July 2, 2025 • 25 mins
(July 02, 2025)
Senate passes Trump’s tax bill, sending it to House for final passage. Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs jury reaches verdicts on sex trafficking and prostitution, and racketeering.These new laws went into effect yesterday.
Senate passes Trump’s tax bill, sending it to House for final passage. Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs jury reaches verdicts on sex trafficking and prostitution, and racketeering.These new laws went into effect yesterday.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from kf I
AM six forty, can't buy AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Bill hend will hear Morning Crew on the day before
the day it is July two, and on Friday it
is going to be July four, and I will not
be here either tomorrow or on Friday, but Neil, Neil
Sevadra will be filling in for me as he has
a want to do. And I want to point something
(00:28):
out with And I've talked to management many, many times
about Neil filling in for me, and they are by
far they believe Neil is not only the most qualified,
but the most entertaining fill in.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
There's no one really else that could fill in.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
And it has nothing to do with the fact that
they don't pay him for this. If they bring in
someone else that they have to pay, So no influence.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
On that one. Just want to point that out, all right.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yesterday what ended up happening, Well, I and many others
called it that big beautiful Bill went ahead and did
cross the finish line, and President Trump got what he wanted.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
It was close, man.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
It was fifty to fifty and fifty senators for fifty
senators against, and it was JD. Van's the vice President
that cast the tie breaking vote, which is pursuant to
the rules established by the Constitution of the United States.
So that was going to happen. The only way it
would not happen. The bill would not have passed if
(01:31):
one more senator had gone the other way. And therein
lies a story, because I think that's the big story
of this bill.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
All right.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
A couple of things I want to point about this
before I get to that point. And it's Lisa Murkowski
of Alaska. Man, what a story and what a complete
horse she is a political horror. Just just drives me
nuts with Well, I mean, that's every politician out there.
How many Liz Cheney's are there in the world that say,
(02:01):
it doesn't matter if I get re elected or not,
I am going to vote my conscience.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
All right.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
So, a couple things about this bill that Trump wanted
to and got. The First of all, we talk about
the medicaid cuts. As I said before, it's not medicaid cuts.
It's just going to be much harder for people to
either apply for or stay on Medicaid.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
That's really what this is about. Now.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
The Congressional Budget Office says there will be eleven million
people that will no longer be eligible or they will
have their Medicaid cut, either they will not be able
to get it or they're going to get off of it.
And it has to do with work rules.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
That's it. It's that simple.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
The new legislation says you have to apply and you
have to meet the requirements. And part of the requirements
now is you got to work or you have to
attempt to work, and you've got to prove that to
the government. It's like receiving unemployment insurance. You got to
prove you're out there trying to find a job, all right.
So that is a big one. The other ones that
(03:07):
just when I first heard President Trump pitched this, I
literally thought to myself, a come on, I mean, are
you really going to go down that line? And that
had to do with not taxing tips and not taxing overtime.
(03:27):
So for the purposes of federal taxes, those of you
who work for tips don't earn tips.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
It's not part of your salary, only the base salary.
For example, if you're if you work in a.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Restaurant, and I'm gonna give you an example of that,
people are gonna say that's just an example, and it is.
But let's say you work in a restaurant where ninety
percent of your income is tips, which is basically any
medium to high end restaurant.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
All Right, the other day I went to dinner. It
was a couple hundred dollars left forty bucks.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
That doesn't exist as far as the federal government is concerned.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It's the minimum.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Wage that that the server makes, the nineteen dollars an
hour that is taxed sort of because nineteen dollars an
hour isn't tax very much. So I thought that was ridiculous.
I really thought that was insane. How can you argue
that people get tips, aren't earning that money and pay.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Taxes on it.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
How can you say that same thing with overtime pay?
That's not income, not as far as the federal government
tax philosophy goes, that's not income.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
And I'm thinking this is completely insane.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Especially when you consider the deficit that we are experiencing,
the national debt we are experiencing. Why would the government
say that and eliminate that income completely? And I'm thinking
makes no sense to me. Now if I'm a server,
Oh yeah, makes a lot of sense to me. I
(05:04):
love the fact that I don't pay tax on eighty
percent of my salary or my income and you do.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, it's good for me.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
And if I get over time, it's really good for
me because that doesn't exist in terms of taxes.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So I thought it was crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Well Trump got it as a majority leader. Thune said,
this is good for America. This is good for the workers.
You should have just said for people who are in
tips and work overtime. The rest of us who are
on salary or you're working under forty hours a week
(05:47):
and you are not making tips, maybe not so good
for you.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Right. Oh, hey, Comb's verdict is reached.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I just got Amy, I just got a text.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Notice.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yep, the jury has agreed on verdicts or all five charges.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Okay, so that means that they're coming back. Everybody is
now scrambling. The lawyers have been texted, and everybody's making
their way back to the courthouse and we'll be hearing
the jury render it's vertict.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Now do we Is it going to be on? Is
it going to be broadcast?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
You know, Amy, I know you can't have a TV coverage,
but do they let any kind of a broadcast or
that the.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
News is going to come out from an attorney in
the courthouse.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
It's going to have to come out from someone in
the courthouse because they don't they don't have any cameras.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Okay, all right, so as soon as it's reached, you
interrupt me. Matter of fact, you can interrupt me when
whatever you want. That's a good day.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
That's absolutely not true, Amy, you can't. I just wanted
to make you feel better for about ten seconds.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Okay, Bill, Tonight's freak off has been canceled very strong.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
That is funny, I think.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And the story you know what I was thinking when
you're doing the Big Bear story about the fireworks up
in Big Bear because of the eagles, because of the
fear of Sonny and listen or whatever the hell those
gizmo yeah whatever, And I had this visual of eagles
on fire going across the sky and stop that.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
It was a visual Trump's America baby.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
All right, news just came down.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Sean Combs has been found not guilty on the big
charge of racketeering, and only two of the four counts
that he was charged with, the dirty the jury found
him guilty of. And Amy, do you have which of
the counts that he was found guilty on.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
We're still looking into that. Let's seem convicted of prostitution
related defense acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering that could
have put him behind bars for life. Came on the
third day of deliberations. It could send him still to
prison for as long as a decade.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Wow, yeah, he is.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
He is getting off far easier than I thought. This one, well,
the big one, I think, And this is coming in
on text from the New York Times. He was convicted
on transferring people across state lines, for transporting women across
(08:35):
state lines or men too, for purposes of sex.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
You can't see the prostitution charge.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah, yeah, and that is you know what, he's already
done jail time, he's been there for a while. It
is he could get up to ten years. First defense.
They're going to argue that he's given a lot to charity,
which he may have.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Don't know that.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I don't know it personally, but he may end up
getting five six years. And he's already been in prison
for or in jail for I don't know how many months.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
That of course he's going to be given credit for that. Wow. Wow,
all right, I thought he was going to go down
big time. Me too. On the racketeering charge.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I didn't know that was sort of up in the air,
but certainly on the other four charges he.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Was going to go down. All right. Well, I mean he's.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Got a defense team, and the defense put up no
witnesses none. You know, the entire case was prosecution thirty
four witnesses and describing everything.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
The defense. Their entire defense was half an hour.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Or an afternoon in attacking the prosecution's case.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Very unusual. Okay.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I want to go back to to the Senate passing
the big, beautiful, extraordinary, huge, wonderful, couldn't be better act
of President Trump. And the vote was fifty to fifty
in the Senate with vance as the tiebreaker. Of course
passing it. Voted in favor of it. And the story
here that I see, the individual story is Lisa Murkowski,
(10:23):
a moderate Republican from Alaska, which is a pretty red state,
and she hated this bill, has said outright, I hate
the bill. Many Americans are going to be hurt. And
she still voted in favor for it of it and.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
She admitted it straight out.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Because I was able to get stuff for the state
of Alaska. Carve outs were made for Alaska to get
her over the line that no other state got. I mean,
my favorite one is special deduction for whaling captains. We
don't have too many whaling captains, for example, in Kansas,
there just aren't that many. But they do have whaling
captains in Alaska. And I was stunned that her feeling
(11:10):
that strongly against the bill because it is so unfair
to so many Americans. It is, as Thune said, this
is for all Americans. Well, if you're the poorest of Americans,
the bottom ten percent are going to get hit hardest financially.
(11:31):
The top ten percent are going to benefit. It's not simple.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Those are the numbers. But this is good for all
of America.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And Murkowski admitted that she goes, yes, Americans are going
to get screwed, and I feel terrible.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Why did you vote for it?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Well, because I got stuff for Alaska, and I mean
I got they got stuff. The parliamentarian the Senate Parliamentelly Harran, said,
you can't.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Do this to the Senate.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
I mean they had carve outs for quote, non contiguous
states in the United States, special benefits for non contiguous states.
And the parliamentarian said, oh, come on, please, you can't
do that. So they figured end a rounds and she
(12:23):
got what she wanted. And she's now being interviewed by
a reporter in the Senate hall who said, you are
being accused of voting against your conscious You know that
people are going to get screwed. You have said it, Yes,
I do. I feel terrible about it. It was agonizing
for me to vote in favor of it. Didn't mention,
(12:46):
of course, if she voted against it, Trump would try
to primary her out.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
That's simple.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Just the threat of President Trump saying you don't vote
my way, you're out, and that, I'll tell you that
has a lot of weight because it's absolutely true the
power that the president has over the Republican Party and
elected officials. That's kind of influence he's had, and they
run scared. I've never seen elected officials when as scared
(13:15):
from a president that in my entire life of looking
at politics. So she ended up, after voting yes, she
ended up saying, well, I hope the House changes it completely.
Even though I said yes to the bill, she says,
the House, I hope the House changes it and changes
(13:37):
my vote and what I voted for. Come on, man,
I'd vote against her even if I thought she was great,
just on that one.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
All right.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
So now it goes to the House. The President wants
it on his desk by July fourth. I don't think
that's going to happen because in the House, remember he
only got the bill. Johnson got his bill passed by
one vote, two fourteen to two thirteen. And there are
enough Republicans now who voted the first time around that
(14:09):
are saying we'll never vote for this bill. Some because
the cuts aren't deep enough. Ran Paul for example, of Kentucky.
But he's always a anti tax guy.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
You know, there's no tax that he doesn't hate. And
then you have a few others that are going the
other way, too many cuts. You have congress people that
live in rural districts, and part of this plan is
that little rural clinics are going to be decimated because
(14:44):
of the funding they now receive.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
So we're gonna see what happens in the House. All right.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
News that just dropped just a few minutes ago. The
jury comes back in the Sean Combs trial, and he
has found guilty on two of the five counts he
was charged with, and was acquitted on three of the
most serious counts. Had he been charged, had he been
(15:12):
found guilty on the serious ones, he would have could
have spent the rest of his life in prison. I
thought he was going down big. Turned out he just
walked away from the big ones. We didn't walk I mean,
the jury found that he was not guilty. The racketeering
charge was very difficult to even understand, much less proof.
(15:33):
It had to do with a criminal under rico and
a criminal enterprise that no one even understands what an
enterprise is. And usually rorico charges are against the mafia,
the cartel, that's.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
What is usually used against.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
But technically it can be used to nail him, but
the jury didn't buy it. He was found guilty of
transportation to engage in prostitution. He probably will if I
had to guess four five years in prison, of which
good behavior will give him eighty five percent of that.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
So he's going to be out.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And he's also spent what the last six months in
jail awaiting this trial. So in the end, what's he
gonna do four years where he could have gone down
for the rest of his life. Fascinating trial. The government
spends seven weeks on this thing. The defense spends twenty
five minutes in his defense because the defense said, there's
(16:41):
no case here. Yeah, he's a swinger. Yeah, he is
guilty of all of those things that you say he is,
except it was consensual.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
And if the people.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Consent to it, that is not forcing someone.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
That's not racketeering.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Now what was he found guilty of, well, transportation to
engage in prostitution, because what he would do is fly
these male hookers to various places to have sex with
his girlfriends so he could watch.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
That was the allegation.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
And you know, the defense said, yeah, yeah, well admitted
to the freak offs, but said, so what. It's disgusting,
but it certainly isn't criminal. And to prove the point
that during and after these freak offs, these women still
talk to him and still sent him texts and talked
(17:42):
about how wonderful he was and how they enjoyed themselves,
and their testimony was they were frightened not to do
that because of the power that he has or had.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And the jury I don't think bought it. I am surprised.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Not as far as the racketeering charge that was always
sort of up in the air.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
A lot of lawyers said that shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Even put into the mix because this is so unusual
that the prosecution was just reaching on this one. That
was the other thing the the defense was arguing is
that the prosecution was so committed to nailing him.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
This is so high profile.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
People say, these real wealthy, well known people, they get
the best lawyers, which they do, and they get off,
which sometimes they do.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
But the other side of it is.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
These high profile cases are under a microscope in the words,
in the world of the prosecutors, where they're going to
spend a lot more time, where they're going to be
a lot more careful, give a lot more energy efforts
to convicting someone.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
And so it runs both ways.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
You're a wealthy, famous person, prosecution is going to the
Government's going to want to nail you to prove that
they're fair to everybody. And in the meantime, you're gonna
get these very high end lawyers who charged it one
thousand bucks an hour. And not that he doesn't have
the money. I think he's a billionaire, isn't he. I
mean a straight out billionaire if I'm not mistaken. So
(19:23):
he certainly has the money. Well, he has two hundred
thousand dollars worth of gold chains around him every time
he walks out the door. So I think that he's
gonna consider this a win big time. What does Amy
said you can get up to ten years? Is that
it the maximum sentence at this point.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Up to ten years? And there's appeals.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Oh yeah, there'll be appeals. I mean that's a given.
He'll peel it right up.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
The Court of Appeals will turn it down unless they
found something that was really really difficult or something that
the judge did wrong, which I don't think so, jury
instructions or whatever, and now there's nothing to appeal there.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
But they'll do it anyway.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
And if you look at him first time offender, okay,
that has a lot of credence with the court. And
I don't know how much is he known Amy, you
know more about this than I do. Is he known
for being a guy who's involved in charities where he
gives a lot of money to charities, Because that's gonna
be huge with the court.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
I'm not familiar with that, But that doesn't mean that
he's not right.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I don't know enough about him anyway, I'm not What
does he do? Is he a musician. Is he a
race car driver? I really don't even Oh, okay, thank you,
that helps. He did he I knew that.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Puffy.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Well, I'm known as puffy depending on my weight at
the time. Now, a bunch of laws, and I'm going
to just go through a few of them that became
effective yester yesterday. One of the big ones is state
mandated insurance for IVF. Now this is up my wheelhouse
(21:09):
because well, you know, my wife went through IVF and
I had to pay for it even though I have
good insurance. Well, insurance now will be mandatory. It is
state mandated coverage, except they delayed it for six months,
so it happens next January. Also, do you remember a
(21:30):
care court where people with severe mental health conditions could
be moved into court? Yeah, the court will take care
of it. Well, now they've changed the rules a little
bit where effective today establishing a pathway for family members,
first responders, social workers, authorized adult that petition a court
(21:56):
to enroll a person, they have to be made aware
of what goes on virtually every minute. The court has
to apprise them of what's happening. Because right now you
just turn over to the court and you're done. Court
doesn't have to tell you what's going on, all right?
That makes sense. One that I looked at that, I went,
wait a minute, and then I realize, you know when
(22:17):
this one makes a lot of sense. You have establishments
with a tight forty eight license restaurants that can serve beer, wine,
or distilled spirits, and Neil, I'm gonna throw this one
at you if you don't know the story. They have
to the restaurant. The bar has to provide a lid
(22:38):
for the cup if requested, Yeah, I want a lid
for it.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Why would you think? Yeah? Yeah? The law says, if.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
You want a lid to put over your cup a
sippy cup when you're asking for a drink, they have
to give it to you.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Why would you do that for sanitary purposes or something? No,
I mean when I first saw I didn't believe me.
You're not alone.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I didn't get it either until I read it. It's
to make it more difficult to spike a drink.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Ah, I think that way.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, No, I found it fascinating that it makes all
the sense to me.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
A couple of other changes, Occupational Safety Protections law now
has expanded to household domestic service workers all the safety
laws now extend to your housekeeper, to your living or
someone who works anywhere near you, particularly domestic help.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
And so okay, that's fair.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Short term rental property owners and platforms Airbnb, verboat, I
have to disclose up front the cleaning tasks that the
guests have to complete complete when they leave in order
to avoid paying a fee or of penalty.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Now do you do that with your place?
Speaker 2 (23:59):
They have to keep it, they have to keep it
reasonably clean though, right.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Well, no, we have a management company that oversees all
of that, so it's to the law. But there's things
like they have to take the trash to a specific location,
they can't leave the trash there, and they have to
empty out the fireplace into a specific fire crew.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Then well here's that. I don't know of anything. Well,
here's what you now have to do.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
If you have anything else, you have to disclose upfront.
This is what we're doing, or this is what we're
going to ask.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
You to do.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
That signs everywhere, all right, Well, then you're disclosing it
up front. And then unwanted subscriptions that if they roll
you over for a subscription for anything, they have to
make it as easy. It is for you to unsubscribe
as it was for them to subscribe.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
All right, you go by phone. Yeah, I'll take it.
And how do you get out of it?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
We have to go to this website and you have
to go to that link and then you have to
add this kind of language.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
That's all done.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
If you get there by phone, you can get out
by phone. If it's one click to get the subscription,
it's one click out of the subscription, which actually makes
sense because once you're in that maze, it's a it's
a labyrinth.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
You can't get out. Okay, enough of that.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Sippy cups at your high end restaurants. I have to
tell Bruno that now when someone orders champagne or orders
a drink and asks for a sip and ask for
a lid, he has to give it.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
At No one's gonna spike your drink. You're fine, Yeah,
I'm sure. Okay. Kfi A M six forty. You've been
listening to The Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Catch My Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from kf I
AM six forty, can't buy AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Bill hend will hear Morning Crew on the day before
the day it is July two, and on Friday it
is going to be July four, and I will not
be here either tomorrow or on Friday, but Neil, Neil
Sevadra will be filling in for me as he has
a want to do. And I want to point something
(00:28):
out with And I've talked to management many, many times
about Neil filling in for me, and they are by
far they believe Neil is not only the most qualified,
but the most entertaining fill in.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
There's no one really else that could fill in.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
And it has nothing to do with the fact that
they don't pay him for this. If they bring in
someone else that they have to pay, So no influence.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
On that one. Just want to point that out, all right.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yesterday what ended up happening, Well, I and many others
called it that big beautiful Bill went ahead and did
cross the finish line, and President Trump got what he wanted.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
It was close, man.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
It was fifty to fifty and fifty senators for fifty
senators against, and it was JD. Van's the vice President
that cast the tie breaking vote, which is pursuant to
the rules established by the Constitution of the United States.
So that was going to happen. The only way it
would not happen. The bill would not have passed if
(01:31):
one more senator had gone the other way. And therein
lies a story, because I think that's the big story
of this bill.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
All right.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
A couple of things I want to point about this
before I get to that point. And it's Lisa Murkowski
of Alaska. Man, what a story and what a complete
horse she is a political horror. Just just drives me
nuts with Well, I mean, that's every politician out there.
How many Liz Cheney's are there in the world that say,
(02:01):
it doesn't matter if I get re elected or not,
I am going to vote my conscience.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
All right.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
So, a couple things about this bill that Trump wanted
to and got. The First of all, we talk about
the medicaid cuts. As I said before, it's not medicaid cuts.
It's just going to be much harder for people to
either apply for or stay on Medicaid.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
That's really what this is about. Now.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
The Congressional Budget Office says there will be eleven million
people that will no longer be eligible or they will
have their Medicaid cut, either they will not be able
to get it or they're going to get off of it.
And it has to do with work rules.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
That's it. It's that simple.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
The new legislation says you have to apply and you
have to meet the requirements. And part of the requirements
now is you got to work or you have to
attempt to work, and you've got to prove that to
the government. It's like receiving unemployment insurance. You got to
prove you're out there trying to find a job, all right.
So that is a big one. The other ones that
(03:07):
just when I first heard President Trump pitched this, I
literally thought to myself, a come on, I mean, are
you really going to go down that line? And that
had to do with not taxing tips and not taxing overtime.
(03:27):
So for the purposes of federal taxes, those of you
who work for tips don't earn tips.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
It's not part of your salary, only the base salary.
For example, if you're if you work in a.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Restaurant, and I'm gonna give you an example of that,
people are gonna say that's just an example, and it is.
But let's say you work in a restaurant where ninety
percent of your income is tips, which is basically any
medium to high end restaurant.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
All Right, the other day I went to dinner. It
was a couple hundred dollars left forty bucks.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
That doesn't exist as far as the federal government is concerned.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It's the minimum.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Wage that that the server makes, the nineteen dollars an
hour that is taxed sort of because nineteen dollars an
hour isn't tax very much. So I thought that was ridiculous.
I really thought that was insane. How can you argue
that people get tips, aren't earning that money and pay.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Taxes on it.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
How can you say that same thing with overtime pay?
That's not income, not as far as the federal government
tax philosophy goes, that's not income.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
And I'm thinking this is completely insane.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Especially when you consider the deficit that we are experiencing,
the national debt we are experiencing. Why would the government
say that and eliminate that income completely? And I'm thinking
makes no sense to me. Now if I'm a server,
Oh yeah, makes a lot of sense to me. I
(05:04):
love the fact that I don't pay tax on eighty
percent of my salary or my income and you do.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, it's good for me.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
And if I get over time, it's really good for
me because that doesn't exist in terms of taxes.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So I thought it was crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Well Trump got it as a majority leader. Thune said,
this is good for America. This is good for the workers.
You should have just said for people who are in
tips and work overtime. The rest of us who are
on salary or you're working under forty hours a week
(05:47):
and you are not making tips, maybe not so good
for you.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Right. Oh, hey, Comb's verdict is reached.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I just got Amy, I just got a text.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Notice.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yep, the jury has agreed on verdicts or all five charges.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Okay, so that means that they're coming back. Everybody is
now scrambling. The lawyers have been texted, and everybody's making
their way back to the courthouse and we'll be hearing
the jury render it's vertict.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Now do we Is it going to be on? Is
it going to be broadcast?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
You know, Amy, I know you can't have a TV coverage,
but do they let any kind of a broadcast or
that the.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
News is going to come out from an attorney in
the courthouse.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
It's going to have to come out from someone in
the courthouse because they don't they don't have any cameras.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Okay, all right, so as soon as it's reached, you
interrupt me. Matter of fact, you can interrupt me when
whatever you want. That's a good day.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
That's absolutely not true, Amy, you can't. I just wanted
to make you feel better for about ten seconds.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Okay, Bill, Tonight's freak off has been canceled very strong.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
That is funny, I think.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And the story you know what I was thinking when
you're doing the Big Bear story about the fireworks up
in Big Bear because of the eagles, because of the
fear of Sonny and listen or whatever the hell those
gizmo yeah whatever, And I had this visual of eagles
on fire going across the sky and stop that.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
It was a visual Trump's America baby.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
All right, news just came down.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Sean Combs has been found not guilty on the big
charge of racketeering, and only two of the four counts
that he was charged with, the dirty the jury found
him guilty of. And Amy, do you have which of
the counts that he was found guilty on.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
We're still looking into that. Let's seem convicted of prostitution
related defense acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering that could
have put him behind bars for life. Came on the
third day of deliberations. It could send him still to
prison for as long as a decade.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Wow, yeah, he is.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
He is getting off far easier than I thought. This one, well,
the big one, I think, And this is coming in
on text from the New York Times. He was convicted
on transferring people across state lines, for transporting women across
(08:35):
state lines or men too, for purposes of sex.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
You can't see the prostitution charge.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah, yeah, and that is you know what, he's already
done jail time, he's been there for a while. It
is he could get up to ten years. First defense.
They're going to argue that he's given a lot to charity,
which he may have.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Don't know that.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I don't know it personally, but he may end up
getting five six years. And he's already been in prison
for or in jail for I don't know how many months.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
That of course he's going to be given credit for that. Wow. Wow,
all right, I thought he was going to go down
big time. Me too. On the racketeering charge.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I didn't know that was sort of up in the air,
but certainly on the other four charges he.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Was going to go down. All right. Well, I mean he's.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Got a defense team, and the defense put up no
witnesses none. You know, the entire case was prosecution thirty
four witnesses and describing everything.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
The defense. Their entire defense was half an hour.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Or an afternoon in attacking the prosecution's case.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Very unusual. Okay.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I want to go back to to the Senate passing
the big, beautiful, extraordinary, huge, wonderful, couldn't be better act
of President Trump. And the vote was fifty to fifty
in the Senate with vance as the tiebreaker. Of course
passing it. Voted in favor of it. And the story
here that I see, the individual story is Lisa Murkowski,
(10:23):
a moderate Republican from Alaska, which is a pretty red state,
and she hated this bill, has said outright, I hate
the bill. Many Americans are going to be hurt. And
she still voted in favor for it of it and.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
She admitted it straight out.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Because I was able to get stuff for the state
of Alaska. Carve outs were made for Alaska to get
her over the line that no other state got. I mean,
my favorite one is special deduction for whaling captains. We
don't have too many whaling captains, for example, in Kansas,
there just aren't that many. But they do have whaling
captains in Alaska. And I was stunned that her feeling
(11:10):
that strongly against the bill because it is so unfair
to so many Americans. It is, as Thune said, this
is for all Americans. Well, if you're the poorest of Americans,
the bottom ten percent are going to get hit hardest financially.
(11:31):
The top ten percent are going to benefit. It's not simple.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Those are the numbers. But this is good for all
of America.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And Murkowski admitted that she goes, yes, Americans are going
to get screwed, and I feel terrible.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Why did you vote for it?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Well, because I got stuff for Alaska, and I mean
I got they got stuff. The parliamentarian the Senate Parliamentelly Harran, said,
you can't.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Do this to the Senate.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
I mean they had carve outs for quote, non contiguous
states in the United States, special benefits for non contiguous states.
And the parliamentarian said, oh, come on, please, you can't
do that. So they figured end a rounds and she
(12:23):
got what she wanted. And she's now being interviewed by
a reporter in the Senate hall who said, you are
being accused of voting against your conscious You know that
people are going to get screwed. You have said it, Yes,
I do. I feel terrible about it. It was agonizing
for me to vote in favor of it. Didn't mention,
(12:46):
of course, if she voted against it, Trump would try
to primary her out.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
That's simple.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Just the threat of President Trump saying you don't vote
my way, you're out, and that, I'll tell you that
has a lot of weight because it's absolutely true the
power that the president has over the Republican Party and
elected officials. That's kind of influence he's had, and they
run scared. I've never seen elected officials when as scared
(13:15):
from a president that in my entire life of looking
at politics. So she ended up, after voting yes, she
ended up saying, well, I hope the House changes it completely.
Even though I said yes to the bill, she says,
the House, I hope the House changes it and changes
(13:37):
my vote and what I voted for. Come on, man,
I'd vote against her even if I thought she was great,
just on that one.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
All right.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
So now it goes to the House. The President wants
it on his desk by July fourth. I don't think
that's going to happen because in the House, remember he
only got the bill. Johnson got his bill passed by
one vote, two fourteen to two thirteen. And there are
enough Republicans now who voted the first time around that
(14:09):
are saying we'll never vote for this bill. Some because
the cuts aren't deep enough. Ran Paul for example, of Kentucky.
But he's always a anti tax guy.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
You know, there's no tax that he doesn't hate. And
then you have a few others that are going the
other way, too many cuts. You have congress people that
live in rural districts, and part of this plan is
that little rural clinics are going to be decimated because
(14:44):
of the funding they now receive.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
So we're gonna see what happens in the House. All right.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
News that just dropped just a few minutes ago. The
jury comes back in the Sean Combs trial, and he
has found guilty on two of the five counts he
was charged with, and was acquitted on three of the
most serious counts. Had he been charged, had he been
(15:12):
found guilty on the serious ones, he would have could
have spent the rest of his life in prison. I
thought he was going down big. Turned out he just
walked away from the big ones. We didn't walk I mean,
the jury found that he was not guilty. The racketeering
charge was very difficult to even understand, much less proof.
(15:33):
It had to do with a criminal under rico and
a criminal enterprise that no one even understands what an
enterprise is. And usually rorico charges are against the mafia,
the cartel, that's.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
What is usually used against.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
But technically it can be used to nail him, but
the jury didn't buy it. He was found guilty of
transportation to engage in prostitution. He probably will if I
had to guess four five years in prison, of which
good behavior will give him eighty five percent of that.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
So he's going to be out.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And he's also spent what the last six months in
jail awaiting this trial. So in the end, what's he
gonna do four years where he could have gone down
for the rest of his life. Fascinating trial. The government
spends seven weeks on this thing. The defense spends twenty
five minutes in his defense because the defense said, there's
(16:41):
no case here. Yeah, he's a swinger. Yeah, he is
guilty of all of those things that you say he is,
except it was consensual.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
And if the people.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Consent to it, that is not forcing someone.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
That's not racketeering.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Now what was he found guilty of, well, transportation to
engage in prostitution, because what he would do is fly
these male hookers to various places to have sex with
his girlfriends so he could watch.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
That was the allegation.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
And you know, the defense said, yeah, yeah, well admitted
to the freak offs, but said, so what. It's disgusting,
but it certainly isn't criminal. And to prove the point
that during and after these freak offs, these women still
talk to him and still sent him texts and talked
(17:42):
about how wonderful he was and how they enjoyed themselves,
and their testimony was they were frightened not to do
that because of the power that he has or had.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And the jury I don't think bought it. I am surprised.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Not as far as the racketeering charge that was always
sort of up in the air.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
A lot of lawyers said that shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Even put into the mix because this is so unusual
that the prosecution was just reaching on this one. That
was the other thing the the defense was arguing is
that the prosecution was so committed to nailing him.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
This is so high profile.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
People say, these real wealthy, well known people, they get
the best lawyers, which they do, and they get off,
which sometimes they do.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
But the other side of it is.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
These high profile cases are under a microscope in the words,
in the world of the prosecutors, where they're going to
spend a lot more time, where they're going to be
a lot more careful, give a lot more energy efforts
to convicting someone.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
And so it runs both ways.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
You're a wealthy, famous person, prosecution is going to the
Government's going to want to nail you to prove that
they're fair to everybody. And in the meantime, you're gonna
get these very high end lawyers who charged it one
thousand bucks an hour. And not that he doesn't have
the money. I think he's a billionaire, isn't he. I
mean a straight out billionaire if I'm not mistaken. So
(19:23):
he certainly has the money. Well, he has two hundred
thousand dollars worth of gold chains around him every time
he walks out the door. So I think that he's
gonna consider this a win big time. What does Amy
said you can get up to ten years? Is that
it the maximum sentence at this point.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Up to ten years? And there's appeals.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Oh yeah, there'll be appeals. I mean that's a given.
He'll peel it right up.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
The Court of Appeals will turn it down unless they
found something that was really really difficult or something that
the judge did wrong, which I don't think so, jury
instructions or whatever, and now there's nothing to appeal there.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
But they'll do it anyway.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
And if you look at him first time offender, okay,
that has a lot of credence with the court. And
I don't know how much is he known Amy, you
know more about this than I do. Is he known
for being a guy who's involved in charities where he
gives a lot of money to charities, Because that's gonna
be huge with the court.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
I'm not familiar with that, But that doesn't mean that
he's not right.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I don't know enough about him anyway, I'm not What
does he do? Is he a musician. Is he a
race car driver? I really don't even Oh, okay, thank you,
that helps. He did he I knew that.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Puffy.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Well, I'm known as puffy depending on my weight at
the time. Now, a bunch of laws, and I'm going
to just go through a few of them that became
effective yester yesterday. One of the big ones is state
mandated insurance for IVF. Now this is up my wheelhouse
(21:09):
because well, you know, my wife went through IVF and
I had to pay for it even though I have
good insurance. Well, insurance now will be mandatory. It is
state mandated coverage, except they delayed it for six months,
so it happens next January. Also, do you remember a
(21:30):
care court where people with severe mental health conditions could
be moved into court? Yeah, the court will take care
of it. Well, now they've changed the rules a little
bit where effective today establishing a pathway for family members,
first responders, social workers, authorized adult that petition a court
(21:56):
to enroll a person, they have to be made aware
of what goes on virtually every minute. The court has
to apprise them of what's happening. Because right now you
just turn over to the court and you're done. Court
doesn't have to tell you what's going on, all right?
That makes sense. One that I looked at that, I went,
wait a minute, and then I realize, you know when
(22:17):
this one makes a lot of sense. You have establishments
with a tight forty eight license restaurants that can serve beer, wine,
or distilled spirits, and Neil, I'm gonna throw this one
at you if you don't know the story. They have
to the restaurant. The bar has to provide a lid
(22:38):
for the cup if requested, Yeah, I want a lid
for it.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Why would you think? Yeah? Yeah? The law says, if.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
You want a lid to put over your cup a
sippy cup when you're asking for a drink, they have
to give it to you.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Why would you do that for sanitary purposes or something? No,
I mean when I first saw I didn't believe me.
You're not alone.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I didn't get it either until I read it. It's
to make it more difficult to spike a drink.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Ah, I think that way.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, No, I found it fascinating that it makes all
the sense to me.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
A couple of other changes, Occupational Safety Protections law now
has expanded to household domestic service workers all the safety
laws now extend to your housekeeper, to your living or
someone who works anywhere near you, particularly domestic help.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
And so okay, that's fair.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Short term rental property owners and platforms Airbnb, verboat, I
have to disclose up front the cleaning tasks that the
guests have to complete complete when they leave in order
to avoid paying a fee or of penalty.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Now do you do that with your place?
Speaker 2 (23:59):
They have to keep it, they have to keep it
reasonably clean though, right.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Well, no, we have a management company that oversees all
of that, so it's to the law. But there's things
like they have to take the trash to a specific location,
they can't leave the trash there, and they have to
empty out the fireplace into a specific fire crew.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Then well here's that. I don't know of anything. Well,
here's what you now have to do.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
If you have anything else, you have to disclose upfront.
This is what we're doing, or this is what we're
going to ask.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
You to do.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
That signs everywhere, all right, Well, then you're disclosing it
up front. And then unwanted subscriptions that if they roll
you over for a subscription for anything, they have to
make it as easy. It is for you to unsubscribe
as it was for them to subscribe.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
All right, you go by phone. Yeah, I'll take it.
And how do you get out of it?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
We have to go to this website and you have
to go to that link and then you have to
add this kind of language.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
That's all done.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
If you get there by phone, you can get out
by phone. If it's one click to get the subscription,
it's one click out of the subscription, which actually makes
sense because once you're in that maze, it's a it's
a labyrinth.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
You can't get out. Okay, enough of that.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Sippy cups at your high end restaurants. I have to
tell Bruno that now when someone orders champagne or orders
a drink and asks for a sip and ask for
a lid, he has to give it.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
At No one's gonna spike your drink. You're fine, Yeah,
I'm sure. Okay. Kfi A M six forty. You've been
listening to The Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Catch My Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
The Bill Handel Show News
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