Russia downs American reaper drone; DeSantis says Ukraine a 'territorial dispute'

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 BrianKilmead. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead. Hi everyone, welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Killmee Show.

So glad you're here. Wednesday feels like a Friday. There's so much going on with the banks and with the war and everything else.

Meanwhile, the President of the United States is on the West Coast raising money, not answering any questions. Oh, yeah, unless the Daily Show asks him. That is truly more important in the middle of a banking crisis. I'm looking right now at the stock market down 600 points. But don't worry, Mr.

President. I know you'll like to sleep till 9 Eastern.

So. You should be getting up around now, unless there's a banking crisis, then you're forced to get dressed even earlier than that. 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. These bank records prove that the Bidens did receive money through a shell company from the Chinese Communist Party.

So, this is the first link. There you go. That was James Comer, Hunter Hijinks exposed as bank records for Biden Enterprises begin to pour into the House Oversight Committee. Why Joe has to know how bad things are about to get for his family, but most of all, for him. Number two.

One of the Russian Su-27 aircraft struck the propeller of the MQ-9. Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless and unprofessional manner. Oh yes, reckless and unprofessional. Taken down. That's what the Russians did to our Reaper drone in international skies.

And our retort, calling them unprofessional. From the Afghanistan evacuation humiliation to the Chinese balloon watching and now this brazen Russian attack, this administration radiates weakness. Number one. I think the Fed's mandate about keeping FDIC insurance at 250 makes sense to me. But we changed all that over the weekend.

And so at the end of the day, let this thing go under, because that's our democratic capitalist system. Because when you're an idiot and it goes to zero, that's okay. That is Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank. Bank failures, all about incompetence, idiotic focus on inclusion, and not enough on profit and risk management. How many other banks like Signature, Silicon Valley, have lackeys on the board and selfish, unethical CEOs in charge?

So we'll talk about that. How about this? Credit Suisse, which I don't follow the banking, but a lot of people do on a daily basis. They say that they are basically a calamity of errors, so bad that the Saudis made it clear that their companies supporting them will not be giving them any more money, therefore causing a crash of their stock and people panicking. We're down now 633 points, just erasing and beyond the gains over the last few days.

So, what does this mean overall?

Well, we know this: that credit suisse plummeting is not helping. We know that the Saudi National Bank backing out is not benefiting. We know, too, some details about what was going on behind the scenes at SVB. We know this guy, Greg Becker, who's cashed out one. week ago, $3.4 million worth of stock, and was telling his of staff that the That the health of the bank is sparkling.

Then it was announced that they were losing $1.8 billion, and they were trying to raise $2.25 billion. But when word got out about that, the whole thing crashed. Money came out, and now there's a major Department of Justice investigation. Here we go. What really bothers me most is what I think they were wasting all their money on.

What is the big picture here? When Governor DeSantis comes out and says, hey, you know, this woke thing's got to stop, I'm thinking schools. When they come out and talk about hiring practices when it comes to college and emissions, I'm thinking this is just schools. But then you think about when it comes to investing and when it comes to ESG, with the divesting of oil and gas, even though our country is fueled by it and our competitors just make more of it and make more money if we don't step in, we find out that the most powerful banks in the country have been incentivized not to invest your money or pension funds, mutual funds into anything ESG, all about electric or about rare earth, which we don't control because we don't mine it. And now we find out it's into our banking system to the point where all they're focusing on is inclusion, to the point where, I don't know, most of the people on these boards are either appointed there for political positions or they're there for equity.

Inequality. When you look at this bank in particular, the SVG, it turns out the only guy on the board with any type of banking experience is this guy, Tom King. He was appointed to the board in September. He was CEO of Investment Banking at Barclays.

Okay, fine.

So who is he?

Well, 35 years of experience. That sounds good. What else does he do? He gives to Democrats at a dizzying rate. He is a prolific contributor to Speaker Pelosi.

A Hillary Clinton mega donor. When Donald Trump won the election, Uh He prayed at the Shinto Shrine when Donald Trump won, I guess, for peace and serenity. He didn't get any. We know that for sure. We know they gave $73 million to BLM.

Really? How did that money go? You might as well just flush it down the toilet. If I'm an investor at Silicon Valley Bank, how good do I feel that they sent $73 million on a movement? Don't you just want a bank that's going to take some of its profits and revenue, maybe yours, and put it towards things that will make it grow?

And then I could decide with the money that I earned, raise, and invest what to do with it? What about Signature Bank? They are they are Signature Bank. They mostly were fueled by crypto. They gave, we watch, $1.2 million to Democratic causes, $750,000 to Republicans.

Why are they so political? Because in case something like this happens, they'd have somewhere to go. They put together videos, a great cost, it looks like, cringeworthy, Broadway style, talking about their inclusion and their equity. That is what's happening in our banking system. Do you really think these are the only two banks investing all those money in this?

And that's fine if you're working a profit, if you're figuring out a way to earn money with our money, but that's not the case. Listen to this signature bank seminar video. This has been shared on social media, so it's out there for all of us to see. Cut 17. We talked about folks that are non-binary, that intentionally don't identify as male or female.

So some of those folks use they, them as their pronouns. Z is another gender neutral pronoun, and the other part of that would be here, spelled H-I-R. They have they have a Pride Council and presenting to everybody how to address everyone and their pronouns. Instead of getting hired out of place trying to work your way in and work your way up, we find out how everybody else has got to bend to equity and inclusion at our banking system, seminar after seminar.

So we'll see if this is going to result in more regulation. It's hard to see that anybody clear-minded and Not looking for political gain, thinks that more regulation would be the key. Hiring the right people, putting the right board together, that would be a great start. And of course The $250,000 per individual, the $100 billion put aside by banks, that's going to be the bailout for now. As for now, there's no bailout for us.

Kevin O'Leary looked at this, sees the board, sees some of their moves, noticed they didn't adjust to the rising interest rates, which caused the crash for these two banks and maybe credit suite later today, cut nineteen. I think the Fed's mandate about keeping FDIC insurance at two point fifty makes sense to me. But we changed all that over the week, and we said it doesn't matter how much you have, and I understand we want to keep confidence in the banking system. What I would have preferred is to allow this bank run by idiots, and I'm sorry to say these harsh words, but it's a fact. Silicon Valley Bank is the poster boy for idiot management now.

That brand is radioactive waste. And so at the end of the day, let this thing go under, because that's our democratic capitalist system, because when you're an idiot and it goes to zero, that's okay.

So he's talking about, you know, if you know you're going to get paid back, you can go make risky behavior. You're going to have risky behaviors because you. Get to do your own thing, and you know that the depositors will be satisfied. Kevin O'Leary is flat out right. That's where he was out yesterday, trying to settle down the markets.

Where's the president today? Probably knows he has nothing to say. You certainly can't add libit. This is not his area.

So here's more from O'Leary Cut20. As an investor in bank stocks, I won't invest anymore because you're basically telling me that from now on, the regulatory environment on small regional banks is going to be so punitive, I don't think they can make money anymore. Remember this: this is the really key issue for everybody in America to think about. There are 11 sectors in our economy. We are the greatest economy on earth.

One of them is financial services. It's the only sector that services all other 10. We have to make a decision. Do we want to turn this into a utility to service the other 10, or do we want it to be private? If it's private, you have to let the idiots go to zero.

And we didn't do that this weekend.

So Senator Crapo says no need for regulation reform. Senator Majority Whip Dick Durbin asked whether there would be any legislative response to the bank failures that could become law. He said not that I know of.

However, Sherard Brown, chairman of the banking committee, told reporters he's going to push hard on making sure the laws are tougher. They're all to blame. They all blame inflation. Senator Josh Hawley, surprisingly, endorsed separating commercial and investment banks, a proposal long embraced by progressives.

So we'll see where that goes. The other thing is the Dodd-Frank limitation. They had to get some of that regulation off. That's why 17 Democrats voted for it. They put it back.

They all lose. Because these people are idiots, you don't have to change everything.

So, I could tell you, we can go over that a little bit more, but I do want to talk about the relatively breaking news, and that's what happened with this drone.

So, we have a predator drone worth up to, when armed, $32 million, and it's flying over international skies, over on Ukraine, over the Black Sea, and then two Russian jets get scrambled to stop it. We don't know or explore it. I never heard of this. This is, they have their MQ-9s. Uh and they drop gas.

on the Predator drone. And then the other jet comes by to drop to empty more fuel on the Predator drone to maybe screw up the sensors, I don't know, or stop the camera from taping and providing surveillance, not sure. But the second one, according to the Wall Street Journal, In a uh are mistakenly clipped The wing of our predator drone bringing it down Causing damage to them. The theory is, they didn't do it on purpose because you could actually take yourself down if you feel as though you're going to clip. The wing Of the Predator drone.

Why would anyone do that? They did sustain some damage, but the aircraft is considered flyable. This is a total disrespect towards us. The Russian ambassador accused the U.S. an act of provocation and claims its fighter jets did not hit a US drone and just crashed on its own to the Black Sea because we took quick turns.

So they're liars. We know that. We know it's a dangerous region, but they're not afraid of us. That's the theme. In Afghanistan, the way we left, even the Taliban's not afraid of us.

We left all our stuff there. The Chinese balloon. Over Hawaii, we don't touch it. Over Canada, we don't touch it, even though we could have. Then it goes over our entire country, every military base we take it out in South Carolina.

All this stuff equals one thing, and that is weakness. And that's my worry. When we come back, I'll take your calls: 1-8-6-6-408-7669.

Some of the weak response on that, we'll talk about Hunter Biden, some of the revelations. This is getting serious.

So glad you're here. Brian Kilmeicho. Politics, current events, and news that affects you. Brian's got a lot more to say. Stay with Brian Kilmead.

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 BrianKilmead. This episode is brought to you by Bill. You dug through your folders, questioned the receptionist, emailed your boss, and it's official. you've stumbled upon another missing invoice mystery. Instead of putting on your detective's hat, go digital with Bill.

Everything is stored and timestamped online, so you never lose another invoice or payment again. Request a demo today at bill.com slash Spotify. The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. What would Ronald Reagan do right now?

He would start shooting Russian planes down if they were threatening our assets. American foreign policies and free fall. I can't add much to what you've said. All I can tell you is that on multiple fronts, we're in a dangerous situation. Weakness breeds provocation.

They spy balloon over the United States, shooting down an American drone, multi-million dollar drone. They know they can get away with it. Mexico is blaming us for the fentanyl crisis. And Joe Biden is like a deer in the headlights. He needs to up his game quickly.

Or he's just sleeping. I 100% agree with Lindsey Graham. It shouldn't surprise you. I don't want to sit there and get in war everywhere, but this is a war that really matters to the West and to us. And for us to give more, I would love to do the Trump.

I like the Trump idea of saying to NATO publicly, Where's Germany? You promised these tanks, they're not there yet. Why is it that America is doing almost all the work? Why is Poland doing all the work? We expected more.

Hey, England, you promised the tanks. Where are they? You promised the people movers, they're not there. Let's get going now. Where are the ships?

So the one thing about Trump, he had no problem berating. uh berating our allies to be allies. Being accountable, having accountants in there to make sure the arms and the money is getting to the right places. But this is in our interest in Ukraine. I'm surprised more Republicans, and I'm very mad at myself for not bringing it up for Governor DeSantis.

It's totally on me. I wasn't thinking foreign policy with him. But I should have just brought it up, your stance on Ukraine, but I didn't. But now he made it clear that he basically says this territorial dispute doesn't involve us. We're not going to use offensive weapons.

So I'm a little stunned by that. That's very similar to Donald Trump, but I agree with Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo. And Mike Pence. Ron, listening online in Long Island. Hey, Ron.

Yeah, so I I wanted to address The economic argument you've made for supporting Ukraine that, well, you know, they're buying American weapons.

So, you know, it's beneficial to our economy.

Well, that seems to me to be an argument for. you know, being in this war as long as possible because after all, you know, that You it only the money only s flows Ukraine, or the weapons only flow to Ukraine, the money flows to us. As long as the Ukrainians keep buying our weapons for the conflict.

So that doesn't seem to me to be an argument for getting it done quickly. That seems to me to be an argument for just dragging it out.

Well, I'll tell you what, Brian, I should make it clear. They're not paying. I'm talking about we buy we have to replenish our stocks.

So I'm just saying we're not we don't have to go out to China and say, hey, can we have more rockets? We we make our own.

So I think we should get the ten year contract to these major uh weapons manufacturers for us. And number two is I think it's into taking out Russia, who is an aggressive Aggressive enemy who is teaming with Iran now and China, having seen them totally humiliated and destroyed on the battlefield after invading an ally who happens to be their neighbor, is in our best interest.

So it's not, hey, you know what? I'm going to lend them weapons. We kind of like the Ukrainians. This is almost a selfish move on our part. And they've said so much.

Yes, we're fighting our for survival, but if you can kneecap the Russians be by their own horrible display on the battlefield, their ineptness, lack of financing, lack of sophistication, lack of training, lack of tactics, we're watching them be cut down. By a nation of 150 million, by a nation of 60 million, who they invaded, it is in our interest. Because in five years In ten years, he was This becomes a bigger problem with a more formidable Russia, who will absorb that portion of Ukraine, use its natural resources to enrich itself and grow and diversify its economy. Destroy a neighbor. And then we'll watch.

Say take the rest to Georgia. Make just overturn Moldova. They absorb Belarus, which is in place by twenty thirty one. And then beginning to infiltrate the elections of the Baltic states, and suddenly they got. leaders of regimes that are very friendly to Russia.

And they start moving weapons there. And they say, you know, we don't want to be a member of NATO anymore. We kind of like the good old Warsaw Pact days. Stephanie, listen in Winter Haven, Florida. Hey, Stephanie.

Hello, Brian. How are you this morning? Good. What's on your mind?

Well, I wanted to get your take on, for one, I wanted to know why is DeSantis and Trump fighting? And if they became allies. and DeSantis was taken under his wing and became vice president, we'd have Trump for four years and then we could have DeSantis for two terms. How come they're Arguing is I don't know. And you heard what Trump said.

I'm a little upset about what he did on entitlements when he was in Congress. But if he doesn't decide to run, I won't even bring it up anymore.

So, I mean, they fight because they both want to win. They're going for the jugular. Number two, I think they To a degree, respect each other, but Trump feels it's his nomination and he's willing to fight for it. He doesn't look for a coronation. I know people are uncomfortable because I don't know anybody who likes Trump, who dislikes DeSantis.

I don't know anybody that likes DeSantis and dislikes Trump. And when you watch them fight, the reaction is almost like watching two family members who you like. 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. Download Fox News channel's The Five Podcasts for free. Five of your favorite Fox News personalities discuss current issues in a roundtable discussion. Get it now on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and FoxNewsPodcasts.com. The talk show that's getting you talking.

You're with Brian Kilmead. It's not a territorial dispute in the sense that any more than it would be a territorial dispute if the United States decided that it wanted to invade Canada or take over the Bahamas. Um just because someone claims something doesn't mean it it belongs to them. This is an invasion. I just think that's a misunderstanding of the situation.

Uh this is not a territorial conflict, this war of aggression. I think Governor Florida's been a great governor, but uh in my opinion And if you don't get Ukraine right, this is a chance to stop Putin before it gets to be a bigger war. I would not agree with him on that. I think it's pretty clear, historically speaking, the importance of keeping Vladimir Putin in his lane. Most certainly it is of concern to me.

We've got a number of individuals who are looking, I think, at the 2024 race, and we'll find out whether or not the rest of them feel the same way.

Well, we'll find out too. Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, author of The Case for Nationalism, joins us now. Rich, did Governor DeSantis Make an error by saying it's a territorial dispute and we're not going to give offensive weapons and He seems like Donald Trump on this one. Yeah, I I think the territorial dispute line is probably going to haunt him and he's going to have uh trouble. Defending that over time because of those clips you played suggested, if we invade Canada and like we want Alberta, it's ours.

That's not just a territorial dispute. In one sense, it's a territorial dispute, but it's a grossly inadequate. Description.

Now look, DeSantis, obviously, he senses this is the way sentiment in the Republican Party is going on Ukraine. There's already an exhaustion with the amount of aid we're giving them.

So I'm not sure it's going to hurt him in the primary. It might help. But this is the dynamic I'm looking at that you asked about. He just seems to kind of match Trump. What did Trump say about this?

He just wants to be me. Whatever I say, he wants to. And that's the problem with DeSantis: how do you appeal enough to Trump voters to peel off some of Trump voters without seeming desperate just to match him? And I'm not sure he got the balance right here. I know.

The thing is, too, we weren't really around and politically active in the 60s. I was born in 64. But, you know, remember, JFK went input advisor into Vietnam. LBJ wasn't going to escalate. Obviously, he did.

Nixon was going to end it. He escalated.

So when you get the job, a lot of times things change. Yep.

So that should be it. He left himself enough nuance there. He didn't say I want all the troops out. But he was definitely more aggressive as a congressman, saying that Trump should have been more aggressive with Russia. Yeah, I mean you read the statement like a lawyer, and it doesn't say anything.

What it says is that he's not going to give them F-16s or long-range missiles, right? It doesn't say anything else. He doesn't say he's limiting aid or there are any other weapons he's not going to give them. It warns against further entanglement.

So what does further entanglement mean? Does that mean it's fine with the status quo and just doesn't want to go further? You know, that's not necessarily an unreasonable position. I think that's what he'll potentially rely on if he's president and he wants to go in a different direction or stick with what we're doing. But I don't think he needed to make this statement.

I think he should have just stuck with, we're not going to give him a blank check. I'm focused on the legislative session. And I'm not sure this played out the way they hoped it would.

Well, here's the thing. A lot of people are happy about it. I firmly believe that President Biden's making it harder and harder to support this when he slow walks just about everything that's given, and he says things like, we'll stay in as long as it takes. That does not please the Ukrainians. They can't win a war of attrition.

It's got to happen now. And if he doesn't understand that, then they're going to lose.

So just a quick thing about the incident that happened yesterday.

So it turns out the Russian The Russians had two fighter jets go up on our Predator drone. It's the latest incursion. It costs about $32 million when it's armed.

So the Russians send the two SU-2 fighter jets around it. They drump fuel on it, I guess, to blind it and screw up its sensors. Then the second plane goes around to drop fuel on it, reportedly. We're going to see this video and clips the propeller or the wing, and the thing goes down to the Black Sea. What is the right response, Rich Lowry?

Because I'm not happy with what I'm reading. Yeah, I I mean Yeah. Strenuous words, but this is where we don't, you know, it's one thing if it's a drone. But we that's the red line for me, and I think the the red line for the United States should be just no direct involvement. And that's why I know fly zone, which people were talking out about early on, made no sense.

That's why Trainers in Ukraine, as you cited it in this Vietnam analogy. We don't want to do that.

So I'm all in favor of giving Ukraine weapons, giving it aid. I think we should have done more the first year. That may have been the missed opportunity here. But otherwise, we don't want to get in a direct shooting war with Russia, obviously. Right.

But what is the right response? Because weakness begets more attacks and aggression. Here is John Kirby. I couldn't be more disappointed in these words, but Rich, you have a much more level head.

Somebody could have gotten hurt. Nobody wants to see that happen. And it could lead to miscalculations between two militaries that are operating not obviously in Ukraine together, but certainly in proximity in the region. And we don't want to see this war escalate beyond what it already has done to the Ukrainian people. And so this is clearly, this was inappropriate, unsafe, unprofessional conduct by the Russian pilots.

Inappropriate, unsafe, and unprofessional. Please. I mean, by pilots, we lost the $32 million drone. And and they came back. And they are anything but contrite.

What would the react this is what their ambassador said. What would the reaction be in the United States if you see such a Russian drone very close to San Francisco or New York? For me, it's clear for you as well. If they're in international waters or air that's different, that is not going over San Francisco.

So this is a predator drone. that had its uh uh I guess radar off. Since but this to me is unacceptable. Yeah.

Well, inappropriate is the weakest word possible. But the alternative here is helping Ukraine win, and I don't think anything about this incident is going to change that or should change that. And we should do all we can to help the Ukrainians push the Russians back towards the goal. By the way, I use the word win loosely. There's going to have to be a negotiated settlement at the end of the day.

That's where I agree with all these folks, J.D. Vance and others. But the question is, how do you get it? Do you cut off Ukraine so Russia makes huge gains and Putin doesn't have to stop? I don't think that's how you get a deal.

You convince Putin that he's not getting what he wants on the battlefield, and then maybe you get him to the negotiating table. Yeah.

Well, we got to wait for that offensive. And I was talking to one of these Ukrainian officials last week, and they said we could have done the offensive in the winter. We didn't care about the weather. We were equipped, but we haven't gotten the equipment yet. We haven't gotten the munitions.

So come spring, there's going to be some gains reportedly by the Ukrainians because they're organized, they have a plan, they have experience, and they're supposed to have a whole bunch of tanks from about five different countries to be able to get in there. As well as a Patriot missile defense system that should be implemented over the next few weeks. And then we will see a neutralized enemy in Russia, perhaps.

So yeah, there was a Russian Post story the other day, I'm sure you saw that 120,000 Ukrainian losses, which is a lot, not as much as the Russians, but obviously they don't have the manpower reserves that the Russians do. And depleted in artillery shells and the rest of it.

So the aid can't get there fast enough.

So Michael Weiss, where people say this is just an ISIS incident, it's two countries that don't get along. They're already making moves in Moldova.

So here's Michael Weiss of Yahoo News. Cut 16. Yeah, so this is a leaked document from the Russian presidential administration, a specific directorate that deals with several states in the Russian periphery, including Moldova, as you said. And we previously had a story about a Belarus strategy playbook as well. But this one is particularly timely.

On Friday, John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, came out and gave this rather out-of-left field press conference saying that the U.S. intelligence community assesses Russia's trying to stage some kind of insurrection or provocation in Moldova. It's a very small country, one of Europe's poorest, but it happens to border Ukraine. There has been a frozen conflict in this country in the area called Transnistria since 1992. Russian quote-unquote peacekeepers are stationed there.

And Kirby, everyone was sort of scratching their heads wondering what he could refer to. On Sunday, there were indeed massive anti-government protests in the capital of Moldova, chanting for the pro-Western Harvard-educated president to resign and also to have the population compensated. For high utility bills this past winter. And these protests were financed by a pro-Russian party whose oligarch head is a fugitive from Moldova living currently in Israel.

So, anyway, this document that we've obtained, which we obtained, by the way, before Kirby made his announcement, lays out a sort of chapter-by-chapter strategy for the political situation in Moldova, economic and trade aspects, and also the quote-unquote humanitarian sector, by which the Russians mean the creation of NGOs and cultural centers that are essentially clearing houses for Russian espionage and intelligence operations and propaganda.

So that is news. For people who think that that's so 1930s, it is very 2023.

Okay. No doubt. And it's not as though if Putin prevails in Ukraine, you know, he's immediately going to invade Poland. But you'll see all this kind of probing action and the rubber really hits the road when he does it in the Baltics or some other NATO state. And that's what we're trying to avoid, because then then you have an extremely dangerous situation that directly involves a treaty commitment the United States has to use force.

So that's what we want to avoid. Aaron Powell, and then there'll be a big push here. Why are we in NATO? It doesn't really matter. These countries' problems.

So I I just think it's a bad trend. It's disturbing that it's coming from the Republican right. It's just because I think fundamentally there's a distrust with President Biden's instincts and when people feel as though they agree with him, they must think something's wrong with us. Yeah, I also think there's a the shadow of the Iraq war and and a lot of these people they might have supported the Iraq war at the time, but they regret it and think it was a huge mistake.

So they they want to never do it again, which I think is understandable, but we're not directly involved in Ukraine. All we're doing is give them arms and and money, and yes, let's make sure the money's being well used and all the rest of it and kick the tires. But it's a booton not to have to fight this ourselves. Hey, Rich Lowry, National Review. Thanks so much, Rich.

Hey, thanks, Brian. 1866-408-7669. I'll come back and get your calls on that also. I did not tell you about the Hunter stuff. It'll be very interesting to see how quick this is now moving.

Ryan Kilmicho. Both sides, all opinions. It's Brian Killmead. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Kilmead.

We have bank records from one of the 13 banks in hand that were used by the Biden family members in these business schemes.

So these bank records prove that the Bidens did receive money through a shell company from the Chinese Communist Party.

So this is the first link. Hopefully, within the next 48 hours, we'll have more bank records from another bank, and we're just going to keep following the money. We know from our sources that have come in, the whistleblowers, where the money trails are. And of course, the Democrats have denied it. The White House has denied it.

There's no denying it now with the bank records. Right. Rob Walker, Devin Archer, these are the names that have been kicking around over the last years. You remember the panic that Tony Bobolinski revealed when he put his text message out there when they said, I'm coming forward, and they said, You're going to screw us all, just to paraphrase. And nobody cared.

They came out there, they had the laptop, they exposed the emails, nobody cared. Tony Bobolinski called the press conference before a debate, nobody covered it outside us. And now, what people should understand is nobody's taking advantage of the president's son. The son was leading the charge on the financial entanglements with other nations, which I, by the way, if I'm the IRS, I'm wondering how does he afford three houses? Where are these millions of dollars?

Why is Hunter Biden doing multi-million dollar deals from these different countries with these different countries and companies in these countries? And why does he have to live in some guest house from a friend in Malibu? Where all the money go? Here's more from Comer Cut28. We don't know what that money was for, but I don't see any business activity here.

It looks like. It was influence peddling, and if so, that's illegal. That's called lobbying. You have to be a registered foreign agent. And we don't see any evidence of that.

Right. We don't see any evidence of that.

So what does it mean? It means that this thing is heating up. Bank of America, those bank records are out there. They're not going to be skewed. They're not going to be whited out.

And Janet Yellen kept saying, We're not going to give you any of these records. You're in the minority. Then when they get into the majority, they still are not getting the records. They finally gave in. And we'll see what else happens with whistleblowers directing.

The investigators one way or another. And I think this has everything to do with 2024. If you look at what happened in the past, And then you could basically, if they show that he was doing deals with the communist government of Russia. Ukraine And most of all China, how do you run for re-election? Which makes me think that a lot of Democrats are going to go, yeah, let's just let James Comer do his thing.

And see what happens. Cut 29 is Ori Fleischer. This is not about the President's son. This is not about his family. It's only about Joe Biden.

And any Republican who even uses the name of the president's son, I submit to you, is making an error because it's not about family. It is: did Joe Biden receive money that was filtered through his family from China, from Russia, to pay for his lifestyle? As soon as he left the vice president's office, did he start to benefit from the deals that his family did abroad and that personally benefited the president? Because he won't answer any questions about it.

So he's the only person of interest that I have in this matter. I could care less if his son or his brother made money. unless that money filtered through to Joe Biden. I 100% agree. It would be a sideline to know what the president's son or daughter did.

Remember, Reagan's famously did not have a great relationship with their kids. They weren't that close. Go to Michael Reagan, who was adopted. And. The daughter who regrets saying some of the things against their parents, against their parents a little bit later on.

Billy Carter was embarrassing Jimmy Carter on a regular basis. Roger Clinton had all types of substance abuse problems. It's not, you know, Neil Bush had some issues, I think, when his dad was president or in between. Neil's the son.

So. I get it. You can't control it. Everybody listening right now has a family member that's embarrassing them at some level, or maybe you're the person embarrassing your family. I don't know.

Presidential families aren't unique. It's just as it relates to a president that might have directed his crack-addicted son to do these high-stress international business deals, knowing if they got uncovered, it would be a scandal that would destroy their family name. That to me shows pretty bad parenting to take the guy with a drug problem and put him in these situations. And judging by some of his text messages with his daughter, that's exactly what he was doing. Real quick, the other thing that we touched on with Rich Lowry that I think you care about, probably the most interesting things in politics right now is the relationship between Ron DeSantis, thought to be number one or number two for the Republican nomination as of right now, and President Trump.

Trump's been remarkably disciplined and effective. The poll numbers reflect that, especially in Iowa. He seems to have a very. Strong unit there. But when they're a little different, is how are you going to attack somebody that's very similar to you?

Donald Trump has put a lot of thought into it. and put a lot of action behind it. And he seems to be pointing out to his days as congressman and saying that when he was in Congress he went to go after entitlements, saying that we got to find a way to reform them, change them. And not fund them because they're ineffective and they're all going to be dried up, and it's time for us to take action. Here is the former president, Cut 33.

But you have to remember, Ron was a disciple. A Paul Ryan. Who is A rhino loser who currently is destroying Fox and would constantly vote against entitlements. He would just vote against, remember that the wheelchair over the cliffs, the Democrats. He used it.

The wheelchair over the cliff commercial, very effective. That was about him. But Ryan, Paul Ryan's a big reason that Mitt Romney, I'm not a big fan of Mitt Romney, lost his election.

Okay, number one, that is not true. There's no way Paul Ryan affected Mitt Romney. In fact, he wasn't used enough. Number two, Paul Ryan is brilliant, great budget mind. And Paul Ryan was not, he was not mentoring Ron DeSantis.

Ron DeSantis was part of the original member of the Freedom Caucus who gave John Boehner fits and Paul Ryan fits.

So there are vulnerabilities, Mr. President, but that's not it.

So that's what Ron DeSantis have no problem with that. Unentitlements and Donald Trump not touching him and Bron DeSantis touching him, that's legitimate. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmead. Hey, welcome everybody to the latest edition of the latest moments of the Brian Kill Me Show coming to you from 48th and 6th in Midtown Manhattan, heard around the country, around the world.

We're going to be joined this hour by Mike Rogers. He's going to be here now out of Michigan. And also, we're going to be dealing with Kevin Hassett. He's one of the few people you could talk to that knows what it's like to be in government, have to handle the world's economy, the country's economy during crisis and out of crisis, and understand that they really can't blame the Trump administration for the latest bank failure or overall failure. There are times when previous administrations could be responsible.

For example, Barack Obama pulling all the troops out of Iraq. And then we get ISIS, then we're going to need after the surge actually worked. But Congressman Mike Rogers, former Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, will be with us in a matter of moments. We'll discuss that. The President of the United States got up early.

He's got a fundraiser today. He's out on the West Coast. No word yet on how he's responding to the drop in the markets dropped about five hundred points. Already today.

So let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. These bank records prove that the Bidens did receive money through a shell company from the Chinese Communist Party.

So this is the first link. There you go. James Comer starting to move. Hunter hijinks exposed as bank records for Biden Enterprises begin to pour into the House Oversight Committee. Y Joe has to know how bad things are about to get for his family, but most of all, for him.

Number two. One of the Russian Su twenty seven aircraft struck the propeller of the MQ9. Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless and unprofessional manner. Here you go. That is Pat Ryder.

Man, is he a snooze takedown? That's what the Russians did to our Reaper drone in international skies and our retort calling them unprofessional, really? From the Afghanistan evacuation humiliation, to the Chinese balloon watching and now the brazen Russian attack. This administration radiates weakness. Number I think the Fed's mandate about keeping FDIC insurance at $250 makes sense to me.

But we changed all that over the weekend. And so at the end of the day, let this thing go under because that's our democratic capitalist system. Because when you're an idiot and it goes to zero, that's okay. Kevin O'Leary, of course, from Shark Tank. Bank failures, all about incompetent, idiotic focus on inclusion, not enough on profit and risk management.

How many other banks, like Signature Valley Bank and others, have lackeys on their board with selfish, unethical CEOs in charge? And that's going to be key. With us right now is Mike Rogers. Welcome back, Mike. It is always good to be back, Brian, especially on this special day for us Irishmen.

I know. We're a few days away from that. Also, we got up today to hear credit Suisse is having problems causing the market to tank. Turns out the Saudis, who are financing about 10 percent of it, it goes over that. All the regulations changes and the scrutiny changes.

They say we're done. They are an error-prone bank, and people wonder is this going to ripple through the regionals and maybe go beyond.

So people with you went through this when you were in office in 2008. Does it feel similar? Uh It yes and no. I think the scope of the problem seemed larger to me in two thousand. And it was also based on banks making really bad decisions.

based on their profit margins, not necessarily the stability and solvency of the banks.

Now I ended up voting against the Wall Street bailout on that because I thought that there were other ways to get revenue from that. I think we need to figure out exactly what happened.

Sounds to me like it was mismanagement. and just not paying attention. And why the heck this guy was on the Federal Reserve Bank is just beyond me during this whole process. And of course, you can't do anything about it. Yeah, you're talking about the CEO.

Yeah, I mean, of the SBB thing. I I just that makes no sense to me whatsoever. I mean, it s it seems to me it shouldn't happen. Why we can be part of an agency that's supposed to regulate a place where you're the CEO of? It makes no sense.

And then you wonder why this happened. I wonder why the regulators weren't crawling all over the bank. By the way, people saw this coming, right? And so all of this was in public disclosure. The regulator should have seen this coming.

That to me was the biggest failure. Why why didn't you step in? Is it because that he was serving on the Federal Reserve Board? You have to ask the question. Guy's name is Greg Baker Becker, and last week he said to his staff and to his crew: the health of the bank is sparkling.

And he said, next thing you know, they lose $1.8 billion. He scrambles to raise $2.25 billion, and then the whole bottom falls out of the bank. But before he did that, he got $3.4 million because he cashed in his stock, and everybody got their bonuses.

Now, for Signature Bank, you have Bernie Frank, who you used to serve with. The Dodd-Frank, we know the regulation. He goes on Signature Bank, even though he has no legitimate banking experience, just supervision. At which time, this bank is fueled by cryptocurrency. And he says there is no problem with deregulating some portions of what you guys passed in 2008 when it comes to regionals because they had to be able to function.

And that had nothing to do with why the bottom fell out here. It didn't stop the Biden administration from blaming Trump for this. I mean, this is all ridiculous. And listen, for those people who have to go through. Sarbanes Oxley reports in the small business and medium business community, it is just really onerous.

For the people, Dodd-Frank is supposed to be stress test and all of that. The regulations are very, very costly and onerous. And if this is the result, maybe we ought to go back and undo more and put the requirements in where they need to be versus this big, monstrous, punitive. Regulatory regime that apparently, you know, a bad manager is still a bad manager. And the other thing is, too, is I, you know, I'm not a Mr.

Big Business guy, and I'm certainly not looking to run a bank, but I'm surprised how little qualifications these board members have and under no scrutiny. They should be held accountable. There's seven people on the board on signature. Only one has got banking experience, and that guy is a huge Democratic donor. Almost to say, listen, if things go wrong, remember who donated to Hillary, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama.

So I cannot believe we have not learned about who's on the board and how important it is. That's not a ceremonial position to give to your buddies. But I want to talk about the Russian aggression. I just want to say this. I served with Barnett Frank.

The guy was a great orator on the floor, but he should not be a great banker. I wouldn't have him working the front clerks, the clerk's desk at the bank. The guy had no business experience, was very anti-business. And then goes and serves on a board where the numbers, the economy, and leverage. really make a difference, now you see what the problem is.

At 82 years old, what is he actually doing for Signature Bank?

Now he's got nothing.

So let's talk about the Russian aggression yesterday. We understand that the U.S. MQ-9, which is the latest Predator drone, was knocked out of the sky by two SU-27 fighter jets. The details look to be like this: the first one goes over it in international skies and drops fuel oil to blind it, some suspect, because there's sensors as well as the cameras. Number two, the second one goes by, but instead of dumping, it tries to dump fuel, but instead of doing that, actually clips its wing, it goes down into the Black Sea, costing us at least $32 million.

Now, we say we come back with this retort: John Kirby, cut for.

Somebody could have gotten hurt. Nobody wants to see that happen. And it could lead to miscalculations between two militaries that are operating not obviously in Ukraine together, but certainly in proximity in the region. And we don't want to see this war escalate beyond what it already has done to the Ukrainian people. And so this is clearly, this was inappropriate, unsafe, unprofessional conduct by the Russian pilots.

So when you're out $32 million, Congressman Rogers, do you call you say that's inappropriate? unsafe and unprofessional. Is that the stern words the Russians will pay attention to? This is the famous Sternly Warded memo, exactly what that was, which was just Pablo. In another cut, they also talked, I think it was Kirby, talked about the environmentally unfriendly.

I mean, war by its very nature is environmentally unfriendly. I just do not understand this kind of tepid, weak, measured or unmeasured language, really. To stand up for what the Russians were knowingly doing, they went into international airspace with full intent. uh to take down uh this drone. And by the way, when that thing goes in the Black Sea, the Russians have capabilities to be able to go and retrieve that.

Uh which wouldn't surprise me if that was a little bit part of what they were thinking anyway. 'cause they can get the suite of all the technology on there, and that's where the value in the Q nine is. It's pretty big. It's not you know, some people think of a radio sh shack sized drone. This is a pretty large Aerial vehicle and it carries really sensitive equipment on it that allows us to kind of figure out what's going on in the region, both from optics and other types of sensors.

So it was a pretty valuable piece of equipment. That's why it's so expensive. Not just because of the airframe, it's all the stuff that goes in it. And the Russians certainly wanted to see it. And that's why the oil over the top to try to blind it, I think they were going to try to push it down, is what I talked to a couple of analysts.

that were they believed that they were going to try to push it down with the plane. A little bit of bad piloting clicked the wing, the thing went down. It it was directly and intentionally done.

So saying this is unprofessional, I mean, please, what we need to do is stand up and make sure that the world knows, Russia knows, and oh, by the way, China knows, and Iran knows, we will not be intimidated by their actions, number one, and we'll take responsive action if it deems necessary, number two, so knock it off kind of a deal. It's just so frustrating. You're inviting more problems by this tepid language.

Well, I mean, Lindsey Graham came out last night and says he believes our foreign policy is in free fall. If you saw that dynamic with the Chinese brokering some type of truce with the Saudis and the Iranians, which basically nullifies any progress on the Abraham Accords, we see the fact that the U.S. has pulled away and let Iran do their own thing when it comes to their nuclear program. You know Israel is going to act, and Ukraine and Russia are going at it tooth and nail, and we are slow walking a lot of the stuff that we promised them. I mean, what is going on here?

I don't. This is the, I don't want to hurt your feelings foreign policy, and it is a disaster. Uh and it's just fits and starts, and so there's no consistency, there's no strength. And if you have both of those combination, you are going to get in trouble in a hurry in this very complicated, growing, more dangerous world. Remember, you have China's defense minister saying, hey, we're going to prepare to go to war with the United States.

You have the Russians very shortly after going in international airspace and taking down a drone. You have the spy balloon. You have this deal with the Saudis and the Iranians that is clearly against U. S. interests.

Oh, and by the way, the Saudis also, because the the way that the administration handled itself when it took office Push the Saudis into deals with both China and Russia, all at the same time. There's none of it is consistent. They're not looking at a, okay, we have this strategic competitor coming at us. That is now aligning with the Russians who have hated us for a very long time. And that means we're going to have to do things differently.

Instead, you get this. fits and starts and you know So really sternly worded memos and talking about the unprofessionalism of flight traffic in international airways, which had nothing to do with what their intent was. It is concerning to me and really alarming. And Americans need to understand what how many threat vectors we have coming at the United States these days. And having this group into the national security space and setting our policy is asking for trouble.

They're heading us into someplace we don't want to go that could result in conflict. That's dangerous. All right.

So, Mike Rodgers, you're obviously a Republican and you're familiar with Ron DeSantis and you know President Trump. Here's Trump is in Davenport, Iowa yesterday. We had a huge crowd. He's polling well, as is DeSantis. Listen to this attack and tell me if you think this is effective, Cut 33.

But you have to remember, Ron was a disciple. A Paul Ryan. Who is A rhino loser who currently is destroying Fox and would constantly vote against entitlements. He would just vote against, remember that the wheelchair over the cliffs, the Democrats. Used it, the wheelchair over the cliff commercial, very effective.

That was about him. But Ryan, Paul Ryan's a big reason that Mitt Romney, I'm not a big fan of Mitt Romney, lost his election.

And to be honest with you, Ron reminds me a lot of Mitt Romney.

So I don't think you're going to be doing so well here, but we're going to find out. But those are the facts. Was Ron DeSantis a disciple of Paul Ryan, and is he like Mitt Romney? I don't know. You know, this is what worked for Trump in 2016, you know, name-calling.

uh condemning uh everyone who was trying to make a difference You know, all the kinds of same things, by the way, that were enacted during the Trump administration: tax cuts and regulation reform, all the things that all of the folks he just talked about were promoting at the time.

So, listen, I think that style of politics is kind of coming to an end. I think Americans understand we have this strategic competitor, China, that is outpacing us in 34 of 44 critical technologies. A report just came out. They have the third largest nuclear. Arsenal.

They're teaching their kids in eighth grade quantum mechanics. We graduated last year, Brian, half. Of high school seniors who couldn't read past the sixth grade level.

So, my argument is it is time to move away from all of that style of politics. We have huge problems coming down the pipe. And if you care about your children and your grandchildren's, Security and economic prosperity, we had better start talking about solutions and moving forward and not name-calling and looking backwards. Right, but they're going to be, it's just starting, to be honest. I remember Hillary.

I know. Well, I think it's coming, obviously. And Trump knows what Trump knows, and he is going to use what he, that's a tactic that worked well for him. I just think that's where it's thin on the public. And if even the polling shows that the polling shows that the that Republicans across the country are looking for someone different by the numbers, right?

And it's too early to ordain and coordinate any candidate in 2024, far too early. You know, people are already making missteps on their positions on Foreign affairs and national security because they just don't have a lot of experience.

So we've got to be careful. We've got to let this thing play out a little bit. I don't think we've seen our candidate for 2024 just yet.

Okay, here we go. U.S. Congressman Mike Rogers. Thanks so much. And FBI guy, too.

Thanks, Mike. Hey, thanks, Brian. You got it. We'll be back with you calls 1-866-408-7669. Giving you everything you need to know.

You're with Brian Kilmead. Information you want, truth you demand. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. Hey, welcome back, everybody. We just have a great guest coming up shortly.

Kevin Hassan will unwind what's happening with the market now. Down about 450 points. Eric, WOKB in Jacksonville. Hey, Eric. Brian, as usual, right on topic.

That Ary Fleischer clip that you just played. Yep.

He's trying to steer the narrative. He says, what we really need to focus on is: once Joe Biden left the vice presidency, no, Ary. We want I want to know what he did while in vice presidency, like that bragging about the prosecutor being fired. And he kind of shined light on Barack Obama. Did Obama know that this money was being withheld on these on I mean, Barack Obama might not have known, but it sure put suspicion on this whole thing.

Your take on all this?

Well, I do think that there was stuff going on as vice president.

Well, we're not really sure. We know Burisma happened while he was vice president in charge of Ukraine. He had that portfolio.

So that was simultaneous, but he was all setting himself up because he knew that was the last year for Obama. His son had passed away. It wasn't looked like he was running.

So he was trying to set himself up. He had to go get a real job for the first time. in his life. And his son was in charge of doing it for him. The problem is.

The guy had huge personal issues. And he was trading on the family name. The least responsible thing a parent could do with a drug addict is give them responsibility like that. The least. Anyone who'll tell you go through rehab.

Kevin Hassett next. From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Kilmead. 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 two thousand eight would not happen again. Unfortunately, The last administration rolled back some of these requirements.

So blame Trump again for the failure of two regional banks, and maybe a third with credit suisse goes south like their indications are it is, and the market down 580 points. They're getting really worried. Kevin has to join us now. National Review Capital Matters Senior Advisor, former chairman of the President's Council on Economic Advisers, had two stints there. Kevin, do you take the blame?

Oh, Brian. You know, the fact is that Barney Frank himself, you know, came out and said that the twenty eighteen reform had nothing to do with what's going on right now. And it's just an example of the Biden administration's partisan finger pointing, which is exactly the opposite of what we need right now when we need people to be rational and try to calm things down. Recall in 2018, what was going on is all the little community banks all around the country were closing down and going out of business because the Dodd-Frank Act imposed these really heavy, costly regulations on them for how much Press testing and everything that they had to do. And so they came to government to us.

And most, I think about half the Democratic senators voted for the bill because this whole ecosystem of small community banks was going to go out of business.

So it really has nothing to do with these larger banks that have failed in the last week. And the fact that Biden is sort of claiming that it is sad for him. And the fact that Barney Frank, of all people, came out and said, no, Biden's lying about that, I think is all the proof we need. Plus, you have about 13 to 17 Democratic senators, including Senator Warner, who said, Yeah, I voted for that. I have no regrets.

So what are they talking about?

So that was truly bipartisan to lessen some of the pressure on that. But when you look at Silicon Valley Bank, they have a CEO in Greg Becker who was telling everyone a week before the collapse that the health of the bank is sparkling. That's his word, sparkling, while cashing out on his stock, $3.4 million. Trying to raise 2.25. As you look at this, and I don't want to get, I give you and give this summary.

Why can't we stop some of these boards that are unqualified, some of these moves that were reckless? Why aren't there Fed? Looking over the shoulder in Silicon Valley. To say, what are you guys doing? Do you know what their interest rates are?

Do you know where your money is? Do you know that you're going to be insolvent? Is there a system there? You know, the system right now is that that part of the country is being run by Democrats. And everybody, if they want to be on the board of Silicon Valley Bank or on the board of the San Francisco Fed, needs to be a Democratic contributor.

And if you look at honest to goodness, if you want to see something really chilling, you should go and look at their ESG report where they bragged about the fact that they were going to have five billion in loans to make the world a carbon neutral place and that they themselves were going to be carbon neutral about a year from now. It's like at the beginning of twenty twenty five. And so instead of focusing on what banks do, they were focusing on political correctness and pleasing partisan Democrats like AOC with their carbon initiatives. And that's a recipe for failure. And it's something that I think we're going to see a lot more of because this political correctness has swept through a lot of banks.

And there are a lot of them out there making loans to people who aren't going to pay them back, but who have like a nice green title for their company. and very costly objectives is like switching to costly energy instead of energy based on fossil fuels, which will drive up the cost of the banks.

So what happened to the green of Wall Street? The greed of Wall Street used to make this country, fuel this country, and whether you thought they worked too much or were too cutthroat in their practices, the goal was always the same: maximize profit for yourself and for your shareholders. What happened to that? Yes, that it's been replaced by the socialism that's taken over the Democratic Party.

So we have it on very good confidence. I live, Brian, as you know, in DC and sort of talk to everybody when something like this is going on. And I have it on good confidence that over the weekend that there were a couple of serious bidders to buy the Silicon Valley Bank, but that the far left regulators of the Biden administration decided not to let that happen. An acquisition would have been a nice clean fix. It would have let capitalism fix the problem.

But they hate big banks and they hate capitalism and they'd rather have the government hand out bailouts than have the private sector fix it. And think about why they want the government to hand out the bailouts. They want the government to hand out the bailouts because it gives them the power to hand billions of dollars out to companies they like and not give money to companies they don't like. And I asked Larry Kudlow on his show the other day, and I really meant it. Suppose that Silicon Valley Bank was the place where Donald Trump had all his money.

So all of his deposits were there. I don't know, four or five billion. I don't know what he's worth. But if he had four billion dollars at Silicon Valley Bank, do you think the Democrats would have made depositors whole? Absolutely not.

Absolutely not. No, and so that's the world we're in right now, and it's a totally unacceptable world. Right. And people have to say to themselves, if they're not as politically oriented as you and I are, you have to say to yourself, I got to go to a bank that wants to maximize my money and stays out of politics, period. And the whole ESG push is another example of it.

I understand, too.

So these smaller banks, a lot of people are now going back to the big banks.

So $15 billion over the last week has gone to Bank of America. People are saying, well, I don't trust these regional banks. That's not good either. We don't want four big banks running the whole country. Yeah, that's right.

And the four big banks that run the country are going to be like in bed with the Democrats, and that's the problem. You know, you're only going to get a loan. For an example, why is energy production down so much in the U.S. since Biden took over?

Well, it's because the banking regulators wouldn't let the banks lend money to people to explore and to drill. And so this control over the banks is control over society. And the way that Like, really, I know that there are a lot of people out there that are worried right now, and the way that people can protect themselves. Is that you go to like the little bank in your hometown, every bit of money up to $250,000 is 100% guaranteed by an insurance program, right? If it's above 250, then they just bail them out, but they're not going to have enough money to bail everybody out above 250 if things go really south in the country.

So if you want to protect yourself, there's probably three or four little banks in your hometown. And if you have a million dollars, God bless you, you're a wealthy person, put $250,000 in each of the four banks. And then you're 100% protected. And I think that that's a much better solution than taking your million and throwing it in a really, really big bank because you know they're going to get bailed out for sure. Because it preserves the ecosystem in your hometown.

I mean, we're seeing all these videos now out of all these equity, this whole push to accept transgender and pick a pronoun. Here's how to do it. And we're wondering: so, listen, everybody has to have human resources. I understand that. But do they have to spend millions of dollars on music videos talking about how great they are or how honest and accepting they are?

I mean, listen to this seminar from Signature Bank. This is online, CUD 17. We talked about folks that are non binary, that intentionally don't identify as male or female.

So some of those folks use they, them as their pronouns. Z is another gender neutral pronoun, and the other part of that would be here, spelled H I R.

So what the hell is going on? If I'm at this bank, I'm trying to work my way in, I'm trying to work my way up. I'm not sitting there trying to dictate to people what it's like now in today's society with their demand for pronouns and sexual orientation. Yeah, I mean, the more you focus on things that are not focused on the bottom line, then the worse your bottom line gets. And, you know, these two banks in particular were extremely woke.

And, you know, that recording you just played is just a small tip of the iceberg. And by focusing on woke ideology instead of profits, then they've driven their companies into the ground. And I think that, again, that hopefully a lot of companies will wake up and see that this woke activist culture is going to be really bad for them and for capitalism. And they'll do something about it. But if they don't, then I think we could expect this contagion to get worse.

So just to back, just to understand that Kevin Hasse is not just saying that this is what he thinks. He knows this. Because when we talk about Silicon Valley Bank, they have nobody there with any banking experience except Tom King. He was appointed to the board in September after serving as CEO of Barclays.

Okay, fine.

35 years' experience.

Sounds good. Also, he is a mega donor for Hillary Clinton, a mega donor. Joined for Nancy Pelosi. After Donald Trump won, he went to a Shinto shrine in order to pray. Uh isn't that interesting?

So this guy, is he trying to maximize profit or is he trying to max out political power? And you have all the different things that he's done and the different charities he's given and the different campaigns he's supported. And also, this bank gave $73 million to Black Lives Matter. Really? SVP, where's the money?

I don't know. Where's the CEO? He cashed out. Oh, where's the donation? Seventy three million dollars to BLM.

Is that what you want to do with your deposits, with your investors? I mean, this is outrageous. Right. And what's happening now is that the taxpayers are going to have to basically bail out the depositors who kept their money in that bank, and effectively, taxpayer money is going to DLM them indirectly. And this is again a tip of the iceberg problem that's the America that the left's trying to give us.

And that's my book, The Drift, which you and I have talked about before, The Stopping America's Slide to Socialism, talks all about this. And the drift towards socialism, the road to socialism is paved with bailouts. And the reason why it's so dangerous is that the government gets more and more power, and that people like Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden abuse that power and enrich themselves and harm the rest of us, steal from the rest of us.

So, Kevin Hasso with us.

So, Kevin, right now, there's a big push. Elizabeth Warren hates J-Powell, always has, I guess. And she tweeted out that this is all his fault, essentially, and that he's got to go and he should resign. What do you think is going to happen with rates now that we have this?

So much doubt around these regional banks and so much worry, and we see that the market's down 580 points right now. The word was he was going to raise rates. Do you think he still is? If it were me, yes, I would definitely do it. And I think that Jay, who I know very well, as you know, as chairman of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, I had to have lunch regularly with Jay, where we would talk about the economy and economic policy and so on.

And I think that he's got what it takes to do the right thing. The fact is that inflation is out of control. If you go back to the seventies where inflation went up into the double digits, the reason it happened was that the Fed would start to fight inflation and then chicken out. Because, oh goodness, this bank's going out of business, or oh my goodness, everybody's sentiment is going south because of the interest rate act.

So that's sort of how it's supposed to work. And so until they lick inflation, then bank failures like this are going to be more and more common because what's going on, right, is that the banks have long assets that lose value sharply when inflation goes up and the interest rates go up. And so, yeah, I think that he'll have to. If he doesn't, then he's surrendering to inflation. And in the end, that's going to be even worse for markets.

All right.

We'll see what happens. If Donald Trump wins, are you in? You know, I'm really honored that President Trump for the asked me to serve in the White House, and just I'd be honored if he asked me to do so again. You know, the pay's not that great. You do better on the outside.

Yeah.

You know, you don't go in for the pay, you go in to serve your country. And it's a real honor to serve the country. You know, last story, Brian, that when Donald Trump, who I didn't know that well, asked me to be his top economist, I asked my old friend John McCain, I said, Do you think I should go work for Trump? And he said, of course you should. And I said, Well, why?

What's your reasoning? He says, Oh, because you've never been in the military, you've never had a chance to serve your country, and serving your country is the biggest thrill anyone could have in a whole lifetime. And so, I'm so thrilled for you that you get to serve your country. And he was 100% right. And I think if I was right, he was not the biggest Trump fan, so that says a lot.

Yeah, that's right. He was not. But you did a great job. And the other thing you do great is you're a great communicator.

So, in terms of strife, you actually want the camera to explain yourself as opposed to other people who are running from it right now, where we really could use somebody in the administration to explain what's happening. The market's now down 611 points.

So it's it's pretty terrible. You know, and and again, um, yeah, as you know, Larry Kudlow and I, when we were in the White House, we never had a script when we went on T V. Right, like we knew what we wanted to communicate, but it wasn't the political people that were telling us what to say, it was the economic team who was going out there and sort of saying, Hey, We understand that you're nervous. Here are the four steps we're taking today to make sure it doesn't get out of hand. But right now, you're not getting any of that, right?

If you go back and look at Janet Ellen's disastrous discussion on the Sunday morning shows, where she's kind of like, well, we'll see. We're talking about it, right? I mean, it's just a communication disaster because the politicals, the press office, control all the communications in this way. And Jen Saki giving a tribute to Joe Biden that he got up at 9 o'clock. He usually is a night owl.

Thank you. I don't mean to get in his way. And then, of course, Danett Yellen would have used Face the Nation as an opportunity to say, This is what we're doing today. It's Sunday, and this is the action that we're taking. Instead, she was just vague.

Why did she even do the show?

So, and then we get it in the middle of the night. By the time I get up in the morning for Fox and Friends, we had this move and then the President's speech. Kevin Hassid, thanks so much. Yeah, it's great to be back, Brian. See you soon.

You got it. When we come back, I'll take your calls: 1-866-408-7669. It's Brian Kilmade. A talk show that's real. This is the Brian Kill Me Show.

I can remember exactly. or my epiphany was. I was a senior in high school. And my dad was dropping me off. I remember about to get out of the car and I looked to my right.

and two well-dressed men in suits kissed each other. And I'll never forget I turned and looked at my dad. He said, Joey, it's simple. They love each other. There's no way that happened.

You're talking about 1960-something. He was in high school, and he never, that's when he was asked by the Daily Show, whoever the host of the week is, you know, when did you first become out in support of same-sex marriage? And then it's so easy to disprove. Number one, he's been on the public record for 30 years. Remember, this is him when asked about this.

I think it's on Meet the Press. Do you support gay marriage? No, Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that. Marriage is between a man and a woman, and states must respect that.

Right. That's how that's the 1980s, 90s. 2008? He says this happened in the 1960s. Two men kissed each other, and that's when he had the revelation.

I mean, this guy just makes stuff up. It's unbelievable. He hung out with Puerto Ricans. He might as well have been a member of a black church in Delaware. I mean, it's unbelievable what this guy says, and he just gets a total pass on all of it.

Remember, he was a scholarship athlete in college. He was an honors graduate with double majors. It turns out he never played sports in college. And he didn't graduate with honors. In fact, he was last in his class in law school at Syracuse with one major.

I mean, this goes on and on and on. I mean, I understand when people get older, sometimes they misremember things. But does he understand he's done a million Sunday shows? And he's been asked this question. And to me, that's one of the best examples.

Barack Obama in 2008 says marriage between a man and a woman, he's not for it. 2012, he runs on it. Was he a terrible person in 2008? That's part of the bigger story in looking back at history. You put people in their time and you go, well, I would never have done that.

Okay, you're not born in 1880. You're not born in seventeen seventy six, so you have a little bit of a different opinions now. Things are a little bit different, and you like to think society evolved collectively. It's not so much you look back and judge people of where they Acted in 1790. That's a perfect example.

So this is this is Joe Biden. The next his next comeuppance is going to be with this Hunter Biden situation.

Now Bank of America comes out and they're starting to unwind some of the business deals that he did. They said there's a third member of the Biden family that's involved whose name has not popped up yet. We know that they go out of their way not to say Joe Biden's name or text it or email it, and they're referenced as the big guy. Who else is referenced in there? Is it another brother?

I think he's got two brothers. Is it a sister? I know he's got a sister by a different name. We've seen them walking together. Who else is referencing there in Biden?

And where is all the money? You know, do you ever do your taxes? You ever have somebody do your taxes? They want everything. You do any stuff on the side, you earn some money, maybe you have a nighttime gig on top of your full-time job.

You got to declare everything. How has Joe Biden got three houses at least on a salary? that averaged probably $200,000 for 20 years. Maybe it's some of these million dollar business deals. Ryan killed me, Chair.

From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the latest moment for the Brian Kilmead Show. We're here at 48th and 6th in Midtown Manhattan, heard around the country, around the world.

Martha McCallum at the bottom of the hour, she'll be in the studio. And Lee Zeldin, the congressman from Suffolk County, who was almost governor of New York, is in the studio right now. We're going to use him for everything he's worth, from his days in Congress to what's going on around the world, and of course, your military background as well. Before we get to Congressman Zeldon, let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. These bank records prove that the Bidens did receive money through a shell company from the Chinese Communist Party.

So, this is the first link. Yup, that is James Comer starting to get some progress as Bank of America gives up some bank records of the Biden enterprises, and two more Biden names from the Biden family pop up, one of them, Joe. Number two. One of the Russian Su-27 aircraft struck the propeller of the MQ-9. Several times before the collision, the SU-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless and unprofessional manner.

Yes, unprofessional. They take down a $32 million drone, and we have used words like unprofessional, sickening. That's Brigadier General Pat Ryder. That's what the Russians just took down one of our drones from Afghanistan evacuation humiliation to the Chinese balloon watching.

Now the brazen Russian attack, this administration radiates weakness. Number I think the Fed's mandate about keeping FDIC insurance at 250 makes sense to me. But we changed all that over the week. And so at the end of the day, let this thing go under because that's our democratic capitalist system. Because when you're an idiot and it goes to zero, that's okay.

Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank, bank failures, all about incompetence, idiotic focus on inclusion and not enough about profit and risk management. How many other banks like Silicon Valley Bank and like Signature Bank are about to go up in flames because of their lackeys on the board and their terrible self-centered CEOs? And right now, we're looking at a market that's down about 600 points. Terrible day so far, but it's always a good day when Congressman Lee Zeldin comes in. Great to see you, Lee.

It's great to be back. I mean, you qualify to answer all these things with great expertise. First off, you were there in 2008. All right, with the banks, we're going belly up, correct?

Well, I I got to Congress after that, but I was in the middle of it was the home stretch of my first run for Congress. And it was the presidential race was going on. And wow, did that end up changing up that race a lot? I remember John McCain kind of suspending his campaign to go back to DC and Obama and President Obama or the candidate Obama just kept going. And he ended up being victorious.

But it really changed the dynamics politically. Policy, so Dodd-Frank followed that up. A lot of people's lives, American dreams went up in flame. It was sudden and drastic for sure. And no, I'll never forget it.

And we need to remember it because. You might be reliving history at some point here. Yeah, we certainly hope not. But when you have New York Signature Bank with Barney Frank on the board, 82 years old, no banking experience, heavily invested in crypto, and then we understand the other bank, the Silicon Valley Bank, heavily into political correctness and gender-neutral hirings and briefings and ridiculous Broadway-like videos, they're deinvested, and they're heavily invested in something that's not going to pay off temporarily anyway, when they have all this venture capital, and then you figure the venture capital is invested in that, and they watch interest rates grow up, and they don't make any adjustments. And when the adjustments aren't made, they begin to realize they have to raise additional capital.

When word gets out about that, the whole thing just collapses, but not before the CEO walks out with $3.4 million in stock. There's so much wrong with this model. They're being bullied.

Some are just willingly playing into it. I served on the House Financial Services Committee. Alexandria Caso-Cortez was on the committee. I remember at one point we had a head of a lender testifying in front of the committee, one of about 18 or 19 lenders towards the Keystone Pipeline Project.

So you have a political agenda of AOC, and she's trying to get the lender to admit that for any environmental damage caused by a leak of the Keystone XL pipeline, that this lender would be liable. And they're one of like 18 or 19, but they would be liable for the damage. And I was so tempted. There is this board in front of you when you serve in the committee. If you press the button, your mic goes live.

And I wanted to ask, will the gentlewoman yield? I wanted to know whether or not the company that was manufacturing the microphone she was speaking into should be liable for the crap that was coming out of her mouth. The policy push of getting inside of the boardrooms, of trying to decide based on politics and ideology, what you should be allowed to bank in. This is new. And this trajectory is getting worse and worse, and you see it in the executive branch with the Biden administration.

You're seeing it inside of the halls of Congress, in the House, in the Senate, from the laws to the regulations. It is something that is for the American consumer, somebody who wants to put the money of their business, of their family into a bank, there's an erosion of trust and faith. This is the wrong direction for banking in America. Right. Here is Congressman, excuse me, Senator Todd Young, on whether there's going to be more regulation coming down.

He's from Indiana, CUD 22. I think there are still a lot of questions to be asked and answered, especially as pertains to what was the risk here? Was there a systemic risk to infect the rest of the banking sector, which is roughly $24 trillion, $25 trillion in assets? We're going to be careful here on the Hill in a bipartisan fashion and get to the bottom of this. And if there's some back-end authorities we need to establish or people we need to hold accountable, we'll do that.

Yeah, but they say that the stress tests on these medium-range banks are too costly. And that they had they needed some regulation relief. And I think thirteen to seventeen Democrats voted for it. Yeah, so when Dodd-Frank got passed, Jamie Dimon said that this was going to be a moat between the big banks and the competition. Because they could afford to do the stress.

Exactly. They could afford all the attorneys and the compliance costs. But if you're a community bank, if you're a credit union, you can't afford these costs. They all have the big banks have their lobbyists. They have more power than the smaller guys.

So if you pass new laws, if there's new regulation and you're doing it by working with the lobbyists of the big banks, the one who ends up really getting screwed in that process are all of the little guys, the ones who, for a lot of Americans, they like to have that relationship with their banker, that personal relationship. And these banks are going under all the time, all across this country. And right across the street from us here in Manhattan is a Republic Bank. And Republic Bank lost 60% of its value, I think, on Monday and Tuesday. It was sucking wind.

I'm not sure what's happening today. And there was no lines outside.

So I said, it's kind of good. There's no run on the bank. Then Harold Ford informs me. He's like, Brian, the difference between 2008 and now? Yeah.

I'm holding up my iPhone. That's why you don't need to stand online. If you want to get your money out, you can get it out right away. And what happens is people do snap a finger, and that's what crashes these banks almost instantly. And they hope that Congress understands we're working at the speed of Twitter now.

Yeah, and you also pointed out Signature Bank here in New York. There is also an erosion of faith when you see people who are in government who lack the competency to be taking over a bank like Kathy Oakle in New York. And you have others in other parts of this country where there's that increased nerves that the government thinks they know best. And you can see it at the federal level, but you're also starting to see it at the state level. And the signature bank example is one that has people nervous.

They don't have faith that Albany is going to run a bank any better than the people who actually run the show at Signature. We're here with Lise Eldon.

So, Congressman, I got to ask you too about what's happening locally. And I thought about you this morning in that we're looking at this story that Kathy Hoko, evidently in a new budget, says, Listen, we've got to start making some tweaks to bail reform. It's not working. And we're going to also look to get these charter schools that have been mandated financed so they can expand them. And the Democrats told her no.

So, if the Democratic governor can't get things done that clearly the majority of New Yorkers want, what hope would you have had to get this done?

So, there's something that she seriously doesn't understand about the tactics of this. If you want to roll this Democratic legislature, you have to go to the people. If you want to propose a tweak on bail reform, obviously I would say that she should have gone further. Judges should have discretion to weigh dangerousness. She was not even proposing that.

If you want to expand the cap on charter schools, because every kid, regardless of race and ethnicity and wealth, deserves access to a quality education. Most are minorities. Exactly. And you look at the scoring federally of fourth grade math and reading amongst black students, Hispanic students, low-income students. We spend two and a half times more per pupil in New York than in places like Mississippi and Florida.

But guess what? The fourth grade students, black students, Hispanic students, low-income students in those states are outperforming New Yorkers.

So you can blame COVID. That's definitely a factor. But how about we look at the fact that we just have schools that are not good schools that need to be doing a better job? If you want to roll the Democratic legislature, you have to bring this argument to the people and then you use the will of the people, not just people who voted for you, but people who didn't vote for you, but who support your position. And that's how you get it done.

They just passed yesterday their one-house budget resolutions in the New York State legislature. They're proposing another increase on the tax on the wealthy. It doesn't matter what your resentment is or how successful you are tapping into that feeling when you're trying to get votes. New Yorkers. Are responding with their feet.

People of every class and businesses, and we're not putting New York in a timeout for a few weeks or a few months. It is a permanent SIA. It is a flight to the Carolinas, Tennessee, Florida, and Texas, and they are gone and not looking back. And a lot of New Yorkers, once again, being dared like never before to head for the exits. And they are, and they're going to Florida, and it's getting me less congressional seats right now on a regular basis.

I want to come out so we have a decent time with you on the second hour. You can do two, right? You can do two segments. Great.

So you have some on the back end. I want to get your take on what happened with the takedown of our drone yesterday. Also, I just think it's really bad news for the state when it comes to illegal immigration. I had Robert Holden on today from the city council, a Democrat, who said we cannot afford to house 51,000 illegal immigrants, and this mayor has got to make it clear that something's got to change. And the governor, a Democrat, noting how outrageous this is, what would Lise Elden do?

Don't move. Diving deep into today's top stories, it's Brian Kilmead. A radio show like no other. It's Brian Killmead. But you have to remember.

Ron was a disciple. A Paul Ryan, who is a Rhino loser who currently is destroying Fox and would constantly vote against entitlements. He would just vote against, remember that the wheelchair over the cliffs, the Democrats. Is that the wheelchair over the cliff commercial, very effective? That was about him.

But Ryan, Paul Ryan's a big reason that Bitt Romney, I'm not a big fan of Bitt Romney, lost his election. And to be honest with you, Ron reminds me a lot of Mit Ron.

So I don't think you're going to be doing so well here, but we're going to find out. But those are the facts. And we know these two are very close in the polls, and Donald Trump is trying to label and imprint Ron DeSantis, I think, inaccurately. But Lee Zelda knows better. They serve together in the Freedom were you in the Freedom Caucus?

I was not. But you know the guys. Yeah.

So he's part of it, a founding member. Would you describe Ron DeSantis as a Paul Ryan disciple? No, Ron was a pretty strong conservative. He was a good member of the House. We served together on a House Foreign Affairs Committee.

He oftentimes was a leader on that committee, questioning John Kerry as the Secretary of State as they're finalizing the Iran nuclear deal. We would be tag teaming these hearings together to make sure that we were exposing the flaws in that 2015 JCPOA.

So he was a key ally in that effort and more. I would say on the merits. Ron DeSantis, in my opinion, was a a strong conservative as a member of the House of Representatives. I would say on the politics of the the back and forth, or at least at this point, it's just an attack from uh from from President Trump. It's always worked, and it'll be really interesting to see what the Republican primary base chooses to do here.

Because the negative style campaigning, there are a lot of people who don't like it. But for Ron DeSantis right now, he is the sitting governor, he's in his session. He has the legislature. He can get good things done. He has the number one book on the New York Times seller list.

He sold almost 100,000 copies in the first week. He has an opportunity to get good things done, but he really is starting to take a beating because it's not just coming from President Trump, it's also coming from his allies. And it's a tactic that in 2016 just absolutely fillet a field.

Well, it's true. Governor DeSantis told me last week, he said, I'm not worried about it because I have my record. It's not like I'm a senator that doesn't do anything or a guy that's out of office. I'm doing things every day. I'm not worried.

Another political expert told me he's in danger of being labeled inaccurately about somebody that's moderate. Yeah, he did. When they came out, when Donald Trump says, I always said, don't touch Medicare and Social Security. He said, Ron DeSantis did look at entitlements.

So did you, right? Looking at entitlements. And was he attacking Medicare and Social Security? No, he knew they were insolvent and they needed to be corrected.

So the conversation was always about the date of when these programs were going to become insolvent. And what are we going to do now to make sure that it doesn't go broke by then? And it really became a third rail, next level in twenty sixteen because Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on the debate stage were both firmly taking a pledge just absolutely not to touch it at all. And really, this whole conversation has just continued to solidify since those 2016 debates, where you can't even really even have a conversation about the fact that programs are going insolvent, and maybe there should be a conversation about that. But did Brian DeSantis bring that up in the past?

I never had a conversation with him. Did you guys have a policy in the House of looking at? No, I so I got I got elected to the House in 2014, and I remember Paul Ryan you know, it's so funny, but when I ran for Congress in 2008, and I lost that first race, when I ran in 2008, the guidance from the the National Republican Campaign Committee was to stay away from Paul Ryan. Because he was so toxic in how conservative he was. The two thousand eight.

He was so far out there in In pure conservative fiscal policies, that they didn't want candidates in purple districts to be affiliated with that's incredible. And then by the time you became speaker, which that was my first term, my first year, that's when Boehner steps down, and then Paul Ryan becomes speaker. He was at that point, he wasn't looking to be the speaker, he wanted to be the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. And he was unanimously asked by everyone in the House to become the Speaker. But it's basically politically a death sentence.

It's a really hard job to do, and it ends up oftentimes just being your last. Yeah, I just don't have a negative feeling about Paul Ryan. I know he's brilliant. Those are the type of people you want to serve. I don't, you know, that's political stuff.

I got to ask you for you, what do you think is next for you? Have you decided on that Senate seat? Have you decided wait two more years, three more years, and go for governor again? What are you thinking?

Well, I mean, at first, the short-term plan, I'm bringing Brian Kilmany to his coffee. Oh, yeah, that's the short-term plan.

Well, you didn't intentionally get me coffee, but the fact that you gifted it to me is amazing. I could accept that, too. Life is different now after the House of Representatives. Yes, I ordered a hot, they gave me an iced take both. And then we ended up with both.

It was just a beautiful moment. It was really the lift I was looking for, too. Yeah, no, what a great way to start the day. And as far as longer term than just this short-term job that I recruited myself for this morning, is the possibility of a re-entry into government. I don't know exactly what and when that might be.

I have nothing to announce right now.

However, we'll see what happens with the presidential race in 24. We'll see what happens with this discussion over the Senate seat in New York, how Kathy Hochul is doing, how the state is doing. I believe in service. I'm finishing up my 20th year in the Army this May. I'm continuing to serve even after I passed my 20th year.

I love it. And And as far as reentrying a government, I do believe that that is likely. And we'll see what the best way is to serve. In the meantime, by the way, my daughters are in the middle of 11th grade on Long Island, and it's nice to be able to spend a few extra minutes with them. And that's something you miss out on when you serve an elected office.

Yeah, you just see it. They'll be in college in two years, and then who knows? Always great to see you, Congressman. Congressman Lee Zeldin. Thanks.

The more you listen, the more you'll know it's Brian Kilmead. I was able to talk to a Pentagon official who'd been able to see the footage, the surveillance footage, from the cameras aboard the drone. And here's what he saw: the first Russian pilot speeds ahead of the drone, and in what he described as a juvenile maneuver, dumps the Fuel, the radiation fuel in front of the drone is kind of vaporous. It doesn't cause any damage, just was described as an immature action. But a second drone that's behind, a second Russian jet that's behind the drone.

Begins to accelerate sharply and comes up behind it without good control of his flight maneuvers. And that's the one that clips the propeller of the drone, which is in the back of the drone. And this person, describing what you can see on the film, says that the second pilot simply didn't appear to have adequate control of his aircraft.

So that was Dave Ignatius of the Washington Post describing what could have happened yesterday over the Black Sea on international waters, where our $32 million Predator drone was taken out of the sky. And I guess the Russians are going to try to recover it because it doesn't seem like we're attempting to. Martha McCallum, host of the story. It starts at 3 o'clock today. Martha's going to stop by here first.

Martha, your reaction to the incident last night, and what do you think about our reaction so far?

Well, I read an estimate that it this drone, which is an MQ nine, US Air Force drone, could cost as much as fifty six million dollars, which stunned me. Thirty two million is is enough. The you know, the other side of this, uh, which is detailed by Jim Garrity today. Is the fact that this drone was gathering intelligence on locations and movements of Russian troops and Then that gets passed along to the Ukrainians in the war, right? And that it's not surprising.

That they would want to shoot this drone down. It's coming out of a base in Romania and. This is where we are, okay? We're in a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, essentially.

So I think this is in many ways. The price of our involvement in this war. It's not to make a judgment about whether or not it's the right thing to be there, but it's not. Terribly surprising that they would want to take this down. I think it's interesting to hear Ignatius' account of how this happened, because I think a lot of us, when we read these early.

Uh the early uh accounts of it, that they were dumping fuel on top of it. And one um person, you know, who has some understanding of these of these this equipment they may might have been trying to set it on fire. By doing that. Yeah.

It it's it's a strange move and he called it a juvenile move. Um, but but clearly they wanted to um provoke this thing. And then it it's my understanding that then, you know, we sort of took it down to get it out of the sky at that point.

So Yeah, I mean, the Wall Street Journal says they mistakenly clipped it. That's what they want to make it seem like, and that the plane did its own damage in doing it because every plane knows if they go into it, they could go down too. Right. Because just because it's unmanned, it doesn't mean it's not dangerous. And they were stunned.

Our operators were stunned to see the Russians acting so aggressively. I'll say this: it's just part of a pattern. If this was an aberration, I'd say, wow, that's kind of weird. But the Mexican president calling us out. You see the Chinese president calling us out last Wednesday.

America is trying to surround us, not going to work. Confrontation is inevitable.

So you see all this weakness all around. You see no rebukes. You see an invisible president. Doesn't want to talk to the press, doesn't want to make any statements except for to attack President Trump and MAGA Republicans.

So they just see a vacuum. Where's the retribution? What do we have to worry about? Absolutely. I mean, you know, add to that list, that very accurate list, the deal that was just brokered by Chinese leadership between Saudi Arabia and Iran to reopen diplomatic ties.

So we're becoming less of a player in the Middle East. It puts Israel and the United States on sort of the back burner as these players, China, Russia, Iran, continue to sort of figure out where they have common ground. And they are absolutely expressing their aggression. And you can match that with everything, all the moves that the Chinese are making in the South China Sea, expanding military bases, expanding incursions towards Taiwan.

So we're watching a very aggressive power play in the world. And it does clearly appear that people are not afraid to mess with us at this point. Right. They know exactly what to expect. And that's not much back in return.

And we also know that Zelensky is going to be meeting with President Xi. Right. Okay. Going to meet with President Xi. They're doing a virtual meeting the first time.

Right. And then he's going to go back and he's going to talk to Russia. Right. Right. So we say we're all for that.

We've been encouraging that. Really, we're encouraging that. Yeah, so you know, th this is the big question that's hanging over everything with Russia-Ukraine, is whether or not. There will be a negotiation. And who will lead that negotiation?

And as you say, Jake Sullivan has said, well, you know, anything that's a solution, we're in favor of that. That would be good. Peace would be good for everyone. And I think, you know, in a broad sense, that's true. But if we allow China to be the one that negotiates a deal between Russia and Ukraine, there is another huge example of a way that we're just being kind of pushed to the back of this.

You know, you talk about global power dynamics, and that's what we're watching here all around the world. Right. And they're not our friends stepping up. You know, if Germany's stepping up, that's interesting. If Japan wants to play a big of a role, well, that's noteworthy, but these are our enemies.

I love the way Senator Mike Rounds reacted yesterday with her own Jennifer Griffin, cut 11. I'd just like to get your reaction to what happened today in the Black Sea. Pissed off. I mean, let's just be honest about this for a second. The report coming out of our government is that this was an unprofessional act and environmentally unsound.

I'm sorry, folks. They shot down a United States warplane. They took it out of action. And that's the response we get back.

So, yeah, not very happy about it. And the bottom line is we cannot allow that to happen. Right. And we have a President of the United States who came out and was talking about guns yesterday, and he's in Las Vegas at a fundraiser today. And we're supposed to be saluted for getting up at 9 o'clock in the morning on Monday because banks were failing.

And he wanted to make sure people didn't divest. Right. The other just interesting element of this that I just want to mention because it was what struck me yesterday is how it changes the dynamic when it's an unmanned drone, right? And it gives the President a little bit more room. Yeah, right?

If we had pilots on that plane and they died, this would be a completely different story. But the fact that we use so many of these unmanned drones in so many places now, unfortunately, it kind of creates another line, right? Where ordinarily retaliation would be an absolute given, expected response.

Now you've got an unmanned drone, which is plenty expensive and full of technology that they would love to get their hands on, which is why we really need to get this thing back. But it does create that buffer, and we see Biden taking advantage of that buffer, right? And sort of. Hands off at this point. Right.

And we don't have any strong voice. There's no Rumsfeld in the Secretary of Defense who's going to come out and erase cane and wonder, wait a second, I wonder if Bush is on the disappearing Secretary of Defense who's focusing on woke policies and picking your pronouns and making sure academies are ineffective. I want you to hear, just to show you the diversity of opinion, I want you to hear Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis. He doesn't even believe we belong there, cut nine. I think the Russians are finally getting kind of tired of the fact that we've been providing intelligence, targeting intelligence, that has been killing Russian troops.

And I think that this is potentially going to be something that we see maybe a little bit more of. And I think that because of what happened with the Nord Stream and that thing getting blown up under the water and the United States saying that we had nothing to do with it, and I think maybe Russia is starting to say, okay, we're going to push the envelope a little bit too, because we're not just going to passively let the United States do whatever they do to support our troops getting killed. Right. There's a strong feeling that we saw Ron DeSantis say something similar. We know how Donald Trump feels amongst Republicans.

We know how Matt Gates feels. We don't belong there. Could probably name about a dozen Republicans who are off on this. And then there's Lindsey Graham, who believes that we absolutely believe there. I absolutely believe we, especially you being a student of World War II, you see all the similarities, the same players minus Hitler in a strong Germany.

And I just think that it's absolutely necessary for it to have a presence there. I think part of it is, Martha, is that people have no confidence in this president to be able to pull off some foreign policy and some type of defensive measure accurately and effectively. And we're seeing it. Where are the weapons? Only a third of what we pledged is there.

There's no pressure on our allies. We only continue to praise them in NATO when we know that their weapons aren't getting there quickly either. And the result is people are dying, and this surge is delayed in Ukraine. Yeah.

You know what? I mean, I understand. I understand. I do understand both sides. And I think this is one of the biggest questions for.

2024 politicians to face right now. And you can see how difficult it is for many of them to answer it because you do see that World War II parallel, where you have China in a very similar role that Japan was in. When you look at the expansion that's happening right now in the South Pacific and in the South China Sea, you see the encroachment. You see the building of aggressiveness on China's part. You see what they're doing in Latin America.

You see them wanting to have an influence in the Middle East and all of this, right? Um And yet you also have this history of these very long involvements in Afghanistan and other places, where you say, when are we succeeding at this, right? And I think one of the frustrations is that the Administration, you know, obviously Biden is not Churchill or FDR, right? We're not getting that clear message. What is the clarity?

What is the goal? I've asked Kirby, you've asked people. We don't get a clear mission that is defined. What does victory look like? I asked Michael McCall last week, didn't really get an answer.

You know, we have to win. We have to win. We have to make sure that Ukraine wins. What does that mean exactly? And are we talking about Crimea?

Are we talking about pushing back the lines to the pre-Crimea invasion?

So I think that's why you're seeing people nervous because they say, when was the last time we won? In one of these situations, when was it? Um and it makes people nervous about the You know, the expense, the expense of lives, and where the end game is. Right. A couple of things.

I mean, when you talk about Europe, it's pretty clear. I mean, that's where all these wars start. And if anybody thinks that Russia is going to take Ukraine and go quiet, they're crazy. They're going to absorb their natural resources, get stronger, take Georgia. They're already the story today.

By Michael Weiss, how they're already starting to overthrow Moldova, starting to infiltrate that country, and then they all of a sudden play a role in the elections in the Baltic states, and suddenly there's a pro-Russian leader of Estonia.

Next thing you know, we know that Belarus is there's a plan in place for them to be absorbed into Russia by 2031. And an emboldened Russia, the next generation of Americans will say, What did we do? How dare you?

Now we have to fight. There, it was the choice to let the Ukrainians fight and neutralize this force.

Now you let it metastasize. They're much more formidable. They've been bolstered by China. They saw their mistakes. They understand that the grift that was going on with their military.

Right now, they're at the point where they're recruiting female soldiers in prisons to get them on the front lines because they got no one. Ukraine's also having a tough time. They also have lost over 120,000 people. And I agree with you, Brian, that that kind of mission creep is absolutely what we don't want to regret generations from now.

So let me ask you this: what does it look like? What kind of military effort do you put forth? Do you give them F-16s? Do you start hitting targets inside of Russia? And what happens after that?

I don't think you hit targets inside of Russia. I think that you go ahead and you start bombing in the Donbass region. Absolutely. The symbolism of blowing up that bridge in Crimea was devastating. It was devastating to the people in Russia.

They say, wait a second, what is really going on here? And then you start with surging, you start pushing them back, you get their attention, because then they won't have the troops. They're losing the actual battle. More tanks will be coming. It is spring, long summer.

Then I could see something happening. But you cannot say, I will give you whatever it takes for as long as it takes, because that makes the Ukrainians even angrier and more nervous because they have 60 million as opposed to 170 million people. No, as long as it takes is not a phrase that the Ukrainians find hardening at all. We keep using it. No, we're with you as long as it takes.

No, long is not the answer. You push back, you neutralize. You've already embarrassed them. You've destroyed their economy. You've reproduced.

Programmed Western purchases of energy. They're no longer going to come from Russia. They figure out other ways to do it. If we're smart, we get a Republican president in there. They'll understand that LNG terminals in Europe will be the answer.

We're providing the natural gas. Burns clean. And I think that forever they're going to be more secure after. You add Finland and Sweden to NATO, and I think that you begin to westernize their military, and that is not for war, that's to stop a war. It's a good argument.

What would you say to Ron DeSantis? Because he's getting a lot of pushback for saying this is a territorial dispute. I was so disappointed in that. I'm mad at myself for not asking him that. I was thinking China.

I wasn't thinking Ukraine. But I thought it was a calculated political statement, not a policy, and he knows better. And he's been on the record as a congressman saying we got to be stronger against Russia. Interesting. It's like if the issue is available, saying that he has to be decisive on this.

He's proven to show strong leadership in a lot of issues in Florida with COVID and education, certainly. I think there's such a hunger for someone, for people who are strong, able to make their argument and well and good at backing it up. And that's what's missing in this Ukraine-Russia discussion because we haven't had a clear articulation of like the president needs to come out from the Oval Office and say, this is our goal. Here's why this matters, right? Here's what we will lose if Ukraine loses in the broader world.

Here's how we are going to. Make sure that we're not fighting World War III. And we don't have it. And I just think that's why you've gotten a lot of people, conservatives and liberals, who are starting to feel like: is this another 20-year war? And is it what is the end game?

How do we win? Right. And here ends the wrong guy who just embarrassed this nation in Afghanistan. Again, and then you're telling him, Trust me, that's not going to work. Even though the policy might be right, the person isn't.

Martha McCallum, when we come back, we'll exclusively let you know what's going to be on her show. Want even more Brian? Download the podcast at BrianKillmeadShow.com every episode. Exclusive interviews on demand. More of Killmead coming up.

If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead. Got a few minutes here, and I want to make sure everyone gets the exclusive on who's going to be on the story at 3 o'clock, Martha. Here's your auditioning up until game two. Yeah, we're going to talk to Jack Keene.

We're also going to talk to Dave McCormick, who was around in the Treasury under Bush and has covered a lot of these kind of financial disaster stories and situations in terms of how you respond to them. And so he's going to be an interesting guest today. Obviously, he ran for Senate in Pennsylvania. And he's just, you know, he was in the 82nd Airborne. He has a lot of experience in foreign policy and was at.

At Bridgewater.

So he has a lot of economic experience. I think the market is the story today. And I think people have to, you know, we all it can be very sort of hard to understand.

So we're going to kind of break it down and explain to people why it does matter to them and what they should be concerned about in their own lives and small businesses. I will say this: you got this business background. The market's down 600 points. You've been down some 400 to 600. How can this still be happening where we find out these bank boards are filled with people who have no banking experience?

Because they're not doing their jobs. We have layers of regulation. We have a Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco led by Mary Duffy, Mary Daly, excuse me. What was she doing? What were the regulators doing?

All these people have jobs, right? And they're not doing them. JP Morgan warned about SVB in November. Moody's warned them, warned the company. And then they started selling stock, these executives.

So there's a lot here. The CEO of SVP is on the San Francisco board. Of course he is. While he sold $3.4 million worth of stock.

So we can't legislate ethics. Thanks, Martha. Thanks, Brian. Download Fox News Channel's The Five Podcasts for free. Five of your favorite Fox News personalities discuss current issues in a roundtable discussion.

Get it now on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and FoxNewsPodcasts.com. 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.