It is what's today's date, Allison? It's the 17th.

Go 217. You watch these numbers are going to come way down when we re-examine these numbers. Got it. Drive safely. Brian.

Thank you. Thank you. So, part of the reason on what I found extraordinary about this story, the mayor. But the LA Times, the L.A. Times is warning liberals, look out.

He says, this is a warning. This is from this liberal San Francisco school board recall as a three-alarm fire for Democrats. Quote, it's a good bet that the parents won't be forgiving or forgetting what's taken place over the last two plague years. And in that way, San Francisco's recall election may be the early rumblings of a much larger shake-up to come. Case in point.

Purple Virginia. Yeah, I know. And with Glenn Young winning the election, you can really just see it happening across the country. And I think that this would be a really smart time for President Biden to reassess his administration and the people that are giving him advice and maybe toss some people out that are giving him advice, some advisors, because they're giving him bad advice. Look at what's going on with the gas prices.

They're a dollar more expensive than they were last year. He says that they're going to go even higher if Russia invades Ukraine, which may happen even today. You don't know. And he has every ability to change that, but he won't because there's the climate change people that are breathing down his neck and he's kowtowing to them and it's hurting Americans. Crowley, you have a rich sports background and you show that every chance you can on Fox and Friends.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for saying that. They have now given you sports stories. I'm coordinated. I'm athletic.

I could do many, many push-ups in a row. Right. That wasn't what I was referring to, but that's. Good to know. That was more of a bio.

I was talking about your knowledge.

Okay. Because Fox News is giving you all my sports assignments, right? Every time we do sports, it's Carly. Hey, Carly, what do you think about the game tonight? You're noticing this now.

This has been going on for years. Did not know that. The number of sports events that I have covered for Fox and Friends is unbelievable when I know nothing about sports. Is that true? You come off like you know stuff.

Really? You think so? I can't tell if you're being. No, no, I do. Because every time we talk, because you digest that topic, that event.

So tell me some of the events you've covered.

Well, the congressional baseball game, you don't need to know a lot about sports for that. That's mostly politics. I went to France for Fox and Friends. Remember, covering the Women's World Cup? That killed me.

I'm the soccer guy. In 1998-9, I'm at the Rose Bowl as Mia Hammond company and Brandy Chastain win the World Cup. Grand, they're not going to send you. You're the anchor. Dude, you're too big for that.

You're not going to do a split show. No, they're choosing to send you over me. All right. And this is a rivalry that we. You might not be in the game.

The Big Ten Championship game. I went to that. You did? Yeah, yeah. That was phenomenal.

Right. What else? There have been many. Right. Oh, the World Series.

The word Is this ridiculous? All right. So, Michelle Tafoya is one of the best side of the world. Oh, there's a reason we're talking about this.

So, for the last probably 30 years, I mean, every big event, I mean, she'd be on. And I think for the Super Bowl, she did it the game. I mean, if you're not the best, you're not part of that. And NBC did it, and she did it. And she said, This is my last game.

I thought, what's going on? It's my last game. I'm resigning. Just resigned, no, no big deal, no scandal. What happens is she is tired of the woke attitude, she's tired of watching every word she says.

So she was on Tucker last night, she was actually on Gutfell, too. Why she'd come out on Gutfeld is crazy. Because he is not sane. Here's her talking about the decision to step away from sports. Cut 26.

NBC did not encourage this. They did not force this. This has been on my mind. I've been waking up. Every day, with a palpable pull at my gut that.

Ugh. My side, my view, my middle ground, kind of moderate viewpoint, is not being represented. To the rest of the world, I didn't feel. And so rather than, you know, just banging it out on Twitter or Instagram every day, I thought, I've got to do something. I have benefited greatly from the American dream, and I feel like, for the sake of my kids, and because I so love this country.

I've got to start giving back.

So, what do you think about that? Yeah, well, I think that she's a sportscaster second. She's a mom first. And when she was talking to Tucker, she said that her son throughout his childhood was best friends with a black child. And then when he got a little bit older, the school system literally started segregating the kids by race so that he stopped hanging out with his friend anymore because they were just doing different things in school.

They weren't able to hang out with each other. I mean, how insane is that?

So she's seeing this. She talks about this on The View. I think one of the reasons she, this was the tipping point for her, this View interview, she got backlashed because she was saying, this is crazy. I mean, we are a united country. Why are we going back in time and becoming a more segregated nation?

And then Whoopi Goldberg jumps down her throat and says, no, you can't be saying that kind of stuff. And I think she said, enough is enough. I want to speak out. Adam Carolla doing the same thing. I want to speak out and bring sanity to the conversation again.

Adam Crow. Bill Maher also. Yeah.

Well, Adam Crow is the best because he was one of the first to do the podcast because, yeah, I'm not working for anybody. I'm going to do my own thing. He had his sponsors come. He does his own thing, mixes it in with stand-up. It's phenomenal.

And by the way, one of his best friends is Jimmy Kimmel, and they couldn't be more powerful. I wonder. I mean, I hope so. I think you can be friends with people who are politically different. I mean, my best friend is as liberal as the day is long.

We just don't don't talk about politics. Right. And I, you know, put it this way, he would have no problem, but Jimmy Kimmel might have a problem, in my view.

So, Michelle Tafoya went on to say this: cut 28. I don't care if I'm attacked. I really am not afraid of that. And I guess I feel like so many people now are afraid. Yeah.

Listen, I know there are repercussions for whatever I choose to say. And I've talked to my kids' school about it. You know, please don't hold this against my kids. I'm speaking for me, I'm speaking for my family, but please don't hold this against my kids. But this is what I really believe.

I think I speak for a lot of people, like you said, Tucker, and a lot of these people, my friends. are afraid to Repost things that I've posted. Or get into political conversations, they are, and they've said it, I'm afraid, I don't want to get in these arguments with my friends, with my boss, with my colleagues. This is the most terrifying thing in the world to me right now. that people are afraid to talk.

Oh, yeah. It's unbelievable. In a country with a first First Amendment free speech, and people are self-censoring. People are afraid to speak out, say things that make sense to them because they don't want to lose their jobs. And you can't blame them, but it's a sad state of affairs that we're in.

I think that people living in rural America right now or places that are solidly conservative or are moderate, just moderate. They're looking at liberal cities, California, New York, and saying, Thank God I don't live there. Oh, yeah. I know. And not only that, it's almost unaffordable if you're just barely, you know, you're not doing really well, even if you are doing well.

Why do we live here? I'm not sure. But I was with somebody extremely rich who moved from California to Florida. And even though they can afford it, there's something obscene about giving away millions of dollars and it goes to illegal aliens and it goes to a homeless crowd. And the governor keeps welcoming everybody in.

I know. And the smashing grabs, and they're going to continue to finance this and pay more. They go, excuse me. I'm going, I'm traveling to sanity, thank you, even though I'm a billionaire. Yeah, I know.

It's crazy. And then you think about the stuff that just like the government waste, like these. Crack. Pipe Drug things, like these packets. Drug packets.

Yeah, it was called what is it? What was it called? It was like a safe drug kit. That's what it was called. Eric, you know a lot about crack.

Do you know anything? Do you have any details?

Well they no, so then the administration I'm sure you've talked about this a million times on the radio show they said that they never had crack pipes in them.

So explain to me why they cost thirty million dollars. Because I don't think lip balm costs that much. No, it's in there. It's in the packet. Why also, what is the lip balm?

Why is lip balm? Why do you need lip balm if you're smoking crack? I think. Can somebody call in on that? Crack is, like coffee, crack is a diuretic.

So you have to, if you're doing crack, make sure you have water. Oh, okay, good. Because your lips crack. Can somebody get Hunter Biden on this? Right, he is on it.

Do you have his phone number? He's on it right now. Where is he? He's on it. Listen.

Koi Shimkis is here. I'll answer all of her crack questions in the break. When we come back, we change gears. I want to find out if she needs to know more. The answer might be no.

I know enough. We'll see. Educating, entertaining, enlightening. You're with 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. I wish I could tell you what I'm playing again. I I wanna know, but I don't.

My golf activity has been very limited. Can chip and putt really well. and hit short irons very well, but I haven't done any long stuff seriously. Still working on the walking part. The walking part is something that I'm still working on, strength and development in that.

It takes time. What's frustrating is not at my timetable. I want to be at a certain place, but I'm not. And I just gotta continue working. I'm getting better, yes, but As I said, not not at the speed and rate that I would like.

Uh and I guess As verbose as you will hear Tiger Woods, very honest. And, you know, he's always so measured, but he's trying to recover from that car accident. But there's a special coming out of Fox Nation, I should say, with him. As opposed to Ben Hogan. Ben Hogan got hit by a bus.

Tiger Woods had a devastating car accident. But you can find that, the similarities and the comeback, that's especially on Fox Nation. But, Carly, with your permission, I'd like to find out if you need to know more. Permission granted. More.

To know with Carly Shimkiss. You got it. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, guys.

Go ahead. Okay, well, I know that you're dying to know about Aaron Rodgers' love life, so here you go. He has split with his fiancé, Shaylene Woodley, who's an actress. In a statement, their people said it was an amical split. It just wasn't working.

They're very different people with busy careers, and there were obstacles that they couldn't surmount. They will remain friendly. There's no bad blood, no drama. Seems like an infatuation. Right, so the quarterback who's going to be a free agent, maybe she couldn't take the instability.

Didn't know how many millions of people. She's like a super lip, and he's getting anti-Mac Vax. What has she been anti-Mac? Matt Vax just. Big little oh, yeah, she's been in big little eyes.

Have you ever seen that? No crap. Why would I even ask that question?

Next. It was a good shot. Average person lasts 90 minutes before finally kicking a snoring partner out of bed. They looked at 2,000 adults. They found the sleep compatibility is important to 78% of respondents.

The average person will only put up with a snoring partner for one and a half hours before kicking them to the couch or moving themselves. Unsurprisingly, more respondents will be reluctant to move, confessing they'd asked their partner to do so instead. 90 minutes is you're long-suffering. Right. It's like one snore out of my husband, and I'm giving him like the elbow.

What about you leaving? Me leaving? I'm not snoring.

Well, I'm just saying, but you're bothered by it. I'm not the snorer. Right, but you're bothered by it. You wake him up to tell him to move because you can't sleep. Because he's the one at fault, Brian, you see.

But it's not like they wake up. They just like adjust. They? Oh, you mean they move? Like, I'm just in general.

How many people are you talking about? How big is your survey? How big is the Carly Shipkist survey? It's hard to know their names and the pronoun they want to be referred by. Can we move on?

Next. Uh A Florida high school star basketball player was declared to be the tallest teenager in the world when his seven-foot 5.33-inch height was verified by the Guinness Book of World Records, seven feet to over seven feet tall. Does he play basketball? Does it say it there? Yeah.

He's a basketball star. I'm reading this for cold, so I don't really know the details. Yeah.

Um he is from Quebec. Wow, Canada in the news a lot. Um so it's not me that's the tallest high schooler. I was very tall though. You were tall?

Oh, did it bother you? No, it didn't bother me. I like being tall. The only thing that bothered me was that I wanted to do gymnastics when I was in high school, when I was little, like, you know, very young. And my mom was like, Carly, you're 5'7 in second grade.

Right. That's not good cards. Did you play sports? You could hurt yourself. I ran cross-country pretty seriously.

Oh, wow. I played soccer a little bit, dabbled in that. Did you run? Do you run all the time still? I want to convey that I am a sports star, Brian.

Thank you. From the Fox News Radio Studios in New York City, giving you opinions and facts with a positive approach. It's Brian Kilmead. Hi everyone, I'm Brian Kilmead. Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kilmead show.

Mark Thiessen will be waiting on board. He's going to be talking to us shortly about this breaking news overseas and beyond. Charles Oakley, one of the greatest Knicks and Bowls of all time, certainly the most respected in the league, he'll be joining us with his brand new book. Uh so let's get to the big three.

Now with The stories you need to know. It's Brian's big three. Number three. dumpster fire. Honestly.

The school board's focused on reopen on everything except reopening schools. Or on quality. education. They're focused on renaming schools, using kids as subjects for their social experiments. Wacking wokeism and cancel culture.

First blow, three wacky woke board board of ed members out in San Francisco. An elite sportscaster, fresh off the Super Bowl, calls it quits because she wants to speak freely. But we had a breaking point. Number two.

In recent weeks, and even in recent days. More Russian forces, not fewer, are at the border. And they are moving, concerningly, into fighting positions. This is cause for profound concern. I think so.

Ned Price saying it, it comes to this. A war on words between the US and Russia. But for me, I just want the real story. Are Russians pulling back as they claim or bulking up at the border as we claim? Number one.

Now, Canada has spun so much out of control that they're actually making American politics and American politicians look same, which is a sign of how badly Justin Trudeau is running things right now in Canada. That is Clay Travis, D-Day, perhaps for Freedom, the Freedom Caravan as emotion boils over around clueless Justin Trudeau in Canada. What trouble is heading the truckers' way and why their fight is really our fight as we effort to get back to normal, and self-centered politicians just don't see it? Let's welcome in Mark Thiessen, writes for the Washington Post columnist, and you know he's a Fox News contributor. Mark, I get the sense these truckers are not going to be able to hold out much longer.

They're going to lose their license, they're going to lose their trucks, they're going to get jailed, they're going to have their accounts frozen. As abhorrent as that sounds, that's China-like. It's abhorrent. I mean, Canada is a COVID police state. We have north of our border what is becoming a totalitarian dictatorship.

It's not that's not an exaggeration. I mean, and by the way, you know, the the all these media people here in the United States cheering them on, remember the outrage that they they when President Trump cleared protesters out of Lafayette Square? And they said, this is what authoritarian regimes do. This is outrageous.

Now they're cheering on Justin Trudeau. Not only is he going to clear them out of in front of the parliament, the exact same thing, but he's going to seize their bank accounts of people who are supporting them. He's going to take their licenses away, put them out of work, destroy their lives. I mean, what on earth are they doing? And the same people who are criticizing Trump are.

cheering them on. And this is not As if the Omicron is not fading into the wilderness. Omicron 2 is nothing.

So we really have turned the corner. And if there's another variant, if this administration can't get ahead of it, it's their problem, not ours. We're done. We're done listening. And if you look at what's going on right now, this would be such an easy thing for Justin Trudeau to do: go out, meet with the blue-collar men and women, see the families out there.

Instead, what he points out is there was somebody carrying a. I guess what he claims was a Nazi flag. Listen to this cut one. If Canadians are to trust their government, their government needs to trust Canadians. Those are the words of the Prime Minister in 2015.

These people, very often misogynistic, racist, women haters, science deniers, the fringe. Same Prime Minister six years later as he fans the flames of an unjustified national emergency.

So, Mr. Speaker, when did the Prime Minister lose his way? When did it happen? Conservative Party members can stand with people who wave swastikas. They can stand with people who wave Confederate flag.

We will choose to stand with Canadians who deserve to be able to get to their jobs, who will be able to get their lives back. It turns out her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, so you really think that she would be standing with somebody who had a squat sticker? Everybody's been seeing that footage. If there is some crazy in the middle of there that doesn't represent that movement.

So here's the thing, Brian. There have been no incidents of violence whatsoever in the Canadian protests. In fact, the only violence that we have seen was a guy in Winnipeg who rammed in, who was anti-Freedom Convoy, and rammed a truck, his car into them and sent four people to the hospital.

So there's been no violence whatsoever. Contrast that with Lafayette Square, where they tried to burn down St. John's Church. Or the Black Lives Matter protests here in the United States, where 220 Black Lives Matter protests turned into riots. And there's been none of that in Canada.

These people have been qui they've been they've been peaceful, they've been respectful, they've they are exercising their right to nonviolent civil disobedience. And Canada, which claims to be a democracy, is cracking down on them like Justin Trudeau is channeling his inner Xi Jinping. I know. And people don't understand also, Brian, what a police state, what a COVID police state Canada is. Here when Omicron arrived, we got upset in America because some of our jurisdictions were restoring mask mandates.

They went into a complete shutdown. They shut down all restaurants except for outdoor dining. They shut down gyms. They shut down sports facilities. We just had the Super Bowl with 100,000 people maskless watching a football game.

The NHL teams are either playing in empty arenas or they've been forced to cancel their games in Canada. This is a complete for Canada, we are in 2020 right now. It's not 2022. They've gone back to lockdown.

So of course they're mad. And of course they're rising up because it's absurd. Listen to the facts now. Marty McCary last night on how the CDC still has not moved on masks, despite the fact that the studies show, because we don't do our own studies, that they only help to prevent illness by 2%, cut 13%. The CDC has its own journal called MMWR, which is not subject to independent peer review.

So, what they do is they hoard the data, they don't release the underlying raw data to researchers around the country, and in their own time they publish in their own journal with their own conclusions, which often are not derived from the data presented itself.

So, what you have is this unprecedented trend of using scientific research for political propaganda. And if I were advising the administration right now, I'd say make all the data available to the public so researchers around the country can do their own independent analysis. People just want honesty. Yeah, and we're done with the restrictions. And you said, Mark, if you feel, and I know your mom passed away to this, so nobody has to tell you about the reality of COVID-19.

If you feel so you got to wear a mask, more power to you. Wear an N95 because the paper ones don't work.

So then go do it. But what they're doing, for example, my daughter's upstate in New York. Every kid has got to get boosted, double vaxed, and they got to wear N95s in class. Tell me what scientists green lighted this, and it's with every school. It's ridiculous.

And on top of that, they're doing this invasive testing of every child repeatedly. Like my son's in college, he has to get tested three times a week. And if he comes up positive, then he would have to be quarantined for 10 days with no symptoms. at all. I mean, you know, as Marty Marty has pointed out, yeah, I had Marty on my podcast at AEI, what the hell is going on?

And Marty Marty pointed out that if you if you tested every uh college student for meningococcus, which is the which is the uh the bacteria that causes meningitis, ten percent would have it in their noses. doesn't mean that you're good they're gonna get sick. It doesn't mean they're gonna get anybody else sick. If you if you go searching for monsters, you're gonna find them. And so we're taking kids who are asymptomatic, who have no who are who are of no danger to anybody.

And taking them out of school and upending their lives over this ridiculous effort to get to COVID zero, which is never going to happen. All right. By the way, Allison, do you know, do you have any requests for Mark for me to be on his podcast? Do you want to check the schedule? Are there any call on?

I'm going to take time, Brian. I'd love to have you on. Just let me check with Allison because I'm sure you invited me. Allison, do you see anything there? Eric, can you check nothing?

Okay, I guess not. I'm sure it was just an error. I'm sure you called this. You're probably on my voicemail. I'm pretty sure.

Mark, let's pivot. I just had Jennifer Griffin on last hour, and she says it's the most serious moment for Europe since World War II. And the intelligence that they're getting, she meets with these people on a regular basis. They're people that really trust her. It's real.

And their goal is to trade everything the CIA gets almost, they're letting everybody know.

So 7,000 troops they claim moved in. The Russians put on TikTok of some of their tanks and heavy equipment getting on rail and moving out of Belarus. We also know that the Russian separatists shelled a kindergarten in the Ukraine a few hours ago. What's your take on this?

So, a lot of people are asking in this country. First of all, the polls are very encouraging. I think 69% of Americans. Support allowing Ukraine to apply for membership in NATO, and 59% say that we should not promise Russia that we will not allow them into NATO to avoid an invasion. They support sanctions.

They support standing with the Ukrainian people. Nobody wants to send American troops in there, but they understand that this is important as their principles involved here.

So Americans are very clear on this. But there's a minority of Americans who are wondering why is this our problem? And the answer is simple. It's that Ukraine isn't Las Vegas. What happens in Ukraine doesn't stay in Ukraine?

If we allow Vladimir Putin to get away with an invasion of Ukraine, then guess what? Xi Jinping is watching. And he says Taiwan is next. If Putin can invade Ukraine and annex a country and install a regime there or take over territory, why can't I get away with it? The Americans are weak.

They're never going to do anything. The other issue is nonproliferation. Iran and North Korea are watching this. People forget that when the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine had 2,000 strategic nuclear weapons. They had nuclear uh arsenal, missiles that could reach the United States and strategic bombers.

And they gave all of that up in exchange for something called the Budapest Memorandum, which was an agreement that's signed by Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and Great Britain. Russia promised not to threaten Ukraine's territorial integrity. United States and Great Britain promised to support Ukraine if its territorial integrity was ever threatened. And now, if we allow Putin to come in there, guess what? North Korea is going to accelerate its efforts to get a weapon that can reach us here in the United States.

Iran is going to accelerate its efforts to get a nuclear weapon, because the lesson is, if you have nuclear weapons, no one's ever going to threaten you. And guess what? Then, Saudi Arabia will all of a sudden get a nuclear weapon because they're not going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon and they don't have one.

So we're going to have a global arms race. as a result of this.

So there are consequences to this that go far beyond Ukraine. We cannot allow a totalitarian dictator like Vladimir Putin to invade and annex one of his neighbors. It just can't be allowed to happen, and we have to take tough steps to make sure that it doesn't. I do too. I think so.

We're not going to put our troops in there, but we can make this painful for them. Keep in mind, this is all unprovoked. There's no even friction. They made the friction because they don't like how un-Russian they feel and how more Western they're leaning.

So that's important. The other thing to keep in mind with the President of the United States is going to be at Ohio today talking about his infrastructure plan and the need for Build Back Better. He actually wants to say by spending $4 trillion, we'll be able to get the deficit down and be able to get inflation down. We all know one thing he can do, Mark, is he could start picking up the drilling, the barrels of oil coming out domestically. He could do that right away.

No, 100%. And look, here's the thing. He said the other day we're going to look at every measure possible to if it because if obviously if Putin invades Ukraine, we're going to have to put oil and gas sanctions on Russia and that could raise gas prices here at home. First of all, Putin thinks that he's bluffing on that. He would love to have an excuse for rising gas prices that he could blame on Putin rather than on his own policies.

But so that would be a win for Biden to have that problem. But here's the thing. If that's true, why don't you then approve the Keystone XL pipeline? Then approve drilling in Anwar. Stop waging a war on fossil fuels.

That's what's been driving up the cost of gasoline around the country.

So if this is really a foreign policy priority for us and we have to take punitive measures on Russia, then we need to take all the measures that possible here at home to unleash American production so that we can replace not only keep have our supplies guaranteed and prices down, but we can Then go to Europe, which gets forty percent of its energy from Russia, and provide an alternative to them so that they don't have to they're not dependent on Russia oil and gas.

So, I don't understand how he can wage a war on fossil fuels and also deter Russia from invading Ukraine. I hear you. And, Mark, lastly, what do you think the significance is of three San Francisco school board members being recalled and people ridiculing the fact that they want to rename schools that have American founding fathers on them and people like President Lincoln on them? And the fact is they were cracking down on various people who aren't woke enough. Do you believe this is the beginning of the Democrats trying to wake up their party?

I think they are waking up. I think you've got UC with the blue states lifting mask mandates. They saw people maybe the Biden administration didn't get the message from what happened in Virginia, but a lot of Democratic governors and a lot of Democratic mayors have. Uh and they you also see the mayor of San Francisco suddenly backtracking what she used to support defunding the police, now she's for funding the police. Uh I think you're gonna see uh the the people are free, you know, they they may not uh they may not follow the science, but they follow the political science.

They understand that their voters are angry and they want change. He is Mark Thiessen. Thanks so much, Mark. Good luck with your podcast, no matter who you interview. Ha ha.

We'll have you on soon. Right. Don't no, don't rush. Don't worry about it. It's not like I'm going anywhere.

You interview everybody else. And then if somebody cancels, you know where to find me. Thank you, Mark. Appreciate it. When we come back, I'll take your calls: 1-866-408-7669.

Expanding your knowledge base. It's the Brian Kill Meet Show. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead. There's nothing other than saying a lawyer didn't tell us that his firm had done some work and that he was billing Hillary Clinton for some of his time.

That's it. That's it. And the notion that somehow this guy, you know, he kind of did a pleading where he twisted the facts like a pretzel to throw a bone to the right wing. And of course, they've taken this little bitty bone and they've tried to make it into a side of beats. In a way, it's almost better to have him out there by himself with independent ability to bring it.

Because if in fact Merrick Garland shut it down, it would forever be, oh, look what happened. You know, he was on the verge of finding that Hillary Clinton had, you know, was in the Trump Tower looking under Trump's bed. But if in fact this kid Keeps going the way it's going, he's going to twist in the wind and eventually die and go away. The people who believe what they're saying on that one-cable news channel, they're going to believe it if they say Donald Trump lost 150 pounds and is trying out for the gymnastic team. Yeah, you mean the only news channel people are watching, Senator Claire McCaskill, who failed and lost because she was not answering the will of her constituents?

Real quick, they're talking about the Durham Report. It's amazing what Hillary Clinton tweeted out, and I will actually take a look at that and break that down. But first, I want to go to Chuck, listening online in Montgomery, Texas. Hey, Chuck. Chuck, you want to talk inflation?

All right. Cannot get through. All right, we'll put the phones on hold for now.

So basically, Hillary Clinton finally addressed the Durham findings from on Friday. And what she said, here is what Fox News and what Donald Trump are saying is try to overwhelm what's happening with Donald Trump scandals, to paraphrase. They said, here's a Vanity Fair article. This tells the real story. But Vanity Fair bends over backwards.

It's so obvious, if you read the initial documents, that the Durham Report talks about a tech firm who worked for her and worked for the White House at the time. That actually was probing into Trump Tower. That is spying on Trump Tower. But there's more to it, I get it. But it was a total whitewash.

And they said the New York Post is an example of this. Not even the New York Post. How about the Wall Street Journal?

Now you have a problem with the Wall Street Journal, Fox, and the New York Post? I know you have a problem with Donald Trump. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. He's a non-New Yorker, New Yorker.

He has that New York cold quality. I just, last week, He was in town. And he still is still in shape. Still to this day, I don't like playing against him. I don't even like standing.

'Cause standing next to him, I think he's gonna elbow me. It's just who he is. But he's a good guy. I mean, he used to rough up Jordan back in the day. Right.

And and Michael was mad. Michael didn't understand why they traded oak.

Well, you know why? They had to get Bill Cartwright, I guess. That was John Sally, one of the funniest guys, a real good player on a very good team in Detroit. Talking about Charles Oakley, played 19 seasons in the NBA for the Bulls. The Knicks, most importantly, and the Raptors, Wizards, and Rockets, author of the brand new book, The Last Enforcer: Outrageous Stories from the Life and Times of One of the NBA's most fiercest competitors.

And I don't think there's anyone who didn't respect Charles Oakley when he was in New York, had a chance to cover it when I was doing that prestigious job like SportsPhone and New Sport, and watched the magnificent Knicks teams that didn't win a championship, but man, were they good? Charles, congratulations on the book. Thank you. Glad to be on the show and uh Yeah, Sally, he was a fun guy. It's a lot of story about me and Sally, but Sally's a hardworking guy.

I know we got our ups and downs, but I like Sally more than I like Charles Barkley. I know. By the way, yeah, you don't like Charles Barkley, he does not understand why you don't like him. Here's what he said: cut 43. Charles Oakley doesn't like me, which is no big deal.

I don't like him or dislike him. I don't think about him. He's not important enough for me to think about. He doesn't like me. I have no idea why.

So why don't you like Charles Barkley? He said I'm not important, so why should I like it? But now he he oh, oh, he think about me 'cause he knows if he comes in the room and I'm in that room, he gonna have to leave that room, so he thinking about me. Really? Charles, what happened?

What happened?

Well, you know, it go back a long ways. When he smacked me on my face and when he played for Phoenix, I don't play with people like that. And you know, yeah, he's had great talent, I understand that. He on TNT talking a lot of smack. And I guess that's what he had to do to be on T V.

But, um, I talk I don't talk smack. If I got something aggr aggressive about something, I do that. I mean, like I say, um, that's Charles Sparkle and, you know, it's cool. I like I said, if he walk in the room, I'm in the room, he gonna leave before me. I mean, I watched you play for 10 years.

I was able, at that point, they let the press sit under the basket.

So I know how hard you played. And the first time I saw you, Charles, I was doing play-by-play in color for the CW Post basketball team. And Virginia Union. We played them. You were the scorer, and you were like, you, I mean, I expected you to average 30 in the NBA, and you had more rebounds.

You were more of a power forward, but I mean, you were dominant in the middle, and Post was an elite Division II team.

Well You know, in this book, I talk a lot about, but when you came when I came to the league, you know, you know, Virg Virginia Junior Historic By College, I had to adjust. I mean, I'm playing with Michael Jordan and some other scores.

So, my game wasn't trying to come in. Yeah, I'm the version two player here, that, I guess, that. I'm coming to show them I can change my game, I can play with anyone. Right, and you're willing to earn it. You came from a rough neighborhood.

You talk about having to take three buses just to get to high school. Where did the gumption go to go through this? A lot of kids would be like, you know what? I can't afford this, or I'm not going to go for three buses to get to school. Why were you determined to get through it and then get to college?

I didn't wanna let my for my grandparents and my mother or my aunts and my sisters and brothers. I didn't want to let noone down because, you know, I getting up to send your mother, get up to go to work, had to catch two buses herself and make it sacrifice for other kids and, you know, just do better, you know, get get something meals on the in the table for us on the weekends. 'Cause basically when your parents work in two jobs, basically you had the big meal on the weekend and during the week you had to eat what you can eat, you know? No, I hear you.

So you were Division two player of the year to over two thousand three hundred seventy nine points, one thousand six hundred plus rebounds. Did you know you were destined for the NBA? And what was it like being drafted by the Bulls when you were?

Well You know, in the book I talk about My journey my journey I didn't know. At the time when I was in Cleveland in high school, it was Cleveland was kind of it was real bad. And so I chose to go to Virginia Union. I only came home one time in four years because it was getting to be a bad time. All my friends were getting in trouble going to jail.

on the street selling drugs. And, um, I I escaped it when I went to college. I didn't want to be close to home. I didn't want to be two hours away. I want to be eight to ten hours away.

So I couldn't just drive home on the weekend and see the family. But it was just about going to school and finding new friends and I did. I found a lot of new friends at Virginia Union.

So you get drafted by the Bulls. What was your first thought about the roster, and why did you hit it off so well with Michael Jordan, who wrote the forward to your book, Charles? What was it about your game that he respected? Matter of fact, talking about Michael Jordan, we just talked this morning. It was just my awareness that, you know, hey.

I'm from a small school. I know I have to come in and work. I had to compete every day and show them that I'm they drafted me for a reason. They made the trade for a reason to bring me to Chicago to help build that team. And, you know, even though we didn't win a championship, I think that I was something that the foundation like I came to New York with the foundation.

And I think that when we get a foundation, then you knew Chicago's gonna win sooner or later. But Uh unfortunately, I I wasn't there. But uh, you know, you can know they're gonna win championship 'cause Michael was peaking in his game, they got Scotty Horse, and you see the Kimbridge started coming together. Yeah, and then we watched the last dance again. I wonder what you thought.

So you missed the championship run, but you brought him to the doorstep, got traded to the Knicks, and then battled the Bulls the whole time. Here's Patrick Ewing talking about you, cut forty-one. The coaches around the league are starting to give him the recognition that he deserved and the respect that he deserved. I think he's definitely one of the best power fours in the game. That was him when playing.

But were you you were not enamored with Patrick. Would do you think that's accurate that you you you saw there were times when he he was not as dominant that he was in college and you thought the effort was pray may sometimes lacking? Yeah.

I think he, um, in this book I talk about uh, you know, just hey, everybody have opinion. You know, Scotty had opinions about Michael and I think he's the GOAT. I don't think Patrick, the GOAT, or the Sinners, or, you know, not even the top ten players that still is the GOAT. But my thing with Patrick is I was just saying, you know, if you're IQ for basketball that if you watch films, you go back in the way that I was watching the highlight of the day, and this is one of my things I was saying. Like, when the King got double teamed, we was in the finals, he always threw the ball out to the rookie.

My thing with Patrick, I didn't think he trusts us enough because he always shot in and when he got double teamed, he still shot the ball. And when you shoot out double team, that means you don't trust the players or you're a little selfish. But my thing, yeah, he played hard, but not hard as I think he played in Georgetown. I mean, that's my opinion is about him.

So if he have opinions about me, it's okay. I have no problem with that. You always said it like it was. Uh With Patrick in particular, would you tell him when you were playing, like, hey man, we're open. You got options.

You didn't have to double-check.

Well, you know, Patrick get then he get a little moody. You know, he's Patrick was a he wasn't an easy guy to play with, first of all. Everybody in the city know the ma that's why the management offered him a D-leau job. Um, he he he should have just been more of a big brother to everybody, but he wasn't.

So I think to win a championship, you have to go through adversity. he never want to challenge that. And you think about Cole, Mike, LeBron, Magic, Burke, they all went through adversity. I mean, he went through if you're a beat writer in New York, you know what I'm talking about because he re never gave nobody nothing to write about.

So It's part of his basketball game too. Right. Uh, Jeter was the same way. Uh, never really said much, you know, but they won championships. Um, here's here's uh Pat Riley uh talking about why he always kept you on the court late, cut forty.

We need him on the court to win. I made a huge mistake last year. You know, when everybody talks about, you know, what happened in game five, probably the biggest thing that happened is that he was sitting on the bench in the last 25 seconds of that game.

So I've tried to make a commitment to myself to keep him Patrick on the court regardless of what's going on in the fourth court.

So it was from 1994-95. You remember that? Yeah, he made two mistakes, the Reggie Middle mistake and the Charles Mill mistake.

So I'm glad he uh he you know, he manned up about it. But that's what I was talking about. Adjustment. I t I talk about this in my book. I mean, I don't just talk about Patriot.

It's you know, it's just it's one of life that when you're around people, everybody got something you can talk about when you don't win a championship. They might talk about I ain't getting enough rebounds. But When you see When you when you see that, you know, they they admit that that means a lot to me because and that's what I was talking about. We had teammates and we always have stuff that you know teaming you open up and they're like that this and that. But I don't think, you know, from a coach's standpoint, that they didn't force Patrick to pass out of the post enough.

Like you've seen Some guys, well, if you double-team, he should reverse the ball. You know, everybody thinks I'm blasting Patrick because of that. No, just I'm gonna think that when you have a chance to win a championship and your best player, you know, like Joe Burrow, I mean, even though he lost Sunday, but you know, he got the it factor, he got the it factor. And, you know, them types of guys who put teams, he put that team in his back this year in Cincinnati. He didn't win it, but you can see that he got them there.

And, you know, had a chance to win. We're down to the last, what, minute and what, fi you know, five seconds, twenty-five seconds. No, I hear you.

And I just saw so many great players. It seems to me, Charles, you're the expert. But basketball's changed so much since you played. I mean, there's not the physicality anymore. There's really no big men dominating.

And that was the big attraction with Shaq and Akeem Oijuan and Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Morning and you on the power. There was a much more physicality of it. Do you like it better when you played, or would you like to play in this era? I think I can play both eras, but that's a big question. That's a big debate these days because the younger guys will be saying it's their turn and start competing, you know, start comparing us to the 80s of the 90s.

We don't play that. We play sexy.

So it's a global league. I hate to get into it. The younger guys, I mean, it is what it is. We add no tattoos, they got all the tattoos. We didn't shoot a lot of threes, they shoot a lot a lot of threes.

We made free throws, they missed a lot of free throws.

So it is a here there.

So however you want it, you know, you want to go to the movies or you want to go to Netflix.

So it's everything has changed since back in the 80s and 90s.

So Yeah, the games is kinda hard to watch sometime, you know. They don't take responsible turnovers and free throws. And I think that's important. Them biz possession of four or five turnovers in the fourth quarter and missed five, six free throws. That wouldn't have happened in anything because if you couldn't shoot free throws, you didn't play the last three minutes of the game.

Charles Oakley, my guest. Charles, another time we cross paths, I got the word: Charles Oakley's opening up a car wash. And I go, great. I go, is it going to be available for interviews? And I go, yeah.

So I get in the car with my shooter. I go down there. And if you were washing cars, you didn't want anything to do with the press. You're like, I got a business to run.

So that's the that's the hard work at me, you know. Work come first. But my thing about I always gave the press, you know, a interview. I might have just said that let me watch these cars, but I never turned y'all away. That's true.

So, this one incident comes.

So, people, by the way, if you love basketball, love sports, you will love this book. Frank Isola is a great writer, and he wrote the book with you, and he was your beat writer. He got banned from MSG, I think, too, by the Knicks.

So, James Dolan throws you out of Madison Square Garden. Everyone saw the scene. It's part of the reason, which I believe the word is that a lot of superstar players don't want to go to New York because you are so respected around the league and the way he treated you. Here is how it sounded: Cut 44. Charles Oakley is in Balance.

They need security in a big way. Security is there. Hopefully now being. Take it off. And this is an ugly thing to see about a guy who played here.

For over 10 years with terrific player, Oakley and the Nick organization have not seen eye to eye recently. Oakley has been very critical about them. Make the organization not happy with that, so it hasn't been a good relationship. Over the last several years, you hear some fans chanting Oakley, he was a beloved player. And Oakley pushing off there, obviously upset at something.

So, Charles, they escorted you out of the building. What happened?

Oh, it was crazy. I I mean, it just came out of nowhere. It's like getting hit from a blind side, but I don't know what happened. All I know, I was sitting there ordering some popcorns and um a Pepsi and talking to the fans.

Next thing I know, here come eight guys walking up over me and telling me I had to leave. I'm like, for what? They sort of grabbed on me. My thing, I was trying to protect myself. Number two is.

This is so embarrassing for the NBA and their fans to see something like that. This man is consistent over he keep messing with people, throwing people out, banning people from coming in there. And I played with his dad, it was nothing like this. I don't know. The NBA, they got a problem.

He's a problem for the NBA. It's a co my thing is you're not winning, but you're embarrassing the league. Year after year, you keep embarrassing the league about something or a ticket or somebody said something to you. Don't come to the game. Is your s is your skin that thin?

Stay home. Yeah, anyone who yells at Jimmy Dolan, James Dolan, gets thrown out of the game. And I guess he doesn't like you or critical. They try to throw you out. And the crowd starts chanting Oakley because they love you at the garden.

Anyone who watches you play just appreciates the way you play. Here's Dolan explaining himself, Cut 45. We need to keep the garden a place that's comfortable and safe for everybody who goes there. Anybody who comes to the garden, whether they've been drinking too much alcohol, they're looking for a fight, they're abusive, disrespectful to the staff and the fans, they're going to be ejected and they're going to be banned because everybody has a right to come to that game, to come to those games and enjoy them. And no one has the right to take that away from everybody else.

And in this case, that did happen. We are going to put the ban in place and hopefully won't be forever.

Well where does it stand? Where's Stan? Wow. He sounds like he he already had a drink, the way he sounds. Um, where's Stan?

Um, we're gonna let it play out. And he he's just over the top. I mean, You sell alcohol, number one, and you're alcoholic. You shouldn't even be around alcohol 'cause you you've been to the clinic. And you calling someone else like they got a problem issue.

How do you know when someone got an issue, you ever had a drink with them?

So it's just a lot of BS, and I wish it wouldn't happen because the fans deserve a lot more. And like I said, lo long as that this man owned the team, ain't no superstar gonna come there. You get a lot of B players in free agency, you're gonna have overpaid players. And they should have signed Lonzo Ball this summer. They needed a guy who can control a team, a guy was a leader.

They don't want to get it struggling. They struggle right now if they don't have a leader. They can just have a lot of guys young who are all looking at the realm. And until they get somebody to be a leader, they can define guys like this New York and you gotta play they you know, You've been losing so long, and the fans just, you know, last year they sold it to him, and this year it's a letdown. How did you go from?

10 games over 500, 10 games under 500, and you're paying guys maximum money. And think about the ticket prices. The last enforcer, the name of the book. If you love sports, you will love this book. Charles Oakley, it was a pleasure watching your play.

Congratulations. I hope it's a huge bestseller. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show. Hey, welcome back, everybody.

1-866-408-7669. I hope you enjoyed that interview with Charles Oakley. I just don't know of a better guy to watch. if you want to know how to play the game at any level. He showed up every single night and he did the dirty work.

You have to see this guy dive on the floor. I mean, he's a great athlete, but for an NBA player, average. But what he did is was strong as a mountain and would dive for every loose ball and play hard every single game. He was worshipped at the garden, worshipped in Chicago. And that is why Michael Jordan wrote the forward on the book.

The guy, he said he talked to him today.

So I think it's pretty important. The other thing I wanted to relay is just how out of bounds Eric Adams was. Eric Adams came out yesterday and said basically, the critics in the newspapers are because they're critical of him and the way he's been running the city over the last six weeks since he took over is because there wasn't enough diversity among news. Rooms. Have they been around newsrooms lately?

They've never been more diverse. It has nothing to do with him being black. What Eric Adams said and should have said is: I went up to Albany. I wanted to get rid of the no-cash bail to make this city safe. You know what I got in return?

A big no, a non-starter. That makes New Yorkers more in danger. And I should have read off the list of all the lawmakers, white, black, or in between. that were standing in the way of a safe city. Don't attack newspaper people for writing the story about you not getting success up in Albany.

Blame the people that deserve the blame. I appreciate you trying. 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 Killmee from New York, heard around the country, heard around. Brian Kill Meet Show.

Thanks so much for listening, everybody, and continue to grow. We added a couple affiliates this week and hopefully a few more major cities. It's always a privilege to expand our audience. A lot of people just listen on the podcast, and that's great. I have a lot of people come up to me for the first time and not say, hey, I listen on the radio.

They say, I get your podcast. Whatever works for your lifestyle, we appreciate your listening, and we try to bring you the best guests and most insight at all times. Knowing what's close to you matters most. Sadly, we have one thing that we all have in common, and that's this pandemic. I mean, all, from Belgium to Australia.

So let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. It's a dumpster fire. Honestly, I mean The school board's focused on everything except reopening schools. or on quality education.

They're focused on renaming schools, using kids as subjects for their social experiments. Whacking wokeism and the cancel culture, the first blow through three whack jobs board of education members in San Francisco.

Well explained. Number two.

In recent weeks, and even in recent dates. more Russian forces, not fewer. Are at the border, and they are moving, concerningly, into fighting positions. This is cause for profound concern. No kidding, Ned Price.

It's come to this: a war on words between the U.S. and Russia. But for me, I just want to know the real story: are Russians pulling back as they claim, or bulking up as we claim? Number one. Now Canada has spun so much out of control that they're actually making American politics and American politicians look sane, which is a sign of how badly Justin Trudeau is running things right now in Canada.

No kidding. D-Day, perhaps, for Freedom, the Freedom Caravan, as emotions boil over around the clueless Justin Trudeau's leadership. What trouble is heading the truckers' way and why the fight really is our fight too? We'll discuss it. But with me right now is a man that knows all about tough fights, and that's Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, a key advisor to the President of the United States and Vice President.

He has a book out that is great, War by Other Means, a general in the Trump White House. General, right now in the Biden White House. We are looking at a tactic where they are Letting us know almost all the intelligence they get, they claim. They're saying if the Russians are bulking up, if they're building a bridge, if they're pulling back, they're letting everybody know. Do you think this tactic has been effective to this point?

Hi, Brian.

Brian, thanks for having me.

Well, it's been effective because it's put them off balance, but I will tell you, I think it's a big mistake. I've said a few weeks ago, the best thing President Biden could do is shut up because you're starting to give away sources and methods. And look, I think maybe the indicator, when they expelled the Deputy Chief of Mission Gorman from Moscow today, they're kind of sending us a message. And when you talk a lot like that and give up a lot of information, I think it's a huge mistake. And I think they've done that.

And I'm unfortunately, I think we may pay a price for that. because they'll be able to hide that information on what they want to do. Look, Putin himself is an enigma wrapped in a riddle, but his capability is very clear right now. He's assembled an invasion force. around Ukraine.

That is not an exercise for us. They've never had an exercise that large. And you know, I but Putin's a thug, former KGB, he's sure as heck not a Jeffersonian Democrat. But he's got a clear intent in mind, and he's clearly got Ukraine in his heights.

So he built a bridge last night, a pontoon bridge, that would go from Crimea to the heart of Ukraine. We claim he had seven thousand troops. They showed video of tanks and trucks being loaded into rail and being brought out of Belarus. We also know that somewhere the Russian separatists, which makes this dicey and gray, and maybe it's perfect for Vladimir Putin, shelled a kindergarten last night.

So, I just gave you those three things. You might have people that might say that what I just said was wrong, but I can just tell you what I've been told and what the reports are. If I gave you that, what do you do now if you're the Ukrainians, and what do you do now if you're NATO in the U.S.?

Well, to start with, what you do with NATO is there's not much you can do because Ukraine is not a NATO partner with Article five in place, meaning attack on one's attack on all.

So you kind of stuck there with the NATO position. We're kind of doing the right thing, but we should have been doing it over the last year is continuing to pour armament into Ukraine to make him very, very formidable fighting force. This is something that we started to do in the Trump administration. We gave him like the javelin anti-tank missiles, which are the best in the world. But we should have been doing that heavily in the last year out there.

And look, it's typical for the Russians and the Separatists to do that. They're not they don't fight by the same rules that we are used to in the West, but you have to look through their lens and see what they're trying to do. And they're trying to find an excuse to go in there. And I think that's really what you're seeing when the Shell schools are fighting in the separatist areas. I think is they're looking for a reason to go, and that's what they're trying to find right now.

So I think if I was a predicting guy, I'd say he's got a capability. If he wants to go, it's just a matter of days. not weeks before he does something. You know, Brian, you can't keep a military on a tether like that for a long time because with maintenance issues, logistics issues, Training issues, personnel issues, they start to wither, and you've got to make sure they're ready to go.

So if he doesn't use those forces in the near term, a week or two weeks, then he, in fact, is going to have to start withdrawing them only because they'll start losing capacity and capability. I know you're a war fighter and not necessarily a diplomat, but in things like this, we always hear about face-saving measures.

So If he does not want a bloody war, which by all accounts it will be bloody, of course he'll win, but it will be bloody and the occupation will be worse. And evidently, it's going to divide families in Russia. Russia is really kind of torn by this. Having said that, what is a face-saving measure that you think the West could live with? Yeah, there's it's And this is hard to say because anytime you talk about Russia, especially here in the United States, you get a Pavlovian response and everybody just kind of goes off the rails on it.

But this is one where you s you need to think strategically and say, okay, it's almost like you you're telling Ukraine, you almost want to be a little bit like Finland, Finlandization, meaning you're a sovereign nation. But you're an independent nation, but you're non-aligned. You're not aligned with the West. You're not aligned with the East. Finland's been able to negotiate those trails for a long time.

And maybe that's what you tell Ukraine, this is where you want to be. And at the back end of that, what you're trying to do is then continue to build them up militarily. But that's about the only way out of this that is going to satisfy Putin and to prevent him from going forward. But what you're trying to do is prevent a major war. And I think that's what you want to do at the same time in the back of your mind.

How do we get out of this in the near term? But in the long term, we keep ensuring the sovereignty of Ukraine and they don't become a divided nation by force.

Well, look, here's what Senator Cornyn said, and he's seen a lot of these conflicts. CUT 19.

Well, there's only one person that knows the answer to that question, and it's Vladimir Putin. But he sees a tremendous advantage here to test the limits of the Biden administration to see how much they will push back and to try to undermine NATO. And he's already succeeded in getting countries like Germany to really raise the question whether they would come to the collective defense of NATO, the NATO alliance under Article 5.

So Putin is having his way and probing weaknesses and seeing how far he can get. But right now, I do expect him to conduct some invasion. We don't know to what extent. Um but I do think he uh he is not bluffing.

So I just want to get you that take. I actually think there's a strong case today that NATO is doing pretty. I don't think the NATO is doing necessarily poorly. And Jennifer Griffin was on with me last hour. I know you respect her.

And she says Germany's coming around. And they're seeing after the meeting that they had on Monday, they're seeing the problem clearer than ever. What do your sources say? Yes, exactly the same.

Well, you know, something I'd like to say about Germany coming around, I said, well, it's about time. I know. Because we pounded them for four years. We kept saying, look, this is what you're you're falling right into Russia's trap. Economically and politically and militarily as well.

And they're starting now to see that. Hey, these guys are a big threat. Yeah, they are to him. And but the problem was Joe Biden. gave Putin uh a little bit of a green light when he talked about it.

Well, what maybe we'll talk about if if it's a limited incursion.

Well, a limited incursion is gives him a huge green light. But you know, the Germans have a long ways to go. You know, d d when w when I was in the Munich Sec at the Munich Security Conference, just a couple of years ago with Vice President Mike Pance, we sat across from Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany. And she said, well, we'll never get to two percent of GDP that we've said we're going to support go for NATO, which they've all agreed to during the Wales Declaration. She thought because of our our contract with our people.

And I said, wait, wait a second. You all agreed you go to two percent GDP. Everybody does. And if you do that, then you are a formidable foe to the to the to the Russians. I said if you really want to scare the the Russians, have Germany rearm.

The Germans always seem to march east. And I said that should bother the heck out of the Russians. But if the Germans don't do that, that is a huge hole. In the NATO alliance.

So I think you're starting to see them come around. I think the new Chancellor Schultz is. It might see that. And there's a little bit of breath of fresh air, but we'll have to see what they're going to do. But if Germans come around, it'll bring the rest of the alliance around as well.

Only one-third of the members of NATO contribute 2% of their GDP, which they all agree to, to defense measures. And they're supposed to be doing that. And Germany is the biggest laggard. What can you do in sanctions to get their attention? Individuals around Vladimir Putin take their visas, prevent them from traveling.

They'll still put some countries outside Europe and outside NATO that would allow it. I mean, what would get his attention besides the SWIFT financial system, which they say is not on the table? Yeah, Brian, I hate to say this, and I've seen it for four years because I saw it not only with Russia, but also with. Iran, we did it with other countries as well. Sanctions really don't work because they find ways to get out of the sanctions.

The best way you handle guys like this who are strong autocrats is you handle them with forceful messaging, even that means picking up the phone, and being tough in critical situations. You send them a message. You know, I remember the when Syria would when they had Russian mercenaries attacked U.S. positions a couple of years ago. We killed about 200 Russians.

Because at the start of it, they said, well, that's really not Russians attacking. It's other adversaries. And we killed them, and we knew it because we picked up on the intel on it. And President Trump picked up the phone and called Putin and said, look, If I let you get the rest of your forces get back across the river, I probably should have killed them all. That sent a pretty clear message to Putin.

that we're we're not going to screw around. And we sent messages like that when we did when we killed Solomony, when we went after Baghdadi. You've got to send a strong message. You can't use verbal messages that say, well, a limited recursion might be okay. And unfortunately, Biden was very strong in his last message just the other day.

But the trouble is All of his History has shown just to be the opposite.

So he's going to face a huge test here if, in fact, the Russians go into Ukraine and then what's his response going to be? I don't think sanctions are the right answer because they have worked in the past.

Well, if they decide to back off, it's a major win for the President and it's a major win for the West. But if they don't, we w it is such a huge loss. That means extreme diplomacy at the highest level for a sustained period of time did nothing to stop one of our three main foes. And that means all bets are off for the foreseeable future, which means forget Democrat or Republican. You're talking about legitimate peace.

Yeah.

Yeah, hey, Brian, it's just not one, it's three. Look what we've done and we've let China when they're the incursions uh in the air defense identification zone of Taiwan, they const constantly push the envelope there. We haven't done anything there. We're letting Iran probably get a a nuclear breakout and that's defined as having a nuclear weapon uh within a year. They're probably heading that way.

So you're not facing one foe. You've you've actually encouraged three foes. The Russians, the Chinese, and the Iranians. And that's my fear. And when that happens, then we're facing three enemies, not one.

And you're absolutely right. If they back off, then I think it it's going to be a win for NATO, a win for the President as well. I just don't see Putin doing that. I just think he's a You know, he's a bit of a thug, to say the least. And I think he's going to keep pushing for an advantage.

And I understand that Secretary Blaken was up with the UN and in his comments that the Russians are just looking for a pretext for invasion. I think he's right. And I think our intelligence shows that as well. And the Ukrainians have been told to stand down, even though they shelled a kindergarten today. First off, what do you tell the troops about who Russian separatists are as opposed to Russian regular army?

I mean, we still don't know what the heck a Russian separatist is.

So a Russian separatist is the same as being in the Russian Army. It's just a different contract form. These guy they're all part and involved with the Russian army because they're supported by the Russian Army. They're probably led by Former retired Russian officers or noncommissioned officers as well. These people are just not standard.

People that you find as, well, this is just a small insurgent group. This is a very strong force that is supported by the Russian military. That's how the Russians do it. That's what, you know, when you look, and I'll give you the offshoot as an example. In Syria, they put a group called the Wagner Group, which are mercenaries, into Syria to help President Assad.

They'll do the same thing in Ukraine. In fact, what I'm hearing through my sources. is that they pulled a lot of the Wagner group. These are the Basically, the mercenaries under a guy named Pregozin, who's actually good friends of Putin, they pulled a lot of them out of Syria and put them into Ukraine.

Well, that's a good indicator right there what he's trying to do. Yep, and by the way, the Chief American Envoy to Russia, Ambassador John Sullivan, has been told to leave the country. The government has expelled the deputy U.S. Ambassador. Unbelievable.

So, this is where we're going. The President just said an evasion is likely. It's just an odd tactic, something we don't want, but keeps calling for it. I think it's throwing to a degree the Russians off balance, but let's see if it stops them. General Kellogg, thanks so much.

Thanks, Brian. Thanks for having me. Always great to talk to you. Listen to the Brian Kill Me Show. Back in a moment.

Don't go anywhere. Brian Kilmead will be right back. The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. First, Russia plans to manufacture a pretext for its attack.

This could be a violent event that Russia will bring on Ukraine or an outrageous accusation that Russia will level against the Ukrainian government. We don't know exactly the form it will take. It could be a fabricated so-called terrorist bombing inside Russia, the invented discovery of a mass grave, a staged drone strike against civilians, or a fake, even a real attack using chemical weapons. Russia may describe this event as ethnic cleansing or a genocide, making a mockery of a concept that we in this chamber do not take lightly, nor do I take lightly, based on my family history. In the past few days, Russian media has already begun to spread some of these false alarms and claims to maximize public outrage, to lay the groundwork for an invented justification for war.

That is not a long time ago. How about a few minutes ago? The Secretary of State. Anthony Blinken at the United Nations evidently changed his plans to make it clear that he wants to address the world and alert them to what's happening. You're not going to get a unanimous opinion out of the Security Council because China's on it.

and rushes on it.

So I love I mean, to me, when the Secretary of State comes out and addresses the United Nations, you know it's serious. Number two, there's nobody who was better at this than Nikki Haley, who really spoke from the heart, did not be leaning heavily on notes as Anthony Blinken did. But that's as active and as Energized as I've ever heard Anthony blinking. Their hope is, and it's pretty clear: if we keep telling you what our intelligence says, my hope is you won't do it. If you know this guy is outside a bar and he's gonna come in and punch you, and then you beat him to the bar, and you go, I just wanna tell you, there's a guy who's gonna do a sneak attack on me, he's gonna punch me in the face.

The hope is the guy will keep hearing that you've been warned and he won't come in. Russia yesterday mocked the U. S. because we came out and said Russia is going to attack on the sixteenth. Their Russian ambassador denied the country was set to invade yesterday, which has ended up being true.

And they said, wars in Europe rarely start on a Wednesday. As far as Russia is concerned, I can assure you there will be no attack on Wednesday, and there will be no escalation in the coming weeks either, or in the week after that, or in the coming months. If you just think about how this country was on such a different track. When Boris Yeltsin was here, and I know he had a drinking problem and he was not a great leader, but we were not looking at them as enemies. And remember, Barack Obama said, you know, they're not an enemy.

Nobody would say that now. Nobody. That's how things have changed. Can't show weakness. I know we want to pretend people are civilized, but this guy is not.

The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead. Let me know if I can help. Welcome back, everyone. It's the Brian Kill Me Chill, 1866-408-7669.

Uh it's time to try to bring in my next guest, uh John Hariri, uh Joanne. Joanna Reary, he joins us now. To talk about focus. and focusing on what needs to be uh what needs to be done. Joanne, welcome.

Hi. You said my name better than most people, Brian. It's actually Johan Hari. Uh, the book is called Stolen Focus, but don't worry I I once waited for six hours with a broken arm in an emergency room 'cause they were calling for Joanna Harey to come forward.

So you did it better than most people.

So So what you do is uh my apologies, so what you do is uh is you focus on focus. And what did you discover about this technological age when it comes to focusing? Yeah, you're so right. I mean, I wrote this book because I noticed that with each year that passed, things that required deep focus, like reading a book, watching a long movie, were getting, for me, more and more like running up or down escalator. You know what I mean?

I could still do them, but they were getting harder and harder. And I noticed this is happening to almost all of us. The average American office worker now focuses on any one task for only three minutes. Every one child who was identified with serious attention problems when I was seven years old, there's now a hundred children who've been identified with that problem.

So I wanted to figure out what's happening to us, right? What's going on?

So, I used my training at Cambridge University to travel all over the world from Miami to Moscow to Melbourne to introduce. 200 of the leading experts on attention and focus, and really dig deeply into their science. And what I learned is there's scientific evidence for twelve factors that can make your attention better or can make it worse. And loads of the factors that can make your attention worse have been hugely increasing in recent years. If anyone is listening and your attention is getting worse, Or your kids' attention is getting you worse.

It's not your fault. It's not just you. You're not imagining it. And crucially, your attention didn't collapse. your attention has been stolen from you.

That's why the book is called Stolen Focus. And when we understand the twelve factors that are doing this to us, we can begin to build bigger solutions. What did it happen intentionally? Or is it just one of those things? Keep on making the iPhone better.

Keep on making social media more attractive. Keep on building a website that gets more eyeballs? Or is it something devious and insidious? It's a bit of both.

Some of it is by accident. For example, we can talk about this more, but the food we eat is profoundly damaging our ability to focus and pay attention. The fact we don't allow our children to play outside freely is profoundly damaging their ability to focus and attention.

Now, no one designed that. That wasn't anyone's intention.

Some of it has been very deliberate. I mean, don't take my word for it. Sean Parker, one of the biggest initial investors in Facebook, said we designed Facebook to maximally invade people's attention. We knew what we were doing and we did it anyway. God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains.

So let's look at, say, Brian, what are the twelve factors that's damaging our focus and attention that I think will be playing out for every single one of your listeners today. I went to MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to interview one of the leading neuroscientists in the world, a man named Professor Earl Miller. He said to me, Look, there's one thing you've got to understand about the human brain more than anything else. you can only consciously think about one or two things at the same time. That's it.

This is just a fundamental limit of the human brain. human brain ain't going to change anytime soon. But what's happened is we've fallen for a massive delusion. The average American teenager now believes they can follow six or seven forms of media at the same time.

So what happens is scientists get people into labs, not just teenagers, older people as well. and they get them to think they're doing more than one thing at a time. And it turns out, every time you can't do more than one thing at a time, what you do is you juggle very quickly between tasks. And it turns out, that comes with a really big cost. Just like eating KFC comes with the cost that you gain weight, trying to do more than one thing at a time comes with something called the switch cost effect.

When you try and do more than one thing at a time, you will do all the things you're trying to do much less competently. You'll make more mistakes. You'll remember less of what you do. You'll be much less creative. And this isn't a small effect, right?

One study, for example, found that just being interrupted a lot while you're working is twice as bad for your intelligence and attention as getting stoned on cannabis. This is a really big effect. This is why Professor Miller said to me, we are living in a perfect storm of cognitive degradation at the moment as a result of being constantly interrupted.

So interesting.

So, in terms of if you keep on getting interrupted and you don't have that time to wind down and reflect and think, it hurts you cognitively in the long term? I think you put that really well, Brian. You know, one study found that if you're interrupted, It takes you on average twenty three minutes to get back to the level of focus you had before you were interrupted. But most of us now never get twenty three minutes spare. And when you look at all the evidence that our attention is getting worse, one of the reasons this is so important is I would say to anyone listening to your show, Just think about anything you've ever achieved in your life that you're proud of.

Whether it's starting a business, being a good parent, learning to play the guitar, whatever it is. That thing you're proud of. took a lot of sustained focus and attention. And when focus and attention break down, Your ability to achieve any of your goals starts to break down. Your ability to solve your problems breaks down.

This is why it's so heartbreaking when you see kids who can't focus and pay attention, because you know they're going to be less able to achieve anything in the world. Obviously, a third of my book is about what's happening to our kids and how we can put it right. If we don't get attention right, you can't get anything right. You know, you can't achieve what you want to achieve in your life. Stolen Focus is the name of the book, and your TED Talks got over 100 million clicks.

So people are checking it in. If you even look who endorsed your book, from Emma Thompson to Adam Grant to Elton John, people have really said that they see the same problem of all ages about focusing, which is kind of interesting. It's almost like we have a national, it's a self-inflicted ADD.

So, what study did you do? That's a good way to put it. What study did you do? That maybe gave you an idea of how to beat this problem and what could be done to attack this problem. Because almost everybody listening right now, outside that crazy friend you have who still has a flip phone, could really benefit from what you've researched.

So I think there's all of the twelve factors that are screwing with our ability to focus and pay attention. I would argue there's two ways we've got to deal with this. I think of them as defence and offense.

So we've got to defend ourselves and our kids as much as possible as individuals.

So I'll give you one example out of dozens and dozens that I give in the book. In I'm stupidly unpointing, although this is the radio, I know you can't see it. In the corner of my room over there, I've got something called a K-Safe. It's a plastic safe. You take off the lid.

You put in your phone. You put the lid on and you turn the dial at the top and it will lock your phone away for anything between five minutes Yeah, I think it's a good idea. I will not sit down to watch a movie with my partner unless we both imprison our phones. If people come round for dinner, I make everyone put their phone in the phone jail. I use that for four hours a day to give myself the headspace to think, to just think properly.

And So that's one example. I give lots and lots of examples of things I recommend to people. But I also want to be honest with people, I don't want to BS people, right? There are loads of things we should do as individuals. They will hugely help.

I'm passionately in favor of them. But the truth is at the moment they will only get you so far. Because we are living in what one of the leading experts on children's attention problems, Professor Joel Nigg, who I interviewed in Portland, in Oregon, said to me, is an attentional pathogenic environment. It's like at the moment, Someone is pouring itching powder into our heads all day. And then leaning forward and going.

Hey, buddy. you might want to learn how to meditate, then you wouldn't scratch so much. And you want to kind of go, well, screw you. I'll learn to meditate. That's very good.

But we need to stop you pouring itching powder on me, which is why we need to have some bigger changes.

So I'll give you an example if it's okay, one of the bigger changes. One of the heroes of my book is a woman called Lenore Scanazi. And Lenore grew up in a suburb of Chicago in the nineteen sixties. And I'm guessing like you, like me, from when she was five years old, she would leave her house and walk to school. which was fifteen minutes away.

Generally she she did it on her own. She would bump into the other kids 'cause all the kids used to walk to school on their own, right? By the time you got to two thousand three, That had completely ended. Um only ten percent of American children by that point ever played outside without an adult? And the kids who did play outside got like 10 minutes a week.

So basically, childhood became this thing, even before COVID, which obviously slammed it. Children, childhood became something that happened behind closed doors under adult supervision. And it turns out that childhood we have lost. contained loads of things that was essential for children to be able to focus and pay attention. To give a really obvious one, exercise.

Children who run around can pay attention much better. If your kid can't focus, let them run around. But more importantly, when children play freely with other kids without adults there, they learn how to use their attention. They learn what they find interesting. They learn how to persuade other kids to pay attention to them.

They learn how to take turns. And we got rid of all of that. And the reason Laure is one of the heroes of the book is not because she described that problem. It's very easy in life to describe problems. It's because she built the solution.

So she leads a group called LetGrow. LetGrow.org, I really urge everyone listening who's got kids to go to this site. And what she does. And that organization does. if they go to whole schools and whole neighbourhoods.

And persuade them to to let the children have increasing levels of independence. Building up to playing outdoors again, where they can begin to actually develop a healthy sense of attention. And of all the conversations I had with my book Stolen Focus, I think one of the most moving was in Long Island. I spoke to a fourteen year old boy who was in a Let Grow program. And this kid, Brian, was he was a big, strong boy.

He was taller than me, right? And until this program began nine months before, He had never been allowed out of his house on his own. His parents wouldn't even let him run around the block, right? And then this program began. And I said to him, What did you do?

And he said, me and my friends, we started to play ball in the street. And then we went into the woods and he said, even though our phones didn't work, we're still there. We still went into the woods. He said that with great awe. And I said, What did you do in the woods?

And he said, We built a fort. And we go and we sit in our fort and we build things. And I know this sounds a bit maybe melodramatic. But honestly, watching this boy talk was like watching a child come to life. And I thought about how many kids I know Who never get that?

The only place we let our children explore anything is on Fortnite, right? And it can hardly be surprised they become obsessed with video games. That's the only space they get any freedom. And when we when that boy left, Lenore was with me that day. She says, you know, think about human history.

For all of human history, kids had to go out They had to hunt, they had to map the territory, they had to explore. And in the space of one generation, we took all of that away. And those boys, given a tiny little bit of freedom, what did they do? They went into the woods and they built a fort. Because this is so deep in human nature.

And obviously, I'll end the book, Stole of Focus, by talking about lots of things we need to do together to heal our attention and focus. But one of the big ones, and there's many big ones, but one of them is we need to restore human childhood. We've given our kids, especially in the last two years, but to be honest, even before that, We've given our kids a childhood that our ancestors would not even recognize as a human childhood. If we want kids who can focus, we need to give them a childhood.

So interesting.

Because Willie Robertson, the Robertson family, he grew up on a farm. He was driving a tractor at eight. He would go out in the woods with a gun. He learned how to shoot it, but he would go hunting. That was the way we lived at one point in life.

We figured out things for ourselves. And a lot of times you watch the news, you think if your kid's out alone, he or she's going to get kidnapped, you'll never see him again. Yeah, your child is three times more likely to be hit by lightning than be kidnapped. And if anyone said, I'm not going to let my child play outside because they might be hit by lightning, you'd think they were deranged, right? But this is one of these really big changes that happened.

Think about another one. And this is the one that most shocked me, and to be honest with you, Brian, it's the one that I most struggle with.

So the way we eat. Is profoundly damaging our ability to focus and pay attention. I literally have a KFC bucket in this room, so believe me, there's no superiority here. And there's three big ways in which this is happening. One is, So let's imagine you have the standard American British breakfast, the stuff we grew up eating, either sugary cereal or white toast with bread on it, right?

What that does is it releases a huge amount of energy really quickly into your brain, which feels great. Like, yes, the day has started, it's begun. But because it's released so much energy so fast, What it does is you'll get to your desk. Your kid will get to their school desk an hour or two later, and your energy will just tap. Yeah.

And it crashes and you get what's called brain fog, where you just can't really focus until you have another, you know, sugary carbi treat, right? The way we live puts us On a roller coaster. Oh, Dwayne Eats.

Sorry, he puts us on a roller coaster. at energy spikes and energy crashes throughout the day. which gives us these patches of brain fog. The way one nutrition has put it to me is it's like we're putting rocket fuel into a minimum. You know, it'll go really fast for a few minutes and then it just stops.

But if you eat food that releases energy more steadily throughout the day, you'll be able to pay attention much better. Or think about one of the other causes. Your brain to focus opt to function optimally. It needs all sorts of nutrients. And our diets are really lacking in those nutrients.

But the third cause is the one that I find most disturbing. It's not just that our diets lack the stuff we need. our current diets contain food Chemicals that act on us like drugs. There was a study in Britain in 2007. where they got two hundred and ninety seven kids and they split them into two groups.

And the first group was just given water. And the second group was given water laced with a lot of the synthetic dyes that are in the food we buy in the supermarket all the time. And what they and particularly canned in. And they then monitored the kids. The kids who had the synthetic dyes were way more likely to become hyperactive, to struggle with focus.

And so you can see how so many of the things that we don't even think of as affecting our attention, like sleep, like Food and like the stress we experience at work are massively damaging our focus and attention, along with the component that most of us think of, which obviously I write about a lot in the book, which is some elements of the technology we use. I could talk to you for four hours and hope to talk to you again. No doubt about it. The New York Times, best-selling author, a British writer, Johan Hari, Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention, and How to Think Deeply Again.

So you don't only identify the problem, you solve it.

So that's awesome. Johan, thanks so much. You got it. Yeah, we'll wrap up this hour. Take your calls if you can focus long enough.

Educating, entertaining, enlightening. You're with Brian Kilmead. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Killmead. this crisis directly affects.

Every member of this council and every country in the world. Because the basic principles that sustain peace and security, principles that were enshrined in the wake of two world wars and a cold war, are under threat. The principle that One country cannot change the borders of another by force. The principle that one country cannot dictate. another's choices or policies or with whom it will associate the principle of national sovereignty.

This is the exact kind of crisis that the United Nations, and specifically this Security Council, was created to prevent. Prevent. And it's unbelievable. I mean, that's Vladimir Putin, and that's what Russia's been gradually. Remember, if Bush 41 thought he could get Bush 43 and Vladimir Putin together, because he had a pretty good relationship with Yeltsin and Gorbachev.

And he said, listen, guys, you're really kind of separate. The countries are getting really on different paths. Why don't you come over to Maine, Kenny Bunkport? And why don't we talk this out? And there was really a sense that it was just a miscommunication.

And now, fast forward 15 years later, there's no miscommunication, it's intentional. He was able to get his feet underneath him. He was able to circumvent the rewriting of his Constitution. Remember, Medvedev took over for, I think, four years or five years, and he became like a ceremonial position, but people say he was still running things because he handpicked Medvedev. And then he took the job.

Won an election, air quotes. And then he kept the job. And he says, I think I'm going to name myself leader for life. And that's pretty much what he has done. He jails and kills anyone who tries to challenge him.

That's a dramatic difference in the guy that Ronald Reagan dealt with, George Bush dealt with, George Bush dealt with, Barack Obama has to deal with this. Thanks so much for listening. Don't forget my Saturday show. It's 8 o'clock. It's called One Nation.

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