Will Cain Country - Mike Benz: Did Would-be Trump Assassin Ryan Routh Work For The US Government? PLUS, Why The Tariff Wars Could Define America’s Next 50 Years

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Story #1: The next 50 years will be defined by the economic stories of the past week, and no one is entirely sure how it will play out. Will makes sense of it all, especially as President Donald Trump ramps up the tariff war against China.  Story #2: Did would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh work for the US Government? And what really happened when 7 U.S. soldiers came down with COVID in Wuhan in the fall of 2019? Will sits down with Executive Director of the Foundation For Freedom Online & Former Official with the U.S. Department of State, Mike Benz. Story #3: Kurt Russell's Top 5 competition among actors: How does he rank against the likes of Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, and Patrick Swayze?  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

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for $5.5 plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. One. The next 50 years could be defined by the news events unfolding around us. The tariff war, the trade war with China. And the rest of the globe could redefine the next 50 years of not just to the American economy, but American supremacy. And no one knows what to make of it. Not pundits, not economists, and not Wall Street.

We'll do our best to figure out the biggest story, perhaps, of our lifetime. Two, did would-be Trump assassin Ryan Ruth work for the United States government? Seven U.S. soldiers came down with COVID. in Wuhan in October of 2019. We break it down with Mike Binns. Three, competitors to Kurt Russell. How does he rank against Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford? It is the Will Kahn Show streaming live at Fox News.com on the Fox News YouTube channel and the Fox News.

news Facebook page 12 o'clock eastern time every monday through thursday set a reminder on all those digital channels and jump in in the comments section become a member of the community leave a comment leave a review and you become a member of the welshia terrestrial radio some three dozen markets across the united states of america but always available by subscribing at apple or on spotify the fellas and i inspired by the passing of val kilmer spent some time over the weekend re-watching Tombstone. And as rabbit holes go, that led us down not just the path of Val Kilmer's greatest roles and Val Kilmer's greatest lines from Tombstone, but Kurt Russell, the other man in Tombstone, occupies a unique place in movie stardom,

the action hero who's vulnerable, the comedy actor who can be made fun of. It made us think like when Kurt Russell went up for a part, who was the producer debating? Should we get Mel Gibson? Should we get Kurt Russell? So we thought we'd look back on some of the biggest moves of the guys that filled that niche and where exactly does he rank? What are the top four or five actors of that time? And where do we find Kurt Russell?

But I don't want to waste any time because I truly do believe we're all trying to grapple with, get our arms around. The biggest story, perhaps, of our lifetime. I think it's something that readjust the last 30 to 50. years of the American economy and defines the next 50 years in America. It is story number one. China announced this morning they would retaliate to American tariffs with 84% on certain products and certain companies.

This in response to the United States of America and Donald Trump announcing 104% tariffs instituted last night on goods from China. The EU also struck a retaliatory tone. They look like they will. institute tariffs on limited products and goods from America. It is without a doubt now a trade war across the globe. It is chaotic. It sent markets up. It sent markets down. Intra-trade day trading makes no sense. While stock markets fall, usually a safe haven is bonds and bond rates fall. That's not happening today. Bond rates spiking up around 4.6%. What's going on? No one can make sense

of what's happening right now, because very few people seem to understand the long-term plan. What are we doing, not just Donald Trump, but what are we doing to reestablish the global world order and the place inside that order of the United States of America? Let's do our best today to make some sense of what's happening and what's the plan. I spent the last several days listening to Treasury Secretary Scott Besson. He's given several long-form interviews. He did an hour plus with the guys from the podcast All In. He did an hour and a half with Tucker Carlson.

And he is an incredibly smart voice that lays out better than anyone else I have ever seen, the plan. There is an open debate and open question of how much is Besson's plan, the plan for Donald Trump? There are other voices in his air like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik and trade advisor Peter Navarro. But if you listen to them in totality, you do get the sense that this is not chaos. This is strategic. So what is that plan? And can it actually be executed? Today, there is news that perhaps as many as seven Republican senators are looking at defecting away from this tariff plan.

Led by Ram Paul, they're trying to suggest the U.S. Congress has control over tax policy. They're suggesting the emergency order giving Donald Trump the power over tariffs should reside within the hands of Congress. Now, whether or not that is something that makes it through the U.S. Senate or United States Congress, that will certainly be vetoed by Donald Trump. Right now, that seems like panic, not unlike the panic we're seeing in the markets from Republican senators. And that panic in my mind is the big wildcard in disrupting what I think is a coherent plan. What is that plan? Let's start with the diagnosis. When you listen to Scott Besson, what you realize is a diagnosis of the problem for the past 50 years of the American economy.

Let's start with what we all agree on. Left, right, Republican, Democrat. We have unsustainable levels of deficit that just led to unsustainable levels of debt, $36 trillion in debt, so much so that now a good chunk of our federal budget every year is spent on paying the interest on our debt. We've also had a phenomenon within the United States economy where we've had rising income inequality. The rich have gotten very rich. The middle class has gotten stagnant. And the poor have racked up their own debt living on credit cards.

You could live in New York City. You could live in Washington, D.C. You could live in California. And you could think that everything is paved with gold. Every street has on its skyline and ivory tower. But if you drive across America, you can see the effects of a stagnant middle class and an indebted 50% class of America. You'll see, as you have for some decades, hollowed out factories, fentanyl crisis, brain drains, and ghost towns across America. This is not a sustainable model.

It's not a sustainable or a healthy country. At a minimum, you can look throughout history and say that leads to volatility. At a maximum, you could say that throughout history has led to violence, perhaps even. civil war. But even beyond that, it leads to potentially a debt crisis. One day this all comes due. And how do we deal with paying off our debts? Scott Besson talking to Tucker Carlson said, well, the Democrats' proposal is twofold. It is a handout. It is, we're going to help the losers, and that's their term, the losers of the economy, with welfare. Besson said, I don't even like that term. I don't think the bottom 50 percent are losing.

I think they have been gamed out of a system, more in a moment, on that game and rigged system. He also believes that under Biden administration, spending had been racked up to a point that it was cynically probably leading to the necessity to raise taxes, then leading us down the path of Europe, a social democratic welfare state with high taxes, a decaying ambition. you don't make stuff, you don't innovate stuff, you don't shoot for the stars in Europe. And that was the path we were potentially on if left in the hands of Democrats. So how do you stave off our decay, perhaps our collapse and the inevitable rise of China?

How do you fix our economy over the last 30 to 50 years? And how do you reorder it for the next 50 years? I want to walk through this hand in hand together, but I want to bring the guys in New York in 10, foil pat two days dan and young establishment james at this point having laid out that i do believe there is a coherent plan and i do believe the diagnosis of america is accurate where are you what questions do you have at this point on understanding the plan of the trump administration well don't you think he would kind of hold his actual plan you know close to his chest because he doesn't want to

give everything away, right? I mean, it seems like there's a lot of chaos going on, but there is a line down the middle that he knows what's going to happen, and he doesn't want to give that away, or that's why we don't know what's going on. I feel like what you were saying earlier, if that makes sense. The lack of a coherent communication of this plan is leading to a lot of this volatility. Now, I also think to some extent you have to kind of look back at the history of Donald Trump and understand that also is part of the plan. Bessent has been asked, hey, markets go up when you talk, markets go down when we hear from Navarro. Why are we hearing from everyone? Why don't we just hear from you? Why aren't you the voice of this plan? And I think the answer to that is twofold.

I think Donald Trump, like Littlefinger in Game of Thrones, believes the chaos is a ladder. And uncertainty, while really bad in the short term for markets, leaves him in a stronger negotiation position leave them all guessing i also think that as a negotiator don't trump doesn't want to define the terms of a win because he wants to be able to proclaim victory regardless of the outcome so you don't say at the front end what a win is lest you fall short of that win that's why i think this sort of mixed messaging is actually part of the plan it puts those like japan or the EU who want to come to the table and negotiate also in a position of uncertainty and possibly giving up maximal terms to the United States. One more note on the diagnosis and the stock market. Almost everybody that I know that's

ever been involved in the stock market is readily and willing to init when they take some sodium pentatol, some truth serum, that the whole thing is Fugazi, that the whole thing is fake, that it really has turned into a casino. Now, you need evidence of that? We talked about it yesterday. price to earnings ratios. Historically, a healthy company is probably valued around 18 to 1, 18 price to earnings. Now we're trading stuff at 30s and 50s, and who knows where Tesla was at its top. It doesn't have any correlation to reality. So when you try to pivot an economy back to reality, you're going to see unhealthy companies

that are carrying too much debt, unhealthy companies that don't have real revenues, unhealthy companies that have taken on way too much risk right size when you can call it a collapse but right size back down best also made an interesting point about the market when he was talking to tucker carlson you know like top 10% of america owns like 40% of equities the top 40% of america owns like you know 80% of equities and the bottom 50% of america has no assets they are only in debt so what we're seeing in the market is affecting the rich and it's not that that doesn't matter it does matter because if this drags on it will be a situation where i don't know we might have inflation i don't know a lot of companies go out of business and we have rising unemployment

and that's not good but right now the metrics underneath the market indicate a healthy economy low unemployment four percent unemployment and falling inflation will it continue over the next quarter or two is the great big bet and that takes me to this before we jump in more together the big bet this administration is making a gigantic bet a bet of our lifetime they are at the poker table shoving their chips into the middle of the table and their bet is we can restructure the world order to put america strong but also create a broad based economy that keeps everyone in this system healthy so here's what they want to do they put tariffs across the board they scare the hell out of everybody and now according to the administration what was 50 is now 70 countries

running to the table trying to get good deals with america best sent has said you're going to start seeing deals in the next two months trump and caroline levitt have said they will be tailored deals now tailored means we're not going across the board right we'll make it for every country different that takes time and why would they be tailored yeah there'll be tariff issues but there also be barrier to entry into market issues there will also be currency manipulation issues and there will also be other issues that they want to set the standard right in doing business in those economies but if those deals start coming in you might see the market calm down on the back end of this is china there's seemingly no interest in doing a deal right now with china now China now China

is in bad shape. Besson has said they are in a recession, possibly a depression, and they are incredibly dependent upon America. They need us to ship all that stuff. 104% tariffs crushes China. So what will they do? Well, they're probably in panic mode right now, and they're trying to play tough. I haven't seen Dan what elements you have, but Trump has said that they're a proud people. They're going to want to deal. But there are proud people who are trying to find their way. Here is Donald Trump. That's why additional tariffs on Chinese goods are in place, effective midnight tonight, at 104%. Until they make a deal with us, that's what it's going to be.

I think they'll make a deal at some point. China will, they want to make a deal. They really do. They want to make a deal. They just don't know how to get it started because they're proud people. Proud people that want to make a deal. So now they're trying to play strong. They're trying to retaliate.

putting this 84% tariff on American goods. Here's what our Treasury Secretary Scott Besson has to say about that. So what? Maria, I think it's unfortunate that the Chinese actually don't want to come and negotiate because they are the worst offenders in the international trading system. They have the most imbalanced economy in the history of the modern world. And I can tell you that this escalation is a loser for them. that they have some very smart, the economist, the academicians, technocrats within their bureaucracy,

and they would be telling the leadership that we do not have the edge here. They are the surplus country that their exports to the U.S. are five times our exports to China. So they can raise their tariffs, but so what? One more note on Besson. realize this or know this, and you certainly get this laid out in the podcast he did with All In. Besson used to work for George Soros. Bessent was a trader with Stan Druck and Miller and George Soros, and he was the idea generator behind breaking the pound, going after the Bank of England. He put England and the pound in a very bad spot when he saw an asymmetrical

trade in the way their housing market was working consistent with the pound. Is he doing the same thing to China right now. Is he breaking China? Now we have to address this one other thing because when I tell you this is the biggest story of the next 50 years, it's not just that, oh, can we rebuild the American middle class? Oh, can we rebuild the global world economic order? It is true that trade wars have led to depression, smoot Holly, 1930s. It is also true that trade wars and embargoes have led to wars, kinetic wars. As I mentioned yesterday, the United States embargoed oil on Japan in the 1930s. That, because they were expansionary trying to move throughout the South Pacific, that led, most people think, that led directly to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Boxed them into a corner. What else can they do? They respond kinetically. Does China do so? If we crush China, if we box them into a corner, do they bomb Taiwan? These all have to be considered, and I promise you these very smart people are. I promise you, when you listen to all of this, you come away with, hey, there's a plan. Hey, these guys are really smart. And I would say, based upon the diagnosis of our economy for the last 50 years and where it was probably headed in the next 10 to 20 years, something had to be done. A big bet had to be made. I don't want to go the way of Europe.

I don't want taxes through the roof and a social safety net that decays the soul of America. I don't want a middle class that's thought of as losers. I want to rebuild a sense of purpose and job and dignity for Americans. And this is the bet. What I don't want to see is a weak need senator from North Carolina or Texas or any other Republican, all of a sudden ad hoc this thing into blowing up what I think happens to be a coherent plan. Will the plan work? Don't know.

Don't know. but where we were headed wasn't going to work that I know before we go go ahead two days no I'm wondering do you think Trump had this plan before he even got into office because you know knowing Trump whether you love him or hate him he wouldn't do something that would hurt his legacy for this long term so this must be a plan that was well thought out even previously to getting into office I would imagine Donald Trump's currency is popularity he likes to be liked he's not going to do something that he thinks is going to be inherently unpopular unless he believes in the long term it's going to work i think he believes 40 years of evidence of him saying this on opra the view and everywhere else he appeared that he believes this needs to be done

which you should take some equal amount of confidence in is the people he put around him i listened to mark rowan this morning on cnbc who was up against scott best for treasury also laying out the case of why this needed to be done and how this needed to be done. And we're doing something now. Will it work? I don't know. But is there a plan? Yes. I know. Let's break down some other deep currents, such as was Ryan Ruth,

the would-be assassin of Donald Trump, actually working for the United States government. And what do we take away from the fact that seven U.S. soldiers came down with COVID in October of 2019? Next with Mike Binns on the Will Cain Show. This is Jimmy Phala, inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding, it's only a three-hour show.

Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at Fox Across America.com. Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy host of the Trey Gowdy 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. assassination culture something we talked about yesterday but is it a spontaneous insanity infecting the public at large or is it part of a larger effort that's not just here in the united states but also across europe part of color revolutions it is the will cane show streaming live at foxnews.com on the

fox news youtube channel and the fox news facebook page hit subscribe and jump into the comments apple spotify or on YouTube. Mike Binns is the executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online. You can always find Mike OnX at Mike Ben's Cyber. He used to work for the State Department. He's been everywhere over the last several years, laying out some of these deeper currents that we've been talking about. Mike, I heard from the guys you were kind of hanging out,

listened to a little bit of what we talked about when it comes to these trade wars. You're smart guy, deep thoughts. I'm just curious before we move on any other topics. Any thoughts you have on what I had to say about this tariff for trade war, potentially kinetic war. I think you were spot on actually with your analysis about what was happening before was not working. We were slowly losing on a number of economic fronts to China. The only way to get back on the horse for how we dominated the 20th century was, is effectively

to incentivize reindustrialization rather than deindustrialization. We used to have a bustling Heartland that was gutted out with globalization. We now have our labor in our factories abroad, and we've already seen hundreds of billions of dollars of investments from foreign countries who just want to make their goods here now to avoid the tariffs. And if that can be done on the China side, first of all that stuff immediately shifts leverage the U.S. over China. And it's a painful process, but it's like any surgery. You know, there's, this is, this is, as I see it, part of a strategy of leverage that goes in tandem with other things like internet censorship, where you are able to actually use these tariffs and the negotiation of them to incentivize favorable regulatory environments for businesses. Like threatening tariffs on the EU may be the way to stop something like the EU Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, which is levying billions of dollars of fines on U.S. tech companies.

people that think that everyone in this administration is stupid and that this is all ad hoc will say things like you know we're never going to bring back t-shirt making in the united states even dave chappelle who i think is a really actually very smart comedian but i saw him do a bit where he's like man we don't want to make nikes we want to wear nikes and i think that even listening to besant with tucker there's not a there's not a suggestion we're going to bring back The Chinese, by the way, Mike, even put out this video. Do you see this video where they had like obese Americans, you know, sewing stuff, you know? It was an AI generated thing where they were kind of making fun of like fat, middle class or lower class, middle America, you know, sitting at sewing stations and making iPhones.

But if you listen to these guys, there is an acknowledgement. Well, you know what? AI and robotics is going to hurt a lot of these jobs anyway, but we can onshore the industrialization and do. that here. It does leave open what still does happen to middle America. Like, where do they work? Well, the picture is not necessarily pretty of Americans working in coal mines or, you know, Americans, you know, stumped over hot factory, you know, smelting irons during the 20th century and whatnot. I mean, you know, the average life of a factory worker is not necessarily glorious. You could make a AI video poking fun at the, uh, at the hard life of, of Americans in the 20th century,

but the fact is, is that is what gave us the manufacturing miracle. That is what allowed those individuals to buy homes to put their kids through college, uh, to have savings and, and, uh, disposable income. So, uh, it's, it's not, it's not glorious, but it's, it's how the greater glory of a, of a powerful nation is built. You brought up the EU's regulatory schemes in their antagonism towards free speech. Pretty fascinating to see Keir Starrmer, by the way, lecture J.D. Vance on their embrace of free speech in the First Amendment. But, you know, what's going on in Europe, I think, leads you and I to a deeper conversation, which you've been talking about. All the lawfare, all the stuff against Donald Trump, it didn't exist in a silo.

It's happening now across Europe. It's happening in, what is it, in Romania, it happened in France with Marine Le Pen, lawfare, and doing away with candidates who are nationalistic, perhaps on the right? Concerned about the, how about this, concerned about the well-being of their people over the EU? Yeah, that's exactly right. And in your point that it doesn't exist in a silo is such an important one for the audience to take away. there is a professional class of color revolution specialists. And by that term, that was a term that was always used lovingly and glowingly by folks in the foreign policy establishment because it connotes obviously these sort of index cards, index card revolutions where we would effectively label groups that we wanted to support to topple a government by a particular.

color and then we would you know the orange revolution the green revolution the velvet revolution but what that refers to is a special technique for toppling a democratically elected government we say that we do it to stop autocracy in the name of democracy there's this dichotomy that's used in the in the foreign policy establishment and there's a professional class of folks whose job is to orchestrate these. And those folks exist in the State Department. They exist in the CIA and in the intelligence world. They exist in the NGO space.

You see all this USAID money that goes to projects that say that they're for DEI or they say that they're for LGBT programs or they're for civil society capacity building or to unions. What they're doing in country after country is they're building a capacity, getting people on payroll, training them to organize. You know, we had a president in the United States, who is a community organizer, Barack Obama, and we had a near president in Hillary Clinton, who wrote her senior thesis on community organizing. This is a path to power, particularly for folks in the foreign policy establishment, because when you can topple a government and

install a puppet in that place, you can shift the entire economic. economics of the country to favor your sponsors or you can also shift the military posture of the country to allow a U.S. military base or to get a favorable regulatory environments for multinational companies. So this was something the Republican Party endorsed fully during the Cold War when it was used to topple left-wing communism. The issue is, is we are in an undeclared Cold War right now against right-wing populism, against right-wing nationalism. Just as you identified, these countries really just want to make their own country great again and are deemed to be Trump-aligned.

They're called populist because they represent the popular will of the people over the institutions. The foreign policy establishment gives that a dirty name because those institutions are the control mechanism for the State Department, for the intelligence services, for the multinational corporations, who are the stakeholders in those government activities. And so this really set off with Trump winning the 2016 election, and we've been living for an entire decade in this. And this lawfare is part of a strategy that I don't think Republicans

would have necessarily looked at twice if this was during the Cold War in the heat of it when we were toppling governments run by left-wing communists. The issue is, is we elected Donald Trump, a right-wing nationalist, right-wing populist. And so to have our own government effectively declare that anyone who's like our own government is, you know, we need a cold war against them. They've effectively declared war on the president. Let's do a little bit of history, Mike.

Just for the audience's edification on color revolutions, the easiest one everybody can point to is Ukraine, right? The orange revolution. But take me, give me another example, would you? What you said is undoubtedly true. I mean, it's factually supported that, you know, the CIA, the State Department, and NGOs have fomented color revolutions across, well, not just Europe, but across the globe. But give me another great historical illustration of a color revolution. Oh, there's dozens of them. You could argue that that was the same thing that was done in Poland and in Hungary.

Poland, for example, we backed the Lech Walesa movement, the Solidarity Movement, which was, you know, unions that, you know, the workers and trade association folks, to this day, the National Endowment for Democracy, which is a CIA spinoff, has something called the Solidarity Center to work with unions around the world and give them money. We were funneling tens of millions of dollars to them, and they took to the streets, you know, surrounded the parliament building and effectively, you know, ousted the government through these angry street mobs. You saw the same thing happen in Serbia with the Oat Poor Movement. The Oat Poor Movement was essentially, you know, young people, unions, aggrieved people

from everywhere from the universities to the civil society organizations. That was in 1999 and 2000. The State Department and USAID gave $72 million to that group. They got military assistance from Pentagon advisors, and they ended up running some. Loban-Melosevic out of the country by getting 200,000 people to surround the parliament building, effectively January 6th, the elected government out of office. And you saw the same thing in 2014 with the Maidan coup. This was something that our State Department bragged about, that actually Senator Chris Murphy bragged about that only happened because of the U.S., giving millions of dollars

of support in tandem with sanctions and threats of international tribunals and once again they surrounded the parliament building they shut down the streets and roads so that you know so that the entire economic infrastructure of the country was that was was destabilized and this is really the technique when a country's government is popular and beloved by its people but it's but it wants to be overthrown by the state department the intelligence services and and they're surrounding financial sponsors, what they do is they go through a process called destabilization, which means you economically destabilize it,

you destabilize it through provoking police crackdowns by having large mobs confront police. Then when the police try to handle the problem, there's usually injuries or sometimes fatalities, and those are spun off as a sort of human rights crackdown, so you get international pressure and sanctions. And then you go to work on the courts. This is what we're seeing right now here in the U.S., this, you know, these large street protests

that were done last week, I believe they're gearing up for much more substantial destabilizing protests in tandem with lawfare. USAID has something called judicial reform in its charter, which means that it's allowed to go out and work directly with the courts and prosecutors in foreign countries. The State Department has a rule of law programs that support this financially, And we give hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars to NGOs to interact with the courts and to effectively get them to pass rulings that are favorable to this blob's interests. We saw this happen in Brazil with the Brazilian censorship court that banned X for a time and seized assets from Starlink. It turned out USAID had a formal program working with that exact court. We see them working with the courts in Romania.

And I would not be surprised if they were similarly back-channeling through the U.S. Embassy in Paris with the arrest of Marine Le Pen. Well, everything you just described as well, like you said, whatever happened the protest last week here at home, I mean, you could diagnose a lot of these same symptoms and things going on right here in America. Well, it's explicit. The almost every senior leader involved in these Tesla takedowns at the at the thought leadership level, at the senior director level, is affiliated with this class of professional color revolution specialists. And I'll give you a couple examples. So Carlos Alvarez, for example, was was on tape saying that, you know, that we need to, you know, that we need to. We need to have, in order to get a job next, in order to get my next job, I need to be able to say that I took, that I bankrupted Tesla.

So, and he's saying this to the crowd as he's, as he's bragging that these Tesla protests were his idea in the first place to target Tesla. And he's saying to an amped up crowd, I need you to, to shut down Tesla so that I can get my next job by putting on my resume that I bankrupted. Tesla where I helped bankrupt Tesla. Now, think about how strange that statement is. Now, this is a guy who was just recently working. He co-founded the American Sunlight Project with Nina Jankovitz. That is a censorship NGO that was set up by both him and Nina Jankovits, who was the disinformation governance board czar. If folks remember that strange affair from 2022 when DHS tried

to set up a formal censorship board inside of the Department of Homeland Security, Nina Jankovits, then when she was terminated from that disinformation governance board, ran over to the UK. She became a registered agent for the British Crown under something called the Center for Information Resilience, doing USAID-funded censorship work in London. And then she went over to start this thing called the American Sunlight Project, which is also working with these EU censorship bodies. And is, Nina Jakoffitz comes from that exact world.

She was in the NDI, the National Democratic Institute, which is the DNC branch of the CIA spinoff, the National Endowment for Democracy. She also worked for the Wilson Center, which is another one of these State Department USAID-funded color revolution specialist groups. They are the ones who also host the CIA archives online. She was directly advising Ukraine. Her name is on the list for the Integrity Initiative, which was a name. NATO-backed British clandestine cloak-and-dagger operation that went down in flames in 2019

when it was revealed that was secretly being backed by British intelligence. Carlos Alvarez co-founded that with Nina Jankevitz and said this whole thing is basically his brainchild. And who is he auditioning for his next job, I ask, Will. When I say that this is a profession, a vocation, you are hired to do this by the NGOs. You are hired to do this by the, you know, the fifth. fiscal sponsors of these 501c3s and by governments. You could very easily, if you're working at these NGOs,

be working like Victoria Newland in the political section of the State Department or the intelligence services on two weeks notice. It's basically the same job. You just switch from one side of the ball, whether that's the government side, the civil society side, the media side, or the private sector side. And they have a model called the whole

society model, which ties those four categories of institutions together to orchestrate this activity. So when you're in the center of it, it looks like you're surrounded on all sides. And in the press, it's always portrayed as spontaneous. But that is sort of the magic of this, is that you try to artificially create the patina of an organic movement in order to say that you're doing it for democracy rather than in a straight-up coup man well every time i listen to you mike it's always filled details like that and then you get and you get in there and you feel like you're in a tornado like a tornado like kind of like as you described it intentionally feeling like how do you kind of peer through all the winds and all

the debris of the tornado to see there's actually an organized structure to this thing and not just chaotic winds you know um it makes you wonder like okay well then where is the headwind like who is the fiscal sponsor who is the organizing effort like okay i get it full of NGOs full of these figures who are professional um color revolution specialists full of state department and so forth but like at some point with that kind of coordination you assume there's also organization somebody that leads a lot of this vision well there's technical organization and there's and there's sort of a financial hierarchies involved in these. So for example, we were just talking about Carlos Alvarez, but another one of these color revolution professionals who are involved in the senior leadership

in this is Norm Eisen. Norm Eisen is the legal hatchet man who was responsible for basically every significant act of lawfare against Donald Trump during his first term, during the four years out of power, and still today. He was the former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic who chief justice John Roberts flew to the Czech Republic twice to have planning sessions with Norm Eisen and who then was he was also the White House Ethics are for Barack Obama and then he spearheaded the impeachments and all the various lawfare actions against Trump. He also spoke at the Tesla takedowns and has been working coordinating essentially the legal side of that component. And you see this side by side. For example, the AFL-CIO spearheads the union side

of this. You see the, you know, but I guess your question more specifically on who's sponsoring this financially, it's a stakeholder coalition. So obviously names like, you know, George Soros come up a lot. But the fact is, is this is something that's co-invested in by coalitions of oligarchs who come together, just like basically in any coup, when there is dissatisfaction with a government in power. This would happen all the time in the 20th century, for example, where a country is nationalizing its industries with a left-wing socialist in power, for example, and so they're harming U.S. multinational companies. Well, technically, you're going to have organization at the State Department and at the War Department in the early 20th century,

the Defense Department now, but you're going to have all these commercial stakeholders who contribute, as I call them the donor drafter class, because they donate into the pot of these organizations, and then they draft off of the actions that are taken once the new government is installed. So, for example, the copper companies would contribute if we were trying to overthrow the government of Honduras. You'd have oligarchs from the copper sector, from the agriculture, the banana companies. You'd have Coke and Pepsi, if their bottling operations were threatened. And you see something very similar here, where you have folks from the Chamber of Commerce who contribute. You have, obviously, the George Soros network. You have the Pierre Omidyar Network.

You have the Craig Newmark Network. You have the Ford Foundation. You have the Carnegie Foundation. You have the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Every single one of these are involved in sectors and industries that are impacted by Trump's policies. This is why there was a secret agreement signed between the AFLCIO and the Chamber of Commerce about destabilizing protests to stop Trump's inauguration had he won the 2020 election. This was revealed in the Molly Ball, the famous Time magazine article shortly after the 2020 election cycle concluded. But the fact is, is that's what's happening here. You're going to hear that the tip of the spear is this group indivisible, which is,

you know, basically, you know, young kids who are being hung out as, you know, the face of this on MSNBC, that is total hogwash. That is exactly what we did with Oatpour. For example, Oatpour was this group I mentioned in Yugoslavia that was funded to the tune of $70 million by the U.S. State Department to organize mass protests to bus people in from around the country, trained to organize, given special manuals of Gene Sharps from dictatorship. to democracy, which is the comprehensive how to overthrow a government color revolution guide. You see the indivisible kids who are holding up that same guide, which USAID pays to get printed in 70 different foreign languages. But the fact is, is what you have is a consortium

of the same financial interests who are threatened by Trump's foreign policy, who are threatened by Trump's tariffs, who are threatened by his attempt to, to establishes. peace with Russia, vis-a-vis Ukraine, and they were essentially relitigating that same battle from 2016 when Trump first ran. More of the Will Cain Show, right after this. 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.

It is time to take the quiz. It's five questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play along. Let's see how you do. Take the quiz every day at thequiz.com. Then come back here to see how you did. Thank you for taking the quiz. You know, I saw this article this morning, Mike, on that note.

Let's see, this is out of, well, Zero Hedge posted it. But I think it's a column that was run in a British newspaper, the telegraph, Tim Stanley is the columnist. He suggests big business could put a hit out on Trump. This in response to the tariffs and the trade wars we're talking about

that at some point these interests, these moneyed interest will say, okay, we're getting crushed. You know, whether or not this is metaphorical or literal in what he's writing here, they're going to have to go after Donald Trump. Yeah. Well, that...

Now, a lot of this is, you know, is moving parts in the sense that, you know, countries are still approaching Trump. He actually bragged on tape just yesterday, I believe, that countries are coming to him begging like a dog effectively to try to strike deals and that, you know, these tariffs are sort of, you know, they'll be, it'll be a baseline, but they will be, the severity of them will move in time. But the fact is, is, you know, big business puts the hit out effectively, in all of these cases, it's hard to look for a single one. I know that it's tempting to think, okay, you know, who is the number one?

But the fact, and there are dominant folks who are, you know, at the top of the hierarchy. But if you were to say, you know, before Elon Musk came on the scene, for example, in 2022, and it became easy to put the world's richest man as a face behind Donald Trump, you know, Donald Trump was sponsored, like every politician. politician is by donors. And it's hard to put on the Trump movement, we have one particular sponsor, you know, who is responsible for the policies that he may set when he promises them, oh, I'm going to do this. It's, you know, it's hard to say the same thing about Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton had the Clinton Global Initiative, which was a giant pot of money

which effectively took bribes in exchange for policy. She was the Secretary of State, effectively in charge of the foreign policy of the entire American Empire and running for president while she effectively held out a shingle for sale. Now, the single largest individual contributor to the Clinton Global Initiative was Victor Pinchuk, the Ukrainian oligarch, who is all over this Ukraine-Russia war and sort of proxy war domestically here on Don Trump over it, but I wouldn't say that Hillary Clinton is singularly controlled by it, even if she was beholden to the Clinton Global Initiative for taking their money in exchange for favors, you have a consortium. And when donors want to stop Trump, they are educated on the

status of the organizations and the network web that's already in place. And they believe the best bang for their money is to capacity build those institutions until they get a critical mass and that's why you see hundreds of stakeholders involved in this and you know you have to sort of confront it at the organizational layer rather than looking at just you know it's it's trench warfare right you have to take it company by company for example if you're talking about companies putting out a hit on donald trump i i mentioned this before when victoria newland gave the speech uh in the in the in the heat of the my don protests in 2014 to topple the democracy to topple the the Democrats, the elected government of Ukraine, and she bragged out the $5 billion that USAID had given to these very groups and how she was optimistic about the people effectively overthrowing that government. She did so at a sponsored event in front of signs for ExxonMobil and Chevron, who had billions of dollars in financial interests in toppling that government because they had, Chevron had signed a $10 billion deal with NAFTA gas, the state-owned company that the State Department,

was trying to privatize. So you see this all the time. The fact is, is Trump is trying to woo these companies and, you know, this tariff war is going to complicate that. But, you know, I think it's a necessary path to pursue. I want to discuss two other stories with you really quickly,

one of which jumps off of this idea of a hit on Donald Trump, and that's the story of Ryan Ruth. He's the second would-be assassin of Donald Trump. Story came out that he was in the market for an RPG. That's what he was trying to. to buy to take out Donald Trump. I saw you recently with Matt Gates say this, this is what the headline read. Mike Ben says 95% probability, Ruth in some way worked for the United States government.

Yeah, well, the headline was a little bit taken out of context. The question was about whether or not Ruth was working for someone who was working for someone who was working for someone for the U.S. government. I do think that Ruth does appear to be a crazy person. I'm not saying that this was a sanctioned hit, so to speak. But the fact is, is people have an impression, I think, of the grunt work in the intel world, of it being sort of, you know, James Bond folks, you know, where people are, you know, they're action figures, they're larger than life.

they like their martini's shaken, not stirred. Now, the fact is, is a lot of people who are involved in the day-to-day grunt work of, for example, intelligence work that recruits terrorists to fight in a proxy war. This is what Ryan Routh was doing. He was working with terrorist groups, violent paramilitary groups, and extremists in Pakistan, Syria, Afghanistan and Iran. He was going to telegram, going to signal, going to WhatsApp, going to social media, and spending

his entire day recruiting thousands and thousands. He bragged at one point that he had a stack of 5,000 passports, the front and back of pictures of passports, of 5,000 terrorists and violent paramilitary folks from. Hot War conflict zones, I mean, Afghanistan, Syria, these are, this is, the CIA's largest operation in declassified history, Timber Sycamore was in Syria with working with those same terrorist groups. The, we had the, before that, we had our largest CIA, DOD operation in Afghanistan with these very groups. The CIA built the, the Mujah Hadin, the, the, the, the, predecessor to ISIS and al-Qaeda. And as the State Department, Jake Sullivan and Hillary Clinton

agreed that ISIS was on our side in Syria. This is the famous WikiLeaks reveal email. And you can't just waltz into a hot war and create a violent street paramilitary to wage that war. You need to be authorized by the Pentagon, by the intelligence services. The State Department has to be apprised of it. Ryan Ralph was back-channeling with the U.S. Embassy and Key. to get these folks, no look, fast-pass visas so they could quickly join the war. When Ryan Routh was apprehended, he gave a business card that he was the director

of a group called the International Volunteer Center of Ukraine, which is a project of a 501c3 called Mother of Ukraine operating in Ukraine, which again is a sort of, you know, U.S. government, you know, funded group in Ukraine that, that Ralph was recruiting these people to go to go in, join for the war effort. So you have a, you have, the fact is, is this work is done through a Byzantine labyrinth of subcontractors so that there's never an international scandal that the,

that the Pentagon or the CIA was directly telling ISIS to come and kill Russians. As ISIS claimed credit for killing Russians in the Moscow attack earlier this, earlier last year, as they've been killing Russians in the Sahel, in Africa, as they were killing Russians in Syria. You need a layer of plausible liability, so these things are subcontracted out to private corporations who then subcontract that work out to individuals that they know, who then subcontract that work out to their friends and family. And this is how you have folks like Ryan Ralph who appear to be poor on the one hand, and yet they are taking whirlwind trips around.

the world to Taiwan, to South Korea, to, as I mentioned, you know, Afghanistan and Syria, to Romania. And you don't get to do this work unless it's greenlit by the Intel world. And the fact is, as Ryan Ralph was arrested something like 80 times in his life, never spent a day in jail. He was on the radar of DHS. He was flagged by the Department of Homeland Security who believed that his story was highly suspicious when he handed them that business card in Ukraine and was working in these terrorist zone countries, Customs and Border Patrol specifically asked Majorcas's DHS to investigate Ryan Routh and then wrote that they refused to do so, which I think was a very strange, they didn't say they declined to investigate Rout.

They said DHS refused to, which to me signals that they knew what he was doing and that he was a part of a network. I suspect that there were a thousand other people like Brian Routh who were working throughout the day to try to do this. We saw a mass influx of these groups into Ukraine, just like Ryan Routh was recruiting them to do. So your theory, Mike, your theory, Mike, and how you arrive at that probability, but the way that you also think it's been distorted is he's somewhere in this ecosystem where the wheels have been greased for him to have this international world travel and access to markets in hot war zones. also not just wheels greased but sanctioned in some way to be doing this work you don't get to just do it ad hoc and you know freelance and so he was somewhere in the ecosystem of this subcontractor dark world of intel operations in these countries but that doesn't mean necessarily

but he still is a crazy person and that doesn't mean that he is sanctioned to do this thing at home to take out Donald Trump that is that sort of a synopsis of your thesis that yes exactly But what I'd add to that is, so it would not be a formally authorized activity. The way this would operate in practice would be some rogue cell within the Intel world or within the Pentagon or within the USAID network gets intelligence reports that this person who is involved in this recruiting effort and is therefore sort of reporting up the chain about his contacts. saw Ralph do this constantly. Ryan Ralph was constantly back channeling with folks with the U.S. embassy in Kiev. And then remember that Ralph attempted to buy those rocket launchers to shoot

down Trump's plane. Remember this happened in tandem with him saying, with him showing pictures of Trump's plane and saying Trump gets on and off this every day. And he was purchasing, attempted to purchase essentially surface to air projectiles, which also coincides with another strange report that we saw 10 days after the Ryan Routh incident where Trump was briefed on a similar plot from Iran, which maybe is a side story in this. But the point I'm getting at is if you know somebody is going to do within that network is going to do something criminal and is you have, you see that this person is talking to contacts within the network is, you know, doing these written communications with people in the network, and you know it's going to happen,

do you let it happen instead of sicking the Justice Department on the person because it would be favorable to your interests if they did? And if you had a cell at CIA or a cell at DOD or a cell at state or USAID, for example, the U.S. Embassy was working with this guy, was, you know, was working with this guy's network constantly. You had the International Volunteer Center of Ukraine, you had mother of Ukraine, you had him trying to get the U.S. Embassy to get visas for thousands, literally thousands of, you know, terrorist and violent extremist folks. If they had had advanced knowledge that he was talking crazy about this, that he was working on the logistics to try to assassinate Trump, you could see a situation very easily where they say, listen, typically,

you know, we'd alert the Justice Department about this, but we're going to let this one slide. because it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if this happened. It seemed like everyone in the network, I should note, had a similar philosophy. The mother of Ukraine, a 501c3 fiscal sponsor that Ralph was involved with in Ukraine, the founder of that 501C3 had a Facebook post saying that he wished that Trump were dead

and having memes of Trump in a coffin. So it seemed like the whole network wanted Trump dead and the and that Ralph was sort of the person crazy enough to try to go to Mara Lago to do it leads me to believe that on top of it being greenlit what he was doing so he's clearly in the network and sanctioned clearly protected by the Justice Department in some fashion before that given that he had never spent a day in jail despite essentially a career of crime that he was aggressively ignored by DHS. when he was when he was flagged for investigation just a year before, a year before the shooting,

but while he was actively recruiting these terrorists, the fact is, is we already know from the Justice Department filings that he was talking with people about this idea for, you know, for months ahead of time. I think they simply looked the other way. And, and the question is, who was, what does that network, that topography of that network map look like? And that's something really only the Justice Department can tell us. The issue is, is the Justice Department has already postponed Routh's trial. Remember, this was eight months ago, an attempted assassination on the U.S. government. You may be asking, why the heck is this taking so long?

Why do we find out he's attempting to buy RPGs to shoot down Trump's plane eight months after the fact? you would think this would be the number one investigation. Yeah, and under an attorney general appointed by Donald Trump. So why? Well, what they say is Ryan Routh left such an extensive trail of an electronic footprint that is taking them months and months to investigate. This is why they said that they asked to postpone the trial was because of the sheer volume of evidence to investigate is mind boggling.

They said it was something like hundreds of terabytes of an electronic. footprint that Ryan Routh left between all of his communications, all of his phones, his home devices. Now think about that. We were told that Ryan Routh was essentially a homeless person, that his homes and assets were in foreclosure, you know, that he only owned effectively a beat-up car to his name with Kamala Harris bumper stickers on it, and yet he left hundreds of terabytes of an electronic footprint. I try to think of a homeless person. I'm a serial online chronicle or I download, you know, pretty much everything I come across, you know, hundreds of terabytes is something in my entire lifetime of online activity as a professional

in the space I've not generated. So the question is, how do you generate that much of an, how do you generate that much of an online footprint unless you're, you're in the, you know, you're in this space professionally and sanctioned and working with a network, working with such heavy data. Okay. One last story, because we've teased it as well, a story comes out, in some ways it's unsurprising, but there was the Wuhan Games in October of 2019 that brought in military from across the world, including United States military.

Seven U.S. soldiers come down with COVID-like symptoms. I don't think they're ever officially diagnosed. There may not even been a test at that time. Maybe there was in China. I don't know. But it's pretty well accepted that these guys had COVID in October of, 2019. Those guys flew back to Washington, by the way. Washington was an early hot spot of COVID. This was scheduled to be released in 2022 by the Biden administration, and it was not released.

Your thoughts, Mike? Well, I think it's for, in this case, I think the worst case scenario is probably warranted. You can understand why the Biden administration stonewalled this report, and even though they were required by Congress for two years to release. it they refuse to and now we we come out and see why it's because it it totally undermines the you know the sort of man the origin story of our market that we were not just told and and sold by our own health and intelligence and defense officials it was the it was the the linchpin of the censorship operation to stop any rumors about what may have started this thing but what I find so terrifying about this reveal is I went back and there was this one of the strangest events in the

whole COVID phenomenon was the unbelievable foresight down to very granular details that was carried out on October 18th, 2019 by the by Johns Hopkins University. Johns Hopkins is a major major Pentagon, think tank sort of bio-military planning center. It's just like Harvard plays a similar role in the Northeast. You have Johns Hopkins, which is right there, you know, in the thick of the DMV, or, you know, the, you know, D.C., Virginia, Maryland area. And this was an event called, it was called Event 201, and it was a table. top planning exercise that was jointly sponsored by the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation,

the World Economic Forum, and Johns Hopkins University. And they had tabletop simulating the release of a bat-borne coronavirus from China that would cause flu and flu-like symptoms and would spread like a pandemic across the globe in December of 2019. So again, this was held on October 20, on October 18th, 2019, and it explicitly simulated a breakout in December 2019. And it brought together, this was not just some random simulation. At the simulation, planning it was Avril Haynes, who was then the deputy director of the CIA,

and who became, under Joe Biden, the head of the ODNI, the director of national intelligence, the head of the entire intelligence community. It brought in her comparable from Chinese intelligence from China. It brought together members of the media. It brought together members from, you know, Pfizer and the, you know, the pharmaceutical world community. It brought together government regulators. And it planned down to the detail exactly how this thing would play out and what to do, to contain conspiracy theories about the origin of the spread.

I put on my ex-account yesterday a replay of this. The Segment 4 in their module had all of these stakeholders from government, from the private sector companies, from the civil society organizations, and from the media, deliberately planning how to censor the internet to shut down conspiracy theories about this being a man-made virus.

Now, what's so crazy about what, what just got revealed about this, you know, Biden National Security document about the Wuhan Military Games is the, or is that the origin start date for the Wuhan military games was October 18th, 2019. The tabletop exercise planning a bat-borne coronavirus from China that would widely be believed and needed to be stopped being believed as being a man-made, you know, a virus was done the exact,

same day, down to the exact day as the Wuhan military games, where we now know, or at least the evidence from the Biden administration suggests is highly likely, was the very day of the outbreak. They planned the simulation the same day of the outbreak. That is just an astounding detail. And again, the simulation positive that the outbreak would occur in December, mid-December, December 18th is what they, December 15th through 18th is what they had in the simulation. That's exactly when the outbreak formally occurred for the pneumonia-like symptoms in Wuhan. It was December, December 12th to December 14th when the initial one. So it's like they planned it all the way down to the date.

Mike, what would be, that's fascinating. That is, those are fascinating facts. This morning when I was talking about the potential for kinetic, war on the heels of a trade war because history suggests to us that's a potentiality um you could see what china would do when backed into a corner this morning we were having a conversation about a chinese release of a man-made virus for and you can easily see the motivations at the end of the trump administration you know also dealing with you know similar trade issues not to this extent but similar trade issues what do you do when you're backed into a corner could you could you

suppress the entire world economy? Would that be in the Chinese interest? What would be the interest of all these stakeholders you just described in some coordinated, planned release of COVID? Well, there could be a number of interest. So first of all, what you want to do is you want to destabilize. This is, as I mentioned. Now, just to be clear, I'm not asserting facially that that COVID was deliberately released. For example, you could have this, you, I suspect, for example in the event 201 situation that i just laid out that there that there may have been early reports of the of the covid breakout before october before 2019 and that at that point it was known that it could not really be contained and so they did the breakout uh you know they did

the simulation of the breakout uh sort of knowing that this thing was a fe a complete and hey what do we do about it, let's get 130 people from all these different governments and companies and media organizations and the intelligence community altogether. And that folks who were at the Wuhan military games were simply not apprised of this beforehand, although it would be known to a smaller set of stakeholders. But the fact is, is the interest in releasing a virus, I'll give be a great example from just three weeks ago in the JFK files. The JFK files showed that the, that the U.S. military deliberately plotted to drop Lyme disease effectively, tick-borne bacteria and what they called biological agents thought to be of natural origin. That's the direct

phrase from the national security document released in the JFK files. This has been redacted for 60 years. We just learned that they literally planned to have tick-borne viruses, which the military was using gain of function research to create in the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana. They were collecting fleas and ticks. They were juicing them up with bacteria in order to drop them on Cuba to destabilize Cuba's economy and to destroy their agriculture and therefore bring down the popular government in Cuba. That was the purpose. It was part of a regime change operation to drop, you know, gain of function agents on the country to kill its economy and sabotage popularity of the president. That was authorized by, you know, the National Security Council,

by the U.S. Pentagon, the intelligence services. They even specifically mentioned in that document that it would run through the Pentagon and the CIA. As I mentioned, that was done, the Rocky Mountain Lab. That was a Tony Fauci lab. Tony Fauci, the Rocky Mountain Lab, was the same lab involved in COVID. This is where the DARPA Fern Cleavage site

gain of function. Pentagon-funded research was done for COVID. It's the same, not just the same playbook, the same players, literally the exact same labs. The other lab that was mentioned in that JFK file drop was Fort Meade in Maryland, which is the exact site of the anthrax outbreaks in 2001, the military biosecurity lab that the anthrax, the grade of the military grade of anthrax was used in the lab leak

for the anthrax attacks that effectively got us to war. in Iraq and Afghanistan after September 2001. So they're using the exact same labs in tandem with it. But if it was an intentional release, it would be for the same reason that was done with JFK and Cuba. You need to remember at that time, Trump was hugely popular in 2019. The stock, Paul Krugman said that it would be, you know,

pigs and be a cold day in hell and pigs would, you know, freeze over or whatever. if the GDP ever hit 3%, and it hit 4% within Trump's first year. The stock market was at all-time highs. He was widely popular and beloved. It all came to a screeching halt with the release of COVID, which we now know had a fatality no higher than the flu, while the flu completely disappeared.

So at the end of the day, a lot of this was hugely overblown. The fatality rate seemed to appear to a large, largely come from randesivir and putting people on these on these you know intubated tubes which is why the u.s had a higher fatality rate than the entire rest of the world but the fact is is we don't know whether they made it happen or or allowed it to happen or or a lab leak but any one of the scenarios for those is completely damning to the entire military intelligence and biosecurity establishment so fascinating my first time to speak to you. I've listened to you on several occasions, even every single one of these topics worthy of an hour on their own.

But I'm glad we got the time together today, Mike. I hope we can do it again sometime, not in the too distant future. Mike Benz, thank you so much. Thanks, well. All right, there he goes. There's Mike Benz, the executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online. Again, check him out at Mike Benz with a Z, Cyber on X. 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, and he's still kicking butt, and he's working out and stay inactive.

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 just making one change. He says he still feels like he's in his 50s. His wife even started doing this one thing, too, and she ever felt better. She said she feels 10 years younger. Her body looks leaner, and she 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.

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 by simply 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.com slash cane. Let's go through the competitors and the rankings of the actors that took on Kurt Russell next in the Will Kane Show. Fox News Audio presents Unsolved with James Patterson. Every crime tells the story, but some

stories are left unfinished. Somebody knows. Real cases, real people. Listen and follow now at Fox Truecrime.com. I'm Janisteen. 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 Fox Newspodcast.com. Mel Gibson, Harrison, Ford, Kurt Russell, Bruce Willis, rank them. It is the Will Kaine show, streaming live at foxnews.com. On the Fox News YouTube channel, on the Fox News Facebook page, subscribe at Apple or on Spotify.

In Memorium last week, Val Kilmer. We did our top five movies from Val Kilmer, and everybody's number one was Tombstone. Subsequently, we did the top five lines from Doc Holliday in Tombstone. Subsequently, those of us who had not yet seen Tombstone went back in Washington. For those of us have teenagers, we watched it again, Tombstone. And somewhere along the line in watching Tombstone this weekend with my son, the comment was made, yeah, Val Kilmer and Doc Holliday, that's the star of the movie.

but the other guy he's pretty cool too the actual star of tombstone white irp kurt russell and it got me thinking yeah kurt russell was and is really cool but he holds a really unique place in the 80s 90s action star genre because he's not kevin costner kevin costner who went on to play white erp one year later than tombstone there's a seriousness to kevin costner and a lack of self-seriousness in Kurt Russell which is appealing it's like this twinkle in his eye that makes it so you can laugh at him

and he can laugh at himself and you know that's not what you see for example in his co-star from Tango and Cash Sylvester Stallone not the same kind of charm a different kind of charm for Sylvester Stallone a different kind of charisma but Kurt Russell is a unique

sort of like if an action star walked into your barbecue and you immediately felt intimidated Kurt Russell was the one that you could go yeah but you have a stupid haircut and get away with it I'm not saying he did

but you could say that and you could get away with it where if you said that to Sylvester Stallone you'd feel like not sure he's going to like that joke so with that in mind I tried to think about other actors that had that same sort of twinkle in their eye, that same vulnerability, that same charisma. And together, Young Establishment James, two a day's, Dan and Tinfoil Pat, along with the help

of chat GPT and perplexity, came up with a list of other actors in that same genre. And here are the names it came up with. Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, Tom Selleck, Patrick Swayze, Harrison, Harrison Ford. Let's do it before I give you my ranking of the competitors to Kurt Russell. Let's just do a quick little resume analysis, okay? Tom Selleck isn't really and has never been a huge movie star. Tom Selleck is a gigantic television star. He's Magnum P.I.

But I would argue he had that same thing as Kurt Russell. Like Magnum was an action star that you thought for sure could laugh at himself. Goofy. And you wanted to hang out with. Yeah, it's light. you're not a fan of three men and a baby of course I like three men and a baby

yes I did I did but if you look at Tom Selleck's movie resume it's not on the same level as these other guys and by the way you guys know that story

does everyone know that story Tom Selleck was offered Indiana Jones I didn't know that and couldn't do it get out of here couldn't do it because of Magnum P.I.

No way. They wouldn't let him out or give him time and so they turned to Harrison Ford and launched one of the biggest movie careers of all time. Tom Selk was already a bigger star than Harrison Ford. I mean, Harrison Ford had Han Solo, but Magnum P.I. at that time, huge, right? And so that was offered to him first.

And can you imagine, like, if he had gotten to do Indiana Jones, he'd have been off and run on a totally different arc when it came to movies. Indiana Jones with a mustache. I know Tom Selle. It makes sense. I know him from friends. You know Tom Selle from friends, yes. He dated Monica.

I've always wanted to go back and watch Magnum P.I. Like, does it hold up? Because it is the definition of cool. Two Dobermans, Ferrari, Hawaii, Vietnam Vet. I think he was a Navy SEAL. And here he is, private eye in Hawaii. I mean, got to hold up, right? Go ahead, James.

Did you just find all the traits that you shared with him? Hawaii, the Dobermans. But there was a, you started with the ones. Well, when I got my first Doberman, I think his name, at least according to the Humane Society, where I adopted from, was Zeus. And the two, the two, I don't think that was his first name,

but is his name at the Humane Society. And he was about a year or so old when I got him. And that was the names of the Dobermans. and Magna P.I. Apollo and Zeus. I named him Leon. But that's an interesting, did you know. By the way, okay, so here's Harrison Ford's. And this is just from the 80s. Dan puts it together from Chat, GPD,

but of course you've got Indiana Jones, Raiders, the Lost Ark, Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner, Witness, and so many more. I mean, so many more. He's the biggest star out of this list. He was. At one time, I think he had the record. I don't know if he still does. Does he still have inflation-adjusted box office biggest star of all time?

It's well over a billion. He might be. Yes. Speaking of, if you're interested in guys who almost had a different role, Val Kilmer, not the first guy cast as Doc Holliday in Toonstone. Want to know who was originally cast as Doc Holliday? Who? Willem Defoe.

That's different. They pivoted away from Willem DeFoe because he was controversial. because I think he was in the last temptation of Christ and they're like, ugh, he's kind of hot right now. Hot in a bad way. Let's give it to Val Kilmer. You have the stats on Harrison Ford?

Yeah, we're talking about leading roles at the domestic box office. Is that what you want, that list? Yeah, I guess so. I think he's always, he at one time was, he might still be number one. So we got Samuel Jackson number one, Downey Jr.

Chris Pratt, Hanks, Cruz, Bradley Cooper, Harrison Ford. That might not be adjusted. So that is not inflation adjusted. I would guarantee that's not inflation adjusted. Okay. You have to adjust that for inflation because there's just no way. Right, right, right. Samuel Jackson is a volume play, by the way, as well.

But the thing about those top guys, Pratt, Jackson, and Downey, they're getting huge credit for being in the ensemble cast of the Avengers. That's what they're, and those Marvel movies. Have GPT run the adjustment inflation? All right. Also, on this list, Bruce Willis, diehard, die hard two. I don't know some of these movies that were spit out by AI, in-country sunset, and blind date.

I remember, wasn't he in the last Boy Scout? Yeah. Patrick Swayze, dirty dance. Red Dawn, Roadhouse, Youngblood, big. But I would argue Swayze is a different category. These are young Patrick Swayze. This is different than I feel like Kurt Russell Action Star. I'm not sure this is a one-for-one comparison.

And then finally, Mel Gibson. Mad Max, Mad Max 2, Lethal Weapon, and then all its progeny. And then his early stuff like Gallipoli in the year of Living Dangerously. So those are your guys at comp Kurt Russell So how do I rank them How would I rank these What I'm going to say is top four Go ahead tinfoil

I just had a quick question So Arnold Schwarzenegger I would say like has actually a similar Feel to him to some of these guys It just get me Is he just too mussely and too good looking To be included? Yeah accent's different

He's not I don't know Because he can poke fun at himself. He's been in a humorous movie. Yeah. Twins. He can be funny. He's just not as good of an actor. I don't think anybody ever said, I don't think anybody ever said, can we get Arnold Schwarzenegger?

No, let's go with Kurt Russell. I don't think they were on the same menu I list. I think Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone were on the same menu list, right? You see what I mean? They were cast in the same stuff. I think I asked AI if Kurt Russell was ever up against a part

for any of these other guys and he was I just can't remember which one it was but was he ever up for a similar part up against somebody diehard and it was I think it was it was die hard

that's what it was that would have been crazy yes Kurt Russell versus Bruce Willis I could have seen it though about them. Here are these guys ranked in order. Honorable mention not included on this list, Tom Selleck, because he doesn't belong.

He might have competed against Harrison Ford one time, but he ended up being a bigger TV star than a movie star. Honorable mention on this list, Patrick Swayze. I just don't think Patrick Swayze is the same type of actor as Kurt Russell or these others. So ranking the other four in order, the list according to Will Kane. At number four. This list, by the way, is if you're in it, I will. see it. That's always my metric. If I see it, you're in it, you got my money. At number four, Bruce Willis. I like Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis is good. I'm not sure Bruce Willis was as versatile

and always somebody that I said, I have to see that movie. At number three, Kurt Russell. The charm carries. And I think Tango and Cash is an all-timer. I think Kurt Russell, even in overboard with Goldie Hawn is a movie that I remember watching and liking just for the personality and character of Kurt Russell. At number two, Harrison Ford. He's really hard because he's so weird in real life. When you see an interview with Harrison Ford, it kind of turns you off. In one moment, you think, God, Han Solo's the coolest guy on earth.

Indiana Jones is incredible. And then you see an interview with Harrison Ford, and you're like, that's not who I wanted him to be. But you got to recognize the box office greatness of Harrison Ford. But this is a subjective list, and this is the list according to Will Kane. At number one, and it's held up over time, I would argue decades. If he's still in it today, I will see it, is Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson carries, carried, and continues to carry a movie. If you doubt me, see some of the new stuff that he was in.

Have you ever seen the movies by the name of the director is escaping, but they're so incredibly violent. The one starring Vince Vaughn, it's Fight on Cell Block 99 or something like that. It is so violent and so awesome. I believe, is Kurt Russell in the other one, Bone Tomahawk, where it's a Western? The worst scene of all time.

I think that's Kurt Russell. Isn't it Kurt Russell? It is. That thing is. So violent and so riveting. And then the vehicle that starred Mel Gibson is probably my favorite of those, which also includes Vince Vaughn, which is dragged across concrete. If you haven't seen any of those three movies, same director, go see those.

Brawl on Cell Block 99, Bone Tomahawk, or dragged across concrete, still to this day in this genre, in this category, number one, Mel Gibson. Go ahead, two days. And Tarantino loves Kurt Russell, too. Any Tarantino movie with Kurt Russell, you should watch. Fantastic. Yeah. Django, all those ones.

Is Kurt Russell and Django? I think so. Yeah, he was in the beginning. I don't think so. He wasn't? We don't think of hatefully. I don't remember. Same genre.

Death proof. There you go. I approve. There is my list, and there is today's long-expanded show this episode of the Wilcane show. Make sure you leave us a comment. Jump into the comment section. Leave us a rating.

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