Trump prosecutor Alvin Bragg boasts about charges; Trump hits back in fiery speech

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Number one. This is a guy who has acted lawlessly his whole life. He has been proud of it. He talks like a mob boss. This is a man who has thwarted the law and is diminishing our system of rule of law.

Unbelievable, right? Bragg makes his case, and it's nothing to boast about as former President Trump in New York City gets blitzed by massive security and protesters and supporters. Trump and the media scrum. Super Bowl size for a case that shouldn't even have been brought. I'll explain.

So we know about the 34 counts. I don't want to bore with it. You probably already heard about it. The foreign president, first time, first president ever to be indicted, pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges. Not felony charges, but charges.

Also, prosecutors said that Trump conspired to undermine the 2016 election. Right. More than Hillary Clinton, who actually launched the whole fake Russia probe. Trump is due back in court in December, and they're making him come back. You know, it costs New York over $200 million.

They're using the Stormy Daniels payment, the McDougal payment, and a doorman that said, by the way, there's no substance to it, that he has a child out of wedlock.

So they go, here's $30,000. Here's $130,000. Here's $200,000. Leave me alone. Much like we see celebrities and billionaires who were targeted, sometimes unjustly, sometimes justly, money makes it go away.

So it went away. They're trying to say that if anyone found out about Stormy Daniels, he never would have been elected. And there evidently is a second crime. I don't know what that is. Where is it?

Why don't you list it? At one point you got to tell the defense, right?

So here's Alvin Bragg yesterday on the charges. Cut five. Donald Trump. was arraigned On a New York Supreme Court indictment. Returned by a Manhattan grand jury.

on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Under New York state law, it is a felony. to falsify business records. with intent to defraud an intent to conceal another crime. That is exactly what this case is about.

34 false statements. made to cover up other crimes. These are felony crimes in New York State. No matter who you are.

So with everything with everything a total mess in New York, we just had another guy was someone tried to stab him in the neck, Elvis Durand, who's a a media personality. You know what's going on with the people who have felonies being told they can let go, you can uh trying to get murderers out of prison. Literally, there's trying to Alvin Bragg is trying to get murderers out of prison. And you have to go go after a guy. On an incident that happened seventeen years ago, About a payment to a porn star who was going to come forward and tell this story, and they'd rather you didn't, so they made a payment.

$130,000. This is a billionaire that does high-stakes buy and selling of major properties like the Trump Tower he's in, the Bronx golf course that is right here, the one up in Westchester, the Doral, as well as Mar-a-Lago. You know about Scotland, you know about all his properties, buildings everywhere. But what, with that $30,000, let's get the 76-year-old into court, even if it costs the city $200 million. There's nothing here.

Everybody knows there's nothing here, but we were always couching it, saying, I don't know what exactly is in the indictment. It's 16 pages. After the pros had a chance to digest it, Here's what they said, for example, Annie McCarthy. Cut thirteen. I kind of don't understand why this hasn't been more of a thing, but what Bragg is alleging is that Trump took a series of actions.

Uh to Defraud the voting public in connection with the 2016 election. The indictment then goes forward with all these counts. That begin on February fourteenth, twenty seventeen, and continue until December. uh fifth of uh twenty seventeen That's all months after the 2016 election. Amazing.

You know, even if. uh what he's alleging had had something plausible to it. The actions that we're talking about that that he's alleging as criminal and a method of defrauding the public in connection with the 2016 election happened afterwards. It's just insane. Absolutely insane.

So the president came back. I thought he gave a really crisp speech last night. He looked like he stuck to the prompter. I know Maggie Haberman says he did. And I don't know.

He was, here's the case. Here's the deal. Here's the problems in our country. That's why I'm winning by 20 points. I saw two polls that came out.

One in New Hampshire, one in Massachusetts.

Now he's not going to win Massachusetts, but he's going to have to compete there in the primary. In New Hampshire, the St. Islam, St. Anselm, New Hampshire Institute of Politics poll has Trump with forty two percent of the vote, DeSantis with twenty nine. Governor Sununu, so popular, fourteen percent.

Trump in Massachusetts, 45-21 over DeSantis, nine for Nikki Haley, four for Pence. Three for anybody else.

So Trump leads DeSantis there by fourteen. This is not hurting him.

So I just thought Eric Trump just wrapped it up, and this is the last I'll say of this for this section, and I'll take you calls in about a half hour. Here's what Eric Trump said as he flew in from West Palm Beach with his dad and his beautiful plane, landed in LaGuardia, and then took the car service here, CUT 19. And it really dawned on me when we flew into LaGuardia airport on his plane. We hopped in the motorcade. Every single intersection was closed.

The FDR was closed. There was an army around Trump Tower. There's an army around the courthouse. There were barricades all over New York. Literally, Alvin Bragg.

Caused 38,000 NYPD officers to be distracted from their jobs. Over $200 million are estimating that trip was for what? For a $130,000 payment? It's insane. How many people in New York died because the entire NYPD wasn't doing their job because they were dealing with Alvin Bragg's political charade?

I think they put it right. Millions of dollars, huge thing. And they want to come back in December. It's not necessary for them to come back in December. It's going to be procedural.

No, we want you back. And he doesn't have a gag order. They say, just be careful on social media. I'm going to hear from the president a little bit later on. Senator Bill Cassidy voted for impeachment the second time.

Uh after January 6th. He was very, very skeptical about the charges before we knew exactly what they were, and now I cannot wait to get his opinion. And then Rich Lowry will break down what's happening in the twenty twenty four team field, I should say. And what does these what do these new revelations and cases mean for the Pompeo, Tim Scott, Mike Pence? Ron DeSantis, Kennedyssey, and possibly Glenn Youngkin.

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The big thing that I just thought of watching him sitting there sullenly, right at the defense table, is this is a guy who has acted lawlessly his whole life. Are you guys sick of talking about this already? I mean, we're unprecedented. This is a Super Bowl. He's not the first, and perhaps won't be the last.

government official, government veteran, former public official. To get caught up in indictable activity. But there is something quite different about him from almost everyone else over the years in both parties who's faced these kind of charges. He has been proud of it. He talks like a mob boss.

This is a man who has thwarted the law, who has polarized the country, and is diminishing. our system of rule of law.

So that is other channels talking about the indictment, 16 pages handed out by Alvin Bragg. This is a total waste of our country's time when we have legitimate issues. It's got to the point where even Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, two of the biggest Republican critics of this former president, they're also saying they see nothing there. Bill Cassidy voted to impeach Trump the second time, joins us now. Senator Cassidy, what do you feel now that you've seen the 16-page indictment?

It is even worse than I thought. You know, Andrew McCarthy has a really good column in National Review online. But he kind of points out they're trying to indict Trump over Crime jet. That Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to, and then he goes through how that has no pertinence whatsoever. This is more about the man than about the crime.

And as I've said before, no one should be above the law, but no one should be a target of the law. Right. Are you surprised he's up by 20 points in Massachusetts, 20 points now in New Hampshire? In the last Fox poll, 26 points. I know how early it is, but are you surprised by all this?

It seems the controversy seems to be fueling him, at least in the Republican primary.

Well, there's always a little bit of a rally around the flag when you feel like somebody's being persecuted.

Now, on the other hand, it's kind of a drip, drip, trip. It is a porn star, it is hush money, and Republicans and the President have vulnerability to female voters. And at some point, I think that that probably begins to weigh in. But I'm just imagining I don't know that. Let's go.

Senator, I know you're one of the people. You see all the serious issues out there. You know that Social Security is going bankrupt in about 10 years. The President says, I'm not going to touch Social Security. I'm not going to touch Medicare.

Let's see if those Republicans will do it. They're horrible people at the State of the Union address. You're one of those horrible people that has a problem with Social Security, right? Absolutely. I mean, anybody listening right now is currently getting social or going to receive it within eight or nine years, or whenever.

you're going to get about a 24% cut. Period. End of story, that's law. By law, when it runs out of money and it's going to run out of money, and it's running out of money under Biden's economy sooner, not later, you're going to get a 24% cut. And the best thing that President Biden can say, and frankly President Trump too, is that there is no problem.

Don't worry about it. Vote for me and I'll protect you. When Biden's plan to do nothing means there'll be a 24% cut. and what you're receiving. It is wrong, and Biden just wants to use it for reelection, but he doesn't care about leading.

Yeah, so you say there's got to be a way. There's got to be a creative way to approach this. Any Democrats are joining you on this? Yeah, so we actually got a big idea. It takes care of 75% of the problem.

Actually does some positive things like, you know, some of your listeners are affected by something called weapon GPO. I won't go into detail, but they know what I'm speaking of. We can repeal that. And we take care of 75% of the problem. By creating a fund separate from Social Security, we don't use Social Security money.

And we put it in the broader economy. You know, Brian, right now everything that we put into social security that's kind of in the trust fund. is in treasuries or cash. which means that the taxpayer is getting about a one percent to two to three percent return. And under Biden's economy, we have seven percent inflation.

We're losing money every day on those investments.

Okay, what do we do different? We set up a separate fund, invest it in kind of a diversified portfolio, you know, think real estate, think, think stocks. Just what every other pension fund does. You do that, you hold it in escrow for a few years, and it turns out we can cover 75% of the 75-year shortfall. Uh but You got you need help on the other twenty five percent.

That's where we need a president to show leadership. Right, but if you put that money, there's always the risk of losing that money. That's how Bush was misportrayed, too, right, with the investment accounts. Yeah, but Bush if they lost money, it was the individual losing money. This is not an individual account.

This is a separate account.

Okay. If there's any risk, it's borne by the fund. And by the way, When we do this, We repealed that section of the law that says that you're going to get a 24% cut.

So think about that. Right now, in eight years, nine years, you get a 24% cut because Biden's plan is a plan to do nothing. Under ours, we repeal it. We get 75% of the way there by doing what every other pension fund does. We just need presidential leadership to get to the rest of the 25%.

What do you expect to happen with the cap? Uh the debt ceiling. You know, I'm thinking that the House Republicans are going to put forward a deal. They may increase it for two months and try and call. Yeah.

Um, I think it's very, very reasonable. Hey, listen, we're making a good faith effort, we'll suspend it for two months. Uh, what can you show us? Biden, by the way, I'm trying to leave the repeal on is debt forgiveness, student-loan debt forgiveness. every month that he pauses student loan debt.

pumps another five billion in the economy and make inflation worse. But it also makes our debt ceiling crisis that much worse because we've had to borrow that much money because people are not making back pit paying back your student loans. Biden's doing everything wrong when it comes to the inflation and when it comes to the economy. It's almost like he's doing it on purpose to sabotage. I would hope not.

About energy, we know the Saudis are cutting back production. We expect gas per barrel to go up to eighty dollars. It's going to really fuel Russia to What do you think this administration's response is going to be? We still have a depleted reserve situation that there is no plan to replenish. The American people are really going to feel it just as we go into vacation season.

Yeah, I mean You can say that maybe opening up the Willow Project in Alaska is a good thing. That is a good thing. That is a good thing. There's a lot more they could do. And so the administration has kind of been hoping, fingers crossed.

The Saudis wouldn't cut production.

Now that they've had, they've learned the lesson. Don't rely on others. Let's go ahead and increase American production, which creates a lot of American jobs, creates a lot of American revenue for the federal and state governments and, by the way, makes us energy independent. I I think they're worning a hard lesson. That the green economy is still a few years off.

No kidding. And the one thing they tried to do out of the House, they say, we got to loosen up permitting. And they said, How about this? We'll make it easier for you to build windmills if you let us easy make it easier for us to get drilling permits. That is, they say it's going to be dead in the Senate.

Could that be revived? I sure hope so. It's kind of what Manchin did. Manchin said, listen, if you're going to if you're going to put a windmill offshore, you got a permit drilling off the go off the Gulf in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana.

So they've accepted those kind of deals before. Um Yeah. But we need permitting reform. I mean, it takes forever to get a pipeline or to get a power line permitted, and we're just going to strangle ourselves in regulations. That's a good conservative cause.

I'm glad the House Republicans took it on. All right, Senator Bill Cassie's got a creative way to attack Social Security. Please listen. Thanks so much. Always appreciate it, Senator Cassidy.

Thanks, Brian. You got it. Listen, when we come back, Rich Larry breaks down 2024. What we learned yesterday, what was unprecedented about it, and what is so. Aggravating about it.

Also, I thought the president gave a real strong speech at Mar-a-Lago last night. It was very tight and crisp. We expect more of that. Don't move. Information you want, truth you demand.

This is the Brian Kill Me Show. This case is not going to get past the first couple of motions, and I bet it's 10 to 1 I'd put money on it that it'll never get to a jury. I think the DA's on trial here, and I think that he's had his 10 minutes of crime. I mean, I'm sorry, 10 minutes of fame. And now I think he's got to go out and be a real lawyer, and he's going to have to face up to Trump's $2,200-an-hour lawyers.

And I think they're going to rip him to shreds. I don't think he's a real attorney. Former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker weighs in with a legal background. Joining us now is Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, author of The Case for Nationalism.

So, Rich, if anyone knows what's going on in the Republican Party, it's you. But again, we kept hearing about we don't know what's in that, we don't know what's in the indictment, we don't know what's in the indictment, hold off.

Now that we know what's in the indictment, why is there an indictment? Is the overwhelming feeling on every channel? We still don't know what's in the indictment. I mean, it's The whole point of an indictment is to let the accused know what he's accused of. And we don't s still don't know what these False business records were in the service of?

What other alleged And Bragg didn't say in his press conference. I mean, he mentioned some possibilities, but I don't know, is it like a Chinese menu where we're supposed to pick from these three options he mentioned? And when Bill Barr was on Fox yesterday reading the indictment, he's like, oh, it doesn't say what the other crime is. I was like, no, that can't be true. And I read it myself.

It doesn't. And it's like a Kinko's indictment, too. Like every single page with a supposed false business record is being charged to get up to 34 accounts and this practice known as stacking, which is frowned upon because it's often used to make an attenuated offense sound much more serious. And that's exactly what Bragg has done here.

So it's ridiculous. I don't know whether it gets tossed before it sees a jury, but I'd be very confident one way or the other this case is going down and should. Here's what you're talking about. Here's Bragg, cut seven. We conducted a thorough and rigorous investigation, as we're known to do, at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

I've been. I'm doing this for 24 years and I'm no stranger to rigorous, complex. Investigations. I've bring cases when they're ready. Having now conducted a rigorous, thorough investigation, the case was ready to be brought.

And it was brought. But it doesn't list the crime, the underlying crime. And by the way, just think about this for a second. all the billions of dollars of business he has done I'm not saying he has a billion, but when you go buy a building, when you buy these golf courses, he buys one in Scotland, he brings it back here, has a building, develops this, has joint ventures. Let's just drill down that $130,000 payment from seven years ago.

Really? Is this really the most important thing you happen to have on your plate while you spend most of your time trying to spring murderers from prison, which is exactly what he's doing? And to me, I don't even see 50-50, where 50% of the country said, thank goodness. I think most people are feeling pretty bad about this. Yeah, and they they should.

And the three offenses that Bragg outlined that might have made this a felony, supposedly, violation of state campaign finance law, but that doesn't apply to a federal election a um A tax offense. What he said was the intention to falsify tax records or make false representations. He didn't even say that it was done. And then a federal campaign finance offense, which experts are very dubious about.

So it looks like it's 0 for 3 on the bigger offenses. And then you're left with these false business records, which is a misdemeanor. And you can make an argument, as Takina, Trump's lawyer, has, what was he supposed to log these things as? Cohen was a lawyer. This is the kind of agreement lawyers reach.

And it was technically a reimbursement.

So it could have been more accurate. But it was also a form of legal work.

So the whole thing's ridiculous. And this is just what's most disturbing about it and why Trump is out of his mind. They convict his company when, if it had been called the Jones Company, Jones organization or Smith organization, those charges never would have been brought. They have his CF. sitting in Rikers only because he worked for Donald Trump and only because they want him to flip on Trump on this case, a seventy five, seventy six year old man.

And now they're doing this only because he's Trump. It's a grotesque abuse of our system. No question.

So the President goes out, and I thought he gave a very, very crisp speech. Yesterday, but I think from here on in, he's better off talking about the country. Here's an example: there's so much going on, so much correctable, I believe. Cut to And I never thought anything like this. could happen.

in America. Never thought it could happen. The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it. From the beginning, the Democrats Spied on my campaign, remember that? They attacked me.

with an onslaught of fraudulent investigations. Russia, Russia, Russia. Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. Impeachment hoax number one. Impeachment hoax number two.

The illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-a-Lago right here. They're lying to the Pfizer courts. The FBI and DOJ relentlessly pursuing Republicans.

So If his stump speech is like that, that's an issue. But I like this better cut for. Our currency is crashing and will soon no longer be the world standard. Which will be our greatest defeat, frankly, in 200 years. There will be no defeat like that.

That will take us away from being even a great power. If you took the five worst presidents in the history of the United States. and added them up They would not have done near the destruction to our country as Joe Biden and the Biden administration have done. That's who you attack. Leave DeSantis.

At one point, you got to attack each other. We've been through this so many times. We know Bush and McCain and everything like that, how personal it got. But if you were the, you're trying to do something we haven't seen in our lifetime. You lost and you want to go back and win.

So come back and just tell, you know, tell, take aim at the guy and why you're blowing the Oval Office. I think you'll pack crowds like that because Trump, because Biden is doing so poorly on the issues that matter most. Our energy bills are tripling. We know about our real estate, our homes are losing value. We know the way our prestige is dropping overseas.

We know we're not doing oil and gas drilling that's hurting us domestically. We understand that the morale of the country is dropped, and people feel we're going the direction is below the waterline.

So you have an opportunity here. Yep, totally agree. You know, the indictment is outrageous, but at the end of the day, I understand why Trump. Polls are going up now. But it's not a great reason to nominate someone, right, and vote for him that he got indicted by a politicized, ridiculous.

Prosecutor. It is a good reason to vote for a guy if you agree with his policies and you think he can win and he can implement them as president.

So I think that's the grounds on which this nomination battle should be fought. It's the grounds that DeSantis wants to fight it on. But look, you know, there was a poll out yesterday from John McLaughlin. Trump pollster, so grain of salt, but a great guy, longtime friend of mine, had Trump at 63% in the head-to-head. And he's probably going to go higher here for the duration.

And then we'll see whether this wears off or even kind of end of the day when people are caucusing or primering, yeah, do I really want to put up the guy who's been indicted a couple of times and they're going to use that against him?

So there's a potential it could be part of the baggage eventually, but it's not now. And you just look at the numbers now, you're like, this Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee.

So I'll bring it to something else. New Hampshire poll, St. Anselm, and New Hampshire Institute. But the other poll, he's got 42% of the vote, DeSantis 29. Over in Massachusetts, 45-21, he's over to Santis.

He's even beating Sununu in New Hampshire.

So.

Now he's going to Iowa being his next big event.

So I would love to see something more traditional. I think our country could use it. That's why, on some level, I wouldn't have minded the gag order, because I think when the President's talking about Stormy Daniels or McDougal or paying off a doorman, I don't really think that works to anyone's advantage. It doesn't make the country feel great. It shouldn't.

It keeps hearkening back to the Playboy Days of Donald Trump.

So I would think you should move on because you do have you were building the wall. You were trying to control the border. We were heading in the right way in the Middle East. You did have China on its heels. You did have Mexico's attention to build up their southern border.

This is just off the top of my head. Can you imagine if I was writing a speech? Yeah, I think that that's the strongest case. I've been there. I did it.

It wasn't all perfect. We didn't get the wallet built. I should have had more help to do that. But I've been there. I produced good results.

And I withstood the furious attacks of the other side. And you know I'm not going to wilt. And you don't know that about anyone else. I don't care who he is, what state he's running. I think that's the message.

His message, though, is a little bit more. The rest of the party is terrible. The establishment is awful, and Ron DeSantis is part of the establishment.

Now, I think that message could cut. as well and maybe has here, may be part of the reason that DeSantis has been sinking a little bit. Just real quick on the meeting with Kevin McCarthy today, Speaker McCarthy and the Taiwanese President. They say it's transit, going out of their way to say it's no big deal, almost timidly. But having said that, what do you expect China to do?

I would say a lot more saber rattling, something on the order they did after Pelosi visited. Maybe not as big. I mean, that was a big demonstration after that trip, but something to make their displeasure known. And obviously, they don't acknowledge the legitimacy of Taiwan's independence. And everything that, whether it's some third world country recognizing Taiwan or a meeting like this, they take really seriously.

And they're bent on swallowing Taiwan. They've said as much. And what we learned from Putin in Ukraine, when they're telling you they're going to do it, eventually they're going to do it. All right. I want you to hear what General Robert Spaulding said he's expecting.

Cut 33. Oh, they're absolutely going to retaliate. But that being said, McCarthy still needs to meet with the President of Taiwan. I think China is going to do what China is going to do with regard to Taiwan. There's no way that we can influence them not to attack.

What we can influence is their decision in terms of what they think about the U.S. response to that will be. And that starts now. It can't wait until something happens.

So I think it's important that McCarthy meets with deciding when. But that being said, that's not going to dictate whether or not China invades. They've already decided that they want to do that. It's just about when that time happened. And getting them the weapons they need to defend themselves.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Taiwan, to this point, has not taken it as seriously as you would hope, given that they're in the line of fire. And we need to make sure, you know, the countries kind of like glamorous weapons that make you feel good, jet fighters and all the rest. They need mines, they need missiles, they need drones. And we need to produce more of this stuff.

You know, there are a lot of complaints about the aid to Ukraine deplenishing our socks, which it has. But if we can get run low just by supporting Ukraine, imagine what would happen in a war with China.

So we need a bigger and more proficient industrial base, and it needs to be a matter of national urgency. I know. And that's where you feel better about Pompeo. You feel better about somebody like DeSantis with a military background.

Someone who could come in and say, listen, we're going to have to invest in our military. Here's the problem. You do have Democrats who understand that China is an issue getting stronger, but can be contained. We have a better message. We've got a more productive economy.

We have to invest more in our military. I'm not sure President Trump would do that. And that's what bothers me. Yeah, uh although you know if he he did want to do it, you can see him doing something like he did with the vaccine, something that's totally out of the box. Let's do it now.

It's rushed. It's urgent. Don't throw out all the old practices and old assumptions. You know, he did this at the border. That's why they eventually figured it out.

They did it in the Middle East. That's why he got the Abraham Accords.

So something like that, I think, is called for. Let's hope. Rich Lowry, thanks so much. Editor National Review. Appreciate it, Rich.

Thanks, Brian. All right, Stork Times.

Next is your turn. 1-866-408-7669. Or you can write me at BrianKillmeat.com. Click on comments, and I'll try to get to him. Don't move.

Expanding your knowledge base. It's the Brian Killmead Show. From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Kilmeade. Hey, welcome back, everybody. 1-866-408-7669.

I'll be able to get to some of your calls in just a moment. Just keep in mind, too, we are talking about more than just the ridiculous case in New York City. When it comes to the president of the United States, they're looking at, and I expect him to be indicted in Georgia. Not that he deserves to be, but I think they're just going to. And I also think they're going to end up with a Mar-a-Lago indictment, too.

But there's going to be a strong case on the other side. Before we delve into it, and I bring lawyers on to discuss it, right away when you talk about that phone call, he's saying, not go get him, but he says I'm 1,100 votes shy. Go get them, not go produce them, find them. There are got to be out there. He believes he won Georgia.

So there's going to be another side to that story. Number two is you can make a phone call to the Republicans and say, I think I won, and why aren't you more upset? Number two, when the Mar-a-Lago situation got the equate, you can equate it right to Joe Biden, and why haven't we seen the same zealousness with the current president when he was vice president and was a senator for 40 years?

So I don't care where you stand on it. The Trump supporters are going to have a lot to go on. The detractors are going to have a lot to go on. And we're going to have three hot or four hot court cases, four legal teams simmering beneath the surface No matter who wins the primary and who wins the general.

Now, if he doesn't get the primary, if he doesn't get it, you know, get the nomination, we're not going to have as much interest. But if he gets it, it's going to be an incredible amount of interest. I just worry that America's interest is not being served. WLNI is where we find Ethan. Hey Ethan.

Hey, how you doing? Good, what's in your mind? I was just calling in regards to what you were talking about when it came to the federal budget towards military spending.

So, right now, it's about one-sixth per year of the federal budget goes toward military spending. I don't think the military is short on money. I'm currently in the military, and I'm telling you, there's. no limit to the amount of equipment and money pouring into the military, at least on my end. I think it's not so much the amount of money that's available.

I think if anything we have too much. And I think that's part of the reason why we're constantly have this sentiment of having to be involved in other people's affairs. I think a bigger issue Is the lack of recruitments currently? There's not military recruitment has gone way down. And I think that money, I mean, in big part is just sitting there.

We definitely don't have a pro and I understand both Democrats and Republicans want um To give across this idea that spending money on military is important, and it is. I think you could have both. Listen, Ethan, I think you bring up a good point. They did do a whole study on how Pentagon could save money, and they didn't even look at it. They they commission these huge studies and they don't subscribe to them.

So, you know, Rumsfeld was doing, wanted to. Uh make it a stronger, lighter. uh fighting force and then nine eleven happened and it kind of blew everything up.

So we could definitely look at how we spend, but let's just look at percentage of GDP. Is it 3%? And I think when we were at our best and strongest and most efficient, it was at 6%. And still, there were things you could cut. And we still were 20 years from a conflict outside, I guess, Grenada, because Vietnam had been the last one.

When Reagan came in and said, instead of trying to keep pace, why don't we sprint ahead and end up bringing the Russians down, the Soviets down?

So I would love to absolutely be more efficient, be more productive. I want to get into the Pentagon. I want to, they make orders on 10-year programs, not who the Secretary of Defense is and who the President is. We got to get on the same page and stop with these annual budgets. We have to invest in innovation and have not necessarily more aircraft carriers and more ships and more planes, but better on everything.

But recruiting is the number one thing, and it doesn't seem to bother this administration. There's no great campaign. To bring more people into the armed forces. Only the Marines are hitting their marks. You listen to the Brian Kill Me Cho.

So glad you're here. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmead. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kilmead Show.

I'm 48th and 6th in Midtown Manhattan, heard around the country, heard around the world. And this was the center of the world. That's the court case. Everyone wanted to see the indictment that they couldn't get enough of. I'm talking about planes landing, caravans coming, caravans leaving, courthouse doors, crazies on the outside and inside.

It cost this city, they think, about $200 million for the President Trump's indictment, which is 16 pages that to me and almost all experts on all channels said should have totally been avoided. We're looking at three more cases and follow-up events. And we've got some real issues to face in this country, and nobody knows that better than Admiral William McCraven. We're privileged to have him back in our studio if you're smart enough to have gotten Fox Nation. And, Admiral, I don't want to put you on the spot, but have you ordered Fox Nation yet?

Of course. All right, good. The name of this brand new book that came that is now out, The Wisdom of the Bullfrog Leadership, made simple but not easy. Admiral, It was always great to see you. That's why I was excited when I heard you had a book out.

I'm like, I hope he tours with this.

Well, it's good to be back with you, Brian. Thanks. And I saw your interview on CNN with Frida Carrier. It was good, so I understood where it was coming from. When they gave me your book electronically, because I don't have an end of the book business, I went right through it.

I mean, it's one story after another, and it's military and how it relates to all of us on a daily basis. Yeah, and that was the intent. Obviously, it's based on my military experience, but the fact of the matter is, leadership is fungible across everything, whether you're the CEO of a big company or you run a burger joint or a coffee place. You need to know how to be a good leader. And so I draw these lessons from my time in the military and my time as the chancellor at the University of Texas.

I do want to get into it, but if I could just talk about the world right now, because you're wearing a suit, but you also wear a uniform and you also wear face paint and go on missions.

So, what is at stake today with Speaker McCarthy meeting with the President of Taiwan? Yeah, this is obviously not unusual in terms of the President of Taiwan transiting through the United States. This is always a little bit of the carve-out as we continue to maintain the one-China policy.

Now, the fact of the matter is, the Chinese are never happy about this, never have been. And so you're seeing a lot of bluster coming from China. I do think it was not like ever before. I've never seen anything like this. They've actually predicted war against us.

Yeah, but this is part of the rhetoric, I think, Brian. The Chinese don't want to go to war with us. We don't want to go to war with China. We need to hold China accountable. We need to hold them accountable on the Uyghurs.

We need to hold them accountable on Hong Kong, on violating the WTO. But frankly, we also need to find ways to find some common ground with them. But right now, the best thing to do is to deter them.

So this is why we are building up bases in the Philippines. We are working with the Japanese and the South Koreans to make sure the Chinese understand. We're still the big dogs on the porch when it comes to Asia Pacific. Right. Hughes would, do you know General Spalding?

I don't.

Okay. I just thought everybody knows everybody. Brigadier General Spalding weighed in this morning on he's a former China strategist for the chair and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He cut 30. A lot of people were focused on the southern border, but the balloon showed that we have problems up in the northern border as well.

Essentially, we've failed to invest in protecting the homeland. We spent a lot of money on deploying military overseas, but when it comes to border security, when it comes to understanding our airspace, when it comes to understanding the area around the United States, we've done a very poor job in investing in that. And I think we need to, over the next five to ten years, invest more. The balloon. clearly show that we have problems in detecting these things.

So he went on to say that we have not invested heavily in Homewind. We have not the northern border, the southern border. We see the Chinese coming by the thousands all of a sudden. Are they refugees, or is that part of the process? China says we'll hit them on the southern border, it's wide open.

We'll get our students in here into colleges. We'll fly balloons over the country. We'll continue to try to spread the Belt and Road program, looking at us as the problem. The military should be the last line of defense. Are we doing enough at home?

Yeah, so from the Homeland Security standpoint, particularly as we watch the Chinese, the balloon, the spy balloon, come into the U.S., we do need to go back and find out how did that happen? And I think from a technical standpoint, I have an understanding. Our radars are arrayed to be looking at fighters and bombers and things that are moving quickly, intercontinental ballistic missiles, not a slow-moving Chinese balloon.

So I think the military is going about tweaking that.

However, when we look at things like the influx of Chinese researchers, the intellectual property that is being stolen, this is a serious issue. And the good news is you've got bipartisan support on the hill. I mean, there are few things where you are getting the kind of bipartisan support, except as it pertains to China. But once again, and I know a lot of viewers don't want to hear this, or listeners don't want to hear this, but I would offer that we still need to find some common ground because here's why. If we continue to push China away, where will China go?

They will build this alliance with Russia. Russia, and they will strengthen it. They did it. Right. So, our goal should be to separate China from Russia.

And the way you do that is, once again, you hold them accountable, but you also have to find some common ground. Find common ground in trade. Find common ground in climate. Find common ground somewhere where we can engage with them so that if we do have a dust up in the South China Sea, all of a sudden it doesn't escalate into war. And then by building a little bit of this contentious relationship, we can start to separate them from their buddies there in Russia.

See, Admiral, and I feel weird saying that to a guy like you actually fights in wars, but how you go into that conversation has everything to do with how you want it to come out. Of course. And if we go in at a twin of weakness, they fly the balloon over here, they taunt us with it, they go through all the military bases, we shoot it down, they say we want it back. And then we say, well, calling off our visit. And then two weeks later, we're asking for a visit, and they say no.

That perception of weakness at home and reality is not a time it seems you want to talk to China. No, no, I agree. My point is, our long-term strategy has got to be deterrence in the Pacific.

So, this is how do you show strength?

Well, one, if you take a look at the defense budget, both for 2023 and then the proposed budget for 2024, it is all about China. It's about building more F-35s, more submarines, more ships. It is about making sure we are incredibly strong in the Pacific. At a pace in which you're comfortable with?

Well, it's never at a pace in which you're comfortable with. This is the nature of dealing with Capitol Hill. There are pork issues, there are strategic issues, there are shipbuilding issues. No, I'd like to see more ships, more planes quicker. Have you heard a good explanation of why we have not delivered the weapons and defense systems to Taiwan, some of them waiting three years?

Have you heard an explanation that would be acceptable to Admiral McCraven? Yeah, I have not. That's not to say there's not an explanation, but I haven't heard it. The issue is we have always had this policy with China, with Taiwan, of strategic ambiguity.

Now, it's one of these political science terms that basically says: look, Look, we are going to say publicly that we support China, the one China policy, but we are also going to provide assistance to Taiwan.

Now, President Biden has on four separate occasions come out. He came out back by his own staff. For the first two times, you're right. He came out and he said, We're going to defend Taiwan. And of course, the staff said, What the President meant to say?

And then he said it a second time. And finally, the third or fourth time, they're like, You've heard what the President said. But he has caveated this. Does that bother you? You know, having worked in the White House, let me tell you, having worked under presidents, both Republican and Democrat, it happens all the time.

Presidents are presidents. They're going to get out and say things that the staff would say, gee, Mr. President, I wish you really hadn't said that. And it happens often. And yes, the staff has got to kind of walk it back a little bit.

But at some point in time, the president sits down and says, no, boys and girls, let me be very clear. This is where we need to go.

Now, once again, I think we are focused heavily on China from the military standpoint. All you have to do is take a look at the budget. And again, bipartisan support in Congress.

So this is a good direction, but it can't be the only direction. It can't be about, hey, we are preparing for war against China. You always have to prepare for the worst case scenario, but you also want to be in a position to find, again, this common ground so that we don't have to go to war with China. You know, they say, people in Washington, you have been there, the State Department is on a different page than the administration. And you need the State Department to be on the same page and respect their Secretary of State, regardless of who it is, because it's usually the policy which was elected.

That's not happening. I can't tell you how many people have told me, Democrat and Republicans. State Department's the problem. Yeah, you know, I'm not really in a position to comment on the State Department. But you'd like to.

You're right. I probably would like to. But here's what I would offer. And I think Jim Mattis said it best when he said: look, I'd rather you put more money in the State Department and less money into bullets if, in fact, we can get the State Department to do the diplomacy, because better to have good diplomacy than find yourself in a position where you're having to go fight, right?

So we need to support the State Department, we being the Administration, Congress, the American people. But we also need to demand of the State Department high-caliber diplomacy, and this will put us in a position where we don't find ourselves going to war. Here is what General Milley said about China's goals, Cut 36. There might be some economic levels of power, there might be other things in the intelligence world, but for the most part they're probably going to step out. They have a national goal to be a global to be the global coequal with the United States and superior militarily by mid By mid-century.

They are on that path to do that. And that's really disturbing. That's really bothersome. Yeah. Your thought?

I absolutely agree. You know, so right now, and I'd have to check my facts, but I think China has more ships. Than the U.S. does, right? They're 340 some-odd vessels.

And quantity has a quality all its own.

Now, we still have a superior Navy, make no mistake about it. We have more submarines than we have more submarines. We have much more sophisticated everything, I think, from our aircraft to our carriers.

So, you know, China has three carriers, and they're having trouble manning the airplanes because it's hard to take off and land on a carrier, right? They've got three carriers, we've got 11. That blows me away with a country that size can't train pilots. Yeah, well, because it's hard, and you know, we've been doing it since you know, since the 40s.

So, recognizing that it's never easy to train quality pilots to fly on and off of a carrier and to get the people that want to do that.

So, we still have a superior military, a superior Navy, actually, a superior military across the board. But Chairman Milley is exactly right. They have a goal of surpassing us militarily in the Pacific by 2027. And globally, they want to build an incredibly strong military.

So, once again, we do need to invest. We need to invest in our shipbuilding programs and our aircraft building programs. You know, the days of looking for more MRAPs are kind of behind us. True. I think if the American people were, if you explained to the American people, most of which don't serve in the military, why you need them and how you do them and what you're going to be using with them and who our enemy is, we get it.

I'm telling you, and both sides get it, and it's how we're going to approach it would be the difference. Hopefully, we'll get to that. That's who gets elected. But General Jack Keene took that question on last week, and he says when they war game this out, this is what worries them. We don't fit right in terms of the kind of war that we're going to experience there.

A high-tech war, our surface fleet is very vulnerable. If it moves in where it can be effective, where its missiles and airplanes can range. China's capability, those surface ships are going to be destroyed. as higher capital assets on a scale we have never even seen or experienced during World War II. the Chinese will swarm anti-ship missiles and hypersonic missiles.

at those ships. If we stand them off, where they're out of range. then our fighters cannot reach the coast. And our missiles cannot range China either, so they're not making any contribution. Back to the tabletop.

That's tough. Not bad for an Army guy. General Keene, I think, has nailed it. I mean, this is the biggest concern, is our hypersonic weapons. Can their weapons reach us before, frankly, we can reach them?

But again, the Navy understands this, Brian. This is not something that all of a sudden the Navy woke up and went, oh my gosh, we are threatened from surface-to-surface missiles from the shore, from other ships. But we haven't solved it.

Well, the Navy's not going to tell you whether they've solved it or not.

So, yeah, you can do tabletop exercises and you can look at, you know, missile X can get to our ship before we can stop Missile X, or do we have technology that, in fact, is counter-missile technology that'll work? Admiral McCraven's here, and he's got this great new book out, and you've got to grab it. It just came out yesterday, The Wisdom of the Bullfrog Leadership Made Simple. And as we go through the hour, I'd like to talk. I have anecdotes and we'll do full segments on them.

But just on one in particular, you talk about leadership and working with people. You're on a mission. I hope I have this right. And it's in the San Clemente. Islands and you're in the back.

And it's a war game, and it's training, and you have an opportunity to wipe out the enemy. And Admiral McCraven does. Right? And you were the senior officer there? Yeah.

Okay. So you do it. And I'm reading this thinking, wow, this is an unbelievable move. Tell me about this story and what you took from it.

So I was a young ensign, Navy ensign, going through SEAL training. This was the last three weeks of SEAL training. And we go out to San Clemente where we do a lot of our field training exercises. And this particular exercise was an ambush drill.

So myself and 13 of my SEAL trainees, we're in a SEAL platoon. And we are told, we understand how the drill goes. We're told you're going to walk down this path and the instructors, and they're all Vietnam vets, right? The instructors are going to be in a position somewhere, you don't know where, to ambush you. And of course, we'd done the drill.

And the ambush drill is normally: hey, when all of a sudden you start taking fire, everybody drops down, you yell ambush right or ambush left. You get on full auto, and you've got to get out of the kill zone, right? That's what everybody understands from their time in Vietnam.

So we got it. I talked to the platoon, and away we go. And so we're patrolling through this kind of heavily densed area, and then all of a sudden, you know, the instructors open up with blank fire and grenade simulators. We all drop down.

Somebody yells ambush right. We all turn and start opening up. And then I get this brilliant idea. Ensign McRaven says, Aha, I know what I can do. I can circle around this hedgerow where the enemy is, and I'll gut him down from behind.

So sure enough, I get up from my position. Without telling anybody what I'm going to do. And I run around the backside of this hedgerow. And of course, they're all the instructors. They're lying down shooting us.

And I pull out my M16 with my blanks, and I gun them all down. I'm like, yeah, we won. And all of a sudden, you know, the instructors stand up and with some very choice words, you know, Mr. Mack, what are you doing?

So what do you mean? We we won. Really? You do know, by the way, bullets go in both directions.

So, of course, I was running around into the bullets that my guys were firing if it had been real. But when I get back to my platoon... The guys tell me, sir, what did you do? Where did you go? And I said, what do you mean, guys?

You know, I did my John Wayne thing. You know, I went around. We won. They went, we had no idea what you were doing. And the point of the story is about communicating, and it's about communicating during a crisis.

And of course, there's no bigger crisis than when you're literally being ambushed. And what it taught me at a very young age was: look, you've got to talk up and down the chain of command to make sure people understand what you're doing. And you could do that in business and in life and with your family. Everything. Back in a moment.

Learning something new every day on the Brian Killmeat Show. A talk show that's real. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. I believe that we most certainly should provide the tools and resources to allow the Ukrainians to prosecute against the guy who's killed scores and scores of innocent civilians and has no intention of stopping at the Ukrainian border. This will become a...

That is Mike Pompeo, just fresh off a meeting with Zelensky overseas, former Secretary of State and Director of the CIA. With me in studio, if you're smart enough to get Fox Nation, the wisdom of the Bullfrog Leadership made simple but not easy, Admiral McCraven in studio. Admiral, why did we have it so wrong in saying that Kyiv would fall in three days? And what is the biggest surprise for you with the Ukrainian performance? Yep, because when you look at Crimea, it fell in just a few days.

And so I think the expectation was certainly from Putin's standpoint, and maybe even from ours. I don't think we thought Kyiv would fall in three days, but we thought Ukraine would fall in a couple of weeks.

So what I think surprised everybody was, you know, the Russians have been on this modernization program for about 15 years.

So they went from the T-72 to the T-80, T-90 tank. They modernized their aircraft. They modernized a lot of things. They didn't modernize their soldier and they didn't modernize their tactics.

So when we think about how a Western army works, it's a combined arms operation.

So you start with artillery, maybe you come up with an airstrike, and then it all synchronizes together. They have not done that. And of course, the Ukrainians have done a tremendous job of fighting. And they were trained, Western-trained, and they know how to fight, and now they're Western armed. We'll see how it goes.

More with the Admiral, his book, Go Grab It, especially if somebody's got a birthday coming up, The Wisdom of the Bullfrog. A radio show like no other. It's Brian Killmead. General Milley, it's your testimony that you recommended 2,500 troops. approximately stay in Afghanistan.

Um As I've said many times before this committee and other committees, I don't share my personal recommendations to the President, but I can tell you my personal opinion and my assessment if that's what you want. Yes, please. Um Yes, my assessment was. back in the fall of twenty and remain consistent throughout that we should keep a steady state of $2,500, and it could bounce up to $3,500 maybe something like that, in order to move toward a negotiated gated solution. But as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they didn't listen.

Secretary of Defense Austin said something similar. They didn't listen. And the result was the biggest disaster in American military history. It made Saigon look like a good idea. With me in the studio is Admiral McCraven.

I'm going to get to his leadership principles, the wisdom of the bullfrog, leadership made simple. But Admiral, for somebody who fought so long in Afghanistan, who knew some people that fought, hearing General Milley make that statement on his recommendation. And seeing the President do something else and him implement it, what are your thoughts? Yeah, it was hard. I mean, it was hard to watch obviously, very difficult to watch the evacuation out of Afghanistan.

I think Mark Milley at one point in time called it a political disaster, and I think that's true. Military disaster, too.

Well, but when you take a look, when the 82nd finally got on the ground. And really began to organize itself. You think about extracting 132,000 Afghans in a two-week period of time, that's pretty amazing. I mean, that's an amazing military feat. Obviously, you had the loss of the 13 Marines and sailors and a number of Afghans.

But the first part of it, the issue really becomes. You know, why were we so late in getting there to begin the evacuation in the first place? And I think the American people have a right to know why that occurred that way. Why? And look at the State Department was in the lead.

But when you are in the military, I understand we have civilian leadership. But when you give a recommendation like that, And you know it's being ignored, and you know we're getting at anyway.

Well, this could be a disaster. All our stuff is there, all our people are there, our allies and Americans are there. If we do this, sir, people are going to die, they're going to be stuck there, and the president still ignores you. At one point, do you say, if you do this, I resign? I can't have my fingerprints on this.

Yeah, it's always the dilemma between do I resign? Or because I'm in the position I'm in. Am I the best person to manage this and lead this, lead us through this difficult time? I can tell you across all my years watching senior officers grapple with this. At the end of the day, the President, whether Republican or Democrat, makes a decision.

Your job as a military officer is to offer your best military advice, which clearly Chairman Milley did. And then it's up to the elected leader of the American people to make the decision. Once that decision is made, if you have had an opportunity to offer your advice, then you have to salute smartly and move out.

Now, you can always resign. If you are that passionate about it, you bet. But the dilemma, Brian, and again, I've seen this many, many times, is the leaders say, But if I resign and the next guy steps up, Is that person going to be as capable of handling this challenge? And that's just it. If it's to walk away is one thing, but when you know the political reality, and if you're a chairman of Judici Staff, you know politics.

He could not have afforded to have Millie walk away because Millie was so firmly anti-Trump. If Millie walks away from Biden, you know it had to be something he would say, okay, I'll adjust. What does it take to keep you? If Austin said, Man, I fought, I have friends that died there, I lived there for a while, this will be a huge disaster. If he walked away, if he says we're both leaving, the president doesn't make that decision.

Do you agree? Sure, but that's not what you do. That's not what good leaders do, Brian. But Mattis left.

Well, Mattis was. Told to leave, let's be honest, right? No, he said I'm leaving, and then he was told to leave.

Okay. But at the end of the day, yeah.

So if you want if from Jim Madison's standpoint, he decided he couldn't continue to serve. But when you're in uniform, the easy way out is to say I'm no longer going to continue to serve. I can tell I mean, take a look at how Mark Milley worked with President Trump. The fact of the matter is, Mark could have resigned, but he didn't. Because when you're the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you have an obligation to the men and women that you're serving to do the best by the Commander in Chief, whether that Commander in Chief is Trump or whether that Commander in Chief is Biden.

I'm thinking about your story of Billy Mitchell, 1925.

So we don't have an Air Force. He thinks we need one. And no one's listening to him. And if I have this story right, the Navy goes, I'll prove to you that we're better off carrying the bombs. He's like, there's going to be another war, we need an Air Force.

And he goes, and they go and they rig the they rig the show. And the Pentagon at the time just says, I'm going to go with the Navy. And Mitchell wouldn't back off. And he gets court martial. And only Douglas MacArthur votes against his court martial, but he does.

But by the time FDR takes over, because we need an Air Force, Mitchell's right.

So he took the heat to doing the things right and he stared command in the face. Can you equate both stories? You know, I can't, I guess. I can't equate both stories. You know, every leader has got to make a decision where you draw the line.

Mitchell was. This is your book, by the way. No, you're right. Yeah, this is in the Bullfrog when I talk about Billy Mitchell. And my father was an Air Force officer, and of course, absolutely loved Billy Mitchell for both what he stood for and obviously how he changed the military.

But every leader's got to, at some point in time, draw a line and say, okay, this is a line over which I won't cross. And yes, be prepared to put your stars on the table. But in many cases, that's the easy way out. I mean, I can remember when I was a young officer and we had tailhook, and I had a chance to talk to the chief of naval operations, and it was like, you know, you were upset. Why didn't you resign?

And he said, because that's not my job. My job is to lead the Navy through these difficult times. Mark Milley's job, Lloyd Austin's job, is to lead the military through difficult times, whether in Trump or Biden or whoever else. But sometimes by threatening to leave, your objective would be to change the policy. Yeah, but you know, you don't threaten when you're a military officer.

Yeah, that that's not the way you comport yourself. You provide the Commander-in-Chief the best military advice you can. You try to maintain a level of professionalism. But Would the American people want a military officer threatening The President of the United States, I don't that's not uh the sort of as a resourceful. Because if you could image but you just said threaten you said well no but but using the threat You could be resourceful.

Listen, my other option would be: number one, is try to explain it. Number two, try to find somebody to persuade President Biden that it's wrong, that it's not me, because I'm not working. Number three is say, hey, Mr. President, just going to tell you, I know we're only a few months in, but if you do this, I'm going to have to resign. Because I know exactly what's going to happen.

We are going to lose this country to a group of terrorists, which is exactly where we went in 25 years ago, and a bunch of women are going to lose all their rights and probably their lives. My guess is. And then the Ukraine thing, you could explain the Ukraine thing ripples through, too. Sure. Like I said, at some point in time, every leader's got to make a decision where that line is.

Right. And just such a shame that it happened. I want to talk about your book. First off, explain the title. Yeah, so the title and the term bullfrog is given to the longest-serving Navy SEAL on active duty, which I received in 2011 after 34 years.

But remember, as Navy SEALs, we are first and foremost. Navy frogmen from our World War II days. And we take that very seriously. I mean, we are frogmen. And so when you are the longest-serving frogman, You are the bullfrog.

And that's what you were called. And I was called the bullfrog, right?

So, when you put this together, it was a bunch of leadership lessons, not just to help military officers. They have enough of that, but it's to help everyday Americans. Absolutely. So, you always talk about. when you talk about building on that swim buddy.

Does everyone out there need a swim buddy, somebody that they can count on to tell them the truth at all times? Did you have it? Yeah, I did. You know, one, I've been married for 44 years, going on 45, so that's probably my closest swim buddy. But in the military, particularly during my times in Iraq and Afghanistan, I had a command sergeant major named Chris Ferris, great Army Special Operator.

And Sergeant Major Ferris was kind of my right-hand man. He was the guy that always spoke truth to power, told me when I was moving into uncharted waters or when I was walking into kind of a virtual minefield, so to speak. He never hesitated to give me his opinion. But. When I made the decision, He was the guy that stood beside me the closest.

And bring him to the story: you get a call from your doctor. Right. You got cancer. Right. And you're going to need treatment right away.

He walks in. And Tell us w what you wrote about the book.

Well, you know, so I just get a call on a Zoom call from my doctor saying, yeah, you've got chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Uh cancer. And of course, anybody that gets a cancer diagnosis, I appreciate it. Yeah, it's a manageable cancer. But, you know, all of a sudden, I'm stunned, I'm devastated by this.

And I walk back into my office, and Sergeant Major Ferris could see something was wrong immediately. And he says, Hey, boss, you know, what's going on? And I finally said, Well, I just got the diagnosis that I. I have cancer. And I could see him debating: okay, do I commiserate?

And of course, I'm feeling sorry for myself. You know, it's kind of a natural human tendency. And he's like, hey, boss, we got a briefing here in 10 minutes. Come on, you need to get ready to go. And of course, I didn't feel like doing any sort of briefing.

But he walks me into our command center, and I'm about to have a Zoom video with my folks around the world. And the first thing Sergeant Major Ferris says to the Jock NCO, the non-commissioned officer right, he says, Hey, what were our injuries last night? Who was wounded last night? And of course, immediately I start hearing about rangers and seals that have been wounded.

Some guy lost his leg. And Chris Ferris gives me that look like.

Okay, put it in perspective, boss. I got it, but these soldiers are out there dying in some cases and getting wounded. And it was the tough love that I needed. And Chris Ferris kept me on the straight and narrow for six years of my career. And my point is, everybody needs somebody like that.

When you stumble, somebody that picks you up and dusts you off and says, it's going to be okay. When you're starting to feel sorry for yourself, somebody that says, hey, suck it up. Life's tough. Keep moving forward. I was fortunate in my career to have a number of folks like that.

Pat Williams of the Orlando Magic. I think you might know him.

So he had cancer, has it. Treatable. He's got to live with it. It's going to be treated, but it's never going to be cured. And he walked in, he's all depressed, and finally a nurse called him out.

He said, You know, Pat, everybody knows you. You look depressed, they're gonna feel really depressed. Show some life. People look for you for inspiration.

So, with your rank, with his fame, and with his success, he went in there. And when he walked in, he was the life of the party because he felt a responsibility to the people and to the kids and whatever. I guess very similar. And people listening right now might be going through things, especially coming out of the pandemic.

Well, this is one of the points I make in the book about leadership. is that leaders can never have a bad day.

Now, the fact of the matter is, everybody has bad days, right? But when you go before your employees, when you go before the rank and file, when you go before the troops, if you're the leader, you better have your shoulders back, you better have a look of confidence in your face, you better look like you've got a plan because, to your point, Brian. The people that work for you are looking for you to be their leader. They are looking for confidence. They are looking for inspiration.

And if you feel sorry for yourself, if you come in and your shoulders are slumped and you're looking downtrodden, let me tell you, that spreads like wildfire. The other thing that you think is important. It is to learn about people. If you want to lead them, ask them. And you talk to different people.

One guy, why are you in the Army?

Well, I had to, I had no choice. I hate the Army. But you found out more about And tell me about it. Yeah, so I used to, at the end of the kind of the night, I would walk around and just talk to your soldiers that were on the you know that were in Ohio. Yeah, yeah.

So I go up into one of the watchtowers.

So we had watchtowers around Bagram. And, you know, it's the middle of the night. This kid has no idea who I am. You got to open a hatch to get up there. I don't think he can see who I am.

And I introduce myself, but he's a young Army private, doesn't know what an Admiral is. And it's like, oh, cool, man. And so I started talking to him. And he says, Yeah, yeah, you know, I really hate the Army, but. But you know, I could teach these soldiers a thing or two.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I really hate the Army. But, you know, my NCO is pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, I really hate the Army. But, you know, and every time he'd say I hate the Army, then he'd come back and say, But I really love it here, you know. And it was just, but it also just every time you talk to somebody on the factory line, you know, working behind the counter, you as a leader, you learn something.

Everybody has a story. Everybody has a story. And that story is important. Right. And if you want people to lead, show you care.

Absolutely. Right. Now the mix of vulnerability and and leadership. You don't you can't say y you can't act like you walk on water. No.

Right. So, how do you mix the vulnerability with the leadership? Yeah, you know, you've got to find it's a great point. You've got to find times to show your human side. For me, it was always on the basketball court.

So, we would always play basketball on Sundays and very human. Yeah, very and yeah, and my hook shot sucked, and my jump shot sucked, and guys would push you around. And of course, you talk to them about your family because there's nothing that makes you more of a person than people understanding that you've got a wife and you've got children and you understand. These young soldiers sacrifice, and you know, so you've got to be relatable. But when you go before them in a challenging situation, You've got to show you're in charge and you've got to have a plan and you've got to look confident and decisive and inspire the men and women.

And in football, I remember Bill Parcells, he was one of the guys when he was linebacker coach. And they called him Tuna. And then when he became head coach, He was realized, the big mistake, yeah, they were three and eleven or something like that. They all thought he was his buddy. They were terrible.

They had to separate. And no, I care about you, but I'm still the coach. Very similar. A little bit more with the author of The Wisdom of the Bullfrog Leadership Made Simple: Admiral William McCraven in studio. Don't move.

I hear Expanding your knowledge base. It's the Brian Kill Meet Show. The more you listen, the more you'll know it's Brian Killmead. And after we retaliated, Iran attacked us again, injuring another American, didn't it? They did.

And have we retaliated for that attack on Friday? We have not yet, Senator.

So, what kind of signal do we think this sends to Iran when they can attack us 83 times since Joe Biden has become President and we only respond four? Maybe it's because they know that until that we will not retaliate until they kill an American, which emboldens them to keep launching these attacks which kill Americans.

So that's a little of the exchange. I wanted to get Admiral McCraven's take on handling Iran and how we're doing it. I could not believe our 900 guys have been attacked 83 times in Syria over the last two years. What are your thoughts on that, Admiral?

Well, you need to be concerned about the Iranian proxies that are there, so mainly Hezbollah, but there are a number of other groups that are acting as Iranian proxies, and they are getting support from the IRGC and the IRGC Kuds force with rockets and these sort of things.

So absolutely, we need to, again, you need to hold the Iranians accountable when they attack Americans. And you're worried when we don't? Yeah, of course. If you're not strong in the face of an attack, then you can expect another attack.

Now, again, what's hard to know is what's going on behind the scenes. And of course, Secretary Austin and General Milley are going to be reluctant to talk about other things that might be happening that isn't in the public forum. And I'm not privy to that, so I don't know what that. Mm-hmm. The name of this book is The Wisdom of the Bullfrog, and it's been 20 years since Iraq, the invasion.

You weren't for the invasion initially. You were with Saddam Hussein. You told me for 30 days. When are we gonna do you believe that that war was worth it? Yeah, you know, it's hard to tell at this point in time in history.

You know, clearly, removing Saddam Hussein was absolutely the right thing to do. He was about as vile and evil a human being, and oh, by the way, his sons Uday and Kusay were not much better.

So him being gone was absolutely the right thing to do. The fact that there weren't any weapons of mass destruction there, I mean, that'll be debated until the Cals come home on this thing. But it will be interesting to see in 10 years or 20 years if I say Iraq, if Iraq is a better place. Then hopefully the sacrifice of the men and women that serve both in uniform and in the intelligence community will have been worth it. But one of the things I used to tell my guys: you know, when you're in the military, you do the job you're asked to do.

And at one point in time, late in 2010, we knew we were leaving in 2011. And one of my SEAL senior chiefs said, Sir, why are we still going out on missions? Why? And the answer I could give him was: you know, we are in a position to save Iraqis, save Americans, and you never know the cascading effect of what one mission might do.

So do your job. But the performance of you guys was unbelievable, adapting in the middle of a war the way you did. Fantastic. And thanks for all your service. Admiral, I'll talk to you on Saturday night on One Nation.

But if you want to do something positive for yourself and your family, pick up the wisdom of the bullfrog. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show. Brian Killmead. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the latest moments of Brian Kill Me Chow.

So glad you're here. We're going to be joined by Martha McCallum at the bottom of the gala. Actually, anytime she's free. She just got off the air, and she's got her show at 3 o'clock. And Charlie Hurt, Fox News Contributor Columnist, with the Washington Times.

We have a lot to discuss. We don't have the anthics that were happening yesterday, right in Midtown Manhattan, across from our studios or downtown at the courthouse. The president came, he went, and it was a major event. It reminded me. Of a major more of a sporting event than drama, because the drama we really weren't privy to, just a few still pictures.

So let's get to the big three.

Now with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. When we talk about the present-size transit, it's private and it's unofficial. And look, there should be no overreaction from the PRC. Right.

KJP says don't overreact China, so don't. Speaker McCarthy with a high-stakes meeting with the Taiwanese president and China's promising backlash, all in the wake of their spy balloon debacle, where they were able to go over all of our military bases and find out intelligence. And they told us a totally different story. But that's that. Number two.

The Finns were great security partners. When I was a CIA director, their intelligence service were fabulous. They will be a great addition to the security of the United States of America.

So I'm happy that they now got onto the right side, the side that's working to make sure America is protected. Yep, that is Mike Pompeo. He just was over in Ukraine. NATO expands. Zelensky's on the move in Poland and China asked to broker peace in Ukraine.

Really? We have the latest and the biggest conflict in the world. Number one. This is a guy who has acted Lawlessly, his whole life. He has been proud of it.

He talks like a mob boss. This is a man who has thwarted the law and is diminishing our system of rule of law. That, of course, is a little of the reaction of the media outside the Fox walls. Alvin Bragg makes his case, and it's another boast about his former president. And it's another, it's as the former president of the United States and New York City gets blitzed by massive security.

Trump and the media scrum, Super Bowl size for a case that shouldn't have been brought. I will explain. Why? 34 counts. It's basically the same two cases.

You got David Pecker, the inquirer. Did he pay for a story and spike it? And then you have Michael Cohen. Did he pay off? Stormy Daniels, you're talking about a couple of hundred thousand dollars from seven years ago.

This is a case we've got to bring forward when the person who the President ran against, Hillary Clinton, smashed her server, got rid of 30,000 emails, and then commissioned the dossier that poisoned relations between the U. S. and Russia. till today for two and a half years and blame Trump for it. But let's just focus on Stormy Daniels and your accusation of Michael Cohen and his ridiculous claims.

This is not a priority on anyone's list, and it became pretty clear early. Cut five, Alvin Bragg. Donald Trump. Was arranged. On a New York Supreme Court indictment.

returned by a Manhattan grand jury. on 34 felony counts. of falsifying business records in the first degree. Under New York state law, it is a felony. to falsify business records with intent to defraud and an intent to conceal another crime.

That is exactly what this case is about. 34 false statements. Made to cover up Other crimes. Felony crimes in New York State. I can't listen anymore.

That's the district attorney. What an embarrassment he is to New York. How hard will the president is going to have a hard time with this judge? He's going to have a hard time in New York getting a jury that would be somewhat reasonable because I live here. I know.

Charlie Hurt joins us here. He is reasonable and doesn't live here. He is a Fox News contributor columnist for the Washington Times. I believe you're editor, aren't you? Uh Yeah, I'm an opinion editor, so I'm here to edit your opinions.

Whatever opinion press, I will edit it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. To whatever Charlie heard. I've got children all the time. Right.

And then they just walk out of the room.

So I kept on saying, and we'd always couch everything we said with we don't know what's in the indictment.

Now that we know most of what is going to be indictment, now what do you think, Charlie? Yeah, it turns out we did know nothing.

Now, it's maximum absurdity. Donald Trump is the ham sandwich. Uh we are the Banana Republic, or at least at least New York is. And of course, it's maximum absurdity. It's so ridiculous.

It's so, and it's sort of hard not to laugh at all of it. But, you know, point out, it's very serious. It's very distressing that you have a DA like this who is out of his mind. You have a judge who apparently is not. Going to, you know, doesn't understand sort of the game that's being played.

And then you have. You know, a jury and and I I I cut them some slack. You know, I I would hope that that a you know, a grand jury is not an adversarial uh process. The way a trial is. I mean, Costello got in there and said something on Trump's behalf despite what he was told to do.

He came forward and said, Don't believe Michael Cohen. That probably screwed up the whole grand jury. Right. Right, exactly. And so I you know, I I hope but but it it it's still a very serious thing.

The idea that that these people will pervert uh the the single greatest judicial system on the planet In order to exact political revenge or to throw the 2024 election to keep a guy from running. Is it's it's a it's a very dark day. It's very, very distressing. And I, you know, and I don't know, I don't know how you react. I, you know, people, you know, Republicans are, you have people saying, oh, Republicans should.

Should prosecute Democrats and local. I don't want to live in a place where. Republicans or Democrats are doing this. This is not the way to run a country. This is not a way to.

to have a justice system. The Trump organization from February of 2017 to December of 2017, including invoices from Cohen, entries into corporate general ledgers, checks and check subs, submitted false records within the Trump organization. Prosecutors alleged that the records were false because they indicated that Cohen was being reimbursed for legal expenses under a retainer. Please, how did our country function knowing this was going on behind the scenes? I mean, and then they say David Pecker came to the White House and the President thanked him for killing and capturing the McDougal story.

I'm sure. And other friends who came to the White House, it was old motivation. You've been friends with the guy for 25 years. You've become president. You invite him to the White House.

And that's the smoking gun?

Okay. And I love it. Everybody in the press, the the the one moment where they try to show some fairness to Trump is they say alleged hush money to Stormy Daniels. It's not alleged. It's definitely hush money.

It was definitely an NBA with Stormy Daniels. But they throw that word allegedly, alleged hush money, as if that's going to cover up for all of the galloping unfairness and distortion throughout all every aspect of the story. But that one thing they're going to say, well, it's just alleged. Come on, and nobody nobody disputes that.

So, a couple of things. It turns out the doorman got $30,000 because he said the president had a kid out of wedlock. Turns out he didn't. But it's a perfect example of what happens with rich and famous people. They hear this thing, it's going to be a problem.

What does it take for it to go away? And $30,000, the doorman's happy. $150,000, this story is going to come forward. I'm not going to probably, what's it going to take to get this go away? Hey, take care of it.

You know, I'm going to be pres the pres the election's over. The president's going to be there. This could be out. Oh, it could have swayed the election. All right.

You mean the Access Hollywood tape didn't sway the election? But uh, something that happened seventeen years ago? would sway the election or then there's there's Go ahead. And and 30 grand or 130 grand isn't is not it is inconsequential compared to the headache that the rest of it is, as is evidenced by what we're seeing right now. And but I will say this: I hope Donald Trump gets his 130 grand back from Stormy Daniels because the NDA did not work.

No kidding. That's a good point. Yeah, she's not good at the NDA. We know that. She can't keep her mouth shut.

Right. So, this is, I thought Eric Trump. I mean, in a legal sense, Eric Trump put it great because here in New York City, we are over budget by billions of dollars, literally billions. Every agency has to cut 4% off their budget.

Now, we'd be able to save a lot of money if we didn't have 45,000 illegal immigrants and we were in a sanctuary city, and maybe if we didn't spend all this money. Listen to what Eric figured out: CUT 19. And it really dawned on me when we flew into LaGordie airport on his plane. We hopped in the motorcade. Every single intersection was closed.

The FDR was closed. There was an army around Trump Tower. There was an army around the courthouse. There were barricades all over New York. Literally, Alvin Bragg.

Caused 38,000 NYPD officers to be distracted from their jobs. Over $200 million are estimating that trip was for what? For a $130,000 payment? It's insane. How many people in New York died because the entire NYPD wasn't doing their job because they were dealing with Alvin Bragg's political charade?

I mean, it's so succinct. I mean, things have consequences. There's consequences to this. The city's already about, I think, 5,000 cops down.

So they made everybody get in uniform and work for five straight days. Can you imagine this? And that's where I always have faith in voters. Even Democrat voters. This is not what Democrat voters sign up for.

And obviously, it's disturbing to see that a guy like Alvin Bragg gets elected DA. I understand that. But I also don't think that I can't help but wonder if a lot of your fellow New Yorkers aren't sitting around kind of scratching their head and they see violent crime going up around the city. They see store clerks and garage clerks. Getting violently attacked, and then Bragg goes after them instead of the criminals.

I pray at some point. New York voters look around and say, this is maximum insanity. This is not what we wanted.

So, Charlie, I saw this two polls: one in New Hampshire, one in Massachusetts. The president's up by 20. In New Hampshire, even over Sununu, who has 14% of the vote, the president's in the 40s.

So, we have two or three more cases where I don't care where you stand, there's another side to the story. Whatever the indictment is, and I expect them, there's another side to the story. The president's got a strong case. Forget that it goes to the judge.

So you know these things take two or three years.

So picture running for the nomination with three cases swirling around you. What do you do if you're the rest of the field? Many of which you know very well. Mike Pompeo, likely to get in, Mike Pence, Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley. And of course, Ron DeSantis.

What do you do? Chris Christie. I think if they're smart, they stick up for Trump. At every turn. And then, you know, their best the whoever winds up being sort of the single challenger to Trump, their best strategy is going to be: look, I agree with everything on the issues with Trump on all the issues.

He's a great leader. He got us this far. And then you make the argument that. That, but look, the insanity has got to stop. And I can carry forward that argument.

Dissent is probably the best situated to make the argument. I can carry forward this fight without the insanity. The problem with that is two things: one is the 2020 election. Was all about stopping the insanity, stopping the noise. Voters were sick and tired of all of it.

And a lot of people voted for. Joe Biden, because they wanted the insanity to stop. And then, and then it and it didn't. The insanity went from 10 to 17. And it's even crazier now.

So I think it's a lie. I think that that argument that if you just get rid of Trump, the insanity stops, I think that's a total lie. But I think it's probably the best argument. You know, the best argument you can make. But the other thing I think we've seen a little bit with Ron DeSantis is.

that okay he's lost Bombastic and less, you know, out of the mold than Trump is. But they still go. insane over him. They still accuse him of all this crazy stuff. And so I think that's the best strategy, but I also.

I also understand why a lot of people are like, you know what? Screw it. We are never going to give in. We're going to stick with Trump the whole way. We'll see what happens.

Speaking with DeSantis and Nikki Haley, I think they're determined. I'd be shocked if Pompeo and Pence don't get in.

So it's going to be very interesting. But you have a situation where even Mitt Romney tweeted out that he doesn't think the president is worthy to be president, but there's no way this isn't political. Oh yeah. Yeah, I I I mean I I I do believe that I do believe that there are a lot of people who weren't particularly supportive of Trump or would like to go with somebody else that if their only option is a Trump To combat this regime that includes an Alvin Bragg and a Joe Biden and all the other craziness? Those people they stick with Trump.

And the idea that Trump can't expand. on his I I believe without any doubt that Trump can expand on his voters in 2020, just like he did. Off of 2016. He'd have to, because it wouldn't be enough. And we'll see who he runs against, because I'm not convinced Biden's running.

I just every time I see him, he looks so out out of it. I think that has a lot to do with the delay.

Some people say it's a tactic to freeze the field. I think there's something wrong. But uh we'll see. Yeah, but but you know, but if we haven't if you and I haven't learned anything over the past five or six years about politics. It's that i in this environment, Who knows?

At this point, I will believe anything and uh and including that that they will do weekend at Bernie's part two. in 2020 with Joe Biden and Uh and Donald Trump and I mean, I there I I I discount nothing anymore when it comes to politics. In our country right now. All right. Thanks so much.

Charlie Hurt. Always great. Look forward to seeing you all over the channel and pick up the Washington Times. Thanks, Charlie. Thanks, bud.

When we come back, I'll take your call. Wow. 1866-408-7669. And Martha McCallan, the rest of the hour. Busy day.

Thanks. Coming to you on a need-to-know basis because Mandy, you need to know. It's Brian Kilmead. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead.

Hey, welcome back, everyone. Martha McCallum in the studio. She's getting set to host her show with three. Martha, are you in the five today, too? No, just three.

Oh, okay. I'm on the five. You are?

So maybe I'll see if I can get you on. Maybe we'll see. Because I know you have to. You told them never to book me with you. Right, which is a problem.

I saw that little text message because you CC'd me. But on this case in particular, what's your biggest surprise? I think that, you know, when we got a look at the actual indictment yesterday, we were all expecting to see some details in it, some facts, some supporting evidence. I was fortunate to have Bill Barr on, the former attorney general, while we were looking at it. And I flew through it.

It all looked very boilerplate. It was unusual. It looked like something that could have been filed days ago. Right. So I handed it to him, thinking maybe he would see something that I'm not seeing because he has all of the former attorney general.

And he's like, yeah, there's nothing in here. And he said, if I were the judge, I would be very annoyed that we've gone through this process. We've indicted a president of the United States, and you're not giving me any meat on the bones. And I think it's very. Reflected in the wide scope of people who looked at this and said the same thing.

Do you realize how much New York has been has to shell out for this? The security, the overtime. I know. I mean, it's crazy.

Meanwhile, you've got, you know, people getting stabbed in the subway, pushed into the subway, committing heinous crimes and running, you know, running down the street the next day, free as a bird. It's really weird. It kind of feels like a Batman movie to me sometimes living here. It's like this dark, weird, upside-down gossip environment. Yeah.

Where like, you know, the bad guys seem to be just running rampant and the good guys seem to be, you know, having trouble getting ahead. I'm getting depressed. But then again, I cheer you up after the rampage. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show.

Here's where we're going to run into the legal problems. Because the indictment does not say what that second crime is, which is completely inexplicable to me. The entire point. Of an indictment is to tell the defendant: here's what you're charged with, here's what you're defending against. But there's the facts in the law.

The facts as laid out today could be a compelling argument. But before they even get there, they're going to have to overcome the legal issues. Question one: What is the crime that prosecutors are alleging escalated this from a misdemeanor to a felony? If I had to characterize it, it's disappointment. I think everyone was hoping we would see more about the direction that they intend to take this prosecution.

I had hoped that there would be more in the indictment.

So that was a sense of other channels and how they expected to see a smoking gun, and nobody understands why this case was even brought. I haven't seen anyone say this is terrible, and it's just a matter of time before he's convicted, but he's got to come back in December. Martha McCallum was doing almost all the coverage on all day, hosting her own shows, too. Weren't you on the 5-2 yesterday? No.

We got the five a day. I did Jesse's show last night. That was the five, though. Yeah, they couldn't. They can't afford you.

And very expensive.

So I'm on the five. I get right underneath the salary cap. Yes, they get a discount.

So, Martha, do you know any as you did that? You were telling me you handed it to William Barr, and Bill Barr was like, I don't see anything. Did he see anything in here? No, he didn't see anything in there either. It's really shocking.

And I almost, you just have to wonder what's going through Alvin Bragg's mind when he submits this 34-page, 34-felony document. And really, it all hinges on this extrapolation from this misdemeanor and turning it into a felony. And like I was saying before, it's like we're in an upside-down world because he spends most of his time turning felonies into misdemeanors. Yeah. for crimes in New York City.

So it's such a blatant, you know, directed attack on the former president at a time when There's so much going on in New York that needs to be fixed. You have people leaving the city. You have crime everywhere. It's just the priorities just seem to be so screwed up. And I find it really interesting that people like Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney and so many others, David French, have come to the former president's defense, at least on this particular charge.

Yeah, so before I play, NBC actually asked the question that we just went over, but they just had this little thing in the New York Post that I'd share with you. Let's compare Donald Trump's charges with some other people in the news. Charles Lindsay, a string of felonies. He got a youth program. He's 20 years old.

Michelle McKelly, 100 robberies. She is free right now. This guy's name is Trevell Coleman. He is in jail for murder. The DA is working very hard for his early release.

This is his focus, but now we got to catch up. With the former president, because I have to enforce white-collar crime.

So we're seeing this, trying to digest this, and Alvin Bregg gives his statements and then takes some questions. Here's one of them: cut six. Your predecessor took a hard look at this case and decided not to charge it. Federal prosecutors took a hard look at this case and decided not to charge it. Do you believe you have new evidence that led you to decide to charge this?

Or Why now?

Well, as I just mentioned, we have had available to the office additional evidence that was not in the office's possession prior to my time here. And as to uh your qu part of your question about the the federal We have a distinct and strong, I would say profound independent interest in New York State. This is the business capital of the world. regularly. Do cases involving false business statements.

That's the charge that's brought here, falsifying New York State business records. Right. Not federal business records. What is wrong with you? It's bizarre.

Right. And he says, well, we came across this new evidence. We heard Lanny Davis say, oh, wait until you see, who represents Michael Cohen, the new evidence that's going to be here. And we're all waiting for it. And then it drops, and there's literally nothing in here.

And then Alvin Bragg says, well, I didn't have to include it. I'm not obligated to include it. It's going to be in this other thing called the Bill of Particulars. I mean, come on. What is going on here?

But the crazy thing is that there's a real question about whether the former president can actually get a fair trial in New York, right? You know, when you have the DA who ran and the state attorney general both ran on getting Trump. You think you're going to be able to put together a completely impartial jury to take a look at this evidence? I think it's a scary proposition. If a judge doesn't throw it out and it goes to trial, it's I mean, there's no reason to think that there couldn't be a conviction in this case.

We all know there's a ton of other cases out there. Of course, there'll be appealed. But you know, if Judge Marshon, who is. Overseeing this case, oversaw successful convictions in other Trump cases. If he looks at this and he really believes that they did not meet the bar in this, he should throw it out.

He shouldn't pass it to another judge. He should do the right thing. And I think that kind of action is what is so needed in this country. Yeah, but so, but he should get elected because then I believe that people on both sides, fair-minded people, would say, you know what? When he had the shot to go after Trump, he thought it was a lousy case and he passed on it.

Right. Knowing that there are a lot of other cases, if you go to bed every night thinking you can't wait to get Donald Trump, there's going to be other opportunities, but it doesn't meet the measure of the law, according to so many legal minds.

So just do the right thing.

So what's amazing is this is the same guy that put a CFO in Rikers Island. That's right. 75 years old. Because he, I guess, he gave his wife a job, his no-show job, and also used company funds to pay for his child, his grandchild's private school.

So if you allow these people to walk the streets, nobody's safe.

So, and no, I know. And obviously, that's something that has deeply disturbed the former president as well. He's very upset about it. Right, I know. He can't put it into words.

So.

We have two more cases, and we're going to debate the merits of this case: the Georgia call. And we're going to have Jack Smith, who's all over the Mar-a-Lago documents. They're going to say the documents should have given them all up and didn't tell his lawyers. You got the lawyer forced to flip, we assume. And then you have Secret Service doing something I never thought.

Usually you could trust Secret Service. You have a fight with your wife or something, and you're the President of the United States. You think it's going to be a secret. You know, you go out, and one of your kids has been insolent to you, or came home late. You think it's going to be a secret.

You know, you have doubts about your own leadership. You think it's going to be a secret. All of a sudden, now these Secret Service guys are going to are now subpoenaed to go in and say what they saw. Did anyone pick up any box and move it? Did you see the President of the United States tell that valet to do this?

Okay. So let's say you think that's a big case. I give you another strong case. Just to push back on this generically, what about President Biden? What about Vice President Pence?

What about other people that have documents? What about, okay. We have a debate.

So, Martha, your show, the story at 3 o'clock. Every show you fill in for, the election coverage, those are two cases you're going to be debating. Then in comes the third case, the Georgia case. You think he's guilty?

Okay, fine. There's a lot of people that don't, and I'll give you an example. This is what he really meant on that phone call. This is what he said. This is what he meant.

This is what he said. Never should have been brought, should have been brought. Again, three cases for three, four years. We debate as he runs for president. We got China, we have gas prices, we have a border issue, we got kids in manic depression, still having education issues.

Nobody's doing anything important. Which is, it's such a good point, Brian. And, you know, if you have this scenario where all of this vote, because this is the most fascinating politician of our time, Donald Trump, no matter what you think about him, when he is a historic figure, he bucked the trend in a way that nobody else could. You could see an environment where Joe Biden can basically run from his basement again, right? Because all of this focus is going to be on these trials when it really should be exactly what you're saying.

So I think if the President of the United States has integrity on these issues, he should stand up and say, you know what? Be very, very careful with what you're doing here with this former president. You better have an airtight case if you're going to pursue this against the president of the United States. And we really need to. To come together, we need to decide if this is worth it in this perilous time because China loves what's going on right now.

They love that the cover of every paper in the United States is about this case, right? Because it just gives them more time and more space to gobble up dominance in the world, which is exactly what they're doing.

So it takes our eye off the ball. The President could could you know, the President could say something meaningful on this, statesmanlike. I'm just going to put that out there. Just put it out there. I mean, right away, you can't say an airtight case because nobody thinks Alvin Bragg's got an airtight case.

You know, if you're going to go for the king, you've got to kill him.

So that's what they say. I mean, wipe him out, not going to wipe him out. They could try to bankrupt him. I don't know how much money he actually has, but now Letitia James is suing for $280 million and the Suns. Why?

If he did not run for president. He would not be anything except lauded, invited to all the parties, the inaugurations, the Democrats and Republicans. He'd be hosting Shark Tank 2, you know, the spin-off series, whatever it is. A pretty still going. You've got to give him credit.

When he was asked, when Sean Hannity asked him the other night, why do you want to do this? He said, because I want to save the country. And I think that's true. That is the motivation. I think he wants to be president again.

I think he feels like he got ripped off last time around. And so there's obviously a ton of ego involved in it. But I do think he thinks that he has the ability to make a difference.

So we'll see what happens.

So now it looks like Alvin Bray's going to be told to be subpoenaed to come and answer questions from the House, from, I believe, the Weaponization of Government Committee. Here's Jim Jordan, cut 21. Mr. Bragg conceded that they did use federal funds in his latest correspondence with Jamie and I. He said they used federal funds in the prosecution, in this indictment against President Trump.

We also know that this grew out of the special counsel investigation, and of course, that statute is a federal statute. And maybe most importantly, I think, as everyone understands, this is election interference. And then Mr. Bragg, in his letter, said, I would like to know what questions you have for me.

So everything is on the table. We do want Mr. Bragg to answer questions, and we're looking at how we're going to pursue that and take the next step. What I do know is Mr. Pomerance, this is someone we want to talk to as well.

He has left the DA's office. He has written a book. He's the guy who threw the fit and I think put the pressure on Mr. Bragg to go through with the ridiculous action that he took today.

So he's trying to probably make a case that he got to get this DA from New York into the federal in front of Congress. What do you think? You know, I mean, Kevin McCarthy has given them free rein on oversight. They can dig into anything they want, but I think he wants to keep it compartmentalized in that way to sort of say, okay, you guys are in charge of all this stuff that obviously Republicans want us to pursue. You go do that while we go do the other business.

I think it's very interesting, the question of the Federal Election Commission and Federal Election Laws, because messing with a current candidate.

So so th the underpinning of this case is that somehow this money was s given to Store McDaniels as a federal election violation, right? But what about the violation that is happening in our federal election system based on everything that we just laid out in terms of the interference in the election and indicting a current candidate of the United States. I mean, what about that?

So maybe there needs to be a a case pursued That in itself, that Alvin Bragg has committed a federal election violation by bringing the case. I'll sue you. You sue me, I'll sue everybody. Also, I think it's fantastic. I mean, Hillary Clinton, everyone keeps losing.

Everybody loses but the lawyers. Right, yeah. Hillary Clinton does, gets a $113,000 fine for creating the dossier and using campaign funds to do it that had dominated our foreign policy and our dialogue for two and a half years. And then when she was asked for thirty thousand emails, they smashed the server.

So you do have a precedent to lean on if you had to.

So to say when we gave you so I don't know. It to me, it's just crazy. Also, remind me, Kevin McCarthy, do we have a way to raise the debt ceiling? Yeah. I mean, they have till June, I believe, right?

He has like eight or ten proposals. The idea that cutting spending is just such a horrific idea that it can never even be considered is so mind-blowing to me. We have, what is it, $17 trillion in debt, right? I mean, what are we doing? What are we doing?

Look at all the money that got wasted in these COVID programs, got funneled.

Some of it never even spent. We have kids who can't read or do math. In the city of Chicago, where they just elected a new mayor who's even more progressive than the last mayor, one in 20 black children can do math. at the grade level. Let that sink in.

That's crazy. That is a travesty. In the United States of America, we have a public school system that has educated only one out of 20 black children in the Chicago public school. That should be such an enormous headline. What are we doing?

We're failing all of these children, and no one seems to care. No one seems to care. They no question about the minority community. I think 85% of the charter schools are made up of minority kids. They have 12 or 21 new charter schools that are paid for, ready to go, and they won't be green lighted because this speaker of the state, whatever, the state house, he is paid off by teachers' unions, and teachers' unions don't want the charter schools.

So now they're debating the debate. The budget's one week late already. The governor, Democratic governor, says, Yeah, open up these charter schools. They am now. I don't think so.

No, no, open them up. They're paid for. No, I don't think so.

So they're not doing it, and it helps minorities. More than any other way. I've done a lot of work with charter schools in New Jersey and New York. You know how many kids are in the system to get their name pulled to go to these schools? And every one of those children has a parent or a friend or somebody who put their name in there, right?

Who cares about that child enough to say, I want you to get a better education. I want you to get a better shot. It is absolutely repulsive to me that anyone would prevent these children from getting the education that they deserve and that the city is not providing for them. You need to look no further than what you just laid out than to ask yourself if the union cares about students. They don't.

They don't. They only care about the teachers and they do not care about these students. All right, when we come back, Martha McKellen will tell us: if you promise not to tell anyone else, who's going to be on her show? Oh, wait, you don't like that. You want everyone to know everything about your show.

I want everyone to know. I'll share it with everyone. Back in a moment. Educating, entertaining, enlightening. You're with Brian Kilmead.

Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show. New York City Fire Department rescued five children who got themselves lost in the Staten Island sewer system. Wow, it's hard to believe that a place that filthy and disgusting also has a sewer system. The first legal marijuana dispensary owned by a woman has opened in Queens, New York.

Unfortunately, they had to shut down because she couldn't open the weed jars on her own. All right, that was SNL, some of their Anthics on Saturday night. They had a cold open with a Trump impersonator, big shock. Martha McCallum's here. Martha, my audience promises to tell everybody who's going to be on your show because we want as many people to watch as possible.

Well, we have a great show coming up today. We've got Janine Pirrault joining us today to talk about the charges against President Trump, about the indictment, what she sees coming down the pipeline with regard to that case, whether or not she thinks Judge Marshawn might actually drop it, whether or not he would do that. Kellyanne Conway, Mark Penn, looking at the political implications of all of this coming up as well. Brett Baer is going to join us today. We're going to talk about Biden's assistant, Kathy Chung, and the Comer investigation with Jason Chaffetz this afternoon.

And I'm also going to talk to Father Mike Schmitz. Do you know Father Mike? No. He's an amazing priest. He has millions of followers on YouTube, and he's young and interesting.

And, you know, we're going to sort of hopefully shed some bright light around the idea that faith is diminishing. In this country, because he has so many young followers and he's really firing people up. I'm excited about it. That's good. I would say, in the.

I had not to trump you, but I did do a walking feature with Cardinal Dolan that's going to be on Friday and then Saturday. I did not ask him, and I hope you don't make the same mistake I did. Please ask him if he thinks priests should get married because that is the big Pope story that he's saying it's going to change, especially a young guy. Do you think priests should get married? No.

Really? I think there should be another category. Like, you know, you can be a deacon and be married, and deacons can be very strong figures within parishes across the country. We have a great deacon at my parish.

So it's not like you have to you can serve in a lot of different ways, but you know, the priesthood is to you it's very hard to be married and have a family and be a priest. It's an extremely demanding job. I don't think most people understand how demanding it is.

Well, you know, well, if we're married and we're anchors, that might be harder. New from the Fox News Podcasts Network. I'm Dana Perino. Join me for season three of my limited time podcast, Everything Will Be Okay, based on my best-selling book of the same name. Make sure you subscribe to this series wherever you download podcasts and leave a rating and review.

Listen to the show at free on Fox News Podcast Plus, on Apple Podcast, Amazon Music with your Prime membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Hmm.