MARIA BARTIROMO FIRES BACK After FOX EXIT—Is THIS The ULTIMATE REVENGE?!

I didn't think the pain from the shingles rash would affect simple, everyday tasks like bathing, getting dressed, or even walking around. I was wrong. Though not everyone at risk will develop it, 99% of people over the age of 50 already have the virus that causes shingles, and it could reactivate at any time. I developed it, and the blistering rash lasted for weeks. Don't learn the hard way, like I did. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist today. Sponsored by GSK. Maria Bartiromo has finally broken her silence. Welcome to the program, everyone. I want to fill you in on everything Maria had to say and what she didn't have to say. We're going to talk a little bit about her next moves here. Wonderful woman. She was a wonderful colleague of mine for many, many years, so I wish her nothing but the best. We also want to talk, speaking of media personalities, Sophie Cunningham is certainly becoming one. We're going to get into the latest there because her co-host is suddenly MIA. Apparently tossed out. He had kind of a different view on trends. Issues. So we'll talk about that. And I'm still just blown away by what's going on in Europe right now. From Germany to Italy, I'll tell you, the right is really rising. I'm Trish Regan. Make sure you subscribe, share, like, make a comment. It helps the algorithm. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. And you know, and she did this. She did this with a picture that may say almost as much as the words that she wrote. I want to share it with you. She has right here. Thank you to all of my friends. And followers for your amazing words. I am so grateful for the outpouring of love on social media and texts. I love you all. Here's a great shot of the rainbow breaking through. I snapped the other day. More to come. Okay, those are words that probably Fox doesn't really appreciate hearing, right? More to come. You know, this is kind of a metaphor. She loves the water and she does take a lot of pictures of the water. Where she lives. And I think that this is symbolic in many, many ways. More to come. In other words, she can't say much just yet. She can't say much because of contracts and everything that's going on. I know. I've been there, unfortunately. She doesn't mention Fox. She doesn't explain what happened. She doesn't tell us where she's going. But after more than 12 and a half years at Fox and after this incredibly abrupt ending to her tenure there, those are three words that I'll tell you. Are going to get attention, right? Because they're important. They're important because there are different versions of what happened to Maria Bartiromo. Her lawyer says, look, she's not gone. She's not gone. This is Brian Friedman. She hired the big guns, right? She brings him in and he says she's not fired and she's not technically gone. In other words, they still have to pay her. They still have to pay her. And he said, you know what? We got receipts. We got witnesses. So this is not going to be easy. So what exactly? What exactly happened here? When you start putting these pieces together, I'm going to tell you, it gets a lot more complicated and potentially a whole lot more uncomfortable for Fox. Uh-huh. Yeah, I'm going to get to that. But first, you kind of need to understand the relationship, if you would, between Maria Bartiromo and between the president and between Fox. Because Maria herself has talked about how she became willing to challenge so much of the mainstream media as coverage of Trump. And I know this from her. Because early on, I mean, we both recognized that he had a good tax plan back in 2016. And she was willing to cover him fairly. And not everybody was willing to do that. Remember? I want to show you a little clip from Sage Steele's show. And they're talking about this issue. And management comes up. So watch this one carefully. Yeah, I mean, in the last 10 years, I guess, part of the issue, I guess, you know, Donald Trump came on the scene and was polarizing to so many people that they went crazy. And I think that there's a small cabal who hate him so much and have convinced their constituents, media, academia, whoever else you talk to, Hollywood, that, you know, and I saw that as being incredible unfairness. And I called it out. And, you know, I mean, that. That was one thing that I think the mainstream media that's that happened. Donald Trump happened to them. And they just they don't want to report on him fairly. They refuse. Yeah, they refuse. But and they get away with it. I mean, that's the that's the worst part is when the bosses, the leadership allows it. And it's intentional. You know, it's so funny. I think it's I used to laugh at the TDS, the Trump derangement syndrome that people talked about. And I'm like, oh, this is real. And people cannot can't handle it. What? And I wonder why. I mean, you know, I think it's because he exposes their corruption, some people's corruption. And he doesn't care about talking about it, you know, and they see him as dangerous in that regard. Amazing, right? He's dangerous because he's willing to take on the establishment in ways that, you know, no other politician, certainly in my lifetime, has ever done. I've never seen that before. And Maria was willing to challenge the status quo. Right. She was willing to challenge the media narrative, as was I. And, you know, both of us got punished for it. Really? I mean, you know, there are apparently just some things that you're just not allowed to talk about. Although they didn't tell me in my case, they didn't tell me. No, no, no. They actually approved my script. And I went on and talked about how COVID was turning into, you know, an insane sort of agenda, if you would, for the left. I was right. I was right. Was I not? And that was like something you couldn't say at the time. Well, the other thing apparently you couldn't say, and that may have something to do with Smartmatic, and we're going to talk about that lawsuit that Fox has pending. You couldn't say anything about what was going on in China. They did not want her reporting on that. Her desire and her tenacious, you know, sort of qualities that she has as a reporter, that's what actually makes her very, very good at her job. Right. She is very tenacious. And I think that's. That tenacity is perhaps what really got her in trouble here, because here she is trying to pursue a story. And the way this story was going down, at least the way Fox has been probably communicating it to multiple outlets. And I say Fox because it's kind of their side of things. So I have a feeling it's coming from inside the building. They're saying and they actually came right out in this Axios article and they said that they fired her. And that's a pretty aggressive verb. Right. To be using right there. But from the management team, I suspect. In fact, you've got a particular narrative that's getting thread together. And that's what has been spoon fed to the mainstream media. Now, keep in mind, she can't really talk. Right. She's got a contract. She can't really fight back. She can't really say anything. So they're controlling the story a lot, as much as they can. They they said that the producers and the anchors were told to stay away from what the president had been talking about regarding 2020. Remember, he went on to the primetime address and talked about China's interference, et cetera. Well. First of all, you may say, wait, does that really happen at Fox? Like, does that stuff actually occur? And I'm going to tell you, it does. It does. It absolutely does. Like, you'll get an edict. Oh, you can't have that guest on. You're like, why? Nobody in many cases don't even tell you. And this is probably one of those cases. They probably didn't tell her. They just said, you're not covering this. And she was not supposed to cover it. And apparently she wanted to cover it. And so that is where you start to get into some challenges with. Management versus Maria. So they saw her desire to cover this story and apparently her alleged communication with Peter Navarro. And he's out on Newsmax talking about it. So he's basically saying, yeah, this happened. Her frustration with not being able to cover it went up the food chain and they considered that a violation of her employment agreement. That's what they're sending out there into the mainstream media. Now, her side of this has not been publicly confirmed. I mean, they. They have not confirmed that account. You got Peter saying what Peter is saying, but he, you know, they have not actually sent out the receipts that they say they have. So I think we have to be cautious about this. Again, knowing that she's under contract, she's still getting paid. She's still getting the health insurance. You know, they're just keeping her on the shelf. They're just saying you can't go on the air anywhere else because we want to hold you like you're ours forever. Anyway, Peter Navarro, he went on to Newsmax and his version of the story. Is taking this all in another direction. Interesting. Let's listen in. How what did you do with it? You forwarded up the chain. How did you. Who did you show it to? By the way, all your. Well, I'm not getting into the details. Remember, I went to prison, Greg, for not violating the executive privilege. But suffice it to say that Suzanne Scott got a call and basically the White House let her. Know that that kind of thing is totally unacceptable. She didn't accept that at all. She just went out and fired Maria Bartiromo. And that place is out of control. And the problem, Greg, is, is that at the producer level as that's what this is, it's censorship, right? And so what the producers are told by Suzanne Scott, who's the CEO at Fox is, is, OK, when you when you craft your segments for like the equivalent of Greg Kelly every day, whatever the show is, it's. It's like, You don't do these MAGA issues. You don't do pro-Trump stuff. I understand. You have your A, B, C, and D block, and it's out. Wow. So what Navarro is effectively saying here, if you read between the lines, is that he did take it all the way to the top. He doesn't actually say President Trump, but I'm going to go on a limb and say I think he probably took it to President Trump. And I think President Trump probably made a phone call to Suzanne. Now, we can't confirm that. I'm just going with my hunch here, having worked there, knowing the president, knowing Maria, and knowing Peter, OK? This is just Trish Regan's intel on it. So when a senior White House official, and let's just go with the president of the United States, OK, calls up the CEO of Fox News and says, hey, we don't appreciate this. We think that you're trying to suppress the truth and you're trying to censor reporters from telling the truth. Well, then this does become, right, very much an argument of censorship. And Navarro believes Fox was preventing a point of view from being heard, and so he complained. And then, poof, Maria's gone from television. Her last Sunday morning future show was broadcast on August 9th. On September 3rd, was it, that Fox announced that Maria Bartiromo was no longer with Fox News Media, effective immediately? And Fox is thanking her? Like, it was kind of a weird no for 12 and a half years. That's it? And then they leaked all of the stuff. Well, you know, she was basically communicating corporate secrets, right, to the White House. So it brings us to the question that Fox still hasn't publicly answered. In my, well, I mean, certainly they're channeling things right through the back. But have they publicly answered this question? Why did you do it? No, they're trying to basically get out of paying her and say, hey, we're firing her for cause because she shared internal communication. That's what they're trying to do. But I think that this might actually be something bigger. It could certainly be, yeah, they didn't like the president coming down on them because of Maria. Sometimes you have jealousies at networks like that, and management doesn't appreciate it when the talent has a little bit more say. Although I'm kind of like, guys, that ship has sailed. I mean, what do you think? Hannity. Like, this hasn't happened before? I saw in the comments, one of you guys was like, yeah, this hasn't happened before. It's definitely happened before. In fact, they came out in all the Dominion discovery. That. Hannity was like sending his rundown to the White House every night. So, OK, whatever. So why did they single out her? Maybe it was because Fox had already decided it wanted to part ways with Maria. And this was simply the network's opportunity to do it. By the time I hit my 50s, I'd learned a few things, like how family is precious. Work can always wait. And 99% of people over 50 already have the virus that causes shingles. Not everyone at risk will develop it. But I did. The painful, blistering rash disrupted my life for weeks. Don't learn about your shingles risk the hard way. Sponsored by GSK. Now, Maria hasn't told me. I have reached out to her and communicated with her. But she has not told me anything. She can't speak on this. OK, guys, she can't talk about any of it. That would be total violation of her contract. And then she really would be out. Like, she isn't fired. Her lawyer is right when he's like, wait a second. That reporting is wrong because she's not actually fired. They're going to present it that way. But she's still under contract. So again, remember her words there. Remember her words. More to come. And that's where this story takes an interesting turn. Because if the strategy was to make the Maria Bartiromo problem disappear, I don't think it worked. No. I actually think that Fox has a much bigger problem that it created for itself. Really and truly. Because again, the lawyer is talking about receipts. Brian Friedman is not with a client here that intends to move quietly on. He says the reports that Maria was fired are false. He says she remains an employee. And then he used another very interesting word. He said, receipts. He said, make no mistake. We have the receipts and we have the witnesses. And those receipts, they'll come out, he cautioned, he warned, he threatened, whether through the courthouse or otherwise. Wow. Okay. So Maria Bartiromo isn't simply a longtime Fox host who's getting sidelined. She's sitting outside. She's sitting outside the Fox tent right now and very angry about it. I would bet. All right. This woman who's had a phenomenal career and they're trying to end it. Put yourself in her shoes because you're trying to do your job and report on a story because you're communicating with a source you've had for years. I mean, she and I were interviewing Peter Navarro 20 someone years ago, right? Like he's been around for a while. He's always been very anti-China. So she's known him a long time. She now is. Outside the Fox tent, not too happy. And she potentially has interests that are very different from Fox's at this point. Now, why does that matter? It matters for another enormous reason. Smartmatic. Fox is still fighting Smartmatic's defamation lawsuit, right? From its coverage in 2020 and Maria's broadcast. They're still part of that litigation. In fact, she's actually being named in that suit. She is indemnified, by the way, by Fox. So they're going to have to pay her legal bills and they're going to have to pay whatever damages Smartmatic. Says she owes previously Fox and Maria had all been in the same boat rowing in the same direction, same company, same lawyers, everybody protecting everyone's interest. But now, you know, Fox has publicly said she's gone and they kicked her on the way out the door. They kicked her pretty hard. A woman who has had a legendary career, the original money, honey, right? Like she kind of created the financial news genre. So, you know, her attorneys publicly challenging this narrative surrounding her departure. He's talking about receipts. He's talking about witnesses. My goodness. And he's raising the possibility of a courthouse. So that really changes the relationship here. And I don't think Fox anticipated that it could get that bad. Because, sure, you can remove someone from television, right? And you can replace the show and you can replace the graphics and you can put someone else in the seat. And you can have somebody else writing the copy and, you know, whatever. You can try to make 12 and a half years disappear. But I don't think it's going to work this time. And depending on Maria's contract, there may be a whole other issue, a whole other issue at play here, guys. Big television contracts can contain provisions that basically allow a network to take talent off the air so long as they're continuing to compensate them, right? That's probably what's going on here, which is why Brian Friedman is saying, hey, you know, she's not fired because they can't fire her just yet. I mean, they're really going to have to prove it out because she's going to fight this thing. So we do not know whether Maria's agreement contains specifically a provision like that. But I would have to assume so because I've been through a couple of Fox contracts myself. And they always include sort of what they call a pay or play clause in the business. We can pay you or we can play you. But if we decide not to play you, as long as we still pay you, you're ours and you can't go anywhere else. Networks have historically had an enormous incentive, right, to keep valuable talent away from competitors. And that's what brings us back to this, to Maria's rainbow, dark clouds, a rainbow breaking through and more to come. Because you could say, well, maybe it's just an optimistic message to people who have supported her. Maybe it means she has another job coming. Maybe it means she's prepared to tell her side of what happened. at 76research.com. if, what if Maria Bartiromo doesn't just get another job? What if she winds up with an even bigger platform than the one she had at Fox? Because there's one possibility floating out there right now that could actually turn Maria's departure into an absolute positive nightmare for her former network, CBS. Okay, all right, I know, I know, I know, I know. You guys are like, CBS? You got to be kidding me. CBS? And we could spend all day talking about the bias there, but that's kind of the point. The Ellisons took it over, and they put Barry Weiss in to remake the place, and we've already seen reports that Maria has spoken with CBS News leadership about a possible role at the network. One report is talking about 60 minutes, I've seen, and then other reports are saying the news division, but I get another idea, another possibility that's even more interesting, because think about what Maria was already doing on Fox. She wasn't simply a business anchor. Every Sunday morning, Maria hosted Sunday morning futures, politics, policy, cabinet officials, members of Congress, some of the biggest interviews in Washington, including many with the president. So if CBS is really considering Maria Bartiromo, I'd have to think that they would be considering putting her directly back into the Sunday morning political conversation directly against Fox News. How about that time slot? Right? Because CBS already has one of those shows. It's called Face the Nation. And let's just say, let's just say it's, you know, occasionally shown some of its bias. And remember when the host somehow thought that free speech led to Nazi Germany? And Marco Rubio had to correct her? Oh, let me jog your memory. Well, he was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide. And he met with the head of a political, political party that has far right views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that, that the censorship was specifically about the right. No, I have to disagree with you. Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews and they hated Jews. And so, you know, I think that's, I think that's, I think that's one of the minorities and they hated those that they, they had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none. There was also no opposition in Nazi Germany. They were a sole and only party that governed that country. So that's not an accurate reflection of history. I also think it's wrong. Again, I go back to the point of his speech. Okay. The point of his speech was basically that there is an erosion in free speech and intolerance for opposing points of view within Europe. And that's of concern because that is eroding. That's not an erosion of your military capabilities. That's not an erosion of your economic standing. That's an erosion of the actual values that bind us together in this transatlantic union that everybody talks about. And I think allies and friends and partners that have worked together now for 80 years should be able to speak frankly to one another in open forums without being offended, insulted, or upset. And I spoke to foreign ministers from multiple countries throughout Europe. Many of them probably didn't like the speech or didn't agree with it, but they were continuing to engage with us on all sorts of issues that unite us. So again, at the same time, I think that, you know, people give, that is a forum in which you're supposed to be inviting people to give speeches, not basically a chorus where everyone is saying the exact same thing. That's not always going to be the case when it's a collection of democracies where leaders have the right and the privilege to speak their minds in forums such as these. Oh my gosh, right? The ouch, ouch, ouch. So, you know, he kind of got her good, if you would, right there. I would say that she didn't really seem to understand much about history or Nazi or what really was going on, right? I mean, that was a little uncomfortable to watch, especially from a journalist, right? Because you would think that a journalist would be all about understanding freedom of speech. And in this particular case, she's trying to suggest that, I guess, Trump's type of speech should be suppressed because, you know, look what happened in Germany. Unbelievable. Anyway, but that wasn't, that wasn't it. Like there have been repeated incidents like this. For example, there was that viral moment, you remember when, with J.D., when she tried to suggest that bringing all the Afghan refugees into this country was just absolutely fine. Let me play this one for you. Well, Margaret, I don't agree that all these immigrants or all these refugees have been properly vetted. In fact, we know that there are cases of people who allegedly were properly vetted and then were literally planning terrorist attacks on our country. That happened during the campaign, if you may remember. So clearly not all of these foreign nationals have been properly vetted. No, but there are 30,000 people in the pipeline, Afghan refugees. But my primary concern as the vice president, Margaret, is to look after the American people. And now that we know that we have to look after the American people, we have vetting problems with a lot of these refugee programs. We absolutely cannot unleash thousands of unvetted people into our country. It's not good. These people are vetted. Just like the guy who planned a terrorist attack in Oklahoma a few months ago. He was allegedly properly vetted. And many people in the media and the Democratic Party said that he was properly vetted. Clearly he wasn't. I don't want my children to share a neighborhood with people who are not properly vetted. And because I don't want it for my kids, I'm not going to force any other American citizens' kids to do that either. No, and that was a very particular case. It wasn't clear if he was radicalized when he got here or while he was living here. I don't really care, Margaret. I don't want that person in my country. And I think most Americans agree with me. Wow. So look, I would say that CBS has some course correction ahead of it itself. And it's now operating under new leadership at a moment when the news division is facing all the scrutiny over questions concerning the editorial direction and the trust or lack of trust with viewers. And that's what made- And that's what made- the Maria Bartiromo possibility so fascinating. Barry Weiss has been put in a position in which she is in charge of reshaping CBS News. And reports now say that Weiss and Maria have already spoken. I mean, we don't know if Maria was offered anything, but interesting that they spoke. We also don't know whether CBS is considering her for Face the Nation. And we certainly don't know about that. But we certainly don't know whether CBS has plans to move her off of that program. But I can just tell you, strategically, I'm going to put my producer hat on for a second. It makes a ton of sense. I mean, if I were Barry, I'd hire Maria in two seconds. And I'd put her on that Sunday political show. She already knows the Sunday audience. The audience already loves her. She already knows the format. She has decades of live television experience. She's not stiff on camera. She has relationships throughout Wall Street and throughout Washington. And she has something television networks desperately need. An audience. An executive audience. An existing, loyal, loving audience that knows exactly who she is. Okay? This is a woman who's killing it in the ratings. And I think it's important to think about this because, you know, cable is actually still quite small in the scheme of things. Cable's not that big a deal. It's still the big three, right? The broadcast networks are it. And I know Fox is big, but they're still not as big as a network. A network's like 10, 20 times the size. So what's fascinating is Maria's getting 1.9 million views. A show. Nearly 2 million. And Margaret should be getting 5 to 10 times as many viewers as her. Yet Margaret's only getting 2.8 million? Huh. So that suggests to me that there's an opportunity. In other words, Maria was punching way above her weight. And here's an even bigger reveal for you. Maria's audience that she brings with her, it matters. It matters more today than it did 20 years ago. I saw peace of my mind in the comments. I read them as I'm talking to you guys. And peace of my mind said, look, you know, CBS doesn't need Maria. Rather, yes, CBS. Maria doesn't need CBS, but CBS needs Maria. And that's a thousand percent true. A thousand percent true. And that's because this whole medium has changed. Television has changed. It used to be that the network made the star. You wanted to watch television news. You went to CBS or NBC or ABC or CNN or Fox. You had this distribution system that was controlling the audience. And today, that audience can go and follow the person. Right here on YouTube or on Spotify, where I am every day, podcast streaming, Newsmax, OAN. I mean, I'm talking about conservative media, too, right? Independent media, social media, cable. There are thousands of different doors in this news business. And I know something about this firsthand. This program, you guys, this program, by the way, make sure you subscribe. Do not forget. It's important. It helps the algorithm like the video, like it. But this program was just for the second quarter ranked as the fourth most watched conservative political channel on YouTube. I mean, that's amazing, right? We are just two spots behind Fox News. Think about the difference in scale. They've got an enormous operation. All those people, all those correspondents, all those studios, all those camera people, producers, multiple, you know, they even have like a streaming network on top of it and the digital network, you name it. And this is just me and my teeny beetsy little team. That's it. And you guys, right? So this is new media. Distribution is no longer enough. Talent itself has the distribution. I built this with no one here, okay? I just started going live on the air every day a few years ago. And suddenly, here we are. Maria Bartiromo has spent decades building her brand and her identity, and she is the talent, right? So she's got the viewers. And Fox can't assume Maria's viewers are just going to transfer their loyalty to whoever's sitting in the chair on any given Sunday. I get it. You know, maybe some will, but you know, others are going to say, Hey, where the heck is Maria? And then they're going to go find her. And imagine if they find her at the exact same time on another network on CBS, that's where it gets particularly painful. You see for Fox, because if Maria launches her own podcast, which I'd love to see her do right. I'd love to see her do that. Cause then she's totally in charge. She may decide she wants to go the more conservative route and go to a network. But if she does that, Fox is going to say, Ooh, okay. You know, it's, it's another conservative outlet. That's, you know, maybe some competition for us, but it's a podcast. If she goes to CBS, that's different because suddenly Fox would have taken one of their most recognizable personalities right off their, Sunday lineup only to potentially watch her appear on one of America's historic broadcast networks in the same Sunday political news ecosystem. Be kind of a twist, right? And it could happen, especially because CBS has a completely different problem to solve completely different in that it, it needs somebody who thinks differently than everyone else inside the building. So if new management genuinely wants to have some kind of new idealistic ideological reach, bringing in someone with Maria's audience sends a message and it could work really well. It could also trigger an enormous internal reaction, right? I mean, imagine Maria walking into CBS news and there's going to be some people internally that don't like that. You know, she's a Sunday political chair anchor on face the nation. She takes over that show. People may not like that, but you know what? I didn't think the pain from the shingles rash would affect simple everyday tasks like bathing, getting dressed or even walking around. I was wrong. Though not everyone at risk will develop it. 99% of people over the age of 50 already have the virus that causes shingles and it could reactivate at any time. I developed it and the blistering rash lasted for weeks. Don't learn the hard way like I did. Sponsored by GSK. That's a dilemma Barry Weiss is going to have to figure out. I would just say this, you know, if your mandate is to change an institution, at some point you got to actually change the institution. You cannot simultaneously promise a dramatically different CBS news and then guarantee that everyone who's been there forever, and believe me, they have, will be comfortable with every decision you're making. Something's going to have to give there. And Maria Bartiromo would be a very big signal. Things are giving. Which brings us back to Fox. Because if you're Fox management, which outcome do you prefer? Seriously, which outcome do you prefer? Maria starting a podcast? Maria joining a smaller television network? Or Maria sitting underneath the CBSI every Sunday morning interviewing the same president, the same senators, cabinet officials that she used to interview for you? And I think Brian Friedman is going to get her a deal where she can like move on more quickly and keep all the money that is owed to her by Fox. And this is why Maria's message that she sent out yesterday becomes so much more interesting. A rainbow breaking through the clouds. And three words, more to come. I think it could be very, very big. And again, as someone who I've loved working with through the years, I'm behind her a thousand percent and I cannot wait to see what happens. It'll be good. I promise you that. Don't mess with Maria. And I'll tell you, definitely do not mess with Sophie Cunningham. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We already know. We already know you don't mess with her on the basketball court. You don't mess with Caitlin Clark either because you're going to get Sophie Cunningham in your face. But apparently that may apply off the court too, because Sophie Cunningham has a brand new podcast this week, just out, same podcast network, same social media, real estate, same Sophie, you see. But there's one person who's going to be on the basketball court this week. There's one person who's going to be nowhere near it, nowhere near it. And that would be her former co-host. Suddenly, gone. The old co-host, Wes Wilson. I didn't know who he was. Do you? Anyway, the timing has, some people asking a pretty obvious question. It turns out that he publicly came out against Sophie in one of the biggest controversies surrounding her this summer. Transgender athletes competing in women's sports. And now, poof, you know, the guy's gone. They get a brand new announcement. Sophie Cunningham is back with world-renowned basketball trainer, Drew Hanlon. New episodes dropping every Thursday with episode one dropping later today. This is no hesitation, they write. That is the announcement there from the show. So she's moving on. And suddenly she is without this guy, Wes Wilson, who was her co-host for many years. Now, again, people are trying to connect the dots here. Here's a New York Post story on it. Sophie Cunningham, who was her co-host for many years. Now, again, launches new podcast after abruptly ending the show. She co-hosted with Wes Wilson. There may be another explanation for it here. It may just be something really simple. But first, you need to understand how strange this sequence of events looks. Who is Wes Wilson anyway, right? Forgive me. I had to look him up. I had absolutely no clue who this guy was. Apparently, he is a reality television personality from Bravo's Summer House. Oh, gosh, you got me there too, because I've never heard of any of this. Summer House, I have not seen. Sorry if it's your favorite show. But I have no idea who he is or who the show is. But, you know, the reason we care is that he's not some random guy. So if he was paired with by a podcast network, they've actually known each other since high school. And they had this show called Show Me Something Together. And then Sophie stepped directly into one of the most politically charged debates in women's sports. And she said that she didn't think biological men should be in the show. And she said, well, I don't know. I don't know. I competing against women and girls right and i think we actually all agree on that one anyway apparently not including the co-host because this guy wilson decided to go on to tiktok and publicly disagree with her just a few weeks ago okay transgender athletes in american sports is such a borderline non-existent issue that right-wingers have convinced a massive portion of people in our country that it that these people are like a threat to sports in america when like mathematically that's not the case at all and by continuing to platform this can politicians athletes journalists news outlets you're only isolating transgender people i even more by making them seem like this giant group of people is a threat to society a threat to sports when that's just not proportionately the truth in any capacity there is like 10 transgender athletes in all of the ncaa and so i think there are unique questions that can be handled on individual bases but to allow this to take our attention away from like housing and health care and wars and all the other actual harmful in our country is dumb dumb huh i mean tell that to riley gaines tell that to your co-host sophie cunningham right dumb are you kidding me tell that to her because what did she say she was complaining about the negative feedback she was getting on women's sports and then she said i think that i am here to extend love but i also think that with love is truth being honest and i want to protect young girls in a locker room or young girls in a sport who shouldn't have to go against biological men shocker and so the high school buddy who had a podcast with her comes out and does that little number on tiktok and what do you know he's gone he said it was borderline a non-existent issue when she's like kind of getting out in front of this one he said conservatives had convinced americans that transgender athletes posed a threat to sports and in his view the numbers didn't support that and so um i would just say that wasn't really a subtle disagreement i mean if your co-host becomes one of the most outspoken wnba players on this issue and you go online and you publicly argue the absolute opposite and you kind of say this whole thing is really dumb it's not a great look i mean and then boom presto the podcast disappears and now it comes back without you buddy come on i mean you can understand why people are putting two and two together here and they kind of think you got bounced but sophie says no sophie says no no no no sophie says not so fast she's pushing back on all this very hard and she's saying uh you know he disappeared because you know they're just going in a new direction and the speculation is is basically dumb her explanation is that she wanted a different kind of show a show centered more heavily around basketball huh so now they're going to have a show that's all about basketball no politics no trans stuff huh i'm kind of thinking that maybe it was becoming a little bit more difficult to sell ads she was coming out as a conservative personality and maybe the people around her are saying no no no just stick with ball just talk basketball advertisers will like that more you're becoming a little too controversial and judging by who the new co-host is, apparently they're totally sticking with ball. Another one, I had no clue on. This guy's name is Drew Hanlon, and he's apparently a big deal basketball skills trainer who's worked with NBA players and is Cunningham's shooting coach. And so there's, you know, logical reason for this. Business reason, I'd say. Sophie has become a much bigger basketball personality, so they're thinking, hey, let's build a podcast around basketball and her, and advertisers won't have to sweat the whole trans stuff. I mean, when you got Megan Rapanui, whatever her name is, you know, she's one I wish I didn't know about, but unfortunately I do. When she's trying to take you down out, I guess advertisers, they get a little nervous. The business managers maybe get a little nervous. Watch. I want to address the controversy that is happening right now around trans women in sports. As you know, I've talked about this a lot and will continue to keep talking about this. I don't know Sophie, so I can only project what I see about her beliefs based on her actions. And seeing a picture of her with Riley Gaines, after the game, told me everything I need to know about what's happening. Riley Gaines has made it her life's mission to exclude trans people from public life. She's directly tied to the heritage. Oh my gosh. Heaven forbid. You know, poor Riley Gaines, who, by the way, would have won that swimming race if it wasn't for somebody that was a boy deciding to swim as a girl, taking it away from her. Apparently this is getting a little too hot in the kitchen. So the advertisers, I'm just guessing, this is my sort of read on it as somebody who's in this space. So they're thinking, okay, like, how do we, how do we clean this up a little bit? Front office sports online website reports that the contract for the original show me something podcast had expired. And so unlike Maria, this might be a situation where you got a contract ending. Sophie and her managers want a basketball show network season opportunity basketball show with new host, new co-host, new co-host, I should say. And, you know, frankly, from the producer's standpoint, I can see both sides of this, right? Because I get that they want to talk ball. I get it, right? This is, this is her thing. And they probably think that they can sell more ads, but I would just say, you know, the politics is actually what makes Sophie so interesting. That's what actually has me watching because she's taken a look at some things, and she's gotten out there very bravely. And this is really endeared her to a lot of people. So if politics really had become a source of friction between these two, what would I do as a producer, I would look at this and say, okay, this Westy Wilson guy and Sophie, you know, I'm not convinced that this is bad for ratings, I think you guys are going to get great ratings. You know, if Sophie says one thing, and Westy West says the other, and hold on, Sophie, I completely disagree with you. I think you got a nice show. I mean, that's some tension, right? That's debate that makes it interesting. You get a nice show, you get a nice show, you get a nice show, you get a nice show, you get to see both sides and see who wins, it would be her. So, you know, something viewers would watch. But did she, did he have to go? Did they have to part? You know, I think that they probably are just trying to build something else entirely. And I'm sorry, it's just not going to be as interesting. Okay, it does not have the same appeal. It's not going to be as broad. What made her so lovable was that she did have an opinion. And if she's just leaning into ball and how she, you know, shoots the basket, I don't think it's going to be as big an audience, right? I'm going to go on a limb. I don't think a lot of guys are really going to care how Sophie Cunningham shoots the free throw. I think that they might actually be interested to hear what she says on some of these cultural and political issues, which are so topical right now. So I think it's a mistake, frankly, but nobody asked me. Sophie Cunningham, I'll say this, she may have a new podcast, right? And she may have a new job. Sophie Cunningham may have a new job. Honestly, the more I think about that, I think I should be the commissioner. What is that, right? The commissioner, the commissioner of the WNBA. Now that's actually kind of interesting. Remember what she had said about the WNBA commissioner, Kathy Engelbert? I told you about her. She was the Deloitte accountant who became the CEO of Deloitte, which is great, except you're managing accountants. You're not managing basketball players. This is not, I mean, nothing against accountants. They're talented in their own right, but it's a whole other level when you're dealing with, say, TV personalities, podcast personalities, or basketball players. So when they didn't do anything to contain the harassment of Caitlin Clark, Sophie Cunningham started getting a little annoyed, just a little annoyed. Watch. This type of happens every single game to her and the league and the refs do nothing to protect her. She was right. I mean, the woman was MIA. Heck, she couldn't even tell you what a woman was. Remember that? They were going to study it. So Sophie was like, hey, we need a new WNBA commissioner. And she questioned whether Engelbert was the person to take this league forward. I said it actually a couple of weeks before she did right here on the show. I said, they're going to have to find somebody new. And then she came out and said, yeah, they're going to have to find somebody new. They need somebody bold. They need somebody confident, somebody that's focused on what is best for the players. And then she said something really interesting. She suggested that the commissioner's job might be open by the end of the year. The quote was, as a whole, that could be a position that's maybe open at the end of the year, but that's not my call. Well, what do you know? It's happening. Kathy Engelbert, she's out now. She's leaving the WNBA at the end of the year. So Sophie called that one pretty well, I would say. And now Sophie has another idea. Maybe she could take Kathy's job at some point. Let's see, we should play this entire, do we have it? Do we have it? I think we do. I want to play this one for you because she said it sort of offhand. And I want to play you the entire clip. Sophie as commissioner. Now, wouldn't that be funny? Here we go. I think I could get this on the right track. What would be the first thing that you would do? Honestly, the first thing I would do is make sure that every team legit has a functional practice facility. There are teams in the WNBA, which this is, we are supposed to be, not supposed, we are the best league in the entire world. There are people practicing at like YMCA's. They're sharing a court by a, a curtain when there's like YMCA youth camps going on one side and a team practice. I think I could get this shit on the right track. Let me tell you that. Honestly, the first thing I would do is make sure. Okay. Oopsie daisy. Sorry. Sorry for the language. Um, so Sophie, I assume she's having fun with it. Like I assume she's having fun with it. Um, she wants to make some changes. Every team legit has a fun. Right. Has a, an actual place to practice. Um, I would also emphasize, you might want to make sure that the marketing is properly handled so that the stars are actually elevated. And you might want to also make sure that you don't have people like Angie Reese trying to beat up Caitlin Clark every game. So I might start with the refs, but that might've been a little too controversial, right? She's trying to back away from these politically explosive issues, but interesting that she kind of said now she's having fun, right? Like she's kind of joking around because she's a really valuable player. And I think she needs to stay a very valuable player, but I would just say this, you know, maybe in the future, because she understands the locker room. She understands what the players are complaining about. She understands officiating. She understands marketing. And perhaps most importantly, she's got a front row seat to the single biggest transformation in women's basketball ever. And that is Ms. Caitlin Clark. So I just say this, you know, whatever you think about the politics surrounding the WNBA, the business lesson from the Caitlin Clark. I think that's what she's talking about. I'm just putting the TV production hat on. I'm sorry. I can't stop. You know, stars matter. Rivalries matter. Personality matters. And when you've got an athlete capable of bringing in millions of people who previously never watched your product before, never had any intention, you're bringing them into the tent. Those are new viewers and you got to turn them into long-term fans of the league. So Cunningham's been right out there, right? Alongside Clark in Indiana, she's developed her own following by being willing to say exactly what she thinks. And sometimes she gets a whole lot of applause or criticism, but either way, people are listening. And now even her podcast is being redesigned around her. So we do not know that Sophie Cunningham got rid of the co-host because he disagreed with her on trans athletes. She says it didn't happen. That's not the way it went down, but there is evidence that there's an extraordinary business reason for changing that show. All that said, I would just say, you know, that show ended. Sophie's coming back with a basketball-focused show and she's predicting that there could be change at the top of the WNBA. There was. So she may be joking that she's going to be the next commissioner, but I would say, take this woman seriously. Wes Wilson, Kathy Engelbert. So perhaps the lesson really is, do not mess. Don't mess with Sophie. Don't. Don't mess with the woman. By the time I hit my 50s, I'd learned a few things. Like how family is precious. Not everyone at risk will develop it, but I did. Sponsored by GSK. No one who's about to run Germany either. Friedrich Mertz has a new problem. Her name is Alice Weidel. Fred, that's what I like to call him. Fred Mertz. Yes, I love Lucy. The German chancellor, he was watching Weidel's AFD deliver this absolutely devastating defeat to his own party. And he's kind of increasingly having a really tough time with it. You see them celebrating here. This is recent. And you had President Trump coming out and celebrating her victory too. And he put this one out on True Social. He said, wow, the German populist party had a really big night. He said they finally got tired of the absolutely horrible, I was going to say horrific, he said horrible immigration rules and regulations that have hurt Germany so badly. They are on the rise and not going to take it anymore. And then he added. M-G-G-A, which means make Germany great again. Well, Fred Mertz, oh, Fred, you know, he doesn't like this so much. He's been out there attacking the AFD. Did you see this one? Attacking the AFD, doubling down on the political firewall. He's trying to put around it basically to prevent it from getting any more power. And now, get a load of this. He just postponed his call with President Trump. Oh, touch A, right, touch A. Fred Mertz doesn't like that the president is putting out social media posts saying, hey, congratulations to the conservatives in Germany. I'm telling you, Fred Mertz has a big problem. And it's not Donald Trump. It's not. It's the voters, you see, because the voters, they're not listening to him. They don't like him. They really can't stand him. I mean, look at this poll from the spring. Look at that. He said historic lows like only 15 to 19 percent satisfied. Or approved of Chancellor Mertz's Germany. I mean, like, this is so bad. You've got to go back to, I guess, Olaf Scholz was the last one who had such bad poll numbers. 70 to 86 percent of Germany is dissatisfied with this guy. So things are going to have to change. And they are changing, right? Germany's political establishment has been telling voters for years you cannot vote for the AFD, the alternative for Germany as it's known. It is too extreme. It is. It is too dangerous. It is too this. It is too that. It is untouchable. Don't ever go near it. It's going to be no coalition. These are like the deplorables, right? And they literally built this firewall, making sure that this party could not see too much success. And then all of a sudden you got voters. This is great. Again, go back to the celebration. The voters in the Saxony-Anhalt part of Germany, they responded by giving AFD 43.8 percent of the vote. I mean, that's a big deal. That nearly broke the firewall. So Mertz's CDU got 17. 17.2 percent. AFD gets more than two and a half times that. OK, more than two. And you had record turnout. It was 76 and a half percent turnout. So whatever Germany's establishment wants to call these voters. And believe me, it's not pretty. You know, they're it's Germany and they're playing the Hitler card. And you know, that has a ton of sensitivity, even more than it has here. Right. They play that card here. They do with Donald Trump and MAGA. But when you play it over there in Germany, it's a special. The voters keep showing up for AFD. I mean, AFD won 39 of the parliament's 83 seats, just three short of an outright majority. And because the other major parties still refuse to work with it, whether it can actually become the government remains an open question. But I still think that this was politically speaking a total earthquake because Mertz once promised he would he would cut all AFD support dramatically. And now. And now he's getting crushed. He's getting crushed by it in a state that the CDU governed for years and years and years. And Mertz is out there saying we're deeply shocked, deeply shocked. Well, buddy, you should be right. You should be because this is not happening in a vacuum. No, this is happening because you have become very unpopular. And the reason you have become so unpopular is because of the things your government has been doing. Right. Germany is under enormous pressure economically. Immigration has just drained the country and sent it in a whole different direction. Increasingly, the AFD is positioning itself as that alternative right to the entire establishment. I mean, you look at these these population numbers. They are 15 percent migrant right now. That's not very good. Not very good at all. And so Elise Vidal is representing something totally different. She's like, OK, Germany first. Stop sending enormous amounts of money to Brussels. Let's get immigration under control. Let's reconsider. Germany's relationship with the EU. Let's reduce support for the Ukraine. Let's get out of that war. Let's put German economic interests ahead of the priorities of the political establishments in Berlin and Brussels. And, hey, that's a platform that a lot of people now feel they can get behind. And so the political reality of all this is just enormous because German voters are listening. And I'm telling you, immigration is a big part of it, just as it was here. So look at this. I've got a graphic up. Germany's official statistics, 15%. Of the population is migrant. More than one quarter, I should point out, of that population, like over 26%, has an immigration history. Now, that doesn't mean 26% are migrants. It's just that 15% are direct migrants. 26% includes an immigration history. So these are people who have immigrated themselves as well as people whose parents have immigrated. And, you know, like here, that's normal, right? Like here in America, that's totally normal. In Germany, it's not because, you know, Germany's German. Switzerland's Swiss and France's French. Well, it used to be, right? And Italy's Italian. Again, used to be Spanish-Spanish. I mean, that was kind of why I always wondered, how the heck is Europe ever going to get its act together with this EU? Everybody speaks a different language. Everybody has a different cultural experience. And you need to protect and guard those cultural experiences because that's what makes each of these countries and these economies and these populations unique. So Germany's got a real problem because people are kind of getting sick and tired of this. Sick and tired of this. You can bomb. These population statistics with what, migrant crime? And now you've got yourself a real problem. 42.9% of violent crime suspects are non-Germans. Now, when you only have 15% of the population being migrant and they're accounting for 42.9% of the crime, that becomes problematic. And you combine that with the horrific, very highly publicized attacks that you've seen on trains and in Christmas markets there in Germany, and you begin to understand. Why immigration and security have become such powerfully emotional, important issues, right, for German voters. People are looking around. They're saying to themselves, what the heck is happening to our country? Why isn't our government listening to us? And what happens to our German culture if this is allowed to continue? Those aren't questions that disappear because politicians don't like asking them. And instead of figuring out how to win those voters back, what do you got Moritz doing? Moritz is criticizing them. He's criticizing the party that they're voting for. And he's out there trying to suggest that this is like a really bad team. He's complaining about re-migration and ethnic cleansing. And that's the language Germany's chancellor is now using. He says the AFD's concept of, they call it re-migration, it's deportations for people that are not from Germany. That have migrated to Germany and may have done so illegally or committed a crime. They want to remove these people. And he says, well, you just want to remove them because of their skin color. And so that's ethnic cleansing. And the AFD says, no, you're actually deliberately misrepresenting our policy and our proposals. But, you know, Moritz is going even further. He says there will be no cooperation between the CDU and the AFD. The firewall stays. Think about the dilemma this is creating. You're telling voters, yeah, we hear you. We're angry. We get it. We see that 44% of you voted for the alternative. But you know what? We're not going to work with those people that you elected. We think those people are terrible. They are deplorables. And therefore, you are deplorable for having voted for them. And then you get Donald Trump, of course, jumping into the middle of it because, you know, he can't keep himself away. And he puts this one out. So Moritz is now humiliated. Moritz is furious because you get the president saying, you know, these guys are on the rise. He's attacking Germany's immigration. He's attacking Germany's immigration policies right there. And finishing with, make Germany great again. So you can just imagine how that went over in Berlin with Friedrich, Freddie Moritz. He was supposed to have a conversation today with the president of the United States on 9-11. When I'm coming to you live on 9-11, we'll talk about 9-11 coming up. But the call was postponed. No new date was announced. And the German government did not publicly say Trump's AFD. Post was the reason, but you know, the time and kind of interesting because Trump publishes that and boom, Mertz is like, I'll feed a scene, okay? He just went flying. I mean, he's pretty upset right now. He says this re-migration is a huge problem and that the word re-migration is nothing more than a synonym for ethnic cleansing based on origin and skin color, which is not true. It is not true and that's not what AFD is doing. They just want to get the people that are there illegally or have committed crimes to go return to their home countries. Oh, gosh, darn it, that sounds familiar, right? I think I've heard that story right here before and look, you know, no one thought Donald Trump could win. They tried to create a firewall around Donald Trump, but you know what? He won anyway, just like Elise Vidal's party is going to win anyway. So, okay, the Trump-Mertz conversation didn't happen, but I'll tell you, Elise Vidal, she's standing there with the. With the political wind at her back and this is where the story gets a whole lot bigger than Germany. This is where the story really expands because it's not just one European country wrestling with this issue. It's Britain, it's Spain, it's Italy, it's all of these countries across Europe. Immigration, national identity, crime, sovereignty, the power of Brussels, they're all scrambling right now. Now, trying to protect themselves and their families and we've seen the protests in Britain. I showed you that the other day. I showed you what we've watched there in Spain, including all the protests in the streets in Madrid. We've seen it in Italy, different countries, right? Different circumstances, but an increasingly familiar political question. Are Europe's governments listening to their own populations? I've got to ask you that question. Are they? I'm not so sure they are. I'm really not so sure they are because when I look at what's happening right now, one woman was supposed to represent the future of Europe's populist right. She suddenly looks a whole lot secure in that role and that woman would be the Signora Giorgia Meloni because Donald Trump has spent years embracing Signora Meloni, but now the European government, the conservative leadership, the conservative leadership, the conservative leader that was supposed to do what she could to try and manage migration while she's not doing a whole lot on it. And so suddenly Trump's attention is now on Elise Weidel, which creates a fascinating question. Meloni out, Weidel in? Take a look at this. This is a meme that's going around the internet. Look at this. This is Elise Weidel looking quite lovely. They're making the point she's our queen, all right? This is the queen of Deutschland, they're calling her. And it's obviously a meme, but there's something bigger happening here because for the last several years, if you asked who was the face of Europe's new populist right, I think the first name you'd always hear is Giorgia Meloni. She was tough on immigration. She was tough on Brussels. She talked about protecting Italy's borders and its families and its culture and its language and Donald Trump embraced her and Elon Musk embraced her. Gosh, I thought they were going to get engaged. American conservatives. We all embraced her. She really looked like the new model, right, for the European right. But governing is different, right, than campaigning. And suddenly Meloni is facing a very different scenario because she has to govern. And Elise Weidel is just surging straight ahead in Germany while, what do we see in Rome? Look at this. This is from the beginning of the summer. People take into the streets, protest after protest, because the anger is spilling out into the streets. Immigration remains one of the issues, top issues, driving Europe's political debate. And Meloni herself has certainly acknowledged that. Meloni herself has admitted, yes, this is a problem. I mean, here she is. She was thrilled when they decided in Brussels that they would no longer allow people that were in the EU illegally to stay. And they voted on that and she came right out and she praised it. It was a great success. Today in Italy, we just had this grand success, this great thing. She wanted to communicate that this is very important, right, for Europe. And yet, when you look at some other things she's done, some other things she's done, I kind of question it, right? She seems to want deportations of people without legal status. She seems to want tougher European rules and tougher borders. And she seems to want to distance herself from Brussels. Yet, simultaneously. She's now been given this opportunity to kind of run Europe, right? Because she's being looked at as the person that can kind of lead Europe forward. And given that Europe hasn't been paying its NATO bills, she's saying, hey, we need to step up to the plate. We need to have a strong military. We need to be this, that, and the other. But again, it's this constant tension. It's this constant conflict because you want to manage Italy and you want to secure those borders and you want to protect your culture. And then, simultaneously, you're talking about Europe coming together for this bigger project, which, yes, I get it. It needs to do. But it's kind of a mess. So, it would be unfair, perhaps, right, for us to just say, okay, we're going to totally throw her under the bus. I appreciate that she is saying we need our borders. And she's recently been talking about the Schengen Agreement and how the Schengen Agreement is not going to be upheld if Spain keeps allowing all the Moroccans to pour into Ceuta. So, that's good. But she's done a few other things along the way, like the 500. 500,000 work entries that she allowed for of non-EU citizens. Nearly half a million people. All right, that. I get it. Italy has a labor problem. It's got an aging population. But when I was there, what did I hear over and over and over again from people? That they can't find a job. They can't. And that jobs aren't paying well enough. And everybody has to live at home with their parents. So, guess what? You got no family formation. No kids being born, okay? Because nobody can move out of the nest. So, she's got to crack down on illegal immigration. She's got to do it. And if she doesn't, she actually risks herself politically. Because when you build your brand around this, okay, about reducing immigration, and all of a sudden you're like, okay, 500,000, I'm going to let them in. You open the door for entry from somebody else. And in this case, that somebody else is a guy named the Generale Roberto Vanacci. So, Roberto Vanacci. That's definitely, definitely not Roberto Vanacci. But we'll find him for you. So, Roberto Vanacci is pretty outspoken. He's a former general. He definitely wants, you know, a more active presence in NATO. He wants people to step up to spending. And he most especially wants to get rid of all the migrants that are there deportation in Italy. So, this is her competition right now. Let's go to Roberto. Okay, so he's speaking Italian here. But I have a translation for you. So, this guy is a former Italian general. And he is now the leader of a new party called Futuro Nazionale, National Future. It only came about in February. And already it's pulling at 8%. So, brand new party. One recent poll, Vanacci. Forgive me. Yes, Vanacci. Actually passed. Forza Italia to become Italy's fourth largest political force. And his message is kind of making Maloney at times look almost moderate. Because he's like really, really, really anti-immigration. He wants to stop that. He wants to defend traditional Italian culture. He wants to push back against Brussels. He wants to stop sending weapons and money to Ukraine. Gosh, it sounds like Vidal, right? Restore relations. This is interesting. Interesting with Russia. And he's radically rethinking the direction of the EU. So, some of the. These positions are very controversial. His opponents accuse him of being like extraordinarily conservative, right? Extraordinarily. But think about what he represents. He's representing a really difficult challenge for Giorgio Maloney. Because guess what? He's finding the voters. And he's finding them on Maloney's right. Maloney has the brothers of Italy. It's still very. Very, very important. Biggest party actually in the country. And recent polling puts it somewhere around 26.5%. So, nobody should pretend that Giorgio Maloney is like gone. She hasn't disappeared. But, you know, if you look at these other numbers, I would just say that there was a U-Trend poll with 59% of Italians having a negative assessment of her government. 36% gave it a positive one. So, I mean, she's doing better than Fred. Friedrich Merz over there in Germany. But that's not really hard to do, right? And I'd say she's trying to course correct. This week, she made a statement saying that cross-border agreements in the EU, I told you the Schengen stuff, that's not going to be able to exist if you have all these migrants that continue pouring in, in, in, in, in. So, she's out there saying some good things. But it's going to be hard for her. I mean, I'm looking at it and I'm looking at how she wouldn't allow us to access our bases there in Sigonella. And I'm thinking about how she really has backed away from her relationship with Donald Trump. And it's. not what it used to be, obviously. I wonder if that's by design, because there's all this positive press on how, you know, she's going to lead Europe and she's the future. And she doesn't like Trump anymore. That's like, you know, it's like one in the same. Like part of the headline is she's the future and she hates Trump. So, you know, apparently you can't be the future unless you do hate Trump. You know, they're not talking anymore. They're just not talking. She's acknowledged that. And you contrast it with what just happened in Germany. You contrast it with Donald Trump's positive spin, right? Positive spin on the AFD and that 44 percent win that he is celebrating by saying big night, make Germany great again. And suddenly the woman Trump is celebrating in Europe, it's not Georgia Maloney anymore. I was wrong, though. Not everyone at risk. We'll develop it. Ninety nine percent of people over the age of 50 already have the virus that causes shingles and it could reactivate at any time. Sponsored by GSK. It's Elise Vidal. Elise Vidal, the queen, as they're calling her. Right. So this meme is kind of silly, but I'll tell you. But Vidal isn't in need of having to balance herself between Brussels and a populist base like Maloney is. She's challenging the system from outside it. So it's an easier road to hoe. Maloney is learning fast that, you know, what happens when the insurgent becomes the establishment, you're going to inherit Brussels. You're going to inherit NATO. You're going to inherit Ukraine. You're going to inherit labor shortages and compromises. And suddenly every promise you made when you were outside the system is becoming kind of difficult. I get it. But you can't abandon the people because the only reason you are there, Georgia Maloney, is because you promised the people that you would fix the borders. And by fixing the borders, you could help fix Italy. And that's not what's happened. OK, so Vidal, you know, she's she's got all the rope to run with. Right. She doesn't have to deal with any of the headaches just yet. Right. Right. Right. She can point it. She can point it at Mertz and say, you know, you guys all are awful at your jobs, which they are. OK, and she can say, you know, 44 percent of the voters in Saxony-Anhalt, they've responded. You know, so perhaps the bigger story isn't really Maloney versus Vidal. It's what's happening to Europe right now itself because voters have had it. And the people who once thought Georgia Maloney was the disruptive choice are learning that, you know, she may not be the disruptive one. They may have to go to Roberto, the general. They may have to go to Europe. They may have to go to Italy to occupy that space. And in Germany, they're learning that Elise Vidal is the one that's going to take them all the way. How does this end? I don't think it ends well. I don't think you're going to have I mean, you're either going to have to find yourself a United States of Europe or you're going to find yourself with all these countries breaking off. Whatever happens, I'm just going to say this, you know, the reality is this. Europe has to change. So is Georgia Maloney really being replaced? Right. By the. The populist leader there in Germany. We'll see. I mean, I do want to point out that she said something quite compelling. Maybe competition is good. She's realizing that, you know, there's some heat on her. Here she is. I want to show you in Italy talking about something that is very important. Here she is just last week. And she's saying, I'm going to read you the translation. In Italy, there is only one law, and that is Italian law. There is no part of this nation. There is no part of this nation where other rules apply. There is no suburb, there is no neighborhood or street where a girl should have to ask permission to study, to dress as she wants, or to love whom she wants. Women's freedom in Italy is not negotiable. Okay. You know what? That's the Georgia we all know and love. Right? She's in there somewhere. She's calling out Sharia law. Okay. So like Brandon Gill in Texas. You know, he's got a whole committee to stop Sharia law. This is Maloney's version of it. And good for her. But right now, right now, I'm sorry to the signora, but Freulein Weidel is coming for your crown. Watch out. Today's 9-11. Okay. Like, wow. 25 years. Time flies, right? Time really, really flies. I want you to watch this. Ground zero today. 25 years later. Family's reading the names of the deads. They're in the L's. And what does the mayor of New York City, Zohran Memdami, do along with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? They start laughing. While a man a few feet away had his face in his hands. I'm going to play the full clip in just a moment, but catch this. God. Bad stuff, right? Bad stuff. You know, today's the 25th anniversary of that infamous day. That horrible day. That tragic day that so many of us will never forget. You had live cameras. Cutting from those grieving families during the reading of the names to Memdami and AOC standing together laughing. All right. You know, keep in mind, Memdami shouldn't have been there to begin with. I'm just going to call it as it is. Families have been circulating a petition. You had 100,000 people sign it. Asking him not to come and he came anyway. Days earlier, he's out there signing. He's signing this 9-11 remembrance order. You saw this, right? He had the ceremonial pen. You see that? He has the ceremonial pen that he just passed, or he's going to pass, to this Ramzi Kassam. This is the lawyer who represented an Al-Qaeda op whose sister was married to a Pentagon hijacker. I mean, maybe they. We're just caught in a greeting? Is that all this was? Gosh, guys, time and place. Time and place. I'll tell you. 25 years ago. 25 years ago, I was not in that place, thank God, because if I had been, I may not have been with you today. Just months before 9-11, my husband and I, we had actually moved from our apartment, which was right next door to those towers. And I was a young reporter at Bloomberg Television, and he worked for a financial firm. In the American Express building, the building next door to the towers. And I used to walk through those towers on my way to work every morning. That was my commute, because I used to catch the subway nearby there, and I'd walk through the towers, because especially, like, on a chilly day, you could be inside. Fortunately, we were in San Francisco. I was in San Francisco that morning. It was around 5.50 in the morning, and I remember so specifically, because I used to do the business news on the local channel, and I had a hit time of 5.10 in the morning, and 5.50, boy, I hated that. Like, I called them the lost years, because I was always half asleep by, you know, 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and Friday night, forget it. Anyway, it was around 5.50 in the morning, California time, and I was on set for the CBS local station, and I was busy reading my business news, right? Something about Blockbuster. You know, Blockbuster. Remember Blockbuster, right? Yeah, that company. That's definitely no more. Anyway, the producer got in my ear. The producer says, hey, you know, we need to dump out of this story. We need to cut to CBS. WCBS. The local. The local channel in New York, and I'm like, what? Why? A plane has crashed. We didn't know much, right? And the next 48 hours were a total blur. I mean, look, you know, we lived nearby there. I had friends that were working in the building. We were trying to find all our friends. Couldn't get through to people on cell phones, and all I could think was, you know, I hope everybody's okay. And thank God we weren't there. One of my producers from Bloomberg Television, she had worked with me when I was in New York, and, you know, she lost her fiancé that day, 32 years old. My husband actually sent me a video of her this morning, and she. It was from 25 years ago. She'd been looking for her fiancé, and she was crying in this video. And I'll tell you, she never got over it. She never married. I don't think she'll ever get over it. I mean, that's what this day really is, right? For thousands of families. So when I see this, and let's watch the whole clip. When I see this. I'm really disheartened. This is a slap in the face. Bernice Latchman. Ganesh K. Ladkut. James Patrick Ladley. A slap in the face. Okay? Not just the laugh. The whole posture. This is a political duo there that treats 9-11 like a stage that they have to stand on. Rather than a wound that they need to honor. And it's bigger than just two people in that shot. Okay? It's bigger because there's something else going on. And you know it as well as I do in this country. Abdul El-Said running for Senate in Michigan after campaigning with that low-life Hassan Piker, the streamer who said America deserved 9-11. Piker's in the same orbit as those two that you just saw laughing there. VOC and Mamdami. This is a faction that's out there talking about American grief as if it's optional. And an American culture as though we're the problem. And that we did this. I mean, they come right in. out and say it, at least Hassan, their little buddy buddy does, I am very concerned. I am very concerned. You know this about the direction of our country. And on a day like today, 25 years later, we're not only remembering what was taken from us, who was taken from us. We are sitting here watching people who want the office, who want the ceremony, who want the cameras and all the hoopla and do not seem to feel any kind of obligation that comes with standing on that ground. I'll tell you guys, my producer never stopped looking for the man she loves. Families never stop saying those names. And you would think that the mayor, the mayor of this great city, the financial capital of the world could at least get through a ceremony without laughing. You know, okay, maybe it was just a greeting, whatever. I'm in place. I keep saying it, time and place. For however long you have to be there, just put on a solemn face out of respect. Because 25 years later, the least we owe to those who died is reverence. Ground zero is not a political stage. It is sacred ground. And when those names are being read, the only people who matter are the ones who never came home and the families who have spent 25 years learning how to live without them. We remember them. We honor them. And we will never forget. Thank you, as always, for being here. I know how important this country is to you. It's so important to me. And we must protect it. Have a good weekend, everyone. I'll see you back here live on Monday.