Trump brings home an American prisoner from Russia; Gabbard confirmed as new DNI

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Code Spotify. From High Attack. Fox News headquarters in New York City. Always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kilmey Show.

So glad you're here, man. It is such a privilege. It's a pleasure to be able to report on news like this. It is coming in so fast and furious. People just say, oh, it's bad news.

It's good news. It is a lot of news. And the president is setting a pace that I didn't think was possible. And he's not setting a Republican pace or a Democratic pace. He's setting a common sense pace.

He's trying to get our country on track. Rich Lowry at the bottom of the hour and the man that he hired to start peace talks between and bring the war of Ukraine and Russia to an end, Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, will join us before heading over to Ukraine, special envoy.

So there's so much going on right now. Also, you could always get the podcast.

So if you miss us live, BrianKilMeShow.com, where a podcast that people seem to love. You can get a Fox News app or wherever you get your podcast.

So let's get to the big three. Number three. But here's the bottom line: if people don't like the Trump plan for Gaza, right now it's the only plan. And so I think it's now incumbent upon the Arab countries and our allies. We work very closely with them.

If they think they've got a better plan, we need to hear it. That is Mark Arubiel last night being scrambled to explain what's going on in the Middle East, but most of all about a hostage release we'll talk about momentarily. Deadline Saturday. That's the drop-dead moment for Hamas to hand over all hostages. Israel will bring hell down on them in Gaza.

The IDF is now welling up at the border. Not only is that Trump's deadline, but Bibi Netanyahu says it's mine too. Number two. I feel like the luckiest man on earth right now. I want you to know that I am not a hero in this at all.

President Trump. This is a hero. I am in awe of what they all did. That is Mark Fogel. He's a teacher, was teaching in Moscow from Pennsylvania, where he was taken unlawfully into prison and sentenced to 14 years.

But he got free last night. Fogel, hopelessly trapped in Russia's prison camp, gets a pass from Putin and comes home to the White House for a reunion with his family and meeting with the president and his team, how it all went down, and Steve Woodkoff stealing as a special emissary to bring him home. Number The most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000. We're like, well, why is that? All the retirement paperwork is manual.

on paper. There's a limestone mine where we store all the retirement paperwork. It's true. He's not exaggerating. It was created in the 50s to store our Social Security and our retirement paperwork.

He only do 10,000 a day. And when you go to retire, Bill Jones goes to retire. According to Elon Musk, no one denied it today, and they love denying Elon Musk is telling the truth. That you fill out the paperwork by hand and you keep it in a manila folder in a shaft in Pennsylvania. You got to see this thing.

This is what he is finding with his Doge team. And the Doge committee, there's got to be a committee, it's led by Marjorie Taylor Greene in the House, and they've got to meet today. And Democrats are teary-eyed in anger because of this, because they can't believe how they're cutting programs and revealing horrible billing structures.

So Donald Trump and Elon Musk thought, you know what, I'm just going to bring him out. And yesterday he calls the president to the White House. Here comes the richest man in the world. With a team. who is looking at our bills, looking at these divisions, looking at these agencies and deciding if they can be trimmed.

And my goodness, can they be trimmed? He believes if you use caring, And competence, we could save a trillion dollars. You, we don't have an option. This isn't repurposing money. This is getting our debt down because almost all our money goes to servicing the debt, and the interest rates.

Taken out now are going to be paid for in years at 5%. It was bad enough when it was 2%.

So here is Donald Trump. Talking about What the courts are doing to him.

So he passes rules to freeze all hiring. He passes rules to freeze all. Um Expenditures, foreign expenditures. He passes a bill to go in and get rid of agencies like Consumer Protection. Agency drummed up by Elizabeth Warren.

He passes a bill. To get rid of USAID and fold it into the State Department and dramatically cut it back. He writes and signs a I shouldn't say bill, I should say executive orders. I got to be accurate. He signs the executive order.

Susai, the Federal workers, there's 2.7 million of you. We can't afford this.

So we'll give you an option: six months, severance, you can go. Do it, decide in a week. Put in the subject title, resign, and we'll start the paperwork. Court stops it. Liberal judges are stopping it.

Now, what Joe Rogan said, I think, is so important because I think so many times he speaks for everybody. This is what people elected to get our financial house in order. We got the best guy in the world to do it. Why don't you let him do it?

So what else? The spending freeze I told you about, U. S. aid worker layoffs I told you about, a birthright citizenship they're stopping. It's not what the founding fathers intended.

It's not what the lawmakers did in the eighteen sixties after the Civil War to get African Americans to become naturalized citizens immediately. It's being abused, but that's a constitutional argument. I have no problem that working its way through the courts. They stopped the trans that we wanted to stop the transfer of trans women going into. Women's prisons.

So these men were going to be shipped back to men's prisons because suddenly 20% of the male population decides they want to be a woman, so they get to spend the rest of their life in women's prisons or serve their time. That stopped that.

So, the Doge access to the U.S. Treasury gets stopped.

So, these judges are out of control. One's a George W. Bush judge, and it's not for final rulings. These are delays. They also looked at the NIH and said, We're wasting a lot of money there.

These are foreign research firms. We don't want to greenlight this. We want to examine it. These indirect research payments to universities, medical centers, they want to put that on delay. That gets delayed.

Trump is trying to be responsible. Look at all organizations, even if it makes conservatives unhappy, and he's being stopped. Cut one.

Well, I always abide by the courts and then I'll have to appeal it. But then what he's done is he's slowed down the momentum. And it gives crooked people more time to cover up the books. You know, if a person's crooked and they get caught, Other people see that, and all of a sudden it becomes harder later on.

So, yeah, the answer is. I always abide by the courts, always abide by them, and will appeal. Yeah, I think that's good. Everyone's law, listen. Donald Trump will ignore the courts.

The vice president said it's not up to these judges to stop the executive branch from doing their job. No, he's a lawyer. I'm talking about Vice President Vance. People get panicky. They judge the president's going to do what.

Joe Biden did, and ignored the law and the Supreme Court ruling and just. Continue to forgive student loans like Joe Biden did. Remember that? Here's Elon Musk. And why he's doing what he's doing, cut three.

What are the two ingredients that are really necessary in order to? cut the budget deficit in half from two trillion to one trillion. And it's really two things. Competence. and caring.

And if you add competence and caring, you'll cut the budget deficit in half. And and and I fully expect to be scrutinized So If he if you just take some time to look at his background. You see what he's done? You see where he came from, born brilliant, but a lot of brilliant people I know never really excel. Obviously, I mean, the companies he's built, but he's done it by streamlining, constantly pushing his workforce, very similar to Steve Jobs.

Very similar to a lot of successful people. He makes some enemies, but he gets a lot of success. And people want to be pressed like that. And for those people in the federal government that want to be pressed like that to reach their potential, he is a godsend. If you just want to fight out your time and stay at home.

And if you're part of the 97% of federal workers who don't want to go to work, he's your nightmare. He also, if you're committing fraud, He's also your nightmare. Unless of course a judge wants to get in the way there, cut forward. What we're finding is that a bunch of the fraud is not even going to Americans.

So I think we can all agree that if there's going to be fraud, it should at least go to Americans. But a bunch of the fraud rings that are operating in the United States and taking advantage of the federal government, especially in the entitlements programs, are actually foreign fraud rings. They're operating in other countries and actually exporting money to other countries. We should stop that. Don't you think?

So if he could stop that, what's the problem? I think what they're going to have to do And I think we're going to get and as you guys know because you listen to the show, the Secretary of Treasury has been on our show whenever no one knew his name, Scott Pesent, and before anyone thought he was going to be a nominee, people said he's got a chance of being Treasury Secretary, and he ended up being he's going to be on our show soon again. And he's got probably got a the Treasury Secretary can look through these systems. And I think you just got to have a Treasury Secretary. person right by Doge's side.

As they go through this and have the experts analyze this. When we come back, I'm going to be joined by General Kellogg. He's going to tell us the latest on his mission to bring peace to Ukraine and Russia. And then we have Rich Lowry. Busy day.

Ryan Kilmichio. Politics, current events, and news that affects you. Brian's got a lot more to say. Stay with Brian Kilmead. Hi, everyone.

I'm Brian Kilmead. If you want something fun and easy to search for homes and apartments, then you should be using the Redfin app. Whether I'm searching for my next place, if I want to buy, if I want to rent, or if I just want to scroll through and see some dream homes, like for example, something on the beach or at least a walk to the beach, a big house, second, maybe a third floor, I use the Redfin app. Redfin makes it fun to search all the homes for sale and apartments for rent in your neighborhood. You can filter for price, for beds, for baths, square footage, and so much more.

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So, whether you're looking to buy, you're looking to rent, you're looking to sell, Redfin's got you covered. Download the Redfin app to get started. From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Kilmead. Returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.

A durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again. This must not be Minsk 3.0. That said, the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops. If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission, and they should not be covered under Article 5.

Because Article V would mean we're automatically at war if they're hit. Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg has been asked by the President of the United States to lead the delegation to bring Ukraine-Russia war as a special envoy to an end. General, your reaction to the Secretary of Defense's remarks moments ago. Yeah, Brian, thanks for having me. It's good to be with you.

Well, look, a lot of what he said. Um Is very, very accurate. You know, the chance of getting back to 2014 borders, you know, with the Crimea or the. Uh the Like in the Donbass region, as well, it's really frankly not realistic. And Zelensky knows that.

Zelensky has actually said that. And but here's the thing to remember, Brian: you don't automatically recognize that. You go back to what we did with the Baltics. And it used to be called the Wells Doctrine. And the Baltics after World War II were subjugated by the Soviet Union, but we've never recognized.

Their full occupation and saying, well, they do actually own that territory. That was the Wells doctrine with this. He said, okay, you can have diplomatic missions here. Then over time, maybe they'll You know, will the Soviet Union loosen its grip and they become free nations, which has actually happened. You have to think like that.

But I also think the President is very, very clear that he wants to he wants to end the carnage. And when you look at what's happening Actually, Brian, there, it's this is of World War two magnitude. when you look at the losses, look at the city of Mariupol, which is on the east, Totally destroyed. That's a city of 500,000.

Sort of like saying, okay, that means we've just lost Denver. or Atlanta proper, and you look at the casualties, and and you nobody can give you an accurate number of the casualties, but I will I am pretty confident in the same when you look at the casualties on both sides. You're looking at six, seven hundred thousand dead and wounded of soldiers, not alone, just discounting the civilians. Those are numbers that you just can't comprehend. Consider the fact that.

When you look at the numbers in the United States, we lost in Vietnam and also in Korea combined. was less than that. And you look at the size the Russian army has actually inside Ukraine this time, that that is bigger than the active army. Of the United States.

So we're levels that we're just not used to. And we're trying to wind this thing down. We're trying to say, okay, there's gotta be a comprehensive settlement. We've got to demand security guarantees. I wouldn't take anything off the table.

This is one thing I probably Disagree with a lot of my partners about that. I said, anything's off the table. That's the president of the United States, not. Yeah. And not Pete, not anybody.

That is the president's call. The president wants to do that fine. I'll let him make those comments, but we didn't get a single electoral college vote. Our job is to provide advice and then when the customer makes a call, we do it.

So general, where are you heading now? Are you heading over to the region? I'm going to head into Munich to Security Conference in a little while. spend three days in Munich and Security Conference. I'm going to be speaking there on Saturday, meeting a lot of our allies to make sure we get a full read about what they're doing.

And then after that, I'm heading to Ukraine. I don't want to give the exact dates, times, but I'll be in the Ukraine by next week and spend. time in there talking to President Zelensky. And the senior members of the military as well, and get a feel for what's actually happening there, come out. And then when we come out, we report back to the President.

It's sort of like what. You know, the Secretary of the Treasury is doing when he's over there. You know, he's airplane arrived okay right now.

So I know that Zelensky says he's ready to talk, and he's already talking about territory swap with Kursk, which they're not leaving from. They've wiped out almost all the North Koreans. They tried to attack them there. And they're trying to clear them out of Kursk, but the Ukrainians aren't leaving.

So having said that, Have you heard any indications from the Russians? Where are the Russians at that you feel comfortable telling us?

Well, I think what you need to do is step back and look what just happened last night. Those are called confidence building measures. Where the Biden administration didn't have that, there's no reach out to the Russians at all. The administration is reaching out, and that's what we mean by confidence-building measures to set conditions. For the President and Putin and also Zelensky to eventually meet and talk.

And I think that's what you're what you're seeing out there. The process being developed. I mean, it's not an easy process. The war has been going on, you know, in just a very short period of time here, three years of war. And the last administration didn't even talk to Putin.

Biden never even talked to Putin. He didn't talk for well over two years. That's a huge mistake. And President Trump is a big believer. He always has been.

Of reaching out to adversaries and allies alike and talk to them. That's one of the gifts he's got, the ability to do that. And they know that. And you just can't cut communications off. That's one sign of a leader.

He's very confident in his abilities, very confident in what he's going to say, very confident. That he can get this war ended. And that's where I am with the president. General, do you believe? Because you've been to the region so much.

Before you got this job, you were just going back and forth. You have so many contacts in the area. Do you believe that the Russians want this to come to an end? Intuitively, I do. I mean, what I mean by intuitively, look, the sanctions are starting to bite.

When you look at the sanctions, Brian, now I'm just talking the military effort because everybody always defaults to kinetic, to the fight. When you look at the economic pieces of it, when the sanctions we put in there, if you look at them, if you grade them one to 10, one being the easiest, 10 being the hardest, we're only probably about a six, but the enforcements are only about a three. If we really start enforcing those sanctions, it will bite primarily in the petrol sector, petrochemical sector, with the oil. Let's take one example, the shadow fleet they talk about. 70% of the oil that is being transmitted to other nations comes with a shadow fleet.

These are the tankers that are not registered.

Well, we've sanctioned every one of them. And they and most of those come out of the Baltic. Baltic Sea. You know, we did that in twenty nineteen, President Trump did, when he actually sanctioned we actually interdicted coal shipments coming from North Korea to China. But what would happen if we started interdicting all that oil traffic and kind of shut that down?

Those are the things that we haven't applied we haven't applied we have not applied full pressures to. And the president will, if necessary, do that. And that's where you start saying, okay, this will hurt you economically. He can talk all he wants. But when you look at what happened with Putin, he would not have brought in North Korean troops if he didn't have a manpower problem.

That's the first time they've ever brought in. um extraterr territorial troops since what happened in the Russian Revolution. That's how far back that goes. And when you look at the fact that he signed up with economic or peace treaties. With the North Koreans, the Sea Iranians, it also shows weakness.

I know, and you have a great sense of this. You really know the region, all the fighters. You've known that for years. Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, best of luck over Munich, and hope we can keep our audience abreast of all the negotiations. Thank you.

A talk show that's real. This is the Brian Killmeat Show. What we're finding is that a bunch of the fault is not even going to Americans.

So I think we can all agree that if there's going to be a fraud, it should at least go to Americans. But a bunch of the food rings that are operating in the United States and taking advantage of the federal government Especially in the entitlements programs, are actually foreign fraud rates. They're operating in other countries and actually exporting money to other countries. We should stop that. So he's being somewhat sarcastic.

Of course, he should stop it. But courts are stopping them. And it bothers me because this is the time for us to get the gears in motion to do some radical change logical change with our budgeting. It's hard enough tighten our belts on non-discretionary spending, but you can imagine fraud. Fraud, we should all be on the same page for this.

But the Democrats are beside themselves thinking that the world's coming to an end because an unelected Elon Musk is behind it. Everybody's unelected. Every cabinet secretary is unelected. The national security advisor is unelected. That makes no sense.

The border czar is unelected. No one's saying that Tom Holman, no one elected him. Rich Lowry joins us now, editor of NASA Review. Rich, put in perspective.

Some of the dynamics yesterday afternoon as Elon Musk and Donald Trump took questions from the press. Yeah. There's no context for it. It's totally new and totally different. Just that Oval Office press conference was so compelling because it was so strange and unusual, right?

A man wearing a black hat in the Oval Office, not wearing a dress shirt with a four-year-old that the president's kind of doing googly eyes with the whole time. It was extraordinary. And we learned things, right? We didn't know about the limestone mine. There's been some reporting about it, but no one paid attention to it or thought about it since 1955, which is what still exists.

And we've heard a lot about fraud and various government programs, but I wasn't aware that foreign actors were bilking our programs and exporting the money overseas.

So this is why you can argue about the legality of some of this stuff, but just having someone who's smart and committed running through the whole thing and running basically an audit in real time, double time, on the federal government is important, and no one should oppose it. Here's what Elon said. Here's a little of what he said. For example, this is the story that you just. referring to cut nine We were told, no, the most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000.

And we're like, well, why is that?

Well, because all the the reti all the retirement paperwork is manual. On paper. It's manually calculated, then written down on a piece of paper. Then it goes down a mine. And I'm like, what do you mean a mine?

Like yeah, there's a limestone mine. where we store all the retirement paperwork. And you look a picture this at a picture of this money. We'll post some pictures afterwards. And this mine looks like something out of the 50s because it was started in 1955.

So it looks like it's like a Time warp.

So do you want Elon Musk with his band of competent uh mini geniuses. who were cursed with this thing called being young? Do you want them to look at a way to expedite that process, allow more people to retire quicker and more effectively and efficiently? Or do you want to keep people sitting in a mine in Pennsylvania, and when Bill Jones goes to retire, they have to write it out manually, put it in the middle of a folder and call them on the phone? But first you gotta truck this down to the mine to store it.

So, these are the types of things that I think Democrats and Republicans should be celebrating, but they are protesting. Have you figured that out?

Well, the Trump derangement syndrome has subsided a little bit, and now we have Musk derangement syndrome, where the protests in the streets are about Musk. The calls to jail someone are about Musk.

So they've totally lost their minds. They're referring to a police state or a constitutional crisis because this guy is going through the Federal Government and identifying savings.

Now, look, there are questions about how much they can do in terms of restructuring agencies and whatnot.

Well, pass that through Congress. You know, Republicans have both the House and the Senate or put it in the reconciliation bill if you can. Get Congress to bless it. But who wouldn't want this guy identifying how to make the system more rational and cut out stuff that doesn't make any sense?

So here's what he said, though. He also was very honest, I thought, cut 11. You said on X that an example of the fraud that you have cited was $50 million of condoms was sent to Gaza. But after fact check this, apparently Gaza in Mozambique and the program was to protect them against HIV.

So can you correct this statement? It wasn't sent to Hamas actually. It was sent to Mozambique.

Well first of all, some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected.

So nobody's going to bat a thousand. I mean any you know we're good we will make mistakes but we'll act quickly to correct any mistakes. Is that interesting? Made a mistake there. And he's also said, you know, his approach with his private companies is we're going to cut it to the bone, and then if we find out we've cut too much, we put it back.

So this is a very kind of private sector attitude where the process is constantly iterative and you're learning as you go. But it's not how the government works as we learn from that limestone mine or that limestone mine represents because everything gets caught in amber and nothing changes and the bureaucracy protects itself.

So you have 10,000 people doing that job.

Well, you know, that's very secure jobs. They're not very useful jobs, as he points out.

So they're going to protect them and the union is going to protect them and nothing changes. And that's what he's there to disrupt. The bane of the existence so far, and for me personally, because I'm pulling for them to be successful, are these judges? A judge orders health agencies to restore data scrub by the Trump administration. They are now, because of a left-wing doctors group, President said, there's two genders, men and women.

woman And these judges say that's unhealthy and it's bad. I don't want to take that off my website.

So they found a judge, a sympathetic judge, that said you got to list multiple genders. On websites, because people will be irreparably harmed. I mean, this type of stuff, U.S. Judge John Bates agreed to issue the temporary order in favor of Doctors for America, a left-leaning physicians group that sued by claiming that scrubbing violated the federal law.

So now we have to have more than two genders. Gendered the fight against gender ideology continues with the courts going to bat for, I guess, the binaries amongst us. Yeah, so th this is annoying. I think on most of it Trump's going to prevail. And it's not as though this is an example where something can come reverse for the time being.

But generally it's been delays. Let's have a hearing. Let's find out what's going on. And that's annoying. And it's an interruption of Elon Musk's preferred pace, which is let's go as fast as possible.

But the scheme of things, you know, a pause on whether you can put on leave 2,000 Federal employees is not the end of the world. You fight it out in the courts. And on most of this, he's probably going to prevail.

Now, there are going to be big questions about the impoundment power. And I think like on the sexes thing, if the Federal Government can say, executive agencies can say, well, we have multiple genders, there's no reason the executive agencies can't come back and say, no, they're just two sexes.

So that just seems ridiculous. But whether you can just not spend a bunch of money appropriated by Congress, that's a real consequential constitutional question that will go up to the Supreme Court. You'll let's hear it. What's cutting and what is unconstitutional, right?

So you don't want a president in there going, you know, I don't think the Defense Department should be funded at this level.

So just because you agree with, I get it, just because I agree with what he's doing, it doesn't mean it's right, all right? There's a way to do it. But I think speed does matter. In a lot of these situations. I'll give you an example.

They say with FEMA, for example, the most recent audit of FEMA claimed it mismanaged $10 billion during the pandemic. FEMA even approved a grant of $1.1 billion, despite it only being supported by only a single piece of paper with no itemized cost. That's January 30th.

So Homeland Security.

So they find this. They want to stop this. They want to press this. They want to investigate this. And they're stopped from doing it because they're not a member of the Treasury.

So, okay. If the Treasury wants to maybe give security clearance or be present like a minder, During this time, do you think that would suffice? Yeah, it's a this is another thing, like we were just talking about, the gender stuff. If Treasury employees or government employees can review this these files or data or whatever, why can't other federal employees do it? And if it requires a special status, give them the status.

So this is another thing where I think ultimately there's very little doubt that Trump's going to prevail.

So the other thing is, he told federal employees, you got a six-month severance, all you can leave. 60,000 want to leave.

Now they're suing to not let them leave.

So listen to Hakeem Jeffries, Cut 14. The attack On you, the attack on The civil service? It's unacceptable. Unconscionable, un-American, and we are going to stand with you until each and every one of those unlawful executive orders are fully and completely reversed. This is this is what we're saying.

Yeah, people want to leave. Yeah. They weren't fired. They took an offer, a very generous one. How often in the private sector does someone say, you know, you can just hang out for eight months, not do anything, you know, to get all your vacation and all your benefits and look for a job or do whatever you want?

So of course 60,000 people took it. And why should that be revoked or taken from them? It's something they want. Last night the dharma wasn't over. Donald Trump welcomed in a longtime prisoner since 2021.

He's been held because he had a small bit of marijuana on him. It was with a prescription, medical marijuana for a back injury. His name is Mark Fogel, a teacher in Moscow. He gets arrested, jailed for four years. He had 14 to serve.

They said he was a big drug smuggler. He welcomes him back to the White House last night. Mark Fogel was imbuillant because he thought he was totally forgotten. Cut 22. I feel like the luckiest man on earth right now.

I want you to know that I am not a hero in this at all. And uh President Trump. This is a hero. These men that came from the diplomatic service are heroes. The senators and representatives that passed legislation in my honor to get me home are the heroes.

I am in awe of what they all did. My family has been a force. I think my 95-year-old mother is probably the most dynamic 95-year-old on earth right now.

So he's obviously happy. It looks like we're releasing somebody else, a Russian, in an American prison. I don't know who that is. I don't know what your reporting says about that. Yeah, don't don't don't know yet.

You know, th these trades are never great 'cause th there you have someone who is uh unfairly jailed and and uh basically a a political Prisoner, and we're going to have to trade some legit criminal, I'm sure, to get him back. But that's just what happens when nasty actors take your people. Hostage around the world. But Trump really cares about this. He has a knack for it.

And again, just the pace, Brian, like the Elon Musk thing we were just talking about, that would have been a good event to. 10 poll for a news day, right? Or maybe the J.D. Vance speech yesterday, or maybe this, but you got them all.

So I want to just ask your opinion. USAID, in theory, is supposed to help the developing countries and let them know through aid they become allies, when they can stand up on those two feet, they feel a reciprocal relationship with America, in theory. USAID has lost their way. It's pretty apparent. But do you feel as though if we pull it back all the way, that's an opening for China's Belt and Road program?

I wouldn't mind pulling it back all the way if you're looking at some alternative way to wield influence abroad in this manner by helping people or spreading some money around, because definitely the Chinese are doing it, and we need to pay attention to it and counteract it. We saw a great example of that in Panama, of course. Panama says they're going to pull out under Trump pressure from the Belt and Road. But USAID was another case of a bureaucracy run-amunk, and it had its own assumptions about how U.S. foreign policy should work, and they're kind of unchecked throughout Democratic and Republican administrations.

And the American ideal, Brian, is not woke ideology, right? That's not what it is, right? If we want to spread our ideals, I'm all for it. But trans operas and DEI programs aren't those things. I understand.

So we'll see what happens next. You know, I just had General Kellogg on, and he said the whole measure with the swap, and by the way, the Russians are now confirming that there'll be a Russian release from a prison. Uh the whole swap. Is a confidence-building measure. And that's why you saw Mark Fogel compliment Putin and Witkoff tell me this morning on Fox and Friends, he doesn't want to say anything bad about Putin.

Like, he didn't say that. He just basically said, We're in a process now.

So the goal is to end the war. We saw Pete Hagseth give a speech as Secretary of Defense that says NATO is off the table. Going back to the 2014 borders is off the table. But providing security guarantees is on the table. If I was to paraphrase, we're heading quickly towards an end to this, which I think is a good thing if done right, right?

Correct. Yeah. There should be a deal. It's not going to be a deal I'm going to be happy with. That was clear after the first year of the war when kind of Ukraine missed this opportunity in part because we didn't give them what they needed to push Russia all the way back.

Once that didn't happen, Russia is going to get some Ukrainian territory that it doesn't deserve and it took by force. And that's terrible. It's wrong. But it's a fact of life. And I think if Putin is the obstacle here, he's got to be afraid of what Trump's reaction would be.

So I think there's a good chance there's going to be a deal. Fascinating time. I mean, people are going to be studying this presidency for generations. Because I don't care what you think of it. He's breaking the mold on so many different things.

Yeah, especially FDR is 100 days we've talked about for 80 or 90 years. That was the model. And I think the same will be true here. I know your place is a place to do it at the National Review. If you don't mind me recommending that, does that upset you?

I'm flattered. Very flattered, Brian. Good job, Rich Larry. Thanks so much. Hey, I'm going to take some calls when you get back.

Rich Larry, thank you very much, General Kellogg. Great job. You're listening to the Brian Killmeek Show. Extremely busy day. We will accept nothing less than full victory.

Total victory incoming. We cannot be defeated by force of arms. It's Brian Killmead. We will bring freedom to others and all who defend her. A radio show like no other.

It's Brian Killmead. Now, the Disruptor-in-Chief, Elon Musk, who apparently has adopted the alias, at least he changed his social media handle to Harry Balls. Tweeted this morning, democracy in America is being destroyed by judicial coup. An activist judge is not a real judge.

So going by, that was Dana Bash. Having to read, you know, Elon Bass. Because this is one of Elon's guys, or Harry Balls. And they changed his name.

So the fact she's reading a serious news thing, and she had to say he changed his name to Harry Balls. They are just, they have no idea what to do themselves. I mean, they're just so angry. They don't understand. Like, why don't they look at the results?

I watched Jake Tapper after this Musk press conference with Donald Trump. He goes, Yeah, a lot of allegations, no proof.

Okay, sorry. Michael in Jefferson, Georgia. Hey, Michael. Good. Good morning, Brian.

It's always all about the money for the Democrats. What else are they going to use? for fundraising.

So fire up there Yeah. against the evil musk and the Russian Mussolini. Just to earn money. I think that's what it's all about. What do you think?

I don't know. I just, I don't even know what they're yelling about. I mean, what are they yelling about? Are they yelling at. I mean, are they upset about the guys?

Okay. You don't like what he's proposing on Gaza? I got it. But you're yelling that Elon Musk has free rate? No, he doesn't.

Know exactly what he's doing.

Well, he's unelected. Of course, there's only two people elected.

So, what else? What are you mad at? That he's not, he's no longer a Democrat, who, by the way, used to be critical of Trump like many people. He used to say, Well, Donald Trump is a BSer. And now he goes, I really like the guy.

The more I'm with him, the more I want to be around him. And I like to spend my free time trying to fix the government, not to make it better for SpaceX. It's I'm not to make it better for Tesla. Which by the way, Tesla's hurting in Europe now, they say. because Tesla is looked at as a Trump car now.

A lot of people in Europe don't like Trump.

So please tell me how he's benefiting. He also said: examine any of the contracts I did with the government. You can't find one that the government didn't benefit from. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show. Brian In Kill Mead.

Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kill Me Chow. I come to you from 48th and 6 in Midtown Manhattan, where it's snowy again, got about two inches. We can handle it, but can I just say? I'm sick of it, and we're getting worse in a couple of days. We're rocking virtue now as Marjorie Taylor Green is the.

Subcommittee chair of the House Oversight Doge Committee.

So the first ever Doge subcommittee is taking place. This is going to be fiery big time because they don't like Elon Musk and they don't like the closing down of all these agencies, but they all want to reduce the deficit, but no one wants to make any hard decisions. Dennis Ross is standing by, one of the premier minds of Middle East. He is the distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Julian Epstein, Democrat, serves as chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee.

He's going to be with us at the bottom of the hour. And we'll follow all the breaking news. We know this that Caroline Levitt will brief at about 1:30 today. The president's got a series of executive orders to sign.

So let's get to the big three. Number three. But here's the bottom line. If people don't like the Trump plan for Gaza, right now it's the only plan. And so I think it's now incumbent upon the Arab countries and our allies.

We work very closely with them. If they think they've got a better plan, we need to hear it. Yes, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, deadline Saturday. That's the drop-dead moment for Hamas to hand over all the hostages or hell comes down on them in Gaza. Guess what?

Netanyahu's on board. The IDF is staffing up at the border. Number two. I feel like the luckiest man on earth right now. I want you to know that I am not a hero in this at all.

President Trump. This is a hero. I am in awe of what they all did. Yes, that is Mark Fogel, obviously happy. Hopelessly trapped, he seems in Russia in a prison camp.

Suddenly gets a pass from Vladimir Putin and comes home to the White House for a reunion with the president and his own family of Pennsylvania. Senator Mark Dave McCormick did a lot of good work to get him out, and Steve Witkoff was the catalyst behind it.

Now, we are letting go of a Russian prisoner. No word on who it is. Number one. The most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000. We're like, well, why is that?

All the retirement paperwork is manual. on paper. There's a limestone mine. but we store all the retirement paperwork. How crazy is that?

Elon Musk speaks and Trump conducts and reveals the fraud and abuse in his mission to cut trillions from our budget. I don't remember a more compelling, unscripted moment in the Oval Office we review because the courts are stopping both men from doing their job in many ways for now. Uh let's bring in Dennis Ross. Ambassador, great to have you back. Always good to be with you, Brian.

How do you feel about Trump coming out and saying noon Saturday, the drop-dead date, or all hell will break loose if you don't return every hostage? I don't think that's going to produce the outcome that he wants. I think it was one thing for him to. to make that threat prior to the time they became president. I actually think that gave Qatar and Egypt a lot more leverage than they had, or at least more leverage than they were prepared to exert.

on Hamas and I think they said to him, but you need to We need to have a ceasefire before he comes in, and once he's in, then it'll be difficult to resume the war.

So the fact that the President exhibiting great Impatience, legitimately so, with the release of the hostages, especially after you see the images of people who look like. Holocaust survivors. I understand the impatience, the frustration, and even the anger. But I also think that basically, Hamas at this point is not convinced by those kinds of threats. First of all, it's not the US that's going to be doing it, it'll be the Israelis, and secondly, They've experienced a lot of this already from the Israelis, so it's not clear how different that will be.

Thirdly, they're basically waiting to see is Israel actually going to follow through on it? And the messages coming out of Israel are not that. The messages coming out of Israel are related much more to make sure you release the hostages you're supposed to release this weekend. Prime Minister Netanyahu, who directly and indirectly sent mixed messages yesterday. First embracing the idea that all the hostages had to be out.

then relating it more specifically only to the hostages who were scheduled as part of phase one to be released.

So, I wouldn't, I mean, I hate to say this, I wouldn't get my hopes up that you're going to see. the hostage, all the hostages released. As of this weekend, I suspect we will see the three who were supposed to be released at Hamas said. they were putting a hold on. I don't think this is what's going to transform the situation right now.

So this doesn't seem like a mixed message. I didn't see the time stamp on it, but Netanyahu put out this statement. In light of Hamas's announcement of its decision to violate the agreement and not release our hostages, I instructed the IDF last night to amass forces inside and around Gaza Strip. The operation is currently underway and will be completed as soon as possible.

So that happened Tuesday. Right. except that after he made that video statement, then he had A quote political official, who's usually him, comes out and say. within an hour, a message which made it clear that it was the hostages who were supposed to be released. not necessarily all the hostages.

So that's why I'm saying a mixed message. Let's wait and see exactly what happens. I think what you're really seeing right now is negotiations. going on. Hamas was basically reacting to the the the Israeli is going slow in terms of starting Phase two negotiations.

They're playing upon what they see or the desire of the Israeli public. The Israeli public at this point. As hostages get released, more and more there's a fundamental sense that we have an obligation to get them all out. What the President's saying about get it all done now. makes perfect sense.

The problem is that Hamas wants the war to end before it's going to give up hostages. Prime Minister Netanyahu, for the sake of his coalition, is is not prepared to commit to an end to the war, especially with Hamas still in control of Gaza. The problem is, he doesn't have a simple answer for ending Hamas's control of Gaza. That's the issue we're really having to contend with. Here's what King Abdullah said: you know, the President of the United States says: we'll take Gaza, we'll fix it up.

And then we'll let everybody come over and it'll be the Riviera of the Middle East. King Abdullah was asked about that, Cut 37. He's of Jordan. King Abdullah, what do you think about the U.S. taking over the construction?

Do you want to see the U.S.? own the Gaza strip?

Well I think as I said earlier, the President is looking at Egypt coming to present their plan. As I said we will be in Saudi Arabia to discuss how we can work with the President and with the United States.

So I think let's wait until the Egyptians can come and present to the President and not get ahead of ourselves.

So what do you think? Read between the lines, Dennis Ross. You know what I think is Probably what the President at least partly had in mind and and the clip you ran from Marco Lubio. If you don't like the idea we're offering, then come with a practical one. One of the problems with the Arabs, and Brian, we've talked about this for a long time.

You wrote about it over and over again. Right. They they come with slogans. All right, well slogans don't solve problems. come with a practical problem, and it should be based on the following principle.

Here's how we're going to do reconstruction. Reconstruction will be tied to demilitarization. and not only demilitarization, but Hamas not being in control of Gaza. The Arabs come with a plan for how to rebuild. With the readiness on their part to bring in stabilization forces to run an administration for 18 to 24 months.

uh until you can create a a Palestinian administration. Basically a reformed Palestinian Authority that can come in and play a role over time. Then you're talking about something. In a sense, then you could give credit to President Trump for having, he puts out a call that shakes up the situation. leads the Arabs to come back with something practical, which would not have happened without him having shaken up the chessboard, as it were.

I mean, in a way, for someone that studies all these things and sees these small, tiny steps, to have someone come in there and say, I don't know, we'll just take it. He can't live there. Let's just have him go somewhere else. And everyone says, Wait a second, whoever? That's the craziest thing I ever heard.

And then they see an urgency to go down there, correct the record, and come up with something else.

So you're 100% right. The other thing is. The two-state solution, Ambassador, I don't know if you could possibly say that has a future. I mean, if you're the Israel. You don't want it.

And if you're the Palestinians, you walked away from it. I mean, you had that beat, you had a possibility of it, but after October 7th, You have shown that it's never going to work for you, and the Israelis can't ever let that happen again. And you just can't. If we had the Palestinians living in Mexico, and the Mexico were as against us as the Palestinians are against Israel, we would not tolerate it.

So why should the Israelis? A, they shouldn't have to tolerate and they shouldn't tolerate anybody who is next door whose purpose is to destroy them. Right, that's a fact. Let's start with that early. And they keep saying number one.

No, no, that is look. Until the Palestine narrative becomes one of coexistence, not resistance, then a two-state outcome is impossible, number one. Number two, for Israelis, they need to see that Palestinians Don't just live that talk, but they begin to act in a way that demonstrates they're prepared to. to truly accept coexistence, but that also means You have to condemn what Hamas did. We need to see among Palestinians and Arabs condemnation for october seventh, which we have not seen except from very few like the UAE and Bahrain.

There needs to be explicit, unmistakable condemnation. of this. That's number two. Number three. The problem with one state is There is an Israeli national identity that is deeply tied and rooted to the land.

There's a Palestinian national identity which can't be whisked away. What Palestinians need to understand is you have national aspirations. You will never achieve those national aspirations. until you can demonstrate The you're prepared to have a state that doesn't have independent militias that will not align with Iran or extremists That is committed to the idea that it it lives next door with its neighbors and cooperates. that will reform itself so it will not be a failed state.

In other words, I don't want to exclude the possibility of a Palestinian state, but I want the Palestinians to be able to demonstrate not just in words. but in deeds, that they're actually committed to living in coexistence. Until they do that, until they stop. focus on only slogans. until they can separate themselves and condemn those.

who did October 7th. then a Palestine state is simply not realistic. The reason I don't want to accept one state is because I think it's a prescription for an endless conflict. We have two national movements with two separate national identities competing for the same space. The Palestinians as a national identity.

are unlikely to give that butt up and you can't simply wish it away. But one of the things that has plagued the Palestinians always, and you said it when you were asking the question, they had a chance for a state. I was the author of the Clinton parameters that would have given them a state. You can hear what President Clinton has been saying about it for the last year. They had a chance for a state, and they didn't take it.

And they can't now turn around and say, Okay, but you owe us a stake. No. Prove you are prepared to earn the state. Then we can talk about that. I just don't want the Israelis to act in a way, especially with ministers like Ben Gabrier and Smoach.

to act in a way that makes it impossible to ever have a Palestinian state. That I think ultimately will guarantee that we have an endless conflict Here I would just say we can get the Arab states to play a role, not in place of the Palestinians, but basically to work with the Palestinians in a way to develop them and to convey to the Israelis, okay, look, We're for a state, but we also understand Palestinians have to meet a series Of real benchmarks and demonstrated over time, we're prepared to play a role in terms of developing that. That will also give the Israelis confidence, okay, this is not just an illusion and this is not just a strategy designed to destroy us over time. Right, so we'll see what happens.

So, Saturday, you're not predicting any mass release, but I would say that some people are looking at the strength that Hamas has shown in returning the hostages, brand new uniforms, guns, riding in jeeps, and thinking there's much more left than we thought. What's the reality? Because they said there's between 17 and 20,000 dead Hamas fighters. Yeah. I think the reality is it's somewhere in between what we're seeing and their destruction of the military.

A, they're no longer a military. They don't have command control. They don't have organized units. The vast majority of their weaponry has been destroyed. Most of their infrastructure has been destroyed.

But they still control Gaza. A lot of what you're seeing is a very deliberate show to try to create. You see how much we're in control. I don't want to say it's solely a Potemkin village because it's not. One of the mistakes the Israelis made was not to listen to David Betraeus.

Petrea said you have to go in. And you have to clean, hold, and build. And when you build, you create security for the Palestinians who are there. You begin the process of creating an alternative to Hamas. The Israelis didn't do that for a whole variety of reasons, partly related to the politics of Netanyahu's coalition.

That's a mistake. That's why they've been back in Jubalia for the fourth and fifth time, Beeta Noon for the fourth and fifth time.

So there needs, this is why I was bringing in the idea of the Arabs, you need to create an alternative to Hamas. You can't beat something with nothing. And if you leave a vacuum, they'll just keep coming back. It's true that there's probably 20,000 of their fighters who have been killed. There's probably another 10,000 who have been wounded.

But they, as long as the Israelis are there, they become a kind of focal point for recruitment. And so that's it's in Israel's interest to find a way out. And so Prime Minister Netanyahu said from beginning, we don't want to stay in Gaza. And he was right. They don't want to stay in Gaza.

So the key is what's the right strategy for creating an alternative. uh the the notion that they can just go in and make them disappear We defeated ISIS. They have defeated Hamas. We still have people on the ground in Syria and Iraq. Because ISIS, you can't eliminate ISIS, it's an idea.

You have to get the the population to discredit them. They can discredit them, but they also have to be secured from them. The strategy for securing the Palestine population from them is a strategy that unfortunately the Israelis did not develop. Dennis Ross, it's going to be an interesting, let me see, 72 hours. We'll look forward to getting your insight.

Another chapter in this very violent history. Ambassador Dennis Ross, thank you. My pleasure. Always good to be with you. You got it.

We had that hostage swap. It looks like a swap. We know about Mark Fogel. He's the teacher who was picked up for unlawful reasons and kept fourteen sentences of fourteen years in prison. He was just brought back to America.

Here's who he was brought back in exchange for. He was brought back in exchange for a man named Alexander Vinnick, who had pled guilty in San Francisco federal court in 2024 to twenty-one counts of money laundering. More on that when we come back. Brian Killmead show, don't move. It's Brian Kilmead.

The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Killmead. Where's the game? You're not going to be satisfied till he shows up with 10,000 pages. I'm going to go to the bottom of the page.

He's giving very specific things. But he's not actually giving any evidence of that. It's all going to come because what they also said was: if we have to go to Congress, we'll go to Congress. Right, but we'll show where we're going.

Some of the details that have come out, like the $59 million spent on luxury hotels, it's actually not the... You're talking about the FEMA money that was abused for migrants? That was FEMA money for migrants, that's okay now? No, I'm not saying it's okay. Don't put words in the middle of the market.

So would you stop that? Would you stop that process? Don't be a dick. What I'm saying is the portrayal.

So Anderson Cooper obviously lost his mind. That's why no one watches him. That's Governor Chris Sununu. He's bringing up the fact that fifty nine million dollars in FEMA money go into legal aliens, federal money, By the way, it's cost New York like $12 billion over the last four years. And it's not all Texas's fault.

People just coming here because the border was wide open. And then all of a sudden fifty nine million dollars goes to FEMA and they said no more payments. And he did it anyway.

So that these people, like four people, got fired because of that. But that's okay with Anderson Cooper. But until Elon Musk does some screenshots of some of these things, you're not going to believe him. You wait. The corruption is beyond comprehension, and it's not anybody's fault, it's everybody's fault.

If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Killmead. They're not course correcting at all. You know, they're saying stupid. It's all nonsense.

We don't trust the New York Times. We don't trust the Washington Post. We don't trust CNN or any of the MSNBC where they're all full with propaganda. Yeah. And so that's why the internet rose.

It's not because there was some sort of Right-wing conspiracy and heavily funded. You know, you guys suck. You guys. Yeah, yeah. And you're not real people.

That was obviously Joe Rogan talking about the idiotic pushback on Donald Trump, Elon Musk, who were doing things like trying to tighten our budget, looking at programs that aren't working. There are two genders, and there are certain things that Democrats are never going to subscribe to. The hell with that. You know, if you won men, transgender men and women's sports, it's not going to make you feel good, but that's done. You lost the election.

It's an 80-20 thing. 80% of people agree, maybe 85% or 90%. But Democrats are digging in literally screaming and cursing outside the Capitol building because they don't like Elon Musk and disagree with Trump. I've never seen such Uh For uh formulatic uh tantrums that we're seeing right now. Julian Epstein joins us.

He serves as counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, staff director to the House Oversight Committee. He's also, you see a lot of his columns in the New York Post. Julian, welcome back. Ryan, thanks for having me. Great to be with you.

First off, do you agree with Joe Rogan? I do. I do. I think the Democrats are doubling down on dumb. I think the stagecraft With these protests.

Schumer yelling, we will not quit. Uh the stagecraft has been awful, and I think the politics are awful. I mean, the Democratic Party, we we spoke last time about whether the Democratic Party would learn from the election when we were talking about the end of the Obama era. I don't think they are. I think it's it's the party of woke excess.

Giving out COVID payments by racists, it's the Party of incompetence, just look at the LA fires, and now it's the party of covering up waste. I just don't think the party leader Leaders get it. I don't think I think they. Democratic Party, if they were smart, they would consider replacing their leadership. And when you ask why only three in ten Americans approve of the Democratic Party, this is why.

I want you to hear what they're doing and how they're fighting back. It's quite interesting. Cut 13. And I'll tell you, I'm from Jersey, so I look a little differently. Yeah.

Trump! I don't swear in public or involved. Hey, I just want to correct what a couple of my colleagues said. They used that word in front of Donald Trump's name. What they meant to say?

Donald Trump and Nelon Nuts I mean, if that was a high school rally, well, everyone would be suspended. Seriously. I mean, if you were you know, you would go you have a rival, a crosstown rival, Yeah, that that would be I mean and they're cheering like little kil like drunk children. They have so little self-awareness as to how bad they look on this. And what they're doing is they're playing to a very, very narrow segment of the electorate, maybe 20%.

that is extreme left that likes this kind of stuff. But for the rest of the country, They're saying, why aren't you dealing with these issues about Um You know, transgender operas and DEI programs in Serbia and drag shows in Peru. And the evidence of USAID being involved in the Wuhan Lads or money getting US taxpayer money getting to terrorist groups or condoms for the Taliban. Why aren't you dealing with any of these things? Why aren't you dealing with the sort of the corruption that any of them show?

And the democratic argument has been absurd. It's said, on the one hand, oh, it's not a big part of the budget.

Well, that's not the point. I mean, that's only an argument that somebody could make who has never really had a real job and never had to. You know, do the hard work to pay the taxes as much as 50%, sometimes more than 50% of your income goes. To state and federal taxes. It's the kind of mentality that you would have if you've never really had to work or meet a payroll.

But secondly, The argument from the part of the Democrats is there's a constitutional crisis, and there is no constitutional crisis. The President has broad f powers. I used to be Staff Director of the Government Oversight Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Budget Act and the Empowerment Control Act, which all of these uh disputes involved The President has very, very broad authority. very broad authority to um Uh to other reduce spending the workforce to eliminate programs like USAID that were developed by an executive order by President Kennedy in nineteen sixty one. President has broad authority.

And what the courts are going to do here is just maybe nip him at the edges. Maybe say things like statutorily required spending, that things that are earmarked, you have to spend on. But very little of the federal budget is actually earmarked.

So the President has plenty of authority. You want a couple of examples of a President holding back congressionally approved funds? Look what Joe Biden did on the wall. I mean, that on when he came into office, the wall had congressionally authorized funds. He said, Oh, we're going to do a bunch of studies on it.

He found ways of not spending what Congress had mandated. Look what Joe Biden said in 2014 with A to Ukraine. He said, You better fire this prosecutor that's investigating Burisma, where my son works. You better do it before I leave in six hours, or you're not getting a dime of this congressionally authorized. Four and aid.

I mean, there are tons of examples of Democratic presidents having done this kind of thing. But the more important point is the President's authority is very, very broad legally on this. The President Trump is observing whenever the courts have put the brakes on it. Trump has not blown that off. But ultimately, it'll be found that the President has broad authority and that Democrats, what they should be doing is saying, yes, Biden made a bunch of bad mistakes.

In terms of this waste and abuse, let's get in and help you fix it. Rather, they look like they are defending the indefensible. And I think what they're really worried about, Brian, is You know, Elon Musk is a very smart guy. He's starting off small at USAID dollars, it's 40 billion. It's a lot of money to you and me, but what is coming next is you're going to be looking at programs like the Department of Education.

where you've got two hundred fifty billion, a quarter of a trillion dollars going each year. For what looks like just a massive failure in public education. Oh, yeah, I mean, the numbers don't lie.

So that's a good point. But right now, our judge is keeping Doge from the Department of Education. And here's the other thing: Elon Musk was talking about what he is doing and why he's doing it. And he said, right now, we're paying most of our money and servicing our debt. And the rates that are going to come due are going to be twice which they are now.

Here's what he said: cut seven. What we're talking about here we're really just talking about adding common sense controls that should be present that haven't been present.

So you say, like, well, how could such a thing arise? That seems crazy. When you understand that really, everything is geared towards. Complaint minimization.

So then you understand the motivations.

So if people receive money, they don't complain, obviously. But if people don't receive money, they do complain. And the and the frost that's complain the loudest and the fastest. Yeah, and and he said uh this when he comes to uh he when he comes to uh what he wants to do, cut eight. Your your tax dollars need to be spent wisely.

aren't the things that matter to the people. I mean, these things like it's just common sense. It's not draconian or radical, I think. It's really just saying: let's look at each of these expenditures and say, Is this actually in the best interest of the people? And if it is, it's proved.

If it's not, we should think about it. And it's really not that complicated. And the question is, if you want someone From Treasury there. That's what a judge just ruled. Then someone from Treasury's got to be there.

Then just put them there, or her. Put them there. Oversight. But that's that person's not elected either. Scott Bessingt wasn't elected.

One is a cabinet secretary and one is an adviser.

So, if you are upset with Elon Musk, why are you not upset with Tom Holman?

So, why were you not upset with all the czars in the Obama administration that had all kinds of power? They didn't want to go through confirmation.

So, if Elon Musk was giving Tesla subsidies and nobody else, I'd be the first one complaining. If he was trying to box out Boeing from space, I'd be the second one complaining after you. He's not doing any of that. He's sleeping on a cot in a drab building next door when he could be running any of his seven companies. That's correct.

And he's going to have the public with him. I mean, um you know again sort of the the Democrats here There has been, I mean, I remember when I was staff director at Government Oversight. we documented hundreds of billions of dollars of waste. And there has been that in every administration the last probably sixty, seventy years as the federal bureaucracy has become increasingly bloated.

Now that went on on Steroids under the Biden administration, at least apparently, it went on steroids with all sorts of woke agenda. of the of the Biden bureaucracy. The Democrats, if they were smart, they would be trying to figure out how to work with Musk and reform the federal bureaucracy. But to your point, the president has unquestioned and unilateral authority to manage the executive branch. And this idea.

That only subordinates can look at the payment systems when the supervisors look at the Treasury Secretary or even the President himself or the President Designy and Elon Musk. Don't have the right to look at these systems. There's just no way that survives in the appeal sports or at the Supreme Court. And this is all headed to the Supreme Court, I think. And the president will be found, you know, as is proper, that he is the head of the executive branch and he has broad authority to manage the executive branch.

So this is a losing fight legally for the Democrats. It's a losing fight politically for them. And again, I just think this shows that they have not learned anything since the last election. They're going to come up on the wrong side of this. Give us a couple of ideas.

Bring us back to the 90s when Newt Ingress, he later got ousted, and Bill Clinton worked together and they balanced the budget. We always play it once in a while. The State of the Union address, Bill Clinton says we have now zero deficit. We balance the budget. right?

And then in comes the nine eleven attacks and George Bush and the collapse of the dot com bubble. I don't need to relive it, but what happened back then that reluctantly Democrats and Republicans were working together despite the controversy with the impeachment?

Well, people trusted each other. I mean, even during the impeachment process, I remember of Bill Clinton. I mean, the the the chief counsel of the judiciary committee on the Republican side and I, we were friends to the point we would have lunch regularly. And we trusted each other even when we disagreed. But we we but I think the parties trusted each other on On issues, even when they disagreed.

So they worked together. And what Clinton and Gingrich did with the budget desi, remember when Clinton came in, you had a two. A two hundred billion dollar deficit. He turned it into a two hundred billion dollar surplus when he left. And that was because they fought on a lot of things, but at the end of the day, they came together in 93, 95 and 97 on budget deals.

That squared away a lot with what was wrong with excess spending. You had Al Gore in there, who was. During the reinventing government bit, and he was working with Republicans, he was reaching out. And the parties were working together to get rid of fraud because fraud and waste and abuse. Does nothing other than helping the grifters.

of which there are many and of which there were you know there seem to be plenty in the Biden administration, which is one of the reasons the Democrats are screaming right now and caterwalling. It does nothing but decrease people's trust and comfort with is good about government.

So it's a different era now, Brian. Unfortunately, the party no longer has that sense about let's come. cut unnecessary spending, let's work with businesses. To be a pro-growth party. None of the sort of sensibility of the 90s Democratic parties is with the current Democratic Party.

And that's why, again, I think they find themselves in the dumps when it comes to public approval. And this is going to get worse. Because what what what what what Musk is going to do, he's going to go agency by agency. And I think you ain't seen nothing yet With what he's found in aid, you ain't seen nothing yet when it comes to other agencies.

So, this is going to be dripped out for the next four to five months. And it's going to be an argument that the Democrats are not going to be able to win. Go get him, Julian. I look forward to your next column. Julian Epstein, thanks so much.

All right, right now the first ever Doge subcommittee hearing is taking place. I think we're probably going to do the bipartisan partisan attacks on each other. I hope not. But uh Stephen Lynch is talking right now, the guy with the Boston accent. We're going to come back and maybe play some of that and then update you on what's happening with the swap between the Russians and the U.S.

They say it's a confidence building, maybe towards ending the fighting in Ukraine. Let's hope. Brian Kilmicho. Breaking news. The latest headlines.

Exciting commentary. People are aroused. I haven't seen people so aroused in a very, very long time. It's Brian Kilmead. Radio that makes you think.

This is the Brian Kill Me Show. The United States of America is the leader in AI, and our administration plans to keep it that way. The Trump administration is troubled by reports that some foreign governments are considering tightening the screws on U.S. tech companies with international footprints.

Now America cannot And will not accept that, but also remind our international friends here today that partnering with such regimes never pays off in the long term. From CCTV to 5G equipment, we're all familiar with cheap tech in the marketplace that's been heavily subsidized and exported. by authoritarian regimes.

So that was Vice President Vance overseas in front of all world leaders talking about the takedown of a lot of AI companies, the people looking to circumvent them. If it's for competitive means, join the club. But if you're just trying to curtail American success in your country or social media freedom of speech, as you heard Mark Zuckerberg and others say, I got a huge problem in Europe, a lot less problem here. You have somebody advocating for you. Anyone on, just give an example.

If someone says hate speech and terrorism, take it down. But if someone just is saying something you disagree with, leave it up. And he also is pushing back. He says we're leading the world that's got to stay that way. And we'd like to be with cooperation with you guys.

And between that and Secretary Hagseth coming out saying, hey, Europe, we're going to be pivoting a lot to China. That's going to be our focus. You need to build up your defense. Poland is the standard bearer, and they got five percent spending on their defense. You guys do that too.

So I think there's a lot going on. We always threaten to pivot to Asia, but something happens. I wouldn't be surprised at fomenting that is China and Russia to keep us focused on the Middle East. And they're really determined not to. And the only way to do that is to make Europe pretend that they're fighting for their own future again, and they don't feel like they are.

Nate, you're living in Georgia and you're on the air. Hello, Brian. I heard you say you can't understand why the Democrats are so upset about AUSAID and these cuts. and Elon Musk is taking away their ability to indoctrinate the people of the United States. Because people will vote for a candidate based on values.

If their values match that candidate's, they will vote for the candidate.

So USAID is promoting six hundred seventy eight news outlets across the world. And uh So they're indoctrinating adults through that. And the next place the congressmen and Republic senators went was the Department of Education. And that's how they indoctrinate the kids.

So If Actually, going after their power base of voters because if nobody has those values, nobody will vote for the Democrats. Thanks so much for the call. Here is Elon Musk on USAID, Cut 10. USAID has been one of your main targets. Are you concerned at all that some of the cuts or that shutting that agency altogether may lead to diseases or other bigger problems starting in other countries that then come to the United States?

Yeah, so that's an interesting example.

So that's something where we work closely with the State Department and Secretary Rubio. And we have, for example, turned on funding for Ebola prevention and for HIV prevention. Yes, correct. Um We are moving fast, so we will make mistakes, but we'll also fix the mistakes very quickly. How great is that?

You made a mistake, put it right back in gear. That's what you need. If you say you're perfect, you walk on water, people say, well, I know you're not telling me the truth. Hey, don't forget, coming up this Saturday night, Fox National streaming, February 15th, Jacksonville, Florida Theater, BrianKillMe.com. See you live in person.

From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Kilmead. Man, we got a lot going on. Brian Kilmeicho coming your way. We have so much happening right now.

The first ever Doge Committee subcommittee is being met. And of course, people like Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, who has had bouts of sanity in his career, comes out and says this is the biggest threat to democracy ever. Billionaire buddies trying to take over the country who are bitter despite all their success. If I could just paraphrase, what are you talking about? Cutting the budget, fake payments, overseas, black payments, black attacks, cyber attacks who are ill-equipped to stop, long people retiring and people having to write up the paperwork by hand and putting it in a salt mine in Pennsylvania.

That's what the best country in the world should be doing. Can't be reformed. Martha McCallum in 20 minutes. Bhati Unger, Sargon now. Also, we're getting word on what happened yesterday with the return of Mark Fogel, unjustly imprisoned in Moscow, sent to 14 years.

The teacher had medical. Marijuana on him, and they said he was a drug kingpin and gave him 14 years in a penal colony. He was basically forgotten by the Biden administration and now let out and let free in exchange for somebody who was convicted of a crime in San Francisco of Russia descent, I assume he's Russian, of a cyber crime.

So he's out and the swap began. It's been called a confidence-building measure. We're also looking at a drop-dead date for Hamas. If they do not return all the hostages by Saturday at noon, it looks like the Prime Minister of Israel and the President of the United States say all hell will break loose and the IDF mounting at the border of Gaza again. Batia Unger Sargon is standing by.

She's a journalist, author of Second Class, and a fantastic, insightful commentator. Batia, welcome back. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Brian. It's so great to be here with you.

Yeah, I also love listening to you on the Free Press. You do a great job with Barry Weiss over there. I know you like to do fun battle with different people that just can't handle that Donald Trump won the election.

So we'll see. First off, didn't it fascinate you last night to see Mark Fogel come back? I didn't know he was even on the table. And then today we find out that a Y-College criminal from Moscow Convicted of cybersecurity, uh cyber threats or cybersecurity threats, and he he's swapped out. all building towards some type of next piece to the puzzle with Russia and Ukraine, so many pieces are moving at the same time.

It's so Unbelievable, Brian, what we are seeing right now. We are seeing government simply working for the American people. I never thought I would see something like this in my lifetime, where a president is elected with a mandate. He knows exactly what that mandate is from the American people who united around him. The working class united around Donald Trump.

They marginalized the elites who have been smearing them for decades, who have utter contempt for them. And they said to Donald Trump, this is the mandate. Bring back common sense on cultural and social issues. Balance the budget, no more foreign wars, bring peace through prosperity, and create an economy that lifts up. hardworking Americans without a degree.

That was the mandate. And Donald Trump has not Stopped since the second he got into office. It is unbelievable the efficiency, the work the non-stop Energizer bunny. Fashion with such a colour. Clear cut view.

Just Absolutely. shredding bureaucracy, absolutely shredding terrorists. Absolutely sure. Shredding the open border, getting rid of everything that hurt Americans that they wanted him to do a 180 on. And look at how he's delivering every single day, and not just day, all night as well, as we saw last night.

Right. So, Batia, we know that the president's going to be signing more executive orders today. Yesterday, he brought Elon Musk in to answer questions. They answered everything. Right now, the first ever Doge subcommittee meeting is happening.

Democrats are still continuing to rage. Simultaneously, Tulsi Gabbard's getting set to be confirmed as DNI, Director of National Intelligence. Of course, they've got a rant. Senator Wyden's got a rant first, and then we'll see what happens from there. We know that General Kellogg is heading over to Europe and then over to Ukraine, it looks like, to start on those talks.

He's in charge as special envoy, and then we see what's going to happen in the Middle East. I want you to hear what Elon Musk said yesterday, because it basically echoed what you just said, cut eight. Your your tax dollars need to be spent wisely. aren't the things that matter to the people. I mean, these things, like it's just common sense.

It's not. It's not draconian or radical, I think. It's really just saying: let's look at each of these expenditures and say, Is this actually in the best interest of the people? And if it is, it's proved. If it's not, we should think about it.

And that's what his approach is. Right now, in the subcommittee, they're accusing Elon Musk of making sure his 100 government contracts go well and he gets $8 million a day from the federal government. He has already answered that question. He said, The federal government has made out great with me on all my projects. We got yourself an electric car, you got yourself charging stations throughout the country, you got yourself a space program.

Look at Boeing. How did they do compared to SpaceX? You also have Starlink. You might also have chips in brains. I'm not sure if that's federally subsidized at all, but they also have a tunnel program called the Boring Company trying to relieve traffic in metropolitan areas.

So, why people think Elon's doing this for his own sake is insane. You know, I'm very happy to see this subcommittee convening. Marjorie Taylor Greene is at the head of it. You will not find a more America First Congressperson than Marjorie Taylor Greene. If there are any conflicts, She will tell the American people about it.

I mean, this is not happening in the abstract. It's happening. Elon Musk is now part of the executive branch, and now we have Congress having their own committee and their own version of oversight when it comes to Doge. And so that made me feel a lot better about all of these potential conflicts, I have to say. Yeah, I have really no problems with it.

And he also admitted when he made a mistake, so we'll see. They are going to talk about it now. But what about the 55 court cases that are out there to slow down this administration's look at the billings, ins and outs, the invoices come in and out of this government? Does that worry you that we're just going to have a massive slowdown and we'll never get this close to getting fraud out of our government again? Here's the way that looks to me, Brian.

You've got one side of the political aisle that is doing everything possible to fulfill the mandate of the American people to stop waste. To spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars well. And then you have another side of the political aisle, which it turns out, Includes not just the Democrats, but a lot of judges and a lot of FBI agents and a lot of leakers and people trying to slow down this process and slow down Tom Holman's God-given job to protect the American people. And it's very clear now. How?

Much of that deep state bureaucracy at so many levels is aligned with the Democrats. Basic mandate to to waste, right? slow down to harm the American people. At what's happening here, yes, I want Donald Trump to have an amazing four years. I want him to get everything done, but you know what?

If they really do. Do this insane thing. of trying to stop the American people of getting what they voted for. That's also going to be okay, Brian, because in four years there'll be another election and they'll get another shot at this. Things are getting very clear very quickly, and you can see how the Democrats Are scrambling.

I am so disgusted by these Democrats standing out there braying and screeching and weeping about this USAID that God forbid the hard Earn taxpayer dollars of hardworking Americans are not going to make it to all of these. foreign beggars and recipients for their Oh no, what's gonna happen? Never seen Democrats this exercised when it came to standing up for American citizens. It's so Gross, but it's also a huge mask off, and I'm grateful for that. Yeah, Governor Pataki came out and said he formed his own foundation to help the Ukrainians.

He could get no cooperation from USAID, and he's bringing in heaters and he's blankets and food and rations and guns and everything. And USAID says could not get out of their own way. They were filling out paperwork, totally ineffective. He said, and he's not born a Trump fan, he said, I'm all for Donald Trump gutting this organization. At the very least, Batia, why not put it with the State Department?

So if it's going to be policy, why not put it under the Secretary of State for policy? Stop doing your own thing. Listen to Chuck Schumer. Tell me this guy's not out of touch. Cut 15.

Everyone knows there's waste in government and should be cut, but Doge is using a meat axe, and they're cutting things that are efficient and effective. If you want to make cuts, Then you do it through a debate in Congress, not lawlessly by just implementing them.

Well, I mean, do you need to debate all these. Yes, there's major policy changes? Absolutely. But in terms of this consumer protection organization drummed up by Elizabeth Warren, 1,700 people were told to go home. USAID, you're not listening.

Joni Earns tried to talk to you. Two years ago, you told her to jump in a lake. They took the sign down and canceled the lease. That's the way he's looking to get things done. He doesn't have much time.

It's just amazing how the Democrats are willing to come out and without any shame. Put their names and their faces to the proposition that everything that sucks about government has to stay just because it already existed. It's like the dumbest thing you've ever heard. And this is an audit. This is what an audit looks like.

It's a very effective audit. And we have seen that President Trump has been willing to reverse course on things when they don't actually work out for him. He's working very fast. They're breaking some stuff and they're going to end up. Serving the American people, and I think it's so clear that people can see that his approval ratings are so high.

Because this is what he was elected to do.

So, right now, they're downtown border crossings, about 300 a day. It was about 8,000 at the peak with Joe Biden. They are beginning to get people, stories of people turning around en route to coming here. And there was video of 10,000 Mexican Marines going back to their southern border. And now I talked to a sheriff up in Pottsburg, New York, who says that the Canadians are already making moves to seal the northern border.

So Tom Holman was shocked to hear the Pope being very critical of Donald Trump and his administration for trying to keep illegal immigrants out. Listen to Donald Trump's response. Excuse me, Tom Holman's response as border czar, cut 44. Look at how this works for the Pope. Pope wants to fix the Catholic Church.

I'm saying this as a lifelong Catholic, I was baptized Catholic, our first communion as a Catholic, confirmation is a Catholic. He ought to fix the Catholic Church and concentrate on his work and lead border enforcement to us. If he wants to attack us from securing our border, He's got a wall around the Vatican, does he not?

So he's got a wall around protect his people and himself, but we can't have a wall around the United States.

So I wish he'd stick to the Catholic Church and fix that and leave border enforcement to us.

So well put. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. The Pope can't wait to see the Catholic President who is loves abortion. was fighting for abortion every single day.

Couldn't wait to see Joe Biden. But he has a huge problem with Donald Trump.

So, I mean, it's just so obvious that this Pope is a politician and he's Argentinian and he's got some bias towards us. You got to factor that in. I love that Tom Holman took him on. The other thing is, President Trump said this when those hostages came out last week. Two weeks ago, when we got some hostages out, obviously, under mental and physical torture, the female hostages released have a horrible story to tell.

But physically, they didn't look nearly as bad as the men the following week. Here's what Donald Trump observed. Are you going to talk to Prime Minister Benjamin about the Saturday deadline? Sure. I mean, it's just my deadline, but they may change it, but I think it's.

I've seen too many people come out. They look like Holocaust victims from from many years ago. I've never seen anything like it.

So, why do you think that was important for him to use that analogy, which is 100% correct, by the way? I've never seen A president Whose heart beats For the Jewish people, like Donald Trump. And it's very sad, Brian, because the majority of Jews are Democrats and they can't see it. But I mean, just for him to go out and mince no words, yesterday he called Hamas bullies. He said these are bullies.

And you know what? I've learned over the course of my life, President Trump said. He said, the thing about bullies is they're always the weakest person in the room. That's how he sees Hamas, and he is so absolutely accurate. And he has such a clear moral view.

And I think on this issue, just like on immigration, you have these leftists with this fake Uh compassion. For all of the worst people, So they believe that their compassion means you have to allow Hamas to keep ruling the Gaza Strip and force the Gazans to stay there. Or they think their compassion means you have to allow these cartels, these terrorist cartels, to control our southern border and traffic people and rape people and kill people and enslave them and then shove them into the American labor market and undercut American wages. That's what compassion means to them. And Donald Trump just showed up and said, It's actually the opposite.

You guys are totally, totally full of it. This is fake. ultimately leads to so much more cruelty. I'm going to say the unpopulars. That's true.

suffering under Hamas. who are bullies and terrorists and must be destroyed. They have to be allowed to flee if they want to. I don't care if it's unpopular. to have a southern border.

These cartels are terrorists. undercutting American workers. I have compassion for Americans. What's wrong with that? And that is how he intends to lead, and how he is led, and how he led in his first administration as well.

Projection, real quick, about what's going to happen on Saturday at noon if all the hostages aren't released? Because it looks like Dennis Ross was just over there and he's releading all the mixed messages. He says it's somewhat mixed messages. The Prime Minister said, I abide by that.

Now he's pulling back by that. He might just go with the four at a time. What are you thinking? You know, since the beginning of this war, Israel has had two conflicting jobs to do. They have had to rescue as many hostages as they could and get them out, and they've had to destroy Hamas.

And of course, those are in conflict with each other because they could have just used 2,000-pound bombs, you know, bunker busters and destroyed every single one of those tunnels. But they would have, you know, God forbid, also killed some of the hostages in doing so. And so they've been in this impossible Sophie's choice situation from the beginning. We also know that the IDF pretty much knew where a lot of the hostages were. They just couldn't get to them because they get a number.

What is the percentage chance that this mission will succeed? If it's below 50%, they don't go in. If it's above 50%, they go in. And that's how they rescued Noah Argomani and those other two guys.

So they know where a lot of the hostages were. And they've had this conflicted. Horrible, horrible choice. Do we go after Hamas full-throatedly, or do we hold back, try to save some hostages? And then, of course, with the Biden administration's constant push and pull, they did not have the freedom to do what they needed to do.

So, God willing, you know, God will be, you know, the wind in their sails and they'll figure this out. Batiangaris Argon, thanks so much. Uh, great insight, so much going on. Doge hearings continuing. Martin McCallum coming up shortly.

Don't move, Brian Kilmead show. You're with Brian Kilmead. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show. Went a little long, but Martha McCallum's here.

Martha, we have a DNI, the Director of National Intelligence, and it is. Telsie Gabbard. Gets Murkowski, Susan Collins. I'm not sure any Democrats. I think she got Fetterman because Fetterman seemed open to voting for her.

He did. We haven't seen the full list yet, but this is obviously a very strong development. It really is remarkable how well, when you think back to how some of these names, when they were first announced, people sort of scoffed at several of them. That will never happen. We know that the history of approving a president's picks, especially when you have the House, the Senate, and the White House, is that all of them get through.

I mean, John Tower is the only person who didn't get through as Defense Secretary under George H.W. Bush since then. But there was concern that we live in a new world and that we saw what happened last time with Trump, how long it took for him to get all of his people through.

So this is a huge development, and these people are ready to get to work. Then RFK could also be today, have his closure vote. Yep, absolutely. And then Cash Patel would be next. They got Labor Secretary in between there.

Howard Luttnick is that. That should be a layup. That should be about 80 plus 40. Yeah, there are a number of people still in the hopper, but they are moving right along. Right, so he's got to get a staff.

Can you imagine that? The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. We're finding tremendous fraud. and tremendous abuse.

If I need a vote of Congress to find fraud and abuse, it'd be fine with me. I think we'll get the vote. Although there'll be some people that wouldn't vote. And how could a judge want to hold us back from finding all of this fraud and finding all of this incompetence? I don't know, but they all are.

There's been 55 lawsuits, and we know about seven have gone through to slow down the Trump train, which through executive orders was hoping to reform government. Through a lot of it's coming through Doge, others coming through the agenda they want to run on, like having this horrible idea that there's just two genders in this world. Can you imagine that? Pushback from a left-wing doctor group. A lawsuit filed, it's on hold because they said it would be too damaging to take down the More than two genders.

Text online. It's crazy the pushback. With me right now is Martha McCallum getting said to host her show at three o'clock today. I'll be on at some point. But right now, we're watching a lot of intriguing hearings.

First off, the good news, I think, because Tulsa Gabbard, I'm a fan, the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii is now the newest director of national intelligence. Yeah, I think that this is good news. I think she's an earnest servant of the U.S. government. She served her country in Iraq.

She was there during some of the most heated times. During the battle. She saw a lot. She understands the sacrifice that's made by the men and women who go to battle for our country.

So she has a lot of support behind her. The amazing thing is that we heard early on when some of these people were named, oh my gosh, that person's never going to get through. This one's never going to get through. He lost only one, which was Matt Gates, who withdrew early on for defense. But the rest of them have sailed through.

I would ask everyone to remember how difficult Brett Kavanaugh's process was for the Supreme Court, dragging on for weeks. I think some people anticipated you were going to see some of that based on different issues that came up along the way. But the president is getting his cabinet. This is what history has dictated for many, many years. And they're moving much more quickly than they did in his first term.

Right. I guess the inflation report came through, and the stocks are beginning to dip. We've lost 400 points.

So inflation went up to 3%. Yeah, it continues to be a concern. Here's the thing about inflation: it's very hard to get rid of it. The issue for the Federal Reserve is to nip it at exactly the right time. We were told by the Biden administration that this was transitional, that they weren't concerned about the prices of eggs and all the things that obviously people were very concerned about during the election.

Once it is in place, it is very sticky and it's hard to get rid of it. And that's what we're seeing now. It's not surprising that you're seeing this. And President Trump has said that he wants to have more control over the Federal Reserve. He wants to see rates come down.

He sees that as a good balance for the tariff programs that he wants to put in place.

So that's going to be another battle on his list, and we'll see how he does. Right. So we've got a couple of things in the air right now. The press secretary is going to speak at 1:30 this afternoon. This morning, the Ukrainian Defense Contact Group has had opening remarks over in Brussels.

Now everyone's on the train of we got to bring this thing to an end. And Pete Hakes had said to the Secretary of Defense this morning, there's just no way you're going back to 2014 lines. And there's no way that Ukraine should be in NATO. And there's no way that Europe shouldn't book up their defense spending because we're going to pivot to the Pacific.

So these are some major moves. I wonder about the wisdom of telling everyone that you're not going to be in NATO because that's something you want to negotiate with Vladimir Putin directly, who Martha seems that he's getting closer to getting to talks with this president. Unless that conversation has already happened with Vladimir Putin and that that is an accepted Point in this negotiation that the United States will say that Ukraine is not on a fast track to be in NATO. This has always been Putin's major sticking point. This is the only nation along that border that is not part of NATO.

So it's no surprise that this is the nation that he invaded. He wants to pull back that territory so that he gets NATO off of his borders, at least in that one section.

So none of this is that surprising. I think one of the clear things, you know, Hagstep is the Secretary of Defense is clearly saying everything that President Trump said on the campaign trail, basically, right? It's the same terms that we've heard.

So he is speaking with one voice with the President of the United States on this, and they want to see a resolution. I spoke with Yaroslav Trofimov yesterday, who's a great Ukrainian writer, Wall Street Journal chief foreign policy writer.

So he knows the situation so intimately, having been raised in Ukraine and his family there. But he said people want the war to end. And that even giving up some territory. They will not consider that territory to be Russian. They will consider it to be part of a negotiation and part of something that needs to be reclaimed in the future.

So Alexander Vinnick is the Russian who is in U.S. custody, and he is being exchanged for Mark Vogel, who came out yesterday, now Vogel, I should say. He is somebody that has been convicted of cybercrime. They say he's a cybercrime kingpin.

So even though it doesn't sound like that big of a thing, it is because what they can do to an economy, what can they do to steal or embed in our infrastructure, which we're witnessing now that China reportedly has done. The Department of Justice, under Vinnick's operation, they say the BTC facilitated over $9 billion in worldwide transactions, serving as one of the main ways for cyber criminals to launder and move their criminal proceeds. He created that cryptocurrency exchange, BTC. Yeah. So he is now out.

It's not Victor Boot, the the The Doctor of Death, but he's gone. You know, because basically we heard there was no trade for anything, for anyone. But now we're learning that this person is out. Certainly, even if it is the case that this is a one-for-one, we understand there's another person who's going to be released today. We're waiting to get some details on that.

But think back to the Iran deal to release people from Iranian prisons back to the United States. The exchange was six for six plus $8 billion on our side. And I remember talking to John Kirby: like, how is this an equal deal?

So we'll see what the terms of this are. You know, it is troubling, especially in the context of what we're hearing in this Doge committee today about how cyber criminals have figured out how to tap into all of our benefit systems and drain them of money. Billions of dollars and direct it towards things like human trafficking and drug trade.

So, I mean, that makes me look at this guy and say, well, what was he doing? Was he taking taxpayer money as well if he had an understanding of our systems and how to tap into them? I don't know. But this same issue, in some way, has been brought up this morning at these Doge hearings.

So, Steve Witcoff was on with me this morning. He's the former, the Trump Special Envoy to the Middle East. And I asked him about what about this other hostage, Cut 30? Yeah. I hear there's another hostage, prisoner, that he's actually detained behind.

uh bars right now. Is there somebody else coming out today? Brian, I can't comment on that. I know this. Adam Bowler is the special envoy for hostages.

He's a friend of mine, great friend, by the way, and just a great guy. And so whatever he's working on, I'm sure it's going to have a good result.

So he didn't want to say much this morning because this is ongoing. He did bring me to this. Notice. that Mark Fogel did not say anything negative about Vladimir Putin, and neither did he. He said, This is part of a process, and we'll see where this is going.

He didn't say, I was kept in probably the worst, most horrific conditions possible. I've over had 400 injections or 600 injections. Who knows what they are? Evidently, he has back injuries. But he knows he was jailed for the wrong reasons, for reasons he had medical marijuana on him.

They said he was a distributor of massive drugs or a drug kingpin. They made up some ridiculous charges, but nobody's criticizing right now. And that's a tactic. Yeah, clearly, President Trump is working on A, releasing this individual because he promised his mother at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally of all places, right before he was shot at, he promised Fogel's mother that he would bring him home. The president has said that he wants to have open discussions with Vladimir Putin.

This is the beginning, I think, of a much larger picture of trying to negotiate a number of things with Putin. I think that you're going to see this huge rare earth minerals deal, probably as part of this on the Ukraine side. And also, Putin's not going to like that. He's not going to want the United States to get control of those rare earth minerals. It's one of the many reasons, but one of the top reasons that he went into Ukraine in the first place.

The resources in Ukraine are plentiful. They're helpful for building semiconductor chips and other technology. China, we've seen, is gobbling up the resources of this around the world.

So, this is important to Putin as well.

So, it's going to be interesting to see how he reacts to that. Yeah, I mean, this stuff I can't get enough of. Also, when we come back, Martha, I want to leave some time, find out what's on your show. But I also want to talk about the Middle East and where it's heading. Yeah, King Abdullah here.

Last week, Bibi Netanyahu.

Now they're talking about an Egyptian summit, and Saturday, a deadline where all hostages need to come out.

Meanwhile, the president's just keeping a breakneck pace. He's not slowing down, and he seems calmer. The more intense he gets, the calmer he gets. It's just so fascinating. I'm just looking at the headlines now: MSNBC and CNN are desperate to create friction between Trump and Musk.

They're desperate to see that. Absolutely. At what Time Magazine did for them, they put him behind the Resolute desk, Elon Musk, on the cover of the magazine, and Trump's retort was: Are they still around Time Magazine? I didn't even know they still made Time Magazine. Back at a moment.

The first 100 days, continuing confirmation coverage. Are you supportive of these onesies? On the Brian Killmeat Show. The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead.

Kingdell, what do you think about the U.S. taking over the construct? Do you want to see the U.S.? Own the Gaza strip?

Well, I think as I said earlier, the president is looking at Egypt coming to present their plan. As I said, we will be in Saudi Arabia to discuss how we can work with the president and with the United States.

So I think let's wait until the Egyptians can come and present to the president and not get ahead of ourselves.

So King Abdullah was asked about Donald Trump taking over Gaza, fixing it up, and giving a chance to other people to come back if they want, but make it more of a resort. It's getting people talking. It's making people say, well, what idea do you have? Martha McCallum here at 3 o'clock.

So at the very least, if you don't like the idea, what do you come up with if it's so ignorant? Look, I mean, we've covered President Trump long enough to know that when he throws ideas like this out, they get this immediate response. Like, oh, that's ridiculous. That's crazy. But yet, the status quo is unsustainable.

And no one has the courage to throw out there a brand new idea and say, look, this is, you know, it's right down the beach from Tel Aviv, which is an amazing city. And I'm sure President... And Trump looks at that and goes, why can't all of this be that? Why can't all of the people who live in this area be employed by businesses that are working and growing in this? Beautiful area on the Mediterranean.

It is not crazy. What is very interesting to me is to listen to King Abdullah, whose wife, Queen Rania, has been very passionate and outspoken against the Israeli attacks. She is of Palestinian heritage. And she, you know, did interviews. She talked about how horrible it was, what was happening in Gaza as retaliation for October 7th, which was a vicious, unprovoked attack on Israel.

And now Abdullah said, we'll take 2,000 children. This has been the issue forever: that Egypt and Jordan have refused to allow Palestinian refugees. They don't want Hamas on their ground. And so it's like, well, what do you guys suggest happened to fix this situation? And the reason that there is a Gaza Strip in part is that these other countries, when Israel was formed, refused to take the Palestinians.

Because they tried taking the Palestinians. That's right. There's a long, difficult history in this, and it's time for some new solutions. But 2,000 children is wonderful. We heard President Trump say that he was very moved by that gesture from King Abdullah.

This is obviously politically very, very fraught for Egypt and for Jordan, but it's time for people to come up with some new answers.

So I guess there's some pushback amongst Republicans. Listen to Olivia Beavers yesterday of the Wall Street Journal, CUP 41. One thing that's interesting also about the President's suggestion about Gaza, I've been talking to House Republicans, and they aren't entirely taking his suggestion about building in Gaza seriously. And some are even raising national security concerns, saying, what if we put the time into rebuilding it after displacing the Palestinians, and then the terrorists then decided to attack it?

So right now, even Republicans, although it's privately pushing back, they sound a little bit skeptical about this plan. Right. I mean, to put our guys on the ground trying to get away from the people. To fix a place up and the terror attack, it's terror university. I mean, it's it's not unlike a small Marshall Plan, right?

I mean, Europe, um, Germany in particular, was destroyed during World War II. There was a plan, you know, the acceptance that the vacuum here will be a problem, right? They, in World War I, you saw what happened with Germany. And after World War II, the idea was, let's not let this happen again. Let's build an economic center here, let's help them to rebuild.

I think that is what is sort of the philosophy behind this in Gaza. And President Trump has said no U.S. troops on the ground. And he said money, but not a lot of money from us. He wants to encourage investment in this area in order to help it rebuild.

And perhaps the people of Gaza will look at it and say, look, gee, we voted for Hamas. Look what we got. Look what we got. Is it time for the people of Gaza to choose a different Future for themselves as well. But I just think a couple of things.

Israel's saying, I'm taking the Golan Heights, thank you.

Well, you decide who's going to run Syria. Number two is they're taking more and more of the West Bank. And it's creating havoc. And they say tradi, you know, historically it belongs to us anyway. And I've given these people a shot.

There's been countless agreements. Bill Clinton would speak about his frustration right now about how close they had to their own homeland when he was in power. Yeah, you know, I think there have been points, and certainly there are people, like, look at so many of the people who were attacked on October 7th were living on kibbutz that used to cross into Gaza and do volunteer work there and work with the Palestinians in that area.

So the people on the ground in Israel, and I was in the West Bank not that long before October 7th, you know, there was a desire there to live together harmoniously. And that blew apart on October 7th, and it tossed this chessboard up in the air. And that's why they need to find new solutions. But I do think that there is a possibility that Palestinians could seek a different future for themselves and that there could be a better path forward. Martha, who's on your show?

So Larry Kudlow is going to join us as we talk about Doge. Very interesting hearing going on this morning. Marjorie Taylor Greene asking questions right now. Democrats, as we know, are screaming constitutional crisis.

So we'll talk with Larry about that. We'll also talk to Nathan Sales, who is a former counterterrorism official. Trump will talk to him about Gaza, about Ukraine, and about these hostage swaps. All right, so Pope Francis, let's talk about the border. Pope Francis' letter to the Trump administration: the act of deporting people who, in many cases, have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution, or serious deterioration of the environment damages the dignity of many men and women and the entire families and places them in a state of vulnerability.

This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration.

So, the Pope gives some advice to Tom Holman, who wasn't open to it. Cut 44. I like how hard it was worth for the Pope. Pope wanted to fix the Catholic Church. I'm saying, listen, as a life of Catholic, I was baptized Catholic, our First Communion is a Catholic, confirmation of Catholic.

He ought to fix the Catholic Church and concentrate on his work and leave border enforcement to us. He wants to attack us from securing our border. He's got to wall around the Vatican, does he not?

So he's got to wall around protect his people and himself. We can't have a wall around the United States.

So I wish he'd stick to the Catholic Church and fix that and leave border enforcement to us.

I agree with Tom Holman. I do too. And, you know, it's interesting. You have more practicing Catholics in this cabinet than we've ever seen in the history of the United States government. Obviously, the Pope speaks freely about how he feels about all of this.

However, the Church does support a country's need to have borders. And as he says, the Vatican certainly does. But take the Catholic Joe Biden, who loves abortion, talked about abortion every day. The door is always open for him. By the way, Fox Nation, Saturday night, Jacksonville.

I want to see everybody in person, Florida Theater. Go to BrianKillme.com. It'll stream on Fox Nation. But it's so cool to see me in person. More than no.

So is. It's so great. Sign up today. And I smell good. This week on the Rep Air podcast, my all-star panel weighs in on the top stories at home and abroad with founding editor of the Washington Free Beacon, Matthew Cottonetti, Democratic strategist Leslie Marshall, and Fox News radio correspondent Jared Halprick.

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