The Rod and Greg Show: Weekly Conversation about D.C. politics; Online Safety Laws could Backfire; SignalGate

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
They were talking about rain and snow this weekend.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Don't say that.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Well, they are bugs me.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
You get you get this taste of spring on its
way and then and yeah, you're right, weather it turns
on you.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
It's like daylight saving time.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Don't go there again. We attually. I'm still not recovered
from daylight semi. Are you sleeping schedules still not normal?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
You're still messed up? Yes, man, I'm sleeping like a rock. Oh,
it's great to be with you on this Tuesday afternoon.
And man, do we have a lot to get to
the esteem senator from Utah.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yes, one.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Mike Lee will be joining us, coming up very very shortly.
He has a lot to say today, as he normally does.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yes, he does. Well, don't give me that look because
we had a little conversation offline of which with the
good we're not going to get into that.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
We can't share this.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, but you had that devilish looking like I wasn't going.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
To do a little bit later on in the show
today State Center John Johnson. This is a project that
he's been working on. He's an educator and Utah is
getting a lot of recognition for this return to a
classical kind of education at the higher education levels, you know,
and we're talking about teaching about civics the Constitution required courses.

(01:07):
They're going to pilot this apparently up at Utah State
this year.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, State Senator John Johnson, he's he's an entrepreneur, he's
a he's a professor, he tadd and he understands higher
ed very well and getting a lot, as you mentioned,
getting a lot of national attention for of all things
Western civilization courses, courses that have to do with history,
like the liberal arts, but actual things that you can say, yeah,

(01:31):
would go towards gainful employment later learning how to learn
these uh, these gender studies, these environmental studies, these all
these different studies. If it says studies after it, chances
are you're just delaying your unemployment for four years. You're
not actually getting more employable. True. And I think our
good state senator, he's actually the chair of the Senate

(01:52):
Education Committee. Uh, he gets it a lot. And so
people are really celebrating this bill. So we'll want to
learn more about.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yeah, and we've got a lot of other things to
get to and of course we'll talk about the nothing burger,
and that's called texting scandal that the administration has already said, yes,
it was a mistake, but boy is the media and
our Democrats ever carrying this is like, we got them,
we got them, we got them. I guess what they don't.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well, you know, they think this is worse than an
afghast and withdrawal failure. This is worse than one hundred
and twenty year olds. You know, seven million of them,
one hundred and twenty year olds are more getting benefits
from Social Security. There's not not a thing that that
has actually rocked them until they found this guy from
the Atlantic that was on this text thread. And now

(02:37):
now the sky has literally fallen around us. Yeah and deal, Yeah,
it's a lot a lot more selective, logical, selective outrage.
We'll get into the details of that, because, like you said,
it was a it's a bad move. Yeah. I've been
on these large text threads before where I'm seeing phone
numbers bounce, see the names, so they're not in my book,
in my my contact, So I don't know who's in

(02:58):
on that thread necessarily, and I've gotten quiet on those
threads because I don't know who else is on there.
But you know, in this day and age it happens.
I think they've walked through what the real circumstances around
that are. And we'll actually ask the good Senator too
about that and then and then it gets some other commentary.
But I think that it's again they where they strain

(03:20):
at nats while they swallow camels thingse democrats do so.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well, let me tell you what and the best thing
the administration has done so far in all of this,
my opinion, Greg, they've come out and said, yep, it
was a mistake. Yep, it shouldn't have happened, but it
was a mistake, you know, And that's what they need
to do. And the president, Boy, this is shown once
again the strength of Donald Trump. And we'll get into
that a little bit later on as well. So we've
got a lot to get to today, and as always,
we do invite you to be a part of the

(03:45):
conversation that we have each and every afternoon eight eight
eight five seven eight zero one zero, or on your
cell phone dial pound two fifteen and say hey, Ron,
all right, speaking of Democrats, can we talk for just
a minute about two of the most ridiculou list lawmakers
in Washington today?

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Now we have to qualify that that's in the last
couple of weeks because this this, this title can change
hands very quickly. There's so many uh you know, perspective
title holders of dumbest or most offensive Democrat ever that
that title can be moved very Yes.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Well, example number one is a congresswoman, uh, Jasmine Crockett.
She is a House Democrat. I think from the Houston area.
Is that correct? Yes, yeah, I think she's from the
Houston area. We'll give you a little background on her
in just a minute. But apparently today she as she
should be, is being slammed from mocking paralyzed Texas Governor

(04:37):
Greg Abbott. Now, she made a speech last night before
the Human Rights Campaign, a very liberal organization, and listen
to what she said about Governor Rabbitt.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
And because we in these hot ass Texas streets, honey,
y'all know we got governor high wheels down there, come
on now, and and the only thing hot about him
is that he is a hot ass mess, honey. So so, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yes, so a man who was paralyzed while he was
out jogging and was paralyzed by a tree that fell
on him can be made fun of.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Governor hot wheels governor wheels on his wheelchair. Yeah, yeah,
you know. And I keep hearing the Democrats say, well,
you know, Trump, you called people names and he did this. Well,
I don't think you liked it a I think you
were really upset about it.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
But I think as someone disabled like this, I just
think it's they they want to find equivalents or they
want to say that Republicans that have no space where
they can argue or complain about any of this. I
think we absolutely do well because I don't think we
do what they're what she's doing in that in that.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
Clip, And here's the hypocrisy for you know, she she
represents the common man. She's fighting for people in her districts,
low income who are struggling. Yet this is a woman
who what went to a private school from what I understand,
and her parents are very well off.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Well that's so the thing about her, that representative that's
opened my eyes is I listened to her speak when
she was running for I think their state House of
Representatives very very just. She did not you didn't hear
like you heard her there. She spoke very clearly, and
she wasn't swearing, and she wasn't acting out like she
is now. So it is an act. It is a

(06:19):
complete act what she's doing right now. It's meant to
just be clickbait. It's meant to be controversial, and it's
just pageantry. It's not substance. It's just political pageantry in
the worst come.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah, guess who's at it again? They call her mad
max Maxine Waters, the crazy lady from California.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Isn't she She's I think she might be one hundred
and eight years old. She might actually she might be
one of one hundred and twenty year olds getting Social Security,
but she really is one hundred and twenty.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Well, she's gone off the rails again, this time suggesting
that President Trump deport his wife, first Lady Milania Trump.

Speaker 5 (06:53):
He was god looking so closely to find those who
were born here and parents were undocumented, maybe out of
person to get Millennia up. We don't know whether or.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Not our parents will document that, and maybe we'd better
just take a look.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
So she wants to deport Millennia.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, that's about right.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
That's not gonna happen, is it's not you. It's not
gonna happen at all.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
So he can keep talking like that, I think they
just keep alienating themselves. Well, and when we get further
into the show, we have some great clips from even
Speaker Johnson, Mike Johnson. He talks about where they've they've
gotten so anti Trump, so anti Republican, they're they're really
in the realm of anti anti American.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
I would agree. All right, we've got a lot to
get to. Utah Senator Mike Lee is going to be
joining us as we continue here on the Tuesday afternoon
edition of the Ride on Greg Show in Utah's Talk
Radio one O five nine k n RS. Big story
of the day, of course, the media melting down, the
Democrats melting down over a mistake when it comes to texting,
and it's just one of the and it's pretty amazing,

(08:01):
and you us ender Mike Lee is now joining us
on our news line to talk about it.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Senator Mike Lee, thank you as our senior senator. Thank
you for joining us on the program. Here's my question.
It is all the talk about this signal tech thread
gone awry. You had some member of the media on it.
Is this in your mind? Is this a breach of
national security intelligence or or was it just a dumb mistake?

Speaker 6 (08:25):
Setting up a text chain conversation with multiple people in there,
it's very easy to put in a name that's similar
to another name, and you might get one of those
wrong mistakes do happen. This is unfortunate if it happened
that way, But this is not entirely unheard of. The
fact that the members of the Democratic Party and the

(08:50):
media wing of the Democratic Party that exists in the
Capitol Hill Press Corps is convulsing over this to the
extent that it is really stands in sharp contrasts to
how they didn't react to a whole bunch of things
that happened during the previous administration. So I don't know
what happened there, but I don't think this is something

(09:12):
that should signal the end of humanity, the end of
the Republican Party, or the end of anybody's career.

Speaker 4 (09:17):
Mistakes sometimes happen. I suspect that's what we're dealing with
here from what.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
You've been able to see. And this question was posed
to a number of Democratic Congressmen today who are claiming
that American lives were being put in danger as a
result of this. I don't greg and I don't see
any of that. Do you do you sender lee at all.

Speaker 4 (09:35):
No.

Speaker 6 (09:35):
No, not only do I not know of any reason
to believe that, but I highly doubt that that actually exists.
If that were the case, we'd be seeing evidence of it,
and we're not. So I think that's an irresponsible argument.
That's certainly an act of political overreach. To make that point.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
It's been set one hundred and seventy four separate attacks,
gunshots shooting at military vessels navigating its way in that
area of I believe Yemen. Let me ask you this,
We've never heard I've never even heard of this until
we got President Trump on the clock and we started
to do something about this. What would to me, what
would be the bigger problem here? One hundred and seventy

(10:12):
four separate attacks since twenty twenty three on these vessels,
or is it this text thread gone wrong?

Speaker 6 (10:21):
Yeah, it's certainly the attacks themselves, and the attacks themselves
threatened not only the US business and US commercial maritime traffic,
but that of substantial portion of the world. There is
a much bigger issue. And I'm sure that sort of
the far left wing of the press corps that cover

(10:43):
these things would very much like to make this the
story because they don't want to talk about the real
issues that are harming Americans. They certainly don't want to
talk about the acts of violence being carried out across
the United States, let alone the acts of violence being
carried out against American vessels.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Sunder Lee, you have talked about the danger of what's
going on in Yemen with a who the AIDS, and
now you have a president who is trying to do
something about it. But this is an issue that the
previous administration, as far as I know, has ignored. Have
they not?

Speaker 6 (11:15):
Well, the previous administration just handled everything in a haphazard
manner and sometimes didn't handle them at all. And with
what we know about the increase in attacks over the
last couple of years, it is somewhat surprising that this
wasn't dealt with aggressively by the prior administration. The United

(11:36):
States does have the right to defend itself, and when
it's personnel or attacked like that, when those things go unanswered,
sometimes you will have more of the same unless or
until there's something done in response to it.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
So let's switch gears. Let's talk about these judges. I
think we have over seven hundred federal judges who think
they're president of the United States, or potentially they think
they're president of the United States. I've been asking if
there's a blanket, an umbrella clause of a lawsuit that
could be brought where the Supreme Court could actually explain
the scope of work, the separate and the equal powers

(12:11):
of the of each branch, so that we would stop
seeing these one season two, you know, just one after
another coming through, as you know, stopping or delaying President
Trump's agenda. Do you see anything like that, Senator, you're
I know you're a scholar. I know you've clerked for
Supreme Court justices. So my question is is there a
larger case that could be reviewed by the Supreme Court

(12:32):
to kind of set these parameters a little better? If not?
How many of these are we have to endure or
is there a legislative solution in your mind?

Speaker 4 (12:42):
A great question.

Speaker 6 (12:44):
I'm happy to answer each component of that which we
do have to remember that eventually one or more of
these cases is likely to end up being decided by
the Supreme Court, and almost any one of these almost
any one of these decisions could culminate in a Supreme
Court ruling that could provide some future guidance on that.
I hope that that will happen, and hope it will

(13:05):
happen as a relatively near term future. But the way
things are set up is could drag out for some time.
And I think that's the whole point of these activists
who are begging for these kinds of lower court rulings
to come out. But we have to remember, judges are
not activists. Judges are not presidents. Judges are not politicians,
they're not legislators. And judges who act as if they

(13:28):
were activists or as if they were presidents really shouldn't
be judges. And that's why I filled I find legislation
just yesterday that would remind them of that. The bill
I introduced would make it impossible for any single federal
district judge acting alone to issue an injunction with nationwide
applicability against President Trump and the executive branch, because one

(13:52):
judge acting alone shouldn't be able to override the president
and override the will expressed by the American people the
presidential election.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
So my bill would.

Speaker 6 (14:02):
Address that problem by requiring a three judge district court
panel to handle such mabot matters. And it would also
allow for an immediate appeal as a matter of right,
not discretion ary review, but an appeal as of right
to the US Supreme Court from that free judge panel ruling.
This would diminish the risk of judge shopping. It would

(14:22):
also make for a more expedited review, because, as I
mentioned a minute ago, by the time these cases make
their way up to the Supreme Court and the ragular
course of business could take many months, it could take years,
and that time you can't get back after the people
have elected their chosen president. Look, America's form of government
cannot function properly if the legitimate orders of our commander

(14:46):
in chief can easily be overridden at the whim of
a single district court judge. And that's the problem we're
dealing with. Then that my legislation would go a long
way towards solving that problem.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
You're judds under Mike Lee joining us today. Mike has
some very interesting times. I mean, Congress is doing everything
it can right now to try and stop these these
radical judges from stopping what the President wants to do.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
It's a tough bill for it is for the Center
to pass. If you needs sixty to you know, get
that bill pass, but it does begin that conversation and
he actually finds a good legislative solution on process.

Speaker 4 (15:19):
YEP.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
For those judges, I like the three member panel to
look at things where they want to pretend to be
president in the United States. I think that I saw
a meme where they said that Judge Bosburg, whatever he is,
he's he's actually reinstated Megan Markle into the royal family.
She can go, she can go assume full privileges of
the royal family. Since he's in the game of you know,

(15:39):
overstepping his bounds anywhere, he may as well help out market.
He's probably that probably seemed pretty unfair to hi.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yah do whatever he wants.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
That's trying that one too.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, all right, a lot more to come here on
the Rod and Greg Show with you on this Tuesday afternoon. Well,
Utah's getting a lot of recognition today because of a
bill signed into law yesterday by the governor and is
send it Bill three thirty four. And what this bill does? Greg,
I love this bill. It requires every student at Utah
State University and apparently it's kind of a pilot project
take aka full year and a half course in western

(16:10):
civilization and one semester course in American Civics. And I
say it's about time.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah. All we have to do is watch these men
on the street a skits say everyone seems to do nowadays,
where they ask what look like perfectly well adjusted, normal
human beings that know nothing about this, about this country
at all. It's like they were just plopped down here,
parachuted in some from somewhere, maybe a different planet. But yeah,
I think I think it's about time that we have this,
and so I can see why it's so well received.

(16:38):
So joining us on the program is State Senator and
my friend John Johnson, Senator. Welcome to the Rod and
Greg Show.

Speaker 7 (16:46):
Great to be here, Thank you, thanks for having me.
You know, maybe I could get straight to the point
about this bill. SB three point thirty four is about
restoring the soul of public education. For too long, our
universe fees have drifted, teaching students what to be offended by,
but not what to fight for. So this bill actually

(17:07):
turns that tide. We're creating a four course core curriculum
at Utah State University. It's grounded in timeless texts, rigorous writing,
and civic seriousness. This isn't about politics, it's about principles.
We're not pushing students to be, as our vice Preston
likes to say, unburdened by what has been. No, we

(17:27):
want them grounded by what has endured. So, you know,
Jefferson said liberty and ignorance can't coexist, and this is
our answer to that challenge.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
So what you're describing is probably to our listeners so
intuitive that they didn't know we lost this. And so
now you have these studies, whether it's gender studies, environmental studies.
I was joking earlier in the show, anything with the
with studies after it seems to be maybe not. It
just defers your unemployment for four years while you study,
you know, environmental studies or whatever studies may be. You're

(18:00):
actually teaching in Civics education, Western civilization. These are things
that you learn how to learn, but you also understand
the country in which you live in or the world
you live in. How does that apply more Senator to
young people in pursuing a degree in higher education. The
curriculum that you have in this bill versus what higher

(18:21):
ed has become.

Speaker 7 (18:23):
Well, you know, the sad thing is a student can
graduate from many top tier universities today without ever taking
a course in US government. They've never studied constitutional law, economics,
or Western political thought. They're more likely to engage in
the language of intersectionality or climate justice than with lincoln

(18:43):
second inaugural or Madison's Federalists number ten. That's part of.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
The problem, Senator Johnson. I don't know if you've ever
seen what we describe in the business as man on
the street, where they send out a reporter asking them
questions about their government. We watched one the other day,
someone who was on a beach somewhere in Florida during
spring break, and they were asking kids out there, can
you identify the three branches of government? And they couldn't

(19:08):
do it. Are you shocked when you hear or see
something like that sender?

Speaker 7 (19:12):
Well, you know, I was in the past until I
really dug into this and found out what the state
of hire ed is today. And you know, one of
the biggest problems I see is that that the core
curriculum hasn't really been core. I mean, you know, we
calculated over twelve hundred courses at one of our universities

(19:32):
that can satisfy your core curriculum that doesn't seem like
it's the core, right right, I mean, and one of
the things I like to say is there's twelve hundred courses,
but one point of view.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah, I'll say so, let me just explain to our
listeners your bill. This is a pilot program at u
Ta State University, but this is expected to go to
scale to all of our institutions, the state institutions I
hire learning by twenty twenty nine. Is that correct?

Speaker 7 (19:59):
Well, yeah, this is this is a pilot study and
at the end of the pilot they're supposed to report
to the Commissioner of Higher Ed and you know, if
everything goes well and this is received, I mean, nobody's
in the nation has actually tried this at scale for
a long time. I mean, the Ivy League schools used
to always do it in some sense. University of Chicago

(20:21):
still does. But yeah, what we'd like to do is is,
you know, re establish these roots of Western civilization, of
the great books of the study of Civics, getting students
to have the kind of education that Alexander Hamilton had,
you know that Jefferson had, I mean, bring back Jefferson's

(20:42):
ideals of what it really means to be educated.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
You wrote an editorial in the Washington Examiner with Senate
presidents Toward Adams and House Speaker Mike Schols talking about this.
You raise a real good question. You know, the critics
asked this question all the time. Why is it so
important to study thinkers from century go? How would you
respond to that?

Speaker 7 (21:03):
Well, I think because the wisdom of the past sometimes
helps us with the future. You know, rather than being
unburdened by what has been, we should be fully burdened
by what has been. We should understand what went on.
And actually the fundamental principles that made this country. I
think that's the most important thing, right. What were they

(21:26):
thinking when they developed the Constitution, the Bill of Rights?
You know what? You know what, what were the debates
in the federalist papers. There's so much wisdom that came
out of this and that helped to create the greatest
country that the world has ever seen.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
Amen, Amen to that. Well, keep up the good work, Senator.
You always do. I mean you're always you chair that
Education Committit and Senate and you're always pushing good, good
education reform. And I think it was surprised me that
we were bereft of this, we did not have these
courses being taught as your general ed pretty curriculum. So
thank you very much for bringing attention to it and

(22:06):
doing something about it bringing it back to our schools.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Sendor Johnson, thank you. I know we'll be talking again.
Thanks for joining us this afternoon.

Speaker 7 (22:13):
I appreciate it. Always nice to be back on the Rod.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
Sendor john Johnson joining us on our newsmaker line today.
I love this idea, Greg. I just think, you know,
bringing civics back to college courses is very very important.
All right, more coming up on this Tuesday afternoon here
on the Rod and Greg show. You and I we
will we wouldn't be described as outdoors, would you agree?

Speaker 2 (22:37):
I'm very outdoors.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
Don't know, you don't maybe not, you know, but I
imagine there are people out there who've had an encounter
with bears.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Yeah, they probably shoot them when they Kevin, I just
want to pet them.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
What you want to do?

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Well, all animals. That's why I go to a zoo.
I don't go to a zoo. I want to shoot
them all. I want to look at them. You want
to they look cute to me?

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Well, my grandson, my grandson. A couple of years ago,
was out in you know, camping with the youth group
church youth group one time, and him and a small
group of boys and an adult leader went out into
the woods on a hike and ran into a bear. Okay,
well they saw the bear, okay, so they slowly backed
to wait. Well for my grandson, all the kids started

(23:24):
calling him bear bait okay, and he loved it. You know,
he was the youngest in the group. Well, now you
have this guy in Asheville, North Carolina. Now he over
the last several months have has had trouble with bears
coming into his yard, and he did everything he could
to try and get rid of him, other than shoot him,
which you would do. No, you wouldn't do it, you ko, petty.

(23:44):
So this what he decided to do get rid of
this pesky black bear. He put on a bear outfit,
something you'd see like on a college mascots, and he
went out into his backyard and just kind of prowled
around like he was a bear. There was a bear
there watching him, and then he slowly turned and slowly
started walking toward him and growling like a bear. Really, yeah,

(24:06):
he did this right to get rid of this bear. Well,
the bear first of all kind of looked at him,
kind of what kind of bear is that? And then
the bear left.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
You'd think the scent wouldn't be a bear like and
he would say, that's a dummy, that's a human and
I'm going to eat him what he did, and the
bears round.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Then the bear took off.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Did they come back? No, they haven't come back. No,
they have not come back. Gee who knew? Yeah, well, yeah,
I'm not testing that out. By the way, that's that
story is going to stay a story for me. I'm
never going to practically apply that. Oh well, yeah, are
you at a bear costume?

Speaker 8 (24:43):
The bear?

Speaker 2 (24:43):
No, No, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
I think I dressed up once in a gorilla costume,
and at one time I don't know.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
Why scare gorillas.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
No, it was it was for an event or something,
But I think I dressed up once at a as
a gorilla.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
I love gorillas.

Speaker 8 (24:58):
Watch you.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
I watched video gorillas, ones that are in little habitat
areas and then even in the wild. They're just so funny.
They're so funny. The dads, these dad, these dad gorillas,
the kids just climbing all over their head and they
they just take chuck them.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
You know them.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
It's so funny.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
I know something about gorillas. I bet you don't know what.
I saw this on a bear show one time. A
bear show, Ye show about gorillas, I'm sorry to show
about gorillas before they fight. Yeah, and when they fight,
it gets pretty vicious.

Speaker 4 (25:28):
Right.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
No, they throw up dust. They throw up dust in
the air, and then they attack each other.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
I wonder why.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
I don't know. I didn't watch the entire show to
find out. But that's one thing I've learned about bears.
So when you see me, when you hear me, say,
this is just gorilla dust. Yeah, you know what. They
throw up dust before they get those sharp teeth.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
But they're actually herb.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
But don't they just don't they pound each other?

Speaker 8 (25:51):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (25:51):
They actually they pound their chest. Here's the thing I've been.
I've been. I've gone to one of those habitats where
they have the gorillas, and I've had the zoo keepers say,
don't make eye contact with the male gorillas because they
don't like you staring them down. Yeah, they think like that.
Don't prone eyeballs.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
Much information we share with their listeners, it's good great info.
Cower number two Rodin Greg Aye stay with us.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
So we gotta we got a topic that I think
we should go to the listeners, go to our our
listening jury pool and see what they think about. It's
this texting thing. We mentioned it with Senator Mike Lee
and our interview with him in the first hour. The Democrats,
because they are the professional antagonists. They only know how
to destroy, how to criticize, how to be outraged, how

(26:42):
to all of it. They don't build anything, they don't
create anything. They don't lead in any constructive way. Well,
this this text thread that included you know, the editor
in chief of The Atlantic magazine, who's a critic of
Donald Trump and probably all things right of center. You know,
it is it is a blunder. It is a mistake.
It's something that shouldn't have happened. There is a question

(27:05):
right now that it doesn't the what's his name, gold Goldberg,
the guys Goldberg says the Secretary of Defense disclosed war plans.
They refute that right now. So I don't know what
to what extent we've only I've seen some back and
forth on there by the way. JD Van's like, uh,
you know, this helps Europe out a lot keeping these

(27:25):
channels open. I mean, are they participating at all? I mean,
you see that there's nothing inconsistent about the discussions going
on internally about how the United States role should be
in issues like this. So at least you're not seeing,
you know, say one thing and do another. You're seeing
what you're seeing play out privately is what work is
being discussed publicly as well. But the question is whether

(27:46):
there should have been a member, a Germ member of
the you know, a so called journalist on there. Of
course not, but the Democrats would have you believe this
is let me let me just quote it. It's it's
one of the worst thing that's ever happened in the
history of this country.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
It is the worst thing. Someone said today.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
The Rhode Island US Senator Jack Reid, from a Rhode
Island who's the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee,
said today this story it represents one of the most
egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have
ever seen. I would like to ask the senator, did
you see Afghanistan withdrawal and twenty twenty one in August?

(28:22):
Did you see that? Because I would argue that would
that was people died there. That was actually egregious. This
this the who the you know attack or the defense
of that canal that was successful. There's nothing that was
compromised there by way of operations. But you have this
person that was on there. So when he says it's
the worst he's ever seen of operational security ever, ever,

(28:44):
maybe he hasn't been on the clock very long. Maybe
he's just brand new to the whole game. But here's
what the senator from Oklahoma, Senator Mark Wayne mill Mullen,
he's a Republican from Oklahoma. This is what this is
how he puts it into perspective.

Speaker 9 (28:58):
I want to visit you real quick about this WHO situation.
It's interesting to me that the left media is going
nuts about this signal exchange between the President's cabinet and
the discussion on moving forward with eliminating the threat that's
been taking place now.

Speaker 10 (29:14):
Mind you, they didn't say really a whole lot about
the Houthies when they were attacking our warships one hundred
and seventy four times since twenty twenty three. Why President
Biden literally sat in a White House on his hands
like this did nothing. Now that the Trump administration has
decided to take action instead of saying that thank you,
thank you for protecting our men and women that are

(29:35):
on our ships every single day, instead of saying that
they're focusing on a signal chat. I think what it
exposed though, was the fact that there was serious discussion,
even different of opinion, yet they came to the final
conclusion that the houthis needed to be eliminated because they're
a terrorist organization.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
I for one, he just goes on.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
But you see, I mean at one hundred and seventy
four techs, you see that it's put in in perspective,
I think it's not Here's what I'm going to love
to see play out today actually in the coming days.
Rod this is this is the only thing. This is
the only daylight the Democrats think they see. Okay, well
there's no daylight. It's a lantern in some cave somewhere

(30:16):
where they're all running around in because this is going
to come and it's going to go because it's not real.
It's not a real crisis as they're trying to convey
it to be. And I think, and so I don't
think this is going to ever amount to what the
Wall Street or what the New York Post or New
York Times is trying to say it is, how scandalous
it is. Washington Post is doing the same thing. They're

(30:37):
going to try their best to get everybody to stare
at this as if this is the sky falling.

Speaker 11 (30:41):
It is not. They are.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Trump said very candidly today, they're going to look into it.
He'd love everybody in a lead building, in a lead
room with lead floors and lead doors and lead walls,
and everybody meet together. It's not what happens, but they'll
certainly look into it. He's not firing anyone, he's not
demanding any resignations. But they they're going to learn from
it and move on. So anyway, I just think that
it's a lot of I just think contrived outrage going

(31:04):
on on the left. But what say you folks?

Speaker 1 (31:07):
Well, and the thing I want to add a couple
of points to that. First of all, Jeffrey Archer Goldberg
and its credibility. Remember this is the Atlantic reporter or
editor in chief now who claimed that Donald Trump called
prisoners of war and those who died in war losers
and suckers. Yep, he never said that, but Goldberg ran
for this forever and ever and ever, so his credibility

(31:29):
is already being called into question. Another point that I
wanted to bring out about all of this, of course,
is that the real interesting issue here. First of all,
he claims that war plans were discussed. If you look
at those changes, now, maybe he has more information, and
if he does, he should come forward with it. But
really all he was following were updates from various defense

(31:49):
officials explaining what's going on during that attack. So it
was simply updates. He wasn't talking war plans. These guys
were just updating as to what's going on, keeping each
other informed. And the great thing about this is, I
think Greg, Donald Trump, president Trump and his administration were fourthright.
They came right out and said, yep, mistake, bad mistake.

(32:11):
Shouldn't have done it. You know, like what President Trump
say today, He wished they could discuss these things in
rooms ahead, led doors, lead floors, and lead walls so
it doesn't get out, you know. So this the information.
So I think you're right. The Democrats, Greg, are just
looking for whatever they can find to call out Donald
Trump and his administration. And if they think this is it,

(32:35):
they're mistaken. I mean, this is another example.

Speaker 4 (32:38):
Am I.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
First of all, I think this will blow over in
a matter of hours or days. Legacy media won't let
that happen. But to the American people, I think a
lot of our listeners today are going this much ado
about nothing, and that's exactly what it is. And it
shows again that Donald Trump is a teflon president. Nothing
sticks to this guy because he's honest, he's transparent with

(33:00):
the American people, and that's why they understand what are
you saying?

Speaker 2 (33:03):
And look he's I mean what it does, Barry, is
it buries. The lead of Social Security, conducting a major
records clean up dose reports today that they've now taken
seven million Social Security numbers of people that would be
one hundred and twenty years of age and older, and
they've now had them coded as deceased. So there's no
more benefits that are going to go out to people
that are supposedly one hundred and twenty years of age

(33:25):
and older. There are still millions more to clean up
and to change, well, actually five million more to be specific,
But that's something that's actually happening. We should be more
outraged about one hundred people. If we're so worried about
Democrats say they're so worried about social Security benefits being
harmed or interrupted for people in need, they should be
heralding and praising seven million, one hundred and twenty year

(33:48):
old plus people that were getting them. Dog is saying
that the number of payable Social Security numbers versus the
population of the United States, there's more numbers than there
are by people, and it's a big, big number. That's
a way to actually protect social Security. That's that you
would think that would be something that they could at
least agree on and for on behalf of the American people.

(34:08):
They don't want to talk about it all. They want
to talk about signal chat line, signal gate. Yeah, it's
really all right.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Let's open up the phones to you as you drive
home tonight eight eight eight five seven o age zero
one zero eight eight eight five seven zero eight zero
one zero. My question would be too, greg have you
ever sent a text message to the wrong person?

Speaker 4 (34:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (34:26):
I want to hear about I want to hear if
the have these are these the only people this has
ever happened to? Or does this sound like a familiar issue.
I know that I've been on a text group before
and there's been numbers I haven't recognized, or I've sent
a text where I started to type the name and
I didn't look at it close enough and send it
to the wrong person.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Happens all the time.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, so I wasn't attacking us these or who's these
or whatever at the time, but but yeah, no, I've
had that mistake. I'm wondering if any of our listeners
have any of those experiences they'd like to share.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Eight eight eight five seven eight zero one zero eight
eight eight five seven O age or a one zero
or on your cell phone the al pound two fifteen.
All you do is have to say, hey, Ron, I'm
great to be with you on this Tuesday afternoon, just
joining us as you're heading home tonight. The past twenty
four hours I think have been really a vivid example
again of why scandal so rarely sticks to Donald Trump. Yes, yeah,

(35:17):
because you've got the legacy media, the Democrats who see
a little bit of light, Greg like you were saying
a little bit of light, trying to or a chance
to attack Republicans, trying to make it a you know,
the biggest scandal ever in the nation's capital. We're talking
about the texting. Uh, you know, inadvertently someone in this

(35:37):
that's it called a signal check signal chat.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
That's encrypted, it's supposed to be safer.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
Then the Biden administration used it and somehow Jeffrey Goldberg,
who is a editor of the Atlantic, was included in
that chat, and they were talking about updates as to
what's going on with the attacks on the Houthis and
Yemen during this time. No war plans on letting. Now
he claims he did see war plans, but he hasn't
shared that with the American people as of yet. But

(36:03):
of course this is a breach in security. The administration's
come out and said it was a mistake. No one
is going to be fired. I love the fact that
Donald Trump is standing by his team because it was
such a simple, a huge mistake. Yes, but he's standing
by his guys.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Not a fireable offense. Oh no, it really isn't so.
And here's the thing is that, look, they want to
do it better. They're going to do it better. And
he moves on. He works at such a high pace
and you've never we've never seen Washington work at that
kind of pace. I'll tell you my my one takeaway
from the whole story which has nothing to do with
you know, firing anybody over the whole thing or anything

(36:40):
like that. And even I think, who's the new CIA director?
What's his name? For Trump?

Speaker 11 (36:45):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (36:45):
You had to ask me.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
He destified in front of Congress today and said that, Look,
the prior administration used signal is an encrypted app or
app to text message, and so it's it's it's an
accepted government use. But the one thing that I the
only takeaway from this that leaves my gives me a
little bit of an eyebrow raise, is why would Walls

(37:07):
be cozy with have the cell phone number or be
chatting with Goldberg from Atlantic anyway? I mean, this guy,
the guy is not your ally. The guy is not
your your friend. I mean, why would he How could
you accidentally put him on your text read if you
weren't you know, at least trying. And you can say
he's trying to reach out to him, hes trying to
give him good information, But I don't know. I wouldn't.

(37:28):
I wouldn't get anywhere near these people. I don't find
him to have any integrity. I don't think that they're
looking to understand or represent what you're doing in an
accurate way. I think they are only in the game
of misrepresenting and miss uh misunderstanding well any of it.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
I wonder if wal do we know that Walls put
Jeffrey Goldberg on this because he said he's never met On,
he doesn't know him.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
That's weird because that is who they're pointing to that
I invited him on and brought him into that check.
There's more than just you hear a few names that
are brought up, But I think it was a chat
group that was as large as sixteen people that were
on that that that signal text thread. But they're saying
that it was Walls who had invited him to join
into that that group. Anyway, I I I think that's

(38:13):
that's the only part is I wouldn't know if I
was in that Beltway, I wouldn't have a single conversation
with a single member of that regime, media or those
critics because they're not they're not reachable. You're not going
to reach them. They're not going to have some like
aha moment where they're like, oh wait a minute, you
you actually are on the side of the American people.

Speaker 11 (38:30):
You are.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
There is too much of a racket going on inside
that swamp for them to interrupt the Democrats weeping and whaling.
They got to make the Republicans look bad any way
they can. They can't afford to not. They make too
much money. All that printed money goes into their pockets
one way or another. I guarantee you, if we put
that a Republican on it, she'd find this Goldberg character.
He's on a receiving end of NGOs and nonprofits and

(38:52):
you name it. He's He's Atlantic. By the way, The Atlantic.
Have you ever seen all their headlines. They've been the
biggest apologisest for Joe Biden. They've called him the greatest president,
the greatest vice president. It was fine that Hunter Biden
worked for a Ukraine. The Atlantic it hasn't been a
credible source.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
For anything very a very long time, very very very
livel a liberal hit thing here, you know, the the well,
there may be a lesson here. Older guys shouldn't use
social media.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Oh look, so our listeners. I love our listeners. They
listen to our show. They give me they just give
me up to dates that right away. Uh, someone just
sent one of our listeners sent in a post that
says that that this is that President Trump has told
NBC that it was not Walls, as you said, but
one of his people could have added Goldberg to the
chat Goldberg anyway, so that's so.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
Well, that makes sense because of his people. Walls was
just on the Laura Ingram Show on talking too flatly
denying that he even knows Jeffrey gold does. He doesn't
know who, So it could have been an aide who
inadvertently put that on the website or in that chat,
that chat team that was going on. You know the
larger issue here, Greg, and nobody is talking about this
in my opinion, the only reason that we're discussing this

(40:03):
today and that President Trump and his defense team have
had to do this against Yemen and against the Hoothias
because that Joe Biden administration did absolutely nothing about it.
This's been going on for years, and here's Joe Biden
all during his administration did they do anything against Yemen?
So they leave Donald Trump, what did you what did

(40:24):
you say? Earlier? There have been like one hundred and
seventy four attacks on US vessels or US sites in
in the Middle East near Yemen, and no response from
the previous administration.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Even I never heard of Hoo's East until President Trump
got on the clock. I didn't even know these people
were existed. And by the way, funded by Iran. Yes, yes,
And that's who they're really looking at when they're doing
this is Iran and what they've been getting away with
through funding these who season and their attacks on vessels
and everything else.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
And nobody in the media is bringing this up. American
ships can be attacked, our warships can be attacked, and
the Lego media absolutely ignores this. They don't do anything
with it. Donald Trump gets into office, sees the issue,
tells his defense team, we need to do something about
these guys. We need to send a message. And that's
what these attacks were all about. We need to send

(41:14):
a message to Iran. That's exactly what they did. They
made a mistake by chatting about what's going on. They
shouldn't have done that. The President has admitted that, and
as one advisor for the president said today, said this
will blow over in the next two days and we
won't be talking about it again.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
So you know, here's here's the other thing too. You
know there's holdovers insight. When they say these are walls
as people, you know that there's a lot of holdovers
from the Biden administration that are his air quote people. Okay,
I mean, so you've got some people there that are
National Security Council NSC officials who it's not every everybody
leaves the room, you know, building and all everyone new

(41:53):
comes in. So you've got some holdovers that might have
had some ill will and added a goldberg on purpose. Yeah,
we don't know.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Yeah, is this a big deal to you? You Trump
supporters out there? What do you think as the president
right in saying, hey, it was a mistake, nobody's going
to get fired. Eight eight eight five seven eight zero
one zero eight eight eight five seven eight zero one zero.
Your calls and comments coming up on the Rotten Gregg Show.
Great to be with you. We'll get to your calls
in a minute. But at the center of this controversy
right now, of course, is Mike Walls, right. He has

(42:21):
an interesting background.

Speaker 4 (42:23):
What is that?

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Well, I think the most relevant thing I've learned about
Mike Waltz is that he might have some rats on
the ship. Okay, over there, But here's something that I
think is very very important. It turns out that Mike
Waltz's a brother in law is a Scott Staff, the
lead singer of Creed. Yeah, okay, so I think it's

(42:45):
more relevant. There's some talk out there. Maybe he can
get for America's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary Creed to
come and hold a concert or something, and maybe he
can get in the good books with everybody. Again, but
the lead singer of Creed is Mike Welts's brother in law.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
That's more interesting than they find that.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
I think that's very interesting.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
All right, let's go to the phone. See what you
think about this story as it develops. Today. We begin
in Clearfield with Jason. Jason, how are you welcome to
the Rod and Gregg Show.

Speaker 12 (43:15):
Hi, thanks for taking my call.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
You're welcome. Your thoughts, my thoughts.

Speaker 12 (43:21):
Are I'm sorry, guys, I'm having a hard time keeping
up because a couple of years ago, Hillary Clan's emails
were the biggest risks to national security ever, and now
today this is nothing. I'm sorry, but it's a walking
contradiction with the Republican Party right now.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
I don't understand.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
I love this call because I would say it's the opposite.
I think I think a server that anybody could, that
the foreign entities could could hack versus signal a cryptid
message app is very very different. And I think you're right.
I think a lot of people made a bigger deal about,
or didn't make it to any deal about Hillary's server,

(44:01):
entire server, with all her emails they could have been
hacked versus a signal app that's encoded. So I think
you're right, but I think you have it flipped. I
think what it is is nobody cared on the left
about Hillary Clinton, and now they're losing their hair over
this encrypted app message app could catch Jason, I think.

Speaker 12 (44:21):
I think, I think agree to disagree on it, though,
because the emails that were hacked were to her hairdresser
versus next message is that we're very very direct about
our national security.

Speaker 11 (44:34):
So I don't know.

Speaker 12 (44:35):
I think I think we got to pick a lane, gentlemen.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah, I do. I'm picking the lane, Jayson. And here's
the deal. I don't think the hairdresser ones were the
ones they're talking about. I think it's a secretary of state.
She had a a dual email sent to heads of
state and everybody else at the same time. And I
think that he's actually struck upon something very important, and
that is he and others didn't have anything to say
about that. The encrypted signal app is a very different

(44:59):
thing than your or the server in your basement nobody
knows about.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
In Salt Lake City, we're talking with Adam tonight here
on the Rod and Greg Show. Adam, go ahead with
your thoughts.

Speaker 13 (45:07):
On this, hey Fellas. Yeah, to me, it seems very
intentional as a way to try to embarrass the administration.
And it just it seems like a repeat of the
Alexander Binman, the honorable Colonel Benman, uh, you know, the
stuff about the phone call with Ukraine. It just it
just seems like a repeat. And the thing I'm curious

(45:28):
about is just because this reporter had access to it,
it seems to me it wouldn't give him legal authority
to divulge it and to publish it and everything. I
don't know if you can be charged with espionage or something,
or you know, if it's not that big a deal.
But yeah, and future topic keem trails. Twenty five states

(45:50):
have passed laws to bandon. Bobby Kennedy's talking about it. Now,
when's Utah going to get on board with that?

Speaker 7 (45:57):
Thank you?

Speaker 4 (45:59):
Thank you? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
And so the issue is and again staying in lanes
and being consistent. There are a lot of holdovers from
the Biden administration that are in. And the other thing is,
remember when CNN was there live covering the when they
were the war in Iraq, when the troops would land
on the beach and they were there ahead of time.
I just you know, the New York Times wants to

(46:20):
espionage Act and everybody was on that chat line to
be charged with it. I don't think they were doing
that for CNN when they were ahead of the troops
during you know, during the Iraqi war. Saw that happen
a bit so a little selective logic and outrage. Let's
go back to the phone. Let's go to Jim in
Salt Lake City. Jim, thank you for holding. Welcome to
the Rod and Greg Show.

Speaker 13 (46:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (46:40):
I just wanted to say, Jeffrey Goldberg is the Benedict
Arnold of our time. If anybody happens to lose their
life or whatever over this, he could be held totally responsible.
He did not have to divulge any of this. He

(47:00):
could have called up and said, hey guys, I got
caught in this and anyway just left it at that.
But instead he tries to damage, tries to damage the
president of the United States. This guy is a Benedict Arnold,
and he's no better than Benedict Arnold. This just makes

(47:22):
this stuff makes me sick. But this is typical. This
is a typical, just so typical of Democrats. I agree
what democrats do.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
Yep, that's what they're And they're grasping at this right
now because nothing seems to stick to Donald Trump, and
they're hoping this will and I don't think it will.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
And I think Jim brings up a great point. How
much do we know now about this signal app and
obviously how often it's used. I mean, we've had the
testimony today in Congress that this is an accepted use
of communication and governments, and which, by the way, Jason,
the server in Hillary's basement was never deemed an acceptable
government communication, so a little different true. But anyway, I

(48:01):
think he's right. He didn't have to he didn't have
to run the story. He's doing it to embarrass h
as president and the administration and the country is by extension.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
Well, Goldberg is claiming he knows Mike Walls. Well, Mike
Walls was just on Law England and we'll play that
sound by when we come back to I don't know
who this guy is.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
That'll be interesting.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
That'll be interesting. All right, more of your calls and
comments coming up on the Tuesday afternoon edition of the
Rod and Greg Show right here on Utah's Talk Radio
one O five nine K and R. As we're talking
about it's now being called signal Gate, the latest controversy
surrounding the Trump administration. They leaked some information using a
signal chat is what it's called, I believe, and apparently

(48:40):
a reporter was included in that list as the US
was attacking the who thies and now the Democrats are
going ballistic.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
It's the worst thing they've ever seen in their life,
anything that's come up with, anything that's ever happened during
the biding mission.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
It's just the worst. It's the worst. It's a scandal.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
Well, let's hear what you have to say, folks. Uh
the number eight eight eight five seven zero eight zero
one zero if you have and actually we've never heard
any examples of people that might have had someone on
a text read they didn't need to, but I'd be
interested in the story like that as well. Let's get
to the phones right now. Let's go to Dennis and Layton. Dennis,
thank you for holding and welcome to the Ron and
Greg Show.

Speaker 8 (49:15):
Sure great to.

Speaker 14 (49:16):
Be on with you guys.

Speaker 4 (49:17):
Thank you.

Speaker 11 (49:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (49:18):
I wanted to comment. Greg have made a comment talking
about the difference between the Clinton email scandal and what's
currently going on with Signal, and having held a secret
and top secret clearance myself for over thirty five years,
the primary difference I see in these cases, based on
a limited amount of information available, is the is the intentionality.

(49:43):
Intentionality can lead to criminal acts, which I think was
probably the case with the Clintons server absolutely versus an accident,
which it appears as though that is the case under
the sign Now, I can't imagine anybody with a clearance

(50:04):
of a long time clearance holder making this kind of
a mistake, but I've seen things happen in the past,
and these incidents, when when they're not intentional, are not
criminal acts. I don't expect anything to come from it
based on my own experience.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
I really appreciate that feedback, Dennis, and sounds like you
have a background in this area that you know and
it is absolutely relevant. The intent being intentional and having
a server in your basement trying to circumvent all your
emails and doing it on purpose, versus this, this encrypted
signal text thread with people on it. But I also
agree with them, that's a that's a it's a big

(50:42):
mess up. It's not you should get fired over.

Speaker 8 (50:44):
But I did.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Do't not happen twice, Dennis, Let me ask you this,
What if it wasn't an accident. What if, in fact,
a former Biden official who is still working in the
National Security team decided to add this name on purpose
and none of them knew about this. What if it
wasn't accident by somebody who had worked for Biden prior
to this in an effort to embarrass Trump.

Speaker 15 (51:06):
Yeah, I'm not certain about the legal terminology, but it
would be a prosecutable sense.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
Yeah, it will be all right. Dennis, Thank you, Thank you.
Back to the phones we go.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
Let's go to Bobby and Harriman. Bobby, thank you for
calling into the Rodd and Gregg Show. What say you?

Speaker 16 (51:22):
I have an example of a situation where we had
a family group text go out for Christmas party. My
sister in law sent it out and cleared all the family,
included my own children, and then there was family drama
on the text between two sisters that don't get along

(51:44):
and we're and my daughter asked the other daughter, are
you following this family drama? She goes, no, I'm not
getting any of it. Turns out my sister in law
inadvertently transposed her phone number digits and so some total
random person was getting all the family scoops.

Speaker 8 (52:03):
Oh no.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
So, first off, Bobby, thank you for sharing that. You're
brave to share that with us, and we appreciate it.
But second, what was the aftermath of that? If like
anything you can share not nothing too personal, but I'm
sure people were embarrassed to say the least.

Speaker 4 (52:21):
Right.

Speaker 16 (52:22):
Oh yeah, people are embarrassed. And then you know, mom
in law got on and was like, my daughters need
to get along and reject.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
We shouldn't laugh at this, but it is kind of funny.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
I do appreciate that.

Speaker 16 (52:34):
It was very funny because I was just a bystander,
so it was very funny.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
Well, thanks for sharing that, Bobby, See that can happen.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
I'm telling you that if I I'm on a text
shread and I see it, and I've been on these,
I've been on text shreads where someone's trying to communicate
broadly to a bunch of whatever the issue is, whatever's
going on. When I see phone numbers that aren't I
if their name's on up, it means I don't have
that person's contact. If I know that person's contact, I
don't know who they are. And if I don't know
who they are saying a word, okay, I am just
sitting there waiting because and I'm going to someone's whose

(53:05):
name I recognize on there on a different thread and saying,
who's eight oh one doctor?

Speaker 4 (53:10):
You know?

Speaker 2 (53:11):
And I'm asking who are those other people on that?
Because I you know, you look at those groups and
when you hit the arrow, you can see all the
names that fall down. Thing about this single one, it
had like sixteen people on it, so it was a
massive text thread.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
So and all this was greg They weren't talking about
war plans and what you know, Goldberg claims that they
were discussing what weapons do you use? And you know
none of that was on this thread. If you take
a look at these threads, it's really just an update
as to how things are progressing, nothing more than that.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
Well, look, and one of our callers pointed out that
this remind him of the Vinman, you know, where they
blew the whistle on him somehow doing you know, having
an apeachable fence threatening Zelensky. Well, what they never counted
on was Trump actually releasing the recording of the of
the because ahead of state to a head of state,
they didn't think he would release that to the public,
which he did, and we all went, really, this was

(54:01):
the there's nothing there. Yeah, well, I think that this
is one of those that I think they did. I
think they were quick to say this is a mistake.
But boy, I'll tell you, if they find out that
there's some you know, skullduggery going on here that's gonna
get that's gonna come out, that will be the bigger
story than the one the Democrats are trying to fabricate.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
And one of our callers sarcastically referred to him as
the honorable Colonel Vidman. Yeah, that's honorable Viman is an oxymoron,
because that man has no honor. I can't believe he's
an elected member of Congress. It's so earth would vote
for that guy for crying out loud? All right, when
we come back, we've got a lot more to get
to in the final hour of the Rodding Grag Show

(54:38):
right here on Utah's Talk Radio one oh five nine
k nrs. Stay with us another hour. If you gonna
be out, beautiful day on the outside.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
It is great day.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
Now we're in here for three hours. What are we doing?

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Yeah, you know, I was gonna hit some ball, but
they got away from me, so I didn't.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Well, your golf game is so bad, right, it really is.
You need a lot of I mean, grab the sticks.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
Yet, I know, and you'd beat me with how I'm
playing right now, don't I have no business playing right now?

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Well, a lot going on right now. But it's great
to bring on our next guest. It's always enjoyable to
have Liz on the show. We're talking about Liz Peak.
She's a columnist at Fox News, an occasional guest on
The Rotting Greg Show, where she's proud of.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
A frequent contributor on the program. Yes, she has a
very big deal. I see her on Fox News.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
Well she's big. I mean, she's like really big.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
It's an A lister on the air right now.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Well, let's bring on the A lister herself, Liz Peak. Liz,
how are you welcome to the rotting Greg Show.

Speaker 11 (55:42):
Hey, I'm terrific and I'm glad you're join you. Thanks
for having me.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
All right, Uh, we got to get your thoughts on
Signal gate because this is blowing up all over the
place today, much ado about nothing, Liz. Is that what
your take is? Right now?

Speaker 11 (55:55):
I think that's right.

Speaker 5 (55:56):
I mean, it looks like a careless miss stake that
somebody made, but let's face said, it didn't in any
way destroy or distract from the mission of bombing the
houtis that went off just as planned. No lives were lost, obviously,
So I think Democrats are fascinating on this as kind

(56:18):
of the first public blunder, if you will, of the
Trump administration.

Speaker 11 (56:22):
I mean, the liberal media is going nuts.

Speaker 5 (56:25):
I just tweeted something about Bloomberg talking about how Signal
is a consumer messaging app. No, it is a highly encrypted,
extremely secure channel. The goof was not using Signal. The
goof was adding Jeffrey Goldberg, and I don't.

Speaker 11 (56:42):
Know who did that.

Speaker 5 (56:43):
It was obviously a careless mistake, but again, the consequences
of that mistake.

Speaker 11 (56:48):
Although embarrassing to have JD.

Speaker 5 (56:51):
Van's and Pete Heegsay's kind of ruminations become public. Particularly
they're disdain for Europe. But that's nothing new, I mean
consistent called Europe. Guess what, Yeah, exactly, this has been
on the table for quite a while. And by the way,
it's consistent, right. Why why are they disdainful of Europe
regarding the fact that we have to step in and

(57:15):
preserve freedom of shipping is.

Speaker 11 (57:18):
Because Europe won't do it. Why won't they do it?

Speaker 4 (57:21):
You know, who knows?

Speaker 5 (57:21):
Because they're just on their back feet. They require all
kinds of communal agreement before they breathe, much less before
they attack a common enemy. So, I mean, I kind
of get their frustration, but it was obviously not intended
to be public.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
Well, and to your point, Liz, CIA director John Ratliffe.
Ratcliffe was testifying before Commerce of Congress today and he said,
just so you know, it is an accepted form of
government communication that that's preceded us in the Biden administration,
and when he took the job over at the CIA,
that was a form of a way to an acceptable

(57:58):
way for him to communicate. So I think you're right
about the signal app and it's encrypted texting. That's not
the problem by itself. We had a caller that asked
the question, was it was it if it was such,
if the Democrats or the media or the uh Goldberg
he thinks this is such a high crime, or if
he thinks it could violate the Espionage Act? Was he

(58:20):
obligated to report it? Or is he Is he contributing
to the undermining of our national security by even printing
the story. I don't know what to think. It was
just an observation brought up. What do you do you
think he if he's privy to that text? Was it
a story he had to print, he was obligated to print.

Speaker 5 (58:38):
I think he delighted in print. Yeah, because uh, you
know they're looking. Look, I mean, think about it. It's
early in the Trump administration, but considering the absolute tsunami
of activity that they've engaged in in these early weeks,
the fact that there hasn't been a political blunder by
the way all administrations have them, right, I mean, sure

(59:00):
some take longer than others.

Speaker 11 (59:01):
But a couple of things that kind of I'd like
to say about this one. They've likened it.

Speaker 5 (59:07):
Hillary Clinton and her pals are likening it to oh, well,
they complained about my email server.

Speaker 11 (59:13):
This is much much worse.

Speaker 5 (59:14):
No, it's not an email server can be breached by anybody.
This is not something that could be broken into easily. Secondly,
everyone is, you know, in terms of using signal. One
of the reasons they do is because all the government
systems of communication, as everyone can possibly imagine, are not
always available and they're not always really smooth. Running a

(59:38):
friend of mine, for example, when to use a skiff,
I won't say where recently, and guess what the phones
were working. So I mean, you know, we're like, Okay,
that's not great. Maybe we go back to using signal
because that does seem to work. So I just think, look,
I do think it's a little bit much ado about nothing.
But again, frankly, you know, I was going to write

(01:00:00):
a piece about how there is so much going on,
there's so much being done by this administration.

Speaker 11 (01:00:06):
We did have, by the way, a cease fire, a.

Speaker 5 (01:00:08):
Partial spore in the Ukraine War that's taken very much
second stage to this signal gate as it's being called.

Speaker 11 (01:00:17):
Funny, how the I mean, wouldn't you think that might
be the dominant news story of the day.

Speaker 5 (01:00:22):
But no, talk about somebody, let's you know, the wrong
guy getting on a signal chat. I mean, come on, everybody,
let's focus on what's important, Liz.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Mike Walls, who was just on Laura Ingram is taking
full responsibility for this today. I think the President and
the administration has handled this very very well. They've come
out and said, yes, this was a mistake, an unintended mistake,
but we're going to stand by our team. What do
you make of how the administration is handling.

Speaker 11 (01:00:50):
This, Litz, I think it's very good.

Speaker 5 (01:00:53):
Mike Walls is a really decent guy, smart guy, a veteran,
and I think he has done a.

Speaker 11 (01:00:59):
Very good job in early days, right, but everything that he.

Speaker 5 (01:01:03):
Has done so far has been top drawer and what
the I mean, other than signal gate, the other thing
they're trying to do is create all this sense of
tension between Marco Rubio and Mike Wallas and Pete Hegseth
is not true. None of this is true. So and
I know it's not true because I know people in
the administration. These guys are getting along, they're working well together,

(01:01:26):
and so I think that's incredibly frustrating to the Left
that in fact, you don't have the kind of discord
that you had in the first Trump administration, when, by
the way, an awful lot of people in the White
House were not Trump people. They were old, you know,
Romney people and Bush people, and that honestly was a

(01:01:47):
huge problem for Donald Trump because he didn't trust him
and he shouldn't have trusted them.

Speaker 11 (01:01:51):
So, look, this is a team that so far I
think is top drawer. They made a mistake.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
So one of the interesting exchanges, this is my question
for you, Liz, but to your exact point, Uh, there's
an exchange where the Vice president says, look, I got
concerns here. I don't know that this seems like we're
contradicting ourselves with Europe where we want Europe to kind
of take on more responsibility here. But I will, I
will subscribe to the collective will of everyone that's on here.
In terms of my concerns. You got to see which

(01:02:20):
was either unintentional or I'm always worried that there's some
holdover from the past administration that might have been working
for Mike Waltz and maybe added gold you know what's
his name, Goldberg into it. But my question, my observation,
I'd love your thoughts. It seems exactly consistent, which usually
when you get someone's text threads that weren't meant for

(01:02:41):
public consumption, you might see or hear sentiment that doesn't
reflect the public sentiment. Uh, and maybe you'd see that
rub that you're you're talking about between Marcus Secretary of
State Rubio and someone else. But it seems so perfectly
consistent with what the American people have been told. Is
that is that worth talking about? I think that's very
noteworthy that everything I saw on that, at least the

(01:03:03):
exchanges that we're shared in the media look very consistent
with what we've been hearing formally from the administration.

Speaker 11 (01:03:10):
You know, I think that's really an excellent point. There's
nothing out of.

Speaker 5 (01:03:14):
Character here, I do think, honestly, because it's Donald Trump,
this is an unbelievably transparent administration.

Speaker 8 (01:03:21):
Possible.

Speaker 5 (01:03:23):
But I mean, if Donald Trump has a thought, he
says it, and he needs it, and you know, he
may reverse himself tomorrow, it's always possible.

Speaker 11 (01:03:32):
But yeah, I mean, you don't have a tremendous sense of.

Speaker 5 (01:03:36):
Boy, you know, let's not tell the public this because
we don't want them to know what we're really thinking.
There's no sense that that whatsoever, because they've been very straightforward.
I think what he's talking about there is the fact
that once again we're doing the heavy lifting for Europe.

Speaker 11 (01:03:52):
Now you know this by the way.

Speaker 5 (01:03:54):
You know Americans are not particularly interested in Europe a
lot of the time.

Speaker 11 (01:03:58):
But the reality is what's going on in Europe right now.

Speaker 5 (01:04:01):
Is a tremendous conversation, most particularly in Germany, about scrapping
decades of policy where they did not spend anything on
their defense because of post World War two sensitivities and
agreements and now and also they had a tremendously tight
reigin on government spending, federal spending because they didn't want

(01:04:25):
to have big run up, big deficits like the United
States is doing. We basically have been providing for this
tremendous social safety net in Europe, in France, in Germany,
et cetera, by providing for their defense. I mean, that
is a perfectly fair statement. Donald Trump has said it
a million times. He's totally right. Jade Bansett has said it.

(01:04:45):
And you know that's why there is this fence in
this case. But yes, again we're stepping in. Is that
the right thing to do? And the answer is yes,
it is. For a lot of reasons we don't have
time to discuss. Excuse me, but in part I think
it has a do with our relationship with Saudia Radio.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Well, Liz, we were going to talk to you about
your article on the e PA, but there's something more.
You know, under Donald Trump, the news cycle changes every
five minutes, so we thought we'd bring this up now, Liz.

Speaker 11 (01:05:15):
But please, if you if you, I'm happy to I'm
happy to discuss this. It is news for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
Yeah, it is all right. Hey, Lids, great having you
back on the show. Appreciated as well, and take care.

Speaker 11 (01:05:25):
Thank you, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
All Right, that's Liz Peak, columnist Fox News bringing Fox
News bringing out some very very good points about all
of this.

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
Yeah, if we went to the original topic, which was
her column about Trump and Lee Zelden from EPA and
what they're doing, yeah, I'd say, can someone just please
tell them they got to get the Pacific Ocean cleaned
up in southern California?

Speaker 4 (01:05:45):
Can?

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
I don't want them to. I want to be the first, second,
and third job the e PA wakes up every single
day working on because it is an attack on this country.
When you have all those miles of beaches that has
a toilet for Mexico and no one's doing a thing
about it. There's no such thing as environmental protection when
all that coastline is Mexico's sewer.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
When on earth are you going to get over this?

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
I'm not I'm on tilt. I am on tilt. I
cannot even talk about the e p A if they're
not going to get serious about that issue that is
that should be job number one, two and three.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
Were coming up on the Ronning Greg Shoe right here
on Utah's talk radio one oh five nine k n rs.
You know the things you tell me during the break? Now,
Am I going to share this story with you? Someday?
You can't, but it confirms to me that you're one
of the weirdest dudes, some of the weirdest things.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
It's just a lot of energy, you know, just a
lot of a lot of curate. Note Now, now that
sounds a little bit blue, No, it'slu It's just weird.
What I drug my poor wife into seeing that I
was really curious about. Yeah, that's a different story.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
Now, it's weird.

Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
Maybe asked me last night after we got into laundry
somehow on our car.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
Well you brought this up because you were telling me
you have to do washing and drawing.

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
Up that my Sunday night, yes, was very long because
I had it took a long long time because I'm
not good at it and christ So I got home
and Queen Bee saying to me, what is he your priest?

Speaker 8 (01:07:09):
What do you do?

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
You go and confess all these things, and I'm like,
how in the world do you even get on these topics?
And then you just you just you know, reinforced that
with her when you say what you just said about, well,
you're just well we talked about I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
Who on earth would do something like your honeymoon? But
folks can't believe.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
May I just tell you that the only reason my
honeymoon came up is it because it's the day before.
I asked him his birthday, Okay, because I'm on.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
April first, and I shared with you it's my mother's
birthday on April I saw.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
I thought he said that he was born on April
Fool's Day, which I thought would be very funny. So
and that's the day before I was Yeah, the day
after I was seventeenth. So that's how that So that's
the natural flow of how that got it, which I
didn't just parachute in. Guess what, you know, some.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
Days we're going to have to tell people what you
did on what my well, what what.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
We did for sight seeing? Which was my idea of
sight seeing that Queen Bee, it's a miracle were married
thirty years because we would not consider that sight seeing.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
Well, what is the highest honor that can be stowed
upon an American medal of freedom? Is that of honor?
Medal of honor? Medal of freedom. She should be given one.

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):
Yeah, she should be you.

Speaker 15 (01:08:23):
You wouldn't be the.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
First person who suggested that. All right, shall we get
back to the topics of the day.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
I think we should.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
Let's talk about the Democrats. Two points to make today.
First of all, the Democrats are going apoplectic over the
signal gate controversy, where it's really no big deal. And
then you have two Democratic lawmakers Jasmine what is her
name Crockett, who basically called Governor Abbott, who is is
bound to a wheelchair because of an accident, calling him

(01:08:50):
hell on wheels, you know. And then you have mad
Max Maxine Water saying that Donald Trump should deport Millennia.

Speaker 4 (01:08:58):
That makes a lot of s.

Speaker 2 (01:08:59):
They're just it's all what do they call it, performative,
that's the new word, I can performative, formative, theatrical politics.
It's not real. It's all performative, and it doesn't get
them anywhere. So let's hear from the Speaker of the House.
He actually is talking about the state of Democrats right now.
And you've got to take it also with the idea
that this so called text thread is somehow the biggest

(01:09:22):
deal that they can conjure up, possibly because they don't
really have anything else to run on. So let's hear
what the Speaker Johnson had to say about the Democrats today.

Speaker 17 (01:09:30):
Axios reported yesterday that Democrats are quote in their deepest
hole in nearly fifty years. This is not a mystery.
Everyone understands what's happening and why. In their haste to
oppose President Trump in our efforts to make government more efficient,
Democrats are cutting off their noses despite their own face. Look,
I made a list of this. They're cheering the decline

(01:09:50):
of an American company which employs over one hundred thousand workers.
They refuse to celebrate the return of stranded American astronauts
because SpaceX facilitated their return without a hint of irony.
They're trading in their electric vehicles for SUVs, as was
noted earlier. All right, they publicly refused to stand for
a childhood cancer survivor victims of violent crimes during President

(01:10:13):
Trump's joint address. Their message has gone from it's more
than just anti Trump, now it's anti American.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
Anti American. It is, it is in many many ways.
By the way, NASA confirmed today that without Donald Trump's help,
those astronauts would still be in space, Asad said, without
his help, they'd still be up there, so, you know,
and it's true.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
But how scary because I've seen some stories since you know,
how I've been obsessed about that astronaut's hair. How it's
been just giant. It just has been giant. And it
actually changed color up there too. I saw a picture
of like she got a little gray, she's got a
lock gray. But here's the other thing. I don't know
if you've seen her chin, but she had some gravity
problems with the chin. The chin is just protruded out
really bad. I hear she's having in all seriously, she's

(01:10:57):
having some issues health issues. Yeah, coming back, I'm not
well well, I'll never get over that. I want to
see what gravity's doing to it. But actually kind of
scary that her her face and her chin just started
to come way way out and it's just been a
very very traumatic deal. She's having a hard time, so
I hope she's well.

Speaker 8 (01:11:17):
I don't so.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
I am still curious about her hair, if it's come
back down or if it's if gravity has no chance
against that hair. But but it's scary that without gravity
being up in his face that long, it took its
toll on all, on everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
How would you look after what? What were they two
under ninety eight days in space? How would you look?

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
I would be so mad, I don't they would have
had to. I don't know what I'd have been doing,
but I've been throwing a tantrum for the entire I
would be going crazy up there, as I would be
the squeaky wheel that they would have had to go
up and get earlier than they did, because every time
you looked at them, they're all smiling and everything. I
would not be.

Speaker 14 (01:11:55):
I would be.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
I would be telling everyone. I'd be telling the world
they're all number one until I get out of here,
until I get back to Earth.

Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
Oh, I'd be so mad. Most people would do the same.
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
I had a campaign for Trump up there, I'd have
been saying, get me a president that gets me the
heck back to the to the United to Earth, and
I need to go back.

Speaker 4 (01:12:12):
He did.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
It's confirm that today. More coming up on the Roden
greg Show in Utah's Talk Radio one oh five nine
k n rs.

Speaker 2 (01:12:19):
We got it. We've had a fun time.

Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
That's a good show.

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
We've been rocking rolling all three hours.

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
That's going on.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
A lot happening, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
A lot going on. And I thought we had Liz
Peak on earlier. Liz is a a columnist with Fox News.
Great to have her on the show. She made an
interesting point with all this stuff going on signal Gate today,
no one is paying attention to they may have a
ceasefire in the Ukrainian War.

Speaker 8 (01:12:41):
No one.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
You brought this up before in our show prep although
we've never mentioned it on the show. And that is
that the it's the it's what is it. They're not
going to bomb any of the power plans.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Power plants and the shipping lanes and the Black Sea
are open to both Russia and uk Ukraine.

Speaker 2 (01:12:57):
But not to military vest.

Speaker 1 (01:12:58):
No, I didn't realize this. One of the biggest grain
producers in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
Did you know that, I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
Yeah, one of the biggest grain producers. And of course
Russia with all this oil, they have no way of
exporting it as well. So this is a step in
the right direction.

Speaker 2 (01:13:14):
Yes, and so it is agreed upon it. It's between
the two countries and that's that is a big step forward.
And Boston, it's one three years into a war. Biden
administration didn't come remotely close to a ceasefire.

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
Ever, they didn't. They didn't.

Speaker 11 (01:13:26):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
Here in the state of Utah, of course, we've had
some lawmakers who've been working hard when it comes to
online safety laws to protect children from accessing websites that
are you know, just porn websites, you name it, websites
that are dangerous. But joining us on our Newsmaker line
right now is Spence Pernell. Spence is a Resident scholar
Fellow of Technology and Innovation at the R. Street Institute. Spence,

(01:13:48):
thanks for joining us. You wrote about that the safety laws,
the online safety laws could backfire in major ways. What
your lawmakers who are considering laws this this way or
in this regard, why should they be aware of?

Speaker 4 (01:14:03):
Oh yeah, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 14 (01:14:05):
So I think the the main theme is that these
laws can drive people to more dangerous websites. You know,
there's a there's a substantial chairing effect when people are
required to upload either their government identification or other biometric
information such as a facial scan or other biometric information.

(01:14:25):
And what the research repeatedly shows is that rather than
comply with the law, users will simply use other legal
means such as VPNs or other workaround tools to either
change their IP address or change the way they access
information and effectively.

Speaker 4 (01:14:43):
Just go around the law and access more dangerous sites.

Speaker 14 (01:14:47):
So yeah, the laws has trouble with implementation and effectiveness,
and people essentially just go right around it to continue
doing the same activities. So these laws are ineffective, and
they also have serious consequences that may not have been
intended by the by the legislators that pass them.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
It's a strange collision between conservatives because I hear a
lot of the advertisements for VPNs subscriptions to them to
hide your your your data when you're online for security reasons,
because we don't want to be hacked. We don't want
our identity stolen, and so I see a lot of
a lot of companies that are advertised for these VPNs.

(01:15:28):
But then that that collides with the ability those VPNs
are what you can use to circumvent some of these
laws that would keep minors from these adult sites. You
mentioned in your article that the growth of VPNs, Maybe
you could share with our listeners what VPNs are and
how that's growing, and how that may actually be counter
to a state trying to create identification security for children

(01:15:50):
accessing adult sites.

Speaker 14 (01:15:53):
Absolutely, So, a VPN is a virtual private network and
it essentially re routes your Internet traffic to a different
geographic location, so that the website that is deciding whether
to give you access or not, they only know your
secondary location through the virtual private network, they don't know
your original location. So, as you mentioned, a lot of

(01:16:14):
people use them for safety and security, so that nefarious
actors can't get access to your real IP address at
your home. So a lot of people just use them
for everyday web browsing, so that, yeah, nefarious actors can't
get their actual IP address. But by nature of you
change your geography through a VPN. So in a state

(01:16:36):
like Louisiana or Utah passes one of these laws, you
can pretty quickly download a virtual private network and make
it appear to these websites that are forced to comply
with the law that you're actually located in a different state.
So it's not necessarily that virtual private networks protect your
data or do anything extra to keep you safe in

(01:16:58):
that sense.

Speaker 4 (01:16:59):
They just sort of make your Internet traffic appear as
if it's coming from.

Speaker 14 (01:17:02):
A different geographic location, and so that's a very effective.

Speaker 4 (01:17:06):
And highly utilized technique.

Speaker 14 (01:17:09):
The study found that there were, you know, massive increases
in Google searches for VPNs, and tons of other studies
have shown that VPNs usage and searches.

Speaker 4 (01:17:19):
Go way up after these laws get passed, so.

Speaker 14 (01:17:21):
You know, people are well aware of this and its
ability to work around these laws.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
As your study found out, Spencer, Utah and the United
States not the only country trying to deal with this.
Apparently France has tried it, and even in Germany there
was apparently a pornography law that showed this online age
verification didn't work at all in Germany.

Speaker 4 (01:17:43):
Did it. Yes, that's true.

Speaker 14 (01:17:47):
There was a French law to try and stop illegal
music streaming.

Speaker 4 (01:17:53):
That essentially.

Speaker 14 (01:17:55):
Had the same effect where you know, people just went
to more dangerous websites and they could had trouble enforcing
the law. They set up a whole agency, they spent
millions of dollars, and they were really only able to
prosecute one case because they just weren't able to enforce
the law effectively.

Speaker 11 (01:18:10):
And so.

Speaker 4 (01:18:12):
They went to more, even more on constitutional measures of.

Speaker 14 (01:18:15):
Data tracking, you know, to make sure that people were
tracked properly to see if they were forced to comply
with the law. And French courts ultimately tossed all of
that out. And Germany has a slightly different law, but
very similar to the state laws of the US. It's
intended to prevent minors from accessing pornographic websites, but in
the same fashion, they found that teenagers were able to

(01:18:37):
use VPNs and other tools which some of which I
mentioned in the article, which aren't even VPNs, but just
you know.

Speaker 4 (01:18:43):
Other pieces of code or other open source.

Speaker 14 (01:18:45):
And freely available on the Internet that you know, people
can use and to get to these websites. And so
there's a serious enforcement problem with these laws and it's
shocking how many places have them, and the social science
research show is almost every single time that that they're
not effective, and in order for them to even have
a chance at being effective, they would have to do

(01:19:07):
things that are just blatantly unconstitutional, even in France, and
so I think even in the US with an even
stronger protection of rights, I think that should show that
these laws are probably not appropriate for the constitution that
we have.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
So the question I have is then, what I mean?
I understand that I understand the workarounds and VPNs and
and and the thing is, I think our young our
young ones understand maybe technology better than their parents do,
certainly their grandparents. So you know, we have we have
laws like you can't run a car if you're under
twenty five. I think it is, And there's some there's
just some policies where you don't think children should have

(01:19:42):
access to even renting a car or other things other
than pornography, and there seems to be a process for
those things. The scary part for a parent would be
to say, well, you should just be a better parent
because we might not understand. We don't know what we
don't know. So do you have any suggestions how we
can combat adult themed websites that we don't think we
think would damage a child if they were to be

(01:20:04):
exposed to it.

Speaker 4 (01:20:06):
Sure, well, I would just say, first of all, it's.

Speaker 14 (01:20:09):
A common temptation to make an analog analogy to the
digital world, but the laws apply very differently in different places,
and so, you know, the digital world operates at such
a large scale that it's hard to apply some of
the same like age gating laws the same way that
they work in the analog world. That isn't to say
that there shouldn't be any right, A lot of studies

(01:20:30):
have shown that the parental tools that come like built
into things like iPhones really go underutilized, and so I
think the answer is that there are effective digital tools
out there to definitely, you know, reduce and prevent you know,
kids from going to these websites. But I think ultimately
it's just sort of a classic age old problem of

(01:20:52):
you know, I, you know, I don't think we can
stop teenagers from doing every single bad thing we want
them to do.

Speaker 4 (01:20:57):
I think we all agree that we.

Speaker 14 (01:20:58):
Should take steps to prove that as much as we can.
Part of that is good parenting, part of that is
the technology companies playing a role.

Speaker 4 (01:21:06):
So the websites offering.

Speaker 14 (01:21:08):
Parental controls, and pornography websites already do a form of
age gating. They use available data that they have to
block what they think are minors. And so there's a
lot of technology that's being underutilized that can really address
the problem. But yeah, I mean, certainly a component of
it is as parents, you know, educating yourself and becoming

(01:21:30):
more educated about how technology works and how it functions,
and what devices you know, people even have, and how
we can use the built in tools and devices to
track and monitor and be more safe. And so I
think it's partly a problem of civic progress that the
country is going through, but also partly a problem of
just the technology that's there that solves the problem somehow

(01:21:53):
just isn't maybe it's not user friendly enough, or you know,
maybe it doesn't you know, work for parents to way
that they wanted to. But I certainly think that we can,
you know, innovate digital tools that help us track where
kids go online so that we can you know, make
interventions that aren't necessarily made by the state government, but

(01:22:13):
can be made another way, so that we make sure
that kids don't don't access these sites.

Speaker 4 (01:22:18):
But at the end of the day.

Speaker 14 (01:22:19):
You know, I wish I had a I wish I
had a seeing a high glass seeing high glass solution.

Speaker 4 (01:22:25):
But it is. It is a tractical problem.

Speaker 14 (01:22:27):
But my job is to you know, present a social
science in a professional and responsible way. And uh, you know,
I think the bottom line is that these laws can
do more harm than good.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):
Spence Pernell he is with the Art Street Initiative talking
about online safety. More coming up on the Rod and
Gregg Show. We'll be back tomorrow wing Man Wednesday tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
By the way, yeah Man music that show. I like
that show. So do you remember Kurt Angle? He was
he's so a lot of people know him as the
w w E.

Speaker 1 (01:22:57):
Wrestler, right, not a wrestling fans, so yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (01:23:01):
I think he's I think he hails from Pittsburgh to
Kurt Angle does, but uh yeah, so that's a that's right.
What what he did before he was a WWE wrestler,
which he was a very popular one, is that he
was an Olympic wrestling gold medalist. He was an nc
double A champion in his weight class, and I think
he was a national champion. And he was asked recently

(01:23:23):
about the the this you know, the this Last week,
America Captain America Winning asked about when Wyatt Hendrickson defeated
Gable Stevenson for the n C Double A Heavyweight Wrestling
Championship on Sunday, and he says it was this is
his quote. It was absolutely the greatest upset in amateur history,
and he means amateur amateur history, he said. He said,

(01:23:46):
it definitely goes up there with the Miracle Hockey Team,
Miracle on Ice, Miracle on Ice, and Buster Douglas knocking
out Mike Tyson. I mean, that's how big of a
deal Because I guess and I probably I didn't appreciate
this because I don't know amateur college wrestling very well.
He was given zero chance of beating that Minnesota's Gable
Stevenson in that match. He was he was supposed to.

(01:24:07):
That's a it was sold Poysoner two hundred and eighty
five pounds. You know one thing we didn't bring up
this weekend on this week Monday, Monday, George Foreman's death.
I know he's pretty young in his seventies to go
to I think people are checking out.

Speaker 1 (01:24:21):
There was a great article in the New York Times,
which occasionally I will look at. But it talked about
the fight between him and Ali in zi ear.

Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
Yeah, that's right, rumble in the jungle. You better believe it.
That was the ropodope.

Speaker 1 (01:24:33):
That's where he left.

Speaker 2 (01:24:34):
That's where Ali might have gotten Parkinson's, but that's where
he let That's where he let. He let Foreman punch
himself out. He was so winded because he was hitting
him so much, and then he had nothing left in
those late rounds and that's when all he came in and.

Speaker 1 (01:24:48):
He stepped in. You're that's where that's where it came.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
And then he was kind of a mean guy back
then and he got out of it. He became a minister,
and then he came back and made us a real
for and grill.

Speaker 1 (01:25:01):
All right, that does look for us tonight, Head up,
shoulders back. May God bless you and your family. Thanks
for joining us. We're back tomorrow and forth enjoy the
rest of your evening.

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