"Are the water and air safe?" Ohio residents ask; Biden finally speaks, kind of, on China's balloons

From Hyatt. Tom Fox News headquarters in New York City. Always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead. Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kill Me Show.

Admiral James Charvitas is standing by, and we have Jackie Heinrich at the bottom of the hour bringing us inside what's happening in Washington and what is not happening in Washington and what's not happening for the people of Ohio. and uh balloons were shooting out of the sky that belonged to hobby clubs. Uh let's get to the big three before I get to the Admiral.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. We don't yet know exactly what these three objects were. But nothing right now suggests they were related to China's spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country. Ugh.

Joe finally speaks, but he won't answer questions about the contents of his remarks on the balloon mania. Shows a clueless detachment because it's taken so long to speak to the country, leaving other people out there just to speculate.

Well, it turns out we have rid our skies of hobby balloons from 12-year-olds. What a relief. Number two. The White House says your trip here is a political stunt and that their border plan is working. What's your response?

You know what? If they would actually come here, they'd realize their border plan is not working. Finally, Henry Quayar gets some Democratic company at the border, and leader Hakeem Jeffries heads to Laredo one day after Speaker McCarthy, as you just heard, vows action and cites the president's ignorance as he talks from Arizona. Are Dems getting getting serious about the broken border or just pretending. Number one.

Budijek didn't step up. He didn't even issue any, even a tweet for the first 10 days after this happened. Look, if you can't step up, it's time to step down. Ohio Attorney General. Speaking out about Pete Buttuj, his transportation secretary.

It's about to explode. The Ohio town of East Palestine is losing patience with the speed of response and the lack of federal help after the toxic spill, courtesy of Norfolk Southern train derailment. Is the water safe? Is the air safe? Are the streams clean?

No one can say for sure, and a no-show transportation secretary almost always makes it worse if you don't show. Admiral, you know about leadership. You wrote books about leadership from great leaders from the past and present. You have to go. And you have to show people you care, even if you don't have an expertise in the area.

Don't you agree? I do. And I think that applies across the political spectrum and across all kinds of different instances. But yeah, think about President Bush after 9-11 standing on rubble piles in New York City. Think about Dwight Eisenhower on the front lines getting ready to launch the D-Day invasion.

Think about any leader in a moment of crisis, the first thing you want to do is you want to go and put eyes on the target. And I agree with the assessment that all of our officials ought to be thinking consciously about how they can physically be forward, last thought here, because that's also reassuring to people. And again, think back to 9-11 and think about how we felt as a country. And we were scared. But we saw our President step up and go to the uh the the absolute ground zero and talk to us from there.

I think that matters. Right. And you know what? President Bush would also tell you his one of his biggest regrets was flying over Katrina instead of getting out of the plane. And he said that the look of me looking out the window was something he tried desperately still to undo.

Yeah. And as you know, there are rational reasons sometimes where the supreme head of an organization. Is proscribed from getting right on the ground. And it could be a Katrina-like scenario where you're going to take resources away from the recovery efforts. Or when I was Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, people didn't expect me to go to the most distant outpost and pick up a gun.

But you try to get as far forward as you can. Today, I'm speaking In Washington, at the retirement ceremony, of a superb Army lieutenant colonel who's retiring Brian Kitching. And he ran one of our combat posts very far forward as a young captain. I went up to see him in those days. This was about a decade ago in Afghanistan.

I couldn't go further than that, but I felt. Being there and being with his troops and presenting them with medals and being forward really mattered. And now I'm proud to go and speak at his retirement ceremony later, too. And my last statement on this is: they always tell you, too, when you come up in sports. Get out of the studio, go to the locker room, go to the field.

It doesn't matter if you're going to get that sound on tape to see the guys interact or the women interact, to watch the way the coach responds on the field, to see how everyone responds to the coach leadership, to see the body language. There's something about being there.

So, you know, you have indeed. And I'll just pick up one other thread of that, which is the media who often get banged around by many of us. Um but when I go to Afghanistan or Syria or the Balkans or Libya or today in Ukraine, you know, uh a lot of us in the military there in our you know flak jackets and combat gear and we're surrounded and protected, but Standing right next to us is some reporter who is wearing a badly fitted, maybe bulletproof vest, got a helmet on, hopefully, and they got a cell phone, but they're there because they can see what's actually happening. I applaud that kind of courage out of our media when they go forward.

So it's been about one year since the Ukraine was invaded by Russia. I just laugh when people say, we should just call a peace treaty. Guys, you paying attention? One guy invaded the other, and you want to talk peace. And it just makes no sense.

It's just such short-term, shallow thinking, in my view. It's not even intellectual thinking. It's not even a point of view. It's laziness to say that. It is.

You've got to Understand how the actions of Putin invading that country will reverberate around the world if we let him get away from it. And so think about Asia. What is President Xi thinking as he watches Ukraine and he watches this invasion? If the West allows this, the next thing will be an attack on Taiwan. Or look at Iran and its aspirations to control much of the Arab world and gain control of all that oil and gas.

If we normalize that kind of behavior, we will pay the price In the future, and simply go back and look at the history of the world geopolitically in the years before World War II.

So here is with Jack Keene. We know that it looks like, and I might be mispronouncing this, but Bakhmut. It looks like Putin, it's important for Putin to take that by the anniversary date. I asked Jack Keene that an hour ago, cut 35. Why are the Ukrainians staying in the fight?

Because the Russians are taking such significant casualties. This begins to set up the Ukrainians for a successful counteroffensive that they're planning to do in the early spring. The rain's going to come late March, April. Likely, we'll see them moving forward in the May-June timeframe. What they're also waiting for, the condition of the weather is a factor, but they would have started earlier if they had received the advanced weapons that they requested.

Hopefully, those weapons get there as soon as possible because they want to integrate them into their offensive, and it'll be an important and decisive part of their offensive. Let alone the Patriot missiles, which I imagine the training is progressing because yesterday they were besieged by infrastructure bombing. I think it's, I thought they were coming from the Caspian Sea. Your thoughts? As always, General Jack is spot on.

And the key is going to be getting that heavy armor into the Ukrainians quickly, getting them trained on it. And of course, that training, just like the Patriot Battery training that you mentioned, that training is already being conducted and is being conducted in Germany, by the U. S. and by other NATO allies.

So We gotta marry up. The equipment and trained Ukrainians, if we put that together, I think Jack's timeline is about right, which is late March, early April. That would give the Ukrainians the ability, Brian, to drive from where they are in the south-central part of that line, drive to the Black Sea. And that would crack. The supply lines for the Russians.

It would undo their ability to resupply Crimea, which they regard as the crown jewel. Be highly demoralizing. And above all, it would divide those forces and allow the Ukrainians to flank. The Russians, both to the north and south, potentially big casino, a lot is coming together in a hopefully a very strong Ukrainian spring offensive. Can they do that without the F-16s that they want?

That's the million-dollar question, in my view. I think anyone, any Army officer like Jack Keene or Dave Petraeus, or any of the others, would tell you. Tanks are great, armored personnel carriers are great, but boy, if you don't have control of the sky. you've got a challenge.

So I for one, and you know this, have been talking for a year about Getting the Ukrainians more fighter aircraft that can do that air to ground mission, MiG-29s from Poland, F-16s. I think we've been too incremental here. We're going to be training F-16 pilots right now. Those jets are available. They're in huge numbers.

I think that could be a significant part of the spring offensive. And lastly, with China, do you think we should have a pull-up in Munich? And if so, what do you think should be so said to them? There should be a pull aside. And what we ought to be saying to China is, look, this balloon mania, you called it in your run up, and I agree with that, is not good for either country.

It puts us in a position where we could have a provocative incident something could spiral out of control. We are not flying balloons over China. don't you think about flying balloons over the sovereign airspace of the United States. That is what the Poliside ought to be. And by the way, Secretary of State Tony Blinken is there.

Hopefully, he'll meet with his counterpart, Yang Li, and they will have that conversation. Admiral, thanks so much for the time. I know you have a busy day. Appreciate it. Thanks, Brian.

I'll pass your regards to my Lieutenant Colonel, who's retiring. I know how strongly you support our military. Everyone appreciates that. Thank you for saying that. I always do.

And it's going to be a big day.

Meanwhile, always pick up the thanks so much, Admiral.

Meanwhile, pick up the Admiral's latest book, The Sailor's Bookshelf, 50 Books to Know the Sea, and 2034, a novel of the next world war, which sadly might go into the nonfiction side on your bookstore. It's fiction right now, but it's a war against China. When we come back, I'll take your calls: 1-866-408-7669. A lot to discuss, including 2024, some of the brawling that's going on against Nikki Haley on The View and on CNN. I think it only helps her.

Brian, kill me, show. Don't move. Giving you everything you need to know. You're with Brian Kilmead. Listen to the all-new Brett Baer podcast, featuring common ground, in-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, along with all your Brett Baer favorites like his all-star panel and much more.

Available now at FoxnewsPodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. From the Fox News Podcasts Network. I'm Ben Dominich, Fox News contributor and editor of the Transom.com daily newsletter. And I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week. It's the Ben Dominich Podcast.

Subscribe and listen now by going to FoxNewsPodcasts.com. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Kilmead. He was very underestimated. He's accomplished more than any modern president.

Is that fair to say? In two years? Yes. Yes. I think legislatively, you'd have to go back to LBJ.

In terms of his ability to perform, did you see his State of the Union? Like, who's making his age an issue? I'd like to know what evidence they have that his age is an issue. Is is is she kidding? I mean we just had to play that.

I couldn't I heard she said it. and now to hear it What indications are of an age and issue? He never knows how to exit a stage. I watched him slur his way through a speech yesterday. I said it out loud.

I'm not sure if I said this out loud or not on the show, but it's as if he speaks in cursive writing where one word just links to the next. Never knows what he's saying. And because he stuck around and shook hands with people, that means he's been around after the State of the Union address. A lot of the State of the Union address he swallowed too. I mean, the guy's awful.

He gives no interviews. He gets himself into trouble because he's gets off script. Basically, Anderson Cooper had to give him he says hello to dead people. He wants to know where a congresswoman is who passed away in an audience. My goodness I mean, it's unbelievable what a vacuum these people are in.

Do you know anybody not questioning? The age of Joe Biden, only thirty seven percent of the country want him to run again because of his age. Not his chronological age, but the way he acts. I mean, and by the way, everything that passed Nothing to do with him. None of this is his legislation.

It's all the Senate. Democratic House, Democratic Senate, simple majority because they use reconciliation, because they got infrastructure, they got twelve, they got twelve senators. He did nothing on that. In fact, he almost blew up the infrastructure deal when he said it had to be linked to his Build Back Better plan.

So, I mean Go ahead. Good luck with this. You continue to tell people that. He shows no indication of aging. And you just lose credibility by the day.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned, thirty seven percent of the country, thirty seven percent of the Democrats think he shouldn't run again have real reservations. I don't know who they would run if not him.

So that would be the issue. Big story this week was Nikki Haley. Nikki Haley comes out and she says, I'm going to run. And next thing you know, Whoopi Goldberg is offended by this. She goes after him.

And then she brought up that there should be a copy test for anybody running for office after 75. Donald Trump is 76 and the president's 80. He's going to be 82 by the time we're ready to run. Listen to this exchange. Don Lemon is upset that Nikki Haley was talking about the president's age.

Listen to the idiocy here. Cut 27. I think that. I think it's the wrong road to go down. She says people, you know, politicians or something are not in their prime.

Nikki Haley isn't in her prime.

Sorry. When a woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s. That's not according to me. Prime for what? It depends.

It's just like prime. If you look it up, if you Google when is a woman in her prime, it'll say 20s, 30s and 40s. I don't know. I'm not saying I agree with that.

So I think she has to be careful.

So, obviously, I just listening to that, you say, listen, I said some things that I want back I didn't make clear, but this guy went out of his way to Google it and make this point that she's not in her prime at 52 years old. And she says, Well, you got to not alienate people 80 and over. How about for viewers, try not to alienate women who are over 50? That might be a good idea just for self-preservation.

So, a little bit later, he apologized. He kind of walked it back a little, said he was in an artful statement. And then this morning, this COC28. Poppy is at NBA All-Stars Weekend. It is going to be so good.

We have so many good moments from that, including that full interview there. Good morning, everyone. Audi Kordesh is here at the desk with us this morning. Dawn has the day off. Poppy, as you can see, is in Utah for the NBA All-Star game.

Yep, let's just float right through that.

So Don Lemon came out later and said the reference I made to women's prime this morning was inartful and irrelevant, as colleagues and loved ones have pointed out. And I regret it. A woman's age doesn't define her either personally or professionally. I have countless women in my life and prove that every day. Nikki Haley wrote, To be clear, I am not calling for a competency test for sexists, middle-aged CNN anchors, only for people who make our laws and are seventy five plus.

Uh so there you go. And I'm not calling for anyone to be fired almost ever. That's nothing, it's not my job. But I do wonder if he wants to get fired, hates the morning show.

Some people hate the morning show, so maybe he wants to get paid out, so maybe he'll just do things to prove over and over again as a belong on the morning show.

So Uh So we'll talk about that. And now he's on the cover of The New York Post. My hope is that all these idiotic statements that he makes and rude ways in which he acts with his coworkers are not getting him ratings. That's what I worry about. Did you see the cover of the New York Post?

They're all three of them on the cover of the New York Post. And then I'm watching even Jesse Waters say, I'm not going to watch Fox and Friends. I got to watch these guys. No, I mean watch another train wreck after we're done, after we're off, please. Thank you.

It's not as if They're interesting and combustible, liberal versus Republican. It's just one guy being rude to his coworkers. That's it, and to his viewers. That's all. Jackie Heinrich will bring us into the president's speech yesterday, where he's not showing any age.

Jackie Heinrich will talk about balloons and the hobby club that had their balloon blown up by the Biden administration. Yeah, you're old $11. Download Fox News Channel's The Five Podcasts for free. Five of your favorite Fox News personalities discuss current issues in a roundtable discussion. Get it now on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and FoxNewsPodcasts.com.

Information you want, truth you demand. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. We don't yet know exactly what these three objects were. But nothing right now suggests they were related to China's spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles. from any other country.

The intelligence community's current assessment Is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies? Recreation or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research.

So Well, I'm listening to this, and I knew this was going to be a little bad, that it wasn't necessarily China, and the fact that they can't. Recover the wreckage of the three other balloons was going to be an issue. But I did not think the FBI would have to reach out to a balloon, to a hobby club. That flies balloons. And nor did I think we would be using.

A Sidewander missile to take out a $12 balloon. Jackie Heinrich probably didn't either. Jackie, you're a Fox News White House correspondent, but I bet you never thought I'd introduce you that way. I sure didn't, but I did kind of love it, Brian. I mean, this is unbelievable.

It might be recreational. I was writing, I know a couple of fighter pilots. I wrote one of them, and they said, you know, when you're over a target in Iraq and you think there's civilians there, you can defy a command. I mean, I'm just wondering, as an Air Force pilot, when you see a balloon that obviously is a hobby balloon, Do you still s do you still send a Sidewinder missile?

Well I mean, I think two things about that. I mean, these pilots, they're flying at like 500 miles an hour toward an object that's basically stationary.

So their ability to determine that it was unmanned, we are supposed to believe. But if they have an order to shoot it down, and they're not able to say definitively what the thing is dangling below it, could it be harboring something dangerous? Could it be a chemical? Don't know.

So I guess we sort of have to take at face value what we're being told about all this. But I do think that what this shows is that the three objects that were shot down You know, we're a political response to pressure from having not let, having not shot down the spy balloon until it crossed over the entire continental US. Um You know, I learned some interesting facts this week about the Chinese spy balloon's path that sort of colors it in a different way in my mind at least, because we're all saying, you know, Joe Biden, why didn't you shoot it down, you know, the second that we saw it? And we learned that actually the military was tracking it after it left off from Hainan Island province on January 21st. And then it looked like it was going to go toward Guam.

We know about these programs. We watch Hainan Island because they have large Chinese military bases there. And we'd see these balloons go places all the time. I think you've heard on the record from officials that they've been to like 40 countries, over five continents, et cetera, et cetera.

So the military is watching it as it's coming toward Guam, and they assess at this time that they have no intention of shooting it down. And they want to. collect intelligence against it. The president doesn't find out about this until it's approaching Alaska on January 31st.

So, for 10 days, the military is making all the decisions around how to deal with this balloon. And the day Joe Biden hears about it, he orders it shot down. But the military's assessment is that you shouldn't do it over land. It was already coming into Alaska at that point. And then there are also questions about, you know, we don't know exactly its path, but we know that at times where it was not over U.S.

waters, we wouldn't have had the authority to shoot it down if it was in an international space.

So I think those details are a little bit more illuminating than what we knew before, but it's clear here that Biden shot down these three new objects because the pressure got to him. You know, that people were saying you're weak on China. Look at this signal that, you know, they've got a key to our back door and we don't shoot them until they're coming out the front. And I I think he responded to that and and shot down a hobby balloon in the making. But how about this?

The FBI contacted the hobby club, and I just said that sentence that Peter Ducey said this morning. I go, I can't believe we're talking about this. And the hobby club said they repeatedly tried to reach out to the Pentagon and said, I think you shot our balloon, and they couldn't get a response.

So don't feel bad, Jackie. We can't get a response either. Wild.

So do I.

So, a couple of things. How does that play in? And I'm asking just would you just piece this together if we kind of think through this. How does that play into the fact that they said that three times at least a balloon went into our airspace during the Trump years, and they were immediately able to come up with that fact? They obviously didn't send it up the chain to the CIA director, turned Secretary of State, turned Robert O'Brien was chief of staff, John Bolton was national security, not chief of staff, was two National Security Advisors.

Nobody I talked to on or off radio and television. No one knows.

So, again, is that okay that That the Pentagon was doing their own thing, and are we really to believe that Joe Biden upped the sensitivity to balloon surveillance once he took office? You know It's it's What seems clear is that the military has a lot of sort of purview over what actions we do or don't take, or at what level we let the president know about it. You know, I'm not a military expert, so I can't say, you know, what those reasons are or give you examples of, you know, what were this important in the past? I will say, you know, Joe Biden ignored the advice of his military advisors on the Afghanistan withdrawal. We all saw how that happened.

He apparently took the advice in this case. But I think what is also interesting here is now you have NORAD, you know, having a greater authority to exercise the ability to make calls on whether to take action on these things. Because I remember the first spy balloon, we're all talking about why Joe Biden didn't shoot it down. And they were like, well, what about Canada? Like, they didn't shoot it down either.

And the NORAD commander did a press conference and said, look, I had deemed this not a threat militarily or physically. And so therefore, I could not take any action. And it seems like that. Protocol has changed. Where now maybe they do have the authority to take something out.

What we don't know is how what policies and what protocols have shifted in light of all this, or if they're all doing it ad hoc. You know, we're supposed to be hearing from, or we're going to hear from the National Security Advisor this week about how we're going to deal with these things in the future. But we learned yesterday that we're apparently not going to get that information. It's going to go, it's going to stay classified. And their reason for that is that they don't want our adversaries to be able to evade it.

But I mean, I think that we all kind of deserve some answers on: well, are we going to be shooting things out of the sky on a regular basis, or should we pay attention when we are using a sidewinder missile and an F-16 or whatever it was and wonder if there's a threat there? I mean, we all kind of were wondering if. we have to be worried about something happening unusual in our skies. And we were told no, but also what in the future? How are we supposed to look at this in the future if something like this happens again?

So And by the way, the the group to look out for, if you live in this neighborhood, just be aware, they're called the Bottle Cap Balloon Brigade.

So again, their trouble. I've always said this. I know. Look out. They're at 40,000 feet, and this 12-year-old, by the way, they're disappointed.

They want their balloon back.

Well, this is the best ad. That the bottle cap balloon brigade has ever gotten in their lives. Yes, up until this point, yes. Correct. I think they might have done a local story.

But, Jackie, now, a couple of things. Yeah. Our relations with China, the fact that the Vice President and President both said the same thing, we don't consider that balloon over our airspace, first time it's been breached in 60 years, a major infraction, if I could just paraphrase their feelings. It's not a big deal. And the president basically said, I can't see President Xi doing something that would jeopardize our relationship like that.

If I talk to Josh Rogan, somebody who prides himself on his context and analysis of China, he can't believe it. He says this is absolutely a breach, and anything except a stern retort shows weakness. I mean, I think it it's clearly a major breach. And it's clearly going to need to be communicated with strength back to Beijing. I think that what we're seeing play out, aside from these.

comments from the President and the Vice President, which You look at these foreign diploma diplomats all the time. You're supposed to read between the lines and get with the message is. I think a lot of people, regular people, would like to just hear them speak. Straight about it. But that's sort of par for the course, and what you hear from State Department types and executive branch.

But I think what we're watching is. U.S. did sanction six Chinese entities that they've known for a long time are supporting the Chinese military's surveillance and reconnaissance abilities through their balloon and airship programs. And I asked my sources, I was like, did we identify these companies based on the debris that we pulled up from the bottom of the ocean in South Carolina, or do we already know about them? They're like, well, we already knew about them.

I was like, so why don't we act sooner to enact sanctions? And I was told that. Their balloons in the past had not been over our airspace for long enough to be considered a major threat. They didn't collect anything. And so they wanted, they thought it was more in our interest to let it continue and watch them.

And then we saw when we did take that action to blacklist them, almost immediately China enacts sanctions against Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.

So we're in a bit of a tit for tat sanctions war, never mind the fact that Beijing's not taking our calls. He the foreign was it the foreign minister or the defin the defense minister refused to talk to us Secretary of Defense Bloyd Austin.

So I don't think that we can take at face value what Kamala Harris or Joe Biden is saying about where things stand in our relationship with China. Clearly, we are on thin ice. And I think that with respect to Taiwan and everything that we're going to be watching for over the next couple of years, given the warnings that we've heard about their intentions there, it's a very important context and it should not be downplayed. Yeah, I want you to hear.

So, yesterday, the president gives his speech. I want to get your take on that. And this is how it ended, Cut 23. There's been criticism that this wasn't there's been criticism that this By your family's distance relationship, sir. Mr.

President, Mr. President, there has been criticism. Did you overrate? Mr. President, there has been criticism that this was an overreaction that was done because of political pressure.

Mm-hmm. It was odd. He walked away. He hears the yelling. He just saunters back.

And then s and then ignores the family question and then tells Peter Alexander to call him later. And he ended up calling the NBC reporter. What's your were you in that, Jackie? I was. I was in the room.

So it was, honestly, if I can be totally frank, it was not a great moment for our press corps because we are all clamoring for answers from the president. He seemed like he wanted to answer. He was engaged with Peter Alexander, trying to listen to what he was saying. He was trying to take Peter Alexander's question. But the folks on the other side of the aisle would not stop shouting long enough for him to respond to Peter, to hear his full question and respond.

He did catch. Steve Nelson from the New York Post making that, you know, delivering that question about his. Family business dealings and whether there's any nexus with China, he scoffed at that. And then I think at that point, he was like, you know what, I'm just gonna. Try again with Peter, which he did for a moment, but then he really couldn't hear him and he walked out.

I was happy to hear that he called Peter to answer the question, but as a journalist, we're all in there. Trying to get him to answer questions, it would be great if he would take more questions from the press so that we wouldn't be, you know. brambling to try to get answers with such Fearer whenever he does look inclined to take one or two. But we were disappointed that we couldn't hear that at that moment. We had to wait several hours to hear what he said to Peter Alexander.

And I was like waiting on what the headline was because I needed to know for my script that night.

So I think that he's going to, for 2024, really need to start doing more interviews, really need to, you know, to do some more QAs. You did see Harris, interestingly enough, do that Politico interview by phone. I think it's the first interview I've seen out of her in quite a long time. And so maybe they're gearing up for this 2024 stuff and taking a different approach, but we'll see. I mean, Anita Dunn is still there and she doesn't think that media matters.

So. Yeah, she's amazingly arrogant, my view.

So. Quick, quick thing. Was that you that that wasn't you that yelled out the Hunter Biden question?

So, who else is interested in that storyline? That was the New York Post. That was Steve Nelson from the New York Post. I was trying to ask about, I mean, we had heard that the Chinese spy balloon had a self-destruct device on it. And so what we've been hearing all along is that it was not safe to take it out over land.

Well, if that's true and there's a self-destruct device, How was it safe to let it cross land? I mean, I think that we just need to get better answers on that. Point and It would change. how we view everything that we've heard so far. And we still don't have the answer to that.

And I just don't no one who lives in Montana From Ryan Zinke to Senator Daines to the Governor. Think that not blowing up, it was too risky to blow it up over Montana. They lived there and they said you might hit a caribou.

So there's so much open space outside billings that you could not have hit anything.

So, I don't no one buys that. Just stick to a story. Say you wanted to surveil it and then let me see if you're telling the truth. But when you say I'm afraid of hurting somebody in Montana, that is not accurate. I mean, it's just not accurate, but it must be frustrating.

I'm on the outside. And for you to sit in that room and have so many questions and then See the press secretary. I have two points of view. I mean, I'm not sure if she's being briefed or not. Do you think she's being briefed to not talking, or do you think she just doesn't know?

Well On the balloon, I think she probably knows some things. She probably has the information. You know, whether she's allowed to disclose it or not, I don't know. I think that that's why she rolls out John Kirby when we know that all of our questions are going to be balloon related because he's just, you know, came from the Pentagon, you know, better equipped to probably take those questions. But on other Topics like with the classified documents.

I'm not so sure that she has information right now. I think that there may be some direction of information flowing through the White House. Exactly. Yeah, I'm up against the break, but you're doing a great job. I can't thank you enough for coming on.

Appreciate it. Thank Brian. You got it. Jackie Heinrich from the White House. Your calls next.

Brian, Kill Me Chill. Newsmakers and newsbreakers, hear it first on the Brian Killmeat Show. From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Killmead. Honestly, you guys, we've tasted your cookies. We think you have one of the best products on earth.

We gotta get these things in stores. Oh, no stores. You don't wanna do stores at all. The number one most hated form of sales, door-to-door solicitation. You wanna use that?

As your primary method.

Okay, so you're just gonna send out a bunch of informed, trained, professional salespeople. Oh, ten year olds.

So the girls are just gonna go around with the cookies and sell them. Oh, no, they don't bring the cookies.

So they sell the they just take orders and then they deliver them Three months later, like when everyone has forgotten how much they ordered? What if one of your potential customers? Uh, I don't know, isn't home that day. Oh, just wait till next year?

Okay, great.

So that is the Girl Scout cookie method of sales. According to John Chris, we probably should have set it up. It would have been funnier if you were listening, knowing he was talking about Girl Scout cookies. But yes, he has two parts of it. It's.

Very entertaining. It is crazy, right? Because you order it, you totally forget, and then you never have the money. Back then you had to give checks.

So you think, do you no one has that type?

So or you forget how many you order. By the way, Girl Scouts should be buying their own private jets by now. How much money do they have? And they never sell 'em. The parents all sell 'em.

That's true. Right? It is, and everyone feels guilty. What they do do, which is good, is that you can donate boxes to the troops now, which is a nice option. Right.

But just keep in mind, they're good, but they're not good for you. It's not like you're selling carrots and powdered. But who's going to buy? Kara is more likely to buy cookie. Right.

I still don't know where the money goes. They wear the same uniforms every day. They haven't changed since the 50s. Where's Only Girl Scout brethren? They need a new designer.

From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show. Brian. In Kill Mead. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kill Me Show.

Steven Drum at the bottom of the hour. He's a 27-year military veteran, Navy SEAL Master Chief. He's got a great book coming out shortly: Life on the X, and Navy SEAL's Guide to Meeting Any Challenge with Courage, Confidence, and Readiness.

So, we all got to learn that. Howie Kurtz is standing by, a lot to talk about in Media and Beyond. He's got his Media Buzz show coming out it's Sunday at 11 o'clock Eastern Time. But before we get anywhere, as I come to you from 486 in Midtown Manhattan, let's get to our 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. We don't yet know exactly what these three objects were.

But nothing right now suggests they were related to China's spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country. Yep, there you go. Joe finally speaks, but he won't answer questions in the contents of his remarks to leave a lot of questions to be answered as we find out that recreational balloons could have been the target of those other three balloons that we shot down, one of which looks like it's from a hobby club that cost $11. We have a lot of questions. Number two.

The White House says your trip here is a political stunt and that their border plan is working. What's your response? You know what? If they would actually come here, they'd realize their border plan is not working. Of course not.

Finally, Henry Quear gets some Democratic company on the border as Akeem Jeffries goes down to Laredo one day after Speaker McCarthy vows action incites the president's ignorance. Are Democrats getting serious about the broken border or just pretending? Number one. Budicek didn't step up. He didn't even issue any even a tweet for the first ten days after this happened.

Look, if you can't step up, it's time to step down. All right, and that was an easy thing to do, David Yost. About to explode. The Ohio town of East Palestine is losing patience with the speed and response or lack thereof of federal help. Where is the Transportation Secretary?

Why did it take so two weeks for the EPA director to come down? We'll talk about all that with Howie Kurtz. Howie, welcome. Thanks, Brian. Hey, first off, I'm just amazed that this Republican governor is giving the federal government a pass.

Now, I understand because of the Stafford Act, they don't qualify for FEMA. I like to see that challenged. Maybe you want to do that aggressively. But having said that, two weeks to have the EPA come down. We still haven't seen the Transportation Secretary.

And you have a Republican governor who says everything's going fine.

Well, I guess it's trying to maintain good relations with the administration because this is an absolute toxic disaster. And the fact that it's taken so long, you know, certain things may be going on behind the scenes. The fact that it's taken so long for top administration officials to go there and to show people who are afraid to drink the water because of this train derailment that the government is on the job, I think is disgraceful. You know, a lot of political leadership is showing up. It's almost analogous to Biden waiting so long to address the UFO situation.

And so, and Pete Buttigieg, I read a quote where he said, well, this is one of a thousand cases that we have to deal with, but this is one of the most serious environmental accidents that I've seen in quite a while. I mean, for example, there are situations that pop up that you're going to make a decision and some people won't like it. And you know what? Sometimes the decision is wrong. But if you're going to run for president, You want to lead.

You want this opportunity this is why you run So, why run from making a decision? Why run from the press? It's counterintuitive to why you want the job, I think.

Well, I'm sure Pete Buttigieg would like to run, but there's a guy who already holds the job that he probably has to defer to. First of all, Brian. But he could show up. He could show up and show great leadership. Just like the vice president could show that she has presidential timber, but she doesn't.

Absolutely positively. You know, this first came on my radar because a reporter for News Nation was roughed up and jailed by the local police because he was doing a stand-up covering Governor Mike DeWine's press conference about a week ago. And it was just a horrible footage where you saw him getting dragged down to the ground, and then the cops tried to blame it on him.

Well, charges were quickly dropped, and the whole thing was just a freaking outrage. And Governor DeWine was smart enough to say, Look, this reporter was doing his job. I think this was a mistake. But that hasn't translated, I think. You know, I think that the national media were a little slow on this in the beginning.

You know, it's a local story, sometime in Ohio we never heard of, but certainly it's become a big national story since then. And also, the mixed messages, too. And now we have Troy Nails of Texas Republican getting on J.D. Vance because J.D. Vance says, I don't care what anyone says, get bottom of water.

Here's J.D. Vance. Cut eight. What he said as I understood it is the water readings so far look encouraging, but I would still encourage people to drink the bottled water. I think my attitude on this is always better safe than sorry.

The bottled water is accessible as I understand it.

Okay, that's good advice. You feel like you're one of the community? What would I do for my family? That's what he'd do. But the congressman from Texas feels differently, cut nine.

I don't see how that would help the situation. I almost would say that's irresponsible. I mean, you have access to bottled water. I'm fine. I mean, that's fine.

But the point is, if the water is safe through the water treatment facility, Why wouldn't you encourage your residents to use that water? I mean, I just don't see the benefit of that. It's our local officials with the state. have shown that the water is safe to drink, I just drank some. Right.

You could say that. But the governor said, I would drink bottled water. And he's in the safety drink.

So these are Republican or Republican. It's not encouraging. You know, I mean, of course, they want to make sure nobody gets sick. But look, the mere fact that the waterways in the area have been contaminated by the toxic chemicals that were on this train, it's not a two-week thing when you drink bottled water. Think about the environmental impact months from now or a year from now.

I mean, people are going to get sick. I think we need more answers and more aggressive investigation of how this happened. And what about holding the train company responsible? Yeah, and by the way, Pete Butterjudge, is this supposed to be an audition for him to be the future of the party? How's he doing, Howie?

Well, he's had a couple of problems lately. Also, you know, with the Southwest Airlines meltdown, where, you know, you can't blame everything on government, but certainly he didn't seem to be in charge. He's obviously a smart guy, but I think right now, with a lot of problems exploding that are in his area, and you know, the Transportation Secretary does have to clear whatever he does of the White House, but still, they've got a guy who's very good on TV, who's telegenic. I don't see why he hasn't been out there on both of these things. There have also been some near-misses with airplanes.

I mean, Butta Judge is not exactly killing it right now. And also, remember the grounding of every single airline across the country for the first time since 9-11? That happened on his watch. It turns out the system is antiquated, had a few hours to get it done, blamed somebody else. And then yesterday, he's out there blaming the Trump administration for a ruling on air brakes.

And I'm thinking to myself, every leadership book is just. The opposite of that. I mean, if you want to go deep into an interview 17 minutes in, saying, by the way, it would have helped if these guys could use the old braking system, I understand that. But for that to be your lead, I don't get it. To blame the guy who was there before is a pretty tried and true tactic, and I don't think it's working, and I don't think it's a good.

Image for Buddha Judge. I mean, maybe somebody told him to say it, but he's got a, he should be holding press conferences every day and at least assuring the people in that part of Ohio and the country, because this is becoming such a national story, that the government is, in fact, doing everything it can to investigate this, to clean up the area, and to hold those responsible accountable. It just reminds me, when Marie Giuliani took over, he used to ride around in cop cars and sometimes in unmarked cars just to see the crime in 42nd Street. He wanted to see it for himself. He would make these people accountable, make sure these roads are being cleaned up, make the trash was being done.

There's something, you know, it in reporting, and especially in sports, go to the locker room, go to the practice. I don't know what you're going to see, but if you're going to comment on it, you've got to go. There's the first thing they tell you in sports radio, you got to go meet the guys, even if they hate you. You got to see how the coaches act. See who's late for practice.

See the body language. See who talks to the press, who doesn't. Who wants out and who doesn't? Who's always around the trainers and who's always around his agent? The only thing you can do is go to the locker room.

The same thing with these stories. If you want to go cover it, you have to walk the blocks, find out what people are complaining about. And that's what I thought J.D. Vance did yesterday. But if I can also use your expertise on 2024, Nikki Haley rolls out her campaign, I thought impressively.

And I think two things happened. She was attacked by Whoopee Goldberg, and she was attacked by Don Lemon because she said there should be a copy test for any candidate over 75. Listen to this exchange, Cut 27. I think that. I think it's the wrong road to go down.

She says people, you know, politicians or something are not in their prime. Nikki Haley isn't in her prime.

Sorry. When a woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s. What do you talk about? That's not according to me. Prime for what?

It depends. It's just like prime. If you look it up, if you Google when is a woman in her prime, it'll say 20s, 30s, and 40s. I don't know if it's a little bit. I'm not saying I agree with that.

So I think she has to be careful.

I mean, he had to walk it back. He said it was an artful response to his comments. One of the dumbest things that Don Lemon has ever said, and he's not on the air today for that reason, his female co-host couldn't believe it. And, you know, I kind of predicted this because a few days ago, I started to see Lemon. You remember they took him off prime time where he was a Trump-hating liberal and said, oh, no, he's now going to be just a sparkly morning host guy.

But the ratings of that show are awful. It's not gotten off to a good start. And I started to see him attacking Republicans and reverting back to his liberal self. And I don't know if he was encouraged to do that or they're just trying to get some numbers up. But then he really steps in it with this.

You know, Nikki Haley's 51 years old. That is absolutely the prime of life for any politician, female or male. Right. Is he trying to get fired, Howie? What do you think?

I mean, going after repeatedly going after his co-anchors, knowing that there's heat on him already. Have we seen anything like this before? I don't know what the motive is. I mean, he went after the New York Post saying it's not a credible source on the whole business about the Hunter Biden laptop, even though CNN itself has authenticated the laptop. Of course, that was a year and a half later, along with the New York Times, Washington Post, et cetera.

So I don't know what Don Lem is up to, but I don't think it's going to help that morning show one bit. I mean, controversy is good to a point, but not when you're having to apologize for what you said. All right. The other thing is, I have a job between six and nine, so I wasn't able to hear this live. But Miko Brzezinski was talking about age.

And she was talking about Joe Biden. And I just want you to listen to this and tell me what you think. He was very underestimated. He's accomplished more than any modern president. Is that fair to say?

In two years? Yes. Yes. Legislatively, you'd have to go back to LBJ. In terms of his ability to perform, did you see his State of the Union?

Like, who's making his age an issue? I'd like to know what evidence they have that his age is an issue. I'm not sure who's making his age an issue. All the Democrats who don't want him to run again. Politico had a big piece interviewing, mostly off the record, these governors and senior senators saying everybody here doesn't want him to run again.

We love Joe Biden. We think he did a good job, but he's going to be 86 at the end of his second term. The roughly 60% of Democrats, this is Democrats and Democratic leaders in polls, who say they don't want him to run again. You can debate whether he's done a good job or a bad job, but he can't change his age. The guy he wants to run again, of course, Brian, is Donald Trump because he's only a few years younger.

If Biden ends up running against a younger generation Republican, I think that's a tough. Tough, tough challenge for him. Right. I just have to suspend logic to think that his age hasn't been an issue. You see the way he speaks, the way he gets lost sometimes walking in on and off stage, calling for congresspeople that are no longer living, ask if they were there.

I mean, for you could say that I love the guy, but you can't say that he hasn't lost his fastball when you compare it even to when he was vice president. I I mean she really seemed shocked by that. I've known Joe Biden for 35 years. He's always been a gaffe machine and not a great public speaker, but clearly he does get confused. He's 80.

It's amazing what he's doing at 80. He just had a pretty good physical, according to what the White House is telling us. But you can argue it either way, but to say that it's not an issue when polls are ⁇ I mean, it's pretty incredible. Biden was sort of riding high after the midterms, and then he had the problem with the classified documents, and then he had the problem with the Chinese spy balloon. And it's just...

pretty evident that most of his party would prefer someone else. The problem is, as you know, they don't want Kamala Harris. They don't think she's capable of running a successful presidential campaign. And the Democrats don't have much of a bench. Howie, who's going to be on your show this weekend?

Well, we're still working on that, but we are going to spend a lot of time on why Biden spent so long to speak out. Even if he didn't have much to say, people want to see the commander-in-chief. They want to see some semblance of leadership. And he was really pushed into it, I think, by a lot of the commentary. Thank you for plugging the show.

Absolutely. Are you kidding? Media Buzz, it's a must-watch. Howie Kurtz, thanks so much. Absolutely.

Just ask. Howie Kurtz, thank you.

Meanwhile, when we come back, I open up the phones: 1-866-408-7669. And then we have Steve Drum. We'll go inside the Ukraine War and Our Wars. Don't move. Learning something new every day on the Brian Killmead Show.

A talk show that's real. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. How has this chemical contamination impacted your life? It's been absolutely terrible. It's uproaded me and my six children.

It's making me move out of my house. People don't know whether we're safe to drink the water. They're saying yes, but then we've got fish kills everywhere. I worry because I have a well, so I worry in six months, you know, what could happen to my water. What have you noticed about the environment since this has happened?

It's dirty. There's a lot of dust flying around. That crick is dead. There is not a dead, there's not a fish in there. There's not a newt.

There's not a salamander. There's no frogs, dead snakes. I don't know where the birds all went, but there's. We don't see any birds in our place. Let's go out to James W L A D.

That, of course, is Palestine, Ohio, and these people don't know what hit them, and they're getting very few answers. Hey, James. Hey, thank you. Yeah, there is this question that is completely unresolved. And from what anything I can find, we know that the rule that the Trump administration reversed about electronic control breaks, that may have been a misguided move.

But my question, as a Democrat, is: well, why wasn't the rule reinstated by the Biden administration? What I read is that Buttigieg says they're constrained by law. I'd like to understand this better, and I think it's. Really important to ask the question: like, if there's an economic calculation being made, where does the train industry in this particular company stand in terms of their profits? And it sounds like these.

brakes should be standard. That's uh what I wanted to say. And I think that this is one of those issues where politically, left and right, let's get this right, because it's any kind of derailment like that, if we have safety features we can put in, let's get it done. How about the fact that it's a thousand derailments a year? I had no idea.

We're still wrestling with how to work trains. Yeah. And by the way, James, no indication this happened by braking. It's an axle broke.

So I would Yeah, I mean, so we can find out the cause, then find out their action, then find out why they're doing hazardous material and didn't label it as such.

So, and then find out where the air experts are. The company is testing the air. I'm not comfortable with that. And the state. All right, but the federal government is down there testing the air.

Well, yeah, they're coming. They're coming. The EPA director is coming. Yeah, one day, yesterday, gone. He went to one creek and one house.

Todd, listen, WIBX, real quick, Todd. Hi, thanks, Brian. I was just saying, I heard your sound bite there with not a frog, not a new. You know, I'm not a salamander, but it's wintertime. You're not going to see those animals anyway.

And I'm not taking anything. We saw some dead ones. But I know what you mean. Yeah, I know. I mean, I'm not talking about anything.

Kind of take anything away, but also the ground is cold, it's going to take a longer time so that to for the wet for it to get into the wells.

So they're going to hurry up and test the well to get the clean. Clean reading, and in all actuality, it's going to take a lot longer for it to get down there. That's why the crick is dying because everything's running off into the crick instead of going into the ground. Great point. Great point.

But there is, I'm looking at dead fish. Dead frogs.

So I know what you mean. They're not as plentiful, they're not as apparent, they're not everywhere. Oh, they are dead. The ones we saw. I'm pretty sure I can pick out a dead frog.

But you never know. Steven Drum next, talk about the war. It's one year since Ukraine. A radio show like no other. It's Brian Killmead.

The resolve of the Ukrainian people is remarkable. They are steadfast and they are still in this, despite the obvious casualties and suffering that the Russians are imposing on. Those air defense systems that we're talking about are absolutely crucial.

Some of the Ukrainian air defense systems cannot deal with the sophistication of some of the missiles.

So, yes, patriot systems and other systems like that, which the Ukrainians began asking for last year, are vital to keeping that suffering down and certainly casualties down to their own people. That is General Jack Keene talking about one year into this war, how Ukraine is holding on and might be poised to take back a lot of territory. They've taken back over 50% of what they lost initially. And let's see what can happen because the Russians are putting about 200,000 more troops into the fray. A man joining me now is no stranger to war, 27-year military veteran, Navy SEAL Master Chief.

Co-creator of the U. S. Navy Warrior Toughness Program and author of a brand new book, Life on the Acts, A Navy SEAL's Guide to Meeting Any Challenge with Courage, Confidence and Readiness. Stephen Drumm, welcome. Hey, thanks.

Good morning, Brian. Thanks for having me on. No problem. Wh when's your book coming out?

So Pre-sales are up right now. Pre-orders are up right now. Anywhere online books are sold, and that's for the print and for the e-book. And the audiobook will come out a little bit later. The book officially launches on March 7th.

Nice. Steve, first off, what's your take on how this war is playing out? The experts have said the war colleges reveal this looks more like World War I. Yes, I would say, and a lot of people right now are questioning, okay, well, how much do we want to continue pouring into this? But I always look at this in terms of how the world is watching our response to this as it relates especially to China.

They're watching, they're testing us.

So I think that we obviously have to have a measured response in terms of escalation, but we wholeheartedly, there can be no question on our resolve to support the Ukrainian people.

So it you could see the bigger picture. That if Ukraine falls quickly, there goes Moldova, there goes Georgia, look out Poland. Yeah, and then things and it's easy. It's easy to kind of go down that route.

Well, now we're looking at serious conflict that we have not seen in sixty some years. And we're not playing a role, we're providing the weapons which far outstrip Russia. Do we overestimate Russia's quality? You know, I think in terms of, I think to a degree, yes. I think, you know, we look back at like their technology in terms of their hypersonic missiles, and I always go back to one of the things that the U.S.

military does that other nations, even our allies, often can't do to the same degree is our combined arms combat power. It's one thing to have certain individual soldiering skills. It's one thing to have technology. But how do you integrate all of it? How do you integrate all of it so anywhere from your supply to your reconstitutional forces after casualties on the battlefield?

It's the big picture, is coordination of that effort. And I think the U.S. does that. And I think we're seeing that right now, that Russia is not capable when it comes to that full-spectrum combat operation. What did you get out of joining the military all those years ago?

You know, I was just an eighteen year old kid and I really knew that I wanted to do something. I always wanted to serve in an elite unit. And I was like, I won't make this a career. But once I got in, and once I found myself in SEAL training, I realized: hey, I'm surrounded by some of the best people that I've ever met. This is my home.

This is where I want to spend the rest of my young adult life. And from that, I really learned a lot of things on really how to show up in moments, really how we plan, prepare, and execute in the SEAL teams. It really translates to all the other areas in my life as well. And so I really took a lot of that, just being deliberate and intentional with how you show up to important moments. Did you join to become a SEAL?

I did. I joined to become a CEO at 18, right out of high school, and unfortunately, I always make this joke. I wasn't the smartest kid, A, because I failed to qualify for SEAL training by a couple of points, but then I was also dumb enough to believe the recruiter when he told me, oh, they'll just waiver those couple of points.

So worked on submarines for a couple of years and then went out to SEAL training in 1995.

So, and then what was your journey like? Where did you end up being deployed? What are some of the missions you're comfortable talking about? Yeah, so Well first off, I joined, you know, I showed up my first SEAL team and 1996, Field Team C on the East Coast, and we did several deployments, did some deployments to Europe, to the Middle East, a little bit in Africa, things like that.

Some kind of real world operations, but nothing crazy. And then my first Iraq deployment was 2004. That's when I first got my kind of my real taste of what combat was like. Went from I showed up there and we were doing actually doing mobile security details for the interim Iraqi government. And I found myself going out on sniper operations.

And from there, a couple more deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, back to Europe.

So kind of all over the place. It was a great journey. How how much different how much more did you learn in combat as compared to in training?

Well, I think you always wonder, you know, everybody wonders, how am I actually going? To show up when the bullets are flying. And that's the big thing. And I think what was really revealing to me, and this was an aha moment for me. Is the first time I'm in combat, taking heavy fire, grenades being thrown at me.

And as I was in that moment, I started actually having flashbacks to the training, to the urban warfare training we would do before we went overseas. And I realized. just how important the proper level of training is, and it was effective. I'd never been in that situation, but the training made it feel as if I had because of the realism. And I had confidence from that, even through the fear.

Right. And I mean that that builds into your book, right? The discipline, the the willingness to work at it, to prepare for the time before it happens, some of the things you can apply to everyday life.

So when it comes to war, you also you're not alone. You have to learn to work as a team. Is that why it's a it's so legendary tough to get through SEAL training? It is, right? And there's always the adage, you know, we always say, Hey anybody can make it through like still training.

But what they're really looking for, and this kind of culminates in Hell Week. Many people have heard that, right? Hell Week is where for the uninitiator it's a five day almost fun fest, right now, consisting of almost no sleep, constant physical activity and frequent immersion in that cold water. And it tests two things. It tests your level of commitment, How do you have the mental fortitude to push well past when your body says no?

And two, how well will you collaborate with your teammates? Will you put your own pain, your discomfort, your misery? Will you put that aside and support your teammates and support the mission? And if you can do that, if you can grind it out, then you make it to a SEAL team where you're further evaluated and further tested. Were you worried and are you still concerned about the vaccine mandate and what happened to the SEALs and how how they had to go to court to keep from being expelled?

You know, I I can't probably speak too much on that, honestly. I mean, Personally, I would say this, and a probably unpopular decision within the teams, but it's like, hey, you got to at a certain point, if this is what there's needed for mission readiness. You know, I don't I I Don't necessarily, I believe in the freedom of choice, but at the same time, it's like, hey, this is what we need. We need you to be combat effective. And that's the decision they made.

Now, can they clean it up right now? Can they revise that? Probably. But, you know, at a certain point, sometimes you just got to get in the boat and row, even though it's not what we want to hear and that's what we want to do because it's about mission readiness. What about life on the X?

What what does that mean? Yeah, so X, the term X. It's a military doctrine term, but you can think of it almost like X marks the spot.

So when you fast drop out of the helicopter onto that rooftop of that building you're assaulting, we refer to that as landing on the X. And we also use it for, for example, patrolling down the street, the enemy ambushes us, has us in that kill zone, we're on the X there too. In that case, we got to get off the X. But that X is that most dangerous, most difficult part of a combat operation. And it applies to our own lives, professionally, personally, where opportunities converge with some of the stress that we feel.

And we really need to be deliberate and intentional with setting the table for our success so we show up big in bringing our A game to those most important moments. And how does that translate for people listening right now who will never get close to the level of fitness and discipline that you've displayed for your 27-year career as a Navy SEAL?

Well, you know, it's, you know, for the average person, myself included, like, nobody's shooting at me, it's not life or death right now. But I think for all of us, you know, you have jobs, careers, reputations, relationships, those things that are on the line, we often feel that pressure, and it's all relative. Right, and some of the biggest stress that I've felt has been outside of combat, whether I'm worried about shit. Showing up being unprepared or looking stupid, that creates an amount of stress that I think we all can relate to. But if we use some of the skills, Did the elite athletes, special operations forces, we use some of the skills that they use to be prepared and execute at a high level, then I think we're all going to be better served in terms of showing up better and bigger professionally as well as in our personal lives, in our relationships.

And by the way, I've seen Stephen Drum speak, and he's very motivating, relatable to your elite status, relates to the everyday person. I know I got a lot from what you were saying. I'm looking forward to the book coming out. I got some of the material before, but it'll be out in a week. We hope to have you on TV and radio.

But, Steve, just looking at your life and the transition, we understand it's extremely tough, especially for people that do things as significant as you. A lot of times when they make the transition to the civilian world, it's extremely tough. Did you have a tough one? Yeah, I mean, quite frankly, I did. You know, I launched the speaking business literally about two months before COVID hit.

So I couldn't, I found myself in that situation where, like, I can't. I couldn't contribute. I couldn't do the thing that I love. I was just kind of like found myself in that kind of moment of self-pity. And I had to realize, you know, even though I can't go out there and maybe speak to an audience, I have a greater purpose, right?

What is it exactly that is important to me? Do some character search and say, okay, well, at the end of the day, I can still push out a message that I think the world needs to hear. And I think for all veterans doing that transition, find out, less so about the specifics of how you want to execute something, but what do you stand for? Kind of align your values, your beliefs, create a personal mission statement, and try to make decisions that support that personal mission statement every day. Do you get worried that we're soft as it's getting soft as a country?

I do for sure there's an element of that. And I think as parents, we don't often we get into that competition game of wanting to plow obstacles Out of orb. Children's path at every turn to make it easy so they don't feel pain. But I think it's really kind of letting our kids fail in a controlled environment, letting them fail, letting them face adversity because that's. That's going to develop the grind.

That's going to develop their commitment to things that are hard in life to get them where they want to be and really to toughen them up.

So, not everything. Has to offend you, right?

Sometimes people say things that's on you to be offended or not to be offended. It's on you to kind of say, here's how I'm going to respond to whatever's going on, and here's how I'm going to get to where I need to go. Steven Drum, thanks so much for your service. Look forward to the book. Pre-order it now: Life on the X: A Navy SEAL's Guide to Meeting Any Challenge with Courage, Confidence, and Readiness.

Thanks, Steve. Hey, thanks so much, Brian. I appreciate it. You got it. When we come back, open up the phones: 1-866-408-7669.

We're talking about how this Ohio team's been treated by this federal government, this Ohio town, I should say. We're also talking about what's happening at the border. I'm very encouraged that Hakeem Jeffries went down to the border with a man that understands it, Henry Queyar. Could he really show leadership as the ranking member of the House? And We're also talking about the China balloon.

Yeah, one was China. The other three might have been recreational balloons. We owe a 12-year-old hobby company team. Uh a new balloon. Should we pay it?

Educating, entertaining, enlightening. You're with Brian Kilmead. The more you listen, the more you'll know it's Brian Killmead. Hey, we are back, everybody. Don't forget One Nation coming up Saturday night, 8 o'clock.

Build your life around it. Repeat it again at 11, but watch it. If you have to DBR it, great. But watch it in the same night. Believe me, it's uh, I can't imagine people going out without watching the show first.

What will you talk about with your loved one? Let's find out if there's more to know. More. To know. Patrick Mahomes gave the Lobardy Trophy to a fan at a parade and left it behind.

He used to have Stanley Cup stories like this. The two-time champ was captured on video, casually handing it off. Mahomes, who did remember to hold on to his beer, was posing for a selfie with a fan and seemingly forgot to retrieve it. It happens to everybody after they win MVP at the Super Bowl, I'm sure. They did say, though, his security guard or someone else from the Chiefs most likely went back to get it.

Yeah. They didn't have it for us. He's got to detail it. If you're the quarterback, don't worry about the trophy. Just take the picture and walk away.

That's true. Right? And hold on to your beer. Hold on to my beer.

Next, Bruce Willis' condition worsens. New Jersey actor diagnosed with dementia, a rare form of dementia. He seems to be losing it slowly. His type of dementia is for people under 65 for the most part. And here's a quote from his.

Family, while this is painful, it's a relief to finally have a clear diagnosis. The statement read: FTD is a cruel disease that many of us have never heard of and can strike anyone. They say usually you inherit it. It's called frontal temporal dementia.

So it's top. Um he's still fit, uh but he's slowly uh forgetting things.

Next. McDonald's is debuting a plant-based McNugget. Finally, the Chicago-based fast food giant is introducing the plant-based McNuggets next week. McPlant McNubbuts make from peas, corn, wheat with a tempura batter. Are the second product McDonald's has co-developed with Beyond Meat, an El Segundo, California-based maker of meat.

I heard Joe Rogan talking about this. He says, Beyond meat is terrible for you. Is that much? It's just terrible for the ground, terrible for the, I don't know. It's so processed.

Do you not order as much anymore? I don't, because I used to feel good about it. And now I haven't really dove into it because I get a lot of texts and messages and I'm always doing something. But people in the farm are like. Not only do you should not do it, it's worse for the land than any type of cow would do.

Interesting.

Well, if you don't want to do the beyond, stuff. John Christ tried Chick-fil-A's cauliflower sandwich. All right. And wanna hear what he had to say? Chick-fil-A as of today is serving the deep-fried piece of.

I don't even know what colour fly wear is a vegetable, I guess. Dude, if I am critical of something that Chick-fil-A does, that's like a Democrat being like, hey, I think the climate change stuff was all just made up. Yeah. Or like a Republican being like, yo, maybe we do need to get rid of some of these assault rifles. I don't know how else to say this, but I'm coming across party lines today.

I might. I don't know. I haven't had it yet. It's not going down. You know how you eat swamps in the tumble.

That's a wolf in sheep's clothing right there. That looks exactly like a chicken sandwich, but it's a vegetable. This is a sheep in wolf's clothing, dog. This looks just like a chicken sandwich, but once you get up under the hood there and realize what's going on underneath, it's different that's like a transgender chicken sandwich. Yeah.

So does he like it or not? He didn't really love it. I had to text him. Yeah, he thought you should text him since you guys are buddies. Yeah, like he said it looks like chicken, but he wasn't a fan of the cauliflower.

But you like cauliflower, you might enjoy it. You know, they have cauliflower steak at Del Frisco's across the street. I've ordered that. Did they take it off the menu? They might have.

I haven't seen that for a while. But my question is: do they charge you the same price as a steak, even though they're serving you cauliflower? I don't know. Eric usually pays. I mean, when we go out, pretty much.

I'm sure. It better not. Are you kidding? Next, Brianna says motherhood is everything, and she shares cover Vogue with ASAP Rocky and their son after revealing her second pregnancy.

So, speaking to the magazine, Rihanna gussed that Rocky is her best friend and described motherhood as everything she admitted she wanted. Speaking to the publication, Rihanna gussed over motherhood and describes it as everything, as I mentioned. She says, becoming a. Mother is everything.

So we pretty much, it's everything. But why is she performing then if it's everything?

Well, because I think she watched she probably committed to this before she knew she was pregnant again or not.

So we watched inside, we had seats at the Super Bowl. We did. I did not know the extent and how bad she is at lip-syncing. I watched it back. I mean, at one time she's not even holding the mic by her mouth.

Well, you could see at one point they did. I mean, her voice was going on the air and she wasn't singing, but I know they always have the backup tracks. But yeah, I know when we were watching, though, it was hard to tell. You're like, did she just not lose the BB weight? Or you have that echo.

You know, I consider myself, consider myself the luckiest man, the luckiest man. You didn't know if it was happening in the stadium, but it was an interesting decision to go out high on a platform. She was so high.

So, I mean, you saw it on TV, but in the stadium, I mean, she was almost like out of the stadium. Yeah, once again, I missed the story. I did not know she was pregnant. Everyone's like, wow, did you see the big reveal that she's praying with? No, I didn't know.

Like, I just thought she was fat. I did not say that, but I did know she wasn't as defined as she was prior to birth.

Now we know she's going back at it. And by the way, thanks for putting six times that the baby being a parent is everything. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead. Hi, everyone.

Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Killmeat Show. We come out to you from Midtown Manhattan, heard around the country, around the world. Dr. Tom Kirsting is going to be in here. He is going to be talking about something extremely valuable.

How about getting inside of today's teams? uh and social media. He's got a brand new book out. His new book is called Raising Healthy Teenagers. His other book was called Disconnected, and it was essentially how to disconnect your kids from their social media.

He's a high school counselor who expanded and realizes there's a huge need for that. I have a huge need to talk to Shannon Bream every other day. And now, this is the second time in five days I'm seeing her in person. You on the phone? It's my lucky day.

Oh, yeah, it is. But don't you usually talk on microphone? How do these things work, these microphones and technology? Right, it's unbelievable. You know, if you weren't doing a network show, I would say maybe she needs to be a little primer.

Janna Bream is the anchor of Fox News Sunday. I am. She's also Fox News' chief legal correspondent and author of The Mothers and Daughters of the Bible Speak Lessons on Faith from Nine Biblical Families. Is this your latest? Do you want to know about?

No, my new book is coming, The Love Stories of the Bible, is out in March, but you can pre-order it now. If you're not busy reading Brian's collection of bestsellers, right, but now I don't have something to come out in March.

Okay, but when's your next one?

Okay. Maybe in the fall? Fall.

Okay, good.

So you have time to read mine and then read. Yeah, I saw the memo that you've committed to do the whole hour with me? I did. I did. I did.

Yes. Yes, I'm excited to announce that.

Okay. We have a little bit of an issue, but I'm going to get to the big three real quick.

Okay. Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. We don't yet know exactly what these three objects were. But nothing right now suggests they were related to China's spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country.

Good. We have a lot to say about that. And Joe finally speaks, but he was answering, he wouldn't answer any questions, and the contents of the remarks leave me to think that we are really out of step with stopping China's near space program. And look out, if you have a hobby of flying balloons, do not get them near fighter jets. Number two.

The White House says your trip here is a political stunt and that their border plan is working. What's your response? You know what? If they would actually come here, they'd realize their border plan is not working. Yes, that would help.

Finally, Henry Quayart gets some Democrats' company, Democratic company at the border, and it's going to be Hakeem Jeffries. He had Solareto today. Yesterday it was Speaker McCarthy, you just heard, vowing action, citing the President's ignorance. I hope Hakeem Jeffries wants to solve this problem because it is certainly a problem in New York where we have 43,000 illegals being housed on our dime. Number one.

Budijek didn't step up. He didn't even issue any, even a tweet for the first 10 days after this happened. Look, if you can't step up, it's time to step down. About to explode, the Ohio town of East Palestine losing patience with the speed of the response and lack of federal help from the toxic spill courtesy of Norfolk Southern train derailment. Is the water safe?

Is the air safe? Are the streams clean? No one can say for sure, but everything's dead. Joining us now is Shannon Bream. A lot of fish are dead, I should say.

A lot of frogs are dead. No birds. Are you sure? That's what I hear. Word on the street.

I could not be less impressed with Governor DeWine, just my opinion. I don't want to get you in trouble. But he was on with us this morning, and you know this, and I think you'll back me up on this. When you have somebody on and they keep talking, As if they're afraid you're going to ask a question, another question. A little filibuster situation?

Totally filibuster. Even Kellyanne Conway would have said, slow down. You got to let me take a breath. What do you mean? Kellyanne Conway has a lot to say.

And that's why she's grey cast. But Governor DeWine powered right through it. Number one. The first person from the Biden administration showed up in person yesterday, the EPA director, one day, he goes, I saw a creek. And I saw a hou I saw one family.

Yeah, and and these folks have been I mean, begging for information and for help, and they're rightfully scared. I mean, especially when people have not been so transparent with them, they feel like they're not getting information about the threats to their own health, their kids, their families, their pets, all of it. Can they drink the water? Can they not? I mean, there's so much conflicting information and lack of guidance for them.

They're rightfully angry. And when people don't show up for the town hall where they're supposed to get information, I mean, what would you do? I would I would well number one no one makes it tougher. And I know this feeling, they live paycheck to paycheck. Almost everybody that's hopped on our air has said, one woman came out with a tuck last night.

She goes, I am poor. I can't afford a car. Exactly. I have two kids. I have to walk with my kids to the supermarket, carry a case of water back because they told me I can't drink the water.

And when you are living modestly, you don't get bottled water. I mean, a case of that is money that you didn't need to spend. If you think you can just drink out of the faucet like we all did growing up. You know, and for her, that's a real hardship.

So Michael Regan came down there yesterday. He's the APA administrator, cut one. We are absolutely going to hold Norfolk Southern accountable, and I can promise you that. EPA has also issued a letter to Norfolk Southern outlining actions at the site and how the agency will hold the railroad accountable for cleanup and costs under EPA's circular authority.

So, okay, one day, then he's got to go. The testing done by Southern. And it's done by the state. They go, what about the EPA director? He goes, toxicology experts are on their way.

I was about, I'm trying to tell the governor, what are you talking about? You've had two weeks. What do you mean they're on their way? They should have been there the next day. Right, that day.

I mean, and so weeks of exposure to this stuff, and people have no idea what the long-term potential out could be for health, for the environment, for all kinds of things. And it just harkens back to things, um, disasters in the past. You know, people keep bringing up, you know, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. And like, people in the beginning weren't told the full truth about the impact. And, you know, you hope that these are contained and people are going to be fine.

But for two weeks, for them to be wondering whether they can even drink their water or whether they're safe is crazy. And like you said, this is not like these folks can be like, oh, I'm going to go hang out at my second home or I'm going to go check into a hotel. Like, that's ridiculous and just not an option. Yeah, by the way, we're going to follow up on this story later. This report, Shannon Bream's going to be on One Nation this week, and I'm looking for a second source on that.

I drive a hard bargain. You say you're not committed. I don't know whether I am or not. People have to tune in Saturday night to find out. David Yost is the Attorney General.

Uh for the state. and was waiting for some type of federal presence. Cut five. There are very few things where the state can sue the federal government. The federal government controls whether it can be sued.

But you can be sure that that will be among the list of things that our lawyers are looking at. Very concerned about the lack of at least a visible response at this point, now two weeks into this disaster.

So There's a call by Marco Rubio, Senator Kennedy and others for Pete Buddhaj, she just resigned. And my feeling is, Shannon, you got the job. You want to be president. This is a great audition to see if you can do a transportation secretary. Epic fail when all our planes got grounded second time ever, first time 9-11.

Epic fail on Southwestern when he was supposed to check with all the airlines to make sure they were ready for the first upramped, upscale Christmas holiday since the pandemic. Big fail when it comes to supply chain emergency. Everyone could take paternity, but there's a way to put somebody in charge if you're not going to be that is going to affect everybody's holidays and living. When your advice is order your Christmas presents early, I don't like that answer. The balloon thing on transportation, okay, not exactly it, but where are you?

And then this, well, there's a thousand derailments. I can't, you know, it's really not rare to come. Come on, this is not leadership.

Well, and that's going to be the big ding on him is that he was a mayor and that he had all this promise. Remember how when we were out on the road with Iowa and New Hampshire, he really did well in those early states. And people are like, he's a fresh new face. This is a new Oxford grad. Right.

I mean, he's a military vet. Like, he has all kinds of fantastic things on his resume. But a cabinet position is a massive deal. And our transportation system and infrastructure is critical in this country, just like it is in any country.

So all of the things that you've ticked off, his detractors and even some of his supporters have said he hasn't been able to step up to the demands of this position. And that may be something if for some reason the president decides he's not going to run again. I don't think Pete Buttigieg is going to be on the first list for most folks on, you know, the one to step off the bench. Right. I just think, and this is what I'm going to have as my lead on the One Nation monologue, is leadership.

If you make a decision, I want you to criticize my decisions, but you're not going to get no decision. And if you run for president, you want to get elected, you raise all this money, you work so hard, in theory, you go and campaign not by President Biden's state, but. He tried it three times before. This is your moment.

So, and Reagan stepped up, fired the air traffic controllers. George Bush stepped up on 9-11, but wasn't happy the way he was perceived in Katrina in the plane. You make FDR, we were bombed last night, we're going to war.

Okay. You don't love going to war. You hope it's the right decision. You don't have a shot. That's leadership.

You elected me. I'm going to do it. Then debate. Shannon Breen and Brian kill me. Debate the quality of the decision.

Can you imagine a football coach not sending in the play because too much was at stake, not showing up at the game? Or saying that there are a thousand games. Right. So it's okay. It's fine.

A thousand plays, a thousand games you don't have to do. I love the analogy. Even the folks who love him are questioning how he's handling these things. And there's just so much you get by showing up and talking to people.

So he's walking around and he goes, well, I'm not a train expert. I don't really even know that the axle broke. I'm going to get to the bottom of it. I want you to meet my guy who is a train expert. And I want you to meet my toxicology expert.

Secretary of Transportation, he could get everybody there. Right. And I don't know if you can. You know how many donors he has of influence. Right.

I'm breathing the same air that you're breathing. I'm here in your community. And I think that would go a long way because a lot of times people just in the moments of a crisis, like when a president shows up, it means a ton for people to see a big name face to there, to be there at least saying, I understand you're in a painful situation. We're doing everything we can.

Well, Joe Biden, to his credit, showed up and did do the border. And when Barack Obama asked him to, you might not like his decision, but you can't say he didn't try. I don't like a lot of his decision, but you can't say he didn't try. Kamala Harris said, no, I'm not doing it. Basically, I'll do a couple of Zoom calls and visit one country.

And then if she, Mike Pence was told during the pandemic, if he didn't want to lead pandemic operations, he had a funny way of showing it because he was there every day holding his own press conference, interactive with all the governors. They love Pence. Democrats love dealing with Mike Pence. Mm-hmm. Because he got answers, and that's why he's a legitimate contender to be president.

This is a great time for the 51-year-old vice president, the 44-year-old Secretary of Transportation, and they're blowing it. I think performance does matter. That's why I think Gavin Newsom is not a great fit, even though he looks the part. Maybe Jared Polis is because he's been more effective in Colorado. He has, and he's done things that weren't strictly partisan in nature.

I mean, he pushed back on a lot of the COVID restrictions, even as a Democrat governor. He's done a lot of things that have had people on both sides of the aisle saying, He can work across this, and maybe that's a good lane for the Democrats. Let's go to Balloon Gate because I find it fascinating. The Chinese balloon and the program that existed for five years, but no one knew about it, but everyone knew about it.

Okay, I'll work on that. And then we shoot three things out of the sky to the point where every other day I go, What we just got to sh knock down a balloon in Nova Scotia? Did we knock down a balloon in Lake Huron and went over Alaska? What do you mean we can't retrieve any of the wreckage? No one's gotten anything yet except the one balloon.

So finally, Joe Biden speaks, cut one. We are absolutely going to hold. I'm sorry, that's my fault. That doesn't sound like President Joe Biden. Yeah, cut 19.

Cut 19. We don't yet know exactly what these three objects were. But nothing right now suggests they were related to China's spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from other any other country. The intelligence community's current assessment Is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation, or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research? You know what this is?

And I almost said it. I said, this sounds like. The Bottle Cap Balloon Brigade. And I didn't say it, so I have to have trust me on this. The bottle cap balloon brigade put a silver-coated party-style Pico balloon in the sky, and they were tracking it because they liked to party.

Oh boy, and it got caught good surveillance and it got shut out of the sky. He, they're they're out twelve dollars, so they tried to call the government and say, 'Hey, I think you shot my balloon.' They couldn't get anybody to answer. And then finally, the FBI contacted the Bottle cap Balloon Brigade and said, You got something to say to me? Is this working in conjunction with the Apple Dumpling Gang? Yes.

Remember them? I don't know. Well, you know, I shouldn't joke. I'm a journalist. I should not say yes.

We just know that the bottle they could be a this could be a low just a wildcat group. But don't you think that our radar and our advanced technology within the Pentagon should know the difference between a giant payload Chinese surveillance spy balloon and a hobbyist balloon? And we spent $400,000 a missile going after these things. And we missed one.

So that was $800,000 on that one. But I think this is partially why the president didn't want to come out and speak or didn't seem anxious to do it. Because when you have to come out and say we weren't able to even obsess what exactly these were, I mean, of course, we've got to attract threats, but how do we differentiate? Was it an overcorrection? Because they took so much heat over letting that Chinese balloon fly across the whole United States of America.

But we should be able to tell the difference, right? And I think you should pay back the bottle cap gang. Yes, take that.

So, this cost says $800,012 to take that one down. If that's the one that got the two. I said this this morning, and tell me if you think this is right. Should I fear, because I have a ship in a bottle, should I feel the Navy is going to go after it? Oh, you better keep that baby under wraps.

Back in a moment. Expanding your knowledge base. It's the Brian Kill Meet Show. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead.

I'd I'd like to know what evidence they have that is age is an issue. That is Miko Brzezinski going on and on. Why did people bring up age with the president? Look how great he was as the State of the Union. Look how many pieces of legislation that he passed.

Your reaction to her really believing that the President has not shown his age over the last two years?

Well, I'm apparently past my prime.

So I don't know if I can speak to age issues. I was going to do the villages and then check into full nursing care, but I guess at 50 oh, how old am I now? 52. I'm going straight to nursing care. It's interesting to me because even people who love this president in all of our polling, Fox News, ABC, Washington Post, all of it, they are worried, including his own party, the majority of them, about his ability to continue to get away from the 2007 want him to run again.

And they cite his frailty. They think that he's losing a step, literally and figuratively.

So I Mika can talk to those people. That's just the majority of people being polled. All right. So, what do you think about what Don Lemon said yesterday? Because he was resentful that Nikki Haley is calling for a competency test for any candidate over 75.

Let's listen. I think that I think it's the wrong road to go down. She says people, you know, politicians or something are not in their prime. Nikki Haley isn't in her prime.

Sorry. A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s. What do you talk about? That's not according to me. Prime for what?

It depends. It's just like prime. If you look it up, if you Google when is a woman in her prime, it'll say 20s, 30s, and 40s. I don't know if she's in the middle of the day.

So I got it in that moment. I agree with that.

So I think she has to be careful.

But I I literally am just flabbergasted by this because just Google it. But I like, there's just so much there. I'm like, I don't know. They clearly have not met some of the plus fifty year olds that I know, including like people like Margaret Thatcher and other people who have accomplished a whole heck of a lot in their fifties.

So, I mean, just speaking for myself, I'm not ready to like grab my walker and turn it in just yet. But, you know, apparently Don Lemon thinks that I'm done. Don Lemon went on to say, to apologize, the reference I made to a woman's prime this morning was inartful. Inartful, and no. I mean, you own it.

Own it. You said it, and it was ridiculous, so just own it. Rihanna lip-synced during the half-brother. Did she? Are you alleging that?

Or do you know? We were standing next to each other during the performance. And I watched the video. It's really bad. I mean, at one point, she turns around, does not even do, like, turns around for the microphone, and she's still singing.

Howard Stern called her out, and now Rihanna fans are blowing back. But you don't have a problem with that. I don't. I mean, to me, well, it wasn't like we paid to go to a concert, and I think there is a difference there. This was entertainment, pure and simple.

If you think that your top recording artists are not out there using backing vocals and that kind of stuff when they perform, you're crazy. I mean, it was more about the performance, the spectacle of the whole thing, I think, than vocal quality for me at the halftime of the Super Bowl show. But you should be. I'd rather be all the time. But she probably was.

I think that a lot of times they are singing, but they have backing vocals, so it sounds good. Look at them making excuses for Rihanna. I don't know. I mean, as a performer, as a performer myself. Admiral Kirby, General Keen, Nikki Healy.

We'll see you Sunday. See ya. Bye. Radio that makes you think this is the Brian Kill Me Show. They are biologically incapable of stopping themselves from incessant use of these platforms.

That vulnerability is being exploited by these platforms. I would say that.

Social media has lowered the cost of being an a-hole. People say things on social media that they would never g say. in an interpersonal Um um exchange.

So that is obviously Senator Kennedy of Louisiana, uh in a big hearing yesterday, and you watched it, uh, Doctor Doctor, right? Yeah. Yeah, Dr. Tom Kirsting. Uh, you have a brand new book out.

Uh, it's a follow-up to Disconnected. It's called Raising Healthy Teens, but you must have been fascinated to see this hearing. Did you get anything out of it? Do you sense that we're making progress? You mentioned Senator Josh Hawley, dead set.

He's got a young family. Dead set on interdicting social media and kids. Yeah, 100%.

So we have right now is 1,200 families in the United States that are suing social media platforms. Meta Snapchat, Instagram and so forth. And the reason is because it has created an unbelievable mental health epidemic. And if you look at the the data, you know, the mental health epidemic among kids really start it started in 2012 when we see the escalation of anxiety disorders, depression, the suicide. Why 2012?

That's when that's when smartphones became mainstream.

So prior to that it was pretty level, right? Remember BlackBerry? Prior to BlackBerry, right? BlackBerry really wasn't big social media, correct? Is that?

Yeah, no, no, not really. I mean, you know, once we got these smartphones, you know, now you have everything rolled up in your pocket, your videos, your camera, you could watch movies. And then, you know, social media, what they're doing, you know, they specifically target with their algorithms kids. You know, like about a year ago. Meta got called out on it.

They did their own internal study, they owned Instagram, they did their own internal research to see if it was affecting girls. They found that it was actually leading girls to developing eating disorders. And then they tried not to reveal the information. I think a whistleblower came out and showed that because of the algorithms, a young, vulnerable teenage girl looks at not a coincidence. Not a coincidence, no.

Because the longer you stay on, the more money they make, the more money they make off ads, the more they can suck you in. Yeah. And this new book, Raising Healthy Teenagers, I go, I explore everything that kids are confronted with nowadays, even childhood obesity.

So childhood obesity, right now, 30%, I think it's 30% of kids are overweight. It's related to this, right? It is, because the fast food industry, number one, when kids are spending most of their time sedentary, just sitting in front of a screen, and they're not running around.

So play is down 70% in recent years, right?

So you couple that with fast food marketing, which spends $5 billion a year, much of which is targeted towards kids through social media, and you have the perfect storm for childhood obesity. Right. So when you say raising healthy, Is the first thing if I told you to write this book in 2005, it would be much different than the one you just published on Tuesday in 2023.

So we're saying anxiety disorders have kicked in. What are the platforms teenagers are on, and what's so bad about it? It's supposed to connect people from all different walks of life, show some depth of character. What have you found that's so detrimental?

Well, so the you know, the problem, and when I'm lecturing, Brian, I'll tell, you know, lecturing to parents, for example, I'll say, you know, it's not that tech is a bad thing. Tech is a good thing. We have a lot of good things we can do with it. A glass of wine with dinner is okay. Nine glasses of wine with dinner seven nights a week is a bad thing.

And that's where we're at. Kids are spending about nine hours a day in front of a screen. And their brains are very impressionable. A lot of this stuff is subliminal and they don't even realize it. And then, big tech, they use those algorithms to target exactly what your interests are.

So here's the other thing. You just talk about there's always the pressures of any high school. I mean, people listening right now who are 70 years old can remember high school. You know, 50 years old, they can remember high school. They know the pressures.

I was popular. I was unpopular. I was bullied. I was smart. I was done.

They always remember these moments.

So how does social media amplify all that?

So when you take a pre-adolescent or adolescent child, I always say that if we could give a definition of the word adolescence, the term I would choose is insecurity. That's part of that developmental stage, right? It's sort of like a purgatory. You're leaving childhood. You're in this limbo heading towards adulthood.

So with that comes a lot of insecurity. Where do I fit in? I look weird. I'm changing hormonally.

Now you layer in this look at me, compare myself to everybody else, right? Let me see how many streaks, followers, and likes I can get. And that now adds another layer to this insecurity. And for many kids, it just takes it to a completely different stratosphere and damages their development, affects them mentally, of course, physically, emotionally, and disrupts the family system. Did you see this when you were a counselor in school?

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I. Is this what launched this whole idea? I'm going to give you an example. All right.

So I retired three years ago.

Now I'm just doing private therapy. Back in 2000 around 2012, right, so prior to that, I started in 1995, I believe, right? I would maybe get one call from the nurse's office in a th 1,000 student high school that I worked at. You know, uh I'd get a call once a month about a kid having a meltdown. After 2012, I started getting multiple calls per week.

You know, from the from kids having emotional unraveling events or panic attacks at my private practice at around that same time, I don't think prior to 2012 I really had any middle school kids coming in. And then after 2012, I got ridiculous amounts of calls for middle school kids. And when you peel back the onion, besides saying put down the phone, what do they say specifically about the social media platforms are so potentially detrimental?

Well, it's again, so the power of these things, right? Of seeing other people have a good time and you're not invited to the party.

So again, let's say a kid gets their first phone, right? The first thing they're going to do is now they're going to be friends with everybody in their grade, right? And the next thing they're going to do is they're going to scour through all of their material, what I call their highlight reels, how they did at the soccer game, you know, the A they got on this test, and they begin to compare themselves. And the eventual mindset that sets in when you're doing this hours and hours a day is everybody else's life is so perfect. My life really stinks.

And then they want in on the action, they start posting their own stuff, and they're getting this outside-in feedback. You know, in the form of likes and streaks. And I always tell when I'm speaking to kids. What do you mean by streaks, by the way? Like Snapchat streaks.

It's like it's a thing that they should know. Like a digital, it's like a digital slot machine. And that they're getting all of this. And one thing I want parents that are listening, and grandparents as well, is that when you hear the word self-esteem, the important word there is self. No amount of anything from the outside in can fill your inside.

Everything is inside out, your joy, your happiness, and so forth.

So we have these kids have the interaction, me and you. You might bully, you might have somebody in a bullying situation, you might not be with the in-crowd situation. That's always there. You want to get back to that. But can you possibly put the genie back in the bottle?

You can't pretend that this technology doesn't exist. We go back to chalk. Yeah, well, that's why I'm out here, right? That's why I'm lecturing. That's why I'm writing books and so forth, to really try to, number one, equip parents, okay, with the information that they need to know.

By getting access, number one. Understanding. And they don't want to give you access. Yeah. And I'll, you know, if I'm doing a lecture, Brian, I'll say to the audience, I'll say, raise your hand if you think it's smart for an 11-year-old to have a smartphone.

Never once has anybody ever raised their hand, yet the average age kids are getting smartphones is 10 years old. Do you follow up with how many do? Yeah, well I think you're embarrassed. Yeah, I don't wanna put people on the spot, but you know, all tho all those parents in there, it's called social conformity, and I talk a lot about that. We're human beings.

We tend to just go with the flow.

So here is Emma Lemke. She was testifying yesterday at the Senate Judiciary Committee, cut My depression was incredibly acute, and my issues with disordered eating were rampant. One day I heard the buzz of a notification, and I had the Pelovian response to instantly grab for it. And suddenly, in that moment, I asked why. Why was I allowing these companies to have so much control over me?

So it's the protecting our children online hearing. John Pizzoro was also at the hearing. He also talked about this: how to seduce children, how they do it. Cut 39. The most staggering increase we faced was self-generated sexual abuse videos of children ages seven, eight, and nine.

There's a post. even named The Art of Seduction that explained how to seduce children that has been read more than 54,000 times. That's some of the evil things that hop on there, but that's not teens necessarily using them. But it you said it does lead to overeating. Yeah, I mean, you know, sure.

I mean, you know, the way the mind works, right, particularly when you're in when you're in a screen, you're actually in a hyp in a hypnotic-like trance.

So any information you're consuming is bypassing your critical mind and going directly to your subconscious.

So it is very subliminal in nature.

So, you know, when you when you have these kids and you have fast food advertisements, you have things about eating disorders, and they're seeing all these images. Even about a year ago, there were all these girls that developed motor tics from watching people with Tourette syndrome. Right, so that's like a somatic thing. They didn't even have Tourette's syndrome. Just from seeing it, their brain now sort of adopted that same behavior.

So, what are you suggesting? What do you suggest when it comes to social media, the texting, the constant contact?

So number one tip for parents is we have to practice what we preach.

So I always say that like a typical family or four doesn't really isn't definitive of the word family anymore. It's more like individuals under the same roof doing their own thing.

So we got to collect our kids. We got to gather. Because of social media? Yeah, I mean, or whatever it is, whether they're on their iPad or their phone or watching Netflix. We got to really get back to the dinner table.

We've got to get families together. Parents, a statistic in my former book, the average parent only spends three and a half minutes per week in meaningful conversation with their children.

So we got to don't let our kids have those phones when we're driving them to school. The dialogue, the communication, and the relationship that kids have with their parents is by far the most important thing for their mental health outcomes. Saying your parents are good. You hope the parents are good. I'm going to be back one more segment with Dr.

Tom Kirsting. His book, Disconnected, is out. It was a big hit. And now his other one comes out Tuesday. But you just told me you broke the mold.

You said it's available? Yeah, you can get it right now. All right. Raising healthy teenagers, equipping your child to navigate the pitfalls and dangers of teen life. Back in a moment.

Learning something new every day on the Brian Kill Me Show. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show. All right, well, welcome back, everybody. By the way, don't forget One Nation.

It's going to be on Saturday night at 8 o'clock on Fox News Channel. Great show. Tom Kirsting, we've met with his people. He will agree to appear to help your teens. Is that true?

I am definitely coming. You talk to your people? I've talked to my people. All right, good.

So his book is now out, Raising Healthy Teenagers. Whether you're a grandparent, whether you're a parent, whether you're an actual teenager, you're going to need to see this book. It relates directly to the most important issue today, and that is social media and that phone in your hand, that's in your pocket, that's in your car. Hopefully, away you're looking straight ahead. It's away from me, so not attempted to text.

We're also going to have Shannon Bremon, who is also on this show. And we're going to have Ari Fleischer. And we're also, Tommy, you might want to stick around. Is she in person? We we're not oh, okay.

We have a Russian seductress on. who um who was the original her job, she was chained in the military, was seduce important people and for intelligence and somehow let them uh get the important information from. And she believes every man can be seduced and And that the problem right now her new mission is building up the esteem of women. He says women don't have a high enough opinion of themselves when it comes to American women. Don't have a high opinion of themselves when it comes to men.

That's kind of a general. I'm going to try to meet this person when they come in. Because you would love to know the method. As a psychologist, right? Yeah, psychotherapist.

Psychotherapist. I mean, that's what she says. Is there a problem? She well, she also she also has the other should I bring I shouldn't bring that up that issue. I I shouldn't.

Okay. Um so when you talk about raising teens How we solve this problem that's in your book, that they're testifying now that Josh Hawley's pushing forward. Wait till you're 16 to go on a site, to get an Instagram account, to get a TikTok account. Facebook? Yep.

Yeah. I mean, I've been possible though?

Well, you know, if you if you implement you know, they're gonna you know, they're gonna make it difficult for kids. You're gonna have to show, I guess, like you know, facial like recognition and so forth. But you know, really, You know, the the you know, which is out there, obviously. Yeah, yeah, you know, but it's really, you know, and any parent listening, I mean, essentially whatever our kids are doing or not doing is really has to do with us as parents.

So we really, you know, we really, really gotta like, you know, dig our heels in here.

So do you think in the school system That we could start schooling parents. Like the kid goes to school in kindergarten, in first grade. You start when it's parent-teacher's day. Let me just go over some of the rules that we are demanding when it comes to social media. I got one better for you.

In my previous book, I created something. It's called a phone-free school zone pledge. And here's how that works: right?

So, you know, when your kids are in kindergarten, first grade, you get that packet over the summer.

So, imagine in that packet is a pledge that says, I agree not to purchase a smartphone for my child until late adolescence. You get that, a parent, they're going to talk to their friends and say, Hey, did you get that form? I got it. And if everybody collectively gets together and agrees to sign that, and all the school has to do is just send out reminders: hey, we're a phone-free school zone. Is anybody at that point?

Yeah, I had a couple lectures, I think, maybe in Oregon that I was at, and maybe Colorado, where some of the school administrators are working with the class mom to implement that starting at a young age. And the other thing you see is hunch. If you've if you're on the phone all day, you're actually hunched over with your shoulders rounded, which is physically not good for you. The other one I would bring out is kind of diving down. Does that Diving in a little bit.

There's a new trend in this country. I could not wait to get my license. Everyone, when you turn 16, get your permit. You couldn't wait to do it.

Well, how will you take a driver's ed? How are you going to fit it in around sports? Can you take it in the summer? I signed up for it. I wasn't able to get it.

This was the talk.

Now, I noticed it a little. My kids all wanted to drive. But this generation Indifferent about driving. How could that be?

Well, you know what? And does it relate to a bigger story? I'm being dead serious here. Probably the highlight, the most exciting day of my life. Don't tell my wife this, you know, because my marriage is important.

The most exciting day was the day I got my license, and I could not wait. My mom, I had my mom stick for five years. Oh, this is fantastic. And I think what's happening now, so a lot of kids, here's what I think, okay?

So most kids do get excited about their license, but I do see kids at my office that have no interest in getting their driver's license. And I think those are the kids that don't really have much interaction outside of their home with their headset playing video games, right?

So there's a lot of kids now in our society that really don't have social interactions outside. They believe all their friendships are through playing video games and so forth.

So they become so accustomed to just being at home that they feel like they don't need a car. And their lives are into gratification. You hit a button, DoorDash drops something off. You hit another button, Amazon deliver something.

So when you're instantly gratified constantly, for some kids in that report, they said it was too difficult or provoked too much anxiety. Anxiety to go. do what it takes to get a license. You're the psychotherapist, but I'll bring it further. If you're getting your interaction on your phone or on your laptop.

You don't even need to go out to meet people. Right. And then Zoom I don't know. Satisf Zoom is totally unsatisfying to me. But maybe if you're able to Zoom and FaceTime with your friends and you're getting your text message, you're online.

And then you get your food delivered, Amazon packages. There isn't that thirst, but still you can't drive to the beach, you can't go over your friend's house. Oh man, it's just liberation and freedom. I was doing a lecture last week locally in New Jersey, and a parent afterwards asked me, or actually during the Q ⁇ A, asked me, she said, does my son, you know, all of his interaction is through video games? Does that count as social communication interaction?

And I kind of just politely said, no, it does not. You got to get your kid out face to face. That's how we develop emotional intelligence. It's how we develop communication social skills. Right.

And how to handle conflict. How to handle challenges. Different personalities. How to read people.

So when you have this ability to go online and then you put that ability to go online away, you're asking people to do what they did with vaping, with smoking, with drunk driving. There was just a constant push, you don't drink and drive. If I go up to a 16-year-old now, a 25-year-old now, a 30-year-old now. I'm sorry, 95% have never drank and drove. Yep.

And they always do that. And if you told me that in high school when I graduated in 82, that you're going to be able to drill that into kids, I go, yeah, good luck with that. Yeah. And it worked. That's a really good thing.

Does that give you hope? That does. You know, I'm glad you brought that up because you're 100% right. Every kid I talk to, they would never drink and drive. And how many kids do you do you work in a high school or not?

No, I have a problem. I did. I have a private practice. In high school. Yeah.

No, and my own. I have no problem. No, but when you worked in school, was it high school? Yeah, it was a high school, public high school.

So you working in high school, did you notice that? That that worked? And can that campaign be mimicked when it comes to social media and the iPhone? I love what you're talking about.

So to answer that question, 100%. I talked to so many kids about that. I got, you know, drinking on a weekend and so forth. And all of them. would would would not allow not not only would they not do it they would not allow a friend of theirs to do that Right, so that message.

So, yes, you know, if we can pull that off, right? Why can't we pull this off? Why can't we pull off the fact that these modern-day weapons of mass destruction, these phones, are destroying us? And let's do something about it. And Tom, not only does Tom Kirsting believe that, so do the makers of Facebook and all those.

They knew it because for their kids, they have different roles. And China and TikTok, for their kids, they have different roles. It's mostly a history and educational, and you're not allowed to use it after 11. TikTok. Here, they're dance videos and they are alluring even for adults.

Yeah, so a survey was done.

So, in China, they get different content on TikTok. And the number one career choice for kids in China was astronaut, and in the United States, it was social media influencer. It's scary. We're doomed. But no, read this book and it'll all change: Raising Healthy Teenagers, Equipping Your Child to Navigate the Pitfalls and Dangers of Teen Life.

Thomas Kirstein, thanks so much. My pleasure. Book signing, March 4th, Books and Greetings in Northville, New Jersey. Download Fox News channel's The Five Podcasts for free. Five of your favorite Fox News personalities discuss current issues in a roundtable discussion.

Get it now on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Fox NewsPodcasts.com. Listen to the show ad-free on Fox News Podcast Plus, on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music with your Prime membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Mm-hmm.