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Brian Kilmeade Show
"Put Boots On The Ground!" Admiral Harward’s Radical Plan to Secure the Straits
02:02:47
The Brian Kilmeade Show 05-28-2026
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Brian Kilmeade
From the FOX News radio studios in midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest growing radio talk show. Brian Kilmeade
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from 48 and 6 in Midtown Manhattan heard around the country, around the world. This is the Brian Kilmeade Show. This hour we're going to be joined by Vice Admiral Robert Harwood. That'll be great. In a matter of moments he's going to be joining us too. We're also following a lot of breaking stories including some more hostilities breaking out in the Middle East. And Joe Biden's wife, the former first lady releases a book that by all indications are should be in the fiction aisle. And it just brings back all those memories of when people were lying to us about her husband's condition for four years. She doesn't understand that we found out the truth. She's still trying to jam it down our throats. And to think how our country's security was at risk. We'll discuss that. Just gotta remind you if you ever missed the show or you want to get more of the show. YouTube.com Hebron Kilmeadejo the The channel is going wild. I want you to be a part of that. So let's get to the big three. Number three, very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I'm doing that for the world. I'm not doing it just for us. And we've had great support from other nations, by the way. We don't need it at all, but we've had great support from other nations. The problem is you always get the support when you don't need it. Iran gets hammered for provoking American forces as they pretend to be interested in peace talks. At least some are of their government and some aren't. I'm not buying it at all. Let's finish these terrorists off.
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
Number two, hundreds of thousands of dollars,
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Josh Krashower
maybe more than that.
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Brian Kilmeade
But we think that exact type of fraud has been replayed all over our country. We expect that there are tens of thousands of people who are collecting fraudulent money to take care of people and they're not actually taking care of them. Vice President's doing a heck of a job rooting out the fraud. Not only abusing government to run social programs, but also abusing the kids they were supposed to help, like with autism. You're not going to believe this story. What the VP has uncovered already while all 50 states are under scrutiny.
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Spencer Pratt
Number one, why I'm resonating across the country or even outside of the country is because all I focus on is the truth. I'm the look around Candidate I do basics. I don't do national politics. I don't do parties.
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Brian Kilmeade
Spencer Pratt was just on the couch on Fox and Friends. We sat and talked to him. He has momentum, the money and the ideas for a massive upset win in Los Angeles. He believes he's going to win June 2. There won't need a runoff in November. Will the liberal spiraling city be open to a right leaning reality star? Meanwhile, Talarico of Texas gets the scrutiny he was hoping to avoid while Platner of Maine received some pleasing polls. We have it all covered in politics, but first things first. Let's talk about the war with one of the guys really I respect most in this country that served our country, grew up in Iran pre, pre revolution Vice Admiral Robert Harwood, Senior adviser to the Iran Policy Project at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. Admiral, welcome back. First off, can you confirm that's not a mask, Brian?
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
It's not a mask. Good morning. Always good to be with you.
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Brian Kilmeade
Yeah. Before we get into it, I couldn't believe how much I was reading about this story for Fox had some fake admiral on. It wasn't really Robert Harwood. What was that about?
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
I have no idea, Brian. I think the lighting or something distorted my appearance and someone ran with it. So again, as you see out in this environment we're in now, who knows? Someone can promulgate a concept and an idea and if it's, they can put something behind it. People tend to believe it. But I can't control those things and I don't worry about. I would tell you one thing my father always told me, Brian, it's never bad to see your name in print unless it's in the obituary. So everything else will pass. And this will pass as well, Brian.
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Brian Kilmeade
Right. Meanwhile, the US military carried out new strikes in Iran yesterday targeting a military site that threatened American troops. It looks like drone. We confirmed it. We shot down four Iranian one way attack drones that posed a threat to the strait. US forces struck the ground control station where it came from on Bandur Abbas that was about to launch a fifth. We know after we did that they retaliated to going for our bases in Kuwait where it looks like we prevented our bases from being hit. What can you add to this and what do you think? Is there a method to what seems like madness if Iran really wanted these talks to be successful?
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
Well, Iran's trying to demonstrate that they still are a threat to everyone to strengthen their position in the negotiations. And. And you're in this weird position where both sides of the table, believe time is on their side. Iran believes they can outweigh President Trump, that the political pressure and the elections will help influence him, which he's clearly said is not the case. And the Trump administration, the president's batting this continuing financial blockade that's just starving the country and which is already decimated in so many ways. Water shortages, power shortages, fuel shortages. He believes that's going to work in his advantage and force them to capitulate. But until then, the Iranians want to still demonstrate to reinforce their position that they remain a threat. So I believe that's what this was all about.
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Brian Kilmeade
50%.
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
Don't forget.
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Brian Kilmeade
Go ahead.
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
We just finished. The Hajj is completed, and there were 30,000 Iranians in Saudi for the Hajj. So they're now returning home. You know, Eid will be over here shortly. A very pious celebration of their faith. And so after that, this is. It's going to get ratcheted up and the president's going to lose patience with these guys.
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Brian Kilmeade
Ultimately, maybe they get some information once they leave the country. They're allowed to leave the country like that in Iran and go over to
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
the Hajj because of the sacred position Saudi has as the curator, the maintainer of the holy site. They always allow Muslim because they're required under their faith to do it once in their lifetime. So they. Yes, they allow the Iranians. They had visas. I think the numbers were 30 to 35,000 came to make the pilgrimage. And they're in a controlled environment when they do that. But then they go back to Iran. So that's not uncommon. But they usually do not fight during those periods. Now that that's over, they're back to their typical antics.
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Brian Kilmeade
So now the Internet is up. They say 50% of the country. I was listening to some Arab channels this morning, and they say 50% of the country says they have some connectivity when it comes to the Internet because they've been losing hundreds of millions of dollars a week because there's no E Commerce. So why do you think they put the Internet up? Was it financial, or is there some other reason?
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
Without a doubt, financial. They need every scrap they can get now. And I'm getting notes from my friends in Iran. They're telling me, you know, so I can gauge that by the amount of communications and texts I get from my Iranian friends in the country. But I think it's. They're in that dire straits. This blockade is just crushing them. So, yeah, they're desperate. And, Brian, we could crank that up even More what if we decided we're going to start making kill zones on their landlines of supply, go after those routes that go into Pakistan, go up through Tabriz into Azerbaijan, the ones that go into Turkey, if you want to really shut them down even more. Not just the oil blockade, the president has those options. So I think you're going to see some of that start to escalate here in the very near future. As you said in your lead in there's going to come a point where the President just says let's finish this thing off. Let's go, let's put boots in the ground and Josque, let's go boots on the ground in Bandar bus and not to occupy but to go in and clear out those towns and leave and make them kill zones. So the President still has a lot of options on the table to ratchet this up. But you could see financially it's having dramatic impact internal to Iran and I think that's a very sound strategy.
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Brian Kilmeade
What would you like to see him do?
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
I'd like to see boots on the ground. I'd like not again not to occupy terrain. So really clean up the straits number one, the Straits of Hormuz. Commerce for the international community is important. We've been struck in those bases striking them but you know, go in and do a raid, take the mute go in and take some land and Josque would be at the top of my list. It's outside the Gulf, it's on the coast. No really very limited action access from the rest of Iran, basically one main artery and you could take that out or strike anything coming on it. So I think any type of raids boots on the ground in Iran really alters the calculus for the Iranian people and the internal dynamics of Iran.
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Brian Kilmeade
So you know, the president likes to sell. He always does. He's got the best ballroom, you know he's got the, you know, the best poll numbers. That's what he does. I mean there's nothing wrong with it. It's marketing, it's selling. That's how he he's always been successful but and also he's working the refs with this negotiation. He'll say these guys are dying for a deal even if they're not. It works to his benefit to say that. Do you think we are talking to people that are more amenable to a deal and there's a separate faction like the IRGC who doesn't want a deal? Is that what I'm seeing here or are they working in conjunction?
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
You've got Exactly. This is indicative of the discord inside the country and this is what the President's doing so well again so it's a very sound strategy. And don't forget for years the Iranians played this card with everyone else. The President has flipped the cards on them. Time is in our favor. So yes, there are those who hey, we got a bad situation here, we gotta solve it. The IRGC doesn't care about the people so they're gonna stay the course. Cuz they know if the streets are open and the nukes are handed over, they're done. So I think again the strategy and I'm not a dealmaker guy, I'm a policy guy, I think this is the President from day one strike Iran, put the pressure, he's doing all the right things to bring what's needed at end state in Iran that will provide long term stability and security. So stay the course but continue to ratchet it up.
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Brian Kilmeade
Right now the Arab states seem to be somewhat divided. The UAE seems all in, but it looks like Saudi Arabia is getting queasy about us ratcheting things up. That's why we had Operation Freedom and they were not for it. They asked us to stop it in order to go back to talks. The Saudis have a legitimate worry in your mind of the Red Sea being barred that would stop the pipeline from being rerouted. And they're worried about their desalinization plans. Do they have reason to worry? Because we've had 44 days in order to fortify those desalination plants, haven't we?
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
That's correct. And they do have a lot to be worried about. I believe the President has the ability here and the option to reassure them that he is staying for the long course. Their biggest concern is making a deal that does not solve the longer term threat, existential threat to them which is missiles and drones and a much larger military. So if the President was to guarantee to Saudi Oman, Qatar, UAE long term stability and security, they would stay in all that. The problem is as you all are, politics. We have change in administrations. We guarantee UAE was one of our strongest partners and always have, hey, you're going to get the F35 if you sign the the Abraham Accord. And we could never pull that out. So there's a lot of uncertainty and mistrust in our policies for the long term because of our political situation where you see the rulers in these countries staying in power decades and yet they'll go through numerous heads of our government, different policies, but that's what's most Important to them, the guarantees of long term security, that we're going to address this threat for an enduring situation.
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Brian Kilmeade
But Admiral, by the way, if you're not watching, he was streaming, but Vice Admiral Robert Horwood's with us now. So a lot of the Arab states go, wow, they were still able to get through with drones. They still were able to land a few rockets. They hit our bases, maybe, if I'm to believe the Washington Post report 200 times. So they say, yeah, we're knocking some of the rockets out of the sky, most of them, but some are still getting through. Does that make us look less than stellar in their eyes?
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
Yeah, we're less credible. They have doubt. We haven't built the trust and confidence that we want and we need to get their cooperation. So you're exactly right. It's a trust and confidence and that's what's so important.
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Brian Kilmeade
But it's not that they don't trust us as we don't have the defense. I mean, for example, we can't stop the 30,000. The $30,000 drone that gets through. If you hit me with 12, one gets through. Is that on us?
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
Yes, because we started this situation and we've always been telling them for decades we were able to do that and that we were selling and providing them air defense systems to do all that. So, yes, we do have accountability. The US Government and our military has accountability for this, without a doubt, because we've been reinforcing it for years and we've been studying the problem and preparing for this for decades from the time I was at CENTCOM before and after, and that was 12 years ago. So without a doubt, this has always been the number one threat from Iran. But. Right. And that's why we have to ensure we address it, that we solve it. I know the president is focused on the nukes and the Straits of Hormuzz, but the funding of surrogates and their missiles and drone programs remain the long term existential threat to our air partners. So we have to reinforce with them that we are committed to solving both of those problems.
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Brian Kilmeade
But we're seeing. But warfare has even changed from when you were there so rapidly. The Ukraine has changed everything in terms of drone offense and defense. And don't you agree with that? And that, you know, it's not that we, we said we didn't lie to them, it's just things are changing in real time.
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
Brian, you've hit one of. In fact, I'm in the defense industry, as you know, and I'm in The drone and autonomy platform warfare has changed. Unprecedented. And think of this, Brian, over the last, since the end of World War II, we've put billions and no, I'm sorry, trillions of dollars into aircraft carriers and fighter jets. I mean trillions and trillions. And we've seen their use and effectiveness other than a deterrent has been relatively not cost effective. So you have Ukraine with no air power, Iran with no air power, able to hold off the two superpowers in the world with drones and autonomy. We've got it. And I think General Petraeus on a talk show here a few days ago said, said it as well. We've got to shift gears and you're seeing that now. But the way our process is, it's very slow. We've got to get in that same business. If we had hundreds of thousands of drones cost effective and cheap, that we could just be targeting every day, every minute, every IRGC members, this thing would be over in a couple of days. So you've hit it spot on. Drone warfare is going to be the greatest, most cost effective deterrent we need to build.
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Brian Kilmeade
Admiral, I got to go to break but keep in mind, go to school in Ukraine. Ukraine did it. They're the leading cause of it. We're putting billions into it and we should just say how can we help each other? And that would because they are helping the Gulf states and I hope we do too. Admiral, always. Great. Thanks so much. Great to see you.
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
Good to see you, Brian. Thank you.
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Brian Kilmeade
Back in a moment.
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It's Brian Kilmade with American Home Shield.
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Brian Kilmeade
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Daniel Turner
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- [17:24]
Brian Kilmeade
From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Kilmeade.
- [17:30]
Hey, welcome back, everybody. Just got to remind you I'm going to be Arena Nevada. I know it might be a little bit far, but I think you should join me there. Seven o' clock for history Liberty Laughs live on stage. And don't forget, One Nation coming up Sunday night at 10 o'.
- [17:42]
John Smoltz
Clock.
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Brian Kilmeade
Got a great roster of guests. You know we had Spencer Pratt on today. I'm going to bring back some of that sound with Billy Bush. He believes he can win outright June 2nd. Billy Bush in Los Angeles and knee deep in the Hollywood stuff. Does he believe that as well as well as the ruthless podcast guys will be fantastic. They're going to be with us and a lot of great guests, including the very funny Jamie Lissow, who you see and Miranda Devine, who you watch on the New York Post, who you see on the New York Post. And you see our podcast over on the New York Post too, as well. We'll be covering all that as we continue to cover what's happening in this world. All that coming up. Meanwhile, coming up next, Angelo H. Pascotti, Marine veteran, speaker and author of a brand new book, Dark Horse Harnessing the Hidden Potential in War and Life. Don't move. You listen to Brian Kill Me Show,
- [18:46]
A talk show that's real. This this is the Brian Kilmeade show, everyone.
- [18:52]
We're keeping up to date on what's going on around the country, around the world. We'll let you know when the president's supposed to speak at some point today. And we are finding out what the response is going to be from what could be a reigniting of the war in Iran. But war is nothing new. To my next guest, he's Angelo AJ Pascuti, Marine veteran, speaker of an author of a brand new book called Dark Horse Harnessing the Hidden Potential in War and in Life. Angela, welcome.
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
Thank you so much, Brian, for having me.
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Brian Kilmeade
So I mean, it's a big book about your life. You would think you're like 60 years old, but you joined the military right after 9 11. Yes, sir. Yes.
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
So I was a senior in high school when 911 happened. Technically, I was 16 at the time, had to wait three weeks before I could talk to a recruiter, was influenced by a high school history teacher who was also a Marine who introduced me to my first recruiter and then joined right afterwards and then shipped off right after I graduated high school.
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Brian Kilmeade
Why the Marines?
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
You know, they were the toughest I saw. You know, I didn't know the Marine Corps had jobs inside of it. I thought all of the Marine Corps was just infantry. And, you know, as a young man who had, you know, ideas of self doubt and self efficacy issues, I thought that why not try to climb the highest mountain I could.
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Brian Kilmeade
And how'd it go?
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
You know, it went well. I struggled at first a lot, as anybody does. Parris island, San Diego so Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, because I'm from Northern California originally and stepped into that and, you know, was able to find my footing eventually. But, you know, what I wanted to write inside of the book itself was that failure is often the first part of the first step in success. And so I write a lot of my struggles in there to be Able to be open to young men and young women who think that failure is, you know, final for them. And so I wrote about that.
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Brian Kilmeade
So, I mean, you had two active wars going on shortly after. I mean, you had Afghanistan within months, and then you had Iraq. They were ramping up for Iraq right after. What was your experience?
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
So my experience was when I went into boot camp, there was kind of rumbling. So I went into boot camp in July of 2002 so that we knew that Afghanistan was going on and the rumblings of Iraq began. But we're pretty isolated when we go to boot camp. And then right after that, I graduated the School of Infantry in December of 2002, arrived to my first unit in January of 2003, and shipped off to Kuwait three weeks later.
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Brian Kilmeade
And then from Kuwait, you were part of the invasion.
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
I was. I was. I was 18 years old. It was a rifleman in 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. Where the book gets its name is Dark Horse. So it's kind of a double entendre. Dark Horse is the call sign for 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines out of Camp Pendleton. And also Dark Horse is for anyone who feels underestimated, who thinks, you know, a little of themselves and kind of a, you know, a challenger, that people may not expect something.
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Brian Kilmeade
So what'd you learn in the battle? We know about the thunder run with the 3rd Infantry. Where were you guys?
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
So we run Route 1. Our biggest day of fighting was in a place called Diwanilla or a little north of Diwania. It was a Republican, Republican Guard training camp. And so also what we had, Fedayeen, was their kind of.
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Brian Kilmeade
We didn't know anything about Saddam Fedayeen. Right. That was bad intel. Not knowing that they had guys in plain clothes looking to take you out.
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
And that confuses everyone because look at that time frame. We're looking for a conventional military. And so then we're fighting a conventional military.
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Brian Kilmeade
This is the first time.
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
That's exactly.
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Brian Kilmeade
First person Gulf War.
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
Exactly correct. And so then all of a sudden, we see these guys who are in, you know, non standard unifor, who are fighting us. And it started the very beginnings of what would eventually become the insurgency. But, you know, the Marine Corps, you know, we fought 2003 on our terms. It was a maneuver warfare, fast paced, striking the enemy so that to prevent their ability to make war. And that was war on our terms.
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Brian Kilmeade
What was the first. What was the big adjustment from training to actual war?
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
The big adjustment for me, I think, was the gravity of the situation. So training. You know, there is a level of, you know, understanding of what could be. And then all of a sudden, once that first bullet snaps by head, there's this realization of, like, this is not a game anymore, and the stakes are pretty real. And I was pretty honest in the book itself. I made a lot of mistakes. Very, very young. I tripped over my own rifle, jammed my rifle with mud, and there's chaos and missiles and all kinds of things going on. And I'm trying to figure myself out. I was only studied because of a very strong team leader at the time frame. And really what I saw through Dark Horse and the thread that I pull through it is that people, you know, that we were all in this together, right? No one was coming to save us. And so people looked to be able to help carry my load physically, emotionally, and mentally until I could carry it myself.
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Brian Kilmeade
How long until you could? And how great is it to have a leader that doesn't judge, just fixes?
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John Smoltz
Right?
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
That's exactly correct. I really wanted to be able to emphasize that inside of the book. How long did I feel that, you know, I'm still waiting on that to happen. You know, to feel confident in every decision that we make. And that's really what I wanted to do, is inspire young men and women to recognize that, you know, if you're. If you're afraid, right. If you are uncomfortable, you're growing, and to be able to push into that, you know, I eventually moved over into the sniper program as soon as we moved back to camp Pendleton after OIF1 and started to move through, you know, a sniper indock and kind of becoming a sniper and struggled with that as well. And so there's no secrets that I have left in, you know. You know, I can't. There's nothing left to hide. You know, I've kind of written all of my failures, but really as a purpose to show people that progress is part of it.
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Brian Kilmeade
And what did you think about the operation in particular and your role as a sniper? Well, because you're killing terrorists.
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Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
Yes.
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
Yes.
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Brian Kilmeade
So specifically. So is it gratifying or is it also taxing?
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
So the answer to both is yes. So there is a humanity side that you understand that we are out there and we are killing other human beings. The hard part for us is we also do want to do our job well. The way that we look as ourselves, as snipers is, yes, we have a bolt rifle. Yes, we have eyes and ears, and we can see further and touch farther than a lot of the conventional infantry. We saw ourselves as protectors. So since we could reach further than conventional infantry could. What we wanted to do was be able to be angels on their shoulders. So we went into the Battle of Fallujah. I was a sniper in training in a sniper platoon during the Battle of Fallujah. And then eventually after that battle, became a sniper, like a school trained sniper.
- [24:33]
Brian Kilmeade
So was it amazing? It's amazing for me, as an outsider, how underappreciated the military was in adjusting to the battlefield. We always say avoid urban warfare. Well, it happened. Yes. We gotta take this town. Well, how do you do that? You cordoned off the whole thing. You gave people ID cards, you found out who they were, and then you found out who the terrorists were. That's a difficult taxing. People's lives were lost. I mean, it's amazing what you guys learned on the fly, how you adjusted. I think it's totally underappreciated.
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
I do appreciate that. You know, thank you for saying that. Really, what we come back to the Marine Corps is it is we are the sum of all of our parts. And we come together. Every single person is integral to making sure that, specifically with Fallujah, that Fallujah happened the way that it did. No person was more important than the other, and the only thing that mattered was the man and woman to your left and right. And that really carries us through. So writing a book, you know, how do you write a memoir without sounding like a narcissist? What we tried to do with Dark Horse was use my story as a through line to tell all of these individual Marine stories through the entirety of the book.
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Brian Kilmeade
Were you taking notes at the time?
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
So I. Instead of taking notes. So my mother is a plein air, pastel and oil painter. And so I grew up with kind of an artistic background. So instead of writing normal letters like, hey, mom, my feet smell, I'm hungry. I wrote stories of what I witnessed along the way. And being a good mom, what she did, she saved all of my letters. And I've included the majority of my letters from combat in the book. And so you can actually see where I'm at in a mental snapshot at 18 years old in one, 20 years old in Fallujah, and then 21 on my third tour in Iraq.
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Brian Kilmeade
And what did you. What do you think about the operation overall?
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
So overall, I think what happened was we. In some aspects, what we did was, you know, the dog caught the car, right? We got. We did everything that we needed to do to be able to have a military victory. And then I think what happens is, I think we kind of lost the plot. At some point. It became about nation building and we ended up kind of being mired into a place where we were no longer fighting the war on our terms. We were fighting it on other people's terms.
- [26:31]
Brian Kilmeade
Insurgency, absolutely. Having to push back. But no one else was underappreciated because the economy collapsed right after was the surge. Yep. We had 2008, we had the market crash. But prior to that, despite all the pushback, General Keane, David Petraeus, a lot of other MVPs came up with a plan where George Bush greenlighted it and even lost a lot of his party in doing it to combine with the tribes and give them back their country. And it worked to the point where Barack Obama basically said, why do we even have any troops there? I promised to end this war, let's just pull everyone out. Which ended up being a mistake because in comes ISIS afterwards. But having said that, do you find that people just want to say, oh, the Iraq war was a mistake, and they don't understand the victories that were there and that they've had, I don't know, 15 elections since.
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
Correct. So that's a fantastic question. I write about that as a young man sitting at, you know, the idea for me is democracy. What we wanted to do was provide a fledgling country who was with an autocratic dictator. We wanted to give them the opportunity at democracy. What I always say is that any form of revolution has to be, you know, born from within. The people have to want it and they have to earn it. We provided the stability. I write a letter in there in 2005, where I'm sitting, I'm sleeping in the election, or in the first election site in Iraq in 40 years, famously
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Brian Kilmeade
had their fingers up in the air.
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Angelo AJ Pascutti
That's exactly correct. And the gravity was not lost on me as a 20 year old. What we were fighting for, what we felt we were dying for, was the opportunity for democracy. At that point, it becomes Iraq's and the Iraqi people's decision of how they want to go. That was our job, was to provide them the space. And it was up to them to be able to decide where they.
- [28:08]
Brian Kilmeade
And they're doing that now. And now they have a situation where we have a presence there in the area and there's no longer support. Don was saying, when people want to run down the Iraq war, go ahead. When people say things like stupid war, I think about the people that fought it. And I just ask you, go back to that time, right? Go back to 91 and the criticism on Bush 41 for not finishing the job, and Bush 43 finishes the job. And they say, great. And all of a sudden the insurgency happens. They go with, this whole thing was a mistake. And then after it, you can't have it every way. And then you got to say, what if we did leave Saddam Hussein in power? What if we did relieve all the sanctions? Do you think that he would have just wilted into the, into the woodwork? No, he would have been the menace of the Middle east and we would have had two crazy terroristic powers instead of just one.
- [28:52]
Josh Krashower
Yes.
- [28:52]
Brian Kilmeade
Meaning Iran being the other.
- [28:53]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
In 1991, Saddam's military was the fourth largest military in the world, you know, backed largely by the Soviet Union as far as the weapons systems. And so for me, what I've been able to study through a lot of my own historical research is, you know, Desert Storm was a huge success because that was the right type of enemy for the right type of military that the United States had at that time frame. We had professionalized our military since the ending of Vietnam. And 1991 was this perfect opportunity for us to be able to overthrow within four days or 96 hours, take down the fourth largest military in the world and pacify them for a very, very long time. And then, yes, eventually this thing starts to percolate and you know, instability is something that we as a nation like to fight. We want to be able to provide an opportunity again for democracy. You know, Iraq is. When we look back on it, it's always easy to look back on with, you know, rose colored glasses or with, you know, the clarity of when you're in the situation. You know, again, I was a young man, I was a lance corporal, E3, you know, and all of these things. I was really just trying to be able to save my friends lives and get out of it alive myself. As we went into Fallujah. You know, there's an old saying that as soon as the first bullet passes by your head, politics goes out the window. And you know, I write a lot about that in this book. A friend of mine said, this book is deeply, deeply political. It's nonpartisan. What I do is I show the world that through my experience as a young man fighting for democracy, fighting for his country. You know, I've read a lot of your work and specifically that one of the books that I enjoyed the most was on the Secret Six. Right. Nathan Hale. Right. You know, my only regret is that I have but one life to give to my country. The majority of the Americans who join the United States military believe that and they want that and they will that and they're very proud to bring that forward to defend the values that the United States carries forward.
- [30:36]
Brian Kilmeade
Right. So what leadership lessons did you learn? Now you said you're always a learning progress. I understand that the humility is important, but you've learned a lot, right?
- [30:43]
Daniel Turner
Yes.
- [30:44]
Brian Kilmeade
And you're still young. You still. How old are you?
- [30:45]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
I'm 41.
- [30:46]
Brian Kilmeade
41. So what did you take out of that? Knowing. Putting your life on the line. Most of the four, four or five years. Right. The. That was.
- [30:55]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
So I ended up doing 21 years inside of the service itself, but in a hot war. How long until 2000? My last combat deployment was 2014.
- [31:03]
Brian Kilmeade
Okay.
- [31:04]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
I moved into special operations at that time frame in Afghanistan and North Africa. You know what I learned was that for me, learning has to be central to your core. You have to be able to teach an old dog new tricks. But the core message inside of Dark Horse is make them better than you. Here's what I want people to take from the book. I want them to understand young Americans who suffer from their own ideas of self efficacy. First, you have to be able to do hard things. If you're uncomfortable, you're growing. Second is that failure is often the first step to success. And the third thing is that when you achieve your own individual success, whatever that looks like in any walk of life, the job now, your obligation is to turn around and make the next generation better than you. I tell people all the time, if you want to know what I learned over 21 years of service, the very last page of the book is called Letter to the Leader. And I write an open letter to anybody who wants to be a leader from any walk of life. If you want to know how I learned that or what I did to be able to learn that lesson, those are in the pages of the book itself.
- [32:03]
Brian Kilmeade
Right. And by the way, Angelo A. It couldn't be. You're all Italian, right?
- [32:08]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
Oh, super Italian.
- [32:10]
Brian Kilmeade
Angelo AG Pescutti.
- [32:12]
Josh Krashower
Yes, sir.
- [32:12]
Brian Kilmeade
Okay, I got it right. Marine veteran, speaker and author of a brand new book, Dark Horse Harnessing Hidden Potential in War and in Life. Just let me bring it to today before we go. What would you like to see happen in Iran knowing so many of your people that you serve with were killed by EFPs as well as the insurgency with a help finance and fuel.
- [32:31]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
Yes, Great question. You know, I sat and I had a long conversation with Sean Ryan about this. We talked for eight and a half hours and he asked a lot of
- [32:38]
Brian Kilmeade
these things, eight and a half hours.
- [32:39]
Mark Thiessen
Yes, sir.
- [32:40]
Brian Kilmeade
Is that all online on the podcast?
- [32:42]
Daniel Turner
It is.
- [32:42]
Spencer Pratt
It is.
- [32:43]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
And so you kind of get to understand, here's what I say as a service member, is that the social contract, when we sign up to join the United States military, we write a blank check to the United States, payable with our lives. What I want to understand. What I want people, politicians, you know, regular, everyday Americans to understand that bond that we share with one another has to be protected. And that sacred bond, it has to be wielded carefully whenever we go anywhere in the world to be able to defend the values or, you know, be able to stabilize country, countries for the sake of democracy. We have to have, I would say, clear objectives, a sound mind and a clear heart. Before we do that, say, do you
- [33:21]
Brian Kilmeade
think this is clear enough?
- [33:22]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
In my personal. Now I understand I don't have a clearance anymore. So I am. I. There's two things I understand. I am no longer the man in the arena, and I'm never going to, you know, talk poorly on the men and women who are in the arena. I have. I have turned in my back.
- [33:35]
Brian Kilmeade
But you are more qualified than 97% of the people in the country to comment.
- [33:39]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
That's correct. That's correct. I do appreciate that.
- [33:42]
Brian Kilmeade
Yes.
- [33:43]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
I think that the objective needs to be clearly laid out. You know, as far as a battle plan. We have to have a North Star, an idea of what we want to accomplish through there. And I think as a regular, everyday American now, I don't see those. Now, I'm never going to argue that Iran is not an issue. I'm never going to argue that they have not fought us through proxies for the last, you know, three to four decades at this point. Never going to argue that. But I think that there are some professional military agencies who have a pretty good idea of what to do. And I think that what I've written in the book is sometimes that our policymakers need to let our military men and women make some of the decisions on the ground and not get in the way.
- [34:16]
Brian Kilmeade
Right. So let them finish the job.
- [34:18]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
Yes, sir.
- [34:19]
Brian Kilmeade
Right. Especially because if you look at the Middle east, you actually have a shot at. So many of these countries care about their economy more than their religion. You know, I'm saying I'm more than being a zealot or a fanatic. I look at the uae, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, look at Oman. They're looking to grow their society for the first time, maybe in my lifetime. And it seems like where you turn Iran Just sits in the way, you know, it does.
- [34:42]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
And it is a cultural center for it and maybe not. Yes. To finish the job. I think that having a very clear outline of what needs to happen and allowing our military makers to work towards that, to work towards those goals.
- [34:54]
Brian Kilmeade
Pick up dark horse Harnessing hidden potential in war and in life. Angelo, great meeting you. Sorry we don't have eight and a half hours, but this has been great. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. And thanks for serving.
- [35:04]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
The pleasure was mine. It was my honor to serve back
- [35:06]
Brian Kilmeade
in a moment where big stories need bigger conversations. Stay informed and energized with the Brian Kilmeade Show, A radio show like no other. It's Brian Kilmeade.
- [35:28]
Spencer Pratt
Why I'm resonating across the country or even outside of the country is because all I focus on is the truth. I'm the look around candidate. I do basics. I don't do national politics. I don't do parties. I just say, look, they're stealing all of our tax money to give it to drug addicts to have needles and tourniquets. And they're actually even selling the drugs to these addicts to let these people die on our sidewalks. I want to be the compassionate one, get these people mandatory treatment, medical treatment with doctors to help them get off of fentanyl and super meth. And that is what people actually want in la.
- [36:04]
Brian Kilmeade
So what happens is we have la, which is losing more people, I think for the second time in history since it became a state in the United States of America. And the state is losing people and Los Angeles is losing more than any other city in California. And it's just you took this jewel which got everything from fantastic beaches to the lure of Hollywood to the landscapes of Malibu and Pacific Palisades. I used to live there. And they made it almost unlivable. And the whole movie industry and television industry has literally left the city. So Spencer Pratt, who grew up there, says, I'm going to try to run. He thinks not only has he got more money than everybody else, more momentum than anybody else in the country, he thinks he's going to win June 2nd with over 50% of the vote as a independent slash Republican. That's how and will be Titanic and send a message to everybody else in every city. If you're a Republican, give it a shot.
- [37:06]
From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never so division. It's Brian Kilmeade, everyone.
- [37:19]
So glad you're there. It's the Brian Kilmeade Joe coming in from midtown Manhattan where socialism is alive and well. And I'm not happy to report that. Josh Krash Howard with us at the bottom of the hour, FOX News radio political analyst, editor in chief of the Jewish Insider as Mark Thiessen is standing by. He asked me to buy him a few minutes. He's still shaving and dealing. His has his butler getting his shoes and his slippers. He doesn't quite get up and around until like noon. He's doing a special favor for me. So I'll buy some time by talking to you. Go to YouTube.com hebron kilmeade show and she's going to the Brian Kilmeade show. I'll be on stage in Reno, Nevada, talking about history, liberty and laughs. And I'm going to bring history to life as we celebrate America 250. And you'll see it on FOX Nation, too. So let's get to the big three. Number three, very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I'm doing that for the world. I'm not doing it just for and we've had great support from other nations, by the way. We don't need it at all, but we've had great support from other nations. The problem is you always get the support when you don't need it. I don't know. We're not getting as much support as I hoped. I don't see any NATO support. Iran gets hammered for provoking American forces as they pretend, in my view, to be interested in peace talks. I'm not buying it. Let's finish these terrorists off.
- [38:32]
Josh Krashower
Number two, hundreds of thousands dollars, maybe more than that.
- [38:34]
Brian Kilmeade
But we think that exact type of fraud has been replayed all over our country. We expect that there are tens of thousands of people who are collecting fraudulent money to take care of people and they're not actually taking care of them. Fraud not only abusing government social programs but also abusing the kids they were supposed to help. What VP Vance has uncovered already while all 50 states are under scrutiny and we're getting a lot of money back.
- [39:01]
Spencer Pratt
Number why I'm resonating across the country or even outside of the country is because all I focus on is the truth. I'm the look around candidate. I do basics. I don't do national politics. I don't do parties.
- [39:16]
Brian Kilmeade
That is Spencer Pratt. We'll hear more from him from our interview on FOX and Friends just about, I don't know, 90 minutes ago. He is probably the hottest politician, the most fascinating story and politics, politics today because he speaks Common sense. Meanwhile, will the liberal spiraling city be open to an actual right leaning reality star? And on the other side, Talarico of Texas thinks he's got a real shot of becoming a sitting senator in that state. Does Ken Paxton's winning the primary make that possible? According to the Cook Report, it went from solid right to leaning right. Mark Thiessen doesn't just lean right, he's solid right. He's what, Chief former speechwriter for George W. Bush, FOX News contributor, Washington Post columnist, and a fellow at aei. Mark, welcome back.
- [40:05]
Mark Thiessen
Good to be with you, Brian.
- [40:06]
Brian Kilmeade
So, Mark, first off, your thoughts about Talarico and his chance of keeping that seat? He can speak.
- [40:15]
Mark Thiessen
Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's put, you know, you never think that Texas is going to go blue, but you put Texas in play and it, and at a minimum, we're gonna have to spend tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in defending that seat that would have been spent elsewhere trying to defend other seats or putting Democrats in play. So it's a big mistake. I think if Cornyn were the nominee, it would be a safe Republican seat. And second of all, it's broken Donald Trump's majority in the Senate. Donald Trump doesn't have an effective majority in the United States Senate today because look at this, he got Cornyn, you've got Cassidy, you've got Tillis, all of whom Trump has driven out of the Senate who have absolutely no reason to be loyal to him. And you add that to the sort of already semi independent Republicans like Murkowski and Collins Curtis in Utah, and that's like six votes that he can't count on. And if we do have a blue wave this fall, which certainly it looks like that in the House, though the redistricting is helping, then he's got to get through everything he wants to get through Congress that's at all controversial. He's got to get through using the budget reconciliation process in the next few months, and he's not going to get it through without those Republican senators, three of whom he personally drove out of the Senate. So it was a mistake to do that to Cornyn.
- [41:42]
Brian Kilmeade
I 100% agree. I'm not a Paxson fan. I mean, the guy's done nothing. But he's been surrounded by scandal. I really don't know what he's been effective on. He's conservative, fine. But look at what he, look at what he's done and how he's jeopardized that seat. And he's Already been impeached with 70%
- [41:58]
Mark Thiessen
of Republicans in Texas House voting to impeach him. I mean, and you know, but again, it's like so many things in today, you're choosing between two evils, right? And Tellarico is by far a worse evil than Paxton is. This is a guy who goes out and says that Mary is. The story of Mary's just conversation with the angel Gabriel where she said yes to the incarnation is justification for abortion because Mary had a choice, so should women. I mean, it's blasphemy. This guy is running, he's trying to pioneer a new form of the religious left which uses the Bible, uses faith as cover for left wing social and social policies that would absolutely be disastrous if it was successful.
- [42:51]
Brian Kilmeade
I was just reading some of his notes. He says on the eighth day God created pronouns and I think that was come from the revelations. Here's a little of James Talarico cut six. The American flag is such a complicated symbol for most of us in many ways, like Jesus, like the cross, it's been co opted and, and in some ways its true meaning has been betrayed. Prophetic voices like Jesus have helped me reckon with my own whiteness, my own masculinity. Jesus does talk a lot about whiteness and I am looking for Jesus help to somehow explain my whiteness. So that's really gonna come in handy.
- [43:31]
Mark Thiessen
It's almost comical. I mean, this is what we all thought we got rid of when Donald Trump won in 2024. And this is why my big concern right now, Brian, broader than just the Talari race, but he's sort of a canary in the coal mine for this is. We all thought after 2024, after we put the Biden debacle behind us, that the sky, the clouds parted, the sun came out, all this crazy wokeness was behind us. And it was a beautiful sunny day again after the clouds of the Biden years. And I fear that we may just be in the eye of the storm and that the other end of the storm is going to be much worse and much more and much more devastating than the first one is. It looks sunny right now because Donald Trump is in the White House House. But these people are coming back and they're coming back with a vengeance. And they're going to be even more woke and more crazy on the second round.
- [44:17]
Brian Kilmeade
Who is it? It's not Governor Shapiro or Bashir. Who don't you know? They're not as moderate as they claim. But still, I mean, yeah, is it, is it you think AOC is going to be the force. You think people like her are going to be the force? You think that Graham Platner is going to be a force?
- [44:33]
Mark Thiessen
Well, I just don't see. If you look at, you know, I think it's entirely possible that AOC is the nominee. You know, Newsom, who's been one of the most disastrous governors in American history, could get it. There's a lot. I just don't see any sign that the Democratic Party has looked at the 2016 and 2024 elections and said, you know what? Our crazy policies have elected Donald Trump and the MAGA movement twice and put them into power. We should go back to the Clinton days of moderation and centrism and triangulation. They are doubling down on Democratic socialism. They're doubling down on woke up. And I find it very unlikely that whoever is the nominee, even if it's one of those moderates, so called moderates, just like everyone told us Spanberger was a moderate, right. There is no moderate left in the Democratic Party. It's not gonna be somebody who's gonna be centrist. It's gonna be somebody who's woke and left wing in a Democratic party.
- [45:24]
Brian Kilmeade
But we have broken the green fever. I think anyone who runs on oil and gas doesn't have any future in our country. I think that's pretty much a dead issue that Democrats won't bring up. Don't you think?
- [45:35]
Mark Thiessen
I don't know if they come back into power. I don't know. Especially if they get. Look, think about this. The Democrat in 2028, the Democrats win the White House. They control the House and they control the Senate. Right? They're gonna, then they're gonna get rid of the filibuster and then they're gonna pass all this stuff with a simple 50, 50 vote majority and they're gonna pass the Green New Deal. They're gonna pass all the Democratic socialism, They're gonna pass Medicare for all. They're gonna add Puerto Rico as a state. They're gonna add D.C. as a state. They could even add Guam as a state. They're gonna get. They're gonna pack the Senate, they're gonna pack the Supreme Court so that they have justices that will uphold all their overreach. They're gonna pack the electoral college by adding people to the House. There's so many things that they can do if they get control over all elements of power. And they all know that everything they do, Brian, it's a one way. Socialism is a one way ratchet. We never come in and undo what they do. All we do is we cut some taxes for a little while and restrict their programs. And then they come in and pick up where they left off and start, and start moving us towards socialism again. So they, they don't mind losing an election once in a while.
- [46:35]
Brian Kilmeade
So interesting stories is Spencer Pratt in Los Angeles. He actually understands the issues. He's extremely aggressive and comfortable. He destroyed the sitting mayor and now we might in a couple of weeks have somebody that leans right in a major city. I think that could be the beginning of a positive trend. Here's a little of Spencer Pratt today on Fox and Friends. Cut one.
- [46:54]
Spencer Pratt
First off, the reason why all that money was raised, that was right after the debate. And they saw me destroy these two terrible politicians for an hour straight. And everybody realized, oh, finally somebody telling the truth. So that's where all the money came from. And a lot of it's from all over the country because people forget over 50,000 people a year leave Los Angeles because it's so terrible.
- [47:17]
Brian Kilmeade
First time ever, more people leaving than coming.
- [47:20]
Spencer Pratt
So these people see that I'm saying why they left. So they're trying to get me elected so they can move back.
- [47:26]
Brian Kilmeade
So he raised 2.72 million bas, 283,000. How intrigued are you about his nomination? And he thinks he can win outright in a week.
- [47:36]
Mark Thiessen
Well, first of all, God bless him for trying, you know that and for inspiring a lot of people. I mean, I think he's a good person and he's trying to do the right thing. But as he pointed out, those 50,000 people, they can't vote in Los Angeles. They're voting in Texas now, they're voting in Florida. They've moved out. The big problem we have with all these blue states is that blue governance has, it's a self reinforcing phenomenon because it drives all the reasonable people out who would vote to elect a Spencer Pratt or someone like that. I mean, is Los Angeles more conservative than New York, which just elected Mamdani? Is it more conservative than Chicago that had a choice in the last mayoral election between a semi normal Democrat and someone who was even worse and chose the lunatic? I mean, I just don't see any signs that in any of these major blue cities.
- [48:25]
Brian Kilmeade
So you don't think he's gonna win?
- [48:28]
Mark Thiessen
I hope he does. I hope he does, but I do, you know, I just don't get the sense that that's where the electorate is in these days. Because all the people who would, you know, the days where we elected Rudy Giuliani to clean up the city. And where Democrats cross over to vote for a Republican seem to be behind us. I mean, I hope he proves me wrong. I'd love to. I'd love nothing better than to see someone like him running the city of Los Angeles. It would be fantastic. But all those people, as he pointed out on your show, those people have left. So wanna come back. They'll come back if he's elected. But he needs them to come back first to elect him.
- [49:04]
Brian Kilmeade
So he doesn't believe there's gonna be a big turnout which will work to his advantage. He said to us on camera, off camera he goes, I'm over 50. I go, what does that mean? He goes, that means I win June 2nd and I plan on taking vacation next week. So that'll be amazing. So I wanna talk about Iran. The US military carried out new strikes in Iran yesterday targeting a military site that threatened American troops. They shot down four Iranian one way attack drones and then they blew up a control station at Bandar Abbas. If you're. Now I know it's impossible to get in Iran's head because they have so many different factions, but if they are that desperate economically, why would they do something that could jeopardize talks that could go in their favor or could bring back some economic relief?
- [49:48]
Mark Thiessen
Because there's no Delsey Rodriguez in Iran. There just isn't. There's no. This is the Nazis. There were extreme Nazis and moderate Nazis. Where the moderate Nazis.
- [50:00]
Josh Krashower
Moderate?
- [50:01]
Mark Thiessen
There's no such thing. Right. So everybody. There is. I mean the people that we are negotiating with who seem reasonable are absolute lunatics as well. And their military is broken. Their command and control is broken. Their military capacity is broken. Maybe just look at my column, I'm about to hit send on in a few minutes to the Washington Post. Coast just goes through the battle damage assessment of what we've accomplished in Operation Epic Fury. I mean we've just decimated their ballistic missiles. Where'd you get your information from Admiral Cooper? From Israeli military assessment, battle damage assessments. The stuff is out there. Admiral Cooper testified before Congress the other week. You know, people say, well, we didn't hit eliminate all their ballistic missiles.
- [50:41]
Daniel Turner
Yeah.
- [50:41]
Mark Thiessen
But we eliminated their ballistic missile production capacity. They can't rebuild. So what was Iran doing before Operation Epic Fury? They after, after Midnight Hammer, they decided that they were going to go on a crash course to build 8,000 ballistic missiles by 2027 in order to create a shield that would make them impenetrable because they could overwhelm Israel's defenses in a war and make it impossible for us to take out their nuclear program again. And so we've decimated that. We've destroyed 85% of their production capacity. We took out their space program, which was their cover for their long range ballistic missile program. We've just decimated their leadership, their command and control, their navy, their air defenses, their air force can fly sorties. These are all major military victories that have set the Iranian regime back dramatically. So this was important to do regardless of what happens now. But the question that is facing President Trump now is are these temporary achievements or are we going to make them irreversible? Right. And the problem with a deal, even a good one, is that it gives the regime a lifeline to survival. Right now, they're on the ropes.
- [51:49]
Brian Kilmeade
So what would you like to see happen, Mark? I know we have 90 seconds left. What would you like to see happen?
- [51:53]
Mark Thiessen
Very simple. I'd like him to finish the last two weeks of the bombing that he suspended, which is what Admiral Cooper needed to finish the target list. I'd like him to open the Strait of Hormuz by force. I'd like him to maintain the blockade and arm the Iranian people to overthrow the regime. That's my plan.
- [52:10]
Josh Krashower
You like it?
- [52:10]
Brian Kilmeade
How equipped are they to do that?
- [52:14]
Mark Thiessen
I think that it depends on the Iranians. I mean, in a way, the Iranians, if the Iranians were smart and organized, they would cut a deal with Trump, give him what he wants and wait him out until Gavin Newsom or AOC or some weak Biden esque figure is in the White House and then break the deal and go and go for it again because they would see beyond the horizon. We need a permanent victory, not a temporary one.
- [52:38]
Brian Kilmeade
All right, Mark, I look forward to your column today. I think people have to understand the success we have because we can't see it. We don't see it. And so we go and. Okay, that sounds good. That's. But we don't know, you know, how are they still standing? Maybe we overestimated. And Mark will outline that in the Washington Post today. Mark, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
- [52:57]
John Smoltz
Take care.
- [52:57]
Brian Kilmeade
All right. 1-866-408-7669. We'll take your calls next and then Josh Krashower joins us. Or you can write me brian kilme.com
- [53:05]
Real talk, real guests, real insight, where curiosity meets conversation. It's the Brian Kilmeade show. The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Kilmeade
- [53:26]
with dealing with everything. We have to do with. Look, if we finally beat Medicare, the total initiative relative to what we're going to do with more Border Patrol and more asylum officers, I'm happy to play
- [53:45]
Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
golf if you carry your own bag.
- [53:47]
Brian Kilmeade
Were you horrified as you saw it unfold? I wasn't horrified. I was frightened because I had never ever seen Joe like that before or since. Never since? Yes. Or never seen him? Never? No. What happened? I don't know what happened. I mean, when I. As I watched it, I thought, oh, my God, he's having a stroke. And it scared me to death. Scared her to death. She's still lying. Aren't you sick of this? I mean, this is one of the. I just want to point out, if you watch other channels, they're actually saying she's lying, too, because they put that book out with Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper where they decide just to turn on Joe Biden after the election. We're there for three and a half years. When you brought it up, they thought it was cruel. They thought you were being inhumane, thought it was being partisan. When we watched him just shuffle along, we see him lose himself, unable to answer any questions, shout out, get angry for no reason, unable to have a press conference, only have six cabinet meetings, have his wife run the last one. We're seeing all this stuff. And then until he lost the Democrats, lost the election, nobody thought about. Then everyone said he lost it. George Clooney came out, said, that's not the same Joe Biden. Jill Biden actually says, I thought he had a stroke. We know that's not true, because you know what she did after. They went to a rally and then they went to the Waffle House. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're married to someone and you think they had a stroke, I am not a doctor, but one thing you shouldn't bring your spouse to is a rally and the Waffle House. I would bring them to a doctor if you were that concerned. Actually might have been good political move to say maybe had some type of problem.
- [55:40]
If you're interested in it, Brian's talking about it.
- [55:44]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
You.
- [55:44]
Brian Kilmeade
You're with Brian Kilmeade.
- [55:46]
Spencer Pratt
I'm a registered Republican, but my supporters are all Democrats because Los Angeles is all Democrats. All the people financing me are Democrats. All the meetings I take every day are Democrats. Democrats are very angry with what happened to Los Angeles. They were fed a bunch of lies by Mayor Bass, who said she was gonna literally solve homelessness. She was gonna do all these things she didn't do. So they all of the people that put her actually in office are now behind me. I have Republicans that love me, I have Democrats that love me. I have independents love me. Even some socialists messaged me and they're like, hey, don't be so mean to us. We like you too. I'm like, sorry, I don't mess with socialists.
- [56:26]
Brian Kilmeade
That is Spencer Pratt and one of the most fascinating story in politics today. He was on our couch two hours ago. I could not be more impressed. Talked to him before behind the scenes. He's loving every minute of this. Not loving, not seeing his family. But I just love the idea of someone learning the issues, growing up in an area and just not saying they only elect Democrats in cities. I'm gonna run anyway. He's within eight points in the last poll of Karen Bass. He believes he's over 50% now. Josh Krash Hour joins us now. Fox News Radio political analyst, editor in chief of the Jewish Insider. Josh, where's the Spencer Pratt candidacy going?
- [57:05]
Josh Krashower
Well, I think you have to kind of split two things apart from each other, the politics and the policy. He has tapped into widespread frustration with the ruling governing class in Los Angeles. That has been way to the left of even the Los Angeles public when it comes to dealing with crime, when it comes to dealing with public disorder, homelessness, and especially I think most presciently like the lack of recovery from the Pacific Palisades, Malibu and other communities that were devastated by the fires, the lack of reconstruction. That was what got him into the race. And he has really pinpointed that as an example of just the incompetence of the government under Karen Bass and the public leadership of the Democratic Party.
- [57:49]
Brian Kilmeade
He destroyed her in the debate. He destroyed her.
- [57:52]
Josh Krashower
He won the debate. He's winning the debates. He's dominating the conversation. The big question in la, the politics are a little complicated because the mayor's race and California electoral system, you have a first round of balloting where the first top two finishers move on into a runoff. So the battle right now looks like Bass is actually losing support. But you look at the polls, but the question is who's going to finish in the two spot. There's a sort of a socialist city councilor and Spencer Pratt. I would put my money on Pratt. I think he's really captured the imagination and the momentum in these last few weeks, especially with his advertising and really hitting on the issues that a lot of frustrated Angelenos care about. Los Angeles, Los Angeles orders care about. But it's close. And then the polling is really all about who can finish in that two spot and hit and get to get to that one on one runoff against Karen Bass.
- [58:41]
Brian Kilmeade
Listen, I don't want to get into the whole thing about Frau Chicken elections, but I do am concerned that everybody gets a ballot without even requesting one. And there's no pandemic on in Los Angeles that gets people worried. Spencer Pratt goes, I can't worry about that. I just want people to vote. He says if I, you know, I want people to go out there and just vote, take action, get the vote in early, don't wait for election day. He thinks he's gonna win January 2nd. He thinks he's over 50% right now. Have you seen anything that showed that?
- [59:08]
Josh Krashower
Yeah, look, I think that's not very optimistic read of the realities of Los Angeles politics. I mean, I thought Rick Caruso, who was an independent, was actually building a very broad coalition including moderate Democrats when he ran four years ago and ultimately came up just a little bit short in what was a better environment overall nationally for Republicans. So look, I think if Spencer Pratt makes it to the runoff, he's gonna have to overcome the very heavily Democratic registration advantage that Democrats have in the city of Los Angeles. That said, these issues are not going away. And Karen Bass has never really. Karen Bass has actually tried to kind of parry the attacks and focus more. She's worried a little bit more on her left. She's facing a challenge from essentially a socialist challenging her from the, from the far left. So she's going to have to, you know, you're going to have one on one debates. You're going to have a real opportunity for these issues to be even more directly confronted head to head. So look, I haven't seen polling that shows Pratt at 50%. I think that would be a big challenge early on. But he's certainly scoring some punches against Bass. She certainly is vulnerable on these top of mind issues for Los Angeles voters. And I think the campaign is going to be quite fascinating.
- [60:17]
Brian Kilmeade
Here's the similarity. You know what, Trump always talks about common sense, like pronouns. Are you kidding me? Don't seal the border. How is that pro American? Why don't you crack down on crime and make criminals pay a price for the, for their criminal activity? You know, why are you coddling illegal immigrants? So there's so many of these things. Well, why is throwing more money at a homeless situation only growing homeless? How long are you going to allow to do that? Are you going to allow shoplifting up to $1,000? In what planet is that? Okay, see Some of the things that are out there, that if you have the opposite of that, you're not a conservative. It used to be, I want to spend more in social programs. I want to spend less conservative, liberal. I want to spend more money on military. I want to spend less conservative, liberal. But these other things are common sense nonsense. He comes in as common sense. This is what I hope the new trend is. I don't care if it's Republican, Democrat, common sense.
- [61:11]
Josh Krashower
Yeah. I think Spencer Pratt could. He already is, I think, taking inspiration from what happened in the northern part of California where San Francisco voters hit rock bottom several years ago, and they first ousted the school board, who wanted to take down, like, Abraham Lincoln's name from schools. And then they ousted those far left extremists, and then they ousted the DA who wasn't prosecuting in crime, and actually replaced him with a more moderate successor. And then they actually replaced the mayor finally and actually elected a Democrat who's very moderate and pro business and was running on, frankly, a lot of the same issues that Spencer Pratt is talking about in Los Angeles. I think the big difference and the one hurdle that Pratt is going to have to overcome is in the case of San Francisco, the moderate, pro business, sane candidate ultimately was a Democrat, had ties to Democrats, so he didn't have to deal with questions about support from Trump and party identification. Yeah, I think Pratt. It's just hard. But we are so part of this and so polarized that even I see this all the time in congressional elections. We talk about, like, Graham Platner in Maine. How would Democrats that are moderate vote for a guy with a Nazi tattoo? It's partisanship. They just want Democrats to hold the Senate. So there's just a partisan, you know, kind of delusion that's taking place in our. In our politics that's gonna make it hard for Pratt to win over those moderate Democrats, even though they probably agree with him on a whole lot of the issues he's bringing up.
- [62:31]
Brian Kilmeade
So Billy Bush, Mr. Hollywood, who always knows politics, hence his last name, is gonna be on with me Sunday night, said this about Pratt's chances after talking to him. Cut 19. There's a sadness that comes and an empathy that comes for homelessness, but aggravated, aggravated, angry drug addicts who are in your face and scaring people. That's not okay. And under Karen Bass, it has gotten worse and worse. It is a terrible situation. And, you know, this guy stepped up. Who else stepped up, up? He's the best chance Los Angeles has. So he thinks they're the best Los Angeles has. He's got Leo DiCaprio. And he said that Jamie Foxx came up to him publicly and said, you got my support. We know Paris Hilton hosted a fundraiser for him. So you can't say they're running from him like they might. Most of them might run from Trump. That might be the difference. But then Spencer Pratt said something interesting to me. I said, what do you think about the celebrity help? He goes, actually, he says, I think it hurts me. Me said, I am talking to people. I don't want them to think that I'm one of these celebrities because I'm afraid of losing those independents or the moderate Democrats. Is he right?
- [63:42]
Josh Krashower
Yeah, look, I think the fact that he's recognizable from his time. Was it on the Hills, which I didn't watch, but I, you know, I have a lot of people I've talked to that know him from, from the reality show. So that in a way that helped him because he has name ID recognition, people want to talk about him and write about him. And I think now that they're paying attention to the issue, his argument is resonating with a whole lot of those voters. I think his biggest challenge is actually going to be apathy. I can't tell you how many Los Angeles. I was just in Los Angeles not long ago, and the thing that came up so often was the notion that this is the new the normal in LA was just expecting bad schools and expecting incompetent public services and expecting that if you didn't have access to a private fire department, you were going to see your house burned down to the ground. Right. The incompetence of public services has taken place for so long under progressive rule in the city. The unions have taken over the school system. I was surprised how many parents of any means at all send their kids to private school, even in wealthy neighborhoods, not to the public schools, because they've been essentially run by the unions, that the quality is very poor even in wealthy areas. So you would think that people would be raged and wanted to elect someone like Pratt, who's talking about these issues and is running as a much more mainstream candidate. But there's a lot of apathy. People are kind of accepting the lack of quality public services. The reality of homelessness, which has been going on since COVID it hasn't changed. They've accepted that as the new normal. I think the successful Pratt has been very good at saying, we don't need to accept this. We don't need to accept this mediocrity. We can do better. But what he's fighting is as much the partisan divide, but he's also fighting apathy from a lot of voters that have accepted LA is covered into being subpar and this is the way things are always going to be.
- [65:25]
Brian Kilmeade
Yeah. I want you to hear the other one is Graham Platner. I think he's an abomination. I think that his services, although laudable, he's out there criticizing on Reddit somebody else for not said he should have been killed. Instead of giving a purple heart, that person spoke up and called him out. And we know about him saying, I'm an avowed communist, some of the horrible things he said about women in the past, but yet he's looked as the man's man. And according to a recent poll that Fox says is not a. Doesn't reach our standards. But. But he's up by about 8. On the sitting Senator Susan Collins. But amongst his. With his Nazi tattoo on his chest, which he denies that he thought was a Nazi tattoo. Have you ever heard someone get a tattoo and confused by what it meant? He's the first. So Congressman Democrat Jake Auchincloss said this. He's also. He's from Massachusetts. Cut 20.
- [66:13]
Mark Thiessen
I've been clear about Graham Platner. I find that tattoo and his commentary
- [66:16]
Josh Krashower
about it to be personally disqualifying.
- [66:18]
Mark Thiessen
I hope Maine voters agree with me.
- [66:21]
Brian Kilmeade
I think that it would be a mistake for the Democratic Party to think
- [66:24]
Mark Thiessen
that Graham Platner's brand of the Democratic
- [66:29]
Brian Kilmeade
Party is what wins us durable majorities throughout this country. So he says, even before the primary, he knows he's gonna get it. He should be disqualified. Not many people feel that way. Bernie Sanders anointed him. He's looked at. He got the governor to bow out. He's getting a ton of money. Platner seems to me to be a joke of a candidate. But in Maine, they're taking him serious. Why?
- [66:52]
Josh Krashower
Well, what's remarkable about that moment is that Jake Auchincloss said what I think a lot of people would say, which is, I'm not sure if we should elect someone with a Nazi tattoo who had it for many years and who has, you know, cheered the death of American soldiers and said all the kind of crazy things that he said on the public record. But the reality is Auchincloss got attacked, not Platner. The Democrats, and especially the progressives who are really behind Platner's campaign, were more mad at Auchincloss for speaking the obvious truth than for Platner. Given all his baggage. So that's a sign of the times. The reality also is that people are so inured, that they're so used to scandal in our politics, that the polling at least shows that a lot of the baggage that Platner brings to the table hasn't registered, or at least not registered in a way that would make him a sure loser against Susan Collins in the general election. Now, I always tell people who. Who haven't covered Maine politics before. Susan Collins was trailing in every single poll badly in 2020 and ended up winning comfortably. So Maine polling is not the most reliable polling of any state. I mean, it's one of the worst states to poll for any state in the country. But, you know, you don't see polling showing these scandals hurting him. Democrats are just inclined to play team ball. They're inclined to shut their mouth and bite their tongue about their misgivings about Platner and hope he can get them a Senate majority. They care more about winning the Senate. Senate and winning that. That important tendency than they do about the hate and the extremism coming from. From Platner's mouth.
- [68:21]
Brian Kilmeade
And he's also a socialist, right? He loves that socialist protocol.
- [68:25]
Josh Krashower
Communist.
- [68:25]
Brian Kilmeade
Yeah, Communist.
- [68:26]
Josh Krashower
He said he was a communist on social media. Yeah.
- [68:28]
Brian Kilmeade
So what's going on with this Josh? I mean, are we to believe that AOC and Mondami and this Seattle mayor and everybody, all these other socialists are on the rise? Are they the standard bearer for Bernie Sanders the kingmaker? Is that the standard bearer for the Democratic Party?
- [68:46]
Josh Krashower
Yeah. Well, what you're seeing is that the mainstream leaders of the party, led by Chuck Schumer, have surrendered to the radicals they become. They're afraid to stand on their own principles, and they're afraid to speak out for moderation and seriousness. They've allowed sort of the radicals to storm the gates. They don't have enough institutional heft to say, stop, this is going to destroy the party. I mean, we wrote a story today about the prospect of two open socialists winning key congressional seats in the state of New York next month. One defeating the congressman, leading in a poll against the Congress, competitive in a poll against the congressman, and one in an open seat race. But the prospect of a Democratic Socialist of America endorsed an affiliated candidate winning any congressional seat in the country would have been unthinkable a decade ago. And you may have have a half dozen by the end of midterm elections in these safe, blue Democratic districts. I don't think that can be underscored. I mean, the party has been going off the deep end ideologically and they're willing to tolerate even the most extreme candidates or personally damaged candidates like a Graham Platner. We've talked about Abdul El Sayed in Michigan. We haven't talked about this guy in New Jersey who apparently we had a big scoop yesterday that this is someone who we went traveled to bosnia in the 1990s and worked for what ended up becoming an al Qaeda affiliate. And he has some pretty ugly ties to terrorist groups in his past. And yet that's not an issue. Democrats don't want to talk about it in a New Jersey primary coming up next Tuesday. So I think you'll be hearing a lot more about that. But the kind of scandal, the kind of extremism that was disqualifying that you never would see these candidates running for dog catcher, no less. Congress are actually winning Democrats at primaries and are likely going to get going to see some of them in Congress next year.
- [70:40]
Brian Kilmeade
Josh, fascinating time. Josh. Crosshair. Thanks so much.
- [70:44]
Josh Krashower
Thanks, Brian.
- [70:45]
Brian Kilmeade
All right. Well, we'll be back in a minute.
- [70:49]
Don't go anywhere. Brian Kilmeade will be right back. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kilmeade Show.
- [71:09]
Governor William Mako, President Trump wanted to come to the NBA Finals, the Knicks supposedly playing.
- [71:14]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
Do you think that he would go?
- [71:15]
John Smoltz
He would also set.
- [71:18]
Spencer Pratt
No.
- [71:18]
Brian Kilmeade
What do you think of him saying he's a lifelong Knicks fan?
- [71:21]
Mark Thiessen
I think that's how the Times reported it.
- [71:24]
Brian Kilmeade
I asked him to name the starting lineup from 1993 championship team and see how he does. Okay. There was no championship team in 1993. So Governor Hochul screwed up again. And why wouldn't you just assume that he's a Knick fan? If he said he's a lifelong Laker fan or Bulls fan or Heat fan, that would go, well, what's that about? But he's a Nick fan. He's grew up in New York City. If you don't believe it, there's so much all of a sudden everything started popping up online. Listen to Donald Trump. The year was 1994. Donald Trump walks up on Marv Albert, cut 61.
- [71:57]
John Smoltz
By this, it should be pointed out 43.
- [72:01]
Josh Krashower
It's your good friend Donald Trump. What does this say? Walk on.
- [72:06]
John Smoltz
That's very nice, Marlowe. Thank you very much. Thank you.
- [72:10]
Brian Kilmeade
Were you around for the last.
- [72:11]
John Smoltz
Thank you. I told you never to bother me
- [72:13]
Brian Kilmeade
during the color cast.
- [72:14]
John Smoltz
Very, very embarrassing. Thank you. Very nice. The staff very well, well prepared.
- [72:20]
Brian Kilmeade
And that was him in 94 at the finals. Was he a Nick fan, then Kathy Hill, what were you doing over in Buffalo shoveling snow? Cut 62 Donald Trump, Laker game Donald
- [72:30]
Randy Levine
Trump, who is a big Knicks fan,
- [72:31]
Brian Kilmeade
who joins us now. Donald, I know you're a Knick fan. So are you disappointed that Kobe's not here? Are you glad he's not here because it ups your chances? Well, I guess you could look at it both ways, but I'd like to see Kobe play. I came here to see my man Kobe, okay? He's a Nick fan, you idiots. Of all the vulnerability. Don't question Donald Trump and sports and York. He spent his 30s and 40s hanging out in George Steinbrenner's box. He's a Yankee fan too. Meanwhile, Alison, we got a ton of email. Do you want to just run through everything that we discuss? Anything pop up there that we should share? Let's see, this one's from Mike and
- [73:04]
Mark Thiessen
he said this is from a little bit ago. So he said you closed the show by saying don't get the support, I don't get the support for socialism that is communism. And you recently asked a bunch of
- [73:14]
Brian Kilmeade
your guests this and none provided with
- [73:16]
Mark Thiessen
a persuasive explanation actually raises question a lot with half your guests.
- [73:20]
Spencer Pratt
It's the most important journalistic question, why
- [73:23]
Mark Thiessen
do some people support communism, soft on
- [73:25]
Spencer Pratt
crime policies, open borders, blah, blah, blah.
- [73:29]
Brian Kilmeade
You know what my answer to that is why they're frustrated in life. They want something to blame, so they want to blame the system. I'm not saying that there's no, they don't like the idea of no guaranteed outcomes and they want to blame something. Blame the refs, blame the weather, blame the system. It can, it can't be you. It is you. And you have a politician saying it's not you. So you'll vote for them.
- [73:52]
From the Fox News radio studios in midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest growing radio talk show. Brian kilmeade.
- [74:05]
All right. From midtown Manhattan, heard around the country, around the world is a Brian Kilmeade show. This hour will be joined by Yankee President Randy Levine.
- [74:12]
Randy Levine
Why?
- [74:12]
Brian Kilmeade
Because he's chairman of the Presidential committee on College sports and they've come up with a piece of legislation that's got bipartisan support. Hopefully it'll be the same way when it comes to voting to reform and put some structure to it is the wild west and that is Division 1 sports all actually also end up NCAA sports because as basketball and football goes, so goes the other so called Olympic sports, the non revenue sports, the field hockey, the gymnastics, the soccer the track and field, they got to find a way to get nil under control. And I think they've done it through legislation as offensive as some people will feel about that because they don't want government involved. But this is a chance really for government to help. They were asked to help John Smoltz, hall of Fame major league baseball pitcher. He's going to be doing something important with golf. He's fantastic golfer. So is Brett Baer. They're both going to be in the 2026American Century Championships. So he'll be joining us and we'll talk some baseball too. And Daniel Turner is standing by, founder of energy advocacy group of Power the Future. And the number one issue right now in the world is the Iran war and what's going to happen and how it's affected the price of energy in the world. And it's had a severe effect. When you look at our country, Dan, we look at gas, oil I think is about $95 or $99 a barrel right now.
- [75:29]
Daniel Turner
89. It's down.
- [75:30]
Brian Kilmeade
It's 189.
- [75:31]
Daniel Turner
Yeah. Considering the hits last night, it's at 89 right now, which is remarkable.
- [75:35]
Brian Kilmeade
On the Iranians sent drones at us.
- [75:37]
Daniel Turner
Yeah. The military action that happened overnight. I woke up, I was convinced oil was going to be back to 110 and it actually has come down a bit.
- [75:44]
Brian Kilmeade
So it was at 65 before the war.
- [75:46]
Daniel Turner
It was at 65. I think March 26th was the last day. It was around 63. And it's been straight up since then. Hasn't gone higher than 110, which was bad to see it back around. 8990 is good. It should drop even more.
- [75:57]
Brian Kilmeade
Is it because the Saudis rerouted through the Red Sea? Is that part of it?
- [76:01]
Daniel Turner
That's a huge part of it. And I'm sure some vessels are getting through. I know the administration saying which because it's probably a little politically sensitive. Right. If you're letting certain countries have their vessels get through the straits and certain or not, but certain vessels are otherwise markets would be back at 110. So the markets know something is getting through. They just don't know how much.
- [76:20]
Brian Kilmeade
Right. And then we'll see what happens because I guess the markets want things to settle down. When the president says comes out and says things are going to drop like a rock. Other people say when the war is over it's going to take a while for the prices to come down.
- [76:32]
Randy Levine
Down.
- [76:32]
Daniel Turner
Where do you side Oil prices will come down fairly quickly, but that will take A little while to trickle into the economy. President Trump was inaugurated back in 2025. Oil prices in about a month had dropped significantly. But it took a long time for those prices to be felt in the overall economy. Because remember, everyone who's buying gas to transport your goods, every lawn service that is filling up their lawnmowers with gasoline, they're buying last week's gas, right? So they have to calculate the future in their purchases. And purchases take a couple of weeks to settle down. So you'll feel it as a consumer later, maybe a month or so later, but prices will come down quite so.
- [77:12]
Brian Kilmeade
Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessant weighed in on what he thinks about this also. He's been maybe the silent MVP on this war because he's putting a lot of financial pressure on Iran trying to track down who's paying them and how they're avoiding sanctions. Cut 31.
- [77:29]
Scott Bessant
In terms of prices, I believe the prices are transitory. Oil will be lower than pre conflict levels levels when this ends. Natural gas is already down, as you mentioned. Drug and pharmaceutical prices, they are plummeting and rent is down. We are more resilient to energy price fluctuations due to your energy dominance agenda, deregulatory efforts. And we have never sold so much energy to the rest of the world.
- [77:59]
Brian Kilmeade
So can you explain that the people are coming to us now that normally would be going through the strip.
- [78:04]
Daniel Turner
Well, and we have several million barrels of Venezuelan oil that are now coming through American markets, right? We have about five American companies that are operating Venezuela, and that production is ramping up pretty quickly. So in addition to what we produce and we as America, all of North America, right? Includes the Caribbean, includes Canada, includes Mexico. And the reason why I say that is I talk about American energy, obviously we care about the United States, but the energy industry sees itself like Major League Baseball, right? The Toronto Blue Jays play in Toronto, Canada, but they're no less part of Major League Baseball. No one's like, well, the Yankees lost, but to a Canadian team, so it doesn't count, right? They're just as much part of the team. Canadian oil and even a lot of Mexican oil is just as much part of North American energy production.
- [78:47]
Brian Kilmeade
So we might have access to it, but the price remains the same as judged by the rest of the world's access to the rest of the oil.
- [78:53]
Daniel Turner
Exactly, exactly. But now add on to that Venezuela, which is a huge, a huge increase and whatever we're controlling through the Middle East. So we are selling more energy than ever before. People are saying, well, then how come we're not selling it to America because we're tapped out. Right? We're buying all the energy we need. It's not like, you know, there's, there's a shortage of American energy for American consumers. Now we're at surplus stage and we're selling it to the rest of the world.
- [79:16]
Brian Kilmeade
So, so the rest of world could come here because Japan and who depends on the straight Japan, the Far east and Europe.
- [79:24]
Daniel Turner
Europe primarily. And they're the ones who are in the most precarious situation. Luckily for them, it is. Or headed into summer. Right. If this were happening in November, December, when you need particularly heating oil and natural gas for heating, I would be more nervous if I were Europe because that's when the cold is what really kills people, not the heat.
- [79:44]
Brian Kilmeade
More from Scott Bessant cut 37, 32. Excuse me.
- [79:51]
Scott Bessant
Business investment rose at a 10.4% annual rate in the first quarter. Capital expenditures and business, business equipment rose more than 17%. And that is as a result of the tax bill and tariffs. Jobs related to commercial construction, factory construction are up 90,000 since your inauguration. In the past two months, the private sector, as Kelly said, has added 313,000 new jobs. And those are private sector jobs, sir, including 13,000 managers. Manufacturing jobs. We have construction jobs. We're building the factories. And those will turn into manufacturing jobs.
- [80:29]
Randy Levine
Right.
- [80:30]
Brian Kilmeade
And that's all fueled by oil and gas. It is.
- [80:32]
Daniel Turner
And go back to the previous administration. Remember when Congress would often haul CEOs before them and talk about price gouging and profiteering and they would yell at Brian Kilmeade, oil, Brian, kill me at oil. And you bought back your stock and gave yourself a bonus. And the CEOs were like, what the hell else am I supposed to do with the money?
- [80:48]
Brian Kilmeade
Right?
- [80:49]
Daniel Turner
You shut off the Gulf, you shut off Alaska, you shut off, shut off all federal land. Oil is at $125 a barrel because of your war on energy. So you drove up prices. Of course I have profits. What am I supposed to do with the money other than buy back my stock or give myself bonuses? Notice how that's not happening now? Because you can invest, because you can drill, you can get permitting, you can get access to federal land. So we don't have. Wouldn't you think Elizabeth Warren would love to haul Brian Kilmeade, CEO of the oil company and talk about his green read? They're not doing that because they realize they're caught with their on just another damn political lie of Democrats.
- [81:22]
Brian Kilmeade
So we're reading you Might not have a read because you're not necessarily being briefed at the high security level. What is the state of Iranian oil? How close are they to max capacity?
- [81:32]
Daniel Turner
Oh, they're beyond, I think, at the storage capacity. Yeah. And that's why they're at the negotiating table. And remember, when you run out of storage capacity and you start shutting off
- [81:39]
Brian Kilmeade
wells, I heard you can slow it down and that they're masters at slowing it down. You tell me.
- [81:43]
Daniel Turner
Yeah, to a certain extent. But after a while, remember your oil and gas wells, they are kind of in sync with mother nature. They come out at a certain pressure and a certain volume. You can slow it down a little bit, but you are creating underground rupture and pressure. And there are whole companies that specialize in doing this and fixing it. When those wells are damaged, they're damaged irrevocably. I mean, it will take a lot of money that Iran doesn't have to repair them. So you can't let your wells get damaged by quote, unquote turning them off. Conversely, it's also a lie when Democrats are like, how come they don't turn on the spigot? You.
- [82:17]
Spencer Pratt
You can't.
- [82:17]
Daniel Turner
You know, what comes out is what comes out. If you shut it down, you do damage to that well, long term damage.
- [82:23]
Brian Kilmeade
So you can't cap an active well.
- [82:25]
Daniel Turner
You can. And then when you try to uncap it, you have no idea what's going to come out because that pressure has to go somewhere and it will rupture, it will fissure, it will, it will leak underground. I mean, this stuff is underground anyway. What's happening 15,000ft below the ground, we can only imagine. So when you try to uncap it, nothing may come out.
- [82:41]
Brian Kilmeade
So Dan Brulee for the former Energy Secretary is on with Larry Kudlow last night. Cut 33. Three is four to six weeks is my estimate.
- [82:50]
Mark Thiessen
Okay.
- [82:51]
Brian Kilmeade
The Iranians are very, very good at controlling their production.
- [82:53]
Scott Bessant
We saw this, Larry.
- [82:54]
Brian Kilmeade
You saw this in the White House
- [82:55]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
2018-2020, under the maximum pressure campaign. They were very, very astute at slowing
- [83:01]
Brian Kilmeade
their production so that they didn't have to shut in the wells or run
- [83:04]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
out of storage altogether.
- [83:05]
Brian Kilmeade
But because of this blockade, they've not been able to get that oil off of those tanks as tankers and outside of the structure trade.
- [83:12]
Angelo AJ Pascutti
So now it's a different situation altogether with the blockade.
- [83:15]
Brian Kilmeade
I'd say they're about four to six weeks away. And then it's the point of no return.
- [83:19]
Daniel Turner
So, point of no return.
- [83:21]
Brian Kilmeade
What do you think?
- [83:21]
Daniel Turner
Yeah. And then they run out of. They're running out of money also. If you're not able to sell anything, what else does Iran have in its. In its economy? Right. I'm sure they have a couple of other little productive. They have some agriculture, they have some tech, but that's not enough to fund your economy. 85, 90% of their regime's money comes from oil and gas revenue. And they. They haven't made a dime in a couple of months now.
- [83:41]
Brian Kilmeade
So I guess we're going to. That's what could be the key factor to all of this. Now with the Saudis, they've rerouted and I hear that UAE is trying to reroute. How long does it take to get a pipeline to reroute? I mean, it's not like you could just bend a pipe.
- [83:56]
Daniel Turner
No, Saudis already had one built, and they had it built because they knew that one day, this day was coming. So their pipeline headed west to the Red Sea was built. It was just in abeyance. The Emirate, the uae. You know, it's a great question because how much of our construction is slowed down by unnecessary delay and bureaucracy and red tape and environmental activists who chained themselves to the pipes. If you can have just a team.
- [84:23]
Brian Kilmeade
I don't think they have that at the uae.
- [84:24]
Daniel Turner
They don't. You have a team that can go in gangbusters and get this stuff done. You could probably build a pipeline pretty damn fast.
- [84:31]
Brian Kilmeade
Is your takeaway. Is that what's gonna be the takeaway of this when this fighting stops? That we can never depend on that strait again?
- [84:37]
Daniel Turner
Yeah. And. Well, hopefully it's a new regime in Iran, as you know. I'm sure you know enough Persians, as I do, who want their country back. You know, I don't wanna see us doing regime change, but I would like to see Iran not be Iran. I'd like to see them be a country that participates in the rest of the world. They have to look across the Gulf and look at the UAE and say, why is everyone going to Dubai? Why is everyone hanging out? Why can't we be Dubai? We have an older culture. We have. We're going back to Xerxes. Right? People should become an archaeological visit. Libya used to be the great Victor. Davis Hanson talks about doing archaeological trips to Libya right before Gaddafi took over. You imagine archaeological visits to Iran to see what they have that's 3,000, 5,000 years old. There have to be enough Persians out there that say, I don't want to be the Iran of 79 onward. I want to be the Iran of old.
- [85:30]
Brian Kilmeade
They just don't have the guns. Because Obviously, I think 90% of the country, maybe 95, hate the regime, as does the rest of the world, but they're not the ones that have the arms. And lastly, when you talk about natural gas, people talk about the devastating hit that the UAE has suffered in the natural gas field, and I think Qatar, the same thing. What could you tell us about that?
- [85:51]
Daniel Turner
Yeah, and this is very important for Europe and especially Japan and South Korea, because they don't have huge supplies of natural gas. Europe could, if they would, reopen a lot of their natural gas facilities, but because of climate change, they've stopped it. And that was what I was saying earlier.
- [86:06]
Brian Kilmeade
Have you noticed the. Okay, finish your thought.
- [86:08]
Daniel Turner
Well, I was gonna say that's what I was saying earlier. If you head into the winter without natural gas, you're in worse shape.
- [86:12]
Brian Kilmeade
But I also think the green fever is broken. You would know. And by the way, we're speaking to Daniel Turner, who's founder of the energy advocacy group Power the Future. But, Daniel, I feel like it's broken. Other people say it has. And what do you think?
- [86:29]
Daniel Turner
I think it has, but I think the momentum isn't there. I think the green movement has always been a tool of the Democrat Party. And I just put this on social media. We're in an election year. We're headed into summer. Where's all the activity we're at? And right across the river in Newark at that ice facility. Why? Because that's what they want to use for a tool. A couple years ago, it was Occupy Wall street down the road. A couple years ago, it was Black Lives Matter. Sometimes it's climate. The green movement is political opportunism. If it gets really hot here in July, if the east coast has a devastatingly hot July, they'll come back out. But it's been cold and miserable the last couple of weeks. So no one does climate change in the cold.
- [87:05]
Brian Kilmeade
If you want to know why the market goes, look at the AI companies. And the AI companies need data centers, and those data centers need power centers.
- [87:12]
Daniel Turner
Yeah.
- [87:12]
Brian Kilmeade
There seems to be a growing organization in this country to push back against data centers and the power that pushes them out.
- [87:19]
Daniel Turner
Yeah.
- [87:19]
Brian Kilmeade
What have you found?
- [87:20]
Daniel Turner
That it's all very well orchestrated and funded by the same climate groups that just a couple years ago wanted to ban your gas leaf blower, your gas combustion engine. There's a lot of concern about data centers, and there should be. And, you know, I want you to show. Start this Push to move the data centers to where the people are not, but the energy is. I was in the Permian basin not long ago. They had such a mild winter out west that gas is under a buck per cubic meter.
- [87:44]
Vice Admiral Robert Harwood
Where?
- [87:44]
Daniel Turner
Here on the east coast. It's around $3. Gas is unprofitable out west because they have so much of it that they're burning it. Build the data centers there.
- [87:52]
Brian Kilmeade
Right.
- [87:52]
Daniel Turner
Build them in northwest New Mexico. Build them in the desert. Build them. Build them in places that the people don't live and the energy is abundant.
- [88:00]
Brian Kilmeade
Right. Because we don't want utility costs going up. People and the data center there, even though it's great jobs and it's gonna great a lot of blue collar jobs. Yeah.
- [88:08]
Daniel Turner
And. And the people building data centers, of course they wanna build them near cities. That's cheaper. Right. That's where your construction workers live. That's where your supply chains are. It will be more expensive to build them in the middle of the desert. But are we doing this for the good of the country or for the good of the data center construction? So there are solutions. We just need some political.
- [88:26]
Brian Kilmeade
Kevin o' Leary bought a data center and he's getting all this pushback and he went and did forensics on it and it's coming from China.
- [88:32]
Daniel Turner
Yeah.
- [88:33]
Brian Kilmeade
So they know. How do you slow down America? Well, starting insurgency amongst the people and a pushback against AI and a pushback against the power that's. That's dirtying your water and jacking up your utility rate.
- [88:44]
Daniel Turner
China has always abused our nonprofit system to funnel groups to nonprofits who want to talk whether it's about climate change or whether about transit.
- [88:51]
Brian Kilmeade
Does climate change hurt our economy?
- [88:52]
Daniel Turner
Absolutely. And China. And China abuses our nonprofit laws to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into all of these lefty causes to foment opposition to foment insurrection. The anti ice people are probably funded by foreign groups. This is a huge problem that this administration has to tackle.
- [89:09]
Brian Kilmeade
Last question. The president said I signed an executive order in order to provide if you're going to build a data center, provide an energy source. Most people think it's nuclear. Is that plausible, feasible? Is it happening?
- [89:19]
Daniel Turner
It is. The data center will get built faster than the nuclear power plant, which take a little more time. That's why I think we now to embrace what the president has wanted which are these modular nuclear reactors, these small micro nuclear reactors that can be built in a matter of weeks. They're ready to go. You pull the rip cord and off they go. We should be putting Them everywhere.
- [89:38]
Brian Kilmeade
All right, Dan, no one knows more about energy than you. Really appreciate it, Daniel Turner. Thank you. Anytime we come back, we'll read some emails, get to the calls. Then John Smoltz and then the great Randy Levine. He is chair of the Presidential Committee on College Sports. They have come up with a bipartisan piece of legislation that will change the game for the better. He'll talk about it soon.
- [89:58]
Keeping you informed, engaged and always a step ahead. It's the Brian Kilme Show. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kilmeade Show.
- [90:25]
Randy Levine
If any other profession engaged in the professional misconduct that the media did around the COVID up of Joe Biden's cognitive decline, they'd be out of the drummed out of the profession or they'd be in prison and they'd be asked to have some accountability. Not read a single word in the New York Times, the Washington Post or heard it on any of the networks about reconstructing how this possibly could have happened. How could it possibly have happened? And what's got me all worked up is, is Joe Biden does an inter to promote her book with Rita Braver. And the position she takes in the interview is that the night of the debate she saw a behavior on the part of her husband that she had never seen before and has never seen since and therefore she thought he was having a stroke. Now leave aside that after the debate she's claimed he won the debate and he did such a good job that just spin. I don't have any problem with that. But I don't understand how Rita Braver could sit there and not say what I would say if I were interviewing Joe Biden and she said I'd say do you not have C span? Do you not recall all the times your husband trailed off in public events? Did you not get called by any donors who said they're really concerned that your husband has, I like to say, lost a step or two. And I'll be curious to see what the coverage is like of this Jill Biden interview because I suspect that most people in the media will cover it as oh my goodness, Jill Biden thought her husband was having a stroke. When what they should say is how could we, how could anyone accept that as an answer? She never saw that before.
- [91:42]
Brian Kilmeade
So a couple of things. Mark Halpern, the only thing he didn't take into account is now the media has what we woken up to the point of view that I was at and I assume he was at too, that we knew he was failing. We couldn't believe that he got away with it. He got away with it was all because of COVID or people just wanting to say is the most acceptable candidate when James James Corbin Clyburn anointed him. But the problem with Jill Biden is he's going to get pulled back from everywhere. And I would have a montage rolling back all the times her husband was catatonic. Just staring straight ahead and make her comment on that.
- [92:22]
The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmeade.
- [92:27]
Sugana's one one Eltani dead center field. Did he get enough? You bet he did. 8th pitch to Rumfield. Strike three. The one one to Hunter Goodman to center field.
- [92:41]
Josh Krashower
Pajes has no problem
- [92:45]
Brian Kilmeade
in the air
- [92:46]
to right here comes call 6 no hit innings for Shohei Ohtani. So Ohtani, another big night. Six innings, no hits and then he hits a homer and the Dodgers continue to be in first place. So some things don't really change. How impressive. I just think we're getting used to one of the most phenomenal things you see in all sports. Almost like we were amazed when Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders played two sports at the same time. This guy's really playing two positions within if we haven't seen this since Babe Ruth in baseball, I don't think. But my next guest would know. John Smoltz joins us. Hall of Fame pitcher Fox baseball's lead analyst and a heck of a golfer. We'll talk about that because he's here talking about the 2026American Century Championships. John, do you continue to be amazed at Ohtani?
- [93:33]
John Smoltz
Oh, I've been trumpeting his greatness for a long time. Matter of fact, I've taken some criticism and I don't understand why. But that's the way the world is telling the world that he's even a better pitcher than a hitter. And this was before anybody could really see what he's doing right now. His arm and his athleticism and his freakish athlete is coming to full center and for everybody to see. They don't understand. The world doesn't understand baseball doesn't understand how you can do two roles and not have suffering of one of the two roles. Right. He's going to have a regression of hitting because he's obsessed now with winning a Cy Young, which I don't blame him. What else can he do? Check that off the list. His arm for me was always the greatest attribute, but he's been banged up and he hasn't really been on full display until now. And people are seeing what I saw a long time ago when he first delivered a pitch. This is the greatest thing I've ever seen. I played with Deion Sanders. I thought that was the greatest thing I've ever seen. And it doesn't take. It's not much of a back seat to what he's doing. But in baseball terms, this is phenomenal. And now we're getting a chance to see why. His athleticism is on full display. Now that he's healthy with his arm healthy at the plate, he's going to win another mvp. Mainly because he's probably going to win a soccer young.
- [94:54]
Brian Kilmeade
You know, every time you saw Babe Ruth story growing up, they would always say, well, the Yankees want him to focus on just one thing and his hitting took off. Why is that not the case with Ohtani, do you think? Is he just that much of a freak in a good way?
- [95:08]
John Smoltz
I think Ohtani does whatever he wants to do and what he sets his mind to. The reason he was able to come to the big leagues with the Anaheim Angels is I'm pretty sure they secured his wishes. Now at some point all the experts said something's going to give. They're going to make him a one way eventually play. And when you think about his beginning, it was awful, is he couldn't hit in the spring training, he was struggling on the mound. And then once he was cleared to do the thing that made him special, you're seeing the attributes. When his arm was taken from him last year, you saw what he could do at the plate. Hit 50 home runs, stole 50 bases. The sky's the limit for this guy. And I thought the shelf life would be three to four years of playing elite level both positions. And we're going to see how long that lasts.
- [95:52]
Josh Krashower
So.
- [95:53]
John Smoltz
So he does what he wants to do and the Dodgers are benefiting it from it. And why not? You know, he's the generational player. They've already made all their money back on him. It's the greatest contract. When you think about what his value is, you couldn't quantify that in the beginning going I really that much. But it's backloaded. It's the perfect case scenario for a guy who wants to be the greatest player of all time, who wrote it down when he was a kid in Japan who's blazing, basically lived in it out. If he decides that he wanted to steal 85 bases one year, he could do it. So it's that great of an accomplishment.
- [96:32]
Brian Kilmeade
Yeah, we just don't hear him talk because of the language barrier. Or else he'd be just the biggest personality that you can imagine. The other big personality is Aaron Judge. The in the game, bigger than life. You mentioned him. People know who he is. Almost as big as Jeter was during his time. Do you think that Judge is going down is going to be as big as Jeter in the next five weeks if he wraps it up in five, seven years?
- [96:55]
John Smoltz
I do. And that would be something I could never think that you would ever utter
- [96:59]
Josh Krashower
out of your mouth.
- [97:00]
John Smoltz
Because New York is not for everybody. New York doesn't usually keep its star player as long as they did for Derek Jeter. Different timeframe. And they're definitely kept their star player. And he is exceeding every expectation. He's another freak. You know, he's a taller outfielder that we don't see very, very often in the game. Have success like he has offensively. Defensive, he can run. He's a great athlete. And he's carrying that franchise much to the way that Derek Jeter became beloved and became Mr. Clutch. Now he's going to have to get to that next level that Jeter got to in the postseason. And you give him enough opportunities, he will. It's an unfair kind of example or sample size because that pressure at that end of the year is so great.
- [97:47]
Brian Kilmeade
Right? And John, you know it because you perform under pressure. Even came out of the bullpen as a stopper and then went back to stop daughter. But we watched Judge and no one's more likable than Aaron Judge. But we saw what he did in the baseball in the. What was it? The tournament? Did you guys.
- [98:03]
John Smoltz
The Baseball Classic?
- [98:05]
Brian Kilmeade
Yeah, the World Baseball Classic. And we saw him again struggle at the plate. And we had a decent postseason last year. But in prior years he hasn't. Does something change about him or do they pitch him differently in the postseason?
- [98:17]
John Smoltz
Well, they definitely pitch him differently. And the pressure mounts when you got the guy that has had the years he's had. This is the one unfair thing about baseball. You have a monster year. You hit 62 home runs and everyone expects you're going to hit 10 in the postseason. You get. You don't get to face the same pitchers. Right? Baseball and then 162 schedule is totally different when it gets to the postseason. You don't use your fourth and fifth starter. You're facing studs. Everything gets magnified. The guy that can slow it down and actually play the game slower in the postseason will have success. That's why Derek Jeter had success. That's why Tom Brady has success because their ability to slow it down. And. And so he will learn that and he will accept the role of. They're not going to pitch to me until certain guys behind me do their job as a team. So that's how I would pitch him. I would never give him anything to hit unless the bases were loaded and I had to pitch to him. And that's the frustration of a great player and who's had tremendous year like he has.
- [99:12]
Brian Kilmeade
How do you feel about this way? You can call that you can have instant replay on strikes.
- [99:19]
John Smoltz
I think the ABS system has a fine. It's threaded the needle in a perfect way. Now with that comes side effects that they're going to have to watch. And the side effects are walk rate is at an all time high. Swing rate for hitters is at an all time low. So those things go hand in hand. When you have a strike zone challenge for two times, which you still got to get it right. It's not like you're doing it every pitch. I love it the way it is. It's got to stay like that. Don't expand it, don't utilize it for more pitches. And the league's going to have have to see what the curve is for adjustment. If this is going in the wrong direction, they'll make necessary adjust.
- [99:52]
Brian Kilmeade
The 2026American Century Championships, the 37th annual event of celebrity golf. You're going to be involved and expect to do well. I also understand you're in the final stages of qualifying for the US Senior Open. How much this tournament mean to you?
- [100:06]
John Smoltz
Well, this tournament's everything. This tournament is an elite invitation. It's hard to get and I take it for what it is. I don't take it for granted. It is a perfect time, perfect place. American Century much good with you know what they. They spend their dividends, they don't spend their profits. They're literally trying to solve a lot of issues and do a lot of great for a lot of great causes and cancer research and the likes. And I'm telling you, if you've never been, you got to go see this event. It's a one in a lifetime experience because it's so unique with the array of celebrities, all walks of life right there together. And of course I want to win. I've come close four times. I need to win. That's my competitive drive.
- [100:48]
Brian Kilmeade
So the USGA competition is set for next week, June 3rd at the Bears Club in Jupiter, Florida. And the Senior Open is scheduled for July 2nd and 5th. Hopefully you'll be in that. John, thanks so much for joining us. Best of luck out there.
- [101:02]
John Smoltz
My pleasure.
- [101:03]
Josh Krashower
Thanks for having me, Brian.
- [101:04]
Brian Kilmeade
You got it. When we come back, Randy Levine joins us, talks about the new standard when it comes to college sports. New rules are out there. It's up to Congress to approve it. We'll find out where Randy helped construct truck. Don't move.
- [101:15]
Newsmakers and news breakers, hear it first on the Brian Kilmeade show, The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmeade, sponsored by Prevagen. Prevagen made for your brain.
- [101:41]
Something's got to be done, right, because the system needs it fixed. The courts have said that the way the NCAA has operated for years is against the law. And so our lawmakers are finally doing something. Couple good things about it. First of all, it's bipartisan. Second, it's in the upper chamber. Third, they're going to put some rules around transfers and a salary cap and how old kids can be. I mean, college kids should be playing basketball between the ages of 18 and 20, not, you know, not in their upper 20s. We got kids that are coming out of the NBA, coming over from Europe that have been pros for years and it's costing our high school kids scholarship opportunities. So I think this is a very good step. So that's it. That is Bruce Perot, former and longtime coach of the Auburn University basketball team, very successful now speaking out about. What he finds out is the rundown of a new piece of legislation that will help bring some reform to college sports and much needed reform while still allowing pay. But you have to have some type of salary cap and some type of rules. A guy that knows that and was chaired with making it possible and coming up with rules and regulations that work to move the game forward is the chairman of the Presidential Committee on College Sports, also president of the New York Yankees, when he has time, Randy Levine. Randy, I know how much this meant to you to do this. You tackle this. What was your approach to doing it? First, listen to all angles and then come up with a piece of legislation that both Democrats and Republicans can get by behind.
- [103:03]
Randy Levine
Well, I give all the credit in the world to Senators, Cruz, Cantwell, Schmidt, Coons and a bunch of others who, who have been part of this. As you know, Brian, everyone went to the president. They said this problem was killing college sports. Schools were hemorrhaging money. Schools, you know, were cutting Olympic and women's sports. And so we put the president's roundtable together. We came up with a Lot of solutions. We work with the senators and all I can say is now is the time. We're going to see if all of these universities, all of these conferences, the ncaa, whether they really want to solve the problem or not. Because this bill, it's not perfect, but it has 80% of what everybody in our committee and throughout has asked for it. It deals with eligibility, it deals with transfer, it deals with providing student athletes health, scholarship protection and rights. Today the system is so clogged up they can't even get the NIL payments that they're entitled to. It stops the cheating that's going on. So we're going to now sit. See, the President has done what he was asked to do. The Senate bipartisan has done what they've said that they're going to do. And now we're going to see if these universities are really serious about trying to solve the problem. Or was it just a sham?
- [104:38]
Brian Kilmeade
Yeah, I mean they asked government for help.
- [104:40]
Daniel Turner
Right.
- [104:41]
Brian Kilmeade
They knew it. So that's right. When the NCAA gets overruled time and time again and it becomes everyone gets paid. The big schools were paying their players in the sports like basketball, the revenue producing and football. So you guys listened, you talked to the former coaches, former players, and then you figure, how do I do this? Some things that are, that you brought up in an overview, you gotta be, you can't play college sports past the age of 24 without exception. Correct. Number one, you gotta start at 18, 19, you get one transfer. If you're gonna transfer again, you're gonna have to sit out a year. And unless the coach leaves. So these are some basic things.
- [105:16]
Randy Levine
Go ahead.
- [105:16]
There's no, you know, exception for a religious mission, military service, you know, things
- [105:22]
Brian Kilmeade
that are justifiable, understood when it comes to nil. So Dick Sporting Goods wants to give Randy Levine's Randy Levine a million dollars. How does Dick Sporting Goods go approach that? There's going to be a method and practices to do that and there's going to be a cap on how much they can, can get.
- [105:42]
Randy Levine
No, if Dick's Sporting Goods came to Randy Levine, honest third party, you know, transaction, that's fine. The student, you know, can do that and whatever Dick Sporting good wants to pay him, that's fine. That's not what was happening. What was happening is there was a, a cap and schools would in the past sell their rights to a third party party and that third party would pay them and they'd use part of it in order to subsidize women's Olympic non revenue Sports that to get around the cap, what they've done now is they formed what's called collectives. So these collectives are now receiving the money that would have gone directly to the third party. And let's say I'm just making it up. University in the old days would get $100 million from a third party. Now they sell their rights to the collective for 100 million, but the collective says to the third party, they sell it to. You don't really need to give us 100, give us 80, and just give 20 to the students. And that's a backdoor way to avoid the 20.5 cap that's in the house settlement. And that's why schools, certain schools have payrolls of 40, 50 million, which most even in the SEC, in Big Ten can't compete with. And that's what's causing universities to cut Olympic sports, cut women's sports, because they just can't sustain it. You know, adding student fees. This solves that problem.
- [107:23]
Brian Kilmeade
Yeah, I mean, the Olympic sports are. The Olympic sports are a real issue because they're no revenue. You go to a field hockey game, it's their parents, soccer, when I played, my parents, friends and family, and so a handful of students. So what's going to happen to those sports? Can you, in layman's terms, give us an idea of why should people feel better in this system that those sports have a future, like wrestling, for example?
- [107:45]
Randy Levine
Because under this system, the money under the bill and under what we're, you know, the Senate's trying to accomplish, the money that's needed to subsidize that sport will not go, will not go into subsidizing backup quarterbacks or fourth guards in basketball, mostly football. And there will be enough revenue like there was in the past to subsidize those sports. And remember, these are college athletes. We have on our committee a lot of college student athletes, and they want to be college student athletes. They want to feel part of a team. They don't like when the team changes every single year. They don't like when the coach changes every single year. They're student athletes. Athletes. And whether they're playing field hockey, soccer, or Division 1 football, almost everyone I've talked to a thousand student athletes. Nobody wants to be in a union. Nobody wants to be an employee. They want to be student athletes. And, you know, that's a good issue here that people are going to have to compromise. You know, in the House, they had the SCORE act where they were assisting on student athletes not being applied employees. There are certain people who think that, you know, there should be collective bargaining. These people are going to be in the union. That's not, that's not achievable in a piece of legislation. So this legislation basically calls them student athletes and leaves that question open for people to decide later on. So that's why I said we're either going to stand on ceremony and pretend that we're going to fix the problem. Well, we use this bill, which is bipartisan, and you know, Brian in Washington, it's tough to do anything bipartisan as a model to solve the problem. And the fixes, 80% of the fixes in this bill are what all the universities student athletes talked about. You know, there's going to be complaints from agents because guess what? Now they're going to have to be certified and registered like they are in professional sports. And they won't be able to charge 20% percent. They'll be able to charge 5% like professional sports do. So there's a lot of people here who are going to be affected in a negative way. But the system today is not sustainable. And this will make it sustainable.
- [110:07]
Brian Kilmeade
This is going to be great. So we're going to get. So hopefully we're going to get a vote on this and get this into play right away and empower the NCAA to enforce again rather than get sued on everything they make. Randy, you did your job once again. The president helped, asked you for help, and you stepped up for him. I know he appreciates it.
- [110:23]
Randy Levine
Well, we, you know, I would just say, Brian, you know, for everyone, your viewers, the ncaa, which caused this problem, we haven't even heard from them yet.
- [110:33]
Brian Kilmeade
Wow. We'll have to leave it there because I'm out of time. But thanks so much, Randy. We heard from you. We appreciate.