Stunning COVID Reversals in Blue States: Pure Politics, Not Science

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 Kill Me. Welcome back everybody. It's the Brian Kill Me Joe. We're coming to you from New York, heard around the country, heard around the world, following all the action.

Today's going to be interesting. The president not giving up on his Build Back Better agenda. That should be exciting. That'll be a 1.30 meeting today. I'm sure I'll miss it.

And nothing will be accomplished in doing it.

So he's going to talk to CEOs about it. That has really nothing to do with going on in this country. This hour, we're going to talk to Doctor and Senator Bill Cassidy and Rich Lowry.

So let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. This is a political hit job. And so they're taking all this stuff that I've ever said that's wrong and smushing it all together. It's good because it makes me address some that I really wish wasn't out there.

You should apologize if you regret something. I do think you have to be very careful to not apologize for nonsense. Correct. Rogan, Spotify, and the danger of apologizing. I know we're raised to apologize when you are wrong, but in the cancel culture environment, why I believe you just can't.

Will you commit today to turning off and pulling the plug on Nord Stream 2? We are acting together. We are absolutely united and we will not take different steps. We will do the same steps and they will be very, very hard to Russia and they should understand. Right.

In other words, no. Infuriating mistakes that took place behind closed doors in Afghanistan that led to the bloodshed and what happened with the embarrassing exit from Afghanistan and the escalation of events in Ukraine. How we've ceded control of talks to France and power to Germany. I'll bring you the latest. Number one.

There was a and is a time and place for pandemic restrictions. And in this case, circumstances have changed. Case counts are declining. Also, the science has changed. Wow, is she still on CNN?

Dr. Leanne Wen. They told us they were following the science. That led to lockdowns, that led to mandates. I didn't believe them.

Now they said the science is leading us to freedom, and I still don't believe them. We're breaking the chains of mandates and the restrictions because of political science, the stunning reversals, and the bluestates coming your way.

So, what we're having is. Pretty extraordinary. Not complaining. But I am definitely pointing out. that New Jersey says I'm going to lift the mandate.

Chicago all of a sudden they go, wait a second, you're lifting the mask mandates and you're blue? And then New York says, you know, I could lift them tomorrow. Really? And Illinois says, I think I'll lift them too. Really?

Is that because of the science?

Well, deaths are at 2,500. What are you doing? I thought the masks were going to keep us safe. I thought that we have to wear them everywhere if we want America to survive, if the country to thrive, if we didn't hate our neighbors. But it turns out political science matters because the American people are fed up with the lockdowns, the shutdowns, the mandate mania that's taking place, and they're pushing back.

On Monday, Gen Saki was very critical of places and governors like Youngkin of Virginia. For battling it out and telling school districts, take the masks off, give the parents an option to put them on or take them off. Remember this: cut to. Our advice to every school district is to abide by public health guidelines. It continues to be at this point that the CDC is advising that masks can delay reduce transmission.

There are also a number of other mitigation measures that we've put in place, but that continues to be CDC guidance. It's always been up to school districts. That's always been our point of view, and always been our policy from here. And our policy from the federal government is to continue to advise everybody to abide by public health guidelines. And that was the answer to a question about Virginia, really.

So, the administration put together a task force, they claim now, to recalculate hospitalizations after a controversy ensued over how the country is counting the severity of COVID.

So, they are now putting together a task force. For this g metric, listen to this. If you check into a hospital, And you have a broken arm. You know, you have to have uh surgery for anything. You twist your ankle.

Hurt your back. They test you for COVID. If you test positive, you are now hospitalized for COVID.

Now, you know, fundamentally that's wrong, but that's exactly how we're counting it.

So you wonder why hospitalizations are so high consistently where cases are going so low dramatically.

Well, for the last two and a half years, we've been counting everything, COVID.

So if you come in for cancer surgery, I hope it never happens to you, but you're COVID positive, you're a COVID patient. COVID patient. Really? Just wait. If they really decide to do a serious probe on their deaths, they'll say COVID death, COVID death, COVID death.

Or are you someone that died with COVID for another reason? That's why I believe the 900,000 number is way too high. Oh, people really died, but of what is the key.

So I just played you Gensaki on Monday. Here's Jensaki on Tuesday when it became clear. That these other states were lifting up their mandates, including California. Cut one. state the democratic-led states who are breaking with the CDC on this guidance that they're not that they're throwing science away.

These states, I think it's important to note they still allow for decisions to be made by local school districts. Our hope is that states leaders will look at the science and data about what's going on. They'll make decisions about local school districts. Local school districts have always made these decisions. Ha ha.

So we have a little bit of a problem. the administration does, 'cause this is pure politics. The same way Boris Johnson lifts all his restrictions 'cause he's in uh hell of a political turmoil because the party boy was having parties where everybody else was locked down. Uh the same thing when the When that shot will cross the bow of the Virginia of the New Jersey governor, when he barely won a race in bright blue New Jersey because of the mandates, the lockdowns, way too severe. And now in Virginia, you see what happened there when a guy ran out of nowhere and beat an established candidate, and Governor Yunkin wins because he wants to give the power to the parents.

Even Dr. Leanne Wynn of CNN, miss lockdown, miss it's terrible, we're never going to come out of this.

Now she says the science has changed, cut four. There was a and is a time and place for pandemic restrictions. And in this case, circumstances have changed. Case counts are declining. Also the science has changed.

Yeah, the masks don't work. They keep you 5% safer. If you have a child psychologist and an economist, as well as a public health official in every meeting, Mr. President, you would not have this problem because you'd have them all weighing in. And when I had press conferences, and as soon as people would talk about kids in masks, I'd have a child psychologist.

Not that I want trumpeting my policies, they would come up with their own policies and say, I'm really worried because too many first graders can't spell. Can't read, don't know the alphabet, don't know how to add, don't come to school, inner cities, don't turn on their. iPads don't have them in particular. And the problem is all these others, they got caught with mass off. You know, for example, they're not making an opinion.

They're not doing something that gets them in. puts their health at risk, especially in Stacey Abrams' case, because obviously she is somebody that profiles as someone who should worry about COVID because she is overweight. And those people who are overweight are looked at as a preexisting conditions. Look at Chris Christie for somebody that would have trouble wrestling with this virus. If you're young and healthy, the chances of you taking serious hits from this virus are minimal, as opposed to older and not healthy.

That's just a fact. But yet she's walking around this school without a mask on. And when you challenge her originally, she says, How dare you do that on Black History Month? which is farcical on its face. As you know.

Stacey Abrams goes and goes, has got caught three separate times with masks off. Their little kids thoroughly masked. Here's her somewhat of an apology, cut six. I will say this: I went to read to kids for an African-American read-in day. I.

I approached the podium with my mask on. I followed the protocols. I told the kids I'm taking my mask off because I'm reading to kids who are listening remotely as well. And we were socially distanced. The kids were socially distanced from me.

I told them that's what I was doing. And in the excitement after I finished, because it was so much fun working with those kids, I took a picture, and that was a mistake. Protocols matter, and protecting our kids is the most important thing. And anything that can be perceived as undermining that is a mistake, and I apologize.

Okay, that doesn't explain the three other pictures with you doing the same exact thing. Like the governor of California, you just lied. The governor of California said I took it off because Magic Johnson asked me to. And then we find out that he's sitting there in the luxury box without a mask on, hanging off his ear. Magic Johnson, nowhere to be found.

Flat out lie. Mayor Garcetti? held his breath when he took out Off his mask. A flat out lie. Why?

Because they know the masks don't work, they don't keep you safe, they have no problem. Taking advantage of those with no voice. And that's kids. You're going to hear from kids speaking up in Virginia last night bravely and telling you what it's really like being in class, being suffocated by these masks, which the Johns Hopkins study shows only makes you 5% safer when we come back. Senator Bill Cassidy wrote a great column on FoxNews.com about energy security.

And what exactly is happening now that we have to, we provide natural gas like nobody else. We are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, at least we were until President Biden took over, and with our own oil reserves are no longer energy independent.

So, when it comes up to Europe speaking in one voice, we can't even say well we would supplement any loss of oil that Russia stopping you from getting that oil. would cause because we don't pump it like we used to. Is that okay? And then Rich Lowry at the bottom of the hour over what the 2022 election should be about. Busy day, 1-866-408-7669.

I'll be taking your calls this hour. Don't be less. This is the Brian Kilmead Show. Honest commentary, unique opinions, no agenda. It's Brian Kilmead.

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This is the Brian Kill Me Show. If our ICUs and hospitals in that particular region are not overwhelmed, if they're not overcapacity, we can set a number, for example, 75% or 80% full, then we should be able to relax all restrictions. And I actually believe that we should be starting to, with the first restriction removed, should actually be the restriction on children. There actually is a harm that we should be discussing of children continuing to mask. That is a liberal doctor from CNN, Miss Lockdown Mandate, changes her tune and will not commit to getting her kids vaccinated who are between zero and six.

And they're about to announce that, that Pfizer's got a new regimen to vaccinate your infants. Are you okay with that? Doctor and Senator Bill Cassidy joins us now. Senator, where do you stand first off on what's been happening in these blue states? Suddenly, they realize we could take the masks off.

Do you buy that this is science? Yeah, because there's something we'll put it this way. One, there's politics and there's science. There's science to support it. There's a recent article from Johns Hopkins, prestigious university, looking at the impact of what are called nonpharmaceutical interventions, masks, lockdowns, that sort of thing, on terms of the death rate from the disease, COVID.

And they found no impact whatsoever. None whatsoever.

Now by the way, I saw another report that if you wear your mask religiously inside, you're less likely to get infected. But like I was at the airport the other day and the lady was announcing that you had to wear your mask and she had her mask off.

So the point is people don't wear it religiously. But there's also politics, Brian. I mean, people are sick of being told what to do by the Federal Government for things that seem to be of at best marginal benefit. If it was a clear benefit, you know, like don't run a red light or you'll get s you'll get whacked. Yeah, people do that.

But if it's a benefit that they don't perceive, we're sick of it. And you see, I think the politicians responding to that.

So I was in New Orleans yesterday, and you have to wear a mask, but the state, you don't have to wear a mask, right? Correct. So how's that working for you?

Well, you know, if you're in New Orleans, you wear a mask. You show your vaccine vaccine card when you go to a restaurant. It's frankly not no big deal for me. I haven't been vaccinated. But and people who go to New Orleans seem to know that's going to happen.

I can't say it's been a big deal. But in the rest of the state, frankly, people are a little bit looser and it's probably a little bit more enjoyable. Are we all going to be unvaccinated if we don't get you know, we're coming up on a year since we were vaccinated? You're probably there now.

Now we all have to get revaccinated.

Well, there's probably just like your flu shot every six months you get a booster dose. Assume every year you get a booster. It kind of adjusts to the different strains that are floating around. But your previous immunizations and your previous infections give you a little bit of immunity, even if you don't get the booster. That's probably the direction we're headed with COVID, where it becomes more like the flu slash common cold and less like the thing that filled up our ICUs and has killed over 800,000 Americans.

Senator Bocassi, our gas center, energy front and center when it comes to this crisis in Ukraine and also at our pump. Listen to what the German Chancellor, the new one, said about the possibility of after an invasion, Nord Stream 2 pipeline being disabled. After all, Nord Stream 2 would put Germany and some other European nations on the Russian crackpipe of energy. Let's listen. Will you commit today to turning off and pulling the plug on Nord Stream 2?

You didn't mention it. You haven't mentioned it. We are acting together. We are absolutely united and we will not take it. Different steps, we will do the same steps, and they will be very, very hard to Russia, and they should understand.

That's not, I'm going to throw that in the ocean if it doesn't, if they invade. Yes.

So I mean, the Biden policy has been disastrous. Whatever they've sought to do, lower greenhouse gas emissions, for example, they've not done that. But they have raised prices at the pump and internationally.

So you're Germany, and your heating bill would go up fifty percent for the average person, something like that, for the average person heating their home. Their business has become uncompetitive because their cost of fueling the business becomes incredibly expensive. You cannot get the Chancellor to agree to that. He's got to have some assurance that he's going to be able to replace that natural gas that he's missing out on. with another source.

Now the Biden administration is doing everything they can to shut down U. S. production. Uh that's wrong. We need to produce as much as possible, not just for ourselves, but for allies like Germany to give them the freedom to shut down Nord Stream two.

Until they have that freedom, he's going to be reluctant to say so. And we've got to acknowledge that our energy policy directly impacts the national security of our allies. By the way, Germany, how far to go? They got rid of all nuclear energy. They cut this deal with Russia, and they wonder why they're over a barrel now.

No pun intended.

So they're not even looking at their own. The Germans are very logical but don't have any common sense. In this case, I think that's probably true. Absolutely.

So we are now trying to cut deals for them with the UAE and others. I haven't heard Saudi Arabia come up, but I always thought we were en route to have an LNG. It was just a way of getting over there in an affordable way, in a competitive way, because of the fracking that's happened. You're from an oil state. What have you seen?

I know what I see at the pump. What have you seen in terms of drilling and excavation? In Louisiana, most of our big-time drilling has been in the outer continental shelf. This administration has done whatever they can to shut down new lease sales in the outer continental shelf. They've also made public pronouncements that they wish to stop all drilling for oil and gas on public lands inland as well as in the outer continental shelf.

Now, if you're trying to supply gas for for the rest of the world and ourselves. To fight back on the kind of economic leverage that the Russians have. You don't start by shutting off half your supply. I mean, this policy has been a disaster by the Biden administration. And by the way, they say they want to do it to lower greenhouse gas emissions, so the Germans burn coal.

That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? We need to have more of our resources produced, creating American jobs, strengthening our economy, and weakening that of our geopolitical opponents. This administration doesn't get it. Senator Cassie, if we go electric cars, who's got the natural resources? The rare earth?

Yeah, like right now, China, who gets it from Africa. And if you've ever seen reports of the child labor that they use to get those rare earths out of Africa, it's heartbreaking.

So you might pat yourself on the back feeling like, oh my gosh, isn't it great? I'm green. And there's some child being exploited in the Congo.

So if you'll do a life cycle of the pollution that comes from the mining and the processing of that batteries, it eats away at a lot of the advantage on electric vehicles. I'm okay with electric vehicles, but don't pat yourself on the back thinking you're being pure when you get them. That's not the case. Senator Bill Cassie got a great comment on FoxNews.com. Always great to talk to you, Senator.

Grant. You got it. When we come back, we go inside the Republican Party and their strategy now to win back the House using men and women of color. 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.

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So the real question becomes. How do we make sure that people can plan for it? And what are the measures so that everybody knows?

So it doesn't feel like it's based upon politics. It feels like it's based upon making sure that there's no transmission in school. And it feels like the four or five different factors, which is what New Jersey used, are vaccination rates, that's what Massachusetts uses, low community spread. I'm just asking the CDC to actually weigh in here so that we have that kind of guidance around the country. Right.

She wants zero. Yeah, she'll run any transmission in schools. That's Randy Weingarten. Embarrassment. She owes every child in this country an apology for running up that union and putting, I guess, schools and buildings and teachers above the kids.

And I don't really know how many teachers really feel as though they're being protected by that union. Rich Lowry joins us, Sal, editor of National Review. Rich, isn't it amazing? Suddenly, the science says New Jersey, New York, and Illinois and California can release the mask mandate. Yeah, the science changed in the course of about two or three weeks.

Isn't it amazing? As the politics changed, the science changed. And I think when Republicans take the House, this should be a major focus of investigation. How did the CDC come up with this guidance that amazingly is still in place, that kids two and above have to mask when the European Health Authority doesn't recommend any such thing, the WHO doesn't recommend any such thing? It's based on a flaw, clearly a flawed study.

Nothing else supports it. How did they do this? And this is why you got these mask mandates all across the country. They could point to the CDC and say we're just following guidance. We're just being good soldiers.

So, I think that that has to be something that's really probed.

Well, I mean, I'm very curious to see this variant is going out. And now they're going to revisit hospitalization numbers. You know why, Rich? Because they're starting to realize that some people go in there with a broken leg or have to get a back operation. They get tested positive for COVID.

They're now a COVID patient. Governor Hochul stumbled into that, realized it didn't make Democrats look good, kind of went silent.

Now the government's going to look at those numbers to see if hospitalizations are really less than we thought. How much do you want to bet we're here in a couple of weeks talking about the 900,000 deaths are not COVID because of COVID deaths? Yeah, I think there's clearly some of that.

Now, there is overall increased mortality. There's just been overall more deaths.

So clearly, the pandemic has taken a big toll. But we're in this period now where all these arguments that were dismissed as crazy, as conspiracy theories, as misinformation are suddenly getting credence. And because of just the moral and intellectual case for the restrictions And the most alarmist way of looking at the pandemic is just collapsing. And the politics is collapsing as well. And that's really the key factor.

It's just they realize anything that keeps us getting back from normality is bad for them. And I think this is another case of political malpractice, by the way, Brian, and part of the White House. They should have known that these blue state governors were going to start giving up on the mask mandates and gotten ahead of it instead of still being in favor of the policy that's becoming more untenable by the day. Yeah, I mean, on Monday, she's kind of critical, Jen Saki kind of critical of Yunkin. On Tuesday, with Murphy and others doing the same thing, she's like, well, it's up to the locals.

Meanwhile, if the president hopped on some of those governor calls or the vice president or whoever he put in charge, he would be able to take the pulse of them. But according to Larry Hogan and others, he never hops on, so he has no idea what's going on in anybody's state. Yeah, and really the worm has turned down in Virginia as well. There was a vote yesterday, the state senate, pretty evenly divided body, but half the Democrats voted with the Republicans to lift the mandate.

Now, July 1st, that's too far away, and Yunkin is going to try to boost that date forward. But it's just a sign. Three weeks ago, we were talking about this. They were all saying Yunkin was a monster, and this is a terrible policy that's going to destroy the schools. And now you have half the Democrats in Virginia and the state Senate saying, yeah, we can get on board.

So the worm has turned on this one.

So I want you to hear what I thought is interesting is people that just are defying their party, like Bill Maher, cut 13. A study this week from a professor at Johns Hopkins concluded that the lockdowns we all suffered through had little impact in reducing COVID deaths.

Okay, that's kind of a big one to get wrong. Last July, President Biden said, you're not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.

Well, I already knew that was wrong then, and now we all do. The former director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, believes COVID originated in a lab, and now our intelligence agencies agree it might have. But for months on social media, it was banned to even discuss it. You know what, uh Rich Larry? Bill Maher's statement there was probably new to everyone who watches CNN and MSNBC because they refused to cover that study.

Friday night, they want to get a laugh, and they're getting more facts. And they're getting facts from Bill Maher, who's an atheist. I'm sure he does not like Fox, and he certainly doesn't like Trump, and never liked Bush.

So how do you get your head around that?

So he's a consistent Left-wing libertarian.

So he didn't like big government when he thought, you know, Republicans were promoting it with the war on terror and all the rest of it. And he doesn't like this that Democrats have been promoting the last two years. And he had a really good monologue a week or two ago just explaining. He had Ari Fleischer on, you know, a clip from way back when he was White House press secretary criticizing him. And then he had a clip from Dana Prino on the five saying, you know, sardonically, but maybe Bill Maher should run for president.

And she's like, and Maher was like, you know, I didn't change. It's the Democrats have changed. The Democrats have pushed me into this position. And I think one of the most heartening kind of intellectual developments in the country at the moment is you have this class of dissenters from the left who aren't conservatives, who aren't right-wingers, who aren't Fox people, as you put it. Bill Maher is one, Andrew Sullivan is another, Barry Weiss, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, who are just driven crazy by the insanity of the woke left and the orthodoxy and the dishonesty promoted by the media.

And as you say, There are just a bunch of things about COVID that people don't know who haven't really delved into it and looked at it themselves because the overall coverage has been so misleading. I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the reasons she was suspended from Twitter two weeks ago was she was saying the vaccines don't keep people from getting COVID, which is true, which is completely obvious. I'm an example of that. We all know people who are an example of that.

So just the orthodoxy hasn't caught up to the facts and the reality. Yeah, I want you to hear Russell Brand, obviously way to the left, but siding with Joe Rogan, and he gets labeled. Listen to him. I became aware that I was trending as a result of the ongoing Joe Rogan Farago where Joe Rogan controversies are promoted to the forefront of the news cycle. One aspect of this story was the publication and circulation of a sort of a meme that sort of talked about Joe Rogan's guests and their political biases.

And I noticed that, oh, Russ, me, the person who I live inside of, whose voice I use when I talk, Russell Brand, that's who I am, is featured on there as being on Joe Rogan three times. Fine, sure, I remember those occasions. But as a right-wing guest, how am I right-wing? How can people say that?

Now, I know loads of you watching this are right-wing. I imagine some of you are left-wing. I imagine many of you are so disenfranchised with modern politics, the modern media, the relationships between media, big business, and government, the ineffectualness of democracy, the lies that are continually told in the media that you no longer identify with any particular political party. What it seems to me that's really being criticized here is that a lot of people have become disenfranchised with what were once regarded As left-wing parties, because the left-wing parties aren't doing enough for ordinary people. And he went on to say left wing has gone nuts.

I think it's just in a fascinating time. Yeah, absolutely. And I think I saw that list circulating on Twitter that was trying to make the case that Joe Rogan tilts to the right and his guests. I didn't look closely enough to see that Russell Brad was on the right. But even just looking at it really loosely, he has all these crazy left-wingers on, right?

And that if there's one thing our culture needs at the moment, it's someone like that, just willing to listen to air all views and um Not shout anyone down or impose this kind of spurious orthodoxy we were talking about.

So, what's your take on what's happening in Canada? I'm fascinated. They've been out blocking a second bridge. They're blocking a bridge that they say 20% of all commerce comes between U.S. and Canada through this Michigan bridge.

And now the Truckers are blocking that. They've ringed Ottawa. They've had three provinces cave and start to drop all their restrictions and their mandates. But not Justin Trudeau, who tweets out this government has been focused every step of the way on following the best science, best public health to keep as many people safe as possible. Frankly, it worked.

And I can't understand the frustrations with mandates, but mandates are the way to avoid further restrictions. Canadians have the right to protest, to disagree, and to make their voices heard. We've always protected the right, but let's be clear: they don't have the right to blockade our economy, our democracy, or fellow citizens' daily lives. It has to stop. He's not giving in.

And he's already lost one member of his party that says he should. want to go inside Canada, but what does it say to you in the big picture?

Well, I think what's going on in Canada, and I don't like the blockading of the bridges, I don't like when the left does that kind of stuff, I don't like it when anyone does it, but what's happening in Canada is at least here in the U.S., we have a federal system and you've had Red State governors like Ron DeSantis who have been different than others all along. You have different media outlets like Fox that have been pointing out stuff that doesn't make sense all along. None of that exists in Canada, and the Conservatives have totally gone along with most of the lockdowns and the restrictions. There's no alternative media, and these truckers get hit at a time when the pandemic is waning with a more restrictive policy where they're going to have this vaccine mandate, and if they don't get vaccinated, if they cross the border, which they do all the time, and come back to Canada, they're going to have to quarantine for two weeks, which is another way of saying your livelihood is lost. You know?

So that that's crazy. I think obviously Trudeau should give in uh on that. But the the the truckers are making a huge difference because now you have a lot of conservative politicians up there. It's like, you know what? Maybe we should be with those guys.

Maybe we should be pushing back more against these restrictions.

So you've seen some loosening of some stuff. You've seen the the conservative leader Tom there and a new more combative guy take his place.

So this is this has been a fascinating phenomenon and it's having a real effect. And one bizarre part of it, you don't get any favorable coverage or fair coverage of the truckers in Canada. You got to get it in the United States, including at Fox. Do you think it's coming here? They are organizing another truck convoy, a freedom convoy in the U.S.

I mean, the Republicans, excuse me, the the administration now has a few weeks to get ready for it. If they're going to go ring Washington, D.C., what are they going to do? Send the National Guard after uh against our national truckers? Yeah, well it's it's tricky 'cause these trucks, I was talking to someone up in Canada about this yesterday. They're basically impossible to move, right?

I mean, they're they're huge machines, and if someone parks one and doesn't want it to go anywhere, it's really hard to make it go go anywhere. And apparently the Tow truck companies up there aren't leasing their tow trucks to the cops in a sign of solidarity with the truckers.

So it's a potentially potent form of protest. I do think, you know, what we're just talking about with mask, though, you know, by hook or crook, some of the pressure is being let off here.

So in Canada, you know, they're getting more restrictive, as I was saying, as the pandemic was lessening. Here, you actually see some of these measures being lifted or at least sunsetted. And I think that creates a little pressure out of the bag. And Rich, do you think that there's a big push now, a big story how it seems as though the House are looking to recruit House members who are women or minorities to represent Republicans in the House, John James being one of the examples of people going for these congressional seats? I think Vern Jones in Georgia, too, he switched parties and now is running.

Do you think this will be effective? Have you looked at the quality of the candidates? I haven't looked at the quality carefully, which, Matt, you know, the diversity you want to have, but the quality is the single most important thing. They had a pretty diverse class, you know, last time around, so maybe it will be replicated here. And, you know, I'm not a bean counter.

I don't believe in quotas. But all things equal, if you can have, you know, really, really impressive women and minorities, it helps change the face of the party. And you want the party to become genuinely a cross- ethnic enterprise. And there have been some hopeful signs there with with L Latinos really disaffected from the Democrats and Joe Biden at the moment. Yeah, we'll see what happens.

If the Republicans keep talking about 2020, they will shoot themselves in the foot. I think that's right. You know, it's politics is always future-oriented. Go out, you know, stop. slam the brakes, at least on what Biden is doing legislatively, to the extent he's he's doing anything, and then think about how are you going to prosecute the fight in twenty twenty four.

All right. He is Rich Lowry. Pick up the National Review. Thanks, Rich. Hey, thanks, Brian.

Have a great day. You got it, 1-866-408-7669. Finally, you have a chance to talk, or you can write me at BrianKillmeat.com. Just click on comments and it'll come right to me. Don't move.

Expanding your knowledge base. It's the Brian Killmeat Show. A talk show that's real. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. I know there's been some suggestion, not by reporters necessarily at all, but that this congestion is related to the vaccine requirements.

It's not. Across what we've seen with these requirements, is across a range of industries. Vaccination requirements have been implemented with no disruptions, have helped increase vaccinations. These requirements help protect more people from COVID. And there's been zero indication across these industries that they would lead to disruptions, including on this policy.

While we do see some of these congestions due to processes, it's clear that these disruptions have broadened in scope beyond the vaccine requirement implementation.

So that is Jen Saki reading a statement clearly rattled as more and more Democratic governors get rid of mask mandates. In New York in particular, they say, we're going to wait until March 1st. It's okay. You don't have a fourth grader with a mask over their face and haven't really talked, have been the same, kind of depressed around the house. Don't worry about it.

Just wait three more weeks. Say, I want to see what happens after they go home for a winter break.

Okay. And you know, there's a lagging indicator when it comes to these vacations from Thanksgiving to Christmas. It doesn't happen right away, but still, they have no problem saying that.

So she's reading those statements to try to get it right. Unlike the president, they just don't let him answer any questions at all. But the CDC director stands by K through twelve masking guidance as the states relax news their rules.

Now, we're ready for the next war. If you're listening to me, your mom and dad or grandparent, are you okay with zero to six getting a vaccination? Because they say they're ready. Pfizer's ready to do it.

Now the last time I saw this study, two shots weren't that good, so they got to try three. Really? So you're just going to experiment on tiny babies, the most vulnerable. Let's just see how we do with three. Because two isn't really that good.

As opposed to looking at the low, low, low, low, low chance of anything seriously happening and saying, I know how to be a responsible parent. I'm pretty sure I could handle it from here.

So, those are some of the things that we've been discussing here. And I'll have to see where this goes because I'm seeing a lot of people outraged across the country. Today, I talked to a A 10th grader and her mom.

So the first day in Chicago, it's not in Chicago, but Illinois, they didn't want to give their last names. But it was covered in the papers and local media, and they did give their last names. She. Decides because now all the kids have an op can make their own decision about wearing masks. First day, she takes her mask off.

And the guy in front of her turns around. And said, You're not gonna go, you're all trying to kill me, you're all trying to kill me. And when she wouldn't put her mask on, he tried to stab her.

So she runs out of the room, calls 911. Do cops come? This guy's taken out. But that's how crazy this is. This guy's traveling to school with a knife.

In order to stab people, They don't agree with them. When it comes to Wear to mask in the classroom.

Now, on the other hand, if you do wear a mask, don't mock anybody for wearing a mask. But if you actually want protection and you're that concerned, you got someone vulnerable at home or you're coming off your own cancer surgery, you got emphysema, you got asthma, and you're just worried about it, no problem. But don't wear a paper mask. You gotta wear an N95 mask because paper masks protect somebody else, protect you marginally, they say. But if you for the most part, somebody else or not at all.

But the N95 mask makes you in control of your own destiny.

So do that if you need peace of mind. My hope is you'll be relaxed enough to understand that life's full of risks and you just want to go through it anyway. You don't really have a choice. Thanks so much for listening to the Brian Kill Me Show. Don't forget my Saturday show, 8 p.m.

One Nation. From the Fox News Radio Studios in New York City, giving you opinions and facts with a positive approach. It's Brian Kilmeade. Thanks so much for being here, everyone. It's the Brian Kilmey Show coming to you from New York City, where crime has never been higher in 72 of the 77 precincts.

Not good news, but something we have to address and coming to put it hurt around the country and around the world, I should say. We are going to be speaking with Jason Riley. He's got a brand new book out of the New York Times. Wall Street General, I should say. It is called the Black Boom.

We'll get to him in a moment. And Anthony Munos, the best offensive lineman in the history of football, who happens to be a Cincinnati Bengal. The last time Cincinnati was in the Super Bowl, He was on the team, and Boomer Syasins Bengals lost. To Joe Montana's 49ers, and both franchises go in the exact opposite directions. What about now?

With this quarterback. We'll talk about that, but first let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. This is a political hit job. And so they're taking all this stuff that I've ever said that's wrong and smushing it all together. But it's good because it makes me address some that I really wish wasn't out there.

You should apologize if you regret something. I do think you have to be very careful to not apologize for nonsense. Correct. Because it's a political hit job at this point. Rogan Spotify: the danger of apologizing.

I know we're raised to apologize when you're wrong, but not in this environment. Not today. You just can't. Number two. Will you commit today to turning off and pulling the plug on Nord Stream 2?

We are acting together. We are absolutely united and we will not take different steps. We will do the same steps and they will be very, very hard to Russia and they should understand. That's a no. Infuriating.

Mistakes that took place behind closed doors in Afghanistan and the escalation of events in the Ukraine. Have we ceded control of these talks to Germany and France? I'll bring you the latest. Number one. There was a and is a time and place for pandemic restrictions.

And in this case, circumstances have changed. Case counts are declining. Also, the science has changed. Yeah, that is Dr. Lian Wen of CNN.

Hold your ears. They told us they were following the science that led to lockdowns. Didn't believe them then.

Now they said the science is leading us to freedom. I still don't believe them. We are breaking the chains of mandates and restrictions because of political science, the stunning reversals in the bluest of blue states coming your way. Jason Riley joins us now. Jason, you talk about how the African-American community in America had gains that you didn't even fully understand until you had a chance to research it and watch them go away under this president, but they gained under President Trump.

So, having said that, let's put that on hold for a second and talk about the current situation. President Trump said two weeks shut down, two weeks to slow the spread. It's been over two years. He wanted to relent and get these chains and restrictions off. He couldn't do it.

It was almost impossible. These left-wing governors were clamping down, locking down. What changed? I think the public got fed up. I really think this has been a mass pushback by the general public.

They've seen that the policies before didn't work, that reopening the economy was essential, getting kids back to school was essential, and that the lockdowns were far worse than the virus, particularly this latest strain, which for a lot of people amounts to basically a bad cold. And people just aren't buying the reactions that the politicians have been putting out there to respond to having a bad cold. Yeah, I guess not. Here's more from the CNN doctor, Cut Five. If our ICUs and hospitals in that particular region are not overwhelmed, if they're not overcapacity, we can set a number, for example, 75% or 80% full, then we should be able to relax all restrictions.

And I actually believe that we should be starting to, with the first restriction removed, should actually be the restriction on children. There actually is a harm that we should be discussing of children continuing to mask. This is driving me nuts. I've been saying this for two years. No one ever asks about the psychological effect.

They're never at the table when Anthony Fauci locks down for their own good.

Now people are saying, wow, this is really strange. And now they looked at the Hopkins study last week that said the restrictions on lockdowns and mandates didn't really result in saving any lives, and they didn't cover it. But now they couldn't deny it over the weekend and this week it changes. Is this one thing from the bot is things changing because of the bottom up? I guess you could say that, and it's not just the kids, Brian.

I mean, just society in general, mental illness, people not getting treated for everyday ailments at hospitals. I mean, the damage done by these lockdowns, we probably won't know the extent of it for decades until we go back and look at all the missteps we've had, many of them politically driven, in response to COVID.

So it's not just the kids, it's society in general that I think is going to be on a long recovery here.

So you put together this book, The Black Boom. What numbers were exposed to you that made you think that this had to come out? Oh, well, well, first of all, this is really a story of how the working class benefited under Donald Trump's policies prior to COVID. Blacks just happened to represent a disproportionate number of people in the working class. But this was really a working class boom.

We saw wages rising at a faster rate. For blacks than they were rising for whites, rising for the working class at a faster rate than they were rising for management. We saw record low levels of unemployment. for blacks, record low levels of poverty for blacks, and this was just an underreported story. The numbers were always there.

The press was just so busy resisting President Trump and claiming that he was a racist who had policies that would hurt minorities that they didn't want to talk about this because it would undermine that narrative.

Well, and that's why you wrote the book. Here's what Candace Owen said: something very similar to what you wrote, Cut 33. You're seeing this system over and over and over again. They like the fact that black Americans are at the bottom of society. They like the fact that black Americans are uninformed.

They like the fact that they have drug dealers and you have these people that are basically government dependents for the rest of their lives. And unfortunately now, what we're talking about now, these crises, it's extending amongst the racists, right? It's not even just black America anymore. The person that you just showed is a white American. They're all drug addicts.

They're all dependent on the government. And the government is happy to give them whatever they want so long as they stay at the bottom of society, needing government. And that is what this administration is all about. Removing power from the individual and transferring it to the government. Jason, if Republicans had such a strong story to tell, why didn't they tell it?

Well, I think they try to, but you're up against a media that is controlled largely by the left, and so it's hard to get. That message out. But I do think a number of blacks were waking up to what the Trump economy prior to COVID was doing. And that's one reason, Brian, I thought you saw an uptick in support among blacks and for Hispanics for Trump's reelection bid. And so, even though it wasn't successful, his numbers went up.

among those groups, and I think it was partly because of blacks and Hispanics looking at their paychecks, noticing how plentiful jobs were, they were making more money, and the President's focus on reopening the economy, which we were talking about earlier, I think resonated with a lot of service sector workers, a lot of people in the hospitality industry, and a lot of working class Americans.

So that is a better story. Do you think there's some Byron Mor Morse in the black community? I saw the numbers. I think they went from 89% to 68% in terms of his approval. I don't know if there's buyer's remorse.

I mean, I think Republicans still need to do a better job of outreach to the black community. I think they need to go out there and ask for this, folks, go into these communities, show up, advertise on black radio and black internet and black Twitter and so forth. And I don't think enough of them do that. But if they do decide to do that, I think they will find some sympathetic voices in the black community. Yes.

Well, they're very interesting.

So I think that if they can you cite some specific policies that Trump put into place?

So was it just the cutback of regulation? No, I think it was largely two things, regulation, deregulation, and tax cuts. I mean, people talk about, oh, you're cutting taxes and that only helps the rich. No. What that did was it caused corporations to bring money back to the U.

S. that they had parked overseas, invest in U. S. businesses here, who then went about having to hire more people. A lot of those people happened to be blacks and Hispanics.

And so corporate tax cuts redounded to the benefit of working class Americans, particularly in the manufacturing sector and in other sectors. And so I think it was part of he was growing the economy. Trump was growing the economy. And that's what what blacks and low-income people have always needed more than some sort of race-specific policy aimed at them. They need a growing economy.

And to the extent that we have a growing economy, they'll go out there and take advantage of it. And this administration that we currently have, and what worries me, is they want to reverse a lot of those policies, the deregulatory policies and the tax policies that Trump put in place. And to me, that's only going to lead to the outcomes we had prior to Trump, which was very slow growth. And when people open up the borders and allow illegal workers to flood in, they could be paid off the books. Does that help or hurt the African-American community?

Illegal immigration doesn't help anyone, Brian, and we have to pay attention to what's going on in the border. And I think this President is going to come to regret that he's ignoring what is going on down there. I mean, anyone who's interested in legal immigration reform knows that it's got to start with getting control of the border. And to the extent that Biden is just not interested in doing that, he's never going to get Republicans to the table to fix our legal system, which of course needs fixing. That would be something interesting.

Do you think that there's any sense? uh among Republicans that they need a urban policy.

Well, I I do. I mean, Republicans talk a lot about school choice. And that's very important in the black community. And all the rest is really going to flow from getting a decent education. They also talk about crime issues.

And if you live in one of these low-income black communities that are very violent, there's no upward mobility going on in a community that violent, in a neighborhood that violent, where kids can't go to decent schools and they're worried about getting shot in the street by the peers.

So yes, to the extent that Republicans are focused on crime control, and and better education opportunities. For low-income individuals in this country? Yes, I think that's a very viable urban policy that they can go out there and sell. And particularly with respect to schools. And we know, I think, the unions really played their hand during the COVID lockdowns.

I think Republicans should really take advantage. of how the unions treated our children. when they kept these schools closed for political reasons and tried to leverage that into higher pay and benefits for themselves. I think Republicans should make sure Americans never forget that. And on a story that hits you locally, I imagine it does resonate in other areas.

These charter schools that do such a great job in bucking the trend, they need financing from the cities and from the state. And it seems like these Democratic states don't want to finance charter schools that really directly benefit minority communities because their first allegiance is to teachers' unions, and the unions are not part of those charter schools. Exactly. The unions do not control the people who work in those schools. And it doesn't really matter whether those schools are doing a good job by the kids or a bad job by the kids.

Those schools are providing middle class jobs, and that's all the union cares about, or that's what they care about most, I should say. And so, yes, until that dynamic can be changed, until we can break up that monopoly, these low-income minority kids are going to suffer. But yes, this has nothing to do with the quality. Of charter schools, which is often put out there by the left, that they're not as good. The problem for the left is that they are good, that they are successful, and therefore they undermine all these arguments they put forward about why traditional public schools aren't getting the job done.

Oh, the kids are low income, oh, they come from difficult backgrounds and so forth. Charter schools are taking those exact same kids and producing miracles with them.

So it's not the kids, it's the schools. And we have the right education models out there. Charter schools are one of those models, and we should be expanding those models, scaling them up. And the unions won't let us, and the Democrats are in hot to the unions, so the Democrats won't let us. You know, Jason Riley, our guest.

Jason, you take on Juan Williams' postulates that it's really President Obama that deserves the credit. And it was the lagging indicator during the Trump years when the numbers improved was because of President Obama. I know he was an inspirational figure, no doubt. You know, gave people a sense of, wow, there is an African-American president. I understand that.

But what about his policies? Yeah, it it President Obama always had high personality ratings, not just among blacks, but among all Americans. But his economic policies were not popular. They weren't people forget how bad blacks had it economically under Obama. Uh black unemployment did not fall below double digits.

until the seventh year of the Obama presidency. Under Trump, it fell to record lows. Um th th you know, on uh poverty fell to record lows. I mean, this there's no comparison between how blacks did under Trump. Prior to the pandemic, and how they did under Obama.

There is just no comparison. Blacks economically were far better off. under Trump. And so this idea that Trump inherited this great economy and anyone who became President next was going to do what happened under Trump is nonsense. The economy was slowing down.

Under Obama. People like Larry Summers were talking about a recession, a high likelihood of a recession in the first year of the Trump presidency. That did not happen. In fact, job growth accelerated. Economic growth accelerated.

Poverty rates fell. Wages grew. Everything went in the opposite direction of what the left was predicting would happen under a Trump presidency.

So to try and give Obama credit for what happened under Trump is sort of trying to have your take and eat it too. It's sort of a heads-I win, tails-you lose argument. Because if things had gone badly under Trump, as the left predicted, do you think they would have blamed Obama? Yes, they want to give Obama credit. For what the good things that happened under Trump.

No, it doesn't work that way. When he spent like six years blaming Bush. It was amazing. Jason Riley, congrat but the economy did collapse when it took over. We had a whole lot of money and momentum to spend.

The black boom, it's called Jason Riley, the writer. Pick it up. Thanks so much, Jason. I'll talk to you soon. Thank you.

Take care. 1866-408-7669. Back with your calls in just a moment. At the bottom of the hour, Anthony Munos. We talk a little football, the game, the big game, just over a week away.

Educating, entertaining, enlightening. You're with Brian Kilmead. A radio show like no other. It's Brian Killmead. God did not intend for us to walk around with a diaper on our face.

This is no way to learn a foreign language or play a musical instrument, much less sing in a chorus. But now since you all have taken away my rights, I have no respect nor trust for any of you. The thought of spending one more hour in a mask made me sick. Sick because I can't breathe. Literally sick because lack of oxygen gives me a killer headache after seven hours.

Sick of wearing a mask, even the box itself says does not provide protection against COVID-19. In the end, the rule is really just a tool for compliance. It has nothing to do with common sense, law, or science. Guess where that happened? Loudoun County?

Virginia, mostly to the left, school board to the left. They are pushing back against Governor Junckin saying enough. Let these kids live, make their own decisions, let their parents make their own decisions. They don't want it. They're pushing back.

But these kids are standing up, speaking out. Does anyone think, yeah, if someone helped them with the writing, not with the sentiment, you got to look at these kids' faces. They don't look like kids that are always in detention looking to cause trouble. They look like kids that have had it. Do you ever wear a mask for a period of time?

You never get used to it. Can you imagine trying to study that or just learning there? You fidget anyway when you're a little kid. And then a little bit later, you're trying to, I don't know, create some normalcy. You know what the mask tells you?

Shut up. It basically says don't say anything.

Well, number one, y your actual mouth is covered, so there's that there's something. There's a message sent to your body. Number two is you're tired of repeating yourself. And then, if you do something to a flight attendant where they can't hear you, and I was just on a plane yesterday and you take your mask, you dip it down, excuse me, don't put your mask down.

Well, do you want to hear me? Do you have a pad? Should I jot something down? I'm pretending that these masks are effective, that they work. We know then what's going on with fourth and fifth graders.

We know what the numbers look like.

Now, you're gonna watch the exodus of the mask. And I knew it when New Jersey did it, knew it for sure when California did it. Today, Kathy Hoke will do it in New York, but leave it on the kids. People are going to look back and they know this is stupid. What were we thinking?

Well, I'll tell you what, they're going to say, well, Donald Trump stopped first. Yeah, we didn't know it was hitting us. And then he spent the rest of his time trying to get the economy back and people back. The more you listen, the more you'll know it's Brian Killmead. Welcome back, everyone.

The Brian Kill Meet Show. Anthony Muno is supposed to join us. The best offensive lineman ever. I think most people agree. Hall of Famer, former Cincinnati Bengal.

Will probably be joining us shortly, but in the meantime, just to update you on what's going on, we expect the governor of New York today to come out and say, Grid of the mask. Really? Okay. Get rid of the mask. Uh you can if you're vaccinated.

But you notice we don't even hear the President of the United States said this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated because we know it's not. We know the Omicron variant seems to have beaten the vaccine, but they say they lessen the symptoms if you take the vaccine, so that's pretty important. I think that's a pretty important fact, and I think that's why the president doesn't bring it up. Couple of things. If you wonder.

If it's just the governors going off the reservation and saying we got to get back to normal, even Anthony Fauci came out and said something yesterday to the Financial Times. Why wouldn't he talk to the Financial Times? He says this. As we get out of the full-blown pandemic phase, of COVID-19. which we are certainly heading out of, these decisions will increasingly be made on a local level rather than centrally decided or mandated.

There will also be more people making their own decisions on how they want to deal with the virus. Good.

So that's good. He never takes responsibility. It's up to the CDC, the FDA, when things go wrong. I told you so. Anthony Muno has joins us now, Hall of Famer, offensive tackle, 13 years in the NFL.

Anthony, welcome back to the Brian Kilmey Show. Brian, thanks for having me back. Always a pleasure to be with you. How are you doing? Last year when we spoke, if I said to you, by the way, your Cincinnati Bengals will be in the Super Bowl next year, what would you have told me?

I would probably have to check your drink or were you too inspired to make that comment. No, you know what? It's it's Yeah, it's amazing. Uh, you know, it's funny because I do the preseason games on T V and every year people are asking me, okay, how they're going to do? I was at practice for two, three days this camp and I I looked and I said, you know what?

I don't know what's going to happen, but I really believe this team can win ten games, and I don't know what that's going to get them. But Super Bowl, now I wouldn't go that far, but I thought they would be pretty good this year.

Well, was it because of their division? I mean, they're in the toughest division, you could argue. You know, when you have the Ravens, you got the Steelers every year. I mean, it's tough to predict 10 wins and they ha and the Browns will look like they were the team on the upswing. What about the way they practice?

Well, it was just the enthusiasm. You know, really the players that the staff and the management had brought in. I just saw a different enthusiasm, a different level of Play out of it. And I just saw that these guys really enjoyed, and this was just practice, practicing with each other. I mean, to me, it was a team early on.

And that's what I saw. And that's what I look at. I look at a lot of that. Of course, you got to look at the talent, but I saw a lot of how they just enjoyed be in there practicing and I thought, man, this is This is something different that I've seen in the last several years.

So we always heard, too, the little things you guys didn't have in Cincinnati. You didn't have the indoor facility, never spent a lot of money, no pressure to put a winning team on the field. And since, you know, Boomer was there and Kenny Anderson was there and you were there, we haven't seen that. How come was it just the talent was not there? Did they just overcome those things?

They have. And I think where free agency and the draft and You know, when I was there, that was kind of a similar type of thing, but you know, we had some amazing coaches in Forrest Gregg and Sam Weiss. And we got the two Super Bowls, even with the same type of environment. And I think here recently, you look at the culture that they're building. You know, a couple of years ago at the draft, six of the seven guys are captain, multiple year captains, guys that played for their dad in high school.

Free agency they brought in were leaders on their respective teams, some playoff experience. And that's just kind of what they've been doing the last several years. And a former teammate of mine who has done the radio for years and years, I played next to him my first four years, Dave Lapham. He always says, When your best players are your best guys, that's when you have something special. I think that's what they're putting together here.

From what you've seen. How does he compare to the best Bengal quarterbacks ever? And that's Kenny Anderson, Boomer, and I'm talking about Joe Burrow. How does he compare to them right now at a similar period? at this young age, I think very comparable, even I mean, maybe ahead of schedule.

The guy is just amazing. Not only his physical ability, but his mental ability, his poise. his leadership. I mean, to be a captain as a rookie in the NFL is amazing. To come back after not playing a full season, come back healthy as he did, the work ethic, I think he's ahead of schedule.

The two guys I had a chance to play with, and the two guys I played with, Kenny and Buma, were amazing. I believe Kinney should be in the Hall of Fame. Boomer has, I think, statistics to be in there. But I think Joe is, you know. Keep him healthy.

He's got a long career ahead of him and can be one of the best to play the game, I think. Here he is with his approach. As you know, he sat for three, two, three years in Ohio State, then goes to the LSU and becomes statistically maybe had the greatest college season ever as LSU wins a national championship. And last the next year, they fall off a cliff. And then he goes and gets drafted.

He has a bad injury last year, and this year he's in the Super Bowl, cut 40. Every offseason, I kind of work on a little bit of everything. There's not really one or two specific focuses that I have. You know, seeing the field has always been something that has kind of come naturally to me. Pretty good at understanding spatial awareness and where everybody is.

If you had that with my preparation, I'm able to diagnose the coverage fairly quickly. And I mean, he always sounds so confident, but he looks so young. Anthony, when you talk to him, I mean, do you, what do you see?

Well, you know, it's amazing because COVID has really put a lot of restrictions on how close you can get to the team. Having, you know, I do the preseason games, I had a chance to go down to camp. And amazing. The first time we ever met, he walked right up to me after practice, introduced himself. I was there with the former teammate and he just said, Hey guys, We appreciate you guys being here.

You know, the present-day players, we love when the former players hang out. You got to come around even more. And it was just like: here's this second-year player just saying, hey, we need this for the guys. You know, we appreciate you guys. And that's that was rare to hear in the past.

And it just I mean, you can see he's the leader. I mean, it was amazing. Second-year player going, you know, he's going into a second year, as you mentioned, after being hurt. And just the confidence of coming up, and that's what you love to see in a quarterback. And he's become the amazing leader of this football team.

And you listen to guys talk about him, and you know that that's not just something that is said, but it's really true. Anthony Muno is our guest. Best offensive lineman ever. I think almost everyone agrees on that. And of course, you know, Southern California starring at USC.

I mean, first time since the 90s, I was actually covered. I was in Los Angeles at the time doing all sports radio XTRA. The last time the. The Super Bowl was there because you lost football entirely. What does it mean in Southern California?

Have they got behind the Rams? You know what, it's interesting. They got that really nice new stadium, both the Rams and the Chargers are playing. And I hear that the crowds are pretty good there.

So You know, when the Rams left LA and went to St. Louis, I think a lot of people were happy that they came back. It is. I think this is the type of city that the Super Bowls, you know, with the warm weather, it's in the 80s all week here today. Uh, great facility, and you know, from what I understand, you know, talking to you know, I don't live in Cincinnati, but I still have a lot of family here.

Uh, come back here a few times a year, and people are, you know, you see a lot of Rams swag, you see a lot of bumper stickers, you see a lot of the Rams stuff.

So, I think they've really taken back to the Rams, getting them back, and uh, and it's good to be back in LA in Southern California for the Super Bowl. Absolutely, now that they lift the mask mandate, you might be able to live your life. Uh, Anthony's coming up June 17th to the 19th in Can, this Fatherhood Festival. Wha what could you tell us about it?

Well, this is something that's really exciting and kind of dear to my heart. You know, taking place June 17th, 18th, and 19th. The Hall of Fame Village powered by Johnson Controls and the Fatherhood Institute are really teaming up to have the Fatherhood Festival. Man, I tell you, the first night, we're going to have like the biggest movie night in the country. It's just going to fill the stadium up and have a movie.

And then Saturday, we're just going to encourage all the dads to be there and have. you know, have a day of just interaction with the kids, activities, and really connect with your kids. And it's all about fatherhood and just how important that is in our country. And we're going to do that, but not eliminate the moms. We're going to have a nice little area there where the dads are having fun, running around, but the moms are going to be pampered.

A little spa day for them on the field there under tents.

So they'll be taken care of. And then uh so yeah, so that's Pretty exciting that we can have that, you know, where the NFL football started in Canton, Ohio with the big expansion. You know, we have the Hall of Fame that I'm a member of, but then now we have the Hall of Fame Village powered by Johnson Controls, which is an amazing, amazing. Um you know It's a facility that's being built. For more information, I'd say tell people to go to fatherhoodfestival.com and get involved.

I mean, bring fathers, bring kids out here, sponsor opportunities. I mean, it's just amazing. I'm excited about this because. it has to do with fathering. And for me, one of the the greatest joys and one of the toughest things for me and not perfect, but I enjoyed it was being a father.

And so we have a chance to really invite the dads out there and Teaming up with the Father Institute to have this Fatherhood Festival. It's going to be pretty exciting.

Well, put it this way: you don't have to be a Hall of Famer to go, right? Exactly. Nope. We're looking, hopefully, we have Hall of Fame dads that come out here, you know, Hall of Fame dads that interact in a Hall of Fame way with their kids. Anthony, lastly, the big thing in football right now is Brian Flores' lawsuit and coming out and saying that I'm tired of being a token.

You guys aren't considering me seriously for the Giants' job. You're not considering me, you didn't consider me seriously for the Broncos job when I was available and Elway was president. Talked about them being hungover during the interviews.

So he filed the lawsuit, virtually eliminating himself from getting the job in Houston. Uh Lovy Smith got that. And I'm just wondering, I mean, the numbers don't lie. There are not many African-American coaches. I think there's only one other job open right now, and I think it could be filled shortly.

And the Pittsburgh Steeler coach. I mean, what do you think from the player perspective who is now really loved by, and I think all around, besides Cincinnati, and respected? You're a Mexican-American. How do you feel about that?

Well, you know, I I think the fact that seventy percent is African American You know, you would think that there would be more opportunities there for the African-American coaches. It's tough. I mean, that's a tough situation. You know, to be in. They have the Rooney rule, which was supposed to be a situation where African-American coaches are considered and hired.

So, you know, it is tough, especially when you have all the openings and, you know, Lovie Smith gets the job. That Flores was up for.

So it it'll be interesting to see what happens. You know, hopefully, this is something moving forward they can, you know, really lay the plan out, not be as much reactive as proactive and take care of this. But I can see where coaches feel that way. And we got as you know, Mexican-American, you know, we had Tom Flores, who now in the Hall of Fame, won the championship with the Raiders, and we have Ron Rivera, coaching the NFL. And but yeah, it's it's one of those things that it looks like will be addressed here with what's going on with Coach Fores.

So do you think it's with merit? I mean, you're not a lawyer, but I'm not a lawyer, and I can't, you know, some of the allegations, you know, that have been. You know, broad, I don't I it's hard for me to say I've been out of the game and not around it as much as I was when I was playing, even right after I because I was in broadcasting for seven years, so I was a lot closer to it.

Now, you know, I have nine grandkids and I'm trying to figure out what sporting events to go and things like that.

So I don't follow it as closely as I did. To say does it have merit, I it's I can't make an intellectual, you know, response to that because I'm not that close to it. Got it. Anthony, I hope you have a good time out and enjoy talking about the Cincinnati past and how things have had you found a way to beat Montana and the 49ers. Would that how would that just a last question, how would that have changed, you think, through the trajectory of the Cincinnati Bengals?

I think it would have made a big difference because that would have, you know, twice in the 80s, you know, they were the team, basically the team of the eighties. We came. twice very, very close, uh Montana's first and then down the road. You know, we probably in that second one would have had a Super Bowl MVP kicker. Jim Breach, who's the all-time leading scorer, so I think a lot of things would have changed.

Uh and uh yeah, I I think uh it might have been s you know somewhat different uh in Cincinnati with the way things 'Cause quite frankly, after you know, a couple of years after that, You know, 18, 19 years, it was just, I mean, very, very bad. I mean, it wasn't very good there. And since I think it could have been different. if we especially if we'd have won that second one. I don't think things would have been as bad there for as long as it was if that would have happened.

Gotcha. And of course, the greatest mind maybe in football history, Paul Brown, founder of that team.

Now his family still owns it. Anthony, thanks so much. I look forward to getting your commentary and maybe talking to you on television. Hey, let's do it. I enjoy it.

Always enjoy being with you. A big fan.

So anytime, reach out and I'll be there. All right. Go get him, Anthony. Thanks so much. When we come back, we'll take your calls: 1-866-408-7669, Brian Kilmead Show.

The fastest growing talk show in America. You're with Brian Kilmead. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead. You know, in a lot of ways, like, all this is a relief.

Because it's like, just, because that video had always been out there. It's like, this is a political hit job. And so they're taking all this stuff that I've ever said that's wrong and smushing it all together. But it's good because it makes me address some that I really wish wasn't out there. You should apologize if you regret something.

I do think you have to be very careful to not apologize for nonsense. Correct. So that was Joe Rogan talking about the smash up of some of the times he used the N-word in the past. It didn't seem to be, I'm not going to go look up the original contents, and he definitely holds to that. I haven't seen him challenged by it.

Not in a derogatory way, he was trying to talk about the use of the word and when it's acceptable and why it shouldn't be acceptable.

So people put a smash up together on top of what he said and had the audacity to interview people and being sarcastic that have a counter opinion to Anthony Fauci and the government, and people want to stop him.

So they decide to go back in time for his 20 years of doing the podcast. Imagine what he said on Stand Up. The guy was pretty, you know, he was out there as a stand-up comedian for 30 years.

So I'm sure there's going to be things out there that aren't acceptable now.

Now, I'm not even going to say the word because I'm afraid of people to take it out of context. But in terms of the mentally handicapped, people used to use a certain word on that. In terms of how people described African Americans, they used a different word on that.

So everything that was acceptable in the 90s is not acceptable in 2020. Everything that was acceptable in the 80s is not acceptable in 2020. 70s, 60s, a lot of people were around for a long time.

So you're going to try to destroy The Rock when he was a wrestler? He was on basic television and some pay-per-view making those comments. No one had a problem with it. But in 2020, in retrospect, as he sat there in his fake wrestling, said some derogatory things about someone's ethnic background, now you're trying to cancel The Rock? Are you kidding?

Jimmy Fallon, because he did what was SNL, what was an SNL skit that was written up, I'm sure, not by him. And Jimmy Kimmel but he condemns everybody, but at the same time, he's using what is an African American what he views an African American accent to talk about Carl Malone. Good luck with that. Go ahead, keep criticizing everybody. It all comes back around.

What are we going to realize? Not only should you not take down Christopher Columbus' statue or Teddy Roosevelt's statue, but you should also not hold people accountable for what was acceptable thirty years ago. 10 years ago. Same-sex marriage, best example, 2008. The way you refer to gay people in our society.

Certain things are not acceptable now. Back then, it was in songs. I mean, I don't think I had to explain this, but all of a sudden, I look up and all of a sudden I hear: did you hear what's going on with The Rock? You hear what's going on with Joe Rogan? I'm thinking to myself, what could have happened?

We're only going back years. And if you're on television radio, you're gonna say some things that are gonna offend some people at some point.

So I think people gotta stop apologizing. It doesn't work. That was end, this is now moving forward. Dave Portnoy's bar stool approach is probably the only one that'll be effective for survival. Don't forget, got the Saturday show One Nation coming up on Saturday, 8 p.m.

Be there and 11. 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. Hey, welcome back everyone. It's the latest moments of the Brian Kill Meet Show.

I appreciate you being here. The number to call in about 15 minutes would be 1-866-408-7669. Martha McCallum be joining me at the bottom of the yarrow. But right now, we're joined by Mike Rowe. Mike Rowe has found some time in his busy schedule to change his same jean shirt.

It turns out, according to reports, he's not wearing the same shirt. He's wearing look-alike shirts. You found a loom. And you said, I can make one shirt, I'm gonna make it over and over again. Is that true?

Well, it goes deeper than that, Brian. The loom in question I built. From trees and natural resources on my property in my attic. And so every morning now, you know, I'm teaching myself to sew and loom. And yeah, that's where all my shirts come from.

I dye it myself. You know, I grow the indigo here, it's turnkey. Do you have a solar lathe? I did, but I upgraded that for I I don't even know if you're up to speed with with what's going on now, but they've got a moon powered layer that takes the Right.

So it's no good during, you know, The dark. Period, but when the moon is full. The reflection's powerful enough to drive the lathe as well as the loom.

So we've got, we're dialed in over here for sure. Yeah, I've been using moon energy for a long time. I didn't know you were.

So this has really caught me by surprise.

Well, you know what? I read somewhere. That it really worked and I believed it because I believe everything I read today, you see. And so, yeah, it's all coming together for me. Yeah, I couldn't believe how confused.

Right. You know, I'm really confused because I've been listening to podcasts and I take all of them as scripture.

So I believe that everything that I ever heard ever is true.

So you know you We talked about this last week, sort of, when you were gracious enough to carve a few moments from your very busy schedule. Sit on my podcast, and it struck me: I wish we'd have talked more about this weird.

sort of nexus between the need to be skeptical and the need to be able to trust Somebody.

Something.

somewhere. You know, it just really seems to be The thing that's creating so much of the confusion around us right now. We just can't seem to find that sweet spot.

Well, I know. By the way, the way we heard it, you were kind enough to interview me. We finally worked out a way that I could actually go on your podcast, use audio and video. You know, you have that awkward moment where I just stare straight ahead and you stare at me, and I keep saying, Can you hear me? And you can't.

And I was it was actually Mm-hmm. As soon as I get off, I'm going to post the video of that awkward moment, which was really four minutes long because people keep writing in saying, You know what, your podcast was good, but that goat rodeo that precedes it, where you and Kill Me look at technology like a cow looking at a new gate. That's the stuff we want to see.

So the other thing was I tape the Saturday show that you can't get enough of.

So I have a chance to do that show, and then I do your podcast. And I go, great. And all of a sudden, I left my phone in my office. I just go meet with everyone I'm supposed to meet with. I come back, it's an emergency.

Log off. I have to lie evidently, if I don't log off, there is no podcast. I had the control of your career. I always sought. I mean, I could I d so I had to go find a way to log off.

Yeah, well, I mean what Just so your listeners understand, when you do a podcast on my platform, We say goodbye, but you don't really go anywhere. You just have to wait five seconds for everything to upload. Then you close your computer and go on with your life. You said goodbye, slammed the computer shut, and ran out of your office so fast you left a hole in the wall shaped like you running, which caused my technical team all kinds of trouble. But look, it's all good.

It's up. Everybody loves you. They're buying your book. You know, it was time well spent. I agree.

So good news. One of the first things we talked about is you were in a went to a diner. And And it the whole thing is it's a bigger picture now, but tell us about your math story. Oh, yes. It was just a very, very small moment in an otherwise inconsequential meal.

But I went to meet a buddy at a diner that morning. And I walked in quickly and he was sitting in a booth about ten feet from the door.

So I just walked straight to him and there was some screaming behind me and the hostess had run back to her stand saying, Sir, sir, sir, I need I I need to see your vaccination card. And I said, okay, you know, you know, don't want to make any trouble, but I'm already in. And for crying out loud, of course, I'm vaccinated. Everybody, I live north of San Francisco, everybody's vaccinated.

So I showed her my card and she said, Okay, and I said thanks and I turned to walk to the booth and she said, And could I just ask you to put on a mask while you walk? over there to the booth and No, I've never done this before. I'm not calling for civil disobedience. I'm not trying to be a jagged little pill. But it it just struck me the absurdity of the moment struck me.

And I said, you know. I can't do that. And there was this weird, awkward pause, and she looked at me behind her mask and I looked at her. And my buddy is now maybe six feet from me, maskless. Everybody in the place is maskless because they're all sitting down and eating.

And I think Something happened in the universe, Brian, at least for her. And I don't want to put words into her mind, but I could see something in her eyes. And she said. She said, I understand. It's something.

And so I I smiled. I think she smiled from behind her mask, and I just walked and I sat down in flagrant violation. of California state law. Thank you. That is crazy as Mike Rowe get, but that's now where the country is.

As you know, New Jersey started at Connecticut, Illinois, and now today. Starting tomorrow, it's going to be announced today the governor of New York State says no more, if you're vaccinated, no more indoor masks. Obviously, no outdoor masks. You guys in California had outdoor masks or no restaurants at all.

Now they're realizing it and they can't even control the narrative anymore. Mike, what happened? Why are these blue states waking up?

Well I think Hans Christian Andersen answered the question perfectly many years ago when he wrote a great fable called The Emperor's New Clothes. When the emperor was convinced that his tailors had made him beautiful garments, when in fact they hadn't made him anything at all, he was naked. Sitting on his chair naked, being paraded down the street as throngs of thousands of people in the town came out and everybody applauded and everybody oohed and ah because nobody wanted to admit that the emperor. Was naked.

So they all pretended he had these beautiful clothes on until a kid. Standing in the front row is looking around and he sees the naked emperor and he's like, hey, man, that. That dude's naked. And Once he said it. other kids said it, and then some adults said it.

That people began to nod, and then very quickly it became clear. that the Emperor's new clothes didn't exist. And so, in some way, I think that's what we've been living through for the last couple of years. We've been asked. Yeah.

believe that which is unbelievable. We've been asked to lend credibility to that which is incredulous. We know it makes no sense. to stand cheek to jowl. in an airport.

uh you know or sit cheek to jowl on a plane And then stand six feet apart in an airport. We know it makes no sense to walk through a diner with the mask only to take it off when you're seated. You know, we know it makes no sense to cover a kid's face. Who's two years old, or five years old, or 15 years old, so they can go to school? We know it's We know it.

And yet For two years. very few people said anything.

Well, Now the kids spoke up. And people are nodding their heads. And we're coming out of our or stupor.

So you mentioned on Friday, last Friday, Yeah, I think this is a turning point, this Hopkins study. And I said, Mike, I hope so, but no one's covering it. They're not carrying it.

Well, on the Sunday shows, they started talking about the hygiene theater, my words, but they started saying, you know, this might not be effective and the shutdown was this. And I even saw it on CNN at 9 in the morning. They actually said the Hopkins study said that a lot of these sacrifices and restrictions didn't amount to much, didn't save much. And now we're in the situation now where it's rippling through. And I can't get my eyes off Canada.

When I see these truckers ringed Ottawa, they're now blocking a bridge that goes to Michigan. And they're saying, we don't even want mandates just for us lifted. We want it up for the whole country. And three provinces have crashed. These are the truck drivers of the world, the anonymous people that deliver the food and the packages and allow you to rebuild your house because the materials are at your doorstep or at a Home Depot.

They have had enough. Are you fascinated by this as a man who knows more working-class people than almost anybody else? else.

Well, I'm not surprised by it. It does confirm something that I've always believed, which is simply that The kinds of workers we're talking about, whether they're truckers or plumbers or steam fitters or pipe fitters or They're on the front line of work, which means they're also Engaging with the public in a pretty unique way. They have a take. on what's happening, especially the truckers. I mean, these guys They have basically been in lockdown their whole lives.

They live in relative isolation. They travel, but they're alone by and large. And so I I think that as a group, they've got a really unique perspective. And of course, my take on the whole thing is that right now we're between 50 and 60,000 truckers short of where we need to be in this country. I don't even know what the numbers are.

in North America, but you ignore the truckers at your peril. Because if those guys well, we're seeing it happen right now. They're parked and they're sitting there. and the wheels are going to come off the bus. I don't I don't think they're holding the country hostage.

I don't think they're doing anything outside of their. Their right to do. But I think among the other things that they're reminding people of is the simple fact. That These whole this whole lockdown would have been unsurvivable. Without people and trucks.

Bringing the things to your home that you need, whether it's your food, whether it doesn't matter. They are truly on the front line. civilized life right now. You can't ignore 'em. I hear you.

And guess what? Just to tell you, in New Zealand, a convoy of freedom protesters were standing up against vaccine mandates. Believe it or not, New Zealand and Australia are extremely oppressive. And in America, according to Brian Brass, a trucker who's organized the American effort, who's going to start in Sacramento, could go right to Washington, D.C. Man, I know that Joe Biden likes to get, I know that he will.

Fear being helpless to this. But if they want to ring Washington, D.C., we know they could shut that down. It's basically shut down anyway with all the traffic.

So that is. That is a problem they can avoid by releasing all the restrictions. Lastly, go ahead.

Well, I was just going to say, we've said before that this thing ends when it goes flat. I don't know what splat means exactly, but it's going to be a critical mass. It's it's it's maybe it's a trucking convoy, maybe it's some kind of civil disobedience, maybe it's you know, look. The Democrats in Virginia. Chose a hill to die on regarding the mask mandates.

And from what I can tell this morning, they died on it. Their own party has turned on them. It's changing. It's changing in Virginia. Don't know when or how it's going to happen in New York or when or how it's going to happen in DC.

But it's going to happen. There's just no playbook for it, but we're coming out of this thing and we're doing it in fits and starts. And ultimately, that's good news. Couple of things. You've been on the air for 30 years.

Joe Rogan's been doing between stand-up and his podcast. He's been saying he's been doing it for 10 years. I imagine if you've been on television, on stage for this amount of time, there's some things you said in the 90s that don't hold up in 2020. I never thought I had to say that, but now they're trying to cancel him. They're trying to cancel The Rock, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Howard Stern, on things that they say that were a whole lot of maybe not acceptable then, was just on the edge.

Now they would never say it individually, I imagined. Here's Joe Rogan on this new revelation, Cut 19. You know, in a lot of ways, like, all this is a relief because it's like just, because that video had always been out there. Right. It's like, this is a political hit job.

And so they're taking all this stuff that I've ever said that's wrong and smushing it all together. Right. It's good because it makes me address some that I really wish wasn't out there. You should apologize if you regret something. I do think you have to be very careful to not apologize for nonsense.

Correct. So there you know, Dave Portenoy, who's always trying to be canceled. He's always on the edge and barstool. He says, I will never apologize. Rogan got yelled at by the President Trump, says you should never apologize.

We know that's how he feels.

So did Governor DeSantis. He said, you can't apologize. How do you feel about what's going on right now and how they're attacking him. I apologize when I'm sorry. If I he we're talking about a compilation tape where Joe used that word that we're not allowed to say anymore.

even if you're talking about how evil that word is. Right. I listened to something over the weekend uh your listeners would probably love. Um Sam Harris has a podcast called Making Sense. And he just talks about The The the childlike That we've become enthralled to the language and the mystical and the magical powers that we've assigned to certain words.

And We're grown-ups. Trying to have a grown-up conversation about the changing lexicon and the various rhetorical devices we use, that has nothing to do with racism. But if we're not allowed to use the words and the context of the conversation about the changing nature of the language. then we just don't understand the difference between hate and syntax. And that makes us That makes us children.

Look, if you're sorry, apologize. If you're not sorry, say, I know what was in my heart. I know what was intended. And so, no, I can't. I can't do the perp walk for something that I don't feel.

Sorry for. That's my view. But Dunk. It's ask me tomorrow. It might evolve, Brian.

Everything is always changing fast.

Well, the one thing that doesn't change your podcast is great the way I heard it. You're also the host of Dirty Jobs. It's back in action on Discovery and How America Works on Fox Business. You are a very busy guy, Mike. That's a lot of jean shirts.

Well look at the re At the risk of throwing my arm out, patting myself on the back, our next round of work ethic scholarships. Coming up in a week and a half on MicroWorks. We've got a million dollars we're giving away to people who want to learn to drive a truck. run a welding torch. Learn plumbing, or maybe build a loom in their attic powered by moonlight in order to keep their own garments.

Everything's full circle. Mike Rowe, thanks so much. Thanks, Brian. Take care. Back in a moment.

Learning something new every day on the Brian Killmead Show. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. With regard to the suggestion that the RNC should be in the business of picking and choosing. Republicans who ought to be supported.

Traditionally the view of the National Party committees is that we support all members of our party, regardless of their positions. on some issues. Do you have confidence in her? Bonnie McDaniels, chairman of the committee. Uh I I I do, but the the issue is whether or not the RNC should be sort of singling out members of our party who may have different views from the majority.

That's not the job of the RNC.

So that is where the conflict is right now. You have a conflict because Kevin Carthy doesn't feel that way. Kevin McCarthy said, You know, I feel as though they're overplaying their hand, and they absolutely are with the January 6th. meetings and uh and the committee and the attacks. But the one thing the Republicans are not playing into, they played into their hands on Friday when they went ahead and tried to minimize the whole event and went ahead and condemned through censure the two Republicans.

Why go back and have that fight? It makes no sense. You have inflation plaguing everybody's life. You see what the after action report in Afghanistan is, and you want the attention on you. Breaking news, unique opinions.

Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show. Let me ask you: what capacity do you think CENTCOM as to facilitate the continued evacuation of The Afghan allies who remain at risk. Senator, I believe we have a moral obligation. to help those at-risk Afghans to come out of Afghanistan. If confirmed, I commit to you to look at what options are available to be able to assist in that Department of State.

So We're getting more and more information about what was actually going on behind the scenes of the White House when they made that ill fated decision to get out of Afghanistan the way they did at the time they did. With me right now, it's Martha McCallum, and Martha McCallum will host the story. Martha, I am The administration wants to move past this. The American people won't let him. No, that's absolutely true.

And apparently, the Pentagon won't let him either. I thought that Congressman Waltz made a very good point this morning when he said that the FOIA request on this went through very quickly: 2,000 pages of documents that were contributing to this report that came out in the Washington Post yesterday morning, which says that the White House and the State Department. Basically, dropped the ball and that the Pentagon wanted to handle this very differently. We even have the quote from General McKenzie, outgoing McKenzie, who also says, you know, we could have handled this another way.

So it's pretty clear now. And I think, you know, it's typical in this kind of situation where in the beginning everyone sort of hangs together, but now there's a lot of finger pointing going on. And the thing that really stands out to me, Brian, is just the total lack of ability for anyone to step up and say, you know what? I should have saw this coming. It was my responsibility.

I'm resigning. Or I would offer my letter of resignation because I let the people of Afghanistan down. I let the people of this country down. We lost 13 lives at the Abbey Gate. Never needed to happen.

You know, just as an aside, when I saw the vit the photos that were released, the unclassified photos now from that event, where you see those 13 of them lined up, it is so incredibly chaotic. They had never been in combat before, those young men and women lost their lives. It is such a gut-wrenching disaster to look at what they allowed to happen at that gate. And there were options. We know that, and they're more clear now.

You remember we were getting those reports: there's going to be an explosion, there's going to be a suicide bomb. Look out for the suicide bomb, but they never expanded the wire.

So the suicide bomb was going to get right there anyway. And then you figure what McKenzie was told, which I was told by Admiral Kirby didn't happen. Why go, what do you mean it didn't happen? He actually said it that they you got a call. Uh, our Berardo gave a call.

Do you want me to take Kabul or are you going to take Kabul? He said, We only want the airport. Admiral Kirby was telling me, No, no, that never really happened. Oh, no, no, that's okay. I interviewed Sal Khalazad, and I have him on the record saying that, yes, that was an offer that the Taliban made to us, to me and McKenzie.

We were both in the room. and it was relayed to the White House. Here, one of these quotes I think is pretty telling. U.S. This Rear Admiral Peter Vasley obviously was ignored.

He said that in Afghanistan, during the retro effort, he told investigators that the military would have been much better prepared to conduct a more orderly operation if policymakers had paid attention to the indicators of what was happening on the ground. The one thing I know. We were in 1211 6th Avenue. We were going, is anyone gonna fight? We're watching all these provinces fall.

Excuse me. When they get to Kabul, they're ready to fight. Why would they fight? Why would they fight? Because, and then we find out the transmission from Gahani saying, excuse me, we're being overwhelmed.

At least give us air cover. The Pakistanis are allowing all these terrorists to come through their border. This is not a fair fight. And we would not even do it because Joe Biden said, we got to get out. If we engage, there's going to be a fight.

Then we find out through these reports, the Marines were engaged. They were engaged. 100 Marines were engaged with Taliban during the fall of Kabul. I go, wait a second, I thought there was no fighting. It's extraordinary.

And as you accurately point out, we watched all of those provinces falling in quick succession, which was a very clear indication that the dominoes were falling. faster than anybody thought that they would. You know, it's interesting just going back to that offer that the Taliban gave us, because we all remember there's a lot of negotiations going on starting the Trump administration with the Taliban about how to exit from Afghanistan. And basically, the line from the federal government right now is that, well, he was not authorized. McKenzie wasn't authorized to accept that offer of, you know, well, you guys want to hold Kabul while you get out and we'll stay out of your way.

That was never considered at the top levels of the White House.

So that's why they didn't really think it was a big deal.

So Mackenzie kind of said this already. By the way. I don't know why people have not forced the president to answer that question and just show up with an interview with him and said, Admiral General McKenzie said this about you. You told that when you give him this amount of force, I won't be able to hold all these bases. What did you say?

You said you never heard anyone say that.

So McKenzie said. Which I find so interesting. Mackenzie said. Everyone clearly saw some of the advantage of holding Bagram, but you cannot hold Bagram with the force level that was decided.

So instead of McKenzie saying, listen, here's my stars. If you're going to do this, this whole country's going to fall, instead of like, how many soldiers you need?

Okay, fine. I can't hold Bagram then.

Okay, don't hold Bagram. We'll leave it anyway.

So, at what point are you going to act like a general? And you know, civilian leadership, if the civilian leadership is leading me to this type of disaster, do it on somebody else's watch. And why these guys were able to get away with it, they still hold their jobs today. Thankfully, they don't hold the prestige that they had because they don't deserve it. No, they don't deserve it.

And, you know, there was a time in this country when if you had an enormous responsibility and you screwed up, the honorable thing to do is to step forward and say, you know what, this did fall under my purview. This was my responsibility. And I think we're seeing a little bit of that in this report. And I think these comments from McKenzie about saying, look, I don't have an. And you know what?

They said that if you look into the sort of fine print on this, Brian, from back then, they were saying it back then. We don't have enough people to hold Bagram. End of story. Yeah. In in other words, subtext, we've been, you know, stripped so bare here in terms of the boots on the ground that that there's very little we can do.

And you remember how we left Bagram? We left it without telling them. Yes.

And we left it prison. We left a prison full of terrorists there.

So we let some of those terrorists out. Trump never should have allowed it. Calozat never should have recommended it.

So then when we leave, we leave in the middle of the night. And I remember saying to myself, Why is that good? They go, You don't understand. Because if you told everyone they're leaving, they'll begin to start looting. Excuse me.

So. They'll turn on you. You're worried about green on blue, red on green or whatever it's called. You're worried that I'm shooting you? Yeah, that's the way you got to do it.

You got to leave without telling them because then it's going to leak out and it'll leave our people susceptible. I mean, I just can't I can't believe some of the explanations we got. And I'm heartened by the fact that we are looking at this and people do care about this.

Now, Michael Walsh was asked today about what do you say about the White House saying what's happening in Ukraine has nothing to do with Afghanistan. They can't get any communications, but don't you believe it's one leads to the other? Yeah, and I thought Waltz's answer was excellent on that as well. He said: if you go through this statement that was just put out by China and Russia, by Vladimir Putin and President Xi, they make it quite clear that their decision-making has been in part based on or fortified by what happened in Afghanistan, because they do believe now that it is a fruitful time for them to be adventurous in their own regions and to. Consider taking back Ukraine, consider taking back Taiwan, and that it absolutely is instrumental in that decision-making process.

So, a couple of things. I know this was a couple of days ago, but I want to share it. I want to go over this with you.

So, the Chancellor Schloss, is that how you say his name? I took it. Scholz. I'm going to call him that too. Scholz, Olaf.

Scholz came out and he wanted to reassure America that we're on their side.

So he was asked about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. And his answer is telling in what he doesn't say, as in, It goes offline. Very simple answer. If they invade Ukraine, What happens in Nord Stream two? Cut thirty.

Will you commit today to turning off and pulling the plug on Nord Stream two? You didn't mention it. You haven't mentioned it. We are acting together. We are absolutely united and we will not take different steps.

We will do the same steps and they will be very, very hard to Russia and they should understand. Does that sound like he's going to stop Nordstrom 2 pipeline?

Well, he clearly didn't want to say the word Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and he was asked. That reporter was very good, by the way. Her questions off the top to President Biden were also excellent.

So, you know, Angela Merkel started this very deep relationship over energy with Russia, and Olaf Scholes is continuing it. There's no doubt about it. His language is fairly strong in that, although he would not say that he would shut off the Nord Stream 2. I also thought that the President's answer, when it was asked, well, how would you do that? Uh I promise.

I promise. It's going to happen. The problem is, and I asked Jake Sullivan about this on Fox News Sunday, we never should have gotten to this point with Nord Stream 2 because the fact that they lifted the sanctions on the entities who were involved in building it, the Biden administration in the beginning set off a chain of events. It absolutely set off a chain of events. And that is very hard to, it's hard to put that genie back into the bottle at this point.

Right. And I guess this whole thing started the minute they took their nuclear energy offline because of what happened in Japan, because of the. Uh tidal wave, right? What was that again? Is that true?

Yes.

Okay. But as soon as they get hit by that, they go, We're taking all our our energy off.

So, I mean, I I'm I don't c I'm not prepared to go inside the German thinking. But Did they think to themselves that's going to make us more dependable on oil and gas? They said in 2045, we plan on being on hydrogen. Perfect. I'm really concerned about 2045.

That's fantastic to know.

So, does anyone think long-term in Germany?

So, now they are susceptible to being held hostage by oil and gas.

So, how do we fix that? We are in talks with the United Emirates. I guess not Saudi Arabia, which I find Mr. Uh, mysterious to get them more oil and gas. All right, let's get them more oil and gas.

What about us? Can we give them more oil and gas? Is that has anyone thought about that?

Well, I also asked this question to Jake Sullivan about, you know, why did we cancel the Keystone XL pipeline, the extension part of it. I know the other part of it is already in action. Why did we say that we're going to ban federal leases for further exploration of LNG in the United States? And didn't that in some ways lead us to where we are today? And he said in his answer, um Eventually, at the end of the answer, he said, well, we also believe that, you know, we want to be completely, we want to be free of any coal-powered energy sources in this country, so that that goal is worth it.

Okay, so if that goal is worth it right now, that's part of why we're here too, because we're no longer energy independent. We gave up an incredible becoming energy independent was a geopolitical game changer for the United States. And it made us less. beholden to the situation that we find ourselves in right now.

So now we're scrambling, oh, UAE, can you help out Germany? Because, you know, we allowed the keystone, we allowed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline sanctions to be lifted. And, you know, now we can't find any liquefied natural gas, which we are abundant in in this country. Abundant supply beneath the United States. It got revolutionized by the frackers.

You know, energy is always behind geopolitics, right? I mean, you look back to the beginning of World War two. Japan had a hard time getting their hands on energy, right? They had been sanctioned. There was Dutch were cutting them off.

I mean, these are the situations that put countries in perilous moments where they have to make desperate decisions. And that's It's very important. Energy policy is hugely important. I am not somebody that struggles with what role we should take in the Ukraine. Because what people don't realize, if Russia is able to absorb the Ukraine, not only do we look weak, all this diplomacy that's taken place over the last four or five months, but they've become a stronger country.

Because they use all the natural resources of Ukraine. There's some people loyal to them there. They have the entire coast. I'm not saying it's a reconstitution of the Soviet Union, but our enemy is no longer a pure gas station oil company.

Now they're able to use a lot of what the Ukraine brings to the table, and they're closer to our NATO allies then, instead of us being closer to them.

Well, I mean, the history of Ukraine is so complex when you look back. They've had, I think, five presidents since uh they were freed from the Soviet Union bloc. Uh it's it's a really complex situation. But the fact of the matter is, just looking at it from the other perspective for a moment, is that Vladimir Putin believes that Ukraine is part of Russia. You know, he's like, half the people there are Russian, ethnic Russian.

You know, they feel like they're part of Russia. And I just, you know, I think it's interesting to sort of look at it from all the different angles. And he Putin says, you know, so what if I put my military guys on in my country where I want them? What are you going to do? United States, you're going to tell me I have to move the back 100 miles and then you'll be okay with it?

Why should I have to move my military assets to a different part of my country because you say so? I mean, and that's where, you know, that's where we are right now. And he has plenty of freedom to move things around in Belarus and in Russia. And, you know, it really does come down to an actual invasion in terms of. Obviously, that's what we're trying to be prepared for here.

Martha, in your mind, does it matter to US security if Ukraine's invaded or not?

Well, it matters in terms of the the long term shift, you know. I mean, th you need to have NATO was created as a bulwark against against Soviet expansionism and re expansionism. And if you lose Ukraine, and I would point out, I've already lost A good chunk of it, right? The Donbass region is controlled by Russia as it is right now. They've lost 14,000 people fighting in that region over the past couple of years.

This is already a territory that is very, very much under struggle. And my guess is that one way or another, it might not be tanks rolling across, it might be political manipulation, he will get control of Ukraine. It's very hard to figure out how do we stop him from doing it at this point. Just, I guess, world condemnation without actually going in. In isolation, yeah, without going in.

Listen, Martha's going to come back for one more block, and then we're going to end the hour, whether she wants to or not. And then she's had her show at three o'clock where she's going to tell us exactly what will happen the best she can. This is the Brian Kilmey Show. This weekend, check out Brian's new show on Fox News Channel. Because apparently he's cheaper than infomercials for non-stick pans.

That is not true. Chill out, Gutfeld. That really hurts. One Nation with Brian Kilmead. Saturdays at 8 p.m.

Eastern on Fox News Channel. More of Brian coming up. The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. If our ICUs and hospitals in that particular region are not overwhelmed, if they're not overcapacited, we can set a number, for example, 75% or 80% full, then we should be able to relax all restrictions.

And I actually believe that we should be starting to, with the first restriction removed, should actually be the restriction on children. There actually is a harm that we should be discussing of children continuing to mask. That is Dr. Wen, missed shutdown, lockdown mandate, who is losing her mind because she can't take it anymore. She's got young kids who she flat out told a CNN host, I think it was.

Uh it wasn't Wolf Blitzer Uh, where somebody else, uh, a nameless, faceless person over there is like, yeah, I'm not really going to get my kid vaccinated because they haven't, Pfizer really hasn't done a study that shows it works for zero to six years old, but yet we're about to release it anyway. Martha McCallum here. Martha, it seems like it's we're become releasaholics, freeaholics. New Jersey's free. Illinois is free.

Tomorrow, New York will be free for adults indoors. We'll wait till March 1st for kids. What's happening? I think that Boris Johnson sort of set some of this in motion because he got in trouble, like Stacey Abrams just got in trouble for the mask thing, right? And his solution was to be like, okay, it's all over.

Everything's, you know, not only was I not wearing my mask, but you don't have to do it anymore either. And I think that they're trying to get ahead of a very difficult midterm situation. People, you know, when you watch the American public is a tremendous force, right? And when you watch what's happening, people are done. People are done.

Not everybody. There's some people who love being afraid, who love hunkering down, who embrace this, which I think is one of the. The most damaging outcomes of this entire pandemic is the psychological impact that it's had on a lot of people. Very, very dangerous. But I think there's just such, they're just sensing that the momentum has gone against them and it's going to hurt them in the midterms.

Who's on your show?

So, we're going to talk to Tommy Laren and Geraldo Rivera about this notion, about this sort of. Slow boil across the country. It might not even be a slow. It might be a full boil at this point that is embracing what's happening in Canada for the most part. And, um, How are they going to handle this politically?

Like Jen Saki just yesterday and Rashid Lewinsky were like, no, no, no. We're just all waiting for the CDC to just tell us, oh, you know, hold, hold, hold, like Braveheart at the line, right? No, no, no, not yet. Everybody hold back. But now they're just being overwhelmed.

It's like when a big wave comes and you can't stop it and you get tossed around. Right. And when you're on the record on Monday saying they kind of like ripping Yunkin for doing it in Virginia, and then you find out Murphy's doing it in New Jersey. Awesome. And now Vocal in New York.

Great idea. And Pritzker in Illinois. And of course, Gavin Newsome. Back to your original point. Don't you think Gavin Newsom's lack of masks, Stacey Abrams' lack of masks, Mayor Britain?

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