Will Cain Country - Nick Shirley: Mamdani REFUSES to Condemn NYC Bombers?

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

War with Iran. An attack on the residence of New York City’s Mayor. What do New Yorkers have to say about all of this? Independent Journalist Nick Shirley shares the attitude on the streets regarding recent events, sharing how people across the political spectrum feel about Iran, ICE, and much more. Nick also goes over his efforts to expose the rampant scammers selling counterfeit goods on Canal St.Plus, Will and The Crew address the calls for Will to run for office, the decline of community involvement, particularly among Gen Z, and the dark secret behind the Iranian women’s soccer team.Subscribe to ‘Will Cain Country’ on YouTube here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch Will Cain Country!⁠⁠⁠Follow ‘Will Cain Country’ on X (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), Instagram (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), TikTok (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), and Facebook (⁠⁠⁠@willcainnews⁠⁠⁠)Follow Will on X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WillCain⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Madlibs. It sounds like political madlips. Iran. men and women's sports, trans. As a story goes around about the Iranian women's national soccer team seeking asylum in Australia, what many people don't realize is there's been a story brewing for years, about how many players on that Iranian women's national soccer team are actually men. What do the people on the streets of New York City think about the war in Iran with Nick Shirley?

The Wilkane Country YouTube channel, the Wilcane Facebook page, always here. By following us, please, on Spotify or on Apple. Some 10 years ago, when I was brand new at ESPN, I somehow discovered a fascinating story, a story about how many players on the Iranian women's national soccer team might actually be men. A story at the time that was reported in Australia. and reported in the New York Post, many don't realize, but Iran is the world's leader in sex reassignment surgery. How is that possible? How of the religious clerics, the Isletollah of Iran, opened up Iran for not just medical tourism for trans people from Europe, but forcing it on gay people in Iran?

And how that collides with a story today about the Iranian women's national soccer team seeking asylum amidst the war in Iran. We'll dig in a little bit later here on Wilcane Country. Nick's early famous from discovery and exposing fraud among the Somali population of Minnesota is now in New York City. He is walking the streets of New York City. And he is hearing from the people. He is asking them, hey, how do you feel about things? How do you feel about the war in Iran? And Nick Shirley, investigative journalist on YouTube, joins us now again here on Wilcane Country.

What's up, Nick? How are you doing? Happy to be here today. I'm good, man. How are you in New York? Are you enjoying walking the streets? It's always enjoyable. You never know what's going to happen or who are you going to run into.

But it's enjoyable and it's a little dicey out there right now, actually. You're doing something pretty fascinating in it. You're hearing actually from Americans. You're talking to people out there about what they feel about different issues. Let's just take a quick view of what you've recently done, a recent live stream you had up at YouTube, where you're talking to people about all these things going on in the world. You're talking to them about Iran. You're talking them about Mamdani.

How much? How much? What's wrong? What's wrong? You doing something wrong? See, they know they're doing stuff wrong. That's why they all freak out. No, I'm all right.

Thank you, ma'am. They know they're doing stuff wrong. That's why they freak out. And he really do have a lawless New York City right now. You have a mayor who's not condemning anything. The only thing he is condemning is a protester. He's a Christian protester. You might not agree with all his tactics.

I agree. Some of his tactics are a bit wild. But he calls him a white supremacist, but he won't call the terrorist. Terrorist? That's a little crazy. So there you are, Nick. You're walking around the streets of New York City. It looks like you're also interacting with some of the bag salesmen,

the street vendors there in New York. York. So what are you hearing? What are you seeing right now from the people? I think a lot of people are upset that the idea of calling a terrorist attack, a terrorist attack has become controversial is actually crazy to think that you do right now have a mayor who won't even use the word bomb and any of the messages he's putting out. And then ABC's calling it a suspicious device. And so people are wondering, well, who's here to protect us? The only people that actually were there to protect us was NYPD. And you see that amazing photo of it. And you see that amazing photo of the NYPD officer going and chasing after that terrorist.

And those are oftentimes the people who are victimized, or who are not victimized the most, but they're the ones who get the most hate sometimes here in the streets of New York City. And they're used as people want to defund the police and stuff like that. And you're seeing that the people, when it was actually time, push came to shove, NYPD was there to support New Yorkers and anyone else at that event. So I think you're going to see a big shift. Yeah, Mom's Dhani seemed more right as,

You said, Mom Dani was more ready to talk about white supremacy and Islamophobia than he was about the threat from two men actually throwing bombs at protesters outside the Gracie Mansion. So when you talk to people and you did this, you did man on the street, you went and talked to New Yorkers, how do you feel like they have responded? Let's just stick with this particular event because I think that the rest of the country has a right to at some point to ask. Is this not the city that they've asked for? Is this not the vision if they vote for a guy like Mamdani, if they embrace open migration? Is this not their vision of New York? I think people are wondering what's going on

because it's not right for a mayor to not be condemning terrorists inside New York City. We all know what happened on 9-11. What would they have said if 9-11 happened yesterday? Would they say it was just a flight error from al-Qaeda? You know what I mean? And so a lot of people are wondering, Okay, like I already said, who's here to support us?

And people are just probably a little disheartened to see that the mayor can't even condemn a terrorist attack. And that's what people have been saying. And did you hear that from the people? Yeah, a lot of people. I've been talking to a lot of people. This disheartened point of view. Yeah, a lot of people are disheartened because imagine you have a mayor who's not willing to condemn a terrorist. And so people are thinking, well, what is going on?

How did we actually come to this point where we were. voted in a person who won't condemn them. Is it because of the religion aspect of this? But at the end of the day, it's the fact that there was two bombs thrown. Yeah. How about this, Nick? You did well over an hour live stream. You've been on the streets several times in New York. How do you feel like people are responding to the war in Iran? Yeah, that was very interesting. So I did a live stream and I invited four people on with four different perspectives, a person who was anti-war, a Jew as well, American Jew, and then Iranian, and then also Jake Lang, who they threw the bomb at. So I had all these people on, and then even some locals in

New York City came out, and they said, well, the war happened 47 years too late. They're Iranian. And so the view from the people, especially on the topic of the war in Iran, they're happy that it happened. And like the one man said, it was 40, seven years too late. Now, other people were saying that, well, it was maybe inevitable this was eventually going to happen. And then also younger generations were thinking, well, do I want to go to war? Like, I think younger people, like, even myself, I'm worried, like, if we do get into this war and more, well, there are boots on the ground where people end up dying. We don't want to see any young men or women die. But I think that it's a very interesting topic right now in the

country because you have so many different people who could be affected from this and you have people who are supporting it and then people who don't and people who are interested to see what happened. Me personally, I'm thankful that our president at the time is President Trump because he did do it in a different way than all the other presidents in the past. So the, I would assume, the Iranian point of view from America, so Iranian in New York, And the point of view, and I'm making an assumption of the American Jew, was that this is a good thing for the future of the Middle East? Yes, especially the Iranian people. They were super excited. And what about the younger people? You talk about them worrying about the war spiraling into something that could bring younger generations face to face with war.

Were they more of that point of view or the one that you shared that you have, which is well one that I have, that whatever concerns I have about the lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan are somewhat alleviated by the fact that we have a president making the decision now who seems and has earned the benefit of the doubt to be opposed to allowing anything like that to happen in Iran. Yeah, I think so many people are concerned that if we were to go to war and boots on the ground, that something might happen where we're there for a long time and where Americans could die. Like, does it make much sense for an American who's from, let's just say Texas, for instance, who's never actually been to that part of the world, He was actually never even interacted with that people of that country to then go and die on their soil. But I think what we are seeing is different with President Trump in a way where, for instance, Maduro, he went and did that in one night. You know, he went and killed the Ayatollah. And one day, the start of the war, it didn't take them years to go out and do it.

So I do have faith in confidence in President Trump in the way that he actually is conducting stuff. He's not just trying to beat around the bush and say, we're going to get to the root cause. He's actually getting and taking out the root cause of these issues. When you find people who are supportive of the war, Nick, what rationale do you find most compelling to those supporters? Is it, as you mentioned, that it's actually a war that's been going on for 47 years, that Iran has been asymmetrically attacking Americans across the globe? And this is actually the end of a four or the beginning of the end of a 47-year-old war. Or is it more of the geopolitical chess board where people see the effects on, on a threat they do recognize in China?

I think it's a bit of both. I think more so than anything, it's about them having the nuclear power and that they're actively wanting to go about with death to America. They chant it often. And so I think people realize that they actually are a threat. And if they were ever to get to those nuclear powers,

like they've said they, like they've been building, and like the politicians have been saying they are building, might as well go and, protect ourselves, and we do know that they are like the head of terrorism, especially in that region. When you're out on the streets of New York and you're getting this point of view, one of the stats that really sticks out to me, it actually has some overlap with some of the stuff that you've done in Minnesota. And the stats sticks out to me is something like 40% of New York is foreign-born, foreign-born population of New York. At various times throughout

our history, it has been that way. Not always, but often it has been a huge foreign-born population. That's how we are today. And a lot of that population does come from the Middle East, from Muslim countries, from really all over the globe. It's New York City. So do you find a big divide in opinion when you talk to people who are immigrants or the children of immigrants than you do from people who families have been longtime Americans? You do see a big divide, but it's also an interesting because you actually see the perspective from people. whose families had left that country, like the Iranian perspective on this war, they're all happy. Like younger kids are even happy because they've heard the horrific stories from their parents.

And so you do see a big, you do see a lot of different perspectives, but then you also have, like, the radical perspective where a lot of people who are foreign-born, like a lot of these protests that took place for years were a lot of people who were not from America or whose parents were not from America. And they also bring these ideologies. So it's just super interesting to see how different topics and how different places in the world can bring such different opinions to the conversations when in reality, if you're here in America, you want to put America first, you want to see America succeed more than any other country. So I do think there is a bit of a problem with people who have the perspective of not from being here, born in the United States, but also having their

like allegiance to another country. Yes. And that's part of the story of what just happened with the bombing attempt of the protesters, toward the protesters outside Gracie Mansion. Is that these two guys were, yes, American citizens, but they were children of immigrants from Afghanistan and Turkey who had been naturalized over the past 25 years in America. And the question is, where is your allegiance to what is your belief and who are you here

for? Is it America? Yeah, it's such a great question. For instance, why is Ilhan Omar not able to stand up when they ask her, when at the State of the Union, they talk about condemning political violence and she won't stand up and condemn it? Why is she so always pandering about to the Somalian population, when in reality she's in control of United States citizens? And so I think that's such a great conversation to have is asking people, who's your allegiance to? Who do you actually want to succeed in this world. Do you want to see your country where you're actually not even from where your parents are from succeed or where your feet are at here in the United States? Let's take a quick break, but continue this conversation with investigative journalist Nick Shirley on Wilcane Country.

This is Ainsley Earhart. Thank you for joining me for the 52 episode podcast series, The Life of Jesus. A listening experience that will provide hope, comfort, and understanding of the greatest story ever told. Listen and follow now at Fox Newspodcasts.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome back to Will Kane country, we're still hanging out with investigative journalist Nick Shirley. And she's a great example, is she not? Because, I mean, she and others, other elected members have basically said out loud, you know, the goal is to represent Somalia in America. The goal is to continue to support Somalia from America.

And it's a complete disgrace. America is the greatest country in the world. We had 250 years to do it. All these other countries had thousands of years to do it. We did it in 250 years, and there's a reason why. It's because of what we believe in and who we are and for what we stand for. So don't come in and bring all these other ideologies or these different things that you want that didn't work in your own country and bring it here.

We don't want that. There's a reason why we're like why we are the greatest. This was a few weeks ago, Nick, but you also did something really fascinating where we saw a bit of it in that clip where anyone who's ever been to New York has seen, by the way, seeing the at times like complete proliferation at other times some element of a crackdown

on the street vendors. The dudes that come out roll out their carpet or their sheets and put on the street fake Rolexes, fake bags, fake everything to sell. Most of these dudes seem to come from Africa. And you did the same thing, I think. You went out there

and opened up your own canal Street shop. Let's just see how that went. Here's Nick Shirley. So over the past few days, I've been acquiring some goods from these counterfeit dealers to go set up my own shop on Canal and see what they do to see who's block. It really is. If I get chased off the block, then it is therefore their block. But if they get ran off the block, it's the block of American citizens. Now it's time to go reclaim and take back the block. We're going to go set up shop. We're and see what happens here on Canal Street. Come up and take block by block of selling legal

consulate. What is stopping an American citizen and a tax-paying resident from coming in here and setting up shop ourselves? Who suits? We got our own right here. We're setting up shop. When you come out here, you be starting trouble,

bro. I ain't starting no trouble. I'm working on this block just like you. Don't put that camera. I'm working on the block just like you. You be on some bullshit, bro. Well, I'm on the same block as you guys. I'm not feeling that.

Don't come out here with that shit, man. We're saying I'm shop two. All right, Nick, I can hear the tension there. I see the confrontation. So how did it go? Did you see the, you have the sheet with the bags wrapped up in the sheet over your shoulder. Did you ever get it laid out on the street? We got it laid out there on the street and we started giving them away for free.

And the Canal Street vendors all started scrambling. I mean, these guys literally, what they do is so illegal. As you know, as anyone who's been in New York knows, this isn't uncommon for this to happen. the levels where it's happening now on Canal Street is absurd. They have taken over complete blocks. I said, well, let me go set up my own shop because maybe I want to make some money too. And I want to have to pay taxes on the dollars I make like them. And as you see, they come front me.

They try to get me to get off their block. But at the end of the day, they actually all got off the block. And I was the only one who had my stuff there. And the people realized, maybe we shouldn't be selling out here. But it is crazy. So you set up your shop. and they decided they don't want to be next to Nick Shirley? Yes.

I don't know if at that time they knew who you were, but they just didn't want someone what that wasn't in their little cabal selling next to them on canal? Well, those guys fear me because I did a video there a few months back and one of the guys punched my cameraman, and a whole gang of them came and jumped me in my cameraman, and then a few months later to the... Actually, I think eight of the guys were deported back to their country.

Ice came and raided them. So these guys know me, And as soon as I get there, it's like if the most dangerous policemen ever showed up and they just start running. Really? And now, that guy that was talking to you and confronting you in that video, he sounded American. So are these dudes from American? Or are they? He's from Brooklyn, but what?

Aren't most of these guys like from Africa? Yes. So 90% of these men are from Africa. And that man from Brooklyn, he's probably one who probably employees is helping run the operation there. And so he's not happy with me there because then he's not going to make as much money, obviously. But I just wanted to go show the process and show how it is and how the law is literally not being upheld in certain areas of New York City. And that canal street, it's in between Soho, Tribeca, and it's just a few blocks away from the financial district. And so it's not just in some crappy part in New York City.

It's actually in a very wealthy part of the city, but it's just completely lawless. Yeah, I mean, anyone's ever been in New York. York has seen these things. It's not sly. It's not subtle. They're not like hiding. It's actually hard to walk down the block when they set up shop because the sheets and the bags and the watches take up like 50% of the sidewalk. So you're like, oh, everybody has to jam over onto one side to pass by. And what it reveals, I've seen them pack up before pretty quick. Nick, they just grab the corners of the sheet and they, like you had it there, throw it over their shoulder and take off. But, I mean, it's not like you need surveillance cameras to find them. I mean,

Cops could literally walk up very easily, which just shows that the city tolerates it. It's okay in New York. Well, I have so much respect for NYPD, and they came and they actually talked to one of my videos saying what happens. They say they arrest these people, then the next day they're released. So there's an issue with, I believe it's like the judges of New York City or the attorneys, whoever is prosecuting these people, they don't actually prosecute them. They just give them a slap on their wrist and let them out the next day and they're back on the street. And now I've heard from an insider that now they're just finding these people $50. So if they get caught, they'll arrest them.

They'll find them $50. These guys are happy to take that fee, and then they can go back and sell again the next day on the street. And so it really is very corrupt. And like, it does not need to be happening. I mean, absolutely crazy. And the reason why I even like focus so much on that location is because they don't treat women with respect as well. I set my mom there and I said, Mom, go film, go film and see what happens. They instantly try to take down her camera.

And then I was talking to some other girls and they felt. felt so overwhelmed by these guys trying to sell them stuff. Right. Yeah. No, it's no surprise. It's not the safest feeling environment as well. I mean, to be blunt, it feels very third world. Like, oh, you're walking up and down the street.

Here's cash. By the way, I think most of those bags are fake, right? They're all counterfeit. They're all counterfeit. If they're not counterfeit, they would be stolen. But, yeah, so it's a completely illegal enterprise in every way. from the merchandise to the shop that's set up, and taking over half of a sidewalk, harassing people as they walk by.

I mean, that's not America. That's the kind of thing you expect to see somewhere else, not in this country. Exactly. And it's not cool for anybody else who's paying New York City taxes as well, because these guys don't pay taxes on these goods. They're all making money in cash. Right. So it's a two-tier system.

And the intellectual property theft. Yeah, the intellectual property theft, which I think some of the, Some of the driving force on the crackdown that has been driven by whoever they're counterfeiting, the Louis Vuittons, the Rolexes of the world trying to get something done about it. But, I mean, this has been going on for decades in New York. So this kind of takes its full circle in our conversation, though, Nick, the tolerance in New York. You know, if it's not in YPD, it's the judges, right?

And as we spoke about earlier, it's the point of view of the New York City mayor who's an elected official in New York. So I asked you earlier about generational and acculturation and immigration status of people that you talk to. But I would have to imagine you're walking New York getting man on the street. You're talking to people on the left. It's just not you're not going to run into that many people on the right. They exist in New York. They do exist. But you're talking about like a 75% proposition in New York.

York, who you're going to be talking to is from the left. So what is that point of view, for example, right now on the war on Iran? Yes. So on that same live stream, I spoke to two people. They were liberal, and they were very against Trump going in and doing the operations like with Maduro and with the Ayatollah. They pretty much just say, like, that's not anything for us to be worrying about. And they're obviously very against it. And at the end of the day, these people cannot understand that sometimes Trump does do good things

and they will never admit it I mean literally they had a almost like a funeral service for the Ayatollah here in New York City which is crazy and so these groups especially like the left I mean these people like specifically like the Ayatollah

like they suppressed women for so many years and the people who are supposed to be the most accepting liberals, for instance, leftist, they don't even understand that they wouldn't have no rights in that country. And so you do see a lot of just like warped mindsets and a lot of brainwashing from the left when you are talking to these people, especially the younger college students inside New York City who you can say are liberals.

And so you do get so many different perspectives. Is there anything at this point in your experience and talking to these people that really drives their point of view other than opposition to Donald Trump. I mean, we've done this twice, Nick, on our show today, later today on the Will Cain Show on Fox. We're going to have Nate Friedman, who does similar investigative journalism at the street level. And yesterday on the Will Cain show at Azra Namani talking about the organized nature of many of these protests, meaning they're paid for, many of them funded by a Chinese communist billionaire. He's American, lives in China, Neville Roy Singham. And some of this stuff is.

very inorganic. But that doesn't mean that there aren't, you know, whatever, well-intentioned, real New Yorkers that join this stuff. And for those people, I'm curious, if you run into any other motivation other than anti-Trumpism, it's just like whatever he does, we're going to be the opposite side of Trump. Well, that's the problem. So these protesters are paid, but it's not like a hundred of them are paid. It's maybe one to five of them that are paid. And then they get a little group of them who are the people that are. are very loud and who have come to believe that what they're actually saying is true or whatever they're given on that piece of paper is true.

And so I think that's kind of the issue where you do have these paid protests and then these people find a group and then they go out and cause all this crazy, all the madness that they do cause because, I mean, these protests are not very peaceful. We've seen what's happened. They literally threw a bomb. Like that protest was crazy. I'm happy I was not there. Let's take a quick break, but continue this conversation with investigative journalist Nick Shirley on Wilcane Country.

Welcome back to Will Kane Country. We're still hanging out with investigative journalist Nick Shirley. Yeah, though in essence, the paid protesters become the organizers, facilitators and the instigators. So they bring the signs, they hand out the signs. Or they attract the instigators. But then they're also, or they attract it. But they become the spark. In the end, that's what they are. They're the spark that ramps up the temperature of everyone around them.

And so you might have, you might very well have, for example, your upper west side lefty mom in the crowd who is swept up in something that she has no idea how coordinated it is to be at that heightened temperature. Exactly. So that's like kind of the problems where you do have these people who organize it. And then there's just a material who suddenly fall into it, or they think this is actually right. It's what they're doing is the right thing or what they're saying is the right thing. When in reality, if you ask them,

I always love going to these protests and asking them a second question to see if they actually know what they're doing. And at that point, after I ask them that second or third question, their logic becomes unraveled, and they can't even further expound on that idea. And they realize that what they're doing is, Not what they realize what they're doing is that doesn't really have anything to stand upon. And so then they just revert to shouting and yelling.

Give me an example. Give me an example of the second and third question. So I'll give you two options. You're either at one of these protests protesting ICE. We've seen those over the last couple of years. Yeah, let's take ice for example. Or now you're at one of these pro. Okay.

So you go up to somebody who's protesting ice. give me an example of how the second or third question unravels their worldview. So at first I'd ask them, what do you guys think about ICE? And then I'd say, and then they'd say, oh, they're horrific. And then what do you think about them deporting illegal migrants that are here illegally? And then they'll start saying, whatever it may be. There's no people illegal here in the United States or whatnot. And then you ask them, but if you did something illegal, does that mean they have the right to deport you?

and then at that point they can't back that up because the word is so, it's in fine print, illegal immigrants, but they actually can't defend it so then it just reverts them yelling and trying to get,

trying to push upon you some idea that actually doesn't make sense. Like, the word's illegal. You know, people often ask me, in fact, some of the viewers have asked me when we do an ask me anything, what's your favorite question to ask someone in an interview?

And it's really hard for me to answer that question, because it's always the second and third question that are the most interesting. It's never the first question. It's after you listen to what they have to say and you follow up and not just an adversarial context, you know, in any context. I'm interviewing Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, ask him a question. He says something interesting. And the follow-up is always the best. Yes. It's always the second or third question that is the best questions. Anybody can answer the first question. But the second question is where you actually get to know what they actually believe in, if they actually know why they believe in it.

That's right. That's right. And that's what you're doing so much on these videos, whether or an artist man on the street or your investigative journalism into, for example, Somali fraud in Minnesota. We appreciate you sharing both your point of view and so much of your work with us here on Wilcane Country, Nick. It's always good to see you. Good to see you, too. Okay, there you goes. Nick Shirley, check him out on YouTube. Let's head over to the Willishtia where we can hear from some of you guys as well. We'll start with Facebook, where Jim Russo says, I saw that sweatshirt on Gutfeld last night, hilarious.

That's Nick wearing his Quality Learing Center sweatshirt. You'll remember when he visited the daycare centers in Minnesota and the educational daycare centers at not quality learning center, quality leering center. They literally misspelled the learning at the education daycare center in Minnesota. Thomas Noosh says on Facebook, go NYPD. And Zalette Pereira says, People are so comfortable living with terrorists. That is so true that people are so comfortable living with people. We don't even have to go as far as terrorism, but living with people who literally do not care, love, or want to be integrated into the same thing that you love.

You can call that values. You can call that country. You can call that home. But we live with people who do not share anything beyond that. the physical definition that we share of home. Over on Facebook, first round by says Nick Shirley isn't a real journalist. How is that first round by? Isn't real journalism asking questions on the ground, two people? What is what is real journalism simply regurgitating things you hear from elected officials or from people in power? Is it sitting behind a desk and only talking on the

telephone. It seems to me that, you know, getting first hand on the ground experience, showing you, not just telling you, showing you, not just telling you, is journalism. Also on YouTube, MAGA 2.0 says Will Kane for Senator. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I don't think so. You got time for that? I don't. I don't think so. It sounds like a nightmare to go to Washington, D.C. But alone, D.C. Yesterday, I went to an event here in Dallas. I don't need to give you the particulars, but it was about, well, I'll give you this particular.

I can share with you some. It was about a group of people, citizens, hearing a presentation on the balanced budget amendment, the concept of bringing an amendment to the Constitution to form. force Washington, D.C. politicians to begin to balance the budget. Here's what was interesting about it. It was an effort to work through the states for essentially a constitutional convention, a compact of the states to force a constitutional convention to get an amendment to the United States Constitution. And the way that it works is you've got to get, I believe it's, is it two-thirds of the states to call a constitutional convention? And then at that

point, you have to have, is it, three-fifths or three-quarters of the states vote in the affirmative on the proposed constitutional amendment. So in other words, in order to get a balanced budget, you would have to have this number of states sign on for balanced budget. Here's what I found interesting about it. The concept of returning power to the state level as the founders envisioned and as they intended. So we have abdicated almost all responsibility of the federal government to the federal government. Follow what I mean. Everybody that is in charge of our federal government, yes, of course, they're elected from districts here across the country, but they are elected representatives to the federal government, designed to represent us at the congressional or state level,

when that we're talking about the House or the Senate. But that wasn't really just the founder's vision. Their vision was to retain power in the states. And what I mean by that is literally, literally by the state. So you're elected state representatives, your elected state senators, you're elected governors, and that the state as a political body would have more voice over the federal government, right? That's the true idea of not just elected democracy, but republic. And it did fascinate me that, although it would be so incredibly hard, because I don't even know how many Republican state legislatures there are or how many Republican governors there are right now, But take that, for example, you're talking about 33 states would have to sign on to a balanced budget amendment and then 37 would have to approve it.

Interesting, trivial side note, if you're interested in governance, apparently, like 45 times this has happened. I think it's, I'm maybe getting that number wrong. But almost in every occasion, once it goes to a constitutional convention, Congress takes it up. So in other words, if all the states got together, or not all of them, but 33 said, we're going to convene a convention. to draft an amendment to the United States Constitution, it would all of a sudden scare Congress into acting because Congress doesn't want to give that power back to the states. They want to be in charge of drafting the Constitution. They want to be in charge of federal laws. So they would do it. You would scare them into doing it if the states threatened to do it in essence. But set that

aside, that's political machinations. What I'm interested in is simply more power to the state as a political entity. Like, if you really brought James Madison back to life and said, look at everything the federal government does, he'd be like, holy crap, like, that should be done by the state of New Hampshire. That should be being done by the state of Massachusetts. That should be being done by the state of Virginia. You know, that shouldn't be done by the, you know, what are we up to, you know, five to six hundred elected representatives in Washington, D.C. And so the state as a political body is, and I think, a really interesting mechanism through which we should, and it's just so difficult because how many lefty states. And by the way, if you're thinking about power in that way, like, we need to think

more about your state races. Like when you're going, you should know as much about the state race as you do about your United States senator. You really should. Because if you control your state governments, then you can ultimately go about controlling the federal government if you're willing to exercise this power. This is a long way, long, long, long, filled way around the block to say, Will cane for Senator? No. Will came for governor. Yeah.

I mean, everything happens on the state level, they say, right? Most important things to your life. It should. Yeah. It should. Yeah. I think more and more, we're losing that. Sure.

More and more, we have lost that. Well, the world's gotten bigger. Obviously, still, who's maintaining your roads? Well, I mean, social media-wise. Did the world get bigger? We know more what's happening in other states in the world than people of the past did. So we're worried about federal issues more than local issues.

It's really unnatural. We shouldn't be that concerned because back in the day, you used to have to go get a newspaper. The news was like three, four weeks old. It's like now we know instantaneously what's happening in Iran. Or like in California or Minneapolis. You know, like we know what's happening on a local level there instantly. And now we're worried and concerned about it.

I like the word that it's unnatural. Yeah, it's unnatural for us to be more concerned about Iran than you are at your city council meeting. It really is unnatural in every way. And most people, my suspicion is most people listening right now certainly know more about Washington, D.C. politics and possibly might know more right now about the leaders of Iran than they do their local city councilmen. They couldn't name them. No, if you asked, if we did a man on the street, Nick Shirley style, and we did a survey, and we asked people, you know, what was the name of the recently deceased leader of Iran? First of all, they're going to do very poorly. They're not going to get it. I told the Komeni. They're not going to. But my suspicion is that you would get a higher percentage of positive answers, correct answers on that than you would. Then if you followed up, now please name for me any one of your seven. 12 city councilmen in wherever you live.

Zero. Like I think the most people would do better. Or state senators or congressmen. Correct. I think they would do better naming the president of France than they would naming their state senator. That's crazy. And that's unnatural. It's very nature.

That is unnatural. It's anti-progress. It would be interesting. It would be interesting to your point of, going back to find out when that shift happens, because it wouldn't have always been that way in America. Is it information flow? Is it the creation of national news? And the national news creates this soap opera effect that people can more easily understand the characters involved and the interests involved. Is it the growth of the federal government? And it's

more octopus tentacle effect on our lives than maybe we know about our local elected officials. but, you know, the only time this really comes up really is around crime. It's very rarely around zoning or quality of life. You know, it's pretty much around crime. You start asking who your local prosecutor is, your elected official prosecutor or something like that. But there is no doubt we should know what's happening next door more intimately than we should know something that's happening on the other side of the globe. Go ahead, two days. No, I don't know if people even watch, like, do younger people watch local news anymore?

I mean, I know they watch national news like us, but people don't watch local news to get information about their area surrounding them. So, you know, that's one thing. The older generation still does for sure, but I just don't know it'll last. Most local news is aggregated now. So it's like you're essentially getting national news at a local level. Sure, yeah, yeah, totally. Because they won't pay to give you local news anymore. Except on crime stories. But they won't pay because the market isn't supporting it.

So when not that's ratings or local advertising dollars and that kind of thing. You know, one of my first business ventures, it was really my first business venture was investing in buying, running local newspapers. I love the story. Small town newspapers. Small town. And the premise at the time was that people would still care about the Friday night high school football game, the school board meeting, and the city council meeting. And the other part of this, Patrick, that we're not saying as well, is the transient nature of Americans.

So as Americans move and move for jobs and move for other reasons, they uproot themselves. And America is less tied into that local community and cares less. You know, so you move to a suburb. You don't have kids. You're not paying attention to the school board meeting except when they pass a tax, you know, to fund the schools. They want to build a new school. The city council meeting, only when they want to build a road or you've got potholes in your road. But the tie of Americans to their local community, while still strong, by the way, I have seen studies that most people end up living within one hour of where they grew up.

But there is no doubt we're more transient than we used to be than we lose the local tie. We lose the interest in what's happening locally. The college thing we talked about. Go ahead, tinfoil. So another thing, reason that should be governor, Will Kane, instead of Senator Will Kane, is because then it's a better chance to have President Wilcane. Think about that. You're born here legally, right?

How many senators? How many senators have gone on to be president? Okay. Lyndon Baines Johnson was a senator. Richard Nixon was not, right? He was not a senator. What was, he was a VP, of course. What was his left of California?

He was a governor? Yeah. Okay. Whatever you want to follow. I mean, watching Madman, so he came back up. I want to guess before you, before you unveil this two days. Ford was a congressman. Speaker, right?

Carter. Carter was a governor as well, right? Wasn't Carter governor of Georgia? I believe so. Reagan was a governor. H.W. Bush was a Politico, a vice president, but CIA, and I think he was a congressman dating back at some point.

George W. Bush was governor. Bill Clinton was governor. Barack Obama was senator. So you go from LBJ to Barack Obama, and of course Donald Trump was a businessman. Joe Biden was a senator. So Democrats are more readily going after senators. Isn't that interesting? So the three senators we named were Democrats.

LBJ, Obama, and Biden with Clinton in there as a governor. Yeah, Republicans seem to like governors more than senators. And by the way, J.D. Vance, a senator. So that might soon change. Marco Rubio, a senator that might soon change. Go ahead, Dan. So there were only three sitting senators that were elected president in history, which is a difference. Then there was others that were senators.

So John F. Kennedy was a sitting senator, Barack Obama, Joe Biden. But there total, there were 17 U.S. senators who have gone on to become president of the United States. And how many governors? Let's see. That's another question. I bet it outpaces. It's excited. Maybe not, because when you go back to the 1800s, I'm not sure.

It seemed like they were pulling from that Washington, D.C. pool more in the 1800s. It's being very slow. So, okay. 16 U.S. presidents were previously elected state governors. 16. So around the same number. All right. Senators outpaced governors over the long haul of America.

Wait. So what does that mean? I do think that's, that's, I. What's the rest? 16 and 17, that's what? I don't know how, I don't know math. 35. 33.

Yeah, 33. Oh, oh, no. Donald Trump was not. Donald Trump was not. So what were the other ones? You're going to have like four or five, you're going to have four or five at the very beginning that were neither. Like, oh, sure.

Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, they would have been neither back in the day. Yeah, okay. John Adams, Jefferson. Military? Millard Phil Moore, Chester A. Arthur. Oh, Eisenhower. Yeah. There was...

Yeah, military. There was three congressmen. Abraham Lincoln was a congressman, not a senator or governor. Military leaders, George Washington, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower. There was cabinet-level Commerce Secretary, Secretary of State, and then businessman, Donald Trump, and engineer business executive, Herbert Hoover. So is Donald Trump the only one that doesn't come from a political background? Did you say Hoover as well?

Hoover came from no political background? Apparently. Just a complete outsider? Yeah, it's just a business executive. And the American people have been clamoring for this. Like break the Washington system, get an outsider. And Donald Trump is the only one really to have done it in modern times. It's really fascinating.

And I think in the law, in no small part explains the public's reaction to. Donald Trump, or not the public's reaction, but rather Washington D.C.'s reaction to the outsider, Donald Trump. Dread the swamp. Gene Hendricks says on YouTube, keep up the good work, Nick, and Bud Morgan says, Nick Shirley for sheriff, as long as we're electing offices here, Nick Shirley for sheriff. Hey, let's take a quick break. When we come back, I don't think you want to go anywhere because I mentioned earlier that when

I first joined DSP and I was fascinated by this story. The story was wildly reported in 2015. And it's back, at least in my mind, as we hear about the Iranian women's national soccer team seeking asylum now that there is war in Iran. But the story from 10 years ago was how many of those Iranian women's national soccer team players were actually men. That's next on Wilkine country. Feels like a game of political madlibs, all the Fox News greatest hits, packed into one story. Men and women's sports. Trans reassignment surgery.

In Iran, altogether. It is Wilcane Country. Streaming live at the Wilcane Country YouTube channel, the Wilcane Facebook page. Here is the headline right now from across the globe. It's currently illustrated by a headline in the New York Post. Five members of Iranian women's soccer team granted asylum by Australia. The Iranian women's national soccer team is traveling. They're playing soccer across the globe.

At the same time, war has broken out in Iran. And several members that Iranian women's national soccer team have sought asylum. they happen to be in Australia, and it appears that Australia is ready to grant asylum to something like five players on that team. And it got me remembering a story that I really tried to get done when I was at ESPN. I wanted one of the investigative programs like Outside the Lines or E60 to take a look at this, what I thought was an absolutely fascinating story. I'm going to read to you now a couple of headlines, okay? I have them both from the Sydney Morning Herald and the New York Post. Here is the Sydney Morning Herald.

It is that eight of Iran's women's football team are men officials claim. Of course, they're referencing soccer because this is from Australia. Here's the headline from the New York Post. Most players on Iran's women team are men, says official. These are both headlines from 2015. The Sydney article has a little more depth to it, so I'm going to read to you now where I think is pretty fascinating. Eight of Iran's women's football team are actually men awaiting sex change operations. It has been claimed.

The country's football association was accused of being unethical for knowingly fielding eight men on its women's team. Now, if you take a look at the women's Iranian national soccer team, they wear, his history. jobs covering their head, their faces exposed. They wear long-sleeved jerseys down to their wrists, and they wear track pants all the way, you know, down to their ankles. So all you can really see is their face. But an official has said, here it is, Mojabi Sharifi, an official close to the Iranian League, told an Iranian news website that eight players have been playing with Iran's

female team without completing sex change operations. Apparently at the time, they ordered gender testing on the entire national squad, and it largely went unreported or under followed up after that fact. Were they or were they not men? It wasn't the first time that the team was involved in a gender scandal, according to the New York Post. quote, in 2014, four national team players were found to be either men who had not completed sex change operations or were suffering from sexual development disorders. In 2010, the gendered the team's goalkeeper was called into question. Now, you think, wow, first of all, on its face, that's a pretty fascinating story. Eight, four, whatever, that's a lot.

And you would think and hope that that would be something that the world's sports. governing body would be interested in. Is this really something that's happening? And then you get to maybe the more interesting element to the story, which is the why. Now, I carry you over to the New York Times. This from 2025, six months ago in October of 2025, is this story from the New York Times. headline Iran lures transgender foreigners for surgery but forces operations on locals. Subhead, Iran became a pioneer in gender transition operations by forcing procedures on LGBTQ Iranians. Desperate for cash, the Islamic Republic is hoping to attract trans patients from around the world. The article, again from last year in the New York Times, talks about basically sex change tourism.

that people from across Europe, and they don't know how many, but they do have it reported that Iran's theocratic government set a goal of generating $7 billion from medical tourism. That's according to the Iranian state news media. Those include not just sex change operations, but nose jobs, hair transplants, vaginoplasties, mastectomies, penis reconstructions, and so forth. But sex reassignment, big part. Big part. In fact, now... Which is surprising. Now, we'll get to the legal part in just a minute.

Now, I want to take you over to the NIH, the National Institute for Health, their National Library of Medicine. So I've gone from the Sydney Morning Herald to the New York Post to the New York Times to now the NIH. In case any of this seems salacious or improbable, I am carrying you into understanding something that's absolutely fascinating. The headline from the NIH, sex reassignment surgery in Iran, rebirth or human rights violations against transgender people. All right, we'll read directly from the summary. Iran is the only Islamic country where sex reassignment surgery is recognized. Many European citizens travel to this Middle East country for gender confirmation, and reassignment surgery.

Today, quoting the Guardian, the Islamic Republic of Iran occupies the unlikely role of global leader for sex change. Now, you get to the why. Why? This is an Islamic country. This is Sharia law. How could this be?

Being gay. How could they be the world's leader in sex change? And the answer is that it is illegal in Iran to be homosexual. It is illegal to be gay. And so the accusation here is that LGBT people or LGBT people have been forced into transgender surgery and then allowed to participate somewhat normally in society. Here it is. I wanted to read directly from this. It happened in 1987.

Again, this is back according to the New York Times. In 1987, an activist who went through. all kinds of stuff in Iran, wrote tons and tons of letters to the Ayatollah Khomeini back then about this process. And in 1987, the Ayatollah issued a fatwa, a religious ruling, that made this legal and encouraged. And if this happened, then a man could get married to a man. So if you went through the process, your marriage certificate, your birth certificate, your legal name would all recognize you as a female and you could then get married to a man. And so they developed this industry, some through choice, some through force, as they forced people to do this, that established them as the world leader in sex reassignment. And as such, while I'm sure it isn't any picnic in Iran to be trans, it ends up being more acceptable than it is, obviously, than the neighboring Afghanistan or perhaps some other countries around the world.

And you could argue in the 1990s in the early 2000s more than the Western world. We've since changed in the Western world, where particularly in America, I think you'd have a hard time not arguing we've been on the pioneer front of all of this. but everything adds up to it makes sense to go when an official is saying that some high percentage of the Iranian women's national soccer team are men, you begin to see why. That's not just possible, but probable if the whole regime treats them as women, birth certificate, marriage certificate, name, and every single legal way as women, then why wouldn't they be on the women's national soccer team? if you can earn your way. And by the way, go Google. Go Google the Iranian women's national soccer team. Look at the pictures.

All you get to judge it on is their face. But you can take a look at some of these people on the team. And you can ask yourself, that look like a woman? Now, what does that mean about the Iranians women's national soccer team and their asylum claim? It means nothing. Except in the larger part of our conversation about,

there's not a current conversation, I think, about bringing these players to America, but larger conversations about cultural differences and adoption and assimilation into different cultures, including in this case, the Western civilization. You have no idea what you're dealing with when you play with the snow globe, when you shake the snow globe. Oh, we're driven by compassion. We're driven by helping people.

Oh, great, great. Your good intentions are wonderful. Bravo for you. I hope you get a pat on the back. You have no idea what you're playing with when you say, let's bring these people to the West. They'll make great Australians. They'll make great Americans. And maybe, by the way, one could argue that if you're talking about bringing a bunch of trans soccer players over, they'll fit right in.

But on the larger, realistic scale, thinking about these radical, radical cultural differences, forces, I would hope, I would hope. serious conversation about fit, about assimilation, about shared world values. And I think when we've got two dudes that just lobbed a bomb, children, American citizens, children of immigrants from Turkey and Afghanistan, we might also use that as a moment to say, huh, how does it fit? Who? From where? How many? How long to assimilate? Does it make sense for America. Now, I took a small story and I extrapolated it gradually out in some bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger conversation. But I think the small story on its own is pretty damn fascinating. How many of those players to this day are actually men? And I would suggest to you,

wherever you set the over under, you might take the over. Go ahead, Dan. The crazy thing is these women on the Iranian team, the actual women, can't say anything about it, having transgender women on the team because what are they going to do which is crazy and sad so they're just having to put up with it and deal with it and then you know it's fascinating to me it's crazy story

well I don't know one could argue these women wouldn't have a problem with it because they come from a culture where that is a accepted by men that they are now women that I don't know that I would have to go to the streets of Iran

that I would have to have a Nick Shirley in Tehran to go around asking Iranians how they actually feel. Do they feel that sex is an immutable characteristic or something that is fluid and can be fixed by modern medicine? I don't know what the average Iranian feels about that. But it's possible that if the clerics, and I don't think clerics are the best poll for the will of the people, but if clerics buy it, the people buy it,

and those women on the soccer team are like, yeah, they're women. I can't imagine the Quran has much to say about that. conversations about culture. Probably not. But also isn't the idea of, isn't the idea of Shia Islam that the Quran is what the, you know, Shia, different than Sunni, I believe, and I'm a little over on my skis, well, no, Shia is more directed by the leaders like the, the, the, the, the, the, the Iatollahs and the prophets. And yes, their, their lineage, they're, they're passing on from Muhammad of who is in charge

and who's capable of understanding and translating and issuing the fat laws and so forth from Islam is more hierarchical. So I think if the Aitola says it, then it is so when it comes to the religion. So this is before all the craziness of the trans stuff. So why hasn't, why didn't other countries, you know, speak out about this? I mean, they had to have noticed, like, these dudes had Adam Apples and stuff like that, right? Well, don't tell the lefties that Iranians are half trans because, you know. Well, I don't know how they would react. I don't know how anybody reacts.

That's the point. This is a mind job on everyone. You know, like, how do you reconcile all of this? Wait a minute. The most crazy, radical, Islamic, theocratic state is also the leader in trans surgery? They're just like the more. They're going to like the Ayatollah more after that. You know, like, they'd be like, he was.

Well, then you got to throw the next layer. Then you got to throw the next wrinkle in. Because homosexuality is illegal. Now what do you do? Their heads. Second and third follow-up. In the spirit of Nick Shirley, second and third follow-up. Now what?

It's a fascinating game of now what. You're trans because being gay is illegal. Put that, wrap your head around that one. Yeah. I think that's my favorite thing about this story in every way. It is so wrinkled that nobody can draw their normal. normal partisan lines on any of this. It's like, illegal to be gay, encouraged to be trans, men and women's sports, theocratic state.

It's like, what, I don't know. Where do I go from one to the other? I feel like I'm playing a game of hopscotch. I'm having to jump from one edge of the lullipon to the other. Too far. I can't, I don't know what. Oh, my God. You just got to start over.

Throw it all out. Start over. shake the snow globe clear the etch of sketch i gotta start over i messed this drawing up from the beginning man it's gotten a lot a little convoluted which by the way

in the end might lead us back to a very simple but overarching and global proposition why don't we consider living amongst people that share our values why don't we consider living amongst people that buy into the simplest of propositions that we share. And I think that might be the takeaway at the end of the day.

And that is going to do it for us at the end of this day. It is Will Cain Country. We hope you will follow us on Spotify or Apple, and we will see you again next time. Listen to ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast, and Amazon Prime members. You can listen to this show, ad-free, on the Amazon Music app.