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Smerconish

Judge Halts Trump's Plan To Put USAID Workers On Leave; Sen. Chris Coons, (D-DE), Is Interviewed About Trump's Plan To Put USAID Workers On Leave, Elon Musk, National Debt; Trump Says He's Directed Musk To Review "Just About Everything"; Oscar Turmoil: "Emelia Perez" Star Sparks Backlash. History At Stake: Chiefs Chase Unprecedented Three-Peat. Aired 9-10a

Aired February 08, 2025 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: -- our podcast. Also remember to tune in for the conclusion of the CNN original series, "Kobe, The Making of a Legend." That's tonight at 9:00 on CNN.

Thank you for joining me today. Good luck to the Eagles. Good luck to the Chiefs. Drake, you're in my heart. It's going to be a rough game. See you next Saturday at 8:00.

[09:00:34]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: Sunny day sweeping the clouds away. I'm Michael Smerconish in Philadelphia. Yes, it's a childhood classic, but it turns out that Sesame Street is at the center of a much bigger conversation about how your tax dollars are spent and who decides what stays and what goes. Because right now, the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, is on the brink of being dismantled by the Trump administration.

Late Friday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration from putting at least 2,200 aid workers on leave just hours before those employees were set to either go on infinite leave or get fired. CNN had reported that the agency planned to keep fewer than 300 of USAID's 10,000 workers as essential personnel. Labor groups have sued President Trump to stop him, calling the slashing of programs people and funding an unconstitutional power grab that only Congress can authorize. But they warn that the impact is already deadly, halting malaria prevention, stopping HIV clinical trials, and leaving humanitarian workers jobless overnight.

Trump says he doesn't need Congress. He calls USAID a viper's nest of waste, fraud and leftist bureaucrats who hate America. Politically speaking, I think for Democrats, it's a losing issue. They're perceived as being on the side of the federal bureaucracy, profligate government spending and foreign aid. It's not enough to say that it represents only 1 percent of the budget when 1 percent translates into $25 billion a year.

And the sound bites, they're just political kryptonite. It's all reminiscent of the late William Proxmire, Democratic senator from Wisconsin. There's a reason why he was the longest serving senator from the state. Remember the Golden Fleece Awards, his annual tributes to government waste? They're the stuff of political legend.

One award, it went to a $50,000 study on the sex life of screw worms. You couldn't make it up. Another, in 1975, Proxmire gave a Golden Fleece Award to the Federal Aviation administration for spending $57,800. That's 289,209, inflation adjusted, to study the measurements of 432 airline stewardesses, including the distance from knee to knee while sitting and measuring the length of the buttocks. Well, USAID, politically speaking, is all that and more.

Here are some examples from the White House website under the heading, at USAID, waste, fraud and abuse they run deep, 1.5 million to promote LGBTQ inclusion in Serbia. $70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland, 2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, 32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.

But is it all so black and white? Consider Bert and Ernie. Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa, thinks she found one example of that so called waste in Sesame Street. She's slamming USAID for funding a $20 million Sesame Street program in Iraq, saying taxpayers shouldn't be footing the bill for a children's show half a world away. But is that a fair characterization, or is this actually a prudent use of foreign aid?

Ahlan Simsim, as it's called, isn't just a T.V. show. It's the largest early childhood intervention in humanitarian response history. Supported by not just USAID but also the MacArthur Foundation and Lego, it teaches literacy, inclusion and critical health lessons to children in places torn apart by war. The show has made quite an impact since its inception. Global Compact on Refugees reports that as of October of 2023, the program has reached over 2.47 million children through direct services and an additional 27 million through its television show.

Across the Middle East and North Africa. Its Wash Up program, a collaboration between Sesame Workshop and Work Vision, helps prevent deadly waterborne diseases there, a leading cause of death among kids under five. A report from UVA shows the program has been implemented in 15 countries, directly engaging over 200,000 children. Evaluations indicate substantial improvements in participant's knowledge and behaviors related to water, sanitation and hygiene.

[09:05:00]

There's a name for this type of initiative. They call it soft power. The term soft power was coined by Joseph S. Nye Jr. He's a former Pentagon official, former dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He served in President Bill Clinton's administration.

He described how countries can use culture, foreign aid and influence instead of force to achieve their goals.

Hard power, the kind President Trump has preferred, is military force. Its sanctions, its strong arm tactics. Soft power, that's Hollywood movies, blue jeans, and yes, Sesame Street, all intended, as Peter Baker of the "New York Times" describes, "fuel America's popularity around the world and thus its influence. The United States could sometimes get what it wanted, theory went, because other countries aspired to be like the United States or be its friend."

And history shows that it's often more effective long term. Nye himself said, "In the short term, hard power usually trumps soft power, but the long run effects might be the opposite." Or as a caller to my Sirius XM radio program said yesterday, who would you rather teach, Iraqi kids, Big Bird or Al-Qaeda? Disease prevention helps us all, education that fights extremism.

It brings me today's poll question at smerconish.com. Can't wait to see how you'll vote on this. Are you comfortable with your tax dollars funding USAID soft power initiatives such as Sesame Street in Iraq? The controversy surrounding USAID is just one of a laundry list of things that have happened this week. Joining me now to speak about them is Democratic senator from Delaware, Chris Coons.

Senator, welcome back. Nice to see you. Is funding Sesame Street --

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Great to see you.

SMERCONISH: -- a judicious use of soft power?

COONS: Well, Michael, the way you put it is the way I hope folks considering your poll today will think about it. This isn't just funding a kid show for children, millions of children in countries like Iraq. It's a show that helps teach values, helps teach public health, helps prevent kids from dying from dysentery and disease, and helps push values like collaboration, peacefulness, cooperation in a society where the alternative is Isis, extremism and terrorism. And to your point, it's pennies on the dollar. The U.S. Department of Defense has an annual budget of about $850 billion.

USAID was spending about $30 billion. It is a small proportion of our total federal spending. And as Joe Nye would often say, it's not just soft power, it's smart power.

Let me leave you with one other quote, Michael, if I could, Jim Mattis, who is a four star Marine Corps general and Trump Secretary of Defense in his first term in a hearing back then said, if you slash development and aid spending, then I'm going to need more bullets for our troops.

SMERCONISH: So I think you make salient points. It took me five minutes though, in my opening commentary to make the case.

COONS: Yes.

SMERCONISH: I also said, politically speaking, it's a losing issue for Democrats because in a sound bite driven world, it's so easy to deride how much were spending on an LBGTQ opera in Bogota. How do you respond to that? How do you deal with this?

COONS: Well, first, this is part of the challenge of governing in the short attention span era, where a brief tweet from Elon Musk or Donald Trump often trumps a two minute or a three minute explanation. The numbers on those kryptonite examples you gave were 50,000 here, 80,000 there. And the numbers that matter are in the millions. President George Bush launched a program in Africa called PEPFAR. It has saved 20 million human lives and it's helped stabilize countries all over the continent.

And yes, it's true, many of them have become our close allies and friends as a result. China today is on the march, is expansionist and is investing in partnerships and friendships around the world. They're thrilled that we're abandoning the field. And Russia and China are already celebrating the death of USAID, reaching out to countries we've abandoned and offering to take up programs that we've set aside. That'll have an impact for our security.

The other thing I'll mention briefly, Michael, is public health. Right now there's an Ebola pandemic outbreak in Kampala, Uganda, and a Marburg outbreak in Tanzania. These are deadly potentially pandemic diseases. It is much cheaper for us to invest in nurses and clinics and healthcare to contain those pandemics in Africa than to risk someone getting on an airplane coming here and spreading it in the United States, where we'll spend billions responding to just a few cases. I think we are safer and stronger when we push back on terrorism and Isis, push back on China and Russia, push back on pandemics around the world through the soft power outreach of nonprofit partners to USAID like World Vision, Save the Children and Care.

[09:10:25]

SMERCONISH: You referenced Elon Musk. Let's go there next. So half the country wants to see a reduction of the size of government. We tried it the conventional way. Fifteen years ago it was called Simpson Bowles. It never even got to a vote in the Congress. So what do you say to the people who, they might be unsettled about this approach, but they like the work being done?

COONS: Everyone likes the idea of cutting the federal bureaucracy and cutting federal spending until it impacts them. And when Elon Musk said he's going to chainsaw the federal government and take $2 trillion out of spending, I'm dying to see where he's going to cut spending that won't impact average Americans. USAID, as you just said, Michael was an easy target because it mostly impacts our safety and security through things done overseas. But he's now going after the Department of Education, Veterans Administration, the Department of Defense, Social Security. He and his DOGE boys, the young men from the Department of Government Efficiency, which is neither a department nor an elected part of our overall administration, they've burrowed into massive federal databases that contain the tax returns and the personal information of millions and millions of Americans.

Once payments that go to Americans like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security start getting cut off, once grants that go to police departments, fire departments, childcares, daycares, and senior centers start getting cut off and frozen, Americans are going to notice and they'll be upset. SMERCONISH: Right. But I guess my point is something needs to be done. Michael Peterson at the Peterson Foundation, the folks who are concerned, I think appropriately so about debt and the size of our debt, he told me in an interview last year that by 2050, half of our revenue is going to go to debt service. I mean, we're facing a catastrophic situation. It's not a sexy issue.

It doesn't seem to get the American people fired up. But take our last 30 seconds and speak to the national debt.

COONS: So Lindsey Graham, senator from South Carolina, last night released his plan to spend $500 billion more. We have to have offsets and we have to have a path towards balance. It doesn't involve just spending more. It also involves bringing in more revenue and spending less. That's a challenge for all of us.

But the way to do it is not with a chainsaw. It's through the regular process of governance.

SMERCONISH: Senator Coons, thanks. Nice to have you here.

COONS: Thank you, Michael. Go Birds.

SMERCONISH: Go Birds. I've got my green tie on.

What are your thoughts? Hit me up on social media. I'll read some throughout the course of the program. What do we have?

From the world of YouTube? Soft power is important because it enables nations to influence global affairs, build alliances, and promote stability through attraction and cooperation rather than coercion or force.

I would say to Fabrizio and others, I'm not embracing every instance that I'm reading about relative to USAID, but rather, as I said to Senator Coons, you know, when you look -- I'll give you an example. The Proxmire reference that I made.

Do we have the ability, Brian (ph), to put the full screen up from my opening commentary where Senator Proxmire is talking about the stewardesses and measuring of the buttocks?

I mean, it's a great -- if you do put it up on the screen so I can just draw attention to it. It's a great example of you hear something like, what? They spent all that money, you know, more than $200,000 in current dollars to take measurements of flight attendants then known as stewardesses. And it's a great sound bite. And I can imagine people saying, like, that's horrible.

But then I think about it and I say, I haven't looked at -- yes, there it is. Proxmire gave a Golden Fleece Award to the Federal Aviation administration for spending 57,800 to study measurements of 432 airline stewardesses, including the distance from knee to knee while sitting and measuring the length of the buttocks. And you say, my God, that's what our tax dollars are going to? I don't know the justification, but I've been thinking about it since I read the commentary to you 10 minutes ago, they probably needed design information for seating requirements for the cabin crew. And in order to -- this is just speculation, but I'll Google it.

You can Google it. But in order to determine, OK, how big should the seats be, they probably had to take measurements of the people who would occupy the seats. A great example, I think, of how this is so effective for President Trump to single out these instances, because people just don't have the time nor inclination to find out, well, wait a minute, why did we really spend that money? And what was the soft power objective?

[09:15:18]

It's a great poll question. Go to my website at smerconish.com. Here it is. Are you comfortable? Are you comfortable with your tax dollars funding USAID soft power initiatives such as Sesame Street in Iraq?

Up ahead, the stage was set for a perfect Hollywood ending until old tweets resurfaced. And now the biggest Oscar frontrunner is in free fall. But should her views even matter when it comes to an award for acting? And later, the Kansas City Chiefs are on the verge of history. But how do they get past the Philadelphia Eagles will be live in New Orleans with ESPN Sal Paolantonio.

And don't forget to sign up for my newsletter at smerconish.com. You'll get my daily report and editorial cartoons from the likes of Scott Stantis.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:21]

SMERCONISH: The stage was set for a perfect Hollywood ending, a groundbreaking moment in cinema history. "Emilia Perez," a musical thriller, I say west side story meets narcos. It had the potential to deliver a powerful statement. The film about a notorious cartel leader who undergoes gender transition with the help of an attorney. It earned 13 Oscar nominations, just one shy of the all-time record. And at the heart of it is Karla Sofia Gascon, the first openly trans actress ever nominated for an Academy Award for best actress.

Right now, Donald Trump is working to ban trans individuals from serving in the military, and he just ended trans female participation in sports. Gascon's nomination seemed poised to be a cultural flashpoint, a defiant rebuke to the political climate. But in the span of a few days, that narrative collapsed. Gascon's old tweets resurfaced posts that attacked Muslims, called George Floyd a drug addicted con artist and mocked the Academy's diversity efforts with remarks like I didn't know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or 8-M. Netflix quickly distanced itself, pulling Gascon from promotional campaigns and halting her planned appearances at major award events.

And now the question looms. Can this woman even win? And should she?

Well, let's look at a different venue. Remember Kansas City kicker Harrison Butker's controversial commencement speech last spring? Butker made comments interpreted by many as homophobic and sexist, including calling Pride Month a deadly sin and saying that a woman's accomplishments in the home are more valuable than any academic professional goals among other things. Butker even doubled down on his comments, but he was never benched. He's going to the super bowl tomorrow.

We don't know how Karla Sofia Gascon's Oscars fate will end if she weren't trans and this were just a case of somebody being penalized or canceled for controversial speech. She could probably count on conservatives rushing to her defense, maybe even a seat in the administration. But they're silent, just like the progressives who once celebrated her nomination. And that leaves only me, unwilling to defend her views but willing to say they should not impact the judgment of her acting performance.

Joining me now to talk about it, Sharon Waxman, founder and editor in chief of The Wrap. Sharon, thank you for being here. Listen, I know more about political campaigns than Oscar campaigns, but this seems to have the hallmarks of a negative ad or negative campaigning having been used against her. How did it all come to light and why now?

SHARON WAXMAN, FOUNDER & EDITOR-IN CHIEF, THE WRAP: Well, you know, it depends on what you believe, but the official narrative is that a lone freelance journalist just started looking at Karla Sofia's social media history about a week and a half ago. I mean, it's all has devolved so fast, basically a week ago Wednesday. And it seems to be the case that nobody had checked her social media history before. All of these controversial opinions were visible and quite out there. And you couldn't really argue with them once they were screenshot and then they just ripped across social media.

But remember that they had been in Spanish, so people weren't maybe paying attention to them and they didn't have very much engagement at the time. But that's how they came to light.

SMERCONISH: When do you think the vetting should have taken place or might take place in the future?

WAXMAN: Well, I think in the future people are going to be vetted just as soon as a movie gets cast, if it's a studio distributor who's doing -- who's making the movie, or in the case of a movie like "Emilia Perez," as the movie is being is -- has been bought for distribution. It was bought after the Cannes Film Festival. But certainly, Karla Sofia Gascon was a completely unknown person in basically, you could say internationally and certainly in the United States. And as the award season has gotten traction, she's become very prominent and gotten awards and gotten recognition and gotten interviews. And she's been definitely out there with some of her views just in the sense of being very verbose.

[09:25:00]

And you know, Netflix would sort of whisper behind the scenes. She isn't really media trained, but this is something quite different. These very obviously racist tweets saying things like Muslims should be banned from Europe or Hitler, you know, did what he had to do things that are not -- that are offensive to most people.

SMERCONISH: Right. But should that impact whether she wins the award based on her performance in the movie? It occurs to me, and you know far more than I about the process. But if it's a ballot that's secret, maybe despite all the furor about this, people will cast their ballot for her and she could end up winning regardless. Or is that, you know, a farcical thought?

WAXMAN: Well, based on what would you say that. If you have a problem with her point of view on banning all Muslims from Europe, which is what she said more than once, then you probably are not going to vote for her whether or not you love the movie. So I think that those of us who watch closely -- watch this race closely and have covered Oscar campaigns for years, which are not very different from political campaigns by the way, since you mentioned it, know that she has no shot at winning Best Actress. And she wasn't --

SMERCONISH: OK. So --

WAXMAN: -- the front runner necessarily before anyway.

SMERCONISH: Right. By the way, by the way, I watched the movie. I'm glad that I watched the movie. I enjoyed the movie. It was really different.

Not what I expected. I don't think it's worthy of being -- of winning the awards. But I'm thrilled that I watched it. But I'm hung up on this aspect and I'll try it from this angle, tomorrow, I'm rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles. Saquon Barkley is their running back.

He's going to set a record tomorrow. He seems like a real solid citizen and as far from controversy as you can imagine. But it occurs to me that if Saquon Barkley tonight were to say something via Twitter that was appalling, but went out tomorrow and set a rushing record in the Super Bowl, I think he'd be recognized as the MVP and people wouldn't say, well, he ran for 300 yards, but then again, he sent out that offensive tweet. So why should it impact the decision when we evaluate her acting?

WAXMAN: I'm not going to tell you whether it should or it shouldn't. I'm telling you what I think is going to happen.

SMERCONISH: It will.

WAXMAN: And I don't really think this is --

SMERCONISH: Yes.

WAXMAN: -- a high risk thing. The real question is -- and also Netflix has made a clear decision not to back her, not to support her, and she's not coming to even the awards ceremonies. So there is a degree of pulling back and cutting ties with her as an actress because when these tweets emerged, she did not work with her team, she did not work with the studio. She just went on CNN on Espanol, for example, Rogue, and gave her own apology tour without thinking about how she might impact other people in this -- on this project that she worked on. And there's 13 nominees.

She's only one of them. So, she finally said publicly she will withdraw from public appearances. And after that appearance, by the way, on CNN, Netflix issued a public statement. They didn't cut ties with her right away. I think there was really an attempt to see how do we deal with this?

What is the right thing to do? And she really seemed to be kind of in, publicly in crisis, trying to understand why all of a sudden there was a scrutiny coming and judgment on her for things that she had said many, many years before. So, --

SMERCONISH: So really --

WAXMAN: -- it was only after she -- only after a certain point where she just kept going on television and kept giving interviews that Netflix decided, OK, no, she's not somebody that we can work with here. But the real question is, does it impact "Emelia Perez's" ability to get Best Picture? Does it impact Zoe Saldana's --

SMERCONISH: Right.

WAXMAN: -- ability to win Best Supporting Actress? So does it kind of taint the rest of the movie?

SMERCONISH: Right. And I see a longer term question where, again, I'm defending none of her speech, but it raises the longer term question of in the casting decision, do you say, well, Sharon Waxman, she'd be great for this role. But then again, when she was in college, she sent out this social media, we can't have her.

I have to run. But thank you very much. I appreciate your being here.

WAXMAN: Thanks.

SMERCONISH: Let's see what you're saying via social media. I recognize probably not too many people have seen it, but it's gotten so much attention. It's got all the elements, meaning this controversy.

Her tweets are utterly repulsive. OK, hello, Daylin Leach. But the Best Actress Oscar should go to a woman who gave the best performance that year. Scrutinizing the politics and personal lives of our artists will force us to vet every nominee. That's exactly what I'm saying.

And, Daylin, I know that you -- I happen to know Daylin Leach, former state senator and an aficionado. This is going to sound so wacky of Steely Dan. And I remember when Daylin Leach explained to me what the lyrics of Aja, love that album, what they meant. Put on the hardware tonight, right?

It would be like me saying, damn, I love that album. Whoa. That political message. We better not recognize the talent of Steely Dan. I'm sure that just sounded insane to many of you.

Still to come, your social media reaction to my commentary. And later, a three peat has never happened in the Super Bowl era. So, do the Kansas City Chiefs have a shot, or will the Philadelphia Eagles shut them down? Sal Paolantonio is coming to us.

I want to remind you, go to my Web site at Smerconish.com, vote on today's poll question. Are you comfortable with your tax dollars funding USAID soft power initiatives such as Sesame Street in Iraq?

Subscribe to the newsletter when you're there. Get exclusive editorial cartoons. Check out what Rob Rogers drew for us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:35:49]

SMERCONISH: You can find me on all the usual social media platforms. Love seeing your reaction in real time to the program.

Spend a little money to influence the kids to think more like a free world, rather than terrorists.

Well, I mean, this gets to the point of there being arguments in support of soft power, right? I can't justify all the examples that the White House is citing, and I decided what I would do today is just take a deep dive on one of them.

Joni Ernst has made a big issue about Sesame Street and the money that's been spent in Iraq. But when you think about it, study the organization and evaluate whether we've gotten a bang for the buck, it's a much closer call than discounting it as -- can you imagine, we're spending 30 grand for a trans comic book in Peru?

What else came in? More social media reaction to today's program.

All the corruption is being uncovered by the hour, and all I hear on CNN is whining.

I'm not whining, Shell. I'm not whining at all. Let me be very clear. I want this type of investigation undertaken. I, of course, have concerns about the approach that Musk is making with a lack of oversight apart from the president himself. But you're not hearing any whining.

Distance me from the whiners. I want to see what -- I drive the man's car. I'm fascinated by the ability to land that rocket. If he can come up with a way to do what all the politicians have said for my entire life, they would do but never did, I'm all for it.

I'm just reminding everybody as well that -- and I said this to Senator Coons. Like, we tried it the conventional way. Fifteen years ago, it was called Simpson-Bowles. And in the end, they couldn't even get enough votes out of the commission to get it before the Congress.

I spoke to Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky yesterday. She was on the panel, and we were reliving what happened there. So, somewhere in between, as usual, lies the truth, right?

Like maybe a little less bull in a China shop than the approach that's being utilized. But I'm not one of those who says, you know, get him out. We don't want Musk involved in any of this.

No, I've always wanted people with his brilliance in government, not out of government. See, now you can send me hate emails for a whole different reason. Quickly, one more. I think I've got time that I can squeeze in a third if we have it.

Michael, a better question you should be asking is, why is the U.S. dismantling aid to vulnerable nations and so allow China and other communist influencers to enter and fill the gap? Doesn't that concern you?

Garth, it does concern me. That's exactly the conversation that I had with Senator Coons. I'm trying to point out the nuance in all of this, OK? Because too often what you're being told by politicians and the media, it is all black and white, but these are all worthwhile initiatives and we should spend the money because they all prove valuable. I don't think that's true.

Or that they're all a waste of resources. And I don't think that's true either. I'd like to be the person with the pen in the hand who gets to make a decision as to where this money all goes.

All right. Saquon Barkley is about to wrap up an unbelievable season with a trip to the Super Bowl. Will his potential record-breaking run end with him holding the Lombardi Trophy?

Please make sure that you're voting on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. Are you comfortable with your tax dollars funding USAID soft power initiatives such as, yes, Sesame Street in Iraq?

Make sure you're signing up for my free daily newsletter, when you're voting on the poll question. You're going to get to see the great work of editorial cartoonists like Jack Ohman.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:43:42]

SMERCONISH: History is on the line for Super Bowl LIX. The Kansas City Chiefs is playing to become the first team ever to win three straight Super Bowls. And working to stop that three-peat in its tracks, the Philadelphia Eagles with running back Saquon Barkley, who's on pace to achieve a major milestone. He's just 30 yards away from becoming the NFLs all-time single season rushing leader that includes the playoffs.

On the other side, Chiefs' quarterback Patrick Mahomes, in his fifth Super Bowl, looking to add to his very full trophy case. He already has three Super Bowl MVP awards, two regular season MVP awards, and has been named to the Pro Bowl six times and then named All Pro three times, and he's not even 30.

And in the stands, both President Donald Trump and former first lady Jill Biden in attendance. It'll make Trump the first sitting U.S. president to attend a Super Bowl. All this adding another layer of intrigue to an already historic matchup. Here to cover it all for us is ESPN national correspondent Sal Paolantonio, author of "Philly Special: The Inside Story of How the Philadelphia Eagles Won Their First Super Bowl Championship." Sal, great to see you. You've been with the birds since week one in Brazil. You have covered 30 Super Bowls. Why is this one historically significant?

SAL PAOLANTONIO, ESPN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Michael, first of all, thank you for having me on the program.

[09:45:02]

But when you think about it, achieving the three-peat for the Kansas City Chiefs is a monumental feat. And I think it will achieve the greatest dynasty ever in the National Football League.

Move over Green Bay Packers, Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco, Dallas, even Belichick and Brady and New England. Why? We've never seen three things right now in the NFL that we're seeing.

Number one, unprecedented upheaval because there's so much money in the National Football League. Number two, very competitive. You have the highest number of games decided by one score or less. Super competitive league right now.

And then number three, the 17-game schedule is such a grind. You know Mick Jagger called the Beatles the four headed monster. I call the Kansas City Chiefs the four headed monster. You got Reid, you got Spagnuolo, Mahomes, Kelce. If you're looking for the fifth Beatle, it's Chris Jones.

These guys are tough to beat. And they have -- if they win that game on Sunday, Super Bowl LIX, they'll be the greatest dynasty, I believe, in the history of the NFL, Michael.

SMERCONISH: OK, notwithstanding what you've said, are the Chiefs the villain? I saw a funny headline in "The Wall Street Journal" this week saying that some are seeking to cast the Chiefs as the villain, but they don't play that role very well. Is there a villain in this battle?

PAOLANTONIO: I don't think that the Chiefs are the villain. I don't see them that way at all.

I think you look at this team, they play the right way. They're always evolving. They're always changing what they do offensively and defensively. They're very competitive.

There is that notion out there that people want to knock them off. I like to see greatness, Michael. I like to see greatness.

SMERCONISH: I have some skin in this game, and I don't understand why the odds of Saquon Barkley being MVP are so much less than the odds for Patrick Mahomes. Do you care to comment?

PAOLANTONIO: Well, first of all, always the quarterback is going to be MVP over other players. That's just historically the way it is. Look at Eli Manning was MVP for the New York Giants when they beat the Patriots. Even though you could say the defense of Steve Spagnuolo was really the MVP against Tom Brady.

So, you always give the edge to the quarterback. But if there's anybody that is going to do it, it is Saquon Barkley. And remember he's running behind the greatest offensive line in the National Football League. You got three pro bowlers, Landon Dickerson, Cam Jurgens and, of course, the future hall of famer Lane Johnson.

You could have a fourth in left tackle Jordan Mailata. And I'm not even mentioning the big-ticket number 77 Mekhi Becton, highway 77 at right guard. Together they make up the heaviest offensive line in the NFL, 1,688 pounds of unbelievable pure -- and you know, Michael, I'll give you a number off of that.

So, the Eagles this year as an offense their rushing attack gained 2,000 or more yards before first contact, before a defender laid a glove on them. That's how good that O line is. And that means Saquon -- I realize Kansas City is a good run defense. They've got 18 straight playoff games without giving up a 100-yard rusher. They're going to give up 100 yards or more to Saquon Barkley in Super Bowl LIX. I guarantee it, Michael.

SMERCONISH: Sal Paolantonio, great to have you. Love your commentary and all those books, including "How Football Explains America." Have fun tomorrow.

PAOLANTONIO: Thank you, Michael.

SMERCONISH: Checking in on some of your social media comments. What do we have?

Here's a prop bet, who will be shown more on camera, Taylor or Trump?

I'll take it. I think, Taylor. And it's not that I'm playing favorites, it's just that I'm thinking of the programing and how they're going to do it. Yes, I would think it's going to be close, but I'm going to give her the slight edge.

Hey, by the way, I love that he's going, and I love what Mahomes and Kelce said, just in terms of like elevating the whole conversation. He's the president of the United States. And it will be great to have him in the house. I'm kind of shocked that there hasn't been one before him.

You still have time to vote on today's poll question. Go to Smerconish.com and tell me, are you comfortable with your tax dollars funding USAID soft power initiatives such as, yes, Sesame Street in Iraq?

When you're there, sign up for the newsletter. Steve Breen is a great illustrator. Check out what he drew for us speaking of the Super Bowl.

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[09:54:03]

SMERCONISH: OK. So, there's the voting, so far, at Smerconish.com. Wow. Whoa, 40,841 already. And I personalized it. I'm saying, are you -- are you, mister or miss taxpayer USA, comfortable with your tax dollars going to Sesame Street in Iraq? And 72 percent say, yes.

Now, does that make it a better political issue than I said at the outset of the program? No, because I took five minutes to explain exactly what is that program in Iraq for Sesame Street, teaching kids to wash their hands and not hate America.

And as I said to Chris Coons, you know, it's a soundbite world in which we're living far easier to be dismissive and say, can you imagine they're spending, you know, all this money on, fill in the blank, EV cars in Vietnam?

Here's some of your social media reaction. If you haven't voted, we'll leave it open. You can keep voting.

No way the Chiefs can stop Barkley. Fly Eagles fly.

Yes, I mean, I'm shocked, Derek, that -- you know I'm a homer.

[09:55:02]

OK, I've got my green tie. I've got green -- can you see them? I've got my green cords on today. I can't even get them in camera view. Can you see that they're green? You did? OK.

So, I'm a total homer on this, but I can't believe that that the Eagles are getting a point. I don't think they're going to need the point. I don't think they're going to need the point.

One more if I've got time for it. And I think that I do.

After we get our budget under control, we can help other countries.

Yes, I understand. And, Linda, that's where I'm coming from in terms of the nuance of all of this. I'm someone who is alarmed by the size of the debt. The debt is just not a sexy issue because it seems so esoteric until the people at the Peterson Foundation say, well, let me explain it to you this way. By 2050, half of federal revenue is going to be devoted to paying interest on the debt. And then you say, oh, OK.

Something is going to fall by the wayside. If all of a sudden half of what we've got has to be to satisfy -- we're not going to have enough money for those entitlement programs and national defense. So, something's got to get done. That's why I'm more open minded than many about what Musk is up to.

See you. Enjoy the game. Go birds.

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