Your Money

Today on the Jimmy Barrett Show:

• Social Security
• What is Kash Patel's future in the FBI?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, what we need is more common sense.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Common breaking down the world's nonsense about how American common sense.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Will see us through with the common sense of Houston.
I'm just pro common sense for Houston. From Houston Way
dot com. This is the Jimmy Barrett Show, brought to
you by viewind dot com.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Now here's Jimmy Barrett.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
Hey, welcome to our Tuesday show of any of you
at home wrestling with the thermostat? Are we having any
thermostat wars going on between husbands and wives. I'm very lucky.
I have a wife who very rarely, if ever, will
complain about whatever the thermostat is said at. She's very adaptable.

(00:53):
She generally likes it warmer than I do. I like
it really cool, but instead of complaining, she'll, you know,
put a blanket on over herself, or you know, put
on a sweater or do something to warm herself up
if she really feels that cold. I, on the other hand,
am much less adaptable. I like it I like it

(01:14):
cool most of the time, which, of course here at
Texas is not always easy to do. We keep it cool,
especially in the bedroom during the summer months. Right around
seventy because I found the cooler it is, the better
I sleep. In the winter time, we set the theurvest
staff for about sixty five in the bedroom, which you know,
sixty five sixty six supposedly is the optimum temperature for

(01:36):
getting a good, nice sleep, That's what they say. So
we're in the heating season. Now. Is your furnace kicked
on yet? I try to delay that at my house
as long as I can. Whatever whatever I can do
to keep from that thermostaff for running, I try to
do it. I set the thermost staff really low, like
sixty five, so it's got to be below sixty five

(01:57):
before the heat kicks in. I I'll run a fire
in the fireplace. We have a fireplace. I'll run a
fire in the fireplace, and that throws off enough heat
usually to heat the first floor temperature above sixty five degrees. Now,
granted we get a really super cold day, that's a
different story. But so far we have a pretty well
insulated home. So far we have not had the thermostack

(02:19):
kick in as far as the heat. But it's going
to happen at some point. I know it's going to.
So the question is because I think here in Houston,
you know We're more concerned about keeping the ac where
we want it than about keeping the heat where we
want it. We don't run our heat as much as
they do. Obviously up north, it's usually December before you

(02:41):
ever have the thermostack kick in for heat for the
first time. And what's heating season for us December, January February.
That's about it. And not every day, not every week,
because there's a lot of days that the temperature will get
into the sixties and the heat won't even kick on.
The heat for us is more of an afterthought. But

(03:02):
I'm curious here they had the energy department came up
with usual, please set your temperature no higher than sixty eight.
Of course they want you to conserve energy. To me,
it's not about conserving energies. What what do you find comfortable?
Where do you want that thermostat at? What's going to
make you happy? What's going to make you feel like, Okay,
this is the temperature I want to be So we

(03:22):
asked our listeners this morning on KTRH, what is your
thermostat set at and why? And are there any battles
that go on in your marriage or your family over
how to set the thermostat.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
He Jimmy, this is Paul and Candiot. My thermostat set
to sixty seven degrees. Got to save money on that oil.

Speaker 5 (03:42):
Bill, Jimmy, as you were speaking, I was in here
in the living room area, and I just just turning
down the thermostat seventy degrees from seventy six degrees.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
And the wives in the bedroom, and normally it's hotter
in there. So I ain't gonna tell her though until
she figures it out. But it's hot out here. I
mean it's hot inside the house. Okay, it's cold outside here.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
That's cold outside here too. We were like got downe
to like thirty eight degrees this morning. And by the way,
if that if that first comment from the listener in Connecticut,
maybe go oil.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
What is he talking about?

Speaker 6 (04:20):
Oil?

Speaker 4 (04:21):
Most of the Northeast heats by heating oil. They use
heating oil. They have these big tanks either in the
basement if they have a basement, or right outside the house,
and they have oil burning furnaces. And no, I know,
it sounds like something for the olden days. In a
lot of ways it is. They don't. There's a lot

(04:44):
of reasons behind it. But you know, up in places
like Connecticut, the weather doesn't get that hot, So for them,
the heat is more important than air conditioning because they
really don't have that many days they need air conditioning.
It's just the opposite of what we have here. Most
of what we is air conditioning. Most of what they
do is heating. They have a much longer heating season,

(05:04):
and they a lot of them have older homes in particularly,
have heating oil, and when heating oil prices spiked there
a few years ago, that got crazy expensive. I mean
people were spending thousands of dollars heating their home in
the winter months because you have this big old tank,
and you know, you have to keep the tank filled
if you want to have heat. So that's what that
was referring to. All right, who else is fighting over

(05:26):
the thermostage.

Speaker 7 (05:26):
Jimmy, No matter what time of the year it is,
when we leave the house for work, my wife and
I said, our AC is seventy five. We don't worry
about the furnace at all now. When we're home during winter,
we usually keep it at seventy one on the furnace,
or during the summer months we keep the AC at
seventy two, but only when we're inside the house.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Hey, good morning, Jimmy is Jason from San Antonio. Hey, man,
I haven't turned the heater on yet either.

Speaker 8 (05:51):
I think when I woke up this morning it was
about sixty three degrees in my house.

Speaker 9 (05:55):
I just put on some socks and a hoodie.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
It's all good, Hey.

Speaker 10 (05:58):
Jimmy, Marty and fair filled. I keep mine during the
winter at sixty six and if it kicks on, I
get up and turn it lower.

Speaker 11 (06:09):
Skip from Webster, Jamie, I'm right there with you. Twenty
two degrees celsius, which bounces from seventy one to seventy two.
We live on the water. It gets cold out here.
Good morning. This is a check from Connecticut. We don't
have heaters.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
You don't have heaters, well you got well, you don't
have gas powered heaters. Well you might. You might have
a plug in like type of heater, but again up
in Connecticut they're usually doing the heating oil thing. The
one listener was a skip who brought up water. There's
two things that make it feel colder. Then what it is.

(06:46):
The wind is number one, and then you add water
to the wind, and you've got cold water in the
wind blown off the cold water on a cold day.
That makes it feel even more cold than what it is.
So I get what he's saying about. You need to
make that adjustment for his heat.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Nancy from Angleton.

Speaker 12 (07:03):
My heater is set on sixty five during the winter months.

Speaker 6 (07:07):
I'm sorry sixty eight.

Speaker 13 (07:09):
My husband has threatened to call his mother and tell
her on me because I won't let him turn the
heat on.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
Oh well, it's Vincent from Westbury where they refuse to
fix our roads during the winter.

Speaker 11 (07:21):
We set our thermostat between sixty nine and seventy while
we're awake.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
When we go to bed and.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
It's cold outside, we turn it off and open the windows.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
We're empty nesters. You get me.

Speaker 14 (07:35):
This is Mike from Alvin, Texas. I wish I could
answer your question, but it's not even safe for me
to look at the thermostack because I lost the thermostat
war two months and forty nine years ago.

Speaker 4 (07:49):
He makes it sound like a hostage situation. And what
about that brandy couple? Woo yo brag? What are you
braging about? The great sex y'all are happened? Well, we
turn off the heat, we open up the windows, we
get under the covers, we're empty nessers. You know what
I mean. Yeah, I know what you mean. You're generating
your own heat. I get it.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Hey, Jimmy, I'm not worried about the temperature. Our furnace
runs on natural gas. It's cheap.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (08:13):
Our stage at sixty six and right by the bad
When I sleep, I have a box feeing going and
my wife has a stand fan on her side as well.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
So yeah, it's sixty six in our house.

Speaker 16 (08:25):
Even though it's going to be thirty nine thirty eight
degrees the night, I'm still good to sleep a lot better.

Speaker 14 (08:30):
I prefer it.

Speaker 12 (08:31):
This is the lend from Magnoliam. We agree in the
wintertime sixty eight, but in the summer it gets ugly.
One time I actually went into the bathroom and slept
forty bucks on the thing and told them to turn
the air down where I'm cool.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
Hey Jimmy, it's Mark from Cyprus. I don't even know
where my thermostad is. That and the TV remote control
those are been.

Speaker 16 (08:59):
Lost for you.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
So whatever it was said at years ago, that's what
it is. Huh Okay, all right, that was fun. All right.
Listen to quick Little break Back with more in a
moment Jimmy Bairt Show here at AM nine fifty KTRC.

(09:32):
All right, let's do a little bit of your money
in this segment here. I've got some audio that met,
much of which I never got to this morning on
our morning show and katrh having to do with the
economy and where the economy is at. We'll start with
this one. This is for our older listeners social security.
Because if you want to scare an old person, you
tell them you're going to take away their social security,

(09:53):
and it's amazing how often that works as a scare tactic.
I'm one of those people who believes you're never going
to lose your social security. There may be structural changes
made down the road a ways that impact future generations
or maybe Gen Z for example, but not the baby boomers.

(10:16):
The baby Bombers are the ones that are collecting social
security now. Nothing is going to change. Nobody is going
to decrease your social security. We had another report come
out that says that social Security will become insolvent by
twenty thirty three. I believe the year was without changes,
of course, and we've been hearing about the insolvency of
social security for decades. It is that day has never come,

(10:41):
and I don't believe that Congress would ever let that
day come, even though they seem incapable of doing anything.
The one thing they one of several things they would
never allowed to lapse, would be Social Security because they
realized that that would be that would be the excuse
to vote them out, which of course they that's the
one thing they don't I want to see it happen.
So they were talking about it on The Big Money

(11:03):
Show on Fox Business EJ and Tony, who we've had
on our program on ktr even here on KPRC several times,
economists talking about the real need to make some changes
to Social Security if you want to keep it solvent.
At some point, something is going to have to change.

Speaker 9 (11:21):
I think you're going to have to have those structural
changes now. To be clear, we don't want to pull
the rug out from anybody, right. It's not as if
someone who's already getting benefits we want to see big
cuts there. No, but younger generations need to be told.
Look for a lot of you folks, the system is
not going to look like at the time of your retirement.
It's not going to look like what it does today.
That's just the reality. We're not having enough kids. The

(11:44):
population is not growing fast enough. Specifically, the number of
working people is not growing fast enough. And if you're
going to keep a Ponzi scheme going, which sorry, structurally,
that's what social Security is.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
It relies on.

Speaker 9 (11:55):
An ever growing increase of people paying into the system
to pay for today's retirees. If you're not going to
keep that growing, that population, that working group, then yeah,
you are going to have to make structural changes.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
That's the math taking you agreed, Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 8 (12:13):
The viewers get angry every time I say that a
couple retiring this year is taking out three dollars out
of Medicare for every dollar that they paid into the system.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
So it is.

Speaker 8 (12:26):
People who are currently working paying taxes into the system
who are covering those individuals. And it's not quite as
extreme with Social Security, but there's a couple retiring this
year is still taking out more than they paid in,
and so the security hits insolvency in twenty thirty three. Also,

(12:49):
Medicare's Hospital Trust Fund runs out of money that same year,
and there's an automatic benefit cut to eighty nine cents
on the dollar being paid out, and this Congress. These
lawmakers can't get rid of a super subsidy for Obamacare

(13:09):
that is forty billion dollars a year. How on earth
are they ever going to fix this?

Speaker 4 (13:15):
Well, they can't even agree on the budget. They barely
agreed on a continuing resolution. They shut the government down
before they did that. So yeah, I don't think a
lot of us have confidence in Congress. But like I said,
if there's one thing that's scared as a congressman more
than anything else is the idea because seniors vote, Seniors
show up to vote, So I think that's the one
thing they take action on. Is Social Security. I don't

(13:37):
think soci Security is going anywhere. Should should benefits be reduced,
probably in the future, not for the current people who
paid in their entire lives, but going down the road. Yeah, something,
something is going to have to change because if they
just said it is a Ponzi scheme based on the definition,
there are fewer people paying in that. The whole thing

(13:58):
always depended on the ever growing population. And as we
have fewer kids that you know, the population the only
population is growing is is the foreign born population at
this point. Okay, now let's get into something else. Let's
get into affordability, and there's a couple of different things
to talk about as relates to affordability. We'll start with mortgages.

(14:20):
Everybody's worried right now about what's happening with mortgages. Although
they're down the six point two five percent. They were
talking about this on Fox Business, how there's been an
uptick in mortgage applications thanks to interest rates getting down
around six point two five percent. But what does the
future hold.

Speaker 15 (14:39):
I think six and a quarter percent is definitely better
than six point eight, which is definitely better than seven
point five, which is definitely better than eight percent. I
think affordability is definitely a crisis. But if you're paying
a lot in rent and you're looking to build equity
and you want to buy, now, is as good a
time as any. Maybe the FED lower's rates on December tenth,
Maybe they don't, I think, or like fifty to fifty

(15:01):
with where inflation is.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
But you can always refinance.

Speaker 15 (15:04):
You might not always find another home that you're going
to love for years and years and years to goo.

Speaker 13 (15:08):
Okay, But I'm trying to get the answer to what
I know a lot of our viewers are asking, is
it going to go lower. And I asked this because
the Federal Reserve meets next week. They are expected to
cut a quarter of a percent, and often the ten
year tracks.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
What the Fed is doing.

Speaker 13 (15:24):
So if the Fed cuts, wouldn't the ten year start
to fall or the thirty or rather mortgage rates sometimes
fall off step.

Speaker 15 (15:32):
No, not necessarily, and I think if you're waiting for
rates to come down, I think you're probably not a
real purchaser.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
If you're waiting for.

Speaker 15 (15:40):
Rates to come down to where we were over the
past couple of years, then I think you probably should
stay renting.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
New normal is not low rates.

Speaker 15 (15:48):
I think people are confused that we're entering a new
normal where we're going to have lower rates.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
It's not going to happen.

Speaker 15 (15:55):
So that's why you're seeing, obviously with high rates putting
a lot more cash into the system. In New York City,
sixty percent of all of our deals are done in
cash across all price points. And most people have been
priced out of owning a home, but those who are
buying are paying cash, and if they're getting loans, they're
structuring in.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Different ways than ever before.

Speaker 15 (16:13):
I was just talking to a client now who never
would do an ARM, so an adjustable rate mortgage. Right
who now is doing an ARM because they can get
it at just over five percent and they're not going
to be in the house for longer than probably five
years anyway, And it's just what makes sense for that
monthly budget.

Speaker 4 (16:28):
Yeah, that's a whole different ballgame, isn't it. We're all
and I'm among those two, been sitting on the sidelines
going way. You know, interest rates will turn back down again,
We'll get down back. Maybe we'll get back down round
four or five percent. Well, maybe that's not going to happen.
Maybe six percents of the new norm. Maybe that's where

(16:48):
we're going to be. But it definitely has an impact
on affordability. And did I hear this term? All the
mainstream media is having a field day with affordability crisis.
We'll have an affordability crice. So we had financial planner
Richard Rosso on our morning show today on KATRH to
talk about, is this truly really an affordability crisis? What

(17:11):
do we mean by the term affordability crisis? What is
that really? Here's my conversation with financial planner Richard Rosso.
Let's start with the poverty line. Where do you think
the poverty line is for your average American family of four.

Speaker 14 (17:21):
Richard, Oh my god, Well, the average earnings for a
family is roughly around sixty thousand dollars. And frankly, there's
enough social support. And there was a study done years
ago that shows you, if you took advantage of all
the social safety nets out there, you probably.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
Didn't even need to work.

Speaker 14 (17:40):
So listen, we're a country that poverty has pretty much
been eliminated. And when you look at affordability, which is
the latest bugaboo, it's different for every household, which makes
it a challenge. What you find irritating in your inflationary budget, Jamie,
could be very different than mine.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
May be gased and.

Speaker 14 (18:02):
I see gas going down, but yours may be staked
and your troubled, or I have children going to college.
So this is a moving target. When it comes to affordability,
everybody's going to have an opinion, and to some degree
everybody is sort of right. But coming up with one
formula to fix it all is absolutely impossible.

Speaker 4 (18:23):
I agree that it's let's expand on this a little
bit further though, And you brought up a great point here,
because what is affordable and what isn't It depends on
what your priorities are. If your priority is to take
a vacation, you may have spent eight thousand dollars on
the vacation a couple of years ago, then now we'll
cost you eleven or twelve thousand dollars. But if taking

(18:44):
that vacation is a priority to you, then you'll find
a way to make it affordable.

Speaker 14 (18:49):
Well, you'll find a way to make it work. And again,
as you look at the soup of this, and you
have to realize that President Trump, the perception is reality,
and the perception as he hasn't done much to lower prices.
When you look at the CPI, prices have steadied, I
mean inflation. The rate of change is between two and

(19:10):
a half and three percent, which is sort of reasonable.
But people don't care about that. They care about when
they go to the store. Prices are still high as
they were. There's only one way to bring those prices down,
and that's some sort of buyer strike. And if you've
got that going on, you've got an economic contraction and deflation,
which is worse. So that's the problem with saying I'm

(19:33):
going to fix it. But politicians are running on this,
and some of the politicians are who are running on
this are the ones who are okay with inflation at
nine percent, which is the real irony. That's how desperate
people are to get prices lower, and no one can
figure it out. So you've got this issue. The American
Thinker had an article about it's regulatory. Yeah, it is regulatory.

(19:56):
It's also personal responsibility. I am living in the most
exciting age of America with AI and if I want
to increase my personal capital and learn, I have multiple
avenues to make more money. Because it really comes down
to this. It comes down to real income. It comes
down to inflation adjustin income, and real personal income was

(20:16):
up two point three percent this year through August, but
you look at and it's about a nineteen year average.
But there are some things that in that formula the
BLS has that doesn't count, like taxes, property taxes, and
homeowners insurance which is killing people.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
So real wages.

Speaker 14 (20:34):
If listen, if I was making four five six percent
in real wages, then inflation probably wouldn't bother me as much.
Do you have to find a way for the masses
who live on income, not stock gains and house gains
they live primarily on cash flow and income to raise
those real incomes, and then this would put the affordability issue.

Speaker 4 (20:55):
To bed well, and I think I think that's you know,
the President's goal with jobs is to create more jobs,
better jobs, higher paying jobs, to tackle the affordability issue.
We're not going to go backwards on inflation. And to
go backwards on inflation really would not be a good
thing because that means that we're in a deflationary cycle,
and that means something really really bad is going on

(21:16):
with the economy. That's that's depression talk there. That's that's
recession talk. We don't want that. Okay, quick little break
back with more in a moment. Jimmy Verchew, you're an
AM nine fifty KPRC. All right, let's let's devote this

(21:46):
segment to talking politics. And some of it is rumor
and innuendo. And the first one I find fascinating and
maybe you will too. It's on a more federal level though,
and that is this New York Post story. I don't
know if you saw this or not. New York Miranda Divine,

(22:06):
you know who Miranda Divine is, right, Miranda Divine has
been a very good reporter for The New York Post,
which is a conservative publication. She's been very pro Trump
in her writings, so it kind of surprised me that
there was a story in there talking about how vain
and what a problem the FBI director Cash Battel is,

(22:30):
And it kind of made me wonder, where's this, where's
this coming from? This is the kind of a piece
I would expect to see in a left wing publication,
not in the New York Post. But then you start
to think about it, you go, Okay, well, if Miranda
Devine is writing about this number one, there must be
some truth to it. In number two, there must be
some people, if not the President himself, there must be

(22:52):
some people who are trying to put some pressure on
the President to get rid of Cash Betel for whatever
the reason may be. Megan Kelly talked about it on
her podcast. Here they are talking about this incident that
happened that paints a pretty bad picture of who Cash
Battel is as a person.

Speaker 17 (23:12):
Mostly it's focused on Cash Pattel, and the thing that
they're really zeroing in on is what they say.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Is like.

Speaker 17 (23:20):
A vanity I guess of his a vanity that they
talk about how when he flew out to the Charlie
Kirk staging, like the FBI staging in the wake of it,
who was insistent on getting an FBI jacket brought to
him on board the plane before he disembarked, and that
he apparently did not have his own quoting here FBI

(23:42):
raid jacket with him.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
He refused to step from the plane without wearing one.

Speaker 17 (23:46):
That FBI special agents at the Salt Lake City Field office,
busy working on the Kirk case quote, had to stop
and ask around to find an FBI raid jacket, a
medium sized one that would fit. When a jacket belonging
to a female agent was delivered to Ptel on the plane,
he complained that quote two areas on the upper sleeves
did not have velcroe patches attached, and then he would

(24:09):
not leave the plane quote until you had two patches
to cover those areas.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Quote.

Speaker 17 (24:13):
So members of an FBI swat team took patches off
of their uniforms and ran those patches over to Patel
at the airport. The patches were then attached to the
loner FBI reaid jacket, and Patel disembarked from the plane.

Speaker 18 (24:25):
It's a very negative story. It's a very negative report.
So you got to ask yourself, you know, how did
this thing get done, and how did it end up
with Miranda, and how did Miranda decide to write it up.
These are not the only stories like this about Cash Patel.
There's other stories, but most of them have circulated in
places like the Washington Post in New York Times. So

(24:47):
it's a bit of a mystery. But you've seen the
same things with Pete Hegseth and to some extent with
Christy No. Which is you just again, it's not it's
not liberal media. It's it's people who love the president,
who care about president, who are using different outlets, in
this case the New York Post to put out there.
There's problems. It's hard to escape the conclusion that the

(25:10):
people are motivated by a desire to get the president
to make a change in personality.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
It's not done that yet.

Speaker 4 (25:18):
Here's the question, though, maybe Trump is so devoted to
the people he appointed to these offices that he can't
see the forest for the trees. If that is indeed
what the problem is, because it seems like if you
love the president and you're devoted to the president, the
way to handle. This would be to take a meeting
with the president, sit down with him and tell him

(25:41):
what's going on, and let him reach that conclusion for himself.
But I guess that's not how it works in the
world of politics, right. That's way too above board for
the world of politics. Yeah, I guess so, so they
have to work behind the scenes. Speaking of politics, here's
another story we're keeping an eye on. This. One's out
of Tennessee and reliably read Tennessee in a district that

(26:04):
went for Trump like twenty plus points, you know, special
election being held today. There's a real chance that the
Democrat could pull off the upset and flip that congressional
seat blue. I talked to Aaron Evans, he's with winning
Republican strategies, about what's going wrong in Tennessee. Why is
this such a close race? Yeah, I think that's the

(26:26):
million dollar question. I mean, we're talking about a district
that President Trump won by twenty points just last year.

Speaker 6 (26:32):
And so, you know, I think a couple of dynamics.

Speaker 16 (26:36):
One with special elections, you know, it always is a
little tighter. Those are the elections that you have to
pay more attention to because people aren't expecting. It's the
middle of the holidays. People aren't expecting to be voting.
You know, we just you have elections in November, you
have elections maybe you know, primary season, and no one's

(26:57):
going into the Christmas season thinking about voting. And so
I think that in and of itself presents a challenge
and uh and so so really it comes down to
voter enthusiasm and which party has their base fired up
the most and and the two most powerful motivators are
are fear and hope. And I think right now the Democrats, uh,
you know, have the fear a goal. I mean they've

(27:18):
definitely uh continually weaponized uh firing people up on the
Democrat side against the president and and uh the American
First Agenda, that's the Americans voted for at large. But
you've got a small, uh small minority that's very uh
you know, very energetic right now with the Democrat base

(27:40):
uh in that district. And and so you know, we've
got to get the vote out. Republicans have to turn
out to vote or sometimes maybe the candidate is not
everything you would want him to be. What can you
tell me about the Republican nominee mad Ben Epps what
kind of guy is he? Hey, look, uh, you know,
VENs is a phenomenal candidate. I think he's a great guy. Uh.
You know, Sant Trump has said he's going to be

(28:01):
a champion for uh the American First agenda and in
a strong member of Congress. You know, I think that
at the end of the day, you know, it's it's
a short uh, it's a short election process. And I
would actually say this as as someone who's led winning
campaigns and you know, had some losing campaigns over the years.

(28:23):
You know, it's uh in a in a in a
race like this, it really is on the campaign to
deliver the message. And so, uh, you can have the
best candidate in the world. But you know I would
when when I'm looking at these numbers, you know there's
something missing on on how the message is getting uh

(28:44):
conveyed to the voters themselves. So I would probably be
more I would probably be looking a little more uh
closely at the campaign itself versus the candidate, knowing that
this is a great candidate and he's going to be
a great member of Congress. But you know, we've got
to get better as Republicans on get out the vote.

Speaker 6 (29:03):
Programs, and we've got to get better as.

Speaker 16 (29:05):
Republicans on how do we connect with these Trump only
voters who vote in presidential years. And I mean, I
think that's a problem we've seen. We just saw it
in Virginia, we saw it in Georgia. You know, how
do we get people who will show up to vote
for President Trump and for his agenda with passion to

(29:26):
show back up and vote in these other elections that
are critical if they want this agenda to actually come
to fulfillment.

Speaker 4 (29:34):
You know, we have been talking about messaging and about
voter turnout for twenty thirty forty years. How come why
is it that nothing ever changes on that?

Speaker 6 (29:43):
Yeah, I think it's like anything.

Speaker 16 (29:45):
I think that industries and consultants and parties get stuck
in their ways, and ultimately, when that happens, I do
think that you start seeing losses occur. And you know,
I mean one of the things we used to kind
of joke about, uh, we we'd make fun of Obama
for being a community organizer, and it's, you know what

(30:07):
the hecks of community organizer? And and look, I think
the Democrats have proven to us what a community organizer
is since two.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Thousand and eight.

Speaker 16 (30:15):
And I mean they they've uh, you know, they've they've
organized like crazy and and they get their base out.
I mean they have coalitions and groups and and and
micro targeting, and they know who their people are, and
you know, and I feel like that's the type of
infrastructure Republicans have to get serious about if we're going

(30:35):
to really compete in this new landscape over the next
you know, decade is uh, you know, we we've got
to We've got to do some of the same stuff.
And right now, Republican campaigns typically, you know, we depend
on uh, you know, mail and texting and digital and
you know, and all those things are great, but there's

(30:56):
very seldom a real grassroots infrastructure in place, whereas the
Democrats really have the communities organized and they know who
their people are and they get them out.

Speaker 6 (31:03):
And that makes a big difference.

Speaker 4 (31:05):
Yeah, it does. So why can't we figure this out
or at least hire somebody who can. All right, quick
little break back with Morning Moment Jimmy Barrett Show here
an AM nine fifty KPRC.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
All right, so for our last.

Speaker 4 (31:35):
Segment today, I thought we could talk a little bit
about the holidays and the War on Christmas continues, although
this is less a war on Christmas than it is
pure propaganda stories out of Portland, Oregon. So shouldn't it
won't surprise I guess any of us that this is

(31:55):
going on in Portland, organ where they held a twee
lighting ceremony. And what would you assume, even in Portland,
what would you assume a tree lighting ceremony would be? Right?
You would assume it is Okay, we're putting up a
holiday tree. Maybe we're not going to call it a
Christmas tree. Well, we're putting up a holiday tree, and

(32:15):
we're going to welcome everybody to downtown Portland, Oregon, et cetera,
et cetera. Just kind of a nice, warm, fuzzy, family,
feel good kind of thing.

Speaker 14 (32:25):
Right.

Speaker 4 (32:26):
Well, they may have lit a tree, but it certainly
wasn't a Christmas tree or a holiday tree. I don't
know what it was. What it was was an invitation
to try to get thousands of people show up downtown
in Portland so they could hear some propaganda. The story's
from Outnumbered in Emily Campagnio, Oh.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Hang on.

Speaker 4 (32:45):
A second story is from let Me Find Her Again
Emily Compagno on out Numbers.

Speaker 19 (32:52):
Outrage has spread across the country after speakers there failed
to mention the word Christmas during the city's annual tree lighting.
The celebration was only referred to as the tree lighting,
with a group leading the event erasing the word as
they protested alleged genocides.

Speaker 20 (33:09):
Watch on this Native American heritage day. I hold both
gratitude and truth. The tree that we stand beside was
once rooted in its own home.

Speaker 21 (33:19):
No, there's a full blown genocide happening live streaming in
four k you know. I feel like this is a
perfect time to bring this up. Felt like this is
a perfect time to put them up there and for
your guys' prayers for every single one of the Palestinians,
all their press peoples.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
Okay, they didn't stop there.

Speaker 19 (33:37):
Another featured speaker, draped in a Palestine flag broke the
crowd out into a free Palestine chant just moments later,
and so.

Speaker 21 (33:47):
If I could get a free, free.

Speaker 19 (33:49):
Palestine, free free Palestine.

Speaker 17 (33:56):
Thank you.

Speaker 19 (33:58):
Critics tearing the city apart on social media, for example,
wondering why they can't say the word Christmas, questioning how
things got so divisive, so ridiculous, and one person going
as far to say that it will, as a Captain
obvious point, always be a Christmas tree.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
That's the thing.

Speaker 19 (34:15):
And you know what, Rachel, having spent a lot of
time there and I still in Portland, yes, and the
surrounding area, it is fascinating to see what a tiny
microcosm of that it has become. And everyone with common
sense and appropriate values and north stars and not sensory
ship and people who believe in God and talk about

(34:37):
it and all the things have moved outside of the city.
So all of the counties around it are normal where
you can say Merry Christmas, and my dad at his
small business has an annual Christmas tree lighting the day
after Thanksgiving. But there it seems to have just become
this this tumor, and I think that we're seeing the result,
which is that people are voting and responding with their

(34:59):
feet and how they move.

Speaker 4 (35:01):
Well, which means that the only people left in Portland
are going to be the radical nuts. Right at the
end of the day, That's what happens is all the
same people will leave the city and they'll go on
to the suburbs, and then you end up where we
seem to be everywhere else in the country. Which is
a deep blue city surrounded by red countryside. Uh, you know,
normal versus abnormal. And to me, the bigger issue is

(35:24):
not whether they call it a Christmas tree. It's that
they used a the guise of a tree lighting ceremony
to be a propaganda piece. We have gone from taking
Christ out of Christmas to not being able to say Christmas,
to you know, using Christmas props to get people to
show up so you can feed them propaganda. That's a

(35:45):
very good progression that, you know, when you think it
can only get worse, it somehow gets worse. How could
it get any worse than this? Stick around next year
probably being worse. All right, listen, y'all have a great day.
We well, uh, we'll be a little best of here.
I've got I've got an opportunity. I'm going to trump
Darrell to play golf. No I'm not. I did not

(36:08):
get any personal infit. Well, I got a personal invitation,
but not from Yeah, not from the guy who owns
the place, although it'd be fun to see if he
might be there playing golf while I'm there playing golf.
We'll be back with live show Monday. Best Of So
the next couple of days, so you behave and we'll
talk to you soon. Here in a nine fifty kPr
seeing the Jimmy Bart Show,