August 5, 2026 • 26 mins
The Rod and Greg Show Daily Rundown – Wednesday, August 5, 2026
Scott McKay, Publisher of The Hayride and a contributor to American Spectator, joins the show to discuss his piece about how giving power to socialists is a bad idea because the reality is worse than the ideology.
Dan Lennington, Managing Vice President and Deputy Counsel for the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, joins Rod and Greg for a conversation about his piece in The Federalist about how Madison, Wisconsin has become the poster child for what socialism in American would look like.
Author and political commentator Ian Haworth joins the show to discuss his piece about how Dr. Anthony Fauci is a symptom of weak-minded politicians in Washington, D.C.
Scott McKay, Publisher of The Hayride and a contributor to American Spectator, joins the show to discuss his piece about how giving power to socialists is a bad idea because the reality is worse than the ideology.
Dan Lennington, Managing Vice President and Deputy Counsel for the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, joins Rod and Greg for a conversation about his piece in The Federalist about how Madison, Wisconsin has become the poster child for what socialism in American would look like.
Author and political commentator Ian Haworth joins the show to discuss his piece about how Dr. Anthony Fauci is a symptom of weak-minded politicians in Washington, D.C.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
It's the Ron and Greg Show, and it's the Wingman
Wednesday edition on Utah's Talk Radio one oh five nine
canters and everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Citizen Hughes.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm rod Arkuett. Good to be with you. A
lot of talk all over the place today about the
votes last night and the progressive big win for the
progressives in the Democratic Party with ls Aeid winning that
Michigan Center race is a lot closer than a lot
of people expect. You sent less than one less one
percent because a few days ago the polls were showing
him with a ten point lead. Maybe there were some
(00:34):
Michiganders out there who started waking up and going I
don't know about this.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Or or you've got the people that are good at
ballot harvesting and everything that wanted to just go ahead
and well, you know there's still some ballots they get
probably get mailed in that they get to count. Let's see,
it's at less than one percent right now, when again,
like you said, he was the fore gone he was
like the winner in the favor by a lot.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, we said yes day on the show, he's probably
gonna win.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, Well, I'll tell you what, not by much one
percent margin of victory and the third place candidate took
I think four percent of the vote, but there's still
ballots coming in. I think he's gonna win, but it
would be I think finally, the Democrats might pay attention
to voter voter harvesting and election integrity, if I'll say,
(01:19):
in the in the days after the election got beat,
I think all of a sudden they might care about
how those votes get counted and collected encounted.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, let's talk about the socialist win last night and
the impact is having it on the Democratic Party. Joining
us on our Newsmaker line to talk about that right
now is our good friend Scott McKay. He is the
publisher of The hay Ride, also contributing editor to American Spectator. Scott,
always great to have you on the show. Let's talk
about what happened and are the lunatics gaining powers got.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I don't think there's any question about it. You know,
we've always had a problem with, particularly on the left,
lunatics who pursue political power and find and productive avenues
to do that. Like we've had crazy people running government
(02:07):
in lots of places for a long time, but it's
definitely worse now than it's ever been. I mean, I
don't think there's any question about that.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So here's my dilemma. When I look at what's going
on here, when I see this emerging socialist communist, you know,
faction of the Democrat Party, part of me smiles, part
of me says, Okay, you guys have gotten so crazy.
Look at the Look look what you've done to your
own party. And look they're so big now you can't
really do anything about it, and why interrupt them? Let
(02:35):
them just make themselves irrelevant. But there's another side that says,
be careful what you wish for, because if they win
certain elections, they can get stronger. And then we've got,
as you point out, you know, the lunatics running the
whole thing. So I feel like we're in a game
of chicken. You got the Normy's in one car and
you got the communists in the other car, and we're
just driving towards each other. Who swerves first? Are we
(02:56):
gonna go and let them get their way? Or does
or do highlighting them in a November race just just
just amplify they don't know what they want and Americans
are not going to go with socialism slash communism.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, okay, like you know, last night you had Michigan,
and so that's that's top of mind. Yes, I think
I think that the first reaction is probably the one
that works in Michigan because I don't see how that
guy is going to beat Mike Rogers. I just don't
see it. I mean, I think the Republicans have likely
(03:30):
I'm not going to say locked up that Senate race,
but if Rogers runs a good campaign, he wins that race. Yeah,
and it may very well be decisive enough that like
John James ends up the governor of Michigan as well,
and there is the potential to actually turn Michigan red
as a result. Like, I don't think that's pie in
(03:51):
the sky based on where we stand right now. The
problem is this with and I don't even want to
say establishment demos. Maybe the better way to put it
would be like the old liberals, uh, basically falling away
because and it's it was different in Michigan because it
turned in a big thing. But for the most part,
(04:13):
these DSA candidates are winning low turnout primary races across
the country and mostly in districts like this particularly in
the congressional races, like they're winning in districts where no
Republican is even really running or or you know, has
much of a chance to win. So like you don't
(04:35):
what you don't have is ordinary Democrats even bothering the
turnout to vote. And so you know, the DSA riles
up all the college kids and the barristers at Starbucks
or whatever, and like that's who goes out wins. But
you know, if they're in a totally blue district where
a Democrat is going to represent it, and now you
(04:58):
have a whole bunch of DSA people, the problem that
you get is like that's who holds political power even
if they're stuck in a minority situation, say in Congress,
like they've become the voice of one of the two
big political parties in the country, and that mainstreams them
(05:19):
for ideas which are not only they not mainstream, Like
you shouldn't be able to take the oath of office
to be a member of Congress if you believe in
the desay's platform. How do you say that you're going
to support and defend the constitution when you want to
change everything about the system of government. The Constitution establishes it's.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Well, and so my whole point is, like we've seen
this movie before, Like this happened basically all over Latin
America in the last century, and what you were faced
with was a choice between you know, Daniel or Tega
running your country for time immemorial, or you know, you're
(06:08):
throwing people out of helicopters the way Pinochet's people did
in Jula. Like, you know, you don't have a viable
alternative between those two, because I don't want to say
you've lost the center in your politics. I actually think
Trump is a radical centrist. I've never really thought he
was a conservative, and I think that the Republicans actually
(06:32):
hold what passes for the center in American politics. And
you know the problem is, you look at that in
the Senate and you're like, yeah, we see what the
center is. The center is you don't get anything accomplished
at all. So you know, there's there's a bit of
dysfunction here that the DSA is is taking advantage of.
But the problem is those guys are the very the
(06:55):
very definition of dysfunction. Like you can't find anybody who
is is a DSA candidate that outside of politics has
been successful. Yeah, this guy else I might actually be
the most successful of the bunch, at least somehow. He
made a lot of money. I don't really know how.
He's like a public health guy who made a lot
(07:17):
of money. That kind of smells like corruption to me.
But like I can't look at anybody else that they're
nominating or electing and see, I mean, these are a
bunch of theater kids that stayed in school until they
were forty five years old.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
That's why they got such a great ground gaming campaign.
They don't have jobs they could just do. They can
campaign twenty four to seven is they don't have to
go to work.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Well, because there is well there's a ton to be
said for that, because you know, these are the people
who they know nothing about anything at all other than
like all of the politics that they've ingested over their
time not being productive, and so they live and breathe
this stuff. And when there's a ten percent turnout in
the Demokrad primary, that's who shows up at the polls,
(08:05):
you know, And I mean it takes Americans with jobs
and things to do to actually like, you know, come
off that to defeat these people. I'm assuming that we'll
do that this fall, but we're gonna have to do
it every two years from now on.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Seat McKay joining us on our news maker line, talking
about the the loons have taken over? Is that what
I think? That's what Senor to Kennedy calls progressives the loons.
I think he does, and he does. Yeah, all right,
Mark other words, all right, more coming up. It is
the Rod and Greg Show Wingman Wednesday edition right now
on Talk Radio one O five nine k n r S.
(08:42):
Rod and Greg with you as we are each and
every weekday from four to seven right here on Utah's
Talk Radio one O five nine k n r S,
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Rod Arquette, I'm
I'm wingman. What was his wingman? His wingman in Maverick?
Who was it? It was? Uh, it wasn't Goose.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
No, Goose is the guy behind us. We learned this
this is the wing man is not a guy that's
in the playing with you. It's the one that's next.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
That's why I'm playing next to you.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah, yeah, and he had I think there were different
ones that were there, but you know, Iceman would be yeah,
would be the best would be the best one man
bel Kilmer.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, Belkimer, that played that that role in it. All right,
all right, socialism. You and I have talked about it.
A lot of people are saying, what would life be
like if we lived in a socialistic world? Not that
we want to, but we've been thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Well, we talk about it, and you know, in history
isn't it's not. You don't have to go back very
far to find the countries that went through this, So
you know there's a there's a lot of examples. History
gives us a lot of examples of what happens next.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Well, there's one happening right now in of all places, Madison, Wisconsin.
Joining us on our any hour Newsmaker Line round now
is Dan Lennington. He is a managing vice president and
Deputy council for the Wisconsin Institute for on Liberty. Funny
story about what is taking place in Madison. Dan, thanks
for joining us. What in fact is happening in the
(10:06):
Wisconsin Capitol.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Well.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
On July twenty second, just a couple weeks ago, four
Madison police officers attempted to arrest a career criminal in
the middle of the street who was wielding a knife
and luncheon at officers, and during this confrontation, one of
the officers shot and killed this career criminal, and in response,
(10:33):
the areas around where he was shot to death became
what was called the Cory Ruiz Autonomous Zone. The protesters
flooded into the area, put up barricades on all the roads,
prohibited traffic and people from safely passing through the area.
And the city responded by actually supporting this instruction of
(10:58):
an autonomous zone, putting up garbage trucks and salt trucks,
and actually providing porta potties in this area. And so
the issue that we're having here is that the rule
of law has completely been abandoned, that the police and
the city were no longer going to enforce the rule
of law.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
And that is exactly what you get.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
When you get a socialist regime that comes into power.
It's all about taking property and rights from one group
and redistributed them to another.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
So I think the left, especially the socialists, they want
to fement fear violence, which creates fear, and then the
fear compels behavior. What's happened in Wisconsin sounds like the
Capitol Hill autonomous zones that we saw pop up during
the Floyd riot, the Floyd George Floyd riots back in
twenty twenty. Does this work ultimately? It seems like the
(11:52):
Tesla takedown worked. That violence fomented fear and it compelled behavior.
You know, they got what they wanted. Is this going
to work?
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah, there was quite a bit of violence in Madison.
Just to put a fine point on that. There was
a citywide concert going on at the time with thousands
of people there, and the protesters went over and took
over the concert and shut it down. They went to
restaurants down on State Street, one of our commercial areas,
and tried to shut down just the white owned restaurants.
(12:23):
There was all sorts of confrontations. Today, seventeen people were
arrested protesting this. They've shut down the street now in
front of the jail. And they have always tried to
get concessions out of the city. They've said things like, well,
why don't you pay for all the homeless people to
have hotel rooms for the next year. Why don't you
(12:45):
give us all money and make us go away? And
so it's this extortion racket that's going on in Madison
and the far left to liberal and progressive and socialist
political leaders are just gonna cave in and give them
what they want. So it does work in local areas,
which is the scary thing, and we're wondering, you know,
(13:05):
is this going to work statewide in socialist run states?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Now, then who's backing this group? How are they making
their money? Who's providing the funding for this effort? Do
we know?
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Well, we we do not know. It's it's uh, you know,
we have seen in some of these previous autonomous zones
where you know, things like palettes of bricks showed up
or wooden palettes or things to construct barricades. We're just
sort of conveniently, you know, placed in there. We're not
exactly sure who funds this sort of thing, but it's
(13:40):
all part of the you know, the left engine of
turning our country into some sort of socialist regime that
does not respect people's freedom of beach, does not protect
people's freedom of movement or their right to it economic
economic liberty and run their businesses. A lot of the
businesses down there, you know, couldn't make it rent for August,
(14:03):
They couldn't pay their employees because that they had no
customers coming in and out of the restaurants. So the
victims of this, these these tactics are actually the liberals
and progresses that live in these areas that are suffering.
And this is no longer you know, a belief system
(14:23):
that that's a luxury. It just requires payment.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
So you saw some electoral success from the socialists in
last night's primaries Democrat primaries. They're cut from the coth
of these rioters. Is this movement attracting maybe young people
who might not subscribe to socialism by itself or even
some of the tactics going on in Madison and have
happened elsewhere, But they're not seeing that, they're seeing crony capitalism,
(14:50):
or they're seeing something where they don't feel they have
access to what we're calling a free market. They're seeing
buying a home further and further away what whatever may
their economic prospects may be. They might not be happy.
Are there some that are legitimizing this movement just because
they don't like the status quo?
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Yeah, And I'll tell you that's a real risk for
conservatives and Republicans because we actually did a study, a
polling study a couple of weeks ago at the Wisconsin
Institute for Law and Liberty, and we pulled populist leaning
GOP voters and we found really troubling results that they
(15:28):
are in favor of price controls, they are in favor
of limiting corporate profits. And this is not just a
left issue. This is a populist issue. And people are
getting hit in the pocketbook and they are feeling real
economic pain. And unless candidates can speak to the economic
pain and to articulate a reason why they should vote
(15:51):
for a conservative or a Republican nominee, that it's going
to be hard for them to win these elections.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Dan, you're in Wisconsin courts. You got a socialist candidate
running for governor in Francisco. Hang a chef. Yeah, I
don't know if you heard. She's a chef. By the way,
have you heard anything about her involvement as she said
anything on this so far?
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Dan, Yes.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
She went down to the autonomous zone and she took
out a bull horn as reminiscent of George W. Bush
as twin Towers, and she declared that this was a
state sanctioned execution of this career criminal who is trying
to stab police officers, and she basically riled up the
crowd and that led to all sorts of violence. So yeah,
(16:38):
she's on the side of the violent protesters.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, and this guy who was killed is no angel?
Am I reading that right?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (16:46):
She has got all sorts of he has eighty six.
He had eighty six different crimes charged against him over
seventeen different seventeen years. Eleven charges of a resisting and
obstructing officers, bail jumping, strangulation, vehicle theft, threatening judges, battery's Yeah,
no angel is, to put it mildly, he does not
(17:07):
respect authority. That's something we're seeing a lot on the
left right now as people in respect authority.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
And thank you very much. Can you believe that this
guy who was shot by police eighty six charges against
him over seventeen years. That's a record. Gotta be yep,
gotta be a.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Record, all right, Rally behind that guy. Yes, that makes
all the sense.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
More coming up on the Roden Gregg Show, Let's get
your news update right now. Here's Abbey Committee that Iran
Paul chaired last week when Anthony Fauci got up there
and took the fifth one hundred and eleven times meet
tomorrow and there's a possibility Greg they could hold Anthony
Fauci in contempt of Congress even with the pardon, the
presumptive preemptive pardon that Joe Biden gave him may not fly.
(17:53):
This could be a real legal question. Let's find out. Yeah,
find out, find out.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I'm super curious.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Let's find out.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
And it deserves, you know, scrutiny to see it.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Well, I think a lot of us last week were
disgusted by Fauci's performance before the committee. But is he
a symptom of feckless politicians? Joining us on our news
banker line to talk about that is political commentator Ian Howard, Ian,
how are you welcome back to the show? What about
Anthony Fauci and the feckless politicians that he dealt with?
Speaker 5 (18:22):
Yeah, I mean, Fauci is just the gift that keeps
on giving, isn't He just refuses to go away, refuses
to stop staring at himself lovingly in the mirror. Just
a just a really great guy.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
You know.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
This is that there's two layers here. I think one
fount She obviously deserves to face consequences for the damage
he did to the country, for the lies he told,
and also for the damage he's done before COVID that
she actually dig into his career. He's He's done some
pretty terrible things, wasted an awful lot of money. He's
a very good politician. My concern with these kind of things, though,
is that we like to kind of almost personify things
(18:58):
that happen in American life with just one person, and
if we remove that one person, or we punish that
one person, then everything will be great. And the truth
is that Fauci would have been meaningless had it not
been for city mayors, state governors, and two presidential administrations
that embraced him as the expert, as the science and
(19:19):
really gave him the keys to the bus that he
then drove off a cliff. You can't really blame him
for political decisions that were made. You can obviously hold
him accountable for giving terrible advice, for misleading the public
on medical matters, things like that, But he didn't close
the economy. He didn't close schools. It was state governors.
It was the teachers' union screaming at the idea of
(19:42):
teachers actually having to work. There were so many other
people who were responsible for the damage that was done
that now everyone's trying to almost put everything on Fauci
when Don't get me wrong, he has a lot that
he should be accountable for, But there are a lot
of people who are trying to use him so that
they get away with it too. And I'm hoping that
people don't fall for it.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
And You're right, a lot of useful idiots run around
who had too much power and decision making that would
take Fauci's dreams and what he wanted to have happened
and to see them be realized. What's the what's I
call them the regime media? What's the regime media's role
in all of this? You have, you have the politicians,
which I think you've spotted, But does the media hold
some blame to this? Is this what compelled the politicians
(20:23):
to act the way they did?
Speaker 5 (20:25):
Yeah, I mean I don't know that there's a problem
in American life that doesn't have the media as at
least some small part of it. I mean, for me,
I think it's it's hard to kind of judge immediately
because I think we all learned as time went on, Right,
It's very easy to look back at, say, March twenty twenty,
and know what we would have done had we known
(20:46):
what we know now. But it became very clear quite
quickly that everything we were being told by people like
Fauchi was not completely true, not completely accurate, not completely reliable.
You know, there were other countries that were pursuing different
policy these if not everyone was dying. We saw Florida,
which is, you know, the oldest state in terms of
population in the country or one of the oldest states,
(21:06):
and they had pretty much open policies after a few weeks,
and they didn't see any significant increases and the kind
of things that we were promised. It was really I
think the media's failure for me was the refusal to
look at the whole picture, the refusal to ask honest
questions about what was working, what wasn't working. They were
fully on board with the messaging that if you didn't
(21:28):
wrap yourself in three, four or five masks, if you
didn't get endless booster shots that were increasingly ineffective, then
you were not only part of the problem, but you
were the enemy. You were killing Grandma. You were individually
responsible for a virus that came from China, and if
you said that it came from China, you were anti
Asian or xenophobic.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
At any of these names.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
They really fueled I'd say the dishonesty and the complete
lack of interest in actually getting to the bottom of this.
But you could say that from the media about really anything. Fortunately,
it's like a never ending problem.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Ian. Why did more people speak out? I mean there
were some scientists who raised questions, a few politicians out
there who are saying, wait a minute, and is it
because the way they were treated that others who did
want to say something all of a sudden said I'm
not going there because of the treatment they're being given.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
Yeah, I think it's a few things. I think there
was definitely like a mod mentality of there is a
fear of someone coming, you know, in some cases literally
to you and blaming you or attacking you or criticizing you.
There are a lot of people who lost their jobs.
There was an awful lot of political pressure, but there
was also moral pressure. There was media pressure, and I
think with issues like life and death, especially in the
(22:44):
field of politics, people don't want to be wrong in
any situation, any scenario. But when people's lives are at stake,
and people don't like to be told the reality that
we are all mortal, and it was going to be
impossible for any kind of pandemic, any kind of effort
they make, any kind of disease that some people would
not suffer and some people would not die. But politicians
(23:06):
don't exist in the world where we want to be
told the truth. And so I think it was like
a perfect storm of you know, politicians not wanting to
make the wrong decision, and what in their mind, the
right decision was to try and avoid death. You know,
if we all wrapped ourselves in plastic bags, none of
us would catch a cold, but you know, we'd suffocate.
There are their payoffs of quite literally everything, and I
(23:26):
think politicians just looked at trying to reduce the number
of deaths, no matter the cost, no matter the economic cost,
no matter the educational cost or the mental health suffering
that they imposed upon tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands
of people. They looked at one statistic, which was, you know,
death from COVID, and that's all they're focused on. And
so it was I think a perfect storm of the
(23:48):
problems in our society, you.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Know, and you got a great take. You're a great
observer of American culture politics, how they all combine or
how they merge. Mark Halprin, who used to be I
would call part of that regime media but and kind
of got canceled himself and maybe came with a new perspective. Well,
he posted just recently that he is shocked that the media,
even if they were in even if they love Fauci
(24:10):
and they love the the you know, the talk, you know,
the orders that were given or whatever they were supporting,
to see what he was writing and to be able
to see what his observation, Fauci's observations were at the time.
He is shocked that they are not reporting this more
accurately or showing the contradictions. They're actually defending him and
a guy like Mark Halprin is shocked by this. Are
(24:31):
you shocked by this? Because I think that, and I
guess my larger question is are the American people understanding
what happened here? Because you have a media that's trying
to say this is a mostly peaceful protest, as the
building behind the person is burning to the ground.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
I think the reason, one of the many reasons the
media don't really want to cover this is because they're
implicated in all of this, because they made Fauci famous.
You know, they put him on magazine covers, they put
him in endless interviews, they held him up as the
patron saint of the science, and so they are implicated
really in awe of this, and so I'm not surprised
(25:06):
that they don't want to kind of admit that they
were in any way wrong. But I think also found
she still represents something to them. I think he still
represents the kind of elitist class of experts that they
really don't want to question. You know, Don't get me wrong,
I think.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
There's still room for expertise.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
There's still room obviously for true scientific studies, true medical study,
objective science, and objective education, things like that. I'm not
going off the deep end. But the idea that you
cannot question someone simply because they're wearing a white coat
and giving you a line that changes every three seconds, again,
I think that's fundamentally on American too. I think, you know,
(25:45):
we're a country of people who question what we're told,
and I think that's a good thing. Sometimes it can
go a little too far. But the idea that you
cannot question what a politician, and toouct she is a politician,
says to you is absurd, but the media like those
people because they tend to believe precisely the same thing.
So I think it's kind of a circular problem with
Fauci lifts the media up. Fauci tells the media what
(26:07):
they want to hear, and then the media Liftsauci up
as the star of what they want to be true.
And it's I don't see this changing anytime soon, unfortunately,
because there will be another issue like this, whether it's
a pandemic, whether it's a political scannal something, and it's
just the same stuff over and over again. I find
it disheartening, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't call it
out when we see it, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Ian Howarth joining us on our news Maker Line. More
coming up on The Roden Gregg Show.
It's the Ron and Greg Show, and it's the Wingman
Wednesday edition on Utah's Talk Radio one oh five nine
canters and everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Citizen Hughes.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm rod Arkuett. Good to be with you. A
lot of talk all over the place today about the
votes last night and the progressive big win for the
progressives in the Democratic Party with ls Aeid winning that
Michigan Center race is a lot closer than a lot
of people expect. You sent less than one less one
percent because a few days ago the polls were showing
him with a ten point lead. Maybe there were some
(00:34):
Michiganders out there who started waking up and going I
don't know about this.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Or or you've got the people that are good at
ballot harvesting and everything that wanted to just go ahead
and well, you know there's still some ballots they get
probably get mailed in that they get to count. Let's see,
it's at less than one percent right now, when again,
like you said, he was the fore gone he was
like the winner in the favor by a lot.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, we said yes day on the show, he's probably
gonna win.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, Well, I'll tell you what, not by much one
percent margin of victory and the third place candidate took
I think four percent of the vote, but there's still
ballots coming in. I think he's gonna win, but it
would be I think finally, the Democrats might pay attention
to voter voter harvesting and election integrity, if I'll say,
(01:19):
in the in the days after the election got beat,
I think all of a sudden they might care about
how those votes get counted and collected encounted.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, let's talk about the socialist win last night and
the impact is having it on the Democratic Party. Joining
us on our Newsmaker line to talk about that right
now is our good friend Scott McKay. He is the
publisher of The hay Ride, also contributing editor to American Spectator. Scott,
always great to have you on the show. Let's talk
about what happened and are the lunatics gaining powers got.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I don't think there's any question about it. You know,
we've always had a problem with, particularly on the left,
lunatics who pursue political power and find and productive avenues
to do that. Like we've had crazy people running government
(02:07):
in lots of places for a long time, but it's
definitely worse now than it's ever been. I mean, I
don't think there's any question about that.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So here's my dilemma. When I look at what's going
on here, when I see this emerging socialist communist, you know,
faction of the Democrat Party, part of me smiles, part
of me says, Okay, you guys have gotten so crazy.
Look at the Look look what you've done to your
own party. And look they're so big now you can't
really do anything about it, and why interrupt them? Let
(02:35):
them just make themselves irrelevant. But there's another side that says,
be careful what you wish for, because if they win
certain elections, they can get stronger. And then we've got,
as you point out, you know, the lunatics running the
whole thing. So I feel like we're in a game
of chicken. You got the Normy's in one car and
you got the communists in the other car, and we're
just driving towards each other. Who swerves first? Are we
(02:56):
gonna go and let them get their way? Or does
or do highlighting them in a November race just just
just amplify they don't know what they want and Americans
are not going to go with socialism slash communism.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, okay, like you know, last night you had Michigan,
and so that's that's top of mind. Yes, I think
I think that the first reaction is probably the one
that works in Michigan because I don't see how that
guy is going to beat Mike Rogers. I just don't
see it. I mean, I think the Republicans have likely
(03:30):
I'm not going to say locked up that Senate race,
but if Rogers runs a good campaign, he wins that race. Yeah,
and it may very well be decisive enough that like
John James ends up the governor of Michigan as well,
and there is the potential to actually turn Michigan red
as a result. Like, I don't think that's pie in
(03:51):
the sky based on where we stand right now. The
problem is this with and I don't even want to
say establishment demos. Maybe the better way to put it
would be like the old liberals, uh, basically falling away
because and it's it was different in Michigan because it
turned in a big thing. But for the most part,
(04:13):
these DSA candidates are winning low turnout primary races across
the country and mostly in districts like this particularly in
the congressional races, like they're winning in districts where no
Republican is even really running or or you know, has
much of a chance to win. So like you don't
(04:35):
what you don't have is ordinary Democrats even bothering the
turnout to vote. And so you know, the DSA riles
up all the college kids and the barristers at Starbucks
or whatever, and like that's who goes out wins. But
you know, if they're in a totally blue district where
a Democrat is going to represent it, and now you
(04:58):
have a whole bunch of DSA people, the problem that
you get is like that's who holds political power even
if they're stuck in a minority situation, say in Congress,
like they've become the voice of one of the two
big political parties in the country, and that mainstreams them
(05:19):
for ideas which are not only they not mainstream, Like
you shouldn't be able to take the oath of office
to be a member of Congress if you believe in
the desay's platform. How do you say that you're going
to support and defend the constitution when you want to
change everything about the system of government. The Constitution establishes it's.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Well, and so my whole point is, like we've seen
this movie before, Like this happened basically all over Latin
America in the last century, and what you were faced
with was a choice between you know, Daniel or Tega
running your country for time immemorial, or you know, you're
(06:08):
throwing people out of helicopters the way Pinochet's people did
in Jula. Like, you know, you don't have a viable
alternative between those two, because I don't want to say
you've lost the center in your politics. I actually think
Trump is a radical centrist. I've never really thought he
was a conservative, and I think that the Republicans actually
(06:32):
hold what passes for the center in American politics. And
you know the problem is, you look at that in
the Senate and you're like, yeah, we see what the
center is. The center is you don't get anything accomplished
at all. So you know, there's there's a bit of
dysfunction here that the DSA is is taking advantage of.
But the problem is those guys are the very the
(06:55):
very definition of dysfunction. Like you can't find anybody who
is is a DSA candidate that outside of politics has
been successful. Yeah, this guy else I might actually be
the most successful of the bunch, at least somehow. He
made a lot of money. I don't really know how.
He's like a public health guy who made a lot
(07:17):
of money. That kind of smells like corruption to me.
But like I can't look at anybody else that they're
nominating or electing and see, I mean, these are a
bunch of theater kids that stayed in school until they
were forty five years old.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
That's why they got such a great ground gaming campaign.
They don't have jobs they could just do. They can
campaign twenty four to seven is they don't have to
go to work.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Well, because there is well there's a ton to be
said for that, because you know, these are the people
who they know nothing about anything at all other than
like all of the politics that they've ingested over their
time not being productive, and so they live and breathe
this stuff. And when there's a ten percent turnout in
the Demokrad primary, that's who shows up at the polls,
(08:05):
you know, And I mean it takes Americans with jobs
and things to do to actually like, you know, come
off that to defeat these people. I'm assuming that we'll
do that this fall, but we're gonna have to do
it every two years from now on.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Seat McKay joining us on our news maker line, talking
about the the loons have taken over? Is that what
I think? That's what Senor to Kennedy calls progressives the loons.
I think he does, and he does. Yeah, all right,
Mark other words, all right, more coming up. It is
the Rod and Greg Show Wingman Wednesday edition right now
on Talk Radio one O five nine k n r S.
(08:42):
Rod and Greg with you as we are each and
every weekday from four to seven right here on Utah's
Talk Radio one O five nine k n r S,
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Rod Arquette, I'm
I'm wingman. What was his wingman? His wingman in Maverick?
Who was it? It was? Uh, it wasn't Goose.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
No, Goose is the guy behind us. We learned this
this is the wing man is not a guy that's
in the playing with you. It's the one that's next.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
That's why I'm playing next to you.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah, yeah, and he had I think there were different
ones that were there, but you know, Iceman would be yeah,
would be the best would be the best one man
bel Kilmer.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, Belkimer, that played that that role in it. All right,
all right, socialism. You and I have talked about it.
A lot of people are saying, what would life be
like if we lived in a socialistic world? Not that
we want to, but we've been thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Well, we talk about it, and you know, in history
isn't it's not. You don't have to go back very
far to find the countries that went through this, So
you know there's a there's a lot of examples. History
gives us a lot of examples of what happens next.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Well, there's one happening right now in of all places, Madison, Wisconsin.
Joining us on our any hour Newsmaker Line round now
is Dan Lennington. He is a managing vice president and
Deputy council for the Wisconsin Institute for on Liberty. Funny
story about what is taking place in Madison. Dan, thanks
for joining us. What in fact is happening in the
(10:06):
Wisconsin Capitol.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Well.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
On July twenty second, just a couple weeks ago, four
Madison police officers attempted to arrest a career criminal in
the middle of the street who was wielding a knife
and luncheon at officers, and during this confrontation, one of
the officers shot and killed this career criminal, and in response,
(10:33):
the areas around where he was shot to death became
what was called the Cory Ruiz Autonomous Zone. The protesters
flooded into the area, put up barricades on all the roads,
prohibited traffic and people from safely passing through the area.
And the city responded by actually supporting this instruction of
(10:58):
an autonomous zone, putting up garbage trucks and salt trucks,
and actually providing porta potties in this area. And so
the issue that we're having here is that the rule
of law has completely been abandoned, that the police and
the city were no longer going to enforce the rule
of law.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
And that is exactly what you get.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
When you get a socialist regime that comes into power.
It's all about taking property and rights from one group
and redistributed them to another.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
So I think the left, especially the socialists, they want
to fement fear violence, which creates fear, and then the
fear compels behavior. What's happened in Wisconsin sounds like the
Capitol Hill autonomous zones that we saw pop up during
the Floyd riot, the Floyd George Floyd riots back in
twenty twenty. Does this work ultimately? It seems like the
(11:52):
Tesla takedown worked. That violence fomented fear and it compelled behavior.
You know, they got what they wanted. Is this going
to work?
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah, there was quite a bit of violence in Madison.
Just to put a fine point on that. There was
a citywide concert going on at the time with thousands
of people there, and the protesters went over and took
over the concert and shut it down. They went to
restaurants down on State Street, one of our commercial areas,
and tried to shut down just the white owned restaurants.
(12:23):
There was all sorts of confrontations. Today, seventeen people were
arrested protesting this. They've shut down the street now in
front of the jail. And they have always tried to
get concessions out of the city. They've said things like, well,
why don't you pay for all the homeless people to
have hotel rooms for the next year. Why don't you
(12:45):
give us all money and make us go away? And
so it's this extortion racket that's going on in Madison
and the far left to liberal and progressive and socialist
political leaders are just gonna cave in and give them
what they want. So it does work in local areas,
which is the scary thing, and we're wondering, you know,
(13:05):
is this going to work statewide in socialist run states?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Now, then who's backing this group? How are they making
their money? Who's providing the funding for this effort? Do
we know?
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Well, we we do not know. It's it's uh, you know,
we have seen in some of these previous autonomous zones
where you know, things like palettes of bricks showed up
or wooden palettes or things to construct barricades. We're just
sort of conveniently, you know, placed in there. We're not
exactly sure who funds this sort of thing, but it's
(13:40):
all part of the you know, the left engine of
turning our country into some sort of socialist regime that
does not respect people's freedom of beach, does not protect
people's freedom of movement or their right to it economic
economic liberty and run their businesses. A lot of the
businesses down there, you know, couldn't make it rent for August,
(14:03):
They couldn't pay their employees because that they had no
customers coming in and out of the restaurants. So the
victims of this, these these tactics are actually the liberals
and progresses that live in these areas that are suffering.
And this is no longer you know, a belief system
(14:23):
that that's a luxury. It just requires payment.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
So you saw some electoral success from the socialists in
last night's primaries Democrat primaries. They're cut from the coth
of these rioters. Is this movement attracting maybe young people
who might not subscribe to socialism by itself or even
some of the tactics going on in Madison and have
happened elsewhere, But they're not seeing that, they're seeing crony capitalism,
(14:50):
or they're seeing something where they don't feel they have
access to what we're calling a free market. They're seeing
buying a home further and further away what whatever may
their economic prospects may be. They might not be happy.
Are there some that are legitimizing this movement just because
they don't like the status quo?
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Yeah, And I'll tell you that's a real risk for
conservatives and Republicans because we actually did a study, a
polling study a couple of weeks ago at the Wisconsin
Institute for Law and Liberty, and we pulled populist leaning
GOP voters and we found really troubling results that they
(15:28):
are in favor of price controls, they are in favor
of limiting corporate profits. And this is not just a
left issue. This is a populist issue. And people are
getting hit in the pocketbook and they are feeling real
economic pain. And unless candidates can speak to the economic
pain and to articulate a reason why they should vote
(15:51):
for a conservative or a Republican nominee, that it's going
to be hard for them to win these elections.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Dan, you're in Wisconsin courts. You got a socialist candidate
running for governor in Francisco. Hang a chef. Yeah, I
don't know if you heard. She's a chef. By the way,
have you heard anything about her involvement as she said
anything on this so far?
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Dan, Yes.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
She went down to the autonomous zone and she took
out a bull horn as reminiscent of George W. Bush
as twin Towers, and she declared that this was a
state sanctioned execution of this career criminal who is trying
to stab police officers, and she basically riled up the
crowd and that led to all sorts of violence. So yeah,
(16:38):
she's on the side of the violent protesters.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, and this guy who was killed is no angel?
Am I reading that right?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (16:46):
She has got all sorts of he has eighty six.
He had eighty six different crimes charged against him over
seventeen different seventeen years. Eleven charges of a resisting and
obstructing officers, bail jumping, strangulation, vehicle theft, threatening judges, battery's Yeah,
no angel is, to put it mildly, he does not
(17:07):
respect authority. That's something we're seeing a lot on the
left right now as people in respect authority.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
And thank you very much. Can you believe that this
guy who was shot by police eighty six charges against
him over seventeen years. That's a record. Gotta be yep,
gotta be a.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Record, all right, Rally behind that guy. Yes, that makes
all the sense.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
More coming up on the Roden Gregg Show, Let's get
your news update right now. Here's Abbey Committee that Iran
Paul chaired last week when Anthony Fauci got up there
and took the fifth one hundred and eleven times meet
tomorrow and there's a possibility Greg they could hold Anthony
Fauci in contempt of Congress even with the pardon, the
presumptive preemptive pardon that Joe Biden gave him may not fly.
(17:53):
This could be a real legal question. Let's find out. Yeah,
find out, find out.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I'm super curious.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Let's find out.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
And it deserves, you know, scrutiny to see it.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Well, I think a lot of us last week were
disgusted by Fauci's performance before the committee. But is he
a symptom of feckless politicians? Joining us on our news
banker line to talk about that is political commentator Ian Howard, Ian,
how are you welcome back to the show? What about
Anthony Fauci and the feckless politicians that he dealt with?
Speaker 5 (18:22):
Yeah, I mean, Fauci is just the gift that keeps
on giving, isn't He just refuses to go away, refuses
to stop staring at himself lovingly in the mirror. Just
a just a really great guy.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
You know.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
This is that there's two layers here. I think one
fount She obviously deserves to face consequences for the damage
he did to the country, for the lies he told,
and also for the damage he's done before COVID that
she actually dig into his career. He's He's done some
pretty terrible things, wasted an awful lot of money. He's
a very good politician. My concern with these kind of things, though,
is that we like to kind of almost personify things
(18:58):
that happen in American life with just one person, and
if we remove that one person, or we punish that
one person, then everything will be great. And the truth
is that Fauci would have been meaningless had it not
been for city mayors, state governors, and two presidential administrations
that embraced him as the expert, as the science and
(19:19):
really gave him the keys to the bus that he
then drove off a cliff. You can't really blame him
for political decisions that were made. You can obviously hold
him accountable for giving terrible advice, for misleading the public
on medical matters, things like that, But he didn't close
the economy. He didn't close schools. It was state governors.
It was the teachers' union screaming at the idea of
(19:42):
teachers actually having to work. There were so many other
people who were responsible for the damage that was done
that now everyone's trying to almost put everything on Fauci
when Don't get me wrong, he has a lot that
he should be accountable for, But there are a lot
of people who are trying to use him so that
they get away with it too. And I'm hoping that
people don't fall for it.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
And You're right, a lot of useful idiots run around
who had too much power and decision making that would
take Fauci's dreams and what he wanted to have happened
and to see them be realized. What's the what's I
call them the regime media? What's the regime media's role
in all of this? You have, you have the politicians,
which I think you've spotted, But does the media hold
some blame to this? Is this what compelled the politicians
(20:23):
to act the way they did?
Speaker 5 (20:25):
Yeah, I mean I don't know that there's a problem
in American life that doesn't have the media as at
least some small part of it. I mean, for me,
I think it's it's hard to kind of judge immediately
because I think we all learned as time went on, Right,
It's very easy to look back at, say, March twenty twenty,
and know what we would have done had we known
(20:46):
what we know now. But it became very clear quite
quickly that everything we were being told by people like
Fauchi was not completely true, not completely accurate, not completely reliable.
You know, there were other countries that were pursuing different
policy these if not everyone was dying. We saw Florida,
which is, you know, the oldest state in terms of
population in the country or one of the oldest states,
(21:06):
and they had pretty much open policies after a few weeks,
and they didn't see any significant increases and the kind
of things that we were promised. It was really I
think the media's failure for me was the refusal to
look at the whole picture, the refusal to ask honest
questions about what was working, what wasn't working. They were
fully on board with the messaging that if you didn't
(21:28):
wrap yourself in three, four or five masks, if you
didn't get endless booster shots that were increasingly ineffective, then
you were not only part of the problem, but you
were the enemy. You were killing Grandma. You were individually
responsible for a virus that came from China, and if
you said that it came from China, you were anti
Asian or xenophobic.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
At any of these names.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
They really fueled I'd say the dishonesty and the complete
lack of interest in actually getting to the bottom of this.
But you could say that from the media about really anything. Fortunately,
it's like a never ending problem.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Ian. Why did more people speak out? I mean there
were some scientists who raised questions, a few politicians out
there who are saying, wait a minute, and is it
because the way they were treated that others who did
want to say something all of a sudden said I'm
not going there because of the treatment they're being given.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
Yeah, I think it's a few things. I think there
was definitely like a mod mentality of there is a
fear of someone coming, you know, in some cases literally
to you and blaming you or attacking you or criticizing you.
There are a lot of people who lost their jobs.
There was an awful lot of political pressure, but there
was also moral pressure. There was media pressure, and I
think with issues like life and death, especially in the
(22:44):
field of politics, people don't want to be wrong in
any situation, any scenario. But when people's lives are at stake,
and people don't like to be told the reality that
we are all mortal, and it was going to be
impossible for any kind of pandemic, any kind of effort
they make, any kind of disease that some people would
not suffer and some people would not die. But politicians
(23:06):
don't exist in the world where we want to be
told the truth. And so I think it was like
a perfect storm of you know, politicians not wanting to
make the wrong decision, and what in their mind, the
right decision was to try and avoid death. You know,
if we all wrapped ourselves in plastic bags, none of
us would catch a cold, but you know, we'd suffocate.
There are their payoffs of quite literally everything, and I
(23:26):
think politicians just looked at trying to reduce the number
of deaths, no matter the cost, no matter the economic cost,
no matter the educational cost or the mental health suffering
that they imposed upon tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands
of people. They looked at one statistic, which was, you know,
death from COVID, and that's all they're focused on. And
so it was I think a perfect storm of the
(23:48):
problems in our society, you.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Know, and you got a great take. You're a great
observer of American culture politics, how they all combine or
how they merge. Mark Halprin, who used to be I
would call part of that regime media but and kind
of got canceled himself and maybe came with a new perspective. Well,
he posted just recently that he is shocked that the media,
even if they were in even if they love Fauci
(24:10):
and they love the the you know, the talk, you know,
the orders that were given or whatever they were supporting,
to see what he was writing and to be able
to see what his observation, Fauci's observations were at the time.
He is shocked that they are not reporting this more
accurately or showing the contradictions. They're actually defending him and
a guy like Mark Halprin is shocked by this. Are
(24:31):
you shocked by this? Because I think that, and I
guess my larger question is are the American people understanding
what happened here? Because you have a media that's trying
to say this is a mostly peaceful protest, as the
building behind the person is burning to the ground.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
I think the reason, one of the many reasons the
media don't really want to cover this is because they're
implicated in all of this, because they made Fauci famous.
You know, they put him on magazine covers, they put
him in endless interviews, they held him up as the
patron saint of the science, and so they are implicated
really in awe of this, and so I'm not surprised
(25:06):
that they don't want to kind of admit that they
were in any way wrong. But I think also found
she still represents something to them. I think he still
represents the kind of elitist class of experts that they
really don't want to question. You know, Don't get me wrong,
I think.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
There's still room for expertise.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
There's still room obviously for true scientific studies, true medical study,
objective science, and objective education, things like that. I'm not
going off the deep end. But the idea that you
cannot question someone simply because they're wearing a white coat
and giving you a line that changes every three seconds, again,
I think that's fundamentally on American too. I think, you know,
(25:45):
we're a country of people who question what we're told,
and I think that's a good thing. Sometimes it can
go a little too far. But the idea that you
cannot question what a politician, and toouct she is a politician,
says to you is absurd, but the media like those
people because they tend to believe precisely the same thing.
So I think it's kind of a circular problem with
Fauci lifts the media up. Fauci tells the media what
(26:07):
they want to hear, and then the media Liftsauci up
as the star of what they want to be true.
And it's I don't see this changing anytime soon, unfortunately,
because there will be another issue like this, whether it's
a pandemic, whether it's a political scannal something, and it's
just the same stuff over and over again. I find
it disheartening, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't call it
out when we see it, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Ian Howarth joining us on our news Maker Line. More
coming up on The Roden Gregg Show.
The Rod & Greg Show News
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