June 30, 2025 • 30 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 1 (06/30) - Mark Thompson fills in for John. Jordana Miller comes on the show to talk about the possibility of a end to the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. What is a "Vote-arama"? More on Zorhan Mamdani winning the Democratic primary for NYC Mayor.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can'f I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobel podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Always cool to see the Cobalt Show kids, you know, Eric,
Deborah old Crewe nikis here. We'll get to a lot
of stuff today, and there's much going on in the world.
I want to get first to something that really is
remarkable in the conversation around international events. One has to
look at what happened in Iran as a result of
(00:28):
Israeli and American cooperation, and that same cooperation may apply
to what may happen with a solution toward Gaza and
the inhumanity and the remarkable continuing two years now into
that conflict of all of the both military efforts on
(00:49):
the part of Israel and also the pushback on the
part of Hamas. But what has changed is both the
time and now the efforts of the American President Donald
Trump to try to affect some kind of peace deal.
Whether US now is Georgiana Miller from ABC and Geordana
what is I guess President Trump has his site set
(01:12):
on ending this war in Gaza.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
He does, and I think he's been saying that for
you know, the last couple months but after what the
Israelis called a decisive victory over Iran, those calls by
the president are growing, you know, more urgent and more public.
(01:37):
And we know that the Israeli Prime Minister is working
on setting a date to come to Washington. It's likely
going to be early next week, and topping the agenda
will be how to wrap up the war in Gaza
as well as you know, post Iran.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Talk after not only the devastating military defeat that Israel delivered,
but of course the United States role in that in
hitting the nuclear sites Ford Oubt, Isfahan and the tans
Uh and then talking about expanding the Abraham Accords. Those
are the peace accords that President Trump uh signed in
(02:25):
his first.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Term as president right at the end there that.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Brought normalization deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates
as well as Bahrain, Morocco. Well, there are other countries
now that are are interested in that have long been interested.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
In joining the Abraham Accords.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
And the you know, the defeat uh in of Iran,
the successful attack of their nuclear program and their missile
program has only moved that, you know, process of normalizing ties,
which in Israel and its neighbors it has expedited or
(03:07):
accelerated that process. And remember we know now that one
of the reasons Hamas struck on October seventh with that
very deadly attack back in twenty twenty three was one
of the aims was to derail the normalization talks that
were quite advanced between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I was just about to make that point. I'm so
glad you make it, because it's sort of ironic, isn't
that that this entire thing, the October seventh attack and
all that's followed, was really probably tripped off from that
which you're talking about, right.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
I mean, that was one of the that's one of
the one of the main reasons that Hamas decided to strike.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
When it did, right, Hamas was always going to plan
some deadly strike on Israel, but that was one of
the one of the important timing aspects of it.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
So, you know, here we are almost two years later,
Hamas has been largely defeated, has Bala has.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Been beaten back ran. You know, it is very very very.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Weakened and turned out to be somewhat of a paper tiger.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
And so this is a really ripe moment to wrap
up the war in Gaza and link it even to.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Advancing and widening the Abraham Accords, which would be you know, it'd.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Be a win for Israel, would you think, Jordana, Yeah,
a win for Israel in the West exactly.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Yeah, it's not just yeah, it's not just Israel, it's
the West as well. Because remember all of these countries,
and it includes now Syria. We forget that in the
middle of of all this, the Syrian regime fell and
Israel there was also very aggressive taking the Goal on Heights,
a kind of no man's land, even extending its reach
into Syrian territory to secure its borders. Well, now even
(05:15):
Syria is interested in a normalization deal with Israel.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, the Iranian proxies now are gone. Yeah. This is
it's a different serial and it's an opportunity to reorder
the Middle East. I mean, it's quite an extraordinary moment
in Middle East history.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
It is this is a kind of tectonic shift, if
you will, that you know, an earthquake that began.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
On October seventh, and it did bring some ruin, if
you will, But you know, it looks two years out
like a reordering, as you said, of the Middle East.
Speaker 5 (05:55):
And really to the benefit of the West.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And of course Israel h jordanan I can't let you
go though without mentioning the one huge sticking point for
Israel is the fifty hostages that remain. They're still being
held by Hamas, and this is a massive issue within Israel.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
It is and quickly, after twelve days of really intense
war here and the thirteenth day of an uncertain ceasefire,
now it's holding these really public quickly shifted back.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
To the gods of war. I mean, there were tens
of thousands.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Of people out over the weekend again calling for the
end of the war, calling for the release of the hostages.
The hostage crisis here is like a festering wound, really,
and until those fifty hostages are back, and remember only
twenty of them are believed to be alive.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
The other thirty are bodies. And within that group of
bodies are.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Two Americans, two young Americans that deserve.
Speaker 5 (07:03):
To be uh, deserve a burial like the others. So
you know, Israel wants to see all of them out
and back.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
And there is fear that even the intensified military operation
of the last couple months has endangered the lives of
the hostages. So the families are extremely I mean, at
this point there, I'm not even sure there are words
to describe the state of mind of these families.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
And now, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Also would say just to it trauma and that pain
and trauma informs politically and and Yahoo and these ongoing discussions.
But nonetheless it may represent an opportunity this moment in time.
GEORGANA Miller from ABC, thank you so much for spending
a moment with us on the Call Belt Show.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
Appreciate it, Thank you, Texan.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, talk soon. That's a developing story for sure. Much
to get to today. I'll update this vote on the
Trump megabill and more as we continue. It's the John
Covelt Show. Mark sitting in on KFI AM six forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 6 (08:15):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I just want to mention, because it is going on
right now, the vote rama that is talked about, and
everybody's clear on what that vote rama is. So when
there's a big bill, as you're aware, and this is
a huge bill, any number of things happen along the way.
They're having to essentially xcize from the bill, take out
stuff that not related to money, like if there's some
(08:44):
the politics woven into the bill has to be removed.
But that's not what votama is. Voter rama is once
they're done with a debate, and you know, Chuck Schumer
asks for the bill to be read because it's almost
a thousand page bill, and the allegation, and it's probably true,
is that you know, none of these guys have read it.
I mean just I don't know Democrat, Republican, anybody's read it.
(09:05):
I mean, what we see the stuff that percolates to
the surface is all the stuff that's particularly radioactive, right
that Medicaid is going to be defunded if this bill passes,
and that there's going to be the selloff of public land,
and that I have news about in just a moment,
because that looks like that's been nixed from the bill,
and you know, the Senate has made changes to that
(09:25):
House bill. So what vodama is, as you're aware, is
that just begin after the debate period is over, So
after the bill is read, then they're debating, they introduce
all these senators do all these things into the bill,
little stuff into the bill. No reason they do this
can range from them really caring about these things that
(09:46):
they added the bill, or it's political grandstanding. And this
will come as no surprise to you that in order
to you know, wink in a nod and tip of
the hat to their constituency, they're going to ask for
certain things to be added to the bill that then
are voted on quickly. That's the vote rama part. Like
all of this happens super quickly, So all these senators
(10:07):
try to shoehorn in stuff that many of them probably
know we'll never make it to the finish line. But
the idea is that by entering it into the bill,
they get credit for having tried to get it in
on behalf of their constituency. So a lot of it
is politics, and there is a lot of it to
the point that they are introducing it and then voting
(10:29):
on it super quickly. So that's what's happening with the
megabill now. So when they talk about vote rama, that's
kind of where we are. I mentioned that there was
a plan to sell off public land in the West.
It was super controversial, continues to be super controversialist and
talked about and was talked about in the first Trump administration,
(10:49):
or as I like to call it, Season one, A
controversial plan now across the Western States, including California, selling
hundreds of thousands of acres of this public land axed
from the Republican Tax and Spending Bill. There was bipartisan backlash.
(11:10):
Mike Lee in Utah, who spearheaded the proposal to begin with,
said that he was pulling the provision. This just happened
over the weekend. Lee had said that the land sale
was intended to ease the financial burden of housing, pointing
to a lack of affordability many communities, many of the
communities in Utah and beyond. He said, because of these
(11:35):
strict constraints of the budget reconciliation process, I was unable
to secure clear, enforceable safeguards to guarantee that these lands
would be sold only to American families, not to China,
not to Blackrock, and not to any foreign interests. The
truth is he got such pushback on this. I mean,
(11:55):
he's a saving political face, is what he's doing. But
I mean, he didn't mention that this would have mandated
the sale of six hundred thousand and one point two
million acres of Bureau of Land Management land. It was
eleven Western states covered by all this, California among them,
(12:15):
and the areas available for auction were supposed to be
located within a five mile radius of population centers. And
so you ended up with what was an unprecedented sell
off of public lands.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
And so.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
There were as I say, there were Republicans, four of
them to my count, vowing to strike the proposal from
the bill, and ultimately he just took it out himself. So,
as Vodorama continues, this bill may survive in one way
or another. I think it will make it to the
(12:51):
finish line. Again, they've taken out certain things that along
the lines of the selling off of public lands got
bipartisan pushback. Probably the thing that's getting a lot of
headlines is the Medicaid hit. The idea somehow that Medicaid
would be defunded to the point that a lot of
(13:13):
these rural communities, and they're in Red states, may be
dramatically affected. So the Red States senators are really getting
dragged to this, but many of them are voting for it. Anyway.
The power of Donald Trump is legit. He has tremendous
political heft and he stares down these senators and even
(13:33):
threatens them with primaries such that they ultimately cave. You
saw Tom Tillis, He's saying, Hey, I'm not even going
to run now for reelection. I've had enough of this.
That allows me the freedom to push back on the
President on this because this stuff affects my constituency in
a bad way, and rural hospitals will be affected dramatically.
(13:56):
The thing that people don't realize oftentimes is that rural
hospitals on Medicaid. Not because everybody who goes to rural
hospitals are on Medicaid. No, it's because there are enough
people who are on Medicaid and get Medicaid reimbursement to
the point that that's basically keeping the hospital open. It's
a huge source of revenue for those rural hospitals. So,
(14:17):
I mean, they've got plenty of patients there who aren't
using Medicaid, but there are also enough Medicaid patients going
to those royal hospitals that if they don't have that
Medicaid support, the rural hospitals close. So they're looking at
a lot of states that handle those communities that require
some help from the government possibly not getting that help
(14:40):
when this bill passes Again, what form the bill actually
takes when it passes the Senate, which I think it
will do, it'll just probably eke by then it goes
back to the House. As you're aware, we'll have to see.
But that is one of the key issues that you're
going to hear a lot about and continue to hear
a lot about. We've been talking about it, I think
for you know, every since the bill was introduced and
(15:01):
now is on the Senate floor, so vod rama continues.
Could what happened in New York with the election of
a socialist it's not the election, well, I mean he
won the primary, so he's won the first part of
the election. Could he actually make it all the way
to mayoralship? We'll see. But could a candidate like that
(15:26):
actually rise to prominence in Los Angeles? We have a
lot of the same problems, I mean, you know, homelessness,
problems with affordability, issues with incompetence on the part of
the city, and people are fed up? Right, Might a
transformative figure like this, kind of a plain spoken figure
with real ideas break through in La like think a
(15:47):
Rick Caruso, but like socialist version. Could that ever happen?
I don't think so, but I'll give you the yes
and the no as we continue. It's a John Cobelt Show,
Mark Thompson sitting in. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 6 (16:05):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI Am sixty.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
John Cobelt Show, Mark Thompson sitting in. Always fun to
be here at KFI with the Kobel kids. I was mentioning,
by the way, we're watching all these unfolding stories, watching
what's happening in Washington with the big beautiful Bill and
the voter rama that's going on. I was just mentioning
it a moment ago. We're also looking at the break
(16:31):
in the Idaho firefighter tragedy, and top of the hour,
we'll talk to Jim Ryan from ABC and we'll get
an update on this gunman and they've now identified him,
and we'll get to all of that at the beginning
of the next hour. You know, I mentioned the New
(16:52):
York City mayoral race and the Democratic primary there won
by this socialist, Zorn mad and it was something of
a surprise that this avowed socialist could rise to the
top in you know, America's most populous city, and it
(17:15):
really does speak to how the Democratic Party is divided.
I mean, you've got the traditionalists in Democratic Party, I'd
call them maybe conservative mainstream Democrats, and then you have
and this is a rising demographic, a bunch of people
who are generally younger, who are priced out of housing.
(17:35):
They're college educated or they're you know and read when
I say college educated, they're just there. They're even graduated
from high school and have an understanding of how essentially
locked out of the system they are in New York City.
They don't feel that they're going to have a piece
of the big apple, that housing and homeless and incompetence
(18:03):
has led to the cesspool that they feel New York is.
And so it allows the door to be kicked open
for this guy, Zoron Mamdani, who's it's more than he's
a socialist. He's got really like breakthrough ideas. He's saying, Hey,
I'm going to tax the rich and you'll be able
to ride the buses, subways, public transportation for free. In
New York. I'm going to clean this place up, and
(18:26):
we'll do it by taxing the wealthiest New Yorkers who
are living large at your expense. Okay, I mean this
isn't about whether you agree or disagree with that. I
was just intrigued by the fact that this guy breaks through,
and I thought, hmm, we have a lot of those
problems in LA. We have homelessness issues. You know, you
(18:49):
park your car, you walk for blocks, and some crazy
person with a pipe is running you down. There is
a problem with competence and questions about competence at the
highest levels of LA administration. Could a socialist candidate with
(19:09):
big ideas break through in Los Angeles at all? One
of the things I do want to point out right
away before we even get into this at all. And
I'd love to just kick this around. It's I think it,
you know, more than unlikely, so I'll kind of tip
the conclusion ahead of time, at least the one that
I have. But one of the things I really want
(19:31):
to point up is that this is a city that's
not governed like New York. When you're the mayor of
New York, you can really do stuff. When you're the
mayor of New York. All this stuff that he's talking
about as a candidate, he could actually implement with not
a lot of political resistance. It's a strong mayor system.
(19:56):
It's one of the most powerful physicians as a local
exiscutive that you can have in all of America. Okay.
All the city agencies and the budget report to the mayor.
He can appoint commissioners, housing, police, sanitation, that's all the
mayor in New York, Okay. And he can direct policy
(20:19):
priorities in New York. Think of it kind of like
Donald Trump is now, you know how Donald Trump is
shaking He's shaking up America by taking charge and changing
radically the way things are done. Well, that's the way
it is with the mayor in New York. That is
not the way it is in LA. We have a
(20:39):
strong council system here, right, the LA mayor has much
less unilateral authority. I'm not saying that the LA mayor
and who is mayor doesn't matter. It way matters. Right,
But the mayor proposes a budget, but the fifteen members
of the city council, they amend, negotiate, they finalize it.
(21:00):
The mayor appoints department heads, but those appointments the city
council approves those, right, So when it comes to land
use and contract approvals. A lot of key powers that
rest with the mayor in New York, they rest with
the city council in LA. If you want to have
(21:22):
real power in LA, you don't want to be mayor.
You want to be in the city council. If you
really want to affect change. I get it. Everybody wants
to be mayor, everybody wants to change the direction of
the city. But in LA, the city council has a
tremendous amount of power, and these commissions, I mean these
(21:44):
semi independent boards, they have tremendous amount of influence over
departments like housing and police and public works in Los Angeles.
So the mayor cannot in LA consolidate power across all
of these different ructures. Just the way it's set up,
it's it doesn't concentrate power in the seat of the mayor.
(22:06):
So again just skipping ahead in the movie, even if
you had a socialist mayor, I mean, I understand that
Christy Gnome feels that we have a socialist mayor, but
I'm saying a real socialist mayor, yeah, ready to take you.
Look what is being proposed in New York is you
know that's a real radical change that just couldn't happen
here in la not with the express desire on the
(22:30):
mayor's part to change things. The mayor would need the
city council. So now when we come back, I'll talk
about what could actually happen here with a transformative change candidate,
could it in any way quack? Like what's going on
in New York. Mark Thompson is sitting in for John Covid.
I'm KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the
(22:53):
iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
We will update in the next hour a little bit
of what's going on in the Sean Combs you can
call me Diddy trial. Some hiccups with the jury there.
Just talking to Debora Mark about it and will update
it for you in the next hour. Obviously watching the
bill as it grinds on in Washington. There will be
a vote and then you know it will assuming it
(23:23):
ekes out a vote in the Senate, it goes back
to the House, et cetera. But we'll update all of that.
I was in the middle of talking about what happened
in New York City. I'm kind of smiling about it
because it's just like such a radical thing. No one
really saw it coming that this progressive candidate, this socialist
candidate and avowed socialist, would rise to the point that
(23:46):
he would beat out Cuomo for the mayoral win in
the primary there. But he has. And so I was
talking about whether or not something that could happen in
New York is in La as it has in New York.
As we have a lot of the same problems, meaning
problems with homelessness, a challenge with affordable housing. You know,
(24:10):
you have mental health issues with that are spilling out
under the streets, and there is a frustration with city
government just feeling as though, hey, there's a questionable competence
when it comes to the money associated with homelessness generally,
where is it all going? I mean, people are fed up,
and people are fed up in New York as well.
But what I was saying before the break was that
(24:32):
there's a strong mayor structure in New York that allows
a socialist victory to quickly reshape priorities for the city
of New York. You do not have that in La.
La has a fragmented structure. It's a little like the
population and the way in which LA is, you know,
(24:55):
a sprawl. The government of LA is a sprawl also,
So even if a socialist were to win here, it
would be a kind of trench warfare. To get anything
really changed. You'd have to build a coalition with the
city council. It wouldn't be enough just to elect a
(25:18):
progressive mayor. And the same is true on the right.
I mean it doesn't. I'm just picking a progressive socialist
may because that's what happened in New York. But again,
the point is you need a coalition in LA. Now,
I'd say that the reason that a progressive candidate is
viable in LA might have to do with demographics, the
(25:39):
demography of Los Angeles, and there's a strong young and
Latino vote, And if those people turned out, they have
consistently supported progressive issues on the ballot, like rent protections
and minimum wage hikes. This kind of stuff does tell you, though, Look,
these guys are ready to show up for progressive reforms.
(26:00):
There's also a big kind of union presence here, right,
I mean, they're public and private sector unions. I'm not
saying you have to love everything the unions stand for
at all, but I am saying that that is part
of the political structure of LA. And again, look at
the way they vote. They do seem to lean progressive.
(26:25):
So if you had a progressive candidate, a slash socialist
candidate like Mandami in New York rise to prominence in LA,
maybe you would have these constituencies showing up young people, Latinos,
union labor and then there's total frustration here. This is
(26:47):
the thing that really motivated this question in my mind,
is that we have a lot of the same frustrations
that they do. Right, there's a homelessness crisis. We've thrown
a bunch of money at it. Every time there's a
bond measure, we vote for it, and there is there
is no measurable change in these issues with homelessness, and
the rents are unaffordable, you have development gridlock, right, it's
(27:11):
very hard to get stuff approved. And so a bold
progressive and it doesn't have to be a progressive I'm
just saying, I'm looking at New York again, it could
have been a Rick Caruso. I mean again, if Caruso
had been elected mayor, Caruso would have had to put
together that coalition I'm talking about, and I think there's
(27:32):
a lot of identity politics also, so you'd have to
again face that city council gridlock if you won. And
the other thing I'm leaving out, and this is a
huge thing I want to make sure it gets mentioned,
is that there'd be business opposition to any kind of
progressive or socialist candidate rising in La the way he
(27:57):
did it in New York. I mean, they have great
political influence, great financial influence in Los Angeles, and landlords, developers'
business groups. These are real constituencies that have tremendous political
heft here, you know, And so I think you'd see
a huge spend to block those progressive and socialist if
(28:19):
you will, again like Mandami, those avenues to political power.
And I also think the moderates really vote in big
numbers in Los Angeles, you know what I mean. I
just think that even though there may be a reputation
as a progressive city, I think middle class homeowners, especially
in the valley on the West Side, they're not looking
(28:41):
to vote in somebody on the left particularly. I mean,
look at the way neighborhoods keep out new housing or
homeless shelters. I mean that just tells you that sort
of the nimby crowd is reflective of what really happens
when the rubber meets the road, you know, and of
course fragmented voter turnout to me in LA is a
(29:04):
big part of it as well. So I don't see
it happening. I mean, technically, could a progressive candidate like
Mandami win here in Los Angeles, I guess, especially with
a powerful message, But you'd need a powerful message on
all those things I mentioned, housing, economic justice, public safety,
all that stuff. If you've got a real message, not
(29:25):
an empty, one dimensional message, but a real message with
real hef behind it, it's possible, but I see it
as extremely unlikely. When we come back the update on
Idaho and those firefighters, they've id'd the dude who ambushed
(29:47):
those firefighters. That and the Sean Combs trial as well.
It's the John Covelt Show. Mark Thompson sitting in for
John on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
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'f I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobel podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Always cool to see the Cobalt Show kids, you know, Eric,
Deborah old Crewe nikis here. We'll get to a lot
of stuff today, and there's much going on in the world.
I want to get first to something that really is
remarkable in the conversation around international events. One has to
look at what happened in Iran as a result of
(00:28):
Israeli and American cooperation, and that same cooperation may apply
to what may happen with a solution toward Gaza and
the inhumanity and the remarkable continuing two years now into
that conflict of all of the both military efforts on
(00:49):
the part of Israel and also the pushback on the
part of Hamas. But what has changed is both the
time and now the efforts of the American President Donald
Trump to try to affect some kind of peace deal.
Whether US now is Georgiana Miller from ABC and Geordana
what is I guess President Trump has his site set
(01:12):
on ending this war in Gaza.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
He does, and I think he's been saying that for
you know, the last couple months but after what the
Israelis called a decisive victory over Iran, those calls by
the president are growing, you know, more urgent and more public.
(01:37):
And we know that the Israeli Prime Minister is working
on setting a date to come to Washington. It's likely
going to be early next week, and topping the agenda
will be how to wrap up the war in Gaza
as well as you know, post Iran.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Talk after not only the devastating military defeat that Israel delivered,
but of course the United States role in that in
hitting the nuclear sites Ford Oubt, Isfahan and the tans
Uh and then talking about expanding the Abraham Accords. Those
are the peace accords that President Trump uh signed in
(02:25):
his first.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Term as president right at the end there that.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Brought normalization deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates
as well as Bahrain, Morocco. Well, there are other countries
now that are are interested in that have long been interested.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
In joining the Abraham Accords.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
And the you know, the defeat uh in of Iran,
the successful attack of their nuclear program and their missile
program has only moved that, you know, process of normalizing ties,
which in Israel and its neighbors it has expedited or
(03:07):
accelerated that process. And remember we know now that one
of the reasons Hamas struck on October seventh with that
very deadly attack back in twenty twenty three was one
of the aims was to derail the normalization talks that
were quite advanced between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I was just about to make that point. I'm so
glad you make it, because it's sort of ironic, isn't
that that this entire thing, the October seventh attack and
all that's followed, was really probably tripped off from that
which you're talking about, right.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
I mean, that was one of the that's one of
the one of the main reasons that Hamas decided to strike.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
When it did, right, Hamas was always going to plan
some deadly strike on Israel, but that was one of
the one of the important timing aspects of it.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
So, you know, here we are almost two years later,
Hamas has been largely defeated, has Bala has.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Been beaten back ran. You know, it is very very very.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Weakened and turned out to be somewhat of a paper tiger.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
And so this is a really ripe moment to wrap
up the war in Gaza and link it even to.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Advancing and widening the Abraham Accords, which would be you know, it'd.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Be a win for Israel, would you think, Jordana, Yeah,
a win for Israel in the West exactly.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Yeah, it's not just yeah, it's not just Israel, it's
the West as well. Because remember all of these countries,
and it includes now Syria. We forget that in the
middle of of all this, the Syrian regime fell and
Israel there was also very aggressive taking the Goal on Heights,
a kind of no man's land, even extending its reach
into Syrian territory to secure its borders. Well, now even
(05:15):
Syria is interested in a normalization deal with Israel.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, the Iranian proxies now are gone. Yeah. This is
it's a different serial and it's an opportunity to reorder
the Middle East. I mean, it's quite an extraordinary moment
in Middle East history.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
It is this is a kind of tectonic shift, if
you will, that you know, an earthquake that began.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
On October seventh, and it did bring some ruin, if
you will, But you know, it looks two years out
like a reordering, as you said, of the Middle East.
Speaker 5 (05:55):
And really to the benefit of the West.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And of course Israel h jordanan I can't let you
go though without mentioning the one huge sticking point for
Israel is the fifty hostages that remain. They're still being
held by Hamas, and this is a massive issue within Israel.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
It is and quickly, after twelve days of really intense
war here and the thirteenth day of an uncertain ceasefire,
now it's holding these really public quickly shifted back.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
To the gods of war. I mean, there were tens
of thousands.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Of people out over the weekend again calling for the
end of the war, calling for the release of the hostages.
The hostage crisis here is like a festering wound, really,
and until those fifty hostages are back, and remember only
twenty of them are believed to be alive.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
The other thirty are bodies. And within that group of
bodies are.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Two Americans, two young Americans that deserve.
Speaker 5 (07:03):
To be uh, deserve a burial like the others. So
you know, Israel wants to see all of them out
and back.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
And there is fear that even the intensified military operation
of the last couple months has endangered the lives of
the hostages. So the families are extremely I mean, at
this point there, I'm not even sure there are words
to describe the state of mind of these families.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
And now, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Also would say just to it trauma and that pain
and trauma informs politically and and Yahoo and these ongoing discussions.
But nonetheless it may represent an opportunity this moment in time.
GEORGANA Miller from ABC, thank you so much for spending
a moment with us on the Call Belt Show.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
Appreciate it, Thank you, Texan.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, talk soon. That's a developing story for sure. Much
to get to today. I'll update this vote on the
Trump megabill and more as we continue. It's the John
Covelt Show. Mark sitting in on KFI AM six forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 6 (08:15):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I just want to mention, because it is going on
right now, the vote rama that is talked about, and
everybody's clear on what that vote rama is. So when
there's a big bill, as you're aware, and this is
a huge bill, any number of things happen along the way.
They're having to essentially xcize from the bill, take out
stuff that not related to money, like if there's some
(08:44):
the politics woven into the bill has to be removed.
But that's not what votama is. Voter rama is once
they're done with a debate, and you know, Chuck Schumer
asks for the bill to be read because it's almost
a thousand page bill, and the allegation, and it's probably true,
is that you know, none of these guys have read it.
I mean just I don't know Democrat, Republican, anybody's read it.
(09:05):
I mean, what we see the stuff that percolates to
the surface is all the stuff that's particularly radioactive, right
that Medicaid is going to be defunded if this bill passes,
and that there's going to be the selloff of public land,
and that I have news about in just a moment,
because that looks like that's been nixed from the bill,
and you know, the Senate has made changes to that
(09:25):
House bill. So what vodama is, as you're aware, is
that just begin after the debate period is over, So
after the bill is read, then they're debating, they introduce
all these senators do all these things into the bill,
little stuff into the bill. No reason they do this
can range from them really caring about these things that
(09:46):
they added the bill, or it's political grandstanding. And this
will come as no surprise to you that in order
to you know, wink in a nod and tip of
the hat to their constituency, they're going to ask for
certain things to be added to the bill that then
are voted on quickly. That's the vote rama part. Like
all of this happens super quickly, So all these senators
(10:07):
try to shoehorn in stuff that many of them probably
know we'll never make it to the finish line. But
the idea is that by entering it into the bill,
they get credit for having tried to get it in
on behalf of their constituency. So a lot of it
is politics, and there is a lot of it to
the point that they are introducing it and then voting
(10:29):
on it super quickly. So that's what's happening with the
megabill now. So when they talk about vote rama, that's
kind of where we are. I mentioned that there was
a plan to sell off public land in the West.
It was super controversial, continues to be super controversialist and
talked about and was talked about in the first Trump administration,
(10:49):
or as I like to call it, Season one, A
controversial plan now across the Western States, including California, selling
hundreds of thousands of acres of this public land axed
from the Republican Tax and Spending Bill. There was bipartisan backlash.
(11:10):
Mike Lee in Utah, who spearheaded the proposal to begin with,
said that he was pulling the provision. This just happened
over the weekend. Lee had said that the land sale
was intended to ease the financial burden of housing, pointing
to a lack of affordability many communities, many of the
communities in Utah and beyond. He said, because of these
(11:35):
strict constraints of the budget reconciliation process, I was unable
to secure clear, enforceable safeguards to guarantee that these lands
would be sold only to American families, not to China,
not to Blackrock, and not to any foreign interests. The
truth is he got such pushback on this. I mean,
(11:55):
he's a saving political face, is what he's doing. But
I mean, he didn't mention that this would have mandated
the sale of six hundred thousand and one point two
million acres of Bureau of Land Management land. It was
eleven Western states covered by all this, California among them,
(12:15):
and the areas available for auction were supposed to be
located within a five mile radius of population centers. And
so you ended up with what was an unprecedented sell
off of public lands.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
And so.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
There were as I say, there were Republicans, four of
them to my count, vowing to strike the proposal from
the bill, and ultimately he just took it out himself. So,
as Vodorama continues, this bill may survive in one way
or another. I think it will make it to the
(12:51):
finish line. Again, they've taken out certain things that along
the lines of the selling off of public lands got
bipartisan pushback. Probably the thing that's getting a lot of
headlines is the Medicaid hit. The idea somehow that Medicaid
would be defunded to the point that a lot of
(13:13):
these rural communities, and they're in Red states, may be
dramatically affected. So the Red States senators are really getting
dragged to this, but many of them are voting for it. Anyway.
The power of Donald Trump is legit. He has tremendous
political heft and he stares down these senators and even
(13:33):
threatens them with primaries such that they ultimately cave. You
saw Tom Tillis, He's saying, Hey, I'm not even going
to run now for reelection. I've had enough of this.
That allows me the freedom to push back on the
President on this because this stuff affects my constituency in
a bad way, and rural hospitals will be affected dramatically.
(13:56):
The thing that people don't realize oftentimes is that rural
hospitals on Medicaid. Not because everybody who goes to rural
hospitals are on Medicaid. No, it's because there are enough
people who are on Medicaid and get Medicaid reimbursement to
the point that that's basically keeping the hospital open. It's
a huge source of revenue for those rural hospitals. So,
(14:17):
I mean, they've got plenty of patients there who aren't
using Medicaid, but there are also enough Medicaid patients going
to those royal hospitals that if they don't have that
Medicaid support, the rural hospitals close. So they're looking at
a lot of states that handle those communities that require
some help from the government possibly not getting that help
(14:40):
when this bill passes Again, what form the bill actually
takes when it passes the Senate, which I think it
will do, it'll just probably eke by then it goes
back to the House. As you're aware, we'll have to see.
But that is one of the key issues that you're
going to hear a lot about and continue to hear
a lot about. We've been talking about it, I think
for you know, every since the bill was introduced and
(15:01):
now is on the Senate floor, so vod rama continues.
Could what happened in New York with the election of
a socialist it's not the election, well, I mean he
won the primary, so he's won the first part of
the election. Could he actually make it all the way
to mayoralship? We'll see. But could a candidate like that
(15:26):
actually rise to prominence in Los Angeles? We have a
lot of the same problems, I mean, you know, homelessness,
problems with affordability, issues with incompetence on the part of
the city, and people are fed up? Right, Might a
transformative figure like this, kind of a plain spoken figure
with real ideas break through in La like think a
(15:47):
Rick Caruso, but like socialist version. Could that ever happen?
I don't think so, but I'll give you the yes
and the no as we continue. It's a John Cobelt Show,
Mark Thompson sitting in. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 6 (16:05):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI Am sixty.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
John Cobelt Show, Mark Thompson sitting in. Always fun to
be here at KFI with the Kobel kids. I was mentioning,
by the way, we're watching all these unfolding stories, watching
what's happening in Washington with the big beautiful Bill and
the voter rama that's going on. I was just mentioning
it a moment ago. We're also looking at the break
(16:31):
in the Idaho firefighter tragedy, and top of the hour,
we'll talk to Jim Ryan from ABC and we'll get
an update on this gunman and they've now identified him,
and we'll get to all of that at the beginning
of the next hour. You know, I mentioned the New
(16:52):
York City mayoral race and the Democratic primary there won
by this socialist, Zorn mad and it was something of
a surprise that this avowed socialist could rise to the
top in you know, America's most populous city, and it
(17:15):
really does speak to how the Democratic Party is divided.
I mean, you've got the traditionalists in Democratic Party, I'd
call them maybe conservative mainstream Democrats, and then you have
and this is a rising demographic, a bunch of people
who are generally younger, who are priced out of housing.
(17:35):
They're college educated or they're you know and read when
I say college educated, they're just there. They're even graduated
from high school and have an understanding of how essentially
locked out of the system they are in New York City.
They don't feel that they're going to have a piece
of the big apple, that housing and homeless and incompetence
(18:03):
has led to the cesspool that they feel New York is.
And so it allows the door to be kicked open
for this guy, Zoron Mamdani, who's it's more than he's
a socialist. He's got really like breakthrough ideas. He's saying, Hey,
I'm going to tax the rich and you'll be able
to ride the buses, subways, public transportation for free. In
New York. I'm going to clean this place up, and
(18:26):
we'll do it by taxing the wealthiest New Yorkers who
are living large at your expense. Okay, I mean this
isn't about whether you agree or disagree with that. I
was just intrigued by the fact that this guy breaks through,
and I thought, hmm, we have a lot of those
problems in LA. We have homelessness issues. You know, you
(18:49):
park your car, you walk for blocks, and some crazy
person with a pipe is running you down. There is
a problem with competence and questions about competence at the
highest levels of LA administration. Could a socialist candidate with
(19:09):
big ideas break through in Los Angeles at all? One
of the things I do want to point out right
away before we even get into this at all. And
I'd love to just kick this around. It's I think it,
you know, more than unlikely, so I'll kind of tip
the conclusion ahead of time, at least the one that
I have. But one of the things I really want
(19:31):
to point up is that this is a city that's
not governed like New York. When you're the mayor of
New York, you can really do stuff. When you're the
mayor of New York. All this stuff that he's talking
about as a candidate, he could actually implement with not
a lot of political resistance. It's a strong mayor system.
(19:56):
It's one of the most powerful physicians as a local
exiscutive that you can have in all of America. Okay.
All the city agencies and the budget report to the mayor.
He can appoint commissioners, housing, police, sanitation, that's all the
mayor in New York, Okay. And he can direct policy
(20:19):
priorities in New York. Think of it kind of like
Donald Trump is now, you know how Donald Trump is
shaking He's shaking up America by taking charge and changing
radically the way things are done. Well, that's the way
it is with the mayor in New York. That is
not the way it is in LA. We have a
(20:39):
strong council system here, right, the LA mayor has much
less unilateral authority. I'm not saying that the LA mayor
and who is mayor doesn't matter. It way matters. Right,
But the mayor proposes a budget, but the fifteen members
of the city council, they amend, negotiate, they finalize it.
(21:00):
The mayor appoints department heads, but those appointments the city
council approves those, right, So when it comes to land
use and contract approvals. A lot of key powers that
rest with the mayor in New York, they rest with
the city council in LA. If you want to have
(21:22):
real power in LA, you don't want to be mayor.
You want to be in the city council. If you
really want to affect change. I get it. Everybody wants
to be mayor, everybody wants to change the direction of
the city. But in LA, the city council has a
tremendous amount of power, and these commissions, I mean these
(21:44):
semi independent boards, they have tremendous amount of influence over
departments like housing and police and public works in Los Angeles.
So the mayor cannot in LA consolidate power across all
of these different ructures. Just the way it's set up,
it's it doesn't concentrate power in the seat of the mayor.
(22:06):
So again just skipping ahead in the movie, even if
you had a socialist mayor, I mean, I understand that
Christy Gnome feels that we have a socialist mayor, but
I'm saying a real socialist mayor, yeah, ready to take you.
Look what is being proposed in New York is you
know that's a real radical change that just couldn't happen
here in la not with the express desire on the
(22:30):
mayor's part to change things. The mayor would need the
city council. So now when we come back, I'll talk
about what could actually happen here with a transformative change candidate,
could it in any way quack? Like what's going on
in New York. Mark Thompson is sitting in for John Covid.
I'm KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the
(22:53):
iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
We will update in the next hour a little bit
of what's going on in the Sean Combs you can
call me Diddy trial. Some hiccups with the jury there.
Just talking to Debora Mark about it and will update
it for you in the next hour. Obviously watching the
bill as it grinds on in Washington. There will be
a vote and then you know it will assuming it
(23:23):
ekes out a vote in the Senate, it goes back
to the House, et cetera. But we'll update all of that.
I was in the middle of talking about what happened
in New York City. I'm kind of smiling about it
because it's just like such a radical thing. No one
really saw it coming that this progressive candidate, this socialist
candidate and avowed socialist, would rise to the point that
(23:46):
he would beat out Cuomo for the mayoral win in
the primary there. But he has. And so I was
talking about whether or not something that could happen in
New York is in La as it has in New York.
As we have a lot of the same problems, meaning
problems with homelessness, a challenge with affordable housing. You know,
(24:10):
you have mental health issues with that are spilling out
under the streets, and there is a frustration with city
government just feeling as though, hey, there's a questionable competence
when it comes to the money associated with homelessness generally,
where is it all going? I mean, people are fed up,
and people are fed up in New York as well.
But what I was saying before the break was that
(24:32):
there's a strong mayor structure in New York that allows
a socialist victory to quickly reshape priorities for the city
of New York. You do not have that in La.
La has a fragmented structure. It's a little like the
population and the way in which LA is, you know,
(24:55):
a sprawl. The government of LA is a sprawl also,
So even if a socialist were to win here, it
would be a kind of trench warfare. To get anything
really changed. You'd have to build a coalition with the
city council. It wouldn't be enough just to elect a
(25:18):
progressive mayor. And the same is true on the right.
I mean it doesn't. I'm just picking a progressive socialist
may because that's what happened in New York. But again,
the point is you need a coalition in LA. Now,
I'd say that the reason that a progressive candidate is
viable in LA might have to do with demographics, the
(25:39):
demography of Los Angeles, and there's a strong young and
Latino vote, And if those people turned out, they have
consistently supported progressive issues on the ballot, like rent protections
and minimum wage hikes. This kind of stuff does tell you, though, Look,
these guys are ready to show up for progressive reforms.
(26:00):
There's also a big kind of union presence here, right,
I mean, they're public and private sector unions. I'm not
saying you have to love everything the unions stand for
at all, but I am saying that that is part
of the political structure of LA. And again, look at
the way they vote. They do seem to lean progressive.
(26:25):
So if you had a progressive candidate, a slash socialist
candidate like Mandami in New York rise to prominence in LA,
maybe you would have these constituencies showing up young people, Latinos,
union labor and then there's total frustration here. This is
(26:47):
the thing that really motivated this question in my mind,
is that we have a lot of the same frustrations
that they do. Right, there's a homelessness crisis. We've thrown
a bunch of money at it. Every time there's a
bond measure, we vote for it, and there is there
is no measurable change in these issues with homelessness, and
the rents are unaffordable, you have development gridlock, right, it's
(27:11):
very hard to get stuff approved. And so a bold
progressive and it doesn't have to be a progressive I'm
just saying, I'm looking at New York again, it could
have been a Rick Caruso. I mean again, if Caruso
had been elected mayor, Caruso would have had to put
together that coalition I'm talking about, and I think there's
(27:32):
a lot of identity politics also, so you'd have to
again face that city council gridlock if you won. And
the other thing I'm leaving out, and this is a
huge thing I want to make sure it gets mentioned,
is that there'd be business opposition to any kind of
progressive or socialist candidate rising in La the way he
(27:57):
did it in New York. I mean, they have great
political influence, great financial influence in Los Angeles, and landlords, developers'
business groups. These are real constituencies that have tremendous political
heft here, you know, And so I think you'd see
a huge spend to block those progressive and socialist if
(28:19):
you will, again like Mandami, those avenues to political power.
And I also think the moderates really vote in big
numbers in Los Angeles, you know what I mean. I
just think that even though there may be a reputation
as a progressive city, I think middle class homeowners, especially
in the valley on the West Side, they're not looking
(28:41):
to vote in somebody on the left particularly. I mean,
look at the way neighborhoods keep out new housing or
homeless shelters. I mean that just tells you that sort
of the nimby crowd is reflective of what really happens
when the rubber meets the road, you know, and of
course fragmented voter turnout to me in LA is a
(29:04):
big part of it as well. So I don't see
it happening. I mean, technically, could a progressive candidate like
Mandami win here in Los Angeles, I guess, especially with
a powerful message, But you'd need a powerful message on
all those things I mentioned, housing, economic justice, public safety,
all that stuff. If you've got a real message, not
(29:25):
an empty, one dimensional message, but a real message with
real hef behind it, it's possible, but I see it
as extremely unlikely. When we come back the update on
Idaho and those firefighters, they've id'd the dude who ambushed
(29:47):
those firefighters. That and the Sean Combs trial as well.
It's the John Covelt Show. Mark Thompson sitting in for
John on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
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
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.