December 17, 2025 • 31 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
It's that time. Time, time, luck and load. The Michael
Verie Show is on the air. I won't lecture you
(00:37):
on the Rob Reiner Donald Trumpet comments last night. Some
of you did not appreciate what I had to say,
and that's okay. I'm fine with that. I won't lecture
on that because I get pretty passionate about how weak
our side is and how committed we are to civility
(00:58):
and being pressy and proper as we're being kicked in
the teeth, and when we have a real warrior among us,
we don't like it. We'd rather be nice than when
And that's okay, that's okay. I've come to understand this.
I did think, however, we should maybe play you a
clip of the view the hens on the View after
(01:20):
Rush Limbaugh died. A man who did as much or
more for this country as anyone, a man who devoted
his life to the excellence of this country. A man
who is responsible for a number of people's success in
gluting my own the am dial free speech. The number
of people for whom he raised millions and millions of
dollars for charity, the number of people he inspired to
(01:42):
be better from all walks of life, the amount of
passion and love he had for this country. And upon
his passing, this is what the Hens on the View
said about him.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
He just normalized hatred, He normalized racism, and you know,
I think he really weaponized white male grievance and and
you know, he sort of hardened these like rural white listeners,
people you know, sitting in their trucks and in the
middle of America and in the South, and you know,
(02:14):
listening to Rush Limbaugh, this wasn't someone who was a
nice person. This is someone that spewed racism and hatred.
Yet he is now considered, I guess, the most an
influential person in building the modern Republican Party and conservatism.
He to me, that is not something to be proud.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Any people are mourning the loss of him today and
many are not. And I was not a fan at
all of Rush Limbaugh. I think he paved the way
for political extremism, uh and pushed baseless claims. He was
the beginning of conspiracy theories. He was like the predecessor
to the Alex Jones. Is a lot of the things
we're seeing that we don't like now. He in a
(02:56):
sense kind of bastardized the party in a way because
I know there are conservative ideals that Sonny was referencing,
and we're you know, many of us are saying, please
speak up and represent those because I don't like to
even think of him as representing Republicans or conservatives. He
represents very extreme views. He said a ton of despicable
things that we could never We don't even have enough
(03:17):
time on one show to.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Cover this stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Is just I have a visceral reaction to so many
of his words. But the first thing that ran through
my head when I saw the news was, now, it's
judgment day at the end of our lives.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
It's just us.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Answering for everything we did, who we were, what we said,
and how we treated people. And so now judgment day
has arrived for Rush Limbaugh.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
I'm hoping that his legacy will be the return of
the fairness doctrine. The fairness doctrine required that stations on
air to air contrasting responsible views on important issues at
the threat of losing their license.
Speaker 6 (03:58):
And Trump actually learned and to talk the way Rush talked.
He thought it would they all think they're funny. Also,
Rush used to think he was a comedian. Trump thinks
he's hilarious when he's out there with his Trump bites,
you know, loving everything he says. I think that there's
a direct connection between Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump and
(04:18):
where we are today.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
They go on the air.
Speaker 6 (04:20):
And these few their hatred, their prejudices, their lives, as
did Rush Limbaugh for the Almighty Dollar, and they fool
Americans into believing that they are authentic.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
They are not authentic. And there you have it, a
bunch of angry old women, bitter, mean, vicious, but they're
not mean. Only Donald Trump is. Remember when during the
election people would say, bring back mean tweets, Bring back
mean tweets and cheap gas, bring back mean tweets and
(04:54):
American excellence. Remember that because the worst thing Donald Trump
it was mean tweets. People said, bring back the mean
tweets and get the boys out of the girls locker room.
Bring back the mean tweets and get the men out
of women's sports. Bring back the mean tweets, get our
(05:17):
economy back on track, bring back the mean tweets and
close the border. Bring back the mean tweets. You didn't
mean it, did you. Because if Donald Trump is engaged
in mean tweets. Then somebody somewhere in your mind is
judging you that you're not polite, because that's the worst crime,
(05:40):
isn't it. Really, that's what racism is about. That's what
xenophobia is about. That's what transphobia is about. You're not conforming,
you're not conventional, you're not playing by the rules. The
mean girls will set the rules for this club, and
we'll kick you out of polite society. We don't want
(06:03):
you in our church, we don't want you in our club,
We don't want you in our neighborhood and our little clique.
It's eighth grade or sixth grade all over again. You
say things that are not acceptable. You support Trump when
he says things that are mean. You don't do what
we're all supposed to do. You don't fall in line.
You're not the little duckling that follows the one behind
(06:25):
you because that's what you're supposed to do, because that's
what they do. And that's why all the little Republicans
have lined up to say I like Donald Trump, but
he shouldn't have said that. But you don't. Nobody ever
has a problem as long as you say it with
a smile. Barack Obama used the White House to attempt
(06:47):
to overthrow an election. In twenty sixteen, he used the
White House to guard Hillary Clinton from prosecution for horrible crimes.
He used the White House to spy on Donald Trump,
the man who would be elected president. But he did
it with a smile, And we're told he's so sophisticated
and cool, whereas Trump is crass and crude. At the
(07:12):
end of the day, it's a cool kids club, isn't it.
At the end of the day, it's what do we
feel comfortable with in our world that we are so
desperately pretending to be classy and civil, civil, civil, civil
(07:36):
in a world that is cruel and mean and vicious. Civil.
At Brown University where a young lady her life mattered,
was shot and killed, and to my knowledge, we still
don't have the shooter. Oh, we've got footage of him.
There's a fat, bumbling looking fool that looks a lot
(07:59):
like the guy that many say as the chief suspect,
prime suspect, who's a teaching assistant, who's a gay man.
Girl want to be Palestinian sympathizer. Oh, but don't release
the name. You release the name of a white guy
that didn't walk or look anything like that. Well, let's
be civil, don't want to be rude. Michael Berry Show continues,
(08:27):
Happy birthday to Tracy Burd. It's time Tracy Bird grew
up about ten minutes from me. Invit her I was
in orange Field. We didn't know each other. Then our
dads worked together at DuPont and Orange before I Tracy
Inn went to Beaumont. And when Mark Chestnut went to
what's called the Showcase in Nashville, which is where you
(08:49):
go and they have several labels at one time and
you put your best foot forward and then they make
you offers'd be like tryouts to the combine for for football.
And when Mark's Mark Chestnut's Mark Chestnut's band, or when
he got the call they call Tracy Byrd and said, hey,
(09:12):
would you be interested in taking over his residency playing
several nights a week? And he did. I think he
played four or five nights a week every week. They
just were grinding and he would eventually go to the
showcase and he would eventually get a bid and he
would eventually have some number one songs in a very
(09:32):
successful career. And because he never lost sight of the
fan and he never got caught up in his own celebrity.
He is still able to tour to this day. He
was doing about ninety tours. He keeps dropping it by
about ten per year because he doesn't want to work
that hard any longer. But he and his band go
(09:53):
on the road and they do I think about seventy
five shows a year now, and he has a great life.
He lives in Beaumont, just as Mark Chestnut lives in Beaumont.
They never did the Nashville thing. They stayed true to
kind of who they were and what they were, and
I think it's paid off well for them. You know
who doesn't stay true to who they are and what
(10:14):
they campaigned on? Members of Congress who go to Washington,
DC and start trading stock on inside information. The Securities
in Exchange Commission SEC. Thirty one and thirty two Act,
they were called. It regulates who can trade stocks at
what time based on the information you have. So if
(10:37):
your best friend is the CEO of IBM, and y'all
are playing pickleball and he says, hey, we got a
big governmental investigation. It's going to hit next week and
it's going to tank our stock. So if you've got
our stock, and let's say it's fifty dollars a share,
you should sell today because it could go down to ten.
(11:00):
You are trading in information that is not available to
the general public. So for you to do that gives
you an artificial advantage. It gives you inside information or
information that is only available to what are known as insiders.
(11:21):
So when that happens, you are committing a crime. That's
what Martha Stewart went to prison for. And when you
look at that case, I've spent a fair amount of
time on that case. I'm not certain she engaged in
a pure statutory insider trading violation. She did her time,
(11:43):
and a survivor that she is, I think she's bigger
today than she was before. She's got some odd sense
of street cred. Who would have guessed Martha Stewart made
famous by telling suburban women, this is how you decorate
your table for events? What have street cred? And be
hanging out with Snoop Dogg. And I'm not entirely sure
(12:05):
he hadn't. Yeah, I mean it's it's you know, only
in America, right, only in America. So the Treasury Secretary
has said Scott Bessant, it is time to ban members
of Congress from trading stocks. And he's right. These people
(12:26):
have information by virtue of their job that the general
public does not have, and it is not fair or
legal for them to trade on it. There is no
doubt that members of Congress have inside information. That is
that's not up for debate. The only doubt we have
(12:47):
is whether they're trading on that information to make profits. Well,
just look at how well they're doing a stock pickers,
and isn't it interesting that these people are killing the market.
They're doing so much better than people who do this
full time and half for decades, the quote unquote professionals,
the experts, and they are presumably making calls for money
(13:10):
all day and sitting through committee hearings and campaigning, and
with a little bit of time on the side, they're
suddenly able to make a fortune. So Scott Bessett, the
Treasury Secretary, writes that Nancy Pelosi and Oregon Senator Ron
Whedon quote are the poster children for a much larger problem.
(13:34):
As I have said before, congressional stock trading must end.
During Senator Whedon's chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee in
twenty twenty four, his public portfolio gained approximately one hundred
and twenty four percent, far exceeding Pelosi's seventy one percent
return and the S and P five hundred 's twenty
(13:55):
five percent gain that year. He adds, this is a
nonpartisan issue. Oh sorry, this is not a partisan issue.
When members of congressional leadership post returns that far exceed
many of the world's top performing hedge funds, it undermines
the fundamental credibility of Congress itself. The American people deserve
(14:18):
far better, and I look forward to Congress taking action
to end congressional trading of individual stocks. The comments come
in response to an article Real Clear Politics by Jonathan Drager,
who wrote quote, a new working paper in the National
Bureau of Economic Research indicates that stock related gains are
(14:40):
most concentrated among congressional leaders rather than rank and file lawmakers.
The authors find that lawmakers who eventually rise to leadership
roles perform roughly in line with comparable peers before entering leadership,
but after entering leadership, they outperform those peers by an
(15:00):
average of forty seven points annually. Let me ask you this,
why don't we allow athletes to gamble on sports. We
don't allow them to gamble on any sports, not just
the games they're playing in. Why not, because the potential
(15:20):
for conflict is so great. Pete Rose served, in my opinion,
an overly harsh lifetime ban as the greatest hitter in
baseball history. And yet you've got these members of Congress
getting rich off of secrets they got in our government,
and who knows what they're trading for them When you
need to escape from the everyday escape of the Michael
(15:43):
arri Show, or terrorism by TRANS members, I'm not sure
who's out doing who. The Muslims are the Trans. And
then when you get a Muslim training like what is
accused in Providence, Rhode Island at brown oh Man, woo
oh goodness, gracious, you got a live one on the
(16:04):
line there. The fifth person arrested in the New York
City New Year's Eve bombing plot is a quote unquote
Trantifa marine veteran. Yeah, that means Antifa member who's a
trainee and served in the United States Marines who wanted
to quote recreate Waco on ice. That's a lot to unpack.
(16:30):
Part of the liberal terror group. Turtle Island Liberation Front.
I'm gonna let w VUETV out of New Orleans tell
this story.
Speaker 7 (16:42):
A newly unsealed criminal complaint says Michael James Legnon is
suspected to be associated with the members of the Turtle
Island Liberation Front. According to the FBI, the organization is
an anti capitalist, anti government movement. This image included in
the complaint came from the group's Instagram page. The complaint
(17:02):
alleges Legnon intended to travel to New Orleans to carry
out an attack. He allegedly shared posts of Border patrol
removing a person from a rooftop in Kenner.
Speaker 8 (17:12):
It seems as if his ire was pointed at ICE
agents for what they're doing in this area right now.
Speaker 7 (17:18):
Last Friday, the FBI executed a search warrant on Legnon's residence,
and the complaint says agents found sniper trading manuals, assault rifles,
and ammunition. Legnon is a former marine. That same day,
Legnon was stopped on Highway ninety heading toward New Orleans.
Speaker 8 (17:35):
I think it's pretty obvious the reason they moved quickly
is because they saw a guy loading up body armor
and lethal weapons and said he's heading to New Orleans.
Speaker 7 (17:49):
The complaint alleges Legnon posted this message in a signal
group chat before his arrest, saying, on my way to
Nolan now.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I'll be there in about two hours.
Speaker 7 (17:59):
According to court documents, the FBI was watching Legnon because
of his alleged affiliation with individuals plotting a bombing in
Los Angeles. He was mentioned, although not named, during an
FBI press conference Monday, which detailed the arrest of four
members of an alleged terrorist organization in connection with an
alleged planned attack on New Year's Eve in La Legnon
(18:21):
now faces a charge of threats in interstate commerce. Reacting
to the news of his arrest, Senator Bill Cassidy says,
while details are limited, one thing is for sure.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
All I can say is thank God for the FBI
and other intelligence services keeping us safe.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
There are horrible people among us who want to do
the rest of us harm. This isn't a love gone wrong,
This isn't a jolted lover, This isn't revenge or a
slight These are people who wish to bring mayhem and hatred,
(19:05):
mayhem and misery to other people indiscriminately. These are people,
in every single case, who are sad, lonely, sick people.
But that does not in any way diminish or mitigate
what they're doing. This case, like all the rest, will
(19:26):
fall to the back pages, and it'll fall off the news,
and this guy gets six months probation and he'll be
back doing something again. He should be thrown in a
cage for the rest of his life. Period into story.
We don't need to bear the risk of whether he's
going to relapse into his evil ways. Ramon, have you
ever wondered why the terms port and starboard are used
(19:49):
for ships instead of just saying left and right. Well,
our mariners out there are seafarers. Our folks who love
boats maybe are sailors from the navy. Maybe you grew
up sailing yourself. Maybe you love to be out on
(20:12):
the water. I don't claim to be an expert on
such matters. I never met a bad person who was.
But there's a series I discovered on social media. Somebody
sent it to me and I told him send me more.
And it's a daughter asking her father who's He would
be elderly, but he's not infirm. She's asking her father
(20:37):
questions about things she'd like to know more about, and
they're interesting questions about things that he has specific information.
So I'm sure some of you are saying, Michael, what's
the big deal? Everybody knows that, But that's just it.
Everybody doesn't. Every Tuesday and Thursday night, a friend of
(21:00):
mine and I watch Jeopardy together. His name is Alex Miller,
and there's a little cabin out behind our house and
my wife will come out and sit with us it
sometimes and watch it, or if my kids are coming
and going, or other friends, uncle Jerry, they'll join us.
And what's interesting is people have two reactions to every
question that's asked. Either they have no idea what the
(21:23):
answer is and they figure that's a tough question, or
if they know it, they'll say, well, that's easy. But
it may just be easy to you. If you're a lawyer,
then the rules of procedure pretty simple and the terminology
behind it, but not to anyone else. If you're an architect,
the concepts of architecture, if you're a plumber, electrician, sniper,
(21:48):
gun manufacturer, marathon runner, whatever you know seems simple and
not exactly noteworthy to you, But that's a level of
information and knowledge and experience that you have developed. That
others haven't anyway. It's kind of what social media could be.
(22:08):
A daughter asking daddy questions and daddy patiently answering questions,
and the rest of us witnessing this and thinking, oh,
I just learned something. So maybe, just maybe you will.
Speaker 9 (22:19):
Why boats and ships don't use left and right? Why
do they use port and starboard starboard? Yeah, and you
explain that to me? Can you explain that again?
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Well, of course, the left side of the ship is
usually where they would put that's how they tie you
up to the dark. They come in and put the
left side of the ship to the dark. That's the
port side, because that's where the port is.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Okay, that's where the dog is.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
You gotta remember, back in the old day, the rudder
wasn't in the back, okay. Was he using sales and
stuff anyway, And of course when they wanted a rudder,
it wasn't in the back of the ship is on
the right hand side at the back, so whenever they
to go along, that's I just called them steer, steering board,
sight or starboard.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
That's where that's okay comes from.
Speaker 9 (23:07):
Just obviously they wouldn't want that clanging against this.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
It's the dark because if you break it, No, you
can't go anywhere. Right, you steer the ship anymore because
they didn't have the rudder at the stern. They headed
along the side of the ship right.
Speaker 9 (23:18):
And then therefore you park on the port side.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Sorry, tie up? Okay, thanks. No matter how crazy the
world gets, confusing, frustrating, disappointing, I find that learning things
makes me very happy. The brain releases in doorphins when
we learn things. Just go pick up an encyclopedia, start
reading a book, learn things. You make sense of things
(23:42):
that way. It's Tracy Bird. Hey, y'all, if you drink,
don't drive, do the watermelon crawl and listen to the
Tsar Salt. My buddy Michael Bars, very happy fifty ninth
birthday to our good friend Tracy Bird. Many of you
probably used Keeper of the Stars as the song you
(24:05):
danced at your wedding, very very popular choice, very popular choice. Indeed,
our friends in Louisiana, many of them used take My Hand,
written by our friend mister Thibodeaux and the version as
performed by Wayne Toops. That was a very very popular
(24:30):
one for a while. Another one I've seen use over
the years is remember when by Alan Jackson. I'm not
the biggest Alan Jackson fan, but that he does a
beautiful version of that song. Well, for whatever reason, you
cannot tell Republicans. Look, the liberal media is never gonna
(24:55):
like you. Stop trying to make them. Stop letting them
in your house to tell nasty stories about you and
then claiming that you didn't say what you said or
what they say you said, or they took you out
of context. Susie Wiles, chief of staff to Donald Trump,
(25:18):
just got burned. She gave access to Vanity Fair on
a level that is unprecedented for this administration. And what
did they do, Well, they did their usual. Donald Trump
is crazy, he's a nut, he's a weirdo, he's a
whack job. He's a psychopath. He has to be removed.
(25:39):
But now they had his own chief of staff saying it, Oh,
he twisted and contorted my words. If you're so stupid
that you thought they were going to be fair to you,
that's a non starter for you being in that position
to start with. I guess that was what a non
starter means. I kind of came back around with the
(26:00):
use of the word ramon. This is ABC News's story
about the Vanity Fair piece that they wrote the hit piece.
Speaker 10 (26:10):
Now of the explosive interview from inside President Trump's inner circle,
his chief of staff Susie Wiles, who has preferred to
stay in the background, giving nearly a dozen odd the
record interviews to Vanity Fair, revealing she was the child
of an alcoholic and saying President Trump has quote an
alcoholics personality. Tonight, President Trump responding to Susie Wiles's comments.
As for Wiles, she says the story is a hit piece.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Mary Bruce at the White House, she.
Speaker 11 (26:36):
Is President Trump's most powerful and trusted aid, more comfortable
behind the scenes than in the spotlight.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Susie likes to say so of in the back, let
me tell you the ice stay. We call it the
Iceland law.
Speaker 11 (26:48):
But tonight, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles pulling
back the curtain in an extraordinary series of interviews with
Vanity Fair. Wiles, who says her father was an alcoholic,
describes her boss, the President, as having an alcoholics personality,
noting that Trump, who does not drink, operates with the
view that there's nothing he can't do, nothing, zero nothing.
(27:09):
Wiles also has choice words for Vice President j. D.
Vance discussing the push to release the FBI files into
sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Wiles says Vance has been a
conspiracy theorist for a decade.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Vance today responding.
Speaker 7 (27:23):
Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe
in the conspiracy theories that are true.
Speaker 11 (27:28):
Wild also points a finger at Attorney General Pam Bondi,
saying Bondi completely whiffed her handling of demands to release
the files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 8 (27:38):
The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Will that really happen? It's sitting on my desk.
Speaker 11 (27:45):
Right now to review, Wiles telling Vanity Fair there is
no client list, and it's sure as hell wasn't on
Bondie's desk. She does acknowledge the President himself is in
the Epstein files, but not doing anything awful. She says
the two the two men were sort of young single
playboys together. Trump has fought efforts to release the Epstein files,
(28:06):
instead ordering Bondi to investigate Epstein's relationship with Democrats like
former President Bill Clinton. But Wiles tells Vanity Fair the
files include no incriminating evidence about Clinton, saying the President
was wrong about that. She also says this claim about
Clinton is not true.
Speaker 8 (28:23):
I never went to the island, and Bill Clinton went
there supposedly.
Speaker 11 (28:28):
Twenty eight times, Wiles telling Vanity Fair there is no
evidence Clinton ever visited Epstein's private island. The president tonight
standing behind Wiles, telling The New York Post she's fantastic.
As for his chief of staffs claimed he has an
alcoholics personality, Trump saying I don't drink alcohol, so everybody
knows that, but I've often said that if I did,
(28:50):
I'd have a very good chance of being an alcoholic.
I've said that many times about myself.
Speaker 9 (28:55):
I do.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It's a very possessive personality.
Speaker 11 (28:58):
And David Wiles also acknowledges that the President has sought
retribution against some of his enemies, saying, quote, when there's
an opportunity, he will go for it. Tonight, Wiles calls
the article a disingenuously framed hit piece, though she doesn't
deny saying these things.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
I Uh, you ever watched somebody do something really stupid,
maybe your own kids. You tell them not to do
something and they insist on doing it, and then the
bad thing happens that you told them would happen if
they did it, and you just sit there thinking, well,
(29:40):
what can you do? You can only do so much.
The fact that Susie Wiles exercised the judgment to sit
for vanity fair, The fact that she had the words
come out of her mouth that Donald Trump has an
(30:01):
alcoholics personality. His brother drank himself to death, He's had
raging alcoholism in his family. He's horrified of alcohol. Is
your vocabulary and your breadth of experience so narrow that
(30:22):
that's the only way you could describe a person who
I suppose you mean is volatile? Do you not know
that word? I'm not one for thinking Donald Trump gets
his feelings hurt, but I can't imagine how he felt
when she said he has an alcoholics personality. He knows
he has a propensity for how alcohol dependence. That's why
(30:45):
he's never touched it. How many people can say that,
I have nothing but disappointment z Wild's judgment
It's that time. Time, time, luck and load. The Michael
Verie Show is on the air. I won't lecture you
(00:37):
on the Rob Reiner Donald Trumpet comments last night. Some
of you did not appreciate what I had to say,
and that's okay. I'm fine with that. I won't lecture
on that because I get pretty passionate about how weak
our side is and how committed we are to civility
(00:58):
and being pressy and proper as we're being kicked in
the teeth, and when we have a real warrior among us,
we don't like it. We'd rather be nice than when
And that's okay, that's okay. I've come to understand this.
I did think, however, we should maybe play you a
clip of the view the hens on the View after
(01:20):
Rush Limbaugh died. A man who did as much or
more for this country as anyone, a man who devoted
his life to the excellence of this country. A man
who is responsible for a number of people's success in
gluting my own the am dial free speech. The number
of people for whom he raised millions and millions of
dollars for charity, the number of people he inspired to
(01:42):
be better from all walks of life, the amount of
passion and love he had for this country. And upon
his passing, this is what the Hens on the View
said about him.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
He just normalized hatred, He normalized racism, and you know,
I think he really weaponized white male grievance and and
you know, he sort of hardened these like rural white listeners,
people you know, sitting in their trucks and in the
middle of America and in the South, and you know,
(02:14):
listening to Rush Limbaugh, this wasn't someone who was a
nice person. This is someone that spewed racism and hatred.
Yet he is now considered, I guess, the most an
influential person in building the modern Republican Party and conservatism.
He to me, that is not something to be proud.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Any people are mourning the loss of him today and
many are not. And I was not a fan at
all of Rush Limbaugh. I think he paved the way
for political extremism, uh and pushed baseless claims. He was
the beginning of conspiracy theories. He was like the predecessor
to the Alex Jones. Is a lot of the things
we're seeing that we don't like now. He in a
(02:56):
sense kind of bastardized the party in a way because
I know there are conservative ideals that Sonny was referencing,
and we're you know, many of us are saying, please
speak up and represent those because I don't like to
even think of him as representing Republicans or conservatives. He
represents very extreme views. He said a ton of despicable
things that we could never We don't even have enough
(03:17):
time on one show to.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Cover this stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Is just I have a visceral reaction to so many
of his words. But the first thing that ran through
my head when I saw the news was, now, it's
judgment day at the end of our lives.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
It's just us.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Answering for everything we did, who we were, what we said,
and how we treated people. And so now judgment day
has arrived for Rush Limbaugh.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
I'm hoping that his legacy will be the return of
the fairness doctrine. The fairness doctrine required that stations on
air to air contrasting responsible views on important issues at
the threat of losing their license.
Speaker 6 (03:58):
And Trump actually learned and to talk the way Rush talked.
He thought it would they all think they're funny. Also,
Rush used to think he was a comedian. Trump thinks
he's hilarious when he's out there with his Trump bites,
you know, loving everything he says. I think that there's
a direct connection between Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump and
(04:18):
where we are today.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
They go on the air.
Speaker 6 (04:20):
And these few their hatred, their prejudices, their lives, as
did Rush Limbaugh for the Almighty Dollar, and they fool
Americans into believing that they are authentic.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
They are not authentic. And there you have it, a
bunch of angry old women, bitter, mean, vicious, but they're
not mean. Only Donald Trump is. Remember when during the
election people would say, bring back mean tweets, Bring back
mean tweets and cheap gas, bring back mean tweets and
(04:54):
American excellence. Remember that because the worst thing Donald Trump
it was mean tweets. People said, bring back the mean
tweets and get the boys out of the girls locker room.
Bring back the mean tweets and get the men out
of women's sports. Bring back the mean tweets, get our
(05:17):
economy back on track, bring back the mean tweets and
close the border. Bring back the mean tweets. You didn't
mean it, did you. Because if Donald Trump is engaged
in mean tweets. Then somebody somewhere in your mind is
judging you that you're not polite, because that's the worst crime,
(05:40):
isn't it. Really, that's what racism is about. That's what
xenophobia is about. That's what transphobia is about. You're not conforming,
you're not conventional, you're not playing by the rules. The
mean girls will set the rules for this club, and
we'll kick you out of polite society. We don't want
(06:03):
you in our church, we don't want you in our club,
We don't want you in our neighborhood and our little clique.
It's eighth grade or sixth grade all over again. You
say things that are not acceptable. You support Trump when
he says things that are mean. You don't do what
we're all supposed to do. You don't fall in line.
You're not the little duckling that follows the one behind
(06:25):
you because that's what you're supposed to do, because that's
what they do. And that's why all the little Republicans
have lined up to say I like Donald Trump, but
he shouldn't have said that. But you don't. Nobody ever
has a problem as long as you say it with
a smile. Barack Obama used the White House to attempt
(06:47):
to overthrow an election. In twenty sixteen, he used the
White House to guard Hillary Clinton from prosecution for horrible crimes.
He used the White House to spy on Donald Trump,
the man who would be elected president. But he did
it with a smile, And we're told he's so sophisticated
and cool, whereas Trump is crass and crude. At the
(07:12):
end of the day, it's a cool kids club, isn't it.
At the end of the day, it's what do we
feel comfortable with in our world that we are so
desperately pretending to be classy and civil, civil, civil, civil
(07:36):
in a world that is cruel and mean and vicious. Civil.
At Brown University where a young lady her life mattered,
was shot and killed, and to my knowledge, we still
don't have the shooter. Oh, we've got footage of him.
There's a fat, bumbling looking fool that looks a lot
(07:59):
like the guy that many say as the chief suspect,
prime suspect, who's a teaching assistant, who's a gay man.
Girl want to be Palestinian sympathizer. Oh, but don't release
the name. You release the name of a white guy
that didn't walk or look anything like that. Well, let's
be civil, don't want to be rude. Michael Berry Show continues,
(08:27):
Happy birthday to Tracy Burd. It's time Tracy Bird grew
up about ten minutes from me. Invit her I was
in orange Field. We didn't know each other. Then our
dads worked together at DuPont and Orange before I Tracy
Inn went to Beaumont. And when Mark Chestnut went to
what's called the Showcase in Nashville, which is where you
(08:49):
go and they have several labels at one time and
you put your best foot forward and then they make
you offers'd be like tryouts to the combine for for football.
And when Mark's Mark Chestnut's Mark Chestnut's band, or when
he got the call they call Tracy Byrd and said, hey,
(09:12):
would you be interested in taking over his residency playing
several nights a week? And he did. I think he
played four or five nights a week every week. They
just were grinding and he would eventually go to the
showcase and he would eventually get a bid and he
would eventually have some number one songs in a very
(09:32):
successful career. And because he never lost sight of the
fan and he never got caught up in his own celebrity.
He is still able to tour to this day. He
was doing about ninety tours. He keeps dropping it by
about ten per year because he doesn't want to work
that hard any longer. But he and his band go
(09:53):
on the road and they do I think about seventy
five shows a year now, and he has a great life.
He lives in Beaumont, just as Mark Chestnut lives in Beaumont.
They never did the Nashville thing. They stayed true to
kind of who they were and what they were, and
I think it's paid off well for them. You know
who doesn't stay true to who they are and what
(10:14):
they campaigned on? Members of Congress who go to Washington,
DC and start trading stock on inside information. The Securities
in Exchange Commission SEC. Thirty one and thirty two Act,
they were called. It regulates who can trade stocks at
what time based on the information you have. So if
(10:37):
your best friend is the CEO of IBM, and y'all
are playing pickleball and he says, hey, we got a
big governmental investigation. It's going to hit next week and
it's going to tank our stock. So if you've got
our stock, and let's say it's fifty dollars a share,
you should sell today because it could go down to ten.
(11:00):
You are trading in information that is not available to
the general public. So for you to do that gives
you an artificial advantage. It gives you inside information or
information that is only available to what are known as insiders.
(11:21):
So when that happens, you are committing a crime. That's
what Martha Stewart went to prison for. And when you
look at that case, I've spent a fair amount of
time on that case. I'm not certain she engaged in
a pure statutory insider trading violation. She did her time,
(11:43):
and a survivor that she is, I think she's bigger
today than she was before. She's got some odd sense
of street cred. Who would have guessed Martha Stewart made
famous by telling suburban women, this is how you decorate
your table for events? What have street cred? And be
hanging out with Snoop Dogg. And I'm not entirely sure
(12:05):
he hadn't. Yeah, I mean it's it's you know, only
in America, right, only in America. So the Treasury Secretary
has said Scott Bessant, it is time to ban members
of Congress from trading stocks. And he's right. These people
(12:26):
have information by virtue of their job that the general
public does not have, and it is not fair or
legal for them to trade on it. There is no
doubt that members of Congress have inside information. That is
that's not up for debate. The only doubt we have
(12:47):
is whether they're trading on that information to make profits. Well,
just look at how well they're doing a stock pickers,
and isn't it interesting that these people are killing the market.
They're doing so much better than people who do this
full time and half for decades, the quote unquote professionals,
the experts, and they are presumably making calls for money
(13:10):
all day and sitting through committee hearings and campaigning, and
with a little bit of time on the side, they're
suddenly able to make a fortune. So Scott Bessett, the
Treasury Secretary, writes that Nancy Pelosi and Oregon Senator Ron
Whedon quote are the poster children for a much larger problem.
(13:34):
As I have said before, congressional stock trading must end.
During Senator Whedon's chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee in
twenty twenty four, his public portfolio gained approximately one hundred
and twenty four percent, far exceeding Pelosi's seventy one percent
return and the S and P five hundred 's twenty
(13:55):
five percent gain that year. He adds, this is a
nonpartisan issue. Oh sorry, this is not a partisan issue.
When members of congressional leadership post returns that far exceed
many of the world's top performing hedge funds, it undermines
the fundamental credibility of Congress itself. The American people deserve
(14:18):
far better, and I look forward to Congress taking action
to end congressional trading of individual stocks. The comments come
in response to an article Real Clear Politics by Jonathan Drager,
who wrote quote, a new working paper in the National
Bureau of Economic Research indicates that stock related gains are
(14:40):
most concentrated among congressional leaders rather than rank and file lawmakers.
The authors find that lawmakers who eventually rise to leadership
roles perform roughly in line with comparable peers before entering leadership,
but after entering leadership, they outperform those peers by an
(15:00):
average of forty seven points annually. Let me ask you this,
why don't we allow athletes to gamble on sports. We
don't allow them to gamble on any sports, not just
the games they're playing in. Why not, because the potential
(15:20):
for conflict is so great. Pete Rose served, in my opinion,
an overly harsh lifetime ban as the greatest hitter in
baseball history. And yet you've got these members of Congress
getting rich off of secrets they got in our government,
and who knows what they're trading for them When you
need to escape from the everyday escape of the Michael
(15:43):
arri Show, or terrorism by TRANS members, I'm not sure
who's out doing who. The Muslims are the Trans. And
then when you get a Muslim training like what is
accused in Providence, Rhode Island at brown oh Man, woo
oh goodness, gracious, you got a live one on the
(16:04):
line there. The fifth person arrested in the New York
City New Year's Eve bombing plot is a quote unquote
Trantifa marine veteran. Yeah, that means Antifa member who's a
trainee and served in the United States Marines who wanted
to quote recreate Waco on ice. That's a lot to unpack.
(16:30):
Part of the liberal terror group. Turtle Island Liberation Front.
I'm gonna let w VUETV out of New Orleans tell
this story.
Speaker 7 (16:42):
A newly unsealed criminal complaint says Michael James Legnon is
suspected to be associated with the members of the Turtle
Island Liberation Front. According to the FBI, the organization is
an anti capitalist, anti government movement. This image included in
the complaint came from the group's Instagram page. The complaint
(17:02):
alleges Legnon intended to travel to New Orleans to carry
out an attack. He allegedly shared posts of Border patrol
removing a person from a rooftop in Kenner.
Speaker 8 (17:12):
It seems as if his ire was pointed at ICE
agents for what they're doing in this area right now.
Speaker 7 (17:18):
Last Friday, the FBI executed a search warrant on Legnon's residence,
and the complaint says agents found sniper trading manuals, assault rifles,
and ammunition. Legnon is a former marine. That same day,
Legnon was stopped on Highway ninety heading toward New Orleans.
Speaker 8 (17:35):
I think it's pretty obvious the reason they moved quickly
is because they saw a guy loading up body armor
and lethal weapons and said he's heading to New Orleans.
Speaker 7 (17:49):
The complaint alleges Legnon posted this message in a signal
group chat before his arrest, saying, on my way to
Nolan now.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I'll be there in about two hours.
Speaker 7 (17:59):
According to court documents, the FBI was watching Legnon because
of his alleged affiliation with individuals plotting a bombing in
Los Angeles. He was mentioned, although not named, during an
FBI press conference Monday, which detailed the arrest of four
members of an alleged terrorist organization in connection with an
alleged planned attack on New Year's Eve in La Legnon
(18:21):
now faces a charge of threats in interstate commerce. Reacting
to the news of his arrest, Senator Bill Cassidy says,
while details are limited, one thing is for sure.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
All I can say is thank God for the FBI
and other intelligence services keeping us safe.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
There are horrible people among us who want to do
the rest of us harm. This isn't a love gone wrong,
This isn't a jolted lover, This isn't revenge or a
slight These are people who wish to bring mayhem and hatred,
(19:05):
mayhem and misery to other people indiscriminately. These are people,
in every single case, who are sad, lonely, sick people.
But that does not in any way diminish or mitigate
what they're doing. This case, like all the rest, will
(19:26):
fall to the back pages, and it'll fall off the news,
and this guy gets six months probation and he'll be
back doing something again. He should be thrown in a
cage for the rest of his life. Period into story.
We don't need to bear the risk of whether he's
going to relapse into his evil ways. Ramon, have you
ever wondered why the terms port and starboard are used
(19:49):
for ships instead of just saying left and right. Well,
our mariners out there are seafarers. Our folks who love
boats maybe are sailors from the navy. Maybe you grew
up sailing yourself. Maybe you love to be out on
(20:12):
the water. I don't claim to be an expert on
such matters. I never met a bad person who was.
But there's a series I discovered on social media. Somebody
sent it to me and I told him send me more.
And it's a daughter asking her father who's He would
be elderly, but he's not infirm. She's asking her father
(20:37):
questions about things she'd like to know more about, and
they're interesting questions about things that he has specific information.
So I'm sure some of you are saying, Michael, what's
the big deal? Everybody knows that, But that's just it.
Everybody doesn't. Every Tuesday and Thursday night, a friend of
(21:00):
mine and I watch Jeopardy together. His name is Alex Miller,
and there's a little cabin out behind our house and
my wife will come out and sit with us it
sometimes and watch it, or if my kids are coming
and going, or other friends, uncle Jerry, they'll join us.
And what's interesting is people have two reactions to every
question that's asked. Either they have no idea what the
(21:23):
answer is and they figure that's a tough question, or
if they know it, they'll say, well, that's easy. But
it may just be easy to you. If you're a lawyer,
then the rules of procedure pretty simple and the terminology
behind it, but not to anyone else. If you're an architect,
the concepts of architecture, if you're a plumber, electrician, sniper,
(21:48):
gun manufacturer, marathon runner, whatever you know seems simple and
not exactly noteworthy to you, But that's a level of
information and knowledge and experience that you have developed. That
others haven't anyway. It's kind of what social media could be.
(22:08):
A daughter asking daddy questions and daddy patiently answering questions,
and the rest of us witnessing this and thinking, oh,
I just learned something. So maybe, just maybe you will.
Speaker 9 (22:19):
Why boats and ships don't use left and right? Why
do they use port and starboard starboard? Yeah, and you
explain that to me? Can you explain that again?
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Well, of course, the left side of the ship is
usually where they would put that's how they tie you
up to the dark. They come in and put the
left side of the ship to the dark. That's the
port side, because that's where the port is.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Okay, that's where the dog is.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
You gotta remember, back in the old day, the rudder
wasn't in the back, okay. Was he using sales and
stuff anyway, And of course when they wanted a rudder,
it wasn't in the back of the ship is on
the right hand side at the back, so whenever they
to go along, that's I just called them steer, steering board,
sight or starboard.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
That's where that's okay comes from.
Speaker 9 (23:07):
Just obviously they wouldn't want that clanging against this.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
It's the dark because if you break it, No, you
can't go anywhere. Right, you steer the ship anymore because
they didn't have the rudder at the stern. They headed
along the side of the ship right.
Speaker 9 (23:18):
And then therefore you park on the port side.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Sorry, tie up? Okay, thanks. No matter how crazy the
world gets, confusing, frustrating, disappointing, I find that learning things
makes me very happy. The brain releases in doorphins when
we learn things. Just go pick up an encyclopedia, start
reading a book, learn things. You make sense of things
(23:42):
that way. It's Tracy Bird. Hey, y'all, if you drink,
don't drive, do the watermelon crawl and listen to the
Tsar Salt. My buddy Michael Bars, very happy fifty ninth
birthday to our good friend Tracy Bird. Many of you
probably used Keeper of the Stars as the song you
(24:05):
danced at your wedding, very very popular choice, very popular choice. Indeed,
our friends in Louisiana, many of them used take My Hand,
written by our friend mister Thibodeaux and the version as
performed by Wayne Toops. That was a very very popular
(24:30):
one for a while. Another one I've seen use over
the years is remember when by Alan Jackson. I'm not
the biggest Alan Jackson fan, but that he does a
beautiful version of that song. Well, for whatever reason, you
cannot tell Republicans. Look, the liberal media is never gonna
(24:55):
like you. Stop trying to make them. Stop letting them
in your house to tell nasty stories about you and
then claiming that you didn't say what you said or
what they say you said, or they took you out
of context. Susie Wiles, chief of staff to Donald Trump,
(25:18):
just got burned. She gave access to Vanity Fair on
a level that is unprecedented for this administration. And what
did they do, Well, they did their usual. Donald Trump
is crazy, he's a nut, he's a weirdo, he's a
whack job. He's a psychopath. He has to be removed.
(25:39):
But now they had his own chief of staff saying it, Oh,
he twisted and contorted my words. If you're so stupid
that you thought they were going to be fair to you,
that's a non starter for you being in that position
to start with. I guess that was what a non
starter means. I kind of came back around with the
(26:00):
use of the word ramon. This is ABC News's story
about the Vanity Fair piece that they wrote the hit piece.
Speaker 10 (26:10):
Now of the explosive interview from inside President Trump's inner circle,
his chief of staff Susie Wiles, who has preferred to
stay in the background, giving nearly a dozen odd the
record interviews to Vanity Fair, revealing she was the child
of an alcoholic and saying President Trump has quote an
alcoholics personality. Tonight, President Trump responding to Susie Wiles's comments.
As for Wiles, she says the story is a hit piece.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Mary Bruce at the White House, she.
Speaker 11 (26:36):
Is President Trump's most powerful and trusted aid, more comfortable
behind the scenes than in the spotlight.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Susie likes to say so of in the back, let
me tell you the ice stay. We call it the
Iceland law.
Speaker 11 (26:48):
But tonight, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles pulling
back the curtain in an extraordinary series of interviews with
Vanity Fair. Wiles, who says her father was an alcoholic,
describes her boss, the President, as having an alcoholics personality,
noting that Trump, who does not drink, operates with the
view that there's nothing he can't do, nothing, zero nothing.
(27:09):
Wiles also has choice words for Vice President j. D.
Vance discussing the push to release the FBI files into
sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Wiles says Vance has been a
conspiracy theorist for a decade.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Vance today responding.
Speaker 7 (27:23):
Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe
in the conspiracy theories that are true.
Speaker 11 (27:28):
Wild also points a finger at Attorney General Pam Bondi,
saying Bondi completely whiffed her handling of demands to release
the files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 8 (27:38):
The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Will that really happen? It's sitting on my desk.
Speaker 11 (27:45):
Right now to review, Wiles telling Vanity Fair there is
no client list, and it's sure as hell wasn't on
Bondie's desk. She does acknowledge the President himself is in
the Epstein files, but not doing anything awful. She says
the two the two men were sort of young single
playboys together. Trump has fought efforts to release the Epstein files,
(28:06):
instead ordering Bondi to investigate Epstein's relationship with Democrats like
former President Bill Clinton. But Wiles tells Vanity Fair the
files include no incriminating evidence about Clinton, saying the President
was wrong about that. She also says this claim about
Clinton is not true.
Speaker 8 (28:23):
I never went to the island, and Bill Clinton went
there supposedly.
Speaker 11 (28:28):
Twenty eight times, Wiles telling Vanity Fair there is no
evidence Clinton ever visited Epstein's private island. The president tonight
standing behind Wiles, telling The New York Post she's fantastic.
As for his chief of staffs claimed he has an
alcoholics personality, Trump saying I don't drink alcohol, so everybody
knows that, but I've often said that if I did,
(28:50):
I'd have a very good chance of being an alcoholic.
I've said that many times about myself.
Speaker 9 (28:55):
I do.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It's a very possessive personality.
Speaker 11 (28:58):
And David Wiles also acknowledges that the President has sought
retribution against some of his enemies, saying, quote, when there's
an opportunity, he will go for it. Tonight, Wiles calls
the article a disingenuously framed hit piece, though she doesn't
deny saying these things.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
I Uh, you ever watched somebody do something really stupid,
maybe your own kids. You tell them not to do
something and they insist on doing it, and then the
bad thing happens that you told them would happen if
they did it, and you just sit there thinking, well,
(29:40):
what can you do? You can only do so much.
The fact that Susie Wiles exercised the judgment to sit
for vanity fair, The fact that she had the words
come out of her mouth that Donald Trump has an
(30:01):
alcoholics personality. His brother drank himself to death, He's had
raging alcoholism in his family. He's horrified of alcohol. Is
your vocabulary and your breadth of experience so narrow that
(30:22):
that's the only way you could describe a person who
I suppose you mean is volatile? Do you not know
that word? I'm not one for thinking Donald Trump gets
his feelings hurt, but I can't imagine how he felt
when she said he has an alcoholics personality. He knows
he has a propensity for how alcohol dependence. That's why
(30:45):
he's never touched it. How many people can say that,
I have nothing but disappointment z Wild's judgment
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