KILMEADE KONDENSED: 10/1/2013
By Mary C. Rydzeski
BRIAN’S QUOTE OF THE DAY
Brian on the government shutdown: “It’s the Obama era. And he has to at one point show some leadership, stop golfing, stay in the White House and work it out. I’m not saying he has to give in, but he has to try to get a deal done. Why couldn’t he have used some of the overt flaws in his program and make it seem like he’s giving in, while at the same time, fix problems that would have made him look bad had there not been this standoff?”
HOUR ONE
New York Post Columnist MICHAEL GOODWIN weighed in on the government shutdown. Goodwin said he agrees with Krauthammer and others who have said this is “not the right fight,” but he also believes the Republicans are right about Obamacare. “They are right that it’s a terrible law, but the fact is you cannot force your will on the rest of the government having only won one House of Congress. Elections have consequences!”
NILE GARDINER, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, talked to Brian about why Margaret Thatcher could help out Americans today. “Margaret Thatcher turned around a country that was on its knees in the 1970s,” Gardiner explained. “Great Britain had been destroyed by socialism. Thatcher came along in the 1970s and said ‘Decline is not inevitable’ and she pledged to turn Britain around based upon core conservative principles: limited government, low taxation, freeing businesses from regulation.”
CEO of Concerned Vets for America PETE HEGSETH talked to Brian about the consequences the government shutdown will have on the VA. “Some of the workers who were filing dispensation claims – benefits claims – could be furloughed, meaning less days on the job,” Hegseth explained. Luckily, the Department of Veterans Affairs is funded one year in advance, so a shutdown won’t fundamentally affect most operations.
LISTEN TO PART OF THE INTERVIEW WITH HEGSETH HERE!
HOUR TWO
FOX News’ National Security Correspondent JENNIFER GRIFFIN continued the conversation about the government shutdown. Griffin said she has been doing some calculations looking at the Defense Department and the VA, which have the two largest federal budgets. “The VA says they can hold on for two or three weeks because they have reserve cash and they can pay out benefits to veterans; but if it goes beyond that, then you’re going to start seeing veterans hurt.”
HOUR THREE
GRETCHEN CARLSON, host of The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson, talked to Brian about the government shutdown. “The Republican messaging just doesn’t seem to be streamlined,” Carlson said, “It’s very frustrating, I think, to people who agree with the message but don’t seem to be able to get it out in just the right way. And you know what the end result is? The end result is what the polls say. The end result is that overwhelmingly, over 70 percent of the American public will blame Republicans for this shutdown.”
Chief Washington Correspondent JAMES ROSEN gave us the latest out of Washington. Rosen said there’s been some speculation that the best – and least-fatiguing – option would be to let the shutdown continue until the debt ceiling debate, which 16 days away. “Where we go from here is really unclear,” Rosen said.
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