Will Cain Country - Chris Distefano On History and Comedy! Plus, The Media Tries to Divide Elon Musk & President Trump

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Story #1: President Donald Trump & Elon Musk set a vision to save America together from the White House that sends some into a panic. Will this be the most consequential administration in a century? Story #2: Comedian Chris Distefano comes out swinging and roasts Will, Young Establishment James, and Two-A-Dayz. Plus, he and Will dive deep on history, politics, and the world of comedy, and also preview his upcoming special. Story #3: $550 million dollars could potentially be saved in waste from the VA, all the while better helping our veterans get the care they need. A conversation with the founder of ClinConnect Robert Maxwell and Barstool's 'Cons.' Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail] Subscribe to The Will Cain Show on YouTube here: Watch The Will Cain Show! Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One sitting together in Washington, D.C. from the White House. President Donald Trump and the world's richest man, Elon Musk, set a vision to save America. That sends some into panic. For others, it has us wondering, is this not the most consequential moment of our lifetime and perhaps to the most consequential presidency in a century. Two, comedian Chris DiStefano has one of the members of the Will Cane show absolutely verclimt, losing their cool. He's going to join us to talk about his new special and history.

Three, $550 million potentially could be saved out of $900 million of research and development at the VA. It's not always about waste. as we'd all expect. How about a little bloat? How about a little inefficiency? How about setting us back on the right track of the United States government? subscribe on Apple or Spotify and let us fit your schedule. If you can join us every Monday through Thursday at 12 o'clock Eastern Time, we're right here at Fox News.com, Fox News, YouTube, and Fox News Facebook. Hit subscribe, and you'll always set a reminder that we're available for you, live at 12 o'clock, and you can jump into the comments section and become a member of the Willisio. I got some executives at Fox Boys saying, hey, when do we get a little merch? When do we get

Wallitia merch. And I said, look, everybody says, as soon as they pay for it. Be patient. Be patient. Grow into it, Will. So at some point, even though some of those execs want to become a member of the Wallitia, we're going to just grow in. Welcome to Merge. We're growing quickly. Tit for tat here. Yeah. Get a summer. We're growing quickly. A million yesterday on Facebook for our interview with former Sinolaa cartel member, Margarito J. Flores, what ended up being an hour and 45-minute episode because it took at least an hour

of my, over an hour of my curiosity to dive into every element of the Mexican drug cartel, certainly proved to be one of the most popular things on Fox News social. A million of you joined us yesterday on Facebook. We appreciate that, and we hope you're with us every day. Speaking of big numbers, you doing okay two days? You fan-boying about today's episode? Yeah, Chris is over here. I'm just such a big fan, man. I'm usually not nervous. We almost forgot to get the show up and running.

I'm usually not nervous about meeting people, but, you know, he's funny. His type of humor is my type of humor, so I've been listening to him a long time. How would you describe that type of humor? His type of humor is yours. Explain that to someone who's never heard you or him. A little dark, little blue, little, you know, just like quick-witted type of off-the-cuff humor. But, you know, a little kind of like nothing's off limits a little bit. you know how you're talking like how guys group chats can be i guess you can say

oh there we go yeah i like it yeah i like a little locker room talk exactly guys group chat yeah um so we got chris de stephano and two of days listens to every single episode of his podcast with yannis poppice called history hyenas so he's going to join us we're going to talk about history i want to dive into some of the stuff they've talked about on their recent episodes but also he's got a brand new special coming out it's just unfortunate is the type of and it will be up on Hulu. We also have a bit of investigative journalism and the final segment of our show today. Is there $550 million of waste and a $900 million R&D budget at the VA? Could Doge be invited into the VA? So let's get to everything. We've got a busy day.

Let's get started. Story number one. Donald Trump and Elon Musk sat down last night with the Fox News channels Sean Hannity in a remarkable interview where they talked about Doge and they talked about their relationship and they talked about the response to their relationship. They even addressed the hysteria over who is actually president of the United States. Listen to Donald Trump and Elon Musk with Sean Hannity. They want you two to start, they want a divorce. They want you two to start hating each other and they try, oh, President Elon Musk, for

example. You do know that they're doing that to you. Oh, I see it all the time. They tried it. Then they stopped. That wasn't it. They have many different things of hatred. Actually, Elon called me. He said, you know, they're trying to drive us apart. I said, absolutely. No, they said, we have breaking news. Donald Trump has ceded control of the presidency to Elon Musk. President Musk will be attending a cabinet meeting tonight at 8 o'clock. And I say, it's just so obvious. But you know what I have learned, Elon? The people are smart. They get it. Yeah, they do. They get it. They really see what's happening. Yes. And as an illustration of that attempt to drive you towards some conspiracy over who is actually

president of the United States and break this relationship up between Trump and Musk, I give you the cover of Time magazine. Cover of Time magazine shows the Resolute desk behind a red background who actually is the president is asked by Time magazine. and Elon Musk is sitting there behind the resolute desk. I'll tell you my biggest takeaway from this interview. It's less of what was said and more of the way these two men behaved, Musk and Trump. Trump in this interview, and I think Trump at this point in his life, in his presidency,

is very comfortable in his skin. he is confident and with that you can see in a heightened level of confidence in his relationship with Elon Musk he smiles easily and I'm not talking about that smile from the chin up I'm not talking about the closed mouth high wide smile I'm talking about teeth think about that for just a moment how often do you see Donald Trump's teeth how often do you hear Donald Trump laugh. And that's exactly what you saw in this relationship with Elon Musk. It's remarkable for two of the world's most powerful men to have such mutual respect, I think presents us with an absolutely rare moment in history and one that can represent formative change. We've talked to you and I about that I think

this is far beyond a left-right spectrum, that this is far beyond Republican Democrat. We're looking at a pragmatic presidency that disturbs the prior balances of power, the ideological spectrum you've been taught for half a century, that disturbs left and right. I'm going to give you the latest example. Donald Trump just posted this on truth social. He just posted this. It's a long post, but I think it's notable so we should read it together. He says, quote, think of it. A modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelensky, talked the United States into spending $350 billion to go into war that couldn't be won, that never had to start, but a war that he, without the U.S. and Trump, will never be able to settle.

The United States has spent $200 billion more than Europe, and Europe's money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back. Why didn't Sleepy Joe demand equalization, and that this war is far more important to Europe than it is to us? We have a big, beautiful ocean, a separation. On top of this, Zelensky admits that half of the money we sent to him is missing. He refuses to have elections, is very low in Ukrainian polls. And the only thing he was good at was playing Biden like a fiddle. A dictator without election, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a country left.

In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the war with Russia. Something I'll admit only Trump and the Trump administration can do. never tried. Europe has failed to bring peace. And Zelensky probably wants to keep the gravy train going. I love Ukraine, but Zelensky has done a terrible job. His country is shattered, and millions

have unnecessarily died. And so it continues. Almost a letter to, in his words, a modestly successful comedian in Volodymyr Zelensky. The response from the right? Apoplect.

Noah Rothman, who's debated me here on the Will Cain show, we post it and simply says, this is bananas. David French of the New York Times says, it's not just that Trump has a flawed strategic vision, it's also that he's full of malice and spite towards Ukraine. So he'll lie and lie and lie. This is Russian propaganda stream. Britt Hume said this is music to Putin's ears. In that clip with Elon Musk and Donald Trump, one thing you heard him say is the American people are smart, that he thinks they get it. I ask you, everyone listening, everyone in the comments section, I just ask you this, do you feel like the way that the Ukrainian-Russian war has been told, the story told to you, the explanations, the imploring demands, and the money spent are completely capable of earning your trust has it earned your trust i'm not asking you to step back and say

whether or not russia is an aggressor i'm not asking you to step back and say whether or not russia should have to give up ground that it's gained through this war i'm not asking about the ukraine and nato i'm asking you about whether the people that have conducted these conversations over the past half century and the way they've conducted these conversations with us when it comes to war have earned your trust or perhaps blowing up this dynamic, the left, right, conservative, progressive, ideological spectrum that we've used to approach foreign policy for a half a century has earned your trust. Do you believe that this is Russian propaganda?

Or do you think this is a unique moment in history where we can start? strive beyond, simple explanations, mindless head nods, and money and blood for war. I think it's a moment in history, and I think it's remarkable. I think it has the potential to be the most consequential presidency in a century. And I do find it fascinating that for many on the left, they've taken this moment, not to debate about the Ukraine-Russia war, but so much as defend government waste and fraud. Doge and Elon Musk have become the enemy.

It's so mind-boggling to me that I asked Dan, Two Days Dan, who's always in touch with the Brooklyn brunch crew, to explain to me, like, what is it about this moment where they see it and they see Hitler? Two a days? Yeah, I think they just can't see through the dislike for him even when things he does things they they do like like with ukraine with ivf and things like that they just have a hard time seeing through what it is and and can't really look at

it from an outside perspective and i try to say things you know here and there they're like oh you know blah blah blah blah you're you're on the other side and i'm like no i'm not i'm just there are things you have to look at beyond just your dislike for this one person or two people now Do you think you said they believe, for example, when it comes to Doge that Donald Trump is counteracting checks and balances and usurping the constitutionally granted power for him? So they see this as the now viral phrase, a constitutional crisis. Yeah, they do. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. They're afraid of that kind of turning into other things. It's a slippery slope, as they say. They do understand Doge's literally federal employees, right? Do they understand that Doge is federal employees? Yeah. So Doge taking these actions is no different than the Treasury or the IRS having access to your information. Doing it within the executive branch is no constitutional crisis.

It was proposed and done to a limited extent under Barack Obama. And outside the boundaries of the United States, it was done successfully in Argentina to slash that government, and by the way, then reduce inflation in Argentina. But I do think there's a reactionary element of this. It's like if Trump and now Elon are on one side of something, we have to be on the other. And if we are on the other, that means we're in the box. We've been backed into the corner of now defending government waste, fraud, and abuse. And it's the oddest position to ever see someone plant their flag.

It's the oddest place to ever say, this is where we draw the line. We will draw it. At DEI plays in Ireland. And I know that's not really their only thing they might be defending. They're defending much more. but do you does anyone really not look at the government and go huh i wonder if it's totally efficient i wonder if it's spending all of our tax dollars the right way and then they're in the media bubble they're in an inaccurate media bubble media bubble where cnn for example is telling

them this on a day-in day out basis that you are in this moment of authoritarianism yesterday on the will cane show on the fox news channel i had sean duffy secretary of transportation who told us there have been fewer plane crashes under donald trump's first whatever we're in 30 days of presidency than under the first 30 days of a presidency of joe biden that was clipped by the nefarious figures on the left and run out to suggest you got a reality television show secretary of transportation and a propagandist in will kane who will tell you lies but it's the truth it's literal facts from the NTSB. Literal facts.

55 under Biden, 34 under Trump. 10 fatal crashes under Biden. I think it's six under Trump. The numbers are objectively and factually less. And I don't understand by the information bubble

how we can't penetrate. By the way, who was in the control room yesterday for the Wilcane show? Two days? I wasn't down there yesterday. I was doing some other things. Oh, you missed a doozy Yeah Was that off script?

Tough call Just get ahead and say that There was a version of There was a version You guys have only seen it on a handful of occasions But a version of will That is not Probably the most pleasant to deal with

And I think that you guys I don't know you're talking about Yeah Now I've seen this guy I've seen this guy before Yeah I'm not on many occasions Withdrawing.

The nicotine is flowing, so there's no withdrawals that drove it. It's the withdrawal from President Trump. Withdrawing from President Trump was a decision that was made. I think it's fair to say I did not agree with that decision. Mistakes are made. We're a new show. I think we, you know, I said it yesterday on the show. We've stepped away from the Trump press conference after, I believe, 20, 25 minutes.

we put it together a good show every day i'm proud of the show we're putting together and it's difficult we had a 13 minute interview with kevin costner we had the secretary of transportation booked and at some point you have to make you know i don't know calculations do we go with the unpredictable element of don't trump when does he start and when does he end and do we go back to regular programming i think that you go with don't rump i think he's making news and i think that's my opinion going forward yesterday we stepped away we live and we learn we don't always get it right but that's what we did yesterday. So you would have seen a different version of me,

and these guys have become... They're not familiar, because it doesn't poke its head out that often, but it wouldn't have been completely strange. You guys should have called into the control room and said, it's going to be all right. Give them about four hours. Yeah, just wait it out. I've worked for you for three years.

I've only seen it happen maybe a handful of times. I could count on one hand. Less than half of the dozen. I could count on one hand that times I've been like, I'm going to stick a steer away from Will, for a couple hours. That's, I think that's accurate. Less than half a dozen.

With yesterday, we'll call it half a dozen plus one. Back to Trump and Musk for one moment. I'm going to give you an example of the media bubble, the falsehood, and the attempt to drive them apart at what I think is a consequential moment in history. We played to do this clip yesterday. Here's Michael Steele, former R&C head on MSNBC. This individual sitting at down the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, has given absolute power to one man who brings his son into the Oval Office,

whose son says to him, you're not the president. All right. He's saying little X in that famous media press conference between Trump and Elon Musk told Trump he's not the president. And then he was on to say, where do you think you got that? He got it at home from daddy. Did little X say to Donald Trump, you're not the president? Let's watch. democracy.

I could barely hear him, but you guys in the control room can see him. Is he looking at Donald Trump? Where is he directing his statement? He does say you're not the president. Who is he talking to with that statement? If you've been in there before, the press pool, like, surrounds the oval like this, and it's like, it's very clear he's looking over the desk where the pool would be. And, I mean, I assume that, you know, little kids hear what their parents say.

I imagine Elon probably has unkind things to say. to the press around X when he's home. So it's probably, probably that. Versus he doesn't look directly at Trump when he says that. We all have eyes. He's not looking at Trump. He's looking across. I don't, I don't know.

Crazy. Yeah. Well, there's the quality of your information bubble. If you believe we're not just in a consequential moment of history, but where the consequences are authoritarianism. Comedian Chris DiStefano joins us next. Don't go anywhere on the Will Cain Show. Have you ever wondered what happened to the legendary Chuck Norris?

I recently saw a video he made, and I was shocked. He's in his 80s, still kicking butt, working out, staying active. What's even more shocking is he's stronger, can work out longer, and even has plenty of energy left over for his grandkids. He did this by making one change. He says he still feels like in his 50s, his wife, she started doing the same thing. It's one thing that says she never felt better. She says she feels 10 years younger and her body looks leaner and has energy all day.

Chuck made a special video that explains everything. Make sure you watch it by going to chuckdefense.com slash cane or by clicking on the link below this video. It's going to change the way you think about your health. Once again, that's chuck defense.com slash C-A-I-N and click on the link in the description below to watch the video now. You won't believe how simple it is. Just a reminder, the legendary Chuck Norris is a whopping 84 years old

and yet has more energy than me. He discovered he could create dramatic changes to his health, simply by focusing on three things that sabotage our body as we age. watch his method by clicking on the link in the description box below chuck defense dot com slash cane it's just unfortunate the name of a new special by comedian chris de stephano next on the will cane show hey i'm trey gouty host of the trade gouty podcast

i hope you will join me every tuesday and thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at Fox News Podcast.com. on the Fox News YouTube channel on the Fox News Facebook page. Hey, hit subscribe, please, at Apple or Spotify. We'd appreciate it. Or do whatever you can to set a reminder. Follow me on Facebook or on the YouTube page of the Will Kane show.

That way you can hang out this every day like one million did yesterday on Facebook at any of those digital streaming platforms. We've got those two guests coming up in just a moment on this savings in the VA. I don't know if this is a member of the Wallitia. Barry Seal on X says about my two guests coming up. Hopefully they don't fall asleep during the 20 minutes Will Kane takes to set up his first question. To that, young establishment, James said, we'll let him know. So I appreciate you, James, making me aware of my fault with the now dead CIA drug runner, but still somehow alive on Twitter.

Do I take 20 minutes? I mean, do I ask really long? questions. Let me just ask you guys two days, Dan, Jay. Do I do I ask really long questions? Depends on the day but you know. I think longer than they're used to seeing on the network when you

have got time constraints but we get to see your full train of thought and how you think about things. So that's irritating. I don't like it when guys do that. I do that. I don't like it about me if I do that. No. Now I do try to have conversations you know

more so than just interviews so sometimes it's like hey this is what i think what do you think sometimes it's a pointed question sometimes it's a challenging someone 20 minutes is a bit much i don't think i dominate the guest i don't know chris de stephano has a new special out it's called it's just unfortunate it drops february 21st on hulu he's also the host of history hyenas with yannis poppice where they explore history so chris i was thinking and just hang in here with me if you would for a minute i got about a five minutes set up to this i want to dive into a little bit of history and see what you think.

Just as my first question right out of the gates. Is that cool? 100%. Yeah. I haven't been listening at all. You fell asleep. Yes. That's great.

What's up, man? Glad to have you on the show. Thank you. I appreciate it. I honestly, I didn't realize that you weren't going to be here. I thought you were going to be here. And I had like a whole assassination plot. I was going to go old school, Lincoln with you.

and, you know, just do it live on your show and then scream out my Patreon to get people over there. But now I'm going to have to unfortunately kill one of the guys in the booth. So which one, which one are you okay with letting go of? Because I have to do this. I have the gun on me.

Okay, I'm interested in saving our democracy. So I'm just going to take a vote really quickly. Everybody, in two days, you can take tinfoils vote real quick. everybody that says we should probably go ahead and let DeSephano assassinate. James, young James, young Estabstabstamon James, raise your hand. Yes. Or say I.

Yep. I. Patrick's his eye as well. Yeah. Sorry, James. It's unanimous. You're the youngest, but fight. Fight. Fight.

Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to, I'd like to. Yeah. I'd like to, I, I, I'd like to, I, I, I, I like, he does look like Tucker Carlson who needs Ozempic. You got a Tucker Carlson. And you're just, what you're is, your body's okay now, but you're just on the verge of blowing out. As we say, you got to, you're not there yet.

You still look good, but you're this close to blowing out, dude. Okay. All right? So just get a little extra steps in. And I like this guy. This guy's a podcast fan. So I can't kill him. But young James, do you know my pod, history hyenas?

I love history. I love your clips. I'm young, so I see it through. You love my clips? You love my clips. I watch, when it's nine minutes on TikTok, I watch the whole thing. Okay, well, that's good. But I'm a Gen Zer, so we tend to just watch.

I'm glad you support the Chinese, unlike us Patriots in the room. Do you know the emotional yo-yo you just put youngest establishment James on? First of all, he's going to go, he's going to go home looking in the mirror so proud that you compared him physically to Tucker Carlson. Like that, he's going to tell his buddies at the bar, right? But then the whole you're about to blow up thing, I mean, that's going to cause a few extra reps. No, but I'll say, that's good. You did damage. But that's why I said it, because notice I did not say, because right now, in this present

moment, you look great, but I just know, I know you're like, you're like, you know what I mean, because you know what you can have? You can have a body like a stepmom, and you don't want that. You don't want, you don't want second wife body, and that's a problem. And because what do you do is, it's like me, you got a big hips, and the ass can blow out. It's a baseball. It's got a baseball, right? Size 38 waist.

is what I had. Now I'm down to a 36. I feel good. I feel cute. I feel clean. But I have put on a little weight. My tits now they go, you want them pointing straight. Mine are going a little bit. They're out of 45 degree angles. You're on the verge of getting 65, 75, so you just want to rein it in a little bit. That's all I'm saying. James, did he describe your dad? Be honest. He just described your dad. Yeah. Now, we'll, see, here's the thing, though. But here's the thing, is you look great because you, at least, you know, will, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't see Will's, I don't know physically, but from here he does, he does look like a small lesbian. A small lesbian is what I would say. He's got a, he's got a U.S. women's soccer team built, which I like. No, no. Which I like. Rachel Maddow. When you're healthy. When you're going to small lesbian, I've got the Rachel Maddow comp before, but I have bird legs. I'm no woman soccer player. I'm, I don't know. I'm not. I'm not.

even an athlete. So you can't even go to the women's side. I don't know. I think if we, if we came in, if I came in, you know, unannounced and you were tucking it back, if you were going just a full praying mantis as, you know, as we all do, I don't know. And if I said, who is this? Is this, is this Will Cade or Hope Solo? Well, I don't, we don't have to guess about Hope Solo. We're going to have to guess about Will Cance. Nice one. I love a, I love a fappening joke. Yeah, the Fox is going to love this. This is a good start so far.

This is not going to get posted, but we're having fun in the real life. We're all going. Oh, we're live? We're live right now. Oh, we're alive, baby. I'll do it. What would be your manner of execution on my assassination or James execution? How would you do that, your assassination?

How would I do it? James, or I'd kill James, I would just put the treadmill up at a 15 incline and just not let him come off. So that we do. Will, how would I shoot you? How would I kill you? You know what? You know what I think I could get you?

I think I could get you with a little, it's a classic, but I think I could get you with a little auto-erotic asphyxiation is where I think we could get. I think we could get you. I think I could say, no, it's fun. You got to try it, get you involved, and then just have you on the doorknob a little too long. I think that's where we can get you. Yeah. Well, I'm at a disadvantage as well because we're not in person.

So, you know, you've got to be careful to Stephano. You're like, you've got to be careful. With all these physical jokes, here's the problem. From my vantage point through this television screen, you're good-looking guy. You're working out, the chin, the jaw line is chiseled. You know, there's no vulnerabilities here physically for you. And you're lobbing bombs from a position of superiority. You've got to come in looking like Shane Gillis if you're going to start going out of people's looks.

No, here you go. First of all, if I take my shirt off right now, I look like a melting candle. Okay? So that's the good. I can't tell you how many times I've been told by a girl to put my shirt back on. Because you look a certain way and then you fall apart. But no, dude, you know, if people that know my pod know, I mean, I fall apart. I mean, I may look a certain way, but when you listen to me for five minutes, you're like, okay, this, I would never want to trade places with this guy.

This guy is in absolute crisis mode. I'm living on top of a bodega right now. and um it's just it's just what it is i mean look dude you know will i mean i want to come work for this show for real hey for real for real now here's a real question let's see how you treat do you have big insecurities and i have somewhere i want to go with this do you have big insecurities uh hello yes of course are you kidding me every day every single day i wake up i'm like is this my life because i just kind of show it you got to show it madison square

Garden, man, coming up. You've got a Hulu special. All right. Well, yeah, I do have the Hulu special, which that's great. February 21st. You know, they picked one comic a month, and they gave me Black History Month, which is an honor. I really appreciative of that. And the Madison Square Garden show, yeah, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens.

But listen, here's the thing with me. What do you mean? We'll see what happens. Tickets are on sale now. Go, by the way. Tickets are on sale, christiecom. And I'll just say, you. You better start buying him quick, or there might not be a show.

That's the thing. You know who I am? Are you doing the show? I'm Chrissy almost. Are you doing it on 9-11? I am doing it on 9-11. Presale codes Hamas. It's always a big funny day.

I'm sure. Everybody's like, let's go see comedy. I'm coming to Dallas, too, Will. I'm coming to Dallas in April. Yeah, we just put it up. Presale's happening right now. I would invite you into my new studio they're building. We can do this in person, but I'm not confident my studio will be done by April.

I mean, dude, I got to be honest with you. I mean, you just look like you're in the back of, you know, a room somewhere in your basement. You look like this is something you're doing that your wife doesn't know about. This looks like a secret show. She knows because she has to stop the laundry. She has to stop the washing machine and the dryer. Dude, you should do a time pod challenge on the show, right? Okay, so here's why I asked you about insecurity.

For real. I know a few, you guys. Do you think that is that integral to honestly, like, becoming a, I don't know if the word would be becoming a comedian, becoming a successful comedian, driving you into comedy. Like, I think guys have talked about this, the green room behind the scenes. It's just full of, you know, neuroticism. And guys who are funny are dealing with something inside. Most of the bits that I've done that, you know, have went. the furthest of my career or helped me, you know, sell tickets or got my name on the map have

come from a place of deep sadness. So that's even the stuff about my dad, a lot of stuff about my dad who, you know, we love very much. We got a great relationship, but they were, my parents were divorced when I was a kid. So that was painful for me when I was a little kid, when I would always miss my dad. So all these jokes that I would come up with about him, I really started the beginning of writing them when I was young, when I was like 13, 14, 14. because I really just missed my dad. So I would make up these characters, these larger-than-life things about him

that were not necessarily true because I kind of felt like if my dad was here, this is how he'd be. This is how he'd be protecting me and my mom, you know? And so I didn't realize any of that until you get into therapy. And then Dr. Lefkowitz just tells you, Chris, you know, this is insane trauma.

Like, that's how I even started getting into stand-up is I was going to therapy. I was a physical therapist. I was a licensed physical therapist. And I started, I would go to therapy. And it was my therapist who was like, you know, this stuff's pretty funny. You should, you should talk about this, like, as an outlet somewhere. And then I thought it and then I started thinking, oh, maybe I, maybe I could.

Because it was really just, I would really be talking to my therapist, not trying to be funny at all. And because you know what it is? Comedy is like, it's cathartic for me. It's like my creative outlet. And I think now I've gotten to the point in my career where I do the comedy for me. I really want people to laugh. I really want people, especially if you paid to see me, I want you to have a good time. I really do.

But I used to just adjust my stuff to them. I'm like, how can I make you laugh? Like I'm your dancing monkey kind of thing. But now it's not like that. Now it's like I'm going to talk about what feels urgent to me, what's going on in my life and what I think is funny right now. And I want you to come on board. But if not, you know, you can. message me and I'll give you your money back.

I really would if you hated it. So that sadness, whatever it is, neurotic, insecurity, in the past, okay, I want you to tell me what you think is more reflective of your experience. In the past, with some guys that I've talked to, it's like, you know, I mentioned the green room where everybody's hanging out before they go on stage. Right.

That it's actually not that pleasant. It's a bunch of dudes taking shots at each other. It can be funny. It can be not. But I've had it described as a little bit toxic. But then on the other hand, I see like the, mothership stuff from Austin and Rogan and Gillis.

Those guys all seem from a distance like supportive and buddies. I don't know. Which one do you think is more reflective of your experience? Well, look, I, you know, first of all, I want to commend you and I want to say that I think it's great that you have

comedians on here saying that the green room is toxic because then that tells me that you have opened up the show to homosexuals. And I appreciate that. And I really think that that's really an amazing Will, we never thought you would do that but you have and I'm proud of Fox

for doing that. Thank you for stepping up for allowing the gay community on the show because I would assume that, you know, only... Right. Because anyone, any comic who says the green room is toxic, I mean can be found at a glory hole

in any city, which by the way, I'll be there too. I'm not, by the way, this is not a shot, because I would love to. The only reason why I haven't come out of closet yet is because my father's still alive and he can't handle it. But when he dies, he just did on the show. 100%. I might go gay at the funeral. It's very possible. But what I'll say is, with comedy, okay, I think people feel like it's quote unquote toxic is because if you're from, you know, I've been doing this 15 years. So when you sit at the

back table at the comedy cellar, the most iconic comedy club in the world, and you got Colin Quinn and Dave Attell and Bobby Kelly and Nick DePaolo and Jim Norton and all these old school legends of comedy, as soon as you walk in, they start making fun of your sweater and you don't have comebacks, you know, they're going to make you feel bad about yourself right away. So you either got to have jokes quick and be lightning quick, which only makes all of us better, all right? Like it just makes everybody better so it's a positive thing.

Or take the lumps and just understand that. They're only doing this because they like you. If they didn't like you, they would say nothing to you. And I think what happened to, and again, it's not that, you know, I'm not going to sit here and be the guy that goes like, everybody does comedy now. Everybody's got a podcast now. It's like, okay, so maybe they do. You've got to be the best of the best.

You get cream rides to the top. But what I will say is, comedy used to be for the class clowns, for the kids that were using it, you know, as some kind of defense mechanism. So they had, so we had the chops. We didn't even realize, like, almost like destiny made us a comedian. Now people see how effective it can be, how much money you can make selling tickets, how easy it is to put your stuff out on the internet. And people who years ago would never have been comedians had just an easier path to become

a professional comedian. So their mindset is a little bit like, it's almost like you want to say to them sometimes, like, look, dude, I'm not the ruler here. So we're a free country, do what you want. but it's almost like, why are you actually doing this? Like, you weren't, did anyone ever tell you were funny in your life ever? Like, I've been being told, I'm the weird funny kids since I'm five years old. You know, so it's like I knew that this is what I was supposed to be doing.

Whether you think I'm funny or not, it's kind of irrelevant. It's like the terms of my life have told me to do it. But then you get some other guys where you're like, dude, you're not funny. You're okay, funny on stage. You can edit your stuff very well. so I guess the audience will, you know, that's the other thing. The internet now is a lot of it's editing. It's like go watch someone for 55 minutes.

Watching someone for three minutes and then edited TikTok, listen, it's great. People can kill, but it's like a real comic, they're going to be able to take you for 55 minutes. Because the ones who can't do it, they'll hang themselves quick. They'll hang themselves like, you know what I mean? They'll autoerotic asphyxiate themselves real quick. So it's the edited, like everything, like, everything. now is getting consumed in these small edited clips. And I think the old school guys...

Does that change your act? Knowing guys are going to consume you in like two minutes on TikTok and Instagram, like James just said? Yeah, I mean, listen, you have to do what you have to do to sell tickets these days, but I've made kind of a deal with myself where I'm going to, you know, I'm only going to post crowdwork if I think, if it's something that happened organically, I'm not going to... You got a lot of guys now they're hunting for crowdwork clips. You go to their show, and it's like clip farming.

They're just looking for the one, two-minute clips, sell, sell, sell. And I understand why some people are doing that. I just don't want to. I was kind of one of the last waves of older guys who it's like, I can't, that's not the way I'm going to be. I'm going to just do my comedy the way I want to do it. And for me, because, you know, Louis C.K. said something very important. It wasn't just me. It was a couple of guys at the back of the comedy seller one night.

He was like, look, he was like, here's the thing with you. guys is one, you guys are putting out way too much content. Not only the people are going to get sick of you, but you're just posting something that you just thought of a few hours ago and you're posting it. So it dilutes your act. He was like, you know, back in the day, nobody would post anything or put out anything unless it was their special, which they would get once every two, three years. So the only time you heard comedians is the bits that were worked out day in, day out for months or years. So that's one. And two, you know, you will want to post crowdwork clips and do that and get butts in the seats, fine. But you got to understand

those people that come see you, they want to see the crowdwork. They want to see. And if that's who you are, that's who you are. But if you're only doing it to get butts in the seats and then you start doing your material, they're going to leave that show and be like, wow, that guy sucked. Because you weren't as advertised, as opposed to being as advertised and putting out your bits. And maybe it takes a little bit longer. Maybe you don't get the accolades that some of these other guys are getting, okay, but everybody that sits in your seats are there to see your version of your comedy. So there's that route of it too that I'm kind of trying to balance it both. I mean, listen, for people that say crowdwork is just easy and BS, in some ways they're

correct. In some ways, it's very difficult to get to like the top of the top of any field, including the quote unquote crowdwork comedian. So if you're a crowdwork comedian that's selling a lot of tickets and doing well, you know, there's something to be said about your skill set. Is it, you know, a little bit easier than writing material? Probably, but, you know, tell the audience decides in my, that's what's changed about my career and what's like a full 180, a full change in my life is I used to put my career in the hands of the, like, corporations. Now I have it all in the hands of my fans. So the fan, my fans dictate to me what's good and what's not. And there's really nothing you can take for me anymore because my entire career is built up on the backs.

It's all on my fans. It's not about being on a network. So that's, that protects you. You brought up, you brought up Louis C.K. Does he get to come back? Sure. What's going on? Louis is back, dude.

I mean, dude, you come down to the comedy seller. You come down to any comedy club. I mean, he sold out Madison Square Garden a year ago, Louis. See, this is the thing, this is the thing with the quote unquote industry. They are powerful, for sure. But the audience has, the audience is the one that speaks. Like, Louis, yeah, okay, you know, whatever the, you know, whatever, you know, scandal, whatever he got into. But, like, he didn't commit any crime.

He didn't, like, he wasn't, like, banned from society. He was, quote, unquote, canceled, and he went away for a little bit to get right with him. But then his comedy speaks from himself. You separate, like, the art from the man, you know, and it's just like he sells out wherever he goes. if he wants to or he doesn't have to, but he's always been respected by the comedians. You know, I mean, we're all like, listen, dude, unless you're like, I've always been about, unless you are, like, got convicted by, like, the court of law of, like, our American legal system, then you do your time.

But even after you do your time, if you are out, then it's like you should be welcome back into society. these people just want to hold grudges with everyone for their whole lives because they really hate themselves. So it's just like, you know, so Louie is back beyond, he's beyond back. That's great to hear, and that's my own ignorance. Why don't we hang out, do you follow me on Grindr? It did feel like he got the death sentence in terms of, I don't know if Florida is industry or mainstream acceptability

or people repeating or paying attention to what he's doing. But I mean, to your point, that's just, that's, just the coverage of the thing, and the thing is back. Listen, he definitely lost money. I can't imagine the guy didn't lose money at all. He had the biggest show on FX. I mean, he was doing movie. I'm sure he lost money, but I mean, he's fine.

I mean, Louis will still make millions upon millions of dollars selling tickets to his fans that genuinely want to see him and love him. And he's back at the comedy clubs. I mean, he gets standing ovations when he pops in at the shows. So for me, it's like... It's interesting what you said. it's interesting what you said about the changing profile of comedians

like who they used to be versus who they are now like it's by the way I behave in my life exactly as you said comedians do and I think a lot of dudes quote unquote dudes do I bust your balls if I like you I don't talk to you if I don't like you right

and so making fun of you is a sign of endearment I like this guy you know yeah and it's interesting how you say the kind of guy do but you kind of said it um also you weren't i don't think you're being flattering like you said the kind of guy doing comedy has changed and the kind of guys that are stepping into it now aren't necessarily the i don't know the the guy who was a weird kid in high school now i don't know the cool guy in high

school maybe the football players doing comedy but you kind of i don't know if you were saying those guys a lot of those guys are the ones who aren't funny well to me here's the thing and i've always believed this about comedy it's subjective you know we're not talking about Sports is objective. It's like you score the most points you win. With comedy, it's like if you think so and so is funny and I don't, he's funny, he or she is funny in your world and they may not be funny in my world. It's just, that's just the, it's art.

Comedy is art. So for me to say, I could look at a Picasso painting and be like, this sucks, and he's Picasso. So it's just like you could, you know, see a Louis C.K. Joe could be like, this sucks, but he's Louis CK. Or, you know, a TikTok crowdwork guy, you know, you might love them, and that's okay. It's just from my age group, I should say. I'm 40, doing comedy, 15 years. We just come from a different thing where it's like we always knew, you know.

And again, it doesn't mean anything today. I'm just saying like the old guard is like crowdwork is crowdwork. It's like you do it, you make fun of the fat guy in the shirt. And of course it's going to get a laugh because the audience is on edge. and so they're but when you come up with like an actual written bit that's much higher that's much harder to me but to the young kid today they may say no no no crowd works easier and they're they're as right as me so for me it's like it's just where you come from what your mentality is i would say the older comedians are more like do your do material and you have to have new material

every time you come to the city if i come at once a year it's okay to repeat some bits but you want to always so we're always striving to do that but there's no there's no way around it i mean you're not you're not going to be as successful as the crowdwork guys in today's world but you do have examples like you look at Shane you mentioned Shane Gillis i mean look at he's he does material he does sketches he's an old school guy that is crushing it Nate Bargotsie's clean comedian probably the hardest of the highest degree of difficulty is what Nate does. Squeaky clean and sells out everywhere. So my point is, is like, there's ways to do it and still break through without kind of having to do something you don't want to do. Those guys are being authentically themselves.

But for years, I know this, for years, Shane and Nate, especially Nate, for years, Nate Bargazzi sold no tickets. Nothing. He would sit in the bowels of the comedy clubs with the rest of us, come and go nothing and then boom the world just shifted to him because you got to keep just being yourself right now the world might not favor what you're talking about

but don't change for that because the world spins you know so you're going to eventually shit's going to line up for you honestly I kind of feel that way about my career it has right so hopefully it'll spin it better start spinning a little quicker because the wives are like

we can't keep doing the show from the laundry room no but I do feel like the moment has met what I have to say, you know? And sometimes, like, I don't know. Yeah. I never do this, but I'm going to do it, okay, because he's a gigantic fan. I want to talk about history hyenas. Sure.

Because I'm genuinely interested. But Two of Days, you are a gigantic fan. Okay, so I'm going to let you ask a question here to Chris de Steffield. But let me be clear. Well, and I'll say it for you. Fire. Two a days, though, but let me just be clear. This is the last time you speak on this show, Two a Day.

And you do not speak again. Am I correct in that, Will? This is the one and only time he gets. You know what? I want to put a little more pressure on it, depending on how good your question is. Like it. Damn, I didn't even think of a question.

See? We should, let's tie in a gambling site. Well, let's put some bets on it. Here we go. We're going to take an odds on two of A's question. We're going to put it up for an audience poll right now. Van Duel puts odds at five to one. This doesn't. Go ahead, do it, Ayes.

Well, no, I'm just curious. You've done so many history topics. What's your favorite one you've done, the favorite episode you've done from history hyenas. So I would say from history hyenas podcast, my two favorite have to be Pearl Harbor. The Pearl Harbor episode was wild. That one is nuts.

And that's the one I say. Like I have a sitcom and development right now. And I've told the network, you got to just make sure you listen to my podcast because I don't want to go down this road where you're about to greenlight my show. And then you're like, what about this? Because I can't, by the way, I can't,

I have no explanation. I just went nuts, and it's all in the name of comedy, and they were like, you know what? Here's the thing about me. They said, you've said so many wild things in your career that we actually can't pin one down. So we're just going to go ahead and say, just keep going. It's the Trump Effect. But, yeah, Pearl Harbor, and then also the Battle of Brooklyn from the Colonial American Revolutionary War. Those are two of my favorite episodes.

A very recent one, we just did Alexander the Great Gay, question mark. That was also another great app. A couple toots. What's the answer? Probably? We're saying, yes, Alexander the Great was gay. We're saying, but it wasn't. They made him gay. I watched the Netflix deal, and they definitely made him gay.

100%. But the thing is back then, it's everybody was kind of gay. It wasn't labeled. There were no labels. You know what I mean? There were no labels. And that's what me in two a days hope it goes back to. I said that in confidence, man.

Did you do this? Besides his sexuality, I saw this recently, ranking the world's most successful and best military generals. And I think that Alexander the Great came in second. It's not just wins and losses. It's kind of like the fan duel odds going in. What were your odds of winning versus the enemy? And did you or did you not outperform your odds? And Napoleon came in at number one as the world's most successful general.

I could see that. Yeah, a guy was an absolute genius. militarily. You know, George Washington, too, was what his peers said about him, which I liked, and he tried to apply that to today's world. I think it was Benjamin Franklin said why Washington was such a great general is because he basically knew when they were going to lose, and he knew to retreat. So he said George Washington would see things as they were, not as he wishes they were, where a lot of other generals would say, no, no, no, I wish that we were winning, so we got a And then they'd lose.

But Washington was very good at seeing, no, this is how it is. This is the truth. Let's pull back and fight another day. And that's how they said he, because really the colonial army at that, Continental Army at that time, was just about survival in the beginning before France came. So Washington was the perfect guy. Nailed it. I want to ask you about two episodes you did.

You tell me your biggest takeaway. Rockefeller. I'm fascinated by Rockefeller. I'm fascinated by that moment in American history, industrialism, on the edge of everything, building everything. Of course, he's one of the richest men in history. What is your biggest takeaway from doing an episode on Rockefeller? On Rockefeller? Well, first, that he had a, I believe it was a nephew. I think it was Michael Rockefeller who got eaten by cannibals. So that was a cute little fun fact, that he got eaten by cannibals in a colony off the coast of Africa somewhere that he was

exploring. So that was wild. And then the second one, I would say, is one thing I learned. And again, this is very conspiracy. But so I'm not saying this is fact, but that he, He created the modern day education system that we all have today, the modern education public school system, which he was influential and creating, to make regimented workers for his factories and regimented workers for whatever oil business or other businesses, him and his, you know, partners had. And that that is why it's so, it is, it is to be, it is to get you in the mindset reading, writing arithmetic of these are the things that we need for you to work at the plant. which is outdated. Which is outdated. You have your finger up two days. Do you have something?

No, just saying that can that be changed? How can we change that? Well, we voted for change. Say that. And that's the other one. I want to ask you really quickly. Panama Canal. You did one on the Panama Canal.

We're all talking about it. What was your biggest takeaway on studying the Panama Canal? I mean, honestly, the Panama Canal was, it was one of those things that you, you know, because you just grow up thinking, oh, it's the Panama Canal, you know? I mean, it's just, but you understand like the, the engineering that it took, the absolute difference in this world we would have if that Panama Canal was not there is so insane. And now, you know, and obviously all the drama it took and, you know, you could say, you know, it's unfortunate, you know, that had to go through Panama, but geographically

that's just what it was. But in many ways, it's helped Panama, you know, because a lot of people have gotten wealthy off it, you know, of course, also a lot of people have died and lost their homes. And it's unfortunate either way. But that to me right now seems like I understand, after researching on it, why President Trump and this country want to have kind of ownership and be first in line on that and why China is, and that's really where there's like a real battle going on a positioning battle because whoever gets more access to that really does control kind of a lot of the economics, like the goods coming in and out of this country. So I didn't realize how influential. And how much we invested in it? Exactly. Not just money, but lives. Lives. Oh, yeah, dude.

It's, look, I can see it both ways from people, but that's anything in life. Like, you know, anything, any story in history, two sides. Like, you can talk to me all day about what a great guy Gandhi is, and he was, but then he also had slept with his 12 year old niece. So it's like, that's just the way the cookie crumbles, folks. So it's like I think we've gotten like a one-sided to a one-sided history thing. The internet can be

very one-sided where you're like you're just like, you know, canceling people figures from history. It's like there's so much more to the stories when you just have to do a little bit of digging. You cannot get your news and information from TikTok. Let TikTok open up

a little pathway, and you've got to spend a couple of hours researching some stuff, and then you'll form, you know, whatever opinion you got. Or patreon.com slash issue ion, yes. You go to patreon.com slash history aene as that is also true. I mean, things have been getting wild over there and make absolutely no mistake. Do not, if you have a corporate job, do not tell them that you're on that Patreon, because you will lose your job. And two a day, two a days is not a Patreon member, even though one of the Patreon names that just came in was Two a Day's Will Kane show. That's what they name. It's not me. So, but he's claiming it's not.

history hyenas check it out go to the patron if you so dare uh check out it's just unfortunate it's february 21st on hulu two days i want you to keep chris de stephano up as he walks out i want to see if he looks like a melted candle uh so don't take him off camera as he walks out of the studio i want to i want to see here we go this dude is entirely too good of shape to be throwing rocks it's the opposite living in black house don't don't take your pants off Why did you take it off two a days? Oh, he took it off because he was worried about Fox. All right, Chris.

Thanks so much for being with us. Later. Well, thank you. Nice to meet you. Thank you, man. You too. All right, don't go anywhere. We've got an investigative story here.

Remembering two guys in who've written a, it's a memo to basically people in D.C., also inviting Doe should take a look at $550 million in savings of the VA out of a $900 million R&D budget. We'll get the guys behind it next on the Will Cane Show. This is Jason Chaffetz from the Jason in the House podcast. Join me every Monday to dive deeper into the latest political headlines and chat with remarkable guests. Listen and follow now at Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you download podcasts. From the Fox News Podcasts Network.

Hey there, it's me. Kennedy. Make sure to check out my podcast. Kennedy saves the world. It is five days a week, every week. download and listen at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Could we be saving over half of the R&D budget at the VA? It's not always waste, fraud, and abuse. It's also about inefficient uses of the federal government's money. $550 million, possibly out of, $900 million at the VA. It's the Will Kane Show streaming live at foxnews.com on the

Fox News YouTube channel and the Fox News Facebook page. Hit subscribe, please, at Apple or on Spotify or hang out with us every Monday through Thursday at 12 o'clock Eastern Time. Join me now. Robert Maxwell, he's the founder of Klin Connect. Robert, I think it's fair to say that's you do healthcare consulting. Your contractor, look at different ways to bring new innovation and efficiency into health care. Is that fair, Robert? It is. I mean, so our job is to patients in clinical trials, first and foremost. So while we do work with the pharmaceutical companies, the hospital systems that run trials for themselves. Our, you know, our primary job is to work with the patients. And so that's ultimately how we got into this. We started working with lots of veterans and realized that this was a problematic system on the research side as well. And, by the way, also joining him is Kanz from Barstool. Cons, the podcast is Zero Dark 30, right? What's the name of it? Zero blog 30, but it's actually getting a rebrand here coming soon.

So stay tuned for that as we move forward. Really? Okay, do we need to know that rebrand? Or you're going to wait to unveil it? You're going to wait. I'm going to wait to unveil it. I think it's fair to my new co-host to do that collectively. Although I do appreciate the platform here.

But I would just say to go follow me at Captain Kong on all social media, and you will be alerted to the new show. Okay, tell me what brought you guys together, Like, how did you guys get together on this project talking about what's going on at the VA? I would say it was very much a 2025 type of connection in that we have a mutual friend connection that I did not know personally, just kind of met via Twitter slash X, whatever you're calling it these days, and noticed that we were kind of talking the same language, cared about the same problems and just given his background growing up as a military brat, his father having worked

in the VA and knew my background as a veteran myself and my own struggles with VA care connected me with Robert. And we had a conversation and realized we were seeing eye to eye and a lot of issues and came together to see what we could do to help the veteran community. And tell us real quick, Collins, again, about your service. Your veteran, what did you do? I graduated from West Point, class of 2006. I served active duty for five and a half years. I was an artillery officer deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2008 until 2009. And then I left active duty in 2011 and returned home to New Jersey, where I served out the remainder of my inactive ready reserve time until 2014. All right. Awesome. Thank you, man. We appreciate you. We appreciate you. Thank you very much. All right. Robert, let's talk about what you guys have sort of uncovered at the VA. And there's a lot of talk about waste, fraud, and abuse right now with Doge. I actually

think while that's important, it's a starting point because what we also need to be looking at is inefficiencies and bloat, not getting the job done for the dollars that are spent. I know that's what you've been looking into at the VA. It is. Yeah. So ultimately this started, you know, We work at Clint Connect, we just, we work with about almost 300,000 patients now nationwide to, you know, to find and enroll in trials. And so, and many of those, I'd say at this point, about a quarter of them have our veterans. And so when we had a patient come to us in August of 2024, they wanted to just kind of give an example where this started to probably make a little bit more sense. They wanted, they had long COVID, right? They had symptoms of, you know, they did a primary COVID infection years ago.

They're, you know, have some brain fog, lasting, kind of pulmonary deficits, right? They're not being able to take a full breath, things like that. They reached out to us and they said, hey, look, this is my local, you know, VAMC or VAMC, VA medical center. They're running a study on a long COVID, on long COVID, whereby they basically put us in a pool for water aerobics and uh and there's you know that they're studying the impact of basically water aerobics and i'm going to oversimplify for the sake of the conversation but um they're basically studying the impacts of water aerobics on long covid and then secondarily they're going to look at whether the kind of the social nature of the exercise helps things like PTSD common kind of

veteran mental health conditions as well so they reached out to us they said hey you know we went through the government. We went to clinical trials.gov, which is the government's resource that most people still unfortunately use. And they said, look, we couldn't get a hold of anybody. This is very challenging, et cetera. Could you guys facilitate this for us? And that's literally what we do on that side of our business is just, you know, again, work with the patients to understand what their options are and then actually get them into the studies. So we reached out. This one actually came to me specifically. I reached out to the medical center and in no uncertain terms, they said, well, actually verbatim. They said, tell them to try again. Tell that the veteran who served for 27 years

to go back and try again. And this wasn't something whereby, you know, with clinical trials, you have to be careful because some studies, you know, say, God forbid it's a, you know, a leukemia study, a cancer study, something that's a little bit maybe more specific and serious than maybe something like long COVID, you have to look for certain conditions, right? You have inclusion and you have exclusion criteria. And that's important to understand, you know, to determine whether or not a patient is actually going to fit into the study, you have to review those criteria. In this case, we were talking about putting a veteran in a pool for long COVID doing

water aerobics and seeing if that was going to help their long COVID. And also the social element would help their PTSD and some of the other conditions they had worked, you know, gone through mentally. and so again the response was tell them to try again and I said well you know I'm not going to do that we're not going to do that and instead what we did was that was we'd had a series of terrible experiences frankly with the VA and that was kind of the straw that broke the back and I and I dug in on this study specifically and I said okay you know how much was allocated we know that you know $984 million in 2024 was allocated to what the VA considers medical and

prosthetic research, right? Clinical research, clinical trials, the stuff that they study falls under that line item in their budget. And so I said, okay, interesting. Let's just divide that by the number of studies that they were actively running at the time. That number turned out to be quite high, much higher. Again, our business, to provide a little bit of context, again, our job on the patient side is to help patients find an enroll in trials. No patient will ever pay a dollar. for anything we do on that. But on the other side of the business is we work with the trial sponsors. So the pharmaceutical companies, the hospitals, the people that actually run the studies,

we charge them. I mean, we work with them to actually run better, cheaper, faster clinical trials. That's our model. So we have a pretty decent understanding of what trials should cost. And when we went through and looked at the $984 million budget, a line item in the budget, it, and we divided but that by the number of trials. And then we looked at what it costs per patient. We realized that it was 14 times more expensive for the VA to put a patient into a trial

than, say, your average run of the Bell Pharmaceutical Company, right? That's a serious problem. Obviously, that's absurd on its face. And so that's what prompted ultimately us digging in and saying, okay, who's getting paid here, right? Because we know that the veterans, it's kind of a double-edged, I mean, it's worse than a double-edged sword. I mean, on two sides, the veterans are getting screwed here.

They're getting screwed because they're not getting access to the studies that are being put on ostensibly for their benefit. And then on the other side, they're getting screwed because we're spending so much money. We're spending 14 times, you know, as much per patient as anybody else. And what we found ultimately over the course of, you know, a month or so, where we submitted the first memo back in August or September of 2024, late August, early September. to the House VA subcommittee on health. I think I'm doing that properly. But it was

Congresswoman Marianne Miller Meek's team staff was great. And they wanted to hear about it. So we submitted it to them. Ultimately, it got lost in the election. But, you know, here we are now where, you know, with Doge and otherwise, we're able to, you know, kind of resurface this and go, look, here's who's getting paid. You know, we know where the contracts are. We know who is on the other side of these engagements who are on the other side of these engagements. And, you know, our job, again, is to try and not only, we're not saying that anybody's, you know, committing fraud or anything like that, but we're also not not saying that. We don't, we just don't know. But to your point about inefficiency, it's like, there's no, this is Elon. It's

Elon Musk's line. It's the defending of the bureaucracy. That's exactly right. And how we get things done so that's exactly that's your experience what he just described with you or any of your buddies who are trying to get something done through the VA impossible like the level of bureaucracy the level of approval that adds up to something being 14 times as expensive and by the way then a significantly reduced number of guys that could participate yes and and not only that it really is a crack shoot depending on where you are in the country some VAMCs are excellent I won't say here today that the VA isn't doing any good work because that wouldn't be true. There are VA medical centers and clinics who are doing a great job of helping veterans.

Now, on the other side of that coin, there are institutions, VA medical centers clinics that are not doing a great job. So it's not uniform across the board. And the problem is, is one VAMC hears about their buddy VAMC in another state that's doing good work, they might not be allowed to do it at their VAMC because their leadership says, no, we're not going to do that. So why can't there be uniformity across the board so that we can ensure that whether I live in New Jersey, California, Texas, wherever across the United States, that I'm going to be cared for and provided a health service for the service that I gave back to the country? And on its face, that's a pretty simple ask, if you ask me, it's like,

hey all these people signed up to sacrifice themselves for the country the least we can do is take care of them and adhere to high standards okay so robert here let me see if i got it from okay you got 900 million dollars and for clinical trials and research right primarily and historically for prosthetics and things like that it and i read your executive summary it's been expanded it includes PTSD and long covid and other things now but that's your budget 900 million roughly um you you you looked into the number of studies that were being done under that budget you divided it up and you this is where you come back with this figure you know we're spending 14 times as much as you would in the private sector to enroll and get into these things

and to compound the problem or perhaps as an extension of the problem fewer guys than in the private sector get to participate get to reach this care so there's the tangible problem it's a pain to the taxpayer they're paying too much and a pain to the vet they're not getting enough or not enough guys are getting it. So the question then is, and you come up with this figure, $500 plus million, the question is, where's the money going? He's primarily going to outside service providers. So in our kind of niche in the clinical trial enterprise, you have lots of what are called contract research organizations. The VA is a little bit different insofar as it doesn't, you know, as well as anybody else in running most of the studies in-house and trying to minimize the

degree to which it actually relies on outside service providers and CROs, contract research organizations. But the reality is that it can't, you know, it can't do everything that it, ultimately, I guess it thinks it can do. I mean, this part to me is what's still a bit unclear because, frankly, they don't want to provide much clarity. And to be, to be fair, I mean, that's their decision to make, I guess at this point. But, you know, the majority of the waste or the inefficient spending, we'll call it that, is going to outside contract. Does that suggest to you, Robert, does that suggest to you? So my first suspicion I want to be careful of is, is it an overly bloat administration

within the VA? Too many layers of approval or too many people that don't. Okay, there's no question on that. But also a lack of oversight on ensuring you're getting the best deal from private contractors. So in other words, if you're a private contractor, do they all sit there and celebrate when they get a VA contract? because they know it's going to be way more, they're going to get a bigger fee than it would in the private sector?

Yes, and I can speak to that with specificity and from kind of primary experience. Again, my business is being one of those private contractors. We don't charge the VA a dollar for anything that we do. That's just our policy. But, you know, and again, primarily we don't work on specific trials with the VA outside of actually just helping the VA find the patients that, you know, qualify for their studies and then for free,

putting those patients in those studies. But, you know, again, we have an acute understanding, a very specific understanding of what, you know, should be, you know, what we would be charging the VA for certain services and then comparatively what we would charge someone in the private sector. So with that in mind, that's, you know, again, we've been able to back into the fact that, like, to your point, to your question, do CROs celebrate when they get a VA contract? And And yes, I mean, I certainly would if I was in their position with kind of a different set of ideals, their principles. But, you know, look, I think at the end of the day, it's like anything else with the government, these folks just get very entrenched, right? They do one, they get one contract, they perform one service, and they're on the gravy train for a decade, right?

They think in terms of decades, not in terms of years or quarters, and not in terms of projects, which in the case of clinical trials, I mean, these are contracts that should be renewed. I mean, either renewed or not renewed, you know, cut after a trial is complete. I would certainly understand not wanting to cut a vendor for a trial while the trial is underway. But there's no – these people, like I said, they perform one service. They're on the gravy train for a decade. They have almost complete price control in terms of what they then furthermore will charge the VA. And, you know, 20 years of that, you end up with more than half the budget of $984 million being, you know, inefficiently spent and or wasted, right?

So that's, that's where we are, you know, it's unfortunate. I think you just pulled it down. Yeah, I mean, so I'll leave it with this. I'm going to go to you cons on this. Like, I wonder how you feel as a veteran. So on one hand, you could look at it and you see it as a lack of respect in the way that we treat veterans. because not only are we talking about the taxpayer here getting hosed, but we're talking about veterans getting hosed

because then fewer of you guys can receive access to care that you might need. But some of this I wonder, like the way Robert just described that, that's government, man. That's government. Like, that's the post office. That's every single thing that we do inside the government. And I kind of just wonder how you feel. I mean, I'm hoping that that's where the moment of change for government

in terms of how we conduct it. but do you guys feel like and by the way you served so that's government as well so you know the efficiencies within the military you see it at various levels do you feel like it's just part of the deal you know like this is what happens when the government is providing the health care or do you feel particularly disrespected so I would go so far as you say particularly disrespected but at what point is that old trope of well that's just how the government operates When is that enough, right? How many more years of the veteran suicide rate not coming down until someone at the top or somewhere along the way decides, okay, maybe we need to do something differently?

Because what I hear is that they want to care for the veteran community. They want to reduce the number of veteran suicide every year and bring that number to zero because guess what? One is too many, right? but if no one is willing to stand up and say we need to make some drastic changes and they're just content to go along to get along then you get really disheartened as a veteran and that's why you see so many people so many veterans are still so disenfranchised by even going to their VA because they just anticipate that it's going to be a bad experience. So one of two things happen in my experience. People start to self-medicate or treat themselves in another fashion

or they do nothing and they get worse. And, you know, unfortunately the third thing, they take their own life and they harm themselves. At what point are any of those options, good options they're not they're not so you need somebody who's willing to stand up and say enough is enough and i'm hoping that people are now seeing what if we just cut through all the red tape and just do things as efficiently as we possibly can what would happen then and take some chances and only then will we see improvement for the veteran community all right i've got the paper in front of me, it's reclaiming $550 million in wasted VA research funding. It's prepared for Congresswoman Marion Miller Meeks.

It's been resubmitted now with the attention, hopefully, of Doge. It's prepared by Robert Maxwell, who's with us right there. He's the founder of Clint Connect, and he's joined today by Kahn's from what is now and has been the past the podcast Zero Block 30 at Barstool, but will soon be rebranded, so you need to be paying attention to that. Cons, Robert Maxwell, thank you guys for highlighting this today with us here on Will Kane show. Yeah, thank you so much for having us. And, you know, look, it's, we think it's, it's once in a century, maybe, you know, generation, certainly opportunity to really make,

make a difference here. And, you know, we're going to, we're going to keep fighting the fight and doing what we can. So thank you again. Awesome. Yeah, thank you. Well, the last thing I'll leave you with is, you know, you mentioned all these politicians' names. It's, it's very invoked to, to use veterans as a chip when they need something or that when they want to gain support from their constituents. We're tired of being a chip used. Please exert some power and make some change. Thanks, Will. Awesome. You bet. Thank you guys. Appreciate it very much. All right. There they go. Robert Maxwell and cons from Barstool. Okay. Another long episode today of the Will Kane show. We appreciate you hanging out. We'll be back with you again tomorrow. Same time, same place. See at 4 o'clock this afternoon.

In the meantime on the Fox News Channel. Listen ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. I'm Janice Dean. Join me every Sunday as I focus on stories of hope and people who are truly rays of sunshine in their community and across the world. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcast.com