The Big Three 5/12/25

Ken Rosato fills in for Larry Mendte and goes over the biggest news stories of the day including another tech issue at Newark International airport, and the mayor of Newark of being arrested for trespassing at an ICE detention facility.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now from my Heart Radio World headquarters in New York City.
He's twenty in the morning on seven tenor And for
Larry today is ken rosetto Hey, and a very good
morning to you. Happy Monday. It is ken rosatto in
and Larry had a little car trouble, so I said, hey,

(00:20):
you know what, what the heck, I'll come in. I'm
not doing anything. I hope you don't mind. I still
have my hair up in a bun. Natalie, I hope
you don't mind the way it looks. It's a great
look for you. Good to see you, and thanks for
jumping in so quickly. Never fun when you have car
problems in the morning right now, been there a thousand times.
It's definitely an issue that you don't want. Especially. It's

(00:43):
one thing when it happens at eight thirty in the
morning or something and you're driving into the office and
somebody could sit in for you whatever, you just be
in the meeting. But when you got to be on
radio or television and it's three o'clock in the morning
and you don't know, that's what it's terrifying. So it's
a horrible hey. Nonetheless, it's hey, here's a couple of things.
I'm having fun with you guys. It is a beautiful Monday.

(01:03):
We're gonna have sunshine today. It's gonna be highs in
the upper seventies, around eighty in some places, or mid
seventies in most places. And that's a good way to
start today. But we got a lot of trouble things
to talk about here. Did you guys see what's going
on with Newark Airport again? What the heck is going
on with Newark Airport? I mean, I live twenty minutes
from New York. I know you're not that far from

(01:23):
Newark Airport. But again, the Newark Airport faced disruptions again
over the weekend because they have that equipment issue, forcing
a forty five minute ground stop. The FAA reporting that
they had a telecommunications problem at the Philadelphia tradecon facility.
Here's what I don't understand. Right We're a radio station.

(01:44):
Right now, we're all over the place in different studios
because of the circumstances we had. You're able to hear me.
I'm able to transmit on a fifty thousand watch signal
to millions of people. Everybody can hear me. Why is
it that the federal government with a supposedly limitless pile
of cash. Cannot get this damn thing to work. It
is unbelievable. But this has been going on now for

(02:07):
a week and a half. So this is all because
we are operating our radar for Newark, one of the
busiest airports in the United States, out of the Philadelphia
Traycon facility, and that manages Newark's airspace. So apparently there
were popping sounds on radio frequencies. I don't mean to laugh,
because I fly to Newark. I don't want to get
stuck in that. But apparently there were popping sounds occurring

(02:32):
from their Traycon facility. Imagine you got a seven to
four coming in from Beijing headed toward Newark Airport and yeah, okay,
all right, seven for all right China air Oh oh wait, yeah,
that's not what you want. We could kind of make
light now because everything was okay. But it's just by
the grace of God, everything's okay. So now, controllers say

(02:54):
they switched to a backup system the other day. By
eleven am, operations return to normal. But that was the
third technical issue at Newark in two weeks following the
brief ratear outages that occurred on April twenty eighth and
again on Friday, which also disrupted flights. So the FAA
says they are investigating as controllers face ongoing challenges. But

(03:17):
I don't know about you. I got big problems with this.
This should not be the case, not in the year
twenty twenty five, when we have the technology we have
and this has been an issue now four years. Let
me harken you back to the year twenty thirteen. Something
that I talked about on the air when I have
filled in for Mark Simon and also on this very

(03:38):
Morning show that in the year twenty thirteen, there was
a Washington Times report that talked It was actually in
an op ed, but it made headlines and it was
re published in twenty twenty four in the New York Post.
By the way, so you can google this and look
it up. And this goes back to twenty thirteen when
Obama was president. Apparently, when Obama was president, there was

(04:00):
a class of thousands of air traffic controller candidates and
under Obama, Obama wanted to set aside a certain number
of positions for air traffic controllers, specifically for people of color. Okay, admirable.
That's a good thing because you know, unfortunately, over the
decades you had a system whereas if you had if

(04:21):
you were in any shade other than the alabaster, you
need not apply. I get that, that's fine. But when
you do that and say, let's set aside these jobs,
even though we need thousands of air traffic controllers right now,
we won't hire these eleven qualified air traffic controllers. Instead
of hiring these eleven hundred or thousand or two thousand,

(04:43):
let's set the jobs aside and wait until the time
comes when we get eleven hundred or one thousand African American, Hispanic,
you know, Native American, whatever, and then they will get
the jobs when you need air traffic controllers right this second.
That's not what you do. And unfortunately that's what was
done for at least anywhere from three hundred to one

(05:05):
thousand positions. They were literally set aside. Again, it would
have been fine if they ultimately hired those three hundred,
five hundred people of color, but they didn't. That is so,
if you recall when there was the Washington crash, the Washington,
DC air crash with the helicopter, President Trump said, we're

(05:27):
looking into something that could have been connected to Dei,
and everybody freaked out right away. He's blaming Dei. What
he meant was he wasn't trying to suggest that somebody
who was non white was at the radar and they
had something to do with it, or that the pilot
who was flying the plane was a female and she
had something to do with it. That was not the suggestion.

(05:50):
You have to then harken back to the article in
the Washington Times in twenty thirteen. Was what he was
referring to was, and what is being investigated for my
sources behind the scenes, is when we needed hundreds, if
not one thousand air traffic controllers to replace people retiring
back in twenty thirteen, what had happened was instead of

(06:11):
hiring this incoming class of mostly white qualified air traffic controllers.
And I only say qualified because they passed the exam.
In fact, they passed three hundred past the exam perfectly,
they were given a second exam under the Obama administration,
and in that second exam they were asked questions like
what sport did you excel at in high school? What's what?

(06:32):
Were you ever a pilot? Were you ever an air
traffic controller. And if you said yes, I was a pilot,
Yes I was an air traffic controller, you actually had
points deducted from you, which is insane because the point
was the thought, ostensibly in the act of that second
test was let's try to ask are you a minority
who it may have been discriminated against? Without saying are

(06:54):
you a minority who may have been discriminated against? So
let's ask leading questions that might give us an answer
based on stereotype that happened under the Obama administration. According
to this Washington Times op ed that they have never denied.
It has never been denied, and so as a result,
to this day, we are short hundreds, if not one thousand,

(07:15):
air traffic controllers, which is why you have these overworked people,
and you have a system that is crumbling nationwide because
these people can barely cover a shift, let alone think
outside of the box. These people are working fifteen sixteen
hour days, six day weeks. They're burned out. They're burned out,
and we're relying on them to safely get our planes

(07:35):
in and out. Guess what I got news for you.
In this era of AI, we could sit down and
put together a system relatively quickly. In fact, many of
the computer giants are saying, hey, give us a couple
of weeks, we'll get together and have a system. We
just have to input the data from all the airports.
And the idea that this is happening to harken back

(07:56):
to it is just absolutely ridiculous. And Secretary of Transportation
Duffy saying we're going to revamp the system. But again,
this is something that could take a while. But anyway,
we'd love to hear what you have to say. By
the way, you could leave a talk back if you
go to the iHeartRadio app and click on WI there's
a little red microphone at the top. Click on that

(08:17):
and say, Ken, you don't know what you're talking about.
Bring Larry in here right now, go home, or say
you know what, Ken, You're right, I read that article.
Let us know what's the thing. Also, did you have
you been following what's going on in Newark with the
mayor of Newark? Ros Baraka? I do a show in
the state of New Jersey for a channel called on

(08:39):
New Jersey, and so we cover New Jersey news very
very let's say we're on it. Ros Baraka, you didn't
hear a word from ross Baraka until he declared his
candidacy for governor. Now, all of a sudden, if an
envelope is opening in Totowa, New Jersey, ros Baraka is present.
So of course, when the federal government under Obama used

(09:03):
the very facility in Newark that is at the center
of controversy right now, Obama used this to house one
thousand migrants years ago. Not a peep out of ros
Baraka and his buds. Not a peep. Then it was
used by Essex County Jail, which is right next door,
was used by the jail as a halfway house. Not

(09:24):
a peep from anybody on the left. Fast forward to
the Trump administration. Orange Man bad comes in and all
of a sudden, we have an issue. Oh. One of
the issues is they're trying to say that six of
the plugs, six of the electrical outlets don't meet code.
Why because somebody, some person who is being held kicked
the plug plate and as you could bring an electrician

(09:45):
in and how to fixed in twenty minutes. But they're
trying to cite silliness like that. Oh, and somebody apparently
vandalized the electrical components on the gate at the front,
so somebody in the dark of night just put a
hammer to it. And they're trying to say, you see,
this doesn't meet code. This is what the mob did
years ago. This is ridiculous, and they're trying to say,
as a result, this building doesn't meet code, and they're

(10:07):
demanding access to go in and show the horrible conditions
that people who are or who are migrants or illegal
migrants would be held under. This is a facade, This
is a joke. And if Ross Baraka were not running
for governor, you would not hear or see a word
about this. It is now coming up on six sixteen,
seven to ten wo R the Voice of New York.

(10:29):
It's Ken Rosotto. Larry is having car trouble. Maybe we'll
check in with him in a little bit. I My
thing is always carry a little extra gasoline in the back.
Or if it's a tesla, you put your tongue up
to the positive and negative terminals and see if you
get a spark on your tongue and then you know
if you don't do that, don't do that, No wontter
what I'm kidding you. It is now six sixteen, Hey,

(10:50):
New York At Cardinal Timothy Dolan is just back from
the Vatican after taking part in the conclave that chose
an American and as pope. He will be coming up
with us next to talk on Pope Leo the fourteenth
sevent ten w O r.