August 28, 2025 • 39 mins
Follow up on the investigation into the school shooting in Minneapolis. Are your children attending a school that is fortified? Are they safe? Thoughts and prayers were mocked by Jen Psaki. Not a good thing. Chaos at CDC. The director is not resigning and says she is not fired, just a month after being hand selected by RFK, Jr. And Truck'n Curmudgeon weighs in on immigrants driving big rigs.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And welcome to the Big Podcast. Is Thursday. Today's the
twenty eighth day of August, Year of Our Lord, twenty
twenty five. My name is Tom Sullivan. So we have
we still have spillover from yesterday regarding the shooting at
the Catholic church in Minneapolis. And I got an email
(00:46):
or now I got a phone call from Eric in
the Bay Area asking me why I never mentioned the
fact that the shooter was transgender. And while as we
recorded yesterday, it did not come out until late in
the day, at least here on the East Coast, that
the shooter was somebody. They'd never identified who it was
(01:06):
until late in the day, and they said to it
was Robert, but then corrected to the person changed their
name to Robin. Okay, that was the first clue that, well,
wait a minute, what's going They never mentioned transgender, but
a lot of people are talking about transgenderism and this shooting,
(01:28):
and the reason for it is there is an uncanny
parallel to the shooting that took place a couple of
years ago at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, and
it was the same thing.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
It was.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
A transgender who had gone to that school and carried
three weapons just like the one yesterday. We go down
the list of all the things that line up perfectly.
So I don't know what's the transgender impact was of
all of this. I've heard many people that are well
(02:12):
thought people, well thought of people that have said that
transgenderism is a form of mental illness. That you think
you're a different gender than the body that you have
is some form of mental illness. I have no idea.
It's beyond my comprehension. I don't know how you get there.
(02:36):
But there obviously are people that do think that they
are in the wrong body. And there's a lot of transgenders.
I mean, there's not a lot in the population percentage wise,
but there's still a lot of people that are transgender
that don't go around shooting innocent civilians, let alone children.
(02:56):
So I will acknowledge that it is part of the story,
and it ties in with the person in Nashville who
did the same exact thing, and I'll leave it to
the psychologist to figure out whether or not that mental
(03:17):
process involves also becoming violent. And I just don't know.
All I know is that there's there's a lot of
uh pushback today on that and I wanted to address it,
but I really don't. I'm not qualified to say whether
(03:37):
or not somebody that is transgender thinks of themselves in
a way that's violent versus the rest of us. I
will tell you this. I've been very clear on this.
I do not understand and I think it's absolutely wrong,
and and thankfully a number of states have decided to
(03:58):
codify it. But ting to change the gender of somebody
that's under the age of eighteen, I would prefer twenty one,
I think is wrong. We used to not let a
school nurse give an aspirin to your child without getting
parental permission, and now there are people that are trying
(04:19):
to abscond with these underage children to help them with
their transition. And I'm sorry. If you're an adult, preferably
over twenty one, and you are believing that you're in
the wrong body, it doesn't bother me. I don't care.
(04:40):
I really don't care. That affects you and your life.
I don't know how it affects my life. You want
to be a boy and you're a girl now or
vice versa. You just go for it. I'm not going
to tell you what to do or how to think
or what you should or should not do if you're
under twenty one. Now I have a problem because young
(05:04):
kids cannot make those kinds of decisions. They just cannot.
So I think it's absolutely wrong, all right. John Miller,
former NYPD counter terrorism guy, was asked about the latest
on the investigation in that shooting.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Well, the investigation today takes a dramatic slow down in
that it appears the shooter acted alone. It appears, and
this is a question that will be probed as they
keep going, that no one else had direct knowledge of this.
So now since there's no one to prosecute, the searches
have been conducted. They'll be spending days, if not weeks,
(05:43):
getting into electronic devices analyzing more. But the shooter prepared
for investigators what he wanted them to see, the extensive
writings in the notebook, which was written in cyrillic texts,
so it literally had to be decoded into English, and
then the plane plain English note to his family. There
(06:05):
are questions in there because we have referred to it
as law enforcement has referred to it as a manifesto,
But it doesn't give us a lot of clues as
to some political grievance or cause. It's mostly in terms
of the copy about his suffering, his grievances, his unhappiness
in life, which gets us to, all, right, then why
(06:27):
that target? Why a Catholic school? Why a school that
he attended where his mother worked as an employee, Especially
when you look at the video and what he has
written on these firearms is anti black, anti Jew, anti everybody.
It doesn't really single out Catholics except to say one
(06:50):
magazine says, this is for the children. Another magazine says,
where is your God now? And the direction they're going
in in terms of targeting, is he picked that target
as opposed to his high school or some other place
because it would be the most terrible in terms of victimology.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Darren Ports or former NYPD lieutenant, also picks up on
what he sees right.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Well, the question is an endlest but one of the
things that I look to is the fortifications that we
should have in place in these institutions of learning. More
specific to the religious schools, you generally don't have these
that happen at the religious schools. They happen more so
in the public schools. With exception of what happened in
Tennessee in the past. But at the same token, what
(07:36):
fortifications could be in play. I think to the triangulation
of having an armed security officer outside as well as
drone technology and surveillance campus. So when you have that triangulation,
what it does is it helps. In addition to that,
we had to manifesto that was produced, and I think
that the social media community can do much more in
(07:59):
terms of looking at this content and having this blocked
as opposed of being introduced to us as a common public.
It appears as if this was a copycat attack, and
we see this happen far too much. And I believe
that what these communities can do more so specific to
the schools, is focused on a triangulation that I spoke to.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
All Right, a couple of reactions. First of all, the
guy was mentally ill. He was full of anxiety, he
was obsessed, he had hatred, he had all of that,
and so you've got to stop and wonder anybody see that.
I'm sure there were people that saw that. In fact,
(08:40):
going back to the transgender issue, he wanted to change
his name because of the fact that he felt that
he was a woman not a man. So he wanted
to change it from Robert to Robin. And he was
seventeen at the time, and so it took his mother.
There's signature to allow him to change his name. What
(09:05):
was his mother thinking. I mean, it's more than just
oh my sweet little boy wants to be a sweet girl. No,
it's got to be what's wrong with my son? Why
is he doing this? Did she ask any questions? We
don't know, but she signed it and she shouldn't have.
She should have gotten him help counseling. Maybe she did,
(09:27):
but at this point it looks bizarre. And then did
Darren Porcher's comment about well, he's a very studious guy
talking about triangulation at the schools. He's going right down
my path. Harden these soft targets. I'm sorry, they're wide
(09:49):
open and nobody does anything about it. And well, that's
going to cost a lot of money. Do you know
how much money we waste in this country every year.
I'd like to unwate some of that and put it
into hardening up a lot of these targets so that
when you drop your child off for school they have
it's not perfect, that they would have a much better
(10:10):
chance of not being gunned down like they were yesterday.
Back to John Miller.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Be the most important question today because it gets to
the question that has been echoing through your segments earlier
today with father that you interviewed, who said his eyes
burned from tears, is what did we miss? What could
have been seen? What can we do all of this
information that's going to be gathered. What's in his phone,
what's in his computer? What was in those documents? What
(10:37):
does the video mean? Who is he referring to with
all those names? I mean, we know a lot of
that because it feeds into BAU Behavioral Analysis Unit FBI.
Those are the profilers you watch Criminal Minds or mind Hunter.
Those people exist in real life and they take that
and they build the common threads of these shooters. Right
now today, while we wait forever for politicians to figure
(10:59):
outgun control legislation and all that. That may never happen,
but right now today you can go to FBI, dot gov,
slash prevent and they tell you these are the signs.
These are the people who you can approach if you
don't want to call the police. These are the things
you can say. These are the typical indicators. They have videos,
(11:21):
they have examples, They have written documents, they have you know, cards.
All the resources are there, and more attention needs to
be pushed towards the not just why didn't some eighty
five percent of these cases, they have what you call
leakage indicators to others, to friends, to family that they're
about to do something, but people don't always recognize it
(11:43):
with leakage till after the event, when suddenly it's crystal
clear this is how to spot that.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Well.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I admire the fact that the police are out there
trying and they do all of this research and they
check this and check that, and they go back and forth.
But there's so many The human is so complicated and
our behaviors are so complicated and trying to put it
into a formula that you can therefore point to and
(12:11):
say this person is going to be a school shooter.
First of all, we have you just can't go arrest
somebody for something that they might do. Secondly, is there's
a lot of people that see the leaky as John
Miller called it, of people putting out all kinds of
indicators that they're about ready to do something heinous, but
(12:35):
people are afraid to pick up the phone and call
the police and say, you know, I think my friend,
I think my son, I think my dad, I think
my cousin. Yeah, I think they're I think about ready
to go shoot up at school. First of all, people
won't do that, and secondly, the police will go, okay,
thank you very much, call us back if something happens.
(12:58):
I'm not saying this is a waste time, but it's
kind of in that paragraph somewhere. That's why I say,
you can't stop the perpetrator from wanting to do these things,
other than you can protect the victims from that perpetrator
getting to them by hardening up the soft targets. That's
(13:22):
the only solution that I have of my sleeve. But
I mean, if I haven't done it, But if you
want to go with John was talking about, go to
FBI dot gov slash prevent and apparently they have tips
for you there. So if you do have somebody, a neighbor,
a relative, a friend, who's acting dangerous, go there and
(13:47):
read about it. Maybe it will inspire you to pick
up the phone and call the police, and maybe they
will do something about it. But what can they do.
You cannot arrest people for thinking about doing it. You
gotta get them after they've committed the crime. The other
part about this, which is drives me crazy. And it
went on again today. They had a couple of news
(14:11):
conferences in Minneapolis today in which basically they had every
Tom Dick and Harry politician that were standing there. They
were rushing to the microphone, rushing to the cameras. Look
at me, look at me, I'm right here. Drives me nuts.
Jen Saki, former press secretary for Joe Biden. She put
(14:36):
out a tweet that has not been received well today
and it's about prayer.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Now.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I don't know Jen Saki from the Man in the Moon,
but what she put out was she said, prayer is
not freaking enough. Prayers do not end school shootings. Prayers
do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to scoo.
Prayer does not bring these kids back enough with the
(15:03):
thoughts and prayers. So I'm believe it or not. Everybody's
criticizing it except for I'll give her this much. The
thoughts in prayers thing is kind of a platitude for
a lot of these politicians. Oh yes, we have them
in our thoughts and prayers. They just throw it out there.
It's not something in their heart. But what it's doing
(15:25):
is it's insulting prayer, and for those who believe in prayer,
it's doubly insulting. Mary Catherine Ham weighed in on this.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
Yeah, I just think, first of all, my thoughts and
prayers are with the families who are dealing with this
unspeakable tragedy today and having to talk to their children
about it, those who lost their children. It is right
and good and I think necessary to pray in these times.
It is sad to hear public figures very quickly turn
to saying that prayer is nonsense or unnecessary or weak.
(16:00):
And I think if I were to give them the
good faith interpretation that they're unwilling to give their friends
on the right, I would say that this is a
call to action. Right, they're frustrated that there's not action
that goes with prayer. But your response does not need
to be to denigrate prayer. And it becomes actually perverse
when the people in the pews were likely attacked for
practicing their religion, for practicing this tenet of faith, and
(16:24):
you say that because that didn't protect them, or because
that doesn't solve the problem, that people should not pray,
and that you denigrate that practice. I have lived a
life that has had its portion very different but nonetheless
of sort of unthinkable tragedy. And prayer did not solve
the fact that my husband died while I was seven
months pregnant, but it did not prevent that. But it
(16:47):
got me through every single day after that. It helped
me to raise my children. And I just think that
taking the message to the public that that is somehow
an insult two people who were killed while practicing their
faith is so gross.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Yeah, I don't know what's wrong with Jensaki to basically
mock prayer. Okay, maybe she doesn't believe in prayer, Fine,
a lot of people do, and it's just absolutely not
only the wrong thing to do, but the timing of
it was could it couldn't have been worse. So I've
(17:26):
got this notice. We get them every day about what's
going to be happening in the news world, and they
this is from CBS. They're headlines for stations and it
says at two o'clock Eastern Minneapolis City Hall, Minnesota lawmakers
from every level of government, the Minnesota Chapter Mom's Demand Action,
(17:50):
and other gun violence prevention advocates will hold a news
conference to honor the victims of the mass shooting at
Annunciation Catholic Church school and call for action, including a
ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines. So it's
a bunch of politicians getting together and I just think
they've tried this. You've got four hundred million guns in
(18:15):
this country. You're not going to be able to get
them confiscated. So why do you keep beating your head
against a brick wall and it doesn't change a thing. Sadly,
this is just the latest iteration of these kinds of
terrible stories. So let's move on to other topics that
(18:36):
are going on out there today. There's a lot of them.
There's a big shakeup at the CDC, the Center for
Disease Control, and what's happened there is that the director,
a doctor by the name of Susan Monarrez. She was
(18:58):
just picked by I RFK Jr. To be the director
of the CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She
was just picked. She was just she went through Senate
confirmation and they said, yep, we give you a thumbs up.
That was in late July. Here we are in late August.
(19:19):
And the reason she was fired, according to her lawyer
was when CDC Director Susan Manaraz refused to rubber stamp unscientific,
reckless directives and fired dedicated health experts. She chose protecting
the public over serving a political agenda, and for that
(19:40):
she has been targeted. So it gets weirder after that.
So that's her lawyer, so that they're saying, well, she
wasn't fired because you didn't fire her correctly. Only the
president can fire her. And also she hasn't resigned. So
now we're hitting in two. We've got Lisa Cook, the
(20:04):
governor on the Federal Reserve Board, who also is not
stepping down because she and her lawyers have filed a
lawsuit against Donald Trump. And by the way, there's a
hearing on this tomorrow morning at ten am in District
Court in DC that basically she said, yeah, I'm not
(20:25):
stepping down, and no, you can't fire me. This is
an independent agency. So over at the CDC, her lawyers
are saying you didn't fire her correctly, and she's not
stepping down. So we've got we've got chaos at both
the Federal Reserve Board and at the Centers for Disease Control.
(20:51):
I don't know what's going to happen on the on
this business about RFK Junior. Is he shaking things up? Absolutely?
He overse he's the CDC, he's the head of the
Department of Health and Human Services and CDC answers to him.
So it's going to be interesting. She got called she's
(21:12):
down Atlanta. Remember that CDC was that crazy gunman went
down there and fired all kinds of rounds of guns
into the CDC headquarters just outside of the city of Atlanta,
and a police officer was killed in that whole foray.
So it's very strange times in trying to run these
(21:36):
various agencies in the federal government. I don't know how
you're feeling about all of this that AREFK Jr. Is doing.
I know he's controversial. I know he is set in
the past about vaccines. He doesn't like him not all
of them, some of them. And now they've come out
with new rules for the COVID vaccine and you have
(21:57):
to be sixty five or older or very rigid rules
about who can get the vaccine for COVID. They basically
held back on the measles vaccine and we had the
biggest outbreak we've had in decades. So I don't know
who to believe. Do I believe the new people that
(22:22):
RFK Jr. Is bringing in. These people are doctors, They
have backgrounds that look pretty scientific to me. But the
people that are getting fired are also doctors and have
lots of experience in this. So because this director of
(22:42):
the CDC, Susan, doctor Susan minieris is in between whether
she's the director or not. Well behind that came the
news that all this trouble was coming down. So the
four top officials at the seat threw their resignations on
(23:02):
the table last night. Doctor Deborah Horri, chief medical officer
at CDC, Doctor Dmitri das Lexis, Director of the National
Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, doctor Daniel Jernigan, Director
of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.
(23:26):
And doctor Jen Layden, Director of the Office of Public Health,
Data Surveillance and Technology. So the whole place is in
a big upheaval. Doctor Dmitrie put a post on X
it's very very long. What happened to the old twenty
eight character's limit? Anyway, He wrote a note saying my
(23:49):
resignation letter from the CDC, and he put this letter
out there, so the decision has not come easily. I
deeply value the work that the CDC does in safeguarding
public health. I'm proud of my contribution to that critical mission. However,
after much contemplation and reflection on recent developments and perspectives
brought to light by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior, I
(24:11):
find the views he and his staff have shared challenged
my ability to continue in my current role at the
agency and in the service of the health of the
American people. Enough is enough? So he's I don't know
who to believe. Who do you trust? I always would
put my trust in doctors over politicians, but now the
(24:34):
doctors are being replaced by politicians and they seem to
be credible as well. Who do you trust? And if
you want to get vaccines, how are you going to
get vaccines if the government is telling you you can't
have them? A lot of questions, a lot of chaos,
a lot of questions. In another area, this is down
(24:57):
in Florida with Alligator Alcatraz, and there are lawsuits that
have been filed to prevent Ice from using that as
a detention facility. The reason. They've had some lawsuits but
they've been thrown out. But the latest one uses the
(25:19):
environmental laws and says that you are harming the environment
by having your detention facility out there in the middle
of in the middle of the Everglades. And I don't
understand the whole environmental thing, because if you go back
and look before they put up all those they're basically
(25:41):
temporary facilities. It's cost them a lot of money to
do it, but it's right at an airstrip. So I
looked up the airstrip and it's the DAID call your
Training and Transition Airport, and it's been there forever. So
I don't know what they did. What they built these
these tents to detain people. They're not there more than
(26:03):
tenths but you know the kind of temporary buildings, and
they are built on the concrete from the air where
the airport was, and they got the airstrip there, so
it doesn't look like they disturbed the environment at all.
So we'll see where this goes. I suspect that the
(26:24):
ICE is going to win this case, but this is
a federal judge, and the judge is you can't do
this and they're so ICE to saying, okay, there was
about four hundred detainees there a couple of weeks ago.
They're down to one hundred and eighty, and they're basically saying,
we're going to go ahead and comply and we will
(26:45):
work this down to where the judges you can't bring
any new people in. They said, okay, but they're moving
people out. They put them on planes and fly them
to some other country as they deport them. So at
this point ICE is cooperating with shutting this operation down there.
The thing about it is, this is not a permanent facility.
(27:05):
This is a temporary facility to basically bring detainees, process
them there, then put them on planes and fly them
off to other parts of the world. Tom Holman, he
obviously feels differently about that.
Speaker 6 (27:22):
Well, first of all, elegant to Alcatraz. You know, I
got a lot of questions about that, so I actually
made a trip down there. I spent the entire day
down there. So I don't think this judge went down
there and toured the facility, because I think the decision
is bad. I mean, I went, I walked to the
attention part where the aliens are housed, clean, well kept,
you know, and I went I went to the medical
(27:44):
facility and talked to the medical staff and seen a
great medical program to have there. Had no serious medical issues.
Speaker 7 (27:49):
What they was.
Speaker 6 (27:50):
They actually had a helicopter there to take them to
the neurotrauma center. But they had a great medical facility
there that I went to and talked to the positions
and the nurses. I went to the cafeteria and looked
at the food they're feeding these people. And as far
as environmental concerns, I mean, I was briefed at all
the waste, all the non possable water, all of that
is taking off facility every day. As far as facility itself,
(28:14):
it's sitting on existing concrete that was already there in
the airports. I don't understand the judges really. I think
it's a radical decision. I think it's really about anti
immigration enforcement rather than the condition of the facility.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I was there.
Speaker 6 (28:26):
Look, it's a transition facility, it's not a long term facility.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Now.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
Because of that, I truly believe we need more brick
and mortar. We have the money now to do it.
We need to build an infrastructure that's going to last.
We need more brick and mortar facilities for longer term detention,
but these transitional facilities. I thank god the governors are
stepping up. I'm proud of the governor's stepping up and
helping ICE to detain people, remove people, because this illegommigration
(28:51):
the last four years is historical immigration effect to the
States too. Trump, I'm happy that the governors are stepping up.
As far as their names, you know, I just don't
want these names to detract from the hard work ICE
is doing. ICE agents. They're doing a difficult, dangerous job,
a serious job. They're doing it with integrity and dignity
and honor. I just don't want, you know, the names
(29:11):
to detract from the serious work they're doing.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Well they are. And the governor of Florida, rond de Santis,
he's stood behind this the whole way. This is what
he had to say about it today.
Speaker 7 (29:23):
EHS determines who goes into those facilities and who goes
out of those facilities. Although we'd be willing to do it,
but we are not the ones actually removing them from
those facilities and sending them back their home country.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yep. It's totally a federal program. Immigration is federal and
Ronda Sants is supportive, but he's not involved other than
they have that facility there. It seems to me like
a perfect place to fly people in process them, figure
(29:58):
out where you're sending them, and a monoplane, and then
off they go. It's away from many population center and
I don't see the environmental problem since that airport has
been there for a long time. In fact, in fact,
if you look at the history of this little dinky
one runway airports, they had great plans for this. They
(30:21):
built the thing in nineteen sixty eight. It was known
then as the Everglades Jetport, and the idea was they
wanted it to be the largest airport in the world.
They wanted six runways. They wanted to connect Miami and
the Gulf of Mexico by an expressway and a monorail line.
(30:43):
So it would have been five times the size of
JFK Airport in New York. So it was a big deal.
But environmental concerns were the reason they canceled it and
construction was halted in nineteen seventy. So it's still running
into headwinds on becoming the biggest airport in the world.
(31:05):
And speaking of transportation. We'd really we only mentioned it
a couple of times. That was a week or so,
a week or two ago where the illegal that was
driving a truck and trailer big semi operation in Florida
and made a U turn in the middle of an
interstate highway car crashed into the trailer. Three people were killed.
(31:30):
Then they found out that the guy not only was
here illegally, leaved from India, and he did not speak
a lick of English and also did not read any English,
so he could not read the road signs. But even
with all that, it's a head scratcher. So I got
(31:51):
in touch with truck and curmudgeon who's been in the
trucking business for a long time, and we had this
conversation about it.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
How many a long.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
How many illegals are out there driving these big riegs.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
You know, there's a lot of immigrants. I can't tell
you who's illegal and who's not just by looking at them,
but there's a lot of immigrants. It got way worse
under Obama. That's when they dropped the regulation about speaking English.
That regulation has been in place since the nineteen thirties. Sure,
(32:27):
you know you had somebody that couldn't communicate. You placed
them out of service. You called the company and you
had them send out a qualified driver. But when Obama
took over, they told federal dot to stand down, and
they told the states to stand down, so they had
all these unqualified people coming in. I mean, Tom, the
(32:48):
truck stops are an absolute garbage pit. The same thing
with the rest areas. They it's like they don't know
how to use it, toil it.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
I remember them. I remember the complaints during the Obama administration.
What it was. It was about Mexican truck drivers. And
it wasn't necessarily about Mexicans themselves so much as it
was that they had trucks that were not maintained. Nobody
spent the money to keep the trucks maintained. Talking about
(33:19):
steering and brakes, things like that that are kind of important.
That was the complaint. It wasn't a racial complaint. It
was an equipment complaint more than anything else.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
But if I'm and if I'm driving down the road
in Mexico, I'm not sure exactly what that sign says,
but it's not I think I might be able to
figure it out kind of.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
But when I was in Italy. I didn't have any trouble.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Yeah, I've driven all over Europe and I figured out
where I needed to go. So I don't know why
this guy couldn't figure out the road signs.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
They Uh, they tend to be in a hurry, particularly
young inexperienced drivers tend to be in a hurry. They
let the dispatchers push them. Old guys like me, we
tell the dispatcher where to go, and so we either
do it or we don't. But a lot of young
inexperienced drivers. And I put immigrants in that category as well,
(34:23):
because they're easy for dispatcher to abuse because they don't
know that. They don't know the laws. They don't know
the labor laws, they don't know what's permissible what's not,
and you know, the these dispatchers will force them. There's
a coercion rule out there that came about a few
years ago. Actually I was I was part of the
(34:45):
suit on that with with the Owner Operators Association because
of a shipper that had us leave the property after
we were out of service or out of hours. So yeah,
it's very easy abuse the immigrants. I watch, uh some
of the some of these receiving companies, particularly in the
(35:06):
retail end of it. How they treat a fellow that
walks in with a turbine on his head to in
comparison with me when I walk in and I'm obviously
of the red peck persuasion, and you know, they treat
them entirely different. Of course, they could be frustrated because
(35:29):
they don't speak very well Brea good English either, but
they do get abused, and I kind of feel bad
for them in that respect.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
What what's the what's the status of the trucking industry?
From where you sit? We keep hearing about people are
going to start slowing down on their spending. You talked
about retail, but manufacturing numbers are down all that, and
I'm going it's got to show up on on the
the docks of trucks.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
No, No, not at all. In fact, I ask about
it occasionally and people don't seem to think that it's
it's a huge factor. I don't think it's it's really
affecting the freight as much as the market as the
Biden market is affecting the freight. We'll see we just
(36:22):
did they just have it recovered from that?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah? No, it so did Biden put put the brakes
on the trucking industry or just on business as in general,
would slow down the trucking industry.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Yeah, business in general. We're the first ones to see
an uptick. We're the first ones to see a downtick
because for us, it's August. We're already moving Christmas freight.
So and it's not particularly strong this year, by the way,
So yeah, it's there. There may be some pent up
(36:58):
demand when it finally hits.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
And then being cautious, they're just being cautious.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Maybe absolutely well, they're they're busy trying to afford ground
beef instead of steak, and you know, uh, and trying
to put groceries on the table. The extra income seems
to have dried up in many places, particularly in the
lower income levels.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
It doesn't surprise me, all right, So at the truck stops,
you see lots of immigrants, but you don't know if
they're legal or ill legal.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Lots of immigrants. I mean there's and I don't I
have no problem with the immigrants is as long as
they do what they're supposed to do, Assimilate to our culture,
assimilate to our our our highways. But you know it
goes in waves. I mean years ago, it would have
it would have been our ancestors, the iron then the Italians, Yeah,
(38:03):
you know then then then then you had the Russians
and the Punjabis come over, and there was you know,
there was a learning curve there for those.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
But one thing about immigrants is that they they they
bring over their cousins, their brother in laws. I mean,
that's the way immigrants have always operated. You bring over
your your family and friends, and you know you've got
a job waiting in America. They're going to come and they.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Bring over a work ethic that a lot of Americans
have forgot about.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Mmm. That's a little bit of our conversation with trucking curmudgeon,
who is on the front lines out there in the
trucking industry. Let's check in with Wall Street. See what
happened there today and and uh oh oh, look at
this it was. It was a good day for Wall Street.
(38:57):
We have been a while, but the first time we've
had a record in I'm thinking months on the Dow,
the Dow Jones industrials up seventy one points. Never seen
this before forty five thousand, six thirty six. The SMP
has been hitting records. They hit another one today, up
(39:17):
twenty to sixty five oh one nasdak no, I mean
this close to a record, up one hundred and fifteen.
The twenty one thousand and seven five the price of gold,
good day for gold, up twenty eight dollars to thirty
four to seventy seven. And oil it was up just
(39:38):
a smidgeon twenty cents higher, up to sixty four dollars
for one barrel of oil. Thank you for coming by today.
We're going to try this again tomorrow and we hope
to see them
And welcome to the Big Podcast. Is Thursday. Today's the
twenty eighth day of August, Year of Our Lord, twenty
twenty five. My name is Tom Sullivan. So we have
we still have spillover from yesterday regarding the shooting at
the Catholic church in Minneapolis. And I got an email
(00:46):
or now I got a phone call from Eric in
the Bay Area asking me why I never mentioned the
fact that the shooter was transgender. And while as we
recorded yesterday, it did not come out until late in
the day, at least here on the East Coast, that
the shooter was somebody. They'd never identified who it was
(01:06):
until late in the day, and they said to it
was Robert, but then corrected to the person changed their
name to Robin. Okay, that was the first clue that, well,
wait a minute, what's going They never mentioned transgender, but
a lot of people are talking about transgenderism and this shooting,
(01:28):
and the reason for it is there is an uncanny
parallel to the shooting that took place a couple of
years ago at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, and
it was the same thing.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
It was.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
A transgender who had gone to that school and carried
three weapons just like the one yesterday. We go down
the list of all the things that line up perfectly.
So I don't know what's the transgender impact was of
all of this. I've heard many people that are well
(02:12):
thought people, well thought of people that have said that
transgenderism is a form of mental illness. That you think
you're a different gender than the body that you have
is some form of mental illness. I have no idea.
It's beyond my comprehension. I don't know how you get there.
(02:36):
But there obviously are people that do think that they
are in the wrong body. And there's a lot of transgenders.
I mean, there's not a lot in the population percentage wise,
but there's still a lot of people that are transgender
that don't go around shooting innocent civilians, let alone children.
(02:56):
So I will acknowledge that it is part of the story,
and it ties in with the person in Nashville who
did the same exact thing, and I'll leave it to
the psychologist to figure out whether or not that mental
(03:17):
process involves also becoming violent. And I just don't know.
All I know is that there's there's a lot of
uh pushback today on that and I wanted to address it,
but I really don't. I'm not qualified to say whether
(03:37):
or not somebody that is transgender thinks of themselves in
a way that's violent versus the rest of us. I
will tell you this. I've been very clear on this.
I do not understand and I think it's absolutely wrong,
and and thankfully a number of states have decided to
(03:58):
codify it. But ting to change the gender of somebody
that's under the age of eighteen, I would prefer twenty one,
I think is wrong. We used to not let a
school nurse give an aspirin to your child without getting
parental permission, and now there are people that are trying
(04:19):
to abscond with these underage children to help them with
their transition. And I'm sorry. If you're an adult, preferably
over twenty one, and you are believing that you're in
the wrong body, it doesn't bother me. I don't care.
(04:40):
I really don't care. That affects you and your life.
I don't know how it affects my life. You want
to be a boy and you're a girl now or
vice versa. You just go for it. I'm not going
to tell you what to do or how to think
or what you should or should not do if you're
under twenty one. Now I have a problem because young
(05:04):
kids cannot make those kinds of decisions. They just cannot.
So I think it's absolutely wrong, all right. John Miller,
former NYPD counter terrorism guy, was asked about the latest
on the investigation in that shooting.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Well, the investigation today takes a dramatic slow down in
that it appears the shooter acted alone. It appears, and
this is a question that will be probed as they
keep going, that no one else had direct knowledge of this.
So now since there's no one to prosecute, the searches
have been conducted. They'll be spending days, if not weeks,
(05:43):
getting into electronic devices analyzing more. But the shooter prepared
for investigators what he wanted them to see, the extensive
writings in the notebook, which was written in cyrillic texts,
so it literally had to be decoded into English, and
then the plane plain English note to his family. There
(06:05):
are questions in there because we have referred to it
as law enforcement has referred to it as a manifesto,
But it doesn't give us a lot of clues as
to some political grievance or cause. It's mostly in terms
of the copy about his suffering, his grievances, his unhappiness
in life, which gets us to, all, right, then why
(06:27):
that target? Why a Catholic school? Why a school that
he attended where his mother worked as an employee, Especially
when you look at the video and what he has
written on these firearms is anti black, anti Jew, anti everybody.
It doesn't really single out Catholics except to say one
(06:50):
magazine says, this is for the children. Another magazine says,
where is your God now? And the direction they're going
in in terms of targeting, is he picked that target
as opposed to his high school or some other place
because it would be the most terrible in terms of victimology.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Darren Ports or former NYPD lieutenant, also picks up on
what he sees right.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Well, the question is an endlest but one of the
things that I look to is the fortifications that we
should have in place in these institutions of learning. More
specific to the religious schools, you generally don't have these
that happen at the religious schools. They happen more so
in the public schools. With exception of what happened in
Tennessee in the past. But at the same token, what
(07:36):
fortifications could be in play. I think to the triangulation
of having an armed security officer outside as well as
drone technology and surveillance campus. So when you have that triangulation,
what it does is it helps. In addition to that,
we had to manifesto that was produced, and I think
that the social media community can do much more in
(07:59):
terms of looking at this content and having this blocked
as opposed of being introduced to us as a common public.
It appears as if this was a copycat attack, and
we see this happen far too much. And I believe
that what these communities can do more so specific to
the schools, is focused on a triangulation that I spoke to.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
All Right, a couple of reactions. First of all, the
guy was mentally ill. He was full of anxiety, he
was obsessed, he had hatred, he had all of that,
and so you've got to stop and wonder anybody see that.
I'm sure there were people that saw that. In fact,
(08:40):
going back to the transgender issue, he wanted to change
his name because of the fact that he felt that
he was a woman not a man. So he wanted
to change it from Robert to Robin. And he was
seventeen at the time, and so it took his mother.
There's signature to allow him to change his name. What
(09:05):
was his mother thinking. I mean, it's more than just
oh my sweet little boy wants to be a sweet girl. No,
it's got to be what's wrong with my son? Why
is he doing this? Did she ask any questions? We
don't know, but she signed it and she shouldn't have.
She should have gotten him help counseling. Maybe she did,
(09:27):
but at this point it looks bizarre. And then did
Darren Porcher's comment about well, he's a very studious guy
talking about triangulation at the schools. He's going right down
my path. Harden these soft targets. I'm sorry, they're wide
(09:49):
open and nobody does anything about it. And well, that's
going to cost a lot of money. Do you know
how much money we waste in this country every year.
I'd like to unwate some of that and put it
into hardening up a lot of these targets so that
when you drop your child off for school they have
it's not perfect, that they would have a much better
(10:10):
chance of not being gunned down like they were yesterday.
Back to John Miller.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Be the most important question today because it gets to
the question that has been echoing through your segments earlier
today with father that you interviewed, who said his eyes
burned from tears, is what did we miss? What could
have been seen? What can we do all of this
information that's going to be gathered. What's in his phone,
what's in his computer? What was in those documents? What
(10:37):
does the video mean? Who is he referring to with
all those names? I mean, we know a lot of
that because it feeds into BAU Behavioral Analysis Unit FBI.
Those are the profilers you watch Criminal Minds or mind Hunter.
Those people exist in real life and they take that
and they build the common threads of these shooters. Right
now today, while we wait forever for politicians to figure
(10:59):
outgun control legislation and all that. That may never happen,
but right now today you can go to FBI, dot gov,
slash prevent and they tell you these are the signs.
These are the people who you can approach if you
don't want to call the police. These are the things
you can say. These are the typical indicators. They have videos,
(11:21):
they have examples, They have written documents, they have you know, cards.
All the resources are there, and more attention needs to
be pushed towards the not just why didn't some eighty
five percent of these cases, they have what you call
leakage indicators to others, to friends, to family that they're
about to do something, but people don't always recognize it
(11:43):
with leakage till after the event, when suddenly it's crystal
clear this is how to spot that.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Well.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I admire the fact that the police are out there
trying and they do all of this research and they
check this and check that, and they go back and forth.
But there's so many The human is so complicated and
our behaviors are so complicated and trying to put it
into a formula that you can therefore point to and
(12:11):
say this person is going to be a school shooter.
First of all, we have you just can't go arrest
somebody for something that they might do. Secondly, is there's
a lot of people that see the leaky as John
Miller called it, of people putting out all kinds of
indicators that they're about ready to do something heinous, but
(12:35):
people are afraid to pick up the phone and call
the police and say, you know, I think my friend,
I think my son, I think my dad, I think
my cousin. Yeah, I think they're I think about ready
to go shoot up at school. First of all, people
won't do that, and secondly, the police will go, okay,
thank you very much, call us back if something happens.
(12:58):
I'm not saying this is a waste time, but it's
kind of in that paragraph somewhere. That's why I say,
you can't stop the perpetrator from wanting to do these things,
other than you can protect the victims from that perpetrator
getting to them by hardening up the soft targets. That's
(13:22):
the only solution that I have of my sleeve. But
I mean, if I haven't done it, But if you
want to go with John was talking about, go to
FBI dot gov slash prevent and apparently they have tips
for you there. So if you do have somebody, a neighbor,
a relative, a friend, who's acting dangerous, go there and
(13:47):
read about it. Maybe it will inspire you to pick
up the phone and call the police, and maybe they
will do something about it. But what can they do.
You cannot arrest people for thinking about doing it. You
gotta get them after they've committed the crime. The other
part about this, which is drives me crazy. And it
went on again today. They had a couple of news
(14:11):
conferences in Minneapolis today in which basically they had every
Tom Dick and Harry politician that were standing there. They
were rushing to the microphone, rushing to the cameras. Look
at me, look at me, I'm right here. Drives me nuts.
Jen Saki, former press secretary for Joe Biden. She put
(14:36):
out a tweet that has not been received well today
and it's about prayer.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Now.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I don't know Jen Saki from the Man in the Moon,
but what she put out was she said, prayer is
not freaking enough. Prayers do not end school shootings. Prayers
do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to scoo.
Prayer does not bring these kids back enough with the
(15:03):
thoughts and prayers. So I'm believe it or not. Everybody's
criticizing it except for I'll give her this much. The
thoughts in prayers thing is kind of a platitude for
a lot of these politicians. Oh yes, we have them
in our thoughts and prayers. They just throw it out there.
It's not something in their heart. But what it's doing
(15:25):
is it's insulting prayer, and for those who believe in prayer,
it's doubly insulting. Mary Catherine Ham weighed in on this.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
Yeah, I just think, first of all, my thoughts and
prayers are with the families who are dealing with this
unspeakable tragedy today and having to talk to their children
about it, those who lost their children. It is right
and good and I think necessary to pray in these times.
It is sad to hear public figures very quickly turn
to saying that prayer is nonsense or unnecessary or weak.
(16:00):
And I think if I were to give them the
good faith interpretation that they're unwilling to give their friends
on the right, I would say that this is a
call to action. Right, they're frustrated that there's not action
that goes with prayer. But your response does not need
to be to denigrate prayer. And it becomes actually perverse
when the people in the pews were likely attacked for
practicing their religion, for practicing this tenet of faith, and
(16:24):
you say that because that didn't protect them, or because
that doesn't solve the problem, that people should not pray,
and that you denigrate that practice. I have lived a
life that has had its portion very different but nonetheless
of sort of unthinkable tragedy. And prayer did not solve
the fact that my husband died while I was seven
months pregnant, but it did not prevent that. But it
(16:47):
got me through every single day after that. It helped
me to raise my children. And I just think that
taking the message to the public that that is somehow
an insult two people who were killed while practicing their
faith is so gross.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Yeah, I don't know what's wrong with Jensaki to basically
mock prayer. Okay, maybe she doesn't believe in prayer, Fine,
a lot of people do, and it's just absolutely not
only the wrong thing to do, but the timing of
it was could it couldn't have been worse. So I've
(17:26):
got this notice. We get them every day about what's
going to be happening in the news world, and they
this is from CBS. They're headlines for stations and it
says at two o'clock Eastern Minneapolis City Hall, Minnesota lawmakers
from every level of government, the Minnesota Chapter Mom's Demand Action,
(17:50):
and other gun violence prevention advocates will hold a news
conference to honor the victims of the mass shooting at
Annunciation Catholic Church school and call for action, including a
ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines. So it's
a bunch of politicians getting together and I just think
they've tried this. You've got four hundred million guns in
(18:15):
this country. You're not going to be able to get
them confiscated. So why do you keep beating your head
against a brick wall and it doesn't change a thing. Sadly,
this is just the latest iteration of these kinds of
terrible stories. So let's move on to other topics that
(18:36):
are going on out there today. There's a lot of them.
There's a big shakeup at the CDC, the Center for
Disease Control, and what's happened there is that the director,
a doctor by the name of Susan Monarrez. She was
(18:58):
just picked by I RFK Jr. To be the director
of the CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She
was just picked. She was just she went through Senate
confirmation and they said, yep, we give you a thumbs up.
That was in late July. Here we are in late August.
(19:19):
And the reason she was fired, according to her lawyer
was when CDC Director Susan Manaraz refused to rubber stamp unscientific,
reckless directives and fired dedicated health experts. She chose protecting
the public over serving a political agenda, and for that
(19:40):
she has been targeted. So it gets weirder after that.
So that's her lawyer, so that they're saying, well, she
wasn't fired because you didn't fire her correctly. Only the
president can fire her. And also she hasn't resigned. So
now we're hitting in two. We've got Lisa Cook, the
(20:04):
governor on the Federal Reserve Board, who also is not
stepping down because she and her lawyers have filed a
lawsuit against Donald Trump. And by the way, there's a
hearing on this tomorrow morning at ten am in District
Court in DC that basically she said, yeah, I'm not
(20:25):
stepping down, and no, you can't fire me. This is
an independent agency. So over at the CDC, her lawyers
are saying you didn't fire her correctly, and she's not
stepping down. So we've got we've got chaos at both
the Federal Reserve Board and at the Centers for Disease Control.
(20:51):
I don't know what's going to happen on the on
this business about RFK Junior. Is he shaking things up? Absolutely?
He overse he's the CDC, he's the head of the
Department of Health and Human Services and CDC answers to him.
So it's going to be interesting. She got called she's
(21:12):
down Atlanta. Remember that CDC was that crazy gunman went
down there and fired all kinds of rounds of guns
into the CDC headquarters just outside of the city of Atlanta,
and a police officer was killed in that whole foray.
So it's very strange times in trying to run these
(21:36):
various agencies in the federal government. I don't know how
you're feeling about all of this that AREFK Jr. Is doing.
I know he's controversial. I know he is set in
the past about vaccines. He doesn't like him not all
of them, some of them. And now they've come out
with new rules for the COVID vaccine and you have
(21:57):
to be sixty five or older or very rigid rules
about who can get the vaccine for COVID. They basically
held back on the measles vaccine and we had the
biggest outbreak we've had in decades. So I don't know
who to believe. Do I believe the new people that
(22:22):
RFK Jr. Is bringing in. These people are doctors, They
have backgrounds that look pretty scientific to me. But the
people that are getting fired are also doctors and have
lots of experience in this. So because this director of
(22:42):
the CDC, Susan, doctor Susan minieris is in between whether
she's the director or not. Well behind that came the
news that all this trouble was coming down. So the
four top officials at the seat threw their resignations on
(23:02):
the table last night. Doctor Deborah Horri, chief medical officer
at CDC, Doctor Dmitri das Lexis, Director of the National
Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, doctor Daniel Jernigan, Director
of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.
(23:26):
And doctor Jen Layden, Director of the Office of Public Health,
Data Surveillance and Technology. So the whole place is in
a big upheaval. Doctor Dmitrie put a post on X
it's very very long. What happened to the old twenty
eight character's limit? Anyway, He wrote a note saying my
(23:49):
resignation letter from the CDC, and he put this letter
out there, so the decision has not come easily. I
deeply value the work that the CDC does in safeguarding
public health. I'm proud of my contribution to that critical mission. However,
after much contemplation and reflection on recent developments and perspectives
brought to light by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior, I
(24:11):
find the views he and his staff have shared challenged
my ability to continue in my current role at the
agency and in the service of the health of the
American people. Enough is enough? So he's I don't know
who to believe. Who do you trust? I always would
put my trust in doctors over politicians, but now the
(24:34):
doctors are being replaced by politicians and they seem to
be credible as well. Who do you trust? And if
you want to get vaccines, how are you going to
get vaccines if the government is telling you you can't
have them? A lot of questions, a lot of chaos,
a lot of questions. In another area, this is down
(24:57):
in Florida with Alligator Alcatraz, and there are lawsuits that
have been filed to prevent Ice from using that as
a detention facility. The reason. They've had some lawsuits but
they've been thrown out. But the latest one uses the
(25:19):
environmental laws and says that you are harming the environment
by having your detention facility out there in the middle
of in the middle of the Everglades. And I don't
understand the whole environmental thing, because if you go back
and look before they put up all those they're basically
(25:41):
temporary facilities. It's cost them a lot of money to
do it, but it's right at an airstrip. So I
looked up the airstrip and it's the DAID call your
Training and Transition Airport, and it's been there forever. So
I don't know what they did. What they built these
these tents to detain people. They're not there more than
(26:03):
tenths but you know the kind of temporary buildings, and
they are built on the concrete from the air where
the airport was, and they got the airstrip there, so
it doesn't look like they disturbed the environment at all.
So we'll see where this goes. I suspect that the
(26:24):
ICE is going to win this case, but this is
a federal judge, and the judge is you can't do
this and they're so ICE to saying, okay, there was
about four hundred detainees there a couple of weeks ago.
They're down to one hundred and eighty, and they're basically saying,
we're going to go ahead and comply and we will
(26:45):
work this down to where the judges you can't bring
any new people in. They said, okay, but they're moving
people out. They put them on planes and fly them
to some other country as they deport them. So at
this point ICE is cooperating with shutting this operation down there.
The thing about it is, this is not a permanent facility.
(27:05):
This is a temporary facility to basically bring detainees, process
them there, then put them on planes and fly them
off to other parts of the world. Tom Holman, he
obviously feels differently about that.
Speaker 6 (27:22):
Well, first of all, elegant to Alcatraz. You know, I
got a lot of questions about that, so I actually
made a trip down there. I spent the entire day
down there. So I don't think this judge went down
there and toured the facility, because I think the decision
is bad. I mean, I went, I walked to the
attention part where the aliens are housed, clean, well kept,
you know, and I went I went to the medical
(27:44):
facility and talked to the medical staff and seen a
great medical program to have there. Had no serious medical issues.
Speaker 7 (27:49):
What they was.
Speaker 6 (27:50):
They actually had a helicopter there to take them to
the neurotrauma center. But they had a great medical facility
there that I went to and talked to the positions
and the nurses. I went to the cafeteria and looked
at the food they're feeding these people. And as far
as environmental concerns, I mean, I was briefed at all
the waste, all the non possable water, all of that
is taking off facility every day. As far as facility itself,
(28:14):
it's sitting on existing concrete that was already there in
the airports. I don't understand the judges really. I think
it's a radical decision. I think it's really about anti
immigration enforcement rather than the condition of the facility.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I was there.
Speaker 6 (28:26):
Look, it's a transition facility, it's not a long term facility.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Now.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
Because of that, I truly believe we need more brick
and mortar. We have the money now to do it.
We need to build an infrastructure that's going to last.
We need more brick and mortar facilities for longer term detention,
but these transitional facilities. I thank god the governors are
stepping up. I'm proud of the governor's stepping up and
helping ICE to detain people, remove people, because this illegommigration
(28:51):
the last four years is historical immigration effect to the
States too. Trump, I'm happy that the governors are stepping up.
As far as their names, you know, I just don't
want these names to detract from the hard work ICE
is doing. ICE agents. They're doing a difficult, dangerous job,
a serious job. They're doing it with integrity and dignity
and honor. I just don't want, you know, the names
(29:11):
to detract from the serious work they're doing.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Well they are. And the governor of Florida, rond de Santis,
he's stood behind this the whole way. This is what
he had to say about it today.
Speaker 7 (29:23):
EHS determines who goes into those facilities and who goes
out of those facilities. Although we'd be willing to do it,
but we are not the ones actually removing them from
those facilities and sending them back their home country.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yep. It's totally a federal program. Immigration is federal and
Ronda Sants is supportive, but he's not involved other than
they have that facility there. It seems to me like
a perfect place to fly people in process them, figure
(29:58):
out where you're sending them, and a monoplane, and then
off they go. It's away from many population center and
I don't see the environmental problem since that airport has
been there for a long time. In fact, in fact,
if you look at the history of this little dinky
one runway airports, they had great plans for this. They
(30:21):
built the thing in nineteen sixty eight. It was known
then as the Everglades Jetport, and the idea was they
wanted it to be the largest airport in the world.
They wanted six runways. They wanted to connect Miami and
the Gulf of Mexico by an expressway and a monorail line.
(30:43):
So it would have been five times the size of
JFK Airport in New York. So it was a big deal.
But environmental concerns were the reason they canceled it and
construction was halted in nineteen seventy. So it's still running
into headwinds on becoming the biggest airport in the world.
(31:05):
And speaking of transportation. We'd really we only mentioned it
a couple of times. That was a week or so,
a week or two ago where the illegal that was
driving a truck and trailer big semi operation in Florida
and made a U turn in the middle of an
interstate highway car crashed into the trailer. Three people were killed.
(31:30):
Then they found out that the guy not only was
here illegally, leaved from India, and he did not speak
a lick of English and also did not read any English,
so he could not read the road signs. But even
with all that, it's a head scratcher. So I got
(31:51):
in touch with truck and curmudgeon who's been in the
trucking business for a long time, and we had this
conversation about it.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
How many a long.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
How many illegals are out there driving these big riegs.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
You know, there's a lot of immigrants. I can't tell
you who's illegal and who's not just by looking at them,
but there's a lot of immigrants. It got way worse
under Obama. That's when they dropped the regulation about speaking English.
That regulation has been in place since the nineteen thirties. Sure,
(32:27):
you know you had somebody that couldn't communicate. You placed
them out of service. You called the company and you
had them send out a qualified driver. But when Obama
took over, they told federal dot to stand down, and
they told the states to stand down, so they had
all these unqualified people coming in. I mean, Tom, the
(32:48):
truck stops are an absolute garbage pit. The same thing
with the rest areas. They it's like they don't know
how to use it, toil it.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
I remember them. I remember the complaints during the Obama administration.
What it was. It was about Mexican truck drivers. And
it wasn't necessarily about Mexicans themselves so much as it
was that they had trucks that were not maintained. Nobody
spent the money to keep the trucks maintained. Talking about
(33:19):
steering and brakes, things like that that are kind of important.
That was the complaint. It wasn't a racial complaint. It
was an equipment complaint more than anything else.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
But if I'm and if I'm driving down the road
in Mexico, I'm not sure exactly what that sign says,
but it's not I think I might be able to
figure it out kind of.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
But when I was in Italy. I didn't have any trouble.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Yeah, I've driven all over Europe and I figured out
where I needed to go. So I don't know why
this guy couldn't figure out the road signs.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
They Uh, they tend to be in a hurry, particularly
young inexperienced drivers tend to be in a hurry. They
let the dispatchers push them. Old guys like me, we
tell the dispatcher where to go, and so we either
do it or we don't. But a lot of young
inexperienced drivers. And I put immigrants in that category as well,
(34:23):
because they're easy for dispatcher to abuse because they don't
know that. They don't know the laws. They don't know
the labor laws, they don't know what's permissible what's not,
and you know, the these dispatchers will force them. There's
a coercion rule out there that came about a few
years ago. Actually I was I was part of the
(34:45):
suit on that with with the Owner Operators Association because
of a shipper that had us leave the property after
we were out of service or out of hours. So yeah,
it's very easy abuse the immigrants. I watch, uh some
of the some of these receiving companies, particularly in the
(35:06):
retail end of it. How they treat a fellow that
walks in with a turbine on his head to in
comparison with me when I walk in and I'm obviously
of the red peck persuasion, and you know, they treat
them entirely different. Of course, they could be frustrated because
(35:29):
they don't speak very well Brea good English either, but
they do get abused, and I kind of feel bad
for them in that respect.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
What what's the what's the status of the trucking industry?
From where you sit? We keep hearing about people are
going to start slowing down on their spending. You talked
about retail, but manufacturing numbers are down all that, and
I'm going it's got to show up on on the
the docks of trucks.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
No, No, not at all. In fact, I ask about
it occasionally and people don't seem to think that it's
it's a huge factor. I don't think it's it's really
affecting the freight as much as the market as the
Biden market is affecting the freight. We'll see we just
(36:22):
did they just have it recovered from that?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah? No, it so did Biden put put the brakes
on the trucking industry or just on business as in general,
would slow down the trucking industry.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Yeah, business in general. We're the first ones to see
an uptick. We're the first ones to see a downtick
because for us, it's August. We're already moving Christmas freight.
So and it's not particularly strong this year, by the way,
So yeah, it's there. There may be some pent up
(36:58):
demand when it finally hits.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
And then being cautious, they're just being cautious.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Maybe absolutely well, they're they're busy trying to afford ground
beef instead of steak, and you know, uh, and trying
to put groceries on the table. The extra income seems
to have dried up in many places, particularly in the
lower income levels.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
It doesn't surprise me, all right, So at the truck stops,
you see lots of immigrants, but you don't know if
they're legal or ill legal.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Lots of immigrants. I mean there's and I don't I
have no problem with the immigrants is as long as
they do what they're supposed to do, Assimilate to our culture,
assimilate to our our our highways. But you know it
goes in waves. I mean years ago, it would have
it would have been our ancestors, the iron then the Italians, Yeah,
(38:03):
you know then then then then you had the Russians
and the Punjabis come over, and there was you know,
there was a learning curve there for those.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
But one thing about immigrants is that they they they
bring over their cousins, their brother in laws. I mean,
that's the way immigrants have always operated. You bring over
your your family and friends, and you know you've got
a job waiting in America. They're going to come and they.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Bring over a work ethic that a lot of Americans
have forgot about.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Mmm. That's a little bit of our conversation with trucking curmudgeon,
who is on the front lines out there in the
trucking industry. Let's check in with Wall Street. See what
happened there today and and uh oh oh, look at
this it was. It was a good day for Wall Street.
(38:57):
We have been a while, but the first time we've
had a record in I'm thinking months on the Dow,
the Dow Jones industrials up seventy one points. Never seen
this before forty five thousand, six thirty six. The SMP
has been hitting records. They hit another one today, up
(39:17):
twenty to sixty five oh one nasdak no, I mean
this close to a record, up one hundred and fifteen.
The twenty one thousand and seven five the price of gold,
good day for gold, up twenty eight dollars to thirty
four to seventy seven. And oil it was up just
(39:38):
a smidgeon twenty cents higher, up to sixty four dollars
for one barrel of oil. Thank you for coming by today.
We're going to try this again tomorrow and we hope
to see them
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