More Kirk Thoughts / "Affordable" Housing / Sen. Fischer

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott vorgiez first the crazy old dude you might remember,
as details were coming at us all over the place.
It was a week ago this afternoon that Charlie Kirk
went to Utah Valley University and asked anyone who disagreed

(00:20):
with him to have a conversation. That was too much
for at least one individual who shot and killed Charlie
Kirk a week ago today. Initially, though, it appeared as
though the police had a guy in custody, an older gentleman,
not student, not traditional student, aged in custody, and then

(00:41):
later after a few hours, they said he is no
longer in custody and not considered to be a person
of interest. Well, now we got more details about that situation.
A seventy one year old guy is now facing some
charges for, among other things, obstructing justice. After the shooting happened,

(01:07):
police converge on the scene, and here's this guy loudly shouting,
I shot him, I did it. And then I don't
know if he was begging or daring law enforcement to
shoot him. After that, he said that he later admitted

(01:30):
to police he wasn't involved in the killing, did not
know the real shooter, but he wanted to deflect attention
from the actual suspect and become a martyr. So then
while that's happening, the actual shooter is messaging his friends,

(01:50):
and as we're learning more, it almost immediately to some
of his so called friends admitted to the killing and
then was talking to his buddies about, Yeah, they got
some crazy old dude in custody. They think some crazy
old dude did it. So this guy's now in police custody.

(02:13):
The investigator said, well, let's take a look at your phone,
and he said, I'd rather you didn't. Well, they did,
and it contained all kinds of images of children and
also now we've got additional charges a sexual exploitation of miners.
He does have a criminal history in Utah, including in

(02:34):
twenty thirteen allegedly offering to set up bombs at the
Salt Lake City Marathon that was right after the Boston
Marathon bombing. He's out of his mind, constantly walking around
in society and apparently saw his opportunity to go down

(03:00):
in history and have police think that he was Charlie
Kirk's shooter and telling the police to shoot him. What
if that had happened, What if he had made an
aggressive movement towards law enforcement, and the cops had shot
this guy and killed him, and then they think, well,

(03:21):
we got the guy in custody. I don't know how
long they would think they have the guy in custody,
probably when they converged on the body and found that
he didn't have a firearm. So just a very strange
complication in the wake of all this. Here's the thing
I just keep coming back on as there are several
people Lindsey Graham is among them. Senator Lindsey Graham was

(03:44):
on Fox News last night. He told Sean Hannity, he said,
we've seen a lot of chatter online now related to
Charlie Kirk and the date September tenth, which was a
week ago today, the day that Charlie Kirk was shot.
Then these messages go back from a week before the shoot.
I mean to even the last month, throughout the month
of August, people online talking about Charlie Kirk and talking

(04:06):
about the date September tenth, which leads Senator Lindsey Graham
and I'm sure others in the investigative community and interested
minds everywhere to wonder if this was just one guy
who did this or if this was part of a
larger plot. Here's the thing. And I don't need to

(04:27):
do the whole conspiracy theory thing, but here's the thing
I think about, and Lucy you're the official conspiracy theorist. Here,
here's the thing about this shooter that we don't have
the details about. He didn't say hardly anything when he
was in this court hearing yesterday. Here's the thing about

(04:49):
him that we don't either have the details on or
there might be something that I think just doesn't add
up later. And that is one shot. We haven't heard
whether this guy has military training or even if he'd

(05:10):
been around firearms all that much. Now I know, I
think it's against the law for gun guys not to
email a radio show host no matter what the shot is.
You know, it's like, oh, he was a thousand yards
away and had a bunch of people and trees in

(05:30):
front of him, and trains crossing back and forth, and
there was a windmill he had to fire through. It's
not that hard a shot. Gun guys have to tell you,
it's not that hard a shot. I don't know so
much about all that, as is often the case with me.

(05:51):
So many things in life come back to golf. So
many things in golf come back to life. Here's my
ridiculous golf assessment of the situation. You've got a four
foot putt for quadruple bogie. No one's around. It doesn't
matter if you make this putt or not. That putt

(06:11):
more often than not, it's gonna go right in the
back of the cup. No problem. You've got the same putt.
It's an easy one. It's uphill, no break, four footer.
Your friends will probably give it to you. But this one,
this is a birdie putt, and it's for the club championship.
Same putt. You can't even hold on to the putter.

(06:33):
You're so nervous. Suddenly this putt looks impossible and you're
not sure you can even get it anywhere close to
the hole, let alone hold that putt. This situation a
week ago is for someone who maybe you know, has

(06:53):
fired guns a few times. But now you're in the
situation where you've you're going to take a person's life,
and you're not up there nervous shaken around with the gun.
You're not going to pad your chances by having the

(07:14):
type of firearm that one squeeze of the trigger rifles
off dozens of shots, like, look, I want to make
sure I get him and anyone else in his way.
That shooter fired one shot and hit his target. I
know you gun guys are like, it's not that hardest shot.
Is It's not that hard a shot if you're out

(07:35):
there on a range and the target's a tin can
and it's a couple hundred yards away, and it doesn't
matter whether you hit it or not. I admit, based
on what we have with scope technology, it's not that
hard a shot. In this situation, though, it's almost impossible

(07:59):
unless you either have someone who is a trained assassin,
like a sniper type, or you have someone who is
just so cold that the prospect of pulling this trigger

(08:19):
and taking that life doesn't like it doesn't even bother you.
You might as well be sitting up there drinking a
juice box, enjoying a nice summer day. Doesn't bother you. You
don't have any nerves because there's something that's not wired
correctly in your brain where you're just flat, you're just

(08:43):
almost dead inside. Or it was a lucky shot. I
don't know, but the fact that we don't have any
details about this guy and whether he was some sort
of you know, like you know, dead eye, firearms ninja,
or he's the kind of a person who was since

(09:07):
he was a little kid, had no problem harming animals
and classmates. And you just stare into his eyes and
it was like the eyes of a shark. They're just
nothing there. I don't know something. I it might be
that it was just a lucky shot for this guy,
but there's I'm telling you that is nearly impossible in

(09:33):
that situation if he had even any doubt about what
he was going to do. Here's a better story. Charlie
Kirk was the founder of an organization called Turning Point USA.
Maybe you heard of them even before last week. Turning

(09:56):
Point USA is experiencing a urge in interest in donations
in college students. This is high school and college students
who want to start their own chapters or what they're
looking to see if there's an existing chapter. They said,

(10:18):
it's like sixty thousand young people who have in the
last week reached out to Turning Point USA and said
I want in and then and I don't know what
the number is, they haven't released it, but the number
of people that said, do you guys need some money

(10:40):
to continue Charlie Kirk's mission. They I don't know that
they have the process in place to handle the amount
of donations coming in. Or you're a high school or
college student. You're the president of the local Turning Point
USA chapter and now you're having to figure out, like, wow,

(11:00):
we've got a lot more people interested in being a
part of our meeting this month. Our current meeting space
is too small. Where are we going to do this?
As Erica Kirk, Charlie's widow, said this past weekend, the
movement my husband built will not die. It will become stronger, bolder, louder,
and greater than ever. And it sounds like, based on

(11:22):
the numbers, that is exactly what's happening. So that is
a much better snowball that's happening here in the past week,
Much much better coming up next. City council voted six
to nothing. How many city council members do we have? Who?

Speaker 2 (11:46):
What?

Speaker 1 (11:46):
I don't know? We have seven? By the way, it
was a six to zero vote to amend O MAHA's
Urban Core Plan. We're talking about greet cars, bike ways,
and affordable housing. Try and stay awake now, i'll i'll

(12:08):
give you my assessment of however, however, their heart is
in the right place on this, I'm still not seeing it.
And it's not even so much about the streetcar. I'll
explain next dot for E's News Radio eleven ten k FAD.
We've got problem after problem after problem, especially on the interstate.

(12:31):
Lucy timesaver traffic.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Please eighty fourth Street southbound, no access to I eighty
eastbound eastbound, or rather northbound eighty fourth. You can still
get on ID eastbound and bypass that crash. So the
problem is we've got a crash on I eight eastbound
at eighty fourth and all, but that far right lane
is blocked, so traffic is backed up onto six eighty southbound,

(12:56):
well passed center IAD eastbound, you're well passed ol Street.
You're just going to want to avoid Idy eastbound due
to that crash at eighty fourth. You get pasted on
ID eastbound past eighty fourth and get all past that right.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
And seventy second is seventy second, Oh, absolute mass.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
I'd forgotten about that. I was so wrapped up in this. Yeah,
seventy second is still a mess. I believe those ramps
are still open, but it's going to be heavy traffic
through there with alternate traffic coming through.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
What we're taking where we've removed or we are removing
the seventy second and L Bridge.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
The bridge, the bridge over seventy second L Street and
that is up right now, it's what's still Why why?
I guess because it's all down. No, I guess it's
because it's just, you know, they don't like it. What
about they want at all flat?

Speaker 1 (13:49):
That's where.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
But it'll be a nice big intersection of flat intersection
like every other intersection in the city.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
But that the overpass over seventy second Street, the L
Street bridge, Yes, that's where the bombshelter is that I
grew up in Ralston.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
No, they took the bomb shelter with that horrible bridge
at eighty fourth.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
But there was but there was oh yeah, well that
I loved that tunnel.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
No, that's tunnel right.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
Well it was. It was horrible, but I always loved it.
It was like trying to navigate a semi truck down
a hallway and you're you're like, I don't know if
this is gonna fit. And I didn't drive a semi truck.
I drove a nine to eighty two Nissan Dotson. But
I was still like, I don't know if it's gonna fit,
And yeah, it was. I don't know. I thought it

(14:39):
was kind of quaint and we had the train above it.
That was a that was a good spot. But no,
it's seventy second overpass over the L Street overpass over
seventy second. That's where you would see little doors on
the side of the overpass. And we were told when
we were growing up in Ralston, because we didn't know
where the threat was coming from. It could have been Russia,

(15:00):
it could have been Libya, could have been Papillion. We
didn't know. We just we just knew there was a
there was a threat, and it was time to get
to that bomb shelter if indeed there was a threat,
because I was told that's where the bomb shelter was.
I haven't had anyone who would actually know such a
thing corroborate that information, but that's what I was told

(15:23):
when I was a child. There was a door there,
so I believed it was true.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
I don't think that's true. They're getting ready to do
you know, do you know for sure?

Speaker 1 (15:34):
So they're they're paging trafic.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
But I don't know everything.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
They're paving over it. Oh yeah, I think that you
need to look somewhere in the vicinity. There'll be a hatch,
a little spider hatch. There's something in there, you know.
You know what I think it is?

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Turtles aliens, ninja turtles, ninja turtle aliens, ninja turtle aliens.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
And the reason we have, the reason we have to
hide them is these aliens from I don't know, Uranus.
They don't have the right documentation and they're scared that
Ice is gonna come after them. So we've we got
to pave over the evidence.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
You should go look. You should seriously get a take
your phone with you. Videotape it. Okay, I will and
then post it. I will try pulling on that hat.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
You mind if I do the radio show first.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
You'll do? You mind? If I tell you that they've
opened another lane on eight on I eighty eastbound at eighty.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Fourth, good, well, that will help.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
It will help.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Also, there's not as much traffic now as there was
an hour or two ago. So the city had a
The city Council yesterday voted to amend the Urban Core Plan.
This was something that Mayor Stothart and the council set
up to accommodate, among other things, the street car. But now,

(16:54):
even though the street car has not had even so
much as a rail go down yet, they are already
so confident. And this is Mayor John Ewing who for
a while there during the by the way time out,
when I say Mayor John Ewing, how many of you
are like, oh, yeah, we have a different mayor. I
thought it was still Gene Stothard. I hadn't really thought
about it. He just celebrated his first one hundred days

(17:16):
in office, where yesterday he listed his accomplishments, which include, well,
I'm sure he said something so he said, we're already
so confident that we're going to have so much money
coming in with this streetcar. We're just looking for things
to do with it. So they're talking about affordable housing

(17:40):
and improved bike ways because I don't know about you.
When I'm like, hey, if I want to get around downtown,
what I'm going to do is ride my bike from
Elkhorn and I want to have a good bikeway when
I get down around Farnham Street. So those improved bike ways,

(18:02):
if you're.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
From Ilkorn, they don't want you down there anyway, not
on a bike, you stuffy west Omahaiu.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah, how many people on a regular basis do you
see out riding a bike?

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Seven?

Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yeah, I maybe a week. I might see seven people
a week a week. And these are people who are exercising,
which generally they want to do kind of out in
the wide open space is not where there's a lot
of congested traffic like downtown. And then you always see
that one guy in his way to work, like wearing
a business suit, and you think, ah, multiple DUIs so oh,

(18:39):
I don't Scott, I don't know. I mean they have
this idea like, well, younger people are gonna want to
ride bikes. I don't know if you guys have noticed
younger people are fat, but Ozempik, I don't see them. Yeah,
they're losing weight, but I don't see them out exercising, right,
I see them buying new clothes, but they're driving their

(19:01):
cars to do that. I don't know where this is
the bike. I don't know where this idea comes that like, oh, yeah,
the next generation bike riders. No they're not.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
I could do it.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
These fat little kids don't even they didn't even learn
how to ride a bike. When they were kids. When
was the last time you saw kids out just riding
a bike in your neighborhood?

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Never?

Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yeah, And you might think I just saw one last night. No,
now think about it. Was he peddling or was it
one of these motorized scooter things that was doing all
the work for him? Fat little snut So these kids
don't ride bikes.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Want to be fair. The kids in my neighborhood, they know,
don't go by that lady's house.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Lucy's out there fat shaming him, fat little kids. You're
not right, you're not riding bikes. I don't I don't
understand the.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Math of to bring a mirror kids.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Who don't ride bikes will suddenly become adult bike riders.
This math doesn't work. Neither does the idea for affordable housing.
That's the term they always use. Right, we'll talk about
it next, Scott Boys. Lucy is staring intently at traffic maps,
specifically I eighty.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah Idy eastbound. They had reopened three lanes, but now
it looks like you're again back down to just two
lanes open. That's at eighty four Street Idy eastbound, and
the two right lanes are definitely open. So if you're
in that area. But I'm now seeing fire end emergency
ambulance showing up again, so I'm not quite sure what's

(20:37):
going on, but I do know you're backed up well
past that six to eighty split.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
An emergency ambulance.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yes, I was going to see emergency cruise. Thank you,
we're calling me out on it.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
I always prefer when the casual ambulance shows up, like, hey,
is everyone okay here? Yeah, we're good, okay, just like
driving around like the ice cream man, ding ding ding ding,
anyone bleeding, But they.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Don't play the ding ding song. They played doctor Doctor,
Doctor Doctor.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Oh see that gave me.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
The news, thanks Craig.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, well that's that song is not called doctor Doctor.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Doctor Doctor is a song by the Thompson Twins.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
Okay that too, Yes, they rotate them.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yes, so you might recall that the former mayor Jeans Douthard,
and I swear every time I say that phrase, or
Mayor John Ewing, there's someone's like, oh, yeah, we had elections.
Jean's Douth's not mayor anymore. You know who else probably
thinks that Jeans Douthart she knows, oh yeah, she's like

(21:41):
on her way to city hall. She's like, oh wait, no, she.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Could be on her way to city hall, but she'll
stop in the middle and just laugh maniacally. It's not
my problem anymore.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
I'm guessing that she is equal parts. You know, something's
going on in town, equal parts, not my problem, and
probably more than equal on this side, the thought of
I want to be in there doing something working this issue.
She loved her job. So it was a few years

(22:13):
ago they said we're going to do streetcars, and everyone
in Omaha said, what a great idea is if you
just moved here, Let's just pretend like that statement is true.
So we're getting them. And one of those who wasn't
seemingly on board but now is like, oh, yeah, we
see that this streetcar is going to bring in so
much money. We're just not sure what we're going to
do with all of it. Let's do some improved bike ways.

(22:36):
All right, Wait a second, one more thing on the bikeways.
I thought the idea of the streetcar is that people
didn't have to use their own personal transportation to get around,
and the streetcar was going to be such a great
thing that people can just jump on the street car
and then get where they're going, and it's better for
pollution and climate change and all the rest of this stuff.

(22:58):
And this is what young people want. Also on a
bike trail, like for what I thought, they'd jump on
the street car. So we gotta have bike ways and streetcars. Meanwhile,
those of us, you know, we dinosaurs who drive places.
Where are we supposed to drive and park? Answer? You're not,

(23:23):
Take the street, ride your bike to one of the
street car entry points and get on the car. Can
I take my bike on there? I don't know. We'll
have to see. So the other thing they're talking about
is we're gonna have so much money coming in here
that we can have we can construct affordable housing. Stop

(23:45):
me if you've heard this before, Scott, we've all heard that.
All right, Well, I'm gonna do it anyway. But why
did you tell us to stop you? I don't know.
It's a phrase? And where what who? When it comes
to affordable housing, we're talking about new construction. I don't

(24:08):
know if you've noticed, but since the pandemic, the cost
of everything has gone sky high through the roof, including
putting a roof on your new construction. So the cost
of building materials skyrocketed. The availability for building materials dwindled

(24:31):
because everyone was stuck at home and they say, well,
if I'm going to be home and uh get all
the uh this this extra money they're throwing out in COVID,
I'm gonna do some stuff at my house. I'm gonna
build a deck, I'm gonna build an extension on my house.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Is that why we had shortages?

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Yeah, well that's yeah. I thought it was shipping that
I haven't gotten to that point yet.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
Okay, I'll let you tell you.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Oh yeah, yeah, no, it's all good. You're you're right
that I might forget. So we had every like I'm
building this at my house and all this stuff, and
so what what materials were available were immediately snatched up.
When you have a scarcity of materials, the price for
these materials goes up. The price everything went up because

(25:15):
COVID and inflation and the rest of this stuff. So
now you're paying a whole lot more for fewer materials.
And then it was like, well, we need new materials,
which leads to the shipping bottleneck that I still don't
know how much that has ever been resolved.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
So are proven.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
Well, we saw the images of the shipping containers all
lined up waiting, like, hey, we got stuff. America is
like we need stuff, Like well, we have the stuff,
Like well, if we go out there and help you
get it off the ship, we're all gonna get COVID.
So it just sat there, but let's not miss an opportunity.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Sounds like Lucy has a conspiracy theory.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
So I don't know why we had a scarcity of material.
There's all these trees right down the street from my neighborhood.
Just chop those down and let's build a deck. I
don't think you're allowed to do that. Oh, and then
there's one more component to all of this, labor costs.
The crews that you would be using to build new

(26:22):
stuff suddenly had a lot of jobs, and when their
availability is more scarce, the cost that they can charge
per hour for whatever they're doing goes way up. In
addition to that, the voters across the country said we
should pay people more money. And then these are the
same people that go out now and go how everything

(26:44):
costs more. You're the one who jacked up everyone's race.
That led to inflation, that led to the cost of
goods and services going up, and they have the nerve
to say, hey, thanks, thanks for giving us that raise.
We're making twice what we were a couple of you
years ago. By the way, after you swipe your card
to buy a burrito, how about you give us a

(27:06):
twenty five percent tip. I'm so sick of that different conversation.
I agree, though I still do it, but different. So,
while all this is happening, you got more and more
people who are for whatever reason, for whatever reason, living

(27:29):
on the streets. We got this story from WOWT six
news as neighbors in north Omaha a growing increasingly concerned
about a homeless encampment near twenty eighth and Pinckney, just
off of the seventy five north of Maple, like between
Maple and Ames, And they say it's affecting safety, property

(27:53):
and quality of life. And it's on the property that's
part of its own by the department in Nebraska Department
of Transportation, and the private ownership is the Habitat for Humanity.
They released a statement to WWT six news says we're
working with the Omaha Police Department to address the situation

(28:13):
safely and respectfully. Our team is spoken with nearby residents
and assured them we are committed to being responsive and
doing all we can to support the neighborhood. We remain
dedicated to fostering safe, stable communities, and we'll partner with
experts in our community to find compassionate solutions. If someone's

(28:33):
living on the streets, much more often than not, it's
it's unchecked mental health and addiction issues, oftentimes both. What
are you going to do about it? Who are these
experts in the community. The police show up, They're like,

(28:53):
all right, everyone's got to go. They go them down,
they book them, they process them, they're released, and where
they go, they right back on the streets, either same
place or someplace else. And anyone who suggests, well, we
need to do something else immediately gets hit with, well
that's not compassionate, Like what's compassionate to let them sit
out there in the streets, live on the streets, in

(29:17):
some cases, threaten people who live in the neighborhood, stop
people from shopping or or habitating in this part of town,
mingling in this part of town. How is any of
this compassionate? So then someone has to come up and say,
you know what we need. This goes to show you
we need more affordable housing. So now we're talking back

(29:40):
to the we've got some money here to construct affordable housing.
There's no such thing anymore. If you build so much
as an outhouse, it's gonna cost eight times more than
it did just a few years ago. And someone's if
you're going to build an apartment, town homes, whatever, it

(30:06):
doesn't matter what affordable housing looks like to you. Someone's
gonna have to pay for that, whether it's the property
taxes to have the utilities, to pay rent or mortgage. Well,
if we're talking about well, the reason these people are
living on the streets is because they're not enough affordable housing.
So you build new construction, it's going to cost at

(30:29):
least two thousand dollars a month to live there. It
could cost two hundred dollars a month to live there.
These people don't have the money. You can build all
the so called affordable house unless it's free, aka the
taxpayers are paying for it. They can't afford to live there.

(30:50):
They can't afford to live anywhere. If they had any money,
they someone might stand up in the homeless encampment and say, hey, hey, guys,
what say you? I have a great idea, wit let's
all pool our resources. Everyone get their money out. Let's
see what we got here, and let's go and find jobs,
and we'll all occupy this house that's for sale and

(31:11):
we can all live in the house. I'll get the
upstairs bedroom because it was my idea. You can sleep
over here, and you sleep over here, and you can
sleep in the bathtub. And you like living outside, you
can be in the backyard, but if there's bad weather,
you can come inside. All right, everyone good, Yeah, great, here,
what a wonderful idea. We were just looking for someone
to could all these resources together so we could go
live in a shelter someplace. That's not happening for many

(31:36):
of these poor souls. It's apparently not an option unless
you address underlying concerns. So that goes back to affordable housing.
What's the affordable housing. If it's new construction, it's not
going to be affordable. How much is going to cost?
And they're like, well, we're going to subsidize it. We've

(32:00):
got this group out here called what's it called Front
Porch Investments, and we put forty million dollars into authorizing
the incentivization is that a word? Incentivizing construction of new
affordable housing. Wow, forty million dollars. Now, someone gave me
forty million dollars, I put it to good use. I

(32:23):
think that'd be a lot of money. I wouldn't bat
an eye for people who are like, yeah, we're gonna
build a new apartment structure or one of these like
Extarment Village or Midtown Crossing or something like that, and
it's going to have eight hundred or fifteen hundred different
rooms there for people to live in. Forty million dollars

(32:46):
doesn't go very far. So whether we got forty million
dollars for it, hey great, that and an extra four
hundred million dollars might get you some mite, get you somewhere,
and you're still someone's going to have to pay to
live in these places. And all the so called affordable

(33:07):
housing that goes up, they're all pretty much luxury nice,
very nice condos, an apartment living or rehabed apartment complexes,
and they all cost thousands of dollars a month to
live there. The people living on the streets, the large
and larger number of people living on the streets, can't

(33:28):
afford any of this stuff. Who's the affordable housing for
Why don't you do something about the homeless encampments address
the problem, rather than say, well, this goes to show
you affordable housing. It's absolutely it's a pie in the
sky idea. Always a pleasure to welcome onto the program

(33:50):
for a few minutes of conversation. Here Nebraska Senator deb Fisher,
who joins us now. Senator Fisher, good.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
Morning, Good morning, Scott.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
How are you well. We've been watching I'm fine, Thank
you so much. We've been watching the last couple of
days of hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Your friends
on that committee are taking turns either listening to FBI
Director Cash Bettel or just yelling at him and not
allowing him to speak. You've been a part of a
lot of different hearings. Why is it that you ask

(34:23):
someone to come speak before the United States Senate Committee
and then so many people don't let that person speak.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
Yeah, I don't get it, you know. I've I always
believe when you invite people to be on a panel,
or when you have agency heads or the head of
the FBI come, you should be asking questions where you
want their response to be public, where you want the
response to be on the record. So my style has

(34:57):
always been to get them to talk more than I do.
I don't give a lot of introduction to questions like
a lot of my colleagues do. I've been told I'm
Nebraska blunt, and you know, I asked. I asked the
question and follow up, and I want to get them
on the record and I want information to get out.

(35:19):
So I've seen some clips of Judiciary Committee, and yeah,
it was a show.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yeah, a show, and often so much of the bluster
and the argument and the two individuals talking over each
other and yelling at each other does ignore some details
that come out here. How much have you had a
chance to look at this statement here from chairman of
the Senate Judiciary Committee, our friend Chuck Grassley from Iowa,
about something called Arctic Frost.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
I haven't seen that statement that this is his.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
What he said yesterday was a set of documents that
he said showed numerous Republicans affiliated organizations people targeted with
subpoenas during an operation he called Arctic Frost. He said,
targets like Turning Point USA, and this is from the
Biden Department of Justice and the and the former FBI.

(36:16):
He said that these Republican groups were targeted by the
Biden administration in the FBI, it certainly bears watching. I
don't know how much you've had a chance to This
is not your role. You're not on the Senate Judicial
Judiciary Committee, but as you're getting back in there, having
served Nebraska during both Trump and the Biden now Trump again,

(36:39):
have you noticed a change coming from the Federal Bureau
of Investigation.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
Well, obviously under President Biden, we we always felt that
there was you know, lawfare going on what would people
refer to as lawre that agencies maybe we're used to
target people, But you don't want to kind of go

(37:07):
down that rabbit hole, to be honest with you, if
there's no facts out there on it, you don't just
want to spread rumors basically. So I haven't seen this
from Senador Grassley, but if he, as chair of the
Judiciary Committee, has facts and information, yeah, I hope he

(37:28):
gets that out. I mean, we all want to make
sure that you don't have any government agency, any government
official that's going to target you for your beliefs, for
your stance on issues that is just part of the
political dialogue or where you're going to be on an issue.

(37:53):
And yeah, I find that very disturbing. So I'm going
to thanks for bringing that up. I'm going to find
it and asked sender Grassley what's going.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
On, and we'll have the opportunity as well. Like you,
he is a frequent guest on this program. He's scheduled
right now to be on here at nine thirty five
on Monday morning. We're talking with Senator Deb Fisher. Now,
in the past week, since it was a week ago today,
Charlie Kirk was murdered, and you've had a number of
people either ramping up or tamping down their political rhetoric,

(38:25):
it seems like Capitol Hill has even gotten more contentious.
There were fights on the House of Representatives the day
that Charlie Kirk was shot. We have this contentious hearing
with Cash Pttel where these guys are yelling at each other.
Have you noticed any difference in tone, good or bad
from your cohorts there on Capitol Hill?

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (38:46):
Not really. You know, I was surprised at how out
of control the Democrats were and how rude, seriously, how
rude they were in confrontational. They were the clips that
I saw with the FBI director. You know, our hearings,
As I said, they're supposed to be a fact finding.
They're supposed to be oversight hearings and clarify issues. And

(39:13):
I have not had any kind of negative conversation with
any of my Democrat colleagues. But to be honest with you, Scott,
I'm just appalled by what I see them say on TV,
or what I see them say in interviews, or what

(39:35):
I've heard just from members of the public. The insensitive,
the out of line comments they have made about a
person being killed, a person being assassinated, is it's out
of bounds. And that's the problem we have now overall,

(39:58):
is that kind of lineguage. You know, I've been called
a Nazi, I've been called a fascist, I've been called
a number of things. And that's that's a problem. When
we can't have a polite, constructive discourse and be able
to disagree, it seems like, yeah, we get called out

(40:24):
for our beliefs a lot.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
In your opinion, what should happen? And there are way
too many examples of this where someone, let's say, a
teacher goes on his or her private social media account
and not only celebrates the murder of Charlie Kirk, but
cheers for more like it. And even names names. There
are some people that say that that person should be

(40:47):
out of a job. Others say, oh, come on, what
someone does you know? This is the kind of rhetoric
freedom of speech on their social media account shouldn't be
something the online mob goes after. What say you on
that senator?

Speaker 3 (41:00):
To incite somebody to violence is not freedom of speech,
that's very very clear. You can talk about your differences
in your attitudes towards an issue, where you stand on
an issue, but no, it should never be allowed that

(41:22):
you would incite somebody to violence and call out and
say there's more people and here's a list of who
else should be killed. You're accountable for that and you
should be brought to answered for it. Got to answer
for it. It goes way way beyond any kind of

(41:45):
freedom of speech.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
What about someone who's not targeting someone or cheering for
someone else to be assassinated, but just someone who grotesque
goes on there and makes it clear that they're laughing
and mocking what happened to Charlie Kirk murdered right in
front of us face.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
I think it's horrible. And if they are in a
position as like you said, a teacher or something. I
think that's a decision that a local school board, who
are elected by the people in their community, they need
to consider that and how they would deal with it.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Do you think we're closer to coming together as a
nation as we did twenty four years ago last week
in the wake of the attacks against this nation, or
do you think we're closer to something akin to a
civil war. We had Marjorie Taylor Green in the last
few days saying that we need to actually divide as
a nation between red and blue states. What's your sense

(42:43):
of where we are as Americans today, Senator Well.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
I don't agree with her. I don't agree that we
need to divide is read in red and blue states.
We need to be able to.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Guess.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Remember history. You know you brought up nine to eleven.
I'm going to go back further than that, Scott. My
formative years, I remember President Kennedy being assassinated. I remember
Martin Luther King Junior being assassinated. I remember Bobby Kennedy
being assassinated, and the upheavals we saw during the Vietnam

(43:25):
War with protests. We came back from that. We came
back from that, and and we as a nation. I
think need to be able to look, as I quote Reagan,
you know, look look to our better angels. But we

(43:48):
also have to stand up to to people that that
we disagree with where I think in the past maybe
maybe we haven't, but we can do so in a
civil way and be able to continue to find areas

(44:09):
where we can work together. You know, I try to work.
I try to work with folks across the aisle. I've
done that in a number of cases. In fact, I
just introduced a childcare bill today, working with Democrats and

(44:31):
Republicans on that. And I think it's important to remind
people that why we have big, big disagreements over policy
with my Democrat colleagues, that we still can find areas
where we can work together. I don't want us to

(44:51):
continue to worry about violence, and I certainly don't want
us to promote violence. I think it's important that we
become that I become more vocal in standing up for
my beliefs and my values, but to do so in

(45:14):
a productive way, in a civil way.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
All Right, we got just a couple more minutes here
with Senator dev Fisher. I appreciate that answer. I've got
two more things I want to ask you about first,
as it relates to whether it's ice or now President
Trump talking about going in there and cleaning up crime
in Memphis. Are you comfortable with how the President has
been directing these operations across our country? Would you like

(45:38):
to see him do more or less of these kind
of things.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
I'm very comfortable with the President trying to take care
of violence and crime that we see in cities, and
I think he's been effective with it. Nobody should be surprised.
You know. President Trump ran as someone who wanted to
to make our community safer, and I believe he's doing it.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
And finally, I had a chance to talk with Congressman
Don Bacon the other day at an event, and he
was saying a lot of the same stuff I've heard
you say recently. As it relates to our nation's military.
We have the National Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA that
is being looked at by the United States Senate. I

(46:25):
know that this is a big one for you. What
would this bill do and how likely is it to pass?

Speaker 3 (46:32):
Well, it's passed first of all, past every year for
the last sixty some years. This is a bill again
where we can come together and do our most valuable
responsibility do we have as a Congress, and that's to
protect this nation, to protect our national security, to take

(46:55):
care of our brave service members. Part of this bill
as almost a four percent increase in pay for our
service members. It has an upgrade of our missile systems
that protect this country. It builds new support facilities, for
example on off of Air Force Base to be able

(47:17):
to get ready for the sayok that's going to be there.
And so there's a number of good things in this bill. Obviously,
as chair of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, you know, I
focus on modernizing our nuclear triad, or take care of
our missile defense, look at space as the war fighting domain,

(47:41):
to make sure we have a solid, safe and secure
commanding control system for our nuclear forces. And this bill
needs to pass. We're in some issues right now with
Sender Schumer, no surprise. He has been an obstructionist even

(48:02):
when he was the majority leader, and he continues to
be an obstructionist now. So we're working through things. Senator Soon,
who's leader now the Republican Party in the Senate. He
has done a good job. I don't know if you
saw him on the floor. I think it was last week.

(48:23):
He laid it out there pretty tough and pretty loud,
and I shook his hand afterwards when he went after
the Democrats and their hypocrisy when it comes to President
Trump's nominees. So we're going to continue to work hard,
work together as Republicans, push our Democrat colleagues and do

(48:46):
our job and get NDAA done.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
Nebraska Senator Dev Fisher always appreciate the time. Thank you
so much for providing all of this today, you bet.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
Thank you Scott Scott

Speaker 2 (48:59):
For morning's nine to eleven our News Radio eleven ten
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