The Rod and Greg Show: Downfall of American Cities; WHy Social Capital is Essential; Corruption Behind Homelessness Crisis

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, day twenty nine of the shutdown, nothing seems to
be moving, even though there is a story out there
today that the Democrats are hear getting a lot of pressure.
You had the head greg of the largest federal employees union, YEP,
about eight hundred and ninety thousand members, who are telling
the Democrats, settle this, get done with this, get the

(00:20):
government opened yet again.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
So the Democrats, especially in Congress, are just so used
to the media just kid gloving them all the entire time.
I'm never having a tough time. So it must have
been shocking for the Democrat member of Congress to be
interviewed by Jake Tapper and she just kept talking about
how heartless the Republicans are. And he would say, I
just then, just tell your Senate calls to open a
government and pass a clean cry, and she say, I'm

(00:43):
here to in the House and we're doing this or that.
I just We'll have the Democrats in the Senate vote
to open up the government. I mean, even Jake Tapper
can't hold the party line.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
He's not the only one. Cassie Hunt over CNN asking
the same questions again and this time asked him, what
is so different about you? Know in the past you've
always opposed to shut down. What's so different about it
this time? His answer will not amaze you, because it
will not be You will not be surprised that this
one as all. So we'll talk about that today. Also
coming up, we're talking about the downfall of the American cities,

(01:16):
why social capital is so essential. A little bit later
on an issue I know that's been near and dear
to your heart for a long long time, homelessness in Utah. Yes,
and there's a brand new report out there talking about
the corruption behind homelessness in this country today.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
You know, it's these are things, these are issues we
confronted back in twenty seventeen. But you know, when we
were working, I was on the clock and we're working
on this, but I could I could not understand how
these traditional homeless care providers were against everything we were
trying to do to address the issue, not by warehousing humans,
but getting people on their feet and out, yeah and

(01:52):
stop living like this. And they fought us at every
every single turn. Well, we got an investigation that shows that,
you know, it's the old saying follow the money. Yeah,
it's a bit of a it's a bit of a racket,
this whole homeless So you can make a lot of
money pretending to care, to care, Yeah, just pretending, not
really wanting to. Because if you're effective, you might lose
your you could lose your money. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, so you got to pretend you care but really
don't care.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
It's a cottage industry, and the cottage is pretty big. Yeah,
I'm saying maybe it's, you know, homeless industrial complex. But
sad to find out, but it all resonates with me.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, it does. All right, we'll get into that, but
we want to start off the show today. Of course,
let's talk more about the shutdown. John Thune, who's usually
a fairly mild manner kind of guy.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
I've heard him.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, yeah, he is a kind of mild manner, kind
of easy going kind of guy, a lot like me. Yeah,
but really, uh but he he just went off today
on the floor of the Senate. We'll let you hear
that in a minute. But I think the most disgusting
thing about all of this, and I've never seen this
happen before, Greg, because money for the stamp program, the

(02:57):
supplemental nutrition program, yes runs out as of Saturday, Okay,
won't be getting any money anymore. Right, So people are
up in arms on this. The Democrats are you know,
they're up in arms on this. But now you have
people taking to TikTok and they're encouraging people that if
they lose their snap money, they're encouraging people to go

(03:18):
loot and steal from local grocery stores. What yeah, what
what is wrong in America today?

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well, we have we've we've this is happening to us
ever so slow. I mean catch and release. There's no
crimes that people actually pay penalties for. And now you
watch this shoplifting spree that will begin, Yeah, will be
I would argue, mostly unattended, and it won't be law
enforcement's fault. How can you imagine doing all the probable
cause and all the paperwork to see them out. You're
still type, You're still doing your stuff, and these guys

(03:49):
are robbing the next place because they got apprehended, released,
and you're still trying to fill out the paperwork from
the first time. Yeah, they'll do it five more times
before anyone that takes them to jail.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
I don't be surprised, Greg, if you know, we've seen
the smash and grabs where they go to luxury stores,
apple stores, jewelry stores. I'm wondering if we'll see the
same thing at grocery stores where a gang of people
go in there and just rob a grocery store blind.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
When you have the regime media painting these people as victims, yea,
then they they then they've given they've been given societal
permission to commit crimes. I'll tell you what. We were
dirt poor. We had. I had no idea I could
just steal. I didn't know that was a thing. I
didn't know that if you were poor, you were you
were assumed to be a criminal. Anyway. This is what
the left elitists believe, is that if you're poor, you're
going to commit crimes. We were dirt poor, we had

(04:36):
a power turned off. We had, We didn't commit crimes.
I didn't know that that was permission law. I didn't
know that I was. I had to get out of
jail free card. I could have been stealing everything if
I wanted. Yeah, it's not real. It never was real.
This is the elitists who have no touch on people's circumstances.
Uh talking this way, Well, well now you watch now.
They create this environment where you know, all of these

(04:57):
poor people. What do you expect them to do? They're
just gonna go loo your stores. Yeah, we'll go see.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
We'll talk a little bit later on about this poll
that shows seventy percent of the American people greg feel
the Democratic Party is out of touch. Surprise, I wonder why.
But I want you to listen. First of all, this
is a woman who took to TikTok and was bragging
in her car about all the things that she had
Stolenlet's do.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
This, hi, you guys, I'm out of the store. So
they wanted seven dollars for this. Mind you, I don't
have food stamps anymore. They cut me off, so I
only had twenty two dollars left in food stamps. So
this is what I stole. Okay, they wanted nine dollars
for this. I said I don't got nine dollars. Then

(05:42):
they wanted Then they wanted two dollars for this. They
wanted seven dollars for this. I'm making some stuff, stammon, today,
these are needed. I'm not paying seven dollars for that. Okay,
let me show you the most important thing to me.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Short ribs.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
Take off the label so that you don't beat get
your me. How many do you think.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
That I got?

Speaker 3 (06:09):
How many short ribs is that? And can I be
real more? Y'all should have started taking ship from the
corporations a long time ago. Y'all just didn't have that
in your bones. Get out there and get in the
feel like I sold you. Everything out here is yours,
whether or not you take it. They call that free will.

(06:30):
I call that imminent domain.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
So you steal and eminent domain. Does she understand what
eminent domain is? I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
If they want to adjust that that definition, let give
me the mamocuz I didn't know that that's what that meant.
That's something that's when the government steals your property, but
not hers. You didn't get to do that or any
of us.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
There is a growing list on TikTok of people showing
up bragging about how they're going to steal and what
they've already stolen. But then comes along Mama Bear. Now,
Mama Bear, apparently is there a woman who goes to
TikTok and talks about what's going on in the world today.
She had a warning today for the shoplifters.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
Let me tell y'all something those is talking about going
out there making them videos talking about y'all gonna rob
them people's.

Speaker 5 (07:12):
Stores because they don't cut them snap benefits.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Let me tell you something.

Speaker 6 (07:15):
You go out there, you're gonna get them folks every
legal right to.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Bop you across your head.

Speaker 4 (07:19):
Baby, they're gonna be justified and bopping you.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Across your head.

Speaker 7 (07:22):
You better learn how to cook some quick, cheap, easy meals.

Speaker 8 (07:25):
You get some straights because they're gonna bop y'all in
the head.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
Don't do it. They're gonna bop y'all in their head,
Do not do it. She's warning them. Great, and she
just listed we cut this down about five easy meals
that aren't expensive to get that people can go buy,
yeah and feed their family.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
And she knows, she knows how to do it. She
does a lot of people know how to how to
cook an expensive meal. It's not it's not you're not
eating fancy, but you're eating Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
You are ready to do it. That's all you need
is just to eat. Now go back to what John Thune. Now.
John Thune is typically a very mild ban or lawmaker.
He's the Senate majority leader. I think him and Mike
Johnson have done very well during this shutdown. They've held
their ground, but they are getting just a bit frustrated.
Listen to Thune on the Senate floor today.

Speaker 9 (08:14):
Sam, recipient shouldn't go without food. People should be getting
paid in this country. And we've tried to do that
thirteen times and you voted no thirteen times.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
This isn't a political game.

Speaker 9 (08:31):
These are real people's lives that we're talking about, and
you all just figured out twenty nine days in that oh,
there might be some consequences. There are people who run
out of money. Yeah, we're twenty nine days in and
they've done their best to make sure that a lot.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Of these programs are funded.

Speaker 9 (08:49):
But at some point the government runs out of money
thirteen times. People over here at FUN voted a fund
snap thirteen times.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
They've folded the fun Which did you hear his frustration
any anger with this? Yeah? I mean he is sick and.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Tied thirteen times. And I'll tell you this is what
the Democrats have to be held accountable for. I mean
they can go and say, look, we shut it down
and until we get our way, we're going to keep
it shut down. And that's the Republican's fault. I just
think again, back to common sense every day Americans. That's
just not going to fly. It really isn't no, and
this isn't a climate where the regime media refuses to

(09:27):
really show the negative impact to America when you have
the government shut down. They do it wonderfully or amazingly
when they think.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
That it's the Republican There's so many sad stories.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
I'm glad that some of these regime media are finally
asking these Democrats, why don't you open up the government,
But they certainly aren't putting on all the stories about
what the impact negative impacts are to Americans the way
they've done it in the past.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Well, you know what the new strategy is now. Yesterday
we were talking about their efforts to blame the president
for this. Yes, now they're blaming the president because they're saying,
wait a minute, there's there's the emergency money here that
you could tap into and keep the program going.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Or you could just vote for or just vote you.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
Know, and Jake Tapper, and we'll hear this bite in
a little bit, says, yeah, there is emergency funding there.
You know how long it's gonna last about three weeks,
so and that.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Changes from three weeks and in twenty one days, what
do you think is changing?

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, that's amazing. All right, a lot to get to.
We'll talk about the downfall of great American cities coming
up next. Great to have you with us on this
Wingman Wednesday and Utah's Talk Radio one oh five nine
a NRS Wingman Wednesday afternoon. Right here. As Greg mentioned
on Talk Radio one oh five nine, can terr s
if you want to be a part of the program today,
of course you can give us a call eight eight

(10:37):
eight five seven o eight zero one zero. You can
on your cell phone. All you do is have to
dial Pound two fifteen and say hey, Rod or can
leave it com in our talkback line. Just make sure
you download the new iHeartRadio app. Interesting this morning, Greg,
I saw this article like I'm trying to remember where
I saw this, but was talking about the city of
London and how it used to be one of the

(10:59):
great cities world. You've been to London. I've been to
London years ago, but it talked about how that city
is just falling apart and what's going on in that city,
And the whole story was look at London because if
Mamdani becomes the mayor of New York City. You'll see
the same thing in New York And yeah, and what
about the downfall of American cities.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, we're seeing it, We're seeing it. I was just
I just recently got back to the hometown the city
that I grew up in, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. You used to
spend a lot of time in downtown Pittsburgh as a
kid growing up. It's the town is not in good health.
It's not. It is dirtier, there's more homeless to it
is looking much like many of America's cities. The downward
trajectory it is. It's happening there as well.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Well, let's talk with our next guest about this. His
name is Ward Clark, a contributor at Red State. We've
had Ward on the show before. Welcome back Ward. Thanks
for joining us this afternoon.

Speaker 7 (11:52):
Player, Rod, great to be backward.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
What is going on with American cities? You're right about
the downfall of American cities. What do you see happening?

Speaker 7 (12:01):
Well, it's a sad case. The latest column I just
just had, I think yesterday, talked about Los Angeles and
the infestation of rats, of all things. This is something
we've known was bad since time immemorial, and Los Angeles
has now replaced Chicago as this nation's radiest city according

(12:26):
to Orcan, which is you know, the great pest control company,
and they'd be in a position to know. And I
think it's in large part because of the homeless encampments.
Those are ideal habitats for rats. And this is a
problem you're seeing all over the country. It's part of,
you know, one of the symptoms of the decay of
our cities, as these mass homeless encampments that they're just

(12:48):
allowed to grow up. We even have them in Anchorage, Wow,
where you're basically setting a buffet table for bears because
grizzlies do come right into the city. You know, you know,
you bring up it's a nationwide problem.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, you bring up a point your article that that
that I think is one hundred percent true. And you know,
these rats and they don't just spring up out of curiosity.
It's usually filth. It's usually left or food that's left
around thing places they can and so people when they're
filthy or when living in filthy conditions, you'll see the
rats gravitate to that. And so if it's cockroaches, rats,

(13:24):
you name it. The key is to tell people you
got to clean up. You got to you know, you
got to be a hygien's got to be a thing.
So when you see when you see La Chicago, but
now you see La and you see the filth, and
you see the growing population of homelessness. I've even heard
there's medieval diseases that have actually emerged in the Los
Angeles that people haven't seen for a thousand years or something.

(13:47):
But my question is, I see no trajectory where anything's
going to get cleaned up. So what kind of diseases
and what kind of rat population should we expect. I
don't want to be so negative, but if the if
the key is to clean up, and you're looking at
those cities, do you see it cleaning up at all?

Speaker 7 (14:03):
No, there's been no evidence that any of these city
governments are willing to do what has to be done. Well,
unless the Chinese premiere is visiting, then they can get
the streets cleaned up for a short while, but everything
just comes right back. I have seen very little evidence
that most of the cities are making any major effort
to get these encampments cleaned up. And part of the

(14:25):
problem is It's not just a matter of carting away
all the filth, all the garbage, all the tents, all
the stolen stuff that's in those places. It's what to
do with the people, a great proportion of them who
are mentally ill or have addiction problems. This isn't mom
and two little kids who Mom lost your job and
they're living in their car. These are drug addicts. These

(14:48):
are you know, people with severe mental issues, and there
is no will to institutionalize the people that needs to
be institutionalized. That's what would have happened twenty thirty years ago.
They would have been in the state hospital. They would
have been living out on the street.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, that's that's very true. I remember years ago David
Letterman made the rat problem in New York a laughing matter.
I mean, he always brought it up on his show
for several years. This isn't a laughing matter in many
cities around the country anymore, is it, Ward.

Speaker 7 (15:17):
No, it's not. It's a serious public health problem. You know,
rats carry the you know, the black deaths, bubonic plague,
they carry tullerania, they carry the hunt of virus, they
carry all kinds of deadly diseases. Granted, rats have always
been with us, they always will be with us. If
we ever go into space and move to other planets,
I expect rats will go along with us to find

(15:38):
a way the best, the best we've ever been able
to do is to hold them to a draw. But
in these cities, in this latest case, they're just not
making the effort. The rats are going to win. I
don't know if you caught that in the article, but
I actually worked for Orkand for one summer. Yes, we're

(16:00):
of eighty seven. I owed the army some time, and
when I graduated college, I had to have something to
do in between graduating and going back on active duty.
So I worked for Orcan and once a week or
so I went into a house or a building or
a business where I told them whether it was rats
or mice or cockroaches, I can't do anything until you

(16:20):
clean this place up. Yes, and that's what these cities
are going to have to do. They're going to have
to clean up these encampments and then maybe they can
start to get the problem in check again.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Sure would be nice, but what.

Speaker 10 (16:30):
Is a lead.

Speaker 7 (16:31):
It's truly difficult.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Away it is Ward is always great chatting with you
appreciate a few minutes of your time today. Ward.

Speaker 7 (16:39):
Thanks guys.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Great to lit No.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
All right on our newsmaker line, Ward Clark. He's with
Red State talking about the downfall of America's cities and
talking about the city of a rats. Do we have
a lot of rats in Salt Lake?

Speaker 2 (16:51):
I haven't seen them, Thank goodness.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
No, sure they're there.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
I mean, like you said, they don't go away, But
I haven't seen the rat.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
My son had a very large one. One of my
sons had a very large in their house. It took
an all out effort to get take That largest.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
One I ever saw was in New Orleans. I saw it.
It was like it looked like a raccoon. It was
so big. It just was absolutely disturbing. If your neighbors
have chickens, you will have rats. Oh really, ask my dad.
Neighbors have chickens, You're gonna have races. They probably eat
the chicken feed, don't they.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
I'm sure they do, but they go after everything. Wow.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Okay, that's a that has a chilling effect on the chicken.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
I have a neighbor who does have rats, lives chickens.
The chickens probably has rats too. Who knows. All right,
more coming up on the Rod and Greg Show, wing
Man Wednesday on Talk Radio one oh five nine. Okay,
in arrests, all right, we want to talk about community
of participation here in a minute. But you just shared
with me during the break some very interesting maps that
you found about Utah, and you know how we're doing

(17:48):
compared to the rest of the nation.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah, you know in this Yeah, I think I'll just
let them. I'll just share you with you the maps.
You can draw your own conclusion as to why. But
in the state of Utah. If I look at a
map of the country and we look at percent of
to unmarried women, Utah ranks the least of married unmarried
percent of bursts to unmarried women. You look at children
living in intact families, there is one state in the

(18:12):
nation that is one color, and that is the most
intact families are found in Utah. It's the only it's
the only one that's seventy percent or more welfare Americans
that are on welfare six percent, which is the lowest
percentage above states population that is currently on welfare. So
those those those are Oh and here's the other one, volunteerism.

(18:34):
Most Uton residents volunteer. It's the most nationwide. So we
have more more volunteerism going on in America than any
other state. We have the least number of Utahns on welfare,
we have the most intact families, and we are the
least the smallest percentage of unmarried or children born to
unmarried couples.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
Pretty impressive numbers. But what about community participation? We talk
about volunteerism, but is there a concern about decline? Joining
us on our newsmaker line to talk more about that
as Sean Tigan, President of the Utah Foundation. Sean, how
are you welcome back to the Rod and Greg Show?

Speaker 11 (19:08):
Doing so great? Thank you so much for having me here.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
A Sean, you're talking about the decline of community participation
here in this state. Is there that big of a
client of a decline and should we be worried?

Speaker 11 (19:20):
You know, there is a big decline, and I have
to say I think we should be worried. You've seen
about a in terms of this kind of community life,
realm of social capital. We've seen a decrease in this
community life of about forty percent over the past fifteen years.
So that is a big, big deal that said when

(19:43):
we talk about this metric Utah and some of the
in terms of volunteering that Greg just brought up, and
in fact some of those other metrics he brought up
are another part of this social capital project. But in
terms of volunteers and another thing, community life, Utah is
still doing their very well compared to the rest of
the nation. In fact, we're doing so well that nobody's

(20:05):
even close. But I keep thinking about this thing. You know,
so we're doing so great, but what about that decrease?
I mean, I think we have to keep an eye
on that and see if there's some way to turn
that around.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
So one of the things that I think there's a
great contrast in is that the predominant faith, the Church
of Jewis Christ Clarrity Saints, it's a welfare program is
incredibly efficient. I grew up in a part of the
country where they had a church welfare farm that we
would go and volunteer time at, and they use that
welfare firm for various reasons, you know, ways to help people.
It was in contrast to the government welfare, which was

(20:39):
not seen as very efficient or doing a very good job.
As we get into twin that was a long time
ago in twenty twenty five. Do you think that Utons
might look at our government welfare programs more to do
those things than we would our own faith or volunteerism
on our own. Is that would that be part of
the trend in terms of less participation.

Speaker 12 (21:00):
Well, part of that.

Speaker 11 (21:00):
I think that definitely has something to do with it.
And one of the reasons you see a decrease in
terms of our Community Life Index score both in the
United States and in Utah, it's because of a decrease
in religious participation. So we've seen a decline in participation.
And if you're not participating, if you're not getting out
there and experiencing that part of community life through religion.

(21:25):
Religion is an important part of a lot of people's lives,
but viewer in view of us are participating and so,
like you said, getting back to that kind of welfare system,
the Church of Jus Christ of latterday Saint has a
pretty robust system in place to support people. If you're
not part of that space, you may be looking elsewhere

(21:46):
to the government for the supports when times of need.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Sean, how much are you running into this or do
you think we're all thinking about this. Sometimes I'm just
too darn busy. I've got too much going in my
life and I really just don't want to get involved anymore.
Is that creeping up to you?

Speaker 7 (22:01):
You know?

Speaker 11 (22:02):
I think that that is part of it, and I'm
going to step out a little bit and say that
maybe it's a little bit of an excuse.

Speaker 13 (22:09):
And.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, that's his total excuse.

Speaker 10 (22:15):
You found you.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Good job.

Speaker 12 (22:19):
You know.

Speaker 11 (22:19):
I might say that myself. But one of the metrics
in this community life, a part of our Social Capital
project of the Utah Foundation, is that we are spending
in the United States and in Utah, we're spending more
and more time alone. And if we're spending more and
more time alone, maybe that means that we could get
out and be spending more time with our friends and

(22:40):
neighbors and the rest of the community through volunteers, through
through volunteering. So I think that that that's definitely a thing.
I mean, we're busy. Everybody you talk to, nine out
of ten people, they're probably going to say, ah, I've
never been so busy. But the fact is we're spending
more and more time alone. And what is that Like
We're looking at our phones and we're looking at our
other screen, and maybe we can decrease that time looking

(23:03):
out at our screens and get out there and work
with our friends and neighbors.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Sean, if you've done any polling of our Generation Z,
this seems to be a unique demographic eighteen to twenty four,
eighteen to twenty nine, they seem to be voting differently.
There seems to be a religious revival in the country,
and it's really a lot of it's being fueled by
Generation Z that in twenty twenty five, I didn't know
that I would ever experience or see open declaration of
the Savior of Jesus Christ things like that. Are you

(23:30):
finding a different maybe a course correction with our younger
young adults in our emerging workforce this Generation Z do?

Speaker 10 (23:39):
So?

Speaker 11 (23:39):
I've read a little bit about that too, Greg, and
I think that that's definitely a possibility. We at the
Utah Foundation haven't pulled that particular demographic enough to really
do any analysis there, but I think that'd be It's
an interesting question, and I think that we probably should
be focusing on that just to see what we've got
coming in the future in terms of this population, because

(24:01):
maybe that will term this this decline in religious participation
around and you know, religious participation ties into some of
the other metrics in this in this this community life
kind of index score, and you look at how much
you give to charities, you look at how much time.
You know, I think that members of the Church of

(24:22):
Jewis Christ of Latter day Saints are known pretty well
for getting out there and helping out their neighbors and
helping out the community in that way. And then you
brought up volunteers in Greg, but you know, we're number
one in the in the nation in terms of volunteers.
And so I think that that when you see a
decrease in that religious participation, you're going to see the
declines in some of those other things. So fingers crossed.

(24:42):
You know, some of this comes back around and we
have a new just younger population that maybe takes a
second look at religion even though maybe some of their
older peers have stepped away.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
Sean. Thank you Sean with the Utah Foundation talking about
participation in you time. Remember years ago, Greg, we had
that wicked windstorm which we know and really get up
in Davis County like on the first of December, uh,
and it blew everything all over the place and people
got out that day. The next day they had that
area cleaned up in a matter of days.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
I think the term emergency preparedness is not a foreign term.
I think we talk about it a little bit as
a community and uh and people do get.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
We do respond, all right. More coming up on the
Rod and Greg Show and Talk Radio one oh five
nine can arrest. I have admired everything President Trump has done,
especially during the second term. I think he got his
act together. He was more confident, he got a good
team around him. He's not being attacked the way he
was during the first term. I mean you see him
over and was it South Korea they gave him a

(25:39):
crown or something like that.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
I mean, too bad. Schumer can't get online in line
with every leader of every nation on planet Earth. But yeah,
Schumer can't get along with him. But the world is
the world on them. They're all falling over themselves. Yes,
with Donald Trump. I mean they got paray.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
They're not dumb, they're dumb. They you know, he has
truly become the world's leader.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
He really has.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Now Where was Joe Biden during four years? Apparently he
didn't want to be that yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
And then if you go back like Obama did the
apology tour when he first was elected, he want to
tell everyone how bad America was, and yeah, you know,
try it. But no, you're seeing, You're seeing. We are
the leader of the free world. We won the Cold War.
This is a role that the United States should have.
I mean, we should always have had this, this position
with a strong president, with good trade, global trade agreements

(26:24):
that worked for the United States as well as the
other countries. We didn't. We just became everybody's you know,
everyone could our shot, everybody could shop here, send their
stuff here. We lost our industries, we lost manufacturing. It
was unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah, it was. Well this and I bring up the
president because I support so many things that he's done.
But I'll believe this when I see he made a
prediction yesterday. You'll love this one. You're ready. Yes, gasoline
will drop below two dollars a gallon soon.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Well, I don't care if it's fifty cents a gallon,
and Utah will be paying three thirty three, you know,
for the rest of our born days. I don't know.
You know, we got our own problem out here. By
the way, Phil Mickelson is on a terror. He's a golfer,
you know, won the Master's multiple times. One. He is
on a tear about energy and about fuel in California,

(27:12):
and he's going after them pretty hard. And he's right.
I've been reposting some of his some of his ex posts,
but I've been pointing out and in there they are
so bad at what they have done in that state.
And that's such a large state, and it had the
third most refineries in America. That their lack of oil
and gas production and then they're shutting down their own refineries.

(27:34):
It is one of the reasons we are being negatively
impacted in Utah because regionally now we're picking up the slack.
Our refineries are now selling it at this high high
price that we don't shouldn't have to pay and haven't paid.
But it is the mismanagement of California that is absolutely
impacting gas pressures in this state.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
Who do we have On last week state lawmaker who's
looking into this, he said, we in the state of
Utah are producing I think the number was about two
hundred and twenty thousand gallons of gasolin and barrels barrels, right,
and we use about one hundred and sixty thousand. So
where's that extra going. It could help lower gas prices here,
uh huh, contracting out sending it to California.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah, And if it's not going to California, it's going
to the states that used to get it from California.
So California, they're importing most of their gas overseas. They're
getting it from other sources as well, like Utah. But
and other Western states that have seen California as a
source for oil refined oil and gat or oil and
they're gasoline and their fuel. That's not happening anymore. And

(28:30):
that is just creating a news strain on Utah. And
that's not an excuse. I am still you're not going
to have all this fuel infrastructure, supply chain infrastructure in
our state and we're going to pay the most in
the country. Forget it.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
It does make sense.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
I want to be Iowa who has none of it
and pays seventy five cents less agallon than we do well.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
And we both know. Utah lawmakers are working on some
plans on this. They are hearing from the public and
they are going to try and address this come the
legislative session. That's right, it's going to be fun to
watch now their hour coming your way of the Rod
and Greg Show on Wingman Wednesday and Talk Radio one
oh five nine Canaus.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
I hope you're having a good Wednesday. I'm brought our citizen,
Greg Hughes. Everybody, get in the van, pass me the
car for head. We're going to keep going. It's the
Great Revival, it's the running Greg Show.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
No, honestly, they supposed put their hand on the Bible and.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Say, give me our equivalent in Utah? Who what show?
What show is a Utah? A show that's like ours
is alive?

Speaker 1 (29:32):
No, there's not even a close second anymore.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
That's why I'm saying, everyone, get in the vanes.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Are the other ones are all oatmeal?

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yes? Oat mill? That's that's putting it kindly. But yeah, yeah,
So anyway, it's a it's it's good that you're with us,
folks again. I love Wingman Wednesday. I like the bummer music.
It's uh, it's always good.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit more about the
the shutdown, because, uh, the Democrats. Greg may in fact
be losing the media on this one. Now that that
seems hard to believe. But there are kind of cracks
now where the media is asking finally, some very tough
questions and saying, wait a minute, you're trying to blame

(30:10):
the president and Republicans, but basically you're the ones holding
everything up.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
It's one hundred percent true, and I'm tired. I mean again,
I'm not giving him any you know, golden stars on
their foreheads, because this is stuff they should have been doing.
They do against Republicans all the time. However, finally they
are actually holding them accountable and they are testing them.
But anyway, yeah, I'm here. I'm curious to hear some

(30:34):
of them. I heard Jake Tapper the other day give
the congresswoman some great Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Well here's Jake Tapper. And Jake Tapper, we all know
he's no friend to Republicans right at all, not at all,
and certainly not to the president. Not a friend to
the president at all. But he interviewed Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury,
she is a Democrat from New Mexico, yesterday and he
laid out some strong, stone cold facts about the Schumer shutdown,

(30:59):
and she was not too happy about the questions he
was asking.

Speaker 14 (31:02):
One bit, should the Democratic Senators from New Mexico, your
home state, vote to open the government so that these
SNAP funds are not at risk.

Speaker 6 (31:12):
Let me be clear, the administration is choosing to starve
American children with money that they already have appropriate.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
I'm i'mauding the White House.

Speaker 6 (31:27):
This is a choice by the White House.

Speaker 14 (31:30):
This is also this is also a choice by Senate
Democrats to not vote to open the government.

Speaker 9 (31:36):
Yes, it is.

Speaker 14 (31:37):
I understand why they're doing it. They're doing it because
they want Medicaid funds restored. They're doing it because they
want Obamacare premiums to be extended past the end of
the year.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
I understand the reason.

Speaker 6 (31:48):
I let me just be clear. The money for contingency
plans is sitting there. That is why the states are
suing the White Houses withholding funds.

Speaker 14 (31:56):
From two to three weeks worth of SNAP funds.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (31:59):
Yeah, it may not be a big deal to you,
but let's use the big guilt to their grandparents.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
For gret is the big built.

Speaker 6 (32:05):
They literally are feeding their children a short those accounts.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
It's a short run.

Speaker 6 (32:11):
Sure, at the end of the day, people need to
be able to feed their families and Saturdays when those
funds also.

Speaker 14 (32:17):
Strong fighting Congress, Why not asking the Senate Democrats from
New Mexico to vote to open the governments so that
the SNAP funds.

Speaker 6 (32:27):
I am here in the House of Representatives it is
shut down. I am fighting to get the government reopened.
I am fighting to get funding put back into SNAP
that has already existed.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
If you feel so strongly about it, tell your two
senators from the state of New Mexico, who by the way,
I believe are both Democrats, to vote in favor of
the CR. That's all it would take.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
See And it's such a disingenuous argument because what changes
in the twenty three days twenty one days of between
now and the three weeks of those reserve funds? There
isn't there's nothing to negotiate. They need to come and
open the government through the R. You would waste that,
waste it because you're not changing It doesn't sound like
if you're not ready to change your position now and
vote for the status quo, which is that, which is

(33:09):
the clear, the clean continuing resolution for the budget. If
you're not willing to do it now, what are you
going to do in three weeks from now? You're not
gonna change it, So don't lie to the American people
like there's some pantasy or some solution out there. You're
staving off the inevitable. And that's just that's just for snap.
I mean, what about all the other people that are
that are you know, not able to work. It's a

(33:29):
it's such a it's such a ridiculous argument.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
Well, not to be outdone by Jake Tapper, here's Cassie Hunt,
also from CNN. She had Senter Gaegos on the show,
asking him about the norms when it comes to shutdowns,
and he explained why the Democrats are shutting down the
government in two words.

Speaker 15 (33:46):
And in the past, Democrats, when Republicans have tried to
do something like this, Democrats have argued that the norms
of our government should be that you negotiate policy outside
of a government shutdown. I mean I have, over many
years covering Washington, people have said.

Speaker 5 (34:01):
That over and over and over again.

Speaker 15 (34:03):
And now I have neighbors in the DC area who
are both employed by the federal government who are having
to use food banks. We are heading into Thanksgiving. Why
is it suddenly right to do it this way and
to do it for this long when it didn't used
to be the right way in Democrats.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
View, Oh, that's an easy answer. It is Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
I mean they're doing this because Donald Trump. I mean,
can they get past the Trump and derangement syndrome. They
are hurting the American people because of their You can't
hate is not a word that even describes how they
feel about Donald Trump. It's deeper than that.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
The world leaders are rallying around and making I think
important economic global trade deals with the United States with
Donald Trump for a reason, because he is going to
make it a good deal for both sides. We've not
had that before. And with that, you see the contrast,
the contrast that is Schumer and these Democrats who can't

(35:01):
get along with their own president, when the rest of
the world and its leaders are just coming together. And
by the way, this isn't heavy handed. This isn't him
saying do it or else. He wants good reciprocal agreements,
which is so it should be so intuitive that lifes
a two way street. We should both benefit from a deal.
We should be mutual, we should mutually benefit. So this

(35:23):
isn't done in some tyrannical way. You're seeing countries figure
out Donald Trump and his leadership style and that is,
we're both going to win. The rising tide is going
to lift all ships. The Democrats has seen nothing. They
can give him nothing, they can concede nothing. They'll never
say if the man walked on water, all they would
tell you is he doesn't know how to swim. That's it.
That's all they would say.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
That's true. Now, one of the issues that the President
went on, I believe greg was immigration and the economy. Now,
a lot of people may be saying the economy is
not doing really well right now. There are some out
there who are saying that the Fed today drop the
interest rate to another quarter point today, but a good
old trend. Harriet from CNN decided to dig into the

(36:04):
economy as an issue this year and how the American
people feel about is it a problem for Americans? Let's
to what Harry found out.

Speaker 5 (36:12):
Well, you know, Matt was mentioning about the E com
playing such an important rowland last year's presidential election. The
top problem facing the US's economic.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Pergal last year.

Speaker 5 (36:21):
Look at this forty three percent at this time, forty
three percent of Americans said the top problem was economic.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
Come to this side of the screen.

Speaker 5 (36:27):
It's just considerably different we're talking about twenty four percent.
We're talking about a drop of near twenty points. And
more than that, we're talking about across all of the
different political groups, right, Democrats, Independent Republicans, we see that
the percentage who say the top problem is economic has
been falling, has been falling, has been falling through the floor.
And more than that, you know, we're talking about inflation.

(36:48):
The percentage of Americans who say that the top problem
is inflation has also been falling, which is I think
very much surprising giving all the news that we are
hearing about the economy.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
So the American people aren't worried about the economy anymore.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Not the same nowhere? Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you
saw the gas prices are a major because it's not
only just your own pocketbook, but it's a delivery cost
for groceries. It will impact in a positive way the
costs of goods that are being delivered. That the gas
prices are coming down nationally, even if we don't see
it here in state of Utah.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Would be nice, It would be nice. Well, did sum
up everything? We turned to John Kennedy, one of our faves.
We had a thought to our thought or to about
our good friend Chuck Schumer and.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
The American people's opinion. Senator Schumer is a He's a
wet match in a dark cave. He he polls right
up there with clubbing baby Skei seals. He's got a
thirty percent approval rating, a sixty percent disapproval rating, and
ten percent of folks polls just didn't want to pause

(37:52):
their video games to answer. It's it's not working. The
American people may not read their stytle every.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
Day, but they get it.

Speaker 4 (38:01):
This is not a policy shut down. This is a
political shutdown. And I keep waiting for my Democratic cottage
to come to their son.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
He's a wet match in a dark cave.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Also, I love it. He just never disappoints.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
He never does. All Right, more coming up. We'll get
to some of your comments here on the Rod and
Greg Show eight eight eight five seven eight zero one zero.
On your cell phone dial pound two fifty and say
hey Rod, or leave us a comment on our talk
back line by downloading the iHeartRadio WAP and searching for
canna as. More coming up here on the Rod and
Greg Show, we'll be talking about the downfall of American City.

(38:35):
So you know, how you tell the downfall.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
It exists rats.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yeah, the rat discussed it is the rat population. And
apparently I didn't realize this, but apparently now La is
number one when it comes to rats.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, you know, the crown the rat capital of the
country has always been Chicago, but it's been de throned. Yeah,
no kings, No rat kings in Chicago anymore. That that
that honor now belongs to the Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
And we talked about volunteering. We brought up the shutdown.
Let's go to our talkback lines and see what you
have to say tonight about what's going on in America
today and here in the state of Utah. Here's one
of our callers who left a message on our talkback line.
Well we think they did. All right, let's try this one, Greg,
Let's see if this one works. Nope, Yeah, they're all up.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
It's a button thing. You know, you're flying this plane today.
You got the NASA like board. But that that that's
a yeah, that jet.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah. You always talking to me. Yeah, you can tell them. Yeah,
let's take uh, let's take the second one down here, Ray,
if you can pull that up. Not working for me?

Speaker 16 (39:50):
Hey, Greg, this one will get you excited. I was
just in Alabama and I paid two thirty seven a
gallon at Sam's but.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
John to love it thirty seven. We have another one
on gas prices to eray, I think it's the one
below it ew.

Speaker 8 (40:06):
I know you know this, Greg.

Speaker 4 (40:08):
Colorado has two refineries in several cities.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
In Colorado, the gas is one ninety nine a gallon.
In Utah we have five refineries.

Speaker 9 (40:21):
Yes, and we're still paying three nineteen, three twenty nine
and all that garbage.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
Figure it out. Yeah, it's just starting to take people off.

Speaker 9 (40:31):
It is.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
And you know what, folks, if you want to keep
calling and reporting what you're seeing out there, I think
that the broader audience would like to have some better
perspective because it's hard for us to see the White
House really and justifiably heralding the lowering of gas prices
because of how impactful it is to the household budget,
to groceries and delivery costs, and we are not part

(40:53):
of that story. And it is it is not acceptable.
It is not acceptable to see this happening across this
country and have noighboring states. Well, Alabama's lucky to I mean,
that's farther away, but not a neighboring state. Yeah, well,
I'm saying not Alabama. They're not a neighboring But Colorado
has two refineries. That was the whole concept when I
was on the clock. We had a relationship. It was

(41:13):
a two way street. We had these refineries, We had
this supply chain for fuel. But what you also had
was a lower gas price because of it. This is gone,
and I'm telling you there's other economic issues at hand
that we at play that we can't control, like California
everything else. But I think the legislature should be looking
at that gas tax and really lowering our tax on

(41:34):
gasolining because that is something that the that the government
can do.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Let me ask you, I want price fixing. You've dealt
with this. Do the refineries the people are the companies
that own their refiners? These are big companies, yes, very big.
Do they really care if they're taking off the Utah
gas buyer?

Speaker 12 (41:48):
Not?

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Clearly not obviously right, they don't care. Well, once we
got into a stage, and this is I think because
of the need that California has created the exporting of
our of our refined fuel out of our state thirty
five to forty percent of it. That was never the case.
We used what we refined, and think about the transportation
costs very little. When you'd think seventy five to eighty

(42:10):
percent of an entire state lives along the Watatch Front,
that's four contiguous counties you take the off Wasatch counties,
of Twila, Summit County. I mean, it's not hard to deliver.
You're having it refined in North Salt Lake. We should
have such low gas prices. But if you could make
a mint sending it out of state, why do it?
And your exempt They enjoy a tax free exemption. Anything

(42:31):
they're shipping they can it has seized no tax. Only
the motorists here in Utah pay a tax on gasoline
that's refined, not anything leaving the state. Well, I think
the motorists and I think Utah needs a break on that.
If the refineries aren't going to be part of that
symbiotic relationship where we're there for them, they're there for us.
If that relationship is over, it's I think we need

(42:55):
to revisit the tax as it were.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
I was just a New York state, Okay, I wasn't driving.
My son had the vehicle. He was driving it.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
By the way, my kids are all just backseat drivers.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Yeah, I let him drive, let him get the tickets
because we don't drive slowly in the Arquette family. But
he filled up when I forgot to ask him what
gas is. But I still think it's about above three
dollars a gallon, even in the state of New York. Now,
part of the reason for that that is a tax state,
like you wouldn't believe. I asked my brother who lives

(43:27):
in the Syracuse area, what he pays for property taxes. Yeah,
close to fifteen thousand dollars. Yeah, that's that's close to
fifteen thousand dollars in this state. Ours are considerably less
than that of that. Yeah, isn't that amazing?

Speaker 2 (43:42):
Yep, yeah, no, it's it's Yeah. Some states, when I
hear there are property tax you think about you own
your home outright. Your monthly payment on property tax alone
in some of these states would represent a rent or
a mortgage. It's pretty exciting.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
And he was telling me, I said, John, that's high.
He said, do you know how many layers of government
we have to pay for? In New York State? Every
little town, every little town has a fire department, a
police department, all kinds of various government agencies. And guess
who pays for Yep, the taxpayer.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Yeah. I looked at my tax bill, my property tax
bill because of this Salt Lake County aubub twenty percent up,
and it is. It's a long list. Your school districts,
your your county, your city, your your sewer district, your
mosquito abatement district. It's a it's a long line. And
those taxes ad up.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
All right, We're asking you tonight, if you've been around
the country, what you're seeing when it comes to gasoline prices?
Eight eight eight five seven eight zero one zero on
your cell phone dial pound two to fifteen and say, hey, Rod,
leave us to come in on our talk back line.
Let's go to Ed in Lehigh tonight. Ed, how are you?
What have you seen when it comes to gas prices?

Speaker 2 (44:46):
Ed?

Speaker 10 (44:48):
Well, I came back from Seattle a couple of weekends ago,
and the poor folks in Seattle. I had to fill
up my rental car. It was five fifty two a gallon,
Oh late to and I went up further in the
state because I was visiting my daughter up there that
lives about one hundred miles or so north through Seattle

(45:10):
Land and her Town. It was it was the cheap
best I saw. It was four sixty eight. They are
really raking the consumers over the poles up there.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
Well, well there's Green State too, and they just raised
gas tax in the state of Washington. And they're getting
their their fuel overseas too, because.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
California is not not giving them fuel.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
They're not producing oil and gas away they used to.
They're not refining it like they used to. Most of
that West coast now is getting it from I don't know,
from Saudi Arabia and from Asia. I mean it's they
are now dependent on on gasoline coming for fuel coming
from US as an export.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Yeah. Highest I paid a couple of years ago was
seven dollars a gallon down in California. That's the highest
I've ever paid.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Yeah, the Left coast, it is, it is, it is
what is It is the ripple effect that has made
the Western States the outlier in the country. If you
look a map, Triple A's map, and you look in
a color coat, you know, it's like a heat map.
The most expensive the Western States and the Left Coast
is we're getting is red dark red, and then everything
goes lighter colored and as less expensive as you go
east until you get to the north northeast, and then

(46:14):
it gets read again.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Shouldn't be that way? All right? More your calls and comments.
That is the Rod and Gregg Show right here on
Utah's Talk Radio one O five nine. Okay, nters, it
is amazing, Greg. People want to talk about gasoline prices.
Thank goodness, frustration they I have. I have a sincere
frustration about this. And I think every time I see
the President, Harold, all the good work they're doing to
see these prices go down, it's just it's salt in

(46:37):
the wound. Now we're going, Okay, where is it, mister President,
because we are not seen it.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
And then in the state, I think we are a
captured market here in the Inauch Front, and I think
that we're not seeing the free market competition that that's
that stations typically go through to get you in there
to buy the gas because they have a higher profit
margin on the items in the store. But if you
have a captured market like this, you can just go
to the highest one and everyone's up to that height.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
All right, let's go to the phones who would you
have to say eight eight eight five seven eight zero
one zero. You also leave us a message on our
talk back line. Let's go to the phones.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Let's go to Yeah, Let's go to Max and Sandy,
who's been waiting. Max, thank you for holding. Welcome to
the Rod and Greg Show.

Speaker 12 (47:18):
Thank you.

Speaker 8 (47:19):
I remember the times when we used to be the
cheapest in the nation consistently because of the we had
nowhere to take the fuel too, and the only time
the fuel prices went up was on holidays. But that
all changed in twenty twelve when they built the Utah
Nevada pipeline that will allow them. In fact, the UNB
dot com doesn't exist anymore, at least I couldn't find it,

(47:41):
but they still have a link to it in the Wikipedia,
and there's an article in there from the local news
station that says they'll be able to increase their profits
off this pipeline by thirty to forty percent. And what
to happen when they did this is that they were
able to sell it to not just the okay, this
was that was a lie. They reversed the pipeline that

(48:03):
California Fed and Ls Air Force Base that they built
a long time ago and down. They feed in southern
California with our oil and supply here and we pay
California prices because if we don't, then they would just
sell it all the California. Now, since then, they've also
built a pipeline up to Washington, Oregon and San Francisco,

(48:26):
and we feed, you know, through a pipeline that was
from the True De Bay all the way over to
Idaho because there's an Air Force base up there. They
reversed that pipeline as well. So we're feeding all over
the East coast with our fuel and we have to
pay the market price.

Speaker 12 (48:42):
Max.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
You need to be our reporter on the scene. You've
brought a lot of information and information. This is exactly
what we knew when we started to see the amount
of barrels that are being refined leaving the state, which
is a percentage. It's much much higher than it used
to be in the past, and it tracks the increase price.
We're not dumb, we know what's going on here. So

(49:03):
you got California that's shutting down its own oil and
gas production and refining, and now you're seeing that that
is being pulled out of our state. And if you
don't want to pay the California price that they're willing
to pay high prices for, then we're going to lose it.
And so I think that this again, we have had
a symbiotic relationship where we don't have refineries in our backyard.

(49:24):
They're in our front yard. We have the trucks, the
tankers that transport it, we have. There's a lot that
comes with having these refineries in this supply chain here
in our state, which was always supposed to be for
lower gas prices, and even the Tier three gas that
we paid as taxpayers, by the way, gave them tax
eightes refineries tax credits to upgrade those EPA required they

(49:45):
had an EPA. They could have done it anywhere, but
we want it done here. So the clean GASO line,
the cleanest gasoline would be refined here in Utah, which
would help our air quality. But you, the taxpayers, paid
for that, not them. We did. But why do we
do it so that we would have that good quality,
clean gas at a good price, and we're not getting
that anymore.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
I've got a solution. What you'll like this, if you're
willing to invest with me, Okay, you ready for this?

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (50:08):
I forgot that right across the street from my house.
We wanted to buy some property across the street from
us right and build a home at one time. Well,
we found out there's an oil pipeline that runs diagonally
through that property.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
Let's steal. Let's take it.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
We can come from Wyoming down to the plane down
to the refineries here, and I'm thinking, could we tap
into that and refine our own.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Gas I think we should try. You know, we'd probably
get it rest if the people not getting snapper allowed
to go shop lift. Now we can go get our
own gasoline. We're gonna go road here, tap into that pipeline. Yeah,
Well it's a two that's probably the one from Sinclair, Wyoming.
It's a two hundred and fifty mile pipeline, and that's
supposed to again, yeah, make it more efficient.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
And weren't they years ago building one on the East
foothills up in up in the Bountiful and uh Davis
County area, Because you'd look up there and they put
in some kind of big pipeline up there, and if
you like, I think we tap into it.

Speaker 12 (50:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Look, last thing I'll say about this is that Maverick
has one of the most unique business models in America
when you look at Comedian stores, because from the well
to the pipelines, to the refineries to the delivery, they
own and control all those all that supply chain.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
They're smart.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
There's not middleman, there's not brokers in between. They should
be the least expensive gas by a lot. Here. You
know what they are. I see their price high, and
I see everybody track to their price.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
What they're doing.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yep, So all right, we'll go.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
We've got some talkback callers who want to make a
coment on this. We'll get to those after we take
this break right here on the Rod and Greg Show
in Utah's Talk Radio one oh five nine Knrs Rodden
Gregor Show.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
Yeah, Rodd and Gregg Show, and our ex page. And
then yeah, the articles are always good. That's the foundation
for the interviews.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
Interviews that we do. Yeah, we see them throughout the day.
All right, let's go back to the phones as we're
taking your calls. Number one topic tonight, surprise surprise gas prices.
We go to Jim in provo tonight, Jim, how are
you welcome to the Rod and Greg Show?

Speaker 12 (52:00):
And fine, Rod, I heard this years ago Walmart doesn't
charge as much for their products down south because the
economy is not as strong as it is out here
in Utah and the gas prices of the same quality.
The reason gas is so cheap in the South is
because there's not enough money to pay for this type

(52:20):
of gas that we have out here. So the money
along the wall sets front is just flowing, and that's
why the gas prices is so hot.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
So we're living too high on the hog. Is that
what you're saying, Jim, Therefore we can pay more.

Speaker 12 (52:34):
I'm just saying that, and it's a cultural thing. They
charge us as much as they can because we go
along with it.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
So true, you know what the market is that the
market value of something is what you're willing to pay for.
But I will tell you that where we lose in
the free market competition and gas prices is that if
you get outside this captured market, you'll see gas stations
because they're more independently owned. They're not all owned by companies.

(53:05):
They want you to go. People are so sensitive to
gas prices. If you're just a couple cents less a gallon,
they'll choose your get gas there and go into your
store instead of the one that yes close by, and
so those independent owners they compete with each other. And
what does that do? That puts that price per gallon
margin lower because they have like a fifty percent margin
sometimes on the food in side or whatever you're buying

(53:26):
inside the store. That's the contest. That's the free market.
But if you can get thirty cents a gallon on
your gas, or you can get twenty cents a gallon
on your gas, not five cents, why would you go less?
Why would you go less? Because if you can't compete
anywhere else and nobody else is competing with you, everybody
can just lock to the same price. If you go
to gas Buddy and you see everybody's store is the
exact same price. That is not how it works rested

(53:48):
around the rest of the country. They're competing sent by cent.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Something's going on. All right, let's go to our talkback
lines here. What you have to say about this tonight,
Andy Ray, it's not working again. Kind of weird, kind
of weird, and it wasn't a few minutes ago. Greg,
I think I think we've got spooks inside.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
It's the liberals here.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
We go, all right, play the second one down. If
you would he.

Speaker 16 (54:11):
Ray shosh for more of them. Got to jump in again,
as I always do so with regards to gas prices.
Here's my question. Is this sort of the last effects
of the Biden messhap letting everybody else sell oil crude

(54:31):
oil to us and we're just trying to filter through
all of that, or am I just completely often left field?

Speaker 1 (54:39):
Let me know, Thanks, guys, thank you appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
It isn't no, yeah, it is no so gas so crude.
I haven't checked today, but it's been. It's been some
of its all time lows under selling for under sixty
dollars a barrel. We were eighty ninety over one hundred
dollars a barrel crewed on the market during the Biden administration.
They've they've gone through that supply. What what you need
to think about is back in during Trump's first term, okay,

(55:03):
which wasn't that long ago, sixteen to twenty January of
seventeen till till January of twenty one, we had gas
prices literally around two dollars seventy cents. Do you remember this?
So don't? No one can tell me that it's from
then till now. Something changed other than you have a
California mismanaged state that no longer makes its production of

(55:26):
boiling gas is down or non existent. Their refineries haven't
been modernized, They've done nothing. They don't want to do it.
So you have a demand from the left coast that
is wanting what we have here. Some people are saying, well,
we don't have enough, and I'm so tired of Grok.
If you ask this stupid AI, this question it lies to,
you'll say, there's only two refineries in Utah. There's five Grok. Okay.

(55:47):
They say, well, you know, we don't have enough. We
have to get it from out of state.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Because we don't supply enough.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
We are we have as much as this state needs,
and we have excess thirty five to forty percent of
what they're refining. We are sending out of state. That
when AI tells you that the Utah doesn't have enough
capacity to provide for itself, it's not true. It's just
fundamentally not true. So I'm telling you that what's happened
is you've seen a consolidation of companies in store and

(56:14):
those that sell gas over the years, and they don't
have to. It's what it's the point that our color made.
If the market will pay for it, then that's the
market and we're captured. We don't have anyone competing, all right.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Coming up is their corruption in the fight against homelessness.
We'll dig into that. Ba's on a brand new study
when we come back. For you, an extra hour of
sleep this weekend. I love that, Yeah, I do too.

Speaker 10 (56:38):
Well.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
I'm going up to the Utah game on Saturday night.
It starts at eight fifteen.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
So I'm going to tell you. I know I said
this on Tuesday when I came back. I am telling
you that is especially you, but it means me. Okay,
the older audiences of football, as we start to see,
football used to be a one o'clock game, whether it
was college, whether it was NFL, it was one o'clock.
A four o'clock game was your afternoon game. You have

(57:06):
a Monday night game. But that's about it. We got
all these eight to fifteen games. We have them all
the time. We have them Thursday nights in NFL, we
have them Sunday nights in NFL. We have a Monday
nights in NFL. Now we have in college football. We've
got these eight to fifteen College football starts the older
generations are not ready to watch three plus hours of
football starting at eight fifteen pm. They're aging out. We're

(57:30):
going to age out. I don't even know how you're
going to stay awake. I hope someone's driving you. Someone
driving you there. You're never getting home from an eight
to fifteen kickoff.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
Yeah. I told my wife this today. I said, just
think about it. We go at eight fifteen. Let's say
the game gets over at ten thirty or eleven thirty. Yes,
it'll only be ten thirty because we're moving. The clock's back.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
That is true. This weekend is your only a little reprieve.
You know, how would you like to be Here's a
more Adlona. Be it a BYU game, and the games and
overtime are gone long, and now you're in the Sunday
and you're football. I'm telling you, yes not. I don't
know about this year, but I've been there when it's
been Sunday officially Sunday after midnight, and I'm going is

(58:12):
anyone pulling off for I don't feel like, how.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
Long has it been since you've been down to cougar Ctity.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
It's been a few seasons, it's been a while.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
It used to be pure hell trying to leave that stadium.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
After Hey, I got my system down park in it.
I parked somewhere. I walk a little bit. But where
I park, I don't want to tell our audience how
I get in and out of that town. But I
got to tell them, you aren't going down anymore. Well,
I park near the fieldhouse, so you got to walk
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
Okay, boy.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
When I walk out and I get there, I go
to go north. I go to Center Street and I
go through the neighborhoods roads and man, I get right
on that on ramp right there by that Center Street
on ramp, and I am cooking with gas man, I
am out. Everybody else is in that long long lines.
Everybody's in these long lines. I am on I fifteen.
I'm getting both the Utah games. We pay for parking.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
Kind of.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
I gave it my secret sauce right there. That's going
to now next time I go down there. But we
park very close to the stadium. We have a quick
way out, so it's easy.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
It's hard for it. Huh, how do you get a
quick way? Well, you know the high rise, Yeah, near
the stadium. As you're going up for it, there's that
big high rise thing. We pay for parking in their
parking lot. All we do is get off, get on thirteenth,
head north and we're gone, Wow, we're good.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
I approve. I've never I can get in and out
of there, no sweat, no sweat. But I haven't been
a couple of years. But I know it's.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
Uh boy, what coverage we got today? The state of
Utah got today in the New York Times on what
the big big article on the homeless camp.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
Yep, yep, yeah, it's this is the President Trump's newest
So look, this is a this is a model that
has worked very well in San Antonio, and it's a
campus and it's trying to meet people where they are.
But really instead of warehousing people in a faceless way,
drug cartels are embedded in there, selling drug, human tra picking,
drug trafficking. This has an individual attention to people, but

(01:00:04):
they're they're handling because you have people that they call
it shelter resistant. They don't want to be so there's
there's places even comminate people that don't want to be clean.
You can't that. One of the rules is you can't
be drunk and force high. You can to be inside
areas where there's other people, and so they have some
areas where they can be. It's a little more primitive
of a circumstance, but they were going to be for
shelter resistant anyway, so it's better than freezing in a

(01:00:26):
parking grab anyway. This is a new model that they're trying,
and it's it's individualized care and if it works, yeah,
we'll see. I'll tell you what is the methods they've
done before. It's we're learning that maybe they weren't even
intended to work. That's the sad part.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
Yeah. Well, this article and it goes along with this
brand new study we saw it today and basically it says,
the study exposes the corruption behind America's homelessness crisis and
joining us on our Newsmaker line as the author of
that study. Her name is Michelle Steve. She is the
founder of Free Up Foundation, a visiting fellow also a
Discovery Institute. Michelle, thanks for joining us tonight. Let's talk

(01:01:03):
about this study and what you've found out.

Speaker 17 (01:01:06):
Well, if I may give a little historical context up
until twenty thirteen, First of all, the federal government is
the largest funder of homelessness they didn't used to be.
They kind of crept in over the last couple decades.
Prior to that, it was really the faith based community
that served the homeless. But like in many other areas,

(01:01:26):
right the federal government came in, took over, and they
don't do a lot of things as well. So back
up until twenty thirteen, they funded different types of shelter,
so emergency shelter, transitional housing, permanent housing. They funded treatment

(01:01:47):
for the diseases that often the company homelessness, such as
addiction and or mental illness, and they also funded employment
training right other treatment services. But in twenty thirteen, without
any evidence that it would work as a one size
fits all approach, they took an approach called Housing First,

(01:02:10):
and they instituted it. They mandated it across homelessness in
the country. And what this meant was as a country,
we were going to take all that money that we
were spending on homelessness and we were going to only
fund housing subsidies basically housing vouchers. No longer funding treatment,
no longer funding new different types of housing that we

(01:02:34):
funded prior to that, And they literally promised it would
end homelessness in a decade and we are now twelve
years later. There was a President Obama who promised this.
It's in writing, you can look it up. Ten twelve
years later, we're at the highest point ever in our
country's history, thirty five almost a thirty five percent increase
despite a three hundred percent increase in public spending since

(01:02:59):
housing the housing first mandate. So it has just been
and the death rate is up over seventy seven percent.
It's been a massive failure. I followed Utah for many
years because I was in California when I ran the
program I ran for thirteen years Northern California's largest program
for homeless women and children, and we as a state

(01:03:22):
were the only ones that followed the FEDS in mandating
the housing first approach, which we in California did in
twenty sixteen. Since California did that, there was another three
hundred percent increase in public spending California spending, and they're
up almost forty percent since twenty sixteen. We in California

(01:03:45):
also followed Utah right. Utah had gotten really excited Salt
Lake City in particular, which is you know where the
core of the problem exists about housing first, And you
might remember this in seventeen, Utah was held up as
the mecca. Right, It's solved homelessness and right, So it

(01:04:08):
was your state auditor, I think it was twenty seventeen
who figured out that all of the tabulation of the
results were based on a flawed methodology and some flawed outcomes,
and so he dispelled what you know, everyone was holding up,
as you know, the shining star. So I followed Utah.

(01:04:31):
I've followed him for a long time because of that.
But really that's the genesis of this crisis, is that
we only fund one thing for everyone who becomes homeless.
And by the way, there's just not enough lifelong housing
out there to give everyone who enters homelessness. There wasn't
when we started this in twenty thirteen, and there certainly

(01:04:53):
isn't today. So we have to shift, you know, change horses.
That's what the presidents Executive Order a couple months ago acknowledged.
He said, we need to reprioritize federal dollars for mental
health and drug and alcohol treatment. We need to clear
these encampments that are so dangerous for the homeless and

(01:05:14):
so dangerous for the general public and the vicinity. We
need to clear those. We need to use civil commitment laws.
We need to strengthen them and use them because so
many who have gone untreated, right, their mental illness and
their addiction has gone untreated. They are getting sicker and sicker.
Right when diseases are not treated, just like cancer or

(01:05:37):
cardiovascular disease, they get worse. So we've got a lot
of sick people out there. But I'm here to tell
you we can turn this around. The President, it's pointed
the ship in the right direction finally, But there's a
lot of work ahead to build a system that's going
to help people recover and achieve restoration versus just sticking
them giving them keys to an apartment.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
Matt Michelle is a big part of the problem that
we have too many organizations, too many various groups who
pledge they're trying to help the homeless, when in fact,
you know, nothing is being done, nothing is being changed,
But it's almost like they don't solve the problem because
they could go out of business. Have we got too
many shifts in the.

Speaker 18 (01:06:17):
Kitchen here, Well, I've rather not, you know, talk about
the number. I agree that there could be some consolidation,
but the crux of the problem is a policy problem.
It was that shift in twenty thirteen. And let me
point out a fundamental issue with that shift is that

(01:06:39):
we removed.

Speaker 17 (01:06:41):
Accountability at every level of the system for the individual
struggling with homeless As we said, here's keys to a
house for life, an apartment for life. You never have
to be sober, you never have to work ever, and
you will have this housing. We removed it from the
nonprofit level. HUD was no longer holding nonprofits accountable for

(01:07:03):
actually actual reductions and homelessness. They were holding them accountable
to how many you know, sets of keys did they
hand out and what color was the skin of the people.
That was their other big you know emphasis over the
last twelve years, and we removed accountability at the government level,
at the local, state, and federal because you know, here

(01:07:26):
we had President Obama and Biden promising this would end homelessness. It's,
like I said, up thirty five percent, highest point ever,
and no one's holding them accountable for their promises. No
one's holding local governments accountable for real reductions and homelessness.
So what we've created is a complete dearth of accountability

(01:07:49):
in a system. And again it's the president's executive order,
which is turning that ship around and thank god, we're
we're going to be in sitting accountability at every level
of the system.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
You know, Michelle, I was on the clock. I'm a
recovering public servant. I was involved in this issue and
in this space in that time, and I can tell
you and for our listeners the context on that audit
this this housing first concept. There were vouchers that were
being given where people were being credited for going from
homelessness to being to having a home, and that those

(01:08:23):
when those housing vouchers ended, and there were they were
then being almost exclusively evicted from those places they lived
because there were no wrap around services. When they came
back to the show ers, they were given a new
ID number. So the ID number would suggest it was
a new person entirely, not the same person who had
failed once given a housing voucher and not being able
to stay in housing after that voucher expired. That makes

(01:08:46):
sense because you can't have the numbers increase living on
the streets if all you're doing is finding a new
housing for people, You're seeing that there's something wrong there.
My question is this, I think the fundamental issue here
is there is a mindset that we're going warehouse human
beings indefinitely versus getting people on their feet, maybe protecting

(01:09:06):
them from predators, wolves, the cartels, those that would want
to profit off people that are in pretty dire straits,
ready to self medicate and maybe even sell human trafficking,
drug trafficking. Talk to me about can we get away
from the mindset of warehousing human beings indefinitely versus getting
people on their feet, getting them away from those wolves

(01:09:27):
around them, and getting them to a place of independence
and self reliance.

Speaker 17 (01:09:34):
Absolutely, you're one thousand percent correct. That's the path we
need to be on. And that's the path.

Speaker 7 (01:09:39):
You know.

Speaker 17 (01:09:40):
Again, the President throw his executive order appointed the ship
and that direction. But now we have the work ahead
to build that system. That's the program. What you're describing
is the program I ran for thirteen years where we
took homeless women and children from the depths of despair
to their greatest heights and you know, single mothers in

(01:10:03):
California who many of whom became homeowners. So this can
be done. It's done in many other programs across the country.
It needs to be done, and thank god, we now
have a president who understands the.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
Failure Michelle Steve, Michelle, thank you for joining us, founder
of the Freedup Foundation. And you know what, Greg Donald
Trump just looks at things and says, why is it
taking place? Let's do something about this. On everything he
looks at, he just basically comes to the conclusion, we've
got to do something about this. So let's get going.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
You know, his secret sauce is that he is that
he has no allegiance to the status quo. That's true,
and you have a lot of adults that control adult
processes and make money and control money doing it. Yes,
he's saying, why on earth are we spending billions of
dollars to address homelessness and it's all getting worse. Yes,
if it's homelessness we're after just to end, Let's not

(01:11:05):
keep doing the things we've been doing up until now. Well,
you're you're taking on a lot of people's you know,
sacred cows, and yeah, there are fiefdoms when you do that.
He's ready to to just absolutely jettison all of that
to do things that actually make a difference. And you know,
other Side Academy is one of our stakeholders in this
where they brought up the important mindset that you change.

(01:11:27):
It's not you get paid to house them, you get
paid to feed them, You get paid here and there.
You you Your outcome is they are independent. They are now,
you know, self reliant, and that's the outcome. Everything up
until then you do. But that is your outcome that
you're now looking towards, and that's it. Sounds like duh,
that should be it, but you'd be surprised that has

(01:11:48):
not been what people have been focusing on up till now.

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
So true. All right, more coming up on the Rod
and Greg Show.

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
I'm citizen Greg Hughes and I'm Rod Arkent.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
Great to be with you on this Wednesday evening. It's
already home day, I know, and Wednesday, but it's some day.

Speaker 2 (01:12:01):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:02):
And into the weekend already.

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
I can't wait. I had a day off at the
beginning of this week too.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
Yeah you did.

Speaker 2 (01:12:09):
I did.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
I took a couple of days off last week, and
you took a couple of days off last week.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
Well, I went back to Pittsburgh. But I was punished
for that. I was. I was made to suffer for
my trip.

Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
But whatever we went, we went back, took my my,
my youngest brother passed away a couple of weeks. Had
you had a sad and we went back. But it
was good because we took our three sons with us
and they had never seen where their father grew up, which.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
I'm shocked at. I I I've I've made it a
point that these kids get to see the squalor in
which I grew up in, so they would know that
Utah looks a lot different than that. But you didn't.
You was a squalor, but a small upper state New
York town. We took place in Utah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
Yeah, we took them back when they were very young,
so they probably didn't remember. So we took him back,
showed the houses I grew up in, where my father's
businesses were. Uh, you know the schools I went to.
The Catholic school that I went to is no longer
a Catholic school.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
Oh it's not.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
It's like a business center.

Speaker 2 (01:13:07):
Interesting. Yeah, no, a lot of that, A lot of
that happens the demographics change in those schools. I was
shocked that on my father's side up in Mount Washington,
that the Catholic school is still there. Actually really that
they went to that. My my uncle went to my family,
my father's side of the family.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
Well, the funeral from my brother was held in the
church that I attended as a boy, Saint Mary's Catholic Church,
beautiful old church made out of sandstone, which of that
area is known for. But as I walked in there
the memories.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
What about the smell? But here I'm reminded by smells,
familiar smells.

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
Yeah. Well, here's the thing. I looked down. I said, Hey,
there's cushions on the seats. Never had cushions before.

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
Not.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
All they did was take a little bit of carpet
and cover them.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
What about the little stools that you kneel on?

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
It's still you're still kneeling, is it?

Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
Is it padded?

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
Yeah? But is there about this? What I mean, you're
sitting down there? Ah?

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
And then what one of my sons said to me,
He said, what is it with all the Catholics in
this standing and kneeling and bending and all this stuff?

Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
They still do? Peace be with you?

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
Yes, they do. That happened, so you got to shake hands.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
Folks. Here here's the thing. You're sitting next to a guy.
This is when I was a little kid. Guy's hacking
a lung into his hand. Hey, now this is pre COVID.
I'm a little kid shaking and they got you know,
they used to have like the they used to have
the cloth, you know, handkerchiefs. And he's pulling out this
piece of cloth he's been spitting in and coughing in
for how long? Yeah, and he's you know, putting out
in his mouth. And then you do the peace be
with you where you got to shake everyone's hand, and
I got to shake this man's hand, and I'm like,

(01:14:35):
you know what, it's a bit much.

Speaker 1 (01:14:37):
You know what. I don't understand this, my beef. Why
does Why is it that the priest is the only
one who gets to drink the wine?

Speaker 2 (01:14:44):
No, they don't. They don't. They wipe the side and
turn it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
No, you don't. Not in the church I went to.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
Uh, they were all given a swig when I was
growing up. I hadn't been a while.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
Do you get a swig?

Speaker 9 (01:14:53):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:14:53):
I didn't. I didn't, but my everybody else that got
in line did. But they would wipe the edge and
turn the round things as if you would never get
a on the other side. Like you get to do
you realize that you're going to be lipping apart that
someone else touched it at some point. Is they keep
turning it white and turn white and turn turn.

Speaker 1 (01:15:10):
Well it brought back because yeah, growing up in the
Catholic faith that I did with my mother, the Pope
of the West, we we I tell you what, we
spent a lot of time in that good old church.
So yeah, brought back a lot of memories, some good,
some bad. We got a little bit of trouble.

Speaker 19 (01:15:26):
Yeah you are, Yeah, that's a yeah, go ahead, And
but you are you're drinking all that communion one, Yes,
what you're doing, just admit it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
I'm told it wasn't very good wine.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
I never thought I was told because I never knew.
Sure there isn't an older boy that hasn't been drunk
on the community one, then you're not an older boy.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
No, No, I was like that, I don't know. And
the incense do you know what incense? Why they do
the incense? No, your prayers are lifting goes up and.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
That it's in a ball they wave it around right, Yeah,
it's kind of cool. See yeah, yep, yeah it is.

Speaker 10 (01:16:03):
It is.

Speaker 2 (01:16:04):
They talk like this.

Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
As they do. Mark coming up on the Roding Greg
Show and Talk radio one oh five nine k.

Speaker 2 (01:16:13):
N rs at our citizen, Greg Hughes.

Speaker 1 (01:16:15):
You know, we've been captivated by uh Vice President JD.
Vans is at a tp USA event at Old Miss
where Erica UH Kirk was just a moment ago. He's
taking some questions from the student body.

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
Right now, and it is in the It is in
the absolute mold of Charlie Kirk at answering being asked
tough questions from thoughtful students and answering those questions. And
we thought it might be good to drop joint.

Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
A little bit of this. Yeah, he's talking about immigration
right now, here's JD. Evan.

Speaker 13 (01:16:43):
Well you're in the future. No, that that's not right.
We cannot have I'll go and finish. We cannot have
an immigration policy where what was good for the country
fifty or sixty years ago binds the country inevitably for
the future. There's too many people who want to come
to the United States of Erica. And my job as
vice president is not to look out for the interests
of the whole world. It's to look out for the

(01:17:05):
people of the United States.

Speaker 8 (01:17:07):
Now me.

Speaker 13 (01:17:14):
Now, you asked a personal question about about our inter
faith household, and yes, my wife did not grow up Christian.
I think it's fair to say that she grew up
in a Hindu family, but not a particularly religious family
in either direction. And in fact, when I met my wife,
we were both I would consider myself an agnostic or
an atheist, and that's what I think she would have

(01:17:34):
considered herself as well. You know, everybody has to come
to their own arrangement.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
Here.

Speaker 13 (01:17:39):
The way that we've come to our arrangement is she's
my best friend. We talk to each other about this stuff.
So we decided to raise our kids Christian. Our two
oldest kids who go to school, they go to a
Christian school. Our eight year old did his first communion
about a year ago. That's the way that we have
come to our arrangement. But thank you, my eight year

(01:18:02):
old was also very proud of this first communion.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
Thank you, guys.

Speaker 13 (01:18:05):
I'll tell old miss which is in the vest. But
I think everybody has to have this own conversation when
you're in a marriage. I mean it's true for friends
of mine who are in Protestant and Catholic marriages, friends
of mine who are in atheists and Christian marriages. You
just got to talk to you the only advice I
can give is you just got to talk to the
person that God has put you with, and you've got

(01:18:27):
to make those decisions as a family unit. For us,
it works out now most Sundays, Usha will come with
me to church, as I've told her, and I've said publicly,
and I'll say now in front of ten thousand of
my closest friends. Do I hope eventually that she is
somehow moved by the same thing that I was moved
in by church? Yeah, I honestly I do wish that

(01:18:47):
because I believe in the Christian Gospel, and I hope
eventually my wife comes to see it the same way.

Speaker 1 (01:18:52):
But if she doesn't, then.

Speaker 13 (01:18:54):
God says everybody has free will, and so that doesn't
cause a problem for me. That's something you work out
with your friends, with your family, with the person that
you love. Again the most one of the most important
Christian principles is that you respect free will. Usha's closer
to the priests who baptized me than maybe I am.

Speaker 1 (01:19:12):
They talk about this stuff.

Speaker 13 (01:19:13):
My attitude is you figure this stuff out as a family,
and you trust in God to have a plan, and
you try to follow it as best as you can.

Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
And that's what I try to do.

Speaker 13 (01:19:22):
I want to make a final point, so I don't
want to.

Speaker 7 (01:19:28):
Cut you off.

Speaker 13 (01:19:28):
I want to be respectful to all the people behind
you in line, but I want to make this point
out immigration. Okay, if you ask the question what is
the exact right number of immigrants for the United States
to let in, it is just very specific on the context.
If you go back to the nineteen twenties, the United
States passed an immigration reformat that effectively cut down immigration

(01:19:50):
to close to zero for forty years in this country.
And what happened over those forty years the many, many
people who had come from many different foreign countries and
different forms cultures. They assimilated into American culture, and there
was an expectation that they would assimilate into American culture.
I think we have two problems in our immigration system today.
And my guess is you're probably a slightly more leftist

(01:20:12):
political persuasion liberal political persuasion.

Speaker 1 (01:20:15):
Maybe not.

Speaker 13 (01:20:16):
But here's the thing. I remember, back back in my
establishment GOP days, when I was still very early getting
involved in Republican politics, I remember a conservative think tank
person who told me that one of the reasons why
immigration was really good is that if you had enough
diversity in a country, people would mistrust each other and

(01:20:39):
they wouldn't join labor unions.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
Okay, So when.

Speaker 13 (01:20:43):
I see a lot of left wing people who theoretically
support organized labor saying we need to flood the country
with a limitless number of immigrants, they're unwilling to set
any limitations on it. My response to that is you
were destroying the very social trust on which American Freedom
Charity was built, and that is really important to me.

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
That's a little bit of the town hall meeting taking
place in the campus of Mississippi Ole, miss with JD.
Vans Erica Kirk was there a little bit earlier. He's
actually taking questions from the students. And the point that
he made, you know, nineteen twenty we put a lid
on immigration for about forty years. Russi Limbaugh used to
talk about this all the time. What happened. They assimilated,

(01:21:26):
And that's my concern about immigrants coming into this country today.
They almost want to use this country to set up
their own country within our country. We want them to
assimilate and become Americans.

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
Well, our diversity, I mean, liberals like to say this,
but I truly believe that my family coming over from Ireland. Yeah,
people coming from all over the world to be here,
and both of our relatives are coming from Ellis Island.
That's what makes this country strong. And we have each
other's back with the Land of the Free, home of
the brave. And if we don't see each other as
country men and women, if we aren't in this together,

(01:22:00):
don't have each other's back, you're not really a country
in my mind. And you're not like Japan or everyone
looks exactly you know, where everyone's homogenous and looks exactly
the same. America is not that. But if you don't
have the common thread of we we speak a common language,
we have we have a basic value system where we
live in a community together and we support each other,
and we want law and order, we want public safety,

(01:22:21):
we want common things. We want economic freedom, we want
self determination. If you don't have that in common, then
you're not a in my mind, you're not the America
that I grew up in.

Speaker 1 (01:22:30):
Well, I think English should be the official language of
the United States.

Speaker 2 (01:22:34):
It would empower everybody. Every immigrant that comes here is
their chances of success go up exponentially. If you can
speak English.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
And I remember reading in the early days during immigration
greak there were immigrants who came to the country, raised
their families and would not allow their native language, be
it Italian, be whatever, to be spoken in the home.
They all had to speak English.

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
Yeah, just to help learn.

Speaker 1 (01:22:57):
It, just to help lawns and understand what this country is.

Speaker 2 (01:23:00):
You get a stubborn grandma that wouldn't she'd be there
from the old country. He's not going to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
You aren't going to argument on grandma, now, yeah, yeah,
all right mare coming up, final segment of the Rod
and Greg Show right here on Utah's Talk Radio one
o five nine k n RS. Final few minutes of
the show. Don't forget Jesse Kelly coming your way at
the top of the hour, and what we want to
remind you again, many of the interviews that we do
are based on articles. We've seen our guests right and
we want to get them on and the articles with

(01:23:27):
the Award Clark today talking about the downfall of American cities,
with Sean Tigan, the president of the Utah Foundation talking
about social capital, or Michelle Steve her interview or her
article are all available on our x page and if
you go to our ex page, you'll see links to
those stories so you can read them and catch up.

Speaker 2 (01:23:46):
Yeah, and I and I don't know that we've talked
about our page as much, but it is. I mean,
Eray does a very good job of keeping it updated.
You'll see the guests that will be on the show,
and there's a great link there. Then I have my
page at Citizen Hughes h and and I've been I
had Phil Michelson like my comment. He's going after the
oil companies and all the everything that's going wrong in

(01:24:08):
California that's rippling back to us. And uh and I
could not thank him more for his uh, you know,
for advocating for everyday folks. And he liked my comment.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
You feel good about that?

Speaker 2 (01:24:19):
Yeah, I feel like Yeah, I'm a big fan. I
thought that was nice. Yeah, thank you, Bill. I know
we're pals now you like my comment, and I guess
we're close. I guess I could get tickets to the Masters.

Speaker 1 (01:24:29):
Maybe I don't. I don't know if that's what.

Speaker 2 (01:24:31):
Okay, Maybe I'm reading too much him, Probably are probably
are I still liked my comment. I'm not giving it up.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
You're not giving it up. Hang on to a baby
moment of fame.

Speaker 2 (01:24:42):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
I liked what JD. Van said about illegal immigration a
moment ago during his town hall meeting. I want to
bring that up, Greg, another shocking number coming from the border.
Under the leadership of Donald Trump, illegal border crossings in
the month of September saw a ninety two percent drop
from two years ago. Yeah, ninety two percent.

Speaker 10 (01:25:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:25:06):
Do you remember that? What's the Democrat the Republican senator's name,
that one?

Speaker 11 (01:25:10):
That was it?

Speaker 2 (01:25:11):
Langthorg Lanfort Oklahoma?

Speaker 1 (01:25:12):
Yeah? What got into that guy?

Speaker 2 (01:25:13):
I mean, he doesn't even feel like a fool though.
He's like I look at the immigration issue and think, boy,
we could have had a bill that would really Yah,
you should feel he should feel so foolish that he
signed on for some new law that would have been needed,
didn't stop illegal immigration when we didn't need any of them.
It was a way to make it worse. That bill,
if you read the fine print, would have allowed five
thousand people to illegally enter this country a day a day,

(01:25:37):
no questions asked before you even did anything about it,
and you could only sue in the DC District Court,
where the most liberal in the world on any issue
having to do with immigration. That bill was a nightmare.
I'm so glad it didn't put.

Speaker 1 (01:25:50):
What did the President say during that addressed Congress. We
don't need new laws, We just need a new president.

Speaker 2 (01:25:54):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (01:25:55):
Yeah, But here are the numbers, greg last month, twenty
six thousand illegal border crossers reported nationwide in September of
twenty twenty three. Now think of twenty six thousand, that
number three hundred and forty two thousand, from three hundred
and forty two thousand down to twenty six thousand. Amazing number.

Speaker 2 (01:26:17):
Yeah, And it's leadership. It's leadership that we're seeing demonstrated
around the world. We're seeing it demonstrated where boy, if
you can just get out of his way and let
the man cook, you know, let him do what he's
supposed to do, and you know he can be successful.
It's but you've got a Congress right now that has
halted disk government the Democrats have in the minority and

(01:26:39):
somehow still playing intellectual you know, yoga, trying to somehow
make it the Republican's fault when it's fundamentally is theirs. Yeah,
you know, they can always get five Republicans to vote
their way on some things. I think that you know,
these tariff issues that they get five, they get Markowski
and McConnell and you know, Susan Collins and these people
to de vote with the Democrats. Where are those Democrats

(01:27:00):
that want to stop seeing, you know, people suffer and
put this government back working again. I mean you got Fetterman,
there's one. Where's the other four?

Speaker 1 (01:27:10):
Yeah? Real quick? There have been an announcement some major
layoffs greig taking around the country that concerned you at all.

Speaker 2 (01:27:17):
I've watched that and it does concern me. But you know,
you know, it's weird when you see those job cuts.
You see their stock prices go up sometimes, unlike government
where they want to weep and well when they cut
anyone sometimes they get more efficient. But I do think
that the workforce, it's it doesn't bode well. But we
saw interest rates cut today. That's that actually is meant

(01:27:37):
to help a lagging workforces, to see interest rates cut,
and so you saw that happen today by a quarter point.
I will put my money on a Trump led economy
where they can where you have a Department of lair,
we have Scott Bessant has anyone ever loved the Treasury
more than Scott Beston. I mean, I love this guy,
and so I got a lot of confidence in this

(01:27:59):
current itself out.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
Hopefully we'll be able to touch Steve Moore tomorrow and
get his perspective on this, because I hear what he's
having to say.

Speaker 2 (01:28:05):
If he's not in the White House, you know, he's
such a big deal.

Speaker 1 (01:28:08):
Now, Yeah, occasionally we'll call us. Yeah, we'll hope that
happens tomorrow. All right, that does it for us tonight,
as we say each and every night, head up, shoulders back,
My God, bless you and your family, and that's great
country and ours. Thanks so much for a listening. We're
back tomorrow at four. Enjoy the

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