Two banks collapse, what is Biden doing to keep economy going; Benjamin Hall details his experience in Ukraine

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That's amazon.com slash BrianKilmead. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kelmead. Yes, I am very approachable. Had a great weekend.

Hope you did too. 1-866-408-7669. The number to call to be on the show. We know the President of the United States is off to California now. He is going to be meeting with the UK President and the Prime Minister of Australia over in San Diego.

And who knows, he'll have a joint session. But before he did that, he addressed this banking collapse of two regional banks. Hopefully, it's not more. At the bottom of the arrow, I'll talk to Michael Goodwin, New York Post columnist, about his big column. And he's just looking at what's going on right now with China and what China just did with Iran.

And it really is, you really should pay attention to it. But before we get started, and we'll recap some of the president's remarks that he wanted to make before the market opened, 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. Yeah, I mean, look, Ron DeSantis is clearly the alternative, but he is very untested.

And there is something that I think every successful candidate for the presidency in recent years has had something. It's called charisma. And we don't know if Ron DeSantis is able to connect with people yet. Hello, Iowa. The two Republican heavyweights, Trump and DeSantis, descend on the caucus state and make some room at the top as Tim Scott is about to make his presidential quest official.

2024, front and center. Number two, we should be concerned. We're in enormous competition with China. National security is not simply about guns and ships and tanks anymore. It is about technology competition.

True, polls show. All of us agree. Republicans and Democrats, China is a problem for us here in America. The latest move, brokering a stunning truce with Saudi Arabia and Iran, which is raising their global profile. Can we at least get our nation to agree to cut TikTok?

Is that too much to ask? Number one. The downfall of Silicon Valley Bank was sudden and swift. At the beginning of the year, it boasted nearly two hundred ten billion dollars in assets and was brought to its knees in fewer than forty eight hours. Yep, here we go again.

Federal regulators took action to make sure Silicon Valley Bank and New York Signature Bank depositors got all their money back, and the First Republic Bank could be next. But don't call it a bailout. We outline the issues and the causes of the dual crash, and we'll watch what happens today. And I'll bring back what the President just mentioned. But it was really, Chris, it was meant to say: hey, listen.

All management is fired. That was there. We are going to not use taxpayer money to bail them out. Evidently, they have a $100 billion. Fund.

that banks put out That would backstop should something like this happen to the banks. This is after 2008. The new federal program would enable banks to pledge U.S. Treasuries and other safeguard securities as collateral in return for loans of up to one year for the central bank.

So, what is wrong with this bank? What happened to SVP? Why is you probably not involved?

Well, it's the 16th largest bank. And what happened is there was a run on deposits caused by the Silicon Bank fail. Why did it fail?

Well, on Thursday, rumors got out that they couldn't handle all the withdrawals that were happening because people like Peter Thiel were tweeting out, the rich people, that I'm not too secure about this bank. They didn't have the money. The interest rates on the money that they had out there gradually rose, making it too costly to hold. But everybody knew the interest rates were going up. Everybody.

I mean, wherever you target, whatever you are, what level of banking you are, what level of income you have, everybody knew this was going up. How they could not plan for this, I don't know. But the fact is, the CEO cashed out and got a huge upswing. How people bet short that worked there, how everybody who worked there got bonuses to me is inexcusable and unacceptable. Unethical behavior and just making a bad move is one thing, but an unethical move is a whole new thing.

Christopher Krebs is a guy who's a CBS intelligence expert, great in this whole cyber world. Cut eight. The biggest challenge right now, I think, these companies, and again, it is 50% of VC-backed U.S. companies banked with Silicon Valley. It's approximately 60,000 companies.

The challenge they're having right now is that they don't have access to information in addition to access to their money. I've talked to a number of companies that are banked with SVB, with Silicon Valley Bank, and they've not heard anything over the weekend. Here's the challenge, though. Most companies Issue payroll on the 15th and the last day of the month. The 15th is Wednesday.

To make payroll on this upcoming Wednesday, you have to have that money in the bank tomorrow to process.

So, did the money get there? And what about the small business that had nothing to do with the depositors? They just say, I choose to put my money in Silicon Bank. There's a branch down the street, I'll put my money there. Are they going to get it back?

And the answer is yes.

So, other people aren't as optimistic. This guy, Bill Ackman, widely respected hit podcast, weighed in and said this: this is not a bailout. The GFC, the government, injected taxpayer money in the form of preferred stock into banks. Bondholders were protected, and shareholders were diluted to varying degrees. Taxpayer money was put at great risk.

Many people who screwed up suffered minimal to no consequences. These were bailouts. Here, shareholders and bondholders have been wiped out. More banks will likely fail despite their intervention, but we now have a clear roadmap for how the government will manage them. Bank boards and management have received a massive wake-up call.

Our government did the right thing. This was not a bailout in any form. The people who screwed up will hear the consequences. People call him somebody who's a panic spreader. The others say that it's going to continue to get worse.

I guess we'll see what happens. The Wall Street Journal actually was the one who said that. David Sachs, a general partner of Kraft Ventures, said on the uh all in podcast that this was not a big tech. This was not this is not this was not big tech That was at risk, but smaller firms than that. Also, our signature bank was mostly crypto.

This bank was mostly startups. A lot of these people there were more concerned about equity and equality and less concerned about money. I think in the big picture, we have to stop with this political correctness and focus on. being the best we can be in the things that matter most, and that is with your money. Ro Kahana weighed in too, and talked about the types of people that invest in these banks, cut seven.

It means that the companies that are looking for cures to cancer, the companies that are doing the climate work, the companies that are keeping us ahead of China on AI and defense technology, all of them are at risk.

Some of them will go under.

Some of them are going to be laying people off. It's going to mean people aren't going to be able to make their rents. And here's the point. All of the legislation we passed in Congress, the IRA to tackle climate, the CHIPSAC to bring semiconductors back, it relies on the innovation pipeline. It relies on the tech pipeline.

And that is why this is such an important issue. What is hurting it is the rapid rise of interest rates, as well as now this systemic risk. And it's going to hurt the innovation pipeline, and it's going to hurt ordinary people. We'll see what happens. Uh of course it's going to hurt.

Who who's helped by irresponsible banking? Last year, this company is worth one hundred seventy five billion dollars.

Now nothing. It's amazing how this happens. We'll discuss all that and a little bit more. Also on a lighter note, twenty twenty four is heating up. I love it.

Had a chance to meet with and do an interview with Ron DeSantis, the governor. We did, we talked for 30 minutes. You'll hear the unedited interview, including us playing catch and walking on the field. You'll see that unedited interview on a podcast right now.

So, BrianKilmecho.com, wherever you get podcasts, it'll be there.

So, 2024 is heating up. We know Donald Trump is going to Iowa today. We know he's got 80% approval rating among Republicans, Iowa Republicans. Do you know what DeSantis has? 74%.

It is close. 45%, Nikki Haley. I think she'll continue to be a factor. Brendan Buck. Obviously, a Paul Ryan chief of staff was on yesterday as an expert on Meet the Press, Cut 19.

Yeah, I mean look, Ron DeSantis is clearly the alternative, and the argument for anybody other than Ron DeSantis is pretty thin at this point. But he is very untested. And there is something that I think every successful candidate for the presidency in recent years has had something. It's called charisma. And we don't know if Ron DeSantis is able to connect with people yet.

He obviously is able to animate the Republican base. But when you're running for president, you're under that spotlight. People want to see whether you have the emotional appeal. Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton.

Everybody had it. And it's unclear if he does. And when Donald Trump comes swinging at you, you're going to have to respond.

Well, that'll be no problem. That's different than what he was talking about. I think he does. I think he wants to solve people's problems, but he's not warm and fuzzy. I don't really think necessarily we need that now.

But Trump's tough. Trump is going to be extremely tough. I think his team is a lot crisper than 2016 and 2020. That's for sure. When we come back, we'll have some of those highlights from Joe Biden's speech that just concluded.

It was not too long, about three or four minutes, just concluded a couple of minutes ago about defining what exactly his administration is doing under Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen in just a moment. You listen to the Brian Kill Me show. A very important Monday. Don't move. Getting past all the rhetoric.

It's Brian Kill Me. Hey Prime members, top Fox shows like the Brian Kilmead Show, The Five, Fox News Rundown, hundreds of others are available ad-free with your Prime membership. To listen, download the Amazon Music app or visit Amazon.com/slash Brian Kilmead. With Amazon Music, you can access the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts. Avoid the ads.

Listen to your favorite shows ad-free with the Amazon Music app or by visiting Amazon.com/slash BrianKilmead. That's Amazon.com/slash 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 Kill Me. Treasury Secretary Yellen and a team of banking regulators have taken action.

Immediate action. And here are the highlights. First. All customers who had deposits in these banks can rest assured, I want to rest assured they'll be protected. and they'll have access to their money as of today.

That includes small businesses across the country that bank there, and need to make payroll. pay their bills and stay open for business. No losses will be, and this is an important point. No losses will be borne by the taxpayers. Let me repeat that.

No losses will be borne by the taxpayers. Instead, the money will come from the fees that banks pay into the deposit insurance fund. Because of the actions of that because of the actions that our regulator has already taken. Every American should feel confident that their deposits will be there if and when they need them. All right.

That is the president moment ago.

So if you're a depositor, you have it. If you deposit money to make payroll, you do it. If you were investing, then that's a different issue across the board.

So that's the action he's taking. He went on to say this, cut sixty. Second. the management of these banks will be fired. If the bank is taken over by FDIC, The people running the bank should not work there anymore.

Third. Investors in the banks will not be protected. They knowingly took a risk. And when the risk didn't pay off, investors lose their money. That's how capitalism works.

And fourth, there are important questions of how these banks got into the circumstance in the first place. We must get the full accounting of what happened and why those responsible can be held accountable. In my administration, no one, in my administration, no one is above the law. And finally, we must reduce the risk of this happening again. Right, which brings us to the last one, cut 61.

During the Obama-Biden administration, we put in place tough requirements on banks like Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. Including the Dodd-Frank law to make sure that The crisis we saw in 2008 would not happen again. Unfortunately. The last administration rolled back some of these requirements. I'm going to ask Congress and the banking regulators to strengthen the rules for banks to make it less likely this kind of bank failure would happen again.

Well, part of it. And Senator Warner was one of the people that voted for it. These regional banks were under so much stress and so much regulation they needed a break, and that's what it is.

So now the CEO this is what I'm talking about. You can't legislate ethics. This guy, Greg Becker, the CEO, dumped three point five million dollars worth of stock the day before the collapse. I can't help you with that. I mean, this guy ascended to the place he did in the banking world, financing world, and he has no problem.

Doing something like that, cashing out, knowing everyone's going to find out about it. Who else on the board did that and didn't make an effort to do it? They had no. I understand they had no risk assessment manager had for nine months. The bank's previous head left in April of 2022.

Her replacement was not named until January. While the European risk officer is accused of being more focused on diversity efforts, this guy, this Jay Asarfar, the financial risk manager, also spent time presiding over diversity role models. They talked about different programs, starting up safe spaces at workplaces and the catch-up, where people would talk about how they dealt with coming out to their parents and their family. Employees were encouraged to share all these stories.

Meanwhile, the company was falling apart, and a lot of people's lives have been crushed since then.

So I just wonder how much of this is going to emerge in the next few weeks, that it was all. political correctness gone wild.

So that's what's happened. We'll talk about the banking thing. I hope you're not involved in it. I thought Vivek Gramaswamy, this is a great opportunity for him as you talk about twenty twenty Four. He's running for president.

And here's what he said about this collapse. Another area of his expertise. Cut 17. There's no free lunch. And what's going on, Steve, is it's crony capitalism all the way down.

What happens is you have a $250,000 maximum that FDIC usually applies as the amount that's actually insured. What they're doing here is they're changing the rules after the fact to favor Silicon Valley Bank. And what does that do is it creates these incentives in the future, Steve, for banks to take more risk, for depositors, especially large depositors at smaller banks, to just throw more money at those banks because you know the government's going to be there to backstop it. I know they're not calling it a bailout, but the concept is really just the same.

So, if you want someone to unwind, if he wants to step up, if I was his publicist or his chief of staff, I'd be on everywhere. He was also on CNN over the weekend. He did fantastic. And Caitlin Collins did a great job interviewing him, and he had every answer. The thing about Vivek Kwaramaswamy, you might not have heard him, maybe he's not going to win.

And it's highly unlikely, obviously. But a self-made multi-millionaire, maybe he's a billionaire by the time he is 30. And then you see the books he wrote about anti-woke, and you see what Governor DeSantis is doing with that same legitimate theme, you can't rule him out.

So there's a. Ron DeSantis momentum, no doubt about it. Tim Scott's going to announce he's going to get some support. Nikki Haley's been really good since she came out. Had the courage to say, hey, you know what?

We're going to have to raise the retirement age. You know that we can't afford it. It's not sustainable. That might be trouble. Donald Trump would never say that.

He thinks it's problematic. It panics seniors.

Meanwhile, here is Governor DeSantis on the stump and talking about his book, but also letting everybody know what works in Florida will work by you. Cut 24. My job as a leader is to put the interests of the people I represent and their jobs over my own interest in keeping my own job. And so if there's short-term political pain, and ultimately if it doesn't work out for me politically, that's fine. But you had to do the right thing.

And I think the fact that we did that was part of the reason why we boom so much. Yes, we have lower taxes. Yes, we're a law and order state and you see disorder around the country.

So he is very happy with his track record and willing to run what he did in Congress. The frustration about being the minority, or frustration about being the majority with the Republican president, working directly with President Trump on things like the environment, like Everglades, and some other things the president really helped him out with. And in turn, the president said, Let me make sure I take Florida. He did that. It was the other states in 2020 that were the issue.

So here's what he told me on One Nation Saturday Night about school. And that's one thing that really resonates. Should be with both parties, but definitely Republicans. Got 28.

So, we've had school choice in Florida long before I got here. We've expanded it more than others. And guess what's happened? Those public schools up their game. They've had to compete to get the bodies.

We have a lot of school choice within our individual school districts now.

So, if you're in like Miami-Dade, you don't have to go to the school right in your neighborhood. You can go to other Miami-Dade schools where they are. You can also go private and public or in charter and all that.

So, I think it shows you that Florida empowering parents has worked. And I think what it does is it lifts all boats. Yeah, I think so too. That's why he did win by the substantial margin he did. Listen, Tim Scott's going to announce this week.

That's going to be interesting. I think talking about China. Is always a pause. When we come back, Michael Goodwin will be with us. Over the weekend, China brokered a deal, a truce, so to speak, with Saudi Arabia and Iran.

We look terrible diplomatically. They are gaining there as they are gaining a foothold in Central and South America. Are we going to wake up soon? We'll talk about that, as Michael Goodwin wrote about in the New York Post. Brian Kilmicho, so glad you're here.

Download Fox News Channel's The Five Podcasts for free. Five of your favorite Fox News personalities discuss current issues in a roundtable discussion. Get it now on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Fox NewsPodcasts.com. Information you want, truth you demand. This is the Brian Kill Me Show.

Today, thanks to the quick action of my administration over the past few days. Americans can have confidence. But the banking system is safe. Your deposits will be there when you need them. Small businesses across the country that deposit accounts to these banks.

can breathe easier knowing they'll be able to pay their workers and pay their bills. And the hardworking employees can breathe easier as well. He just muddled his way through an important address because this could be a string of bank failures. We have two bank failures, they're regional banks. There's also a scenario where big banks just buy these failed regional banks and consolidate more power.

I don't think that's necessarily good for the country either. Regional banks play a vital role. And I'm talking about the Silicon Valley Bank and I'm talking about A signature bank of New York, and there's another Republic bank that could be in trouble too. And what the President wanted to do this morning before the markets opened, before he left for California, is reassure people. Did he?

Michael Goodwin, New York Post, columnist, you saw there's always something here in New York. Finance, this is the capital of the world when it comes to finance. Michael, before we get to your column on China, what do you think about what the President how the President dealt with this latest challenge?

Well And I think a lot of uh this is just sort of confidence building. holding hands.

so that people don't panic. And I think that's necessary. unfortunately, because this whole thing of the bank runs, it has a it can have a domino effect. If everybody says, uh oh, I have to get my money out of that bank and everybody does that at once, uh then the banks then the bank's in trouble. And I think what's what's interesting I mean, the what I've read in the discussions about the uh Silicon Valley Bank and um And the others is that they apparently did not listen to the Federal Reserve when it talked about raising interest rates because as I understand it, these banks had money, but they had invested it in low yielding government bonds and treasuries.

And so they were making, let's say, 2% on their money, when you can now make 4.5% and 5% for the same product.

So, if they went to sell theirs, they would take a big loss. And they're taking a big loss effectively by holding them.

So, they apparently didn't listen over the last year as the Federal Reserve kept raising interest rates, and they got stuck holding these low-interest debts.

So, it kind of boggles the mind. Where were they? I mean, I'm not a banker, but I know enough about the Federal Reserve and what it's doing that I would not be sitting there with a 2% debt.

So, it's a strange phenomenon that these banks. Stood still while the world around them was changing. Right. I mean, put it this way, and the fact that the CEO cashed out the day before the bank collapsed, they lost a bank. That's a coincidence, right?

I mean, come on. I mean, he knows he's going to get caught and look bad. It doesn't matter to him. And the thing is, he's got a board to answer to. Where was the board?

Did they cash out to? I heard last week all the employees got bonuses. Why are you getting bonuses? I mean, does anyone need to tell you interest rates are going up going up? Everybody knows it except this bank, it seems.

Well, Brian. And look, this feeds into the larger thing that the government will always be there to bail you out. And I don't know how the stock market is doing. It just opened. But last night, when I was looking at the futures market, it was saying the futures were up because basically the government was going to bail everybody out.

Now, whether it will cost the government money, we don't know yet. We don't know how it will be resolved. But this sense that it's a moral hazard, that you can take these chances as a bank and you will not really suffer the consequences that you deserve because so many other people would be hurt. I mean, that's the kind of thing that creates everybody betting on the government, everybody waiting on the government, depending on the government. It's like, where's my check?

Where's my bailout? The student loan was another form of that. Biden wanting to bail out all the student lend.

So borrow the money, don't pay it back. Don't worry, the government will come to the rescue. The government will pay it back for you or forgive the loan. That's a dangerous thing. Dangerous situation for our economy, and unfortunately, it looks like the government blinked here.

We'll see how it finally gets resolved. But it's one thing to hold the hands of depositors, it's another thing to bail out the banks themselves.

Well, the other thing you just got to think about is Silicon Valley: who do they vote for? Where's that money going? Who's lobbying who? Evidently, there was a whole bunch of there's a whole bunch of democratically connected staffers that were lobbying for the Silicon Valley Bank.

So, you know, if you do bail them out, that's going to just reinforce your voting base. But let's talk about China. Not many people think this is a top story. You and I do. You saw China broker some type of truce between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

One of the things they wanted, they said, stop attacking. The Saudi Arabia said, stop attacking us in Yemen and at our border. Evidently they agreed to. They're going to exchange diplomatic relations. This is a big win for China.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Look, I think nobody likes to see a war go on, but this was something of a proxy war. Saudi Arabia and Iran weren't fighting each other directly, they both had their had their proxies in Yemen fighting. But look, I think the big story here is China.

It's moving in on in the Mideast in an area that used to be dominated by America. But I have to say, Brian, I think Joe Biden screwed this up royally. I mean, first of all, when you just look at the whole global landscape, Russia invading Ukraine, China threatening Taiwan, rolling up Hong Kong, I think a lot of this goes back to Afghanistan and the sense that Biden is looking and that the American public doesn't want these foreign entanglements. And so you have Biden saying he's going to punish Saudi Arabia over the Jamal Khashoggi murder. He's pushing Israel.

He's trying to get Iran back into the nuclear agreement. All of these things Are working against our Arab allies in the region.

So, Saudi Arabia says. in effect, screw you, I'm going to find another friend. And so they they work with China, they sell a lot of their oil to China. I mean, China has now secured oil supplies from Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Three of the largest producers of oil and natural gas.

They're getting a lot of coal also from Russia.

So this is an amazing coup for China. It has more influence today in the Mideast than America does, notwithstanding the fact that we have troops there, we have air bases there, we have ports there. And so suddenly Saudi Arabia, you know, the old the old question in campaigns, you know, who lost Well, I think it'll be a fair question in 2024.

Well, as you know, Saudi Arabia.

Well, the thing is, Saudi Arabia in particular, China was going to be an adversary. I think only 15% of the country now believes China is not an adversary.

So everybody's on the same page on that. When the President said we're tired of getting killed in trade, put those tariffs on, it was game on. And we were going to compete with them, and we were going back and forth on that. And we all know how that went out because the President had President Xi over, but when the pandemic hit, all bets are off. But I want to bring you back to this.

So you have the Abraham Accords and all these Arab countries recognizing Israel and then setting up trade. That stops now because Iran was the reason. This horrible country that was put in a box that had suffocated sanctions was now out of the box, making nuclear weapons, causing havoc around the Middle East.

So Saudi Arabia said, okay, China wants to broker something, let's do it. They never would have done that had they not had to. I mean, it was just a few years ago. They rocketed Saudi Arabia. for no reason.

Yes, look. Saudi Arabia was There was lots of talk when the Abraham Accords were finished. That uh Saudi Arabia was tempted and came very close to joining them. It would have been an amazing thing because it is considered the most powerful country in the region outside of Israel. It came close, but it didn't do it.

And I think Jared Kushner has said and along with the American Ambassador to Israel that had Trump been reelected, had there been more time, Saudi Arabia would have joined. And so you would have had this Israeli Arab alliance, which would have rocked history. I mean, it would have defied everything. It would have defied the kind of Palestinian rejectionism that we're seeing even now break out again. And so Biden gave up all of this because Trump did it.

He hates Trump so much That he would undo whatever Trump did just for spite. And with Khashoggi, with Khashoggi's death, he says they're a pariah nation.

So you have to say to yourself, okay, they're not our neighbor we want next door. But since the 1940s, we've had an alliance with them because it's good to have that friend in the neighborhood, so to speak. And we also had some connection with them, and they were also vital to us winning the Cold War because of their control of the oil. As we became richer and richer, and President Trump really thought they wanted to emphasize we can use Saudi Arabia to our advantage. It doesn't mean they're the second incarnation of Jeffersonian's democracy, but you have to say to yourself, what's the alternative?

Pro-Iran. That's not in America's best interest, never will. When we talk about China for a second, big story today about how they have their new finance minister, and he basically admitted what we hear: that their economy is in trouble and has been sucking wind for the last two years. They have to now try to get entrepreneurs to be entrepreneurs again because this President Xi is. Basically, they nationalized any successful company and arrested their CEO.

So they plan on having, with a country that size, they plan on having 5% growth. They admitted they're probably not going to have it again. They have a whole youth first generation of workers who aren't working.

So China's got their own Challenges. And we could be doing that, but instead, we're so much on the defensive or sleep of the switch that we're getting beaten in Central and South America by China. We're getting beaten now in the Middle East by China. They're trying to take over the South China Sea. We know we're pushing back on the tech center and their land purchases and their school presence, as well as their college grant program.

So sooner or later, you need to sit in a room and decide: I got Republican support for this. Let's get a program together, Michael. Final thought?

Well yeah. the balloon incident, I think the spy balloon was telling Brian that A, that Biden let it go on across the whole country and B, he then shrugged it off as not a major breach. Uh I beg to differ. I think symbolically per and perhaps in terms of the data it collected, it was clearly a major breach. And it sent a message.

that we're here and we're we're closing in. Look, China has made no bones about its goal, which is world domination. It wants to be the number one superpower. You look at what's happened in the Mideast and all the other areas that you outlined. I would have to say that right now, if you had to bet on the future, you would say China has now surpassed the United States.

Not only in many categories of military spending, et cetera, but in terms of its cohesive view. View of the future. Joe Biden, as you said, asleep at the switch. I mean, you look around the world, Brian, and we're always late. We're always slow.

There's no forward thinking. It's all reactionary. Our military is geared to the pronoun issue, right? It's not front-forward. And this is not a call for war, but it is a recognition that the old saying holds: if you want peace, prepare for war.

Biden has not followed any of that age-old wisdom. He has weakened America. The world knows it, and they're all on the march. Yeah, they always say he's got all the foreign policy experience and relationships. How's that worked?

Please take a look around.

Meanwhile, we're getting mocked by the Mexican president who says we have no fentanyl. And he says if Republicans continue to say they're going to go after the cartels, they'll push every Mexican to vote Democrat. Who the hell is this Mexican leader? Thinks he could talk to us or anybody like that. They just feel empowered, emboldened, and I cannot wait for a change of leadership.

Michael Goodwin, thanks so much. My pleasure, Brian. Thank you. Hey, we come back. We'll take your calls.

Come on. I know you have a lot to say over the weekend. 1-866-408-7669. You listen to the Brian Kill Meat Show. Coming to you on a need-to-know basis, because Mandy you need to know, it's Brian Kilmead.

From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Kilmead. My journey started on a boat. I spent a year in a refugee camp. And somehow I ended up here on Hollywood's biggest stage. They say Stories like this only happen in the movies.

I cannot believe it's happening to me. This This is the American dream. The Oscars were last night. No one got slapped.

Some people won. It lasted four hours. It put everything on television again. Everything from sound and Best cinematography.

So with three and a half hours. I mean, you weren't going to watch it even if if it was two, no?

So.

So, who was that? That was Ki Yu Wong? Yes, in his uh victory speech for everything everywhere all at once was supporting actor. Did you watch that? I did not.

Actually, Josh did. Josh is a movie expert. A phenomenal movie. Right there with Top Gun in my top fetchative one. It's about a family, and it is extremely strange.

There's a scene, it's two minutes long, where two rocks are talking to each other, and that is not even the top 20 strangest things in this movie. And you liked it. I loved it. It was fantastic. Are you somebody that likes the crazy stuff that makes no sense?

Yes, absolutely. This worked for me so far. All right. Thanks, Josh. Maybe I'll watch and I'll feel the same way.

Alan in Atlanta. Hey, Alan. Want to know about the Silicon Valley deal.

So what do you want to know? Oh, I know everything about it. I told your handler, if you want to understand what it is, I'd tell you.

Well, they said that they have a $100 billion fund they're going to use to bail out depositors on this bank, and they're looking for another buyer of the bank or what's left of it. The New York Signature Bank is a different story. They lost mostly on the crypto, I understand, investment, correct? That's my understanding.

Now You know, what's buried in this bailout is that the Fed is going to let people Pledge bonds that may be worth fifty cents on the dollar and give them $100. in value So there's really a transition of money that ultimately goes back to the taxpayer. that if these banks fail, the Fed is on the hook for something that maybe is bigger, bigger than tar. Yeah, it's uh and I just think it has a lot to do with Silicon Valley. A lot of them are supporters of Democrats.

A lot of lobbyists work for them. They're the 16th biggest bank in the country. There's a lot of people, 60,000 different startups are invested there.

So obviously, there's a ripple effect. It's not bailing out rich people. There's a lot of everyday people, but they say that's why they had this fund set up for something like this when it happened. Let's go to Karen listening in. Orlando.

Hey Karen. Hi, Brian. This is a completely different subject, but I'm concerned about the military talk about attacking Mexico tr cartels because Fox showed a map recently of all of the gangs that are spread all over the United States. And it just seems to me we start some kind of military activity. I don't even know what we would attack if we went over the.

The line, but if we started that, it's like we've got their sleeper cells all over the United States. They're not just gonna sit there, they're gonna react. And it's just going to be a mess in the United States, don't you think? I mean, no, what I think is this. There's a way to take them down the same way you could do it through banking.

It doesn't have to be a rocket through their lean to. They're banking. They do it outright. And there's a way to work with the Mexican government to get it done. And we were un route to doing that.

Bill Barr's book talked about it. But as soon as Trump lost the election, all relations broke off and they quadrupled their business. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show. Brian Killmead. In town, Manhattan, heard around the country, heard around the world.

So glad you're here. Hope you had a great weekend if you're in the Northeast. Sunday was nice, Saturday wasn't. It's raining today. But let's not weather control our lives.

How about some good news? The drought's over in California. It's rained constantly. And also, climatologists will tell you: don't panic. That's what happens in California: long periods of drought.

Long periods of rain. That's been the case. Molly Hemingway is coming up at the bottom of the owl from the Federalists. Matt Taibbi standing by.

So let's get to the big three.

Now with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. Yeah, I mean, look, Ron DeSantis is clearly the alternative, but he is very untested. Yeah, and there is something that I think every successful candidate for the presidency in recent years has had something. It's called charisma.

And we don't know if Ron DeSantis is able to connect with people yet. Hello, Iowa. These two Republican heavyweights, Trump and DeSantis, descend on the caucus state and make some room at the top for Tim Scott about to announce his presidential quest. And don't be surprised if some Democrats outside Marion Williamson decides to get in. We'll have to see how that goes because Joe Biden still has yet to make it official.

Number two. We should be concerned. We're in enormous competition with China. National security is not simply about guns and ships and tanks anymore. It is about technology competition.

Mark Warner. Get used to it, guys. China's the problem. Polls show all agree on that. Republicans and Democrats.

Only 15% say China is not a threat. The latest move, brokering a stunning truce with Saudi Arabia and Iran, which is raising their global profile diplomatically. Can we at least get our nation to agree to cut one thing? How about TikTok? Is that too much to ask?

Number one. The downfall of Silicon Valley Bank was sudden and swift. At the beginning of the year, it boasted nearly $210 billion in assets and was brought to its knees in fewer than 48 hours. Here we go again. Federal regulators took action to make sure Silicon Valley Bank and New York Signature Bank depositors got all their money back.

First Republic could be next, but don't call it a bailout. We outline the issues and the causes of this dual crash, and we'll watch as things unfold today. Keep in mind, too, the President of the United States spoke at 9 o'clock to set 9 a.m. Eastern Time to settle down the markets. We'll see where if that actually had a desired effect.

Well, last week, I could not wait for Michael Schellenberger and Matt Taibbi to go in front of Congress so they can go over what they discovered in their reporting. With the Twitter files that have been not widely reported, but have been fought out fascinating and aggravating. But I wanted to hear the insight. And maybe Bat Taibbi did too. Joining us now is the journalist and author of Griftopia: The Divide: The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing and Hate Inc.

He's got a great column that you can subscribe to on Substack. Matt, welcome back. Thanks for having me, Brian.

So, Matt, I read what you wrote about your meeting, so I know you were kind of nervous and anxious to look forward to telling everything that needs to be told, but we discovered On Twitter with the Twitter files and the access you got. Instead, what happened?

Well um Uh the Democrats, um I expected them to attack us, but um really they they were really comically inept attacks and cut off any attempt to to engage in any kind of conversation about the material. And and really just tried to get us to uh you know admit that Russian interference happened. They tried to talk about my sourcing, which was very strange. Um and they called us a direct threat to people who oppose them, which is, you know, it's the kind of thing they complained about with when Donald Trump was president. Um, you know, if he had said that to a journalist, can you imagine what the reaction would have been?

So-called journalists, you mean. Right, so-called journalists. That's right. I forgot about that whole scene, too, as well. Yeah, so-called journalists.

So, Matt, like I said, I've been following it, and it's not easy. Elon Musk. Said you can have access to the Twitter files and to go in there sectionally and organize and see what you see here and report whatever it is. And the same thing with Michael Schellenberg and Barry Weiss. You know the threesome.

So yes, you threesome, you were called. It was unbelievable how people didn't even put their research time in. Can you give the of my listeners an idea of some of the things broadly that you discovered? I think the the key The things that we found. One, that there's a formal system uh reporting system Where all of the platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Google, Twitter.

They were receiving moderation requests or censorship requests. through a a system where the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security were funneling requests from every corner of the government federally and also from all fifty states. They had a system that was pretty much Formally set up and in place by twenty twenty. And then I think that the the other major thing is that we found That most of these private anti-disinformation laboratories that you might have heard about, like the Digital Forensic Research Lab, the Stanford Internet Observatory. A lot of these are either partnered with the government or funded by the government.

So it appears to be a private effort, but actually it's a taxpayer-funded effort. Suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop. That's pro you see all the revelations on that, and how it was tabletopped in the summer before the actual release. Proving the existence of shadow banning. The FBI acting of a subsidiary of Twitter, perhaps, when you talk about them putting $3.4 million, and you also told me that you feel as though they were underpaid at Twitter because of how much they've been asked by the FBI.

It also became clear that Adam Schiff's office was seeking to ban journalists. We know that. Senator Angus King, that was a revelation too, doing the same thing, one of which was his opponents. Pfizer's board member flagging tweets over questions about the COVID shot.

So you had everybody trying to manipulate these social media platforms in which we've made more comprehensive is a lot of them would launch into the media cycle. For example, Washington Post would cite Twitter off a phony story of the source. And the the New York Times and which next thing you know, CNN is reporting that the Washington Post and New York Times were reporting a story off Twitter that was basically manufactured. Yes, and I think that's a key point to the whole thing is that the media, which should be a check on this system, instead of investigating any of these groups, They partnered with them.

So if all else failed, if the government failed to get somebody removed, if an NGO failed to get somebody removed. The next step would be they would go to a friendly reporter at the Times, the Post, the Financial Times, or any other, any of a dozen publications. who in turn would call a company like Twitter and say, why haven't you removed these fifteen accounts? And can you tell us by the end of the day if you're going to do that or not? The company learned that if they didn't do that, they could expect some bad headlines by the next day.

So that was they became part of the system, essentially, which is a total breakdown of what the role of the press should be.

So, for me personally, if I found out that Donald Trump or Mick McIlvaney, Mick Mulvaney or Robert O'Brien or anybody was calling Twitter and saying, take this down, bring this up, bring this up, here's $1 million to go research this, make sure you talk about Trump's approval rating really double to what it is, whatever it is, I actually would be just as outraged. And I would say that you would have gotten respect, I think, from both sides of the aisle. I don't think maybe the majority would necessarily make it the first revelation, but we'd have to get to the bottom of what's happened with social media and who's manipulating what. But instead, if them digesting this and having a counter, they wanted to get on your credibility. Here's some of the exchanges.

Here's one of the exchanges between you and Uh and what is Oh, yeah. Congresswoman Garcia, listen to this. When was the first time that Mr. Musk, approach you about writing. uh uh the Twitter files.

Again, Congresswoman, that would be I just need a date, sir. But I can't give it to you, unfortunately, because this is a question of sourcing.

So you're not going to tell us when Musk first approached you? Again, Congresswoman, you are asking your journalist to reveal a source.

Well, sir, I just don't understand. You can't have it both ways, but let's move on. No, he can. He's a journalist. No, he can't, because either Musk is the source and he can't talk about it, or Musk is not the source.

And if Musk is not the source, then he can discuss it. No one has yielded. The gentlelady is out of order. You don't get to know it. The gentlelady is not recognized.

He has not said that. But he has said is he's not going to reveal his source. And the fact that Democrats are pressuring him to do so is such a matter of fact. We're asking him about his source. You guys were almost laughing at this.

Yeah.

Well I mean, yes, it's laughable, but it's also not. Look, it may not be exactly a Sherlock Holmes mystery in this case about the sourcing, but the fact of the matter is, I made a deal for attribution, and I have to uphold it. It's not my deal to break. That's the whole point. I mean, as you know, Brian, and any journalist, when you make an arrangement, Um it's up to the source to decide whether or not you're allowed to disclose.

You know, who gave you what. And for them to pressure me to break that deal on television shows that they don't understand. The business very well. Also, the other thing is trying to figure it out. Like, oh, if you didn't say this, that must mean the source is that.

That's the same thing as asking what the source is, right? Like, you know, it's. It's totally inappropriate, and it shows that the Democrats have kind of lost the plot when it comes to understanding free press ethics. And then you also cited this exchange. You since wrote on Substack about your experience there and my opinion, it's like you're let down.

You're looking forward to exposing all the reporting you're doing because you mentioned that any journalist, despite whatever you think, About how this would come out. We'd love to know what went on in 2020 and after the 2021, after. The pandemic started with this whole revelations about the shadow banning that took place, the neutralizing of other s sources like Dr. Bhattichara of Stanford.

So here's a little of the exchange and talk about disrespect I think that was shown towards you. Cut 57. We live in an information age. where malign actors do want to use social media. to influence our elections, both big The ones that you've spent a lot of time talking about.

And small. Like mine. Mr. Congressman.

Okay. It should be a bipartisan goal. To ensure that Americans and only Americans determine the outcome of our elections. not fear-mongering. I think I hope that you can actually take this with you, because I honestly hope that you will grapple with this.

that it may be possible And if we can take off the tinfoil hat. that there's not a vast conspiracy. What an insulting series of phrases, and also telling you not to speak. What is your thought about tinfoil hat when you're reporting the facts?

Well, first of all, that's a technique that people have been using now for the last six or seven years. To avoid talking about a subject. If they don't want to grapple with material, they just say it's a conspiracy theory. And that's actually ironically one of the problems with this disinformation anti-disinformation complex is that they will label something a conspiracy theory before it's been proven to be false. Like for instance, the lab leak theory.

But in that particular case, it was very offensive because He made the point that in one of his elections, there was that issue with Lev Parnas and financing, and there was a court case. And I was going to point out that th th he had proven that there was an appropriate forum for dealing with that in the courts already and we don't need to create this extrajudicial system and he wouldn't let me say that. And so that that was very frustrating. And Goldman was probably the worst. He was just attacking you in particular.

But I also thought they just didn't do any of their research. If they wanted to counter-narrative, they got to put in the time. They just got to find out what you wrote and then say, This is my problem, Matt. This is what you wrote or what you discovered. I interpret it differently, and then it would have been an interesting exchange.

Yeah, absolutely. They didn't do any homework at all. I I was shocked uh by uh Dan Goldman, who is uh a Stanford educated former assistant U. S. Attorney.

He was obviously the lead prosecutor in the Trump impeachment. Who asked me whether or not I agreed with a pair of indictments?

Now, any first-year law student knows that indictments are not proofs. They are charges. They cannot be said to be proven unless they have been tested in a fair trial setting against the defense's case. But he said that they definitively established something, and then he asked me to agree with it. It was very much, it was sort of like out of the HUAC hearings from the 50s.

And I said, I I can't agree with that. I haven't evaluated that evidence. I don't know you know and and it was a very it was so discordant to hear that coming from a lawyer and especially one of you know that stature, which was incredible. It was.

Now, are you not done yet, are you? No, I hope not. I think we have more investigating to do, and I'm trying to map out Um w we hired a whole group of people to map out All of these different NGOs, where they're getting their money, what they do, what their methodologies are, because I think people need to understand that when they see the words anti-disinformation, what that really means is censorship. And they have to be aware of how much of it is going on.

So we're going to try to help people get a resource for that. What has been the reaction since your testimony from just your friends and family? I think it was an important moment because I I've over the years lost a lot of friends on the left. I've even had trouble within my own family. But I think the hearing exposed some things about the change in the Democratic Party and its intolerance for civil liberties, which is a new thing.

It's one of the things that attracted a lot of us. to the Democratic Party once upon a time. And seeing the way that played out, I I think changed a lot of minds. I got a lot of calls from people that were helped repair some relationships, which is which was great and really encouraging. Yeah, I just think you just warrant so much respect, even if people disagree and it just wasn't given to you.

And I think these people owe you an apology, Matt. We'll thank you, Pratt. Yeah.

I'll talk to you again soon. Thanks so much. That's how you. I appreciate it. And you go to racket, right?

Go to racket.com. It's Brian Kilmade. A talk show that's real. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. The proposed budget included $400 million to counter Chinese disinformation that will target the number one source of Chinese disinformation, Fortune Cookies.

Yeah, that was a quick joke. I I didn't find SNL much very entertaining, did you? No, there wasn't much in there. We only got like two out of the weekend. And if you don't if you go to I fast forward to weekend update.

And then it went through it and I was I know. Wasn't nothing we could really use. We have one other one that's completely just erroneous, which is sort of funny, but that's it. Do you want to hear it now? Sure.

Okay. There is a The trend on TikTok of people eating oranges in showers claiming that it reduces stress and anxiety. But if you're comfortable filming yourself eating in the shower, I would argue you don't have enough anxiety. That was funny. Yeah, it it's okay.

Yeah, I just am so disappointed. I mean, you think about Colin Quinn, you think about Dennis Miller, you think about the last crew. Remember, probably. I think Seth Myers was great on that too, wasn't he? He was good on Week and Update, yeah.

Norm McDonald's always great as well. Norm McDonald's great. Colin Jokes, do you they're probably just waiting for a later. To be honest, I actually like the two of them on the when they have the good jokes, they're they're good, but they just don't always have good jokes. They're funny together, like they'll rip each other, but that doesn't always work for radio.

Okay, or television. Yeah.

At times. All right, when we come back, Molly Hemingway joins us inside 2024 and more. Treasury Secretary Yellen and a team of banking regulators have taken action. Immediate action. And here are the highlights.

first. All customers who had deposits in these banks can rest assured, I'm going to rest assured they'll be protected. and they'll have access to their money as of today. That includes small businesses across the country that bank there, and need to make payroll pay their bills and stay open for business. No losses will be, and this is an important point.

No losses will be borne by the taxpayers. Let me repeat that. No losses will be borne by the taxpayers. Instead, the money will come from the fees that banks pay into the deposit insurance fund. Because of the actions of that because of the actions that our regulators have already taken.

Every American should feel confident that their deposits will be there if and when they need them. So that was President Biden right at 9 a.m. Eastern Time, trying to reassure the markets that they've taken care of the two banks, and hopefully there won't be anymore as VP and Signature Bank of New York, both regional banks. One's the 16th largest bank. One ranks a little bit further in the list.

The Signature Bank evidently is driven by, I don't know, the digital media. We could talk about the size. We could talk about Bitcoin and everything else. That's really where they invested most of their money. And the other one was invested mostly in startups.

in uh in Silicon Valley in in those tech firms. With me right now to discuss this and are the markets assuaged right now is Molly Hemingway. She is editor-in-chief of The Federalist, Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale, and a Fox News contributor and author of Rigged. Molly, welcome back. Great to be here with you.

So how did the President respond how what do you think about the President's approach?

Well, it was clear that something needed to be addressed, and given the importance, it's good that he actually did address the situation. The problem is that this isn't just happening. We didn't just have these two bank failures right now. We also, just 15 years ago, had the massive bailout of banks and and 2008 That was something that did not meet with political approval in the aftermath of that. This idea that we socialize everybody's losses, but we keep gains privatized, is something that does not.

meet with much approval from the American people.

So that explains why President Biden's trying to say that this is like a magic bailout that won't involve any taxpayer support. But I think it remains to be seen how this is going to work out. Right. We don't really know.

So we'll see how the market's responding today. But they say they have a $100 billion fund that was put together after the 2008, a pool of money that's regularly paid into by U.S. banks. And that's what they're coming out of to stop these two banks. And I think a third might be Republic Bank, a third regional bank.

And then they're kind of waiting, it seems, for a bigger bank to make an offer to buy one of these. Which should actually be able to happen. And that will be important for. Assuring all these depositors. But I think what was happening politically was just this attempt to not have it spread.

There was a legitimate fear of contagion, that more bank runs would be occurring as people got nervous about how leveraged these financial issues.

So Congressman Rocahana, who represents that area, was on yesterday, and this is before the this. Degree of bailout was announced, cut five. Here's what I'm hearing from people in my constituency. They are getting notes to pull out of regional banks, and all of this will be consolidated in the top four banks. We don't want that as a nation, especially if you're progressive.

The other thing is the payroll companies that are involved.

Some of them have 400,000 folks. They're not going to be able to meet payroll if they don't have access to the deposits. Yeah, so and these are mostly startups. They say it's got 60,000 separate businesses are involved in this relatively smaller bank. It's not Goldman Sachs.

So we'll see where this goes and we'll see the fallout because it definitely overwhelmed his job numbers on Friday.

So RoConna just was on the train I was just on, sitting right across from me, talking to reporters on the way up.

So I was listening to his case for why these bailouts should happen. Just important to remember, this is his district that this is happening in, right?

So he really wants. Federal help in order to help his constituents. But one of the things he was saying is that we need to bail out this bank because they help so many homeless people. And I was like, I don't think that's a very good argument. They really are just like it's a Silicon Valley Bank.

Like they're really funding a lot of these people.

Well, they got plenty of homeless to choose from. But the other thing is, this bank actually is one of those banks that has spent Tens of millions of dollars on social justice programs. You know, their head of risk. The person who's like in charge of handling risk assessment is a DEI hire. You know, they were praising how she's like queer female as opposed to what her credentials are for managing risk.

Is she an espouser or financial manager? Do you know that they had no risk manager for nine months? I think it shows. Yeah.

And also, the CEO dumped $3.5 million worth of stock the day before the collapse. This guy's name is Greg Becker. President Biden said, I fired all of management.

Well, there should be, people should pay for this. This is bad management of assets. But. You saw that the people who, like the many people at the bank got bonuses literally hours before the collapse of the country. It's unbelievable.

So I want to talk about 2024, if we could.

So right now, Governor DeSantis spent the weekend in Iowa. He's over there. He's going to go to New Hampshire in a couple of weeks. President Trump's there today. Tim Scott's going to announce this week.

I think he's getting in. We know Nikki Haley is in. Vivek Ramaswamy, by the way, these are perfect topics for him, by the way. This is right up his alley, is already in.

So Mike Pence, I think it's just a matter of formality. How do you see this playing out right now? How do you rank Amali Hemingway?

Well, I think most of the polls are showing that something like between 70 or 80 percent or more of Republican primary voters are between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. It's sort of like those two are approaching the campaign one way, and then everybody else is fighting over the remaining. They're being who they are, right? But also, they're sort of this new Republican Party. They're bold in taking on the media.

Just by way of contrast, Mike Pence spoke at the Gridiron dinner this weekend, which is this big DC media thing. And he praised the press and talked about how important they were to securing democracy. And he attacked Trump, which is fine as an opponent, and attacked, you know, and it was just a really weird approach to take if you're trying to win the Republican nomination for president. But you see a difference between how Ron DeSantis is, who is calling out the media for their false assumptions, their lies, and being very bold about it and being very knowledgeable about how to fight them versus that sort of old Republican style of trying to play nice with the media in the hopes that they'll support you.

So Brendan Bach, who is chief of staff for Paul Ryan. Was on as an analyst on this week with George Stephanopoulos, who didn't have George Stephanopoulos. Here's what he said about when people were creating. He says, when Trump goes at DeSantis, there's a different type of reaction. I'm sure you've picked it up.

Got 20. He is the one person when Donald Trump swings at him that people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. If he hits Mitch McConnell, whoa, if he hits Peeky Haley, it's ah, that's pretty funny. But if you hit Ron DeSantis, it's like, well, we don't hit other Republicans. It's like, since when?

Yeah, that that speaks to something that people, like John said, people are rooting for him. Whether that is ultimately a good thing or a bad thing for him is an issue. Molly, put your analyst hat. He's right, though. I mean, people are uncomfortable.

And I think when DeSantis goes back at Trump, people are going to be just as uncomfortable. They're uncomfortable because they, like I just said, 70 to 80 percent of Republicans like them. Trump obviously has the biggest chunk of that, but people really like DeSantis. They like how he's governing his state.

So attacks on him don't hit the same way as they do on sort of more establishment Republicans because people view DeSantis as also fighting for them and what they care about.

Now, I'm not saying it's crazy that Trump's doing it. He's trying to win a nomination, so of course he's going to attack the next in line, who is Ron DeSantis.

So people should get ready for it. And once DeSantis officially enters the race, if he does that, it's going to get, you know, it's a tricky thing because how do you win the nomination without alienating that really strong Trump support that's out there? It's going to be a challenge. Do you remember anything like this before? I mean, was it Bush, Reagan?

I can't get into the details of that. Was it Dole, Bush? They were very different. I mean, you had Obama and Hillary really getting. personal.

They got uh for a while, but I don't remember People upset that Barack Obama was going after Hillary, or Hillary, people were upset with Hillary for going after Obama. I don't know. I kind of feel like anytime there are two people who are going for the same lane, and this is a big lane. It's basically the Republican Party. Right.

You know, there are people who, like, if two people are going after the social conservative vote or the interventionist military vote, they might get a little. Snippy with each other, but this is a really big lane and it is a little weird to watch. It's it's uncomfortable, but it's gonna happen. And so, whoever is gonna win that nomination between Trump or DeSantis. You think it's gonna be right now it's the way it looks, but is that the way you think it's gonna be, Molly?

I do think that the Republican voters are done with any other option, sort of they just view it as something of the past. Even though it hasn't started yet.

Well, just like Sununo has a make has gotta m make his case. Uh, does Pence have to make his case? It's very similar to Trump's, right? I mean, technically, Pence is one of the top contenders in that he has 7% of the vote or something. He's not, I don't think it's likely he's going to win the nomination, particularly with the approach he's taking.

Yeah, I I think it will be. I think there's the the Republican Party is rejecting some of the failures of its past. And they want this bold, you know, people-focused, working-class kind of approach. Here is what d I l I think one thing people should understand. That if it is DeSantis, he's going to get attacked with the same vigor as Trump.

And I think people think that because he's younger and a little bit more professional in his approach, more traditional in his approach, that he's not going to be like that. Chuck Todd gave you an indication yesterday, cut 25. You know, Jonathan, it's sort of like: look, being a Floridian, I sort of know what he's trying to play there and all of that. But I would tell him, I went to Florida Public Schools, you know, we we were taught this, it was called history. It just seems like a weird politicizing, you know, he's going out of his way to politicize something.

Want to have its way to political education? No, he stopped the AP course because of what was in it. Then he exposed what was in it. He didn't ban books. He went in there and said ban inappropriate books for ages.

And then he showed everybody some of the verbiage in these books, and they shut it down. Yeah, Chuck Todd is claiming that when he went to school in Florida he was taught some of the hatred of critical race theory. That may or may not be true, but it's also true that politically speaking, Removing some of the more insane extremist ideology from this curriculum is politically popular, and it's something for both sides. For both sides. But you are absolutely right when you say that it's not like if you don't have Trump that it's going to go.

They could nominate the squishiest of squishy Republicans, someone like a Mitt Romney or a John McCain. And you don't need to have that much knowledge of history to know that the media hated those people. And they loved John McCain until he won the nomination. They helped him get the nomination. But the moment he showed even a slight threat to Barack Obama, the man they really like, they started going after him in really unfair and awful ways.

You remember the New York Times had that front page story with like no legitimate sourcing, accusing him of cheating on his wife. And, you know, they went hard after John McCain, and no Republican has ever had as much love from the media as John McCain. Right. And just remember when Harry Reid said, everyone knows Mitt Romney doesn't pay taxes, later would say, I made that up. Really?

Oh, and more importantly, he said he didn't apologize for it because he said it worked, right? I got it out there. Yeah, that guy was in the last lap of his life. Phil Murphy was out on Sunday, and New York Times did a story the day before about how is he running for president. All of a sudden he's visiting key states and he's talking about international relations.

Do you think that the delay of Joe Biden is giving some people a sense that they might have a shot at the nomination, the delay of the announcement? Yeah, it's not just a delay, because even if he had announced, the bigger issue is that the vast majority of Democrats don't want Biden to run.

Now, I'm not sure how much that matters. I don't think people were particularly excited about him running in 2020 either, but he got the nomination and he got over the finish line. There's something about the Democrat ballot operation that it almost doesn't matter who they nominate. They're going to get the votes for whoever they You know, they're they've got a really good effective operation for getting ballots into the ballot box. And so I think if Biden got the nomination, he would have a very strong shot.

But it is true that Democrats don't actually seem to want him. Molly Hemingway is here. Molly, as you know, is editor-in-chief of the Federalist, Fox News contributor, best-selling author. A few more minutes when we come back with Molly, who's kind enough to come in studio today. If you're smart enough to get Fox Nation, you could see her.

If not, now's the time to download the app. Go. Learning something new every day on The Brian Kilmead Show. A radio show like no other. It's Brian.

kill me.

So, Molly, I think, despite my best career advice, you're going to do Gutfeld tonight, right? I love doing that show. Do you really like doing that? And Jimmy's going to host? It's always a little bit inappropriate.

Like, it makes my mom nervous when I'm on. Yeah, Jimmy Vale is hosting.

So, hopefully, it'll be a little cleaner than normal. Right. We'll see. I want to bring into 2024 the Senate race.

So, Steve Daines. uh is the guy in charge uh to get uh do what Rick Scott did last time.

So he's saying in for example It looks the map looks favorable for Republicans as long as they have nominate somebody that's electable. First off, Molly, do you believe that it's up to who's ever in charge of the uh the Republican Senate committee to help pick a pick a candidate? I do think that establishment Republicans could play a helpful role in getting good candidates nominated. The problem with most establishment Republicans is they seem to be at war with their actual voters.

So rather than giving them a really good option of who to vote for, they pick someone who the voters hate. Then they put all this money in the primary to back the person that the voters hate. They end up rebelling by picking someone more radical, and then it's a disaster for everybody. There's no need for the establishment to be at war with the voter.

So, they should just pick someone who is appealing enough to the establishment that they can get behind him, but also appealing to the Republican voter and stop trying to force things that the voter doesn't want, because I think they've shown time and time again they're not having any more of them.

So, I guess this guy, Matt Rosendale, is up, but they want reportedly Senator Daines wants Tim Sheehee, who is a 37-year-old Navy SEAL and Purple Heart recipient who founded two successful businesses and can self-finance his campaign. They believe he's more electable against Jon Tester, who everyone thinks they're going to beat, and they never do. Yeah, I don't know. I just feel like D.C. Republicans are very bad at understanding what is electable or not.

So even if you take the most. You saw in this the last midterms, people were pointing fingers, blaming each other for bad Herschel Walker, Dr. Roz, Don Mastriano. But, you know, Adam Laxalt was Mitch McConnell's boy. Like, that was who he wanted.

He had his own political team doing that campaign. That guy lost too. I think at some point, it's not even really about the candidates so much. I mean, and then you also see, like, John Fetterman won. Clearly, candidate quality is not the issue.

But having a smart and effective ballot strategy is. We now have months of voting. We have an ability to run round-the-clock, seven-day-a-week vote harvesting operations. And Republicans, because they know that's kind of bad for the country, have stayed away from it.

Well, that's just a way to lose. Especially in Pennsylvania. I think the Republicans, well, yeah, but Arizona and other places. If Republicans want to win, they need to start investing in actual ballot harvesting operations. Until we try reining it in and we sober up as a country.

Kari Lake's thinking about running for Senate in Arizona. I don't see another person that might be better. I think she's as talented as anybody I've seen, but just maybe not brought. She has to broaden out her message. And also, the Republican Party in Arizona kind of needs to get its act together, too.

I think Blake Masters was a good candidate, but was kind of unknown by the time he got his nomination. It was a hard-fought battle for the nomination, didn't quite have the name recognition. You know, there are other options that Arizona can do as well. Dave McCormick out in Pennsylvania, that seems to be a no-brainer. He ran strong against Dr.

Oz, businessman, West Point grad. I like him fine, but I actually don't think that race would have gone any differently if he had been the nominee instead of Oz. There's something, this is a good time to talk to actual Pennsylvanians. They kind of feel the same way about Oz as they did McCormick. These are people who seem like outside, and that just does not fly in that state in a way that it can can fly in other states.

What about Jim Justice in West Virginia? The governor has got up 20 points on Joe Manchin. Manchin acts like a Republican every time an election comes. Yeah, and West Virginians keep falling for it. I do think there is something to be said.

One thing that is important. You have a bunch of candidates who maybe are trying to win as a Republican in a state that's that's evenly balanced. In states where there is strong Republican dominance, I think it's incumbent upon Republicans to start Nominating some better candidates than the squishes that they have continued to send. Right. Where do you put Jim Justice in?

I'm not sure enough to say I'm not. Very popular at governor and you could sell finance. Going to be an interesting thing. They both pledged they're going to beat each other. Molly Hemmy, we were watching tonight at Gutfeld.

See you then. All right. Stay safe. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead.

Hi, everyone.

Well, I hope you had a great weekend. We are back in action today trying to find out what's going on with this banking system, and we lost two regional banks, it looks like. The investors are not going to be bailed out, but the depositors are. We'll give you more on that a little bit later. The president spoke today to quiet things down, want to make sure it's not a contagion and we don't lose all the regional banks or beyond.

Evidently, cryptocurrency, not too hot right now. That's not good for the New York Bank here. That is the signature bank, and the other was heavily invested in tech. And they were didn't take into account the rise in rates. Bottom line is, two banks are out.

Investors are out. The management of the Of the bank is now out, the whole management team is now out of SVB, Silicon Valley Bank. We'll keep you up to date on what's happening because it has a lot to do with your money. But with me in studio is Benjamin Hall, Fox News correspondent, author of Saved, a Royal Reporter's Mission to Make It Home. And Ben, great to see you again.

Yeah, lovely to be back here. And first off, Sabe's not even out yet. People have ordered it. It officially goes out tomorrow, correct? That's right.

And.

Well, I just suppose I'm very lucky that people want to read about it. And I hope that the book is not just about the horrors and the pain that I went through to get better. It's about the optimism and the hope and the incredible people who helped me. And so I think hopefully it's an uplifting book rather than it is sort of a sad book.

So, you know, as you told the story, you kind of came on Fox and Friends. You started with Sean Hannity. You went out with Mark Levin. I know that for sure. Then you had a special with Sean Hannity last night.

Instead of you getting fatigued by the story, I feel like you're getting invigorated by the story.

Well, I think you have to be. I think whenever anything bad happens to you, there are two ways of looking at it. One of them is to let it get you down and affect your future. The other is to embrace it and look for the good in it and try and move forward as best you can. And so, look, not only do I think it may help people if they hear my story, but I think it helps me.

It helps me to sit down and talk about it. And it helps me to sit down every day and think about Pierre and Sasha who died that day and to realize that if we talk about it, if we're open about it and we understand the situation that's going on, then we can do better. We can keep doing better every day. How many wars, how many conflicts have you been involved in? You kind of chronicle that in the book.

Oh, um, seven, eight was Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia. Um. Gosh, a a number of terrorist uh groups around the world, throughout Africa as well. No I mean a number. Over the last fifteen years, if there was a conflict, we were there.

And when you were doing that, you talk about how much better you got at it. In the beginning, you just went there, you go to Iraq, you try to find your source, and the source isn't there, and you think, how do I find a story? By the time you're done, you become an expert of just getting involved, finding out what the story is by just getting in the middle of it. It almost a fearlessness. And you write in your book, you learn to suppress your fear.

Yeah, I mean, two things. First, if you're going to be a journalist, the only way to do it is to be in the middle of it. You know, you can only tell a story if you've spoken to the people involved, if you've seen it with your own eyes, if you can smell it.

So I believed early on that that's what I had to do to tell these stories. But also, you start out, you travel to these conflict zones, and you know, to be honest, it was an adventure. I loved it. I was young, I was doing it as much as I could. But you start telling some of these stories, you start to see how they affect families and Um You know, whole villages and schools, and particularly seeing in Ukraine at the moment.

And so, yes, it starts to change the way you report on conflicts. And so, today, after all the years, I would say that I look at it in a much bigger picture. It's not about me running away from the bullets, it's about what that war means, not only to the world, but to our viewers and to our listeners today. And before we get into your account, Ukraine, what did you think going in? You have a perspective on history, what that region is, the aggressive nations in that area was Germany twice, and the Russians always seemed and the Soviets always seemed on the march looking to expand their influence.

And since Vladimir Putin, after the first couple of years, we assessed him as accurately, as somebody that really wants to reclaim the Soviet Union. Do you see that in the Ukraine war? Absolutely, and I think we knew it from the beginning. And I think the first thing I thought was, you know, he took over Crimea, he invaded Georgia. 2014, he was invading the East.

Time and time again, no one stopped him. And so I think we realized that if he wasn't held back, there was nowhere he wouldn't stop. And I can't help but look at China and see how the rest of the world was to see what NATO did to hold back Russia. And I think we knew early on that if they allowed Russia and Putin to get away with this, that then we would see other countries continuing to do the same down the line. You knew it was going to be dangerous.

In fact, all the so-called experts offered Zelensky a ride out, saying it's going to be like Gahani. He's going to get taken out. They're not going to be able to withstand the Russians. When did you realize the experts were wrong?

Well Um, no, I mean at at the beginning we thought that uh We thought that Russia was going to take over Kiev. They had that huge convoy heading down towards the capital city. And it looked like they may well do it because many people were saying they didn't have the weapons that the Ukrainians needed to hold them back. But within the first two weeks, we started to see huge errors on the side of the Russians, logistical errors, in a way that they clearly hadn't planned for a long-term invasion. They thought it would be done within a couple of weeks.

And when that didn't happen, they couldn't continue.

So it was around the time that we were attacked that we started to think, hang on, the Ukrainians can do this. They've got a real chance of doing it. And also when we saw people digging into the capital city of Kyiv, we knew that that was going to be a bloodbath if the Russians went in in the end. It wasn't going to be a quick victory. And here we are, you know, just over a year later.

And it's a story I think that no one would have told you beforehand. Can you remember the circumstances the day that you hopped in with Pierre and Sasha and said, I'm going to go cover this story? Do you remember where they tell you to go and where you thought the story was? Yeah, very much. I mean, the plan had been to cover some of the defenses that were being built around Kyiv, some of the trenches that were being built.

And we'd gone out there, and the Ukrainians wouldn't let us film the trenches. They said this is an important defensive system. And the two Ukrainians we were with who were pressed liaisons said, Well, that we can't film here, but we can go a little bit further and we can see these abandoned villages. And so the decision was to continue going into these villages. And we filmed out there for maybe an hour or so.

And we could hear shelling in the distance. We would say probably 15, 20, 30 miles away, but nothing near us. Didn't see a single person for a good hour. And once we'd finished filming, and we were filming churches that had been flattened to the ground, whole villages that were totally demolished. But we were making our way back towards the capital city, back towards Kyiv.

And uh stopped it at a at an abandoned checkpoint. And just as we turned to slow down, out of nowhere the first bomb just came whistling out from overhead. Um landed just in front of us, that that high pitched whistle that you hear, phew, pw. A magic, we quickly decided we had to reverse, and Pierre shouts: you know, reverse the car, reverse the car. Who's driving?

We had the two Ukrainians, so one Ukrainian was driving, he was from the um One of the press press liaisons.

So two Ukrainians in the front and three of us in the back, myself in the middle seat. Um Next thing I know, the car won't reverse and Pierre shouts, Get out of the car, everyone and a second later the second bomb lands right next to the car, front left. And that was the one that uh gave me a lot of the facial injuries, a shrapnel in the eye and in the throat and took out some of my skull. And um and I was all blacked out at that point and I was um Yeah. you know, totally unconscious.

And it was that that was at the moment when I saw my daughter and she came to me, my daughter Anna, and she said, you know, Daddy, you've got to get out of the car. And that was the moment when I I Uh somehow came to, my eyes opened up again, I'd in a mad dash, tried to crawl out of the car, took two steps out of the car, and then the third bomb hit the car itself. And that one threw me away. And uh the next thing I know I I wake up, I'm on fire. My right leg's missing, my left's missing.

What do you mean you're on fire? Your whole body? Yeah, everything from my sort of about my waist down was on fire.

So burning away, all my clothes are burnt off, and I'm rolling around. I'm trying to put the flames out. I finally put those flames out and I'm sitting there and Pierre is lying about ten feet in front of me. Um And I immediately try to get my phone out. We try to call.

But no cell phone reception.

So we're sitting there, can't get in touch with anyone. The car's burning. Who are the Ukrainians?

Well, I didn't know at that point, but the others had died at that point.

So, the two Ukrainians and Sasha Rofixa, they had died. Um And I was there for about forty minutes, um, looking at my leg. Trying to figure out what we could do. And the way I thought about it was never I'm in a terrible situation. It was what do I have to do to get home?

What do I have to do to save myself? How am I going to get home? Pierre said to me a couple of times, Don't move, it's the Russians, Russian drone, Russian drone.

So we laid there for a while. Actually at one point I took a a picture of my leg. It was missing. Um And then I realized I didn't want my children to see it if it was uploaded, so I I deleted that again. And at an aware a car came driving past on the road we'd been on.

And I shouted at it and I waved and it didn't see me. And uh Pierre said it's the Russians, it's the Russians. And I said It doesn't matter Pierre. I'm so badly injured right now. I I've it doesn't matter who it is.

And I started dragging myself up, pulling myself along with my hands in this sort of this red m dirt that I was in, um, up towards the road. And um Amazingly, about I'm not sure whether it was five minutes, ten minutes later, that car had gotten lost. It was Ukrainian special forces. They turned round and they came back again. And I was a bit higher up at that point and I had a handful of rocks and dirt and I threw it at the car and I was screaming at it.

I just remember the car stopping. And the next thing I know, someone was grabbing me by the back of my body armor, pulling me along the ground, and that was the first point that I felt pain. Despite all the injuries up to that point, I the adrenaline was running, I was looking at my wounds, I could see how much I was bleeding, but I hadn't felt the pain. That one second where I was dragged along, I think all the skin that had been so badly burnt on my legs just came off, and um and that was the point that I felt this the first time, this immense pain. and are thrown into the back of this van.

I'm in and out of consciousness at this point and the next thing I remember We uh I get moved it to to a a checkpoint to get an injection. And uh That's the last I remember of the day itself. Um And then you had to put together what was happening behind the scenes to put you back together and to find you and to find out who was alive, who wasn't. When Trey Yanks was you guys were working together, you didn't come back.

So he knows there was something up, and then one thing leads to another. When you were putting together the book to find out what was happening behind the scenes to build the story, Uh what was the biggest surprise to you?

Well, the amazing thing is I had no idea about what was going on to evacuate me. The work that Fox did, the work that Save Our Allies did, that Trey was doing on the ground to try to find me. All they knew at the time was that a Fox News team had been hit. They knew that two people were dead and one was alive, but they didn't know who. And um they didn't know which hospital I'd been taken or someone had been taken to and there was this mad dash where everyone went around Kyiv trying to find who I was.

I woke up a couple of days later inside this hospital. And uh I remember just opening my eyes Obviously I've got big uh metal rods hanging out of my right leg and I'm all bandaged up and It's uh i metal rods? Would you big metal rods that were holding together some of the bones left in my arms? Did they try to save the leg? No, that one was gone.

I mean, I was gone when I saw it. They were about to cut the left one off, and luckily, the doctor called in a specialist who said, Don't cut that left one off yet. And he got over as soon as he could. He said when he got to me, the leg had gone cold, but he had found that he could uh he I'm not exactly sure. I only found this out About two weeks ago, I've been speaking to the doctor.

And he hooked up a vein. Should he And he watched the leg went it went from cold back warm again.

So, I mean, I was within minutes of losing the left leg too. But I woke up and I thought I was in a Russian hospital. And my leg's gone, everyone's smiling at me.

Someone has my State Department card, my press card, and they're screaming at me, who are you? Who are you?

So I assume I'm in Russia now. But why were they screaming at you?

Well, honestly, I couldn't tell you. Were they mad at you? I mean, yeah. Yeah.

So.

You know, I thought I'd the guy in the bed opposite me, this other patient, I assume obviously he's Russian and his sh bed sheets are moving and I assume he's got a gun pointed at me.

So I'm living in the spy novel. And all I can think is, how am I going to escape? You know, which would have been pretty hard without legs. And I'm thinking, Right, I've got to get out of here now. And the next thing I know, this American, Rich Jaddick, walks in the door.

Um and he says, Hey Ben, you want to get out of here? I said, Absolutely, let let's go I said by the way I think we're in Russia, and that guy's got a gun.

So Vicky laughed and he said, Sure, don't worry about it. We'll get you out. But for the last two days, Fox had put together this team, or they'd hired Save Our Allies, or talked to Save Our Allies, this incredible group of people set up by Sarah Verado, who had saved thousands of people out of Afghanistan when that country fell. And wasn't her husband hit in a war? That's right.

Her husband also lost limbs, very badly injured as well.

So she's gone through exactly what my family were going through, what I was going through. And Save Our Allies specializes in going in evacuating people from emergencies around the world now. And that's what they did. They knew I was in there. Despite the English accent, I'm an American, and they knew there was an American in there, and they would do whatever they could to come and put their own lives at risk to come and save me.

It's amazing. Benjamin Hull's going to stick around. His book is out tomorrow, but you got to buy it today. Reserve it. Saved a war reporter's mission to make it home.

It's already pinned on top number one. I mean, it's doing really well so far. Thank you, everyone. It's an honor. I'm sure if there was anybody that Ron DeSantis would say he'd go ahead of me, I'm sure it would be you.

Don't move, but more with Benjamin Hoe in just a moment. Brian Kilmey Show. Don't go anywhere, Brian Kilmead will be right back. The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Kilmead.

This is from the chief executive officer of Fox News, Suzanne Scott, who sent a message to the network today saying, Earlier today, our correspondent Benjamin Hall was injured while news gathering outside of Kiev in Ukraine. We have a minimal level of details right now, but Ben is hospitalized, and our teams on the ground are working to gather additional information as the situation quickly unfolds. The safety of our entire team of journalists in Ukraine and the surrounding regions is our top priority and of the utmost importance. This is a stark reminder for all journalists who are putting their lives on the line every day to deliver the news from the war zone. Please keep Ben and his family.

And your prayers. And that was when we first heard, I've actually heard a little bit before that, but when the country first heard that Benjamin Hall had been hurt. Uh and that the fate of other two um Fo Fox employees. Pierre and Sasha had passed away along with the Ukrainian fixers. This is part of the story in Saved, as Benjamin Hall now has out officially tomorrow.

It'll be a Fox Nation special airing on 9 o'clock, March 19th.

So this coming Sunday at 9 o'clock on Fox News channel.

So that'll be exciting. It's where you put together, right? Yeah, yeah. And that's also with interviews from everyone, including the team who came in to get me, the soldiers who found me, the doctors who saved me, both in Ukraine but also in San Antonio, Texas. And a lot of this story is about my recovery.

And I was blessed to be allowed access to the military medicine. And Secretary Austin said that I could be treated. uh wh wherever I wanted. And so I started off in Launchstool at the the biggest US hospital outside of the US uh in Germany, which is where all of those victims from Afghanistan and Iraq were treated. Anyone injured.

So I was put into the most amazing center. And the kind of injuries I have is called polytrauma. Um and you get them when you know you're hit by an explosion and it's um limb loss, heavy burns, you know, eyes uh eyesight problems, uh, head injuries. Um and all of these can be treated In one place, and the military has sadly learned how to do that the best in the world because they've had these kind of injuries. And so, when I was taken down to Texas in the end, San Antonio.

I was blessed and I was blessed to be surrounded by doctors who knew exactly how to treat my wounds. But more importantly, I was surrounded by other people who had had similar injuries. And being able to sit there every week and talk to veterans and other people who had Gone through what I'd gone through. That was an incredible motivation. It pushed me through and it showed me that if they can do it, I can do it.

And I still talk to them a lot. And of course, Triple J, Johnny Jo Jones, a big help as well, because it's a small world of people who have gone through this. And it's not just recovery and hospital that matters, it's how you then fit that into your daily life afterwards. And that can be very hard as well. Your decision not to have your family see you in San Antonio?

How long? Not have your daughter see it. Very, very difficult. But we thought about it early on. And when I was waiting to fly to Texas, my wife and I spoke.

She was with me in Germany. And what I said straight away was that I don't want my children to be by my bedside when I can't move. And I have a lot of these bad injuries. I didn't think for them. They were aged two, four and six at the time.

I just said that's not going to be that's not going to help them. And Sarah Verado from Save Our Allies had She had moved down to be with her husband as well in San Antonio and said, you know what, it's not going to be the best thing for you to be down there.

So I went five months without seeing them. It's incredible. And then let alone the month you were away, too, on top of that. And the month I was away. It was about fighting to get back to them.

And that's what I needed. You need something to fight for, something to work hard to. And we're going to fight through this break and come back and finish up this story. And don't forget, Sunday at nine, the special. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it.

You're with Brian Kilmead. All right, so Benjamin Hall is here, Fox News foreign correspondent. You saw him all over the channel, also filling in our Fox and Friends First. And I'll tell you, Benjamin, we go back because I remember reading your stories in the New York Post. They would pick up your syndicated columns or your columns that you put out there.

And I'm going, this is the guy he's actually with ISIS. I go, you know, we're trying to find out who this group is that came out of thin air after we pulled out of Iraq and they threatened almost to take Baghdad. And then you're in Syria finding out who these guys are. And then when you came into town, you were kind enough to come into the radio studio. We were on a different floor at the time, but just watch your career Zoom.

And then you go over that in your book, Saved, and there'll be a special on it on Sunday at 9 o'clock. But you've always felt comfortable in war zones telling people's stories, always wanted to do that. I did. And first of all, I remember those first times I came into be on this show. And that was, I mean, the biggest thing I'd ever done in my life.

You know, I mean, I'd been a freelancer. I'd been writing some articles out of the Middle East. And so I remember coming in.

So, in some ways, Brian, I've got you to thank for my current career. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Twenty fourteen, Allison said, is when you were doing it.

Does that make sense? Twenty fourteen. I remember when ISIS first started to to take over parts of Syria. I knew as a freelance journalist, if I was going to get the story, I had to be on the ground. And that's what I did for the next few years.

Even from 2011 on, from the Syrian war on, I just had to be out there. And if you're going to be good at something, you've got to be in the middle of it. You've got to be talking to them every day. And I just spent years knocking on the doors of prisons out there and speaking to everyone who was fighting out there. And that's, I suppose, the way that I started my career was doing that.

But that's it. If you're going to do something well, you've got to do it non-stop and you've got to work at it every single day. And that's what you're doing. And then you worked at it for a year to get better, right? That was your goal, to get better.

And now is your family living with you? You guys all together in Washington? Yeah, we're back together. We're in London at the moment. I just moved to DC to cover the State Department for Fox.

And we may still be moving there again in the near future. But look, for me, I had one year and I said to myself early on, I will recover every day for a year. I will walk further every day. I will get through any difficulty I have to. But once a year is done, and actually, that's.

That is tomorrow. One year since the attack, that is tomorrow. And I said to myself, do everything to recover for a year and then go out and and get work and again do more. And I feel even more strongly about my job now. Not only that I want to get back reporting, but that I want to get back and start helping people.

The amount of people I spoke to in San Antonio, other veterans, you know, who had gone through really difficult times, they need help. They need support too. And I think we can all get together to show them that life can be positive, that you can find the light where there is darkness. And so that's something I really want to focus on now. Were they military people?

Well, that's because I was blessed to be on a military base recovering.

So yes, they were. But I spent all my career talking about wars and horrors around the world. Actually, I've had a real sway after this because I have seen so much good and positiveness throughout my recovery that I want to go on now and start telling stories about the incredible people who got me through it. I want to tell stories about American exceptionalism. At every step of the way, people came out to help me who I never knew.

They laid down You know, they've risked their own lives to get me. They put aside their own lives to help me. And those are the stories I want to tell. Talk about these incredible people that we have. you know, out there and about.

So, if people want to get your book, they got to get it. You can pre-order it, and tomorrow it's going to be out, and that's your anniversary, even though books publish on a Tuesday anyway.

So, this is another great timing thing. The other thing is, if you could donate to any group that's worthy of it, save our allies. I mean, my goodness, what they did in Afghanistan, getting people out, we just left all these allies and Americans behind. They just said, okay, we're back in. Even though they're not in anymore, they're back in.

But they're still doing that. They've got safe houses across in Pakistan and they are still getting people out of Afghanistan. The people who stood side by side with our soldiers and who are really now at risk of their own lives, they're getting them out of Afghanistan still. And what they say is that when our government, our military, can't go in and help, we will go in and help. We'll do those things that our government is not able to.

And that's what they're doing right now. That's how they came to get me. That's how they got people out of Afghanistan. And really, I mean, these are some of the most genuine, hardworking, incredible people who came from the military and they did it just For good. They did it because they wanted to help others.

And any support you guys can give to save our allies, I know, will go a long way.

So now that I watch you, you're walking, you're doing great. I think you have one cane on one side.

So, what is the goal physically? On the left side, you still have portions of your foot? Yeah, I've got my heel on my left foot, but I've got another operation coming up there in a couple of weeks. I've got some bone growths and a few problems there. There is some talk of having the left foot off as well.

So I've always been open to that, and we'll know that in about six months or so. Um so you know I mean I Number of injuries which still have to be treated, still have to get better, and uh just focus on that.

So then you're gonna uh rehab and you when are you looking to get are you looking to get back to work? Up as soon as I can, absolutely. Uh I'm already talking to a lot of the people uh who I think could make for an incredible television show as well and series, people who really are go out and help people and uh uplifting stories. And so for the first thing I'd like to do is do Do a piece on American exceptionalism. Do a piece on the incredible people out there who make America the country it is, who go out and save people every day.

And that can happen on a small domestic level. That can happen on an international level. But those are the people whose stories need to be told. I was absolutely amazed at how I was saved time and time again by people's kindness, by people's intelligence, by people's strength. They got me through this.

And I think that those stories need to be told. And you would be so proud. you know, of your fellow countrymen, of all these Americans out there who do incredible things. And I just think that that's a story I want to tell first. You talk about incredible timing of things to happen when they did.

One was the Polish president is visiting Zelensky, the first one, and his train is there, right?

So I'm lying in Kyiv. I'm very badly injured. I've got a matchbox-sized piece of shrapnel in my throat, and they didn't know how to get me out. They couldn't drive me out because of the... Would you talk?

Uh, I could talk. Yeah.

Um, let me a little a little bit. They couldn't drive me out, they couldn't fly me out, uh they didn't know how to get me out, and then we found out from um through the US government That the Polish Prime Minister was on the first covert visit to see Zelensky. And if we could break through the the the the the checkpoints and get to the train station we could go out with the Polish Prime Minister and we got permission from the Polish Prime Minister and we bundled into this old beaten-up ambulance and we went through our I mean, I I think it's like fifteen odd checkpoints and at each one Ukrainians, but there was a curfew for seventy two hours. No cars allowed out, it's the middle of the night, and each one assumed we were a Russian hit squad coming in to kill Zelensky. Uh guns out, everyone out of the car every time.

They'd open up my own uh dressings, check that my wounds were real 'cause they didn't think it was uh genuine. And I had no painkillers at this point, and that was the point where the pain started to hit. We're trying to get to the Polish Prime Minister's train, they're holding on for us. We've got the US intelligence speaking to the Polish people. This is like Air Force One.

It's like the train version of Air Force One, and we're desperately trying to get onto it. And with a few seconds to go, we break through these checkpoints and we finally make there. But those next 10 hours on that train were some of the worst of my life. That point where I had to figure out to get through the pain, I had to find another level inside me. And then when it hurt too much, you had to realize that you were going home, you were safe, you were alive, and that none of the pain mattered.

And I think I found a new level to myself on that journey. I really did. And I knew that if I could get to the Polish border, The US military would be m waiting for me. They couldn't come into Ukraine, but if I could reach that border somehow, then I was in their arms. And we crossed over.

The Polish Prime Minister's train stopped, and there was a Black Hawk helicopter right there. And they lifted me into that helicopter. And at that point, when I was in the arms of the military, I knew. You're saved. I'm going to make it.

I'm saved. Did you have a doctor with you along the way? Yeah, Rich Jaddik. He's an incredible guy. He's with Save Our Allies.

And I tell the story in my book of all these people who helped me, incredible stories out of Afghanistan themselves and how they had saved so many lives before mine and how the injuries they saw in me they were able to treat quickly and efficiently and keep those together.

So he was amazing. Rich Jaddick was there, Seaspray, Beau, all on that train with me. And I tell the story of them. I tell the story of some of the people that they lost in Afghanistan as well. Do you remember when the pain subsided to the point where it was bearable?

It was as soon as I got into the arms of the military. As soon as I got out of Ukraine, I was given all the pain meds you need. But I had an ongoing battle for the next few weeks there. My brain wouldn't shut off. I was on hyperdrive.

So I couldn't really sleep. It was on a strange time. But when I took too many drugs, I thought I was going crazy. I couldn't focus. And at night time, I would apologize to the nurses beforehand, and I'd just say, I'm really sorry for what happens overnight because I go.

Into a hellhole. And every morning I'd wake up and I'd say, You've got to take me off the pain meds. I can't handle it. I'm going crazy. And by the end of the day, I'd be screaming, put me back on the pain meds.

You know, so do you want a clear mind or do you want to get rid of the pain? And I still have that fight today. And the way I see it today is, I'd rather have a clean mind and I'll just grit and bear it when the pain gets too much, but I want to be able to think clearly. And so it's an ongoing discussion that we always have, but it's one I just keep fighting. Wow.

But you look great. You look fantastic. And you could actually catch up with Benjamin Hall. Watch his special 9 o'clock, pick up his 9 o'clock Sunday and pick up his book, Saved, A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home. Ben, great to see you.

I know this is just the beginning of the second phase of your anchoring, your specials, and everything else that you're going to be doing. I'm so glad you're back and you still have your same personality ready to go. It's a pleasure to be here. And thank you to everyone who's helped me along the way because I couldn't have done it without them. I couldn't have done it without you guys.

And that's the most important. If you know someone who's going through something difficult, reach out, say, hey, if you need anything, I'm here. And I think together we can do great things. Absolutely. And if you want to give a tribute, Save Our Allies, a great organization, and pick up this book.

If it was a novel, I would say you would not regret it, let alone to know it really happened. And this is the guy that happened too. Benjamin, thanks so much. Thanks, Brian. All right.

Back in a moment, you listen to the Brian Killmeek Show. We'll also have the latest on What's Happen with the Bank. Ballot and how the market's responding. It looks like we're up about 180 points.

So it looks like there's not going to be a contagion. We'll keep our fingers crossed. Don't move. It's Brian Killmead. Radio that makes you think.

This is the Brian Kill Me Show. During the Obama-Biden administration, we put in place tough requirements on banks like Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, including the Dodd-Frank law to make sure that the crisis we saw in 2008 would not happen again. Unfortunately The last administration rolled back some of these requirements. I'm going to ask Congress and the banking regulators to strengthen the rules for banks. To make it less likely this kind of bag failure would happen again.

Well, the reason why they did roll back some of them is because the Regional banks were suffering. They were suffocating under it.

Now, Senator Warner voted for to get rid of some of these part of things of in the in the Frank Bill that was supposed to re uh regulate The big banks, which, by the way, he started the whole thing with, if you remember what he tried to do with his equity lending.

So I think that that's a mistake to over-regulate because of this. You could learn from it, but let's find out what exactly happened. You can regulate corruption. It looks like this CEO selling off stock right before started this whole thing. Also, I've never run a bank, never been asked to, but you have seven members on a board and a CEO knowing that what rising interest rates would mean for the company, yet they sat there and watched interest rates rise.

Does anyone think it's new news that interest rates were rising? Does anybody think that that caught anybody by surprise? You didn't. If you have an adjustable mortgage, if you tried to buy a car, you work in the car industry, you do anything with loans, and you see what interest you're getting on your bank accounts, everybody knew what was going on.

So that is the number one story today. And I hate playing Janet Yellen sound because she takes forever to say three words. But I will say this: from here's House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. on what this whole thing means. And I'm talking about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature New York Bank, the New York Signature Bank, and what he thinks could come out of this, CUD16.

That is a great potential. It's something that they should look at. San Joaquin Valley Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, has a lot of assets. It's just where the capital is currently at.

So it is attractive for someone to want to purchase it. It's just a timeline of where to move forward. And the administration has tools to deal with this.

So I wouldn't live off somebody putting something on Twitter. Let the actions of the administration take work here before anybody goes to any positions in their own bank. Right. So they could sell it, and it's going to be stuff that we don't feel. They think in the long run, one of the worst things that could happen out of this is regional banks stop existing.

It becomes too risky. They become acquired while everyone gets paid out who have stock in it. They get acquired by big banks. We end up being a country run by four big banks, and they'll have a lot of political sway that probably wouldn't be good for anybody. I think you'll agree.

Congresswoman Nancy Grace, just so you know, what's happened is they've come in, they've tapped into this $100 billion fund that was put aside after the 2008 bank collapse. The crashing of the economy, and that's where they're taking money from.

So they're not taking it from the taxpayers, so to speak, directly. And we'll see where that goes. The FDIC stands behind deposits up to $250,000. For those with more than that, that's where the $100 billion comes in. Got it.

Understand it. But if you're an investor, you lose.

So I know investments you're supposed to, you know there's risk. I'm pretty sure when you go to a bank you didn't think there was that much risk. Here is Nancy Mace, who's on the banking committee on the House side. CUD 18. It's still very early to see or say what the ramifications are going to be.

That was a unique bank that mostly serves startups in Silicon Valley. And those customers have been hit by inflation. They've been hit by interest rates. They're low on cash. There was also, it sounds like, a panic run by some of their larger companies last week.

The CEO sold himself millions of dollars of stock and gave his employees, I read this morning, bonuses right before the government took over the bank. We cannot keep bailing out private companies because there's no consequences to their actions. People, when they make mistakes or break the law, have to be held accountable in this country. And for the CEO to do that, knowing he's going to get backlash, but figured I'd like to cash in anyway and legally I'll probably be able to hold on to it, lawyer up and see what happens, is just I can't you can't legislate ethics.

So, nobody wants to see a taxpayer-funded bailout. But 60,000 companies had their money there, $42 billion. $42 billion were left in the bank on Thursday. It was gone by Friday. They had $200 billion in assets compared to more than $3 trillion at JPMorgan Chase.

It was the 16th biggest bank. Put signature in there with this cryptocurrency, and they invested way too much in that. And when you think about. Rokehanawing, and he's saying, well, for progressives, we should look to bail everyone out. That's probably the absolute wrong thing you should say, especially the majority of Republicans in the House.

The last thing they want is people trying to put together prop up banks They were trying to act in an equitable fashion, not going for profit.

So that's really what's going on. Real quick, we also were talking about 2024. And before we go, I do want to get a sense of what's going to be happening. Right now, President Trump is going to be in Iowa. We know in two weeks, it looks like DeSantis is going to be over in New Hampshire.

It looks like Tim Scott is going to get into this race, and it's all but official. I think he'll add a lot. I think he's got a lot of class and a lot of experience. He's extremely smart. He's got a wide swath of knowledge from growing up in a military family to going through dirt poor to becoming awning his own business to becoming a congressman and senator and pretty much respected around both sides of the aisle.

We'll see. But he could be getting in real quick. He was actually available and out on Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy, his fellow South Carolinian, CUT29. I think what I've heard all across the country on my Faith in America tour is the frustration of the American people because of the absolute lack of leadership of President Biden on domestic issues. Think about the security issues that we face here in America.

The border is wide open, it is unsafe, and it has led to more than 100,000 overdose deaths in this country. You think about East Palestine. Here is a crisis in our country, and the president has yet to step a foot into East Palestine. You have Americans who are frustrated. because of the lack of leadership on domestic issues.

One thing about him, he'll have no problem with the energy level, with the compassion, connecting one-on-one. Great speaker. He's got that preacher-type quality to him. Very comfortable with who he is and where he came from. And I think he's got a great story to tell.

If he's not the number one, I think he'd be a great number two. I think if you got to know him, you'd probably feel the same way. Formidable. Hey, listen to Brian Kilmey Show. Go to BrianKilmeyShow.com.

Hear my entire 30-minute interview with Governor DeSantis at Dunedin Field, where he grew up and made it to the Little League World Series and was recruited to Yale. You'll love it. BrianKilmeyShow.com. Download Fox News Channel's The Five Podcast for free. Five of your favorite Fox News personalities discuss current issues in a roundtable discussion.

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