The Rod and Greg Show: Congressman Blake Moore on Trump Savings Accounts; Big Tax Refunds in 2026

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
No, sorry, Friday. It always happens that way, it does.
I mean every time it's Thursday. If you have Thursday,
the next time is Friday.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
You turn around there and Friday is the next you
starn right at Friday after you've wow, well.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Well how are you? Everybody? Welcome to the Rod and
Greg Show with you on this Friday afternoon here on
Utah's Talk Radio one oh five nine can or s
live everywhere of course on the iHeartRadio up. We encourage
you to download that. Today. I'm Rod our kit, I'm
citizen Greg Hughes Gray Show lined up for you today,
as we do each and every day, we'll be talking
shortly with Congressman Blake Moore. If you have a new baby,

(00:34):
what is it is sometime next year, I think is
when it kicks in that child will automatically have a
four oh one k Yep, it's a thousand and bad.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Not bad, but there is such a great story to
it and I and I think we end this discussion
with the congressman. First off, I love this is this
actually is something versus social Security that is kind of
a Ponzi scheme, and anyone that's young has to know
it's not gonna be around when it's there when they're
up the bat although they're paying into it, sadly. But
this this is something that if it does have the

(01:03):
philanthropic participation as well as the government for kids, they're
going to watch this thing grow. It's just it's going
to connect them to their futures in a way that
so Security certainly doesn't. It's social Security tells you the opposite.
There's nothing, there's no future. This program has no future.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
It's done.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
But these these Trump accounts, this is this is I
think an exciting program.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Our own Congressman Blake Moore played a role in that.
We'll talk to him here in a few minutes. A
little bit later on, Grover nor Quist will join us.
Always right, having Grover on this show, a lot of
people are talking about, you know, the economy. Some people
are saying, you know, the whole affordability issue, inflation, people
are dealing with that.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
A lot of people are saying, wait till they BBB
the big beautiful bill kicks in next year, and you
will see a difference. We'll find out why with Grover
a little bit later on. You know, toys used to
be so simple. This is scary, But this is scary.
Now you have toys that are being sold during the
holiday season with AI and they can talk to the kids,

(02:02):
and the kids can ask them wild questions and the
toy will answer and they become a friend to the child.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
We call those horror movies. We call that chucky. We
call that is there's nothing good about that. And what
happened to imagination? I mean, I thought toys are supposed
to spark the imagination. Remember, used to play, you know,
used to pay cowboys and Indians and used to you know,
used to play different things and used to make believe.
And this thing's gonna talk. There's not gonna be a
make believe. It's gonna act like it's an ascension being

(02:31):
it's it's terrible. I can't I worry about this.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Oh, We've got a lot to get to today, and
we invite you to be a part of the show.
Of course, we love talking to you each and every day.
You can do so by downloading the iHeartRadio app and
make sure you look for KNRS and you'll see a
place where you can leave. It's a coming on our
talk back line. You can give us a call Triple
eight five seven O eight zero one zero, or on
your cell phone, just spiled a dial pound two fifty
and say hey Rod, now all right, Christmas? Can you

(02:56):
believe Christmas? What twenty days away? Right? Today's the fifth
twenty days away.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
I have no idea.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
I have him shocked.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
I have not.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Well, we have another gift, Conservatives in this country, Republicans
in this country, I think greg have another gift being
handed to us if we take advantage of it. Do
you know what that gift is? What Minnesota?

Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Well, I mean if you think about it, the fraud
in Minnesota, there's no doubt this is probably the largest
welfare fraud case we've ever had in US history. What
do we think of it's one billion? Now they're saying
eight billion dollars.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Maybe it's it is, it's it's pretty disturbing, and it's
uh and again it has all the liberal leftist elements,
it has identity politics, it has it. I mean, it's
it's fraud. And if you dare, if you even ask
them and try and said, look, we don't think autism
in your Somalia Autism center has gone up seven hundred percent,

(03:52):
these children, it hasn't gone up that much. Well, then
you were a racist if you were to even question it. Yes,
And they just let them take money from the public
till as if it was their own personal They're Robin
Bank again. And if you rank robbers don't make this
much money.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, And if you raise questions like had said, you
were accused of being a racist. And the thing is,
I think most Americans. You asked most Americans, common sense,
fair minded Americans about the welfare state in this country,
and I bet nine out of ten would say it's
out of control. This is a classic example. This is
why you think the Democrats Minnesota, the welfare supporters have

(04:28):
handed Republicans a gift coming into the election and just say,
I would talk about welfare reform, control, whatever you want
to call it, greg because there's an opportunity sitting there.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
I think, was it twenty one states refused to give
information on their food stamps. Yeah, well, I think that
you're going to find California, You're going to find all
this kind of fraud throughout this country, these blue states
that don't want to hand over any information about how
those federal funds are spent. In the case of Minnesota,
these this was an internal whistleblower. This was the state employees,
Minnesota state employees who'd had enough. And they're not card

(04:58):
carrying Republicans the way, They're just state employees who's tasked
with a job of making sure fraud, waste, and abuse
don't occur. And they kept getting dismissed, down, shut downs, reassigned,
and finally, finally the dam broke in the New York Times,
all of all publications actually covered it, and it's gone
like wildfire ever since. And there's some major major consequences

(05:20):
coming Minnesota's way, which should feel pretty daunting.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, yeah, well, here's it coming from doctor Memot Oz, right, yes,
who is saying, hey, folks, you know it's right now,
We've got some plans for you.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
See. He runs CMS, which is the Medicaid program, which
is billions and billions of billions of dollars. This is
what Oz, the administrator of that program, is saying to
the country, but specifically to Minnesota's.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
It's true a Somali fraud ring in Minnesota stole over
a billion dollars from medicaid.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
How did this happen?

Speaker 4 (05:49):
Well, Medicaid programs are run by the states, which in
Minnesota means the Tim Walls administration. Governor Walls and the
states other Democrats rely on Somali votes to get elected,
so they decided to look the other way because they
were afraid of quote unquote political backlash. Don't take my
word for it. That's what a Somali American fraud investigator

(06:10):
told New York Times. When these scammers realized that nobody
was guarding the cash register, they went gangbusters.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
And they did. They went gangbusters, possibly to the tune
of eight billion dollars. And that's why I'm saying, Greg,
you know, I hope Republicans siege this and say, look here,
you have a welfare program no oversight whatsoever. And what
we need is welfare reform and stricter accountability. And that
should be a message going out to all Americans, and

(06:38):
we as a Republican party will take that under and
make sure it remain gets under control.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
Again.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, the playbook is it's the same playbook that the
Somalians used to be able to preserve their heist, their
robbing of the public treasury. Governor Walls has said that
how dare President Trump be so racists to attack all
Somalian refugees for this and they have been playing there,
just playing that race card as much as humanly possible

(07:03):
to deflect from the rampant and really obscene abuse and
fraud that's gone on in that state. And I'll tell
you what there is. There has got to be criminal
culpability at some level. You're even seeing that. It's it
goes deeper than just the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services.
This is going into all other kinds of federal funds
as well, and I think it even finds its way

(07:25):
into who Omar what's her name? You know, she set
up federal programs to help which amazingly Somali's were able
to access it into fraud as well.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah, pretty amazing. All right, when we come back, we'll
talk about the Trump accounts, what this means for America's future,
coming up right here. On the Friday edition of The
Rod and Greg Show and Talk Radio one O five
nine k NRS. One of the big news stories of
the week was the announcement by Michael Dell, the computer guy,
contributing six point two five billion, that is with a

(07:55):
B folks, to the Trust account. Now, this account is
some are I guess you would call very similar to
a four oh one k right and investment. But for babies. Yeah,
so you're born, you have a four to one k.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
It's a they're called the Trump Accounts. They're going to
start I think in our Bison what not a Bison
two hundred and fifty year anniversary. I think this is
when it gets. This kicks off and it's I think
it's it's it's smart. But we're going to talk to
Congressman Blake Moore because he was part of helping put
this together and I think it's a wicked smart plan.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, he's joining us right now. We're in our newsmaker line. Congressman,
thanks for joining us. What about this plan and what
do you like most about this?

Speaker 3 (08:32):
You know, at the at the crux of it, it's
not about having one thousand dollars in an account when
you're born. It's not about the you know, you know,
reaching certain different you know, broad swaths of our community.
What it is it's about every kid is now going
to have an opportunity to learn the value of compounding
interest as well as they have ownership in the American dream,

(08:53):
and they're going to be engaged in the success of
our overall economy and they're gonna they're going to be automatically.
You know, they're going to have an opportunity to be
enrolled in it from the day they're they're zero. And
if you think about it, when do we typically start
saving in an IRA, be it a four oh one
K or a traditional or rough IRA, it's about thirty

(09:16):
years old. And now you're going to get thirty extra
years of kids, grandparents, parents, philanthropies, employers are going to
be able to start directly contributing to individuals, you know,
overall economic success at the age of zero. And that's
a new shift We've got. We've got five twenty nine

(09:38):
plans which are awesome, and those are going to continue
on in tandem with these type of Investor America or
Trump accounts. And this is just going to create this
ability for kids to start thirty years earlier. And how
the head start on in that compound interest.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
You know, there's a timeframe here. And I love the
combination of philanthropic work. You know that you the government
or President Trump getting involved your work. But there's a
certain number of years where children born would receive this fund.
But is it just for that or is that the
kickstart and we're supposed to see the potential here and

(10:15):
hopefully see more charitable contributions as well as the management
of this go even further than say, what year does
it supposed to end? Starts in twenty six and goes
to a certain year, but does it do you imagine
this would go further than that, Congressman?

Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yeah, two things, you're exactly right. Two things here For
the next four years, starting at the start of this
past year, so twenty twenty five through twenty twenty eight,
every child born with a US citizen with a Social
Security card is going to be seated with one thousand
dollars in their in West America account Trump accountant.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
There was an there was an element that we were
really worried about.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
When creating this legislation was doesn't inherent unfairness for a
three year old and for a seven year old and
they're not that far off, And how do you all
a sudden just start something that is so crazy different
than anything we've really ever done before. And that's where
we said, we have confidence that the philanthropic world is
going to step in, and what this investment announcement from

(11:16):
the Dell family does is prove that and it's only
and it's supposed to then now trickle to many other
employers philanthropists that are going to start to see there's
value in investing in this. They are going to say, hey,
look for the next four years, a bunch of kids
are going to get an awesome account, an opportunity. But
for those kids that are two years old up to ten,

(11:37):
Michael and Susan Dale said, we want to start an
account for them and feed it with over six and
a half close to six and a half billion dollars
of investment for twenty five million kids that are born
in areas where the median income at one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars or less. The whole effort here is
to reduce the income go out. Now, that amount of

(11:59):
money for each individual kid is not going to solve
the income gap. What it's going to do is it's
going to give them hope and a chance to engage
in this. And so that's how it's going to and
we think it's going to grow to more philanthropy more more.
Employers are always looking for retention aspects. Now they can
contribute up to twenty five hundred dollars to a child's
investment and employees and a child's investment account, and at

(12:20):
the same time they get a bit of a tax benefit,
and all of a sudden, it's creating loyalty within an
organization too. So there's all sorts of good externalities that
are going to come from this that build upon this
small investment that the central government is going to do,
and it's going to ignite, hopefully a firestorm of really
positive energy throughout the entire economy.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Congressman more, how did this whole idea get started? I mean,
I know you were involved in the early aspects of this,
but who came up with this idea? How did they
get started?

Speaker 5 (12:51):
Formally?

Speaker 3 (12:52):
About twenty twenty one, an individual named Brad Gertzner, he
runs Altimeter Capital in Silicon Valley, was sitting with his kids.
It's a really amazing story. He was sitting with his
kids and his debt said, Hey, there's a lot of
kids that don't get a unique opportunities like you know
I have. And he's like, there is so many missed
opportunities for young children to not be able to have

(13:13):
a stake in the game. And he himself was like
making sure his boys understood, you know, how to make
an investment, even at an early age. And then he starts.
Then he created what what's called the invest America Initiative,
and he started to get a CEO count a CEO council,
big tech firms, big business, large business owners across the

(13:36):
country and started to get momentum and I and then
in tandem in Congress, there was a lot of bipartisan
effort to say, hey, we're spending so much money.

Speaker 6 (13:46):
I mean, think about it. We spend one point.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Two trillion dollars on Social Security and it gets gets
burned up immediately. There's no like an investment value. We
missed that opportunity when when President George W. Bush was
steyning by Democrats to like, embrace investing in accounts that
could actually help during your retirement years. President Bush wanted
to do it. Democrats are blocked it and didn't see

(14:10):
the long term value in it. And now there is
a good bipartisan effort on these types of accounts to
start them for children and have them compound grow over time.
And it all culminated with this Reconciliation bill in the summer,
and it was like, hey, what's the vehicle to get
it done? This is really good idea. It's been largely
by partisan making. Senator Corey Booker, the Senator from the

(14:32):
northeast Democrat, He's been a big supporter of this type
of stuff too, So it's already been brewing. It just
needed to have some catalyst, and that's what happened this summer.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
You know, I'm so glad to hear Senator Booker, who
I don't see seeing this. Our worldviews very similar, very often.
I'm glad to hear this by Parson and support because
one of the mediate reflexes from the Democrats is to
complain about anything that has Trump's name on it. One
of the complaints is, while this sounds like a great idea,
and those kids that get the thousand dollars as it

(15:03):
compounds over time will have some benefit, it's really designed
for kids whose parents are better off, whose employers could
donate to it and could create create And I can't
even say it with a straight face, but a greater
disparity between those of higher incomes and how much their
money will compound versus those that don't have those circumstances
and how little their money will compound. What would you

(15:26):
say to someone who took this great idea and saw
it as a less than the glass half full.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
Oh yeah, and there's plenty of that that's out there,
And I would say, well, a, if you kept things
the status quo, it's only worse that wouldn't have there
would be even less of an opportunity to grow. The
way I look at it was articulated in a really
neat post that someone did in response to something Michael
Dell had put out there, is that it's not about

(15:54):
the two hundred and fifty dollars that this will start
when that kid is three years old. It's about the
fact that he's going to now have something to engage in.
These kids that are born in u you know, just
really just disadvantaged neighborhood or low income there. They don't
even know what an investment opportunity is. I still remember
going to Mount aug Middle School and getting my first

(16:15):
checkbook in a mock economics class. I still think back
to that day that I was like going through my
checkbook and learning how.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
To write something.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
These kids grasp these concepts, and when you get the
chance to like have something that they own, they're going
to be able to It'll be an app that they
can look at and say, hey, that's my account. I
can't touch it and I'm not allowed to do anything
with it for twenty more years. But like this is mine,
and I'm seeing Apple and I'm seeing some google Stock,
and oh this is kind of cool, like in Nvidio,

(16:43):
like all these big the s and p is going
to become a part of their life.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Congressman Blake Moore joining us on our Newsmaker line. Thank you, Congressman,
talking about the Trump accounts. Remember you when you as
a kid, you started making money, and it just was
you got excited, you worked hard, and you got paid
for it. I was fortunate my dad owned businesses, so
I could. I just had to work for him. You
had all kinds of great jobs I did.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
I was a bellhop, I was a halley at a
Tambolini's Italian restaurant. But I was in a cash game.
I didn't have any compounding interest. I was just all
in the cash.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Save here, and unfortunately we probably spent them.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, guess was like eighty five cents a gallon. I
say that's true, man. I could get anywhere with good
Night's Tips.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
It is the Friday Night Edition, Friday Afternoon edition of
The Rotten Greg Show right here on Utah's Talk Radio
one oh five nine kN R S.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Things are going to get better. Things are getting better.
I still will not tell Queen be my wife when
she's complaining about the groceries, that she's crazy and that
all my friends say that everything is affordable and she
hasn't know what she's talking about. However, I think our
next guest is going to help us see some even
brighter size. Guys.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
Well, a lot of people have been saying, great, you know,
wait till the tax cuts kick in. It won't be
till the first of January, but when they do, you
will see a difference. Let's find out what kind of
a difference we're looking at. Drove joining us on our
newsmaker Lions Grover Norquist, founder Americans for Tax Reform. Always
great to have Grover on the show. Grover, what do
you make of this? Should people be ready for those

(18:10):
tax cuts coming in twenty twenty six?

Speaker 7 (18:14):
They should.

Speaker 6 (18:14):
It's not just the tax cuts of twenty twenty six,
it's the tax cuts of this year that many people
may not have taken into account. The bill, the legislation,
the Big Beautiful Bill didn't pass until July, and so
a lot of people thought that the tax cuts in
that bill would start in July. That makes some sense,

(18:36):
but the Republicans, wanting to make sure that people would
continue to invest and engage in economic activity, don't wait
until a pass the past bill. Here's what the tax
bill is going to look like, and that includes things
like no tax on tips up the twenty five thousand
dollars of tax of tip income is tax free, not

(18:58):
just since the bill passed, but during the entirety of
this last year. Many people have not made changed how
they pay their taxes each several weeks or once a
month through every quarters to take an effect that taxes
are lower than There's the per child tax credit which increased,

(19:19):
the individual deduction which increased, and a whole series of
small business tax cuts as well that started in January,
but the bill only passed six months later. So people
are paying more this year than they owed because they're
assuming they saw whatt on the old tax cut and

(19:43):
they will see a much bigger refund and than the
normal tax cuts moving forward and made permanent this next
year and every year into the future. Permanent, not temporary
tax cuts, permanent.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
And it's so worse to supply siders. We know that
it's not what politicians put by way of numbers on
budgets or anything like that. It's really what the money
that people have, and they're what they can spend and
when they do and they ignite an economy, people make money,
they pay taxes so grover When when people when will
when do you see people start seeing these refunds coming in?
What's when do you think that this narrative the Democrats

(20:21):
will never admit it? But when do you think people
will feel even these these brighter or better prospects with
the tax returns.

Speaker 6 (20:31):
I think people will see it increasingly all this next year.
One of the reasons is the fast the expensing small
businesses big businesses UH for the last year could expense
new investment. If they bought a new computer to make
you more productive at work, if they bought a better
trust to make you your small company more productive, all

(20:54):
of the things that make people more productive, which is
what allows higher pay more people create more wealth and
can get paid more and demand more in wages or
somebody else will hire them at a higher wage, and
that in a month's amount of investment, we hear about

(21:15):
some of it in big news about other countries investing
in the United States, but a lot of just American companies, small, big, large,
and neighborhood companies that are investing a lot more because
there were tax touts for small businesses in particular, fasted
appreciation for everybody expensing so immediately when they invest in

(21:36):
a new computer, a new typewriter, whatever it is that
makes you more productive at work, that is expensed immediately.
And so you're seeing a great deal for billions of dollars,
hundreds of billions of dollars being invested to make people
more productive. And things are affordable for two reasons, either

(21:56):
the price goes down or it doesn't go up as much. Also,
is going up makes everything more affordable. This last year,
wages have been going up. During the for Biden years,
real wages went down well.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
Well at Grover. Let me ask you this, then, if
we see all this money coming back to the American
people from their tax savings or whatever, in your opinion,
what is this going to mean for the overall US economy?
Are we going to see a real surge in twenty
twenty six Do you feel.

Speaker 6 (22:27):
Yeah, I think you'll see it both from investment and
from people recognizing that they have more money in their pockets.
And there's another tax cut probably coming watch for this.
But the president wanted to do if President Trump wanted
to do this, Republicans wanted to do this back in
twenty nineteen. It got stalled because of the bureaucracy. But

(22:51):
the Treasury Department can through rulemaking and the taxation on inflation.
When you pay capital games right now up until this point,
when you sell your house, you go, oh my goodness,
I've made a lot of money selling my house. Well
after that game are more depending on how long you've

(23:14):
owned your house. Is inflation. You're paying capital games taxes
on inflation for crying out loud, not real game. This
would end that. And to drop your capital games taxes
when you sell your house, of farm land, stocks, a
small business, all of those things tremendous cut in taxes.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
So here's the one thing I saw that was just
consistent during the Biden years is that you had you
guy guys like Thomas Friedman that said, you know, the
economy is doing so well, you're just not smart enough
to appreciate it. So I never want to fall into
some trap where I'm telling people something that's different than
the reality that they're feeling. You're saying that, Grover, You're

(23:54):
saying that people will we won't have to tell them
that the economy is doing well. We won't have to
share statistics from quarterly reports. People's households are going to
feel We're going to see it in our jobs, our
pay increases. So there's going to be And do you
think that comes in time for the midterms in November
of twenty six.

Speaker 6 (24:12):
Yes, And politically, people really need to feel it in
the first six months of the year in order for
it to effect.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
That's what I was wondering.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
Yeah, yeah, and.

Speaker 6 (24:20):
That's going to be awfully important. And while the President
was negotiating with other countries threatening tariffs, those tariffs real
were threatened, or maybe teriffs. Those are disruptive and were
and that is coming to it now where they've settled
things down, they've come to the agreements that some of
the tariffs have been lowered even further. And that gives

(24:42):
you a certainty when companies buy things that will also
make the economy stronger this next year as well.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Grover, As always, we love your insight and your knowledge
of this and we look forward to twenty twenty six.
Thank you, Grover.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Good to do with you guys, right, keep up the
good work.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Grover Nor Chris, founder of Americans for Tech, perform joining
us on the Rod and Greg Show. And it'll be interesting,
you know. Scott Bessett several weeks ago said, look out
for twenty twenty six. It could be a heck of
a year.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, and we need, as we said, we just need
people to know it. They don't have anyone, they need
anyone to tell them.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (25:13):
They just know that things are looking brighter than they
certainly were during the Biden years. And that's Look, that's
a pretty low bar. It better than so I don't
think you have to do much to get past that.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
So all right, mare coming up, It is Rod and
Greg with you on this Friday afternoon right here onto
Utah's talk radio one oh five. Die can arrests. All
I am is going to get abuse from you and
e Ray. You know, maybe I.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Shouldn't even bre after yesterday's gaff. Just be careful, okay,
don't bring me this is a family show. We can't
bring up they cant.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
Don't make that one up. But June thirteenth is going
to be a big year next year. June thirteenth, big.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
Day, June thirteenth.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
Why Taylor and Travis are getting married? So I don't
like Margaret so mister swifty you they've been out broad
to date. I just wanted to share that information. Did
you find out why? I can't tell you why I
do this.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
I've been talking to you for hours now before the
show started. You never you never divulged this information?

Speaker 1 (26:05):
No, because I know I'll be criticized all day.

Speaker 6 (26:09):
We shouldn't have to put up with this kind of stuffy.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Yeah, I'll say, we don't think you right. You are
such a swifty and you. I love how you deny it,
but then you continue to show your true strike.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
I am just informing.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, no, I.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
Yeah, Now, I know there are a lot of dads
out there who could go home tonight and really impress
their teenage daughter by saying, I know when I know
when Taylor's getting married?

Speaker 2 (26:35):
What cares?

Speaker 1 (26:36):
We don't care about? But there are a lot of
young girls out there who.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Literally don't know a single song. She said. I'll bet
if I heard it, I would say, okay, yeah, that's
that's okay. I get it, but I couldn't tell you
off the top of my head a single song she sings,
and I frankly don't want to know.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
Can I be honest? What neither do I?

Speaker 2 (26:52):
Yeah, that's not true, folks. This guy lives.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yes, that's not true.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Apparently em Breeze Taylor Swift.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Carently she owns three homes and they're gonna get married
in the modest the ocean house in Wassatch Hill, Rhode Island.
He sure knows a lot for someone who's not.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
He seems to know a lot someone who says he's
not a Swift yet.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Well, now here's another story I'm going to bring up.

Speaker 8 (27:19):
I know.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
Here's the thing, Rod, most of us who are not
Taylor Swift fans and who don't care about Taylor Swift
see her name in a story and we just skip it.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
We don't even read it because.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
We don't care. You read them all?

Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, what do you have to go to TMZ to
find this?

Speaker 1 (27:32):
You know it was? It was in one of the
sources we look at every day. I don't buy it,
and I do this to show that I'm an informed person.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
I scan the news just like you. I have not
come across this head. Yeah, I haven't.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
You aren't looking at the right one. All right, here's another.
I'm gonna get beat up for this one too, but
I'll bring it up because I know Era is a
big fan of Christmas music.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yes, he is.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
In his car. He's doing it all the time.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
He wears that Santa hat every day.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
All right. Now, the folks have voted on the ten
worst Christmas songs, so Ray would say all of them,
so we know where is going to come a right,
name me one of the songs that you think are
the least liked, least like. Yeah, yeah, definitely right, ten
worst Christmas songs. Pick one of the least. Oh, I
don't know.

Speaker 9 (28:21):
I was.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
I have favorites, but I don't have favorite. Well, Santa
Claus coming town? Do you good for you?

Speaker 10 (28:28):
For you?

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Number one? What is Alvin and the Chipmunks and the
Chipmunk song?

Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah that's true. Oh no, I like Grandma got run
everybody range too.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
Because that's number two. That is the stupidest song.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
And I used to love that song as a kid.
I just I was just really it used to tickle
me that I could sing something like that and get
away with it.

Speaker 10 (28:46):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
That's a kid.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
That's number two.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
I know the lyrics to that.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Song, do you wow? I won't sing it for and
you make fun of me for disseminating Taylor Swift information.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Well, my grandma got ran everybody reindeer walking home on
Christmas Day. You might not believe in Santa, but as
for me and Grandpa, we believe.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, well grandma got run over by a reindeer.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
That's the second.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yeah, that's number two. Wow ship mine song number one?
All right, more coming up. We open up the phones
to you, stay with us.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
I don't know where you want to take this hour
with our listeners, this privy. There's a lot to discuss.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
There is a lot to discuss. That's why we call
it thank Running Greg's Friday, because we open up the
phones to people and let them talk about whatever is
on their mind.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yep, Okay, you don't want you don't want to. You
don't want to throw any you know, any crumbs out there,
and you don't throw.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Well, there are a couple of things. Well one thing
we'll get to bit here and I'll get to it
here in a minute. But I wanted to bring this up,
this whole uh gunboat thing, Are we done with this?

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Democrats?

Speaker 11 (29:50):
Aren't?

Speaker 1 (29:51):
Are we done with the drug boat story?

Speaker 2 (29:53):
I think that. I think all the evidence has been
showed that you can shoot one more than one missile.
You can show that after one there was a job
left to be done, which they did. And if you
don't want to believe it because you're a Democrat and
you actually buy pure coincidence, hate everything that Trump and
his administration do, ever, then you're going to complain about it,
and you're going to take the side of, you know,

(30:14):
narco terraces. You're going to take the side of Somali fraudsters.
You're going to take the side of the Maryland man
who gets to you know, human traffic and drug traffic,
you know, people and drugs into the country. You're going
to take the side of I don't know, homicide, people
killing in Chicago. You know, they're they're people worth protecting,
all the all the war zone homicides going to Chicago.

(30:35):
Democrats are gonna protect that too. Yeah, so yeah, I
think they're not done.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
Well, well, let me tell you what I mean. Mitch Bradley,
the admiral from the Navy, went behind closed doors and
gave some very interesting testimony yesterday basically saying no, hag
Seth did not order a second strug, did never said
kill them all. He never said that explained what happened
out there. Yet the media is to well, that's not
the real story. They're just hiding this. Right. Well, before

(31:03):
we get into that, I want to take you back
to nineteen eighty nine. Just be the year that George
made his first full year in office, right, And I
think you and I talked about this yesterday a little bit.
This is then Joe Biden, Senator Joe Biden, remember young
Joe talking about the war on drugs and where he
agreed with Bush a little bit but disagreed on issues.

(31:25):
Listen to this and listen to a term that he uses.

Speaker 12 (31:28):
We think we should go one step further. Let's go
after the drug lords where they live with an international
strike force. There must be no safe haven for these
narco terrorists and they must know it. We have to
lock up the dealers for a long long time, and
we have to attack the source from which the drugs come.

(31:51):
And we have to do that not a piece of
a time, but all at once, and we have to
do it now. And there's not any reason why we
can't do that. We have the power, we have the money,
and we have the knowledge.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Did I hear you use the term narco terrorists in there?

Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yeah, today's Democrat says that's a that's a fictitious term, that.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
Doesn't no such thing exists.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
I don't even think did you hear any Republicans saying
to Biden, Senator Biden back then, what did you mean?
Why did you make up such a term? Are different parties?
How did they not argue over the you know, the
vernacular like they do today now? I think that it's
it's amazing to me how Democrats want to go all
in in the Ukraine war against Russia. And I'm not

(32:37):
I'm not here to debate that war, but I'm going
to say everybody, I don't know a Democrat doesn't want
to go all in there and doesn't want to go
But you're talking about this disruption and this the fentanyl,
that all the drugs that are coming in, but the
sponsorship from China and I ran that Venezuela has that
used to be one of the wealthiest countries in the world,
that now is just a disaster. You've got Hamas down,

(32:57):
You've got so many enemies of the United States, and
you see them funneling this poison into our onto our
shores in our hemisphere, and in our own hemisphere. This
is where the Democrats say, this is a bridge too far.
We can go fight overseas, we can fight around the world,
it can be all all that can happen, But in
our own hemisphere, the victims are now the terrorists Americans. Well,

(33:20):
the victims are the Americans. The bad are The victims
are the terrorists, and we are the bad guys. But
wanting are this threat in our own hemisphere to be stopped?

Speaker 1 (33:29):
Well, most Americans are looking at this whole gunboat, at
this drug boat story, and just shaking their heads, said,
why are you on Earth defending these drug guys? Right? Well,
listen to this panelist on CNN last night, because I
think he hit it spot on, and this is what
most Americans are thinking.

Speaker 13 (33:44):
I don't care, not one bit, genuinely, and holy do
not care about these two men in the boat. We're
talking about two people.

Speaker 6 (33:51):
Who were clinging to life.

Speaker 13 (33:52):
How about the thousands of Americans every month that are
on the floor in some bathroom clinging to life because
of overdoses from drugs that.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
These people brought.

Speaker 5 (34:01):
These guys are not good guys.

Speaker 13 (34:02):
But this this basically follows the typical democratic fact pattern.
It starts with a fake news story about Pete Pechsth
that gets disproven.

Speaker 6 (34:09):
But he didn't.

Speaker 13 (34:10):
He didn't actually order them to kill everyone.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
That that's been sort of taken back.

Speaker 13 (34:14):
And then it goes into the part where Democrats defend
the bad guys at the expense of law enforcement and
now the American military. This is kind of standard democratic operations.
And if you ask me, I give more of a
crap about the Americans who are losing their life every
single year to drug overdose than two jerks floating on
a boat trying to flip it back over or whatever.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
It doesn't matter. Boy, is he spot on it with that.
And I think Greg that as was to what most
Americans feel. Yes, who cares about these things?

Speaker 2 (34:39):
This Afghany that they killed one National Guard member and
is you know, wounded the other who's fighting for their
for his life. It took him two days to make
the Afghani asylum seeker, the guy that they committed this,
you know, these these murder and this shooting. The victim. Yeah,
they're calling him the victim. Yeah, he's the victim. Now
they this psycho is now the victim. It's it is

(35:03):
unbelievable to me. This is why every time I hear,
well the midterms the Republicans are very be careful compared
to what the look at the measurables that are going
on right now, compared to the Biden years. Listen to
who the Democrats nationally are defending and fighting four and
on behalf of it. It's not everyday Americans tell me
how in the world whatever is going on with the

(35:24):
Republicans or with the Trump administration. You would want to
go to that to what the Democrats are saying. They
still can't define a woman. No, they still can't tell
you what a woman is.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
Yeah, well, this is the thing. We'll talk about this.
I want to get to our calls though, Kurt Schlickter
and I'll break this down. You know we have Kurt
on the show all the time. He's a really good guy. Yes,
I wrote a terrific article today about the Democrats. Why
they always take sides against normal people like you and I. Yeah,
why is it? On almost every issue that you can
think of, Greg, they always take the side of those

(35:57):
from different from normal people.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Against the normies, against their more normies than there are
leftist elitists. So I don't the mass shouldn't work out
for them in elections.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
All right, let's go to the phones. They're open to
you right now eight eight eight five seven eight zero
one zero on your cell phone, dial pound two fifty
or leave us a message on our talk back line.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Let's go to Bradley and Clearfield. Bradley, thank you for holding.
Welcome to the Rotting and Greg show.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
Thank you.

Speaker 5 (36:21):
I voted for Trump three times. But the argument about
a single bullet or a single missile is a straw man.
No one's saying you're only allowed to shoot one bullet
or one missile, thank you. You're saying after the boat
was disabled, they are POW's. Even George Patten said killers
of POWs should be put on trial and Trump pardoned.
They have to earn president in traffic four hundred tons
of cocaine into the country. So this isn't about stopping

(36:42):
drug dealing.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
So you're saying we shouldn't take have taken the second shot.
Is that what you're saying, Bradley, it was.

Speaker 5 (36:48):
Wrong if the boat was disabled, if they were waving
their arms, you know, insturrender, as testimony from Congressman currently
indicates based on their viewing of the video. Then yes,
at that, Oh, I thought.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
You were saying that. I thought you were saying that
there isn't one missile rule that that that you can
shoot twice. You're you're saying that you think that they
should have scooped them up and brought them somewhere. I
don't think. I don't know. You're hearing conflicting reports. It
was a behind closed doors discussion, but some were saying
they were calling their people to let them know they

(37:21):
were trying to preserve their drugs, they were trying to
keep that whatever they had going, and that they were
not surrendering. So I think there's some different.

Speaker 5 (37:29):
But I still doesn't Mary killing.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
We used to have the Coast Guard, But don't you
find Bradley. Honestly, when you look at the Middle East
and look at the drone strikes and things that have happened,
I think that America gets put with a set of
facts where we have no perspective, We don't know the
processes that go on. But does your memory does it
look anything similar to the way that America has struck
terrorists or who they believe were terrorists in the Middle East.

(37:52):
I think I don't think there's just one shot. Only
in some of the footage that we've seen or was
released to the public in past conflicts around the world,
you don't see it's the same.

Speaker 5 (38:02):
Dealing is not drug dealing is not terrorism. They're providing
a product that misguided Americans want.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
No one wants their salesman.

Speaker 5 (38:11):
People in the US want drugs.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
They're undocumented pharmacists.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
So you don't think these drug dealers are terrorists in
any way.

Speaker 5 (38:21):
In some ways, they certainly are. I know in Mexico
they engage in terrorism against their own people.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
Their government.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's where we get.

Speaker 5 (38:30):
But that doesn't mean to kill them on the open sea.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
All right, that's your opinion, Bradley. I wonder if there
are other people out there who agree or do.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
I like Bradley calling in, I actually raise on your
storage point. I thought he was tracking what we're picking up,
what we're putting down, but he actually didn't at all.
I didn't listen close enough. But but no, I think
these cartels, I particularly from Venezuela, with who sponsors them.
You see China. Now say hey, leave them alone, because
they they're getting their oil. China's getting over four what
two hundred thousand barrels or four hundred thousand barrels a

(38:58):
month from them. You've got a lot of enemies of
the state invested in Venezuela who also they've proven, they've
indicted Mondoro and a court in the United States over
drugs and drug trafficking. There's an indictment. I mean, this
is what Marco Rubio's Secretary of State, pointed out in
his interview with Sean Hannity. There's an indictment, a federal
indictment on this guy where the narco terrorism is absolutely

(39:22):
connected to his government. And so I don't know how
you can draw any kind of bright line distinction between
the Middle East and the terrorists that we fight halfway
around the world and the terrorism and what they're trying
to do in our own hemisphere just off the coast
of our own country. I think it's the same effort.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
Well, when we come back, I'm going to share with
you what Admiral Bradley told the senators about that second
tap and what he did and deciding that we'll get
more of your phone calls on this. We've already had
one who says, you know, they should be charged. These
are war criminals. Pete haig Seth and Admiral Bradley. I
think that's what he's saying. We want to see if
you agree or disagree. And we've got other things to
talk about as well, including the Democrats and why they

(40:00):
always wander take the opposite view of normal people. Can't
figure that one out either. Eight eight eight five seven
eight zero one zero on your cell phone, dial pound
two fifty and say hey Rod, or leave us some
message on our talk back line by downloading the iHeartRadio app.
More coming up talk Radio one oh five nine The
Rod and Gregg Show, before we go to the calls, Greg.

(40:20):
Admiral Bradley, in his testimony yesterday apparently told the lawmakers
who were questioning him about what happened, that he waited
about an hour before the second tap. All right, it
didn't happen just like this, because he wanted he was
monitoring the situation. He saw two people who were you
know there, but they were trying to right size what

(40:41):
was left of the boat, okay, and they were grabbing
the drugs that were floating in the ocean trying to
put them back in the boat, and he said it
appeared they were trying to communicate with other drug boats
to come and get them. That's why he ordered the
second tap. And never did Pete Haig say. Pete Haig says,
say to him kill them all, So that basically wipes

(41:01):
out that Washington Post story.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
I would have waited for the other drug boats to
come on.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Then, all right, let's go to the phones eight eight
eight five seven o eight zero one zero. We go
to Battleful and listen to what Brad has to say
tonight on the Rod and Greg Show. Hi, Brad, how
are you?

Speaker 9 (41:21):
Hi?

Speaker 7 (41:21):
Rod?

Speaker 4 (41:22):
Hi?

Speaker 11 (41:22):
Greg?

Speaker 6 (41:22):
Hi?

Speaker 9 (41:23):
Hey.

Speaker 11 (41:23):
I'm sorry to change the subject, but I got to
get it off my chest. We've got all these illegals,
and I agree that we should have secure borders, not
a problem, but many of them are hard working people,
and for us to go and ruin families, it's just
not right. Why can't this country pull their head out

(41:48):
and come up with a legitimate way to get these
people fast tracked to some kind of known status so
that we don't have play these games of people running
away from of ice people because they're so scared about
what's going on in their lives. Secondly, last, you know

(42:10):
who's going to build our buildings, who's gonna who's going
to plant our crops, harvest our crops. We talk about
a housing shortage if there's no one to build our
buildings because there's all the uh illegals are scared to work.
Talk about a problem with housing.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
Hey, Brad, let me ask you a question.

Speaker 11 (42:30):
Do you do you want?

Speaker 2 (42:31):
I don't want to be a a cereal here because
I appreciate you calling and everyone has a take, and
I love it when they're shared. But do you subscribe
when it comes to construction or agriculture? Do you believe
in slave labor? Or do you believe in a good, good,
good wage? Okay, so do I So? I think they're
a fair wage, and I just don't subscribe to jobs.

(42:53):
Americans are just too good to do. So I think
what you're talking about when we talk about employment and
economic opportunities, so long's we're not talking slave labor. I
think that there's Americans that will do we'll do agriculture,
will work in agriculture, we'll work informing, we'll work in construction.
They won't do it for the under the table wage
that illegal employment has provided. But I do think that

(43:15):
those that work for a fair wage would do it,
and I don't think Americans are too good to do it,
I hope to your point about the streamlining of a system,
I'm not really happy about the Biden people that came
across and how they came across and NGOs put them
all over the country. I think that needs to be
reversed as quickly as possible. But to your point, I
think that there's an incentive for people to self deport,

(43:36):
and there's even money being given for them to do it,
and if they do it, they're given some kind of
consideration coming back. And we've had a caller on the
show that I described that he goes through a legal
process to bring people over for the season during for
his landscaping business, and there's been some frustration there about
that not being as efficient as it's supposed to be,
as he's trying to follow the law. So I agree
with you that we have to have a streamlined way

(43:58):
to do it. I just don't want to all those
the last Biden administration wave we got. I think all
of them have to well.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
And I think we agree, you know, We aren't saying
that people who are here illegally don't work hard. We
see a lot of hard working people out there, right, Yeah,
but and we would agree. We wish we could come
up with a system to make it easier. I've argued
for a long time our immigration system is very antiquated.
There has got to be a way that we can
speed this thing up. And I'm not sure how to
do it. I don't have the answers. But we, as

(44:25):
an American people can figure this out if we can
get the politics out of the way and just come
up with a plan.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
The other point that you brought up too, is what's
the number, like, what's the legal number that you want
to have that that with with work and what's available
on unemployment rates and emerging workforces. What is that number?
Because there has to be a number. We can't just
imagine that there isn't one. Yeah, so what is that?
Because you get to that number, then I think you
get to a wide gate where you can bring people
legally and people follow the law, honor the law, and

(44:52):
you're not you're not undercutting wages, you're not undercutting people's
ability to get a job that live here. I think
there's a I think there's a lot of work to
be done on that front.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
And I'm not opposed right now with what happened in
Washington with the Afghan rebel killing or killing one person
injuring another one, and what we're seeing now with Somali,
I kind of favored the idea we shut down immigration
for a little while, we just say figure out hands.
We've done it before. I think we can do it

(45:20):
again in my opinion. Let's go to David in South
Jordan tonight. David, how are you welcome to the show?

Speaker 10 (45:26):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (45:27):
David, go ahead, David.

Speaker 14 (45:29):
Yeah, thank you, Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (45:31):
I thought i'd chime in here. You know, right or wrong,
I think we need to support whether it's our police
officers or our military. So when we made a decision
to take out these drug dealers terrorists, that we back
the people that are making those split second decisions, right,
I mean we have to support them, We have to

(45:52):
back them. I mean, what if this was different, If
what if we left those couple of guys left, and
we had the Coast Guard go were there and a
couple of the Coast Guard people got shot and killed,
then would probably all be saying well, we should have
took out those last two.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
Guys, right, yep.

Speaker 14 (46:10):
My comment is we just need to we need to
support the decision that was made. They're split second decisions
and we've all been positions where we've had to make those,
and especially not like this obviously. But that's my comment
is I think they did the right thing because we
don't know what would have happened, right, we have to
back them up.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
You're right, David, good point. We do need to back
them up, that's for sure. All Right, more your calls,
more your comments on our talk back line coming up
right here on the Rod and Greg Show and Talk
Radio one oh five nine k n RS.

Speaker 15 (46:41):
Hey, thank you very much, good evening, gentlemen. Hey, I
wanted to make a couple of comments. The one gentleman
said that it's not a Paris act bringing the drugs
over here and whatnot. But if you look back at
history at what England did to kind of destroying this
society with opium importing it, that is an act of war.

(47:05):
And for your illegal immigrants, everybody's still out at America
for kicking them out, but let's not blame America who
didn't bring them over. They brought themselves over. And there's
ways right now today where companies go to other countries
and bring people in for labor, for all kinds of stuff,

(47:28):
and they provide a very good living for their family,
and they can do that while they're waiting to bring
their family over. They don't have to sneak over and
do things illegally.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Yeah, I look, I thank you for the comment, and
I completely agree. And I think that I think, Look,
you got these h one b one visas. I actually
think that's gotten out of control. You've got tech guys
that say that now that Trump wants to charge one
hundred thousand dollars, that's a rounding era. They'll just do it.
I worry that that effort is a way to not
pay to press wages for those engineers and people that

(48:02):
live here in the United States. But but I do
think there are I think there is. If anyone from
government tells you that they've got a perfect process, they're
just not being truthful. And every there's nothing that government
doesn't do that there isn't a there aren't efficiencies and
ways to stare at it and get it better to
you to either get rid of it or have it
work for and on behalf of the American people as
it's designed or should be designed. So I'm not I

(48:25):
don't think any systems perfect, but I do think that
there's some limits in terms of our workforce. We're seeing
that the detrimental impacts or maybe unintended consequences, if you
want to give them the benefit of the doubt, in
the UK of uncontrolled, unlimited.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
Throughout all of Europe.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Look at look at Ireland. It's not the same.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
Ireland, Germany, the UK, It Italy. They all have a
serious immigration.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
Brand they do, and it's and so you know that
those countries you want to talk about the disruption and
the losing of your your culture, your heritage, your your
way of life, your your society. It's happening in Europe
in some scary ways. And I think that you know,
if you're not going to learn from this, what do
you you know, you're doomed to repeat it. So I
I agree, I think that there's smart ways to do it.

(49:11):
And I also think that in this hemisphere, if you're
going to come over here and you're gonna didn't what
was it Noriega that we took out that bush took out?
He was up to his ears and drugs and everything else. Uh,
And and we took we we handled that. Yet I
think you have what uh some of the things that Bush,
Herbert Walker Bush was doing. That was the the Senator

(49:32):
Biden clip that you played earlier in the show where
he said he's not gone far enough. We got to
get in there, we got to take these narco terris out.
He called him that, And there was nobody, nobody was
parsing words with the Democrats on the Republican side when
when Biden said that, and he thought, we need to
get tougher, go to where they live and stop them
from even getting to this country.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
And another thing that is really scary that's happening in
in Europe because of the immigration, the censor police over it.
You cannot go online and raised any question about the
impact that immigration is having on their countries without the
censor police coming and either arresting you or finding you
or telling you you no longer can make a comment

(50:12):
like that. And I think that's what the Democrats would
like to see happen here in the UK.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
The Magna Carta, which you know, much much of our
structure of our governance comes from Magne carta, this this
document they're getting rid of a jury by trial. In UK,
they just recently just canceled some elections for cities or
villages and their mayoral races. They've canceled those elections as
of late with no notice. There's just some things going

(50:39):
on around the world that we saw that old veteran
from the UK that was crying as he was saying,
what did we fight for? What is starting? He's starting
to ask himself the loss that he felt and lived
through and all those that didn't make it in World
War Two? What they fought for? Was it worth it?
Looking at how that country is now and all their
freedoms that are not all, but the freedoms that are

(50:59):
being taking away from them in real time. The censorship
that's happening. Uh, you know, it makes him wonder out loud.
And I'm telling you we have to be aware of
what's going around around this world going on and act accordingly.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
I mean our way, folks, if we are careful, all
right eight eight eight five seven eight zero one zero
on your cell phone dial pound two fifty and say
hey Rod, or leave a comment on our talk back line.
Here's one of the comments tonight.

Speaker 16 (51:23):
Hey, guys, here's the one I'm waiting for. There's gonna
be so much ventoyl in that ocean that the fish
are all gonna die, and it's gonna pollute all the
coastlines all around that whole area, and they're gonna blame
Trump and call him an eco terrorist.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Just waiting for that one.

Speaker 8 (51:42):
Yeah, I wouldn't be saying Marco terrorists go down and
the eco terrorists that stopped them will have contaminated the waters. Yeah,
he's not wrong, you know, as much as that sounds
silly that you know that they'll say that. Yeah, if
you have one one dolphin, one whale, one anything they
find that's been poisoned by that those drugs they were

(52:02):
trying to get over into this country, they will call
Trump and eco terroris.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
They will crazy. All right, more of your calls and comments.
It is the Friday edition of The Rotting Gregg Show
right here on Utah's Talk Radio one oh five nine knrs. Yeah,
you know some of the challenges we faced in this
country right now, Greg, when it comes to immigration, it
really is important. Chaos, that's what it comes down to.
I mean, see, you know, and we allowed this to happen.

(52:27):
And can you name me, Greg, one issue that you
think people on the left democrats in this country agree
with normal Americans.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
No, I can't. I mean, look, the one thing that
Democrats can do is they can always scare people. They
use fear to compel behaviors, so they can They could
probably get Americans to agree on a scary scenario that
they paint. It's not true. But if they could probably
get people to say, well, I don't want a war
criminal to be the Secretary of Defense or to be president,

(52:58):
they could. They can he can throw out these false narratives,
and you might get some Americans that rally around a
false premise. But as far as what they actually do,
what they build, what they create, what they advocate for,
I see nothing.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Well, that's why I was mentioning this earlier. Kurt Schlickter
today wrote this article about the Democrats always take sides
against normal people like you and I, and let me
share just a couple of points he makes. He says, basically,
the democrats and the regime media, which the term that
you created, I think, and left wing activists always take
the side of someone else in conflicts. Never ordinary patriotic Americans,

(53:35):
And I just think about the past week, taking sides
with the Afghan who shot it to National Guards people. Yeah,
defending the total disaster of welfare fraud in Minneapolis.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
Yeah, you're a racist. You hate Somali's if you're even
going to complain or try to hold Walls, Governor Walls responsible.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
And defending the guys on the drug boats. Yeah, they
aren't Narco terrorists. Oh yes they are, and we had
no right to give them a second And most Americans
I played that sound bite earlier, would agree with the guy.
These guys are slimeballs.

Speaker 9 (54:05):
You know.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
Think about the people lying on a bathroom four in
some grungy area here in this country, dying from an
overdose of drugs. Is anybody thinking about that person? No,
We're thinking about the guys drifting in the water, you know,
yelling for their lives, and we give them a second tap,
And that's narco terrorist.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
Well we can trast you see the rest that happened today.
The guy that was at the DEA under Obama, No,
he's just they raided his home today. He's being charged
with before he left office, right before twenty sixteen, when
Trump took office. In his first term he left he
is now that they are arresting him. The court documents
say that he had laundered I think twelve million dollars

(54:44):
to the Mexican cartel wow as a DEA, one of
the head guys at the DEA. And so what would
you rather have, folks? Would you rather have the DEA
working with the narco terras or would rather be blowing
them out of the water. I think we want to
blow them out of the water.

Speaker 17 (54:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
I think they mean nothing but the the worst for
this country. And they're sponsored by a country like Venezuela,
who's who's chummy with China and Iran, all the enemies
of our state, of our country. I just don't even
know what the debate's about.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Yeah, well, you know, as Slickterer points out, he says,
this all comes down to power. They want power and
they'll do whatever they can to get power. Greg and
you know their thing. I'm trying to think of an
issue today that common sense Americans would agree with Democrats on.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Yeah, I mean public safety. They don't believe in.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
It, they don't believe How about boys and girls bathrooms?

Speaker 2 (55:33):
Yeah, they are okay, fine with it, They're ok they
will not. They still will not define it. You know
what a what a woman is. Look at what what
a Senator Fetterman's going through right now within his own party.
This guy's trying to speak some common sense. He'll tell
you that women men don't belong in women's restrooms. He'll
tell you that that the Israel. You know that that
there October sixth was an atrocity. And he's not going

(55:55):
to be an apologist for that. And and yet the
things he wasn't he wasn't for shy down the government
at the expense of everyday Americans. He was ready to
get open up the government again. His party is just
ripping him at the moment for some of his what
I would argue common sense, not even partisan, but just
common sense positions that I think he's figured out that
Pennsylvanian's what he's saying isn't offending them, the normal people there.

(56:18):
So I think that I do agree. I think that
there's a they are just they are so they're appealing
to a base that is so extreme they are leaving
the rest of this country behind. That's why every time
everyone I see people handwringing about the midterms and what
did the Democrats offer nothing people in this country. And
you watch this farce of a congressional district in Utah,

(56:40):
this plus twenty four percent Kamala Harra's district out of
our state. You watch how radical the rhetoric gets for
the candidates running for that seat. You won't recognize a
single sentence that you would want representing you, your values,
your family, your community, your job in Washington, d C.
Whatever they're going to say in that twenty four percent
plus Kamala haraa district, you'll want no part of.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
You know what's so funny about this redistricting thing, Greg,
is what is happening now or what it could happen
right in that first district is exactly what the supporters
of Proposition for we're fighting against, but now they're going
against it. They were fighting against gerrymandering. This is the
most egregious gerro manding in this proposed first district anywhere.

(57:22):
I mean, fifty two percent of the voters in that
district are registered Democrats. Yeah, that's the only thing they
have in common. In Salt Lake County, Greg, they're only
twenty two percent of the voters are registered Democrats, and
in the state only fourteen percent, but fifty two percent.
It is the most egregious form of geramandering out there.
And this is exactly what the Prop four people were

(57:44):
fighting again.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
Get that broad. They made three districts that are plus
seventy five percent Republican districts which you can't argue have
any semblance of fairness in terms of that side of
the isle either the district that we would do it.
We did not go so far to the right, so
far to the left. That's what you've got with this,
this ridiculous map that a private organization drew, that has
that a judge picked and has the effect of law

(58:07):
that's completely ignored our legislative brand.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
Yeah, here's something to think about over the weekend. The
question that Kurt raids, why is it that Democrats are
always taking sides against people like you and I.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
And they are. If you don't feel like you're under siege,
you're not paying attention because they don't like us.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
They don't like us, were they don't? All Right, we've
got another hour. They're rotting. Greg Choke coming you away
right here on Utah's Talk Radio one oh five nine
hers more coming up. Well, a lot of moms and dads.
Of course they're going to be out shopping and helping
Santa with a Christmas toys. And there's an issue out there,
Greg about AI, artificial intelligence and toys, a whole new

(58:45):
challenge for moms and dads.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
Oh good, now, this is a horror movie come true. Okay,
this is chucky. You know you don't want your your toys,
your kids toys or stuffed animals with AI talking to
them about. We don't know what telling you. We've seen
the movie. We don't need it. But that's why I'm
looking forward to this interview.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
Well, that's why we wanted to talk with Craig Edgemond.
He is the CEO of we youth dot org, an
organization that explores this. Craig, thanks for joining us tonight.
Why is it so important, Craig that parents are aware
of the dangers that AI and toys can present to
mom and dad.

Speaker 7 (59:18):
I am really happy to talk about this because it
is such an urgent issue. There's a lot of awesome, wonderful,
beautiful things about AI, and so I don't want to
send the message that AI in general, you know, is
the problem. But there's a specific category of AI called
AI companions, and that's what's really concerning for young people. So,

(59:41):
and especially when it's embedded in toys for children, that's
what I would really advise that parents be savvy about
and very very cautious about. So and I can say
more about that.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Yeah, you know, I really appreciate this article. I mean,
I was unaware. Maybe I'm an old head, but I
didn't know that they were teddy bears that were ready
to talk and have this AI ability to have conversations
with our kids and maybe kids and even delve into
things they shouldn't. You know, they say that that art
imitates life. The only art I've seen where stuffed animals
where toys can talk to anyone is Chucky that's a

(01:00:17):
horror movie and ted which is definitely not age appropriate
for kids. So either way, it doesn't seem like a
path we want to go down. What is what is
this dog? Maybe describe for our listeners, what does this
look like where you have an AI teddy bear?

Speaker 7 (01:00:31):
Okay, right now, there are stuffed animals that have AI
chatbots embedded in them, and they're program to become friends
with your kid. And so you think of toy story,
you got a friend and me, you know, with Buzz
and Woody and them, and that was that was fun,
and it's kind of a child's creative imagination. But then

(01:00:55):
when they're designed to engage with you in a very
prom intentional way to to keep the child engaged. And
so the concern is whether it's a stuffed animal or
maybe it's a robot that is designed to be a
friend to the kid. And these will be some of

(01:01:17):
the most fun friends that a child would experience, you know,
think of how powerful these ais are, you know, AI
algorithms are, and and they're they're designed to to hook
hook us in emotionally, mentally, tap into those deep roots

(01:01:37):
and and so it's yeah, yeah, I'm glad that you
mentioned Chucky because you know, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Yeah, Well, let me ask you this. I mean, nobody
is opposed to kids having friends. Why is having a
robot as a friend zone dangerous in your opinion?

Speaker 7 (01:01:53):
Well, so this is what I would first ask you, guys,
your listeners, parents and graham, parents, aunts and uncles, anybody
that cares about kids. Think about how important it is
who your your kids have as friends. And think about
how careful we are with who we let our kids
be friends with. You know, I think your typical good

(01:02:16):
parent when when your kid comes home from school, Hey,
I have a new friend. Oh tell me about him,
and and and and they're like, yeah, I'm gonna go
play with them. Now they're like, well, wait a minute.
You know, your average wise guardian is gonna is gonna
try to be informed and help the child think about

(01:02:37):
if this person is positive for them and all of that.
If if this friend quote unquote friends number one, it's
not a friend, it's a machine. It's an algorithm. And
but but think of a child and even a teenager
or even a young adult that that all of a

(01:02:57):
sudden they start to see this friend and as real.
And so I know you guys, and a lot of
people have heard about stories in the news of some
really awful things that have happened in the lives of
teenagers and adults already. And these are like the early
versions of these friends, Like they're getting more and more,

(01:03:19):
they create more and more dependents, and they're designed with
profit in mind. So imagine if your kid makes friends
with somebody and that friend's intention is to make money
off your kid, you know, but they're going to pose.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
So you know, Ron Reagan said, trust, but verify. The
thing I have a problem with with technology generally is
that they say, well, you can put all your passwords
onto this website because we're super duper encrypted. And the
only thing I know is I've just read encrypted. I've
just read it's safe. That's all I can verify. When
you have toys and they say, well, you know, we've
really put safeguards and guardrails around this and nothing inappropriate

(01:03:57):
will be discussed with your child, how would we as
parents be able to verify any of that knowing nothing
about the technology or anything about what it is that
we're putting in front of our kids. You've got privacy concerns,
content concerns. Is there any way to verify that what
they assure you? Because they're not going to say we're
going to have this toy that's going to corrupt, you know,
the morals of a minor. They're not going to say that.

(01:04:18):
But it turns out that that these toys can talk
about things they're not supposed to. How do how do
parents safeguard against it? Just stay away from it?

Speaker 7 (01:04:27):
Well, I would say you've brought up several good issues
their privacy. Most of these AI companies have very loose
privacy policies, meaning they can do whatever they want with
if your child is talking, you know, to the AI,
and that includes Alexa and but all of that data

(01:04:49):
is now owned by the company, and so the company
can monetize it, the company can sell it, and even
if the majority of them say that, they can do
whatever they want with your data. So if you haven't
looked at the privacy policies, just be aware of that.
And do you really want your kid to have their
personal life? This isn't like it's going to feel like

(01:05:11):
it's at their personal companion, but it's not like they're
writing in a journal that only they can see. It
might feel like that to the child, but their data
is available to the company, and they can also be
hacked like those you know, like a male actor can
and hack it. The other thing you mentioned is content,

(01:05:31):
and anybody that creates an AI toy is they're going
to try to be really careful with content, and it's
going to seem like it's safe, it's going to seem
like whatever, But there's a hidden danger because even if
let's say that content is safe and somehow it stays safe,
that the hidden danger is that your child is connecting

(01:05:54):
with a machine and an algorithm and not connecting with
other friends, not connecting with other adults. And I got
a story about that. Even with Alexa, I can share.
But and that is the hidden danger is connection is
at the roots of well being for our youth. It's
the number one predictor of youth well being. And so

(01:06:16):
it's the number one predictor for health, for mental health,
for education, for flourishing in extracurriculars and then later in
the workforce and then forming families. And if young people
start to make relationships with machines instead of with real humans,

(01:06:37):
we've already seen a major decline in the marriage rate
and the birth rate and alarming, alarming declines. You know
where a twenty year old today has a you know,
thirty three percent chance of never marrying. That used to
be five percent about twenty or thirty years ago. Now
it's thirty three percent will never marry. And that's shocking.

(01:07:00):
But you have you know, now, children, teenagers, young adults
who now align with machines for companionship, those rates are
going to be affected.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
Craig Edgeman, he's with the organization called we Youth. You
can check out his website at we youth dot org
if you want more information here on the Rotting Greg Show.
All right, more coming up. Why we let people into
this country, Greg, who just want they don't believe in
the country, they don't want to assimilate in the country.
We've got to rethink this.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
I think of what we do. We're seeing this massive,
massive fraud in Minnesota. The billion might be even more
than a billion, might be eight billion. You've got the
National Guard members that were shot and killed by this
Afghany and the ability to vet people from countries where
we have zero information. It puts Americans at risk.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
Well, let's talk more about that with our next guest.
His name is Jeremy Carl. He is a senior fellow
at the Claremont Institute. He wrote about this settling Afghans
here puts America last. Jeremy, thanks for joining. What do
you mean by that? What are you trying to say
with this article about Afghans and maybe some Ali's in
the United States?

Speaker 9 (01:08:06):
Well, I was really trying to say just that it
really does put us in trouble and that there are
really two different types of obligations. Even assuming that we
can vet folks correctly, one we could get them to safety,
and the second is we can allow them to live
in the United States. And those are two very very
different things, and in the discussion it often those two

(01:08:26):
things get mashed together.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
So I found an interesting point our perspective in your
article being that sometimes those Afghanis who assisted the United
States's allies in Afghanistan weren't doing it out of an
allegiance necessarily to the United States or anyone else, but
maybe some tribal grudges or for other motivations which you

(01:08:49):
just can't because they helped us assume that they're just
going to be friendly if relocated in the United States.
Maybe elaborate on that. I had never heard that before,
but it kind of makes sense.

Speaker 9 (01:08:59):
No absolute, I mean, I think it's just it's folly.

Speaker 10 (01:09:02):
We literally, at the least estimate of the amount of
money we spent in Afghanistan would be about a trillion
dollars and the net result of that in twenty years
was that the government that we sat set up and
thought we had going.

Speaker 9 (01:09:15):
Well collapsed within a week of our leaving. So the
notion that we kind of understand what is going on
in this country in a deep way is kind of farcical,
And there's all sorts of reasons. Again, there's tribal grudges,
there's people who are just doing, you know, whatever for
whoever pays them. There's double legions, there's all sorts of
reasons that an Afghan might be helping US soldiers. And

(01:09:39):
even if we think, or even if those soldiers thinking
in all sincerity that they were genuine, you just we
have no way of knowing. And again, as Joe Kent,
who heads the National counter Terrorism Center set and who
was boots on the ground in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the
sort of standard that we have for, hey, we're going
to use this person as an ally in country is

(01:10:02):
a lot lower and a lot different than hey, we're
going to let them settle among us.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
We're talking here right now with Jeremy Carl. He's a
senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. Jeremy how A lot
of questions been raised about the difficulty we may have
in vetting people like from Afghanistan or from somal Ye
because they come from very unstable governments, if they have
any government at all. I mean, how difficult is the
vetting process when it comes to the Afghans who've come

(01:10:27):
into this country.

Speaker 9 (01:10:30):
I think it's very difficult. And again, I just think
it's sort of farcicult to pretend that we can do
this in any sort of a perfect way that would
really match the standards that we should have for anybody
who we're going to let live among us and eventually
presumably become a citizen. Again, there's so many different things
at work. I touched on also in my article, the

(01:10:52):
sort of power differential and the money differential between the
average American and the person in one of those countries.
You know, without any disparagement even of them. You know,
in many cases they're going to say anything or do
anything that they can to get the golden ticket to America,
and that may mean that he can't really trust what's
coming out of their mouths. And the values of afghanistandrews

(01:11:14):
so radically different than ours in virtually every respect. That
the kind of again, the notion that we can just
take these guys and have them live among us, as
opposed to settling them in other countries in the region
that would have a more similar culture, religious outlook, et cetera.
Just you know, it's just it's a crazy idea that

(01:11:35):
we would do this here.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
So that was my question. You did you did open
the possibility that you can have some resettlement, You can
have them live somewhere different than where they and than
Afghanistan because of the work they did with allies with
the United States. But it be other countries with similar cultures.
Is there even a willingness is that even is that practical?
It sounds like a great alternative, but is there a

(01:11:57):
practical way to do that?

Speaker 9 (01:11:59):
Well, the devil's in the details. I actually was in
Afghanistan in June of two thousand and one, of all times,
and in traveling through Pakistan at the time on my
way there, this was the first time the Taliban was
in control there. We went to the paciity of Peshawar.
There are about two million Afghans living in the outskirts

(01:12:20):
of Pakistan who had left Afghanistan under sun duress in
many cases because of the war. So absolutely there are
significant communities of Afghans in many of these other countries
in the region. And it's not just that they're all
going to immediately open up their arms and say, oh yeah,

(01:12:40):
we're going to do this with no compensation and no consequences, etc.
But this is in fact what we should be using
our soft power to do, not to you know, we're
spending a ton of money to bring these guys here.
We can make it attractive for other countries to accept
on either a temporary or permanent basis refugees that we

(01:13:01):
have vetted and approved and can feel at least some
confidence that they're there safely.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
Jeremy, You're right about the fact, and I love how
you framed this in the fact that there's a certain
arrogance among some administrations, especially of late the Body administration,
that we almost know how to handle Afghanistan, or we
know what's best for Afghanistan. They may not be alone
in dealing with this. But in your opinion, what do
Americans not or America I should say, not understand about

(01:13:29):
Afghanistan and its people? And that why that's why it
makes it so difficult to make things work between the
two countries.

Speaker 9 (01:13:37):
Well, it's just an intensely tribal country. I mean, this
was something that people really misunderstood from the beginning. I
remember after September eleventh, and I'd have this sort of
unique experience of having just been in Afghanistan a few
months prior, where you have these groups like the Northern Alliance,
and these are essentially they're kind of almost ethnic quarrels

(01:13:59):
that are they're kind of manufactured as oh, well, they
have different views on religion, but that's not necessarily the case.
There's different subgroupings of all types. There's corruption of all
sorts of types. There's unfortunately a lot of sexual misbehavior
that goes on. Again, I mean, there's just a million
different factors. These are radically, radically different cultures than America,

(01:14:23):
and I have to say, you know, without apology, a
less favorable cultures in almost every respect, and the kind
of notion that we can just snap our fingers and
turn all these folks into great Americans is just it's
a very arrogant one to me.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
So I don't know what the estimates are. I think
I've heard numbers seventy five thousand. I've heard estimates up
to two hundred thousand asylum seekers from Afghanist and Afghanis
or in the United States, there's at least five thousand.
We know that there's as difficult as it might be
to vet these asylum seekers, there's at least five thousand.
They have vetted to some degree, which is that they

(01:14:58):
think are enemies to the state, to the US.

Speaker 10 (01:15:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
So with that many here, let's say that the Trump
administration took your good advice and we stopped allowing them
to come over. It sounds like we're in the middle
or in the event of a pretty dangerous situation just
the status quo. How do we get out of the
situation that we're in, or can we?

Speaker 9 (01:15:18):
I think we first of all, I mean, we're a
sovereign country and we can do what we want, even
if the Left is going to complain about it. And
I think we can absolutely take any of these people
who we brought over. And again, if we feel like
they legitimately have, you know, severe fear of their life
of returning to Afghanistan and they've been helpful, then we
can work with another country in the region to resettle

(01:15:41):
them and their families in that country. And again, I'm
happy to spend our dollars to do that. If they
really have been helpful and it's going to be a
lot less frankly, then we're going to have to spend
to turn them into the climate clients of the welfare
state here in most cases, but we just have to
do it. We have to just decide if that's what
we're going to do. And these people are not with

(01:16:03):
the rarest exceptions US citizens right now, they don't have
the rights of US citizens, and what we've done, we
can just decide to undo it, and we, in fact
should do just that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:12):
Interesting conversation, and it's something we really do need to
think about, don't we.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
We just got done saying that we can't vet them,
but we know for factors five thousand, Yeah, that are
very very dangerous. That if as hard as they were
to vet, we knew they were at least dangerous, and
here they are in the unaccounted for it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:28):
Amazing. All right, more of the Rod and greg Show
coming your way on this Thank rodin Greg Is Friday
and Talk Radio one oh five to nine o kyn rs.
Utah lawmakers, they've got a real challenge in front of
them as a result of this ruling concerning Prop four
in the creation of a brand new congressional district, well
four new congressional districts, one really slanted toward the Democratic

(01:16:48):
Party here in this state. We had a chance earlier
this week to speak with the president of the Utah
Senate Stuart Adams about the next step. I think had
a pretty good plan laid out, do they not, greg?

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
Yeah, So when speaking was President Adams, I asked them
the very important question, are you going to do anything?
We all want to know what are you going to
do something about this where your legislative powers had been
taken from you? And if you are, what is it?
What's it going to look like going forward from here?

Speaker 18 (01:17:13):
Well, we are definitely filing an appeal. We've always planned
on filing an appeal. The question was how to do that,
and we've determined that the best way is to ask
the court for a final decision. So we're not appealing
temporary injunctions or those types of things. So we're going
to first ask the court for a final opinion and
they hopefully give that because at least our attorneys believe

(01:17:37):
it'll come rapidly, and then we will file an appeal
and for the full depth and bread to the case.
I mean, we think we've got a good chance. This
judge actually, if you can believe it didn't even follow
proposition four. We know the Constitution requires the legislature to
redistrict the proposition for we're supposed to have a public process,

(01:18:00):
never looked or had input on the map that judge chose.
It was chose simply by judiciary. A power grab by
by the judiciary.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
In my opinion, President Adams, I know House Speaker Schultz
has brought this up, the Governor has brought this up,
the whole timing of this waiting until the very last minute,
dragging this case on for months when it could have
been resolved a lot sooner than that. Are you as
frustrated as they are when they look at the timeline here.

Speaker 18 (01:18:28):
I don't know who's frustrated more. I think I might
be more frustrated. I mean the judge, I mean.

Speaker 17 (01:18:33):
This happened in twenty eighteen. I mean we're seven years later.
The judge gets the case in January, doesn't make a
decision until she said, oh right, until the Lieutenant Governor
says that we need a decision by November tenth, and
then she puts us through a very tight process. I mean,
we only had a very few days to hold a

(01:18:53):
new to draw a new map, to get a new
map in front of her. Then she looks at our
map and says, oh, it may have it may be wrong,
but guess what if this map that nobody's looked at,
that nobody's had any public input on, the public's then
totally ignored on that. We don't care about the public anymore.

Speaker 18 (01:19:09):
We're going to choose a map that nobody's even seen before,
drawn by someone who's not elected the legal women voters.
I guess I don't even know who drew the map,
but someone drew a map in their basement, and we're
going to take that map because we think it's better
totally totally disregard for proposition for totally regard for the
public process, totally regard for the constitution, disregard for it.

(01:19:30):
I mean, it is one of the craziest things I've
ever seen. I wouldn't imagine that, not even not even
I think Derek Kitchen and Nate Blewin imagined that. Both
of them said, we didn't know this was going to happen,
so we may run for Congress. But it's kind of
surprised us. I think, totally totally totally wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:19:49):
Yeah, a plus twenty four percent Kamala Harris District in
Utah is a farce. It's actually it's an offense that
that was even argued for and has been run it
with a straight face. My question is this does how
does it impact the election cycles? Right now, you're going
to be in this appeal, but you have clerks county
clerks who have to have a sign up for elections

(01:20:12):
begin the first week in January. That's not far off.
There's a lot of information, at least in the congressional districts.
You don't know is this going to impact the election
cycles in terms of the filing period and conventions and primaries.

Speaker 18 (01:20:28):
Well, that's why we're having a special session because it
will or we don't know exactly how we're working through that.
So by next Tuesday, hopefully we will have an idea
of what we do. But in order to file this appeal,
we're going to have to change at least the congressional
filing dates, and that's a big deal because it affects
stay here from gathering all those other things that go

(01:20:48):
on with it. We're hoping it won't and it won't
affect any conventions or any primaries. We're hoping that we
can get it done within the normal convention and primary process,
but if we file this appeal, we will probably have
to change those dates, and the special session next week
is the reason for that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:06):
We're talking right now with the President of the Utah Senate,
Stuart Adams, talking about the redistrict team issue that faces
the state. There has been talk of taking this issue
back to voters. Where does that stand? President Adams? Will
lawmakers agree with that idea? What are your thoughts on this?

Speaker 18 (01:21:24):
Well, you know, it's amazing to me whether Judge Gibson
it was done by a designer default, she's authorized the
most partisan app in the history of Utah. Gray you
talked about it a minute ago that it's an unbelievable
Democrat slanted district, but even the Republican district are unbelievably
slanted Republican. There's no competitive nature in any part of this.

(01:21:46):
And so you know, our constitution is very clear, and
we think that the judge violated the constitution. But really
we run our course. We're doing the best we can
with the pills. We need to turn to the people.
We need to put and we will put a ballot
initiative und the ballot next next year in November. That
allows the voters to decide that whether these initiatives overrun,

(01:22:08):
overrule the legislature, whether the legislature and the public are
on common ground, which we've been on common ground with
the people for I don't know since the initiative process
came to be in the nineteen twenties that the citizens
can change it. We can change it, but for some reason,
our courts have said no, hold on a minute, the
legislature can't change initiatives and has put us in a

(01:22:29):
spot where we have this absolute mess. And it is
a mess what the courts will cause.

Speaker 2 (01:22:36):
So I hope this isn't too wonkersh of a question
for the audience, but I don't think it is. We
got the smartest audience in all the land. So having
been a recovering public servant, is there any value President
and putting those maps in front of the House and
Senate because the constitution, our state constitution is clear that
the legislative branch is the one that draws the maps

(01:22:56):
to at least vote no and overwhelming fashion for these
maps that nobody had any part and no public process
was done. Is there any value in putting a stake
in the ground and showing that the legislative vote on
this map that the judge created with some private at party,
fundamentally and overwhelmingly was never approved by the legislature. Is

(01:23:17):
there any value in doing that? Forget what future map come.
Is there a value in saying no to this map?

Speaker 18 (01:23:23):
We think there's great value in that. That'll happen during
the special session. And again, whether there's legal value or not,
we think there is moral value in it. Again to
have someone who's unelected, who has no responsibility to the public,
who can't be unelected because they never were elected, just
to have someone draw map, whether they're at appointed judge

(01:23:44):
or whether they're just someone in the public that wants
the draw map. That isn't how the process should work.
And again, we're going to do the best we can legally.
We're going to take this to the court, but ultimately
we're going to need the public to help us. And
when we put a ballot initiative on the ballot next November,
to try to fix this initiative process again, to try
to make sure that we stand on equal ground and

(01:24:06):
we can function as duly elected officials. Mc greg you
know this. We're elected by the people. We are the
voice of the people because they elect us, and we
shouldn't we shouldn't wash away the people's voice and give
it to some judge or some other person to be
able to do this process. And I hope the people
stand up next November and vote for this initiative.

Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
Stuart Adams, president of the State Senate, kind of giving
us a good idea of the game plan a special
session next week, and I think it's all appropriate. And
I really do like the part where they are going
to on the record vote against the maps that they
never had anything to do with the public, never had
any part of, and those that drew it were never
elected by a single member of this state as citizens
of this state. I think it's important that they turned

(01:24:51):
down those maps by vote, and it sounds like they're
going to do that. It's going to be I think
it's an important week next week.

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):
This is the most egregious case of Jerry manderin I
think you've ever seen greg that district now that district.
Of the registered voters in that district, fifty two percent
are Democrats. It's the rest of the state fourteen percent.
It makes no sense. What's so on.

Speaker 2 (01:25:09):
It's so skewed, and the Republican districts are so weighted
to so high as Republican it's it's it's a farce.
And I'll tell you you saw it the US Supreme
Court did in affirming you know, the legislature's right in Texas.
If this had a federal nexus, the state's US Supreme
Court would throw this out in a nanosect.

Speaker 1 (01:25:24):
Sure would, all right, Moore coming up here on the
Rod and Greg Show and talk Rady on one oh
five nine can arrests. Earlier this week, we have great
response on this issue of reading in our public schools
because the level of kids who are reading proficiently has
leveled off, and there's real concern. The governor has talked
about this.

Speaker 2 (01:25:40):
Well, only forty eight percent of third graders are reading
at grade level. That is not an acceptable statistic. That
dooms fifty two percent of these kids in school if
they don't get it reading a grade level after third grade,
it's a big, big problem.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
Well, we talked about this with our guest earlier this week.
Her name is Jessica Harkey, a reporter of the seventy four.
She wrote about the knee for parents to read to
the children and why it's so important. We asked Jessica,
first of all, why she felt this issue needs to
come to the forefront.

Speaker 19 (01:26:08):
Yeah, the important of reading to early children really starts
the foundation of literacy for kids.

Speaker 6 (01:26:13):
When they enter the school system.

Speaker 19 (01:26:15):
And so when I put together this piece, I was
kind of going just off the casual observation of all
the time when we're on the subway, when we're at restaurants,
now we see kids on smartphones, and I was just curious.
I was thinking back to when I was a child
of when I was out at restaurants, my mom was
always bringing books with us, and so I kind of
wanted to dig deep into what does this mean for

(01:26:37):
literacy as we are seeing some declining literacy rates across
the country, especially among that third grade level or so.
And so one of the big things that researchers did
tell me in this piece is that reading to children
exposes them to more vocabulary. There was a study that
I had quoted where a child who has read to

(01:26:59):
daily or free glint will have over three hundred thousand
more word exposure and vocabulary by the time that they
enter the public school system. So that is one element
is just being exposed to more vocabulary, which that's up
to the beginning and foundation of literacy. It's hard to
read books or want to read books when you don't
understand what they're talking about, what those words mean. And

(01:27:21):
then there is a social emotional element of it too,
of that it opens a world that they may not
be exposed to, different dialogues, different characters, things that they
can relate to, ways to develop relationships with their peers
or their families.

Speaker 2 (01:27:35):
So you also point out that it looks like this,
I live through this. My mother read to me, and
I've read to my kids when they were yet very young.
But it looks like that might not be happening as
much with young parents and with their children. Talk about that,
what does what does the survey show? Where the study
show about new parents or younger parents and how often

(01:27:56):
they read to their children.

Speaker 19 (01:27:58):
Yeah, so one interesting element for this Harpercollin survey was
that especially gen Z parents, which are some of our
youngest parents now, are most likely to view reading as
a subject to learn rather than a fun activity. They
said that they didn't enjoy it, they didn't find it
enjoyable to read to their children. So there's one element there,
And a few of the researchers in this piece had

(01:28:20):
mentioned that there was really a shift in the early
two thousands towards more heavy testing, where reading, instead of
being seen as something to do for fun, was instead
seen as something that we were tested for. But the
other element that goes hand in hand hand in this
is that these parents are the first generation of digital natives.

(01:28:41):
So we really started to see this shift towards technology
and that became the new dopamine hit, right. So it's
something that's been more engaging for parents that grew up
during this era where they enjoy being on their phone
and they pass on those different types of happen as well.

Speaker 1 (01:29:01):
What about the illiteracy rate in this country? To begin with,
I know you noted that there are a lot of
experts who suspect the decline in early literacy reading is
likely much higher than we really think. Is it higher?
Do you feel it's much more widespread than we'd like
to believe.

Speaker 6 (01:29:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 19 (01:29:22):
I actually wrote a story earlier this year looking at
how our new generation of young adults, especially between the
ages of sixteen to twenty four with high school diplomas,
are seeing some of the lowest literacy skills ever. And
again there's a big part of technology playing a hand
in this, of kids don't need to read and dissect

(01:29:44):
the information the way that they used to. Now you
can google information. Now there's AI rather than you having
to pull out a book and synthesize and predict and
do all of those other things that build into literacy.
So we are seeing higher rates of functional literacy where
someone can read a sentence, can read basic texts, but

(01:30:05):
they aren't getting to that's the higher end of the
spectrum where they are able to synthesize reading.

Speaker 2 (01:30:11):
So we found out recently that the national what is it,
the Assessment of Educational Progress, the NAPE scores a shocking
sixty nine percent of fourth graders we're not reading at
grade level. And then we just had a recent op
ed that was published in the local paper here in
Utah identifying that only forty eight percent of third graders

(01:30:32):
here in Utah can read at a grade level. Can
you draw a line or correlate that with young people
that are not reading being read to very often when
they're young, and how that's becoming less of a it's
more work, as you said, than it is a joy
or something that's more of a pastime for young ones.

Speaker 19 (01:30:50):
Now, yeah, absolutely, I think when we're seeing these decreases
in what's happening before children are entering the school system.
That also plays a part in those declining literacy rates.
As I had mentioned, a big predictor for future literacy
rates is a child's vocabulary when they are entering the
public school system. So if you're entering with I think

(01:31:12):
again that study said, do you'll have three one hundred
thousand more words by the age of five if your
parent is reading tea regularly, That's where you start to
see those declines and that shift in literacy. That a
big part of literacy is we adopt what our parents
expose us to. So if we're not seeing our parents
doing it, we're not establishing this joy of reading. Children

(01:31:36):
are entering classrooms not wanting to do it again, viewing
it as something as a subject, something they have to
do in school, something and they have to work on,
rather than something that they develop through time as a skill.

Speaker 1 (01:31:48):
Let me ask you this, Josica, you mentioned this, how
do we introduce or excite kids to feel the joy
of reading? Greg and I have been readers all our lives.
How do we reintroduce that that you don't read just
for the subject matter, but there is a certain amount
of joy in reading, And how do we get parents
to express that to their children, teachers to express that

(01:32:09):
to their students. I mean, how do we do this?

Speaker 19 (01:32:13):
Yeah, it really starts young. I mean I started this
story with a young mother in Kentucky who had described
when she was in school, she didn't enjoy it. She
always saw reading as a school assignment. So when she
had her child, she didn't really understand the value of
reading until she was working as a family literacy program and
an adult education center, and from there she learned the

(01:32:35):
benefits of reading, how it can improve school readiness, develop
language skills, promote social emotional growth. And from her getting
that knowledge understanding the benefits, then she realized, yeah, this
is something I want to pass on to my child.
So I think it first starts on that parent level,
having parents educated on the benefit. And something that was

(01:32:56):
really interesting that I learned from these researchers is it
doesn't have to be chapter books. It doesn't have to
be long books. You don't even need to finish the book.
But it's just establishing that positive association before a student enters.

Speaker 3 (01:33:08):
This school system.

Speaker 19 (01:33:10):
If a child when they enter kindergarten and they pull
out a book, remembers, oh, you know, I do that
with mom all the time, and it's a good time
with mom. That positive, positive association is what will develop
those reading skills later where they enjoy it and they
don't necessarily only view it as work. So I think
that's where it really starts, is at home parents being

(01:33:31):
educated in the importance of reading, being able to develop
that positive, positive association for a student so when they
do enter the public school system, they can see reading
as more than just something that you have to do.

Speaker 17 (01:33:43):
To pass class.

Speaker 1 (01:33:45):
On our Newsmaker line, Jessica Harkey talking about parents. They
just aren't reading to their kids. It's so important that
they do.

Speaker 2 (01:33:51):
So yeah, I do. It's so natural.

Speaker 4 (01:33:53):
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:33:54):
I benefited from.

Speaker 1 (01:33:54):
It, and it's fun to do. Mom and Dad, if you.

Speaker 2 (01:33:57):
Walk in the walls, it wasn't for my mom reading
me those great books.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
Don't do that. Don't you already do that? You already
did that? All right, Well, have a nice weekend, mister Hughes,
you as well may get some our known So get ready,
hand up, shoulders back. May God bless you and your
family in this great country of ours. Thanks so much
for joining us this week. We'll be back Monday at
four with a brand new edition of The Rotten Gregg
Show

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