Cautious optimism: American hostages free as soon as next week

From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmead. Hi, everyone. Thanks for listening to the Brian Kill Me Show. We have a big hour coming your way.

Zavika Klein is standing by, editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post. Bottom of the hour, Alyssa Finley Wall Street Journal breaks down how California broke down by. uh kowtowing to environmentalists and left their all their people, environmentalists and political correctness, more vulnerable to the wildfires that were inevitable, but not this scope of damage. And she'll explain that to us Meanwhile, we're gonna see more. Testimony on Capitol Hill, and we're following a lot of breaking news.

So let's get to the big three.

Now, with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three: An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence. that literally threatens our entire democracy. Yep, that is it. An oligarchy?

Really? Threatening democracy? Where'd that come from? Train wreck. Joe Biden sums up his presidency with bizarre warnings and a remarkable lack of grace about how he's perceived and what his legacy will be.

Number two. The Israeli media is reporting that the delay has largely to do with the Prime Minister needing to buy some time to cope with vehement opposition to this deal inside his cabinet. But broadly speaking, almost everybody accepts it's a done deal.

Well, is it done deal? Maybe. Phase one of a hostage deal in Gaza on hold. It is hung up. How it's hung up and what the reasons are vary.

We'll get the latest from the editor of the Jerusalem Post. Number one. Are you prepared to advise the president not to pardon people who beat police officers? Who won the 2020 presidential election? When we met yesterday.

You pointed your finger at me and said. Let me answer my question. All right, here we go. Trump nominations report to the Capitol as Pamboni gets the heg set treatment. But Duffy, Rubio fly through their gauntlet.

We previewed today's scrums and Trump's push for Greenland and TikTok, as well as a peace deal.

So, Zavika Klein joins us now, editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post.

So, we have a deal. Phase one was supposed to be nine hostages released for over 100 Hamas prisoners released, and there's some other things involved. But then, Zavika, we learned that's not the case. What happened? Hey, Brian, how are you?

So, yeah, so I mean, basically, I mean, it looks like, you know, a few hours ago, it looked a bit less positive, but it seems that there were certain disagreements in Doha between the Israeli delegation and the Hamas delegation about the specifics of exactly the type of people that Israel would release in the hostage deal. And, you know, hopefully that should be resolved. But also, as you mentioned, there's the issue of the internal coalition. uh criticism towards this type of a deal from within.

So, how is it perceived? Would you think the Prime Minister? Could lose confidence in it. He could put this for a vote and get rejected, right? Right.

He can get rejected, but also I think theoretically, if that happens, he will have a safety net from members of the opposition such as Yair Lapid, who's the chairman of the opposition and others who do not support this government but do support the hostage deal and release.

So, you know, they would definitely Support this type of a deal if that were to happen, but it could also theoretically. cause this government to fall apart and and go to elections.

So there's wild celebrations in the Palestinian territories over in Gaza. How was that perceived inside Jerusalem? I think it's very difficult. It's not a pro. Pretty sight, and definitely when the Hamas representative speaks to the media yesterday and says, you know, it's a temporary ceasefire, and like we're not going to stop until they're all gone.

So it's not a very positive sentiment coming over to Jerusalem. But it's, and I think it also kind of like. the difference between the two sides, whereas you have on on one side you have uh, you know, people hugging each other and kind of praying for, you know, the release of their of their family members who actually didn't do anything wrong, um, and those who are celebrating murder and killing of people.

So, you know, attacked on October 7th. They said it's a great and glorious day. That was one of the Hamas, I guess, executives that sits over in Qatar. But Hani is dead, was killed over in Iran, and Hasinwar is dead, and you've killed, and the IDF has taken out at least 17,000 Hamas fighters. All semblance of order is gone because of that attack.

Rafa, the tunnels have been exposed. All arms have been confiscated. I mean, this is devastating to the opposition forces. But because they don't acknowledge it, it doesn't mean it's not devastating, right? Right.

And also, I think Blinken, you know, in his last interview or press conference, you know, he spoke about the fact that, you know, There's a real threat. Yeah. you know, the amount of of of uh of Hamas. terrorists that were killed, like, they're getting close closer to the amount uh of new recruits.

So obviously they wouldn would wouldn't necessarily have as much training, et cetera, but like they're definitely not stopping and they're not you know, they're not just waiting around uh you know, and having fun.

So I think that's a that's a really big threat. And it's and but you know, so that said, you know. There are were talks about the fact that The L. Yeah. Possible hostage release in May 2024 was very similar to the document that was published yesterday.

And since then, the IDF has gone in even stronger and even more Four as fault. Yeah. Garden from us. And this deal is still the same.

So did we actually achieve anything? with these operations.

So here's what Blinken said. This is cut 15. That's exactly what's happened in northern Gaza since October 7th. Each time Israel completes its military operations and pulls back, Her mosque is regrouped. and re-emerge.

because there's nothing else to fill the void. Indeed. We assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants Do you have the same assessment? Yeah, I mean, listen, you know, he definitely has the details and is really There were really sources that affirmed this uh this issue.

So that's that's a a real problem. And and listen, it's just like the Iranians, they say they want to wipe out The only Jewish state.

So that's definitely on their agenda. And it's not like they're going to have a long ceasefire. Like when they have the chance, they'll just continue and do it again.

So let me ask some we're talking to Zaveka Khan on the breaking news that the first phase of the peace deal would be about nine Israelis, maybe three Americans. I wouldn't call it a peace deal. Ceasefire. Ceasefire. Yeah, I know.

We sometimes be kind of like our words. Yeah, my bad.

So yeah, nine for 30. And nine for 100, excuse me, nine for 100, many of which are killers serving life sentences. And the second phase, it would go up to 33, and they'd let out more, and there's going to be certain retraction of IDF forces out of the region. And we could see the first release as early as Sunday. But let me ask you something.

There's so much has changed really since the talks. I mean, Iran is worried about themselves. They've lost total influence in Syria. They've had their air defenses blown up by you guys. A part of their nuclear program is some exacerbated, some is damaged.

So. We see a country that Hezbollah is being attacked by both Israel, the U.S., and you know, and the Allies. Right, and now you have in Hezbollah decapitated the Pager operation, the killing of Nasarella.

So, where is Hamas? Go ahead. No, so but yet like we're still talking about the same deal. Which is it's it's a bit frustrating for many Israelis. And you know, you know, in a few hours there'd be like many thousands of Israelis are going out to the streets to demonstrate.

And you know, I mean, I don't think there's a right Answer for this because you know every every site has a legitimate point, but you know, the the the the fact that many Israelis are afraid for the release of all these prisoners is definitely something that Cannot be ignored. That said, you know, these these many of these people are civilians who were kidnapped and And it's our duty. To get them back home.

So it's a very difficult situation. And so the Salis Mutrich, head of the Religious Zionist Party, one of the coalition parties, is really debating what to do. And they had a meeting, they said they're against it, but they didn't say what will happen if. Past.

So it's you know, it's a very tense and delicate situation and So many ways.

So What's the role with Trump's election when? What changes now that he's going to take office in days? Right, so that's very interesting because on the one hand, you know, Trump has a track record, and we spoke about this in the past, like his track record towards Israel has been short but amazing. That said, Uh yep. Trump really just wants this to end and he wants to move forward, do a lot of positive things, whether it's of peace with Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, etc.

But the question is, he's not in the personnel to little small details. And Does he care that these prisoners are released or will return to Gaza? Or is he just being more practical? And another thing is also: when Trump says something to To Netanyahu, he's going to have to do it. It's not playing games like you did with Biden.

it's not it's not gonna work. You know, it he's gonna have to to listen to him, otherwise, you know, he will pay a price, but also he won't be able to get that American support.

Well, here's the thing. I think Trump's going to let him go. I mean, he does not want to see people suffer. That's totally mischaracterization of him. When he saw those kids suffering in Syria with the chemical weapons, is why he bombed back and took out and said, that's it, these guys.

ISIS got to go. But for the most part, I think he's going to say, you're on the right side of this. I know how you guys fight and what your ethics are. Go for it. Right, right.

So Trump likes winners. And I think Israel wasn't necessarily perceived as winners at the beginning, but I think with all the operations you mentioned and more, Israel is considered to be a winner. uh on the international stage.

So I think that is something that he would want to associate with himself with.

So here's what Michael Walt said about the state of Iran today. Tell me if you could read between the lines and what you think. CUT 19. Iran saw that deal, the coming together of the Arab world, the furtherance of the Abraham Accords that President Trump and his first administration put in team put in place as a mortal threat and lit the fuse with Hamas that blew all of this up. October 7th killed so many.

But where is Iran today? Hezbollah is decimated. It's sword of Damocles over Israel. Hamas is decimated. Assad has fallen.

One of Iran's biggest proxies. And Iran, the regime, is literally naked militarily with its air defenses down. That is a very different situation that we're now going to get back to.

So he sees that, and he also sees a window of opportunity with Iran.

So that's where I think you're going to have Rubio. You're going to have, he's a serious guy who gets it. You'll have Tom Cotton on armed services. And then you've got Michael Waltz. My goodness, does he get the threat of Iran?

They see the window that's open.

So this is going to be a very dynamic few months because that window is going to close soon. Yeah, yeah.

So the I mean, these people also I mean, you know, the the the the members of the new administration that you mentioned, you know, we all know what their attitudes are and their knowledge of the Middle East and Israel. And it's it's very, very ho you know, very high, very deep, and also it's on the right side of history. It's forming Israel. Um so that, you know, I I don't think Israel could have even uh prayed for a a better administration when it comes to that sense. And definitely with with Iran, I think it's it's very clear.

And there are different theories or different people claiming that all all the you know, the whole attack of October seventh was really um tr in order to kind of sabotage the relationship or the the uh possible peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Um, you know, it's like definitely one of the the the reasons to to do such a mass in order to you know cause the the Arab world. to try and, you know, support them. But I think it didn't they didn't support them as much as they expected. Yeah, I guess we'll see what's going to happen.

Zavika Klein, thanks so much, Editor in Chief of the Jerusalem Post. The ceasefire deal, the first phase is in a pause right now, and we'll see if it gets back on track. Thanks so much. Enjoy next week, Brian. I know.

We're going to be live Monday, Tuesday from Washington, D.C. Show Saturday night live from the rooftop of 101 Constitution, and a change of leadership, thank goodness. It's better for the world. I think the world's about to find that out. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Brian. Bye-bye. All right, so listen, we come back, we'll be able to squeeze in a couple of calls, 1866-408-7669. You also saw Joe Biden's farewell address last night. I'm going to play some of it, but it's hard to tolerate.

He slurs his way right through it. But the content of which is noteworthy Because some of this stuff came out of left field. I'll explain. Newsmakers and newsbreakers. Hear it first on the Brian Kill Me Show.

Fox News Audio presents the Fox Nation Investigates Podcast: a look into the Menendez Brothers with victims or villains. Then, Judge Janine Piero and a panel of experts break down their new fight for freedom with monsters or misunderstood and follow three incredible cases where world-renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Botten helps change the course of the investigation with the Botton files. Listen and follow at FoxtrueCrime.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. The more you listen, the more you'll know.

It's Brian Killmead. I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. This is a dangerous concentr and that's a dangerous concentration of power. in the hands of a very few ultra wealthy people. and the dangerous consequences.

if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence. That literally threatens our entire democracy. What's he talking about? You know what it's for me, he's talking about the tech guys.

I thought he was talking about the growing defense industry, but it's not. It's not big enough. That's the problem that Eisenhower was talking about, the takeover of the military industrial complex. He says now it's the the oligarchs, these these big rich guys like Musk Like David Sachs, like Mark Zuckerberg, like Sergey Brin. Sunjay Pinchar of of Google.

And what I think bothers him most, this came out of left field for me, it bothers him most that they're no longer. In bed with the Democratic Party. They're no longer shadow banning. They're no longer using algorithms to keep out search engines that might be positive for people like Donald Trump or conservative causes. They're no longer ignoring laptops that perhaps the FBI was making sure were not on any social media platforms, even if the press secretary in power was sidelined for reposting the New York Post headline of it.

And I'm talking about Kaylee McEnany. Because they lost the power and control, now we're concerned about the billionaires. Having too much control of our government. What are you what are you worried about? Because we saw the Twitter files, we see the Jim Jordan report, and we see the calls from Adam Schiff, the FBI, from your From your staffers berating and threatening Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, of course, because they're owned by the same company.

And who knows what's happening at Google? You better take this down. You better shadow ban that person. You better ban them. You got to make sure that any talks of therapeutics like ivermectin, even if it's from Ron Johnson, who's chairman of a Senate committee, exploring the origins of the pandemic and how to and some of the problems that might be happening with the vaccine.

All that stuff they were in control of.

Now I think they've lost control. Zuckerberg has stood up. People down his authenticity. Fine. I don't.

I think it really changed. Twitter bought by Musk, we have seen that exposure.

So we see all this happening. They rise up and they're going to be at the inaugural, and he says, Look out for oligarchs, and then says, I want billionaires to pay their fair share. How much more? I mean the top 1% Pay the majority of taxes in this country, about 10%. I think pay 70% of all taxes in our country.

And you choose on your swan song to say the tax system is unfair, really? You got so much revenue pouring in, it's your spending that's the issue. And we don't have to go into theories of economy, the economics, but when you have first-time millionaires and first-time billionaires, and I think the number is overwhelming. This is not legacy money, this is new money earned by men and women who were smart, innovative, and took great risks. I want to praise that.

I want to underline that. I want to highlight that. I don't want to vilify that. And that's what he did. And that's how we're going to remember him.

If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead. Ultimately here, does the buck stop with you? You're governor of California, you might be the mayor of California. We're all in this together.

We're all better off, we're all better off, we're all better off, and we're working together to take care of people and to make sure people are supported, we're empathetic. And we're here not just in the immediacy of the crisis, but we're here after the crisis, as opposed to creating a crisis in the middle of this by trying to divide people and play political, take cheap political shots. Geopolitical shots, people want to get to the bottom of it, of how you were where there's no water to put out a fire. I think fundamentally, people have questions. I have questions.

I'm going to put together an independent study. You're the governor. And as has been explained to me, yet governors can't control every city and every aspect of every city, but they can do tabletops over likely scenarios and physical challenges. I mean, to say there's going to be fires in California and caught you by surprise, nobody buys that. Earthquakes in California caught you by surprise.

Nobody buys that. There's still going to be devastation. There's still going to be destruction. But to mitigate it and understand it and react to it prior to it happening, I think, or act prior to it happening, I think is key. And nobody thinks there was good leadership here.

Alicia Finley joins us now for the Wall Street Journal editorial board, wrote a column that I think really caught a lot of people's attention: how the left turned California into a paradise lost. Alicia, welcome to Brian Killmee Show. Thanks. Happy to hear.

So we're watching this burn, and we want to get to the facts. And we hear President Trump come out and say you guys diverted water because of the smell fish. And Gavin Newsom saying this really can't be avoided. What did you find about Californians' tendency when it comes to the environment and fire prevention?

Well First and foremost, it tends to put species over actually humans. And this is what Donald Trump was trying to get at by raising the dull to smell fish, which is. Supposedly endangered has really restricted water pumping from the north of the state to the south and has resulted in chronic water shortages for farmers and cities.

Now that wasn't the direct cause of why the reservoir in the Palisades was empty. It was empty because it was undergoing repairs. It had been undergoing repairs for over a year for just a minor issue. And that raises other issues.

Well, why was it down for over a year? The other issue was that they just weren't able to get enough water pressure and that resulted in the hydrants. uh going dry. And one reason is because LA's pipes tanks just simply weren't big enough. And that owes to years of underinvesting in the infrastructure.

Instead, the state and localities have. Prioritize spending on other things, whether it be government work or pensions, welfare payments, or green energy.

So you've talked about the smellfish. You found out that protections restrict the amount of water that flows from the north to the south. It led to billions of gallons of water being flushed into the ocean, just like Trump said, along with chronic water shortages, high unemployment, overpump wells and environmental degradation in the state's central valley. Newsome opposed Trump's first-term efforts to ease the fish protections and let the water flow. That's a fact.

Of course. And it continues to be a problem. And the irony, I don't know, maybe it's not so much of an irony, but the state, this endangered species, this smell, they actually were raising a refuge population, or quote-unquote refuge population about several tens of thousands of them, and they have actually released them back into the wild.

So it's not really endangered anymore and has never really been endangered.

So these species protections are really merely an excuse to restrict water and actually development across the state. You also talk about the homeless population and how it relates. I mean, you said consider the city's response to crime and homelessness. It plays into this. Last year's park fire, the fourth largest in the state history, was ignited by a guy with two prior felony convictions who was on parole for DUI.

The Times reported in early 2021 that 24 fires on average were breaking out each day in the city's homeless encampments. And we saw the guy that was wrangled by good Samaritans who had a blowtorch and was looking to ignite additional fires. And he was arrested and then he was let out.

So there is no sense of Uh there's there's no sense of urgency at all among these officials. Right. And I think it's likely, we don't know for certain, that at least one of the fires, large fires, was caused by arson. And this has been an ongoing problem, especially with the homeless who tend to be addicted to drugs and mentally ill, and they do start fires. And this actually came up in the Supreme Court brief.

This is where I stumbled on that data or the statistic, about 24 fires a day are caused by homeless people. And the state has the fire departments have complained that they're having to divert more and more resources to putting out fires. About half of the LA fire department's budget is to putting out fires by homeless people. that actually detracts and means that there's less resources to do the kinds of fire preventions that are fire prevention and fire mitigation measures that are really needed. Alicia Finley is our guest, and she wrote this column in the Wall Street Journal, How the Left Turned California to a Paradise Lost.

So we talk about the homeless. We talk about the smellfish. Let's talk about Topanga Canyon. I used to live one major thoroughfare from there. I was Las Flores Canyon Drive.

All my stuff burned in 92.

So Tabanga Canyon, I used to work at a radio station and to cut to get to Woodland Hills, I went to Topanga Canyon two or three times a week. And it's almost like a bike path. And you gotta really feel like you're cutting through the woods.

Some of you make 90-degree turns to cut through it. It's really nice, kind of dangerous. There's no streetlights. Would you talk about something when it comes to these wood poles and metal poles? And they started replacing the wood poles with metal poles for various safety reasons, and what happened?

So the LADWP, which is the municipal utility out there, embarked on a fire prevention and mitigation project that involved replacing these wood poles that go back to the 1930s with more steel resistant or wind or fire resistant steel ones. They also expanded the fire access road so firefighters could get to the area more easily if there is a fire.

Now this quote unquote amateur botanist stumbled upon some supposedly endangered plants that had been destroyed in the process of this project and complained to the California Coastal Commission, which has jurisdiction over the state's coastal lands.

Now the State Coastal Commission then started investigating. The project was brought to a halt. The utility had to pay a $2 million fine and restored the land to its original state and essentially block this project. And this has been happening all across California where you have state. Regulatory agencies come in and block necessary again fire prevention projects.

And they know take care of it. We know they don't call the grounds. We don't they don't clean up the woods. They want to leave it in its natural environment. And you also brought up something that needs clarity when it comes to the fire department.

Yes, it's true. They did cut $17 million last spring. That is true. But what they gave them before is interesting. In terms of compensation, there might not be enough fire engines or firefighters, but man, are they paid well?

They approved that the budget from Mayor Bass got approved, didn't shrink city leaders last autumn. They approved a new union contract that boosted pay and benefits from $76 million, about $20,000 per firefighter. Even before the raise, firefighters, on average, earned about $200,000 plus $90,000 in benefits. They can retire at $55,000, and they got this huge raise. Last year, they spent $350 million on firefighter pensions and benefits, much of which have been better spent on fire prevention, you could argue.

Which made up of only 5% of the department's budget. And we know about Kristen Crowley, loves about diversity, inclusion, and equity, saying that's going to be a very balanced department. That was the priority, which is coming back to Bider Now, some of these quotes. She has since claiming that they're underfunded, which might be the case. Is it important clarification where the money is?

Right, it is. I mean, the problem is that the city fire department, along with the city itself, has put its priorities or misplaced its priorities, it has allocated more money to pensions and health benefits for government workers, including firefighters, while really stimping on other important public works projects, including fire prevention. The fact that it spends about seven times more on government employee pensions than it does on fire prevention is a real problem. Right. We think firefighters are you don't do that for the money, but you do want to know they're well compensated.

I love that idea. And then you find out, and it's not in your column, but how many fire engines at your sideline needs to be fixed, and there doesn't seem to be any urgency there.

So it's It's a situation where Fires are going to happen. But the amount of damage is directly related, in my view, to how prepared you are to handle it. And there doesn't seem to be anyone who thought this could happen and thought it was necessarily to table top or game plan this out. Right. And there also wasn't a plan on how to evacuate these areas.

They should have been doing that after the Maui fires. And these are areas that aren't or should be expecting fires. But they really did plan that. And as a result, a lot of these homeowners got caught by surprise. And they lost cars.

Cars got stranded on the roads and people just got out. And this should just be basic 101 for governments is to clear the evacuation routes and inform people what they should do if there is a fire. And lastly, just about insurance, we hear this story that State Farm pulled out because they said, I got to raise rates if I'm going to be solvent here. And they said you're not allowed to. He says, okay, I'm pulling out.

What did you find when you looked at the insurance aspect of this and why it's so hard to insure there?

Well, the the issue there is that the state has suppressed the rates for so long by not allowing the insurance companies to consider the catastrophe models as they do in other states and pass on the cost of reinsurance. And so when you, these are essentially price controls, so when you don't allow insurers to adjust the rates for risk or factor in their own liabilities, they're going to start limiting their exposure by cutting people off. And as a result, a lot of the people in the Palestin ended up being pushed onto the state insurer of last resort, which tends to be actually a more expensive plan with less coverage. And as a result, the state insurer of last resort, the fair plan's liabilities are ballooning. And now they're talking about that it actually could become insolvent.

And the result of that is that everyone's rates in California are going to have to increase to essentially bail them out and pay for the homes, these multi-million dollar homes. Yeah, and then we'll see if we're going to get insurers ever back there, especially after this. As it's time to rebuild, Alicia, are you optimistic at all that anybody's going to step up, Rudy Giuliani style, and provide any leadership? I can see Mayor Bass as shrinking under the spotlight, Gavin Newsom as deflecting. In fact, I want you to hear him while he's being confronted by one of these moms, by one of the imams that obviously lost everything and wanted some answers.

That was my. My daughter's school guy. Governor, please tell me what you're going to do. I'm not going to hurt him, I promise. I'm literally talking to the president right now to specifically answer the question of what we can do for you and your daughter.

Can I hear it? Can I hear your call? Because I don't believe it. I'm sorry, General. There's literally.

I've tried five times. That's why I'm walking around to make this. Why is the president not taking your call? Because it's not going through, so we have to get self-service. He's caught lying.

Caught on the streets, Walking around, not having any answers. That's pretty terrible. Right. So I think the hope, and I'm not terribly hopeful, is that he may get new leadership in twenty twenty six when Governor Gavin Newsom is term limited. And Rick Caruso, who owns a lot of real estate down in Los Angeles and ran for mayor a couple of years ago, has shown interest in running for a governor, perhaps as a Democrat, though he is former Republican.

And he might actually be interested in tackling these issues and at least putting some discipline in and reforming some things in the state. It would be great. And finally, if anyone doesn't know who Karen Bass is, this is the mayor. Who lost to Rick Caruso for some reason because I guess she's going to give unions more money, and she checked a lot of boxes, in my view. Listen to this when asked about the response.

Are you happy with how the response is going past and present?

Well, I mean, you know, everything could be better. There is no question about that. Again, I think we have all seen this is a natural disaster of unprecedented proportions.

So There you go. That's not exactly stepping up. And the mayor and governor, just like here in New York, they don't seem to be speaking. No. Uh and that's again a failure of leadership.

There is no coordination. The fire chief didn't know that some of the water, the the reservoir, there'd be less of water for the firefighters. There just doesn't seem to be any kind of, as you said, coordination. And, you know, which is surprising given that they're both Democrats and they seem to have gotten along. But again, the buck stops with Gavin Newsome.

Uh you So just lastly, the speaker is saying, I might condition aid. Yeah, we're going to step up for the people. They're Americans. But we want to condition the aid to changing some of these policies that you outline in your Wall Street Journal column. Do you think that's callous at this time, or do you think it's right on the money?

I think there are a lot of things that the government could do, and even have been supported by California Democrats to better manage the lands, including more money for treatment and such, and actually reducing these permitting headaches and regulatory barriers to conducting fire prevention and mitigation.

So I think that would be completely understandable. And I also don't think it should be a blame chest. The government, the Washington, should not be underwriting five $10 million homes that were underinsured because of the state's insurance policies. Alicia, thanks so much. Great work.

Look forward to your other work, especially on the Wall Street Journal and what you guys are doing. Thank you. All right, when we come back, we'll be able to squeeze in some calls. Also, you can write me BrianKillme.com. We're following the the pause on the on the cease fire in Jerusalem as well as some the latest with Donald Trump's nominees who are making their way back to Capitol Hill will preview what they're going to be dealing with today.

I think most should not see fireworks today. We'll see. It's Brian Killmeade. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show.

Americans are being buried. under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation. enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. Others are disappearing.

Social media is giving up on fact-checking. You know that I try to be really nice and I intended to find something that I could say, wow, that was great.

So, news of the day at the top, understandable. Big soaring attempt at a rhetorical push for unity. I'm like, okay, I'm following. And then, like, what in the world was he talking about? For example, when he talks about dark money, does he not remember that just last week he gave the Medal of Honor, Medal of Freedom Award to George Soros?

He talked about the fact that they had the biggest economic rebound then ever. He never mentioned COVID, which was the entire premise of his presidency. Today, I looked at a poll, Britt mentioned our poll. There was another poll, the Gallup poll. They asked about 18 issues.

Which ones are you feeling better about? Only one out of 18 did people feel better about, and it was gay, lesbians, and trans issues.

So he's sitting there talking about all these things that he's done. And I'm just like, this rings hollow. To me, it felt like the speechwriters have already left the building and that they asked ChatGPT to write a speech for Joe Biden in which he doesn't remember that he was president for the last four years. If you ask people, are you better off today than you were four years ago? The answer is no, except for maybe the solar companies and the Delta Smells.

Right. And what I find offensive, every time he says up, I've done more for a new green deal, like the green energy, it reminds me how we were all duped, even though most of us saw through it, that the reduction, the Inflation Reduction Act was never meant to do that. And he actually brags about it now, and he doesn't even know he's bragging about it. He said it was actually the more green deals and more green energy than anything else in American history. There was a story today that Allison, you sent me, that talked about how we're supposed to connect on broadband through that Inflation Reduction Act.

And we're supposed to have $50 billion to connect people on broadband. And you know how many people they connected? Almost none. And part of the reason, they have to prove that they tried to get minority business. They had to set up bureaus in all these states in order to get major companies in.

And there's so many strings attached, they said, well, I'm not going to do it. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kelme. Hi, everyone. So glad you're here.

We're here from 48th and 6th in Midtown Manhattan, but heard around the country, around the world, as we count down to the inauguration. The show will be on the road on Monday and Tuesday, normal time slots, but just coming to you from Washington, D.C. My One Nation show is going to be on Saturday and 9 o'clock from the rooftop at 101 Constitution. Great roster of guests, Senator Roger Wicker will be there. Jim Jordan will be with us.

We also will have Governor Mike Huckabee. He's going to be the new ambassador to Israel, Adam Carolla, and we're going to be dipping in out of the fireworks and the festivities that are going to be over my right and left shoulder. That'll be coming from Washington, D.C. Josh Krashauer is going to join us at the bottom of the hour. And of course, we're following the story.

We thought we had a ceasefire deal that would be executed officially with the release of nine hostages from Israel, 30 over 100, I should say, prisoners. Many murderers serving life sentences. Palestinians, Hamas people, are going to be let out in phase one of a deal before the inauguration.

Now there seems to be a holdup. We'll follow that. Also, on Capitol Hill today, there's going to be some nominations taking place. We're going to hear from Doug Bergham. Also, he's going to be there along with Scott Besant.

He's going to be Treasury Secretary.

So they're going to have their one day of hearings, four or five hours. I don't think there'll be a lot of fireworks there. But meanwhile, If you were looking for me yesterday, it was I was in, ironically enough, in Pennsylvania at Washington's Crossing and going over the Battle of Trenton. And the historic crossing of the Delaware, and it was cold. And I would say it was about 15 degrees with wind chill factor.

And I was thinking about George Washington had to do this in the middle of a nor'easter, which works to his advantage. Many of his soldiers, demoralized and depleted, were looking at the end of their service and didn't have any shoes. And they had to get in boats, make their way across the Delaware River, knock away the ice multiple times, and then walk nine miles. And take out the Hessian soldiers who were hired to fight for the British. And they did it, and they won.

That is part of the American story that Ken Burns has been chronicling without peer and informing and entertaining us for decades.

Now he's got a brand new. Six-part, twelve-hour documentary coming out calling the American Revolution. It's going to air in November to mark the beginning of the war, 1775. And Ken Burns tells that story. The award-winning documentary filmmaker joins us now.

Ken, welcome back. Hey, thanks, Brian. It's great to be with you. Boy, I really felt the cold when you were talking about Washington's Crossing. We did a lot of filming there.

Just try to imagine what it might have been like back then, just on Christmas Day, making that unbelievable, arduous trip. The series, I'm so excited to share it with you. We're just 15 blocks. I'm right now 15 blocks south of you on 6, and I'm trying to finish up the film, and we've got another six months to go on it. But we just had a screening, and everybody's response was really, really terrific, even to the uncompleted film.

And that's one of the more powerful scenes. He actually had three different Um Parts of his army that were going to cross, and two of them couldn't get across. And so he was the only one that could get across. Of course, he wasn't standing up in the boat, as we think so. And the only two American deaths, not casualties, there were a handful of casualties, but the only two American deaths.

Were two people who froze to death when they just stopped in the middle of the night in the middle of this raging storm and just because they couldn't go on any further and fell asleep. Yeah, it's pretty amazing to go out there and see stuff. You could really picture because of the tower that they built in 1930, what exactly Washington was looking at and how dire things looked after the battle of Long Island, the Battle of New York that they lost and they barely escaped with their Continental Army intact. That's exactly right. I think people would be surprised to learn that the Battle of Long Island or the Battle of Brooklyn Heights is the largest battle of the entire revolution, and it is a Stunning and stinging defeat for Washington, who had miscalculated and left one of four passes along the Gowanus.

sort of rise there the Jamaica Pass unopened and the British got around him and flanked him and it was only because of a fall rain and then fog that came up that he was able to evacuate from Brooklyn Heights, otherwise the revolution might have ended right then and there. And so he's loses again at Kipps Bay. He's loses again at White Plains. He's rushing across New Jersey. And as you said, the enlistments are running out.

And he's not going to have anybody anymore. And he feels like he has to do something.

So he turns around and recrosses the Delaware River, of course, from Pennsylvania, and it's just. One of these heroic, heroic moments that gives a little bit of a Spark to the American cause, which could not be bleaker at this moment because of what's gone on. But you write about the Revolution, which I wasn't invited to that screening, and I'm forever going to be hurt, but I want to go to your next one. But the screening, but you write that this was a war, but the American Revolution was a war for independence. We got it.

A civil war, because not everybody was on board. There were loyalists, loyalists to the crown, and a world war that impacted millions from Canada to the Caribbean and beyond. Explain that. Yeah, it's it's it's pretty interesting. I mean, I I my first big war that I did was, as you know, and we've talked about it ever since, was on the Civil War.

And that was came out 35 years ago. You know, I wasn't going to do another war. And then I got sucked into doing one on the World History of World War II, a big one called The War. And before the ink was dry on that, we said we'd do Vietnam. And before the ink was dry on Vietnam in 2015, we said we're going to do revolution.

And we've been working on it now for 10 years. And um Mm-hmm. The thing that we do is we accept the violence of World War II, all the 20th century wars. We accept the violence of the Civil War, and yet we protect the revolution as almost as if it's like a bug in amber or it's a baseball card in Lucite that don't want it to be at all handled. And it's just supposed to be about great ideas, which is of course what it is.

The most important ideas, the greatest aspirations of humankind are expressed in this. But it is a bloody, bloody civil war.

So we know what the revolution is. It changes for the first time. People are going to be not Subjects, but citizens. They're going to be able to control their destiny. It's the most profound and important and consequential revolution in American history.

Then it's a civil war because we don't want to admit it, but there's lots of people, at least a fifth of the population, are loyalists and they are killing us, and patriots are killing them. And it is families are torn apart. We like to say brother against brother in the Civil War. Maybe that happened six times, but it happened in every family in the Revolution. Thomas, I mean, Benjamin Franklin's own son, who was the royal governor of Of New Jersey was deposed, spent time in jail, and when he was released, they assumed he'd sailed for London.

He started a terrorist organization to fight other Patriot terrorist organizations.

So he was killing Patriots while Patriots were killing. I mean, it's, particularly in New Jersey and particularly in South Carolina, it is about as bad as you could get in terms of the Civil War. And then you realize. That it isn't just us separating from Britain. There's this huge geopolitical thing.

Our revolution really begins when Britain, be careful what you wish for, with our help, because they're our parents, wins what we call the French and Indian War, which was a global war called the Seven Years' War. And so all of a sudden, you have Britain dominant, and they can't afford to keep their territory. They've got huge war debt, and so they don't want to let settlers go beyond the Appalachian Mountains. You've got many native nations that are engaged with this, that have been made promises to. All of a sudden, France comes in, then Spain comes in, then the Netherlands comes in on our side.

And all of a sudden, Britain, who's just trying to keep their least profitable colonies, the 13 American seaboard colonies are the least profitable. Only Virginia and South Carolina are profitable. But we're the most populous, and we buy things, and we make things and we trade things, and we drink. Tea and sugar and all this sort of stuff, they get kind of overwhelmed and realize, oh my God, with France in now and Spain in, now Gibraltar is in question, Sumatra is in question, the subcontinent, India is in question, and their most profitable North American colonies are the ones in Jamaica and Barbados. And they're threatened now by all of these geopolitical stuff.

So all of a sudden you begin, you know, what begins as a disagreement between Englishmen over Indian land and taxes and representation blows up into this global war that has unbelievable consequences. And if you remember, it's so important that you bring this up because the French Indian War, 1754 to 1763, were fighting with the British. Washington is with the British. He's trying to get a British command.

So we know these guys, they know each other. That oh, you have no idea how much it is. There's the really the French and Indian War starts when the British commandeer the Virginia militia and they go out with some Indian allies to find a French and an Indian camp. In what is the wilds of the Ohio River Valley. And they sneak up to the camp and they fire into them.

And if one observer is correct, the first person to fire in was a 22-year-old militia officer named George Washington. He is the person who fires the first start in a conflagration that we call the French and Indian War that will become what is a global conflict called the Seven Years' War. And then later on, he's captured and defeated. It's the only time he ever surrenders in his life. He then is given another chance.

And he expertly exits himself from another ambush where Braddock is killed at Pittsburgh. And he wants a commission in the British Army. And they don't want to give it to him. He's just an American. And the snobbery, the the kind of Infuriating snobbery about what he was is the first, like, uh-oh, along with the larger issues of, you know, Britain has now got the most far-flung empire on earth.

Be careful what you wish for, because how do you pay for it? How do you protect the citizens, particularly those who want to spill over the Appalachians and just take Indian land? And then Native Americans are, of course, not, you know, particularly disposed to having their homelands, which they've had for tens of thousands of years, disrupted.

So you've got this great dynamic that's going on. And while you want to say it's just about powdered wigs in Philadelphia thinking great thoughts, and it is the dynamic of what's going on, you know, the Brits try a strategy once the war is beginning, where even though they're totally committed to slavery, the man who issues this proclamation, Lord Dunmore, says, if you're a slave of a patriot, of a rebel. You can, I will give you your freedom. If you're a slave of a loyalist, you can't have your freedom. And by the way, I'm not giving up my slaves.

So, what you have is the dynamic of slavery: suddenly, 20% of the American population is black. And so A lot. There are some free blacks, some runaways, obviously, and enslaved people who then become their own dynamic force in the history of this. Cannot be more interesting. And right away, that screening was an internal screening.

We'll invite you in when we feel like we can show you. I felt crushed. I felt for a moment. I was no longer in the cool crowd. No, no, no, brother.

No, no, no.

So, so, Ken, hang out one second if you could. I want a little bit more about this. But again, to review, it doesn't come out until November, but it's the American Revolution, the name of the series. It is a six-part, 12-hour series directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt, written by Jeffrey Ward. More of a glimpse into that series, and as we come up on year 250, what we can expect as a country.

Don't move. You listen to Brian Kill Meet Show. Learning something new every day on The Brian Kilmead Show. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show.

Few more minutes with Ken Burns. He's pumped up, but he's always pumped up, but he's got a brand new six-part, 12-hour documentary called The American Revolution. And essentially. It's even got him excited. It doesn't come out until November.

We wanted to get ahead of it a little because remember, the war started. We have the Declaration of Independence in 1776. But, Ken, the war starts in 1775. This April. This April nineteenth is when Lexington and Concord takes place.

And we wanted to honor that, that the two hundred fifti anniversary of the title of our film, The American Revolution, is this year. And that's an important thing to do. And as you know, in July 4th, will be leading up to 2026, the 250 is you always have a danger that things get simplified and drowned in sort of python drum treacle, and we forget. The complex and inspirational message of it.

So, this is a film about the American Revolution. It'll cover all the battles, you know, from Trenton to Bunkers Hill to, you know, Lexington and Concord, but also Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse in South Carolina, Charleston, you know, Yorktown, of course, brandy, wine, all of these battles will be there. But we thought it would be good to have this lead off. The beginnings of the celebration so that we could really be versed in the complexity of it and the just enormously complicated and thrilling story that is the American Revolution.

So, so, Ken, I think it's so important that people understand our unique history and be proud of it. It doesn't mean everything's perfect, it's a journal. No, no, no, we call, as you know, we talked this before. I call balls and strikes. You know, if Washington makes a mistake, we tell it.

If this happens, we say it. But at the same time, you know, it can't just be a pendulum swinging backwards, either all good or it's all bad. Both of those do not give a full picture of it. If you pretend it's all just, you know, light and beauty and whatever, you've missed it. And you've missed great drama and great characters and great complications and in stories and individuals and character.

And if you just make it all bad and revisionist, you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Right. So, Ken, do you think we're over with the? Fever broke. We're done with condemning America.

We're done with pulling down statues. We're now understanding them that nobody on a pedestal is perfect, but they did extraordinary things for the most case in their time. The historian Jane Kaminsky says it really well, as we're dealing and have to deal with the fact that George Washington, the father of our country, without whom many historians in our film and, in fact, African American historians say We don't have a country without him. He's the leader. You know, they don't believe in great men's theories of history, but guess what?

This is the great man who did that. When we deal with the fact that he owned other human beings, you just say you don't tear it down. We're all, you know, these are not perfect Marvel figures. And what they're not just people at their time, they're just complex as you are complex and I'm complex. And do we have contradictions?

Walt Whitman said, yes, you know, I contradict myself.

So all of that is part of calling balls and strikes. You know, you take a Reggie Jackson or a Mickey Mandel or a Babe Ruth. They strike out a lot. They also hit a lot of home runs.

So, what are you going to tell? We're going to tell the home runs, but we're also going to tell the strikeouts. And it doesn't diminish in any way the importance of these figures. Right. And Ken, finally, I really believe we're going to celebrate 250.

In America. I remember 1776. I was only in sixth grade, but I remember 1776. 1776, everything. Are you concerned at all that we're not going to fully understand how great this country is?

No, I think that that, and that's why I really wanted to have this come out ahead of time, because I think the greatness comes from the complexity. I believe that this film and the 250 can help bring us together. Everything we do now is divided. It's all about, you know, red state or blue state, young or old, gay or straight, you know, rich or poor, Easter, whatever it is. We're always trying to find out what divides us.

And what we share in common, as you know, is as good as me. Is our shared history. That's what we have. And when we can feel ownership with it, whoever you are within this story of America, it gets you a chance to sort of. Kick away all of the stuff that we use on a daily basis to sort of beat up score points on the other side and things like that.

And I think we have the opportunity. To come together. Ken Burns can't wait for the American Revolution six-part, 12-hour documentary coming out in November. Thanks so much for the unique preview, Ken. Thank you.

It's my pleasure, Brian. Take care. All right. It was really nice of him to share this time and give that exclusive look. Right now, Governor DeSantis' big address will tell you what it is.

The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. So we're watching as Governor DeSantis is about to announce who he's going to pick to fill Marco Rubio's seat. This was. The story.

The other open seat is happening in Ohio because Vice President Pence. Uh is no longer Senator Skazing Pence. Vice President J.D. Vance. Is no longer Senator Vance.

So they are, there's a big push now from Mar-a-Lago. To get Vivek Ramaswamy to get that job. And Governor Dewine went and visited Trump in Florida. And one of the things Dewine said is: we need somebody that's going to win reelection.

So I need somebody that's going to have the best chance of winning reelection because you can never take Ohio for granted, even though it's going more and more red.

Now, Governor DeSantis is going to decide what's happening with Rubio's seat. If you saw him yesterday, he is going to fly through with maybe 90 votes in the Senate as Secretary of State. He says he's going to work in the Senate up until the last day.

So it made it easier for Governor DeSantis.

So, in a moment, they're going to announce his pick. Let's bring in Josh Trashauer, Fox News radio political analyst, netter-in-chief of a Jewish insider. And some idiot just jumped in front of our camera. It's going to be.

Okay. Yeah, it's going to be A. G. Ashley Moody is going to be named to replace Marco Rubio.

So there you go. Josh, what's your reaction to that? Yeah, that's a good idea. Good pick. I mean, it's a name that we've heard about for quite some time.

A very conventional pick, has had a great political record winning elections as Attorney General in the state of Florida. Got support in both MAGA world and among conventional conservatives.

So not a surprise. Moody's been the name floating around Florida Republican circles for a few weeks now, but it is now official. And yeah, it'll be Rick Scott and Ashley Moody representing the Florida delegation in Congress and in the Senate. It's always good to have a woman in there and increase those numbers and fight back against stereotypes. That's a white man's Republican party.

But just to quit, even though they're the least politically correct party that I can remember at this point, especially, but with Ashley Moody going there, now she'll serve his next four years, right? I think Rubio had one in the midterms last time.

So he's got four more years. I'd have to double check. Oftentimes, there's a special election that is before the full term expires, but I need to double-check on the Florida election law. But she certainly will be there for the next two years at least. And then that's quite a bit of time, especially with Republicans holding the majority in the House and Senate to get quite a bit done for both Florida and the country.

So, what about the Ohio seat? What are you hearing?

Well, look, you you mentioned Vivek Ramaswamy's name. Uh the the fact that Dewine made a reference to electability I think is a notable tell uh right there. Uh look, Ramaswamy certainly is the favorite in a lot of uh MAGA Trump circles. But there are worries, and I've seen polling showing that he may not be the most electable candidate. And if Sherrod Brown decided to run again for his old Senate seat, I wouldn't be surprised to show Brown very competitive against Ramaswamy.

And I think we would talk, I'm sure you talked about this on the show, when Ramaswamy Got a little bit of controversy this past month with a Twitter thread about H-1B visas, and he was talking about sort of American culture, not producing the type of top talent that other countries had. It drew a lot of controversy from certain parts of the right in a way that could come back to haunt him politically if he did run statewide in Ohio.

So, look, Ohio is a more Republican state than it's been in quite some time. Trump won the state easily. I think any Republican would probably start out as the favorite. But based on what I'm hearing in the political world, most Republicans would probably be almost a guarantee to win the Senate seat. Hold J.D.

Vance's Senate seat. Ramaswamy might be a little trickier. And that's on the mind of Mike DeWine.

Well, we know we can talk. We know how bright he is. We know he's got the business background. And we know he's got, he definitely has ambition.

So I want to talk about Joe Biden last night. He surprised me in a lot of things. Number one, he's still vilifying the rich. Rich got to pay their fair share. Oh, my goodness.

Are we done with that yet? And then he said this: Cut 21. I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. This is a dangerous concentr and that's a dangerous concentration of power. in the hands of a very few ultra wealthy people.

and the dangerous consequences. if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence. That literally threatens our entire democracy. Wow.

Okay. So is he referring to David Sachs, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sergei Brin, Sam Walton? Is that what he's talking about? Artman? He he he called it the tech industrial complex.

Which is interesting, Brian, because that was a sort of a homage to Dwight Eisenhower, the military-industrial complex. Speech he gave in 1960, but that that was about the government and the military kind of working hand in hand. As we know, Brian, as we've talked about so much, one of the big controversies in Biden's administration is that it was the government and the tech companies working hand in hand to censor or regulate certain types of speech.

So it is a little odd to use that formulation when one of the bigger problems, I think, when we look at the history of the Biden administration is the collusion between government and some of these very powerful monopolies in tech. that that was advanced by the administration itself.

Now I you know there are larger issues, AI, the future of media. There are a lot of issues that that Biden was alluding to, and I think there are serious issues in terms of w where the media landscape is in in a decade, where AI, like are we going to win the AI war or is China gonna win the AI war? What what kind of these deep fakes that are getting awfully realistic? I think that's gonna be an issue down the road.

So, I think there are legitimate issues, but I found it kind of ironic that the language Biden used was actually the main criticism that Republicans were talking about when they looked at Facebook and Meta and other social media platforms working with the government to regulate news and speech that was very much in the mainstream.

So, here's an example. If the Democrats want to know, or if Joe Biden wants to know, where they lost. For now, Silicon Valley and the AI Bros. Maybe it's interactions like this. Cut 32, Mark Zuckerberg with Joe Rogan.

It was during the Biden administration when they were trying to roll out The vaccine program. They pushed us super hard to take down things that. were honestly were true. Right. I mean they they basically pushed us and and said you know, anything that Um says that vaccines might have side effects.

You basically need to take down. Basically, these people from the Biden administration would. call up our team and like scream at them and curse.

So why wouldn't they? And we heard this over and over again with them trying to put the brakes and parameters and bumpers on AI. We're going to pick this company. You're not going to be able to do this. And they thought to themselves, between that and the clampdown on crypto, it's in their best interest to at least give Trump a shot.

And Trump was willing to listen. And that's why they're going to be on the stage. I don't necessarily think they want to take over America. And just fascinating to think that's the last thing he wants us to remember of him. One of the underappreciated stories of the Biden administration is that unlike other Democratic, unlike Barack Obama's presidency, unlike other Democratic leaders in the past, this was the most hostile administration when it came to regulating tech and really putting the corn.

And tech was all these companies, even Twitter, it was all liberals. This was all Democratic. These all were dominated by Democrats, both in their employees, their leadership, their donations. That changed, especially in the final couple of years of the Biden administration. I've listened to Mark Andreessen, one of the big, more very brilliant innovators in the tech space, who was I think he's moved to the right, but was at one time in that center-left space.

And he has said that a lot of the regulations that the administration put on AI and really prevented the U.S. in competing against China in that space was one of the big factors that have moved a lot of these tech leaders into Trump's camp and why you're seeing a lot of the money and inauguration parties and Bomadeus. You'll see a lot of these prominent tech CEOs at the Trump inaugural.

So, like, this was a decision by you had Lena Khan, by the way, putting up, you know, really, really trying to file lawsuits and really regulate to the nth degree a lot of these companies, and they got sick of it and they pushed the companies, many of them, to the right.

So that's a decision by Biden. I actually thought it was interesting. Biden did mention the competition in his speech last night with China. And one of the arguments that a lot of the tech leaders make is that by regulating AI, by putting, you know, kind of hampering the ability for our own domestic AI companies to innovate, it actually lets China win in that space. I'm not sure if that's true or not.

I mean, I think that's going to be the big question going forward. Like, can you regulate AI? Is the two spaces out of the two? And what are the risks for us and as a country? What does this mean for our future?

But it's contradictory. If Biden is saying that he wants us to beat China in the AI race, which I think he said last night, then you don't want to put limits and regulations on our own domestic technology industry. Yeah, you want to be responsible because we hear about the dangers from people that know the most. And now we put David Sachs in charge there, and he knows as much as anybody. He also knows these guys, their friends, and their rivals.

So we just hope they're doing it for patriotic reasons, Josh. Finally, about the ceasefire. What do you understand as editor-in-chief of Jewish Insider happened? Because the word is, I got two things. I got one that Hamas tried to squeeze in some of the real murderers, additional murderers into those that are going to be released.

And the other one I heard is that Netanyahu, and then Netanyahu put the brakes on. And then the other one was. They feel they can get a Hamas could get a better deal. Yeah, yeah.

look, I think Biden said yesterday that the the deal that looks like it's going to be Struck, though it's still not official yet, is very similar to what he proposed in the spring. And there is some truth to that. Look, I think Trump did put, I mean, Hamas is some of the people that are going to be released as part of the deal are some of the worst terrorists and murderers and have blood on their hands. It's a painful price for Israelis to pay, even though they're receiving at least, what, 32, 33 hostages being released in the first phase of the deal. I think a lot of Israelis want the hostages to come home.

They're wary about the price that's going to be paid in order to do that. But look, Trump, make no mistake, Trump put a little bit of pressure on Bibi Netanyahu. He sent Steve Witkoff to the region and he was working very closely with the Biden negotiators to put a little bit of pressure on Bibi to get the deal done.

So what Biden couldn't do, like he didn't have a Nixon goes to China moment vis-a-vis Trump, where Biden tried, all of his team tried to cut a deal and they couldn't do it. And it took a little bit of pressure, I think. Pushing the Israelis to make a deal that they may not have been totally enthusiastic about, which is coming to fruition right now.

Well, I'll tell you what, they were celebrating like crazy in the streets, and that bothered the Israelis. And this is also what their spokesperson said: hardly contrite who feels as though they learned their lesson. What happened on october seventh, a miracle, a military achievement and a security achievement carried out by Al Qassam Prayer, will remain a source of pride for our people and our resistance that will be passed down from generation to generation after it struck a fatal blow to the enemy. Yeah, I mean, look, this may be a bad deal, but it's one that may have been necessary to make, given how painful and how, frankly, dire the situation was for many of the hostages that are still alive, being held in dungeons and tunnels in Gaza. This was always the price that I think Israel knew it would have to pay.

You give up some of its military gains and ability to really punish Hamas in order to get hostages home. It's a very painful price. And I think the big That the big important detail to come under the Trump administration is: will they allow Israel to continue fighting against Hamas and really continuing to make sure that they don't have power in Gaza and that there's not a threat from Gaza into Israel, like we saw so horribly on October 7th. Josh, I think one of the reasons why he'd do it is because he thinks that Trump would back him if they had to go back. Because we know Hamas is great at one thing, and that's breaking their word.

And they would do it again. And they've lost 17,000 fighters, and they think they won. Crazy. That's right, Brian. But the difficult thing is that not all the hostages are going to be released in the first phase of the deal.

So if the next phase, which would essentially allow Hamas to stay in power or take fruition, not all the hostages would come home, even as part of this deal.

So it's very Trump did say he, you know, inauguration day, all the hostages would be home or else they'll be held to pay.

Well, we may see some hostages come home, but it may be harder to get the remaining hostages out of Congo. Fascinating time.

So again, Ashley Moody is going to replace Marco Rubio in the Senate. She is the AG over in Florida, and Governor DeSantis made that selection. Josh, thanks so much. Back in a moment. You're with Brian Kilmead.

The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead. I think if you look at all of this in context, if the president had to choose between a peace agreement or high approval numbers, he would choose the peace agreement every time.

Now like any president, he'd rather have both. But this is a president who has been dedicated to doing what was right. And I think that what you saw today is in black. emblematic of his four years as President. Wow.

And that is Nita Dunn, who was a spokesperson for Joe Biden for a while and did a lot of work for Obama, hates Fox. I think she can't even spin it positively. Does that seem enthusiastic to you? And some of his remarks yesterday about social media, you got to be kidding me. Steve, over in South Carolina.

Hey, Steve. Hey, Brian, thanks for taking my call. I'm usually venting my frustrations with that overweight figure skater dress guy. Who comes on after you? Oh, Jimmy Phalera?

That's what he calls himself, by the way. You're not insulting. Exactly. No, that's a compliment because it's using one of his lines. And and I listened to you both.

I got a long uh drive to get into base where I fly out of. But uh listen, the um the I listened this morning while I was running out the door and uh the hair stands up on my on the back of my neck listening to uh Biden with uh you know his talk about the oligarchs, the social media oligarchs? Yeah, now, you know, who's an oligarch when you have a hun ho bunch of shell companies and you're funneling money in, you know, because your so-called, you know, uh, son, you know, has all this uh oil expertise and so forth? Or using the social media to hide the same son's laptop and say it was a Russian plant. You know, it's it's it's always such a um Oh, what's the word I'm looking for?

You know, it's good for them, but not us. It's a double statement. I'll give you something else, Steve. Did you hear him talk about people paying their fair share of taxes while his son is sitting to his left, who didn't pay taxes and was going to go to jail because of it? And then had some sugar daddy pay his back taxes, but knowingly lied to his accountant in order to avoid paying while he was off drugs, by the way.

And he's yelling at us to pay our fair share. Thanks, Steve. George in Missouri. Hey, George. Hi, Brian.

Hi, Brian. I think Michelle Obama is the leader who's taken the leadership role of the Democratic Party. Why?

Well, for one thing, the Obamas never left Washington. She's female. and black And Democrats have been pushing that position for the last 10 years. Where this is going to, well, also, she gave a cold shoulder to Trump, by the way, which Democrats like. But where this is going to fail, she has no experience.

She um she the the old Democrat plank planks That all burned up with California. But Michelle Obama is the only one who is MIA. She doesn't like politics. She believes that. She gave the angriest address at the DNC imaginable, condemns Donald Trump, and didn't want to sit next to him at Jimmy Corder's funeral, so she didn't show and will not go to the inaugural because essentially she wants to be consistent.

She thinks he's a terrible person. Awful person hates him, hates him as a leader and individual. Doesn't like Milani, I don't think, either. And she made that clear in her book.

So she says she's not going to go, but Barack's going to go, and I guess he's going to make, I think he kind of likes Trump, judging by the body language the other day. But I just, I think you, George, I appreciate your point of view, but I can't agree with it. I think if there's one person that made it clear they were out and they were never in. It's Michelle Obama. And when it comes to these funerals, Just because you're married to a guy that was once president doesn't mean you got to show up everywhere.

I mean, she probably barely knew Jimmy Carter. She's hanging out in Hawaii, and now she's got to go fly back and sit next to Donald Trump, who she doesn't like. And Donald Trump was probably thrilled. This is an extra President Obama as opposed to somebody that dislikes him.

So we'll see. I know this. Ashley Moody's going to fill in Marco Rubio's seat. We are in a pause over in Israel on the ceasefire deal. There are protests in the streets protesting the contents of phase one of the ceasefire deal in Israel.

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 Brian Kill Me Show.

So glad you're here. 1866-408-7669. Bot of the hour, one of the funniest comedians in the country, Anthony Rodia. He's going to be part of a Fox Nation Night of Comedy, first ever. I watched it taped.

It's great. He was one of the top. You know, Jimmy Phale is always fantastic. Carova has been great for 30 years. Jim Brewer has been on SNL, was great.

Anthony Rodilla is a real star, and he's going to be with us in the studio. Mark Thiessen is standing by. Couple of news items. First off, It looks like Ashley Moody, and it doesn't look like I can confirm, will take Marco Rubio's seat as the Florida senator.

So I guess he'll get the next four years, unless Florida has different rules. It looks like Vivek Ramaswamy is one of the leading contenders to fill J.D. Vance's seat in Ohio. WHIO listeners, I'm sure, would love that.

So let's get to the big three.

Now with the stories you need to know, it's Brian's big three. Number three. An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy. Shocker. I expected something a little bit more positive.

Didn't expect an oligarchy of taken over America. Train wreck. President Biden sums up his presidency with bizarre warnings and a remarkable lack of grace. Number two. The Israeli media is reporting that the delay has largely to do with the Prime Minister needing to buy some time to cope with vehement opposition to this deal inside his cabinet.

But broadly speaking, almost everybody accepts it's a done deal.

Well, not really. Done deal, not so fast. Phase one of the hostage deal now on hold. Is it hung up because of the Israelis or the Hamas? I hear it's Hamas, but it's not popular with many Israelis who are blocking major roadways in protest of the deal.

Number one. Are you prepared to advise the president not to pardon people who beat police officers? Who won the 2020 presidential election? Well, we met yesterday. You pointed your finger at me and said, You did not seem to be familiar with me.

Let me answer my question. Here we go. The Bond hearings. Trump nominations report on the Capitol. Bond got the full Heg Seth treatment yesterday.

I'm talking about Pan Bondi. But Duffy, Rubio, fly through the gauntlet. We preview today's scrums and Trump's push for Greenland and TikTok.

Something I don't understand. I don't understand President Trump's push to save TikTok. It makes absolutely no sense to me. It's like, would we like to give the number one social media and news device for the next generation of Americans to China? Nothing short of that.

Mark Thiessen, Washington Post, joins us now. Mark, I'm mystified. I know TikTok as a platform, it's powerful, but it's also. Invasive, and it's also China propaganda. Yeah, it is.

I mean, so they are collecting through TikTok. Once you download TikTok on your phone, they have access to everything. They have access to your passwords, they have access to your keystrokes, they are recording every message that you write. And then, like, when I send you a, I get mad at you and I write you a nasty message, and then I don't send it because you're my friend and I don't want to hurt your feelings. China has that.

I mean, literally, everything that you type, every keystroke, all your voice prints, all your data prints, that's all going into a central server that the Chinese Communist Party can use one day. And, you know, all these people on the right who got really upset about NSA surveillance after the 9-11 attacks. You know, they were collecting metadata. They were collecting who called who, and the idea that the federal government would have that kind of information about American citizens was outrageous. But we're perfectly fine with the Chinese Communist Party having all of our keystrokes, all of our passwords, everything we said.

It's, you know, I don't get it either. I'm just going to tell you what Mike Gallagher told us. He said, every single intelligence community official that testified before the intelligence committee suggested under its current ownership structure, TikTok is a threat to national security, which is why they have to be forced to sell and separate from ByteDance. And there are examples of them already doing it. And the CEO is making false claim after false claim.

And now he's invited to the inaugural. Yeah, uh he he he's a friend of Trubbs. That's that's the connection. But is that the same way we got in trouble with China? Yeah, I mean, my suspicion is that Trump says that he wants to have a deal to save TikTok.

And I think if Trump were to come into office and sort of force its sale from China, but save the platform, then that would be fine. But like, I mean, the problem, I guess you could, if I was trying to argue this from Trump's perspective, I would say having TikTok stop operating on the 19th is not good for anybody. There's a lot of people who use it, a lot of people who make their livings off of it, and all the rest of it, and that he needs some time to craft a deal to save the platform while divesting it from the Chinese Communist Party. Nice friend. Hope that's what he plans to do.

Thank you. So let's talk about the plot. If you had to draft a speech, and I want to talk about that too, because you've written so many speeches before for a Republican president, but this ceasefire deal is right now on hold. Nine Israeli hostages in phase one for 110 Palestinian prisoners.

Next, it's going to be men over 50. And it looks like the nine, which I guess has three Americans, that's what they say, but there's differing accounts on that. And the Hamas people that are going to be left, some of which are murderers that were not included in the original list. That's what the holdup is. But 50 Hamas fighters then get a chance to leave the Gaza Strip and go into Egypt for medical treatment.

A lot of people in Israel are not happy about this. The second phase, we get up to 33, and they're going to build on from there. Your thoughts? Um, my thought is I think it's time for all hell to break loose in the Middle East. That's my thought.

That Hamas should, I mean, the idea that I just think it's outrageous that they're releasing. literally hundreds of of Palestinian terrorists In exchange for these hostages, um, the Donald Trump's message to Hamas was: uh, release all the hostages, or hell's going to break loose, and we should just leave it at that. I don't think Israel should be making these massive concessions, but look, I understand that there's enormous pressure on the government there to get these hostages out. And I would like more the model of 1979 when Iran waited for the day of Ronald Reagan's inauguration to release all the hostages. Um and we gave them nothing in exchange.

That's what we got to get back to. And I look at what Tom Cotton said. Tom Cotton just said it. Here's the deal to offer Hamas and its patron Iran. You have five days to release all the hostages or we unleash hell.

That's it. Exactly. And by the way, it's not just Israel, though. Keep in mind that this is the President of the United States who whacked Qasem Soleimani. This is the President of the United States who bombed Syria twice.

This is a guy who's not afraid to use military force when it's necessary. Mother of all bombs in Afghanistan. Mother of all bombs in Afghanistan. And the Iranians keep in mind, because of what Israel has done, Iran has never been so weak. They've destroyed their ballistic missile capabilities.

They've destroyed their air defenses. They've done everything but take out the nuclear program. Iran is powerless to retaliate against us for this for this for a strike. I mean, and this is the thing, that what Donald Trump has told the Iranians, this was in his first term, his position was If you harm an American citizen, we are not going to hold you through a terrorist proxy. We're not going to hold the proxy responsible.

We're going to hold you responsible. And so the message should be to Iran. Get those hostages freed, or you're going to pay hell, all hell's going to break loose in Iran. And you know, and it can be a joint U.S. U.S.-Israeli military operation, but bomb the hell out of them.

Um until they release the hostages. They can't do anything about it because we because Israel has so decimated. And look how powerless they were. They they they they struck Isra they tried to strike Israel twice. The only person that was killed was because of because of a uh because of a uh a uh a missile canister that fell down on a Palestinian.

That was it.

So this is this is this is not a country that is in a position to be dictating to Donald Trump.

So we're seeing a lot of the nominations go pretty smoothly. And then there's the Pam Bonnie-Pete Hagseth clash, which really preceded and actually previewed the Cash Patel clash, which should be epic because there's a lot of people going to push back. But Cash Patel is loaded for bear, so to speak. Here's a little. of uh some of the friction that we saw yesterday cut to.

Are you prepared to advise the President not to pardon people who beat police officers? Senator, as I said, the pardons Are at the direction of the President. We will look and we will advise. I will look at every case on a case. Let me finish on a case-by-case basis.

I abhor violence to police officers. And will you be able to do hundreds of cases on day one? I will look at every file. I am asked. Of course, you won't.

So, will you advise the president? Can I answer the question? You were censured by Congress, Senator, for comments just like this. What do you think about the fight back? I love it.

I love it. Adam Schiff is a disgrace to the Congress. It's only the fact that he's from California that this guy can get elected. This is a man who, during the Muller, while the Mueller probe was going on, told the American people that he had seen classified evidence that Donald Trump colluded with Russia and that he was a Russian agent. And it turned out to be an absolute lie.

He lied to the American people. He told, he made them think that, well, the stuff we're seeing behind the scenes, when the Mueller probe comes out, you're going to see the evidence of these connections. And it didn't exist. He's an absolute liar, he's a disgrace. And good for Pam Bondi for pushing back on him and calling him out and saying that you were censured by Congress for what you did.

The best hope we have of immediately getting inflation down and getting the economy humming is, I think, energy. And the Energy Secretary nominee Chris Wright was on Capitol Hill yesterday, pushing back on the fact that global warming is not going to drive our energy policy. Cut six. The security of our nation begins with energy. Previous administrations have viewed energy as a liability instead of the immense national asset that it is.

To compete globally, we must expand energy production. including commercial nuclear and liquefied natural gas, and cut the cost of energy for Americans. We're moving that direction. And now he's going to get the pushback from the green maniacs that. that Joe Biden is so proud that he put forward.

As long as you can do a green project, as long as you have DEI and he'll hit all your marks. This is going to be the biggest difference that we're going to feel right away. And I think it's going to have a lot to do with the hundred executive orders the President will sign on day one. 100%. And by the way, this is one of the reasons why Trump wants Greenland.

Is because of global warming. There are obviously downsides to global warming, but there are upsides to global warming. And one of which is within our lifetime, the Arctic Passage, the Northwest Passage, because of melting ice, is going to be open year-round. That's the equivalent of a Northern Panama Canal. You're going to be able to, it's going to reduce.

the travel time for shipping from from the Atlantic Ocean to Asia to 20 days. Um, that is a massive economic and strategic uh um area, and so that's why one of the reasons why Donald Trump wants green is because we want to control the northwest passage, just like we should have never given up the Panama Canal. And in terms of oil production, one of the biggest challenges. He's going to have in terms of producing increasing oil production is Ukraine because. The sanctions on Russia right now, if we lift those sanctions as part of a peace deal in Ukraine, that is going to make it very hard to convince oil companies to increase production here at home.

We need to keep those sanctions on Russia and suppress Russian oil production so that we can increase American oil production, because otherwise it doesn't make economic sense for a lot of these countries. And same thing with Iran. Mark Thieson, thanks so much. Hope to see you in Washington, D.C., and catch up to you on the Rooftop at 101 Constitution. I'm moisturizing, baby.

You told me to moisturize before and after. And so I've got my moisturizer. I'm ready. See, someone listens to me. Why doesn't Eric doesn't listen to me?

Alice doesn't listen to me. I'm going to go to the Fox and Friends every morning, man. And I get drips when you tell me. Wait. See, sometimes I forget: will you just walk around naked until I tell you?

That's exactly.

Well, let's not go there. Thank you, Mark Deason. That's right. He's got a career to worry about. He's in a think tank.

Think tanks like that. Don't like that.

So. Quick announcement. As you know, February 15th. They just opened up the top level now. We're selling tickets so quick over at Florida Theater in Jacksonville, BrianKilmey.com.

We bring history to life through the seven best-selling history books that I have. We talk about this country in a positive, realistic, fun light. And then it's inspirational, patriotic, and motivational. It's great nights. We're bringing the show to Florida Theater in Jacksonville.

So go to Briankilme.com when we come back. News? For St. Louis, KFTK listeners, especially coming your way exclusively, breaking news when we come back that it will affect all of our listeners. Don't move.

Politics, current events, and news that affects you. Brian's got a lot more to say. Stay with Brian Kilmead. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Killmead.

So I announced that I was gonna be here all over my social media, and I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming, the emails. The email follow. Working for Fox. I guess we know who you voted for.

Yeah, well, I don't know if you heard. We don't have to deny it no more because he got the popular vote. Shut the f up.

So that's Anthony Rodilla. He's outside. He's going to be with us in about 10 minutes. He was part of Fox Nation's Night of Comedy, hosted by Jimmy Phela, featuring Adam Crowa, Jim Brewer, and Anthony.

So he's going to be here in the studio. We're also following, I got to tell you, that Ashley Moody is going to be the senator from Is going to replace Marco Ruby, senator from Florida. We do know this. This just came across. When J.D.

Vance is inaugurated as vice president, apparently his seat's going to be left vacant. Uh currently uh slated to co-direct the new Department of Government Efficiency with Elon Musk. Ramaswamy has said nothing on social media since he waded uh into the MAGA Civil War on the H-1B1 visa, and is he being exiled to Ohio is the thought, or is the Senate seat a reward? I think it's a reward. Are you kidding?

Because he goes for his political career? I think absolutely. One, you work for free in a thankless job that's only going to help the country, that's really not going to win you any favors. Republicans are going to be just as much as obstacles as Democrats.

So we'll see about that. They got to fill it quick. I mean, come on. It was hard enough to get the majority. Why would you leave that seat vacant?

So here's my announcement for St. Louis, KFTK listeners especially. We're going to be going to St. Louis and the date is going to be March 22nd. March 22nd.

It's coming up big quicker than you think. Super Bowl. After Super Bowl, we hit hyperspeed.

So I always love coming doing live shows there. We come on and talk on stage, and I was able to work with the whole lineup at KFTK. This time, I'm going to be able to talk about my history books in not a confined setting. I have no book tour. It's just my way of interacting with you guys on stage, talking about this country, where we've come from, where we're going, and then talk about what's happening now.

It's inspirational, motivational, patriotic. And I've never done the whole show in St. Louis, and it's time to go back without a book tour that has me leaving right away, so I get to stay. Go to BrianKilme.com/slash tour for a link. It's the pre-sale time.

So coming up on March 22nd, tickets now go on sale. Go to Factory STL.

Well, that's the password.

So if you wanted to do the pre-sale? Click on the link to buy the tickets, and then you put in the pre-sale passwords factory STL. Exclamation point. It's also on your website though.

Okay, just go to Briankilme.com. And that's the name of the place. What's the name of the venue? It's the factory. The factory.

That makes sense.

So I haven't been there, but I hear great things about it.

So we're going to be in St. Louis, right in that area. And hope to see everyone on that Saturday night. It's also Fox Nation co-sponsored.

So there's going to be all types of Fox Nation specials. And you're going to get to see some of the things that are coming up.

So that's pretty cool. Yesterday, I restarted the series What Made America Great, did Washington's Crossing and was out there freezing, but then felt bad that I was cold, knowing that George Washington did it in a nor'easter, crossed the Delaware with his guys who were depleted and they were down, and they managed to not only go across the freezing Delaware on Christmas night. Walk nine miles and take out the Hessians and turn a war around.

So I'll not complain again. But those are the types of stories they'll be able to bring to the stage and make you understand what makes America great.

So Anthony Rotia is next, and we'll have another breaking news. We're still trying to find if the pause is going to be lifted on that peace deal over in Gaza. Information you want, truth you demand. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. You can't be sensitive in this world, man.

Like I said, I was raised by immigrant parents. My parents are from Italy. They're not, they don't sugarcoat. If you were raised by immigrants, you had a very, very different childhood, okay? Very different.

Number one, I was disciplined.

Okay, I discipline my kids. I don't discipline them the way I was disciplined because I don't have the heart to hit my kid with a fig tree, but I was disciplined. That is Anthony Rodia. That's just one of the clips that he has from his Fox Nation's first ever night of comedy over at Long Island University. Beautiful theater.

It was packed. Jimmy Phala hosted Adam Carolla, Jim Brewer, and Anthony are here. And more importantly, Anthony, you're in the studio right now. It's great. So, how's the feedback been since it dropped on Filipino?

I've seen, I've had people at my shows since then that saw me there for the first time. They didn't know who I was, and then actually came to see my full show. And I said, what do you think? And they go, we like you better when you're not trying to be reserved. Because, I mean, I wanted to appeal.

When you do something like that, and you know, like so many different people are going to be watching you, you kind of want to appeal to a larger audience. And then when you come to my show where I don't have to, you know, really behave myself, I kind of go off the hinges a little bit. But the feedback's good. I was just not used to going first. I'm used to going last all the time.

Time.

So that was an adjustment to kind of set the stage, you know, for Jim.

Well, Jim really didn't open. I mean, Jim almost did a full set, didn't he? Jimmy? Yeah, yeah.

So I felt like you weren't even. I felt like Jimmy opened. Yeah, no. I know he MC'd, but I felt you. But I mean, when you have other comedians coming out doing 20, 30 minutes, you kind of have to set the stage for them, kind of raise the energy.

You know, and I'm a big fan of Corolla and Brewer. It was the first time I met both of them.

So I'm like, you know, these are guys that I looked up to in the comedy world that I have to kind of set the stage for them. And the crowd was awesome. I mean, what a hell of a crowd. But it was a good night. A real good night.

So. Do you find that once you do the material, you can still do it, right? Because some people say, well, once it goes on television, no, my material, like I had a guy come to me last weekend. He came to a Saturday show and a Sunday show. And he said to me, he goes, Dude, that was a different show.

I go what do you mean? And he goes, It wasn't this. I brought my family with me Sunday and I'm telling them bits that you did that you didn't even do. And I probably have, I would say, stuff that I'm using now, probably five hours of material that I condense into an hour.

So you I always switch it up. I might tell a bit. on that special and you might hear that bit told differently. At my show.

So I'm always kind of reinventing the material. But I always thought that also, like when I did my special, it came out in May. People, I'm like, my agent came to my show. He goes, Why'd you change everything? And I said, Well, they all saw it.

He goes, No, no, first of all, not everyone saw it. And second of all, it's like if you go to like a Rolling Stones concert, there are certain songs you want to hear.

Now I'm getting that. People are like, well, where's the bit about your dad and the battery? Why didn't you do this bit with your wife?

So it's kind of nice that people know my bits, but I don't think you have to take them out completely. Right. I thought that one. I want to play this other clip: Cut 34.

So I announced that I was going to be here all over my social media, and I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming, the emails. The emails are all. Working for Fox. I guess we know who you voted for.

Yeah, well, I don't know if you heard. We don't have to deny it no more because he got the popular vote. Well, shut up.

So there you are. You work with Verger for Fox. Do you find that people are loosening up on politics on stage now? I've never dove into politics on stage. But if you want to bring up something about Trump, some people get insulted, some people don't.

I'm just a firm believer. There's enough on both sides to joke around about.

So if you're going to joke around about it, don't make it one-sided, number one. Number two, people are still sensitive when it comes anytime you bring up politics. When you bring up politics on a comedy stage, the entire crowd, I don't care what they want to admit, they're sitting there going, I wonder who this son of a who did he vote for? I can't get a read on him. And I've never publicly said who I vote for, but I mean, it's kind of obvious.

You know what I mean? And it's not to say, like, you know, one lady goes, well, why didn't you, why wouldn't you go and perform on CNN's platform? Why Fox? I'm like, well, CNN's platform was pretty short-lived. I'm like, they don't have less than a week.

Exactly. But it's just people have to just chill out, especially when it comes to comedy. And the whole political thing, it's like, I want to go back to a time where you vote for who you vote for, I vote for what I vote for, and we don't characterize ourselves based on our vote. Like, if I vote for Trump, I'm not exactly like the person I vote for. If you vote for Biden, you're not exactly like the person you vote for.

They just represent certain things that you feel. earn your vote. And people automatically, you know, are you voting for Trump? You're a racist. You must not like black people.

I'm like, what are you talking about, dude? I look at my 401k and I look at my kids. I look at money. I look at economy and I look at war. If all those boxes are checked off, the guy got my vote.

Right. Yeah. It doesn't mean you want to hang out with everybody that's in the Oval Office. No, his hair creeps me out. Trump's hair creeps out.

Even though it's getting better, right? It's getting better, but it creeps me out. When the wind blows that thing, it moves in one piece. I don't know what product he uses. I'll golf with him, though.

I'll golf with him. He's using a hell of a golf. Hell yeah. Yeah. I golf four days a week when it's hot out.

Really? Yeah. Will you golf alone? No, you can't golf alone, do it. No, no, no.

But you go out there without a partner and just say, no, no, I made that mistake. I have enough guys because then you go pair with somebody. I get paired with a guy I wanted to strangle. I'm like, dude, I'd rather golf my wife right now. He's like, whoa, why is it so bad?

You're measuring shots. You shot a 70 on the front nine. You're measuring shots. You're throwing grass blades in the air. You're a horrible golfer.

Hit the ball. I'm like, you're not getting agree. I'd rather golf with my wife right now. Does your wife golf? No.

That makes it worse. She'd be complaining how hot it is the whole time. And I'll take that over golfing.

So I always golf with people I know. Also, a friend of mine does in Beth Page. If you're listening around the country, Beth Page is an elite course in the U.S. Open there. But they wait in cars.

They will wait in cars on a Friday night in order to stay in line. I mean, don't we have a better system by now in America? Beth Page Black gets so crowded.

Well, not crowded. It gets sold out so quickly that when I first buddy of mine said, hey, I got a tea time for Beth Page Black. Do you want to go? And actually, maybe it wasn't Black. Maybe it was one of the courses in Beth Page.

The role. We had a tea time. I'm driving to the course. And there are people camping outside.

Now I'm a hunter also.

So I said to my boy, I go, There must be some monster deer in Suffolk County. And he goes, No, there is. I'm like, dude, people are camping out. I'm like, how far does the hunting season go out here? He goes, they're camping out for golf.

I go, What? I go, just make it tea time because you can't, not for black. I think it's first come, first server, whatever system they have for black. And I saw people like sleeping in their car. I love golf, but I I'll go somewhere else where I'm going to be able to do it.

But I mean, you you would think that we would graduate. This is not nineteen ten. You know, we can go online. We can even go back to Pagers, although people are a little worried about Pagers. There has to be a reason why they do it like that.

Tell you the truth, I've played Beth Page Black. I'm not camping in my car. Of course, beat the hell out of me. You have to walk it. You can't take a cart.

I'm a big cart guy. I want a little drink in the cup holder. I'm not walking. I'm not going to golf to work out. That's why I'm golfing.

Right. Because I'm considering that my workout, but I don't want to beat the hell out of myself. Yeah, I'm not sleeping in my car for golf. I'd rather.

Well, the problem is with golf, does it hurt your relationship? Because when you finally do some time off, you're gone for four and a half, five hours with your buddies. That's a quick round. No, I tell my wife 12-hour rounds. 12-hour?

No, I mean, listen, my wife and I have a good understanding. Yes, sometimes when I'm away on the road from Thursday to Sunday, I know not to make it tea time on Monday. I'm not stupid. I study my wife. When she's running a fever, you know she can't do anything.

No, it's worse. That's worse. I'm abandoning the sex. I tried that. I'm like, give a 102 fever.

Yeah. We're not going to do anything today. No. You mind if I go swing something? She goes, I'll stab you in your sleep.

All right, I'll stay home and feed you teraflu. But I know, like, what I'll do is, I'll book her. I'll be like, hey, um. I I made a a reservation for you and your friends to go to lunch on Wednesday. She's like, that's so sweet.

Now I'm like, hey, I made reservations for you and your friends. She's like, just golf in. You have to send me my friends to a restaurant to golf.

So I I golf like On a good week, four days, but I also do it nine o'clock in the morning when the kids are in school, and I'm back before the kids get out.

So she has her break, I get my break, and that's it. All right. So, listen, a little bit more with Anthony Rodillo. We're going to take a short time out. Anthony is part of Fox Nation's first ever night of comedy, and it was so good.

I can guarantee you there'll be a second. You can get it. Starting last week on Fox Nation.

So download it and you'll be sure to laugh. Back in a moment. Educating, entertaining, enlightening. You're with Brian Kilmead. From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Kilmead.

So one of the parties here is is the owner of uh Pornhub, right? Yes. And what percentage of the material on that is not obscene as to children.

Well, Your Honor, if we're talking about the youngest minors, I would agree that most of it is. And that is how we read it. Is it like the old Playboy magazine? You have essays there by the modern-day equivalent of Gord Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr.

Not in that sense, but in the sense you have sexual wellness posts.

So That is a typical interest exchange in the Supreme Court. Justice Samuel Alito talking with, I guess, a guy that's fighting for the right for Pornhub to exist. Do you know, Eric? Yeah, it's essentially yoke, yeah.

So and any What did you say? Justice Tolito was very curious about whether Pornub has articles just like the old Playboy. I I love this guy. At the end, he comes back and goes, Yeah, but they do have sexual wellness posts.

So so this is good. For more on this, we brought in Supreme Court expert Anthony Rodilla. He also when he has some time, he does Fox Nation's Night of Comedy. Anthony, what about that exchange? Does Pornhub have some redeeming qualities?

Really? Alita was reaching. I mean, it's porn, dude. I mean, I'm at the point in my life now. I watch porn to see, because I've just recently got into acting.

I watch porn to see like what a horrible actor is. Right. I mean, the dialogue is almost comical, but no, there's no well-being in porn. I mean, you watch porn at like two o'clock in the morning on your toilet.

So you could have actually taken this case against. Yeah. It's stupid. Right. I mean, wouldn't you well-being?

Like, you don't watch, like, I don't say to my wife, hey, you want to try something new? Let me put up an instructional video from Pornhub. Right. You know, Pornhub is used when your wife, like, like, like, totally strikes you out. Right.

You're she's not in the mood. Right. And you need a little like kick-me-up or a jumpstart. A well-being? No, I don't look at porn.

I don't say to myself, I need some sexual wellness. Let me turn on pornhub and go to like the pizza delivery video. Because I do. That's where we're a little different. Do you?

Yeah. I'm looking for a wellness. I'm a little better at it. I'm always looking for some wellness. I love this Samuel Ludo.

I was like, listen. I used to read Playboy. They used to be great features, good columnists. If you remember, do people know what Playboy is? I think so.

Pen House? But I think if you picked up Playboy. And did any type of reading minus the name of the woman on the magazine. You're a complete idiot. Right.

Like, I have an uncle, and I tell him, you're a moron. Like, he had stacks of Playboys in the bathroom, and he would legitimately read the articles. I'm like, dude, there's a million other magazines. Like, you're reading to me, Playboy should be a picture book. Did you pull him aside and say this?

No, I said this around the table for a whole day. Because this is the Italian way. Yeah, you don't sugarcoat anything in my family. If you do something embarrassing, you have to be brought up in an embarrassing way. Right.

When you were on there, it would be crazy. But you are, you pull, you point funnels yourself. But Leslie, you just told me you were in Canada. Yeah. And you kind of, like, the problem with politics, people always, you know, there's always some people you got to take off, or you're not Trump enough, or you're too Trump, or too not anti-Trump enough.

But you're in Canada. What did you find in Canada? The mood in Canada right now is pretty nice to see. I mean, they're doing, I think, worse than we are in terms of like the economy and inflation. I mean, political correctness.

Everything. And they're excited. They're excited for change, man. I mean, just look at, I said it, I was talking. To an Uber driver, and he's kind of on the fence where he's not a conservative, he doesn't like Trump, but he wants change in Canada.

So he said, He goes, listen, he goes, I was so against it two, three years ago, but If Trump is in office for four years and doesn't fully fix the country but improves it and does most of the things that he's promised, and you see results, and then the Prime Minister, I forgot his name, but the Conservative Prime Minister becomes the Prime Minister and he fixes Canada, where you see improvements. Wh what are you going to say at that point? You know what I mean? And I think that's why a lot of people came out and voted for Trump this time is because now they had two playbooks. They had four years under Biden, four years under Trump previous, and they just compared it.

And they're like, you know what? My life was better four years ago.

So I'm going to vote for the guy that did that. And Anthony, I think you'll get the math.

Okay, inflation and income. And I got it. The other is the mood. Yeah. I mean, are you afraid to saint, especially you, you're a performer, DEI, you know, is the manager of the comedy club you're in?

Are they lesbian? Are they gay? Are they black? Are they white? They have to, everything that's put out today, every government contract, you have to have a diverse board.

You have to show that you went out of your way to give a contract to a minority company. All that political correctness of what you should say, women and men in women's sports. Right. The fever broke. We're out of it.

I think people just got fed up with being told what to say, being told what not to say, the nonsense. You've got a guy with a ponytail in a girl's bathroom, and people have daughters in there. No, that's not allowed. I don't, I don't care. You think you're a woman?

That's great. Be a woman at home. You're not going to be a woman in my daughter's bathroom. You know what I mean? So, but like Canada tried.

The manager said, hey, listen, I said, he goes, you know, we'd like to keep it lighthearted.

So if you could just, I don't know if you do, but stay away from transgender humor. And as soon as I got on stage, I go, you guys got transgender cops? I'm like, don't tell me that. I'm not saying something. I sold your venue out.

These are my fans. I can say whatever the hell I want. It's humor. Don't try to censor me with humor. I give laughter for people that need it.

If you're sitting there analyzing comedy and picking everything out and dissecting it to where now it upsets you, you should be far away from comedy.

So listen to this.

So Riley Gaines gets her men at a women's sports bill pass. Right, getting rid of transgender athletes in girls and women. And now it's got to pass the Senate.

So when AOC says this passes the House, this is what she says. Republicans, who have voted against consistently against the Violence Against Women Act, now want to pretend today that they care about women. And why? to open up gender and, yes, genital examinations into little girls in this country in the so called name of attacking trans girls. Trans girls Our girls.

What do you say to that? Trans girls are not girls. If you can pee standing up without arranging yourself, you're not a girl. I don't know. Did she go back to bartending?

No. There's two noises in this world that annoy me more than anything. It's her voice and Kamala Harris's laughter. The girl is trans girls are girls. No, they're not.

No, then they they they they don't menstruate. They cannot give birth. I don't care what. Would you know four years to three years ago that would have been a problem? You saying that?

Not to me. Right. A lot of people be like, you know, I'm offended by that. Good. Good.

I love that people that get offended actually think that I care that they're offended. You have softer feelings, so I need to change the way I speak. I'm a big fan of Ricky Gervais. And Ricky Gervais says, just because you're offended doesn't mean your opinion is correct and valid. You got offended.

Big deal. Move on. But have you felt it if you started doing that and they start saying, I'm sorry, I know you sold that, but we're canceling you. And this happened. It caught a comic.

You know? They're not doing that. They're not doing that. You get a venue big enough, they're not going to give up all that revenue because they feel like. And plus, my comedy is common sense comedy.

I don't go out bashing one group or another, I talk common sense. I had a situation at my gym. There was commotion outside after I worked out. I went to the front desk. I said, What's going on?

There were a couple of people outside, cops were there. They said there's a guy in the women's bathroom that won't leave. And I said, Oh, he identifies as a woman. I said, Okay. I said, Well, my wife is coming here in about two hours with my kids.

If he's still there, I said, I'll just walk up to him and I'll punch his teeth out. And the lady next to me said, That's disgusting. You can't assault somebody. If you punch his teeth out, you'll get arrested. I said, Not when I tell the cops I identify as a tooth fairy.

I said, I can't play this game. There you go. Absolutely. It's common sense. Do I want a man in the bathroom with my kids or my wife?

No. Right. I think if you want to play sports, Have a trans league. Have a league with all trans. Yep.

And, you know, and just do it that way. We'll go watch. I would definitely watch it. Absolutely. Anthony Rodia, we're going to watch you on Fox Nation, their first ever Night of Comedy.

Jimmy Phala, Adam Crow, Jim Brewer, and Anthony Rodia. Anthony, thanks so much. Where do we go to get your tickets anyway? RodiaComedy.com have all my upcoming shows. R-O-D-I-A.

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