Episode 206: Rising Waters, Rising Politics: How a Natural Disaster Became a Blame Game

🎙️ In This Episode:

We dedicate the majority of the show to the devastating Texas floods — and to the families and communities now trying to rebuild in the aftermath.

But instead of unity and compassion, political opportunists are already trying to exploit the tragedy — blaming the National Weather Service, and even President Trump, for what happened. That’s where we step in.

🚨 Mark Sets the Record Straight

With 25 years of experience as a meteorologist working hand-in-hand with the National Weather Service, Mark shares an insider’s look at how weather alerts are issued and coordinated with media and emergency officials. The real story is far more complex than the media wants to admit.

You’ll hear:

• ✅ The truth about how the NWS warned the public
• ✅ Why the loss of life is heartbreaking — and avoidable
• ✅ The rock-solid weather data that debunks the climate change narrative
• ✅ The media’s dangerous politicization of natural disasters

Mark doesn’t hold back. This is a raw and emotional episode, but it’s one that had to be done. We normally don’t devote an entire show to a single story, but this time, the truth matters too much to stay silent.

💔 A Story That Will Stay With You

We close the episode with the gut-wrenching story of a family torn apart by the floods. Their story deserves to be told — and it’s a powerful reminder of what’s truly at stake.

Website: https://www.nodoubtaboutitpodcast.com/
Twitter: @nodoubtpodcast
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NoDoubtAboutItPod/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markronchettinm/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D

Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Okay, we're back from 4th of July.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
It was a very nice trip, but obviously some heavy
stories, and we're going tocover something we don't usually
do.
We're going to basically coverone story today.
We'll have a couple stories,but mainly one Because of what's
going on with the flooding intexas.
I want to talk about that story, how it's being covered, some

(00:31):
of the political, politicalabsorption of the story,
politicization yeah,politicization okay of the story
, which is disgusting and nottrue, and so we'll go through
this in detail, because instories like floods number one
it's very applicable to whathappens in New Mexico Flooding

(00:54):
is one of our most dangerousnatural disasters.
It's what you're most likely tohave a problem with outside of
lightning, which wouldn't in andof itself, isn't a disaster,
but flooding, with the way themonsoon flow works and things
like that, it's a major risk inthe state, and so what happened
in Texas is something we canlearn from to some degree.
And I want to talk about what'sgoing on with the weather
service, what kind of job theydid.

(01:15):
I spent 25 years on calls withthe weather service, with severe
events and a lot of whathappened in this event.
I think people don't totallyrealize, and I think that some
truth needs to be told here onwhat's going on, and so that's
what we're going to do.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Okay, well, we'll get right to that, but let's get to
a few comments real fast yeah,absolutely.
Just because we did have apretty popular show last week
talking about mainly the big,beautiful bill which, by the way
, I guess I need to give propsto you, because I did not see
that thing getting signed beforethe 4th of July.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
I'll take apologies.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
You did, yeah, so tip of the cap to you, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Thank you, sir.
I mean thank you very much.
It definitely was something Ifelt like was going to be signed
, had to be signed and wassigned.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yeah, Okay.
Well, like I said, I didn't seethat coming.
I thought it would take a fewweeks.
But a little tip to you.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
So we did this, we did a survey or we reported on
the survey that had been doneabout are you proud to be an
American for our 4th of Julyepisodes?
If you haven't got to see that,you can go back and watch that.
But here's a comment coming infrom that, from Desert Guy.
He says I'm very proud to be anAmerican.
Right now I'm a Democrat,hispanic, voted for Trump and
voted for you, ron Keddie.

(02:26):
Yes, I know you may have founda unicorn.
What?
Here's the thing?
You're not a unicorn becausethere's plenty of Democrats that
voted for Mark that were alsoHispanic.
But we welcome you to the party.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yes, it's very cool.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Thank you, desert Guy , for writing in.
Yeah, billy Bisbee says lovethe patriotism, love game day,
because again we're doing gameday videos Question.
Okay, so here's a weatherquestion for you, mark.
Yeah, since the monsoon isstarting with the technology we
have today, why can't they useGPS to put the weather station
at the geographical center ofthe city and not at the sun port

(02:57):
?
The totals from the sun porttotals seem to always differ
largely to what happens in thecity.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, so the sun port is where the National Weather
Service is located, so that'swhere all the basically they do,
the balloon launches from thereand everything, so it's all
centralized there.
It's true we don't get quite asmuch moisture at the Sunport as
we do in most other parts ofthe city, not necessarily
downtown but there's a hugedisparity between what happens
at the Sunport and what happensin the Heights, for example a

(03:25):
massive disparity, and so thatis very true.
So when you start looking atsome of the numbers and you say,
does Albuquerque really onlyget nine inches of rain a year?
And if you're up in the Heightsand foothills you get more than
that, right, and so still,though, I understand the point.
But you have to have acentralized location.
Now there are some other weatherspots and locations and weather
machinery we have in differentplaces around the city that you

(03:48):
can tap into, but for the mostpart, you need to have a
standard place.
If you start moving yourlocation, you then take the data
that you've been collecting foryears and you make it obsolete,
if you know what I'm saying.
So, in other words, if westarted and said you know what
we're going to move our weatherreporting site to Tramway and
I-25, right, that would be atotally different set of data.
And all of a sudden you'd lookback and you'd say, oh my gosh,

(04:09):
our precipitation has gone up inAlbuquerque, you know, 40% over
the past 20 years.
That's because you've moved thesite, so what you try to do is
keep it in that location.
But I would agree, I think thatthe Sunport not necessarily a
great location for an accuratelook, especially what happens to
precipitation, because it is apretty dry spot.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
Okay, but you also, like, when you were forecasting
the weather on the news, you youdid a really good job of doing
all the different regions andkind of talking about those
differences.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
So yeah, a little less so in the city, but yeah, I
know you do, you have to talkabout it.
So, for example, we talk aboutand this gets back to what we're
going to talk about todaypredicting precipitation amounts
.
The single hardest thing to doin meteorology is to be able to
say how much snow are you goingto get, how much rain are you
going to get.
It is the single most difficultthing to do and I know it's not
the popular thing to say, butgood meteorology is a highly

(04:58):
educated guess about what'sgoing to happen, and so that's
the truth and the fact of thematter is, most of the time,
it's done very well by thepeople who do it, including here
in Albuquerque at the NWS andthe NWS in Texas that was
responsible for what they had tobe.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Okay, we'll get more into that.
Okay, here's a question for usregarding the big beautiful bill
.
This is from Laura McAllistersays okay, I'm trying to get a
grip on the big beautiful bill.
No one is really clear abouthow it's going to affect us.
In New Mexico, say, somebody ismaking $60,000 a year.
Where is the impact?
And can you do a show wherethings are simplified, please?
No time for a big show on this.
We've already done a lot on thebig beautiful bill and it's
passed, but just some nuts andbolts on this.

(05:34):
I'm going to let you answerthis.
But I mean, I know the biggestthing that I'm watching this and
one of the biggest pushes forthis was to keep those Trump
cuts.
Pushes for this was to keepthose Trump cuts, tax cuts
permanent.
So you've already benefited ifyou're making $60,000 a year,
those tax cuts are now permanent, so add a little bit more to
that.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Well, right, and I think one thing that's
underappreciated about the 2017tax cuts were the biggest
benefit went to lower income andmiddle income Americans.
It just did.
It's a fact.
You can go look at the numbers.
So let's say they had notpassed the bill.
Let's say that it didn't passand all of a sudden, you know
all the all the pushback on itworked from the other side and
from some Republicans, and itdidn't work.

(06:14):
You would have largely seen taxincreases above what you're
paying right now, of two to$3,000 for a family that makes
$60,000 a year.
That would have happened, soyou would have looked at a
massive tax increase that wouldhave likely pushed our growth
down to zero or could havepushed us into recession.
So a lot of this is protectingthe current circumstances that
we have as far as what you takehome.

(06:36):
Also, the corporate tax ratesthat were up in the mid thirties
for countries.
Some of the highest tax ratesin the world were here for
corporate tax rates.
Those came down and allowed forthe economy to continue to grow
, and that's going to continueas well.
That's important stuff, and so,especially if you own a
business and you're able to besure that you're not going to

(06:58):
see a massive increase in yourtaxes coming up.
So all those things will help.
A lot of the individual stuffis the tax structure that we
currently have not beingdisturbed and pushed back up
again.
Right, and so that does that.
And then you start to look atsome of the other things that
are going to be part of thisbill.
You know what's going to happenwith Medicare and Medicaid,
especially Medicaid.

(07:18):
Are people going to get kickedoff Medicaid?
Basically, all that's happeningwith that is there's going to
be a work requirement that youhave to be trying to get a job.
Okay, that's something that, oh, bill Clinton, right, right,
okay.
So this is something that justsays, hey, look, you've got to
make sure you're either tryingto get a job or you have a job
to continue to take advantage ofthese benefits.
Again, this is not over the top,though, is that, once you get

(07:41):
into politics now and the otherside just goes crazy, whatever
the issue is, it's going to bevery difficult for anyone in
this country, of either party orany party, to cut spending and
get our debt under control,because the other side will go
and look at them and say you'recutting benefits for people who
need them.
And I'll tell you what I think.
What this shows is that, as acountry, if we don't get both

(08:04):
parties on board with gettingspending under control at the
same time, we're going to haveto go over a cliff and then, all
of a sudden, you're going to beputting back together again
economy.
That will be in pieces.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, which is dangerous.
Another thing too just to keepin mind that we've kind of
talked about this too is youknow all the fear mongering of
you know this is going to closeon our rural hospitals, this is
going to kill your Medicaid, youknow, you're all.
You know.
We're going to leave thesestarving babies.
All this, I mean, I've seeneverybody benefits, all the.
I've seen everybody, fromSenator Warren all the way to

(08:35):
local officials here, just it.
You know, here's the thingwe're going to find out real
quickly.
So if, if they're true, if alltheir fear mongering is true,
well then Trump's an Epicfailure and we'll all know it
before the midterms.
Okay, but right now, what hasbeen proposed and what has been
suggested with this bill andwhat has been laid out in this
bill is those things will nothappen.
Another conversation I got intowith the gentleman on on X this

(08:56):
past week was he just said oh,those rural hospital funding
that got put back in Cause.
You know there was 25 billionoriginally allocated for rural
hospitals.
Another $25 billion was addedback in, so $50 billion total
has been allocated for ruralhospital support protections
federally.
So he's like oh, this will onlybenefit Alaska hospitals.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
That's just not true $50 billion for Alaska hospitals
, exactly I was like oh sir,every rural hospital in Alaska
gets a billion dollars.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
I was like sir, it's federally.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
So again it's like pay attention, we'll find out, I
guess no, your point is exactlyright, which is, if we're
sitting here a year from now andand you have massive amounts of
people that have been kickedoff of medicaid, that are
working hard and and are doingplaying by the rules, and if you
have rural hospitals shuttingdown everywhere, then you will
know that the opposition wasright.

(09:45):
And if they're wrong, then holdthem to account.
Realize that when they starttelling you things that are
going to happen for sure peopleare dying, then hold them to
that, and if they're right, thenthey're right.
You know, sometimes people saythings are going to go badly,
and they do.
Sometimes, when you spendmassive amounts of money after
you've already stimulated theeconomy with COVID dollars,

(10:06):
you're going to lead toinflation.
Turns out that happened, right.
I mean, everybody said it wasgoing to happen and Biden did it
anyway and it happened and theprices skyrocketed and we
haven't seen them come downsince.
Really, you know the rate ofincrease has gone down, but
still so.
That's the point.
So sometimes politicians andpolitical parties step in it and
the other party says this isgoing to be a disaster.
And it is Other times thatsometimes these parties say it's

(10:30):
going to be a disaster and itnever is, so you just have to
wait and see.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Right, so we'll check it out.
And also just another pointthat somebody did make I didn't
put the comment in here is ruralhospitals closing down in New
Mexico are happening anyway,largely due to a loss of doctors
.
Yeah right, Exactly Keep thatin mind too that there's an
issue as well.
Okay.
Just one more comment that weput in here, elizabeth Carlyle.
God bless America and those whogave their lives to keep us
free.
Another great show.

(10:54):
Thank you, elizabeth.
That is an amen from us as well.
Thank you all again to ourservicemen and women out there.
We appreciate that.
Okay, so getting to this reallyheartbreaking story that kind
of shook the whole country onJuly 4th, is this flooding in
central Texas?
It's right now, currently, asof Monday, when we're recording
death toll in central Texas,flash flood rises to 82.

(11:16):
As the sheriff says, about 10campers plus one counselor on
top of that is still missing.
We got 20, we have 28 childrenof that is still missing.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
We have 28 children, 80 people so far that have died
from this historic flashflooding in Central Texas,
heartbreaking along theGuadalupe River, right, right,
okay, and so right out of thechute.
What you see here is legacymedia, and we'll get to just a
couple of these.
I'm going to spend a lot oftime on it and then I'll let you
get into your in-depth story.
We're going to take thecriticisms.
First, we're going to line themall up and then I'm going to
tell you why most of them arecomplete garbage.

(11:50):
Okay, so here we go.
George Stephanopoulos startsoff the festivities as only
George can, as biased aspossible and leading into his
question with the reporter who'son the scene in Texas.

Speaker 5 (12:05):
We're also learning that there were significant
staffing shortfalls to theNational Weather Service's
offices in the region.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
You know, george, as of right now, the local county
officials really didn't want toaddress that just yet.
What they are telling us isthey expected between four and
six inches of rain.
That is what weather expertstold them, the National Weather
Service as well.
They also knew that in remotelocations they might get
anywhere from eight to 10 inches, but this amount of rain is
such a short amount of time.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Okay, so Stephanopoulos tries to frame
this as we didn't have anymeteorologists warning anybody,
nothing, nobody had any idea,and so this is all Trump's fault
because he was cutting, youknow, overall weather staff or
giving people a chance to retire, retire early.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
You'd think that George would have learned his
lesson after losing a massivelawsuit.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Well, it's just classic right, it has nothing to
do with what happened here andhe's actually wrong, but still.
And then you hear her say, well, they didn't predict this.
And they said, well, only up to10 inches of rain, 10 inches of
rain in one of the mostflood-prone areas of the country
.
So we'll get to that too, andso, but that's that.
And then Chris Murphy tweetsthis accurate weather

(13:10):
forecasting helps avoid fataldisasters.
There are consequences toTrump's brainless attacks on
public workers likemeteorologists.
Okay, give me a break.
Okay, give me a break.
We have 4,000 people at theweather service and some of them
are going to end up retiringearly and they're going to hire
some people back again.
They have enough meteorologists.
Don't get me wrong.
We have to make sure we havethe proper funding for modeling

(13:32):
and everything like that, andwhat I mean my modeling is
modeling what the atmosphere isgoing to do.
That takes a tremendous amountof investment, so so we'll set
that aside for now and we'll getto more of it, but really it
was the New York times that dovein and decided to just go full
hog, like let's not address theissues here, let let's turn this
political as quickly aspossible, and so that's what
you're going to point out.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
So here is the headline.
It says as floods hit, keyroles were vacant at weather
service offices in Texas.
Some experts may staff.
Some experts say staffshortages might have complicated
forecasters' ability tocoordinate responses with local
emergency management officials.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
By the way, quickly, just that, even that
sub-headline.
How many qualifiers?
Some experts say staffshortages might have complicated
.
This whole thing is garbage,but go ahead.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
Okay.
So basically they're going tosay they're going to blame that
these unfilled positions led tothe flood deaths.
Okay, so here's a couple ofpolls for this.
The shortages are among thefactors likely to be scrutinized
as the death toll climbs fromthe floods.
Separate questions have emergedabout the preparedness of local
communities, including CareCounty's apparent lack of local

(14:40):
flood warning system.
The county roughly 50 milesnorthwest of San Antonio is
where many of the deathsoccurred.
Okay, we go on here.
Now this is what kind of itstarts to lay out.
Where are they getting theirquotes from?
Well, it's a union spokesperson.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
Meaning, yeah, in public sector union work, yeah,
so it's this guy's job to get asmany employees as possible and
talk up their end of things.
And so you're not talking aboutsomebody from the Weather
Service who's actually workingday-to-day on these issues.
That's not who this person is,by the way.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Right, okay, so, since you're, the National
Weather Service's San Angelooffice, which is responsible for
some of the areas hit hardestby Friday's flooding, was
missing a senior hydrologist,staff forecaster and
meteorologist in charge.
According to Tom Fahey, thelegislative director for the
National Weather ServiceEmployee Organization, which is
the union that representsweather service workers, the

(15:30):
Weather Service's nearby SanAntonio office, which covers
other areas hit by the floods,also had significant vacancies,
including a warning coordinationmeteorologist and a science
officer.
Sir Fahey said Staff members inthese positions are meant to
work with local emergencymanagers to plan for floods,
including when and how to warnlocal residents and help them
evacuate.
Okay, mr Fahey seems to thinkthere's staff shortages.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
Right, right.
So he's like, because Fred thehydrologist took an early
retirement, nobody was there toforecast the storm, nobody.
They're just like nobody's heretoday.
I mean, go look in the office,there's zero, there's nobody
here.
Okay, well, let's keep going.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Okay, so here we go.
This is kind of where theystart to come in on Trump's
administration pretty hard.
That office's warningcoordination meteorologist left
on April 30th after taking theearly retirement package that
the Trump administration used toreduce the number of federal
employees.
According to a person withknowledge of his departure, some
of the openings may predate thecurrent Trump administration.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
What.

Speaker 3 (16:29):
Yeah, I mean it's true, but at both offices the
vacancy rate is roughly doublewhat it was when Mr Trump
returned to the White House inJanuary, according to Mr Fahey.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Okay, so we get the idea of this article right.
So it is, they didn't haveenough people there, so they're,
and again they're, they'requalifying languages might, will
, will require scrutiny.
Stuff like that.
I mean it's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
Okay, let me just tell you let me add you one more
thing, because I think, this isimportant for what you're going
to say it's the very last pollhere.
On clip 11, ava.
It says you know, reallythey're.
Now they're coming out andsaying well, there wasn't enough
coordination between the NWAand the emergency management

(17:11):
team there in these counties.
That's what they're blaming now.

Speaker 5 (17:13):
So here's, a poll.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
That just says this.
Typically, this is a guy thatwas quoted earlier in the
article.
Sokich said the weather servicewill send an official to meet
regularly with local emergencymanagers for what are called
quote tabletop operations, whichis planning ahead of time for
what to do in a case of a flashflood or other major weather
disasters.

(17:34):
So does this article say thatthose meetings took place?

Speaker 2 (17:38):
or did not take place .
Or did not take place, ok, well, lo, and behold, they did not.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
There's no mention of it.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
They just say usually you would meet and try to make
sure there's a good relationshipand, by the way, okay.
So let me just say this firstand foremost there are a few
issues that I've been in themiddle of more closely than this
.
Okay, as a televisionmeteorologist, you have very
close coordination with thenational weather service.
If you're doing it right, okay.
So when they talk about thesetabletop meetings, the NWS comes

(18:07):
in and talks to meteorologistsas well that work in the market,
that do it all the time, and soin this particular case, what
you tend to see is a goodrelationship between the people
that work for the counties andthe National Weather Service.
That relationship did exist inTexas at the time.
Not only that, when you getready for a big storm that comes

(18:27):
in and I don't care if you'rein New Mexico, texas, california
, it doesn't matter Most of thetime the National Weather
Service will set up a call foreveryone to get on that call and
say, hey, we got a seriousstorm coming in.
It happens four or five times ayear in New Mexico.
Most of the time it's a winterstorm that comes in.
So if you've got a big timestorm coming in, we know we're

(18:47):
going to get a few feet of snowin the Northern mountains.
We may get six inches inAlbuquerque.
You will be on the phone withthe national weather service on
a call to two ish days before ithappens.
It happens all the time.
They coordinate it all the time.
So you say to yourself did thathappen in this case?
In fact it did.
So let's go through, first ofall, just to blow out some of

(19:09):
the thought process here thatthere was no coordination or
that this stuff did not happen.
Okay, number one, let's go tothe tweets.
Now.
These are tweets from HomelandSecurity and this is backed up
by the actual TikTok that wasand I don't mean TikTok from the
TikTok app, I mean the TikTokthat was released by the weather
service on the information thatthey gave out.
On the morning of July 3rd, 36hours before this happened, the

(19:32):
weather service had a forecastbriefing that was open to all of
these counties saying look, wethink we got some serious flash
flood risks, okay, big time.
So they had that call.
And so not only that, they thengo through and they lay out the
timeframe in the morning ofJuly 3rd, national weather
issues a flood hazard outlook.
So you start, so you're lookingat all these hazard outlooks,

(19:54):
you pull them down.
If you're in the County, you'relooking at all of these things.
If you're smart, if you're doingyour job, okay, and you're
looking at all these things, allright, we've got a real problem
around Kerrville.
Now.
They know you live in Kerrville, you know you are in one of the
most dangerous corridors forfloods in the country, ok, so
this is not stuff that is new tothem.

(20:14):
All right, 1.18 pm on the third, again, well ahead of when all
this occurred, by at least 12hours or so, we're at the NWSC
is a flood watch for Kirk County, effective through Friday
morning.
6.10, weather Prediction Centerissues first of three mesoscale
precipitation discussions,warning of excessive rainfall
and flash flood potential Again.

(20:34):
So right now, this is the stuffwhere the Weather Service is
telling you with bright,flashing lights we've got
problems here.
And if your job in the countyis to keep an eye on these
things, knowing on July 4th youhave a massive amount of people
around, you've got to be reallycareful.
You keep on going, you go intothe nighttime hours and we go to
622, right.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
National water weather center water center
water center warns ofconsiderable flooding risks
North and West of San Antonio,including Caravelle.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
Okay, so at this point, by the way, if they were
paying attention the way thecounty should have been.
It should have been clearingpeople out right.
By the way, if they were payingattention the way the county
should have been, they shouldhave been clearing people out
Right.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
By the way, evacuating on July 3rd.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yes, and by this whole thought of well, they only
predicted four to eight inchesof rain, maybe 10 inches of rain
, 10 inches of rain Like you'dflood out these places with 10
inches of rain easily.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
So, anyway, keep going At 1141 pm on July 3rd,
flash flood warning issued fromBandera County.
Yeah, and then again at 1.14 amon July 14th.
So now we've got July 4th.
We've now moved into July 4th.
Yep Flash flood warning withquote considerable tag issued
for Bandera and Kerr countiestriggering wireless emergency
alerts, weas and NOAA weatherradio notifications.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
Meaning your phone goes off Right.
Just so you know.
So that's what starts to happenthere.
Okay, keep going.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
And then, at 4.03 am on July 4th, flash flood warning
upgraded to flash floodemergency for South Central Care
County.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
Flash flood emergency is you could die if you're in
this area.
Get out.
It's as serious as it gets, andthen at 4.34 again on July 4th.
Care County Sheriff's Officereports flooding at low water
crossings 201 minutes over threehours after the 1 14 am warning
, okay, and then it keeps going,going down.
So we'll, we'll, let that gonow.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
Another thing I want you to know, so here, like this
one's important, the last onethe national weather service
provided over 12 hours ofadvanced notice via the flood
watch and over three hours oflead time for flash flood
warnings, with escalated alertsas the storms intensify right
and I think it's very easy forthese county officials.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
And this is what's happening these county officials
in the weather service, theydidn't do their job, they didn't
do what they should have done,and then the politicians are
going in Well, the weatherservice didn't do their job
because Trump cut them.
It's not true, none of it istrue.
Ok, so we're going to keepgoing through this.
So you have the briefing.
Ok, you have that briefing thatgoes in the morning.

(22:56):
I said it was 36 hours inadvance.
It was.
It was about 18 hours inadvance.
You had that briefing, okay, soyou had an 18 hour advance
briefing.
So you were on the phone withthe weather service.
They're telling you howconcerned they are.
Then every single one of theseCounty managers and everybody in
that area has access tobasically a Slack channel, okay,
and what that is is it'sbasically a discussion board
from the weather service wherethey tell you what's going on,
minute by minute, as they'reforecasting.
So, throughout the day on thethird, throughout the day on the

(23:19):
fourth, you literally are inconversation with the national
weather service and they'retelling you what's going on.
They're telling you, hey,here's what our models are
telling us, here's what'shappening and they're telling
you what's going on.
They're telling you, hey,here's what our models are
telling us, here's what'shappening.
This is not a lack ofcommunication, okay, it isn't.
They have those channels openand they use them, okay, and so
that stuff is critical.
And so the other point was ohmy gosh, the staff has been cut.

(23:42):
The staff has been cut Usuallymost weather services, and it's
the same thing here inAlbuquerque, on a normal shift,
you have two meteorologists whowrite your discussions, who do
your forecast, who are in charge.
That night there were five.
There were five people on staffworking that night.

Speaker 5 (24:00):
Because they called an extra.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
They called an extra?
Yeah, of course they did,because they knew so.
To say that they didn't havethe proper staffing?
Also, not true, okay.
So the staffing was there.
They got the word out as bestthey could.
Now there are reasons thatthere were some massive loss of
life here and we're going to getinto those.
But I also want to address theissue where people say it's
climate change.
Here we go.
They got the two things.
Trump cut it and there'sclimate change.
That's why this happened, okay.

(24:27):
So here is a look at the flowincreases at the Guadalupe river
at hunt.
I picked the one here.
This is the only record, by theway.
This was, this was a record forhunt, and it was at 29 feet or
so.
Okay, by the way, let's just gothrough the other areas you
talked about.
We talked about Kerrville,right, and let's go to Kerrville

(24:48):
.
Okay, let's go to Kerrville'snumbers, the next one.
There you go.
So let's go to Kerrville.
It crested at 23.4 feet.
That's the third highest onrecord.
By the way, the highest onrecord was in 1932, where they
were at 39 feet.
Okay, center point, they toppedout at 21.41 feet.
The record is 24.27 feet from1978.

(25:18):
Comfort 34.76 feet.
Their record was actually 42.3feet.
Chris Martz put these numberstogether and, by the way, that
was at 1869.
Okay, so these are not thehighest numbers we've ever seen.
We can even go back to SpringBranch as well, at the very
bottom there.
Okay, they topped out at 29.33feet.
Their record is 53 feet, andthat was in 1869.
And that was in 1869.
Yeah, okay.

(25:38):
So these are not things thatdon't happen here.
They happen here regularly,okay, so I want you to fix that
in your head too, that this areaof Texas, these things happen
regularly.
So I want to start with thefive factors, or hit the five
factors of why this happened.
Okay, because I just can'tstand to watch what I spent a
career in people taking it,twisting it and politicizing it

(26:00):
without knowing what they'retalking about.
So the question becomes and youeven heard some of these people
I know you referenced some ofthis and it was some of these
county guys saying well, theytold they never told us anywhere
near this kind of rain right,yeah, that's what they have.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
That was happening at a press conference with the
governor's office.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
Um, there in texas you had emergency management
guys get up and say well, nobodysaid that we were going to get
this kind of rain well, okay,they told you you were going to
get in excess of seven inches ofrain and you are in one of the
worst flood zones in the country.
That enough should be, shouldhave you sounding the alarm bell
to everybody, but but the factthat it was double that I want

(26:38):
to explain why.
So, ava, let's put this intomotion, and this is going to get
a little technical, but I wantyou guys to just look at
something.
You know, ava, just mic up fora second here, and just what I
want to show you is and Icouldn't find a graphic that
shows all this, but I want tosee if you guys can pick up on
this you can see where that bigexplosion of precipitation is
right, all right, we're going togo through this again and it's
going to run again, and what Iwant you to watch for is see the

(27:01):
moisture start to increase herein the rain start to increase,
see it backing to the West.
It's going to move to the Westand you're going to see some.
There's some twisting in thecloud, in the, in the moisture
here and in the rain andthunderstorms.
So you see it there blowing upand see it twisting right there.
See it twist right there, rightthere, and it sort of backs up.
Okay, so what happened is this?

(27:22):
Most storms that come in moveWest to East, right, they come
from California or the PacificNorthwest and they come through
New Mexico and then go to Texas.
Right, they come fromCalifornia or the Pacific
Northwest and they come throughNew Mexico and then go to Texas,
right, okay.
So this is what's called amesoscale convective vortex.
Okay, it's a tiny little storm,it's a little low pressure
system, but this one, instead ofgoing west to east, it went

(27:43):
east to west, so it backed up.
It's called retrograding, okay.
So it's a little low pressuresystem which is like a little
vacuum cleaner.
Okay, the little vacuum cleanergoes from central Texas a
little further to the West.
It then runs into the remnantsof tropical storm Barry.
Okay, so you have a ton ofmoisture, you've got your little

(28:05):
weather disturbance creepingfrom back East to the.
See it back.
Now it kind of backs up to thewest, spins right there, see the
spinning, yeah, and then itblows up.
Okay, now the reason I bringthis up and the reason I bring
up a mesoscale convective vortexit's something that most
meteorologists are very familiarwith, okay, but these are
tricky.
They're small and it's hard forweather models to grasp them

(28:27):
right.
It just it's very difficult tobe able to tell exactly how much
rain you're going to get out ofa mesoscale, convective vortex
or any an MCC any of them.
Okay, it's tricky, but thepoint being on this one is you
have Barry's moisture comes up,you have that little low that
comes over it draws thatmoisture up and then you have
the hill country.

(28:47):
The hill country is higherelevation If cause that moisture
up and then you have the hillcountry.
The hill country is higherelevation.
If you put moisture over higherelevation, that dumps heavier
rain too.
So I'm just telling you this isa tricky thing to forecast.
So by them going in and sayingit's possible, we could get
seven, eight, nine inches ofrain.
They actually said 10.
Yeah, they did warn.
That's off the charts a problem.
And then this goes and givesyou 15 in some areas because of

(29:08):
these things happening Again.
You get that little disturbance, you get that deep moisture
Boom.
It blows up over a flood pronearea.
This is something that hashappened before.
Okay, Climate change does notlead to more MCVs.
It doesn't.
Okay, Decaying tropical systemsare not because of climate
change.
We've always had them.
Okay, so this is not a climatechange issue.

(29:30):
This is an issue of a difficultto forecast piece of a weather
system coming in, a little smalllow pressure system, along with
a ton of moisture coming upfrom the South and a topography
that is not made for this.
So that's why that happened.
It's not because of climatechange.
Even an additional couple ofdegrees on the temperature
doesn't make this that right.

(29:51):
It just they don't add up.
So there's a very specificreason.
This was tough to forecast.
But telling the weather service, they failed because they told
you you're going to get eight,nine inches and you got 15.
No, no, I'm sorry, this is not.
You know, meteorology is notclairvoyance.
You don't get to know ahead oftime everything.
They did a good job of tellingyou the area to watch out for

(30:13):
and the area to watch out for isan area that's well known to
flood.
So reason number one difficultweather system to go ahead and
lay out exactly how it's goingto go.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
Yeah, and then number two, let's not forget this the
Texas Hill Country, this wholearea, it has a nickname, and
it's a scary nickname.
It's literally called FlashFlood Alley.
Yep, so, and to explain that alittle bit, like obviously this
is not the first time we've seenthis kind of storms, but when
you come in and it's called theFlash Flood Alley, yeah, you
know right.

(30:43):
It's pretty scary, and this ishere's a little.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
Yeah, so this is from .
So what you're about to readcomes from Roger Pelkey and he's
a he's a meteorologist, verysmart guy, okay, and he's he
worries that.
You know.
He does a really good job oflaying out the facts, but he,
but he lays out very clearlywhat the problem is in this area
.
When you add heavy rain.

Speaker 3 (31:03):
Okay.
So he says here this is a 2022article that he published in
AccuWeather.
I believe it says fairlyregular flash floods have led
officials to nickname a part ofthe state Flash Flood Alley, a
geographic region that tracksthrough many of Texas' major
metropolitan areas, includingSan Antonio, dallas, austin and
Waco Balcones.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, the balconies.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
Escarpment Yep, which roughly parallels Interstate 35
, marks the location of FlashFlood Alley.
The inactive fault zone formeda rise in the topography in the
area, which enhances stormsystems that pass over it,
causing them to dump more rainthere than they might elsewhere,
which is what you just kind oftalked about.
We're going from the coastalplains right into the hill
country.

(31:44):
There's a rise of at leastabout 500 feet in elevation,
pete Rose, a meteorologist fromthe Lower Colorado River
Authority, told AccuWeathernational reporter Bill Waddell.
Along with that you have a lotof your hills and valleys that
go along with that type oftopography, and these hills also
don't contain a lot of soil,which I think is a very key fact
.
They have very thin soil, sowhen the rain does hit them, not

(32:06):
much of it gets absorbed.
In fact, I read an article thatcalls it kind of like cement
almost it's like concrete.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
That's right.
It's like it is like raining ontop of an Arroyo.
Really, if you want anAlbuquerque example, nothing
soaks into the Arroyo the onesthat are basically concrete,
right.
It just it hits the Arroyo andgoes right, and that's what
happens here.
So two things right.
So you've got the Texas Hillcountry.
Moisture goes above it, youdump extra rain because you cool
it and it dumps the rain, andthen you get that really hard,

(32:34):
either rock below or soils whichdon't absorb any of that, and
it comes flowing down.
So that's number two.
That's reason number two.
We got a tricky storm and thenwe've got an area that is
absolutely prone to this sort ofthing.
In fact, let's go back to 1978.
This has happened before.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
Yes, this is terrible Back in 1978,.
Kerr County and surroundingareas, especially Kerrville and
Comfort, Texas.
This was the torrentialrainfall that caused the
Guadalupe River to rise rapidlyand resulting in flash floods.
Here's the impact of this 27fatalities, dozens injured,
hundreds of campers stranded orswept away and over 40 mobile

(33:17):
homes destroyed.
National Guard and helicopterswere deployed for the rescue
efforts.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yes, and you're looking at the video of it right
here.
So this takes us back to 1978,a massive issue here.
Similar situation there'sactually a better comparison
than this one even was but still27 people dying there when you
had a tremendous amount of rain.
Yes, you had to get kids out ofthese camps along the river.
Okay, this is something that'sbeen going on here for decades

(33:43):
and this will.
This will get back to one ofour other real problems in this
whole thing.
But it's not just 1978.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
There's another 1987 in the same area, 10 people died
.
Um, again, it's in the sameareas.
They were swept away.
This was 12 inches of rain thatfell rapidly over the same area
.
Guadalupe river rise.
The river surged by more than20 feet in a matter of hours and
you're and, by the way, 10children died at a camp, right?

Speaker 2 (34:08):
So exactly the situation we're looking at here.
They had to go in there withthe national guard.
Try to get them out.
This guy you're seeing on thevideo, he was one of the first
people that was rescued fromthis thing and they, they came
running out.
Try to solve this.
But again, this all noticewhat's going on.
When this is going down, it'sdaylight, right, okay, so
they're checking.
So that's again.
So this is not new to this area.

(34:29):
It happens far too often forthis area.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
Yeah, this is the third in 45 years.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
That's right.
So the question is, if you knewthis and you're looking at this
video from 1987, you're lookingat the video from 1978, you're
looking at the video from 2025,why in the world did they not
have a warning system?

Speaker 3 (34:47):
Right and to explain that a little bit like a warning
system, in a lot of tornadoareas, right, those sirens go
off in a tornado area, right,right.
So the complaint is why do theynot have this along the
Guadalupe River area?
Right that's kind of been thebig complaint about this.

Speaker 5 (35:02):
Right.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
My understanding is this is a pretty expensive
system that would have had beenput in correct.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
Well, yeah, yeah, there's there.
There's no doubt.
I mean, I think you'd have toput in.
It'd be similar to if you're inHawaii and you have the tsunami
warning system with the, withthe.
It'd have to be a verbal site,you'd have to be able to hear it
, right, I mean.
And so in the middle of thenight that would go off and you
would do it.
But I don't know how manypeople you have to lose in these
things before you decide to doit, right?
But I mean, and you look atsome of these.
I mean you still look at thisvideo again.
This is video from 30 years agothat this stuff's been

(35:35):
happening, right, so this isnothing new.
And for them not to have anysort of system, or, when they
know they're getting seven toten inches of rain, for them to
even allow anyone along thisriver, around curville and
around where you saw where CampMystic is.
They shouldn't have beenallowed in there.
It should not have happened.
They should have just shut thisthing down.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
They should have shut it down.
And just so you know, I didread a little bit about these
systems that they I guess it wasproposed a while back to add
these systems and then it justkind of didn't get very far.
I think the taxes were going tohave to be increased, things
like that.
It just didn't get the.
It just didn't get off theground.
They just didn't get this butdidn't get the permissions
granted that they needed to putthese systems in place, I agree,
but then this is on.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
This is on your leaders to understand history
and understand the situation andunderstand what's going on and
understanding and this is reasonnumber four understanding the
weekend.
This is July 4th, the July 4thweekend, one of the busiest
weekends possible.
So when we look and say why somany?
Why did so many people die?
So many people died becausethere's one other, bigger reason

(36:36):
than that, but still, the July4th weekend, packed along that
river, and I get it there's alot of pushback that you would
have gotten if you'd said yougot to back away from this or
you got to go to everybody alongthat river and say you guys,
tonight is going to be reallydangerous If you stay here.
I think you're making a mistake.
But if you do, you need to keepyour phones on and realize that

(36:56):
if something goes down, peopleneed to be able to get a hold of
you and the weather serviceneeds to be able to alert your
phone.
Any of those things, none ofthem.
And I think that's a failure ofleadership to some degree on
the people that in thesecounties it's not a failure of
the weather service, it reallyis not.
And the last reason, and to meprobably the biggest reason.
It happened at night.

(37:18):
It happened in the middle ofthe night.
People are asleep and you'reliterally watching video of a
house and a cabin flowing down ariver.
They had no idea, so they go tosleep with very dangerous
weather conditions in place andthen, by the time they realize

(37:39):
what's happened, it's too lateand that you can't do.
And don't blame this on climatechange, and don't blame this on
Donald Trump and don'tpoliticize it.
It's disgusting and I can't letit go.
I just see it and I'minfuriated.
I'm infuriated with countyofficials who didn't do their
job, and I'm infuriated withpeople that say the Weather

(38:02):
Service didn't get it right.
Infuriated with politicians whowould rather score points than
understand the situation andmake sure it doesn't happen
again, because if we just makethis all political, I'm not
going to solve anything.
Oh, so Donald Trump's notpresident, so this won't happen
next time.
Oh bull, give me a break.
And so you see this and you see.

(38:28):
Everything that happens Laysout how, how just heartbreaking
this is and how honestlyhelpless so many victims were.
And so it's an article.
It's titled the Texas dad triedto kayak to his daughters.
The girls texted I love you.

(38:50):
So here we go.
The Harbor family was spendingthe holiday at a cabin they
owned at the Casa Bonita cabincommunity near hunt, texas,
around 3 30 AM.

(39:10):
So here we go where he wasstaying.
Rj, a 45-year-old father andDallas lawyer, had been
vacationing and going to summercamp in the area his whole life.
Thought the river might rise alittle, he said he wanted to
check on his own two youngdaughters, 11-year-old Brooke
and 13-year-old Blair.
The girls were staying in aborrowed cabin closer to the
river with their grandparents,mike and Charlene Harbor.

(39:32):
Rj said he thought he wouldclear away the kayak and some
fishing gear down by the river.
He put his foot down on thefloor of the cabin.
He felt about four inches ofwater.
Rj turned to his wife who waslaying in bed beside him, also
awake.
He told her Annie the cabin'sflooding.
Rj could see water rushingthrough the front door.

(39:55):
He tried to open the door buthe couldn't.
He looked out the window wherehe saw water levels about two
feet below the window.
We need to get out of hereright now, rj told Annie.
He grabbed a few items theircell phones and a bag they
hadn't unpacked by the time.
They jumped out the window.
Two minutes later the water hadreached up to Annie's neck.

(40:18):
The Harbors hurried to anothercabin nearby, only slightly on
higher ground.
They knocked on the door andwoke up the family.
By the time the family came tothe door, the water was almost
at their door.
They went to another cabin andwoke a third family as well.
Rj Barrett borrowed a kayak lifevest and a flashlight.
He started to kayak to thecabin where the couple's

(40:40):
daughters and RJ's parents werestaying.
It was about 100 feet below andhe reached about halfway.
When RJ said, the swell knockedhim into a post.
I shined the flashlight outthere and I could see it was all
white water and I've kayakedenough to know that that was
going to be impossible.
He could see an entire cabinhad been detached from its

(41:02):
foundation and was stuck againstthe side of the cabin where his
daughters and parents werestaying.
There were cars floating at meand trees floating at me.
I knew if I took even one morestroke further it was going to
be a death sentence.
Rj turned around to get his wifeand the remaining family.
They went to a home nearby onhigher ground across Highway 39,

(41:25):
where the family had let themin around 3.45 am.
That's when he checked his cellphone and he saw a text sent at
3.30 am from his daughterBrooke.
Receiving the text alone was amiracle in the area where he
usually couldn't get any cellservice.
It said I love you.

(41:46):
Annie, 43, who worked at StRita Catholic School that's in
Dallas, which both girlsattended, received texts from
both Brooke and Blairtime-stamped at 3.30 am saying I
love you.
Their grandfather in Michiganalso received a text love you

(42:06):
with a picture of the girls.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
Just heartbreaking.
You know, they got out, theysaved other families, then he
couldn't save his own, his ownkids and parents.
I mean, it's just um, and youguys, your family has a little
bit of a connection to the StRita's, Um, I believe that's
where you guys that's where Iwas born in Dallas, and then
that's the church we attended.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
Yeah, but um it just it's just.
The reason we bring all this upis just stop trying to turn
everything into some cheappolitical shot that can help
your side.
Just stop and actually getfacts, actually spend some time
understanding the situation.

(42:50):
Don't listen to someone, someuneducated fool like George
Stephanopoulos or Dana Bash, whowill do everything they can to
try to twist the issue.
That's not what happened inthis case.
So if you actually get the factsand the information, it's
important to know exactly whathappened.

(43:10):
And it's important in NewMexico because we have flash
flooding all the time.
It's dangerous and when youhear about flash flooding
possible in your area, payattention to it.
When you get that warning onyour phone, pay attention to it.
Don't blow it off.
It means something, especiallywhen you have burn scars.

(43:32):
Where you have wildfires in NewMexico, it's a huge issue of
burn scars.
Where you have wildfires in NewMexico, it's a huge issue.
So please don't fall for thecheap political tricks.
Those people don't care aboutyou, they don't care about your
family, they care about power,they care about winning extra
seats in Congress and they careabout lining whatever pockets
they can line, and so I justhope this gives some perspective
they can line, and so I justhope this gives some perspective

(43:56):
.
And I know it's a lot to spendon on one issue and we've spent
45 minutes on it and we're notgoing to get to that.
We're going to do one otherstory but I just I don't know, I
just couldn't stand it and thatstory's just heartbreaking.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
Yeah, it's really it's.
It's very hard.
Well, I appreciate, mark, thatyou I think people will
appreciate the fact that yougive some personal insight.
Just the knowledge base on theweather side of things is
important for people to actuallybe able to evaluate and make
critical thinking decisions intimes of crisis and hopefully,
hopefully, this area, once itrecovers, will put systems in
place.
I mean, I did read that Trumpsaid I'm going to invest.

(44:32):
He said it before this time.
Right, they are investing inupdated weather technologies and
with NWS and and and um and OAA, yeah, Noah yeah.
So they that that was part ofthe plan all along and that is
continuing to be a plan and theyare putting, uh, you know, a
timestamp on that, saying thatthey want to get that done.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
So and I think there's one thing if if you want
to hold Trump accountable,here's here's where I'm going to
hold him accountable, which ishow much money are you invested
in weather modeling, and howmuch money are we, as a country,
going to invest to make sure wehave the best weather modeling
in the world?
Right now, the Europeans havethe single best weather model in
the world.
We need to have the bestweather modeling in the world.

(45:10):
That matters for situationslike this, and what I mean by
mean by that is that the betteryour modeling is, the smaller
you can pull down the grid to.
In other words, you can lookand say, okay, we're looking at
the Texas Hill Country and if wesee a little weather
disturbance, a small one, a tinyone backing its way in with a
lot of moisture, we know we canforecast that better versus when

(45:32):
it's not as good.
It's a bigger area right, it's50 square miles versus 10 square
miles.
We want to be down to a squaremile eventually.
Right, we want to be able tolook more and more.
It's getting better and better,but I can't stand when you see
people whose job it is to helpkeep their citizens safe try to
pass the buck and try to turnthis into a finger-pointing game

(45:54):
of there's not enough staffing.
They didn't tell us that it wasgoing to be this exact amount
of rain.
Stuff like that, not fair andit is not helpful and it needs
to be called out.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
Okay, well, something else is.
We're just going to talk aboutone more story, as Mark said,
that is making headlines today.
Yeah, I think it's ridiculous,but I still wanted to bring it
to everybody's attention, if youhaven't already heard this.
But uh, elon musk is going tostart a new uh party, apparently
a new political party.
Um, he's going to call it, uh,the american party.
Now, just keep in mind he hasnot actually filed any paperwork
for this yet, so, but he istouting the fact that he's going

(46:25):
to start this now his goal.
This is just a little uh pollquote.
It says the world's wealthiestperson, elon musk, and the
biggest, the country's biggestpolitical donor, said on
saturday that he's going tocreate a new political party,
which is an enormous andchallenging undertaking that
would test the billionaire'snewfound influence on American
politics when it comes tobankrupting our country with
waste and graft.

(46:45):
We live in a one-party system,not a democracy.
Mr Musk wrote on his ex Today.
The American Party has formedto give you back your freedom,
mr Musk, once a close ally ofPresident Trump, who, in recent
weeks, has repeatedly bick.
So he's going to start this newparty.
My understanding is that hiswhole goal is to take up a few

(47:24):
Senate seats and about 10 Houseseats.
That's what he would befocusing on in the 26 midterms.
Okay, so here's a little bit ofTrump's.
I'm not going to read the wholething that Trump said because
it's quite lengthy, but here's alittle bit of what Trump had to
say about this as of today.
He says I am saddened to watchElon Musk go completely quote
off the rails, essentiallybecoming a train wreck over the
past five weeks.
He even wants to start a thirdpolitical party, despite the

(47:46):
fact that that has neversucceeded in the United States.
The system seems not designedfor them.
The one thing third parties aregood for is the creation of
complete and total disruptionand chaos, and we have enough of
that with the radical leftDemocrats, who have lost their
confidence and their minds.
Republicans, on the other hand,are a smooth-running machine
that has just passed the biggestbill of its kind in the history

(48:07):
of our country, and it's agreat bill.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Basically, he goes on to saythat Trump, that Elon's mad
about the EV mandate beingremoved from the bill and he's
upset about a friend of his notgetting hired at NASA.
Okay, so now let's actuallyfind out.
If Elon Musk was to actuallycreate this party, would there

(48:30):
be enough people to join to makesome impact on that?
So let's take a listen to thelatest CNN poll on this to see
what would happen.
Will this party actually grow?

Speaker 5 (48:40):
It makes very little sense.
To me, it makes about as muchsense as selling sand in the
desert.
What are we talking about here?
What is the size of Elon Musk'sbase?
Well, I calculate it to beabout 4%, just 4%.
1, 2, 3, 4% of all voters.
What is that base made up of?
Well, it's those who view ElonMusk favorably and the GOP
unfavorably.
We're talking just about 4% ofall voters out there, because it

(49:04):
turns out most of the peoplewho like Elon Musk already like
the GOP already, that is, theyalready have a party for him.
In my mind, there is just nobase for Elon Musk's third party
in the electorate, at leastinitially speaking.
All right, when we talk aboutOK.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
so then Scott Pressler, who's big on getting
people registered to vote acrossthe country.
He works pretty heavily in thestate of Pennsylvania.
Quite frankly, that's kind ofwhere I see most of his tweets
coming from.
But he just happened to tweeton this as well and he said well
, if Republicans lose the Housein 2026, which is the creation
of a third party is likely to dothere'll be no budget for DHS

(49:38):
and to deport criminal illegalaliens.
We will likely lose 2028 andthere goes control over the
census, the border opens upagain and it was all for naught.
So it's just like I mean, Idon't know.
What are your thoughts on this?
Like, I'm just curious.
Like, does Elon actually dothis or is just?
Is this just like a game thathe is playing because he's a bit

(49:59):
of a narcissist, trump's a bit?
You know, they're all like, allthis ego you know inflated.
He mattered to the partyinitially.
Is he just overreaching hispower now by saying I'm going to
go out there and start thisparty, or I mean, what are your
thoughts on that?

Speaker 2 (50:13):
I think.
So A couple of things.
When you before, if you're apublic figure, that is
non-political, okay and Iremember making this decision
that we went back and forth andwe talked about, to Jay a lot
about this that the minute youbecome political, you you create
an environment which takesbasically half the voters and

(50:35):
pits them against you in thiscurrent environment.
So think about what Elon did.
Okay, he started out by goingbacking Trump.
Okay, so most Democrats go I'mdone with this guy.
Right, I don't like Trump.
You know the normal politicalreaction.
He then goes and gets in afight with Trump and takes the
other half and Republicans gowhat the heck is wrong with you,

(50:59):
man?
And then he does this.
So what he's done is he's a manwithout a constituency because
he's burned both sides of thepolitical aisle, and so I don't
think this is going to be a hugefactor.
While I can appreciate Scott'spoint, a couple of points here,
a couple of points there, canmake a big difference in a very
tight congressional race, andElon could put a lot of money
into it.
But at a certain point Elon'sgoing to realize that constantly

(51:22):
wading in political waters itcreates a massive problem for
him, and I think it is.
It's created problems for Tesla, it's created all sorts of
issues.
So you can either lock down onwhat you're doing and have a set
of beliefs and say these are mybeliefs.
But when you're the one who'sfloating around and you're kind
of like, no, I like you.
No, I don't like you.
I like the EV mandates, I'm theEV guy.
No, I'm not the EV guy, I'mTrump's guy.

(51:42):
I'm not Trump's guy, I'm my ownguy.
I hate Trump.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
I hate.
You need to get back here andrun your company, right?
So it will be interesting tosee what kind of feedback he
gets from the board members ofhis companies after he's made
this announcement over theweekend.
I will.
I would be curious.
I don't think that they'regoing to be like very supportive
of him starting this Americanparty.
I think it seems.
It seems ego driven to me.
It seems like my feelings arehurt.
I'm going to, I'm going to showyou how much power I have and

(52:25):
here I go Like I don't know, itjust feels, it feels childish.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
Yeah, and I will say the one thing that Harriet and
we cut it off before he got done, but he but he did say so.
What's interesting is the mostsuccessful third-party candidate
of our lifetimes is Ross Perot.
Okay, the negative on RossPerot when he got into the race,
14 percent of Americans thoughtof him negatively.
Right now, 58 percent ofAmericans think of Elon Musk
negatively.
Like it's devastating.
I mean I don't think he's goingto build anything.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
I really don't Okay, all right.
Well, I know those were someheavy topics today.
We he's going to build anything.
I really don't Okay, all right.
Well, I know those were someheavy topics today, we will.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Yeah, sorry about that.
We are going to have the besttime on Wednesday.
I want you to know that it'sgoing to be.
We're going to live it up outthere.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
We'll show it, we'll throw some game camera.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
I will have some game camera.
I promise I got a new.
I've set up.
So, I'm I'm hopeful that we'llget you something there.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
Okay, All right.
Well, we appreciate you guysjoining us.
We appreciate your comments.
Please continue to like andsubscribe on our YouTube channel
If you're listening on theradio or someplace else and pray
for everybody in Texas right,Absolutely.
Let's keep all those folks Umand those that are still missing
, we I really needs.

(53:37):
So.
Thanks for listening.
We hope you had a blessed 4thof July.
We have a great country and weappreciate everything that you
guys do to support us here atthe no Doubt About it podcast.
Have a great rest of the week.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
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(54:07):
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Speaker 2 (54:12):
There is no doubt about it.