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It's the Guy Benson Show with

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Guy Benson. It

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is Friday, May 10, 2024. I'm

0:48

Guy Benson. Happy Friday. Welcome to

0:50

the show. We broadcast

0:52

live to you right now from Anchorage,

0:54

Alaska. I'm here with my friends and

0:56

Americans for Prosperity for a series of

0:59

events. Another one this evening.

1:01

Very excited to be here way up in

1:03

the 49th state. Glad

1:05

to have you all here between 3

1:08

and 6 p.m. Eastern on

1:10

the program. That's every day. We

1:12

also have a podcast. If you ever miss part of

1:14

the show, it's on demand.

1:17

It's absolutely free at guybensonshow.com

1:19

or foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you

1:21

get your podcasts. I'm

1:24

political editor at townhall.com. I write every day

1:26

there. In fact, I have a piece about

1:29

President Biden's new low that

1:31

just came out today. You can go read that and

1:33

some of my other work and my colleagues work at

1:35

townhall.com. Also a Fox News contributor

1:38

back in the swing of things on television

1:40

next week in New York and beyond. We

1:42

will tell you all about that in due

1:44

course. Here on the radio today, big

1:47

lineup. U.S. Senator Rick Scott, Republican

1:50

of Florida. He's gonna

1:52

be here. He's up for reelection this year. The

1:54

Democrats are hoping to beat him. He

1:56

and Ted Cruz are their top two targets. How's

1:59

that going? How's it looking for him? We'll

2:01

get his thoughts on that and more.

2:04

Eli Lake will join us. Britt Hume will

2:06

also join us. As will

2:08

Bethany Mandel. That's all coming up here

2:10

on this Friday edition of the program.

2:13

I want to play for you as we come

2:15

on the air some sound.

2:19

This is a flashback soundbite

2:23

of one Joe Biden at

2:25

the time Senator Joe Biden in

2:28

2006. He was

2:30

doing a press conference there with Bob

2:32

Menendez, who is still

2:34

in the US Senate despite the fact

2:36

that he's been indicted on multiple charges

2:38

involving corruption and bribery. He's

2:42

still there. Democrats have not moved to boot

2:44

him out because well they

2:46

need him for their majority. So you know party

2:50

over country, power over

2:52

patriotism, the opposite of all the lectures that

2:54

they constantly deliver to us. In any case

2:57

this was a while back. This is 2006.

2:59

Biden is still a senator. He's not even

3:01

running for president just yet in the O-8

3:03

cycle. There was an incident in

3:06

Lebanon where the Israelis were

3:09

hitting at Hezbollah, a terrorist organization

3:11

out of that country

3:14

out of Lebanon, controlled

3:16

and completely armed and operated

3:18

by the Iranians. And

3:21

so there was a conflict at the time

3:23

the Israelis were hitting inside Lebanon to get

3:25

at Hezbollah and there were some civilians killed.

3:29

So a CBS News reporter Cheryl Atskitsen actually

3:31

at the time, she asked

3:33

a question about some criticism of the Israelis

3:36

with this strike and some civilian deaths

3:38

and here is Joe Biden responding

3:41

to that. It's a long clip in fact we've

3:43

broken it up. I just

3:45

want you to listen to both

3:48

the substance of what he says here in

3:50

defense of Israel and also

3:53

just how he sounds as

3:55

an orator compared to what we've now gotten used

3:57

to these days as president.

4:00

It's a stark difference. So let's start.

4:02

Just listen to this. What a

4:04

flashback. Cut 30. I'm sure

4:06

there are people who feel that way. And

4:08

it's understandable if you're an American citizen inside,

4:10

or you're an American citizen in Beirut and

4:13

Israel is moving against it, you find yourself

4:15

in harm's way, and I'm sure you're concerned

4:17

about it. But, uh, we had a brief

4:19

conversation earlier. I, in my meeting with the

4:22

president yesterday, I asked the

4:24

question, how efficacious is the Israeli

4:26

action? And, uh, my staff

4:28

has briefed me, uh, and, uh, and I

4:30

got the same response down there and I

4:32

gave one example. This time

4:35

yesterday morning, there was talk that an

4:37

Israeli aircraft had been shot down because

4:39

there was a major explosion in, uh,

4:41

in Beirut, in a suburb Beirut that

4:43

was a residential area. It

4:45

turns out what was happening. The best

4:47

of my knowledge is that they were

4:49

taking out one of these long range

4:51

rockets out of a residential neighborhood on

4:53

a flatbed truck. The Israelis hit it.

4:55

It blew up. The rocket itself blew

4:57

up and it caused this incredible explosion,

5:00

leading people to believe there had been

5:02

some time. These guys are cowards. Hezbollah

5:04

are a bunch of cowards. These

5:07

are guys that hide in hospital

5:09

rooms. They take missiles. They actually

5:11

have these missiles apparently in residential

5:14

neighborhoods. They actually move

5:16

these missiles and these weapons

5:18

of destruction from Syria and

5:21

other places. Wow.

5:24

And first of all, just the mental

5:27

acuity, the verbal ability. Yeah, he's,

5:29

you know, kind of

5:31

a windbag, but

5:33

he's making his points clearly one after another,

5:35

it's just, it's a different person in a

5:37

lot of ways, but

5:39

that style substance, especially

5:43

when he gets to

5:45

the point of going after the Hezbollah

5:47

terrorists being cowards, hiding in hospitals, positioning

5:52

missiles in residential neighborhoods, that

5:54

is exactly the same

5:56

MO as Hamas in

5:59

Gaza. right now. And

6:03

he is calling out on the carpet, these

6:05

terrorists, this is Biden back in 06, for

6:09

their utter cowardice putting

6:11

civilians at risk by operating their

6:14

terrorism right next to civilians in

6:16

order to make it harder for

6:18

the Israelis to fight. And

6:22

back in 2006, Biden seemed to

6:24

really understand that on a deep

6:26

level to the point that

6:28

he was explaining it and getting passionate about it in

6:31

defending the Israelis and

6:33

calling out the terrorists. Same

6:36

dynamics in Gaza and

6:38

now of course we have President Biden saying

6:41

that he's going to have to cut off weapons

6:43

to Israel under the same

6:45

circumstances except this is a post-October

6:47

7th world. It's

6:51

amazing to look in the juxtaposition of the

6:53

moral clarity that at least he was pretending

6:55

to have back then versus

6:57

now this disgraceful new policy because he

7:00

feels like there are certain voters that

7:02

he has to satisfy

7:04

in certain states and so he's

7:06

just cutting off an ally at

7:08

the knees in the final stages

7:10

of their war against a terrorist

7:12

organization that murdered 1,200 of their

7:14

people not long ago and murdered

7:16

a bunch of Americans in the

7:18

process by the way and are

7:20

still holding Americans hostage right now

7:22

to this very day. I

7:26

would love for 2006 Joe Biden

7:28

to have a conversation with 2024 Joe Biden. I

7:32

wonder if they would recognize each other. Biden

7:35

goes on. This is an 06. Cut 31. The

7:38

last point I'll make, think

7:40

about, you know, I have to admit to you, I said,

7:42

why are the Israelis going after the airport? I don't get

7:44

that. Well, I figured it

7:47

out finally why. I was informed why.

7:50

That missile that was

7:52

radar guided that went

7:54

after the Israeli

7:56

ship off the shore of Beirut,

8:00

radars were at the airport. And

8:03

they're worried about resupply of

8:06

those missiles coming. And they don't bring

8:08

these missiles in in Syrian cargo planes.

8:10

They bring these missiles in over

8:13

the road and or my guess is literally

8:15

probably in the aisle of a, you know,

8:17

of a commercial 727. I

8:20

don't know that for a fact, but that's what's happening.

8:23

So the Israelis are put in an

8:25

untenable position. The

8:28

Israelis are put in

8:30

untenable positions. That

8:32

was true then it is true,

8:35

if not more true today. Biden,

8:39

even current Biden seemed to understand a lot

8:41

of this at least for a number of

8:43

weeks or even months after October 7. And

8:47

then as the drumbeat got louder on his hard

8:49

left, he started to beat

8:51

a path to basically retreat. And

8:55

now it's just so caught up in their

8:57

own like political story

9:00

that they're worried about like Rashida

9:02

Tlaib constituents sitting

9:05

out the election in Michigan

9:07

that they are effectively negotiating

9:09

on Hamas's behalf. Here

9:12

we are seven months later. It's

9:15

unbelievable. It is unbelievable,

9:18

but we better believe it because it's our reality. So

9:22

in the last sound bite that I played, Biden said, it's

9:24

the last point I'll make. It was

9:26

not the last point he would make because the

9:28

man loves the sound of his own

9:31

voice famously forever, which is why I think it's

9:33

actually quite telling that his team is saying, Oh,

9:35

we're going to do fewer events and

9:37

shorter speeches, shorter is better, less

9:39

is more higher quality,

9:41

less quantity. That is the

9:43

opposite of the Joe Biden

9:46

brand for a very long time. But this

9:48

is what they're now forced to work with

9:50

that 81. But

9:52

here's the final point that 2006 Joe Biden

9:55

made at that press conference. And this I

9:57

think is the money sound bite of the

9:59

three. as he's wrapping up his thoughts

10:02

and defending Israel, listen to Cut 32.

10:05

My only criticism of the Israelis is they're

10:07

not that great of public relations. If

10:10

I were them, I would be pointing out why I

10:12

went after the airport. I'd

10:14

be pointing out what the reason

10:16

was, assuming it didn't compromise sources

10:19

and methods. But

10:21

I don't see how we could say, and it's

10:23

a little bit like the same thing we had

10:25

when we went into Afghanistan. When

10:28

we went into Afghanistan, remember we took out

10:30

a wedding party by accident? Remember we took

10:32

out with these very sophisticated missiles we had?

10:34

We accidentally killed some citizens who have ever

10:37

wore more justified than us going into Afghanistan?

10:40

I can't think of any worse since World War II, more

10:42

justified. Yet, innocence got

10:44

killed in us trying to protect

10:46

America's interests. It is overwhelmingly regrettable.

10:49

But what it should do, instead

10:51

of generating outrage from the rest of the world,

10:54

it should generate outrage from the rest of the

10:56

world to go at the root

10:58

cause of this thing and unite. Unite

11:00

with us, unite with Israel, and

11:04

not merely the condemnation, but

11:06

setting up the circumstances where this doesn't

11:08

grow again. It's

11:10

amazing. I mean, everything

11:12

about this – we'll come

11:15

back to Afghanistan in a second, his

11:17

little diversion there, but he's making the

11:19

point. We've made mistakes. We've killed people

11:21

by accident. That

11:23

doesn't mean that the cause isn't just. And

11:26

of course, there's a modern equivalent

11:30

to that, a parallel to the Biden

11:33

administration now having killed innocent people

11:35

by accident in Afghanistan. We've made

11:37

that point. And rather than scolding

11:40

ourselves and self-flagellating constantly,

11:43

Biden sent out some people to announce it while

11:45

he was at the beach, and we all kind

11:47

of just moved on. Not

11:49

his problem, not his fault in his mind. But

11:52

then when you have civilian casualties

11:54

and urban warfare and a war

11:56

started by these terrorists who –

12:00

burrow into civilian infrastructure for

12:02

their terrorism, and now

12:04

Biden's really pretending that he's very offended

12:07

by the civilian casualties despite all the

12:09

efforts the Israelis have expended to minimize

12:11

those civilian casualties in a lot of

12:13

ways successfully. He kind of just like

12:16

airbrushes that out, airbrushes

12:18

out the hostages most of the time, and

12:21

just wants to put on a show of flexing

12:23

rhetorical muscles against

12:26

Israel to

12:28

satisfy a very narrow

12:31

band of voters whose

12:33

position is terrible and

12:36

immoral and wrong and

12:38

against not just Israel but our own

12:40

interests. And

12:43

Joe Biden of 2006 talking about

12:45

Hezbollah but a very similar situation

12:48

excoriating the Hezbollah terrorists for operating

12:50

in civilian areas calling them gutless

12:53

cowards for doing it and saying that the Israelis

12:55

are in an untenable position and they have to

12:58

defend themselves. And

13:01

then he says, you know, look, it's regrettable

13:03

if there's civilian casualties but it

13:05

shouldn't generate outrage from the world. What we

13:08

should do is, quote, unite with us, unite

13:10

with Israel, and

13:12

make sure that we set up the circumstances

13:14

where this, meaning terrorist threat, doesn't grow again.

13:16

That lesson could

13:20

be copied and pasted

13:22

onto Hamas and Gaza right now and

13:25

now he's the commander-in-chief, excuse

13:28

me, and

13:30

he would not recognize,

13:32

at least this week, he

13:35

would seemingly not recognize himself

13:37

in 2006 making

13:39

every applicable relevant comment

13:43

about a terrorist group and Israel's war

13:45

against it given

13:48

the current circumstances in the context. It's

13:50

just, it's amazing, this guy's been around

13:52

for so long in

13:54

our politics. Whenever he is

13:56

taking a position on something, especially if

13:59

it's in defense, You

14:01

can go back and find almost

14:03

inevitable, with that exception, a

14:05

soundbite of Joe Biden earlier in this

14:08

endless career of his saying

14:10

exactly the opposite thing. Joe

14:14

Biden was a staunch and

14:16

relatively eloquent defender of Israel

14:20

and explicating their position in 2006. Their

14:24

position is even more morally

14:26

justified today, given what happened

14:29

in October, and now he's

14:31

running away from them.

14:33

And the only explanation that makes sense

14:35

to me is a political

14:37

one, which

14:40

is disgusting. It's a

14:42

word that I keep using this week. Now,

14:45

when we come back, I

14:47

want to bring you an update out

14:50

of Afghanistan, which very much goes

14:52

to the Biden foreign policy, the

14:54

Biden legacy. And

14:56

if we have time, we're going to talk to, or

14:59

at least play you a soundbite, from

15:02

one of Biden's former top spokespeople. We

15:04

called her circle back. We'll

15:07

get to that on the other side of this

15:09

break as we just get rolling here. Friday

15:11

edition of the Guy Benson Show,

15:13

Anchorage, Alaska. Keep it right here. Always

15:16

fresh, always fair. The Guy Benson

15:18

Show. Jason

15:20

in the House. It's Jason

15:22

Chaffetz Podcast. Dive deeper than

15:24

the headlines and the party

15:26

lines as I take on

15:29

American life, politics, and entertainment.

15:31

Subscribe now on foxnewspodcast.com or

15:33

wherever you download podcasts. I

15:39

do think that there is some leverage that

15:42

we are all seeing being used. Should it have been

15:44

used earlier? I think the answer is yes to that.

15:48

That was Jen Psaki, aka

15:51

circle back, former White House press secretary.

15:53

She was on Colbert talking about the

15:55

leverage, and she's basically cheering

15:57

on this decision by her former president.

16:00

boss, Joe Biden, to cut

16:02

off military aid to the Israelis in the middle of their

16:04

defensive war against the boss. And

16:06

the only thing she laments is he should have done

16:08

it sooner. This

16:11

I think is a big explanatory

16:13

factor behind what

16:16

Joe Biden has been doing. He's a shell of a man

16:18

at this point. He is

16:20

being dragged along by people around him.

16:22

Many of them are younger, much

16:24

more progressive than he used to be. Progressive, I

16:26

mean, in quotes, come on. Much

16:29

more left wing. Jen

16:32

Psaki and further left. And

16:34

so they're just leading

16:37

them around by the nose, including to

16:39

make these horrible decisions and betrayals that

16:41

seem like a great idea within that

16:43

insular world of which she was a

16:45

part. So she's just

16:47

casually on a late night comedy show saying, yeah, you

16:50

should have cut the Jewish state off even sooner to

16:53

teach them a lesson. And

16:56

then she talked about the difficult relationship

16:58

that Biden and Netanyahu have. It's not

17:00

about Netanyahu. This is Israel's policy. It's

17:04

the unity government's policy in the middle of this war that

17:06

they didn't start. In

17:08

fact, Naftali Bennett, the former prime

17:11

minister, an opponent of Netanyahu,

17:13

he's out there on international

17:15

television saying that the Israelis

17:17

waited too long to go into Rafa. They

17:20

should have done it months ago, he said. So it's not

17:22

about Netanyahu. That's the bogeyman that they're using. And

17:25

you can criticize Netanyahu for a number of things,

17:27

but they're trying to hide behind

17:29

that. The issue

17:31

that they take is

17:34

with the Israeli government and unfortunately, in some cases

17:36

with Israel's very existence and Jews who actually want to fight back and

17:40

defend themselves. I

17:44

promised before the break that I would mention Afghanistan since Senator

17:47

Biden did in that 2006 flashback. Remarkable

17:49

that we played for you. Morgan

17:53

Ortega is tweeting this earlier, quoting President Biden

17:56

back in April of 2021 during

17:58

the announcement

18:00

of the Afghanistan withdrawal, he

18:02

said, we will reorganize our

18:04

counterterrorism capabilities and the substantial

18:07

assets in the region to prevent re-emergence

18:09

of terrorists." And

18:12

she notes that today in Afghanistan,

18:14

this is according to the Special

18:16

Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a

18:19

U.N. team has now identified up

18:22

to eight new Al-Qaeda training camps,

18:25

one stockpile weapons base, five

18:28

madrasas, and other

18:30

Al-Qaeda footprint elements

18:33

now getting reestablished in that

18:35

country. Biden yanked

18:37

us completely out, no residual force. He

18:39

said, oh, don't worry, we can prevent the threat from re-emerging.

18:42

Well, now it is. It's reconstituting. Al-Qaeda

18:46

in Afghanistan, we've seen this movie

18:48

before. We know what could go

18:50

wrong. This is part of his

18:52

legacy. Out

18:55

of the gates and ready to go. Hey, it's Hudson Withrow.

18:58

Hot Mike is here on the Outkick Network.

19:01

We've got your afternoon covered with the latest sports

19:03

discussion, and it's available wherever you find your

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audio. Daily analysis and

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news. He is hot. I am Mike. Actually,

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my name is Chad. His name is Jonathan. But

19:13

you get the picture. We're going to bring it every single day.

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Whatever you want to call us, we'll respond to. We just want

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you to respond to what we're dishing out every day. And

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while you're here, we hope you subscribe to

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the podcast, like, subscribe, and share. Welcome

19:33

back to Anchorage,

19:36

Alaska, which is where the

19:38

Guy Benson Show is emanating from today. Pretty

19:41

cool. Thanks for tuning in. guybensonshow.com is

19:43

our website. The podcast is always free

19:46

when the show is over. With us

19:48

now, U.S. Senator Rick Scott, Republican of

19:50

Florida. He is up for reelection this

19:52

year. Senator, welcome back to the show.

19:55

I hope you enjoy Alaska. It's

19:57

a beautiful place. A little chilly in the winter. It

19:59

really is. It's actually

20:01

a little chilly still now, even

20:04

in May. So I've had my North Face

20:06

here on because it gets warm, they say,

20:08

but just not quite yet. It's always warm,

20:10

seemingly, down in your state, especially down in

20:12

the southern part of your state. I want

20:14

to get to your reelection battle

20:16

in just a moment, but first, your

20:19

reaction, Senator, especially

20:21

as a member of the Armed Services Committee, to

20:23

what the President has now

20:26

done vis-a-vis Israel. I'm talking

20:28

about it a lot, obviously, a shocking

20:30

change in policy. And

20:33

I know you've been watching this. I know a lot

20:35

of Floridians care about this issue. How do

20:37

you read what the President has done? Oh,

20:39

he hasn't changed. He's the most pro-Hamasah president

20:41

we've ever had. Here's a

20:43

guy that will go out and say

20:46

he cares about Israel. Oh, but Israel,

20:48

oh, you can't go defend yourself. No,

20:51

those Hamas, those

20:54

Hamas, 1,200 people still hold eight American

20:56

hostages. Oh, I'm worried about

20:58

them. I mean, oh, don't worry about

21:00

the Gazans that support Hamas, elected Hamas.

21:03

That's who I'm worried about. So

21:05

the supplemental that they passed, Biden

21:09

got what he wanted. He wanted

21:11

money for Ukraine, and he wanted

21:13

humanitarian. He

21:15

didn't care about Israel. He's never

21:17

cared about Israel. So the money

21:19

that goes into Gaza that supposedly

21:21

goes for humanitarian, where's it going?

21:23

Hamas controls the place. Where do

21:25

you think it's going? It's going

21:27

to build tunnels. It's going to

21:29

build weapons. It's going to buy

21:31

more weapons. So

21:34

I mean, he does not – this

21:36

President does not care about

21:39

Israel. I was just in Israel

21:41

five weeks ago. I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu.

21:43

I met with Galant, Minister of Defense. I met

21:45

with IDF. They have no choice.

21:47

Guess where Hamas is? The

21:50

last four or five battalions are sitting in

21:52

Rafa, surrounded by civilians. And what they've said

21:54

is we're going to tell the civilians to

21:56

get the hell out. That would be nice

21:58

of Egypt, bid their jobs. open their borders

22:00

so they can go that way, but if

22:03

not, they're going to have to go to

22:05

northern Gaza because they don't have a choice.

22:07

If Israel wants to survive, they've got to

22:09

destroy every last member of

22:11

Hamas. And what makes me mad is

22:13

this president doesn't care about

22:15

Israel, doesn't care about Jews, and doesn't

22:17

care about American hostages, but he does

22:19

care about Hamas. I

22:23

want to ask you, Senator, on a separate

22:25

note, because, I mean, your frustration, I think,

22:27

is shared with so many people, and there's

22:29

this volcanic reaction. I think people are just

22:32

stunned. Even, I mean, Joe Biden's bad.

22:34

It's worse than I think a lot of people

22:36

expected, and this is, in my view, and I

22:38

wrote about it at Town Hall today, a new

22:40

low. I just want to turn

22:42

to a very separate topic, which is this

22:44

Trump trial up in New York City. I

22:46

know that you went and you

22:48

visited, and you went to show your solidarity

22:51

in New York. Talk about that

22:53

decision and how you're viewing those

22:55

proceedings in the Big Apple. Well,

22:59

first off, I've known President Trump for Clinton

23:01

way before I was governor. He's

23:04

a friend, and it's

23:06

despicable. This is a political

23:10

attack. Using the courts

23:12

for a political attack is criminal,

23:14

right? This is criminal behavior by

23:16

unethical political thugs. Now, I

23:18

went through this. I built the largest

23:20

hospital company. I fought Hillary Clinton back in the

23:23

90s, and what she did, she weaponized the Justice

23:25

Department then, and they went after me and my

23:27

company. So I've watched this. I've watched other companies

23:29

that if you don't go along with what the

23:31

federal government wants, under, you know, whether it's Clinton

23:33

or Obama or Biden, they're going to go after

23:36

you. So here's what I appreciate. President Trump,

23:38

he's standing up. He's fighting

23:40

back. Think about this. If

23:43

he does not win, just remember, if they

23:45

can go after the next president, they

23:47

can go right after you. And

23:49

here's how partisan it is. The

23:52

number three guy at the Biden Justice

23:54

Department quits that job. That's a hell

23:56

of a job, right? He quits

23:58

that job to go work for him. for

24:00

a state attorney. That

24:02

doesn't make sense. Oh, oh, he did do

24:04

it to go be the lead prosecutor to

24:06

try to put Trump in jail. His wife's

24:08

a donor. The judge is

24:11

a donor. Okay. The judge's daughter, she's

24:14

one of the, she's a big fundraiser

24:16

for the Democrats. Everybody involved on

24:18

the, on this is a Democrat

24:21

except for Trump. And so they're

24:23

trying to gag this guy so he

24:25

can't go beat Biden because Biden can't

24:27

win based on what he's done, open

24:29

border inflation, creating wars all over

24:31

the world. So what are they going to do?

24:34

Put his opponent in prison so

24:36

he can't, he can't campaign and try to

24:38

make sure he doesn't win. So this is,

24:41

I'm going to, I'm going to bust my butt to

24:43

do everything I can to help president Trump here, because

24:45

what they're doing to him, they can do to you

24:47

and me and anybody, anybody else.

24:49

If they do this, what kind of a

24:52

country do we have? Senator,

24:55

your opponent in your race in Florida

24:57

is critical, is being critical of you

24:59

for going to New

25:01

York. And she pointed out, well,

25:03

in order to go and do

25:06

what she's basically calling a stunt with Donald Trump

25:08

in New York city, you missed a vote in

25:10

the U.S. Senate. So you weren't there doing your

25:12

job. What's your response to that critique from your

25:14

opponent? I did my job. We

25:16

voted on the FAA reauthorization. I was there and

25:19

I voted for it yesterday. So she is, she's

25:21

like everything else. She just puts out a whole

25:23

bunch of lies. So I

25:26

was there. I voted for the for

25:28

the transfer into FAA reauthorization bill. It

25:30

passed, which still has to go back to the

25:32

House. But it'll get it'll

25:34

get done next week. But my opponent doesn't worry

25:36

about the truth. She'll just put out

25:38

a whole bunch of lies each and every day. I've

25:41

seen some polling that suggests that you

25:43

are leading her pretty dramatically. I've seen

25:45

one or two polls where you're up

25:47

by double digits. Who knows what the

25:49

final margin might be. I know that

25:51

you're going to fight like you're behind.

25:53

That's how you always run races. But

25:55

is it at all disorienting, Senator, to

25:57

see yourself leading by a large margin?

26:00

margin, at least some of the polls, given the

26:02

elections that you've had forever, right? When you were

26:04

governor, the first time you were in law was

26:06

in 2018 in the Senate, where you were elected

26:08

by 0.2%. You

26:11

always have these 1% or

26:13

less margins, it seems. Now

26:16

Florida appears to be kind

26:18

of a different place. How are you feeling about

26:21

the race and what are you

26:23

seeing in terms of that shift, that evolution

26:25

in the state of Florida politically? What

26:28

I did is I actually ran against all

26:30

incumbents, basically. I ran against in the primary

26:32

the Republican that was the senior attorney general,

26:34

and then in the general back in 2010,

26:37

the Democrat that was the CFO, and then in

26:39

2014, the prior governor who was a Republican, then

26:41

independent, then Democrat, and then I had to run

26:43

against Bill Nelson, who had never lost a race

26:45

in 43 years. I've run

26:47

against all these incumbents. I

26:50

think now in Florida, people know what I bust in

26:53

my butt, and they know I'm a kid that grew

26:55

up in public housing, that I'm fighting for people like

26:57

that each and every day. But here's

26:59

the deal. You don't know what's going to

27:01

happen. I know all they're going to do

27:03

is talk about abortion. They

27:07

got it on the ballot. They

27:09

got legalized marijuana on the ballot, and they're going to try to

27:11

get the vote out to try to beat me, and they're going

27:13

to try to get the vote out to try to beat President

27:15

Trump. But tonight,

27:18

I've got a grassroots event in

27:20

Columbia County. Tomorrow night, I've got

27:22

more grassroots events in two different

27:24

places tomorrow, so I'm campaigning each

27:26

and every day. Because look, here's what I

27:28

care about. I want everybody

27:31

in my state to have some opportunity I had,

27:33

even though my mom was poor. She said, in

27:35

America, you can beat anything. And if that's true,

27:37

we have a hell of a country. If that's

27:40

not true, it's a pretty screwed up place. On

27:44

that point and on the

27:47

election, it's very

27:49

clear that the Democrats, they're looking at their

27:51

map. Chuck Schumer's looking at the map, and

27:53

he says, okay, we're playing defense all these places. It's

27:56

going to be tough. We're going to try to hang on

27:58

to this majority. The best way for them to... hang on

28:00

the majority would be somehow to

28:02

beat a Republican incumbent and

28:05

take a currently Republican held seat and

28:07

flip it blue. It's pretty slim

28:10

pickings for them if you look across the

28:12

various races they have to choose from. It

28:14

really is Ted Cruz in Texas and you in Florida.

28:17

I think they're at least planning to throw

28:19

tons of money at your race, right? Absolutely.

28:23

I mean, Chuck Schumer in the last race spent

28:25

$65 million. Planned

28:28

Parenthood is going to spend a fortune here on

28:30

the ballot initiative just to try. It's not because

28:32

they think they can pass that ballot initiative. Maybe

28:34

they can, maybe they can't. But they're doing it

28:36

just to get, you know, rile up Democrats to

28:38

go get them to vote. You

28:40

know, they're going to do the same thing against Ted Cruz. So I tell

28:42

people in my race, you know, go

28:44

to rickscott.com to help me go

28:46

to Ted Cruz's race and help him. But we've

28:49

got to keep these. This keeps us at 49

28:51

if we win Ted's race at my race. Then

28:53

if we win West Virginia, which we should, that

28:55

puts us at 50. Then

28:58

we've got, you know, quite a few places where we have

29:00

a chance for a pickup. Probably Ohio

29:02

is our best chance with Bernie Moreno, but we've

29:04

got other chances around the country. But

29:06

you know, you've got a number of them on that list, Senator.

29:11

But playing and holding serve

29:14

is step one, certainly in your race down in

29:16

Florida. Rick Scott on the Guy Benson show. Thank

29:18

you, sir. Welcome back. It's

29:20

the Guy Benson show. Glad to have you here. So

29:24

yesterday we had a good conversation with Josh Krasauer, Fox

29:26

News' Radio political analyst, and

29:28

we were going through some of the numbers and some of the

29:30

polling. It's a wide-ranging conversation. But

29:33

within the context of swing states and the horse

29:35

race, we were discussing Robert F.

29:39

Kennedy Jr. and his impact on the race.

29:42

And if you look at some polls in certain states, RFK,

29:44

if he gets on the

29:46

ballot, he gets on the

29:49

ballot. He benefits Joe Biden. He

29:55

seems to be pulling more votes away from Trump

29:58

than from Biden. other states is

30:00

exactly the opposite. So both

30:03

of these major parties and their campaigns

30:05

aren't quite sure what to do about

30:07

this and how

30:09

to assess the threat to

30:12

their interests posed by RFK Jr.

30:15

I'm just gonna say this, I

30:18

am like bowled over

30:21

by anyone who is center-right

30:24

or conservative who would even

30:26

consider voting for RFK Jr.

30:28

I know he's got a big famous name, I

30:31

know that maybe there are certain things that

30:33

people like about his stance

30:35

on vaccines or whatever, but on

30:39

so many hugely important

30:41

issues, he

30:43

is way off on the left.

30:45

His running mate is a total

30:48

leftist. You look at his

30:50

position on the environment, I mean Green

30:52

New Deal on steroids. He's

30:55

a hardcore greenie with

30:58

all the taxes and spending and coercion

31:00

and mandates, all of that that comes

31:02

with it. That's RFK Jr. I'm just

31:05

against that. I don't

31:07

think there's anything conservative about supporting that. He's

31:11

also a supporter of government-run health

31:13

care, single-payer health care.

31:17

He wants more government control, massive

31:19

more government spending when it comes to

31:21

your health care, which

31:24

if implemented would uproot every

31:26

American from their existing health care

31:28

plans, especially if you get it through your employer,

31:30

if you're satisfied with it. Remember when Obama said

31:32

if you like it you can keep it, it

31:34

was a huge lie. Can lie the year actually

31:36

even from left-leaning PolitiFact.

31:40

If you like your health care you absolutely could

31:42

not keep it under single-payer health care which is

31:44

an RFK Jr. dream. Then

31:47

on the issue of abortion, I know it's

31:50

a tough one, I am pro-life, I

31:52

try to be pragmatic about it, here

31:55

on the Sage Steel podcast

31:57

is RFK Jr. describing his

32:00

position on that issue in cut 24.

32:02

Every abortion is a tragedy. So

32:04

in other words keeping it as is with

32:06

Roe versus Wade having been overturned and leaving

32:08

it up to the state to determine if

32:11

and when a woman can have an abortion? No I

32:14

wouldn't leave it to the state. I wouldn't right. I

32:16

would say completely. It's up to the woman. I

32:19

believe we should leave it to the woman

32:22

we shouldn't have government involved. Even

32:24

if it's full term? Even

32:26

if it's full term. Okay. That

32:31

is a gruesome

32:34

position. First

32:36

of all it's really difficult to listen to that voice

32:38

and I know it's a condition. I'm not taking a

32:41

shot at him for that. I'm just stating what should

32:43

be obvious. No matter what he's

32:45

saying or whatever he's talking about, in

32:47

this case it's abortion and

32:50

he's saying no it should not be left

32:52

to the states. It should be a

32:54

federal mandate that every

32:57

abortion is legal all

32:59

the way up to full term. You

33:02

often hear the Democrats kind of sidestep

33:04

that a little bit where they

33:07

do their poll-tested talking points in

33:09

demagoguery where they often mischaracterize Republicans

33:11

positions to try to scare people and make

33:13

it seem like all the abortions are going

33:16

to get banned immediately if the Republicans win.

33:19

When the Republicans actually are quite a

33:21

tapestry of mixed opinions

33:24

from pro-choice to pro-life and everything

33:26

in between, the Democrats unfortunately tragically

33:29

disgustingly for the most part at

33:31

the federal level support no limits

33:33

whatsoever on abortion but they're not

33:36

really willing to say it quite

33:39

that way. And when

33:41

media occasionally asks them hey what about this

33:44

common-sense restriction that's supported by 70 or

33:46

80 percent of the country, they just

33:48

won't go there. They won't really entertain

33:50

the idea of any restrictions that they're

33:52

willing to support because they don't

33:55

want to tick off their base, their

33:57

donors, their activists are

34:00

fanatical on this. They

34:02

believe fully in nine-month abortion

34:04

on demand for any reason,

34:06

elective or otherwise, paid for

34:08

by tax dollars. That's

34:11

the position that very few

34:13

Americans actually hold, but

34:15

almost every Democrat in Congress, for

34:17

example, and the president now

34:19

holds. But they

34:21

kind of play coy about it

34:24

without really letting themselves get pinned down. They

34:26

always want to pivot back to

34:29

attacking the other side and attacking pro-lifers

34:31

and attacking the Republicans and distorting their

34:34

position, rather than answering simple

34:36

questions. So I guess I'll give a little

34:38

bit of credit to RFK Jr. for

34:41

saying outright what others are unwilling to

34:43

say outright so often, but

34:46

what he says is horrible. It

34:49

is a travesty.

34:52

It is also so radical

34:55

and extreme, even most pro-choice

34:57

Americans absolutely do

34:59

not believe that it's just a choice of

35:01

a woman to terminate a pregnancy all the

35:04

way up to full term, nine months. You

35:06

got a healthy child and

35:09

you just decide to get cold feet, whatever

35:11

reason, you can say, oh my mental health

35:13

is going to be affected. RFK's position is

35:16

it's totally up to the woman. You can end

35:18

that life. You can kill that unborn child at

35:20

seven months, eight months, nine months, all

35:22

the way to full term. There

35:26

is very little that

35:29

is even plausibly conservative about RFK

35:31

Jr. He's not a moderate either.

35:33

Like often independents are like, hey

35:35

I'm here in the middle and

35:37

both parties have become too polarized.

35:39

No, he's a man

35:42

of extremes and unfortunately many of

35:44

those extremes are way, way, way out

35:46

on the left. So

35:48

for the life of me I cannot understand

35:50

that you have some right

35:53

leading people playing footsie with this guy

35:55

or saying, okay well he seems to

35:57

be on our team when it

35:59

comes to... know, whatever it might be,

36:01

COVID related policy or something or vaccines,

36:04

and he's driving the Democrats crazy. So

36:06

I guess I like him. Beware.

36:10

This could be something of a trap. You

36:13

have to actually analyze and evaluate

36:15

this person on the

36:17

positions that he holds and on

36:19

multiple big time issues. He's

36:22

not just left of center. He's left

36:24

of Biden. That

36:27

to me is completely unacceptable,

36:29

a total non-starter. And

36:32

we've started to see, by the way, the

36:34

Trump campaign and Trump himself attack RFK Jr.

36:37

more consistently because I think they're probably seeing in

36:39

their own numbers, their own polling. Yeah,

36:41

there might be some erosion here. Certain

36:44

people who might be Trump leaners

36:46

are, for whatever reason, attracted to

36:48

RFK Jr. And so now both

36:50

major parties are taking some shots

36:53

at him, which might make you say,

36:55

well, I like that. That is independent. These two

36:57

parties kind of suck. And that's true. But

37:00

just negative partisanship and certain vibes,

37:03

it's not good enough. You

37:05

have to look at the candidate, you have to

37:07

look at his platform, you have to look at

37:09

what he believes. And what he believes is just

37:12

absolutely unacceptable to me on so

37:14

many issues as a

37:17

conservative. Just want to

37:19

put that out there. That clip from

37:21

Sage Steele on the podcast, all the way up

37:23

to full term. It's just, it's

37:26

revolting. It turns my stomach. It also breaks

37:28

my heart. He

37:30

says every abortion is a tragedy, but sure, let

37:32

them happen all the way up to nine months.

37:34

I cannot reconcile that. Another

37:38

hour of the Guy Benson show coming up

37:40

next here from Alaska. Eli Lake joins us

37:43

when we return. A

37:50

new generation of conservative talk

37:52

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37:55

fun, and backed by the

37:57

trusted voices and reporting resources.

37:59

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38:04

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38:08

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us now is Eli Lake, a reporter at

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39:01

He also has his podcast. You can follow

39:03

him on social, at Eli Lake. Eli, welcome

39:05

back to the show. Thanks so

39:07

much for having me, Guy. I just

39:10

want to get your top line reaction first

39:12

to what we learned this week from the

39:14

President and his change,

39:16

his shift in policy toward Israel.

39:20

My top line reaction? Yeah.

39:23

Joe Biden, despite what he

39:25

and his, you know, handlers are

39:27

saying, desires to freeze

39:30

the conflict between Hamas and

39:32

Israel and ensure that the

39:34

organization responsible for October 7

39:38

lives to fight another day. Why?

39:41

Well, I mean, I can't

39:43

get into the man's head. There

39:45

is a longstanding view that, you

39:48

know, the activism in Michigan

39:51

and other places among

39:53

the left and the Arab American community

39:57

really put a scare into the Biden

39:59

reelection campaign. and they feel

40:01

that they need to appease this constituency

40:03

in order to potentially, you know, to

40:05

hold Michigan. But

40:10

anyone with half

40:12

a brain could know that if

40:14

you appease the radicals of

40:16

Dearborn, you're going to alienate the Normies

40:18

across the country, and in particular pro-Israel

40:21

and Jewish voters. So

40:24

the idea that, to paraphrase

40:26

Heim Saban, an email that

40:28

was sent to two Biden advisers that Axios

40:31

reported on, there are more

40:34

Jews who care about Israel, Jewish voters who care

40:36

about Israel than there are Muslim voters who care

40:38

about Hamas. So

40:41

if that's it, it's dumb politics. I

40:44

think another explanation might be that these people are,

40:47

you know, incapable of

40:49

understanding the concept of trying

40:51

to fight wars to victory, so they fight wars to

40:53

a tie. Another

40:56

explanation could just very well

40:58

be that Biden

41:01

is ignorant and doesn't

41:03

understand that the numbers

41:05

from the Gaza health ministry or if people in his

41:08

government don't understand that those are deliberately

41:10

misleading. They don't carve out for Hamas fighters.

41:15

They've recently had to reevaluate the data. They

41:19

don't have information on more than 11,000 of

41:21

the casualties. And so he's going

41:23

on, you know, what is essentially

41:25

propaganda statistics from Hamas, and

41:27

he believes there are lies. So,

41:30

you know, he thinks

41:33

that Israel is, you know, conducting the war in a kind

41:35

of cruel way when, I think, much

41:37

better analysis from people like John Spencer, the head of

41:40

urban warfare, warfighting at West Point, and many others

41:42

who've looked at it, said Israel is doing the

41:44

best that it can and probably setting a new

41:46

standard. Whatever

41:50

the reason is, Joe Biden

41:52

went from being, you

41:55

know, really a great friend of Israel after October 7th to

41:57

being, you know, one

42:00

of the worst presidents ever when it comes

42:02

to Israel. Frankly, in the middle of a war, to

42:05

publicly announce that you're suspending, you

42:08

know, arms that are gonna be needed for the

42:10

final operation to try to push Hamas out

42:12

of its last, you know,

42:14

stronghold, it's extraordinary,

42:17

and I think that there's been

42:19

a kind of shockwave of revulsion

42:21

among many voters, many donors, many

42:23

people, many Americans, who I think

42:27

had lots of problems with Trump, especially after

42:29

January 6th, and,

42:32

you know, recognize there were flaws with Biden, but

42:34

he was the least bad of the alternatives. I

42:37

think this changes the calculus. This is just,

42:40

it's like strategic malpractice, but, you know,

42:43

Guy, it's also moral

42:45

illiteracy in a way. Yes. And

42:48

it's like there's a really deep moral problem. Biden

42:51

talked about our values as Americans. One

42:53

of our values as Americans are

42:55

that we want Israel to destroy

42:58

Hamas and put, you

43:00

know, Sennmars' head on a spike. That

43:03

is our values, because there is

43:05

no peace as long as Hamas exists, especially

43:07

after our campaign. Yeah, and

43:09

our values also involve avenging the

43:11

deaths of Americans who were murdered

43:13

there and getting American hostages back.

43:15

It's not a term and a

43:18

concept that this president doesn't really mention very

43:20

often, if at all. We also

43:22

have this, because you're talking about the death toll, Eli. Bibi

43:25

Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister who's

43:27

presiding over this wartime unity government,

43:30

he was on with Dr. Phil, and he

43:32

talked about deaths in Gaza in Cup 33.

43:36

The whole attitude to Israel here is

43:38

absurd, because, yes,

43:40

we've had, we've killed about

43:43

14,000 terrorists. Unfortunately, because of

43:45

the fact that they use the human shield,

43:47

there are a slightly bigger number, about 16,000

43:49

civilians that were killed in the places where

43:52

the terrorists won't let them leave. Hamas

43:54

stops them at gunpoint, because for us, every

43:57

civilian is a tragedy. Every civilian death is

43:59

a tragedy. And every civilian death is

44:02

a strategy. I mean,

44:04

you cannot argue with that latter point.

44:06

Hamas is incentivized to have as many

44:08

of their civilians killed as possible. They

44:10

try to make Israel's job as hard

44:12

as possible. That's why they operate in

44:15

hospitals and in mosques and in schools.

44:17

And nevertheless, with those incredible efforts that

44:19

you mentioned that military experts

44:21

have been talking about, if you pay any

44:23

attention to that, the Israelis

44:25

have almost achieved a one-to-one

44:27

enemy versus civilian casualty ratio,

44:29

which is extraordinary when you

44:31

look at urban warfare. But

44:34

it's like the media in this country

44:36

and some politicians in this country, they

44:39

just take the Hamas propaganda numbers and

44:41

ignore what we just heard from the

44:44

elected leader of a major ally.

44:46

I can't wrap my head around that, Eli.

44:50

Well, there are a couple points

44:52

to really kind of linger

44:54

on in what you just said, because what you said is

44:56

very important. You're right.

44:59

It is a strategy of Hamas to

45:01

maximize the civilian casualties on their own

45:03

side, and everybody knows this. What

45:06

Biden is doing by not

45:09

just criticizing Israel, but by changing

45:11

U.S. policy, because

45:13

Israel is using U.S. weapons to kill

45:15

civilians, is incentivizing

45:18

others to play

45:20

the cynical game that Hamas is

45:22

now using in this war. So

45:25

if you're a terrorist group or

45:27

you're Iran and you're watching

45:29

this and you're learning to – you're

45:32

recalibrating your own strategies, you're like, well,

45:34

you know, the American president

45:36

eventually will blame all the

45:38

deaths that we are responsible for, but we

45:41

endanger our own side on

45:43

the enemy. What's wonderful? So

45:46

you're incentivizing it. We're going to get more of this

45:49

is what we're going to get

45:51

as a result of this

45:53

particular, feckless, nonsense policy change

45:55

from Biden. The other

45:58

part of this is that – You're

46:01

talking about a really

46:04

important ally to Israel, but also a really important

46:06

ally to America. And America has

46:08

other allies, and this is a party that

46:11

made one of their central talking points

46:13

against Trump, that he doesn't care

46:15

about our alliances. And they were talking about Europe

46:17

and NATO. I don't

46:20

know. Do Democrats care about our

46:22

alliances? Because we have – our

46:24

allies of Saudi Arabia and Israel,

46:26

which have been longstanding allies of the United States,

46:29

are thrown under the bus by the Democratic Party.

46:32

And so there's a real problem. It's like Biden

46:35

is not just the leader of the Democrats. He's the leader of

46:37

our country. And when he basically

46:40

capitulates to the

46:43

same line that we're getting from

46:45

the campus – like

46:48

the campus radical drones

46:50

that are doing these

46:53

encampments, how far off is it? If

46:55

the president's saying killing innocent people with our weapons,

46:58

how far away is it from it's a

47:00

genocide, it's war crimes? It's all of this.

47:03

So I mean, the damage that he's

47:05

done to just the delegitimization of Israel,

47:07

to have the leader of the free world parroting

47:10

those talking points, it's just

47:12

horrendous. And frankly, as you

47:16

know, I have not been a Trump guy. You know

47:18

that. We've talked about it before. But

47:21

if the Democratic – the

47:23

great advantage of democracy is that every four

47:26

years in our country, the American

47:28

people get to give feedback to the federal government

47:30

and the people running in place. And

47:34

if the feedback, even the fact that our

47:36

polling numbers are pretty consistently pro-Israel, solid

47:39

60, 65 percent of Americans

47:41

at least support Israel, and only like a –

47:44

you know, less than 5 percent support Hamas, according

47:46

to OB's poll. If

47:48

the signal is not received by the

47:50

Democrats with an election loss, then

47:53

I fear that America is going to be in

47:55

a lot more trouble, because the

47:57

Democrats need to learn a very – difficult

48:00

lesson after something like this, and that is

48:03

you can try it, but there will be

48:05

how to pay in November. And

48:07

if I had my druthers, Trump wouldn't be

48:09

the beneficiary of that lesson, but that lesson

48:11

needs to be learned one way or another.

48:14

I was also blown away in that CNN

48:16

interview when Aaron Burnett asked him about the

48:19

genocide Joe chanting on campuses. And

48:22

rather than immediately slapping down the

48:24

lie that there's any genocide going on

48:26

here by Israel, and that Biden or

48:28

the United States is complicit in a

48:31

genocide and correcting that immediately and indignantly,

48:33

because when Biden feels like he's been,

48:35

you know, slighted or

48:37

maligned in some way, he can get

48:40

very chest-puffing out, a very angry sort

48:42

of finger-wagging situation. Rather

48:45

than any of that, defending the honor of Israel

48:47

or even himself, he just said, oh,

48:49

well, yeah, I hear the message. I

48:51

absolutely hear the message. What kind of

48:53

response is that to an

48:55

unbelievable slander against not just our

48:57

ally but him? It's

49:00

so pathetic. It's

49:04

like this is the same guy that gave

49:06

the Holocaust Remembrance Day speech just

49:08

the day before that interview, the

49:11

same guy who talked about the ironclad

49:13

commitment that America has to Israel, and

49:16

all of those words were

49:18

exposed as hollow, empty,

49:20

pablum, because we can tell from his actions,

49:23

we can tell from that interview, sadly,

49:26

what this decrepit old man

49:28

really thinks. And

49:30

I'm sorry. He deserved credit

49:32

after October 7 for going

49:34

to Israel, for standing with Israel, for

49:36

saying the right things, for instructing his

49:38

top advisers, like people like John Kirby,

49:41

to shoot down a lot of the nonsense,

49:44

a lot of the distortions, a lot of the propaganda

49:46

against Israel, and it was appreciated. But

49:48

to turn a dime like this, you

49:51

don't get credit for the other stuff if in the middle

49:53

of the war you land

49:55

on this particular square. By the way, there's a

49:57

similarity with Ukraine, because I think we both want

49:59

Ukraine. to win against the Russians. But

50:02

it's the same kind of thing. He gives the Ukrainians weapons.

50:04

He makes a big deal, puffs out his chucks, and then

50:06

says, no, no, no, no, you can't have these

50:09

weapons because they might be, you know, too provocative

50:11

or something like that. It's this

50:13

mentality. It's the Democratic Party, and it's

50:15

also, sadly, our entire foreign policy establishment

50:17

for the most part. It's

50:20

like we don't remember that the point of

50:22

wars are to win them. The point

50:24

of wars is not to fight by certain rules

50:26

so you make sure that you get to a

50:28

tie and there's a frozen conflict. And then there's

50:30

a long negotiation. That is not the way it's

50:32

supposed to be. We have to get out

50:34

of it, and my hope would be that Israel – I

50:36

mean, Israel has to win this war. They have to

50:38

destroy Hamas. And when they do, maybe

50:41

the Israelis can teach us a thing or two about

50:43

what it means to win a war instead of doing

50:45

what we've been doing now for like the past 30

50:47

years. But it's like,

50:49

listen, the democratic process needs to work. All

50:52

of the people right now involved at the top

50:54

of the Biden administration, particularly on foreign policy, need

50:57

to be put out on their

50:59

ear at this point. They are strategic failures

51:02

or policy failures. This is it.

51:05

I've had it there. Eli, when

51:07

it comes to Israel winning the war, Naftali

51:10

Bennett, the former prime minister, was in an

51:12

interview and was kind of saying,

51:14

why on earth are we still wavering

51:17

on Rafah? Why haven't we gone in? Why didn't we

51:19

go in a while ago? Here's what he said in

51:21

Cut 7. We should have

51:23

done Rafah four months ago. I don't

51:25

know why it's wavering. We should have

51:28

just done it, stopped talking about it

51:30

all day, just go in, destroy Hamas,

51:32

destroy those four battalions, kill the leaders

51:34

of Hamas unless they release the hostages.

51:37

That's what I would have done. We're

51:39

doing this way too late, but it's better late

51:41

than never. Right, better late

51:44

than never. Let's finally do it. I get the

51:46

frustration with the dithering, and I think there's some

51:48

truth there. On the other hand, Netanyahu

51:51

and the unity government, they have

51:53

had Biden and the Americans breathing

51:55

down their neck increasingly aggressively week

51:57

after week, month after month, which

51:59

is strategically... benefited Hamas the whole

52:01

time. Just quickly, your analysis of that

52:03

soundbite. Well, I think you're absolutely right.

52:05

It's like, you know, I think that

52:07

probably Bennett is correct. But on the other

52:09

hand, you know, this is this is

52:11

a problem of Biden's own making. And by the

52:13

way, Biden wants calm for domestic reasons

52:16

for the convention in August, and

52:18

he should have wanted the Israelis to go

52:20

into Rafa four months ago. But he's

52:22

it's like they're too whatever,

52:24

they're too myopic, they're too caught up in

52:27

their own, like, you know, series

52:29

of nonsense that they, they can't

52:31

see what's in their own interest at this point. But

52:33

I mean, yes, you're right. It's Biden who has hindered

52:35

it. It's Biden

52:37

who, you know,

52:39

has is just committed to like making sure that

52:42

this war is fought to a tie. And,

52:44

you know, I'm through with it. I think millions

52:46

of Americans are as well. Eli

52:50

Lake is a reporter at the Free Press,

52:52

check out his podcast as well. He also

52:54

contributes a commentary as an editor. Follow him

52:56

on social at Eli Lake. Eli, thanks so

52:58

much. Have a good weekend. Thank

53:00

you, Guy, you too. The

53:02

Guy Benson Show continues right after this break. Keep

53:04

it right here. New talk

53:06

for a new generation. The Guy

53:09

Benson Show. I'm

53:15

Guy Benson. We're back here on the program. A

53:17

factor follow up now for you. You might remember

53:19

a story that we brought to you weeks ago,

53:22

out of North Carolina, where a 16 year

53:25

old high school student was suspended by

53:27

his school because he

53:29

had used the term illegal

53:31

alien in class. Now,

53:34

according to the student's mother, this is from Fox

53:36

News dot com, an English teacher at

53:38

this high school, Central Davidson High

53:40

School in Lexington, North Carolina, gave

53:43

a vocab assignment that involved the

53:45

word alien. And in response, a

53:47

clarifying question from this

53:49

kid, this 16 year old, he asked

53:51

if the teacher meant like space aliens

53:54

or illegal aliens without green cards. That

53:56

was the question. Now,

53:58

when he said that, another Another student

54:00

apparently took great umbrage and offense,

54:03

threatened to fight this kid, and

54:06

then the principal got involved and

54:08

the staff decided that it was a term

54:11

deemed to be offensive, illegal alien,

54:13

even though that is the official

54:16

government terminology that's used. Like,

54:19

that is how illegal

54:21

immigrants are formally referred to

54:23

in our legal system. But

54:26

they decided, oh, nope, that's offensive. And

54:29

to Hispanics specifically, even though this

54:31

kid didn't mention any

54:34

nationality, any race whatsoever, they

54:37

decided it was about Hispanics and

54:39

then they suspended him for three days. So

54:41

we made a number of these points back

54:43

when the story broke and one thing that I

54:45

had recommended at the time was, you've got to

54:47

sue. I hate being litigious.

54:50

I'm not a litigious person, but

54:52

sometimes when it comes to these

54:54

woke excesses, you have

54:56

to exact punishment. You

54:58

have to elicit pain from

55:00

the people who are making the wrong decisions.

55:03

So I said you have to sue the district. And guess what?

55:06

This is the new development today. The

55:09

lawsuit has been filed. Legal

55:11

action has been taken. I

55:13

suspect there's a good chance this kid is going

55:15

to win or at least the district is going

55:17

to want to make this go away and they're

55:19

going to settle because they are absolutely in the

55:21

wrong here. And it

55:23

would be poetic justice if

55:25

this kid ends up getting, let's

55:28

say, his college education paid

55:30

for by his own

55:32

high school school district

55:35

because of their massive,

55:37

ridiculous left-wing identity politics

55:39

overreach. And I get the feeling this

55:41

guy, if he ends up, let's say, at UNC,

55:44

for example, he might

55:46

be the next generation of fraternity brothers protecting

55:48

the flag from the

55:50

anti-American moms. This kid seems to be

55:52

about. So I applaud this. I hope

55:54

he succeeds. And I hope he makes a lot of money

55:57

out of this. And that lessons might get

55:59

out of it. yet learned. It's

56:01

The Guy Benson Show. We return with more right

56:04

after this break. In

56:15

the swamp, not of the swamp,

56:18

Guy Benson. We're

56:20

very far away from the swamp

56:22

today, doing the show from Alaska

56:24

for the third consecutive day. Thanks

56:26

for tuning in. guybensonshow.com, our online

56:28

home, where the podcast is free

56:31

and on demand every day when the show is

56:33

over. We're halfway through today's program.

56:35

And we are joined now by

56:38

Britt Heum, Chief Political Analyst here at

56:40

Fox News. Britt, happy Friday. Thanks for

56:42

joining us. Time to do it, Guy.

56:44

Always good to talk to you. Britt, I want

56:46

to get your reaction to the Trump trial,

56:48

what we've seen so far, how that's playing

56:51

out, how it interacts with the other legal

56:53

situations Trump is contending with, and then maybe

56:55

we can talk about how this affects the

56:57

election. But based on what you're seeing in

56:59

New York so far, your thoughts, please. Well,

57:02

I think that the case seems to fall

57:04

apart more every day, and it is

57:07

to Trump's great advantage, it seems

57:09

to me, that this trial went first because

57:12

the fact that it is so

57:15

obviously legally weak and

57:17

that the judge is so obviously biased

57:21

and in over his head

57:24

sort of stains the whole prosecutorial

57:27

effort against Trump. It also

57:29

pushes back the days when these other

57:31

cases might come to trial and

57:33

cause him trouble. So I think

57:36

he's at some advantage

57:38

here, although obviously this isn't something you

57:40

would ever wish on him. Do

57:43

you think it's breaking through to

57:45

the average person, the average would-be

57:48

voter, that it is such

57:50

a rigged trial, in my opinion? I mean,

57:52

the judge donated to Joe Biden for crying

57:54

out loud. I know

57:56

the experts are making a lot of these points, but is

57:59

that true? trickling down, you think, to

58:01

the public? Well,

58:03

I think it very much is likely that

58:05

it is, because it gets

58:07

a lot of news coverage. And

58:10

I think that's, in a way,

58:12

that's to Trump's advantage. Look,

58:16

I think you look at the

58:18

testimony of someone like Stormy Daniels.

58:22

Let's assume for the sake of discussion, Guy,

58:24

that the jury believes that her description of

58:26

what happened between them all those years ago

58:28

is true. I

58:30

think it's probably true, too, although

58:32

Trump denies it. But I

58:34

think it's kind of baked in the cake. People

58:37

know Donald Trump was

58:41

engaged in marital infidelity, that he was a

58:43

womanizer and all the rest of it. And

58:46

it didn't prevent him from getting elected in 2016 and

58:48

coming close again in 2020. So

58:53

I don't think this stuff is – these

58:56

lurid details of his

58:58

encounter with Stormy Daniels is

59:01

making much headway because I think

59:03

people already get it. And

59:06

then it's, of course, not a crime anyway. Whatever

59:08

you think of the conduct and it doesn't align

59:10

with many people's values, obviously they have to prove

59:12

a crime. And I

59:14

think they are maybe struggling in

59:17

that regard, although their theory of the crime

59:19

has been really ripped apart by a lot

59:21

of these legal analysts. Britt,

59:24

then you briefly mentioned these other trials, and

59:26

a few of them have been punted out

59:28

into the future indefinitely, one of

59:30

the federal trials and the other one down in Georgia. And

59:33

you're seeing a lot of people reacting angrily to

59:35

some of these decisions by judges. It

59:38

seems to me like they've got a

59:40

lot of eggs in the basket of

59:42

putting Donald Trump on multiple criminal trials

59:45

before the election, which is a political

59:48

consideration, but it's not really a legal

59:50

one, right? Exactly

59:52

right, and I think that some

59:55

of these other cases may be more

59:58

strongly grounded legally. I

1:00:00

mean, obviously, he did hold onto these

1:00:03

classified documents, for example, that they are

1:00:05

accusing him of improperly retaining and so

1:00:07

on. But this

1:00:10

case, I think, as I've

1:00:12

suggested, going first stains

1:00:14

the whole enterprise. Even

1:00:17

if he gets a conviction on

1:00:19

this case in New York and

1:00:22

is technically then a convicted felon,

1:00:24

the meaning of all that is

1:00:26

much diminished by the fact that

1:00:28

people think the whole thing is

1:00:30

political. And when

1:00:33

you look at the way this has been carried

1:00:35

out, it looks political. So

1:00:38

I think that's all to his advantage.

1:00:40

But obviously, if you were saying, if

1:00:42

you were for Donald Trump, you don't want him going through any

1:00:45

of this. Now, I would say

1:00:47

it looks political because it is political.

1:00:49

Certainly in New York and Georgia

1:00:51

as well, in my mind, there's no doubt. Britt,

1:00:53

I want to shift gears a little bit here

1:00:55

and play for you a soundbite,

1:00:58

actually two soundbites, from Joe

1:01:00

Biden. This is Joe Biden in 2019,

1:01:02

cut one. But

1:01:04

the idea that we

1:01:06

would cut off military

1:01:09

aid to an

1:01:11

ally, our only

1:01:13

true, true ally in

1:01:16

the entire region, is absolutely

1:01:18

preposterous. It's just beyond

1:01:20

my comprehension anyone would do that. It's

1:01:23

beyond his comprehension that we would

1:01:25

cut off military aid to an ally.

1:01:27

He also had some thoughts about the

1:01:29

Israelis in 2006 amid criticism. We

1:01:33

played this earlier, Britt, criticism

1:01:35

that they were killing

1:01:37

civilians in retaliation against

1:01:40

Hezbollah, another terrorist organization.

1:01:43

Here's part of what Biden said back then as a

1:01:45

U.S. senator, cut 32. My

1:01:47

only criticism of the Israelis is they're not

1:01:49

that great at public relations. If

1:01:52

I were them, I would be pointing out why I

1:01:55

went after the airport. I'd

1:01:57

be pointing out what the reason was, assuming that I was

1:01:59

a U.S. citizen. It didn't compromise

1:02:01

sources and methods. But

1:02:04

I don't see how we could say, and it's

1:02:06

a little bit like the same thing we had

1:02:09

when we went into Afghanistan. We

1:02:11

went into Afghanistan. Remember, we took out

1:02:13

a wedding party by accident? Remember, we

1:02:15

took out, with these very sophisticated missiles

1:02:17

we had, we accidentally killed some citizens

1:02:19

who have ever worn more justified than

1:02:21

us going into Afghanistan? I

1:02:24

can't think of any worse since World War II, more

1:02:26

justified. Yet, innocence got

1:02:28

killed than us trying to protect

1:02:30

America's interests. It is overwhelmingly regrettable.

1:02:33

But what it should do, instead

1:02:35

of generating outrage from the rest of the

1:02:37

world, it should generate outrage from the rest

1:02:40

of the world to go

1:02:42

at the root cause of this thing and unite.

1:02:44

Unite with us, unite with Israel,

1:02:48

and not merely the condemnation, but

1:02:50

setting up the circumstances where this doesn't

1:02:52

grow again. Red Hume, a

1:02:55

different man in multiple ways. Yeah,

1:02:58

that's right. And of course, that's so, remember, I

1:03:00

covered the Senate back

1:03:02

in the day, and I remember Joe Biden

1:03:04

very well. I saw that whole context, by

1:03:06

the way, that last sound bite you played.

1:03:09

I saw it somewhere. It goes

1:03:11

on forever, because that's the way Biden was

1:03:13

back then. But striking comments, in contrast to

1:03:15

what he's saying now, not just

1:03:17

about Israel, but about Afghanistan. He said,

1:03:20

what is it? He's never seen a

1:03:22

cause more justified than our going into

1:03:24

Afghanistan to protect our interests. Of course, he's the

1:03:26

one who pulls a plug on that. So

1:03:29

we can see the things that

1:03:31

have indeed changed with Joe Biden,

1:03:34

and not just on Israel. And

1:03:36

also his delivery, right? Sort of

1:03:38

the bombastic, blowhard, blathering on, but

1:03:40

coherent versus now. Well,

1:03:44

he wasn't always coherent back then, but he's incoherent

1:03:46

in a different way now. I

1:03:48

mean, now it's a case of, you know, he

1:03:50

can't remember words, he can't remember facts, he misstates

1:03:52

them, and so on. His

1:03:54

senility is painfully obvious. Yeah,

1:03:57

and the team around him, apparently, they want to shorten his

1:03:59

events. shorten his speeches, less is more. I

1:04:01

think it's fair to say less is more

1:04:04

was not the mantra of Joe Biden, the

1:04:06

Senator. Well, that's right. That's

1:04:08

right. But, um, getting

1:04:10

him to say more or less was, it was

1:04:12

a good idea back then because he was so

1:04:14

windy. Uh, nowadays, um, he's

1:04:17

pretty, he, he didn't speak at great length

1:04:20

anymore. Um, because he apparently

1:04:22

can't. So getting him to

1:04:24

be sure is meaning

1:04:26

very, very short. What's

1:04:29

driving this change? I mean, oh,

1:04:31

six isn't that long ago. And he

1:04:33

was right about what he was saying

1:04:36

regarding Israel and Hezbollah then. Then

1:04:39

2019, again, even more recent before

1:04:41

he was president. Now

1:04:43

he's making this decision. Why?

1:04:47

I think it's the politics is a moment. I'm

1:04:49

not sure if being properly interpreted

1:04:52

by him and his political advisors,

1:04:55

um, but he's looking around the landscape.

1:04:58

And he thinks, I'm in trouble.

1:05:01

I'm down on the polls. I'm in trouble

1:05:03

in the battleground states in particular. And

1:05:06

I need to do something to,

1:05:08

to hold

1:05:11

onto every single corner of

1:05:13

my base, no matter how remote it may be.

1:05:16

And at the moment that he's being, you know,

1:05:18

he's being, he's, he's, he's been counseled,

1:05:20

I think to, uh,

1:05:23

to distance himself from Israel. However,

1:05:26

he can, because he's afraid

1:05:28

of elements of his base that are,

1:05:31

that are angry about Israel and, um,

1:05:33

and, um, and, you know, is there

1:05:35

a Muslim or don't

1:05:38

like American foreign policy and the rest of it? So

1:05:40

that's where he's come out. He's always

1:05:42

tended to be that way to look for the

1:05:44

center of the democratic party or the heart of

1:05:46

the democratic party and then go there. And,

1:05:49

but this is maybe not the heart of

1:05:51

the party. This is a friend, maybe a

1:05:53

growing one, but then there's everyone else when

1:05:56

his party and then within sort of the

1:05:58

moderate crowd, independent, certainly Republicans. he has

1:06:00

tried to appeal to in the past, what about

1:06:02

everyone else that he's alienating? Well,

1:06:04

I think that's precisely the calculation.

1:06:07

And wouldn't it be better for

1:06:09

him in the long run to

1:06:11

support Israel, to give it everything

1:06:13

it needs, and then to be

1:06:15

associated with a victory by Israel

1:06:17

over what has become

1:06:20

an absolutely notorious terrorist organization?

1:06:23

The United States is an ally you can really depend

1:06:25

on. Now that looks shaky. Oh,

1:06:28

shaky at best. And it

1:06:30

goes back to Afghanistan, a point that

1:06:32

you made a moment ago, and you're

1:06:34

talking about notorious terrorist organizations. Morgan Ortegis,

1:06:37

who is the former spokeswoman at the

1:06:39

State Department during Pompeo and the Trump

1:06:42

administration, she noted that a

1:06:44

UN report has now identified

1:06:46

up to eight new al-Qaeda training

1:06:48

camps in Afghanistan.

1:06:50

So this reconstituted terrorist threat

1:06:54

in the country that Biden abandoned

1:06:56

with no residual force. Here's al-Qaeda

1:06:58

cropping up again in that country.

1:07:01

Britt, we have seen this before,

1:07:03

and it ended very badly. Your

1:07:05

thoughts on that? Well,

1:07:07

I think that what you said is actually exactly

1:07:09

right. I mean, he just

1:07:11

sort of wantonly pulled the

1:07:13

plug on that Afghanistan endeavor because

1:07:16

it had gone a long time.

1:07:18

The popularity of it had faded,

1:07:21

and he was, and he wanted to do

1:07:23

that for a while. Somewhere along the way

1:07:25

during the conflict, he changed his tune, and

1:07:27

I think he did, when his party soured

1:07:29

on it. And there he was.

1:07:31

So he comes in and says

1:07:33

against the advice of his military advisors,

1:07:35

pull the plug and pull it

1:07:38

immediately. It was a gravely mistaken

1:07:40

decision. And the interesting thing about

1:07:42

it was it backfired politically. It

1:07:45

went off badly. It was badly

1:07:47

executed, and not because the armed

1:07:50

forces bungled it, but because

1:07:52

he bungled it. The decision was so bungled it

1:07:54

couldn't go well. It went badly.

1:07:57

People lost confidence in him, and

1:07:59

he's never regained it and he certainly

1:08:01

isn't going to regain it in my judgment

1:08:03

by pulling the plug on Israel. I'll

1:08:06

give him credit for continuing to

1:08:08

support Ukraine but I'm not sure how much

1:08:10

long he's going to be willing to do

1:08:13

that either. And it's just interesting because in

1:08:15

Afghanistan, in the decision that he made in

1:08:17

Afghanistan that alienated allies and shocked a lot

1:08:20

of allies, it surprised and

1:08:22

emboldened our enemies and

1:08:24

now here we are with another round

1:08:26

of a similar kind of thing and

1:08:28

it appears that no lessons have been

1:08:30

learned which is a theme with this

1:08:32

president and this administration. Britt Hume is

1:08:35

chief political analyst here at Fox News.

1:08:37

Britt, we always appreciate your time and

1:08:39

your insights and we look forward to

1:08:41

next time. Thanks guys, stay warm. I'll

1:08:44

try. The Guy Benson Show returns from

1:08:46

Alaska right after this. We're

1:09:04

back at The Guy Benson Show. Thanks so much for tuning

1:09:06

in. I want to bring you a couple updates on

1:09:09

the border crisis, something that we continue

1:09:11

to cover of course even when it's

1:09:13

not making top headlines with other things

1:09:15

in the news. Still going on day

1:09:17

in and day out. Here's

1:09:19

a development that was highlighted by

1:09:21

our colleague Griff Jenkins here at Fox

1:09:25

and he tweeted about an incident near

1:09:27

El Paso where

1:09:29

shots were fired from the

1:09:32

Mexican side of the border at

1:09:34

U.S. Border Patrol agents. That's

1:09:37

just in the El Paso area in

1:09:40

that sector. It happened yesterday afternoon. Fortunately,

1:09:43

according to Jenkins, no agents

1:09:45

were hurt. There's an

1:09:47

investigation underway. Border Patrol

1:09:49

calls the incident quote a use

1:09:52

of force incident and

1:09:54

sources telling Fox that Border

1:09:56

Patrol did in fact return fire. It

1:09:59

is the second such incident in

1:10:02

two weeks, according to

1:10:05

Griff's reporting. So

1:10:07

can we just take a step

1:10:09

back for a moment? Let's

1:10:11

set aside the numbers, which are

1:10:14

staggering, 10 million illegal

1:10:16

crossings on Biden's watch, close to 2 million

1:10:19

known Godaways. We go through it all the

1:10:21

time. You have

1:10:23

Mexican drug cartels that

1:10:26

are making bank, they are making

1:10:29

billions on their

1:10:32

trafficking operation. And

1:10:34

they are getting so brazen

1:10:36

and so empowered that not

1:10:38

only are they murdering people

1:10:40

constantly within Mexico, there's

1:10:42

that horrible story in Baja, California recently,

1:10:44

with some surfers found dead, and I

1:10:46

think it's very likely that we know

1:10:48

who's responsible. The cartels

1:10:52

are taking potshots. They are shooting at

1:10:55

US officials across the border.

1:10:59

And it's happened now twice in

1:11:02

the last two weeks. There's gunfire

1:11:04

being exchanged across the US Mexican

1:11:06

border between American officers

1:11:10

and drug cartels who

1:11:12

are shooting at them, who initiate these

1:11:15

exchanges. That

1:11:18

unto itself, have you heard about this? Is

1:11:21

that something that is leading any newscasts?

1:11:24

Is that a big headline in the

1:11:27

national press? It's not. I

1:11:30

barely see anyone talking about it. That

1:11:33

should be an enormous problem, a

1:11:35

huge international incident, something

1:11:38

that Americans rightly should be deeply

1:11:40

offended by. When

1:11:42

the lawlessness down at the southern

1:11:44

border, it's not just about national

1:11:47

sovereignty. It's not just about stopping

1:11:49

this crazy influx,

1:11:51

this invasion of millions of illegal

1:11:54

crossers. It's

1:11:56

also public safety and national security.

1:11:59

If you have the... drug cartels in

1:12:01

Mexico, feeling

1:12:04

like they have the freedom

1:12:07

or they're emboldened enough that

1:12:09

they can start shooting at our people

1:12:13

more than once. There's

1:12:15

something deeply wrong and off.

1:12:19

And you should have at the very

1:12:21

top American leadership saying this is unacceptable, get

1:12:23

your act together Mexico, we are going

1:12:25

to start coming down on your head hard.

1:12:28

There are criminal enterprises taking

1:12:31

shots at our people across

1:12:33

our border from your territory

1:12:35

but don't hold your

1:12:37

breath with this administration

1:12:40

or this president. Maybe

1:12:42

he can put out a statement to the drug

1:12:44

cartels, don't, don't.

1:12:48

We know how powerful that is. It's

1:12:51

just like this ongoing series

1:12:53

of disgraces and humiliations for

1:12:55

our country on almost every

1:12:57

level, across almost every front

1:13:01

under this president and his so-called leadership.

1:13:05

One more update as well, we told you about

1:13:07

that horrible story earlier in the week, an 11-year-old

1:13:09

girl in Florida who

1:13:12

was raped allegedly by an illegal

1:13:14

immigrant from Guatemala, a

1:13:17

newcomer as Biden might call them. He

1:13:19

arrived earlier this year and was

1:13:22

released into the country, made his way to

1:13:24

Florida and then allegedly kidnapped this girl into

1:13:26

a van and sexually assaulted her. And

1:13:29

he's now under arrest. Griff

1:13:32

Jenkins also making this point, this

1:13:35

illegal immigrant was apparently a single

1:13:38

adult male from Guatemala. And

1:13:40

Griff notes the U.S. has a

1:13:43

full repatriation agreement with that country.

1:13:46

So this would have been a very

1:13:48

easy, instant deportation, you would think, of

1:13:50

a man like this fitting this profile,

1:13:52

but nope, he was processed right in,

1:13:54

given a little card saying show

1:13:57

up in three years for trial or for

1:13:59

a court of... and then off you go

1:14:01

into the US. And then, according

1:14:03

to officials, he did what he did to

1:14:05

this young girl. So

1:14:08

even under available tools,

1:14:11

he could have, should have been immediately sent

1:14:13

back, and he wasn't. This

1:14:16

is the broken crisis for

1:14:19

which Joe Biden is responsible. Final

1:14:23

hour of The Guy Benson Show coming

1:14:25

up next. Bethany Mandel joins us when

1:14:27

we come back. It's

1:15:01

the happy hour on this Friday on The Guy

1:15:03

Benson Show coming to you from Alaska. For

1:15:06

these last three days, glad to be here, glad

1:15:08

to have you all along no matter where you're

1:15:10

listening. We appreciate it. If you

1:15:12

missed any of the program, we've got a podcast. It's

1:15:15

free. It's on demand. When the show is over in

1:15:17

just about an hour, guybensonshow.com,

1:15:19

foxnewspodcast.com, or wherever you

1:15:21

get your podcast. Plus,

1:15:24

never forget about bonus Benson on the

1:15:26

weekends. This hour is sponsored in part

1:15:29

by The Finnish Long Drink, which is so good, really

1:15:31

delicious, and it's always refreshing.

1:15:34

21 plus only, it's an alcoholic

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beverage. Please drink responsibly, thelongdrink.com. That's

1:15:38

their website. You can find out

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where they're sold near you. You

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can also order online, thelongdrink.com. Joining

1:15:47

us now is Bethany Mandel, co-author of

1:15:49

the bestselling book Stolen Youth with Carol

1:15:51

Markowitz. She's got her

1:15:53

sub-stack, Write Books for Kids.

1:15:56

She's the home schooling mother of six as

1:15:58

well. We might. get to that

1:16:00

topic a little bit in this conversation. Bethany,

1:16:03

great to have you here. Thanks

1:16:05

so much for having me, Guy. You might even

1:16:07

hear a child in the background. So, you know,

1:16:09

you never know. I

1:16:11

mean, there are six of them, so there's probably

1:16:13

a likelihood that one of them is going to

1:16:16

speak up at some point. So, got it. No

1:16:18

worries here. I want to talk to you first

1:16:21

on a policy level about the

1:16:23

Biden administration's decision this week to

1:16:25

withhold aid, military aid,

1:16:27

from the Israelis if the Israeli government

1:16:30

goes into Raffa to finish off Hamas.

1:16:33

I'm still processing this. I'm still sort

1:16:35

of flabbergasted that it's come

1:16:37

to this, but it has. I'm

1:16:39

just wondering how you're thinking about it now a

1:16:41

few days after the president announced it himself. So,

1:16:45

it's funny. So, I wrote a column

1:16:47

for the Telegraph immediately afterwards, and I

1:16:49

write best when I'm mad, and

1:16:51

I wrote that column in 45 minutes while

1:16:54

giving six children breakfast. It was a

1:16:56

very easy column to write, unfortunately, because

1:16:58

I was so angry. But

1:17:02

I thought that the most interesting part

1:17:04

of that, the Jewish insider was on

1:17:06

the Hill when the

1:17:08

news broke, and they tracked down Brad

1:17:10

Sherman, who's a Democrat out of California,

1:17:13

and they got his, like, initial gut reaction. And

1:17:16

what's interesting about the arms

1:17:18

that they cut off was

1:17:21

that they are strategically

1:17:23

guided munitions and munitions

1:17:25

kits, and so they make

1:17:27

the bombs that Israel is dropping more accurate.

1:17:30

And Brad Sherman, who's a Democrat out of

1:17:32

California, said, I'm going to

1:17:34

quote him here, how in the hell

1:17:37

do you criticize Israel for being imprecise in

1:17:39

its bombings and then refuse to deliver them

1:17:41

what they're willing to pay for in order

1:17:43

to make their bombs precise? I mean, my

1:17:45

God. That's

1:17:47

what he said to Jewish insider. And

1:17:50

it's like, yes, yes. It was so

1:17:52

inexplicable, because it was just like they

1:17:55

thought that they needed to lash out

1:17:57

somehow, but they didn't even think, like,

1:18:00

one step ahead. Like, what should we

1:18:02

cut off? Ah, yes. The

1:18:04

munitions that make them more accurate and won't

1:18:06

kill as many innocent people. Let's cut

1:18:08

those off. The argument

1:18:11

from them is it's about

1:18:13

humanitarianism and it's about civilians and

1:18:15

all of that. And

1:18:17

if you really cared about civilians, Bethany,

1:18:19

I know that you understand this, clearly

1:18:21

the president, the commander in chief does

1:18:23

not. If you care about civilians, number

1:18:25

one, making sure

1:18:28

that Israel has precision, guided munitions

1:18:30

should be at the top of

1:18:32

your list to try to

1:18:34

reduce collateral damage, the point that you just made,

1:18:36

and Brad Sherman also made correctly. And

1:18:39

also, you show no daylight between

1:18:42

the US government and the Israeli government

1:18:44

in order to strengthen the hand of

1:18:46

Israel as

1:18:48

they try to negotiate with

1:18:50

an implacable, genocidal, maniac enemy

1:18:53

at the negotiating table in terms of hostages and

1:18:56

anything that might approach a ceasefire, you

1:18:58

are tying Israel's hands behind their back

1:19:01

by publicly siding against them, really

1:19:03

giving aid and comfort to Hamas

1:19:06

and dramatically undercutting the Israeli

1:19:08

position and leverage while enhancing

1:19:10

it for Hamas. Everything about

1:19:12

this is the opposite of what

1:19:14

you would do if you actually care about civilians

1:19:17

and about Gazans. And

1:19:20

yet, they did it anyway because,

1:19:22

and I know it's a cynical take, but I believe it

1:19:24

is absolutely true, these decisions are not

1:19:26

being guided by anything rational in

1:19:28

terms of the interests of the

1:19:30

Israelis or the interests of the United States. It

1:19:32

is about the interests of a man's

1:19:34

reelection campaign. And I still think it's a

1:19:37

total misread of the situation, but they've convinced

1:19:39

themselves of it. And the whole thing is

1:19:41

about domestic politics to me, which is utterly

1:19:45

scandalous. It's

1:19:47

bad reading of domestic politics. This stuff

1:19:49

is not why he is underwater in

1:19:52

Michigan. It would be much easier if

1:19:54

that were the case for him, but it's not. Bethany,

1:19:57

they treat Michigan like the whole state

1:19:59

is Dearborn. I wonder what a bunch

1:20:01

of other Michiganders feel about this. All

1:20:03

the pandering to their state, they understand

1:20:05

the pandering is actually not to them,

1:20:07

it's to a very specific population in

1:20:09

the state. It's like, well, what about

1:20:11

everyone else, most of whom feel very

1:20:13

differently about this issue? Yep,

1:20:16

so I wanna rewind for one

1:20:18

second to something else you said in there

1:20:20

that didn't get enough play as well. The

1:20:23

hostages, in this interview

1:20:25

with CNN, he did

1:20:28

not once mention the hostages. There's

1:20:30

five presumed living American hostages in

1:20:32

Gaza currently, and there's unfortunately the

1:20:34

bodies of several others that Hamas

1:20:37

is holding hostage as well. And

1:20:39

the parents, and I know you sat with them when

1:20:41

you were on Fox and Friends, the

1:20:44

parents of Hersch Goldberg Poland, who we now thank

1:20:46

God Noah's alive, he's in his 20s, he's at

1:20:48

a party at Nova. His parents

1:20:50

hit Biden publicly for the first time.

1:20:53

They said, during your interview last night

1:20:55

on CNN with Aaron Burnett, you spent

1:20:57

time threatening to cut off military aid

1:21:00

to Israel, but you did not even

1:21:03

make a single mention of the hostages

1:21:05

kidnapped violently by Hamas, not even the American

1:21:07

one. Here are their names, and then they list

1:21:09

the names of these eight hostages that are being

1:21:11

held, five of whom are presumed alive. That

1:21:14

is horrifying, I know, to these

1:21:16

American families who

1:21:20

feel like they've been abandoned by their

1:21:23

own government. And what's so frustrating is

1:21:25

Biden in the Oval Office, he

1:21:28

was like two, three weeks ago,

1:21:30

he met with Abigail Idan, who

1:21:32

was a little girl who was

1:21:35

taken hostage with her neighbors after

1:21:37

she watched her parents killed in front of

1:21:39

her. And he, at that meeting, said, I

1:21:41

will not rest, we will not leave anyone behind.

1:21:43

But in this interview, that's what he

1:21:46

did. He left the remaining five living

1:21:48

hostages alive. Yeah, and he does a lot

1:21:50

of resting at the beach while all these

1:21:52

things are happening, just to throw that jab

1:21:54

in there, because he deserves it, frankly, because

1:21:56

he makes these pronouncements about how strong he

1:21:58

is and how principled. and how

1:22:01

clear-eyed he is, and then just

1:22:03

breaks the promises constantly, seemingly with

1:22:05

no consequence or fearing no consequence,

1:22:07

imagine the frustration of

1:22:10

those families. I'm so glad you brought this

1:22:12

up because I met them, I spoke

1:22:14

with them on the air, I spoke with them off the

1:22:17

air, I hugged Hirsch's mother. They've

1:22:19

been living a nightmare for months,

1:22:21

for seven months. And

1:22:24

here they see the President of the

1:22:26

United States go on national television to

1:22:29

threaten the Jewish state to cut

1:22:31

them off from military aid when it

1:22:33

comes to defeating Hamas, the people who

1:22:35

stole their son. And

1:22:38

in the context, in the process

1:22:40

of really helping Hamas's hand

1:22:42

get strengthened in this whole

1:22:45

geopolitical scenario, he

1:22:47

couldn't even be bothered to name check

1:22:50

or even make reference to

1:22:52

the hostages who are still there, including,

1:22:54

as you rightly note, American hostages, their

1:22:57

son being one of them. The President

1:22:59

of the United States is

1:23:02

effectively carrying water for the

1:23:04

terrorist organization holding their son,

1:23:06

their American son, and the

1:23:08

President cannot be bothered to

1:23:10

even bring

1:23:13

that up, even in passing. He's

1:23:16

never once said Hirsch Goldberg Poland. Not once has

1:23:18

he uttered his name. I

1:23:20

mean, that's just, it's just appalling. And this is supposed

1:23:22

to be the President who

1:23:25

is Mr. Empathy. President Empathy

1:23:27

is actually really bad at

1:23:30

Empathy. So that's like

1:23:32

one of his superpowers that the media

1:23:34

would swoon over. I think the superpower,

1:23:37

if it existed at some point,

1:23:39

has deteriorated dramatically, whether with age

1:23:41

or with political concern or given

1:23:43

the coalition politics that he's contending

1:23:45

with. It's at

1:23:48

the very least very selective when

1:23:50

that Empathy comes to the fore. And I

1:23:52

guess there are certain people who don't really

1:23:55

get it or deserve it or it's too

1:23:57

uncomfortable to bestow it upon them, including this

1:23:59

American. couple who are heart sick

1:24:01

hoping to be reunited at some point

1:24:04

with their American son being held by

1:24:06

these savages and the president just sort

1:24:08

of glides right past it because he's

1:24:10

too busy lecturing and

1:24:12

scolding the Israelis. Bethany Mandel, standby. When we

1:24:14

come back I want to talk to you

1:24:16

about anti-Semitism swirling

1:24:18

around an international singing

1:24:21

competition. This is a

1:24:23

sick story. We'll get to that next. A

1:24:26

fresh perspective on the topics of

1:24:28

the day. It's Guy Benson.

1:24:36

We are back. It's the Guy Benson show.

1:24:38

Bethany Mandel, I do want to ask you,

1:24:40

I am not really someone who pays much

1:24:42

attention to this Eurovision situation.

1:24:45

I think it's like a singing contest

1:24:47

over in Europe. Israel's also included, has

1:24:49

been for years. And

1:24:51

I think Abba came out of it. There's maybe one

1:24:53

or two other famous people. I don't know. I

1:24:56

post about it once a year on social media and

1:24:58

I just sort of ignore it. This

1:25:00

year, I did see this, it's just

1:25:02

yesterday in fact, a tweet from

1:25:05

Congressman Richie Torres, a Democrat from New York

1:25:07

who's really good on these issues. And

1:25:09

he highlighted the fact that a gay bar

1:25:12

in New York City canceled

1:25:14

a viewing party of

1:25:17

Eurovision because Eurovision features

1:25:19

an Israeli contestant. And

1:25:23

this individual, this woman who's singing on behalf of

1:25:25

Israel in the contest, there

1:25:27

are thousands of Islamists

1:25:29

in the streets in Sweden

1:25:33

trying to call for a boycott of her

1:25:36

and protesting her participation in

1:25:38

a song contest. You

1:25:41

see these mobs out there waving

1:25:43

the Palestinian flag and chanting all

1:25:46

sorts of horrible things because they

1:25:48

don't want a Jewish Israeli to

1:25:50

be allowed to sing in the

1:25:52

contest. It's just textbook anti-Semitism. And

1:25:54

then here in New York City, this is

1:25:56

a bar, shame on them, Called $3

1:25:58

Bill. The. Gets in

1:26:00

Brooklyn. And. They posted on

1:26:03

social media a big apology. Because.

1:26:05

They were going to host a viewing

1:26:07

party of Eurovision and this is what

1:26:09

they wrote: Dear friends, we hear you

1:26:12

were listening to what you're saying and

1:26:14

recognize that hosting the Eurovision event does

1:26:16

not aligned with our values here. We

1:26:19

understand the concerns raised by

1:26:21

our community regarding the need

1:26:23

for boycotts. We apologize sincerely

1:26:26

to any one we've let

1:26:28

down and will strive to

1:26:30

do better for our community

1:26:32

Moving forward: Hashtag Never again

1:26:34

for any One which is

1:26:36

a Holocaust reference which is

1:26:38

an absolutely hideous thing to

1:26:40

post prostrating themselves before this

1:26:42

angry group of so called

1:26:44

progressives. Who. Were putting pressure

1:26:46

on a business not to have

1:26:49

a viewing party other singing competition

1:26:51

because a jew from Israel was

1:26:53

one of the people involved in

1:26:55

it. And they think they're the

1:26:58

good guys. They think they're doing

1:27:00

this for progress. The mobs outside

1:27:02

the hotel of this woman in.

1:27:05

Sweden. And the mob

1:27:07

bullying successfully this business in Brooklyn

1:27:10

and then the. Business.

1:27:12

Capitulating to them. bethany. There is

1:27:14

a direct line between these groups

1:27:16

of people. And. It's a

1:27:18

very dark one. So

1:27:21

what's interesting also is. Her

1:27:23

song was about how her friends died

1:27:26

on October Seven. That's what they're protecting.

1:27:28

A song from a Jewish woman about

1:27:30

how her friends are massacred who on

1:27:32

seven months ago. And what's disturbing

1:27:35

someone to put me off on that

1:27:37

that that gay bar in Brooklyn that

1:27:39

cancel the viewing party they had on.

1:27:41

they had a drag show where an

1:27:43

eleven year old was dancing and throwing

1:27:45

money at the eleven year old and

1:27:48

that find that that passes muster. That

1:27:50

totally acceptable end and the paradigm of

1:27:52

like, what the center of and what

1:27:54

what's. Disturbing but god

1:27:57

forbid you host a viewing part

1:27:59

party in which one ever that

1:28:01

contestants is a jail that that

1:28:03

fact that that it be level

1:28:05

of a. Morality. That that we're

1:28:08

dealing with in our society here. That. Would

1:28:10

you singing about her dead friends

1:28:12

is is a line that you

1:28:14

cannot cross But an eleven year

1:28:17

old be having money thrown at

1:28:19

them in a in a sexual

1:28:21

van? Same scenario that is. Not.

1:28:23

Just something that is acceptable that something that

1:28:25

is celebrated. Oh and you address in just

1:28:28

we will kill your i'm. If

1:28:30

you were to have a little

1:28:32

youth drag show. In. Gaza.

1:28:36

You would be beheaded. Yes,

1:28:38

That you would be thrown off a building

1:28:40

immediately. Get that is, I think

1:28:42

it's a you drag show for god's

1:28:45

sake. Just go and just someone any

1:28:47

happens to be gay. yes. Yes,

1:28:49

But I saying especially me, you

1:28:51

wouldn't last two seconds, know them

1:28:53

and then that's the same establishment.

1:28:55

In solidarity with the Hamas

1:28:58

crowd. Saying. That you're basically

1:29:00

Israel. The implication there is Israel's

1:29:02

committing a Holocaust and so we

1:29:04

have to boycott anything that involves

1:29:06

an Israeli Jew, even an international

1:29:08

singing competition. You can even put

1:29:10

it on the screen at your

1:29:13

bar or else you're. Violating

1:29:15

whatever these totally insane a

1:29:17

moral immoral rules are. And

1:29:20

the thing again that just.

1:29:23

Sticks. In my head. Is.

1:29:25

You have these. Like

1:29:27

theocratic thugs. Islam

1:29:30

is who are. Like

1:29:32

out in the streets. The. Security

1:29:34

team for this singer has her holed up

1:29:36

in her hotel room. Because. Of

1:29:38

the security threat. To. The snarling

1:29:41

angry mob outside. And

1:29:43

I mean they want to boycott. I mean I guarantee you

1:29:45

there are people in their if they had their way, they

1:29:47

would killer. And. Then. In

1:29:50

Brooklyn, New York. Usa.

1:29:54

You. Have progressive gays.

1:29:57

Saying. that oh the progressive

1:29:59

thing just to boycott this.

1:30:01

They really think they're on the

1:30:03

right side. I can't even

1:30:05

fathom that. It's actually evil. It's very

1:30:07

disturbing. Dark Times is right. On

1:30:10

a happier note, Bethany, this weekend

1:30:12

is Mother's Day weekend. Sunday is Mother's

1:30:14

Day. You have a piece up today

1:30:16

at foxnews.com about motherhood and talking about

1:30:19

one fear that might be preventing a

1:30:21

lot of women from having children or

1:30:23

a hesitancy. I just want

1:30:26

to let you address that a little bit here in the time

1:30:28

that we have left. Yeah, absolutely.

1:30:30

I had a friend inspire

1:30:33

this piece. She said to me that

1:30:37

she had an aunt. She decided not to have

1:30:39

kids because her childhood was so traumatic.

1:30:41

She felt like she couldn't have kids

1:30:43

because she didn't have a

1:30:45

framework with which to walk into

1:30:48

motherhood because her

1:30:50

childhood was so bad. She told

1:30:52

her aunt, well, that's why I became a mom,

1:30:54

because my childhood was so bad. I

1:30:57

wanted a do-over, but more healthy.

1:30:59

That sort of inspired me because

1:31:01

that is a lot of, not

1:31:04

what led me to become a mother, but it's definitely been one of

1:31:06

the side benefits of motherhood

1:31:08

that I did not anticipate. I didn't really think about

1:31:10

it because I was 27 when I had kids.

1:31:12

I wasn't that inquisitive, I don't

1:31:14

think. I have watched my

1:31:17

kids have these beautiful

1:31:22

healthy relationships with their amazing dad.

1:31:24

I'm like, oh, at your age,

1:31:26

I wasn't even talking to my

1:31:29

dad. Watching my kids' beautiful relationship

1:31:31

with their father and more healthy

1:31:33

relationship with me has

1:31:36

been really, really therapeutic. I've heard from

1:31:38

so many people who call themselves child

1:31:40

free by choice, I don't want

1:31:42

to bring a child into this world because I had

1:31:45

such a bad childhood. I wanted to give

1:31:47

them the perspective of that might be a

1:31:50

reason to have children.

1:31:53

Having kids is really fun because you can go to

1:31:55

Disney and not be a Disney adult, you can

1:31:57

actually go to Disney and not be a weirdo.

1:32:00

And you can do other funding that kid. But

1:32:03

also it's it's a very healing thing as long

1:32:05

as you don't. Sort of like put your own

1:32:07

bags on that. That's always my copy out like

1:32:10

dumped at your baggage I target. And

1:32:12

you now have six of them and it

1:32:14

sounds like you are very happy and fulfilled

1:32:17

as a family which is so cool, especially

1:32:19

given some of that. Background.

1:32:21

Your baggage as you called it in

1:32:23

your own life. So it's just one

1:32:25

perspective. But sometimes one perspective is what

1:32:27

someone needs to hear some glad that

1:32:29

you put yourself out there that way.

1:32:31

The column is up at Fox news.com

1:32:33

today and in advance for Sunday. We

1:32:35

will say to you Bethany into all

1:32:37

the Moms out there including my own

1:32:39

in is listening audience Happy Mother's Day

1:32:41

Blessings to you And thank you Bethany

1:32:43

so much for joining! Thank you so

1:32:45

much! I enjoy Alaska Day diversity mans

1:32:47

else on the Guy Benson show Happy

1:32:49

Hour We will. Be right that. A

1:32:57

fresh perspective on those topics of the

1:32:59

day. He's Guy Benson Us. Sen. Rick

1:33:01

Scott of Florida is up for reelection

1:33:03

this year, and he joined us earlier

1:33:05

on the program is part of our

1:33:07

conversation. Joe Biden Bad it's it's worse

1:33:09

than I think a lot of people

1:33:11

expected. And this is and in my

1:33:14

view I wrote about a Town Hall

1:33:16

the they a new low. I just

1:33:18

want to turn to a very separate

1:33:20

topic which is this a Trump Trial

1:33:22

up in New York City? I know

1:33:24

that you went and you visited and.

1:33:26

You went to show your solidarity

1:33:28

in New York. I talk about

1:33:30

that decision and how your viewing

1:33:32

those proceedings in the Big Apple.

1:33:35

Or for of I've known person trump or from.

1:33:38

Cotton way before I was governor. Or

1:33:40

he's a friend and it's despicable.

1:33:43

This is a to says eight.

1:33:46

a that could go tax use her

1:33:48

courtroom could go tax is criminal hi

1:33:50

this is criminal behavior by and ethical

1:33:52

political fucks now i went through this

1:33:55

i built a large hospital company i

1:33:57

thought hillary care about that eyes and

1:33:59

what she do, she weaponized the Justice Department

1:34:01

then, and they went after me and my company.

1:34:03

So I've watched this. I've watched other companies that

1:34:05

if you don't go along with what the federal

1:34:08

government wants, under, you know, whether it's Clinton or

1:34:10

Obama or Biden, they're going to go after you.

1:34:13

So here's what I appreciate. President

1:34:15

Trump, he's standing up. He's fighting back. But

1:34:18

think about this. If he does not

1:34:20

win, just remember, if they can go

1:34:22

after the next president, they can go right

1:34:24

after you. And here's how partisan

1:34:26

it is. The number

1:34:28

three guy at the Biden Justice Department

1:34:30

quits that job. That's a hell of

1:34:33

a job, right? He quits that job

1:34:35

to go work for a state attorney.

1:34:38

That doesn't make sense. Oh, he did it

1:34:40

to go be the lead prosecutor to try

1:34:43

to put Trump in jail. His wife's a

1:34:45

donor. The judge is a donor.

1:34:47

Okay. The judge's

1:34:49

daughter, she's one of the, she's a big

1:34:52

fundraiser for the Democrats. Everybody

1:34:54

involved on this is a Democrat,

1:34:57

except for Trump. And so they're trying

1:34:59

to gag this guy so he can't

1:35:01

go beat Biden because Biden can't win

1:35:03

based on what he's done, open border

1:35:05

inflation, creating wars all over the world.

1:35:07

So what they want to do, put

1:35:09

his opponent in prison so

1:35:12

he can't campaign and try to make

1:35:14

sure he doesn't win. So this is,

1:35:17

I'm going to, I'm going to bust my butt

1:35:19

to do everything I can to help President Trump

1:35:21

here, because what they're doing to him, they can

1:35:23

do to you and me and anybody else.

1:35:26

If they do this, what kind of a country do we have?

1:35:30

Senator, your opponent in your race in

1:35:32

Florida is critical, is being critical of

1:35:34

you for going to

1:35:36

New York. And she pointed out,

1:35:39

well, in order to go and

1:35:41

do what she's basically calling a stunt with Donald

1:35:43

Trump in New York City, you missed a vote

1:35:45

in the U.S. Senate. So you weren't there doing

1:35:47

your job. What's your response to that critique from

1:35:49

your opponent? I did my job.

1:35:51

We voted on the FAA reauthorization. I was there

1:35:54

and I voted for it yesterday. So she is,

1:35:56

she's like everything else. She just puts out a

1:35:58

whole bunch of lies. So,

1:36:01

I was there, I voted for the

1:36:03

FAA reauthorization bill, it

1:36:05

passed, it still has to go back

1:36:07

to the House, but it will

1:36:09

get done next week. But my opponent doesn't worry

1:36:11

about the truth. She'll just put out

1:36:14

a whole bunch of lies each and every day. I've

1:36:16

seen some polling that suggests that you are leading

1:36:18

her pretty dramatically. I've seen one or two polls

1:36:21

where you're up by double digits. Who knows what

1:36:23

the final margin might be? I know that you're

1:36:25

going to fight like you're behind, that's how you

1:36:27

always run races. But is it

1:36:29

at all disorienting, Senator, to see yourself leading

1:36:32

by a large margin in at least some

1:36:34

of the polls, given the elections that you've

1:36:36

had forever, right? When you were governor, the

1:36:38

first time you were in law was in

1:36:41

2018 in the Senate, where you were elected

1:36:43

by 0.2%. You

1:36:45

always have these 1% or less

1:36:47

margins, it seems. Now

1:36:51

Florida appears to be kind

1:36:53

of a different place. How are you feeling about

1:36:55

the race, and what are you

1:36:57

seeing in terms of that shift, that evolution

1:36:59

in the state of Florida politically? What

1:37:02

I did is I actually ran against all incumbents,

1:37:05

basically. I ran against in the primary, the

1:37:07

Republican that was the Senate Attorney General, and then

1:37:09

in the general back in 2010, the

1:37:12

Democrat that was the CFO, and then in 2014, the

1:37:14

prior governor who was a Republican, then an independent, then

1:37:16

a Democrat, and then I had to run against Bill

1:37:18

Nelson, who had never lost a race in 43 years.

1:37:21

So I've run against all these incumbents. And

1:37:24

I think now in Florida, people know what a bust

1:37:27

of my butt, and they know I'm a kid that

1:37:29

grew up in public housing, and I'm fighting for people

1:37:31

like that each and every day. My

1:37:33

full interview with Rick Scott, Republican

1:37:35

Senator of Florida up this cycle,

1:37:37

available online at guybensonshow.com, also part

1:37:39

of that free podcast, every day

1:37:41

on demand, no charge, guybensonshow.com,

1:37:44

of course, or foxnewspodcast.com, or

1:37:46

wherever you get your podcasts.

1:37:48

When we come back, the

1:37:50

home stretch, a debate about

1:37:52

airplane etiquette, some strong feelings

1:37:54

on this one. That's next.

1:37:56

In the swamp, not of the

1:37:58

swamp. Guy Benson.

1:38:09

Homestretch on this Friday on the

1:38:11

Guy Benson Show. Thanks so much

1:38:13

for tuning in. guybensonshow.com. Podcast is

1:38:15

always free and on demand plus

1:38:18

bonus Benson on the weekend.

1:38:20

It's been really special spending

1:38:22

three days here in Alaska, three

1:38:24

cities, three events with

1:38:27

Americans for Prosperity. And

1:38:29

we're doing this Bidenomics tour throughout

1:38:31

the state. And I'm

1:38:34

still blown away. We talked about

1:38:36

this, that Americans for Prosperity scooped

1:38:38

up bidenomics.com. So when you go

1:38:40

to that website, you actually learn the truth about

1:38:42

Bidenomics rather than the spin from the White House

1:38:45

of the campaign, which is such a good troll

1:38:47

by them, such a fail by

1:38:49

the Biden operation. And given how

1:38:51

the Biden operation handles big failures,

1:38:53

I assume whoever made that mistake

1:38:55

got promoted and got a

1:38:57

raise. In any case, you can

1:38:59

check out the website americansforprosperity.org. Very

1:39:01

pleased to partner with them and

1:39:04

have this opportunity to meet so

1:39:06

many Alaskans here over the last

1:39:08

couple days flying back to the

1:39:10

East Coast actually very late tonight.

1:39:13

These are like midnight flights, red

1:39:15

eyes, which are brutal, but

1:39:18

I'll manage. I fly a lot, which brings us

1:39:21

to our two topics here for today's home stretch,

1:39:23

one of which I just have to admit I

1:39:25

laughed out loud. I've not seen this before. Social

1:39:28

media users posting images and

1:39:30

even video of a

1:39:32

woman on a Southwest Airlines flight who apparently

1:39:34

was a little bit tired, needed

1:39:37

a nap, wanted to

1:39:39

stretch out and lie down.

1:39:41

So she climbed into an

1:39:43

overhead bin and

1:39:45

napped up there with

1:39:48

the bin door open. I'm

1:39:51

sort of surprised that she wasn't immediately asked

1:39:53

to get out and sit in

1:39:55

her seat with her seat belt fastened by the flight

1:39:57

attendants. Maybe they got to her pretty quickly, but not

1:39:59

before... four people were like documenting this.

1:40:03

How did she get up there? Did someone

1:40:05

help her get up there? That's not an easy

1:40:07

climb, I would imagine. It's

1:40:10

kind of ingenious. You've

1:40:12

got some space, it's like a little sleeping pod.

1:40:14

It's very strange though. Whenever

1:40:16

I look at this photo, I

1:40:19

have to chuckle. It would never occur to

1:40:21

me to do this. I'm sure it violates

1:40:23

all sorts of FAA guidelines, but maybe

1:40:26

she got a little rest up there? I don't know. Plus

1:40:28

Southwest Airlines has a very weird

1:40:30

seat-yourself type chaos situation.

1:40:32

It's just like the Wild West on

1:40:34

those flights. So who knows? Maybe

1:40:37

she paid a little extra and is allowed to sleep with me

1:40:39

overhead bin. I don't know. Meanwhile,

1:40:42

there's a story that is causing

1:40:44

controversy. It's about a family that apparently had

1:40:46

a big angry dispute potentially

1:40:49

ruining a family vacation

1:40:51

because of an upgrade, an

1:40:55

airline upgrade. Christine, what happened here?

1:40:58

So this woman took to

1:41:00

Reddit to ask the

1:41:02

question is she in the wrong? And

1:41:04

the story goes that her father

1:41:06

had retired and the mother

1:41:09

and father said, I'm gonna take the whole

1:41:11

family. She had four other siblings to

1:41:14

Hawaii and the siblings brought

1:41:16

their children. It was supposed to be a beautiful

1:41:18

vacation. Now her and her one

1:41:20

brother who was six foot six, she's five

1:41:22

one, were flying together from the same airport

1:41:24

and they had about a 12 hour flight

1:41:26

ahead of them. When they got on

1:41:29

the plane, they were both seated in coach,

1:41:32

but the flight attendant came up to

1:41:35

her and said because she's a

1:41:37

frequent of this airline, even though her

1:41:39

father had paid for these tickets, she

1:41:41

got upgraded to first class and

1:41:43

they actually needed her seat in coach. So she said

1:41:46

great and she looked at her brother and she's like

1:41:48

see you in 12 hours and she went on her

1:41:50

way and she said she had a wonderful flight. She

1:41:53

gets off the plane in Hawaii, they get their

1:41:55

bags, they get into the car and she realizes

1:41:57

her brother's not speaking to her and what happens

1:42:00

is he's so annoyed that she did

1:42:02

not offer the upgrade to

1:42:04

him since he's a bigger person. She

1:42:07

thought that was going to be the end of it.

1:42:09

She gets to the hotel, sees the whole family, she