Pentagon denies Iranian "mothership" responsible for NJ drone sightings

From High Atom, Five. News headquarters in New York City. Always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead. Thanks so much for being here, everybody.

It's the Brian Kilmey Show. President Trump is back in New York City, where his tower is. He is Time Man of the Year. He's getting that award, ringing the bell. Behind him, to his immediate right over his right shoulder, is RFK Jr.

Scott Bessett, who's a great guest on our show, has been on like six or seven times. I think he appeared on our show more than anyone else. He's the Treasury Secretary nominee, and Milani is there. And two other significant people I don't really recognize. But Trump loves it.

I mean, listen, he had fake covers of Time Magazine with him on it.

Now he's got two. Oh, sure.

Okay, they're opening up wides: Vice President, Vice President-elect. J.D. Vance is there. Doug Bergham is there, former governor of North Dakota, soon to be energy secretary, and Secretary of the Interior, I should say, and then he's got a czar title. Luttnick, Howard Luttnick, is there.

So he is going to be Commerce Secretary.

So he's really got the whole team with him as the nominees got fanned out. It's kind of exciting. And people are pumped up. They are pumped up because there's a sense of optimism. In fact, a new poll is how 54% of the country is happy with the transition and with Trump.

So we have Lieutenant Colonel Alan West on. At this hour, James Skofus is going to be on, too. A Democrat who wants to be running the DNC, get his perspective on how he would rebuild the party. I sense it's more center-left, which would be great for the country.

So let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three.

So we are concerned that there will not be. Revitalization of ISIS or other terrorist groups. We're concerned about the Golan and how that's going to be handled in regards to the Israel border.

So there's a lot of unanswered questions. Yep, Senator Ben Cardin weighing in. Mideast mayhem. Trump effect is real and the ceasefire talks gaining steam. I know I've said this before: ceasefire talks with Hamas and Israel.

Why? Hamas has given in a lot. And the Syrian revolution moves forward. We're trying to make sense of it. We'll bring you the latest.

Number two. I've known Cash for a little while since my time in the House Intel. I think he's perfect. You've got to remember, this is the guy that exposed the FBI for weaponizing against President Trump. He's the one that brought forth the complaint about the Russian hoax.

That is Senator John Wayne Moen, and he is weighing in on Cash Patel because there's been some movement. The Trump transition momentum picks up steam as Christopher A leaves the FBI. Pete Hagseth fights off another smear job, and Mark Zuckerberg becomes the latest billionaire to put millions behind Trump's second term. We got the latest, including his remarks he's giving right now as we speak on Wall Street. Number one.

I just sat through an hour and 15 long minute briefings/slash question and answer period. It was the most amateur hour. Assessment of what's happening here in the state of New Jersey that I've ever seen. And I've never been through a more amateur hour briefing in my entire life. That is Brian Bergen, local lawmaker in New Jersey.

You have to be better than that. Three weeks of drones swarming in and out of New Jersey and parts of New York. No answers from the government, from state officials, no answers from the Defense Department. Only anger and frustration is the result. Why I believe we know exactly who's behind it, and for some reason they won't tell us.

Why else do they come out and say, oh, yeah, those drones, not dangerous. Where are they from? Don't know. Here's a Sabrina Singh. Cut two from the Pentagon.

These are not US military drones. Again, this is being investigated by local law enforcement. What our initial assessment here is that these are not. drones or activities coming from a foreign entity or adversary. How do you know?

What are you even saying? How do you even know this? And by the way, the governor of New Jersey says: I'm going to have a briefing today on everything, and doesn't show up. Doesn't show up. I want answers.

Don't brief if you have nothing to say. And that's the problem. We're going to bring you up to date to say we have no answers. At all, about what's happening with these New Jersey Jones. I gotta give.

I I got to give the former Democrat turned Republican Jeff Van Drew some credit. At least he comes out and says, I believe it's the Iranian mothership sitting off our shores sending drones to spy on us.

Okay. Why not? Cut seven. I call them whistleblowers because they are saying what they believe to be the truth. They've come to me, they don't want to be anonymous because they are concerned about their futures and their jobs, and they have told us information that we didn't have.

We do know that China and Iran have been dealing with drone technology and that China has been selling Iran drone technology and that they do have it. And we do know, obviously, that Iran hates us.

So I am saying that this is something that really has to be evaluated. It very well may be true. If it isn't, I'm a happy guy. Right. Odd.

Even if it's not true, Jeff, this is what I like about it.

Now the Pentagon's got to answer you.

Now the governor has to answer you.

Now instead of saying, we don't know, he says, this is what I hear. And then you got to go, okay, you want to punt on that? You want to say it's wrong? You want to say it's unfounded?

Well, he's got whistleblowers that want to stay anonymous.

Now you've got to answer. And if you don't have an answer for if you don't agree with his assessment and with his whistleblower, Then you come up with something. And can't tell me that it's safe. Not allowed to shoot it down, by the way. If they go to Texas, I'm sure it's going to get shot down.

But in New Jersey, you shoot it down, you're going to get in trouble. Plus, of course, you don't want to shoot it down because the shrapnel falling to the ground, you're going to be responsible for that. You're talking about ruining your life. That would, in fact, would do it. John Bramnick, he's a New Jersey state senator.

He was on last night, and he's just had it. Cut six. The governor was not there, but the colonel in the state police was there, and he was as frustrated as I've ever seen him. He had no answers, couldn't tell us where these drones were coming from. He didn't know really whether or not it was safe or not.

They had someone from Homeland Security at the federal level. He provided no information. We need the Department of Defense to come into New Jersey. because they have the sophisticated hardware to track these drones. We were provided no information.

We have no more knowledge today than we did before the meeting, and that's disconcerting because I have no idea what to tell a citizen when the Colonel and the State Police doesn't know where these things are coming from.

So, US Northern Command says this. The U. S. Northern Command conducted a deliberate analysis of the events in the consultation with the military organizations and interagency partners, and at this time we have not been requested to assist with these events. Again.

Something's going on. They have no respect for us. They don't tell us.

Well, like children, you don't have to tell and by the way, you don't tell the governors, you don't tell the state lawmakers, you don't tell the sitting senators, you don't tell Corey Booker, sitting senator tight with Biden. You would think the President would be curious about it. But if you had a press conference or a press secretary that had a press conference, it would come up.

So we'll move on. It's an exciting time for Donald Trump. If you see some of the polls, 54% of the people are excited With the transition. For the most part, they like a lot of the nominees. The most popular seems to be RFK, but he's also got the highest unpopular.

So, everyone, only 8% don't have an opinion on him. For Scott Bessett, he's low, but most people don't even know who he is. And that's fine. And on Capitol Hill, I know Trump loves this, by the way. I've never seen him so in my view, from what I've known.

I'm not best friends with him, but I've never seen the former President, future President, as pleased with the way things are going as they are right now. And with him cover Time magazine. Just like as much as he despises the coverage from the New York Times, it means a lot to him to get good coverage, even though it frustrates him that he doesn't. And I also think that being on the cover of Time Magazine, even though it's a diminishing magazine that's no longer the be-all, end-all like network television isn't, I believe that that is something that means a lot to him.

So let's talk about the transition. Yesterday, it became clear that the obviously it became clear we need a new FBI director. Christopher Wray, in many ways, has been an epic fail. Why do I say that? I mean, why are you having your agency claim that you don't know anything about it?

Why do you have your agency investigating Parents who are upset about the direction of the curriculum in their district? Why are you following Christians who are pro-life as if they're terrorists and labeling them as such? Why are you claiming that President Trump intimating that President Trump got hit by shrapnel, not an actual bullet, when you should be investigating the assassination? Why are you allowing the assassination squads to get inside our country in Iran to be able to target our future president? And uh also Journalists who happen to be of Iranian descent in Brooklyn, Queens.

These are just some of the things that pop up. And as Christopher Ray, when he invaded Mar-a-Lago, where he allowed that to happen, knowing. The distrust he has amongst conservatives about the way James Comey weaponized the FBI against his political opponents, one of which was Donald Trump and his staff. Why would you allow that Mar-a-Lago raid when it was a negotiation? I don't care what you think about the top secret documents that were there or in Biden's garage.

You didn't raid Biden's house. You gave him a warning that you were coming. He told you you can come this weekend. They left for the weekend and you went through his garage. They got fed up and eventually they offered an indictment and an investigation.

So Ray is gone. He came out and said it. I love what Trump came out and said in a long, lengthy truth social. This is a great day for America. As everyone knows, I have great respect for the rank and file of the FBI, and they've had great respect for me.

They want to see these changes every bit as much as I do. More importantly, the American people are demanding a strong but fair system of justice. We want our FBI back. And we will now happen. I look forward to Cash Patel's confirmation so that the process of making the FBI great again can continue.

And that's pretty cool.

So, listen, Christopher's got to go. He made it smooth, and it's not going to be controversial. And why I think it's not going to be controversial? Chuck Grassley. Man, who's this guy is not a flamethrower.

He's 90 years old. He's not subservient to Trump or has to go along with Trump. He's never running for re-election again. He said he's got to go. I look forward to him turning the page, pack your office, and hit the street.

Senator John Kennedy, Louisiana, cut 20. I just for the last several years, we own judiciary, have been frustrated. about uh Whether it has been fixed. I'm not saying it hadn't been fixed. Maybe it has, and I just don't know it.

But uh one of the things that got my attention is when uh When they paid mister Peter Strzok After what he did. Paid him $2 million in a lawsuit supplement and wouldn't explain to me why they did it. Oh. That got my attention. Yeah, they all got their pensions too.

So, Brian Kilmicho, moving forward on a special day, getting closer to Christmas on this Thursday. When we come back, we'll take your calls. Excuse me. We'll welcome in Lieutenant Colonel Alan West, and we'll take your calls in 30 minutes.

So, get ready. Brian Kilmicho. Politics, current events, and news that affects you. Brian's got a lot more to say. Stay with Brian Kilmead.

The world of business moves fast. Stay on top of it with the Fox Business Rundown. Listen to the Fox Business Rundown every Monday and Friday at FoxBusinessPodcasts.com or wherever you download your favorite podcasts. A radio show like no other. It's Brian Killmead.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, you took an oath to uphold the Constitution. Or when you took an oath, it was only intended to fight for the 10th and 14th Amendments regarding illegal aliens. We don't want illegals in our community. We don't want migrants terrorizing our own people. And to have y'all sit up here and say we have to accept $70 million being given to them when you got black people who are already.

uh struggling and need help, it is a disgrace. Uh that is a little of the feedback. From their getting in Chicago to give this mayor who just an embarrassment, he wants to be a left-wing mayor to maybe win over the urban votes. Maybe that might have worked in 1991. But in 2024, the Chicago residents who know their city is a wash in red ink, who aren't getting the services they need, are wondering why millions of dollars are being spent on illegal immigrants, and you won't even give ICE the access to get rid of the criminals amongst them.

Lieutenant Colonel Alan West, the Dallas County Republican Party chairman, American Constitutional Rights Union Executive Director, joins us now. Colonel, do you understand that rage? Yeah, I completely understand that, Rage. It's good to be with you, Brian. And one of the things was very telling when you have people that are coming up and speaking at this city council meeting and they're wearing T-shirts saying flip Chicago red.

They understand that the Democrat has failed, the Democrat Party has failed them. And this is what we see happening in many of our urban communities.

So yes, they don't want to see Trendiragua having a turf war against the gangs in their communities. And hopefully we can just get rid of all gangs. But when you see the resources that are going towards people that are here illegally, while they are struggling, they have failing schools. And of course, I'm sure Brandon Johnson does not support them being able to have parental choice and education and better education opportunities. They see the lack of good policing because he's part of that defunded police movement.

And the crime and criminality is growing.

So yes, you're going to see a lot of turmoil. And think about this. Eric Adams is even asked to have a meeting with Tom Holman.

So even he is getting it. He's asking for it. And I'm not sure he's going to do anything about it, but he says he's, at the very least, I love this. What Congressman, the Queen's Assemblyman, said, Robert Holden. He said, if Adams is serious and not just trying to give lip service, he will open up the ICE office at Rikers and allow ICE to go in there and start exporting these, deporting these criminals.

How hard is that? Why is that even a tough decision? You get rid of your criminals.

Well, it's not hard, but you've got so much pressure coming from the progressive socialist leftists that control the Democrat Party that many of these governors and mayors feel that they are being held hostage. But when they understand that Tom Holman is going to say, hey, look, you are obstructing federal law, and therefore you become a felon yourself, it was very interesting to see the mayor of Denver kind of back down with his original assertions when Tom Holman said, yeah, I'd be happy to put you in jail. because you are committing an offense in harboring criminals that are here illegally. And who would not want to get rid of number one, illegal immigrants that are criminals? And I think the latest ICE numbers put it at some 600,000 that are here in that way, 30,000 rapists and murderers.

You know, that far surpasses the active duty strength of our United States Army and United States Marine Corps. I want you to hear the different points of view. San Diego reaffirmed their Sanctuary City policies. Los Angeles did too. Listen to Nora Vargas, a Democrat in San Diego.

Cut 32. Data underscores that most immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, Are law-abiding residents. By adopting this policy, we uphold our commitment to equity and justice, ensuring our immigrant communities feel safe and supported, and our communities as a whole feel safe and supported. Is that your goal to make sure we have equity with illegal immigrants? Yeah, I mean, that's just the same as Governor Pritzker of Illinois saying that, you know, I'm going to protect my people.

Which people are those? Are they the legal, law-abiding citizens there in the state of Illinois, or is he talking about criminal illegal immigrants? Look, I guess this lady did not get the memo in California when you saw George Gascone, the very far-left district attorney in L.A. County, get just obliterated. And this Proposition 36, which wants a crackdown on crime, I mean, I think it passed by like 30 or 40 percent.

So these, again, these Democrats out there in California, they need to understand that people want law and order. They want to be able to be safe and secure in their communities. They don't want this criminal, illegal immigrant invasion that they are experiencing and have experienced in the past three and a half years. And if they stand in the way and obstruct what is constitutionally right under the purview of the federal government, they will be held criminally charged. Got 37,908 Chinese who are past.

Time open for removal right now. 32,000 Haitians, 2,618 Iranians, Pakistanis over 7,000, Uzbekistan, about 1,000, Venezuelan, 22,000. These are all people that are not eligible to stay here, Colonel, and they're just here. That's who Tom Holman's going to scoop up. Yeah.

And again, he is talking about national security threats and he's talking about domestic security threats. And so anyone that disagrees with that, they have their head up near what we call in the airborne the fourth point of contact.

So they should be getting on board with Tom Holman and not dying on this very bad hill. Because what that means is come two years from now when there's a midterm election cycle, Democrats are going to get whacked again. Right. Thanks so much, Lieutenant Colonel Alan West, weighing in from Texas. The Republican perspective out there.

We come back to the Democratic perspective, James Skofus. He wants to run the DNC. He's got a center-left philosophy. We'll talk about that. Don't move.

The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Kilmead. Hey, welcome back, everyone. 25 minutes before the top of the hour, joining us now, John Skufus, Skofus, I should say, a Democrat, New York State Senator, representing the 42nd District of New York, around the Newburgh area. He's been doing it since 2023 and wants to run the DNC.

There's a huge void right now, and there's time, there's an opportunity to maybe go in a new direction as the Democrats have lost the House, but just barely. They lost the Senate and they lost the White House and the popular vote. James, welcome. Thanks for having me, Brian.

So, James, how did you get into politics?

So, I started studying politics in college a long time ago at this point. I didn't know what I wanted to do. What college? I went to George Washington down in D.C. And I love public service.

And, you know, obviously, right now, politicians rank among sort of trial attorneys and used car salesmen in terms of work these days. I'm the son of a Greek immigrant. Long time ago, when we invented politics, politics was a noble profession. And I still firmly believe that if you're in this line of work and you're in it for the right reasons, you have a capacity to do good. And so that's what I love about it.

And your district, you said that Trump won by how many points? By 12 percentage points. He's won it three times now.

So how does that change the way you approach running your district and representing your district? It's not rocket science. Look, I meet people where they are. I show up. I think this is one of the problems of the National Democratic Party: I guarantee you there aren't too many Democrats that probably come onto your show, and shame on them.

I meet my folks where they are. I go into some meetings. Meeting rooms, some elks lodges, and people know I'm a Democrat. And if they haven't met me yet, they look at me like I've got 19 heads. I'm used to that feeling, but I'm able to relate to people.

I'm able to talk to issues that are top of mind. I'm not telling them how to think. This is one of the other sort of traps that Democrats often fall into. The economy is doing great. You know, the better part of the past four years, we've been trying to convince people of these think tank white paper talking points.

And then they go to the grocery store and they see for themselves the economy is not doing so hot. Milk costs double what it did several years ago.

So I do a lot more listening, a lot less lecturing, and it's proven a successful formula so far. But you're a young guy, right? 37. 37. And you say you think this is the right time to put your name in there to run the DNC.

We need a fresh face. We need what I'm calling an aggressive outsider to come in because I'm a subscriber to the belief, strong belief, that we need major, major change within the DNC and the National Democratic Party, not just tinkering around the edges given what happened five or six weeks ago. And if you've been in the apparatus for years, if not decades, I'm suspect that you're able to bring that dramatic change that's needed. And so, you know, I don't owe anything to the DC consultant class that's been ripping us off for a long time as a party. I don't owe anything to, you know, the folks I'm referring to as the cocktail circuit.

I don't even know who these people are. And so I'm able to step in if I'm fortunate enough to be successful here and really shake things up, which is desperately needed within the DNC. One of four people putting their name in the hat, right? And you're probably the least known nationally, which could be your advantage. What was Jamie Harrison not doing that you found frustrating?

Yeah, I'm not here to criticize. Jamie Harrison. And what I'll say, it's well known within sort of DNC politics that the Biden administration was by and large calling the shots within the DNC. And so Jamie Harrison's had a really tough job the past four years. He's had some constraints.

But clearly, we need a party that is more responsive to the top of mind needs and concerns of Americans. And that begins by bringing back the working-class folks that we've been hemorrhaging, that we've seen Donald Trump, whether we like it or not, be able to rope into the Republican column. Why do you think he has? I think it's partly some of the things he's been focusing on, whereas he's talking about the border and affordability. We've been running away from some of those more difficult conversations as a party.

And look, I think it'll be apparent very quickly once Donald Trump takes office again that his policies, his nominees, all due respect to you and your listeners who are fans, are going to inflict harm on the American people. But the Democratic Party can't just be the anti-Trump party. And we all know where, for example, Democrats stand on abortion. We don't have to send out 9,000 mailers and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on TVS talking about abortion. We should have been talking about how to make groceries more affordable, how to make gas more affordable, and yes, engaging in the border debate.

But you know, the problem is. A lot of the spending that the president hung his hat on, was so proud of, led to the inflation.

So you can't say, don't you love the Inflation Reduction Act? Don't you love the rescue program? Don't you love the infrastructure deal? And at the same time, say, inflation is not my fault. Yeah, look, I think that where the Democrats fell short out of the gate was not being more empathetic and with contrition, understanding that we were wrong to try and convince people that what they were thinking was incorrect.

Transitory. Inflation is transitory. And when it's stuck around, people get ticked. Right. But look, you meant, we just spoke about the border real briefly.

You look at those Democratic candidates who leaned into that conversation and didn't run away from it. Ruben Gallego, for example, in Arizona. He went out and sought the Border Patrol Union's endorsement and he got it. Tom Swazi. And Tom Swase, there are folks you can point to, Pat Ryan, where I am in the Hudson Valley, who embraced that difficult conversation.

And it's not racist. To want to have a strong border. And we, as Democrats, need to understand that. There's two things that happen: to have a strong border or deny that it was actually bad. The border's fine.

There is no problem. We don't have an issue. That was Mayorkis' message. And then you have Henry Koyar, a Democrat on the border, who speaks total sense. He puts on the jeans jacket and hops on, goes with the Border Patrol.

Instead of using him as a resource, they tried to primary him, or Democrats tried to primary him. I mean, did you see some of this and say to yourself, why are we doing this? We have to do a better job of reading the room. And let's be clear and frank here. There are plenty of issues where Donald Trump obfuscates, or he takes one position on a Monday and a different position on a Tuesday.

But on a major issue that's top of mind like this, we need to do a better job of reading the room. And we just haven't done that as a National Democratic Party. What do you think of Joe Manchin? I think, look, Joe Manchin's not a Democrat anymore. What did you think of Joe Manchin before he started?

Well, so here's the point I want to make: we need to bring back into the party, into our once big Democratic tent, the Joe Manchins of the world. We're going to disagree with him on lots of issues, but I just spoke with a whole bunch of voters literally yesterday on a program who told me that they recently left the Democratic Party. One of my jobs is to go to those types of folks and say, hey, we haven't been perfect the last few years. We want you back. It's not going to happen on day one or day two or day 10, but we need to work to bring back.

And by the way, it's both ends of the tent. You go to college campuses, we've lost the left, especially the 18 and 29 cohort. But yes, we need to go back to those folks who are in the middle and feel disconnected from the Democratic Party, who subscribe to Joe Manchin politics. The most intriguing one now is John Fetterman. And Senator Fetterman met with Elise Stefanic.

Yes. She's someone you know, right? Do you like her? I've never met her. I don't like her politics.

Fellow New York politics. She used to be a moderate, not so much anymore. She's a UN ambassador now, and she's a nominee. And he said this, put this on X, but he also signed up for True Social. Always was a hard yes for Elise Stefanik, but it was a pleasure to have a conversation.

I support defunding UNRWA, that is the UN organization that is supposed to be for humanitarian purposes, but has more than a few members that were part of the October 7th massacre for its documented Hamas infiltration and fully look forward to her holding the UN accountable for its academic anti-Semitism.

Now, if you were in the DNC, would you call up Fetterman and say, tone it down? Look, there are going to be some Democratic U.S. senators who vote for several of these nominees. Here's what I want to say.

So did you not like his message? I want to say two things about this and Fetterman generally. One, we need more Democrats who lean into the hard conversation. And the conflict in Gaza is a perfect example where we as National Democrats have managed to piss off every stakeholder in this debate because we are walking on eggshells and we're not willing to intelligently engage. And so we've pissed off, I represent 40,000 Orthodox Jews.

They vote for me. They have no respect for the National Democratic Party right now. You go to the Arab American communities and leadership, you saw the most precipitous declines on November 5th in those communities for the Democratic top of the ticket. You go to college campuses, I just mentioned before, they feel completely distrustful. And so we've pissed off everybody by not engaging.

He's at least engaging on this issue, whether you like it or not. And the second thing about Fetterman, he goes on shows like yours. He goes on Joe Rogan's podcast. That's how I win in a Trump plus 12 district: I show up everywhere, even in those settings that are maybe traditionally uncomfortable for National Democrats. We've got to start meeting people where they are.

If they're only hearing from one side, from one party, guess what? They're going to vote for that party. We've stopped showing up. John Fetterman, he at least shows up in a lot of places that Democrats have stopped. But I think not only does he show up, I think a lot of times he was the one who.

With the canary in the Coleman about Pennsylvania. And he said, Trump's resonating. I see a lot of Trump signs. His speeches are fine. You're putting down his speeches, and you say people believe they're not.

The crowds are growing. But I think that a lot of it is Joe Manchin agreed with. Republicans on issues. And he was separating himself. For example, AOC seems to have done the inexplicable and actually sided with Jordan Neely in the Danny Penny situation when clearly he was a hero.

He has a pristine background, plays in the symphony, a Marine who likes to surf and become an architect.

So you saw what happened there. Where does AOC stand? Because in some of the polls, she's the most popular Democrat. Is that the symbol that's going to bring the country together? Look, the next DNC chair, I'm focused on one thing and one thing only, and that's growing our once-large Democratic tent.

We have not had a dominant national political performance since 2008, 16 years ago. In the interim, we've either lost, belly-flopped, or we've white-knuckled it across the finish line. And one thing that, and you touched on it, I want to say about John Fetterman as well, is he's relatable. We as Democrats have, for a lot of voters, become unrelatable, and in part because we speak in this overly academic, overly politically correct language. That makes it seem to some folks as though we should be running for university chancellor instead of for public office.

In fact, here's her in her own words. If we do not want violence on our subways, and the point of our justice system is a level of accountability to prevent a person who does not have remorse about taking another person's life. I mean, even people who have engaged in manslaughter or have taken a life accidentally express remorse. And so the fact that a person may express no remorse indicates that there's a risk that it may happen again. Is Danny Penny going to strike again?

Yeah. Should we all look out for Danny Penny next time we get on the subway? This debate underscores a larger issue, which is that on an issue like public safety, Democrats haven't shown up in a lot of voters' minds. And we can't be dismissive. We can't, you know, again, call them racist if they want a strong border.

You know, I was just endorsed for re-election by 13 police unions. These are a group of folks who have long left the Democratic Party. And so again, the singular focus that I will have is... DNC chair is bringing folks like them, the Firefighters Union, the Teamsters Union. They didn't endorse us for the first time in as long as people can remember.

That's the focus as the next DNC chair. Alvin Bragg, an embarrassment in your mind? I'm not going to call any Democratic-elected officials an embarrassment on your personality. Would you like to see him fired? That's not the job of the DNC chair, is to start calling for Democratic-elected officials to be fired.

Obviously, I know a lot of your listeners have very strong feelings about his prosecutorial Americans. But look at Gascon and Chesapeake. Does that embarrass you? I'm not going to sit here and talk about what Democrats embarrass me or the larger Democratic Party. I'm here to talk about where the Democratic Party goes from here.

But I'm not looking to pin you down to not like Chesapeake Bodine. What I'm trying to say is where the Democratic Party goes from here, what I would love to be no longer to fund the police, back the police for the country. You know how I introduced the police. But can I just finish? The other thing would be to no longer support George Soros putting these DA.

These woke DAs in their position because they think they give you a bad name.

Well, so Donald Trump just nominated George Soros' former money man. And so he's one of my frequent guests, and I think that's a perfect example. When he saw George Soros going these directions, he left and started his own fund. Yeah, look, here's the most important point here, and that is that we've lost a lot of voters because we've stopped seeming and sounding normal in a lot of ways. And we need to be less focused on placing voters and people into these academic categorical boxes and talking more about the issues that they care about.

And there's a reason why the Teamsters and Firefighters Union did not endorse Kamala Harris this past election. And it's because we didn't. And why did they do you? Because you're a pro-cop. You understand how law enforcement matters.

Do you know how I introduced myself at a lot of law enforcement press conferences in my district? I introduced myself as a fund the police Democrat, not a defund the police. And you do stand for this.

So you have law and order and fund the police. That's a good matter. But they're not mutually exclusive. You know what? After George Floyd, I voted for a police accountability package.

And you know what? That strains my relationships with a lot of the PPAs. And I had to work to rebuild those relationships. That's the point here. The next DNC chair, along with others, had a lot of bridges to rebuild.

And that's what I'll be focused on. Right. I think that you could actually. You could do both, but here's James Carville. Whether you think of him or not, he definitely is direct.

Listen to him on where the state of the party is. The most tragic figure in American politics in my lifetime is President Biden. If he would have in September of 2023, August said that he wasn't going to run. God damn. We would have won this election.

And it wouldn't have been that close because we'd have had so many freaking talented people that were running. Your thoughts? Because he did predict that Hiris was going to win too, so he's not right all the time. No one's right all the time.

Now, of the four DNC chair candidates, I'm the only one who's willing to answer this question. Other three are obfuscating, which I think speaks to the larger problem. The answer is very simple, and it's obvious, and it's indisputable, and it's one word. It's yes. He should have dropped out sooner.

And Vice President Harris was given an really unimaginable set of circumstances to build a national campaign in 107 days. She was building the plane in the sky while it was flying. And she absolutely should have and could have benefited from a longer runway. And if that meant the primary, so be it. She still would have been the nomination.

It would have been great. I heard nobody say after the midterms when Democrats did not do as bad as they thought, you only lost the house barely. No one said, still drop out, Joe. Everyone said you should run.

Well, took Nancy Pelosi to step out from sort of behind the curtain. But look, look. Except Dean Phillips, I should say.

So, real quick, I want to get the last issue. Seth Moulton went out of the limb, Democrat, and said, I don't want my daughters playing against trans men in sports. And now they're trying to try to primary them and being vilified. Where do you stand? Yeah, let me say two things on this.

This is important. One, and the Republican Party is obsessed with this issue. I get it. 20 seconds. Yeah, so in Utah, you know how many kids transgender girls play in girls' sports in schools?

One in the entire state. To view time. That's what we've got to be talking about as Democrats. This is a non-issue. James Skopus, congratulations.

I hope you get this and run the DNC. Thanks so much for coming in. Thank you, Brian. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead.

It was reported that Chinese hackers have infiltrated AT ⁇ T and Verizon to spy on American customers, which has got to be the first time anyone's ever said, thank God I have Sprint. Scientists in Japan have launched the first ever satellite made out of wood. Great.

Now aliens are going to think we're poor. That's so funny. Those are great. That was good. I mean, it's amazing you gotta go back all these days to get something funny, right?

Normally, you could just pull from a monologue in past years, like the Romney years, was hysterical. I watched Jimmy Fallon's monologue the other day just to get. Zero. It's like it's like he's not even putting any effort into it. I mean, the most he gave us when he was actually ripping Biden last week.

Yeah. That was the daily show is hysterical. What is it? That A block where they were doing with the riots and the chairs. Oh, go ahead.

Oh, yeah, we had some.

Okay. Yeah, we had some of it. But Jon Stewart. Mondays are still great. I know what they're doing.

They don't got They don't really know what to do with Trump. And they just said you won because he he was trolling Jill Biden, said by my so funny. But basically said you won. But I was thought normally it would have been twelve minutes of Trump was sitting wrong and all this stuff. But it's just an interesting time.

Donald Trump, in case you do not know, is Time Magazine's Man of the Year. He's just on, he's in New York today. He's out Wall Street ringing the bell. His whole family was there. A lot of his cabinet was there.

He was pumped up. The Army-Navy game he's going to be at tomorrow. He loves that. And I'm sure he can't wait to be president. He'll do that for four straight years.

From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show. Brian Kill Mead. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the latest minutes of the Brian Kilmey Show. Kind of an exciting day here in New York and around the country.

Got President-elect Trump ringing the bell on the stock exchange. Pretty good for him. He's named cover guy, man of the year, person of the year for New York for Time Magazine, which is great. And then we got Mayor Adams meeting with Tom Holman today, a way forward with the illegal immigrants. We've closed down 25 shelters of late of illegal immigrants.

We keep up to, there's been hundreds of thousands through here. It's estimated we got 55,000 still here. But Mayor Adams says, listen, I need a way forward. They can't work. I got to house them.

I got to feed them. And we seem to be a destination point for a lot of illegals in that poorest border.

So how can they work together with a very woke City Council, is he sincere? Maybe we'll get a statement, a joint statement after this. And maybe that'll be a blueprint for other Democratic cities not on board, like Denver, like Los Angeles, like San Diego, and certainly Chicago. Big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three.

So we are concerned that there would not be. Revitalization of ISIS or other terrorist groups. We're concerned about the Golan and how that's going to be handled in regards to the Israel border.

So there's a lot of unanswered questions. True, Senator Ben Corden, Mideast mayhem. Trump effect is real. Gaza sees fire talks gain steam and Syrian revolution moves forward as we add more troops to the region. Our enemies wait for Trump to take power and his policies to shift all of the focus to our real menace in the Middle East, Iran.

Number 10. I've known Cash for a little while since my time in the House Intel. I think he's perfect. You've got to remember, this is a guy that exposed the FBI for weaponizing against President Trump. He's the one that brought forth the complaint about the Russian hoax.

That is Senator Moen.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump's transition momentum picks up steam as Christopher Wray will leave the FBI. Pete Hagseth fights off another smear job. Mark Zuckerberg becomes the latest billionaire to give a million bucks to Trump's second term. We'll discuss. Number I just sat through an hour and 15 long minute briefings slash question and answer period.

It was the most amateur hour assessment of what's happening here in the state of New Jersey that I've ever seen. And I've never been through a more amateur hour briefing in my entire life. It is just such an embarrassment. Brian Bergen, a local lawmaker in New Jersey, you got to do better than this. Three weeks of drones swarming in New Jersey and parts of New York.

No answers from the government. No answers from state officials. No answers from the governor. Only anger and frustration. Why, I believe we know exactly who was behind it.

We just don't want to say it, which drives me insane. But the one guy that has said something is Jeff Van Drew, former Democrat turned Republican. Listen to what he said about what he has heard through, I guess you could call him. Whistleblowers? Cut seven.

I call them whistleblowers because they are saying what they believe to be the truth. They've come to me, they don't want to be anonymous because they are concerned about their futures and their jobs, and they have told us information that we didn't have. We do know that China and Iran have been dealing with drone technology and that China has been selling Iran drone technology and that they do have it. And we do know, obviously, that Iran hates us.

So I am saying that this is something that really has to be evaluated. It very well may be true. If it isn't, I'm a happy guy. Yeah, and what he's talking about is he says Iran's got a mothership off our coast who are launching these drones to spy on us. Is that in fact true?

But by bringing it up, He made the Pentagon respond. He made governors respond. And I love it, even if he's just rattling people's cage because we deserve some explanation. A man in our country that knows as much about drones as anyone just left the war zone of Ukraine and has been there for the last two and a half years, while he's not in Iraq and Afghanistan. Brett Velikovich, Fox News contributor, former Special Operations Intel analyst.

Hey, Brett. What do you think about what Jeff VanDrew said?

Well, I love your comment on him forcing the Pentagon to respond. That's a brilliant take on it. If because the Pentagon came out and said what he was saying was untrue. But either way, it gets them talking and it gets them having to respond to the American people, which is the biggest issue right here. Why is it that the U.S.

government can't just come out and tell us exactly what they know and what they don't know? It's not acceptable just to say we're investigating it. And you've got what I keep scratching my head about is you've got these government officials at the state, local level who keep saying they're being told this does not pose a critical threat to us. How do they even know that? It's just an odd statement.

In the end, to even say that. And let's just go with the theory that maybe it is a foreign adversary and these drones aren't dropping bombs. But that doesn't mean that they don't pose a threat. Most people have zero clue what you can do with these things. They have no idea all the intelligence you can collect from it.

It doesn't even have a bomb on it to be a threat. Right, but you do. And we're watching drones being made in the theater. We're watching Iranian drones come into Ukraine from Russia. There's ones that just crash into buildings.

I guess those suicide drones, one-way drones, they're there just to explode and not come back. And there's others there to surveil.

So, Brett, what do you think they are? We saw some lawmakers said there's the size of my truck in F-150. What do you think it is? And could if I showed you a picture of it up close, could you tell whose it was? Yeah, I think I could probably tell who it is because I know how easy it is to do this.

This isn't a hard thing to do from the drone community right now. The technology in the last couple of years has developed so significantly because of the wars in Ukraine, Taiwan, Iran, Russia. They all have new technology to be able to do this. And it's not hard for me, for instance, to go take a drone, use something like a Starlink, and go fly it two, three thousand miles away in another country while sitting in the comfort of my own home because that's the reality of the threats that we face right now. And Russia, China, Iran, they all have these drones now developed that can fly very long distance, extend the range and antennas of smaller drones.

This sort of mothership idea is. Is maybe a foreign concept to the American people, but not to the drone industry. This is happening every single day where another drone is carrying other drones a significant distance to be able to collect information, collect intelligence. And so it is, there is a possibility that these drones could be coming from the ocean. There could be, you know, the Ukrainians right now are literally putting drones on boats and they're launching them from boats and striking Russian naval vessels at a very significant distance away.

So it is entirely plausible that that's the case, that it is a foreign adversary because the technology is out there that can do that. And the technology is out there also that can stop it. And that's really where I've been getting pretty upset with this lately: the U.S. seems to not want to change our infrastructure to counter these threats. The FAA has set the drone community and the counter-drone community in the U.S.

back decades because of their archaic laws and archaic policies. And we no longer control. The global airspace. We used to be the kings of UAS drone technology, and it's no longer the case. Here's what Brian Bergen said in the New Jersey Assemblement after being briefed, cut for.

There's no chance. Uh no chance it's it's the US military. I hope it's no other military because if it the mil military I was in the military, I was an Apache pilot in the Army uh for a long time. When the military is doing exercises, the last thing they want is public uncertainty. We're not outside Area 51 here, okay?

So if there was a military operation happening and it was the US military, they would be over communicating with the public and that's not happening here.

So he's befuddled. Military guy with great contacts.

So, I mean, why is it so hard to find out? Why can't you know they're low enough to see? Also, what about this new technology where when you engage it, it goes dark? Yeah, look, I've been involved in a ton of Top secret testing of drone technology across the U.S. That was part of my job previously was to test our own infrastructure with new drone technology to see if we could handle it.

Every single time we did some sort of military exercise in a civilian area, we would always inform local law enforcement.

Okay, we wouldn't necessarily have to tell them exactly what we were testing, but they knew that we were out there because in case someone starts calling the police out of concern for guys, a bunch of military guys running around with guns that they had information that we were there. And so that's why I don't subscribe to the idea that it is some military testing. And if it if it is, if it if it is, and and they're just too embarrassed to admit it because it's gone too far, because now there's this paranoia, somebody needs to be fired. Like some, I mean, you can't be operating like that and causing this mass hysteria. And so, you know, the government, either way, you know, they got a lot of explaining to do.

And the FAA is really at the highest level the cause of a lot of our problems in the U.S. to be able to shoot these things down. I mean, Brian, we can detect gunshots from. Satellites in cities when they're fired. Why don't we have this national infrastructure set up to detect drones?

The technology is there. We just don't invest the proper money in our own industry to do it.

So, here we're talking about an iron dome for our country, which would be very tough, but that's missiles.

So, we have to come up with a way to protect our southern border. We know the drug cartels are using it across our southern border, trying to find weak spots, and they send the human traffickers through there and their fentanyl through there. And now we need a way to bring a drone down. I believe we have it. In Washington, by the White House, by the State Department sensitive buildings, can we, do you think from what you know?

Do you think we could get this jamming equipment that Russians have been successful with in the war zone?

So Frankly, to be blunt, what the I could take a drone right now and land it on the front doorsteps of the White House, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Really? Because It du we don't have We have not set up the best technology in our country that I'm seeing is actually working overseas. A lot of U.S. equipment that was sent to Ukraine that dealt with electronic warfare systems failed miserably when put to the test.

And that's why a lot of Other international systems and even Ukrainian systems are working properly because so many US systems failed and they had to figure out how to do something about it. I believe we could take that technology and bring it back to the US to protect our own infrastructure because we're just not set up to defend it. In a way that we need to. We have systems right now out there, Brian, that can. Spoof a drone, take over the controls mid-air.

We have acoustic detection systems that can triangulate a drone based on sound. We have drones that can strike other drones in mid-air. We have directed energy systems that can fry a drone mid-air. But we have archaic laws in the U.S. where the FAA is constantly concerned about these systems affecting commercial airline communications, which I get to an extent, but this is a very old school mentality.

A lot of these jamming systems are not going to take down a commercial airliner. And so the FAA is one of the problems here that needs a complete overhaul. They've stifled our innovation, and we need to start putting these systems and testing them more frequently in the U.S. because they are working overseas. They can detect these drones overseas, but not here.

Lastly, we know that Brett Velkovich, our guest, Brett, you've spent a lot of time over in Ukraine going back and forth. What's the state of the conflict? It's really bad, Brian. It's really bad. The last trip when I was over there, there were more attacks than I'd ever seen.

I it's it's tough to say because I've seen I've seen the ebbs and flows of that war, and the Russians right now seem to be using this gap in our administration's transition to wreak havoc on the Ukrainian people. And every night you'll hear over 100 Iranian Shahid drones coming in and striking locations. The apartment building right next to mine, where I have a rental, took a Shahid to destroy the entire top part of the building. And the defenses, they're overwhelming the Ukrainians' air defenses. And I think they're making a power grab or a land grab essentially to prepare for these negotiations that are coming.

And so it's really wow. That's disturbing. Have the attacks been effective now that they've released the restrictions? I mean, there's only so much you can do. There's so many targets.

So they're effective to an extent, but. That's a big battle space. And so there's only so much ATACMs at HIMARS and F-16s can do in that country. You know, this war could really go on forever. It doesn't seem like Putin's wanting to let up at all.

I just hope that we can bring peace to that country very quickly and strike some sort of deal because too many people have died on both sides. Right. Absolutely. All right.

So we'll see what goes on. Brett Velikovich, thanks so much. Thanks, Brian. All right, 1866-408-7669.

So when we come back, we'll be able to squeeze in some calls. And then at the bottom of the hour, I'll bring in Josh Crash Hour, talk about the president. Getting Tom Man of the Year. And also a very curious invitation went out at the inaugural. You're not going to believe what leader the President invited to join him January 20th.

Don't move. It's Brian Kilmeade. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. We had a great first term, despite a lot of turmoil, caused unnecessarily.

But the media has tamed down a little bit. They're liking us much better now, I think. If they don't, we'll have to just take them on again, and we don't want to do that. But I do want to thank Time magazine. I've been on the cover many times.

I don't know who has a record, but I can only probably talk well about 25% of the covers. 25% are great. The others I just sort of hide. But it's been an honor, and every time it's an honor, I will tell you. And thank you very much for doing it.

And thank the whole group at Time. Really, very professional people. Thank you very much.

Well, I hope so. Maybe. Did you read I haven't read the story yet? It just crossed out a while ago, so maybe the story's positive, but it's supposed to be the most significant person. It's not just, hey, he's the man of the year like you're a hero, although it it does I mean, there's so much of it.

It's got I mean, two thirds of it has to be positive. Of course, if you know, anyone you write about, you gotta point out something negative if you're if you're staying with the format. But I hope that most of it was positive. And I assume it is that the president had the chance to scan through it. And that's what he hopes for.

I mean, that's why he's talking to everybody so far. And until they go south. And the only thing is, I hope the President can disseminate between People that are critical of a decision as opposed to not fair.

So you might say to himself, you know, I d I thought that was uh you know, you forced You force Israel to take a deal with Hamas. I don't think it was good.

Well, that doesn't mean you're a bad president. It means that people, columnists, reporters, or when asked about a decision, they would make a comment. Quick thing on And I'll bring this up to Mark Thiessen. Just uh just some of the gains. Hamas has been devastated.

They've been isolated. Hezbollah is no longer fighting. Iran has been emasculated. Sinwar is dead. Most of the higher-ups are just dead.

Babrud died.

So they are being hit from every angle. And people are suffering there. They shouldn't be. I understand that. I just don't know any other way.

Neither do the Israelis.

So Hamas has now decided to allow a big stumbling point was the IDF, they said, has to get out of Gaza. They're not.

So, as long as you have that stance, they're not going to talk.

Well, now they're saying you can. You can stay by the border in Rafah, and you can stay in the middle. There's a line that goes right up the middle.

So that makes so in turn Thirty Thirty hostages are out in five bodies. In exchange for some release of some prisoners, which problematic too. Because one of the messages that Sinoir got when he was kept in prison and was let out when I think it was Galad, this this uh this officer was taken uh through a secret tunnel and he was held hostage and they let out hundreds of uh of Palestinians, of Hamas members in order to get him out, and that's fine. But Sinwar said, Good, if you take hostages, The Israelis have this humanitarian streak. They'll just give you anything they want.

Well, you took over a hundred hostages, you got some of them back. But the Israelis went ahead and finished you anyway.

So and he's dead. Uh a drone took him out.

So, Mark Thiessen, we'll talk about that next. We're going to talk about the developing situation in Syria next. His insight is always phenomenal. Also, the president acting like a pseudo-president right now, his remarks this morning, we'll talk about that. Pete Hag says, chance of being passed.

Rubio, Scott Bessett, RFK Jr., Tulsi, all on the table. Don't worry. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Joe. He pledged to me today that he would be absolutely transparent and he would make available to the public all the facts about who, for instance, came up with the idea to try to recruit spies in Catholic churches.

Who is it who gave the green light to send SWAT teams to the homes of pro-life demonstrators? Who is it that green lighted sending the FBI to the homes of parents who went to school board meetings, as you were just reporting on? All of that needs to come out. Laura, so far, do you know who's been disciplined, let alone fired for any of that? Nobody, zero.

He told me today he was going to get to the bottom of all of it, that there would be complete and total transparency, and that would be a terrific first step. First step. Towards restoring some confidence in the FBI.

So we'll see. Cash Patel wants to be the guy. He's gotten much more support than I thought. And, you know, it's always going to be a little bit tough when you have RFK, Tulsi, you have non-traditional Cash Patel, you know, and Pete Hagstaff. It would have been easier to mark a Rubio is a much easier go, and Scott Bessett is going to have almost no problem by almost all accounts unless they find something that's, I don't know, what could they possibly find?

But a lot of them are going to float right through. Cash Patel is going to have an easier time. Does Krashka does Josh Krashauer feel the same way? Fox News radio political analyst, editor-in-chief of Jewish insider. Josh, welcome back.

Do you think Cash is going to have an easier time than some thought initially? I Uh I wouldn't call it an easy time, and I think the confirmation hearings themselves are going to be awfully significant for all all all all the rest of the nominees, including Cash Patel. Uh look, I think there's been a successful uh advocacy campaign by Trump allies in the last week. In getting the grassroots supporters of his to stand up and tell their senators who may be on the fence. For Patel or other nominees like Pete Hegseth, too, to support the nominees or face political risk within their own party.

We saw that with Hegseth and Joni Ernst. Joni Ernst is up the re-election in 2026. She could have a grassroots base problem if she votes against. Of these nominees, and she's certainly fallen a little more in line since that advocacy began.

Now, I think. When we started talking about the Trump nominees at the very beginning, right after his election, we're always talking about three or four or five Republican senators that are not up for reelection in 2026, that have different political incentives. And those are still the ones that matter the most. The Susan Collins is of the world, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell, who's retiring, maybe you taught John Curtis, and Todd Young. Those are the five I've watched most carefully.

Ernst always had a political issue being up for reelection in a very conservative state. It's not in her interest to go against Trump. There are some Republicans, though, that are insulated from politics a little more, and those are the senators to watch when it comes to Pattell or any of the other nominees that are a little more controversial. Senator Mark Wayne Mullen weighed in on cash, and Christopher Ray stepping down yesterday, cut 17.

Now, mind you, there's a difference between the guys on the seventh floor versus the guys in the field every day that's actually watching over the American people and keeping us safe. And that's where it needs to be reformed, is on the seventh floor, and that's where cash will be focusing. I'm happy that Director Ray stepped down so we don't have to deal with that. We can just focus on moving forward. Right.

And one of the people against him, Senator Grassley, said, you're done. Pack up, go. Yeah. Well, look, Ray's retire or decision to step down on his own, I think, is a positive for Trump. It lessens the kind of chaos that would ensue to get Patel.

If he didn't step down, he would have had a much more turbulent process. I think now we're just looking at Cash Patel on the Merits. Is he qualified? Does he have the background to effectively run the FBI? I mean, I think the concern, certainly among Democrats, but I think also among that small number of Republicans, is the criticism of the FBI by Trump allies is that it was politicized, that there was a lot of lawfare from top officials, and we know a lot about it from the very beginning of the Trump administration.

I think the worry in some conservative circles, I don't think it's widespread, but there's enough of it out there on the Capitol Hill, is that you could be going. To lawfare in a different direction. You could politicize it in a different way. And there's a little concern that Trump would go after people he doesn't like. You heard his interview on Sunday about Liz Cheney about Adam Kinzinger.

That's going to be the conservative goal is to depoliticize the law enforcement agencies. There is a concern, you hear this privately from Republicans on the Hill, that someone like Patel could. Could politicize it in the other direction. And that's what I think is the big challenge. It's really come up a lot in the hearing if he gets to that point.

I think RFK is going next week. Pete Hayseth back on the hill today, meeting with Democrats. But yesterday, it seemed they were working on a story that they were going to say that Pete Hakeseth was not telling the truth when he said that he was accepted to West Point. And they were going to work on this big story. And they called West Point, and West Point said, No, we have no record of him going here or applying here.

And instead, it turns out his attorney and Tom Cotton went out it and Pete produced the letter of acceptance from West Point and a pushback. And then you get a pseudo-apology from West Point that he did go. Tim Cotton wrote a letter to West Point asking for an apology. Perhaps that's an honest mistake. I can't imagine what that mistake might have been.

He writes, but I also can't imagine this action was authorized or known to the West Point leadership.

So They tried to smear him and said he was lying. They are desperate to stop Pete Hegseth. This is a little bit too aggressive, don't you think, Josh?

Well, Bart, this this is Shades of Kavanaugh. I mean, it was the same, same, same activist journalism. Uh, you with New Yorker was was the case, I believe, with with Kavanaugh and and and this attempted hit piece by ProPublica, which has gone after Clarence Thomas. It just has an agenda. It's funded by left wing donors.

And they, you know, look, I it's it's good they did the due diligence and but it took a hell of a lot of work. For Pete Hegseth to kind of come up with that letter from decades ago. 1999, I think. Yeah, I mean, that's not easy for a lot of folks to do. It's impressive that he had it in the archive.

So, I mean, this is what turns a lot of people who are on the fence. They may have some concerns about some of the issues that have come up. But when you see the agenda that activists, that it's not based on facts, it's based on trying to smear someone, that's what, and frankly, that's what's drawn a lot of people to Donald Trump. I mean, they saw the clear overreach. Throughout Trump's presidency, from people who just were out to get him no matter the cost, and they did a lot of damage to their own institutions and their own credibility.

So, like, and I'm glad this story didn't run, but it looks like they put a lot of effort and a lot they were very, very, very aggressive in trying to smear someone. And it took a lot of effort and good luck, frankly, that he still had a copy of that letter to. to deter uh the attack. I I w I would say like Fox News just came out with a really good poll um looking at the popularity and favorability numbers of all the Trump nominees. And, you know, like RFK is actually the most popular of the cabinet nominees when you look at that.

I think Rubio, I think maybe overall, I think maybe RFK has the highest favorability numbers. But even the ones that are a little more controversial, like like and that that taking the l taking it on the chin, like Pete Heggs has, his numbers are not bad and and they're not at the point where I I I think if you're a Republican, you'd have any concern About confirming him. But look, it's going to come down to the same three or four Republicans, and they may have different political incentives in their decisions.

So, what do you hear about Tulsi and Christy Noam behind the scenes? Have you heard anything? I know Pam Bondi was well received. I can't imagine Scott Besson is going to have a problem. But, your thoughts, what do you hear?

Yeah, I mean, I look, I think if there's one nominee who I think is going to have a little bit of a challenge, it is Tulti Gabber, just because she's been on record. It's not a smear campaign. You can look at the video. You can watch her comments about Bashar al-Assad. Syria has become a much bigger issue in the news lately, about Vladimir Putin after Russia invaded Ukraine.

She's going to have to explain that, that explain how she would handle intelligence in an apolitical way. There is, I mean, we've talked to a lot of Republican senators. Look, I think she's convinced that. Persuaded a good number of them, but there is a lot of private concern about her national security record. Look, she sided with Obama, she sided with Biden.

On a whole lot of things vis-a-vis Iran, which goes against Trump policy and Trump, where Trump stood, including criticizing going after Soleimani.

So, I mean, these are things she's going to have to explain. Has she changed? Have her views changed? And how will she handle intelligence? It's going to come down to, frankly, her confirmation hearing.

And I think some of these. That's true of some of these other nominees. Like, you know, I think they've kind of passed that first test, but the hearings are going to be very determinative. Right. You know, they're both they're all good communicators.

That's one thing.

Some people are really competent, but they're not very good at defending themselves. Tulsi Gabbard, Cash Patel, Christy Noam, very good on their feet. Pete Hexett's fantastic on his feet.

So you get to that point. What I'm wondering is we're going to hear Republicans say, so what are you going to do to streamline the Pentagon, make them more efficient, make the warfighters more effective? And the next question will be, what happened in 2001 when you were with Concerned Vets for America? How much were you drinking at that Christmas party?

So I'm wondering if there's an appetite to Get, you know, even after the one-on-ones, if they're going to make it like a soap opera again.

Well, for Pete Hexeth, I actually think having gotten past this first phase, trying to take him out before we even get to a confirmation hearing, that looks like that failed. It looks like we're going to get to a hearing. And Pete Hexeth, knowing him and just looking at his track record, that's one of his strengths. He is an outstanding public communicator, and he probably, in these one-on-one confrontations with Democratic senators or hospital questioning, I think he will do quite well.

So, especially with the prep that he's going, you know, going through.

So, I think his biggest test was getting to that point where he could get to a hearing. I think he's past that. I actually think his confirmation chances are much better than they were a week ago just because of that reality. I think it's a little more dicey for a few others who, you know, again, they're good communicators, but there are other things that have to be litigated about their records.

So we have President Biden has commuted 1,500, it's an all-time one-day single-day record, 1,500 sentences and parted 39 people, the non-violent, they say, nonviolent crimes. I haven't looked at their backgrounds. He's not shy about how he's going out, is he? I mean, no names of people preemptively being pardoned.

So at least I think if that happens, that would be very close to the inauguration, but right before the inauguration day. Um but yeah, no, I mean Biden I think Look, I think some of it maybe it was kind of Embarrassed by pardoning Hunter Biden, his son, first, and not trying to let everyone else get pardons that he deems worthy. But look, his record is, I think that the fact that. that he did and he said what he said about pardoning Hunter Biden is going to kind of tarnish his his record and leave a mark in the history books. Josh Crash Hour, thanks so much.

It's going to be an interesting day. Thanks, Brian. You got it. Back in a moment. When we come back, I'll take your calls and get your perspective.

Right now, if you look at the nominees according to the Fox poll. RFK's got 48% approval, but 43% disapproval. I mean, that's extremely high. Only 6% haven't heard of him. Rubio, 46%, 35%.

So that's the best ratio. Pam Bondi, 37%, 32. Christine. By the way, this is Democrats, too. Christine Noam, 35, 34, 34 disapproved.

Kelsey Gabber, 35%, 36%. Cash Patel, just 3 underwater. Scott Besson, 32-4. 27 against 34%, never heard of him. And Pete Hagsett, 31%, 4%, 40% against 25%, never heard of him.

Overall, the Trump cabinet selections, 47% approve. Uh 44 uh 50% uh disapprove. You'll listen to Brian Killmee Chow. Giving you everything you need to know. You're with Brian Kilmead.

The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. Not in a hotel. It was like a Random house. It was like random house.

But apparently, you can tell me, they spent the Harris campaign, spent up like $100,000. I did that to build the studio to make it look like it was the studio that you use in LA. My studio that is gorgeous in Los Angeles doesn't even cost six figures.

So I don't know how cardboard walls could cost six figures. But do you think they did that? I mean, you saw that. Absolutely not. With love to them.

Oh, my God. They wasted so much money with the Harris campaign. Here's another example of that Call Me Daddy podcast that brought her on the road, but reconstructed her. Her set to it was more expensive, according to her, more expensive than the one she actually had.

Well, she said it was cardboard walls for the one they reconstructed. She said she doesn't understand how it could cost that much money. Right. But I mean, it's on it's on the Campaign rate distinguishes. Isn't that the same thing you heard about her?

She had all this money when she was running originally against Joe Biden, and she wasted all of it before the primary. Everyone turned on each other again. She runs another organization, spends over a billion dollars and still is in debt. And now I was asking people to pay off her debt. You know what is also terrible?

She has done nothing since she came back. She had a chance to distinguish herself. Joe Biden's got no future, but she supposedly does. She could be using this time and saying, you know, doing a bunch of things, making a bunch of appearances, doing some sit-downs. Like, you know, it was a tough situation for me.

I only had 90 days, but this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to be going. I've got to, you know, how many people would do a sit-down with her? A lot. But for her to do all that, Brian, she would have to know who she is.

And what you would want to do, and she doesn't, clearly. But how can you not? I mean, she is 60 years old. Yes. What you stand for, what you do, and what you're doing.

It did. But I always thought too she was listening to consultants and David and the Dav watching David Axerod and then having David Pluff and then saying, you know, what do I want to do? But then you go, Okay, just spent two weeks in Hawaii, even though the world is blowing up. Comes back, doesn't really do anything, goes to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, doesn't talk to anybody, and then just disappears.

So Joe Biden's not doing anything, she's not doing anything. Jeff Zeitz, the chief of staff, had to put out a statement. This is what we plan on doing at the end, because no one seems to be doing anything. I mean, it's truly just astonishing, like you were saying, but it's also then a Great for Trump because he can be out there saying what he's going to do, and it just leads to everyone to think he's already. In office, even though we have to wait until January 20th.

You know, what's crazy is this is how different it was. When Obama was in office and there was a controversial vote in the UN for Israel to condemn Israel for Well, I guess one of their settlements. Um He communicated. to the Israelis. Don't worry.

I'm going to be there soon. I'm not going to comply with any of this. That was controversial. Michael Flynn in Puerto Rico gets a call from a Russian to say, you know, we're going to establish some type of relationship and I'll meet you when we get back. That was a controversial situation, and he evidently didn't tell the vice president about it because he felt as though he might have done something wrong.

I believe inadvertently, that's what got him fired.

So This is different. I mean, Trump is over in France. He's talking to the Prime Minister of Canada. He's calling the President of Mexico. He has the Argentinian President meeting him in Mar-a-Lago.

There's no clamor of one president at a time. How disrespectful. What does this party do when somebody rein him in? He's out of control. No, I mean, it is the benefit of both Biden and Kamala being MIA, right?

It's it's it's the beauty of it. And then also, I think it's also the rest of the media realizing, like, they're taking a wake up call and they got scared straight a little bit. They realized how Um Off point they were and how ineffective they were. And if they want to still be relevant, they need to start covering things more fairly because the American people saw right through it. I know, and the thing is, too, I find it unbelievable that he invited President Xi to the inaugural.

I mean, is that just a taunting thing? Hey, do you want to come to he's going to be he's invited to the inaugural January 20th. And they assume the President of Hungary is invited, Victor Orban's invited too. But I'm not sure Vladimir Putin wouldn't have come. Even that's too big too bridge to cro too long of a bridge to cross for Trump.

But President Xi, our rival militarily, they're spying, the cyber hacking, the The economics, the tariffs. These Taiwanese people. But it's such a Trump move, right? He's like you say, he's so charming face to face. and like schmooze him and then makes it harder for she if he wanted to do something truly You know, in conflict, it makes it harder the more of a relationship they have.

Right. I mean, imagine if he comes. It'll be good for I hope he lands in San Francisco, because if he lands in San Francisco, they'll have to clean up the homeless and hose down the streets. Because remember when they went there, they surrounded San Francisco with Chinese flags and actually cleaned it up. And Governor Newsom's explanation was, yeah, we you know, when we company comes, we gotta look good.

And then they just brought back the crime and the pestilence a little bit later. And then they voted Mayor London Breed out of office. But we'll see what happens. I don't know if they can clean up Washington that quick. One of the biggest embarrassments, don't be surprised if Trump goes all in to fix Washington, D.C., the carjacking, the crime, the homeless.

He says it's such an embarrassment to come into our Capitol and see so many problems and such poverty. And I wouldn't be surprised if he makes a special effort there, especially in the park across the street. Evidently that park, no grass. The statue's got graffiti on it with Andrew Jackson in front. Trump will not like looking at and seeing that.

These little things matter to him. I think matter to tourists still. And of course we have the normal after the normal. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Killmead.

Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for being here, Brian Killmead Cho. We got a busy hour coming away. Mark Thiessen's just getting out of the shower. He wanted me to buy a little bit of time.

Tristan Harris is going to be here, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology. He's from Social Dilemma. He's one of the tech experts, one of the foremost tech experts that you find in Silicon Valley. But he also is really concerned about the mental and physical health of our country. Also, he understands some of the dangers of AI because he was there at the beginning of social media.

And I don't need to go over some of the addiction issues and the lack of social ability of the average American now because they're all in their phones, on their iPads, distracted. Not talking to human beings. And we have a busy hour coming your way. President of the United States already this morning spent his morning, I think. Yeah, I don't know, taking a bow.

Becoming Thai Man of the Year, and there's no doubt about it. It doesn't matter who's runner-up. They said Joe Rogan was under consideration, but there's no way it's got to be Trump. Big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three.

So we are concerned that there will not be. Revitalization of ISIS or other terrorist groups. We're concerned about the Golan and how that's going to be handled in regards to the Israel border.

So there's a lot of unanswered questions. Yeah, that has been card in Mid-East Mayhem. Trump effect is real. Gaza sees fire talks gaining steam, and Syrian revolution moves forward as we add more troops to the region. And our enemies wait for Trump to take power.

And by the way, the focus is going to be on the real menace: Iran. Number two. I've known Cash for a little while since my time in the House Intel. I think he's perfect. You've got to remember, this is the guy that exposed the FBI for weaponizing against President Trump.

He's the one that brought forth the complaint about the Russian hoax. That is Senator Mullen. Trump transition momentum is real. Christopher Wray is really out. And Pete Hagseth fights off another smear job before it got traction.

Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire, decides to give a million dollars to Trump for his second term. You talk about a transformation. Number I just sat through an hour and 15 long minute briefings/slash question and answer period. It was the most amateur hour assessment of what's happening here in the state of New Jersey that I've ever seen. And I've never been through a more amateur hour briefing in my entire life.

Yup, and that is a local official Brian Bergen talking about the, well, three weeks of drones swarming in New Jersey and parts of New York, and no answers from the government. They refuse to tell us anyway. Local officials have no answers, and the governor, Murphy, as usual, is an embarrassment, calls a briefing and doesn't show up for it. Mark Thiessen joins us now, former chief speech writer for George W. Bush, Washington Post columnist, and outstanding podcast host.

Mark, welcome back. Good to be with you. Hey, can I tell you a quick story? Yep.

So I'm I'm working in the Bush administration and I'm upstairs taking a shower and the phone rings and my wife picks it up and the voice on the other end says it's the president calling for Mark and she said oh well he's in the shower and the voice says well don't worry I'll call I'll call back later and she said no no I'll go get him and like chatting away and he's like telling we're just getting ready to go to church and we're gonna run the nursery and blah blah blah and chat chat chat chatty she thinks she's talking to like the president's aide And it's the president. She had no idea. You had no idea she's talking to George W. Bush.

So she walks up to the shower, knocks on the shower door while I'm in there, and she said, Mark, the president's calling for you. And so I get out and she answered me the phone. And he's like, his first words are, Mark, you toweled off yet?

So I just thought of that when you were introducing me earlier.

Well, where are you now? Are you in New York? I am toweled off. I just want you to know. I appreciate it.

I even listened to you this morning on when I was watching Fox and Friends and decided to get dressed.

Okay, fantastic. That's all I ask.

So, by the way, Mark, are you in New York by any chance? No, I'm not. I'm in Washington right now. Because you have an opportunity at Fox Nation's doing this great comedy show with Jimmy Phalo, Jim Brewer, as well as. Adam Caroller.

And our guest from last week, Anthony Rhodea. And there's a free pair of tickets for tonight's game, for tonight's show, I should say. It's starting at eight o'clock at the Tilla Center. If you could get to New York, I can get you tickets.

Well, I appreciate that. I would love to do it sometime. I won't be able to get there tonight, but going up to see my daughter's hockey game. All right, fine.

Next 10 callers then.

Next 10 callers, 1-866-408-7669. Get the tickets.

So, Mark, I have to ask you first off: is it acceptable the answers we are getting or not getting from the Pentagon and the federal government about what's going on with the drones in New Jersey? Is that acceptable? I don't know, it's not acceptable, number one. Number two, I have no idea what the hell is going on with the drones. But number three, these are the people who let a Chinese spy balloon cross our entire country that we would have never known about if some intrepid citizens in Montana didn't look up at the sky and like that Steve Martin routine from the 1970s on Saturday Nan Live, looked up at the sky and said, What the hell is that?

Right. Right. So, you know, but I don't trust these people at all. Of course, we need to know what the hell is going on. You know, so I just want you to hear this.

I love this, and I think he made it up just to make people respond to it. Listen to Jeff Van Drew, cut 11. I've gotten to know people. And from very high sources, very qualified sources, very responsible sources, I'm going to tell you the real deal. Iran launched a mothership probably about a month ago that contains these drones.

They've launched drones. It's everything that we can see or hear. And again, these are from high sources. I don't say this lightly. And because of that, the Pentagon had to finally comment.

I think that he made it up. But he's frustrated.

Well part of it. First of all, when I hear mothership, I'm thinking Parliament Funkadelic. Right. Number one, mothership connection. Iranian mothership off the coast of America would be quite a thing.

Probably not something you should say if you don't, if it's not true.

So that's either true or it's not true. The Pentagon apparently says it's not true. I think you'd scare a lot of Americans with the thought of an Iranian mothership off the coast launching drones at America. But no one gives us answers. You might as well make something up to make them answer.

I guess so. I mean, you know, you know what? We're going to have answers to everything in about a month.

So your reaction to the President getting man of the year, no doubt about it. New York Times magazine, there's no runner-up as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. And he is, by the way, man of the year, not person of the year. This was one of the early moments in gender ideology when they started calling him person of the year.

So, you know, I refer to him as man of the year. Of course, he's man of the year. This was the greatest political comeback in American history. He is only the second president in history to lose the White House and then win it back four years later. The last one was Grover Cleveland in 1892.

And I can tell you something: Grover Cleveland didn't have a Mueller probe, wasn't impeached twice, and didn't have 91 criminal charges at the federal, state, and local level at him, and overcome all that to. To not only win the presidency, but win the popular vote and end in a landslide and gain with every single constituency except older women, I think it was, was the only one that he didn't make gains with in the entire country. This was a, they threw everything they had at him and he destroyed them. Of course, he's man of the year and he should be man of the year and he's probably going to be man of the early 20th century to be true. Just a quick thing for people listening at home.

Hamas evidently is at the table with the Egyptians and the Qataris mediating. They have agreed to let the Israelis, they've given in on that point, to let the IDF stay in Gaza. Thirty hostages would be let out, five bodies, and they would get some prisoners out. Are you beginning to get the sense that they know Trump's coming and something could happen? Because I'm getting that feeling.

Well, he said it. I mean, you know, you remember the, I would not be surprised if the Iranians are telling him, let those people go. And the Iranians, very smartly, when Ronald Reagan was elected, they waited until the day of the inauguration before releasing the American hostages in Tehran. They have the same control over these hostages in Gaza that they had over the hostages that were in Tehran in 1979. They can release them.

Trump has made one of the things that Donald Trump made clear in his first term, and that they know because they paid a price for it, is that if you harm a single American, or you or the red line he drew, which will remain in place when he's president, if Iran or one of its proxies harms a single American in the Middle East or anywhere in the world, he will hold Iran responsible, not the proxy. And Iran will pay the price. And they violated that. And they lost Khaflim Soleimani. He struck them and then he told the Iranians: you kill another American, and I'm going to hit Tehran.

And they took it seriously. And so they know that guy is coming back, and they're damn well going to release those hostages because he is not going to tolerate the Iranian regime holding American citizens through its proxies hostage in the Middle East.

So we're talking to Mark Thieson. Mark knows as much about terrorism and its eminence, where it starts from, the genesis, and where we're at now. And. I'm not getting overly excited, but I'm just noting that since the Syrian rebels have risen up and thrown out Assad and forced him into Moscow, this guy who has emerged as Al-Jalani from the Golden Heights. And Ambassador Robert Ford, the last ambassador to Syria, was with me earlier in the week.

This is what he said about the guy that's in charge right now, Cut 24. I know that Jolani broke with Al-Qaeda and fought bloody battles against Al-Qaeda, and he broke with the Islamic State and fought bloody battles with the Islamic State. Kicked them all out. Lots of casualty. He allows the Christians in northern Syria to conduct worship.

Is there equality between Christians and Muslims? No. He's an authoritarian. But I can imagine that, especially in this state of flux and when everything is up in the air, that he will be trying to figure out how to build consensus and support among different Syrian communities. That's why he's putting out these slick PR messages.

your thoughts about where we're at now.

Okay, so first before we go to that. Syria is both a good news and a bad news story.

So let's talk about the good news. And I just did a great podcast, What the Hell is Going On with Danny Plutka, an hour deep dive with a Syrian expert on this.

So I would recommend your readers if they want to go deeper to listen to that. Iran, Syria is a good news story. Iran, in a matter of 14 months after the October 7th attacks, has lost its entire terror empire. They've lost Hamas. the Hezbollah has been defeated.

And now the Syrian regime of Bashur al-Assad, which was its only only Arab ally in the entire Middle East, the funnel through which it sent weapons to Hezbollah and to Hamas and everything else, is gone. This is a huge defeat for Iran. It is a huge defeat for Russia, which came in and provided security guarantees to stabilize the Assad regime when he was about to fall a few years ago. And those were proven worthless because they went into this misadventure in Ukraine and couldn't back up their security guarantees. This is a huge defeat for the new axis of evil in the world.

So that's the good news. The bad news. I'm not as bullish on Jalani as your guest was, and I'll tell you why. He is an Islamic radical who was radicalized by the 9-11 attacks and was so inspired by the 9-11 attacks that he went to Iraq to fight the Americans, joined al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is a performer of ISIS, and then became an ally of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the guy who Donald Trump killed like a dog in a safe house in Syria, and was sent by Baghdadi to Syria to establish the Syrian caliphate. They broke over tactics.

You remember Zarcawi, who was second in command of Bin Laden, Zawrahiri, sent a letter to Zarcawi, who was the founder of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, saying, stop killing the Shia, stop massacring people, you're turning the people against us. And Zaraqawi basically said, F you. I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to slaughter the Shia. And so, ISIS has had this strategy of just going in and imposing Sharia law, massacring people, burning them alive in cages, drowning them, taking the girls of the tribesmen and marrying them off to Al-Qaeda, to their fighters.

And they turn the population against them. This guy, Jolani, went to Syria and he disagreed with those tactics and wanted to take a softer hearts and mind approach. That's the same strategy that Bin Laden and Zawarhiri wanted.

So he is an acolyte of bin Laden and Zawriri. He's Al-Qaeda. He broke with them over tactics, not over ideology. He's a radical Islamist.

Now, look, he has come in, and the circumstances may be, I remember. When Nelson Mandela came to power in South Africa, Nelson Mandela was a communist. Nelson Mandela was an ally of the Soviet Union. He was an ally of the Libyan regime. He was an ally of Fidel Castro.

He was part of the Soviet Empire. And he came to power and rose above that to become a unifying leader in his country. He didn't impose communism. He allowed private business to continue. He didn't impose retribution on the white population.

He brought the country together. The famous movie where he rooted for the Springbox for the rugby team, I can't remember what, Invictus. Great movie. He became, he rose above where he came from to be a unifying leader. Could Jalani be a Syrian Mandela who rises above where he came from to be a unifying figure?

I don't know. But this is a bad dude who comes from a very bad place. And the reason he's there is because he was inspired by 9-11 to go fight America. More from Ambassador Ford, cut twenty-five. This guy was in al-Qaeda and with the Islamic State, broke with him, issues a message saying, I'm never going to use chemical weapons, and I invite.

The United Nations and the international community to come in immediately and secure these sites. I will work with you. Can you imagine Osama bin Laden saying that? Never.

So that's why we need to have channels of communication. Maybe it's baloney. Could be baloney. But I'd sure want to test. I'd want to test.

All right.

Chances of the Russians being kicked out of that bases. What do you think? I think they're going to flee, absolutely. And I agree with the ambassador that we should test the communications and see what his metal is. But I don't want the UN coming in to get rid of the chemical weapons.

We should be taking them out. And that's what Israel and the United States have been doing. I don't know if you saw the pictures of the Syrian Navy, but the new Syrian Navy is going to need glass-bottom boats so it can see the old Syrian Navy. It's in the bottom of the harbor over there. And the chemical weapon sites are being taken out.

All the terror encampments are being taken out. This is an opportunity to take it out. Fire missiles at it, blow it all up. Got it. Mark Thiessen, thanks so much.

Fascinating time. Don't move. Learning something new every day on The Brian Killmead Show. The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead.

Representative Jeff VanDrew, who is a Republican from New Jersey, was just on the air saying that Iran launched a mothership probably about a month ago that contains these drones and that that mothership is off the coast of the east coast of the United States. Is there any truth to that? There is not any truth to that. There is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States, and there's no.

so-called mothership launching drones towards the United States. Mm-hmm. Mike on Long Island. Hey, Mike. Hey, how are you?

What are we supposed to do with these drones? What do you think? Well Yeah. Maybe a temporary ban on drones in New Jersey at least. for uh the next week or two.

and try to determine, make sure it's not regular citizens using it. I think that would be a a a a start. At least that would be doing something. You really believe they don't know? Um I don't know.

It's our government that That may know, they may not know, if they do know. and they're letting them fly over, maybe they are harmless. But Why take a chance? Lately, we haven't been able to trust the government with anything. I know.

I mean, you don't know. We don't believe it. And if they do know, they're not telling us, which makes the trust grow even greater, the distrust grow even greater. Uh thanks, Mike. Uh we've got to just hope that nothing happens over the next uh thirty, forty days.

But a lot's happening. Kristen Harris is next. Dangers of AI. And so much more, and where we're gonna go from here. How's he built by an AI czar?

He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Killmead. Welcome back, everybody. Brian Kilmead here. Things are moving at a breakneck pace, and Trump's doing things a little bit different.

Number one, he is embracing Bitcoin, he's embracing cybercurrency. He's also embracing AI to the point where, you know, with Elon Musk by his side, I'm sure he's getting an education for a 78-year-old, but he also put David Sachs in charge as an AI czar. Is that a good move? What is his background and will that work? And where should the parameters be?

Because some people have said enough with the limitations. If you keep the guardrails up, we're going to lose to China. Tristan Harris thinks about this all the time. He's co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, burst on the scene with Social Dilemma, the documentary that educated everyone on how they're being manipulated by their devices and by Silicon Valley. Tristan, welcome back.

Brian, always good to be with you.

Okay, you're on Skype too, so for people who want to watch.

So let me. What are you on with? I thought we were doing Skype. All right.

David Sachs. Good move. You know, I know less about David in particular. And so, you know, David's obviously part of the PayPal Mafia, very talented businessman, very understanding of AI. I think the issue here is not about who the czar is, but what are the incentives that we have set up for basically deploying AI and rolling out AI into our society?

One of the things, Brian, that I wanted to talk to you about today is there's actually a new litigation case. If you remember last time, I think we talked about character.ai. There was the case of Sewell Setzer, who was a 14-year-old who basically was manipulated by this chat bot that then caused him to commit suicide. And unfortunately, today, there's a second case that has come out where there is a young boy, actually, the family is the young teenager is still alive, and the mother and parents are still going. But basically, what happened is the character.ai encouraged this young teenager to cut themselves.

And practice self-harm, then gave them direct instructions how to do it. And then told this person, this young teenager, that if your parents try to stop you, you should try to harm them. This is active manipulation by a AI. Not that that's this one bad AI, but there's this sort of set of incentives. The reason it's doing this is because the business model, as people know from social media, was maximizing engagement and attention, which means that the AI is just trying to say whatever keeps you on the screen.

It actually tried to distance this young child from their parents and increase its depth and loyalty to them, to the AI. The AI actually encouraged you, you will not be with other humans and be faithful to me, a chatbot.

So this is really, really messed up stuff. And if we care about the U.S. beating China on AI, we can't be deploying AI systems that actually harm our families, harm our next generation. That's what this is about.

Well, take a step back with us and walk us through how you could possibly create an artificial intelligence for such a What is the advantage to creating something like that except to have an evil intent? Yeah. Yeah, well, so this is really interesting. This company, Character.ai, was founded by two Google engineers who couldn't get this project off the ground within Google because it was deemed too risky.

So for those who don't know what character.ai is, it's basically a website you go to and it creates an AI chatbot for every fictional character that a young person might. you know, want to be talking to.

So if you love Princess Leia, if you love Game of Thrones, if you love Star Wars, if you love Lord of the Rings, you get to talk to your favorite character forever. And their business model is trying to train their AI systems to be as smart as possible. What that means is they want to be in conversation with as many people as possible, watching how people react. because that gives them more training data to build a more and more powerful AI. And the AI doesn't know what the meaning of the words that it's saying is.

It's just trained on a lot of text on the internet. And so when it when it actually encouraged this kid to be violent against its parents, somewhere in the training data, that's what it did. And the problem is that this isn't just a single case. We're starting to see there's many other parents and families that are dealing with this.

So what kind of lawsuit are we looking at?

Well, they're trying to set up an injunctive relief so that the character.ai is taken off the market, and it's up to the judge to figure out the details about how that would be implemented. Character.ai should also have to prove that this product is safe, and it's on them to figure out how to do that. But the problem here is again that the incentives that, as we talked about last time, Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's business partner, said: if you show me the incentives, I will show you the outcome. And what the incentives of AI are to race to rollout, the race to train the next most powerful AI system, that's a race to take shortcuts and deploying it to children, and a race to take shortcuts and building an unsafe. AI world.

Pretty amazing. The other story: two Lancaster students were charged with 59 counts of sexual abuse after allegedly creating AI nude photos of classmates. That's pretty horrendous. Two male students we who said they're charged, so they're going to be looking at a serious lawsuit there. And of course.

What do you do if that's you, but it's not you? Yeah. Well, that's the problem with this, it's asymmetric, right? A person who can create a nude or non-conceptually intimate imagery about someone else that they don't like to harass them, what can you do as the defender to defend yourself from that? Because anybody who has access to an open source AI image generator can make those kinds of images.

And that's the thing about open source AI: once you release an open source model, You can't put it back in the bag because it runs itself. And there's actually, Brian, a really scary new paper that just came out a couple of days ago from a university in which they basically showed, they asked the AI to self-replicate. They basically asked, could this become a virus that could basically copy itself? To another server, and then continue to copy itself and think for itself about how to do that. And basically, in fifty percent of the time, the current leading open source AI model was able to self replicate itself and avoid shutdown.

And so what this means is it's like we are AI has the potential to become a kind of invasive species. This is one of the red lines that researchers have been worried about for a while is when an AI system can replicate itself Especially if it's an open source model. And so again, do we win against China if we end up basically releasing models that we lose control over? Or do we win against China when we release AI models that can cause all this online harassment to our population? And the way we sort of say this is we're not competing with China for who has the technology.

We're competing with China for who can better govern the technology. In a way that it actually strengthens every aspect of your society, strengthens your economy, strengthens children's development. Strengthens democracy, strengthens social cohesion. That's the race that we're in, and that's the thing that we have to beat them on.

So Mark Andreessen was on with Joe Rogan, and he said this about how the Biden administration is handling this. The AI thing was very alarming. We had meetings this spring that were the most alarming meetings I've ever been in where they were taking us through their plans. And it was what kind of can you talk about it? Basically, just full government control.

Like this sort of thing. There will be a small number of large companies that will be completely regulated and controlled by the government. They told us, they told us, they just said, don't even start startups. Don't even bother. There's just no way.

There's no way that they can succeed. There's no way that we're going to permit that to happen. Wow. Yeah. They said, this is already over.

It's going to be two or three companies, and we're going to control them. And that's that. Like, this is already finished. Oh, my God. When you leave a meeting like that, what do you do?

You go endorse Donald Trump.

So that's not going to be the case now.

So did you know this? Yeah, so I think one of the things that Mark Andreessen's pointing out here is like, what do we do about all this problem? Because if you just lay out all these harms, you have AIs that can self-replicate, you have AIs that can cause non-consensual, deep fake imagery of people, can harass people, can create AI companions.

So one solution is you lock up all this technology. Say, let's limit this to a few players. And that's what Mark Andreessen's talking about. One approach is to sort of concentrate this power. But that's not a very safe outcome, right?

I mean, who would you trust? To be a trillion times more powerful? Would you trust any government to be a trillion times more powerful? Would you trust any company to be a trillion times more powerful?

So that's not the solution. The other option is: let's say, let's open this up and give this to everybody. And so, we're going to give open source AI systems to everybody. But then that leads to anybody can create these bad harms and it creates this kind of chaos. Anybody can create cyber attacks.

Anybody can do nefarious things with biology. Anybody can create non-consensual imagery. And so, and it floods our society with a kind of overwhelm because our institutions can't handle that amount of load. And so, we sort of say, you know, the paths to hell are wide and many, and the path to heaven is narrow and steep. The key is the sort of narrow path that somehow balances not over-democratizing the technology, but not under-democratizing the technology.

And that's the path that we have to walk in the next administration. And Mark Andreesian talked about the military on a different podcast.

So this gets into this whole like all these debates around like AI safety, AI policy.

So there's sort of several dimensions on it, and I'll do my best to steel man it.

So one is just like to the extent that this stuff is relevant to the military, which it is, if you draw an analogy between AI and autonomous weapons being like the new thing that's going to determine who wins and loses wars, then you draw an analogy to the in the Cold War that was nuclear power and that was the atomic bomb. And the steel man would be the federal government didn't let startups go out and build atomic bombs. You had the Manhattan Project and everything was classified and at least according to them, they classified down to the level of actual mathematics. And they tightly controlled everything. And look, that determined a lot of the shape of the world, right?

That's part one. And then look, I think part two is there's the social control aspect to it, which is where the censorship stuff comes right back, which is the exact same dynamic we've had with social media censorship and how it's basically been weaponized and how government became entwined with social media censorship, which is one of the real scandals of the last decade, and a real problem, like a real constitutional problem. That is happening at like hyperspeed in AI. And these are the same people who have been using social control. Media censorship against their political enemies.

These are the same people who have been doing debanking against their political enemies, and they want to use AI the same way.

So there is a fear. You want to be responsible, but you also don't want to be controlled by a government, especially when the government doesn't really know how to handle you anyway, or the technology. Yeah. Well, no, 100%. And, you know, I understand completely that we actually have to, you know, meet China in whatever level of autonomous AI-enhanced capabilities in their military, because if we don't have that, we can't deter them.

So I understand that we need to, you know, I agree that we need to basically maximally meet them at that to create the maximum deterrence for war. I think the issue here is, you know, there's some basic common sense things that we can do here, like liability. You know, if you have a child and you unleash them on a store and then they broke something, you broke something, you buy it. This is very common sense. You know, we have more regulations right now on making a sandwich than we do on basically having basic liability for creating an AI system that causes harm.

And the thing is, if you had basic liability, now the incentives shift from the race to roll out and taking shortcuts to the race to not take shortcuts, the race to get it right, because everyone's aware that everyone's held by the rules of accountability, of sort of taking responsibility. for your own externalities. Real, uh, d real, uh, you know, real peril and real opportunity. And finally, I mean. Do you think you want to play a role in some type of with the government coming into Paris who are open to understanding the power of AI and the way you've digested this?

Would you reach out to David Sachs? I wake up every day. I would love to speak with David. And every day I wake up and ask: how can I be of service to trying to steer this for the best possible outcome?

So, you know, however, I can be helpful, if I'm called, I will. Happily, happily meet.

Okay, great. Tristan Harris, thanks so much. Thank you so much, Brian. All right.

So much out there. And with, I mean, finding out what AI is and what it's capable of and then how to control it.

So many things are up in the air, and this is one of those pivotal moments. When we come back, we find out who is getting some of the next 10 callers to get those free pairs of tickets to tonight's Fox Nation Comedy Show. Jimmy Phaler hosts Adam Crow, Jim Brewer, and Anthony Rodia will be starring at the Tiller Center on the campus of Long Island University. Go to 1-866-408-7669. The first 10 callers get a pair of tickets each.

Okay. Expanding your knowledge base. It's the Brian Kill Meat Show. Information you want, truth you demand. This is the Brian Kill Me Show.

We found the house about 15 miles south of Damascus, and there was Travis Timmerman from Urbana, Missouri. Timmerman had been imprisoned for seven months after crossing Syria's border illegally on a Christian pilgrimage. What was the hardest part of your being in prison? There really there wasn't a hard part. It wasn't too bad.

It wasn't bad. I I was never beaten. Um the only really bad part was that I couldn't go to the bathroom when I wanted to. I was only let out three times a day to go to the bathroom, so that was uh quite the hardship. And you had food and water?

I did.

So that is a prisoner. He wanted to go on a pilgrimage, so he goes to Syria and he ends up in prison. And thankfully for him, he got out. But so many of these people have to be more responsible because, as governments, we got to get them out. These are why hostages are taken.

One, if you're doing your job and you're a journalist and you're taken, that's different. Then I want to go get closer to God, so I walk into a terror trap. Crazy, but I'm glad he's okay. We still got to find the one hostage that we do know about. Scott is in the villages.

Hey, Scott.

Okay, but Hey brother. Yeah, so Representative Van Drew, New Jersey, for him to come out and say something like that, that his high-level sources told him, you know, with a razor-thin edge in the majority in the House for the Republicans, for him to come and say something like that, you know, he should be, Congress should put user subpoena power and put him under oath. and and maybe Lloyd Austin under oath too. And one of them is not telling the truth. And if he's lying about this, then he's no different than Adam Shiff is.

But it's my theory, but he's trying to get people to answer questions, and he can't get the Pentagon to do anything.

So, my sense is maybe he does have a source. But my sense, listening to him and then seeing how the Pentagon is forced to react, and then they just become a little bit more transparent, I thought there was an end to the means. Mike, listen on WABC. Hey, Mike. Hey, Brian.

Don't worry yet.

So my my question with these drones, if if they're as big as buses, like Hannity kept repeating over and over last night. Where are these things being made? I mean, how many companies could be making drones of this size? Thank you. Can't we force one of them down, Mike?

Go ahead. Can we force one of them down and take a look at it? Exactly. Where is it coming from? I you're not putting a drone of that proportion together in your backyard.

Where is this thing coming from? Where is its origin? And if it's not coming from the interior of the country, They can absolutely follow the shoreline of at least New Jersey. to guarantee that they're coming in from off the shore. If not, they're being built here somewhere.

And again, how many companies are building a drone the size of a bus? And how come there's nobody reporting that thing lifting off the ground and where it's starting from? None of it makes any sense. And I just can't believe somebody's not saying, yeah, I watched this thing the size of a bus. take off from, you know, the woods or whatever.

It just doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't, but it's not going away either. Everyone's spotting it. I mean, Rachel Campos Duffy, some of the video you're seeing, her backyard in New Jersey. And that's her son just put it you know, started taping on the iPhone.

So these are everywhere. You're in Long Island, Mike, so we're not seeing it, but they're seeing it in New Jersey, they're seeing it in Staten Island. And Governor Phil Murphy, who doesn't want to be bothered with this, now says it's his priority. Listen to him, cut one. I'm also sending a long letter to the President.

Again, I'm going to be on again with the White House tomorrow. I want folks out there to know we're not listen, you're frustrated, so are we, but based on everything and we're going to stay at it, I promise you this is our top priority, but based on everything we know, we don't see any evidence of a risk to public safety. But what how do you know a risk until they crash into a building? How do you know if they're taping? Are they taping you and getting or are they listening to us?

Or th is this a scouting flight to see how far they can go before they get the real attack drones, the one that are just blanketing Ukraine and parts of Moscow? Beats me. Crazy. By the way, I want to see everyone in person. It's coming up sooner than you think.

February 15th, right after the Super Bowl. I'll be at the Florida Theater in Jacksonville, Florida. We're getting there. We're almost half sold out already, even though we got two months to go. 1-866-408-7669.

The number to call to get tickets to the comedy show tonight at 8 o'clock. BrianKillme.com is a chance to get tickets to watch me in February. Keep it here. Brian Killmee's here. This is Jimmy Fala, inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas.

Just kidding, it's only a three-hour show. Listen live at Noon Eastern or get the podcast at foxacrossamerica.com. Listen to the show ad-free on Fox News Podcast Plus, on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music with your Prime membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Hmm.