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December 9, 2025 • 10 mins

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okase.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Yeah, we started our show today.

Speaker 3 (00:02):
It was a wild day yesterday at the Indiana State House,
and I wasn't alone in my misery.

Speaker 4 (00:07):
Yeah, one hundred and twenty seven people signed up to
give public testimony. You were one of them.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
You know who else was one of them?

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Our old pal, you know, from Saturday night on the Circle,
Saturday night, seven o'clock here at WIBC, Ethan Hatcher. He
joined us now, Ethan Hatcher. Hello, thanks for having me
in the studio.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Guys.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Okay, so you made the misery of yesterday a little
less miserable. You and I palled around for a couple
of hours as we waited to speak. I thought you
did a fantabulous job. I appreciate that, Rob, But you
know you picked the absolute worst spot for us to
stand in the crowd because we were right in the
path of where people were trying to squeeze through. I

(00:43):
had folks bumping against me every couple of minutes. We
were all packed in there like sardines. And I'll tell
you what those democrats stay.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
That room smelled awful.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
The body odor was wafting so thick you could cut
it with a knife. Okay, So I know, we laid
out a little bit about what happened, but you're you're
standing earlier, but you're standing in this hallway out front
of the State House, the Senate chambers in the state House.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, they've got.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
These speakers, but they're like little baby speakers, so you
can't hear anything. Yeah, and they're supposed to be putting
people's names up on the screen because you can watch
the thing, but they're like two people behind. So you
got to keep asking the guy who's like the gatekeeper,
and then he's getting annoyed everybody for asking. It was
a complete dumpster fire, and so were many of the
people and either and at numerous times looked at each

(01:28):
other and go, go, I hate that we're on the
same side of these people, Yeah, because they're nuts. Well,
at one point I looked at you and I, you know,
kind of mock tore up my speech.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
I'm like, you know what, I've changed my mind. I'm
not supporting you people. Screw it.

Speaker 4 (01:40):
And that was enough to do while we were questioning.
You know what would make someone change their mind? Ethan,
You did a good job when you were speaking in
front of the committee. You were, as far as I
can tell the only person who got a compliment.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, I think they were a little bit surprised.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
I was able to squeeze all that in, but I
was using my broadcasting training to great effect. I almost
did it, Rob, I almost got all the way through.
I gave ninety nine point five percent of a speech,
but they cut me off halfway through the.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Very very last You nearly hit the post. Yeah almost.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
I cut a paragraph out of mine because I said
I ain't giving Gaskell the thrill of buzzing me or
cutting me off because that little backstabb Remember he was
on our show screaming about how bad property taxes were,
and then he voted for that abomination of a property text.
But I said, AH, ain't giving him the thrill buzzing
me or cutting me off. I ended with two seconds
to go. All right, So obviously the three undecided's, as

(02:33):
we predicted, voted to move it forward.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Am I good? Or am I good? You're good?

Speaker 2 (02:39):
I told you exactly. I said those three are gonna
vote for it.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
But say they're not voting for it yet, Well you
know why they did it, Rob, Because they're not going
down with this shit.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
They're gonna get other people on the record too. They're
not gonna take all the flak for that.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
They didn't want the smoke the three deciders. Okay, so
let's talk just briefly about the approach that was taken
yesterday for the people who weren't able to be there.
I think these lefty people have no idea what they're doing,
and the idea that you're going to be booing other
people while they're speaking, the idea that somebody has a

(03:14):
different opinion than you and you're just going to be
a complete ass to them. You and I tried to
tell a couple people with it, and they just weren't
having any of it. That works against you. These sinners
are gonna do what they're gonna do, and you kind
of get the sympathy on your side right now, and
then you sort of maybe veer people in another direction
because you can't help yourself. Yeah, you got to read
the room, You got to play to your audience. And

(03:36):
they're already you know, they've got the popular side on
this issue because anytime it's been pulled, hoosiers are broadly
against it. Just let people speak. Everybody is allowed to speak.
Everybody is getting their two minutes to make their stance
known on this issue. All you got to do is
let them get through it. I mean, for a lot
of these folks, I think it's a profession. It's arts

(03:57):
and crafts time.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
You know.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
They brought out their little their little art projects and
their little scrawls and the permanent marker.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
And that's what it was all about.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
It's about MEMI me, not about what's actually going on.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
That's something that I noticed as I watched all of
that testimony.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Casey is the real hero and all of.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
This, because look, I wouldn't have sat through three seconds
to watching that if we hadn't been there, and she
sat through the.

Speaker 4 (04:22):
Whole until the vote I know, which happened at seven
forty one last night. But I noticed quite a few
things with the people that are against the redistricting came
from a lot of NGOs, nonprofits, and quite a few
had trumped arrangement syndrome. Is that way you were picking
up when you were in the vestibule waiting area.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Oh, I think that is a fair assessment, Casey.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Anytime, it was real easy to read which of the
speakers were pro redistricting and which were Again I could tell,
and they.

Speaker 4 (04:53):
Stuffed up to the to the podium as well.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
Well, mostly because of the response from the crowd, Like,
you know, I'm as blind and is a bat rob.
He has good eagle eyed vision. But I can't even
read the close captioning on the big screen. But I
didn't need to because the crowd would inform me based
on their booze and jeers.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
Now you had mentioned I don't like being on the
same side of an issue with these people because you
have this experience yesterday. Does that sway you at all?
Does that make you go, oh, you know what, maybe
it should be nine to zero?

Speaker 1 (05:26):
No, No, not at all.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
I was just joking because I think the important thing
is to stand for the principle of our principles of
our countries founding. And if you don't have standards, then
what do you have. Evan Hatcher, Saturday, nun on the
Circle is our guest. He braved the elements yesterday, spent
several hours with me at the State House. My favorite
part of the whole day yesterday, Casey was Ethan and
I though we were signed up at the same time,

(05:48):
somehow ended up like twenty people apart. And Ethan speaks
and he's like, have a good day, see you, and
I was loved to be there by my loansome around
these people. I want.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
You, I told you, hey, they stink. I wanted to
get away from the body owner B.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
I had to go to the grocery store before I
had a showing in the evening because I had work
to do.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
Rob.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
I'm a working man, all right.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
If you had to predict, because I genuinely have no
idea how that's going to go up or down on redistricting,
what do you think if I.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Had to call it, I'm gonna say down.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
Really is that the Senate had already came out against this,
and if they continue to support it, then they're essentially
validating the scare tactics of all these swatters of.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
The violent mob. And I just don't think we can
have that in a civil society.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
Now, maybe I'm wrong, Maybe these senators are all cowards
and they're just gonna bend the knee because they don't
want to take the flag for going on public record.
Maybe that's the secret sauce here that's going to sway
the vote. But I think it will squeak by with
a no.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
That's my guess. Casey.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
You'll love this. So I obviously uh many many people
in the state House. They don't maybe proudly know me,
but in quiet corners I was able to talk to
several of them yesterday. There was a very uh known
lobbyist yesterday who I was talking to. I said, so, like,
how's it going. He goes horrible. He said, nobody's paying
any attention to anything until this thing gets decided. And

(07:19):
that's money for those guys. So they're honked up because
nobody's paying attention to things that they need to move
forward for their clients to get paid.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Oh am, I supposed to feel bad for the lobbyists.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Now the other thing you'll love this, see Violin.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Well, the other thing somebody told me yesterday is they said,
one of the things these old timers are doing. These
people have been there since the earth was young. They
figured out these committee heads or whatever, that nobody's paying attention.
They're trying to slip all these bills through now in
these other committees because there was a whole bunch of
business going on yesterday and nobody was paying attention to
any of it because everything was focused on redistricting. Now,

(07:52):
getting something out of a committee doesn't mean it's gonna
get approved, doesn't mean it's gonna if it passed the Senate,
pass the House.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
But these wily old veterans are.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Like, well, nobody's paying any attention.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
Nobody to come, bitch, let's put this Bill Ford I
wanted for twenty years.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Weren't we kind of joking about that?

Speaker 3 (08:06):
I wonder who's showing up outside of Room one point
thirty for the Agriculture.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
Committee, you know, if they got as big of a crowd,
doubt it.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
I'm curious.

Speaker 4 (08:13):
Did you notice any difference with the presence of the
national media being there? No?

Speaker 3 (08:18):
No, you could barely tell who was credential media. Most
of the credentialed media was inside the chambers, so it
didn't really register to me who was active media until
after I had gotten done speaking at the podium, and
then a few of them approached me for comment or
how do you spell your name?

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Stuff like that, and then then it's like, ah, media.

Speaker 4 (08:35):
Did you feel that Gaskell was talking directly to the
two of you when he was laying out the rules, cheering?

Speaker 2 (08:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, we were the doing.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
We are our buddy Joe, My buddy Joe was there too,
and a big fan of our show and was at
the property tax rally. We were by far the best
behaved people. We were the ones because we know how
to operate in decent society. So news splash if you're
on the left and you hear this. But by the way,
my favorite thing was when I got in there was
rucus applause and I walked out of their laugh and going,

(09:05):
you people would hate everything I stand for.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, exactly right, I agree on this one.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah, no exactly.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
But uh, the lefty people, you got to get your
act together, like you cannot be behaving like lunatics. That
is not gonna sway these people one way or another.
You're gonna be far more effective just being calm and
rational and saying your piece and then going home. Yeah,
listen to Rob speech. I mean he was uncharacteristically well
behaved that. I was very impressed. Now what do you

(09:32):
have to do? Do you pop a zany take a
couple of melatonin? Well, god I do. We gotta go here.
But Casey, I'm talking about this earlier to start the show.
I had two ways I could go. It was the
fork in the proverbial fork in the road. I could
have just spent two minutes roasting those people, which in
hindsight I kind of wish i'd done now. But next time,
I talked to some people that are in the know,
and they said it would be far more effective for

(09:52):
you to use logic and kindness and really wow them
that you because some people think I am just a
raving lunatic four hours a day, seven days a week,
and I think I totally confused everybody.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
The one thing that impressed me both about the two
of you, Ethan, you stuck to kind of a historical
perspective with the founding fathers, and Rob you stuck to
the policy that wasn't the case with everybody who testified.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
Ethan Hatcher, Saturday Nights, WIBC, Thank you, Thank you,
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