Shownotes Transcript
Today, teens can download any app from app stores without supervision. That's why Instagram supports federal legislation requiring app store parental approval and age verification for teens under 16. Learn more at Instagram.com slash parental approval. This is the Fox News Rundown Extra. I'm Dave Anthony. Today, the war in Ukraine from the perspective of someone who was a casualty.
Our Fox News senior correspondent, Benjamin Hall, was nearly killed covering the conflict weeks after it started in a Russian attack on our news crew in March 2022 outside the capital, Kiev. Two of his colleagues did not survive. Fox cameraman Pierre Shakshevsky and freelancer Sasha Kushnayova, they were killed in that bombing. Three years later, President Trump is trying to end the war.
He had a long phone call Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, hoping to get him to agree to a ceasefire like Ukraine already did, though the Russians, they have their own terms for a peace deal. We started our conversation with Ben previewing that Trump-Putin phone call. So keep in mind, it was before all the talks. But the rest of the discussion was about Ben's new book, his second one. After a first that was a bestseller.
This one's titled Resolute, How We Humans Keep Finding Ways to Beat the Toughest Odds. Just came out on Tuesday. He recounts much of his long and difficult recovery from the horrific injuries he suffered, including a trip back to the war zone.
Now, the discussion was way too long for the regular rundown we posted on Tuesday, but not for today. They let us have all the time we need in these weekend extras, and we are glad you're here listening. We invite you to come back for more. There is something new on the rundown every day. And now Benjamin Hall on the Fox News Rundown Extra.
Joining us again on the Fox News Rundown, we are delighted to have Benjamin Hall. He is Fox News senior correspondent. And on Tuesday, his next book is released. It is called Resolute, How We Humans Keep Finding Ways to Beat the Toughest Odds.
And we are, of course, going to spend a lot of time on Ukraine, where Benjamin was wounded at the beginning of the war in 2022. He is covering the war still, certainly as he's back to work with Fox News. Great to have you back with us. Great to see you. That's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me on. And congratulations on the new book. Thank you. We'll get to. But I wanted to start.
Tuesday, President Trump is going to have a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, trying to come up with a way to stop the war in Ukraine, at least with some sort of a ceasefire, a 30-day pause. There has already been agreement on terms of a ceasefire with Ukraine. Russia has not agreed to those terms. This conversation, what do you make of the Trump-Putin discussion? Well...
I suppose we have to look first of all about how Russia has been responding to the ceasefire the last few days. After Ukraine agreed to it and it was passed on to the Russians, it seems as if the Russians and President Putin are not talking about a ceasefire. They're talking about a ceasefire with conditions, which is effectively the peace deal. Now, Ukraine agreed to an unconditional ceasefire. Let's just stop the guns, the rockets for 30 days, and then we can talk about the next step.
But Russia seems to be delaying that. First of all, they wanted to have a proper survey of the ceasefire. And then they started to bring in other conditions. You know, they have said that they wanted a guarantee that, for example, the Ukrainians would not be able to rearm during that period, that Ukraine.
They want to talk about how the land will be split up. So that's a much longer conversation, which makes me think that the Russians are not at this point going straight into a ceasefire. That being said...
President Trump used was pretty harsh with the Ukrainians to get them to the table. You know, he held back intelligence, he held back weapons and that got them to the table, the carrot and the stick approach. The question is, will he do that with Putin tomorrow? Will he say, unless you agree to this 30-day ceasefire, we will hit you with a lot more sanctions, that we will send a lot more weapons to Ukraine? Now, that would be a really strong posture from President Trump to take. Some people would say that there are more sanctions on Russia at the moment.
because President Biden didn't, President Trump rather, did not knew the Biden exemption that was given to Russia, which allowed Russia to use US payment systems to sell its oil and gas to countries such as China and Iran. And that has put some pressure on them. So some would say Trump has already put some sanctions on them, but it's not going to be enough. So
That's the question. What is the conversation going to look like? Does President Putin continue to kick the rock, the stone down the road? Or could President Trump really push him into a ceasefire? We just don't know. All right. You have – you went back to Ukraine after you had recovered from injury. You're back to work at Fox. You interviewed President Zelensky. He had said to you at the time –
that he's not discussing land that Russia has already taken and letting Russia have it. That's not a peace plan for him, but he seems to be forced into that now. Look, neither side wants to give any land up. And I think that's going to be one of the most difficult scenarios right there. I don't think that either side will formally pass over Russia or Ukraine, will formally pass over any land and draw new borders. I think we will end up, wherever the line is,
It will end up being in the same way we have in Korea, where it is just frozen.
You know, President Zelensky has been very, very clear that he will never formally give up Ukrainian land and make it part of Russia. And on the other hand, Putin has said that those three parts, Donetsk, Donbass, the three areas in the east, that they are now Russian and he will never give any of those up. Now, you have any negotiation, both sides start off, you know, very far apart, but
How does the negotiation happen that they come together? I think it'll – I think that the land issue itself is a main one. I think the pathway to NATO is another. I think the security guarantees that the US gives is another one. I think whether or not European troops are on the ground as peacekeepers is another one. There are so many issues to be discussed right now. And you're in London. So what are they saying now?
about that possibility of European peacekeepers in Ukraine, but no American presence? Well, I mean, I think the British, the French, the Germans have all said that they would. They would commit. I think at the moment they're saying 10,000 soldiers each. Of course, along the 600-mile border, you need more like 100,000 if you want a proper peace team security there. But the Europeans...
are aware that the US is not going to be there to support them in the same way. And look, frankly, the Europeans have long just relied on America to do everything. You look at the budget of NATO and how much American money goes into it. So, look, it's totally understandable that finally the Americans and the US and President Trump are saying, you guys need to start paying your fair share. And Europe knows that. And Europe is looking ahead to the future. All the countries are spending more on their defense. They are submitting their own soldiers, perhaps, if that's part of the agreement.
And what they do want from America is they want perhaps air security. They don't need U.S. troops necessarily on the ground, but they do need that air security. American intelligence too? And American intelligence definitely. But again, President Trump has been pretty – has held back from saying if any of that would be involved.
Today, teens can download any app from app stores without supervision. That's why Instagram supports federal legislation requiring app store parental approval and age verification for teens under 16. Learn more at Instagram.com slash parental approval. Now let's switch to your book.
Resolute, How We Humans Keep Finding Ways to Beat the Toughest Odds. It is just out on Tuesday. Congratulations on that. Thank you. Your second book since the horrific injuries you suffered covering the war in Ukraine right after it started in March. The war started in February. You were injured in March. You wrote about that before.
This one seems more personal about your recovery and your life since. Absolutely. You know what happened is that I got home from hospital and I was in hospital for six months and the first book was written even while I was still in hospital. I started writing it. It was about the evacuation. It was about what happened. And I really felt that when I got home from hospital that the tough part was behind me that we could get back to living. And that wasn't true.
The tough part happened when I took all my injuries and I went back home with them and I had to fit into the old, the new me into the old life. And actually that turned out to be some of the most hard moments. But you know, that seems like, wow, you finally get to go home. You see your daughters who you hadn't seen for months and your wife and your home. That would be an amazing experience. That's exactly what I thought as well. And look, it was amazing. Like overall, that's what I worked for and that's what I continue to live for every single day. And it's an absolute blessing. But yeah,
I just hadn't realized the things I could or couldn't do. I didn't perhaps realize the different way in which people would interact with me. There were times when I was traveling for work where I hit some really difficult moments where I realized I just couldn't get around. I couldn't move. And those were pretty tough. And so I write about those moments in the book. And look –
thousands of people reached out to me after the first book and they said look we've had really bad injuries we've been gone through something your book really helped us and so what i've tried to do in this book is i've tried to talk about how i got through the most difficult moments i've tried to talk about how i clicked my mind into a place where you know every time i was knocked down
It didn't last for that long. I stopped. I thought about it. I figured a way out and I got up and I kept going forward. And what I now believe with my whole heart is that if you get knocked down, you are stronger when you pick yourselves up. And I've tried to put that in writing. And to do so, I've had to write about the difficult times. One, for example, it seems like a small thing, but I remember our home was broken into in London, middle of the night.
You're in bed at the time. I'm in bed at the time. Our dog starts barking and my wife, who's heavily pregnant at the time, jumps up and says, there are people downstairs in the house. And I'm saying, wait. And she goes, I can't. I'm going downstairs. I've got to stop them. And it was my wife, my pregnant wife, who went downstairs, screamed at these burglars and scared them off while I was upstairs trying to put my legs on.
And I just remember afterwards thinking what an incredibly sad reversal of roles that was, you know? I was going to protect... It made you feel like you couldn't protect your home? I was supposed to protect the home. That's what I always did. And I just felt this huge hit all of a sudden that there was my wife having to do what I usually did and I was supposed to do. Because it's more than that. Luckily, the burglars left. And boy, if my wife came shouting at you in the middle of the night, I reckon you'd run away too because she's one incredible force. But...
But, you know, it was things like that that were a bit of a hit. And I talk also about, you know, my traumatic brain injury. And I talk about, you know, the flashbacks that I have of the attack and just how I have had to learn that those are me. They are my experience. Those burdens are mine.
And I have them, but I don't let them bother me or hold me back in any way. And I think I found amazing ways of getting through them. And I just hope that that helps anyone else who's having something similar or having a difficult time, that my book can inspire them in some way. You spoke of your prosthetics. Of course, you had these traumatic injuries in that Russian attack in 2022. You
have to deal with that. And, you know, there are a lot of people who have lost limbs and it's devastating. You wrote in the book how you want people to see, like, you don't feel that as it is almost like, I don't know if it's a shame or if it's, it's, it's a personal loss that's so hard to overcome when you lose a limb. I don't know. None of us know what that's like who have never lost one, but you,
You say you're – like people look at you, but you don't care. Yeah, no, absolutely. Look, you make that decision really early on. For me, it was important that I wear shorts, that I go around showing my prosthetics because I never want to feel that I was sort of – that I was trying to hide them or that I wasn't proud of them or that they are who I am. And so in a small way, if that helps other people with disabilities, people seeing me being out and about and confident, I like that. I'm particularly amazed at how –
First of all, children, by the way, they're fascinating. They're the ones that come straight up to you and ask you about them. Adults are very different. Many of them don't want to talk about it or they don't know how to look you in the eye. Well, they feel like... Exactly. And I get that. So I always try and break the ice at first and I talk to them. But what is most amazing and a real blessing that I did not see coming is how people want to open up to me in a way they didn't before. Somehow...
If people see or know that you've gone through something difficult, they feel far more at ease sharing things that they've gone through. Really? And every single day I am out and about at the store walking down the street and people will stop me and say, hey, how are you doing? You know, I've been having a difficult time or this has happened to me. And boy, are those conversations great because you talk about it for a bit and you both leave thinking that, you know,
that there are other people going through difficult times. And I was never expecting that. And boy, my job is as a journalist. I've been trying for 15 years to get people to open up to me and tell me their secrets. And now they're doing it every single day. So I'm like, what a win. The traumatic brain injury part, that you can't see. We can see the prosthetics. We can't see in your mind. And obviously one of your big goals was to get back to work and you have done that successfully. You're back as a senior correspondent here at Fox News. But at times...
I know that that has to be tough because there have been moments where it's not like the old Benjamin Hall, right? Yeah, that's right. At the beginning, they were pretty bad. And I have had a lot of sort of therapy and occupational therapists who have helped me figure out ways to get my thoughts in order to really plan ahead and to prep for anything I'm going into. You know, we work in a field that requires lots of facts.
And there are times when that can be quite difficult if I'm taken by surprise. And so, again, it hasn't really impacted my work, but I have had to find an entirely new way of setting out how I work, the stories I tell and how I prepare for them. And I write in the book also about other people I've met who have TBIs after being blown up, some veterans as well.
And they talk about how sometimes it just hits you. Sometimes there are moments where you just can't quite get your thoughts together. And it can be quite simple about what I was planning on doing later that day. And I just have to stop and think about it for a while and try and click my mind back in. And I'm lucky. It's not really significant, but it definitely affects a number of things I do. And it's...
You know, it's like you said, it's an invisible injury, that one. But again, it's one that I'm happy to talk about and have found ways to counter as best I can. When your car breaks down, you take it to a mechanic with no hesitation. You need it. And it's not something most guys can fix themselves. And men should think the exact same way about ED. But the reality is you might be hesitant to seek help. Thankfully, through HIMSS, you can get access to personalized ED treatment without stepping outside your door.
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Flashbacks, you referenced those. In the book, you talked about how you have an English stoicism.
You know, you keep everything. You don't want to show, you know, something bothering you. But you finally did open up to your wife. And you also write in the book that some people don't do that, which has led to suicide. So it's a very hard thing. None of us can understand it. Most of us can't, at least what you're dealing with internally post-marriage.
Post-attack.
You try to leave it behind when you go home. That's what you do at work. But then you come home and you want to forget about it and that's your family time. And that division is really dangerous. And I had been speaking to people before the accident who had had bad experiences. And so when I was injured, I told myself I knew that
that I had to start telling my wife and everyone, every thought I had on difficult days, tell them straight up, this is a tough day. You know, I even said, if I was in the ICU and I was in bed for the first few months, you know, if I'm having a really bad day, I'm going to tell the first person that walks in that door. I'm going to message my wife straight away. And boy, does it help. And I spent my whole life trying to hide from that and pretend I don't need to talk to anyone because, you know, I'll just get through it. Suck it up, right? Suck it up. I was pretty good at doing that.
But when it came to the injuries that I had in Ukraine, I knew that I better start talking about it. And it's helped an awful lot. Now, I also have the caveat that I don't think there is a line where I don't think we should suddenly be complaining and talking about every little feeling. I don't want us to end up in a position where you have a little – I can't think of an example, but if you had sort of a –
headache one day which wasn't bad like you know right keep that yourself whatever it's like there's something so don't become a total whiner no I it makes sense but no definitely when there anything serious going on talk about it so it's about finding that balance I think between still being a bit stoic but also being open particularly with your family and the people close to you you call your wife a secret weapon mmm to have her by your side
Not everyone has someone like that, but you do. Yeah. No, my wife is absolutely amazing. And what's most incredible is, you know, what I needed when I was injured was not for my wife to actually come and hold me by my hand and sit by my bedside. I needed my wife to stand up and say, don't you worry about home. I've got three with the three daughters. Life is going to be totally fine for us. We are going to be fine. And that strength in her was,
gave me this the the piece to know you know what I'll just focus on getting back as quickly as possible because I know how strong my wife is and she will handle everything at home not once for a single second did she ever say this is really difficult this is too tough she said whatever it is no problem we will get through this and she is just the most incredible woman she's got such strength in her and again as she came downstairs and you know chased the burglars away she was strong there too but
That's what marriage is about. It's about finding someone who you can be so open with, who will stand up for you when you are knocked down and who you don't mind showing your weaknesses in front of. And I had to learn that the tough way because I hadn't done much of that before. So I have to give my wife, Alicia, every second praise that I can. And she's, of course, been supportive of your return to work even though –
You went back to Ukraine. The war was still going on. You went to you would like right to Gaza almost. Yeah. And and and she didn't like it. It's an interesting it was an interesting decision to go back to Ukraine for Ukraine. I needed to go back because I don't think you should hide from your from pain or from fears of what's gone wrong. You have to look him straight in the eye and say you didn't stop me.
And the train on the way back to Ukraine was the same train that I took out. And on the way out, I had no pain meds. It was 10 hours of brutal pain and hell. I read about that and the way you fought pain with your mind. And that's what I write about. But I write about reliving that return because I wanted to go back and experience it because I don't want to forget what happened. So the return to Ukraine was both to interview President Zelensky, but it was also to say, you won't stop us. You won't stop journalists anymore.
You know, the Russians tried to silence us that day, but we are back in the news. We'll keep being reported despite what you're doing. And I write about that. I write about my return to Israel as well. And I interviewed one of the girls who was kidnapped by Hamas in Gaza. And she had similar injuries to me and she'd been in the tunnels. It was absolutely fascinating to interview her. And I realized when I interviewed her that I was actually in some ways have become a better journalist for the first time ever in my whole career.
I knew to a certain degree what she was talking about and what she had gone through. And what an incredible thing to feel as a journalist. I realized that maybe I'd never quite understood the stories of the people whose stories I was telling. But yes, my wife told me if I could go to Israel, don't go to Gaza. She said, okay, go to Tel Aviv. Don't go to Gaza. And you said you would, right? I said I would. And I told her one day I had to go and do an interview outside of Tel Aviv. And I headed down to one of the kibbutzes. It was just a few hundred meters from Gaza.
And my wife had the tracking device on my phone and I got a text saying, I see you. I can see you. You're down by Gaza again. So I got in trouble for that. But, you know, she knows how important my work is for me. And, you know, you can't.
If you're injured, you must just keep working and living. You know, you mustn't let it really sidetrack you. And so she knew again because she's so strong. She knew that I had to do that because it was about continuing my life. You know, it wasn't like I got injured and everything stopped. It was no, I was injured. Now let's get back to doing what you love. You've got to have that drive in life to keep going and you've got to have things to work for and fight for. And I try to write about all those in the book. Lastly, about faith. You, as a journalist, you've seen a lot.
And as you wrote, sometimes you question. There's religion on both sides of destruction, on both sides of war. Sometimes you question certain things. Where are you now after all that you've been through? Yeah, it's so interesting. I was raised a strict Catholic. I was educated at a monastery, you know, and till my 20s, that
you know, it defined my life and it may define many of my decisions. But as I started covering conflict, I started swaying a little bit. And I maybe at some point, I didn't believe that much in religion. I wasn't certain, you know, what role it played in my life. And I always came back and back and forth from it. But when I was attacked in Ukraine, you know, the third shell hit, I was threw me away, I woke up, and I was on fire, you know, my right leg was gone, I was rolling around. And first thing I reached out to Pierre, a cameraman,
Then I immediately thought of my family, my children. And then immediately after that, I talked to God. And for all the questions I'd had for so many years, when everything was taken away, it was to God that I went. And I said, God, please, please, God, help me get home. Help me get home.
and that was the beginning of a sort of renewing of my faith. And I started going back to the chapel when I was finally at the Brook Army Medical Center, and it has just been building ever since. And, you know, I think the main thing about faith is it doesn't matter if you go away from it a little bit because you can always come back and
you know, I, I moved away from it, but this has brought me back again. And, um, it's, uh, I think I'm very lucky to that happened, but you know, some people would say there's no atheist in a foxhole. I tell you what, that boy is absolutely true. Does it remind you that there's a, there's a life after this and there's somewhere to go and there is someone looking out for you and someone Christ looking over you. And, um,
that was the moment where it happened for me. I was in basically my foxhole and I reached out to God and it helped me in so many ways. One thing you wrote, I thought was, uh, quite, uh, moving. And you wrote, you have questions for him, no longer questions about him. Yeah. With God. Yeah. You know, I was speaking to the chaplains at the Brookhaven Medical Center and we had quite a few conversations about it. And, uh,
You know, some people, I was talking about so many people who go and speak to him after they've been injured, like I've injured. And so many people ask the questions, why did it happen to me? How could God allow these bad things to happen? You know, what does it mean for religion?
And actually I've now decided that none of those questions are legitimate. My questions more are, God, what can I do with the second chance you've given me? What can I do with the blessings that I have? How can I use this to the best possible way? And I think the same is true with absolutely any challenge. You've got to find opportunity in it. You know, you mustn't let hurdles stop you. You must find a way of breaking through them and
That's basically what I... When I pray, I say... I was at Mass yesterday and I said, help me to find the best way to use this. How can I use this? How can it inspire others and what can I do? That's a really great place to be. And I'm really lucky that I found my way there. So it's been a journey and I'm just glad that I've come back. Had to be hard to write this though. It was a really tricky book to write. The first book...
It was about what happened. It was like journalism. This happened, this happened, this happened, and I put it all together. This book was really soul-searching. This was a look at really the personal look at how I got through difficult moments and how other people got through difficult moments. And I've tried to make it like a page turner. I've hoped that it's an easy book to read. It's very easy. I understand.
Oh, good. No, no, I'm serious. Please just say that. No, just keep going. Because that's the thing. I wanted to write a book that was really personal, that really talked openly about what it was like, but one that people enjoyed reading too. So if anyone's buying it, go out, buy it, and then get back to me and let me know what you think. And I guess we'll go from there. One last thing because I want to make sure to mention this. Everybody else in the vehicle you were in was killed in this attack.
In the book, you specifically have a message for Pierre Shekhevsky. He was our Fox News cameraman who was killed along with Sasha, right? What did you want to say?
I just wanted to always say to Pierre, the same is true for anyone who's lost people or lost family members or anything at all, to Pierre and Sasha, that I would keep living for them in the way they would want me to keep living, that I wouldn't waste a second of life that I had it, that I would make sure that I did things in their name, that I lived for them. And I just think that's the only way that you can handle loss like that is to say, instead of letting it crush me, let's find a positive way to help
to use that to help others or to do something positive and Pierre is the most remarkable man who taught me so much about journalism we'd covered so many conflicts together and he understood people and he made people smile and he understood what drove people and
you know it's one of the reasons that i'm back as a journalist as well you know i know he'd have wanted me to go back to ukraine he'd have wanted me to keep doing this and sasha was working with us so that she could help ukraine against the russians she knew how important the media and the news were so again i want to keep talking about ukraine and covering the conflict and hopefully the peace deal that's coming up
because I know that's what she'd have wanted too. So, you know, I just keep working for them with them in my mind and just want to say that I was given a second chance and I don't take that for granted. I've been given a second life and I won't waste it and I'll do that in their name. The book out Tuesday, today.
Resolute, how we humans keep finding ways to beat the toughest odds. Benjamin Hall, congratulations on the book. We thank you very much for joining us. Of course, back at work, and we're glad to have you, a Fox News senior correspondent. Thank you for being here. It's a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.
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