08-20-24 FULL SHOW - Day Two of the DNC!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Bell and Pollock,
Accident and injury Lawyers.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Live from Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. It's Mandy
Connell and.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Con presented by Golden Bike Grouping.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
I'm Kae FM Canty's through three by Connell keeping sad thing.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome from the United Center in Chicago, Illinois,
Day two of the Democratic National Convention. Ready to rock.
People are starting to mill about. The media is here?
More media people here today? Don't you think a rod
at this point?

Speaker 4 (00:46):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (00:46):
So far?

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Yeah, so far. I mean there's a lot more people
milling around. I got microphones. They're looking for interviews as
people walk by, and we have a few interviews today.
We'll see if Congresswoman Diana to Get gets in in
time to visit with us. But in the meantime, I
did do a very healthy blog this morning, and let
me tell you where to find in where it is.
Just go to mandy'sblog dot com. That's mandy'sblog dot com

(01:10):
in the latest post area and look for the headline
that says eight twent a minute, Yeah, twenty twenty four
blog DNC Day two. Click on that and here are
the headlines you will find within a youven listen.

Speaker 6 (01:21):
List in office half Americon, all the ships and clipments,
and say that's gonna press plat.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Today. I'm the blog no joy for Donald Trump. Last
night the pro Hamas protesters made it inside scrolling scrolling.
Hillary had a lock him up moment last night. They
keep saying there for the average person. Democrat platform calls
for electing Joe Biden, only celebrity siding so far with
Spike Lee. How much has your monthly escro payment gone up?

(01:51):
Who knew he was a hunter? The man trying to
reshape how we vote in Colorado Glenwood Springs is going
to go through your trash. One Democrat has from the
convention a telling anecdote about how voters get their information.
House Common Loo're gonna pay for her grandiose plans. The
rise of work less in Germany. Denver Public Schools released

(02:12):
its discipline matrix, and it's a jumbled mess. The long
history of anti Semitism at the Democratic Conventions. The shroud
of Turin could definitely be real. Could Ron be losing
the faith of its proxies. Funniest thing from the DNC
so far. Those are the headlines on the blog at
mandy'sblog dot com and yesterday. If you're not following along

(02:34):
on our social media channels at Koa, Colorado, either on Twitter,
on Facebook, on Instagram, you are missing the good video
work that we are doing. Because I'm telling you right
now yesterday what yesterday? So we get off the show
yesterday afternoon, and we're gonna go to Rob Dawson here
in just a minute. We get off the show yesterday.

(02:55):
Rob is with protesters. You heard him yesterday as he
was talking about walking with protesters from Union Park over
to the United Center and he was marching with them.
And then right after we got done, we got a
text message from Rob that said protesters had reached the barrier.
So a Rod and I literally we didn't run all
the way over there, but we walked very rapidly over there.
We found a police helicopter. You see this all on

(03:17):
the videos that are on our social media, and we
walked over to We were on the inside of the perimeter.
Rob was on the outside of the outer perimeter. So
here we go and we're taking pictures of Rob through
the fence and he's you know, talking to us through
the fence and we are watching as protesters were sort
of being shoveled back out of the perimeter area. And

(03:38):
just to set the scene a little bit, the area
where the protesters were trying to break into the perimeter
is a long stretch of fencing. I mean a long
stretch of fencing. And if I were a bad actor,
I would look at what happened yesterday and absolutely make
that my plan going forward. So let's check in with
Rob Dawson, find out where he is now and if

(04:00):
he's now, Rober, are there any more protest scheduled for
today that you know of?

Speaker 7 (04:06):
So anecdotally, First of all, I'm in the United Center
Bowl area. This is the first time I've made it
to the from here to day, so we're making progress.
But I anecdotally heard at my hotel that I was
saying at that there were two other people from our
company that were there.

Speaker 5 (04:28):
Podcaster from Portland.

Speaker 7 (04:30):
He was saying, I hear there's a late night protest
for Tuesday night, right, don't know how late, don't know
how effective.

Speaker 5 (04:40):
And that's all I've heard so far, So hopefully that
does not happen.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
I am genuinely concerned though, Rob yesterday really kind of
opened my eyes to the security vulnerabilities and on the
side that they were on yesterday, don't you feel like
there's a lot of real estate there that has to
be defended if if they decided, And because that group
yesterday was probably a thousand people tops by the time
they were trying to break down the fence, yeah it was. Yeah,

(05:08):
So bringing five thousand people and you've got a real
situation here.

Speaker 5 (05:12):
I would agree, I think.

Speaker 7 (05:16):
And again, you know there's been comments about, you know,
crime in these big cities, crime in Chicago particular, are
the police effective? Do they have enough officers? I was
watching what was happening yesterday. I was just puzzled, first
of all, how close the media was able to get.
I mean, we were able to get a picture in
front of the human chain if we wanted to. Right

(05:37):
there was this little disorganization, There was disorganization in the street,
and the police officers are on the sides of the street,
not anywhere. They were just trying not to be in
the street with them. I think what the strategy was
and what we've seen in things like a area is
let's not bring out all the cops. Because we bring

(05:58):
out cops and show force and they're going to go
nuts on, so let's just go as long as we
can without having a police presence. There was a presence there,
but what I'm talking about is the show of force
that we saw at the end, right with.

Speaker 5 (06:11):
The right coming in.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
He asked. Somebody asked on Twitter about whether or not
the police were geared up in riot gear, and I said,
because I guess the mayor of Chicago said they were
not going to be in right gear. Said they weren't
in riot gear until they broke through the barrier and
then you had the last Yeah, until they worked for
the barrier, they're just wearing the regular uniforms, and then
they got the helmets and the billy clubs and everything
else and marched in. And it was an impressive show

(06:36):
offurso I think. But it was very cool.

Speaker 7 (06:38):
Yeah, it just took ten It just took ten to
fifteen minutes because there were fifteen minutes or so of
people in the street that they're not supposed to be in.
I'm looking at other officers that were down the street,
and I think they didn't go to confront them because
they didn't have enough.

Speaker 5 (06:55):
They didn't have enough staff, they didn't have enough.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, yeah, of course. And that's my concern that that
is a very long piece of fencing that has to
be defended, right, I mean that that's that's nothing to
sneeze that in terms of defending that particular part of
the outer perimeter. Now, the other side of the United
Center where you came in today, there's so much stuff

(07:18):
there and there's so much security there that I don't
think they would try and come in the front. But
now they've seen the possibilities of coming in the back,
and yeah.

Speaker 5 (07:26):
They came to the back, which I think is the
north side, right, is that where? Yeah?

Speaker 7 (07:31):
So, And I was just surprised because remember Milwaukee, it
felt like there was a mile perimeter. Everything was just
and this is just scattered. I can't follow the fencing
very easily here. Milwaukee was very defined. This is like
a this jigsaw puzzle. It's like this jagged you know,
if you were drawing a line around it would be
like you know, uh, you know, hundred one hundred angles.

Speaker 5 (07:55):
What do they call that? And SENTI go on or something.

Speaker 8 (07:58):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
I don't think I think they've been really conscious about
because Milwaukee cut off huge parts of the city, right,
So I think are trying to be more conscious of that,
but that might be a mistake before everything is said
and done.

Speaker 7 (08:14):
One other thing I wanted to bring up about the fencing,
because this was a topic at the car ride of
breakfast this morning.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
There were delegates, a few of them.

Speaker 7 (08:23):
I wouldn't say they were pissed, but they made enough
of a stink to have Chad Merek get up this
morning and say, we really apologize. We know people didn't
show up until like two hours into the program. I
was talking with another delegate out in the lobby. It
didn't get a chance to interview on but he said
I was stuck on the bus for two and a
half hours. He had heard that once the breeds happened,

(08:45):
the security, the Secret Service has to then reinspect all
the fencing, so they must have had so many agents
out and you know, but it's it's miles of fencing,
and so that's why, Yeah, there was a delay of
the delegates coming in.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
We heard last night the security line was about two
hours long, so that must have been a part of that.
Because security was pretty breezy this morning and there was
a lot of people. So it's just you know, I
can't even imagine what it's like to run security for
an event like this, because we've been all kinds of
heavy hitters. We've got the former president Barack Obama speaking
this evening, along with so many politicians it's not even funny,

(09:22):
and they're just trying to keep, you know, everything under control.
So we'll see what happens with tonight's protest, but hopefully,
you know, it'll it'll not disturb our sleep because we're
on that side. Rob. I mean, there's a huge issue.
It could be a huge issue where we're staying.

Speaker 7 (09:41):
And keep in mind, you'd like to think that sometimes
what they say or what they're going to do, they
don't follow through. Like I remember in the area campus,
they said they were going to march to the jail,
and then three people march to the jail well resonantly.
So you saw some lameness, you saw some people. You know,
if you're going to protest, you've got to power through.
You can't lay down on the ground.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
Can you can you please speak to the irony of
a guy wearing a mask shouting into a bullhorn to
police you can't hide, You can't hide while he's wearing
a mask. I started laughing at a couple of things
that I heard chanted But I have to say I
could not be the police and stand there while these
people are shouting go home, pigs in their faces and

(10:23):
not react. And they didn't react. I have to give
him a lot of credit.

Speaker 5 (10:26):
They have a lot of self control. Absolutely, Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
I mean that was it was nuts. All right, Rob,
we'll see you later. You're gonna go to the bean
waste later.

Speaker 7 (10:34):
I'm going to try to you know, Okay, we could
get out at a normal hour. I'd like to, you know,
have a normal schedule today, as normal as we can
make it. But there you go right now as they're
doing sound checks.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
So yeah, yeah, all right, man. We'll talk to Rob
Dawson later. He's our man on the street as we
are doing the show today and we've got lots on
our plate. Brian, I should have asked you this before
the break, because it didn't occur to me that I
can't play my own audio today, right, I can't do that.
So I've got a couple of things that I want
you to get from the blog. One of them is
the segment with Hillary Clinton. A Rod and I watched

(11:07):
the speeches last night from the condo because they were
running an hour late when we started. We went to dinner,
had the most amazing pizza I've ever had. I'm going
to dream about it for the next six weeks or so.
And then we came back and we looked at the
schedule and I was like, oh my god, they're an
hour late and it was like eight fifteen, and so
we kind of made the executive decision to not come

(11:30):
back over here, which I'm kind of glad. We also
have a seating situation where we may we likely don't
have seats inside the arena, so we'd have to sit
outside and I'm not doing that. So we sat at
home and watched the speeches last night and arod our analysis,
is this the two I think? And I know you
don't love Hillary, but I'm telling you, Hillary Clinton gave

(11:51):
the best speech of her life last night. She was
the best she has ever been as she gave what
will maybe likely be the last speech of her entire career. Right,
I mean that's what we watched.

Speaker 4 (12:04):
You were not as impressed as I was, more so
not with the speech itself, just fundamentally just just her
speech style.

Speaker 9 (12:10):
I don't know what it is about it.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
I cannot put my finger on it. I typically can
when it comes to speakers, because I'm really a.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Big fan of great sweaters, but that hits you at
a certain part in your ear hole.

Speaker 4 (12:18):
It's almost like I get suffocating because I feel like
she needs to take a breath.

Speaker 9 (12:22):
And that's not since she's saying a lot, just.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
A matter of her style. It's like press, press press, yeah, press.

Speaker 5 (12:27):
Prest press press.

Speaker 10 (12:28):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (12:28):
It's something about it.

Speaker 10 (12:29):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
Well, I want to see if Grant can play for
us the audio because she had a moment last night
that had to be incredibly sweet for her. This is
part of her speech last night when she was talking
about Donald Trump. So go ahead and hit that. Grant.

Speaker 11 (12:47):
As a prosecutor, Kamala locked up murderers and drug traffickers.
She will never rest in defense of our freedom and safety.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
Donald Trump fell asleep.

Speaker 12 (13:04):
At his own trial, and when he woke up, he
made his own kind of history, the first person to
run for president with thirty four felony convictions.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
As vice president.

Speaker 12 (13:28):
As vice president, PAA said in the situation.

Speaker 13 (13:32):
Room, Now, why you can't hear clearly?

Speaker 3 (13:48):
The crowd is shouting lock him up, lock him up. Now,
you know that in twenty sixteen, you can turn that off. Now,
it doesn't matter what she says. After that point, she
didn't say it. The crowd started shouting lock him up.
And after twenty sixteen, where Donald Trump went to rally
after rally after rally after rally saying he was going

(14:12):
to lock up cricket Hillary and the crowd chattel lock
her up, that had to be like a moment for her,
you know what I mean, because, oh, the shoe is
on the other foot, as they say. I thought if
I were if I believed any of the crap that
she spewed, I would thought it was a brilliant speech.
Now for her, it was I think the best speech

(14:32):
she's ever given, far better than the one she gave
at twenty sixteen, far better. The other one that I
thought was actually a good speech was AOC Now again,
policy wise, it was an absolute disaster, but she was
on point, except she doesn't know how to read a
teleprompter and then look away. I think there was teleprompter
issues last night. I know that Joe Biden had some
teleprompter issues, and she gave a really, really well receive

(15:00):
Eve's speech and as the future of the Democratic Party.
They ate it up and they loved her. And I'm
gonna let her be the future of the Democratic Party
because she's got some crazy, crazy positions, and I mean
crazy positions. Last night what was markedly different. And I'm
keeping a tally throughout the entire week DNC versus RNC,
not on policy, because there's no competition for me. I

(15:22):
think all of the policies that you may hear about
this week are going to be probably awful. That being said,
last night you had politician after politician, after union leader
after politician, one after the other. There was a lot
of attacks on Donald Trump way more. I mean, I
guess the speakers didn't get the joy memo because there

(15:42):
was no joy from a lot of these speakers last night.
A lot of people came off as really angry, which
I don't think is a good look when you're trying
to woo independence. But they're probably not watching this anyway.
And then we get to Joe Biden and Joe Biden's
speech last night. Now, yesterday we were talking before the
speech and I was like, well, you know, he's passing

(16:03):
the torch right he's he's the elder statesman, and he
is going to pass the torch to Kamala Harris and
it's going to be I don't know. I thought he
would go elder statesman, but he came out like fiery
campaign speech instead and talking to a colleague this morning.
I just said this on Ross's show a little while ago.
I think the colleague said a great point. He said, Look,

(16:26):
if you've been replaced because people perceive you to be
too old and too infirm, then do you really want
to come out and do elder statesmen and maybe feed
into that narrative, or do you come out swinging to
give the impression or at least dispel the notion that
you are incapable and physically incompetent. Ay Rot and I

(16:46):
both thought he looked really good. I mean he did.
He looked better last night than he's looked in a
long time, maybe because he's been resting. He's been on
vacation in Delaware. Somebody sent me a text, and I
don't know if it's true that he's now on vacation
in California. So I don't know who's running the country.
I'm not sure about that. Mandy doesn't change the fact
that Hillary should have been at least charged, if not

(17:08):
locked up. You know what's funny about that is that
as soon as Donald Trump was elected, he went from
lock her up to beautiful Hillary. Remember that beautiful, beautiful Hillary.
AOC looked absolutely psychotic during her speech. She did get
the crazy eyes in the middle. I actually said a
Rod was in another room because the couches in our

(17:29):
VRBO are very uncomfortable, so he was in another room.
But I can still see him because the room is massive,
and I was watching a different TV, and I yelled,
she's got a little bit crazy eyes just in the middle. Though, Yeah,
she does have a little bit of crazy eyes. Mandy,
I don't think law Faaron made up convictions even count
people are disgusting, you guys, How can you say people

(17:52):
are disgusting when in twenty sixteen, thousands and thousands and
thousands of Republicans chanted that to Hillary. This is just like, hey,
you guys want to do that to us, We're going
to do it back. You know, is it dumb? Perhaps? Perhaps?
Mandy sounds like you're a delicate Oh delegate, delegate, great job.

(18:14):
You seem to be pretty excited to be reporting about protests.
Doesn't the same theory apply as applies to school shooters.
Why are you giving them notoriety just to make the
Democrats look bad? Okay, there's two things to know here.
Number one, I didn't name any names, although I did
name one guy, a pro boy that was sitting on
a fence yesterday, pro boy. So not giving someone notoriety
is not naming their name. But number two, yes, I

(18:37):
do want to make the Democrats look bad.

Speaker 14 (18:38):
Is that?

Speaker 3 (18:38):
Is that wrong? We'll talk about that after this. Keep
it right here on KOA. I'll share my seat with you.
But it has it has but heat on it. Governor,
do you want to Okay, he's gonna stand. Wait, hang on,
he's attorney on there. There we go. Good to see you, Governor.

Speaker 10 (18:57):
You should see the equipment. We're worried which the listeners
can see this. I mean you look like cyborg.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
I know you know what we got to look official though,
looks really cool. Welcome to the DNC.

Speaker 10 (19:04):
By the way, we're underneath a big statue of Michael Jordan.

Speaker 11 (19:07):
Right.

Speaker 10 (19:07):
I think people want to know that. They wanted to,
you know, understand the atmosphere we.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
Have been laying the scene here at the DNC. Did
you just get here today?

Speaker 10 (19:14):
I got here at first thing this morning, and I'm
ready to go. I've been to well, I don't know,
six events already.

Speaker 9 (19:19):
My god, it's only midday.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
Well, it's busy, busy here.

Speaker 10 (19:22):
Very exciting, good food, good people, good fun. And are
you ready to win? I'll be there on tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yes, oh excellent. They're not. They're giving us speakers and
drips and drop you. So what is your message going
to be tomorrow night?

Speaker 5 (19:32):
When you want?

Speaker 10 (19:33):
You can't.

Speaker 4 (19:33):
I can't.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
I can't give you this, just like you give me
the vibe and give you a feel for it.

Speaker 10 (19:39):
You know, I'm shockingly I'm gonna endorse Kamala Harris for
president and Tim Wallas for vice president.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
Thought that was going to be in there.

Speaker 10 (19:46):
There's a lot of exciteming here. I mean it's about
I think you know, what I always talk about is
a few things. One is, you know, pro freedom right,
I mean protecting people's right to make their own decisions,
whether it's your own decisions over your own body, who
you love, who you married, choice, all these things, and
you know what you read. I mean, these are very
personal things. Government shouldn't be involved. Get the government out

(20:06):
of the bedrooms, get the government out of the libraries.

Speaker 9 (20:08):
Just let people do what they.

Speaker 3 (20:08):
Want to do. That's an interesting I think we heard
some of that last night. We're going to hear it
again tonight. That freedom is one of the themes here.
Joy is the other theme. But you can understand where
people who were deeply affected by government edicts on things
like COVID vaccines would be like, wait a minute, wait
a minute. I mean, can you see where that would
be a little troublesome.

Speaker 10 (20:28):
Yeah, I mean Donald Trump was hardcore on vaccinations, right,
and I think in Colorado, you know, some people got
vac some some didn't, and that was their decision. So,
you know, didn't be a different station of different things.
But I think, you know, I think the science is
there for people to want to look at it. They
can get faxter and how it's.

Speaker 9 (20:43):
Up to them.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
You're a businessman, and Friday night, Vice President Harris unrolled
her first really big policy positions of economic issues. What
do you think about what she's rolling out? What is
your take on that so far?

Speaker 10 (20:55):
Well, look, you know, you compare the two right, and
the part that I've been most critical on Donald Trump's
is the tariffs, the big tariffs, ten percent, and.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
We're an agreement on that, you know, we're an agreement on.

Speaker 10 (21:06):
That, Governor twenty percent, he said, I mean, this is
like and we just head back to school. You know,
our kids are twelve and ten. So pretty much every
item you're buying back to school, you know, they're important,
they're made, they would cost ten to ten to twenty
percent more. Look, I think that one thing I like
to see and I think that I hope that Camald
Harris talks about more. And there's some of that is
how we can balance the budget, how we you know,

(21:27):
how we can move towards balancing the budget. That's going
to be important. I'd like to hear more of that.
I think both candidates should talk about that more.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
Franklin, Yeah, we've now found few areas of agreement. Governor too.

Speaker 10 (21:37):
You know, it's it's also Congress's fault. Really, Remember Congress
spends the money and the President obviously signs at the
end of the day. But we also need to put
pressure on members of Congress senators to be able to
bring the budget into balance. I personally believe in a
balanced budget amendment to our federal Constitution. I sponsored a
bipartisan when I was in Congress. Colorado has that result

(22:01):
every you're in Colorado, we have to It's no big
deal if there.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Are a level of seriousness, because one of my frustrations
as a Republican is that the Republican Party used to
pretend to be the party of fiscal responsibility. The deficit
exploded during Donald Trump. So is there a measure of seriousness?
Do you feel like that is something that the Democratic
Party is ready to tackle because there's so many moving
parts to that that we're not going to get into

(22:24):
here that make it challenging for someone running for reelection
to say I'm not bringing home the gravy.

Speaker 10 (22:29):
No, you're right, Mandy, and like, yes, traditionally, historically the
Republicans were more the party of fiscal responsibility. This leaves that,
you know that Donald Trump sort of free spending policies
leave a huge opening for Democrats to talk about reducing
our deficit, bringing our budget in balance. I mean a
lot of the projections around even what the terrorists will
bring in are totally fictitious. They're not going to bring

(22:51):
in money, and in fact, the retaliatory terroifts are going
to destroy American jobs for maid in America, growing in
America products and produce. So yeah, I hope that that
enters the dialogue more huge opening for the Democrats to
be the party of fiscal responsibility, an area that used
to be more Republican.

Speaker 3 (23:06):
Turf Is that possible though? When Friday Night Vice President
Harris rolls out free money for a house, you know
we're going to try price caps or profit caps on
grocery stores, which would Wherever those have been tried, they
have not been successful, I mean long term. They talk
about destruction to a market.

Speaker 10 (23:24):
Well, no, Look, I'm against price controls, and I think
and Kamala Harris is against price controls. There's nothing in
a plan that had that. This talked about anti trust
investigations into price fixing a very different thing. Do I
think it occurs, perhaps rarely, and it should be investigated.
It's a crime. It's like dumping a product under cost
when there are breakdowns in the market mechanism, when somebody

(23:44):
is a monopoly or an oligopoly. Oligopoly can co op
the market for their own advantage. Of course, there needs
to be an anti trust investigation. I hope that's something
that Democrats are Republicans can agree on price controls. Bad idea.
Kamala Harris is against them, I'm against them. I assume
Donald Trump is against them. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
I say she wants to cap insulin prices, so that
is a price control, right, Well.

Speaker 10 (24:03):
We've done that in Colorado. I mean it's a little
bit newhunced Manny. We capped the out of pocket cost
of insulin. And that's what somebody pays for it. You
still have an insurer paying for it, you have other
agencies that are paying for it. So when we're really
talking about and I need to look at what she's proposing,
I assume it's similar to what Colorado's done, and I
think there's up to twenty some states that have done it.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
And the premise of that is.

Speaker 10 (24:25):
For most people, you know, if you're a diabetic, that's
not your fault. You need insulin.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
Oh yeah, we should, we should.

Speaker 10 (24:30):
We should reasonably cap the out of pocket I think
at Colorado's fifty bucks a month something like that, and
a national policy to do something similar, I think it
would be welcomed by diabetics across the country and it
would be a good thing. It doesn't mean that in
any way it's a price control. It's simply who pays
for it, and a state insurance should pay for the
remainder above the fifty bucks.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
I mean, my thing is is why can't we find
a way to incentivize biologic companies to make this insulin?
I mean, is there any way to use a carrot
instead of a stick? Or the tax that passed that
cost onto insurers, which ultimately then pass it on to everybody.

Speaker 10 (25:06):
One hundred percent.

Speaker 9 (25:07):
It should be far cheaper than it is period.

Speaker 10 (25:09):
I mean, we could get into the problems with the FDA,
the problem with sort of the monopolies they're given to
the big farmer companies. Look, yeah, insulin is inexpensive to make,
and not only the out of pocket costs, the total
cush should be under fifty dollars a month, right, So,
I mean it's ridiculous that the total cost is hundreds
of dollars a month, no matter how you parse it.
But yeah, and I do hope and I think that

(25:30):
Kamala Harris will take on big farm and hopefully address
some of those drivers. Different states have played around with that. Utah, California.
They both look at hey, do we contract for production
of insulin? Do we create our own facilities? How do
we break out of this market that isn't working because
of the FDA enforced monopolies.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
Last question, how is the DNC group from Colorado? How
they have to be excited? I was talking at the
RNC that the tone I thought if Joe Biden was
the candidate would be much different. The level of excitement
here is really really high. What are you hearing from
the Colorado delegation or if you had a chance to

(26:08):
even speak to.

Speaker 9 (26:08):
Eddy of it.

Speaker 10 (26:09):
Yeah, I hung out with some of them this morning
and they are excited, and as you indicated, they're excited
about Kamala Harris. I mean, look, these are folks, and
of course we're backing Joe Biden, and they'd vote from
REFU as a candidate. But I think there's an excitement
level there around Kamala. People are willing to knock more doors,
to make more calls, to donate more. People are excited
about a new face, a new generation, a new opportunity.

(26:30):
The energy that she's infused in the campaign with a
whole vision of saving people money and protecting our freedom.
It's really exciting for Coloradden's and for Americans.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
All right, that's Governor Jared Poulis. I appreciate your time.

Speaker 10 (26:40):
Always pleasure, Mandy.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
Do you get busy doing your other stuff. We'll be
right back. Now we're going to welcome Milo Marquez, a
commissioner on the two fifty one fifty Commission, to the
show to talk about what we're planning to do to
celebrate in Colorado. Milo, first of all, thank you for
your flexibility on this. Obviously we're at the DNC and
things are a little fluid right now, so I appreciate

(27:03):
you giving us a little time with the governor and
then coming on with us.

Speaker 15 (27:05):
Now, Hi, Mandy, thank you so much for having me on.
And no worries about the governor. I understand he's a
little more important than.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
I am right now. Well, I think you're important because
you're planning our big party. We in Colorado turn one
hundred and fifty next year the country turns two hundred
and fifty. What are you guys working on right now
at the two fifty one to fifty commission?

Speaker 16 (27:27):
Yeah, yeah, Mandy. You know, first of all, I'm very
honored to serve as a commissioner on the Colorado one
to fifty America two to fifty Commission, and I'd like
to thank Governor Polis and others who supported my appointment
onto this commission. But I'd like to give you a
little quick background. You know, I'm a fifth generation den Right.
My ancestors have been in Colorado region since before Colorado

(27:50):
became a state and long before even the formation of
our nation. This is why the Commission is so important
to me and so many families that share a similar history.
For those that can remember nineteen seventy six, Colorado's by centennial,
Unfortunately I can't remember it. I wasn't born yet, but
the vice Centennial was a great celebration. However, not all

(28:11):
cultures and all traditions were equally celebrated. We as commissioners
and Colorados really hope to change that in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
Well, I'm excited because I was alive in nineteen seventy six,
and I remember that the country really rallied around nineteen
seventy six, and there was so much just unabashed patriotism
and love of country. And I hope that we get
back to that in twenty twenty six. What are we
working on? What can we expect. Yeah.

Speaker 16 (28:42):
Well, as we quickly approach twenty twenty six, we want
to ensure that all Colorados and all Americans are celebrated
and honored together, and we recognize that we've played a
major part in weaving the rich fabric of our state
in our nation. In twenty twenty six, our nation will
sellrate it's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our nation,

(29:03):
the semi Quinn Centennial, And that same year Colorado will
probably market its one hundred and fiftieth years our state's
sequit centennial. And together, this is going to be a
tough one. Together, we call this celebration the Sesqui semi
Quinn Centennial. Oh my god, monument.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (29:23):
These two monumental milestones offer us a very unique opportunity
to reflect on our shared paths and chart a course
for our future.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
Right now, we're.

Speaker 16 (29:33):
Encouraging communities throughout Colorado and Denver to undertake diverse and
imaginative efforts. As we commemorate these significant anniversaries. It's a
time for us to honor the collective journey that we have,
all that has all brought us to where we are today,
and imagine the trails.

Speaker 15 (29:51):
We can explore together as we being toward It's really
time to come together and celebrate our history, recognize our
progress and we've made.

Speaker 16 (29:58):
And envision of future. We can all be unified in
our commitment to growth, inclusion, and prosperity for all.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
So, are there ways that people can participate in the planning?
I know you guys have a committee full of people,
city council members and others like yourself. Is there a
way for the public to get involved?

Speaker 17 (30:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 16 (30:21):
So, our Commission is really looking forward to seeing the
incredible ways our communities can come together in this once
in a lifetime celebration. Our Commission will be going into
our communities, bringing them together to get and really get
excited about the possibilities. We'll be holding explanation and listening

(30:43):
sessions throughout the state of Colorado this week. This Thursday,
two days from now, we'll be holding community gathering to
learn more about the Colorado one to fifty America two
fifty this Thursday, August twenty second, from three to five
pm at the Commons on Champas Street in Denver. That's

(31:03):
twelve forty five Champa Street in downtown Denver. Parking is limited,
so we would encourage folks to really plan ahead. There's
parking lots in meter parking in the area, but we
encourage people to attend this gathering so we can listen
to them and hopefully they can tell us how they
envision celebrating this important celebration. In twenty twenty six. We

(31:28):
will also be hosting a second information center session on Wednesday,
September fourth, from six to seven pm at the Denver
Museum of Nature and Science in Denver City Park, which
is located right next to the Denver Zoo.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
Is there a website they can go to Milo with
this information or is that a little too soon in
the planning?

Speaker 16 (31:48):
There is a website, our website. You can go onto
his history Colorado has it Colorado? You can go onto
the History Colorado website, or you can look at the
America two fifty Colorado one fifty and if you just
go into your search engine and type in Colorado one fifty,
America to fifty, it will take you to our website.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
Milo Marquez. I appreciate your time today and your flexibility,
and obviously we're going to be talking more in the
future as things start to come together. But I love
that you guys are asking for people's help, and I
appreciate your time today.

Speaker 16 (32:22):
Thank you so much, Mandy, I appreciate it all right.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
That's Milo Marquez. We will be right back after the
news trafficking weather with a White House correspondent to find
out exactly what that's all about. We're doing that next.
Keep it on KOA.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock,
Accident and injury Lawyers, Live from.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. It's Mandy connells.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
And presented my Golden bi group thing.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
I'm KOA.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
Ninety four one FM.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
Nicety school treat andyconnell sad bab Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to
the second hour of the program, live from the United
Center in Chicago, Illinois, where we are day two of
the Democratic National Convention. And I am pleased as much.
We're gonna do a little inside baseball right now because

(33:19):
joining me now, Morgan would is the White House correspondent
for the Black Information Network on iHeart Property or Project.
And I gotta tell you Morgan, first of all, how
good is that theme song? She was over here dancing
on the stage with me too. A listener made that
from being ignorant, said may, I absolutely love that what
we did for exactly. So Morgan, I am fascinated by

(33:41):
the entire concept of being a White House correspondent because
as a nerd for the news, I watch all these
things on on you know, on TV. Can you tell
me just as a day, okay, as a White House correspondent,
what is your day like? Well, it's a bunch of
hurry up and wait, I can tell you that much.

Speaker 9 (34:00):
Uh.

Speaker 14 (34:00):
I started out my very first event was with this administration,
the Biden Harris administration, and my first event that I
got invited to was the Juneteenth Proclamation. So, as you
can imagine, working for the Black Information Network, that is
a huge issue, or it was a huge, huge issue
for the black community. So it was great to show
up to that and see that Biden then and work

(34:23):
to turn that into.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
A federal holiday. So a day in the life of.

Speaker 14 (34:28):
A White House correspondent. Of course, we're getting up and
we've got all these different types of information that we
need to send a secret service to vet us before
we can even get to the every day oh yeah,
oh my gosh, yeah, the other and trust me that
security measures are different every day. You might come in
one gate one day, another gate another day, depending on
what the event is and getting there, it could be

(34:51):
like a hurry up and wait and now. I just
want to put it out there for the ladies and
maybe the guys who like to.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
Wear heels, Yeah, don't wear them. I noted that today
we did the RNC coverage too, and there was a
lot of women in sky high heels and I was like, precious,
I don't think that's a good idea. The DNC women
got the NEMO right, like, there's sensible shoes in this place.
No pun Intendo.

Speaker 14 (35:11):
You want to put your best foot forward, but you
know what it's.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yeah, just don't do it.

Speaker 14 (35:16):
Your dogs are going to be barking by the end
of the day. And frankly, you know, it's comfy, cozy,
but at the same time professional.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
So yeah, is it almost like a little fraternity all
the people that are in that room that are there
on a daily basis, whose job it is to be
a White House correspondent?

Speaker 4 (35:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 14 (35:30):
Well, you know, well it depends on who you're working for, Okay, Yeah, yeah,
for the most part, all of the press we tend
to work together. You know, if you're in the front
row you know, you might want to move out the way,
and we work together to make sure that everybody gets
their coverage.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
It is respectable. How do you decide what question? Because
normally if you get a question, you get one, maybe
you get a follow up. You're not getting an interview
with the spokesperson. How do you decide what is your
lead question? What are you going to go with?

Speaker 10 (36:00):
Well?

Speaker 14 (36:00):
Yeah, that that that depends on excuse me, what your
listenership or for us, what we listeners what's important to them?
You want to definitely cover what is important to your
audience base, and I think that's what each journalist has
an opportunity to do from that White House?

Speaker 3 (36:17):
Have you, as you're rather new to this administration, I
know that there are people who have covered multiple administrations
R at White House Press Corps. What have you heard
from them about the differences between the administrations and and
are they happy with the accessibility of the Biden Harris
administration obviously Joe Biden Pryor and now Kamala Harris as

(36:37):
the candidate? Is that a different You're not covering the
campaign though, are you? After I said that, I'm like,
wait a minute, no, not so much. Well, I am covering, Well,
we're covering it all. We're gonna go it all. We're
gonna cover DNC, We're gonna cover them on the campaign trail.
We're covering walls as he does his stops as well.
We're covering I'm covering j d Vance and Trump too.

Speaker 14 (36:55):
So it's just a matter of gathering all the information
to make sure that the is well informed.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
Right now, do you guys have to camp out in
that room and just wait for somebody to show up.

Speaker 9 (37:05):
More or less?

Speaker 14 (37:06):
Yes, that press room, that press briefing room is definitely
a home base.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
And it's kind of small in there, but.

Speaker 14 (37:12):
You know, it's like you said, it's intimate, it's cozy,
and we get to know each other.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
Have you ever asked a question and you were like,
oh my god, that was the best question and best
answer I've ever gotten. Have you ever looked back on
something that you're like, nailed it? Hmmm. I think any
question is a good question, honestly.

Speaker 14 (37:29):
I mean, jeez, anything that provides information to the listener
is a good question.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
I would say, do you feel like, do you get
I'm trying to think of a way to ask this
and this is not necessarily about a democratic administration. This
is just years of watching spokespeople. Is it frustrating when
you're asking a direct question and not getting a direct answer,
And that's a lot of politics. Absolutely.

Speaker 14 (37:50):
You know, we know that people are trained, media trained,
who answer questions certain ways, and if they're not getting
or giving you the answer, then yeah, you might want
to ask a different way and see what happens.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
But the yeah, you just got to roll with the punches.
It is a bunch of hurry up and wait.

Speaker 14 (38:06):
It is a bunch of uh, you know, maybe I'll
get that later, Maybe we can send that in an
email and they can send a quote back or something
to that effect. But yeah, it's a it's pretty dynamic.
It's never one way and it's just gonna stay that way.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
It's very dynamic.

Speaker 14 (38:19):
To be a White House correspondent got to be flexible.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
When you started your career in journalism, Was this on
your radar?

Speaker 1 (38:25):
What?

Speaker 14 (38:25):
I'm born and raised in the DC area and absolutely
not politics, but no, but I will tell you this,
I feel like this is a divine task and I
do think we are in a pivotal time and if
not me, then who why not?

Speaker 3 (38:42):
I totally agree with that. I mean, it's hard when
you don't necessarily see yourself in that role. When you
do have that role to go, wait a minute, now,
somebody else is looking at me as an inspirational and
aspirational thing to do.

Speaker 17 (38:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (38:54):
And as I've been covering the White House and continuing
to cover the White House, I have noticed that, you know.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
Actually this is really important. I like this.

Speaker 14 (39:02):
I enjoy the different aspects because everybody wants to come
to the White House, athletes, musicians, other politicians, and everybody
loves being there. And I was gonna say it probably
doesn't matter what the administration is. I don't know, but
the bottom line is it's one of those staple locations that.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
You never forget your visit there. You know, a lot
of people wonder how much do you do the reporters,
like what kind of base knowledge do you have about
a topic? And this is something that I've seen in
action where you can tell immediately that this is the
reporter's subject. Do you know what I mean? Like, you
have subjects that you're really passionate about. How much time

(39:42):
or how much effort and energy do you put into
making sure you have a basic understanding of a subject
before you go in and ask questions about it.

Speaker 14 (39:51):
Absolutely, definitely doing my research and making sure, but also
keeping it a little surface because the average person is
not doing a deep dive, you know. So the average
person wants to get at least that surface information and
then if I'm able to provide them with that, maybe
they will be inspired to deep dive themselves.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
And that's what it's about. That's what I tell people
all the time. I'm not here to tell you what
to think. I'm here to inspire you to find out more. Yes,
reasons for sure you go. Are there any topics that
you gravitate towards personally? Yes, of course, we're working for.

Speaker 14 (40:21):
The black information that worked, anything that impacts the black community.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
And I absolutely love sports. So oh so did you
come from a sports background?

Speaker 17 (40:28):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (40:28):
Yeah, Actually, well if you if you consider cheerleading a sport,
which I do as a former cheerleader myself. Oh I
do consider cheerleading a sport. So the spirit fear just hand. Yeah. Absolutely.
I have enjoyed covering various things like the Kansas City
Chief's White House visits. Oh I bet they've had a
few of them. So don't even really call Coast fans

(40:49):
over here, so do not. Well, the Ravens fan over
here is okay too. So you know, you have your
Super Bowl from when Trent Dilfer was president or a
quarterback there. What are some of the things that you
would like to see come out of this convention? What
are some of the topics or conversations that you are
looking for to either do a story about or bring
back to your listeners.

Speaker 14 (41:10):
Absolutely, gun reform has been a huge one. I've seen
a lot of people talking about gun reform. Of course,
women's reproductive rights has been a top ticket issue.

Speaker 9 (41:20):
Sheesh.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
The list can go on and on. Voting rates, of course,
And I'm wondering, like how much space there is, if any,
because you're looking at your audience saying, I want to
bring them stuff that's important to them. But I wonder
how much daylight there is between white people, Hispanic people,
black people. You know what I'm saying, Like it seems
like all of.

Speaker 14 (41:41):
These issues, Oh, it impacts us all, to be honest, absolutely,
it does impact us all. But for example, you know,
going back to my first, very first visit the Juneteenth Proclamation,
obviously that was one that impacted the black community of
black community was ecstatic to see that that became a
federal holiday, and so, you know, it's nice to see
those type of things after so long of you know,

(42:05):
nothing right that there is actual progress being made. And
then the following year there was an amazing June Seemed
concert that was put on on the White House South Lawn,
and so just to see that that celebration is.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
Scaling, right. Well, you know, we've had conversations about Juneteenth
on the show, and you know, we have some listeners
who are like, we need another federal holiday, because not
everybody gets off a federal holiday. But for me, that
is a celebration of that everyone in this company country
should share because we're celebrating a horrible thing that ended, right,
I mean, how that should for me, should be a

(42:37):
celebration for everyone.

Speaker 14 (42:38):
Absolutely, the end of slavery and the actual end of
slavery should certainly be celebrated and celebrated amongst everyone.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
It's okay, Morgan, what I mean do you did you?
We asked you if you wanted to do this, but
what did you aspire to do when you got into journalism?

Speaker 14 (42:53):
Initially, oh man, sports sideline reporting or something to that effect.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
But I definitely think I'd led report for the biggest
like game in the world. Was like, this is quite
the sideline. I'm not mad at it. It's Trump versus Harris.
So yeah, let's see, you know, who wins matchup exactly,
see who's got more jerseys out there and what comes next. Absolutely,
have you had a chance to interview anyone that you
find particularly interesting in this this So just.

Speaker 14 (43:20):
Before I came on with you, I just spoke with
Martin Luther King Junior, the third and that was so cool.
And of course he talked about voting rights, he talked
about gun reform and gun violence, which of course impacted
his family. You know, his father, Martin Luther King, was
shot and he also explained that his grandmother was also shot.
So who knew that, you know, gun violence had impacted
the family on such a vast level. But yeah, I

(43:43):
think he is a very dynamic person. His wife was amazing,
and she spoke to me about women's reproductive rights. So yeah, again,
anybody can get behind these issues, and yeah, well it's gonna.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
Be an interesting conversation to have throughout the election cycle.
Morgan Wood, I really appreciate you making time for us,
so I am so happy that you called me in.
Thanks well, no, thank you, and keep you know, bringing
the stuff to your listeners and if you get any
good interview send them my way. Oh, have a little
back and forth, right, yeah, absolutely, Morgan, thank you so much.
That's Morgan, which she's the White House correspondent from the
Black Information Network. Now, I do have some local stories

(44:16):
that we're going to get to you real quick here,
so I want to do some stuff that is on
the blog today. First of all, if you missed our
videos from the yesterday are our coverage of the protesters
reaching the outer barrier. We have all of that on
the blog today and that was really exciting. I've never
gotten to like covert breaking news like that, so that
was pretty dang cool. We also have more videos from

(44:37):
the DNC, including we didn't even talk about this yet.
The protesters made it inside, not the sort of fence shaking,
screaming protesters. But last night there were several delegates who
unfurled a large banner that said stop funding Israel, and
I have to say the DNC had it ready to go.
They took care of the problem immediately. They had the

(45:00):
delegates holding up there. We love Joe placards in front
of it, and they snatched it out of their hands,
and I'm guessing they took their credentials away, so we
may not see them any more anyway. I've got a
couple of things that I want to get to just
from Colorado News very very quickly, because we have more
interviews coming up. And I want to get this topic

(45:21):
because I think this is significant and I'd like to
hear from you guys on our Common Spirit health text
line at five six six nine zero. So let's talk
about specifically how much your house payment has gone up
in Colorado. There's a really really good editorial on the
Rocky Mountain News and the gentleman who wrote it his

(45:45):
mortgage payment. Because your mortgage payment includes your Healme insurance premiums,
it includes your escrow payment for property taxes. So those
two things alone made his mortgage payment go up monthly
by one thousand dollars a month. So whatever he was

(46:05):
paying before has increased by one thousand dollars a month.
That is a staggering number. But I know that with
property values going up, mine went up forty percent. Talked
about it. Douglas County got crushed in the property tax valuation.
So I don't know. I should ask Chuck if we've
gotten our new mortgage payment yet, because one thousand dollars

(46:28):
a month is the kind of increase that puts people
out of their homes. It's the kind of increase that
makes it impossible for some people to continue owning a house.
And this is what we're facing in Colorado. This is
why if the special session does not get it done
and bring down significantly property taxes, this is going to

(46:50):
be the reason that those two ballot initiatives pass. And
I wanted to ask you, guys, how much of an
increase a monthly increase have you seen in your mortgage payment?
That's the question. And if you can tell me what
you're paying before, that's great. I'm not going to be
mad at you if you don't. If you just want
to tell me to increase, because this is an issue
that is well beyond difficult or challenging. I'm worried about

(47:14):
you know, older people that have been in their homes
for a long time, maybe they're on a fixed income.
I don't know how people are going to pay this.
Do you know how much your mortgage payment has gone
up in a month. Do you know your monthly mortgage payment?
Have you checked?

Speaker 4 (47:27):
Mine's still the same as of right now, as of
right now, let me see here. You want to stay
a year or a year and a half ago, mine
went down.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
A little actually, okay, because you're a.

Speaker 10 (47:38):
Well county way up north. You now it's pauseably a
little different.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
Well, i'd like to know, and I don't know if
this guy's an outlier. Did we get our new mortgage.
I'm sending this to Chuck payment yet. I meant to
do it before the show and I forgot. But I
want to know from you guys. We're getting people texting
in now, Mandy, ours went up two hundred and sixty
from seventeen hundred to nineteen sixty. We're in unincorporated, we're

(48:03):
in incorporated Adams County. I don't know how much he
was paying before Jefferson County. Ours went up thirty five percent. Yeah,
this is a big deal, you guys. I mean, this
is the kind of stuff that gets people to vote
unincorporated Adams County. That's kind of what I thought, Mandy.
I'm in wheat Ridge. Mine has gone up three hundred
and fifty bucks a month now, three hundred and fifty

(48:24):
bucks a month is not a ton of money. But
if you're already living on the margins and you're barely
getting by now, three hundred and fifty bucks a month
feels like a mountain. It feels huge.

Speaker 13 (48:37):
Huge.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
Chuck said, we're not getting one until one September, and
then we'll know. Nothing instantaneous in the bank world. But
this is taxation that is instantaneous. I live in Parker,
minus the same for now. This person says, eight hundred
dollars a month increase. Holy schnikes, what were you paying before, Texter?
If you don't mind me asking to any homeowner who's

(49:00):
house is worth more, this is a text message to
any homeowner whose house is worth more than what it
used to be and the taxes went up. You can
remove the escrow and you can remove the tax from
your mortgage by just filing the complaint with the mortgage.
It doesn't have to be in there. It's just so
they can keep it all packaged, to keep your money,
to use it for to use it for investments. You

(49:22):
can pay your taxes, and you can pay your homeowners insurance.
I absolutely get that, and you are correct, Texter. However,
most people want to pay one payment because it is
more challenging for them to do the set money aside
every year to pay their property taxes, rather than just
having it rolled in and done automatically. But that's a

(49:42):
really good point, very good point. Retired two years ago
went up one hundred and fifty bucks a month. Small
bungalow in Denver, Douglas County retired. Fixed income taxes and
home insurance increased about eight hundred dollars a month. You go,
eyes on a fixed income. Eight hundred dollars a month

(50:04):
is insane. Holy cow. Broomfield property tax one hundred and
two percent increase. Bought home in twenty twenty one. Mine
went down a couple of cents in unincorporated Adams County.
That's good custom. A couple of one hundred. We had
to pay about seven hundred into escrow upfront, so you

(50:27):
basically ate the big chunk right there. Mandy, Larimer County
from five fifteen fifty to eighteen fifty, eighteen hundred to
twenty two to fifty in Jefferson County, Mandy, this is
why escrow for property tax should be illegal. If people
had to write a check, there would be marching on
the capitol with torches and pitchforks. I agree with the sentiment,
but the reality would probably be more people would lose

(50:48):
their homes than marching on the capitol. This is why
I love the fair tax. Let me just go on
a little sidewinder for just a second. The fair tax
is a tax that is on consumption. So at the
bottom of every single receipt that you buy, you would
see the number at the bottom that says Federal sales tax,
and you would know exactly how much that was. That's

(51:09):
one of the reasons up for the fair tax. And
what we do now with withholding is the worst way
to pay taxes because we never see it. Haven't you
ever heard people when they're talking about you wanting to
save money, they want to say, look, you know what,
move it over automatically, never see it and you won't
miss it. They're absolutely right, which is why we have escrow.

(51:29):
This is exactly right, which is why we do our
property taxes in texter. You are one hundred percent right.
But I fear that people just cannot take care of
it and people would lose their homes rather than march
on the capitol. Trust me, people are fairly lazy, and
we don't want people to lose their homes. Oh my gosh,
I got a ton of these, you guys, We have
got a lot of these. We're going to do it

(51:50):
when we get back. But news trafficing weather coming up now.
Joining us now is a man who, I mean, for
more than half of his life has been in Democratic politics.
Jason Ray was first a delegate at the age of seventeen,
the youngest person to ever be a delegate at the

(52:11):
I think anywhere. I don't recall hearing of any Republicans
that have done that younger. I have to ask, what
did your parents do to you to make you want
to go into politics at seventeen? Jason?

Speaker 9 (52:20):
You know, my parents weren't into politics at all. They
always voted.

Speaker 18 (52:24):
They cared much more at the Green Bay Packers than
the politics. But for me, it was just always something
that was intrinsic. I remember, you know, in elementary school,
we would have to do biographies on someone, and I
chose John F.

Speaker 9 (52:35):
Kennedy right then and there, and.

Speaker 18 (52:37):
There was just something I fell in love with with
his idea of service to the party, service to the country.
And that's how I got involved because I really thought
party activism was a way to create change in my community.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
So when you said to your parents, Hey, mom, dad,
can you drop me off at this Democratic Party meeting?
How did that go?

Speaker 9 (52:54):
I actually rode my bike to most of them.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
I actually, that's even better. I don't know why that's better,
but that's even better. They just trusted me.

Speaker 18 (53:00):
I knew a couple of local elected officials who'd invited
me to the meetings and just got to show up.
And here I was a fifteen sixteen year old going
to county party meetings, county party vice chair before I
could ever vote, and elected to the DNC before I'm
a graduated high school.

Speaker 17 (53:14):
Well you are.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
Now we're now twenty years on. This is your sixth convention.
What in all the conventions you've been to, Like, give
me some takeaways that you see from this convention versus
the other ones.

Speaker 9 (53:26):
You know, it's really hard.

Speaker 18 (53:26):
I've been thinking about that as we are preparing to
kick off night two here. And each convention really does
have its own unique feel too. I think my first
one was two thousand and four in Boston, where Barack
Obama was the keynote speaker. So right, yeah, see, yeah,
that was a really special moment. You know, here I
was a young kid, had always had been interest in politics,
being at a national convention for the first time for me,
this one is going to be a really special one

(53:47):
tonight when we do the role call. And as I
went on stage on Sunday to practice a little bit
of that, there was just a special moment for me
there of being, you know, a kid a group in
rural northern Wisconsin who just wanted to get involved in politics,
to make it difference, and to be a national party officer,
and getting to participate in an historic event tonight.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
I haven't even mentioned the fact that you are the
Secretary of the DNC and as such you will be
actually executing the role call, though this is a symbolic
role call because you guys already wrap that up.

Speaker 18 (54:15):
We had to vote early because of some ballid access
laws in Ohio, so we did a virtual role call
vote back to the beginning of August officially certify Kamala
Harris and Tim Walls as our nominee.

Speaker 9 (54:26):
So tonight's really are a reaffirmation of that.

Speaker 18 (54:29):
And really the real purpose of it is the purpose
of convention is to really come together as a party
for delegates to celebrate, to unify, and we wanted to
make sure that those delegates who are ran.

Speaker 9 (54:38):
And caucuses and conventions in their home states got to
be a part of it.

Speaker 18 (54:42):
You know, they fill up their ballot online, they send
it in, but we really wanted to be able to
come together and unify the country and go state by
state through all fifty seven states and territories tonight to
really celebrate that moment.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
I was talking about that on the air. We also
covered the RNC and just like the DNC, the RNC
and the DNC, they are the the roots of the
political parties. These are people who live, breathe, and just
live for democratic national politics or democratic politics. And when
you get them all together in a room like this,

(55:14):
what kind of things do you, guys see when you
look across the entire group of delegates that are out
on the floor. What do you feel when you look
out there at all of your fellow Democratic I thanks
for me.

Speaker 9 (55:25):
When I look at it, I see America out there.

Speaker 18 (55:27):
My office is responsible for helping certify all of our
convention participants, so we've been working the last several months
to get demographic information on folks and you know, near
fifty percent our first time convention delegates to this convention.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
That's really actually very impressive because there's a lot of
return there is.

Speaker 9 (55:42):
Yeah, And when you look out though, you see America.

Speaker 18 (55:44):
You see people who this is their first or people
who've been coming for eight ten conventions already. You see
the wide array that really makes up the Democratic Party.
And I think that was actually one of my proudest
moments last night, when we as officers are sitting up
on stage watching the speeches and just looking out at
the crowd and saying, this is America.

Speaker 9 (56:01):
Here, the Democratic Party represents America.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
You are thirty seven years old. Do you feel like
this convention maybe more than prior conventions. We're seeing a
generational shift.

Speaker 18 (56:13):
I think we saw it last night with President Biden
really passing the torch to the next generation.

Speaker 9 (56:18):
I think we're seeing that through convention, and I think
it'll be a theme we heard last night.

Speaker 18 (56:21):
We were able to celebrate his leadership and commitment to
the party for five decades, and I think as we
continue now the next three nights, we will talk about
what this new generation of leaders looks like. I think
it's also the reason we looked at speakers last night,
and we had some great folks early on Lieutenant governors
for example, who are up and rising stars was in
the party, and I think we'll continue to see folks
like that take the stage over the next three nights.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
Okay, I'm gonna ask you this, and I don't expect
you to answer the question because you are in politics.
Who do you thought? Who did you think last night?
Let's take Joe Biden out of it. We're just gonna
take him off. Who did you think really crushed it
last night? Because we have two that we thought crushed
it last night.

Speaker 9 (56:57):
Oh, it's really hard. I can't I can't answer.

Speaker 3 (56:59):
That with Okay, okay, Actually, what if you knew someone
who would have an opinion, what would that opinion be.

Speaker 9 (57:04):
One of those that I thought did a fantastic job
was Ashley Biden.

Speaker 18 (57:07):
Actually introducing her father was just a really moving, touching moment,
and I think everyone in the hall could see that.
For them minute, I think was a culmination of celebrating
his five decades of service to the party. And when
you're the leader of the free world like that, your
family has to take sacrifices and hearing from the family
and getting to celebrate them as well. I think was
really an important moment.

Speaker 3 (57:27):
I gotta say, I thought Hillary gave the best speech
of her life last night.

Speaker 9 (57:30):
She was fantastic.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
I mean, I really thought that was the best she's
ever been. She was really and odd that she's not
campaigning for herself, She's just throwing it out there. And
I just thought it was a really good speech by
her last night.

Speaker 9 (57:41):
She did really, really well and I brought the house down.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
How do you decide and I don't know how intimately
you are involved as the secretary of the DNC with
the planning, but how do you guys decide what night
people speak on?

Speaker 18 (57:52):
You know, there's a whole team that has focused on
that to try to figure out what the messaging is
for each day and how do speakers fit into that.
But really also then ensuring that we have the diversity
of our party represented on stage. We not only want
that diversity in our delegates and those who are coming
to participate in convention, we want the speakers to reflect
that so that as folks are sitting at home, they
can see themselves. You know, for me, as a young,
young gay kid growing up in rural Wisconsin, trying to

(58:14):
find those out elected leaders like Tammy Baldwin who could
take the stage and speak and I could say, well,
that could be me up there someday. So that's I
think one of our goals we identify those speakers is
to say who can inspire folks to be active, engage
and participate in the process.

Speaker 3 (58:27):
So should we expect to see candidate Jason Ray at
some point in the future out of Wisconsin.

Speaker 9 (58:32):
You know, I love what I'm doing for the party
right now.

Speaker 18 (58:34):
This is I feel like the best way I can
give back is to elect great candidates who are going
to fight for my values.

Speaker 3 (58:38):
Jason Ryan, it's a joy to talk to you. And
though I think you're insane for spending your entire life
in the political process, I do admire your gumption and
forgetting I just can't even imagine being a seventeen year
old and writing my back to a political party meeting.
So part of me thinks you're a little crazy.

Speaker 18 (58:54):
I think everyone in politics is probably a little bit
special here.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
Yeah, well, congratulations, we look forward to seeing you do
the role call tonight and thank you for making time
for us think so much. All right, that's Jason Ray.
He is the Secretary of the Democratic National Convention and
you'll see him tonight. He is the guy that is
going to be doing the role call. As you just heard,
it's going to be a symbolic role call. But now
we got clarity on why they did it on you know,
digitally of the first time, and it had to do

(59:19):
with ballid access in Ohio. I just you know, I
think about who I was when I was seventeen, and
I'm like, oof, there's no way I would have done that. Now,
you guys, the uh A lot of you have texted
in about your increase in your monthly payment. Some of
these are staggering, absolutely staggering, and when we get back,

(59:45):
I'm gonna share them with you. We will take a
quick time out right after or we'll be right back
after this. Sorry, Mandy had to turn you off. Looking
forward to you getting back next week. You guys are
here specifically to bring you the unfiltered view of people
who are coming to the DNC. And I'm doing this
for two reasons. Number one, you got to know what

(01:00:06):
you're up against. That's thing number one. And that's the
primary thing, Like what are they saying what? Because they're
not talking to you right specifically, they're talking to undecided voters.
They're talking to people out in Middle America, and you
should hear their message straight from the horse's mouth, and
that's what we're doing. But number two, I want to
bring you what's in the mindset of people. That's why

(01:00:27):
I'm asking people like, how did you get here? What
you what brought you here? Because I think it's important
if you want to understand and be able to beat
somebody at the ballot box, you have to understand their motivations.
Because ultimately, whichever party says to the most people, we
understand your problems and we have a solution, they're the
ones that are going to get elected. Now whether or

(01:00:49):
not those solutions are are doable remains to be seen.
But right now we're looking at Kamala Harris's economic plan.
We talked about that where she's talking about giving people
twenty five thousand dollars for a house. That's insane, it's crazy.
But if you don't understand why people find that appealing,
you're not going to be able to message against it.

(01:01:10):
So bringing people on, allowing them to talk. First of all,
I trust my audience, I say it all the time,
I trust you guys to hear exactly what people are saying.
I think you're very very smart. You don't need me
to tell you what someone just said, right, You don't
need me to tell you to read between the lines.
But I do think it's a very interesting discussion to
have with someone who philosophically I disagree with pretty much

(01:01:32):
all the policy positions they put out. Philosophically, I'd like
to know what makes them ticks, so I, as a
person on the other side, could maybe come up with
a solution that is more free market based or in
some other way address the fears, concerns and other reasons
that people vote for the other side. I mean, I

(01:01:53):
find this incredibly constructive and very very interesting. And if
it hurts your ears, and it hurts you to listen
to this, I understand. I get it. We'll be back
on Friday, so you don't have to worry about it,
you know, after that, and obviously we're gonna be talking
about stuff. I was just talking to a Rod on
the break about the way that and I realized it
when Governor Polis said it earlier on the show. And yes, indeed,

(01:02:14):
he folks, if you're just joining me. Governor Polis and
I are best friends. He came on the show We're
gonna hang out later. I made up that last part,
We're not hanging out later, And honestly, can I say
it now? Like the look on his face, a rod,
it was, It was so much. I don't want to
be talking to you pretty much the entire time.

Speaker 4 (01:02:32):
I mean, yeah, just a little Oh by the way,
Grand Smith, because he is the master of everything, is
already up mandy'sblog dot com. You can see the full interview,
listen to inviews. If you want to watch his face,
you can go to our social channels at Koa, Colorado
and see the little clip I put up. Yeah, and
you judge for yourself right now five six six nine

(01:02:54):
zero take twenty seconds, Yeah, go to one of our
social pages Instagram or exs or Facebook.

Speaker 5 (01:02:59):
At kok Colorado.

Speaker 9 (01:03:01):
Do you think he looks like he's having a good time?

Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
And then Texas five six six nine are on the
Commons Spared Health hotline text line and let us know
is he having a good time?

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
I don't think he looks like he's having a good time.
I don't think he's going to come over to my
house for dinner. I don't think that's going to happen,
so you know, we'll see. But it was we actually
found areas of agreement though you know that.

Speaker 13 (01:03:25):
Three in a row, three.

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
Because they were economic issues. A new record. It is
well record, I can say the record before was zero. Yeah, no,
no previous record. Mandy. I love your coverage at the
DNZ and I'm a libertarian, says this Texter, So that
guy is uh is good. Mandy. Thanks for being at
the DNC so I don't have to be and I'm
here for you Texters and listeners.

Speaker 4 (01:03:46):
Now the message you were saying you because we got
sidetrack the message you were saying about what he was
clearly talking about.

Speaker 9 (01:03:53):
The joy, excite and whatnot.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
But what he said what I thought was so interesting
is he was like, people are ready for new and friends.
And we heard that from somebody, was that Terry mcaulliff
yesterday with it? He said very new yeh like joy
and so I'm thinking to myself, well, who's been ready
in the country for the last three years? Like who
is who? I mean? Is it really new when you've

(01:04:18):
got a sitting vice president coming in? So that's going
to be really interesting I think we're going to hear
more of that tonight, like a new way forward. I
have fresh path forward, and it's like, wait a minute,
who's been in charge for the last three years? Like
how is that? But I understand the the the other
push that we're hearing very very strongly is we're not
going back to Trump, Like we're not going to go back,

(01:04:41):
So they have to kind of create this. It's new
and fresh and moving forward. But if they really wanted that,
they should have had a primary. I'm just saying that's
really what they should have did. Mandy, this is done.
I don't understand why people in today's world can't sit
and listen to something with an open mind. I didn't
turn you off when you did the Republican Convention. I'm
not a Republican. I'm not turning you off when you're
a the DNC. Yeh, I'm not a Democrat. I'm a

(01:05:03):
person who's interested in what the hell is going on
in this world. For crying out loud, if you're gonna
bury your head in the sand, what's the point of
even listening to constructive talk radio? So there you go,
thank you for that, Mandy and a Rod. Look he
was standing and seemed ready to walk away at any moment.
We didn't have another chair up here, so in his defense,
I was like, do you want my cheero? It has

(01:05:23):
but heat on it. I would have given him my
chair anyway. Mandy Polus led about all of that. Poulis
said some things that I definitely raised an eyebrow at.
But again, I trust you guys. I don't need to
spoon feed you and tell you what to think. You
can hear it for yourself and then make a decision
based on that. I just wish they wouldn't lie so much.

(01:05:45):
But here's the thing, you guys. They believe what they're saying.
They absolutely believe what they're saying. Now, Jared Poulis trying
to put the COVID you know what he told us
we were all gonna murder Grandma and wear our damn masks.
He basically was like, oh no, that was Donald Trump. Okay, Okay,
we were all there. I don't need to clarify that

(01:06:07):
when we get back in the next hour. Oh no, oh,
maybe we just went from an interview with former New
York Mayor Bill de Blasio to a maybe interview with
Bill Deblasio. So We'll just have to wait and see,
but we have plenty of show even without him coming
up next. Keep it right here on KOA former mayor
of New York, build de Blasio joining us by phone. Mayor,

(01:06:28):
thanks for making time for us. We appreciate it.

Speaker 17 (01:06:30):
It's my great pleasure. What incredible week were saying.

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
It is a lot. We have been very impressed with
everything that's been going on right now. But I will
tell you, Mayor, I'd love to talk to you about
the economic plan that was unveiled by Kamala Harris on Friday,
so if I can get your thoughts on that. She
unveiled a plan that would do several things. One she
wants to create a federal ban on price gouging. She

(01:06:58):
also talked about a program to give twenty five thousand
dollars to some first time home buyers and talked about
capping the price of influin at thirty five dollars. I'd
love to ask you about those policy positions and what
you'd like to see more of in economic policy.

Speaker 17 (01:07:15):
I think it's extraordinarily helpful that she's moving in this direction.
You know, Joe Biden in the State of the Union
was plenty in some of the same directions and then
honestly stopped talking about it. And I was perplexed that
he did. I think the world of Joe Biden. I
think he's been one of the best presidents we've had
in a long time, But in terms of the campaign,
he just stopped talking about the vision of how to

(01:07:36):
address inflation and how to move us forward. I think
that's part of why folks got frustrated. I think Kama
Harris has been really aggressive and keyed into her history
as an Attorney general as a former prosecutor by going
at the price gouging issue, which we're all seeing we're
all experienced now. I understand some of the critique out
there about the nature of economics in a free enterprise system,

(01:07:56):
but my answer to that would be, look, this is
a broken right now. This level of inflation is not natural.
It's not just normal market dynamics. We're seeing things double
and triple and price in a matter of a few years.
It's got to be rained in, and some of it
is just playing corporate greed. So the notion of putting
some real limits on and even by the very debate

(01:08:17):
over those limits, I think it's kind of constrained some
of the worst impulses we've seen in the corporate world
to jack up prices while they had a chance.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
Does government spending play much of a role in your
view on inflation?

Speaker 17 (01:08:30):
Look the whole picture and plays a role. Obviously, the
supply chain issues were part of it. The stimulus played
some kind of role, even though I'm very glad the
stimulus was as aggressive as it was. Generally, it's a
real question how the different pieces came together. But I
would remind everyone, you know, even though way too many
Americans are hurting, still, the big picture is thank god,

(01:08:51):
the American economy is one of the strongest in the world.
Thank God, wages are going up, and you know, we've
seen some real progress. I think the inflation issues both
the thing that's hurting people day to day, hour to hour,
and also it's good thank you.

Speaker 8 (01:09:08):
Also that is profoundly, you know, confusing people because it's
been demoralizing to see this kind of inflation and it
needs an answer.

Speaker 17 (01:09:20):
So I think, you know, what we're seeing is the
Vice president actually keing into what folks are going through
and speaking to their needs in a way that unfortunately,
I don't think President Biden felt he could because he
was always having to defend the overall reality of the economy.
So I think that and obviously the focus on prescription drugs, insulin,

(01:09:40):
these are profound kitchen table issues, and you'll notice it's
generally not where Trump and the Republicans go, So it
just magnifies the competitive advantage of Kamala Harrison.

Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
Do you think that's why Biden's campaign stumbled because the
reality that people are living every day was not necessarily
driving with the reality of markets doing really well right
now and other indicators in the economy that are good,

(01:10:13):
but people's kitchen table economics are not.

Speaker 17 (01:10:17):
You're exactly right, You can't.

Speaker 6 (01:10:20):
You cannot tell people look at this wonderful statistical economy
that feel great about when they themselves are hurting.

Speaker 17 (01:10:27):
You Just that does not work. It comes down to
what people are experiencing themselves. Uh, And I think Joe
Biden was handcuffed by the overall challenges he was facing.
And it's you know, look, we all watched the man
that was incredibly vigorous in the State of Union, and
now you know, six months or more or later, was
really struggling in that debate. He just wasn't in a

(01:10:49):
position to be the strong, adile voice who could have said,
I know you're hurting, here's what I'm going to do
about it. But Kamala Harris is, and I do think
it adds to the frustration. I think the profound frustration
was that folks started to worry the president couldn't fulfill
the role, even though his intentions were extraordinary and his
accomplishments were great. But on top of that, he just

(01:11:10):
wasn't speaking forcefully to the suffering and offering a vision. Now, ironically,
the only person who's really talking about a way to
or lower prices is Kamala Harris, after all, the blusterer
from Donald Trump. The one thing he talks about is tariffs,
and those are actually going to be additionally inflationary in
a big way. If he puts those tariffs on the
prices of a lot of things that Americans depend on,

(01:11:32):
go through the roots.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
What would you say to Americans? I mean, I'm a
deficit hawk by nature, have been a deficit hawk for years.
I was very disappointed with the explosion of the deficits
during the Trump administration. But what would you say to
someone like me who hears a new spending plan twenty
five thousand dollars for housing, and I think, holy crap,
how are we going to pay for all this?

Speaker 6 (01:11:53):
Well, I think there's always a central question when it
comes to deficit spending about what is the revenue and
what's the macroeconomic impact.

Speaker 17 (01:12:02):
And you know, I'm a kingsy in myself, so I
would say, if if the spending will have those bigger impacts,
and that's not always the case, but if it will,
then you have to look at in that perspective. I
think if you see a boom in construction and rehab
of housing, that's going.

Speaker 6 (01:12:20):
To create a lot of economic activity, jobs, and tax revenue. Also,
let's face it, we are in a tenuous position where
so many Americans are paying an unlordly amount of godly
I should say, amount of their income in housing or
just can't find housing anywhere near them their works. You're
seeing it all over the country, especially out West, all

(01:12:40):
sorts of places where people can't even find housing where
the jobs are.

Speaker 17 (01:12:44):
So we've got to address that fundamentally. I think what
she's doing is the smart and responsible thing. It would
probably get moderated, to say the least, in the congressional process,
but right now. And I always felt this as mayor.
When you see basic human needs going on met like
the fundamental leads for people that have housing, you can't

(01:13:05):
do nothing. You got to try and find a way
that is not going to blow up a deficite but
still addresses the issue.

Speaker 3 (01:13:12):
Mayor Bill or former Mayor Build of Blasio of New York.
We are out of time, but I very much appreciate
you making time for us today and I hope you
enjoyed the rest of the convention.

Speaker 17 (01:13:20):
Well, thank you, I will and sad best to you.

Speaker 3 (01:13:24):
We are working our way through a busy broadcast day
and I got a couple of emails or text messages
are in people saying, holy hell, are you listening to
what this man's saying? And this is why I had
him on because Bill de Blasio and Kamala Harris are
cut from the same economic cloth, so you can begin
to understand the mindset. And this is one of those
things where when people talk about like the Democrats are

(01:13:47):
trying to destroy America, most Democrats that you meet are
trying to solve problems. They're trying to help people, but
they're doing it wrong in my view. You right, like
the whole thing. When we're talking about capping the price
of insulin, my thing is, why don't you incentivize companies

(01:14:08):
to make insulin for cheap and sell it for cheap.
If you go to a drug company and say, look,
you set up a biomedical factory just to produce insulin,
and then you agree to sell it on a low,
low price, and we're going to give you a tax
break that will eliminate your tax liability on everything you
sell or make insulin. We're gonna give you a tax

(01:14:29):
liability on all the ingredients. I mean, there's a million
different ways to do this, and that's honestly one of
the reasons I wanted to come here because I want
you to understand these are not evil people. They just
have solutions that we think are wrong. Now, if we're
talking about the housing shortage, my solution would be gather
everybody together, all of the developers, all the people in

(01:14:49):
the permitting office, find out why things cost so much
to build in Denver, Colorado, find out which part of
it can be managed by government, meaning what part of
it has government created, and then solve those problems make
it easier to build affordable housing. Don't take money away
from somebody else to try and build it yourself. So

(01:15:11):
we're all trying to say, solve the same problems here.
We're just disagreeing on the solutions. But once we understand that, hey,
you know what, they're trying to solve a problem, and
we can say, look, you're trying to solve this problem.
We're trying to solve this problem. Here's why we believe
your position is not the best one. Now, are there
people in government that absolutely want government to be bigger

(01:15:32):
because they view that as their power base, one hundred percent, absolutely,
But a lot of people are just trying to solve
people's problems. A lot of people are just saying, look,
someone else is struggling right now, and it needs to
be fixed.

Speaker 14 (01:15:43):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:15:44):
For me, you want to tame inflation, creator government spending, absolutely,
tank it, stop it, rein it in and then see
what happens. That's my solution, right with somebody else's like, well,
we can't cut government programs because people they don't have
any money and they need those government programs even worse.
But you're making it worse by spending all this money

(01:16:05):
from the government. You're doing at all. Mandy usually love
your interviews but that one made me want a gag.
He's so out of touch it's mind boggling. But he's
not out of touch. He understands that people are having problems.
He's trying to solve them. They're just terrible ideas, terrible ideas,
absolutely terrible, Mandy. Why the hell are so many Denver
radio people preoccupied with Kyle Clark Having personally known many

(01:16:29):
news people, Kyle is no superman. It's just that nine
gave him his own TV show. Honestly, my only beef
with Kyle is that he's six his minions on me
on Twitter on occasion, and when we were at the
R and C and A Rod made me talk to
the Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, and then we posted
part of that interview, and Kyle's like, oh my god,

(01:16:49):
she didn't push back on him at all. I can't
wait to see Kyle's interviews from the DNC to see
all the pushback he's giving. Cannot wait, A Rod, somebody
taped that for me. If you could, I would be outstanding,
absolutely outstanding. This person said, murdering children is pretty evil, Mandy, unless,
of course, you think you're this future life. This is

(01:17:12):
what I'm saying. I could disagree with that. I could
think it's terrible that that's become so much of a
focus of the Democratic Committee, But I understand why they
feel it is a necessary thing, why they feel like
it isn't that benefit. I disagree all day long, but
they look at this from a completely different perspective. And
I just wanted to bring this perspective to you and
let you know, Mandy, you guys are doing great. Just

(01:17:34):
heard on the news that Joe Biden is off to
California for a vacation. Who's running the country. Well, they
have people for that, we were told, remember people, So
just random people are doing it. Random people. Anyway, when
we get back, we have a bunch of stuff that
I want to get to on the blog today, including

(01:17:58):
weird stuff happening in glenn Wood Springs. If you have
garbage there, just wait. And I have an anecdote from
a listener who shared it with me via email today
and I want to share it with you. If you
want a window into the way people decide who to
vote for, this will be it. We'll do that next.
Keep it right here on Kawa. We haven't even really

(01:18:18):
talked about tonight tonight, Barack Obama is speaking, Michelle Obama
is speaking, So it's going to be a big, big night.
And I don't remember what the theme is right now?
Do you remember? Do you remember? I don't remember what
the theme is, but we will probably be here. We're
going to make our way, try to make our way
back over here tonight. To watch those speeches last night

(01:18:39):
was just too long, and I want to read this.
Joe is one of my longtime listener emailers.

Speaker 10 (01:18:44):
The theme for Tuesday a bold vision for America's future
for the people.

Speaker 3 (01:18:49):
The keynote speaker is someone from a long time ago,
a bold vision for the future. And now individual I'm
coming in. That's interesting, interesting choice.

Speaker 10 (01:19:00):
Wednesday is a fight for our freedoms and Thursday for
our future.

Speaker 3 (01:19:04):
All right, I want to read this email that Joe
sent me because as we're here at the Democratic National Convention,
so I can bring you the convention and all the
viewpoints and ideas of the Democratic Party. It's interesting to
think about how people actually decide how to vote Jim's
Joe says, I was in my local gym riding an
exercise bike connect to one of my conservative friends yesterday

(01:19:25):
and we were talking about Kamala Harris's announced war on
price gouging, and I asked him if he knew how
small grocery store profit margins actually were. When he replies no,
I told him that, based on SEC forms ten K
filed with the SEC, that the nation's three largest grocery
store chains, King Soopers or Kroger, Albertson, Safeway, and Walmart

(01:19:47):
all had net profit margins of less than three percent.
Upon hearing that, a woman in her fifties on another
bike on the other side of my friend broke in
and told me that I was mistaken and that grocery
stores were making enormous profits, and when I asked her
how much, she said in excess of twenty percent. I
then explained to her that my information came from those

(01:20:08):
official ten K filings and asked where her information came from,
and she told me she couldn't recall that all I
had to do was google it and reiterated that my
information was wrong. Scary than a middle aged woman was
thoroughly convinced that the policies of the Biden Harris administration
had nothing to do with inflation, and then it was
purely the fault of greedy businessmen. And scarier still was

(01:20:30):
her refusal to even consider any information that contradicted that belief.
I guess what Mark Twain said was true, which was
it is far easier to fool people than to convince
them that they have been fooled. And that, my friends,
is how people make decisions. And if you google, by
the way grocery store profits, you're going to get twenty
two percent. But that is before everything is paid out.

(01:20:52):
Those are gross profits, and gross profits mean nothing, absolutely nothing.
Gross profits are just a number. You may as well
just make one up, because after you take out all
the expenses, grocery store margins are like three percent. And
it's a fascinating discussion to have about who's responsible for inflation.

(01:21:13):
And I have to say that both parties, in my view,
are responsible for inflation. And I say this not because
I think that the Democrats are better on inflation than
the Republicans, because I don't. But if the Republican Party
doesn't get it together, and the Republican Party doesn't get
their fiscal responsibility back at some point, then the entire

(01:21:33):
country is doomed. And I don't mean that, you know,
like in one hundred years I mean, now we're rapidly
reaching the point we're spending for debt service is outstripping
spending for things like defense, and we will get to
the point where we cannot meet our obligations to Social
Security and Medicare. This is why I care about it.
I care about it because every major empire before US,

(01:21:56):
I feel like you could just put this on repeat.
I say it so often. Every major before US fell
in the same way. They didn't fall because they were conquered.
They fell because of their own economic malfeasance. And that's
exactly what we're doing. We now have Kamala Harris on
one side talking about twenty five thousand dollars for first
time home buyers. You have Donald Trump on the other
talking about tariffs, which are literally the worst idea ever ever.

(01:22:20):
They're absolutely horrible. I mean, if you want to get
me started on the first tariff in the United States
of America, it happened back in the seventeen hundreds, and
it was a tariff on sugar. If we did not
have a tariff on sugar, everything that uses sugar would
be far cheaper. We may not have high fructose corn syrup. Now,
we may not have a sugar industry in the United States,

(01:22:43):
But who would be sad about that? If you've ever
seen how sugar is farmed, it's disgusting. It is a
toxic polluter, and it needs to be done somewhere else.
It's horrible. But if we didn't have terrists on sugar,
we wouldn't have that. We may not have high fructose
corn syrup, which is I think one of the reasons
we're all so fat. So, you know, economically, we've got

(01:23:03):
bad ideas on both sides of the aisle. But I
have to believe at least some members of the Republican
Party care about spending because that's kind of been their
stock and trade allegedly for years, even though it's not now.
But that's how people make their plans, that's how people
decide how to vote. Just to give you an idea
of what you're looking at. Now, what's interesting is right

(01:23:23):
in front of us. So we are right in front
of the Michael Jordan studio at the United Center, and
to our rights we're up on a stage. So to
our right is the entrance for all the big cheeses
and the VIPs. A rod has been chasing people all day,
but they come in, they go right past us and
into do a mic check or whatever they're doing inside
the main auditorium. But about about ten minutes ago, I

(01:23:47):
noticed a bunch of secret service people, a bunch of
people kind of milling about, and Jesse Jackson has entered
the building. He is he looked frail. He's in a wheelchair. Yeah,
they showed him.

Speaker 4 (01:23:57):
They've showed him in the inside the nine Center, inside
the main yeah area, during the speeches last night.

Speaker 6 (01:24:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:24:03):
He he looks very very old. Yeah, he looks frail.

Speaker 4 (01:24:07):
So individually like people are going up and taking a
few moments to have clearly a very close and intimate conversation,
one at a time, to chat with him about I
assume just you know, the stuff he's done over the ears,
and then their experience and how he's impacted certain individuals.
But it's been like one after another of people that
have wanted out the moment King. Yeah, you know what

(01:24:27):
I mean, visiting the old guard like him in his wheelchair,
people bending over very close intimately so that he can
hear them and understand what's going on.

Speaker 10 (01:24:35):
It's it's quite a scene.

Speaker 3 (01:24:36):
It's a big circles, like the most people we've seen
around a politician so far.

Speaker 4 (01:24:42):
You think, yeah, hear in a few moments out on
our social channels at Koe collar at them and you
get a picture up and you can see I'm not
sure if you know who that individuals. I'm showing Mandy
a picture here, but i don't know, but it just
shows like the awe of people that are around him
right now.

Speaker 9 (01:24:56):
It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:24:57):
So it's it's very interesting being here and seeing people.
This is like old homewait to a certain extent. You
see a lot of people hugging and kissing and you know, oh,
it's so good to see you again, and all of
that stuff, the same way it was at the rn C.
To be honest, there was a lot of that at
the RNC as well. So we're gonna wait and see
what happens tonight. I'm looking to see if the DNC

(01:25:18):
DNC Tuesday speakers schedule they are not providing that for us.
They gave us an information yesterday that was wrong. So
I'm trying to find out if four hours ago that's
not gonna be enough tonight at the DNC. If you're
gonna watch and you should just to see, Uh, we

(01:25:39):
have the Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker, he's gonna be
doing a welcome from Illinois. I believe we have Chicago
Mayor Brandon Johnson, he's gonna be doing the welcome tonight.
Senator Bernie Sanders is gonna talk tonight.

Speaker 9 (01:25:51):
Senator Sands is gonna talk.

Speaker 3 (01:25:53):
So we got that to look forward to Senate Majority
Chuck Schumer. I you know what, I'm trying to be
very gracious and I'm trying to be very open and
talking to people. I have no desire to see Chuck Schumer.
And here's the thing. Yesterday when we got here, Teachers'
Union President Randy Winegarden was here, and I could not

(01:26:14):
have a civil conversation with that woman, Like I would
not be able to hold my tongue, just would not
be able to do it because I think what she's
done to children during COVID is like a war crime
in my opinion. But other than that, I'm pretty open,
like I don't know, I'll talk to anybody. Senate Majority Leader,

(01:26:35):
excuse me, Senator Tammy Duckworth. She is from Illinois. New
Mexico Governor Michelle Lujon Grisham, Second Gentleman Doug M. Hoff
is going to make the case for his wife, and
I don't know why John Giles, Republican mayor of Mace, Arizona, speaking,
but he's on the thing as well. So that is
what's going on. I do want to talk a little

(01:26:56):
bit about what's happening when you're not here. They are
all kinds of meetings. There are strategy sessions. They are
having all kinds of caucus meetings. They have the Women's
Caucus meeting, Disability Caucus meeting, Youth Council meeting, Rural Council meeting,
Veterans and Military Families Council meeting, Poverty Council meeting, Interfaith

(01:27:17):
Council meeting. So they're doing all of these things. And
I don't know exactly what happened at the RNC. I'm
gonna find out. I'm gonna chat with someone who was
at the meeting portion of the RNC about what they
were doing in these various meetings. But I'm telling you
what's happening in the meetings here is they are teaching
people how to organize. They're teaching people how to talk
to their neighbors. They're teaching people the messaging, they're teaching

(01:27:39):
people what to say, And I think that the organization
here feels a little more focused on that sort of
ground game than the RNC did. And I might be wrong.
I'll check in with the people that were with the RNC.
I mean, I may be wrong. I'm not sure, but
there's definitely a lot of focus on getting people to
get out and organize other people, which I find very

(01:28:02):
very interesting. So everything starts at six o'clock tonight Central time,
so five o'clock Mountain time. And I'm wondering, like, are
any of you actually watching this? Did any are any
of you watching this at night? Are you making yourself
sit down subjecting to it, to yourself, you know, subjecting
yourself to it. I'm curious. You can text us on

(01:28:24):
the common Spirit health text line five six six nine zero. Mandy,
what good is a fiscally conservative Republican that can't get elected?
I agree, but somebody's got to be able to make
the case and spread the message, you know. I think
that it's important that we get the right kind of candidates,
but right now in the Republican Party, I don't see

(01:28:45):
those candidates coming forward. Mandy, Sorry for being a pest
about this. With the CEO report, you mentioned included stock options. No,
I appreciate you reminding me, because after the show yesterday
I went back and checked, and you are correct. We
talked about CEO pay yesterday and the number that I
had and that I shared with you did include stock options,
which are massive, absolutely massive, so not hard cash. You're okay.

(01:29:08):
Was Bernie Sanders the voice of the Ardvark on the
Pink Panther cartoon? I believe so. Yes, indeed, that was
his only paying gig outside of government, was the voice
of the Pink Panther. And no, that's not true. I
just made that up. Curious, Mandy. Did the Democrats open
up their DNC with a prayer like the Republicans did?
Just curious? They closed it last night with a benediction,

(01:29:30):
so there was prayer. I don't know if they did
the pleasure of allegiance. I was not here for that,
so I do not know. I will find out about that, Mandy.
Did you see the recent Bernie Sanders interview with THEO
Vaughn on YouTube? Of Okay? First of all, I'm old,
so I don't know who THEO Vaughn is. Is that good?

Speaker 14 (01:29:51):
Bad?

Speaker 3 (01:29:51):
I need some more information. I don't know, Mandy oh
Google says that Jesse Jackson has Parkinson's disease. He looks
good for someone with Parkinson's disease, but he is definitely
in a wheelchair and he does look a little freil So, Mandy,
I don't know how you can sit there and listen
to all those speeches. I tip my hat to you

(01:30:12):
because it's important. I think it's important. I'd like for
you to think it's important. But you know, because honestly,
you guys, these people could be in charge in January
of next year, and you need to know what's coming.
I definitely definitely think So. There are many sugar farmers
in Colorado sugar beets, you know what. Thank you for

(01:30:34):
pointing that out. I've never seen a beat farm. I'm
assuming they're not disgusting. Sugar cane farming is disgusting, and
that's what I came from in Florida. Florida has ruined
the Everglades because of sugar farming. It's just gross. So
I apologize to the beat farmers in Colorado because I
guess you just grow beats the normal way you grow stuff,

(01:30:54):
and that's not gross at all. I apologize. I forgot
about sugar beets, Mandy. I've got many to acquaintances who
I assumed were a conservative as I am. I think
I am now the odd man out. They're all going
to vote for Kamala and simply will not understand why
I am not. I was for Haley and will reluctantly
vote for Trump though it won't matter in Colorado. I

(01:31:16):
loved a Texter for you to just ask the simple
follow up question, what about her? Do you are you
voting for? What policies are you voting for? You know,
get in their heads, and I don't mean be confrontational.
I asked the question to learn not to change someone
else's mind. And as a matter of fact, if you
ever want to have a conversation with someone about a

(01:31:37):
political issue that you know they don't agree with, you
go into it and say, hey, I really want to
learn more about your opinion, knowing that you're not going
to give yours, it will be incredibly instructive for you
to hear what they have to say and then go
back and think about it, think about what problems they
brought up, think about the solutions that they're offering, and
then offer, hey, if you'd ever like to know my thoughts.

(01:31:59):
I'd love to share them with you. Some people will
take you up on it, some people won't, but you
can't change the minds of people who won't anyway. I mean,
you know, I don't think. I don't think by having
Democrats on the show, I have this huge number of
listeners that are gonna be like, oh my god, that's
my party, those are my people. I don't think that's
gonna happen. I think what's happening is the people that
are listening, and those of you who are listening and

(01:32:21):
really hearing what's being said. It gives you a better
understanding of those people across the aisle that too many
people spend demonizing, and I mean demonizing big time. It
happens both ways. I know you don't even have to
send the text. I know that people on the writer
are demonized all the time. But I've always thought, frankly,
I think I'm better than that. I mean, it may

(01:32:42):
sound snobby, but I've always thought that I can be
better than that. So there you go. Tried to watch it,
said this person very dull and boring, found Field of
Dreams and had to switch. Okay, I'm going to agree
with you. That a lot of those speeches were very boring,
and in this respect, I think the RNC did a
much better job. Although I was skeptical of the everyday Americans.

(01:33:05):
I think they injected an energy into the RNC that
is lacking here, which is so heavy on politics. The
only everyday people they had were women talking about how
they needed an abortion and could not get one. And
that's not uplifting, it's not you know, I did not
love that, Mandy. New Mexico governor is lou Hahn. The

(01:33:31):
jay has pronounced like an H, like lou Lucy following
lu Han. Thank you, Jeff. You know it's my stock
and tray to destroy people's lames. Anyway, Mandy, if they're coming,
I am going. I'm sixth generation Colorado. I saw Jesse
Jackson in eighty eight when he ran for president, great speaker.
I couldn't stand the Democratic Party ever since. I painfully

(01:33:53):
watched lie after lie last night. These are all text messages.
By the way, It's important to get people off heroin,
but I have no desire to go to an opium den.
That's true.

Speaker 4 (01:34:03):
By the way, if you want to see that picture
of Jess Jackson here the DNC.

Speaker 9 (01:34:06):
It's up on all of our social channels.

Speaker 14 (01:34:08):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:34:09):
Several people said she's not Trump, and I think a
lot of people are going to be voting for her
because she is not Trump. KOA can be heard at
night on the around Chicago. Have you tried to tune
into k away from Chicago. I don't think we have
an AM radio between us. I mean I don't think
we do. Yeah, we can't tune in policies. What policy

(01:34:33):
is never Trump, Mandy. Sugar bee firms smell disgusting. Also
not as bad as sugarcane, though, well sugarcane. They set
the fields on fire before they harvest the sugar cane
to get the snakes out. I mean, it's just vile.
It's just a really gross form of farming. And the
sugar lobby in Florida is way too strong in my opinion, Mandy,

(01:34:55):
many people are voting for her because she is not Trump. Correct.
I'm typically a real jackass when I text in. I
do appreciate that you're doing what you're doing. I appreciate
your self awareness. Rob Dawson has wandered back over.

Speaker 5 (01:35:07):
What you got for me, Rob, Well, did you see
Jesse did come here?

Speaker 3 (01:35:11):
We saw him. He looks very frail.

Speaker 5 (01:35:12):
Yeah he does. And then uh, you know Martin Luther
King Junior, the third, Martin Luther King the third.

Speaker 17 (01:35:21):
Is that what it is?

Speaker 5 (01:35:28):
Yeah, so we got to see him. Uh and then uh,
but you know you were trying to did you get
built up Blosi on the phone?

Speaker 3 (01:35:35):
We did, We did, We talked.

Speaker 5 (01:35:36):
So you know, it's been a smattering all that.

Speaker 3 (01:35:39):
It's still not I mean, I guess it's still early
in the week, but I'm a little bit surprised right
that they and maybe it's just because we're here early
in the day, but there's a ton more people here today, Yes,
just general people, but we're still not seeing the heavy
hitters coming in yet.

Speaker 5 (01:35:54):
As he figures to make the round, Yeah, I still waiting.

Speaker 7 (01:35:57):
It's been it's been a little bit dull in the entertainment.
But I'm wondering what all happened today, especially with the
Obama speaking.

Speaker 3 (01:36:04):
That's kind of what I was thinking. I'm wondering what
we're going to see tonight at the convention. I did
find you interesting, and we didn't talk about this today,
but I'll throw this out here at the end of
the show. Tony Goldwyn an actor hosted last night. Did
not love that. A lot of unnecessary gumflopping by him. Yeah,
and I just shut up and let the people speak
and let's get this over with. So I wonder if

(01:36:25):
they're going to have another host tonight, and we.

Speaker 5 (01:36:27):
Wondered can they keep to the schedule.

Speaker 3 (01:36:29):
We shall see, we shall see. We will be back
here tomorrow with all the updates about President Obama speaking tonight.
Everything that's happened, much calmer day though.

Speaker 7 (01:36:40):
Now they protesters that we've heard, I haven't had to
run anywhere.

Speaker 3 (01:36:43):
Yeah, exactly, good rob as theories in the building. Now
that that's good for him. We're gonna go to the
Bean and maybe find a beef sandwich and be back
tomorrow to do it again. And I hope you guys
all enjoy it, even if it hurts you to listen
to it. I appreciate you tuning in for our coverage
of the DNC things. To our friends at Goldenspike Roofing.
Cannot think Spike in the team at Golden Spike enough

(01:37:04):
roofing done right to the last nail. If you need
any kind of roof roofing issue, free inspection, just visit
goldenspikeroofing dot com, and while you're there, tell him thank
you for sponsoring our coverage and we will talk to
you guys tomorrow