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January 5, 2026 37 mins
Mark provides the latest updates on CBS’s rebranding. Tonight, a new national news anchor was scheduled to debut, but that may be postponed. Mark also discusses how the US military is currently well-positioned to respond to any emerging crises. Mark takes your calls! Mark reflects on a memorable interview he conducted a few years ago with the late, great actor Rob Reiner, discussing Rob’s life and his family’s well-being.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Mark simonshell on or well, I'm back, way too
long a vacation. Every host was gone for two weeks.
That today everybody back to normal. Everybody's back. You know,
it's nice to get away a nice, quiet vacation. As

(00:23):
I was saying, the President of the United States, Donald Trump,
very unusual. Normally a president takes a break, a vacation.
Bush would go to the ranch, the ranch, quiet, peaceful,
roaring fire, quiet on the ranch. Joe Biden, would you
know some billionaire oligarch would lend him the house on

(00:47):
Nantucket and he goes sit there on Nantucket? Is it
Martha's vineyard? Even quieter? Martha's vineyard, roaring fire, snow outside, quiet,
Trump fun vacation goes tomorrow. Lago that place Christmas Week
is a billion people all crammed into. It's the most crowded, chaotic,

(01:10):
noisy place you've ever seen. It's just a total circus
going on there around the clock. Now that's the way
he is. In fact, after two weeks there, I watched
him last night fly back to the White House. The
helicopter landed on the lawn and he walked into the
White House, and the White House for him is getting away.
The White House was peace and quiet for him, compared

(01:33):
to the unbelievably chaotic mar A Lago, just packed with people.
You hear all these people, you see them on Instagram.
Who went tomorrow Lago for the New Year's Eve party
or for Christmas dinner? Or you see him there in
the dining looks so nice and beautiful and you think,
what a wonderful Hey, where do he actually go there?

(01:57):
You know, you know, just pull up to the door
and get out of the car in the valley whisks
your car away. It's not that simple. You pull up
like four blocks away to a checkpoint where the Secret Service,
the FBI, guns big massive machine guns in their hand
and dogs everywhere, take your car apart for twenty minutes.

(02:17):
You have to open the hood, you have to open
the trunk. They have to look They literally look through
your engine. They inspect every inch of your car inside.
They even get under your car. They have a long
pole with a mirror that they slip under your car.
They look at everything. This takes forever. This is not
to mention frisking you, searching you, checking all your identity.

(02:38):
This is like a forty minute process. It makes TSA
at the airport look like a breeze. This is just
to get into Borrow Lago. It's just it's a crazy place.
But we're glad everybody's back. So the CBS Evening News
has a brand new anchor and tonight was supposed to
be his big debut. But then Saturday night, the Maduro

(03:02):
capture takes place. This is big breaking news. So they
decided the new anchor, I tell you his name, but
who the hell can remember it? And why remember it?
The last three anchors of the CBS Evening News actually
pay for the last five of them. Nobody remembers anyway.
But he decided he would anchor the Saturday night Evening News,
that he would move it up and that would be

(03:24):
his debut, and it was quite shocking.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
You know.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
They got this new Barry Weiss who took over CBS
News claims she's going to clean up the corruption is
CBS News is the dirtiest, most corrupt, slanted, partisan, misleading,
biased news organization. She claimed she would clean it up. Well,
there was evidence of that. Saturday Night, the CBS Evening

(03:48):
News with the new guy. I think his name is
David something, who the hell knows but he took over,
and the big story that consumed the whole half hour
newscast was the Maduro capture. And of course it's CBS News,
you know the way they write the news there, it's
kind of slanted, implying that this was something that shouldn't happen,
this Maduro capture. But then he said, with us live

(04:12):
now is Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsyth, and then he
put hexithon and let him talk for seven minutes. They
had to do commercial. He said, can you hold on
and come back with us? And then they brought him
back in the next segment for seven minutes, and then
at the end they said we have to go, but
for commercial, can you hang on again? And he hung
on through the second commercial break and was back for

(04:35):
a third segment. Now, this is the major spokesman of
the Trump administration on this matter, the Secretary of Defense.
So this is quite a change for CBS News to
give him airtime and let him give his point of
view and the administration's point of view for about twenty minutes.
You never would have seen that on the old CBS News.

(04:55):
So if this is an indication of change, if this
guy tonight is going to keep doing that. Make it
actually a fair, unbiased newscast. That'll be interesting. See what now,
it could be a formula. It really works. It'll take
a while for word to get around that it's not
so corrupt anymore, but who knows, it may take off

(05:15):
in viewership. And now the other thing is apparently Trump
knew that they're going to clean up the CBS Evening
News because the Maduro raid took place in the middle
of the night and it was secret. Congress nobody got
told about the raid. It was total secrecy when it happened.
But CBS News was given the story first by the administration.

(05:39):
They broke the story before anybody because the administration gave
it to them. That's a pretty big thing for a
news organization to be handed that big story before anybody else.
But the President did it, so apparently he has some
faith in CBS News. Now, the Sunday morning shows, they
went right back to total corruption. They went right back

(05:59):
to putting on people you shouldn't put on. Chuck Schumer
has no business being put on any Sunday morning show.
He's not going to run for reelection. He's totally irrelevant.
He's a sad, tired old Willie Lowman, kind of an
old politician on his way out. But there he was
huffing and puffing on the morning shows.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
If they want to do what's good for the American people,
it should not be some escapade in Venezuela. It should
be focusing on lowering the cost of living that Americans
are struggling with every week and tell us it's the
most important issue they face.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
Well, actually, he has been lowering the cost every week.
The actual statistics back that up. And an escapade getting
rid of this drug terrorist kingpin Narco. It's not an escapade.
And we do have video. I think it's up on
my Twitter if you want to look at it. For
the last few years, Chuck Schumer has been demanding we
get rid of Maduro. He's been screaming that we have

(06:51):
to get rid of Maduro. The whole thing is comical. Now.
The other thing they tried arguing is this process argument
that because legal, it's totally legal, you can go in
there and seize Maduro. We did it with Noriega, we
did it with in fact, let me see, there's a
whole list here. How many times you know, every president,
every single president has run these sort of operations. You

(07:14):
don't need there's nothing to do with the War Powers Act.
You don't need to get congressional approval. You don't even
need to notify them. You can go through the whole list.
Jimmy Carter Iran nineteen eighty Remember the operation in the
middle of the night landing the helicopters going in to
capture the hostages and get them back. That was Jimmy Carter,
and didn't notify Congress. Ronald Reagan bombing of Tripoli, bombing

(07:37):
of Benghazi, you didn't have to notify Congress. George H. W.
Bush Panama invasion, Iraq airstrikes. You didn't need to get
any approval or notify them. Bill Clinton did it in Bosnia,
he did it in Iraq, he did it in Kosovo.
George W. Bush launched drone strikes at invasions in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia.

(08:00):
Didn't have to inform Congress. Barack Obama did it in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen.
Joe Biden did it in Syria, Somalia and Yemen. In
fact are still there with the aster. See, you don't
need to inform anybody. You don't need to deal with
Congress on it. You don't. The War Powers Act was

(08:20):
created in the seventies by a bunch of left wing people,
and basically it says, you can do whatever the hell
you want for ninety days. After ninety days, you're supposed
to inform us. Schumer again, I still have not been briefed.

Speaker 4 (08:31):
We've had some contact with the administration in that we've
asked them for the Gang of Eight briefing and the
oil congressmen and all senators briefing, but we've gotten no
information from them.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
Who the hell would brief you? Why would any brief you,
who would even talk to you was to look at you.
And it was not an invasion. You know the CBS
and ABC though Sunday Morning shows it's an invasion of Venezuela.
Rubio just fought back.

Speaker 5 (08:56):
It wasn't necessary because this is not an invasion. We
didn't occupy a country. This was an arrest operation. This
is a law enforcement operation. He was arrested on the
ground in Venezuela by FBI agents, read his right and
removed from the country.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, President Trump.

Speaker 6 (09:10):
Congress says the tendency to leak this would not be
good if they leaked general, I think it would have
been maybe a very different result.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, could you imagine briefing? Can you imagine would you
trust Hakim Jeffries. You remember when Pete Hexsath went on
signal and they said this is dangerous discussing an upcoming
military operation on signal. Why somebody could find out what
would be more dangerous putting on signal chat or telling
Hakeem Jeffries about it. But remember, the Democrats have demanded

(09:39):
four years they have demanded. You can go to my
Twitter the videos all up there of all the Democrats
demanding the Trump removed Maduro.

Speaker 6 (09:46):
I did have conversations with him, and I said, and.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
He also, he didn't just remove me. Gave Maduro many,
many many chances to leave on his own. He gave
him plenty of the exit packages that were quite the
p coffitable for him, but he turned him all down.

Speaker 6 (10:01):
I did have conversations with him, and I said, uh,
you got to surrender. And I actually thought he was
pretty close to doing so, but now he wished he did.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah, now here's a couple of things. You know what's interesting.
All the Democrats, of course being just children. They're all
just childish knee jerk. You know, whatever Trump does, they
hate it. They start screaming and whining and pouting. And
they did that all you know who didn't say a
word about this Maduro thing. You know who's not even
mentioned it. Gavin Newsom, who is appears to be the

(10:37):
leading candidate in twenty twenty, and he's kept quiet about it.
He knows to stay out of it. Now he is
going to be the big guest. If you're a left
wing cook, this is a big night for you, because
tonight they're announcing it all day long tonight on Rachel Maddow. Exclusive.
It says right there on the screen right now, it

(10:59):
says coxclusive interview with Gavin Newsom. Exclusive interview with Gavin Newsom.
I can't go five minutes without seeing Gavin Newsom on
a radio show, a podcast, a TV show. He's on
forty thousand shows a day. But this is an exclusive
with Gavin Newsom. Now let's see if she asked him
about Maduro and he's forced to comment about it. Now,

(11:21):
here's the problem. Tim Waltz is, as Howie Carr said,
sleeping with the fishes. Tim Waltz is dead politically. He's
gone he will not seek reelection. He announced that an
hour ago. He will not seek reelection. He can't run
for reelection. His political career is over because of the
Somalia fraud, which is massive. Everybody says Gavin Newsom has

(11:45):
the same problem about to explode in California, and if
that's the case, he'll suffer the same fate that Tim
Waltz suffered. He will not be able to run and
that'll be the end of him. So this is going
to be interesting to keep an eye on. Now when
it comes to Venezuela. The only scary part when the

(12:05):
Trump adminstration says, well, we'll run of Venezuela, and everybody's,
oh my god, this is a rack all over again.
This is a raq. We're gonna get bobbed. Now. There's
a lot of differences here, many differences. First of all,
it's not a rack. This country does not resemble a rack.
When we took over Iraq, we had destroyed every inch
of government. There was nothing there. In the case of Venezuela,

(12:27):
the government is still fully functioning. Government still exists. We
just took out one guy, We did not touch the government.
It's still there, still functioning. The other difference is a
raq the chaos came from the warring factions, the different tribes,
the different groups all fighting with each other the civil war.

(12:48):
This is not the case in Venezuela. There's only one
group of people. There aren't different tribes. There's unity in
the population. That's the other job.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Now.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
The other difference is people in Iraq, believe it or not,
they loved Sadam Hussein. People in Venezuela hated Maduro. They're
all thrilled that he's gone. The other difference is in Iraq,
we were there on the ground occupying the country. There's
no such thing. In Venezuela. We are not there. We
don't have a single soldier on the ground there. We're
doing it from offshore on lots of ships. We got

(13:18):
lots of planes, drones, missiles. Also that we can do
whatever we need to from there. Who were not on
the ground, you remember, they always all we can. They're
bringing up the pottery barn rule. That was Colin Powell
that started that. When we went into Iraq, you know,
or we invaded. He always said, you got to remember
the pottery barn rule. You break it, you own it.

(13:41):
If you break it, you own it. He kept talking
about this pottery barn rule. It was all a myth.
He just made that up. There's no such thing. You know,
if you go into pottery barn today and accidentally break something,
you don't have to buy it. There's no pottery barn
rule that if you break something in the store you
own it. The rules fall It never ever ever existed. Hey,

(14:03):
the Giant season is over. The Jets season is over.
Thank god. Now. I don't know how I got swept
up in this, but everybody kept talking about the Bills
Jets game yesterday, New York Jets, Buffalo Bills. Bruce Blakeman.
Who should be the next governor. He's the best choice
for governor, Bruce Blakeman. I'm watching his Instagram. He's I'm
flying up to Buffalo. I didn't realize he's such a

(14:23):
big Buffalo fan, has been for years. In fact, he
was wearing this Buffalo T shirt that his sun bought
him years ago. He was such a Buffalo fan. But
he flew up there for the game, and all these
people are talking about the Buffalo Bills and the New
York Jets big game. Yes, I'm all hyped up. I
can't wait to watch as well. I got home late.
I had to miss the first half of the game,

(14:45):
so I put it on quickly. Oh, I want to
watch this game. I forgot it's the Jets. What the
hell am I rushing home for? Soon as I put
it on in the middle of the game, it's like thirty
eight nothing, Buffalo Bills are a head. It's the Jets.
They're not gonna what game? There was nothing competitive think
by the end, I think the Jets got one touchdown.
It was like seventy five to two or something. This
game the Jets the worst team in the world. Woody

(15:09):
Johnson is a wonderful guy. He's a great guy. I
know him. I love Woody Johnson. Worst owner in the
history of sports, single worst owner ever in the history
of sports. I've never seen anybody so bad at running anything.
It's Woody Johnson and the Jets. It's just horrible. And

(15:31):
there are plenty of people saying a mechanism needs to
be created in the NFL to take a team away
from an owner if he's ever this bad, and taking
away would mean force him to sell, which is fine.
You know, he paid six hundred million for the team.
It's now worth like nine billions. So if he took
it away and made him sell it, great, he'd make

(15:51):
a great profit, be better for everybody. And then the
Giants they're a little better. They didn't have a good season.
What were they four and eleven and four and thirty
or something like that, but they won the last couple
of games. Big mistake. They should have lost them deliberately,
because now you would have had a first choice in
the draft. Now you get like fourth choice in the draft.

(16:11):
So anyway, we'll take some calls. Next eight hundred three
to two one zero seven ten is the number eight
hundred three to two to one zero seven ten.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Marximoni's back on seventen.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Wor Well, so the left wing going nuts anything Trump does.
They're like little children. They just yell and scream and
whine and pout whatever he does. Let's say he had
a crime problem. It was out of control, and he
offered to send in troops to help police the streets
help clean up the crime. Well, they get mad and
scream and yell and pout and throw things. They go

(16:46):
to court and they get a left wing judge to
ban the National Guard from coming in, and then they cheer.
They cheer that they're gonna have less security. Now, once
in a while, you got a left wing guy who's
like sane rational for a moment or two. A Bill
Maher or Dave Chappelle. Dave Chappelle, you know, all the
left wings screaming and crying and yelling and pouting that

(17:08):
the National Guard came into Washington, d C. But listen
to Dave Chappelle went to Washington, d C. He's been
going there for years, but he went back. Now, the
Trump said in the National Guard. And what did Chappelle say?

Speaker 7 (17:22):
And I came here mad, ready to fight. But when
I drove to the city, they look clean.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Guys.

Speaker 7 (17:27):
I gotta tell you. I gotta tell you look clean.
Life better than the last time I was here.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
They left wing crowd going nuts. Let's go to doctor
Bob in Long Island. Doctor Bob, how you doing.

Speaker 8 (17:45):
I'm good, Mark, welcome back. You were dearly missed. I'll
say that two things. Number One, I think that we
have our we have instead of Dommy being the mayor,
he really is the first Nightmare of New York. That
should be his official title. Number Two, my take on
CBS News that new anchor was a little bit different

(18:09):
because he was kind of tough on Peter Hegsa and
his intonations were not that friendly.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
But also the yeah, I think you missed the point.
Of course, of course they always they always do that.
But he gave him three full segments. He left them
on the air for twenty minutes to talk. That's never
been done. That's a big, big, big, big, big change
for CBS News. Normally just beat up the guests for
twelve seconds and throw them off. They gave Hegsa three
full segments to answer. Let's go to Alan yonkers Al.

Speaker 9 (18:41):
How you doing, Hey, Mark, Good health to you in
the new year.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
I wish you the best.

Speaker 4 (18:47):
You know, Mark, I just wanted to say, back in
the summer of seventy seven, I lived right near David Berkle,
which the son Sam, and I've always been interested in
true crime, had a lot of members of my family
who were retired.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Law enforcement officers, and the point.

Speaker 4 (19:02):
But I just wanted to Yeah, I just want to say,
it looks like they've finally identified who the Zodiac killer was,
who terrorized the San Francisco It looks pretty accurate.

Speaker 9 (19:13):
Did you see that?

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Well, actually no, well look into it, but no, I
was on vacation. I have not been following the Zodiac Killer,
but it's fascinating these cold cases that they solve a
million years later. Let's go to lou In Queen's lou
How you doing.

Speaker 9 (19:32):
Hi, Mark, Welcome back, By the way, I had a
lot of lass. Listener Chris van Hollen, the Senator from
Maryland going no war for oil? Does he realize that
oil is under fifty nine bucks a barrel? Which brings
it back to January twenty twenty. And the other thing
is you broke my heart? Timothy Wolf not running for

(19:53):
the president. Where are the last gonna come from?

Speaker 1 (19:57):
Oh, don't worry, these are democrats. They'll find somebody. Just
it's as dumb as Tim Waltz. They'll find somebody even dumber.

Speaker 9 (20:04):
You know.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
The problem was, you have to when you pick a
vice president, pick somebody worse than you, somebody dumber than you.
That's one of the reasons Obama picked Joe Biden. You
don't want a guy that's smarter than you, that looks
better than you, sounds better, and shows you up. That's
why Biden picked Kamala Harris. Now the problem is when
Kamala Harris announced she was going to run. A lot

(20:26):
of political insiders said, where's she gonna find somebody dumber
than her? That's not going to be easy. Well, they
go meet with Joshapiro. He's got an iq A like
one fifty. He's talking a mile a minute. So that
was the end of him. Then they find Tim Waltz.
They couldn't believe it. They found that guy dumber than her.
Now the problem is if he runs, if he can't now,

(20:49):
but if he was gonna run, who the hell could
he find dumber than him? That would I mean, you know,
you have to go like the zoo to find somebody.
But Waltz has finished. His career is over. He announced
he will not seek reelection. That's the end to him.
You will not see him in politics anymore. I think
you'll see him try to start some sort of a
TV career. I'm sure he'll do a lot of MSNBC. Hey,

(21:12):
by the way, this Marjorie Taylor Green, who always looked
nuts you know, she always looked nutty, has been attacking
Trump left and right. Well it's paying off. He's getting
the start of a TV career. Now. You know, if
she's willing to attack Trump and call him names, and
they'll put her on anywhere. She was on Meet the Press.
Can you Meet the Press? Spent the last few years

(21:34):
telling you that Marjorie Taylor Green is a complete idiot
to a totally useless mora. Now they put her on
like she's a great spokesperson, a brilliant guest. They shower
with praise, so you're going to see more of her.
It's a great occupation, just trump bashing. You can actually
find work in television doing it. Hey, when we come back,

(21:55):
a conversation with Rob Reiner. I've been gone for the
last couple of weeks, but I did go through some
old shows. He's been a regular guest on this show
for years. He was a friend of mine. I love
the guy, Rob Reiner. I mean he's completely insane politically,
completely nuts childish as when it comes to politics. But
aside from that, he was a brilliant director, producer and

(22:19):
a great I used to just he's like me, just
studies old show business and all the great old comedians
and shows, and that's mostly what we would talk about.
But when we come back, a conversation with Rob Brian,
if you want to hear the real hymn you'll hear
it next on seven to ten wr in Mark on
Demand by setting a preset for his podcast on the

(22:39):
iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Now back to Mark Simone on War.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Well, the terrible, tragic Rob Reiner situation. So it happened
while I was on when it happened that week, so
I guess that's three weeks ago, this horrible situation. But
Rob Reiner in real life a great guy. Now, a
lot of these people that are completely nuts when it
comes to politics, I mean raving lunatics, and Rob Reiner

(23:09):
became one of them. They just it's like in your
own family, you know, when you get together for Thanksgiving,
a Christmas, the whole family gets together, and you got
an uncle or a cousin or somebody who's a crazy
left wing and you get into these fights with them.
But aside from that, they're normal, nice people that you
like a lot. But when it comes to politics, they're crazy.
They're just childish, just nuts, the over the top crazy

(23:34):
when it comes to politics. So Rob Reiner used to
be a regular guest on the show. We lost a
lot of regular guests when Trump came along. We don't
need to mention all the names, but there were a
lot of people that were regular guests on this show,
but that kind of stopped in twenty sixteen Donald Trump
took over. That was the end of those. A lot

(23:54):
of them we just couldn't put on anymore, or they
got so mad at us that they would come on,
and so that was the end of that. But Rob Reiner,
I just want you to hear this interview. This I
just went back and found an interview from a few
years ago, just right before Trump. But a good guy
in real life, and again, take away the politics. He
was a normal, nice guy. He was a brilliant director, writer, producer, actor.

(24:20):
So here is a conversation with Rob Reiner. Well with
us right now is what a talented guy, what a
career he's had. I'd call him a legend, but he's
way too young for that. But what a brilliant director,
a writer, performer. Rob Reiner is with us and it's
great to have him on the show. Rob Reiner, how
are you hi?

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Mark, Thank you very much, and thank you for calling
me too young.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
Well, you know you're one of those guys. Years from now,
when you're an old guy, you're going to be the
living legend. They're going to be doing these tributes to you,
and well you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, Well I'm in my sixties, so I consider myself
a very very young old person.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Yeah, but years ago, sixty was an old guy. Today
it's nothing.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Oh I love I love hearing that.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
So or it's either Rob Ryner. The new movie is
called Flipped. There's no better subject ever than that first love.
And you obviously when you made this, so somebody was
in your mind, some some first love of yours.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Well it was I mean when I when I was
twelve going on thirteen, it was Kathy shrill.

Speaker 9 (25:19):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
And she she was adorable. She looked like Hayley Mills
and the old parent trap.

Speaker 7 (25:25):
You know.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
She had the blonde, curly hair, kind of a tomboy.
And we exchanged id bracelets. And I remember when I
went to first kiss her, she hit me with a
hair brush. And see that's that's when I knew it
was true love, because I was willing to endure pain
in order to get a kiss.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
You ever go in like Facebook to see what where
Kathy Shrillo is today.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
No, I haven't done it, you know, but I do
pass by her house every once in a while. It's
about two blocks from where I work now, and it's
actually just to remember that time when I was in love,
and you never forget that. You never forget your first love.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
So you're not curious to see if she now looks
like Madeline allbre something there.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
Oh my god, you know, don't do that to me.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
You know, no kid wants to learn anything in school,
but the one thing we all wanted to learn was
how to talk to a girl. And it's one thing
no one ever could.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Teach you, I know, I mean I think that, you know,
to this day. You know, even as adults, men are
just totally clueless when it comes. I mean, we spend
our entire lives trying to figure out, you know, what
we should be doing with women, and hopefully they're trying
to figure out what to do with us, because you know,
it just doesn't get any easier. I don't think.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, no, it's tough, you know, like even a guy
like you in Hollywood it must have been tough as
the young guy. And then even if you get to
all in the family year though the biggest stars in
the world, it was no easier to approach a woman.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
It never is. It never is, and I you know,
I keep making the same film over and over again,
trying to figure it out. I mean, essentially, the girl
is always so much more mature, She has much more
of a sense of herself and very settled with her.
And the boy is always running around like an idiot
trying to figure out what's going on, and he's usually dragged,
kicking and screaming into maturity by the girl.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
So and Rob Reyner look at these films. If you
if you had just made any one of these, you'd
be your legend. But from a few good men to
Misery to when Harry met Sally and stand by me, now, Misery,
what were you? What were you reflecting on there?

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Well that you know, oddly enough, it sounds weird for
me to be making a film like that. But at
the time, you know, I, when I became a director,
I the people from television just were not thought of
as being movie people. We were looked down upon like
second class citizens and you know, the lesser of you know,
the lesser show business people. And so it was hard

(27:34):
for me to make the transition to become a director.
And I related to the guy in the in the
movie who was a success doing one kind of thing,
who wanted to do something else and was being held
down by these fans that wanted to keep them trapped
in that one, you know, one area. So I kind
of related to that character.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
I got to be honest. There are scenes in Misery
I cannot watch certain moments.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
I can't look at you and you have a problem
with that ankle break, I can't what would you? Are
you a w yes?

Speaker 1 (28:02):
How did you look at it? Take after it takes?

Speaker 9 (28:04):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (28:04):
No, well, you know, I mean wow, because I know
what went into it. I know we didn't actually break
his ankle, so I but it is. It is pretty gruesome,
and most people have When we first screened it, people
were just whoa, they wouldn't feel crazy.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Rob Bryan are one of the great directors in the world.
What's tougher to direct a guy like Jack Nicholson or
one of these kids in the movie?

Speaker 2 (28:26):
You know, Jack's gonna kill me Jack? No, they're both.
They're all professionals. I mean, oddly enough, these two kids
were as developed as any adult I've ever worked with.
So you know, when I did stand by Me, it
was it was tougher because the kids were not as experienced,
and some of them hadn't never acted before, but in

(28:47):
this case, the kids were Their craft was as developed
as any adult I've worked with. So I would say
even even between Jack Nicholson and the kids.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
Wow. But so you've got such a track record of
the guys like you, very few, but guys like you
who everything they pick, every project, it's brilliant, it's great,
it's this. And then you get other guys who even
top stars, who one movie's great and one movie is
just ridiculous. You wonder what made them even do it?
What does that all come from?

Speaker 2 (29:13):
You know, it's just instinct. You have an indut Listen.
I've had some flops too, you know, everybody does. You know,
it's just an instinct. You go with what you think
you like and hopefully the audience likes it. And you know,
I've been lucky more often than not that the audience
did like what I liked.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Now we're talking with Rob Reiner. Let me ask you
all in the family question. We were arguing about this before.
It was a revolutionary breakthrough. Show is brilliant, But what
we were saying was you couldn't do that show today.
You would never get it on the air.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
No, No, we're living in two PC a world for
that for that to happen. And I think also attitudes
have changed. I mean it's not to say we couldn't
have a show where there was the issues of the
day debated. You know, we are living in a very
divided country, you know, red state, blue state and all that.
But I think the argument would not be there would
be a little bit more PC. I mean, the racism

(30:03):
has not completely gone away, but obviously we have elected
a black president and so things have changed dramatically since
the early seventies, but they raised, you know, the arguments
would be much more muted. I think.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah. And even if normally were trying to use Archie
Bunker to expose what was wrong today, you'd have sponsored
boycots you have everything.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Oh yeah, no, no, you couldn't. You couldn't have that
kind of And people don't really talk like that now.
I mean it's changed a lot. I mean people may
still feel those things, but they are at least smart.
Unless you're law as Lessenger, then you don't know that
you shouldn't talk like that.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Who's that doctor Laura?

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (30:40):
Don't you remember I know her last name? Yeah, doctor Laura?

Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yea Yeah, No, she pulled the N word out of
the hat there and basically joined the long line of
people who have destroyed their careers.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
Yeah, she seemed like a combination Archie and Edith Bunker
all at once.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Hit makes you one with because you were talking about
your judgment you're great at. So this this company you formed,
castle Rock. Yeah, every time we see something brilliant, even Seinfeld,
there's that name castle Rock at the end of it.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah. We named it actually after the town in stand
By Me, which was Stephen King's creation. You know. It
was the stand by Me was taken from a Stephen
King novella called The Body, And so I loved making
that movie. It meant so much to me, like Flipped,
and they're very similar in that way. And so we
named our company that. And we've been around the twenty

(31:28):
three years now. We've made like over one hundred movies.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Wow, and you're in part responsible for Seinfeld.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yes, that was our That was our TV show that
we that we produced, and we you know, we're very
proud of a lot of the films. I mean, we
had Shoushank Redemption, which was one of our favorite films
that we've done, and it's been, you know, on all
these top ten lists, and so we've done. We're very
happy with what we've done.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
Wow, amazing career. And I guess it runs in the
family too, because normally when there's a great a guy
like your father, the son's never quite as good. But
in this case, yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
It's funny that you mentioned that, because I've had this
conversation with Michael Douglas. You know, on a number of occasions,
if very few, you can count them on one hand
of the children of very successful people in show business
who you know, achieved at at a very high level,
whose children have survived and done well. I mean it's
a small small list.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, I mean usually it's more, I hit to say
it like a Frank Sinudther junior kind of deal. And
so you must have worried about that, the comparison I did.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
I mean, you know, it's it's a tough road to hoe.
And but my dad tells this story all the time,
and I don't remember it, but he tells it. When
I was eight years old, apparently I went up to
him and you know, I said, Dad, I want to
change my name, and he got all worried. He thought
Oh my god. This poor kid is worried about having
to live up to the you know, to Carl Reiner

(32:49):
and all this stuff. And so he said, well, what
do you want to change your name to? And I said,
Carl Basically, I love being a Yaner and I just
wanted to be like him, you know, I just I
loved him so much, and I looked up to him
so much. I just wanted to be him.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
So now you have to have a child that's going
to take over the family business.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Well, I don't know. And I have three kids, and
you know, I don't know what they're gonna do. But
whatever they choose, and as long as they're happy in
doing what they like, I'm I'm happy.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
Wow. Well, Rob Reiner, congratulations on an absolutely amazing career
and keep up all the good work.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Thank you so much for having me Mark.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
All right, take care? Okay, byeye, Well, Rob Reyner a
couple of years ago, do you hear that part at
the end, we're talking about his kids. So he said,
I have three kids. I don't know what they're gonna do. WHOA.
So anyway, the son, Nick Reiner in custody, he'll go
to trial. They've both sides have asked to delay it.

(33:45):
So normally be happening this week, it's going to be
towards the end of the month they'll start. Nobody knows
what the son will plead. Could be not guilty, could
be insanity. You know, these drugs they put kids on
that have all kinds of mental troubles the side effects,
and it says right in the side effects these psychotropic drugs,

(34:07):
it says could cause homicidal behavior, suicidal behavior, could cause
all kinds of stuff like that. So they may go
after that use that as the defense that it was
the drugs that did this to them. But we'll see.
Today's the anniversary one year anniversary of congestion pricing. You know,

(34:28):
the Democrats yell and scream about affordability, then they hit
you with congestion pricing, which affects a lot of people working.
People the drive trucks or cabs or stuff like that,
or need to commute in the middle of the night
or something like that. So a year anniversary and today
the MTA tolls go up. Fair hike MTA fair hike

(34:49):
begins today. So this is of course typical you know,
democratic left wing socialist definitely, you know totally hypocritical, yelling
about afford to building and then raising the price on everything. Now,
where's Mum Donnie on this? Why is he g gotten rid
of the congestion pricing? Why is he speaking of about
this toll increase which affects everybody? You know, the MTA

(35:13):
raising the tolls. It doesn't affect a lot of billionaires.
It really doesn't bother them at all. It's people that
are working hard or struggling, that's who suffers from this.
But not a word from Mom Donnie about it. His
inauguration a mess. Hey Curtis was there at the inauguration.
Chuck Schumer was there, but left in the middle. Typical

(35:36):
rude Chuck Schumer just left right in the middle. Mandy
Patinkin performed there. If you love Mandy Patinkin, think twice
about it. Nobody worked harder to get Mum Donnie elected
than this lunatic Mandy Patinkin. Anyway, we got a lot
to well, we'll wrap it up in a moment. Buck
and Clay are back. They'll be here today and Sean
Hannity back at three, Jimmy Fayla back to night coming

(36:00):
up on seven to ten. Wor you're ahead of the
game just for being here, he s marks alone on
seven ten WR Well, we're out of time. Not bad
first show back. I think I got the hang of it.
I think will be okay for the rest of the week. Anyway,

(36:22):
we thank Curtis for filling in for a couple of weeks.
It's that, you know, everybody was gone for two weeks,
all the hosts radio television, everybody vanished for two weeks.
Everybody should be back today. Buck and Clay do a
great show. They'll be coming up next. I think they're
both back today. Then the most listened to radio show
in America Sean Hannity three o'clock. He'll be back, and

(36:44):
Jesse Kelly at six and Jimmy Faylor will be back.
That's you should listen to that every night. It's a
great show nine to midnight. And I'm here ten to
noon every day. And hey, also, make sure you follow
me on Twitter. Lots of great videos and stuff I
put up on Twitter. Mark Simone ny Twitter. Make sure
you follow me on Instagram. Lots of pictures, lots of
stuff there. Mark Simone NYC at Instagram. So thanks for

(37:09):
being here. I missed you. Thanks for everything Talk to
you tomorrow seven ten Woor
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