Debate recap: Biased moderators, an unfocused Trump and a lying Harris

From high atop the middle of the field. Fox News headquarters in New York City. Always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead. Hi, Born.

Brian Kilmead here. Happy to be with you today. We have an action-packed show today full of memorable moments as we look back at 9-11. 23 years ago, the 9-11 attack took place a short time ago from when I'm talking. I was actually on the air at that time, and then afterwards, I hooked up with a camera crew and went downtown and We saw the first towers burning, then we watched them collapse, and then we tried to put together things in the aftermath.

But everyone has their own memories of that day. Sadly, a lot of people don't know enough about it. It's not in the curriculum in a lot of schools. I hope that changes. And I hope more people just go to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation site, and they have all this curriculum on what to teach your kids.

And if you're a teacher, just take some time out, and there's all the materials there, lessons plans. You don't even have to come up with anything. Of course, last night was debate night, the one and only debate, perhaps, although it looks like the Harris camp wants to do another. And then we quickly at Fox said we want to host it. But President Trump says, I don't really want you to host it.

I really don't want to do another. It seems he could change his mind. I don't know how the polls are going to handle it. Mark Penn at the bottom of the hour. He's going to give us the polls going in and give us projections and how they'll be.

Lieutenant Colonel Alan West, we're going to be talking about the Afghanistan report that came out on Monday, as well as the reality on the border and what that much talked about. Bipartisan Border bill really would have done, and why President Trump was not for it, and why he wasn't the deciding vote about it.

So, what did you think of the debate last night? 1-866-408-7669. Uh what did you think? You can also write me BrianKillMe.com.

So I was amazed. I liked the way it started. A very simple question to Kamala Harris. are we better off than we were four years ago when you and Joe Biden came into office? I thought, okay, that's a good start.

Also saw sixteen minutes in before they brought up abortion. My concern was if you want to be an unbalanced shell, spend the whole time on abortion.

Now, the number one issue is the economy. Number two is inflation. Number three is immigration. Number four is abortion. They did not bring up inflation.

They talked about the economy. But Kamala Harris never answered the question. Cut one. When it comes to the economy, do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?

So I was raised as a middle class kid. And I am actually the only person on this stage who has a plan that is about lifting up the middle class and working people of America. I believe in the ambition, the aspirations, the dreams of the American people. And that is why I am.

So she goes into a stump speech. Look, everyone's got their different tactics. You don't have to answer anything directly, but you've got to follow up. Could you answer the question? No follow-ups.

I thought this is going to be very similar to the Dan Abash Jake Tapper.

Well, they're not going to do much follow-up. They'll do it. But for the most part, these two got to fight it out. And they let America be decide. But there was so many follow up for Trump or so called corrections or fact checks.

That was on uh that was uh destabilizing of the event, which is one hundred and five minutes.

Next, I thought it was important to bring up Did you have a choice? To talk about inflation, to talk about the things happening, or you could talk about January 6th, or you could talk about, believe it or not, Obamacare. But if you want to talk about healthcare, you should bring up Camilla Harris said, I'm for Medicare for all. What changed? What changed?

Now you're not for Medicare for All. You co-sponsored the new Green Deal. What changed and why? We didn't get that. They tried pressing on the flip-flops.

Actually, excuse me, they did ask her on the flip-flops, never answered.

Sooner or later, she's going to have to answer. For me overall, before I get into this sound bite, I don't think Trump had the strongest debate. I don't think he was terrible. I think she was better than everybody thought. I think on most people, she exceeded expectations.

But it was she deserves credit for working hard doing it. It looked very rehearsed. I'm not saying she got the questions ahead of time, but man, did she have a clue to where they were going? But she rehearsed at the bait camp And Trump went a lot on instinct. And I think it would have been a lot better if he did some.

Rehearsal With somebody playing Camela Harris. He didn't want to do it that way. He went over with Tosi Gabbett. Tosi says he really knows the issues, but did he know how they would all play out? Here's Kamala Harris being pressed on a flip-flop.

Excuse me. Asked about a flip-flop. It's got two. Vice President Harris, in your last run for president, you said you wanted to ban fracking.

Now you don't. You wanted mandatory government buyback programs for assault weapons.

Now your campaign says you don't. You supported decriminalizing border crossings.

Now you're taking a harder line. I know you say that your values have not changed.

So then why have so many of your policy positions changed?

So my values have not changed, and I'm going to discuss every one of the at least every point that you've made. But in particular, let's talk about fracking because we're here in Pennsylvania. I made that very clear in 2020. I will not ban fracking. I have not banned fracking as Vice President of the United States, and in fact, I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases for fracking.

You know why they did that? Because Senator Joe Manchin demanded it, because in West Virginia, they couldn't believe what they were doing with oil and gas.

So that was put there. But do you know why you signed that? Because $369 billion was on new green. Uh new green belt the new green energy. Policy And you, President Biden came out and said basically, it never should have been named the Inflation Reduction Act.

It should have been about the new Green Deal Act. And that's what she signed off on. And right now, there's a total pause on LNG leases, contracts and exports. Why didn't someone bring that up, Trump on down? You should say, listen, if you're so for it, why are you allowing a big pause on it that's hurting everyone in Pennsylvania right now?

I don't get it. I also think that Trump had a huge I thought he scored well on Lawfare and made it pretty clear that when he was talking about his cases, he blamed her and she had a big smile on her face, which makes her look complicit. And there's no doubt about it. Almost all these cases came down to coming somehow, some way from the administration, whether it was january sixth, whether it was the Georgia case, collaborating we know with the White House. And then we know in the New York cases, Letitia James met Constantly.

Alvin Bragg was there, and somebody from his Justice Department was in that New York case. But they moved through that quickly. It was mischaracterized as that President Trump had a security breach, not a security breach. The whole thing was thrown out. The case was thrown out.

And they're petitioning to bring it back. They're appealing to bring it back, but it's not.

So, Donald Trump had a chance for a knockout, didn't do it. She's very much alive. This was going to be close regardless. But what does it mean overall? Trump, I think, got too hot.

I think he got hot. I think specifically he got hot when they brought up that his crowds weren't too big. I don't know what it is with President Trump and crowds, but his crowds were enormous. They're the biggest crowds we've ever seen.

Somebody who's been in the public since twenty sixteen as a politician. And they say she came out and said, Well, you know, a lot of these people. Leave early and get bored.

Well, how do you know? You've never been there. Who do you know that goes to his rallies?

Well, I know. That's fine.

Well, listen, you're welcome to the next rally. Because I think you'll find them very interesting, very informative, and a lot of passion. And what about the boat parades happening? Why don't you grab one of them and see how many people decide to turn around and do something else? But it got under his skin, it seems.

I also thought it was just such a waste not to un find out From a Moderator, if you're going to talk about abortion, and Trump said, retort, I thought was right on the money. If you talk about abortion, they talk about six weeks, 12 weeks. They don't want to say what week is too late to abort a baby. They say, well, it never happens.

Well, what week is too late? To abort a uh abort a baby. Why don't you just answer the question? Cut seven. Would you support any restrictions on a woman's right to an abortion?

I absolutely support reinstating the protections of Roe v. Wade, and as you rightly mentioned, nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion. That is not happening. It's insulting to the women of America. It's not, it's happening.

And you know where it's happening? You should ask the governor of Minnesota who's your running mate. Because Tim Waltz repealed the Minnesota law protecting babies after failed abortions from living. Five babies died in Minnesota after they were born alive due to a failed-induced abortion in 2021 alone. Waltz and the Democratically controlled state House and Senate repealed.

The Born Alive Infants Protection Act, and they did it in 2023 along with all other state restrictions on abortion. It was enacted in 2015, which was the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. The Born Alive would actually result. In an abortion, shall be fully recognized as a human person.

So you have to keep them alive. He repealed that.

So ask the governor. How he feels about that. Piastro, he is your running mate for a reason. I thought Maybe it was important to hear from him. I thought that would be interesting to know.

But that was never followed up by the President and never followed up by the moderator. The moderator actually told Trump he was wrong. No baby is being born in their ninth month. Governor Ralph Northam. A doctor.

Once governor of Virginia. This was cited yesterday, but not specifically. said this If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that is what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physician and mother about the life of the kid.

So, this was all real. And the reason why I bring this up in great detail, I never thought I'd be talking about abortion period, let alone going in this detail, but it's such an issue of impact come November. Let's talk about it.

So, this is a legitimate issue. For the moderator to chime in and say it never happens. It's that's a Candy Crowley moment. And I'm not saying that it's easy with fifty million people watching on a stage without a crowd, without any handles, without any notes, to come up with that, but you can just say, No, that's absolutely true. I'm going to tell you that there are these states that allow babies to be born in the ninth month.

You have a right to an abortion to the end.

So that's important to correct the moderator. No, you're wrong. It's too bad it has to happen.

Now, people that say the moderators put their hand on the scale, I say, yeah, after the first 15 minutes, I thought, okay. Good question to start. Abortion wasn't right away, 16 minutes in. Did it last for about three or four minutes, five minutes? All right, it's a top four issue.

Got it. But then when your next issue is the twenty twenty election, the january sixth situation, and then you're talking about Obamacare, what's your new plan? Are you still going to look to replace it? Excuse me? What is this, twenty twenty?

Is this twenty sixteen? Is it twenty twelve? Is this Mitt Romney? What are you talking about? I mean, so maybe Trump doesn't have a health care player ready to roll.

No, the fact is, everybody in his party said, now that you won, Mr. President, can we, as a first issue, not do tax reform? Let's do repealing Obamacare.

So he gave in to Paul Ryan, and they did it. But they had no plan ready to go. They had the skinny plan, and then famously, Senator John McCain put a thumbs down on it and allowed her to dig in and go off for two minutes on John McCain, the late, great John McCain. I'm sure you didn't feel that way. When he was alive.

But go ahead.

Now you think he's great. I thought he was great, by the way, and I always will. But In analysis, Trump thinks he did great last night. Analysis, most media thinks it she did better. What do you think?

1-866-408-7669. I'm going to get some reaction around the horn, around the other media outlets. And next, we're going to talk to Lieutenant Colonel Alan West. uh at about on this day of nine eleven. At the same time, we're talking about Afghanistan.

It's all related. It's all related to our safety and security. Brian Killmead Chill. It's Brian Kilmead. Listen to the all-new Brett Baer podcast, featuring common ground, in-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, along with all your Brett Baer favorites, like his all-star panel and much more.

Available now at FoxNewsPodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Kilmead. There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born. President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is actually coming down in this country.

The question was about you as President, not about former Speaker Pelosi. I did watch all of these pieces of video. I didn't detect the sarcasm lost by whisker. Vice President Harris, he says you hate Israel. You did bring up something.

You said she went to negotiate with Vladimir Putin. Vice President Harris, have you ever met Vladimir Putin?

So just a yes or no, you still do not have a plan.

So, those are some of the follow-up questions from moderators. There was really none to. Kamal Harris, you don't blame the refs, you don't play the playing field, you don't blame anything, you take responsibility. I get it, but I think it's important to point out, Lieutenant Colonel Alan West, watching in Dallas, what was your reaction?

Well, it's good to be with you, Brian, and you're right. Without a doubt, you were going into a den where it was three against one. That was pretty evident, but you have to prepare for that. You know, that's one of the things that Sun Tzu talks about in the art of war: you must know yourself, know your enemy, and know the environment that you're in. And so, I think better preparation and staying concise, staying on message.

The best part of last night's debate for Donald Trump was his closing, when he talked about why hasn't she done this in these previous three and a half years. That should have been a theme that he should have woven into the entire debate, the entire night. Or when she obfuscates on a question, very simply, he should have said, I'm sorry, but I didn't hear her answer question. Like the very first one when she was asked, Are Americans better off than they were four years ago? And she went into her infromercial.

This is the one thing that I'm going to say, kind of maybe it's geeky, maybe you people are going to not understand it, but Donald Trump could have been Reaganess last night if he had stopped and said, we are in the National Constitutional Center. When are we going to start asking questions? When are we going to start having a conversation about these issues in relation to the Constitution? Such as illegal immigration, how that relates to the Constitution, such as government spending and the economy, how that relates to the Constitution. I mean, if he had made that type of statement, I think he would have undermined the debate moderators.

He would have thrown her off of balance. And those are the type of things that you have to go in mentally prepared to do and find that opportunity, find that moment to weave that in there. You think he was? You don't think he was? No, I don't I don't because I will be very honest.

She was able to get under his skin. And I think the worst moment for him and last night was to start talking about people eating dogs. that's not an issue for the American people. If you want to talk about trendy Araqua, the very violent Venezuelan gang or other terrorists that have come across this board, if you want to hone at that point, yes. But again, you've got to be focused, you have to be disciplined, and I think that you are in the perfect venue to talk about how the Biden-Harris administration has violated the Constitution, violated the rule of law, violated everything.

Because guess what? When you take the oath to be president, you say that you're going to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. And he should have just brought out how they have not done that. Yeah, here uh I think this is uh this is the part you were talking about, cut four. What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country and look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States.

And a lot of towns don't want to talk about it. Not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, They're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats.

They're eating. They're eating the pets of the people that live there.

So You know, that was, uh, I don't even know where that came from. I guess someone wrote that up, uh, the Haitians that have come in. But the real story is they've taken over that town. It's almost double the size. They've taken up all the money and the taxpayer money.

They've taken up the classrooms. And guess what? They're being parachuted in without their permission by this administration. That is their plan. The same thing with Aurora.

The same thing upstate New York. I know this all over Long Island. In Dallas. In Dallas, too. Yeah.

So it doesn't even the dogs ended up being the distraction. Yes, and that's the key thing, again, is that you can't get distracted. You know, you had every opportunity. Kamala Harris, I mean, if you had fact-checked her, which they didn't do, you know, many lies were said last night. I think one of the other good moments that President Trump had was, you know, on the foreign policy aspect when, you know, she said that she was there talking with Vladimir Zelensky, and then, of course, three days later, Russia attacked.

I would have easily said that's your never Chamberlain moment. Everyone understands that. Everyone understands the projection of weakness and what that leads to. And so, again, it's all about how you can do that mental rehearsal and be ready to come in and find those moments and seize those moments of opportunity. All right.

And by the way, that was the opportunity to say, yeah, you met with Zelensky. You know what you told him? How would you like a flight out? And he said, I don't want flights. I want ammunition.

He goes, I'm not Ghani. And that's what he thought. We'll fly you out. That was the message. And she, that was him as I told him how to get ready.

What do you know about getting ready for a Russian invasion? I don't even know if she knows who's in World War II, real quick. Yeah, let me close on this. Women's rights. What about the women's rights in Afghanistan that you abandoned?

All gone. They're living a hellacious life. They're not allowed to speak, whether they don't go to school or work. Mark Penn next, then I see all your calls up there. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it.

You're with Brian Kilmead. She got up there and she put him in his place. She baited him. And then she spanked him. Only Kamala Harris knows what her strategy was on this, but I will tell you, he took the bait.

Because he's completely self-centered. She didn't just prevail in every exchange. She prevailed at the humaning. What I saw was someone totally outmatched in every single picture. I've scarcely seen.

One like this. and and the degree to which she dominated this So there you go. That is the response from the media after the first and only debate with Kamala Harris and Donald Trump that we know of. What does Mark Penn think? He's a CEO and chairman of Stagwell Inc., Harris Polls.

He's a former Clinton pollster. He's been around this for a long time, very familiar to our audience. Mark, who did better last night?

Well Look, I I think there's a clear consensus out there. Look, Trump supporters wanted Trump to knock her out of the ring. And he didn't knock her out of the ring. She came out swinging the entire time. And he was more defensive than not.

I I think that's clearly the the way people saw this debate.

So I think on debating points, She comes out the winner. I don't think there was much substantive discussion of the economy, the issues, immigration. I think she successfully bobbed and weaved on a lot of that. And so I don't know how much difference it will really make in the end. But for Harris, I think the stakes are high.

If she had fallen Biden style, it would have been probably over. Would you say that's correct? Yes, and I think that's where Trump supporters are frustrated. They feel that she was vulnerable on so many issues. And of course, look, everybody also knows that the moderators You know, we're gunning for Trump and correcting him and stacked the questions and did all that.

Do you believe that too, Mark? I know you think I think so, but do you think so? Yeah, I mean that was that was obvious. She threw out every single whopper against Trump. That has already been fact-checked, and they never interrupted her once on that.

And they got into this cat and dog, you know, whereas the moderators were quick to say, whoa, we called the town marshal. I mean, that I've never heard. Whatever, the town manager. I've never heard the debate moderator.

So, what you're referring to, this is amazing. I'm so glad you brought that up.

So, they were referring to, is it true that the Haitian migrants were eating pets?

So, this David Muir says his staff, or he, called the town manager and they said it's not happening.

So, when Trump says it's happening, he goes, Well, I called the town manager. He goes, Well, I saw it on television. He says, I called the town manager. Really?

Okay.

So, you fact-checked ahead of time in anticipation of challenging President Trump on this story about illegal immigrants. But the bigger story, Mark, is they have taken over the town. They've taken over the school system. They've been a financial burden to the town, causing big-time strife. No one's telling Republican or Democrat.

And it's the same thing that we're hearing about in Aurora, Colorado, same thing. We're hearing about in Suffolk County, Long Island. Same thing we heard about in Martha's Vinion briefly. These towns are being taken over by what was once a border issue, but it got buried in the dog and cat eating portion of this story. Yes, that's right.

And you know, if you listen to Vance, He he was very articulate on kind of saying, yeah, they fact-checked about the pets, but then they really were burying the overall issue that immigration is run amok, and that's really what voters really feel about the issue when they see the enormous expense in the task. I think Vance is gonna have a very, very good debate, actually. I think he's, you know, he has the kind of verbal adroitness. you know, that that that I think is is going to be very, very effective, but but we'll uh but we'll see. But look, in this debate, like I said, what people really wanted was Trump to to throw her off the game.

She threw everything at him. She was well prepared. Uh and she lives to fight another day and so does Trump. I want you to hear J.D. Vance on this on moderators and what he saw from his vantage point.

I do agree. I don't love J.D. Vance's foreign policy. It kind of scares me a little, isolationist. But I think he's very good on his feet and has been a strong supporter of this ticket, a big asset.

Cut 22. I think President Trump did a good job at reminding the American people that this is a person who wanted to ban fracking. Here we are in Pennsylvania. She supported banning fracking. She supported defunding the police.

She supported opening the border. And I think that though the moderators didn't do their job, I think President Trump did do his job in reminding the American people that she has taken a number of radical positions that, as he joked, she's run away from.

Now she's acting like Donald Trump. She's about to put on a MAGA hat.

So So I thought you put it in perspective, you know, the moderators were against you, but then when you realize that, you got to adjust, correct? Yeah, I mean, they were worse than actually I've ever seen in any presidential debate, right? This all started when I guess Romney was into the whole kind of moderator downhill notion. you know, stopped w when when Romney was kind of interrupted by one of the moderators uh uh uh a number of debates ago. But this was look, this was agreed just by ABC.

But still, you know, Trump had a lot of ammunition, that ACLU questionnaire against. against Harris was really devastating. Which was? Oh, he said basically she was for taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for people in detention who had just crossed the border illegally. I mean, it was a if you read that questionnaire, like if every American read that questionnaire and how carefully and detailed it's filled out, I don't think she'd have a lot of votes, to be honest.

It is It is devastating, and that's the kind of stuff people wanted Trump to hold her to account for.

So look, he can go out and say he did a great job. He didn't do a great job. It wasn't his best night. And it was her best night in this thing. But that doesn't change the underlying issues that most voters are unhappy with the economy and they still want to know where she stands on the issues.

And they really didn't get that from these moderators. who let her slide and kept their foot on Trump's throat. There was a perfect linkage for today because it's 9-11. It's 23 years since the 9-11 attacks. What happened?

We went into Afghanistan to get bin Laden. We eventually got him on top of the Taliban.

Now they're back, and things are worse. And now they're starting to come to our southern border. That would have been a natural attack plan, especially when she said she was the last person in the room when Joe Biden made that decision. And I'm thinking to myself, did you find out that Joe Biden say that generals told him not to? Because we got generals who took an oath and said, We told him not to do this.

Did you push back like Vice President Biden did against Obama when he decided to take out bin Laden? But it just left it out there.

Well And you know, never forget there are 38 million people who live under essentially tyranny. Because of what happens here. You know, it it is. These foreign policy moves particularly Afghanistan. And if you go through the polling, President Biden was actually doing pretty well.

And then that Afghanistan decision really sunk his presidency. After that, people no longer trusted him with foreign policy or virtually on every issue. They were so shocked You know, with that decision that was made. And she continued in that debate to say that it was a good decision and really. really did not give an inch on that.

I want you to hear Kamala Harris get away with a moderator not checking, fact checking her Cut 17. A detailed and dangerous plan called Project 2025 that the former President intends on implementing is couples who pray. And dream of having a family. are being denied IVF treatments. If Donald Trump were to be reelected, he will sign a national abortion ban.

And what did the President then at the time say? There were fine people on each side. On that day, a hundred and forty law enforcement officers were injured. And some died. Donald Trump, the candidate, has said in this election there will be a bloodbath.

if this and the outcome of this election is not to his liking.

So Number one, the bloodbath was too economic. He thought that's going to happen to the market if he doesn't win.

So everyone made that clear. It's on CNBC. It's a phrase used on CNBC and Fox Business every day. On Charlottesville, he was saying there were good people that wanted those statues to stay up, not good people in hoods that killed that woman that caused the riot. And when you listen to the rest of his remarks, it shows it.

And he never said that he wants an abortion ban. He would sign an abortion ban.

Well, and on IVF, he specifically said he was going to going to, in fact, have it covered by insurance. That was a list. And on the Bud Bath, it actually was that Michigan was it was going to be a Budbath, that Michigan was going to lose jobs in the auto industry. That was a complete list of every false whopper that has been told about Trump that has been debunked. That was never corrected by the moderators.

And that was a strategic decision that both Biden made and Harris made: that they could get away telling 50 million people all of these stories and no one would ever correct them on the spot. Mark Penn with us.

So, Mark, there's an offer out there that came from the Harris camp. Let's debate in October. What would you say if you were the Trump team? It'd be a tough. Decision.

I think it could go. If you're sitting there in the Trump team, you'd either say, look, We don't want to end this thing with a lost debate. We kind of we know her game now. Trump, you could go out there and win the and win the second time. And otherwise, she'll get away.

She'll do no interviews. And then on the other hand, people would say, oh, look. You know, she's a strong debater. You're not going to get unla you know, you could go out there and insist it's on Fox so that there are fair moderators and leave it at that. Or hex, just go on and run the campaign.

I think that'll be a tough decision. I'm not sure exactly which way I'd come down I'd come down on that one. At a minimum, you wouldn't go into an unfavorable environment for if you did accept that. Yeah, I would say Fox or nothing, number one, not just because I work here. I know Martha and Brett would be fair.

And also, pick out the top issues. The top issues is not Obamacare, it's not January 6th, it's not on any poll. You do this for a living, Mark. You know, it's immigration is up there, always the economy, inflation, and abortion. But yet we're talking about Obamacare and january sixth and what you said the other day about twenty twenty election.

I'm thinking to myself, really? If you you only have ninety minutes, this is not one of the finalists.

Well, there was a two minute discussion on the economy. No discussion of taxation and taxes, budget sizes, of fiscal responsibility. They instead picked out the weakness on tariffs in isolation without the rest of the economic policy and what his manufacturing policy would be.

So yeah, there was two minutes. And look, they did climate change, they did abortion. Those are the issues that she leads on. They did raise immigration and fairness. on that issue.

But again, look, Trump's going to going to sit there and say, look, I want to take her on again. I don't want to leave this. It'll be interesting to see which way he comes out. I think, though, it's a disservice to have moderators like this in terms of giving everyone a fair chance. And everyone was surprised at CNN last time.

They observed the rules incredibly well, and they let the two candidates go after each other and correct each other, which is the proper format for a debate. Mark, always valuable to get your advice and your insight. Mark Penn, thanks. CEO, Chairman of Stagwell Inc. Thanks, Mark.

You can follow him at mark underscore pen. Listen, I see up there in Hampton Roads, over in Illinois, over in Florida, over in Live Oak, Florida. We're going to get to all your calls in just a moment. You listen to the Brian Kilmey Show on a sacred day in American history, 9-11. We mark 23 years and the day after the one and seemingly only debate.

Both sides, all opinions, it's Brian Killmead. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. breaking news.

So we talked a little bit earlier about these debates. Do they even mean anything? Do they even do anything? Apparently they did move the needle enough for one undecided voter, a Miss Taylor Swift, has endorsed Kamala Harris. That's what happened.

Um so uh you know what this means. Um Taylor Swift. And I Yeah. We're Watching TV had the same program up that side.

So yeah, that's do you think that's a big new big deal, Allison? I don't think it's surprising to anyone, but where I think it could be a big deal is if she then gets more people to register to vote than we're planning on doing so otherwise. Yeah, I mean, maybe that could happen. I mean, it's hard to see. She's probably the most popular performer in America.

Would you say that? Yeah, in the world, even. I mean, her show is a little bit more. And so now she's a global star and she's like Barbara Streisand going left.

Well, that is true. And Barbara Streisand, I mean, she's become a comic book character. Not only is she never knowing when to say goodbye. Um But everyone knows she's like an extreme lefty. I mean, people think of that before they think of her voice.

But I think if she just comes out and just endorses her period. Let's see if it ends here. Yeah, like if that's it, then I think it'll be okay. But if she starts to get very vocal and annoying on the issues, that might impact her. It just bothers me that Eric's like, I'm not going to pick a candidate until Taylor Swift says it, says who she's picking.

Now, I don't know if that means he's doing the opposite of Taylor Swift. Would you say not? What'd you say? Finally. Finally.

So you know what to do or what not to do, Eric. Are you going to tell me or is it either or?

Okay.

I'm now made up, yeah. You want to, you're officially undecided, but at least she's not. That's how you feel. She she pushed me over the line. All right, good.

And he also loved the picture that he posted with her cat. He thought that's true. Hey, Dell, you're in Massachusetts, Dell. Hey Brian, how are you this morning? What did you think of last night?

Uh well You know, I have voted for the man twice and I'll vote for him again this time, but I have to say. I was pretty embarrassed of his performance. I just don't think he was prepared. I know you can talk about the moderators. But you have certain topics you've got to get on, you've got to have information.

He just didn't do that. Yeah, you know what? It's hard to push back on that. There's so many openings you could have driven a truck to. I know it's harder on stage with 50 million people watching, but I mean, he lives it every day.

He knows the answers. He knows how to govern the country. It's much different when you're a businessman with an idea of what it's like. He knows this stuff. Kevin in Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Kevin. Hey, good morning, Brian. Yes, you were right on Target when Kamala Harris brought up the crowdsize thing. I think Trump was on the ropes emotionally, and she pushed him over the edge With that. But you know what's interesting?

I don't know if you guys know about this. The Kamala Harris campaign is actually running an ad in Virginia, and they're showing some guy yawning while Trump's speaking, and then they show people leaving and the stands partially empty, and then they show her with a big giant stadium at the convention.

So, you know, but anyways, I think that's Trump's sensitive on that, but Um, abortion, I think he missed a huge opportunity. She kept calling misleadingly calling it the Trump abortion ban. They asked her what limits would you put on abortion? And she just vaguely said, you know. Uh, Roe versus Wade.

Well, you know, whatever you imagine that to be, but Trump could have seized the opportunity and said, you know what? I've restored more choice to millions of people across the country instead of Five people on the Supreme Court deciding abortion.

Now, every state and every voter in every state has a say. Yeah, I could say that, but I mean, the people they've labeled that freedom. Instead of pro-choice, pro-life, they've effectively named it freedom. They never talk about the life of the kid. Of the baby.

And what they do is, which he flat out lied, and so did the moderator, say that there's no such thing as a full-term abortion. There is, and it happened in Minnesota under Governor Walsh at least five times.

So it's kinda tough to his to to his point. Of fighting back against someone says, Well, that's not true. And then someone, yeah, that never happens. And then you move on to another topic. Brain kill me, Chip.

From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show. Brian. In Kill Mead. From 48th and 6th of Midtown Manhattan, but thinking about downtown Manhattan, it's Brian Kilmead. It is 9-11.

It's been 23 years since the 9-11 attacks, and the families are reading their names. We're also doing a split screen with Shanksville. We know the candidates for President of the United States, Vice President Harris, who was downtown, maybe still there. They were still there, I think. Joe Biden is there, President of the United States, for now when he decides to show up.

And then we have Donald Trump as well as J.D. Vance in between the Mike Bloomberg. Must be awkward, but for this cause, they have to bury the hatchet, I guess, because to commemorate that year, that day, and no one will ever forget that day, I was on the air on Fox and Friends at the time. Then went downtown, had a chance to cover it, see the carnage up close and personal, something you don't forget. And you watched not only the towers on fire, then you watched them fall.

And then you go down there, and it looks like you're sitting, standing on the moon. It looks like another planet with paper shoes and just white dust everywhere. And then you think about the ripple effects ever since then, and then being able to work with Frank Siller the best you can. He's a sponsor of the show, too, to get word out to help those who lost their lives, the survivors, and the ones still giving their lives because of the cancerous carcinogens that were in the air that day. There are more firefighters that have first responders that have lost their lives since 9-11 from the air quality.

And the cancer and different illnesses they got then died that day. That's how significant it is. Brian Stern is going to be with us at the bottom of the arrow. He was a first responder at 9/11 and a multi-tour combat veteran who received a purple heart for his courage and injuries occurred on September 11, 2001. And Steph Kaid is standing by, Axios political reporter.

And of course, the big story is the one and possibly only debate between Harris and Trump is now in the books. 105 minutes on ABC. Think one of the prevailing thoughts is. Trump could have been calmer. He could have been more concise.

He could have been more studied. But there's no doubt about it. We just spoke to Mark Penn. The moderators were clearly not on his side. At times, he was fighting three against one.

Not to make excuses, Harris was well prepared, didn't answer any of the questions, did not assuage me and the reasons why she flip-flopped on any of her policies at around 15 to 20, that she really feels as though she's changed her mind, or does she know what the electorate wants and what she needs to get elected? Steph Kite joins us now from Axio. Steph, welcome. What did you think last night? I mean, it is pretty clear that Kamala Harris had the night that she needed to have last night.

And, you know, she seemed to have a little bit of a shaky start early on and was a little bit deflective on some of the early questions from the moderators addressing some of the issues that she has flip-flopped on. But she really did kind of hit her stride in the debate, came off as confident and relaxed, and clearly got under the former president's skin. It was clear that that was a goal of hers, bringing up crowd sides, using some of the terms that the former president likes to use, telling Trump that world leaders are laughing at him. That was clearly a tactic to try to get Trump ruffled and off script and angry. And unfortunately for Trump, he took the bait time and time again.

It was certainly not what Trump advisors were hoping for. They were hoping that he would kind of stick to the script like he had in his debate against Biden.

So, look, it seems like most people agree that if we had to pick a winner, it would be Harris. But there's still the question of how much this actually changes the race, because to your point earlier, there are still a lot of questions to be answered about where Kamala Harris stands on a host of issues. Yeah, here is what she said to Trump to get under his skin, cut 12. But what we have in the former President is someone who would prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem. And I'll tell you something, he's going to talk about immigration a lot tonight, even when it's not the subject that is being raised.

And I'm going to actually do something really unusual, and I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies, because it's a really interesting thing to watch. You will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills cause cancer, And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. And then he responded, cut thirteen. First, let me respond as to the rallies.

She said people start leaving. People don't go to her rallies. There's no reason to go. And the people that do go, she's bussing them in and paying them to be there and then showing them in a different light.

So she can't talk about that. People don't leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That's because people want to take their country back. Right.

You got pretty angry at that. And of course, I just found out Mark Penn says they're running an ad where somebody looks like they're bored at one of his rallies or leaving.

So I want you to hear, do we have it, Eric? Will Mark Penn. Said to us last hour, he's the Clinton pollster with Harris Poles.

Okay.

worse than actual I've ever seen in any presidential debate, right? This all started when I guess Romney was into, I mean, the whole kind of moderator downhill notion. you know, stopped when when Romney was kind of interrupted by one of the moderators a number of debates ago. But this was, look, this was agreed just by ABC.

So he said there was the worst moderated uh Moderated debate he's ever seen, and it started, he was referencing Candy Crowley. Who moderated that debate? Your thoughts about the moderator? Look, I mean, being a moderator for this kind of debate on this kind of a national stage is always difficult. And there is always a conversation about whether and how to do fact checking, where when do you interrupt, The candidates, when do you not?

We saw a different approach to the Biden, the Biden-Trump debate where the moderators didn't really get involved at all. They kind of sat back and let it happen. And so there are conflicting opinions about how that should be done. Could the moderators have held Harris to account more strongly, forced her to answer to some of these issues that she flip-flopped on? Sure, maybe.

Does that mean that they should not have fact-checked some of the things that Trump said, especially the now kind of viral Claim about Haitian migrants eating people's pets. You know, there is a space where it's important to make sure we clarify things that are maybe going viral online.

So, you know, at the end of the day, though, it's clear that conservatives are focused on the moderators, are blaming the moderators for the performance. And the reality is, when you're blaming the moderators, it's a sign that the debate didn't go very well. We saw the same thing from Democrats coming out of Biden's debate. There was a lot of uproar over how the moderators handled that debate from the Democratic side.

So, sure, you can criticize, maybe look at ways moderators could have done better, but it's not usually a sign that your candidate did very well. No, I think you're right. I think that she did better than him. I think he had a lot of issues on his side. He had the economic numbers on his side.

There's immigration on his side, Afghanistan withdrawal on his side. Ukraine, how that war got started. She was there. She said that she actually told Zelensky basically how to fight. When instead, he actually told Zelensky, Do you need a ride out?

Famously, Zelensky goes, You know, I need guns. I don't need a ride. He wants ammunition. And then he fought it out because Joe Biden's offer was to get him out of there like Ghani left. But I want you to hear some of the flip-flops.

I actually think that whatever you think of Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, if you don't present a problem, it's really hard to blame the moderators. If you insert yourself, you are going to be perceived to be on one side or the other. But here's an example of. Of her going back and forth and never answering the key question. If you changed your mind, why did you?

And therefore, if people are sold on the reason why, you then have instant credibility. But she did not take advantage of that cut to. Vice President Harris, in your last run for president, you said you wanted to ban fracking.

Now you don't. You wanted mandatory government buyback programs for assault weapons.

Now your campaign says you don't. You supported decriminalizing border crossings.

Now you're taking a harder line. I know you say that your values have not changed.

So then why have so many of your policy positions changed?

So my values have not changed, and I'm going to discuss every one of the, at least every point that you've made. But in particular, let's talk about fracking because we're here in Pennsylvania. I made that very clear in 2020. I will not ban fracking. I have not banned fracking as Vice President of the United States.

And in fact, I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases for fracking. We'll talk about fracking, but the buyback program that came up later, she wasn't acknowledged, it wasn't qualified, it wasn't corrected when she said she doesn't look to take your guns. When all the other things that she came out on when it comes to decriminalizing border crossings, not drilling, all those things. Your response to her response, and the fact that there was no follow-up on those other things. I mean, look, it's clear that Kamala Harris is just trying to focus on moving forward.

This is something that she and her campaign keep talking about, but they're trying not to dive into these past comments that she made on the record in 2019, where she had much more progressive ideas of how to handle these issues. You know, on one hand, at least we've heard from her mouth herself that she, you know, is no longer in favor of banning fracking, and she's at least now spoken to some of these issues. Claire, Steph, can I just hold you there? Do you know right now there's a pause on LNG new leases? that directly affect Pennsylvania.

For no apparent reason? I mean, could wouldn't that have been a great point for Trump to bring up or for the moderators to know? And exactly. And I would say, you know, on this point, I think one of the reasons why, you know, last night did not go the way it could have gone for Trump was because he also was not prepared to push back and especially on these flip-flop points. It is not new that Harris has been flip-flopping on these issues, and there were plenty of opportunities for Trump to respond, to press Harris on these issues.

And they were opportunities that he missed and instead took the bait on other issues that he felt compelled to respond to. And, you know, there's a sense in which one of his last lines and kind of his concluding statement was kind of his strongest argument: that if Harris has all these promises, what is she doing now as Vice President of the United States? That was, you know, many people were saying that was the strongest argument Trump could have made, but it's not one we heard throughout the debate. We only heard it at the end when, quite frankly, lots of Americans have tuned out. Cut chicks.

So she just started by saying she's going to do this, she's going to do that, she's going to do all these wonderful things. Why hasn't she done it? She's been there for three and a half years. They've had three and a half years to fix the border. They've had three and a half years to create jobs and all the things we talked about.

Why hasn't she done it? She should leave right now, go down to that beautiful White House, go to the Capitol, get everyone together and do the things you want to do, but you haven't done it, and you won't do it.

So, and that was part of his closing argument. You write about this. You said resident Republicans are getting nervous because they are being outraised by Democrats.

So, this is a year they are supposed to win the Senate. Montana looks good. West Virginia is basically a done deal. In what respect, how much money are they, how bad are they being outraised? I mean, you look at the fundraising that the Harris campaign brought in.

They brought in a record or a near-record amount of money in August and were able to give $10 million to their Senate campaigns. And my recent story has focused mostly on the Senate level. And to your point, things are looking possible for Republicans to still take back the majority. The map has certainly been in their favor. But the reality is that for a long time, Democrats have had a fundraising advantage over Republicans.

And when you're looking at races that are as close as they are in Montana, in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, they really are going to need those resources. And if they want to expand beyond those three states, they're going to need even more. And so there really is a sense of alarm within Republican leadership, within the Republican campaign arms, that they need people to step up and invest so that they can take as many seats as possible. And they're not looking at a situation where they have a 50-50 Senate or even just a one or two seat majority. It's going to be tough to hold it in two years.

We just watched President Trump, along with J.D. Vance, visit a local firehouse on 9-11. It's pretty amazing what's going on. You got the moment at 9-11, 2001, 23 years ago. Then you have the one and only debate after a candidate who came out of nowhere, even though she's vice president, to represent a party without going to any primaries.

This is one of those days I think as a newspaper, Steph, it's going to be hard to forget, right? It really is. We are living through history over these past few weeks, these past few months. It's really been remarkable to watch. Yeah, Steph Kai, thanks so much.

Appreciate your insight. Over to Axios. Thank you. 1-866-408-7669. I'm going to take some calls, bringing the latest on 9-11.

Still, ceremonies taking place commemorating the attacks, and all the candidates are fanned out through it. Joe Biden's ham-handed statement about what he was going to do today will be shared with you next. Don't move. Diving deep into today's top stories, it's Brian Kilmead. Breaking news, unique opinions.

Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show. We have a very tragic alert for you right now. An incredible plane crash into the World Trade Center here at the lower tip of Manhattan. It's speculated that the plane is as big as a 737. It looked originally like it just hit three floors.

As I see from this angle, it seems like more than three floors. And perhaps what's most disturbing, Edie, I think, is the time of day. This time of morning is when people pour into that building, and it's usually next to full.

So that is my that was me on the air back in 2001 on Fox and Friends as one plane hit a building. We watched it in the break. We saw the building hit a break. We're watching the raw feed. Then we come back on the air and we just were able to report what we saw at about 9:01.

We kept watching, and then we see the plane hit the other building at 9:06. And now today we put together an incredible package to recount that day. It's not the same one that runs every year, which was phenomenal, but different commentators talking about it. Reporters no longer here. Commentators no longer here.

But of course, the event still exists. John Scott did an unbelievable job, but we cannot forget what happened 23 years ago, and it's going to be a much bigger deal when you hit that mark of 25. Tim in St. Louis. Hey, Tim.

And good morning to you. Hey, Brian, good morning to you. I just wanted to mention I was eight years old back in 2001 when that happened. I was at a Lutheran school out here in St. Louis.

And just the stuff you showed this morning on Fox and Friends really brought back all those memories and just the patriotism that We as a country showed at that time. And while I don't remember much being eight, I do remember a lot of that day. It was terrifying and scary. really not knowing what was going to happen. But we just prayed in school that day.

And just getting to recap this morning and not reliving the negativity of that day, but the positivity of coming together as a country Really, really brought a positive image to my mind. And seeing Trump and Kamala shake hands this morning really made me smile, even after last night's debate. And I'll mention this. Oh, did they? I didn't see that.

Did they actually shake hands today? They did, yes. I believe on America's Newsroom they did shake hands. I sh I saw the video. Which was nice to see.

Yeah, that was great. I had one more thing. You really can do a complete circle. I don't want to bring this back to politics. But the reason why we needed to stay in Afghanistan, and all four of these last presidents, Bush used to make it clear.

Obama didn't. Biden wanted out, and Trump wanted out. You have to say the re our presence there keeps an eye on the terrorists who have not changed their objective to come back again. And it also gives people, a generation of people, a chance to understand that your life does not have to be one of oppression. You had for the first time women going to school, women holding positions, women holding jobs, women not being forced to wear oppressive burkhas everywhere for twenty years.

And if you just gave them a little bit more time, they asked for another year or if we left responsibly, it is related to nine eleven. And that's why we went. We never wanted to control the country. We wanted to get in and out. And then we realized Bin Laden's not caught.

Al Qaeda could come back. We can't just leave. And that would have been a way to draw it all together. Thanks so much. Good point.

I did not know that. Brian in Illinois, real quick, Brian. Yes, um On the debate, Kamla kept saying uh Donald Trump's uh abortion ban, Donald Trump's abortion ban. She kept repeating it like Signaling all our people that this is our banner to rise up on. I've seen on Fox News where Democrats have have repeated certain things that it's it's what they need to uh their talking point, what they need to push.

Yeah.

We're not there to push them either way, but it's just not true. When something's not true, it's not true.

So, why she kept doing that? I'm not sure. The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. Hey, welcome back, everyone.

Brian Stern is about to join us, former first responder on 9-11, multi-year combat veteran, received the Purple Heart. But to put this whole day in perspective, you know, it was actually came up last night when you talk about how we left Afghanistan and why the way we left might mean we have to go back because now it's now a Thorough terror university, from ISIS to ISIS, K to Al-Qaeda, they are back there, and we don't no longer have eyes and ears in and around that area.

So it could be devastating. It could be devastating for the future of this country and our security. That seemed to have been slipped. No one really put that together in saying, you know, the next day is 9-11.

So. It's important to bring that up. I want you to hear a little of Michael McCall and what they found out about how he. Uh not going to do that. A little about what he found out.

Now, in that 9/11 report, 350 pages that came back that talked about the deal that was cut within Doha. With the deal that was cut in Doha with Mike Pompeo, Khalazad, our representative, as well as. as well as the Taliban, it was all conditions based.

So it was conditions based. As soon as things started going bad, They would have broken the whole thing off, and that's where Trump didn't use the word conditions-based. But he was saying that I would have broke the deal off as soon as they started killing Afghan soldiers because that was not allowed. And one of the reasons when they started doing that, then of course we said we have to not cover them with any air cover. We would have done that and that would have changed.

I did not know this, but we were about to back out under Barack Obama when things started falling apart. He changed his mind.

Now, officially, is Brian Stern here. But I want you to hear, Brian, before we officially, here's what Michael McCall said yesterday. Kamala Harris was in the room. When the decision Was made. She clearly, she says, I was the last man.

One to leave. If She agreed with our generals. and the intelligence community. She would have agreed with the President. But she did.

She said, I a hundred per cent. Agree. With the President. And she reaffirmed that yesterday on stage. Brian, welcome back.

Thanks for your service. When they were going back and forth about what went wrong in Afghanistan on that exit, how important is it to you to find out whose decision that was and and how uh preventable it turned out to be.

Well, extremely important. Number one, I'm an Afghan. I'm a veteran of the Afghan war. I've buried a lot of time there, buried friends there as an intelligence officer, where I've recruited assets, where I've Asked Afghans to help us and in trade, we won't leave you behind. And we did.

And we did. My outfit, graybullrescue.org, we're an international, we're a veteran-led international rescue organization. We're still pulling people, Americans, and green card holders, out of Afghanistan three years later.

So, And we're entirely donor funded.

So, purely from a selfish perspective, the cost of the withdrawal and the way it went down is extreme, just from a very personal perspective, as who runs a team of people that have to go in and go get people.

So, it's extremely important. It's a black mark on our handshake. As Americans, our values are about honor and integrity. We're supposed to be the beacons of morality. There's a reason why Guatemalans are flocking to America and Americans are not flocking to Guatemala because we're an awesome country.

We have our problems, and that's great. But when we talk about Afghanistan, it's a very dishonorable thing. And the reality is, there are only two people in our system of government that are allowed to deploy troops: the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense. That's it. All the generals, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, his title is to be the principal military advisor to the president.

He actually can't deploy anybody. He has to salute smartly. General McKinsey, who is the Secretary of Defense. Encom commander during the withdrawal of Afghanistan caught a lot of flack. I know General McKenzie personally.

He is one of the most honorable officers I've ever had the pleasure of meeting or engaging with. He was directed and ordered what to do, and that's just a fact of life. That's not a Republican thing, that's not a Democrat thing. It doesn't matter who's in the White House, that's the way it goes. But if you want to not make that decision again, it's important to get to the bottom of it.

But it doesn't seem like anyone's interested in hearing what this report says, what previous reports said. President Biden's refused to get the briefing from the people that put it together in the military. That's got to be maddening. You know, today's 9-11, and I'm a 9-11 first responder. I was here for both collapses in the plaza.

And the 9-11 motto is: never forget. That's what the 9-11 community always says. Never forget. That's not just about 9-11. It's important to understand what happened, why it happened.

It's why we did the 9-11 Commission, the 9-11 Commission, which generated the 9-11 Commission report. I submitted. Which was a best-selling book that everyone bought and people discussed. We did it on this show, on TV. There's lots of reasons that went into the withdrawal of Afghanistan.

Some of those are easy to understand, some are hard to understand. But bottom line is, the questions need to be asked and answered by everyone. Not just, you know, I think people are very quick to put this at the doorstep of the White House. And that's true, but there's lots and lots and lots and lots of people who told the president what to do, what not to do, who advised him, who didn't. All that needs to get fleshed out because the stain of the withdrawal of Afghanistan.

Weeks before the 20th anniversary of 9-11. It's why I started my organization. I started my organization because. I was working on a keynote speech for the for the twentieth anniversary of nine-eleven. I was asked to give a talk, and I was working on my speech and talking about hearing and seeing people jumping.

And it was breaking news on Fox News where it showed the C-17 and Afghans falling from the plane. That is what inspired me to spin up my team, get the band back together. We're all volunteers, go to Afghanistan, go to these crazy places. We've done 617 missions since then. We rescued Americans.

American citizens, whose passports look like yours and mine, Weeks and weeks and weeks after the withdrawal of Afghanistan, months and months and months and months, and now years and years and years later. And you're disappointed that didn't get brought up before in the public square, whether it's in Congress or whether it was on that debate stage. I think that there are lots of folks that are trying to bring it up. My good friend, Congressman Mike Waltz, who's one of the greatest Green Berets that ever lived. He's an awesome, awesome, awesome, very loud and vocal member of Congress, which I like as a soldier.

I think lots of people are asking these hard questions and they need to be asked. And I think it's important to not make it political. We need to be fair and square about this. But also, there's got to be a situation where generals, if they know better, they spent their whole time in uniform, they're experts, they have to be able to say, Mr. President, if you do this, The whole thing's got to fall apart.

I got guys, like you said, that die there. You have wasted their lives and their time 20 plus years. If you do it like this, it could fall. And when they do and they don't take the order, if Milliot turned around, put those stars on the ground, and go, I gotta leave, because he's such a critic of Trump. For him to leave for Biden, it would have stopped Biden from doing it.

And this becomes very. Um personal at that point. That's not a bureaucracy issue that's not a policy issue that becomes a very much I'm a four star general. I've never met General Milley, but I um from what I know, I have respect for General Milley. He served, he did his thing, he served Democrats, Republicans, All the admirals and generals.

to be our system to make them a flag officer. To get them their star looks very much like the political appointment process. They have to be Senate confirmed. It's the way it is. That's why colonels are the most important rank in the Army, because colonels 06.

They don't play politics. They're not required to. Every general, every admiral that you meet, every single one at some point had to go and sell themselves to members of Congress and the Senate and explain why they were the good people, the right person, man or woman for the job, and all those things. But it's very much a political, it looks, they have to be Senate confirmed and go through a process. Our system The way it is under Title X.

lends itself When these issues happen to criticism. Right. I want you to hear how it came up last night.

Well, I will tell you I agreed with President Biden's decision. to pull out of Afghanistan. Four presidents said they would, and Joe Biden did. And as a result, America's taxpayers are not paying the $300 million a day we were paying for that endless war. And as of today, there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone in any war zone around the world, the first time this century.

But let's understand how we got. to where we are. Donald Trump, when he was President, negotiated one of the weakest deals you can imagine. Your thoughts? Um I don't believe in putting a price tag on honor.

I don't, you know, we're spending, you know, we saved millions of dollars a day in Afghanistan, but good news, we're spending billions of dollars a day in other places. And we're also funding the Taliban, which is interesting. I think the money argument, just as a soldier, this is way above my pay grade. But as a guy who runs a team of patriots, who have we've we've conducted six hundred and seventeen operations Afghanistan. Operation Pineapple?

No, we we're different. We're we're Gray Bull Rescue.

So Pineapple, Scotty Mann is a great guy. Uh we're a little bit different because we're in the field.

So I just got back from Beirut rescuing an American being stuck with his bola. Two and a half weeks ago. We flew helicopters into Haiti. We did Sudan, the evacuation in Sudan we did. We did Hurricane Ian, we did Maui, we did Russia, we did Ukraine.

In fact, on your show, I remember years ago, you interviewed the first American victim of war crimes alive since World War II that we broke out of jail from Russia. Wow. Right? 617 missions my crew has done, 7,000 people and counting. Wow.

So All those people. Ask the government for help.

So just because we're not doing it doesn't mean that we can't. It's a choice. That we don't.

Now, some of those choices again are easy to understand, but when I hear the vice president talk about saving money. From my perspective.

Well, I you can't put a price tag on a life. Of course. You just can't. You left billions behind in equipment. And you left 56 million just in cash in Afghanistan.

You know, my team and I went into Afghanistan in December 2021. This is months after the withdrawal, months. The Taliban are now running the DMV. Right, like everything they are so well, right? I mean, God bless getting those women's photos, right?

Exactly right, and um.

Okay.

We go. I went. I have a Taliban Visa on my passport as I talk to you right now. Right now. we go and it was fascinating because every single person that we rescued Ask someone else for help.

And that help didn't come. Wow. So. Is it right that we left Afghanistan? 100%.

I'm actually a supporter of leaving Afghanistan. But it's the way that you do it. It's the way. That is where honor and integrity matter. That's where that matters.

I want to talk about 9-11, too, but. If you explain to the American people by leaving 2,500 there and 2,500 contractors and maybe 2,000 NATO members, and you're able to keep an eye on what's happening with ISIS-K, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, you're keeping America safe. You're not just sitting there because you don't know how to get out. You're sitting right between China, Pakistan, Iran, and you have a looking glass on what the hell is going on there, and you still got Bagram Air Base. If you explain that to the American people, we would understand.

Civilians would understand that.

So it's very simple. If you go to the Pentagon website, there's this thing called the National Defense Strategy. And that's the primary document that governs everything that we do. How many ships we buy, how big the army is, what our priorities are. And it lists four key threats: China.

Russia, Iran, and terrorists, violent extremist organizations. The title of the document is called Integrated Deterrence. Yes. And the idea is that we're so awesome. We're like Apple.

Everything just works. We're so integrated and so awesome that you'd have to be out of your mind to pick a fight with us. Four key threats. Today we are kinetically engaged in three with three of the four. That means that integrated deterrence isn't working very well.

The way you lose deterrence is by not being a credible threat.

So Does that mean I'm a warmonger? No, does that mean but you need to s you you know I I do a lot of work with the with police departments. And there's a famous saying, an old saying from old cops, and they'll say: most people respect the badge. but everyone respects the gun. That's just like the American flag.

The American flag I've been in mud huts in the middle of Africa where they don't have plumbing, and they still know what an American flag is. It's the most recognized symbol in the world, whether we like that or don't, whether that's convenient or not, but with that comes responsibility. With that comes responsibility, and it's on us as Americans to be responsible. Of course. That doesn't mean do we make it.

We're going to be the world's policeman. We get it. Absolutely not. But there is something to be said for it. The British Empire can't conquered half the world with the use of flags.

There is something to be said for having a presence. And if we look, how many countries has the United States gone to war with?

Well we don't Currently have troops. There's two. Vietnam and Afghanistan. Unbelievable. We still have troops in Germany and Spain.

Although we were convinced Vietnam was not going to follow us home. We knew it. They weren't looking to do that. Real quick, 9-11, your reaction to how it relates to you. I'm a survivor of 9-11.

I was here as a kid. I was in the Army as a kid. I was here. Both collapses. Where were you located?

I was standing right at the base of Tower 2 when Tower 2 got hit. What were you doing? I was in the Army. Yeah, and I and I was going to school with John Jay at night, uh, get uh doing my thing and um it's one of those days for those that experienced it that uh all the pictures don't do it justice. It wa um I've never seen a movie or pictures or whatever that capture how I felt and what I saw.

I've never been that afraid of it. You saw the bodies people just.

So I saw everything. And I've seen a lot of war. I've been deployed or in combat or getting ready to go to combat or doing stuff since about noon on 9-11.

So 23 years I've been in this fight, my team and I. And I think about it every day. I do. It's the only day that is like tattooed on my head kind of thing.

So I live every day like it's September 12th. It's important to not forget. You know, the younger kids are, this is like Pearl Harbor for them. They don't, when we read about Pearl Harbor as kids, that was a long time ago. That's what grandpa did.

You know, yeah, you know, it didn't impact us.

So it's important to not forget. But most importantly, when we say never forget, is that it can happen again. And When you read the 9-11 Commission report, I've read both versions, the classified and the unclassified versions. it there's a theme in there about milestones, right? The embassy bombings and USS COL, the first the first World Trade Center bombings, and it goes through this stepping stone to this culminating event that we call nine eleven.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed called it Operation Bojanka. I submit to you that there will come a time And I hope Never, and I really hope I'm wrong. But there'll come a time where we're going to look at 9-11 and we're going to say, oh, only 3,000 people died that day. That's not so bad. We have got it is on us, Republicans, Democrats, black, white, purple, whoever you are, whatever you are, to make sure that it does not happen again.

That's why when you have these people on the FBI watch list, when they're coming from Tajikistan, are you nuts? Does anyone remember anything? These books are available. This stuff is available to civilians. Brian Stern, thanks for all you've done and do and will do in the future.

Former first responder, how do we want to support your organization real quick? Where do we go? GraybullRescue.org and also on Facebook and social media and all that stuff. That is how people find us.

So you can help us just by following and sharing our stuff. That is how people find us.

It helps me save lives every single day. It doesn't cost you a penny. GraybullRescue.org. Thanks. Giving you everything you need to know.

You're with Brian Kilmead. The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead. Yeah, you guys should really. Brian Stern, really impressive guy, his whole team here.

If you could help out Gray Bull Rescue, G-R-E-Y Bull Rescue, donor-funded. They're out there just saving Americans around the world, around the country, after already serving.

So then they said, hey, you know what? Let's form an organization and help others, Americans in distress. And do you know this administration calls them because they don't want to deploy their own people? And I hope they're rewarding them with at least government money to go do this. And they're still pulling Americans out of Afghanistan.

Why that didn't come up last night, I don't understand. We're also marking 23 years since the 9/11 attacks and how it's all related to what's in the news today. I know people don't love to pay attention and they don't want to talk about war, but unfortunately, it's knocking on our door all the time. I see your calls get up there. We'll get back to them next hour.

Brian Kilmicho, 9-11. From Hia Top Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead. Hi, everyone. Excited to be here on the Brian Kilmeet Show, fresh off a four-hour edition of Fox and Friends here for three.

Martha McCallum be joining us. Who knows? She might be moderating, co-moderating the next debate in October. I'm not sure Trump is really on board for this. I think the polls have to change or something has to happen.

It looks like Harris has decided to commit right before or right after doing the debate last night. Also, We're going to break that down, talk about the five fact checks that the moderators did to Trump, none on Harris.

So I guess she told everything 100% accurate. They decided to play a role also with their topics. I mean, since when do we care about Obamacare again? That's front and center. Since when are we talking about the election of 2020?

Since when are we talking about January 6th? If you just pick the topics of interest to Americans and voters, it is immigration, is immigration in the top four everywhere. You got the economy number one by double digits, lengths everywhere. Inflation, a subset of that, but also in its own category. And abortion is up there ever since the overturn of Roe v.

Wade. I got it. But bringing up this other stuff, it just so happens those topics are big-time MSNBC primetime topics. Rachel Maddow must have stuck that on an index card and just handed it over to ABC.

So I think that that figured in. But I think that she was very well prepared to her credit. She was ready to go. A lot of optics, not a lot of substance.

So that's why Mark Penn told us earlier that the moderators were the worst ever and doesn't expect much to change after this. And of course, downtown New York, they're still reading the names of those who lost their lives on 9-11, 2001. Sadly, we've got to keep adding names to that. Not because we're recovering bodies, but because we're adding to the body count, because there's so many carcinogens, people have lost their lives on 9/11 related illnesses. A lot of them are exotic cancers.

We're unable to treat effectively, and people unfortunately aren't able to survive them.

So that's what it's one of these times where You don't have a big three because Yeah, the the ramifications of this debate with a brand new candidate. Who's been vice president, but no one knows her, and very few respected her. And then he got a sitting president trying to do what Grover Cleveland, only Grover Cleveland has done, lose, and then come back. And when?

So, this hour we're going to talk a while about the debate. I do want to talk a little bit about abortion. Kamala Harris wanted to go for the jugular on that. And then, when asked about restrictions, she did no longer wanted to be specific.

So, if you want to talk about abortions, I want it free everywhere. We've got to make sure it's not banned. Trump's going to ban it. When it comes to restrictions, she says, well,. We're not going to have any that's not that doesn't really apply here.

Cut seven. Would you support any restrictions on a woman's right to an abortion? I absolutely support reinstating the protections of Roe v. Wade. And as you rightly mentioned, nowhere in America Is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion.

That is not happening. It's insulting to the women of America. Well, maybe you should ask your running mate, because he enacted in 2015 the Born-Alive Infants Protection. It stated that, quote, a born-alive infant as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human being. They try to save their lives, but not under him.

Uh that changed under Governor Tim Waltz because Tim Waltz repealed the law protecting babies after failed abortions. Five babies died in Minnesota after they were born alive due to a failed-induced abortion in 2021.

So, if David Muir can make the effort to call over to that Ohio town and make sure the Haitian immigrants weren't eating pets, I know it sounds like I'm making it up, but I'm actually not. Maybe somebody could have found out because you knew that the Republican retort to abortion is: when is the right week? And they don't want to say it.

So, the right week is full-term abortion in many states. I think five separate states, and this happened five separate times under your running mate.

So, I know one thing: J.D. Vance is not going to let you get away with that.

So But I thought it was a fair start, and I tweeted that. I said, okay, moderators started off fair. For example, the first question, totally logical. Abortion, waiting to 16 minutes in, sure. Staying on it for six, seven minutes, I think that's fair.

What happened after that I have a huge problem with. But listen, for example, I knew what kind of night it would be when this was the question, but most importantly, listen for the answer to Kamala Harris cut one. When it comes to the economy, do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?

So I was raised as a middle class kid. And I am actually the only person on this stage who has a plan that is about lifting up the middle class and working people of America. I believe in the ambition, the aspirations, the dreams of the American people. And that is why I imagine and have actually a plan to build what I call an opportunity economy. Because here's the thing.

We know that we have a shortage of homes and housing. And the cost of housing is too expensive for far too many people.

Okay.

She doesn't have a comprehensive plan. It's like tax cuts, tax exemptions if you have children, $25,000 for first-time homebuyers. Student loan forgiveness, they're just abstract statements. That's not a plan. And if you had a plan, why don't you do it?

But do you notice she didn't answer the question? The question was: are we better than four years ago? She's been telling us for three years that biotechnics is great, it's the best economy, it's fantastic. But what is the plan, and is the economy better? Nobody thinks it is.

And that's why Trump's got more than a little bit of a shot. Avoiding this again. And there was no follow-up to say back to the original question. Are you better than you were four years ago? It's not.

Here's how Donald Trump described Her plan that's on our website. You can go to her now. I went to the Wharton School of Finance, and many of those professors, the top professors, think my plan is a brilliant plan. It's a great plan. It's a plan that's going to bring up our worth, our value as a country.

It's going to make people want to be able to go and work and create jobs and create a lot of good, solid money for our country. And just to finish off, she doesn't have a plan. She copied Biden's plan, and it's like four sentences: like run, spot, run.

So it's on our plan to build an opportunity economy and lower costs for families. Vice President Harris grew up in a middle-class home. Hmm. Where have I heard that before? She's actually thinking of our website as she answers the first question.

As the daughter of a working mom, she believes when the middle class is strong, America is strong.

So, how's that plan going? That's why President Kamala Harris will create an opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete. Oh, I feel better already. That sounds like a comprehensive plan. By the way, Joe Biden's like, really?

You got a plan? I'd love to get a plan. I still don't have a plan. Love to see a plan. This is the theme that Donald Trump should have had all night, cut six.

So she just started by saying she's going to do this, she's going to do that, she's going to do all these wonderful things. Why hasn't she done it? She's been there for three and a half years. They've had three and a half years to fix the border. They've had three and a half years to Create jobs and all the things we talked about.

Why hasn't she done it? She should leave right now, go down to that beautiful White House, go to the Capitol, get everyone together and do the things you want to do, but you haven't done it, and you won't do it.

That's a closing statement. That could have been the theme.

Okay, Sally, good idea. If you think it's a good idea, why don't you do it? Does Joe Biden not want you to do it?

Well, that's interesting. Does he have that little respect for you?

So The former president didn't do a good job in drilling down and making you have a choice. Are you the progressive that ran for president? Are you the vice president that had 32 percent approval rating that was trumpeting Bidenomics? What kind of president are you going to be? Give us an idea.

Your values haven't changed, but all your policies have.

So you're running on this economy, the economy under Biden-Harris. Inflation was up 19 percent from when they left off. Change in gas grocery prices. Up 20%. Changing gas prices, up 37%.

Increasing credit card debt, 48%. Economy, Trump versus Harris, 2.77. Mortgage rates, now 7.75. You think that makes a difference? Personal savings plus 385%, minus 73%.

Delinquencies minus 11%, plus 50%.

So you see what President Trump had to work with? But he didn't have the numbers. He's not a big numbers guy. And Didn't bring it up last night. They let Harris score and look composed.

She did look composed. She did look well studied, but there was no meat to the bone. Anywhere. Michael is on WABC. Hey, Mike.

Hey, Brian, how you doing? You know, Walt Trump's been through you know, he was trying to be killed almost killed uh about a month ago. All these years he's been in office. They've been going after him, his family. I think he's entitled, I don't know about you.

I think you can tell the losers cool a little bit every now and again. And the fact of the matter is that the biased. Uh event that it was They coddled Harris once again. And they went after Trump. And it's so, you know, it's so obvious to see how unfair he's being treated once again.

Yeah, I'm just worried about the perception outside people that are firmly in his camp that are pulling for him because. You know, if this was a race between center-left, center-right, I'd go, who's the better guy? Who's the better woman? Who's more experienced? Who's got a better vision?

But this is. She is acting like she's in the middle. She has no track record to show she's in the middle. She told you that my values haven't changed, which is an indication to me. Wink and a nod to AOC and company and Bernie Sanders.

I'm just trying to get elected. Don't let this bother you. And they get the message. almost too well. Thanks so much for the call.

Today, as I mentioned, 9-11. 23 years. Here's how it sounded. a little bit about uh how it sounded that day twenty-three years ago. Cut forty one.

Real violence. From our location now, I see heavy flow coming from the building of the wind. Also needs around Send me just about everything that you've got in the next direction. We're gonna take a second point. We watch this.

Let me get at least one or two units to respond to a West Street and World Trade Center building a shot. burn to ninety percent of his body. How we just collapse. I can go right down. We'll see what's the priority message.

Identify yourself. Don't care sympathize. I have a fireman who was quite near the explosion light over here, severely injured. Wow, a little bit of the peril that took place that day. It gives you up close and personal, the first responders, how they responded and tried to make sense of a situation.

Number one, when it comes to the towers, people were told after the 93 bombing: don't go down, go up, stay at your desk. That was a death sentence. Number two. When we were on a plane and things go wrong, they say, you know, if you're being hijacked, Remember, it used to happen a lot more frequently. Stay seated, don't cause an uproar, let negotiations bring it out.

This wasn't a hijack, it was a suicide mission. And then we will quickly find out how bad it would get, and our response is still going on today. Will listening in Live Oak, Florida. Hey, Will. Hey, I'm doing great, Brian.

Thank you for taking my call. How are you today? Oh, good. Nine eleven, twenty three years ago. New York is filled with men and women in uniform and a lot of families holding pictures.

Man, I'm a twenty one year military veteran. With the National Guard. I served in Iraq shortly thereafter. We were deployed to Iraq in 2003, April. Spent a year over there, it wasn't a you know There's a lot of things that's happened in our country and we we have forgotten.

Our country has forgotten what it is to protect ourselves from All the people that are incoming, and we have no vetting system for that. Um it hurts. It it's upsetting. Um I've got many, many people that work for me. Uh that are immigrants.

And I can tell you what they tell me. the people that are coming into our country are not the same people that came into our country twenty five, thirty years ago when these men came into our country. These are different this is a different group of people. They're not all Mexicans that are coming across the border. These are people from South America, these are people from Africa, these are people from all these other nations and all these other countries.

And I'm going to take you off my headset so I can hear a little bit better. But here's the Will. I'm up against the break, but I just want to say thanks for doing this. Number two, you understand the threat. Number three, it's all related to the border.

Afghanistan is related to our security. The border is not a political issue, it is a national safety issue. Everybody likes immigrants the right way. I'm not going to bore people with saying things you know already, but 9-11 should have been the wake-up call to people to understand. It's nothing against Hispanics, Middle Easterns, Chinese, or anybody else.

What is in our interest to keep the American people safe?

So they're getting through. They're on the FBI watch list. They have evil intentions. We just watched a horrific attacks in Moscow. They have the same vision of the communists as they do of.

Of the capitalists. They want us all dead. And that could happen at any moment in a strip mole in the theater near you. And we can honestly say we got all the warnings and the flares from experts like Will and from just seeing people at the border and running their background checks. It is crazy what we're doing.

We have lost common sense, but we do have to take a break. Come back with Martha McCallum and your calls as on this historic day. Brian Kilmee Chow. I can hear you. The rest of the world here Yeah.

And the people. And the people who knocked these buildings. I'm not sure. We'll hear all of us soon. With Brian Kilmead.

He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Killmead. and my husband, FDNY Chief Gerard A. Barbara. My husband Jerry was a Navy veteran and a member of the FDNY for 31 years.

on September 11, 2001. 2,977 innocent people were murdered by radical Islamic terrorists. My husband of 30 years was one of them. It is outrageous that our government would ever entertain the thought of granting the terrorists a plea deal. If not for the outcry of the 9-11 community, Who knows what might have transpired?

It has been 23 years and the families deserve justice and accountability. The elected feet officials here today show their respect and reverence to the families on September 11th. or in our president's words, June 9-11. quite a flippant remark. But please remember that the September 11th families live it every day.

not just on the anniversary. Joanne Barbara, obviously you heard her story. She has told it and how upset she was that they almost sent Khalid Sheikh Mohammed out of Gidmo, give him a life sentence, and who knows what else they were doing with the other ones who are still stuck there. Martha McCallum with us right now. Martha, two huge stories.

The aftermath of the debate. You did work into the wee hours of the morning, or up until midnight last night, and the analysis in the pregame show. And then you have 9-11, 23 years later. And you got elected to fit all these. Yeah, the President of the United States, the former President of the United States, the Vice President there, all running to be the next President of the United States.

Well, you know, I thought this morning as I was coming in and watching your coverage and then watching the coverage on America's newsroom that this is a sobering day. It's a day that brings all of us back to what's important: the security of the nation, the loss of life of Americans, the threats that exist out there. The Taliban is in charge once again in Afghanistan, creating a potential safe haven for other attacks on our country. And we have people crossing the border who are on the terror watch list.

So I think it's very galvanizing and focusing to watch, to remember, to mourn with these families because it really brings us back to, you know, there's a lot of stuff flying around in the campaign right now, but the security and the future of this country are at stake. And That's what we need to come back to all the time. And there's nobody that could say that we're safe for today.

Now that we're out of Afghanistan, we really have no idea what's going on there. No. Except for if you're a woman, now you're not even allowed to speak.

So you can't have a job, you can't go to school, now you're told not to talk.

So for women's rights advocates around the world and around our nation, This is what we got. And The Taliban were housing Al-Qaeda.

Now, Al-Qaeda, ISIS-K is back, and the Taliban are back worse than ever. And how this relates to the campaign, Martha's going to be responsible to tie it all together. That's why I booked her, paid her legal fees all to get here. Dumbo. Information you want, truth you demand.

This is the Brian Kill Me Show. She was exquisitely well prepared. She laid traps and he chased every rabbit down every hole instead of talking about the things that he should have been talking about. This is the difference between someone who's well prepared and someone who's unprepared. Whoever did debate prep for Donald Trump should be fired.

He was not good tonight at all. And what Harris did was what she had to do. Which was to prove that she belonged on that stage. She has a voice that wants to try to unite the country. And Donald Trump spent more time talking about.

People eating pets. People at his rallies, and whether he had more or less than he did about the economy. And that is a huge fail tonight.

Well, it is true, but it also, the moderators also moved quickly through the economy, and then it was in the rearview mirror. And then it was kind of strange the topics that they picked. More than kind of strange. And joining us still is Martha McCallum. Martha, I wanted Chris Christie to William because I think he's a great debater.

He tried to prepare Trump as I six times. Your take on what we saw last night.

Well, you know, I mean, I think he makes some good points. I think that it was not Trump's best debate. I know he said he thinks it was. I think one of the things that's going to be most interesting to watch how it shakes out, and I'm listening to some of these voter panels on CNN and CBS, and we have one on right now on Harris's show. To hear Viewers, Americans, responses to all of this.

And what I'm hearing from a lot of them is that they didn't hear the things they wanted to hear. They didn't hear, most importantly, in my take, how she got from these very progressive positions, very progressive positions, to becoming a moderate over the past several weeks. And they did not press her on that. And she offered. She was ready, clearly, because she said in like answer number, it was around 9:36, I think, when she was finally asked about it.

I thought it should have been the first question out of the gate, should have been, okay, this is your first opportunity. You haven't done interviews. You've done a couple. How did you get from being super progressive to moderate in just a matter of weeks? When she was finally asked, it she said, I'm going to go down the line and answer everything you just brought up.

And she got to fracking, and then she went off on this tangent about the future of America and a new way forward. And the moderators never went back. And they should have interjected in the middle of her answer and said, Vice President, we asked you about X, Y and Z, and you said you wanted to answer those things. I have to press upon you, I have to ask you to do that. Nothing.

I I couldn't believe I mean, they you know, w what you want as a moderator is to come out of this kind of e experience and have people say, Wow, they were fair, they got to the right topics, they focused on what matters to Americans. No one is saying that this morning. Nobody is. And you know, I had Mark Penn on Here's what. Can I call that up, Eric?

Mark Penn said something really surprised me.

So, you know, he's Clinton Polster, but I think he's very candid, very honest. Absolutely. And this we said. They were worse than actually I've ever seen in any presidential debate, right? I mean.

This all started when I guess Romney was into, I mean, the whole kind of moderator downhill notion. you know, stopped when when when Romney was kind of interrupted by one of the moderators uh uh uh a number of debates ago. But this was look, this was agreed just by ABC. Worst he's ever seen. He's not a sensationalist by statements.

No, he's not. And I think that in most cases, moderators bend over a little bit. Backwards to make sure that they are being even-handed because that is the job. This is not an interview, this is a debate. You want the two people to be substantive and go after each other.

And that is not what happened last night. And I saw one meme where, you know, Muir and Lindsey Davis were sort of standing up on the podium next to Kamala Harris on either side of her against Trump. And I do think that I think Mark Penn is absolutely right. If you're not, what do you think? We had 51 million for the last debate.

What do you think this one got, more or less? I'm interested to see if there was falloff, you know, after it started for one thing. But I think it probably got more. Right, I do too, because it's not June. You can't even pretend.

Oh, it's a summer.

Well, we gotta wait until Labor Day. All that stuff is done. It's 55 days. Listen to this: cut 16. There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born.

President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is actually coming down in this country. The question was about you as President, not about former Speaker Pelosi. I did watch all of these pieces of video. I didn't detect the sarcasm lost by Whisker. Vice President Harris, he says you hate Israel.

You did bring up something. You said she went to negotiate with Vladimir Putin. Vice President Harris, have you ever met Vladimir Putin?

So just a yes or no, you still do not have a plan.

So now let's play the fact checks on Kamala Harris. Go ahead.

Okay, that's right. There were none. Zero. There were absolutely zero. You cannot you cannot Play the game this way.

You either have to hold both people.

Now, did anyone say, well, excuse me, Vice President, but the former president has said that he disavows Project 2025, and it's not part of the Republican platform that just was voted on and approved at his nomination in Milwaukee. Would you have said that? Absolutely. I mean, it's just fair. That's fair.

You know, they are clearly using 2025 against him, and he has not made it part of his platform or his campaign. You know, there were a number of times when I think that they should. And as I said, when she promised that she was going to go through fracking mandatory gun buybacks, Medicare for all. Even, you know, transgender taxpayer-funded sex surgeries. On, keep going.

On illegal immigrants and prisoners. And she didn't do it. You know, she went off on this whole, you know, sort of campaign ad kind of thing. And and it was it was really not effective. I I I I don't it's not it was not a good night for journalism, that's for sure.

So I did it on the fly, and I took him 16 minutes to get to abortion, and then they moved off for abortion four or five minutes. I said, all right. then it would just went awry. And then we're talking about twenty twenty election, january sixth and Obamacare. Really?

This is know what it is, and you probably don't watch, but I'll I'll flip to it. I don't watch that much, but I just to get a competency, MSNBC prime time. That's really what they talk about all the time. And with January 6th, we already had a primetime show produced by ABC with Liz Cheney co-hosting. That's right.

So we don't need anymore.

So when you do that, when you look at all the events and what matters, that to me is not up there. Obamacare, you tried to repeal it, and now that it isn't, what's your new plan? I don't know. We're going to leave it in place. When you talk about healthcare, I have a better question.

How come she was for Medicare for all and how she changed her mind? Because that really affects people. And just to go on your point, she talked about fracking, but she didn't say what happened. I'll give you an example of how I would agree with it. I would say, I sat there in the Oval Office, I met with these oil executives, they told me what they were doing and how conscientious they were about the environment.

I also looked around and saw gas at $5.50. We already depleted our reserves. Our only choice is to use what we do now because I got to keep the American people's interest in mind. Interest rates are already 7%. I could not, in good conscience, do everything I could.

Then I'm like, okay, she got in there and realized it's not the idealistic world that they have in California. No, 100%. And I think that, you know, I, you know, just watching both debaters, when they went down the January 6th road, I think it would have been more effective for the former president to say, you know what, this isn't what people are turning on their TVs to listen to tonight. And they see, he could have even said to the moderators, those people. Most people at home, they see what you're doing right now.

They understand what's happening up here right now.

So let me speak directly to them for a minute about how I'm going to take this country in my second term and what I'm going to do for them. Because she accused him of not caring about, you know, one of their favorite lines is that he doesn't care about you. He only cares about himself. This is a person who could be, you know, living a life of luxury at Mar-a-Lago. He, for whatever reason, has chosen to come back and try to get back into the White House again.

And I think that most people who know him and have seen him in action, you know, Believe that he wants the country to be better, but we could have heard him say that. He should have looked in the camera and said, I don't know what's going on on this stage right now, but let me talk to you. Yes, I saw that chart of Presidents and how much they've made since they started running for President. He was the only one this century to have lost money since he ran, and he's running again. I know it's an extraordinary amount of money, but When you have a lot of money, a lot of people, you're from the business world, you know, these men and women, that's not enough.

You make money, but you put huge investments in, it could all go apart.

Sometimes you take, obviously, for him, he had a few bankruptcies he never talks about. But the fact-checking was disappointing. The president, again, with crowd size, I mean, this thing has plagued him this whole again. Another opportunity, another moment where he should have just stuck it and moved, right? Listen, I'm not going to stand up here and argue with you about enthusiasm.

Everyone sees how enthusiastic people are at my rallies. And he could have also said right then, Did you notice that the people didn't leave when I got shot? They stood up. And they waited. That would have been unbelievable answers.

They didn't leave when I got shot. Would have been really a good way to go there. But instead he was, you know, qu sort of repetitive on these moments when he could have just stuck, pivot, move. Here's what uh just to finish this off, Lindsey Graham cut 25. Terribly moderated debate.

Three against closed off. The best closing in presidential debate history. If you could have done it, why didn't you do it? One thing I wish we'd have done a little bit better is I gave you the most secure border in 40 years. When I left, mortgage rates were below 3%.

Gas was $1.87. We're energy independent. I were getting the Arabs and the Israelis making peace, and you screwed it all up, and you're never going to fix it. Wish he was I mean, that him, Tom Cotton, J. D.

Vance has been really strong to defending the President's record. I just think that in in this case, I think he underestimated her to a degree. I think she was a little different than he thought. Um I think that's true. I think that, you know, the sort of word salad, Kamala Harris, that people felt they knew has.

You know, on this, she has evolved, and I think she was an effective debater. I think that you have to think back to, and I think this, um, when she grilled Brett Kavanaugh, it disturbed a lot of people, it turned off a lot of people. But she does do her homework, and so you have to be absolutely ready for that. And, like I said, you got to stick and pivot and not sort of, you know, but I also think that you know, we're gonna see, we watch these things second by second, right? Most people in America they watched a little bit, they went into the kitchen and got a bite to eat, they came back, they watched a little more, and many people in the country are watching this morning to watch the sound bites and to see what happened.

And it reads very differently that way.

So, I don't think we should get ahead of ourselves. This is a very tight race. I think it will continue to be a very tight race. And I don't know if you're going to see the polls move much based on last night, but I look forward to seeing what they say. On JD Vance, just FYI, he's going to be on my show later this afternoon.

He's going to join us live on this set. And he joined the Marine Corps two years after September 11th.

So we're going to talk about that, and we're going to talk about last night and the future of the campaign. Oh, yeah. Again, I was someone, his foreign policy scares me, but his competence really impresses me. On all these issues. He goes on all these difficult shows that are just waiting for that one slip-up, and he's very competent on somebody else's bio, too.

This is not the J.D. Vance administration. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I also thought that President Trump was strongest when he talked about Israel, Ukraine, foreign policy. And I know you don't agree with him on some of his stances on that, but I thought he was very strong and focused when it came to those issues.

Yeah, I'm pulling for Ukraine. I just wish the President would say that. I guess he wants to go. He said, if I pick a side, how can I negotiate peace? That's his comeback.

But Trump was asked about the third debate before we go to break, and when we come back, find out who's going to be on your show besides J.D. Vance. Here's what he said: Cut 28.

Well, I don't know. I have to think about it, but if you won the debate, I sort of think maybe I shouldn't do it. Why should I do another debate? She immediately said, we want another div that's you know what happens when you're a prize fighter and you lose? You immediately won a new fight.

You want a rematch. You want a rematch. The guy that won is sort of happy and thinking about it. Would you be inclined to say yes? Maybe if it was on a fair network, I would do that.

Yeah, um maybe us.

Well, you know, I mean, I heard what he said this morning when he was talking to you guys. Yeah, he didn't want Martha and Brett to do this yet. I still believe that there isn't going to be anyone who will be more fair and more acceptable to both sides. And I hope he keeps that question open and I hope he gives it some more thought. I think sometimes, you know, the day after, there's a lot going on.

And he even said, well, we'll see what happens when things sort of settle down over the next few days.

So yeah, I think that would be probably the best opportunity. And We hope we get a chance to. Yeah, I mean, one thing I was going to explain to him, but we have three people on the show, is that there's an opinion side. There's a news site. Jesse, he likes Jesse's comments because Jesse thought he won the debate.

That's fine.

Probably doesn't like Britt this week because Britt says, I think Kamala Harris won. That's opinion. Even though Brits of News, all right? But you have to call it, you have to bring it through.

So you're going to ask even questions to both, but at least you'll pick the topics that polls reveal the Americans want to see. Absolutely. I will say this: Martha has no agenda. You just get out of the way and want some put the best. And I have great respect for people who run for president, for people who have been president of this country.

And I think that we just want to basically set up a fair forum where both sides can answer the questions and stay focused on what matters to the American people. That would be a good objective. And Brett feels totally different. That's the problem. Back in a moment.

We're going to double up. We also know it's 9-11, 23 years. We don't take that for granted, especially here in New York City. Don't move. Covering this election year like no other, it's Brian Kilmead.

From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Killmead. Hey, we are back with an exclusive Martha McCallum show starts at 3 o'clock Eastern Time. Martha with 9-11, looking back at the debate, covering all the other breaking news that's taking place, both candidates are going to be everywhere. They're going to be in Shanksville, they were downtown. And they're um And I guess they're going to go back to campaigning.

I heard they shook hands today. I missed it. Is that true? They did for the second time.

So now they've met twice in 24 hours. And it's always impressive to see the lineup of American leaders on 9-11 standing next to each other. President Trump was there. J.D. Vance was right next to him.

And yeah, they reached over and shook hands at the site. Joe Biden, too, right? Joe Biden was there, too. Right, he was up. He was up early, I guess.

Right in between. He was doing 9-11. That was his campaign. He was doing 9-11. Who's going to be on today?

So, as I mentioned, we're going to talk to the vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance about his own service joining the Marines right after 9-11, about the campaign, about last night, all of the important things that we looked at with just a couple months ago. Laura Ingram is still in town, which is great. She's going to join us as well. We're going to talk to Howie Kurtz.

We're going to talk to Doug Schoen, who wrote a piece today saying that Harris dominated in the debate, but will it matter? And that's getting a lot of attention today.

So, we'll talk to the very well-known pollster about his outlook there. Right. 23 years after, I'm impressed what they do downtown. I'm impressed that they organized the families to still speak. I'm impressed, by the way, the FDA and Y still lines up.

And if you look at that rebuild, how many times were we covering this story? And we're thinking, when are they going to start? When are they going to get rid of the people out of the pit? When are they going to get the 9-11 Memorial done? And we just accept that it happened now.

Do you remember how many years that was the story and what an incredible job they did? remembering that day. You know, as you're talking, it's taking me back because it's the stages of grief, right? And I remember feeling a little strange on the last day that they were still digging and taking things out of there, right? And I remember that last truck coming up the ramp as they said, you know, now we're done with this part of the process.

And I thought, but I watch this every day. This is part of our lives every day. You know, are they going to find something that is going to be meaningful to a loved one? And I know so many people, and I know you know so many people who are waiting for any piece of the person that they lost.

So that was a tough closure when they finally pulled out of ground zero. But you are so right. And I do give these people so much credit who have built their lives. Frank Siller, I mean, all these people who've built their post-9/11 lives around making sure that these people are remembered. This is such a significant event in our lives.

I thought it was really too bad that Kamala Harris didn't take the opportunity to mention it last night when she was. Talking about democracy, and she said, you know, the biggest threat was January 6th since the Civil War. We had a very big threat on September 11th. It would have been good to have that remembered in a more specific way last night. But always, always good to see people down there.

And to hear now, you have grandchildren of people who were killed who are up there talking about the spirit that lives on in them of the grandparent that they lost. It better be in your curriculum at school. Martha McCallum, see you at 3 o'clock. Thanks, Brian. Pull up a chair and join me, Rachel Campos Duffy.

And me, former U.S. Congressman Sean Duffy, as we share our perspective on the discussions happening at kitchen tables across America. Download from the kitchen table at FoxNewsPodcasts.com or wherever you download podcasts. Listen to the show ad-free on Fox News Podcast Plus, on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music with your Prime membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Mm.