Ep. 509 - Cuba Assaults U.S. Boat, Iran Goes for Nukes (Again), Democrats in "Leaderless" Chaos

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Tony Kinnett Cast

Ep. 509 – Cuba Assaults U.S. Boat, Iran Goes for Nukes (Again), Democrats in "Leaderless" Chaos
Date: February 26, 2026
Host: Tony Kinnett, The Daily Signal

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Overview

This episode of the Tony Kinnett Cast dives deep into several high-stakes national and global events: a deadly confrontation off Cuba’s coast involving a U.S.-registered speedboat, rapidly escalating tensions with Iran regarding nuclear ambitions and missile deals, fallout and analysis of President Trump’s State of the Union address, and pointed commentary on Democratic Party chaos and political optics. Kinnett and guests provide conservative, midwestern-framed analysis, notable quotes, and humorous asides, critiquing both domestic and foreign leadership, political strategy, and media narratives.

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Segment Breakdown & Key Highlights

1. Cuba–U.S. Boat Incident (00:06–06:14)

• Summary:

  • Cuban authorities claim a Florida-registered speedboat entered Cuban waters, engaged in a firefight, resulting in 4 dead and 6 injured from the boat’s crew.
  • U.S. media (NYT) suggests the vessel was a civilian group attempting to smuggle relatives out of Cuba, not U.S. military, countering Cuban reports.
  • Growing political calls for a formal U.S. investigation; rep. Carlos Giménez (FL) pushing the State Department for answers.

• Notable Analysis:

  • Kinnett calls the Cuban government’s North Korea-style official reporting “laughable” and highlights distrust in both Cuban and U.S. government narratives.
  • Points out the implausibility of smugglers firing first on a Cuban military vessel (“Yeah, I’m going to put a little bit of doubt on that particular situation right now.” – [04:00])

2. Iran Escalates Nuclear and Missile Programs (06:14–14:10 & 74:22–76:38)

• Summary:

  • President Trump’s State of the Union address confirms continuing Iranian efforts to develop ballistic missiles and restart its nuclear program despite previous U.S. military strikes (Operation Midnight Hammer).
  • Iran is reportedly scrambling to finalize a missile purchase with China (CM302 supersonic missile, range ~180 miles).
  • U.S. and allies (especially Five Eyes partner contractors) are on heightened alert; private military contractors are safeguarding oil shipments.

• Notable Quotes & Commentary:

  • Donald Trump ([05:28]): “They’ve already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas... And they want to start all over again and are at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions.”
  • Kinnett: Refers to the Iran–China missile deal as overhyped, mocking Chinese equipment: “It’s just like every other piece of Chinese equipment… it sucks. Just like Deepseek.” ([09:34])
  • On U.S. intercept capability: “No, we have shot down consistently not just the Chinese CM302 and its variant…” ([12:53])

3. Border & Domestic Security Updates

([14:10–16:07])

• New Hampshire Shooting: 26-year-old trans individual, Blue Zeke Daly, allegedly exchanged gunfire with Border Patrol near the Canadian border. Kinnett repeatedly frames incident as “trans violence” and “terrorist.”

• FBI Raid in Los Angeles:

  • LA Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho’s home and office raided. No details due to sealed affidavit; Kinnett speculates possible reasons but withholds judgment until more is known.

4. State of the Union Review & Political Fallout

([16:07–38:28])

• Trump’s Address – Strategic Success

  • Kinnett admits past misjudgment: Trump delivered “one of the best State of the Union addresses in the modern era.”

  • Highlights include focus on national pride, foreign policy, military action, tax reform, and a calculated effort to box Democrats in on 80/20 issues.

  • Notable Quotes:

    • Donald Trump ([19:25]): “I urged this Congress to begin the mission by passing the largest tax cuts in American history. And our Republican majorities delivered so beautifully. Thank you, Republicans.”
    • Kinnett: “Politically, that’s brilliant… recently, he’s been using it as a political tactic,” crediting others for bipartisan wins. ([19:41])

• Democratic Optics Disaster

  • Dems divided: some attend counter-State of the Union events, others present but disengaged.
  • Dems’ responses – from Nancy Pelosi’s stock trading defense to Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib’s disruptions – are mocked as chaotic and ineffective.
  • Trump capitalizes: orchestrates set pieces putting Democrats in the awkward position of sitting during applause for U.S. citizens, crime victims, and border security.
  • Key Moment: Trump asks Congress to stand “if you believe the first duty of American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” ([22:14])

• Analysis of Legislation & Policy Proposals

  • Calls for Delilah Law (ban CDL’s for illegal immigrants), voter ID measures, and ties these to strong polling support.

5. Democrats in "Leaderless" Chaos

([38:28–58:54])

• Alternate Democratic Responses & Counter-Programming

  • Kinnett lampoons Dem counter-events: “Giraffe Man” (wearing a giraffe suit), frog mascot dancers, and Joy Reid’s offbeat panel.
  • Lampoons official response by Abigail Spanberger as weak and incoherent, describes DNC leadership as “emasculated, sucking on dentures,” and party alternatives (Newsom, AOC, etc.) as unserious.

• Notable Moments:

  • Pelosi called out over insider trading; awkward defenses on CNN ([31:47])
  • Rashida Tlaib’s “KKK” chant during “USA” moment; Ilhan Omar’s guest escorted out from State of the Union for protest ([34:50], [35:00])

• Kinnett’s Tone:

  • Derides counter-events: “I’m really off putting. And I want everyone to know that in a giraffe suit. That’s their calendar now.” ([44:06])

6. Small Business & Economic Policy

([66:48–74:22])

• Interview with Andrew Cofield (SBA Office of Advocacy, Region 5):
  • Reiterates strong optimism among small business owners in the Midwest due to deregulation and “largest tax cut in American history.”
  • Emphasis on ongoing efforts to roll back regulations (claims $110B cut in burdens in year one).
  • Practical resources: SBA’s Red Tape Hotline, advocacy.sba.gov.
  • Advice to business owners: “Now is a great time to be a small business owner.”

7. Education, Media Literacy, & Final Commentary

([83:59–92:59])

• Critique of Modern Education Narratives:

  • Kinnett pushes back against Mr. Beast’s viral comments about video-based learning supplanting traditional education.
  • Argues for the irreducible value of books, narrative storytelling, and apprenticeship learning over “fun” or viral video-based methods.
  • Dismisses claimed learning styles (“visual,” “auditory”) as debunked; criticizes “TikTok expert” culture in news and social media.

• On Democratic Party State:

  • Inside scoops claim DNC leadership is “horrified” at current disjointed image, donor instability, and lack of credible, charismatic alternatives.

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Notable Quotes by Timestamp

• Kinnett (Cuban report):
  “They have the kind of North Korea style … laughable … official report.” ([04:50])
• Donald Trump (on Iran):
  “We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words. We will never have a nuclear weapon.” ([05:28])
• Kinnett (on CM302 missile):
  “It’s the Soviet communist model of saying what if we took a vague understanding of American fighter jets and strapped the biggest bleeping rocket … just like the Foxbat MiG story.” ([09:43])
• Kinnett (on Democratic chaos):
  “[Dems] were at different events. Some were at town halls … they looked terrible. Eight different alternate programming, pseudo halftime show, State of the Union alternatives…” ([28:33])
• Kinnett (on education):
  “There is no such thing [as] ‘I’m a visual learner.’ That has been debunked so many times.” ([88:35])

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Key Timestamps

• 00:06: Cuba-U.S. boat incident; competing U.S. and Cuban narratives
• 05:28: Trump’s SOTU excerpt on Iran and nuclear developments
• 06:14–14:10: Deep-dive into Iranian nuclear missile procurement with China
• 14:10: Transgender New Hampshire shooting incident
• 16:07–38:28: SOTU breakdown; Trump’s performance, Dems’ fumbles, major legislative themes
• 31:32: Pelosi grilled on insider trading
• 38:28: Analysis of Dems’ counter-programming, optics, and response failures
• 66:48–74:22: Interview with SBA advocate Andrew Cofield; regulatory reform and small business outlook
• 83:59: Education reform rant; Mr. Beast’s viral comments and Kinnett’s rebuttal

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Tone & Style

Tony Kinnett maintains an unabashedly conservative, skeptical, and wry tone throughout, mixing sharp critiques with colorful analogies and sarcasm. The show leans into political theater, driving home critiques with references familiar to center-right and right-leaning audiences, and uses humor to comment on opposition mishaps. Kinnett is critical of Democrat strategies, supports Trump administration moves, and provides dire warnings regarding international threats.

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Memorable/Defining Moments

• Trump boxes in Dems during SOTU:
  “The first duty of the American government is to Protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” ([22:14])
• Kinnett’s education tirade:
  “The idea that you can’t learn from books comes from an individual who is listening to an adult explain things… I’m not having fun. This idea that we’re telling kids, life has to be about fun… That’s stupid.” ([86:30])
• Pelosi’s awkward CNN defense:
  “Trump’s never been a congressman, ever.” ([31:47])
• Democratic division and mascot chaos recaps “Giraffe Man”:
  “I’m really off putting and I want everyone to know that in a giraffe suit. That’s their calendar now.” ([44:06])
• On DNC dysfunction:
  “They don’t think that donors are gonna bring it forward. And this is a major problem. Major problem.” ([77:53])

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Tony Kennett]

Tony Kennett.

Tony Kennett.

Tony Kennett.

[Political Correspondent]

Tony Kennett.

[Tony Kennett]

Tony Kennett.

[Andrew Cofield]

Tony Kennett.

[Political Correspondent]

Tony Kennett, host of the Tony Kennett cast.

[Tony Kennett]

Let's get down to business. You're listening to the Tony Kennett cast on 93 WIBC on CYTV here on the Daily Signal. Good evening and welcome to the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated, first on 93 WIBC. We are glad that you guys are with us, joining first and foremost a kind of crisis developing over in Cuba. So off the north coast of Cuba. Reports came this morning into early afternoon, first from the Cuban embassy in the United States. So kind of a grain of salt situation. But alas, here is what the Cuban embassy had reported. Note from the Ministry of the Interior. On the morning of February 25, 2026, a violating speedboat was detected within Cuban territorial vessel registered in Florida with the registration number and then Florida, excuse me, Foxtrot Lima 7726 Sierra Hotel approached up to one nautical mile northeast of the El Pino channel in Cayofalcones in the Coralillo municipality in the Villa Clara province. When a surface unit of the border guard troops of the Ministry of the Interior carrying five service members approached the vessel for identification. The the crew of the violating speedboat. So here you go. They're applying the motive here. The crew of the violating speedboat opened fire on the Cuban personnel resulting in the injury of the commander of the Cuban vessel. As a consequence of the confrontation, as of the time of this report, four aggressors on the foreign vessel were killed and six were injured. Now that's going to become relevant here in a second. You can see a little sliver of information leaking out from the communist official report there. The injured individuals were evacuated and received medical assistance. In the face of the current challenges, Cuba reaffirms its determination to protect its territorial waters. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they say investigations are underway. So immediately they resorted to what is. Well, I'm going to admit it, it's laughable. They have the kind of North Korea style this from the Foreign Ministry of the Interior here, the little delay, the lag, it's the same statement that you had seen before. Now here's where things get interesting. Reuters just parrots the foreign or excuse me, I should say the Ministry of the Interior or the Foreign Embassy operating here in the United States. On the other side, however, the New York Times has relayed something much, much, much different. So according to the New York Times, who is still as of 7:09pm Eastern, updating this article. While the Cuban government says that its border troops killed at least four people in a U.S. registered boat and wounded six others in a gunfight, that may not be the entire truth, the New York Times reports, and they're citing an unnamed U.S. official. We're not even clear whether it's a member of the State Department or a member of the Department of War that is leaking this to the New York Times. But the Cuban Border Guard targeted a vessel in which Americans were attempting to smuggle their relatives inside, inside Cuba out of the country. Not a U.S. navy or a Coast Guard ship. And at this time it doesn't appear to have been a drug running situation. That's what a lot of left leaning accounts are speculating over on social media. But either way, shooting American citizens in territorial waters, we're going to need to see some additional details here whether or not they really did fire on the Cuban Coast Guard. First, the idea that you had four dead and then six injured. If you are trying to smuggle people out of the country and your first move is to fire on a larger Cuban Coast Guard vessel. Yeah, I'm going to put a little bit of doubt on that particular situation right now. What we do know, Representative Carlos Gimnez of the state of Florida, according to Axios, is calling for an official investigation by the United States, specifically the State Department. So tensions are rather high between the United States and Cuba. Of course, one of our aircraft carriers has sailed a little bit eastward into the Mediterranean to provide assistance as the situation between the United States and Iran continues to deteriorate. So a couple of things. On the deteriorate, excuse me, on the deterioration of the relationship between the United States and Iran. Last night during President Trump's State of the Union address, it was reported that he was going to discuss the Iranian plan of attack, perhaps how he was going to view negotiations in the future. He said things like, we want to have a deal, but if we can't have a deal, then things might happen. But there was one extra sliver that went largely unreported. This is when the President was discussing the pursuit of ballistic missiles by the Iranian government. And I don't just mean building them ad hoc.

[Donald Trump]

Glued together some terrible people. They've already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas. And they're working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America. After Midnight Hammer, they were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program and in particular nuclear weapons. Yet they continue starting it all over we wiped it out. And they want to start all over again and are at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions. We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words. We will never have a nuclear weapon.

[Tony Kennett]

Now again, some of the libertarian isolationist crew is out saying, well, he already said he destroyed the nuclear program. And as every single individual in broadcast media that has any shred of decency reported after the strikes on Fordo, on Isfahan during Operation Midnight Hammer, the Trump administration said, yes, we have destroyed their centrifuges. What they are using right now to enrich uranium. They're deep bunker areas, but they still have the knowledge to do these things and they still are going to attempt to enrich uranium. So now the next mode over the next year is to convince, either by handshake or by the scene from Avengers where the Hulk is smacking Loki back and forth, either of those methods convincing the Iranian mullahs not to continue their nuclear program and not to go back on in the enriching uranium situation here. So there have been some comments in the live stream chat, specifically from Paul, saying, look, this kind of stuff is going to make Secretary of State Marco Rubio go ballistic. And I very much agree. When foreign countries do try to get in there and cause issues for the United States, when the secretary of State is Marco Rubio, who received a large amount of praise over the last week, and rightfully so, yes, there are going to be serious consequences. However, the United States is still in a position regarding Iran and regarding Cuba, ascertaining the facts, looking over what the situation is on the ground, seeing what it is that they need to pinpoint what industries need to be hit, seeing how seriously Iran is, for example, in the current Middle Eastern crisis, taking this issue now, there are two updates for Iran and what you should at least be aware of right now. First and foremost, according to Bloomberg, Iran has been rapidly loading an unusually high amount of oil onto tankers, possibly in preparations for a looming U.S. attack. Now, I can report here from the Tony Kennett cast that at least two of the maritime private military contractor agencies that frequently work with the five eyes, as well as obviously in that the United States State Department have been ordered to be on the alert for essentially prize crews set to defend some of these oil vessels, in other words, a couple of Iranian marines stationed on these oil vessels to just try to get them away from the rather explosive buildings in the territory on the land of Iran. Now the second piece of news that you need to be aware of is that Iran is trying desperately, and I mean according to these reports, very, very desperately to hustle along a deal with China to buy anti ship cruise missiles as the United States moves naval forces to Iran's coast in preparation for a potential attack. This report is, according to Derek Van Buskirk at the Daily Caller. This was this afternoon, quote, China and Iran are rapidly finalizing an agreement for the Islamic regime to purchase CM302 supersonic missiles with an approximate range of 180 miles. Three officials briefed by the Iranian government and three security officials told Reuters yet again that that Reuters line I think is rather important regarding their foreign policy reporting. The deal is near completion after at least two years of talks and sped up swiftly after the 12 day June 2025 war between Iran and Israel. What does this mean? Iran is desperately trying to get China to get the, you know, Temu Aliexpress delivery plane over to Iranian airspace and drop off some of these fabled CM302 supersonic missiles. Now these are supposed to be anti ship surface skimmer missiles. A former Israeli intelligence officer and current senior Iran researcher Danny Citrinowitz told Reuters. These missiles are, these missiles are very difficult to intercept. Radio crew, we got to send you over to the commercial but don't worry, we're going to go into detail on the live stream. It's not as impressive as perhaps the Chinese and the Iranians are making it out to sound. It's the Tony Kinnit cast here on the Daily Signal now here on the livestream, I'm happy to tell you these missiles are not all that in a bag of chips. Very, very, very limited. Tests have shown that it's just like every other piece of Chinese equipment, whether it's software or hardware. It sucks. Just like Deepseek. All it did was take the United States model and then build a bunch of it and say yeah, that'll be fine. It's the Soviet communist model of saying what if we took a vague understanding of American fighter jets and strapped the biggest bleeping rocket that we can to the back so that it can fly really, really fast for a short amount of time, burn up about half of the drivers in the vehicle and not be able to turn worth a darn. And that, you know, is the famous Foxbat mig story from the Soviet era in the Cold War. Now here we have the Chinese suggesting oh maybe they're gonna give a bunch of supersonic super duper cool, amazing uninterceptible missiles. You always hear this. It's you can't intercept it. No one can stop these things. We heard this about suicide drones not too long ago. I'm sorry. This is very, very, very, very fishful winking. And the reason it is so some of the online claims the United States and Israel have a 0 to 5% near 0 chance to intercept Iranian Fatah 1 and Fatah I 2 Electric Boogaloo Hypersonic missiles. And then they show a bunch of clips of these hypersonic missiles that all got past the Iron Dome and Iron Beam. They say to this day a hypersonic missile has never been intercepted. No, that's not true. That's not true. We have shot down either via the United States, our allies, or of course most importantly the various other organizations that test out some of the United States anti air defenses. Over 100 of these hypersonic missiles and not a situation where like, well, 98 of them have been the fatal one, which is essentially a, an Acme TNT rocket strapped to tinfoil and then two of them were the Fata 2. No, we have shot down consistently not just the Chinese CM302 and its variant, the blueprints of which have been shipped out immediately. It has been horrendously bad at even hitting targets that it's fired at. Essentially, as soon as the hypersonic part of the missile kicks in, its brain issues a bunch of fart noises. So again, I mean, I'm not really seeing what all of this dominance is going to come to fruition in at least from the Chinese. It doesn't actually sound like Iran has any brilliant maneuvers here planned. And the administration is quickly running out of patience because the Trump administration is going to have to finish at least the initial bombardment with Iran and then come back to the United States and deal with Cuba. It's very clear that's where the State Department is looking towards. Now the Department of War is something a little bit different here. Of course, Raisin Cain, he's got a few ideas of his own. But you know, putting those things aside, we'll be keeping you up to date on some of those pieces of news. Other wise up in the Northeast today, New Hampshire Blue Zeke Dally, age 26, who identifies as trans. Excuse me, not today. This would be yesterday was arrested for allegedly opening fire on border patrol agents after being stopped near the Canadian border. Dale reportedly tried to flee and crashed into a snowbank where law enforcement made the arrest. So here we have yet more trans violence.

[Political Correspondent]

We were first to break this story

[Tony Kennett]

late on Sunday night and it's been

[Political Correspondent]

tough to get information. It's really been piecemeal. But now we know that this suspect is from Manchester. A 26 year old from Manchester is

[Tony Kennett]

in the hospital tonight after allegedly exchanging

[Political Correspondent]

fire with Border Patrol in Pittsburgh early Sunday morning. According to an affidavit filed this afternoon, Blue Zeke Daly, who is also known

[Tony Kennett]

as Cullen, Zeke Daly fired shots at

[Political Correspondent]

an agent who then returned fire and shot Daleyza.

[Tony Kennett]

So what we have is a transgender individual, a terrorist who shot at Border Patrol in according to the News story by WMUR9 in Pittsburgh and then tried to make it all the way to Canada through New Hampshire. Serious, serious issues. We're gonna bring the radio crew back from commercial. Don't go anywhere. We have more than enough news to cover tonight. It's the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal. It's the Tony Kennet on 93 WYBC. We're going to get into some of the details on the FBI raid of the home and office of the Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Car Valho a little bit later. Right now the affidavit for the search is still under seal. We'll let you know if that breaks. It's expected to probably be unsealed here pretty soon. There's a lot of speculation swirling around, but since the report and the affidavit are sealed, we're going to wait a little bit here because issuing corrections is really annoying. However, I do have a correction to issue here. A little bit of rarity on the Tony Kenned cast. But I owe it to you to be upfront and honest with you. I made a prediction earlier in the week that the State of the Union address by the president of the United States was going to be essentially something that we all expected to just be kind of a blustery rabbit trail filled kind of classic TR Trump on the campaign rally style event. I expected the president to go off on tariffs for like a half an hour to an hour on various news programs. I suggested it was very likely he was going to get out there and throw various punches maybe at a Supreme Court justice. And that was going to drag on and be kind of exhausting. I was dead wrong. The president of the United States performed what has to be one of the best State of the Union addresses in the modern era. He performed in a manner that was politically brilliant. And I am loathe to be an individual who says the president of the United States does 4D chess when it comes to political events. He boxed the Democrats in on 8020 issues. And as far as mentioning kind of controversial, at least with the American polling issues like the Supreme Court or tariffs. He sat on those things very, very, very little. So that I came back onto the air after the State of the Union address, Enter or ended was on with Kurt Schlichter of Townhall.com and then over to our panel with Daily Signal political editor Bradley Devlin, senior news producer and our national security correspondent, Virginia Allen. That of course is on over at our YouTube channel and essentially walked through what has to be one of the better victories for the Trump administration. So very quickly I mentioned that while we aired through some of the particular speeches, let's go through a bit of a breakdown from producer Daniel here. If you're watching the live stream, a little bit of a chart here because my team is incredibly talented. This is a breakdown made by producer Daniel of how the President of the United States spent the State of the Union on topic coverage by a minute. So on national pride and just the ceremony of the State of the Union, essentially where Trump said, I love the United States and I love you and I love the people in the balcony. What an amazing 250 years. Who could have believed it? I mean, wow, it's a pretty great place we're living here. And also for the kids in the back. So most of the speech by volume spent on national pride and ceremony. He spent 23 minutes of the speech on foreign policy and military action, which is again a 9010 issue with the American people. Stuff in Venezuela, very popular with the American people. Stuff in Iran, very popular with the American people. Stance by Marco Rubio, very popular with the American people. Freeing prisoners from the Maduro regime, very popular with the American people. The economy, trade, fiscal policy. 20 minutes here. I was expecting 40 minutes of this. And he spent regarding the economy, a very large amount of time talking about things that are going to hit voters right between the eyes coming up here pretty soon at the end of tax season. Specifically, I should say here, what I'm, what I'm describing is that the President of the United States made it very, very clear that the big beautiful bill that he'd passed after the House and the Senate kind of argued over it, got into the various details, was going to be one of the larger tax breaks for Americans in American history. Here was the President of the United States making that particular claim last year.

[Donald Trump]

I urged this Congress to begin the mission by passing the largest tax cuts in American history. And our Republican majorities delivered so beautifully. Thank you, Republicans.

[Tony Kennett]

Politically, that's brilliant. Politically, that is brilliant. It is also very, very, very, very, very not the way that Trump usually does things normally. He goes, I'm pretty great. And I think that if I wouldn't have said something, it all would have gone to the dogs. And here he said, republicans, take a bow. He's been doing this recently. He's been giving others credit in a manner that's very public facing. And Trump is very good at giving credit on certain things when it comes to praising actions after they are completed. Recently, though, he's been using it as a political tactic, which all I can say is that if he would have pulled this out a little bit earlier, I mean, I know obviously there are going to be people that hate him for hating him. But as far as the political rhetoric, to the average American, this plays very, very well.

[Donald Trump]

All Democrats, every single one of them, voted against these really important and very necessary massive tax cuts.

[Tony Kennett]

And the reason that matters, and as a comment on the live stream points out from RC0, the Trump that showed up is not what Democrats expected. Here's a great reason why he's talking about things Americans are getting ready to experience. When's the last time you had a politician that looked forward instead of what was going on right then or what had been going on before? The President is setting the table for those who are getting ready to visit the irs. And as the Simpsons put it, ah, sometimes I wonder why even bother plundering it all. Paying taxes sucks. Americans don't like it. So paying less taxes, getting bigger refunds and then going, oh yeah, Trump was bragging about that. Yeah, boys and girls, that's a win. Now, the big political moment of the night, at least what a lot of my colleagues are pointing out is the piece de resistance that will launch a thousand campaign ads going into campaign season, was when President Trump, who essentially baited the Democrats, he dangled a stake in front of the dog like it's Tom and Jerry. And Tom's trying to distract the big bulldog protecting Jerry the mouse. He, like, dangles the stake around a corner and then you look around the corner and it's Tom holding like a cast iron skillet to hit the dog with. This is exactly what Trump did. So this is Trump talking about, stand up if you like US Citizens and sit down if you'd rather help illegal aliens. Just the battiest of bait comments, but they took the bait. Sink line and hooker.

[Donald Trump]

Tonight, I'm inviting every legislature to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to Protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.

[Tony Kennett]

And the Republicans all stood and they cheered and the Democrats all sat. Now, there are a lot of pundits who have like, oh, this looks really bad. And you are correct, it absolutely. It looks really, really bad. It does. It is embarrassing. It's humiliating. Couple of things, though. This is not going to last in the refrigerator, as we say, until the elections in the midterms. Nope, nope, nope. It is a damning absolutely. But it's going to lose some of its potency. Voters already know this. Voters are all very well aware of this. The kind of like for Jesus, ignore for Satan things. They are excellent political maneuvering and they're really, because you can see, for example, a little bit later, Mark Kelly really tries to kind of wiggle around this. It doesn't quite work. There is one particular moment that I find to be kind of the COVID of the evening and that is the contrast between the President of the United States honoring, for example, the mother of the slain Irena Zarutska from the horrible Charlotte murder, and then how the Democrats, specifically Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib responded to it. Radio crew, we have to send you out to commercial, so come over to the live stream, YouTube.com dailysignal or over on X, watch it with us. And then you don't have to deal with that commercial break. It's the Tony Knittcast here on the Daily Signal. Oh, Tony, should you really tell the stations that are hosting you to come watch the live stream and skip out on the commercial break? Yeah, I'd rather you guys watch it here. What can I say? I love the live stream chats. So here was the President honoring Irena Zyrutska. So he describes the incident that has of course spurned a major act preventing illegal immigrants from just being let out onto the street or violent criminals let out onto the street just to commit more violent atrocities. You can see the president making that case. And of course honoring the mother of

[Donald Trump]

slain Irena pro crime Democrat politicians again and again we are honored to be joined tonight by a woman who's been through hell, anya Zaretzka. In 2022, she and her beautiful daughter. So beautiful. What a beautiful young woman. Irina fled war turn war torn Ukraine to live with relatives near Charlotte, North Carolina. And by the way, what's going on with Charlotte? Last summer, 23 year old Irina was riding home on the train when a deranged monster who had been arrested over a dozen times and was released through no cash bail stood up and viciously slashed a Knife through her neck and body.

[Tony Kennett]

It is, it's a tear jerking moment. And appropriately so, you know, Trump's not going off on kind of like rabbit trail riffing. Very, very appropriate. Outlining the policies that led to Irena Zarutska's death. And then also, of course, obviously highlighting the family there whom he is honoring appropriately. It obviously undercuts the Trump hates immigrants and hates Ukraine narrative.

[Donald Trump]

No one will ever forget there were people on that train. No one will ever forget the expression of terror on Irina's face as she looked up at her attacker in the last seconds of her life. She died instantly. She had escaped a brutal war only to be slain by a hardened criminal set free to kill in America. Came in through open borders. Mrs. Zaretzka, tonight, I promise you we will ensure justice for your magnificent daughter Irina.

[Tony Kennett]

Now watch sitting next to Erica Kirk. Very appropriate. The camera's going to pan out.

[Donald Trump]

How do you not stand? How do you not stand? I'm asking this Congress to pass tough legislation.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah. Again, there are several different angles here where you can see the Republicans are all clapping, the Democrats are all sitting. That's going to last, that right there, that pointed example again from last year's State of the Union into this one. Examples of the consequences of policy. Here's what happens when you have this person that's effective. That's going to do a remarkable, a remarkable amount for pushing actual legislation. And I want to be specific about why. Here, for example, the Trump administration has also urged the banning of illegal immigrants and those who don't speak English, obtaining commercial driver's licenses. We've seen the string of commercial driver's license, illegal immigrant, semi related accidents that have killed American citizens. Here was the president on that many,

[Donald Trump]

if not most illegal aliens do not speak English and cannot read even the most basic road signs as to direction, speed, danger or location. That's why tonight I'm calling on Congress to pass what we will call the Delilah Law, barring any state from granting commercial driver's licenses to illegal aliens.

[Tony Kennett]

Democrats sat, Republicans clapped. We have to bring the radio crew back from commercial. And then I want to share with you a little bit. Senator Jim Banks of Indiana actually pushing this bill. Already forward on the floor. Don't go anywhere. It's the Tony Kenned cast. You're listening to the Tony kenned cast on 93 Pebbles UIBC. Welcome back to the Tony Kenneth cast. The President of the United States State of the Union called for the Delilah law to be introduced and passed. Senator Jim Banks, good friend of mine Good friend of the show has now introduced the Delilah law to bar states from granting a commercial license to illegal aliens. Now, there have been several in the media, those who kind of wake up every once in a while and go, oh, yeah, gee, that, that, that makes a lot of sense. I think that's going to be a lot more, as the academic journalists call it, more salient with voters than I was expecting. Yes, it is, because many Americans, this Dan McLaughlin from National Review points this out. Many Americans are going to look around and go, wait a minute. We weren't already banning those who can't speak English and who are illegal immigrants in the country. We weren't already banning them from getting commercial driver's licenses. We weren't already doing this. The President of the United States also name checked Senator, or, excuse me, Senate Majority Leader John Thune on passing voter ID in the Save America act again, 9010 issue huge amount of support from Republicans. We're going to move on here. As much as I'd love to sit on that particular one for a minute. In contrast, the Democrats made complete fools of themselves. But that's not the biggest issue of the evening. A lot of people today are making the case that Democrats acting like clowns is, is what Republicans should be thrilled about. No, what Republicans should be thrilled about leaving the State of the Union address is the complete disarray of the Democrat Party into today. Hakeem Jeffries, through the entire State of the Union, looked as though he wanted to swallow everything in his medicine cabinet at once. What he saw in front of him was the look of a teacher observing students who aren't getting it and are not going to bring up their grade by the end of the semester. And why half of his crew wasn't even there. And they weren't even there at one event, like sitting in solidarity and, you know, praying or singing, which would have been bad enough. They were at different events. Some were at town halls that were hastily put together and they looked terrible. There was several, there were several different, I believe eight different alternate programming, pseudo halftime show, State of the Union alternatives from swamp in the Union, which we're gonna get to, to the People's State of the Union, various senators and representatives here, there and everywhere. So that was bad enough. And then you had Democrats inside that were up and down like Jack in the boxes for various things in a humiliating fashion for the Democrats. So, for example, in one moment, you had Nancy Pelosi humiliated when Elizabeth Warren and Senator, or excuse me, Representative Tim, who goes by Sarah McBride out of Delaware stood clapping when President Trump said that Congress should be banned from participating in insider trading. Essentially, in which Nancy Pelosi for years would craft a bit of policy and then buy a bunch of stock right before it was out in front of the public. And by the way, Nancy Pelosi was called on the carpet on that today, and now she's trying to batch her again. She was sitting there sucking on her dentures. A bunch of Democrats saw her sitting there looking very stressed and then hastily sat down. But Nancy Pelosi was called on the carpet over on CNN today and just completely tries to rewrite history.

[Political Correspondent]

There was one moment, Madam speaker, where he called you out specifically around, of course, Congressional stock trading. What do you say back to him? I say back to him as that's what members said. Look at your own self.

[Tony Kennett]

Trump's not been. Trump's never been a congressman, ever. Representative Trump, not a thing.

[Political Correspondent]

The inference he wants to draw is there was something wrong with that, which there wasn't, and if there was, get prosecuted for it.

[Tony Kennett]

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I get it. Oh, I get it. Oh. See, what I did was not legally wrong. Maybe it was morally wrong to go, ah, I'm gonna. This regulation that Nvidia once removed, I'm gonna sneak this in here in this little reconciliation package, and then right before that gets released to the public, I'm gonna buy a bunch of Nvidia stock. And then hesto, presto, just like all of the sudden, the stock shoots up and Nancy Pelosi's net worth rockets for. Oh, nothing wrong with that.

[Political Correspondent]

For a long time now, we've been trying to pass this law. It doesn't have now. It has more support than it had before.

[Tony Kennett]

Why?

[Political Correspondent]

And Elizabeth Warren stood up and applauded. Elizabeth Warren stood and applauded tonight when the President talked about it. But we all did. I did, too.

[Tony Kennett]

Oh, I was standing and clap. I Standing and clapping, too. I mean, you know, imagination's a wonderful thing. Best of luck with that. It got worse. And by the way, when I say that it got worse precipitously, continuously, of course, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar sitting there trying to do the old man muppet heckler situation. It doesn't look good when Ilhan Omar starts yelling at the President of the United States when he is calling out $18 billion in fraud from the Somali migrant community. And Rashida Tlaib sitting there next to her. Anyway, here's Ilhan.

[Donald Trump]

Sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact serious penalties for public officials. Who block the removal of criminal aliens.

[Tony Kennett]

So she's screaming. She's even doing like the hand gesture thing to try to get her voice out there. It looks bad. Trump is doing the right thing here. He's ignoring her largely. He's just talking right over her. The White House camera through the evening stayed right on Trump or the guest that he was pointing to the entire time. Very, very rarely, if at all, was there any camera pointed at the Democrats. And that's a smart move. All of the oxygen taken away from them. Now, Ilhan Omar had a guest. We talked about this. She would bring that lady who was dragged out of the car and, and, oh, man, she had this over. Sensory overload where when the ICE officer said get out of the car, that broke her brain because of her brain injury, which I guess you can totally be fine driving a car with all of the loud noises and the high amount of stimulation from that. But all of a sudden, if a law enforcement officer says get out of the vehicle or drive forward away from here, stop obstructing traffic, yeah, that's totally. That makes a lot of sense. She was also brought to the State of the Union, but I didn't see her there. And the reason you didn't see her there is that she stood up early on in the State of the Union and started trying to hold things up and was escorted out for being an annoying rule breaking goober.

[Political Correspondent]

I was a gust of Representative Ilhan Omar's is because I got out from a hospital visit.

[Tony Kennett]

Oh, here we go again.

[Political Correspondent]

And the custody of Capitol police just before 4am and I had already been scheduled to talk to you, so I figured I would come and tell folks what happened. I was not just removed.

[Tony Kennett]

All right, that's real special. I don't have time to wait for her to get around to the point. Man, forget beating around the bush. She's taking a weed whacker to the bush. My goodness. All right, so that's real special. Rashida Tlaib, though, chanting KKK has to be one of the worst moments optically of the night. Crowds chanting usa Rashida Tlaib clearly chanting kkk. So the stuff that Trump focused on, of course, for example, bringing in the US Hockey team, the timing of the moment, it just looked great.

[Donald Trump]

Our country is winning again. In fact, we're winning so much that we really don't know what to do about it.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah, this is, this is great. It's unifying. It sets the president up to do a little bit of riffing. Again, most of his speech was Spent on kind of American unity, focused on

[Donald Trump]

the guest Stu are asking me, please, please, please, Mr. President, we're winning too much. We can't take it anymore. We're not used to winning in our country.

[Tony Kennett]

Classic joke came along.

[Donald Trump]

We're just always losing. But now we're winning too much. And I say, no, no, no, you're going to win again. You're going to win big. You're going to win bigger than ever. And to prove that point, to prove that point, here with us tonight is a group of people winners who just made the entire nation proud. The men's gold medal Olympic hockey team. Come on in.

[Tony Kennett]

You can't buy timing that good. You can't. That's perfect timing. Crowd starts chanting USA hockey players are thrilled. It's awesome. Optics are stellar. Fantastic. Again, when you say that like the Trump television time really translates well into this kind of stuff, there's a reason it's very, very, very good. It is now moving on from that to kind of the reaction while all of this was going on. There's so much I'd love to talk about. I'll talk about Chief Warrant Chief Warrant Officer Eric Slover getting the Medal of Honor. And then of course Royce, the Korean War pilot getting the Medal of Honor as well. The incredible helicopter pilot from the Coast Guard westering people. Trump made it all about the guests. That's one of the reasons why the reaction to the State of the Union according to the CNN polls, very, very, very, very positive about the direction of the country. 63% of people say the country is heading in a good direction. I mean, that's, that's the kind of stuff that builds a midterm year. Now, the reaction and then of course the behavior at the other various events, really ugly. We're going to get into those radio crew, we're going to send you off to commercial at least for the first part of it. Here. Don't go anywhere. Livestream crew. You're going to enjoy it. It's the Tony Kinnit cast here on the Daily Signal. The hockey appearance broke people, guys. I mean, broke people. Like over the knee, broke people, Mississippi, now msnbc, Simone Sanders losing it over the hockey team being there. No one is against USA and our

[Political Correspondent]

athletes and our Olympic athletes.

[Tony Kennett]

They should not be used as political props though, and frankly allow themselves to be used as political props. And I think that is the. Oh, it's their fault. They allowed themselves. How dare they go to the State of the Union when invited. That is gonna be the question and the discussion going Forward. It is very clear why. If you think that's the discussion going for. Ah, okay. The View also melted down similarly today. Again, I do occasionally share a clip from the View because they are about half the voting demographic. Really disinterested, sad and depressed. Ladies over on the left, here you go. He's not well. The man is not well. His narcissistic disorder is off the charts. Well, you know what? He's also insanely rude because a lot

[Stephen A. Smith]

of people won gold for the US A lot of people won.

[Tony Kennett]

How dare he? I'm sorry.

[Stephen A. Smith]

You know, a lot of the women's

[Tony Kennett]

hockey team and the women decided not to.

[Stephen A. Smith]

And the young skater who, who comes

[Political Correspondent]

from immigrant family, I mean, there are a lot. He's clearly a fan of heated rivalry.

[Andrew Cofield]

Whoopi.

[Tony Kennett]

That's why he loves the hockey. Yeah. Though, I mean, the US Hockey team has historical significance in the Olympics. It does. It has historical significance. It does. And the White House and various other agencies in the administration, prominent individuals have made it clear how proud they are of. Of figure skater Alyssa Liu doing God's work in curing the drought of American gold. And figure skating, of course. Also the incredible work by the US Women's hockey team as well. That's been, that's been complimented. It's been praised. Making a big deal about this ain't gonna go the way that you want. Also, Kamala Harris is back with us again for some reason, because I guess she's gonna go ahead and run. Her response to the State of the Union reminds you why some people wear noise canceling headphones when she's around.

[Political Correspondent]

I watched. Was full of lies. And, you know, when he wasn't lying, he was. It reminded me of our kids going to show and tell at school. It was literally nothing that was true about really how the American people right now, so many are suffering under the weight of high prices, unaffordable health care, unaffordable housing.

[Tony Kennett]

There you go. You can see, you can see the, the talking point line come into play there in the second half.

[Political Correspondent]

And it was, you know, we've come to expect it. And, you know, some people have said it was really quite boring and that there was nothing very interesting about it because it was the same old, same old. The guy lying about what he intends to do, what he has done. And the state of.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah, not landing no examples. Just mad that Trump honored veterans, mad that Trump honored American heroes, mad that Trump talked about America. Because the stuff that he talked about in the actual state of the Union, very little of it was kind of the policy rigmarole. Mark Kelly, Same thing in Arizona.

Hey, I just walked out of the State of the Union. That was some crazy speech. An hour and 45, 50 minutes of just grievance. Donald Trump used most of that time, most of it to try to further divorce, divide us as a nation.

We have the data. Literally not true here. Now we gotta bring the radio crew back in from the commercial. Don't go anywhere. Lots more news to cover. It's the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal. This is the Tony Kennett cast on 93 WIBC. We're gonna get to our interview with the member of the Trump administration's small Business Administration here in a couple of minutes. On the outside, and by that I mean at the various other watch parties. This is so bad, politically terrible, terrible thing. If you have a media product for a political reason, for an entertainment reason, whatever it is, you want everyone watching as close to it the same place as possible. Why? Because that generates algorithmic momentum. It creates a place for people to go, for example, live stream. More people chatting begets more people chatting. This is one of the reasons why the Turning Point USA statement where they said, oh, due to licensing issues on Twitter, we're only going to be able to air the halftime show on YouTube. As much as I love Turning Point, I do quite a bit, I think that a big part of that was just hosting it on YouTube is the place where you're going to get the most bang for your buck, at least by amalgamating all of the views into one place. The Democrats ignored that and they hosted eight different on broadcast events, a bunch of different town halls to rant and whine and then also bring out the craziest of the crazy. And boy did they, boy, did they. So at least as far as yesterday was concerned, you had Giraffe man at the Swamp of the Union, who at least, at least they kicked off right at the beginning by cutting over to Crazy Frog Lady. But I want to play. I do want to play. Here's Crazy Giraffe Man. This was again, this was their counter to the State of the Union. I'm fresh out of an ice prison in Minneapolis. I've been arrested three times by ice over absurdity, over us being ourselves, over

[Donald Trump]

me singing songs like, hey Mr. Tangerine

[Tony Kennett]

man, get rid of brown people for me. I'm Arian White.

[Donald Trump]

There ain't no place I'm going to.

[Tony Kennett]

Again, I huge fan of just going so crazy that you expect someone to break out the one man band Instruments, you know, like, I'm really off putting. And I want everyone to know that in a giraffe suit. That's their calendar now. It wasn't the only program they had, of course. They had Joy Reid also yelling and chanting a bunch of silly nonsense as well. Really just strange, like singing at Al Green. Like Joy Joy Reid, who wasn't even good enough to stay on msnbc, serenading Al Green. Weird stuff as well. The we have to F Trump lady got out with a bunch of people in frog costumes.

[Political Correspondent]

I'm a mother, I'm a physician, and

[Tony Kennett]

I don't curse, but we have to F Trump. And everyone was like, oh, you really shouldn't talk.

[Political Correspondent]

I have a flag. I'm a mother, I am a physician, and I have a flag.

[Tony Kennett]

That's literally people's social media bios, mother position. And then a bunch of their flags of country. Incredible. Incredible.

[Political Correspondent]

And I am the proud representative for Oregon's 3rd congressional district.

[Tony Kennett]

Yes. Thank you.

[Andrew Cofield]

Thank you.

[Tony Kennett]

And the frog mascots start dancing. Yay. I love it. I do. This is their strategy for heading into 2026. Now, the actual Democratic response was delivered by Abigail Spanberger, but the actual Democrat policy for the year will be set by Zoran Mamdani. Let me. Let me say that again here. The official response for the Democrats sort of was delivered by Abigail Spanberger, new governor of Virginia. But the policy that will be set in place because the State of the Union is supposed to be a big, long, boring list of policies. Guess what? That's boring. And it should be a letter. And it's ridiculous. So if we're going to make it a spectacle, at least it should be an entertaining spectacle where I watch an incredible series of veterans and active service members get awarded. Where I see the US Hockey team celebrated. At least it should be good. But Abigail Spangenberger gets out there and she does the school marming really annoying, obnoxious HOA president garbage. And even though that's what was their official response, we will move forward to Zoran Mamdani, who will be their. Their tone setter for the year. That's a disaster and a half. But first, Abigail Spanberger making it some weird allegations about ICE that you could tell they wrote out. It did not land.

[Political Correspondent]

Our president told us tonight that we are safer because these agents arrest mothers and detain children.

[Tony Kennett]

Think about that. Okay, I'll think about it. That's what we call gaslighting. That's what we call gaslighting. When you. When you say. When you suggest. He says that we're safer because. And then you, you make up a bunch of stuff because we're arresting children. No, we're safer because the crime rates are down wildly. And again, when you look at the murders that were caused by individuals who were let back out onto the streets, cashless bail or oh, we don't want to have ICE detainer. ICE could come pick them up quick, let him go like we saw in Illinois or mini Minnesota or in North Carolina or in California or in Oregon or in Nevada. Or the illegal immigrants that have again been behind the deaths at the wheel of semi trucks and at DUI incidents. When you look at the consistent violence against police officers and federal law enforcement, those kinds of things on the downward slope as Trump upholds the law that makes people feel safer.

[Political Correspondent]

Our broken immigration system is something to be fixed, not an excuse for unaccountable agents to terrorize our communities.

[Tony Kennett]

Okay, so you can say that if you provide an actual solution to fix the immigration system. I hear this from Democrats all the time. Well, if you there needs to be fixed, okay, what solution do you have that isn't just taking a rubber stamp and going approved? Yeah, sure, all of these migrants from Somalia were vetted by the notoriously totally not corrupt wink nation of Kenya. And yeah sure a lot of em have final removal orders and have broken a bunch of US laws and maybe have stolen the IDs and Social Security numbers of people here. But I mean come on, just rubber stamp approved everybody. You have a plan other than that because so far that's all you've proposed. Now she didn't even pull off like the measured put together leader that Elisa Slot can kind of almost a little bit sort of handled. Last year they had Michigan, this year they have Virginia. They're trying so hard to thread the moderate Democrat line that only works if they can speak in complete sentences and if they are not wholly dependent on their teleprompter to survive.

[Political Correspondent]

But as the president spoke of his perceived successes tonight, he continues to cede economic power and technological strength to Russia, bow down to China, bow down to a Russian dictator and make plans for war with Iran.

[Tony Kennett]

What? What are you talking about? You can, you can hear the, you, you can hear like the, the dial up noises in her head. Folks, if you're gonna do, you're gonna speak in front of people for a living, you gotta have something a little bit ready to go so that you don't really just have to read it verbatim as the text flies across the screen like that Instagram video telling you you can read at 900 words per minute. Okay. Embarrassing stuff. Obviously, we expected this. The worst example, though, was Don Lemon. Don Lemon got out in front of people throughout the entire evening at the. The Joy Reid event, I believe, and started talking about how brave he was for obstructing law enforcement, trespassing, and essentially admitting to a number of things that he's been charged with. Now, look, I could go into some of the detail about why it is incredibly and enormously stupid to get out while you are charged and indicted with a particular crime. And then against your lawyer's advice, just get out there and run your mouth. And I mean, run it high speed, put it on cruise, flying down. Just. I did this and this and this and this and this. And I'm guilty and I'm proud of it. Really, really dumb. But I'm going to allow a Democrat, Stephen A. Smith, for example, to do a far better job of articulating this than. Than I believe I can on the other side of the aisle. So we're gonna send the radio crew out for the evening. You guys take care. We're gonna continue on the live stream. It's the Tony Kinnit cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated, first on 93 WIBC radio crew, you take care. I see the comments that are concerned that I'm going to play the clip of Don Lemon. No, I'm sparing you from that this evening instead. Jason Cohen over at the Daily Caller sent us this clip. Great work getting this from Stephen A. Smith regarding some of the dumbest in the middle of indictment stuff you can do.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Miles Taylor, co founder of Defiance doc.org an anti Trump group, is co hosting State of the Swamp, one of the counter programming events at the National Press Club. Taylor said at least a dozen Democratic lawmakers and roughly 500 guests overall are expected to attend the event, where Trump's speech will play on mute with closed captions. And their speakers, which include Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry and journalist Don Lemon, will speak in front of it. As an aside, let me say this,

[Tony Kennett]

by the way, the best moments in any political commentary news analysis show, as someone says, as an aside or. Okay, hang on just a second. When the glasses come off and you break into the painful obvious, it's a great moment as a host to know whether or not you are resonating with your audience or you're stuck in this bubble. A lot of us, we fester in this political bathwater all day, and you can get in your head about a lot of things and completely lose sight of The American people like thinking that trans rights are like the big issue everyone's worried about right now. Rashida Talib or the people that think, oh man, the Epstein file we got, oh man, this is everyone cares. But none of the polling says that. But here, Stephen Smith again, going to point out the painfully blindingly obvious that again, as far as kind of on the other side of the aisle slightly, Stephen A. Smith here calling it out, he's pretty accurate.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Maybe Don Lemon will listen. Maybe he feels that I've shitted on him and he won't want to listen. I don't, I didn't want the man arrested. I don't want him in jail. I just didn't think it was wise for him to go into the church. Respectfully, as an aside, just a question. I may not have the right answer, but those close to Don Lemonade, along with Don Lemon himself, I would ask this question. Since you've already been arrested and the Trump administration, via the Department of Justice and whatever arm of the law is under them, is coming clearly coming after you, and they're trying to say that you were pretty much a protester who crossed the line as opposed to a working journalist. Is are you sure it's wise for you to be speaking at tonight's event?

[Tony Kennett]

In other words, right now, when all this is going on, when you're trying to be Mr. Oh, I'm just a little journalist, you really want to get out there and say I was an advocate and an agitator all along?

[Stephen A. Smith]

It's just a question. If you're trying to say you weren't, you were not a protester, but indeed you were a journalist working. I know it's at the National Press Club.

[Tony Kennett]

I get that part.

[Stephen A. Smith]

But if it's an anti Trump organized event, are you sure it's wise for you to be speaking tonight?

[Tony Kennett]

Hey, little, little bit of common sense there. Again, true, I disagree with him on some of the premise of other things there. But hey, again, I think pretty accurate stuff here, appropriate. I believe, moving forward that even though Don Lemon, Abigail Spanberger, the weird we gotta F. Trump lady from Oregon, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, even though they are going to really try to hammer home their quest for the leadership of the Democratic Party, Hakeem Jeffries again, completely emasculated Chuck Schumer completely emasculated Nancy Pelosi sucking on her dentures, Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas ing up a storm somewhere, Bernie Sanders getting some pudding and a little bit of that AOC on the side. Okay, not going to be the leaders of the party, although maybe pushing policy. The effective leader of the party right now is Zoran Mandani. And when I say effective, I mean he's bringing forward what they've campaigned on. Only Mamdani, who like yours truly in his early 30s, actually stupid enough to enact those policies and bring everything to a screeching halt. A lot of these, these young hyper leftists will get out there and they'll campaign on something and then when they get into office they're like, okay, I really can't do this or else I'll break everything. And so they don't actually go through with it. But now the left base has gotten so hyperactive that they are demanding that you cut down the load bearing walls. Latest example of this is regarding a snowball fight. And I with air quotes in New York City in which police showed up to respond to a group of individuals. So from Benny Polacek, who was in the previous mayor's office, he says the New York City Police Department responded after receiving calls about disorderly conduct on, you know, unsafety, essentially blocking traffic around the park over a loudspeaker. After the officers responded, they told people to enjoy themselves. But hey, remain inside the park. Like don't go smacking people with, you know, snowballs, ice balls and various other rock accoutrements. You know, don't be doing that outside the park. You know, stay in there, have a good time, whatever, but just stay in the park. Don't be doing this in the street where people are driving. You know, there's a rock accidentally in one of the snowballs and it goes through windshield. Everybody's gonna have a bad day. So why don't you guys just stay in there and not cause any problems. And so the totally not unhinged individuals again, there were some kids there, also a bunch of adults there as well, started pelting the officers with snowballs and ice balls and rocks. So first and foremost, here's the footage that's publicly available. Officers saying, hey, enjoy yourselves, have a good time. Just stay in the park, please. Wow, those, those mean old pigs. How dare they just say, yeah, have a good time. Just, just be careful. And again, don't run in front of traffic. How dare they say I shouldn't run in front of traffic and like maybe go throwing stuff at windows and cars. How dare they. Can the officer just, just the lady next to him waving thumbs up. You know, just the friendliest thing I've seen, I had straight out of Daniel Tiger's neighborhood over Here. Now you'll notice that the crowd is responding by yelling and screaming things because, you know, the, the 20s and 30s agitation crowds in some of these bigger cities. So then they start pelting the police with things, quote, unquote, kids, Here come the pelting. You can see officers that are being struck in the face with chunks of ice. Not just snowballs and good times and fun, but you can see kind of zoomed in here, the actual chunks of ice that contain, again, some snow that's clearly been packed with like dirty stuff. In a snowball fight, you're supposed to fight with like the clean, powdery, clear snow. You don't reach into the dirty, nasty stuff next to the road, the chunks of slush and ice and rocks, and throw those at police. Now a lot of people said, hey, when you do that, when you start hitting the officers with stuff now, you're kind of breaking the law. And so enter Zoran Mamdani. Again, when you are responding to a serious thing, when you're responding to anything regarding the police in a high tense environment, right? This is supposed to be on the forefront of everyone's mind. Your leadership is needed. And when they say, hey, you know, they were throwing ice and rocks as well, you're gonna prosecute any of these individuals. There are currently warrants out for arrest. Here was Mamdani's response.

[Andrew Cofield]

I've said that what I saw was a snowball fight.

[Tony Kennett]

It should be treated accordingly.

[Donald Trump]

It was one that got out of hand, but that's what it was.

[Tony Kennett]

Oh, this is a snowball fight. Kids being kids. I mean, sure, in a snowball fight, both sides are throwing the snowballs, right? We've all seen elf. Okay, Both sides are throwing the snowballs. But if cops show up and say, hey guys, we are having fun, just, just stay, you know, stay in the park. And then people come and drive them out and suddenly start picking up ice and rocks in the snow and throwing them at cops. Well, it's a little bit different there.

[Donald Trump]

Thank you.

[Political Correspondent]

Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah. So. So, Mr. Mayor, are you willing to revise your statement regarding the snowball fight, given that this was not exactly a friendly back and forth snowball fight? The police that were there were not throwing any snowballs. They were getting pelted themselves. And number two, have you considered or would you consider banning these crowdsourcing events because they can and sometimes do get out of hand?

[Tony Kennett]

Okay, so just off the forefront here, push back against the journalists. You can't ban crowdsourcing events. You have the freedom to assembly in the United States. It's a public park, you can assemble. There's no law against that. Throwing as having a snowball fight. No, the illegal part is hitting the police with rocks and ice. That would be the illegal part. You know, I mean, let's say that I'm just out there having a good time, you know, oh, just having fun. And there's a cop out on patrol and I run up, ah, silly string and I silly string the officer in the face. Yeah, that's illegal. You can't do that just because, you know, in your honor, in your defense, I was just being goofy. No, and the actual video shows that there were again driving the cops off screaming rather racist and gross stuff, you know, per usual in the anti police rallies and junk. Again, the reason I point this out, mom, is the guy who, if you even question one thing about a particular culture expressing particular activities, he'll call you racist and Islamophobic and he'll tell you 18 sad stories and make up relatives that aren't even in the country. But if you have like actual assault and law breaking, well, you know, I'm also busy trying to get this domestic abuser who came at cops with a knife out of prison. So, you know, just sounds like, you know, kids being kids.

[Andrew Cofield]

So I'm not going to be banning snowball fights or organized snowball fights.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah, there's a gaslighting. I'm not going to ban snowball fights. Also, just a hot tip to journalists out there. Two things that I despise from those who are out there asking questions to officials. Two things that I truly despise. Number one, get to the point of the question. You don't need to tell us how you feel. Hi, I'm Jim. And then you like talk for three days and you don't even get to the question. I hate that. Number two, I really don't care. If you're asking a question, you want a response on that, you then give the person an out by asking something really stupid. At the end. You're like, hi, yes. Are you going to actually do the job of mayor? Are you actually going to protect New York City police officers from violent attacks against them? Also, did Hillary Clinton invent aids? Yeah, don't do that. Don't waste our time with Google banned Facebook groups. Karen, was that Abigail Spanberger? Ridiculous. Actually beyond ridiculous. Patently retarded. So beautiful stuff there. All right, onto a little bit of the last side of the news and the information from this evening. So the FBI did raid the home and the Office of Los Angeles Schools Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. Now, this guy is an interesting dude for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is because he has been rather adamant, he's been rather out there about his history of at one time being and I mean, he would call it a undocumented immigrant. He has a history of some kind, overstaying some visas and things here in the United States. It's not quite clear yet. And again, I have to be a little careful here. It's not clear when he naturalized. And then if this is actually about illegal immigration stuff, we don't quite know yet. But he has spoken quite a bit about his policies regarding illegal immigrants in the United States, which gets a little bit bizarre considering actions that his school board has taken in the last couple of months. We'll go ahead and roll that clip.

[Stephen A. Smith]

And I want to confess to you, for those of you who may not know, I would be a hypocrite if I did not fight for those who today are facing conditions that over 40 years I faced as an undocumented migrant to this country. I want to repeat that I would be the biggest hypocrite in the world, regardless of my position today, if today I did not fight for those who find themselves in the same predicament I faced over 40 years ago when I arrived in this country at the age of 17 as an undocumented, documented immigrant.

[Tony Kennett]

Okay, here is the interesting side of this. I doubt that it has to do with his status or coming into the country as an illegal immigrant. That would not be handled by the FBI. Also, by raiding his home and his office, likely one of about four things is going on here and we don't know because the affidavit has not yet been unsealed. At least I don't believe. Producer team, if you guys would check real quick here for me, that would be super. Just to make sure that affidavit hasn't been unsealed just yet. But as of again, some of the, the conversation regarding the, again, really, really bizarre Los Angeles Unified School District operation, it could be an embezzlement sweep home and office. It could be due to perhaps policies that violate federal law regarding sheltering illegal immigrants against the United States law enforcement, essentially saying, hey, come in here. We will help you obstruct and break the law. If he is directly involved in that, if he gave approval for that, that obviously could be a, you know, pretty big issue there. Number three, it could be due to some type of child abusive material. When you see the Federal Bureau of Investigation sweep multiple locations in an education setting. That is very, very, very often what it has to do with. And then lastly, because I listed four things, it also could be a possible security or domestic threat issue. We don't know. We don't know. And so right now all I'm saying is I know there's a lot of clip sharing about, you know, is illegal immigrant status. That, that and the other we don't quite know. So instead of getting ahead of ourselves on that particular issue, I think we're going to kind of pass by it. So in the meantime, we have a phenomenal guy over from the Small Business Administration joining us this evening, Andrew Caufield. He's from the Office of Advocacy. I'm hearing a lot of people talk about small businesses in the United States. We have a guy from the Small Business Administration talking about actually solving some of the regulatory nightmare stuff. So we're going to cut away. We're going to go over to him. And then we've got a little bit of extra bonus tonus on the end tonight. So don't go anywhere. A lot of great stuff to come. It's the Tony Kinnid cast here on the Daily Signal. It's the Tony Kennett cast on 93 WIPC. We go over now to Andrew Cofield of the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy. And I believe you're the Region 5 advocate. Explain just before we even get started here, what is Region 5? How does that work out?

[Andrew Cofield]

Absolutely. Tony, thank you so much for inviting me. I am the regional advocate for Region 5. So that small Business Administration has the country divided into 10 different regions. And so I cover the Great Lakes, which includes Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

[Tony Kennett]

So for the Small Business Administration, the odd the Office of Advocacy has certainly got its hands full with a lot of things the administration is seeking to do, seeking to revitalize as far as the manufacturing economy, also small businesses that aid that manufacturing and the service economies of the Midwest of the Great Lakes region over the last year. Obviously, I know we had the State of the Union address last night. What are some of the things that the Office of Advocacy has done or made available to a lot of these small business owners because they hear about this in the media all the time, how either they're all doing wonderfully or they're all dying and there's really no in between. So give us a little bit of the perspective from the admin here.

[Andrew Cofield]

Yeah, absolutely. So I think the president covered it very well last night. He highlighted Just the strength of the American economy. And that's what I'm hearing out on Main Street. I meet with small business owners across the six states and everyone is really excited about what the future holds because with the Office of Advocacy, we are an independent agency and providing the small business voice in the executive branch. And what small business owners are telling me is that they're really hopeful for the future and they really appreciate the effort that President Trump has taken to unleash the small business economy.

[Tony Kennett]

So we have a lot of congressmen and women and their staffers who tune into the show. We're very grateful for those who take a minute to get kind of the Hoosier's opinion on kind of the national stuff. What are you hearing as the request from small business owners when they meet with you and they say they put their arm around you? They say, Andrew, my, my fine bearded dude in the administration, this is what my small business in Ohio or Michigan or God forbid, Illinois or Indiana needs right now. Just a little teasing from Hoosier to his Illinois friends. What are they telling you that they need? What are the requests they're making? What are the pains they're going through?

[Andrew Cofield]

A lot of what I'm hearing just on the ground is overregulation. The last four years, small business owners have been burdened by so many regulations that they really are hopeful with President Trump that these regulations can be rolled back. And under President Trump's leadership, with his 10 cutting 10 regulations for every new one, we're starting to see that. And our office alone last year we just released our year end report. It's available on our [e-mail] we cut $110 billion in regulations for small businesses and weighed in on over 350 regulatory challenges. And that was through our red tape hotline and also with meeting small business owners. We met over 12,000 small businesses last year. And that's just year one. A lot of us were still getting onboarded. So there are great things to come for small businesses and the Office of Advocacy is here to help elevate their concerns. I am one guy in a region of six states, but they have multiple ways to reach out to us. They can call us at our red tape Hotline, which is 800-827-5722, option three, and they can call DC directly and say these regulations are what's hurting our businesses. For the last four years, that phone has been silent under President Trump's leadership. We launched it. We want to be accessible. We want small Businesses to know that the office of Advocacy and Chief Counsel Dr. Casey Mulligan are fighting for them.

[Tony Kennett]

Well, I mean, it's certainly a nice change of pace from some of the ignoring side. I got that with the press office in the last administration especially. But to hear about that on the small business side, obviously that's good news as we continue to grow kind of this economy out. As we see the small business owners dealing with some of the energy regulations now finally that are getting rolled back, as we see them trying to deal with a lot of the staffing regulations again, which now are finally being rolled back, there might still be a little bit of nervousness from some of the business owners at some of the instability that they're seeing and maybe the broader employment market or again, kind of the renting out in the housing market, or again, looking at how certain developments, whether or not they're here to stay or whether they're temporary, anything that you can give kind of, obviously I know that you've offered your office in the contact with them, you know, to small business owners. Is there any kind of baseline reassurance that you can provide though, even. Even if it's along a kind of let him cook style narrative here, what do you have for those who are maybe still a little bit nervous, just, just testing their toes in the water?

[Andrew Cofield]

I, I understand that. And for a lot of small business owners, every day is nervous because every day the landscape of small business changes. I mean, I've spoken with a lot of small business owners that have approached me about different regulations that have been introduced, going, I don't know how I can handle that. Well, that's the great thing with our office. As we're finding these pain points, these regulations, small business owners are starting to see real results. A prime example of that is the diesel exhaust fluid ruling out of the EPA Administrator Zeldin realized that it was hurting our farmers and it was hurting our truckers. And he is taking efforts to help rescind that rule and make it easier for our truckers and farmers to continue the work that they're doing. The small business climate is a great time right now to have their voices heard. And for small business owners that are still a little bit leery that hey, this is only this administration, it may change, it very well could. But the time to act for small businesses and to have their voices really heard and for actions to be taken is now. And yes, the small business climate can change. But ultimately, what I hear from small business owners time and time again is I do it again. The small business community is very resilient and they understand that the landscape can change. But right now is a great time to be a small business owner because their voice can be heard.

[Tony Kennett]

And I think that's honestly, that's the answer that I'm looking for. That's the answer to the question that's not everything's great and it's so easy and wonderful always to be in a small business climate and environment, some sterile kind of corporate line, you know what I'm talking about? Instead saying, yeah, of course it's difficult and of course it's tough and of course it's uncertain. That's why we're here. So we'll of course have the number that you cited in the description as well as all of the necessary website links and things like that so that the crews can reach out to you. Andrew Cofield, Region 5 advocate for the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy, thank you so much for giving us a couple minutes today.

[Andrew Cofield]

Absolutely. I appreciate the time, Tony. And if any small businesses have any questions, they can reach [e-mail] all right,

[Tony Kennett]

really quick here at the end here. I know it's 8:20 at least for, for me, some of you are watching later. It's not 8:20 for you. Heck, for some of you in Australia, it's, it's morning time. So, you know, outside of that, a couple of things I wanted to touch on regarding the Iranian situation. There is a concern from the Trump administration about Iranian capabilities regarding continued nuclear development. And this comes in the in the manner of Vice President JD Vance announcing today that there is sufficient evidence that not only is Iran tripling down on its ballistic missile production and capacity, but also continuing their nuclear program, which is something that in the middle of these negotiations is very, very much the noest of no nos. But the principle is very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. If they try to rebuild their nuclear weapon, that's that causes problems for us. And in fact, we've seen evidence that they have tried to do exactly that. So the president sending those negotiators to try to address that problem. As the president has said repeatedly, he wants to address that problem diplomatically. But of course, the president has other options as well on what we need to see from, from the vice president there. So one update on that side. Also regarding the Los Angeles USD, the Unified School District crackdown, the FBI raids, Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, did go on Newsmax to discuss the crackdown by the Department of Justice on Perhaps funding different areas of the lausd. Again, the public school districts in Los Angeles, based on race, basically, there was

[Political Correspondent]

a private lawsuit decades ago. And as a result of that lawsuit, Los Angeles implemented a formula system that if the district, the sort of sub district within the school district is 30% or more white, they kind of get the least funding per capita. And if they have more minority students in the district, then they'll get additional funding to lower the ratio of teachers to students to 5.5 to 1. There's also additional magnet funding for those districts that are more minority in makeup than white. And so this is.

[Tony Kennett]

You can't do that. You can't do that. You can close gaps by, for example, if perhaps during the segregated era, if the really crappy school buses and fewer of them were reserved for kids in Selma, for example, then you as a school district could spend a larger allotment of the budget to give the students that were disadvantaged the same buses as those who were on the other side of the segregation issue. Now, when you're looking at this particular instance, what Los Angeles appears to be doing is providing extra wonderful little bit of benefits here to areas of the Los Angeles Unified School District that are less white in totality than the other,

[Political Correspondent]

clearly illegal under United States law, the very same law that we pointed to in the Harvard case. And it's not fair or legal to discriminate against any citizen in our country for government benefits on the basis of their race, whatever that race is. So this is the biggest, if not one of the biggest school districts in the United States. And this is, you know, millions of students there. So this is, this is big stuff and we're going to take it very serious now.

[Tony Kennett]

We'll keep an eye on that as that develops. I want to say kind of as a last point here before we dig into a bit of the mail time, there are new reports coming in. I wasn't going to mention this on the air because after how much I make fun of, quote, unquote, anonymous sources, I don't really like leading with them. I can say this supports evidence. I do have a couple of contacts inside the dnc, both in the Indiana Democrat Party, a couple of other states, and then the national dnc, I have a couple of contacts on the inside who have informed me, along with several other major reports that are saying the same thing. DNC leadership, what little leadership there is essentially. Ken Martin, the sad, sad cuck from Minnesota, they are horrified about last night for the Democrats. They're not horrified that Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlai back to the way they did. Although that's part of it. It was the most disjointed, childish, embarrassing people on stage with frogs and giraffe man and the. All of that junk. They don't like it. They're upset about it. They don't think that donors are gonna bring it forward. And this is a major problem. Major problem. Because the, the, you know, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, that ain't exactly cranking out big donor checks right now. Reason it ain't cranking out big checks right now is Bill Gates is in kind of a Russian whore slash Epstein situation. A lot of the other major Democrat donor platforms have. Have either fled the country or at this point are under investigation for serious fraud. Looking at Act Blue, not, you know, triple checking whether foreign dollars were flooding into the system. So things are a little bit rocky. Now would be the time for someone who actually knows what they're doing. So far, the best you can do is the charisma, sort of, of Gavin Newsom, who right now is busy crying, I'm lysdexic. I'm lys. I'm dyslexic. I can't read or speak or write. I don't even know if I comes before E does anyone. So that's Gavin. And then you've got Abigail Spanberger and Mickey Sherrill, the presidents of your HOA who are insufferable. Zoran Mamdani, who can't even figure out how to do anything as mayor correctly, humiliatingly. So you've got aoc, who is trying to figure out where Venezuela is on a map. Who. Who else does that leave? Hakeem Jeffries is just sitting there in horror, trying to formulate whatever it is he has to say through the vaunted speech patterns of Barack Obama and William Shapner. What a mess. What a mess. And may I say, a mess well deserved. So thrilling, thrilling stuff on that particular side. So over to just a bit of the excellent comments on the mail time tonight. So we do have a couple of super chats to read. You guys. Again, do not have to do that. You don't need to give us any. Anything. Stop it. Just. Just hang out, watch the show. That's it from NKP723. Is that the YouTube username for Applebee's from the discord? I think he said YouTube rubber stamp approved the super chat. $5. Very kind of you. Thank you very much. Drizzy Ape sent five daily Signal gift memberships. Really kind of. You didn't have to do anything like that. But very kind. Also from Mark VL11 five dollar super chat. Boston tried the busing thing back in the 70s and it didn't work out too well. Well, yeah, and one of the reasons didn't work out too well is because it turns out that when you say, oh, hey, you know, the Irish, who have actually, like several other groups, been systemically acted against and abused via certain local and state policies in the country at certain points in our history through the Boston busing issue, yet again, being segregated against worthy Irish, turns out that people really don't care for that nonsense and I don't blame them. And so now here again, obviously there are other issues regarding Boston, but you know, just, just one particular, one particular side. I just think that's, that's kind of an extra piece. One little throw in from producer Josiah over on the Los Angeles Unified School District situation. The efforts by LAUSD to throw extra money and resources towards these not as white school districts or whatever appear to be having very, very, very lackluster test achievement results. So according to the data, which I'm glancing through here rather quickly, whereas we were supposed to see, well, I mean, you know, if we have English proficiency, white students, 68.8% of white students proficient in English, Asian students, 79.67. Ideally, according to their data, they want Hispanic and African American students to skyrocket to 60, 70%, 80% proficiency. Nope. Numbers are still hovering down. 35.8% and 41% for African American students and Hispanic students. Respectfully, that's because throwing money at children doesn't make them learn. Now, the numbers are going up across the board, but that's because the standards are getting lower. The standards are getting lower. That kind of brings us to our last little education thing for a bit of the bonus tone of side of things tonight. There's something in a comment made by Mr. Beast, a very popular YouTuber that really, really gets on my nerves. There is this stupid idea among a lot of people right now on the left and the right, especially among the youth that believe that. Now, just because AI tells you something or you can watch a video on it means that you can learn super complex issues really fast. And then you're just as much as an expert as anybody. Sure, you watched a plumbing video for 10 minutes, you're just as smart as a master plumber who's been in the trade for 30 years. That's stupid. Anyway, here's Mr. Beast making this claim just oh, boils my blood.

[Mr. Beast]

Education. Why is it that your parents got taught the same way in school that your kids are getting taught. Think of how much everything is advanced. But, like, I mean, like, I. I was in school. What. I'm 27, eight years, nine years ago, like, I mean, a teacher would just stand there, read out of a book, write on a whiteboard wall. I mean, like, look at Mark Robert's videos. Look at all this amazing educational content where you learn such great or, like, such complex topics in, like, 20 minutes. And it's really engaging and fun, and you retain it. And, like, look at what we subject our kids to. Just, like, listening to a teacher read out of a book and the most boring way imaginable.

[Tony Kennett]

Like, okay, so a little bit of the gaslighting aside, that is not how education is done. That's not how education just was done back when my parents were in school. Or when. When you or your parents or your grandparents were in school. You don't have a teacher sitting up reading Milton at the front of the class and putting everyone to sleep. No lessons. Passing on narratives. When we explain things to each other, we do so through storytelling, through narratives and analogies. It is how humans learn. There is a very, very deep biological connection that you have mentally. Sorry, former science teacher, former anatomy and physiology biology teacher and science administrator. I have. I rarely ever get to pull this out, but I've got two master's degrees in this stupid crap. We have an affinity towards narratives. That is why I use a lot of analogies and a lot of narrative storytelling when I communicate things, because it's how we tell people things. It's how you learn. It's how you remember things. It is why, when we were talking about the State of the Union address, because of course I'm gonna link it to that. Trump told stories. Trump pointed to people. Trump gave examples. Trump did not sit there and go, and item 436, the whatever act. It's really good. Please clap. He didn't do that. Because that sucks. People don't learn that way. What Mr. Beast is alleging here is that kids aren't getting, like, really excited about learning. And so that's the issue. And really, we just showed them a couple of videos. They'd all be masters because we've advanced so far.

[Mr. Beast]

Just because that's what our people, you know, our parents did, doesn't mean that's what we need to subject ourselves to. It makes no sense to me. I think education should be reformed dramatically. Like, I. I graduated from school thinking books suck and books are boring and I never read A book, but reality. They were just giving me shitty books that I hate. And I love actually listening to audiobooks. I love the goal. And I loved Walter Eisen's biography on Steve Jobs and Elon Musk and blah, blah.

[Tony Kennett]

But okay, the reason that you don't like books is because you haven't put in the effort to read the right kinds of books. You don't. You don't sit down and pull out the latest Pearson biology text and go, I think I'll do a bit of light reading. Oh, let's see. Page 611. Ah, the life cycle of Dio Stellium, a cellular slime mold. A good yawn. You don't do that. No one does that. You have different books that are used for reference, for explainers, as encyclopedias that outline things in chapter frames. You have novels, you have biographies, you have impassioned texts from opinion, historical narratives, etc. One of my favorite books that I. That I just got in, in my possession, my very sweet grandmother from New Castle, Indiana, got me something I've deeply coveted for a very long time. It is one of the volumes of the works of Teddy Roosevelt. It is one of my cherished possessions. It is written by tr and it is from the. It's a historical narrative from essentially the founding of the Tennessee, the southwest territory, Tennessee, and then Fort Wayne up in Indiana, all the way through Aaron Burr and the horrible individual that Aaron Burr was. And it's phenomenal read. He tells a historical narrative story. The idea that you can't learn from books comes from an individual who is listening to an adult explain things. And the person says, oh, you're boring, you're dumb, you're awful. I'm not going to listen. I'm not having fun. This idea that we're telling kids, life has to be about fun. Learning has to be about having a good time. Guess what? Sometimes it's not. And developing discipline and tenacity and the ability to manipulate facts that you have memorized and incorporate is a crucial part of learning and development.

[Mr. Beast]

Like, the problem is just every book they gave me in school is terrible. And I'm also a very visual learner and I retain it.

[Tony Kennett]

That's not a thing. There's no such thing. I'm a visual learner. I'm an audio learner. I'm a. I'm this kind of a learner that has been debunked so many times, so many times. Sorry, I. You get into education stuff. I get a little, little rowdy there. That's not a Thing I'm a visual learner. I can't read. I'm like Gavin Newsom. I need someone handing me emojis in order to get it no information at

[Mr. Beast]

least three times more effectively when I see a visual of it as opposed to just like hearing it or whatever. And so it's like for just a lot of kids, I don't know, I just think education is just silly. Like, it's stupid. Like, and with how much time they spend in it. Like, if you actually have like real courses, like, you know, made through videos, and we actually made things more hands on and we just like actually optimize these things with modern technology. Like, they could probably learn things in way less than eight hours a day. I mean, you could probably learn more knowledge in like five hours a day. And give so much freedom back to kids in their youth to do things.

[Tony Kennett]

Okay, so you can do that. By the way, the way to give kids back their youth is to have them shadow their parents. To shadow their parents and watch their parents monkey see, monkey do. That is how you do it. The intern program, we figured this out, by the way. Say, oh, that's a really old model of education. I will remind you there is an entire book in American culture called Johnny Tremaine in which in the New England culture during the colonial, pre colonial era, Johnny Tremaine became the apprentice of a silversmith and he burned his hand. But like the entire point of the book on the back end is the cultural development of the intern who goes and learns under a master. Johnny is like 13, 14 years old when he goes and becomes an apprentice. That is how we should be doing education. That's why homeschool kids are so much often further along than their public school counterparts. They say, oh, it's the personal attention kind of. Not really. It's more built on the constant narrative framing. And you're essentially always on the job, you're always learning. Education's tried to sterilize this by going, oh, just give them more labs and hands on crap that doesn't work. Or, oh, what if you just make education fun and they got to buy in. If they're not having fun, then they're not going to learn. That's stupid too. So the point that is being made here that he kind of ends on, oh man, you could just watch a video and learn a really complex topic in like 20 minutes. No, no, you can't. That is how we have this, this barracks lawyer garbage. Or you get on social media right after some type of an event. Cuba, excellent. Example here, right? We've been talking about Cuba and Iran this evening. You get all of these people out there who are convinced because they Googled something or they looked at a couple of tweets or they've. They've scanned through a few videos from various pundits.

They.

Now they're. They're experts. They're experts on foreign policy, they're experts on constitutional law, they're experts on economic law. And. And the only reason that someone could disagree with their five minutes of research is because they're an evil fascist or an evil communist and they're dumb and they're an agent of Israel or an agent of Russia or whatever it is, and you're dumb and wrong. And Marjorie Taylor Greene said it on Twitter, so it must be true. That kind of stupidness is so pervasive. How many times you have to scroll through Instagram videos where there's a new material of the week that you're not supposed to give your kids. I don't serve your kids food on glass or plastic. Serve it on silicone. Don't serve it on silicone. It holds in the soap. You fucking. You gotta serve it on steel. Don't serve it in steel. You'll get metallic fragment. Don't serve. You gotta serve it on wood. Don't serve it on wood. Every couple of weeks, there's like this brand new garbage. And I say all of that here at the end up for the position. And I am gonna wrap it up here in just a second. I say that more to my producers than y'.

[Andrew Cofield]

All.

[Tony Kennett]

Casey Means, who's one of the leaders of the Make America Healthy Again movement, is poised to become the next U.S. surgeon General. And I, I really do. I really do like Casey. I think that she has a lot of excellent qualities to her. And. And Casey does have one of. Of two modes where when Casey brings out kind of the classical professionalism that again, when she left the medical field and she started doing this activism on nutrition and on health full time, when she's citing the actual empirical process of health, it's excellent. And when she's kind of doing the red 40 and the mice fear mongering, and this isn't a defense of Red 40, but there is a joke among the kind of science and medical communities that the reason that we think that red 40 gives you ultra cancer is because we gave rats 40 gallons of red 40 to drink and nothing else. And then they all die. And we're like, aha. And then we fed them a bag of nails and they died. And we're like, oh, my gosh, that means nails cause cancer. No, it just turns out maybe you shouldn't eat a bag of nails. That kind of style of study that was used to prove, for example, that prove that, oh, well, I noticed this kid who just got transgender surgery. I gave him a Valium and they were like, yeah, I'm really happy. That proves it. That kind of crap. Casey can drift into that a little bit. That's not helpful. So all of this to say at the end of the show. I really do hope that throughout 2026 that we get more of the Tom Holman and the Marco Rubio and JD Vance continues on what he's been doing for the last week, which has been really excellent. And Trump does what he did last night and we get more of the Scott Besant side of things. And what we don't have is the crazy, kooky, smacking yourself on the head with a hammer. Mad Hatter, where you get Kristi Noem that comes in and says, I know everything, right after some kind of an incident and it's not time to do that yet. Or when Peter Navarro comes in and is like, hey, we can totally use the ieepa. And it's like, no other laws do that. Not this one, Peter. Not the first one you Googled anyway. That. The calm pilot, the airline pilot, the dude middle aged dude, calm, collected. Here's the stuff. We're going to do it professionally. Not the Zoran Mandanis, not the Abigail Span Burgers. That cool, calm, collected professionalism that doesn't lie to people and Gaslight and Gatekeep, but explains it and says, here's what we're going to do and why now we're going to do it. That's effective. That's what Americans want by the polling. That's why the Democrats are terrified because like a secret Uno card at the last second, Trump has brought out that he's going to be running the administration like this by setting the tone in the State of the Union in 2026. There's no defense against that. There's no defense at all when you were the disappointed parent. Look at you. They're crazy. You. These people are crazy. When you run with that, there's. There's nothing that you can do that fights it. There's nothing you can do because when you have Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and the rest of their crew that are doing the yelling in the meantime, the trump card is very apropos and it's gonna keep working. That said, thanks for sticking around with us tonight. I know a little bit longer of a show. Other mail time stuff we'll save for tomorrow. I'm rather tired. Hope you guys have a great evening. We'll catch you real soon. Tomorrow at 7pm Eastern to be precise. It's the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated and first on 93 WIBC. Y' all take care.

I'm Matt Davis, CEO here at Maranatha Baptist University, and I'd like to invite you personally to Maranatha's fourth annual Leader to Leader conference on March 5th and 6th here in Watertown, Wisconsin. This event, sponsored by our School of Business, offers two days of practical insights, valuable connections and leadership development that will impact your career, no matter your field. This year's conference includes keynotes from Ken Barbic, a Maranatha graduate and former Senate confirmed assistant secretary of Agriculture and currently serving as a senior lobbyist and advisor to Fortune 500 companies my friend Tony Kennett, another Maranatha grad who now serves as an national correspondent and syndicated radio host for the Daily Signal, and Adam Morgan, president of Majesty Music and a former member of South Carolina's Legislature. Becoming a more intentional, effective leader starts here. Take the next step in your leadership journey and join us March 5th and 6th for two days of learning, networking and growth that will set the tone for the rest of your year. To learn more, visit mvu.edu leadertoleader can't wait to see you here on Maranatha's beautiful campus March 5th and 6th for the 4th annual leader to Leader Conference.

[Stephen A. Smith]

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