February 27, 2026 • 35 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 3 (02/27) - Mark Thompson fills in for John! More on LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho being placed on paid administrative leave. Lucid is struggling to turn a profit. Michael Schneider from Variety comes on the show to talk about the Warner Bros. and Paramount merger.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can if I am six forty you're listening to the
John Cobel podcast on the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
App trying to see if I could find anything more
out on this Carvallo thing, sort of watching local news
coverage of it. Everybody's elbowing their way into the Clinton thing,
you know, the entire Epstein Clinton stuff that went down
the end of this week, after so long negotiating and
(00:27):
navigating that went down. We talked to Royal Oaks about
that last hour. The big news is the superintendent of LAUSD, ALBERTA.
Carvallo paid leave. I mean, the FBI rated his home,
and you know that's never a good thing, but there
haven't been any charges yet. So here we are two
(00:49):
days after that FBI raid and now he gets the
paid leave. Not clear exactly where this investigationation sits. The
FBI hasn't accused him of anything specific, but it does
appear that it's linked to this this bot that they worked,
(01:14):
this AI all. Here is the name of the company
and this kind of cute bot that they were using. Again,
the company's gone under, but this chat bot was going
to be something that would lift LAUSD and it was
functional in all these different ways. They unveiled it in
(01:35):
March of twenty twenty four, and then they took it down.
I mean, it was just not successful. And the company
all here, they're called clapped financially, and the founder and
the CEO of the company was charged with defrauding investors.
(01:58):
So she's pleaded not guilt, but that at minimum creates
a cloud over the company. And then the deals that
the company made, and one of the deals that was
made was with la So Carvallo is in this supervisory
position with LAUSD, and so he is by association a
(02:20):
person of interest, meaning someone they're interested in talking to
someone they're interested apparently in to the point that they
want to raid his home. So there are those who
are saying, hey, it's a federal investigation. They have searched
his home. But you've got to slow down and don't
(02:43):
react immediately if you're the school board. So the school
board putting him on paid leave is doing just that.
They're not firing him, they're not suspending him without pay.
I mean there's a cloud over him and over la
USD and this investigation. But all we know really, as
(03:04):
has pointed out, is that search warrants have been executed
and served of course, and you know you don't even
know why. So this is a situation in LAUSD that
is never welcome. I mean, it's a challenging program to
begin with, to maintain, and I mean just I just
(03:27):
think the the idea of administering to a school system
this size is an ongoing challenge. It's already controversial and
unclear as to what's going to happen from here on out. So,
by the way, I saw something, I don't have the
(03:48):
piece in front of me, but just on the success
story of public education in Los Angeles, I saw something
about the fact that test scor were higher. Did you
see that.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
The other day? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
That was wild. I'm so used to bad news that
I was astounded by that. It was a really kind
of surprising thing when you look at all that, you know,
one has to swim upstream against. I mean, even this
chatbot thing was sort of designed to be a technology
that would interact with students and parents. I mean, again,
(04:28):
this may have been smoking mirrors. I don't know. He
hasn't been accused of anything. All they've done, as we said,
is placed him on paid leave and they've had an
FBI rate of his place. But the idea was in
some way to address many of the challenges with education
with technology with AI. So anyway, it's in the face
(04:50):
of all that when I see now kids are on
their phones, it's harder and harder to actually get them
to focus. When I see a success story, like you know,
grades of increase, Wow, it's it's really pretty impressive. So
this was a huge, huge deal that Carvallo was part of, though,
(05:11):
I mean, this AI play was big, and this chatbot,
I mean again, it was called ed, it was brought
out with all of this fanfare, and man, it went
away so quickly. It's a multimillion dollar project. And so
you know, what happens next with LAUSD and what happens
(05:37):
to Carvallo next very much a question and again all
in the CEO of the company that really brought us
this chat bot. She's been charged pleading not guilty. And
this is the failure of this bold play on the
(05:59):
part of car Follow and LAUSD. So the Trump administration
and the first Assistant US Attorney for Southern California under
Trump says they're focusing on fraud and it is thought
that this may be part of this. Carfollow could fall
(06:23):
on the list of people who would be targeted. But
again he's someone who hasn't been charged. I say he
could be targeted because, let's face it, he's been very
outspoken in talking about immigrant rights, in talking about looking
into school systems and the fact that kids should have
(06:46):
a safe place in school where they shouldn't have to
worry about the anxieties associated with being targeted by the
Trump administration. So again, that being part of the narrative,
you can begin to build the fact that maybe he
could be targeted. But look, he definitely had a professional
(07:08):
association going back to his time with Miami Dade, and
that is to say, a professional association with the CEO
of this AI Boch company. And so again that's the
way business is done. It's a relationship. And to be
(07:29):
fair to him, it may be that this was the
kind of technological connection that could promote education and educational
products across LAUSD. I mean, it might have literally been
his effort to produce something that could be productive for
the many students and parents who are part of the
(07:49):
school system. Anyway, big news though, in his paid leave.
That's the breaking news of the moment. Again, the other
break story possibility of a military flex in Iran. We're
watching that, and we are watching the very real potential
(08:12):
of a merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers. It's a
hostile takeover, is what it is. We'll talk more about
that bottom of the hour with micro Schnader from Variety.
Mark Thompson for John COLEBLT KFI AM six forty. We're
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Record breaking day temperature was in southern California. Really warm nineties.
I'm seeing I guess it gets a little cooler next
couple of days. You see all these Lucids cruising around.
Lucid is a pretty sweet sexy car. They're electric cars.
Well they're high end electric cars, and they are going
(08:58):
to be dumping three hundred and nineteen jobs, billions in
losses from this company. They're struggling to turn a profit.
I mean, there's definitely a softening of demand for electric vehicles.
Right used to be there were a lot of federal subsidies.
The money driving demand I think is all gone with
(09:21):
the new administration. Not so new anymore, but you know,
it pretty well went away about a year ago. They'll
take effect in April. These cuts they're part of a
twelve percent reduction in the company's workforce. They're looking to
boost efficiency. They employed about sixty eight hundred people in
twenty twenty four. Lucid, Yeah, they're trying to boost their brand.
(09:46):
They had a Timothy Chalomet centered ad campaign to airing
across different television and digital platforms promoting the seven seat
suv called Gravity. They're really good looking cars. But again
(10:08):
ev EV makers are getting squeezed right now, so there
is I saw also in the Aston Martin world. I
always like Aston Martin because it's James Bond, so kind
of a James Bond, you know, it's a guy thing
sort of, but it's also a sexy car. They're laying
(10:30):
off twenty percent of their workforce worldwide, so it's definitely
a time of constriction when it comes to economies worldwide.
And all of this happening as President Trump is bringing
a huge amount of hardware to the Middle East. I mean,
this is a it was hard. It's hard to imagine
(10:54):
that you could bring this amount of hardware to the
Middle East and wouldn't have something happen. So now with
the expectation of something happening. Israeli embassy personnel from this
country is being told by Mike Huckabee, who's the ambassador
(11:15):
to Israel, that they can leave, and if they're going
to leave, they ought to leave today. The one thing
about Middle Eastern threats, and I feel as though Donald
Trump has issued a threat. Right he'd said, you better
stop the bloodshed. Iran's massacred somewhere in the order of
(11:37):
twenty thousand demonstrators, and Donald Trump said he's going to
ride to the rescue of these protesters, said quote literally,
help is on the way, and urge them to remain
on the streets. The one thing that's scary, and it
can be a very tricky thing, and happened to Obama.
Remember what Obama said to the Syrians, don't cross that
(12:02):
red line by using chemical weapons against your own people.
And then chemical weapons were used and Obama didn't do anything,
and it really ruined his credibility. And Trump may find
himself in that situation where you're, you know, you're kind
of bombastic, you're leaning in with big threats, and now
(12:23):
you move in all this hardware into the Middle East,
this armada that's offshore, and he may be forced to
do something. It's scary. I mean, this is the largest
concentration of American military firepower since the early two thousands.
So the crisis really feels as though it's coming to
(12:45):
a head. And he has had good luck with Iran, right,
He had that obliteration, as he calls it, of Iran's
nuclear program. And I think on some level, doesn't it
feel as though President Trump is kind of you know,
(13:05):
he did the Venezuela thing. These flexes are working. I
think Iran is a dangerous, dangerous shot. But on the
other hand, he seems committed to some kind of situation here.
The problem is just the last point that the goal
here is not clear. Are you is this regime change?
(13:29):
What is his goal? And launching something without a clear
goal is just a prescription for trouble. We've just seen
it over and over again. So again, if this strike
is as complicated as it likely is, because Iran is
not a pushover and it involves more than just drones,
(13:55):
and then there'll be return fire in the form of
drones on both American air bases and military bases in
the region. There are a lot of them, and this
strike kills Americans and American troops. It's going to be
a much more difficult back walk that Donald Trump does.
(14:19):
And he can begin this war with a lot of support,
but I think you can end this war, and the
problem with ending the war in a much more problematic
way and a much more complicated way if you can
end it at all. So that's the situation now in
the Middle East, and again Middle Eastern personnel in israela
(14:42):
being told, Hey, this is if you're going to leave,
you should leave. Now Instagram is telling parents that if
teens mention suicide, they will get a notification through text.
(15:03):
So parents finally are getting some relief from the world
of Meta. Remember Meta owns WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and one
of the big problems with AI is that their relationships
form there. Even though it's a machine, there's a real
world of relationships. And so now Instagram is saying that
(15:25):
there is going to be an alert if teens repeatedly
search for suicide or self harm related terms quote. Our
goal is to empower parents to step in if their
teen searches suggest that they may need support, parents will
receive a notification through text. They'll also have the option
(15:49):
to view resources to help them with sensitive conversations with
their teen. One of the problems is teens feel isolated.
Of course, they feel super connected through Instagram, they feel
super connected through WhatsApp, and they feel connected. And this
is the scary thing with AI, and AI talks to
them through these large language models in a way that
literally makes them seem as though they're a pal. And
(16:13):
as you know, this is being litigated now. That was
one of the things that Mark Zuckerberg was in court
litigating the idea somehow that you could have a teen
that vulnerable, involved in a back and forth with AI,
with Instagram, with any number of social media platforms, and
not know it as a parent, and that teen is
(16:34):
involved in self harm. That's scary anyway, that's the latest
from Instagram. They're saying that parents will be notified. So
there's a big, big to tell you, big merger underway.
It's the hospital takeover really of Paramount's move on Warner Brothers.
(16:55):
It will have super super important repercussions here in southern California,
but also across the media escape both in this country
and worldwide. Paramount will they get the green light to
indeed acquire Warner Brothers. We will talk about that next
with the executive editor of Variety, Mark Thompson, sitting in
on KFI for John Colebelt. We're live everywhere on the
(17:18):
iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
You're listening to John cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Mark Thompson's sitting in for John Cobelt. I've been talking
about this all day, been thinking about this since this
whole merger thing began, and finally I get to talk
to a super smart guy who actually knows the ins
and outs of this from Variety executive editor Michael Schneider's
on the line. And what I'm talking about is this
merger that looks like it's poised to happen between Paramount
(17:49):
sky Dance and Warner Brothers of Netflix backing out of
this deal. You wrote a whole column about this, and
I wonder if you could, in a sense summarize some
of the concerns here and explain how this deal would
go down. Hi, Michael sure.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
Mark Thompson. By the way, first off, you saying my name,
It's like Budda here and you just say my name.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
I just.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
Mark Thompson's voice.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Thanksving for me that's so cool to have you here.
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
Yeah, but it is it is pretty crazy what's going
on right now. And I think the entire town is
sort of up in arms because no one really knows
what's going on. This shocked everyone on Thursday, and we're
also trying to put the pieces together on Okay, what
does this mean? What comes next? And why is this
happening so fast? So yeah, there are so many different
(18:39):
angles to to dissect.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Well, first of all, let me just let me just
let me just help you navigate some of this stuff,
and just in terms of the conversation since our time
is way short. But one of the things that's curious,
and you sort of just noted it, is that Netflix
pulled away from the deal, or that, if you will,
Paramount stepped up so bigly that Netflix didn't feel even
(19:02):
compelled to try to match the offer. Can you explain
the dynamics there?
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Yeah, I mean to some degree, what Netflix said is
the truth, and that they didn't necessarily need the heft
of Warner Brothers. They they thought it was at the
right price, a good deal for them, that they they
would have liked the IP, the you know, the intellectual
property they were they were game for it. They wanted
to make Netflix bigger, but at the right price. And
(19:29):
at the point that the Ellisons and Paramount sky Dance
pushed the price over the line of what they thought
made financial sense, they decided to just pull out and
pull out pretty fast. And and you know, I think
you know, they benefited from that today because the Netflix
stock price was way up, So it seems seemed to
be a smart move for them to just get out.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah, clearly the street thought, oh good, they didn't take
on this thing that would have been maybe too big
a thing and maybe not worth the trouble. And now
talk about what that thing is. So Warner Brothers is
a studio, just like Paramount is a studio. So you
have a studio acquiring another studio. We'll get to the
cable properties and all that stuff in a second. But
(20:14):
these mergers, they always say, oh, we're going to treat
them as two separate entities. But it's really you know,
it's going to become one big studio, isn't it.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
Yeah, And the question is will it even be a
big studio? So you're bringing these two companies together, both
of which have a lot of debt that they're saddled
with You combine it and there's going to be eighty
billion dollars worth of debt. That then your Paramount Skuydeest
is going to have to figure out how do we
pay that down? And that usually means a lot of cuts,
a lot of layoffs, a lot of trims, and maybe
(20:46):
they sell one of the lots. You know, there's a
lot of things they're going to have to do to
bring down that debt. And that means it's one plus
one does not equal to.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, we're talking to Michael Schneider from Variety about this
huge deal of the idea that Paramount is going to
buy Warner Bros. And I'll get to the green lighting
and you know, the government approval and all of that
stuff in a second. So included in this, as you've
mentioned these studios, in the studio lots and the properties
and the intellectual property, but there are cable entities, powerful
(21:16):
cable entities and broadcast entities associated with this. Can you
speak to that.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
Yeah, in particular, you know, Paramount has a stable of
cable networks. Once upon a time where the jewels now
not so much. We live in an era where MTV
and Comedy Central, just they're not what they used to be.
That's the same on Warner Brothers side. You know, they've
got TLC and ht TV and PBS, but those channels
(21:41):
just aren't worth what they used to be. As a
matter of fact, Warner Brothers was planning on spinning off
those cable networks into a separate company to get it
off their books. So you're going to have this massive
stable of cable networks, none of which are really worth
all that much anymore, that they'll probably eventually still spin
off into a separate company. And we're not even talking
about CNN. That's a whole separate conversation.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I'm beat you mentioned CNN though, because among these properties
that would be spun off or retained is CNN. And
CNN now is relevant on a political level because CNN
is not like a Fox News channel and some of
these right leaning, even some would say propaganda filled cable companies,
like cable outlets, CNN is kind of more tact at
(22:28):
least they represent themselves more towards the center. So for
that reason, they are seen I think by the current
administration and Donald Trump as adversaries. Now those adversaries would
fall into the hands of the Ellisons, and the Ellisons
are pals of the Trump's, very much pals of the Trumps,
and they may want to hang on to CNN and
(22:51):
make it sort of a Fox News four point zero
or what would be the play there.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Yeah, that's the big question because we've already seen that
the the Elessons in purchasing CBS and Paramount have kind
of pushed CBS News more to the right, and so
the question is what is their plan with CNN. You know,
an argument could be made that sure they could try
to push CNN to the right, but then whatever viewership
(23:18):
is still left with CNN will just go away, And
do they want to kill it's still very profitable and
valuable cable network, you know, just to play Kate Donald Trump,
especially once this deal gets through and they don't necessarily
have to play games with the administration anymore. But at
the same time, they are very tight with the Trumps,
(23:38):
and this was one reason why the feeling was Trump
was definitely leaning towards Paramount, Skydance buying Warner Brothers because
he has a very specific interest in CNN.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yeah, the idea was sort of he had his thumb
on the scale, so the whole idea. I mean, I
love this new argument. By the way, I super love
the idea somehow. I mean, just as a narrative. I
love the idea that they need the administration, they wanted
the administration's help, and then once the deal goes through,
they hang on the CNN and they just leave it
(24:09):
the way it is. I think that's very funny. I
don't think it would happen, but I just think I
just love the narrative. But I just I like it
also that the conversation is, well, it's still very possible
that it won't get green lit by the administration. Really,
I think there is zero possibility it wouldn't be green lit.
The acquisition of Warner Brothers.
Speaker 5 (24:29):
Yeah, no, I think the government, you know, pretty much
it's already a done deal. The only question is what
happens overseas. You know, there needs to be some sort
of approval in the European Union as well, because these
they have international assets. And then there's the question of
you know, there are some states attorneys general, including here
in California, who may sue and may gum up the
(24:52):
approval process for some period of time. I think the
general feeling is This will eventually happen, but when And
things are moving so fast right now it feels like
it's going to happen tomorrow. But there's still a lot
that needs to be done before this deal is actually completed.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Michael and our just last sight, we're talking to MIKEL
Snader from Variety, and this Paramount Warner Brothers merger does
all the things you've talked about, and it creates all
of these sort of tentacles into all of these different
areas of the entertainment industry. I just can't help but
think about our community. You know that these are real
people who work for these studios at Warner Brothers and
(25:30):
at Paramount, and they we're already in a position of
seeing these industries dry up and even move to other places.
But I wonder if you could just speak to the
community at large, to Southern California and the economic effects
of all of this on that.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head.
This is the most concerning part of it all is
that this is a community that's already reeling from you know,
we had COVID, then we had the strikes, then we
had the fires. We've seen so much production move away
already across the country, and now overseas, we've got studios
that already are virtually empty. Right now, there's not a
(26:05):
ton of production going on here in Los Angeles. The
production is way down. So the idea of losing a
major studio and what happens to all that production once
these companies merge, and you know they're they're clearly not
going to combine produce as much as they did individually,
it just means more more concern for you know, the
bread and butter of Hollywood and all these jobs. You
(26:28):
know that people are already out of work here in LA.
This just this concerns me a great deal, and I'm
sure concerns a lot of people a great deal.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah. I think it's really the from a community standpoint,
the grimmest part of all of this, as you say,
against a backdrop of a lot of bad news over
the last few years. Well, I so enjoyed our conversation.
I'm going to link to it on my social media,
which will mean nothing to you because not a lot
of people following me, but my five followers are going
(26:57):
to get a lot out of your piece and variety
as Paramount Skydance grabs Warner Brothers and Netflix bows out
the mood inside all three Champagne toasts versus Gut Punch. Yeah,
Champagne off of Melrose there at Paramount and Gut Punch
in Burbank at Warner Brothers. I love talking to Michael Schnyder.
Let's do it again.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Absolutely, and I follow you on social media. Mark Tonto,
that's good.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Well, there you go. That's another one. You know, you've
got to build an empire one at a time. Thank you,
all right, appreciate your time. Yep, Michael Schnader from Variety.
We are KFI AM six forty. It is the co
Belt Show. Mark Thompson sitting in for John Today Live
Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Tim Conway Junior Day.
Speaker 6 (27:42):
Hey, thank you man. I appreciate that. Buddy, the blazer
of the night. Thank you very Yeah you are. You
are sounding so comfy at night.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
I love it. Thank you, buddy. I appreciate that. Yeah,
you're right.
Speaker 6 (27:53):
Love is when you have a guy on from Variety
and you both agree that CNN is right down the middle.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Of the road. What would you call what would you
call it?
Speaker 6 (28:00):
Oh, come on, buddy, I don't want to get into
it with you, but I well, you're the one who
started when I didn't start.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
A you and that douce bag.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
From now it's on. Now it's on, man.
Speaker 6 (28:10):
Yeah, yeah, CNN is right down the middle. You gotta
be kidding.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Well what I actually said, if you want to really
get to what it when you say I said, they
like to think of themselves as right down the hall.
Oh okay, I'll take that shit. No, I'm serious, that's
what I said.
Speaker 6 (28:26):
I heard him on last night on the news talking
about CNN is down the middle and that, you know,
because in politic with CNN you can go Trump Hitler,
Trump Hitler, Trump Saittler, Trump Hitler, and then some guy.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Goes, I don't think he's that. I don't think he's
exactly like Hitler. You go, oh, right wing guy, right guy.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah. I don't know. I don't know, but you know,
but look, I don't know. I didn't see the Hitler thing.
Speaker 6 (28:49):
But when people when people refer to him as Hitler,
that's got to drive people who have had or are
Jewish crazy.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Did I mean, did you're seeing references to the fact
that he's Hitler on CNN.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Well, okay, let's okay.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
Well at the point, I could probably find a dozen
references on CNN to somebody who made the reference that
they're ss or Hitler. But okay, that aside, millions of
people are calling Trump Hitler. But that's got to be
that's got to drive Jewish people crazy because it reduces
(29:20):
the actual.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Horror that Hitler.
Speaker 6 (29:23):
Yeah, they're brought onto the Jewish people absolutely right, you know,
because if kids hear that, if kids say that, you know,
kids here, okay, Trump is Hitler, Trump is Hitler, then
the kids are like, well, why are they the Jews.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
All crazy about this? Then, you know, if he's you
know it doesn' yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I think I think you know it je I mean,
I don't. This is kind of a generic conversation. It's
not really and I don't know this specific situation or conversation.
But I understand what you're saying, because there is talk
of kind of an authoritarian flex on the part of
Trump and stuff, and so I get what you're saying.
Speaker 6 (29:53):
Look, I get being critical of the guy, but the
Trump stuff is where over the line, because where do
you how do you limbo under that? You know, if
Trump went Okay, let's say this. Let's say Trump went
to San Francisco and was killing a thousand liberals a day.
Then you go, oh, man, that guy's Hitler, Like, oh yeah,
but you called him Hitler before he killed a thousand
(30:13):
liberals a day.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Yeah, and he's still Hitler.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I don't.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
I don't know, don't. I don't know how I would.
I'd say, you're It makes me crazy that when anyone
describes anybody else on planet or that there Hitler.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah, no one on this show did. I didn't say it.
I've never said it, and I also don't, and he
didn't say it. Our guests didn't say it. But what
he said was, we're talking about when Warner Brothers is
purchased by Paramount the merger, will they kind of remain
as they say that as sort of they think of
(30:48):
themselves as the way we put it as middle of
the road, or will they become Fox you know, four
point zero, like Fox News Channel. So that's really that question. Yeah, like, well,
what do you what do you how do you think
it's going to shakeout or do you have any thought
on that or not?
Speaker 6 (31:01):
Really I try to Politics makes me crazy, so I
try it to get into a penny.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
But that was the context of the entire conversation, right.
Speaker 6 (31:09):
But I will say that CNN is you know, it's
always They've always been the leader in international breaking news.
You know, whenever there's a war going on in Venezuela
or Iraq, you know, they were always the one to
go to, you know, big news station when international news happened.
And I think the United States is going to bomb
(31:30):
a Ran this weekend, No, it sure does seem that way.
There's a more hardware there than they've told everybody to
get out, and they're flying F twenty two's over to Jordan,
and F twenty twos have to fly every day or
they start to break down.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
What do you think the idea is there? I don't know,
but I.
Speaker 6 (31:46):
Will say that, you know, you can't bring F twenty twos,
these raptors over to the Middle East without flying them
every day. The longer they sit on the runway, the
more they break down, and so they've got to fly
every day. So I think it's going to be this weekend. Well,
I'm the same way, tim Uh. I have to fly
every day. I've got to I've got to get this
thing out. This body has got to be out moving
(32:07):
every day otherwise, I body, You've got it. You must
have a beautiful day to day. You have a pool
at your house, I do it overlooks the valley.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
I've worked very hard, tim But you know what I
noticed we used to.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
I'm not getting down you before.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I wish I had a pool, but I will could
come over any time and use mine. In fact, you
know I've invite you all the time.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Can I?
Speaker 6 (32:25):
I will tell you when we lived in Tarzana and
we had a pool, I secretly wrote down how many
days my wife and daughter used it in the year,
and it was eight.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
It is true that your your vision of how much
you'll use the pool, you never use it is definitely
how many times?
Speaker 3 (32:42):
How many long? How long you've been at your house?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
What four years? Now?
Speaker 3 (32:45):
How many times have you been in the pool?
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Oh? I don't know. A bunch of times but not
not but not a big enough bunch that you know
you justifies it? No, no, no, what we solar heated.
It's really expensive to hear a pool. Okay, But also
I remember I hated a pool for a party back
at my other place that's now you know that burned
in the in the fires. And I used to sit
there at night, and you know, when you're heating it
(33:07):
was it was for parties. You have to the way
you heat a pool, you got to heat over multiple days,
you know this, right, in order to get the water. Yeah,
you have to get the water water. So you can't. Yeah,
you can't just like heat it like on a on
a Tuesday and expected to be warm on a Friday.
So anyway, so it was heating, and I was heating
for this party on the weekend. And I remember as
it got cool at night, seeing the steam coming off
of that, I just thought, that's money. That's just evaporating
(33:29):
off of that tool water right now. Yeah, I only
could see the money. I just couldn't enjoy the pool.
Does the steam come up in money signs? That's what
I'm saying in my mind. It does, in my mind,
it really does.
Speaker 6 (33:39):
Conway, Okay, wait one more quick second. Yeah, I will
say the pools have changed over the last couple of
years or a decade or so, and now everything's run
on an app. That's it's crazy, man, And and they
always break down, they brain you cannot the problem with
the it's not the app that's a problem.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
It's that it needs to speak to your pool equipment
via your WiFi, and the Wi Fi antenna is out
there and it's exposed to the elements. Mind just broke
the other day.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
What do you pay your pool guy a month?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Does he come weekly?
Speaker 2 (34:10):
He comes weekly?
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Is he splash and dash guys?
Speaker 2 (34:12):
I think he does a good job. We have I
have some I have a couple of water features there
at the Mark Thompson's States. An interested at the pool.
I have him look at the water features. Maintenance involved.
I know Eric. We need to wrap up. Eric needs
to get out of here to it. Thanks. Fine, Please
come visit the Thompson State sometime, all of you invite
(34:34):
all right, co Belt's back on Monday. Thank you. Conway's
next Mark Thompson. KFI AM six forty live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
You've been listening to the John Cobelts Show podcast, you
can always hear the show live on KFI AM six
forty from three to six pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
KFI AM six More stimulating talk m
Can if I am six forty you're listening to the
John Cobel podcast on the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
App trying to see if I could find anything more
out on this Carvallo thing, sort of watching local news
coverage of it. Everybody's elbowing their way into the Clinton thing,
you know, the entire Epstein Clinton stuff that went down
the end of this week, after so long negotiating and
(00:27):
navigating that went down. We talked to Royal Oaks about
that last hour. The big news is the superintendent of LAUSD, ALBERTA.
Carvallo paid leave. I mean, the FBI rated his home,
and you know that's never a good thing, but there
haven't been any charges yet. So here we are two
(00:49):
days after that FBI raid and now he gets the
paid leave. Not clear exactly where this investigationation sits. The
FBI hasn't accused him of anything specific, but it does
appear that it's linked to this this bot that they worked,
(01:14):
this AI all. Here is the name of the company
and this kind of cute bot that they were using. Again,
the company's gone under, but this chat bot was going
to be something that would lift LAUSD and it was
functional in all these different ways. They unveiled it in
(01:35):
March of twenty twenty four, and then they took it down.
I mean, it was just not successful. And the company
all here, they're called clapped financially, and the founder and
the CEO of the company was charged with defrauding investors.
(01:58):
So she's pleaded not guilt, but that at minimum creates
a cloud over the company. And then the deals that
the company made, and one of the deals that was
made was with la So Carvallo is in this supervisory
position with LAUSD, and so he is by association a
(02:20):
person of interest, meaning someone they're interested in talking to
someone they're interested apparently in to the point that they
want to raid his home. So there are those who
are saying, hey, it's a federal investigation. They have searched
his home. But you've got to slow down and don't
(02:43):
react immediately if you're the school board. So the school
board putting him on paid leave is doing just that.
They're not firing him, they're not suspending him without pay.
I mean there's a cloud over him and over la
USD and this investigation. But all we know really, as
(03:04):
has pointed out, is that search warrants have been executed
and served of course, and you know you don't even
know why. So this is a situation in LAUSD that
is never welcome. I mean, it's a challenging program to
begin with, to maintain, and I mean just I just
(03:27):
think the the idea of administering to a school system
this size is an ongoing challenge. It's already controversial and
unclear as to what's going to happen from here on out. So,
by the way, I saw something, I don't have the
(03:48):
piece in front of me, but just on the success
story of public education in Los Angeles, I saw something
about the fact that test scor were higher. Did you
see that.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
The other day? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
That was wild. I'm so used to bad news that
I was astounded by that. It was a really kind
of surprising thing when you look at all that, you know,
one has to swim upstream against. I mean, even this
chatbot thing was sort of designed to be a technology
that would interact with students and parents. I mean, again,
(04:28):
this may have been smoking mirrors. I don't know. He
hasn't been accused of anything. All they've done, as we said,
is placed him on paid leave and they've had an
FBI rate of his place. But the idea was in
some way to address many of the challenges with education
with technology with AI. So anyway, it's in the face
(04:50):
of all that when I see now kids are on
their phones, it's harder and harder to actually get them
to focus. When I see a success story, like you know,
grades of increase, Wow, it's it's really pretty impressive. So
this was a huge, huge deal that Carvallo was part of, though,
(05:11):
I mean, this AI play was big, and this chatbot,
I mean again, it was called ed, it was brought
out with all of this fanfare, and man, it went
away so quickly. It's a multimillion dollar project. And so
you know, what happens next with LAUSD and what happens
(05:37):
to Carvallo next very much a question and again all
in the CEO of the company that really brought us
this chat bot. She's been charged pleading not guilty. And
this is the failure of this bold play on the
(05:59):
part of car Follow and LAUSD. So the Trump administration
and the first Assistant US Attorney for Southern California under
Trump says they're focusing on fraud and it is thought
that this may be part of this. Carfollow could fall
(06:23):
on the list of people who would be targeted. But
again he's someone who hasn't been charged. I say he
could be targeted because, let's face it, he's been very
outspoken in talking about immigrant rights, in talking about looking
into school systems and the fact that kids should have
(06:46):
a safe place in school where they shouldn't have to
worry about the anxieties associated with being targeted by the
Trump administration. So again, that being part of the narrative,
you can begin to build the fact that maybe he
could be targeted. But look, he definitely had a professional
(07:08):
association going back to his time with Miami Dade, and
that is to say, a professional association with the CEO
of this AI Boch company. And so again that's the
way business is done. It's a relationship. And to be
(07:29):
fair to him, it may be that this was the
kind of technological connection that could promote education and educational
products across LAUSD. I mean, it might have literally been
his effort to produce something that could be productive for
the many students and parents who are part of the
(07:49):
school system. Anyway, big news though, in his paid leave.
That's the breaking news of the moment. Again, the other
break story possibility of a military flex in Iran. We're
watching that, and we are watching the very real potential
(08:12):
of a merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers. It's a
hostile takeover, is what it is. We'll talk more about
that bottom of the hour with micro Schnader from Variety.
Mark Thompson for John COLEBLT KFI AM six forty. We're
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Record breaking day temperature was in southern California. Really warm nineties.
I'm seeing I guess it gets a little cooler next
couple of days. You see all these Lucids cruising around.
Lucid is a pretty sweet sexy car. They're electric cars.
Well they're high end electric cars, and they are going
(08:58):
to be dumping three hundred and nineteen jobs, billions in
losses from this company. They're struggling to turn a profit.
I mean, there's definitely a softening of demand for electric vehicles.
Right used to be there were a lot of federal subsidies.
The money driving demand I think is all gone with
(09:21):
the new administration. Not so new anymore, but you know,
it pretty well went away about a year ago. They'll
take effect in April. These cuts they're part of a
twelve percent reduction in the company's workforce. They're looking to
boost efficiency. They employed about sixty eight hundred people in
twenty twenty four. Lucid, Yeah, they're trying to boost their brand.
(09:46):
They had a Timothy Chalomet centered ad campaign to airing
across different television and digital platforms promoting the seven seat
suv called Gravity. They're really good looking cars. But again
(10:08):
ev EV makers are getting squeezed right now, so there
is I saw also in the Aston Martin world. I
always like Aston Martin because it's James Bond, so kind
of a James Bond, you know, it's a guy thing
sort of, but it's also a sexy car. They're laying
(10:30):
off twenty percent of their workforce worldwide, so it's definitely
a time of constriction when it comes to economies worldwide.
And all of this happening as President Trump is bringing
a huge amount of hardware to the Middle East. I mean,
this is a it was hard. It's hard to imagine
(10:54):
that you could bring this amount of hardware to the
Middle East and wouldn't have something happen. So now with
the expectation of something happening. Israeli embassy personnel from this
country is being told by Mike Huckabee, who's the ambassador
(11:15):
to Israel, that they can leave, and if they're going
to leave, they ought to leave today. The one thing
about Middle Eastern threats, and I feel as though Donald
Trump has issued a threat. Right he'd said, you better
stop the bloodshed. Iran's massacred somewhere in the order of
(11:37):
twenty thousand demonstrators, and Donald Trump said he's going to
ride to the rescue of these protesters, said quote literally,
help is on the way, and urge them to remain
on the streets. The one thing that's scary, and it
can be a very tricky thing, and happened to Obama.
Remember what Obama said to the Syrians, don't cross that
(12:02):
red line by using chemical weapons against your own people.
And then chemical weapons were used and Obama didn't do anything,
and it really ruined his credibility. And Trump may find
himself in that situation where you're, you know, you're kind
of bombastic, you're leaning in with big threats, and now
(12:23):
you move in all this hardware into the Middle East,
this armada that's offshore, and he may be forced to
do something. It's scary. I mean, this is the largest
concentration of American military firepower since the early two thousands.
So the crisis really feels as though it's coming to
(12:45):
a head. And he has had good luck with Iran, right,
He had that obliteration, as he calls it, of Iran's
nuclear program. And I think on some level, doesn't it
feel as though President Trump is kind of you know,
(13:05):
he did the Venezuela thing. These flexes are working. I
think Iran is a dangerous, dangerous shot. But on the
other hand, he seems committed to some kind of situation here.
The problem is just the last point that the goal
here is not clear. Are you is this regime change?
(13:29):
What is his goal? And launching something without a clear
goal is just a prescription for trouble. We've just seen
it over and over again. So again, if this strike
is as complicated as it likely is, because Iran is
not a pushover and it involves more than just drones,
(13:55):
and then there'll be return fire in the form of
drones on both American air bases and military bases in
the region. There are a lot of them, and this
strike kills Americans and American troops. It's going to be
a much more difficult back walk that Donald Trump does.
(14:19):
And he can begin this war with a lot of support,
but I think you can end this war, and the
problem with ending the war in a much more problematic
way and a much more complicated way if you can
end it at all. So that's the situation now in
the Middle East, and again Middle Eastern personnel in israela
(14:42):
being told, Hey, this is if you're going to leave,
you should leave. Now Instagram is telling parents that if
teens mention suicide, they will get a notification through text.
(15:03):
So parents finally are getting some relief from the world
of Meta. Remember Meta owns WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and one
of the big problems with AI is that their relationships
form there. Even though it's a machine, there's a real
world of relationships. And so now Instagram is saying that
(15:25):
there is going to be an alert if teens repeatedly
search for suicide or self harm related terms quote. Our
goal is to empower parents to step in if their
teen searches suggest that they may need support, parents will
receive a notification through text. They'll also have the option
(15:49):
to view resources to help them with sensitive conversations with
their teen. One of the problems is teens feel isolated.
Of course, they feel super connected through Instagram, they feel
super connected through WhatsApp, and they feel connected. And this
is the scary thing with AI, and AI talks to
them through these large language models in a way that
literally makes them seem as though they're a pal. And
(16:13):
as you know, this is being litigated now. That was
one of the things that Mark Zuckerberg was in court
litigating the idea somehow that you could have a teen
that vulnerable, involved in a back and forth with AI,
with Instagram, with any number of social media platforms, and
not know it as a parent, and that teen is
(16:34):
involved in self harm. That's scary anyway, that's the latest
from Instagram. They're saying that parents will be notified. So
there's a big, big to tell you, big merger underway.
It's the hospital takeover really of Paramount's move on Warner Brothers.
(16:55):
It will have super super important repercussions here in southern California,
but also across the media escape both in this country
and worldwide. Paramount will they get the green light to
indeed acquire Warner Brothers. We will talk about that next
with the executive editor of Variety, Mark Thompson, sitting in
on KFI for John Colebelt. We're live everywhere on the
(17:18):
iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
You're listening to John cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Mark Thompson's sitting in for John Cobelt. I've been talking
about this all day, been thinking about this since this
whole merger thing began, and finally I get to talk
to a super smart guy who actually knows the ins
and outs of this from Variety executive editor Michael Schneider's
on the line. And what I'm talking about is this
merger that looks like it's poised to happen between Paramount
(17:49):
sky Dance and Warner Brothers of Netflix backing out of
this deal. You wrote a whole column about this, and
I wonder if you could, in a sense summarize some
of the concerns here and explain how this deal would
go down. Hi, Michael sure.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
Mark Thompson. By the way, first off, you saying my name,
It's like Budda here and you just say my name.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
I just.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
Mark Thompson's voice.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Thanksving for me that's so cool to have you here.
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
Yeah, but it is it is pretty crazy what's going
on right now. And I think the entire town is
sort of up in arms because no one really knows
what's going on. This shocked everyone on Thursday, and we're
also trying to put the pieces together on Okay, what
does this mean? What comes next? And why is this
happening so fast? So yeah, there are so many different
(18:39):
angles to to dissect.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Well, first of all, let me just let me just
let me just help you navigate some of this stuff,
and just in terms of the conversation since our time
is way short. But one of the things that's curious,
and you sort of just noted it, is that Netflix
pulled away from the deal, or that, if you will,
Paramount stepped up so bigly that Netflix didn't feel even
(19:02):
compelled to try to match the offer. Can you explain
the dynamics there?
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Yeah, I mean to some degree, what Netflix said is
the truth, and that they didn't necessarily need the heft
of Warner Brothers. They they thought it was at the
right price, a good deal for them, that they they
would have liked the IP, the you know, the intellectual
property they were they were game for it. They wanted
to make Netflix bigger, but at the right price. And
(19:29):
at the point that the Ellisons and Paramount sky Dance
pushed the price over the line of what they thought
made financial sense, they decided to just pull out and
pull out pretty fast. And and you know, I think
you know, they benefited from that today because the Netflix
stock price was way up, So it seems seemed to
be a smart move for them to just get out.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah, clearly the street thought, oh good, they didn't take
on this thing that would have been maybe too big
a thing and maybe not worth the trouble. And now
talk about what that thing is. So Warner Brothers is
a studio, just like Paramount is a studio. So you
have a studio acquiring another studio. We'll get to the
cable properties and all that stuff in a second. But
(20:14):
these mergers, they always say, oh, we're going to treat
them as two separate entities. But it's really you know,
it's going to become one big studio, isn't it.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
Yeah, And the question is will it even be a
big studio? So you're bringing these two companies together, both
of which have a lot of debt that they're saddled
with You combine it and there's going to be eighty
billion dollars worth of debt. That then your Paramount Skuydeest
is going to have to figure out how do we
pay that down? And that usually means a lot of cuts,
a lot of layoffs, a lot of trims, and maybe
(20:46):
they sell one of the lots. You know, there's a
lot of things they're going to have to do to
bring down that debt. And that means it's one plus
one does not equal to.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, we're talking to Michael Schneider from Variety about this
huge deal of the idea that Paramount is going to
buy Warner Bros. And I'll get to the green lighting
and you know, the government approval and all of that
stuff in a second. So included in this, as you've
mentioned these studios, in the studio lots and the properties
and the intellectual property, but there are cable entities, powerful
(21:16):
cable entities and broadcast entities associated with this. Can you
speak to that.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
Yeah, in particular, you know, Paramount has a stable of
cable networks. Once upon a time where the jewels now
not so much. We live in an era where MTV
and Comedy Central, just they're not what they used to be.
That's the same on Warner Brothers side. You know, they've
got TLC and ht TV and PBS, but those channels
(21:41):
just aren't worth what they used to be. As a
matter of fact, Warner Brothers was planning on spinning off
those cable networks into a separate company to get it
off their books. So you're going to have this massive
stable of cable networks, none of which are really worth
all that much anymore, that they'll probably eventually still spin
off into a separate company. And we're not even talking
about CNN. That's a whole separate conversation.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I'm beat you mentioned CNN though, because among these properties
that would be spun off or retained is CNN. And
CNN now is relevant on a political level because CNN
is not like a Fox News channel and some of
these right leaning, even some would say propaganda filled cable companies,
like cable outlets, CNN is kind of more tact at
(22:28):
least they represent themselves more towards the center. So for
that reason, they are seen I think by the current
administration and Donald Trump as adversaries. Now those adversaries would
fall into the hands of the Ellisons, and the Ellisons
are pals of the Trump's, very much pals of the Trumps,
and they may want to hang on to CNN and
(22:51):
make it sort of a Fox News four point zero
or what would be the play there.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Yeah, that's the big question because we've already seen that
the the Elessons in purchasing CBS and Paramount have kind
of pushed CBS News more to the right, and so
the question is what is their plan with CNN. You know,
an argument could be made that sure they could try
to push CNN to the right, but then whatever viewership
(23:18):
is still left with CNN will just go away, And
do they want to kill it's still very profitable and
valuable cable network, you know, just to play Kate Donald Trump,
especially once this deal gets through and they don't necessarily
have to play games with the administration anymore. But at
the same time, they are very tight with the Trumps,
(23:38):
and this was one reason why the feeling was Trump
was definitely leaning towards Paramount, Skydance buying Warner Brothers because
he has a very specific interest in CNN.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yeah, the idea was sort of he had his thumb
on the scale, so the whole idea. I mean, I
love this new argument. By the way, I super love
the idea somehow. I mean, just as a narrative. I
love the idea that they need the administration, they wanted
the administration's help, and then once the deal goes through,
they hang on the CNN and they just leave it
(24:09):
the way it is. I think that's very funny. I
don't think it would happen, but I just think I
just love the narrative. But I just I like it
also that the conversation is, well, it's still very possible
that it won't get green lit by the administration. Really,
I think there is zero possibility it wouldn't be green lit.
The acquisition of Warner Brothers.
Speaker 5 (24:29):
Yeah, no, I think the government, you know, pretty much
it's already a done deal. The only question is what
happens overseas. You know, there needs to be some sort
of approval in the European Union as well, because these
they have international assets. And then there's the question of
you know, there are some states attorneys general, including here
in California, who may sue and may gum up the
(24:52):
approval process for some period of time. I think the
general feeling is This will eventually happen, but when And
things are moving so fast right now it feels like
it's going to happen tomorrow. But there's still a lot
that needs to be done before this deal is actually completed.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Michael and our just last sight, we're talking to MIKEL
Snader from Variety, and this Paramount Warner Brothers merger does
all the things you've talked about, and it creates all
of these sort of tentacles into all of these different
areas of the entertainment industry. I just can't help but
think about our community. You know that these are real
people who work for these studios at Warner Brothers and
(25:30):
at Paramount, and they we're already in a position of
seeing these industries dry up and even move to other places.
But I wonder if you could just speak to the
community at large, to Southern California and the economic effects
of all of this on that.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head.
This is the most concerning part of it all is
that this is a community that's already reeling from you know,
we had COVID, then we had the strikes, then we
had the fires. We've seen so much production move away
already across the country, and now overseas, we've got studios
that already are virtually empty. Right now, there's not a
(26:05):
ton of production going on here in Los Angeles. The
production is way down. So the idea of losing a
major studio and what happens to all that production once
these companies merge, and you know they're they're clearly not
going to combine produce as much as they did individually,
it just means more more concern for you know, the
bread and butter of Hollywood and all these jobs. You
(26:28):
know that people are already out of work here in LA.
This just this concerns me a great deal, and I'm
sure concerns a lot of people a great deal.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah. I think it's really the from a community standpoint,
the grimmest part of all of this, as you say,
against a backdrop of a lot of bad news over
the last few years. Well, I so enjoyed our conversation.
I'm going to link to it on my social media,
which will mean nothing to you because not a lot
of people following me, but my five followers are going
(26:57):
to get a lot out of your piece and variety
as Paramount Skydance grabs Warner Brothers and Netflix bows out
the mood inside all three Champagne toasts versus Gut Punch. Yeah,
Champagne off of Melrose there at Paramount and Gut Punch
in Burbank at Warner Brothers. I love talking to Michael Schnyder.
Let's do it again.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Absolutely, and I follow you on social media. Mark Tonto,
that's good.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Well, there you go. That's another one. You know, you've
got to build an empire one at a time. Thank you,
all right, appreciate your time. Yep, Michael Schnader from Variety.
We are KFI AM six forty. It is the co
Belt Show. Mark Thompson sitting in for John Today Live
Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Tim Conway Junior Day.
Speaker 6 (27:42):
Hey, thank you man. I appreciate that. Buddy, the blazer
of the night. Thank you very Yeah you are. You
are sounding so comfy at night.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
I love it. Thank you, buddy. I appreciate that. Yeah,
you're right.
Speaker 6 (27:53):
Love is when you have a guy on from Variety
and you both agree that CNN is right down the middle.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Of the road. What would you call what would you
call it?
Speaker 6 (28:00):
Oh, come on, buddy, I don't want to get into
it with you, but I well, you're the one who
started when I didn't start.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
A you and that douce bag.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
From now it's on. Now it's on, man.
Speaker 6 (28:10):
Yeah, yeah, CNN is right down the middle. You gotta
be kidding.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Well what I actually said, if you want to really
get to what it when you say I said, they
like to think of themselves as right down the hall.
Oh okay, I'll take that shit. No, I'm serious, that's
what I said.
Speaker 6 (28:26):
I heard him on last night on the news talking
about CNN is down the middle and that, you know,
because in politic with CNN you can go Trump Hitler,
Trump Hitler, Trump Saittler, Trump Hitler, and then some guy.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Goes, I don't think he's that. I don't think he's
exactly like Hitler. You go, oh, right wing guy, right guy.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah. I don't know. I don't know, but you know,
but look, I don't know. I didn't see the Hitler thing.
Speaker 6 (28:49):
But when people when people refer to him as Hitler,
that's got to drive people who have had or are
Jewish crazy.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Did I mean, did you're seeing references to the fact
that he's Hitler on CNN.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Well, okay, let's okay.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
Well at the point, I could probably find a dozen
references on CNN to somebody who made the reference that
they're ss or Hitler. But okay, that aside, millions of
people are calling Trump Hitler. But that's got to be
that's got to drive Jewish people crazy because it reduces
(29:20):
the actual.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Horror that Hitler.
Speaker 6 (29:23):
Yeah, they're brought onto the Jewish people absolutely right, you know,
because if kids hear that, if kids say that, you know,
kids here, okay, Trump is Hitler, Trump is Hitler, then
the kids are like, well, why are they the Jews.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
All crazy about this? Then, you know, if he's you
know it doesn' yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I think I think you know it je I mean,
I don't. This is kind of a generic conversation. It's
not really and I don't know this specific situation or conversation.
But I understand what you're saying, because there is talk
of kind of an authoritarian flex on the part of
Trump and stuff, and so I get what you're saying.
Speaker 6 (29:53):
Look, I get being critical of the guy, but the
Trump stuff is where over the line, because where do
you how do you limbo under that? You know, if
Trump went Okay, let's say this. Let's say Trump went
to San Francisco and was killing a thousand liberals a day.
Then you go, oh, man, that guy's Hitler, Like, oh yeah,
but you called him Hitler before he killed a thousand
(30:13):
liberals a day.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Yeah, and he's still Hitler.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I don't.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
I don't know, don't. I don't know how I would.
I'd say, you're It makes me crazy that when anyone
describes anybody else on planet or that there Hitler.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah, no one on this show did. I didn't say it.
I've never said it, and I also don't, and he
didn't say it. Our guests didn't say it. But what
he said was, we're talking about when Warner Brothers is
purchased by Paramount the merger, will they kind of remain
as they say that as sort of they think of
(30:48):
themselves as the way we put it as middle of
the road, or will they become Fox you know, four
point zero, like Fox News Channel. So that's really that question. Yeah, like, well,
what do you what do you how do you think
it's going to shakeout or do you have any thought
on that or not?
Speaker 6 (31:01):
Really I try to Politics makes me crazy, so I
try it to get into a penny.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
But that was the context of the entire conversation, right.
Speaker 6 (31:09):
But I will say that CNN is you know, it's
always They've always been the leader in international breaking news.
You know, whenever there's a war going on in Venezuela
or Iraq, you know, they were always the one to
go to, you know, big news station when international news happened.
And I think the United States is going to bomb
(31:30):
a Ran this weekend, No, it sure does seem that way.
There's a more hardware there than they've told everybody to
get out, and they're flying F twenty two's over to Jordan,
and F twenty twos have to fly every day or
they start to break down.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
What do you think the idea is there? I don't know,
but I.
Speaker 6 (31:46):
Will say that, you know, you can't bring F twenty twos,
these raptors over to the Middle East without flying them
every day. The longer they sit on the runway, the
more they break down, and so they've got to fly
every day. So I think it's going to be this weekend. Well,
I'm the same way, tim Uh. I have to fly
every day. I've got to I've got to get this
thing out. This body has got to be out moving
(32:07):
every day otherwise, I body, You've got it. You must
have a beautiful day to day. You have a pool
at your house, I do it overlooks the valley.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
I've worked very hard, tim But you know what I
noticed we used to.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
I'm not getting down you before.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I wish I had a pool, but I will could
come over any time and use mine. In fact, you
know I've invite you all the time.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Can I?
Speaker 6 (32:25):
I will tell you when we lived in Tarzana and
we had a pool, I secretly wrote down how many
days my wife and daughter used it in the year,
and it was eight.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
It is true that your your vision of how much
you'll use the pool, you never use it is definitely
how many times?
Speaker 3 (32:42):
How many long? How long you've been at your house?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
What four years? Now?
Speaker 3 (32:45):
How many times have you been in the pool?
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Oh? I don't know. A bunch of times but not
not but not a big enough bunch that you know
you justifies it? No, no, no, what we solar heated.
It's really expensive to hear a pool. Okay, But also
I remember I hated a pool for a party back
at my other place that's now you know that burned
in the in the fires. And I used to sit
there at night, and you know, when you're heating it
(33:07):
was it was for parties. You have to the way
you heat a pool, you got to heat over multiple days,
you know this, right, in order to get the water. Yeah,
you have to get the water water. So you can't. Yeah,
you can't just like heat it like on a on
a Tuesday and expected to be warm on a Friday.
So anyway, so it was heating, and I was heating
for this party on the weekend. And I remember as
it got cool at night, seeing the steam coming off
of that, I just thought, that's money. That's just evaporating
(33:29):
off of that tool water right now. Yeah, I only
could see the money. I just couldn't enjoy the pool.
Does the steam come up in money signs? That's what
I'm saying in my mind. It does, in my mind,
it really does.
Speaker 6 (33:39):
Conway, Okay, wait one more quick second. Yeah, I will
say the pools have changed over the last couple of
years or a decade or so, and now everything's run
on an app. That's it's crazy, man, And and they
always break down, they brain you cannot the problem with
the it's not the app that's a problem.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
It's that it needs to speak to your pool equipment
via your WiFi, and the Wi Fi antenna is out
there and it's exposed to the elements. Mind just broke
the other day.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
What do you pay your pool guy a month?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Does he come weekly?
Speaker 2 (34:10):
He comes weekly?
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Is he splash and dash guys?
Speaker 2 (34:12):
I think he does a good job. We have I
have some I have a couple of water features there
at the Mark Thompson's States. An interested at the pool.
I have him look at the water features. Maintenance involved.
I know Eric. We need to wrap up. Eric needs
to get out of here to it. Thanks. Fine, Please
come visit the Thompson State sometime, all of you invite
(34:34):
all right, co Belt's back on Monday. Thank you. Conway's
next Mark Thompson. KFI AM six forty live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
You've been listening to the John Cobelts Show podcast, you
can always hear the show live on KFI AM six
forty from three to six pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
KFI AM six More stimulating talk m
The John Kobylt Show News
Host
John Kobylt
Popular Podcasts
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.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe
When a group of women from all over the country realise they all dated the same prolific romance scammer they vow to bring him to justice. In this brand new season of global number 1 hit podcast, The Girlfriends, Anna Sinfield meets a group of funny, feisty, determined women who all had the misfortune of dating a mysterious man named Derek Alldred. Trust Me Babe is a story about the protective forces of gossip, gut instinct, and trusting your besties and the group of women who took matters into their own hands to take down a fraudster when no one else would listen. If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show, our charity partners NO MORE have available resources at https://www.nomore.org. To learn more about romance scams, and to access specialised support, visit https://fightcybercrime.org/ The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!