Droning on: Govt. insists drone sightings are lawful, legal activities

From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmead. All right, everyone, welcome to the Brian Kilmead Show. I can't wait to get your calls: 1-866-408-7669 on all that's going on right now. Keep in mind, you can always get the podcast.

I'm Brian Kilmead. Wherever you get your podcast, just go to BrianKilmeadShow.com. You can listen online. Even if you get the app. You click on the headset, you can listen.

You click on watch, and you just scroll over till you see it because we have the stream that you can also see on Fox Nation. Today, there's going to be a lot going on. The vice president will be speaking at an event we're not invited to with young leaders. I'm talking about Kamala Harris, who are active and engaged. Good luck with that.

President will get his daily briefing, and then he's going to Delaware. What's the rush? And then happening today, the House will have their Doge caucus. They'll have their first meeting today at 2:30.

So that is the way to cut government waste. And spending period.

So let's get to the big three.

Now with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. It's the second Hanukkah since the horrors of October 7th. But trauma of that day and its aftermath is still raw and ongoing. I've gotten over 100 hostages out.

I will not stop till I get every single one of them home. Oh, really? You got 100 hostages out? My goodness. What an egomaniac.

Hope on hostages. A devastated Hamas finally showing more movement towards a ceasefire and a hostage release, while Hezbollah admits the Syria revolution has cost them in a critical way. That's all good news for Israel, and that's good news for us. We discuss the mayhem in the Middle East. Number two.

Right now, our assessment leads us to conclude that these are lawful and legal aviation activities, manned and unmanned drones and civil civil aviation uh aircraft or commercial aircraft. Droning on. The Biden team scrambled to explain the thousands of drone sightings over about a half-dozen states. Nobody is buying it, even our next president. Number one.

making tremendous Strides over the last week. And he didn't even hesitate. When I said, Do you want to do this? He said, absolutely. Donald Trump talks about Pete Hagseff and others, saying he's firmly in their corner.

Trump comes out on transition for the first time. His plan and his nominees and his first presser since winning.

Meanwhile, RFK Jr. facing headwinds as he makes the rounds of Capitol Hill. But it's all pretty much expected. Look, he's been a Democrat. He's had controversial views on the environment, but effective views.

He's had controversial, but it's been. In contrast to Mill's Republican views. And he's also had different views when it comes to vaccines and health. When it comes to food, he's been cutting edge. He never claims to be an expert in areas, but what he does is he dives into it, listens to the experts, and sees a problem and tries to address it.

Trump did what he said he was going to do. He said, Listen, I like a lot of your ideas, not all of them. What do you want? I'm going to give you a chance at HHS Secretary. Go for it.

And that's what he wants to do. If he goes an inch deep when it comes to vaccines, if he can't defend some of his views, then it's going to show in front of the public. If he can, they'll demand that he get the job. When it comes to food, he is really enlightening a lot of people. I don't know anybody that doesn't think he knows what he's talking about when it comes to the chemicals in our food and a lot of things that make us unhealthy, as well as with vaccines.

A lot of things, it's too simplistic to say he doesn't like vaccines or he does. A lot of it says, what are we putting in the vaccines besides what makes you better? Could there be some ingredients in there that could be susceptible to certain people with certain metabolic breakdowns, certain DNA that makes autism crop up. I don't mind talking about it. Why would anybody mind talking about it?

gets people scared.

Well, let's just be educated. At one point, can we be educated about these things?

So he's giving them the opportunity.

So yesterday he's on Capitol Hill and he's walking around and he was just asked real quick about polio vaccine. Obviously, unless you don't know it, Mitch McConnell writes in his book and tells everyone that he had polio as a kid and he had to battle back from it. The vaccine saved his life.

So if you want his vote, you better not ban the polio vaccine. The question, cut five. Mr. Kenny, what's your position on the polio vaccine? Do you support it?

I yeah, it's a part of it. Yeah, he supports it. It's not doing any good to ban it. And we got rid of it. But we're going to have an intelligent conversation about all of it.

And a lot of these pharmaceutical companies are going to have to back up what they're doing. And he's going to question it. He's going to put people in place that are going to question things for one reason. Not to be rich, not to make their sponsors. Uh wealthier.

I think they're looking to get the cost down. I think they're looking to be more effective. Why is it that we have more chronic illness now with all these medical advances than we've ever had before?

Now about RFK getting confirmed. before we even get his new ideas. Senator Mark Wayne Mohan, a good friend of our show, cut thirteen. Bobby's going to get confirmed. He's going through the process.

I think I'm the third senator he's visited with. He's got 28 more to 25 more to go. I guess he's got 28 now, doesn't he? 28 more to go.

So, anyways, he's working halls just like all these nominees are. He can articulate what he needs to say and what he believes. He's passionate about it. You take somebody with passion, they're not being political, they're passionate about the work they're doing. You sit down and talk to him, you're going to support that.

You may not agree with everything that he has to say, but you're going to agree with 80 or 90 percent of it. That's a start.

So, I mean, Pete Hagseth is doing great. The President of the United States talked about him yesterday. Marco Rubio, he says he's an absolute star. Does anyone doubt that he's probably going to get 90 votes?

So, I don't. Do you see Kelly Filoffler is not going to have a problem? You know, they say that Dr. Oz has got to be ready to defend some of the things he said on different shows. He's so smart.

I know he's going to be able to overcome that.

So, it's going to be interesting to see where some people come down on because with RFK, some are resentfully left the party. On the left, And on the right, people are used to saying that he's a little different. He's a left-wing nut job. That I'm not going to give him the time of day. President Trump is going to come in and he's going to say, give him a fair look.

That's all. He wants. Rick Scott came out and he'll be joining us at a different hour. He says positive things about after meeting with RFK Jr. yesterday.

And look, if the president wants him, you better give a good reason to vote against him. Senator Tom Tillis had a little bit of a pushback. He said, Look, we're going to try to get the president. Nominee is confirmed. But don't try to intimidate.

And easy with the ads. Cut 11. I have a great relationship with the transition team, and I'm working to try and make sure that every one of his nominees get a fair treatment in committee. A lot of this are third parties that are making money from the fundraising campaigns to put some ads in there, but double-digit percentages are going into their pockets. Here's what I would tell them.

If they really support President Trump's nominees, they should stand down and let the nominees win on their own merits, and I think most of them will. See, subtle way of saying, look. I have to vote for people that know how to do the job. I mean, I remember John McCain would interview some nominees about their ambassadors. They asked him about the country they're about to represent.

They knew nothing about it. He says, I don't care, Republican or Democrat. They're not going to get my vote. When Tulsi Gabbard, I believe she's going to study. She knows her stuff.

She serves in the military. She knows about intelligence. When she sits down behind closed doors and in front of the cameras, she's going to know her stuff. It's going to be hard to tell someone who's that communication ability, with that knowledge. And if you hit her with tough questions, she doesn't care.

You get abrasive and condescending. She'll hit you right back. She doesn't rattle. We know that.

So if you can get them there, I think they'll be healthy. I saw Pete Hekseth over the weekend at the Army-Navy game. He's confident that he's got there. And you saw him standing next to President Trump when the crowd roared. And you saw what he said about him yesterday.

I'll play that a little bit later on in the hour. Uh really impete's corner. And I can just feel if if it looks like as soon as it looks like Pete's on the glide path, you're gonna watch recruiting go through the roof. And that's going to be one of the greatest benefits because he knows that they care about the families. He's going to care to put them in harm's way unnecessarily.

He's not going to keep them in harm's way too long. And he's going to loosen up the rules of engagement whenever he can.

Next, I want to just talk about how President Trump's been received. I feel kind of weird pretending as if this is new because we've noted this on One Nation on Saturday and on this show daily: how everyone's looking at Trump differently these days. And how remarkable it is. And maybe because of the assassination attempt. Maybe because winning every battleground state, maybe it's the battle, maybe it's the.

Uh Maybe it's just winning the popular vote. Or maybe the fact that a lot of the stuff he did and said in the first term We're missed in the second. Because Trebb Biden was there. and are needed now. And maybe they've gotten used to the fact that by this time, with crowds this big and support this deep.

That it's about time you stopped being condescending, whether you're a member of the press or a member of Silicon Valley or Hollywood. And give him a fair shot. Not too good a shot. Just give him a fair shot. We watch Sergey Brain come from Google.

We watch Pinchar come out from Go from Google. We watch Jeff Bezos, who's coming out this week and been out before, some nice things about him. Jamie Dimon calling regularly from JP Morgan. Elon Musk has been there for months. And And now you have David Sachs, who's been a conservative, but did it in Silicon Valley, where you aren't really.

Heralded, it doesn't work for you to tell tell your conservative points of view. They're all out. They're helping. Listened to him yesterday, got this question in his hour plus press conference, cut seven. I did have a Dinner with Tim Cook.

I had uh dinner with sort of Almost all of them and the rest are coming. And this is one of the big differences, I think, between we were talking about it before. One of the big differences between the first term, and the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term everybody wants to be my friend. I don't know.

I I know. With some of those things I just said, my feeling is this, too. I feel like those CEOs thought Man, I could run If this guy could win, I could win. You know, I think he's all show. You know, I'm a millionaire, I'm a billionaire, I don't talk about it.

Either this could be should be me. And then they realize, more Cuban on down. Maybe it couldn't be Megan. Because you don't have that package to take. You don't have the mental emotional capacity to take this type of headwinds.

You don't have the ability to take six straight court cases that threaten to put you in prison, as well as personal civil cases that tried to bankrupt you, as well as take as well as Stop you from running. They try to take you off the ballot. Would you have been able to get through that? And I think they're finally realizing not only is he in power, whether you like it or not, like, you know what? He's done something that I couldn't.

You know, the Tim Cooks of the world. Uh all the people I just mentioned that are coming to see him now. These other world leaders that they were so dismissive. You know, they were told, you know, he won because of Russia. He won because Hillary Clinton didn't go to Wisconsin.

He won because. Of Facebook ads. He won because her emails, not that the American people really like him that much. They were surprised. It was a surprise win.

And John Kerry was over there in Europe saying that to everybody. He's going to get impeached. Don't worry about it. And right right, there was a Russia investigation. And every time one of the world leaders, and I remember this.

Every time one of the world leaders would come up to him, the first thing they'd say is, What's going on with these court cases? You know, what's going on with Russia? And it's embarrassing. Think about it. In your life, when you get a job, the first thing people say to you is not congratulations, but man, what's going on with Russia?

What about this FBI investigation? What's going on with your national security advisor? Is he going to get arrested? Why was he talking to Russ? That was the whole four years.

one after the other, but now it's all through. They're going to after Twitter exposed a lot of things he was saying, the pandemic was not handled, more deaths with Joe Biden than Donald Trump.

So when you were dismissive of Trump and said anyone could have done it better, really? You saw what Joe Biden did? I don't want to go through the pandemic again. It's too depressing. But we come back.

The whole drone explanation. President Trump weighed in on it yesterday. And also yesterday, we had an explanation from John Kirby again. None of which suffices. And this HS secretary in Orcus Yeah.

He's absolutely a joke. Who would ever hire that guy? Ever, never tells the truth. The border's secure, never been better, never been more secure. Border Patrol loves them.

All not true. When we come back, I'll take your calls 1-866-408-7669, but also go over the latest we have on these drone sightings. You listen to the Brian Kilmeat Show. Politics, current events, and news that affects you. Brian's got a lot more to say.

Stay with Brian Kilmead. Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy, host of the Trey Goutde Podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at FoxNewsPodcast.com. The more you listen, the more you'll know.

It's Brian Kilmead. We've been sharing everything that we are learning with the public in various settings and venues, Savannah. And we have done some analysis over the last several days. That analysis, right now, our assessment leads us to conclude that these are lawful and legal aviation activities, manned and unmanned drones and civil aviation aircraft or commercial aircraft. That is John Kirby, the Admiral, weighing in and really not saying anything about probably the one issue that is more buzz in this country than anything else, especially on the East Coast.

And you're talking about multiple states, multiple sidings. And I have no doubt about it.

Some of these are fixed-wing aircraft, and some people are just staring up in space. But when you have other people like Governor Chris Christie and reputable congressmen and mayors and senators saying this is disturbing, I'm not just appeasing my voters. We're not in an election cycle. But this is a problem. They're coming in to warm us and they look organized.

John Kirby yesterday, I don't know why. They haven't been more forward. He said they learned new information since Thursday.

Well, what's that new information? Here's Chris Christie on Sunday, cut 24. I lived in New Jersey my whole life. This is the first time that I've noticed drones over my house. And I was in a restaurant in Monmouth County on Friday night.

I had people at the bar coming up to me and saying, Governor Murphy won't tell me anything. The president won't tell me anything. Do you know? Like, well, I don't know, but I will tell you this. I think this is what happens in our society now, George, because we're used to having things so rapidly.

If you don't feel Fill that vacuum. then all the conspiracy theories get filled in there. Yeah, and they don't even try or you just dismiss because they have checked out already. In my view, they're just bubble wrapping stuff. They're just they're they don't want anything to do with anything.

They're just trying to pardon and commute all these sentences. They're trying to Trump-proof everything, get all this money out the door. They don't care that people are looking up and are disturbed. Chuck Schumer says, I have an idea.

Now I'm going to take action. I'm going to try to get legislation to help bring the drones down. Cut 26. I am going to. help pass and I'm going to co sponsor legislation that will combat these drones in a better way by allowing local police departments and state police departments to help the feds in citing these drones, which so many have requested.

If the technology exists for a drone to make it up into the sky, There certainly is the technology that can track the craft with precision. and determine what the heck is going on.

So let me ask you something. Is there anybody in the Senate closer to the Biden administration than Chuck Schumer? The answer is nobody. Maybe Chris Coons. And who has more power?

Nobody.

So, if the sitting majority leader in New York, where a lot of these drones are being seen, mostly in New Jersey. Can't get answers. Is he not talking to the Admiral? Could the Admiral call up Chuck Schumer and make sense of this? Most of these leaders are Democrats.

This is how insulting it is. The same thing that the border sealed. Border sealed, it's no problem. That that's a the Republican propaganda. That's Kevin McCarthy trying to make you know, trying to get the House back.

You know, that it's you. You're just so paranoid. Oh, you don't like minorities. That's your problem. You know, you're xenophobic.

You're imagining things when it comes to the drones. But here's the problem. Biden's done. When you commute somebody's sentence, that's like that judge that put these teens into lock-up facilities for profit at $2 million a head when they do a minor offense and then you let them out, when you have somebody embezzle hundreds of millions of dollars and you let them out and commute their sentence, when you have drones swarm six, seven states and you don't be honest with people, they're calling you out. They're calling out Biden.

They're saying the Democrats and their officials are not saying anything. And I'm glad, but it's way too late.

Meanwhile, you got an ongoing crisis here. I'm going to ask Lieutenant Colonel Alan West about that and so much more. You're listening to the Brian Killmee Show.

So glad you're here. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead. We ordered an additional 200 miles of wall. It's very expensive.

And now it's about double the price of what it would have been six years ago. And The administration is trying to sell it for five cents on the dollar. knowing that we're getting ready to put it up. And what they're doing is really an act, it's almost a criminal act. I'm asking today Joe Biden to please stop.

Selling the world. We're going to use that. to create a strong barrier. Yes, I don't get it. I mean, there are some reports that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said he was told the thing is destroyed, they're rusted out and filled with cement.

And then we're watching video today of it looking fine.

So I think maybe the governor of Texas And Lieutenant Governor might be getting bad information because they put they used to spent $300 million, they said, on average with border security when Trump was in office.

Now they're spending $3 billion. I mean, just money that Texas taxpayers, without any state tax, by the way. Would Texas taxpayers have to put into doing it because Not only is the federal government not helping. But they're suing to make sure that the Texas doesn't enforce their own border. They finally gave up at the end when they realized the border was busted and they were paying a political price.

Joining us now is Lieutenant Colonel Alan West. Colonel, what is your take? Do you think this wall is really useless? Or do you think Trump is right?

Well, it's good to be with you, Brian. A Merry Christmas. No, it's not useless. And I think, once again, you see a very spiteful action taken by the Biden-Harris administration. And President Trump is correct.

This is criminal what they're doing because they are defrauding the American taxpayer. And to include even worse, the Texas taxpayers who have carried the burden of their failure to secure the border. But that money was appropriated by the government for those border wall materials to be bought. And so for what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are doing is that they're selling it for, like you said, pennies on the dollar.

Well, is that going back to the American taxpayer? Is the American taxpayer getting the proper return on the investment of their taxpayer dollars to buy that border wall? Why don't they just leave it alone, period, and allow the incoming Trump administration to use it for the designated purpose that the American people asked for, which is to secure our border? The press asked Joe Biden the same thing that Donald Trump just said. Donald Trump said, I'm calling on Joe Biden to stop selling it.

And I wanted to see Biden asked about this. Stop selling the wall. What are you, you know, what are you doing? Uh uh how dare you They should, but unfortunately, I believe Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, they're heading off to Delaware in the middle of the week.

So, who's in charge of the country right now? We haven't seen Kamala Harris except for the incredibly delusional video she put out a couple of weeks ago. Last time I heard, she was in Hawaii.

So, I don't know if the press is even thinking about asking any hard questions. Maybe they will ask Corrine John Pierre at the White House press briefing today. Hopefully, she's still at work. But think about this other thing: telling government employees they don't have to come to work for the next five years. What type of contractual agreement are you signing that says that, which of course is null and void as soon as Joe Biden leaves office?

I hope so, but I don't think it is. They think they have to go to court.

So, they're going to try to make 90%, they say, of government workers, civil service workers, don't have to go to the office.

So, they put that into legislation for five years. They did it in the middle of the pandemic. I don't know what was behind it, but it doesn't work. Nobody's effective working as effective working at home. Even if you've got the work ethic of Allen West, what you don't have is the mentorship, what you don't have is the camaraderie, you don't have the sense of accountability.

And feeding off each other, how do you know what you could be learning by somebody who's smarter than you or is more experienced than you next to you? How you're not mentoring the next young man or woman coming up? There's no sense of mission. You know, and just reading through Elon Musk's book to find out what kind of operator he could be inside the government, like he is, he is all about coming to work, he's all about performance. He's all about people have to justify why they're there and reward them when they perform.

And he actually is hands-on. That's just it. You need the manufacturing, you need people around you. And you know what? People don't realize.

Is that you need you? Everybody needs the accountability, the praise that comes with that if you're good. No, you're absolutely right. And you think about it, you know, I spent 22 years in the United States military. I couldn't just, you know, call in from the House and say, hey, I'm on duty, but I'm going to be spending my time at home.

Again, these are federal government employees. Who pays their compensation? The American taxpayers. The American taxpayers that have to show up at work every single day or else they don't get paid.

So again, I think this is about accountability and not creating this us versus them atmosphere where federal government employees think that they're above the American taxpayer.

So they may think they have Trump-proofed this contractual agreement, but I think that you're going to lose in the court of public opinion. And Donald Trump will definitely take this to the American taxpayer, to the American people, who will resoundingly say, get back to work. Yeah, I mean, I would hope so. The other thing is, what is your take on the Northeast getting flooded with these drones? I got to tell you, Brian, I don't understand how no one has an explanation of this.

Obviously, these drones are taking off from somewhere and they are landing somewhere. Why can't we track these drones? Why can't we find out where they are emanating from? And, you know, where's the FAA? Shouldn't they have some type of system?

Shouldn't they know about control of the airspace in these areas?

So there's something amiss about this. And once again, this just erodes the confidence that people have in this current Biden-Harris administration who are, again, thumbing their noses at the American taxpayer over this contractual agreement, staying at home, over the border wall, things of this nature. They're putting people at risk and people don't feel safe. I guarantee you, you try to fly some drones in Texas, they'll get shot down. That's what Lawrence Jones was saying.

He said they would never do that in Oklahoma or Texas.

So listen to John Kirby and tell me if this is plausible, CUT 20.

Now look, we've got 5,000 tips that we've gone through. The FBI is still working on about 100 leads from those 5,000 tips and sightings that we still have to triangulate, we still have to finish looking at. And we'll do that. And as we do that, if we learn more, if we learn something different, well, my goodness, you know, we'll come out and talk about it. We are being as open and as transparent with the American people as we can be.

What we won't do is speculate or hypothesize about what what something we don't know.

Now we know that there's no national security threat, we know there's no public safety threat.

So he's not going to hypothesize, but he'll tell us no public safety threat. You didn't tell me that he went through 5,000 leads. Come on. No, he didn't. He's a silver-tongued orator, and I just looking forward to the day that we don't have to hear him.

Yeah, he's an incredible disappointment, a former Navy Rear Admiral.

So, again, he's just torn a line of the administration. They need to give the American people some answers on what is happening. And again, how can he say it's not a national security threat? How can he say it's not a domestic security threat? Just the same as the Chinese spy balloon was not a threat, I guess, that traversed all across the United States of America, that loitered over very important and secure military installations.

So, again, this Biden-Harris administration, I think it's 34 days before they are gone, and the American people are looking forward to that. I got to tap into your Middle East knowledge. President Biden said this yesterday about the hostages. By the way, I should say, by almost all reports, Hamas is acquiescing on a lot of key things. Number one, IDF stays in Gaza, they know it.

Number two, it's going to be a temporary cease-five, not permanent. The ratio of prisoners to hostages is going to be less, and they have to give proof of life, which they've already done, proof of at least 30 hostages who are alive.

So things are beginning to come together because Hamas has no choice.

So listen to Joe Biden, Cut 32. This is the second Hanukkah since the horrors of October 7th. Over a thousand slaughtered. Hundreds taken hostage. unspeakable sexual violence and so much more.

The trauma of that day and its aftermath is still raw and ongoing. I've gotten over a hundred hostages out. I will not stop till I get every single one of them home. Is he out of his mind? He got 100 hostages out.

It was up to him. He would have had a ceasefire with them never even going into Rafa. Sin Mar would be alive. Nazarella would be alive. Rockets would be going from the north and the south.

And he would just try to win an election, I guess, or try to win an election on Columbia's campus. Yeah, that's the delusion of Joe Biden. He's the same guy that stood up there on a debate stage and said he hasn't lost any U.S.

soldiers on his watch, completely forgetting the 18, I mean, 13 that lost their lives in Afghanistan. No, this is a credit to the Israeli Defense Force, Prime Minister Netanyahu, for not listening to Joe Biden, keeping the pressure on Hamas. And Hamas knows right now, they've seen what happened with Hezbollah. They know that there's the new sheriff coming back into town, which means that the support from Iran is going to dry up. They don't have any other recourse.

President Trump has already said release the hostages or hell will break loose. And I think he means that. And as well, you've seen color come back and say to the Hamas leadership, get out of our country. Everyone knows that Hamas right now is a cancer, and no one wants to be a part of that cancer. You know, I so they're isolated.

I I Colonel, I sometimes think about you know everything they teach us about the Middle East from when you're in high school and that there's you know, there's never gonna be s non nonstop turmoil and Israel never be accepted. I I actually believe that No, uh despite everybody's predictions. And the hell that's been going on over the last two years. that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Well, there is. I mean, we already had that light with the Abraham Accords. And if it had not been for these past four years, that light will continue to shine brightly.

So, yes, I think that you will see peace and stability in the Middle East. And look, you had Muslim leaders, imams, mayors, Muslim mayors come out and support President Trump because they want to have peace and stability. They don't want terrorists trying to find sanctuary within their communities here in the United States of America. They know Israel is not the problem. I mean, they don't.

Israel is not the problem. Iran's your problem. And they now lost Syria as a way to get weapons in. And Hezbollah came out and made a statement. Nazarella's replacement came out and said, we are really hurt By losing Syria.

As a way to transport weapons in and out. And that tells the story. I mean, they and it's Israel deserves full credit for this. They're the ones who have who decapitated Hezbollah and were relentless with Hamas, even though it's not over yet. Absolutely.

They got to finish it off. Yeah, I mean, Hezbollah's leadership has been decimated. Incredible, ingenuous thing with the Pager attacks. And then 80% of the rockets and missiles in Hezbollah's stockpile are now gone. And you see Israel going in and bombing those Syrian military installations, chemical warfare installations, because they don't want that weaponry to fall into the hands of Hezbollah or any other Islamic terrorist organization.

So you're right. Hats off to Israel because they've done the world a favor. He's head of the Dallas County Republican Party. He's the chair there and American Constitutional Rights Union Executive Director. Colonel Alan West, thanks so much.

God bless. Merry Christmas. All right, back at you.

Okay, when we come back, 1-866-408-7669, we'll get your take on this. And the drones, we'll talk about what's happening at the border, the selling off of the wall, and TikTok. My take on TikTok next. Let me know, especially if you're on it. What do you think?

Also, we're going to read your emails at briankilmey.com. Most of you are writing about drones. Coming to you on a need-to-know basis, because Mandy, you need to know, it's Brian Kilmead. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show.

We'll take a look at it. You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points. And There are those that say that TikTok had something to do with that. Joe Rogan did and Some of the other people that were recommended by my son Baron, he knew every new names. I said, Who is that?

Tell me, who's that dead? You gotta be kidding. I can't believe you don't know. And I did those interviews. And it was actually sort of cute, if you want to know the truth.

But we did them, and that had an impact. But TikTok had an impact, and Uh so we're taking a look at it. How great, number one, I just gotta make a comment overall before I talk about TikTok. It's real, nothing's manufactured. That's what all politicians take notes.

Don't say, you know, my kids, and you try to get sympathy. He's just saying, my dad said, I can't believe he didn't know that. He's got a son who's 21, he's 78. And he's like, Dad, I can't believe you don't know that. I mean, it's bad enough when you're fifty or sixty and your son's in his twenties.

When you're seventy-eight, he's the dad expects him to know that. But he's like, Yeah, I'll take your advice and I'll do it. But when he sees his granddaughter talk, when he sees stories about his son, and sooner or later Baron's going to be speaking, I'm sure he looks like he wants to be in politics. You really get an idea. Like the guy's got, I know he doesn't like to show a softer side, but he's when you show him as a human being.

That also makes you treat them more aptly like a human being. And the press says are right. You gotta be direct, you gotta question. You just have to be condescending and dismissive. and disrespectful.

So I think it was that same. But When it comes to TikTok, Mr. President, you're 100% right. They have a lot of young Uh oh young uh uh subscribers or they have users, got it. And there's no doubt about it.

They have a great business model. They have a great algorithm that Instagram is catching up to. And they did it themselves. But you just have to understand: China's running it. It's not just about them making money.

It's like the Germans came up with a better car and they're beating the General Motors. They came up with a better product, but it also is able to collect all information on you. And the minute you download the app, it gets all your information, all your trends and likenesses. Maybe what you're going to be talking about if you're a 16-year-old and you emerge as a senator from New Jersey. Guess what?

I got a lot of background on you.

Some of it not good. The other thing is the news feed. If potatoes are not. Let's say 12 to 20 year olds, 24 year olds. I use predominantly their news feed.

From TikTok Look at their news feed. Try to find a pro-Israel story. Try to pro find a pro-Taiwan story. Try to find a pro tariff story. Fi try to find a pro trade story.

Try to find an anti-Cuba story, anti-Venezuelan story.

So what happened is diminished or dismissed? Do you want China in control of an app that the number one users are Americans, and the information that they're getting is from Americans, and the ones that they're getting is from China to Americans? In case you think this is privately owned, and Texas has got its back door, that's not true. Ask Mike Gallagher about it. Ask Chris.

Krista Muthi, sorry if I screwed up that name, the Democrat, who's on the China Committee. They know they've already hacked into reporters. They've already got caught doing it. And the news feed is the newsfeed. It's out there.

So, President Trump, you know what? They probably treated you fairly because they're scared to death of being banned and sold. You're not going to be banned here. Sell it to Frank McCord. He's going to be a guest later on in the Tuesday show.

Sell it to Kevin O'Leary. He says, I'm willing to buy it. There's plenty of people lining up to get it. Make a profit off it. You came up with a great product.

I'm sorry. China can't buy ABC or Fox. It's not going to be allowed. It's got to be an American. And now, with this new advent of social media, the powerhouses that they are, and streaming the behemoth that is, there's got to be the same thing.

And that's just it. Yeah, it helped you because young users are on there, but it will not help you with an agenda, and it's not pro-American. And knowing that they turn it all to this poison, when their kids are told to shut it off or shut it down, it becomes Chinese propaganda documentaries in China. And here it becomes crazy videos, cat videos, or worse, here. I'm not buying it.

And I know the President is upset at Facebook and he has a right to be and set up Twitter of what it was, not what it is, and upset at Instagram was owned by Facebook and Google and Snap and all that stuff. I get it, but things are straightened out. At least it's an American company you can crack down on. This is not. And I was texting with somebody who had a lot to do with that legislation earlier today.

And he's really concerned the president's going to give on this. And I hope he doesn't. You listen to Brian Kill Me Chow. Don't forget, coming up on February 15th, faster than you think, or if you want to get tickets for Christmas, go to BrianKillmee.com. I'm going to be in Jacksonville, the Florida Theater, February 15th, History, Liberty, and Labs.

Go get it. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Killmead. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Killmead Show.

I come to you from Midtown Manhattan, around the country, around the world. This is the number one city. I tell you what. If you If you ever held off coming and thought New York's not going to come back, Jerry Seinfeld was right. It really has.

And when I walk around the streets now, as disturbing as it is, because I remember how clean it was. I do see families. I see a ton of families walking around enjoying the holiday. Hopefully, it's paying off, helping the restaurants and the shopping and things to that nature. But it is.

I don't remember it like this. Look, it's annoying. I've got to walk literally in the street to get to my subway or my train, but it's okay because people are benefiting their back big time. And I think they're really upbeat about what's happening in the country right now. This hour, we're going to be joined by Dan Hoffman.

There was an assassination of this general in charge of all weapons of mass destruction inside Russia. He was just assassinated, and Ukraine said it was us. Going to talk to Dan Hoffman in a matter of moments. Mike O'Hara, host of Lights, Camera, and Christmas, available now on Fox Nation in just a moment.

So let's get to the big three.

Now with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. It's the second Hanukkah sensei horrors of October 7th. The trauma of that day and its aftermath is still raw and ongoing. I've gotten over 100 hostages out.

Oh, you did? Every single one of them home. You got 100 hostages out? Hope on hostages. That's real.

Not what he just said. A devastated Hamas finally showing major movement towards a ceasefire and hostages' release, while Hispo admits Syria's revolution has cost them in a critical way. We discuss. Number two. Right now, our assessment leads us to conclude that these are lawful and legal aviation activities, manned and unmanned drones and civil aviation aircraft or commercial aircraft.

That is John Kirby trying to explain away this drone problem we're having. But to me, he's just droning on. The Biden team scrambles to explain the thousands of drone sightings over a half dozen states. No one is buying it, even our next president. Number.

I think Pete Higseth is. making tremendous Strides over the last week. And he didn't even hesitate. When I said, Do you want to do this? He said, absolutely.

I didn't mean to say we claim responsibility. Ukraine claimed responsibility for. For the assassination of that Russian general, and my apologies. Donald Trump doubles down, comes out of it, doubles down on Pete Hagseth and so many others, and talks about his plan for his nominees once they get it. He has a big presser yesterday, covered a lot of ground over an hour.

Today, RFK facing headwinds, as expected, as he makes his round to the centers on Capitol Hill. Let's bring in Dan Hoffman, Fox News contributor, former CIA station chief in Moscow, Iraq, Pakistan, South Asia, and Europe. Dan, welcome back. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me on the program, bro.

So, Dan, I wanted you on before this, and then I see this story that's just breaking. A Ukrainian official says Kiev was responsible for the assassination of General Igor Kirilov, the chief of Russia's radioactive chemical and biological defense forces. The general was in charge of the Russian military's nuclear and chemical weapons protection. He was killed by a bomb on a Moscow street, and it looks like the SBU. has charged General Kurilov with the an absentia, saying he was responsible for the massive use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine.

So Ukraine's saying, yeah, it was us. What's the significance?

Well, it's pretty significant. Kirilov is the most senior Russian military officer to be assassinated inside Russia by Ukraine. I'm sure that the Russians are doing all the forensics literally right now to try to figure out what went wrong with their security. It's got to cause them, the Russians, that is, great concern that they can't keep their people safe. This was Ukraine finding, fixing, and finishing a high-value target because those two countries are at war.

Now, the war could end. Today, if Vladimir Putin would stop his barbaric invasion, but because Putin hasn't done that, these are sorts of measures that Ukraine needs to take. I mean, they go into Kursk. People were shocked by that. People are shocked by this.

Um they continue to fight. I know they're taking heavy losses now. But what is your take on where the Ukraine is right now in this Russia war? Russia, people don't know, have tapped into Yemen for fighters, North Korea for fighters in armament, Iran for drones, and this is a country of one hundred fifty million they thought was one of the strongest armies in the world. Yeah, not really.

And bad logistics, lots of corruption, a poor strategy. Look, the Ukrainians are fighting for their lives. And if you could imagine, if we could imagine listeners. if your homes were at risk, if your family were at risk, I think you'd grab whatever weapons you had, you'd go to the front and you'd fight to defend your country. That's what the Ukrainians are doing.

And uh Look, I think there's going to be a lot of questions about staying power and issues will come up about financing, including the roughly three hundred billion dollars of Russian assets that are right now open to potential confiscation. and used by Ukraine. Going to have to use some of that money anyways when we look at the post conflict reconstruction plan in Ukraine. I know the President elect would like to see an end to the war, everyone would. But it's Vladimir Putin who has control of that.

And We've got to demonstrate to Putin that there's just no benefit to him to carrying on the war. Wars end when, as General Jack Keene likes to say, wars end when both sides are too exhausted to fight or one side wins. I don't think either side is going to win this one, Brian, but they may get to the point where we reach a ceasefire because both sides are exhausted. The Russians have lost hundreds of thousands of casualties. and it's been a failure for them.

The only success the Russians have has been to induce the Biden administration to lengthen the war because we never gave Ukraine what they needed when they needed it. And we're we just all the way to the end of this administration, a complete strategic failure. It has been However, it helps them. They could look back and if they wanted to spin it correctly, and they're not so wrong to say at least we found ourselves a new Axis power. I got a great I got a stronger ally in China, I have a stronger ally in North Korea and I have a stronger ally with Iran.

How do you feel about that?

Well, the Russians are paying a big price. Those are all Russian long-term strategic competitors, especially Iran and China. And the Chinese aren't giv cutting the Russians any good deals on the oil that the Russians are exporting. And the Russians don't enjoy the same sort of, obviously, commercial relationships they had with Europe. Finland and Sweden are now NATO members.

There's been a brain drain, roughly a million Russians the ones who could leave have left.

So it hasn't made Putin any stronger. He'd like us to think it is. He's got this good The Temkin village propaganda machine to make us think the war has been a success for him, but I don't think it has. And if you look at what happened in Syria, that's a real blow. Thanks to Israel, not the Biden administration.

Thanks to Israel for taking the fight to Hezbollah into Iran and giving the Syrian opposition the opening that they took advantage of to overthrow brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad. Russia and Iran's ally. Russia's dictator in Damascus is now their man in Moscow. That's quite a shocking turn of events. Yeah.

Before I leave the war, I just want to talk about too how the North what are your reports saying about North Korea? I heard they because of the lack of communication, they don't speak the same language, they just had a friendly fire where a bunch of Russians killed North Koreans. Yeah. I've been hearing that too. Look, the fog of war gets a lot more foggy when you're dealing with two armies that haven't trained together.

Uh haven't Don't speak the same language. Uh they have different Um You know, they have just different tactics that they have to try to link up together. I mean, it's just, they're being used as cannon fodder. And of course, Kim Jong-un. Don't care about that, and neither does Vladimir Putin.

That's the whole strategy for Russia, is just to use. His own army as cannon fodder. And the Ukrainians have reported on that. I've talked to a lot of Ukrainians who just say, that the Russians just keep coming.

Now it's North Koreans or Yemenis. And That's what the Russians are doing.

Now the North Koreans are going to charge a heavy price for that too. They'd like to miniaturize. Their nuclear weapons and being able to deliver them on intercontinental ballistic missiles against us in our homelands. That's why Kim Jong-un met Putin at the Russian space facility.

So, all of these countries see an opportunity to take advantage of Putin, who's kind of on his knees begging for help now in Russia's time of need. Yeah, and that's a problem for us. I don't care how they're doing it, we can't let that happen, can we? No. But we have to demonstrate to those countries, Iran, China, North Korea, that aligning themselves with Russia is a bad deal for them.

So that's why we needed to beat Russia in Ukraine and make it clear that there shouldn't be any value to those countries in allying themselves with the Kremlin. All right, let's see.

So, not to mention. Yeah, go ahead. the region to Europe that you and the rest of the world that, uh that powerful nuclear armed states cannot be allowed to overrun smaller states that don't have nuclear weapons. And we've got a trillion dollars worth of trade with Europe, which would be at grave risk if Vladimir Putin is casting his long shadow over European states. From a conquered Ukraine.

I'll tell you what, they have a German government collapse yesterday. They're going to basically a caretaker government. And one of the things Olaf Schultz says is how he's going to scale back some of the weaponry to Ukraine.

Now, we also know the French basically government's in peril. He's going to win power, his enemies, Macron.

So those are two countries in trouble. And then we see Justin Trudeau on the brink of resigning as his government crumbles and he just loses his finance minister yesterday.

So our democracies are having a lot of turbulence. Yeah, to say the least. And honestly, when we used to rely on the UK when they were part of the European Union to be the grown-up in the room. and be the linchpin of Our commercial, strategic, diplomatic, military relationship with Europe. Yes, we have NATO.

But man, Great Britain was of great value to us. And with them not being a part of the European Union, I think that causes us concern about leaving it The Brench and the Germans to figure things out.

So get this.

So let's switch over to Syria. Hezbollah, and a story today that we have on FoxNews.com. Hezbollah chief says they have lost a critical arms supply route from Iran to Syria.

Now, you know that, Dan. You're the CIA guy, and we understand that. But for them to say that out loud, this is such, it's so on the surface. I know there's still dangers and there's peril, but to have a Government in power, or these rebels are in power, and there's a fear of them being Islamic extremists, although they're saying the right things right now in some respects, who are enemies of Iran. Is huge for us, and it's terrible for Hezbollah, terrible for Hamas, and terrible for Russia.

Yeah, and so Hezbollah, when they say this publicly, it's not like they're. you know, they would like to openly admit Strategic defeat, which is what they're suffering. But they're speaking to their own constituency in Lebanon and they're saying, hey, we can't get. Mm-hmm. what we used to get across the border through Syria.

And it's not our fault, it's Iran's fault and Syria's fault.

So when we don't have the military equipment we need and the money and the other things that we used to get from Iran through that overland transport through Syria, well, this is why.

So I think they're speaking a little bit to their own constituency.

Now is the time to turn up the pressure on Hezbollah, on Hamas, on Iran. And we'll see what the Trump administration does. But this is an opportunity for us. The Biden administration was going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on this one. But we have a chance.

Really to uh To limit Iran's throw weight in the region further. And I think we got to do we got to take the fight to the Houthis. who are disrupting trade in the Red Sea. Again, we don't need to send one hundred thousand plus troops and build girls' schools. That's the definition of the forever war that I think everyone wants to avoid.

But we need to be engaged diplomatically And when needed militarily, Syria's got chemical weapons stockpiles and terrorists we need to deal with. And if we don't deal with them over there, we're going to face a threat to our people in the region and potentially back here in the homeland.

So that is true. And what I'm hoping is, and how would you do this, Dan? We don't really, you know, HTS seems to be an Islamic extremist government. We have $20 million on, or $10 million, on the head of the guy in charge, but he says he's reformed his ways and since fought al-Qaeda and ISIS. But having said that, how do we use leverage to make sure the Russians aren't welcomed in their military bases and in that port?

How do we do that without? Force, you know, at the same time not recognizing their government and be naive enough to support what could be a terror state. Right. That's why we need to win The post-conflict in Syria. The Russians are trying to negotiate deals to remain in Tartus at their naval base and their air base in Latakia.

We've got to make. Any assistance we provide the Syrians, and by we, I mean the international community, that means the Gulf states stepping up and taking.

some real needed interest in serious future. That has to be contingent upon Russia's base is no longer existing in Syria. The Russians killed countless numbers of Syrian civilians and enabled Assad to launch chemical weapons and gave Assad diplomatic top cover. The Russians need to be out.

So, Dan, what is the move?

So, you said you get the Gulf states to deal with HTS, who might be in charge of Syria? What do you say? No, what I'm saying is, we make any few Syria is going to be reliant on foreign assistance. And so we make the foreign assistance that goes into Syria from the Gulf states contingent upon Syria exercising Sovereignty over their own country and kicking the Russians out of those bases. Yeah, just go say it.

We deal with the terrorists, and so does Israel. kinetically as needed. And this is the window. to the extent that they're in charge. it's a bit of a balkanized situation in Syria.

We've got the Syrian Democratic Forces. Those are our Kurdish allies who've got like fifty thousand ISIS terrorists locked up in prison. We've got to support them. And we do have to engage with HTS. But again, I just think this is an opportunity for us to eliminate Iranian and Russian nefarious influence in Syria.

That's got to be a key. National security goal: that chemical weapons and terrorism, the three things that matter. Israel's taking the chemical weapons out, it seems, and they're blowing up all their military assets, it seems. I just want to make sure the Russians lose here. And you were telling me that the Russians put a lot of their weaponry to the Houthis through their port in Syria.

And if we could cut that off, that helps too. Absolutely. All of these things are intertwined. And what this requires from us, again, is diplomatic engagement.

So over to Secretary of State. designate Marco Rubio. This is going to be a challenge for him. And we can do all sorts of things at the same time. We can handle China, we can handle the Middle East.

They're all interconnected. If we increase our influence and leverage in the Middle East, that's bad for China and bad for Russia. And that's good for our national security and good for our economy. Wow, a lot going on. And even for a guy like you who's seen it all, this is very intriguing stuff.

We can't get it wrong. This is a key moment. Daniel Hoffman, thank you. Thanks. All right.

When we come back, your calls, bottom of the hour, talk a little Christmas, and then we do a simulcast with Varney and Company. Busy day, so glad you're here. It's Brian Killmeade. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Joe.

Last week, two weeks ago, HTS or Takfiris, which are genocidal terrorist organizations declaring apostasy on non-Sunni extremists, according to Iran. Russia described them basically as just another shade of ISIS or al-Qaeda.

Now, all of a sudden, they're the armed opposition, or just the opposition, or the de facto government in Damascus. Russia, according to Bloomberg, is already in intense talks with HTS about allowing them to maintain a military presence in their airbase in Latakia and their naval port, which is very important in Tartus. It's the only warm-water port the Russians have got. The airbase is important to Russians because it's a logistical hub for their operations in Africa.

So it's kind of extraordinary. Russia has spent a decade bombing these guys in Idlib from the airbase. They are now negotiating with these quote-unquote terrorists to allow them to keep.

So things are moving so quickly that I think even propaganda. working for Russian state media or Iranian state media cannot keep up with the new talking points. I wish we wouldn't just stand by and let them talk and get through it. Russia has no ethics and values, and terrorists, by definition, don't. I just hope they just said, No, well, why don't you out?

You've killed more of my family, you've killed my people, you've indiscriminately bombed and supplied Assad with his and his henchmen with the torture materials needed.

So, to me, that was Michael Weiss of Editor of The Insider giving some great information about what's really happening. Got to stop those intense negotiations. We got to step in and do something. Blinken's got to do something proactive, or maybe Marco Rubio give a call. I know that Adam Bowler is working on the hostages.

He's over there now, met with Netanyahu. I hope he makes his way over and finds some contacts with this HTS because I know he's valued and respected in the region. Adam's a good friend of our show, and he also had a lot to do with the success of the Abraham Accords. Hold on tight when we come back. Michael O'Hara, we're going to go over the different places of different Christmas movies and locations, especially on Fox Nation.

The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. Hey, welcome back, everybody. Got a busy hour coming up. Do a Samulcast with Stuart Varney in about 15 minutes.

You'll see me on FPN. But the question is: are you done Christmas shopping yet? Are you in that Christmas frame of mind? If you're in New York, it's everywhere. Literally, we're one block from New York.

The Rockefeller Posit Tree. We've got our own tree, which is a tourist attraction. Michael O'Hara is in a Christmas. frame of mind. He's the host of Vice Camera Christmas, available now in Fox Nation, where Mike travels to some of the most iconic Christmas movie locations in America from the Quake town that inspired a wonderful life, To the Christmas Story House, to the New York City backdrop of the film Elf, of course, and it's a true Christmas adventure.

Mike, welcome to Brian Killmeat Show. Brian, thank you for having me on. Before we get started, I gotta ask though, Do you sleep? I mean, you are literally everywhere. I'm watching the Army-Navy game.

Hey, there's Kill Me. I watch Fox and Friends, there's Kill Me. I mean, it must be the Irish blood, man. You literally are a machine.

Well, thanks, man. I appreciate it. To go to the Army-Navy has been my third one, but also with. With Pete Hexet there, Mike Waltz there, President Trump there. I said, let me take the five-hour trip.

One to the Giant came on Sunday, which I feel bad for them. I mean, the Ravens are great. Look out for the, by the way, side note. I know everyone's focused on the Steelers and the Lions. I get it.

Yeah. But and the Bills and the AFC, but the Ravens have weapons. Oh, my goodness. That team can play. I know.

Yeah. So Mike, who whose idea was this this series? You know, the amazing people over at Fox Nation, you know, Rob Monaco, Kayla Haley, just everything that I do over there, I'm just blown away that not only are they talented, but some of the nicest people you ever want to meet, but the work ethic is insane. And they came to me and said, what if we sent you to Ralphie's house from a Christmas story and then to walk the same streets that George Bailey ran on? And took you to New York City to kind of be your buddy the elf at his best.

And just as a Christmas kind of junkie myself, I leaped at the opportunity because those movies, they they're more about You know, the feeling and the touchstone of getting together and remembering watching them year to year than they are about even the script and the actors involved. When I went to those locations, I couldn't believe the feeling that it was drumming up. I felt like a little kid sitting in Ralphie Parker's kitchen, you know, thinking about the Red Rider BB gun.

So it was just an amazing thing to be a part of. All right, first off, Wonderful Life. Where was the Wonderful Life shot? It well, I mean, it kind of it's it's based on Seneca Falls, New York. And you know, so we went there and you know, they turned Seneca Falls into Bedford Falls for this festival once a year.

And this, like, tiny little hamlet in Western New York becomes, you know, I think the the population like triples and they have like a road race and So it was really neat just to kind of walk around the streets and like people dress like their favorite characters. I mean, it's almost like a Mardi Gras of George Bailey.

So here's Caroline Grimes from your special. Uh Lights Camera Christmas. I'm playing uh Zuzu. And it's a wonderful life, cut 44. Meet Carolyn Rhines.

I played Zuzu. I was only six years old. Daddy, teacher says every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings. That's right. That's right.

One of my most memorable moments, I was on Jimmy Stewart's back and coming down the stairs. But he was ever so gentle. Ev every time he let me down, he was so gentle and so kind.

So that's unbelievable. How old is she now? You know, I I it's not polite to ask, but I would say she's, you know, she's she's up there. Eighty? Probably eighty, but I mean, I was fascinated to find out that show was not that movie was not a hit when it came out.

No, and that thing that kind of wowed me, I mean, aside from Will Farrell, Kerry, and Elf, like, like. Christmas story wasn't a big hit. They kind of become. cult classics because I guess of the time of year when they start to show up on HBO or or T V and and you like I said, they almost become part of your family. Like I remember my grandmother every year when my nana was alive, she'd be cooking the night before Christmas Day and on the little T V next to her was it's a wonderful life.

So that's really kind of cool. But that was it. You also have Jimmy Hawkins. He played Tommy Bailey, cut 45. Right.

This Wonderful Life came along. When it first came out, it flopped. Capricor didn't understand that. But it was pointed out to me by Sheldon Leonard, who played Nick the Bartender. He said the movie never changed.

The people changed. They needed that message. It tells them one man can make a difference. And Jimmy Stewart was fantastic in it, and you think about all the elements in it, and it's always on. It's like, oh, it's on a loop in my house.

Yeah. I mean, it's just like uh, you know, I was saying to a friend earlier, you know, I remember thinking as a kid, you know, oh, it's a drag, you got into wonderful lifeline again, or white Christmas, but as you get older, you realize how important those things are. Especially with the world the way it is, if you can just sit for a second and be George Bailey for a minute. Um you know, it really does kind of bring that Christmas feeling into into full view. Right.

It took me a while to realize he was going to commit suicide. I didn't really quite realize when you're younger, but then you realize what's going on. And it sends a great message. But plus, the one I think is underrated, I just think they were better actors than. Don't you belie like don't you believe they were their characters?

I believe in the the golden rule of the old school was the best school. And I feel like you're one hundred percent right. Like they just they had such a passion for their craft and storytelling. And now it feels like the actor is more important on screen than the story that they're trying to tell. But yeah, 100%.

And a guy like Stewart, I mean Just an American icon.

So, yeah.

So, Michael Harry is with us now. He's hosting a brand new show on Fox Nation Lights Camera Christmas as he goes behind the scenes and goes back to the sites of some classic Christmas specials.

So, tell me about what a Christmas story means to you. This is not one of my favorites, but everybody else says it's theirs. Yeah, and that's the crazy thing. There are people really on like the Mason-Dixon line of it's, oh, it's awesome, I love it, I watch it every year to people like I could take or leave it. I think for me it was just I remember what my Red Rider was as a kid.

Like I was a Star Wars guy and you know, I told Santa I wanted the Death Star play set and my grandmother sent this big box and I was convinced that that was it. Christmas morning, I opened the big box and it was a globe. And I remember looking at my dad going, you've got to be kidding me.

So the next year, I got my Red Rider BB gun in the form of the Death Star playset. But I think that's what. A Christmas story means to me, I always remember like. That initial disappointment of getting a glove, like I was a school teacher or something like that, and then waiting and being good the next year and finally getting the holy grail of Christmas gifts. I can't imagine you being good for a whole year, Mike, but we're going to have to go to your, I'll have to go with you on that.

Here's Kim, the Irish Catholic. Yep, here's Kim Riffle. She is a tour guide for the home of the Christmas story, Cut46. When the movie initially came out, it wasn't the classic that it is today. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

It came out too early in the season for a Christmas movie. It really did not make a lot of money, but then later you had HBO that came into play. HBO, if anyone knows, really only had a handful of movies that they would show every month on a lot of repeats. And then you had your 24-hour marathon they came out with. And everyone got to watch this movie in their house 24 hours while they were cooking and cleaning and wrapping and unwrapping and just enjoying time with their family.

It became part of their Christmas tradition. What's your favorite quote from this movie, seeing it's part of your life?

Well, I think I triple dog dare you is going to have to beat it. I triple dog dare you! I mean, I also think that the tongue on the pole, that was a lesson. Oh yeah, the flick. You know, takes the dare and does it anyway, and they get the fire truck out there, and then all the kids are turning.

I don't know how it happened. Yeah, I mean I think that's a great example of a movie that that kind of highlights what it's like to be a kid around Christmastime and and The things you go through to make sure that you please Santa and get that gift under the tree. Understood. And lastly, elf. First off, hysterical.

I think you agree with me, Mike. And did you hear the story with James Connie? He used to say, I didn't really know who Will Farrell was. I didn't know what he was doing. I thought he was a strange guy.

Until he saw it, he watched it back in his screening. What about you? Did you think it was hysterical the first time you saw it? I've always been a big Ferrell fan. I didn't know what to make of it when I saw the previews for it, but I knew he was going to shine in it.

But I mean, the thing is, you know, you think of Jimmy Khan and how funny he was. I mean, being that kind of straight man playing Walter Hobbes, the father. I mean, every time I look at him, he's Sonny Corleone to me.

So, you know, it was kind of a cool juxtaposition to see him playing this grown-up elf dad in New York City.

So here's the elf director of photography, Greg Gardner. Honestly, what drew me to the film is that it's unique. You're taking this human that was raised as an elf and putting it back in human society. It all has to be very believable. It still has to work.

It has to be very emotional. It has to be like real. And it does get, I'm getting emotional. It gets very emotional. And everybody has to believe in Christmas.

And it just touches all the heartstrings. We all grew up with the Empire State Building as kids, like little high-rise, beautiful stoic imagery and everything. And sorry, other cities in the United States. It's like you just don't have the credibility that New York City has. Final thought, Mike.

Going through New York City, it's not hard to imagine. We know all the sites. Yeah, I mean, it was fantastic. And then just recently, you know, for the Christmas throwdown, they had me out in Fox Square in a Buddy the Elf costume asking questions. And you would think I was wearing Yankee pinstripes the way people come up to you.

So it shows you the way that people just rally around that character and what he meant, not only to Christmas, but Christmas in New York, which is just a really special thing. Yeah, too bad Will Farrell is not funny anymore. I don't know what happened. You know what? I think the expiration date found Will.

I feel like he's run out of, he's not the cheerleader costume guy anymore. I think politics might have ruined him or at least put him down for the count. Hey, Greg, go check out Fox Nation. Michael Harris got a great special lights, camera, Christmas. Thanks, Mike.

It was really nice of you to join us. Oh, absolutely, Brian. Thanks for having me. And by means, take a break this Christmas, man. You got it.

Back in a moment.

Now, the Brian Kilmead Show joins Fox Business's Varney and Company with Stuart Varney, live on your radio and on Fox Business. Here's Brian Kilmead. All right, welcome back, everyone. In a few minutes, we're going to be joined by Stuart Varney to do a simulcast.

Now, get on board right now. I'm going to read some emails, I promise, this hour. That's up to Allison to be ready. But I'll take some calls too because he'll leave some time at the end. We're going to talk to Stuart Varney on FBN.

As soon as he's ready, he's going over some stock prices. Then we'll do a simulcast.

So you could always watch wherever you get that. You can listen on Sirius if you have it on Channel 113. That's where business is. And of course, you have Fox Nation where you see it on the stream. You could even listen on the app.

Just click on the headsets. You could do that anytime, by the way.

So let's go. Who joins me now? Congressional Democrats recommended Congressman Jerry Connolly over AOC to be the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee. The final votes later today, but isn't this a blow to the progressives on the Democrat Party? I mean, they don't know what they're doing.

They want to be younger, but they don't like their lefty views because the American people know that's a niche audience. Those are the people at Columbia University, at NYU, at Cal State, Fullerton. Those are the left-wing, you know, next-generation leftists who question whether America should even exist. The 1619 Project is their mantra.

So AOC, a socialist from Queens, decides she wants to use a communication ability which is strong, her social media platform, which is strong, and the fact that she does have youth support and we're going to run for this to be the ranking member. But keep in mind, Stuart. Nancy Pelosi is more powerful than Hakeem Jeffries. He seems to be a placeholder speaker. I don't know what's going on.

Even with a broken hip in Luxembourg, she's got more power than Hakeem Jeffries, and she's maneuvering to make sure Connolly, who sadly has got cancer and is dealing with some medical issues at 74, gets that spot.

So she's been bulldozed out again. That's extraordinary. I didn't realize she still had that power, and AOC has much less power. I didn't realize that. Trump's request to dismiss the New York criminal conviction on the basis of presidential immunity.

That has been blocked. You know, it seems like D.A. Bragg wants to keep this thing going as long as possible. And I think that's a disgrace. What say you?

I think also, don't diminish the role of that judge. That judge who had to take two weeks staring in the ocean to decide what the right move is, comes out and says, after much contemplation, I say the decision stand as called.

So he went to the replay and keeps it. He says, even though everything was signed when he was in office and everything was done while he's in office, that still is not immune. And by the way, as Jonathan Turley brought up about an hour earlier on this other network called Fox News Channel, he said, for those people who said the president's got absolute immunity, can order the assassination of an American citizen now after the Supreme Court decision. It doesn't really move the judge, doesn't believe that over in New York. But doesn't it just underline the people's lack of faith in this city's justice system?

I mean, you got that civil trial, which in my view is a sham with Eugene Carroll, something she couldn't even name the year that happened. Then you try to take the president's wealth away when there's no plaintiff except for Letitia James ran on the fact that Donald Trump is a corrupt business person without fact.

So he's got to pay $450 million. Then you got this case, which was so bad, it actually propelled Donald Trump to a primary win and eventually the presidency.

So keep it up, New York. You're a big help. What's your comment? I've been talking a lot about the live-action presidency and the change in the mood in the country since Trump was elected. I think it's a much more positive mood.

That's the way I see it. How about you?

So I had a chance to do a lot of traveling this weekend. I went to the Army-Navy game. This is my fourth one. And then I had a chance to go to the Giant game. But what I'm trying to bring up is.

Uh that I like football and number two is I was it with a lot of people. And I cannot tell you, no one said. They just feel like the country's on the right track now. They can finally reach the potential. That whole guise of America being a bad country on stolen land built on the backs of slavery.

We should apologize for the color of our skin or our background or our gender. It feels like we've turned the page on that. If I could borrow Kamala Harris's slogan, if she doesn't mind. And I think this: if people see you and chant USA, USA. I think your message is the right message because they like Trump, but they most likely like his policies and that he likes the country.

And he was elected by average everyday Americans, not by Brad Pitt and Chris Rock, which we can relate more to that, the people that work for a living than anybody else.

So I think that's the sense that President Trump wants to hit the ground running and he's going to hit from a lot of different cylinders. It's going to be exciting. And my last point is: look at Canada, look at Germany, look at France. They are having huge political problems. It's America with this upstart businessman that seems to have the steadiest ship.

Yeah, it does. We gotta go, Brian. But that was good stuff. Thank you very much indeed. Brian Kill Me.

All right. That's why everyone listens.

So, Allison, let's go to the emails because I was talking to a lot of people, and they are talking about the direction of the country, but the other buzz is what's going on with the drones.

So What is going on with the drones? People wrote about that, right? Yeah, so Bill wrote: I think the drones that everyone are seeing are these electric vehicles. Air One manufacturers are flying car and they can carry five hundred and fifty pounds. It is a two seater and supposed to come out on the market this year.

Google it. Flying car. I haven't heard of it, but that's really not a drone. A drone flies on its own, right, Eric? Right.

Normally, yeah, unmanned. Yeah, unmanned. But didn't you also tell me, too? I was talking to somebody else, we have a pilot in our building. We've got a few drone pilots.

They said if it's. If it's a fixed wing. If it's a fixed wing drone, it's got to take off from a airport. Correct? Yeah, so that's the only thing that's going to be a little bit more difficult Some kind of a strip, presumably, yeah.

Okay. I think the issue is that our radars are, you know Normal radars aren't sensitive enough to pick up the small drones. And that's why they're calling in Better technology. And the other thing is, what is Santa Sumer saying? I'm calling for a high-tech drone detection, and Governor Hoko goes, We got it.

I'm like, Really? You got it? All of a sudden New York is protected. All you had to do was ask? What's going on with that?

I did see today that they're flying PA Poseidon planes up and down both coasts, east and west. Those are our electronic warfare planes that we don't have too many of.

So they are looking for 'em.

Okay, good. But I thought there was nothing to worry about.

So any other emails? Uh, we do have other emails. Let's see. This one is from John Hart. He said, um.

Drones are inexpensive and have been available for years and were not a problem until now. Sure, it would be fun for some countries to cause trouble in the US where the government can't admit the source of the chaos.

Well, a couple of reasons. I think people see what's going on in Iraq, excuse me, Ukraine. And they see these drones just crashing randomly into Moscow, randomly into the surrounding cities. They see them destroying apartment buildings in Ukraine. They think, wait a second, aren't those the same looking drones?

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

So glad you're here on this Tuesday, getting closer to closer. What is it? Eight days till Christmas. According to reports, seven days till Christmas Eve. We're looking for a second source on that.

Bottom of the hour, Frank McCourt. Frank is a very rich guy from McCourt, Global Executive Chairman, and he wants to buy TikTok. Remember, TikTok's got to be sold. It's got to be sold to an American buyer, or else it's just going to be banned in America. That's it.

Why? Because it's a spy device, number one. Number two, it's from China and it's a leading. Journalistic tool because they have a news feed used by because it's successful, mostly 16 to 34-year-olds. And therefore, you have to make sure it's American-owned.

That's just that's law. And you got to get rid of it. And this is a new advent with these streaming things. It's very powerful. But if you look at the news feed, anti-Israel, anti-Taiwan, soon it's going to be anti-Trump tariff.

You bet your bottom dollar. Anti-Philippines. It'll be anti-South Korea. It'll be anti-Japan. And what they do is they don't ban good stories about Japan, but they diminish them and shadow ban them to the point where they're never on top of the feed.

But horrific stories about maybe unrest in Gaza, children who might not have everything to get three meals a day in that region. Anything to foment the Chinese push forward the Chinese agenda. There's Chinese board members from the Chinese Communist Party government. They're on the TikTok board.

So, Frank McCord's going to be with us. Center Rick Scott's going to be here in 15 minutes talking about the path of the nominees.

So let's get to the big three.

Now with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. It's the second Hanukkah sensei horrors of October 7th. The trauma of that day and its aftermath is still raw and ongoing. I've gotten over a hundred hostages out.

I will not stop till I get every single one of them home. Hope on the hostages. Yeah, you got 100 out. A devastated Hamas finally showing major movement towards a ceasefire and hostage release, while Hezbollah admits Syria's revolution has cost them in a very critical way. We discussed the mayhem in the Middle East.

Number two. Right now, our assessment leads us to conclude that these are lawful and legal aviation activities, manned and unmanned drones and civil aviation aircraft or commercial aircraft. Droning on. The Biden administration scrambles to explain the thousands of drone sightings over a half dozen states. No one's buying it.

Not even our next president. Number one. Making tremendous Strides over the last week. And he didn't even hesitate. When I said, Do you want to do this?

He said, Absolutely. There you go. Trump comes out on transition first time to talk about his transition plan and his nominees. First big presser since he won.

Meanwhile, RFK facing headwinds, but it's all expected on Capitol Hill. I'll talk to Rick Scott about that and see where we're going. First off, on the different tone in which Trump's been treated. You've noticed it. I talked about it on this show and on One Nation.

We picked it up a month ago, and everyone's got the theme, and Trump picked it up. I did have a chance to talk to him at the Army-Navy game, and the first thing I said is, Can you believe the change in tone? He goes, I know. They all want to have dinner. And I said, What do you say to him?

And he said, Well, I listened to meaning Zuckerberg and Bezos and Sergey Brin and others. Yeah, I listened to all of them, but I don't forget. Don't forget where they were. And my idea, and I'm going to keep mentioning it, is if Zuckerberg is serious and Sergey Brin is serious about Google, what I want you to do is call up Barry Weiss, call up Michael Schellenberger, call up Matt Taibbi, who went through the Twitter files and exposed all the shenanigans going on against Trump and against anybody who was anti-vax or anti-Biden or anti-Fauci when it came to the pandemic. Adam Schiff was calling up, demanding certain posts being taken down, all their shenanigans.

I want to find out what it was Facebook. I want the Facebook files. And if you're going to unleash these journalists in there, then I know that you're open about turning the page On The manipulation of the streaming media, of the social media media.

So here's Trump yesterday, just bringing up what we all know. It seems like people are treating him differently. And he noted it. I'm sure he's relieved by it. Cut seven.

Dinner with Tim Cook. I had uh dinner with sort of Almost all of them and the rest are coming. And this is one of the big differences, I think, between, we were talking about it before. One of the big differences between the first term, and the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term everybody wants to be my friend.

I don't know. And why? Uh because he has uh unmasked what was going on with the FBI in certain circles, like the seventh floor of the FBI building. Not with the FBI agents doing great work every day.

So we've talked about Jeff Bezos has come in this week, and Jeff Bezos said other things to him, has been called and talking to him. Remember, he does not want Elon Musk to get the upper hand. He has Blue Origin, which has civilian space travel, and who knows what he wants to do in terms of the moon. Cut eight. Tim Cook was here.

I think he's done an incredible job at Apple. He talked about. The future of Apple. It's going to be a bright future. Uh But we have many others also, and not in that business.

And we do have Jeff Bezos, Amazon, coming in.

Some time during the week. And Jeff Bezos, not only Amazon and that great success story, we all know it. Yeah, it hurts fun parts, hearts of business, but that's the way it goes. But Jeff Bezos, who runs the Washington Post. And why Jeff Bezos, who every time the Washington Post would have an unfair story as the President viewed it, he'd call out Bezos.

So these guys had this silent rivalry, but now he's all in. And he says, I see a calmer Donald Trump. And my opinion is they looked at Trump winning and they say, a business guy becomes the first business guy to win a presidential election. Should have been me. If he won, I would have won easy.

You know, their egos that allowed them to become CEOs and to forge their way through difficult times when they were building their companies wouldn't allow them to think that Donald Trump of the apprentice and a boxing promoter who ran casinos and had some financial pitfalls and then bounced all the way back, that guy. Could become president.

Now they understand. And they thought, well, the Russians put him there, and he can't handle it. And they did the two and a half-year investigation, the follow-up. The follow-up impeachment, then January 6th. In the meantime, they found out two things: his policies were working.

His approach was correct, foreign policy and domestic, so much better than Biden's. He doesn't play political correct games. He just wants to put America first. And when they saw the size of his crowds and the scope of his popularity, they decided we're getting on board. We're going to stop judging and we're going to start playing ball.

And I think that changed the perception because they had to. And I think legitimately he had to win him over. And let's just hope that they're trying to get in to make sure their companies are fine too, but also to help the country, because we have one common enemy, and they're all invested over there, and that's China, who's having huge problems right now economically. They have a whole generation who can't get a job and doesn't seem to want to work. And for Trump, I think the deliberative way he's handling his nominees that have gotten criticized is noteworthy.

He is all in for Pete Hegset, though, cut one. I think Pete Hakeseth is making tremendous strides over the last week. He's going to be great. Look, he went to Princeton, he went to Harvard, he was a great student there, but he really was from the first day I met him, all he wanted to talk about was military. He's just a military guy.

I think it's a natural. This was My idea. And you know, Pete Hegseth gave up a lot. Because he was going big places in Fox, big, big places, a lot of money. And he didn't even hesitate when I said, Do you want to do this?

He said, absolutely. So he's going to back him, and I think that Pete Hagseth had a great way. By all accounts. Not just me, but By all accounts, he had a great week last week, and I think he'll have a better week this week. I had a chance to see him on Saturday.

It was really upbeat and really positive. And Trump made sure when he, you know, he didn't have to be standing next to Pete Hegseth when they started chanting Trump, Trump, Trump, and USA, USA at the Army, Navy game. Normally, a president would be on the Army side for a half and the Navy side for a half, but he's not president yet. And Biden, get this: Biden has not shown up in four years. Sickening.

How could you not show up in your backyard of Maryland or West Point or Annapolis? You gotta be kidding me in Philadelphia. You go to Philadelphia other week campaigning. But you never showed up. The guy didn't like the military, and they didn't like him.

So lastly On to nominees, you got Kelly Loeffler going through the halls, and you have RFK going through the halls.

Now, he's got they're talking from senator to senator, and they got all the big crowds following him around. I'm sure Pete Hickseth did not mind leaving that behind this week. But as RFK walked around, he's getting questions about vaccines, getting questions about food, questions about past comments. Remember, he came out and made that statement about a brain worm. Remember, he had that I killed a bear upstate, so I dropped in Central Park.

All these stories I think are going to come up. But when it comes to the the vaccine And vaccines in particular. Donald Trump said this about what we should all know about how Trump feels. Feels about RFK Jr. Uh here it is, cut three.

We spend billions and billions of dollars on pesticides.

Something bad's happening. Again, you take a look at autism today versus 20, 25 years ago, it's like. Not even believable.

So we're going to have reports. No, nothing's going to happen very quickly. I think you're going to find. Bobby is much, he's a very rational guy. I found him to be very rational.

No, nothing, you're not going to lose the polio vaccine. That's not going to happen. But one thing that Keelan Musk feels and RFK believes, question everything. Anytime someone gives you a mandate, tell us how much pressure to put in your tires, whatever it is, why? Who gave you that mandate?

Why is it happening? That's how a lot of these businessmen and women have had success. And I think that that's what he has done in different professions: environment, now with food, and before that, vaccines.

So, what's wrong with questioning? Defend it. Why not? Senator Rick Scott is next, Frank McCord after that. And then we finish up with your calls.

You can also write me at BrianKilmead.com. Don't move. Diving deep into today's top stories, it's Brian Kilmead. The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead.

What about the polio vaccine?

Well, I'm a big believer in it, and uh. I think everything should be looked at, but I'm a big believer in the polio vaccine, the salk vaccine. Do you think schools should mandate vaccines? I don't like mandates. I'm not a big mandate person.

So I was against mandates. Mostly Democrat governors did the mandates. And they did a very poor thing. In retrospect, they made a big mistake. Having to do with the education of children.

They lost like a year or two years of their lives. The mandate was a bad thing. I was against the mandate. And that's the main thing when it came to the vaccines with COVID-19. President Trump, if he kept the job, would not have had the mandates and would have resulted in a lot less resentment.

Senator Rick Scott joins us now. He was one of the first on the Trump train in 2016 and remains a strong supporter today. Senator, I know you have to deal with a lot of nominees. How's RFK Jr. doing?

He's doing great. I met with him yesterday. He's very impressive. I think he's going to do a great job. Here's what's great.

He understands that HHS is health first.

So he's going to focus on how do you get people healthy. What everybody else wants to do is focus on how they get reimbursed. For sick people. What he's going to do is figure out how you get people healthy.

So I think he's going to do a great job. He's got a great message. And I agree with him. We ought to have a lot more transparency with regard to vaccines. I mean, we ought to let people make a good, informed decision.

That's all he's saying. He is pro-vaccine, but he's mostly pro-information. And so I think he's saying the right things, and I believe in what he's saying. I do too. And I like to question everything.

Okay, with Sepolio vaccine, are there some elements, some things in those vaccines that are unnecessary, that might be used to preserve them, to lengthen their life and their effectiveness? Why not look at everything? But when it comes to mandates, this is what the medical profession tells us.

Well, if you don't get everybody vaccinated, it's not worth it.

So that's why you have the mandates in schools. Is that a tough argument to overcome? I think people are ready. I think people well part of it, I think what's happened, Brian, people have lost trust in the federal government. They, you know, I just got off the campaign trail, and I would ask people: do you trust Homeland Security or FBI or Secret Service?

But you ask any of them, the American public has basically just lost trust with the federal government.

So I think with all, you know, and this is happening at state, local, and federal level, I think people are ready to say, just give me the information. I can make my own decisions. It's my body, it's my wife, it's my kids. Quit telling me what to do.

So I think that's where the American public is today.

So Pete Hakeseth had a great week last week, much better than the previous weeks. President doubled and tripled down on him yesterday. Saw him, he traveled with him at the Army-Navy game. Where's Pete at right now?

Well, first off, go Navy. As you know, I enlisted in the Navy at eighteen, and we won big.

So Joni Ernst owes me based on our bet. But Pete's done a great job. I mean, look, here's why I like Pete. There's a guy that actually went to war.

So he took, you know, he did what very few Americans are today willing to do. He went into the service and he went to war and he led troops and he led them safely. And he knows what it's like to be in harm's way. He knows what it's like to see somebody, you know, he knows what it's like when somebody's injured. He knows what it's like when somebody's killed.

He's done all this. I want somebody like that running the Department of Defense because I want them to worry about going to war, sending these troops all over the world and having these troops all over the world in harm's way.

So we've got to figure out how to get this world safer. And it's going to be people like Pete that understand the risk of war.

So when you look across the aisle to Democrats, they don't seem to know what they're doing.

Now you have a situation where Nancy Pelosi is still calling the shots from a hospital bed in Luxembourg or wherever, where she's getting a new hip. And she's making sure that AOC doesn't ascend. What is the future of the party? I want you to hear what Adam Kroll, a deep thinker but funny guy, said last night on Jesse's show, Cut 17. I don't think they're going to have any success with the old playbook.

I think they're going to have to find some Fetterman style guy, you know, some guy or some girl that it's at least authentic. Like you may agree, you may disagree, but that's exactly who they are. Are there many Fetterman like characters that you deal with when the cameras are off? On the left, where you think this is a reasonable person like a Joe Manchin that I might be able to win over.

Well, I mean, there's individuals you can have a nice dinner with, but they all vote the wrong way. They all vote to have they're okay with having men playing women's sports, they're okay with an open border, they're okay with more taxes, they're okay with more debt.

So I don't think that's where the American public is now. They want lower energy costs. They want a closed border. They want legal but not illegal immigration. They don't want men playing in women's sports.

So unfortunately, the Democrats, everybody up here, it's like it's they all drank the Kool-Aid. They're all agreeing. And so it is going to take a new somebody that goes back and says what the Democrats are doing Does not make any sense because it doesn't. They're going to have to say, we went, you know, Democrats have to say to themselves, you know, we went down the wrong path. This was stupid on our part.

Um because they've lost They've lost the Hispanic vote. They've lost the working Americans. They're not the party of working Americans. anymore. We're the party.

Republicans are the party of the aspirational people. Republicans are the party of people who want to have a job, build a business, make sure their kids get a good education, stay in a safe community. That's what that's what the Republican Party is now. I don't know who the Democrat Party is going to represent in the future.

So when you look at what you guys are going to do in the first piece of legislation, I know there's a debate between Senator Thune, majority leader, and Speaker Johnson about putting it all into one bill between tax reform and immigration as opposed to breaking it up. Where do you stand? I want two bills because I want to get the border stuff done now. We need to have more border agents. We need to have mortar ICE agents.

We need to have more money for the mortar, more money for the wall, more money for vessels, more money for technology. We need to get that done right away. We can do that. We can do that right away, get that done in January, and then work on extending the Trump tax cuts and some other things we want to do, some additional tax reductions that President Trump wants.

So I want to get the border thing done as quick as we can. But the other thing we have to understand is we have got to cut spending. We've had a 2% increase in population in five years and a 53% increase in federal spending. We're running $2 trillion deficits. Interest rates logically are not going to come down until we balance the budget.

So I want interest rates down. I want inflation down. We've got to balance our budget. It looks like a guy's on board with Doge. His name is Rick Scott.

Senator, thanks so much. Frank McCourt next. Wants to buy TikTok. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Killmeade.

We'll take a look at TikTok. You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points. And there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with that.

Now, Joe Rogan did and Some of the other people that were recommended by my son Baron, he knew every new names. I said, Who is that? Tell me, who's that dead? You gotta be kidding. I can't believe you don't know.

And I did those interviews. And it was actually sort of cute, if you want to know the truth. But we did them, and that had an impact. But TikTok had an impact, and So we're taking a look at it. And that's just, by the way, on a side note, we're going to be talking about TikTok specifically with Frank McCourt, but.

Any politician, just take notes. Because the reason why he did well in those other places, you know, he sits down and meets the press all the time. He goes do a reluctant town hall on CNN. He can do that. But how many people can sit down for two hours with somebody who is a third of their age and have an open and free conversation and do listening?

You actually listen to what the host is saying you know nothing about and roll with it. Doesn't think to himself, oh, if I say that, I wonder if it's going to hurt me in the ratings. He just talks, talks to Joe Rogan for over three hours, talks to a lot of these other podcasters for over three hours, Andrew Schultz for over an hour. With a comedian, and he just rolls. And then you can go do the serious stuff, then you do the campaigning.

Anyone wants to be successful, you no longer have to sit there. And have to have consultants tell you what to do and how to answer. It's got to be instinctive. Frank McCourt is a very successful businessman. He's from McCourt Global Executive Chairman.

He's also got a great book out. It's called Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age. And Frank McCourt's one of the very successful business people that says, I'm willing to put up $20 million and buy TikTok. It's mandated. TikTok's got to sell.

Okay, you're willing to buy. Frank, welcome back. Hey, Brian, how are you? I'm great. I'm so glad you're in this mix because I know your intentions are pure and you know that's successful, but you also know that China can't own this.

As an American, you can't feel comfortable with China owning this, right? No, for sure. I mean, i look, this this legislation was passed by a strong bipartisan majority because TikTok is a real national security threat. And when they Vikance appealed to that three panel The judges, they ruled 3-0 against them and upheld it because this is a real threat to Americans. They have 170 million Americans' data in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party and be able to manipulate Americans and what they think about issues and all that.

It's not right. And so I'm with President-elect Trump. I don't want to see it banned either. It could be a great platform in Americans' hands and built on a new stack, a nice, clean, made-in-America stack, no backdoors to China, and let people enjoy an American-made version that's for U.S. citizens.

And by the way, Brian, U.S. TikTok is not allowed. It's banned in China.

So it shows you that this is a. This has been weaponized by China. They won't even let it this particular app. Could you explain it to me again, Frank? I thought it was the same app.

And it just there are different there are different blocks to it. No, you're saying it's a different American TikTok is banned in China? That's correct. I mean, think about the way I think about it is there You know, the platform is feeding the comparable platform in China is feeding vitamins to their kids and while they're feeding crack to our kids and addicting them. It's just a totally different platform and designed to really grab young people in a way that is both entertaining and fun and all that.

Like President Trump was saying, it's a way to speak to young Americans, which is awesome, but it also has, you know, China has ulterior motives, right? Because if you can. Capture the data on 170 million Americans, and you know how they think and how they're going to react to things and so forth, you can actually. Um you know manipulate Um popular culture and their opinions and so forth. Yeah, so they don't allow it in China.

So, Frank, a couple of things. Number one, you do have some competitors that want to buy it, but what's interesting with you is say keep your algorithm. But I thought the algorithm is what lured in one hundred and seventy million American Users.

So I thought, you know, whatever they did, Instagram hasn't done it, Snapchat hasn't done it, Facebook hasn't done it. They have a way of luring you in. and keeping you aboard and finding and getting you things that you that you want. They keep you on that app.

So if you lose that, what do you have?

Well, basically you have the same user experience. And what you offer the user base Is A uh In lieu of that top-down algorithm, you allow them to curate an algorithm so they get whatever feed they want to get and You give them the ability to own their data and their relationships. And We call it the people's bid because we want the user base and in particular the major influencers and creators. To own. a piece of the platform.

We want to Green Bay Packer it. Just like the fans own the Green Bay Packers. Let the user base and the influence own a piece of this platform so that they're highly incentivized to use it, but in a healthy way and not in a way that's addicting young kids and causing all kinds of unhealthy side effects. Bright McCourt's with us. He's got the wherewithal, the focus, and he wants to buy TikTok.

Now, on Friday, Reuters reported, and it's been confirmed that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, D.C., denied TikTok's emergency bid to stop the ban from taking effect.

So it's going to take effect. There might be something a president-elect can do to delay it, but not get rid of it.

So you said you have a problem. You can't get talks going because they don't want to sell it.

So You have some investors ready to go, but you have no idea the exact price, right? Do you have any idea what it's going to take? Should they even want to sell it? And do you think you can eventually get someone on the line to buy it?

Well, we certainly hope we can get somebody on the line and because we see it as we think we have a solution here where it can be a win win. And what I mean by that is President Xi has said algorithm is going nowhere. It's Chinese it's owned by the Chinese government. We don't want or need the algorithm. President elect Trump has said he doesn't want to see it banned.

We don't want to see it banned either. We have a tech stack that we've built over the last five years that is up and running and is ready to onboard the one hundred seventy million users, so we can keep the user base happy by keeping TikTok alive We can also provide some funding for this so that the American shareholders in ByteDance won't get. Nothing for the U.S. piece of it. And of course, protecting American citizens from a national security threat is a good thing, too.

We think about $20 billion is the number, Brian, and that's what we've circled. And we don't know precisely because, as you point out, ByteDance has not said not only that not only have they taken a position they're not selling, they certainly haven't indicated if they would sell what they're selling. We're assuming. It's the user base and the content, and not the algorithm. Right.

Steve Mnuchin says he wants to buy it. This guy, Bobby Kotik, says he wants to buy it. And you, Frank McCourt, you said you want to buy it. And the president's kind of on the fence with it. And the one thing the president's right about: hey, listen, they have young.

Uh, they have young users, and they liked him. And he won the young boat. He's starting to win over people on college campuses. And he says, I went to where they are. And we watched Barack Obama do that, and everyone's posting on it.

But they're only posting on it because that's where the market is. But it doesn't mean they're for it. They have to understand the downside is that China gets a hold of your data, China can manipulate your newsfeed.

So now we know that they are vehemently anti-Israel. They're always promoting the Palestinian cause. They're vehemently anti-tariff. They're never going to be publishing a positive story about Donald Trump's tariff work or anything trade.

So any enemy of theirs is not going to be on a positive track. Track on when it comes to this news feed. And it's going to be pro-China stories. It's not going to be blatant, it's going to be subtle. That's another big danger.

It certainly is, and you you hit the nail on the head, and that's what I think alarmed People in Congress on both sides of the aisle, right? Is if you can manipulate how Americans are thinking, then it's going to really make it difficult for Congress to do its work, which is already difficult enough, by the way. I have one additional what you mentioned in terms of pro-China, anti-America, and being amplified 50 to 1, 100 to 1 in favor of China is what's happening. And that evidence was shared with our Congress. I had the privilege of seeing much of it.

But the one stat I like, Brian, that's kind of interesting to me is that The People's Bid for TikTok. is amplified one hundred and twenty five times more on the comparable Instagram Instagram Reels and on YouTube Shorts than it is on TikTok itself.

So it is it is deamplified one hundred twenty five times on TikTok. It's not mentioned because it's not Favorable. To the China position.

So we have our own. Our own set of data that we watch who's talking about our own bid, and it's doesn't it shows up almost nowhere on TikTok. Yeah, I mean, right there, that's it. And we know one of the board members is a member of the Chinese Communist Party government.

So of course they're going to be allegiance. They have an allegiance to the government. I don't care. My hope is that Trump stands strong on it and his bitterness towards Facebook justified and the old Twitter justified. We'll make him think they're all the same.

because it's an American company that we can crack down on in America and we can legislate. But we have no control over this. We would never allow ABC. Frank, is that true? We never allow ABC, CBS or Fox to be sold to China.

That's exactly right. And that's why these rules are in place. What I hope that um we you know, Bike Dance decides to to sell it. and that we can have a transaction where everybody wins. If not, Let's build a replacement for TikTok.

We're the most innovative people and country in the world. Let's build something that works like TikTok, but it's not harming and addicting kids, and it's certainly not a national security risk to American citizens. And so we're deadly serious about this. We're either going to buy it or build it and move on here because. Like like you say and and and President uh-elect Trump has has demonstrated, There are new forms of communications that young people are using, that they're enjoying, they're getting their news from.

Let's make sure it's real news, right? That it's you're a professional, Brian. You care about what you report on because you research it and you have people corroborating it and so on and so forth. You're not just putting nonsense out there. If we don't have platforms that young people use that actually have some verified journalism.

It's not going to be good because what we don't want to do is to be misleading young people so that they are misleading others and feel misled. What we want is to inform them. That's the most This country's been built on actually an informed citizenry That ultimately is very smart in the collective and makes really, really good decisions. Right now, we're sadly polarized bitterly. And who knows what's fact and fiction?

You can't tell on these platforms because the fake stuff is just as good as the real stuff. Lastly, Frank, just tap into your real estate background. We need more housing. I think just paying money for the government paying contractors to build housing is the wrong way to do it. How do we get out of this housing deficit?

How do we do this for-profit, entrepreneurial, free market way?

Well, there's um you know, one thing I like about what you know, President-elect Trump is doing is he's being disruptive, right? He's saying He's the same way to say it. We spent all this money. at the federal at the federal level, and we're not getting the results. And we could put a long list of things that we're not getting results for, right?

And you've focused on one of them: housing. There is technology available. to build housing right now at scale. And for a fraction of what it costs, when it built the way it is currently built. Right now, Every project goes through a lengthy, lengthy permitting process.

Every project is designed as an original, right? Every project is, depending on the community it's built in, you have certain restrictions, you have certain wages that have to be paid and so forth. And by the way, I'm a working guy. My family is, we have the oldest union construction company in the country, I believe. Started in 1893.

So this is. Business, I'm for the working guy and the working woman. It's just that things are. We need to sit down and have conversations. These people.

In the unions that build would happily have conversations about building more housing for less money. But you can't just. You know, jam these things through without people sitting down and developing a game plan to go forward. We can build this housing at scale. Imagine what it would cost to build a car.

If every car was had to go through an individual permitting process and every car had to be designed and every car had to be built separately, I know. Henry Ford, over 100 years ago, figured out how you could build cars at scale on an assembly line. You can build housing at scale on an assembly line. Just get everybody on the page to do it. Nobody is going to say, we don't want to provide shelter.

For American citizens. It's crazy to walk around these cities and see the encampments and the people on the sidewalks and without a home. It's heart-wrenching. This is the United States of America, bro.

Well, a lot of it is not because that's more complicated, but I see what you're saying. The permitting process is slowing it down. Find a responsible way to do it and make sure people have some values and ethics to not take advantage of the looseness of regulations. That's my hope. You got to because then you'll pay the price down the road and they'll come up with too much regulation four years from now.

Frank McCord, thanks so much, and I'm all for it. TikTok is not safe for Americans, but if you want to keep it in America, let an American own it like you. Frank, thank you. Thanks, Brian. Happy holidays.

Same to you. When we come back, what we do know about TikTok that I'm going to share with you. Don't move. Coming to you on a need-to-know basis, because man, do you need to know? It's Brian Kilmead.

Information you want, truth you demand. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. The day after, day after, Donald Trump had that crazy. rally at Madison Square Garden. I rolled the dice and I called him on the phone.

And he answered! Of course he did! Of course What do you say? And I wasn't calling to chit-chat. I said, Mr.

President, this is Stephanie Ruhl. You made a lot of comments last night. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was it was not an on the record conversation. Long story, so I'm not going to get into what he said, but I called for one reason.

I said, You just said a whole bunch of public things. I'd like to sit down for an interview with you. We got five days before the election.

So we didn't get anything, there's nothing for me to report. I called them and said I want an interview with you. Obviously he said no. But my point is I was able to get to him by dialing his phone.

Now that might be completely a b ⁇ and you're like, I can't believe people know this guy's phone number. But the reverse of that, if I were to want to connect with VP Harris or President Biden, there's 50 people between me and that. I could write a note that maybe could get to somebody to get somebody then through Pony Express and a pigeon, something might end up in a mailbox near them. And I called DJT to say, yo, can I have an interview with you?

So I'm going to go f ⁇ myself. But I still was able to connect with him.

So that is Stephanie Ruhl talking about MSNBC, who's been an enemy of the President, making money off the President, soon to be President and former President. But he's accessible. And what he did yesterday for an hour and a half. He's going to do that as president, too. Oh, he said something wrong here.

Oh, he contradicted himself here. Oh, that was a campaign problem. He said, Fine. Would you rather have that?

Someone answering honestly and practically? Or would you rather have someone who just yells with the chopper in the background and just says one-word answers, many of which he doesn't believe and contradicts his policy? What I told you about TikTok before, it is owned and owned by China, and they've already been proven to be spying on reporters. Got to get rid of it. Jason and the House, the Jason Chaffetz podcast.

Dive deeper than the headlines and the party lines as I take on American life, politics, and entertainment. Subscribe now on FoxNewsPodcast.com or wherever you download podcasts. Listen to the show at free on Fox News Podcast Plus, on Apple Podcast, Amazon Music with your Prime membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Mm.