04-9-25 *INTERVIEW* Leland Vittert Host of On Balance on News Nation Upcoming Book 'Born Lucky'

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My good friend Leland Vintert, 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 war Notes that comes out in the afternoon,
and you can go to Warnoes dot com and subscribe
and you will get an insight into Leland's brain and

(00:23):
what he's.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Going to talk about on the show, and it'll make
you smarter.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Also, it's a book coming out that we're going to
talk about in a bit now.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Leland is trying to decide.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
What's more important between global trade wars and collapsing US
oil prices and things like that versus the Masters golf tournament.
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 3 (00:52):
It's not even a question.

Speaker 4 (00:53):
I'm not trying to figure it out for the next
five days. It is the Masters, okay, 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.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
So you might no matter what you spend.

Speaker 4 (01:14):
Your time doing of thinking about the global trade wars,
the 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 (01:30):
All right, I'm going to ask you a couple of
ignorant questions, because I don't know much about golf. Where
is the Masters? And is it always at the same place?

Speaker 4 (01:39):
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 (02:00):
Have you ever been to the Masters as a spectator?
And have you ever played that course?

Speaker 4 (02:06):
I have been as a spectator, No, I have not
been as been able to play. If any of your listeners,
our members of Augustin would like me to join them,
sometimes I'd be more.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
Than happy to.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
When's the last time you were there as a spectator?
And why is that tournament so special for you?

Speaker 4 (02:29):
The last time I was there was in twenty nineteen,
twenty eighteen, something like that.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
It is hallowed ground. I've been to a number of
other US Open courses.

Speaker 4 (02:40):
I've played US Open courses, I've played big tournament courses.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
There is nothing like Augusta.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
The fair ways, the look, the 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 2 (03:05):
So the only.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
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 3 (03:15):
I don't discuss it.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Oh that's so good. I'm just gonna move on.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
I'm just that's like a mic drop moment, and I'm
just gonna I'm gonna leave that there.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Okay. So now a more serious question, So you know
my background.

Speaker 4 (03:30):
Is, so has the has the judge now accepted me?
The court has now accepted me as an expert on
whatever else we want.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
To talk about.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Maybe we'll seek especially especially if we get to talking
about household appliances in a little bit, we will see
how exprint you are. But a serious question, now, so
my background is financial markets trading all this stuff that
I used to do. So when I see the trade
wars and I see the markets, I think it's a
very big deal. But I wonder if it is. You know,

(04:01):
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 story is
just sucking up so much oxygen in the room.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Do you think the fact that this story is sucking
up all this oxygen in the room is.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
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 4 (04:36):
The Pannikins, rather than Republicans. Who are the Republicans who panic?
It's a great question. Ross 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.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
In ways that we do not know.

Speaker 4 (05:03):
It is fair 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,
in 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.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Even though COVID is gone.

Speaker 4 (05:31):
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 1 (05:45):
So I like that comparison, And of course I agree
with you that even though COVID has gone 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,

(06:06):
and it's causing still small disruptions, and it's still out there,
and there there are other ways where it disrupted our
lives in that are persistent. So my question for you is,
do you think that if President Trump backed down significantly
or entirely right now, that so much damage will already

(06:30):
have been done in 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 4 (06:41):
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

(07:02):
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,

(07:23):
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.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (07:39):
If I knew the markets, I wouldn't be talking about
them on television. I would be trading 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 his doing

(08:00):
so as he does with chaos and drama and a
lack of a plan and.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
All sorts of problems. But that's already starting.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
I agree with a lot of that.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
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

(08:37):
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 (08:50):
But I think he's diagnosed.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
I don't think he prioritizes the problems the same way
I do.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
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

(09:20):
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

(09:43):
the world and we are the only game in town,
a dollar dominated world.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
China wants to threaten that.

Speaker 4 (09:49):
You put all of that together, Donald Trump is doing something.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
I think actually that has to be.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Done, so I I will clarify my broken arm analogy.
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 (10:12):
And I agree with you on the Oh no.

Speaker 4 (10:15):
The Donald Trump's been obsessed about trade imbalances and that
just because you have a trade surplus, you're ripping other
people off.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
If you have a trade deficit, they're ripping you off. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
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

(10:46):
of economics and the use of its 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

(11:07):
bidding how this is being done, maybe you can quibble with,
but somebody had to do it. And by the way,
every president in since the nineteen nineties has promised to
deal with it and they haven't.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
So okay, last thing on this.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
And by the way, folks, if you're just joining we're
talking with Leland Vidortev News Nation, you can watch him
on on Balance seven pm and ten pm Mountain time weeknights,
and go to warnots 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,

(11:45):
I'm on board with probably eighty to ninety percent of it.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
I like what he's doing with the border.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
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 stuff that I really want him to get done
by engaging in this other stuff.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
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 (12:37):
Day note that you wrote publicly.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
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 (12:52):
So why did you write this?

Speaker 4 (12:56):
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 a time in his career where

(13:17):
he 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

(13:38):
he said, the real world will not accommodate you, and
therefore you need to learn how.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
To function in the real world.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
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,
so many parents feel really helpless. And this is proof

(14:09):
that love dedication.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
And I'm going to.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
Add one more, which is unyielding standards and a setting
the bar for kids that you can't use your diagnosis
as an excuse or a crutch, which was a big
part of dad's teachings. Those things really can provide an

(14:33):
enormous amount of change for a kid, therefore an enormous
amount of hope for parents.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
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 3 (14:55):
Sure, it's a great, great question. Ross.

Speaker 4 (14:59):
People can pre order the book at born luckybook dot com.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
I know it's linked on your website as well.

Speaker 4 (15:06):
But as a young kid, I could not read social cues,
and really now, even for me, it is a learned skill.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
It's a discipline. It doesn't come naturally to me.

Speaker 4 (15:16):
And my dad tried 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 was talking too much, he would tap

(15:39):
his watch and that was my signal.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
To stop talking.

Speaker 4 (15:43):
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.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
Understand why I tapped my watch?

Speaker 4 (15:53):
No?

Speaker 3 (15:53):
Okay, Well do you remember what you were saying? Yes?
Do you remember what other people were saying? Yes?

Speaker 4 (15:57):
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

(16:18):
that's one of the many stories in this book of
ways to try and help kids adapt. And so often
today the desiers, Oh, no, no, no, the kid's just weird.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
That's just him. You just have to let him be him.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
Which is fine when you're a kid, because adults will,
I guess, be okay with it.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
But when you become an.

Speaker 4 (16:39):
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 he
made physical fitness, and that an enormous part of my

(16:59):
life still is. So this is this is that story
of him, and as you point out, really just a
love letter to my father.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
The book can be found at born luckybook dot com.
You can pre order now. When is the release for
the book, Leland.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
It's out September.

Speaker 4 (17:16):
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 (17:24):
So we'll we'll have plenty that time. Yeah, okay, So
what I need you to do.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
My price for allowing you to plug your book 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 4 (17:41):
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 Camax,
which I fell in love with journalism and with media

(18:04):
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 nature to take a
kid in high school under their wing and help them.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
That's fabulous.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
KMOX, for listeners who don't know, is an enormous, very
important station in Saint Louis. Leland Vendert 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 warnots dot com to

(18:42):
get your daily free insight into Leland's thinking about the
important issues of the day. I don't have time to
ask you about your broken dishwasher, but I hope you
get it fixed.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
There's one thing my father did not teach me, which
was home repair.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
If I were there, I'd come help you with it.
I'm pretty good at that. Thanks, Leland, always appreciate it.