March 7, 2025 • 32 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 1 (03/10) - Phil Shuman guest hosts for John Kobylt. Elise Pecorin from ABC news joins the show to talk about the republican party making sure the DOG cuts are permanent. Authorities in Sante Fe New Mexico say actor Gene Hackman died of heart disease, his wife died of hantavirus about 1 week earlier. Bryan Clark ABC correspondent gives us more updates on the Gene Hackman story.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can if I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobel Podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
I'm Phil Schuman from Fox eleven News in for John
co Belt this afternoon one to four. Thanks for the
opportunity to sit in John's chair. It's a big task
and hopefully we'll be up to it. Over the next
few hours. We have a lot to talk about, what's
the latest in Washington, what that means for us here
in Southern California, as always, the issue of homelessness, which
(00:29):
is at the top of almost everybody's list of concerns.
Breaking news there, We're going to talk to one of
the reporters and editors that broke a major story, which
unfortunately is not a surprising story about the state of
care for the homelessness and homelessness funding here in Southern California. Also,
as we speak, I'm keeping an eye on a couple
(00:50):
of the monitors hear in the KFI News studios. Officials
are on now with a live update from Santa Fe,
New Mexico, into the mischief various deaths.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Their words last week of.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Gene Hackman are suspicious, Perhaps is more accurate of Gene
Hackman and his wife. We're keeping an eye on that
and we'll have that information for you as soon as
we get a chance to summarize it. I want to
talk with you today over the next few hours about leadership.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Who is it.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Here in southern California that we look to for leadership,
The way our governments work with local government, county government,
city government, and of course look into Gavin Newsom in
state government. There's a lot of opportunities for people to lead,
and I don't know that anyone has really risen to
the task. Now, say what you will about Donald Trump,
(01:48):
he does seem to be exerting a strong leadership role
with his co president Elon Musk. So much news is
about the Department of Government Efficiency DOGE, and we're going
to start off this afternoon talking about that. The Republicans
have a plan to make the DOGE cuts permanent, at
least as permanent as anything can can be until the
(02:11):
next president takes office. So joining us now to talk
about that is ABC News correspondent Ali percorn Ali.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
With us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
So can you give us an update and where things
stand again? The headline is that the Senate Republicans are
pitching a plan that would make the funding cuts, the
DOGE funding cuts permanent.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
Yeah, that's right. So the thing that's been a little
bit tough for DOGE and the efforts that Elon Musk
has been having so far is that no matter what,
no matter how much they try to do, ultimately in
this country, Congress controls the power of the purse. And
so well DOGE has been going through and slashing a
lot of these fending cuts, they've run into some legal challenges, right,
(02:55):
because Congress has already appropriated a lot of that funding
for these the federal agencies that go to trying to slash.
So we've had at least one instance where the Supreme
Court this week actually ruled that the teperal government has
to pay out some of those cuts, including cuts that
were made to USAID.
Speaker 6 (03:12):
Right.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
So Senate Republicans this week hitch Elon Musk on a plan.
It's a little bit wonky, but basically it would allow
them to make the cuts in line with congressional spending
and so that would make the cuts, in their mind
a little more permanent. What that would look like, it's
something called a recision package, and it's a little bit
procedurally heavy, but basically what it involves is that President
(03:34):
Trump would send the Congress a proposal for what he
wants slash out of their budget. But as Congress could
get on board with it, they can actually pass those
cuts with a simple majority of votes in the Senate.
That's really important because that means that if all Republicans
get on the same page about this, they can actually
pass that cut package without any Democratic support at all.
(03:54):
But it is going to require almost all Republicans to
be working in locks of on this. It's not clear
yet whether all Republicans will agree with it.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
So what's the next step in this process? And have
we just all accepted the fact that DOGE is is
legitimate agency because there's even questions about whether it's an
official department of the government.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Well, that's a.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
Really good point. And so the reason that Senate Republicans
went ahead and pitched this idea to Elon Musk is
that it sort of allowed DOGE to do this quote
unquote advisory works that they're doing. They'll still bring it
in line with like recognized ideas of how Congress operates. Right,
Because you asked what the next step is? The next
step that they decided to go forward with. This would
be President Trump sending Congress this recision package, sending Congress
(04:44):
this proposal for what he wants to have cut, and
so in a way, Doe just sort of sitting on
this side of that. They're not actually involved in the
legitimate process of legislating the cuts of law. So the
first step would be Trump sending them over this proposal,
and then Congress would not to consider it and pass
it through both chambers if they wanted to actually get
it into law.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah, we're talking with ABC News correspondent Ali Percorin about
the Republicans plan to make the so called Doge cuts permanent.
But when we say permanent, President Trump's only going to
be in office for four more years unless he changes
the constitution and gets re elected. So permanent is really
a word that we should maybe put in air quotes.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
Yeah, I mean, as you mentioned when you and first
introduced me, it's as permanent as anything can be in
this government, right. I mean, the whole structure of the
United States government system is that if the voters don't
like something that's been put into law, they can elect
new officials to try to change it. When we say
permanent here, though, what we mean is that right now,
DOGE is sort of acting on its own authority. It's
(05:48):
kind of like moving through the federal government and.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Slashing these right with either a sledgechamber measures first a sledgehamber,
then a scalpel exactly.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
And so what we mean by it here is that,
unlike the Doge cuts, which can be challenged in court
and kind of batted around, if Congress passed this package,
it would be kind of irrefutable that it was legal,
as the argument here, at least as long as Congress
continues to allocate spending at the levels that are consit
with what DOGE wants to do, it would be permanent. Now,
(06:20):
if a new president came into town, or Congress was
suddenly controlled by Democrats, maybe in the midterms this year,
you could see all of that changing.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
So how long have you been doing this Capitol Hill correspondence.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
I've been covering Congress for like four or five of years.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Now, So is it markedly different since President Trump came back?
So you were there probably for the entire Biden administration
and now the Trump readministration takes over.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I mean, it seems like a whole different reality, right.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
Yeah, I mean I started covering Congress towards the tail
end of Trump's first tournament. Off it okay, that was
colored very heavily by the coronavirus pandemic, though, so it
wasn't like a super typical experience regardless. Obviously, anytime that
you have a Congress controlled by the president's party, you're
going to see them moving a lot more aggressively. So
(07:14):
in the first two years of President Biden's administration, you
had Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate, and
they too were moving very aggressively to try to pass
President Biden's policies into law. The difference, I would say
between what Republicans are doing now versus what Republicans were
doing during President Trump's first term is that there were
a number of Republicans in President Trump's first terms who
(07:37):
were outspoken in their opposition to President Trump's sort of
a typical operating style. In our newer Congress, you're seeing
a lot of Republicans, for the most part, fall in
line with the way that Trump is operating, and largely
that's because they see Trump's resounding victory in the election
as a mandate from the American people that their voters
really like what Trump is doing, and so they want
(07:58):
to give him the broadest latitude they pop probably can
to allow him to operate under the campaign promises that
he made the American people.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Well, that seems to be the moo the marching orders
at this point. Appreciate your insight. Ali Percorn from ABC News.
We're gonna move on and give you an update on
the latest on the Gene Hackman death investigation into the
suspicious death of himself and his wife, which was a
week ago, of course, became a much bigger story because
(08:26):
of the proximity to the Oscars.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Two time Oscar winner.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I love listening to those promos from doctor Wendy Walsh.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
First of all, her voice is incredible, and then the
question she always asks, you know, and the teases right.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Always listen to her show on Sunday Night.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
And I knew her a little bit, you know, years
ago when she was a TV reporter, and I'm just
I've always told her how impressed I am with her
that she went back to school. Has you know, these
degrees as actual, real profession now, not just us that
come in here and talk on the radio without really
any qualifications or skills.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And then to hear.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Handle is one of a kind. And he had the podcast, right,
he had the Bill Handle Show podcast. And then he
by his own admission, if you listen to Handle in
the mornings, uh you, he said, I don't want to
do it anymore. I guess it was too much work.
So yeah, people have said to me, you should have
a podcast. I'm like, why who wants to hear what
(09:32):
I have to say in a podcast? I'm happy to
be here to say what I have to say here
and the opportunities opportunities that I get to to sit
in here on the microphone behind the microphones a KFI.
I've always loved AM radio, talk radio audio. I know
half the folks listen on the iHeartRadio app, which is fantastic.
(09:53):
So yeah, it seems like there were so many podcasts
out there. My wife said something interesting yesterday. She said
podcasts are kind of like the new newspapers. I'm not
sure that I one hundred percent agree with that, but
I understand what she was saying. But there's so many
podcasts out there, and it's so difficult to break through
on one of them to get sort of a wide audience.
(10:15):
But hey, there's lots of ways to get information, lots
of ways to entertain yourself, lots of ways to inform yourself.
One of the things we're going to be talking about
over the next few hours. There was a really interesting
article that we printed out from the Washington Post talking
about the White House's new media strategy. So the politician,
(10:39):
the office, the entity, they are now the content creators
and the news providers.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
In other words, it's not just the White House.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Does something, City Hall does something, the Condye Border Supervisors
does something, and then we report on it, and you,
as a news consumer, get the understanding or the information
from that. It's like now the newsmakers are now creating
their own content. This is not a brand new concept,
(11:09):
but the Trump white House seems to be refining this
or taking it to a whole new level. I mean,
Caroline Levitt seems like a nice person, but she clearly
has an agenda. There's no such thing as a sort
of unbiased or neutral press representative anymore. I guess that's understandable.
(11:30):
Their jobs to make their boss look as good as possible.
Whether you're representing the president, whether you're representing the mayor,
whether you're representing the police department, the fire department. There's
just so much in the news these days. And now
the like I mentioned, the news organization is not the
conduit information. It's just one conduit of information. You can
(11:54):
get it directly from the source. Follow Mayor Bass on Twitter,
Follow you know, Lindsay Horvath on Twitter, Follow Donald Trump
of course on Twitter, on X on whatever platform it is.
And so I think it's a good thing in balance
that there are more sources of information now myself coming
(12:16):
from what.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Would be considered quote unquote mainstream media.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Obviously I'm biased in favor of using organizations with credibility
and a track record of, you know, telling truthful, fair,
unbiased stories as one of your primary sources of information.
But hey, what I think is not necessarily any more
valid than what you think. But what I what I
(12:41):
do in reporting a story, I think has more value
than you know, your average blogger who might be sitting
at home on their computer, because we have years of
experience in doing this, whether it's going to a press conference,
whether it's interviewing officials, whether it's respond to disasters, you
(13:02):
pick your news story. The quote unquote professionals I think
deserve a little bit more credit and a little bit
more respect than perhaps we were getting. If you listen
to me here when I have the opportunity to fill
in on KFI, you know that I've often mentioned how
I think President Trump just really hurt so.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Many of us on the news media.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
I don't mean emotionally, I mean the credibility wise when
he coined that term fake news, because so many people
then jumped on that bandwagon that they can't trust what
they hear. And sometimes you can and sometimes you can't.
And that's why I'm saying, as a news consumer, you
have a responsibility to be selective and choose well in
(13:47):
what you are deciding to fill your head with. So
that's a little bit of a sermon. I don't know
if I want to call it that. I'd also maybe
call it common sense advice. I'd feel much better if
I'm looking at Deborah Mark in Newsman and she was
like at least nodding her head, like occasionally understanding, maybe
even agreeing with what I'm saying. We're gonna talk more
about this and a lot of other issues that affect
(14:09):
our day to day life, day to day struggle here
in southern California. To get by two months ago, life
change for thousands of people, and really for all of
us going forward with the fires, We're gonna update what's
happening in the Palisades, We're gonna update what's happening in
Alta Dina.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Some great news from the Dodgers.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
They're gonna be making a major contribution in the Alta
Dina community.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
But first, you're.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI, a.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Six forty iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
I would love it if you would click on the
microphone icon on that app and record a comment on
the talkback feature. I'd love to hear some of your
thoughts as we move through Friday afternoon, beautiful day today.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
I'm so tired of.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Storm watch and then more storm watch coming next week,
and we can't make light it, and we shouldn't make
light of it because of the potential for disaster in
the burn zones. But I just feel, and maybe it's me,
because I watch too much news and listen to too
much news, and read too much news. It just feels
(15:14):
like we're just getting bombard and we just finished with
this rain, and there's a chance of rain at the
end of next week, and then a month from now
we may get some more rain.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
It's like, I don't like the rain. I don't want
the rain. You can keep the rain.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
You heard in Deborah Mark's newscast a brief update from
Santa Fe, New Mexico on the Gene Hackman and his
wife death investigation. There was just a live update from
that scene from the Sheriff's department, from medical examiner and
so forth. And this is kind of a strange one
because remember the story Betsy Arakawa Betsy Hackman, sixty five
years old, was found on the floor of a bathroom
(15:50):
in the couple's home. And then Hackman was found dead
in what they call the mud room, which is like
sort of an East Coast term for like sort of
the back door in your house and maybe the laundry
is at So what seems weird is that she supposedly
died of hantavirus, which is a pulmonary infection that you
(16:11):
typically get from like the droppings of rodents. She dies
on February eleventh, at least that was the last time
she was seen alive or sent out any emails or
any communications, and then he dies from apparently heart disease,
complications of cardiovascular disease a week later.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
So what does that mean? Does that mean Ray's joining
us now?
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Does that mean that he lived with her body for
a week in the house, or does that mean that
he was gone and came home to discover the body
and then coincidentally died. In the next segment, we'll be
talking to ABC News Brian Clark about all this. Yeah,
but I mean the timeline is unusual, right, I mean,
she dies in Februar eleventh, he dies Febuer eighteenth. So
(17:00):
this is something if you're going to be listening to
the news and watching the local news on TV. We're
going to be talking about in detail this afternoon, and
we'll save this discussion till we get Brian Clark. At
one point fifty I was able to watch some of
the captions of the news conference that was carried live
on some of the cable networks here while I was
(17:20):
talking to on the studio, and it was a sheriff's apartment,
and it was a medical examiner, and it seemed like
a ton of sort of medical terminology without much explanation,
but we'll get into that. But at least it confirms
what they had pretty much told us at the beginning
that there wasn't any obvious signs of foul play or
(17:42):
trauma to the bodies or anything like that. But this
timeline seems very weird, all right, So it was two
months ago today that the world changed for us for
so many of us here in Southern California. We've of
course been through fires, mud slides, earthquakes many time before,
but nothing on this scale of devastation. I've often talked
(18:05):
about how sort of we're going to remember pre January
seventh in Southern California and post January seventh in Southern
California for the rest of our lives. Some good news
today is that today's the first day that you can
drink the water without health concerns in the Palisades area.
Mayor Karen Bass made sure to announce that loudly on Thursday,
(18:29):
and she's, you know, she's trying to she's trying to
do the right thing. She's trying to be a leader,
she's trying to make people feel better. She said that
she's committed to rebuilding this community. At Lightning speed she
draws comparison. For example, in the campfire, remember that one
said it took it took eighteen months for them to
clear the water supply for use.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Here, they did it in two.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
And there was also a comment from Janice Canone's the
chief engineer and chief executive of the d WP, that
they've been working seven days a week, that they flushed
the entire system. Now, this is the same person who
allowed that one hundred and seventeen million gallon reservoir that
could have made a huge difference in fighting the Palisades
fire to be offline, and the person that I believe
(19:18):
should have gotten the acts from Mayor Bass as soon
as she came back from Ghana. Now, if I'm Mayor Bass.
When I land and I was questioned by that Irish
reporter and remember who was just berating her in the jetway,
and she kind of stood there without saying anything, which
he has later told Alex Michaelson from Fox eleven and
(19:38):
others that was a mistake. But we have sympathy for
her as a human because she just got off of
like a twelve hour flight and been stressed the entire time.
At any rate, I'm Karen Bass, I'm getting off the plane,
I'm firing the fire chief, and I'm firing the head
of the DWP. She didn't want to do that at
(19:59):
the time, she said, because we're in the middle of
the crisis, which makes a certain degree of sense. But
since then she's been playing catch up. I think most
anyone would agree. Being in the news biz, I'm on
the email distribution list of the Mayor's office, of County
Supervisor's office, of basically all of the city and county
state agencies who send out a NonStop barrage of press
(20:23):
releases designed, as I mentioned in the previous segment, to
tout the accomplishments of their bosses, make it look like
how they are on top of everything, and they even
send out press releases.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Now, Debra, you'll appreciate this.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
I'm sure you've seen him where what others are saying,
where they sort of enlist positive comments from other leaders
and politicians to chime in and give compliments to the
person who's leading the battle. So Karen Bass, I mean,
she's fighting for her career as at least as the
(20:56):
mayor of Los Angeles. It's hard to imagine, but next
year is the primary for both the mayor's race and
the governor's race. We've talked about that here before, and
obviously she's in a lot of trouble. And significant news though,
is that and Rick Caruso, who is either going to
run for mayor or for governor.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I'm not sure which announced this first.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Is that the DWP has agreed to place on the
electric lines in the Palisades area underground, at a huge expense,
which we haven't figured out who's going to pay for
it yet.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Each check this out.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Each mile of subterranean electric lines can cost from one
million to four million, So if it says one million
to four million, it's probably three million to eight million.
So that's going to be hundreds of millions of dollars
just to place the electric lines, the power lines underground
to eliminate the risk of fires in the future.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
That should be everywhere.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
It should be everywhere area where there are possibilities of wildfires,
not just in the Palisades but everywhere else.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Right, we don't know what the plan is for Alta Dina.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I mean, that's a relatively small section of a huge
power distribution line that southern California Edison is already being
sued as the likely cause of the fire, because we've
seen this over and over again with the you know,
the high tension power line spark and the fire starts
right underneath them. So at least initially, everyone is saying
the right thing and trying to do the right thing,
(22:29):
both in clearing the debris and record speed getting the
water usable, although we haven't heard that yet in the
Altadena area, expedating the permit process and the rebuilding process
as much as possible.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
It's just the.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Scope of it is so huge that even though it's
happening fast er than normal, I don't think it's going
to happen fast.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI A sixty.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
One of the hardest working reporters slash and I've ever
been around. You remember Patrick Healey from Fox eleven, from
Channel four News.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
That's where I spent about fifteen years of my career.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
As a matter of fact, in the building right across
the street from the studios here at KFI. I can
look out the window and see what used to be
the old KNBC news operation. Now it's the Burbank studios.
I believe they've Channel four news has moved over to
the universal lot. At any rate, Elex is the new
inventor of the eight day work week. What I used
(23:31):
to tease Patrick Heey about when he'd be doing his
twelfth story of the day and making the rest of
us look bad by comparison. At any rate, Elex has
really worked hard to cultivate his relationship with politicians with elected's.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
I know that he and Gavin Newsom have spent a
lot of time together.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Ellis has a show, The Issue Is on Friday Nights
at ten thirty, which airs I think statewide now, in
which he interviews politicians, newsmakers and others. And he has
a really good, unique, fun, fair, engaging style. He's not
afraid to ask tough questions. He doesn't show any favoritism,
(24:14):
he doesn't have an agenda, And so if you're new
to him, or to Fox eleven or to The Issue
is Friday Night's at ten thirty, and I then gets
rerun on Sundays on Channel thirteen I think at noon.
At any rate, there's so much noise out there. As
I mentioned earlier, we're talking about podcasts, it's difficult to
(24:34):
find something that breaks through. But if you want some
real political insider knowledge. Check out Elex and his work
and then he'll be on this afternoon and we can
talk about it with Tim a little bit. So headline
today out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and this is
a strange one.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Gene Hackman lived with his.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Dead wife's body for a week before succumbing to complications
from heart problem and Alzheimer's. That is according to officials
in Santa Fe, which they had a news conference this
afternoon with an update on their unusual deaths. And joining
us to talk about that a little bit more right
now is Brian Clark, ABC News correspondent, Brian, I know
(25:16):
you follow that update from Santa Fe closely.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
What are the headlines and then the explanations, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (25:23):
And they kind of go hand in hand there. So
the first thing we know is going chronologically is that
Betsy Hackman died first. That's Geen Hackman's wife, and they
think she died around February eleventh, and her cause of
death was a very rare condition called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.
It's transmitted by infected mouse droppings. That's what killed her.
(25:46):
But Gene Hackman they think lived for up to a
week later. They think he died sometime around February seventeenth
or eighteenth. He's ninety five years old. He died of
hyper intensive cardiovascular disease, and they also listed Alzheimer's a
significant contributing factor. But yeah, you can draw fill in
the blanks that he was in the house for up
(26:06):
to a week with his dead wife's body. It's a
really sad story, but at least we're getting a little
bit more of a clear picture as to what happened.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
So were officials in Santa Fe and it was a
sheriff's and it was a medical examiner and a few others.
Were they questioned about that what happened between the eleventh
and the eighteenth.
Speaker 6 (26:27):
They were and they essentially said they don't know, which
I think what they're not saying tells you all you
need to know. And that's it doesn't seem like this
man was really capable of caring for himself. It seems
like she was the caretaker. There was nobody else coming
into or going out of the house, and that once
she died, he was on his own to spend exactly,
(26:49):
And the sheriff was asked, you know, he was fat
when when Gene Hackman was found, he had kind of
they said, like his sunglasses and a jacket on, like
almost he's going to go outside. And they asked was
he maybe going to get help? And they said they
really couldn't go that far in speculating as to whether
he was trying to leave the house or what was
going on. But it does Paine just a really sad picture.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Yeah, So did they they support this with I think
phone calls, text messages, video camera surveillance from the community. Right,
this isn't This is pretty definitive in terms of the timeline.
And I know that earlier there was a headline about
his pacemaker stopped working and that was an indication of
when he might have died.
Speaker 6 (27:35):
Yeah, and that's still what they're going for with him,
because it stopped working or the last recorded activity there
was something on the seventeenth, and then there was a
little bit more of like an irregular heartbeat message on
the eighteenth, So they think it was sometime in the
seventeenth eighteenth window where he died. And then what they're
using to try to track down her time of death
(27:55):
is just kind of outgoing contacts in terms of getting
in touch with people from the outside world, and that's
why they think that she had not been heard from
since February eleven.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
So from what you heard today, is this sort of
the end of the story or is there more to come?
Speaker 6 (28:14):
So the sheriff was asked that as well, and he
said that this pretty much answers a lot of questions.
He said, there's a few pieces of information relating to
the cell phones that are still outstanding. They're hoping to
get some of those results back, but in terms of
maybe drilling down a little bit more into what happened
and when, it doesn't seem like we'll ever know. But
(28:35):
I think just being kind of the clear outline of
what happened and when I think we got maybe as
good as we're going.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
To get, cause you know, the story that's been reported
for the past week. Is that cliche that a lot
of us in the news business fall on. To myself included,
is that more questions than answers. So we still have
a lot of questions, but we may never really get
the answers.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
It sounds like what they.
Speaker 6 (28:57):
Said exactly right. Yeah, I think we're all guilty of
that in our business. It was that and it's also
we may not like the answers because I think there's
just really sad at the end of the day when
you when you consider how this went, and that seems
like is what we're going to have to, you know,
think about as we move forward here.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Yeah, and apparently nobody reached out to them during that
week's time. I mean, Hackman obviously has adult children, and yeah,
it's it's kind of it's kind of a sad story,
you know, in so many ways, isn't it.
Speaker 6 (29:32):
Absolutely, And you know, there was some when when we
first heard this, I think we all thought of this
sounds like carbon monoxide, you know, called in New Mexico.
They were both negative for carbon monoxide. And then we
heard that there were pills found alongside his wife's body, right,
and they clarified those today. They said that that was
just regular thyroid medication she was taking as prescribed, and
it seems like maybe she was taking her medication when
(29:55):
she was stricken and that's what happened. So all these
kind of the sarious things that we thought about, they've
gone away, and now I think we're less than just
kind of a sad reality here.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Yeah, and apparently they were very private. We've heard a
lot of the news coverage in the past week talking
with people who lived in the general area. They had
a large piece of property that was fairly secluded. They
were they were, they kept to themselves. There are apparently
no video cameras or security cameras on their property that
(30:27):
would have maybe recorded things like so many of us
have security cameras or you know, doorbell cameras. So yeah,
so it just seems like it was just an unfortunate
sort of series of events that you know, the hantavirus thing.
The hantavirus thing, I think is going to provoke a
little bit more discussion than what happened with him. I mean,
(30:47):
ninety five heart disease, Alzheimer's, that makes sense. But how
in this day and age you get you die from
something like a infection in your lung seems you know,
one of those things might be worth exploring a little
bit more.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
Absolutely, they had the County veterinarian out there just at
the press conference as well, giving people an update. There's
a pretty high fatality rate or mortality rate with it,
maybe up to the highest fifty percent in some cases,
but it's so rare. That's why we don't hear more
about it, so she was just giving and they did
say there was evidence that there had been some rodents
in the house, just mice or whatever they were. But
(31:24):
I think we all dealt with mice at one time
or another and don't think this is going to happen.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Well, you know, a week or so after the oscars
and we look back on Gene Hackman's life with the
two oscars and this incredible inspirational body of work that
you entertained multiple generations of people. He lived an incredibly long,
full life going out of Hollywood quote unquote on his
(31:49):
own terms about twenty years ago apparently with this new
love of his life, and they had pretty cool sounding
existence there out of the limelight in Santa to Faye.
It all has to come to an end one way
or another. This one's more bizarre than most. But Brian Clark,
thanks from ABC News, thank you so much for an
(32:10):
update on that. And we're going to keep an eye
on this one see what else if anything comes out
during the day. But first let's get some additional headlines
from Debora Mark and the KFI twenty four hour newsroom.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Hey, you've been listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast.
You can always hear the show live on KFI Am
six forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Can if I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobel Podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
I'm Phil Schuman from Fox eleven News in for John
co Belt this afternoon one to four. Thanks for the
opportunity to sit in John's chair. It's a big task
and hopefully we'll be up to it. Over the next
few hours. We have a lot to talk about, what's
the latest in Washington, what that means for us here
in Southern California, as always, the issue of homelessness, which
(00:29):
is at the top of almost everybody's list of concerns.
Breaking news there, We're going to talk to one of
the reporters and editors that broke a major story, which
unfortunately is not a surprising story about the state of
care for the homelessness and homelessness funding here in Southern California. Also,
as we speak, I'm keeping an eye on a couple
(00:50):
of the monitors hear in the KFI News studios. Officials
are on now with a live update from Santa Fe,
New Mexico, into the mischief various deaths.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Their words last week of.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Gene Hackman are suspicious, Perhaps is more accurate of Gene
Hackman and his wife. We're keeping an eye on that
and we'll have that information for you as soon as
we get a chance to summarize it. I want to
talk with you today over the next few hours about leadership.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Who is it.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Here in southern California that we look to for leadership,
The way our governments work with local government, county government,
city government, and of course look into Gavin Newsom in
state government. There's a lot of opportunities for people to lead,
and I don't know that anyone has really risen to
the task. Now, say what you will about Donald Trump,
(01:48):
he does seem to be exerting a strong leadership role
with his co president Elon Musk. So much news is
about the Department of Government Efficiency DOGE, and we're going
to start off this afternoon talking about that. The Republicans
have a plan to make the DOGE cuts permanent, at
least as permanent as anything can can be until the
(02:11):
next president takes office. So joining us now to talk
about that is ABC News correspondent Ali percorn Ali.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
With us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
So can you give us an update and where things
stand again? The headline is that the Senate Republicans are
pitching a plan that would make the funding cuts, the
DOGE funding cuts permanent.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
Yeah, that's right. So the thing that's been a little
bit tough for DOGE and the efforts that Elon Musk
has been having so far is that no matter what,
no matter how much they try to do, ultimately in
this country, Congress controls the power of the purse. And
so well DOGE has been going through and slashing a
lot of these fending cuts, they've run into some legal challenges, right,
(02:55):
because Congress has already appropriated a lot of that funding
for these the federal agencies that go to trying to slash.
So we've had at least one instance where the Supreme
Court this week actually ruled that the teperal government has
to pay out some of those cuts, including cuts that
were made to USAID.
Speaker 6 (03:12):
Right.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
So Senate Republicans this week hitch Elon Musk on a plan.
It's a little bit wonky, but basically it would allow
them to make the cuts in line with congressional spending
and so that would make the cuts, in their mind
a little more permanent. What that would look like, it's
something called a recision package, and it's a little bit
procedurally heavy, but basically what it involves is that President
(03:34):
Trump would send the Congress a proposal for what he
wants slash out of their budget. But as Congress could
get on board with it, they can actually pass those
cuts with a simple majority of votes in the Senate.
That's really important because that means that if all Republicans
get on the same page about this, they can actually
pass that cut package without any Democratic support at all.
(03:54):
But it is going to require almost all Republicans to
be working in locks of on this. It's not clear
yet whether all Republicans will agree with it.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
So what's the next step in this process? And have
we just all accepted the fact that DOGE is is
legitimate agency because there's even questions about whether it's an
official department of the government.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Well, that's a.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
Really good point. And so the reason that Senate Republicans
went ahead and pitched this idea to Elon Musk is
that it sort of allowed DOGE to do this quote
unquote advisory works that they're doing. They'll still bring it
in line with like recognized ideas of how Congress operates. Right,
Because you asked what the next step is? The next
step that they decided to go forward with. This would
be President Trump sending Congress this recision package, sending Congress
(04:44):
this proposal for what he wants to have cut, and
so in a way, Doe just sort of sitting on
this side of that. They're not actually involved in the
legitimate process of legislating the cuts of law. So the
first step would be Trump sending them over this proposal,
and then Congress would not to consider it and pass
it through both chambers if they wanted to actually get
it into law.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah, we're talking with ABC News correspondent Ali Percorin about
the Republicans plan to make the so called Doge cuts permanent.
But when we say permanent, President Trump's only going to
be in office for four more years unless he changes
the constitution and gets re elected. So permanent is really
a word that we should maybe put in air quotes.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
Yeah, I mean, as you mentioned when you and first
introduced me, it's as permanent as anything can be in
this government, right. I mean, the whole structure of the
United States government system is that if the voters don't
like something that's been put into law, they can elect
new officials to try to change it. When we say
permanent here, though, what we mean is that right now,
DOGE is sort of acting on its own authority. It's
(05:48):
kind of like moving through the federal government and.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Slashing these right with either a sledgechamber measures first a sledgehamber,
then a scalpel exactly.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
And so what we mean by it here is that,
unlike the Doge cuts, which can be challenged in court
and kind of batted around, if Congress passed this package,
it would be kind of irrefutable that it was legal,
as the argument here, at least as long as Congress
continues to allocate spending at the levels that are consit
with what DOGE wants to do, it would be permanent. Now,
(06:20):
if a new president came into town, or Congress was
suddenly controlled by Democrats, maybe in the midterms this year,
you could see all of that changing.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
So how long have you been doing this Capitol Hill correspondence.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
I've been covering Congress for like four or five of years.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Now, So is it markedly different since President Trump came back?
So you were there probably for the entire Biden administration
and now the Trump readministration takes over.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I mean, it seems like a whole different reality, right.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
Yeah, I mean I started covering Congress towards the tail
end of Trump's first tournament. Off it okay, that was
colored very heavily by the coronavirus pandemic, though, so it
wasn't like a super typical experience regardless. Obviously, anytime that
you have a Congress controlled by the president's party, you're
going to see them moving a lot more aggressively. So
(07:14):
in the first two years of President Biden's administration, you
had Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate, and
they too were moving very aggressively to try to pass
President Biden's policies into law. The difference, I would say
between what Republicans are doing now versus what Republicans were
doing during President Trump's first term is that there were
a number of Republicans in President Trump's first terms who
(07:37):
were outspoken in their opposition to President Trump's sort of
a typical operating style. In our newer Congress, you're seeing
a lot of Republicans, for the most part, fall in
line with the way that Trump is operating, and largely
that's because they see Trump's resounding victory in the election
as a mandate from the American people that their voters
really like what Trump is doing, and so they want
(07:58):
to give him the broadest latitude they pop probably can
to allow him to operate under the campaign promises that
he made the American people.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Well, that seems to be the moo the marching orders
at this point. Appreciate your insight. Ali Percorn from ABC News.
We're gonna move on and give you an update on
the latest on the Gene Hackman death investigation into the
suspicious death of himself and his wife, which was a
week ago, of course, became a much bigger story because
(08:26):
of the proximity to the Oscars.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Two time Oscar winner.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I love listening to those promos from doctor Wendy Walsh.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
First of all, her voice is incredible, and then the
question she always asks, you know, and the teases right.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Always listen to her show on Sunday Night.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
And I knew her a little bit, you know, years
ago when she was a TV reporter, and I'm just
I've always told her how impressed I am with her
that she went back to school. Has you know, these
degrees as actual, real profession now, not just us that
come in here and talk on the radio without really
any qualifications or skills.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And then to hear.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Handle is one of a kind. And he had the podcast, right,
he had the Bill Handle Show podcast. And then he
by his own admission, if you listen to Handle in
the mornings, uh you, he said, I don't want to
do it anymore. I guess it was too much work.
So yeah, people have said to me, you should have
a podcast. I'm like, why who wants to hear what
(09:32):
I have to say in a podcast? I'm happy to
be here to say what I have to say here
and the opportunities opportunities that I get to to sit
in here on the microphone behind the microphones a KFI.
I've always loved AM radio, talk radio audio. I know
half the folks listen on the iHeartRadio app, which is fantastic.
(09:53):
So yeah, it seems like there were so many podcasts
out there. My wife said something interesting yesterday. She said
podcasts are kind of like the new newspapers. I'm not
sure that I one hundred percent agree with that, but
I understand what she was saying. But there's so many
podcasts out there, and it's so difficult to break through
on one of them to get sort of a wide audience.
(10:15):
But hey, there's lots of ways to get information, lots
of ways to entertain yourself, lots of ways to inform yourself.
One of the things we're going to be talking about
over the next few hours. There was a really interesting
article that we printed out from the Washington Post talking
about the White House's new media strategy. So the politician,
(10:39):
the office, the entity, they are now the content creators
and the news providers.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
In other words, it's not just the White House.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Does something, City Hall does something, the Condye Border Supervisors
does something, and then we report on it, and you,
as a news consumer, get the understanding or the information
from that. It's like now the newsmakers are now creating
their own content. This is not a brand new concept,
(11:09):
but the Trump white House seems to be refining this
or taking it to a whole new level. I mean,
Caroline Levitt seems like a nice person, but she clearly
has an agenda. There's no such thing as a sort
of unbiased or neutral press representative anymore. I guess that's understandable.
(11:30):
Their jobs to make their boss look as good as possible.
Whether you're representing the president, whether you're representing the mayor,
whether you're representing the police department, the fire department. There's
just so much in the news these days. And now
the like I mentioned, the news organization is not the
conduit information. It's just one conduit of information. You can
(11:54):
get it directly from the source. Follow Mayor Bass on Twitter,
Follow you know, Lindsay Horvath on Twitter, Follow Donald Trump
of course on Twitter, on X on whatever platform it is.
And so I think it's a good thing in balance
that there are more sources of information now myself coming
(12:16):
from what.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Would be considered quote unquote mainstream media.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Obviously I'm biased in favor of using organizations with credibility
and a track record of, you know, telling truthful, fair,
unbiased stories as one of your primary sources of information.
But hey, what I think is not necessarily any more
valid than what you think. But what I what I
(12:41):
do in reporting a story, I think has more value
than you know, your average blogger who might be sitting
at home on their computer, because we have years of
experience in doing this, whether it's going to a press conference,
whether it's interviewing officials, whether it's respond to disasters, you
(13:02):
pick your news story. The quote unquote professionals I think
deserve a little bit more credit and a little bit
more respect than perhaps we were getting. If you listen
to me here when I have the opportunity to fill
in on KFI, you know that I've often mentioned how
I think President Trump just really hurt so.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Many of us on the news media.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
I don't mean emotionally, I mean the credibility wise when
he coined that term fake news, because so many people
then jumped on that bandwagon that they can't trust what
they hear. And sometimes you can and sometimes you can't.
And that's why I'm saying, as a news consumer, you
have a responsibility to be selective and choose well in
(13:47):
what you are deciding to fill your head with. So
that's a little bit of a sermon. I don't know
if I want to call it that. I'd also maybe
call it common sense advice. I'd feel much better if
I'm looking at Deborah Mark in Newsman and she was
like at least nodding her head, like occasionally understanding, maybe
even agreeing with what I'm saying. We're gonna talk more
about this and a lot of other issues that affect
(14:09):
our day to day life, day to day struggle here
in southern California. To get by two months ago, life
change for thousands of people, and really for all of
us going forward with the fires, We're gonna update what's
happening in the Palisades, We're gonna update what's happening in
Alta Dina.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Some great news from the Dodgers.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
They're gonna be making a major contribution in the Alta
Dina community.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
But first, you're.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI, a.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Six forty iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
I would love it if you would click on the
microphone icon on that app and record a comment on
the talkback feature. I'd love to hear some of your
thoughts as we move through Friday afternoon, beautiful day today.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
I'm so tired of.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Storm watch and then more storm watch coming next week,
and we can't make light it, and we shouldn't make
light of it because of the potential for disaster in
the burn zones. But I just feel, and maybe it's me,
because I watch too much news and listen to too
much news, and read too much news. It just feels
(15:14):
like we're just getting bombard and we just finished with
this rain, and there's a chance of rain at the
end of next week, and then a month from now
we may get some more rain.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
It's like, I don't like the rain. I don't want
the rain. You can keep the rain.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
You heard in Deborah Mark's newscast a brief update from
Santa Fe, New Mexico on the Gene Hackman and his
wife death investigation. There was just a live update from
that scene from the Sheriff's department, from medical examiner and
so forth. And this is kind of a strange one
because remember the story Betsy Arakawa Betsy Hackman, sixty five
years old, was found on the floor of a bathroom
(15:50):
in the couple's home. And then Hackman was found dead
in what they call the mud room, which is like
sort of an East Coast term for like sort of
the back door in your house and maybe the laundry
is at So what seems weird is that she supposedly
died of hantavirus, which is a pulmonary infection that you
(16:11):
typically get from like the droppings of rodents. She dies
on February eleventh, at least that was the last time
she was seen alive or sent out any emails or
any communications, and then he dies from apparently heart disease,
complications of cardiovascular disease a week later.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
So what does that mean? Does that mean Ray's joining
us now?
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Does that mean that he lived with her body for
a week in the house, or does that mean that
he was gone and came home to discover the body
and then coincidentally died. In the next segment, we'll be
talking to ABC News Brian Clark about all this. Yeah,
but I mean the timeline is unusual, right, I mean,
she dies in Februar eleventh, he dies Febuer eighteenth. So
(17:00):
this is something if you're going to be listening to
the news and watching the local news on TV. We're
going to be talking about in detail this afternoon, and
we'll save this discussion till we get Brian Clark. At
one point fifty I was able to watch some of
the captions of the news conference that was carried live
on some of the cable networks here while I was
(17:20):
talking to on the studio, and it was a sheriff's apartment,
and it was a medical examiner, and it seemed like
a ton of sort of medical terminology without much explanation,
but we'll get into that. But at least it confirms
what they had pretty much told us at the beginning
that there wasn't any obvious signs of foul play or
(17:42):
trauma to the bodies or anything like that. But this
timeline seems very weird, all right, So it was two
months ago today that the world changed for us for
so many of us here in Southern California. We've of
course been through fires, mud slides, earthquakes many time before,
but nothing on this scale of devastation. I've often talked
(18:05):
about how sort of we're going to remember pre January
seventh in Southern California and post January seventh in Southern
California for the rest of our lives. Some good news
today is that today's the first day that you can
drink the water without health concerns in the Palisades area.
Mayor Karen Bass made sure to announce that loudly on Thursday,
(18:29):
and she's, you know, she's trying to she's trying to
do the right thing. She's trying to be a leader,
she's trying to make people feel better. She said that
she's committed to rebuilding this community. At Lightning speed she
draws comparison. For example, in the campfire, remember that one
said it took it took eighteen months for them to
clear the water supply for use.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Here, they did it in two.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
And there was also a comment from Janice Canone's the
chief engineer and chief executive of the d WP, that
they've been working seven days a week, that they flushed
the entire system. Now, this is the same person who
allowed that one hundred and seventeen million gallon reservoir that
could have made a huge difference in fighting the Palisades
fire to be offline, and the person that I believe
(19:18):
should have gotten the acts from Mayor Bass as soon
as she came back from Ghana. Now, if I'm Mayor Bass.
When I land and I was questioned by that Irish
reporter and remember who was just berating her in the jetway,
and she kind of stood there without saying anything, which
he has later told Alex Michaelson from Fox eleven and
(19:38):
others that was a mistake. But we have sympathy for
her as a human because she just got off of
like a twelve hour flight and been stressed the entire time.
At any rate, I'm Karen Bass, I'm getting off the plane,
I'm firing the fire chief, and I'm firing the head
of the DWP. She didn't want to do that at
(19:59):
the time, she said, because we're in the middle of
the crisis, which makes a certain degree of sense. But
since then she's been playing catch up. I think most
anyone would agree. Being in the news biz, I'm on
the email distribution list of the Mayor's office, of County
Supervisor's office, of basically all of the city and county
state agencies who send out a NonStop barrage of press
(20:23):
releases designed, as I mentioned in the previous segment, to
tout the accomplishments of their bosses, make it look like
how they are on top of everything, and they even
send out press releases.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Now, Debra, you'll appreciate this.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
I'm sure you've seen him where what others are saying,
where they sort of enlist positive comments from other leaders
and politicians to chime in and give compliments to the
person who's leading the battle. So Karen Bass, I mean,
she's fighting for her career as at least as the
(20:56):
mayor of Los Angeles. It's hard to imagine, but next
year is the primary for both the mayor's race and
the governor's race. We've talked about that here before, and
obviously she's in a lot of trouble. And significant news though,
is that and Rick Caruso, who is either going to
run for mayor or for governor.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I'm not sure which announced this first.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Is that the DWP has agreed to place on the
electric lines in the Palisades area underground, at a huge expense,
which we haven't figured out who's going to pay for
it yet.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Each check this out.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Each mile of subterranean electric lines can cost from one
million to four million, So if it says one million
to four million, it's probably three million to eight million.
So that's going to be hundreds of millions of dollars
just to place the electric lines, the power lines underground
to eliminate the risk of fires in the future.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
That should be everywhere.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
It should be everywhere area where there are possibilities of wildfires,
not just in the Palisades but everywhere else.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Right, we don't know what the plan is for Alta Dina.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I mean, that's a relatively small section of a huge
power distribution line that southern California Edison is already being
sued as the likely cause of the fire, because we've
seen this over and over again with the you know,
the high tension power line spark and the fire starts
right underneath them. So at least initially, everyone is saying
the right thing and trying to do the right thing,
(22:29):
both in clearing the debris and record speed getting the
water usable, although we haven't heard that yet in the
Altadena area, expedating the permit process and the rebuilding process
as much as possible.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
It's just the.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Scope of it is so huge that even though it's
happening fast er than normal, I don't think it's going
to happen fast.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI A sixty.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
One of the hardest working reporters slash and I've ever
been around. You remember Patrick Healey from Fox eleven, from
Channel four News.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
That's where I spent about fifteen years of my career.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
As a matter of fact, in the building right across
the street from the studios here at KFI. I can
look out the window and see what used to be
the old KNBC news operation. Now it's the Burbank studios.
I believe they've Channel four news has moved over to
the universal lot. At any rate, Elex is the new
inventor of the eight day work week. What I used
(23:31):
to tease Patrick Heey about when he'd be doing his
twelfth story of the day and making the rest of
us look bad by comparison. At any rate, Elex has
really worked hard to cultivate his relationship with politicians with elected's.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
I know that he and Gavin Newsom have spent a
lot of time together.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Ellis has a show, The Issue Is on Friday Nights
at ten thirty, which airs I think statewide now, in
which he interviews politicians, newsmakers and others. And he has
a really good, unique, fun, fair, engaging style. He's not
afraid to ask tough questions. He doesn't show any favoritism,
(24:14):
he doesn't have an agenda, And so if you're new
to him, or to Fox eleven or to The Issue
is Friday Night's at ten thirty, and I then gets
rerun on Sundays on Channel thirteen I think at noon.
At any rate, there's so much noise out there. As
I mentioned earlier, we're talking about podcasts, it's difficult to
(24:34):
find something that breaks through. But if you want some
real political insider knowledge. Check out Elex and his work
and then he'll be on this afternoon and we can
talk about it with Tim a little bit. So headline
today out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and this is
a strange one.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Gene Hackman lived with his.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Dead wife's body for a week before succumbing to complications
from heart problem and Alzheimer's. That is according to officials
in Santa Fe, which they had a news conference this
afternoon with an update on their unusual deaths. And joining
us to talk about that a little bit more right
now is Brian Clark, ABC News correspondent, Brian, I know
(25:16):
you follow that update from Santa Fe closely.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
What are the headlines and then the explanations, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (25:23):
And they kind of go hand in hand there. So
the first thing we know is going chronologically is that
Betsy Hackman died first. That's Geen Hackman's wife, and they
think she died around February eleventh, and her cause of
death was a very rare condition called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.
It's transmitted by infected mouse droppings. That's what killed her.
(25:46):
But Gene Hackman they think lived for up to a
week later. They think he died sometime around February seventeenth
or eighteenth. He's ninety five years old. He died of
hyper intensive cardiovascular disease, and they also listed Alzheimer's a
significant contributing factor. But yeah, you can draw fill in
the blanks that he was in the house for up
(26:06):
to a week with his dead wife's body. It's a
really sad story, but at least we're getting a little
bit more of a clear picture as to what happened.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
So were officials in Santa Fe and it was a
sheriff's and it was a medical examiner and a few others.
Were they questioned about that what happened between the eleventh
and the eighteenth.
Speaker 6 (26:27):
They were and they essentially said they don't know, which
I think what they're not saying tells you all you
need to know. And that's it doesn't seem like this
man was really capable of caring for himself. It seems
like she was the caretaker. There was nobody else coming
into or going out of the house, and that once
she died, he was on his own to spend exactly,
(26:49):
And the sheriff was asked, you know, he was fat
when when Gene Hackman was found, he had kind of
they said, like his sunglasses and a jacket on, like
almost he's going to go outside. And they asked was
he maybe going to get help? And they said they
really couldn't go that far in speculating as to whether
he was trying to leave the house or what was
going on. But it does Paine just a really sad picture.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Yeah, So did they they support this with I think
phone calls, text messages, video camera surveillance from the community. Right,
this isn't This is pretty definitive in terms of the timeline.
And I know that earlier there was a headline about
his pacemaker stopped working and that was an indication of
when he might have died.
Speaker 6 (27:35):
Yeah, and that's still what they're going for with him,
because it stopped working or the last recorded activity there
was something on the seventeenth, and then there was a
little bit more of like an irregular heartbeat message on
the eighteenth, So they think it was sometime in the
seventeenth eighteenth window where he died. And then what they're
using to try to track down her time of death
(27:55):
is just kind of outgoing contacts in terms of getting
in touch with people from the outside world, and that's
why they think that she had not been heard from
since February eleven.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
So from what you heard today, is this sort of
the end of the story or is there more to come?
Speaker 6 (28:14):
So the sheriff was asked that as well, and he
said that this pretty much answers a lot of questions.
He said, there's a few pieces of information relating to
the cell phones that are still outstanding. They're hoping to
get some of those results back, but in terms of
maybe drilling down a little bit more into what happened
and when, it doesn't seem like we'll ever know. But
(28:35):
I think just being kind of the clear outline of
what happened and when I think we got maybe as
good as we're going.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
To get, cause you know, the story that's been reported
for the past week. Is that cliche that a lot
of us in the news business fall on. To myself included,
is that more questions than answers. So we still have
a lot of questions, but we may never really get
the answers.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
It sounds like what they.
Speaker 6 (28:57):
Said exactly right. Yeah, I think we're all guilty of
that in our business. It was that and it's also
we may not like the answers because I think there's
just really sad at the end of the day when
you when you consider how this went, and that seems
like is what we're going to have to, you know,
think about as we move forward here.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Yeah, and apparently nobody reached out to them during that
week's time. I mean, Hackman obviously has adult children, and yeah,
it's it's kind of it's kind of a sad story,
you know, in so many ways, isn't it.
Speaker 6 (29:32):
Absolutely, And you know, there was some when when we
first heard this, I think we all thought of this
sounds like carbon monoxide, you know, called in New Mexico.
They were both negative for carbon monoxide. And then we
heard that there were pills found alongside his wife's body, right,
and they clarified those today. They said that that was
just regular thyroid medication she was taking as prescribed, and
it seems like maybe she was taking her medication when
(29:55):
she was stricken and that's what happened. So all these
kind of the sarious things that we thought about, they've
gone away, and now I think we're less than just
kind of a sad reality here.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Yeah, and apparently they were very private. We've heard a
lot of the news coverage in the past week talking
with people who lived in the general area. They had
a large piece of property that was fairly secluded. They
were they were, they kept to themselves. There are apparently
no video cameras or security cameras on their property that
(30:27):
would have maybe recorded things like so many of us
have security cameras or you know, doorbell cameras. So yeah,
so it just seems like it was just an unfortunate
sort of series of events that you know, the hantavirus thing.
The hantavirus thing, I think is going to provoke a
little bit more discussion than what happened with him. I mean,
(30:47):
ninety five heart disease, Alzheimer's, that makes sense. But how
in this day and age you get you die from
something like a infection in your lung seems you know,
one of those things might be worth exploring a little
bit more.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
Absolutely, they had the County veterinarian out there just at
the press conference as well, giving people an update. There's
a pretty high fatality rate or mortality rate with it,
maybe up to the highest fifty percent in some cases,
but it's so rare. That's why we don't hear more
about it, so she was just giving and they did
say there was evidence that there had been some rodents
in the house, just mice or whatever they were. But
(31:24):
I think we all dealt with mice at one time
or another and don't think this is going to happen.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Well, you know, a week or so after the oscars
and we look back on Gene Hackman's life with the
two oscars and this incredible inspirational body of work that
you entertained multiple generations of people. He lived an incredibly long,
full life going out of Hollywood quote unquote on his
(31:49):
own terms about twenty years ago apparently with this new
love of his life, and they had pretty cool sounding
existence there out of the limelight in Santa to Faye.
It all has to come to an end one way
or another. This one's more bizarre than most. But Brian Clark,
thanks from ABC News, thank you so much for an
(32:10):
update on that. And we're going to keep an eye
on this one see what else if anything comes out
during the day. But first let's get some additional headlines
from Debora Mark and the KFI twenty four hour newsroom.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Hey, you've been listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast.
You can always hear the show live on KFI Am
six forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
The John Kobylt Show News
Host
John Kobylt
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