3-26-25 - 8am - More Atlantic Chat Released and Measles Outbreak

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mike, if Dragon one day decided that he finally had
enough of you and came on your side of the
glass and start to physically accost you, and you were
using one arm to keep him at bay to prevent
serious bodily injury, and you decided you had to shoot him,
would you say, wait a minute, Dragon, I need to
use both hands to rack my gun before I shoot you.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Just curious things, let's hear. I'm not going to go
down that route. I refuse go down that rabbit hole.
Here's what abe. Let me even keep put it in
context first, because I think this is a good text message.
Uh where my text? Where my text message is go

(00:41):
uh forty three forty four, writes Mike. I feel quite
the contrarian today. But I think his Jeffrey Goldberg, I
think his hatred of all things Trump. That's his priority,
not his quote responsibility as a journalist or as an American.
Goldberg and his ILK will take any and every opportunity

(01:02):
to make this administration look bad. The question is, would
the same be true if the roles were reverse reversed. Unfortunately,
I can't say for certain anymore that our side wouldn't
do the same thing. Well, Uh, Bill Bird remember uh

(01:24):
the losers and hoaxes, the losers and what was the losers?
What suckers? Yeah, the losers and suckers hoax Uh, the Russia,
Russia Russia hoax. And he absolutely despises Donald Trump for that.

(01:44):
Man absolutely despises Republicans. So I do think he is
driven by his hatred of all things. Does he have
a responsibility, Yeah, but his responsibility is as a journalist,
and they're not really journalists. I would like to think
a pro pagonists.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
That if a Blue reporter had stumbled on a Blue
conversation very similar, if the same thing was happening, that
Blue reporter may have stayed in that chat, may have
been taking notes, may have been taking screenshots or whatsoever.
But when the report comes out, I firmly believe that
they would have just said there was a mistake, a

(02:25):
reporter was added to the chat, the end, and.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Probably even lied about it. Is set and I took
myself out.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
I don't know if I believe that part, but I
believe that it would be a nothing burger and they
would just say there was a reporter was mistakenly added
to a chat, yeah, the end.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, And I mostly agree with that, except I do
think that they are also want to set themselves up
as being oh, look how great I am, and I said, hey,
you need to take me out. But that's just based
on my personal experience with reporters. So this story has legs,

(03:12):
and it has legs I think for two reasons, for
maybe three reasons. One, despite what Pete Eggsath says or said, yes,
there were operational details included. Now, maybe not as detailed,

(03:32):
obviously not as detailed as those carrying out the orders,
had not coordinates, but he did indicate the location of
a target that we knew where the target was. He
did identify the time that the attacks would be launched,

(03:53):
even identifying the type of aircraft and drones that would
be used. And it doesn't take much to understand that
if this had gotten in the hands of the Hoothies, Oh,
they're targeting our leader and our founder. He's at his
girlfriend's house, so we know where that is. So we

(04:14):
got to get him out of there. So there was
there could have been a lot of damage from this,
And I don't know, and I'm not trying to rationalize
or make excuses for hegxth, but he commented on this
when he landed in Hawaii. Whether he got brief before

(04:35):
he came down the steps of the plane or not,
I don't know, but he certainly should have because let's
go to what ABC News is reporting. I just want
you to hear these to establish because this is this
is what the cabal is going to do, regardless what
you and I may think about this, They're going to
make it into a story.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
President Trump's national security advisor Mike Waltz saying the BLA
minds with him.

Speaker 5 (05:01):
I take full responsibility. I built the I built the group. Embarrassing. Yes,
by Pate and I are veterans, We know these operations.
He has been an excellent Secretary of Defense in.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
The White House. With President Trump, Waltz unable to explain
how journalist Jeffrey Goldberg from the Atlantic was invited into
the chat group where war plans were laid out.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Martha Radnitts continues.

Speaker 4 (05:27):
President Trump's national security team on the defensive, with Democrats
now calling for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's resignation. The Secretary
trying to deflect any blame and downplay that extraordinary security
breach where Hegseth reportedly shared highly sensitive operational plans in
a group chat about this month's US attack on Iranian

(05:51):
backed Huti's notice.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
All the adjectives, all the superlatives, and of course the
demand for a resignation to be expected, writers continues.

Speaker 4 (06:01):
Goldberg says it was Waltz himself who added him to
the chat on the app Signal, where he says he
saw texts from Hegseth that laid out specific war plans,
saying the plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets,
and timing.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
And that, unfortunately is true, she continues.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
In twenty twenty one, a Pentagon internal watchdog report found
Signal to be an unauthorized means of communicating sensitive information
and breach to the department's records retention policies.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yet there's a memo post twenty twenty one in the
outopen administration that goes on to authorize the use of Signal. Now,
whether it should have been or shouldn't have been, that's
for those people dealing with operational security need to make
a determination. You and I can have our opinion about it,

(07:00):
but it's I think it's okay for certain conversations. I
think for this particular conversation. I don't think it was appropriate.
I know it's end to end encryption, and I know
it's one of the better ones, but still it's not

(07:21):
using a classified pipeline, and by that I mean a
classified line. It's not they're not using classified pipes and
they and that's what they should be doing. So where
does this leave us? To be fair? Trump's administration promised
to be the most transparent administration ever. Of course they

(07:43):
all do that, but newly elected Senator Tim Sheehey, a
Montana Republican, was pretty blunt about it yesterday when he said, well,
coma somebody fed up period pretty much sums it up.
I think that's exactly what happened. But it was only
a matter of time. When you stop and think about

(08:04):
this White House. I have commented on this program that
it is a whirlwind. It's a hurricane. It's straight winds,
it is chinook winds coming down the mountains, just blowing
at one hundred miles an hour in terms of the
speed at which they are doing things. And I think

(08:26):
they've been very lucky, very fortunate up to this point,
considering the sheer amount of things that they've taken on
in the early days of this administration. But still it's
a screw up, largely right out of the West Wing.
Waltz himself has taken blame and said, yes, I screwed up.

(08:48):
I'm the one that inovertently did it.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
I actually really liked that right there. Finally somebody says,
my bad, I screwed up.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yes, And I want you to think about Waltz for
a moment. I don't find it particularly surprising that he
has Jeffrey Goldberg's number in his phone. I'm curious whether
I do or not. We'll see context contexts, contexts search

(09:25):
Goldberg G O L D B E R G. As
a matter of fact, I do. It's kind of funny.
I've got I'm getting right there, and the bottom of
my g's Jeffrey Goldberg. That's not unusual. That's that contact
is probably twenty years old. It wouldn't be unusual for

(09:49):
Waltz because during his tenure as a congressman on Capitol
Hill he was a pretty regular talking to the media.
So having the likes of Jeffrey Goldberg in your phone
I don't find to be that unusual. Now, some would argue,
but you should have marked it. Well, it's not marked
in my phone, so if I were, if I were

(10:12):
doing a chat. When I go back to that very page,
there are one, two, three, four, There are five Goldbergs
in my phone. One I'm retired, captain. I'm sure that is.
I'm not quite sure, Gabbard Goldberg. I'm trying to think
of who might he might have, you know, been scrolling

(10:33):
and accidentally with a fat thumb, added Jeffrey Goldberg. I'm
not trying to rationalize or an excuse. I'm trying to
figure out, like, how did this happen or was it
inserted by somebody else. Now I don't think that's true
anymore because Waltz is, for whether it's true or not,
is full on, full board, taking responsibility for it. Now.

(10:56):
Here's what I do find fascinating about it. About the
chat itself, When you read through it, you get that
this team is incredibly close, and I think that's good.
There's no dissension and not there should there be dissension

(11:19):
when it's necessary. Yes, this team strikes me as if
somebody in that chat had disagreed or thought something else,
they would have said something. But they seem to be
a cohesive group intent on fulfilling the president's mandate. And

(11:41):
that's a good thing. Now, it's also a good thing
that Mike Waltz took responsibility for it. But I would
also add that isn't it also the responsibility of every
all other eighteen people on there, including Jeffrey Goldberg, who
I believe also had a responsibility to say, hey, I'm
going to group chat that I don't think I should

(12:01):
be in, just like Dragon did with Evil. Actually that
happened before you could even say anything, right, correct, Somebody's
caught it and took you out before you even said anything.

Speaker 6 (12:09):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
So somebody else should have been looking through that and go, oh,
I think we got the wrong well, or who is
this person? Is this? Question? This number? What's going on here? Guys? Yeah,
we look before you say anything? Who is this number? What?
Who is this? And called it out. Now the President
is downplaying the ramifications. It's truly a botch communication, and

(12:34):
he's calling it a glitch. According to NBC News Garrett
Hawk quote, the President told me he believes the story
is essentially a non issue. This is all an X
and that Goldberg's presence on the chat had no impact
at all. The attacks on the hoof He's, he continued,
were perfectly successful. Trump, he continues, added that he believes

(12:55):
the episode has been his administration's only glitch in two months,
and it turned out not to be a serious one.
Oh okay, I don't think now some people are calling
for bolts to be fired. I don't think you should
be fired. I think you got to get ringed out

(13:15):
by the president. There's nothing like getting your butt reamed
out by the President of the United States of America.
Your mom might yell at you, your dad might paddle you.
But when Potus choose your ass out, you know you've
got an ass chewing. And it doesn't even have to

(13:36):
be screaming. No, it's just that the commander in chief
has said, you fed up, don't you ever do it again?
That you'll remember that, trust me on that. Now. If
there's anything positive about this, it could have gotten a
lot worse. Goldberg could have actually conducted something pretty near

(14:00):
reason by potentially using that information when it could have
been taken up by our enemies. Another devious actor could
have worked for longer in pursuit of even more damaging
information or even more information about the attacks on the
Hoothies or we could have actually gained insight from the
threads showing that there was a level of fractiousness, fractiousness

(14:23):
or falsity or dissension, or that they were actually, you know,
kind of like in Trump's first term, whether it was
Rex Tillerson or General Kelly or anybody else working at
odds with the president, this team was working actually in
luckstep with the president. So what we see through all

(14:45):
of this largely reinforces what we reinforces what we already know,
and that's about the ideological positioning of these individuals. It
turns out that behind the scenes they're the same people.
In front of the scene, behind the camera and find
the camera, they're the same people. Vice President Vance is

(15:06):
clearly skeptical about Europe. Pete Hegsith is actually probably more
hawkeys about deploying American power than even any of us
thought it. Maybe he was Stephen Miller, the White House
Deputy chief of Staff, probably somewhere in between. But those sentiments,

(15:26):
unsurprising as they may be, should not be flying around
on the signal, even if accompanied by you know, and
it's kind of funny because there's a lot of emojis,
there's a lot of gen X kind of language and
all of this, which is fine, so lesson learned. It

(15:51):
teaches you something also about the cabal, and that is
you can't risk at all, because but for Jeffrey Goldberg
being on that signal, we would have spent zero time
talking about signal or talking about anything about operational security

(16:13):
regarding the attack on the Houthis, and to Trump's point,
it was successful. Now we don't yet have at least
as of last night, I couldn't find that we actually
have confirmation that we've taken out the head of the Hoothis.
But assume for a moment that we have, and even
if we haven't, we've gone so much further than what

(16:34):
the Biden administration had as opposed to retaliatory strikes. We're
taking out their ability to even start a strike. And
it's about damn time. I think the story should now die. Unfortunately,
there are hearings being held right now, and Tulsa gabber
at least when Fox News is testifying, and I bet

(16:56):
you a dollar to a donut, she's getting grilled about it. Hey,
you just go to Josh over the retirement planning. So
of the Rockies, how are you today?

Speaker 6 (17:07):
Josh, I'm doing very well, Michael, how about yourself.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
I'm doing great. So the FED had a meeting and
apparently they're not going to change rates. But how does
FED policy in general affect one's portfolio? What generally have.

Speaker 6 (17:23):
Right a lot of people kind of wait to see,
you know, whether they're going to keep rates steady like
they just did, whether they're going to bump them up
or move them down. I mean, typically from a standpoint
of lending, that's that's really strong for folks if they
lower rates, and obviously the adverse effect if they raise rates.
But really, when it comes to FED policy, there's a

(17:45):
few things that it affects in one's portfolio, namely if
folks have bonds or fixed income type of investments. You know,
right now, with the rates that they're at, Michael, some
of the bond yields have been the most attractive that
they've been in quite some time. The problem really that

(18:05):
we see is when we have higher rates like we
have right now, they can really reduce stock valuations on
the opposite end of the spectrum, and that can tend
to affect people's cash flow, which is really an interesting concept.
But the problem that we see Michael, most of the
time is we're leaning too heavily on what the Fed

(18:29):
or what economic news comes out to determine the short
term success of our portfolios. And really it boils down
to so much more than policy that's going to affect
whether we're successful in retirement or not. And that's where
we really come in. That's where we really shine at
Retirement Planning Center of the Rockies is we help folks

(18:52):
build plans so that they don't have to sit and
lean on whatever news might come out in the media
here around the corner.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah, I'd rather have a retirement plan. Well, I don't
have to worry about that stuff. I mean, I still
pay attention to it, but I don't have to worry
about oh my gosh, what does this mean for me?

Speaker 6 (19:11):
Absolutely? I mean our number one mantra here at Retirement
Planning Center, Michael, as you well know, is we're here
to help folks sleep well at night, you know, And
that means our clients have a clear, well organized plan
so that they don't have to worry about running out
of market or money, or if there's market volatility or

(19:32):
unexpected expenses. All those things need to be covered and
we should not lean on what the market's doing to
determine whether we can do those things or not exactly.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
And so that's why I always say that you know,
whether you're just starting out and you know you got
your first job, or you're halfway through your career, maybe
you're ordering retirement, whatever those situations are, you can help
people in any of those situations.

Speaker 6 (19:56):
Absolutely. I mean, we're really here to help break down
on the complex so that it's clear, it's actionable, and
really ultimately the goal is to make things as stress
free as possible for everybody that we work with.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
All Right, So I would say to all of you
who are considering retirement, you're already in retirement, maybe you'll
just start your first job. I want you to call
Josh and his team at the Retirement Planning some of
the Rockies, telling Michael Brown sent you. It's nine seven
zero six sixty three thirty two eleven. That's nine seven
zero six six three thirty two eleven. Or go check

(20:31):
out their website. You can make the appointment there too.
It's ourpcenter dot com. So Alex Barnson, former New York
Times reporter who does some who's now freelancing, has a
great story out today about never let a fake public
health crisis go to waste, and he's jumping off or

(20:54):
launching from again New York Times. New York Times is
in the news again about their take on this hysteria
about the measles outbreak, and as he points out, they're
taking it way past a you know, a drudge siren alert,
all the way to a level ten alert to an
eleven alert. And he says the fact it published falsehoods

(21:22):
in order to scare you about the measles alert doesn't
seem to bother The New York Times. As he says,
sometimes you can't let the science get in the way
of the science. He's got that trademarked as one of
the sayings, which I think is pretty good as referring
to an article that was written by let's say it,
Margaret Wrinkle is her name, and it's entitled why I

(21:47):
got the measles vaccine at age sixty three? So before
I I mean, I stopped right there and I read
the article and it was pretty bizarre. Why why would
you go get the measles vaccine at the age of
sixty three? I don't know. Maybe there's a legitimate reason
to do it, but in her column it was nothing

(22:09):
more than fear mongering. He had tweeted out or he
had posted on x earlier. The New York Times screenshot
about the opinion Why I Got the Measles vaccine at
age sixty three, which was published on Monday, I think,
and he says, because my love is love yard sign

(22:31):
fell over and I needed a new way to virtue signal.
He points out that there was no reason for his
pediatric In her second paragraph, she wrote that when her
first child was born in nineteen ninety two, there was
no reason for his pediatrician to warn me that I
needed to keep him away from anyone who wasn't vaccinated

(22:53):
against other deadly infectious diseases. Before the Internet deluded people
into believing that in online search was commensurate with a
medical degree, vaccination rates were high enough in this country
to provide the facto heard immunity. As he points out,
that's not just wrong or mistaken, it's the opposite of

(23:15):
the truth. American vaccination rates among children haven't changed for decades.
That he actually rose a bit during the twenty tens.
They have fallen a bit since twenty twenty. But he says,
you know, given how much public health experts lied about
the lockdowns, masks and the mRNA COVID shops, the surprises

(23:40):
isn't that rates are down, it's that they're not down.
More So, I kept as I kept hearing stories about
this measle's outbreak, I kept thinking, well, I can remember
when when I was in grade school and kids would
get the measles, and then you know, we would start

(24:02):
getting the vaccinations at school. They would literally vaccinate us
at school. Hey, tomorrow your kids are going to get
chicken pox vaccine, or you're going to get the which
I've had, or the vaccine I've had chicken pox. And obviously, yes,
I don't need anymore. I just need to worry about shingles, right,
And I remember getting the polio, and I think measles

(24:24):
at school. Do you know when the worst measles epidemic
in the last forty years took place nineteen eighty nine
to nineteen ninety two hundred times as many have been
infected so far this year, including a number of children

(24:47):
that died. During between nineteen eighty nine and nineteen ninety,
forty five thousand Americans were infected with measles. That's the
worst epidemic in the last forty years. He writes, the
outbreak received modest media attention, although nothing like the hysteria

(25:11):
that The New York Times have piled on this winter.
He says the reason may have had something to do
with the fact that the outbreak then was centered in
poor black and Hispanic communities in New York City, groups
that reporters did not view as appropriate targets for vaccination
shaming campaigns, unlike they did with Mennonites or Orthodox Jews,

(25:34):
and he cites a story from that period. In March
nineteen ninety, a large measles outbreak began in New York City.
Through December nineteen ninety, approximately twenty five hundred cases and
eight measles associated deaths were reported. However, since January of
ninety one, transmission has increased. Through May seventh, the ninety

(25:58):
one more than two thousand cases and nine deaths were
reported to the New York City Department of Health. That
epidemic lasted through ninety one, in which almost ten thousand
Americans got measles. Even in nineteen ninety two, the number
is twenty two hundred more than the last five years combined, So,

(26:20):
as he points out, the New York Times gives you
no perspective whatsoever. So why did the New York Times
not mention measles outbreak from thirty three years ago? Assume
me any part of that conversation happened, which it probably
did not. And he says the answer is that the
doctor probably viewed the risk as no big deal. No

(26:42):
big deal, a minor threat to be avoided through vaccination
if possible, but not hardly worth upsetting a new parent over. Wow,
times have really changed, haven't they? When you stop and
you think about how so much of what we here

(27:05):
read see, whether it's television, radio, newspapers. Whoever reads the newspaper?
I do online. They're all online. I don't read one
single newspaper physically anymore. As someone pointed out on the
text line, good but number two zero seven to three,

(27:26):
Mike or Michael, it's interesting you mentioned the reporters. We
were talking earlier about the Martha Ritt's doing this story,
about the signal story. You mentioned the reporter's use of adjectives.
I have taught my teenage daughter to look for adjectives
related to motivating factors and adverbs as a means to

(27:48):
recognize bias, an agenda pushing, and journalism. Well, I think
this New York Time story and Alex Berenson's take on
the New York Times story is a perfect examample of that.
Why did she get the measles vaccines age sixty three?
And why don't they mention that what's going on now

(28:08):
is actually a tiny little speck compared to what happened
almost forty years ago, or what was happening even back
when I was a kid, you know, one hundred years ago,
Because they want to instill fear. Fear has become the
driving force in journalism. Why go back to the signal story?

(28:30):
Is the Signal story really about the disclosure of classified information?
We can have a big argument whether information was classified
or not. It obviously was not classified. Was it endangering
operational security? Yes? Did it?

Speaker 6 (28:48):
No?

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Have they admitted a mistake yes? Do you think they'll
ever do it again? No? But I said the story
would only have legs if we got to mid week
and we were still talking about it. And the only
reason I'm still talking about it is because Jeffrey Goldberg
and The Atlantic are doing what they're trying to attack

(29:13):
Trump through and they're trying to attack Trump by calling
for the resignation to Mike Waltz and Pete Egsit, they're
trying to drive fear. It's nothing but a partisan political
hack job that they're doing. I think they made a mistake.
I think the President ought to chew their ass out,

(29:33):
and then I think we ought to move on Backel. Yeah,
this was a dumb mistake.

Speaker 7 (29:40):
But it's hard for me to take seriously or even
accept the indignation from a media or anybody from the
previous administration who tried to sweep under the rug thirteen
soldiers that died from an irresponsible pull out of Afghanistan. Sorry,
I don't want to hear it from him.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
Oh I don't want to hear it from him either,
But you're going to hear it from them because that's
what they're going to do, and that in fact, that's
what they are doing. They want this story, the signal story,
to have legs. So how do you perpetuate a story
where the President of the United States, everybody involved has said, Hey,

(30:22):
we made a mistake, there was no harm, no foul,
We're not going to do it again. And my guess
is that Trump probably did chew Mike boltz out, I
don't think. I don't think I know based on what
people have worked for him in the first administration have
told me. They doesn't like this kind of stuff. He
sees it as a destruction. As he told the NBC reporter,

(30:44):
it was a glitch. And it's the you know, Lily
one in two and a half months, and considering how
fast they've been moving, it's not surprising that they would
have him a glitch. It's the same as my argument
that Doge is going to make mistakes in doing some
of the cuts and recommendations. In fact, they may be
finding something that they think is waste fraud and abuse

(31:05):
that turns out that it's really not waste fraud in abuse.
So how do you make it a story? You now
start demanding the resignation. And of course, conveniently, we have
the director of the CIA testifying right now as let's
see that the Chiron says, Intel chiefs testify as new
chat details revealed. Now Fox is obviously taking it wal

(31:28):
CNN is not taking it wall to wall. CNN won't
take it wall to wall because they want to cherry
pick what they're going to talk about when the talking
heads come out to tell you what to think about
what was said in the hearing, Fox is at least
giving it to you wall to wall so you can
make up your own mind about what they're saying. And
of course I find that kind of laughed because nobody

(31:49):
except someone like me would probably sit and watch the
whole thing. This is them playing their game, and they're
gonna make hay out of it because it's the first
opportunity they have. First all, they don't want Pete, They
never wanted Pete Hexath confirmed what he got confirmed by
want only one or two votes, right, So they see

(32:10):
he's the weak link. And I find it fascinating that
Mike Walls is the one who admitted to adding Jeffrey Goldberg.
And again I want to emphasize I'm not surprised that Jeffrey.
I don't know why people are shocked that Jeffrey Goldberg
is in his contacts. He was a member of Congress
who somebody asked me about private phones versus government phones.

(32:34):
Uh doesn't make any difference.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
If this was a government phone, he could have easily
transferred all of his contacts onto a government phone, or
they could have been doing signal on their private phones,
their personal phones, since indeed it was encrypted and not
meant for he was they were conducting predecisional information conversations,
and predecisional conversations are not I'd have to double check

(32:58):
this woman to make some statement I might regret. I
don't think that those predecisional conversations are subjects any sort
of archival requirement. If they are well, then maybe should
still archivate on their on their personal phones or make
it available to the White House Comm's office so they
can do that. But this is this is all about politics,

(33:21):
pure and simple. I just emphasize the story because if
you if you admit, I firmly believe this, if you
admit to your mistake, you do your Maya kulpit. There
were there was no uh, there were certainly national security implications,
but it did not harm the attacks on the Hoothis.

(33:45):
The Hoothis unless Jeffrey gold unless we find out later that.
Of course this wouldn't surprise me. Did Jeffrey Goldberg alert
the Hohothi's hey, I got some information you hear about the
timing of attacks, and you need look out for you know,
f thirty five faighteens whatever they were using, and this
particular type of drone at you know, thirteen twelve in
the afternoon. Yeah, then we got a problem. But there's

(34:08):
no evidence that he did any of that, but he's
going Goldberg is going to drag this out because this
is the cabal operating together. Remember how I told you
about I found out about the Atlantic story through the
New York Times, who has an ongoing timeline about this story.

(34:29):
They want to dragon it