The Rod and Greg Show: America's Division Deeper than Politics; Affordability Crisis is Reshaping the Middle Class

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's a great basketball game, by the way, going on
down where you are. Utah State involved in the NC
two A tournament playing Villanova right now. Sixty six sixty
five Utah State. Good games.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Speaking of basketball, how excited were you that your Texas
yu that was like a that was a two for
for you because you're a Utah fan, so you must
have loved that. That must have been heaven, you know.
And ann an Alum from you know, Texas.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
I wonder if people realize that that's probably the last
game aj Deponza is going to play for the Cougars. Yeah, yeah, probably.
He's a heck of a player.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well he's gonna make a lot of money, I think you.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Think, yeah, probably. So yeah, we have got a lot
to get to today. Coming up, we're going to be
talking about, uh, how you know what the media is
doing in its coverage of the war with Iran. I mean,
it's quite an amazing story. A little bit later on,
remember Doge, Remember when Donald Trump came into office for
a second time, introduced Elon Muskin Doze and they were

(01:00):
they were sharing with the American people the waste and
you know, the abuse that was taking place in the
government and everybody. You know, those led almost every newscast
for several weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Right, what's happened in my eyes? Now, what's happened to it? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:14):
There is.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
There is a rest of the story, almost a Paul
Harvey rest of the story to be told there. It'll
be good.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah. And there's a surveying out that we can talk
about today as well, Greg showing that it's done by Pew,
and it shows that many Americans think their neighbors are
morally bad. I always thought we were a good country, Yeah,
I was.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
I was really surprised by this poll that that more
than half of America deems Americans to be immoral. I
it's very judgy or things are getting ugly out there
and people are kind of pointing everywhere. But I think
it's a I think it's an immoral or evil minority
that's pushing allowed agenda. I think I have all the

(01:54):
confidence in the world and American people. I think America
is still see this shining sea for good people.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. I think there's still
a lot of goodness in America and it will be
a great country as long as that goodness persists. I
want to start off the show today. I got the
news early this morning that Chuck Norris passed away at
his home in Hawaii at the age of eighty six today.
I know you're a big a lot of people out there,
including yourself, Craig, big Chuck Norris fans.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Am I ever, I love the movies. I was a kid.
I shouldn't be watching those movies when I was a kid,
but my grandma, she took me to Chuck Norris movies.
I watched all of them. He was you know, he
was Walker Texas Ranger as well. Now, I don't know
it might be news to people that when Chuck Norris
does push ups, he he really doesn't push his body up,
He just pushes the earth down. I don't know if
you know that. He also he can kill two stones

(02:44):
with a bird. Have you known that about Chuck nor
Two stones with a bird. And he's the only guy
I know that can slam a revolving door. That's it.
That takes skill to slamm a revolving door. Passed away, Yeah,
that's Chuck Norris for you. Passed away today at the
age of eighty six years old. The President issued a
statement he had a real good relationship with Donald Trump.
I could see that. I think that, you know, President

(03:07):
Trump loves combat sports, always has. You know, he was
he was a big fight promoter, you know, in his
casinos back in the eighties, and that's how I got
to know Mike Tyson. But but Chuck Norris was a
was a accomplished martial artist and competition as well before
his movie star days. So I think he was even
in some of the Bruce Lee movies way back.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, I think he was. I think he fought Bruce
Lee as a matter of fact. So Chuck Norris passing
along today at the age of eighty six today. One
other note before we talk about this story involving poor
Sarah Sanders, it was announced today changes are taking place
in the news landscape. Greg And it was announced today
that CBS is shutting down CBS News Radio, which bet

(03:49):
you know, I mean, think about Edward R. Murrow, Charlie Osgod,
Dave Ross, Walter Cronkite, all these great journalists who used
to work for CBS News Radio no more. They're shutting
it down after I think it's one hundred years. It's
pretty amazing.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, I actually I knew there was I saw the
headline where there was going to be fifteen percent cuts
in across the board in their newsrooms. But I did
not know that CBS Radio, yep, God, I was going
to be discontinued.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
That is something very amazing. All right, let's start off
this poor lady, greg and I really like her. I've
never met her. I don't know if you have. We're
talking about Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Of course, she is the
daughter of the former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee. She
is now the governor of Arkansas. Served in the president's
first term as his press secretary. I think did a

(04:34):
great job. And now this story coming out of Arkansas
where for a second time, this is second time this
has happened to her. She's in having a I guess
a lunch or a dinner with a couple of friends,
and the restaurant asked her to leave because she was
making some of their employees uncomfortable because of the of
her conservative policies.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
You know, this is this is you know, remember the
left always preached tolerant. She need to be tolerant of people,
and you know lifestyles that you don't subscribe to tolerance.
Tolerance tolerance, and now I think there is no greater
collection of intolerant, hateful people than those on the left
that are on the far left. I mean, it is
unbelievable that this She is the governor of the state

(05:18):
of Arkansas and she is treated this way and asked
to leave the restaurant because of her politics. She's the governor.
I don't know how you can escape having a political
rudder in the water. And yeah, you got elected by
the people of Arkansas, So how on earth in Little Rock,
Arkansas they could treat their governor that way. You've got

(05:40):
to be again. I just think that derangement syndrome has
just run so deep, and I don't think it's the
majority or a large swath of America, but boy, the
ones it hits, they are just nasty people.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Well this is this is what she said. She described
Greg what happened. She said, last week, I was having
lunch with two other moms at a restaurant when the
owner approached a member of the state Police Executive Protection
Detail and said that my president my presence made their
employees feel threatened and told us to leave. She went

(06:12):
on to say Arkansas On's are known for their warm hospitality,
and while that restaurant certainly doesn't meet that standard, my
administration will continue to focus on lifting Arkansas up, not
tearing others down with discrimination and in hate. And her
office has confirmed it as a matter of fact. They
had lunch. Apparently we're into a lunch about an hour
hour and a half. We're nearing the completion of the lunch.

(06:34):
That's when the owner of the restaurant went up to
the state Police detail and asked if they in fact
could leave now. The restaurant itself basically put out a
statement today, greg saying when they first when she first
arrived with her other friends people, they were surprised and
uncertain as to how to best respond. How do you

(06:55):
best tell somebody to get out of your establishment? And
he went on to say, by the time we entered
the dining room, she was already seated and eating. At
that point, we chose not to interrupt, expecting that the
party would complete their meal and depart without issue. The
restaurant says that the time went on, the Governor's security
tale became more widely noticed by both employees and questions,

(07:16):
and apparently as they were leaving the restaurant, Greg one
of the employee shouted an obscenity toward the governor and
made an obscene gesture. I tell you what, people in
Arkansas should never go to that restaurant again.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Well, look, man, it's just you've got to be able
to treat people like human beings. I mean, it is
just so beyond the pale that it's down to this.
And I think that, again, this is not both sides
of them. Okay, don't tell me that this is happening
on the right. Don't tell me that we haven't had that.
We go and kick politicians out of, you know, restaurants

(07:49):
we don't like, and it just doesn't happen. It is.
This is a unique, you know, mind virus that the
left has, the far left has, and it is why
I think they are alienating themselves from every normal person
who wouldn't even have subscribed or thought they were a
Republican but have just basically been set aside or jettison
from the Democrat Party or even wanting to vote for

(08:12):
a Democrat because because of this type of behavior. It's
just so it's it's mean, it's it's it's they They
bully you. They if you don't subscribe to their worldview,
you're the one with the moral failing or the intellectual failing.
It's a you know it is when you talk about
how far the left is gone, it makes sense why

(08:33):
they don't want to make Save America Act to pass,
and why they want illegals to vote, because they got
to go get a voting base because they've alienated this country.
I don't think they have the math to win if
they keep digging that hole they're in, So they have
to try and usher in a voting block that can
keep them in some some version of power. And I
I just think I don't understand it. I've been I've

(08:54):
seen campaigns, elections my whole life, This whole politics by subtraction.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Just it doesn't make sense neither. And this is the
second time has happened to her, isn't it. I mean
when she served as PYMI uh, dinner at a I
think the place was called the Red hen in a
suburb of Washington, and they asked her to leave. What
has she done to them?

Speaker 2 (09:15):
I know she's and she's a public servant, she's you know,
she's she was press secretary for Trump in his first term.
But she's she's the Governor of Arkansas. I mean, are
you kidding me? I I don't know what kind of
clientele they have at that restaurant that the Governor of
Arkansas eating at their place was so offensive to them,
But yeah, I'm with you.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
If I live in Little Rock, I leave. Ray just
told me he dug into this restaurant. I think it's
called the Croissantier or something like that, owned by two lesbians.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Well, you know what it's It sounds French. All we
had to tell me is it's French, and that's the
case closed. You know those French tanks, they only go
and reverse. Yeah, that's the only direction the French. Goodness,
I wouldn't even guess. You know, Governor Sanders meeting going

(10:03):
to a French restaurant. I don't know what she was thinking.
I could I could have called that one.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
All right. We've got a lot to get to today.
Later on, Greg, Wait, do you hear what a potential
candidate for the Democratic nomination for president had to say
about his own party? You will laugh at this one.
That's coming up a little bit later on in the show.
Great to be with you on this Friday Afternoon, Rodd
and Greg on Utah's talk radio one oh five nine KNRS.

(10:27):
Saudi Arabia says it may step in if Iran continues
to attack the various oil and gas refinery's there in
the in the straight of horror moves. Others are stepping
up now, Greg, there appears to be some growing support that,
you know, the Iranians are not going to give up. So,
you know, I'm thinking about that We're just gonna have

(10:49):
to take it out. I don't know what that means,
but they aren't going to give up anytime soon, you
know what.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
And look, I think this is a great segue into
our next interview because you listen to the regime media. Yeah,
they think that Iran somehow had us on the run,
that they are somehow putting up some kind of big fight.
I don't think it's it comports with reality. I think
that if you were in a fight and you got
your nose a little bit bloody, but you beat the
guy unconscious, the little bit of blood on your nose

(11:15):
is a small price compared to the whooping you just gave.
And I think that that's that's what America looks like
right now with Iran. I don't think I RAN's doing
all that great, So you know, I think that you
got to finish that job and not leave him in
a position where they could recover well.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
Joining us on our Newsmaker line to talk about how
the media and the Democrats are treating this story is
christ Ramalia Christopher Tromoalia. He is a commentary writer at
the Washington Examiner. We've had Chris on before. Always a
great guest. Chris, how are you welcome back to the
Rod and Gregg Show.

Speaker 4 (11:47):
Hey, guys, how's it going.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
We're having going to Well, you report on a nude study.
I guess what was done by the Institute for the
Study of War taking a look at this conflict right now?
What are you seeing or what is it saying?

Speaker 5 (12:00):
And Chris, so, the Institute's Study of War, does you
know foreign policy analysis? You know, on different events, geo
political events going through the country. It's done a lot
of analysis for the Rush Ukraine war. I wouldn't even
say it's a think tank that's very sympathetic to President Trump.

(12:20):
It pretty much is a nonpartisan gives its objective opinion.
And as we've all witnessed for the past few weeks,
the Democrats and legacy media have basically been ripping the
operation epic fury and criticizing it and kind of positioning
it as if not just outright saying it hasn't been successful.

(12:40):
Senator Chris Murphy has been a big opponent and critic
of the war and blasted President Trump and war efforts
and their rhetoric and their ideas don't match reality. And
the Institute for the Study of War does the study
which showing that, and they specifically say that their the
war efforts has been you know, positive, and we're not

(13:03):
getting an accurate representation from the left on what's going
on in the war.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
And it's just, I mean, it's typical.

Speaker 5 (13:09):
It's power for the course for anything that President Trump
seems to do this these days or has ever done,
you know, during either of his terms and his political career.
But it's just giving a complete disservice to the American
people and not giving them that they're doing like this negative,
rabbid toxic propaganda against the war efforts, and it's like
they're almost rooting against Americans who succeed here for their

(13:33):
own radical political agenda.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
And it's just it's bad. It's hard. But and if
people needed to get against it.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
You know, it seems so obvious to me because there's
not a single moment of that since this Iran Iran
engagement began that they haven't had some interpretation of the
glass half half empty or worse. But what what would
they want to see that they would think would be
a resounding success? Their navy's gone there, uh there, I

(14:00):
mean their missile side. I mean, I just everything that
I'm seeing would would would sound like success to me
in terms of this engagement. But what what would ever
make a Democrat have satisfied in a Trump administration in
terms of victory? Could they or such a definition that exists?

Speaker 5 (14:19):
That's the that would be the most impossible questions being
half full?

Speaker 4 (14:27):
I don't think that.

Speaker 5 (14:28):
I think they like, why did the glance off the
table and shattered it? I mean, you know, no matter
what Trump does here, I mean, if you're listen litting
to all the reports, I mean, you could have your
reservations about going into Iran in the Middle East and
the war and.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
Ever people have made that.

Speaker 5 (14:43):
But if you're looking at the efficiency so far as
we stand today from when the war began to now,
I mean, we're we're doing a the military is doing
a wonderful job and an efficient job. And the thing
that the Institute for Study of notices it as of
today as this was actually a two days ago was
the March fifteenth and came out, so it's about five

(15:04):
years old now. But during the report they were like
touting that things can change, but objectively you can't say
that things.

Speaker 4 (15:10):
Are going bad as Democrats have been saying.

Speaker 5 (15:13):
I mean, this is the it's like, you know, they'll
knock out their their drone launchers, the ballistic mistial capabilities,
Navy military, and Democrats like say, oh, this is going terribly.
There's no plan and everything you find out that Democrats
have been saying, I've not necessarily.

Speaker 4 (15:28):
Been the truth.

Speaker 5 (15:29):
They're putting out this stuff, they're getting their accomplices in
the legacy media to broadcast this, and they're basically brainwashing
and in doctrinating the American public to try to get
them to believe that this is being a failed operation.
And as of right now, it's not. And there's no
way to actually say that. Yeah, Chris, I don't want

(15:50):
to shatter that half class myself after all this.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
You know, Chris, you've heard have said before you can't
unsee what you've seen. You can't unhear what you want
what you've heard. Are the American people seeing the success
we have or is it being shaded by the reports
of the legacy media is saying it's not going as
well as the administration is sane?

Speaker 5 (16:12):
I think it's honestly an objective. I would say it's
probably a little bit of both. And my concern is
that it shouldn't even be that way. It should be
just so like, hey, you could may not be in
favor of this if you're talking to like a critic
or opponent or a detractor, but you can't acknowledge the
reality of the facts of the success that it has
so far. And that's my main thing with this is

(16:34):
when a criticize, should we be doing? Okay, let's fine,
you're bright as an American, But when you're misrepresenting facts and
the data and trying to influence the public to persuade
them to be a vote for your beliefs by lying,
that's a huge red flag and that shouldn't happen.

Speaker 4 (16:49):
And it goes to show when.

Speaker 5 (16:51):
President Trump called the legacy media the enemy of the people,
it's because of things just like this, they're not being honest, Like,
be honest. Tell the American people going on, tell them
the success, let them decide for themselves. Don't try to
brainwash them as if this is like you know, the
Stalin network in the nineteen fifty Union.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah. Yeah, Chris is always great chatting with you. Appreciate
your work on this, and I know we'll be speaking again.
Have a nice weekend thing here.

Speaker 4 (17:16):
Take care, guys.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
All right, thanks, all right, that's Christopher Tromalia. He is
He is a commentator writer with the Washington Examiner, talking
about the legacy medium the Democrats line to the American
people about progress in Iran mar coming up with Rod
and Greg on Talk radio one oh five nine k
n rs.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
Correct and accurate in our commentary. We have a great
listener who reached out and kind of corrected me. I
had my facts wrong. I had mentioned what you do
the French tanks they only have one gear, it's reverse.
It turns out that they actually have these French tanks
have five gears one through four go in reverse, and

(17:54):
in case they're attacked from the rear, they have one
gear that will actually go forward.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
I was wrong.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
I correct the record officially.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
You know, we have this. We have the smartest, most
intelligent listeners out there, don't we.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, that whole forward gear in case you get attacked
from behind, didn't. I didn't realize it. But it makes
perfect sense, of course. You know that's maybe that was
a newer version. Maybe the old versions just went reversed
and once they realized they could get beat from all angles,
they actually did throw a forward gear in there in case,
you know, they can run the other direction.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
Interesting, all right. There was a reporter we talked about
this earlier this week on the show, that Donald Trump
has now reduced the federal workforce by ten percent. I
think his goal was much larger than that. Remember when
Doze came on in the second time, he game President
of the United story after story about the abuse and
the fraud and the money that the American people are

(18:49):
are wasting or our government is wasting, you know, And
you think, one if Doge and Elon Musk and you've
brought this up before, wouldn't have been attacked the way
they were. Test and we're allowed and we're allowed to
go out go about doing what they were trying to
do in reducing the size of government. I mean, what
might have been greg if they were allowed to continue

(19:10):
to doing the great work that I thought they were
doing well.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
And you had Congress that had a Doge committee, they
were all excited about it, and then and all of
a sudden you saw that nobody wanted They like printing money,
they like how the money gets washed. I think the
USAID has been diminished in a serious way. I know
they're trying to litigate it, but I think that was
a nightmare that was exposed. But you know, I do

(19:35):
think that we lost some momentum there, but it is
still DOGE still does exist.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
It does it does well. Joining us on our newsmaker line,
Let's find out how how expensive Dolz DOGE is Right now.
Mark Hemingway is a senior writer for Real Clear Investigation
has been taking a look at this. Mark, Thanks for
joining us. What in fact has happened to DOGE?

Speaker 6 (19:54):
Well, there's a couple of things. I mean, one is
that you know, I think, honestly, for an agency that
just started the ued it with almost too much power.
At one point, like almost every bit of government spending
was actually supposed to be filtered through DOGE, and they
just didn't have the capability of handling that. But the
other thing was simply that the Left turned it into
such a massive target. The New York Times ran a

(20:14):
story last summer that was just unbelievable. They literally published
every the picture of every person working at DOGE. It's
just impossible to imagine, like the New York Times running
a story saying that, you know, you know a huge
percentage of American students can't read a grade level. Here's
a picture of everyone's Department of Education. So you know,
they painted a big target on their back. But the
thing is is, you know, as I learned from talking

(20:36):
to people, Dose didn't go away. A lot of those
people working for DOG just got scattered in different agencies
and they've been.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
Doing really good work ever since.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
You know, here's something that you I was glad to
see in the article that you wrote that Dog has
not disappeared. They they don't have the same profile or
it maybe even the same responsibility of making sure the
money's delivered. But they are still looking at the receipts.
They're still looking at things and identifying fraud or waste
for abuse. Uh there's it says they asked, did you
use technical AI or is there some building, some tool

(21:09):
that you use to be able to trace it. And
he's like, now, so much of what needs fixing is
simply just a matter of accountability and common sense. Here's
an innovative approach. If someone's entitled to something based on
a status like income, check that income to see if
that's what actually makes you. Could save one hundred billion
dollars a year just doing that. It really sounds like
nobody's watching the till out there at all. Is that?

(21:31):
What is that? What was seemed safely conclude?

Speaker 6 (21:34):
That's exactly right?

Speaker 7 (21:36):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (21:36):
I mean when I talked to Sam Corcos for this story,
he is the CIO Chief Information Officer at Treasury, and
he started out at Doze and now that he's a
Treasury I mean, obviously the Treasure Department oversees a huge
amount of government spending US while the payments.

Speaker 4 (21:50):
Are funneled through.

Speaker 6 (21:51):
And he told, you know, he's a you know, a
really interesting guy, and he has real serious business experience
in Silicon Valley, you know. And and that's exactly what
he told me. He's like, you, bok, No, I'm not
using machine learning or AI to root out this fraud.
It's like basic business sense. And that's the thing is,
you know, he comes from a world of business where
you know, he had to make you know, numbers add

(22:11):
up when he was running companies in Silicon Valley. Not
necessarily a high tech operation, although there is some of
that going on, and you know, a lot of what's
going on is they're modernizing payment systems and things like
that to make them harder to gain in the first place.
But yeah, he told me, He's like, look, you know,
it's very often. What it is is, you know, I've
got two numbers in front of me, and one is

(22:32):
ten times larger than the other, So it's probably fraud.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
Mark Mark. At the height of Doge, everybody was talking
about it, but now you hear very little about it,
especially in the legacy media. Is that an indication that
legacy media feels and the establishment feels they've defeated Doze
so we don't have to talk about it anymore.

Speaker 4 (22:52):
I think that's part of it.

Speaker 6 (22:53):
The other thing, though, is simply that that's by design,
you know, like you know, like I said, they they
had such a target on their backs that they you know,
deliberately made the choice to kind of go underground, you know,
different DOGE employees got embedded at you know, different cabinet
agencies and things like that. Rather than having all of
these people centralized in one place that could be scrutinized.

(23:14):
Instead you have you know, like the chief technology officer
at the Health and Human Services is a former DOGE employee,
and he's the guy that released all of the medicaid
data publicly about medicaid spending after we kept seeing all
these fraud numbers coming out of Minnesota and there was
now a Congression investigation in medicaid spending in Oregon and
these other places where where you know, public scrutiny of

(23:36):
this information would.

Speaker 4 (23:38):
Be really helpful.

Speaker 6 (23:39):
And it's a DOGE guy that was able to very
quickly gather that information and release it publicly. And now
we see the Wall Street Journal has done some investigations
in the medicaid fraud based on this data, in addition
to a lot of online suites, and it's it's having
a real impact. And I'm not sure any conventional government employee,
you know, civil servant, let alone political appointee you know,
in previous administrations, would have been capable of saying, oh, well,

(24:02):
here's the story in the news I'm gonna get out
this data, and we're gonna have some transparency about it
and do it really quickly and efficiently and in a way
that everybody should use. That That is someone who was
working with who had previously started a dose, who understood
the mission.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
So here's my question. I so we're thirty was it
thirty six trillion in debt? You know, trillion here, a
trillion there. I can't keep track, but whatever it is,
it's unsustainable. There's nothing in human history that signals you
can keep printing money at the rate the United States
is at the moment, and it ever ends well, if
everyone is married to what they appropriate and they don't

(24:36):
want to cut a dime, I would think that waste,
fraud and abuse would be maybe the lowest hanging fruit
where you where it would be bipartisan. It is not.
Does that mean that people are profiting wrongly because they
can't even get to the waste or the fraud of
what we're of what is being spent, but we don't
want to, you know, do anything about the deficit either.

Speaker 6 (25:00):
Think that's exactly right. You know, blue cities and states.
It's become pretty clear, for instance, part of the reason
why we have a homeless problem and it keeps getting
worse in a lot of places, is because there's this
homeless industrial complex in places like you know, California and
Oregon and you know, lots of very prominent progressive governed places.
You know, there's literally, you know, hundreds of billions of

(25:22):
dollars going out the door to fund you know, those
people are supposedly solving the crisis, and cutting off that fund.
Cutting off those funds would reduce the kickbacks that are
coming in to elect the same people that are handing
out out the money to solve homelessness. And you see
this in Medicaid, you see this in all kinds of

(25:42):
issues now where we've just created this sort of you know,
federal lebias and that is funding a lot of this
stuff that's happening at the local level. And I think
that cutting it off at the federal level so that
states don't have you know, all kinds of medicaid money
and federal funds that are are being you know, cycled
into these low programs would do a lot to reduce corruption. Unfortunately,

(26:04):
the biggest driver of government spending is entitlements like Social
Security and Medicare and there seems to be a bipartisan
consensus that is politically toxic to cut those and so
in terms of reducing the deficits, I don't know how
that's going to be fixed. But in terms of fraud, waste,
and abuse, I do think that cutting off the spending

(26:27):
at the federal level, like you know, we look at
you know how autism clinics, for instance, been puffed up
out of nowhere in the last five years. You know,
if we can cut that off at the federal source,
that it's going to reduce a lot of local and
state corruption. That will make our politics much much better
because it's it's corrupting the democratic process itself.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Mark, thank you. What might have been Greg, if DOGE
would have been allowed to do its job interesting to
see today.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
Would well, I'm still burn a candle for those guys.
I think they still have They're still identifying frauds. There's
still things are doing. But I do think that there's
a lot there's more low hanging fruit to grab it.
I do think that they're still up and running, which
is better than not.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Ye, that's true.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
My brand new Cadillac from Jerry Seynder Cadillac for a
couple of months now, and.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
What one Democratic candidate or possible candidate I should say
for the presidential nomination for the Democratic Party in twenty
twenty eight, what he has to say about his own party.
You wait till you hear. And it's not John Fetterman,
by the way, even though I would imagine Fetterman and
would agree with this guy. But wait till you hear
what he has to say. We'll talk about that and

(27:32):
get some of your thoughts on that coming up. Following
our news update at the top of the hour, the
annual Well Being Research Center's report on World happiness is out, Greg.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
What does it say?

Speaker 1 (27:45):
You're ready for this one? Who do you think is
the happiest country in the world, Man, I would like
it to be our country. Eh, Switzerland, We're twenty third Switzerland. Yeah, No, Finland.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
What's Finland got? It looks sound cold up It looks
cold up there. Why are they so great?

Speaker 1 (28:03):
Sweden and Norway also rank in the top ten, those
Nordic countries.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, what's that about? Maybe they stay inside a lot,
you know, keep warm.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Maybe so? I mean it is cold up there.

Speaker 4 (28:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
The United States ranks twenty third.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
We have the best quality of life in the world
just goes to show it, doesn't. You know, it doesn't
buy happiness, doesn't.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
Canada, New Zealand and Australia have dropped significantly over the
past several years.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
And I don't even recognize that country. I lived in
that country, Australia. Yeah, that thing looks like China, Na totally.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
Oh Canada, Uh huh? All right, what democrats are saying
about each other? You wait to hear this coming up
next on the rod.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
I just got a text from a junior who said
I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time, that
I should be in San Diego watching the big Cinderella
story about these USU aggis that just won.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and they get to play Arizona. That
won't be a trie. That'll be an easy one down there.
But the story right now, Greg is after the game.
You know, they always interview the coaches or some of
the players. Oh, that was this during the game. Apparently
this was during the game. Sometime during the game, and
the coach of Villanova was interviewed by CBS News for

(29:23):
his thoughts on the game so far. Listen to what
he had to say.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
Coach sixteen pain points for Utah State. How do you
keep them out? I'm not fire my staff because we now,
yeah i am, because we've given up eight points on
not any of bound defense.

Speaker 8 (29:37):
So the only thing I'm gonna do is fut of
them and get a new steps.

Speaker 6 (29:40):
All right.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
This was a sideline interview during the game they had really,
I mean Utah State had wiped out a big lead
for Villanova. He was asked, what are you going to do? Coach?
He goes, I'm gonna fire my staff.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
Well, didn't get better from there, so I guess there's
some paint slips getting delivered. Maybe some people are not
light on the On the plane home, Bill Nova's outside
of Philadelphia, so they got a long flight back home.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yeah, that's awkward. I've never heard of coach say that.
Now we'll see if he does it. But the beer
fact is he answers the question, what are you going
to do? I'm going to fire my staff. Never heard
that one before.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
That's that's a riot. Hey, you know Variety magazine they
just put out a post. You know, of course they would.
Chuck Norris was a great action star, but politics may
overshadow his legacy. This was posted on x ex community
note says Chuck Norris killed his shadow while shadow boxing.
That's why you don't you never see his shadow when
he when he comes up behind you. Chuck Norris can

(30:42):
never be overshadowed. I thought, that's a very good community,
you know, appreciate the insight, the fact checking. Yep, Chuck
Norris didn't have a shadow, so you can't overshadow him.
He killed his shadow and when he was shadow boxing.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
And our good friend, our good friend, Liz Peak. We Liz,
she's on the show. Question.

Speaker 6 (31:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
Put out a post today apparently Maizie Herona, who is
the Senator from the Great State of Hawaii, in hearings
today about the funding for the Department of Homeland Security
because it shut down. I guess they're just having major
problems at the various airports. Have you heard of any here, Greg,
I mean, you've got to go through San Diego tomorrow.
Have you heard of any here?

Speaker 4 (31:24):
No?

Speaker 2 (31:25):
And you know the problems began when I left in
Salt Lake City. I got out without a hitch. I'm
hoping tomorrow is going to be okay, but I've seen
a lot of carnage going on around the country, so
we'll see.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Well, here's what's interesting about it. Corona basically said, we're
all in favor of funding TSA and these other agencies.
We just are not in favor of funding ICE. We
don't want to give ICE a blank check. Yeah, we
don't want to give a Blaine check. Well, guess what, Mazie,
you already have. Ice is funded, and he points out, Maizie,

(31:57):
maybe you should do your homework.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, do your job, get it done. They're funded till
twenty twenty nine. Old ICE is So we're not going
to fund anything. We want to fund it all except
for ICE. No, you already funded ICE. Like this is
where I worry that you know you speak. You have
Majority Leader Thune who was quoted today saying that he
believes that the Democrats, if they take control of the Senate,
will nuke the filibuster. And then you have this Democrat

(32:23):
Mayzie who has no idea that ICE has been funded
through twenty nine. And our own senator Utah Senator John
Curtis told us last week when we spoke to him
about the filibuster and about the Save America Act, I've
gotten to know my Democrat colleagues, and I said they're
very deliberative behind closed doors, and I really don't believe
they're ever going to get rid of the philibuster. Has
he met Senator Mayzie, if they had a conversation, I

(32:44):
don't know that that's as deliberative of a body as
he is saying it is. When you hear comments like
that made on the record, I think it's I think
it's an absolute guarantee that there is no filibuster that
will exist if and when Democrats power of the Senate.

Speaker 4 (33:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
Well, speaking of the Senate, Democrat Reuben Diego, Okay, he's
a Democrat from state of Arizona. I think, Greg, I
think so. I think he's been thinking about running for president. Well,
apparently he sat down and had a conversation with a
good friend of his. They've known each other for a
long long time, and he said some amazing things that

(33:22):
now his friend is sharing with people. Are you ready
for these? He basically said that the Democratic Party today
is the no fun party. Yeah, he trashed his own
party as preachy scolds who don't let men be men.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
It's one hundred percent true. I mean, is he just
figuring this out now?

Speaker 1 (33:45):
I guess so. He said he was heartbroken that the
exchange he had with a friend over the two decades
was made public. Also lamented I love this greg that
Democrats are no longer the party of sex, drugs, and
rock and roll.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, I know, there's just yeah, they're a party of something.
But it's a family show, so I really won't elaborate.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
And he went on to say, now, damn women look
like damn men, and demn men look like them women women.
She's this guy's having a field day. And my favorite,
my favorite comment from this apparently, uh he says, you know,
we don't have any men in this party before, and
I've been yelling at him all this time to get
some men back into the Democratic Party. And he ended this.

(34:32):
Apparently there was a meme that was texted about Representative
Rosa Delora. I think she's a Democrat out of Connecticut.
She's the one with the purple hair. I can't remember,
but she's a top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.
And the caption on it says, if a rectile dysfunction
had a face, this would be it out. Oh so

(34:57):
it just goes on.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
It's a guy who go he's I'm telling you right now,
he's he's correct, but you can't say that. I mean,
I just doesn't. Isn't there a Harry Enton poll that
says that that? And we heard this from Guy SCHROCKI
one of our guys, from one of our columnists from Pennsylvania,
who said, uh, he doesn't think that there's a pathway
for John Fetterman to get the Democrat nomination in Pennsylvania,

(35:20):
even though he's so wildly popular across the state and
even amongst Republicans by a large majority. The Democrat base
and the Democrats, they don't support John Fetterman at all.
And I think the Harry Enton poll showed it. He's
dropped like like from a plus sixty to minus forty
or something like that. Something's crazy.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
It's a one hundred and eight point swing against John
Fetterman after his election.

Speaker 9 (35:44):
Here's Harry Anton, And I would just say that John
Fetterman is doing as well with Pennsylvania Democrats as the
New York Giants are. Is liked in the state of Pennsylvania,
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I mean, just look at this
among Pennsylvania Democrats and that approval of Fetterman. Back in
twenty twenty three, he was a Democrat Liberal Darling. He
was at plus sixty eight points.

Speaker 10 (36:03):
Look at how low he has fallen down the negative
forty points. He is down there with the Titanic among
Democrats in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Speaker 9 (36:14):
And you know, put a comparison point on.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
You know, we always talk about how Chuck Schumer.

Speaker 9 (36:17):
Is not well liked by the Democratic base nationwide. Chuck
Schumer has a net popularity rating of about minus two points.
He is thirty eight points more popular than John Fetterman
is with Pennsylvania Democrats. And I was also looking at
Kristen Cinema, who of course ended up leaving the Democratic
Party in Arizona. She was considerably more popular just before
she shifted over than John Fetterman is at minus forty points.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
John Fetterman lower than the Titanic.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Now you know it. And it's crazy because he votes
like a Democrat. I mean, if he wanted to switch parties,
if he switched parties, he'd be like a Susan Collins
or Lisa Murkowski on the Republican side, if he were
to if he were to become a Republican, because he's
he really does vote like a Democrat. But the left
is so insane about not being able to celebrate any

(37:02):
American victory without regard to whether Trump was involved or not.
That his party does not like him. He can't secure
the Democrat nomination even though he votes over ninety percent
of the time with Chuck Schumer has one hundred percent
rating with afl CIO, the one of our largest union
organizations in America, and Planned Parenthood gives him one hundred percent.
That guy is at my minus forty percent approval amongst Democrats.

(37:26):
Why it's all it's all style points. It's all style points.
It's not the way he votes, it's that he's not
harsh enough, mad enough, a hostile enough for those Democrats.
He shook the president's hand, President Trump's hand at the
State of the Union. That's how ar do something like that?
Shook a president's hand. Imagine that. I just think it's crazy.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
All right, We've got a lot more to get to
when we come back, we'll talk about, you know, apparently
we are a morally bad people according to a new survey.
Greg and we'll get into that coming up right here
on the Rotting Greg Show in Utah's Talk Radio one
oh five nine. Can't Arrest want to open up the
phones to you we typically do on a Friday like
this to let you weigh in on any of the

(38:08):
big news of the week eight eight eight five seven
eight zero one zero eight eight eight five seven o
eight zero one zero on your cell phone dial pound
two fifteen and say hey, Rod, or leave us a
message on our talkback line by downloading the iHeart radio app.
And Greg, we wanted to discuss this because you and
I both believe I think in the goodness of Americans, right,

(38:29):
You see it so often, you know, you see people
contributing to charities, You see neighbors pitching in when another neighbors.
I mean, there are dozens, if not more than that
of stories every day that come across our desks with
great acts, people helping out each others, celebrating their success.
That's when we saw that's why when we saw this survey,

(38:49):
Greg World talk about it in the six o'clock hour
as well with one of our guests. But apparently this
new Pew Research survey, first time they've ever done this,
found that america An adults Greg are more likely than
others to view their fellow citizens as morally bad, with
more than half a green the sentiment. In the new survey,

(39:11):
more than half of the American people view other Americans
as being morally bad.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
I was very surprised by it. I think we give
I think we're pretty gracious. I think we give people
the benefit of the doubt. We assume people are being
honest when they speak. We don't assume everyone's a liar.
That's how liars get away with lying, is that everyone
does assume you're being truthful. That's how it works. So
I think the GoFundMe moments that you see some terrible

(39:37):
tragedy that is shared and when people are made aware,
there's some effort to try and help those that have
been impacted, and you see those go fundme accounts move.
And maybe that's in a large country like this anecdotal,
but I don't think so. I think we are still
a country of good, God fearing, you know, concentious people.

(40:01):
I think that the regular Middle America is the great
We are this great loan superpower in the world. Is
it because you just have the biggest guns. It's that
this country is unbelievably good and it gives everyone this
the opportunities, and those opportunities bear fruit and you have
a country like ours. So I actually do believe in
the everyday American more than I do certainly people in

(40:23):
Washington and Congress, but even other countries around the world.
I put my faith and Americans every day, Americans all day.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Well, here's some of the comments people are making about this,
this survey greg because I was bothered with it too.
I still feel there is goodness in America. You may
have to get out of some of the urban areas,
but even in the urban areas you may fly, you'll
you'll find some goodness. And one of the the animal
is talking about this says, what we're seeing is really
in an increase in the lack of social trust. That's

(40:53):
more frequently Americans are living in communities where there's high
levels of Americans who say they simply do not trust
people around them.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah. I again, I'm surprised by that. I think that
if you live in a community, you live in a neighborhood.
I would imagine we know our neighbors. We know, I mean,
I look, I'm not we're not doing the dinner parties
every weekend or every night, but we know our neighbors.
I mean we I quite enjoy my neighborhood I'm surprised
by things like that. I'm surprised to hear that there's

(41:24):
a general distrust going on amongst Americas. Now, I will
say that that the far far left are a hateful bunch,
really are. And I have avoided, you know, descriptions of
evil and more because it's always bothered me that Democrats
leftists will always say, if you don't agree with their worldview,
then you're the one with moral failing or intellectual failing.

(41:46):
But man, the things we're watching happen right now, I mean,
I'm just looking at an article. Majority leader soon says
that the Democrats don't want to open up Department of
Homeland Security. Why because their base will get mad at them,
and they would rather be unsafe, and they'd rather ts
airports be ground to a halt, and they want they
want to raise the you know, human misery, the misery index.

(42:07):
And that's not that's not moral, that's not good, that's bad.
But that's not America. That's a that is a far
left fringe movement that is just very loud and makes
itself and then scares the Democrat uh politicians in the
in the behaving the way they.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
Are, well, a lot of people will think, Greg, that
this is all the result of our political divide in
this country today, and that's why we think. You know,
those on the left think those of us on the
right are bad, and those of us on the right
think those on the left are bad.

Speaker 4 (42:36):
You know.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
I wrestle with things sometimes, Greg, and I won't wonder
how many people do, because I know some very good people.
They lean left right. But when they come out and
they say we're in favor of abortion, or we're in
favor of boys going into a girl's bathroom, I'm going
I don't know how to judge that. I don't know.
You run into that probably more than I do. I

(42:57):
don't know how to judge people based on their beliefs
like that, because.

Speaker 4 (43:02):
I want to.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
I want to stand up and say you're wrong, you know,
I want to almost say you're morally wrong. I don't
have a right to do that. But those are the
things that really get to me sometimes. So when they
talk about morally bad, I'm thinking, well, those people out
there who are believing in things that I just feel
are not right. The fiber and me says this is
not right.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
I think that the I think this leftist elitist far left,
you know, base of the Democrat Party. But this movement
of leftists and elitists and their and their regime media
have left Americans with the impression that there is they're bigger,
and they're larger in number than they are. I think
that the people you're describing are not the everyday people

(43:43):
of America. I think that their agenda, the way they
want to chemically and physically castrate children, the way they
want to sexualize children, the way just the way they
want to see America lose in a conflict against Iran,
the way they don't want to see Department of Homeland
Security funded to protect people that live here. And I

(44:05):
don't think that is the everyday person. I think it's
the opposite. I think they've just they have such a
loud voice. They have led us to believe maybe they're
bigger than they are. But they are an outlier. They
are certainly not the norm, and I think it's going
to take some election cycles to prove that to be
the case before these scared Democrats actually depart from the base.
The base is it wants to harm this country and

(44:29):
tear down its institutions. And you don't have any Democrats
in Congress other than save maybe Fetterman that is willing
to push back against that.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yeah, yeah, well here here you could loosely tie that. Well,
I think politics does play a role in this, Greg,
But here we have in this country today, we have
Democrat after Democrat out there, right, Greg, telling lie after
lie after lie, even like even on the Save Act,
that married women won't be able to get registered to vote,

(44:57):
and on and on with lie after lie after life.
And that's where we're starting to say, can you not
tell the truth? Are you so afraid to tell the
truth that you lead me to believe because you don't,
you are therefore morally a bad person.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
Well, like I said, I've resisted the term evil in
the past, but I do think this movement is evil.
And I don't think it's both side. Sides is them,
But I don't again, I think that they did. They
are not playing a game of addition, and I think
anything in public policy or politics is an effort of addition.
They're playing a game of subtraction, and I just have

(45:35):
to believe that that's going to become pretty evident unless, again,
the laws are shaped in a way where they can
just go and allow people to enter the country illegally
to create artificially create a voting block that they currently
don't have.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yeah, Yeah, Well, I want to ask that question.

Speaker 6 (45:50):
Greg.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
Let's open up the phones eight eight eight five seven
eight zero one zero triple eight five seven o eight
zero one zero on your cell phone dial pound two fifty,
say hey or leave us a message on our talk
back line by downloading the iHeartRadio app. Very simple question.
Are the American people a morally bad people?

Speaker 2 (46:09):
Yeah? They say again, defer to the collective wisdom of
our listening audience. I'd like to hear what you say.
The poll looks like that more Americans think that than not.
What say you, folks, I'd be curious to know if
you think that. If asked the question are Americans morally bad?
Would you say yes?

Speaker 1 (46:26):
Or your calls? Are your calls and cummings coming up
on the Rod and Gregg Show and Utah's Talk Radio
one oh five nine, kayn ar s, I'm roder or
Kent and.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
I'm citizen Hughes. Question laid before you before the break
was are Americans morally bad? Yes?

Speaker 8 (46:41):
Or no?

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Curious to see what you our listeners think. Let's let's
go to the phones. Let's go to Diane, who's been
waiting in Riverton. Diane, thank you for holding and welcome
to the Rod and Gregg Show.

Speaker 11 (46:54):
Thank you. I just wanted to say that I think there,
I think we still have a large majority of very
moral people in our in our country. You know, this
trend from about being spiritual rather than being religious became
popular and and uh and being popular little is a

(47:19):
little too important for a lot of people. And but I.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Think that people.

Speaker 11 (47:26):
Do have, most of them with good heart, and I
see that around the world. I think most Russians are
good and would not like to live in such tyranny,
under such tyranny, and we see that in the uh
Iran or eighty percent of the people or or more

(47:46):
would love to have freedom.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
So you think you think, you think, Diane, we're a
morally good, good people for the most part. I mean,
there are a few stinkers out there. Well, for the
most part, we're morally good.

Speaker 4 (47:59):
I think.

Speaker 11 (48:00):
I think Americans are are for the most part more
really good. I do think that they are easily deceived,
and that we have deception going on just you know,
all over the place. It's hard for them to find
a place where you can hear this straight up truth.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
That's true.

Speaker 11 (48:18):
But they're out there.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Look for it.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
You have to look for it. You're right, Diane, they
are out there.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
I'm with Diane. I'm with Diane on that. I really believe.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
But there are people out there. I you know, we
we live in a great state here, and a lot
of people step up and help their neighbors. But we're
not the only state where it happens. I've seen it
in other states as well. People will help each other out.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah, let's get let's keep going on the phones here.
Let's go to John and Murray. John, Welcome to the
Rodd and Gregg Show.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
Hey, how are you guys doing.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
We're doing well, Thank you, John, thanks for asking.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (48:52):
I just think that, I mean, there's a lot of
quote obvious evidence out there, like what what country adopts
more kids from other countries than the US. That's a
that's a huge statement. And then also which donates more
money to other countries when they when they have fall
on hard times. Yeah, so I think there's evidence there.

(49:16):
And then if you go look at activities, I've never
seen a more generous population than I've seen in different countries.

Speaker 6 (49:25):
Have even got.

Speaker 8 (49:26):
A thirty five year old son in law that I
told him I can teach him how to do commercial
real estate, make more money than he would ever make
as a doctor. But he told me that he wanted
to go become a doctor. And so he joined the
navy and he's in Okinawa and now he's getting ready

(49:46):
to go to Spain for three years.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
Wow.

Speaker 8 (49:48):
So and after that he wants to go run for
office so he can say in the country.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Good for him, good for him. I like that, John,
Thank you, thank you for sharing that story. I mean,
you know, there there's some really impressive young people out there,
and I hope they don't get jaded and you don't
run out of town, so to speak, because of their beliefs.
But they do step up and they do go after
things well.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
I think that was a great example a young man
that that it can make a lot of money and
and do very well monetarily, but has that desire to serve,
serve others, help people. I don't think it'd be fun
to be in Okinawa. I don't think it'd be fun
to live overseas necessarily, but it's it's part of his journey.
That he wants to serve and he ultimately would like
to be a public servant. I that's a good son
in law. If that's uh, that's what I'm saying. So

(50:35):
for him, I do I think that's I don't think
that's anecdotal. I actually think that's that's that's America that
we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
Yeah, you know, years ago, Greg and you were you
were just a young pup when but I remember this,
there was a a Canadian broadcaster I can't remember his name,
Gordon something, and he he put a he wrote a
letter to America and really a letter to the rest
of the world that was very popular. I mean he
made like the top forty, right, but it talked about

(51:02):
the goodness of America. America at that time was going
through some very difficult, difficult things. We had Vietnam, we
had you know, they monetarily, the economy wasn't looking very good.
I mean, things were looking pretty tough here in America.
And he penned this open letter not only to America,
to the rest of the world. I think he just
called it the Americans, and he talked about some of

(51:23):
the things that our last collar just mentioned. You know,
when it comes to a worldwide disaster, which country is
the first one to usually step up? It's us, right, right?
And you know, he went down list after list of
how the American people have, you know, ever since we've
been around, which will be two hundred and fifty years

(51:44):
here in July, how we have stepped up and helped
people out? How often when we've had a major disaster
here a hurricane and earthquake? Have you heard other countries
come in and say what can we do for you?

Speaker 4 (51:57):
America?

Speaker 1 (51:57):
You don't hear very often. So is there good news here?
You bet there is.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
Yeah. I heard a comedian once talk about the most
humbling moment, and he was it was a serious story,
but he made he had a funny way to describe it.
Or these communities in Oklahoma or a place where you're
susceptible to tornadoes and these tornadoes just rip through and
they and they go to the person and their home
is in rubble and they and they say, the camera

(52:23):
crews come and they're just they're just picking up literal
pieces of what used to be their home and they say,
what what what are you going to do? And they
look at the camera to go, We're going to rebuild.
We're going to rebuild. I mean, they just right, They're
ready to go right then and there. And that's a
that is the American might. I think it's a it's
a grit and I think it's real, and I do.
I would not discount or let the leftists who want

(52:45):
to degrade this country and and attack it and so
on so many fronts, uh allow us to believe that
we are not a good people that genuinely want to
do right by each other. Our families are God. I
just think I think that is America. I really do.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Yeah, I do too, all right, And we'll talk a
lot about it in the coming months as we get
ready to celebrate two fifty more coming up on the
Rod and Greg Show in Utah's Talk Radio one oh
five nine an RS. The March Madness Tournament is underway,
So I think of people heading home trying to get
a little more basketball in tonight. I think I'll be
humorrow be good. Uh yeah, you Ray is here, I'm here,

(53:23):
Abby is here, And I think that's about it. No,
we may have an engineer or two around.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Yes, so well, the weather holds this weekend, Oh it went,
I hope it is. Yeah, it will because I've been
spoiled all week long with beautiful weather.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
You have been, and I've given you all these great
places to eat, and you don't eat at them.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
Man, I'm like rain Man. Have you seen the movie
I Die? I got certain things, I got certain routines,
I got places I go. I don't go outside of that.
I just like to stay right there, right in that lane.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Good for you. Well, here's a comment. You know we were talking.
One of the stories we've talked about today, if you
aren't aware of it, is that the governor of Arkansas,
Sarah Huckaby's, yet again, was kicked out of a restaurant,
this time in her home state of Arkansas. The People's
The owner of the restaurant went up to her and said,
our employees are uncomfortable with you being here. Would you

(54:14):
mind leaving? This is after she had lunch and paid
for it and gave the employees a tip, but they
still asked her to leave. Well, remember it happened a
couple of years ago in Washington, d C. Here's a
follow up on it.

Speaker 12 (54:26):
Hey, guys, I believe if you look that first restaurant
she went to, and there was that whole toss up.
I believe that restaurant went out of business now, so
you know, in the end they paid the ultimate curse.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
Yeah, we'll have to see what happens in Arch. And
I think that place was called like the Red Hen
or something like that back in Washington. Wasn't it great?

Speaker 2 (54:49):
It's a dead hen now sounds like that place's history.
Let me tell you this French restaurant. I don't even
know how you get a French restaurant in Little Rock, Arkansas.
You got to kick that place the curb it. Of course,
it is some she she think they're more important than
they are types. Tell the governor of your own state
to leave your premise. I can't. I hope that there

(55:09):
is a a consumer consequence for that kind of behavior.
And I'm not kidding if it were a Democrat governor,
I'd still find it to be completely over the top.

Speaker 4 (55:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
Well, but a business does have a right to serve
who they want to serve, do they ladies over politics?
Go ahead, go down that road. I guess just bringing
this up. But they do. No shoes, no service, no Republicans.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
Yeah, no shoes, no shirt, no Republicans, no concerns.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
That's what working. It's kind of crazy.

Speaker 4 (55:39):
All right.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
We've been talking this past hour about the survey which
finds out that people in America are morally bad or
that's what they think of each other. We're going to
be talking with somebody who has analyzed that and share
more information on that coming up, and don't forget our
listen back Friday segments coming your way in our number
three as well, right here on the Rowden Gregg Show
and you Ta Talk Radio one oh five dimes a NRS.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
It's been fun. It's been fun to be on the road.
I haven't done this before, you know, to be here
at the iheartstation here in San Diego. But it's it's
been a good week.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
Yeah. And you survive California, the left coast.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Yeah. The gas is trying to trying to rob me,
so I can't afford to get home. I might have
to hitchhike, Yeah, back to Utah because there's the gas
prices here, they're just breaking the bank.

Speaker 4 (56:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Well, hopefully you can get to the airport tomorrow to
catch a flight back. Hopefully you've got enough fuel to
do that.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
Yeah. And I hope that the TSA. I hope I
have ta happy.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
Right, that's right. Yeah, you got to deal with TSA.
That could be joyous. All right, final hour of the show.
We were talking before this hour, Greg about this few
research survey about Americans we likely see each other as
morally bad. I've got some issues with that, Greg, because
I think for the most part, there are a lot
of good American people out there.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
Shocked by this poll, is what I was. I mean, look,
I mean, I know there's a minority of people that
are pretty radical, but I was very surprised by the poll.
I think the saying that America is great because America
is good and if she ceases to be good, she'll
cease to be great. I think we're still a good
people and a good nation. So I look forward to
this discussion.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
Well, let's talk about this discussion as a result of
a new survey done by Pew Research about morally bad Americans.
Joining us on our any hour Newsmaker line right now
is JP Deganzi is founder and president of Communio. Joining us.
Let's talk about this, Jp. I mean, is it more
than just politics? Because I understand the political issue here,
but it's a more than just politics.

Speaker 13 (57:43):
Yeah, there's a lot more going on than politics alone.
I think now you're referencingw this really stunning Pew research
that should that twenty five nations were surveyed, the United
States was the only one where a majority of the
response and felt that their fellow countrymen had bad morals. Now,

(58:04):
so I think some of that there might be some
gap and self reflection on some of those countries, but
I think there's obviously a huge, huge element of truth
to this. And fundamentally, morals are formed in the home, right,
And so we've had a gosh, last sixty years at
major decoupling of sex from marriage, marriage from parenting, parenting

(58:24):
from partnering, and the United States now leads a planet
Earth leads the developed world in the highest number of
single parent headed households, right. And the reality is is
we are formed in our morally. We're formed by mom
and dad. And on average, you know, a dad who's

(58:47):
not married to the mother of his children is unlikely
to be resident and less likely to be involved. And
there's something kids lose there. They lose the complementary blessing
that comes from having a both mom and dad forming
them in different ways. That undermines faith practice. We know
we published our own study, the Nationwide Study and faith

(59:07):
and relationships. The practice of going to church regularly is
heavily tied your family of origin. Eighty percent of everybody
sitting in the pews, I mean the age of sixty
in America grew up in an intact home and that
holds regardless of age. And so as the famili has
become unwound, we've become less connected to our houses of worship.
And it was the church that would come alongside the
family to form our morals as well, and that's become

(59:31):
far less common, and so on both levels. That's also fueling,
of course, what you noted our political discourse, right, Our
politics is heavily sorted by marriage, family of origin, and
church practice. It's now been talked about what they call
the God gap in voting in voters, and you can
sort heavily based on that. So you're seeing that we're

(59:53):
becoming a lower and lower trust society as a result.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
So everything you said is intuitive, It looks familiar, sounds
familiar to me, But I go back to Doakville. It said,
you know, America is great because America is good, and
if she ceases to be good, she will cease to
be great, and then I look at maybe it's too anecdotal,
but you look at these GoFundMe accounts that if some tragic,
tragic story happens or plays out, people donate and they

(01:00:20):
want to help people, and you see this this generosity
that seems to surface when there's a sadder, some tragedy
that's struck. And then you see that. I feel like
since Charlie Kirk's terrible assassination and you taught, there's been
almost a revival, especially amongst young people, about evoking the
Savior or or God, and maybe a resurgence of church attendance.

(01:00:44):
Am I am I seeing that correctly?

Speaker 9 (01:00:46):
Is that?

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Is that just what I want to see? Because I'm
very surprised. A.

Speaker 13 (01:00:50):
Look, I think both things can be true, right, both
things can be true at the same time. The reality
is is there's a lot of good about our countries.
Ill and where the I think you still think fundamentally
the greatest nation on earth, were the most charitable, right,
we remain the most suitable nation in our private giving.

(01:01:10):
Amongst the developed world. We were near the top in
terms of regular church attendants. Were much higher rates of
church attendants than any any anywhere else in Western Europe
except maybe Ireland, so and and and certainly I think
Poland is also bit ahead on average. But but so

(01:01:31):
there's a lot of good going on here. Toakeville, I
think it's good that you brought up democracy in America.
Toakville saw our unique commitment to marriage as a huge
part of what made us different. That he saw in
the in the European home a source of strife, and

(01:01:52):
that strife. Actually, there's a lot of evidence that the
French family became unwound and that fueled the French Revolution,
and I reference Mary Eversat's work on that. But the
US had really strong homes, and as a consequence, we
learned how to self govern. You know, no government fashioned

(01:02:14):
a civilization in the Americas. Settlers came, pilgrims came, built
and crafted civilization out of wilderness. And you could only
get there through through strong moral commitments and self discipline.
And so that's still there in a lot of ways,
it's just become significantly undermined. Right, so we can say

(01:02:37):
we can simultaneously recognize what's still good about our country
but then be concerned about a lot of what's happened.
I think there's reason to be, you know, not a
doomer on a lot of levels, one of which is
religious non affiliation grew consistently for about forty years, starting

(01:02:59):
in the late eighties, uh and mid eighties, and it
is the last four years stop growing. And and that
is itself like really significant, right, this is a trend
every and so that's leveled. I think those who are
in church who are young are showing up on average
more frequently to their houses of worship than older generations.

(01:03:23):
Is kind of a key nonce. It doesn't mean there
are more young people in church than older people. It
means those who are young and who are in church
are showing up more frequently on average, more frequently each
month than they're old than Gen X. And so there's
there's there's a lot of I think some seeds that

(01:03:43):
you can see starting to to grow, to see that
there might be a revival in the future.

Speaker 4 (01:03:50):
I don't.

Speaker 13 (01:03:50):
I think we should be cautious. We shouldn't spike the
football and say there's a revival happening, and that may
look that's up to God and he can he can,
he can raised believers up from stones. But right now
there's a lot of good there's there's still a lot
of good here. And I want to say that survey,

(01:04:10):
you know, Mexico, if you look at Mexicans on that survey,
very many vast majority of thought that there they're co
co fellow countrymen, had good morals. There's a widespread public
corruption there, there's widespread violence through cartel wars, and so
we have to That's why I also say there should

(01:04:31):
be a grain of salt in how any country is
self reflecting.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
On our newsbreaker line, JP Degan's founder and president of Communitio,
talking about morally ben people. Some interesting numbers in there, Greg,
But maybe we shouldn't be surprised. I don't know, maybe
we shouldn't.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
And look, JP put a positive trajectory on it, as
you said, you know, he did point out the things
that we also believe about this country. So I think
that the poll's surprising. But I do think we've got,
of any country, the foundation to keep a dream alive.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
We've got good people in this country for sure. All Right,
more coming up It is the Friday edition of The
Rotten Gregg Show right here on Utah's Talk Radio. One
oh five nine can arrests. So I think we mentioned
this on the air yesterday. Maybe not, but I saw
this huge line of cars trying to get into a
local dairy Queen that we have there in Kysville and
Layton right now, going what on earth is going on?

(01:05:22):
And then I realized it was free vanilla ice cream
cone day yesterday, Queen. Yeah, And the cars were a
country mile long just trying to get a free ice
cream cone.

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
I love dairy Queen, Like, there's just not enough dairy Queen's. Like,
I will just I'm on I fifteen and I'm traveling
and there's a dairy Queen. I see the exit I'm taking.

Speaker 1 (01:05:43):
You're telling you I love it. What a line yesterday. Well,
let's talk about affordability. That certainly is going to be
an issue coming up in this election. Greg, the President
and the Republicans have some real challenges when it comes
to that affordability issue right now, wouldn't you agree?

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
I would? And part of that afford is just what
is the role of government. It looks like they're printing
a lot of money, there's a lot of entitlement spending,
there's a lot of fraud, as Doge has shown. But
at the end of the day, we've got young people
that need to make their way in this country and
have a shot. And I think that that discussion is
worthy of having. And I think Cameron Crane is the

(01:06:18):
exact person to discuss.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
This now is she is with the Independent Women's Forum.
They put together a new report on affordability and what
needs to be done. Cameron, thanks for joining us tonight.
Let's talk about this new report you've pulled out. Give
us some of the highlights.

Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
Well, first of all, we wanted to as a report
in the title says reclaim affordability. We've seen over the
last several years as a left has repeatedly said we
have affordable policies, and yet healthcare has gotten more expensive,
gas is getting more expensive, It's been harder to find work,
it's been harder to run a small business. And so
the policies that we are describing and the issues that

(01:06:56):
we describe in this report are really showing how free
and prize and free market system can reclaim affordability. And
it doesn't include all of the government subsidies that are
making life so much more unaffordable.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
So, Cameron, here's my question. I'm a father of young,
young adults in their early twenties, and so they're starting
out in life and I'm watching the rise. The cost
of living is going up, quality of life is arguably
going down in terms of just the circumstances that what
you can pay for which you can't. I think you're
pointing out the right things. What's it look like for

(01:07:32):
that younger generation. I'm hearing forty years old before you
can buy a home as a first home buyer. I'm
hearing statistics that are really worrying me for our younger
upcoming generation. What's your prognosis for our young ones?

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
Well, I am also a young one as well, in
my mid twenties, and so it is really concerning to
see housing going through the roof prices. I don't see
a way that people that single people would be able
to afford a house now. But there's ways that policy
can especially shape this area. For one, we have the

(01:08:10):
More Homes on the Market Act, which would double the
current exclusion levels for capital gains tax, which would allow
more homes on the market for people who are afraid
just of their homes because of a huge tax bring
they face when they sell it. And then there's things.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
Go ahead, no, go ahead, finish your thought.

Speaker 3 (01:08:30):
Yeah, and then there's the making accessory dwelling units more
accessible so that people can actually rent out their homes
so people who own homes can partner with those who
want cheaper rent in the first place.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
So yeah, Cameron, are you focus on the number of
areas you report from you know, housing to healthcare to
a number of issues here? Sometimes people say the answers
to these issues are very complex, but are there some
simple solutions that could be taken, simples that could be
taken to address some of the issues.

Speaker 4 (01:09:02):
That you raise?

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
Absolutely, embracing free market. There's states that are trying to
lower taxes and that's one of them that's complicated, but
it's also one that we have going around that we've
been working on, is the portal benefits making work more
accessible for people so that we're not trapped in one

(01:09:27):
single way of working, but allowing people to pursue their
dreams and work in a way that works for them,
without making healthcare more expensive, without making taking time off
more expensive, making work available for people so that they
can start earning that money that they need.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
So, you know, we let Utah is as a red state,
and I think that your draw your report draws a
distinction between blue states and their future prospects and red states.
Maybe share with our listeners what is the difference? What
is the tr trajectory if you live in a red
state or it's currently a Republican state versus if you
live in a predominantly Democrat controlled state.

Speaker 3 (01:10:08):
Yeah. Absolutely. We saw the U haul company that tracks
it's one way moving trucks, they saw the highest migration
to red states. In fact, in the last five years
there have been a net loss of two point eight
million residents from high tax states to those unaffordable states
too low tax states. So the big difference is the

(01:10:31):
states that don't have an income tax or working steadily
to get rid of their income tax are seeing huge growth.
And we also see that the most unaffordable states are
most reliably the blue ones. We have California, Hawaii, VC,
New Jersey, and New York. Those are all far above

(01:10:51):
the average for cost of living. And then the red
states are far more affordable. They're way below the cost
of living. And so of course, if you want to
make life more affordable for yourself, you can go and
move to a state that does embrace those free enterprise,
those market principles that allow people to work without hampering

(01:11:12):
their without hampering their their decision to create business or
even be an independent contractor or have multiple jobs.

Speaker 4 (01:11:23):
Cameron.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
You you, of course are with the Independent Women's Forum.
You authored this report, and you point out interesting and
I don't think people realize that women are disproportionately affected
by the affordability challenge because they make the line's share
of spending decisions in most households. I know in my
household they do. I'm not sure about Greg's, but in
my house that's true, they do. So how can you

(01:11:46):
help women? What could be done to help women?

Speaker 3 (01:11:49):
Well, especially on the childcare front, it's making it more
making it easier one for that flexible work people, so
women who want to stay home and care for their
children can do that and also bring in an income.
But it's also all of these areas make it possible
for us to go back to that. If we can

(01:12:09):
live on one income, that's great. And if we want
women to be able to choose whether to stay home
and care for their families or pursue a career, we
want them to be able to do both. And so
anything that makes work more flexible that it brings down
their tax burdens so that they don't have to work
so hard. Things that allow them to choose their childcare,

(01:12:32):
their method of childcare, whether that's making it easier for
them to have family watch them or places that they
trust watch their children and care for them. There's specific
there's specific things that we can do to lower childcare
costs because right now it is also way out of affordability.

(01:12:54):
So a lot of women are choosing between working and
trying to balance trying to bound childcare cost with whether
it's even whether they would even break even with working
or daycare costs. And so because daycare costs are so high,
women are also stopping working. And so if we bring

(01:13:15):
those down by getting rid of a of the deregular
deregulating that sector quite a bit, will be able to
allow women to have that choice.

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
Cameron Crane from the Independent Women's Forum talking about a
new report on the rising cost of living in it
certainly is all right. More coming up it is the
Rotten greg Show, the Friday afternoon edition right here on
Utah's Talk Radio one oh five nine kN rs.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
What does that mean?

Speaker 1 (01:13:40):
You mean to temperatures in the sixties instead of the.

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
Eighties, well, eighties a little warm for.

Speaker 1 (01:13:46):
Yes this time of the year sixties I like seven
yeah yeah personally yeah yeah yeah. All right, we've got
a great half hour coming your way as we uh
have you listen to our what we call our Listen
Back Friday segments. Greg I love doing this because we
do so many interesting interviews throughout the week with newsmakers,
and I know our listeners are busy, they can't hear everyone,
so we select a couple and bring them back. I

(01:14:08):
always think it's fun to let people give a listen
to him if they've never heard him before.

Speaker 2 (01:14:12):
It's been an all star lineup this week. We've covered
a lot of different topics and we've had some great interviews.
So listen back Friday. This Friday especially, I think these
are great ones to revisit.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
Well. One of the interviews we did was about Cuba,
and a lot of people are wondering what's going to
happen to Cuba. They had blackouts this week. There's word
that Russia is now trying to get them oil. Since
we've cut the pipeline, the shipments of oil from Venezuela
to Cuba right now had a chance to talk with
a great guest. He joined us on our newsmaker line,
Stefano Ridendale. He's a chief intelligence officer at Artorius about Cuban,

(01:14:45):
and we asked him first of all to give us
an update as to what he sees going on in
Cuba right now.

Speaker 7 (01:14:50):
Yeah, So the situation in Cuba, I think, just a
quick summary for everybody to understand, this is obviously the
worst economic and energy crisis that QBA has seen since
the nineties at the collapse of the Soviet Union. So
that's what we're seeing right now, and we're seeing kind
of the initial recording for the last couple of days
of protests really starting to pick up inside of Cuba. Basically,
a lot of the people inside of Cuba are just

(01:15:12):
sick and tired of the energy crisis and the economic
crisis and the government mismanagement that have ravaged Cuba for
decades now in the communist government. But all of this
is occurring because of a deliberate policy by the Trump
administration that really wants to ensure that the communist government
no longer have choke hold over the Cleveland population. Right

(01:15:33):
and the way that this happened really started. You have
to go back into January this year with the capture
of Nicholas Broke, the former Venezuela dictator, and now with
the appointment of the Therodriguez, the acting president. Venezuela has
basically agreed that they are no longer going to provide
oil shipment to Cuba that Cuba really required and needed

(01:15:54):
to support their energy grids. And since the Trump administration
is putting a significant amount of pressure across the region,
we're also a major oil exporter to Cuba also stops
sending oil. And so what that has caused within the
last couple of days is the total actually quote collapse

(01:16:14):
unquote of the Cuban electric grid, as stated by the
Cuban government themselves, and that is what why we're seeing
these protests. And obviously the Trump administration is kind of
leveraging this to tell the Cuban you know, communisticator in regime,
your time is up. You need to kind of move on.
We're trying to have negotiations with you. And they're leveraging

(01:16:36):
the collapse of the electric grid the protests that are
kinding to show up to see if we can start
seeing a change in the littalization of the communist country
in the Caribbean.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
You know, so that it's being reported any of today
that they call him the figurehead president of Cuba, Miguel
Diaz a Canal. He is talking pretty tough. He's saying
a saber. He's saying that any external aggressor of the
Cuban regime they will be met with unbreakable resistance. Is

(01:17:07):
this bad dad, Bob we're listening to right now, Stefano?
Or do they get Do they have a little more
swat than we thought they did?

Speaker 7 (01:17:14):
You know, I'm old enough even though he's young, to
remember the famous quotes back that Bob, But yes, exactly.
I mean the irony is I would say, is he
made that account on x formerly known as Twitter. Now,
guess who does not have access to X? You know
the obviously right, So it's very interesting that he's using
this and again it is geared towards why did he

(01:17:36):
release this specifically also on access because this is clearly
geared towards the international community and specifically to the United States.
You know, Midias Canell, you know he he he is
the president of Cuba, and I would even say, like
he does have a lot of control obviously, Raul Castro,
who is ninety four. He you know, he resigned. He's
no longer the president. He's a very old age, but

(01:17:58):
he still has obviously that Castro. But right now a
lot of the power is held with Na the reporting
that from the Trump administration saying he has to go,
and I think the comparison not from a military operation perspective,
but just how I think the Trump administration is trying
to move forward with kind of changing the leadership instead

(01:18:18):
of Cuba, as they're using the Venezuela model right but
instead of right now, as we're not really seeing a
build up of military forces in the Caribbean or anything
like that. Obviously the focus is in Iran, but they're
leveraging this oil embargo that is being enforced by the
US Navy and the Coke Guard. It's important to note
they're leveraging that crisis to basically tell, you know, Gan,

(01:18:40):
you don't have a choice. It's time for you to go.
What is very interesting is since last year, around the
fall and even winter of twenty twenty five, they're reporting
that Secretary of State Mark Ruby and others within the
Trumpet administration are actually taking an interest within one of
the you know, the family members of the cash specific
one of the grandsons and saying, okay, this way that

(01:19:01):
can we can work with in this idea of liberalization
or democratization of Cuba. And I think that's the Venezuela example.
And I'll be honest, if you would have told me,
you know, four months ago, five months ago that a
very of a partner the US could work, which would
have been del p Rodriguez, who was the vice president,

(01:19:22):
who is a Chavista through and through that she would
have been a reliable partner of the United States, I
wouldn't have believed it worked. And it clearly shows that
the administration took its time to figure out within the
constructs of the Venezuelan power structure, who do they want
to pick that we believe can work with the most.
And we've got a lot of interest in reporting subsequently

(01:19:44):
that indicated that a lot of elements of CIA and
assets in human sources that we had pointed to del
Pier Rodriguez. And I think that's what the administration is
trying to figure it out now, or maybe they already
have figured this out and said clearly it's not me, Mige,
They've already said, he needs to go. He came out
recently that A will allow you know, foreigners and Cuban
expats and maybe purchase property inside of Cuba, this liberalization.

(01:20:05):
But clearly the administration, Howardy said, and Marco Ruby are
basically para paraphrase, this too little, too late, and you
need to go. And I think that's what we're seeing.

Speaker 13 (01:20:15):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (01:20:15):
So Ganela is obviously gonna do this bad dog Bob,
as you said, very tough rhetoric. But to be frank,
Cuba has nothing really to hold against the United States.
At least Venezuela had the oil. Cuba has nothing. They're
isolated internationally. The Russians are going to save them. The Chinese,
who even have spy bases inside of Cuba, they love
to release the press statements, but they're not going to

(01:20:35):
come and save Cuba. So Gana is on his own
right now.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
Yeah, it's the funnel final question for you. Can we
get the transition or the change that you know, the
Trump administration wants in Cuba without dropping a bomb or
firing a bullet? Can we do that?

Speaker 7 (01:20:50):
I mean, it is possible, and I think again it
is important to note that this oil embargo is being
enforced by the US military. I think it is possible,
and I think that's what the administration is looking at.
And obviously right now there's a lot of focus inside
of Iran. But even if there was a necessity to
do military operations right now, it doesn't seem likely that

(01:21:13):
that's what's going on because we're doing a lot. It
probably wouldn't take a lot of military force, and a
lot of it is you know, we have the US
Tuba's right there. From a logistical military standpoint, it's a
significant easier problem said than not only just Iran, but
even in Venezuela, So there's a lot of assets you
can leverage. Obviously, the Cuban military has been hollowed out
for decades of corruption and mismanagement, So if it's a requirement,

(01:21:33):
it wouldn't be something we're seeing like we saw we're
seeing right now in Iran. But right now we're not
seeing that. And I think the economic and energy crisis
is so significant that you'll probably see protests pick up,
and that's going to put a lot of strain and
challenges to kind of specifically.

Speaker 1 (01:21:48):
Good interview Greg He's it was a sharp guy and
really gave us some insight into Cuba, didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:21:53):
He He sure did. I like to be bullish about
that as well. I like to see that. I think
that that country's wants a jewel and successful and profitable
and prosperous people. They've been through very, very hard times.
It's exciting to think that there's an opportunity for the
people to thrive once again.

Speaker 1 (01:22:09):
And prosper Now the segment of our Listen Back Friday
presentation coming your way next right here on Utah's Talk
rightio one oh five nine. Can us what's happening in Wyoming?

Speaker 8 (01:22:18):
Now?

Speaker 1 (01:22:18):
Wyoming bears all the hallmarks of a red state, very
similar to Utah, but some changes are taking place where
apparently greg has become ground zero for Rhinos in their
war against conservatives. We've been watching this closely over the
last year or two, and we are surprised by what's
going on there? Are we?

Speaker 2 (01:22:35):
No It sounds like you could take the word Wyoming,
the state Wyoming, and put Utah in a lot of
these stories. They sound kind of similar. What's going on?
I'm sure, dude, there seems to be a pattern.

Speaker 4 (01:22:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
Well, we had a chance to talk with Sean Fleetwood.
He is a staff writer of The Federalist. He's been
looking into Wyoming and what he sees going on, And
as we began our conversation with Sean, we asked him
exactly to explain what is going on in Wyoming right now.

Speaker 14 (01:22:59):
Yes, of a state like Wyoming, right you think it
is this super red state. It went for Donald Trump
over forty points in the last two presidential elections. It's
dominated by Republicans top to bottom. And yet when you
look at the legislature and a lot of these so
called Republicans in elected office, you realize that the state
of Wyoming not unlike many red states in America. It's

(01:23:21):
sort of a mirage. You look at some of these
actions that they've been taking in the legislature, particularly these
past few years, and it's not exactly reflective of the
conservative will of their voters. So the way that it
works in Wyoming is they have an odd numbered years
a traditional legislative session where you can introduce normal bills
and on various topics and things like that. But in

(01:23:43):
even numbered years they have budget related sessions, and so
in budget related sessions, it takes two thirds majority to
introduce any non budget related legislation. Into the session for
it to be considered, and you think, oh, well, Wyoming,
they only have like six Democrats in the House, two
Democrats and the Senate must be super easy for Republicans
to get these priorities through. But that's not exactly the case.

(01:24:06):
So this most recent budget session, you had roughly half
a dozen election integrity bills that would have done things
like prohibit ballot drop boxes, which became popular in the
twenty twenty election, restricted ballot harvesting, widely supported policies among conservatives.
These bills died because you had a cabal of House
Republicans that sided with the Democrats and deciding to vote

(01:24:29):
against their introduction, and so those bills ultimately weren't considered.
So what's going on in Wyoming, I think, is a
microcosm of what's playing out in so called red states
across America, where so called Republicans repeat the talking points
that we want to hear, but when it comes to
actually fulfilling the pledges that they made on the campaign trail,
they're not following through with that.

Speaker 2 (01:24:50):
As Sean, we have had our general session in the
state of Utah is just concluded, and we have super
majorities in the House and Senate and a Republican governor.
Kind of the discree that you shared about Wyoming. It's
a political profile. We had. The same thing happened. We
saw bills go to the Senate that would have improved
a chain of custody for election ballots, would have just

(01:25:12):
channa custody as well as transparency. Those bills died. For
the most part. What we found, what we observed is
it wasn't the Democrats had a stronger sway on the
Republicans and our legislative body. It was that the county
clerks didn't really want to go to the trouble of
some of the things that you listed in Wyoming, the
people that would be manning the boxes or the paper

(01:25:33):
ballots or the hand counting auditing of ballots. There seems
to be a bureaucratic pushback that's almost just bureaucratic without
regard to political persuasion. Do you see that as a
trend outside of Utah in a state like Wyoming. Are
people that are Democrats just running as Republicans in Wyoming?

Speaker 14 (01:25:54):
So I think it's a combination of both. You mentioned
the kind of bureaucracy aspect of it. I think that
that's really key, because you know, when we talk about
the swamp, it's not just you know, the elected officials,
it's all of these other various institutions that kind of
co mingle into this giant blob of corruption and impropriety.
And I think in Wyoming that's very evident. One of

(01:26:17):
the things that I reported in the article is this
meeting that took place earlier this year that was hosted
by the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association, and the host of
that meeting, at one point he had kind of offered
praise and you know, said basically, we're thinking of our
friends in Minnesota, you know, kind of referencing the anti
ice demonstrations going on there. And he also noted at

(01:26:40):
one point the deadline by which voters in Wyoming can
change their party affiliation. And the reason that that's so
important kind of tying it back into the elected official
aspect of it, is that in recent years, what you've
seen in Wyoming is this effort among kind of the
GOP Rhino establishment to encourage more Democrats, left wing independence

(01:27:02):
to vote in the GOP primaries because in so called
reds basically to back establishment candidates because in states like
Wyoming that are super red, super Republican. The primary basically
acts as the general election, right Like, you have a
Democrat and Republican running in a super conservative district, you
basically know, barring some major scandal or anything, that the

(01:27:24):
Republican's going to win. So the primary is extremely important.
And so ultimately the legislature passed a law in twenty
twenty three restricting this so called crossover voting, saying that
you have to change your party affiliation months before the
primary can take place. That came after Liz Cheney reportedly
encouraged Democrats to vote for her. Didn't really work out,

(01:27:46):
but that's kind of what you're seeing now in Wyoming
as you see some of these establishment GOP legislators and
officials within the bureaucracy kinding of, you know, giving a
wink wink and a nod nod, saying, hey, Democrats and independence,
if you want to vote in the primaries this, you're
going to have to change your party affiliation by May.
And so that's what's going on here in Wyoming, and
I have no doubt that it's probably happening in other

(01:28:07):
red states across America.

Speaker 1 (01:28:08):
Sean, let me ask you, we know, a lot of
this cannot happen. These Rhinos cannot make this all happen
without party leadership, or at least leadership in both their
House and the Senate. Where did the leaders of the
party in the Senate and House stand on some of
the issues. They must be encouraging it or at least
supporting it. On the Rhinos who are trying to make
some changes for saying no to conservatives, are they right?

Speaker 14 (01:28:30):
So that's what's really interesting about Wyoming is that in
twenty twenty four, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus secured a majority
in the state House. So the House is actually pretty
good in terms of getting legislation through and making conservative
priorities a priority, and the Senate is presenting itself to
be more of the problem. And the reason that's interesting

(01:28:52):
is because you go back a few years and the
reverse was true. Before the Freedom Caucus had a governing
majority in the.

Speaker 1 (01:28:58):
House, the House was the problem and.

Speaker 14 (01:29:00):
The Senate was seen as the better of the two.
But now that the Freedom Caucus has gotten a majority,
the establishment in the Senate is really rearing its ugly head.
But I think that that shows that what you have
to have is political will and political capital that you
have to have that sort of leadership that is driving
this agenda forward. So it's happening in the House thanks
to the Freedom Caucus. It's happening in places like Florida

(01:29:23):
because you have a governor like Desantists who is pushing
those policies. But when you don't have that leadership, when
you don't have that unifying force that is driving conservative principles,
then the establishment is allowed to flounder. And that's what
you're seeing in the Wyoming Senate, and that's what you're
seeing in some of these other red states as well.

Speaker 1 (01:29:39):
On our Newsmaker Line or listen back Friday Line, Sean
Fleetwood from the Federalist talking about Wyoming becoming ground zero
for a flight between the Rhinos and Conservatives in that
state right next to us, Greg, Safe travels, you're on
your way back tomorrow. Safe travels to you.

Speaker 2 (01:29:54):
Yes, thank you, sir, look forward to be back back
in the saddle, back in the studio and you know,
as you're man.

Speaker 1 (01:30:00):
It'll be good. It's been a great week. Thanks everybody
for listening. As we say each and every night, head up,
shoulders back. May God bless you and your family. This
great community in which we live in this great country.
Have a safe, fun weekend. Greg and I will be
back on Monday at four. Have a good weekend.

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