The Rod and Greg Show: Rep. Mike Kennedy on Codifying DOGE Cuts; Utah Speaker Mike Schultz on Medicaid for Immigrant Kids

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the program. I bring up these judges, and
I just started right out the gate because keeping track
of the injunctions and then the stays and then the
other injunctions, I think I'm reading the same story from yesterday,
but it turns out I'm reading a whole new story,
and so I've resolved myself. We have a power pack
show for you today. We have a lot of great

(00:21):
guests that you're going to want to hear from. But
I'm going to give you the score, the state of
play as I know it with all these judges, just
from the last time we spoke when I signed off
last night, because we've had quite a bit of things
happen just in that small amount of time. But just
to give you a teaser for the rest of the show,
we are going to speak about Elon Musk about there's
an article in Reason dot com about what Elon Musk

(00:43):
was hoping to accomplish, what Doge is looking to accomplish,
what is actually happening, and maybe some commentary on that.
We're going to dive into those details a little bit.
Some I agree with, some I do not. We'll have
a good discussion. We're also going to speak with Congressman
Mike Kennedy. He's going to give us the road seat.
He's going to tell us what's happening inside of Congress
right now, how they're getting ready for that. I'm going

(01:05):
to go through the effort of explaining because I didn't
get this myself right away. There is a reconciliation bill,
of which we've talked about, the great, the big and
beautiful bill. There is a recision package that the President
is bringing to Congress that is different than the reconciliation
bill I've been you know, I know they both start
with an R, but I was conflating the recision package

(01:28):
of the Doge cuts with the reconciliation bill. We're going
to get into what those differences are and why it's
important to know what those differences are Congress and Mike
Kennedy gets into that.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
With us as well.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
We'll also have a discussion our weekly discussion with Stephen Moore,
the economist, founder of Unleashed Prosperity. He is a economist
and advisor to the White House and to President Trump
on all things economy. Stephen Moore is a fun guest.
We're going to speak with him in the second hour
about the state of play, what's happening with the bill,
what's happening with these decisions on tear griffs, things like that. Also,

(02:02):
former colleague of mine. I wouldn't call him my nemesis
because that would be too complimentary to him. But former
minority leader in the State House, Brian King, also a
former candidate for governor and now running to be the
chair of the Utah Democrat Party. He's going to join
me on the program. We're going to discuss what is
he thinking. I don't even know. I mean, he seems

(02:24):
like a perfectly nice individual otherwise, but he's a Democrat,
and he's always and he's always you know, he called
me Chairman Mao in an editorial once when we were
serving together in this in the Salt Fake Tribune. So anyway,
but I like I like Brian, but I want to
give him a hard time and h and he's a
good sport and so he's willing to come on the

(02:45):
program and hear me out and we'll have a good discussion.
Also going to speak with Speaker Mike Schultz. Some interesting
breaking news. Supreme Court made a big decision that was
really brought by the state of Utah. But is going
to have national positive implications in terms of these endless
regulations and environmental studies that the left and environmentalists used

(03:09):
to stop all progress on all things, be it transportation, infrastructure,
water infrastructure, the timber industry, you name it. They try
to bog down all processes in a regulatory meleez that
keeps anything from actually happening. In a unanimous decision, which
is so powerful in today's political climate, a unanimous decision
by the Supreme Court opening the way and allowing for

(03:32):
these infrastructure projects to go through the normal processes that
they have thousands of pages of studies, but no more.
The Biden administration wanted to just keep bogging this down.
More and more environmentalists and their donors wanted to keep
bogging down any kind of progress, anything at all. The
Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the un A Basinto Price

(03:53):
rail line, which is an eighty eight mile rail line,
may continue. And also this has the press carries with
it the precedent that other industries, other efforts of infrastructure
can now move forward and not be bogged down by
the Left as they have been. We're going to talk
to him about that decision. Also, Trump administration is looking
at all states, and Utah happens to be in this category.

(04:15):
If you have medicaid, you're giving to the citizens that
you're participating in FED federal Medicaid state matching funds, and
someone illegal illegally in this country is receiving those benefits,
even if it's a child. It's not supposed to be happening,
and it looks like Utah is getting stared at for that.
We have a bill that passed recently that allows for

(04:35):
medicaid for children, the CHIP program for illegal immigrants at
our children, and so Trump administration has made some is
saying that's not the way the plant, that's not the
way the program's supposed to work. So we're gonna ask
We're asking Mike Schultz, Speaker Shultz about that specifically as well,
so you want to hear that. We're also going to
get into the Supreme Court refusing to hear the issue

(04:58):
with a middle school student who wore a T shirt
that said two genders on the shirt. He got kicked
out of school. It was a freedom of speech issue
that the Supreme Court didn't hear, which I think really
makes it a little confusing in terms of where maybe
freedom of speech starts and where censorship in your schools,
Who gets to do it, who gets to decide. There's
a lot, a lot of complexity of that. We'll get
into that as well. So a lot to go over,

(05:20):
a lot to cover here on this show. And so
you're gonna want to make going to hear every part
of this. I know it's Thursday, I know it's nice
weather out there. If you don't hear this whole program live,
then you always can go to the podcast afterwards to
catch anything you've missed. So let me just give you
the state of play. So we left yesterday. I was
really mad because while we were on the show, we

(05:42):
saw that this court, this federal court was negating or
stopping the Trump tariff program, his domestic or his foreign
trade agreements and the tariffs that were going to be
reciprocal with every nation. And they ruled that to be
unconstitutional and said that he did not have that power
to do it, and said that none of the things

(06:03):
that he had put into place were actually going could stick.
It was it was they overturned it. I told you
last night as we were on the show that just
all the countries that have been working in good faiths
with Secretary of the Treasury Scott Vestent, UK, China, even
European Union has come to the table. All of that

(06:25):
is up in the air because of this ruling. And
it's you know, meanwhile, you know, you got a Biden
administration in an auto pen that could go uninterrupted for
four years. Nobody seemed to care that we had an
open border unconstitutionally. Never saw a court getting any of
their way. This presence making real progress, doing great things,
and we've got judges everywhere throwing up firewalls as much

(06:45):
as they can.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
So I was highly frustrated.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Then this today, at about one twenty one, at one
twenty one Eastern Times, that was what eleven eleven o'clock,
a little after eleven am our time, another judge, an
Obama judge, issued a second block on Trump's tariffs, and
so you start to see this new movement. Here comes
another district judge that has the ability to create an

(07:11):
injunction nationally and blocked it, also blocked and put a
issued a preliminary injunction blocking all of Trump's negotiated tariffs.
And so you saw another case that was ruled upon
and publicized well In addition to that, we had another judge,

(07:32):
this one's in Massachusetts who this was at eleven fifty
two am. I'm giving you the time stamps because I'm
telling you this stuff comes so fast and furious. So
that had been about nine almost ten am our time
this morning. A judge sides with Harvard and blocks Trump's
a visa. Looking at the visa student visas of students

(07:53):
coming in from overseas, they were putting a hold on
that as they got an understanding of how many of
these students from overseas are coming here from what countries.
All of that there had been a block. This judge says,
you can't do that, And this judge sides with Harvard
and blocks Trump from his visa work and blocking those visas.
So that happens, so as you can imagine, before we

(08:13):
get to lunchtime, I am on tilt. I have a
second a second court that's ruled against Trump's tariffs. We
now have a judge stopping his work to try and
make some sense out of what's going on at Harvard
right now. And I'm highly frustrated. But then just as
I'm coming into the studio, I get an appeals court

(08:35):
has actually put a stay, has actually stopped these judges
from their rulings about Trump's negotiated tariffs and has said
we're going to consolidate these and if there's any more coming.
You see how the Democrats waited. They thought that they
didn't want to even interrupt Trump on all these tariffs,
thinking that it was going to be such a negative
impact to the country and be such a recoil that

(08:57):
they wouldn't have to block it. Find their judge to
block like they are immigration, illegal immigration, to deportations and
everything else. He would suffer politically politically for it. He
was not, so then they called the dogs on him.
And here came the lawsuits. Well, a judge a appeals
court has stopped all this, consolidated these different cases, saying

(09:19):
we're going to hear at one time, one time only,
and we are going to put an immediate immediate administrative stay,
which basically grants and keeps all of Trump's tariffs enforceable
as he's negotiated them until this case can be heard
in the court. So that's a ruling in Trump's favor.
But you see what's happening here, folks, that the judiciary

(09:41):
is way over its skis. You've got district judges that
are imposing national injunctions. This is so over the top,
and you've not seen this before. We're seeing it in
real time, and I'm going to keep mind. I'm going
to do my level best to give you the score
when we see it and how it happens. Okay, we've
got a lot more to go over. We're going to
talk about Elon mush and what he sees and what
Doge is doing, what's good what's bad about it when

(10:03):
we come back after the break, So stick with me.
You're listening to Talk Radio one oh five nine. Canteris
joining us on the program, Eric Bain. He's with Reason
dot Com and the headline of the article is Elon
Musk is right, The big beautiful bill is a bad deal.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Eric. Welcome to the program, Sir.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
Hey, glad to be back.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
Banks for having me.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
So, Eric, tell me explain to our listeners where is
Elon Wright's Elon Musk seeing it right?

Speaker 2 (10:31):
And where is this bill going wrong?

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (10:34):
Yeah, So this was a remark that Elon made in
an interview with CBS News over the weekend, and of
course now we know a little more context here, we
know that he's actually on his way out of the
administration officially, but what he said over the weekend was
that he felt like this, the tax bill, the big
beautiful bill, was undermining the work that the Department of

(10:55):
Government Efficiency, the DOGE, had been doing, and he said
that he was disappointed to see it pass because it's
adding to the deficit rather than reducing it, which is
of course the thing that he's been trying to do
since since January, since before that really, and so he
felt like this bill was kind of working against the
priorities that DOGE has had and that he's had.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
And I think, you know, we could get into this,
but I think that.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
Really speaks to a sort of a divide in policy
in the Trump administration really, and whether you know now
that Elon is on his way out, I think that
says something about the direction things they're heading. But yeah,
I mean, I think he's absolutely right about this. Obviously,
by by every objective measure, the bill would add to
the deficit, will add to the long term deficit, trillions
of dollars to the long term deficit. It's taking the

(11:39):
country in the wrong fiscal direction. And I think maybe
more important than that, it's doing, you know, kind of
the opposite of what Trump was elected to do. It
with the cut spending to reduce inflation, and this bill
doesn't seem like it gets that done.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
So Eric, I have to ask you a questions.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
So one of the areas I think that what I
would have, well, I just want to know what your
take is. So one of the ways that you could
budget or score this bill is if you were to
assume the twenty seventeen tax cuts were to expire, so
it so that you would see a you would see
a tax increase, so you could account for a lot
of money, trillion dollars or more. I can't remember what

(12:13):
they're saying, but they're saying it's a mass They frame
it as a massive tax increase. But if you just
let the tax cuts of twenty seventeen expire, the Treasury
would expect a lot more coming in by way of
tax increases. Is it that is the tax increases that
would come if you did not extend the tax rate
as it is right now? Is are you are you

(12:33):
considering that deficit spending?

Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, I mean I'm.

Speaker 4 (12:38):
Not assuming anything here.

Speaker 5 (12:39):
I'm going off the numbers.

Speaker 4 (12:40):
That's the CBO that the Yell budget lab that the
pen Wharton Budget Project have used, and they all agree
when they're looking at this what you're talking about there
is you're talking about this debate between the you know,
the current policy or the current law baseline or the
budgetary baseline. And this is I understand. I think people
can disagree about the right way to do this, but

(13:02):
I think to really understand why it's a little bit
of a gimmick to make that assumption, you have to
actually go back to twenty seventeen, right, you have to
assume you have to look at what was done then,
and the fact that these the tax cuts that were
implemented in twenty seventeen, which were good. I think you
and I and I think everybody would agree on that. Right,
we like the tax cuts, but the fact that they

(13:24):
were not made permanent was itself a gimmick. It was
a way to game the CBO score of that bill
eight years ago to say, oh, well, in twenty twenty five,
we'll only have I mean, what they did make sure
that they said we'll have eight years of lower taxes
and then two years of higher taxes, and will assume
those higher taxes the revenue from those higher taxes.

Speaker 5 (13:45):
Makes the.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
Negative budgetary consequences of the lower taxes kind of disappear
seem less significant. So now they're saying, oh, well, we'll
just play that same game again. We'll just kick that,
you know, that projection further down the role. And this
is you know again, you could you can disagree about
the math, and you could say which way is the
better way to do it, But but that's simply not

(14:08):
being serious about fiscal policy. Like that approach is not
taking a serious look at the fact that we are
facing multi trillion dollar deficits going forward. And I think
that's the problem I have with it more than the
particular debate over the math, you know, kind of so
the other part is as important as just like the
lack of seriousness, right and Eric.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
I get how they how that's gamed up if you're
only counting it for a certain period of time because
you're making it, you're saying it's going to expire. But
I think it's actually would be if you look at
how states. I'm recovering public servant, But if you look
at states and when they cut taxes, they don't, they
don't play that game. They'll if they if they have
a surplus and they and they cut taxes, they're assuming
lesson is going to come in because they're cutting taxes.

(14:48):
What what's that dollar amount look like? I think it
would be a gimmick if we have already booked the
tax increase that would come if these were to expire,
and assume that that is existing money. Is if that
were your tax rate right now, or tax taxes that
the treasury they're collecting right now. That's the part that
I get a little squeamish about. I don't think without
lowering the without lowering the tax rate, just keeping it

(15:10):
just static. If people were already booking that, and I
can see why they would do it. But if that's
the big if that's the deficit spending, I don't know
that the everyday citizen would concur that they just deficit
spent because they didn't get their taxes increased. But let
me but let me ask you this going to a
different topic.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
I agree.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Also, Doge had a lot of aspirational They cited a
lot of things that they thought they could find a
lot of savings in the federal government. Now, the big
beautiful bill, as I've learned, that's the Reconciliation bill. You
can really only look at the things that are automatic spends.
I think there's a decision bill where it could be
more of the discretionary stuff, and that's coming in. But

(15:49):
if you take the big beautiful bill and it's I
don't know, one point seven billion or something, and you
take the recision package the White House is bringing in,
it's like nine billion, you're still not even getting close
to the one hundred seventy billion that Musk and Doge
have identified. My question is, and that disappoints me. I
think there's a clear political path for something for Congress
to cut closer to that one hundred and seventy billion.

(16:11):
But my I guess my question is is it a
one time shot? Is this because it's not all the
one hundred and seventy billion, do you lose confidence that
Congress will have fiscal discipline to cut closer to what
Doge is identified, and I would imagine they identify more.
Can they do more later or is this is this
the moment they have to do it?

Speaker 3 (16:32):
Well, I think they should do more now.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
I think I agree as I wrote in that same piece,
I agree with what Senator Ran Paul have said, this weekend.
You know, in addition to Elon Musk and he said that,
you know, these are pretty wimpy cuts. I think that's
exactly right. Obviously Congress could have should do more. It
doesn't preclude them from doing more cuts in the future.
But to your other question in there, yeah, I'm really
skeptical about Congress's ability to meaningfully cut. I don't think

(16:56):
we've seen any indication. I mean, you've been Democrats, you
can forget it out right, but I don't think we've
really seen any indication from Republicans even that there's like
an appetite for physical responsibility and loshing it. And the
other problem here is that you've got that nine billion
dollar recision package short and look going through and cutting
wasteful discretion and spending.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
I'm all for that, let's do that.

Speaker 4 (17:19):
Dose has done a great job in identifying some of
the you know, some of the stuff that should be cut.
Wonderful good job. But if you want the big numbers,
if you really want to get serious about about reducing
the deficit, or at least preventing it from growing, you've
got to look at the entitlement programs. You've got to
look at the automatic spending, and you can do that.
The big beautiful Bill, to its credit, does a little

(17:40):
bit of this with Medicaid. It does look at ways
in which you can reduce future spending growth in Medicaid
without actually impacting anybody. Right, It fixes one of the
big loopholes that states use to get extra federal dollars
through the Medicaid program, which is just a total scam
that states have been running for years. And it does
some other things like that. But there's ways to look

(18:01):
at the huddlement programs, Medicare and Social Security too, in
ways in which you could make changes to those programs
that don't really materially affect anybody, because what you're doing
is you're just reducing the rate of future growth rather
than actually making cuts. Democrats will scream and yell about
how these are spending cuts, how Medicaid is being cut.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
It's really not.

Speaker 4 (18:19):
Medicaid spending will continue to increase even under this bill.
All the projections say that it just will will increase
slightly less. And that's where we got to start. Like,
let's just begin there before we even talk about cutting anybody.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yeah, Eric, to your point, if they just changed their
match to states and made it less.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
They didn't.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
They didn't spend a single cent. They just said, okay, states,
we're not going to match as much, and you'd see
a massive decrease in how much the acup.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
I'm sure you know this.

Speaker 4 (18:43):
I mean, having worked in state governments. I mean, and
then I've covered state governments. I've written about this from
in state capitals. This is a huge part of state budgets.
And it's a part of state budgets that lawmakers and
the other policy people know they can game. They know
they can get extra money out of the beds by
turning certain dials and flipping certain switches and also looks.
Think governments are doing great right now, right most stay governments.

(19:06):
You leave aside the you know, the basket cases, the
Illinois and the New Jerseys of the world, but most
of them are flushed with cash. They're doing wonderfully. They
are required to balance their budgets every year, which certainly helps.
But things are going well. So I think it's a
good time for the Federals, for the for the federal government,
for Congress to say, hey, you guys got to pick
up more of the tab on this. This was a
mistake that was made as part of Obamacare.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
Honestly, it's really.

Speaker 4 (19:29):
Where this mess began, and it's you know, now it's
been fifteen years and we're just sort of finally recognizing
that fact.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
But I wreck that, Eric, I recognized it back then.
I was called a shot fifteen years ago.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
Eric, of course, Eric Bame, Thank you so much, great insight.
Appreciate the discussion. And you're right, I do. I see
what you're saying. I'm just we're getting I think the
bills progress, but there is so much more to do.
Appreciate your time. Thank you for your work. Eric Bame,
reporter with Reason dot Com. Okay, folks, good, thank you,

(20:02):
thank you. All Right, folks, we're going to go a
break and we come back. We're going to talk to
Congress and Mike Kennedy. I'm going to ask some of
these questions. These are these are the questions we need
answers to. How are we going to cut we how
are we going to use the DOGE cuts? Are we
going to codify them? We need to know this and more.
You're going to find out when we come back after
the break. You're listening to Talk Radio one oh five
nine canteris we just got off the We just had

(20:23):
a great discussion about about all the cut or the
things that Elon Musk has worked on. Doge is working
on currently and will continue forward working on.

Speaker 6 (20:31):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Is it finding itself in the bill and the Big
Beautiful Bill? Yes or no, there's a recision package being
submitted by the White House. Before we go to our guests,
I just want to just clarify one thing. The Reconciliation
Bill is the Big Beautiful Bill, and what that is
is it aligns the federal spending its revenues. It's debt
limits on mandatory spending, the stuff that's mandatory, and what

(20:53):
mandatory means is that's like Medicare, Medicaid, social Security, stuff
like that.

Speaker 6 (20:58):
This.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
So it has some guardrails to it. The Big Beautiful
Bill does. But then and by the way, that recision,
that Reconciliation Bill only need The reason why we all
talk about it is it only needs fifty one votes
in the Senate to pass, not the usual sixty votes
in the Senate, which makes everything so hard to get through.
Now there is the recision package, which is very different.
That is when our president says, look, you got Congress,

(21:19):
you sent all this money to us, here an executive branch.
We don't want it all. We want to actually, we
want you to take it back. We need you to
cut it back. This is what they would use for
discretionary funding like I don't know, NPR, PBS, the USAID,
all this foreign spending nonsense that's been going on. That
is a recision package, and that is a different bill
that one also only needs fifty one votes in the Senate.

(21:41):
These two ways to cut spending are absolutely critical and
really your only viable way in Congress right now to
get anything done. Because there's not a single Democrat that's
going to vote for any of this stuff. You got
to be able to do it with the weight of
your elected Republicans who do control the House and the Senate.
So those are the two bills that are on the

(22:02):
table and that they're working on. Let's with that, let's
go to our guest, Congressman Mike Kennedy, Congressman, Welcome to
the Rod and Greg Show, Just Me today run on solo.
Mike Look. House Speaker Mike Johnson has announced that the
House is ready to codify the DOGE spending cuts or
some of them. Can you please tell us what these

(22:23):
are and what's going on. What's the status of things. Greg.

Speaker 7 (22:27):
It's great to be with you and your listeners again,
and I'm totally excited about this opportunity. We just passed
last week our Reconciliation Package, which is totally separate from
this precision package, and I'm excited that with our leadership,
the Republicans can move forward on the significant work that
Doge has done. We're looking at nine point four billion
dollars of precision that has been identified from the White House,

(22:51):
and next Tuesday it's going to be sent to us
to have a look at to vote on. And I
can almost guarantee, although you can never guarantee anything of it,
the Republicans are going to unite behind this. For one,
this is a great opportunity for us to save the
taxpayers a bunch of money nine point four billion dollars.
And for number two, President Trump has a lot of

(23:13):
wind at his sales with Speaker Johnson and President Trump,
and we have leader soon in the Senate. They've been
working lockstep to try to execute on President Trump's mandate,
which seventy seven million people voted on them. We can
save nine point four billion dollars. Goodness, sake. Let's jump
on it.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
It was good news for me. I've received it well.
It says that they're looking at the USAID, some of
the foreign expenditures, foreign money going to for nonsensical things.
That's been pointed out by Doge. Social Security, anyone over
one hundred and twenty years old shouldn't be getting a
check anymore. I'm glad you guys are just staring getting
rid of that. That's a that's a big that's a
big red flag. Some critics are saying that with Doge

(23:51):
identifying one hundred and seventy billion dollars worth of cuts,
that nine point four billion is a little bit, not
anemic or small.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
What do you say?

Speaker 1 (24:00):
What do you say to those that think that you
should be cutting maybe more or and it's not even
a cut, it's what you're doing as a president's asking
you to reduce the current budget that hasn't been spent
by a certain amount. It's a recision package. Is there
more that could be done than what's being proposed.

Speaker 7 (24:17):
There's always more that can be done. The reality is
we need to qualify these spending cuts, make sure that
they are what they are, that we need to quantify
them how much can we save. We're going to use
a scalpel and not a not some sort of acts
to do these things, and then we need to codify,
and that's where these codifications are coming in. You and
I both know that to pass into law these kind

(24:40):
of budgetary issues, it requires debate and Congress needs to
weigh in on these things. But to look at that
one hundred and seventy billion dollars that you're talking about, well,
let's start with our first installment nine point four billion dollars.
I know to Washington, DC, that's not much, but to
us regular people, that's a massive piece of money. So
I'm excited about that. People could call it an emic,

(25:01):
as you're suggesting, but it's the first installment of many.
And we take seriously this one hundred and seventy billion
dollar proposal that dose is given to us. And since
the Clinton administration, we haven't reigned in spending like this.
I think it's high time for us to look at NPR, USAID,
and PBS and ask the questions of whether these people

(25:21):
are really doing the job. And when you look at MPR,
for example, eighty seven of their board members are registered Democrats.
There's not one registered Republican on NPR's board, and we've
brought that out in hearings. So going back to that,
we need to qualify, and we need to quantify, we
need to codify, and this nine point four billion dollars

(25:43):
has gone through that process. The remainder of the one
hundred and seventy billion, we need to do this the
same process with that money as well.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
So speaking with Congressman Mike Kennedy and talking about the
DOGE cuts and putting codifying them. So you just mentioned
that the President Trump has a mandate, the people are
behind him. There's just this embracement of common sense, and
so he's seeing this popularity giving you a lot. I
believe Congress, especially Republicans, political cover to make the cuts necessary.

(26:15):
You're saying, you're pointing out this is just a beginning.
It was mentioned yesterday in an interview we did on
the program or it was questioned whether Congress felt, if
Republicans really felt that wind behind their sales that the
President Trump is bringing you, do you have the political
cover even for those Republican colleagues of yours that may
come from New York or states or districts where Kamala

(26:36):
Harris might have won. Do they see that cutting government
waste and get cutting much deeper that Trump has given
them the political cover to do it, or is it
going to be a lot of hand ringing from your colleagues.

Speaker 7 (26:48):
It's actually the people have given President Trump the cover,
and then President Trump and the people can give House
the cover.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
We have a.

Speaker 7 (26:55):
Mandate, just like President Trump has a mandate. And I
both believe listeners believe the people are in charge of
the government. We should work for the people and not government.
Not government, we have to work for government. That's often
what it seems like with the bureaucrats is that we're
actually funding our government and then they're weaponized against us.
So the answer is I can say yes in a

(27:20):
certain fashion because we've passed a budget resolution Speaker Johnson
and the leadership team on the House side, that was
miraculous to pass the budget resolution which started this process
of budget reconciliation. We also and you and I both
know continued resolutions are not ideal, but we passed that
as well. In the media, it was dismayed. The Democrats
have been dismayed because that was the first time in

(27:40):
many years we've actually done something substantive moving us forward,
giving us time on this continued resolution. We actually saved
billions of dollars on this continued resolution, and we funded
the government through September to avoid a government shutdown. We
stuck that on Schumer. You and I have talked about
that on this show a several weeks ago, and then
we just passed last week this budget reconciliation package. So

(28:03):
that reconciliation package, recognizing it's not perfect, it's an eleven
hundred page bill, there's stuff in there to still be
worked on the Senate. It's going to have their way
with it. You and I both know the the.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
House of Lords, Yes.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
We know them old in the slow.

Speaker 7 (28:19):
And the fact that we passed it, we sent it
over to the Senate is the reflection of President Trump
working with the leadership team and the Republican Party. They're
on the move and they're doing things that are historical.
So there's more to be done, but I believe that
the cover is there, and if people are going to
try to vote against these efforts, they're going to face
the wrath of President Trump, who is not a force

(28:42):
to be ignored.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
Thank you, Congressman Mike Kennedy. I appreciate that. The update
sounds like, you know, you only have a three to
four member majority and you are hurting cats, as we say,
very well getting things done. I think all I know
is I do not want to tax increase, which is
we're staring at if we don't get people together, which
I like.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
I like what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
Okay, folks, when we come back, I have some final
thoughts about uh this the tax cuts or keeping the
tax rate the same. When we come back, I want
to discuss that just a little bit. Uh so you
want to hang on. You're listening to Talk radio one
oh five nine Canteras. I cannot stand when people book
the tax increase that would come if we don't make
these permanent, as somehow deficit spending. Those cuts should have

(29:25):
been permanent. I get why it. You know they said,
well they for a lower score, they made them, you know, temporary.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Whatever.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
You just don't cut taxes and come back years later
and say, kings X, we're raising taxes or your deficit spending.
It doesn't make any sense at all. And you know why.
Every single time, whether it's our jfk Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush,
Donald Trump, every time they've cut our federal taxes. We've
seen the treasury receive more money in twenty seventeen, before
the tax Trump tax cuts, the federal government received three

(29:53):
point three trillion dollars by twenty twenty two. And remember
that's two years into COVID. Okay, four point nine trillion
dollars into the treasury. That's a forty eight percent increase.
It was a historic increase. Now there's someone that'll do
some dynamic scoring and tell you by percentage of GDP
it didn't matter.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Oh it mattered.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
Okay, at four point nine trillion dollars more, you get
four point nine trillion, when before the taxes you were
getting three point three trillion, and two of those years
are inside of COVID. Yeah, every time you cut taxes
and leave money in people's pockets, guess what they do.
They get to spend, they get to take care of
their families, and the economy grows. It's just that simple.
I don't care what they say. All right, when we

(30:33):
come back, we're gonna talk to a great supply side
or economist Steven Moore. It's got a lot to tell
us what's going on inside the Beltway. You don't want
to miss it. You're listening to Talk Radio one oh
five to nine o knrs.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
That first hour flew by. We got a great interview.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
You appreciate Congressman Kennedy for taking the time a lot
to talk about, a lot to continue to talk about.
Joining us on the program right now is the White
House Economic Advisor, economist, founder of Unleashed Prosperity, Overall economic Guru,
Steven Moore. Steve, thanks for joining us on the program. Look,
I keep hearing from the Democrats that keeping the twenty

(31:11):
seventeen tax cuts in place is actually just a massive
tax cut.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
For the rich.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
And I've heard you say, I've said everyone said that
keeping these taxes in place prevents all of America from
seeing a massive tax hike. Can you just can you
please what the Democrats are saying and what I keep hearing,
Can you just tell our listeners the truth?

Speaker 2 (31:30):
What does this really mean? These taxes?

Speaker 6 (31:33):
Well, it's certainly true that if we don't get this done,
that they're facing the giant tax increase economy wide. Every
small versus virtually every small business, virtually every every family
would pay on average about a twenty five hundred dollars
a year tax increase. That's an enormous amount, and that
would happen on January first. So it is an imperative
that we make the Trump tax cuts permanent so that

(31:57):
businesses and families, especially families with kids, don't get hit
with a big tax bill. Now on this issue, because
I hear it over and over at myself, probably ten
times a day.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
This is a tax cup of the rich.

Speaker 6 (32:08):
There's a new report that just came out that shows
in percent you know, and if you look at whose
taxes are being cut the most in percentage terms, it's
it's not the rich. It's actually the middle class gets
the most benefit. They see about a forty percent reduction
in their income tax as as a result of this bill. So,
but the most important thing is everybody wants a strong economy,

(32:31):
a prosperous economy. Most of these people horse the so
called rich, are people owned businesses and operate businesses. I mean,
tell me how many are we going to have jobs
if we don't have businesses?

Speaker 1 (32:40):
So so true, I'm want to switch topics because I
know your time is limited. A court came out yesterday
halting Trump's President Trump's work on trade agreements. Trade you
know tariff. I believe another court just overruled that this afternoon.
But under the band that they said, we can't this chaos,
they're creating even more chaos. My question to you is,

(33:02):
I know you were you were always concerned about how
this would all play out roll out. It doesn't look
as tumultuous as people predicted. But what does what do
these court cases as of late do does this Where
does this put the our administration in its negotiations with
the world and their trade relationships?

Speaker 6 (33:19):
Well at issue here? And this is what the lower
court decided. And by the way, it was a Reagan judge,
a Trump judge, and a Bamba judge, so it was
two out of the three were Republicans. They argue that
Trump overstepped this balance. That the Constitution as I read it,
and I'm an originalist, you know, I like to go
back to the Constitution, it says that all tax bills
start in the House of Representatives, and so the court

(33:42):
was saying, you cannot have these tariffs unless Congress approves them. Look,
I'm a Trump guy. I love Trump. I think he's
done an amazing job, but I don't think he has
the authority. I don't think any president has the authority
to unilaterally raise taxes, and that the court agreed with that. Now,
this will probably go to the US Supreme Court, but
I'm not confident that Trump will win even in the

(34:02):
Supreme Court because they're originalists too. They read the Constitution
and they they call the balls and strikes that way.
So what this means is that, you know, either Congress
is going to have to approve some of these terrorists
or Trump is going to have to rethink the strategy.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
You know.

Speaker 6 (34:18):
The amazing thing is that Trump is getting some great deals.
I have to say, and I'm not a big Trump
I'm not a big tariff guy, but he's gotten a
good deal with China, He's got a good deal with UK.
The Europeans are going to come to the table. We'll
see where this heads. I think there is a little
bit more turmoil because of what happened in the courts yesterday.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
So I guess the follow up question would be, do
they they kind of reach over that deal they had,
they reach across the table, pull that back? So yeah,
we like the status quo, Thanks for playing and China
walks away?

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Does that happen?

Speaker 6 (34:48):
Now that's the issue. Yeah, now that you're exactly right,
will these because the Europeans were supposed to start negotiating
as soon as next week and now we'll see whether
they say. Because you know this, Trump loses a little
bit of leverage here, you know, because he can't hold
the terror of silver his head. If the Supreme Court
says this terriiffs are are not constitutional. What Congress should
do is give Trump the authority to do this, and

(35:10):
then that would resolve the whole problem. But look, I
don't think we should have the president's unilaterally raising taxes.
I don't know how you feel about it, but I
think we have a Congress and their job is to
is to be the one who, you know, okay the
taxes not. The president can recommend them, but he can't
put them into a fact, and that's what the court said.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
The reason I don't fear it is no other present
would have the guts to do this for fear of
what the consequence here would be. So I don't think
any president would ever try this. But I guess I
get I know you're again, I want to be really
quick with the question. You could just answer as quickly
as you can. Sure the question there are workarounds. I've
read a bunch of a bunch of federal laws where
he can be more prescriptive. He can actually go into

(35:50):
these trade deals a lot more prescriptively get some of
the things that he's still after. Do you see him
going take him a little bit longer, but do you
see him going that route?

Speaker 6 (36:00):
And again, I'm not a trade law expert, so I
don't know, but you're exactly right. That's what Trump will do.
He'll And by the way, the court didn't rule out
all of the tariffs, just some of the tariffs that
they thought were too broad broadly interpreted.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
So Trump is not.

Speaker 6 (36:16):
Going to give up on this. I think he is
going to get deals. I think it just may take
a little bit longer. But you know, from April the
middle of April today, we've seen the most amazing boom
in the stock market as Trump's policies, both on taxes
and tariffs seem to be really working. I'm the deregulation front.
The one area that I'm a little disappointed in is

(36:37):
that I'm with Elon Musk. I don't understand why Congress
is not implementing more of his budget savings. Elon Musk
is a hero here. He's identified hundreds of billions of
dollars of saving I ask you, why is it Congress
acting on this?

Speaker 1 (36:53):
You know what I feel the frustration. Stephen Moore, thank
you for joining us. I know you're super busy. I
appreciate you taking some time to speak with me and
to share your perspective with our audience. I think Steven Moore,
I'm telling you the guys that he's one of the
movers and shakers over there in the White House administration
as well as just as a thought leader and for

(37:14):
the rest of us in terms of how to approach
the economy as a true supply sider. You know, I'm
going to tell you this. There should be and you
can see it in Elon Musk's eyes.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
I see it.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
The guy's just I think he's just crestfallen. I think
he's sad. I think he really was. You see the
enthusiasm when Trump won. He did a lot, He did
his bit and then some to give us a social
media platform where freedom of speech actually exists and we're
not being censored to so severely. And we know we're
being censored now when you compare it to what it's
like on X where you can actually share an opinion

(37:47):
and you're seeing that the you're seeing common sense really
come back, and it's left the Democrats rudderless.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
It really has. He did that.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
But in addition to that, he worked, He campaigned for Trump,
he worked, he had a super pack, He did everything
in his power. And then part of DOEGE, the Department
of Government Efficiency, they began to find such systemic problems
in the way the federal money was being spent, almost
a shadow government with these NGOs and so many indefensible

(38:18):
expenditures going on. That just shocked people like me, who
I thought couldn't get more cynical about federal spending and
how it's out of control. And then you get to
this stage where you just need fifty one votes in
the Senate. You need a majority in the House, but
it's always been the problem with the Senate. You need
sixty to prevent a filibuster. You have two levers for

(38:41):
budget cuts, that's the Reconciliation Bill and then the recision
package of the President that only need fifty one, and
it does feel like it's not enough for me. I've
never met have any of you ever met the person
that said, hey, you know, when it comes to the
federal government, I defend their right to spend far beyond
we pay in taxes. I want them to continue to

(39:03):
spend recklessly and openly, or even think that the way
that government has grown is a good thing or somehow
it's better. I've never seen anyone be defensive of the
leviathan of this hydra that is the federal government. But
yet when they did the Tesla takedown and they attacked
Elon Musk as a human being for what he was doing,

(39:24):
it seemed to work. It seemed to have it. It
seems to have done its job. You see, Congress, I mean,
when you can point out that you're not going to
take a dime away from anyone in terms of their Medicaid, Medicare,
social Security, You're just going to find cuts that are
efficiencies or eliminating redundancy or fraud. And it's hard, it's

(39:45):
difficult to do. I've just I share the frustration. Now
that said, I'm all in with Congressman Mike Kennedy. I understand.
I actually have not lived it, but I can only
imagine what a three member majority the House of Representatives
would be like in terms of the different types of
congress members of Congress. Some are scared, some only act

(40:07):
out of fear, Some are afraid of their shadow. If
they live in a swing district, getting getting the votes
necessary is a very difficult thing to do. I do
believe Mike Kennedy, also Congressman Kennedy, when he says, we're
not this isn't a one shot deal.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
We're going to do.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
Nine billion here, ten billion on the on the one packaged,
one point seven billion on the Medicaid Medicare, and you know,
but that's not it's not one time. We're going to
continue to do that. We're going to continue to build
that political capital. I believe them. I do believe that
that's what's going to happen. And I just want the
Democrats on the record that they would have raised everybody's taxes,

(40:44):
small businesses, families, twenty five hundred dollars and more. By
voting against this bill, this reconciliation bill, they are telling
every American, per everyone in America, I want to raise
your taxes and everything you've seen by way of examples
of federal spending, we want more of it. That's what
the Democrat's position is today, and that's what I'm we're
gonna repeat, make sure people understand more clearly. Okay, when

(41:06):
we come back, we're gonna have a great time. We're
gonna talk about this a little bit more. We're gona
talk about these Democrats. We're gonna talk about where they're
going as a party.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Interesting story that Jake Tapper shared that really shows it's
very enlightening. I think it's a it's a maybe a
bell weather for what how much trouble the Democrat Party
might be in. You're gonna want to hear this when
we come back. You're listening to Talk Radio one oh
five nine. Canterress. Let's plow the ground before he gets here,
because this is this is what the state of the

(41:36):
Democrat Party for me. As I just keep reading, I
don't know what Jake Tapper thought he was going to
do other than make a lot of money from this book.
I don't know what he thought the ripple effect would
be him and is uh I I just always forget.
This is Alex Thompson. What's the what's the guy's name
that's his co co author of the book from Axios,
Alex Alex thoms that's his name. Anyway, I just think

(42:00):
that they have painted such a grim picture of the
Democrat Party in America and it's rudderless, and it's or
it's not even rudderless. It's going in such opposite directions.
And they cannot admit that their policies were wrong. They
cannot admit that what they were promoting and what they
were saying was important actually was destroying this country. They

(42:23):
can't do it. What they want to say is, how
do we repackage our our our public policy. How do
we say it in a way that people will like
it more than they do right now? They they have
they have yet to have any self reflection. Well, there
was an illuminating interview with Jake Tapper, and I don't
know what kind of you know, thought process he's going through,

(42:43):
but some of his comments here are are are pretty revealing.
I think he he shares, you know, because he's doing this,
He's doing these tours of you know, podcasts and and
just interviews on television because he's just you know, pushing
this book as hard as he can. I think it's
his retirement plan or something, because he just he's everywhere anyway.

(43:06):
He used on this podcast. It's a left leaning podcast.
Go figure and they're talking about the future of the
Democrat Party. And one of the podcasters that he was
on remarked that he saw he went to the Democrat
National Convention, saw a lot of special interest groups. You know,
they're all addressing issues that they are really important to them.
But what he didn't see are any groups or any

(43:27):
really any message that was for just Americans and young Americans.
It just it didn't exist. They were all special interest
groups and pretty narrow and all of their emphasis and attention. Well,
Jake Tapper shares a story about his son on this podcast,
and he says he was on a different podcast that

(43:48):
was left leaning and he became the brunt of a joke.
And the brunt of the joke was this other podcast
asked him, what does your son tell us about your son?
He said, well, my son's fifteen years old. He loves football,
he's a gamer, he wants to be a policeman one day.
And ah, these leftists on this podcast, they couldn't believe,

(44:08):
they couldn't believe that Jake Tapper's son would want to
be a police officer. You know why, because, as Jake
Tapper describes it in the story, they believe their joke
was that if his fifteen year old son wants to
be a policeman, he must be a racist. He must
be a racist. And Jake Tapper tells this guy, this
is why they lose, this is why Democrats are losing elections. Well,

(44:30):
you're part of it. You're part of the problem, Jake.
I don't know Tapper thinks he's like talking about this
like it's a sport and there's a team on the field.
He is part of the problem. He has pushed their worldview,
he has pushed their excuses, their lies himself. So he's
part of the problem. But what I find interesting about
this is he has, first his fifteen year old son
is starting linebacker on their high school varsity football team.

(44:54):
That kid must be a good player. He's a football fan,
he's a gamer. And Jake saying, Jake Tapper saying that,
you know, there's there are no conduits of communication for
his son with the Democrat Party at all.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Nothing.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
Well, I don't know who needs to break that, Jake Tapper.
Remember when back in the eighties, Remember when they people
would say, all these conservative families, you know, when they
find out their kid is gay, the kid has to
come out of the closet tell their parents are gay.
Who's gonna Who's going to tell Jake Tapper that his
son is one of these bros, one of the very
people that the left hates, the ones that they tried

(45:31):
to get bud Light away from because it was just
too frat boy. It was, you know, they had to
have the transgender guy on the you know, on the
commercials because they want to get away from that frat
boy toxic male masculinity image. Sounds like his kid is
part of that crew. The comedians, the people that love sports,
the people that the Democrats have spent quite some time

(45:53):
absolutely excoriating, calling toxic, going after as if they were bad,
that they were, they were privileged by just the mere
color of their skin. And Jake Tapper is feeling it now.
I mean, when they start talking about his own kid
as being well, how's he feel about minorities? You must
be a racist if he wants to be a cop.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
He is real.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
He is at least admitting now that this identity politics
is insane. It is just dividing everybody up. And I
heard a comedian one say, you know, if you can't afford,
if you're not eating food, you don't have any food
in the cover. Does it really matter what color you are?
And that made me laugh because I identify with that.
I grew up pretty poor my mama, that my mother

(46:35):
was a single mother. And if your power gets turned
off because the bill isn't paid, does it really matter
the color of your skin? Does it really matter who
you know? Who's who in those moments, if you are
living in poverty, it doesn't. It's pretty much a circumstance
in a demographic of how you're living and living in
a country where thankfully you can. You don't have to

(46:57):
live like in a cast system in the circumstances you
were born and you can. There's upward mobility in this country.
There's freedom of self determination. Anyway, it looks like Jake
Tapper is starting to figure some of this out, or
at least admit it. We're going to find out when
we come back from the break. If Brian King, my
former colleague, the former minority leader in the state House,
he's if he has figured it out with his party,

(47:19):
what's going on with his party here in Utah. We're
going to find out when we come back. So you
want to hang on after the break you're listening to
Utah's Talk radio one oh five nine can ters. Former
state Representative Brian King, former colleague. I'd say a friend,
but you know, if it loses me street credit, I
might reconsider.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Uh No.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Former representative of Brian King, former minority leader in the
state House, former candidate for governor, and now word on
the street Brian, is that you're running for Democrats Utah
Democrat Party state chair. Is that true? Tell me what?
Tell me if you are?

Speaker 2 (47:54):
Is that right?

Speaker 3 (47:56):
I just want you to know, answer that question. I
made you what you are.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Hughes, Yeah, you know, it's you always need a good antagonist.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
You know, Rocky didn't need. It's true, It's true.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
You have you have credit with the right because of me.
It's as simple as that. I'm running for the I'm
running for chair of the State Democratic Party because again,
we need to have good protagonists or antagonists putting on
your point of view, and we need somebody to put
in place some pushback to what's going on with this

(48:28):
one mart one one party control that we have here
in the state of Utah.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
So there's you know, there's a national narrative of the
Democrat Party and it doesn't look like it. Everybody's singing
off the same sheet of music. There seems to be
a lot of different stories out there. One that was
that that seems to be turning Democrats against them cells
right now. But I'm just curious on your take, President Biden.
What did you think was he sharp as attack while

(48:54):
while he was serving in your mind? Or did you
or were you rolling your eyes? But I mean, what,
what what? What did you you see in a President
Biden administration in term?

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Yeah? Well, listen, Joe Biden accomplished, from my perspective as
a Democrat, an enormous number of really good things for
US as a country. I mean, he put in place
the inflation duksnak, put in place a bunch of infrastructure spending.
You know, he did some stuff that I think the
country has really got to benefit from. He's an older

(49:26):
guy to do it.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Brian, did he really do or was it that bureau?

Speaker 3 (49:33):
Nobody does anything and nobody does these things alone. You
know that as well as anybody. But look, he was
the president at the time, and the people, whether it
was him personally or his team, I don't care who
you want to give cred to, but I will say,
to answer your question, he is an older guy who
was declining in his time in office, and you could
see that. People could walk him and see it. I mean,

(49:55):
you could see him when he was walking down the hall,
and that gave a lot of people some concern. It
me concerned, quite honestly. So I don't I'm not going
to take an either or black versus white circumstance here
and say that people were knowingly trying to hide think
things from the American people from the first day was
in office. I do think that he declined. I do
think it was poorly handled in the last two years

(50:18):
of his presidency in terms of too many people for
too long were standing beside him and saying to him,
you need to run for reelection, when what they should
have been saying is you need to not run for reelection,
and you need to prepare, whether it's Kamala Harris or
whether it's somebody else, prepare this country, prepare the Democratic
Party for a successor to you, and don't run again.

(50:40):
In hindsight, that's clear. I wish it had happened at
the time. So you know, I'm not going to try
and defend him hanging in as long as he did.
I feel badly for him, but I think the party
was hurt because it was perceived that people around him
were trying to hide his condition, and to some extent
maybe they were, and that, of course is problematic.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
So you get these stories coming out, like there's a
bunch of elitists at these swanky hotels that want to
sit around speaking with American men's, the Sam Project whatever
the New York Times reported. There's an irony of like
I don't know if this was a Harvard idea or what,
but a bunch of blue bloods looking at how do
we draw these working, everyday American working class guys to
our party? It seems like, well, if it's not if

(51:23):
you have to ask the question and you're doing it
at a five star hotel, you might not be the
one to really get this done it. It just kind
of speaks of elitism. Utah is a different state, Brian.
Is Utah's Democrat Party different than maybe some of the
messages or things that you're seeing nationally. Is this a
blue dog a more conservative or moderate party? Or is

(51:45):
this about identity politics and Hamasi and all this other stuff.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
I mean, where do you see the Democrats in Utah.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
Well, listen, that's no different than the Republican Party in
the sense that you've got this wide range of people.
We have people within the Democratic Party who say, we're
going to fight the most progressive fight and battle we
can come up with, push the state forward in a
progressive direction. And we have other people who say, look,
I'm an old time working class Democrat who first and

(52:17):
foremost is small business oriented and wants to make sure
that unions are strong and that kind of thing. And
of course the people who have both those things in
their mind at the same time. It's complex, but here's
the reality. There are ways that Democrats in Utah have
to address different concerns that Utons have. I mean, Uton's

(52:38):
are more conservative culturally and socially. There's a degree to
which we all know the culture here and the politics
here in Utah is colored by half the population self
identifying as being members of the Olds Church. I'm lds myself.
I get that, I relate to that, I understand that,
and my hope is that you know, the Democratic Party

(52:59):
in the future are going forward here in Utah is
able to become a bigger tent party in the sense
that people on both the progressive wings of the party
and people who are disillusioned Republicans will be able to say,
these folks in the Democratic Party are talking to me
about stuff I really care about and that really matter
in my life. And for the first time, I haven't
thought about voting for Democrats in the past, but I'm

(53:22):
changing because the Republican Party today is just not addressing
the needs of regular work in Utah.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
So there is part of that where you can always
look and I think Democrats have mastered the ability to
criticize Republicans, and certainly Republicans are not perfect and there's
different kinds of people that identify as Republicans. So that's
a good trade era that I won't say good, that's
an effective trade Democrats have. But I think you just
brought up something that's very important for any political party

(53:48):
and a party leader, is that you have to have
ideas that you're going to profer. That brings me to
my final question. You have Illinois Governor Pritzker, Jabi Pritzker,
that's going to be your keynote speaker at your convention.
You and I were on the clock together, pal we
were you were the Minoria leader. I was a speaker,
I will take the PEPSI challenge. Utah did far better
than Illinois's doing right now with this Governor Pritsker. He's

(54:10):
got high unemployment, he's got a people are leaving that
state faster than they can It's the fourth highest in
terms of people getting out of that state. They're only
in migration is as a sanctuary state. He's raised taxes
sixty nine times. Why this guy at your nationally This
doesn't seem like a Utah Democrat to me. You would

(54:32):
be a better person to be the keynote speaker being
from Utah than what JB. Pritsker is in my mind.
Why is he your keynote speaker at your convention.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
Yeah, I'll tell you what I think. In the first place,
I didn't wasn't involved in arranging Governor Pritsker to come
to Utah. But I'll tell you why I think he's coming,
and I'll tell you why I think he's effective as
a keynote. He is one of the few Democrats out
there who is effective at channeling the concern and the
anger and the insecurity and the negative feelings people have

(55:06):
about today's Republican Party. Donald Trump specifically, but more generally
the direction of MAGA and conservatives, because he's saying to people,
he's articulating in a way that they want to hear
and like to hear. The fact that many, many Utahns,
many people across the country, just don't think that today's
Republican Party, Donald Trump, people in Washington, d C. Leaders

(55:28):
of our state party here in Utah are addressing the
day to day needs of Utah's that they're far too
quick to be either corrupted or that they're far too
quick to look after the interests of the wealthiest in
our state and in our country at the expense of
working people. And you know, we see this in the
sense that healthcare coverage is being cut for the.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
That's fraud and no one real is getting cut anything.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
You could be a Utah Democrat. You can't.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
You can't take these talking points from these national Democrats.
They don't know what they're talking about.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
What you doing?

Speaker 3 (56:02):
Are you serious? I mean, look, Medicaid cuts are going
to impact the people who can least afford to be impacted.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
These are these are these are repetitive programs or they're
being given out to people that don't qualify. You know,
this look. I'm not gonna I'm this is why you
This is why you can't have nice things.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
You want to know why you're in the minority.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
You know what. You need me back in your life
because you need to up your blade about me, reporting, talking,
repeating talking points.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
You're just for we gotta You're gonna be a show
killer for me. I'm gonna lose half this audience listening
to you talk. This is gonna kill me. I gotta go.

Speaker 3 (56:41):
We gotta gotta got as I can.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
Yes, Sir Ran King Uh By the way, party chair,
another stick to beat yourself with. Good luck with that, pal.
I think it's the hardest job in politics. I don't
know what you're thinking.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
Well, it is to some degree with thankless. But you
know what, that's so frustrated by the direction that I
see your party going that I need to step up.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
No, I just had to cut them. I couldn't take
it anymore. I had to get off. We're gonna go
to a break. I got to unpack that whole interview.
I hope you don't. I hope no one hates me
for bringing Brian on. You have to see that you
have to hear the mindset you have to hear how
great the Inflation Reduction Act is in the eyes of
a Brian King.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
You need to hear this.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
You need to know this is out here lurking in
our own state. We'll talk about this interview with Brian
King when we come back after the break. So you
want to hang on and you're listening to the Utah's
Talk Radio one oh five nine knrs. Look, I know, folks,
I know you don't tune into this Rod and Greg
show to hear crazy liberals talk. But I've known Brian
King for a long time. I hope you could hear
from that exchange. We are friends and we know each

(57:40):
other and we know each other's politics. I told I
don't know if I I think I told you before
you came on. This guy called me Chairman Mao in
in as Salt Lake Tribune editorial when I was speaker,
just ripping me. So, I mean, we can we can
give as good as we get, the two of us.
But I wanted you to hear that because you need
to hear where the Democrats where their heads are. This
isn't Brian is looking to be the chair of the party.

(58:01):
And I got to tell you that if Brian is
saying that innocent people are going to lose their benefits,
social Security benefits or whatever, he must really believe that
there's twelve million people that are one hundred and twenty
years of age and older who are receiving Social Security
because that's what they're cutting. They're cutting the redundant programs,
they're cutting the waste ineligibility. They're not hurting Grandma or

(58:23):
mom or any of the people that Democrats always say
are being harmed when you stare at entitlement spending at all.
So it's good to hear that. Also. Jabie Pritzker, I mean, honestly,
I just think the guy, his track record is just
it's just not what it's almost like Governor Newsom or
you know these blue state, large blue states. They're governors. Yeah,

(58:46):
they could probably raise a lot of money. Pritzker's a billionaire,
as they rip on billionaires, but that doesn't make him
necessarily ready to lead this country. And certainly, if you
look at the product of Illinois, what's happened there, the
exodus going out of that state. They don't want to
It's I don't think that Pritzker it would be a
good candidate for president. He certainly wouldn't be a good president.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
I have no.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
Idea why he'd be a a you know, keynote speaker here.
But the fact that they want them should tell you
a little something about you know, where Democrats heads are
at right now when it comes to you know what
they want to hear the one thing that he said
and I want And this isn't unique to Brian or
to Democrats in Utah. This is their this is their wheelhouse.
This is the the one arrow in their quiver that

(59:30):
they've had and they will always use, and that is
we aren't the Republicans. They will pick a part and
attack Republicans to no end, and then we Republicans we
can create a circular firing squad every once in a
while too. But they their only thing they do is
attack Republicans. They don't bring you any solutions themselves. They'll

(59:50):
just tell you the other guy is not good enough
or either gal, we got to have better than that.
Come when we come back, We're gonna talk to the
Speaker of the House, Mike Schultz on Talk Radio one
to five nine O can arress we all miss rad
I can't wait for him to come back. This NASA
like board is screaming his name. He's very good at
this board. I'm not as good at it. But look, folks,
I've got a great last hour, so you want to

(01:00:11):
hang on through this hour joining us on this program.
But before I bring in on our guests, let me
just say this. The Trump administration is not messing around
when it comes to illegal immigration, when it comes to
spending in government waste or fraud, they're not just paying
lip service. One of the things that they're doing is
that they're looking at Medicaid and they're deciding if you're

(01:00:34):
giving if you as a state are sending out Medicaid
benefits to those that are not here legally, you shouldn't be.
That's not what the law says, is not what you
should be doing. And so they're really starting to look
at these states, and they're looking at California, They're looking
at a lot of states trying to find out where
Medicaid dollars are being spent. You know, these entitlements grow
and grow and grow. They're not sustainable. We all know this.

(01:00:54):
They're very politically difficult to deal with because you hear
democrats like you heard my friend there, Brian and King,
you know, just excoriate anyone that wants to even think
about saving money or not seeing waste in entitlements. They
try to make it sound like you just want to
hurt people. But an interesting comment from doctor Oz who's
part of the Trump administration now. He says it in
very easy to understand terms, Medicaid is not for illegal immigrants.

(01:01:18):
States must uphold the law and protect taxpayers funds for
the taxpayers who rely on those programs. We will not
allow federal dollars to be used on those who are
not lawfully eligible. We are now increasing oversight and will
step in if states do not comply. Well, that that
actually rings true with a local headline in the paper

(01:01:38):
today saying that the Trump administration is looking at Utah
and it's medicaid of funding and it's saying that you
can't give this the you cannot fund illegal immigrant children,
which it looks like Utah is doing. Joining us on
the program is Speaker of the State House, Mike Schultz. Mike,
thank you, speaker, thank you for joining us on the show. Look,

(01:02:00):
I just read the headline, what do you say in
response to the Trump administration and the pressure that they
are now applying.

Speaker 8 (01:02:06):
Yeah, well, hey, I appreciate the question, and it's great
to be with you and you and your listeners. But
it is something that we are looking at as something
we actually were looking at last year. And it's not
just the Trump administration. It is in the big beautiful
bill that states that do allow for illegal for kids

(01:02:30):
to be covered under Medicaid, that they have to pay
a higher match, and so automatically, if that does happen,
or if that by the administration or by Congress, UTAH
would have to act and we will act. Look, and
here's the thing that we actually were kind of have
tried to get ahead of this a little bit with

(01:02:52):
all the immigration stuff that was last year, and it's
so something that we're going to continue to talk about.
Is something that we're still looking at.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
So I think that so I read a little bit
of the bill. I think you contemplated all this in
the bill that was passed. It only if the federal
government allowed it. If the federal government changed this rules,
Utah would be in line with the administration if it
if it changed those rules. And that looks like what's happening,
as you mentioned, But isn't the case because I was
It's been a while since I was there on the

(01:03:22):
clock as a public servant. You're a public servant now.
But some of the issues we dealt with, whether it
was these children that were uncovered that weren't covered medically
or whatever the issues were, these were stage These are like,
I don't know, brush fires or house fires with what
happened with the Biden administration and the just open borders,
and now every state, Utah included, feels like a border
state with all uh, just the the just the volume

(01:03:45):
of it all.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
Isn't it the.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
Case that that Utah and probably every other states re
visiting decisions that were made to deal with small problems
that in today's world these are massive problems.

Speaker 8 (01:03:57):
Yeah, well, I know every other Red state is revisiting
their immigration programs and and different things and how they
treat illegal immigrants. It's something that we certainly did last year.
We need to continue to look at it. You're you're
spot on. The things that were passed over the you know,
over the last couple of decades really are different today

(01:04:20):
because of the open borders from the Biden administration and
we've just been overwhelmed by by illegals and it's having
a huge burden on our society as a whole in
certain areas or worse than other areas. But it is
one of the reasons why we're looking at it. It's
one reason why we're going to continue to look at it.

(01:04:41):
We have a great relationship with the Trump administration. This
will be something that we will be looking at. I
don't know if it will be in a special session
or if it'll be next session, but it is something
that we will be looking at and discussing absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
So one of the things that comes to mind is
just where we had whatever those challenges were, how are
you how is the state grappling with these laws that
have been passed over decades. As you mentioned, that become
a magnet. So you have people, you have these NGOs
that are trying to get people into the interior of
the country as fast as they can. Those laws aren't

(01:05:19):
just addressing whatever issue was happening in Utah at the time,
it's actually now drawing in a population, a massive population
of illegal immigrants that are in our country. Are you
feeling that is our budget being hit by that?

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:05:33):
Well yes, we're feeling it. Not just our state budget
and and but but the citizens and our communities are
feeling it. And you know, I need to point this out.
Utah as on a per capita basis, is not any
worse than other states. In fact, there's a lot of
other states that are significantly.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
Worse than Utah.

Speaker 8 (01:05:51):
And so I don't know that some of these things
necessarily draw them to the state of Utah because the
numbers don't show it that way. On a on a
on a per capita basis, we are lower than the average.
But that doesn't make it okay. We are we still
have a problem. Our communities are filling, and our citizens

(01:06:12):
are filing. We need to look at making changes moving forward.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
Absolutely, So, speaker, let's have a little celebration, shall we. Uh,
I want to switch gears. Supreme Court this morning back's
Utah oil railroad expansion. Now, this has a much broader
impact on just everything. I just saw a clip. The
USDA is going to allow for more forestry and more
timber to be uh you know, to to to happen
and be able to use as an industry timber. Our

(01:06:38):
timber industry is going to be able to grow now
faster because of this ruling. But this ruling was brought
brought because we had a railroad expansion in Utah that
the environmentalists had halted and there was a massive amount
of actually due diligence done to permit this. It had
been permitted under the Trump administration. Biden administration said no,
went to the Supreme Court and a this is significant

(01:07:00):
and a unanimous decision. They were It was ruled that
they had done enough of the due diligence that they
should certainly be able to continue this railroad expansion project.
Tell me what that means for the state of Utah.
I we don't live in this area where this railroad
expansion is happening. Why should we care?

Speaker 8 (01:07:18):
Well, it's this has a broader impact that we'll talk
about in just a minute. But let's hit on the railroad.
So this railroad is runs from the Una Basin to
Price and what it's meant to do is to get
oil that is produced in the Urna basin and put
it on a rail car and get it to the

(01:07:40):
rail spurs and then onto the rail line so that
they can get to refineries all across the country in
Texas and other parts of the country's country where that
they have the bigger refineries. And so you know, and
there is some of that oil that's making it that
way now, but it's being done by truck. That truckt

(01:08:00):
have a huge burden on our highway systems, as you
can imagine, and so this will take trucks off the road.
It'll put allow for more expansion in the um A basin,
which you know there's it's good because it brings in
a large amount of severance tax, which you know this
last year the only reason we were able to lower
income taxes was because we had a huge increase in

(01:08:23):
the severance tax. And so you know, as we do
things like that, that will help offset the tax the
citizens pay. Now here's the great thing. This has a
much broader impact than just this railroad. So we're proud that,
you know, we took this on as a state and
pushed back on the Biden administration and got this lawsuit

(01:08:44):
because what it does is Biden and well so many
other Democrat administrations has attempted to write NEPA and what
the original purpose of NEPA was and make it broad
to where you can't do transmission lines anymore for power,
where you can't don't do oil pipelines anymore, for pipelines
for oil, host of infrastructure items you mentioned, timber harvesting.

(01:09:08):
They've literally shut down so many of the things that
we need as a society to function under these neat
for rules. And so the Supreme Court came in with
the unanimous decision as you mentioned, eight to oh and
which we'll push back and rewrite the NEPHA laws as
we know today in a much more favorable term in
order for the states to be able to build these

(01:09:30):
type of infrastructure that's needed.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
Mike Schultz, thank you joining. Thank you for joining us,
mister speaker good where. I think it's a great moment
for Utah. There's a lot of a lot of barriers
that we've suffered through as a state, through bodies of
you know, bodies and environmentalists, and I think this ruling
by the Supreme Court, unanimous ruling is a big step
in the right direction.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
Okay, folks, when we come back, I want to talk
a little bit more about the Supreme Court ruling, some
of its impact directly to Utah. Some of the things
I learned about our state and why we have the
citizens of the state have suffered up until now because
of some of these overburdened some regulatory requirements that have
really put our state behind the eight ball. And I

(01:10:14):
think that this is a story that should get a
lot more attention. So we'll get to that when we
come back after the break. You're listening to Utah's Talk
Radio one oh five nine Canteroris. So we were just
speaking with Speaker of the House Mike Schultz, and we
spoke about this Supreme Court ruling, which I think is massive.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
It is massive.

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
I don't think it, I know it. I think that
it being a unanimous decision also will have a very
strong influence on how the environmentalists have been able to
abuse federal regulations in the past. You heard the Speaker
refer to NEPA. He kept saying the NEPA studies. Well,
what that stands for is a National Environmental Policy Act,

(01:10:56):
And what that is is it's an exhaustive study that
looks to show how now it's it's meant to study
what the environmental impacts are in real time for whatever
you're doing. If you're going to build a rail line
and you're gonna you know, you're going to break the
ground and you're going to excavate, what's that mean to
the runoff, and what's that mean to the environment you
have For a state like Utah where we have sixty

(01:11:17):
six percent of federally controlled land, just the ability to
get water, to get rail, to get anything anywhere in
this state, that's not the for Wassatch County counties, the
Wasatch Front counties.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
It takes.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
It takes infrastructure, road, water, everything. Well, if this if
the federal government can prevent us from being able to
run infrastructure through our state to reach rural communities, rail, water,
whatever it may be, it's like it's like a form
of jerrymannering. We want to know why it's so crowded
along the Wasatch Front. I'll give you one reason we

(01:11:51):
can't grow. We're not Dallas, for it worth, where you
can just keep sprawling. As far as I can see.
We live in a valley. And when you look at
our other rural counties which can grow, and the irony
and the sad irony being young people are leaving these
rural counties because there aren't jobs and opportunities there, so
they're coming where to the Wahsatch Front where it gets
more crowded, where your traffic congestion is how your quality

(01:12:12):
of life is being decreased and your cost of living
is going up. Being able to put responsible infrastructure into
the rest of this state so that this whole state
may be able to grow, so that young people that
live in rural Utah don't have to move away from
there to have a living, to have a job. It's
incredibly important. And I think that this ruling says, and
this was a quote from I think this was Justice

(01:12:35):
Brett Kavanaugh, the NIPA, Like I said, the National Environmental
Policy Act is a procedural crosscheck, not a substantive roadblock.
The goal of the law is to inform agency decision making,
not paralyze it. It has paralyzed it. When I ran
for governor in twenty twenty, I can't tell you how
many rural communities I went into where there were arrusted out,

(01:12:57):
emptied lumber yards. Lumber yards that used to go into
the federal lands, the BLM land, the Bureau Land Management
land and thin out the forest there so that you
didn't see these wildfires that took millions of acres with
it when the fire, when the lightning struck. But they
could thin that out, they could use these lumber yards.
They could sell the lumber. We had an economy in
Royal Utah for this. It was the Clinton administration that

(01:13:19):
started to ban the ability for forestry on federal land.
This decision is going to help reverse that. You see
that from the USDA already announcing that they are ready
to commit more to that industry of forestry. That will
result in cheaper wood prices. That should result into lower

(01:13:40):
housing prices as we are suffering from right now. So
we have had industries in Royal Utah that have been
taken away from us from these environmentalists. This is the
little twist about our You went a basin and our
crewed our oil. It's called a waxy crude. And I
know this gets wonkish, but you got to know this
little detail. When this oil comes out of the grounds,

(01:14:05):
it's a liquid, but when it cools down, it becomes
a thick, solid wax. So what happens is is we
have all this great oil and it has a very
very low sulfur content, which means it can be a
blend stock to lower emissions for fuels for refining. There
is so much there's a lot of good qualities that
are our oil in the un a basin uniquely has

(01:14:25):
here's the challenge. You better have a refinery close by,
because if that the fat waxy crewed cools down and
becomes a solid, it's very difficult to get out. Obviously,
you have to have heated trucks, heated rail cars. Well,
we've had our trucks. You Speaker of the House mentioned
that our roads and the trucks that have been going
from the un A Basin to North Salt Lake refineries.

(01:14:46):
These trucks are hauling, they're going quickly. They are trying
to keep that in liquefied form so they can get
it out of their trucks, and so they're coming fast.
This eighty eight mile rail connection from you in a
basin to price these can be heated cars. This can
be a way to get much much more of this
supply to other refineries, get it to the Gulf of Mexico,

(01:15:09):
get it to other refineries around the region. And it's
what does that do. That creates jobs, that creates all
kinds of opportunities for the state of Utah. And so
I just think it's a big, big win. And because
it was unanimous, I think that it should have a
chilling effect on how many of these environmentalists think that
they have a court they can manipulate. Even the Democrat appointed,

(01:15:32):
Democrat presidential appointed Supreme Court justices weren't buying how this
National Environmental Policy Act was being abused by those that
were trying to shut down any type of industry, any
type of infrastructure at all.

Speaker 2 (01:15:47):
I think it's a big, big deal.

Speaker 1 (01:15:48):
So I had to just kind of put a book
bookend on that discussion with Speaker Schultz because I do
think that we're going that this this spells good times
for our state. It's a very positive outcome. And I
know that it was our state that ran us all
the way to the Supreme Court. It's a little engine
that could and it finally happened today.

Speaker 2 (01:16:06):
So good news.

Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
When we come back, folks, after the break, we're going
to speak with Logan Spine. He is legal counsel for
the Alliance for Defending Freedom. Disappointing on the other side
of the coin answer from the Supreme Court they are
not going to hear the case of a middle school
student who had the words two genders on his T
shirt and was banned that shirt was banned from school.

(01:16:28):
It was a freedom of speech case that was rejected
by the Supreme Court. We're going to get his reaction
and to what that, what that means, and what the
consequences are when we come back after the break. So
you want to hang on and hear that here on
talk radio one oh five nine canter us. But anyway,
had a great show so far, power Pack. But we
we don't we don't. We don't end in a whimper.

(01:16:50):
We don't come out, you know, slow. We still have
more to go, folks, So you want to hang on.
We have a great guest that's here to talk to
us about. If you remember, maybe you saw it in
the in the UH, in the news today or yesterday,
the Supreme Court announced that it was not going to
hear a case about a middle school young man who

(01:17:13):
in Massachusetts, So of course this was going to happen.
UH wore t shirt that said there are two genders
and he was asked to be he is asked by
the school to leave that that shirt was unacceptable at school.
They it was a freedom of choice issue.

Speaker 3 (01:17:27):
UH.

Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
The Alliance Defending Freedom has taken on freedom of speech
issues in the past. They've taken cases to the Supreme Court.
It was a disappointing ruling that came today that Scotis
had refused to hear it, which means that the lower
court's decision that the school had the right to censor
the student and his shirt will remain. We'll stay in place.
So to talk about that with us and give us

(01:17:48):
kind of the kind of this, you know, the lowdown
of what it all means is Logan A spin Spina.
He is the legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Logan thank you for joining us on the program. I
guess what censorship is all the rage in our public schools?

Speaker 5 (01:18:05):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
Would that be an accurate statement?

Speaker 5 (01:18:09):
Unfortunately, too many schools are engaged in unconstitutional censorship, and
I think it's really important to emphasize. Though the Supreme
Court did decline to hear the case, two justices dissented
from that decision, and Justice Alito in particular wrote a
lengthy opinion dissenting from the denial of search ri or
the refusal to hear the case, and it lays out

(01:18:31):
exactly what the right decision here would have been. It
recognized that the lower courts unconstitutionally refused to stop the
lower the schools from doing what they were doing here.
It recognized that there was viewpoint discrimination happening, and it
recognized that the First Circuit effectively created a new free
speech test that departs from well settled precedent. So it's

(01:18:53):
true that this is an ongoing problem, and it's one
that we're going to continue to work on and I
think eventually the Supreme Court will correct. But unfortunately, there
just weren't enough votes to get this particular case before
the court.

Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
So you bring and I think that the sense brings up,
I mean, the most obvious point, and that is, if
you have First Amendment rights, but now we're going to
pick and choose which ones when you're a student in
a school, which ones they're actually going to apply. I
think it creates an enormous amount of confusion across this
country in terms of what free speech actually means. Do

(01:19:25):
So you expect this case to be heard, maybe in
another form from a school that may do the same
thing or something that's similar. Let me just ask you
what will be different this time around? So was there
a technicality in this case that that got it to
be declined? What would be different in a future case.

Speaker 5 (01:19:43):
I think the question for a future case will be
what do other circuit courts do with this? One of
the challenges in school speech cases is that the existing
correct test from a nineteen sixty nine case called Tinker
versus des Moines, is that it is very fact specific.
It's a question about material disruption, and so it is
possible that another case exactly like Liam's simply won't come

(01:20:08):
up again. It may be that other circuit courts and
other panels, even of the First Circuit, sort of confine
this case to its facts. But if in other courts,
for example, it explicitly embraced the test that this panel
of the First Circuit created, I think that would catch
the Supreme Court's attention. And just here listeners understand, the

(01:20:28):
rule is that schools cannot silence students speech unless it
is materially disruptive or unless school officials have facts to
show a reasonable forecast of substantial disruption. But what the
First Circuit did was to create a new test that said,
number one, if there is speech that is assertedly demeaning
about another student's deeply rooted characteristics such that school officials

(01:20:53):
can forecast disruption or other symptoms of what it called
a six school, then that essentially always qualifies as material
disruption under the existing test, and so Justice Alito lays
out exactly why that's mistaken on multiple levels. There's extreme
deference to school officials on whether something is demeaning, and
it's a fundamentally viewpoint based test. All of these things

(01:21:16):
are problems. And so I think if another circuit was
to explicitly adopt this test and apply it, I think
the Supreme Court would be very likely to hear a
similar case and then to explain why that's wrong, or
if more, get more opinions out of the first circuit
instead of sort of confining this case to a limited
set of circumstances, expanding it to more circumstances, I think
there's a good chance the Supreme Court would say, enough

(01:21:36):
is enough, we need to hear this and we need
to correct it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):
So if I were to flip the script, and let's
say we have a rural county in Utah predominantly conservative
and some student want to wear a gay pride flag
T shirt or something like that, applying this, will it
cause disruption?

Speaker 3 (01:21:51):
Will it?

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
Does it do?

Speaker 1 (01:21:52):
Kind of all those circumstances that were laid out that
Alito didn't agree with, does this ruling allow for school
districts to say no, no, no, you can't bring your pride paraphernalia
to the school for the same reasons that this student
in Massachusetts couldn't wear a shirt that said there are
two genders? Can you apply it the same way.

Speaker 5 (01:22:12):
I think if a school or a court was following
this reasoning, they very well might be able to do that,
and we would say it's wrong in both cases. Right,
we think Liam had the right to wear his shirt,
and we think a student in a different school district
would have the right to wear a shirt with a
different message. That's the right rule to protect everyone. But yeah, unfortunately,
if another court or another school was to follow this rule,

(01:22:34):
it really permits officials just to shut down speech that
they don't like on important matters like what does it
mean to be male or female?

Speaker 3 (01:22:41):
Et cetera.

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
So it's been a while since I was a kid
going to school, but you have in every school and
every high school, you have kids that want to make statements.
They want to make statements about different things. It could
be sports, it could be politics, it could be whatever
it is. It's inevitable that it's going to happen, is
what do you think the state of play is for
America in high school students their families given that this ruling,

(01:23:03):
because I'm very upset that it was declined, I think
it does open a Pandora's box?

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
What what do you see? Do you what? What?

Speaker 1 (01:23:10):
What fate do these kids face by expressing themselves in
their opinions?

Speaker 5 (01:23:16):
Well so, to the extent other schools or courts follow
this rule, it does put them in a bad position.
I want to emphasize that that is not mandatory. It's
not it's not it's not a foregone conclusion that everyone's
going to do this. And one important power that we
all have as members of our communities is to influence
school officials to protect speech. Even if the constitutional rule

(01:23:36):
that they're subject to they might think they're allowed to
crack down on it, that doesn't mean they will, because
they're also subject to democratic constraints. And I think it's
important to use every avenue that we have to protect speech.
But I do think that this, you know, to the
extent this ruling is followed in the meantime until the
Supreme Court intervenes and explains why it's wrong, it certainly
does put students in a bad position, and it does,

(01:23:58):
unfortunately permit administrators to pick and choose which speech they
don't like, and we should all understand, regardless of where
you're coming from. That undermines one of the important functions
of public schools, which is to serve as what we
call nurseries of democracy, or to prepare citizens who are
fit to live in a world where not everybody agrees right.
What we want is for people to be able to

(01:24:19):
be exposed to different ideas and to live peaceably alongside
with others who do reject even the most important things
that they think are true. That's an important skill for citizens,
and public schools should be preparing people to live in
a world that is built around those principles, especially in
our country. But under this rule, it undermines that important purpose.

Speaker 1 (01:24:40):
What I heard you say is that we should embrace
a diversity of thought, and we should raise kids to
be able to accept that, handle it, and be able
to think through a diversity of thought, especially in our schools. Absolutely,
Logan Spina, thank you very much. He is a legal
counsel for the Alliance for Defending Freedom. Thank you for
your good work. Thank you for reporting on this UH

(01:25:01):
and again I think you're right. I think this has
not seen its last case and this will continue, especially
now I think they've actually dug deeper. I think you're
gonna have more problems now. After refusing you, they can
go ahead to the Supreme Court and go ahead and
punt this. They're not it's not going away. I think
this is going to happen more and more. But it's
good to no. Okay when we come back, final segment
of the show, leaving with some concluding thoughts with you

(01:25:23):
here on Utah's Talk Radio one oh five nine knrs. Look,
final final thoughts, folks. We've spoken a lot about, you know,
what they're doing in Congress, what the you know, what
the big beautiful Bill is doing, and what its status is,
the recision package that the White House is sending in
terms of cuts that DOJE has has found and codifying those.

(01:25:44):
We've talked to Steven Moore about just the economic realities
of these tariffs and judges trying to block the President's
ability to set these trade agreements with countries and negotiate
these and what's what's happening there. Talk to Brian King
about running First Date Party Chair Democrat Party Chair here
in Utah, just so you could hear that we do
have Democrats in Utahn. Boy, they are alive and well

(01:26:06):
and they seem about as crazy as the Democrats are watching.
You're watching nationally. You know, it's something we have to
pay attention to. But here's what I want to share
with you now. There's two things. One real quickly, La County.
We talked about all the regulation that the environmentalists used
to stop Utah from being able to put infrastructure in

(01:26:29):
place to see their community, rural communities, economies grow. The
timber industry has been shut down by these environmentalists using
these what it was never meant to be weaponized, but
in block blockades, but federal studies and regulations. Well, it's
a little bit of irony and poetic justice maybe that

(01:26:49):
La County has seen over twelve thousand estimated damaged or
destroyed parcels buildings because of the wildfires that happened there
earlier this year. Sixty five hundred of those are in
unincorporated La County. They've received about six hundred and twenty
one applications to rebuild. They've had three hundred and sixty

(01:27:11):
one zoning reviews that have cleared the two hundred and ten.
You see how these numbers are getting smaller. Building plan
reviews that are in process, and as of today they
have issued Remember twelve thousand structures damage are destroyed, they
have issued eleven building permits eleven, okay, eleven. So all

(01:27:33):
of those regulatory hoops and hurdles that they created to
stop anyone from doing anything, they get to live through.
They got eleven building permits out of twelve thousand homes.
Here's the last thing. The San Francisco school district they decided.
They just thought, you know, we got to make it
easier for these kids. Okay, so the school district fourteen
schools in this fourteen school districts, let's see fourteen schools

(01:27:59):
they have decided. Did their school board decide to eliminate
homework weekly tests for counting towards semester grade. They want
to allow students to take final exams multiple times. They
want all the B grades to be a's, and they
want all the f's to actually be c's. It's. I mean,
this is something I would have come up with as

(01:28:21):
a as a as a high school guy. I would
have dreamt this up. This is something that a kid
would say Hey, I want all the I want my
f's to be c's and my b's to ba's, and
I don't want to have any homework. I don't want
to do any of this with a straight face. This
San Francisco School District decide They called it their equity
Equity Plan for grading. Well, this is received bipartisan backlash.

(01:28:42):
Hats off in kudos to US Representative Democrat Representative Rocanna.
He's an Indian immigrant who says that his dad, when
he got a ninety percent on a test, would ask
him where's that missing ten percent? He came to America,
he says, be given a chance to work hard and
pursue excellent. Giving a's for eighty percent and no homework

(01:29:02):
is not equity. It betrays the American dream and every
parent who wants more for their kids. If these if
these kids in San Francisco ever want to escape whatever
circumstances they find themselves in and enjoy upward mobility and
the freedom of self determination, what this school district is
trying to do to them will work against that those freedoms,

(01:29:22):
that they could enjoy, those opportunities, that they could actually
realize that school district's actually working in the in the
opposite direction, they are not preparing them to be the
future workforce. Well, this is received bipartisan criticism.

Speaker 2 (01:29:36):
I think the.

Speaker 1 (01:29:36):
Days of equity and identity politics is really on its
way out. As you see from the reaction from this
Democrat congressman from California and the recoil from the school
district in San Francisco. They are pulling back. They're saying, okay,
can We're going to hold off on this. We're not
going to do it. They were unprepared for the backlash
they would receive, and that is because they don't have

(01:29:58):
their moorings. They don't understand common sense anymore. They don't
understand what they're doing that actually harms kids under this
banner of how much they care. So anyway, I think
those are examples of how the Democrats are not course
correcting at all. They continue to go in opposite directions.
They continue to lose their way and not understand the
American people and who they are. So listen, folks, I

(01:30:19):
want you to keep your hands up, I want you
to chin down, your eyes for it. I want you
to answer the bell and join me again tomorrow here
on The Ron and Greg Show. On Utah's Talk Radio
one oh five nine knrs

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