House passes controversial debt ceiling bill; DeSantis ramps up attacks on Trump

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

This hour, we're going to be joined by Senator Joni Ernst, who's having every GOP candidate over for a big event in Iowa, except for the former President of the United States, who's going to be with John Sean Hannity tonight. And Brett Forrest is here also. In a matter of moments, you'll meet him, National Security Porter for the Wall Street Journal and author of a brand new book called Lost Son: An American Family, Trapped Inside the FBI's Secret War. But before we talk to Brett, let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. He offered us the opportunity to come look at it in a private chip, but he was going to redact it. My experience with getting documents from the FBI when they're redacted, it's all black lines, they don't show anything. Yeah, there you go.

James Comer just shows us the unclassified documents. That's all he wants to know. And stop with the half measures, Christopher Wright. That's the message from Comer to Ray. What's in the form, and how are the allegations no less than thrived with more less than three whistleblowers with ugly claims about the Biden administration being treated?

Number two. You know, he was a very disloyal person. He had no chance of winning the election. I got elected in 2018 by 32,000 votes out of more than 8 million votes cast. That is Donald Trump.

And the number two guy right now, Governor Ron DeSantis. The big guns are both in Iowa. As new guys announce they're ready to join them, Christy and Pence, we will have it all. Number The final total 314 to 117. 149 Republicans voted yes, 165 Democrats voted yes.

There you go, Chad Pergram. Deal done in the House. But not before 71 Republicans voted no. The debt ceiling agreement now moves to a divided Senate where it's expected to pass and be signed by the President. Who won?

Who lost? And who doesn't default?

Well, it looks like we won't. And I think Senator Schumer knows you can't send that bill back. But let's meet Brett. Brett, great to see you in person. Yeah, thanks for having me, Brett.

And congratulations on the book. Thank you very much. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind, too, is your colleague, the Wall Street Journal reporter, scooped up for being a spy by the Russians. We all know he was not a spy. And Brett, in fact, Evan wrote his column, and it just so happens his last column talked about how the sanctions are paying such an economic toll on the Russians.

Do you think that has anything to do with it?

Well, I think it's not so much a specific article that he wrote, it's really the Russian state made a decision. They wanted to do something like this. They had a list drawn up, that's our understanding, of possible targets, and they wanted to go after somebody. They wanted to take a Western reporter, preferably an American, to make a statement. And they did, even though he's got a Russian background, really liked the country and was just doing his job.

Any re any way that he's linked to being a spy is just comical. Evan is a dedicated professional journalist, period. Why are the Russians feeling so bold to do this? I mean, between. Uh the Marine between the WNBA star Griner and Now This.

It's a great question. And I lived in Moscow for five years, and I've been working there in Russia for 20 years. And I've seen this evolution. It really goes back to a case that the DEA put together against the arms dealer Victor Boot in 2008. After that, the DEA then took another Russian, a pilot, who was smuggling drugs in Africa.

See, you just described two people doing bad things. Exactly. Exactly. These were people committing crimes internationally. The U.S.

took them down. And over a number of years, the Russians decided, you know, we're going to react to this.

So they started taking Americans. And what's the consequences? They get their people. They get their people back. Victor Boot is back.

Brittany Greiner's back. Exactly. And that really comes to a decision for the administration or various administrations. How do you deal with this? Will you play hardball with the Russians, and what's the result?

Um we also see the Sergei McGinsky, and we had the famous McGinsky Act. And the McGinsky Act is the lawyer for Bill Browder who was tortured and killed in an effort to get Bill Browder to come back because they feel as though he was a billionaire by illegal, illicit means. But he wasn't. He just happened to be a capitalist in Russia. That's right.

That's right. I mean, that case, the Magnitsky case, related to Browder's activities and investments in Russia really shows the sort of cynical, deep cynical nature of some folks in Russia who've come to power and influence. This was a scheme perpetrated by people who were Russian officials, and they were simply trying to steal money baldly. which is kind of interesting. I don't know if it plays into this, but Tara Reid, the accuser of Joe Biden, she has now defected to Russia.

And Edward Snowden, when he decided to give up some secrets and intelligence, he didn't want to be a whistleblower. He didn't trust the process. And went from Hong Kong to Russia. Mhm.

Well, I've always thought that that speaks volumes. I mean, the fact that someone like Snowden would uh would do what he did and then take refuge in a place like Russia without criticizing Russia. Certainly says something. And you'll remember, too, in 2013, when he took refuge there, there was talk about possibly making a trade for for Snowden, for Victor Boot. Or for the Russian pilot that I mentioned.

But instead, maybe not maybe not now, but at the time there was serious talk about that. But instead, uh, Vladimir Putin uh granted uh Snowden asylum. I do want to talk about what's happening in Russia. Moscow got hit a couple of days ago. There's been some strikes inside Russia.

This is not the way the Ukraine invasion was supposed to go for Russia. Could you describe what it's like as we watch the ineptness of their military, the unwillingness for those to serve, the unavailability of the children of rich people in Russia to actually fight this war, the private armies that are sprouting up because their real army is not doing much? Yeah.

Well, goodness, w we haven't we seen a great surprise there. I mean, before this war began, we uh we all, I think, mostly held the Russian military in in highest esteem, right? And we've seen how poorly they've uh They behaved on the battlefield. And you're right, it's their lack of success has really revealed a lot of fissures within the Russian. Does it surprise you as somebody who lived there?

You know, it doesn't because, for one, we're aware of the great corruption within the Russian military, and we've seen how that How that has been borne out within the war. You see a lot of people, a lot of soldiers who are unprepared, who don't have the right gear, who don't have the right weapons. And we see a lot of old weapons, unguided missiles, hitting apartment buildings. We see just the lack of planning over many years, the Russian military. And that, of course, gives rise to people like Prigozhin, who's the head of Wagner, the the paramilitary group to to stake his own claim to power.

And Wagner, who has this elite unit, well, next thing you know, he's recruiting in prisons. Right, right.

So, how elite are you if you have no choice but to serve or die or rot in a cell? You know, interestingly, I I spoke with a couple of g uh gentlemen who are uh in prison in Russia currently and they told me that um that Wagner came to their their prison uh twice last year and they described the conditions. They said that uh you know that um uh the the first wave of recruitment actually uh uh a lot of people volunteered for it. But then uh subsequently they learned that uh the the the the guys who went to war didn't fare so well. It's a death sentence.

Basically, because a lot of these guys are just they're just cannon fodder. Uh, for Vwadner. I mean, you remember the movie The Dirty Dozen, right? Sure. This is sort of like uh a perverted Russian version of that.

With me right now is Brett Forrest, National Security reporter for the Wall Street Journal and author of a new book, Lost Son, an American Family Trapped Inside the FBI's Secret War.

So tell me about the book, Bret. How did you stumble upon this story? How did you pursue it? Right.

Well, this came to me actually late 2017. It's a long time ago now. It was a source of mine, an American guy with deep contacts in Russia. And also he was being considered for positions in the incoming Trump administration. And he told me that he knew of a story, a case of a young man from Michigan who'd gotten wrapped up with the FBI, worked for the FBI for five years as what's known as a confidential human source, working mostly in counterterrorism.

And one day after the war in Russia began, in Ukraine, that is, he told his parents that he was traveling to Russia. This was 2015. He went there, he was there for about six weeks, suddenly he disappeared. His parents lost track of him. And very soon after that, his FBI handler came to the door, said he knew nothing about the trip to Russia.

and began confiscating devices from the family. and eventually shut them out. And right away I knew that. This was a story that I could possibly pursue for the Wall Street Journal. But I also thought that if we were able to get results here for the family, that this could be something that could be expanded into a book.

So that's interesting. You go from a reporter to basically a supporter.

Well, an advocate?

Well, an investigator? You know, interesting. I wouldn't say that necessarily. You know, I'm always a reporter. I don't advocate for people.

What I was trying to do in this story was to investigate it. to get a result. to find out what happened to this this gentleman named Billy Riley. And what made you well, with your experience in Russia, you felt as though you could be successful? But Russia is constantly changing, becoming a more hostile place.

Did that give you second thoughts?

Well, it did. It did. I mean, I've seen the evolution. When I first went to Russia in 2002, as you remember, Vladimir Putin was pretty new in the job. The United States kind of liked him.

He was very close with George W. Bush, or at least he seemed so. They spent time on his ranch in Texas. Remember, I looked into his soul. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. But I saw that relationship deteriorate between our two countries over many years. Because of him, would you say? Or does it be do you blame us? Um well, that's a very good question.

Uh these things are are are never so clear. Um I it's difficult to place blame. If I had to place it uh in on one person, it would be Vladimir Putin simply because he has stayed in power too long. And when you stay in power too long. Often your thoughts turn to your place in history.

and I don't want to lead her. Who's thinking about his place in history? I want a leader who's thinking about doing what's right for the country. And what you had to do is deal with Vladimir Putin's Russia. And I don't want you to give away the ending of this.

It's too important to the story. It really happened. It's not fiction. But could you give us an idea of what you found when you started pursuing or the venues you started first looking? Certainly.

So I knew initially that the parents had gone to Russia themselves in search of their son. And they had gone there, I believe, in 2017.

Now, they're just regular folks from Michigan. They don't have any contacts over there. They don't know anybody. And, you know, they tried their best. They really dedicated their lives to this.

I thought that I might be able to help because of my experience there, because I indeed do know people and I can get around and have language skills.

So. I learned that Billy had flown to Moscow and then taken a train down to a southern city in Russia called Rostov-on-Don, which was the staging ground for Russian military activity just across the border into eastern Ukraine. And I learned that Billy had set himself up at a camp there for volunteer fighters. These were guys, mostly Russians, but international people as well, who were collected down there with the intent to cross the border into Ukraine to join volunteer fighter battalions. fighting against Kiev.

in the eastern part of Ukraine.

So here you had a guy who was an FBI source. Who was at a Russian volunteer fighter camp. On his own? And the FBI tell okay, the FBI telling you he's on his own.

Well, the FBI, of course, is not really saying much. I mean, this book began as an article in the Wall Street Journal, and I gave the FBI pre-publication of more than a hundred questions, and the FBI didn't answer a single one. They did give me one single line, and they said that they had not sent Billy Riley to Russia, and that's it. Got it.

So, a few more minutes with Brett Forrest when we get back. Brad, I want to ask you about what's going on with Christopher Ray's FBI and what your take is, and talk more about this story. Listen, this is a real-life mystery. Lost Son, an American family trapped inside the FBI secret war. Brett Forrest of the Wall Street Journal here.

Don't move. You listen to the Brian Kill Me Show on Thursday. Expanding your knowledge base. It's the Brian Kill Meet Show. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin.

It's Brian Kilmeade. It's really unfortunate the notion that the FBI is some sort of leftist cabal out to get the Republicans is so crazy it just shows you how crazy our times are. The FBI will be fine in the long run. This fever around Donald Trump and the MAGA world will eventually break, but it's become somehow a nutty article of faith that the FBI is out to get Republicans. There's no doubt about it.

The evidence is overwhelming that he's a fraud and he shouldn't be trusted and he's sanctimonious and self-obsessed and was one of the worst FBI directors who's done more damage to their organizations than just about anybody else. Welcome back, everyone. Brett Forrest, National Security reporter for the Wall Street Journal with us, author of Lost Son, an American family trapped inside the FBI's secret war. And this family turned to Brett Forrest to help find his son located inside Russia. And that's what this story is about, Brett helping the family.

But more importantly, just trying to find out what exactly is going on as the FBI cleaned out his house. And the family was left really with no way of getting in touch and finding out what happened to their son.

So that's all chronicled in his story. Brett, you spend so much time in Russia and the Ukraine. You just told me in the break, outside Kiev is Butya. And once it was clear that Kyiv was not going to be captured by the Russians, it's going to be a longer war. They backed out and they unveiled.

What did they unveil in Butya? You were the first reporter on the scene to see this massacre? Yeah, that's right. I happened to be in Kiev at that time, and I saw a photo on social media of several bodies with their wrists tied behind their backs. And I knew that it was located nearby.

And so I raced out there with the bodyguard and a photographer and a fixer. And we arrived with incredible timing. It just so happened that the local militia was retaking the town. We pulled up to the administration building and they were just reinstalling the Ukrainian flag and they were singing the national anthem just as we were getting out of the car. It was just a happenstance.

And And the local militia leader, he said, you know, come back another day. It's too dangerous here. The Russians have booby-trapped the town. We haven't had time to clear it. And, you know, I.

there was great appetite for information. This was the first month of the war. Um a l it was maybe like six weeks in. And uh we needed to know what had happened there.

So I persuaded him to give me a couple of guys and and we drove around the town and uh you know uh it was it was raw. It was as raw as you can imagine. Yeah, I mean, there were hundreds of bodies. All around Bucha. Civilians or military?

I didn't see a single b body wearing any military uniform.

So it was the mass killing. Um innocent Ukrainians. Yes. And a lot of these people were elderly. uh women, men, uh a a a great mix of just local inhabitants.

Um you know, people who were killed uh clearly while they were riding a bicycle. Executed. Yeah, well, in many different ways, 'cause I eventually got to talk to survivors, people who were huddling in in basements for a month, uh trying to save themselves against the Russians and heard so many stories about uh just senseless killings, also uh uh planned killings for the uh Russians they they they put snipers in different high positions and when people would try and leave the town they would take them out. Wow. Um, it's hard to shake that.

Yeah, I mean that's not something you can be prepared to see.

So now the Ukrainians are more determined than ever to take their country back. They have 17%, the Russians do. What do you expect with the surge in the last minute we have? I expect the Ukrainians to throw everything they have to the Russians. It depends what you mean by success.

Getting their country back? The Ukrainians have sacrificed so much that it's very difficult for them to think about sitting down at the table with Russia.

Well, they hit Crimea first. I know that they they are determined to take it back. That's all the way. Yeah.

And that's why there's no nothing to talk about. One country invaded the other and it's not leaving.

So there's no how do you talk peace? That is the central thing to remember. By the way, pick up a great book, Brett Forrest, A Fantastic Reporter, Lost Son, an American Family Trapped Inside the FBI's Secret War, and read everything Brett writes. Brett, thanks so much. Thank you, Wright.

Writes for the Wall Street Journal. Senator Jody Ernst next. Information you want, truth you demand. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. There is no substitute for victory.

And we need to dispense with the culture of losing that's infected the Republican Party. We've had three disappointing election cycles in a row. And that's not going to cut it this time. We need the courage to lead and we need the strength to win. I got elected in 2018 by 32,000 votes out of more than 8 million votes cast.

I was actually told: hey, the state's evenly balanced. You get in as governor, don't rock the boat. Keep your head down because you don't want to upset this political balance. And I understood that advice, but I rejected that advice. But we showed leadership.

That is Governor DeSantis telling his story for the last week, making it official. He's been telling it for a while that he's going from a successful governor and he wants to become the Republican nominee and eventually President of the United States.

So is Senator Tim Scott.

So does Governor Asa Hutchinson.

So does Donald Trump.

So soon, Chris Christie and Vice President Pence are going to come in this weekend.

So is Nikki Haley, the ambassador and former governor. And the field is growing just about every day in Vivek Ramaswamy. All those people, save Donald Trump, I believe, is going to be at Senator Joni Ernst's big event this weekend on Saturday. And she joins us right now. Senator, welcome back.

Hey, good morning, Brian. Great to be with you.

So, what is it about Senator Joni Ernst that's attracting such a prestigious crowd in Iowa?

Well, I don't think it's me. I think it's our wonderful state of Iowa.

So we are the first in the nation caucus state. And so we have all of these really inspirational leaders that are vying for the presidential candidacy on the GOP ticket. And they're coming out. They're meeting the Iowa voters. And I happen to be convening my roast and ride this Saturday.

And we have eight of those hopefuls that will be joining me on the stage. They'll be able to speak to Iowans and anyone in attendance and really share their message on the greatness of America and where they want to see our country go in the future. I know that I remember Scott Brown did this over in Massachusetts. And now you're bringing all the candidates here, not only as a Republican senator with a military background, this is probably one of the first times these candidates, declared candidates, are getting together. What's the format?

You said roast and ride.

So motorcycles? You bet. Of course. We kick off the day at 10.30 at the Big Barn Harley-Davidson in Des Moines, Iowa. If you want to know more about it, go to roastandride.com.

I will be leading those motorcyclists as we go on about a 45-minute ride through the Des Moines area out into the countryside. And we will end up at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, Iowa. And from there, then, these candidates will be able to get on the stage. They'll have a period of time where they can address the crowd. They'll be able to work the crowd as well, visiting with people.

It is a family-friendly event, as always. But yes, it is motorcycles. It is entertainment. It is great Iowa polled pork. It is our politicians, of course, taking the stage.

And I hope inspiring these Iowans to get on board with the various candidates. And again, it's just a really great. Great time. The motorcycle ride that I do every year that kicks off the day, those proceeds I always donate to a veterans charity. And this year, the proceeds will go to the Freedom Foundation of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

It's a Veterans Helping Veterans Organization. Great group. Who are you going to endorse?

Well, you know, Brian. I'm very cagey about it. I'm not going to endorse anyone. Governor Reynolds and Chuck Grassley, our senior senator, and I, and we have this pact that we don't endorse because we want all of these candidates to feel welcome as they come into the state of Iowa.

So today, so we'll find out how that goes. What kind of RSVPs do you have? Do you expect everyone there except President Trump?

Well, we have not heard from President Trump. I have spoken to him about the event directly.

So, you know, who knows if he shows. It might be a little late to get him on board now. I hope that he will be sharing a message, though, with our audience.

So we do have eight that intend to be there. It is Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy, Asa Hutchinson, Perry Johnson, and Larry Elder.

So a great group of people. You know, you've heard them speak. We just heard, you know, a little bit of the clip from Ron DeSantis. These are great Americans. I'm so proud that they are running on the GOP ticket.

A lot to discuss, including the debt deal that's going to be on your plate as a sitting senator. Get it done this week to raise the debt ceiling. A lot of 70-plus Republicans are not happy with it. Others are. Derek Van Orden, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan all voted for it.

Comer voted for it. For it, I believe. Here's center Tim Scott. This is what he told me on Fox and Friends 20 minutes ago: cut 14. Will you vote to raise the debt ceiling?

Short answer is no. The long answer is when I think about What's in the deal? I find that two things are really important. Number one, I think Kevin did a good job of figuring out how to negotiate with someone who did not want to negotiate. The question I asked myself is, at the end of the negotiation, is it in our best interest as a nation to allow Joe Biden, someone we cannot trust on spending, to have an open checkbook, no limit on the credit card, until the end of his term?

And his answer is no. What's Senator Ernst going to do?

Well, again, I would agree with Tim that this is not a great deal, but there is a lot in there that I will be proud to support.

So I will be a yes vote. I believe that my senior senator, Chuck Grossley, is also a yes. All Iowa delegation members were a yes in the House last night. I think it is responsible for us to move forward on this deal. We see significant headway in deficit reduction of $1.5 trillion.

We are putting work requirements on those that are receiving welfare. These are a number of excellent steps that we would not have gotten otherwise. We do have the hard fact that we are in the minority here in the Senate. We don't have the White House. For heaven's sakes, people, if you want a different outcome, let's make sure we flip the Senate and that we do get the White House.

Then we can move ahead with very ambitious goals.

So Ron DeSantis. I think this moves is strong. Ron DeSantis came out and said you guys should have 55 Republican senators. He blames President Trump, obviously, competing him, saying you're basically the wrong Dom Bullduck in New Hampshire, the wrong candidate. I think Dr.

Oz was strong, but Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania. Uh the senator, uh the the senate candidate over in Colorado. Do you believe you guys should have had 55? Yes, I actually do, Brian.

I think we should have had the majority in the Senate. You know, whatever that number was, we should have had the majority. And we've got to have folks that will come forward, all the right candidates that are stepping up, saying, you know what, I want to serve my nation. I'll do it in the Senate. I'll do it in the House.

And then we've got to work to get them there as well. We need quality candidates, but we also need a strong platform on where do we want to take our nation. We have to be inspirational to the American people. We've got to help guide that message as we're out campaigning. Yes, we should have had the majority.

So let's talk about something else. We've got two more topics. One is you have found out with Open the Books that we have given millions, millions upon millions to Russia, sometimes through China. At a time in which this country invades another country, they've become a pariah nation, and we're leaning on sanctions. What did you discover about the money American tax dollars going to Russia?

Oh my gosh, we have so much waste that is going to Russia. It is outrageous. Dollars are hardworking taxpayer dollars that are going to China. And it is done in a number of ways.

Sometimes it's done through grants, as we have seen, through the work of Open the Books, of White Coast Waste Project, all of these great organizations that dig in, find out where those taxpayer dollars are going. But they're going to things like gender studies. They are going to issues like puppy parts, purchasing puppy parts at the wet markets in China, studying transgenic mice in China. A million bucks went to cats on treadmills in Russia. And this has got to stop.

And Mike Gallagher, Congressman, of course, over in the House, he's working with me on an effort to actually stop dollars from going to China and Russia.

So my squeal award this month is going to the Department of Treasury. You know, we can't continue to do this. $1.3 million sent to China and Russia from 2017 to 2022. $490 million paid to Chinese organizations. Why?

$870 million to pay to Russian entities, which you have to watch, and I know you know, we're financing these developing countries and educating them on gender studies and on gay rights when we should be talking about things of national interest. And this State Department is going in the entirely wrong direction. Yeah, you are absolutely correct, Brian. And why are we spending those dollars, sending them overseas to our adversaries when we're having a debt ceiling argument and debate in the Senate? We have got to stop that.

I don't see the benefit of sending money to our greatest adversaries when we are faced with these votes here in the Senate, raising our debt ceiling. and trying to focus these taxpayer dollars on the things that we should be spending on, like military, like strengthening the platforms and the survivability for our men and women in uniform. By the way, yeah, with the financing, I would have voted to pass it. I saw how hard Kevin worked. But the fact that defense spending is under inflation dollars is nuts because we're sending the wrong message to China and our adversaries that were not serious, let alone the recruiting problem we're having.

Mm. You are again spot on, Brian. These are the issues that come to the forefront when we recognize we've got a problem. And the problem is that we have a Democratic Party that believes on spending more domestically on issues and ideologies that have no business being Paid for with taxpayer dollars. When we talk about wokeism in the military, all of these efforts cost money, and yet we're not spending the dollars on survivability and lethality within our military.

But again, it goes back to the fact that we have to have the majority. We have to have the right person in the White House. All of that matters. If we want our agenda to to move forward at all, we have to have the majority. You know, there is no question about it that we would be so much further ahead if we had a different president, if we had a majority in the Senate.

But we can't go back and try and relive yesterday. We've got to focus on this upcoming campaign. We've got to focus on getting quality candidates. Then we can enact our agenda and really do the right thing by the American people. I hear you.

And let's just see if it happens this time, because I know you're talking about Donald Trump referring back to 2020. If he looks ahead and just runs on his Policies, he'd be even stronger than he's running right now. Lastly, just I know you go and you have an interest more than most senators in what's happening in Ukraine. What can you tell us about this offensive? And do you believe we're giving them what they need to be successful finally?

I know it's gone too slow, and thousands have died because of that. But would it no high Mars, no Patriot? They get Patriot, they get high Mars, no tanks, they've got to get tanks.

Now there's no F-16s, we're going to train them on F-16s. This stop and start and this timid way in which we're approaching this is maddening. What do you think, Senator? Yeah, Brian, we've had this discussion so many times. I'm an adamant supporter of Ukraine and pushing back on Russia.

No. Are we getting them what they need on time? No, we are not. No, we are not. And all of those items that you've listed off, I have pushed for those.

In the beginning, when the Ukrainians say we need XYZ, I push for that because I think they know their military quite well. The problem is this administration, they're so slow to the gate. They're slow to get out of the gate. They're slow to deliver. We've got to do better.

They are getting ready for a large counteroffensive in eastern Ukraine. We should be enabling their ability to win and to press the Russians out of Ukraine. And yet we're so slow. We are so, so slow. It's on this administration.

And I'll continue to press for it. We've got to enable a win in Ukraine. Have you seen the battle plan for the surge? I have not seen the battle plan. No, that is not something that I am privy to, but I do believe in the ability of the Ukrainians.

We do have members of our armed services that have been teaching them in Poland and other places. They are strong, and they are going to fight to the very last, man and woman, to retain their sovereignty. And guess what, Senator? If you kill 42,000 civilians, that will motivate a population, and that's what they're doing. In my view, the Russians don't have the wherewithal to attack the Ukrainian army, so they kill the women and children, and it's just gutless and cowardice.

And there's right and wrong in this. And I just think that the good guys have to win, and we have to make sure it happens. Senator, great luck. Congratulations on putting this big event on Saturday. It's going to be great.

We look forward to carrying the highlights on One Nation on Saturday night. Appreciate it. You bet. Roastandride.com. All right, go get them.

Joni Ernst, thank you. Expanding your knowledge base. It's the Brian Kill Meet Show. Yeah.

From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Killmead. Hey, welcome back, everybody. You know, I'm just thinking, we've had such a great hour. Brett Forrest of the Wall Street Journal and Senator Joni Ernst, and of course, of GRISU, 1866-408-7669. I was wondering if we should end this hour with more to know.

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Paid for by Spirits Capital Corporation. Absolutely.

So let's get started. Chalk Tank Barbara Corcoran warns that a bloodbath is coming from a certain real estate sector. Listen up. It's great to say pennies on the dollar, but no one has the confidence to buy it now. No one really believes it's going to turn the corner.

You know, people are staying home. Our best office buildings in Midtown Manhattan are 50% occupied. And in most major cities or even secondary cities, we have a 20% vacancy rate. No one wants to take that chance. You know who's going to take it in the gut?

Are the banks, the regional banks, the small banks who have financed it. And a lot of the different funds have come out now, and they're late on their mortgage payments to their lenders. And that's not a good sign. I don't see that turning around. I think it's going to be a bit of a bloodbath before it gets better.

Yeah, Corcoran went on to say it's a Mexican standoff. According to Bankrate, The 30-year fixed mortgage rate is about 6.8%. March 2023, it'll be 7.13%. It is, and now in May, home buyers and sellers are staying put. No one's buying anything.

And if you're 50% full, maybe you can't make your mortgage payment, you can't make your mortgage payments, all hell breaks loose. Look out for commercial real estate.

Next. Timothy Blinick found guilty in Family Feud murder trial. This lunatic was actually on Family Feud. Listen to what he said. What's the biggest mistake you made at your wedding?

Coney, I love you, but said I do. Yeah, right, it got worse from there. Evidently, after 14 years, she divorced him, told all her friends: if something happens to me, it's going to be his fault. He hopped on a bike, went in, climbed in a room, and shot her 14 times for every year they were married. What a nut case.

And how sad is that?

Now, one goes to prison, the other one's dead. Who's going to raise the kids?

Next. Oh, is that true? This music could only mean one thing. I've been denied my next story. And the end of the hour is here.

Is there any way we could go longer? No way? I mean you can you can ask Erica by saying please but I can't. Can I get more than 60 minutes in an hour? This way we don't have to we have to change the brake structure.

You could listen on one and a half speed. No, that that would be fat. That would be actually actually quicker wouldn't it? From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Killmead Show.

So glad you're here. We come to you from 48th and 6th in Midtown Manhattan. We're heard around the country, around the world. You can also get the podcast at BrianKilmeShow.com, wherever you get podcasts.

So many of you are getting it. It is great. This hour we're going to be joined by the president of Freedom Works and Adam Brandon. We'll find out the key no votes and yes votes when we talk about raising the debt ceiling and so much more. And we're also going to talk to Ben Dominic, a matter of moments.

And Stuart Varney has met my price. I will allow my audience to be with his audience, and we'll do a simulcast with FBN.

So let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. He offered us the opportunity to come look at it in a private chip, but he was going to redact it. My experience with getting documents from the FBI when they're redacted, they're very, it's all black lies, they don't show anything. Right, and that's why he might go take a look, but it's not going to stop the subpoena.

Just show us the unclassified documents. Stop with all the half measures, Christopher Wray. That is the message from James Comer. What is the form? Why can't we see what the whistleblowers are saying, writing, and talking about?

This is getting ugly. Number 10. You know, he was a very disloyal person. He had no chance of winning the election. I got elected in 2018 by 32,000 votes out of more than 8 million votes cast.

That was then, and then he had a huge election four years later. The big guns, both in Iowa, Trump and DeSantis. His new guys announcer, ready to go, Christy and Pence. We have it all. Number one, the final total 314 to 117.

149 Republicans voted yes, 165 Democrats voted yes. Deal done in the House. Not before 71 Republicans said no. The debt ceiling agreement now moves to a divided Senate. We talk about the GOP gains and the fallout as default looms if the CNN, if the Senate balks.

Ben Dominich joins us now, Fox News contributor, editor-at-large at the Spectre World host of the Ben Dominich podcast. Ben, welcome back. How did you feel about that vote last night?

So, that vote played out in pretty much what I expected to happen, Brian. For the past several days, I've been in close contact with the sources that I have on Capitol Hill just paying attention to this. And one of the things that was really clear was that once they beat the hurdle of advancing the rule in order to have this vote proceed, it really was a foregone conclusion that ultimately this would pass. The Democrats don't want to default, and the White House kind of put them in a bad position. A lot of them, I think, were frankly quite resentful of a number of the things that Republicans got in there, and especially when it comes to the energy side of the equation, things that Joe Manchin likes, things that Republicans like when it comes to permitting, et cetera.

But there are other steps as well that are in there. And that really was a decision that Thomas Massey, a congressman who is obviously familiar to Fox Viewers, was a critical part of that. And obviously, he's a staunch fiscal conservative. He was one of the few. People to oppose the kind of spending that we saw under COVID, under President Trump from the right.

And this time around, he went along with this because he sees enough in it that is good. And keep in mind that the overall story here is one of the Democrats didn't want to do anything. They wanted a clean, quote-unquote, clean debt ceiling hike where they didn't give Republicans anything at all in order to make it happen. Joe Biden thought that he could outlast Kevin McCarthy and the narrow majority that they have in the House, and he turned out to be wrong. And ultimately, the Republicans were able to extract some things out of this in a way that I think is positive.

Now, is it as good as the deal that was made when they had a 240-person majority back with John Boehner and you got the sequester and things out of that? No, it's not as good as that was. But then you had a much bigger majority, and you had a lot of other factors that were going into that, especially with Barack Obama worried about his political future.

So this time around, I think what you could say is Kevin McCarthy played a relatively weak hand extremely well and got a lot more than Democrats would have liked to do. See, that's the way I feel. But I can't follow up, for example, the OMB is supposed to, you know, you have to get that money and reprogram it from the pandemic money to something else. They say it's going to sit in the Commerce Department. They don't know what's going to do with it.

They say when it comes to the pay go, there's no enforcement because OMB has. To enforce it.

Well, doesn't Congress have to step up there and make sure they do what they say they're going to do? Here's Mike Lee. I'm with you, Ben, by the way. I think it's the best he could have gotten. I really respect the communication skills, too, of Kevin McCarthy speaking to the press, keeping us all informed.

Here's unlike the President of the United States, who did nothing, including actually negotiating, did zero. Here's Senator Mike Lee, cut away.

Now, the consequence of this surrender in this bill. are grave. If enacted, this bill would grant President Biden everything Without Meaningful safeguards or provisions to address the pressing issues.

Well, it may be hailed. as some sort of triumph of bipartisanship. The American people will ultimately bear the brunt.

Next, here's Dan Bishop cut six. I think the indication in the vote that more Democrats voted for the bill than Republicans did, and of course, Republicans have a larger number of members in the chamber. is a sign who got the best of the deal. And that the benefits of the deal, as sold by the leadership, have not, they haven't been square with the American people about it. And you have other people trying to make a move to oust him, and among the people on your side, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Congressman Massey.

Yeah, well I think, first off, the idea that Kevin McCarthy is going to be ousted after a vote where he won 67% of his conference to his side is just ludicrous. I don't take that seriously for even a minute. But I do think that in responding to both of these, first, when Mike Lee is saying this, I agree totally with his overall ideological frustration with the fact that we have this scenario where we're going to just continue spending money. It's ludicrous that we have just a default assumption that this high level of spending that we saw during the pandemic is just going to continue going forward. That's unacceptable, and it's a long-term problem.

The issue, though, I think here that we need to understand is, and especially I think to Congressman Bishop's point, I think that what people are underestimating about this scenario is that if McCarthy and his team had not approached this the way that they did, there was going to be a point where default is in the immediate, is right around the corner. And that's when Mitch McConnell would start getting involved, and Chuck Schumer would start getting involved. And that's the point where you end up with a much, much worse deal at the end of the day, maybe even just a cleaner. I thought so, too. And I think that that you can't trust the moderates in the House too, the moderate House Republicans who want to avoid that, to not just have a discharge position that basically says, okay, you know what, we can't get any deal.

We don't want to default. We're just going to kick the can on this thing. And from my perspective, Extracting some things, even if it is not a perfect plan, even if it leaves all of these other major problems, extracting some things in this moment when you have this slim House majority, that's good. It's a positive. It's better than what the alternative would have ended up being, I think, if you had had a McConnell and Schumer-led deal go forward.

All right. And listen, that's the way it is. We'll see if the Senate moves forward. They're going to move quick. They don't want to kick it back to the House.

Schumer knows that will be problematic in a big way against him. Andy Biggs said we were told we would never put a bill out that would get more Democratic votes than GOP votes, and that's what happened. But he was going to be a no vote. And if I take these guys in the Freedom Caucus, they're sincere. I get it.

I want to point out something wrong about what Andy Biggs said there. There's no way to control for that. When you have a sis slim of a majority, you can't actually control. I mean, and especially with the final way that that vote came out, as soon as Republicans saw that it was going to have plenty of votes to pass, that gives you provision as a fiscal conservative to vote against it.

Okay. And so I think that this is that's the idea that you would have some kind of approach that would say we are never going to have a a bill come to the floor that has more people on one side voting for it than the other. You don't have the control over that. What you can control is having things go to the floor only if you think it's going to get a majority of your own conference, which this did. Ben Dominich with us, and we'll take a look at that.

We'll see what happens in the Senate, and we'll see where it goes from here. Mike Lee's against it. Senator Bernie Sanders is against it. Senator Joni Ernst is for it. And we could also say that Senator Tim Scott's against it.

And let's speak about 2024. Tim Scott's got a message. He expects to put a lot of marketing out there and get out of single digits into double digits. Ron DeSantis has been out for a couple of days, full force as a full candidate instead of rumored, thought to be, would like to be, thinking about it. He is now out there.

Here's a little of Ron DeSantis on the stump on what he would do, CUD 18. We will reinvigorate our military by ensuring on day one all the politics and all the sideshows stop. We're going to focus on mission accomplishment. We're going to focus on merit and achievement. And we're going to reverse these poor recruiting trends because we need to have a strong military if we want to have a strong America.

And part of that is because we understand we have one peer threat in this world, and that's the Chinese communist. The war on woke is not backing up. He's not backing off the six-week abortion ban. He's not backing off what they're calling book bans, which is inaccurate, appropriate books for the appropriate age. They don't say gay bill, which is not accurate.

Not talking about gender studies and telling picture sex with toddlers and with elementary school kids.

So he's pretty much taking on Trump, but moving forward and taking on Biden. Do you like the early approach, even though he's trailing by 20 or 30 points? Look, I think he's very much narrow casting at this point to these early states, especially, you know, we've just seen him in Iowa. He's going to focus on these early states. He has a team that obviously has a lot of people who, you know, last time around, several of them were with Ted Cruz.

He obviously won Iowa last time around. And I think that this is kind of a focus on, look, I've got to knock out these early states and have victories or close to it in order to have any shot of beating Donald Trump. And I think that that's a very practical way to approach things. You know, it still is a bit hinky. It's not really the smoothness that you would necessarily see.

I do think that they're rolling out Casey DeSantis is a smart move. It's helping personalize him. It's reminding folks what it's like to have a young family in the White House, something we haven't seen in a very long time. But I also think that one of the things that is really going to be key going forward is how he can talk about these issues that are in Donald Trump's wheelhouse, namely immigration, crime, law and order sort of stuff. And of course, foreign policy, where I think that, you know, frankly, Donald Trump proved that he could connect with voters last time around.

And I think that one of the big, we've seen this criticism about COVID, for instance. One of the big things that I think we need to see from Ron DeSantis is to say how he would have handled the summer of Floyd differently. You know, we're talking, you know, this is the anniversary of all of that, and all these people, you know, are looking back at the horrible nature of that summer. And I think that what we need to hear from Ron DeSantis is what he would do differently as president when it came to the immigration problems, the border problems, the law and order problems, where a lot of us feel like more needed to be done under the Trump administration. And obviously, there was a lot of bureaucrats and a lot of courts who worked to stop him.

You know, how would the outcome with Ron DeSantis in that job be different? Going after DeSantis on COVID, it would be like saying that Aaron Judge has got doesn't hit for power. I mean, you've got to be kidding me. Andrew Cuomo did a better job. Who are you kidding?

I mean, come on. The only person who really believes that is Andrew Cuomo, and I'm not sure he 100% believes it. And I'll say this: not as blatant as that, Ben, but I would also say going after Trump on the border is a little crazy, too. He fired three HSS directors. You know what he did to get the wall.

It was Paul Ryan that didn't deliver on the wall funding and Mitch McConnell, and then he repurposed defense funding, and then he paid for it. And Joe Biden lets it rot in the desert.

So you might say, well, ultimately, Chris Christie has the same R attack. Ultimately, he's just not vulnerable there. I think people know what the wall meant to him. I absolutely think you're right about that. I think, again, it's kind of the effectiveness thing.

Do you like Donald Trump's policies, but do you wish that he was more effective at making them happen and getting around the roadblocks thrown up by, you know, frankly, you know, he's again, he does not come from the world of government, did not come from the world of government, didn't necessarily know how to pull all the levers, and didn't necessarily know the way to make things happen, you know, as effectively as he could in the private sector. And I think that Ron DeSantis basically has to argue: if you like these policies, I like them too. I'll get them done. And if he is able to advance that argument to enough people, and this is the other thing, you know, Brian, in the world of media, you have to be on one side or the other here, it seems like, or at least that's the thing that people expect. You know, you criticize one side and I hear it in one ear.

You criticize the other side. I hear it in that ear. But one thing I think people should understand is most voters. Most liberals in in the Republican Party like both of these guys.

Okay, and and they actually are going to end up having to make a decision about who they want for this time and this moment. I think that that's really important. It came up on local radio yesterday with the former president, uh, news radio uh WHO ten forty, cut sixteen. You know, DeSantis and or as I call him other things. I won't use that because I'll keep it nice.

But you know, he was a very disloyal person. He had no chance of winning the election. He was down by many, many, many points. It was over. And he asked me to endorse him.

I endorsed him and all of a sudden he's running against me. I mean, I endorsed him. He went up like a rocket ship. The election was over when I endorsed him. And I'm a person that believes in loyalty, and I don't like that kind of loyalty.

So he made his choice. I think he hurt himself very badly with MAGA and the MAGA voters. Has he? I don't think he has. I mean, what I hear, frankly, and I still hear this, I was in Oklahoma just a couple of weeks ago, and the people there were sort of saying, why can't these guys just figure out a way to get along?

Because we all have to be at the end of the day, if you're a Republican, you all want to put the hat on of the guy who ends up winning and being able to work together. And that's something that I think is really important. But just given how much this has ramped up to 11 so quickly in terms of the sniping back and forth, I just think that there's going to have to be a real come to Jesus moment in the wake of however this primary turns out, because I don't think that it's going to be quick to put to bed in terms of the animosity. But you know what, Ben? It's going to be fun to cover.

Yeah, absolutely. Good for us, Brian. I love it, right? Just hearing you get so excited, I realize how unique to this. I mean, this is a former president running to come back and take the White House away.

It's historically unprecedented since Grover, Cleveland. And so I just think this is the kind of thing that, you know, if you have a bug for politics, this is a fascinating moment. It really is. And we'll see what happens, especially when that president comes back and is leading the rest of the field by such a wide margin for now. Hey, and by the way, the only one that can get these huge crowds still.

And he's probably the most known person in the world. Ben Dominich, thanks so much. Great to be with you, Brian. We come back at your calls: 1-8-6-6-408-7669. There's a lot more to come.

Brian, Kill Meat Show. Both sides, all opinions. It's Brian Killmead. A talk show that's real. This is the Brian Kill Me Show.

We are back just a couple of minutes here. Let's try to get in Rosemary from WDBO and Orlando. Hey, Rosemary. Hey, Brian, I'm a longtime listener. I love your show.

I love you. I just had to make a comment about Donald Trump. I am a very strong Republican. But I cannot after. I hope he's listening to this.

I hope he realizes how other people are. Uh viewing him. He s acts like a petulant child, and after going after Kayleigh McInani the other day, I will never vote for him again. That's my comment. Yeah, a lot of people are upset.

Like, for example, my point with Kaylee, if you have a problem with anybody that you're friendly with will work for you. Cool. Text her. Why rip her on a public social media platform? It doesn't make any sense.

And Rick Rinnell doubled down on it, by the way. Rick Rinnell, the former ambassador of Germany, I think. He came out and said Kaylee's been disloyal.

Well, that's not her job as Spiela. Her job is now to be an analyst and a host and an anchor and report the news. And no matter who you want to win or don't want to win, Your goal is to do what you're hired to do and also answer to your audience, not a person.

So it was a brushback pitch that didn't work because Kayleigh McEnany is beloved in the Trump world. Listen to the Brian Killmeat Show. Who calls next? A radio show like no other. It's Brian Killmead.

for the first time in more than a decade. Congress will spend less next year than this year. In fact, Fiscal Responsibility Act is the only bill that reduces overall spending, reduces non-defense spending, and reduces the deficit unlike any other debt limit increase in recent years. History. And that is very happy.

Kevin McCarthy yesterday, as his debt compromise, debt ceiling compromise, goes over to the Senate. 71 Republicans did not vote for it, but 314 overall legislators did to 117.

So it moves forward. 71 Republicans voted no. 46 Democrats voted no, including people like AOC, people on the way far left didn't.

Some of the ones like Jim Jordan is noteworthy. Marjorie Taylor Greene is a yes. Jim Jordan was a yes. Tom Massey was a yes. Why?

For Massey's case? Because he's got a guarantee of his 12 appropriations bills that will pass. And if they don't pass them, then they get 1% off the total spending until they, of course, do it. But that passes the House. Let's see what happens when they grind it up in the Senate.

Adam Brandon joins us now, President of Freedom Works. And Adam, welcome. Hey, thanks so much for having me. This is actually a really important topic that we're talking about, not just what happens with the bill, but what happens with the debt. This is we haven't had a long been about a decade since we've had a serious conversation about debt and deficit as a country.

And frankly, it's It's time we start doing it, especially ahead of a presidential cycle.

So Newt Gingrich said, hey, you know what? This begins it. This is much you can do with the debt ceiling, but when you get power and you have the House and you can do actually the budgeting, this will continue the path. He had three straight balanced budgets, but he said that didn't happen right away. You just can't support this, though, Adam, right?

My organization in all transparency, FreedomWorks, we key voted against the deal. We thought there could have been there was a lot left on the table. That being said, if I'm going to approach this with a glass half full attitude, it's that okay, like the Speaker Gingrich said, this is the beginning of the conversation. But let's be frank, in the next ten years, right now we're talking about thirty one trillion dollars in debt today. In ten years, we're going to have over fifty trillion dollars in debt.

And this deal really didn't do anything to change that.

So the debt is still a massive problem. If anything, this is a speed bump. But I think that we're at an inflection point as a country.

So look, anyone who's going to engage in the conversation on how we get spending under control, I'd like to be part of that conversation.

So here's Carlos Jimenez of Florida, cut nine. He wasn't at the negotiating table and we don't have all the power. It's really good to sit outside and not be the person in the arena actually doing the negotiations and then criticize whatever comes out. I hate to say that about the Senator, but that's reality. Look, I think we got the best deal that we could with the cards that we have.

We need better cards, and that has to come in 24. And if we do have those better cards in 24, the results will be much better for the American people. He's referring to Rand Pohl and Mike Lee, who are very critical, and they're not going to vote for it in any way, shape, or form. But I will agree with when we're talking about a lot of this will be settled in twenty four. That's one of my concerns with this bill is it really punted until after that election.

And that's kind of a game that I see played again and again in DC. We'll take a deal, the cuts will come later on, the cuts will come after the next election cycle. And everyone keeps calling back to this, well, we don't have enough people to pass this.

Well, what does that mean? You need to have the White House, you need to have sixty plus senators, you need to have an overwhelming majority in the House, and that's just never going to happen.

So what we need to figure out a way to do is actually get spending under control when you don't have all the cards. I mean, this is, I think most of your audience has played sports or poker. You never get the field you want. You have to try and advance as far as you can when you have the opportunity. I think in this bill, we could have gone further.

Okay, we're moving on now. But when you get to the next step of this, what I'm hoping is we just don't forget about debt and deficit until after the election. I think actually for Republicans, if you focus on culture wars only in this upcoming election cycle, I think you're going to lose the independents. I think the independents in America know that this bill is coming due, and they want to see responsible leadership on getting spending under control. Right now, Donald Trump has about a 30-point lead overall and a pretty substantial lead in just about every early state.

Do you expect that to ste to to maintain itself?

Well, normally I would say no because I look back at Jed Bush and it's like this early in the race, it's about name ID and the race hasn't begun.

However, one thing I think is a little different about this race is President Trump is he's kind of running as the incumbent more than as someone who's just in an open primary. And that does give him a little bit of an advantage. And then also if I look at how the numbers break down, Governor DeSantis is incredibly popular with college educated Republicans, but Republicans without a college degree, that's where Trump draws his main base of support.

So what I'm looking to see is does DeSantis start to cut in to the non-college educated Republican primary voter? Because if he does, he's going to be in much better shape. But if you go back in the past, Remember Donald Trump struggled in Iowa the first go-around. Ted Cruz actually won that. And so if you go back, I think if you're Donald Trump, if he does struggle in New Hampshire and he does struggle in Iowa, that certainly doesn't mean he's out because his strength actually is going to come a lot later in the primary space.

I want you to hear some of the sparring he did with a local radio station on DeSantis because a lot of people are uncomfortable when DeSantis goes to Trump. Trump has been leading the charge in the hits, and DeSantis just now firing back. Listen to this, Cut 17. Governor DeSantis' people would disagree with you that they did not lock it down. Oh, well, he locked it down.

No, he did. It's a point. I disagree with that. In fact, he closed down the beaches. In fact, we have him saying it on tape.

He closed down the beaches. He closed up schools. He locked that state down. In fact, if you remember, he didn't want people coming into the state. He wanted to close down the highways, and we rejected that.

So Donald Trump going after Governor DeSantis on the pandemic handling, which is odd.

Well, this is I think I made a reference to this earlier. We're going to get really sucked into this presidential race as an American society. We always do. But if you look at this, the House, the House is such an important part of how you govern. The House is where spending comes from.

The House is, if you're going to have legislation move, you got to move it through. The House, it's arguably the most important policy branch of government. And if we get so caught up in the fight between the presidential candidates, we lose sights of policy. I think we may lose sights of the real goals in 2024, which would be, from my perspective, not just the White House, but also the Senate and keeping the House and expanding the House majority. And my big fear is that in the for tat that goes on, we're going to lose where's health care?

Where's reforming our entitlement program? Where's some of these other conversations?

So there's a lot of horse race to happen at the presidential cycle, but I think if Republicans are going to gain in the House and the Senate, they're going to need to show the American people a policy agenda, which they didn't do in 2022. They just ran against Democrats. I think this cycle, Republicans are going to actually have to run and stand on something. How do you feel about the infighting between, we remember famously, it got really personal with Hillary and Obama, got personal with Buchanan and H.W. Bush, got personal with W.

Bush and McCain. People are almost uncomfortable now already with DeSantis and Trump and Trump going at Nikki Haley when he does.

So is this typical? And how does that play out on the national stage?

Well, one thing I want to point to whenever we talk about this is, yes, if you look back at the last Senate cycle, when you go back to, say, Pennsylvania, the Republican candidates just kicked the crap out of each other. And so when you got time for the actual election, they were all bruised and beaten. And if I think you mentioned the Democrat primaries, look, the Democrats moved their primaries away from Iowa and away from New Hampshire to South Carolina for a reason. The Democratic Party is going to stop having Contentious primaries, and they're going to move more to coronations. And if Joe Biden, which I would not be surprised if he uses help, uses the melanoma that he had, to drop out of this race late in October, that would set up a coronation for someone like a Gavin Newsom to go to South Carolina, win, and wrap up the nomination.

Meanwhile, there's a slugfest going on over a team GOP. That's the way it's going to be. My hope would just be that the slug fest is about policy and issues, and it's not about personalities. Because if this is a race about personalities, that would end up favoring the Democrats. If it's an issue about who's best going to move policy forward, that's a good fight to have.

And that helps sharpen your policy and sharpen the fight against the eventual Democratic nominee. But look, Democrats are learning to try to avoid contentious primaries, and Republicans are going to have to learn how to adjust to that world as well. Adam Brandon, final question. The problem is for that in policies, they agree 97%. And if they don't, the most of the Republican Party is with that whole MAGA agenda.

You know, from the border to foreign policy.

So they're going to have to make it about personality, aren't they? No, I don't think so because I think they could. When you look at issues that we're not talking about, look, I remember 10 years ago it was Obamacare, Obamacare, Obamacare. I haven't heard a peep from Republicans about how you're going to try and reduce costs and increase patient choice and health care. I haven't heard a peep about how you're going to put Medicare and Social Security and entitlements on a long-term.

There's lots of possibilities. Substance. Adam's about substance. Adam Brandon, President of Freedom Works. Thanks so much, Adam.

Thanks for having me. Hey, we'll do a simo cast with Barney and Company, then come back with your calls. Don't move. Now, the Brian Kilmead Show joins Fox Business's Varney and Company with Stuart Varney, live on your radio and on Fox Business. Here's Brian Kilmead.

Hey, welcome back. In a matter of moments, we're going to talk a little bit about one of our big three we have not discussed much, and that is the problems that the administration is having, excuse me, the House is having getting Christopher Wray to respond to their requests for information and documents, and he's just not doing it. He's slow-marching, denying he has them. And then finally, with this one whistleblower request, we filled out the 10-23 form talking about a possible bribery of Joe Biden, then vice president, not coming up with it, then admitting he has it, then says, I'll let you look at it in a skiff, and that's it. And that's not going to be good enough because of the redaction possibility.

So let's listen in. It's Brian Kilmy Time. Good morning to you, Brian. House Oversight Chair James Comer. Let's get right to it.

Mayhold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress. It's all about a subpoena for documents that allegedly connect then Vice President Biden to a primary scheme. The FBI says no, but you can come and look at them yourself at the agency. The Republicans say that's not good enough. Is this the right move by Republicans?

Well, I mean, it's not their only move, but to investigate Joe Biden and his family's links to international business and to find out who exactly was doing the trading and what were they getting in return. And then you have an FBI agent who says, listen, I can't take it anymore. I'm going to the FBI and I want you to take this down. This is my complaint. And then nothing happens.

So they go to the House and they go to Comer and they go to Grassley and they say, this is my complaint. Not going anywhere.

So Comer goes back and says, Can you show me his complaint that's written down and taken and sworn to? No, I don't know what form you're talking about, but we wouldn't give it to you anyway. Finally, they admit they have a form, and then he says, You could see it in a skiff, but we're going to redact it first. It's unclassified. I understand if you want names to be redacted.

Comer says, I'll do that too, but he doesn't want substance.

So he says, basically, you're going to get a subpoena. Why doesn't he not comply? Yes, very good question. I want to move on to talk about former FBI Director James Comey. He's blaming Donald Trump for poor opinions of the FBI.

Listen to this, and I'll get your thoughts. I think it's largely because Donald Trump and those around him have seen the FBI as a threat, and so they've taken a blowtorch to try and tear down that threat. It's really unfortunate. The notion that the FBI is some sort of leftist cabal out to get the Republicans is so crazy it just shows you how crazy our times are. It shows you how crazy he is.

Because of how they behaved, right, Brian? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, let's be honest, their actions is responsible for those opinions. Him in particular, he knew that Hillary Clinton was investigating, was causing all this fake uproar with Russia. He knew it was Hillary Clinton's plot and plan to do it.

He knew that John Brennan already briefed Barack Obama president at the time about this, and Vice President Biden was there, yet he still went forward with it. Never said, I don't know if the dossier is true. Really? You don't know if the dossier is true? But you offered Christopher Steele a million dollars to verify everything in it, and he came up empty, and the source wasn't even inside Russia that fed Christopher Steele this.

If we're able to find this out years later, why was he not able to find out in real time? And if you don't want people to trust the FBI, don't look at Peter Strzok's text messages when he talked about how there's a plan to stop Donald Trump and the smelly walnut shoppers and the negative things to say about that. With Lisa Page and Andy McCabe. This is all FBI upper brass that have been disclosed and exposed. And James Comey, I don't love the way he was fired, but man, did he ever deserve to be fired?

Yeah.

Yeah, no doubt. Listen, while I still have you here, I want to talk about the GOP presidential primary. It's really getting it, it was always promised to be interesting, but it's getting really interesting. Looks like Mike Pence jumping in next week, maybe Chris Christie. We had the first, I think, debate coming up in August here on Fox.

Fascinating stuff. And then you have the Democrats who are not going to have any debates. What do you think of that? And they have a president that does not want to campaign.

So he's not even out there raising money.

So he's not having rallies. He's not telling people how bad the Republicans are and how Donald Trump would hurt America. It doesn't even matter. It's the Rose Garden strategy for an aging president, and he's going to use surrogates to get the word out, and he's going to let the Republicans try to tear each other's eyes out. And I think that's going to be the President's plan.

I don't know if it'll fly, but we'll have to see, because he's not going to be able to get much done and look like an effective President in divided government.

So I don't know how he gets past that. And I don't know if you're a Democrat with aspirations and thinks you're going to be president, why you're not running. Didn't stop Ted Kennedy. Yeah.

Didn't stop Pat Buchanan against Bush H.W. Bush. Yeah, Dan to be great. All right, Brian, great stuff as always. Thanks for joining us this morning.

Have a great day. No problem, Ashley. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. 1866-408-7669.

So it's real interesting. Iowa and New Hampshire, again, the focus for Republicans, but New Hampshire and Iowa are not the focus for Democrats. They have blown it up and gone to South Carolina. New Hampshire has it in their state constitution to be the first primary. They're not going to be muscled out.

And in the general, Do you really want to lose New Hampshire and Iowa before you even play the game of one vote cast? You have totally alienated those two states. Listen to Britt Hume talking about what's happening in Iowa right now, and that is Republican, Republican, Republican. You got Nikki Haley there since February, Tim Scott there all day. DeSantis there for the last two days, and Trump comes, is there in about an hour.

Cut 28.

Well, it's remarkable in the sense that he's now referring directly to at least the things that Trump has said. He hasn't really attacked the former President directly by criticizing him or his record directly. But he's going about it the way he is, which is not a full frontal assault. Maybe that will come. But there are risks to that, as I mentioned.

And so we're getting a fuller glimpse of him. And if anyone's going to slow down and close the gap, you would think it's going to be Governor DeSantis out there with his wife, who's unbelievable in front of the camera, as good as anybody I've seen. Of course, with her PGA background as a reporter and her anchor status in Jacksonville, it shouldn't be a surprise. But, I mean, that's how good she is and how well she works with her husband.

So she's going to be an asset. I think she's going to be everywhere, which is amazing because they have three young kids. And I don't care how much help you have, it is absolutely going to be, she's going to have her hands full. Plus, I think some of them are old enough for preschool or something.

So somebody's got to watch them. and they're in a rented house over in Tallahassee. But mostly they're going to be on the road for the next two years. Or let's say at least till next February after Iowa, New Hampshire. 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 Brand Kill Meet Chop from 48th and 6th in Midtown Manhattan. Heard around the country, around the world. Bill Hemmer's gonna be with us shortly. Lee Zeldin's in studio.

I ran for governor, long-time congressman, still serving the National Guard, and weighing in on all things politics-related. You had the tough decision, Congressman. On DeSantis and Trump. You came out and said it was Trump, but here's Ron DeSantis campaigning for you up until the last minute, having these huge rallies on Long Island.

So is he upset at you? I have a great relationship with a lot of these Republican presidential candidates. I think that Ron has been an exceptional governor. I think he'd be a great president. He was a colleague in the House, and now he's in.

It's been interesting watching how the presidential race has developed over the course of the last half a year. It was a little bit more up in the air, could go different directions in December, January, February. I got to say, once the Bragg indictment came out, My observation was it launched Trump into another stratosphere. There were a lot of Republicans who came home to him when that happened. It's being reflected in polls all throughout the entire country.

And it's not a knock on the rest of the field. There have just been a lot of people who have decided that he's going to be their candidate, and he has a commanding lead right now. What I think Governor DeSantis might have looked at was: hey, I have the legislature. We're going into session. Our session ends in May.

Let's put together a whole bunch of different legislative accomplishments, work hard, and then announce there's a Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment where Republicans don't go after another Republicans. There's clearly a Donald Trump 11th Commandment. He goes after all. And he goes after everyone who goes after him. Do you think that's okay?

Well, me personally, I've always loved subscribing to the idea that our competitors are, that the Democrats were going up against in November. But my opinion aside, my feelings aside, the reality is, as far as a decision of waiting until after the legislative session was over in Florida, it might have hurt, I think, underestimating the impact of Trump going after him. I think it did result in. You think you waited too long? When do you get in?

When the attack started happening, you think she should have just changed his plan?

Well, actually, well, for from one standpoint, you would say yes, but here's the other issue that I mentioned a couple of minutes earlier: is I really think that the Bragg indictment. Launched Trump's candidacy to another stratosphere.

So, regardless of whether you are Mike Pence, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, the list goes on. There are a lot of great Republican candidates, prospective candidates, these people who would be great presidents. I just feel like it became much more of Trump's race to lose. When you have Alvin Bragg and the left going after him the way that they are on what was a BS indictment charge here in New York on something that I don't know of anything. But that's just one.

Does it bother you the other two charges? Mar-a-Lago, would it be a different say, you don't think it'll matter? I think that if I was trying to take down Donald Trump and you had to orchestrate. Which charges to go after first? You wouldn't be leading with Alvin Bragg going after this charge in New York County.

I'm not aware of any district attorney in New York ever going after a federal campaign finance violation. And it had the impact. I saw it here in New York. It had the impact where people were looking for the possibility of going in a different direction. Maybe they wanted Trump not to run.

Let's give someone else their opportunity. But once that happened, they were coming home and saying, you know what? This is BS. I'm supporting Donald Trump. And Alvin Bragg is so weak.

I mean, he goes after Danny Penny. Originally, he wasn't going to.

Next thing he has to arrest him because he saw protests in the street.

So weak when he stood up and said, There's no case here. These guys quit. Guy writes a book, makes him look bad. Then he goes ahead with an indictment. No one knows where he's coming from or how this was organized.

But we'll see how this plays out. It's going to come out, and he's going to come back right in February. In the middle of some important primaries. And President Trump is really upset by that. He goes, they are affecting the election.

Yeah, but it might actually help them. In a primary when you get pulled off the road. If February or March. Donald Trump has to sit inside of a court as the defendant in this case for a primary. It may help.

Now, what will be interesting to see how it plays out. Is that there's a possibility it could even end up helping him with independent-minded voters who are upset by this charge and feel like it's a political prosecution? And again, no knock on fantastic other candidates out there. I. I think Braun DeSantis is the best governor in America.

I've said this publicly for a long time. I worked closely with Mike Pence, and the list goes on of Tim Scott, with what he did for the opportunity zones and expanding our party. Even Vivek Ramaswamy has been impressing a lot of people with how articulate and passionate he's been out on the trail. If you asked me to read tea leaves, and I could be wrong, Brian, but if you asked me to read the tea leaves today, I think it's going to be a Donald Trump versus Joe Biden rematch. Wow.

Here is Britt Hume on the expanding field, which is going to get two more candidates, Mike Pence and Chris Christie, cut 27. This Republican field is growing so big now that if they have a debate, they might have to hold it in a stadium, not to accommodate the crowd, but to accommodate the candidates.

So it's going to be fun to see how that works out. I hope it doesn't end up in one of these deals where you have the regular group and then you have the undercard. Separate tiers of debaters. That didn't work very well last time. Let's hope we don't have that this time.

Yeah, and then you had people go to the outside if their poll numbers are down. And then what polls? I mean, who believes the polls anymore? It's not as if they're the standings in baseball where it's a definitive win and loss. But I don't think if Donald Trump has this lead, I don't think he's debating.

And do you think that would be a mistake? I happen to be somebody who's in favor of candidates participating in these debates. I think that the Democrats should have their debates. I think Joe Biden should participate. I think Republicans should have their debates, that the entire field should be participating in that.

So I would encourage everyone to be involved in these debates.

Now, as far as the debate themselves, how they get set up, who's moderating them, the questions, the format, fair questions for candidates to ask and to go back and forth. They try to make sure that it's a level playing field that's a fair debate. At the end of the day, you have to put a process together that will allow, hopefully, all candidates in both parties to be participating. As far as the Democratic side, I think that they would never let Joe Biden get on a debate stage with Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Marion Williamson because that alone might become an existential threat to his general election chances.

They might actually be able to take him down in the Democratic.

Well, Mansko, you know the political mindset. Why is people not going after Joe? Joe Biden, his numbers look terrible. I want you to hear what this political reporter said yesterday, I believe it was on Brett Baer's show, and her name is Meredith McGraw on Biden struggling. Cut 25.

Across the board, President Biden is struggling in the polls when it comes to the economy, his handling of immigration, his approval ratings. He's really in a tough place with his polling right now, and that's going to continue to be a drag on him. It's been interesting to see Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mary Ann Williamson poll higher than we've seen some of the Republican primary challengers to Trump poll.

And I think that's sort of an indication of some of the weaknesses that President Biden has had when it comes to his own party's approval. And yet nobody's running, you know, RFT's a fringe candidate, even though he's got the most famous name in America with a famous dad and famous family. You know, I don't see a lot of a sport. He won't even attack Joe Biden. He's been a friend of mine.

Really? He's been a friend of mine? Is that how you run? You know, he's now polled. In the 20s, and some of these polls that are out.

Closer than most Republicans are to Trump. And there aren't really any tax on Bobby Kennedy Jr. right now. A little different than the Republican field at the moment. It's possible that Bobby Kennedy Jr.

continues to grow. And there are a lot of Democrats who have a concern with competency with President Biden, with age and ability. They're not happy with policy. There's a big opening right now of a disenfranchised Democratic Party base. I remember January, February of 2020.

20. In my life, might be the best moment that I remember of the American economy growing, the border becoming more secure, foreign policy being stronger. It was just before COVID hit. And for anyone who's out there, like, oh, I don't know, maybe the country's lost. We'll never be able to get it back.

It wasn't that long ago when a lot was going right in this country. Since Joe Biden has come into office in January of 2021, so much has been heading in the wrong direction. And I feel like it's not just Republicans who believe this, and it's not just about independence. There are even Democratic Party beliefs. That's why Donald Trump is going higher than anything else, is because his policies look better every day.

And more than anything else, and we get away from some of the drama, and we're seeing a President, just MIA, no sit downs, no press conferences, maybe one next week. Nothing really happens, nothing really gets done.

So you just see it's almost like a zombie presidency. He didn't do any of the negotiating on this. Can you imagine Donald Trump not negotiating on this? He was negotiating in front of the camera with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer on a pool spray. But Lee, stick here and stick around because when we come back, why I thoroughly believe Mayor Adams was so right to take on that Cooney commencement speaker and talk about how great this country was the very next day and what he would have done had he heard the anti-Semitic comments, the anti-Israeli comments, the anti-police comments if he was on that stage that day.

I want to get your take on that because I know you have a real problem, as I do, with Governor Hochul, not only on her, with Danny Penny, the Marine, but on this. Don't move. Educating, entertaining, enlightening. You're with Brian Kilmead. The more you listen, the more you'll know it's Brian Kilmead.

Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshippers, murdering the old, the young, those. Who carry The revolution. the people, the masses. Those who brought the ferocity of the violence, those who need our protection, They will carry this revolution. That the law is a manifestation of white supremacy that continues to oppress.

and suppress people in this nation and around the world. And that is some of the despicable remarks from a CUNY speaker asked by her fellow classmates to give the commencement address at this City University of New York law school commencement.

So she was at it. Everybody knew what she was going to say. And she condemns the police, condemns Israel, condemns whites. And yet no one said anything and they got clops. And there's only four members of their board of trustees that actually protested this.

With me now is Lee Zeldin, former New York gubernatorial candidate, longtime congressman from Long Island. Congressman, you're upset by this, as Mayor Adams should be, as everybody should be, right? For a long time, the City University of New York has had these issues, and they're only getting worse. It's a cancer. And at first, Jewish professors reaching out to me.

They feel like they're no longer welcome. The faculty, student administration is passing BDS resolutions. There's a hearing on anti-Semitism, the New York City Council, built around the schedule for the CUNY Chancellor, and then he no-shows. Last year at the CUNY law commencement, there was a speaker who was similar issues, anti-Semite, going after Jews. And they become lawyers out in the marketplace.

So this new speaker is out there graduating law school, talking about this system that she is now going to enter. She really wants to tear down. It was a call to arms. It was a call to action to tear down the rule of law and calling it white supremacy, going after Israel, accusing them of conducting lynch mobs, calling the NYPD fascist. And for the second year in a row, you had this situation where graduates, family, friends who want.

To go there and just enjoy the moment, the hard work, their dream coming true. They have a law degree. You can't go through a commencement address, a commencement ceremony, enjoy every bit of it without having to listen to that crap.

So I feel like those who are out there offended, whether you're Jewish or not, have every right to feel that way. But where's the action? Right.

And whereas Mayor Adams, when he heard this, gave a call for patriotism the next day, and even said this yesterday. If I was on that stage when those comments were made. I would have stood up and denounced them immediately because we cannot allow it to happen. Stuff like this gives me hope with Mayor Adams. Yes, so the words are right.

Here's the thing: I believe that he's going to have another moment where this opportunity will present itself. And he's going to be on a stage, and he's going to hear somebody with a microphone spewing like that. Exactly. They don't like cops.

So you say the right thing, and you, I, we could praise them for saying the right thing. What happens now? What happens next? And I would say, most immediately, you have a taxpayer-funded university with an administration that needs to be overhauled, and you have students and faculty who need to feel welcomed again. And taxpayer funds, in my opinion, should be immediately suspended in order to enact these changes to the culture and to the administration.

You can condemn. Hate speech. And it's better than the other elected official who doesn't even have the courage to do that.

So I'll praise you for it.

Now we have to step up and do more. And by the way, the other piece is that these trustees that run CUNY, some of them are speaking out. That's great. The New York Post today names names, shows faces. These are the people who are saying that this is bad, and also names names and shows faces of the other trustees who are silent.

We need to have trustees who are all going to stick up for what's right. And if the voters say we want this woman to give this commencement address, just because they voted her to give these remarks, doesn't mean that it is right. As was pointed out by others, there's a difference between free speech and hate speech. This is hate speech, and it has no place. How about this?

She's from Yemen. And she's upset with our country. Bill Thompson is one of those Board of Trustee members who came out condemning it. The vice chair, Sandra Smith, too, put together a joint statement describing Muhammad's remarks as hate speech. Thompson insisted Wednesday that that statement was written on behalf of the whole board.

No, it wasn't. You sign that if you believe that. The other thing is, it's affordable.

So if I my dream is to go to law school, when people say I can't afford to go to college, they're just wrong because there's always something you could do. Three credits at a time, you could always do it. That city university is affordable.

So if I'm sitting in that class and I'm hearing the anti-American stuff, I say, I have to suck it up because I can't afford to go anywhere else. It's got a decent name. You know, they test you, but their opinions just make my life miserable because I got to keep my mouth shut. And one of the professors a couple years ago was giving a sermon in New Jersey talking about death to Israel. The list goes on.

There are some real deep issues inside that city university. It needs to be available.

Well, these deep issues inside the Democratic Party because I think over 45% favor, only 45% favor Israel. In their Palestinian conflict. Where's Kathy Hochul? Where's Joe Biden? Last week, the White House put out their strategy to fight anti-Semitism just before the Memorial Day weekend.

Now you have an opportunity the next week to implement your strategy, to step up and say this is wrong. Tax dollars are going to pay for this at a university. I am going to do everything in my power to stop it. I saw that Fox had an exclusive on a new bill from Congressman Mike Lawler to cut off federal tax dollars to these universities that are empowering anti-Semitism. Good.

Where's the rest of Congress? We need everyone stepping up. We need the president to step up. And as you pointed out, inside the Democratic Party, there has been this push further and further to the left where voices are being empowered, embraced, elevated, promoting anti-Semitism. It needs to be crushed.

I just wonder how much longer the American Jewish vote will stay Democrat. I know Harry Truman delivered Israel. I get it, a Democrat. But right now, it's becoming more and more evident that there's one party pro-Israel and one anti-and you're in the right one. Yeah, this isn't the same Democratic Party.

Right.

Louise Elden, always great to see you. Thanks, Brian. Always taking action, always weighing in. Bill Hemmer's next. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it.

You're with Brian Kilmead. If he would read it, he would know that all the excuses that he's giving us that he wants to protect sources and that's important to protect sources, but that's not an issue with this document the way I read it, and he ought to come forth. They've got to produce this document. You know, they're up against what the Durham Report has said about the shortcomings and the political bias of the FBI. And this is just one more example of them not being forthcoming to the public because the public's business ought to be public.

And there's no reason for a non-classified document to be held in secret. Senator, how damning is this document to the sitting U.S. President?

Well, it's I don't know that. That's what we need to do. You've read it. I read it. Let's put it this way.

There's accusations in it, but that's it's not for me to make a judgment about whether these accusations are accurate or not. It's up to my job to make sure the FBI is doing their job. Senator Grassley is an example of an 88-year-old. 89, I think. I think.

I'd have to Google it. You know, he doesn't look like he's 50. But no one would look at him and say I'm Wait a second, he's lost his fastball. He guy's sharp as heck. Super valuable.

Yeah, so when people bring up things about President Biden, we're not saying every 80-year-old shouldn't be president. Look at Senator Grassley. I'm not sure what his energy is like, but he seems to be non-stop. I think his energy is there's 99 counties in Iowa, and what he has done, I think he's been elected six times. I think maybe it's five.

Sorry, I'd have to go to Google or AI to determine that. I'm not going to do that right now and interrupt this conversation. He goes to 99 counties, every single one of them, for his reelection campaign. Yeah.

That's how you win in Iowa. And you can be so for those people who think that it's ageism, it's not. It's President Biden. We're watching him refuse to talk to people, not do any press conferences, not do any, really any one-on-ones, not weigh in on policy issues, not get involved in negotiations on this debt ceiling, which is so consequential. Bill Hammer here, co-anchor of America's Newsroom, also, I don't know, also a key component of our election coverage, which is officially more than underway.

The field is almost rounded. Don't you think, like I said today to Carl and Dana, I said, Carl Roev and Dana Perino, I said, it feels like the knob has turned as of today. Because you got DeSantis in Iowa for two days, now I'm in New Hampshire, and you've got a Trump Town Hall that you're going to see on Fox later tonight. It's on. Yeah, it is.

And I guess let's first talk about the FBI situation. Sure. So basically, what we understand is this FBI agent came forward and said, I saw some bribery going on, about $5 million that Vice President Biden profited from. I filled out a 1029, 1023 FTN, something, something, something. We'd have to Google it for a while.

But it's one of those things that you take it down, but you don't verify it.

So you take down, okay, this is what this person said to me. That's correct. And I file it away. They're getting frustrated. Nothing happened with it.

They go up to Comer and they say, hey, listen, I did this. I saw this. And go get the form I filled out with the FBI.

So the status of it now is after this phone conversation yesterday with the head of the FBI, Christopher Wray, they went. Will allow them to come to the FBI and read it for themselves, but they physically are not going to give it to them. I don't know what the difference is, Brian, but that's what the FBI is to say. Don't worry about redactions.

So, okay, so what Grassley is saying is when I asked him point blank, is there something illegal? He wouldn't characterize it. He said, It's not my job. It's my job to make sure the FBI is doing its job.

So, where does that leave us? I know Comer's been on our air for months now. He thinks he took a bribe. Grassley did not go that far.

Now, who's right, I don't know. Would it be easier if we got the document and could decide for ourselves? Sure. But it's unclassified.

So, if you have an unclassified document that the Congress has and you're the FBI director, give it to them. What's the problem? The problem might be That the FBI director thinks that these guys are gonna go on a wild goose chase. And they're going to be chasing the wrong tail. And I don't maybe Ray is right about that.

You know, but between Hunter and his his uncle, they A four year investigation into a simple tax. I think it's five or six now. I mean, the head spins on this. But you think about how many countries they went to and how much money they brought in. I don't know.

And how many people benefited? Where is that one? One assumes where there's smoke, there's fire, but the fact that Ray is not turning over this form. Um Might It's possible now. It might leave this thing dead in the water.

If contempt charges don't move forward, doesn't that illegal? Isn't that illegal? It just seemed to me that the whole contempt threat this week just kind of blew right over their head. I think it's coming. Don't you think so?

Okay, all right. Here is Devin Nunez on why the FBI has no choice, Cut Thirty three. For me As just an American out here now, not elected to the Congress anymore, there is no way in holy hell that Ray should be able to get away with what he got away with in 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and don't even get started in what Durham uncovered, where essentially nobody. Was prosecuted at the DOJ and FBI. They are hopelessly corrupt, if I could put it lightly.

So he feels that way. John Ratcliffe says they have no right to do this. Christopher Wray continued. First, he wouldn't admit there was a document. He's like, here's a document, and I'm not going to give it.

And they said, well, you can go watch it and it's reading a skiff. He's like, well, I'm worried because you're going to redact everything.

Well, he's like, you redact names. He goes, I would have redacted names.

So think about this. Three whistleblowers come forward. Then we watched four testify, probably during your show. And one was Marcus Allen. The name comes to me.

All their lives have been ruined because they came forward and watched what they thought was the FBI going a different direction than the one they were trained to serve. I thought the testimony was rather compelling. What is the following? I also think the fact that their lives have been turned upside down is a bit of an indictment against the U.S. government.

I was sitting there listening to them, man. I would not want to be them. And the lawmakers went back and found some tweets that were 10 years old, some of them legitimate, some not.

So they're making the case against them that they're nefarious and they're up to no good. Working within the U.S. government. Um Th these guys. And they don't have a career.

And then I have a career because they talk back.

Well, listen, I hate what Edward Snowden did because I kept saying, why didn't he just use the whistleblower process?

Now I'll go, really? I'm a civilian working in this agency. If I came forward, he said I wouldn't have been heard, and who knows what would have happened to me. And I thought, well, you got to be kidding me. You took the easy way out.

You go to Hong Kong, then you go to Russia. But now, when you see these FBI agents. I get it, but I still don't like the way Ed Snowden operated. Absolutely.

Other people disagree. But I lost my argument when I said there was a pathway for a whistleblower. But I'm watching these careers get wounded. I know when I lose. No one loved what he did.

Also, that crazy guy, we don't even know about that soldier that gave up all that stuff in that chat room that's jeopardizing other national interests for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

So we'll see what happens as this goes forward. I'm just wondering at some point if the FBI disbanded an agency rather than answer questions about the Hunter Biden investigation, they disbanded the whole thing. That's three people. Did you see the White House briefing where the reporter from the New York Post asked John Kirby what he thinks about a corrupt possibility of a family? I think we should.

Do we have that one? I think we do, Alison, right? I think it's 36. Is that correct? 53% of the public, including a fourth of Democrats, believe, quote, Joe Biden was involved with his son in an illegal influence peddling scheme.

There's of course evidence that the president interacted with his relatives, associates from China, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine.

So what do you say to the majority of Americans who believe that the president is himself corrupt? Wow, Jesus. Can I take that question? President the President the President had spoken to this. Uh the President has spoken to this.

Uh and there's nothing to these claims. And as for the the the whistleblower issue that you talked about and uh Um and the the the document. I I I believe the FBI has spoken to that and you're gonna have to go to them on that. What was your takeaway? Here's what I'd say.

When Trump was in office He got that question. Every day. Every day, or at least every week, right? That question gets dropped yesterday, and everybody in that room is stunned.

Some people are even chuckling that the question was asked, and John Kirby doesn't have a good answer based on the long pause that he gave there.

Well, yeah. I mean, it's too. Different worlds. Between what Trump went through And what's happening with Biden? And I think when you factor in the Durham report subtly, not as much, and you factor in the Alvin Bragg stuff and we see then we see a pretty effective Trump machine working out of Mar a Lago, And then you see how, in my view, how bad the policies are economically, militarily, foreign policy wise with this administration.

These are elevating Trump. All these factors are elevating Trump. Maybe he was Unfairly attacked during his years. Maybe he did. He did have a when you look at the Twitter files, he did have an axe to grind in terms of unfairness when it came to especially social media and getting his message out when you see how many people were sidelines.

And in fact, when you look at this court case by Alvin Bragg, there was a reason why nobody else took it up, including him. And he is unfairly prosecuted on an old case that's not consequential in a city that doesn't prosecute crime. And that all helps to lift him up.

So we had a poll today from Quinnipiak. They polled only Republican voters about the important issues that matter to them. You know what was number one? Inflation. Number two, immigration.

Everything else was in single digits. And what are they those are strengths of Trump? Yeah, you could argue that. And we could also argue that maybe inflation over the next year and a half during this campaign, maybe it gets tamed. It's possible.

Not saying it's a guarantee. The economy, whether it's inflation or your wages or what kind of that's or taxes, all that's going to determine not only who's the Republican nominee. But who I think ultimately wins in 2024? Right.

So the borders smashed, 4 million people cure illegally, so many gotaways, millions of gotaways, and we see an unwillingness to admit it or attack it. And then you see foreign policy-wise. Please tell me if anyone you know thinks that we're better off with China right now, we're in a better place. And by the way, can you please tell me where Europe was worse when Trump was there, as opposed to now as we look at a war? And even though I think it's worth fighting and backing with everything that we have, because to neutralize Russia is to our interest and to stop the invasions to the world's interest and our interest especially, please tell me an area in which things are better.

So I think what is very telling, and we took Ronda Santos in New Hampshire for about 15 minutes this morning. I mean, look, I've covered these campaigns for decades, Brian. I am that old. They get better and better on the stump the more and more they do it. And the more questions they take, the more times they deliver their stump speech.

Sometimes it's five or six times a day. Same speech. My gosh, it's got to be boring. He's not working off a teleprompter. He knows his policies because he lived them.

He enacted them through law in the state of Florida. He's got a lot to talk about. There's very few pauses in what he has to say. There's no oz. There's no ums.

He's pretty rat-a-tat-tat. I think his wife helps make a pretty good tandem there. What I see through this, however, is, and maybe you see this with Trump, with Hannity later tonight on Fox, is that you, if you are paying attention, will be able to draw small lines of distinction between each candidate. And there will be some of them. And that's where that's where someone like DeSantis is trying to find an opening.

Guaranteed that it's going to work, but that's his strategy.

Well, I'll tell you what, the whole going after the curriculum in elementary school, that they say so-called, don't say gay bill, I think he's embracing that. The six-week abortion ban, he's not running from that conversation. Trump is definitely different.

Well, not during the Iowa caucus. He will certainly not run away from that. Yeah, he's got to win one of those first. But Trump hasn't embraced six weeks. Correct.

Correct. I think he's more around 15. Yeah.

I think that's kind of what he hinted at earlier. Anyway, my point is: listen to these men and women carefully and see the lines of the distinction they try to draw on policy.

Well, I just think also you have a fascinating with Ron DeSantis over the last few days, just taking on Trump but not dwelling on it, going after it. And Britt Umwaid, and you like Britt, right? I think for the most part, he's still in good graces. All right, good. With Bill Hammer.

Here's Britt on the DeSantis. Tactic which has now been exposed of going at Trump directly about the policies and accusations about what he did and didn't do. And this is Cut 28.

Well, it's remarkable in the sense that he's now referring directly to at least the things that Trump has said. He hasn't really attacked the former president directly by criticizing him or his record directly. But he's going about it the way he is, which is not a full frontal assault. But maybe that will come. But there are risks to that, as I mentioned.

And so we're getting a fuller glimpse of him. Mm-hmm. I I kind of disagree. When it comes to COVID, DeSantis has been out there. He said, man, I would have fired Fauci.

I did my own homework. I drew my own conclusions and I made my own decisions, and Florida prospered wildly because of it. And I agree with that. That's where he's not vulnerable. And just there's areas in which Trump is being attacked to which I don't think he's vulnerable either.

Bill Hammer's here for, I booked him for two segments. The check has not cleared. If that bothers Bill, he will not be here on the other side of the break. Back in a moment. Ron DeSanctimonius.

It's Brian Killmead. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. Hey, Bill, we're back for a few more minutes. Did you have anybody booked for tomorrow's show?

For tomorrow's show, we got a ton. Yeah.

We got Kudlow and Maria Bees coming on. We're going to be following these candidates, too. Right.

The knob has turned, as we said. And we're going to have a review of tonight's town hall with President Trump. Confirmed on that. Right.

And then you have, see, I want to just weigh in on one other thing. What's that? I think that Tim Scott's going to have his moment. I think that this guy, he's got $22 million. He was on with us today.

They're going to have a huge marketing push. He goes, you're going to see. He told me today, he's like, you're going to see a movement. And the other thing is, I think Ron DeSantis is off to a really good start. I've watched a lot of it.

A lot of some people are upset that he has stuff written down on our prompter. I actually don't. I kind of like it. I like the way he went back at Trump. And if I was coaching him, I would say get in the most hostile.

Most challenging situations you can because he goes so deep on policy and the rationalization of what he's done that the better he gets, the better. And I give you the best example of 60 Minutes, when they tried to get him for giving vaccines only to donors in areas that voted for him. He just tore it up. You can. He he is.

Very interesting. Very interesting. And maybe smart policy, too. And a good strategy. And it becomes newsworthy.

Here's my question: if you just camp out in Iowa, can't you survive until January? Yeah.

I I think so. Remember Chris Dodd, the senator from Connecticut? At Christmas time, he moved to Des Moines with his family and lived there. Did he live? No, he flamed out.

Right.

But he made it to the caucus. But he never juiced it. All you need uh my point is, all you need is to be able to pay pay for an Airbnb and you get and you need gas money. Right.

And you can survive. Right.

And Tim Scott's got a million twenty sorry, he's got a minimum. of $20 million already. Right.

Yeah, Tim Scott does. I think DeSantis has more and Trump is earning more. Why do you think Trump is going at DeSantis so hard? Simply because he thinks he's a legitimate threat? Or is it this hard?

I agree with that. No, it is a legitimate threat. Remember Cleveland August 2015 when they blew the lid off that? That was something else. Politics hasn't changed since then.

That was the night everything changed. Cleveland, Ohio, 17 people on the stage. Trump comes out and tries to burn the place down. And he did. And the first the best thing to happen to Trump was to be challenged right away.

He became the centerpiece by the questioners. Yes. Now, Chris Christie says the only reason he's going to get in. is to go after Trump. Is that a campaign?

Did he actually say that? I could find something that is pretty close to. I think there's a part of him who thinks he can win, too. I do. He thinks that the things break his way.

He's a tough debater, I'll tell you that. Yeah.

We'll see. I'll be sure well. I like the music. Listen to the show ad-free on Fox News Podcast Plus, on Apple Podcast, Amazon Music with your Prime Membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Mm-hmm.