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Brian Killmead. Hi, everyone. Welcome back. Brian Killmead Show. With me in studio is Kev McCarthy.
I hate to say it, but former Speaker of the House. Does that bother you? No, once. Look, I. Can I say speaker?
I could say once you've got there's only been 56. That's right. I say speaker's English the whole time. Yeah, no, it's the same thing. But look, would I rather still been able to.
Yeah, but you can never take away. What we accomplished. I mean, what's interesting is. I was speaker, but I've been a Republican leader for five years.
So I always want to look at. Have I left it in a better place that I received it? When I became leader, we were in the minority. We just got defeated in the election. And I remember going to the State of the Union.
President Trump was there and you know one side stands up then the other side stands up. The Democrats looked like America and we looked like the most restrictive country club in America. We're a 98% white male. In those two election cycles, when the Republicans have lost the presidency, the Senate lost both cycles, the governors, the state legislators, we only won. But what did we win?
We elected the most women. Ever in the history of the Republican Party, the most minorities, the most black Republicans since Reconstruction. Look at what we achieved in that time period, too. Not only like that. We have a a four seat majority today.
When I became leader, Nancy Pelosi became Speaker. We gained five more seats in California, five more in New York. We flipped a Democrat seat to Republican that hadn't been done in California since the 1990s. We won the majority for the first, it's only the third time in history, in the last 70 years, that the Republicans win the majority at the same time Republicans were losing, right? And then what did we do with this majority, right?
Well, the first thing we did, it might be inside baseball.
Well, I'm going to bring it to you because I know you were frustrated you couldn't answer this question. You were not on the floor. Oh, God, I wish I would have been.
So when Congressman Chip Roy was so angry that Speaker Johnson passed with Democratic votes a two-tier continuing resolution, which got you. ousted because eight people thought that was the worst thing ever. But this thing this after this, Chip Royce said this. I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing, one. That I can go campaign on and say we did.
One. Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done besides, well, I guess it's not as bad as the Democrats. And you were frustrated because you wanted to answer Chip, who, by the way, was on your side through this whole thing. Yes. You know what?
I would have gone to the floor if I heard Chip say that. And I would have asked for unlimited time, because this is what I would have started with. He said, what has the new Republican majority done inside the House?
So let's walk through what we did. In the very first day on the first option, we repealed all those IRS agents. Out of the House to the Senate. We made the biggest cut in American history, more than two trillion dollars. We passed Work requirements where the Democrats said they would never vote for.
We put a 1% cut across the board. Into Social Security, into welfare. Into welfare reform. This is welfare reform we're doing. We put in there a 1% cut across the board if you don't do all your appropriation bills, something that's never been seen before.
NEPA reform. This is environmental reform if you want to build something. It takes you seven years to build one. For the first time in 40 years, we passed that. Then let's just walk through.
First thing we did, we made sure members no longer could vote proxy. They had to show up to vote. Bills had to come through committee. Then we made sure that you had 72 hours to read anything. That's just structurally changed.
Then when the Democrats wanted to decriminalize carjacking, murder in Washington, D.C., there hasn't been a Congress to stand up to the D.C. courts for more than 30 years, the council. Not only did that, we put it into law. We put a bill across the desk that ended the pandemic. You know what that ended for America able to do?
We put across the desk that you could no longer kick members out of the military if they didn't take the vaccine based upon their religion. Then we passed H.R. 1 to make America energy. Independent, the most comprehensive bill for all the above. We passed the bill for securing the border HR2.
We haven't been able to do this when we had a 30-seat majority. It is the most conservative border security bill in history. But you didn't get to conference on a lot of it, right?
Well, we're going into conference on this. Look, the House can only do the House and then the Senate. Then we passed NDAA, which are then in conference, Parents Bill of Rights.
So this is just within nine months. There was a study done when it came to August. They analyzed this Congress with the last Congress, where the Democrats controlled Congress, the Senate, and the White House. You know who had more bills signed and more bills passed? This Congress.
It's one of the most productive Congresses.
So you were surprised that no one stood up and said.
Well, he did it on a flyaway day. No one knows he's going down to it. Everybody's gone. But does he understand too, and I like him, but does he understand he has provided an ad for every Democratic candidate that wants to be already in people's districts? It's crazy.
So I want to talk about today, and I know this is not, nothing of this is news to you, but it seems to be a rational. Your retirements. By the Democratic side, nine House members are leaving to run the Senate, including Congressman Dean Phillips, who's running for president. Aging, other concerns are contributing to 79% of Americans now support age limits for elected officials. But, George Santos, obviously, how many are you guys losing right now to retirement?
They just don't want to do it anymore.
Well, we're going to have a few that's natural. And what you're going to find is. You're going to see a string of retirements that get announced right after Thanksgiving and right after Christmas.
Some of it pales on the time period when you have to file to run again. The other thing is, you come home. And I expected this out of Democrats because what happens when a party loses the majority, Even though they're They're streamlining to lose the majority. They kind of pressure their members: no, no, stay with us because you can't leave now. If you leave in a bad wind, we'll lose the seat.
So they stayed with it and they went into the minority.
So those members say, I don't want to stay around. I think you're going to see quite a few more, and it's going to be a turnover. And so the natural. On the Republican side, there's a frustration there, too. Could be part what those eight have done.
I've heard from a number of members that way. But that's an interesting thing. Announcing you. Yeah, but there's also a good thing here. Think about Spamberger not running again.
That's because we've been challenging her and almost beat her. Kildie, we challenged him really strongly. Slotkin, she's running for Senate, but we almost beat her. Those are pickups. We are in a better position, even though we won the last two cycles.
Republicans in the House are in a better, we have a better climate to win more seats this cycle than the last two cycles. But between the chaos of the 22 days to decide the new speaker, between everyone seemingly turning on each other, it just looked terrible for 22 days. And it was probably hardest on you. In the beginning, could you describe your mindset? And towards the end, if I could just say for my, what I observed, you started to get angry.
like this is ridiculous. The reasoning they're giving, the more you looked at it and to see them struggle to fill your slot, you mean the it made no every day you must have thought to yourself, this makes absolutely s no sense.
Well, it it's frustrating from the sense that We are the only body that has a majority for Republicans. And I know what the Democrats, what they have done to us, and why we were fighting among ourselves, right? And I. Look, I could always look at hindsight, but it's personal. Who's one guy personal?
No, he's trying to protect his ethics. I get all that. And the few others never voted for me, anyways. And so, but. To have to have 100% is very difficult.
And what was frustrating to me, okay, they did it to me, it's personal to me. But then you went in and you took Steve Scalise out. And then you took Jim Jordan? Jim Jordan, they took out. And I'm sitting there.
And by the way, you swore them both. Yes. And then Tom Emmer.
So what I'm thinking. Here we are, you removed me, but who are some people who could do this job? And the thing that they're not quite realizing, these eight. This is second aligned to the presidency after you're right after the vice president. The responsibilities of this job are different than someone sitting back and looking.
And they're wanting to make a decision. These other individuals, there's more to the job than just policy. There's more to the job than just campaign. And these other three were capable of doing this job. You know, the biggest surprise is the Congresswoman from South Carolina.
She says you did not tell her the truth, and she teams with Matt Gates. You know, it's interesting. She says that, but she never tells you one thing I didn't tell the truth on. I couldn't understand why she was doing this. This is Nancy Mace.
So I called her chief of staff. And it was like a day or two before, I said, hey, I just saw her say this. Is there something? Look, I'm not perfect. I fall, but I can't wave a magic wand.
But is there something I said I would do that I did not try to do?
So I asked him, I said, hey, is there something? I'm asking my staff. And my staff says we've done and followed through. And he goes, no, you've done everything. I said, well, does she know that?
She goes, yeah, she does know that.
So I don't know. And then to see her sit with Steve Bannon and Matt Gates and say, you're the problem, which I don't understand. The thing is, when you get this job, in my view, you have to understand when to sometimes you gotta stand alone, right? And other times you gotta understand you're on a team.
Sometimes you got to explain to your district, for the best thing for my party to keep the majority, I had to do this. Other times you go, Kevin, I cannot do this. We're an oil drilling company or am in the Everlades. I can't do it. There are certain that, but I just don't think these people were ever on a team before.
When Matt Rosendale, I'm interviewing Matt Rosendale and he says, I will never vote for a continuing resolution. I go, but you're not done with the appropriations bills. If you were done with it, he's not saying I'm going to do an omnibus. If you said I'm doing an omnibus, I see a lot of people going, I can't believe we're doing that. But it's just a continuation.
continuation to get what you're supposed to get done. You guys couldn't agree with each other in committee. Why is that your fault that in committee they couldn't agree, Republicans couldn't agree with Republicans? With a difficulty, too, like a Matt Rosendale who said he wouldn't vote for a continuing resolution, which is just funding government while you work out the others. He was voting against bringing the appropriation bills up.
So these eight who were all upset about this, blaming for this, they shut all of government down for a week. Then they'd shut down the rules so we couldn't bring the bill up.
So all they were doing is bringing in, that's why you could see that it was just a personal thing. And I get that. We can move on from there. But they're hurting the whole country and they're hurting the party. It was great talking to former Speaker Kevin Carthy earlier this week.
Had a chance to talk to him on off camera, TV, and radio, but especially radio.
So if you want to hear more of the full interview, go to Brian Kilmeecho podcast. I think you'll love it. Up next, more of my interview with the former Speaker of the House, Kev McCarthy. What will he do next? We Talk China.
From the Fox News Podcasts Network. I'm Ben Dominich, Fox News contributor and editor of the Transom.com daily newsletter. And I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week. It's the Ben Dominich Podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to FoxNewsPodcasts.com.
Wishing you the merriest Christmas ever. It's the best of the Brian Killmeat Show. And we have the whole podcast on BrianKillmeeShowPodcast.com. I want you to listen to it. But here's more of the interview that you're hearing for the first time is released on our show: me and the former speaker.
Does it worry you that President Trump, who is winning in all the polls and beating Joe Biden head-to-head, does not have the same Ukraine vision and does not have the same concern about Taiwan as a guy like you did? Look, I think from the perspective, the president, he was right about the Abraham Accords. He's been right about NATO not paying their fair share in the process. There was no war during that time. I think he engaged.
I watched him engaging North Korea. They weren't testing missiles at that time, too. The world was a different place. Do you think he's somebody who listens? Just like, for example, he's going to pull everyone out of Syria.
And then at the last minute, he said, I'm going to leave it. And there's still 900 people. Look, I watched too. Anytime somebody comes in his present, they get judged. And they were testing him in Syria.
And I remember him sitting down with Xi at Mar-a-Lago, passing dessert, and said, oh, by the way, I got 53 cruise missiles going right then. He knows how to use that diplomacy at the right time. And he's willing to listen to his military.
Something that we watched Biden did not do in Afghanistan.
So in other words, he had Mike Pompeo as his secretary of state. I served with Mike. Mike graduated from West Point, number one in his. In his class. This guy knew what he was doing around the world, too.
What are the stakes if a Republican doesn't win and Joe Biden gets four more years?
Well, I'm very concerned just about. What would transpire? Because if Biden won, I mean, when Biden won when I was leader, but it was the first time since 1994, not one Republican incumbent lost in the House. We were supposed to lose 15 seats. We actually beat 15 Democrats.
Biden is the weakest of any president running for reelection in modern history. I think we'd have a very big night that night. But if we were to lose, think about what happened when we just lost and we only won the House back in four years: the inflation, the runaway spending. It You think they came after conservatives on the internet today? We didn't have AI like we have today.
They would transform. We didn't have Elon willing to stand up and buy Twitter. I mean, they systematically would come after much of our freedoms. Think about what we went through during the pandemic, kicking people out of the military, telling people what they can and cannot do. And this is, and I would never know because I'm never going to have one-on-one.
When you sat and he met you after you became speaker, he said, I want to go meet him. I don't really know Kevin McCarthy too well. And you came over and met when the doors closed and a handful of aides are there. Did you think you were talking to somebody that was That was that had enough to be president of the United States. Look, I'm not a doctor.
What did you think to save these options? And I've known Joe Biden for a number of years when he's vice president. He's an older man. He's not the same man that he was before. And I look, and I just.
I looked in the nineteen sixties. We made a conscious decision as Americans that we started electing our leaders that were in their 40s and 50s. And if America be the shareholders of this country. and say who should run it. We need someone that doesn't put a lid on it.
We need somebody that can go out and talk to us every day and answer. You know, when I went through the battle of doing the debt ceiling, I thought I was at a disadvantage. I had to get. A group of members with a four-seat majority to vote for a debt ceiling. I had 20 who had never ever voted for one and not even knew it.
No one thought this was possible.
So he would just ignore me. And every day I'd go to the mic. But I learned if you went to the American public, it would be different, right? And then once we passed something, it was a different scenario. Um, he's not the same Joe he was 50 years ago, and this is a problem I have.
People say Trump is not the same Trump he was. I have not noticed a difference, but I haven't talked for a great period of time. I'll talk to him for 15, 20 minutes at a time. Do you think Trump at 77 is the same one at 72? The only thing I know about Trump is this is a guy that's never needed sleep in his life.
I've never seen somebody with a stronger work ethic. I've known him for a long time. He is. Far more. Agile and everything else is going on compared to where Biden is today.
And I'm no doctor in that perspective, but I would just say-You don't worry about him getting the job for more years? No, no. Not wrong.
Okay. I know you have to run. Mr. Speaker, it's great to see you. Great to see you.
And hey, I just want to tell you: you're the hardest working person that I know. You do a morning show, you do the radio, you do a Saturday show, and you always come off positive. The one thing I want to tell the American public, and for everyone who's listening, you know, I grew up in a family of Democrats, but I've always been a Republican. And there's a reason of things that driven me. If you ever come to my office, you see Lincoln, you see Reagan, you see Teddy Roosevelt.
And if Lincoln was still here today, he would tell our nation to believe in the exceptionalism of this country. Conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that we are all equal. There's no other country in the world like that. But when you think about it, and people will come up to me, they came up to me and they're like, Oh, I feel so sorry, what happened? I said, Don't feel sorry for me.
I was speaker. I got to be speaker. I said, but if you look at Lincoln. He loses his first race for the State House. He fails in business.
At 26, his girlfriend dies. At 27, he has a nervous breakdown. He loses a race for Speaker, which I admire the most. He g becomes a congressman for one term. He fails in business again.
He loses a race for Senate. He loses the race to become Vice President. He loses for Senate again. Then he gets elected President. He gets elected president in November 1860.
He gets sworn in March 1861. Seven states leave the Union out of the 26th. Never once did he blame Buchanan for his job problem. He took a team of rivals, people who didn't support him, and put him in because they had experience. He built the Intercontinental Railway while he was trying to keep a country together.
If you ever watched the movie Lincoln, and I showed it inside Congress, right? And so the idea here is he had to pass the 13th Amendment. Before the war ended, the Because the idea that he had to build America, and he knew in the Gettysburg Address, where he says this at the end, he says, But if we fail, government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from earth. We're not the world power. But he understood America is more than a country.
America is an idea. And it's more powerful than the world power because it's governed by the people, for the people, of the people. And so the challenge here is, even in downtimes, and this is what you come across to me: you're a happy conservative. And if Reagan was here, Reagan would tell you: if you're a Democrat, Republican Green Party, if you believe in your philosophy that it brings people more freedom, be happy, don't be angry. If you're being angry, it doesn't prove that you're more conservative.
It doesn't prove that you're more liberal. It proves that you don't really believe in your own philosophy and principles. Yeah, well, thank you. And I will say that I'd be much happy working with a Bill Moore, who's a liberal guy, but loves the country and disagrees, and he'll fight you every step of the way. I worry about there's a lot of people in Congress and are sitting down on Manhattan Bridge, blocking it on Sunday that don't love the country.
Yes. And I don't. Really remember a time. That's somehow either we got to say goodbye, fix the next generation and just give up on this one, or let them know that they hit lotto by being born here. And every day they have a chance to play in the Super Bowl.
There's some that weren't born here, that this country, she opened her arms and brought you in like nobody else. And you're one of less than 13,000 to ever have the privilege of being a member of Congress. Why do you hate a country that would do that for you? Up next, Kevin McCarthy, his hidden expertise, foreign policy. We talked about what the border means, a China-Ukraine-Afghanistan deal, and the Afghanistan exit that nobody really understands why no one was forced to have any retribution on.
No one paid the price. Kevin McCarthy with you on a special edition of the Brian Kill Me Show. Keep it here. Here is my interview, a portion of my interview with Kevin McCarthy. Let's listen.
I watched your speech about foreign policy, and it just makes me think that if any Republican wins, it'd be crazy not to tap you for Secretary of State or some type of policy position in the White House. It'd be nuts to not to. Not only do you know what you're doing, but you know how to navigate Congress. It's a skill set that almost nobody has. Number two, it doesn't matter how good a legislator or what kind of leader you are.
If you can't work Congress, you're not going to get anything done. The big thing now is a package to fund Ukraine, fund Taiwan, fund Israel, and the Republicans come back and say an ad in the border. Schumer says I got to get this done before vacation. You have Mike Turner come out and say it's not going to get done before vacation. You better include the border.
Give me the play-by-play of this.
Well, this was some of the discussion ahead of time, too, because remember, all this happened with the speaker's race a few days before Israel got invaded by the terrorist Hamas. Look, what I see happening around the world, it looks a lot like the 1930s. And my biggest concern is in the 30s, you had Italy, Germany, and Japan. building together the axis of evil. You have the same thing now with China, Russia, and Iran, and North Korea.
And what we need to find is make sure we can do the job. I remember having this discussion with then Vice President Biden. About selling weapons to Ukraine so Russia would never invade. I remember talking to President Biden when I was before they invaded Ukraine and telling him sanctions won't work. Those people who used to suffer.
Yeah, Putin has lived under sanctions, still the wealthy man, but this appeasement won't work, and his policies are hurting.
So I spent a lot of time being part of the gang of eight, but traveling the world, talking to leaders. Look, when Israel celebrated their 75th anniversary of the creation, they invited me to be the speaker, the Knesset. I love the opportunity to go seeing the King of Jordan, going down to Egypt, seeing a CC. And you know what a CC said to me when we walked in with the delegation? He goes, I watched all 15 rounds of your vote for speaker.
I love that you never gave up, right? What's unique here is America matters. The president of Egypt is watching what happens to the speaker, right?
So it matters about how we go about this. We need to make sure that we don't have World War III. We need to learn from the mistakes in World War II of appeasement and this idea we can walk and chew gum at the same time, but we can do the border. Can you do it? We can do Ukraine.
And we can do it. Leverage on the border. I don't think because Democrats need actually, the best thing for Democrats, you're not going to like it, is to change the asylum policy and start securing the border and building that wall. You would actually help them in 2024. If you just wanted to play politics, you wouldn't do anything on the border.
You'd just argue about it and you'd cream the Democrats. The biggest gap that the Democrats have on any policy, they're losing all the different policies in any polling, is immigration.
So you know that Speaker Johnson's going to stand up and go, Yeah, I heard him say it. I think Ukraine's important. Yes. You realize most of the Republican Party, at least publicly, like Senator Josh Hawley, and I'm not saying they don't have a right to believe what they believe, but they are against funding Ukraine. And so Johnson gets huge pushback from Chip Roy and company about funding Ukraine.
So if you bundle it together. If you become Speaker, you can't sit and worry if someone's going to throw you out or not. You've got to just do what's right. And I'll go down in history, maybe I got removed, but I did what was right. History will prove that.
And this is the thing I think, too, is part of the reasons why Republicans are opposed. In Ukraine, they think we're just giving money to Ukraine. What they don't quite understand is we're providing them weapons out of our stockpile, and we're using our money to build new weapons.
So, what we're giving them is the iPhone 5, why we go build a new iPhone 4. Or are they making it simple for their district? Do they really know what you know? And they're just saying things with the camera, and they think they're polling in their district, and they're polling in their district and says we're done with Ukraine.
Well, that's really what's happening. But no, but you also have to explain to the American people. People are frustrated. What's happening in the border should not happen. And we shouldn't have to leverage something for the other.
But you know what? This is politics. We're going to and it's the right thing to do. It is. We're going to secure our border.
So, do you think you get this done before Christmas or not? I don't know that it gets done before Christmas because I haven't seen the Senate move anything. And I've told the White House early on, they shouldn't just send us, before they sent that supplemental to us in the back, which meaning the funding for Ukraine, I called them up and I said, you've never spoken to me. Don't send me a supplemental what you think you need. Sit down with us.
I've got a number of veterans, Navy, SEALs, and others, who Fought in the region. And they get it. Why don't we sit down so we know exactly what we need and we have input? That is a better way to going about doing it because you don't want to send any waste. You want to strim through it, see what is needed.
And the other thing I told the White House too is: I'm not interested in just sending money to Ukraine. I want to know what's the plan to win. You don't sit out and go into a battle and hope you win. You put criteria down and you measure yourself. And you know they can't win without an Air Force.
Yes. And we're taking our time training people. And you know that they can't win without attack them. Everything Biden has done has been slow and carried this war on. And the other thing, too, is they sat there and they slowed the war and then they built up all for the summer, but they allowed Russia to have a defense.
I mean, it's just little Ukraine's problem. It's like the discussion with him, what he did in Afghanistan of how he pulled us out created Ukraine because that's what Putin saw. And when he went to meet with Putin, it was just like Neville Chamberlain, Peace for Our Time. He lifted the sanctions Biden did off Nord Stream 2. Nothing in return.
But what he did in Afghanistan by creating those 13 new gold star families by just pulling out, not listening to the military, that has harmed us probably for the next two decades around the world. People are turning towards China because of that. On this foreign policy, right now everybody wants those children and senior citizens out of Hamas-run territory, but there's a huge push to pull back and push for a ceasefire when it comes to Israel. How does Israel get back to hammering Hamas like they need to? And could they have been more precise and lessened the number of casualties that are not related to the terror network?
Look, I think that's very, very difficult to do. And I know everyone's going to try to sit here and judge. But when you have a terrorist organization like Hamas that builds tunnels under a hospital, that uses children as a shield and lies to them, I mean, what Hamas has done to the Palestinians is horrendous. They should want to get rid of it. Hamas is a terrorist organization that are killing Palestinians.
Indians, but by putting them in this place. And what they did on October 7th, I mean, that is. That is our Pearl Harbor. That is. September 11th, that is everything in combined.
You have to destroy. But the reason it's going to be hard to get back to destroying. Because I'm for it. You got to wipe them out. But do we have to go World War II-style wipe them out?
Where we just carpet bomb Berlin? No, you want to be more, you want to be able to have precision. But think of it. I've been to Israel many times. I've watched what transpired.
That kibbutz, I was in just the February before. I see the soccer fields right by there. But what transpired, have you seen the 42-minute tape that is created? I think everyone that can stomach it should see it because it is the body cameras from Hamas. It is their phone calls of what they're saying.
They're posting. They're not fighting the military. They're in slaughtering innocent children and they're chopping heads off and they're celebrating. They're calling home to their mother, I did it with my own hands. I killed 10.
These are people who are unarmed, who are asleep. It's horrendous what has transpired. Hamas harms everybody in the world. But when you really think about this, who funds them and why are they even there? Do you know in the International Monetary Exchange, when Biden took over, Iran only had $4 billion.
They have 70 today. It's because they're able to sell the oil. We have sanctions against Iranian oil. They don't enforce it. They went from 400,000 barrels a day to 3,000 barrels.
It's not. Houthi rebels, Hamas, and Hezbollah have one thing in common: Iran. Iran. And so until we address that and this administration, everyone can make mistakes. But for them to do what eight years of Barack Obama did, they come back and they say, Iran, we're going to welcome you into the Family of Nations.
And their answer is, we're going to create havoc with the money you're allowing us to make. From the first day. They didn't lean into the Abraham Accords. They went after Saudi Arabia. They embraced Iran.
So, what they told us to do. And the Houthi rebels, they took them to the front of the front. And they told them they told our friends. No, we're going to punish you and we're going to pee somebody else. They've created this mess and this climate that we are sitting in.
I just want to get you to know what the Democrats are saying. If we can, Eric, cut number twelve, Ro Kahana. This is what he said. We should go to a ceasefire. Their military capability has been diminished with the bombing in northern Gaza.
But their political support sometimes actually increases every time you have images of children and women killed. That's why there has to be a diplomatic solution. Until there is an independent Palestinian state, there is not going to be peace or security in that region, and America needs to show leadership. I believe our Gulf allies will help us if we bring the diverse Palestinian voices to the table. There needs to be one condition.
Any Palestinian voice at that table needs to recognize the state of Israel, and then we need to work towards an independent Palestinian state. What planet is he on? He's too smart for this. Can you name? And if there was one, I'd love to see it.
A Palestinian official that says, listen, sorry about Hamas. Work with me. Hamas took over Gaza. Gaza was some of the most beautiful land. Right.
They had the most beautiful nurseries. They're sitting right on the ocean. They could be the most perfect. But he doesn't want Hamas in the meetings. He says, I'll have other people.
Is there anything practical about what he said? No. I mean, and he sounds to me. An appeasement in the process. I don't think it's America that can dictate in here.
What has to happen is Hamas has to be destroyed. A mosque, it's not good for anybody in the world. And the other thing, too, is we can't dictate inside Israel. To get to a negotiating table, I think they've got to be able to carry out the mission that they are. They send the leaflets out.
They're trying to provide in the safest manner possible, but they also were attacked. When we come back, what would happen if Joe Biden gets four more years? Don't move. Our gift to you on this Christmas Day. Is this like a Christmas joke?
The best of the Brian Kill Me Show. Here's a little of my more of the interview with Speaker Kev McCarthy.
So, I want to ask you about China. You have given money back from different factions of they will link to the PRC. When you found out about it, you gave the money back. There are other lawmakers who are not. How strong is the Chinese lobby, includes TikTok specifically, or one of it?
And how do I identify it and push it out of America, of Washington? You know, I don't know that any member knows that China would be specific because it would be illegal for them to give. This is my concern. When I became Speaker, I created the Select Committee on China. I literally went to Hakeem and I talked to him about what I want to do.
And my whole idea of why I created this committee at the 75th anniversary of Normandy, I was walking the grave sites with then Speaker Pelosi, and I thought, as policymakers, What could they have done that that day would have never come? Right? These kids are all about the same age. They come from different faiths, from the Star of David to crosses. And it wouldn't be a week or so before.
It'd be decades before. And then I watched in the pandemic. Where, if we were at war with China, in 30 days we'd be in trouble because resupplying. We've let China control different industries, they control 90% of critical minerals. But they control 95% of the processing of critical minerals.
They control 50% of the medical supply and others.
So I wanted to take China out of the partisanship. And we put Gallagher in, who's done a really tremendous job. Very it's been a very good group meeting. We just found A lab. In the Central Valley of California, just outside my district.
You know how we found that it was Chinese-owned? There was a water hose coming out, and it was just a city employee. It's all regulation. She calls The CDC and others, they have Ebola inside there. They have thousands of rats.
They're testing things that they don't have a right to test. No one would look at it. I sent it to the Select Committee of China. They came back where others felt $2 million from China has gone into this lab. This guy's not even supposed to be in America.
He was found guilty in Canada, and he's Chinese and came into America. I mean, they are in our university systems. They're spending a lot of money on spies. You know, one of the first things I did as a speaker to. Kicked Eric Swalwell off the Intel Committee.
Right. If you had got the briefing I had, you wouldn't have him in Congress.
Well, in 2016, China had lobbied. You spent $334 million lobbying.
So they're spending probably more than that now. They spend more than any other country. Think about this: how expensive it is to have spies everywhere. That spy that Eric Swalwell had the relationship met him when he's a city councilman, helped him when he ran. The driver for the late.
Senator Feinstein for 10 years was a Chinese spy. They focus on the Silicon Valley. Why? Our technology. But they focus on our college campus.
Where did Eric Suawo meet him? Not on a high university, but on a small university. He met this individual. They are in Iowa. They care about our farming community.
They're in every aspects of our lives. And if we don't understand this, and if we don't fight back against it, we're going to regret this day.
So do you think you can personally identify lobbying firms linked to the Chinese government?
Well, I think some of these lobbying firms don't realize by the way they fund the money to someone somewhere else. And what the Chinese government does is very sophisticated. They'll take these sister cities, right?
So they go to an unsuspecting small-town mayor and say, oh, this is really great. We're all together. We should work harder. You should tell your elected official, you know, that we're going to do more. And they come in and buy more products from this city or others.
And they try all different avenues. Because they see they can get a capitalist country by money. Yeah. And what they try to do is, then they take over an industry and they dump and take that industry out of America and they control it. And they try to get the intellectual property rights.
They try to have influence. I mean, think for what I have Lemour Naval Air Base. It has the F-35s there. At the end of the runway, I just found this out when I was home. At the end of the runway, a Canadian company owns a solar field.
And this this this field is catching on fire.
Okay. But I've now been told that maybe this Canadian company is tied to a Chinese company. Why would they want a solar field at the end of a runway that has the F-35, and why would it be catching on fire? Are there sensors out there? I don't know, but I'm taking this to Gallagher back, and we're watching them buy up our farmland.
We're watching them send balloons over.
Well, you got a guy like DeSantis who pushed back in this state. Do you need governors to push back? I mean, it just seems as though this could be one thing that, as you mentioned, the bipartisan look. But it doesn't seem like Joe Biden has the same approach as Donald Trump. Joe Biden doesn't have the same approach.
I mean, think about the appeasement of how they handled China now. They have gone back, they apologize, they go through, they go they go and visit China on the anniversary of Tenneman Square. Come on. I think what you're finding in Congress, though, I'm going to give credit on the Democrat side too, this select committee on China is the future of what America should do on how to deal with China. Was Nancy Pelosi wrong to go to Taiwan?
Well, look, she has a right to go to Taiwan, but this is very interesting. You compare what she did and how I met with Taiwan's president. Um she she wasn't in a bipartisan group. There wasn't a mission behind it. Was there a purpose?
Or was it to check off a list that she went to Taiwan, right? She allowed China to have military training now to how they would invade Taiwan. She held back the place. When the president of Taiwan came to America, you know where I met her? at the Reagan Library.
Of America defeating communism in the Reagan Library. I had a bipartisan group, Republicans and Democrats, equal. We had a purpose in charge. These were those who are sitting on the Select Committee of China. When we did our press conference outside, I had 172 different cameras.
We had the Berlin Wall behind us. Andrea Mitchell took the first question. She says, You know, I was at the Berlin Wall when Reagan gave that speech and it brought me to tears. She says, I'm moved today by seeing both parties here. Doing exactly what you should be doing.
To me, there's just no question that Kevin McCarthy, if Donald Trump wins, if Nikki Haley wins. You know, Chris Christie, it's not likely, but I see him too.
Alright. I mean, if any of these guys win, DeSantis, you gotta call Kevin McCarthy. He'll navigate inside Congress. He is still going 120 miles an hour. It is as if you took a guy out at half-time.
And then he had to watch his team try to win the game. trailing by a goal. And I use it as a soccer analogy. My impression of spending that day with him. He hated to leave.
He could deal with it. But it's almost Arnold Schwarzenegger's feeling of I'll be back, and he thoroughly believes that a Republican could win. And he's all in on Trump. He's all in on Trump, but he's not delusional. He knows it's going to be a harder struggle with him, but he's all in for him.
And he needs to be by Trump. It would help the country. Thanks so much. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmead.
Have one. Brian Kilmead here, special edition of the show. You know, for the past three years, I've been working on Teddy and Booker T. Teddy Roosevelt, Booker T. Washington, essentially how Two American Icons Blazed the Path to Racial Equality.
And we did an hour show on it. It's on Fox Nation, and it was going to air on, it aired on Fox News Channel 2. And then we knocked it down for radio. I just think it's two great Americans. I love this story.
Of course, I'm biased. I've been looking at it for so long. And I just think we need to know not only who they were, but how they met and how they worked together and the impact they had on this country. You're talking about two guys born right at the Civil War. I mean, Booker T.
Washington was remembered when Union Soldiers Freedom. And they had Teddy Roosevelt, who at six years old saw Abraham Lincoln's body come down Broadway. But they did not, they had totally different, separate lives. Got it. But they both had early struggles.
One was because of society. The other one was because of physical ailments when it comes to Teddy Roosevelt. And I just think that it's important to talk about how, even though one's black, one's white, one born into slavery, one born into wealth, how they looked at A country they wanted to lead, not get famous, they didn't want to get rich, they wanted to make their country better. And they looked at each other with mutual respect. But they also said to each other, we got to help each other.
I need the Southern vote. I need to know what the black issues are. And he looked at Teddy Roosevelt and says, listen, I need to grow Tuskegee, the historical black college concept. I need to make sure my educated students have a place to go, and I need somebody in Washington to do it.
So what eventually happened is Teddy Roosevelt was so convinced and so uh sold. He would actually serve on the Tuskegee board and give his commencement address.
So, first off, we start the story, learning about both men. Here we begin the story of Teddy Roosevelt. And when you start, well, you gotta start at the beginning. If you want to tell the story of Theodore Roosevelt, you got to start at the beginning, which for us means at his birthplace at 28 East 20th Street in Manhattan. And who better to tell that story than one of this nation's premier historians who also did a great book on Theodore Roosevelt?
Douglas Brinkley, Doug, great to see you. Hey, man, good to see you. You wanted me to meet you here. Why? You have to, because New York was his lifeblood.
He was born in 1858, which tells you, Brian, a couple years before the Civil War. And he grew up in a household where his mother, the Bullocks, were from Georgia and his father was from New York.
So he had a Confederate mom and a Union dad.
So TR used to say all these squabbles he heard, he lived in a divided household and as president, he wanted to unify it. And I can't wait to tell this story because even though he was from a family of wealth, his upbringing was anything but easy. Should we go inside? Yeah, let's do it. Born with every advantage a child can have, Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
was raised in one of Manhattan's finest brownstones while simultaneously living through The country's darkest days. America's Civil War was supposed to be over in a few weeks. Instead, the battle for equality and the soul of the Union required every family in the nation to make difficult decisions, including. The Roosevelts. But Theodore Roosevelt Sr.
did a compromise. His wife did not want him fighting for the Union.
So he did what? He did what a lot of wealthy people did in the North. They'd pay to have somebody fight. It was the only part of his father that Theodore Roosevelt didn't like. He worshipped his dad.
I'm not kidding you. Dad was everything. But the fact that his dad didn't go serve was stuck in his craw, and he rectified that deficiency by becoming a rough rider and a colonel in the Spanish-American War. But before Teddy could become a war hero, he had to combat one of the greatest challenges any boy of the 19th century could endure.
So when he was about four or five, it became clear he suffered from asthma.
Nowadays, we think of asthma as quite manageable, but those days it was a terrifying disease. And furthermore, he was very nearsighted and nobody knew it.
So he had these adversities, some of them life-threatening. As a child, Tweed used to hear these stories of young Teddy when he visited Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's final home. Tweet if someone said that puny little kid will one day be on the side of a mountain as one of America's finest presidents. Who would have predicted that? Nobody.
Most people, including his parents, thought he would die. Determined to see his eldest son recover, Theodore Roosevelt Sr. knew that discipline and rigor could heal his frail child. His father came to him and said, look son, you've got a great mind and a terrible body. Without a strong body, your mind won't go anywhere.
And so he started him on a regime and he started working out. And eventually his dad bought him all kinds of exercise equipment and he really lit into it. Dedicated to this new strenuous life, the young Roosevelt engaged daily in extreme forms of weightlifting, rowing, hiking, climbing, horseback riding, and even became an avid boxer. These habits of physical fitness, which the future president considered to be every citizen's patriotic duty, would stick with him for the rest of his life.
So, this sickly kid became an aggressive athlete in college and then becomes an officer in the military and a war hero. overcompensating for his youth. Absolutely, and it's a great story for young people to read if you're feeling infirmed or sickly, this ability to build yourself physically as well as mentally. He believed always that mind and body worked in sync and he was open to learning just about anything. Teddy's improbable transformation proved to him that nothing was gained without hard work, a quality he later would come to admire in another great leader.
However, before the now able-bodied man could become an icon, he had to heal a wound he never could have anticipated. A broken heart. Theodore Roosevelt was in Albany when he got a telegram from his brother, Elliot, that mom is burning up with fever in New York City and Alice is giving childbirth.
So he scurried out of Albany, took a train. got into Manhattan, ran into the house on Valentine's Day and went up and down floors looking at his mother, dealing with his wife, mother, and they both died within hours of each other and the darkness hit him. The Roosevelt family had a history of depression.
So TR then famously put the X in the diary. The little baby was given to his sister. And TR took the train all the way from New York City to where it dropped him off in the middle of Dakota Territory. It wasn't until he went out west. That he saw a different view of what an American is.
And he saw that. With the cowboys, he saw that with the black cowboys and the Indians. Tiara used to say that I found my Eden in the West, that the North had screwed up with too much industrialization, the South had the curse of slavery, but west of the Mississippi River was the new Eden. The West became a big part of his life. Roosevelt's love for wildlife and the great outdoors would become one of the president's defining characteristics.
But before the public fell in love with the conservationist, they were first introduced to the warrior. On February 15th, 1898, the USS main battleship exploded in Havana Harbor. killing more than 250 officers. Many were quick to blame Spain, a colonial empire who were committing human rights violations against the freedom-seeking residents of Cuba. Although T.R.
had become an established writer, a beloved New York City police commissioner, And had been recently appointed the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, the now 40-year-old man yearned to avenge what he considered a dirty act of treachery. Everybody thought he was crazy. Why would he do this? But he had patriotism. in his blood.
And an interest in war, one of the extraordinary things about his experience as a rough rider is when that famous charge went up San Juan Heights, not only did he charge up once, he charged up three times. The rough riders did not have their horses, so he was the only person on a horse. There were a lot of observers, newspapers, higher level in the government. Not one of them thought he was going to make it up the hill. Only the densest of Spanish soldiers wouldn't know the first guy you shoot is the guy on the horse.
And in fact, bullets went all around him, people were killed right next to him, but some kind of a Good luck faced him and he wasn't killed. Although history fondly remembers Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, Lieutenant Colonel was quick to compliment the bravery of the Buffalo soldiers who fought under his command. Known for their ferocity and tenacity, the All Black Regiment, which consisted of Civil War veterans and ex-slaves, were some of the first soldiers to fight side by side with their fellow white compatriots. After the Battle of San Juan Hill was over, Roosevelt declared that no one can tell whether it was the Rough Riders or the black men of the Ninth Cavalry who came forward with the greater courage to offer their lives in the service of their country. Back in New York, the elated metropolis rewarded their hometown hero by electing him the governor of New York in 1899.
Two years later, the Grateful Nation selected Tiar as the Vice President of the United States. But as so happened with much of his life, a tragedy would lead Teddy toward his destiny. On September 14, 1901, President William McKinley was assassinated.
Now a battle-tested Roosevelt needed to once again undergo a rapid transformation in order to serve his beloved country. All right, we just told you about Teddy Roosevelt. How his life started off. Quite a few physical hurdles for Booker T. A lot more daunting.
Booker T. Washington's portion of this story coming your way. Special edition Brighton Kilmeat Show. Wishing you the merriest Christmas ever. It's the best of the Brian Killmeat Show.
Hey, welcome back, everyone. It's my privilege to bring you the story of Teddy Roosevelt and Booker T. Washington, two American icons, Players of Path to Racial Equality. The book's available. You can get it, sign at BrianKillme.com.
But I want to tell you the story of Booker T. You know, number one, how he grew up, grew up a slave. The guy had no shoes. The guy, for the most part, didn't have any pants. He just had a long one you might see in the Middle East.
And that's just the way he lived. Never knew his father, never knew his birthday. And what he was able to accomplish is just stunning. Even in reflection, as I studied him, I was just in awe.
So now it's time to talk about Booker T. Washington. And one of the things I did is went to his last house, his summer home on Long Island. And it still stands. It's an historical site.
It's overlooking Oyster Bay, the Long Island Sound. Down the block was Teddy Roosevelt's house, Sagamore Hill. I don't think they did it for proximity, but it made it very easy to shoot.
Now, when you talk about Teddy Roosevelt's seven generations of wealth, I get it. People say, why do you compare him? Because the physical problems that Teddy had, Booker T didn't, despite all the hurdles that stood in his way, same meal every day, sleeping on the floor, never had a bed, never had a pillow, as far as I could tell. And Teddy Roosevelt just had extremely bad asthma. But now it's time to talk about Booker T.
How he was born into slavery in a modest Virginia plantation. Hmm. Booker T was born into slavery on a modest Virginian plantation in 1856. Unlike Teddy, a young booker grew up in a cold, vile log cabin and without a father. As a child, Booker always dreamed of acquiring an education.
But his seemingly eternal bondage would have prevented him from ever learning how to read and write. All of this changed though. On one fateful day, standing alongside his fellow slaves, a nine-year-old Booker watched a stranger dressed in Union attire read aloud the Emancipation Proclamation. After the reading. We were all free.
My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. This was the moment she had been praying for. But after that feeling of freedom and ecstasy and knowing they truly had liberty, they also had a responsibility to chart their own destiny. and for Booker T's mom Jane and her husband Washington Ferguson. That meant heading out to West Virginia.
and start the backbreaking work of working in the salt mines.
So he was early on taught how To be self-sufficient and how to be a good worker. He's a man who has set goals in his life that he wants to meet. I do not want to have to work. In the salt mines. I don't want to have to work in the fields.
I want to accomplish something with my life. To achieve this vision, Booker knew he needed mentors. One of them was Mrs. Ruffner, a demanding homeowner who he'd become an upkeep for in order to avoid the mines. Rather than resent her strict habits, the young freedmen embrace her social strictures of cleanliness, promptness, and frank honesty.
These qualities would become the essence of Booker's philosophy.
However, he knew, without an education, his dreams would be simply that. Dreams.
So he set his sights on Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia. He gets to Hampton and he's a mess. Actually, they didn't want him there. But he was very insistent again. That's that perseverance of Booker T.
Washington. And he says, okay, I want to have an opportunity to prove myself.
So he's assigned to clean a classroom. And he goes in and he does it immaculate. Why? Because Mrs. Ruffner told him how to clean.
He knew if I'm going to succeed, I have to do it. The right way. That's the key. At first, Hampton Institute thought they had acquired a hardworking janitor. Instead the school had been given one of their brightest students.
Now known as Booker T. Washington, For every student needed a last name, the eager pupil would become a teacher. It would be in this position that Hampton Institute founder General Samuel Armstrong recognized the young man's exceptional talent. In 1881, Armstrong received a request from the governor of Alabama asking for Hampton's finest white teacher to lead a new revolutionary all-black institute in Tuskegee. Armstrong said, No, I've got the perfect guy for you.
He's young. energetic, but he can do the job. And so they go up there and they said, okay, we'll take him. and see how he turns out. Tuskegee University.
This is where Booker T. Washington began his quest to become a national and global figure. He was named president of this institution. It wasn't nearly this nice. This is 3,500 students.
Now, the original building was about a mile down the road and it had a leaky roof. And he had no students, he had no teachers, and no funding. He had to change that in 10 days. And on July 4th, 1881, the 25-year-old did just that. He founded Tuskegee on the same principles he learned from Hampton, and that was on the head, the hand, and the heart.
And the head being academics, he knew that that was foremost important for these former slaves and their descendants. The heart was character strength. And service, and the hand was hard work. When he got to Tuskegee, he went into the rural districts to explore the life of the people and discover their needs. And what he saw surprised even him.
They were not only unable to read and write at the time, but some didn't even know how to use a toothbrush. First of all, he realizes the school has not even been built. All he sees is the poverty. And Booker T. Washington says, you know, I can make this better.
But that's within three days of him getting here. Within 10 days, he's got a class at school teaching in an old dilapidated building.
Now, it wasn't something fancy. but it was a building that he could start with and start a school with. Although Tuskegee's students learned the fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic, Booker T. Washington also insisted each of his students learn a trade. To him, a community is nothing without men and women capable of being hired to serve the needs of the people.
He had a vision for what was possible, how trades could be beneficial, and he realized the population that he was working with. These were mostly either formerly enslaved or their parents had been enslaved.
So there was a skill that was already there. He said, you don't have to get rid of your skill. We're going to combine brains and skill into the common occupations of life. In the beginning, Tuskegee had only 30 students. Within 10 years, the institute had acquired a staggering 100 acres of land.
admitted hundreds of prospective students, and even recruited some of the nation's top minds to lead the campus, including the now famous agriculturalist George Washington Carver. Despite the school's instant success, its founder knew more work needed to be done. I knew that, in a large degree, we were trying an experiment. That of testing whether or not it was possible for Negroes to build up and control the affairs of a large educational institution. I knew that if we failed, It would injure the whole race.
There's two forms. of bondage. There's physical bondage. But he recognized the other bondage was the slavery of ignorance. But how would a former slave convince a society with segregated bathrooms, restaurants, water fountains that his school and his students were a worthy investment?
Simple. Tuskegee Institute. Needed a spokesman. Little did he know that by becoming his Institute's greatest traveling advocate, he would simultaneously become one of the most admired Americans. of all time.
Welcome back, everybody. Thanks so much for listening to the special edition of the Brian Kilmey Chow, Teddy and Booker T.
Now we know both men, what they were about, and the people that helped them. The tragedy they had with the loss of their wives on down, but they kept moving forward with their bigger thing for both to make the country better and to try to heal the racial divide, which is a pretty big deal in the 20th century in the middle of Jim Crow.
Now I want to bring you to Tuskegee University, a place that started with Booker T. Washington. It was just a dilapidated church. They moved down the road, got some acreage, built some beautiful buildings. They actually ended up making their own bricks, the best around, got their own kiln.
The Oaks, when you just think of the Oaks, just think of Sagamore Hill for Teddy Roosevelt. The Oaks was the home of Booker T. Washington and remains the home of the presidents of Tuskegee today. It was absolutely amazing. Indoor plumbing and electricity and more.
Tuskegee became a place where politicians wanted to go. Tuskegee, in particular, becomes a place where politicians want to go. McKinley, Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft, and of course Teddy Roosevelt. What does that mean? Here you have this a black male born into slavery.
Who grows to a level where he becomes an advisor to three presidents? The man was a genius. He was able to prove that the American dream is actually possible. That's what really catapulted him into the national stage because he said, if we work together, We can have our differences. I recognize you have a difference and I recognize I have a difference.
But Progress. Is mutual. The revolutionary message was first heard at the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. Looking to not only advance his institute, but the perception of his race, Booker T. Washington became the first African-American male to address a crowd as diverse as his country.
White Northerners, racist southerners, and blacks from every corner of the nation all stood together to witness the power of what became known as the Atlanta Compromise. His goal was to figure out how I can have a shared conversation between all of these disparate groups. This was an opportunity for him to say to all those that were in control. Tuskegee has something to offer. Me and my people have something to offer.
And you can see that by the products that we have on display. We have bricks, we have wheels. The Washington is bringing the trays. He wasn't begging anybody. He was saying, let me tell you about some work that we're doing down in Alabama.
A lot of lightweight philanthropists from the Rockefellers to the Porter sisters to JP Morgan. Julius Rosenwald, these were people with big ideas. who saw that Washington was doing a big idea. He is a genius at fundraising of Booker T. Washington.
He would come and get money and help education in the South. Education, education, education. That's what Booker T. Washington was about. And so was Theodore Roosevelt.
Their race, in my mind, was secondary to their reformist instincts and their shared belief that literacy was a key to success. By the time Roosevelt had been inaugurated as President of the United States, Washington became a national figure with the publication of his autobiography. remarkably up from slavery, held the record as the highest selling memoir by an African American until Malcolm X released his autobiography more than fifty years later. In Up From Slavery, Washington famously declared, I have learned. That success is to be measured.
not so much by the position that one has reached in life. as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Having undergone a very different but nevertheless painful childhood, President Roosevelt admired Booker's brilliance and tenacity. In the period when T.R. was president, Booker T.
Washington was the Martin Luther King figure. He was gigantic. If you went to somewhere in a black community, Booker T. Washington would draw crowds. But he also just admired good writing, and Booker T.
Washington wrote many books and essays and speeches that Theodore Roosevelt thought were superb. And remember, the Republican Party is the party of Lincoln. And much of what Theodore Roosevelt does is because if Lincoln could emancipate the slaves with an executive proclamation, I can do all sorts of things using presidential power.
Now, as the leader of the free world, TR wasted little time aligning himself with this fellow self-made man. He was made. The special advisor to the president on Negro affairs, and he helped the president and other states to create other HBCUs around the country. They were all the product of this kind of help or attention that Bukherti drew to the president. In addition to helping raise funds for other HBCUs such as Grambling State University, Washington advised Roosevelt on some groundbreaking federal appointments.
This included Minnie Cox, the first African-American female postmaster. This faced fierce opposition from critics, but Teddy refused to kneel to their bigotry. If you read the letters, they were advising each other back and forth on nominees, on court picks. When you read that, knowing when he was president, when he was born, 1859, what are your thoughts about that? It must give you a sense of pride.
Oh yeah, it's extraordinary that he was able to have a much more open view about people. He still had his blind spots, but a much more open view than a lot of people of his time. He also would join the Tuskegee Board. And did speak at Tuskegee. And he said, you know, I love the idea of this place.
Having seen it, I even love it even more. He was really impressed with the idea of a trade and academics. Right, and Tuskegee is a remarkable place. And the fact that Roosevelt went to Tuskegee, took the time to do that, is impressive. He wanted everybody to be an American.
Roosevelt believed in respect and he would never disrespect a person by their color. But for that period of time, when he was president, 1901 to 1909, he was seen as progressive on race issues. October 16th, 1901. This new president, Teddy Roosevelt, is just getting used to the reins of power after the assassination of William McKinley.
So he's here at the White House and he gets word that Booker T. Washington, his good friend, is in town.
So he does what everyone would do, invites him over for dinner with his family. and they met until 11 o'clock at night. It seemed like the right thing to do. After all, what's the big deal? White president and his family meeting with a black leader?
Well, that's now. 120 years ago? They weren't ready to accept it. It's the first time in the history of the country that a black man was invited to dine with the President of the United States. We had some hesitation about doing it because Bukherty's way of operating is under the radar.
Upon hearing the President's invitation, Washington wrote this letter with the following reply. My dear mister President, I shall be very glad to accept your invitation for dinner this evening at 7.30. Yours very truly. Booker T. Washington.
This innocent RSVP soon exploded into controversy. My God, did holy hell break loose after that dinner. The South went. Haywire. They thought it was too much of a civil rights advance.
Because if the president can invite Booker T, that means white Southerners are supposed to be inviting blacks into their home for dinner and for arch segregationist. that was a non-starter. Cartoonists lampooned the dinner as barbaric. Leaders from across the political aisle thought Washington as a Negro leader had acted out of place and that the unelected president had acted with disregard towards his fellow race. There was even an assassin hired to travel to Tuskegee to silence the school's beloved visionary.
Both men paid a political price for this. It did set both of them back. And it begs the question as to what the value of those symbolic gestures is worth the price. They had a commencement at Harvard. Booker T.
Washington got an honorary degree and the president was there, Roosevelt, and they didn't talk. And a lot of people think that's because of what happened a little while earlier. at the White House. Roosevelt didn't want to be photographed with Booker T. Washington.
Remember for 1901 he was not elected because McKinley was killed.
So in 1904 he had to run on his own. He's not going to run on a photograph of him with Booker T. Washington. And alas, Theodore Roosevelt wasn't somebody who talked about race as his main interest. It happened to be that he never cared for the Jim Crow system because this was Democrats.
The South was Democratic and he's a Republican.
So there were differences on how they would look at somebody like Booker T. Washington, determined on what party you were. Ultimately, Roosevelt distanced himself from becoming the civil rights champion he could have been. Unfortunately, this ideological retreat would become far more painful than simply skipping a ceremonial photo op. I think TR during his presidency made two major blunders.
One was the Brownsville incident. where he sided with the Army to discharge entire troops of Buffalo soldiers who'd gotten into a fracas in Brownsville, Texas with the locals. Totally unclear what happened, and it's an interesting question as to why he did this because. It's so obviously unfair. On the night of August 13, 1906, a white bartender and a white police officer were shot in Brownsville, Texas.
Angered by the unprovoked violence, the townspeople immediately blamed the all-black 25th Infantry Unit who were stationed near their town. All of these men were part of the legendary Buffalo Soldiers. The regiment's white superior officers declared their boys were innocent of all charges.
However, despite no credible evidence and the unit featuring six Medal of Honor recipients, Roosevelt made an egregious blunder. Basically, what he did, he said, All right, if you won't tell me who it is, I'm going to fire you all. We're going to assume that the whole unit is guilty. And you all be Dishonorably discharged, which ruined their lives. They lost their pensions.
These were innocent people, clearly unfair. As if the situation could not get worse, Roosevelt, once champion of these men, not only abandoned the Buffalo soldiers in their time of need, he forever tarnished their reputation. Seeing the injustice being done, the President's trusted adviser, begged him to reconsider. Booker T. Washington said, Hey, Mr.
President, my advice? Exonerate these guys. They're innocent. and he went against it and the black community at the time really was angry. Yes, he lost the black community basically as a result of that.
My own view is that this was not racism. He said, and I believe him actually, that if it had been a white group he would have done it too. The problem was, Tier didn't understand. Military discipline and our military, he'd studied deeply how the Romans did it and how the Spartans did it. And in those cultures, Disciplining the entire group for the actions of one man in it was common practice.
I think that's what got him, but he got stubborn about it and didn't change. Roosevelt's stubbornness extended beyond his presidency. The now former commander-in-chief was displeased with how his hand-picked successor, President William Howard Taft, was running the nation. Seeking re-election at any cost, TR created a controversial third party. Knowing the uphill battle he faced, Roosevelt hoped that one endorsement in particular could change the tide of the election.
the time in which Booker team may have let Roosevelt down. Although neither harbored bitterness because of it, reportedly, was that when he decides to run against Half for president, he never got Booker T. Washington's endorsement. That would have meant a lot. It would have meant a lot.
It was an unfortunate time. I look at it, of course, from T.R.'s point of view. That was a serious blunder. Ultimately, the election of 1912 would be the downfall of both men. Despite beating Taft in the popular vote, Theodore Roosevelt lost by a wide margin to the newly elected Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson.
As a result, Booker T. Washington lost an ally in the White House. You know, to tell the story of Booker T. Washington, a man born a slave who ended up heading up historical black college of Tuskegee. He went to Hampton College and was mentored by a lot of people, many of which were white.
But the story was not just one of do the best you can in the Jim Crow divided South. It was also other rivals in the black community, like W.E.B. Du Bois, extremely bright guy, the first black man that we know of to ever have a Ph.D., studied in Europe, was really upset about the divide in the country like anyone would be. But he had a different approach, big time, than Booker T. Washington.
A lot of people were not happy that Booker T., what they said was accommodating. I thought he was practical and pragmatic. W.E.B. Du Bois was also impatient with him.
So we start this part of the story about their rivalry with his great-granddaughter with her perspective. And we start with her having pretty much a hard time when she went to Buffalo, New York, to talk about her great-grandfather, Booker T. Washington, when. I guess they talked about his approach in America of the day. I was on a panel in Buffalo, New York, and there was a person on the panel who was A known actor, writer, director, and he shouted out: Booker T.
Washington just wanted people to be slaves, to continue to be slaves. And I was thinking that that's so far from the truth. What he wanted them to do was take what they learned in slavery. and to perfect it, and to be excellent at it. Today's experts now want younger Americans to follow the philosophy of another influential black figure.
W.E.B. Du Bois, the founder of the NAACP. Actively opposed Washington's Atlanta Compromise, which he believed meant blacks should submit their segregated status in society. This sentiment now lives on through Washington's modern critics. Absence of opportunity is oppression.
You can't just have expectations. You've got to provide people with the means to meet the expectations, and that's what Booker T did. What Du Bois left was some books and some very good ideas. I'm not trying to discredit it. But it bothers me when we place more emphasis on rhetorical approaches to problem.
Versus people who are like Bukerty, that he could have gone to the north. and become the darling of abolitionists and live a prosperous trouble-free life. Like W. Du Bois did. But instead, he planted himself there and spent the rest of his life.
try to confront the tension between not offending whites so that they will burn the school down. at the same time recruit enough white supporters. to act as a foil against those racist If one were to have any doubts about the accomplishment of Booker T. Washington, they would not need to look any further. in the institution he founded.
We would not be the same country without Booker T. Washington. Tuskegee. George Washington Carver is acknowledged At the same level as Dr. Washington, because Dr.
Washington created the infrastructure for him to do his life's work. that made it possible to save the American economy through agriculture. Without Dr. Washington, this is not the same America. A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Booker T.
Washington. to dine at the White House. was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. Looking at these two figures.
What did these two icons do for race relations in America? How unique were they? I think the White House meeting, you can't over. Exaggerate how important it was. It became a dominant talk of the land, and it allowed the Republican Party.
who signaled through Roosevelt that we were committed to being the party that embraced our black brothers and sisters. What do you think they think of? They would not like, I believe, the anger that we have towards each other. They wouldn't like this divide. The Civil War was about a divide.
There was always this hope of healing the country. And yet, they were both such patriotic Americans that I believe still think our better days were here to come. America should never be defined By our birth effect of slavery, America is a story of redemption. and second chances. I tell people none of us Want to be defined by the worst of what we did as a young person.
And a country shouldn't either. The biggest problem that we face America today, we don't have a race problem, we have a grace problem. America is blessed for a lot of reasons. First and foremost, we've always had the right leaders at the right time. Our first General George Washington at war.
President George Washington at peace. That's why there are commemorations. all over this great country for him. The best known behind me, the Washington Monument. And when America was coming apart 100 years later, it was Lincoln that put us back together, combining with Douglas to make sure we always stayed together.
And over the past hour, you've seen, I hope, that our 26th president Teddy Roosevelt combined with Booker T. Washington to pick up where Lincoln and Douglass left off. The question is: who's gonna be the one? For this moment, at this time in American history, to move this great country forward. One thing for certain: we'll be on the lookout, ready to bring it to you.
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