Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Jesus he America for onation. Yes is wrong.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
This is Columbia's Morning News with Gary David and Christopher
Thompson on one O, three point five FM and five
sixty AM w VOCO.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Good morning and happy Monday to you, if there is
such a thing. It is Monday. It is the fourteenth
day of July. Isn't this best deal day? I think
it might be. Well, regardless, we're not celebrating here seventeen
after six. Good to have you here. I'm Gary David.
Christopher Thompson is not here today. Cut the day off,
(00:50):
cut the week off, vacation time with the Thompson household.
Good for them, Gary Mills, we'll be by sure. Why
get us up at it on sports? He'll be filling
in force this week. All right, let's get right out
of it. By the way you step out this morning,
it's like stepping into you know, asana. What's new? Right?
We're in the mid seventies and a lot of spots
and the humidity level is high, and yeah, we do
(01:11):
have a keeping an eye well, at least as of
last night, had a low chance of formation of some
sort of a tropical system, about a twenty percent chance
over the course of the next seven days, not expected
to impact us, although if it happens, it could spew
some rain our way, and we do have that you know,
those range chances of course, in the forecast this week
(01:33):
and today, by the way, heated next with about one
hundred and six. Titler mentioned, Yes, okay, but it's worth
keeping an eye on parts of the Gulf Coast could
be impacted by this if it happens. Seeing a lot
of articles popping up these days, newspapers stayed wide, particularly
posting Courier down in the low country. Of course, we're well,
(01:54):
you're seeing headlines like South Carolina could see devastating impacts
if hurricane research is cut, say, concerns about the weather
forecasting as we are into hurricane season now. But again,
typically for US, hurricanes are more of a September October thing,
so we'll keep going on all that. Okay, Well, this
(02:16):
is just popping up here, although apparently this has been
a long going feud here. But now a gubernatorial candidate
in our state, Upstate Senator Josh Kimbrel, has been accused
of swindling his business partner and a Spartanburg based aeronautics
company out of millions of dollars, which the associate says
(02:39):
was used in order to boost Kimberl's political ambitions. Okay,
so that lawsuit was filed actually last week in Greenville
County Court. We're coming out over the weekend. Kimberle's camp
is aggressively disputing these allegations. But ken for Kimberl, it
couldn't come at a worse time, And again quite possibly
(03:02):
of the business associate was just waiting for this time
to do it. So we'll get into well, exactly what
is this lawsuit says claims that Kimberle is guilty of doing.
So that's coming up this morning. I'll be making some
political hay across the state. I meanwhile, another well, she
(03:25):
hasn't announced that she's running for governor, wondering now if
she is, but Nancy Mays can well, will she be
shielded from that defamation suit the things she said accusing
one of her ex fiance's friends of being a sexual predator.
She's being sued over that for defamation of character. Brian Sterling,
(03:48):
the US attorney for South Carolina, he feels like she
was well, will be or should be at least saying
she was simply doing her job. But it's gonna be
up to a judge of the side, and that judge,
Judge Richard Gergel, the US history judge, whether or not
Macey's shielded. Now, remember, what she said on the house
(04:10):
floor is a protected speech because she said on the
house floor. What's in question here is what she has
said off the house floor, particularly in social media, So
we'll see. Glenn McCall passed away on Friday at the
age of seventy one. McCall was the co chair of
(04:32):
the twenty twenty Republican National Committee. He served as a
state Committee member for many a year. Was actually the
first black Republican National committeeman. He passed at the age
of seventy one on Friday, following surgery complications. It's not
going away. We're into week two now of the fuss
(04:56):
over Epstein. Over the weekend, the President posting a lengthy
statement on Trope's truth social that is, defending Pam Bondy
and criticizing renewed public interest in Epstein related documents. Okay,
Democrats are saying it's put up for shut up time
(05:17):
now all of a sudden, they didn't care about this
when Joe Biden was in office, but now they want
the Trump White House to disclose these Epstein's Epstein's secrets.
And there was word and the White House denies there
any thing going on here, But there were sources late
last week saying that Dan Bongino, the deputy FBI director,
(05:39):
had told people he was considering resigning and took Friday
off to think about it over his disagreements over all
of this. It's not going away at all. Now. We
got well, some video experts claiming that raw Epstein video
was likely edited, that there a review of the metadata.
(06:02):
So we got plenty to talk about on that front today.
That'd be coming up. More flash flooding in parts of
Texas that were hit by those tragic floods a little
over a week ago. There were people being evacuated yesterday
and search operations halted along the Guadalupe River as a
result of this. We knew there was more coming, and
it did up in Kentucky and Lexington. Two women dead
(06:26):
at a Kentucky church. This after a shooting spree that
started when a state trooper was moved to making a
traffic stop. Yeah, the suspect was also killed in this case.
But unfortunately two women, a seventy two year old and
a thirty two year old were hit by fire. It
(06:46):
was a year ago, this past Saturday. Actually, you go yesterday,
I should say it was a Saturday in twenty twenty
four when the Donald Trump surviy that assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania,
the President saying he's very satisfied with the investigation, but
a lot of questions do remain. You've got a watchdog
(07:06):
finding that the Secret Service, who just had six agents
dealt with that. The Secret Service set on a classified
threat for over a week before that assassination attempt. We've
got more to talk about there. Joe Biden in an
interview with The New York Times, defending the use of
the auto pen and saying, yeah, he was in full
(07:27):
control of that. A lot of people don't believe that
the mayor of Los Angeles signing an executive order supporting
immigrants among these federal raids. Yeah, Los Angeles is not
only supporting these immigrants, but they're going to provide cash
aid to the families affected by ice rates because that's
the way they do it. And so cow and Democrat
(07:50):
in fighting blowing up here as Hakim Jeffrey's team is
binding back at allies of of Mondami, the Democrat nominee,
who's the socialist maybe even a communist in New York
City as you know. And the tariffs. I want to
talk about tariffs again as Trump is ramping that talk
(08:12):
back up. But in the meantime, the government posting another
surplus in June amid a rising tariff collections, matter of fact,
a record surplus in June, just over twenty seven billion dollars.
Matter of fact, how does that contrast to May. May
was a three hundred and sixteen billion dollar deficit, June
(08:33):
a twenty seven billion dollar surplus. We'll get to that
more coming up on this. It is the back added
Monday edition of Columbia's Morning News. And yes, as always,
my friends, it is great to have you with it.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
You use this always happening, and we'll keep you informed
and up to date.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
It's important to see informed these days more than ever.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
On one oh three point five FM on five sixty
am WVOC, this is Columbia's Morning News with Gary David
and Christopher Thompson on one O three point five FM
and five sixty am w VOC.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
It is six forty one and good morning, tell you
Monday morning, July the fourteenth. I'm Gary David Christopher Thompson
has got the week off the one year anniversary. We
all remember probably we were actually I was, we were
and I were, uh. We were in Tybee Island on
a Saturday, late Saturday afternoon, shopping at a funky little
you know, one of those you know, beach kind of
(09:30):
store places, when my phone started blowing up that Donald
Trump uh had had been shot in Butler, Pennsylvania at
that campaign rally. And it was, you know, these days,
the way devices are, everybody's got the cell phones, and
it was it was really because everybody. It was like,
you know, one of those things to see in a
(09:51):
movie where you know, everybody's cell phones go goes off
and some very important people are gathering somewhere they are
looking at their phones. Well, it was just like that, right,
everybody all around store suddenly or looking at their phones
and going, oh, yeah, it's been a year ago, and
what a year it's been since. Huh. Still a lot
(10:13):
of questions unanswered over that. The President, as far as
he's concerned, says he's very satisfied with the investigation, but
a lot of people aren't. And it wasn't but just
a couple of months ago when Trump felt quite differently
(10:35):
about that. But back in March, he said, I'm relying
on my people to tell me what it is. The
Secret Service. They tell me it's fine, but it's a
little hard to believe, he said. A few days after that,
Dan Bongino, the FBI Deputy director, insisted there was no
conspiracy behind this, but there are still so many unanswered
(10:58):
questions a year later. Isn't it really bizarre that here
we have an attempt on the life of a former
president who is running to be president once again, and
we know almost nothing about Thomas Crooks. Matter of fact,
you might have even forgotten the name because his name
(11:21):
very rarely pops up. This story very rarely pops up.
It's only popped up now on the mainstream media because
it was the one year anniversary yesterday of that assassination attempt.
But we know almost nothing about this twenty year old
A motive hasn't been shared. Really. All we know about
(11:43):
it was he gave fifteen bucks to a progressive turnout
project through Act Blue. When Joebiah was inaugurated. We also
know he's a registered Republican. We know that he searched
online asking questions like how far was Oswald from Kennedy?
(12:04):
Where will Trump speak from at the Butler Farm show
a sign from that? We know very little now. It
within the last week, of course, the news that the
Secret Service had suspended without pays, six agents for failures
related to that day. They weren't fired. These are suspensions well,
(12:33):
ranging in length from ten days to forty two days,
so about six weeks. We're going to have for six weeks.
That's it now. There was a report released Saturday by
the Government Accountability Office, the federal watchdog. According to this report,
(13:00):
senior US Secret Service officials were aware of a classified
threat to Trump's life ten days before it happened, but
failed to inform the agents assigned to protect him. This
again from the GOO, the Government Accountability Office. They found
(13:24):
the intelligence was presented to Secret Service leadership almost two
weeks before that attempt. That information never reached the field
team on the ground. Due to what the agency describes
as a siloed practice for sharing classified information. The Secret
Service had no process to share classified info with partners
(13:44):
when that information was not considered an eminent threat to life.
That's what they found in this and their investigation of
the Secret Service. At least now, whether or not the
nature of this threat was the threat from crooks or
from someone else or some other entity or government like
(14:06):
the Iranians, that threat remains undisclosed. We don't know what
it was. And you know, I wonder when I read this,
if it's not such that you know, Trump as a
former president and campaign to be president again, or any
(14:28):
sitting president or anyone campaigning and you know, last man
or woman standing here for their party, You've got if
you got to feel like the Secret Services is getting
in uncovering threats all the time. But was this a
case of, uh, yeah, this always happens, so we're not
(14:50):
gonna pay much attention to it. Why would you not
at least at least inform the agents who were assigned
to protect the at that time former president or do
they just operate on the assumption that every time, every
time they're out with the individual, there is a threat looming.
(15:13):
That's probably their mindset, I would imagine. So is this
a question of, well, somebody in leadership didn't want to
pass along this information, or is this just the way
the Secret Service worked siloing information about classified threats, not
sharing it. We've heard this story before, right, We heard
(15:35):
this story back on nine to eleven. We became painfully
obvious how different law enforcements agencies, law enforcement agencies that is,
refused to share information with others, which makes absolutely zero sense,
but it happens. Chasmin Crockett, by the way, floating a
(15:59):
bizarre our Trump assassination theory, Titan need to should I
even bother to mention this? Uh? I don't think I will.
Jesu a kook just wanted to get attention, so guess what,
(16:21):
I'm lucky to give it to her this morning. That's
just stupid anyway, all right, So a year later, have
there been changes? Okay, other than six Secret Service personnel
suspended for anywhere between a week and a half to
about six weeks without pay. Aside from that, has anything
(16:42):
changed at the agency other than leadership? Let's hope so,
and let's hope. You know, in this case, time doesn't
tell that we don't have to, you know, go down
this road again. And and wonder, I mean we all
know that day is that twenty year old sat on
(17:05):
a rooftop with direct line of sight to the podium,
armed to the gills. How he got there and why
nobody spotted him? Still very troubling, always will be. I suppose.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
You're listening to Columbia's Morning News on one oh three
point five FM nine five six am WVOC. Once again,
here's Gary David and Christopher Thompson.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Well this you got me. I'm Gary, and that's all
you're going to get today as far as Gary and
Christopher concerned. He's got the week off. Good morning, do
you It is sixteen after seven. It's good to have
you along here on this fourteenth day of the month
of July. And a political bombshell dropping over the weekend
when it comes to state wide politics. And that was
the news breaking that Josh Kimberl, the Upstate senator and
(17:58):
Republican gubernatorial hopeful, has been accused of swindling his business
partner out of close to two million dollars. So says
the aggrieved business partner. Here Kimberle's camp aggressively disputing the allegations,
calling it a politically motivated complaint about internal company politics.
(18:22):
It's time to a time that is to sabotage Kimberlell's
campaign for governor. The associate says that some of this money,
he claims, was used in order to boost Kimberrell's political ambition. So,
all right, what have we got here? A sixteen page lawsuit.
It was filed in Greenville County Court by Frank George Rogers,
(18:48):
who makes the claim that Kimberrell, his wife and others
use a series of complex financial transactions over the course
of about two and a half years to divert well,
he says more than to billion dollars in revenues from
a company that Ian Rodgers co owned, Exodus Aircraft. Says
that the kimberl last year created what he called a
(19:12):
sham company called Exodus Airways, and that he was subsequently
diverting funds via his associate and as a banker, from
Exodus Aircraft over to Exodus Airways and using this money
(19:32):
the planetiff argues for personal use diverted to an array
of other credit corporate entities rather to pay for personal
credit cards, and he claims to support Kimberrell's political aspirations. Okay, well,
it is interesting timing now to hear the the kimberle
(19:53):
camps say this, This has just been an ongoing dispute
between the two that's been going on for quite a while.
That this business partner is well kind of a you know,
not daily engaged in the activities of the company, which
it sounds like Exodus Aircraft is not even really in
(20:13):
business anymore. They no longer have a license to operate.
It doesn't sound like Kimbrel's campaign spokesperson. I'll call this
little more than an effort by an absentee business partner
to undermine him at a time when it was politically
convenient to do so. That we're witnessing a regrettable, uncooperated
(20:34):
case of lawfare from a disgruntled absent business partner with
no function or daily involvement in our operations. Okay, but
still it is bad timing for Josh Kimberl. Now, I
suppose here we are in July fourteenth of twenty twenty five.
Primary is June ninth of twenty twenty six, so there's
(20:56):
still a lot of time between now and then. But
this sort of thing has a tendency to kind of linger,
doesn't it. Again, according to Kimbrill spokesperson, this was a
little more than a dispute between two business owners who
rarely interacted, she says. Now Kimbrel did speak to Fitz
(21:24):
News this after a circuit court judge granted the motion
this past Friday, citing the potential for immediate and irreparable
harm to the plaintiffs in the case. Kimbrell, telling fitz
News that he was stunned and disappointed, claimed that the
allegations contained in the complaint were ludicrous, not true, and
simply inaccurate. There are a bunch of eyes. It's a
(21:48):
completely misrepresented, ridiculous thing. Now, Kimberle told the outlet that
his business partner had been trying to take over the
company for some time, and he says that was a
move that the other investors in the company did not support.
But then you might say this was a little bit curious,
(22:08):
Kimberle told Fitz News, We'll probably just give him what
he wants. We'll probably just give him the company and
see if he can run. It sounds as though, well,
obviously kimber wants to get this done as quickly as possible,
and if they reach some sort of out of court settlement,
(22:30):
which sounds like is what maybe they're heading for here.
Then hopefully for Kimberle, he can make this go away
in a hurry. Shy of that, we'll we'll get a
pretty good idea of the motivations I think of this
business associate. If an out of court settlement is not
(22:51):
reached and this thing goes to some sort of a
troph because that'll carry on for a while, obviously, well
you would think, well in a twenty twenty six, maybe
even up until the primary, that could drag on for
a long time. For Kimberl, Yeah, he'd like this to
go away quickly, and he said so the fits news
(23:11):
there just give him what he wants. See if he
can run the company setillar the company isn't really doing
much anything anyway, tell you the truth, not even operating
right now. It doesn't sound like so you might can
make the argument that yeah, Kimberl, okay, maybe there's smoke.
Is there a fire? If so, he wants to extinguish
(23:31):
this as quickly as possible, can he make that happen.
The truth of the matter is that regardless of what
happens legally, the story's out there now, the allegation is
out there, and we all know in politics that's all
it takes is an allegation sometimes doesn't take any proof,
doesn't matter, doesn't matter if Kimball's exonerated. Just the allegation
(23:54):
taints a campaign that's only was announced what about two
weeks ago, So we wait to hear the fault out
from this one. Again, allegation is that Kimberrel diverted more
than two million dollars away from the company he owns
with this individual, and that he used it for personal
(24:16):
expenses and to to to fund his political ambitions. Although
I should mention that at least according to FEC filings,
it doesn't show that Kimberl has put a bunch of
his own personal money into his political campaign. I think
(24:39):
the figure I saw was fifteen thousand dollars over the
past five years. About two thirds of that was during
his first Senate run back in twenty twenty. So it
seems that, at least according to the official campaign records,
there's not been a big influx into his campaign from
(24:59):
his person accounts, so that at least that allegation may
not have a leg to stand on. But again, even
allegations can have devastating consequences.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
You never know when the news will break, but leave
us on and you will. I think we want to
see more details. Break now one O three point five
FM and five sixty AM w VOC. This is Columbia's
Morning News with Gary David and Christopher Thompson on one
O three point five FM and five sixty AM w VOC.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
It is seven forty Good morning, Welcome to a brand
new week of opportunity and hopefully not too many challenges
along the way. July fourteenth, I'm Gary David Christopher Thompson's
got the week off the All Star Game in Atlanta
tomorrow night. Don't forget the backstory here in the All
Star Game. It was what twenty twenty one, yeah, twenty one,
(26:01):
Remember the time that Democrats were just just all in
a in a tither over Georgia, passing legislation to simply
try to make sure that the vote was accurate and fair, Okay,
that nobody was gaming the system. And the Democrat Party
(26:23):
responded by calling it, you know, Jim Crow Law Part
two two point zero, this and that, including that Joe
Biden who took to the to the podium and uh
and and and and blasted Georgia called it Jim Crow State.
So on and so forth, and then as a result,
(26:44):
you remember Major League Baseball, the All Star Game was
supposed to be played in Atlanta four years ago. Major
League Baseball doing what so many organizations, companies, and and
others did back in that day, and cow taw to
the Democrat Party and moved the All Star Game out
of Atlanta. M who went up with an egg on
(27:08):
their face on that one was well, you know some
Democrats in Georgia who were right there screaming at the
top of their lungs complaining about the new voting laws
until that game got yanked from Atlanta, and all that
money that would have headed into Atlanta got yanked as well.
Don't forget the backstory to tomorrow Night's All Star Game. Now,
(27:33):
the former president in an interview with The New York Times.
A lot of the interviews centered around his use of
the auto pin, in particular during those last partons he
made before the administration came to thankfully a close. Biden
(27:53):
defended his use of it. Remember, in his final couple
of weeks in office, Biden granted clemency and pardon more
than fifteen hundred people, and the White House was very
proud of this. Describing it of the time as the
single largest single day act of clemency by US president.
And it was not sure that's what I'm proud of,
(28:15):
but they apparently were. Now In this New York Times interview,
the former president actually said that he made every decision
on his own. Uh okay, more than fifteen hundred and
(28:40):
he made this president who I'm not knocking him personally,
it's just his his where he was with his mental
acuity just was what it was. I mean, we saw
that on full display during that debate back last June.
A guy who couldn't string two sentences together now claims
(29:01):
that he made every one of those fifteen hundred some
odd decisions on his own. Pardon me, but I'm having
a hard time buying that. The Times reported though, that
Biden did not individually approve each name, but that just
(29:24):
looked under different crimes and standards that he would sign
off on to determine whether or not a particular convict
would qualify for reduction. Since that was according to the
Times version of this is hard to buy. I mean,
(29:46):
it just is. And Republicans continue to want to look
into this, and for good reason. And I've said this before,
to me, this is not a Republican Democrat thing. It's
not a left versus right it's not a right wing
versus left wing. It's a question of with the American
(30:06):
people go to the polls and elect a president in
this case back in twenty twenty, Well, the results were
that Joe Biden was the winner. Okay, Well, when that happens,
we need some kind of assurances that the individual that
(30:29):
folks pull the lever for is actually the individual calling
the shots. That's not a partisan politics thing right there.
If there's somebody up in the White House right now
calling the shots not named Donald Trump, we ought to know.
It sure looked like there was somebody calling the shots,
(30:51):
especially during the last say year of Joe Biden's presidency.
And that continues to be well, continue to try to
be hidden and kept secret from us. So you know,
the Republicans investigating this and so for not turning up
a whole lot, and I don't think they will. These
whoever these individuals are or were, are keeping it close
(31:15):
to the vest man. They they don't want to be outed,
as you know, somebody that was actually running the country.
Was this a scandal or not? I just I find
it hard to believe that Joe Biden well says again
(31:41):
that he personally made the decision ever made every on
his own, every one of them. Is what he said.
Again at times tried to put that as well, he
looked at big you know, this sort of crime and
that sort of crime. But no, I'll take Joe Biden's
word for it that he made every decision on his own,
that many and that short amount of time. And remember
(32:01):
even up to the day, right up to the inauguration
that morning, as Joe Biden was already in the limo
heading to the inauguration at the Capitol, we were still
getting words of pardons being issued all the way up
until the last minute. And I think we joked at
(32:22):
the time, what does he signing these things while he's
in the in the in the in the limo heading
over to the capital. It was the autopen baby, the
auto pen. We should all know. To me, it's not
even a question who got part, who didn't get pardon,
(32:44):
who was making the decisions? Was the autopen being used
not only for this but for other things. For example,
recall the time when the House Speaker Mike Johnson, who's
from Louisiana, relay the story of being the White House
talking to the President thanking him for a piece of
legislation he had signed off on, or an executive order
(33:07):
or whichever it was that benefited the oil industry in
the state of Louisiana, having that conversation, thanking the President
for that, and Joe Biden said to him, did I
sign that? At the time, we all passed that off
as yes, this is a guy with failing memory, or
was it that No, he remembered well that he didn't
(33:30):
sign that, and if not, who did? With the auto
ped we all have a right to know. This is serious,
serious business.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
You're listening to Columbia's Morning News on one oh three
point five FM on five sixty AM WVOC. Once again,
here's Gary David and Christopher Thompson.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Really
appreciate it as always and as a quarter past eight.
It is Monday, July fourteenth. I'm Gary, Christopher's got the
morning off, We got the whole week off of that matter.
And I don't know that you know, by the time
he gets back next Monday, this story will have gone anywhere.
I don't think it goes anywhere for a long time,
(34:14):
and are we are we do maybe a few more
twists and turns in the the Jeffrey Epstein's saga here. Okay,
so what's new here over the weekend? And uh well
in of last week, well, we had a statement issued
by the President's Saturday on True Social defending Pam Bondy
(34:36):
and criticizing the renewed public interest. Now I don't stop
right there for a second. The renewed public interest is
because the Trump administration brought it back to the forefront,
you know, I mean going back to February and the
you know, the the inviting the the influencers, the conservative
influencers to the White House and handing them, you know,
(34:59):
full of information which turned out to be nothing that
we didn't already know. But I'm sorry, it was the
Trump administration who ginned up the renewed interest in this.
But now the President is criticizing that, he wrote, we
(35:24):
are one team Maga. This is again, this is the problem.
It's the Maga element of the Republican Party that is
revolting over this, because it's the Maga element that all
along has wanted transparency more than probably anybody else on everything,
not just this on everything, and it's the Maga crowd.
And you may be one of them who feels like,
(35:45):
right now, you're not getting that from Donald Trump and
his administration. Trump writes, where we we're on one team MAGA,
and I don't like what's happening. He called the administration perfect,
went on to condemn what he called selfish people trying
to undermine it. He went on to write about people
(36:14):
from past Democratic administrations, singling out Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton,
James Comy, John Brennan, and tied them to what he
described as a fabricated dossier and radical left inspired documents
on Jeffrey Epstein, saying, if there was anything in there
that could have hurt the MAGA movement, why didn't they
(36:36):
use it? That part is true, absolutely. We've talked about
that a couple times in the last week or so.
If there was something in there, if there were files
it had something to do with Trump, they released had
in a heartbeat, Well, maybe there's nothing in there on Trump.
I don't know. Let Pam Bondi do her job, he says,
(37:02):
she's great. Okay. I don't know how you feel about that,
but it almost it feels like the more Trump talks
about this, the more people are wondering. Now, wait a minute,
(37:23):
you're sure being awful loud on this here. You know, Bondi,
Cash Betel, Dan Bongino, they were all calling for and
making us think there was something there, there were secrets
and they needed to be made public and they would
(37:43):
be And all of a sudden that changed.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
There's word that been floating around of a rift between
the FBI and the AG's office, between Dan Bongino and
Pam Bondy others reporting and again these are just reports
that not just Bongino but also Cash Betel have both
threatened to leave the FBI unless Bondi is removed from office. Now, again,
(38:17):
if we can believe these reports are not well, that
remains to be seen. But certainly there is tension inside
the administration over this. Let's face it, this was a botch.
This is some If Trump is telling us now there
are no files or these were just things fabricated by
(38:42):
the left, well you know, I mean, if you stop
and think a long and hard about that, if they were,
if they were fabricated by the left, then why would
you not include Trump's name in them and release them
long before now? To hurt them, So it's kind of
hard for me to buy the argument. And as far
(39:04):
as Bondi is concerned, well, you know, and it was
David Axelrod who pointed this out yesterday. He suggested Trumps
has influenced Bondi to reverse her role on this. Why
would we not Why honestly, why would we think otherwise?
(39:25):
If Trump wanted this out and now Bondi is trying
to cover it up, well Bondi wouldn't be there long.
But Trump is praising her and criticizing anybody else who's
raising questions about this, and anybody else who's criticizing Bondy. This,
this didn't happen to have to happen, but it did.
(39:51):
So now you got the Democrats put up her shut up,
and Democrats upon Capitol Hills saying they'll introduce measures this
week to press for the disclosure of these files. Interestingly enough,
as recently as about two years ago, back in twenty
twenty three, when the Democrats led the Senate, they blocked
(40:13):
the Republican proposal to subpoena the Epstein flight logs. But
now the shoes on the other foot, this is seriously insane,
and that video well We've got some news on that too,
at least from a whistleblower who is some expert in
(40:39):
video and video editing and such, and well, there's some
who now say that the metadata review shows that the
raw Epstein video was likely edited. I remember Bondi said,
where's that missing minute there? Well, that they always cut
it off right before midnight every night and then started
(41:00):
up again, and that was her excuses to why there's
that missing minutes worth of time. But God by the
name of John Dodson, who's an atl ATF whistleblower, and
if you didn't have interview with Glenn Back and he
thinks that there're Epstein black mail videos that are out
(41:23):
there and they're being used for leverage still after his death.
And that probably makes more sense than just about anything
else right now. Who's in possession of them, don't know,
but that would make it, that would make more That
would make more sense than anything else we've heard so far.
In my humble opinion, bottom line is this, the people
(41:46):
who put Donald Trump in office are not happy about
this right now. And I don't think a true social
post telling people to get in line is going to
really change your opinion on all this don't think so.
This did not have to happen. There's stuff out there,
(42:08):
and as painful as it might be, we need now
the conversation begins here. This the society problem. This is
why people ack nowadays. They don't think they've just at.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
One O three point five FM, five sixty AM w VOC.
This is Columbia's Morning News with Gary David and Christopher
Thompson on one O three point five FM and five
sixty am w VOC.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Just about ready to put a book on this thing,
but not quite yet. Eighth forty Good morning, It's Monday,
July the fourteenth, and our final thoughts. By the way,
is Fox just mentioned breaking this morning? Trump is t
using a major announcement on Russia. Let's see what that's
all about. You're standing by for that?
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (43:00):
We mentioned too, we have well, but not we. They
are monitoring a potential tropical formation over the golf have
been for a couple of days now. Not much has
changed here as the last night. About a twenty percent
chance of formation next seven days. This, if it does anything,
won't have any direct impact on us. It'll be a
golf storm, but I could change our weather patterns if
(43:24):
something develops. Be nice if we just cool things down
for us somehow, one hundred and six to day, the
tyler'll just say that's what it feels like anyway. Okay,
we're slogging along of these. In fact, we spoke with
in the dog days of summer now for a long time.
Huh seems that way, all right. First up, let's see,
should Nancy Mace be shielded from a defamation lawsuit? Well
(43:47):
she should, so, says Brian Sterling, who's now the US
attorney for our state. He made that ascertation and a
court filing on Friday saying the statements. Remember, Mace is
being sued by Brian Musgrave, one of the friends of
(44:08):
her ex fiance, for defamation for being called a sexual predator. Now,
of course, she initially made these remarks on the floor
of the House of Representatives, where somehow magically you can
say anything you want to and you are shielded from
any sort of legal, criminal, civil ramifications. But it wasn't.
(44:34):
That's not what she's being sued over. She's being sued
over what she said over and over again in a
number of social media posts. But Sterling says that those
statements are all part of her duty as an elected official.
(44:54):
So in Sterling's mind, neither Mason nor her staff should
be on the hook for any sort of defamation or
liabel lawsuit. Well, it's going to be up to Judge
Richard Gergel, the U. S. District judge, to decide that
whether or not Mace's place in the case. Well, if
(45:16):
she can be sued, and well, it's a case that,
let's face it would carry broader implications by testing the
limits of congressional immunity. What you say on the house floor,
you can say on the house floor and get away
with it. But if you repeat that on social media,
that's the question right now, This is going to be interesting.
This is the speechure debay clause in the Constitution that
(45:37):
shields these members of Congress from any sort of blowback.
Karen bass La, mayor, citing an executive order Friday afternoon
affirming the city's support for immigrants and now announcing a
new initiative to provide cash assistance to families impacted by
(45:58):
ice rates. This will be funded through philanthropic contributions apparently
not city funds, and we'll be correlated with immigrant right
groups like the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
This is the same outfit. By the way, the commander
came under fire for well accusations they were funding those
(46:20):
riots in LA a couple of weeks ago, those anti
ice riots. Again, you've got Bass saying this will not
be city funds, but this would be a way for
well healed individuals in southern California, and most of them
are well heiled in Southern California are very very far
(46:43):
to the left. But if you're a tax bank citizen,
even though this money is not coming out of your pocket,
how do you feel about that? Huh? How does that
make you feel? Inquiry minds want to know. Okay, a
lot more us talk now the surpluses that were to
(47:04):
go in effect back on April, the second that they
were put off. Now Trump is talking about August one,
So the tariffores are on again. I say surplus tariffs.
But surplus is the point of this story. We recorded
a record surplus in the month of June, Treasure Department
releasing this information on Friday. And yes, those surpluses bolstered
(47:26):
by increased tariff collections. How big was the change? Well,
in May we ran a three hundred and sixteen billion
dollar deficit three hundred and sixteen billion dollars in the hole.
June we ran a surplus of twenty seven billion dollars. Wow,
(47:50):
I forget the fact that it was a twenty seven
billion dollar surplus. That is what about close to a
three hundred and fifty billion dollar swing in one month.
So that one month in and of itself brings the
fiscal year to date deficit to one point three four
(48:12):
trillion dollars. That's a five percent decrease from where we
were a year ago. This is what tariffs are designed
to do, to level the playing field, in this case,
give us a leg up. That is a significant swing.
(48:33):
And well, this is supposed to be costing us a
lot more to live as a result. I don't Again,
I don't know what your experience has been with this,
but by and large, let's just put it this way.
We heard a lot more talk about what the cost
of things were when Biden was president and we were
(48:53):
running inflation rates of six seven eight percent. Then we're
hearing right now even with some of these tariffs already
in place enough to give us a surplus in our
trade advantage. This is what they were designed to do.
The in fighting continuing for Democrats. The Democrats Socialists of
(49:14):
America are still taking victory laps over Mandami's win in
the primary in New York City a couple of weeks ago,
and now they're out saying they've got warnings that they
might primary five House incumbents, including House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries. Wow, well,
(49:41):
Jeffreys team is fighting back. This is This is already interesting,
and it's going to get more interesting as time goes on.
It sounds like Texas hit by more flooding, more heavy rains.
They had to stop search operations along the Guadaloupe River.
They saw this one coming this time. They knew they
(50:02):
were going to get more heavy rains, that it was
going to cause more issues. It did, the governor at
one point issuing mandatory evacuations for parts of at least
one county in Texas. Back here at home, by the way,
as we talked about this potential tropical formation in the
Gulf not affecting us, but there are predictions out there
(50:28):
that this hurricane season is going to be ramped up
a bit. In Sureify predicts that our state will be
the state with the fourth highest chance of experiencing a
major hurricane this year. Only Florida, Texas and Louisiana have
(50:51):
better chances. They say, how were they compute all this?
Then do we? And in the process they say that, yeah,
hit by a major hurricane, look for home insurance rates
to go up, because that's what insurance companies do, of course,
and they would do it this time too, if that
(51:12):
were to happen. And then finally there's this and I'm
still trying to figure this out. An election observer, a
Republican election observer in the state of Washington, declining to
wear a face mask inside a ballot account room has
been hit now with a felony conviction in facing jail time.
(51:33):
Tim Haslow, a Navy vet former chair of the Island
County Party Republican Party, was observed ballot counting in the
ballot count room. He chose not to wear a face mask.
(51:54):
This was when did this happen? Oh, this happened November
twenty twenty four, this past November. COVID has been gone
for a long time, but we are talking Washington state here, right,
and all these years later, they're still forcing people in
(52:16):
certain circumstances and instances to wear face masks and because
he didn't. Yeah, he faces potential felony charges and time
in jail for not wearing a face mask, years after
COVID ceased to become an issue in this country. Because
(52:41):
he's a Republican. Yeah,
Jesus he America for onation. Yes is wrong.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
This is Columbia's Morning News with Gary David and Christopher
Thompson on one O, three point five FM and five
sixty AM w VOCO.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Good morning and happy Monday to you, if there is
such a thing. It is Monday. It is the fourteenth
day of July. Isn't this best deal day? I think
it might be. Well, regardless, we're not celebrating here seventeen
after six. Good to have you here. I'm Gary David.
Christopher Thompson is not here today. Cut the day off,
(00:50):
cut the week off, vacation time with the Thompson household.
Good for them, Gary Mills, we'll be by sure. Why
get us up at it on sports? He'll be filling
in force this week. All right, let's get right out
of it. By the way you step out this morning,
it's like stepping into you know, asana. What's new? Right?
We're in the mid seventies and a lot of spots
and the humidity level is high, and yeah, we do
(01:11):
have a keeping an eye well, at least as of
last night, had a low chance of formation of some
sort of a tropical system, about a twenty percent chance
over the course of the next seven days, not expected
to impact us, although if it happens, it could spew
some rain our way, and we do have that you know,
those range chances of course, in the forecast this week
(01:33):
and today, by the way, heated next with about one
hundred and six. Titler mentioned, Yes, okay, but it's worth
keeping an eye on parts of the Gulf Coast could
be impacted by this if it happens. Seeing a lot
of articles popping up these days, newspapers stayed wide, particularly
posting Courier down in the low country. Of course, we're well,
(01:54):
you're seeing headlines like South Carolina could see devastating impacts
if hurricane research is cut, say, concerns about the weather
forecasting as we are into hurricane season now. But again,
typically for US, hurricanes are more of a September October thing,
so we'll keep going on all that. Okay, Well, this
(02:16):
is just popping up here, although apparently this has been
a long going feud here. But now a gubernatorial candidate
in our state, Upstate Senator Josh Kimbrel, has been accused
of swindling his business partner and a Spartanburg based aeronautics
company out of millions of dollars, which the associate says
(02:39):
was used in order to boost Kimberl's political ambitions. Okay,
so that lawsuit was filed actually last week in Greenville
County Court. We're coming out over the weekend. Kimberle's camp
is aggressively disputing these allegations. But ken for Kimberl, it
couldn't come at a worse time, And again quite possibly
(03:02):
of the business associate was just waiting for this time
to do it. So we'll get into well, exactly what
is this lawsuit says claims that Kimberle is guilty of doing.
So that's coming up this morning. I'll be making some
political hay across the state. I meanwhile, another well, she
(03:25):
hasn't announced that she's running for governor, wondering now if
she is, but Nancy Mays can well, will she be
shielded from that defamation suit the things she said accusing
one of her ex fiance's friends of being a sexual predator.
She's being sued over that for defamation of character. Brian Sterling,
(03:48):
the US attorney for South Carolina, he feels like she
was well, will be or should be at least saying
she was simply doing her job. But it's gonna be
up to a judge of the side, and that judge,
Judge Richard Gergel, the US history judge, whether or not
Macey's shielded. Now, remember, what she said on the house
(04:10):
floor is a protected speech because she said on the
house floor. What's in question here is what she has
said off the house floor, particularly in social media, So
we'll see. Glenn McCall passed away on Friday at the
age of seventy one. McCall was the co chair of
(04:32):
the twenty twenty Republican National Committee. He served as a
state Committee member for many a year. Was actually the
first black Republican National committeeman. He passed at the age
of seventy one on Friday, following surgery complications. It's not
going away. We're into week two now of the fuss
(04:56):
over Epstein. Over the weekend, the President posting a lengthy
statement on Trope's truth social that is, defending Pam Bondy
and criticizing renewed public interest in Epstein related documents. Okay,
Democrats are saying it's put up for shut up time
(05:17):
now all of a sudden, they didn't care about this
when Joe Biden was in office, but now they want
the Trump White House to disclose these Epstein's Epstein's secrets.
And there was word and the White House denies there
any thing going on here, But there were sources late
last week saying that Dan Bongino, the deputy FBI director,
(05:39):
had told people he was considering resigning and took Friday
off to think about it over his disagreements over all
of this. It's not going away at all. Now. We
got well, some video experts claiming that raw Epstein video
was likely edited, that there a review of the metadata.
(06:02):
So we got plenty to talk about on that front today.
That'd be coming up. More flash flooding in parts of
Texas that were hit by those tragic floods a little
over a week ago. There were people being evacuated yesterday
and search operations halted along the Guadalupe River as a
result of this. We knew there was more coming, and
it did up in Kentucky and Lexington. Two women dead
(06:26):
at a Kentucky church. This after a shooting spree that
started when a state trooper was moved to making a
traffic stop. Yeah, the suspect was also killed in this case.
But unfortunately two women, a seventy two year old and
a thirty two year old were hit by fire. It
(06:46):
was a year ago, this past Saturday. Actually, you go yesterday,
I should say it was a Saturday in twenty twenty
four when the Donald Trump surviy that assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania,
the President saying he's very satisfied with the investigation, but
a lot of questions do remain. You've got a watchdog
(07:06):
finding that the Secret Service, who just had six agents
dealt with that. The Secret Service set on a classified
threat for over a week before that assassination attempt. We've
got more to talk about there. Joe Biden in an
interview with The New York Times, defending the use of
the auto pen and saying, yeah, he was in full
(07:27):
control of that. A lot of people don't believe that
the mayor of Los Angeles signing an executive order supporting
immigrants among these federal raids. Yeah, Los Angeles is not
only supporting these immigrants, but they're going to provide cash
aid to the families affected by ice rates because that's
the way they do it. And so cow and Democrat
(07:50):
in fighting blowing up here as Hakim Jeffrey's team is
binding back at allies of of Mondami, the Democrat nominee,
who's the socialist maybe even a communist in New York
City as you know. And the tariffs. I want to
talk about tariffs again as Trump is ramping that talk
(08:12):
back up. But in the meantime, the government posting another
surplus in June amid a rising tariff collections, matter of fact,
a record surplus in June, just over twenty seven billion dollars.
Matter of fact, how does that contrast to May. May
was a three hundred and sixteen billion dollar deficit, June
(08:33):
a twenty seven billion dollar surplus. We'll get to that
more coming up on this. It is the back added
Monday edition of Columbia's Morning News. And yes, as always,
my friends, it is great to have you with it.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
You use this always happening, and we'll keep you informed
and up to date.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
It's important to see informed these days more than ever.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
On one oh three point five FM on five sixty
am WVOC, this is Columbia's Morning News with Gary David
and Christopher Thompson on one O three point five FM
and five sixty am w VOC.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
It is six forty one and good morning, tell you
Monday morning, July the fourteenth. I'm Gary David Christopher Thompson
has got the week off the one year anniversary. We
all remember probably we were actually I was, we were
and I were, uh. We were in Tybee Island on
a Saturday, late Saturday afternoon, shopping at a funky little
you know, one of those you know, beach kind of
(09:30):
store places, when my phone started blowing up that Donald
Trump uh had had been shot in Butler, Pennsylvania at
that campaign rally. And it was, you know, these days,
the way devices are, everybody's got the cell phones, and
it was it was really because everybody. It was like,
you know, one of those things to see in a
(09:51):
movie where you know, everybody's cell phones go goes off
and some very important people are gathering somewhere they are
looking at their phones. Well, it was just like that, right,
everybody all around store suddenly or looking at their phones
and going, oh, yeah, it's been a year ago, and
what a year it's been since. Huh. Still a lot
(10:13):
of questions unanswered over that. The President, as far as
he's concerned, says he's very satisfied with the investigation, but
a lot of people aren't. And it wasn't but just
a couple of months ago when Trump felt quite differently
(10:35):
about that. But back in March, he said, I'm relying
on my people to tell me what it is. The
Secret Service. They tell me it's fine, but it's a
little hard to believe, he said. A few days after that,
Dan Bongino, the FBI Deputy director, insisted there was no
conspiracy behind this, but there are still so many unanswered
(10:58):
questions a year later. Isn't it really bizarre that here
we have an attempt on the life of a former
president who is running to be president once again, and
we know almost nothing about Thomas Crooks. Matter of fact,
you might have even forgotten the name because his name
(11:21):
very rarely pops up. This story very rarely pops up.
It's only popped up now on the mainstream media because
it was the one year anniversary yesterday of that assassination attempt.
But we know almost nothing about this twenty year old
A motive hasn't been shared. Really. All we know about
(11:43):
it was he gave fifteen bucks to a progressive turnout
project through Act Blue. When Joebiah was inaugurated. We also
know he's a registered Republican. We know that he searched
online asking questions like how far was Oswald from Kennedy?
(12:04):
Where will Trump speak from at the Butler Farm show
a sign from that? We know very little now. It
within the last week, of course, the news that the
Secret Service had suspended without pays, six agents for failures
related to that day. They weren't fired. These are suspensions well,
(12:33):
ranging in length from ten days to forty two days,
so about six weeks. We're going to have for six weeks.
That's it now. There was a report released Saturday by
the Government Accountability Office, the federal watchdog. According to this report,
(13:00):
senior US Secret Service officials were aware of a classified
threat to Trump's life ten days before it happened, but
failed to inform the agents assigned to protect him. This
again from the GOO, the Government Accountability Office. They found
(13:24):
the intelligence was presented to Secret Service leadership almost two
weeks before that attempt. That information never reached the field
team on the ground. Due to what the agency describes
as a siloed practice for sharing classified information. The Secret
Service had no process to share classified info with partners
(13:44):
when that information was not considered an eminent threat to life.
That's what they found in this and their investigation of
the Secret Service. At least now, whether or not the
nature of this threat was the threat from crooks or
from someone else or some other entity or government like
(14:06):
the Iranians, that threat remains undisclosed. We don't know what
it was. And you know, I wonder when I read this,
if it's not such that you know, Trump as a
former president and campaign to be president again, or any
(14:28):
sitting president or anyone campaigning and you know, last man
or woman standing here for their party, You've got if
you got to feel like the Secret Services is getting
in uncovering threats all the time. But was this a
case of, uh, yeah, this always happens, so we're not
(14:50):
gonna pay much attention to it. Why would you not
at least at least inform the agents who were assigned
to protect the at that time former president or do
they just operate on the assumption that every time, every
time they're out with the individual, there is a threat looming.
(15:13):
That's probably their mindset, I would imagine. So is this
a question of, well, somebody in leadership didn't want to
pass along this information, or is this just the way
the Secret Service worked siloing information about classified threats, not
sharing it. We've heard this story before, right, We heard
(15:35):
this story back on nine to eleven. We became painfully
obvious how different law enforcements agencies, law enforcement agencies that is,
refused to share information with others, which makes absolutely zero sense,
but it happens. Chasmin Crockett, by the way, floating a
(15:59):
bizarre our Trump assassination theory, Titan need to should I
even bother to mention this? Uh? I don't think I will.
Jesu a kook just wanted to get attention, so guess what,
(16:21):
I'm lucky to give it to her this morning. That's
just stupid anyway, all right, So a year later, have
there been changes? Okay, other than six Secret Service personnel
suspended for anywhere between a week and a half to
about six weeks without pay. Aside from that, has anything
(16:42):
changed at the agency other than leadership? Let's hope so,
and let's hope. You know, in this case, time doesn't
tell that we don't have to, you know, go down
this road again. And and wonder, I mean we all
know that day is that twenty year old sat on
(17:05):
a rooftop with direct line of sight to the podium,
armed to the gills. How he got there and why
nobody spotted him? Still very troubling, always will be. I suppose.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
You're listening to Columbia's Morning News on one oh three
point five FM nine five six am WVOC. Once again,
here's Gary David and Christopher Thompson.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Well this you got me. I'm Gary, and that's all
you're going to get today as far as Gary and
Christopher concerned. He's got the week off. Good morning, do
you It is sixteen after seven. It's good to have
you along here on this fourteenth day of the month
of July. And a political bombshell dropping over the weekend
when it comes to state wide politics. And that was
the news breaking that Josh Kimberl, the Upstate senator and
(17:58):
Republican gubernatorial hopeful, has been accused of swindling his business
partner out of close to two million dollars. So says
the aggrieved business partner. Here Kimberle's camp aggressively disputing the allegations,
calling it a politically motivated complaint about internal company politics.
(18:22):
It's time to a time that is to sabotage Kimberlell's
campaign for governor. The associate says that some of this money,
he claims, was used in order to boost Kimberrell's political ambition. So,
all right, what have we got here? A sixteen page lawsuit.
It was filed in Greenville County Court by Frank George Rogers,
(18:48):
who makes the claim that Kimberrell, his wife and others
use a series of complex financial transactions over the course
of about two and a half years to divert well,
he says more than to billion dollars in revenues from
a company that Ian Rodgers co owned, Exodus Aircraft. Says
that the kimberl last year created what he called a
(19:12):
sham company called Exodus Airways, and that he was subsequently
diverting funds via his associate and as a banker, from
Exodus Aircraft over to Exodus Airways and using this money
(19:32):
the planetiff argues for personal use diverted to an array
of other credit corporate entities rather to pay for personal
credit cards, and he claims to support Kimberrell's political aspirations. Okay, well,
it is interesting timing now to hear the the kimberle
(19:53):
camps say this, This has just been an ongoing dispute
between the two that's been going on for quite a while.
That this business partner is well kind of a you know,
not daily engaged in the activities of the company, which
it sounds like Exodus Aircraft is not even really in
(20:13):
business anymore. They no longer have a license to operate.
It doesn't sound like Kimbrel's campaign spokesperson. I'll call this
little more than an effort by an absentee business partner
to undermine him at a time when it was politically
convenient to do so. That we're witnessing a regrettable, uncooperated
(20:34):
case of lawfare from a disgruntled absent business partner with
no function or daily involvement in our operations. Okay, but
still it is bad timing for Josh Kimberl. Now, I
suppose here we are in July fourteenth of twenty twenty five.
Primary is June ninth of twenty twenty six, so there's
(20:56):
still a lot of time between now and then. But
this sort of thing has a tendency to kind of linger,
doesn't it. Again, according to Kimbrill spokesperson, this was a
little more than a dispute between two business owners who
rarely interacted, she says. Now Kimbrel did speak to Fitz
(21:24):
News this after a circuit court judge granted the motion
this past Friday, citing the potential for immediate and irreparable
harm to the plaintiffs in the case. Kimbrell, telling fitz
News that he was stunned and disappointed, claimed that the
allegations contained in the complaint were ludicrous, not true, and
simply inaccurate. There are a bunch of eyes. It's a
(21:48):
completely misrepresented, ridiculous thing. Now, Kimberle told the outlet that
his business partner had been trying to take over the
company for some time, and he says that was a
move that the other investors in the company did not support.
But then you might say this was a little bit curious,
(22:08):
Kimberle told Fitz News, We'll probably just give him what
he wants. We'll probably just give him the company and
see if he can run. It sounds as though, well,
obviously kimber wants to get this done as quickly as possible,
and if they reach some sort of out of court settlement,
(22:30):
which sounds like is what maybe they're heading for here.
Then hopefully for Kimberle, he can make this go away
in a hurry. Shy of that, we'll we'll get a
pretty good idea of the motivations I think of this
business associate. If an out of court settlement is not
(22:51):
reached and this thing goes to some sort of a
troph because that'll carry on for a while, obviously, well
you would think, well in a twenty twenty six, maybe
even up until the primary, that could drag on for
a long time. For Kimberl, Yeah, he'd like this to
go away quickly, and he said so the fits news
(23:11):
there just give him what he wants. See if he
can run the company setillar the company isn't really doing
much anything anyway, tell you the truth, not even operating
right now. It doesn't sound like so you might can
make the argument that yeah, Kimberl, okay, maybe there's smoke.
Is there a fire? If so, he wants to extinguish
(23:31):
this as quickly as possible, can he make that happen.
The truth of the matter is that regardless of what
happens legally, the story's out there now, the allegation is
out there, and we all know in politics that's all
it takes is an allegation sometimes doesn't take any proof,
doesn't matter, doesn't matter if Kimball's exonerated. Just the allegation
(23:54):
taints a campaign that's only was announced what about two
weeks ago, So we wait to hear the fault out
from this one. Again, allegation is that Kimberrel diverted more
than two million dollars away from the company he owns
with this individual, and that he used it for personal
(24:16):
expenses and to to to fund his political ambitions. Although
I should mention that at least according to FEC filings,
it doesn't show that Kimberl has put a bunch of
his own personal money into his political campaign. I think
(24:39):
the figure I saw was fifteen thousand dollars over the
past five years. About two thirds of that was during
his first Senate run back in twenty twenty. So it
seems that, at least according to the official campaign records,
there's not been a big influx into his campaign from
(24:59):
his person accounts, so that at least that allegation may
not have a leg to stand on. But again, even
allegations can have devastating consequences.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
You never know when the news will break, but leave
us on and you will. I think we want to
see more details. Break now one O three point five
FM and five sixty AM w VOC. This is Columbia's
Morning News with Gary David and Christopher Thompson on one
O three point five FM and five sixty AM w VOC.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
It is seven forty Good morning, Welcome to a brand
new week of opportunity and hopefully not too many challenges
along the way. July fourteenth, I'm Gary David Christopher Thompson's
got the week off the All Star Game in Atlanta
tomorrow night. Don't forget the backstory here in the All
Star Game. It was what twenty twenty one, yeah, twenty one,
(26:01):
Remember the time that Democrats were just just all in
a in a tither over Georgia, passing legislation to simply
try to make sure that the vote was accurate and fair, Okay,
that nobody was gaming the system. And the Democrat Party
(26:23):
responded by calling it, you know, Jim Crow Law Part
two two point zero, this and that, including that Joe
Biden who took to the to the podium and uh
and and and and blasted Georgia called it Jim Crow State.
So on and so forth, and then as a result,
(26:44):
you remember Major League Baseball, the All Star Game was
supposed to be played in Atlanta four years ago. Major
League Baseball doing what so many organizations, companies, and and
others did back in that day, and cow taw to
the Democrat Party and moved the All Star Game out
of Atlanta. M who went up with an egg on
(27:08):
their face on that one was well, you know some
Democrats in Georgia who were right there screaming at the
top of their lungs complaining about the new voting laws
until that game got yanked from Atlanta, and all that
money that would have headed into Atlanta got yanked as well.
Don't forget the backstory to tomorrow Night's All Star Game. Now,
(27:33):
the former president in an interview with The New York Times.
A lot of the interviews centered around his use of
the auto pin, in particular during those last partons he
made before the administration came to thankfully a close. Biden
(27:53):
defended his use of it. Remember, in his final couple
of weeks in office, Biden granted clemency and pardon more
than fifteen hundred people, and the White House was very
proud of this. Describing it of the time as the
single largest single day act of clemency by US president.
And it was not sure that's what I'm proud of,
(28:15):
but they apparently were. Now In this New York Times interview,
the former president actually said that he made every decision
on his own. Uh okay, more than fifteen hundred and
(28:40):
he made this president who I'm not knocking him personally,
it's just his his where he was with his mental
acuity just was what it was. I mean, we saw
that on full display during that debate back last June.
A guy who couldn't string two sentences together now claims
(29:01):
that he made every one of those fifteen hundred some
odd decisions on his own. Pardon me, but I'm having
a hard time buying that. The Times reported though, that
Biden did not individually approve each name, but that just
(29:24):
looked under different crimes and standards that he would sign
off on to determine whether or not a particular convict
would qualify for reduction. Since that was according to the
Times version of this is hard to buy. I mean,
(29:46):
it just is. And Republicans continue to want to look
into this, and for good reason. And I've said this before,
to me, this is not a Republican Democrat thing. It's
not a left versus right it's not a right wing
versus left wing. It's a question of with the American
(30:06):
people go to the polls and elect a president in
this case back in twenty twenty, Well, the results were
that Joe Biden was the winner. Okay, Well, when that happens,
we need some kind of assurances that the individual that
(30:29):
folks pull the lever for is actually the individual calling
the shots. That's not a partisan politics thing right there.
If there's somebody up in the White House right now
calling the shots not named Donald Trump, we ought to know.
It sure looked like there was somebody calling the shots,
(30:51):
especially during the last say year of Joe Biden's presidency.
And that continues to be well, continue to try to
be hidden and kept secret from us. So you know,
the Republicans investigating this and so for not turning up
a whole lot, and I don't think they will. These
whoever these individuals are or were, are keeping it close
(31:15):
to the vest man. They they don't want to be outed,
as you know, somebody that was actually running the country.
Was this a scandal or not? I just I find
it hard to believe that Joe Biden well says again
(31:41):
that he personally made the decision ever made every on
his own, every one of them. Is what he said.
Again at times tried to put that as well, he
looked at big you know, this sort of crime and
that sort of crime. But no, I'll take Joe Biden's
word for it that he made every decision on his own,
that many and that short amount of time. And remember
(32:01):
even up to the day, right up to the inauguration
that morning, as Joe Biden was already in the limo
heading to the inauguration at the Capitol, we were still
getting words of pardons being issued all the way up
until the last minute. And I think we joked at
(32:22):
the time, what does he signing these things while he's
in the in the in the in the limo heading
over to the capital. It was the autopen baby, the
auto pen. We should all know. To me, it's not
even a question who got part, who didn't get pardon,
(32:44):
who was making the decisions? Was the autopen being used
not only for this but for other things. For example,
recall the time when the House Speaker Mike Johnson, who's
from Louisiana, relay the story of being the White House
talking to the President thanking him for a piece of
legislation he had signed off on, or an executive order
(33:07):
or whichever it was that benefited the oil industry in
the state of Louisiana, having that conversation, thanking the President
for that, and Joe Biden said to him, did I
sign that? At the time, we all passed that off
as yes, this is a guy with failing memory, or
was it that No, he remembered well that he didn't
(33:30):
sign that, and if not, who did? With the auto
ped we all have a right to know. This is serious,
serious business.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
You're listening to Columbia's Morning News on one oh three
point five FM on five sixty AM WVOC. Once again,
here's Gary David and Christopher Thompson.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Really
appreciate it as always and as a quarter past eight.
It is Monday, July fourteenth. I'm Gary, Christopher's got the
morning off, We got the whole week off of that matter.
And I don't know that you know, by the time
he gets back next Monday, this story will have gone anywhere.
I don't think it goes anywhere for a long time,
(34:14):
and are we are we do maybe a few more
twists and turns in the the Jeffrey Epstein's saga here. Okay,
so what's new here over the weekend? And uh well
in of last week, well, we had a statement issued
by the President's Saturday on True Social defending Pam Bondy
(34:36):
and criticizing the renewed public interest. Now I don't stop
right there for a second. The renewed public interest is
because the Trump administration brought it back to the forefront,
you know, I mean going back to February and the
you know, the the inviting the the influencers, the conservative
influencers to the White House and handing them, you know,
(34:59):
full of information which turned out to be nothing that
we didn't already know. But I'm sorry, it was the
Trump administration who ginned up the renewed interest in this.
But now the President is criticizing that, he wrote, we
(35:24):
are one team Maga. This is again, this is the problem.
It's the Maga element of the Republican Party that is
revolting over this, because it's the Maga element that all
along has wanted transparency more than probably anybody else on everything,
not just this on everything, and it's the Maga crowd.
And you may be one of them who feels like,
(35:45):
right now, you're not getting that from Donald Trump and
his administration. Trump writes, where we we're on one team MAGA,
and I don't like what's happening. He called the administration perfect,
went on to condemn what he called selfish people trying
to undermine it. He went on to write about people
(36:14):
from past Democratic administrations, singling out Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton,
James Comy, John Brennan, and tied them to what he
described as a fabricated dossier and radical left inspired documents
on Jeffrey Epstein, saying, if there was anything in there
that could have hurt the MAGA movement, why didn't they
(36:36):
use it? That part is true, absolutely. We've talked about
that a couple times in the last week or so.
If there was something in there, if there were files
it had something to do with Trump, they released had
in a heartbeat, Well, maybe there's nothing in there on Trump.
I don't know. Let Pam Bondi do her job, he says,
(37:02):
she's great. Okay. I don't know how you feel about that,
but it almost it feels like the more Trump talks
about this, the more people are wondering. Now, wait a minute,
(37:23):
you're sure being awful loud on this here. You know, Bondi,
Cash Betel, Dan Bongino, they were all calling for and
making us think there was something there, there were secrets
and they needed to be made public and they would
(37:43):
be And all of a sudden that changed.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
There's word that been floating around of a rift between
the FBI and the AG's office, between Dan Bongino and
Pam Bondy others reporting and again these are just reports
that not just Bongino but also Cash Betel have both
threatened to leave the FBI unless Bondi is removed from office. Now, again,
(38:17):
if we can believe these reports are not well, that
remains to be seen. But certainly there is tension inside
the administration over this. Let's face it, this was a botch.
This is some If Trump is telling us now there
are no files or these were just things fabricated by
(38:42):
the left, well you know, I mean, if you stop
and think a long and hard about that, if they were,
if they were fabricated by the left, then why would
you not include Trump's name in them and release them
long before now? To hurt them, So it's kind of
hard for me to buy the argument. And as far
(39:04):
as Bondi is concerned, well, you know, and it was
David Axelrod who pointed this out yesterday. He suggested Trumps
has influenced Bondi to reverse her role on this. Why
would we not Why honestly, why would we think otherwise?
(39:25):
If Trump wanted this out and now Bondi is trying
to cover it up, well Bondi wouldn't be there long.
But Trump is praising her and criticizing anybody else who's
raising questions about this, and anybody else who's criticizing Bondy. This,
this didn't happen to have to happen, but it did.
(39:51):
So now you got the Democrats put up her shut up,
and Democrats upon Capitol Hills saying they'll introduce measures this
week to press for the disclosure of these files. Interestingly enough,
as recently as about two years ago, back in twenty
twenty three, when the Democrats led the Senate, they blocked
(40:13):
the Republican proposal to subpoena the Epstein flight logs. But
now the shoes on the other foot, this is seriously insane,
and that video well We've got some news on that too,
at least from a whistleblower who is some expert in
(40:39):
video and video editing and such, and well, there's some
who now say that the metadata review shows that the
raw Epstein video was likely edited. I remember Bondi said,
where's that missing minute there? Well, that they always cut
it off right before midnight every night and then started
(41:00):
up again, and that was her excuses to why there's
that missing minutes worth of time. But God by the
name of John Dodson, who's an atl ATF whistleblower, and
if you didn't have interview with Glenn Back and he
thinks that there're Epstein black mail videos that are out
(41:23):
there and they're being used for leverage still after his death.
And that probably makes more sense than just about anything
else right now. Who's in possession of them, don't know,
but that would make it, that would make more That
would make more sense than anything else we've heard so far.
In my humble opinion, bottom line is this, the people
(41:46):
who put Donald Trump in office are not happy about
this right now. And I don't think a true social
post telling people to get in line is going to
really change your opinion on all this don't think so.
This did not have to happen. There's stuff out there,
(42:08):
and as painful as it might be, we need now
the conversation begins here. This the society problem. This is
why people ack nowadays. They don't think they've just at.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
One O three point five FM, five sixty AM w VOC.
This is Columbia's Morning News with Gary David and Christopher
Thompson on one O three point five FM and five
sixty am w VOC.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Just about ready to put a book on this thing,
but not quite yet. Eighth forty Good morning, It's Monday,
July the fourteenth, and our final thoughts. By the way,
is Fox just mentioned breaking this morning? Trump is t
using a major announcement on Russia. Let's see what that's
all about. You're standing by for that?
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (43:00):
We mentioned too, we have well, but not we. They
are monitoring a potential tropical formation over the golf have
been for a couple of days now. Not much has
changed here as the last night. About a twenty percent
chance of formation next seven days. This, if it does anything,
won't have any direct impact on us. It'll be a
golf storm, but I could change our weather patterns if
(43:24):
something develops. Be nice if we just cool things down
for us somehow, one hundred and six to day, the
tyler'll just say that's what it feels like anyway. Okay,
we're slogging along of these. In fact, we spoke with
in the dog days of summer now for a long time.
Huh seems that way, all right. First up, let's see,
should Nancy Mace be shielded from a defamation lawsuit? Well
(43:47):
she should, so, says Brian Sterling, who's now the US
attorney for our state. He made that ascertation and a
court filing on Friday saying the statements. Remember, Mace is
being sued by Brian Musgrave, one of the friends of
(44:08):
her ex fiance, for defamation for being called a sexual predator. Now,
of course, she initially made these remarks on the floor
of the House of Representatives, where somehow magically you can
say anything you want to and you are shielded from
any sort of legal, criminal, civil ramifications. But it wasn't.
(44:34):
That's not what she's being sued over. She's being sued
over what she said over and over again in a
number of social media posts. But Sterling says that those
statements are all part of her duty as an elected official.
(44:54):
So in Sterling's mind, neither Mason nor her staff should
be on the hook for any sort of defamation or
liabel lawsuit. Well, it's going to be up to Judge
Richard Gergel, the U. S. District judge, to decide that
whether or not Mace's place in the case. Well, if
(45:16):
she can be sued, and well, it's a case that,
let's face it would carry broader implications by testing the
limits of congressional immunity. What you say on the house floor,
you can say on the house floor and get away
with it. But if you repeat that on social media,
that's the question right now, This is going to be interesting.
This is the speechure debay clause in the Constitution that
(45:37):
shields these members of Congress from any sort of blowback.
Karen bass La, mayor, citing an executive order Friday afternoon
affirming the city's support for immigrants and now announcing a
new initiative to provide cash assistance to families impacted by
(45:58):
ice rates. This will be funded through philanthropic contributions apparently
not city funds, and we'll be correlated with immigrant right
groups like the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
This is the same outfit. By the way, the commander
came under fire for well accusations they were funding those
(46:20):
riots in LA a couple of weeks ago, those anti
ice riots. Again, you've got Bass saying this will not
be city funds, but this would be a way for
well healed individuals in southern California, and most of them
are well heiled in Southern California are very very far
(46:43):
to the left. But if you're a tax bank citizen,
even though this money is not coming out of your pocket,
how do you feel about that? Huh? How does that
make you feel? Inquiry minds want to know. Okay, a
lot more us talk now the surpluses that were to
(47:04):
go in effect back on April, the second that they
were put off. Now Trump is talking about August one,
So the tariffores are on again. I say surplus tariffs.
But surplus is the point of this story. We recorded
a record surplus in the month of June, Treasure Department
releasing this information on Friday. And yes, those surpluses bolstered
(47:26):
by increased tariff collections. How big was the change? Well,
in May we ran a three hundred and sixteen billion
dollar deficit three hundred and sixteen billion dollars in the hole.
June we ran a surplus of twenty seven billion dollars. Wow,
(47:50):
I forget the fact that it was a twenty seven
billion dollar surplus. That is what about close to a
three hundred and fifty billion dollar swing in one month.
So that one month in and of itself brings the
fiscal year to date deficit to one point three four
(48:12):
trillion dollars. That's a five percent decrease from where we
were a year ago. This is what tariffs are designed
to do, to level the playing field, in this case,
give us a leg up. That is a significant swing.
(48:33):
And well, this is supposed to be costing us a
lot more to live as a result. I don't Again,
I don't know what your experience has been with this,
but by and large, let's just put it this way.
We heard a lot more talk about what the cost
of things were when Biden was president and we were
(48:53):
running inflation rates of six seven eight percent. Then we're
hearing right now even with some of these tariffs already
in place enough to give us a surplus in our
trade advantage. This is what they were designed to do.
The in fighting continuing for Democrats. The Democrats Socialists of
(49:14):
America are still taking victory laps over Mandami's win in
the primary in New York City a couple of weeks ago,
and now they're out saying they've got warnings that they
might primary five House incumbents, including House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries. Wow, well,
(49:41):
Jeffreys team is fighting back. This is This is already interesting,
and it's going to get more interesting as time goes on.
It sounds like Texas hit by more flooding, more heavy rains.
They had to stop search operations along the Guadaloupe River.
They saw this one coming this time. They knew they
(50:02):
were going to get more heavy rains, that it was
going to cause more issues. It did, the governor at
one point issuing mandatory evacuations for parts of at least
one county in Texas. Back here at home, by the way,
as we talked about this potential tropical formation in the
Gulf not affecting us, but there are predictions out there
(50:28):
that this hurricane season is going to be ramped up
a bit. In Sureify predicts that our state will be
the state with the fourth highest chance of experiencing a
major hurricane this year. Only Florida, Texas and Louisiana have
(50:51):
better chances. They say, how were they compute all this?
Then do we? And in the process they say that, yeah,
hit by a major hurricane, look for home insurance rates
to go up, because that's what insurance companies do, of course,
and they would do it this time too, if that
(51:12):
were to happen. And then finally there's this and I'm
still trying to figure this out. An election observer, a
Republican election observer in the state of Washington, declining to
wear a face mask inside a ballot account room has
been hit now with a felony conviction in facing jail time.
(51:33):
Tim Haslow, a Navy vet former chair of the Island
County Party Republican Party, was observed ballot counting in the
ballot count room. He chose not to wear a face mask.
(51:54):
This was when did this happen? Oh, this happened November
twenty twenty four, this past November. COVID has been gone
for a long time, but we are talking Washington state here, right,
and all these years later, they're still forcing people in
(52:16):
certain circumstances and instances to wear face masks and because
he didn't. Yeah, he faces potential felony charges and time
in jail for not wearing a face mask, years after
COVID ceased to become an issue in this country. Because
(52:41):
he's a Republican. Yeah,
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