Biden flips, sides with GOP on D.C. crime bill; PLUS Congressman Jim Jordan in studio

From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Killmead. All right, welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kill Me Show. James Freeman of the Wall Street Journal coming up shortly. We have a lot of news, got a big verdict comes up.

We're not gonna really discuss that, it's been beat to death. We will be talking about what's happening around the world and of consequence, including the President of the United States being totally out of touch on two major issues. One, the toxic train, and number two, absolute fentanyl, and why his party, 70% of his party, does not want him to run again. Can you, before they actually say that and do that, can you name a few people that you would like to see run instead? Because for some reason, Democrats can't name anyone.

Let's get to the 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: Congressional Black Caucus lawmakers told me yesterday that they were surprised and disappointed in President Biden's announcement that he would not veto a resolution blocking changes to DC's criminal code. Changes, making the criminals, putting the criminals first, not punishing criminals at all.

Are Dems waking up to crime as a bad thing? The latest evidence, a pro-criminal DC block bill by Republicans is enjoined by the president who says, I won't veto it. From New Orleans to San Francisco to Los Angeles to Chicago to Philadelphia to New York, crime is raging, and suddenly the politicians seem to be getting the message, at least some of them. Number two. Chairman Xi, the president of the Chinese Communist Party, has clearly said that they will replace the United States as a global superpower, that they will dominate the West by dominating key technology areas.

Here you go. That is Mike Waltz, of course. China has always had a quest to outproduce us economically and militarily. But now they seem to have a beyond course to lap us academically and technologically. This is our national wake-up call.

We better answer it. Number one. She was very specific recently saying that a mom, a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl. That uh that I killed her sons. That fentanyl they took came during the last administration.

Yeah, nice little laugh, right? It's so funny. Marjorie Taylor Green. Brought up that somebody that these two children died, young men died underneath President Biden. It was over, it was the last months of Trump.

But that is missing the point. Clueless and heartless. President Biden seems truly oblivious to the magnitude of death and destruction from fentanyl and the border in his policies. Heartless as he laughs about the death of two young men because he's not to blame. The mom of those two boys sounds off.

And that's where we begin. Her name is Rebecca Kiesling. You might have seen her on T V. You might have seen her on T V testifying or with Fox and Friends or around our channel. Why?

She lost two of her sons. Because they took Percocet and was laced with fentanyl and they died on the spot.

So she was telling her story to let everybody know, Democrats and Republicans, that we have to seal the border because that's where almost all of it comes through.

So when Marjorie Taylor Greene says, I'll President Biden is to blame. President Biden says this in response, Cut One. She was very specific recently, saying that a mom, a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl. that that I killed her sons.

Well, the interesting thing is That fentanyl they took came during the last administration. Yeah. Funny thing is, and it's so funny.

Now, look, we all say things that are inappropriate sometimes, especially on television when you're constantly on camera. But he has plenty of time to walk that back and straighten it out in his follow-up remarks, and he didn't. It struck me as bizarre. And for Rebecca Kiesling, who is we referring to, who lost her two sons, she said this, cut two. What a horrible human.

How can he sit there and joke about it?

Somebody asked me, oh, you know, did he just like misspeak? I'm like, this shows his heart. You don't have to think about what you say in a moment like this. And to me, it's like it shows this is why he just opened the border so wide. He just doesn't care.

He's completely heartless. The President owes me an apology. And all of the other parents who have lost their children, he owes us an apology. Right, uh so here's KGP, who can't never step up to the plate and and step up to and when challenged, said this, cut three. When it comes to this president, I believe the American people knows who he is fundamentally because he's been around for some time and they have watched him go through grief.

They have watched him deal with really personal loss. And so This is a president that understands that. He expressed sympathy for her last night and his heart goes out to any person, any person who has to go through that type of trauma, that type of hurt.

Okay. Everyone's tired of hearing the president's had tragedy. We know it. They sold it as a reason to vote for him. They always sell it as a reason to vote for him.

Wife lost in the 70s through an accident. Was not telling the truth, said the guy who hit her was drunk. He wasn't. He's walked that back. And then we know about Bo Biden dying of brain cancer, terrible.

But it doesn't mean that what he didn't wasn't heartless and clueless, because this is not the first time. He doesn't acknowledge anything at the border. You know, we're not talking about a car accident, which can't be helped. But you're talking about the border, which you just do not want to enforce. They say between four and six million people have come here illegally.

Countless pounds and tons of fentanyl are in our borders. 70% of all overdoses are from fentanyl. If you want to stop it, you stop at the border. 22% increase in deaths from fentanyl since he became president of the United States. How could you possibly even giggle about that, especially when you're talking about death?

Now, Marjorie Taylor Greene coming out making that statement is dumb, blaming anybody, saying that person killed my son or daughter when they weren't directly involved. I think it's a huge leap. You better be sure. And number two is when she came out and said we need a national divorce. I thought that was actually irresponsible.

But his reaction is anything but leadership. And it should be walked back almost immediately, and that mom should be called if anybody in the staff knows what they're doing. When it comes to crime, when it comes overall to what's happening, he's ignoring the border.

Now, when it comes to what's happening with crime, we see Lori Lightfoot lost her job, first person not to get reelected as mayor of Chicago in 40 years. We see they're trying to recall the New Orleans mayor because they are down hundreds of cops and crime. They are the murder capital of the country, and she doesn't do her job. We saw the recall of the AG over in San Francisco, Chester Bodin.

Now we're seeing all hell breaking loose with moderates emerging in other major cities, including in San Francisco, as an alternative that not only doesn't want to defund the police, but will start backing the police.

So, Washington, D.C., uh council decides to put together these New rules when it comes to crime and punishment. With 485 carjackings last year, up 14% from the previous year. When you have last month, 100, last month, excuse me, last year, you have a rise in crime that we have not seen before in Washington, D.C. Homicides are up 40%. Car thefts have more than doubled.

I mentioned to you about carjacking. We see what happened with the Washington Redskins wide receiver. We're watching Staffords on Capitol Hill get mugged.

So, some reason, the DC council decides we're going to make everything looser, make punishment. Harder to distribute.

So President Biden tweets out yesterday, I support D.C. statehood and home rule, but I can't support some of the changes the D.C. Council put forward over the mayor's objections. Yep, the mayor's objections.

So lowering penalties for carjackings if the Senate votes to overturn the D.C. Council, which they did. He will not block it. He will sign it.

Now that made Democrats outraged. This guy, the AG Brian Schwab. And D.C. Attorney General says any effort to overturn the D.C. laws degrades the right of 700,000 residents, AOC.

This ain't it. D.C. has a right to govern itself. This state, this state, and any other state or municipality. If the president supports D.C.

statehood, he should govern like it's got plenty of places, past laws the president may disagree with. He should respect them. Then others would just came out with expletives to describe them. Why? Because people like Senator Joe Manchin, Senator Angus King, Senator Sherrod Brown, Uh Senator Tester are all in red states.

to a degree anyway, with Senator Angus King. And they know they're going to have a real struggle to get six more years. And they're up for an election next year. They cannot look like soft on crime.

So he's looking out for them and tangentially himself. This will be something that will resonate. Come election day. Among the people upset? is Eugene Scott.

and actually a senior political reporter. He talks about crime And what's happening and why this is a red-hot issue. Cut 15. Congressional Black Caucus lawmakers told me yesterday that they were surprised and disappointed in President Biden's announcement that he would not veto a resolution blocking changes to D.C.'s criminal code. As you may know, the D.C.

City Council wants to reduce severe penalties for certain violent crimes. And House Republicans who have a say in this matter do not support this idea. When Biden announced that he would not veto a plan to block this resolution, it opened the floodgates for other Senate Democrats to express their lack of support for the changes as well. And this is an important issue because crime in cities is something that Republicans have voiced that they are going to attack Democrats on in 2024. And Biden is taking a position that makes it seem like he is very aware and concerned about that allegation.

How dare he try to get ahead of something?

So this crime bill would reduce maximum sentences, get rid of New York. Nearly every mandatory minimum sentence allows for jury trials in almost all misdemeanor cases, reduce penalties for offenses like burglaries, carjacking, robberies, max penalty for felonies with gun drops to four years from 15 years.

So, why would anybody want that bill in their city? You listen to the Brian Kill Me Show. When we come back, I'm going to take your calls on this. We have a lot more to discuss. Don't move.

Politics, current events, and news that affects you. Brian's got a lot more to say. Stay with Brian Kilmead. 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 Killmead.

Lastly, I spoke briefly with Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov. on the margins of our D20 meeting today. I urge Russia to reverse its irresponsible decision. and return to implementing the new START Treaty. Which places verifiable limits on the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Russian Federation.

Mutual compliance is in the interest of both our countries. It's also what people around the world expect from us as a nuclear party. All right, I can't even listen to him anymore. He's the most boring man in America. You can just see him being intimidated and cowering when it comes to China.

And then yesterday, our Secretary of State pulled over a vice versa Lavrov and they spoke on the sidelines of the G20, at which time nothing was accomplished. And now he's just telling everyone what he said: stop the invasion and the aggression in Ukraine and go back to the Nuclear START Treaty. Nobody wants you in the Nuclear STAR Treaty. And here's why: because China's not in it, and they are lapping both countries as they pretend to go by it. We're sticking with it.

Russia is not sticking with it. And China continues to build with random, with all types of success because they have nothing limited to them. You need a three-way policy or no policy. That's the story.

So, Anthony Blinken showing the lack of backbone. I know a diplomat's got to be somewhat measured, but please tell me that you please don't tell me this guy's been tough behind closed doors. He's got absolutely no results. The other thing to keep in mind is that they're in India. India has just ignored, in fact, they have Profited off the sanctions that the West has put on Russia.

They've walked in and taken over the McDonald's and the Western franchises that all picked up stakes and left. They've profited off the cheap oil and gas that they've gotten, and they've gotten even more arms, it seems, from Russia. Because they use Russia, I understand it, as a hedge against China because they're basically in a border war with China. Got it. I'm not asking you to do something that's not in your national interest, but you've got to use our leverage, our market, our ability to manufacture there and buy from there as a push.

And I'll show it to other Western nations to say, guys, get on board. People are dying because you and India are looking at Russia as a friend.

So the poicide, as reviewed by John Kirby, cut 14. It was a pull-aside. They were in the same room at the G20 in New Delhi. And Secretary Blinken took the opportunity available to him to make three key points. One, we don't want Russia to suspend their participation in New START because that treaty makes both our countries safer.

Two, we want Paul Whalen back. We got a proposal on the table. They ought to take it. And three, we're going to continue to support Ukraine. It was a ten-minute pull-aside.

It wasn't a pre-scheduled, long, bilat kind of a meeting. I mean, it was an opportunity that Secretary Blinken took advantage of.

So that's what's happening. We know the Ukrainians are trying to hold on to Bakhmut. They said tactically you don't really need that town, but they don't want to give. The Russians even a PR victory.

Meanwhile, if you've seen some of these reports, for those people who think I am crazy to think the Russians can do anything besides fighting Ukraine, here's proof that you are wrong and I'm right. Georgia, they're sending people in in plain clothes to promote unrest inside that nation's capital while they still control. two of those separatist provinces that they've held since, I think, two thousand eight. Russia is also, according to the people of Moldova and the government there, trying to put together and staging a slow motion coup while pressuring Serbia to acknowledge and support the war. Thankfully, they've pushed back.

While also pushing the stands to stay out and influencing their decision to stay away and not actually side with Ukraine, where their instincts would be there. And then we know, too, that they have a deal by twenty thirty to fully absorb Fully absorbed Belarus. Who is the only nation in the area that I know of that has endorsed and sided with Russia, even though. Their government side with Russia. Their people for the most part don't.

Meanwhile, as you talk about twenty twenty four, Joe Biden has not yet said if for sure he's going to run, but did indicate yesterday that it's all but official, Cut nineteen. When will you announce during the election, sir? When I announce it. Yeah, when I announce it. And they think it's going to be a few weeks.

We know that the First Lady basically said the same thing. And we know that seventy percent of Democrats feel as though he's too old to run and don't want to see him do it again. Among the people that he has not won over are people that have to win in red states, like Joe Manchin, twenty. But if he were to run again, would you support him?

Well, let's just see who's all in the game. I'm not going to say I'm going to support or not support somebody. I want to see and find the best pathway for America. We've got to get out of the toxic relationships that we have in our political process.

So wait a minute, he is your Democrat. He's a Democrat. He would not automatically support the president for re-election. Hold on. He's our president, okay?

Hmm. He also wouldn't commit to being a Democrat. We know, too, that head-to-head, Senator Joe Manchin would lose to Justice right now by about 20 points. Governor Jim Justice. Question: Does the governor at this point in his life, even though he's got private jets himself, he's a multi-millionaire, maybe a billionaire, does he want to go back and forth from Washington to West Virginia at this point after being a very popular governor?

And also, he manages to coach a women's basketball team. It's pretty interesting.

So, when we come back. Why the President hasn't gone to East Palestine? And why, by President Trump going, do his fortunes rise? Because in almost every poll as of late, outside one I saw in California, Trump is still in the top spot. What his strategy is on Governor DeSantis, who he looks at as his own legitimate competition.

Nikki Haley, he was very kind to when she said she's going to run, so he's my friend. Tim Scott, you're not going to do well if you insult Tim Scott, one of the nicest men in America and most respected in politics, period. And then you have Mike Pompeo. You're not going to get the West Point guy who's number one in his class, former director of the CIA, former head of the State Department, Secretary of State, to back down. But the question is, will he ever have the momentum that Trump has?

You listen to the Bryant Kill Meet Show. When we come back, I'm going to be joined by James Freeman of the Wall Street Journal. Don't move. So glad you're here. Information you want, truth you demand.

This is the Brian Kill Me Show. Welcome back, everybody. James Freeman's with me now for the Wall Street Journal. You just saw him on the channel, but he's really saved his good stuff for the radio. Am I right, James?

Always. Right, and again, they sense that on the show. They're like, why are you holding back? Yeah, it was awkward. It was the elephant in the room.

Yeah, you would not offer any opinions. Sir James, I was pretty struck by this. You got to take for a second to understand this. Uh the DC Council, there's no Government in D.C. There's no governor in D.C., even though if the Democrats had their way, there would be another state.

So the D.C. council comes out and goes, I have a great idea. With crime so high, let's loosen up crime, let's loosen up punishment and stop enforcing it. And they put together a series of things. For example, they are going to reduce maximum sentences, get rid of nearly every mandatory minimum sentence, allow for jury trials in almost all misdemeanor cases, reduce penalties for offenses like burglaries, carjacking, robberies.

So the Democrats are beginning to panic on this in these red states, like Tester, like Manchin, like Angus King, like Charlotte Brown. And the president decided I'm not going to veto it. I'm going to allow the block of these DC rules to go through. What are the what's the ripple effect of that decision?

Well, he did. And by the way, I think you deserve a lot of credit for shining a light on this issue. This was this really became national news, I think, in large part because of your efforts. And so you have the Republican Congress with thirty one Democrats saying no, We're not going to allow these lighter sentencing guidelines to go through. The Democratic mayor didn't want it.

The police didn't want it. Exactly. Just to show how radical it was, Democratic Mayor in DC vetoed this plan. The city council Overrode her veto.

So constitutionally, the Congress can the federal government does oversee DC.

So We have this bill, thirty-one Democrats. Joining Republicans to say, no, this is not going to go through. The last thing this city needs as it suffers through this horrific crime surge, homicide's up 35% last year, car theft's over 100%. The last thing we need to do is reduce. Maximum sentences.

What an embarrassment to our nation's capital, too, on top of that. Yes.

So an anonymous House Democrat to the Hill via text said: the White House. F'd us royally.

So, a lot of us who are allies voted no in order to support what the White House wanted. 173 in the House, by the way. And now we are being hung out to dry. Effing Uh effing amateur hour.

Sorry about this if I'm not if I'm not censoring myself well. Head should roll over the White House. No, no. What the president did. I'm just telling you with a Democratic.

I know they're feeling. Upset because they thought it seemed like administration policy. In fact, I think there was a statement of administration policy. Uh against this Republican effort to stop the madness in D.C. And so the president.

Fortunately. Has Realized Why is this a crazy idea? I think he was probably encouraged in that. Looking at the Chicago mayoral results, where once again voters in a big city said, You have got to do something about crime. Repudiated the incumbent mayor there.

Now, You know, are some Democrats going to have hurt feelings? Yes, but. This is a really positive turn. We've been waiting to see if Biden would break with the progressive left on any of their priorities, on anything really. And this is the first sign that he's willing to consider real bipartisan compromise.

To this point, he talks about how he likes bipartisan compromise, and what he means by that is getting a few Republicans on board a big spending bill that he's like infrastructure, like the chips bill. This is the first. What you might call a Republican idea that he said, okay, that's a good idea. I'm willing to go with that.

So, just to show you the pushback within his own party, the AG, Brian Schwab, the D.C. Attorney General, I should say, any effort to overturn the D.C. law degrades the right of this nearly 700,000 residents and elected officials to self-govern, a right that almost every other American has. As the city's chief legal officer, I will continue to advocate for D.C.'s full autonomy and statehood. But until that time, the president can block.

And he has the responsibility. The Constitution gives him the responsibility, gives the federal government the responsibility for overseeing D.C. And this is. Great news for the residents of DC. Right.

This is the hope that they're turning the corner. On this really, really awful crime wave.

So the thing is, too, is the Republicans got to be happy as Americans, but unhappy politically, because if you want those red states to have red senators like Sherrod Brown at 70 years old, like Joe Manchin in West Virginia, if Jim Justice runs, he'll probably crush him. Out in Montana, John Tester, Mr. Everyman who votes liberal every single time, pretends to be a moderate, never takes a stand, leaves Cinnamon Mancha out there all the time. And Angus King says, I'm an independent.

So this helps them. I think a lot of those Democratic senators up in 2024 will want to vote. With House Republicans and with the President on this, with where the President is now. Does that neutralize? Powerful issue for Republicans, maybe, but what are the What's the point of these elections?

You want them to matter. And I think this raises the possibility that. That this is the start of something where the President. You see Joe Manchin in the Senate saying, you've really got to negotiate on spending. You can't sit there and say, We don't discuss it.

Issue more debt. That's not a tenable position. I think this raises the hope and. The politics may make it trickier for Republicans, but For all of us, I think we have to be encouraged that The government Might Actually, address some real problems. James Freeman from the Wall Street Journal here.

So let's talk about 2024. I'm sure you've seen the last five polls show Trump with a pretty substantial lead over Ron DeSantis, who's a solid second in every single poll. In California, DeSantis leads. It will be a lot of electoral points. You're not going to win there, General.

And today, Ron DeSantis is heading to Iowa next week, speaking at the Club for Growth that does not like President Trump. He seems to clash with them all the time. He'll be kick you off speaker on the three day seminar, the three day retreat there.

So Ron DeSantis is going to Iowa, rolling out a book, doing a lot of interviews. In your mind, is he running? Yes, and he should. How discouraged, if at all, do you think he is by his team that they're not winning in these polls against a former president who's got a raft of legal issues?

Well, I think they the DeSantis, if it is a campaign, I think it has some work to do. I think you have a lot of Republican voters Who say, yes, uh We understand President Trump's flaws. But we don't trust other politicians. To have the toughness. to deliver for us on the issues we really care about.

And I think that's really been the been the issue all along. I think DeSantis is someone who can persuade those voters. He's got to figure out how he's going to take on Trump. That is tricky.

So he's, I think he has to be respectful of the accomplishments of the Trump administration. You're not going to go anywhere pretending that the 2017 tax reform wasn't significant. And we go the judges, just trade deals.

So I think he's got to be respectful of the achievement. Which will be easy because he believes it. Yes.

He's also Needs to explain how going forward. This uh gives Those Republican voters a better chance. To see their values, their issues. Reflected in governance. And he's got what he's got in Florida is a.

significant record, not just of political success, turning Miami-Dade County Republican, which was kind of amazing, but substantive success. And he showed he was tough enough to say no to the COVID madness when much of the country was locking up and Governments issuing mandates instead of allowing people. To do the sensible thing. Look what he did with Disney and just take it on corporations. If Brian Kemp wasn't able to push back on Delta and Major League Baseball, he would intend to go, oh, Disney, you're done.

And not looking back. And I think the Disney example, I agree completely. There are not many politicians who are able to win that kind of fight. And DeSantis has shown he's got the toughness, but also the savvy to do it. And I know there are some.

People like me who treasure limited government-free markets who say, oh, that wasn't good. We don't want politicians picking out industries and And basically going after them politically. But this is not. Picking on Disney, Disney had the sweetheart deal of all sweetheart deals. To say you're not going to have some special lobbyist-created benefit that other businesses don't.

Debt is not an abuse of power. Right, but it is a pushback because Bob Iger, I didn't know this till I read Ron DeSantis' book. Bob Iger was the first one to come out and say, Hey guys, listen to your employees. This don't say gay bill is not good. And that's when the employees started rising up.

I did not know this, mostly in Burbank. There's a few, but by extension in Orlando, when Bob Chapek comes out and says, you know, we don't subscribe to this, we're coming out against this, they had already spoken. And DeSantis said, Bob, Calm down. You're going to get pulled back for 48 hours. This is not the don't say gay bill.

It's telling parents of third graders: don't worry, your kid's not going to be asked to pick a gender. That's it. Yeah. And next thing you know, he calls a press conference and he caves because of shareholders. I mean, this time he got slapped down and he lost his job in the process.

I think that fight is going to benefit a lot of people around the country in a lot of different ways. And a lot of governors. Yeah. And DeSantis hung in there because he knew. There are not that many states where Disney could go where the The governor, the political leadership, would say, Oh, here's 20,000 acres where you can be your own government.

And oh, you want to intervene in state politics and insist that kindergartners talk about Or the teachers talk to kindergartners about sex. You know, there are just not many jurisdictions where that's welcomed.

So, so what's.

So let's talk about the the Trump DeSantis battle. Mike Allen weighed in on another network from Axios and says, here's the Trump's plan to defeat Ron DeSantis. Cut 21. Donald Trump is trying to scare. Ron DeSantis out of the race.

He's trying to rattle his self-confidence, his support. And that's why he, according to conversations he's having friends with we've talked with, is going to be going after him, amping up the rhetoric. And why this matters is that Trump thinks that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is the Republican who is most likely to go the distance. He can imagine the Republican primary winding up as a two-person race. And so he's trying to use his fear factor against DeSantis.

And of course, you well know the reason a lot of those candidates aren't attacking Trump is they know what will come at them. And in the case of DeSantis, here's what's coming after him. Trump's going to talk a lot about his past talk about cutting entitlements, Medicare, Social Security, including when he was a congressman. He's going to talk about the loyalty that he thinks he should have for Trump. who was a big help in making him governor.

So will that work? Loyalty will will work. We'll see how that goes. is a One-on-one battle for most of this campaign. And by the way, this is good.

This is. We like a competitive process. All of our political parties, they should have. Vigorous primary debates. That's how you.

Find out Who's for real, what their issues are, what they're going to do in office.

So I think this is healthy. I do think it. If it's a two-person race, I think DeSantis has an edge. I think looking at the history from 2015, 2016, where Trump has an edge would be if. A whole bunch of people get in the race along with DeSantis.

And And he can He can win with relatively small percentages.

So, what DeSantis has got to do, and just be careful and think it through, is he got to beat Trump without losing his voters.

So that's just it.

So, how do you not lose his voters? And there's smarter people than me that come up with that idea.

So, instinctively, you'd say, Well, what has Trump done as president?

Well, that's Most people like a lot most Republicans like 96% of what he did. What don't they like?

Well, not many Republicans thought, in retrospect, January 6th was a good idea to have that rally and tell them to go over. Does anyone think that was a good idea? Even at the time, we all thought it was a bad idea. How many people thought it was a good idea to take boxes to Mar-a-Lago, even though you thought maybe you thought it was okay or miscommunication? Why just not give them all back?

Why would you not do that? If those are vulnerabilities, you know what they are? Those are what Democrats would say.

So that's where, if you're attacking Trump on January 6th or taking documents back, that's where Republicans have been used to going, yeah, that's true. You're just focusing on minor things.

So when you go try to find a vulnerability, you have to find the vulnerability that conservatives would say Trump was vulnerable at, not what maybe. a ni a a moderate independent would think. Yeah, I think that's a good point. It's something that requires a lot of thought because those two examples I look at the documents issue, and I think it is really an abuse of power going after Trump. Absolutely.

Can I just add this? Washington Post had stories that the FBI pushed back against, prosecutors saying, I don't want to do the raid. And we kind of had that sense because it was an odd thing where they told us That this had to be done, this extreme step of raiding the president's house. But You remember there was that long period in the summer. Between the last communication and when they decided to do the raid.

And you couldn't help but wonder: wait a minute, if this is so urgent, if you got to go in there to get something that absolutely cannot be let into the enemy's hands or whatever, why did they take so long to decide to do the raid? Right. And then, with, of course, the Biden documents being found and the Pence documents being found, how are you actually going to go after Trump and pretend you're not biased? Yeah, so I don't. I think I agree with you.

That's not the way to attack him. On the election stuff. I think the case to Republican voters is: look, this is one, it's not good for our. Republic that our last two election losers, Hillary Clinton and then Donald Trump, have refused to accept the results. That's bad.

But the second thing is, reality, voters don't like either of them for that reason.

So if you want to get a majority. Yeah, that's the key. Get more than just the Republicans. James Freeman, Wall Street Journal. Thanks so much.

Thanks, Brian. All right, back in a moment. Learning something new every day on the Brian Kill Me Show. From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Kilmade. Hey, we're back.

Just great to have James Freeman joining us from the Wall Street Journal. I just want to play the second half of what Mike Allen said about the Trump plan to defeat DeSantis, Cut 22. Trump has been proofing, as he calls tweeting on his platform, Truth Social. He's been talking a lot about Paul Ryan trying to say that DeSantis is a lackey of the former speaker and shares his views. He's going to go after, ironically, DeSantis to say that he was too cautious about COVID.

Of course, largely the rap on the governor is the opposite. And fifth, Meekin Joe, he's going to say that he's waffled on Ukraine.

Now, as we do this contest of who's in whose head, Governor DeSantis is not taking the bait. He's brushing it off. His staff is not commenting. And the other day, Governor DeSantis dismissed. What Donald's saying, his constituent in Palm Beach, as background noise.

So I don't think linking Paul Ryan and DeSantis will work. It's not Mitt Romney. Because the problem with that is DeSantis doesn't even have to get. He said, listen, have you seen what I'm doing in Florida? Have you seen me act like Paul Ryan?

Do you see that I agree with almost everything? Do you see with the whole Russia hoax, I was the first congressman to stand by you? You see how strong I was taking on corporate America and how willing I was to do it when it came to the pandemic. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Killmead.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kill Meet Show from 48th and 6th in Midtown Manhattan, heard around the country, heard around the world. Tommy Larin, if you're smart enough to get Fox Nation, is now in the studio. She's got her own outkick show, and you see her all over the channel. Are you going to be an outnumber today?

I am. And Varney, I'm busy today. How the heck can you do both networks? And then Congressman Jim Jordan is now in the hallway. We're going to get to him shortly.

So before we get to Tommy, let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. Congressional Black Caucus lawmakers told me yesterday that they were surprised and disappointed in President Biden's announcement that he would not veto a resolution blocking changes to DC's criminal code. Oh, wow, that is Eugene Scott of Axios. Are Dems waking up to crime being a bad thing?

The latest evidence, a pro-criminal DC bill blocked. by Republicans and backed by Joe Biden. We'll discuss it. Number two. Chairman Xi, the president of the Chinese Communist Party.

Has clearly said that they will replace The United States is a global superpower that they will dominate the West by dominating key technology areas. That is pretty big. China has always had a quest to outproduce us economically and militarily. But now they seem on course to beat us academically and technologically. This is our national wake-up call.

Will we take it? Number one. She was very specific recently saying that a mom, a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl. That I killed her sons. That fentanyl they took came during the last administration.

And he laughs. Clueless and heartless. President Biden seems truly oblivious to the magnitude of the death and destruction from fentanyl and coming from our border, and heartless as he laughs about the passing and death of two young men, because he is not to blame. The mom of those two boys sounds off. So let's welcome Tommy officially into there.

Tommy, we looked at each other. We thought to yourself, the minute he giggled after saying that, I thought to myself, did I mishear that? Did I mishear the question? And we know that the Democrats are going to cover him saying that it's going to be an anxious laugh, as they do every time Kamala laughs at something that's completely inappropriate. But no one buys it.

Nobody buys it. But again, to say, well, this fentanyl came over during the Trump administration, but I'm still going to leave the border wide open to let more fentanyl come through. But the fentanyl that killed her sons, yeah, that wasn't me. I mean, how tone-deaf do you have to be? To me, the laugh was inappropriate, but the entire position that he's taking on this is even more inappropriate.

But you see what I'm talking about with Oblivious? I mean, when he says fentanyl, he's going through the motions. When he mentions it at the State of the Union, it says acts like we have to fight drugs in our country. This is very specific: 50 times more powerful or 500 times more powerful than heroin, 70% of all overdoses, up 22% since he took over. And then you have these 18 and 20-year-olds who, I understand it, took Percocet.

So it's a painkiller.

So you might say to yourself, well, they never should have done that.

Okay, fine. But since when is a painkiller equal death? That's what's happening.

Well, on my outkick show. Show, I actually had somebody from Nashville that does interventions and said, Listen, fentanyl in the next couple of years is going to be in every street drug that you buy. And that should be a huge wake-up call to people that are recreational drug users. Even Adderall, right now, there's a shortage of Adderall. People are getting it on the streets.

It's going to have fentanyl in it. It's coming across our border. This needs to be stopped. We know where it's coming from. Biden doesn't seem to care.

Right. And by the way, I should give you your proper plug. Your host of Tommy Lahren is fearless, and that is on Outkick right now. You're taping over in Nashville three times a week. Do you have a live audience there, or do you clear out the place?

I would love to have a live audience, but no, they don't quite trust me with that at that level. I'm going to talk to some people, Tommy. It's amazing what you want to do and what you actually do. I like your ideas better.

So that woman's name is Rebecca Kiesling. When she watched President Biden laugh, she said this, cut to. What a horrible he- How can he sit there and joke about it?

Somebody asked me, oh, you know, did he just like misspeak? I'm like, this shows his heart. You don't have to think about what you say in a moment like this. And to me, it's like it shows this is why he just opened the border so wide. He just doesn't care.

He's completely heartless. The President owes me an apology. And all of the other parents who have lost their children, they owe us, he owes us an apology. Your thoughts? I mean, number one, it's the least he could do: pick up the phone and say it.

And say, I was, you know, I'm Marjorie Taylor Greene, screamed at me during the State of the Union, asked for a national divorce, and I kind of, in that spirit, I answered, and I should not have done that.

Okay, we're in the public eye a lot of times.

Sometimes we could say things we wanted back, but my sense is he's going to pull Palestine. No show. Nothing. Let it go away. That's not just Biden.

That's his entire administration. That's what Kamala has done with the border. That's what Joe Biden has done, not only with East Palestine, but also with his classified documents, with the Hunter Biden laptop. That is the strategy. He could even say Ukraine because he never talks about it.

Right. It is a strategy. If you ignore it long enough, it'll go away because we know that media is running cover for Biden.

So he doesn't have to worry about it. Give it a couple of weeks' breathing room. People will move on to something else. He doesn't have to address it. The people are still left in the wake of tragedy and crisis, but he feels like it's off his books.

So Doug Amhoff is the second gentleman. Did I say that right? Yes.

So he sat down and did an interview, and he has a goal. I had no idea he had goals, but he has a goal, and that is to fight what he is. Fight toxic masculinity. Fight the fact that he's a man. Listen to this, Tommy, then I want you to get your take.

Cut twenty-four. Has being second gentleman changed your own view of perceived gender roles or what it means to be a man? Phew, this is something I've thought about a lot, and something I've spoken about a lot. There's too much. of toxicity.

it's masculine toxicity out there. And there we've kind of confused what it means to be a man, what it means to be masculine, where you've got this trope out there that you've got to be tough and angry and lash out to be strong. I it's just the opposite.

So, is that a good message coming from the White House? It's the politically correct message coming from the left. What's your thought? First of all, the only reason we know who this guy is is because he kissed Joe Biden on the lips at the State of the Union. Otherwise, most of us don't know who.

You mean Jill, not Joe? Jill, yes. I mean, we all remember. Oh, no, we all remember when he kissed Jill on the lips of the State of the Union. But that is so bizarre, by the way.

The fact that this is his crusade, I mean, that's the mantle that you're going to take up as the second dude is to fight toxic masculinity from a party and a group thing that doesn't even know what a woman is. You know, we're here, we're supposed to be celebrating women in the month of March. You've got companies like Hershey's putting transgenders on everything. I mean, listen, at some point, we have to stop the war on masculinity. But what they try to do is they try to make just regular traits of being a man into toxic masculinity.

They try to blur the lines here, and that's what I have a real problem with. All right, let's continue to blur it. Think about this. Is it Women's History Month or is it? It is in yesterday.

It was International Women's Day. Right. So now people are getting so caught up in being a woman. A lot of men want to be women. A lot of men want to go to become a woman and then race against other women.

So, in many ways, this whole transgender. Gender movement seems to be a war on women and their roles as if they're being infringed on. When are women going to speak up and say, stop helping me? Yeah, well, we don't need the help. I mean, there are plenty of wonderful women out there doing womenly things, and we really don't need men to jump into that arena either.

So I'll stay out of it. The perfect case is women's sports. I mean, where are the feminists in this? Why are they not speaking up? You see, it used to be just kind of an anomaly.

You'd have one transgender person, it caused an uproar.

Well, now there are several people that have realized this is a great tactic. They can be number one, they can get a great scholarship.

So they're competing against women, and the feminists are silent on it because they don't know if they want to be feminist or they want to be part of the rainbow mafia. They don't know which is pulling them harder. That's very interesting. I do think there's a separation. People talk about a separation of the Republican Party.

I'm sure it exists. It does. But what about the Democratic Party? You have people who are standing up pretty regularly now, like Bill Maher, saying, I don't know what the hell they're doing. I'm a liberal Democrat, but I have no idea when we're talking about sexuality, teaching kids they can pick their gender.

That is nothing I subscribe to. The whole woke thing they're out of. I can now watch 25 minutes of Bill Maur. And think to myself, that show could actually be on Fox. You know, and please Fox viewers.

It would, but the difference between Bill Maher and I think what the rest of the liberal mindset, Democrat Party, whatever you want to call it, the difference is Bill Maher has the money and he doesn't need to worry about really being canceled. We're talking about the regular Democrats out there that know all this woke stuff is crap, but they are afraid to say something in their school boards. They're afraid to say something amongst their friends in the workplace because they don't want to be called a bigot. They don't want to be called intolerant. Yeah, they don't have Bill Maher money.

They don't have the platform that he has.

So they're going to stay quiet. They're going to pretend all this stuff is normal because they don't want to be called a name. Which is interesting because Jon Stewart came out and said, when I said, obviously, this came from this novel. Coronavirus. Where did it come from?

I don't know. The lab that's working on a novel coronavirus, the Wuhan lab, of course, and Stephen Colbert was recoiled. And Jon Stewart didn't think he said anything wrong. He said, when I left that studio, I was being labeled an alt-right, that I was a Republican all of a sudden. Will Jon Stewart in his life ever be a Republican in anything?

But it just shows you how that mindset can blow up in your own face thanks to your own party. There could be at some point where we see cancel culture reach liberals and reach Democrats, especially in Hollywood, to a point where they can't take it anymore. Maybe we are on the cusp of that, but it's still going to take a while because you've got the indoctrination camps that are K-12 education also combating everything sane and realistic we're trying to do.

So that's going to be the big battle ahead. All right.

So by the way, I am in support of women. I'm just supportive women racing and competing against women when those things call for it, especially in sports.

So I want you to hear Sonny Hostin on the show you don't watch, but we often take sound bites from. This is from the view. Her view of women who vote Republican. I read a a poll just yesterday that white Republican suburban women are now going to vote Republican. Why?

It's almost like roaches voting for raid. Roach is voting for Ray. How could any woman vote for a Republican?

Now we're roaches. I mean, this is what the women of the view think of conservative women, but they want to uplift all women, but only women that subscribe to their worldview and their ideology. The rest of us are apparently roaches and trash and need to be exterminated.

So I'm going to ask you for the three places I think you've lived. How would North Dakota view what we're talking about, as opposed to California, as opposed to Tennessee, where you are right now?

So I'm from South Dakota. I keep saying North Dakota. Everybody does, yes. But North Dakota doesn't have Mount Rushmore.

So just remember, Mount Rushmore, Christy Noam is our governor.

So South Dakota, unfortunately, this woke crap is infiltrating even South Dakota. Will they ever vote blue? I don't think so. But the woke stuff is still coming into our schools. Its education system doesn't matter where you are.

You can be in Egypt in. You know, like we call it, bum Egypt, and you're still going to get the woke infiltration. I lived in Texas. We know that the woke is coming to Texas. Texas is trying to fight back.

California, I mean, that's where it was born and raised and fostered. That was the pilot program. Tennessee, I live in Nashville.

So it's a place that's very artsy. We've got a lot of liberals. We are a blue city, but we are a very, very red and very reliably red state. For that, I can be certain of. Wow.

So you really get a sense of America just following Tommy Laron around. You would think you're 71 years old, but you're not. You just, you're, you've lived so many places so early.

Well, Don Lemon would say I'm in my prime still. Right. So I've got a few years left. Also, would you check that and find out how many years Tommy has left? Because I totally agree.

At least 20. At least 20. Yes.

All right.

And then. Just hang it out. And put me out to pass. No reason to live. Tommy, I'll see you on One Nation Saturday night at 8 o'clock, right?

I'll be there. You'll be joining me. Great. When we come back, Jim Jordan will be joining us, and we'll take some of your calls. 1866-408-7669.

Thanks so much, Tommy. Thank you. Educating, entertaining, enlightening. You're with Brian Kilmead. A talk show that's real.

This is the Brian Killmeat Show. Hey, welcome back, everyone. In studio, if you're smart enough to have gotten Fox Nation, you're seeing Congressman Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Man, you are one busy guy. How much are you reading every day through all these investigations that you're doing?

No busier than a guy who's doing TV shows and radio and everything else. But I can ask smart guys questions. You have to come up with the questions to try to get answers to change our country's direction. We are reading a lot, but I don't pretend my job's any harder than any other one, any other American trying to make it in Joe Biden's economy. But we are working hard.

We got a good team at the Judiciary Committee, and we got to deal with this border situation. Then we got to deal with what we really believe is the federal agencies now being turned and targeting the very people they're supposed to represent. And so those are our sort of two primary areas of focus.

Well, when you talk about the border, it's very hard to get this administration's attention at the border.

So what in the house is possible?

Well, we're going to pass legislation out of the committee. In fact, we'll do that in the next several weeks that we think would remedy and fix the problem. But again, I don't think this administration is interested in putting that into law because they've intentionally created the chaos we have seen now for two years. We were just down there last week in Yuma, Arizona. I always say I think it's three questions: how did it happen?

How did we get here? Why does it matter? How do you fix it? And we know how we got here. Day one.

I mean, literally day one, Joe Biden says, we're no longer going to build the wall. We're not going to have Remain in Mexico policy, and we're not going to deport anyone who comes in on an immigration violation. And so when you announce to the world, and everyone wants to come to the best country ever, when you announce to the world that you won't have to wait in Mexico, there's no wall to get over, and we're not going to deport you, well, Shazam, everyone's coming. And so what we tried to really show last week in the hearing was why it matters. And I think the one testimony I'll highlight was the testimony from the hospital administrator who said the cost, $26 million in uncompensated care, and that they've had to provide in the Yuma Hospital.

And they're going to help people, of course, migrants or whomever, they're going to help them. But he said, we have all kinds of citizens who couldn't deliver their children in the maternity ward because. You know, they were helping migrant families. And so they're a real cost to education system, to law enforcement, to property, to the growers out there who grow the most of the vegetables we consume in the wintertime, the leaf. Yeah, the hospital was the big one.

You're watching the hospital is going to go out of business because no one's getting paid. And they don't necessarily want a check. They want this thing solved. Yes.

So, Congressman, your job is you're in politics.

So, why would Arizona possibly have two Democratic senators? How did Kelly get six more years when he showed an ambivalence up until the last few months of what's going on? What is going on in Arizona? Why do we care on the outside more than people do on the inside? Yeah, now we got some good members of Congress from that great state, but you're right.

I was surprised by the election results there with their governor's race as well. Huge governor's race. Pardon? It's huge. Yeah, no, exactly.

I thought Kerry Lake was such a great candidate, and unfortunately, she didn't win. But I do think we have to get better at some of the nuts and bolts in this state's with big male. In voting like Arizona has, we're going to have to make sure we're banking those votes early, just nuts and bolts practical politics that our party is going to have to engage in if we're going to compete and be able to win in some of these states. Many things that Attorney General Garland really struck me as absolutely insane. This week.

But one thing he said is: we know where fentanyl comes from. It comes from the cartels. No, he doesn't. It starts in China, then goes to the cartels. Why do they have such a hard time saying the problem is China, we need to pressure them there to pressure the cartels?

And people try to mock. I think it was Maggie Haberman's book said that Trump one time brought up, you know, maybe we should bomb these cartels.

Now, okay, we just can't bomb another country, but the sentiment I agree with, and there is things we can do to get Mexico to do that. Yeah, and declare them as a terrorist organization. And then sanctions and everything else can kick in. There's things you can do. I mean, financially, that you can do.

But yeah, that's where we unwind terrorists. Yeah, exactly. I mean, should we treat them as a terrorist? Because, in fact, there was in the central part of Mexico about six, eight weeks ago, a big story where the cartels were basically in a gunfight. Like this kind of stuff you see in the movies, a gunfight with the government.

That's how much power and influence and money, and unfortunately, all. Arms that these cartels have, and they're moving people, moving drugs, and they're making a ton of money on all of it. And this administration's policies are making it so they can make a ton of money moving people and moving drugs.

Now, if you put your headsets on like traditional guests do, you would hear the music begin, and then it gets louder, and eventually you get cut off. When we come back, the real segment we're going to do: this was a bonus segment, which I'm willing to legally satisfy you with. You listen to Brian Kilmy Chow. Congressman Jim Jordan's here en route to doing everything important in New York City. Don't move.

Brian Kilmey Chill. A radio show like no other. It's Brian Killmeade.

So, as you note, Brett, the FBI has for quite some time now assessed. that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan. Let me step back for a second. You know, the FBI has folks, agents, professionals, analysts. virologists, microbiologists, et cetera, who focus specifically on the dangers.

of biological threats.

So here you're talking about a potential leak. From a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans. And that's precisely what that capability. uh was designed for.

So that was Christopher Wray, who wasn't direct on a lot of questions with Brett Baer, but he answered that one specifically. Congressman Jim Jordan is still in the studio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

So he agrees with the Department of Energy, who I didn't know had a team of scientists. But the President won't commit. The CIA has no opinion. Congressman, what do you think the point was of the FBI saying that? Chris Ray is saying what he said.

Well, maybe I think they're being square with us and frankly confirming what we all suspected for now several years. I mean, you know, I always joke and say they wanted us to believe it was a bat to a penguin to a hippopotamus to Joe Rogan. And then, you know, we get the coronavirus everywhere. It's like, come on, we all kind of think it came from a lab. But I appreciate that.

I appreciate what the Department of Energy said, basically confirming what we all suspected. But that's not the first thing. I mean, you think about the virus. Everything they told us was false, right? They told us that they said it wasn't gain of function research.

Sure, it looks like it was. They told us that it wasn't our tax money at the Wuhan. This it was. It didn't come from a lab.

Now, sure looks like it did. And we have two agencies that said it. They have evidence that it did. They said the vaccinated couldn't get it. The vaccinated couldn't transmit it.

And they said, for the first time in the history of mankind, humankind, there is no such thing as natural immunity.

Well, what?

So, you know, like so many times, the government will, when you push back on what the government's telling you, you end up being the ones right, and they end up being the ones who were pushing something along. And that's part of the exposure with the Twitter files about what was going on then. And if you follow Matt Taibbi and Michael Schellenberger and Barry Weiss, which I've been doing, but other networks haven't, that's what you're doing this week. And for example, when it comes to COVID, what was the FBI doing there? Suggesting to Twitter to the point where their heads were like spinning: take this person down, take this person down, or this is dangerous.

You do what you want. Yeah, people like Dr. Bhattachari, who happens to have an MD and is a doctor and professor of medicine at Stanford. I was joking with one crowd. I said, you know, Stanford, it's It's not the Big Ten, but it's pretty good.

Like, what the heck? You're going to take him down because some bureaucrat in the federal government is smarter than Dr. Bhattachari and Marty McCarthy, a whole bunch of other learned people. And they were just saying things. One tweet got taken down that was basically restating what the CDC had on their own website.

But oh no, we got to take that down. This is how ridiculous this attack on First Amendment pays.

So Metaibi said that what he saw with the FBI interaction with Twitter, they got $3.4 million of taxpayer money to work with the FBI, and he says they believe Twitter was underpaid. As much as they were asked to do. Yet, Christopher Ray can honestly say we don't tell anyone what to post and what not to post. Can you connect those topics? I actually think that they were pressuring Twitter and prime and Twitter for all kinds of things.

There's a few emails from Elvis Chan, FBI agent, special agent in San Francisco, who met with these social media platforms all the time, weekly basis in the run-up to the 2020 and 2022 elections. And there's one email where he says, Twitter folks, which shows you how cordial and chummy they were, Twitter folks is the heading. We think the following accounts and tweets violate your terms of service.

So the government's telling Twitter what violates Twitter's terms of service. And Twitter's got all these. There was one where there's like 20-some accounts. I think all of them got the tweets got what they call visibility filtered, which is like shadow banned or limited. In some cases, just deleted or taken off.

All of the 20, all except Billy Baldwin, was the one that, you know, if you go through the Twitter files, he was fine. It just happened to be interestingly enough. the guy who wasn't filtered. One of your great attributes is you can distill down into a conversational way what is happening. You also have this great recall of reconstructing how we got to this event.

You don't ever assume that people know what we're building, which sometimes is hard at Fox because we're building a storyline every day, all truth. But you've got to remember that sometimes people just put on the television one minute.

So, Matt Taibbi. Discovered Hamilton 68. Yeah, scary.

So here's how he described it: what he found, and what his focus was. Not this Twitter drop, the previous Twitter drop.

So in the early Trump years, there was an organization called Hamilton 68 that was the source of probably hundreds of news stories over the course of a period of years that was allegedly tracking Russian bots. Their secret sauce was a list of 600 accounts they said were linked to Russian influence.

Well, in the Twitter files, we found the list. And the list, let's just say, is mostly bereft of Russians, but is full of real Americans. And what they basically did is a fraud. They took ordinary conversations of ordinary conservatives mostly and essentially just called it Russian influenced. Exactly right.

Wouldn't share, wouldn't share that list. Twitter had to go kind of re-engineer it to figure that list out. Wouldn't share that list. But when they would put that out, as these guys who are former guys in government and respected individuals, when they would put that out, then that would get to the media, and then the media would go pressure the tech platforms. Why aren't you responding to what Hamilton 68, what they're saying, and this list that they put together?

And again, no one saw the list, but when finally Twitter went back through and You know, like reconstructed it, I think is the word that Taebe used. They saw this was all baloney. It would run rampant.

So these stories that were generated tangentially by the FBI on Twitter would be a source for CNN and MSNBC and the Washington Post and New York Times and Mother Jones. And just as importantly, Democrat leaders in the Congress would then see the story and then be calling and pressuring the social media platforms. And that's how they kept earning and turning and churning this whole process. All again, the outcome being conservatives were being, their speech was being attacked and limited on these platforms. What about Adam Schiff describing requesting this be taken down?

What about Angus King, somebody that was running, he was running against, he was requesting these certain things come down. They felt perfectly calm going, oh, when you have some time, call Twitter, take down this account. It's not making me happy. It's insane. And what a great thing Elon Musk did.

There's probably one person in the world. Could have done what he did, let alone had the motivation that he had. Yeah, no, it's tremendous. And when I got a chance to talk to him, I said, thank you for what you are doing for the First Amendment. I actually think this is maybe the biggest threat we face, because in the end, we are going to be able to deal with all the other stupid things Biden is doing on energy and inflation and all the tax bad policy and regulatory.

We are going to be able to deal with that. But if the left is successful in destroying the First Amendment and our right to speak, what you do every single day, if the government can tell you what you can say and what you can't say, if the government can set up a disinformation governance board as if some agency is going to tell you what is appropriate speech and what is not appropriate speech, that is frightening in America.

So this is where we are really going to focus because we are the Judiciary Committee. We are supposed to be the committee protecting the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and your First Amendment liberties, for goodness sake.

So we are going to spend a lot of time in this area.

So we are talking, obviously, with Jim Jordan. Is that within your repertoire of the House Judiciary Committee chairperson doing the weaponizing of government? That is a separate thing? Yeah, it is a select subcommittee within the Judiciary Committee. Have you ever thought about this?

This is because you don't do foreign policy necessarily. But as evil as Vladimir Putin is, in the beginning when they wanted to say that he was influencing the election and Donald Trump was his candidate and they won, they were celebrating.

Okay, fine. But after a while, When they start coming up with storylines that didn't happen and accusing them of doing things that didn't take place and relationships that they had nothing to do with, at one point they had to be saying, what is going on over there? We found out, I read every page of the Mueller report, we found out all these links that jumped around because Manafort was working in Russia and in Eastern Europe, and they said that those were links to Trump, stuff that didn't exist. Yeah, never found anything. How would poison relations between two countries that have been at loggerheads for 70, 80 years and had ceased fire for about 10?

Think about the damage that was done to those relations because of fictional linkages. With President Trump. Putin didn't go into Ukraine. While President Trump was President, because I mean that that to be I I I think what you're making a great point, but again, it just demonstrates, I think, this other point, which is President Trump displayed strength from the Oval Office and projected strength from the Oval Office. Frankly, what we have now in the current President is just the opposite.

I always point this out too. Mike Pompey was asked a question. It might have been on your show. Mike was asked a question about a year ago, right after Putin first went into Ukraine. And they asked him, they said, Mr.

Secretary, would this have happened in a Trump administration? He gave a great answer. He gave the right answer. He said, the short answer is, I don't know. But I do know this.

It didn't happen in a Trump administration. And that says it all.

So, yeah, in spite of all the stuff the left was creating that was false, that was complete baloney, $30 million, and 19 lawyers and 30-some FBI agents and everything else that the Mueller report did, the Mueller investigation did, they found nothing. But in spite of all that, we still had a president who projected strength. And the things that we see happen in this administration didn't happen when he was president. Do you believe that Facebook, if we would do the forensics on them like that's happening with Twitter now, would reveal similar linkages greater even than Twitter? We're trying to find out.

We sent them a letter saying, give us the same information. Said in different words, give us all the communications you had with the FBI. What was going on in the rump to these elections? What kind of pressure you want?

So we've asked them for the same information that Twitter has given us because Elon Musk bought the company. Right. And then we know Mark Zuckerberg said it, and I'm not convinced he didn't do it on purpose. On Joe Rogan, when he came out, the FBI called and says, look out for this. And sure enough, it happened.

Then we find out in August they did a tabletop on what if the Russians do try to infiltrate the election and they knew they have the whole Hunter laptop scenario. You have read it all here. Right. And they have the whole Hunter-Biden laptop scenario out there.

So the Washington Post and New York Times and Twitter, they're all there.

So when it does happen, you don't even need that direct call. They already have a lot of people. Of course they don't. Of course, like Yoel Roth in his sworn declaration says that for repeatedly throughout 2000. He used to run Twitter.

Trust us. He says, repeatedly throughout 2020, I got briefings from ODI. I had briefings of ODNI, FBI, and DHS. And they happened weekly. They talked about a hack and leak operation.

They told us it was going to happen likely in October of 2020, and it was likely going to involve.

Now, think about that. And then, of course, along it comes.

So the FBI for a year tells Twitter and these social media platforms there's going to be a hack and dump. It's going to be in October and it's going to involve Hunter Biden. These guys are clairvoyant. How did they know? How did they know?

Because they had the stinking laptop for eight months. Yeah, they had it since December of 2019. And so, as you point out, when the New York Post story happens on October 14th, well, Shazam, there it is.

Well, son of a gun. And then, of course, that's followed up five days later by the now famous letter from the 51 former Intel guys, all these brilliant guys who still have security clearance, Clapper, Brennan, Morel, all these people. And the letter says that the Hunter Biden laptop story has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation. Interesting words, right? Because they didn't say is.

Has the earmarks of yeah, and Clapper's trying to change his story now, right?

So that's what they're trying to do. Say, I never said it, I'm just saying I was asked, does it look like Russia? And they say, part of the.

So if you drill down and say, what does Russia disinformation look like? They say it's mixed between true and false. They'll put some true stuff in there, and then the stuff surrounding it will be false. Yeah. So by the way, that is everything.

Welcome to life. You know, you want to trust that person. You don't know if everything is true. But why would you, like, if you're, I understand why Clapper would sign it and Brendan, they showed their colors. But I was surprised by Mike Morrell, who used to brief Bush.

And I was surprised Michael Hayden, I know, had a stroke. He used to be a level-headed guy, but Trump made him crazy. And then, number two, the biggest one is Panetta, the former Republican, former chief of staff for Clinton. And I know he leans left. Obviously, he worked for Obama.

Got it. But he was very critical of President Obama's foreign policy, especially when he left. And he could be supportive of certain things at certain times. Why would you sacrifice your reputation? And who started this letter?

Do you know who the first one to write? We're working on that. And we're going to talk with some of these folks. We've actually sent. Letters to these individuals, a large portion of the 51, and we are looking to see if they will come in for a transcribed interview.

So we are in the process of making that happen. And we've actually got some documents. I can't talk about them yet, but we've got some documents from some of the people who have signed on to that letter. Because they're concerned about their own reputation? When we contact them, some of them have already given us documents.

I'm going to just project for a second. When Joe Biden stood on that stage, he knew it was his son's laptop. And when he was challenged by President Trump. He said 51 intelligence experts said that this is information. Side of the letter.

And I always say that when you catch somebody lying, How did they sound? How did they look? Because you got to know what they're going to do when they sound like that again, you know, they're lying again. Yeah, he was that comfortable saying that was not, you know, he all he said was, That's not my son's laptop. I talked to him.

All someone he had to do is call up Devin Archer. Say, Devin, did you send that email? This is the FBI. Devin, did you send that email to Hunter?

Next, did you say they were all gettable? It's the FBI. And then you go, well, I talk to 50 people on those emails. They all verify it was them. But we didn't even do those basic 1930s techniques of investigation.

Well, in some ways, you didn't even have to do that much because you had the eyewitness. You had Bobolinski, who'd come forward and said it was, this stuff was going on.

So you had the actual laptop in the possession of the FBI. You had the eyewitness who was willing to talk about it, who was a business partner who did talk to the FBI and did talk publicly on your network.

So you had all that, and yet they prepped them, they primed him, they set them up for what they anticipated was going to happen. And I'm just amazed because, okay, every four years there's an October surprise.

So maybe they get the time right. But they got the method and the person, right? They got the time, the method, and the person, and they'd been telling, according to Yoel Roth's sworn declaration, they'd been telling him this for a year. You gotta be kidding me. Right.

And Nicole, your challenge will be making it simple that the average person with two jobs and four kids. Can o understand it. And that's not easy.

So think about it, though. They prepp the social media with what we just described. And then, of course, they've developed this long relationship where they're sending emails, hey, Twitter folks, where they're communicating on the super secret teleporter James Bond app that messages disappear after a certain length of time. They're giving them security clearances, and they're paying them $3.4 million. And so when it all happens in October, just weeks, couple weeks before the most important election we have, well, for goodness sake, it's got to be a hack and dump operation.

Jim Jordan, I can't. afford you for another segment, so I'm going to have to let you go. He has a huge fee. I'm only kidding. We're up against the break.

It's always educational to talk to you. Thanks for all you're doing. Thank you. Jim Jordan of Ohio. Back in a moment.

It's Brian Killmade. The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Kilmead. Welcome back, everyone. Just finishing up this hour.

I know I went a little bit late. I apologize, but with Jim Jordan in the studio, having it, every time he answers a question, I got four more.

So we went a little bit late. Just got to remind you: coming up. on One Nation this weekend. Mike Waltz is going to be with us, and Robert O'Brien. We're going to unwind what the A.G.

Merrill Garland said and didn't say in his testimony. He has come out to me, in my view, maybe not yours, as the most political attorney general that I can remember because people had such different perceptions of him when he was the Supreme Court nominee. To me, he's a bitter man that wishes he was on that ultimate court and wants to punish Republicans for doing it. And I don't take it by his demeanor, but I take it by his actions. We'll talk about that with those two, and then Tommy Lahren will be here.

And Tommy Laren is going to break down some of the other issues, as we talked about with the second gentleman believes. His goal is to take down toxic masculinity. Brian Yennis will do News Duel, one of the finest young reporters in the company, and I would say in the country, too. We'll talk about all that and more. Coming up on One Nation, that's 8 o'clock, repeated at 11 o'clock both Eastern Time on Saturday night.

And listen, if you're going to go out to eat, why don't you just put it off a little and just go out a little bit later? Also, I'll provide at least six topics to enhance your dinner conversation. conversation. And you can say, remember when Brian said this, remember when Brian said that? Believe me, they are total conversation elixirs.

So keep it here, Brian Kilmicho, BrianKilmicho.com to order the podcast if you ever can hear it live. 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 Tilmead Show.

Shannon Bream has been summoned. She has answered the call. She'll be with me in studio. Excuse me, not in studio, although I'm used to having her in the studio after the Super Bowl. We did a couple of broadcasts together and also going to be speaking with.

Uh James Daunt, who is running Barnes Noble, one of the most successful CEOs in the country, how he rescued that fantastic franchise.

So let's get to the big three.

Now with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. Congressional Black Caucus lawmakers told me yesterday that they were surprised and disappointed in President Biden's announcement that he would not veto a resolution blocking changes to DC's criminal code. Wow, how about that? Are Dems waking up to crime being a bad thing?

The latest evidence of pro-criminal DC bill blocked by Republicans and backed by Joe Biden to the chagrin of lefty Democrats. Number two. Chairman Xi, the president of the Chinese Communist Party, has clearly said that they will replace. The United States is a global superpower that they will dominate the West by dominating key technology areas.

So there you go, Michael Waltz. China already has a quest to cut out produce us economically, to beat us militarily. But now they seem on course to lap us academically and technologically. This is a national wake-up call. Number one.

She was very specific recently saying that a mom, a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl. Yeah. that I killed her sons. That fentanyl they took came during the last administration. Hysterical, right?

Clueless and heartless. President Biden seems truly oblivious to the magnitude of the death and destruction from fentanyl at our border and heartless as he laughs about the death of two young men because he's not to blame. The mom of those two boys has a definite message for the president. Let's bring in the great Shannon Bream, set to host our show, Fox News Sunday, author of The Love The Love Stories of the Bible Speak. And Shannon, of course, we can check our local listings to find you.

Right, Shannon? Absolutely, on all fronts. Right, and of course you're going to be watching at 8 o'clock. I don't want to put words in your mouth. At 8 o'clock Saturday, what are you going to be watching?

Uh, kill mead. And I'm going to be seeing everything that he's doing and taking scrupulous notes so I can use them for my Sunday show. Really?

So I'll look for that in your show. That's the script that he handed me.

So, Shannon, what about the President of the United States doing what he did? And just for everyone to reframe it, Marjorie Teller Green accused him of being responsible for the death of these two brothers who overdosed on fentanyl when they thought they were taking a painkiller called Percocet. And then he laughed after saying it. Because the accusation was not right. Cut one.

She was very specific recently saying that a mom, a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl. that that I killed her sons.

Well, the interesting thing is That fentanyl they took came during the last administration. So, I mean, how how inappropriate is that? I think that's that's a line you can let go. Like it i I don't think that the payoff is there if you're looking for one. I don't uh you can't even really consider it in those terms.

This is a man who's lost multiple children himself.

So it's so strange to me that he would go there. I don't think he would want to hurt or mock this mother at all, but but by making a flippant remark about it in any context, it does appear pretty heartless. It just was so strange to me coming from him. To hear that he would remark in that way. Right.

So if you do, listen, I'm on six hours a day.

Now you don't believe this, but sometimes you say things you shouldn't. And in retrospect, I think. It never happens to you, but sometimes it happens to me. I wish. Right.

Here's the mom, Rebecca Kiesling, who testified in front of Congress and joined a few shows. But then, when this came down and she heard the president say it, this is what she said: cut to. What a horrible human thing! How can he sit there and joke about it?

Somebody asked me, oh, you know, did he just like misspeak? I'm like, this shows his heart. You don't have to think about what you say in a moment like this. And to me, it's like it shows this is why he just opened the border so wide. He just doesn't care.

He's completely heartless. The president owes me an apology. And all of the other parents who have lost their children, he owes us an apology. Do you think the administration addresses this? Ugh.

No, I don't see how they can. It it will only give, I think, more oxygen to the story, which is not a good one for them. Listen, I think it would be a beautiful thing if he called her parent to be like, Yeah, listen, I've lost my child. I've lost multiple children and I know how your heart will never be the same again and you're crushed by this. And you know what, I shouldn't have done it.

But I I don't know that they will. I I feel like they're going to think that that adds more legs to the story and I wouldn't expect it to happen.

So You know how the President, every time he gets a chance to talk about guns, he talks about I'm going to get rid of assault weapons, guns are the problem. Gu well, he never talks like that with Fentanyl. He might mention it, but he moves on. I thought Bill Barr hopped on with Larry Kudlow and he wrote a column about this. And he says he just does not understand how bad this is and how many Americans have died.

Cut six. I think, I mean, I have been surprised we haven't seen more reaction against this. As I point out, Just the overdose deaths are now at the level of the bloodiest year of World War II for U.S. casualties killed in action.

So we are we are sustaining direct damage akin to a global war every year from these criminal organizations, terrorist organizations operating in safe havens right across our border. They now control our border. And how long can we put up with that? I do think this is not like World War II rolling tanks across the border. You know, we have the ability, once we gather intelligence, to deal much more precisely and use our all our tools, our criminal justice tools, our military tools, our intelligence tools, our economic tools.

So he can't believe that it's not a priority. But the president had one visit to Mexico, said didn't really come up building the wall and handling these border issues, which is astounding to me. And as it was explained to me, too, there was actually a shootout fight between the government and the cartels recently, the Mexican government. They obviously need our help. Yes, and I think it was the Texas Land Commissioner who was on earlier this week talking about this and saying the level of control that the cartels have at the border should terrify anyone.

Like this should not be a partisan issue. And I think increasingly in places like Texas, it's not. I mean, you have people down there who are local sheriffs and mayors and people saying You know, this is a horrific situation for us locally, but more broadly, too. I mean, we talk about the fight against drugs in this country every single day, at least we do, and about the real lives that are being lost. And it is unconscionable.

When Bilbar puts it in those numbers, you should not care one bit what your party affiliation is. You are not immune. Your family is not immune. We've been hit by this and my family. Like, it is devastating when this happens.

And it is beyond me why they can't get together in Washington and say, okay, let's throw out our talking points and start saving some lives to the tune of tens, if not $100,000 a year. Come on, people. Right. And then with an election coming up, you wonder if that's going to be an issue. The fentanyl is going to be an issue in the suburbs.

The fentanyl is going to be, or the border collapsing with $6 million, they estimate here illegally already, if it will be an issue. Phil Wegman weighed in for the real career of politics. He's the White House reporter, Cut Seven.

Well, the border seems so far away to a lot of Americans who aren't there every day. But then, when you see the consequences, some of these illicit drugs coming across that border, and you see the suffering that has been caused by that, I think that that's a very visceral, very real example of what's going on. And I think that just like regular Americans cringe when they see this type of rhetoric from the President, I think that some folks over at the DNC are probably wincing because he's going to be on the campaign trail very soon. And we'll see, because in in Arizona. They didn't pay the price.

Mark Kelly got another six years. They got a Democratic governor. And that's where, outside Texas, it's the worst. I mean, it's just it it It is hard to get your brain around it. It's hard to fathom it.

But it is going to be one of those issues that if we're out there talking about crime and we've got this issue with the DC bills here that the President's not going to veto. You know, a sensitivity there potentially about knowing that it's going to be tough for him to go out and talk about crime and about the border and all these kinds of things when you have people across the spectrum saying we've lost total control. I mean, past and current administration people have to admit. And the numbers that we get every month are nonpartisan. They are not coming from the RNC.

They're coming from CBP and federal agencies, and the numbers don't lie.

So I got to get your opinion on this because I'm a man. And how do you know you're a man? What's your definition? And it looks like I checked the box when I was 18.

Okay. Let's go with that. I did not know. Maybe I am ex exhibiting toxic masculinity, and I don't know it. I'm always the the guy they say is the last to know.

But Douglas M. Hoff, who is the second gentleman, does think there's a lot of that toxic stuff going around. Cut twenty-four. Has being second gentleman changed your own view of perceived gender roles and what it means to be a man? This is something I've thought about a lot, and something I've spoken about a lot.

There's too much. of toxicity. it's masculine toxicity out there. And there we've kind of confused what it means to be a man, what it means to be masculine, where you've got this trope out there that you've got to be tough and angry and lash out to be strong. I just the opposite.

So Am I exhibiting signs of toxic masculinity and do you can and if I am, could Doug be my leader too?

Well, um, I did go to HR about you. I mean, numerous issues, but the toxic masculine Toxic Masculinity I checked it off on the HR report. Um, and they said I wasn't the first one.

So there you go. No, listen, I think there's a lot of room in between. I fear too many debates out there these days, like you are extreme over here, you're extreme over here. I think a guy can be tough and protective and also respective of women and also cry once in a while and do all of those things. I think when you make it like, oh, anyone who likes to do push-up contests is going to burn something down.

Like, that's ridiculous. I think we should want our men to be protectors. I think that's a role that was designed for them. And that means with respect, it doesn't mean going around and punching people in the face, but it also means that I know if somebody comes after me, they're going to have to get through Mr. Bream.

And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think when we try to tell men, like, you got to strip away exactly who you are and you've got to be a shell of your former self or else you're totally disrespectful, that's not helpful either. We don't need to deal in extremes. I think that men like you are capable of all kinds of behaviors. And I, you know, respect the man that you are.

Yeah. Thank you very much.

Well, and the next time I'll cry is if the Giant Stone signed Daniel Jones to show you. When will you know? I want to be by Tuesday, I think.

Okay, let's keep a cam on you 24/7. Can you do that? Because I want your real-time reaction. You got it. And I'll tell you what: you just described the perfect husband, your husband, because he has the balance.

He's old man, Mr. Athlete. But you also tweeted something out for him. You said massive shout-out to my hubs. He must have quietly tackled our mountain of laundry because I got my drawers full of clean clothes this morning.

What did I do to deserve this man? Such a question I ask myself every day because, yes, the man will go out. He is an archery hunter. He is, you know, handy with all things that you would use outdoors. I'll put it that way.

But the man can also cook and do laundry.

So I'm like, what kind of wife am I? Very disappointing. Like, I don't bring that much to the table. The man constantly surprises me. And yeah, he didn't make a big announcement, like, hey, I'm going to go do all the laundry.

He didn't do that. I just woke up and there were clean things in my drawers. And I was like, this man is fantastic. I'm just on some level. He probably knows your social media habits and you'll give him props and what you do in your national radio show.

Let me see. He went and checked my Twitter in the morning to see, like, did I get credit for the washing machine? Oftentimes, washing could be therapeutic. It's not like the old days when you first met him, when you used to go down to the stream and clean your clothes out of the corner. You had a little washboard where he had to scrub the clothes and keep the frogs off of the clean stuff down at the creek.

I mean, if he was doing that, I'd be impressed. But all he's doing is going to put clothes into the whirlpool.

Okay, but you know. What people don't want to do is fold it and put it away. That's where you get stuck. And so I do kind of love laundry because it smells good and it's nice and warm, and you put it away. And here's the problem with a folding, putting it away.

Every time I fold something, Dawn will go to me, just let me do it. Because I tend to put the sleeves on one side and flip it.

Okay. But did you did the tr did you do the trick? I did because early on I also found out in our marriage I was folding things wrong. You were?

So after a while, you're just like, well, I guess I can't get it right. I guess you're going to have to fold it on purpose. And so sometimes that's how things work out. Right. See, Dawn has never done anything wrong.

But as soon as she does, I'm going to point it out.

Well, you're how many 20, 30 years into this now? Like, I think she's a keeper. I think she's she stopped keeping track. Plus, she owns she owns a boutique now, Wild Willows.

So she's folding all day. Because Knuckleheads walk in there. Me and Sheldon can put on like a YouTube clinic for proper folding. That would be great. It'd be helpful.

Because you get paid by the click. But by the way, Sheldon should shop there. What's wrong with going to Long Island from Washington? And picking out clothes. I don't see.

I don't. Is there men's stuff there or just women's? You sell it? No, no, for you. For me?

For you. When's your birthday?

Well, yes. We want to be supportive of the Kill Meat household, so we're going to get right on that. All right.

When's your birthday, Shannon? Send your private jet, please. It's December 23rd, so it's a ways off. But I could find a holiday between now and then, which might require a gift. All right.

You got it. I'll work on that. Shannon, we're going to watch you. Can you tell me about your guests? I can.

We're going to have former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to talk about all kinds of foreign policy stuff and whether he's ready to make an announcement about 2024. And also, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Democrat Senator Mark Warner, is going to join us. We're going to talk about China, TikTok, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, you know, the whole deal. See you Sunday. It's a lot of foreign policy, Allison, right?

I mean, isn't it a lot of foreign policy? Yeah. Is there a problem with that? Not with me. I mean, we're going to be able to do that.

I love farm policy. I love it. You know what? We're going to talk about the Ohio train derailment and all kinds of other things, but I demanded that we put on the schedule this week, too, this law that this bill that Senator Rubio and some others have proposed about not messing with the daylight savings time situation. Like, let's stop changing our clocks.

I feel like that's worth a mention from my panel. I want to know how these four people feel about that. All right, good. I think I might can I take that for Saturday night too? That sounds like a great topic for me.

I'm going to be watching and taking notes, so I look forward to your thoughts. Go get them, Shannon Breer. I appreciate it. Back in a moment. Educating, entertaining, enlightening.

You're with Brian Kilmead. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead. We're back. Just got a couple of minutes here because I went a little bit long.

Just on what we have to talk about with. You know what, what basically is going on domestically and foreign policy-wise, one thing is pretty clear: whether it's hands-on with Ukraine, whether it's with China, whether it's with the border. The the President does not ever talk about anything, never makes himself available regularly, doesn't have people who can talk substantively ever, just explaining things when they could put in their face or put in their path. And I think I find that the most. Frustrating.

And maybe you do too. Especially because you had another president who told this press secretary Now's turn turncoat Stephanie Grisham. Don't even have. Don't have any press conferences. Don't do any press offerings.

I'll do it. And he would just sit there and go you, you, you, go, go, go, and answer questions every day.

So, when you don't answer questions, the press does your bidding and defending. And then the normal press, like us, you know, people say, wait a second. What's going on in Ukraine? Why won't you give them F-16s? What's going on domestically?

Why are you so soft on crime? Why haven't you gone to visit the toxic train crash in Palestine, Ohio? What reason could you possibly have? Oh, but I'll take a little jog over to Maryland, make a political speech about. Banning assault weapons as if that's the problem, not bring up fentanyl and think I'm part of the problem with a 22% increase in.

Overdose deaths. since he took over. That number does not lie. When we come back, we're going to be joined by the authors of one of the great success stories, James Daunt, the new CEO of Barnes Noble: how he rescued that chain. Radio that makes you think.

This is the Brian Kill Me Show. Hey, welcome back, everybody. With me in studio is one of the most successful CEOs around the world, and certainly he's done a small miracle when it comes to, or say a major miracle, when it comes to the fortunes of Barnes and Noble. A lot of people thought it was going to go the way of Borders Books and so many others and said they're probably going to have to liquidate. But instead, even during the pandemic, they not only survived, they are thriving today.

And I know it personally. I've probably been to as many Barnes Noble's as anyone you will listen to, having the books come out like I've had over the last few years and traveling the country. And the ones that always say yes, you could sign here of Barnes and Noble, James, even before you had a chance to take over. James Daunt, welcome to the show. Thank you very much.

So, first off, when you took the job at Barnes Noble, how did you assess what the challenges were? And why did you think the principles that worked overseas would work here? But I suppose that was the the main thing I had. Um I was I'm an independent bookseller by um By trade, I've been an independent bookseller since the 1990s, and I took over at Waterston's, which is the Barnes and Noble equivalent in the United Kingdom when it went bankrupt in 2011. 2011.

So I had a good decade of sorting that out. And when the opportunity came to come to the United States and Barnes and Noble, the theory was that the same principles would apply. People read books in the same way, they enjoy bookstores in the same way, and therefore we needed to sort things out in the same way. And when you say sort things out, what was your approach?

Well, mine is that people come to a bookstore to enjoy the experience of being in a bookstore, and therefore it is beholden upon the booksellers to create really nice and engaging experiences in those stores. And sadly, the experience in chain bookselling generally hasn't been good enough over the years, and Barnes and Noble had deteriorated. And we needed to bring it back. We needed to bring it back to life.

So people want to come. You want the coffee shop, number one. Do you want to make it possible to read there? Not only do you want the people to be personable, but also I heard too there was some controversy about. What other things do you have besides books?

Do you have calendars? Do you have toys there? What's your approach? My approach is firstly that it depends where you are, and that's a basic principle both for the books that you present to your customers and the other things around it. Do what's right for your community and therefore you have to decentralize.

You have to no longer direct everything from a home office into the trust your managers. You have to trust your managers.

Some places need big cafes, some smaller, big newsstands smaller. Lots of toys and games. Whatever you're doing that isn't a book, make it support the book and be relevant to the book buyer and be right for your community. What is fundamentally. In stone.

And what can a manager actually decide what to do? Are there certain things that a Barnes Noble must have under your leadership, and what's the point where they can be creative? We are a bookstore. First and foremost, we are a bookstore.

So books are what we will judge you on and which we expect our customers to judge us on. And therefore, as a bookseller manager, assort your store however you like, arrange it however you like, but do so to a standard and champion books. If you do that, You can do whatever you like. We don't tell you what to put where, we don't tell you, but we do expect you to really appreciate books and understand books and work with your community.

So, James, when you came in, people were worried, right? They were, tell us the perception now that you've had a chance to get to know these men and women that run these stores. What was the perception of you when you came in? And now that you got to know them and they realize the type of guy you are and the success that you've brought, what did they tell you? To be to be honest, I was welcomed, hugely welcomed, sort of partly because it had been such a success at Walterston's and Google told them that.

So they were and and they were living this slow deterioration. We'd sh closed hundreds of stores, sales were dropping year after year. Why was it dropping like that? Because we had a model which said every store had to be the same. It was predicated on publishers paying to have books put in particular positions, and that was then sent to all the stores.

And you will do this, every single store the same. It created very uniform, very consistent stores. That works with other retailers. When you walk into Zara, you want to have the same clothes. When you walk into CVS, you want the same shampoo, whatever it is.

But in a bookstore, you want it to reflect what you in your local community want. And when we allowed the booksellers to do that, I think they saw that this was something that they could do better. And that trust has been paid back a hundred times over. Can you give me an idea of the numbers, how they changed?

Well, we actually, just after I joined, the pandemic happened. And then we had our in retrospect was a huge stroke of fortune because we had to close our stores. And rather than follow our booksellers, we kept them employed and we said, use this as an opportunity to move your stores around, rearrange the furniture, create the spaces that you want. Did you find they had ideas? They had ideas.

And about quarter of them had amazingly good ideas and about quarter of them had Terrible ideas and in between. But we were able to get the people who had the great ideas locally to go to the stores down the road. And also, discussion happened between them. And actually, they figured it out. And when we reopened, we had much better stores.

And that was a huge piece of luck. But yet, you still want the revenue of a national deal.

So let's say John Grisham comes out, established author, and he wants end caps on all these aisles. Do you turn down that revenue now because you've Localize things? We did. The minute I Join, we stop taking those dollars. We don't take any money at all now because it is directly contradictory.

You can't say that the booksellers put John Grisham on the NCAP in this position because we've been paid to.

So we don't take any money at all. But what we are doing is we know we have sensible booksellers out there. They still want to sell John Grisham, but each store will have a different position to put it in. The length of time that John Grisham will sell will vary.

Some will carry on selling for months, others, it's a big, quick. Burst.

So I think the book selling still goes on. For publishers actually, they're still selling those books. But we have complete freedom as to how we curate our stores, and that's the essential.

So tell me about the American market as compared to overseas. It's bigger. And God bless the American consumer because they spend in a way that perhaps isn't going on overseas. A lot of troubles in Europe, even for books, economic problems in Europe. In the U.S., the robustness of the economy, the confidence of the U.S.

consumer means that as we've come out of COVID, it's been dramatically stronger.

So we're very happy. You know, it's so fascinating if we were talking in the 1980s and they were able to talk to Steve Jobs and say, you know, what's going to happen? We're going to have this digital era and everything you want is going to be in the palm of your hand and books will be digital now and you can walk around with this pad. We'll have everything on there. You would think that books are going to be part of the past, you know, like bell bottoms.

Why do you think books have sustained themselves? I'm sure you talk about that all the time. I think I've always believed that the physical object of a book is a wonderful thing. I actually am fully in favour of e-reading and Kindles and Nooks and all of these. If in the right place, you know, you want it when you're traveling or you want it because you don't want the noise of while you're sleeping for the person sleeping next to you.

There are reasons why you'd want to, but you don't have the physical book. You don't have the connection with the physical object. And a book was a great invention a long time ago, and it still endures. It decorates, it fills bookshelves. You connect in terms of just f the physicality of it.

You remember what is in that book. And also buying books in bookstores is just really enjoyable. The serendipity of finding and discovery in a bookstore is Not replicated online. James Daunt is here with the CEO of Barnes Noble, one of the big success stories of the chain. How many stores do you have?

Where are your best? We've got a bit over 600. They are in literally every single state. We're now beginning to open up new stores, which is really exciting. We've had a long period, a decade of not opening up in any meaningful way.

Now we are. They are successful everywhere. It's not actually about a particular, it's not metropolitan, it's not the more affluent. We have really, really good bookstores. What actually determines our success is the caliber of our individual bookselling teams and managers.

And I think those are generally elevating all the time. Do you worry about, everybody worries about the next generation, especially in TV? No one's turning their TV on. They're not watching cable. Whatever it is.

Do you worry about a generation coming up who aren't readers? Who are Snapchat? You know, there's Snapchat and I've been in this game a very long time, 30 years a bookseller. And throughout my career in bookselling and today, the energy and the drive and the impetus of our bookstores comes from what we call young adults. And today, it's book talk.

It's these kids who pour out of the school into our stores. They buy books, they consume books, they bring energy into our stores. How can you be worried about the future when you're Most vibrant part of your store is people aged 15 to 25. Is that true? And that's true.

And they're the guys who work in our stores as well. You know, we we we young people love physical books. They're really immersed in them. And actually the pandemic has been a huge boost to that. We came out of the pandemic with far more customers than we went into it.

You know, it's interesting because during the pandemic, you would think out of all the entertainment, people were talking about Netflix and whatever, but other people read. Right, other people just caught up. I have to read. My job is paying me or not paying me not to work.

So, maybe they rediscovered it. Have you done studies on that to find out what people were doing?

Well, that is the astonishing thing. And it's not just in the United States, it's not just in the United Kingdom, it's everywhere in the world. During the pandemic. They started to read more, and reading is a habit. Once you realize how great reading is, you read more of it.

It's like I think at seeing a great movie, you want to see the next one quickly. But there are so many good books. And then the social media actually brought a huge focus and attention on good books. I mean, that these book talk successes were really good books. I think great books.

And because people and particularly kids were reading more good books, It just exploded. And then we had things like Colleen Hoover exploded. We had political biographies exploding. We had all over the place. And it's been very, very exciting for booksellers.

So James, why were you convinced that the model would work here that worked overseas? I think that the You didn't know America. You were here before. I know and love America. I think that the key is: do we have booksellers in the United States?

Did we have people who were vocational and cared and really were passionate about bookselling working in our stores? Came and visited a relatively small number of Barnes and Noble. Every single one I walked into, there were booksellers who cared about their job. They would just be held back by the structures around them.

So I knew if we could relax that, give them back their responsibility and give them back their pride in their own stores, we would have something great again. What are people reading? I mean, I guess it goes by the demo. Is it bios? Is it news?

Is it self-help? Is it sports? Kids' books? All of those things because of every age comes into a bookstore, but we've had recently a massive increase in what young people read.

So a lot of manga is selling more than it's ever done before, graphic novels, romance has taken over. But actually, in the non-fiction subjects, although it sort of moves around the spectrum, people are reading, and I think will continue to read, good narrative non-fiction. It's just a fantastic stores mention me? Of Barnes and Noble. You have written a good, nice lot of books.

Yeah, they I mean Barnes and Noble couldn't have been more uh kind and supportive. I have a great one. Uh we'll carry on seventy seven WABC in New York, uh and WRCN for an hour. Uh I have a great one over in uh West Iceland. And when I walked into this manager, and it's usually corporate.

And I just said, listen, when people order from around the country, Could I make them go to you?

So they can order from my website. It'll go to you. I'll just show up once a week and personalize it. And he said, yes. I go, no, I know you have to check.

He goes, no, I don't. I can do it. He goes, I have a cyber guide that can help me out. And I go, wait, this is the first time I heard about your model. He goes, no, no, I think we'd want to do that.

And sure enough, when I did the President Freedom Fighter and it comes out, I was showing up signing books once a week and for people to get that personalization only because the Barnes Noble, that you actually empowered your managers to make that decision. If it was the old model, it would never have gotten a yes. And it's also a reflection, actually, that bookstores are places in which readers and writers and authors come together. And it is that connection. And I think one of the fascinating bits for me is that hardworking authors who get out there, who do events, who connect with their readerships, who do it virtually on social media and actually physically in stores, they're the ones who succeed.

Right. And I will say this, because I actually, you're talking to somebody that has been literally all over the country. The teams I get from you guys are so impressive because, for example, you got to set up the podium, but I stand. They ask you, what do you need? I just need to stand.

If we just have one line, if I could take a picture with everyone and if you could hand me the book.

So we have a system, right, Allison? We have a system where we have one of your workers, they hand me the book. This way I can talk to them rather than go to the right page. And then we take the picture. Nothing like working in a Barnes Noble.

You guys are like, machine, what do you need? We got your notes, and we pull it off. We probably save 45 minutes, an hour, you know, just because people care. Yeah, I have to say I've had a few authors who you got a queue going to the back of the store and like the third person in, they start talking. Like twenty minutes later, you go, No, no, no, no, you got a queue, you got eighty people to go, please.

Right, I know. I've had a few of them. The one thing is you do uh some of them I don't know, I don't want to get them in trouble, but some serve alcohol. Do you allow that? I don't think it's been a Barnes and Noble.

It's not a Barnes and Noble.

Okay, I don't want to get you in trouble. But that is kind of an advantage. I've done it. In my own stores, I've done that. I had one wonderful author who said, I will talk for as long as there is a glass of wine in front of me.

So we put a full bottle in front of it. After 20 minutes, it's empty. We have to put up a second one. Anyway, it didn't end well. I wasn't talking about me.

I want people online to have a good time. Oh, that's true as well.

So listen, James, thanks so much for coming in, telling your story. If there's one takeaway that you want people listening right now who are bouncing out of the pandemic looking for motivation, what kind of advice would you offer them? I think reading is a beautiful thing to do. And if you've got kids, bring them into a bookstore and let them enjoy themselves. They don't have to buy anything, just enjoy the bookstore because they're great places.

Right. And if you get them young, they'll have a positive impression the rest of their lives. That's fine. All right, Jace, thanks so much. Great to meet you.

Pleasure. Back in a moment. Educating, entertaining, enlightening. You're with Brian Kilmead. Breaking news, unique opinions.

Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show. Hey, welcome back, everybody. 1-866-408-7669. Don't forget to watch One Nation coming up at 8 o'clock on Saturday night. It'll be a great show, of course.

I will never let you down. And we will not be talking about the Burdock trial.

Sorry, I'm done with it. The guy's a brutal murderer. I knew it from day one.

So did you. Let's find out, the more I think of it, if there's more to know right now. More. To know. It turns out adult kids are moving back home to live with their parents.

Yes, we knew that. But do you know their parents are moving back in with their kids? This used to be relatively rare.

Now one in five Americans live in a multi-generational home in 2021. That's up from 7% in one in five, up to up around 7% in the 1970s. Even people buying new homes are inclusively looking for homes that can accommodate multiple generations of family. 14% of buyers set up multi-generational homes in 2022. I think this is a good sign.

The economic need, okay, that's a little depressing. But I think it's a good sign that people want to be with their families. You need that resource. Isn't it great to have a relative that can watch your kids once in a while? No, I agree.

I think it like it all, like everyone helps each other. Like a relative, like your grandparents can help watch the kids at times at the same time. Then when your parents get older, right? If you can avoid putting them in assisted living or something because there's room for them in your house, you're happy to help them in that too.

Next, sleeping less than six hours a night could increase your risk of getting infections by more than a quarter. Yup, that's me. Research has looked at about 2,000 people over in Norway because we don't have the money to do it here. They asked if they suffered any respiratory infections such as cold or stomach bug, skin or eye infections, or another type of infection. And they looked at how many people sleep, and they say people that sleep eight hours a night have less.

I got news for you. I sleep a lot less. I don't have infections. All right.

I don't have eye. My eyes don't even itch. They don't itch.

So, I mean, it's totally wrong. You barely use the cough button. I mean, these are just people in Norway. It's literally not as healthy as the colours. Listen.

Is it true I barely use a cough button? That is true. It is true. No, I will say this too. How many we've been working together many, many years.

You've never called in sick. Ever. I've never called in sick at Fox. I've been here over 25 years. Like, have you ever gotten like a stomach bug?

Like, because there's sometimes like you physically can't get out of bed, and clearly that hasn't happened. I've gotten food poisoning, but it hasn't happened. It's been on a weekend. Yeah, and it's been a while. I mean, you don't want to say that?

Yeah, knock on wood. Because, yeah, and knock on wood, but a lot of times people say, well, I can't believe how sick I got, I never got sick. Yeah. But I feel very fortunate that I don't really take any sick days. But I'm also kind of dumb because I don't take any sick days.

I haven't taken any sick days, period.

Now, if I was allowed to accumulate those sick days, we can now. I could, we can. You're going to retire and then get paid of another 20 years. When did that start? Starting February 27th, Fox News Podcasts presents the True Crime Minute.

The latest updates on solved and unsolved murders, America's most wanted killers, missing persons, and celebrity crime trials. I'm Laura Engel. Join me starting February 27th as we keep you updated on the top true crime stories of the day. With new updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, hosted by Fox News correspondent Laura Engel. Subscribe and listen now at FoxNewsPodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

The True Crime Minute every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Get the latest updates on your smartspeaker or favorite podcast player. Listen to this show ad-free on Fox News Podcast Plus, on Apple Podcast, Amazon Music with your Prime membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Mm-hmm.