Will Cain Country - The Trump Administration Bans Gain Of Function Research (ft. Kurt Schlichter & Rep. James Comer)

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Story #1: New studies put a dent in climate change hysteria as growing polar ice caps expose the Left's fearmongering. Story #2: The Author of ‘Lost Angeles: Silver Bullets On The Sunset Strip’ and Senior columnist for Townhall.com, Kurt Schlichter joins Will to discuss the new Army fitness standards for combat, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wanting to cut the number of 4-star generals, and why the Right shifted on economic policies. Story #3: Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Congressman James Comer (R-KY) joins Will to break down the Trump Administration's Gain of Function research ban. 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, sea ice, growing. A new report by scientists put another dent in the hysteria over climate change. Two, Secretary of Defense Pete Heggseth makes sex-neutral fitness standards. Women in combat is going to have to run about a minute or two faster than the mile.

Do 10 more pounds on the bench press. While women are working out, Hegg-Seth intends to cut. down the number of four-star generals with Kurt Schlichter. Three, Donald Trump puts an end to gain of function research. Is that all positive? Or should we consider there are downsides? With Congressman James Combe. It is the Will Kane Show streaming live at Fox News.com on the Fox News YouTube channel and the Fox News Facebook page.

Every Monday through Thursday at 12 o'clock Eastern time, just set a reminder or subscribe on YouTube. Make sure you tune in to the Will Kaine Show page on Facebook and jump into the comments section, become a member of the Willisha. If you're listening on radio at the end of this program or when you hit a traffic light, head on over to Apple or Spotify, hit subscribe, then you'll always be able to. hang out with us here on the Will Kane show. Two days, Dan, is on his way to Dallas, Texas, where on Thursday we're going to be hosting a live event at the KRLD Showroom in Dallas, Texas. We will have a live studio audience, which you can join by going to KRLD.com and buying tickets. Texas Attorney General, Senate candidate Ken Paxton will be joining us along with

Hopefully you and a country music artist, along with Bonnie Jill Laffler, because the entire event and the purchase price for your ticket are going to go to benefit hounds and heroes. As I'm joining you now on YouTube and on Facebook, and we have our visuals. Two days, Dan is not at the airport. He is not on his way to Dallas, Texas. I see him on my screen, so you're headed there right after the program, I take two a days. Right after the program. I got a warning about weather in Dallas, though, so I'm a little nervous.

it is dumping it is storming we don't get that little slight northeastern rain we get the big prairie storms that's what i've been thundering and rolling and dark skies and heavy rains which we seem to get all in about oh i'd say a 45 day period in april and may but that keeps us green hopefully through the hot burning days of july and august so we look forward to welcoming you and much of the New York staff down here in Dallas, Texas. I hope your travels go smoothly. You just travel to Canada. As we speak, Donald Trump is scheduled to be speaking with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

He's from the left, but Donald Trump is making nice little gestures to Canada about what might come out of these meetings. It'll be fascinating to watch. Could it go poorly? Could it go the way it did with Ukraine's Zelensky? Not on the docket, according to Carney, is Canada becoming our 51st state? And not going over well with Canadians, this talk of conquest. Today's Dan's married to a Canadian and recently made a trip to Canada, wherein you said he had a hard time finding American products,

had a hard time passing off American currency. Yeah, they just do not want anything to do with anything American. All the bars, you can't find American beer, can't find American liquor. I tried to use the U.S. dollar to pay for a haircut, did not work out well. The look on their face was just, no. So, yeah, it's a different experience up there, apparently. Well, that's a shame. Yeah.

I'm sorry, Canadians. So you can only ground by Crown Royal, that's what you're saying. Yeah, Molson, Moulson beer. Moulson. Not very good. Yeah, what are you left with? Canadian Club and Crown Royal, if you want to drink. Yeah.

Some brown liquor. You know, you could do overseas imports. They had Bailey as American? No. I don't know, but things like that. Do you know what, as a quick aside, what country would be the producer of the world's number one selling whiskey? You know the answer is what you're saying. I do. Do you two know tinfoil pat to a day? I assume it's either United States or Ireland.

Scotland? So you would think, wouldn't you? You'd think bourbon and whiskey would bump the United States up. You would think that history would push you towards Scotland or Ireland. But I think I'm going to give you one more crack at this little piece of trivia as we launch into the Will Kane show. Think demand. So where would be strong whiskey demand and then maybe a domestic producer that you're not quite familiar with? Where do they love apparently, and this is maybe the takeaway from this trivia, to drink them some whiskey?

Not the United States, you're saying. No, it's not the United States. It's not Jack Daniels. It's not Jim Beam. Japan. Warmer, but still not bousai. The world's getting closer by traveling south, but still not quite there. As you increased your population size, that was a smart bet.

But apparently they love them some whiskey in India. I think you check that out real quick. I think your top three. selling brands globally, whiskey are all produced in India. That's why? Double check me on that. Fact check me on that because I'm shooting from the hip at the top of the head here. We have Kurt Schlichter coming up with us today on the program.

We want to talk about some of the things happening at the Pentagon. Big news today. Also, news in the Wall Street journals, they continue to push forward with the scandals around Signal. There was a media chart that showed the amount of coverage of Secretary of Defense Pete Hagseth from mainstream media. 100% negative. There are some positive things out there to be reported.

Much of reporting is about emphasis. Much of reporting is about attention. Much of reporting is about tone. It really is. And as I read through the Wall Street Journal, I thought about the emphasis, and I thought about the tone, I thought about what they're talking about.

It's pretty interesting what they exclude. So I think we need to have a well-rounded conversation today about the Pentagon. We're also going to be inviting in House Oversight Chairman, Congressman James Comer, as Donald Trump has signed an executive order to put an end to gain of function research. It was my understanding that was already supposed to be something that was not allowed with U.S. funds. I thought that was supposed to be something that existed under the administration of Joe Biden. So what's different? What's changed?

And is there an argument to continue in some form, fashion, gain of function? Does it have only negative consequences? Or is there something good to come from gain of function? function research. All that coming up with Congressman James Comer. Before we get into story number one, let's do a quick fact check. Am I right? The world's top selling whiskeys come from India. I'm seeing Scotland is the biggest producer of whiskey in the world. UK produces 700 million liters of whiskey. India, though, is the fastest growing center for whiskey production, is what I'm reading. Let's just try AI while we're here together.

Let's, okay. I'm just going to run a quick. Let's get GPTed. All right. Let's do this. What are the world's top selling whiskey brands globally? What's your favorite? Do you have a favorite?

And the results are, number one, McDowell's made in India with 31.4 million cases. Number two, Royal Stag, India with 27.9 million cases. Number three, officers choice, India, 23.4 million cases. Number four, Imperial Blue, 22.8 million cases. And coming in at number five, Johnny Walker, Scotland, 22.1 million cases. That's because they have so many people, that's why. It's a volume issue. You almost fact-checked me, but you were proven to be fake news.

Well, it's a different AI system than I look through, so. I think that's what it is, or maybe the prompt wasn't quite right. Anyway, I don't stand corrected. I stand correct. It's India. Let's get to it now with story number one. Report from the New York Post, a study published in Science, China, Earth Sciences reveals that between 2021 and 2023, the AIS, that is Arctic Ice, gained mass at a rate of 108 gigatons per year. Remark or reversal from the rapid loss scene in the previous years.

The researchers attribute this rebound to unusual increases in precipitation, which led to an accumulation of snow and ice. This unexpected mass gain temporarily offset global sea rises by about 0.3 millimeters per year. Global sea ice growing. Now, this would come as a surprise to you is if you've been listening to people like Al Gore since before 2009, but here he is in 2009. Some of the models suggest to Dr. Maslowski that there is a 75% chance that the entire North polar ice cap during summer, during some of the summer months could be completely ice free

within the next five to seven years. and Bob used a figure of 2030 and the volumetric analysis leads this Dr. Maslowski to make that projection we will find out by 2030 no polar ice caps but he projected because he's always such a good

prognosticator that within five to seven years of 2009 we would lose the totality of the polarized caps at least during the summer But if Al Gore is your NFL draft expert who never gets a projection right, his running buddy and his competition has been John Kerry. Here he is in 2009. You have sea ice, which is melting at a rate that the Arctic Ocean now increasingly is exposed. In five years, scientists predict we will have the first ice-free Arctic summer.

that exposes more ocean to sunlight. Ocean is dark. It consumes more of the heat from the sunlight, which then accelerates the rate of the melting and warming rather than the ice sheet and the snow that used to reflect it back up into the atmosphere. There are countless examples of evidence of what global climate change is already doing across the planet. if you sat in that committee meeting if you sat in those chambers of congress and listen to that

testimony everything about it reads confidence i know what i'm talking about i have research to back me up therefore be very afraid in the face of science the hubris of al gore the hubris of al gore the hubris of John Kerry is built upon the hubris of science. Now, I'm not here to be anti-science. I'm not here to be anti-wisdom, anti-knowledge. I'm here to put science, knowledge, wisdom, and most specifically predictions into their proper context. If we had NFL draft experts on this program talking about what would be the inevitable outcome of someone's career. My friend Mel Khyber, who feels very strongly about the future pro prospects of Shadur Sanders, he would be no more correct and no more confident than the people that tell us

we will lose a total polar ice cap within five to seven years. Because those very same groups of people with that same level of confidence have told us on rolling 12-year cycles that we face an existential crisis on planet earth. Existential in that, should warming continue? Should global warming increase? Should we not control our burning of fossil fuels? It will represent a threat to humanity, a threat to our existence, aka existential. But they have been wrong over and over with those rolling 12-year cycles. And let me not leave it in the vague and abstract realm of they the IPCC has made global temperature projections for a better part of 30 years none of which have come true all of which have been extreme the point and the

takeaway from this is that prognostication prediction hubris all masquerading as science is not certainty, and certainly not cause for reorganizing the global economy and the one natural resource that's driven us out of poverty, fossil fuels. The Antarctic ice sheet, which holds more than half the world's fresh water, reads the New York Post, plays a crucial role in global sea level rise. Its rapid melting has been one of the largest contributors to rising oceans, alongside Greenland's ice loss and thermal expansion of warming seas. but according to this new paper, published by Grace, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment.

The AIS, which had been losing about 142 gigatons per year from 2011 to 2020, over the last four years, has been abruptly gaining ice at a rate of 108 gigatons per year. how precipitation according to the paper but how when global temperatures are projected to rise how when we continue to burn more fossil fuels how when we continue to defy greta tunberg how are we adding ice if we're doing all the things that they said would totally melt the polar ice cap and cause human extinction within 12 years maybe the premise of all their hubris of all their confidence, of all their projections, of all their science, maybe the very first step is wrong. The world's climate has moved in cycles. Cooler, warmer, warmer, cooler. In the 1970s,

they, the scientists, warned of a coming mini-ice age. By the 1990s, they're talking about global warming. We move in cycles. Do humans contribute? That's open to debate. What's greatly open to debate is how much we contribute to the change in climate. The climate is always changing. It's moved in cycles for millennia. And maybe, just maybe, the earth has more to say in this outcome than Al Gore or John Kerry, as we now are adding to the polar ice cap. Secretary Hegeseth has sex-neutralized the standards for the Army.

he wants to cut 20% of four-star generals. And the Wall Street Journal has a new piece attacking him for his use of signal. Let's break it all down with Kirk Schlichter when we come back on The Will Kane Show. More perks, more points, more flights, more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply.

Visit BMO.com slash ViPorter to learn more. Fox News Audio presents Unsolved with James Patterson. Every crime tells a story, but some stories are left unfinished. Somebody knows. Real cases, real people. Listen and follow now at Fox Truecrime.com. One hundred percent negative news of Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon, is that an accurate reflection of.

reality. Let's break that down with town halls. Kirk Schlichter here on the Will Cane show. Streaming live at foxnews.com on the Fox News YouTube channel on the Fox News Facebook page. Hey, hit subscribe at Apple or on Spotify. Kurt, if I asked you where the top, what is the top American selling whiskey brand? And where does it rank in the top 10? What would be your guess for global sales of whiskey, that brand, and where does it rank? Goodness. maker's mark in about 33rd?

Well, no, we're better than coming in 33rd, although Maker's Mark could potentially come in 33rd. That I think that is a bit of a niche brand. It's owned by a big conglomerate now, so it's been taken over. No, think more broad. Think more mass market, you know? I mean, your brain's got to go to Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels?

No, though. Think there is another American brand bigger than Jack Daniels. Think well whiskey at the bar. What do you get if you just order a whiskey and Coke? What are they going to pour? Usually, Jack. Of course, I'm biased. I want a multimillion dollar verdict against an attorney named Jack Daniels once.

Have you ever wanted a verdict against a man named Jim Beam? Because that's your number one selling American whiskey. And it comes in globally, sixth, sixth globally. Johnny Walker from Scotland comes in fifth. And this is the point of our trivia here today. Your top four globally selling brands all come from, and I'm sure you've never heard of one of them, India. The Indians apparently love their whiskey.

I don't even know what to say. I'm not, Indian whiskey? Yes, you're going to tell me, hey, I got this great Cabernet from Bangalore. I'm sure they're on it. At some point, when you have that big of a population and some push, I'm sure, perhaps even through tariffs for some domestic production, they're going to be growing their own grapes, you know, I'm sure. That country is not only giant, it's not only giant in population. India's big in geography.

Do they not have a wine and grape growing region of India? Surely they do. I would assume they do. Right. Right. And thank goodness we're finally treating India like a potential ally after decades of ignoring it. Man, our foreign policy is just a disaster. The guys coming out of the Georgetown School know about as much about foreign policy as I do about whiskey brands. You know, speaking of Indian foreign policy, not scheduled to be on our list of topics here today with town halls Kirk Schlichter, but I was listening, Kurt, and I talked about this yesterday, today here on the show, but I was listening to the All-In podcast, which I listened to you from

time to time. That's AI and Cryptozar for the Trump administration, David Sacks. It's tech entrepreneurs like Chamath, Paula Pattiya, both of whom have become big supporters of the administration. They were talking about our tariff policy, Kurt, and they were saying, listen, it must be done. We must have this repositioning when it comes to China, most particularly on a couple of critical industries like pharmaceuticals technology AI and the types of things that go into our manufacturing plants meaning heavy equipment it's not so much about t-shirts and tennis shoes it's not about Nike and it's not even really about Apple it's about these critical infrastructure pieces of industry in our economy and here's why here's the thought process they put to us were China to invade Taiwan and we had to make a choice and we are obligated at least treaty round to defend Taiwan, we're immediately cut off from those critical industries. We're immediately cut off from pharmaceuticals.

We're immediately cut off from defense industry stuff that we need, by the way, to support not just our industry, but our national defense. But another scenario they talked about is, should China and India go wrong? And we have to make a choice. If we choose either way, India or Taiwan, we set our economy back, how? half a century by losing access to those products. So we need to begin the process of bringing that manufacturing back to America. Well, look, I think you're absolutely right. And look, I was a pretty regular conservative about 20 years ago before failure built upon failure. And I had to

change about a lot of things. And one of the things I always believe was, you know, tariffs bad, smooth holly, bad, Paris bad. And there are problems with tariffs. There are challenges posed by tariffs, but that's a purely economic analysis. That is, what is going to make the most money in the short term? Not having tariffs. Probably, probably bear for the economy in the short term. But the economy's not everything, and it's not the economy in the long term. We've seen what happens in the long term. And if you get out of the coastal cities, and I live here, you know, by the beach in Los Angeles. Everybody's doing fine. It's BMWs up and down my street. You go five miles inland and your kid can't get an education. You can't walk the street without getting shot. Okay. So we have gutted the heart of our country by purely focusing on the economic outcomes.

And of course, there's more to it than just when your timeout tariffs. As you point out, pharmaceuticals, technology, that's. a thing. We need to be able to do it ourselves because history and human nature have not been repealed. Okay. This is still a Westphalian nation state system where nations move for advantage. And if you can't make something and somebody else can, well, that person has some, that country has some power over you. And we're seeing that. And we've been seeing that. As we've seen the Chinese have cut off rare earth elements, uh, access. That's another category. Which of course, we won't, uh, we won't mine ourselves because, you know, the environment. I think an environment where we're not, you know,

dominated by a Chinese is more important, but, you know, that's just me. So I know that a lot of my conservative friends will put up a clip from Milton Friedman talking about tariffs. But they don't put the whole thing because even Milton Friedman said, you know, there are exceptions, things like bombs. You've got to make your own bombs, even if it's not economically efficient. Well, yeah, it's bombs, but it's also things like chips. It's also things like antibiotics. It's also a lot of things that we need to have here that we just can't outsource. Because again, great powers compete. I guess we told ourselves a lie when we won the Cold War that history was over. Thanks a lot, Francis Fukuyama. Your book was just wrong. There's still great power

competition. We're still advancing our own interests, and our countries are advancing them. The difference is they're not ashamed of it, and much of our elite is. You bring up another great category. That's the rare earth minerals category. The Chinese, we have the rare earth minerals, not all of them, but we have a lot of them domestically, meaning they're in the dirt, they're in the ground. And we can mine them, and I think we can get over environmental concerns as well, meaning politically we can get over environmental concerns. The problem is that China's, as they always do, playing a long game. And so for decades, they have been investing.

It's command and control. It is with state investment. But they have been investing in the processing of rare earth minerals when for whatever reason we have not. And I don't know if that's for environmental reasons or we thought we didn't have to. But think of oil refineries. Okay, you take crude oil, you run it through refinery, it becomes gasoline or usable oil products. Same thing with rare earth minerals. They have to be processed.

be processed into something usable like magnets and the Chinese and by the way not a cheap and easy and fast thing to build the processing plants but the Chinese have been doing it subsidizing it for decades and get this figure they control 90% of the world's rare earth mineral processing so war with China even heightened Cold War with China cut you off from the things that go into so many products of course computer parts and so forth rare earth minerals but that we're way behind the eight ball on that one do you get concerned though kurt um you know i you know you and i both come from a more traditional conservative background and and an economic laissez-faire and i love me i love me some milton freedman

do you get concerned that we start stepping into this command and control economy where it is top down and driven and if you're not concerned under donald trump are you concerned about the of the next guy. Maybe the next guy has a D, but maybe he has an R. And even if he has an R, Kurt, that doesn't mean we're going to like every single thing he chooses or he has the same instincts as Donald Trump. I do worry a little bit moving in the direction of command and control versus laissez-faire. Look, I think that's a legitimate concern. I think that we can do a lot of things that take away the artificial barriers that make it impossible to produce, for instance, valid rare earth mining and processing in the United States. That includes lifting regulations,

lifting permanent, ending this dragged out permit process followed by litigation, and also realizing the Chinese are subsidizing it. So the price is artificially low, so we can't compete with it. And there, I think tariffs are perfectly legitimate in a field like rare earth elements. Is it going to cost more money? Yes. Will we lose as a nation in the long term if we can't build this stuff ourselves? Probably. So, you know, you can't be a economic purist in a situation where you have nation states competing against each other because it's not just about economics. If you, you know, when you're in an economics department, you know, and arguing with the other professors, you know, after you've made your DEI statement and taken your transgender awareness training.

When you're arguing with the other economists, you can afford to think of nothing but economic factors. But there are more than economic factors. There's military factors, diplomatic factors, informational factors. There are a myriad of factors that go into running a country and foreign relations. And it is a mistake when we become pure economic determinists. I'll tell you another example. You know, us conservatives,

for years we were saying, ah, Hollywood's leaving money on the table. As soon as they figure out that they can appeal to conservatives, we're going to see a bunch of conservative movies come in, and they've never shown up. And you're right. There's a lot of money on the table.

I mean, you know, some Hollywood guy ought to buy my books. It'd make a mint. He would also be careful, picked out polite society. His kids wouldn't be allowed into the crossroads or Harvard Westlake schools. He wouldn't be allowed at the country club. His daughter would probably scream and cry and call him a racist, sexist, transphobe and all the other things, maybe a fattest. I don't know. But there are factors outside of pure economics. So the idea behind capitalism is people pursue

their interests. But I think people mistakenly limit their interest, limit the consideration of interests to purely economic ones. That's not so. People pursue various kinds of interests, including religious interests, including interest based on emotions like anger and pride. It's not so simple as the theorists would like it to be. Too bad we can't get reality to informed a theory. Life would be a lot simpler. Kirk's literature is a senior columns at townhall.com, by the way, his book, which you can see on screen if you're watching on Facebook or YouTube is Los Angeles, Silver Bullets on the Sunset Strip. But Kurt also served. And if memory serves me, Marine or Army? Army. The decisive

Army branch of the American military. Look, I like the Marines. They're a nice supplemental force. This is the Navy, which is an important support for. but the decisive ground force, the guy's standing there with a rifle and a bayonet. That's the United States Army. 250 years young on June 14th, happens to be Donald Trump's birthday. Looking forward to it. I'm going to have cake, break my carb ban. There we go.

Well, Secretary Hig is also Army, and he's helped publish new fitness standards for the Army. It is sex neutral. So, this is what we're talking about here. You have the Army Fitness Test, which has a score requirement for every combat and general soldier. But specifically, here are some things, and it's all age correlated, but it is no longer sex correlated. female soldiers, for example, between the ages of 17 and 21, had to run two miles within 23 minutes and 22 seconds. That, under the new standards, will be dropped down to 19 minutes and 57 seconds. So now we're looking at basically, what is that, a 9 minute and 50 second mile roughly, which I think even I could do.

When I was in Austin, Canada at school, I think I ran it in 1215. That's my record over 27 years. Really? You're a runner. You're running six-minute something miles? Well, I was in Officer Candid at school, so I was terrified about whoever was behind me. But it was, you know, look, being in the military is tough. And I'm trying to keep in shape.

I was at the gym this morning. I went for a walk. You know, but I'm 60 years old, man. It takes a toll on you. But it's a serious business. If you're going out into combat, you're carrying your webgear, you're carrying your weapon, you're carrying spare ammo, you're carrying a backpack, you're probably carrying something else, maybe a radio, maybe a mortar round, maybe a mortar tube.

You have to be physically fit, and frankly, being physically fit contributes to morale because you realize you're elite. special. And when I see, you know, there's a lot of photos on the web of rotund soldiers, sailors, airmen, marine, whatever space force people are, you can't be an elite organization if you look like you're a member of Meal Team 6, okay? And again, I'm a retired guy. I don't meet my AR 670-1 standards right now. I will soon again. But if you're in, you've got, got to be fit. And I got to tell you, Will, I went to the wedding of my pal Larry O'Connor, also from Town Hall. You probably know him, WMAL. Yes. And his daughter was Annapolis. Her groom was

Annapolis. He was a Marine. I was around these young lieutenants and ensigns. And I got to say, what an impressive crew of young Americans. In shape, fit, smart. They were so polite. They pretended this retired colonel had some sort of relevance. They were very, they, they treated me very nicely. But it, you know, it really restores your faith in humanity when you get with these folks who are at the cutting edge, you know, infantry, armor, surface warfare, submarines. I got to tell you, I was really happy to see it. And I'm just, I'm just feeling the change under Pete Higgs. Well, I was going to ask you that.

You were around these people recently, and I am around veteran and current military members now at a greater point in my life than I ever have. And that's by virtue of my job and the social circles I've been able to build. And so a week ago, I was at a fundraiser for the Navy SEAL Foundation here in Dallas. And so I have opportunities much more often to be around military men and women. but you have a greater exposure, Kurt, and I'm curious if your experience reflects mine. I mean, despite 100% according to that study, 100% negative coverage

of Heggseth, when you speak to sailors, soldiers, Marines, airmen, and I don't know what we call Space Force members. I don't know. What do we call them? I don't know. I don't either. They're adorable, though. It's overwhelmingly positive.

In my experience, Kurt, So what is your experience? It's overwhelmingly positive about Hegset. Look, sometimes you need a guy like Rumsfeld, who's a real technician and a good one, versus, you know, a McNamara, who is a bad technician. And sometimes you need a guy who's just going to get in there and go do push-ups with Mungo the huge commando guy. Because then young people look at and go, man, I want to be part of this team. I want to be cool. I want to be hardcore. I want to do something other people can't do. Remember, many of our young people, particularly out in the suburbs and everything, helicopter parents here, put a helmet on before you go for a walk, you know, I'm tracking you on my phone. They've lived this kind of sheltered life and that's no life for a young man or any young woman. They want to do something that's hard, that's tough, that when they come home,

civilians look at them and say, man, that's impressive. But the veterans in their life, their uncle who was in Vietnam, their dad who served in the Navy, like my dad did, their grandpa who was in the Air Force and flew over Germany in World War II, when they want to be able to stand beside them and not, and feel that they are part of that. And that's what Pete Higgs-eth brings. He brings the military culture and his orders get rid of. to DEI, do it now. We're going to cut the number of brass. Do it now. We're going to focus on fitness. Do it now. That's the kind of leadership people want. They want firm, clear guidance from a guy that comes. And that's something I want to ask you. That's something I want to ask you about as well really quickly. We've got House Oversight Chairman and Congressman James Comer on deck

waiting to join us here on the Wilcane show. But I don't want to go from our conversation with Kurt Schlichter without addressing this other directive from Heggseth. And that's is that there is to be a 20% cut in four-star generals. There's also flag generals and others that are going to have to suffer some cuts. I was looking at this, Kurt. I happen to have some background in this conversation because I've spent many years talking to Hague Seth, obviously. And so it was not a surprise to me to see something like this because I've heard this

before. We won World War II with 17, 4 and 5-star generals. Today, there are 44 four-star generals. Now, the military is much bigger than it was in World War II. I believe, I don't know what the total force is, but I mean, certainly in budget, it's much bigger. But what do you make of this demand to cut the amount of brass? I think what, first of all, I like it because of what it means. And what it means is we are pushing leadership down.

We are empowering younger officers, more junior officers, non-commission officers to do their job. The war is not, a war is not won by generals. And a good general will be the first guy to tell you that. A war is won by a squad leader, an E6 staff sergeant, or a lieutenant or a company commander, making decisions in the heat of battle. That's where it's won, okay? That's where the rubber meets the road.

What you need is an organization that supports those front line guys. And if you have a giant tail, you're not going to have the tooth you need. We need to slim down, firm up, figuratively and literally, and focus on results. And there's a lot of things that need to be done. The way we train, evaluate, and select and promote officers needs to be looked at. We spend a lot of time, you know, George Marshall built the United States Army of World War II with a little black book of officers he had met going around the bases. So when he said, oh, there's a battalion open somewhere.

This Colonel Jones guy, give him a shot. I have a note here that he's a smart cat, put him in charge. And now it's a giant bureaucracy, and you've got to go through boards and everything. Oh, you got to talk. Hey, have you talked to a psychologist to be a battalion commander? Dude, if you're crazy and we haven't figured it out before you got promoted 05, I think we've got bigger problems in the military. Well, and of course, it's well-known that, you know, to rise the ranks, it becomes increasingly political. And you have to do what is asked of you.

And so a lot of what we saw implemented over the last five years is not untethered to the growth in four-star generals who are willing to play the game that was necessary to satisfy politics, ultimately at the sect-de-level. the cabinet level, and then to the president. So you have a lot of generals playing politics for a lot of years and who might be unnecessary for force readiness and lethality. Kurtzlutic can be found at townhall.com. We always appreciate him joining us. Good to see you, Kurt. Hey, great to be here.

Thanks for having me. All right. We have you soon there on the Will Kane show. Where today I will be talking as well about the newest report in the Wall Street Journal, part of that 100% to 0% negative coverage of Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth on his use of signal yet again. But this time it's a story where I ask, what is the point? There's nothing to it as far as I can tell.

We're going to be breaking that down a little bit later on the Wilkins show. But let's take a quick break. And then we get to House Oversight Committee Chairman and Congressman from Kentucky, James Comer, on the end of Gana Fuxson Research. Next on the Will Cain Show. I'm Janice Dean. Join me every Sunday as I focus on stories of hope and people who are truly rays of sunshine in their community and across the world. Listen and follow now at Fox News Podcast.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. I'm not just trying to play devil's advocate. I think it's a legitimate question to ask about is there a legitimate role for gain of function? Not a pivot, not 180 after talking a long time about the dangers of gain of function. But I've always known it's a debate that it's got its pros and it's got its cons. We have been focused on the cons for a long time appropriately. Donald Trump signs an executive order ending gain of function. We also have to consider what are those pros that need to?

to be retained when it comes to gain a function. It is the Will Cain Show streaming live at foxnews.com on the Fox News YouTube channel on the Fox News Facebook page. Hit subscribe at Apple or Spotify. Congressman James Comer of Kentucky is the chairman of the House Oversight Committee and he joins us now on the Will Cain Show.

Chairman, great to have you. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. Talk to me about this new executive order, this new initiative from President Trump. I think let's start here. Chairman, I thought we were done with gain of function anyway. Like, under Biden, I thought that was sort of the plan, you know?

Like, we're not supposed to be funding gain of research. We all know it wasn't abided. Maybe that's on Fauci. Maybe that was on the White House. Who knows where it was directed from? But, like, formally, formally, you know, I thought we were done with gain of function. Well, this is all on Fauci, because Fauci lied to everyone. This gain of function probably started during the Obama administration.

It went on during the first Trump administration. It went on while Joe Biden was president, all the way till people started suspecting that this was taking place. Remember, the whole time Dr. Fauci lied to the American people. This was at the center of the world during COVID. What happened? When Fauci said there was no gain of function being conducted at Wuhan, the American tax dollars weren't taking place. The COVID-19 didn't start in Wuhan. All of these were lies. We know these are lies. My committee had a task force that

investigated this for a year. We concluded that Dr. Fauci lied. We were funding gain of function research through the Wuhan lab. We traced the money to the grant to the company based out of New York that was receiving the grant. And very happy that this all ended with President Trump signed an executive order banning it in the future. But if that's true, how come? we don't see charges or accountability for Dr. Fauci when it comes to perjury? Well, Rand Paul and I both have said publicly, we hope that there are charges for Dr. Fauci. This is something that we hope Pam Bondi will take up. I think the evidence is clear.

You know, when Dr. Fauci, who's a very good witness, I'll give him credit, he's very good, he's very convincing when he would go in front of the American people every day and talk about COVID. and encourage people to wear masks and all that. When we had him in committee, he's like, he never said anything about wearing masks. He didn't say anything about shutting schools down. He testified he didn't say anything about social distancing and Ivermectin and all the scandals that were taking place

throughout the whole saga of COVID-19. Dr. Fauci was the face. He was the instigator. He was the face. He was the hero. In the end, he's the villain. and yet, you know, he denies any role whatsoever in COVID. But with the executive order today is another nail in the coffin for Dr. Fauci.

Yes, we were funding gain of function research. It was secret. Dr. Fauci was a one-man show. He lied about it. And, you know, the first step is banning it in the future. Hopefully the second step will be Pam Bondi bringing Dr. Fauci in to try to start some accountability. Okay, so two things. I'll be calling for that.

You'll be hearing about that on the Will Kane show. If that is true, what you just said, that he lied, then there should be perjury charges. No, ifs, or buts. Absolutely something we should see from the DOJ. Second, the way you laid it out, if Dr. Fauci or Peter Dasik was funding, gain of functioning research in Wuhan, and we do have the reporting on that stuff, was that not already a violation of a American policy under Biden? So, A, why do we need this new executive order? B, what is the repercussion for violating a policy under Biden? So I think as you just laid it out, Mr. Chairman,

that Fauci, Dazick, and the whole enterprise would have been violating a previous policy. Yeah, I don't know what the previous policy was. I know this. that Dr. Fauci under oath in front of the Senate committee when Rand Paul was there grilling him and in front of our subcommittee when we were all grilling him was that it wasn't technically gain of function and he would say some other scientific technical term that it was that's his way out of if he's got a good enough lawyer of perjure but you know what what the department of justice needs to do is is just weigh the whole thing bring everything in, bring all this internal data that now they are privy to that we weren't back

when Joe Biden was president, bring it all in and charge him. So he's very, as I said earlier, he was a very good witness. You could make the argument that, well, it technically wasn't gain a function. It was some other scientific term. That's where he and Rand Paul got into it. If you go back and watch the film, when Rand was trying to nail him for perjury, you know, he was very careful and very slick with his words and, you know, who, you know, who really knows what the definition of gain of function of research is? Here's what I know is they were doing mad science projects in there that tax dollars were never supposed to go. And when we first, when it first came out, you know, he denied that that's where the tax dollars were going.

Then he denied, well, that may be our tax dollars, but that wasn't really gain of function research. This was something entirely different. Okay. You know, at the end of the day. remember that. I remember the semantics game from Dr. Fauci, which he would play, he would play to get out of a perjury charge and he would play to avoid the allegation that you're violating a policy on gain of function, which is a trial that I would love to watch. I would love to watch that semantic game. The difference between, go ahead. The difference between what Bondi would be able to do versus what Rand Paul tried to do in the Senate or I tried to do in the House is she has access to all the NIH documentation and everything that Dr. Fauci was concealing during

the Biden administration. Now the Trump administration should have access to it. So it should be a lot easier case for Bondi moving forward because the evidence should be there. And there should be people willing to come forward to testify against Dr. Fauci. I want to move forward to two other things, but I do have to follow up again, though. Tell me in your understanding how this gain of function, EO, advances us from a place that we weren't already there. Yeah. Well, look, I think it sends a message. If you're doing something groundbreaking that would be in layman terms, a mad science type project, then you can't do that anymore. Not only using tax dollars, But anywhere, don't be partnering with China on anything, anything pharmaceutically related.

And I think that, you know, there's probably other biochemical type experiment projects taking place around the world. There are probably American companies involved in some type of biochemical warfare experimentation. I think this executive order sends the signal loud and clear. if you violate anything pertaining to gain a function, anything pertaining to mad science, then you're going to be held accountable and you're going to pay the price. All right, because this is a conversation show, I'm not going to ask this question in a way that really presses you in terms of an interview. So what I'll say is I'll be watching to see if you take debate on any of the thing that I say that isn't the question.

I think there's an open question about what exactly was going on at Wuhan. Like, was it simply gain a function or was it weaponization potential of COVID-19? And I don't think that's conspiratorial talk. I think that needs to be figured out. I think that needs to be talked about. It was a military installation. It wasn't just a science laboratory. It was a military-controlled science laboratory in China.

However, moving on from that, gain a function. And I've read a fair amount and listened and tried to learn as much as I could, Chairman. There are scientists, you know, who believe it has a legitimate scientific value. Now, the easiest back of the hand explanation to gain a function is you take a virus, you soup it up, and theoretically you'd be souping it up, presuming it's something that could have happened naturally in nature or, for that matter, used as a bioweapon. And then once you soup it up, you create its killer, right? you create the vaccine, you create the remedy. So the theory is, should this ever happen naturally in nature, this evolution, this mutation of the virus, or should some other country create a bioweapon, well, then we'll have the solution.

We'll have the vaccine ready because it will have been working on it. We don't want to have to start from zero. So they would argue there is legitimacy to gain a function of research. Now, the counter argument is it's way too dangerous. Like you're creating things that don't exist, predicting that they might exist, and then they run the risk of being unleashed, like at a minimum, that's what happened with COVID-19. Do we, are we concerned at all that we are suppressing any potential legitimate research in getting ahead of mutations or bioweapons?

I'm not. Look, that's why you had to do the executive order. You could make the argument. Maybe we should do this. Maybe we should make a virus 100 times more lethal than it really is and try to figure out a way to solve it. But we squandered that opportunity. The mistake was made, and we'll be paying for COVID-19 forever. Children went two years without learning anything in schools.

We added to the debt at least $10 trillion. I mean, this is why we have inflation today because of COVID spending, because of the over-stimulating of the economy. So if there was an argument to be made that we need to do that type of research, Then it was squandered. Then the opportunity was myth. And now there's protections in place to never let this happen again. Because I don't think we should do it.

I don't think that we can afford to go through another incident like that again. And it was a military institution because the military, the Chinese military, went in and destroyed all the lab rats. They went in and destroyed all the evidence. I mean, for China to say, oh, we tested every animal. within a 50-mile radius of Wuhan. They tested every animal except the lab rats that were used in the Wuhan lab. I mean, it's a joke looking back in hindsight at the cover-up, the obvious cover-up, and the fact that Dr. Fauci would go along and say, yeah, there was nothing going on there.

There was nothing going on there. I think in this whole tariff debate, the number one tariff needs to be on pharmaceuticals. We need to move all pharmaceutical production back to the United States. You know, I'm okay if China makes tennis shoes cheaper for Nike than the United States can. I'm not okay with pharmaceuticals. That stuff needs to be made in the United States. I think to Wuhan Lab, we need to learn lessons. The lesson isn't just gain a function.

It's the trust level with China with anything pertaining to our national security and anything pharmaceutically related should be manufactured, at the very least, not in China, but hopefully in the United States. I remember, I listened, I've talked about it with this audience, I listened to a podcast, oh gosh, it's 10 years old, but talking about threats to humanity, it talked about gain of function research, and it did talk about the pros and cons, which you and I are going through here, the risk reward. And I hear your argument, I think it's a legitimate argument about squandering the risk reward analysis on this stuff, but it did talk about the risk of one escaping. And again, we're talking about it at a minimum something here, but that escaped. And they always pointed to Chinese labs as the least secure of the entire globes of where this stuff is being done. It's being done in the Scandinavian countries. It's being done in America or was. And it's much tighter security protocols and anything they do in China.

More of the Will Cain Show right after this. 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 the quiz.com. Then come back here to see how you. you did thank you for taking the quiz listen to the all new brett bear podcast featuring common ground

in-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle along with all your brett bear favorites like his all-star panel and much more available now at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts welcome back to the will cane show okay um i do want to ask you about this today uh mr chairman and i found it's in the new york times today i think it's a really interesting article and off the top of my head I don't remember where Kentucky ranks on this. I'm going to try to explain to the audience in very understandable terms. It works like this. There is a, I'm going to use the word scheme for federal government spending.

And it works like this. Medicaid reimburse states for expenses that are spent on Medicaid down at the hospital level. But states figured out a way to get more money from. the federal government. What they did, according to the New York Times, is states would charge, they would tax hospitals, this extra tax, right? And in return, then hospitals raised their prices on Medicaid and asked for a higher reimbursement from the state, which the state then passed on to the feds and got more money from the feds in Medicaid. So what we end up with is higher prices at the consumer level, which doesn't matter, I mean, in a way, because, you know,

because it's passed on, but it ends up going back to the federal coffers is where it's made. So states figured out, hey, I can get more from Medicaid reimbursements if I raise prices and create this tax, which is zeroed out between the hospital and the state, the tax and the reimbursement. So no, the hospital doesn't care. The state doesn't care, except they like it because they can now ask the feds for more money and get more money from the feds. And what this article pointed out is I believe at this point, 43 states are doing this.

And this is jacking up Medicaid costs, right, at your federal tax level. And the biggest beneficiaries of this are red states who have more Medicaid, bigger Medicaid population, like Mississippi and Alabama. And I can't remember the states, South Carolina has a huge amount of money coming in. And I don't remember Kentucky. But to me, from a distance, when I read this, and I turned to you now, it looks like a scam. You know, like it looks like a way for states to raise revenues on the backs of the federal taxpayer. Exactly right. That article was spot on. And it's a Medicaid provider tax. And it's funny math. And you described it perfectly. And we know about this in Kentucky. In Kentucky, by the way, is one of the leading states. And you're right. It's the red states. These red states have become addicted to government spending specifically in Medicaid. And here we are. We're on an unsustainable path in Medicaid. And when we're talking about when you're read the media, oh, Congress, the Republicans in the House are talking about cutting

Medicaid. What we're talking about is raining that scheme in, that Medicaid provider tax in because it's just a gimmick to overbill Medicaid. And what's happened is the hospitals and many of them are rural hospitals, and many are in red states, but there are, you know, blue areas too that that have have significantly increased their their revenue through Medicaid and they've they've they're undergoing expansions they've been purchasing private clinics and all of this other stuff because if you're if you're a private doctor and you're a hospital hospital using this tax to be able to get higher reimbursement so what do they do they go and encourage the doctor to sell out to the hospital now the doctor can get higher reimbursement

And it just expanded and ballooned beyond what it was what it was supposed to do, and we can't afford it anymore. So what you're going to see, in my opinion, in the final product on this budget reconciliation bill, is a fix to that scheme right there to try to reform it and rein it in while protecting Medicaid for the future. But, you know, you're going to see the federal government's going to spend more on Medicaid next year than they did the previous. sure. That's going to be the case over the next few years, but we can't continue to spend 20, 25% more. But, Chairman, what would be the downstream effect? Real quick, what would be the downstream effect? The way I see it is, okay, if we stop this scheme, then the federal Medicaid expenditures, you said they'll continue to grow, but they should grow less aggressively because you're going to get the savings, right? Then you go back, and the hospitals should be okay, if I understand this correctly, because, well,

they'd be okay if the states dropped their tax. The states have this tax on hospitals that is designed to raise prices. If each state then dropped the tax, then the hospitals will be fine too because they're zeroing out, right? The loser in this scenario would be state budgets, I would assume, which rely on this money. And now you'd have all these red state budgets would have to go, well, we're going to have to raise taxes or we're going to cut spending at the state level in Mississippi. Two things. The hospitals claim they're going to be negatively affected, and they probably will be negatively affected because it will reduce their revenue in some cases. But you're right, the states that have the highest Medicaid population, states that expanded Medicaid, and it is

going to be a hit on those states. What those states are going to have to focus on, Benny, is going through just like going through the voter rolls and making sure that people who are registered to vote are legal registered voters and they haven't passed away and they're not illegals and they're not felons. We're going to have to do that in these red states. Kentucky's at the top of the list to make sure that people are enrolled in Medicaid who are eligible. We in Kentucky, you have 31% of the state on Medicaid. Right next door, Tennessee, they only have 17% of the state on Medicaid. We have too many people. That's fascinating. On Medicaid, and what we're trying to do is get the able-bodied people.

People that look like you and me out working and getting hopefully private health care and not sitting at home on Medicaid claiming they're disabled. Last thing, Chairman, I think you thought you were talking to Benny Johnson for a minute. It's Will Kane still you're talking to. Oh, I said, I'm sorry. My bad. Call me Benny there for a second. I'm assuming that's Benny Johnson.

Last question, though. aren't you going to get a big fight from Republican governors, like South Carolina, Georgia, like you're going to, is that going to be a big showdown then? Republican Congress against Republican governors? Yeah, they're not happy about it. I mean, it is a problem. And it's gone on too long. And that, you know, every government program was well intended, but it's created an unsustainable situation.

And I don't like having to deal with these reforms. I mean, my hospitals are panicking. You know, we're a red state. We have a Democrat governor who loves to spend, you know, Washington, D.C. money. But at the end of the day, well, we've got to, we've got to get this Medicaid under control, or it's going to be gone for everybody. If we don't try to make sure that people who truly need Medicaid are the only ones don't Medicaid, then it's not going to be there for the disabled and for the pregnant women

and for the children who have severe disabilities or the children who live in abstract poverty. We've got to fix the program, and that's what we're trying to do. And it's going to be a major adjustment for the states that expanded Medicaid. Those are the states that are going to get hit the bond, the ones that expanded Medicaid.

All right. Chairman James Comer from Kentucky, great conversation on all those topics. I appreciate you being on with us today. Thank you. Thanks. Appreciate it, Will. All right, take care.

I had so many more things I was going to get to you today. I wanted to talk more about this signal allegations when it comes to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegeseth. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the idea that the working class voter, the Trump voter, how they're reacting to the tariffs. But I'm going to make you a deal. We can revisit that tomorrow or tune in at 4 o'clock Eastern time today to the Fox News Channel. And you'll hear me dive into some of those topics on the Will Kane show. if you're in the north texas area come join me on thursday carolty showrooms go to caroltee dot com buy a ticket and i will see you there in the meantime i'll see you next time

listen 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. 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.