BHS - 7A - RE-CAP THE STATE OF THE UNION

RE-CAP THE STATE OF THE UNION. STEVEN PORTNOY JOINS US FROM DC
$2-billion downtown L.A. mega-project gets boost from governor’s office, hopes for approval in 2024

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six fortythe Bill Handles show on demand on the
iHeartRadio app last night, and nosurprise, it was a momentous State of
the Union address. And they're gettingmore and more either really disappointing or entertaining
or both. Stephen Portnoy, whois an ABC News correspondent, we have

(00:23):
them on the show before joined thismorning with Amy King and Wake Up Call,
and we had to grab him.Let's see if we can get them
too. So Stephen, thank youfor joining us and taking the time.
I know you're sort of squeezing usin. You were there last night,
man, I can just watching iton TV. It looked rock us out
of control. What was it likebeing in that room? It's really something,

(00:45):
Bill to be up perched above thespeaker's rosterm into the right of it
as you're facing it in the Radioand Television Correspondence Gallery, a position that's
been apportioned from in the House Chamberfor radio reporters since the late nineteen thirties.
And there've been broadcasters far more talentedand important and influential than me you
who've been on the air from thatperch. But what an honor it is

(01:06):
to uphold the tradition and to beable to see the Joint Session of Congress
from that vantage point and watch thebipartisan applause when it occurs, and the
lopsided division otherwise. And you,obviously you could see it at home on
television. But to be in thatroom with that energy and to hear the
raucous cheers or the booze and theheckling now which has become a feature of

(01:27):
these speeches, really is something.And that's I think what I'm gonna take
away is that the number of timesthat people were shouting down at the president
the first time it's happened, it'ssort of become a more regular thing here.
But there was one man who wasa gold Star father who shouted at
the President for not mentioning the deathsof service members during the pullout from Afghanistan.

(01:49):
There was the moment that Marjorie TaylorGreen shouted down the president. She
was wearing a red Maga hat andviolation of the rules of decorum of the
House, but she handed the Presidentof pin as he walked out. It
read the name Lake and Riley,the nursing student killed last month at the
University of Georgia. The suspect inthe country illegally. Now you may have
seen or or you may remember,that moment where the President referred to the

(02:12):
suspect as an illegal. You'd bewondering why would he say that. He
was echoing Marjorie Taylor Green. Ihad it in full view in my binoculars
for my perch in the gallery,looking directly at Marjorie Taylor Green, who
was seated just off the center aisle, so she was directly in Biden's field
of vision. So she starts hecklinghim. He starts engaging with her.
She says, say her name,So he holds up the pin that she

(02:36):
gave him with Lake and Riley's nameon it. He mispronounces it somewhat is
Lincoln Riley. And then he repeatedwhat she said to him, that the
alleged killer is quote an illegal,and then he said something like yes,
but what about all the thousands whowere killed by legals. This is a
moment to remember because it's one that'sbeen pointed out by progressives, so something
that was deeply disappointing to them.They don't like it when people refer to

(02:58):
people who are in this country illegallyas illegals and used that phrase because he
was repeating what she was saying tohim. The country may not have seen
it that way. I certainly did. You know, we lose a lot
in the minutia of it, andthere were moments there, things that he
went off script and heckled right back. I thought he did a great job

(03:20):
in terms of taking the half clanand going, hey, that's a quote
that when he was referring to formerPresident Trump along some of the items that
were discussed last night. But youknow, here's the part that I'm really
upset and distressed about the state ofthe Union address used to be sacrisaint.
It was formal, it was theutmost respect. I don't care which side

(03:44):
of the Iran. This is thePresident of the United States addressing the nation
and addressing Congress. It has becomea free for all circus. Remember when
Barack Obama when that single congressman yelledliar, and Obama looked at him,
just shocked, and the rest ofCongress stared at him. What an obvious

(04:06):
lack of the appropriate demeanor. Nowit's been crazy. Also, the Democrats
screaming four more years, four moreyears. I mean it was a campaign
rally. You know, how disappointedwas it for people? For people like
you in the gallery watching this disintegrationof this speech. I mean, look,

(04:29):
this is a national conversation that's focusedin this one moment. You have
all three branches of government represented,executive, legislative, judicial, You've got
the military's top brass. You've gotguests from all across the country, all
walks of life all around us inthe chamber, in the galleries above.
To watch this moment where we allcome together, one of the rare moments

(04:50):
where we're all together in the sameroom. And it is distressing this idea
that our political conversation has reached sucha point where the tone and tenor is
negative and nasty. The President theUnited States is a politician. He is
an elected official. It's not allthat out of the ordinary for a politician
to say things that are political.What I think was striking in this particular

(05:13):
speech was the extent to which itwas really keenly framed around this idea,
here's Joe Biden's vision for the nextfour years in a political context. It
wasn't simply I'm the President United Statesrepresenting all Americans and here's what I would
do for the country with your help, Republicans. Although there was some of
that, a lot of it wasmy predecessor, the former president, So

(05:35):
a lot of contrast between himself andhis opponent, Donald Trump, although he
didn't mention him by name, andyou had the heckling, and he was
in many respects trying to god Republicansbecause last year the White House saw it
as a very successful moment for thePresident when he got into it with them
over entitlement reform and he said thatRepublicans were interested in cutting so Security Medicare.

(05:58):
That led to booze and cries ofno, that's you're a liar from
Republicans because Republicans had backed away fromthat position last year, and the president
for weeks thereafter, he and hisaides talked about how he got Republicans in
the moment to agree with him thatSocial Security and Medicare should be off limits.
So the president and his aides werehoping for a moment like that last
night. You sort of saw someof it, but in the main,

(06:23):
the bar for Joe Biden was setat a level where he had to meet
the expectation of essentially not falling downon it, right, Yeah, obviously,
I mean there was. It wasso you could see that it was
all pre planned, the attacks,the screening, the accusations, particularly for
Margie Taylor Green. Hey, shewas in violation of the rules of decorum

(06:47):
in the house. Is there anybuzz out there? Why didn't Mike Johnson
tell her, Hey, remove thehat or you're not sitting in this chamber.
So I didn't see it myself,but another reporter says she saw one
of the doorkeepers going up to MarjorieTeller Green and asking her to remove the
hat because you're not other than forreligious purposes, and headcoverings in the house
are not allowed. That's an ageold rule, it seems. Marjorie Tailer

(07:11):
Green, the congresswoman from Georgia,declined the request to remove the hat.
And at that point, what canyou do. I'll tell you what you
can do. You can say you'reviholating the rules. What if someone comes
in their underwear? Uh, youknow, what do you do with that?
Yeah? It's tough. I meanthe rules for a long time had
it that you couldn't even use yourcell phone in the chamber, and you
couldn't take pictures and members just sortof, you know, thumb their nose

(07:33):
at that where things are now.I think, look, Mike Johnson is
and has been since the moment hegrabbed the gavel on thin ice with his
colleague. So I don't expect anykind of retribution or any kind of punishment,
any kind of punitive action will beundertaken against Marjorie Taeler Green. It's
possible. I just think it's unlikely. It was interesting to see the new

(07:56):
House speaker Grimace shake his head rollis yeah, I know that one was
fun. President too crazy all right, thanks very much. I greatly appreciated
Stephen taking the time for us.You bet all right. Last night just
completely crazy. And Stephen points out, I mean all the rule has been
thrown out. You're going to seethe next couple of years on State of
the Union. They're going to bringplacards and posters like you do at campaign

(08:20):
rallies. It's going to be thatcrazy. All right. Coming up,
I'm going to do a takeaway exactlywhat the President said, sort of what
happened on the political and the nationallevel. And also, oh this is
so good. The response Katie Britt, she was the Republican response to the
State of the Union address. Sheprobably the most entertaining one was her last

(08:43):
night, and we'll talk about thatcoming up. You're listening to Bill Handle
on demand from KFI AM six forty. As expected, the State of the
Union last night, State of Unionspeech by the President, Well, it
was very much what was anticipated,very entertaining in certain areas, pretty much
out of control, and it's gottento the point where it's become a sideshow.

(09:07):
I mean literally, it's become justthis raucous, out of control screaming
match between in this case, theRepublicans in the House Marjorie Taylor Green specifically,
and the President up on the dais. And I'm willing to bet that
if you see a Republican elected readDonald Trump this time out his first Date
of the Union speech, you'll seeone or two Democrats screaming at him in

(09:31):
the chamber, because that's simply theway it works. And here was the
whole point of the speech last night, same soaring rhetoric you always get.
You know, I want every man, woman and child in this country to
be a man, woman and childand have the right to be a man,
woman and child. You know itdoes the same crap you hear,
but you also heard those are thethings that you normally hear a tout of

(09:52):
his achievements, you know what,not as much as you would expect differentiating
between him and Donald Trump. Thatone you got who did? We get
a lot of that started with ananti Trump statement and did with an anti
Trump statement. And the big issuewas, and that's the issue that is

(10:16):
probably the biggest hurdle that Joe Bidenhas to overcome his age, his age,
daughtering old. The Democrats who lovedJoe Biden say that they have an
issue with his age. Interesting enough, Joe Biden's eighty one and Donald Trump's

(10:37):
seventy seven. If Joe Biden wasn'tin the picture, Let's say a seventy
seven year old running against a PeteBoodhagic who is in his what forties or
someone in his fifties or her fifties, You think the other issue would come
up? Well, certainly not.I'm among the Republicans. I mean,
Donald Trump is the end all beall, or at least publicly that's the

(10:58):
case. So did come off ifDottering? He had to come off as
vibrant, young, not young,but certainly vibrant, having all of his
cognitive abilities, being strong, quick, witty there and I think for the
most part, the pundits said hemade that. He made that happen,

(11:20):
and he went off script for afew times and came in with some pretty
pretty sharp retorts. He would saysomething that would be anti Trump or anti
Republican, and they'd start screaming,liar, Liary goes read it, read
it, or that's a quote.How do you argue with that, you're

(11:43):
lying, that's not true, thatwasn't a quote when it was a quote.
So it was just crazy. Inmy favorite, of course, Marjorie
Taylor Green screaming at the top ofher lungs calling him a liar every other
minute, and wearing a Maga hat. Of course, isn't that lovely?
And that's against the decorum in thehouse nothing. Mike Johnson could never ever

(12:05):
enforce the rules a speaker and sayyou got to take the hat off,
you're not walking in because how doyou do that to a Maga Republican when
he is a Maga Republican. Soit got to be kind of crazy,
And you know, did he hitall the right notes? If you're a
liberal Democrat, if you're a Democrat. He hit the right notes. He

(12:26):
made fun of his age, whichwas right on good for him. He
talked about how he goes someone inmy years, I've been around long enough,
and basically was self deprecating about it. And he came up with one
of the best lines, or thebest statements I've heard about. A just
reminds me of Ronald Reagan when hewas running against Walter Mondale for the presidency

(12:48):
the second time, and he saidthat Mondale talked about his age, and
Reagan comes back says, I'm notgoing to hold your youth against you,
And that was brilliant. So lastnight, what did Joe Biden do?
He said, I was elected tothe Senate when I was twenty nine years
old. I was too young tobe a senator. Now I'm too old

(13:13):
to be a president, and tomeet fun of it, and that he
got to tell you his retorts backand forth were pretty good. I have
to tell you I was reasonably impressedwith it. A lot of personal attacks
on President former President Trump, andin the end it really did lay out
a vision for America. Obviously,pro choice made that a mainstay in the

(13:39):
aftermath of ro v Wade, Andhere's the problem, and it's always the
problem with pro choice. He calledit reproductive rights, which it is.
It's your choice, a woman's rightto do with her body as she wishes.
It's reproductive rights, freedom to choose. That's the way it is on
those that are pro abortion. Onthe other side, it's murder. I'm

(14:00):
talking the same it's not the sameconversation. What do you mean, reproductive
rights? It's murder. No,no, it's reproductive rights. No,
no, it's murder. Where didthe two meet on that one? So
it's going to be it's not applesand oranges, it's apples and ardvarks.
Now, when we come back,I'm going to have a lot of fun

(14:20):
because well the response was just hilariousand usually well, I'll tell you about
it when we come back, becausethis was entertaining with a capital e.
The Republican response, which, bythe way, has been going on,
the Republican response or the other sideresponding, has been going on for what
eighty years something like that that theyhave the other side has been offered a

(14:43):
chance for response, and I'll talkabout what happened last night. Maybe one
of the most memorable wonderful, terrific. You're going to be seeing snippets of
this for a very long time.You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from
kf I am six forty and I'mgoing to continue on with the State of
the Union speech last night, Butnot really the speech itself. It was

(15:07):
the Republican Rebuttal. Now, acouple of things about the rebuttal, which
started I don't know how many decadesago that the networks and the parties give
a chance to the opposing party who'sever not in power or does not have
the presidency, a chance to rebuteverything the president said. Usually they get
some kind of indication, we knowin advance what it's going to be,

(15:28):
so they can pretty well formulate it. And usually the reputtal is given in
the Republican National Committee. The partyis the one that chooses the rebuttal person
the rebut tour, and generally it'sa rising star in the party. You
know, they want to give thatperson some national coverage. In the case

(15:50):
of the rebuttal last night, itwas junior Senator from Alabama Katie Britt,
who broadcasts from her kitchen at home. Now, I've got to say as
much as disgusted that I am aboutMarjorie Taylor Green, who screams at the

(16:12):
president and it does all kinds ofjust crazy stuff. She's elected official guide,
weird. There's no hidden agenda withher none. I mean, she
is who she is. I mean, that's it. That's what you get.
You don't have to go behind thescenes. Katie Britt went out of
her way last night. I don'teat This is the first time I've ever

(16:33):
heard her or seen her, orthe first time I've ever been introduced to
her. And as one Trump advisorsaid last night, her speech, her
rebuttal looked like a Saturday Night Liveskit. Tony play, Let's play a
little bit of it. President Bidenjust doesn't get it. He's out of

(16:56):
touch. Under his administration, familiesare worse off, our communities are less
safe, and our country is lesssecure. I just wish he understood what
real families are facing around kitchen tablesjust like this one. You know,
this is where our family has toughconversations. It's where we make hard decisions.

(17:19):
It's where we share the good,the bad, and the ugly of
our days. It's where we laughtogether, and it's where we hold each
other's hands and pay for the audienceand many nights. To be honest,
it's s where Wesley and I worryenough. I can't take it anymore.

(17:41):
This is where Wesley and I worryabout the country. And then at one
point, she of course talked aboutPresident Biden as being a doddering old man
not in touch, but didn't doit like the way Marjorie Taylor Green would
do it. It's the God blesshim. He is just so out of

(18:03):
touch. I mean, you knowwe have to feel sorry for him.
He's just a nice old man andgo eat please. I mean it's you
know, what do you do withthat? And I tell you the Republicans
have reeled on this. Democrats ofcourse are going to rip into whoever does
the rebuttal. I mean that's agiven as politics, but this one took
it to a whole new level.I want to meet the people who have

(18:26):
made this decision to put her onand allowed her to do it, and
knew and know her and had anyidea she was going to in fact rebut
the speech in this way because itbecame a laughingstock. And it's just as
much as I dislike a lot ofwhat the Republicans do. I admire a
lot of what the Republicans do.And I'm gonna you can do better than

(18:48):
this. Come on, guys,really, you can do better with this.
He's just a doughtering old man.God bless him. And she said,
you saw what the president did.You saw how old he is.
You saw how it of touch heis. He could have come up on
that stage, done a hundred pushupsfollowed by a hundred setups and started his

(19:12):
speech not even out of breath.And what do you think she would have
said, God bless him. Yousaw what a doddering old man he is.
Breathlessly. It's around my kitchen table. We worry about our kids,
we worry about the country, youknow, you know, it reminds me
of by the way we could havedone. There's an old movie star who

(19:36):
is now dead, by the nameof Jack Palance. A bunch of movies
he was in and this is oldtime, and I think maybe it was
in the eighties and nineties, andhe was very proud of how physically fit
he was. And he was atan Academy award, award, he was
a presenter or whatever. I onlyremember the incident and he jumped up on

(19:59):
stage now he's in his sixties andstarted doing one hand pushups in front of
the camera. Then he got upand did his thing. The president could
have done that, and it doesn'tmatter. I mean, we are at
this point out of touch of realitywhen it comes to politics, and basically

(20:22):
on both sides, even though I'mon the anti Trump side because of obvious
reasons, I think the presidency isbetter than that man. That's so,
and forget about politics. By theway, I'm not talking about politics.
I'm just talking about a moral compass, and I'm talking about just who is
fit. Because I happen to likethe President's c and I happen to think
that is a SACRICANCT office. Huhreally, you shure checked out last night.

(20:48):
Boy, that's admiring and holding thepresident c on a on a pedestal.
That's why Ronald Reagan, you know, God bless him, why he
is such a hero. One ofthe reasons such a hero always wear a
coat and tie in the White House, in that oval office. And he
was asked, why, mister President, do you wear a coat and tie
to work? It was because thatis because that's the oval office. And

(21:11):
one time, and his biographer,I think was Isaacson, who wrote the
book Dutch Great Biography of Ronald Reagan. He was introduced to a blind a
fireman who was introduced to him,and he spent way too long with the
fireman. And he said in oneof his aides said, mister President,

(21:32):
you're running late. You spend twentyminutes with this man when you only schedule
like seven or eight minutes. Andhe said, he just met the President
of the United States, not RonaldReagan. He met the President of the
United States. Reagan had the presidencyin as much awe as the rest of
us do, where a lot ofus do. There goes the copy stand,

(21:53):
a different place, different time.Unfortunately, that's where we're at.
It's yeah, it's very depressing.All right. Coming up, I've got
a story for you about a twobillion dollar project, a mega project downtown
and the governor is all over itin favor of it is strangely enough,

(22:14):
and I'll tell you that story.And then top of the hour Footy Friday
with Neil. So we just havea lot going on today KFI. You're
listening to Bill Handle on demand fromKFI AM six forty in the aftermath of
the State of the Union last night, and Jo Biden got pretty good,
pretty good marks. I'd give hima good, solid b in how he
handled it. So a lot ofexpectations were there he met him, a

(22:40):
fair number of gaffes expected, anda lot of well, let's say,
retribution, a lot of anti Bidenactivity in the house, particularly Marjorie Taylor
Green. Okay, And you canlisten to that, by the way,
on demand all of our shows hereon KFI. You just go to the
KFI you can go to the iHeartRadioapp and listen on demand. Okay.

(23:00):
Now moving into a whole different topicand coming up at the top of the
hour, it's going to be FoodyFriday with Neil Okay. There is a
project downtown, a two billion dollarproject downtown, and it's massive. It's
called Fourth and Central. Fifteen hundrednew homes, four hundred thousand square feet
of office space, retail restaurants,a sixty eight room hotel, and it's

(23:23):
going to be on this parcel ofland that has cold storage facilities and parking
lots and warehouses, basically in skidrow. And it is next to the
Arts District, and it is nextto little Tokyo and what Newsom has said,
we want this thing and we're goingto make it happen. Here's what

(23:44):
the government can do and that hasshaved years off the construction timeline by fast
tracking any judicial decision in any litigationfiled against the project under state environmental laws.
And this is where the anti developmentpeople always go right to the state
and file lawsuits using state laws whichare much stronger than local laws usually,

(24:08):
although they still have to go tothe city council on this one, but
that is a different issue. We'lltalk about it a different day. This
is all about whatever you have theright to sue. Granted, we're not
going to stop you from doing that, but man, we're going to make
the decisions quick and unless there arehuge problems, if they're met in the
if they're within the zoning laws,and they meet all the other requirements,

(24:33):
guess what We're gonna let it happen. And why do people want to stop
it? Well, okay, there'salways Nimby, not in my backyard.
Always. There is no such thingas any kind of a major project,
any kind of a minor project thatdoesn't have a lawsuit attached. Try to
build two homes in for example,Van Eyes, and you have to be

(24:55):
hearing with all the neighbors, andinevitably someone's going to go to the planning
department or to the hearing and scream, how we don't want homes build.
Oh no, no, it's goingto destroy the economy. We're going to
destroy our neighborhood. And that's what'shappening here. This is actually Little Tokyo
is the one that's doing it.Oh, you're going to ruin our neighborhood.
We've got low income housing that's goingto be destroyed. Although now with

(25:18):
when you build housing x percentage fifteento twenty percent is to go to low
income. All the things that nobodywants. There's always detractors out there now
that don't want anything built. Andso the lawsuits are filed, and what
is going down with him with Newsom? He goes, we're going to make
this happen as quickly as possible.We're going to ramp up the timeline that

(25:41):
this thing can be finally decided.Normally is three to five years. Just
the state issues three to five years. And what Newsom said, Okay,
go ahead and file our lawsuits.We're going to decide all this in nine
months, because in many cases youhave these lawsuits filed, I have no
merit. Sometimes they do, butin many cases it's for the purpose of

(26:03):
just killing it, for the purposeof delaying it, for the purposes if
we make it troubling enough, maybethe investors will give up because you have
huge investments and they're saying, youknow, we don't want to wait five
years before this thing starts making moneybefore it even breaks ground. So this

(26:25):
is what's going on now, andyou're going to see this happening more and
more because well, development just hasto happen, you know. If you
don't, you know, move outto the Inland Empire, go to Norco
and buy a house next to thedairy farms and enjoy yourself. But residents
and activists and skid Row and certainlyLittle Tokyo long being concerned about gentrification of
the arts district and that's this isgoing to be right next to it,

(26:49):
and it's a big deal. Sonow the question is do you want development
or do you not want development.If a city is going to grow,
it has to do this. Ifa city does not want to grow,
it actually goes backwards. There's No, there's no way unless you decide you're
going to have a declining city whereit can be less and less construction.

(27:10):
Read Detroit, which used to havethree times the population, used to have
all the major car manufacturing. We'rein that area. You know, those
days are gone. And so we'relooking at the city of Los Angeles that
says we are a vibrant, growingcity and that involves new development. That

(27:33):
involves more residence residencies being built,being built, with more and more units
of low income families, moderate tolow income housing. I mean, that's
just part and parcel and everybody,every developer knows it. Every developer knows.
You go in front of the PlanningCommission, you ask for zoning,
you go to the Planning Department,and they're going to come back and say

(27:56):
things like you don't have enough housingfor folks who can't afford it. So
even the very high end i meanhigh end department buildings that are being built,
and I'm talking about you know,eight ten thousand dollars rental for a
two bedroom and not very big,you know what, twenty percent have to
go to low income. So that'swhat the governor is doing. It makes

(28:19):
a lot of sense it does.Okay, coming up Foody Friday with Neil
and he has not been here today, but he's coming in live to do
this sort of we'll be back withthat. Kf I am six forty live
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You'vebeen listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Catch my show Monday through Friday,six am to nine am, and anytime

(28:42):
on demand on the iHeartRadio app.