August 25, 2025 • 39 mins
Listen to The Next-Gen Report live! Sundays at 7:00 p.m. on AM950, KPRC.
For no discernible reason, beloved country store and restaurant Cracker Barrel has undergone a massive rebranding, becoming little more than another example of corporate minimalist slop. Unsurprisingly, everyone hates it.
The redistricting war is starting to heat up, with Republicans in the Texas Legislature finally passing their new maps. So where do we go from here?
For the latest news, follow me on Instagram and X:
@the.ethanbuchanan
@_ethanbuchanan
Watch this episode of The Next-Gen Report on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/mgZQVlRVzfM
For no discernible reason, beloved country store and restaurant Cracker Barrel has undergone a massive rebranding, becoming little more than another example of corporate minimalist slop. Unsurprisingly, everyone hates it.
The redistricting war is starting to heat up, with Republicans in the Texas Legislature finally passing their new maps. So where do we go from here?
For the latest news, follow me on Instagram and X:
@the.ethanbuchanan
@_ethanbuchanan
Watch this episode of The Next-Gen Report on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/mgZQVlRVzfM
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
From the heart of the Space City to the heart
of gen Z. Welcome to Next Gen Conversation, not Dad's
Talk Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Ethan talks to you about the issues and events that
manors to our generation.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
This is the next Gen Report.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
What Ethan?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
You can't?
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Hey?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Happy Sunday evening, everybody, alrighty, what do we got going
on today? We have got quite a bit. It has
been a busy week. Busy good for me, busy bad
for other folks. We might as well talk about it.
Cracker Barrel, what are you doing? Nobody asked for rebrand,
(00:46):
Nobody wanted a rebrand. You didn't need a rebrand. Everyone
was happy with Cracker Barrel as it was. But for
whatever reason, reasons yet to be determined. For sure, as
far as I'm aware, you decide to rebrand. Nobody asked
for it, nobody wanted it. You ruined it. Good job.
There's a philosophy that I like to rely on a
(01:07):
lot in life, and I think the Cracker Barrels CEO
or suits or whoever made this god awful decision could
have leaned into that. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I think we all agree. Cracker Barrel wasn't broke, there
was no reason to fix it. We all go to
Cracker Barrel for one reason. We like to look at
the weird stuff on the walls and maybe shop around
(01:28):
in the country store that's in front of the main
dining area. And we like it. We like the rocking shares,
we like the checkers, we like the little pin game
that's on the table, and we like the fact that
it's kind of weird. They got a bunch of old,
cool stuff on the wall. Nobody had a problem with that. Nobody.
There were jokes about the name Cracker Barrel, but nobody
(01:50):
actually had an issue with Cracker Barrel unless I'm missing
some major controversy that nobody filled me in on. So
I'm sure by now you've all seen the rebrand, but
if you haven't, there it is. Here's what it looks like.
If you're listening on the radio right now, you can't
hear it, obviously, but I'm looking at it, and we're
recording this right now for YouTube, so you'll be able
(02:12):
to go back and look at it if you've somehow
missed it. But we all know Cracker Barrel. They've got
the gray walls, that hard floor and there's all kinds
of cool old stuff just thrown about the wall randomly. Right.
It looks nice. They've got their thing going. I like it.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
It kind of.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Feels like you walked into some grandma's shed, right. I
think it's a good vibe for them versus the rebrand
is just corporate minimalist garbage. They repainted the walls white
instead of just random stuff strown about the walls, which
has its own kind of unique charm to it. They've
got everything very neat and orderly. There's a piece of
(02:51):
wood on the wall with a bunch of different cups
very neatly organized on it, and a bunch of different
rolling pins neatly organized on it. Where's all the old
random pick right, all the ancient Coca Cola posters from
the fifties, the random pieces of equipment on the walls,
It's gone. There's no old boat engines, there's no old
(03:11):
you know, paddles for a rowboat. It's all gone. It's
just corporate minimalist garbage, and everybody hates it. Nobody likes this.
This one account futurist at America is great or America
is great, tweeted out Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Messino, white
woman apologizing for country living, has decided for a rebrand
(03:35):
of Cracker Barrel that is more woke oh and not
more country store in the logo Cracker Barrel or main
in logo. I don't know what this tweet means. It's
not written in English, but the point they're trying to
get across is this is bad. It's just not a
good rebrand. Again, it's the corporate minimalist garbage that everybody
(03:56):
has decided we hate, but they went all out for it.
I don't know if this was done specifically for the
purpose of wokeness. I don't know if it was done
just to be modern and cool. But nobody likes it.
Nobody wants this. And the stock value shows that. If
you're watching on the YouTube video you can see it.
(04:18):
But if you're not, if you're listening on the radio here,
the stock has plummeted. The stock has absolutely cratered. It's
down to fifty four dollars a share. That's down from
fifty six dollars. So you know, it's not like, oh,
they're completely worth nothing, but it's a significant drop off,
(04:38):
a significant drop off. I think the estimates in market value. Yeah,
one hundred million. Cracker Barrel loses almost one hundred million
in value as stock plunges after new logo. I showed
you the wall rebrand. I haven't showed you the logo yet.
We all know the Cracker Barrel logo, right, It's got
the dude sitting in a rocking chair next to a
barrel which I assume is full of crackers, and it
(04:59):
says cracker barrel in creative writing. Let me see if
I can for the YouTube viewers, for those watching the
video later, let's see here images. Yeah, here's the old
Cracker Barrel logo. It's unique, it's kind of fun, it's
got something going on. And then here's the new one,
corporate minimalist garbage. We hate it. Everyone hates it. Jamille Hill,
(05:24):
she's an actress. She tried to make the case that
we just disliked this because we're evil Republicans. The reality
is they saw the Cracker Barrel CEO was a woman,
and they went off the rails and assumed this was
a diversity play with no evidence. Again, even if this
isn't a diversity play, which I'm not sure this could be,
the CEO is a woke leftist and she just wants
(05:46):
to destroy everything that could possibly be labeled Southern culture.
Or it could just be she's stupid and wanted to
do a corporate minimalist rebrand. Either way, we hate it.
Everyone hates it. I could find out that she voted
for Trump and would walk over glass to vote for
him again and still hate this rebrand because it's just bad.
(06:08):
This is completely a political This is universally dislike. Look
at this tweet from the Democrats. The official Democrat DNC
excount tweeted out, we think the Cracker barrel rebrand sucks too.
Everyone hates this. Nobody wanted to see this happen. Leave
good enough alone. The dirty little secret about most Americans
(06:30):
is we actually like culture. We actually like things like
the old cracker barrel. It doesn't have to look, you know,
completely polished and corporate and garbage. This is actual Americana
right here. Old Coca Cola posters from the fifties, old
pieces of equipment that most people probably don't know what
(06:50):
they do, but we know somebody used to use them,
and it's kind of interesting. There's a story behind it.
They've got a little red wagon hanging up right there.
We like that just hanging on the wall. I had
a wagon just like that when I was a kid.
I used to love playing with it. That reminds me
of my childhood, and I'm only in my twenties. Imagine
(07:13):
people in their fifties walking in or sixties or seventies
and seeing things that they remember a time when these
things weren't antiques that hung up on the wall. These
were part of actual everyday American life. We liked that.
We want more of that. Why did you think it
was necessary to do this obnoxious corporate rebrand. Nobody asked
(07:34):
for it, nobody likes it universally. It's completely a political
all right, we will be right back. We've got a
whole great show coming up for you, so stay tuned.
We're gonna run some quick ads, let the sponsors get there,
get their dollar bills paid for, and then we'll be
right back to stations.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
All right.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
I'm sorry if it seems like I'm getting a little
overpassionate about Cracker Barrel. The reason for that is I
actually really like cracker Barrel. I think the food is
pretty good, but again, I like the environment. You know,
it's fun to be there, it's fun to play checkers there.
I have a lot of good memories at Cracker Barrel.
I used to go there a lot with my grandparents
on both my father and mother's side. That was one
(08:40):
of their favorite I guess that's because their grandparents. I
think that's part of being a grandparent. You have to
like once your child has their first child, something in
your mind just clicks and you have to go to
Cracker Barrel. But that was always one of my favorite
places to go with both my father's parents and my
mother's parents. So I have a lot of good memories there,
playing checkers with both my grandma parents, my grandparents, teaching
(09:01):
me how to play the little peg game, and then
shopping around seeing cool stuff there in the in the shop,
cool neat, little old kind of fifty sixty style toys
and stuff. It was neat. It was always a fun experience.
I liked it, So I do kind of take it personally.
Should I know? Is it rational?
Speaker 2 (09:18):
No?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Do I a little bit? A little bit? Welcome back,
This is the next gen report. I'm Ethan Buchanan. Give
me a quick follow on X by the way at Underscore.
Ethan Buchanan b U C H A N an We're
gonna say out Cracker bar for just a minute, and
then we're gonna talk about the economy. Amuse tweeted out,
this is one of my favorite accounts. Go broke New
Dei hire ceo is rebranding Cracker Barrel to decolonize it again.
(09:43):
This is all I guess his assumption. I'm not sure
how political this move actually was. It may very well
have been political, it may very well not have been.
Either way. It's stupid. Either way, both sides of the
aisle agree it's stupid. So I mean, I guess shout
out to the Cracker Barrel CEO for bringing Democrats and
Republicans together, something everybody thought was impossible. What's even more
(10:05):
annoying is the fact that this CEO refuses to acknowledge
she did anything wrong. She insists that people actually like it,
which is patently and observably false. But here she is
on Good Morning America saying, no, actually, people really love this,
even though universally I'm being trashed for it and our
stock prices have tanked. Actually, people like it.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Honestly, the feedback's been overwhelmingly positive that people like what
we're doing. I'll give you another SoundBite. I actually happened
to be in Orlando last week with all of our managers.
We bring them together and once every other year, and
the number one question that I got asked Michael was
how can I get a remodel? When can I get
a remodel? How do I get on the list? Really so,
because the feedback and the buzz is so good, not
(10:46):
only from our customers but from our team members. They
want to work in a wonderful restaurant. So we're doing
everything for our guests and our team members.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
When Dula Messina's wonderful to have you here, pleasure to
be thank you.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I answer those.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Questions for all the crack and beery fans. There a
lot of great changes. Thank you so much. All right,
thank you, Robin. Do you see the great changes in
the room with us right now? There are no good changes.
Nobody wants this, Nobody likes it. Find me one person,
just one who actually says, yeah, I love completely destroying
(11:20):
the iconic brand and identity of this restaurant. It's a lie.
Everyone hates this now. I said, it may be political,
and it may very well be because we know the
CEO is woke. This is their big endorsement deal for
the LGBTQ Alliance. They sponsored I think the Nashville Pride
(11:40):
Parade for a while, So maybe this is part of that.
Maybe they really are just going woke. I don't know.
Maybe they just made a terrible business decision. Either way,
it's stupid. I mean, maybe there's the argument to be
made that, oh, lgbtqp don't feel comfortable eating at Cracker
(12:02):
Barrel because there's an old boat engine and a red
wagon on the wall. Guess what. Rebranding isn't going to
bring those people in. You're not gonna magically just have
all these people start coming to your restaurant. All you're
going to do is alienate your base. That's it. That's
all that's gonna happen. Nobody wants this, nobody does. It's corporate,
(12:23):
minimalist garbage. People just don't like it. They're not gonna start.
I can't say this enough. All you're doing is hurting
your base. You're not encouraging more people to come in.
You just aren't. Anyway, let's talk about some good news.
I'm tired, I'm getting I'm getting upset about this. I
(12:43):
missed the old Cracker Barrel bring her back anyway, Let's
talk about the overall economy. Democrats have insisted for months
now that it's in the toilet, that we're all going
to die of poverty and poorness, and there's no escape.
It's just not happening. He tweeted out. I think this
was on Friday. He tweeted this out when the market
just skyrocketed. Here's a picture of the SMP five hundred
(13:05):
for my radio listeners out there. Remember back in April
when all the quote unquote experts said the economy was
tanking and told you to sell and then told you
to hold your stocks to buy more if you had
and I told you to hold your stocks and buy
more if you had spare cash. You're up over thirty
percent since April if you bought more and if you
held stocks hit another high today. Congrats, So some good
(13:29):
signs for the economy. We're doing well. I've said this
multiple times on the show. I will continue to say it.
We're making progress. It's going to be slow progress, it
won't be overnight progress, but it's progressing nonetheless, and we
should be happy about it. It's good. We're making progress.
We're doing better. This just further goes to show you
how poorly the cracker barrel rebrand decision was, because, I mean,
(13:53):
while the rest of the economy is skyrocking, Cracker Barrel
is in the dump. Look at the comparison here. Let
me drag this over so you can take a little
peak at it. Here's cracker barrel stock. Here's the overall
SMP five hundred. See the difference. If you're listening on
the radio, you can't see it. It's cracker barrel obviously
(14:14):
tanking and the S and P five hundred on a moonshot.
So it was not a good decision. It wasn't anyway.
There's a couple of reasons I think for this particular moonshot.
First of all, federal employment is going down. That is
a good thing because that means we can save some
money in the federal budget, right we want that. Less
(14:35):
federal employees is a good thing. Those people are not
contributing to the economy. They're getting paid in taxpayer dollars.
They're taking money away from the private sector, which is
where most people are, which is where all the growth
and innovation happens, and they're using it to fund the
private Yeah, the public sector. They're taking money from the
private sector, which is where the growth in innovation happens,
and they're using it to fund the public sector, which
(14:58):
does essentially nothing at all except being inconvenienced. So losing
federal employees is actually a good thing. Obviously, it's difficult
for those federal employees go get a different job in
the public sector. Here is the Office of Personnel Management
Services Director. What is his name, Scott Koupor. I've never
(15:18):
heard of this guy before. I didn't know we had this,
but here he is talking about the massive downsizing in
federal employees. Take a listen.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
So we started the year at roughly about two point
four million civilian employees, right, so forget about kind of
uniform military right now, that's roughly the workforce. They're obviously
not all here in DC, but my guess is probably
more than half of them were in DC.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
If we end the.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Year on track, we probably will end up somewhere closer
to two point one million, so about three hundred thousand
difference roughly, and the vast majority of that comes through
basically voluntary retirement program. So you may have heard of
the DRP, which was the deferred resignation program. More than
half of the total number of people kind of elected
to take that. The federal company has something called you're
(16:00):
a visive, which these acronyms are all crazy, but basically
also is a retirement type program. So about roughly seventy
five to eighty percent of the total headcount production will
come from kind of voluntary and then the remainder will
come from some form of riffs that we did, some
forms of probationary employees, but those will be a minority
of the amount of headcount.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So okay, So as far as I'm concerned, that seems
like a pretty universally good thing, right. I mean, it's
not going to really hurt these people, these federal employees
to not have those jobs anymore because they're going to
be retiring. They have kind of pensions and whatnot programs,
so it's not like they need to be working or
they're just going to be unemployed and suffer and be poor.
(16:40):
And at the same time, we're reducing our federal work count,
our federal workers count, So again's that's more money that
the government can save, which of course means hopefully, hopefully,
cross your fingers and pray to God, hopefully less taxes
where we actually get those less taxes. I don't know,
but it happens. Here's some more good news. Joon Powell
(17:02):
may finally be cutting rates. We're long overdue for a
rate cut. I think that's universally recognized. He's now actually
starting to hint that, yes, he will cut rates. He
said that at a speech earlier this week. I think
that was on Thursday or Friday. Yeah, it was Friday
that he signaled he would finally be actually cutting rates.
This is a good thing. We want this less rate
(17:24):
or lettle it up. Cut the rates. That means businesses
can really take off. They can take out some of
those business loans that they need to do things like
grow their business, invest in their employees. We can actually
start growing the economy the private sector rather than the
public sector. Everything I'm seeing is good news. Obviously, we've
(17:44):
got a long way to go, but we're making progress.
All right, We've got another break coming up, and then
we'll be right back. We're going to talk about this
rate on John Bolton's house, So stay tuned. I mean
think you can in this is the next gener report.
We will be right back. All right, let's talk well, actually,
(18:20):
before we get to John Bolton, and we will get
to John Bolton. We will spend a lot of time
on John Bolton. Let's talk real quick about Canada, the
old Canadians. They have caved to Trump. Shock of shocks.
Nobody saw it coming except everybody. Canada has caved to Trump.
They indeed announced that they have reached a deal with
(18:43):
the United States. Here is Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney
announcing that Canada is basically dropping all their retilatory tariffs
and making a trade deal with the United States. Take
a listen.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
So let's be absolutely clear, Canada currently has the best
trade deal with the United States, and while it's different
from what we had before, it is still better than
that of any other country. So as we work to
(19:15):
address outstanding trade issues with the United States, it's important,
it's vital we do everything we can to preserve this
unique advantage for Canadian workers Canadian businesses, and doing so
will require both building on a soon to be revised COSMA,
(19:35):
our free trade agreement with US of Mexico, as well
as developing a new form of trade and security partnership
with the United States. In this context, and consistent with
Canada's commitment to COSMA, I'm announcing today that the Canadian
government will now match we will now match the United
(19:57):
States by removing all of CA natas tariffs on US
goods specifically covered under Christmas.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
All right, So good news for the United States, big,
big win for US. And you can tell Carney's not
happy about that. If you're if you're listening on the radio,
I encourage you, Uh, probably in an hour, maybe a
little bit longer.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
If not, you can always go check back on Monday morning.
But go find us on the YouTube and actually watch
that video. You can see how defeated he is. If
you just look at his eyes. Bro, he's in shambles.
He is in shambles. He is not happy about that
trade deal. But let that serve as a reminder for you,
(20:42):
because every once in a while, Canada will start to
talk tough. They'll act like they're the big guys in
the room. We're Canada, we're powerful, we're cold, and we're
north of view. They're still just Canadians, guys. They will
bend the knee. Eventually. We own them, We own this continent.
It's ours, all of North America blocks to US, Mexico
act right, We're coming for you.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
Next.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
All right, let's talk about John Bolton. We all wanted
to hear about it. We're gonna hear about it. The
FBI conducted a court authorized search Friday at former National
Security Advisor John Bolton's home and office as part of
a renewed investigation into whether he disclosed classified information into
his twenty twenty book. According to two people familiar with
(21:23):
the matter, this report is, according to CNN, by the way,
so grand as salt to everybody. We know how the
mainstream media is, and there by all means the mainstream
among mainstreams. So but regardless of that, this is kind
of funny, right John Bolton, if you're not familiar with him,
he was the President's National security advisor, I believe, during
(21:44):
his first term, and like many of the suits in
Trump's first term, he has since become a vocal critic
of Donald Trump. What's really funny to me is the
fact that this was over classified documents, or alleged classified documents.
I'm gonna sy allegedly because John Bolton hasn't officially been
(22:04):
convicted of anything, or to my knowledge, even necessarily charged.
So all of this is with the overarching allegedly, all right,
this maybe happen, probably happened. We don't know. Okay, allegedly
quote unquote. I'm not saying I'm just reporting this allegedly happened.
Don't sue me, don't sue keep a orc nine to fifty.
(22:24):
We're just giving you what people are saying. All right,
we're not saying it. I'm not saying it. But allegedly,
this is what's going on. He had classified documents that
he used in his twenty twenty book that he wasn't
supposed to. Now, I'll remind you with Donald Trump's alleged
classified documents scandal. Trump was the president. He can just say, no,
(22:48):
I declassified all of these. I'm allowed to have them
in my bathroom at mar Lago. John Bolton can't say that.
John Bolton doesn't get to declassified documents. Trump can unilaterally
just say it and it's declassified. John doesn't have that power,
all right. The investigative step immediately drew criticism that President
Donald Trump was using the muscle of the US government
(23:09):
to target a political foe through though the specific basis
for the searches was not clear, and that's where the
controversy arises. Right immediately, that was the line from the left.
Everybody went nuts saying, oh, this is what Hitler did.
He's attacking his political enemies, just like Hitler. That's their line.
(23:32):
Every time Trump so much as takes a sip of water,
they're like here or drake water two, Trump must be
a Nazi. But yeah, okay, how about this, Maybe John
Bolton actually committed a crime. I don't know. I'm not
saying he did, but if he did, that should be investigated,
right right. I think this is kind of funny. This
(23:53):
may be dark of me for saying this is kind
of funny, but here is John Bolton's wife for the
YouTube viewers, right after the FBI show up on her door.
John Molten's wife looked like she'd just come face to
face with a ghost this morning. Yeah, kind of it
might be needing me to laugh at that. She seems
like just some old lady. She may be a nice woman.
(24:15):
I don't know, but it is a little bit funny.
It is a little bit funny. And again, if you're
listening on the radio right now, just stay tuned, we're
recording it. You'll be able to go look at these
pictures that I'm showing people right now. Follow me on ax,
I'll tweet out a link to the YouTube video when
it goes up at underscore Ethan Buchanan. But again back
to the point I got off track. The left immediately
(24:36):
went nuts over this near at Tendon. I don't know
who this lady is. Let's actually see I can investigate.
She's probably got an in personal account, liberal Indian American
feminist mom wife. Okay, so she's just some woke chick.
Here she is in a picture with Joe Biden. This
is gestopo like tactics against political enemies. Any Republicans going
to speak up? It's funny because the number one tweet
(24:59):
un or hers is a picture of Donald Trump's mugshot.
The left has no ground to stand on here. You
guys charged and arrested the former president of the United
States for allegedly the exact same thing. We don't care.
You can't stand here and say, oh, how are you
targeting political enemies with the DOJ You guys opened the
(25:20):
door to this, and we warned you when you did
it in twenty twenty two, when you rated mar A Lago,
we said, just you wait, you've opened the floodgates. Now
you've made it okay to do this, it will be
done to you as well. John Bolton's neighbor. He again
(25:41):
apparently liberal, Big surprise, he lived in Bethesda, Maryland. Everybody's
woke there. Here he is going the same line. Trump
is a national disgrace. How could you do this?
Speaker 7 (25:52):
Is all of this retribution and vengeance and using the
DOJ and the FBI and the power of government to
go after anybody who disagrees with him is frightening. And
it's only going to get worse if we don't do
something and they get stopped and he scares the crap.
Speaker 6 (26:09):
Out of it.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Be scared, cry about it. I don't care. This same
guy was probably cheering when they rated mar A Lago.
I don't care. You started this. We didn't start this.
And again hear me out, maybe allegedly he actually did
something wrong. No one's above the law, right right? That
was what we were told for years when you were
(26:31):
politically prosecuting Donald Trump, we heard no one is above
the law, not even the president. John Bolton himself said this. Here.
He is right after or during, I don't know, whenever
he got on with CNN. This is the mar A
Lago raid. He's talking about here. We all remember the
iconic violent raid of mar A Lago when they came
(26:51):
in and seized documents that Trump said he did he
classify that were being stored at mar A Lago, and
John Bolton himself goes on CNN and says, no one
is above the law any given moment. But I don't
forgive me MSNBC.
Speaker 8 (27:03):
Any given moment. But I don't think he cared about
the classification system. I don't think he appreciated the sensitivity
of this information, and he didn't appreciate the sensitivity of
how it was often acquired the so called sources and methods.
So this had been brief to him before I arrived,
it was repeated frequently. I think it simply had no
(27:26):
impact on him.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Whatever.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
There's a couple of different ways that people think about this,
and people who are not friendly to the president who
think about what's happened here, and one of them is,
you know, Donald Trump, master thief, you know, criminal running
the kind of elaborate conspiracy to bring things out of
the White House and keep him secret for potentially for
political or financial gain. There are other people who add
its attitude as Trump is chaotic, he's careless. He's not
(27:51):
that smart. He just he wants He took these things
almost by mistake, and now he's basically stamping his feet
and saying, their mind, I don't want to give them up.
Give me a sense of you think the truth? Wise
with respect to Trump's intelligence, carelessness, and the degree to
which he might have brought motive to bear on taking
these documents out of the ways and keeping them for
(28:11):
this long at mar Laga.
Speaker 8 (28:16):
Well, I don't It's very hard to speculate on motive
other than that he liked cool things. He saw things
that he so he wanted to take them, and he
was pretty much able to take them, and not just
on classified information matters, on all kinds of things that
crossed his desk. Some days he liked to eat a
lot of French fries. Some days he took classified documents.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
He wanted them.
Speaker 8 (28:38):
Why did he want them because he could get them?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Well, allegedly you did the same thing, John, So we'll
see how that works out for you. We'll watch this carefully.
But again, no one is above the law. You made
your bed, you're lying in it, all right. We got
another break coming up, and then we'll be right back
with more on the Next Time Report, stay tuned wherever it. Alrighty,
(29:17):
let's talk about Texas, shall we? My favorite topic? I
love Texas. What I need to do if I'm gonna
keep doing these on YouTube as well? Which again, radio listeners,
hear me now, I'm recording this live right now. So
if there's anything you want to actually see that I'm
(29:38):
talking about, search up the YouTube channel the next Gen Report.
It'll be up there, will have the videos posted. I
don't know when exactly because I have to now edit
everything that I'm doing live here on the air for you,
but follow me on x at Underscore Ethan Buchanan b
U C H A N A N and you'll be
able to see when it goes up on the you tube.
(30:00):
So there that is. Anyway, my point being, I need
to get like a Texas star flag. If you're watching
on the YouTube video right now, you can see where
I'm pointing at somewhere back here. All right, I need
to make this look fancy. But anyway, let's talk about Texas.
We finally got our redistricting maps past. This comes after
(30:21):
the Democrats, through a fit fled the state, have been
throwing a temper tanks from constantly are threatening to start
a redistricting war over all of this. Whatever, the good
news is, we got it passed, plus about five Republican
seats in Texas to the federal Congress. This is good news.
I like this. Here is the Fox News report about
(30:43):
the maps finally getting passed through both the House and
Senate after legitimate weeks of Democrat delay.
Speaker 9 (30:53):
This is a Fox's alert. I'm Gently Painter in New York.
We're following breaking news out of Texas, where the Republican
led state Senate just passed a new congressional map. The
eighteen to eight vote was finalized after Republicans blocked a filibuster.
The bill Neil heads to Governor Greg Abbot's desk to
be signed into law. The new map was drawn to
(31:14):
help the DLP win as many as five additional US
House seats in next year's midterm elections. This marks the
final legislative hurdle for the redistricting plan backed by President
Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The Senate's approval follows
weeks of uncertainty after House Democrats fled the state for
fifteen days to block the two thirds quorum needed to
(31:36):
conduct business lawyers advise them to return on Monday to
build a strong public record ahead of a potential legal battle.
All of this has ignited an intensifying nationwide redistricting arms race.
California Democrats responded on Thursday by approving their own new
congressional map. It would hand Democrats five more favorable house
(31:58):
districts like Unlike Texas As, California voters still have to
approve the new congressional map in November's election, specifically once
a decade. Process is now expected to spread to other
states in the coming week.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
So the big question is will this actually lead to
a massive redistricting war. I think probably it will. I
don't have a problem with that. I don't one because
I know Republicans are win. We have a lot more
room to redistrict across all of our Republican states than
the Democrats do. Because the dirty little secret here is
(32:33):
the Democrats have already heavily gerrymandered their states, so we
have way more room to grow than they do. Guess
what you play three games? You win superprizes. All right,
good job, Democrats, you played yourself. So I like the
idea of an all out redistricting war. And I also
like the idea of red states being red states and
blue states being blue states. That actually gives the voters
(32:56):
an advantage. You can actually say, hey, I want to
live in a state where everybody in that state is
governed the way I want them to be governed, and
all the representatives are the representatives I want. I want
to live in a Republican state, have a Republican governor,
have a Republican representative in Congress. I want to just
(33:16):
be in a Republican area. If the red states are
just red and the blue states are just blue, that
gives people that option. Maybe that's a little bit short sighted.
Maybe that divides the country more. Guess what, we're divided anyway,
So at least let people have the representation they want.
That's my two cents on the topic. And I'm saying
this as someone who has a Democrat representative right now
(33:39):
that I don't like. I'm a staunch Republican. You don't
get farther to the right than me what you do.
But we don't want to talk about that. We don't
want to talk about those people. All that to say,
I want a strong Republican representing me in Congress, I do.
I want a strong Republican governor. I want a strong
Republican state congress. That's what I want. So if we
(34:01):
redistrict all of these Democrats out, I'll be happy. And
if you want something else, you can go and move
to a blue state. You can. That's the beauty of
the modern world is you can pretty much do most
jobs these days from just about anywhere, so you can
just pick your whole life up and move. I'm not
saying it's easy. I'm not saying you can do it overnight,
but it can be done. And if that's what you want,
(34:23):
go for it. Do it. Have the representation you want.
You can live under Democrat policy and Democrat rules, and
I can live in my red state under Republican policy
and Republican rule, and we don't have to agree on everything.
You can do your thing, I can do mine. That's
actually the way our system was built to run. I
think it's a good thing. Again, that could be short sighted.
(34:44):
I could be completely wrong on that, but that's my
two cents. Anyway, we did finally get the maps pass,
and of course the Democrats oops had actually auto played.
The Democrats are not happy about it. Here is on
the Senate. After they passed those maps, the Democrats went
absolutely nuts. There's a video floating around of Democrats in
(35:08):
the gallery of the Texas Senate or I guess just
leftists protesters that started screaming that the Republicans who passed
the new maps were fascists. They had to be kicked
out by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. And then, of course
there's Jasmine Crockett, who has been very vocal about how
terrible she thinks all this is for forever. Here she
(35:30):
is likening Republicans that support this plan to the KKK.
Take a listen to this, Texas.
Speaker 5 (35:38):
So all of the races fill away when you call
them exactly what they are are when you say, oh,
you guys are racist and you guys are trying to
implement racist practices with these racist maps, right, so, you know,
people getting a feelings, Oh how dare you? It's like, bro,
I get that you took your hood off, but your
(35:58):
hood is still there.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Like we see like, we see it. We know what
we see. Okay, I get that you take your hood off,
but it's still there. We still see it. She doesn't
actually talk like this. This has been said a number
of times Jasmine Crockett is not as ghetto as you
want her, or as she wants you to think she is.
She actually speaks proper English, but she does this act.
(36:20):
I don't know why. There's old videos I played them
on the show before of her actually speaking like a
normal person. I don't understand why she does this. It
makes her sound and look stupid. It does it's ridiculous.
But so if the Republicans do it, we're actually members
of the Klan secretly, That's what Jasmine Crockett is saying here.
(36:40):
But when Democrats do the exact same thing, because remember,
listen to that Fox News report California Democrats have pushed
out their own redistricting plans, their own new maps, and
that's fine when they do it. Jasmine Crockett supports that.
Here she is saying, hats you Democrats who are then
(37:01):
going and redistricting your own states. It's fine when they
do it. Where the Klan when we do it? Take
a list.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
Big ups to my colleagues in California that got together,
got this together, did not fight about lines whatsoever. Big
ups to their state Assembly as well as their states Senate,
as well as obviously their governor for stepping up to
the plate and saying Texas may want to play, but
guess what, California can play too big up.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Okay, so why is it any different when they do it?
That doesn't make any sense to me. What's the difference here?
There is none. There just isn't. We're redistricting because our
population has changed significantly, and we have a ruling from
the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that says, hey, these
coalition districts where you just draw all the black and
(37:48):
brown people into one ridiculous looking district, those are on constitutional.
So we have to adjust, we have to pivot. We
have old maps that don't reflect the current populace that
are out of date because our population has changed a
lot in a very short period of time, and we
have a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal saying, hey, these
(38:08):
maps that you drew in twenty twenty one, on top
of being outdated, are actually unconstitutional. So we're just saying, okay, well,
we'll redraw. And the dirty little secret about Texas is
we're a deep red state, and so you when you
draw fair maps of Texas, they actually turn out more
Republican because we're just a republican state. But it's racist
(38:29):
when we do it, When California does it, they're fighting
for the people. It makes no sense, it's stupid. We're
not playing but these games anymore. We're just not. We're
gonna do what's best for us. We want Republican representatives
in Texas. That's what we're getting. Cry about it. All right,
that's all I've got for you. Stay tuned for the
Wednesday podcast. We will be back another great show as always.
(38:50):
Thank you very much for listening. I am Ethan Buchanan.
This is the Next Gen Report on AM nine to
fifty KPRC and on YouTube. We'll be up soon. Follow
me on Twitter. I'll let you know when it's out.
Thank you very much. We'll be back.
From the heart of the Space City to the heart
of gen Z. Welcome to Next Gen Conversation, not Dad's
Talk Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Ethan talks to you about the issues and events that
manors to our generation.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
This is the next Gen Report.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
What Ethan?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
You can't?
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Hey?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Happy Sunday evening, everybody, alrighty, what do we got going
on today? We have got quite a bit. It has
been a busy week. Busy good for me, busy bad
for other folks. We might as well talk about it.
Cracker Barrel, what are you doing? Nobody asked for rebrand,
(00:46):
Nobody wanted a rebrand. You didn't need a rebrand. Everyone
was happy with Cracker Barrel as it was. But for
whatever reason, reasons yet to be determined. For sure, as
far as I'm aware, you decide to rebrand. Nobody asked
for it, nobody wanted it. You ruined it. Good job.
There's a philosophy that I like to rely on a
(01:07):
lot in life, and I think the Cracker Barrels CEO
or suits or whoever made this god awful decision could
have leaned into that. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I think we all agree. Cracker Barrel wasn't broke, there
was no reason to fix it. We all go to
Cracker Barrel for one reason. We like to look at
the weird stuff on the walls and maybe shop around
(01:28):
in the country store that's in front of the main
dining area. And we like it. We like the rocking shares,
we like the checkers, we like the little pin game
that's on the table, and we like the fact that
it's kind of weird. They got a bunch of old,
cool stuff on the wall. Nobody had a problem with that. Nobody.
There were jokes about the name Cracker Barrel, but nobody
(01:50):
actually had an issue with Cracker Barrel unless I'm missing
some major controversy that nobody filled me in on. So
I'm sure by now you've all seen the rebrand, but
if you haven't, there it is. Here's what it looks like.
If you're listening on the radio right now, you can't
hear it, obviously, but I'm looking at it, and we're
recording this right now for YouTube, so you'll be able
(02:12):
to go back and look at it if you've somehow
missed it. But we all know Cracker Barrel. They've got
the gray walls, that hard floor and there's all kinds
of cool old stuff just thrown about the wall randomly. Right.
It looks nice. They've got their thing going. I like it.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
It kind of.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Feels like you walked into some grandma's shed, right. I
think it's a good vibe for them versus the rebrand
is just corporate minimalist garbage. They repainted the walls white
instead of just random stuff strown about the walls, which
has its own kind of unique charm to it. They've
got everything very neat and orderly. There's a piece of
(02:51):
wood on the wall with a bunch of different cups
very neatly organized on it, and a bunch of different
rolling pins neatly organized on it. Where's all the old
random pick right, all the ancient Coca Cola posters from
the fifties, the random pieces of equipment on the walls,
It's gone. There's no old boat engines, there's no old
(03:11):
you know, paddles for a rowboat. It's all gone. It's
just corporate minimalist garbage, and everybody hates it. Nobody likes this.
This one account futurist at America is great or America
is great, tweeted out Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Messino, white
woman apologizing for country living, has decided for a rebrand
(03:35):
of Cracker Barrel that is more woke oh and not
more country store in the logo Cracker Barrel or main
in logo. I don't know what this tweet means. It's
not written in English, but the point they're trying to
get across is this is bad. It's just not a
good rebrand. Again, it's the corporate minimalist garbage that everybody
(03:56):
has decided we hate, but they went all out for it.
I don't know if this was done specifically for the
purpose of wokeness. I don't know if it was done
just to be modern and cool. But nobody likes it.
Nobody wants this. And the stock value shows that. If
you're watching on the YouTube video you can see it.
(04:18):
But if you're not, if you're listening on the radio here,
the stock has plummeted. The stock has absolutely cratered. It's
down to fifty four dollars a share. That's down from
fifty six dollars. So you know, it's not like, oh,
they're completely worth nothing, but it's a significant drop off,
(04:38):
a significant drop off. I think the estimates in market value. Yeah,
one hundred million. Cracker Barrel loses almost one hundred million
in value as stock plunges after new logo. I showed
you the wall rebrand. I haven't showed you the logo yet.
We all know the Cracker Barrel logo, right, It's got
the dude sitting in a rocking chair next to a
barrel which I assume is full of crackers, and it
(04:59):
says cracker barrel in creative writing. Let me see if
I can for the YouTube viewers, for those watching the
video later, let's see here images. Yeah, here's the old
Cracker Barrel logo. It's unique, it's kind of fun, it's
got something going on. And then here's the new one,
corporate minimalist garbage. We hate it. Everyone hates it. Jamille Hill,
(05:24):
she's an actress. She tried to make the case that
we just disliked this because we're evil Republicans. The reality
is they saw the Cracker Barrel CEO was a woman,
and they went off the rails and assumed this was
a diversity play with no evidence. Again, even if this
isn't a diversity play, which I'm not sure this could be,
the CEO is a woke leftist and she just wants
(05:46):
to destroy everything that could possibly be labeled Southern culture.
Or it could just be she's stupid and wanted to
do a corporate minimalist rebrand. Either way, we hate it.
Everyone hates it. I could find out that she voted
for Trump and would walk over glass to vote for
him again and still hate this rebrand because it's just bad.
(06:08):
This is completely a political This is universally dislike. Look
at this tweet from the Democrats. The official Democrat DNC
excount tweeted out, we think the Cracker barrel rebrand sucks too.
Everyone hates this. Nobody wanted to see this happen. Leave
good enough alone. The dirty little secret about most Americans
(06:30):
is we actually like culture. We actually like things like
the old cracker barrel. It doesn't have to look, you know,
completely polished and corporate and garbage. This is actual Americana
right here. Old Coca Cola posters from the fifties, old
pieces of equipment that most people probably don't know what
(06:50):
they do, but we know somebody used to use them,
and it's kind of interesting. There's a story behind it.
They've got a little red wagon hanging up right there.
We like that just hanging on the wall. I had
a wagon just like that when I was a kid.
I used to love playing with it. That reminds me
of my childhood, and I'm only in my twenties. Imagine
(07:13):
people in their fifties walking in or sixties or seventies
and seeing things that they remember a time when these
things weren't antiques that hung up on the wall. These
were part of actual everyday American life. We liked that.
We want more of that. Why did you think it
was necessary to do this obnoxious corporate rebrand. Nobody asked
(07:34):
for it, nobody likes it universally. It's completely a political
all right, we will be right back. We've got a
whole great show coming up for you, so stay tuned.
We're gonna run some quick ads, let the sponsors get there,
get their dollar bills paid for, and then we'll be
right back to stations.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
All right.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
I'm sorry if it seems like I'm getting a little
overpassionate about Cracker Barrel. The reason for that is I
actually really like cracker Barrel. I think the food is
pretty good, but again, I like the environment. You know,
it's fun to be there, it's fun to play checkers there.
I have a lot of good memories at Cracker Barrel.
I used to go there a lot with my grandparents
on both my father and mother's side. That was one
(08:40):
of their favorite I guess that's because their grandparents. I
think that's part of being a grandparent. You have to
like once your child has their first child, something in
your mind just clicks and you have to go to
Cracker Barrel. But that was always one of my favorite
places to go with both my father's parents and my
mother's parents. So I have a lot of good memories there,
playing checkers with both my grandma parents, my grandparents, teaching
(09:01):
me how to play the little peg game, and then
shopping around seeing cool stuff there in the in the shop,
cool neat, little old kind of fifty sixty style toys
and stuff. It was neat. It was always a fun experience.
I liked it, So I do kind of take it personally.
Should I know? Is it rational?
Speaker 2 (09:18):
No?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Do I a little bit? A little bit? Welcome back,
This is the next gen report. I'm Ethan Buchanan. Give
me a quick follow on X by the way at Underscore.
Ethan Buchanan b U C H A N an We're
gonna say out Cracker bar for just a minute, and
then we're gonna talk about the economy. Amuse tweeted out,
this is one of my favorite accounts. Go broke New
Dei hire ceo is rebranding Cracker Barrel to decolonize it again.
(09:43):
This is all I guess his assumption. I'm not sure
how political this move actually was. It may very well
have been political, it may very well not have been.
Either way. It's stupid. Either way, both sides of the
aisle agree it's stupid. So I mean, I guess shout
out to the Cracker Barrel CEO for bringing Democrats and
Republicans together, something everybody thought was impossible. What's even more
(10:05):
annoying is the fact that this CEO refuses to acknowledge
she did anything wrong. She insists that people actually like it,
which is patently and observably false. But here she is
on Good Morning America saying, no, actually, people really love this,
even though universally I'm being trashed for it and our
stock prices have tanked. Actually, people like it.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Honestly, the feedback's been overwhelmingly positive that people like what
we're doing. I'll give you another SoundBite. I actually happened
to be in Orlando last week with all of our managers.
We bring them together and once every other year, and
the number one question that I got asked Michael was
how can I get a remodel? When can I get
a remodel? How do I get on the list? Really so,
because the feedback and the buzz is so good, not
(10:46):
only from our customers but from our team members. They
want to work in a wonderful restaurant. So we're doing
everything for our guests and our team members.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
When Dula Messina's wonderful to have you here, pleasure to
be thank you.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I answer those.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Questions for all the crack and beery fans. There a
lot of great changes. Thank you so much. All right,
thank you, Robin. Do you see the great changes in
the room with us right now? There are no good changes.
Nobody wants this, Nobody likes it. Find me one person,
just one who actually says, yeah, I love completely destroying
(11:20):
the iconic brand and identity of this restaurant. It's a lie.
Everyone hates this now. I said, it may be political,
and it may very well be because we know the
CEO is woke. This is their big endorsement deal for
the LGBTQ Alliance. They sponsored I think the Nashville Pride
(11:40):
Parade for a while, So maybe this is part of that.
Maybe they really are just going woke. I don't know.
Maybe they just made a terrible business decision. Either way,
it's stupid. I mean, maybe there's the argument to be
made that, oh, lgbtqp don't feel comfortable eating at Cracker
(12:02):
Barrel because there's an old boat engine and a red
wagon on the wall. Guess what. Rebranding isn't going to
bring those people in. You're not gonna magically just have
all these people start coming to your restaurant. All you're
going to do is alienate your base. That's it. That's
all that's gonna happen. Nobody wants this, nobody does. It's corporate,
(12:23):
minimalist garbage. People just don't like it. They're not gonna start.
I can't say this enough. All you're doing is hurting
your base. You're not encouraging more people to come in.
You just aren't. Anyway, let's talk about some good news.
I'm tired, I'm getting I'm getting upset about this. I
(12:43):
missed the old Cracker Barrel bring her back anyway, Let's
talk about the overall economy. Democrats have insisted for months
now that it's in the toilet, that we're all going
to die of poverty and poorness, and there's no escape.
It's just not happening. He tweeted out. I think this
was on Friday. He tweeted this out when the market
just skyrocketed. Here's a picture of the SMP five hundred
(13:05):
for my radio listeners out there. Remember back in April
when all the quote unquote experts said the economy was
tanking and told you to sell and then told you
to hold your stocks to buy more if you had
and I told you to hold your stocks and buy
more if you had spare cash. You're up over thirty
percent since April if you bought more and if you
held stocks hit another high today. Congrats, So some good
(13:29):
signs for the economy. We're doing well. I've said this
multiple times on the show. I will continue to say it.
We're making progress. It's going to be slow progress, it
won't be overnight progress, but it's progressing nonetheless, and we
should be happy about it. It's good. We're making progress.
We're doing better. This just further goes to show you
how poorly the cracker barrel rebrand decision was, because, I mean,
(13:53):
while the rest of the economy is skyrocking, Cracker Barrel
is in the dump. Look at the comparison here. Let
me drag this over so you can take a little
peak at it. Here's cracker barrel stock. Here's the overall
SMP five hundred. See the difference. If you're listening on
the radio, you can't see it. It's cracker barrel obviously
(14:14):
tanking and the S and P five hundred on a moonshot.
So it was not a good decision. It wasn't anyway.
There's a couple of reasons I think for this particular moonshot.
First of all, federal employment is going down. That is
a good thing because that means we can save some
money in the federal budget, right we want that. Less
(14:35):
federal employees is a good thing. Those people are not
contributing to the economy. They're getting paid in taxpayer dollars.
They're taking money away from the private sector, which is
where most people are, which is where all the growth
and innovation happens, and they're using it to fund the
private Yeah, the public sector. They're taking money from the
private sector, which is where the growth in innovation happens,
and they're using it to fund the public sector, which
(14:58):
does essentially nothing at all except being inconvenienced. So losing
federal employees is actually a good thing. Obviously, it's difficult
for those federal employees go get a different job in
the public sector. Here is the Office of Personnel Management
Services Director. What is his name, Scott Koupor. I've never
(15:18):
heard of this guy before. I didn't know we had this,
but here he is talking about the massive downsizing in
federal employees. Take a listen.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
So we started the year at roughly about two point
four million civilian employees, right, so forget about kind of
uniform military right now, that's roughly the workforce. They're obviously
not all here in DC, but my guess is probably
more than half of them were in DC.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
If we end the.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Year on track, we probably will end up somewhere closer
to two point one million, so about three hundred thousand
difference roughly, and the vast majority of that comes through
basically voluntary retirement program. So you may have heard of
the DRP, which was the deferred resignation program. More than
half of the total number of people kind of elected
to take that. The federal company has something called you're
(16:00):
a visive, which these acronyms are all crazy, but basically
also is a retirement type program. So about roughly seventy
five to eighty percent of the total headcount production will
come from kind of voluntary and then the remainder will
come from some form of riffs that we did, some
forms of probationary employees, but those will be a minority
of the amount of headcount.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So okay, So as far as I'm concerned, that seems
like a pretty universally good thing, right. I mean, it's
not going to really hurt these people, these federal employees
to not have those jobs anymore because they're going to
be retiring. They have kind of pensions and whatnot programs,
so it's not like they need to be working or
they're just going to be unemployed and suffer and be poor.
(16:40):
And at the same time, we're reducing our federal work count,
our federal workers count, So again's that's more money that
the government can save, which of course means hopefully, hopefully,
cross your fingers and pray to God, hopefully less taxes
where we actually get those less taxes. I don't know,
but it happens. Here's some more good news. Joon Powell
(17:02):
may finally be cutting rates. We're long overdue for a
rate cut. I think that's universally recognized. He's now actually
starting to hint that, yes, he will cut rates. He
said that at a speech earlier this week. I think
that was on Thursday or Friday. Yeah, it was Friday
that he signaled he would finally be actually cutting rates.
This is a good thing. We want this less rate
(17:24):
or lettle it up. Cut the rates. That means businesses
can really take off. They can take out some of
those business loans that they need to do things like
grow their business, invest in their employees. We can actually
start growing the economy the private sector rather than the
public sector. Everything I'm seeing is good news. Obviously, we've
(17:44):
got a long way to go, but we're making progress.
All right, We've got another break coming up, and then
we'll be right back. We're going to talk about this
rate on John Bolton's house, So stay tuned. I mean
think you can in this is the next gener report.
We will be right back. All right, let's talk well, actually,
(18:20):
before we get to John Bolton, and we will get
to John Bolton. We will spend a lot of time
on John Bolton. Let's talk real quick about Canada, the
old Canadians. They have caved to Trump. Shock of shocks.
Nobody saw it coming except everybody. Canada has caved to Trump.
They indeed announced that they have reached a deal with
(18:43):
the United States. Here is Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney
announcing that Canada is basically dropping all their retilatory tariffs
and making a trade deal with the United States. Take
a listen.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
So let's be absolutely clear, Canada currently has the best
trade deal with the United States, and while it's different
from what we had before, it is still better than
that of any other country. So as we work to
(19:15):
address outstanding trade issues with the United States, it's important,
it's vital we do everything we can to preserve this
unique advantage for Canadian workers Canadian businesses, and doing so
will require both building on a soon to be revised COSMA,
(19:35):
our free trade agreement with US of Mexico, as well
as developing a new form of trade and security partnership
with the United States. In this context, and consistent with
Canada's commitment to COSMA, I'm announcing today that the Canadian
government will now match we will now match the United
(19:57):
States by removing all of CA natas tariffs on US
goods specifically covered under Christmas.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
All right, So good news for the United States, big,
big win for US. And you can tell Carney's not
happy about that. If you're if you're listening on the radio,
I encourage you, Uh, probably in an hour, maybe a
little bit longer.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
If not, you can always go check back on Monday morning.
But go find us on the YouTube and actually watch
that video. You can see how defeated he is. If
you just look at his eyes. Bro, he's in shambles.
He is in shambles. He is not happy about that
trade deal. But let that serve as a reminder for you,
(20:42):
because every once in a while, Canada will start to
talk tough. They'll act like they're the big guys in
the room. We're Canada, we're powerful, we're cold, and we're
north of view. They're still just Canadians, guys. They will
bend the knee. Eventually. We own them, We own this continent.
It's ours, all of North America blocks to US, Mexico
act right, We're coming for you.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
Next.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
All right, let's talk about John Bolton. We all wanted
to hear about it. We're gonna hear about it. The
FBI conducted a court authorized search Friday at former National
Security Advisor John Bolton's home and office as part of
a renewed investigation into whether he disclosed classified information into
his twenty twenty book. According to two people familiar with
(21:23):
the matter, this report is, according to CNN, by the way,
so grand as salt to everybody. We know how the
mainstream media is, and there by all means the mainstream
among mainstreams. So but regardless of that, this is kind
of funny, right John Bolton, if you're not familiar with him,
he was the President's National security advisor, I believe, during
(21:44):
his first term, and like many of the suits in
Trump's first term, he has since become a vocal critic
of Donald Trump. What's really funny to me is the
fact that this was over classified documents, or alleged classified documents.
I'm gonna sy allegedly because John Bolton hasn't officially been
(22:04):
convicted of anything, or to my knowledge, even necessarily charged.
So all of this is with the overarching allegedly, all right,
this maybe happen, probably happened. We don't know. Okay, allegedly
quote unquote. I'm not saying I'm just reporting this allegedly happened.
Don't sue me, don't sue keep a orc nine to fifty.
(22:24):
We're just giving you what people are saying. All right,
we're not saying it. I'm not saying it. But allegedly,
this is what's going on. He had classified documents that
he used in his twenty twenty book that he wasn't
supposed to. Now, I'll remind you with Donald Trump's alleged
classified documents scandal. Trump was the president. He can just say, no,
(22:48):
I declassified all of these. I'm allowed to have them
in my bathroom at mar Lago. John Bolton can't say that.
John Bolton doesn't get to declassified documents. Trump can unilaterally
just say it and it's declassified. John doesn't have that power,
all right. The investigative step immediately drew criticism that President
Donald Trump was using the muscle of the US government
(23:09):
to target a political foe through though the specific basis
for the searches was not clear, and that's where the
controversy arises. Right immediately, that was the line from the left.
Everybody went nuts saying, oh, this is what Hitler did.
He's attacking his political enemies, just like Hitler. That's their line.
(23:32):
Every time Trump so much as takes a sip of water,
they're like here or drake water two, Trump must be
a Nazi. But yeah, okay, how about this, Maybe John
Bolton actually committed a crime. I don't know. I'm not
saying he did, but if he did, that should be investigated,
right right. I think this is kind of funny. This
(23:53):
may be dark of me for saying this is kind
of funny, but here is John Bolton's wife for the
YouTube viewers, right after the FBI show up on her door.
John Molten's wife looked like she'd just come face to
face with a ghost this morning. Yeah, kind of it
might be needing me to laugh at that. She seems
like just some old lady. She may be a nice woman.
(24:15):
I don't know, but it is a little bit funny.
It is a little bit funny. And again, if you're
listening on the radio right now, just stay tuned, we're
recording it. You'll be able to go look at these
pictures that I'm showing people right now. Follow me on ax,
I'll tweet out a link to the YouTube video when
it goes up at underscore Ethan Buchanan. But again back
to the point I got off track. The left immediately
(24:36):
went nuts over this near at Tendon. I don't know
who this lady is. Let's actually see I can investigate.
She's probably got an in personal account, liberal Indian American
feminist mom wife. Okay, so she's just some woke chick.
Here she is in a picture with Joe Biden. This
is gestopo like tactics against political enemies. Any Republicans going
to speak up? It's funny because the number one tweet
(24:59):
un or hers is a picture of Donald Trump's mugshot.
The left has no ground to stand on here. You
guys charged and arrested the former president of the United
States for allegedly the exact same thing. We don't care.
You can't stand here and say, oh, how are you
targeting political enemies with the DOJ You guys opened the
(25:20):
door to this, and we warned you when you did
it in twenty twenty two, when you rated mar A Lago,
we said, just you wait, you've opened the floodgates. Now
you've made it okay to do this, it will be
done to you as well. John Bolton's neighbor. He again
(25:41):
apparently liberal, Big surprise, he lived in Bethesda, Maryland. Everybody's
woke there. Here he is going the same line. Trump
is a national disgrace. How could you do this?
Speaker 7 (25:52):
Is all of this retribution and vengeance and using the
DOJ and the FBI and the power of government to
go after anybody who disagrees with him is frightening. And
it's only going to get worse if we don't do
something and they get stopped and he scares the crap.
Speaker 6 (26:09):
Out of it.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Be scared, cry about it. I don't care. This same
guy was probably cheering when they rated mar A Lago.
I don't care. You started this. We didn't start this.
And again hear me out, maybe allegedly he actually did
something wrong. No one's above the law, right right? That
was what we were told for years when you were
(26:31):
politically prosecuting Donald Trump, we heard no one is above
the law, not even the president. John Bolton himself said this. Here.
He is right after or during, I don't know, whenever
he got on with CNN. This is the mar A
Lago raid. He's talking about here. We all remember the
iconic violent raid of mar A Lago when they came
(26:51):
in and seized documents that Trump said he did he
classify that were being stored at mar A Lago, and
John Bolton himself goes on CNN and says, no one
is above the law any given moment. But I don't
forgive me MSNBC.
Speaker 8 (27:03):
Any given moment. But I don't think he cared about
the classification system. I don't think he appreciated the sensitivity
of this information, and he didn't appreciate the sensitivity of
how it was often acquired the so called sources and methods.
So this had been brief to him before I arrived,
it was repeated frequently. I think it simply had no
(27:26):
impact on him.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Whatever.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
There's a couple of different ways that people think about this,
and people who are not friendly to the president who
think about what's happened here, and one of them is,
you know, Donald Trump, master thief, you know, criminal running
the kind of elaborate conspiracy to bring things out of
the White House and keep him secret for potentially for
political or financial gain. There are other people who add
its attitude as Trump is chaotic, he's careless. He's not
(27:51):
that smart. He just he wants He took these things
almost by mistake, and now he's basically stamping his feet
and saying, their mind, I don't want to give them up.
Give me a sense of you think the truth? Wise
with respect to Trump's intelligence, carelessness, and the degree to
which he might have brought motive to bear on taking
these documents out of the ways and keeping them for
(28:11):
this long at mar Laga.
Speaker 8 (28:16):
Well, I don't It's very hard to speculate on motive
other than that he liked cool things. He saw things
that he so he wanted to take them, and he
was pretty much able to take them, and not just
on classified information matters, on all kinds of things that
crossed his desk. Some days he liked to eat a
lot of French fries. Some days he took classified documents.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
He wanted them.
Speaker 8 (28:38):
Why did he want them because he could get them?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Well, allegedly you did the same thing, John, So we'll
see how that works out for you. We'll watch this carefully.
But again, no one is above the law. You made
your bed, you're lying in it, all right. We got
another break coming up, and then we'll be right back
with more on the Next Time Report, stay tuned wherever it. Alrighty,
(29:17):
let's talk about Texas, shall we? My favorite topic? I
love Texas. What I need to do if I'm gonna
keep doing these on YouTube as well? Which again, radio listeners,
hear me now, I'm recording this live right now. So
if there's anything you want to actually see that I'm
(29:38):
talking about, search up the YouTube channel the next Gen Report.
It'll be up there, will have the videos posted. I
don't know when exactly because I have to now edit
everything that I'm doing live here on the air for you,
but follow me on x at Underscore Ethan Buchanan b
U C H A N A N and you'll be
able to see when it goes up on the you tube.
(30:00):
So there that is. Anyway, my point being, I need
to get like a Texas star flag. If you're watching
on the YouTube video right now, you can see where
I'm pointing at somewhere back here. All right, I need
to make this look fancy. But anyway, let's talk about Texas.
We finally got our redistricting maps past. This comes after
(30:21):
the Democrats, through a fit fled the state, have been
throwing a temper tanks from constantly are threatening to start
a redistricting war over all of this. Whatever, the good
news is, we got it passed, plus about five Republican
seats in Texas to the federal Congress. This is good news.
I like this. Here is the Fox News report about
(30:43):
the maps finally getting passed through both the House and
Senate after legitimate weeks of Democrat delay.
Speaker 9 (30:53):
This is a Fox's alert. I'm Gently Painter in New York.
We're following breaking news out of Texas, where the Republican
led state Senate just passed a new congressional map. The
eighteen to eight vote was finalized after Republicans blocked a filibuster.
The bill Neil heads to Governor Greg Abbot's desk to
be signed into law. The new map was drawn to
(31:14):
help the DLP win as many as five additional US
House seats in next year's midterm elections. This marks the
final legislative hurdle for the redistricting plan backed by President
Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The Senate's approval follows
weeks of uncertainty after House Democrats fled the state for
fifteen days to block the two thirds quorum needed to
(31:36):
conduct business lawyers advise them to return on Monday to
build a strong public record ahead of a potential legal battle.
All of this has ignited an intensifying nationwide redistricting arms race.
California Democrats responded on Thursday by approving their own new
congressional map. It would hand Democrats five more favorable house
(31:58):
districts like Unlike Texas As, California voters still have to
approve the new congressional map in November's election, specifically once
a decade. Process is now expected to spread to other
states in the coming week.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
So the big question is will this actually lead to
a massive redistricting war. I think probably it will. I
don't have a problem with that. I don't one because
I know Republicans are win. We have a lot more
room to redistrict across all of our Republican states than
the Democrats do. Because the dirty little secret here is
(32:33):
the Democrats have already heavily gerrymandered their states, so we
have way more room to grow than they do. Guess
what you play three games? You win superprizes. All right,
good job, Democrats, you played yourself. So I like the
idea of an all out redistricting war. And I also
like the idea of red states being red states and
blue states being blue states. That actually gives the voters
(32:56):
an advantage. You can actually say, hey, I want to
live in a state where everybody in that state is
governed the way I want them to be governed, and
all the representatives are the representatives I want. I want
to live in a Republican state, have a Republican governor,
have a Republican representative in Congress. I want to just
(33:16):
be in a Republican area. If the red states are
just red and the blue states are just blue, that
gives people that option. Maybe that's a little bit short sighted.
Maybe that divides the country more. Guess what, we're divided anyway,
So at least let people have the representation they want.
That's my two cents on the topic. And I'm saying
this as someone who has a Democrat representative right now
(33:39):
that I don't like. I'm a staunch Republican. You don't
get farther to the right than me what you do.
But we don't want to talk about that. We don't
want to talk about those people. All that to say,
I want a strong Republican representing me in Congress, I do.
I want a strong Republican governor. I want a strong
Republican state congress. That's what I want. So if we
(34:01):
redistrict all of these Democrats out, I'll be happy. And
if you want something else, you can go and move
to a blue state. You can. That's the beauty of
the modern world is you can pretty much do most
jobs these days from just about anywhere, so you can
just pick your whole life up and move. I'm not
saying it's easy. I'm not saying you can do it overnight,
but it can be done. And if that's what you want,
(34:23):
go for it. Do it. Have the representation you want.
You can live under Democrat policy and Democrat rules, and
I can live in my red state under Republican policy
and Republican rule, and we don't have to agree on everything.
You can do your thing, I can do mine. That's
actually the way our system was built to run. I
think it's a good thing. Again, that could be short sighted.
(34:44):
I could be completely wrong on that, but that's my
two cents. Anyway, we did finally get the maps pass,
and of course the Democrats oops had actually auto played.
The Democrats are not happy about it. Here is on
the Senate. After they passed those maps, the Democrats went
absolutely nuts. There's a video floating around of Democrats in
(35:08):
the gallery of the Texas Senate or I guess just
leftists protesters that started screaming that the Republicans who passed
the new maps were fascists. They had to be kicked
out by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. And then, of course
there's Jasmine Crockett, who has been very vocal about how
terrible she thinks all this is for forever. Here she
(35:30):
is likening Republicans that support this plan to the KKK.
Take a listen to this, Texas.
Speaker 5 (35:38):
So all of the races fill away when you call
them exactly what they are are when you say, oh,
you guys are racist and you guys are trying to
implement racist practices with these racist maps, right, so, you know,
people getting a feelings, Oh how dare you? It's like, bro,
I get that you took your hood off, but your
(35:58):
hood is still there.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Like we see like, we see it. We know what
we see. Okay, I get that you take your hood off,
but it's still there. We still see it. She doesn't
actually talk like this. This has been said a number
of times Jasmine Crockett is not as ghetto as you
want her, or as she wants you to think she is.
She actually speaks proper English, but she does this act.
(36:20):
I don't know why. There's old videos I played them
on the show before of her actually speaking like a
normal person. I don't understand why she does this. It
makes her sound and look stupid. It does it's ridiculous.
But so if the Republicans do it, we're actually members
of the Klan secretly, That's what Jasmine Crockett is saying here.
(36:40):
But when Democrats do the exact same thing, because remember,
listen to that Fox News report California Democrats have pushed
out their own redistricting plans, their own new maps, and
that's fine when they do it. Jasmine Crockett supports that.
Here she is saying, hats you Democrats who are then
(37:01):
going and redistricting your own states. It's fine when they
do it. Where the Klan when we do it? Take
a list.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
Big ups to my colleagues in California that got together,
got this together, did not fight about lines whatsoever. Big
ups to their state Assembly as well as their states Senate,
as well as obviously their governor for stepping up to
the plate and saying Texas may want to play, but
guess what, California can play too big up.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Okay, so why is it any different when they do it?
That doesn't make any sense to me. What's the difference here?
There is none. There just isn't. We're redistricting because our
population has changed significantly, and we have a ruling from
the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that says, hey, these
coalition districts where you just draw all the black and
(37:48):
brown people into one ridiculous looking district, those are on constitutional.
So we have to adjust, we have to pivot. We
have old maps that don't reflect the current populace that
are out of date because our population has changed a
lot in a very short period of time, and we
have a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal saying, hey, these
(38:08):
maps that you drew in twenty twenty one, on top
of being outdated, are actually unconstitutional. So we're just saying, okay, well,
we'll redraw. And the dirty little secret about Texas is
we're a deep red state, and so you when you
draw fair maps of Texas, they actually turn out more
Republican because we're just a republican state. But it's racist
(38:29):
when we do it, When California does it, they're fighting
for the people. It makes no sense, it's stupid. We're
not playing but these games anymore. We're just not. We're
gonna do what's best for us. We want Republican representatives
in Texas. That's what we're getting. Cry about it. All right,
that's all I've got for you. Stay tuned for the
Wednesday podcast. We will be back another great show as always.
(38:50):
Thank you very much for listening. I am Ethan Buchanan.
This is the Next Gen Report on AM nine to
fifty KPRC and on YouTube. We'll be up soon. Follow
me on Twitter. I'll let you know when it's out.
Thank you very much. We'll be back.
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