Ben Hall On His Next Chapter Of Life
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It's Live in the Bream with the host of Fox News Sunday, Shannon Bream. Welcoming back to Live in the Bream this week, one of my all-time favorite guests and people you love and know him as well, our correspondent and best-selling author and survivor, Benjamin Hall. Ben, great to have you back with us. What a pleasure to be back, Shannon. And by the way, your book saved. I've got my hard copy in front of me because it was such a compelling read. We've talked about this because it talks about

all of your many experiences and covering wars and conflicts and the dangerous things that you've done in your lifetime. But including the fateful events of two years ago, I understand it's out in paperback now. Yep. It just came out on paperback. So, I mean, you will not be able to put it down. But here we are two years later. And the most important thing people want to know is how you are doing.

Well, it's funny because I've thought about it a lot this week. This week, which was the day of the two-year anniversary, is what many people who have had injuries like I have had, many veterans, call their alive day. And that is the day where you think back to what has happened. And people go in two different directions. Some people find their alive day to be very difficult. It reminds them of the pain and the horror and the tragedy that happened. But for the other half, and I'm very lucky to be among them,

It is a really optimistic day. It is a day where I just remind myself how lucky I am, how I mustn't waste a second of my life, that I'm so fortunate to be here, be surrounded by my family and working in a great place with so many opportunities that yesterday, and I was wondering what it would feel like. I woke up in the morning with frankly a spring in my step and I just realized that we have a wonderful world we live in, surrounded by more good than

And I see that recovery has finished and it is about the next chapter and moving on.

Well, and it's great to have you back in the field and doing what you're so great at and what we know you love. What kinds of stories are you enjoying telling and hoping to tell moving forward? Well, for the first time, I was back on the ground. I was in Israel for a week. I was in Ukraine in November for a day. We interviewed Zelensky, and that was a real moment for me. It was a time when I decided I was going back into the field. I wanted to do the job I love. I think journalism is so important.

And I took the same train into Ukraine that I had taken out two years ago. That brutal 10-hour train ride where I was barely alive with no pain meds.

And I took that same train ride back in overnight. And I sat there and I lay there in exactly the same position that I came out on. And I thought about it all. And for me, the clear message was I am getting back to journalism, that nothing will stop journalism, that you may throw everything at us. I might be injured, but you won't silence us. And so

All along, I've wanted to get back to work. I wanted to be a journalist again. And that was the beginning of it. It was that one day back in Ukraine interviewing Zelensky. And then about a month ago, I was in Israel. And that was a story just like it would have been before the injuries. I was there for a week. We were doing interviews. I was doing lives. We filmed a Fox Nation special. And that was the moment I realized there's nothing stopping me. I can go and tell any stories. And I am back.

brought back to covering conflict, strangely. And I thought for a while maybe I wanted to cover other stories, but that's what I've done my whole life. It is an area which I find more interesting now than I did before. I think that

What I now know about conflict is that it's the stories that we were told of horror and pain and loss, but it's also the stories of resilience and hope and bravery. And so I went back to Israel and I just found it to be a more, frankly, almost more rewarding experience because I really understood what so many people who are caught up in conflict go through.

Yeah. I mean, you have a gift and a passion for it, and we are all the beneficiaries of that because you're back out there and telling these stories again. What struck you about Israel? I mean, we're several months into this now.

There appear to be some fractures here stateside, although the White House says it unequivocally supports Israel. There are calls for conditions on aid or conditions on weapons flowing there and real critiques of the current prime minister. Where do you make of where that conflict stands at this moment? I'd say the first thing that I come back to are the hostages. You know, this began because of that brutal terror attack on October 7th, where innocent women, children, men were taken.

And if those are my family members, I would want my government to do whatever it could to get them back. And so I understand that I spoke to Israelis who say that's the one key thing here. We need to get those people back. But I also understand the loss of civilian life in Gaza as well. And it's just such a very hard, difficult balance to weigh up. I understand, as Benjamin Netanyahu says, that for them, the red line must be getting rid of Hamas. So October 7th never happens again.

And they say the only way to do that is to go in and now go into Rafah in the south and get rid of the last quarter of Hamas fighters that they say are down there. So it is a really difficult scenario, as are all conflicts. And I think that Israel has thought that the U.S. would be behind them a little bit more. They are – I've spoken to some of the last few days. They are frankly a little bit surprised to see the way in which –

Both the Biden administration as well as Chuck Schumer calling for elections to be happened. They are really surprised to see this turn against them. And Hamas knows that.

Hamas knows that the longer this goes on, the more the world turns against Israel. And that's why Hamas is drawing it out at the moment. We were hoping to have a hostage release in the last few weeks. That has not happened. There's one sticking point, which is that Hamas, you know, Israel will agree to release hundreds if not thousands of prisoners. They've done so in the past, but they will not agree to bring back all of their forces and totally pull out of Gaza. And that's the sticking point right now. Israel is saying we need to get rid of Hamas.

Yeah. And Amos is saying we want a ceasefire, permanent, not temporary. And so the two sides clearly very far apart on that. And as you talk about their real lives hanging in the balance, and I can't imagine the grief that

The not knowing the worry about these family members who await their loved ones, hopefully coming home. I want to pivot to another region where you're obviously very familiar and we are now two years plus into the conflict in Ukraine. And, you know, we've got new NATO members, which is one of the problems that Putin said he had. He didn't want the expansion of NATO and he was worried about that. Well, we've got new members now.

And the world has increasingly turned against Putin, although he's got enough allies to keep him going with places to sell his energy and ways to survive despite the multiple rounds of international sanctions, U.S. sanctions against him. Do you feel like we all so many of us did in the beginning that he thought routing Kiev would be a matter of days, maybe weeks?

Do you think he ever calculated the enormous loss and the enormous resistance that he would still be at this two years in? No, but I think he adapted quite quickly. And I think the original plan, and we were inside Kiev at the time, was to surround the city, capture it, and this to be over in just a few days. That didn't happen. And then the Ukraine went on the counteroffensive. They managed to push back the Russian army. And at one point, it did feel as if Russia was perhaps going to lose this.

But very quickly, Putin changed his idea. It was not going to happen quickly. And he turned his economy, he turned his military, and he began planning for a long war of many years. And that is what he set it up for. Their economy right now is really geared to become a military economy. And that's not going to change anytime soon. So

he's suddenly on the offensive again. Suddenly, in the last six months, the aid has not arrived and the military and the weapons have not arrived from the West. And there's a good chance at the moment that Russia will continue taking territory. So their economy is doing well. As you say, they're able to continue selling their oil. And it does strike my mind that there are a group of countries who are working closely together. And we used to talk about the axis of evil. But when you have

Iran and you have even Venezuela perhaps you have Russia

North Korea, they're all exchanging weapons. And then you have countries like Turkey, for example, who are allowing Russia to get past some of its sanctions. And a lot of the chips it needs are coming through Turkey. So it has a network of countries that can rely on. And that's why the country and the economy is not diminishing in the way that the Biden administration hoped it would. So we're entering a very important moment at the moment. And frankly, I think that Putin believes that he is

winning at the moment. And as you and I are talking, we're getting ready to go into elections in Russia. I don't think many of us have a doubt to the primary outcomes there. Do we have any way to get a real sense of how the Russian people are

inside the country, how they are feeling about Putin, about this war, about the cost to them. I mean, hundreds of thousands of lives injured and lost on the Russian side as well. There are. And Russia will be able to continue getting more soldiers if it needs soldiers. And we think that they may have to call up another 100 or 200,000. And if you go to Siberia or to the east of the country, they can continue to do that for a

The elections, we know which way the elections will go. Putin will be elected with almost total percent. But what is surprising, and I would like to say that Russia was a country where most people stood up against Putin and they realized that if they knew he was a bad leader. But many of the stats we see show that many of the Russians think that if Putin were to fall, the country would fall as well. The economy would plummet. You have to bear in mind that Russian state media has –

been for decades since he came to power in 2000 has been pumping out stories just praising him and talking about the evil of the West and Ukraine. And I think that the support in Russia for Putin is higher than we might imagine. If you look at urban centers like Moscow or St. Petersburg, they're people a little bit more global. Some of them have far more access to VPNs and getting online. And there, perhaps, it is less. But once you go into the countryside,

you start to see a decent support for Putin. So it's not entirely the case that everyone can't stand being under Putin. He does have support. And frankly, the military operations inside Ukraine also have some support because many of them believe that they are a threat from the West and threat from Ukraine. So this has got to be a real effort, I think, by the CIA and other attempts to really try and get into the minds of the Russians and show them support.

What could happen if Putin wasn't around? We'll have more live in the Bream in a moment. The Will Cain Show is now dropping five episodes a week. Join Fox and Friends weekend host Will Cain as he tackles the latest headlines from his unique perspective, along with thought provoking interviews with leading figures and live calls from viewers and listeners. Listen wherever you download your favorite podcasts. Can you give us a sense as lawmakers are once again debating over more aid to Ukraine and

We've seen that it's been pretty steady among the American public. They want to help the people of Ukraine. They want to support Ukraine. And yet those numbers are flagging a bit. We see as this drags on and people want some sort of finish line from the administration, at least as far as the U.S. involvement and where our obligation begins and ends.

So they continue dithering over aid here. And we know that the administration came up with, you know, another $300 million this week that they were able to move from somewhere else. They said to shift it to those areas.

priorities. And yet what we hear from those who would support more aid is that we're at a critical juncture. Others would say, OK, but we need more accountability. We want more transparency tied to these dollars and where they're flowing. What do we know about the Zelensky regime beyond this conflict?

So what can you say that would inform us a little bit better in Washington about that whole conversation on more USAID flowing there? Well, I mean, they need everything they can get right now. You speak to people out on the front lines and they are really being pushed back. The $300 million that's going to be sent over or the weapons that are being sent over will only last for a few weeks. So they are still in urgent need of getting more. And I think what many people will sadly be saying right now is that, look, we've already given about $100 billion or so and yet –

it hasn't really pushed Russia back. So is this going to be an endless stream of money for very little gain? And I think that to counter that, people would say, look, had the administration not drip, drip, dripped out the weapons and the aid over the last two years, then perhaps Ukraine would have won. But the Biden administration has been so cautious about not wanting to further inflame the Putin regime that it has only given just what the Ukrainians need,

And there's a firm belief that if they were given everything they do need, for example, the F-16s, which they really need right now, they've got only six of them at the moment. Twelve pilots are currently trained. That would greatly change the way Ukrainians could push back. And Russia is using its air force a lot at the moment because they don't have the air defense system. So there are critical things that really could help the Ukrainians at the moment. But I understand why some people around the world are saying we've given everything that they need and yet it still hasn't worked. So –

It's a difficult moment, but it's not just military. It's about sending a message as well. The idea of pushing back against Russia is not just stopping the Russian army. It's sending a clear message to every other autocrat out there. Look at China and Taiwan, that if you do try something like this...

We will push back. You know, the West in America will push back. And if you don't send that message, you better believe countries will start taking more territories if they want to because they realize there'll be no one to push them back. And so, look, it's both for the Ukrainians and the military, but it's also a message for the rest of the world. You ask about Zelensky and the internal politics inside Ukraine.

Well, Zelensky has had a bit of an overhaul over the last few months. There were talks of corruption. I understand that's a point as well. And he's recently gotten rid of quite a few people in the military because there are reports of some generals selling, say, uniforms for double the price and keeping half the profits. And look, Ukraine has been a corrupt country. That is true. We can't deny it. But it is not corrupt on a level that overlooks stopping a Russian regime. You know, you have one country.

a country like Russia trying to take over part of Europe. And if there are a few corrupt people inside Ukraine, most people would say it doesn't mean that you should stop aiding them. And Zelensky is trying his best to solve that and sort that out. And if you ask him at the moment, he said he has done it successfully.

So lots of questions, lots of small reasons why people think you may not be giving more aid to Ukraine or weapons to Ukraine. But I think most of them are very small compared to the benefits of pushing back against this empire that's trying to conquer as much territory as it can.

Well, how would you assess Iran as a part of this stew? Because for now, it appears they're a little quieter on direct attacks on U.S. troops positions and interests in the Middle East. But we know they're always acting and supporting in some ways the proxies that they have around the globe. Yeah.

Are we right to be suspicious of them being relatively quiet at this moment? It seems that their fingers are in all of these different conflicts and things that are of threat to the U.S. and our interests. Well, they are. Yeah, but they are and they aren't being quiet. I mean, they're not being quiet. And as you mentioned, all their proxies are doing a huge amount from the Houthis to Hezbollah to the, you know, the militias in Syria and Iraq.

and Iran has figured out that it can do whatever it likes with its proxies, and the only response from the West and from America will be to drop a bomb on a tiny little camp in Syria, which does nothing to stop what they're doing. The destabilization of the Middle East comes directly from Iran, and they also know that the Biden administration does not want to deal directly or counter Iran directly. So if they act through their proxies...

It's almost a surefire way of them getting around it. Meanwhile, we know that their nuclear facilities are gearing up again. We know they're getting ever closer to a bomb and some people feel that if they wanted one, it would take just a few months to get it at this point. So no, Iran right now is in a really strong position. They're working alongside – in some cases, they had naval drills alongside China and Russia just last week.

So Iran right now is doing pretty well. The opposition inside Iran has all been silenced. And at the moment, they are really enjoying watching America and the Biden administration not know how to deal with Israel, but getting caught up in that war. Well, in word of potential waivers of Iran sanctions again by this administration, which

You know, makes a lot of folks shake their heads, scratch their heads and shake them trying to figure out all of the relationships. Iran, obviously an existential threat to Israel, you know, chanting death to America, death to Israel. We know that that's just kind of their gig and that's part of what they do.

um but the administration is taking increasing scrutiny over these sanctions these waivers of sanctions and how that actually benefits them in material ways which then allow them to fund if we believe money is fungible these proxies uh and bad actors i mean um

$10 billion or so is being freed up at the moment for Iran. And frankly, the cost of some of these militias that they use don't cost that much at all. And they have found a way around so many sanctions. And the thing about sanctions is that you can put sanctions in place, but it doesn't take long for countries to find ways around them.

Russia's doing so, Iran is doing so. So if you want to keep sanctions tight, you have to keep updating them. And that's something that hasn't been happening. You can't place a sanction on there and imagine it to work for a year. They will find a way of getting around it. And so the eye has been taken off the ball with Iran at the moment. And for so long, the administration hoped they might get the nuclear deal back on the table. And Iran, frankly, hasn't wanted to do so. It hasn't felt the need to do so. It feels it's in a pretty good position as is.

Well, we are talking to Benjamin Hall, correspondent extraordinaire, has been in the hotspots around the world and will continue to go back into them. We love to see him back in the field for us. His book, Saved, A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home, number one New York Times bestseller, is now out in paperback. You can catch him back on our airwaves, too. Two years after a horrendous day that changed his life forever, Benjamin

But to hear his optimistic spirit and to know all that you fought through in your family as well, Ben, we are so honored not just to call you a co-worker, but to call you our friend. And I know that you are a point of inspiration for so many people around the globe. And we're so grateful that you're doing the work you're doing. So thank you for dropping in on Live in the Brain. Oh, it's a real pleasure. Thanks, Shannon.

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