Will Cain Country - Kevin Roberts: President Trump Makes Colombia Back Down On Illegal Immigration! Plus, Lexie Rigden On The Blake Lively Controversy

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Story #1: Pete Hegseth is officially the Secretary of Defense! Will breaks it all down: what it means for the military, America, and the world.   Story #2: The first edition of the 'Catch Me Up' segment. Will sits down with legal analyst, Lexie Rigden who tells you everything you need to know about the Blake Lively legal battle.  Story #3: President Trump delivers Truth Social diplomacy from his golf course and gets the President of Colombia to back down and acquiesce to his demands on immigration within hours. Plus, could we actually get rid of the income tax?  A conversation on the future of politics and diplomacy with President of the Heritage Foundation and author of Dawn's Early Light, Kevin Roberts. 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

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vote by vote, 51 to 50 was the final tally to make Pete Hegset your secretary of the viz. Two, a fascinating TikTok between the third and eighth hole on a golf course this weekend, as President Trump gave a lesson in international. diplomacy and world relations. In a matter of five holds, he bent to his will, Colombia. Three, a new segment, catch me up. The news is flying fast and furious. How are we supposed to keep up? What about the stories that go by the wayside? I'm too far behind on Blake Lively versus Justin Baldone. So 101, catch me up on this drama in Hollywood. It is the Will Cain show streaming live,

Fox News.com, Fox News YouTube channel and the Fox News Facebook page every Monday through Thursday at 12 o'clock Eastern time. Terrestrial radio, some, almost three dozen markets across the United States of America, but always available by subscribing on Apple or on Spotify. Today, Kevin Roberts is going to join us from Heritage. We're going to talk about the Florea Vacte,

from the United States on the world stage in dealing with Colombia over X tariffs that bring Colombia into line between the third and the eighth hole of a golf course to DEI initiatives being buried and fought back against inside the Air Force, the job in front of our friend Pete Heggsett. Plus, what are we going to call this segment? How are we going to brand it? Catch me up is what I'm thinking about. There's so many stories that hit the news cycle. In fact, as I prepare for the Will Cain Show on Fox News Channel at 4 o'clock Eastern Time, I think it's almost hard to narrow down. I had a call with my producer this morning, fellas, and the truth is I had so many ideas and so many things I wanted to talk about, and so much that has been done, it's actually hard to jam it

all in. And I think there's thematic elements that bring certain stories together, but still, there's only so much time in a one-hour television broadcast you know so what do we do with stories that that sort of hit the radar linger but by the time you turn your attention to it you're four new cycles behind how do i catch up well we thought we'd come up with this new concept which we'll do here on the will cane show at 12 o'clock eastern time streaming live and on radio what we thought we would do is bringing the subject matter expert and we will satisfy my own curiosity, a deep dive. But starting from the 101 perspective, I don't know much about Blake lively versus Justin Maldoni. I just know that everyone is talking

about it. And I know that I'm like six news cycles behind at this point. So their defamation suits flying. I mean, $400 million suit, $200 million suit, $250 million suits, counter suits. suits against the New York Times over who is ruining the other's reputation. It all revolves around this movie called It Ends With Us and accusations that Baldoni was guilty of sexual harassment and a holster work environment versus the countersuit allegation that Blake Clively, I think, is on a public relations to her trying to rehabilitate her image and reputation by throwing under the bus, Justin Baldoni. It does involve the New York Times. It does involve superstar Ryan Reynolds. and most of the heavy hitters in Hollywood, including the William Morris Endeavor Agency. So we're going to break that down.

I'm not a subject matter expert, but I am curious. And friend of the Will Kane Show attorney, Lexie Rigden, is going to join us a little bit later to get into that, help us understand it hopefully from the starting line to the checkered flag. All right, but first, guys, well, what should we name that segment have we branded it correctly i'm just working with catch me up is that going to work i don't know what we should brand that segment i like it yeah behind the eight behind the eight ball behind the eight ball

five news cycles late yeah i don't know what we should call it um but i actually think that's utilitarian for people out there because i think they're all living in the same thing like oh my gosh there's so much happening how are you supposed to keep you up and some of it is genuinely interesting so you know if you're a curious person you want to know you got to have sort of a cheat sheet a cliff's notes to get you caught up on the story so i don't know until we come up with something better catch me up but friday night was fun friday night was really fun um it's the first time i've had a weekend a true weekend outside of a vacation in really a long time five years outside of a holiday or vacation i just haven't had a lot of time to remember

Friday night and boy did I remember Friday night had a big time I mean college Fireball Red Bulls You were up late

It was not It was not healthy It wasn't a mature healthy way To celebrate the first weekend that I've had in five years But there was a lot to celebrate I went to watch the Dallas Stars

And it was an incredible game Where they beat the Vegas Golden Knights First time ever I got to sit on the glass That's a cool experience never have sat on the glass I've never done that for it seems awesome it's cool bang against it because they bang right into you you know yeah I was in a corner so like you know pucks get dumped over there and next thing you know bodies are flying right into your face spit flying

against the glass it's really fun it was really cool and um you know but as part of that night there was another event ongoing and that was a vote count in Washington DC in the United States Senate to confirm Pete Hegseth as your Secretary of Defense. In fact, let's get into that with story number one. 51 to 50, a tie broken by J.D. Vance. In a speech afterwards, my friend Pete Hegseth said, it's not the first time there's been a media headline that says junior enlisted Marine bails out junior second lieutenant army jd vans broke the 50-50 tie pete heggseth lost three republican votes he lost lisa mccowski of alaska he lost susan collins of maine and perhaps somewhat

surprisingly not completely out of the blue but not totally expected he lost former senate majority leader from kentucky mitch mcconnell but ultimately as jd vans points pointed out in his post-game press conference, no one cares about the score. In the end, they only remember the winner. He harkened back to a week ago when his Ohio State Buckeyes beat the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. And whether or not it was 51 to 50 or had it been 85 to 15, either way the outcome is the same. And Pete Hague said is your secretary of defense. Now, let's take a moment to hear what he had to say right after he was confirmed. And also to ensure mass deportations, support of mass deportations,

get support of the President's objective. That is something the Defense Department absolutely will continue to do. And today, there are more executive orders coming that we fully support on removing DEI inside the Pentagon, reinstating troops who were pushed out because of COVID mandates, Iron Dome for America. This is happening quickly. And as the Secretary of Defense, it's an honor to salute smartly, I did as a junior officer and now as the Secretary of Defense to ensure these orders are

complied with rapidly and quickly. Every moment that I'm here, I'm thinking about the guys and gals in Guam, Germany, Fort Benning and Fort Bragg on missile defense sites and aircraft carriers. Our job is the validity and readiness and war fighting. That's Pete Hague Seth. outside the Pentagon. Communication skills aren't directly tied to competency, but it is really hard to separate the two. I told you, I have a friend who is a trial attorney. He's been on the Will Kane show here on several occasions.

He's a really good specialist, meaning truly a trial attorney takes cases late stage. And we talk about at some point when you rise high enough in your job, communication becomes the central tool that you have to be able to master. Why? Because you lead so many people. And so in order to effectively translate your ideas and implement and execute your ideas, leadership requires effective communication. You just can't get any better as a communicator than Pete. And he's just been so trained in that for so many years. Like whether or not it was at his hearing in front of those senators, whether or not it was when he took the podium directly after being confirmed, or whether or not it's this standing right outside the Pentagon,

has a clear vision that he can communicate clearly and it's like everyone else get ready now that doesn't mean necessarily one has competency in decision making but it certainly inspires trust i mean of course i do believe it in pete's ultimate wisdom and decision making but imagine if you had somebody who actually could make decisions but couldn't communicate them well that's a problem and those skills that were just displayed that's a real real skill of leadership awesome moment afterwards to see all his kids, his wife. The first thing he did is give his wife Jen a kiss and a hug and then group hug with the kids.

I've seen pictures of them touring his office at the Pentagon. It's just a really happy moment for some people that I know there, that family. What's up to a day's? I'm just curious. With all the attacks and the vitriol towards Pete during the confirmation, how long does that last? How long since now that he's confirmed and he's going to be in his position, Do you think that kind of goes away now a little bit and, you know, he could finally do his job and just get on with his job?

I think most of the character assassination will fall by the wayside, certainly when it comes on the personal front. You know, whatever how your X algorithm feeds you, what people are saying, my X algorithm knows that I must linger on hatred. So I did see a lot over the weekend that Pete was unqualified. Right. and that will be an on the point is that will be an ongoing line of attack is my assumption in any decision that he makes will be couched in you know his lack of experience in running an organization as large as the pentagon you know for what it's worth pete already has said DEI he put out a little picture of looked like a cocktail napkin or an executive order type

situation on a notepad basically saying there will be no DEI and that's really important because what we've seen by the way i don't think we have these elements but i don't know if you guys saw on facebook there's some some people within the military like within the air force all um bemoaning the fact that the i is being rooted out and they're analogizing it to McCarthyism so he's got a battle on his hands even within defense and another story over the weekend um illustrated this battle you know there was a story about whether or not the history of the tuskegee airmen had been canceled and senator katie britt of Alabama, the Tuskegee Institute being in Alabama, was like, surely this isn't true.

And Pete Heggseth will clear this up. The San Antonio Express News seemed to be one of the big newspapers breaking this story. And I'm not fully yet versed on it. But what does appear to be the case is that, again, an opponent of dismantling DEI overzealously killed this program to give a black eye to Donald Trump. And Pete immediately got on it. This is Saturday into Sunday and has already rectified that situation. He's not doing away. The point of doing with DEI isn't to do away with history, legitimate history, you know. It's to do away with

a disproportionate focus on, you know, marginal elements of history against the great arc of history. It's a disproportionate representation based upon things other than merit and to avoid us fracturing as a society into identity politics tribalism. What's up, tinfoil? So I think another good point is that about that you kind of like ties in with what you're saying about communication is that, you know, Pete, if you ever has any illnesses, we'll probably communicate those to people instead of what happened with the former Secretary of Defense. Pointing out that Lloyd Austin disappeared for, I can't remember how long it was, several days. Twice, I think. It was two times. He did it twice to have some kind of surgery and didn't. And apparently did not tell his superiors, much less communicate to the public that he was off.

job and as all is concerned about whether or not pete hegeseth is going to always be vigilant as the secretary of defense of course when lloyd austin disappeared on us twice immediately pete is handling the office it appears to me by the way i call him his phone go straight to voicemail we have text i can only assume how busy he is but he's getting right after it like donald trump whether or not it's a tuskegee airman deal whether or not it's d i and the immediate reinstatement it appears as well of 8,000 military officers who were dismissed because they were unvaccinated. That's another immediate measure within the United States military that those with back pay, I believe, those military members will be reinstated.

I think one can clearly, it's an opinion, but one can clearly say unjustly dismissed by Lloyd Austin and the Department of Defense under Joe Biden. so it's it's off and running for pete hick said by the way can i just share with you guys one other story i may get into this a little bit later on the will cane show speaking of de i saw this this morning donald trump assigned in another executive order suggesting that prisons will only be for the assigned sex of which you are at birth two sexes two genders you will go to prison you know if you're a man you will go to prison with other men so did you guys see the stats on the number of men in female prisons?

No. Like, okay, we always talk about these trans issues and how, you know, they affect, whoa, you know, 0.1% of the population, whatever it may be, right? Right? Yeah. Let me just share with you a jaw-dropping stat. Reddit this morning.

15% of the female prison population is men. Get out of here. 15%. That can't be real. Yeah, you got to talk about that. Fact check. That's, you got to talk about that. That's insane.

Double check. I want to make sure I got it right. I read that this morning. That is a stunning stat. 1.5 out of 10 female prisoners are men. That's crazy. Crazy. We've got to figure out what's going on here.

But that's part of this. whole movement, you know, with DEI, we're talking about it's coming so fast and furious, you almost need a ticker. I need an on-screen graphic that runs alongside the Wilcane show to keep up with everything that is going on. So furiously here, under the first days of the Trump administration, what did you find two days? I saw the same thing. But don't you think people don't care, especially, you know, the left about that because it is prison. They'll just say, you know, it's kind of something that can forget about or most people can forget about. Well, you can't say that out of one side of your mouth and the other side of your mouth care about, you know,

women's safety. Right. You can't, you can't say you believe in second chances in rehabilitation that we're over prison, over, you know, incarcerating society and then say, yeah, but it doesn't matter if these women are getting raped in prison or impregnated even, impregnated, which, by the way, that's another, you know, really not fully covered story is how often that's happening, you know, in prison. And now you know why, because 15% of the population. is a dude and so I don't know how that works also I was at a family party and a lot of people

were conservatives in my family and they're wondering with all these quick executive orders with Trump they're worried that it's going too fast and things are happening too fast and you know things will get lost in the shuffle do you think that could be an issue or is it just a good thing just a good thing no I see no issues I really don't I don't see overplaying the hand. I don't see going overboard. Last week here on the Wilcane show, when we had a panel, we had Vince August and Rob Bowie, Rob Bowie of the Daily Signal, talking about the concerns of National Review writer Noah Rothman. I said Noah Rothman was wrong to be concerned that Trump is overplaying his hand when it comes to birthright citizenship, that I believe that that is a

concern of yesterday, not today or tomorrow. And Donald Trump's political instincts are beyond reproach, honestly, from what I would call the old right. Noah Rothman wrote an article in National View responding to us here on the Will Kane show. So I think what we've decided is we'll invite him on to have a debate. We'll discuss whether or not maximalist positioning and going for birthright citizenship is a problem for the Wilcane show or problem for the administration with Donald Trump. Let's do this. Let's dive into one of the most fascinating days in international relations. Yesterday, President Donald Trump on a golf course handled Colombia

and whether or not they would accept deportations from the United States in five holes of golf. We'll get into that and more with the President of the Heritage Institution, Kevin Roberts, when we come back on the Will Cain Show. 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. listen at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. The Will Kane show streaming live at foxnews.com on the Fox News YouTube channel and the Fox News Facebook page. Over a matter of five holes in golf, multiple tweets, an absolutely fascinating display of international diplomacy took place yesterday wherein Donald Trump bent to his will, the president of

Columbia. We're going to get into that, plus many other things in the news today with the president of Heritage, Kevin Roberts, coming up in just a little bit here on the Will Kane show. But now it's time for Catch Me Up. Let's bring in Lexie Rigston. She's attorney, a legal analyst. She is also a friend here of the Will Kane show. I have stated that there are so many

things happening in the news so often that it's sometimes is easy to let things slip through the cracks, things you would like to know about, things you'd be interested in. One of those stories for me is Blake Lively versus Justin Baldoni. It's always scrolling across my ex algorithm. It's now on television. It's podcast episodes dedicated to discussing it, but no matter where I turn, I feel like I'm dropping in on third base. I don't know how I got here and I don't know how to get home. I need somebody to catch me up to help me understand everything I missed five news cycles ago. And that's what we want to do today with Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.

So we have Lexi Rigden, who is a subject matter expert, one of her favorite stories as she describes it, is this drama in Hollywood. I have a lot of questions. I think the best way to do this, Lexi, is chronologically. But let's just start with this. Like, what's going on? In general, what is the issue between Baldoni and Blake Lively? Yes. And first off, let me say, congrats on your new show. You're killing it. You deserve it. So congratulations to you. And thanks for having me back.

So globally speaking, Netflix came out with a movie called It Ends with Us, which was a movie about domestic violence. And it was starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. Blake Lively is obviously very famous, way more famous than Justin Baldoni. Most people have heard of her. I'd never heard of Justin Baldoni before this. And then that, yeah, and there were issues in the production. But ultimately what happened is that I think the film premiered sometime in the summer of 2024. And in December of 2024, almost around the same day, Blake lively filed a complaint in the California Civil Rights Division against Justin Baldoni. On the heels of that complaint, and it was for retaliation, sexual harassment. On the heels of that complaint, there was a New York Times expose by the same person who had done an expose on Harvey Weinstein. And then after that, it was sort of off to the races. And then Justin Baldoni's attorney smartly and shrewdly went on a media campaign and basically said, we are going to sue Blake Lively and her husband and all of the people involved in this smear campaign into oblivion.

Blake Lively did end up suing in federal court, which is different than the California Civil Rights Division. And then Baldoni countersued. And so now you have these massive gargantial in lawsuits, Baldoni has asked for $400 million against Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, some companies involved, and based on extortion and all these other kind of juicy things. It's a really, really interesting counterclaim. It's about 200 pages. And that's kind of where we are right now. Yeah, I'd never heard of Baldoni either. Is he famous?

Has he been in a lot of other movies that I'm unaware of? Not that I'm like the most versed in like current day of pop culture, but I of course know I know Blake Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds. Well, I had heard he was in Jane the Virgin. I mean, that's like one of those shows. You see it on Netflix. You see it and you're like, you know, you can watch this and then you don't actually watch it. That's the only thing.

I'm sure if he were listening, he'd say, how dare you? I've been in more than that. But I don't know. But he was definitely, definitely not the star in this film. So I think it was perceived as a big get to have somebody of Blake Lively's starring in this film. So this movie, from what I've read, and I just read in enough

so that I can understand the conversation to get real information out of you, Lexi. This movie apparently, it's a book that Baldoni optioned, and it was really popular somehow on TikTok. So it already had sort of a viral following, and it's about domestic violence. It's a serious subject matter.

And it seems like the movie was shot a year ago in January released last summer from what I can tell and understand and the first time people start talking about Baldonian Lively

is during the promotional tours for this movie because they didn't appear together then people like started noticing right that she doesn't follow him on Instagram which I guess is a real slight I don't I guess

if you're on a movie you have to follow each other on Instagram and um and then she was kind of weird right because it's serious subject matter and he did like a really good press to her from what i've been able to gather like he was talking about the subject matter of domestic violence and she was doing weird stuff like being a little too happy and plugging hair products and and and i guess whatever florals are is that a scent that she's into i don't know she's kind of doing personal branding her attire and being flowers and everything it's her attire. Okay, it's, it's her dress like Blake, do your hair like Blake, have fun like Blake. So that's kind of where this starts, like people start going, what's up with them to? Like, they don't follow

each other. She's weird. They're not together. Yeah. And the fire had already been burning, unbeknownst to all of us, long before that, because there are so many text messages and emails in his counterclaim, which makes it such a compelling read. Even if you don't like celebrity feuds and legal drama. It's just kind of an interesting look into the movie industry and how these people deal with each other, the self-important, grandiose way these people talk to each other. They literally talk like they're working on some type of research project to cure cancer. I mean, you know, this is a movie about domestic violence. It's nice that we're going to raise more awareness about it, especially with some star power behind it. But my goodness, these are the most self-important

aggrandizing emails. But in any event, things were not. not okay with them even when they were filming last year at this time. So what eventually happened was she was trying to, based on the evidence that has been submitted in the counterclaim, trying to take over a lot of control of the movie, which apparently is not standard. Maybe one day when I'm a movie star, I'll be able to say what's standard or what's not, but it's not standard. So she was trying to take over all this control. He was kind of nicely pushing back, but letting her have some control because he was afraid that she was just going to say, all right, fine. If you're not going to let me have the control over this, I'm out.

And so there was a pause in the filming because I think it was the writer's strike. And they come back, and this was, I think, January of last year. And she comes with this 17 point demand for certain things that she needs to come back to set. She needs an intimacy coordinator. People can't come into her trailer unannounced. They need to essentially not make sexual comments. There were certain things that were kind of like no-brainers, like, you know, even if it weren't happening. You'd say, okay, sure, fine. That's fine with me. And so in his counterclaim,

he said, there was this whole litany of stuff. I didn't really feel like I needed to sign a document saying this because, for example, the intimacy coordinator, she said in her complaint, there was no intimacy coordinator. And for the uninitiated, that is basically somebody who choreographs and talks to the stars about if they're going to kiss in a scene. Are you going to drag your lips on someone's neck in this scene? I mean, it's a sensitive kind of thing. And so I guess this person is there sort of as a safeguard for everybody involved that's doing this type of scene. So it's not just a free for all. But she says in her complaint, I didn't get an intimacy coordinator. He says in his counterclaim, here are the messages

showing that I said, let's meet with the intimacy coordinator. And you said no. So there's a lot of stuff in here that needed to be contextualized and contradicts each other. So anyway, things are bad this time last year, they sign a document, everyone gets back to work, and they finish the movie. And there are messages between Blake and Justin who had formerly been very close. They would go to each other's houses. He was with pictures holding their kids

that they didn't include out of privacy to her. But she was still trying to demand some control over, I want to be in the editing booth. I want to see the final cuts. She made her own cut. I mean, apparently all of this stuff is just very, very uncommon for someone who's just an actress in the film. And whatever happened, the animosity kept building and building and building until we come to around the premier time.

And there are all of these reports out about what a bad relationship they're having with each other. And one of the main issues with her complaint is basically saying that he was planting bad press about her and smear campaigns. And this is a big, big part of this. And the publicists also now have lawsuits against each other, which is a really kind of interesting diversion. ultimately he is essentially saying she was coming after me in every way including they they have the same agent so they they were all Ryan Blake and Justin were all represented by WME William Morris Endeavor and apparently the reason he got this PR team involved was because Ryan said to the people at WME Justin Baldoni is quote a sexual predator and Justin believes that Ryan and Blake

we're trying to get him dropped by his agent. So after that, I know, I know this is a lot to, a lot to handle. I mean, the counterclaim is 200 pages. I mean, it's really, really long for a federal complaint. But after all that, he gets, Justin gets this crisis team involved. And I was like, all right, we need to have a plan. We need to be able to go live with positive stories about Justin and negative stories about Blake if all of this comes to pass.

And his entire basically them trying to cancel him. And his entire argument in his complaint is, we never actually planted negative stories about her. We didn't need to. She was so tone deaf during the marketing of this. This is a movie about domestic violence. She's telling girls, get your friends, wear your florals. She's promoting her hair care line, as you said.

She's promoting her alcohol brand, which there is a big correlation between domestic violence and alcohol use, so that was seen to be very tone deaf. And basically, his point is, I had a PR team, didn't need to really deploy them. Blake brought all of this on herself. And as somebody who is a, well, a casual observer, but maybe a not so casual observer of all this, I find Blake and her entire personality to be very disingenuous. She's been obnoxious.

She has been downright rude in interviews. And that was really, I think, the source of the cancellation this summer, which, by the way, died down. So she really didn't need to do this. Okay. Let's set aside publicity for a minute. I'm going to come back to that, okay? I want to go back to the filming.

Okay, so what we have here is a relationship that's going south. Okay, we all realize that during the publicity tour. We'll get to publicity in a minute. But I'm rewinding the clock a little bit earlier. The relationship between Baldoni and Blake Lively is going south on the set and after the movie is finished filming. Because she wants control, according to Baldoni. So that's his argument, right? that she, during this session,

what made their relationship go south is that she tried to exert way more control than is normally afforded to an actress or even a star actress in these situations and that put their relationship on the rocks. She, of course, with her suit, is saying the relationship went south because you were actually harassing me

and you were creating a hostile work environment without getting into the evidence yet. I'm curious with this, Lexi, does her claim is her claim validated in any way or given credibility by the fact that she did make those listed demands before coming back to set?

Like, is that a little bit, you know, you're a lawyer, I'm a lawyer, like, is that a little bit like telling somebody else about a domestic violence claim? You know, like, what do you call that? Like, if I, if you and I have a, if you and I are in a lawsuit or in a criminal case and you say I'm, I'm hitting.

you, Lexi, it helps your claim if you had shared that information with somebody else at the time. It's like corroboration through- An outcry witness or a fresh complaint. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I mean, it hurts you if you just stayed silent throughout. Does her making that demands not in some way help her out on the claim, this is what was going on on set, this is why the relationship went south, and this is why I'm suing. I completely agree with you that it does. And it does help because if she has, hadn't made them and she was only coming out now, it would be far less believable. I still believe, though, that, well, first of all, his, he actually answered, they did her, his lawyer did a really masterful job in really attacking every single point. And I really think that that

was done more so for people like you and me to read and have opinions on them, even the court. But there was a lot of contextualization to these requests. But Justin Baldoni's team has basically said, these were such no-brainers. And we felt. felt as though she was going to pull out of filming and we were going to lose all this money and all this time and potentially not be able to salvage the project that we had no, like we didn't understand the basis for it. We didn't really think it was necessary. Can I just say for the audience?

These demands included stuff like Justin couldn't talk about his pornography addiction, these that he couldn't show her nudes, he couldn't make comments about her way. And that one, by the way, I know the response from Justin's attorneys was like he has a bad back. and he has to lift you in a scene, so he asked about how much you weigh. Yeah. But the other ones, like, I hear you, Lexi, but if Justin and his team are signing off,

like, if somebody asked me to sign off on something that said, Will, no longer show her nudes, or no longer talk about your pornography addiction, I'd be like, I never did that stuff. I'm not going to agree to not do it in the future. I haven't been doing it in the past. Well, with the nudes, apparently it was some issue with there was a birthing scene

and it ends with us. And I did watch the movie. It was, eh, whatever. But I watched it and there's a birthing scene. And apparently the context to that was they were trying to come up with some idea about how to do the birthing scene or how it should look. And so somebody associated with Justin showed a picture, allegedly it was a still picture of his wife in labor and what she was wearing, how she was situated.

I mean, when I read this, it seems like from their messages, they were very good friends. And so I know he had written a book. in the past about his pornography addiction and he went over to her penthouse and would hang out with Ryan and Ryan Reynolds Blake lively and Taylor Swift. Taylor's name was blacked out, but it was clearly Taylor Swift. And so, you know,

on the flip side of the whole discussing the porn addiction, I think that the way that it was spun in the counterclaim was like, we were friends and we talked about our lives and we knew about each other's, you know, lives and foibles and everything like that. And, you know, I really think that they, nobody behaved. I'm sure nobody behaved beyond reproach here. And I compare it to the Amber

Hurd and Johnny Depp case where he was the clear unequivocal winner in the war of public opinion after that case was over. But if you actually watched the trial and followed it closely, he didn't, I mean, he definitely behaved poorly in certain aspects. There's a many-minute long video of him screaming and throwing things. Could Justin Baldoni have made some judgment errors? Sure. He probably did. I mean, we all do. But that list, I really think that they felt, we have this megastar here, and she has us over a barrel, and we can't say no to these demands. Okay. I have another question, though, of whether or not it gives her credibility for the claim she's making.

And then, again, I promise you, we're going to get to the publicity side of this because I know it's a big part of it. And it's actually really the underlying part of this. But I still like to get to the facts of the thing. Does it help her claim that it seems like almost every co-star, has sided with her. Like, I think that's true, right? And they've either come out and made a statement or unfollowed him or did something on social media, like, and I don't know their names because they're not famous enough actors

or actresses to, um, that I would recognize their names. But I do know that it seems like almost all of them are on the side of Blake lively. And I thought that too. At first blush, when I first read this when it came out in December, I thought, oh my gosh, poor Blake, what a horrible thing to have to go through. And then when you have a flip side argument or it's contextual, the argument that Baldoni's lawyers made about that specific point, which I actually thought was pretty convincing, is look at how many people she was able to try to turn against Baldoni because she has a lot more power in the industry. These people are simply trying to placate her. They simply want to be on her side. They want more opportunities. They don't want to be blacklisted. And one of the theories that his lawyer has is for her trying to cede control, take control of this, not seed control, take control of this movement. is that she might want to actually be able to do the prequel.

Now, of course, it starts with us. Now, of course, this is, to my understanding, all hypothetical, but if these people want jobs and want to be in good with Blake, and she made clear in her messages to Justin Baldoni that Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift are her, quote-unquote, dragons, and they'll protect her, and they'll go to the ends of the earth for her. So if I'm a young starlet and nobody knows me, I'm hitching my wagon to Blake's star, not Justin's.

Yeah, for sure. But, by the, forget young starlet. it. I'm sure that's what happened at WME. WME. A hundred percent. Brian Reynolds, Blake lively, and Justin Baldoni. Who are they going to drop? Well, they're not going to drop Ryan Reynolds and Blake lively,

especially if they say you have to. Hey, you got to. And I hate the, when I saw that they dropped him the next day, I hated the instant cancellation with no ability to respond, but I also understand it was a business decision. No doubt. They're right to make. So that's what's happened.

Now we get to the publicity. of this like baldoni won an award for like men standing up for women they revoked it within days after blake lively made these claims like everybody's ready to accept blake lively's story right um and in in prematurely it is objectively prematurely um convict condemn justin baldoni and so what happens is these two sides higher publicity firms as you point out and they start putting stories out about each other and so this is where a lot of the defamation as well comes in because you know they're running this through the media they're running this through PR and they're both making claims that their reputations have been damaged the biggest story

obviously is the one that came out in the new york times it was pretty much all pro blake lively right and that's why baldone has sued the new york times i think he sued them for 250 million and then he sued reynolds and lively for 400 million um the so but the point is it's not until January that Baldoni begins to fight back. And it's one thing, Lexi, but you gave his context on a lot of other things. Like one thing in Lively's claim is that during a scene, Baldoni drug his lips across her neck and her ear and said she smelled good. And it kind of in text, as you're reading it, it's super awkward. And for those watching on YouTube or Facebook, you can see it right now. But we have the audio. We can hear how they're talking.

Because Justin Baldoni released like a full seven-minute video here. He has the footage. Well, it's not bad. And she said something like, well, I'm going to get spray tan on you. He's like, it's okay. It smells good. And she's like, no, it's my body makeup. And of course, everything they're doing is romantic and it looks inappropriate.

But they're actors and they're acting a romantic scene out. So that's what I don't know. Do you feel like Baldoni's totally vindicated, at least on this one point? And then does that point undercut everything else about Blake Lively? I think it's a serious credibility issue for her because if you're actually, you're swearing to the accuracy of a complaint when you file it and you're saying that he dragged his lips across her neck and said it smells so good. I mean, clearly that's not really what happened. And that's why context is so important in these because as you correctly pointed out, I think he said, I'm getting my beard on you. She said, oh, it's my spray tan. Oh, don't worry. It smells good. Oh, it's my body makeup. You know, it's an innocuous conversation. And also, I didn't see any lip drag. But you're right. It's a romantic scene. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

I mean, if this is such a, if this is something that is going to cause you trauma, don't be an actress in a romantic movie. I mean, we're all, I would assume every movie that has romance in it has moments like that and more, right? And more. A hundred percent. I mean, we're all out here working, you know, nine to five, whatever it is. And I have absolutely no sympathy for this. he dragged his lips on my neck. First of all, I don't see that in the footage. But second of all,

even if he did, you're an actress. You didn't meet with the intimacy coordinator. This is the type of thing that happens in a movie where you have to be romantic with somebody. So I don't think the video helped. Now, what's funny is that the spin machine continues because her lawyers have come out and said, see, it corroborates everything we were saying. She looks so uncomfortable. And I even saw something ridiculous online about somebody saying, well, if you don't listen to it with the audio, you can sort of see that she's uncomfortable. Okay. Great. Take the entire context out of it. I mean, that's, that's not a helpful, not a helpful comment. I mean, you need to hear it. You need to see it and judge for yourself, but it most certainly lends more credibility to him than her.

Okay. Last question before I do one global question. One more specific. I saw Candace Owens last night on Instagram. She had a whole long take on it, okay? And I don't know, Lexie, again, remember i'm trying to catch up on this story um i don't know if this is a candace owen unique take or if um others are saying this my suspicion is this others are saying this because ryan reynolds has been named in justin baldoni suit owens was making the point that this is all ryan reynolds actually it's not even so much blake lively that this is driven by ryan Reynolds because he was jealous or something about what was going on with Baldoni and lively.

I don't know if they had feelings for each other. I don't know what their relationship was. But like bring in Ryan Reynolds. Like what's his role in all of this? I saw that too. And I've seen the commentary on that. And I don't think it's a stretch to necessarily believe that. But I think that some of the theory about him is that he's just really controlling in general.

He's a big megastar, and so he gets to do what he wants to do on movie sets, and he felt as though she should do the same. And he had some creative control over his movies, and he felt like she should have some creative control over her movies, and he threw his weight around. And so I don't know if it's a jealousy issue. I don't know if it's a control issue or an entitlement issue. Both of them seem to really be drinking their own Kool-Aid, and they think they're very, very important. I mean, I can't even, the text messages are just, they're just gross in their, in their self-aggrandizement. But I think that there, I was thinking that there's got to be more to this than just Blake wanted control of the movie and he wouldn't give it to her. And the Ryan Reynolds piece is interesting.

And I feel like there's probably going to be more that comes out. Hey, really quick on that as well, Lexi, like there's got to be something more to, I don't see how it's like, dang, Blake, you were really bad at interviews leading up to. it ends with us. You were super weird. Your reputation's in bad shape. And then you go, yeah, man, I really fumbled the ball on that. Let's sue Justin for sexual harassment. I don't see that leap. You know what I mean? So it just feels like there's more either giving legitimacy to Blake Lively's claims or something else driving all these claims. Well, I think that she thought that she probably didn't fumble the ball that much and that the backlash was so much so that it couldn't have been attributable just to her.

I think she thought that that backlash was a result of PR efforts behind the scenes by Baldoni and his team. And some of the text messages that were included in the New York Times Exposé and her complaint lend credence to that. But then you realize once you read the counterclaim that a lot of the context and a lot of the messages themselves were removed. So they would bullet point like certain pieces of the message which looked really bad and then take out other parts of the message that either added.

context or um right we're the opposite of what the initial message said contradicted is the word i'm looking for and diving into those hundreds of pages the way you have done and seeing the context between with all these claims is the key it's like seeing that footage that footage changes everything about what you think when somebody says super weird you said i smell good um but last question does any this matter or is it is it is it johnny dep amber heard celebrity nonsense it's modern day people magazine. Does it matter beyond that? Like, is it matter like it's actually an attempt at a Me Too

and a post Me Too era? You can't get away with just simply blanket claims. You know, do you think there's more to this than simply just celebrity gossip? I do. I think it matters in an immeasurable amount to the two people involved because their careers and reputations are on the line.

But globally speaking, as a society, I am hoping that we have gotten away from the knee jerk, believe all women, garbage. You can't believe all anybody. You have to look at the facts and the evidence. So I'm really hoping that people see this. And regardless of what some of what she's saying is true, which it may well be, I think it's so important for people to pause, take a breath, and contextualize allegations that are being made against somebody. I mean, you look at the Pete Higse thing, that whole mess with that anonymous accuser. those allegations had a lot of context that favored him.

But a lot of people wanted to ignore that. And they just chose to look, oh, my God, somebody alleged something terrible. No, you needed context for those things. You needed to actually read the documents and get some information from both sides into, in order to make an accurate judgment call. And so what I'm hoping this shows people is that once and again, once again, somebody is being smeared with allegations take a breath wait and see what the other side is saying nobody should be labeling him a sexual predator the second a lawsuit comes out and nobody by the same token but she should be labeling her a liar the second a lawsuit comes out but as this has kind of fleshed itself out i i i tend to believe justin a lot more than i believe her and i honestly in the context in which she exists as a beautiful rich celebrity with a powerful husband and powerful

friends. And, you know, if the worst that happened to her was some actor dragging his lips across her neck, I'm sorry, the world's smallest violin is playing for you, as far as I'm concerned. I really like your takeaway. I really do. Not just the peat points, but I think for years, I felt this way when I was at ESPN, no matter what happened. Then it was off about race and cops. It's like, headline is all that matters. The facts don't matter. Looking into the situation makes you a racist. If you want the details, then you're a bad guy. You know, I told you. I totally like your global takeaway. And I've really liked this conversation, Lexi, this has been fun. I think we need to keep this up. We'll figure out other stories that I need to catch up,

Lexie Rickston. Thanks. Legal analyst, attorney, friend here of the Will Kane show. Okay, let's take you through what happened into one of the most fascinating moments in international diplomacy. Let's get into what happened between Donald Trump and the president of Columbia with the president of heritage, Kevin Roberts. When we come back on the Will Kane show. Following Fox's initial donation to the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund, our generous viewers have answered the call to action across all Fox platforms and have helped raise $6.5 million. Visit go.com forward slash TX flood relief to support relief and rebuilding efforts.

This is Jason Chaffetz from the Jason and 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. between the third and the eighth whole president donald trump negotiated a new relationship with columbia you will accept deportations and you will in fact use your presidential plane from columbia it's the will cane show streaming live at foxnews.com on the fox news youtube channel

and the fox news facebook page we're here every monday through thursday at twelve o'clock Eastern time. Set your YouTube reminder. Jump into the comments section, become a member of the Wallitia, hang out here. This is where we come to do just that, but to hang out. We hope you'll become a member of the Wallitia and subscribe on Apple or on Spotify. A little bit earlier, we laid out for you. Pete Hegg sets confirmation as Secretary of Defense. Now we've got to get into some international relationship when it comes to Donald Trump and Columbia. So joining me now is the president of heritage. It is Kevin Roberts here on the Will Kane show. What's up, Kevin? I heard you want to jump in on Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. You have hot takes.

You want to get everybody know. Now that we've been caught up, now we need to get the word according to Kevin Roberts. Oh, completely. You know, I feel like such an expert after listening to you and Lexi talk. I think my daughters in particular would be very impressed when I come home and report back on all this legal expertise I have in the entertainment world. So thanks for providing that service, Will Kane. you're welcome that's what i considered it it's like a public service you missed the story you're five nice new cycles behind now you can go home and talk to your daughter about blake lively and justin baldoni i'm ready to go ahead i want to talk to you about this i want to talk to you

about this kevin uh let's talk about what happened with columbia yesterday so here's what president trump tweeted uh and the sequence of events is fascinating i think i'll probably do a ticot today at four o'clock on the will cane show because it all went down within a matter of hours and it uh it all went down apparently between like the third and the eighth hole of a round of golf for President Trump. He did eventually to it. I just informed that the repatriation flights from the United States with a large number of illegal criminals

were not allowed to land in Columbia. This was passed by Columbia's socialist president. It was already very unpopular. So here's what Donald Trump said is going into effect immediately. 25% tariffs on all goods coming into the United States in one week. Then 25% will be raised to 50%.

Also a travel ban. immediate visa revocations for the Colombian government officials and allies and supporters in the United States. Then visa sanctions on party members, family members, and supporters of the Colombian government. Enhanced CBP inspection of all Colombian nationals and cargo on national security grounds. And then IEPA, treasury, banking, and financial sanctions to be fully imposed. That's what Donald Trump did in response to Colombia rejecting deportation of illegal immigrants to Columbia. In the meantime, Kevin, the president of Columbia, he went on some screed. I mean, it was like, it was stream of consciousness, craziness, Marxist, anti-colonialist

screed. And then he caved to Donald Trump. He almost sounded like a university professor here in the United States, right? But I think in a matter of six minutes, not just in a couple of hours, he acquiesced to the president's demands. And that tells you that the world knows the sheriff is back in town. You know, as I think we've talked about, four will at heritage we host a lot of foreign officials diplomats heads of state and so on and regardless of their ideological disposition whether they're socialists like this two-bit autocrat in columbia are more thoughtful leaders they have said the same thing over the last four years which is that the world is missing america's moral clarity well i dare say the world's got some

moral clarity because the sheriff is back in town and it's glorious to see well you know what's fascinating so first of all i want to put this tweet up i'm not you know i don't want to give the audience undue credibility or that kind of thing because sometimes we get tweets then you know who knows is the author of the tweet anonymous accounts but I did find this and my guys on the show found this fascinating um it's this tweet that kind of says hey here's how this would have happened in the past Kevin it's by somebody named um cynical Publius but he lays out what would have happened in the past and that's a lot of words on your screen if you're watching on YouTube or or Facebook and it's it's hard to parse but I I

can lay it out essentially in short and it is that you would have gone through several layers of intra-agency memos laying out a three-point plan it would have taken a week and then it would have gone to a different department and different department heads would have come back and said I don't like that it's not enough equity and then you come back with a force plan and this and that and all all all after this goes back and forth and bounces around whatever offices in dc a month down the road you'd say okay we figured something out and it would be this hollow victory Instead, this was all done on X in a couple rounds of golf directly between the President of the United States and the President of Columbia. And then they just conclude this tweet thread would see the difference.

It's called leadership. It is. He's the disruptor in chief. And I will add a layer to that wonderful analysis from the person on X. And that is that you would have had former conservatives, you know, these irrelevant. outdated, you know, former officials who are chirping this morning, also saying, in addition to these diplomatic channels that would take months, oh, we're going to have higher coffee prices, we're going to have higher fresh flour prices. And I love what my colleagues at the Heritage Foundation said this

morning, which is that our country's sovereignty and the well-being of Americans is a lot more important than coffee and flowers. And Trump brings that, not just the disruption as if that, you know, it's somehow untethered to anything. It's tethered to the principle that his first moral obligation is to the people of the United States, particularly the forgotten men and women who have just, of course, experienced being run roughshod over by the self-appointed elites, whether they're in the United States or whether they're in a place like Columbia. Yeah. And there are those that say, well, there was already flights going. Columbia didn't want to accept military planes. But in the end, whatever was their objection, they are accepting

military planes from the United States. They are, in fact, using their own presidential plane to bring deported criminals back to Columbia. Your point of what you said about what conservatives might have said is exactly what was said by liberals. Anna Navarro of the views said, flower prices are going to go up in time for Valentine's Day. I don't know how many flowers we get from Columbia. And this is what AOC said about coffee, to your point. She said, get ready to pay more for coffee. To punish Colombia, Trump is about to make every American pay even more for coffee. Remember, we pay for tariffs, not Colombia. Trump is all about making inflation worse. And that, by the way, like, it's the talking points, man. It's really

odd right now to see the infection of viral talking points. Like, that's the lefty stuff, talking points, right? And then there's just the mainstream media, which is lefty stuff, you know, filtered through a false sense of credibility. They're all doing egg prices and inflation, all that kind of stuff right now, bacon prices. But it's so wild. Like, are you telling me in order to get a coffee cup that's 25% cheaper, I have to accept Lake and Riley being murdered, I have to accept criminal gangs, you know, targeting Joe Burrow and I don't know how many different professional athletes and illegal immigrants all of the streets. So this is what we should worry about?

Yeah, I'm in an ex-argument, if you will, with someone who's an ambassador, a former ambassador over something that I wrote in a Fox piece this morning, which is calling the 11 million illegal aliens at the very least is probably more like 20 million an invasion. And this ambassador, former ambassador said, well, we ought not use language like that, Kevin, because, you know, it really degrades public policy. And I said, this is what's problem. The problem is with D.C. speak. This is the precise point that you're making well and what Trump is trying to eradicate. And that is somehow we can't call a spade a spade. We can't call reality, reality that all of these Americans in these thousands of communities that have been upended by these illegal aliens, some of

them committing horrific murders, like we saw in the case of Lincoln Riley, that somehow we have to be careful about what we call them and we can't call it an invasion because it, quote, unquote, degrades language when, in fact, the real issue, and this is Trump's genius, is that we have to protect Americans, we have to protect American sovereignty. Ultimately, what we have arrived at, as Trump said, a week ago today, just a week ago today, when he was being inaugurated, is a revolution of common sense. And for me and for us at Heritage, that starts with restoring order at the southern border. The beautiful thing is, the majority of Americans say, we'll pay a little bit more for coffee. We don't care where our flowers come from. We can do without a little bit of both of those.

We simply want our country back. And man, God bless Donald Trump and J.D. Vance for in one week restoring common sense to this great country. But there's another angle to it for me, Kevin, and that is the recognition, as you pointed out, to say reality is reality. And reality is this is an asymmetrical world. and the asymmetry slants in our direction. So we're not going to pay more for coffee. That's not going to happen. Because if Colombia wants to put tariffs in reverse on the United States, our tariffs hurt Colombia more than their tariffs hurt us.

Now, we won't get into it because they know that. So we won't end up putting tariffs on Colombia. They'll bend to the will. That's the whole point. And you're seeing it everywhere across the world. The international criminal courts all of a sudden is very interested in doing the things the United States has always asked for. like issue arrest warrants for the Taliban, right?

All of a sudden, we didn't even know there was a hostage in Belarus, and they're released. Like, we didn't know there was one under Joe Biden, but there was, and now they've been released. Hostages are being released in Gaza. It's like, there's an asymmetry. We are more powerful than you. We are not first among equals. We are first. And if what you're doing is not in line with what we want in America, and you decide you want to try to be, you know, have a backbone, well, okay.

but you're going to pay the price. And that is reality. The reality is this is not a symmetrical world, and we can actually accomplish America first. We can, and we are, and to your point about the coffee, we can get more coffee beans from Ethiopia, Kenya, all the other suppliers of coffee. My point about Americans being willing to do so

is if, for some reason, it takes two or three months for coffee prices to even out, Americans care so deeply about restoring order and reminding the world about the asymmetry that you talk about, that they're willing to do so, that this is not a big cost to ask Americans to do. I agree with you that it's highly unlikely they will. But the key thing is that Trump understands not only has he won an election, not only does he and his advisors have the right ideas on policies, but he's doing something that conservative elected officials too infrequently do when they finally win office. And that's wield the authority

they have. I can't think of only two or three instances in my career. and public policy will, of elected officials on the conservative side actually doing this. And I think Americans realize that not only is the sheriff back in town, it isn't just his second term, that he's come in with a playbook and he's implementing it. And these knuckleheads like the socialist autocrat of Columbia understand that there are new rules and America's back in charge. You brought up, you know, the inability to speak plainly and use language. Obviously, I mean, one of the biggest culprits of that has been. this whole DEI push over the past, let's call it, a little less than a decade.

I mean, it's been a long ideological push, but it's really, you know, become an obvious pimple in the past, I'd say, five to six years. And Donald Trump, Pete Hags at the DE at Secretary of Defense, they've got a job on their hands. Like, I see this stuff about it being pushed back within the Air Force. Do you think it gets buried? Do you think, look, Pete's no fool. and neither is Donald Trump.

So you try to rename it and bury it and move these jobs or these initiatives into something else. They're going to be able to sniff it out. But, you know, this is pretty entrenched. I don't know at what level of bureaucracy. Pete's famously said you've got to take out the top level of generals and that kind of thing and then incentive will flow. But I just wonder how big the hill is to climb because these people are pretty committed and will they just rename it something else besides DEI. Yeah, DEI and DEI advocates are like cockroaches.

they may survive a nuclear war. And so it's really important for us to remember a couple of examples that Heritage over the last several years, we've helped sponsor state legislation. So for state legislatures that eliminates DEI programs and universities, our very own alma mater, the University of Texas, of course, didn't like that idea. They complied. But what did they do? What did Texas A&M do? What did other four-year universities do? They simply rename the offices and rehired those same people. And so to your point, Pete Hexette is smart enough to know this. We also have this example. be able to show him. But the point is you can't take your foot off the gas when it comes to eliminating DEI. My wife and I were having dinner during the inaugural events, you know, like the night after

the inauguration, and we overheard some bureaucrat meeting with his wife or girlfriend and complaining about having to go through this process of eliminating DEI programs and not knowing who this guy was. I won't say the department he works for. It was clear that there are efforts underway for the deep state to burrow in. And so it's really important for your audience to know as awesome as it is that Trump issued that executive order, as awesome as it is to see Pete Hegseth yesterday write a handwritten memo in Black Sharpie, DOD does not equal DEI, that it's incumbent upon us as individual Americans to keep the pressure on, the accountability on the deep state, because what the career bureaucrats are doing is burrowing into positions where they will be

hard to find. And it's imperative upon us at the federal level, the state level, the local level, if we're going to ultimately prevail and eliminate the last cockroach to keep spraying it away. Okay, I have two more things I want to try to cover with you real quick. They're both entertainment questions and I'm ready. Well, do you have anything on deep seek? I'm really interested in deep seek. Everybody, the markets are freaking out right now about deep seek. Like Wall Street has not crash, but really gone down. Invidia? which was skyrocketing stocks gone down. This is China's AI, I don't know, platform, deep seek.

Do you have anything on that? Because that's something I need to dive into really soon. Yeah, this morning, my heritage colleagues were briefing me on that. And so with the caveat that we're learning as well, although this was not a surprise to a couple of them because they're so smart. This looks like a real threat. It looks like the Chinese may have lapped American AI technology in one facet. But the good news is something that we think we have figured out just in the last

couple of hours is that American companies may have the ability to match them on that particular technological advance. The second point, which is obvious, but it's really important to underscore this because this is the kind of threat that I think we're going to see more and more. The Chinese Communist Party does not play the short game. They play the long game. It's also a Chinese cultural attribute. And clearly what they're trying to do is disrupt not only our American companies, our American technology, which perhaps they've even stolen, but they're also trying to introduce market disruptions that shake the confidence of the popular will that is producing wind in the sales of Donald Trump. So as much as this is a bit of a technological blow,

sort of the Chinese Sputnik moment, if you will, I'm confident. That's what I saw it described. Yeah, I'm confident. Why? Is it really good or something? Is it deep seek as fast? It is. It is really good. But we believe that American companies very quickly are going to be able to match that. What we're most concerned about at Heritage right now is that this is precisely the kind of thing that the Chinese can do sort of the element of surprise that disrupts our market. And that's the politically, not alone, not just alone economically, what Trump's going to have to have in order to sustain this popular will. So here's what I want to ask you, Kevin, do you take Trump seriously when it comes to the IRS? I'm sure at Heritage, you guys have

all kinds of policy positions and papers on income tax and taxation in general. You know, he said two things. I'm thinking about sending all these newly hired IRS agents who are all licensed to carry down to the border. Instead of working on you and your taxes, they can help reinforce the border. But then he kind of mused as well about just doing away with the income tax, you know, and using tariffs to replace it. Everything I've ever seen, Kevin, and I don't know, and this is something that I, when I say I want a deep dive, that's because it deserves a lot of time. Like, I know that, and Trump talked about this, like we primary, we didn't even bring in the income tax until, what was it, like, 1917? And we ran on tariffs for like the 60 prior years, 50 prior years,

essentially, but that's a different America. And it is a prosperous America, the turn of century, but we're well beyond that in terms of the size and largesse of the American government. We couldn't, could we live on tariffs? We can't get rid of income tax, right? Just like feasibly. Forget morally. Yeah, that'd be awesome. But feasibly, can we, can we get rid of income tax? I'm going to make your day. Yes, we can. Now, that comes with the caveat. Look, this is coming from a think tank guy, right? So we've thought about this.

We've analyzed it. My economist colleagues at Heritage have run the numbers and they're doing the modeling as we sit here and have this conversation will. You have to do it incrementally, right? To your point that it is a different America in 2025 than in the 1910s when the Internal Revenue Service got its start. And so what you have to do is have a sort of phased in legislation where you're eliminating the income tax piece by piece and phasing in the tariff. But there's a third vector here, which is just as important as whatever you decide to do with taxation, and that's spending, that you're not going to be able to afford the federal government's expense if you don't start the kind of spending reform that the politicians in D.C. have been so reticent to do. If you do that, to sum up here, and you take a decade to do it incrementally, and the president and his successors do a very good job of explaining to the American people what's going on, while an aspirational vision for how. how we fund this country or the country's government, it is certainly feasible. Okay. Last thing, Kevin. So we're seeing a flurry of executive orders. We're seeing at least

Heg Seth and Rubio confirmed. We'll see how the rest this week plays out. Cabinet members can start to implement the vision of Donald Trump at a department level. But at some point, the agenda will move to the legislative branch. Like to get big things done, it's going to require things to be done legislatively, not simply through, you know, the executive power of Donald Trump. Today, all the Republicans are meeting at a retreat. I don't know about all of them, but there's a GOP retreat. Trump will go, right, and they're supposed to put together their vision for how they're going to legislate. But, like, Mike Johnson's margin is, what is it? Is it even one? It's one, right? Is it three? For several weeks, it'll be one.

yes yeah until they replace what is it mike waltz and a few others which takes until march or april correct march so then it goes to three yeah so that takes an incredible amount of you know whatever what's the word uniformity um cohesion among republicans and which by the way they've never shown the ability to do including most recently when it came to even raising the debt ceiling right um so i just wonder can this momentum that Trump has and then momentum builds upon itself can it bleed over into the legislative and all these Republicans who have different visions sometimes some are more libertarian some are less libertarian some are more neocons some are more whatever spending hawks can they all get on the same page to keep the momentum going for the agenda under Donald Trump well it is an open question and it's an

open question that I think is unanswered I'm just going to be candid with you that's that's part of my job is the president of Heritage. I've talked to the speaker with whom I'm a great friend over the last couple weeks a few times about all of this. And so even though it's an open question, Will, we're more confident at Heritage that it's possible for a couple of reasons. The first is everyone involved, whether it's the sort of fiscal hawk conference in the House Republican group or the more sort of social conservatives or the Senate Republicans understand that the truth of what you said, momentum builds upon itself. And so they're understanding that probably the way to get this done is with one bill provided you can do this quickly. And so our

point at heritage is if you're going to put this in one bill, starts showing some legislative progress early on so that people who are trying to figure out whether to invest capital or not later in the year have some confidence that the Trump tax cut will be renewed. We, of course, are arguing, going back to the very beginning of our conversation today, you got to start with the border. Work on those things. But the second thing that makes it more possible is that Trump is spending so much time with the House Republicans. He's had face-to-face meetings with all of them in small groups. He's going to see them all again today. I think the unity that we're seeing between the president and the speaker and John Foon, who's done a great job thus far as the

Republican majority leader, is pretty impressive. That's the kind of thing the Democrats do when they're in power. And I think the success, of course, which is likely at this point, rests upon that continuing. Real quick. The fault lines would be, right? There's neocons and a more dovis vision on foreign policy. So the extent that foreign policy is made a part of this, that's a fracture we're going to have to watch. Fiscal hawks, obviously, versus any and all congressmen who have a vested interest in something going on in their district, quite honestly, you know, which is, we call that pork. It is also how Washington, D.C. works. I mean, it just is um and then so that's a fault line and then there's like thomas massey right and and his i don't

this sounds like i'm being negative i'm not i think it's the right word puritanical vision of like cutting back and and you know less government involvement i just there's these fault lines where you can see the heads hitting and it'll be a huge feat for mike johnson donald trump to get them to all set that stuff aside. By the way, that doesn't also include the social conservative from Alabama versus the moderate from New York. Look, and there are multiple fault lines. I do think you put your thumb on the two most important, one being the neocons, personified, you might say, by Mitch McConnell in the Senate, and there being more of those in the Senate among the Republicans. And then the House, and there's a large number in the following group, who are fiscal hawks. People like

Chip Roy, a good friend of mine from Texas, who are willing to stop the whole show. if we don't change the trajectory of federal spending. You are right. Mike Johnson has an unenviable job, but I will tell you, I think it's more likely than not that he's going to succeed in doing this because of the recognition among all of the people in those camps that they have to show the American people some legislative success. Secondly, we also understand that Trump is very involved. The last little bit of caveat that I will offer in this, sort of inside baseball view from Capitol Hill,

is that there are still a few members, especially Republican senators. who are never Trumpers. And they will do shadow boxing with the president and the speaker and the majority leader using other issues. But at their core, they are not on board with the agenda to make America great again. And that's because K Street owns them. Success is not just... Did you say the Senate? Did you say Senate? Is there many of those in the House? No, there are far fewer in the House. Yeah. Yeah. That's a shame because the one thing I thought would tie all those fracture lines together is the recognition that this is a unique moment in time, a unique moment in history where stuff is getting done at such a record pace that you may not see this kind of moment again

for 20 years, if that. It may be singular, even. It could be. It could be the only time this century, which is not an overstatement. No, I don't think it is. So, you know, I hope no one allows perfection to be the enemy of the good in this, because there is, like, the good isn't incremental this time. It could be huge. So you may not get perfect, but instead of getting like a marginal tax rate, you know, where you want it, you could actually make all these different things happen, huge different things happen. I'll make a real quick point on that. I just hope perfectionism doesn't kill it.

Yeah, look, what's that? I'll make a real quick point on that. We're a think tank, and so we start with the ideal. We start with the perfect, and then we insert political feasibility. And what Heritage is saying is, well, we're not going to negotiate with ourselves, right? We want spending to be lower. We want taxes to be low. Go start building some momentum.

have some incremental progress. This is what I call radical incrementalism, and map those short-term wins to a long-term vision. The end of the 2020s, the end of the 2030s. I think the vice president's particularly good at this. And if you do that, then you're going to dominate politics at the federal and state levels for the rest of this generation. And then you'll get the opportunity to actually implement the perfect or something closer to it. Yeah. Really good stuff. All right. He is the president of Heritage Foundation. He's also the host of the Kevin Robert's show. He has a new book out just a week or two ago. What's the name of your book? Don's Early Light, taking back Washington to save America.

And from I understand, Kevin, it's got a lot of personal narrative in it, how you came about and what you believe and things that you've been through in your life. So that's really fascinating. Basically, you know, my son wants me to come talk to his school. And it's funny, I don't want to give a screed. I want to talk about how I ended up thinking the way that I do. And not so that students do the same, but they can think about their own path. Do you what I mean? Like, I do think if you follow a legitimate path, you'll end up believing a lot of the same things that I do. I really do.

If you're self-aware in your life experience and your thought proceeds and your education about what it is you believe. It's so true. You know, I was inspired to write the book because in my show, like you, I host people and everyone has a fascinating story. Everyone has sort of a quintessential American story. And my friend said, Kevin, don't write as a recovering academic, some boring policy book. Write a book about your own upbringing. My parents divorced when I was four. My older brother took his own life tragically when he was 15 and I was nine.

And in spite of that and some other obstacles like other people have had, because I woke up the next morning in the United States of America, I never lost faith, not just for me, but for this country. And we have a country that's dominated by people like that. J.D. Vance, Donald Trump himself, you, so many people in the audience. And so what I try to do is chart out a vision that, of course, has a little bit of policy in it. I'm the president of heritage. But most of all, it really leans on what we can do as individuals and our local communities, sort of like talking at your son's school that will allow this realignment that's happening to realize the real promise of America. So thanks for putting in the plug. Absolutely, man. Sounds fascinating. I really appreciate the conversation, Kevin. Thanks for being on the Will Kane show.

God bless you, man. Take care. all right um speaking of that goodbye to kevin roberts boys in new york um bring yourselves up for just a moment last week we discussed um audience feedback including will stop nodding so much uh watch what you do with your hands a couple other thing here's another piece piece of feedback i got okay which is going to be right there banging around in in between my ears do you guys already know what it is said you could you could have a drink game based upon how many times Will says Will Cain Show.

Wow, you'd be toasted. Better be like sips of light beer. But you have to put the brand out there so it's a good thing. It's not a negative thing. It's not conscious. You know, let's say this.

I think, meaning it's not ego driven either, thanks for being on Fox and Friends. Right? Like, I am used to saying that kind of thing, right? Like, let's pretend I'm Jesse Waters. Thanks for being on primetime. It just so happens in my show is named the Will Cain Show, so it's like, thanks for being on the Will Cain Show. You know, so I guess I could just go with thanks.

It just feels a little. You're saying the show? Thanks for being on the show. Thanks for being on the show. Does it ever feel weird to say your own name? Like, I get uncomfortable saying my own full name. Not anymore. You know, to Dan's point, when I was on ESPN, I was told, you know, that's a good thing.

Yeah. You, because, you know how when you're doing radio, you have to, what do they call it? Reset. Yeah. So what that means is in the middle of a segment, you know, there's no TV branding and radio. There's nothing visual to see. So you have to say, you're with Kevin Roberts now here on the Will Kane show. You're listening to Kevin Roberts on the Will Kane show, right?

So you're just reminding the audience where they are and what they're listening to. And by the way, now that I'm a radio listener, you know, unless you have a dedicated station, you always listen to, it's helpful. like you scrolling around you hear something like what is this and they never answer it for like seven minutes it's frustrating I don't know who the guest is I don't know we do that for our radio show now yeah right

you dropping those in that's good I thought we're saying them for fun yeah because people need because you do forget if you're listening for five minutes to 10 minute segment you're like wait who is this you drop in whenever you need it yeah who am I listening to and what am I listening to

so I think I got habit in radio. It's translated over here. I do it on Fox and Friends. Thanks for being on Fox and Friends. And now it's like I say my name all the time and it's super weird. It's okay. Okay. Okay. You're big time. You're big time. Cut it out. Yeah. All right. That's going to do it for us today. Thanks for being on here with us on the Wilcane Show. We'll see you again tomorrow. Same time, same place. Fox News.com, Fox News, YouTube channel, Fox News, Facebook page, Spotify, Apple, and on your radio dial, will you be listening to the Will Cane Show?

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