April 19, 2025 • 36 mins
4/19/25 - The Abrego Garcia Deportation Case Is #1
Host Doug Stephan along with Michael Harrison, Editor/Publisher of Talkers Magazine, review the most talked about stories and people on news/talk radio for the week of April 14th, 2025 through April 18th, 2025. Compiled by the research department at Talkers Magazine - The Bible of Talk Radio and the New Talk Media - www.talkers.com
STORIES/TOPICS
Host Doug Stephan along with Michael Harrison, Editor/Publisher of Talkers Magazine, review the most talked about stories and people on news/talk radio for the week of April 14th, 2025 through April 18th, 2025. Compiled by the research department at Talkers Magazine - The Bible of Talk Radio and the New Talk Media - www.talkers.com
STORIES/TOPICS
- Abrego Garcia Deportation Case/Judge Threatens Contempt Charges
- Trump vs Harvard
- Tariffs / U.S.-China Trade War / Powell Speech
- Meta Anti-Trust Case
- FCC’s Carr Threatens Comcast / Trump’s 60 Minutes Criticism
- DOGE
- U.S. – Iran Nuclear Talks
- Russia – Ukraine War / Israel-Gaza War
- Bernie Sanders-AOC Rallies
- RFK Jr Promises Autism Cause
- Donald Trump
- Kilmar Abrego Garcia/Nayib Bukele
- Alan Garber
- Pam Bondi
- Jerome Powell / Xi Jinping
- Mark Zuckerberg / Elon Musk
- Brendan Carr
- Vladimir Putin / Volodymyr Zelensky
- Bernie Sanders / AOC
- RFK Jr
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 4 (01:06):
Counting Down what America is talking about? Welcome to the
Talk radio Countdown show.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
All across America talk radio and the voices of freedom
don't stop talking.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
This is the talk radio Countdown Show. I say that
with the enunciative positivity.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I like that for a phrase, Michael.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Enunciative positivity.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Hunga bunga.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
This is the chart Michael will go over for this
past week, the week of April of fourteenth to the eighteenth,
or already halfway through the fourth month of twenty twenty five,
Easter weekend. It is has not stopped any activity all
around the country and around the world from happening with
the plum. And I'm not sure whether I would say
(01:57):
it was with a purpose, but it's with a plum anyway.
The people, the story is Michael Harrison, the editor and
publisher of Talkers Magazine. Here to go through the lists,
and thus we begin our program.
Speaker 5 (02:08):
All right, the program begins, and we are now going
to take a look at the aforementioned list of the
most talked about people and the most talked about stories
on news talk radio, just like the one you're listening
to now. At number ten, RFK Junior promises to reveal
the cause of autism. At number nine, the Bernie Sanders
and AOC rallies across the country, especially in Red States,
(02:32):
which are very interesting. At number eight, Russia Ukraine War
and the Israel Gaza War at number seven, the US
Iran nuclear talks at number six, everything having to do
with that thing we call Doge. At number five, the
FCC's car threatens Comcast and Trump's sixty minutes criticism. This
is a major First Amendment issue at number four, the
(02:52):
Meta antitrust case at number three, the tariffs tied with
the US China trade war, and the Powell Speed each
in Chicago. At number two, Trump versus Harvard. It's like
all these wars that Trump is involved and plus wars
we're involved in. It's endless. And at number one we
have the Abrago Garcia deportation case and the judge threatens
(03:14):
contempt charges. It's an interesting week of stories. And then
some on the people survey. We have at number ten
RFK Junior tied at number nine, Bernie Sanders and AOC.
We have Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelenski tied at number eight,
Brandon Carr from the FCC at seven, Mark Zuckerberg and
Elon Musk at number six, a little less talk about
(03:37):
musks this past week, which is kind of refreshing, but
he's still up there, tied with Zuckerberg at six at
number five, Jerome Powell and Zi Jianping, Pam Bondi, a
Attorney General at number four, Alan Garber at three, and
Kilmar Abrago Garcia and Naib Bukel at number two, and
(03:57):
Donald Trump at number one.
Speaker 6 (04:00):
And there you go.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
It's there you go, and old names yep, and.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
New news and old news being discussed on news talk
radio stations with some of these programs all across the
country and the local programs as well, although I noticed
that there has been I've been listening to the couple
of talk radio programs in Boston and the suburbs.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
There basically are two threads, a couple of.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Local stations, the NPR station which takes one approach, and
w r k O, which is a commercial station that
belongs to iHeart and that goes down a different street.
And then there are the other iHeart programming that's all
the syndicated stuff, and there's it's it's obvious that there
(04:48):
is a new direction and PBS is taking it.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
The A lot of the.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Shows that are on the local supposed local commercial station
are just rehashes of the same old Trump stuff and
the same old conservative stuff over and over and over
and over and over again, the PBF stuff, even though
it's far fetched oftentimes and very predictable, it is taking
a different course.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Wouldn't it be wonderful?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
And I know that you've written about this, and there
have been stories in Talkers magazine, which, by the way, folks,
you can find at talkers dot com. There have been
stories about how and we've talked about it here. Wouldn't
it be nice? And would it work to have programs
that were not either left or right and didn't just
talk about politics?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
And we always use the same example.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Of KFI and Los Angeles, which does a wonderful job
of doing that, and that would be the number one
station in.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
The city, so it works there.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
If it doesn't, you know, would seemed to me that
if somebody had the courage to do it someplace.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Else, that might work.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
But we want to have our format exciting and driven
by exchanges from people. You know, you listen to some
of these programs. I'm off on a tube, Michael, excuse me.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
But I really honest, I've stopped writing down notes.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Resp well, I'm swashing, so I will stop with my
comment about many programs, no matter how big the station is,
you hear the same old callers over and over and
over again when they do take college.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Okay, So I just want everybody to realize. I just
want everybody to realize I'm not here to tell talk
radio what to do. I'm here to report doing maybe
talk in theory what might work better than other things.
But I think that whether you're younger, you're old, it's exciting.
I think it's very exciting to be old as well
as young. Some of these issues really do affect the seniors,
(06:31):
and I can understand, you know that they're interested in that.
But I have found when you look under the microscope
that there is everything on radio. It's just what we
in the trades decide to focus on, what the news
media focuses on in terms of real But if you
really look carefully, there's left, there's middle, there's right, and
there's non political talk.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
Well, it just doesn't its.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
Share of attention that conservative news talk radio gets.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
And the interesting thing is because it's mostly negative from
the printed media, from the New York Times, in the
Boston Globe, in the Washington Post. Why do we pay
attention to then, why don't we look at what's going
on in Des Moines, And why don't we pay attention
to what's going on in Saint Louis in terms of
what the newspapers are saying or the local media is saying.
(07:21):
Oftentimes television is doing the same thing they You know,
this is the local news at four o'clock, and all
it is is a rehash of what Trump has been
doing and saying, come on, how does okay, maybe you
take the approach to what Trump is doing, What does
that do to our local economy, what does it do
to local business? What does it do locally to politics?
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, we're not here
(07:42):
to tell you how to run your station. We're making
some observations. And here's my Oh, I want to get
a stop for a second to do a commercial Caldron.
But RFK Junior has made some of the most interesting
statements this week that I think we ought to to
take a.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Look at, So standby for that.
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There are a lot of reactions this week to what
RFK Junior has said about autism. He had a press
conference and he started with something.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
That really grabbed me. Frankly, I pay a lot of
attention Naim because I quite like him.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Frankly, he says, quote, when there is ignorance that breeds fear,
and he is so correct about that. He says, all
of this stuff is for this has been preventable. It
destroys families. And there are those who are from the
same world as he's from the degree out of er said,
and then there are but the people who are getting
(11:03):
the attention, Michael, to follow up on what we were
just talking about, that people are getting the attention in
the press aren't the ones who agree with RFK. They're
the ones who don't agree with him. And so there's
all that hooping and hoopla. But frankly, I think there's
something to what he's saying. And so how did you react.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
To all of that?
Speaker 5 (11:28):
I see people criticizing him and supporting him. I don't
see it one side or the other. I think that
this tremendous support for him across news, talk radio and
conservative media, conserative conservative media sites. I mean, not all
conservatives agree with anything going on right now. That's a
whole other schism that's forming in terms of the inner
conversation among Republicans and conservatives about everything having to do
(11:50):
with Donald Trump and his administration. But as far as
k Junior is concerned, he's always been a figure of controversy.
Many of the people who've worked with him before he
did have a background in podcasting, and he has been
in this business and a lot of his colleagues say
that he basically is incompetent. They say terrible things about
him in terms of, you know, the consistency of his opinions.
(12:13):
In other words, many people think he's just a whack
could do conspiracy theorist, and that's out there. I mean,
that's one of the one of the labels, you know,
that's been smacked on him.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
He's backed on him by the liberal news media that
doesn't like him not following what the course of action
is from the major advertisers in the liberal media.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
That's basically the drug companies.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
You can't go anywhere, watch television, listen to the radio,
open up a newspaper and see anything but drug ads.
And those are not the people that support what Kennedy says.
Because he said a lot of the problems are drugs.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
People know that, and a lot of the problems are drugs.
A lot of people are sick from their drugs. But
there's a difference between a broad brush commentary that well,
maybe it's drugs or maybe it's just that that's specificity
where the head of the health department actually is a doctor,
actually knows stuff. So I think that I think the
(13:07):
gaps in RFK Junior's knowledge caused his critics to have
something to argue about.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
It's very interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Well, and so the conversation continues and it will hear
on The Countdown as well in a matter of moments.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Stay tuned, please Radio Countdown.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
We're counting down what America is talking about? The talk
Radio Countdown show continues.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Radio Countdown Michael Harrison and Deuk Stefan here on the Countdown.
You're I think sometimes listening to these conversations, like watching
at WWE match, the back and forth accept there's more
at stake here as pretty serious stuff, especially when you
come to number two, the President versus Harvard and all
(13:59):
of his the impact of what he's saying. I thought
Lisa Murkowski, the senator, Republican senator from Alaska said it
well this week, Michael, she said, I'm afraid.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I'm afraid of him.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I'm afraid of what he might do to me or
what he might do to my state because I disagree
with him, and she's a Republican, so and there are
you know, you can expect that a lot of the folks,
you know, the as you were saying earlier, the Bernie
Sanders AOC road show, the rallies that taking place. One
of their main topics is China and the trade war,
(14:33):
and also Harvard and what's going on there.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I don't really understand. I thought, maybe you might give
us if you have a thought on the Harvard thing.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
What the basis for them standing up is just because
they have all that money and they can stand up
and they can spend the money to fight.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
The federal government. Do you what do you do? How
do you see this shaking out?
Speaker 6 (14:53):
Well?
Speaker 5 (14:53):
I mean, Harvard has a tremendous number of resources, not
to mention prestige. But the whole situation in terms of
the battle of the government under Trump and Harvard, has
to do with the First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom
of education, privacy versus public institutions. And there's a whole
bunch of stuff in that cauldron of mixed ideas and controversy.
(15:19):
So I think that Harvard, if any school, is solid
enough and whole enough to be able to withstand the
kind of legal expenses that they may be facing, they
can do it. But I think there are big principles
involved here, and it's so it's so knotted up in
terms of tangled issues from supporting Israel to supporting protests
(15:45):
on campus, to the agenda and the preoccupation that a
lot of these colleges have in terms of left and
right politics and DEI. I mean, it's endless. So it's
very hard to it's very hard to do a quick
analysis of it other than to say this is, as
evidenced by the conversation, a major issue of our time.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
One of the things that Steven JJ Wiseman and I
will talk about later on in the countdown is this
very case, but also the business of the Supreme Court
and how they may be in a bind because of
the various cases that are heading in their direction. Trump
wants to send everything to the Supreme Court. I don't
know that he wants to. He wants to just say,
(16:30):
you know, screw you to the judges.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
We're going to do what we want to do.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
And then you have the judge that has threatened the
contempt charges against the administration.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
That's the number one issue.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
This week around the fellow who was deported. I think
he's from Maryland. And what all I mean, all of
the attention how much money. I wonder if the taxpayers
realize how much of their tax dollars. Trump keeps talking
about we're bringing billions into the treasury. I think all
of these fights are cheap. All of these lawyers that
(17:01):
are involved on both sides. You know, we're paying for this.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
And where are the billions coming from that are going
in the treasury. I don't understand that at all.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Well, the money when they come with the tariffs are
applied to the companies they have to pay. Then it's
not the public that pays, it's the companies that pay.
That goes into the treasury, and then they decide whether
they're going to pass on the cost at this if it's.
Speaker 6 (17:28):
A car the money.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
So, how many people do you think understand what you
just said that the tariffs are bringing billions of dollars
into the treasury. They're bringing billions of dollars into the
treasury from American companies. Yeah, it's not This is not
foreign money. This is American money going into the treasury.
That's called a tax.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So how far does it go? How far?
Speaker 5 (17:53):
Well, that's the question is how far does it go
before we've eroded a certain systems that may not be
spelled out in the Constitution, but have been spelled out
by history and precedent. And you know, there are certain
departments of the government that, in theory should be separated
from the politics of the government. The Department of Justice
(18:16):
is one of those, believe it or not. The Supreme
Court is another one. But we seem to be far
from that standard. And Trump seems to have a honing
instinct on how to exploit that. And we're in new
territory right now because of that combination of circumstances.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
You know, I saw Liz, my daughter, is traveling in
England this week, and she sent me a story from
the Guardian about the brain drain in America, the whether
the president has think that this has come out of
him with purpose or it just is one.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Of the things he didn't think about. But the intellectual drain.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
A lot of people that are in science, a lot
of people that work in specific areas of the government,
have applied to jobs in the United Kingdom. And you wonder, again,
is this one of the offshoots that nobody's talking about.
Nobody's looking at, and nobody really kind of gets the
you know, the fear that he does he have more
(19:17):
authority than anybody else ever did as president.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I don't think he does, but he's certainly he's taking it.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
He's such a bully, right, and everybody kind of rulls
over to him.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
Yeah, And we've had presidents like this before.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
I mean, you know, everything that's going on today has
happened before in one way or the other. And the
president of the United States, the job itself is a
very dangerous position. You have enormous power of life and
death over people, not to mention wealth and poverty. Teddy
Roosevelt was a bit of a dominant character back in
(19:52):
his day. Let's not forget that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was
elected four times. They had to have a special amendment
put in the concert soution to keep that from happening.
I mean, people get whacked out when Trump talks about
running for a third term. Can you imagine four times
he was elected, He didn't live through most of his
fourth term, but served longer than anyone else there there
(20:16):
have been Look at Nixon Nixon. Nixon ran a very
politically politically motivated, avengeful administration.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
We've been here before.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
It's just that, you know, there's something about what's happening
now that seems far more intense and and Trump is
in the eyes of his detractors, all right, because again
I'm trying to maintain a certain amount of objectivity in
this role. In the eyes of his his detractors, Trump
is one of the most dangerous evil characters to come
down the pike in years.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
It's interesting. You just brought up something that I hadn't
thought about for a while. There are a lot of
people When Ronald Reagan was president, there are a lot
of people who wanted him to run for a third
term or somehow figure out a way to get him
to stay in office, even though he couldn't have because
he lost his competency toward the end of his second term.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
But there was that conversation.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
So now you're bringing up something that we all ought
to be thinking about. That this, for the most part,
is not new territory, it's not new ground. It's stuff
that has been revived or refreshed because of the importance
of it now, the immediacy of it now, right, exactly.
Speaker 6 (21:28):
Right, Yeah, now is what it's about.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
We have had historically, and this is philosophy that goes
all the way back to you know, Socrates and Plato,
and that is dealing with now, what is now? You know,
why is now different than then or to be? You know,
we live in the constant state of now, and it's
reflected in our cycles, in our news cycles, in what
(21:53):
we consider to be a new day. You're obsessed with
it when you talk about some stories or old, some
stories are new. What we are in a philosophical predicament
that we can't get out of now. We can't go
back to yesterday, and we can't jump ahead to tomorrow.
Everything is eternal now and that's why it seems so intense,
(22:14):
and that's why Doug, it's so important that we maintain
at least an awareness of history, because it's hard enough
navigating now as it is. But if you don't know history,
if you don't know there was an FDR, if you
don't know that Teddy Roosevelt was considered to be a bully,
that Abe Lincoln was followed by an enemy, you know,
(22:36):
Andrew Johnson who wanted to take the country in a
whole different direction than Lincoln did. Uh that that politicians
have shot each other but with bullets in debates. Then
then then you're at a handicap in thinking that, oh,
this is the first time we're in unprecedented, uncharted waters.
You hear that all the time on the news, and
(22:57):
I yell at the screen, I go, no, this is
not sharded waters. We just don't know a damn thing
about history. We still can't even get it straight. What
the hell a tariff is in our cust.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
And that speaks to something that Trump wants to change.
Whether his idea makes it better or worse, it depends
on his who. We're listening to the detractors of the supporters,
taking the administrative taking the education department apart piece by piece,
and trying to figure out whether that's going to help education,
(23:29):
because education is in perilous position in our country right now.
We're not educating most of the people that go through
the system.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
We're just pushing them.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Through the system by the millions. So that's why they
don't know what a tariff is, and that's why they
don't know what They don't study history, so they don't
know about the things that you were just talking about,
all the presidents who were bullies, all the politicians heretofore
who have been bullies. And because how we learn today
isn't in school, it's by looking at social media and
(24:02):
a lot of the garbage, the trails from the people
who are trolling in the various whether it's Meta.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Or the X people or whoever it is.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Those people have an agenda, and so they're not going
to help people who are against their agenda, frankly, are they.
I don't see that the mister X is helping anything
other than his own point of view.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
And well, yeah, you remember I was complaining when when
Elon Musk bought Twitter, I said, if you and I
wanted to buy a stinking, little, dying AM radio station
out in nowhere, we'd have to go through a year
of paperwork and FCC approval and all kinds of stuff
just to just to get one little channel and one
little town. And this guy, because he's got so much money,
(24:54):
is able to able with with the you know, signature
on a check, He's able to take over a powerful
means of communication in the country. Doesn't that worry people?
I was yelling about that when that right here in
this show enough.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
People who are talking about it. They are not enough
people like you who are talking about it. And thus
number five this week on the story list, the Federal
Communications Commission as a new chairman who is inserted into
the role by mister Trump. His name is Carr. Carr,
and he's threatening everybody. There's a whole investigation into iHeart,
(25:31):
and there's an investigation into Comcast, and there's an investigation
now into sixty minutes because Trump doesn't like what they
say about him. You know what, that's tough s, that's
not what this country is all about. And it's time
that somebody stood up and said, you know what, And
he's a bully, that's what he is. He's a big bully.
(25:53):
As you were suggesting earlier, there had been bullies before,
and we've survived them. So okay, do we have the
same support for Did we have the same support for
bullyism then as we do now? That's probably a question
and a half, isn't it.
Speaker 6 (26:09):
Well?
Speaker 5 (26:10):
Yeah, you know, for a democracy to work, for the
American experiment to work, you have to hope that the people,
or at least have fifty one percent, are of decency.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
And good intentions.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
And you have to hope that the people that go
out to vote are doing so on a foundation of
intelligence and knowledge. If the public is not intelligent, well
then those people for centuries who said democracy can't work.
You must have an aristocracy, you must have a dictator,
you must have a king, You have to have an
(26:42):
upper class, an educated class, because the peasants, the peons,
are not capable of making the right decision and could
fall under the spell of a con man or a demagogue.
And that this has all been written into the Constitution
is all part of hundreds of years of history, even
(27:04):
all the way to the Magna Carta, that have has
shown the rise of democracy against all odds. Because the
enemy of democracy is ignorance. That is the enemy of democracy.
And we are teetering at that inflection point right now
in the United States. Are we smart enough to have
(27:25):
a democracy or are we a country that is so
overrun with dummies that we're not And again, I don't
mean to imply that people that support Trump are dummies.
A lot of very bright people support Trump. They'll say
things like I like what he does, but I don't
like his personality, but then me But personality also plays
(27:45):
a role in a thing called diplomacy, and it all connects.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
The countdown list is published every week.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I remind you at talkers dot com the top five
stories this week all have to do with Trump being
a bully. Then you could make the argument it maybe
is the top six, but certainly the top five on
that list have to do with Trump just bullying his
way through.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
You know the interesting thing.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
About number seven, the Iran nuclear talks, that's just kind
of like one of these things. Okay, where did this
come from? And does it appear that the Iranians are
afraid of him? So maybe the fear that comes from
Trump walking into the room, maybe it works in this circumstance.
It looks like the Iranians want to talk Turkey. They
don't want to do that when Biden was president.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
Right, Well, the Iranians, that's a whole other situation. In
Iran is one of the major powers out there. They're
a major power, major army, and major enemy of the
United States and its allies, specifically Israel. So the Iran
US talks are very important. But Iran has a history
(28:57):
of not wanting to press its luck. I mean, for
years they believed Saddam Hussein in Iraq had weapons of
mass destruction and he only said that because.
Speaker 6 (29:09):
He was keeping them in check.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
The US knew that, and it worked. We were in
on that scam. Think about that. You know, he kept
them at bay. They were afraid. Oh my gosh, you know,
we're Iran, but Iraq's got Saddam Hussein and weapons of
mass destruction and they hate us.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
There was that, There was that war between.
Speaker 5 (29:32):
Iraq and Iran that followed America held hostage, went on
for like eight years. Do you recall that the United
States and the press in the United States and talk
radio in the United States supported Iraq, supported Saddam Hussein
over the Ayahtolas.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
And then they hung them.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
Yeah, all of a sudden, it was forgotten, All of
a sudden we were accusing him of the very thing
that we were collaborating with him on.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Of course, you know, I'm going to end on this
note with you because this is tax filing week. A
lot of people have asked for extensions for lots of reasons,
but the administration has announced plans to end the direct
File program, which has been free, free tax filing.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
That'll be interesting to see.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
That was one of the reasons the Associated Press was
thrown out of the press room at the White House
because they said stuff that Trump didn't like.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
So you're gone out and there it is.
Speaker 6 (30:34):
You're out of here.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
All the thousands of your affiliates are out gone goodbye.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, Audios. Michael Harris and Doug Stephen here on the
Talk Radio Countdown Show at forty eight past the hour
Radio Countdown.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
We're counting down what America is talking about. The Talk
Radio Countdown Show continues.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
The Talk Radio Countdown, and so it does with Stephen
jj Wiseman Esquire here to discuss some of the legal
elements that have found their way into the stories that
are in the charts this week from Talker's magazine program
being enjoyed this week hopefully by the folks listening to
WHB in Charlottesville, Virginia and WWNR, which is in Bluefield,
(31:28):
West Virginia. I help yourself to enjoying our discussion here,
Steve and I have to do. You know the newspaper
the Irish Star, like the Guardian, only in Ireland.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Do you know you're not familiar with that?
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Okay, So here are some of this has nothing to
do with legality, but here are some of the headlines
from the Star this week.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Are you ready?
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Donald Trump comes up with a ludicrous way to look
taller next to the football team.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
He put on platform shoes.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Next headline, Trump suffers a mental collapse after senile moment
during liberation speech. Next, Lauren Bobert upsets Maga with inappropriate
mini dress at Trump's dinner. Donald Trump told the shave
his head as his huge thinning spot leads to the
(32:20):
correct understanding of his baldness. So that's so they're covering
in Ireland this week. All right, anyway, let's talk about
the judge who's going after the government for contempt chargers.
Can you file an emotion against a body and not
a person?
Speaker 7 (32:37):
Yeah, because at this point, you know, a company, a
government agency, you can bring an action against entities rather
than just an individual. And I think the purpose here
is also to find out who are the individuals, because
it appears to be the judges is not satisfied with
(32:58):
just making an order against the government. He wants to
know who the people are who are making these decisions.
So ultimately we know that this is no one's making
any decisions in this president presidency except for the president.
But you really do need to have evidence that who
is making the determinations. So we'll see what happens with this.
(33:21):
This really is a potential constitutional crisis as far as
the fact that the administration has ignored legal presidents and
orders from the court. But we'll see if this can
go further. I mean, you can go back all the
way to Andrew Jackson when the Supreme Court did things
that he didn't like. He said, Okay, they made the decision,
(33:42):
let them get their army to enforce it. Hopefully it
won't come to that.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Well, that's what a lot of people I think are thinking.
Speaker 6 (33:48):
Frankly.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
So number two on the list this week is a
situation of the FEDS are more importantly the president versus
Harvard University. You're a professor at one of the Austin
area colleges. So what's the scuttle But among those colleagues
who are legal experts and or professors or both as
you are.
Speaker 7 (34:10):
Yeah, it's this one's really tough because, on the one hand,
is it a punishment of these institutions for exercising free speech,
which is what it really does appear to be. On
the other hand, there's no constitutional right to get the grants.
And for a long time, in a sparingly manner, the
(34:33):
government has used what they call the power of the
purse to influence institutions and state, even state governments. You know,
the reason we have a twenty one year old driving
i mean drinking age is because the government said if
you if to the states, if you don't raise your
age to twenty one, you'll lose federal highway funds. So
(34:54):
Trump is just taking this to support any policy he wants.
But I think it's particularly dangerous here where it's another
instance of trying to stifling any kind of free speech
that may be critical of the president. And this will
get battled out in court. Harvard and MIT in particular
(35:14):
standing up. We'll see what the other institutions do.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
So number four this week, Steve, the Meta antitrust case.
Has Zuckerberg stepped in it?
Speaker 6 (35:26):
Yes?
Speaker 7 (35:27):
Absolutely. You know, this is something where Zuckerberg for a
long time has tried to really stifle any kind of competition.
And when particularly you're talking here to what he's taken over,
it does seem that the government has a strong case.
Remember in all of these however, what you need to
(35:47):
do is to recognize that it's not just competition, but
it has to be competition that hurts the consumer in
order to rise to anti trust levels.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Uh huh, And so well, I guess then we have
to define consumer and consumerism in a manner of speaking,
and you do that with not.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Only Zuckerberg, but frankly mister X.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
I don't call him Musk anyone, I just like I'm
gonna call him.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Mister X.
Speaker 6 (36:14):
There is all right.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
So that's it.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
That's our overview of some of the legal issues and
all the things that have made for a great conversation
this week on news talk Radio. I'm Doug Stephan with
Steve and JJ here on the Countdown, The Talk Radio Countdown.
The Talk Radio Countdown Show is a production of Stephen
Maltime Gift produced by Bob K Sound and Recording
Doug Stephan here with a friend to all who want
to lose weight and keep it off.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Elizabeth Miller is my friend.
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all that good stuff. Check it all out at toplass
dot com.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Counting Down what America is talking about? Welcome to the
Talk radio Countdown show.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
All across America talk radio and the voices of freedom
don't stop talking.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
This is the talk radio Countdown Show. I say that
with the enunciative positivity.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I like that for a phrase, Michael.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Enunciative positivity.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Hunga bunga.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
This is the chart Michael will go over for this
past week, the week of April of fourteenth to the eighteenth,
or already halfway through the fourth month of twenty twenty five,
Easter weekend. It is has not stopped any activity all
around the country and around the world from happening with
the plum. And I'm not sure whether I would say
(01:57):
it was with a purpose, but it's with a plum anyway.
The people, the story is Michael Harrison, the editor and
publisher of Talkers Magazine. Here to go through the lists,
and thus we begin our program.
Speaker 5 (02:08):
All right, the program begins, and we are now going
to take a look at the aforementioned list of the
most talked about people and the most talked about stories
on news talk radio, just like the one you're listening
to now. At number ten, RFK Junior promises to reveal
the cause of autism. At number nine, the Bernie Sanders
and AOC rallies across the country, especially in Red States,
(02:32):
which are very interesting. At number eight, Russia Ukraine War
and the Israel Gaza War at number seven, the US
Iran nuclear talks at number six, everything having to do
with that thing we call Doge. At number five, the
FCC's car threatens Comcast and Trump's sixty minutes criticism. This
is a major First Amendment issue at number four, the
(02:52):
Meta antitrust case at number three, the tariffs tied with
the US China trade war, and the Powell Speed each
in Chicago. At number two, Trump versus Harvard. It's like
all these wars that Trump is involved and plus wars
we're involved in. It's endless. And at number one we
have the Abrago Garcia deportation case and the judge threatens
(03:14):
contempt charges. It's an interesting week of stories. And then
some on the people survey. We have at number ten
RFK Junior tied at number nine, Bernie Sanders and AOC.
We have Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelenski tied at number eight,
Brandon Carr from the FCC at seven, Mark Zuckerberg and
Elon Musk at number six, a little less talk about
(03:37):
musks this past week, which is kind of refreshing, but
he's still up there, tied with Zuckerberg at six at
number five, Jerome Powell and Zi Jianping, Pam Bondi, a
Attorney General at number four, Alan Garber at three, and
Kilmar Abrago Garcia and Naib Bukel at number two, and
(03:57):
Donald Trump at number one.
Speaker 6 (04:00):
And there you go.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
It's there you go, and old names yep, and.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
New news and old news being discussed on news talk
radio stations with some of these programs all across the
country and the local programs as well, although I noticed
that there has been I've been listening to the couple
of talk radio programs in Boston and the suburbs.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
There basically are two threads, a couple of.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Local stations, the NPR station which takes one approach, and
w r k O, which is a commercial station that
belongs to iHeart and that goes down a different street.
And then there are the other iHeart programming that's all
the syndicated stuff, and there's it's it's obvious that there
(04:48):
is a new direction and PBS is taking it.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
The A lot of the.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Shows that are on the local supposed local commercial station
are just rehashes of the same old Trump stuff and
the same old conservative stuff over and over and over
and over and over again, the PBF stuff, even though
it's far fetched oftentimes and very predictable, it is taking
a different course.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Wouldn't it be wonderful?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
And I know that you've written about this, and there
have been stories in Talkers magazine, which, by the way, folks,
you can find at talkers dot com. There have been
stories about how and we've talked about it here. Wouldn't
it be nice? And would it work to have programs
that were not either left or right and didn't just
talk about politics?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
And we always use the same example.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Of KFI and Los Angeles, which does a wonderful job
of doing that, and that would be the number one
station in.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
The city, so it works there.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
If it doesn't, you know, would seemed to me that
if somebody had the courage to do it someplace.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Else, that might work.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
But we want to have our format exciting and driven
by exchanges from people. You know, you listen to some
of these programs. I'm off on a tube, Michael, excuse me.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
But I really honest, I've stopped writing down notes.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Resp well, I'm swashing, so I will stop with my
comment about many programs, no matter how big the station is,
you hear the same old callers over and over and
over again when they do take college.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Okay, So I just want everybody to realize. I just
want everybody to realize I'm not here to tell talk
radio what to do. I'm here to report doing maybe
talk in theory what might work better than other things.
But I think that whether you're younger, you're old, it's exciting.
I think it's very exciting to be old as well
as young. Some of these issues really do affect the seniors,
(06:31):
and I can understand, you know that they're interested in that.
But I have found when you look under the microscope
that there is everything on radio. It's just what we
in the trades decide to focus on, what the news
media focuses on in terms of real But if you
really look carefully, there's left, there's middle, there's right, and
there's non political talk.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
Well, it just doesn't its.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
Share of attention that conservative news talk radio gets.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
And the interesting thing is because it's mostly negative from
the printed media, from the New York Times, in the
Boston Globe, in the Washington Post. Why do we pay
attention to then, why don't we look at what's going
on in Des Moines, And why don't we pay attention
to what's going on in Saint Louis in terms of
what the newspapers are saying or the local media is saying.
(07:21):
Oftentimes television is doing the same thing they You know,
this is the local news at four o'clock, and all
it is is a rehash of what Trump has been
doing and saying, come on, how does okay, maybe you
take the approach to what Trump is doing, What does
that do to our local economy, what does it do
to local business? What does it do locally to politics?
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, we're not here
(07:42):
to tell you how to run your station. We're making
some observations. And here's my Oh, I want to get
a stop for a second to do a commercial Caldron.
But RFK Junior has made some of the most interesting
statements this week that I think we ought to to
take a.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Look at, So standby for that.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Michael Harrison Doug Stephen on this Easter weekend edition of
the Talk Radio Countown show Here to Solve a problem
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seventy percent of people, according to doctor Ken Cronhaus, who's
one of the co hosts on our regular Good Day
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(08:22):
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(09:19):
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loss dot com for Calitron. All right, back on the cowdown.
There are a lot of reactions this week to what
RFK Junior has said about autism. He had a press
conference and he started with something.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
That really grabbed me. Frankly, I pay a lot of
attention Naim because I quite like him.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Frankly, he says, quote, when there is ignorance that breeds fear,
and he is so correct about that. He says, all
of this stuff is for this has been preventable. It
destroys families. And there are those who are from the
same world as he's from the degree out of er said,
and then there are but the people who are getting
(11:03):
the attention, Michael, to follow up on what we were
just talking about, that people are getting the attention in
the press aren't the ones who agree with RFK. They're
the ones who don't agree with him. And so there's
all that hooping and hoopla. But frankly, I think there's
something to what he's saying. And so how did you react.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
To all of that?
Speaker 5 (11:28):
I see people criticizing him and supporting him. I don't
see it one side or the other. I think that
this tremendous support for him across news, talk radio and
conservative media, conserative conservative media sites. I mean, not all
conservatives agree with anything going on right now. That's a
whole other schism that's forming in terms of the inner
conversation among Republicans and conservatives about everything having to do
(11:50):
with Donald Trump and his administration. But as far as
k Junior is concerned, he's always been a figure of controversy.
Many of the people who've worked with him before he
did have a background in podcasting, and he has been
in this business and a lot of his colleagues say
that he basically is incompetent. They say terrible things about
him in terms of, you know, the consistency of his opinions.
(12:13):
In other words, many people think he's just a whack
could do conspiracy theorist, and that's out there. I mean,
that's one of the one of the labels, you know,
that's been smacked on him.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
He's backed on him by the liberal news media that
doesn't like him not following what the course of action
is from the major advertisers in the liberal media.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
That's basically the drug companies.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
You can't go anywhere, watch television, listen to the radio,
open up a newspaper and see anything but drug ads.
And those are not the people that support what Kennedy says.
Because he said a lot of the problems are drugs.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
People know that, and a lot of the problems are drugs.
A lot of people are sick from their drugs. But
there's a difference between a broad brush commentary that well,
maybe it's drugs or maybe it's just that that's specificity
where the head of the health department actually is a doctor,
actually knows stuff. So I think that I think the
(13:07):
gaps in RFK Junior's knowledge caused his critics to have
something to argue about.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
It's very interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Well, and so the conversation continues and it will hear
on The Countdown as well in a matter of moments.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Stay tuned, please Radio Countdown.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
We're counting down what America is talking about? The talk
Radio Countdown show continues.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Radio Countdown Michael Harrison and Deuk Stefan here on the Countdown.
You're I think sometimes listening to these conversations, like watching
at WWE match, the back and forth accept there's more
at stake here as pretty serious stuff, especially when you
come to number two, the President versus Harvard and all
(13:59):
of his the impact of what he's saying. I thought
Lisa Murkowski, the senator, Republican senator from Alaska said it
well this week, Michael, she said, I'm afraid.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I'm afraid of him.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I'm afraid of what he might do to me or
what he might do to my state because I disagree
with him, and she's a Republican, so and there are
you know, you can expect that a lot of the folks,
you know, the as you were saying earlier, the Bernie
Sanders AOC road show, the rallies that taking place. One
of their main topics is China and the trade war,
(14:33):
and also Harvard and what's going on there.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I don't really understand. I thought, maybe you might give
us if you have a thought on the Harvard thing.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
What the basis for them standing up is just because
they have all that money and they can stand up
and they can spend the money to fight.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
The federal government. Do you what do you do? How
do you see this shaking out?
Speaker 6 (14:53):
Well?
Speaker 5 (14:53):
I mean, Harvard has a tremendous number of resources, not
to mention prestige. But the whole situation in terms of
the battle of the government under Trump and Harvard, has
to do with the First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom
of education, privacy versus public institutions. And there's a whole
bunch of stuff in that cauldron of mixed ideas and controversy.
(15:19):
So I think that Harvard, if any school, is solid
enough and whole enough to be able to withstand the
kind of legal expenses that they may be facing, they
can do it. But I think there are big principles
involved here, and it's so it's so knotted up in
terms of tangled issues from supporting Israel to supporting protests
(15:45):
on campus, to the agenda and the preoccupation that a
lot of these colleges have in terms of left and
right politics and DEI. I mean, it's endless. So it's
very hard to it's very hard to do a quick
analysis of it other than to say this is, as
evidenced by the conversation, a major issue of our time.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
One of the things that Steven JJ Wiseman and I
will talk about later on in the countdown is this
very case, but also the business of the Supreme Court
and how they may be in a bind because of
the various cases that are heading in their direction. Trump
wants to send everything to the Supreme Court. I don't
know that he wants to. He wants to just say,
(16:30):
you know, screw you to the judges.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
We're going to do what we want to do.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
And then you have the judge that has threatened the
contempt charges against the administration.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
That's the number one issue.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
This week around the fellow who was deported. I think
he's from Maryland. And what all I mean, all of
the attention how much money. I wonder if the taxpayers
realize how much of their tax dollars. Trump keeps talking
about we're bringing billions into the treasury. I think all
of these fights are cheap. All of these lawyers that
(17:01):
are involved on both sides. You know, we're paying for this.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
And where are the billions coming from that are going
in the treasury. I don't understand that at all.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Well, the money when they come with the tariffs are
applied to the companies they have to pay. Then it's
not the public that pays, it's the companies that pay.
That goes into the treasury, and then they decide whether
they're going to pass on the cost at this if it's.
Speaker 6 (17:28):
A car the money.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
So, how many people do you think understand what you
just said that the tariffs are bringing billions of dollars
into the treasury. They're bringing billions of dollars into the
treasury from American companies. Yeah, it's not This is not
foreign money. This is American money going into the treasury.
That's called a tax.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So how far does it go? How far?
Speaker 5 (17:53):
Well, that's the question is how far does it go
before we've eroded a certain systems that may not be
spelled out in the Constitution, but have been spelled out
by history and precedent. And you know, there are certain
departments of the government that, in theory should be separated
from the politics of the government. The Department of Justice
(18:16):
is one of those, believe it or not. The Supreme
Court is another one. But we seem to be far
from that standard. And Trump seems to have a honing
instinct on how to exploit that. And we're in new
territory right now because of that combination of circumstances.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
You know, I saw Liz, my daughter, is traveling in
England this week, and she sent me a story from
the Guardian about the brain drain in America, the whether
the president has think that this has come out of
him with purpose or it just is one.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Of the things he didn't think about. But the intellectual drain.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
A lot of people that are in science, a lot
of people that work in specific areas of the government,
have applied to jobs in the United Kingdom. And you wonder, again,
is this one of the offshoots that nobody's talking about.
Nobody's looking at, and nobody really kind of gets the
you know, the fear that he does he have more
(19:17):
authority than anybody else ever did as president.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I don't think he does, but he's certainly he's taking it.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
He's such a bully, right, and everybody kind of rulls
over to him.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
Yeah, And we've had presidents like this before.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
I mean, you know, everything that's going on today has
happened before in one way or the other. And the
president of the United States, the job itself is a
very dangerous position. You have enormous power of life and
death over people, not to mention wealth and poverty. Teddy
Roosevelt was a bit of a dominant character back in
(19:52):
his day. Let's not forget that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was
elected four times. They had to have a special amendment
put in the concert soution to keep that from happening.
I mean, people get whacked out when Trump talks about
running for a third term. Can you imagine four times
he was elected, He didn't live through most of his
fourth term, but served longer than anyone else there there
(20:16):
have been Look at Nixon Nixon. Nixon ran a very
politically politically motivated, avengeful administration.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
We've been here before.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
It's just that, you know, there's something about what's happening
now that seems far more intense and and Trump is
in the eyes of his detractors, all right, because again
I'm trying to maintain a certain amount of objectivity in
this role. In the eyes of his his detractors, Trump
is one of the most dangerous evil characters to come
down the pike in years.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
It's interesting. You just brought up something that I hadn't
thought about for a while. There are a lot of
people When Ronald Reagan was president, there are a lot
of people who wanted him to run for a third
term or somehow figure out a way to get him
to stay in office, even though he couldn't have because
he lost his competency toward the end of his second term.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
But there was that conversation.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
So now you're bringing up something that we all ought
to be thinking about. That this, for the most part,
is not new territory, it's not new ground. It's stuff
that has been revived or refreshed because of the importance
of it now, the immediacy of it now, right, exactly.
Speaker 6 (21:28):
Right, Yeah, now is what it's about.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
We have had historically, and this is philosophy that goes
all the way back to you know, Socrates and Plato,
and that is dealing with now, what is now? You know,
why is now different than then or to be? You know,
we live in the constant state of now, and it's
reflected in our cycles, in our news cycles, in what
(21:53):
we consider to be a new day. You're obsessed with
it when you talk about some stories or old, some
stories are new. What we are in a philosophical predicament
that we can't get out of now. We can't go
back to yesterday, and we can't jump ahead to tomorrow.
Everything is eternal now and that's why it seems so intense,
(22:14):
and that's why Doug, it's so important that we maintain
at least an awareness of history, because it's hard enough
navigating now as it is. But if you don't know history,
if you don't know there was an FDR, if you
don't know that Teddy Roosevelt was considered to be a bully,
that Abe Lincoln was followed by an enemy, you know,
(22:36):
Andrew Johnson who wanted to take the country in a
whole different direction than Lincoln did. Uh that that politicians
have shot each other but with bullets in debates. Then
then then you're at a handicap in thinking that, oh,
this is the first time we're in unprecedented, uncharted waters.
You hear that all the time on the news, and
(22:57):
I yell at the screen, I go, no, this is
not sharded waters. We just don't know a damn thing
about history. We still can't even get it straight. What
the hell a tariff is in our cust.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
And that speaks to something that Trump wants to change.
Whether his idea makes it better or worse, it depends
on his who. We're listening to the detractors of the supporters,
taking the administrative taking the education department apart piece by piece,
and trying to figure out whether that's going to help education,
(23:29):
because education is in perilous position in our country right now.
We're not educating most of the people that go through
the system.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
We're just pushing them.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Through the system by the millions. So that's why they
don't know what a tariff is, and that's why they
don't know what They don't study history, so they don't
know about the things that you were just talking about,
all the presidents who were bullies, all the politicians heretofore
who have been bullies. And because how we learn today
isn't in school, it's by looking at social media and
(24:02):
a lot of the garbage, the trails from the people
who are trolling in the various whether it's Meta.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Or the X people or whoever it is.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Those people have an agenda, and so they're not going
to help people who are against their agenda, frankly, are they.
I don't see that the mister X is helping anything
other than his own point of view.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
And well, yeah, you remember I was complaining when when
Elon Musk bought Twitter, I said, if you and I
wanted to buy a stinking, little, dying AM radio station
out in nowhere, we'd have to go through a year
of paperwork and FCC approval and all kinds of stuff
just to just to get one little channel and one
little town. And this guy, because he's got so much money,
(24:54):
is able to able with with the you know, signature
on a check, He's able to take over a powerful
means of communication in the country. Doesn't that worry people?
I was yelling about that when that right here in
this show enough.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
People who are talking about it. They are not enough
people like you who are talking about it. And thus
number five this week on the story list, the Federal
Communications Commission as a new chairman who is inserted into
the role by mister Trump. His name is Carr. Carr,
and he's threatening everybody. There's a whole investigation into iHeart,
(25:31):
and there's an investigation into Comcast, and there's an investigation
now into sixty minutes because Trump doesn't like what they
say about him. You know what, that's tough s, that's
not what this country is all about. And it's time
that somebody stood up and said, you know what, And
he's a bully, that's what he is. He's a big bully.
(25:53):
As you were suggesting earlier, there had been bullies before,
and we've survived them. So okay, do we have the
same support for Did we have the same support for
bullyism then as we do now? That's probably a question
and a half, isn't it.
Speaker 6 (26:09):
Well?
Speaker 5 (26:10):
Yeah, you know, for a democracy to work, for the
American experiment to work, you have to hope that the people,
or at least have fifty one percent, are of decency.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
And good intentions.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
And you have to hope that the people that go
out to vote are doing so on a foundation of
intelligence and knowledge. If the public is not intelligent, well
then those people for centuries who said democracy can't work.
You must have an aristocracy, you must have a dictator,
you must have a king, You have to have an
(26:42):
upper class, an educated class, because the peasants, the peons,
are not capable of making the right decision and could
fall under the spell of a con man or a demagogue.
And that this has all been written into the Constitution
is all part of hundreds of years of history, even
(27:04):
all the way to the Magna Carta, that have has
shown the rise of democracy against all odds. Because the
enemy of democracy is ignorance. That is the enemy of democracy.
And we are teetering at that inflection point right now
in the United States. Are we smart enough to have
(27:25):
a democracy or are we a country that is so
overrun with dummies that we're not And again, I don't
mean to imply that people that support Trump are dummies.
A lot of very bright people support Trump. They'll say
things like I like what he does, but I don't
like his personality, but then me But personality also plays
(27:45):
a role in a thing called diplomacy, and it all connects.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
The countdown list is published every week.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I remind you at talkers dot com the top five
stories this week all have to do with Trump being
a bully. Then you could make the argument it maybe
is the top six, but certainly the top five on
that list have to do with Trump just bullying his
way through.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
You know the interesting thing.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
About number seven, the Iran nuclear talks, that's just kind
of like one of these things. Okay, where did this
come from? And does it appear that the Iranians are
afraid of him? So maybe the fear that comes from
Trump walking into the room, maybe it works in this circumstance.
It looks like the Iranians want to talk Turkey. They
don't want to do that when Biden was president.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
Right, Well, the Iranians, that's a whole other situation. In
Iran is one of the major powers out there. They're
a major power, major army, and major enemy of the
United States and its allies, specifically Israel. So the Iran
US talks are very important. But Iran has a history
(28:57):
of not wanting to press its luck. I mean, for
years they believed Saddam Hussein in Iraq had weapons of
mass destruction and he only said that because.
Speaker 6 (29:09):
He was keeping them in check.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
The US knew that, and it worked. We were in
on that scam. Think about that. You know, he kept
them at bay. They were afraid. Oh my gosh, you know,
we're Iran, but Iraq's got Saddam Hussein and weapons of
mass destruction and they hate us.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
There was that, There was that war between.
Speaker 5 (29:32):
Iraq and Iran that followed America held hostage, went on
for like eight years. Do you recall that the United
States and the press in the United States and talk
radio in the United States supported Iraq, supported Saddam Hussein
over the Ayahtolas.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
And then they hung them.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
Yeah, all of a sudden, it was forgotten, All of
a sudden we were accusing him of the very thing
that we were collaborating with him on.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Of course, you know, I'm going to end on this
note with you because this is tax filing week. A
lot of people have asked for extensions for lots of reasons,
but the administration has announced plans to end the direct
File program, which has been free, free tax filing.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
That'll be interesting to see.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
That was one of the reasons the Associated Press was
thrown out of the press room at the White House
because they said stuff that Trump didn't like.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
So you're gone out and there it is.
Speaker 6 (30:34):
You're out of here.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
All the thousands of your affiliates are out gone goodbye.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, Audios. Michael Harris and Doug Stephen here on the
Talk Radio Countdown Show at forty eight past the hour
Radio Countdown.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
We're counting down what America is talking about. The Talk
Radio Countdown Show continues.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
The Talk Radio Countdown, and so it does with Stephen
jj Wiseman Esquire here to discuss some of the legal
elements that have found their way into the stories that
are in the charts this week from Talker's magazine program
being enjoyed this week hopefully by the folks listening to
WHB in Charlottesville, Virginia and WWNR, which is in Bluefield,
(31:28):
West Virginia. I help yourself to enjoying our discussion here,
Steve and I have to do. You know the newspaper
the Irish Star, like the Guardian, only in Ireland.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Do you know you're not familiar with that?
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Okay, So here are some of this has nothing to
do with legality, but here are some of the headlines
from the Star this week.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Are you ready?
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Donald Trump comes up with a ludicrous way to look
taller next to the football team.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
He put on platform shoes.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Next headline, Trump suffers a mental collapse after senile moment
during liberation speech. Next, Lauren Bobert upsets Maga with inappropriate
mini dress at Trump's dinner. Donald Trump told the shave
his head as his huge thinning spot leads to the
(32:20):
correct understanding of his baldness. So that's so they're covering
in Ireland this week. All right, anyway, let's talk about
the judge who's going after the government for contempt chargers.
Can you file an emotion against a body and not
a person?
Speaker 7 (32:37):
Yeah, because at this point, you know, a company, a
government agency, you can bring an action against entities rather
than just an individual. And I think the purpose here
is also to find out who are the individuals, because
it appears to be the judges is not satisfied with
(32:58):
just making an order against the government. He wants to
know who the people are who are making these decisions.
So ultimately we know that this is no one's making
any decisions in this president presidency except for the president.
But you really do need to have evidence that who
is making the determinations. So we'll see what happens with this.
(33:21):
This really is a potential constitutional crisis as far as
the fact that the administration has ignored legal presidents and
orders from the court. But we'll see if this can
go further. I mean, you can go back all the
way to Andrew Jackson when the Supreme Court did things
that he didn't like. He said, Okay, they made the decision,
(33:42):
let them get their army to enforce it. Hopefully it
won't come to that.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Well, that's what a lot of people I think are thinking.
Speaker 6 (33:48):
Frankly.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
So number two on the list this week is a
situation of the FEDS are more importantly the president versus
Harvard University. You're a professor at one of the Austin
area colleges. So what's the scuttle But among those colleagues
who are legal experts and or professors or both as
you are.
Speaker 7 (34:10):
Yeah, it's this one's really tough because, on the one hand,
is it a punishment of these institutions for exercising free speech,
which is what it really does appear to be. On
the other hand, there's no constitutional right to get the grants.
And for a long time, in a sparingly manner, the
(34:33):
government has used what they call the power of the
purse to influence institutions and state, even state governments. You know,
the reason we have a twenty one year old driving
i mean drinking age is because the government said if
you if to the states, if you don't raise your
age to twenty one, you'll lose federal highway funds. So
(34:54):
Trump is just taking this to support any policy he wants.
But I think it's particularly dangerous here where it's another
instance of trying to stifling any kind of free speech
that may be critical of the president. And this will
get battled out in court. Harvard and MIT in particular
(35:14):
standing up. We'll see what the other institutions do.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
So number four this week, Steve, the Meta antitrust case.
Has Zuckerberg stepped in it?
Speaker 6 (35:26):
Yes?
Speaker 7 (35:27):
Absolutely. You know, this is something where Zuckerberg for a
long time has tried to really stifle any kind of competition.
And when particularly you're talking here to what he's taken over,
it does seem that the government has a strong case.
Remember in all of these however, what you need to
(35:47):
do is to recognize that it's not just competition, but
it has to be competition that hurts the consumer in
order to rise to anti trust levels.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Uh huh, And so well, I guess then we have
to define consumer and consumerism in a manner of speaking,
and you do that with not.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Only Zuckerberg, but frankly mister X.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
I don't call him Musk anyone, I just like I'm
gonna call him.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Mister X.
Speaker 6 (36:14):
There is all right.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
So that's it.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
That's our overview of some of the legal issues and
all the things that have made for a great conversation
this week on news talk Radio. I'm Doug Stephan with
Steve and JJ here on the Countdown, The Talk Radio Countdown.
The Talk Radio Countdown Show is a production of Stephen
Maltime Gift produced by Bob K Sound and Recording
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