August 9, 2026 • 33 mins
Pedestrian tunnels in Los Angeles are being overrun with homeless people. Joy Chen comes on the show to talk about SoCal Edison electrical arching sparked the Eaton Fire in Altadena in January 2025 and a possible bailout that is in the works for SCE. Metro says there are more seats available now because homelessness is down. Meg James comes on the show to talk about Hollywood being worried about the Paramount/Warner merger.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is Monks and Maryland, hosted by Michael Monks and
Chris Merrill.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is Monks and Merrill on demand Monks and Merril.
You realize that took like an entire three day meeting
to come up with the name of the show. It's
kind of tough. You can subscribe to the podcast in
the iHeartRadio app, follow us on the social media's at
Monks and Meryl, at Monks and Merrill and I think
(00:30):
we've got a story that you're gonna hear over and
over and over again.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
DWP. Cruse are on scene at Sandwiston Te Boulevard in
Lyndenhurst Avenue. This is in Beverly Grove. You're taking a
live look now we're flooding. You're not being reported in
that area. Cruise are working to fix a broken pipe.
This has happened again right here and so cal This
is all just happening within the past ninety minute.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
That was it yesterday from KTLA. So another pipe broken.
We know that these pipes are one hundred plus years old.
They say, ah, they should last one hundred and fifty years.
Doesn't sound like that's working out very well. Well, I
mean some of them are one hundred and fifty years.
They are at the end of their lives. And you
heard it, don't correct me, Well, I've ever covered this
(01:16):
at city hall when they were trying to raise the
sewer rivers. I know you're sensitive about me overhearing you
speaking Mandarin and the snackersmen putting it out there and
talking to the FBI about it. But when the sewer
rates were raised in the city of Los Angeles, this
was the conversation. It was, Look, the infrastructure's old. We
have to do a significant hike because we haven't raised
(01:38):
your rates in all these years, and now it's it's
going to come all at once, otherwise things are going
to start to break. Well, well, it's deferred maintenance. They defer,
they defer, they defer, and then, as usual, a reactive
local government has to come in after things break well.
They had the money, they just chose to spend it elsewhere. Yeah,
(01:58):
there's a lack of priorities, or the priorities are out
of whack. Yeah, it's a very bizarre. And then they go, oh,
we how many money. I guess we're gonna have to
raise rates or fees or tax every single time every
street lights, pipes, roads, firefighter, homelessness, Yeah, all these things.
It's a joke speaking of homelessness. There was that story
that popped the last week. You see that out of
(02:19):
Boil Heights. Oh got so many stories, I think, rats, flies,
mariachi bands, all of it, all of it. It was.
It was one about I think you and I did
you and I do this? Or maybe I did this
before we started the show. It was one of those
pedestrian tunnels. Oh yeah, I did see this on a
KTLA and I didn't realize that the pedestrian tunnels were
(02:39):
built like in the twenties and thirties, And basically it was, Oh,
the road is going in and there's a lot of
traffic and there's a sweet this liquor stop. You think
it was all boot like everything, all of it. Everything
built in the twenties was still common.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
But they said, look, we've got an elementarysol over here.
We don't want our kids to cross the road to
the elementary school. Let's dig a tunnel. So they did.
They dug these pedestrian tunnels. I don't know how much
people use these pedestrian tunnels anymore, certainly not the children,
because they are full of feral humans and the things
that feral humans do, waste, human waste, drug paraphernalia, and
(03:20):
in one case, uh, sexual aid, which they did not
show on the TV. They just mentioned it. A sexual
like a prophylactic, like a like a flashlight type thing. Oh,
I see what you're saying. Okay, cylindrical indeed, okay, yes,
that's disturbing. Yeah, just left out there because it doesn't
(03:42):
seem sanitary, especially if it's been sitting around with the
urine and feces and drug paraphernalia. And at one point
they dragged a sofa down there. Well, you need somewhere
to lay down, I suppose. So what do you do
if you are is Abel Herado, who's the council member.
We can't possibly clean up the homeless people. They might
(04:03):
feel bad about themselves. But also, oh my goodness, I
have to protect the children who are in a marginalized community.
Uh oh. All of a sudden, she's out of loggerheads
right now? Right which side is she gonna fall on?
I don't know. I love when their ridiculous value system
is at odds with the other half of their value system,
because this does check a lot of boxes. She loves
(04:23):
homeless people on the streets. She represents skid row. She
doesn't want to do anything about that. She never has
a press conference about skid row and what we're going
to do about it. She's had how many press conferences
and public statements about Boyle Heights a ton and how
everyone needs to get everything they want, all your dreams
are going to come true. She consistently votes against every
other council member who wants to remove homeless camps from
near their kids' schools. So she loves seeing homeless people
(04:44):
near schools and other districts, right, no doubt about it, No, no,
But now they are so desperate to win back the
good people of Boyle Heights after this fire. Now we're
gonna protect you exactly. So she's introduced a motion at
city Home. By the way, they've been off the council critters,
they've been off the whole month of July. Yeah, they
take the month of July off every year after they
adopt the budget. And so they are back tomorrow for
(05:07):
the first time in a long time. And we'll be
paying attention to that meeting because I expect a whirlwind
of motions related to Boil Heights. So we'll monitor that
and bring it to you as well. How many of
them will be productive and how many of them will
be like i'd like to I'm motion that we condemned
Lineage Logistics for being a corporation. Here here, Yeah, it's
gonna be a lot of that. Oh my god. One
(05:28):
of the motions she's introduced seeks the permanent closure of
this pedestrian sex den at Soto in Seventh Streets near
Soto Street Elementary School. She says, for years, the tunnels,
but listen to this. This statement just makes me want
to scream, blooding murder, which she also wouldn't do anything about.
For years, the tunnel has presented persistent public health and
(05:50):
safety concerns, including accumulated trash and debris, flooding and debris
flow hazards during adverse weather, and activity inside the passageway
that disrupted nearby school operations. Okay for years, for years?
What kind of activity in the tunnel is disturbing nearby school? Up? Well,
(06:11):
I think you described this. Whoops, don God, that was
gonna be so smooth too. In this that's still the
wrong one. There is back to one. It's Monday. By Friday. Well,
you'll have this all long. I know you're off on Friday.
I'm flying solo on Friday, and it's gonna be a
very quiet program. We're gonna sit in silent and meditate.
(06:32):
She says. Previous attempts to secure the tunnel with fencing
or other temporary barriers have not provided a lasting solution.
You don't say, oh, yeah, so they put up a
chain link fence. I told you we've done. I've done
this story before. I didn't know if it was the
same tunnel. They put up a chain link fence, and
then the chain lik fence kept people from bothering the
feral humans that had broken through the chain link fence.
(06:53):
If I see a chain link fence over a tunnel,
I'm not going in. But if you're a feral human,
you see a chain link fence and you look at
that like it's a door. Yeah, Like now, look, this
is going to keep other people from hassling me while
I continue to do terrible things. But just like the
sewer pipes breaking, or the sanitation pipes breaking, the water
(07:13):
pipes breaking, everything is reactive, she says in her own statement,
for years, we have failed to do anything about this.
If it were really that big of a problem. She
could have done something about it. Are we We are
Los Angeles. The city of Los Angeles can't close a tunnel. Well,
not only that, but Kevin de Leone, who was in
that seat before her, he proposed this in twenty twenty
(07:35):
four before it became an issue. Last year, he said, look,
we gotta close this thing. I need recommend Yeah, And
the people of Boyle Heights promptly voted for Isabel Herado Yeah,
and kicked Kevin Dalleon out of office.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Right.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
And I'm not commenting on whether that was good or bad.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Right bad.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
She had a lot of baggage himself. Wasn't particularly effective either.
Also represented skid row as it grew its population. She
doesn't want to close it because if we close it,
She goes, well, then we're the homeless people. Exactly what
I want to do is clean it all up. This
is what's gonna happen. She goes, say, you know what,
I think we found a nice housing facility for a
number of our marginalized street urchins and they can live
(08:09):
down there in peace and quiet. And the only problem
is that we don't have a cleaning crew that we've
hired to clean the whole thing up every time they
get done with their whatever it is that they do
down there. Oh I thought were a cueuing the music again. Yeah,
I mean I can if you want now it's too late.
Good evening from Boyle Heights, from the tunnel below the
(08:32):
school and a dirty old couch discarded in nineteen seventy eight.
It's Michael Monks and Chris Maryland. That's our future of
the show to I don't worry about I want to
just note before we run here that the second part
of her statement is the tell that nothing is actually
going to happen. She says a permanent closure requires an
(08:53):
engineering evaluation, coordination among the relevant city departments, identification of funding,
and approval through the city council. No it doesn't, No,
it doesn't. All of those things are non starters because
literally none of it will happen in engineering evaluations, a
coordination among us engineering evaluations supporting. You have to just
(09:13):
here's what it takes. It takes somebody with some quick creek.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
But we don't want to just go get some quick
crete and fill the stupid thing in. This is a
prime example of LA's bureaucracy getting in its own way. Yeah,
every day, get out of your own way. And they
have no money for it. Identification of funding is what
you shall tell you what. I will go to home
depot and I will sponsor it. It will be the
monks in Merrill closed tunnel in Boil Heights because less
(09:40):
than one hundred bucks, I get the thing done. It's
gonna take some center block, some mortar and we'll go
out there one Afternoonoo done. Yeah, you gotta check in
with sequa. What's this? See the other? Okay, we're gonna
work on the sound. We'll have a quick huddle. What's
the flicker? You played? Dumb? You're listening to more Monks
and Merrill on Saturday night here on KFI.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
You're listening to Monks and Meryll on demand from KFI
AM six forty more stimulating talk.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
More Monks and Merrill. You hear us during the week,
and then you get a special dose of us on
the weekends, some fresh stuff, some of our best hits
from the week. Thanks for being with us. Well, you
talked about the wildfires and Spokane. They are getting out
of control.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
The spires are not natural disasters, there are arson, they're
negligence just like SCEE was found to be grossly negligent,
today we need a different word for these.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Fires where they found to be grossly negligent. Well, here's
what happened today. The La County Fire Department has released
a report saying so Cal Edison electrical tower sparked the
Eton fire. So they concluded in those reports released them
the day electrical arcing on an out of service so
Cal Edison transmission tower sparked that fireback in January of
(10:57):
last year. Of course, the Eton fire grew out of
that droid nine thousand structures and burned fourteen thousand acres
and of course killed at least nineteen people.
Speaker 6 (11:05):
All right, guys, which nobody seems to you know, say
anything about it. You sue Edison because of the fire.
Right now, they're not gonna pay their rates go up,
And if you haven't seen your rates go up by
the electricity companies in the power company's water, that's where
they're paying for all these lawsuits. So the public ends
(11:27):
up paying again.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah, that's the most frustrating thing for me. I mean,
you remember after the fire that burned down Paradise, the campfire,
as I recall, the Grand solution was to have the
three major power companies build this twenty one billion dollar
fund that didn't come out of investor pockets, that didn't
come out of profits, that came out of adding another
fee of the ratepayers and then throwing it into this fund.
(11:49):
Joy Chen is the executive director of Every Fire Survivor's Network.
She's also you may recognize her name is the former
Deputy mayor of Los Angeles. Joining us now, Joy, thank
you so much for being here. This is so frustrating
because I know there's another bill being talked about right
now in Sacramento that would basically create more money for
another fund and allow for the power companies not to
take a hit when these sorts of things happen. How
(12:10):
do how does your group feel about those things coming through?
Speaker 4 (12:14):
That's exactly right. I so appreciate you're bringing shining a
light on what is exactly going on with these repeated bailouts.
What is going on is that there are three electric
monopolies in California, Edison being one of them, that repeatedly
cause catastrophic fires. So this is not our first time
(12:36):
at the rodeo here with the eaton Fire and even
Edison Edison, as you may recall, with the cause of
the Wolfy fire back in twenty eighteen, also in Los
Angeles County. And so this finding of fault of Edison
by County of Los Angeles is something that we all
knew for eighteen months. The world has known forever that
(12:58):
Edison was the ca of this fire. And as you
point out, there is another bailout being secretly negotiated right
now in Sacramento by Governor Newsom. That's been reported on
already in cal Matters, in the Los Angeles Times, in
all sorts of news media who has been tracking this
(13:21):
secret bill and it's not even a bill yet. It's
a secret proposal by Governor Nissum. You know, it is
now early August and it is far too late for
any bills to be introduced. And so what is happening
is a governor has been having secret meetings with keep
with legislators to tell them orally about this latest bailout
(13:45):
that he wants. This has not even been put into
writing as far as any journalists have been able to find,
and they're planning to do what's called a gut and
a mend, meaning take a bill, remove all its contents
and turn it into a utility bailout bill. This actually
happened last year at the same time, at the eleventh
(14:08):
hour the governor, in the last two days of the
legislative session, the governor took a bill that would cap
utility profits, took out the contents and put in two
hundred and thirty one pages of new language that protects
the utilities and does what you what you what you
had said, which is basically creates these new funds in
(14:31):
which we Californians have to bail them out for their
catastrophic failures. The same thing is happening again. But the
but the worst part of this is this one will
reduce the amount of money that eaten fire survivors get
from Edison. And so this is money that we desperately
(14:51):
need to recover, you know. So it's been you know,
it's a it's a terrible, terrible situation, and you're you're
you guys are doing a great service for shining a
light on what's going on. So thank you for connecting
this to what's happening in Sacramento.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Joy Chen is the executive director every Fire Survivor's Network
and enjoy some of the suggestions you've made about what's
going on in Sacramento, they've not been confirmed, they've not
been denied by the Governor's office. The Governor's office has
confirmed that it is discussing while on fire recovery and
catastrophic risk with lawmakers as you suggested there, But what
(15:29):
should be the outcome here? What is it that you
think is the right answer that should come out of
Sacramento as it relates to these utility companies and holding
them accountable for their roles and these these disastrous fires.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
Yeah, well, what the governor's bailout last fall did, Okay,
that bill and then also new handouts that were given
by the CPUC he appoints all five members of the
CPUC gave Edison full profits. Okay, they even fire was
at January of last year. Last September and October, the
(16:07):
governor and his team said, well, we're worried about Edison
going bankrupt here, so therefore we've got to give them
all these protections. And they gave them all these rate
hikes in October, a billion dollar a year future rate
hike and a billion dollars in back pay. Now Edison
two months later, far from going bankrupt, Edison distributed to
(16:28):
its shareholders one point three billion dollars and then two Yeah,
that was very convenient. And it's major shareholders. The three
largest shareholders are all Wall Street banks. You have a
Wall Street financial institution, so you've got Vanguard, You've got
Black Rock, and State Street Bank. So that was a
direct transfer of wealth from hard working Californians to Wall Street.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Who's supposed to be overseeing that kind of stuff. Who's
I mean, who's is this where the regulation is supposed
to step in? From the from the Public Utilities Commission?
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Well, the Public Utilities Commission are all five appointees by
the governor. So yes, they're supposed to be regulating this, okay,
and yet they are not regulating this. They're turning around
and giving all these massive handuffs. And so guess what.
Guess what Edison's profits did for the year that they
killed over nineteen of my neighbors and shatter the lives
(17:22):
of ten thousand others. You would think they should get
a ding in their profits, right, but instead their profits
tripled and from one point one point two billion to
four point five billions, and in their earnings calls, they
said the reason for these incredible financial performance was regulatory decisions.
(17:45):
Joey chen is the executive are the Bailout.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Joey Chenn is the executive director of Every Fire Survivor Network. Joey,
We're going to put you in our speed dial because
I want to have you back on to talk more
about this in the future.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
There any time.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Goody, thank you so much together, good thank you. I
love this. I can't stand with this goes over thanks
to you. I appreciate it. Companies. You're listening to more
Monks and Merrill Saturday nights here on kf I AM sixty.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
You're listening to Monks and Meryll on demand from KFI.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
AM Monks and Merrill on this Wednesday afternoon. So glad
to have you with us. Be fun to have you
with us one day on the old metro trains that
Chris is still the Finny ride. Why we talked about
it this morning. I'm trying to assign a project to
you that you do without me, and I just want
you to go out with a microphone and ride the system,
(18:34):
just so people know. Michael wants me to go ride
the transit system, record a news story for it, and
then he wants to put his name on the news
story and submit it for an award. I would not
put my name on producing produced by you, produced executive produced,
but yeah, executive producer. Fine, hey, Michael Monk's production. Give
me an assignment so you can win an award. I
(18:55):
want you to win an award. Finally, get so many awards,
I didn't keep track of the wall. Let stop moving
them around. Every time I got fired, I kept having
to move all those boxes of awards, certain those through
them out. Meanwhile, Metro says that there are more seats
available for people who want to pay to be on
the system because homelessness at the transit facilities is down
(19:17):
fifty seven percent since twenty twenty four. I don't believe that.
I kind of don't either. I'm glad to see the
stat but to know that homelessness has gone up across
the region the way that it has. Metro is a
big driver, a literal driver of homeless people, because you
can hop on and ride it all day if you like,
(19:40):
and you can go from one place to the next.
You can go to MacArthur Park and hang out for
a while. You can go down to skid Row and
hang out for a while you can go down to
Santa Monica if you want some beach time, or you
can just sleep on the train. But apparently the system
says that data from that same homeless count from the
(20:03):
LA Homeless Services Authority that indicated the homeless population in
Los Angeles had risen three and a half percent last year,
showed a thirty one percent decrease in homelessness on the
transit system the year before. I don't believe it. And
when compared when adding in the decrease from twenty twenty four,
it's a fifty seven percent drop. Fifty seven percent over
the last two years. I think we were to ask
(20:24):
people that are riding the transit systems, or if you
live near, say a metro stop, like I do. I'm
telling you, every morning I wake up to somebody who's
screaming at the clouds that just got off that train.
So if that's somehow way better than it was in
twenty twenty four, I don't see it. Twenty twenty four
(20:45):
was rough. It was absolutely rough. And that was also
the year that it took a violent murder of an
older woman on our way home from work on the
Bee Line for the transit agency and local officials to
get serious about policing that system. So they've got a
Metro Police Force. Not yet, they're still contracting with the
three agencies. But I we have a relatively frequent rider.
(21:09):
Never do I see police, No, very, very rarely have
I ever over the past three years seen a cop
on the transit system. Oh hey, here's something, this is interesting.
Here's an interesting stat from the story. Metro says that
outreach team, whether there's Metro homeless outreach teams, Oh yeah,
we're paying for that too. There's a KFI homeless outreach team.
We're all in all this grift marks chairperson. I wish
(21:32):
we would get some money going out later. Now Metro's
got a billion dollar budget and part of that is
to handle homelessness because we're not paying enough for that
to the county and the city and everywhere else now
because everybody has to talk about how we will. We're
not just kicking them off the system. We're connecting them
with services, wrap around services, interim housing, shelters and all
(21:54):
of that just get them off of the train. Metro
says that they have connected three hundred and fifty four
people to permanent housing during the last fiscal year. Okay,
that's great. I need more data on that. How many
are still in permanent housing? Isn't permanent a word? Doesn't
that mean something connected to permanent housing? Is all it says? Yeah, yeah,
which means we dropped them off at the agency inside
(22:15):
safe and then they walked back out and got on
a bus. Well, yeah, because there aren't any drugs at
the agency. No. By the way, I did see some
homeless people this morning near the station that I thought
that breaks the mold of some of the stereotype that
I think of. It was an older woman. She was
probably in her sixties, although feral humans age faster. She
(22:36):
might she was probably twenty three. Yeah, but I was thinking,
you know, that's the kind of person that as we
talk about the homeless services not working, that's the kind
of person I wanted to work for. Yeah, because the
person who gets off that train and is coming down
from whatever the high was that they were on, and
they start having a fight with the lamp post, right
which every morning I have this. I had it again
this morning too. Woman just came off started screaming god
(22:59):
knows what walking down the road. I thought, those are
the people that just irritate the dickens out of me.
But little old Matilda there, I thought, that's the kind
of person I feel like these services should be helping.
That's where I feel bad, Like, that's where I feel
like the actual services we're paying for are letting the
people who need those services down the chase after the
(23:21):
people that don't want the services. I don't know. I
don't know. I wonder that's what I thought. Yeah, no, no, no,
I think it's a fair thought. I wonder if let's
say you are at retirement age and you're facing what
they call housing and security. You're running out of money
the rents do and there are supposed to be some
backstops there. God knows we funded enough backstops. If you
(23:42):
called while you were still in your house, how would
that process work? Would there be some funding, Would there
be some help for you? I don't know. Would they
tell you, sorry, we're in skid row, we're busy helping
somebody doesn't want help exactly? I don't know. Do you guys,
do you have to get to the point where you
are out of your house before they help you? Saying
that that they don't want to do that, but they
want to help you before. And that's true. And that's
(24:04):
what I mean is that I think there must be
some success with those programs. Otherwise it does feed their lie.
They often talk about the homeless population. Is it's because
of the housing, the expensive housing here, And I think
that's not it. That's that these again, these people didn't
meet last These people did not miss last month's rent. Yeah, well,
I think the lydy I saw I did, although I
(24:24):
don't know. Maybe Ethel's a crack addict. Yeah, exactly. I've
seen there are old people on the drugs will get
to them before age. Does you know. I don't see
nearly as many old people. I see some pretty I
see a pretty good amount of senior citizens. That's interesting,
and they look just as crazy as everybody else. Well, okay,
I spit on them, just the same as I do
(24:45):
the other one. Good for you, Yes, I walked past
and cool opportunity. People have always thought that about you.
I wish them don't discriminate, but they are. I mean,
I see usually it's the older ones that are in
the middle of traffic causing the best scenes because they're
the most experienced performers. They've been at this a long time.
Or having like dementia issues. No, their brains are fried
because of all the drugs they did. Doesn't sound very sympathetic.
(25:07):
By the way, this count that Meryl is heralding. Excuse me,
Metro is harolding. It's that same count that LASSA does
when they're accounting people in the tents, which isn't very scientific.
It's it's a it's an escue. They didn't get on
all the buses, they didn't get on all the trains.
They were basically looking around the stations. So if all
the whole people build the seats, because I think that'll
(25:29):
probably give you a good read. Yeah, that's how we
would know. If you've written two thirds of these seats
smell like urine, homelessnesses, crack? Is that they ever smelled
crack on the subway? If not, you know why, that's
why I don't write the subway. Yeah, you're listening to
more Monks and Meryl here on KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
You're listening to Monks and Meryl onto the air from
kf I AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Available anywhere on the Iart radio app. You know what
we were talking about to a paramount in the Warner
Brothers and it sounds like they're Court eight is coming
up here in March. But David Ellison is trying to
get out there. He hasn't said a whole lot, but
now he's dropping some statements. And I was reading about this.
I was reading The La Times had a story about it.
Meg James was writing this up and she was saying
basically that David Ellison's like, look, the only issue people
(26:15):
have here is my politics. That's it. Meg joins us
right now, staff writer with the La Times. Meg, thanks
so much for joining us today. It's a pleasure having
on the program. Is there legitimacy to what he's saying?
Is he catching flat because of the politics behind this,
or is he trying to deflect from the anti trust accusations.
Speaker 7 (26:34):
Well, I mean this is and thank you for having me.
This is a huge merger and it's been incredibly controversial.
And to be sure, one of the reasons why this
deal is controversial is because a lot of people don't
trust David Allison in his words, to control CNN, and
(26:55):
so there is a political component to this deal because
his thought other Larry Ellison, the co founder of Oracle,
one of the world's richest billionaires, is very tight with
President Trump, and that relationship has helped Paramount get their
deals through the federal government. But there are other reasons
(27:16):
too why people in Hollywood in particular really fear further consolidation.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Well, let's expand on some of those because we talked
a bit about those fears in our previous segment. But
how do those fears relate to David Ellison's politics, if
at all.
Speaker 7 (27:35):
Well, the fears in Hollywood are that thousands of more
people will lose their jobs. We've you know, had several
mergers over the past decade, and they've all resulted in,
you know, widespread layoffs. When Disney acquired some of the
Fox properties in twenty nineteen, there were thousands of employees
Fox employees who lost their jobs, and you know, the
(27:58):
amount of movies that was produced actually declined. Then in
twenty twenty two, we had Discovery Little Discovery taking over
Warner Media from AT and T, and again thousands of
employees were laid off. So this is a real fear
in Hollywood. Even labor data shows that since twenty twenty two,
(28:19):
the industry has lost more than fifty thousand jobs. Entertainment
jobs in Los Angeles area, and that's what's driving a
lot of this, to be sure, And to David Ellison's point,
there's also a political component as well.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Meg James is joining US staff. Right at the LA
Times we talked about what David Ellison said. He says
that to much the opposition is politically based, and I'm curious.
Maggie did a great job laying out some of the
jobs that are going to be affected or have been
affected in the past, and what is potentially coming down
the pike if this merger goes through. If Netflix had
won that bidding war with Warner Brothers, would it be
a different conversation or would it just be a different
(28:55):
names and having the same conversation.
Speaker 7 (28:57):
Well, you know, that's a really good point, because there
there were some people who thought that the Netflix deal
would be really, you know, interesting because they're the biggest streamer.
But make no mistake, Netflix would have run into a
boatload of regulatory opposition in the United States and in
Europe because it is so dominant in streaming. So I mean,
while you know that for some parties maybe Netflix seemed cooler,
(29:21):
I think that you know, that deal might never have
actually been consummated because there would have been real significant
antitrust concerns about taking the Netflix platform and the HBO
Max platform and making such a super dominant platform that
that probably would not have past muster, And also I
(29:44):
suspect it was a big reason why Netflix pulled out
of the bidding.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
In February, Paramount chairman David Ellison says that the big
objection to his company's pursuit of Warner Brothers is political.
And we're joined by Meg James, a staff writer at
The La Times, who about this recently. What's at stake
for CBS and CNN here and how do they play
in the overarching narrative around this potential merger.
Speaker 7 (30:10):
Well, I mean, that's a great question, because you know,
most quarters people think that the Ellisons will merge the operation,
the news operations. Obviously they'll keep CBS News as a
division that will you know, fill the broadcast network, and
CNN will continue to be a cable channel and also
a very robust digital side around the world. But there
(30:34):
have been concerns. Since David Elson acquired Paramount last August
and then installed Barry Weiss as the editor in chief
of CBS, there's been a lot of shakeups, including of
sixty minutes, one of the most trusted brands in television,
and you know, people pushing back saying like she's trying to,
(30:55):
you know, force the news coverage into a pasture where
it's more sympathetic to President Trump. Now, you know, to
be sure, there hasn't been evidence that you know, false
narratives have been injected into CBS News is reporting that
just hasn't happened, according to our sources. But Barry Weiss
(31:19):
is pushed to reporters to you know, include more perspectives
and viewpoints, and her tenure has really rubbed some people
the wrong way.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Meg James from The Only Times joining us right now
is we're covering this merger what David Ellison has said
here in his latest and I'm so glad you brought
that up. Meg, I'm wondering again. Let me pitch you
another hypothetical. If this were not the Ellisons trying to
buy Warner Brothers, but rather this were say NBC Universal
trying to buy the Fox brains that remain independent from
(31:52):
the murdogs like Fox News, would be be having similar criticism.
It would just be twelve attorneys general from the Republicans'
suing to try to stop it instead of from the Democratic side,
or would the Democrats have the same anti trust issues.
Speaker 7 (32:07):
Well, I mean, these are all real good hypotheticals, and
I would, you know, say that David Ellison there is
a modicum of truth and what he's saying, the fears
about his stewardship of CBS News and what that would
mean to CNN, has really animated a lot of folks.
(32:28):
But what I'm here to say is that I think
the opposition to the merger is much broader than that,
and also is key to just keeping Hollywood jobs in Hollywood.
And as you know, we've struggled mightily. So would there
be a you know, a red state uprising if Comcasts
(32:48):
were to have gotten these assets, you know, who knows? Maybe,
And I think there would have been a lot of opposition,
and there was growing opposition to Netflix. I think that
whenever you have a deal of this size, more than
one hundred and eleven billion dollars, a deal that will
change Hollywood, a lot of people are going to be worried.
(33:08):
And a lot of people, you know, have lived and
worked and loved Hollywood content and they don't want to
see that changed.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Great reporting, Meg we appreciate thanksg James from the La Times. Matt,
we look forward to having you on again. I hope
you'll join us in the future.
Speaker 7 (33:24):
Well, thank you so much for having me today. You
guys do well all right, Thank.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
You so much, really nice John. This is more Monks
and Meryl catches weekdays twelve to three for just regular
old Monks and Merril. Thanks for being here for more. Now,
let's get the latest from the KFI twenty four hour
newsroom and KFI on Demand. You've been listening to Monks
and Merrill here the show live weekdays from noon to
three on KFI Am six forty and anytime on demand
(33:49):
on the iHeartRadio app.
This is Monks and Maryland, hosted by Michael Monks and
Chris Merrill.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is Monks and Merrill on demand Monks and Merril.
You realize that took like an entire three day meeting
to come up with the name of the show. It's
kind of tough. You can subscribe to the podcast in
the iHeartRadio app, follow us on the social media's at
Monks and Meryl, at Monks and Merrill and I think
(00:30):
we've got a story that you're gonna hear over and
over and over again.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
DWP. Cruse are on scene at Sandwiston Te Boulevard in
Lyndenhurst Avenue. This is in Beverly Grove. You're taking a
live look now we're flooding. You're not being reported in
that area. Cruise are working to fix a broken pipe.
This has happened again right here and so cal This
is all just happening within the past ninety minute.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
That was it yesterday from KTLA. So another pipe broken.
We know that these pipes are one hundred plus years old.
They say, ah, they should last one hundred and fifty years.
Doesn't sound like that's working out very well. Well, I
mean some of them are one hundred and fifty years.
They are at the end of their lives. And you
heard it, don't correct me, Well, I've ever covered this
(01:16):
at city hall when they were trying to raise the
sewer rivers. I know you're sensitive about me overhearing you
speaking Mandarin and the snackersmen putting it out there and
talking to the FBI about it. But when the sewer
rates were raised in the city of Los Angeles, this
was the conversation. It was, Look, the infrastructure's old. We
have to do a significant hike because we haven't raised
(01:38):
your rates in all these years, and now it's it's
going to come all at once, otherwise things are going
to start to break. Well, well, it's deferred maintenance. They defer,
they defer, they defer, and then, as usual, a reactive
local government has to come in after things break well.
They had the money, they just chose to spend it elsewhere. Yeah,
(01:58):
there's a lack of priorities, or the priorities are out
of whack. Yeah, it's a very bizarre. And then they go, oh,
we how many money. I guess we're gonna have to
raise rates or fees or tax every single time every
street lights, pipes, roads, firefighter, homelessness, Yeah, all these things.
It's a joke speaking of homelessness. There was that story
that popped the last week. You see that out of
(02:19):
Boil Heights. Oh got so many stories, I think, rats, flies,
mariachi bands, all of it, all of it. It was.
It was one about I think you and I did
you and I do this? Or maybe I did this
before we started the show. It was one of those
pedestrian tunnels. Oh yeah, I did see this on a
KTLA and I didn't realize that the pedestrian tunnels were
(02:39):
built like in the twenties and thirties, And basically it was, Oh,
the road is going in and there's a lot of
traffic and there's a sweet this liquor stop. You think
it was all boot like everything, all of it. Everything
built in the twenties was still common.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
But they said, look, we've got an elementarysol over here.
We don't want our kids to cross the road to
the elementary school. Let's dig a tunnel. So they did.
They dug these pedestrian tunnels. I don't know how much
people use these pedestrian tunnels anymore, certainly not the children,
because they are full of feral humans and the things
that feral humans do, waste, human waste, drug paraphernalia, and
(03:20):
in one case, uh, sexual aid, which they did not
show on the TV. They just mentioned it. A sexual
like a prophylactic, like a like a flashlight type thing. Oh,
I see what you're saying. Okay, cylindrical indeed, okay, yes,
that's disturbing. Yeah, just left out there because it doesn't
(03:42):
seem sanitary, especially if it's been sitting around with the
urine and feces and drug paraphernalia. And at one point
they dragged a sofa down there. Well, you need somewhere
to lay down, I suppose. So what do you do
if you are is Abel Herado, who's the council member.
We can't possibly clean up the homeless people. They might
(04:03):
feel bad about themselves. But also, oh my goodness, I
have to protect the children who are in a marginalized community.
Uh oh. All of a sudden, she's out of loggerheads
right now? Right which side is she gonna fall on?
I don't know. I love when their ridiculous value system
is at odds with the other half of their value system,
because this does check a lot of boxes. She loves
(04:23):
homeless people on the streets. She represents skid row. She
doesn't want to do anything about that. She never has
a press conference about skid row and what we're going
to do about it. She's had how many press conferences
and public statements about Boyle Heights a ton and how
everyone needs to get everything they want, all your dreams
are going to come true. She consistently votes against every
other council member who wants to remove homeless camps from
near their kids' schools. So she loves seeing homeless people
(04:44):
near schools and other districts, right, no doubt about it, No, no,
But now they are so desperate to win back the
good people of Boyle Heights after this fire. Now we're
gonna protect you exactly. So she's introduced a motion at
city Home. By the way, they've been off the council critters,
they've been off the whole month of July. Yeah, they
take the month of July off every year after they
adopt the budget. And so they are back tomorrow for
(05:07):
the first time in a long time. And we'll be
paying attention to that meeting because I expect a whirlwind
of motions related to Boil Heights. So we'll monitor that
and bring it to you as well. How many of
them will be productive and how many of them will
be like i'd like to I'm motion that we condemned
Lineage Logistics for being a corporation. Here here, Yeah, it's
gonna be a lot of that. Oh my god. One
(05:28):
of the motions she's introduced seeks the permanent closure of
this pedestrian sex den at Soto in Seventh Streets near
Soto Street Elementary School. She says, for years, the tunnels,
but listen to this. This statement just makes me want
to scream, blooding murder, which she also wouldn't do anything about.
For years, the tunnel has presented persistent public health and
(05:50):
safety concerns, including accumulated trash and debris, flooding and debris
flow hazards during adverse weather, and activity inside the passageway
that disrupted nearby school operations. Okay for years, for years?
What kind of activity in the tunnel is disturbing nearby school? Up? Well,
(06:11):
I think you described this. Whoops, don God, that was
gonna be so smooth too. In this that's still the
wrong one. There is back to one. It's Monday. By Friday. Well,
you'll have this all long. I know you're off on Friday.
I'm flying solo on Friday, and it's gonna be a
very quiet program. We're gonna sit in silent and meditate.
(06:32):
She says. Previous attempts to secure the tunnel with fencing
or other temporary barriers have not provided a lasting solution.
You don't say, oh, yeah, so they put up a
chain link fence. I told you we've done. I've done
this story before. I didn't know if it was the
same tunnel. They put up a chain link fence, and
then the chain lik fence kept people from bothering the
feral humans that had broken through the chain link fence.
(06:53):
If I see a chain link fence over a tunnel,
I'm not going in. But if you're a feral human,
you see a chain link fence and you look at
that like it's a door. Yeah, Like now, look, this
is going to keep other people from hassling me while
I continue to do terrible things. But just like the
sewer pipes breaking, or the sanitation pipes breaking, the water
(07:13):
pipes breaking, everything is reactive, she says in her own statement,
for years, we have failed to do anything about this.
If it were really that big of a problem. She
could have done something about it. Are we We are
Los Angeles. The city of Los Angeles can't close a tunnel. Well,
not only that, but Kevin de Leone, who was in
that seat before her, he proposed this in twenty twenty
(07:35):
four before it became an issue. Last year, he said, look,
we gotta close this thing. I need recommend Yeah, And
the people of Boyle Heights promptly voted for Isabel Herado Yeah,
and kicked Kevin Dalleon out of office.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Right.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
And I'm not commenting on whether that was good or bad.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Right bad.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
She had a lot of baggage himself. Wasn't particularly effective either.
Also represented skid row as it grew its population. She
doesn't want to close it because if we close it,
She goes, well, then we're the homeless people. Exactly what
I want to do is clean it all up. This
is what's gonna happen. She goes, say, you know what,
I think we found a nice housing facility for a
number of our marginalized street urchins and they can live
(08:09):
down there in peace and quiet. And the only problem
is that we don't have a cleaning crew that we've
hired to clean the whole thing up every time they
get done with their whatever it is that they do
down there. Oh I thought were a cueuing the music again. Yeah,
I mean I can if you want now it's too late.
Good evening from Boyle Heights, from the tunnel below the
(08:32):
school and a dirty old couch discarded in nineteen seventy eight.
It's Michael Monks and Chris Maryland. That's our future of
the show to I don't worry about I want to
just note before we run here that the second part
of her statement is the tell that nothing is actually
going to happen. She says a permanent closure requires an
(08:53):
engineering evaluation, coordination among the relevant city departments, identification of funding,
and approval through the city council. No it doesn't, No,
it doesn't. All of those things are non starters because
literally none of it will happen in engineering evaluations, a
coordination among us engineering evaluations supporting. You have to just
(09:13):
here's what it takes. It takes somebody with some quick creek.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
But we don't want to just go get some quick
crete and fill the stupid thing in. This is a
prime example of LA's bureaucracy getting in its own way. Yeah,
every day, get out of your own way. And they
have no money for it. Identification of funding is what
you shall tell you what. I will go to home
depot and I will sponsor it. It will be the
monks in Merrill closed tunnel in Boil Heights because less
(09:40):
than one hundred bucks, I get the thing done. It's
gonna take some center block, some mortar and we'll go
out there one Afternoonoo done. Yeah, you gotta check in
with sequa. What's this? See the other? Okay, we're gonna
work on the sound. We'll have a quick huddle. What's
the flicker? You played? Dumb? You're listening to more Monks
and Merrill on Saturday night here on KFI.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
You're listening to Monks and Meryll on demand from KFI
AM six forty more stimulating talk.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
More Monks and Merrill. You hear us during the week,
and then you get a special dose of us on
the weekends, some fresh stuff, some of our best hits
from the week. Thanks for being with us. Well, you
talked about the wildfires and Spokane. They are getting out
of control.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
The spires are not natural disasters, there are arson, they're
negligence just like SCEE was found to be grossly negligent,
today we need a different word for these.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Fires where they found to be grossly negligent. Well, here's
what happened today. The La County Fire Department has released
a report saying so Cal Edison electrical tower sparked the
Eton fire. So they concluded in those reports released them
the day electrical arcing on an out of service so
Cal Edison transmission tower sparked that fireback in January of
(10:57):
last year. Of course, the Eton fire grew out of
that droid nine thousand structures and burned fourteen thousand acres
and of course killed at least nineteen people.
Speaker 6 (11:05):
All right, guys, which nobody seems to you know, say
anything about it. You sue Edison because of the fire.
Right now, they're not gonna pay their rates go up,
And if you haven't seen your rates go up by
the electricity companies in the power company's water, that's where
they're paying for all these lawsuits. So the public ends
(11:27):
up paying again.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah, that's the most frustrating thing for me. I mean,
you remember after the fire that burned down Paradise, the campfire,
as I recall, the Grand solution was to have the
three major power companies build this twenty one billion dollar
fund that didn't come out of investor pockets, that didn't
come out of profits, that came out of adding another
fee of the ratepayers and then throwing it into this fund.
(11:49):
Joy Chen is the executive director of Every Fire Survivor's Network.
She's also you may recognize her name is the former
Deputy mayor of Los Angeles. Joining us now, Joy, thank
you so much for being here. This is so frustrating
because I know there's another bill being talked about right
now in Sacramento that would basically create more money for
another fund and allow for the power companies not to
take a hit when these sorts of things happen. How
(12:10):
do how does your group feel about those things coming through?
Speaker 4 (12:14):
That's exactly right. I so appreciate you're bringing shining a
light on what is exactly going on with these repeated bailouts.
What is going on is that there are three electric
monopolies in California, Edison being one of them, that repeatedly
cause catastrophic fires. So this is not our first time
(12:36):
at the rodeo here with the eaton Fire and even
Edison Edison, as you may recall, with the cause of
the Wolfy fire back in twenty eighteen, also in Los
Angeles County. And so this finding of fault of Edison
by County of Los Angeles is something that we all
knew for eighteen months. The world has known forever that
(12:58):
Edison was the ca of this fire. And as you
point out, there is another bailout being secretly negotiated right
now in Sacramento by Governor Newsom. That's been reported on
already in cal Matters, in the Los Angeles Times, in
all sorts of news media who has been tracking this
(13:21):
secret bill and it's not even a bill yet. It's
a secret proposal by Governor Nissum. You know, it is
now early August and it is far too late for
any bills to be introduced. And so what is happening
is a governor has been having secret meetings with keep
with legislators to tell them orally about this latest bailout
(13:45):
that he wants. This has not even been put into
writing as far as any journalists have been able to find,
and they're planning to do what's called a gut and
a mend, meaning take a bill, remove all its contents
and turn it into a utility bailout bill. This actually
happened last year at the same time, at the eleventh
(14:08):
hour the governor, in the last two days of the
legislative session, the governor took a bill that would cap
utility profits, took out the contents and put in two
hundred and thirty one pages of new language that protects
the utilities and does what you what you what you
had said, which is basically creates these new funds in
(14:31):
which we Californians have to bail them out for their
catastrophic failures. The same thing is happening again. But the
but the worst part of this is this one will
reduce the amount of money that eaten fire survivors get
from Edison. And so this is money that we desperately
(14:51):
need to recover, you know. So it's been you know,
it's a it's a terrible, terrible situation, and you're you're
you guys are doing a great service for shining a
light on what's going on. So thank you for connecting
this to what's happening in Sacramento.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Joy Chen is the executive director every Fire Survivor's Network
and enjoy some of the suggestions you've made about what's
going on in Sacramento, they've not been confirmed, they've not
been denied by the Governor's office. The Governor's office has
confirmed that it is discussing while on fire recovery and
catastrophic risk with lawmakers as you suggested there, But what
(15:29):
should be the outcome here? What is it that you
think is the right answer that should come out of
Sacramento as it relates to these utility companies and holding
them accountable for their roles and these these disastrous fires.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
Yeah, well, what the governor's bailout last fall did, Okay,
that bill and then also new handouts that were given
by the CPUC he appoints all five members of the
CPUC gave Edison full profits. Okay, they even fire was
at January of last year. Last September and October, the
(16:07):
governor and his team said, well, we're worried about Edison
going bankrupt here, so therefore we've got to give them
all these protections. And they gave them all these rate
hikes in October, a billion dollar a year future rate
hike and a billion dollars in back pay. Now Edison
two months later, far from going bankrupt, Edison distributed to
(16:28):
its shareholders one point three billion dollars and then two Yeah,
that was very convenient. And it's major shareholders. The three
largest shareholders are all Wall Street banks. You have a
Wall Street financial institution, so you've got Vanguard, You've got
Black Rock, and State Street Bank. So that was a
direct transfer of wealth from hard working Californians to Wall Street.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Who's supposed to be overseeing that kind of stuff. Who's
I mean, who's is this where the regulation is supposed
to step in? From the from the Public Utilities Commission?
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Well, the Public Utilities Commission are all five appointees by
the governor. So yes, they're supposed to be regulating this, okay,
and yet they are not regulating this. They're turning around
and giving all these massive handuffs. And so guess what.
Guess what Edison's profits did for the year that they
killed over nineteen of my neighbors and shatter the lives
(17:22):
of ten thousand others. You would think they should get
a ding in their profits, right, but instead their profits
tripled and from one point one point two billion to
four point five billions, and in their earnings calls, they
said the reason for these incredible financial performance was regulatory decisions.
(17:45):
Joey chen is the executive are the Bailout.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Joey Chenn is the executive director of Every Fire Survivor Network. Joey,
We're going to put you in our speed dial because
I want to have you back on to talk more
about this in the future.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
There any time.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Goody, thank you so much together, good thank you. I
love this. I can't stand with this goes over thanks
to you. I appreciate it. Companies. You're listening to more
Monks and Merrill Saturday nights here on kf I AM sixty.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
You're listening to Monks and Meryll on demand from KFI.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
AM Monks and Merrill on this Wednesday afternoon. So glad
to have you with us. Be fun to have you
with us one day on the old metro trains that
Chris is still the Finny ride. Why we talked about
it this morning. I'm trying to assign a project to
you that you do without me, and I just want
you to go out with a microphone and ride the system,
(18:34):
just so people know. Michael wants me to go ride
the transit system, record a news story for it, and
then he wants to put his name on the news
story and submit it for an award. I would not
put my name on producing produced by you, produced executive produced,
but yeah, executive producer. Fine, hey, Michael Monk's production. Give
me an assignment so you can win an award. I
(18:55):
want you to win an award. Finally, get so many awards,
I didn't keep track of the wall. Let stop moving
them around. Every time I got fired, I kept having
to move all those boxes of awards, certain those through
them out. Meanwhile, Metro says that there are more seats
available for people who want to pay to be on
the system because homelessness at the transit facilities is down
(19:17):
fifty seven percent since twenty twenty four. I don't believe that.
I kind of don't either. I'm glad to see the
stat but to know that homelessness has gone up across
the region the way that it has. Metro is a
big driver, a literal driver of homeless people, because you
can hop on and ride it all day if you like,
(19:40):
and you can go from one place to the next.
You can go to MacArthur Park and hang out for
a while. You can go down to skid Row and
hang out for a while you can go down to
Santa Monica if you want some beach time, or you
can just sleep on the train. But apparently the system
says that data from that same homeless count from the
(20:03):
LA Homeless Services Authority that indicated the homeless population in
Los Angeles had risen three and a half percent last year,
showed a thirty one percent decrease in homelessness on the
transit system the year before. I don't believe it. And
when compared when adding in the decrease from twenty twenty four,
it's a fifty seven percent drop. Fifty seven percent over
the last two years. I think we were to ask
(20:24):
people that are riding the transit systems, or if you
live near, say a metro stop, like I do. I'm
telling you, every morning I wake up to somebody who's
screaming at the clouds that just got off that train.
So if that's somehow way better than it was in
twenty twenty four, I don't see it. Twenty twenty four
(20:45):
was rough. It was absolutely rough. And that was also
the year that it took a violent murder of an
older woman on our way home from work on the
Bee Line for the transit agency and local officials to
get serious about policing that system. So they've got a
Metro Police Force. Not yet, they're still contracting with the
three agencies. But I we have a relatively frequent rider.
(21:09):
Never do I see police, No, very, very rarely have
I ever over the past three years seen a cop
on the transit system. Oh hey, here's something, this is interesting.
Here's an interesting stat from the story. Metro says that
outreach team, whether there's Metro homeless outreach teams, Oh yeah,
we're paying for that too. There's a KFI homeless outreach team.
We're all in all this grift marks chairperson. I wish
(21:32):
we would get some money going out later. Now Metro's
got a billion dollar budget and part of that is
to handle homelessness because we're not paying enough for that
to the county and the city and everywhere else now
because everybody has to talk about how we will. We're
not just kicking them off the system. We're connecting them
with services, wrap around services, interim housing, shelters and all
(21:54):
of that just get them off of the train. Metro
says that they have connected three hundred and fifty four
people to permanent housing during the last fiscal year. Okay,
that's great. I need more data on that. How many
are still in permanent housing? Isn't permanent a word? Doesn't
that mean something connected to permanent housing? Is all it says? Yeah, yeah,
which means we dropped them off at the agency inside
(22:15):
safe and then they walked back out and got on
a bus. Well, yeah, because there aren't any drugs at
the agency. No. By the way, I did see some
homeless people this morning near the station that I thought
that breaks the mold of some of the stereotype that
I think of. It was an older woman. She was
probably in her sixties, although feral humans age faster. She
(22:36):
might she was probably twenty three. Yeah, but I was thinking,
you know, that's the kind of person that as we
talk about the homeless services not working, that's the kind
of person I wanted to work for. Yeah, because the
person who gets off that train and is coming down
from whatever the high was that they were on, and
they start having a fight with the lamp post, right
which every morning I have this. I had it again
this morning too. Woman just came off started screaming god
(22:59):
knows what walking down the road. I thought, those are
the people that just irritate the dickens out of me.
But little old Matilda there, I thought, that's the kind
of person I feel like these services should be helping.
That's where I feel bad, Like, that's where I feel
like the actual services we're paying for are letting the
people who need those services down the chase after the
(23:21):
people that don't want the services. I don't know. I
don't know. I wonder that's what I thought. Yeah, no, no, no,
I think it's a fair thought. I wonder if let's
say you are at retirement age and you're facing what
they call housing and security. You're running out of money
the rents do and there are supposed to be some
backstops there. God knows we funded enough backstops. If you
(23:42):
called while you were still in your house, how would
that process work? Would there be some funding, Would there
be some help for you? I don't know. Would they
tell you, sorry, we're in skid row, we're busy helping
somebody doesn't want help exactly? I don't know. Do you guys,
do you have to get to the point where you
are out of your house before they help you? Saying
that that they don't want to do that, but they
want to help you before. And that's true. And that's
(24:04):
what I mean is that I think there must be
some success with those programs. Otherwise it does feed their lie.
They often talk about the homeless population. Is it's because
of the housing, the expensive housing here, And I think
that's not it. That's that these again, these people didn't
meet last These people did not miss last month's rent. Yeah, well,
I think the lydy I saw I did, although I
(24:24):
don't know. Maybe Ethel's a crack addict. Yeah, exactly. I've
seen there are old people on the drugs will get
to them before age. Does you know. I don't see
nearly as many old people. I see some pretty I
see a pretty good amount of senior citizens. That's interesting,
and they look just as crazy as everybody else. Well, okay,
I spit on them, just the same as I do
(24:45):
the other one. Good for you, Yes, I walked past
and cool opportunity. People have always thought that about you.
I wish them don't discriminate, but they are. I mean,
I see usually it's the older ones that are in
the middle of traffic causing the best scenes because they're
the most experienced performers. They've been at this a long time.
Or having like dementia issues. No, their brains are fried
because of all the drugs they did. Doesn't sound very sympathetic.
(25:07):
By the way, this count that Meryl is heralding. Excuse me,
Metro is harolding. It's that same count that LASSA does
when they're accounting people in the tents, which isn't very scientific.
It's it's a it's an escue. They didn't get on
all the buses, they didn't get on all the trains.
They were basically looking around the stations. So if all
the whole people build the seats, because I think that'll
(25:29):
probably give you a good read. Yeah, that's how we
would know. If you've written two thirds of these seats
smell like urine, homelessnesses, crack? Is that they ever smelled
crack on the subway? If not, you know why, that's
why I don't write the subway. Yeah, you're listening to
more Monks and Meryl here on KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
You're listening to Monks and Meryl onto the air from
kf I AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Available anywhere on the Iart radio app. You know what
we were talking about to a paramount in the Warner
Brothers and it sounds like they're Court eight is coming
up here in March. But David Ellison is trying to
get out there. He hasn't said a whole lot, but
now he's dropping some statements. And I was reading about this.
I was reading The La Times had a story about it.
Meg James was writing this up and she was saying
basically that David Ellison's like, look, the only issue people
(26:15):
have here is my politics. That's it. Meg joins us
right now, staff writer with the La Times. Meg, thanks
so much for joining us today. It's a pleasure having
on the program. Is there legitimacy to what he's saying?
Is he catching flat because of the politics behind this,
or is he trying to deflect from the anti trust accusations.
Speaker 7 (26:34):
Well, I mean this is and thank you for having me.
This is a huge merger and it's been incredibly controversial.
And to be sure, one of the reasons why this
deal is controversial is because a lot of people don't
trust David Allison in his words, to control CNN, and
(26:55):
so there is a political component to this deal because
his thought other Larry Ellison, the co founder of Oracle,
one of the world's richest billionaires, is very tight with
President Trump, and that relationship has helped Paramount get their
deals through the federal government. But there are other reasons
(27:16):
too why people in Hollywood in particular really fear further consolidation.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Well, let's expand on some of those because we talked
a bit about those fears in our previous segment. But
how do those fears relate to David Ellison's politics, if
at all.
Speaker 7 (27:35):
Well, the fears in Hollywood are that thousands of more
people will lose their jobs. We've you know, had several
mergers over the past decade, and they've all resulted in,
you know, widespread layoffs. When Disney acquired some of the
Fox properties in twenty nineteen, there were thousands of employees
Fox employees who lost their jobs, and you know, the
(27:58):
amount of movies that was produced actually declined. Then in
twenty twenty two, we had Discovery Little Discovery taking over
Warner Media from AT and T, and again thousands of
employees were laid off. So this is a real fear
in Hollywood. Even labor data shows that since twenty twenty two,
(28:19):
the industry has lost more than fifty thousand jobs. Entertainment
jobs in Los Angeles area, and that's what's driving a
lot of this, to be sure, And to David Ellison's point,
there's also a political component as well.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Meg James is joining US staff. Right at the LA
Times we talked about what David Ellison said. He says
that to much the opposition is politically based, and I'm curious.
Maggie did a great job laying out some of the
jobs that are going to be affected or have been
affected in the past, and what is potentially coming down
the pike if this merger goes through. If Netflix had
won that bidding war with Warner Brothers, would it be
a different conversation or would it just be a different
(28:55):
names and having the same conversation.
Speaker 7 (28:57):
Well, you know, that's a really good point, because there
there were some people who thought that the Netflix deal
would be really, you know, interesting because they're the biggest streamer.
But make no mistake, Netflix would have run into a
boatload of regulatory opposition in the United States and in
Europe because it is so dominant in streaming. So I mean,
while you know that for some parties maybe Netflix seemed cooler,
(29:21):
I think that you know, that deal might never have
actually been consummated because there would have been real significant
antitrust concerns about taking the Netflix platform and the HBO
Max platform and making such a super dominant platform that
that probably would not have past muster, And also I
(29:44):
suspect it was a big reason why Netflix pulled out
of the bidding.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
In February, Paramount chairman David Ellison says that the big
objection to his company's pursuit of Warner Brothers is political.
And we're joined by Meg James, a staff writer at
The La Times, who about this recently. What's at stake
for CBS and CNN here and how do they play
in the overarching narrative around this potential merger.
Speaker 7 (30:10):
Well, I mean, that's a great question, because you know,
most quarters people think that the Ellisons will merge the operation,
the news operations. Obviously they'll keep CBS News as a
division that will you know, fill the broadcast network, and
CNN will continue to be a cable channel and also
a very robust digital side around the world. But there
(30:34):
have been concerns. Since David Elson acquired Paramount last August
and then installed Barry Weiss as the editor in chief
of CBS, there's been a lot of shakeups, including of
sixty minutes, one of the most trusted brands in television,
and you know, people pushing back saying like she's trying to,
(30:55):
you know, force the news coverage into a pasture where
it's more sympathetic to President Trump. Now, you know, to
be sure, there hasn't been evidence that you know, false
narratives have been injected into CBS News is reporting that
just hasn't happened, according to our sources. But Barry Weiss
(31:19):
is pushed to reporters to you know, include more perspectives
and viewpoints, and her tenure has really rubbed some people
the wrong way.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Meg James from The Only Times joining us right now
is we're covering this merger what David Ellison has said
here in his latest and I'm so glad you brought
that up. Meg, I'm wondering again. Let me pitch you
another hypothetical. If this were not the Ellisons trying to
buy Warner Brothers, but rather this were say NBC Universal
trying to buy the Fox brains that remain independent from
(31:52):
the murdogs like Fox News, would be be having similar criticism.
It would just be twelve attorneys general from the Republicans'
suing to try to stop it instead of from the Democratic side,
or would the Democrats have the same anti trust issues.
Speaker 7 (32:07):
Well, I mean, these are all real good hypotheticals, and
I would, you know, say that David Ellison there is
a modicum of truth and what he's saying, the fears
about his stewardship of CBS News and what that would
mean to CNN, has really animated a lot of folks.
(32:28):
But what I'm here to say is that I think
the opposition to the merger is much broader than that,
and also is key to just keeping Hollywood jobs in Hollywood.
And as you know, we've struggled mightily. So would there
be a you know, a red state uprising if Comcasts
(32:48):
were to have gotten these assets, you know, who knows? Maybe,
And I think there would have been a lot of opposition,
and there was growing opposition to Netflix. I think that
whenever you have a deal of this size, more than
one hundred and eleven billion dollars, a deal that will
change Hollywood, a lot of people are going to be worried.
(33:08):
And a lot of people, you know, have lived and
worked and loved Hollywood content and they don't want to
see that changed.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Great reporting, Meg we appreciate thanksg James from the La Times. Matt,
we look forward to having you on again. I hope
you'll join us in the future.
Speaker 7 (33:24):
Well, thank you so much for having me today. You
guys do well all right, Thank.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
You so much, really nice John. This is more Monks
and Meryl catches weekdays twelve to three for just regular
old Monks and Merril. Thanks for being here for more. Now,
let's get the latest from the KFI twenty four hour
newsroom and KFI on Demand. You've been listening to Monks
and Merrill here the show live weekdays from noon to
three on KFI Am six forty and anytime on demand
(33:49):
on the iHeartRadio app.
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