04-9-25 - *FULL SHOW* Market Blues; Leland Vittert; Rep Brittany Pettersen

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm ross. This is Kiowa. We are one hundred this year.
Very exciting. I mentioned in our cross talk with Marty
and Gina. A couple of the guests we have coming
on Leland Vindert from News Nation and his show on
Balance is the cable news show that I watched the most,
that Christian and I watched the most.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I always enjoy talking with Leland.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
And then toward the end of the show, just after
eleven thirty, we're going to have Representative Brittany Peterson, represents
Colorado's seventh congressional district, and we're going to talk about
a lot of things with her. I've never had Brittany
on the show before. I'm very much looking forward to
do that. In about half an hour, we're going to
have Ryan Edwards from KOA Sports on just for a
short conversation because I'm going to leave most of the

(00:43):
sports to our sports folks, but just for a short
conversation on his take about the Nuggets firing the head
coach and general manager.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
And well, yeah, we got a ton of stuff to do, so.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Let me just talk about markets for a minute. Yes,
was actually one of the most interesting days in the
stock market that I've probably ever seen. And it was
the first day since at least nineteen seventy eight. And
the reason I word it like that and that the
articles about this word it like that is apparently there

(01:18):
isn't good enough data before nineteen seventy eight. So when
I say it's the first time since nineteen seven, since
at least nineteen seventy eight, it might be the first
time ever since the S and P was created in
the late nineteen fifties that the Standard and Poors five
hundred index was.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Up four percent in the middle of.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
The day at some point during the day, it doesn't
have to be the exact middle and closed down more
than one percent, right, So a five percent it's not
just that there was a five percent swing, but it
was up over four percent, closed down more than one percent.
Think the overall move was more like six percent actually
than five percent.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
And that's a.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Those are scary days to see. And I don't mean
scary like, oh, I was up money and now I'm
down money or something like that. There's when you've been
trading for a long time, you see certain things in markets,
and a day like that shows a market that's even
if you didn't already recognize it from the previous Thursday

(02:26):
and Friday. In these big sell offs, days like that
tend to show markets that are in big trouble. Now,
I have no idea what's going to happen today. As
pat Wood are noted in the news, Dow futures were
down eight hundred points overnight and the market opened around flat,
and then maybe fifteen or twenty minutes after the market

(02:48):
opening that Dow was up three hundred Now it's down
sixty five.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
These are very, very, very volatile times.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
That Nasdaq index is up a little bit today, the
SMP is flat, and I would say just in general
to people who are watching the market, and again, this
stuff falls very much into the category of history doesn't repeat,
but it often rhymes.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
And that's why since I've been following.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Financial markets, both as an amateur and mostly as a
professional for forty years now. I can't believe I'm that old,
but I've basically been watching markets.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
For forty years, and one of my.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
One of the things that seems to me to hold
true much more often than not is that bad markets, right,
markets where you're getting quite a bit more selling than buying,
and especially aggressive selling over a period of time, not

(03:51):
just today, but a week or a month. Markets like
that almost always end in one particular way, and that
is a really really bad opening and closing up on

(04:13):
the day. So the opposite of what.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
We had yesterday.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Right yesterday we were I don't remember how the open was.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
It was up modestly, I think, and then it kept.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Going up, up, up, and then over the course of
the afternoon, I won't say it crashed, but I mean
seriously dropping almost six percent. We've talked about this before.
Normally six percent would be a big month, right. It
did six percent in a couple hours. A few days ago.
It did seven percent in twenty minutes, was right. So
we're in exceedingly volatile times right now. But normally for

(04:43):
these either either aggressive corrections during secular bowl markets, which
could be what this is, or to a lesser degree,
bear markets, which we haven't really seen in a long time,
and they tend to act a bit differently. Usually the
way they end is a market that opens down huge
and you get this last wave of panic selling. The

(05:07):
last people who were trying to hold on and they
just can't take it anymore, and they.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Just they just throw it, They give up. They give up.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
The very very last they give up, they sell, and
basically at that point, what you have is that the
sellers are exhausted and essentially gone, and all that's really
left is people to buy, whether they want to buy
to go long and own the stuff, or whether they

(05:37):
want to buy because they're short and they thought it
was going to go down more but now it stopped
going down, so they have to buy to cover their positions.
And I know that gets a little technical. Shannon's looking
at me like, wait, what exactly are you talking about ross,
But anyway, there's different reasons people might buy the market.
So my take on this is that we had this

(05:58):
terrible day technically yesday, and we opened flat today, and
to me, that just means the selling probably isn't done.
When the Dow futures were down eight hundred a few
hours earlier before.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
The open, I thought to myself, you know, all right,
maybe this will be today.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Maybe a ton of sellers will come in right right
on the opening. Maybe the Dow will open down fifteen
hundred points and that'll be it. But right now I
have no real conviction either way, you know, as to
what we're gonna do today. I just I don't. I
don't think the selling is done unless President Trump does

(06:45):
something that I don't expect him to do, which is
to say, I am signing all these trade deals, and
with every country that we sign a trade deal with,
we're gonna get rid of all the teriffs, or at
least or.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
At least given that he's Donald Trump, I.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
Do not think he will, maybe never during his presidency,
get rid of that baseline ten percent tariff on everything.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
He should. It's going to make us all poorer.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
But the so called reciprocal tariffs where they added another
thirty percent or forty percent or whatever. If you were smart,
he would negotiate those away. But the thing is, I
don't think that's his real goal. I think he'd be
happy to do that. We've spent enough time talking about it.
I think his real goal is try to force manufacturing
back into the United States. I don't think it's a

(07:31):
very good goal, for reasons that I'm not going to
get into.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yes, you normally start a little lighter.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
He couldn't spend a little time on resurrecting that extinct
wolf or something.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
You know.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
I do. I do have that to talk about. I
do have that to talk about. But I it's funny
that you mentioned that, because I was thinking it like,
it's kind of a heavy way to start, but then
Pat Woodard started with it in the news, and I
often enjoy starting the show by reacting to something that
Pat Woodard said in the news. I will get get
to the dire Wolf story actually, just a little bit

(08:03):
later this hour, probably after we talked to Ryan Edwards,
because it is a fascinating story and I'm still trying
to figure out if it really is what it appears
to be. But thank you for that, Producer, Shannon. We'll
be right back, all right. Maybe I'll just start what
were we going to play? What music were we gonna play?
It was gonna be a random bit of a random
bit of bumper music, all right, So let me let

(08:26):
me share a couple things with you, a little bit
of state political stuff that I was gonna get to you later,
but I'm gonna get to this now. Democrats in the
state legislature here are going a bit crazy, crazier even
than in recent years, and that's saying something. So they're
attacking Second Amendment rights, which they've done every year for
a while, but looks like they're gonna have more success

(08:49):
this year.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
They are.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Looking to sue that the This is really kind of amazing. Actually,
the legislature is looking to sue the state effectively to
get Tabor overturned. And then you've got a couple other
things going on to that. I'm just gonna mention briefly
right now. And part of the reason I'm gonna mention
this right now is that I just got an email

(09:13):
from a radio station in Utah, one of an iHeart
station in Salt Lake City called KNRS that I've actually
guest hosted on a few times, but they asked if
I could be a guest on their show today to
talk about some of this craziness from the Colorado State Legislature.
And I'm just gonna mention two things. One of them
is the bill. I'll mention this quickly because we talked

(09:34):
about it yesterday. The bill we talked about with Cori
DeAngelis that has a bunch of provisions, but two of
the key provisions are, let's say you're the parent of
a child. And you might think about this differently depending
on the age of the child, but let's say you're
the parent of a child who's you born as you
know a boy who you named Joey, and now your

(09:56):
child wants to be a girl named Jill. Now, I'm
not going to get into all the merits and demerits
of trans stuff. That's not the purpose of what I'm
talking about here today. And of course, there can be,
as I mentioned, a very very big difference in this
conversation if you're talking about an eight year old versus
a twelve year old versus a sixteen year old versus

(10:17):
a twenty year old.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Right, those can be very different conversations.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
But in any case, in any case, what this bill
would do is it would say, if there's a parent
and let's say you're getting divorced or you are divorced,
and a parent of this child is on a regular
basis calling the child Joey and using he him pronouns,

(10:41):
which is what's on the kid's birth certificate, a court
is supposed to not just might, but is supposed to
take that into account as a negative and potentially reduce
or strip child custody from the parent who is calling

(11:02):
the kid the kid's birth certificate name or the gender
on the birth certificate. So that's one thing, and then
another provision in this bill would be kind of similar,
but in the employment realm, if if an employer or
somebody at a business is routinely using somebody's quote unquote
dead name or not the gender that the person wants

(11:25):
to be called, that will would under this bill be
construed as a crime, an actual crime. I think that
is obviously unconstitutional. By the way, this hasn't passed yet,
and I don't know that it will pass, but that's.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
One of the things they're up to.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
The other thing that I wanted to mention to you
is Senate Bill two seventy six, and this is.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
They call it.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
They title the Bill Protect Civil Rights Immigration Status. The
bill does a few things, but one of the things,
just to give you a sense of this, let's say,
and the illegal alien pleads guilty to a crime. Now,
the vast majority of the time when someone pleads guilty

(12:14):
to a.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Crime, they committed it.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Every once in a long while, there's a case where
someone pleads guilty to a crime they didn't commit because
they think that the prosecutor is going to cheat and
convict him of a worse crime, and they better plead
guilty to the lesser one so they don't get railroaded.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
But there's a very rare occurrence.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
So most of the time when somebody illegal alien or
not pleads guilty to a crime, they did commit it. Now,
of course, if you plead guilty to a crime and
you're an illegal alien, you're going to show up now
as deportable for most crimes. And so what this bill
would do is it would say if an illegal alien
pleaded guilty to a crime, they can vacate their own

(12:56):
or at least they can ask a court to vacate
the guilty plea to when I'm quoting here a Class
one or Class two misdemeanor or a municipal offense, if
they were not adequately advised by defense counsel of adverse
immigration consequences of a guilty plea. In other words, they
plead guilty to a crime. But then they can say, oh,

(13:17):
I didn't know I'd get deported if I pleaded guilty
to the crime that they almost certainly committed in this situation,
So they'll let them withdraw the guilty please, so that
they don't get deported. There's other stuff like right now,
in college in Colorado, to apply for in state tuition
or to get a driver's license, which illegal. Aliens can
do both of those things, but in order to get them,

(13:40):
what you have to do is you have to sign
an affidavit that says you have either applied to be
in the country legally or that you will apply to
be in the country legally as soon as you are
eligible to apply. And Democrats want to take that requirement
away as well. They are really going absolutely crazy with

(14:01):
the most radical leftist stuff you can imagine. Oh, government
funding of abortion is another thing they want to do.
And the reason they're doing it. I talked about this yesterday,
so I'll just say it quickly. The reason they're doing
it is they do not fear any political consequences, and
unfortunately they're probably right. First thing I want to mention
is a few years ago, when the Nuggets won the

(14:23):
NBA Championship, I did a remote broadcast from in front
of the Mercantile Restaurant down down there by Union Station
with Ryan Edwards as the parade went through town. And
there was a lot of stuff that happened at that parade.
A rod was there and we had all kinds of stuff,
and then it ended up that that that Ryan and

(14:44):
I actually won a Colorado Broadcasters Association Award for that broadcast,
And that was kind of funny because I mean, I
did a fine job, but I don't know anything about basketball.
And when I have a conversation about sports with Ryan Edwards,
I can almost kind of sort of not sound like

(15:08):
a moron. If I'm talking about the NFL and anything else,
forget it.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
I need Ryan. So with this, with.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
This big story about the Nuggets, I wasn't even going
to attempt to cover it myself because I don't know anything.
And Ryan, I won't say he knows everything, but he
knows act of a lot. So Ryan is co host
of KOA Sports three three pm to six pm here
on KOA, and he has kindly agreed to go on
the air much earlier than usual.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Good morning, Ryan, Good morning, my friend.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
How are you I.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
I'm I'm hanging in there.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Why don't you just jump in with what Nuggets fans
should make of this change?

Speaker 3 (15:44):
Well, I mean it's it's kind of it's a lot,
really because I'm precedented. So when you say something is unprecedented,
sometimes that sign sounds a little hyperbolic, but in this case,
it really has never happened. I mean, it ties the
latest in season firing with Huey in nineteen eighty one,
but Kean only won thirty one games, so they were eliminated.

(16:05):
They were out of it. So the fact that the
Nuggets were the four seed when this went down is
something we've never seen before. So it's hard to really
make to know what to make of it, because on
one hand, the signaling of the firing of a coach
in a GM is, hey, we're going in a new direction,
We're maybe blowing things up. We don't expect much out
of this team going forward, We're going to be in

(16:27):
evaluation mode, so on and so forth. But then you
have the owner coming out, Josh Croncky, and he said
quite the contrary, we actually think this is going to
help boost us. We think we have a chance to
make a real run and win a championship this year.
So it's hard to know what to make of it exactly.
I mean, we went through it, you know, for three
hours yesterday. I'm sure we'll get back into it a

(16:47):
little bit this afternoon as well. There's this moment of like, Okay,
well I see why you did it. I don't see
why you did it now, necessarily, especially with Malone. But
I see why you did it because of the way
they were played. They weren't that there were some there
was some disconnect certainly the things that were happening in
the court. But on the other hand, if it's like,
but you really upset the apple part here, and I

(17:08):
don't know if it's going to have the outcome, and
if you get bounced in the first round, well maybe
that was always going to be the case. So it's
really kind of all over the place on how you
feel this news should be taken.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
All right, you know very well since we're friends that
I'm president of the Bad Analogy Club, And while.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
You were talking, I just thought of what.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Could be one of the worst analogies of all time,
and I'm going to share it with you now.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
And I just thought of this thanks to you.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
But maybe what the Nuggets just did to their team
is kind of like what Donald Trump is doing the
international trade. Like, okay, you when you say the reason
that you're doing it, I kind of get it, but
I'm also more than a little skeptical that you're going
to achieve your goals by doing that.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Fan, how about that?

Speaker 3 (18:02):
I like that, I mean, and honestly that's exactly right.
And that's the skepticism we met with Josh, Josh Cronky's
words yesterday, and I guess for him there and again
I won't you know me, I'm not gonna go into
that avenue of it now. I'll let you talk about
that stuff. But I guess for Josh, like, that's what
you got to say, Like, you're not gonna say, hey,

(18:23):
this team underachieved. They're saying it the four seed, so
you can't say this team underachieved. And we just don't
think we're gonna be able to do it this year,
so we went ahead and fired everybody. I can't say that.
You know, you still got self tickets. You still expect
people to show up to the arena. You hope the
Nuggets can hold on somehow to the top six here
there they're gonna be. They really kind of need to
win all these games to do that. But there's a scenario.

(18:45):
If they win tonight, I think they kind of put
themselves in a really good spot. We can get into
that a little later, but if you don't win these games,
these next three games, then you're definitely in the play
in which means you're really I mean it's it's your
life is on the line. I mean, you gotta win
these that game or else you're out right. So it's
a fascinating spot, I think for the owner in your case,

(19:05):
the president say things where you sit there and you say, well, okay, yeah,
I hear what you're saying, and you're kind of tying
these logical things together, and I know why you're saying it.
It just there you kind of say that doesn't it
still doesn't quite line up for me because every other
scenario in my mind of a coach getting fired and
a gym getting fired results in we're going in a

(19:27):
new direction philosophically as an organization, and we're getting ready
to make some major changes.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, and I'm gonna, you know, leave it, leave it
to you and your pals in the afternoon to really
talk about the sports aspect of this and what it
means for the playoffs and all that. For me, as
I read this story, think about this story, I think
about it as a business story and as an interesting
management story. And I want to and I want to

(19:54):
ask you about a headline I saw over at the
Denver Gazette written by a guy I'm sure you know,
well named Mark Kislaw. I've never met him, but he's
a very well known sports writer here who always seems
to write like he's a little bit angry. But anyway,
you don't have to confirm or deny that, since you're

(20:14):
probably friends with his.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
Byline that should be a Twitter bio. I'm writing like
I'm angry. Yeah, that's perfect.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
So, but the short version of this story is that
the coach and GM were both fired because they couldn't
get along and they had a bad relationship and management
was tired of it. Do you think there's any truth
to that? And do you think they were equally to blame,
And do you think if that's right, that it's a
good enough reason to fire both.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
I think it's one hundred percent true. Well, I don't
even think I know it's one hundred percent true. And
they've let this thing play out in the public. It's
like one of those things where in some organizations we
hear rumblings of This is an example where they're both
publicly doing interviews with national media as well as local media,
telling everybody how they don't get along and how they

(21:04):
philosophically view the way that this team should be operating. Differently,
and so Mark Kids is usually right and just ask him,
but he is right on this because they have let
this thing spill out into the media, spill out into
the public, and there's been this back and forth now

(21:25):
for several years about who deserves the credit for what,
including the championship, and there's been hey, we need to
play the younger players, says the GM and he's going
on record with you know, national pundits as well. And
then you have the coach coming out and saying I'm
gonna play who I'm gonna play because I'm the freaking coach,
and that that is a problem. That's like again, and

(21:47):
if you're the owner and you're watching all this play out,
you're like, look, it's okay if you're winning, and if
my best player in the NBA, Nikola Jokich, feels okay
about it. But if he doesn't feel okay about it,
and you're not winning the games, and now all of
a sudden, you can just sort of see the riding
on the wall. This team is about to get bounced
in the first round. Yeah, you start to maybe get

(22:07):
a little bit desperate to swing things the other way.
I think it would have been really weird. I think
in his case, for Josh Tronky, it'd been kind of
weird to keep one or the other, because then I
think there's a view externally, maybe even some internally, that
he chose a side. And we talked about this for
weeks now, like is he going to choose a side here?
And which side would he choose when he side with
the GM who's been saying we got to play the

(22:29):
young players, or is he going to side with the
coach to help bring in the first championship in Nuggets history.
That maybe Nikola Jokic backs and in the end he
decided not to side with either of them. He got
rid of both, and again I think his is right.
That's exactly if you're Josh Tronky, you're just tired of it.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, So I'll give you another band analogy. So imagine
that you're a parent of two kids. They and they
are constantly bickering with each other, and you're kind of
tired of it. You show up one day and they're
fighting and they're crying, and then each one points to
the finger at the other one and says, you know,
he started it, No, she started it. You're like, I
don't care you're you know, both of you go to

(23:06):
your rooms, right. And and also, and I mean this
really in a not a sarcastic way, but almost like
a game theory way. And the incentives that you create
if if you did pick aside in that even if
there's still both gonna be your kids in my bad analogy,
but if you if, but if you did pick aside,
you could potentially create a lot of bad incentives for

(23:29):
bad behavior in the future.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
I completely agree. Yeah, Josh Tronky, when he said I'm
gonna turn this car around, he did turn the car.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, he did.

Speaker 3 (23:39):
I love That's the great analogy too, man, what do
you talking about that?

Speaker 2 (23:42):
All right?

Speaker 3 (23:43):
Here?

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Last question, last question for you.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
I saw, and I don't remember where I saw it,
some reporting that said, if I if I read it right,
that Nicole Jokich was made aware of the move to
fire the coach before it was announced to the public.
I'm curious broadening that out a little bit. Do you
think Nikola Jokicic's opinion was asked whether either or both

(24:10):
should be fired. Do you think it should have been asked.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
I think it should have been asked. There's been some
speculation in reporting. I mean, he definitely knew ahead of time.
I'll confirm that he did know ahead of time. He
was now the level of consulting as in was he
asked his opinion was, He asked, Hey, do you want
to save one of them or both of them? Like,
do you think we should do this? I don't really know.
I think he should though. Honestly, he's the best player

(24:36):
in the NBA. He's a face of your franchise. He's
a three time MVP. He ushered in a whole new
era of basketball. When he retires, obviously a Hall of famer,
but he'll go down as one of the top ten,
maybe top five best players of all time that's playing
for your franchise. So I absolutely think you involve him
in these decisions. He's already had an impact in some

(24:57):
of the roster moves that you're going to do, that
you have done and you're going to do. I imagine
he'll be very much consulted on who the next head
coach is going to be, as well as probably the GM.
So yeah, I think he should have been in there.
But then you know, again, if you're Nicola Jokic, maybe
you want the appearance you don't want to be Lebron James, right,
You don't want to be seen as the guy that

(25:18):
really is doing everything, and you want Josh to appear
though he is really in charge here, even though we
know it's a player driven league. So it's an interesting
balance there because Lebron gets a lot of flack for
being kind of the alpha and the omega out there
in Los Angeles, like people kind of like, oh, I mean, gosh,
everything that's being done. You're drafting his son in the

(25:39):
second round when a lot of teams would probably wouldn't
have even drafted him at all. Because it's Lebron James.
He gets to say that, because he's one of the
greatest of all time. Well, Nicola Jokic, maybe he doesn't
want to be known like that. So I think he
gets to have a little bit of bolts. He gets
to say, hey, you're consulting me, right, Okay, yeah, this
is what I think. But simultaneously, no, no, no, this was

(26:00):
organizational decision and I'm just here if they need me.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Excellent love that analysis. Ryan Edwards is co host of
KOA Sports weekdays three pm to six pm Here on KOA.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Thanks for the conversation. Ryan appreciate it always, man, thank you.
All right, So there you go.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
When I again, I I'm way way more of an
NFL fan than any other professional league. My second would
be an HL, and then you know, probably baseball after
that and basketball after that. So it would be dumb
for me to try to do anything myself with that
Nuggets headline other than just read you stories, which is

(26:41):
which would be boring.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
So we got the expert on and thanks thanks to Ryan,
who sure does know.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
Isn't it interesting when folks like that say I can confirm.
I thought about asking him but decided not to. All right,
you can confirm this whatever that thing was that he
said he can't that they that they met and talked about.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
It, that he was.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Right, well for sure, but there was there was another
thing too that he said he can confirm. But whatever,
don't you wonder like, huh, how do you know who
are you talking to? Who told you that behind the
scenes so that you can confirm it? But you can't
tell us any more than that. But of course I
didn't want to put him in a position of asking
him who told you? Because he wouldn't tell me. Uh,
it would be a dumb question. For me to ask him.

(27:27):
But I do find that really interesting. On the other hand,
there are times he's in his world, right, he's in
his sports world, and he and Ben and Dave and
all these they know everybody, they know it. And so
in a way, it's not that different from when I
tell you I can confirm, you know, such and such
a thing going on in the state legislature, or such

(27:48):
and such a thing going on in Congress, and I
tell you I know this is true, and when I
you know, and and I do, but I can't tell
you how I know.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
So it does.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
It comes with the territory a little bit, but still
when it's outside of my like, they're probably is surprised
when I say I can confirm that this thing is
happening in the state legislature, as I am surprised when
they say that they can confirm that something happened inside
a sports team.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
But it's really not that different, not that different. Okay.
So producer Shin In.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
Somewhere between gently nudged and brutally excoriated me earlier in
the show for not talking about this story already. And
I had this story yesterday but actually got more on it,
and I didn't get to it. I got more information
on it today and it's it's pretty neat. So there
are a bunch of headlines around, For example, New York
Post headline, scientists revive dire wolf species from Game of

(28:47):
Thrones in world's first known d extinction. And then there's
actually an opinion piece by Rich Lowry, who normally writes
for National Review, but he wrote this for the New
Posts as well. Life finds a way as science resurrects
the dire wolf in our world is richer for it. Now,

(29:07):
there are a lot of different stories I can share
with you here, but let me just share little bits
and pieces. And now I'm gonna get to the part
that's a little bit new today. It's a game of clones,
all right, I get it. The dire wolf that's Dira,
by the way, a species that disappeared thirteen thousand years
ago and was made famous by the beloved HBO series

(29:30):
Game of Thrones, is making a comeback thanks to the
first ever so called the extinction. Three dire wolf pups
aptly named Romulus, Remus, and Khalisi, were successfully born using
DNA from ancient dire wolf fossils and genes from their
closest living relative, the gray wolf. The extraordinary results were

(29:52):
revealed on Monday by Colossal Biosciences, the same Texas based
genetic engineering company that created the adorable colossal wooly mouse.
By the way, this company they're working on de extincting
the wooly mammoth. What else, the dodo bird and the
thylosine which is sometimes known as a Tasmanian tiger, and

(30:14):
I really would like to see those right. The last
Tasmanian tiger was alive I think less than one hundred
years ago, somewhere around one hundred years ago, and it's
possible that there's some Tasmanian tiger DNA around that is
in much better shape than this.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Dire wolf DNA.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
So what they did was they took DNA from a
dire wolf tooth that they estimate to be thirteen thousand
years old and a dire wolf skull that they estimate
to be seventy two thousand years old, and they didn't
actually mix that DNA with gray wolf DNA. What they

(30:56):
did was they analyzed the DNA and then they took
gray wolf eggs I guess fertilized eggs and modified they
found that they only needed to change something like nineteen
genes out of fourteen thousand.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
I don't know the numbers in front of me, but
something like that.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
So they went in and just modified these few genes
where they went through the genomes as best they could,
and they said, okay, gray wolf has this pattern, dire
wolf has this pattern. There's not that many that are
actually different, so we can just go through and change
the ones that are different, and we'll make a dire
wolf out.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Of a gray wolf.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
And so anyway, they've got these three puppies now, and
they're young, they're probably like six months old or something,
but they're already you know, fifty pounds and pretty big,
maybe more than that, because these are big animals, fairly big,
and they're keeping them in an undisclosed two thousand acre

(31:56):
sanctuary somewhere that they haven't said where in order to
to protect them.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Now.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
The science, of course, absolutely fascinating. What's also interesting is
just in the past couple of days since that announcement
came out, you've got these other articles. So here's here's
one from a website called New Scientist and I and
I don't have a subscription to this website, so I
can only see the headline in the very beginning of
the article. But the headline says no, the dire wolf

(32:25):
has not been brought back from extinction, and the subhead
says Colossal Biosciences claims three pups born recently are dire wolves,
but they're actually gray wolves with genetic edits intended to
make them resemble the lost species.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
Now here's here's what I wonder about.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
And then and then BBC headline from from yesterday experts
dispute claim dire wolf brought back from extinction.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
So so here's here's what I wonder about.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
And this is probably as much a philosophical question as
anything else. If you had the full genome of a
gray wolf, and if you had the full genome of
a dire wolf, and you knew what all the differences
were between them, and you started with gray wolf DNA

(33:13):
because gray wolves are around now, and you can get
that DNA and it's very healthy DNA, not degraded thirteen thousand.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Year old DNA.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
But you have brand new, perfectly healthy DNA, and you
know what the changes are. And just stick with me
for a second and assume you know what the changes are,
and you go through and make those changes. So now
the gray wolf DNA the genome looked like the.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Dire wolf genome.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
And then what they actually did was they implanted those
I guess you'd call them embryos at that point into
hound dogs that they picked for both because the dogs
were very healthy and because the dogs were fairly large,
so that they'd be able to give birth to large puppies.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
In any case, at.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
That point, when you have this thing that's born, this
baby wolf, is that just a genetically edited gray wolf
or is it a dire wolf in the sense that
you know that the DNA was created from gray wolf
DNA and making some changes. In my hypothetical here, you

(34:20):
would be able to look at the genome of this
little creature that was born and analyze it and it
would show up as dire wolf, so that if you
didn't know where it came from, you would think you
magically discovered a dire wolf.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
So which is it?

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Is that a dire wolf or is that a genetically
re engineered gray wolf? And don't I don't have an answer.
I kind of liked the question. There was a somewhat
significant debate, maybe a couple of years ago, in my mind,
two three years ago, about whether transgender women meaning biological

(34:59):
males went through puberty as men, whether they should be
allowed to compete against women in sports, especially in important
sports where real prizes and real money and college scholarships
and all this stuff are at stake. And I always
thought it was a very stupid discussion because the answer
is so obvious that the answer is no.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
And I say this as somebody just to make you know.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
If you're new to my show, let me just tell
you I am not a social issues conservative, right, I'm
not religious.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
I'm a libertarian.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
I don't care one way or another about trans people
or you know, like four or against. It doesn't matter
to me at all. Kids are a different conversation. But
you know, adults, live your live whatever life you want
to live.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
I don't care.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
But allowing people who have the physical advantages of men
to destroy the hopes and dreams of dozens or hundreds
or thousands of women who have spent their whole lives
trying to reach a certain level of success in a
sport is manifestly unfair and ridiculous. And I didn't really

(36:06):
think that anyone other than an absolute lunatic might still
think it's okay to have biological men and women's sports,
And yet there is a debate about that tonight where
the person who's saying yeah, they should be allowed, I
don't know if he's a lunatic or not joining us
to talk about it. Tell us what's going on and
where and how you can either attend or watch online.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
Had Lee Manning, executive.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Vice president of the Steamboat Institute, Hadlee, good to talk
to you, and why don't you just jump right in
and tell us about the event and what my listeners
need to know.

Speaker 4 (36:39):
Sure, thanks, Ross. You know, a lot of people think
that this issue is over, that it's in the rear view.
Of course, President Trump came in. One of the first
things he did was sign an executive order barring biological
men and women in girls' sports. However, just in the
last week, we've seen yet again more examples of physically
biologically male athletes and women's sports.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
A rower.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
It's like a college a censor in USA fencing where
famously now the female fencing opponent took a knee. Stephanie
Turner took a knee rather than face a male opponent.
So this is an ongoing issue, and even John Oliver,
the British comedian late night host, just did a big
segment about this, saying essentially that while biological males or

(37:20):
trans women as he calls them, have some advantages and sports,
he says, they also have some disadvantages due to their size.
So I'll be very interested to see what our debaters
talk about tonight. I hope that people in the Denver
area and the Boulder area can come out and see
this debate in person. That's going to be at five thirty.
Free to attend event. You could register beforehand, but you

(37:41):
don't have to. You can just show up at the
Touchdown Club on campus at Cugolder Tonight at five thirty.
We're going to have Jennifer Say, who is the founder
of XXXY Athletics. He's also the nineteen eighty six national
champion in women's gymnastics. She is going to be holding
force for the idea that no biological men or trans
women if they are sometimes called, should not be allowed

(38:03):
to participate in women's sports. On the other side, we
have Kevin Bowling, who's the executive director of the Secular
Student Alliance and an LGBT advocate. He is going to
be arguing that, yes, transgender athletes should be included, they
should be allowed to compete in women's sports.

Speaker 5 (38:16):
So I hope.

Speaker 4 (38:17):
Everybody will show up and hear both sides, even if
you are, like you Ross, pretty decided on the issue.
I find these debates fascinating because I like to learn
how people on the other side of an issue might think,
where they draw their information, how they come to their conclusions.
And I'm always always leaving feeling a lot more informed
and at least the better understanding of how people think,

(38:39):
even if it's different from how I think. So I
encourage people to come. If you can't come and watch
in person, there is a live stream on our YouTube channel,
the Steamboat Institute YouTube channel, so you can log in
at five point thirty and listen to the debate that
way too.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
So and folks, I've got links to all of this
on my blog at Rosscominski dot com, where you can
go to Steamboat Institute dot org and go to upcoming
events and you'll find it right there. And I agree
with you completely, Hadly. Just because I have a strong
opinion on something doesn't mean I don't want to hear
the other side. In fact, it means I want to
hear the other side. I always want to hear the

(39:14):
other side more than I want to hear my own side.
I do not seek confirmation. I avoid confirmation bias. I
think it's I think it's quite a harmful thing. And
knowing the Steamboat Institute, you're only going to set up
a debate with very credible debaters. So I'm actually quite
interested to hear the arguments this guy's going to make.

(39:35):
Even though I don't expect to be convinced, I'm quite interested.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
Yeah, we always stress for our debaters and to our
audience members. Everyone's welcome to come and participate, to listen,
or to ask questions. We just want everybody from all
perspectives to come with respect, with the idea that we're
going to have a substantive debate. We're not going to
do any name calling or yelling. We're not going to
resort to partisan talking points. We're going to get in
to the issue. It's always going to be fair. We're

(40:01):
going to give equal time to both perspectives, both sides.
We're always going to invite debaters who sincerely believe in
what they're saying too. We don't want to have, you know,
a conservative versus a conservative. We want to have like
a real clash of ideas, a real exchange of ideas.
And that's what I'm hoping for tonight, That's what I expect.
So I hope to see many of your listeners there.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Okay, So again for the live stream, which is probably
what most people would be able to do, because only
a modest percentage of my listeners are near are near Boulder.
But for the live streaming, or to the Steamboat Institute
YouTube channel, or you can go to the Steamboat Institute
web page that I've linked and it has a link
there to join the live stream.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
One more time.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
They'll hadley for people who might be able to show
up in person.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Where and when one more time?

Speaker 4 (40:46):
Right, it's at the Touchdown Club, which is a big
athletic center on campus at CEU Boulder. So if you
put Touchdown Club in your GPS, it should take you
there and we're going to have a great time. It's
about an ninety minute events, so plan you know to
get there in time to park. The event starts at
five thirty and should conclude about seven. So we're going

(41:07):
to have a really interesting debate moderated by Blankly fellow
Kaylie McGee white, which people might recognize her name from Fox.
He's on Fox News a lot. But I'm very much
looking forward to getting into this issue. I expect Ross
that this issue will go much deeper than sports. I
think we'll get into some of the bigger ideas about
what is sex, what is gender, what does it mean
to be transgender? So I'm very much looking forward to

(41:28):
I hope you guys can join Hadley.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
Manning, executive vice president the Steamboat Institute Steamboat Institute dot
org to learn more.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
Thanks, Hadley, appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (41:36):
Thank you so much. Ross appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
We'll be right back on KOA. I'm wearing it looks
like you're wearing a men's T shirt. It's a DHC
construction and design.

Speaker 5 (41:46):
It's not slimming and showing off your bosom. So that
does seem to be a mail shirt. Yes, yes, it
is slightly curious. Yeah, we're all.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
You're good today.

Speaker 5 (41:56):
Now you put everything on correctly as far.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
As I know, Okay, as far as I know.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
Another listener, as I don't know what's going on with
this dragon by the way, uh one listener text is
Ross in a T shirt or a blouse. Uh, that's
that's one. There there's more ross. Does your blouse improve
your cartwheel performance? And it goes on, it goes on
from there. And I don't know how I have suddenly,

(42:26):
by making one dressing mistake one day, suddenly now have
a reputation that I may be secretly wearing women's undergarments
or something brought up undergarments.

Speaker 5 (42:42):
How did this happen? We're just talking about your blouse.
I mean, if you want to bring.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
Up well, you asked me before when we were off
the air, when you could see what I'm at least
the outer part of what I'm wearing, whether I'm wearing
any other.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
How did this happen? It's your own fault, You're the one.
How they went, How did this happen? I'm wearing a
women's shirt. Should I take this off or not?

Speaker 5 (43:04):
Yeah, I'm gonna go to work wearing a women's shirt
and tell everybody on the radio.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
So I wasn't sure was it a woman's shirt or
just a badly made Chinese shirt?

Speaker 5 (43:17):
And I had forgotten to ask. You asked me just
getting on the air, if I had taken my trash
out yes, I did.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
We just hadn't created enough to go out.

Speaker 5 (43:28):
So I just you know, one kitchen trash bag in
a waste management been not worth it for me.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
So did you take your trash out? Yes? Oh good, good,
but not today.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
So we were talking about the dire wolf thing, and
you know what was interesting. I've got a lot of
listeners who are trying to become part of the Bad
Analogy Club, and I got back to back texts from
different people using very very similar metaphors, and I got
to do this quickly. But if you're just joining, the
reason this come up is I asked, if you took

(44:02):
the DNA of a gray wolf and made the apparently
small number of changes you need to convert that to
the DNA of a dire wolf, and then you implanted
that embryo in a dog that gave birth to the
wolf puppy, and then the wolf puppy is born.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Would you say that that wolf puppy is just a.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
Genetically engineered gray wolf, which is the source of the DNA,
or would you say it's a dire wolf in the
sense that, in my hypothetical, if you tested the DNA
of this wolf puppy, you would say it has dire
Wolf DNA and not gray Wolf DNA if you actually
made all the changes. Now I only have about a
minute here, so let me just share two listener texts

(44:42):
with you, both with.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
The same mindset.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
If I took an old Chevy Silverado in a brand
new Chevy twenty five hundred and then put every piece
from the twenty five hundred on the Silverado, the engineer,
the engine, fender's headlights, running boards, tailgate, everything, I would
have made a brand new Chevy Silverado.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
I would say it's a the dire Wolf.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
It will breed and pass its DNA on as a
dire wolf as well. Another listener, just like seconds later,
if you go down to the National Museum of World
War Two Aviation in Colorado Springs and look at the
P thirty eight Lightning they have when it was rebuilt
after pulling it from a trash jump where it was
left after battle damage in nineteen forty five, they had

(45:22):
to replace sixty percent of the plane with new and
modern manufactured parts. Is it still a P thirty eight
even though sixty percent of the plane has been replaced,
I personally would say yes. The plane performs the same
looks the same, sounds the same, and flies the same
as the initial aircraft that was rebuilt. I feel the
same way as the new dire Wolves. I would say
they were actual dire Wolves. Now Here is where I

(45:45):
will claim that your analogies are bad analogies.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Although maybe not bad.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Enough to join the club, you probably need to do
a little worse to join the club. But here's what
I'd say in your examples of the rebuilt plane and truck,
and expert or even maybe not necessarily a great expert
could go to either one of those vehicles, the plane
or the truck and say, that's not an original part

(46:11):
that came from something else. Sure it works here, but
it's not an original part. It didn't come from an
original P. Thirty eight lightning. It didn't come from the
original Chevy Silverado. Where in my hypothetical with the dire Wolf,
if you actually did make all the changes between the
gray Wolf DNA and the dire Wolf DNA, you could
show the dire Wolf or the dire Wolf DNA to

(46:32):
an expert and they would not be able to tell
you that it isn't a real one. We'll be right
back with the fantastic Leland Vindert from NewsNation. My good
friend Leland Vindtert, who hosts On Balance on News Nation
weeknights at seven pm and again at ten pm here
in the Mountain time zone. He also puts out an
amazing daily or each day that he's working email called

(46:56):
war Notes that comes out in the afternoon, and you
can go to warnotes dot com and subscribe and you
will get an insight into Leland's brain and what he's
going to talk about on the show, and it'll make
you smarter. Also, it's a book coming out that we're
going to talk about in.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
A bit now.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
Leland is trying to decide what's more important between global
trade wars and collapsing US oil prices and things like
that versus the.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
Masters golf tournaments.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
And I'm wondering, as you ponder that in your head
as of this moment, which are you thinking is more
important or more interesting or something.

Speaker 6 (47:34):
It's not even a question. I'm not trying to figure
it out for the next five days. It is. It
is the Masters, okay, like the global trade wars, the
price of oil, the stock market, it's going to all
exist on Monday, okay, just is the Masters will not
exist on Monday, so you might. No matter what you

(47:56):
spend your time doing of thinking about the global trade wars,
price of oil, China, confronting China international alliances, it's not
going to make you anywhere near as happy as watching
the Masters for the next five days.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
All right, I'm going to ask you a couple of
ignorant questions, because I don't know much about golf.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Where is the Masters? And is it always at the
same place?

Speaker 6 (48:21):
The Masters is at the Augusta National Golf Course in Augusta, Georgia.
It has been at the same place for the past
I think seventy plus years, maybe eighty years, and it
is the greatest in my opinion, four days or five days,
because today is the part three contest in sports.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Have you ever been to the Masters as a spectator?
And have you ever played that course?

Speaker 6 (48:48):
I have been as a spectator, No, I have not
been as been able to play. If any of your listeners,
our members at Augustin would like me to join them,
sometimes I'd be more than happy to.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
When's the last time you were there as a spectator?
And why is that tournament so special for you?

Speaker 6 (49:11):
The last time I was there was in twenty nineteen,
twenty eighteen something like that. It is hallowed ground. I've
been to a number of other US Open courses. I've
played US Open courses, I've played big tournament courses. There
is nothing like Augusta. The fair ways, the look, the

(49:33):
experience is something magical. And I think you realize when
you watch the pros play it, they have a reverence
for Augusta that they don't for any of the other
major tournaments.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
So the only reason I'm going to ask you this
question on the air is because you told me off
the air that you don't discuss it. So of course
I now have to ask you, what's your handicap?

Speaker 6 (49:58):
I don't discuss it.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
Oh that's so good. I'm just gonna move on. I'm
just s that's like a mic drop moment, and I'm
just gonna I'm gonna leave that there. Okay. So now
a more serious question. So you know my background is,
so has.

Speaker 6 (50:14):
The has the judge now accepted me? The court has
now accepted me as an expert on whatever else we
want to talk about.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Maybe we'll see, okay, especially especially if we get to
talking about household appliances in a little bit. We will
see how I sprint you are, but a serious question.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
Now, So my background is.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Financial markets, trading, all this stuff that I used to do.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
So when I see the trade.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
Wars and I see the markets, I I think it's
a very big deal. But I wonder if it is.
You know, Donald Trump is saying even today like just
be cool. I think that was where his words be cool.
And of course there's lots and lots of other stuff
going on in the world, and not just in the
Trump administration, but a lot there as well. So this

(50:56):
story is just sucking up so much oxygen in the room.
Do you I think the fact that this story is
sucking up all this oxygen in the room is appropriate
and it really is that big or it's getting more
attention than it should because it's freaking out certain people
that you know, Trump and his friends are saying, are
just panicky.

Speaker 6 (51:18):
The Panicans rather than Republicans. Who are the Republicans who panic?
It's a great question.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Ross.

Speaker 6 (51:24):
That is like asking if COVID was taking up too
much airtime in March of twenty twenty. In April of
twenty twenty. It is not the story. It is the
only story. And here's why. Because it affects absolutely everyone
in ways that we do not know. It is fair

(51:46):
to say that this is to me the scariest time,
you know, one of, if not the scariest times, I've
ever been in in my lifetime in America and America politics,
in world politics. In the same way, COVID upended all
of our lives and changed it, and the ways our
lives have changed post COVID are profound. Even though COVID

(52:11):
is gone, our life will change profoundly post this trade
war and Donald Trump's realignment of the world in ways
that we don't quite understand right now.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
So I like that comparison, And of course I agree.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
With you that even though COVID is gone as a
as a pandemic, and I'll extend your analogy a little bit,
COVID has gone as a pandemic that is massively changing
the way we live our lives every day. But COVID
is actually still around and I know people who have
it right now, and it's causing still small disruptions, and

(52:51):
it's still out there, and there there are other ways
where it disrupted our lives in that are that are persistent.
So my question for you is is do you think
that if President Trump backed down significantly or entirely right now,
that so much damage will already have been done in

(53:13):
a variety of ways that it will continue to affect
our lives for some time to come, just based on
what's already happened.

Speaker 6 (53:23):
Well, I'm going to reject the premise of your question,
and here's why, because, as we've written in more notes
for a couple of days, this is a reckoning that
had to happen. Therefore, it was going to happen and
has to happen sometime in the future. Because the status

(53:44):
quo of the rise of China, America's debt problem, the
issues of the hollowing out of America's middle class and
a forgotten group of Americans, We're going to require a pentance,

(54:05):
if you will, a massive, massive dislocation, and that's what
is occurring. And therefore I think even if Trump stopped
right now, would the market recover a couple of thousand points.
I don't know. If I knew the markets, I wouldn't
be talking about them on television. I would be trading

(54:27):
from a really nice golf course in the morning and
then playing golf in the afternoon. So my takeaway from
what you've asked is I think Trump is forcing a reckoning.
He is doing so as he does with chaos and
drama and a lack of a plan and all sorts

(54:50):
of problems. But that's already starting.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
I agree with a lot of that.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
I think that of the various problems you named, I
think the biggest one is our national debt. I think
that China is another legitimate problem. And I don't think
that as a nation, we should be dependent, especially for
very important things, on a competitor who is rapidly drifting
towards becoming an enemy rather than a competitor. And I

(55:19):
think that's a legitimate issue as well. I suspect that
Donald Trump is trying to treat a broken arm with
chemotherapy and radiations. Right, It's the wrong medicine for what
our real problems are.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
But I think he's diagnosed.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
I don't think he prioritizes the problems the same way
I do.

Speaker 6 (55:41):
Okay, that that may be the case. I think you're
right that this is chemotherapy. This is not a broken arm,
This is a I mean, we can any extend any
analogy as far as we want until it breaks down,
But effectively, I think This is like almost the way

(56:04):
America health is right. I mean, America has a morbid
obesity problem as a country, not just the health of
its citizens, but it's economy. Our economy is sick because
of the national debt. I think the rise of China
of wanting to challenge America in the world. The reason
America's financial system works is because we have supremacy in

(56:27):
the world and we are the only game in town,
a dollar dominated world. China wants to threaten that. You
put all of that together, Donald Trump is doing something.
I think actually that has to be done.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
So I will clarify my broken arm analogy.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
I think that specifically on the issue of so called
trade imbalances, I don't think that's a very important issue.
I think all the other stuff you talked about is
a very important issue.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
And I agree with you on the no.

Speaker 6 (56:58):
No, Donald Trump's been a sessed about trade imbalances and
that just because you have a trade surplus, you're ripping
over people off. If you have a trade deficit, they're
ripping you off.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 6 (57:09):
That is the most asinine view of economics that I've
ever heard in my life, and I've heard a lot
of them because I started at the London School of
Economics with their borderline socialists. So no, that that is
fundamentally absurd. But after that, and it's a fundamental misunderstanding

(57:29):
of economics and the use of it's sort of really
it's kind of insulting to the American people to keep
saying that to justify what he's doing. Everything else I
think actually is really really important of what's happening. And look,
you know, yeah, and I would agree with you, and
I don't ever find myself doing the White House is

(57:51):
bidding that how this is being done, maybe you can
quibble with, but somebody had to do it. By the way,
every president in since the nineteen nineties has promised to
deal with it and they haven't.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
So okay, last thing on this.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
And by the way, folks, if you're just joining we're
talking with Leland Viddortev News Nation. You can watch him
on on Balance seven pm and ten pm Mountain time weeknights,
and go to warnouts dot com to subscribe to his
daily email, which is free. One of my frustrations with this,
separate from the economic idiocy of how he thinks about trade,
is that on the rest of what Trump is doing.

(58:29):
I'm on board with probably eighty to ninety percent of it.
I like what he's doing with the border. I like
that he's trying to keep taxes down, reduce regulation, reduce
the size of government, get DEI out of there, and
I don't need to keep going. He's doing so much
stuff that I like, and I kind of fear that
he's going to blow up his whole presidency and along
with it the ability to do a lot of the

(58:50):
stuff that I really want him to get done by
engaging in this other stuff.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
So you put out a few minutes on YouTube the
other day, and I'm not going to play it now,
but it is up on my blog, so folks can
go listen to it talking about your upcoming book, Born Lucky.
And you know, I knew a lot of that stuff
already because we're friends, and because I paid close attention
to the incredible Father's.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
Day note that you wrote publicly.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
But tell us a little about the book and why
you wrote it, in the sense that you note even
in your own commentary, well, why do we need another
book from some news dude you know, or another parenting book?

Speaker 2 (59:36):
So why did you write this.

Speaker 6 (59:40):
So you're nice to ask Ross. This is the story
of my diagnosis with autism at a very young age
and my dad's refusal to allow me to be either
labeled or defined by the diagnosis. So he was fortunate
enough to be at time in his career where he

(01:00:01):
could take a step back, and he did and then
spent the next eighteen years. I was about five when
I was diagnosed. It's five or six helping me and
helping me adapt to the real world. And it was
at a time when the diagnosis could have provided me
a lot of, you know, help and accommodation, but he said,

(01:00:22):
the real world will not accommodate you, and therefore you
need to learn how to function in the real world.
So there are so many parents out there, whether they
have ADHD or the kids have ADHD or autism on
the spectrum, or a physical disability, or a social anxiety issue,
or face relentless pulling at school, all of these issues,

(01:00:47):
so many parents feel really helpless. And this is proof
that love dedication. And I'm going to add one more,
which is unyielding standards and a setting the bar for
kids that you can't use your diagnosis as an excuse

(01:01:07):
or a crutch, which was a big part of dad's teachings.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Those things really.

Speaker 6 (01:01:16):
Can provide an enormous amount of change for a kid,
therefore an enormous amount of hope for parents.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
You offered a few little teases glimpses into some things
that are going to be in the book in that video,
and for folks who haven't seen it, I wonder if
you could just take a few moments and tell us
the story about tapping the watch.

Speaker 6 (01:01:39):
Sure, it's a great, great question. Ross People can pre
order the book at born luckybook dot com. I know
it's linked on your website as well. But as a
young kid, I could not read social cues, and really now,
even for me, it is a learned skill. It's a discipline.
It doesn't come naturally to me. And my dad tried

(01:02:01):
to give me how to win friends and influence people
the great Dale Carnegie book that helped him. I couldn't
take to the lessons. I watched videos. I couldn't take
the couldn't figure it out. So he would take. He
would allow me to come to dinner with him and
his friends, or to a family dinner, or if we
were out with other kids or families, and when I

(01:02:22):
was talking too much, he would tap his watch and
that was my signal to stop talking. And then later
after dinner we would post game, most like a football game,
and we would watch, you know, go through Well, do
you understand why I tapped my watch?

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
No?

Speaker 6 (01:02:37):
Okay, Well do you remember what you were saying?

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
Yes?

Speaker 6 (01:02:40):
Do you remember what other people were saying?

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
Yes?

Speaker 6 (01:02:41):
Do you know why trying to change the subject didn't work?
Do you understand that joke you tried to tell you
went on too long? All of these lessons to try
and teach me to recognize in election, you know from
an intellectual standpoint, what most people understand emotionally. And that's

(01:03:02):
one of the many stories in this book of ways
to try and help kids adapt. And so often today
the desirous Oh no, no, no, the kid's just weird.
That's just him. You just have to let him be him.
Which is fine when you're a kid, because adults will,
I guess, be okay with it. But when you become

(01:03:22):
an adult, that doesn't work, and it doesn't work in
the business world or the real world, or the media
world or anything else. So my dad wanted to prepare
me for that. One of the ways he taught me
about that. One of the ways he taught me to
deal with bullies. He had me to two hundred push
ups a day, trying to get me in shape and
trying to mad physical fitness, and that an enormous part

(01:03:43):
of my life. It still is. So this is that
story of him, and as you pointed out, really just
a love letter to my father.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
The book can be found at born luckybook dot com.
You can pre order now. When is the release for
the book, Leland out.

Speaker 6 (01:04:00):
September thirtieth, ross And don't worry, I'll be I'll be
plugging it many times over here with you and on
your show.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
So we'll we'll have plenty of time. Yeah, okay, So
what I need you to do.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
My price for allowing you to plug your books so
many times on my show is that one of the
times I want you to do it in studio with
me here in Denver.

Speaker 6 (01:04:25):
I would love to my friend the next time I
am West, I will make a point to come join
you on the Voice of the Rockies. And one of
those stories in the book which you'll appreciate, is how
I got my starting journalism, not at KOA, but it Camox,
which I fell in love with journalism and with media,

(01:04:48):
with an internship at a radio station just like yours,
and with a host with your kind of heart and
love of the industry and good nat sure to take
a kid in high school under their wing and help them.

Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
That's fabulous.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
KMOX, for listeners who don't know, is an enormous, very
important station in Saint Louis. Leland Vindert is the host
of On Balance seven pm and ten pm Mountain Time
on News Nation. It is the cable news show that
my wife and I watch every day. It's the only
one that my wife and I watch every day. That's
how good it is. Go to warnotes dot com to

(01:05:26):
get your daily free insight into Leland's thinking about the important.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Issues of the day.

Speaker 1 (01:05:31):
I don't have time to ask you about your broken dishwasher,
but I hope you get it fixed.

Speaker 6 (01:05:38):
There's one thing my father did not teach me, which
was home repair.

Speaker 1 (01:05:43):
If I were there, I'd come help you with it.
I'm pretty good at that. Thanks, Leland, always appreciate it.
See all right, that's the great Leland Vindert. We're gonna
take a quick break. We'll be right back on KOA.
I want to share an article with you that I've
had for a couple of days and I just didn't
get to it because all this stuff comes up, and
then Dragon's making fun of fun of me for the
shirt I'm wearing, and I didn't have the time to

(01:06:04):
get to it, and I just really want to want
to get to it now. By the way, let me
mention the stock markets acting pretty good right now. The
Dow's up over five hundred points after a very volatile morning.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
We'll we'll see. You know, all these days have been volatile.

Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
I have no prediction on what happens for the rest
of the day, but I just thought i'd mentioned that
to you one more.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
Quick thing before you move on. Yeah, we got a
text message coming in.

Speaker 5 (01:06:24):
How do you spell the Rallyhouse Rollyhouse dot com?

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
R A L E I G H like Sir Walter
Raleigh if you remember your early American early American history.
And I will respond to that Texter right now, and
I just did.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
Okay, thank you for that. Dragon. So this piece is
called The Goal Scorer.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
It's written by Ken Dryden, who is a Hall of
Fame goalie retired obviously Hall of Fame goalie for the
Montreal Canadians just want one of the truly great goalies.

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
And I just want to share this with you.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
You know, I'm not a huge sports guy, but some
things that are a little bigger than sports.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
Let me just share this.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
Goal Scorers score goals. They can't help themselves. Put a
puck on the ice in a practice, put twenty goalie ready,
or goalie paying no attention, or a goalie not even
in the net, and a goal scorer, like a neat freak,
hast to tidy up and put every puck in that net.
It's in need. And he won't just put it in
the net. He'll drive it, He'll blast it. As of
Sunday afternoon, on the road against the New York Islanders,

(01:07:26):
Alexandrovitchkin became the greatest.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Goal scorer in NHL history.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
Statistically, it's a fact, by personality, by style, by instinct,
and by being it's absolutely fitting. For a long time,
breaking the record seemed like it would never happen.

Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
Certainly, not this year. Almost certainly not ever.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
Wayne Gretzky's record of eight hundred and ninety four goals
was just too far away. At a certain age, a
gap like this between the leader and the chaser seems
to grow wider and wider as the months.

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):
And seasons pass.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
At a certain age of player's capacity to close, the
gap seems to shrink, then shrink some more.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Injuries happen, they just do.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
But the older the player, the longer they take to heal,
they hurt more, they take more out of you. The
gap and the timeline grow punishingly, even further apart. The
quest seems to become cruel until it fades to disappointment
and acceptance. It wasn't going to happen too, because the
Washington Capitals weren't good enough.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
They had been good through most.

Speaker 1 (01:08:28):
Of Ovechkin's career, reaching the sum At once, winning the
Stanley Cup in twenty eighteen, But then they were on
the other side of the mountain, trying to hold on,
but sliding more each year, surely needing to slide further
before attempting another assent. But how could they do that?
These would be Ovechkin's final years. He had been the
making of the team, the making of the franchise. He

(01:08:50):
had to be celebrated. He had earned that. Even if
the Caps couldn't win, they would need to make these
years the best the happiest that they could be for him.
The team would have to support him, bring in a
few veteran players, even if that meant trading away prospects
and promise pushing the future a few more years ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
This had to be about now.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
But that strategy almost always turns to disaster.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
The holes are too big and too many.

Speaker 1 (01:09:19):
The team struggles and struggles until it becomes just too
clear to the fans, to the media, to the players,
to the star himself that this is not going to
work and everybody's stuck. All that's left is to play
it out. But that didn't happen with the Caps and Ovechkin.
The Caps are good. They're winning their division, and we're

(01:09:43):
the first team in the NHL to clinch a playoff spot.
They might even end the season with the league's best record.
A Stanley copp is not out of reach. Ovechkin scored
six goals in his first ten games, then nine in
his next eight. The grind of pressure was off, the
joy of pressure was on. Then he broke his leg.

(01:10:07):
Injuries rarely happened to the young Ovechkin. This happened to
Ovechkin at thirty nine, But when he returned six weeks later,
he scored in his first game back, and then again
in his second. It's really hard to score goals in
the NHL. The first one hundred and seventy five feet

(01:10:29):
of ice seem as open as a frozen lake. The
last twenty five feet are like college kids jamming into
a Volkswagen Beetle. The only space you've got is the
space you fight for. That's where the goals are scored.
It's Ovechkin's home. His broad, bull like body takes the punishment,
but any pain is masked, made irrelevant by the sheer

(01:10:50):
pressure of putting the puck in the net. And Ovechkin
has one other home there. He does have space inside
the face off circle to the goalie's right, especially on
power play.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
There he can just set up.

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
His opponent knows he's there, The goalie knows he's there.
But as the puck pit and balls around for player
to player and from threat to threat, the defender's focus
has to shift. And then the puck finally finds him.
He's coiled and ready, and when he lets loose, it's
not so much with a slapshot as a full bought
body launch. The puck seems to have the same need

(01:11:24):
to go past or through the goalie if necessary, to
find the net. Then the celebration on his face, in
his whole body, deeper than joy, the pure, primal ecstasy
of the goal scorer breaking the record was a lot
to ask this whole season. Has been too much to

(01:11:45):
ask in almost every other case, in every other sport,
when a monumental milestone is approached, it's little by little,
game after game, month after month, with a slog of inevitability,
the excitement of its slowly drained away until the final moment.
Not this time, Ovechkin earned the bigness of the moment.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Good for him.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
I love that note, especially as a nearly lifelong Washington
Capitals fan right or lifelong for as long as I've
known about professional hockey, but because before I lived near Washington,
d C. Except for when I was a very young
child and too young to know anything about sports.

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
But from the time I had any idea at all about.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
Sports, up until I moved to the suburbs of Washington,
d C. I always lived in places that were warm
and did not have hockey. Right. I lived in Guam
and southern California, and there was no hockey in California
at the time, so you know, moving to moving to
near d C. The Capitals were the first, the first

(01:12:53):
hockey team I was ever a fan of, and maybe
even the biggest fan I've been a any team in
any sport while I lived there, right, and it's probably
a little bit less now. And I think if I
were to pick one team and all sports that I'm
the biggest fan of, it would be the Broncos. I
don't actually think that would be a hard question for me,

(01:13:15):
but you know, I grew up.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
Loving this team.

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
They've always found a way to let me down, except
for the one year that they didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
But I'm so happy for Alex Ovechkin.

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
I moved away from the Washington area long before Ovechkin
came in came in to play there. Right the days
I was there is you know, guys like Rod Langway
and Bobby Carpenter and Mike Gartner, if you remember all
those guys the days that that they're primary opponents, and
the nemesis was like the New York Rangers and the

(01:13:46):
New York Islanders with with Bossier and pot Van and
Trotier and these guys, and so I just grew up
loving that part of hockey. And I still have a
place in my heart for the Washington Capitals, even though
I don't live there any more. And Alexovichkin deserves an
incredible congratulations just for fun, just for just for goofing around.

(01:14:07):
So today is National Name Yourself Day.

Speaker 2 (01:14:11):
So here's my.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):
Question for you, and I want you to text me
at five six six nine zero, and I want you
to tell me if you could change your first name
to any first name at all, what would it be,
or or if you could think of a different point,
if you're if you could go back in time and
have your parents have named you a particular first name,

(01:14:35):
what would it have been?

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
Five six six nine zero.

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
I actually kind of like my name, and I think
I'm I'm I'm fine. We we know, as far as
my producer that his parents made the rather unfortunate decision
of naming him Mephistopheles Redbeard, and that was a very
difficult name. A lot of kids made fun of him
in schools. I couldn't spell it, couldn't spell it. So actually,

(01:15:03):
I do have a question that I don't know the
answer to. Did you officially get your first name change
from Mephistophiles to Dragon, like going through the court system
and getting a new birth certificate issued, or is it
just more like I just don't talk about that. I
just go by Dragon, but I haven't done the legal
part yet.

Speaker 2 (01:15:24):
We don't really talk about it.

Speaker 5 (01:15:25):
But it's it's more or less like my grandfather who's
biological name given name was Herschel, but everybody called him Mike.

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
Okay, So that's a similar situation similar to that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
Yeah, So probably if I were to go somehow magically
get one of your birth certificates right now, would have
the original name.

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
Probably, yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:15:44):
And I still can't spell it neither neither can I.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
So a couple of a couple of things to mention
here again, text me at five six six nine zero. Oh,
this person wants to be named Princess Consuela Banana Hammick
text us at five six six nine zero.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
I know. I tried to do.

Speaker 1 (01:16:02):
That with a straight face, with what name you what
first name you would like to have since it's national
name yourself day.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
Now a slightly more serious question.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
I'm asking this specifically of people who live in the
in the seventh Congressional District, which is Jefferson County, western
part of El Paso County and then a bunch of
other counties kind of west southwest of l Passo County
but represented in the seventh Congressional districts. In the next

(01:16:33):
segment of the show, I'm going to have I'm going
to have Britney Peterson, Congress Wan Britney Peterson on and
I would like you to send me any questions that
you would like to send me, So I will, I
will share, I will ask her questions that I think
are good questions. What would you like to ask you

(01:16:53):
our member of Congress? Now check this out. This is
breaking news that I see on one of the Finansanchell stations.
Is on CNBC Treasury Secretary Besant cancels meeting with House
Republicans due to meeting with Trump. That's interesting because Bessentt
is thought to be I won't say anti tariff. If

(01:17:17):
he were fully anti tariff, he probably wouldn't have the
job as Treasury Secretary. But he is thought to be
the least aggressively pro tariff of the key people around
President Trump, and somebody who is likely trying to push

(01:17:39):
back a little bit and to get Trump to not
be quite so aggressive and do more negotiating and be
willing to take deals right. Korea comes and says, you know,
we want to do this deal with you, and Bessent
seems like the guy who was trying to nudge Trump
to say, take yes for an answer. If South Korea

(01:18:01):
says they're going to lower tariffs, if we lower hours,
do it. So we think Bessent is maybe the only
guy giving Trump that advice. And the reason that I
mentioned this to you is in the last five minutes
or something and this pretty nuts. Definitely less than ten minutes,

(01:18:25):
the Dow has gone from up three hundred and fifty
to up sixteen hundred and fifty. Again, we are seeing
insane moves in recent days with just how fast they are.
Moves that are huge percentage moves that normally you would
see in a month, you're seeing in minutes. We've got

(01:18:47):
another one today on the upside. Remember last time this happened,
it turned out to be sort of fake news and
the market went down. But clearly there is something going
on here where markets think they have a reason to
believe that Trump might back away from the most aggressive

(01:19:10):
parts of the trade wars. If I see more news
anything further to update you on I will let you
know again keep the text coming at five six six
nine zero. On two different questions. If you could change
your first name to anything, what would it be? And
if you live in the seventh Congressional district, if you

(01:19:31):
are represented by Congresswoman Britney Peterson, text me anything you
would like me to ask her. Five six sixth nine zero.
Will be right back with the congress Woman. One very
very quick thing before we bring my special guests in
the show.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
That Dow was up.

Speaker 1 (01:19:45):
About twenty three hundred points right now on a true
social post from President Trump that he's pausing reciprocal tariffs
for ninety days.

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):
It was an oddly word.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
Message because he said he's pausing for ninety days and
during that time lowering the reciprocal rates down to ten percent.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
But I don't know what.

Speaker 1 (01:20:07):
It means to talk about what any rate is if
they're on pause anyway, But in any.

Speaker 2 (01:20:11):
Case, the market loves it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:12):
It has been a two thousand point rally in the
Dow in just a few minutes since he announced that.
We will see how it all plays out, Okay, So
I'm very pleased to welcome to my show for the
very first time Representative Brittany Petterson. Britney represents Colorado's seventh
Congressional district. And so, first of all, Brittany, thanks for

(01:20:33):
making time. I've wanted to have you on the show
for a while. I really appreciate that you're here.

Speaker 7 (01:20:38):
Yeah, thanks for having me Askar to be here. And
Sam's here as.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
Well, Sam, I see Sam and Sam Baby for how
old is Sam?

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
Now?

Speaker 7 (01:20:50):
He is ten weeks old?

Speaker 2 (01:20:52):
Wow?

Speaker 1 (01:20:53):
All right, and yeah, already a half resident of DC.
And we're going to talk about Sam's in his own
way the middle of politics right now.

Speaker 2 (01:21:01):
So we're going to talk about that in a moment.

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
So just for listeners who might not know, can you
just describe the contours of CD seven and the areas
that you represent.

Speaker 8 (01:21:14):
Yeah, So the population centers in Jefferson County, but it
also includes Broomfield and then it goes all the way
southwest up against the sand dunes. It includes Tuller, Fremont, Custer, Chafey,
Lake and Park Counties. So it's very expansive. It actually
is a four and a half hour drive across the district,

(01:21:36):
and it used to be a forty five minute drive
before redistricting.

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):
Wow. And if I have it right.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
Maybe western El Paso County as well.

Speaker 8 (01:21:47):
We have a very little slice, but sorry, Former Senator
peat Lee told me that I was the first Democrat
to win ol Passo County because I won those precincts.

Speaker 1 (01:21:57):
There you go, all right, So obviously there's a lot
of stuff going on in the world, but you've been
in the news a lot. Talked speaking of Sam who's
right there with you right now, about how Congress can
be a place that's easier for new moms and maybe
new dads. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:22:17):
We can talk about that in a minute.

Speaker 1 (01:22:19):
To be able to be new parents while still while
still doing the job. So before we get into the
ongoing state of all the little ins and outs, just
tell us a little bit about how it is doing
your job while having a newborn.

Speaker 7 (01:22:36):
Well, I think, I mean it's difficult for sure, you know.

Speaker 8 (01:22:40):
I this is a very demanding job, and I am
up to doing this job. I love representing the seventh
Congressional District. But you know, going through this being pregnant
and being unable to actually fly back to DC when
I was close to my do date, they wouldn't let
me more at a plane because it was too dangerous,

(01:23:03):
and then you know, giving birth and being in recovery
and taking care of my new war in twenty four seven,
where you know, Sam was the most vulnerable he'll be
in his life, where you know he needed his mom
and his dad to make sure that he was okay.
And so, like so many families, I was, I was
trying to figure out how to manage doing my job

(01:23:24):
and taking care of my baby. But I think the
unique challenge here is that I was I was denied
my ability to do my job because I'm a woman
and because I chose to have a baby, and there
are physical medical limitations here. And I think that you know,
that's at the heart of the conversation. It's not about

(01:23:46):
whether I can do my job. I'm perfectly capable of
making sure that my votes are where I would have
voted in person, were communicated, but I was unable to
physically be here.

Speaker 7 (01:23:58):
And that's the heart of the discussion, is are we.

Speaker 8 (01:24:02):
Willing to create a narrow exception for new parents when
you're going through that critical time and unable to be
here in person to vote.

Speaker 7 (01:24:11):
You know, this is the way that they've been doing.

Speaker 8 (01:24:12):
Things for centuries, and it's about time that we pull
Congress out of the stone age.

Speaker 2 (01:24:19):
So, you know, I see a lot of your tweets.

Speaker 1 (01:24:22):
I see a lot of responses to and of course
x or Twitter is full of the worst people in
the world, just so we'll just make that clear. But
a lot of a lot of folks have a similar
kind of I don't know if it's a rhetorical question,
but I'll word it a little bit more gently than
they do. I think there's a lot of benefit and

(01:24:42):
I'm sure you think so too, for members of Congress
to be in d C so you can meet with
each other and talk with each other and debate things,
and and and all of that. Do you think there's
an argument to be made that, well, if you're gonna,
you know, make a voluntary choice that makes it so
that it's very hard for you to do your job,
maybe you should do a different job until that's not

(01:25:04):
going to be in the way. That's more gently than
they put it on Twitter.

Speaker 7 (01:25:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:25:11):
I usually don't look at those, but I did scroll
through some of these just because just interested to see
the responses. I can't believe how many people say, you know,
women shouldn't be in Congress. I should resign because I
can't do my job, and that's just fundamentally missing the point.

Speaker 7 (01:25:29):
I'm perfectly capable of doing my job.

Speaker 8 (01:25:32):
And in voices of families are needed here in Congress.
I don't think that anyone in the country believes that
Congress is working well and that you know, we're addressing
the issues that so many families are facing.

Speaker 7 (01:25:46):
And a lot of that is the representation that we
have here.

Speaker 8 (01:25:49):
We need to make this place accessible for young parents,
for moms, for women, to make sure that we're changing
the face and priorities here in Washington.

Speaker 7 (01:26:00):
So I'm perfectly capable of doing my job.

Speaker 8 (01:26:04):
I took, you know, two weeks after giving birth to
Sam where I was unable, you know, really checked out
of not communicating with my team, but they were still
working on behalf of my constituents, and then I was
fully engaged after two weeks. The question here is when
you're there's a medical reason that you're unable to be

(01:26:25):
in Congress in person, because we are also human beings
and we have life events that happen, should we make
exceptions so that our constituents still have a voice. And
so I think that people that say that are out
of touch with America and the needs of our country.

Speaker 1 (01:26:43):
All right, one more question on this aspect, and then
I want to jump into the politics, which is actually
been shockingly interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:26:52):
So I know your husband pretty well.

Speaker 1 (01:26:55):
You have another You have another young child, Sam has
an older brother. They spend most of their time at
your home in Colorado. You have to spend a lot
of time in DC. You travel with Sam a lot.
He's with you right now as I'm talking with you.
We see him on the house floor from time to time,

(01:27:15):
and this is something of a yeah, there he is.
This is something of a personal question, So like why
and for how long do you have you.

Speaker 2 (01:27:26):
Decided that the best thing is to is to have
Sam with you because it's not easy.

Speaker 1 (01:27:31):
As we were talking off here, it's not easy and
it's also kind of expensive to travel to travel with
your young child. So just on the personal side, put
aside the politics for a second. How are you thinking
about that part?

Speaker 8 (01:27:44):
Yeah, well, the politics have definitely been interesting. Didn't expect
you know, the president's way in here. And hey, even
President Trump and I agree on this that yeah, that
we'll get to that shouldn't be so controversial. But you know,
so kids are able to fly for free until they're
two years old, so I'm able to bring Sam with me.

(01:28:06):
But like so many families, you know, finding accessible and
safe child's care is difficult. So Sam, it has a
spot that he'll be able to go into full time
daycare this summer, but until then, you know, we're trying
to figure it out like every other family who's struggling
to meet the needs of their kids and make sure

(01:28:27):
that they're taken care of.

Speaker 7 (01:28:28):
So Sam is my travel buddy.

Speaker 8 (01:28:32):
He's gonna he comes with me in the district, everywhere
I go, he comes with me to Washington, and we're
gonna be in that position until ultimately he has full
time daycare in Colorado, all right, and then challenging it's
it's a there's unique challenges that not you know that

(01:28:54):
most families aren't facing, but also so many similarities as
we all struggle to to find childcare, to afford it,
to deal with the pressures of work and balancing that
with a family.

Speaker 2 (01:29:08):
Look at him fastest sleep, That's fabulous.

Speaker 1 (01:29:10):
So a few listeners have sent in the same message saying,
you know, I think the congresswoman is going a little
too far when she says she's being discriminated against because
she's a woman. Do you think that's a little bit
of a hYP hyperbole or do you really.

Speaker 8 (01:29:27):
Believe that, Well, I don't think that this was so
the system was not created for people like me. This
was you know, our system was created before women were
able to vote, let alone bull the office, and we
haven't evolved with the times to accommodate the needs of
our workforce and the the challenges that we face, and so.

Speaker 7 (01:29:51):
So it was never designed for us.

Speaker 8 (01:29:54):
And because I because I am a woman, because I
had a baby, because as I have you know, am
not able to physically get here due to these things,
and that they are unwilling to let me have my.

Speaker 7 (01:30:09):
Vote represented here. It ultimately it is.

Speaker 8 (01:30:15):
It is limiting my ability because of my gender and
because of welcoming a child. So you know, it's it's
an incredibly Most people.

Speaker 7 (01:30:25):
Are shocked across America.

Speaker 8 (01:30:26):
So while we have a lot of negative comments, I'm
glad I'm challenging their world's view and perspective here, But
we also have an overwhelming amount.

Speaker 7 (01:30:37):
Of people who who are moved by this.

Speaker 8 (01:30:41):
Moment because they see themselves in the struggle that I've
that I'm facing is a navigated being a mom in
trying to grapple with having a kid and having quite
frankly a hostile work environment that would is unwilling.

Speaker 7 (01:30:56):
To work with them.

Speaker 1 (01:30:57):
Okay, let's do a couple of minutes on the politics
of this, and I want to talk to you about
some other things because there are other issues going on
in the world that you are dealing with as a
as a member of Congress. So Innapoline a Luna, quite
a conservative member of Congress Florida, I think, who actually
left the Conservative Freedom Caucus because of them opposing any

(01:31:20):
of this. She was putting together something that's called a
discharge petition to force a vote on your bill and
give me short answers on this, so we have time
to do other things.

Speaker 2 (01:31:31):
But what does your bill? What would your bill do?

Speaker 7 (01:31:37):
So it makes simple adjustments here.

Speaker 8 (01:31:41):
So the resolution that we had would change the rules
of Congress so that if you're a new parent, you
would have up to twelve weeks. It's in alignment with
the parental leave piece of paid family leave that other
federal employees benefit from. So you would have up to
twelve weeks where your vote could be represented here while
while you're home recovering and while.

Speaker 7 (01:32:02):
You're taking care of your newborn.

Speaker 8 (01:32:04):
It also accounts for if you're unable to be there
for medical reasons right before birth. So some people have
complications and they're you know, in the hospital and their bedriddens,
or like me, where you're unable to fly because it's
too dangerous, and so it also accounts for that. And
it's for it's for both parents. So it's not just

(01:32:25):
about the people, it's not just about women.

Speaker 2 (01:32:27):
But what would it let the member of Congress do?

Speaker 3 (01:32:30):
Then?

Speaker 2 (01:32:30):
Is it a proxy vote? Is it a remote vote?

Speaker 3 (01:32:33):
What is it?

Speaker 2 (01:32:33):
All?

Speaker 1 (01:32:33):
Right?

Speaker 8 (01:32:34):
So your vote would be counted through a proxy vote,
so you would communicate where your votes are, and you
would have a member who is designated to be the
person on the floor that would announce your vote and
it would be counted ultimately on the House floor.

Speaker 1 (01:32:50):
I have not looked into the claim by some that
what you're trying to do would be unconstitutional. I don't
know whether they have a good argument or not. And
I probably shouldn't ask you that question because you're trying
to do what you're trying to do.

Speaker 2 (01:33:07):
I note that some people say it might be illegal.

Speaker 1 (01:33:11):
I have no idea if they're right, I thought that
the Speaker of the House came up with a really
interesting solution with this vote pairing thing, and a couple
of days ago before I read your thoughts about vote pairing,
which I read yesterday, I went on the air and
I said, this seems to me like a fairly elegant
solution that could allow a member of Congress to effectively

(01:33:33):
it's not really the same as voting, but having the
same impact on the final vote margin as proxy or
remote voting would. But then and I thought it was
pretty clever, and it seemed like Luna and Johnson were
both on board. But then you came out and said, no,
this just for practical reasons. More isn't going to get

(01:33:53):
it done.

Speaker 2 (01:33:54):
So can you talk about that a little.

Speaker 8 (01:33:58):
Yeah, So to your point, the solution would do is,
you know, say we're in Congress together and I'm a
no and you're a Yes on a bill coming up
on the floor. I can't be there. I ask you,
will you be willing? We'll cancel each other out so
you'll vote present. Your vote doesn't count as a yes
because you're basically voting president to account for my absence.

(01:34:22):
So that my absence isn't contributing to the outcome. So
while that sounds good in theory, and I brought this
up on the House floor yesterday, I asked, what Republican.

Speaker 7 (01:34:32):
You know this is this would be the last week.

Speaker 8 (01:34:34):
That I would have been able to vote remotely from home,
and what Republican is willing to vote present this week
for me?

Speaker 7 (01:34:43):
On the budget, vote on you know, all.

Speaker 8 (01:34:45):
Of these pieces of legislation that they see as key priorities.
Are they willing to be on record as present? I
don't think so. So I've asked my Republican colleagues who
would like to vote present for me, and have failed
to hear back from anyone.

Speaker 1 (01:35:00):
Right, And that makes sense, especially you know, fifty years ago,
there's quite a bit of a bipartisanship and you'd have
a fair number of Democrats on Republican bills and a
fair number of Republicans on Democrat bills.

Speaker 2 (01:35:13):
And these days, especially on the things that are in
the news, most.

Speaker 1 (01:35:18):
There tend to be a lot of party line votes,
and it would, I can imagine, be very difficult to
find for a Democrat like you, let's say you're a
no on something to find a Republican who's a yes
to vote present, in part because that Republican won't want
to be primary challenged later from the right if it's
a conservative bill, saying, you know, Congressman so and so

(01:35:39):
voted president, he's not really with us.

Speaker 2 (01:35:41):
So I can imagine that. So now what, So.

Speaker 8 (01:35:48):
We're continuing to you know, I have a long list
having gone through this with I came into office with
my toddler, and then you know, being in this position
and now I have a long list of things barriers
that we face, what we need to do to modernize Congress.
You know, think of workplaces across the country and how

(01:36:09):
different it is even from just before the pandemic, and
you know, we need to evolve with the times. And
I absolutely agree with with Speaker Johnson that being here present,
building relationships is a key piece of what we do
in Congress. We should never take that away. That's not
what we're talking about here. We're talking about you know,

(01:36:29):
when somebody has a medical reason that they can't be
here in person for a limited amount of time, are
we going to make sure that their constituents still have
a voice here in Congress.

Speaker 1 (01:36:40):
Okay, we only have a few minutes left. Probably spend
a little longer on that than I had intended. But
when you're around your district, when you're around your district
these days, other than that stuff that we just talked
about and put aside for a minute, you know, just
I hate Trump or whatever you might get at democratic
town halls on the issues, what do people see most

(01:37:00):
concerned about in your district right now? Oh?

Speaker 8 (01:37:05):
It changes, I mean every day, right there's there's so
much chaos and dysfunction and fear out there and people.
You know, when I held my town hall and in
Lakewood recently, we had almost two thousand people show up,
and that was after turning away hundreds of people over emails.
We don't have capacity, you know, you don't see this
kind of turnout without the fear that people have.

Speaker 7 (01:37:28):
And it's with the firing of our federal workers.

Speaker 8 (01:37:31):
It's around economy and rising costs right now with tariffs.
I'm hearing from small businesses in my community. A rafting
company in Littleton comes to mind that. You know, they
talked about how their costs have already gone up two
hundred thousand dollars this year because of tariffs already, and
they're looking at laying off employees. So I think that

(01:37:51):
you know, right before we started talking, you were announcing
that Trump's tweeting again on what he's going to do
around tariffs, and then we saw an increase in the
stock market. This is not how we do things. Businesses
need predictability, they need to you know, they're all hunkering down.
They're not investing, UH, they are not hiring new workers.

(01:38:12):
This has you know, cascading effect. And now we're seeing,
you know, the beginning of a war with tariffs of
countries across the world, and that's you know, that led
us into the Great Depression before this is UH, it's
a scary time for a lot of people.

Speaker 7 (01:38:30):
We need we need stability.

Speaker 8 (01:38:32):
We don't need to tweet our way through the economic
decisions that are happening. And we need you know, when
I talk to families who are worried about losing.

Speaker 7 (01:38:42):
Their healthcare right now with the budget about those coming in.

Speaker 8 (01:38:45):
These are billions of dollars that are being cut, stripping
away healthcare for UH, for over a million people in
Colorado who depend on Medicaid.

Speaker 7 (01:38:56):
Almost half of those are kids.

Speaker 8 (01:39:00):
Forty percent of all pregnancies in Colorado are covered with Medicaid.
And so when you think about the health and well
being of our most vulnerable kids and families, kids that
who need who are food insecure and rely on meals
at school or snap benefits, that these things are being

(01:39:21):
stripped away. And it's also going to add trillions and
of dollars to our deficit. And so when they talk
about balancing the budget, let's be clear, this is stripping
away services for the people.

Speaker 7 (01:39:34):
That need it the most.

Speaker 8 (01:39:35):
It's going to impact all of us to give more
tax breaks to billionaires who absolutely are the ones who
needed the least.

Speaker 2 (01:39:42):
Oh gosh, I wish I had more time right.

Speaker 1 (01:39:44):
Now, I have so much to say to that. I
do absolutely agree that there are a lot of people worried.
But maybe next time on the show we can sort
of talk a little bit about, well, what's what's the
proper role of government and is it possible that Medicaid
expanded too far and is including too many people who,

(01:40:06):
of course won't be happy to lose their free stuff now,
but maybe we just need to to save our to
save our federal budget. Give me just seventeen seconds in
your reaction to my little comment.

Speaker 8 (01:40:19):
Well, so I think that you know this is there
the politics of saying either or So it's always walking
a line between what we're going to tax that so
that people can continue to be successful, to invest thrive
here in the United States and what we're doing to
invest back in the American people.

Speaker 7 (01:40:40):
And we have failed to tax We have a.

Speaker 8 (01:40:43):
Tax system that is drastically unfair. It benefits the wealthy.
This has happened over decades.

Speaker 7 (01:40:51):
So we've stopped investing in the American people.

Speaker 8 (01:40:54):
And so I wouldn't say that, you know, we need
to address the deficit. We need to get a handle
on our spending. That includes making sure that we're evaluating
where our tax cuts are going and not be fooled
when when you know, rising costs or because like when
I think about what it was like to live in
Colorado growing up here, and what our economy used to

(01:41:16):
be like, and what you could afford as a middle
class family, and how out of touch those things have become,
is because we stopped investing in in this the things
that all of us rely on that really ensure that
we're thriving together.

Speaker 1 (01:41:28):
All Right, Well, we'll have this conversation the next time.
I will note that the top one percent of earners
pay forty percent of all income taxes, which is the
highest in modern history or maybe all American history. And
I do think the tax code is unfair, but I
think it's unfair and exactly the opposite way from how
you think it's unfair.

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):
I think it's tilted too much towards taxing the rich.

Speaker 1 (01:41:49):
That'll be a fun conversation the next time, if you're
willing to do it. Brittany, thanks for doing this. I
really appreciate it.

Speaker 7 (01:41:55):
It was great to be with you. Thanks Ross. I
look forward to that conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:41:58):
All right, we'll do it and say hi to the
rest of the family for me.

Speaker 2 (01:42:01):
All Right, we gotta go. I'm a little bit late, sorry, Mandy.
Keep it here on KOA