CBS anchor blames "free speech" for Holocaust; DOGE digs in to IRS

From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmead. Hope you had a fantastic weekend. We're back in action now. Brian Kilmeet on the Brian Kilmeat Show.

For everyone who came out in Jacksonville, the Florida theater, 98-year-old theater, it was fantastic. Thank you, everyone, for getting out there and WOKB listeners and the station for getting the word out. And of course, you can see it archived on Fox Nation. We've got another show coming up live on History, Liberty, and Laughs live on March 22nd in St. Louis.

So it was a fantastic time. It was also great to see people in person. And again, I hope you had a great weekend. And maybe you're celebrating or able to celebrate President's Day and maybe go visit a veteran or read some history. Or you just have the day off and are saying, you know, I wonder what's on in the morning.

And then you realize Brian Kilmead's got a radio show, so check it out. Let's get to the big three. Number three. Eight, nine weeks ago we met and we had the same discussion. And we talked about getting a presence in Rycruz Island.

We talked about how we can collaborate on public safety threats and finding the missing children that were that can't be found. Yeah, how's that sound? Tom Holman on and talking again, and he's getting attacked from all sides. Holman's got a nationwide crackdown on illegals. The crossings on the southern border is down 95%.

Now he's talking about New York, and he's getting a measure of success as Mayor Adams opens the doors for ICE at Rikers.

So when the criminals come in, if they are illegal, there's a detainer. They'll finally be taken out of a sanctuary city. That's good news for the country. But what's behind the change in heart for the embattled Democratic mayor? Number two.

It was Musk who called USAID employees worms. In a post, he gloated about feeding the agency into the wood chipper. The world's richest man had cut off assistance to the world's poorest families. It's just amazing, Scott Pelley in 60 Minutes going to bat for USAID, not even feeling compelled to roll out some of the crazy programs that we're financing, like $4.5 million to teach Zambians how to speak English. Doge digging into IRS as Trump's team is finding billions in waste and left-wing ideology everywhere financed by you.

The public opinion and the courts is important. Will they be able to stop Trump and Elon Musk? Number I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine. Never, and our people, never. There is no any leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us, about us.

Yep, that is Zelensky. Ukraine digging in. Trump team arrives in Saudi Arabia to talk Ukraine war with Russia, leaving Europe behind, and they're beginning to panic. We talk about what can be done and the worry that Ukrainians have that they're being left from the table, and they shouldn't be. I was just going back and forth with Mike Waltz, who landed in Saudi Arabia.

I said, My view is this: you're talking to Russia first, but it doesn't mean you're not talking to Ukraine second. You need to find out the parameters of the deal. I think it's pretty obvious. And he said, You're 100% right. In fact, I'll read you what he just wrote me from Saudi Arabia.

And you can't get better people than Mike Waltz and Marco Rubio. He goes, you have Russia, then Ukraine, then everyone. We had 70 cabinet officials in Europe last week. Isn't that a great message? If we're ignoring Europe, why do we put seven Trumpers into Europe to talk to them, to conjole them?

And I think ultimately we all benefit if Europe can put 2% to 3%, 4% into their defense budget. Think about all the things we could do if we didn't have the biggest defense budget in the world. Think about the social programs. Think about the infrastructure. But we have to do it.

And I'm fine with that. I love funding defense. But why are we doing it alone? And Trump woke me up to that. I used to hear Bush and Clinton and not Carter, I was too young, but Bush and Clinton talk about it constantly, and Obama a little bit.

The guys, you know, why are you not spending anything on your defense? Why are you doing these deals with Russia? Why don't we have to? Do everything. But I thought you get influence.

When you are the defense, then you could get influence. You have influence in policy. You have influence when it comes to doing things at your own will. But then when you expose the trade imbalance that does indeed exist, you realize World War Two is over. We're not getting a trade break.

The alliance treats us equally, if not snobbishly, and then they're not even putting money into the defense so they can continue their socialistic ways.

So I thought the vice president was brilliant over the weekend. A well-read, well-written speech. It sounds like he wrote it himself. But back to the peace deal in Saudi Arabia. Look, I have the worst opinion of Vladimir Putin.

I would not trust him. I think he's as evil as Hitler and Stalin of our generation. He just is. Can't be trusted.

So it's got to be enforced. Ukraine has got to be bolstered. They are better fighters than the Russians, pound for pound, but they just need the weaponry. They've got to be armed up. And there's got to be missile defense on their border.

And they've got to make sure that they can push the Russians back as much as possible after last year's invasion. Cut one. We're trying to get a peace with Russia and Ukraine and we're working very hard on it. It's uh a war that should have never started. You exactly?

Do you expect the LED to be involved in these conversations? What will it be? Uh he will be involved, yes. Yeah. Look.

He would have made this deal and he didn't say to the Europeans, Hey guys, I know we've been in this together, we're paying the bulk of it. But percentage wise, General Keene did a study on it and said they're putting some across, especially the smaller Eastern European nations are putting money proportionally across.

Okay. Not as quick as they can, especially in Germany's case. I don't know what they're doing over there. They're just a mess. We needed their economic might.

We don't even have that anymore. They don't have any military gumption or drive, I know. But having said that, You know, maybe could communication could have been better with the Europeans, but we're taking it over. You know what they're leaning on Europeans to communicate with Trump? They're you leaning on their Prime Minister, Starmer.

And he is interesting because that guy is a social is a labor guy. Basically, a socialist. But him and Trump seem to get along because Stahmer is respectful. Strump doesn't mean you don't have to go along with everything he says. Just be respectful.

That's what Trudeau doesn't do. That's what Macron doesn't do. They're arrogant. They think they know more. They think that Tresident Trump is not to be taken seriously.

And the one thing that this guy did is do that.

So Zelensky's worried. He said so. And he said it on NBC, but he's always measured, cut three. I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine. never, and our people, never.

We're thankful for all the support, unity between USA in USA around Ukraine support, bipartisan unity, bipartisan support. We're thankful for all of this. But There is no any leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us, about us. Yeah, and that's why he sat down with NBC. He knows how to work the press.

He should sit down with us. We know this story better than anybody else. 1-866-408-7669. I don't want to start and make you start. We've been living in the Ukraine war for now two and a half years.

I got it. You're no longer wearing the Ukraine flagpin, and people are pointing out that they don't seem to like Vladimir Zelensky. I do. I think he's been unbelievable. I don't know about domestic politics.

I know it takes a lot to clean up Ukraine, but man, I think he's done a phenomenal job. And just to go to show you how Joe Biden has misjudged this and laid the groundwork for this travesty, remember, when the invasion happened, he did nothing to get them ready except warn it was going to come. He didn't arm them up, he didn't get them weapons, he didn't get them jet fighters, didn't get them patriots, didn't get them anything. But they offered him a way out. If you want to leave like Gahani left, you can leave.

You're going to lose. And guess what? He said, no, I don't want to ride. I want weapons. Eventually we got him weapons.

That's where we're at we're at right now. Mike Waltz, cut nine. President Trump is rethinking the entire dynamic here. That has some people uncomfortable. But I think Zelensky would be very wise to enter into this agreement with the United States.

There's no better way to secure them going forward. And further, there was a question of whether Putin would come to the table. He has now done so under President Trump's leadership. And we're going to continue those talks in the coming weeks at President Trump's direction. I should say that they are sending an emissary into Saudi Arabia.

And I do know that Lavrov had conversations with Marco Rubio, so they're going forward. But he's totally isolated. Here's the risk: you are isolating them. You are enforcing the sanctions. You are being even tighter than Biden on the sanctions.

But when you start talking to him, you bring him out of isolation, and our allies were effectively isolating them while buying their oil through third parties. We all know that. Sadly. One ally that continued to buy is India, and I don't know why they haven't been pressured even to this day.

So it begins. I think it's going to be, in the end, if it's done right, it could fortify. And I think light a fire under all of Western Europe. I don't think That anyone bringing up NATO membership is to blame for the invasion. At all.

I think of anything. When Russia went into Georgia, took those provinces, says they were breakaway republics, and then kept them, and then was able to do that with the international pressure and withstand it, then take Crimea and withstand the international pressure and stood there under Obama, that's when he got the message: I'm going to get our country not focused on our struggling economy and our wallowing social structure, the shrinking population. I'm going to get him motivated to expand the Russian Empire to make it seem like the Soviet Union again. And that's why the invasion was able to happen. It was creeping and then it was massive.

And then they've lost 800,000. It's been a flat-out disaster for them. They would never admit it. And Putin worries every day about his life being taken. But there's an emergency European meeting right now between Germany, Britain, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the NATO General Secretary about where they go from here.

And as I mentioned, Starmer is the person who is now, as you know, not in the EU, but Starmer is the person that they're counting on to talk to Trump. The most exciting thing going on right now is Doge.

Now, I see that Sean sits down with Musk, sat down with Musk and Trump. I can't wait to hear the details on that. But in the meantime, To me, Doge got a win. A federal judge in Washington on Friday handed Musk's government efficiency program a win by declining a request to temporarily block it from accessing sensitive data from all three federal agencies. We're talking about education.

Find out where the fat is. That's it. We're talking about being able to offer federal workers a six-month. A six-month severance pay and to leave our government's too big. We are going to be overdrawn at the end of this year, true trillion dollars.

Remember, $200 billion was a big deal at one point. $1 trillion was unthinkable. $700 billion, we were going in the right direction since the pandemic, way over, but we have not stopped spending.

So when Doge comes in and cuts, while we try to extend tax cuts and the tax reform that Trump passed in 2018, this is why it matters. What I think Doge should do is speak more about how it's all related. We're cutting in order to let our house in order. Ladies and gentlemen, we have no choice. We understand this.

If anyone's here has ever maxed out their credit cards and you see the bills coming in every week, all you could pay is the minimum on those bills because you can't get ahead. You pay the minimum on those bills. And you know what it is? Predominantly. Interest.

When you have a 30-year mortgage for the first 10 years, you only pay interest on the mortgage. That's just the way it is. But if you double up on those payments, they go in the right direction, you become a better credit risk, and you have more of your money. Understood? It's the same principle that we're running on.

The CBO. Has estimated they're going to be $2 trillion over budget. Right now, cash, I believe, we're $500 billion short. Is that insane to you? It should be.

Now we have to figure out a way to raise the debt ceiling to take out more debt to pay for things.

So you have Musk in there using his genius and his people to go in and cut things and see where it may be more efficient. Stop mailing checks to dead people. Stop just giving out invoices and money that doesn't go anywhere or that foments an agenda. For example, if I found out there were huge blocks of federal money going to push for pro-life, which typically are conservative causes, I'd be just as outraged as I find out of all this climate change jargon, which is almost like a cult. Understood?

That's why Doge matters. I hope. The president can win in the courts. I hope they don't overstep, do things by the law, let everybody know the money worth saving, hand it over to Congress. It strengthens the Speaker's hand, it strengthens Jonathan's hand as they try to pass tax reform, be able to finance the border enforcement, and be able to build up our military.

At the same time, going in and seeing the redundancies, the dead-end projects that only service sometimes Republican states and local economy. We got to do what's better for the country, and it's going to be some tough cuts. And it's got to be from a guy getting paid nothing to go in and help our budget reform take root and then let everyone take over from there. Cut it down, pare it down, work out a system of constant analysis and streamlining and forensic accounting that always has the government being responsible. That's what I love, but there is huge pushback.

Yesterday, by the way, the HUD had the. HUD Secretary found $1.9 billion in HUD money that was recovered, saying the funds were misplaced to the Biden administration, were earmarked for the administration's financial services, but they didn't need to be put to financial services.

So they kept it at $1.9 billion and handed it back. HUD employees will lead the task force with a mission to maximize the budget and efficiency. HUD will be detailed and deliberate, and every dollar spent to serve rural, tribal, and urban communities. That I love from the new HUD secretary, and that's why when he found the money, he gave it back. We all got to do that.

Not everybody's happy. Cheryl Crowe, who hasn't written a good song since 1993, sold her Tesla because of Doge, will donate the money to NPR, a place that Elon would like to gut. I'm Brian Kilmey. This is the Brian Kilmey show on this Monday. When we come back, I'm going to take some of your phone calls, get some of your emails, BrianKilmey.com if you want to write me for contacts.

Also, after that, we'll talk to you. Ambassador Volcker about how Europe is viewing the Vice President, Secretary of Defense, going over there along with Mike Waltz, the message sent, and what he thinks the peace talks will yield. Brian Kilmi show, don't move. Learning something new every day on the Brian Killmeat Show. Hi everyone, I'm Brian Kilmead.

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And welcome to the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live. I'm Steve Martin, Saturday Night Live's newest diversity hire. And what a thrill it is to be here when I heard That SNL wanted to do an anniversary special. I literally wanted to leap into the air, and the only reason I didn't is because at the time I was wearing a short skirt with no underwear.

Now I can't believe I can't believe I even made it here in time. It was only a few days ago that Lauren told me I was doing the monologue and I was actually vacationing on a friend's boat down in the Gulf of Steve Martin and I So that was Steve Martin making multiple references to early on in the Trump team. I don't get the skirt joke, even though Steve Martin was my idol in grade school. I still think he's extremely funny. Then Martin Short came out as a Canadian and he said, Good, I'm going to do this myself.

He goes, I'm going to stay. He said, Well, I'm going to deport you, wear your papers, and he gets called off. Another shot at Trump. The other thing, it was, I mean, there were some great moments. It's the biggest group of celebrities I've ever seen outside one of those major award shows, the Oscars, the Academy Awards, or whatever.

But I would add this. The repeated shots at Trump and Republicans, and they were writing up these stories and these glowing accounts of 50 years of SNL. And they say how. Lorn Michaels upsets his own caste who tend to be left wing because he wants to be down the middle.

Now maybe at one point when they were making fun of Al Gore at the same time they were making fun of George W. Bush, they were somewhat center left. But when you see the shots that were constantly taken at Trump, who is certainly or Musk Who is certainly, I guess, more in the news, but there's this woman named Kamala Harris who put up the biggest embarrassment of a candidate and a vice president in history. You have someone there who does a flawless Kamala Harris. But you can't go out of your way to take a shot at Miss Word Salad?

By the way, she spoke again over the weekend. I have that sound bite. You're not going to believe how clueless it sounds.

Next, Ambassador Bolker. If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it. You're with Brian Kilmead. Number one, it has to be a permanent end to the war, not a temporary end to the war. Number two, this can't be ended on the battlefield.

This has turned into a World War I-style meat grinder of human beings. Number three, I talked about how the structure of our aid has to change. And then, number four, we're talking about economic integration going forward as the best arbiter of peace. All of those things are key underpinnings. And in terms of long-term military security guarantees, those have to be European-led.

And there you go, Mike Waltz yesterday as he headed to Saudi Arabia along with Marco Rubio to begin talks, peace talks, that hopefully will lead to the end of the violence in Ukraine. But it's got to be the right way. What's got people upset is he's meeting with Russia. I don't believe it's cutting Ukraine out. And as I mentioned in the first half hour, I was just texting with Mike Waltz, and he said, no, we're meeting with them first.

That's it. Then we're going to meet with the Ukrainians. That's true. We had seven people, seven people from the Trump administration were in Europe over the last few days.

So why were we cutting Europe out? We're taking the lead to break this war down, and that's what needs to be done. That's how a Waltz and company feel. I think when you have Waltz and Rubio, you got two of the best, not only in the Trump team, but in the country on foreign relations. And let's bring in.

Ambassador Kurt Volcker, former U.S. Ambassador NATO, Distinguished Fellow at the Center for European Policy and Analysis. He's in Poland right now. Ambassador, welcome back. Thanks so much.

Great to be with you, Brian. Ambassador, there's so many different parts here, and it's just I hate when international relations. Like with the politics, gets involved with international relations because. People obviously know, I think Ukraine's not cut out. They're talking to Russia first.

On that case, is that a mistake, by the way? Is that a mistake? Do you think. No, I think they're doing it just right, to be honest, Brian. President Trump had at least four conversations with President Zelensky.

before calling Putin uh just last week.

So they've been talking, and we've had many other engagements with them as well. And then immediately after he called Putin, he called Zelensky again. And gave him a readout of that.

So there is clear coordination there. Second, as you just pointed out, Mike Walsh pointed out, look, we've had Pete Hedseth at NATO. We had several members of the administration in Guinea talking with other Europeans. Vice President Vance had a meeting with Zelensky in Munich.

So there is a lot of coordination going on. And as I was telling my European friends there who are complaining about not being at the table, I said, look, there is no table. Everyone is talking. Everyone is coordinating. There's no castle outside of Vienna where everyone's sitting around a round table with chandeliers.

It's people engaging in real time, trying to see if there is a way to get Russia to end the war. And to be clear here, too. President Trump has been clear that the missing link here has been putting pressure on Putin and getting Putin to stop the fighting. We've gone three years with aid to Ukraine, coordinating with Europe, coordinating with Ukrainians, but Russia has kept fighting. We have to get Russia to stop.

Yeah, that would help. Also, the fact is, they are starting to well up troops in Belarus. Is that a report that's concerning to those people? And are we fully aware of that? That they might be willing to talk on one hand, but might be looking to amp up the fight to it to, I guess, strengthen their hand?

Yes, people are aware of that. And I would also point out there were two intelligence assessments released by NATO allies last week, Denmark and Estonia, where they come to the conclusion that Putin is building up his military forces well beyond what is needed to fight in Ukraine. It'll take him about five years. but they think that he is planning to take on NATO.

So we have to use the time well. And what Mike Waltz just said in that clip, we have to make this a permanent peace.

So it's a ceasefire, but then you have to deter Russia from further attacks. And Europe has to take a large share of that, a leadership role in Ukraine, and a large share of that in Europe, because we're going to need it. You might not have heard this yesterday. Donald Trump talks every time he gets on and off his plane and sometimes on his plane. Yesterday, despite the not great audio, here's what he said: cut two.

I think he wants to stop fighting. That was my question to him. Because if he's going to go on, that would have been a big problem for us. And that would have caused me a big problem because you just can't let that happen. Uh I think he wants to uh End it.

and they want to end it fast. Both of them. And Zelensky wants to end it too. He was talking about Vladimir Putin. He says he thinks he wants to end it.

And you know, Ambassador, you know these guys up close and personal. You don't get this out of a book or a page or read somebody else's analysis. Vladimir Putin's a terrible person. He's the worst person of this century. He's the Stalin.

Hitler mix, and there's no way he can be trusted, and the only way he could be forced to stop is if he had no other choice to a degree. But this is a grinding. War for him. If you agree with the numbers, they say 700,000 casualties. I mean, and think about this.

He's got he's losing so many tanks, he's losing guys, he's bringing in troops from Yemen, he's bringing in, obviously, North Korean troops. This has been a disaster. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, it has been a disaster for Russia. But because he's an absolute dictator, he doesn't care.

He's willing to lose all of those lives of his own citizens because he wants to advance his project of rebuilding the Russian Empire. And I think what President Trump is doing in that clip, he talked to Putin. Putin said he wants to end the war. President Trump is taking him at his word, even though we know he's lying. He's taking him at his word to see if he can keep the pressure on.

And the pressure that Putin is facing, it's not the loss of life, because he doesn't care about that. It is the finances. It's his ability to pay for this war. And as the price of oil drops with increased US oil and gas production, and if we can get the Saudis to help, that will hit his budget hard. President Trump has not lifted the sanctions on Russia's energy sector.

That is hitting Russia as well.

So they're going to start facing a cash shortage at some point. And if we can accelerate that, all the better. And then we can let Putin go ahead and say, okay, I'm going to end the war, take a pause, try to rebuild his military, while we then try to lean in. Get our European forces into Ukraine, get greater deterrence against further Russian attacks. Build up Europe so that Putin, even if he wants to attack again later, is going to find it's going to be too costly.

Ukrainians seem to be better p uh fighters pound for pound. They have more of the Western tactics and they certainly have the weapons.

So, do you believe it's not even if they want to reload, is what you're saying, Ambassador Volcker, that you build up Ukraine, you get them missile defense for their border. You set up a tripwire. I can't see troops being there, but maybe troops are there.

So we just don't think they're just going to wait three years and go back again or wait Trump out and go back again, because evidently they appear to be committed to a this is the term a multi-year long effort to seize Ukraine's fortress belt. Donesk Oblast further underscoring Russia's apparent disinterest in a lasting and enduring peace.

So they don't feel like they got enough yet. No question. Vladimir Putin has been very clear. We can't pretend otherwise. He has written about him being the successor of Catherine the Great and Peter the Great and accumulator of Russian lands.

Ukraine is not a legitimate independent country. It belongs as part of Russia.

So he wants to take over the whole thing. He wants to eliminate Ukrainian national identity. It's a type of genocide. And he wants to impose his own leader in Kyiv in charge of government there.

So there's no compromise with that. Thirty-five million Ukrainians are going to fight him over that, and they're motivated because it's their lives.

So the Ukrainians have done much better in this war, pound for pound, just as you said. And if we can give them the training, the equipment, the backup support, air power, air defense, they will hold their own. But we should be working with them and our European allies should be working with them to create a very solid deterrence in Europe so that we don't have more wars in the future. Right. And of course this is a long process.

I mean, I don't know. Do you think this is going to be within two weeks the secession of violence?

Well would you what can I even know Trump does things differently than everybody, what do you think? I think it's going to be this year sometime.

So between the summer and the fall perhaps or late in the fall, because it comes back to what I said earlier, it is Putin's calculation of how long he can keep burning his resources at this rate before he has to do something. And he wants to test he wants to test the Ukrainians. He wants to test President Trump, see how far he can get. He's going to make all kinds of demands through these talks in Saudi Arabia and if there's any other further talks. And we have to have the fortitude to say no, just stop the war.

We're not giving away lots of things to get you to do that. You need to stop the war. Ambassador, the other people that want to be critical of Trump say, you know, they had Russia isolated. Nobody was talking to them. They were just looking at their little axis of evil there with Iran and with North Korea and China.

And then when Secretary of State Rubio when President Trump talked to Putin and Vlavarov and Rubio talked, that they were unisolating them, that is a risk, isn't it? It is a risk. Yes, it is. But it's a risk that you have to calculate because you just don't want this war to continue as it has for the last three years. You want to see if you can get a chance to end it.

And the timing is different now. Putin is at the weakest point that he has been since he launched this invasion in February of 22. His finances are not good. He's lost a lot of lives. He's having trouble replenishing the military support.

He can't build the equipment fast enough for the Ukrainians to destroy it. And so there's a reason to think that maybe we can get him to do that. And President Trump is doing this kind of push-them-pull-them-you know, put in sanctions, drive down the price of oil. keep up arms supplies to Ukraine, although Ukrainians can pay for that. And in return, see whether he can dangle a few benefits for Putin, such as even the fact of a meeting would be a benefit.

To see whether that is enough to get Putin to say, okay, I'll stop the fighting. You know what it was like in Europe. These are your friends. These are guys you've built relationships with. They kind of laughed at Trump.

Right? We watched that off the mic moment with Trudeau and Macrone mocking that Trump never left the stage and kept taking questions.

So now that Trump is in Saudi Arabia Trump's team is in Saudi Arabia and that we've left Europe, they have an emergency meeting. Are they still laughing at Trump? And not that it matters, but just so you know, just so people out there should know the perception of our allies. Yes.

So at first term, you're absolutely right. They didn't think Trump was serious, and they thought they could wait him out.

Now we've seen President Trump get through four major efforts to use lawfare against him, two assassination attempts, a resounding victory in the elections, both the House and the Senate as well. And they see that this conservative movement is coming up in their own countries as well, in Germany, in France, in Sweden, whatever, different in some cases than in the U.S., but they see it.

So now they take Trump quite seriously. And instead, they're worried now, and I was just at this Munich security conference, they're worried that the U.S. is going to abandon them. and just say, okay, Europe, you're rich, you're on your own or that we will cut deals about their interests and their security without their participation. I don't think Marco Rubio could have been more clear saying it's not going to happen, but it's what they worry about now.

Alright, and lastly What is it going to take for them to be able to put 2% or 3% of their GDP into their defense? What is it going to take to get their national pride up? We would love a world in which we could pour money into our infrastructure and not put almost a trillion dollars into defense.

So, do you think it's not just a matter of messaging? They just don't have the economic power right now. They haven't felt the sense of urgency. They've always felt that, okay, but we have to balance it against other interests. It'll take time.

It's difficult. We have immigration things to deal with. We have the economy. We have an aging population.

So, they have all these other things that they think about that have diminished that sense of urgency. But now I think they are seeing that sense of urgency more than before. That's why all of these leaders are meeting in Paris tomorrow, because they realize that, my goodness, There may actually be a need to have a piece or a uh deterrence force. In Ukraine, the Americans are not going to lead this. They want us to lead this.

We had better put our stuff together. Yeah, and I show in the big picture, which you talk about. Um is that If you look at what Russia did, not only did they lose hundreds of thousands of troops, not only is the persona of them being this great force diminished, NATO has boked up with two quality countries who are spending on defense. And now if you get the message in Western Europe, you got to defend yourselves, you could not have a more disastrous outcome for Russia. Exactly.

Vladimir Putin is gifted in getting the opposite of what he's trying to do. Ambassador Kurt Volcker, always great. Thanks so much. Exciting time. It's so great to get your input.

Yeah, thanks a lot, Brian. Take care. You got it. 1866-408-7669. I'll be back and take some of your calls.

I see some of your emails coming in. And there's more than just Ukraine going on, but again, it's front and center. This is the president on the global stage, on the domestic stage. He's talking about reshuffling spending at a time in which, get this. we are at a eight hundred sixty billion dollars shortfall in our budget.

We don't have the money. We got to take out a loan. At the same time, Democrats are criticizing Doge and Elon Musk and ostensibly Donald Trump for going in and trying to get government more efficient. On its face it makes no sense. We'll unwind it when we return.

It's Brian Kilmeid. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. No, wait a second. I thought we were hosting together.

Oh. Uh Do you have your passport on you? No. Uh-huh. Ice!

Get up. No! No! I'll cooperate! Don't take me!

I'll name names! Mike Myers, Jim Carey, Featherwood! Fatima, you white-haired son of a bitch! You know, Marty and I have been working together so long that we can actually finish each other's careers. That is Steve Martin, who was asked to host the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live.

The highlight for me was brilliant, Adam Chandler. Very underrated on that show and he was there and he proved himself afterwards. When he sang the song, it was five minutes long, but I think it got just about every cast member. I'm sure he couldn't get everyone in. Almost every cast member in his song.

It was much like he sings everything, whether it's the Christmas song, the Hanukkah song, whatever he does. I thought that was one of the highlights last night. Look, they had everybody there. You saw David Letterman in the background, that ridiculous beard. You saw Kevin Costner sitting there right in the middle.

You saw Jack Nicholson there. Even if you say to yourself, it's been disappointing lately, you can't look back at SNL and say every moment, every moment was pure partisan.

Some of the stuff was really cool, and I thought some of the look backs were great. Others I could have done without. And some of the blatant shots at Trump, which is totally unnecessary. You have no reason to do it. There's no humor there.

So Tom Hanks plays a Donald Trump MAGA supporter with a MAGA hat on. He's doing a game. Keenan Thompson is the host. And he's black. Tom Hanks is a white.

Trump supporter and refuses to shake Keenan Thompson's hand because he's black.

Okay. I'm not, is there humor in that? Number one, it's not accurate. Was he a segregationist? Was he Jesse Helms?

Prior to his Makeover.

So, that type of stuff I don't get, but some of the stuff is extremely funny. And a lot of it is a little bit like an inside joke. The other thing you could appreciate is like going to everybody's panel. College reunion. You talk about the different classes.

They usually last maybe five or six years. The current one is terrible, but the prior one, was great. I thought they were fantastic. And but what happens is to a lot of these people, they have no careers afterwards. It makes you wonder why they leave to begin with.

To me, you'd have to drag me out of there. Keenan Thompson, I think, has it 100% right. He does that job. He does commercials. I'm sure he does some movies.

But he's great on that cast. I know some people don't agree with you, it's okay. But that was one of those Hallmark moments, 50 years. It's probably worth watching back because you do have memories of where you were when they were high. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division.

It's Brian Killmead. Hi, everyone.

So glad you're there. Hope you had a fantastic weekend. We're back in action now, and it's going to be a busy week.

Well, we expect every day, every week, to be busy like that, because I used this analogy this morning. With one of those hits, I like to talk to other affiliates in the morning before I start the show. And I really think, you guys remember what Bill Walsh used to do with the 49ers? He used to script his first two drives. It doesn't matter what the other team is doing.

He would go look at the tape and just decide when this game starts, unless it's some type of turnover situation or a major injury, Joe Montana and Steve Young for the 49ers in their heyday before a salary cap and keep all those great players on the roster and don't worry about it. If your owner's rich enough, he would just script out all the plays: run left, run right, pass over the middle, go long, go deep, whatever it was, flea flicker, he would script it. To me, this is the part that Trump scripted.

Now, there's going to be a natural disaster. There's going to be a type of military challenge. There's always a danger of a terror attack or something happen you don't expect. But you plan it out as if things are going to go as usual. You know, you had two hot wars when you came into the job.

You know, you had an economy that had high inflation, was driving revenue, but a huge deficit, and you got a debt ceiling.

So now he said, this is my script. And man, has he been busy? Let's get to the big three. For three. Eight, nine weeks ago we met, we had the same discussion.

And we talked about getting a presence in Reichers Island. We talked about how we can collaborate on public safety threats and finding the missing children that can't be found. Tom Holman moving on all cylinders, attacking on all sides, a nationwide crackdown on illegals, and now measured success right here in New York City as Mayor Adams, mayor of a famously blue city, opens the doors for ICE to go to Rikers prison. Good news when they get in, and therefore illegal aliens, they will be taken right out.

Now, can everybody else follow in his wake? And what really caused the change of heart for Mayor Eric Adams? Number two. It was Musk who called USAID employees worms. In a post, he gloated about feeding the agency into the wood chipper.

The world's richest man had cut off assistance to the world's poorest families. So, Scott Pelly, one of the most biased 60-minute features ever on the USAID being cut back by this administration. Does digging into IRS do, as well as air traffic control of the FAA, on Sean Duffy's request, had transportation as Trump's team is finding billions in waste and left-wing ideology. But the fight remains because they keep on suing to the Democrats, and public opinion must stay informed and must be behind Trump. Number one.

I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine. Never. And our people, never. There is no any leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us, about us. And it's true.

And as Michael Waltz said four times he's spoken to Zelensky, he's now going to send Rubio and Waltz to talk to Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia. It doesn't mean that Ukraine is out. And that's what we're talking about now, digging in. The Trump team says, I want to end that war, and he's going to do it. It's going to take a lot because at the same time that the president feels as though Russia wants to talk and bring this to an end, they are welling up troops in Belarus.

So are they going to try again from that flank, which failed so miserably, and Belarus is just basically a ward of the Russian state? Because remember, that guy lost his election, was kept in power by the Russians, and in turn, it's become just a basically. A weapons depot for the horrible Russian army.

So Donald Trump spoke yesterday about these talks, which tick off the Europeans because they're not involved and ticks off a lot of people who think that you should not be talking to Russia. Cut one. We're trying to get a peace with Russia and Ukraine and we're working very hard on it. It's a war that should have never started. Do you expect Zelexki to be involved in these conversations?

What will do? I do. Uh he will be involved, yeah. Yeah, he will be involved, and we'll see where this goes because he's going to get involved. It's just that Russia is first.

It doesn't mean that Zelensky is second or out. It means one at a time. We're going to see what they're going to do, see how sincere they are when my guys look their guys in the eye, and then we're going to decide a game plan from there. About the Europeans being left out, about the Russians not having the same being isolated like they were.

Well, something had to change. And the new administration gave them an opportunity to do it. But I just don't believe that Trump's going to cut a deal to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Here's Mike Waltz, National Security Advisor, about everybody going crazy that the Europeans aren't at the table with us. Cut eight.

this notion that our uh That our European allies haven't been engaged. President Trump also spoke with Macrone this week. We have a visit with Prime Minister Starmer of the United Kingdom coming up. And we had no less than our Vice President, our Secretary of State, our Secretary of Defense, our Secretary of Treasury, who was in Kyiv personally, and our Special Envoy Kellogg, all in Europe this week, all engaging our allies.

Now, they may not like some of the sequencing that is going on in these negotiations, but I have to push back on any notion that they aren't being consulted. They absolutely are.

So Mike Waltz trying to settle everybody down. Let's bring in Michael Goodwin. Michael of the New York Post, you got a great sense of the world politics as well as what's happening in the city you live. Your sense on the President's track in setting a delegation to Saudi Arabia to meet with the Russians. Yeah.

Look, I think that the um Trump clearly wants to do things differently, just about everything. From the Biden administration, from the sort of the democratic deep state. a bureaucracy way of doing things. And that includes Solving problems, solving big problems such as the Ukraine-Russian war. And I haven't spoken to him about this in the past.

I think he recognizes that Russia will never stop on its own. that it will just keep going. And he calls it a war machine. that they don't care about their losses. This is how they fight.

This is always how they fight back to World War II. it's not going to stop unless the United States intervenes in some way. And Europe, of course, is going to have to help to settle this. And it's going to mean Ukraine is going to not get everything it wants, and it's going to have lost something in this war. It's going to have lost some territory.

And look, on the issue of joining NATO, that was never realistic. I mean, even Biden said that Ukraine was not ready for NATO. I mean, part of its problems was its governance. It was not really a democracy in the sense That NATO required some things about its elections and things like that. Don't forget.

Zelensky has canceled elections in Ukraine for the time being. And the time being is now more than three years. Just so you know, constitutionally when they're at war they can't have elections.

Okay. Uh But that That that's maybe something that uh NATO doesn't want. They don't want that kind of constitutional provision uh at a time when NATO is being asked to put up defense. And ultimately, if it were to join NATO, then we would be at war right now if it were a member of NATO. And so I think there are lots of reasons why this can't continue the way it's going.

And reasons why it has to be resolved.

Now, uh it it's going to be a bitter pill, I believe, for for Ukraine. But Trump, I think we have to just step back a bit, Brian. Donald Trump really does hate war. He has he has a real a In his heart, a real opponent of these kind of meat grinder things. that just tear up everybody and everything.

And I believe he honestly wants to stop this for the right reasons. not to reward Putin and not to just move on, but he just believes the harm. I mean, this the little clip you played of him, every time he talks about it, about the number of casualties, how it should have never started, I mean, he's very war-avoidant, which I think most Americans are too. Right, but he's going to willingly to let Israel amp this thing up. And he says I'm going to get more arms to Ukraine if they do not, if Russia isn't sincere about coming to the table.

So we'll see where this goes. He also understands toughness.

So, Michael, the other thing going on is his fascinating story in New York. Mayor Adams is in some legal trouble. I'm not going to get into his case, but it did not seem as severe to indict a sitting mayor. All his people have been flipped on him, much like Trump. They flipped his lawyers, they flipped his allies, they flipped his former chief of staff.

And Trump really saw a lot of what's going on with Adams with him. And suddenly, Adams has got a situation where the prosecutors were told to stand down, and he is now working with Tom Holman, at least in a measured way, allowing ICE back in Rikers. What does your source say is really going on behind the scenes?

Well look I I think Trump, for a good period of time, there was talking about the Adams case. You recall there were two. Um possibility. I don't think that the President ever said that directly himself, but But somehow he and Adams had some conversations, and Adams met with others in the new administration. And some parts of these conversations, I believe, began before the inauguration.

And Look, the the case against Adams, the the the bribery case that the Southern District brought was weak, I mean, if you talk to anybody, even those who hate Trump, in New York, they will say that case was very weak. And then and then the feds Said they were going to bring more charges. They said that about, I don't know, three or four months ago in court papers. They didn't. And then when the lead prosecutor resigns, See Puts out a statement and saying, This is what we would have charged him with even more.

You can't do that. The case is dead. You're resigning, and you're going to smear him with charges, with what you would have charged him with, without any way of him defending himself. I mean, so I think there's a lot of. questions about the strength of the initial case For example, Brian, they charged him with stealing ten million dollars of public money.

Now that $10 million is what he got from the city's campaign matching funds. I think it's a terrible system, but that's what he got. But some of the money that was matched by the city eight to one, say a two hundred fifty dollar donation is suddenly like a twenty two hundred and fifty dollar donation Some of that money was from straw donors, meaning they were not eligible to give and be matched. Um He didn't steal $10 million. There were perhaps Several hundred thousand in that that he shouldn't have got matching money for, or or that, or that uh was total, was was the total theft, if you will.

Um so the the claims were exaggerated from the beginning. They were ratcheted up in ways to make it sound more serious. And then finally, you run into the question of the election season. And Adams is running for reelection. And the and the U.

S. Attorney never filed additional charges. They were clearly not ready for trial because they had were still working on the case and were talking about bringing more charges.

So the trial would have stretched. Very close to the election, which is, you know, Adams is seeking his second term.

So I think there's a lot of hair on that case. And I don't think it's a slam dunk that this is somehow c a corrupting Move by Trump's DOJ. I think it's a borderline call, and it is one of the rules and one of the obligations of the Justice Department to do justice. And Trump and Pam Bondi, the AG, clearly felt that justice in this case was not being served by these charges. I think that's a very defensible call, a little sloppy and around the edges, but very defensible.

And certainly, when you look at But you realize, though, Michael, they never said anything like he's innocent. They just said that we think it affects the election. They never even talked about the charges, even though President Al Smith did or said, Man, this sounds familiar.

Sounds like what they did to me, they're doing to you, Mr. Mayor. I've been in there, you know, essentially that spot. Yes, but they never said a case. And look, a lot of people say, oh, 12th, it's January 6th and all that stuff.

Look go back and look at Merritt Garland being told by Joe Biden to prosecute Donald Trump. And look at the coordination between the Georgia cases, the Alvin Bragg office, and the prosecution of Donald Trump. And so Trump is right. There was an attempt to smear him and indict him and convict him and lock him up. And that's And there are similarities with Adams, that they wanted him off the stage.

Now, I don't completely buy the idea that it's because Adams criticized Biden over the migrants. What he criticized him over the migrants was, was essentially. You're not helping us financially. He didn't say seal the border, he said you're not helping us financially. But nonetheless, Adams believes that, Trump believes that, and So, what do you think it means?

We don't have much time, but what do you think it means for the Democratic nomination? Cuomo is getting now he's getting endorsements. The Asian, a major Asian group just endorsed him over the weekend. He's telling everyone he's going to run. What do you think is going to happen?

No, definitely he's going to run. He's rolling out this support. Carl McCall, a former New York State official who a controller, he came out over the weekend and said he wanted Cuomo to run. That was clearly coordinated with the Cuomo people. The same with the Asian group.

I mean, he's building a march Uh for his uh no no for his uh nomination in the Democratic primary, which is the big race, of course. Um And it's not clear what Adams is going to do is is Right, all the polls show Cuomo well ahead, but I think it's too early to say that Cuomo has this locked up. I think there's a lot of problems with the Cuomo candidacy. No kidding. Yes.

Believe me, by the way, it's great for you as a columnist for the New York Post. I mean, this drama is going to be great. That ego that he still has mysteriously will be for everyone to see and a reminder of who Andrew Cuomo is. Thanks so much, Michael. I'm up against the break, but there's so much to talk about.

I appreciate it. Also, check out Michael's column. He talks about what the governor is doing with Elise Stephanie's seat by listening to Keem Jeffries. A huge mistake. Michael Goodwin, thank you.

Brian Kilmead Show. Back with you in a moment. You're with Brian Kilmead. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show.

The Boy Scouts, yes, I've seen this in the works for years. They, we. It's such an onion headline. The whole f ⁇ Is such an onion headline. The Boy Scouts of America cannot be called Boy Scouts anymore because it's occlusionary.

Like there isn't a Girl Scout. Like this is some sort of crime against nature that we each. People are different. I mean, this is the kind of thing that gets Trump elected. And he's 100% right, and that is exasperating to Bill Maher last night.

And this week, it was actually the repeat was on over the weekend, but he airs on Friday nights on HBO. And that is the type of thing that is spoken up by very few Democrats. But you know who's actually making some sense these days? It's Jen Saki.

Next half hour, I'll play some of that. She's saying, guys, you're overreacting to things you should not be overreacting to.

So I'm looking at Doge, which is the most fascinating group that I've been able to witness from the outside. And I guess Elon Musk will talk with Sean Hannity and Donald Trump. All three of them will be talking tonight. Elon Musk writes on his site: I'm endlessly amused by the infinite indignities I suffer on the platform that I own. He talks about Social Security.

He says, there's 448 people, 190 years old, getting Social Security checks. The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. Specifically, I'm not a lawyer, but specifically because the Trump administration appears to be ignoring the court order to. Get the money flowing again.

That is the potential for the constitutional crisis. But my view is that is not the phrase that Democrats should be screaming from the rooftops every day. It may be we're on that road, but you need to be talking about how this is impacting your communities. The farmers saw he'll reference, the people who rely on Medicaid, the veterans, the early childhood education kids who are relying on that. That is what we should be talking about, what Democrats should be talking about out there, because that is how you connect what is happening in Washington with communities in the country.

Right. And that is Gensaki trying to be somewhat moderate and sensible in a time in which people like Chris Murphy, Senator Murphy, I know he's left-wing. See, Connecticut, a lot of times he says some practical things, lost his mind. Chris Coons yesterday lost his mind. Of course, Dan Goldman, you expect these idiotic statements.

But what they want to do, and it's not practical yet because Trump's not been in office a month, is talk about, well, he wanted to bring prices down. He hasn't yet, and eggs have gone up.

Well, does the bird flu mean anything? I mean, if eggs have gone up in a just as a food item, That's interesting, but how in a month that could happen and blame Trump is crazy. But having said that, The bird flu is having them kill all these birds. And wipe out all those eggs. But Understand too, in the big picture, the President is making a massive move to bring manufacturing back to our country, because over the last thirty years, it's gradually been squeezed out, and so has the middle class.

And we'll see where this goes. Joining us now is Link Lauren, a former senior advisor to RFK Junior.

Now he's a big time influencer and columnist. Link, welcome back. Thanks for having me, Brian. Great to be with you on this. Same here.

First off, how do you rate these first few weeks of the Trump administration? I think it's a masterclass. I think every other administration should take note that it's not just Trump. I feel like Jon Thuon really worked to push these cabinet nominees through and get it done. And I know MAGA was skeptical of him for a few days.

They wanted Rick Scott. They wanted somebody else. Jon Thune really came through and got these cabinet appointees confirmed. I also feel like all the cabinet picks are making their mark the first hundred days. Christy Noam has hit the ground running.

I've seen her in a different state, sometimes different place every single day. Sean Duffy definitely hit the ground running whether he wanted to or not because of that horrific tragedy.

So everybody's making their mark. I think it's a masterclass. So, when you look at RFK, first off, getting confirmed, that was probably the biggest hurdle, I think. And he got confirmed. And I think he got Murkowski, if I do remember correctly, and he's got Collins along the way.

Yeah, I know the New York Post today, in their editorial, they said that's a big mistake and shows Trump's got a lot to learn. You obviously were a fan early. You wanted to be president.

Now it's time for him to take the ball and run with it. Is he ready?

So First off, such a full circle moment for everybody who worked on the campaign. All we wanted, all I wanted, was for him to have a seat at the table. I mean, I realized early on, we're probably not going to win, right? We're probably not going to win this election. Let's try and get a seat at the table with Trump and see if we can work on health policy, which is what you seem to be the most passionate about.

And so, I do think he's ready. He's the most battle-tested person in this medical freedom space, right? He's been on the front lines of the health and wellness movement for probably 20, 25 years. And Americans, they don't really expect perfection anymore. Americans don't want someone who's a perfect angel with no track record.

They want a guy who's going to be a warrior and fight for them and fight for their sick children. And that's what you get with Bobby. And I think you see with Pete Exeth, Trump, RFK, all of these guys, they're going to get out there and fight for you. And they don't care about taking the hits from the mainstream media.

So I do think he's the perfect person for this moment. And I'll also add, Brian. We have a major chronic disease epidemic in this country. I mean, 90% of our health care costs go toward chronic disease. That's about $4 trillion a year.

So if we tried something one way for decades and people have just gotten sicker and sicker, let's try someone new. And I'll be the first to tell you: if he gets in there and he doesn't do the things he said he was going to do, I'll call him out on it. I don't care if I work for the guy. I'm going to be honest and call it like I see it. But I do think we should give him a chance because this quo has only gotten us sicker.

I think he's got to expose the headwinds he finds because I think he's going to try to do it. He's got no other reason to be in there. He's rich enough. He's successful enough. He man, he suffered his reputation.

All the stories have come out about his past. His family has turned on him. At the very least, he just go out there and try to check our food supply, try to make sure that the vaccines we're getting are the studies that have put them in our put them as mandatory in our school system, that they're really good studies. And if they're good studies, they stay. I don't know why people.

People don't understand that. It's not so much a vaccines, but the studies are fine.

Okay, let us see. If the last study was done in 1972, we're going to get financing to redo those studies. There's nothing wrong with that.

Well, absolutely. And we're also funding DEI initiatives in foreign countries and, you know, transgender musicals in foreign countries. We're funding everything else. Why not fund some studies here to see what's going on? I think his winning issue and what I would always say on the campaign is food, soil, what's in our water.

These are universal things I think all parents worry about. I think in his first hundred days, I would love to see some portal online or an app or a website parents can go to to find what can I give my kid? When I go to the grocery store after a long day of work, there are all these ingredients. Tell me a few things I should be looking out for because I want my kid to be healthy. I don't want them full of dyes and cancerous chemicals.

I think that would be something he's going to work on, whether it's the first hundred days or first year. I wouldn't be shocked if we saw something like that. And I think that's what parents want in this country because kids have more asthma than ever, more diabetes than ever before. We can't keep going on like this. We're supposed to be the most prosperous nation on earth.

We've got the sickest people. That's a stain on our country.

So I hope he can turn it around and do.

Something different.

So you got Dr. Nashwat's going to be on charge. Dr. McCarry is going to be out there. I think we got a real shot at this, and that portal idea is a fantastic idea.

So let's talk about Doge if we can. The pushback has been just almost laughable. It's been so hard. And they're not really going on Trump as hard as they're going at Elon Musk. Here's Jamie Raskin yesterday, cut 14.

We're winning in court. More than a dozen. Federal injunctions and temporary restraint orders have been issued against everything from their illegal seizure of computer data and every American's private data at the Treasury Department to their illegal attempt to ban birthright citizenship in America. We're winning across the board. We are a country based on law.

Well, put it this way: they're not winning across the country. They lost a lot of cases, but the only way they are fighting is through the courts. But what they're fighting is, fundamentally, people should understand this: we're $860 billion right now, this year already, over budget.

So while he goes in there and is cutting the budget, giving a workforce of $2.7 million an opportunity to get six-month severance pay, when they're exposing Social Security to dead people and to foreigners, I mean, to foreigners? We're not even going to people who are robbing us are actually from another country. They're not even Americans who embezzling from Americans.

So they're doing this now. Why are they fighting all this? They want to talk about privacy. I get it. They want to talk about Social Security.

I understand it.

Social Security numbers might be exposed. But every day, a Treasury Cabinet member and their staff have access to the same things. But now we got efficiency experts working on this. What is it like on the ground when you talk to people? Absolutely.

And I know I said this on Harris's show Friday, but I'm just going to regurgitate it here. The Democrats have no identity right now, they are demoralized, broken, downtrodden. They're on their last leg. The Democrats really have nothing going for them. And if this is the hill they want to die on, fighting a government audit, fighting reducing government waste, let the Democrats go for it and we'll see what happens in the midterms in 2028.

I don't think it's a great branding exercise for the Democrats to have Maxine Waters, Elizabeth Warren, Al Green, Chuck Schumer out there screeching and yelling about Elon Musk all day, every day into a megaphone. That is not a great look for the Democratic Party, but let them continue digging their own grave because an overwhelming majority of Americans across the board want to cut government waste.

So these Democratic elites are really speaking to a minority. We're also $36 trillion in debt. Interest on our national debt is going to cripple Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and so forth.

So we're all in favor of cutting the government waste.

So we don't care. Fire half of everybody. And let's see how the government functions. Even with Bobby at HHS, I think they're, what, 90,000 employees. I think some of those folks should have to prove why they need to be there on our dime and on our tax dollar, Brian.

What's Generation Alpha? Gen Alpha is after Gen Z, younger than me.

So what date what age are we talking? I think they're in high school right now. They're going to become first-time voters pretty soon, some of them. All right, because Democrats hate young people, too. You know that, right?

Because young people were actually who are very tech savvy. Tech savvy than I will ever be because they were born into this. They are horrible people. They can go fight for the country. They can go draft it.

Remember, 19-year-old George H.W. Bush shot out of the sky as a fighter pilot in the World War.

So they're okay, but we just don't want them looking at computer screens.

So here is, I want you to hear this. This is Margaret Brennan, host of a Sunday show. A supposed to be a journalist, cut 18. He was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide. And he met with the head of a political party that has.

Far-right views. And some historic ties. to extreme groups. The context of that Was Changing the tone of it. And you know that, that the censorship.

Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany.

So Marco Rubio had to push back. They're talking about Elon Musk addressing a conservative right-wing group in Germany. And guess what? Vice President Vance did engage them too to find out what they were about.

So I love that Rubio is there to push back and Vance. There are no walk in the park for these Sunday shows. Absolutely. I mean, Margaret Brennan, I don't know why she's trying to revise history or push this insane narrative. I think she also announced recently she's moving on or she's not going to work there anymore.

I'm all in favor of that. I think all these bird-brain folks like Margaret Brennan should just, you know, fade into obscurity. Barely anybody is watching these shows anymore. And I think she also brought a knife to a gunfight dealing with Secretary Rubio. He's wicked smart.

He's been in the game a long time.

So I think she definitely met her match with him. But I had no idea what she was getting at. She seemed to be very ill-informed and uneducated. Right. And but the thing is, she talks to people that are beside themselves about the Trump people, but she does not make an effort to say what is their argument.

He just says they're flat out unacceptable. For example, Mike Rowe was on with me on Saturday night on One Nation. I asked him, from your perspective, for the people you're with, the blue-collar people learning a trade for a living, how do they feel about the massive push to get manufacturing back here? And to cut budgets over there, cut twenty. We're watching something happen that seems so simple.

But it is also so profoundly extraordinary because we've never seen it happen before. And I think a lot of otherwise skeptical people are pinching themselves, like every day. Millions and millions of dollars. being pointed to as obvious waste or fraud or something.

So he's loving it. And I always wonder, because we're so caught up in it, what is it like on the outside? Because people might look at the six o'clock news and think Elon Musk is a rich guy helping billionaires. That's the message. But what he's in there is volunteering his time and using his staff to find out where the redundancy is and where the waste exists and how to make it more efficient.

So I also watched USAID, AID, get just a magic carpet ride last night on 60 minutes. Not one time did they bring up the questionable expenditures of USAID. We're giving $6 million for Egyptian tourism, $3.3 million for Caribbean LGBT groups, $1.8 million for Honduran LGBT groups, Guatemalan transgender support, $1.9 million, $7.4 million to Syrian democratic political processes, which there is none, and gender diverse support in Bangladesh for $1 million. If you don't like what he's doing to USADAID, please point out. Point out what he's seeing.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think Elon Musk is going to be one of the most consequential figures of our lives. I mean, he's in there doing what we all wanted him to do. And also this notion that Elon Musk came out of nowhere, Trump had Elon on the campaign trail the last few months.

He said Elon's going to get in there. He's going to cut government waste. Doge was already out there in the ether before the election, Brian. We were all talking, well, what is this Doge thing they're building? What is Doge?

People didn't know if they were going to take it seriously.

So this notion that Elon just popped up and he's helping billionaires get richer, I really don't think that's the case at all. In fact, I think a lot of what USAID was doing was making rich liberals richer. I think a lot of those causes were either being skimmed off, money was going through the Kennedy Center, people were making multimillion dollar salaries.

So I actually think the way USAID had been operating for decades was making rich liberals richer. I don't think Elon Musk is out to make himself richer from cutting government waste. Hey, Link, the one weakness I think Trump has shown is that he did say he's going to bring prices down, but there's so many factors that end on that. When do people start looking around and saying, man, the grocery bills have not gone down, the interest rates have not gone down on my credit card? How much time do you think he has?

Well, it's interesting. The liberal media keeps bringing up the price of eggs, the cost of eggs. They don't want to talk about this H5N one, the bird flu. There's a lot going on with farmers right now. I hope that the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, can deal with that as well.

I think that's a conversation that's not being had. But I also think. Trump has been in there, what, several weeks, less than a month? We're coming up on a month in a few days. Let's give the guy a chance.

If you remember Trump's first term, people seem pretty happy with their economics. They seem pretty happy with their investment portfolio, even after COVID, you know, when there was that recovery.

So I think we should give President Trump a chance. He's got really bright, smart people around him. He's inherited a pretty bad deal from Biden, but I think we should give him a chance and verify in time. And if he doesn't live up to that standard, we can call it like we see it. But it's been less than four weeks.

Go get them. Link, always great to talk to you. Thanks so much. Thanks so much, Brian. You got it.

Back in a moment.

So, listen, I promise to get calls this time: 1-866-408-7669, Brian Kilmeet Show. The fastest growing talk show in America. You're with Brian Kilmead. The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead.

All right, one, welcome back. 1-866-408-7669. Hey, let me go down to get a few phone calls. But first off, thanks to everybody who came out the Florida Theater on Saturday night. It was an unbelievable night.

If you saw it on Fox Nation, I hope you loved it. If you haven't, you want to see it on stage where we bring history to life and we have a great time in a packed studio, a historic theater, over a thousand people. I would encourage you to go to Fox Nation and we're going to be back in action again March 22nd in St. Louis at the factory.

So go to briankilme.com so I can meet you in person. And let's go to Julie in St. Louis.

Hey, Julie. Hey there. I am so sick of the media poisoning the well on the Ukraine, Russia. Peace talks. Mediators typically meet with one side, then the other.

They learn their interests. The media is acting as if negotiations are happening without Zelensky. And that is just a lie. If the parties were all sitting in a room together, they would leave. There would never be a settlement.

And they're just creating so much bad blood on their viewership. I watched CNN this morning beating the drum. I know. It's disgusting. I know, I hear you.

I understand that too. I think we get it.

So I texted Mike Walsh this morning. He's in Saudi Arabia, and he said, Brian, we had seven people in Europe. Why are we shutting Europe out? That's not true. We now have we started talks with Russia.

We're just going to them first. That's it. We find out if they're legitimate, and then we come bounce back and we're going to go to Ukraine and then see if they're legitimate. This is a long process. George, you're out there.

George, what's on your mind? Hi, good morning, Brian. I like RFK to look at something, do a study on this. And this might be the reason for autism and even the new cancer rates. I like them I like them to study radiation from the cell phone towers.

Yeah. Yeah, our exposure has been probably exponentially increasing over the last several years. I hear you. That would be something to look into. I think all these consumer-oriented things are what people care about.

You notice those mothers or those maha moms. Uh I don't think any of them were necessarily Republican or Democrat. If they're with RFK, they were most likely Democrats. That's how we discovered this whole movement and there must serve validity to it. And then when he joins Trump, they go Republican.

From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest-growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmead. All right, everyone, welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kill Me Show. I am so glad you're here. Hope you had a great weekend.

We're back in action now. Emily Dominich will be with us, senior VP of Boundary Stone Partners, former senior advisor to Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson. Man, they got their hands full trying to come up with. One big, beautiful bill, or two bills, and moderates can't understand what conservatives are thinking, and Democrats just hope Republicans fail. Not a good combination.

And Brian Steele's going to be with us too, chairman of the committee on House Administration, Subcommittee on Digital Assets. We got to talk about what's happening with Doge and everything else that's happening along with the legislation. Even though the House is off this week, man, they have not gotten anything done, and it's just so hard to get everybody. You need everybody. And with Stefanik's seat still open, and Gates' seats still open, and Walter's seat still open, you have a two-seat majority in the House.

Let's get to the big three. Number three. Eight, nine weeks ago we met and we had the same discussion. And we talked about getting a presence in Rykers Island. We talked about how we can collaborate on public safety threats and finding the missing children that were that can't be found.

Tom Holman attacking from all sides, but now he's got an ally, or is he? That is the New York Mayor, New York Mayor Eric Adams. He opens the door of Rikers Island Prison to ICE officials to get the illegal immigrant criminals out. Will anybody follow in his wake? Is this about self-preservation?

We'll discuss it. Number two. It was Musk who called USAID employees worms. In a post, he gloated about feeding the agency into the wood chipper. The world's richest man had cut off assistance to the world's poorest families.

Right. That's a nice balanced way to do it, Scott Pelley. There's more to that story. Does digging into the IRS now and digging into the Department of Education now. And Trump's team is finding billions in waste in left-wing ideology in the USAID and other places.

We should be celebrating this, but instead, they want to say the world's richest man is just firing people. Number one. I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine. Never and our people never. There is no any leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us, about us.

You know what, President Zelensky? You're right. And you know who agrees with you? The President of the United States, but he's talking to Russia through their delegation first. First time they've been engaged in three years to a war that everybody agrees has got to stop.

But what is wrong with engaging with Russia if you choose to? Go do it, but it doesn't mean you're leaving Ukraine out in the cold. But I wouldn't want Ukraine at the table when I'm seeing how serious the Russians are. Maybe if you want the Europeans to be listening in, you could do that. But now there's an emergency meeting among seven European powers and NATO officials to talk about how they feel, I guess, spurned by the U.

S. I don't know how you feel spurned when you have seven Trumpers showing up high-ranking officials in Europe in Munich. And in there, and over at the NATO meeting this week.

So let's bring in Congressman Brian Steele. Congressman, welcome back. Hey, thanks for having me on. Republican out of Wisconsin, a lot of important people in Wisconsin these days. Congressman, your thoughts about what Doge is doing and the pushback, the massive pushback from Democrats using the courts Well, we have such an opportunity to shine a light on all of the spending that's going on in Washington, D.C., and everybody should be united about removing waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal government.

And when you see the Democrats push back against an examination of the reckless spending of the Biden administration that wrought inflation across our country for four years, you recognize that they don't understand what we're trying to do and what the voters want. What the voters want is control of spending in Washington and visibility into all of the spending programs that the Biden administration was running. If anything, we should be doubling down on exposing exactly how funds were being spent under four years of President Biden. I mean, what they think they have to do is go out and show how much money we're spending, what we're doing with the money that he saves, the reason why we got to get the federal workforce down, the reason why education's got to be examined, and for USAID to get this. Velvet glove treatment from 16 minutes last night was unbelievable.

They didn't even list all the crazy things that the USAID was spending it on. A million for gender diverse support in Bangladesh, 1.8 million for Honduran LGBT groups, $19 million to assist migrants in Colombia, $3.3 million for Caribbean gay groups, condoms for the Taliban at $15 million in various, I guess, birth control methods, a transgender comic book for $32,000, $6 million for Egyptian tourism. If you even want to approach balance, at least write that these programs no American is signing off on.

Well, they never put forward the explanation as to why we had to dig into this in the first place. And that's pretty clear. Over the course of four years under President Biden, USAID was spending money where it shouldn't have. It was not in line with U.S. foreign policy interests or goals and not a good use of taxpayer dollars.

You listed a handful, and I think there's more for us to discover is exactly how these funds were being spent. And so, this is saying, let's make sure if we're using any taxpayer dollars that's going to go outside the United States, that should be the ultimate high bar. That we need to know that this is in alignment with U.S. foreign policy goals and with the goals and objectives of the President of the United States. Clearly, USAID was spending funds not in line with U.S.

foreign policy objectives, goals, or the directive of President Trump. I think it's a good thing that it's going to be moving under the control of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And I think that was another piece that was lost in the 60 Minutes discussion: that when Marco Rubio will take the helm and be able to control a lot of the spending, there is a leader that understands. The goals and objectives of the American first agenda of a peace-through strength agenda and working in agreement with President Trump. But what the 60-minute piece completely failed to do was to explain to the American people why the work of Doge and why the work of President Trump to go after the spending was necessary in the first place.

Exactly. So, I want you to hear: this is a conservative Republican, at least he says he is. I never heard of him, but he's a Republican, and he is the only one that they used in these segments to push back, except for USAID workers. Cut 26, Andrew Nasacios. I think we're creating a system that violates the separation of powers and the checks and balances that are intended in the Constitution.

I am not a moderate Republican. I am a conservative Republican and a strict constructionist. The reason they're not saying anything, I think they're afraid. Musk has said that he would. spend $100 million in primaries on anybody who opposed the President and anything.

So I think there's a lot of fear in the city right now.

So is that why people don't push back because they fear? It's the exact opposite. It's the voters asked us to come to Washington to clean up the mess of spending under the Biden administration. President Trump has made it clear, he's going to follow the order of the courts. And so, what we're going to do, though, is push up to the limit to make sure that we're getting back every taxpayer dollar that is being inappropriately spent or has been inappropriately spent under the four years of the Biden administration.

This is an opportunity for us to look at USAID and other federal government programs to make sure that taxpayer dollars are being used wisely and thoughtfully rather than to drive forward social policy agendas of unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. And so, following the courts, President Trump has said he's going to do that. The 60-minute piece tried to build into the hysteria that President Trump won't do that. But instead, what they did and the biggest failure was to be able to show why this was necessary in the first place. And if you step back and look at the abuse of constitutional authority under President Biden, when he was pushing back against the courts and trying to shift students.

Debt from those who took out the loans to everyone else. And his constitutional overreach as it relates to student debt. 60 Minutes didn't have a piece like this on that. Or when President Biden went and canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, and countless individuals, including hardworking tradesmen from the state of Wisconsin, who were out working on the Keystone XL pipeline, were fired on day one of the Biden administration. You didn't hear 60 Minutes.

Drive forward a piece explaining that those men and women were fired by President Biden, and that was in the private sector. And so, what you see is a biased approach, a failure to show why this was necessary in the first place, and really a recognition, I think, of the American voter that they want this, that they elected President Trump to dig in to find the wasteful spending and actually remove it from the federal budget once and for all. Congressman Brian Steele of Wisconsin is with us. Congressman, I want to get crypto, which you're heading up this committee. I get it.

But I want to bring people to understand that it's not just me, my opinion, or your opinion. If you look at our economy, forget, just look for the number since the federal government is racing towards a fiscal cliff with a new report citing a $838 billion cash shortfall for the first four months of this year. We used to have maybe $500 billion for a year, and we thought that was out of control. Democrats are going crazy because of this, but yet they're not acknowledging what they would do to cut $838 billion worth of cash. We're going to find it.

Find it because they believe that rich people who pay the top 10% pay 70% of all the taxes, they're not paying enough. That's what their answer is, I guess. The nonpartisan CBO says that this is 15% higher than last October through January. The jump reflects timing shifts for certain payments, but even adjusting for that, this year's hole will run to $750 billion plus.

So we're going to be $2 trillion over debt at the end of the year. We need to find a trillion dollars and to cut out at least a trillion, let alone what we're going to be able to find in other programs.

So why would anybody be stopping this?

Well, you're exactly right. What the Democrats want to do is they want to raise spending and then force us into increasing taxes. What we're looking at doing is saying, how do we actually get our fiscal house back in order? And there's areas in particular that we're going to have to dig into about how to deliver health care far more efficiently in the United States than we do to get more people back into the workforce and to get those who are in the workforce a better and a higher paying job. If we're doing that, we have an opportunity to bring down the spending on the welfare side of the ledger as well, not by removing the benefits, but by helping people get up and off of the benefits and to be self-sustainable moving forward.

If we do that and we couple that with addressing the waste, fraud and abuse that we see that President Trump and Elon Musk are calling out, we have an opportunity to begin the work of getting this fiscal house back in order. The final piece of the puzzle is going to be to bring down inflation by controlling spending, by getting people back to work and unleashing American energy. And as the inflation rate comes down, the Federal Reserve will be able to bring down the interest rates, and that will reduce our payments on the debt from an interest perspective, all working towards getting our fiscal house back in order.

So you are a chairman of the House Cryptocurrency Subcommittee. Where do you see your role being, and what should we know about this? For far too long, we saw President Biden have an aggressive attack on crypto development and blockchain development in the United States. What the result was was development was occurring outside the United States, and we were being outcompeted by countries like China. We have an opportunity to put forward legislation, in particular market structure.

We have an opportunity for stablecoin legislation amongst others. And if we do this correctly, we have an opportunity not only to make sure we're protecting U. S. consumers, but in particular, that we're making sure the United States is at the forefront of blockchain technology development and that, that development is occurring here in the United States, and we're no longer being outcompeted by China. This is a huge opportunity.

We have a pro crypto president with President Trump. We have pro crypto support in the United States Senate, and we have it in the House. This is going to be one of the most fundamental and transformational pieces of legislation that we could see go across and be signed into law yet this year. Congressman, could you explain to us in layman's terms, because I need it, why I shouldn't fear that the dollar could be start could this could hurt the dollar as the world's exchange? You could actually help the US dollar.

So if we think about stablecoins, stablecoin is backed up by the US dollar. That's what everybody wants in the globe. And if we allow a structure for stablecoins to be created, what you're actually going to create is a higher demand for U.S. Treasury in the U.S. dollar, which will further solidify the U.S.

dollar as the world reserve currency. The world reserve currency being the U.S. dollar is absolutely essential for the health and strength of particular the U.S. economy. And so if we put in place The proper laws and regulations for these companies to be able to invest and develop Web3 technology here in the United States, we will be benefited in our economy rather than what the Biden administration was doing, was shoving this type of development overseas.

And so instead of the fear that some people have that cryptocurrencies may actually hurt the US dollar, I think what you'll actually see in practice if we get legislation. providing a framework for development to occur domestically here in the United States, you'll actually see an increase in the demand for the U. S. dollar and further stabilize US dollar as the world reserve currency. Maybe.

And how are you going to work with David Zachs, who's got a czar title, a crypto czar title with the administration? We've been working hand in glove across the board with the administration, with David Sachs and Boheims, with him, as well as our colleagues in the United States Senate, with Senator Scott and Senator Loomis leading the way on the Senate side. French Hill and GT Thompson and I in the House have been working aggressively to line up our agenda so that we can move forward in this quickly. This is where President Trump being pro-crypto is so important. He's set the framework, he's given us the agenda, and now we're off and running to try to line up this legislation, bring people together, make sure that we're protecting consumers, and allowing the U.S.

to be the absolute global innovator in this space. This is one of the few times that I've seen in Washington where everybody is rowing in the same direction, and I'm more and more optimistic that we're going to be able to get critical legislation across the line this year. What percentage of the people in the House think you underst then understand crypto. I would say it's growing every day. I wouldn't say that everybody has a full understanding, but I would tell you it's significantly more people that understand it, even at a base level, today than they did four years ago.

As we had some of our initial hearings four years ago, as people were diving in on trying to understand crypto, trying to understand blockchain technology, where Web3 is going, I think it was very beginning.

Now, more and more people are gaining an understanding and appreciation. Those of us, like myself, as I chair the subcommittee on digital assets and crypto, some of us are way in the weeds. But at the end of the day, we need to make sure that we're at the forefront of this in the way the U.S. was at the beginning of the internet age, right? If we think of all of the challenges that you and I probably have with big tech, with the exception of TikTok, big tech is at least domiciled in the United States.

So I have my challenges with it. The good news is, at least it's in the United States of America. And as we look at Web3 and blockchain technology. What we want is to make sure that that development is occurring here in the United States rather than allowing us to be out-competed by countries like China. We do not want them at the forefront.

We want us at the forefront. All right. Brian, always great to talk to you. Thanks so much. Best of luck in there.

Thanks for having me on. Congressman Brian Steele, back in a moment. Increasing your intelligence quotients. What the hell did you just say? It's Brian Kilmead.

He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Killmead. Very concerned, and the situation is very disturbing. Mayor Adams has a responsibility to convince the people of New York City. that he will be able to continue to govern in a manner that puts their best interests first at all times.

and that he's not simply taking orders from a Trump Administration: a Trump Department of Justice or Trump officials who do not have the best interests of the city of New York. Right. That is Akeem Jeffries, who can never make a a quick point, but he has no idea what he's doing. Evidently, he's advising Governor Hochul to leave that Elise Stephonix seat open until September, which fundamentally disenfranchises the people of New York. She's hired to represent.

You don't have any representative because Akeem Jeffries wants to keep the margin as slim as possible. Number two is they want to say Mayor Eric Adams, an African-American Democrat in Manhattan, running this place, light years better than de Blasio, although he's got huge holes in his arsenal and his performance. They say that he sold out in order to keep himself out of jail to Trump. He's vehemently denied it. I cannot believe they're keeping.

That's where they're putting their stake in the ground. We're going to talk about that when we come back. And the Brian Kill Michio, don't move. Information you want, truth you demand. This is the Brian Kill Me Show.

Oh, I see it all the time. They tried it, then they stopped. That was it. They have many different things of hatred. Actually, Elon called me, he said, You know, they're trying to drive us apart.

I said, Absolutely. No, they said, We have breaking news. Donald Trump has ceded control of the presidency to Elon Musk. President Musk will be attending a Cabinet meeting tonight at 8 o'clock. And I say, it's just so obvious.

They're so bad at it. I used to think they were good at it. They're actually bad at it. Because if they were good at it, I'd never be president. You know what's interesting, President Trump sits down with Elon Musk in the Oval Office with Sean Hannity, and he just says there's going to be not a sliver of paper between us.

We're working together, and Elon Musk works for Trump. He's not threatened by him. I can't believe people looked at what happened in the Oval Office last week and thought, wow, Trump looks subservient. He looked the opposite. He's sitting behind the Resolute desk, having someone, one of his officials, come in and explain what they've been working on and taking questions.

Trump normally would have taken all that himself and then take the slings and arrows that follow. I think he's seen the benefit of letting other people take some heat sometimes. Emily Dominich is a senior VP at Boundary Stone Partners, former senior advisor to Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson. Emily, welcome back. What's your take on the media's attack on Musk and their attempt to try to drive these two apart?

I think the media is trying to take advantage of the fact that Musk is this quote-unquote special government employee who is a billionaire and isn't relatable and doesn't have the same sort of charm and humor that President Trump often brings that makes him so relatable to regular Americans. And they see him as the right kind of guy to paint as the villain for cutting government spending. The problem is that most Americans can look at the kinds of things that Elon Musk and the Doge folks are going after and say, maybe the federal government shouldn't be doing that.

So I think this is going to end up backfiring and perhaps make him more popular and make the decisions and the moves that they take more popular in the long run. What could they do to get in front of this? For example, if we could actually see the money that they have, like for example, on Social Security, they said there were over 65 million people old enough to receive Social Security. But you know how many are getting it? 334 million citizens.

Clearly, this is corruption. There were 394 million Social Security recipients, I should say, despite the country having 334 million citizens. That's what he just put out. That's a discrepancy of 60 million. But there's only 65 million eligible to get Social Security.

We're not eligible to get it, everyone listening right now. There are fake Social Security numbers getting Social Security. Why is that polarizing? Yeah, I think some of it is the media sort of says they're making it up. In fact, I've seen quotes from Democratic lawmakers saying this is fake, these aren't real cuts, they're not finding real savings.

And the problem is, actually, much of this stuff is already publicly available. You just have to be able to go look for it. They started talking about USA grants and other kinds of websites that were designed for. For government transparency, but aren't super user-friendly and aren't really accessible to most people. Elon Musk is like shining a huge light on this stuff by tweeting about it every day when they find out areas of fraud.

So, I think the solution here to push back against that sort of mainstream media narrative is more transparency, putting more data online, making it more accessible to regular people who just want to see what the government is spending their money on.

So, the EPA found $20 billion. I saw that HUD found $1.9 billion. I think people need to see that money go to a different account.

So he thinks he can cut a trillion, maybe $2 trillion. How does that relate to $864 billion we need over it's in overdraft now over the first four months?

Somehow, those two worlds have to coincide. I'm coming up with tax reform, renewing it. At the same time, I am looking to grow the economy, at the same time looking to cut. It's almost that right now, we're in separate tunnels. Yeah, it's an incredibly tall order.

And I think we shouldn't conflate these two issues. What Elon Musk and Doge are doing right now is looking for what I would consider to be the low-hanging fruit in the federal government.

So it's the funds that were obligated and never spent. It's clawing those back and putting them back towards the, you know, sending them back to the Treasury when they weren't spent by an agency by the end of the fiscal year. That kind of stuff. It's really important, and we need to do it. And we need to be able to trust that the administration can do it, but it's not going to help us balance the books in the long run.

And Democrats are kind of coming back and saying, oh, well, it's only $60 billion. That's never going to solve the national debt.

Well, sure, but if we can't cut that first $60 billion, how can we possibly trust the administration to ever get us to a place where we're fiscally solvent in the long run? I mean, people say, well, don't touch Social Security.

Well, you can make it efficient. You can make it go to the right people. You could expedite the process through automation. You could gut the staff and make them more accountable. Where if you are actually trying to fake out the government by collecting for your parents who have passed away, you You're going to jail.

And in hospitals, if someone dies in your hospital and that death certificate should automatically trigger them to Social Security, there should be systems in place which I imagine with today's ability, but what we have in our iPhone, this should be a no brainer for people like the Doge people. It should be easy to find out this information. But the thing we have to remember here is that, you know, the Pentagon, which is our biggest spending on the discretionary side, has never passed an audit.

So we have a federal government. This is not just a problem in Social Security. It is a problem government-wide. And Elon Musk and the Doge folks have their work cut out for them here. But I agree with you that we should be able to apply new technology and new ways of looking at things to make it more transparent, make it more remove opportunities for waste, fraud, and abuse, and perhaps make the government a more efficient place.

That won't solve all our problems. But again, if we can't do that first, we're never going to reform these big programs in a significant way. I wouldn't think so.

So let's talk about what the House is off this week, but what did they accomplish last week? I'm beginning to see the frustration level rise, and the Senate's not waiting. They're just coming up with two different bills. The House wants to get one bill. Where are we at?

So the House finally moved forward with their budget blueprint last week, did a markupping committee. The next step will be considering that budget on the floor. And it's going to be a tall order for Speaker Mike Johnson. There's no doubt about it. He's addressing I know he's addressing the Republican conference via teleconference this week so that they can try to get themselves on the same page and be able to vote for this budget.

But when you have a two-vote majority, getting to 218 votes is an incredibly difficult task on a really large budget document that includes cuts for every committee, significant spending for ways and means, and is trying to sort of do everything all in one bill. As you said, the Senate is not waiting around to see if the House is successful. And based on our track record in the past two years, I don't really blame them for having a backup plan. Senator Lindsey Graham moved the Senate budget resolution, which they again broke it up into two pieces.

So we have this smaller spending budget resolution that's going through the Senate right now. And we could see votes on that as early as this week.

Well, that's going to be interesting to see where they go. How many. House members are going to be tough to sway. They got a two vote uh cushion. They're going to eventually gonna get a Gates seat, eventually going to get Waltz's seat, eventually going to get Stefanik's seat.

But right now, are they f are they far off? Are you talking ten or fifteen? I don't think we're quite in that territory, but I would say that the problem with these big budget resolutions, and the reason you only do them when you really have an opportunity to do budget reconciliation, is that they're so big and broad that you don't get those kinds of details that help people justify hard votes.

So if you're a member from a moderate community, we've seen a couple folks come out and express concern, David Valadeo, Nicole Maliatake, saying, hey, we have a lot of Medicaid recipients in our districts, and we need to get some details on what these Medicaid means testing could potentially look like because there's $800 billion in cuts that's tasked to energy and commerce, and that's probably going to come from the health care space.

So these members need some reassurance from the leadership to say, hey, this is going to be a hard vote, but here are the details we're planning on filling out in reconciliation that should put you in a place where you're not going to be in trouble back home.

Well, that's true. In trouble back home, and then you know that Trump is so popular amongst Republicans, the anti-Trump faction is shrunk. It's almost invisible. I mean, there seems to have been a more anti-Bush faction in the Republican. Party, then there's anti-Trump, which I never would have said that in 2016.

And I don't care where you stand on this. It's just McConnell's an anomaly at this point. It's a huge shift. The one thing I will say, though, is that I think this budget reconciliation process is going to kind of shine a light on what Trump's ability is to influence the fiscal conservative wing of the party. Those folks are a little bit different.

They're not 100% on board with a sort of let's spend the money we need to to make the government do what we think is the best best choice. That's the chiproys of the world. Are those guys going to come along on a plan that perhaps doesn't cut as much spending as they expected? That, I think, is going to be a tall order for President Trump and for his staff as we go into this next reconciliation process.

So the Senate this week is ignoring it, going for two bills. And, Emily, you know the inner workings of government. I know it can be a little tedious, but what do you think that's going to mean for the other chamber? And that's got to tick off Speaker Johnson. I think it puts Speaker Johnson in both a good and bad position.

On one hand, I think he used the Lindsey Graham budget resolution as a way to get conservatives to the table and get them to agree to this one big bill package.

So it gives him some momentum to go to his conference and say, hey, look, do we want the Senate writing this bill for us? Or are we going to take the pen and take control at a time where we, frankly, have the sort of political chips stacked for us? I think the things to watch in the Senate are what is that quote-unquote, you know, the voterama where they do lots and lots of amendments. How does that work out? Does it change the nature of that budget resolution significantly?

Do we see places where the Republican Conference and the Senate splinters, or do they pretty much stay in lockstep? Which credit to Senator Thune. He has been able to keep that majority really in line. You mentioned Mitch McConnell sort of taking some steps outside of the lines to vote against nominees, but he did it knowing full well those nominees were getting confirmed.

So I think credit goes to Senator Thune for keeping his conference together. And the question is going to be sort of which one of these leaders is able to do that quicker and more effectively. I want you to hear.

So what Democrats got to do? They're going through the courts. They're trying to slow him, President Trump, down. They're trying to say he's in the middle of a concert. He's causing a constitutional crisis when almost every statement he says is, I'm going to go along with what the courts say.

But he is challenging things, and he actually wants to make sure that the hindrances on the deep state or inner workers of the government is not undermining him again. They got impeachment movements gone twice for him in a special prosecutor investigation. Jen Saki, of all people, on Meet the Press, had this caution for Democrats: Cut 17. Specifically, I'm not a lawyer, but specifically because the Trump administration appears to be ignoring the court order to get the money flowing again. That is the potential for the constitutional crisis.

But my view is that is not the phrase that Democrats should be screaming from the rooftops every day. It may be we're on that road, but you need to be talking about how this is impacting your communities. The farmers saw referenced, the people who rely on Medicaid, the veterans, the early childhood education. Kids who are relying on that. That is what we should be talking about, what Democrats should be talking about out there, because that is how you connect what is happening in Washington with communities in the country.

She's right? You know, she's a good messenger for the Democratic Party. I think, you know, they, every time they talk about Washington bureaucrats and sort of hand-wringing about folks losing their job here in D.C., they are more and more disconnected from folks in the rest of America who look at the spending and sort of see the things that are getting put out by Doge and say, hey, wait a minute, why aren't we taking a better, closer look at this kind of stuff? I think she's right that Democrats need to personalize it. Fortunately for Republicans, they're not doing that.

They're mostly all over the place complaining about federal spending, calling it a constitutional crisis every single day. And if you say that every single day about every single thing that President Trump does, people are going to stop listening to you. And I think that's what we saw in this past election in November. And I think, you know, if they keep on this route, I keep seeing Scott Jennings saying that we're going to keep winning forever if Democrats stick with these talking points. You know, it also made me think that Jen Saki was setting a lot of policy at the podium because we find out how bad Biden was, it's going to ultimately be told the story that he's worse than any of us thought.

And that When she went out there and was able to handle the parrying and the challenging, she was actually saying to people, I'm going to go back and do what I'm saying now, or I'm going to push to do what's going on because I think a bunch of 20-year-olds were running this country for four years. Yeah, I mean, I'm never one to say that age is the decider of whether or not you're smart or capable, but I do think that we know that President Biden was simply not capable of running the country. And we can see that in the pace that President Trump and the Trump administration is taking just in these first 28 days. You know, we've seen executive order after executive order. He's talking to the press every day.

It's a huge, huge shift in posture. And we're seeing the results of that overseas and here at home. Yeah, no doubt about it. Emily, thanks so much for joining us. I appreciate it.

Emily Dominich, Senior VP of Boundary Stone Partners. Thank you. Thanks for having me. All right, you got it. Listen, when we come back, I'll get to your phone calls: 1-866-408-7669.

Could bring some highlights back from SNL last night, 50 years and counting, and some of which were just flat-out partisan hacks. I don't understand why they did it, but it just diminished the comedy. And the fact is that almost everyone identifies with an SNL class. Even if you don't watch it every week, you could say, well, that's when I was in high school, that's when I was in college, this was afterwards.

So we'll talk about that when we come back. Illuminating, intriguing, inculcating. I know some of these words. It's Brian Kilmead. From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Kilmead.

I didn't know you were even gonna be here. Oh, you would if you'd ever come to rehearsal. By the way, congratulations on the Emmy win. Nope. Emmy nomination?

Nope. Grammy win. Nope. Grammy nomination? No.

Golden Globe win? No. Golden Globe nomination? There you go, yes, sir. Thank you.

We writers really appreciated that tribute, but I believe that the heart and soul of this show is the celebrity hosts, many of whom are in this room tonight. You know, as I look around, I see some of the most difficult people I have ever met in my entire life. Over the course of 50 years, 894 people have hosted Saturday Night Live, and it amazes me that only two of them have committed murder. Yeah. Hmm.

Each week. Each week, a new celebrity host comes in with their own dynamic and they throw everything off. But not you, Steve, because you have no dynamic. That's so funny. That is great.

And by the way, I think I know one is OJ. I don't know who the other one was to commit murder. If we could look that up, Eric and Pete, that would be great. But I mean, that's type of funny. That's funny.

I they did just like two two or three hits on you know on uh Trump I just thought was okay. I mean, there's humorous ways to do it. I think the new guy doing Trump is kind of good, but and he's definitely less hateful than Alec Baldwin is, but and that's why they pulled him off, plus Alex got all the problem. Who's the other one? Oh, Robert Blake is the other one who's alleged to have commit murder, but we don't think so.

He was at his car when I think the woman was shot. What was that story? I I will tell it was crazy. But Robert Blake was very popular, but uh I think he passed away, so that story's over.

So uh that that was last night, that was the fun stuff. Then you had the Daytona 500 where the President of the United States showed up. And he was buzzing around the track, and he was able to address the whole audience and got out and did an interview. And what one thing is, whoever it's probably Susie Wiles, if you ask me, who said, You're such a great grandfather. Your grandkids are all over you every day.

You're all over their lives.

So why not bring them with you? And I think this is part of him letting them know, like, that this is a moment in time that they're going to remember their grandfather. And he brought his granddaughter out, and evidently his grandson would stay in the car.

So he was with her during the day. I think that is a great shot. But his message to everyone there, about 110,000 people cheering for him. I think that Democrats have to stand back and just say, wait a second, at the Super Bowl, he gets more applause than Taylor Swift. Almost everybody in a neutral in a very liberal city of New Orleans cheered him.

And you got to think mostly Eagle fans were in the stadium. They cheered him. Philadelphia, really? They cheered him. That matters.

When you go to Daytona, Not a surprise in Florida, but those race fans come from everywhere. Those NASCAR moms and those NASCAR dads and that next generation like him.

So that's something to think about when people want to challenge him. And also, I just want to thank everyone again for all WOKVU listeners out in Jacksonville, we're at Florida Theater. Unbelievable Night. The whole show is archived on the Fox Nation app. Hope you check it out.

And then coming up on March 22nd in St. Louis at the factory, we'll be doing it again: going on stage, talking about my seven history books, two sports books, and of course, taking your questions and answers, talking about the war on history, and also talking about the greatest comeback in political history, and that's Trump. And that's a fact. What I just told you there? Is beyond reproach.

I'm not asking for input. It is the greatest comeback, even if you didn't want to see it. And it is a war on history, even if you didn't want to acknowledge it. But thankfully, there's a guy in the Oval Office who kind of likes our history and he'll push as we come to year 250. Brian Kilmeetcho.

Thanks for listening. Keep it here. I'm Dana Perino. This week on Perino on Politics, I'm joined by former GOP strategist and host of the Rich Zioli Show, Rich Zioli. Available now on FoxNewsPodcast.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

Must listen to podcasts from Fox News Audio. Listen to the show ad-free on Fox News Podcast Plus, on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music with your Prime membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Hmm.