Producers' Pick | Carley Shimkus

Radio that makes you think.

This is the Brian Kilmeade Show. In 2006, in this very town of Washington, D.C., up the street at the United States Capitol in the United States Senate, 98 of the 100 members of the United States Senate voted in favor of an extension of the Voting Rights Act. It was not a partisan issue. It was an American issue. But Madam Vice President, how are you going to get it done? Well, when we have the discussion about who's responsible, I will not absolve the 50 Republicans in the United States Senate from responsibility for upholding one of the most basic and important tenets of our democracy, which is free and fair elections and access to the ballot for all eligible voters. Yeah, we won.

Of course, Republicans ran on the premise of unfree and unfair elections. So that's where the rubber hits the road. With me right now is Carly Shimkus. I'm going to play more of that interview, which I have not heard the whole thing, but the excerpts have been just horrific. The vice president just struggles with every question and it's laziness because everyone knows she's smart.

You go to law school, you become attorney general. She knows her stuff. But she actually, I mean, smart, but it doesn't know her stuff because this is just roll up your sleeves, learn it, understand it, pick up the phone, question the experts on it. Carly, the analogy she made is totally off base. Yeah, I don't think that it's laziness for her, though. I think it's just a complete lack of confidence. She's gotten hit with so many critiques, reasonable critiques that I think she goes into every single interview, second guesses herself and screws it up again. But when it comes to this voting law stuff, first of all, President Biden should be embarrassed by this speech and the person who wrote the speech on Tuesday, he gave it.

That person should be fired. Calling what Republicans are trying to do in terms of not federalizing election laws as racist is ridiculous. Racism was a very real thing in our country for a very long time. Condoleezza Rice talks about it all the time, how she grew up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, couldn't go to a restaurant or a movie theater with her parents. Fast forward to today. Compare that to what President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris was just talking about.

About what? A Georgia voting law that allows early voting. You can't have somebody give you food in line, but you can bring your own snack. That's racism. And you get it from poll workers.

You just can't get it from outside groups. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, I think that this was that the Biden administration thought that this was going to be a great week for him, that this speech was going to be his white knight moment and it was going to go down in history. And really, it has been a really embarrassing time for him. I think that outside of the Afghanistan debacle, this has been the worst week for him.

There's no question it was self-inflicted, too. He went there right after the Georgia Bulldogs win the national championship. He goes to Georgia, at which time he doesn't get Stacey Abrams and other civil rights groups even show up and represent. And what I think the only person to praise him initially was Al Sharpton. And I thought to myself, is that who he's going for? Is he is he does he feel as though in the polls reveal that the Democrats are losing the black male vote?

And is that who he's going for? But to do that, you're not talking about you don't use that water fountain, get to the back of the bus. You're not allowed in that lunch counter. You're not allowed to vote. Or you're going to be threatened.

Your poll tax is all part of our past. That's true. And this is to your initial point. When you say it's Jim Crow 2.0 and knowing that we are so far from that, that is in our ancient past, almost everyone around then is done and buried. To think that we're going to cheapen the hell they went through by saying that we haven't made progress now.

To me, I found offensive. And it's just not based in reality at all. And that's why Kamala Harris can't answer that question that she was asked how you're going to get it done.

The reason is because if she was if there was really a racial issue in this, of course, Republicans would be on board. But they're looking at the reality of the situation and saying, we're talking about federalizing election laws that I mean, that completely destroys the federalist system that we live in, where states have rights. They can make their own election laws. If people couldn't vote in this country easily, people would be marching in the streets.

Have you seen anybody doing that? Absolutely not, because everybody can vote very easily. Yeah. And what happened is you're reigning in the pandemic rules that were loosened up because we're in the middle of an emergency once in a lifetime or three lifetimes situation.

But here's the deal. You can vote early. You can vote absentee, but you have to ask for the ballot. And by the way, I was straightened out by the secretary of state yesterday, Raffensperger, who joined us. And he was the one of people I asked, are you offended?

He says, I don't get offended, especially after the last time I don't get offended. Having said that, he said, no, no, we never just mailed out ballots to everyone. They always had to be requested.

But we did signature match. Now they're going to say, write the last four digits of your Social Security number or write your license number. And the numbers that say to bring voter I.D.

is OK, is between 70 and 85 percent nationwide. Yeah, I know. We're talking about such minute things, too, right? You're talking about signature match versus this and that and voter I.D. laws that make so much sense. It is so weird to vote in New York City and just say your name and somebody say, OK, go over there. It's like I didn't have to prove who I was.

It's wild. But how about this, Carly? They're probably going to ask you for your VAX card.

And then they're going to say no I.D. necessary to vote. Did you hear Mitch McConnell's speech yesterday?

I thought it was spot on. And he mentioned that. He said the president implied things like wildly popular voting I.D. laws. They are wildly popular as being, quote, totalitarian. And he said, ironically, on the same day, the Washington, D.C. Democratic mayor told citizens to bring both a photo I.D.

and greed green card any time they leave their house to prove that they're vaccinated. It's unbelievable. Right. And he did talk about that.

I want to play that. But also what I did is wrote down some of the things that Georgia is now requiring. Now, here is the this is how outrageous what Georgia is doing.

We also have the game plan for today, which I also put down a couple of things. And by the way, on that speech yesterday, among the people who agree with you, Senator Dick Durbin, the number two senator in the Senate on the Democratic side, said that President Biden may have gone a little too far. He went on to say, yes, the speech was stark. I will concede you that point. Embarrassing. Right.

Of course, it was embarrassing. OK. On absentee voting, I mentioned on early voting, the legislation will will expand early voting for hours in most cases, Monday through Friday, but it's not going to go away. It's not going to go away. It's not going to go away. It's not going to go away. It's not going to go away.

It's not going to go away. Voting from nine to five. Now, you can also if you decide that you want to extend those hours in your district, you can do that. They're also allowing one or two days of Sunday morning voting and Saturdays on both Saturdays, they are allowing early voting. What is the big deal about that? I don't understand. And a new rule that affects both in-person early voting and Election Day voting would prohibit anyone except poll workers from handing out water to voters online and outlaw the passing of food and water to voters within 150 feet.

That's just normal. Do you want someone walking up and go, if you vote for Democrat, here's a pizza? It's so stupid. They're doing this for two reasons. One is that obviously they wanted positive news coverage by and large.

What is the median? 95 percent Democrats. So whenever Democrats usually talk about voting rights, they get a lot of positive attention. I think the media is doing a disservice by calling it voting rights. How many times have you read an article where you hear Stacey Abrams being called a champion of voting rights or she's a voting rights activist? Everybody is a voting rights activist.

It's not just her. It's not a Democrat issue. There's no, like we're saying, everybody can vote in this country. So they're doing it to increase its poll numbers, which are very bad. The other reason, I think, is because they know that the midterm elections are going to go really, really poorly for them.

So because they're going to do so bad, they're going to blame it on states not federalizing election laws. I mean, were you astounded at the 33 percent approval rating, 39 percent approval handling the pandemic? When he got elected, it was 70. Then it dropped to 58. Then it dropped to 50.

But it's all earned. Quinnipiac's polls are always really bad for President Biden. I don't know if that's going to be an outlier poll or maybe five points out. Quinnipiac, by the way, I went to, so not criticizing my alma mater. The sleeping giant, the big mountain.

I've climbed it many a time. Yes. But yeah, his poll numbers are terrible. 33 percent, according to Quinnipiac, 39 percent on COVID. Like you said, you knew that that number was going to go down. But I really think that the most interesting Quinnipiac poll number that came out was how well he's doing with Democrats. 75 percent. So the difference between President Biden and President Trump, because Trump's poll numbers were bad, too, is that he always had about 90 percent Republican support. Democrats are starting to go sour on President Biden.

And so are independents. So Vice President Harris needs to step up if she doesn't want to be replaced by Hillary Clinton. Let me ask you if this is smooth. For example, it's pretty clear when she met, was honest and said, we did not anticipate the Delta variant and this new variant. And the president kind of indicated by mistake he said that that's why he doesn't go to these press conferences. Then she's asked about tests. Like, why don't you have more tests?

Listen to this. The 500 million tests that have been ordered that are going to be sent to every American. Do we know when those are going out? Shortly. Though they're going to go out shortly. They've been ordered.

They've been ordered. We have to look at the current information. I think it's going to be by next week. But soon, absolutely soon. And it is a matter of urgency for us. Should we have done that sooner? We are doing it. But should we have done it sooner?

We are doing it. Yeah, I mean, what else is she going to say? It was a total fail. Yes, of course, they should have done it sooner. I do think that there is a over testing situation in this country right now. I don't think that everybody who walks into an office building should be tested. He said it's enough testing. Chill with the testing people because you're testing people. They're asymptomatic.

They're totally fine. Thank God this is becoming more like a flu or you're going to be completely asymptomatic. Rochelle Walensky just posted something on Twitter. Oh my gosh, I have it right on my phone right now. She posted this today.

No, yesterday. She said new study on severity of those infected with the Omicron variant compared to Delta variant. She says 43% less risk of symptomatic hospitalization, 74% less risk of ICU admission and 91% less risk of death. Zero Omicron patients require medical ventilation. Zero.

Hello? This is the evidence right now. They're finally catching up to reality when it comes to Omicron.

This is a very, very good thing that's happening right now. Right now what's also happening, the President of the United States is saying it again, he's speaking, we'll pull it shortly, that this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. He's frustrated by the high numbers of the hospitalizations. Does he know how many breakthrough cases there are? Does he know that the CEO of Moderna just came out and said my vaccine offers very little protection against the Omicron variant? Did he also say the booster, very limited benefit?

By the way, I think it's none, but McCarry thinks it's none too. So he is actually sitting there, his staff let him go out there and say this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated again. Do you believe that?

There you go. It's happening once again. They're playing the blame game. There was an article that was recently written by, I can't remember what publication it was in, New Yorker maybe, and the columnist was saying that people should criticize, actually point and laugh and criticize people who die of COVID who are unvaccinated. That's the opinion of the all loving left in this country right now.

Yeah, it's incredible. But by the way, Curly, I keep saying this over and over again because it seems like the easiest thing is that if I walk out there as a president, and even though I'm a lot brighter than this guy, and now we've all gone to school over the last two years, I would not be out there without my epidemiologist, without my medical team, without my expeditions team, the Mike Pence of this, the Admiral Giroir of this administration. I would have them with me because I don't know every detail on the millions goes out. I don't know what the problem is. And you know something else?

It humanizes you. Because we all have people in our family we ask to do stuff they don't and they say, and after a while when you step, when he or she steps up and they have no answers, you go, you're going to have to replace this guy Zeitz. Because Zeitz is not being able to expedite any of this stuff.

He's not doing anything we're supposed to do. He did not pre-order this. The epidemiologist, Dr. Fauci, all these experts, the CDC, the FDA, did not anticipate this variant.

Therefore the tests weren't ordered. So if you can't stop it, at least prepare to test for it, maybe. And then the whole thing on masks.

Excuse me. On the masks, today one of the questions would be, Senator Bernie Sanders, he says I want to mail three N95 masks to every family. So, if I'm president, you know what I would say? I am not sure that that is practical, but I want you to meet my HSS secretary. Is that practical?

What would be the benefit of that? So I'm a leader, but I'm not an expert. Why do they stick him out there by himself, the least equipped person to do it? I don't even know if he's taking questions right now though, is he? He's probably just giving a speech.

Do you know, Pete, if he's, so he's reading this? And did he say it's a pandemic of the unvaccinated? Yeah, he's upset about the hospitalizations rising and it says mostly unvaccinated. Well, but the other thing about hospitalizations that we know is that a lot of people are going into the hospital for something else and then they're testing positive for COVID asymptomatically. And then that's counted as a hospitalization. And it's just, that completely, that's not the right picture of where we are in this country when it comes to COVID. What about the story over the weekend on the comorbidities? We have a number of 835,000 dead.

What if it's half? I know. Third, and if you see this, and then we'll go to break with this. We have so much to talk about.

It's been too long, Carly. We watched the total clampdown of 15 million people in China. Obviously, we don't want any part of that. We watched a population in the Netherlands 85% vaccinated.

Do you know what they have in common? They're surging. Cases are surging. The hospitalizations are surging. There are deaths, not surging, but adding. And do you know in this country with Omicron, Dr. McCary just said zero people are on ventilators.

Yeah, that's exactly. And we're finally learning the reality of the situation. Russia Olinsky said that 75% of people who died with COVID had four comorbidities. In the study, Eric looked it up. I pay him extra every time he looks up a study, so he's always looking to do this.

Over a thousand people, 36 had it, 75% had four comorbidities. But these are the types of studies that we blow up and make policy on. I'm going to pull back what Joe Biden's meandering through right now, and we're going to analyze this when we come back. Carly Shimp has been booked for the whole hour. Don't move. It's Brian Kilmeade. Breaking news, unique opinions.

Hear it all on the Brian Kilmeade Show. Our grocery store shelves are empty. If you want a new car, you have to wait six months. If you want to sell your used car, you can get a lot of money for that.

But then what do you drive? Because there's nothing else on the lot that's available right now. We're seeing it across the board and people are tired of it.

Democrats and Republicans are tired of it. I don't want to throw you off, but cantaloupe is the most overrated fruit. Nobody says give me more cantaloupe when you get fruit caught. My wife does. My wife loves it, Brian. The least attractive thing in a fruit melody is the cantaloupe.

What about honeymoon? The honeydew melon? You like honeydew better than cantaloupe?

Do you know anybody? You say your wife loves melon more than anything else, cantaloupe? Brian, you just want to eat everything in powder form. And if it's really sweet, then you have a good cantaloupe. You've just not had a good cantaloupe. 7-Eleven doesn't have a good cantaloupe?

No. You have to get it at the grocery store in the springtime. I'll bring you one.

Still overrated. I've got to take your shopping someday. Nothing's on the shelf. Oh my gosh. Carly Shimkus is here. Am I right, Carly?

I wish that we could have a cantaloupe debate, but I 100% agree with you. You do? So I did not know you did.

I have thought about this before, independently from this conversation. Have you ever gotten a bagged lunch before? It's like a sandwich, whatever, and there's a fruit cup in it? I actually have cantaloupe guilt because I never want the fruit cup because it's all cantaloupe.

I hate it. And then I'm like, well, that's the only healthy thing. I have to eat it, so I eat it first. I do not like cantaloupe either. It's like the lettuce of a fruit salad. It must be the cheapest thing because it's the most and it's so boring.

It's interesting because Gavin had the vice president of mornings, he drilled down there further, he said the lack of consistency. One time you have melon, it's soft. The next time it's juicy. The next time it's not. Sometimes it's yellow. And is there a difference between cantaloupe and melon? It's so subtle. Should we even have two names?

I completely agree with you. Remember, it's cantaloupe. Don't eat this. Can't. You can't like this. I couldn't agree with you more. Just cantaloupe on your own.