Trump set to announce 2024 bid: Is the GOP ready to move on?

This episode is brought to you by GMC. The new GMC 2024 Sierra Heavy Duty features the first ever Sierra HD Denali Ultimate, offering an enhanced 6.6-liter Duramax Turbo Diesel V8 to deliver turbocharged towing capability, taking premium capability to amazing new places. Available spring of 2023, visit gmc.com to learn more. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmead.

Yes, they like them, they don't like them. I'm here, I'm yours. Mark Thiessen standing by. Then we're going to talk to Senator Ted Cruz, then Lieutenant Colonel Alan West. It's up to me to put it all together as we get closer and closer to finding out who's in control of the House.

Get this 217 to 205 now. They are one away from getting the majority. And I'm talking about the Republicans. We wait on Georgia, but it looks as though, we know, barring any unforeseen circumstances. that the Senate belongs again.

Fifty fifty at least. To the Democrats.

So that has a lot of soul searching for the Republicans. We'll discuss that with Mark and Ted Cruz, as well as Alan West.

So let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. It's much bigger than Enron. It's probably going to end up being at least 200% bigger than Enron. A lot of questions have to be asked about the celebrity endorsers, but more importantly, the professionals.

There are a lot of professionals on Wall Street who got behind this company. And that is Charles Payne talking about FTX, the billion-dollar donor to the Dems and Crypto Magnet to the stars, has been blown up and affects the masses and the left. Pervasively, it makes Madoff look like a rounding-off error. How can this happen? And should all the Dems give their money back?

Number two. There's polling on this that reflects this, that while he maintains real influence within the Republican Party, no two ways about that, but it has begun to fade. It started fading really, I think, after his annex post-election in 2020. Right, announcement day for Trump 24. What will he say?

Who is on his team and who isn't? As the GOP, House, and Senate said to lock in their leadership, let the battles begin. Number one. You can govern with a pretty narrow majority. It's challenging, it's exhausting, it's tricky, but it can be done.

That is, of course. You know, Newt Gingrich. House about to go red. The GOP is one seat away as we are still counting the ballots from last week's election. It's a joke.

In a stutter for the Dems, Carrie Lake loses her bid to be the next governor of Arizona, but is not conceding yet. That is a victory for them. I thought Carrie Lake was really the future of the Republican Party, at least in the near term. But if you don't win that race, you can't be the future. Mark Thiessen, former speechwriter for Bush, Fox News contributor, Washington Post columnist, joins us now.

Mark, welcome. It's good to be with you. Yeah. If we do Fox and Friends the musical, I want to do it with you. You were watching this morning.

Yes, of course. I want to watch this. There's a lot of talk of that. There's a lot of talk. But it's hard to s it's hard to see breaking news.

Because a lot of it doesn't arrive. Mark, first off, the president's going to make a speech, is going to make his announcement at 9 o'clock tonight. He's going to say he is running. What is your reaction? Um so I s I say this with sadness, not anger.

Probably spilled more ink in the Washington Post defending Donald Trump than any human being alive. I'm not an ever-Trumper. I think he was one of our greatest conservative presidents. It's a huge mistake. It's a huge mistake for him to run.

What we saw in this election, number one, was that The the every every race you saw where you saw With a few exceptions, the extreme Trump candidate, someone who denied the results of the election, they lost. It was the mainstream candidates, it was the Ron DeSantises, it was the Mike DeWines, it was the Sununus, it was the Abbotts. Who won their elections. And so I think what that says is that. The American people thought that he was a very strong president.

They liked his policies, but they didn't like his behavior in office, and that's why they didn't elect him in 2020. He never learned by denying the results of the election, he was never able to learn why he lost and fix it. And we just saw that the American people just Reiterated their judgment on that. And then, secondly, I think going after DeSantis was a huge, huge, huge mistake because it's one thing to go after Liz Cheney. I think MAGA World celebrates that.

It's an entirely another thing to go against Ron DeSantis that way because people are looking at him and saying, What are you doing? And if you look at the polls, there are just a bunch of polls that just recently came out. In a national poll, YouGov poll, DeSantis is leading him in a Republican primary. 43 to 36, I think. Uh Texas.

DeSantis forty-three, Trump thirty-two, which is Uh reversed from a month ago when it was Trump 46 to Santa's 29. Iowa, DeSantis 48, Trump 37, New Hampshire. The Santa Spit. Trump 37. Florida, DeSantis 56, Trump 30.

Georgia, DeSantis 55, Trump 35. I think that a lot of people see that Ron DeSantis will give them everything they like about Trump. Uh but he's but he's a winner. And we've now lost two elections with Donald Trump leading the charge. And Republican conservatives are, you know, if he told us we'd win so much, we'd be sick of winning.

I think a lot of conservatives are sick of losing and they want to win.

So a lot of people think that you the left and the right is blaming Trump looking for a scapegoat. Do you think there could be an over-anger when it comes to Trump? I don't think it's fair to say that Trump's a scapegoat. I think he injected himself into these races. He didn't spend any money promoting his own candidates.

So, I mean, the total spending, McConnell spent $241 million backing some of these Trump candidates, and Trump spent $14.7 million total. Right.

So like the what's the one big victory for Donald Trump was J.D. Vance, right? When J.D. Vance won that primary with Trump's endorsement, he had about $400,000 in the bank and he was almost a million dollars in debt from the primary. And Trump came in, gave him nothing.

The senatorial committee did almost nothing for him. Mitch McConnell came in and spent $32 million, took that race on his shoulders and saved J.D. Vance, who won by $6. seven points in a state that where DeWine won by twenty five.

So even that victory, which is for a Trump-backed candidate, it was because McConnell came in and saved the day. And so, you know, i i I I think he cost us The Senate. If we had, Doug Ducey didn't get into the race in Arizona because of Trump. If he was our nominee, we'd have that Senate seat right now. Sununu didn't get into the Senate race because of Trump.

We would have the New Hampshire seat right now.

So I think we'd have controlled the Senate if Trump hadn't inserted himself into the primary.

So a couple of things. Just give me an idea what the rest of the Republican Party looks like. Lindsey Graham says he's waiting till after Georgia. He wishes Trump would too. Elise Stefanik, firmly in the Trump camp.

Richard Hudson, a Republican in North Carolina, firmly in the Trump camp, as is Jim Banks. Tommy Tubberville in the Trump camp. John Thune, not. John Coonin, not. Not saying he's out, but as he says, I'm not going to play a role in the primary process.

Let it play out. Essentially, saying I'm not going to vote for him the primary, but if he gets it, I'll go for him over somebody else. There's going to be an interesting time. Ten Griffin of Citadel, he says, I'm not going to be backing him. He's a three-time loser.

Yeah. I think a lot of people are going to hold their uh I think a lot obviously there's what Yeah. Both among elected people and among the electorate, there's about a 30, 35 percent. core base is going to be with Trump no matter what. Right, they love the president, they rightly think that he was an excellent president, they rightly believe that he was treated unfairly by uh that the mullah probe was an absolute disgrace, the Russia collusion hoax was an absolute disgrace, uh, and a lot of them even believe what he says about the election that it was stolen.

Um But there's a number of people now who are waiting and seeing what does Ron DeSantis do? Does Ron DeSantis get into this race? And I think you will see a lot of people to saying, I love Donald Trump, but I want to win. And I think you'll see that shit. But it all depends.

No one's going to come out for Ron De well, though I guess one senator's come out for Ron DeSantis, even though he hasn't announced yet. But I think you'll see more of that. And I think you'll see a lot of voters who Will maintain their affection for Donald Trump, but feel it's time to move on. Mark Thieson with us. Mark, so Mitch McConnell wants a vote today.

On yes, today, on his leadership. He's going to be in the minority role because 50-50 is the best they can do in the House if they win Georgia. People like Ted Cruz, people like Rick Scott say, why are we doing this? What is the rush? What do you think?

So first of all, Rick Scott is a disgrace. Uh, Rick Scott, uh, was his leadership of the first of all, the guy who run for the senatorial committee, whose job it was to win us the majority, thinks that it's that he's earned the job of majority leader. It's laughable. Second of all, the senatorial committee was so badly run that by in August. They had burned through $181 million.

Promoting Rick Scott's agenda, which you know, which allowed Biden to claim that Republicans were going to cut Social Security and raise taxes on working families. And he was promoting himself, wasting money on consultants. They had to pull ads. He pulled out of New Hampshire. 17 days before McConnell did.

And McConnell, and it was the reason why McConnell pulled out of New Hampshire is because he couldn't carry it alone. There wasn't enough money to do it. And the senatorial committee was out of money and couldn't do it. Rick Scott is responsible more along with Donald Trump for losing us the Senate majority. And the idea that he's going to come in now and criticize Mitch McConnell, who saved all these Trump candidates in the Senate races across the country and criticize him and supplant him, give me a break.

Mark, I know the President really the former President really respects your opinion, and I know you don't just sit there and throw barbs for no reason. Not at all.

So I at that real distance. I'll defend his record to my dying day. He was one of the greatest presidents of my lifetime in terms of policy. Right.

I hear you. We'll see what happens tonight. It's going to be like nothing we've ever seen before. Like ever. Isn't everything related to Trump like nothing we've ever seen before?

Like we've never seen before. Absolutely. Mark, we're going to keep this tape. We'll see if he wins you over after the announcement and if he acts different. One thing I think is clear: you can't go with the 2016 playbook and expect to win in 2024.

He has to have another, there's got to be another wrinkle. There's got to be another approach than what he has right now. We haven't seen it yet. But what he's missing is the fact because he denies the results of the election, he hasn't studied it to learn why he lost. Mark Thiessen, gotcha.

I have to end it there. Always great. And I will, if I'm going to have the musical, you will play a role. Mark Thieson, thank you very much.

Next, Senator Ted Cruz on what Mark had to say and so much more. Then Lieutenant Colonel Alan West. Don't move. Brian Kilmicho. Both sides, all opinions.

It's Brian Killmead. This is Molly Hemingway, encouraging you to listen to my favorite podcast, Issues, etc. Every day you get in-depth interviews with host Todd Wilkin asking expert guests substantive, thought-provoking questions on all of the important news and issues of our day. The expert guests are in culture, law, ethics, philosophy, theology, and apologetics. Expert guests, expansive topics, always extolling Christ.

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Visit gmc.com to learn more. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Killmead. So first of all, Rick Scott is a disgrace. Uh Rick Scott, his leadership of the first of all, the guy who runs the senatorial committee, whose job it was to win us the majority, thinks that it's that he's earned the job of majority leader.

It's it's laughable. Second of all, the senatorial committee was so badly run that by in August, They had burned through $181 million. Promoting Rick Scott's agenda, which allowed Biden to claim that Republicans were going to cut Social Security and raise taxes on working families. Rick Scott is responsible for. more uh uh along with Donald Trump for losing us the Senate majority.

That was Mark Thietson moments ago, the former speech writer for President Bush and Washington Post columnist Fox News contributor. I wanted to get Senator Ted Cruz's take on that because things are in flux with leadership and the vote that's supposed to take place tomorrow. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas joins us now. Senator, welcome back. What did you think of what Mark Tietson said?

Was he summing up Rick Scott's performance accurately? No, not remotely. Unfortunately, what he's doing is carrying water for current Republican leadership, who's decided that the way they want to hold on to power is by planting negative stories, attacking other Republicans. And in particular, they planted dozens of stories trying to lay the blame at the feet of Rick Scott. Listen, this election should have been an historic victory.

We should have retaken the Senate. We should have big majorities in the House, and we didn't. And any sensible Republican Conference would stop. And take assessments of why we didn't have the kind of victories we should have had. And what leadership is trying to do is they're trying to ran leadership elections through tomorrow morning.

They want to vote. As fast as possible and just rubber stamp the same leadership we've had for the past decade. I don't think that makes any sense. We don't even know who's going to be in the conference. I and about a dozen others have called for delaying the leadership elections.

until after the Georgia runoffs. The Georgia runoffs are on december sixth, We will find out. I hope that Herschel Walker wins. I've already been down there campaigning for him in the runoff. I was there two days after the election.

We had a huge rally. Three thousand people came out, but that election matters a lot. We need to wait and see who is in The conference. We also don't know who's going to win from Alaska. That election is still being decided.

So we have two. two seats that are still being decided, but more fundamentally, Brian. We need to have a debate about the direction of the Republican Conference for the last two years, It has been the position of leadership that we can't really fight against the Democrats on bill after bill after bill. They're passed with all the Democrats and ten or twelve Republicans.

Now the Democrats never do that when Republicans are in charge. When we had majorities, you have to have a lot of money. You saw essentially nothing pass with all the Republicans and ten or twelve Democrats. They never roll over to pass our agenda, and our leadership thinks it's a good idea to roll over to pass their agenda. And I think one of the reasons we lost on Tuesday is that we didn't have bold Clear, conservative leadership.

We didn't have a clear agenda, and we didn't turn our voters out. Yeah, the real quick thing is they thought by being so bad, you guys could just be an answer. And if you dig in on a policy, they'd have something to run against. And maybe Rick Scott coming out saying we have to reevaluate the nondiscretionary spending was the opportunity for Barack Obama to make a cartoon out of it. Senator, what's going to be the difference?

You've been in Georgia. I'm a fan of Herschel, too, as a person, candidate who's brand new at it. What did you learn from 2020's runoff that's going to help you in 2022?

Well, I'm a lot more optimistic. About this runoff than one we had two years ago. You know, when we had that runoff in 2021, It was right after the 2020 election. And I got to tell you, our voters were demoralized, they were dispirited, they were pissed off. You could see it when you'd go down there.

You'd have conservative Voters that would show up at rallies and they'd just be yelling. They were just angry. And what happened is. In the 2020 runoff, is that our voters stayed home. They didn't show up and vote.

And that is a sure way to lose, as we did then, two seats and flip control of the Senate. The question here on december sixth is whether conservatives, whether just common sense Georgians show up and vote at the polls. I think it is critically important. And I'll tell you one reason it is very, very important. This is something I explained on my podcast that I do three times a week, Verdict with Ted Cruz.

Where I explained why Georgia matters, even though, tragically, Democrats have won control of the Senate. And the reason is. If we lose in Georgia, the Democrat majority grows by one, which puts them very close to being able to end the filibuster and ram through policies that would do generational damage to our country. Last year, we prevented the Democrats from ending the filibuster because two Democrats. Up and said no, Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema.

Now, I've long believed that if cinema wasn't there, Manchin would have rolled over and given in to Schumer, as he has over and over and over again during his tenure. If the Democrats win in Georgia, I think they'll roll Mansion and end the filibuster. And that would do enormous damage to this country, including passing S one, which strikes down every election integrity law in the country, registers millions of illegal aliens, registers felons to vote, including I think they will also make millions of illegal immigrants citizens and allow them to vote. I think they will add two new states DC and Puerto Rico because they think they'll get four new Democrat senators, and I think they'll pack the United States Supreme Court with four radical left-wing justices. That's what's at stake in Georgia.

So I very much hope Georgians show up and vote on December 6th. Although you'll likely take the Senate back in two years, it would be suicidal for them to do something that stupid. But if they want a short-term gain, we know Harry Reid paid the price for what he did to filibuster. Senator, but they're that radical that I think they're willing to do it anyway. You're right.

What you're saying is common sense, but there's not a lot of common sense. In the radical left right now. All right, Senator, always love getting your perspective. Donald Trump's announcement tonight, where are you going to be on that? I'll be in DC today.

fighting to move our leadership elections until after the Georgia run. Off so that we can have a real debate about how to have strong principled leadership in the United States Senate. Senator Ted Cruz, always great to talk to you. Thanks, Brad. There he goes.

Gave us a few minutes. We appreciate that. Lieutenant Colonel Alan West coming up next, and then we take your calls: 1-866-408-7669. Precise, personal, powerful. Is America's weather team in the palm of your hands?

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So first of all, Rip Scott is a disgrace. Rick Scott was his leadership of the first of all the guy who runs the senatorial committee whose job it was to win us the majority. Thinks that he's earned the job of majority leader. It's it's laughable. Rick Scott is responsible.

more uh uh along with Donald Trump for losing us the Senate majority. Uh unfortunately what he's doing is carrying water for current Republican leadership who's decided that the way they want to hold on to power is by planting negative stories, attacking other Republicans, and in particular they planted dozens of stories trying to lay the blame at at the feet of Rick Scott. Listen, this is Mark Thiessen and Senator Ted Cruz. Within this half hour, different takes on the Republican Party, the direction they should be taking. Mark Thiessen believes that it should be Mitch McConnell.

Just leave him alone. And Senator Tate Cruz says, No way, it's a rush. And don't blame Rick Scott for what went wrong amongst Republicans. A perfect example of. of a war worth fighting if you're a Republican.

You got to recalibrate and figure out what went wrong and right in life, let alone if you have a party worth this much money with a country with this much at stake.

Now, let's bring in another noted Republican, Lieutenant Colonel Alan West, the American Constitutional Rights Union Executive Director, former congressman from Florida, now in Texas. Colonel, welcome. Good to be with you, Brian. How are you? All right.

I pointed out within this half hour differing views on whether there should be a leadership vote, be the tiebreaker and who you blame for the lack of red wave, even though the Republicans were on the cusp of taking the majority in the House.

Well, you know, I'm going to use a military analogy, and I think that's very helpful. If you recall, the very first battle that the United States Army had in World War II was the Kazarene Pass against the Germans in Uram Rommel. And it was an incredible route, a massive defeat for the American Army. And Eisenhower made the decision. Do I continue with the leadership that I had?

No. He brought in a crazy old cavalry guy by the name of George Patton. And of course, things changed in North Africa and changed thereof. Was Patton one of these guys with a beautiful, wonderful, engaging personality? No, but he knew how to win.

So I think right now, you have to look at what happened when you have all of the the conditions that were set for a Republican victory, especially on the issues, but you were not able to message it correctly. And when you look at the Senate, the fact that Mitch McConnell said that we're not going to have a plan, we're not going to come up with an agenda because we don't want to be held to it, that's not how you win on the battlefield, especially this ideological battlefield. You cannot draw a clear delineation.

So there has to be a change in leadership, and I think it also has to occur over in the House of Representatives as well.

So You're you're not happy with McCarthy? No, because again, when you put out a one hundred and fifty page document, uh the American people are not going to read a one hundred and fifty page documents. called the commitment to America. What the American people want is the short, simple bullet points that delineate you from what's going on right now. And again, the messaging should have been about economic security, energy security, national security, border security, your domestic security, and then educational freedom because we saw that was a huge issue in Virginia.

So you just got to have simple, clear bullet points, not this 150-page document that people really don't understand. A couple of things.

So, Rick Scott came out and said, yeah, we have to find a way to rein in discretionary spending, non-discretionary spending, and we should be evaluating Social Security and Medicare on a regular basis. And they said the Republicans are looking to do it.

So it becomes bait for Barack Obama and everything. And then the other side is here's 150 pages of details, and that didn't work either. Everyone says, too, if you really want to boil it down, the economy was terrible, but abortion was something that motivated people to get to the polls. If abortion, they're going to leave abortion as an issue in two years from now, what is the correct response? Everybody knows your pro-life.

I get it.

So knowing that, if you want to win a state that's not And you're a Republican, what do you do?

Well, first of all, you tell Lindsey Graham to shut up, and that comes back to leadership. You should not have Lindsey Graham out there talking about a national 15-week ban or what have you, because we just made the argument based upon federalism and constitutionally that this is a decision for the state.

So it should not have been something that was being brought forward by any senator. And again, you have to say that we do not support murdering unborn babies by dismemberment in the womb as a means of birth control. That's how you win this issue. And especially, you don't support it all the way up to the point of birth. And you furthermore don't support this thing of what Maryland and California are doing, saying that even a baby that survives an abortion should be allowed to die.

And you look at Resolution 131 out in Montana that said that a child that survives an abortion should not receive medical care. You've got to do better at going out there and showing how extreme the position that the progressive social Left is taking is. And so that's where you have to be able to articulate this. And again, at that state level.

So you need strong governors that are going to come out there and tackle this issue, and strong state legislators. But if you just had a Supreme Court that said that this is being pushed to the state, then the federal government, the people that are running at the House and Senate level up there, should not be making this a discussion. And they should say that Roe v. Wade was a this Dobbs decision was a correct decision when you look at the Constitution. Right.

And everyone knows that the decision was ripe to be overturned, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

So let's talk to Colonel. Another area of your expertise is the body in which you serve, the House.

So now, if Kevin McCarthy or Andy Biggs, whoever's running the House, how do you govern a body this big with this small majority? Three, four, five people? Here's what Newt Gingrich said: cut two. Cut to. You can govern with a pretty narrow majority.

It's challenging, it's exhausting, it's tricky, but it can be done. And I think the Republicans are going to be in charge. And as you know, passing over that gavel. From Pelosi to McCarthy is an enormous shift in the balance of power in Washington.

So your thoughts about trying to get something like the Freedom Caucus on board with policies that maybe they they don't necessarily want to do.

Well, the bottom line is it's about the power of the purse. And when you look at inflation, when you look at all the problems that we have now, it's because of the extreme expendit you know, spending habits. And so take a a word out of the playbook of the left and start defining them with it, extreme. And so the extreme spending that we see happening, the extreme abdication of the authority on the border.

So you've got to start holding them accountable for that. And if you bring Mallorcas in, and when you have the hearings, then you start looking at how you can use the power to purse rings to get DHS to do what they're supposed to do on the border. You look at our national security. We don't want to see all this cultural Marxism and all this pronoun emphasis in our military. We want to be focused on our capability and capacity.

You use the power of the purse for that.

So I think that's where you get the ability to kind of stonewall things and not just say, hey, we've got a razor-thin majority. We can only do what we can only do. No. When the Democrats are in a majority, they don't care how razor-thin it is. And Nancy Pelosi had a razor-than majority this time.

They're still tyrannical. When they're in the minority, they're still tenacious. And so it's time for the Republicans to put on their big boy and big girl pants and start standing up for constitutional conservative governance.

So today it uh and tonight at one o'c at nine o'clock. The President's going to now the Foreign President's going to now he is back in. He is going to have with him either physically or there are about a thousand people. Among the people that say they'll support him is J.D. Vance.

Uh we have Congressman Banks, Matt Gates. Out until the nomination is worked out. Jon Thune, John Cornyn. We know others have said, I don't think that. I don't think there's a whole lot of Republicans willing to stand up there and declare right away.

Where do you stand? The thing with President Trump is that as long as he is in the conversation, the focus will be on him, him personally. It's not going to be about his policies and what he did for the country. And you saw that happen in the 2020 election cycle. They just talked about him and they defined him, and they did not discuss the agenda items.

I think that President Trump needs to realize that he's going to, once again, be the focus of the angst, and they're going to define him. And they've made it very easy to define him instead of talking about the issues. Let's get someone that can do the exact same thing as far as President Trump with the policies and the principles that he brought. But we've got to reduce the drama. A and and I will tell you, I'm talking to people out here and people are texting me, emailing me and everything.

I mean, my phone was already blowing up uh this morning when I came back from my morning run. People don't want the drama anymore, Brian. That's just the bottom line. I want you to hear what Bill Maher said. Oftentimes, I find him quite interesting because he'll always be to the left, but he also assesses honestly the other side.

I think he nailed it again, Cut 16. The reason why I think DeSantis is so. Strong is because he can do both things. He can do the performance art that seems to have you so exercised to the base, most of which I don't really know if it's that damaging. He picks a fight with Disney.

Does it really affect anybody? I mean, I read the Don't Say Gay, which is not the name of the law. They called it the Don't Say Gay Law. It could have been called the let's do things in schools the way we did five years ago law. Uh-huh.

The breeze clears.

So, what I'm saying is, he can do both that, but he, yes, he knows how to rile up the base. I agree, he's a politician, but he also can be a normal governor. In other words, after the storm, he can stand with President Biden. Like a normal governor does, and work with them, and then send some migrants to Martha's Vigil. You know, and that's a very powerful thing to have both those elements.

I mean, it's hard to dispute what he's saying, right? Even though he says he fears him, he assessed him accurately. No, he absolutely did. And so the thing is, Ron DeSantis is not someone that is easily definable by the left. And so when you look at what he has been able to do in his first term, remember, he barely won his election, less than 1% against Andrew Gillum.

But he came in, he tackled the election integrity issue. He's tackled all of the issues, the educational freedom. He tackled the COVID issues. Florida has thrived through the COVID. And look, no one is talking about the aftermath of Hurricane Ian because he's done a great job with it.

But most importantly, he won Palm Beach County. I mean, I know Palm Beach County. He won Miami-Dade County. That tells you something.

So the preeminent conservative red state in the United States of America is not the state of Texas. I hate to say that, and many Texans understand that. It's the state of Florida. Interesting. A lot of people who are against DeSantis said anybody could have beat Charlie Christ.

But then again, the guy who was running against the first time was under an FBI investigation, ended up being a crackhead. The other thing is Kemp did the same thing, barely won against Stacey Abrams, and then he won entrounced because he performed. He did a good job. And he took the flag for it. You look at what they did with the election law in Georgia.

I mean, they lose the all-star game. Everyone's Jim Crow 2.0. President Biden comes down there and chastises them. And guess what? They had record turnout among blacks in this last midterm election cycle in Georgia, and he trounced Stacey Abrams.

You know, we've got people that have proven themselves in these gubernatorial positions, and they were beholden to. Conservative principles and values, and they were strong. And, like I said, I think the left fears people like Brian Kemp and Ron DeSantis more so they do than Donald Trump because they have a proven playbook and how to beat Donald Trump. I'm in overtime, but I got to get your take. Carrie Lake, they're saying that she has lost.

I'm stunned by that. Are you? No, I'm not stunned. In Arizona, yeah, Maricopa County. I mean, the shenanigans, you know, were there.

And the thing is, the longer you draw it out, I cannot understand why we can't have an election decided on election night. But the longer you draw it out, and remember, Claudia Tinney ran into the exact same thing a couple years ago in New York. They signed ballots all over the place.

So we have got to get to where we are focusing on ballots and not so much focusing on votes because that's what the Democrats are doing. I'm sorry, I'm going to ask you one more question. James Carville is a strategist. He looked at Florida and said, why don't we give up on Florida and try for Mississippi? What do you think about that?

Is the GOP vulnerable in Mississippi? I don't think the GOP is vulnerable in Mississippi. And I think the only place where the GOP could have been vulnerable was in the South, was the state of Georgia. And Bryan Kemp has done a great job. And you see how well they're doing.

The GOP has to focus on the major urban population centers all across the South, Southeast, to include here in Texas. But again, they need to make better inroads into the black community who are the ones really suffering under these failed policies of the left. Always great to talk to you. Colonel Alan West, thank you. Thanks so much, Brian.

God bless. All right. And I will see Alan West December 3rd. It's a great event. Go to BrianKilme.com and just click on My Events, and you'll see that I think there's still tickets available.

Colonel, thank you very much. When we come back. I'm going to take your calls. 1866-408-7669. And get this.

I have news about President Biden, a big dinner with all world leaders at the G20. He's missing it. There's only speculation on why. We'll discuss it. Politics, current events, and news that affects you.

Brian's got a lot more to say. Stay with Brian Kilmead. Hey, it's Will Kane, co-host of Fox and Friends Weekend. Join me as I share my thoughts on a wide range of topics from sports and pop culture to politics and business. The Will Kane Podcast.

Subscribe and listen now at FoxNewsPodcasts.com. From the Fox News Podcasts Network, in these ever-changing times, you can rely on Fox News for hourly updates for the very latest news and information on your time. Listen and download now at FoxNewsPodcasts.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Killmead. The reason Democrats won.

is because we fought together as a party. I was out there campaigning for every Democrat in Arizona. I was personally donating money, raising money for them, for our senators, for everyone up and down the ticket. We fought as a team in Arizona and we won. Senator Sinema was nowhere to be found.

at all. You do not see her at one public event for anybody. And when we have some of these races that are really In the mix right now, she could have been a very good surrogate to help out a lot of our candidates, and she did nothing because she only cares about herself. Wow, that's not nice. And that is a fellow Democrat, Congressman Ruman Gallego.

People look at him somewhat of a moderate. We're relatively tough on the border for a Democrat, but not nearly as good as Quear. But calling out Senator Cinema, I think Senator Cinema, I don't think Republicans should even run somebody against her the way she stood up for different policies that would have killed our country, likes packing the court, like adding two states, like the Build Back Better plan. She couldn't sign off on it. And I do find it interesting that she didn't campaign at all.

I'd love to ask her that. We'll put a request into interviewer. But just goes to show you, there's friction on all sides. Also, Senator Schumer says now that we got the Senate. Again, I'm looking to cooperate.

Do you believe that? I want to get Republicans in on this. Do you think that? Larry, Lucina WNIS. Hey, Larry.

Hey. Hey, how you doing, Brian? Good, good. What's on your mind?

Well Votes. I think I know where there's thousands upon thousands of votes that would suppl support conservative issues. That's twelve hour shift workers. The polls are not open long enough for people to work 12-hour shifts to get to the polls to vote. What about early voting?

What do they have in Virginia? What do they have? You're in.

Well, they have. Virginia Beach, right? I can I can well, I'm in in that area. Yes. You can get there and vote early if you get a day off, if the day off lines up and you can get there.

And you figured it out. It took me years to figure it out. But yeah, you can vote early. But see, I'm here in Tail that You know, we want to vote just one day between these hours, and that's all we want. We don't want early voting.

We don't want mail-in. If they outlaw all that, you're already missing these votes. They need to widen the hours on that one day so that these 12-hour shift people will support and be able to go vote. Maybe close the polls at 9 or 10 o'clock at night. Larry, I appreciate that.

I have not heard expand voting access. All I hear is about expanding voting access. The pandemic was. Unsolicited mail-in ballots, drop boxes everywhere. They've somewhat rained it in in a lot of places.

Now they do this ballot harvesting, so you don't have to leave your house.

Some guy will come over and pick it up and put it in a station wagon and drop it off at the voting locations, district locations. But you know, there are other people out there, you work shifts. You feel as though it's hard to vote? Let me know. Special thanks to everyone in Oklahoma City, especially Kevin at Freedom969.

Love seeing everybody signing the President and Freedom Fighter. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead. Hi, everyone. It's Brian Kilmead from 48th and 6th in Midtown Manhattan, heard around the country, around the world.

This is the Brian Kilmead Show. Special thanks to everyone in Oklahoma City that was so welcoming yesterday. Freedom 969, beautiful studios, great setup. Kevin and the staff were fantastic, and now we're live for three hours. That's certainly a thrill.

It was also great to see the senator there, to have a chance to see him in person was great. And then everybody that showed up at the event for the President Freedom Fighter after on a Monday afternoon was just hearing the passion everybody has. I did not know Oklahoma City was a destination for people leaving California, but it is growing rapidly because people are fed up with the way Gavin Newsom's running that state. The only thing that's growing there are the homeless situations. With me in studio is Doug Collins, former congressman from Georgia, to break down the Georgia race, as well as the race to be the next Speaker of the House.

And then we'll talk to Matt Schlapp about the president's, the former president's speech tonight, announcing that he's going to be running in 2024. Then we'll do a similar cast with FBN in between, weaving in some calls. We're also following this story: President Biden is missing this big dinner tonight because. They're not telling us why. I'm talking about a dinner at the G20.

It's the time to mingle with the most powerful people in the world that he loves. A lot of people speculate that he's not feeling well. He had a cold. He was exposed to a leader that tested positive with COVID-19. We'll follow it.

Big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three, sponsored by Crunch Fitness. Interested in owning your own business in a growing $30 billion industry? Check out CrunchFitness at Crunch.com. Number three. It's much bigger than Enron.

It's probably going to end up being at least 200% bigger than Enron. A lot of questions have to be asked about the celebrity endorsers, but more importantly, the professionals. There are a lot of professionals on Wall Street who got behind this company. Yeah, crypto goes down. FDX billion-dollar donor to the Dems and Crypto Magnet to the stars have been blown up.

And the effects on the masses is one thing. It is a Madoff-like scheme and scam. But compared to Madoff, it's like a rounding era compared to this. This guy was worth billions of dollars. How about 34 billion?

Now he's worth nothing. The investors are out and Dems benefited big time. What did they know? Number two. There's polling on this that reflects this, that while he maintains real influence within the Republican Party, no two ways about that, but it has begun to fade.

It started fading really, I think, after his annex post-election in 2020. Announcement Day for Trump 2024. What will he say and who is on his team and who isn't? We'll discuss. Number one.

You can govern with a pretty narrow majority. It's challenging, it's exhausting, it's tricky, but it can be done. That is Newt Gingrich. He would know. House about to go red.

The GOP is one seat away from officially getting the majority and telling Nancy Pelosi you're in the minority and possibly into retirement unless something crazy happens. Also, Carrie Lake upset in her run to be the next governor of Arizona, it seems. With me right now in studio, Doug Collins, former ranking member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and author of The Clock and the Calendar: A Front Row Look at the Democrats' obsession with Donald Trump. Doug, welcome back.

I ain't going to be right, Brian. We're going to talk, Georgia. What do you think about the president's announcement tonight in Mar-a-Lago? Except for the timing, nobody was surprised by this. I mean, he has been telegraphing this for weeks and months, and he's been wanting to do this for a while, so he's going to do it too.

Does it hurt Herschel? It distracts. I mean, any whether it helps, I think it'll help some with turnout. It'll help, it may hurt in the sense that you have some come out and say, I don't like Trump, so I'm going to take it out on rehearsal. But I think overall, it's been sort of built into the cake a little bit in Georgia.

So let's talk about what we now have: 217 seats for Republicans. Any doubt in your mind they're going to get to 218? No, I think they'll get to 218. 219, 220, I think it'll be worth it. That's the most?

That's the most. Look, I was sitting in this chair last week. You and I were talking. I was hoping 225, 235, it better get up to 240. No, it was not a good night last week.

So, California has eight seats left. Arizona has one. Colorado, two. New Mexico, one. Oregon, one.

That basically bakes it down. Another House seat from Republicans in New York. That delivered. It got up to 217. Is New York's success leaving clues to the rest of the country, or is it just an anomaly?

I think it was an interesting year in New York. I think it does leave some clues. But again, the redistricting process up here, which at first was completely skewed toward Democrats, got put off, got put more competitive seats. And then truly, I think the Lise Ellen campaign, along with a lot of attention on New York, these races being a lot closer, and people were feeling the... New York really got into the Biden economy got into a lot of the Biden and the crime issues that really were occurring that you really saw across the country but didn't see it like you saw here.

All right, so let's talk about what. Uh let's say the Republicans get the House by one or two seats. And then Kev McCarthy wants to be speaker. Yeah. There's going to be an internal vote.

Could you describe that and how they would be different from an external vote? Yeah, today's today's vote will be like going back to high school and you're voting for class president. This is pure, it's, you know, will you do this, will you not do this? It's peer against peer. It's the worst thing.

As someone who had was voted for and won a vice conference chair, it's the hardest thing you'll do almost outside of just some of your job in Congress is to get elected to these leadership offices. Kevin's got enough votes. That's not a problem. He just needs a majority? He just needs a this is the big difference.

He needs a simple majority inside the closed room. But when it comes for the Speaker and the Speaker only, it has to come to the floor of the United States House because it's the Speaker of the House, not the Speaker of the Republican Party or Democratic Party. And so it's voted on the floor. And they'll have to stand up. Your name will be called, and you have to stand up and say, I vote for.

And you have to say who you vote for. We already heard someone wheeling and dealing. Steve Scalees had to apologize to Matt Gates for saying what he did was irresponsible. We also, this is something that he tweeted out when he said something about leadership. Number two, Kevin McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Greene has cut a deal.

She's going to support him because she's going to play a key role on many. Instead of being in no committees, now she's going to play a key role on many committees. It could be. Look, anything you see coming out here, and I say this with love, a lot of these folks are good, good friends of mine. But let's not kid ourselves.

The political plays are going on right now to get what they want. And it's still going to be difficult because you look at some who've come out with very definitive statements. Matt Gates being one of them, Bob Goode being another one, you know, Andy Biggs, there are several who've made definitive statements that I will not support. Kevin McCarthy.

Well, that's a tough statement to say that because come January 3rd in front of your peers and the world, you have to stand up and say who you're going to vote for. See, it's interesting is that so if you vote for, if you say, I'm not going to vote for them and they get in power, they punish you. Oh, but Kevin McCarthy probably can't. Because if you punish somebody, then you never have their vote again. Yeah, I mean, to a point, but i If he can become the real issue here, and this is real, and Kevin's got to make this determination.

McCarthy has done so much. I mean, Kevin's chased this car for, I mean, he does. He's done everything he can to get there. And he's raised the money. He's spent the time on the road.

I've been on the road with him. We've flown around. I mean, I've done it on these, not just this year at Lex Hock, he's done it for a long time. Kevin's is when you catch the car and you only have a one or two vote majority, which we've shown. I mean, look at the last few speaker elections from the Republican state.

We've always had at least five to ten defections. Yeah. Always.

Now, this is where the Democrats are a little bit different. They may have had one or two last time. Pelosi knew exactly how many she could lose. Kevin's got to make sure that if he goes to the floor with it, that he knows exactly who he's going to lose, and there can't be a surprise.

So I heard that one pledge was, are you going to ask for Democratic votes when it goes to the floor? And that you don't want to say that. Kevin Roberts says, no, I'm not going to do that. No, I mean, if they happen to vote for him, fine, but he cannot be seen as looking for Democratic votes. Trump is trying to help him get leadership.

Does that help? It does with some. But again, you go back to a statement, and this is where I've said this before when I advise candidates about a lot of issues. Don't say what you will definitely not do unless it's a true heel-to-dial moral issue. And so when you say that I'm not going to ever vote for Kevin McCarthy, Then Set yourself up.

All right, what you do with Brendan Buxedge, former chief of staff for Paul Ryan? Cut 13. Yeah, it's a very difficult moment. You know, when we had trouble sometimes keeping everybody in line, we had a pretty healthy majority, sometimes 10, 15, 30 seats. This is a potential situation where you could have two seats to play with.

And that's almost an impossible. Being a Republican Speaker of the House is impossible to begin with. But with a two-seat majority, what that allows is every single member has enormous leverage over the Speaker of the House. And that's what they're starting to assert on him. They're trying to say, if you want my vote to be Speaker, you have to do things the way that I want them to be done.

And all that does is weaken the Speaker. And a weak Speaker only helps Democrats. But each one of these people don't really seem to care much about leadership. They get a lot of their power. A rank-and-file Republican gets a lot of their power by attacking leadership.

And it plays to the base and the grassroots.

So is he right? Yes. And yeah, that's an easy one. Is he right? Yeah, he's right.

What could you do then? If you get the majority in the House, besides not having Nancy Pelosi set the agenda and have a little bit of power, what can actually get done? I think there's a lot that could get done. And we'll take a cue from Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi possibly had just a, and this is going to be almost unfathomable to think about.

She could actually have had a larger majority, a three or four seat majority than Kevin McCarthy's going to have.

Now, think about that for a second. And we thought three or four was tight. But it comes down to there's going to have to be an understanding among Republicans in Washington. That if we're going to get anything done, we're probably not going to get 100% of what we want. We've got to understand that the old Reagan analogy, I'll get 80% and come back.

But if they don't and they continue the, I'm, you know, 10 to 15 or 20 of them say, I've got to have this, which is diametrically opposed to 10 or 15, 20 on the other side. And I've been in those. Believe me, I have been in those fights when we had a 30, 40 seat majority.

Okay. And it's just difficult. It's going to be crazy. It's going to be frustrating. Kevin's, you know, his hair will be much lighter in pulling.

Herschel Walker's already raised $11 million. I just want to bring up, you have a medical background, right? You don't? No. I didn't think so.

No. Oh, I'm sorry. I was thinking about. I'm a legal and pastoral. You can go either way.

You can go either way. The present's 80 years old. Yeah. He looked forward to a G20 meeting. He loved doing that.

Chairman of the Foreign Relations. Out of nowhere, they say the president will not be going to the dinner. And the speculation that he's got COVID, even though he tested negative, the speculation that he might be sick with the flu, it's going through the area. What are you hearing?

Well, I mean, it's just again, it goes back to this president who on one minute seems that he is lo you know, he's able to carry on a conversation, have a press conference, and then five minutes later he's out out of it. But here's the one thing from everything I've ever learned about COVID, and I know they spoke that he meant with this Cambodia, maybe I'll be. But that's 24 hours ago. You're not going to test positive. Yeah.

You know, so it's like, you know, so this has to be more of, I believe personally. He's just not having a good day. For him, this is what he wants. And that's part of the reason you've got to figure into. Are you going to go for this job again?

If you're too old to do it, you just had a grueling journey. But tell you the truth, you or I would have no problem. I'm going to no sleep for days. When I'm 80, I don't know if I could say that. And, you know, I think maybe Bernie Sanders could.

I mean, he's got a lot of energy. He's got a lot of energy. But this guy's not profiled. And that will go into his decision to win re-election. I'm sure he'll be brought up if he's ever challenged.

If it's just exhaustion, everybody hopes he's well. But he did say yesterday: I got a cold.

So for him to miss this meeting with Saudi Arabia and all these others consequential leaders and with Japan and South Korea and North Korea, this is a big thing. You flew around the world and you're missing the biggest meeting. You can't do two hours. I mean, he's got to be sick.

Something's wrong.

Something said they can't get. And I just want to, as we go to break, because I want to talk about Georgia, and why don't we leave some time? He's gotten five shots. Five shots, and he got it. Got it, lost it because he took therapeutic and got it back, so he's got natural immunity.

And he still got it. And you're still firing people in the military for not getting this vaccine. Back in a moment. The fastest growing talk show in America. You're with Brian Kilmead.

A talk show that's real. This is the Brian Kill Me Show.

We don't have no more time. What they've done to this country in two short years, we give them any more time, we won't recognize America again. Herschel Walker is not. He's not able to do this work. He's demonstrated that he has neither the competence.

nor the character. He doesn't understand the issues. That is Warnock and Herschel Walker. We know they're going to be going out at December 6th. Walker's already got $11 million raised, more to come, including Brian Kemp's game plan, which he got his substantial victory over Stacey Abrams with me in the studio.

Doug Collins, former Georgia Congressman. Doug, what do you think so far? I mean, they're both fired up, both raising money. What does $11 million mean to you? It means that they'll be on TV.

They'll be getting everything that's normal. The biggest thing, though, it's got to mean it's got to translate into the micro-targeting, voting, making sure that the voters that they want out, both sides are going to do this.

So they need to make sure those voters get to the poll because you're going to always have a drop-off from the general election.

So you've got to figure if you had a little under $4 million, you know, maybe $2 million, maybe $2.5 million. I mean, you've got to at least figure on a downturn, especially when it's probably the only thing on the ballot in most of Georgia counties.

So what do you think? What do you know about who voted in this last election as opposed to who you can get out for the special election? What did you learn from it? The biggest difference, the biggest concern I saw if I was Herschel was that he got 200,000 votes less than most every other Republican on the ballot. That meant that the Republicans either left it blank, didn't vote for him, and before everybody, you know, some of the Democrats say, well, no, they voted for Warnock.

No, they really didn't. Rafiel Warnock had $1.9 million. Stacey Abrams had $1.8 million.

So he was the top Democratic vote-getter.

So some of them may have come over. But for the most part, it looks like that there were Republicans who just did not vote in that race. I think that's the concern. If you were in his camp, how do you solve that problem? you lean on Kemp, you lean on some of the other the who remember, Brian Kemp and Hearst Walker never campaigned together.

So I think Kemp engagement here does help. I think it solidifies the reality that we need to solidify Georgia and in going into the future. If that's going to argue it, I think it's going to also come down to Herschel also portraying. The fire that you heard just a second ago, that kind of a focus message is not something we've heard. He was much more, let's all get a long message.

It's getting a lot more focused now. And frankly, Warnock's the other way. Warnock has become the bitter voice. Very well, he's going after Herschel personally. Very much so.

Right, and he wasn't. He was letting the ads do that. Exactly. And why do you think he's doing that, knowing he's vulnerable with these apartments hooked to Ebenezer Church that are 99% owned by Ebenezer Church and their tenements horribly run? Yeah, this character and competency argument.

I wish if I could instill in Herschel just for just a moment, turn that. I mean, you could turn that so quickly, the character and competence. Oh, Rafael Warnock, you want to talk about character and competence? What about a pastor who believes that taking the life of a child in the womb up until the moment of birth is okay? That's character.

Got to really have competency. You're running an organization that has a housing project in which you're kicking out and evicting people that you then on the other side claim to be so for. And then you're starting putting together, and he's just done it again to where he, again, Rafael Warnock is the biggest race separator that we've seen. It's the first thing out he wants to give, when you look at it from the race perspective of giving out money, it's always to the Divided by race. And this is something that Hearstel and them could focus on.

But at the end of the day, This is just simply turnout. You just got to put people in cars and get them to the poll. Wow, is that very interesting? There's going to be no mini debate. What about the Secretary of State Raffensperger looking into inquiring about this with a subpoena to Warnock's group, Ebenezer Church, about these apartments?

Yeah, that's going to be interesting. But again, my question is: what's taking this a while to come up? You know, why is it, did it come up in a campaign? You know, this was sort of out there to start with. The Landa Journal of Constitution wrote about it.

Yeah, I mean, that's an amazing thing in and of itself.

So, I mean, it is something out there. I think Raffensperger, who now has four more years in the bank, is going to press it even harder. It will be. The sad part, the timing-wise here, it'll just be after the election. Does Trump help if he comes and runs a rally there?

There's some who say will, some who say won't. What do you think?

I think at the end of the day, everybody's got to turn out. And is there some downside? Again, I'm just stating the obvious. Is there some downside because people who don't like Trump in Georgia who might take it out of Walker? Yeah.

But also, if he doesn't get that hardcore voter who feels the MAGA voter. Yeah, the MAGA voter that's disenfranchised, if he doesn't get those votes back out. Then it puts Walker at a disadvantage, too. But Kemp and DeSantis, to me, would be the most preferable rally partners. I think they have the least downside.

You know, I think most people would say that those two would have bring more to the table. Not to say that, again, Trump wouldn't, but is the question. Doug Collins, always great. Thanks so much. We come back match slap inside the Trump movement.

A radio show like no other. It's Brian Kilmead. Donald Trump transformed the Republican Party, from my perspective, in many ways, for the better. From the policy perspective side of things, he broke open, I think, an established agenda that needed to be broken open, that needed to consider a lot of different possibilities and to prioritize a different set, a different list of issues than they had in previous years. But he's also, I think, served his purpose in a way that I think many Republicans are satisfied with, and they would prefer now to move on in a generational way.

They are tired of his act. They are tired of what he brings to the table. They would like to move on to his Trump. Adjacent, still populist, still conservative, but less chaotic and more competent friend in Ron DeSantis. That is Ben Dominich, who, you know, his famously his father-in-law, John McCain, who brawled with President Trump but still was not an anti-Trumper by any stretch of imagination.

But he echoes the thought of a lot of people, not everybody, about Donald Trump's announcement at 9 o'clock tonight. Match Laps was just had a dinner with the President of the United States, probably knows him politically as well as anyone, personally, too. He's chairman of CPAC, host of CPAC, and you see him at all events, political director there. He doesn't need any sleep. He just works 24 hours a day.

Matchlap, welcome back. How are you? Brian, sorry that we had a snapper yesterday. I want to make one correction. Ben Dominish is a friend of mine, obviously married to John McCain's wife.

He was a very prominent never trumper throughout the twenty sixteen race, I debated him on T V more than a couple of times, said that Trump was going to be a moderate to liberal. He was going to abandon all these principles and be a disaster.

Now I will give him credit as Trump started to govern Ben was very positive, and other people at the Federalist really became very positive on Trump. But what I noticed with most of these people that are kind of they're moderately never Trump again. they're just kind of putting on the suit they used to wear. And you see that kind of across Republican circles because look, let's face it, Donald Trump has always made kind of like regular establishment Republicans. Very comfortable.

So, right now, why do you think he's doing it tonight? Like, you could speculate, you might know, you might be sworn to secrecy. I respect that. But, why tonight? No, there's no secret language.

I think people always think there's like a secret Trump language, you know, like we have ESP with each other or whatever. But no, I think. I think he's raring to go. He's anxious. You know, he's been waiting, biting his time for two years.

He's It was a rough way to lose the presidency, Brian. This unprecedented voting process, which we saw. obviously a replication of in some of these states and twenty twenty two, the whole coronavirus Kind of ridiculousness we all had to live through. Obviously, it was a tragedy for many people, but then the shutting down of society, which you know, where I live and where you live. I mean, when I get on the train or the plane, it's still fifty percent of the people are wearing masks.

They still seem very distressed. like we can't get over it. And uh it affected the presidential election because obviously we voted in ways we never voted before in We we seem to not be able to get out of all these bad habits. And I think he's just He's anxious to get into the race. and compare his record to Biden's record, which I think will accrue to his benefit, and why shouldn't he if he wants to?

Do you think politically makes sense before Thanksgiving, before Christmas, when then people forget about this? There's a long lull afterwards. Is there a danger in getting in first? No, my wife and I have talked about this. I've talked about this with a lot of.

The the few political friends I have left, Brian. But I think Trump looms so large over politics. Obviously, his endorsement. Was highly sought after in all these Republican primary races and such. And look, whether he announces or doesn't announce, everyone knows he's running, everyone knows he wants to run.

Everyone knows that he's going to continue to burst into the conversation.

So I don't see much downside to running. I did counsel him. uh publicly anyway that it would be better to wait till after the midterms and he did. You could argue it's better for him to wait till after the results come in in Georgia, but you know, he's got a lot of things going on in his life, including a couple of prosecutors. that uh are trying to put him in jail.

Does this help or hurt that? Does this help his case or protect him? My guess is the only way the heat gets off Donald Trump is if they realize. That he's not going to slink away into a corner. If they realize that he's really a political force, Um I think it makes it harder for at least D O J to continue this unfair prosecution.

Of course, Rudy Giuliani was just let off the other day. The idea that Matt Gates was let off, like, The the idea that the DOJ has become so politicized, I think, is really distressing to people. I don't think there's any question about that. J.D. Vance says, hey, it's still Donald Trump's party.

You have a few others like Banks, who said the same thing with a few others right here in New York. You have Elise Stefanik says, I'm with the former president Tommy Tubberville. I'm with the former president Jon Thune. And Senator Cornyn says, I'm going to let the whole process play out. And then you see these polls that are out there by the club for growth.

You tell me the validity of them that shows DeSantis leading.

So I don't think there's anybody that talks to more political heavyweights. and everyday folks than you on the Republican side.

So what do you sense, Matt? Do you feel as though the foundation's been shaken between what happened after the election in twenty twenty and the constantly bringing it up? And then the attacking DeSantis after the election, N. Yunkin saying his name sounds Chinese. Look, I think that the midterms were traumatic for Republicans because I think you would agree.

Everything sure looked like a a setup for a pretty big win.

Now, let's not discount the fact that it sure looks 95%. Probable that Republicans are going to pick up a slender majority in the House.

Nowhere near the number of seats that I thought they would pick up. And said that publicly.

So, you know, shame on me for getting that wrong. But they will get a majority. in the house. And that's a big deal because the house The Speaker has really all the power in the House in many ways. To determine what hits the floor.

And although it's going to be an awfully tough job for McCarthy, you know, this ends Biden's you know, desire to transform America to be Obama too.

So it's a big deal. I think for President Trump, Um I'm sh you know, I I I we we talked briefly the other day. I All of us are disappointed that more people that we campaigned for didn't win. I will say this, Brian, and it'll make you uncomfortable. We're not voting correctly in this country.

We're voting like no other democracy in the world. It does not take four, five, six days. To count the votes after Election Day. That's absurd. It's absurd that states like Nevada allow people to vote after Election Day.

And domestically, not the military. I'm fine with the military ballots, which sometimes can take a vote before the election day. They can mail it in on election day, right? No, that's wrong. No, in Nevada, the problem in these states is they don't check postmarks.

Oftentimes, the ballots that are mailed to them don't require a postmark on the way back. There's no way to ascertain when that ballot was voted on and when it went through the mail. Nobody votes like this in the world. We wouldn't accept these results from other countries. And we don't check signatures in Nevada and Clark County.

They still don't assiduously check the signatures. On those mail-in ballots, which are becoming a bigger and bigger percentage of the total vote. It's absurd that we vote this way. And Brian, the other thing is, in a close election, Republicans will get fifty-three percent of the votes. in the House and fifty one percent of these Senate races.

How can we lost all the close ones? Doesn't make sense. There's a few that came our way, but we lost almost every close vote election that went into extra innings. And on the Senate, I think we lost everyone. that's not mathematically possible.

So I continue to be very worried about all the proliferation of mail and ballots and the legitimizing of a process that we never accepted Throughout the history of our country. Gotcha. A couple of things.

It's up to governors and secretaries of state to change in their state. And Laxalt lost, which is unbelievable. He was leading the whole time.

So among the other people getting in, Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, it looks like. It looks like Governor Hogan's going to get in. And Mike Pompeo has his America Values Pack ramped up digital ad presence.

So and then you have Mike Pence basically saying he's in. Is that field? Does every and did anybody bring up look like they're not going to be involved?

Well, it looks like no, I think you're probably right, Brian and others too. I mean, it's interesting if you believe the Club for Growth polls, and let's just remind everybody that Club for Growth is Not a fan of President Trump. I'm a fan of Club for Growth. I think they've done a lot of good work over the years, but the Trump relationship is not good, and President famously. Had an expletive that he sent to the head of Club for Growth.

So, look, it's okay. We have disagreements in politics. If you believe their polls and you believe that this answers is really having momentum, it would actually benefit Trump tremendously to have multiple candidates run. I don't believe those polls, not that I don't know if I believe any polls. I mean, no offense to Fox.

I didn't like their polls. I didn't like anyone's polls this cycle. Polling is broken. And I'm going to put a pause on reading polls for a while. And I'll just tell you, when I get out there with the grassroots, Trump is still beloved.

I think he's in a strong position to get this nomination. But, you know, he and I have talked about it. It's like. Yep. There's only one other president in two hundred and forty years that you know, got a second term separated by a loss.

It happens very often. It would be history for it to happen. And the thing is, Trump's got to show that he's got another wrinkle. 2016 strategy does not work in 2024. You got to show you got another game.

Just like sports. I agree with that. Matt, thanks so much, man. I'm not changing, man. I promise not to change.

Appreciate it. This is the Brian Kilmy Show, and we come back and do a sample cast with Barney Company, and then take your calls. Thanks so much for being here.

Now, the Brian Kilmead Show joins Fox Business's Farney and Company with Stuart Varney live on your radio and on Fox Business. Here's Brian Kilmead. All right, I'm just going to take off my name tag for a second. We're going to go on and do a simulcast on the fastest growing. Uh I'm going to just make sure I mute my televisions.

The fastest growing station in all of cable, and that is Fox Business Network. We ought to go on with Stuart and find out what's on his mind. And I'll give you a clue. It's going to be exactly what we just talked to Matchlap about, what I've been talking to Doug Collins about, and that is the big announcement tonight at 9 o'clock.

So let's listen to Stuart. It will be. Brian Kilmead, because he's now with us. All right, Kilmead. President Trump makes the big announcement tonight.

Mar-a-Lago expected to officially announce 2024 candidacy. There are plenty of Republicans who want Trump to get off the stage now. What do you say? Not at least Stefanik, not Matt Gates, going to be firmly in his side. Jim Banks seems to be pretty securely there.

People like Jon Thune and others say I'll support the nominee.

So a lot of people are keeping their powder dry, and a lot of people want to turn the page. I will say this. Friday, for the first time ever since I've been hosting this show, I had more people tell me this: I voted for Trump twice. I won't do it again. For them, the biggest tactical move mistake that Donald Trump has made, besides having that rally on January 6th.

Who has been going after DeSantis and then Yunkin the next day? It just forced people to defy their favorite kid in their family, in my humble opinion. Look, I've been saying all morning that I don't think Trump can win. If he is the nominee for 2024, I don't think he wins. What say you?

What I would say is this: got to show me another wrinkle. The 2016-2020 game plan will not win. It'll get your Republican votes the bulk, but you don't win with Republican votes. You win with independents and you win with winning over moderate Democrats, who do exist out there. It's pretty clear that it can be done if you look at what happened in certain races in New York.

See what's happening. Another seat delivered in New York. And then you see what happened in Florida. We've been over that again. A lot of people want to point to Chris being a weak opponent.

I don't, because usually, if people don't like the opponent, they don't vote. They went out of their way, a lot of traditional Democratic voters, and voted for Ron DeSantis because a lot of stuff he's doing, people relate to. And I'll bring you to what Bill Maher said on Friday night. He said, Ron DeSantis scares him on the left because he has everything Donald Trump has without the crazy. He also does a lot of people.

A lot of things. He's younger with a military background and a law background and seems to relate to every man.

So that's got those on the Democrats upset. But what they say about DeSantis doesn't have the charm and the relatability. Donald Trump has got this special thing about him that I've never seen another politician have, including Barack Obama, a billionaire that relates more to blue collar. Got it. Yeah, I agree until I look at it.

We're close to the base. Senator Ted Cruz was on the show earlier. He talked about what the Republicans' focus should be moving forward. Roll that tape, please. Political conversation right now constantly revolves around Donald Trump.

What I'd like us to be talking about is the policies and principles that we're going to champion. that are going to help people stop the disasters that are happening, that are going to tackle and stop inflation, that are going to drive gas prices down, that are going to stop the out-of-control crime, and the policies that are going to finally secure the border. I think we need to be a positive, results-oriented party, and we need to present a clear alternative. All right, Brian, is Trump going to be talking about these issues, or is he going to be talking about himself? Which is it?

More than likely himself, but I think among the things he's going to say is what I did great is I sealed the border, it's not sealed. What I did great was made us energy independent, we're not anymore. What I did is maximize the drilling opportunities and streamlined the permitting process, which is all true, which is addressing what Ted Cruz just said. The question is, can you do it without inciting, mocking Glenn Young's last name and saying it sounds Chinese, or mocking Mitch McConnell's wife because she happens to be of Taiwanese descent? That stuff, I don't think the American people want.

I think people want something more to the middle now. We've tried the partisanship, and I think Senator Schumer picked up on it. I'm not saying he's sincere, but yesterday he came out and said, I want to work with the Republicans. I actually never heard him say that. I'm wondering if he saw something in this vote.

I don't know about that, but I do know that almost everybody I talk to who voted for Trump in 2016. is now tired of him. And they don't want the name calling, they don't want the chaos, they don't want the bitterness back into American electoral politics. Last word to you. My last word is the twenty fifteen Trump that was on every network that was the must-have if you were Wolf Blitzer or if you were Sean Hannity.

That guy was fun. He got angry because he wasn't treated fairly. I get it.

But if you could dial back to that guy with a new 2024 strategy, he can do it. But at 76 years old, does he want to? Can he? That's the key. No, he's absorbed in himself and the 2020 election.

That is my opinion. We'll see how it shakes out tonight. Hey, Brian, thank you very much. As always, great stuff today. Great to see you, Shu.

Thank you, Stuart. Appreciate it. 1866408. Wow, look at the sport. Let's go to Gerard in Gainesville.

Gerard. Hey, Gerard, you want to hear tr what do you want Trump to say tonight? All right. Uh let's go to Uh let's go to Joe, W-R-C-N. Joe.

Brian, good morning. Listen, your analysis has been spot on throughout this whole thing. Trump, he needs to pivot tonight. That's the bottom line. If he doesn't stop the name-calling the vitriol, he's done.

Independents are gone. I love what you said. Unfortunately, he's got to come out tonight and he can't wait till Christmas because the cat's already out of the bag. This is too high stakes. Bad people are running our country.

He told us he could pivot and be presidential. It is either time to do it or get out of the way. The sanctimonious is equivalent to Hillary's deplorable. It was a self-inflicted wound. I like the analogy.

He fired down his own trench. It was stupid. Whoever his advisors is. Vitriol will not work this time, Brian. You are spot on.

I I think so too. I think the country's tired of being angry at each other. And there's not much of a difference between people. I mean, the people that are defiling historic art. They're trying to glue themselves to the Mona Lisa.

I can't deal with them. Because they think the world's going to end in eight years. But most people are not doing that stuff, throwing paint at Picasso's best and doing the crazy things they're doing. I'm not talking about winning them over. They'll never be won over.

AOC will never be won over, but most people don't want to be a member of the squad. and they don't want to be a member of the Proud Boys. Most of us are in the middle. Uh, in the middle of our thoughts and open to other thoughts and willing to debate them. That's what I'm talking about.

Brian Kilmee Chill. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show. Brian In Kill Mead. Hi everyone, thanks so much for being here. It's the Brian Kilmey Show coming to you from 40th and 6th of Midtown Manhattan back home.

Special thanks to everyone in Oklahoma City. I had a chance to meet yesterday, and on Sunday in Tulsa, to see that great crowd out there was fantastic, especially KRMG getting the word out. Special thanks to yesterday in Oklahoma City, Freedom 969, now carrying us three hours live. It's truly an honor, and as well as Uh everybody in Brandon, Mississippi. And Jackson, Mississippi, they came from.

But we had people that come for over a thousand miles to see us on stage in the co-sponsored Fox Nation show, where I have a chance to talk about all my books, including the one out on paperback now, The President and Freedom Fighter. And we'll be in, very shortly, we're going to be in Myrtle Beach. And go to BrianKilme.com and you'll find out I'll be signing at the Patriot Awards. The next time we'll do the show tomorrow in New York, and then we're going to Hollywood, Florida for the Patriot Awards Thursday and Friday. We're going to just have one All-Star cast after one All-Star cast.

Fox-centered, of course. I'm going to get to Mark Brinovich, the Attorney General of Arizona, in a moment, 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. It's much bigger than Enron. It's probably gonna end up being at least 200% bigger than Enron. A lot of questions have to be asked about the celebrity endorsers, but more importantly, the professionals.

There were a lot of professionals on Wall Street who got behind this company. And it fell apart, and they're all out of money. They put billions of dollars over the last two election cycles into the Democrats' coffers. The only one who raised more money than this CEO of the now tragically corrupt FTX cryptocurrency is George Soros. Where's that money?

How many people are hurt? This is worse than Madoff. We'll discuss. Number two. There's polling on this that reflects this, that while he maintains real influence within the Republican Party, no two ways about that, but it has begun to fade.

It started fading really, I think, after his annex post-election in 2020. That is Britt Hume, of course. Announcement Day for Trump 24. Will it be different from 2016? Will it be different from 2020?

Will he have the base behind him? We'll discuss. Number one. You can govern with a pretty narrow majority. It's challenging, it's exhausting, it's tricky, but it can be done.

That is Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House, about to go red. They're one seat away. Will it be sometime within this final hour of this show? The GOP is optimistic they can get something done. Kari Lake, bad news.

It looks as though she will not be the next governor of Arizona. And we'll discuss that with the Attorney General of Arizona, Mark Brenovich. Mark, I know you were running for that spot. Are you surprised that Lake looks like she lost?

Well, Brian, just so we're clear, thank you for having me on. But I actually ran in the Senate. And I've been elected twice statewide. And yeah, I think a lot of Arizonans are disappointed, but I think it does demonstrate that candidates matter. And Arizona is a swing state.

And when I won, Ducey and I both won in 2018, other Republicans lost. And I ended up getting more votes than Sinema or McSally, even though I was outspent by $6 million by Tom Steyer. And I would like to think that's because when you have a consistent conservative message and you focus on law and order, securing the border, individual liberty, entrepreneurship, Building the American dream like I'm living today as a first-generation American, when you focus on those issues, people will vote Republican in Arizona and other states. But when you start getting bogged down and you start relitigating what happened two years ago or whatever, or who's friends with whom, that's when we run into problems as Republicans and especially as principled conservatives. Kyrie Lake, you say, because you kind of took on John McCain, went to the election, went and said the election was rigged to a degree.

Mark, a couple of things. Why did it take you guys so long to count votes?

Well, first of all, Brian, I just want to make sure I don't count votes. I mean, I'm the Attorney General. I enforce the law. Look, I have said this a couple of years ago when we had a Republican Secretary of State. I was very critical of her.

I used the expression, it's always a goat rope every election here. I've used the term recently that it's a cluster. You know, you run out of adjectives. We are not a third world country. I mean, heck, places like Italy have elections every six months, and they seem to be able to count their votes faster than we do.

So it is unacceptable. And I've actually said this. I actually think what we should do is get the Florida law and just copy it exactly here. The legislature, they make the law. We should copy it.

Copy the Ford law exactly and just delete Ford and put Arizona in there, and that way maybe we can get election results on election night.

So it's not going to happen with a Democratic governor, don't you think? Yeah, well, you know, one thing is we have A initiative and a referendum process here, so it is possible that maybe the legislature will be in Republican hands here. They can refer something to the ballot. Additionally, you know, there's initiatives, citizens can, you know, get proposals on the ballot every two years. There's that route.

And look, at the end of the day, Brian. if you believe in election integrity, if you believe people need to have confidence in the process, then there are things we have to do. There is nothing wrong with voter ID laws. When I argued Bernovich v. DNC at the U.S.

Supreme Court, It said the Supreme Court said states can enact common sense election integrity measures like restrictions or limitations on ballot harvesting. And I remind people all the time that ballot harvesting and third-party candidates handling ballots is the greatest threat to election integrity. And when some of my Democratic friends say, oh, that's not right. Jimmy Carter said that, Brian, not me. That's what Jimmy Carter said when he did the Baker-Carter Commission report in 2004.

So there was a time when even Democrats understood that people have to have confidence in the process because in the United States of America, we settle our differences through using our First Amendment rights, and that's why woke culture and cancel culture is so bad. And then we also settle our differences at the ballot box. And everyone has to have confidence in the results. Is it close enough that they're going to have a recount? You know, some people are saying that.

You know, if I had been good at math, Brian, I would have been a doctor. And so, you know, all the possibilities. Political pros, you hear one thing from one person, one thing from another person. But clearly, these races are close enough where that is within the realm of possibility. And, you know, it's unfortunate that it's dragged on this long because the public does have to have confidence in our electoral process.

And sometimes the perception can be just as bad as the reality. And coming off what happened in 2020, you would think that election officials here were doing everything they could to make sure that everyone had confidence, whether they're Democrat, Republican, Independent, in the outcome. I'm sure you know that Senator Biden and Senator Obama voted for 700 miles of wall, and we know the barrier works. And we know that you guys put these huge canisters on the wall, paddle them on top of each other. And now I'm concerned that this Democratic governor, if she does hold on, will remove them because the Federal Government says you're trespassing.

Unfortunately, Brian, I think you're right. And it's as someone who's a lifelong Arizonan, who started my career as a gang prosecutor, when I see 3 million fentanyl pills and 200 pounds of fentanyl power. Seized just this week in Arizona. I know that's enough to kill the entire population of Los Angeles. When I see more than you know, 900,000 gotaways, like the entire population of Fort Worth, Texas, coming in since Joe Biden's been president, when you hear about 5 million people being apprehended and encounters where you think, my goodness, that's more than the populations of Vermont and Wyoming and Alaska combined.

This is unsustainable. And I come at this from a first-generation American angle. My parents bled communism. And the reason why this country is so great is because the rule of law means something. You know, we don't have a national religion.

We don't have a Church of England. We're not the same ethnic identity like in China or Japan. We are bound together by the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the rule of law. And what Joe Biden is doing and my orchestra are doing is they are fundamentally undermining that. Intentionally.

Every day, Americans, yes, intentionally. And every day, Americans are dying, not only a result of the Fenton. Fentanyl crisis and fentanyl, you know, natural disaster, our kids being poisoned. But the cartels have enriched themselves to record levels. I worry Mexico is going to become a failed state.

And look, I don't do polling, but I know when I talk to people like my mom and her friends from Churchill. You still re-elected Senator Kelly, who's done nothing until the last few weeks to even show concern in this. And these are the people of Arizona. Yeah, just just so we're clear. I didn't vote for Mark Kelly.

I didn't elect Mark Kelly. And I think candidates matter. We needed to take the case to the Democrats. I said this. And at the very beginning, when I was still running in the primary, the Republican primary, is that this election is going to be about security.

It's going to be about economic security, the price of gas, the price of groceries, and personal security. What is happening with the gangs and the cartels seizing control of our border. And every American, no matter where you live, where you come from, wants to feel safe in their neighborhoods. Joe Biden, Maorcaus, are undermining the rule of law. Mark Kelly enabled them.

And one of the things about Mark Kelly, which I thought our side, Republicans, should have done a better job explaining. He not only voted with Schumer 94% of the time, he voted with Bernie Sanders 90% of the time. I mean, my goodness, I bet you you don't agree with your wife 90% of the time. I don't, but my goodness, Mark Kelly is agreeing with Bernie Sanders 90% of the time. He does not reflect Arizona values, but candidates matter.

Candidates matter in the business. You think Blake Masters is a bad candidate. You think you would have been better, obviously.

Well, I would have won. I mean, I have a run. I won twice statewide. I've been out spent every race. I got more votes than cinematic.

Do you think Trump going for Blake Masters made the difference? You think Trump going for Blake Masters made the difference? I think a lot of people would say it cost me the primary. I told President Trump: if you care about secure borders, confirming great federal judges, low taxes, low regulation, taking on the cartel, securing our border, I'm your guy. But I am also about Arizona values, and I'm not going to say something as a prosecutor I don't believe or I can't prove.

And if that meant that somebody else was going to get an endorsement and a flawed candidate was going to run against Mark Kelly, so be it. But I have my integrity and I have my principles. I know what I believe and why I believe it. And my record speaks for itself. I mean, heck, Brian, I've sued Joe Biden more than anyone.

I argued Bertovich v. B. C., the most important election case in a generation, named after me at the U.S. Supreme Court. We were the first office to sue Joe Biden over the unconstitutional vaccine mandate.

Our office, me, we went and stopped rescinding the rescinion of Title 42.

So that record speaks for itself. I hear you. Now, there's another story. A federal judge on Monday ruled in favor of deposing an FBI agent accused of colluding with social media companies. Remember, back in 2020 to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop.

And of course, the New York Post account got frozen, and we know that Twitter is all over that.

So, now, where does this go from here?

Well, I think this is really significant. And I do want to give a tip of the hat to my colleagues, Eric Schmidt in Missouri, who will be going to the Senate, and Jeff Landry, who hopefully will be the who's the Attorney General there now and hopefully will be on his way to the governor's office. We understand, I tell people all the time as conservatives, we have to be three times as good because the mainstream media is against us, academia is against us, and of course, big tech is against us. And so, this to me just demonstrates. And it's very dangerous, I think, whether it was during the COVID lockdowns or whether it's the Hunter Biden story, you have this insidious Collusion between big tech and the government.

And it's what we used to see in communist countries or in dictatorship. And in some ways, in a lot of ways, it's actually worse. Because in the old days, in communist countries, people knew if the government said something was BS. They knew the government was lying to them. But when you get these private entities that essentially are lying to people and manipulating them, in many ways it's more dangerous because a lot of people don't understand that they're being manipulated.

And that's one of the reasons why I'm so glad just this year we got the largest settlement in the U.S. history against Google, $85 million, because they were tracking people and making misrepresentations as to consumers what they were doing with their data whether they were opting in or opting out. And so it is now up to the AGs. This is where literally the last line of defense is: is to hold big tech accountable for what they're doing. And so you're going to see a deposition, and I think it's going to get nasty, Brian.

I know I used to work at DOJ, and I wasn't involved in it, but I remember back in 2009, you remember Alaska Senator Ted. Stevens ended up having a conviction overturned because the FBI withheld information. And we saw what happened in 2016 with misrepresentations to the FISA court. And now you see this, and this is dangerous. This is stuff.

that we need, whether you're Democrat or Republican, you need to call out the Federal bureaucracy, the deep state, whatever you want to call it, for basically putting their fingers on the scale. Because when you're the government, you can take away people's livelihoods, their life, liberty, property. That's an awesome responsibility, and no individual should be working with anyone to basically support their political candidates of their choice. All right. So we'll see.

Obviously, you're 100% correct. We'll see if the House is able to move forward with this on this, too.

So we'll see where that goes. Mark, thanks so much. Mark Brenovich. And it's unbelievable that Senator Kelly got six more years. He does absolutely nothing.

And that's with respect for his service and his astronaut status. He just couldn't care less about the border until his election was on the ballot, and it doesn't seem to matter. I'm going to take your calls. That does matter when we come back. And I see you over in Jacksonville.

I see you in Orlando. I see you in Gainesville. We'll get to all of you and Brooklyn. Don't move. Want even more Brian?

Download the podcast at BrianKillmeadShow.com every episode. Exclusive interviews on demand. More of Killmead coming up. The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Killmead.

Over the last two years, as I've been traveling all over the country, People have come up to me from time to time and said, you know, I've seen the way things have gone down here at home. It seems like we have an administration that's actually intent on weakening America at home and abroad. And people come up and say, Do you think we can get it back? And I always say, We'll get it all back. And you'll be surprised how quickly it comes back.

I think that's one of the things that we proved, particularly in those first two years of the Trump Pence administration, was when you have an administration that knows what makes America prosperous and strong and secure, and then you have partners in majorities in the House and in the Senate, it's extraordinary what you can accomplish. But it all takes leadership. And he believes he's the leader. He's got a book out. He's going to be joining us tomorrow.

That's Mike Pence, the vice president. And he's in a tough situation. The president of the United States did not call off the attackers on January 6th. We're going after him. He's angry at that, but he also worked incredibly well with the president, thoroughly understood him, was a great counterbalance to him, was able to work Congress and defy Trump to people that maybe didn't know anybody quite like him.

And now he's going to be running likely against him. The president's going to make his announcement tonight at 9 o'clock, and then he's going to be into the fray. Alex, you're in Brooklyn enlisting on WABC. Hey, Alex. Hey, good morning, Brian.

Thanks for taking the quote. By the way, Mike Pence, I don't even understand why he's thinking of running. I don't see him having any percent of a chance of making it in the primary. I'm saying that Mike Pompeo might have some sort of chance, but Mike Pompeo would have a problem in the general election, the same problem that some Trump endorsed candidates had in this election because he was part of the Trump administration. I wanted to say about Trump going after DeSantis, it's backfiring in two different ways.

Number one, people are getting turned off by Trump because he's going after DeSantis, but also it's checking off one of the reasons of why Ron DeSantis wouldn't run in twenty twenty four, which would be so as not to get into a fight with Trump and the MAGA movement. But now that Trump started the fight, he might as well jump into the race and keep on going with the fights. It could be Trump is convincing DeSantis to run in twenty twenty four when he wouldn't have done that If Trump wouldn't have started the fight because you wouldn't want to get into a fight with a magnet. Alex, my analogy is if you're a really good boxer, show a video of you in the ring sparring or hitting the heavy bag, and you say to yourself, Oh, do I want any of that? That's Trump's theory.

I'm going to show you a little bit about what you'll get if you get in. Are you ready for that? You probably aren't. You might want you're forty-four years old. Wait your turn.

That's what he's hoping for. You feel differently. I understand. Gerard, WSKY and Gainesville. Gerard.

Hey, good morning, Brian. Great commentary today. I think nobody I think Trump's reasons for getting into politics were very pure. He's a good patriot, successful businessman, and nobody lost more money than him running for office. Normally, when people come on the outside of their office after they have public office, they're richer.

He was less rich. The problem that I have with Trump is that he is unnecessarily divisive. We need somebody to unify the party. Yeah, I'm getting that, Gerard, over and over again from callers like you. Thanks so much.

When we come back, the magic of fans, being a fan of a sport, can it bring us together? We'll discuss it. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead. Hey, welcome back, everyone.

I cannot wait to talk about a subject that you probably have not heard from or heard about. That's what makes this brand new book so unique. Ben Volenta and David Sikoriak, right? I nailed it. Have co-authored a book, Fans Have More Friends.

They are now in studio with us. It all plays into the pandemic. Think about this: you're forced to be isolated, maybe forced to leave your job. Maybe you watched your business just die in the vine. You were told to stay away.

Even family members, if you're in the extended family, don't come over. And then when we were all said and done, and we go back to life as it was, some people never got back to life as it was. They never really had a bond with other people. Maybe there's kids in generations now that are just in love with their phone and don't even have many real friends. But fans have more friends.

I've been a sports fan my entire life, started in sports. Ben and David, welcome. You put a science to the thought pattern. You want to start? Yeah.

Our fans ourselves. And we recognized in our own behavior that our fan behavior, when we leaned into that passion, we had social interactions with other people, right? And we spent our careers studying fans. Whether it's watching together, going to the game, somebody to talk about the result. Exactly.

Even, you know, I live in Los Angeles. I am from Colorado, big Bronco fan, right? I could be watching alone in my living room. And my phone's going to light up. When the Broncos are playing, because my family's texting me, my hometown friends are texting me.

In every way you look at it, if you think about it as a social endeavor, you sort of can't unsee it.

So, David Ben, I should say, is the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Analytics for Fox Sports, and you and David have been friends. David, when did you realize that there's something here that needs to be brought out? You know, we started I was working at Madison Square Garden a few years back in 2016, and we were seeing that when we were spending time with fans, that social relationships were incentivizing the behavior.

So take the Knicks for an example. Historically, They haven't won since the 70s. They haven't won since the 70s, and it hasn't been great since 2000. And, but we were spending time with fans who, like, why would you pay all that money to go to watch a losing team? And what we saw was.

It was the social relationships that were embedded in the rel uh in being a Knicks fan that were actually incentivizing them to come. Did you do this from focus groups? Focus groups, ethnographies. We spend time going to games with people in sports bars around the country. Just spending a lot of time.

With fans? Yeah, we really did the groundwork of seeing what patterns were out there. And no matter whether we were doing the Knicks, we were doing the Rangers, we were doing the World Cup, we were doing Major League Baseball. Same pattern ended up: that they were doing all this activity because somebody else was doing the activity with them. And they would lean in more, not because of the result on the court or the field, but because.

It's dad, it's their friends from college, it's their mom that they had these conversations around.

So we were we then arrived at this. Look, if this is all true, these patterns are up here. And it really was is a A picture of a sports fan that is different than what we normally conceive: of the toxic, kind of, you know, at home being kind of fatuous and not really engaged with the world. We were seeing the direct opposite.

So, we really want to test this to give another picture.

So, you're saying if you like the Dodgers and you're engaged with the Dodgers, you're more than likely to be engaged in other things in your life because fundamentally, you have a passion. That's right. I mean, what we see is that But I'm not affecting the outcome. No, watching a game not affecting the outcome. No.

The Dodgers are the ones playing the game. But by watching the game, you're saying it could affect your lives positively. Absolutely. I mean, what we see is that if you are a fan, you have more active social lives, right? You have more friends.

You engage with those people more frequently. You value those relationships more. Same is true of your family relationships. Like a shorthand way to say that is, you're likely to have a better relationship with your mother the bigger fan you are. And all that social media.

Why? Because you have this constant point of connection, right? You're in touch more regularly. The game gives you a reason to connect. And that's the thing that is the gateway to a conversation about how the kids, how's work?

Those sorts of conversations fall out of that. But it's easy to text, hey, Brian, did you see that dunk? Did you see that play? Big win last night. And then that flows into other conversations.

It's harder to be like, hey, Randomly on a Tuesday night. How are you doing? What's up? How are the kids?

So, if people listening right now, yeah, I'm not really a big sports fan. Uh Do you recommend they try? Go get involved, even if they're Twenties, thirties, forties, jump into something? Absolutely. Even i it's the it's the magic of as you're following, you then have another point of connection.

So everyone's a Cowboys fan, or a lot of people are Cowboys fans, or you either love or hate. Or Cowboy hater. Or hater, yes. Thanks for correcting. Watching them on Sunday night.

Watching them on Sunday night, you have something to talk about with people. Did you see they blow a lead to Green Bay? And it gives you a way into conversation. It gives you social capital that you can then go use out there. And that little discussion with somebody who is a Cowboys fan or a Cowboys hater then leads to more discussion.

And then you watch another game and you have these discussions.

So the really engaged sports fan is just loaded with social capital. They can spark a conversation with anybody that is another sports fan. You know, I. As a soccer player, no one ever cared about soccer in the 70s and 80s. And now I notice when the World Cup happens, you can't even get a seat in a sports bar.

People will be on the outside. Why? Because we're cheering for a country. And as Lawrence, hopefully, we'll get out of the group. But when you're cheering for a country, that could be a bonding moment, correct?

Absolutely. I mean, it's just an opportunity to connect with other people. And it's, you know, sort of Americans bonding with Americans, right? Wrapping ourselves in the flag, rooting on the country. But it's also The immigrant on the street who's watching his team, right?

Who's just participating in the event, in the sort of festivities. That creates this kind of pluralistic, open-minded, broad perspective of the world that makes us welcoming of strangers.

So there's this book out now. You're listening to the co-authors. The fans have more friends.

So a lot of people think: well, we're watching professional men or women play their sport better than you can.

So we're living through them. That's the escapism, allow you to escape your life leaving reality. You're saying let that be the foundation for your reality.

So you as soon as you get we need to find a way to get people passionate about something. And this could be the foundation for it. Absolutely, because it's so pervasive in our society. What did you find in the data that showed that?

So what I mean, what what we found is fans have more friends, that as you move along the specter of fandom, from being not engaged fan at all to the most engaged, A bunch of measures move in in Right alongside.

So, the more friends you have, the more you value your relationships. Ben noted: the closer you are to your mom, to your dad, to your kids. Yeah if you're an empty nester. The bigger fan you are, the closer you relationship you have with your at-o-home kids, your adult children. And then it turns out that all that socializing has an impact on our wellness.

So we then took a turn into the social science, and it turns out that we're social creatures by nature. When we socialize, we're happier. Which made the pandemic so stressful. Exactly. Exactly.

And so we saw, you know, we've seen a pervasive problem of loneliness only worsen with the pandemic, right? We were literally enforced isolation. Living through that. And so that only exacerbated the issues that we're facing that were already there and already present before the pandemic. And what we see in the data is that fans are less lonely.

Um they experience more feelings of belonging. And that has a positive impact on their lives.

So what's so interesting is that, for example, let's say you have Thanksgiving coming up. Is a reason to connect with your family. We've got to organize. What time are you coming? What are you wearing?

What are we going to do? What are we serving?

So that's a connection. But if you don't have that connection to get in touch with your family, you can get caught up in your own life.

So, if you have a connection to your college friends, to your family, your old Giant fans, your old Lions fans, whatever it is, there's a reason to connect. And from that connection comes other things. Exactly. Exactly. So, and did you surprise that the data led you to this?

We kept on pull ye in some way, yes, because as we kept on pulling on this thread, once we learned that or proved out that fans have more friends, we're like, let's try happiness, let's try confidence, and let's try optimism. Even if your team's terrible. Even if that is a great point. It actually it holds. Your team's great.

Your team's terrible. You have social interaction. You have people you could talk to, spend time with, you know, you commiserate with. If you're, you know, you're the Cowboys fan this weekend, you're Back into your commiseration mode and not celebration. But from a human perspective, that's actually healthy.

To be able to vent, to be able to have somebody say, Yeah, I understand. I can't believe they called those plays. And those are actually from just a basic human need standpoint, are actually really healthy behaviors.

So you think the fans are more important than the players? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. At the end of the day, we have I think what we're trying to push back on is this conception that that sports are about escape. And entertaining in their it's an entertainment product.

What people are buying when they tune into sports. When they become fans, they're buying belonging. That's the real compelling reason to engage as a fan. And we don't see it necessarily. It's sort of a, it's this kind of like unconscious behavior.

But if we start to think of our fandom as a way to connect with people, you can't unsee it. All of a sudden, you realize that the Fantasy League is really about hundreds of text messages in a weekend. And you know what? I know you're right, because in the NFL, for example, they have a Fans Hall of Fame. You know, who's the Pete?

You're the big Jet fan. Who's the fireman? Fireman Ed. The Fireman Ed, right?

So everybody's got these iconic fans, and it seems the leagues recognize it without even looking at your data. Or did they? Do they have a sense of the importance of the people that watch? I think they have a sense of it. We're sort of advocates for it now.

Like, that's really the point of the book: we started off thinking about this from a business perspective. You know, we work in sports and sports media, and then we saw the data and we became evangelists or advocates. You know, the one thing I saw is I remember when I observed European soccer and went to Liverpool and watched the Celtic play, they're clearly, the fans are superior to the players. Like, they're like, you're going to be gone someday, but we're still going to be cheering for that jersey. It reminds me of my town.

That really is fundamental fanship because a lot of these stadiums are in the towns that they're in. You walk up and you go from walk up to a stadium in the middle of a town, and it becomes a part of that. Right.

And it's a universal thing, right? Like I've been to Anfield myself. That experience is unlike anything else. But I was also in Athens, Georgia, a couple weeks ago going to a SEC football game. Same sort of thing.

You'd walk up to strangers tailgating on campus and they'd invite you in. They'd give you a beer. You know, backslapping. What do you think is going to happen in the game? And that never would have happened had there not been this game.

Precisely. There's a lot of people who actually go and they tailgate and watch the game, even though it's in the city, they'll stay out in the parking lot and watch the game on television. Right, right. They're there for each other. And it's important to recognize that this is true of our closest friends.

It's true of our family members, right? But it's also just the strangers on the street. On the subway up here this morning, there was a guy decked out head-to-toe, Mets gear. And I just said, hey, go Mets. And he had a big smile on his face.

Right.

And all of a sudden, what I've done is I've actually changed my own brain chemistry. We've released oxytocin now into the bloodstream. We're happier now as a result of that. Just that little interaction with a stranger on the subway has brightened his day, brightened my day, and it's good for us. And what is the role of fantasy?

What is the role of betting when Ben and David come back? The name of their book is Fans Have More Friends.

So if you like Patrick Your Life, go reconnect with your team, your league. Also, maybe get involved. That would be the fundamental thing. They always say if you want to change your mood, go take action. Even if it's walking around the block, this will be take action.

Start getting involved. A lot of people I know have done back to soccer, decided they're into European football.

Next thing you know, they're watching it. And that's something you can pick up late. More with the guys in just a moment. Educating, entertaining, enlightening. You're with Brian Kilmead.

Mm-hmm. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show.

Hey, welcome back everybody. By the way, we're following a couple of stories where the President of the United States is blowing off his dinner tonight with G20, the most powerful people on the planet. He's not feeling well. They think, or he's tired. They're not telling us exactly what he was exposed to.

He was exposed to COVID-19 by one of these other leaders.

So we'll continue to follow that. Keep in mind, he is 80, and we're all waiting to see if the. The Republicans get to 218 of the House are at 217 right now. A lot's going on in California. I think they have about eight races yet to be decided.

They cannot even finish counting the race for the mayor of Los Angeles. We're talking about one city. And what an embarrassment. That Nevada, as well as Arizona. But let's take a break from that for a moment.

Ben Valentes here, along with David Sikoriak, co-authors of Fans Have More Friends. If you're saying to yourself, my life has more, lax passion. They have done studies, not just a feeling studies, because Ben is the senior vice president of strategy and analytics for Fox Sports. David's the founder of Dexterity Consulting, a strategy and analytics consultancy company that blends research, analysis, and empathy to transform how brands think. They put together this great book from his days over at Madison Square Garden and NBC, and they come up with a study, hard facts that show your life's better if you follow a team and care, even if you're not in the game.

Guys, what is fantasy? Football, what does betting do for the experience? Is that a left turn get you off the course, or does it help? It gets you deeper into the course because it gets you engaging, right? You have a fantasy football league.

What do you do? You have a draft, whether it's in person or virtual. You have 11 other people in your league that you have a point of connection with. Then every week, set your line up back and forth, trades, trash talking. Seventeen weeks of interaction.

Reason to interact. Reason to interact. Right.

And then leagues have trophies, they have fun things, get togethers or whatever. And this creates just a point of a group of people can get together and interact. That would not actually happen. I mean, it could happen, right? It could, you would, you could organize a group of people, let's do a monthly Zoom call or whatever around the country.

Not exciting as football. And that all spawns text during a game. If we're playing each other this week in fantasy, we'll be texting each other and reacting to what's going on. Ben, you don't grow out of this. If what you're finding is and for me, for example, when I did sports, I started at s all uh I was doing sports phone, nine seven six one three one three.

And then I was doing sports, I got hired as a sports guy here, and I started liking sports less when it became my job. Did you guys start saying, I need a break? I because you were an interesting sports gamer. I did feel that way when I 'cause I've been at Fox Sports for about seven years now, and and after a couple of years, I I certainly can can that resonates with you. I don't need to see another game tonight.

But then I started to understand what it was doing for me personally. And that's when I, like, the light bulb went on, and I realized, oh, we need to lean into this. Like, I was starting to fall out of love with my fantasy leagues, right? And now I'm the one who's rallying the troops to make sure that we're playing because I see it now for what it is. It is this season-long connection to my friends.

It keeps us in touch. And once, again, again, I've uttered this line and I'll say it again: like, once you see it, you can't unsee it. Same is true with betting. You brought up betting. Betting just gets us deeper into this stuff.

It gives us ways to talk about these things with our family, with our friends, with strangers on the street. My brother and I, again, he's in Colorado, where betting is legal. We started to lay bets every week. On the NFL? And now we Talk all week leading up to that.

Strategies. Strategies. What do we think? How are the lines moving? Then on the day of the games, we're following our bets, right?

All of a sudden, now I'm FaceTiming with my nephews as a result of that. All of this spawned from betting. And we have this conception of betting, this conception of sports fandom that can be kind of negative. Where what we want to do is flip the script and say, no, this is actually really positive.

So. David, the pandemic happens and sports goes back. It starts with the UFC and they start building from there. They said fans can't go, but the players can play, and there's all these protocols. What did you find?

And how did that play into this book? Yeah, so what we saw was. As sports fans, we were all excited for sports to come back. And our anticipation was ratings would go through the roof, that we're all locked in at home and we're all going to be watching every single game. You had NBA, NFL, baseball all going out at the same time.

That didn't happen. And As we kind of poked at what were the reasons driving that. It then dawned on us as kind of playing out the Theoria fans had more friends that the water cooler disappeared. We are still not back at work. We are still not back at our social settings.

So, you, you know, if I wanted to connect with you, or we're working together, and I, you know, I get to see you sometimes in getting coffee or whatever, and I know you're a Cowboys fan, I'm like, a tough loss yesterday. And we'd have an interaction as a result of that. And so, my incentive, if I want to get in good with you or just develop a relationship with somebody, it's not even as getting in good, is, well, I'm going to watch the Cowboys because I could talk to Brad about it. And I'm not seeing Brian now. Less incentive to watch the Cowboys.

Very interesting. And then you watch the game with the noise.

Sometimes you forget about it, but as soon as you saw the empty stands, you were sobered up. I mean, Tom Brady wins his last Super Bowl with nobody there at his home stadium virtually in Tampa. And you realize just how important that atmosphere is that the fans create on television, in the stadium. You know, it's a key component of the experience of going to a game, watching a game. All right.

It's called Fans Have More Friends. Ben Valenta and Dave Sikoriak have written it, longtime friends. Maybe they bonded on sports. You can too. Pick it up.

It's a way to maybe get yourself motivated, and they proved it with hard data. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Put the power of over 100 meteorologists and the worldwide resources of Fox in your hands with the Fox Weather Podcast.

Precise, personal, powerful. Subscribe and listen now at FoxNewsPodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts.