05-13-25 - *FULL SHOW* Pharma Pricing; Sub Commander; Banning HS Trans Athletes

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yesterday about the it's not Father's Day thing when I
wanted a frozen custard on Mother's Day and my wife
was curious as to your reaction, and I said everybody.
Not everybody, said lots of people who texted in when
I told the story. If you weren't listening yesterday, I'll
just tell you the ten second version of it. My
wife and I were driving around on Mother's Day. I

(00:21):
saw a frozen custard place. I said, I wouldn't mind
getting a frozen custard, and she said, it's not Father's Day.
So I then a bunch of people texted in and said,
and I bet you ended up not getting a frozen
custard even though you were driving, And that, of course
is true. And I did not, And looking back on

(00:42):
it now, I don't know why I didn't. I don't
think that I didn't because Kristen said it's not Father's Day.
I think maybe secretly I was glad for the little
bit of discipline to keep the extra sugar and carbs
out of my body, although secretly or not so secretly,
I still want one anyway.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Anyway, a lot going on in the world.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
We've got a lot to talk about today, We're gonna
We're gonna warm up slowly today.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Now, you just heard a little.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Conversation on our news talking about rail service in Colorado,
and generally, I am extremely skeptical of rail as a
mode of transportation for passengers, right in the sense, in
the sense of it being economically viable. Most rail systems
outside of New York City and outside of the what

(01:29):
they call the Acella Corridor right DC to New York
on the fast ish Amtrak train, even that, I don't
think it's profitable. I could be wrong, but if it
loses money, it doesn't lose a lot, because.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
A lot of people ride that stuff. But out here with.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
The distances and the relatively small popular I mean, how
many people are actually going to ride a train from
Denver to Pueblo or from Denver to Fort Collins?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
How many people? And you think about the cost of that.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
And especially and then you and then you start thinking
about the utter lunacy of the rail thing going on
in California right now, where they want to put in
high speed rail between LA and San Francisco. And I
don't have the numbers in front of me, but I
think it was start I think The first estimate was
twenty eight billion dollars, which is already too much, and
now it's one hundred or some such nonsense. Even at

(02:21):
the original estimate, which was never going to be possible,
it was always going to lose money. It's like the
car dealership that loses money on every car but makes
it up on volume.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Right, That's what it is.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
And so when you set up these things, the way
I like to think about it is this, Yes, you
have to fleece the taxpayers up front to build these
systems and buy the land and lay the track and
all that. Yes, you do have to fleece the taxpayers upfront,
but at least you have to fleece the taxpayers every
year after that too, in order to keep these money

(02:54):
losing systems going. Now, there was a piece in the
Denver Post that I saw yes although I think it
came out the day before, but I only saw it yesterday.
It's been decades since Colorado had intercity train service.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
That's about to change.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Now.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
They're not talking about this stuff you and I were
just talking about here the stuff you heard in the news.
This is about service on diesel trains from Denver through
I guess the Moffitt Tunnel to Granby, and the reason
that they're not going to be probably an immense number
of people on this train, but it does have some

(03:32):
good potential as a way to get people to the
winter Park ski resort without having to drive. Right, you
take the train up there, and by the way, as
the crow flies, Denver to Granby, Denver to winter Park,
if you were a crow who was flying, is pretty
short if.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
You could fly that high or fly through the Moffitt tunnel.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
I don't know how many crows fly through the Moffitt Tunnel,
probably not that many. So anyway, it's pretty short, so
taking the train is pretty quick. Now, I don't know
how well this is going to work out, and I'm
skeptical of all such things, but I will tell you
why this one has a slightly better chance than some

(04:14):
other things. And I actually think some of the stuff
they're talking about from Denver to other cities also has
a better chance to work out, even though I don't
think it will. But it has a better chance to
work out than LA to San Francisco. And that is
that these are systems that are going to run on
already existing tracks. What really blows up the budgets of

(04:35):
these things, at least in the construction phase. What really
blows up the budgets of these things is having to
acquire the land and lay new track, which is just
insanely expensive these days, especially when you get these government
contracts that insist on using overpaid union workers or even
overpaid non union workers who are getting the equivalent wage

(04:56):
that an overpaid union worker would get. That's typically how
government contracts go. The Denver Post says diesel powered trains
will thunder west from Denver through the Continental Divide to
Granby starting late next year, marking the first stage in
a multi year effort to launch inner city passenger rail
service in Colorado. The state funded Mountain Rail trains will

(05:19):
run year round to Granby and soon after to Steamboat
Springs and Craig. Colorado leaders say their rollout including trains
linking Metro Denver with Boulder, Longman and Fort Collins. By
the end of the decade, we'll give residents in visitors
non driving options for moving around mid worsening traffic congestion. Now,

(05:39):
I got to say, I don't Traffic congestion has been worsening,
but I don't know how much traffic congestion will continue
to worsen in the sense that Colorado's population growth seems
to have stalled in part because of traffic, and people
hear about this kind of like what happened with Austin.
Austin grew really fast and then it became famous for

(06:02):
how bad the traffic was and the population growth really
slowed down a lot.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
And here in Colorado, not only do you have that,
but of course you've.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Got at this point almost famously high real estate prices, right,
sort of nosebleed real estate prices, where younger people can't
afford a first home anymore. And this is the thing
about markets, they tend to be self limiting.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
When the price of.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Something goes up because there's so much demand, more demand
than supply, the price goes up to a point where
there isn't more demand than supply, well maybe it actually
can overshoot that temporarily, and then it'll settle back down
and there will be less demand.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
And this, I think is what's going on in Colorado.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
So I do think that some of the fear about
further worsening traffic congestion, which is certainly already much worse
than it was ten or twenty years ago. But I
don't think it's gonna get that much worse. So anyway,
these trains were talking about, they're not gonna be high
speed trains, or at least not, you know, not bullet trains.

(07:01):
They can get up to maybe seventy miles an hour,
but when you're at high elevation that probably be you know,
in the forties or something like that. When they're going
full speed. There's no federal money, and Governor Pola says
that voters won't have to approve debt or higher taxes
to get the service started.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
But we will see how this actually.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
Plays out, all right, We'll see how it actually plays
out whether in the long run this thing generates even
close to enough revenue to justify its existence, because at
some point in the state budget, somebody who has these
difficult choices to make, like on the Joint Budget Committee,

(07:44):
is going to have to say, you know what, it's
just not worth it. We have higher priorities. So we
will see.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Again, I'm always skeptical.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
Of rail always, but if it's going to have any
chance at all, it has to be a project like
this one that is going on existing track that's used
most of the time for commercial rail transport. All right,
we got a ton of stuff to do on today's show,

(08:12):
and yeah, we're just getting going, so keep it here,
stick with me on Koway. Ton of stuff to do
on today's show. I have to say I've been I've
been going a little crazy running around with all these
choices we have to make for this. It didn't occur
to me when we bought a house that if we're
gonna really fully remodel it, we have to make choices

(08:33):
about everything, everything, the floor. And you don't really I
shouldn't say you because you're smarter than I am. But me,
I'm a little dumb, and it didn't occur to me,
even though it's so freaking obvious that when you go
through a house, not every place in the house has just,

(08:54):
as an example, the same floor, right, you might have
depending on where you are. I mean, our last house
was a ranch and was kind of all on one level,
and a lot of it was the same floor. But
you would go into a bathroom and it's different, or
if you've got a multi level house, it'll be different here, different.
So we're having to pick all these different floors and
then even more than that wall tile. And I'm married
to an artist. I'm married to an artist. I don't

(09:16):
we don't have. We don't have because of my lovely bride,
the same tiles in any bathrooms. Actually think there's there's
one kind of tile that we're using in two places.
What dude, I think I'm ordering between the floor and
the walls twenty no more called twenty five or thirty

(09:43):
different kinds of tile from from three or four different places.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
It's killing. And now we got to do lighting.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
I think I've been to I think I've been to
Urban Lights four times in three weeks, which is fine.
You know, I dig urban lights there, you know, partner
on the on my show for a long time, and
I really like urban lights a lot. And I go
in and looking at the ceiling fads and looking at
the chandler.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Here's here's my problem. Here's my problem.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
I am not good at envisioning more than one room
at a time. I can barely envision one room. My
wife will go in and in her brain, just like
we need we need a light for the we need
a light for the living room, we need a light
for the master bedroom, and we need a light for
this bathroom. Over here and she can walk in and like, oh,
that would be good for that room, and that would
be good, and I'm like, I am so confused.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
I cannot.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
Right.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
And then, you know, especially at a place like urban lights,
is I don't know, five thousand lights to choose from
or whatever the number is. It's it's kind of overwhelming,
but it will be lovely when it's done. But that's
it's a very first world problem. It's a very first
world problem. But that's that's what I'm dealing with right now,
is being overwhelmed every single This morning, it was talking
about what kinds of stools like bar heights, because we're

(10:57):
gonna have like a kitchen island with some stools next
to it. What kind of stools do we want? And
I'm really torn between just not caring at all and
not caring. But my wife wants me to care because
she thinks i'll give her I'll tell her I don't
like it if she gets something that I don't like,

(11:18):
but I don't even think i'll.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
Notice the difference.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
Ah.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
My dad sent me a link to a thing that's.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
An oldie but a goodie that I just thought i'd
share with you to lighten it up a little.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Bit this morning.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
And this starts off with physicists at the University of Colorado,
and I'll just tell you so is this is an
old again, an oldie, but a goodie. The original version
did not mention the University of Colorado, but the University
of Colorado version has been around for some time now
and is still making its way around the interwebs.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
And it's kind of fun, so have a listen. Physicists
at the University of.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Colorado recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet
known to science.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
This new element has.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Been tentatively named administratium. Administratium has one neutron, twelve assistant neutrons,
seventy five deputy neutrons, and one hundred and eleven assistant
deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of three hundred
and twelve. Each administratium atom is held together by subatomic
particles called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of

(12:28):
lepton like particles called peons. Since administratium has no electrons,
it is inert. However, it can be detected as it
impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A
minute amount of administratium caused one reaction to take over
four days to complete, when it would normally take less

(12:50):
than a second. Administratium has a normal half life of
three years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a
reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and
deputy neutrons and assistant deputy neutrons exchange places.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
In fact, Administratium's.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization causes
some morons to become neutrons forming isodopes.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
This characteristic of moron promotion.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Leads some scientists to speculate that administratium is formed whenever
morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity
is referred to as a critical morass.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Very good, very very good. Thank you to the physicists
at the University.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
Of Colorado, to whom is attributed this incredible discovery.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
We have so much still to do on the show.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
What we're going to do in the next segment, at
least the first part of the next segment is we're
going to talk with Michael Cannon, who is the director
of Health Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. So you
and I both can get a better understanding of what's
likely to happen and what's not likely to happen based
on President Trump's executive order that we talked about a
little bit at at the top of yesterday's show regarding

(14:10):
pharmaceutical pricing. Incredibly important issue, a complex issue that's well
beyond me, so we're gonna have an expert talk about it.
Also coming up in the next few minutes is this
hour's chance to win a thousand bucks in our keyword
for cash thanks to Maverick keep it here. I've had
Michael Cannon on the show quite a few times.

Speaker 4 (14:29):
You know.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
I'm a big fan and supporter of the Cato Institute
Cato dot org, probably the premier libertarian organization in the world,
and I've been associated with them one way or another
for a long time. And I consider myself a little
bit more of an objectivist than a libertarian. But that's

(14:50):
kind of sort of close, and I won't bother talking
about objectivism right now. But my point there is that
I tend to be on the same page as the
Cato Institute on most things.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
And the issue we're going.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
To talk about today is one that Michael and I
have talked about I think at least two times before
on the air, and he has yet to convince me.
And I just and I'm in this weird situation where,
you know, if he thinks something and I disagree, then
I think I'm probably wrong, but I still can't quite
get to where I'm wrong.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
So what we're going to talk about today?

Speaker 1 (15:22):
And I don't know if I mentioned, but Michael directs
health policy studies at the Cato Institute. So yesterday, at
the beginning of the show, I talked about Donald Trump's
press conference. President Trump's press conference that he had given
just forty five minutes or an hour before my show started,
about the executive order that he signed an hour after

(15:44):
that or whatever regarding what he calls most Favored Nation
prescription drug pricing. Now, before I just keep going and
going and going. Here, since Michael's here, let me say first,
good morning and hello and thanks for making time for us.
And it looks like you're pouring cream into coffee or
pouring yourself a glass of water or something.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
What was that? What was that?

Speaker 5 (16:09):
That was?

Speaker 6 (16:10):
It was supposed to be sly is what that was?

Speaker 2 (16:12):
It's just off screen? What was it? You got to
thank you for having me on. No, you got to
tell me what that is. It's tea. It's tea.

Speaker 5 (16:19):
It was milking the tea. All right, I've got just
slightly off camp.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
I've got my tea right here. So yeah, cheers. Okay,
So let me start. Let me start with this.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Do you believe.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
That Donald Trump has identified and I don't mean he's
the first person to do it, but that in what
he was speaking yesterday, speaking about yesterday, he was identifying
a legitimate problem that the structure of the global pharmaceutical
pricing system tends to dump most of the cost of
R and D and uh, most of the the cost

(16:57):
of most of the pharmaceutical industries profit on American health
insurance buyers and American consumers of pharmaceuticals.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Is that an actual problem?

Speaker 6 (17:11):
So, first of all, thanks for having me on the show.
Thanks for we shall have people in our lives. I
have people in my life who I don't always agree
with them, but if I disagree with them, I worry
they're so good that I worry I might be wrong.
And I think you were saying something like that about me.
Thank you very much. You honored me with that and
what you're saying about how the President portrayed drug pricing

(17:34):
in the United States and other countries, I think is
largely accurate. We've got a situation where in the United
States the government plays as much of a role in
healthcare as it does in other nations, even with completely
socialized systems. The government here just makes very different choices
with the powers that it has. It is always hitting
the accelerator. It is always pushing toward higher prices and

(17:57):
more healthcare consumption. And just to give couple of examples,
the Medicare and Medicaid programs and each cover a population
about the size of the United Kingdom. You know, the
Congress created both of them, And unlike the British National
Health Service or the Canadian Medicare program, our Medicare and
Medicaid programs don't have a budget. Congress doesn't try to

(18:20):
limit spending those programs by imposing a budget. It just
says whatever the doctors and the hospitals order up, will
pay for it, or whatever. The however many people the
insurance companies en roll will will just pay for it.
And so with lots of measures like that in place
that just are always hitting the accelerator, we end up

(18:40):
with more drug consumption and higher prices. Other countries will
limit the amount that the government pays for drugs, and
sometimes that also limit how much private payers in those
countries could pay for drugs, and that'll keep the prices
there lower than in the United States, where the government
is just pushing the prices up and up and up.
And so yeah, we end up with the situation that

(19:00):
you described, that the President described where the drug companies
are making more money in the United States and anywhere
else because it can charge higher prices like two, three,
four more times what they charge in other countries.

Speaker 5 (19:13):
And that means because drug innovation is such a research
and development intensive process where there's lots of fixed costs
not just for developing this drug, but also all the
drugs that didn't work out, the drug companies have lots
of failures, so they got to the drugs that succeed
have got to cover the costs of the drugs that failed.

(19:35):
All of those all of that is is a huge
part of the costs of bringing a drug to market,
and because the prices are higher here, we end up
paying a larger share of that cost than folks in
other countries. And there really is something inequitable about that.
So the president is onto something there. I think his
solution is totally off.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
All right, we'll get we'll get to that in a second.
So even a a statement, and you tell me whether
I'm very right, a little right, or wrong. My statement
is this, there are many pharmaceutical companies, but that doesn't
really mean it's a very competitive industry because there are

(20:18):
some areas where it's competitive, where Company A might make
a drug that's substitutable by another drug for company B.
But there's also some areas that it functions close to
a monopoly, right or oligopoly. And I'll tell you where
I'm going with this, and this is more of an
economic question.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
So where I'm going with this is if it's not.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
An extremely competitive market, then maybe Donald Trump is engaging
in wishful thinking when he says that if we can
get other countries to pay more for their pharmaceuticals, and
put aside for second, whether they will just bear with
my hypothetical if we if other countries start paying more,

(21:07):
then the prices in the US will come down. I'm
not sure that market forces that it's a competitive enough
market with you know, where they're willing to chase down
margins that American prices would come down even if other
places started paying more.

Speaker 5 (21:25):
That is certainly a risk.

Speaker 6 (21:27):
So the situation that we're described, being the President was
describing one where we're patting higher prices at a higher
share of the research development cause it's an equitable One
of the reasons that it persists, maybe even the main
reason is that the US government takes steps to make

(21:49):
sure it persists. And the biggest is there are trade
barriers in place that prevent you and me from buying
those keep drugs from other countries and what they call
importing them.

Speaker 5 (22:06):
Into the United States.

Speaker 6 (22:07):
Oftentimes it's a US drug manufacturer sells around other countries
and so buying them back from those other countries. People
often call that re importing. If we did that, if
the government removed the barriers that prevent us from doing that,
then there's no way.

Speaker 5 (22:23):
They could keep up these pricing schemes.

Speaker 6 (22:25):
It would be much harder for them to keep up
these price discrimination schemes, as the economists call them, where
you're selling the same product to do different consumers at
different prices based solely on those consumers willingness to pay
different prices and that would achieve everything that the President
is trying to achieve without exceeding the powers of the

(22:51):
executive branch or violating the Constitution or acting like a
bunch of thugs. It's just what the Trump administration is
doing right now, and without imposing price controls, it would
just be.

Speaker 5 (22:59):
More market forces that are that are doing that.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Now.

Speaker 6 (23:02):
Your precise question was does that necessarily mean the prices
will fall in the United States? So if if drug
A is available in the United States at ten times
the price that it is in the United Kingdom, and
then all of a sudden, we can buy drugs from

(23:23):
the United Kingdom at one tenth of the price drug
A at one tenth of the price that it's available
here right now, does that mean that the drug company
will drop the price for drug A in the United States.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Not necessarily, And that's not that's not exactly my question.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Okay, that is an interesting question, but it was not
the question I was asking. So let's say in the
United States there's a drug that for a round of
treatment a month or whatever, we pay, We pay a thousand,
and the UK pays two hundred. And because of Trump's
jaw boning, the UK agrees to pay three hundred, but

(24:01):
nothing else has changed. I'm not talking about importation. The
Trump's theory. Trump's theory is that if the drug companies
get more income by charging higher prices in these other countries,
and Trump wants to force the other countries to pay more,
which he won't be able to do, but just bear
with me, then that will give the drug companies room

(24:23):
to lower their prices here. So Britain will pay three
hundred and will go down to nine hundred or whatever,
or he wants them both at five hundred.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
But does that dynamic really work.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
No.

Speaker 6 (24:39):
I think you're correct about that, because the when competenties
price discriminate, when they charge different people different prices for
the same product based on those people's willingness to pay,
they are picking the revenue maximizing price for each individual purchaser.

(24:59):
And if the he decided that the revenue maximizing price
for the UK it is now no longer two hundred dollars,
it's three hundred dollars. That doesn't change what the revenue
maximizing price is in the United States, however, so they're
not likely to change the price for the drug in
the United States However, that's not quite what President Trump
is proposing. What he's proposing is that if the UK,

(25:21):
if a drug company is selling the same drug in
the UK for two two hundred dollars that it is
in the United States for one thousand dollars, that every
purchaser in the United States will have access to that
drug and whatever is the lowest price that that manufacturer
charges anywhere, so it's two hundred dollars, it's two hundred

(25:41):
dollars in the UK, then we all have we would
get access to that drug for just two hundred dollars.
Now what this does is it probably it's similar to
what you were describing. It ties the US price to
whatever the lowest price is anywhere else. And so the
drug a manufacturer might say to the UK, look, we

(26:02):
can't keep selling it to you two hundred.

Speaker 5 (26:04):
It's going to have to go to three hundred.

Speaker 6 (26:05):
Or they could say it's going to go all the
way up to a thousand, because we will lose less
money that way than with any other strategy. I think
probably most of them would come down from a thousand,
because it's hard to imagine that completely writing off their
foreign markets would be the revenue maximizing strategy under that

(26:26):
new policy of the US government. But a lot of
there are a lot of other things to say about
this proposal. One of them is that the president doesn't
have the authority to do this. I mean, Congress didn't
give the president the authority to set prices for private
purchases of drugs in the United States. And what President

(26:47):
Trump has proposed doing is just unleashing the executive brand.

Speaker 5 (26:51):
Is telling Robert F.

Speaker 6 (26:54):
Kennedy Junior, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Hey,
go out and set what you think the price should
be for all of these drugs, and you know, peggingtt
it whatever these drug companies are paying the or charging
the the the nation where it's setting the prices the
lowest uh. And then and then I'm once you set

(27:16):
those prices, Secretary of Kennedy, once you come up with
those price targets, I'm gonna unleash every part of the
executive branch on these drug companies until they get those
prices down. We're talking anti trust to who's we're talking
about maybe revoking their drug approvals or threatening to revoke
their drug drug approvals from the FDA. We're talking about
all sorts of other things that the that the executive

(27:36):
branch can do just to mess with.

Speaker 5 (27:39):
To mess with the drug company.

Speaker 6 (27:41):
Uh, this is this is this is unconstitutional even thuggish
behavior where the president is saying to drug companies, nice,
nice drug company, you've got there, be ashamed of if
anything were to happen to it. And and so there's
gonna be all sorts of fights about this. But so
it might not even work. Hopefully it won't even work.
But if it did, that's not the end of the story.

(28:04):
Because if the prices that drug manufacturers are charging to
foreign governments rise dramatically, well, on the one hand, that's
a good thing because the United States government is no
longer or the United States is no longer providing I
should say, the United States government is no longer providing
an implicit subsidy to socialized medicine systems around the world.

Speaker 5 (28:26):
But those nations.

Speaker 6 (28:26):
Are going to have to then decide, well, either we
pay a thousand dollars or something close to it for
the drug, or we just stop covering this drug. That
I think is it's a good thing to eliminate that
implicit subsidy. If those nations stop covering that drug and
start covering fewer things and make more room for a
private market for healthcare in their nations. That's a good thing.

(28:51):
Some of them, however, might decide that they're going to
start ignoring patents.

Speaker 5 (28:56):
They're going to.

Speaker 6 (28:57):
Say, you know what, the reason you're charging one thousand
dollars that drug, it's because you've got a patent on it.
Each pill costs five dollars or whatever. So we're just
going to commandeer that intellectual property. We are going to
a license manufacturers in our country to make this drug
themselves for five dollars a pill, or we're going to

(29:17):
buy them from India or some other country where they're
not recognizing your patent at two dollars a pill, and
that is going to threaten the ability of drug manufacturers
to invest in the research and development that produces new cures.

Speaker 5 (29:35):
I don't think that that's a reason not to.

Speaker 6 (29:41):
Allow free trade between the United States and other countries.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
Allow us to.

Speaker 6 (29:46):
I mean, the same thing would happen in the government
allowed us to re import drugs from other countries, because
that'll become a topic of trade negotiations and the governments
will work something out there.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
All right, So just about out of time, so let
me just get another question in and for those just joining,
we're talking with Michael Cannon, who directs health policy studies
at the Cato Institute c Ato dot org. So just
give me quick answers on a couple of things right now.
What are the rules about what I am allowed to
do to import medication from another country?

Speaker 6 (30:19):
So, first of all, it needs to have an FDA approval.
The FDA has to prove the particular drug with what
goes on the label, so the formulation, the manufacturing process.

Speaker 5 (30:32):
And.

Speaker 6 (30:36):
The indication on the label, what the what we're recommending
you use this drug to do. And drugs that are
available in other countries, for the most part, when they
sell them in other countries, they don't go through all
of that rigor role that THEFT requires you to sell
to do to sell a drug in the United States,
so the drug would have to go through the manufacturer,

(30:59):
have to go through all of the those things. That is,
in effect, those regulations become a trade barrier because I
can't just buy that drug from another country. And so
the FDA should just deem as satisfying its requirements any
drug that any other Advanced Nations regulatory bodies have approved
and that would eliminate that trade.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
Would you put India in that category because I buy
my medication from India when I either can't find it
here or it's too expensive here.

Speaker 6 (31:28):
I would put all nations in that category, because that's
what the freedom to trade with people of all nations
is a fundamental human right. And then you should be
able to choose which nations regulatory body has provided you
the certainty you want, but for political purposes, I you know,

(31:48):
to make it palatable to people who might be afraid
of the idea. I usually say like OECD nations or.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
Something like that.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Okay, last poot question for you.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
If you were in charge and you could implement, I'm
going to say two policy changes aimed very specifically reducing
the cost pharmaceuticals in the United States.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
What would those two policy changes be?

Speaker 6 (32:12):
They would they would not relate directly to drug pricing.
They would relate to who controls the money in the
health sector. I would change the tax code so that
workers can control the trillion dollars of their earnings that
employers can control and use to purchase choose and purchase
a health plan for workers. Give that money to the workers.

(32:33):
Let them choose their health plans, and they will spend
that money much more carefully, including putting downward pressure on
drug prices, because they'll switch from the expensive drug to
the cheap one and spark price competition if they get
to see the savings.

Speaker 5 (32:45):
But if the savings go to an.

Speaker 6 (32:46):
Employer, they're not going to bother. Same thing with the
Medicare program. Stop giving people like government to fine package
of healthcare subsidies. Do what Social Security does. Just give
them that trillion dollars in cash, and then Medicare rolies
will do the same. They will switch to the lower
cost drugs, of the lower cost hospitals and so forth
when they get to see the savings, and that's how

(33:07):
you spark the sort of price competition that makes healthcare
more universal.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
Michael Cannon, direct Health Policy Studies at the Cato Institute
Cato dot org. Thanks as always, Michael, great conversation. Go
enjoy your tea.

Speaker 6 (33:20):
Always a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Many thanks, all right, thank you, all right, gosh, I
learned a lot there.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
Okay, still a ton of stuff to do on today's show.
I actually want to just hold on, Oh yeah, I
want to mention this thing just for ninety seconds.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
I don't want to take long on it.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
So I keep getting these pitches from publishers, from authors,
a lot of whom are fairly well known, television reporters
or even television anchors, and looking back at either the
Biden presidency or the Biden presidency and the twenty twenty
four presidential campaign in the election, it's just all this

(33:58):
backward looking stuff. And I have said know to all
of them, even though some of them, as far as
news junkies would go, are fairly well known people. And
I just, you know, I just say I'm I'm not interested.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
I don't want to be that backward looking. But every
once in.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
A while something pops up that I just think is
worth mentioning just as a reminder well of this, that
or the other thing, but often it's a reminder of
how skeptical we need to be of government, not just
not as a partisan thing, just as a general thing,
how skeptical we need to be of government, and how

(34:40):
much so called journalists have failed us. And I want
to share this with you. And this is actually adapted.
This is at Axios, but it's from a book that's
going to be coming out soon called Original Sin. President
Biden's dec line, It's cover up, and his disastrous choice

(35:02):
to run again, written by Jake Tapper of CNN and
Alex Thompson of Axios. And what this story says is
that there were conversations in the White House about having
Joe Biden use a wheelchair because of how decrepit he
was and because of how afraid that his doctor was

(35:24):
of Biden falling down and really doing very significant harm
to himself. And they talking here about how the doctor
wanted Biden to rest more, and the political people said no,
he needs to do this and that and the other thing.
And when Biden was walking real funny, the you know,
his the team that was talking to the public saying,

(35:45):
well it was because you know, he had broken his
foot and maybe it didn't heal right, but actually the
doctor had reported that it healed perfectly a long time ago.
And it's just on and on and on and and
I mean, it's unbelievable how much the Biden administration lied
to us and how much journalist quote unquote journalists let
them get away with it. I think it's coming out

(36:07):
on Thursday, and I think we learned about one game yesterday.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Wednesday night, because we've got a party going on Wednesday night.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Okay, sorry, Wednesday night, right, And we already learned about
one game, which is the Chiefs coming here. I yeah,
you're way off, way off, but we did learn it's
the chief It's Christmas at.

Speaker 7 (36:26):
The Chiefs and there it's at the Chiefs.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
There is a London game as well. Can I go
to the London game?

Speaker 3 (36:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (36:34):
You can hold the parabolic. Oh I gotta do get
on that now. I gotta ask Mike about that. Oh,
I wonder.

Speaker 7 (36:46):
I don't know if the London one is considered a
home game or not.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
It doesn't matter, I wonder. I mean, well, if it's
not a home game, we don't get.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
To hold the no, I know, but even if it,
what if I were oh man, I was gonna say,
what ifout? I'll pay my own way, I'll pay my
own flight. I don't need them to. I mean, I'll
pay my own hotel. I'll pay forever everything. Oh yeah,

(37:14):
Oh my gosh. And I got a friend or two
in London. Oh I got a okay, how about this.
This is gonna sound like very hoity toydy pinky's up
kind of thing. But a friend of mine who's been
a guest on the show. Uh, his name is Dan
and he's a member of the House of Lords. And
he said that if I come to London, he'll take

(37:35):
me for tea at the House of Lords.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Don't you gotta do that? You gotta.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
And I've known Dan for since way before he was
in the House of Lords.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
So but wouldn't that be cool?

Speaker 3 (37:49):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (37:49):
All right?

Speaker 1 (37:50):
Anyway, speaking of football, You're gonna have a chance later
today to enter to win a pair of twenty twenty
five Broncos home game tickets to a game of your
choice that would be a real home game, not going
to London. And this is gonna be on the Koa
Instagram page. Actually now you can go to Koa's Instagram
right now and enter for this right now. Instagram dot

(38:13):
com slash Koa Colorado. You will have a chance again
tomorrow six pm and seven pm during the Broncos.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah, that's six to seven tomorrow, that's.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
Right, because that's when we're doing this schedule release show
with Dave Logan on on on k How because the
Rockies are gonna be here. So Instagram dot com slash
Koa Colorado you can enter right now to win a
pair of Broncos home game tickets and you can choose
the game, and then tomorrow six to seven, you're gonna

(38:45):
have a chance during the show that's gonna be over
on k how as that are announcing the schedule. Okay,
so there's there's that. Let's do just a few minutes
of this dragon. So President Donald Trump is in Saudi
Arabia speaking at the Saudi US Investment Forum, and I
have a lot of thoughts about it, but I'll save
those thoughts for later. Let's just have a listen to
some stuff the president's saying right now.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Well, thank you very much.

Speaker 8 (39:08):
It's an honor to be here. What a great place,
not a great place, but more importantly, what great people.
I want to thank His Royal Highness the Crown Prince
for that incredible introduction. He's an incredible man. None him
a long time now is nobody like him. Thank you
very much. Appreciate it very much, my friend. And it's

(39:35):
a tremendous honor to return to this beautiful kingdom and
be welcomed back with such extraordinary generosity and warmth. I've
never forgotten the exceptional hospitality show to us by King
Solomon who's just we talk about a great man. That
is a great man, that is a great man, a

(39:56):
great family. On that visit took place exactly eight years ago.
The graciousness of the royal family and the Saudi people
is really unsurpassed no matter where you go. I me
also thank the countless ministers, government officials, business leaders, and distinguished.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Guests for that warm welcome, very warm.

Speaker 8 (40:18):
And I know so many of you like to call
out all of your names, but we've have a lot
of problems. Would be here for a long time. We
don't want that, so don't be upset with this historic
state visit. We celebrate more than eighty years of close
partnership between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

(40:38):
Ever since President Franklin Roosevelt met with King Solomon's father,
King Abdul Azise abroad the USS Quincy in nineteen forty five,
the US Saudi relationship has been a bedrock of security
and prosperity. Today we reaffirm this important bond, and we

(41:00):
take the next steps to make our relationship closer, stronger,
and more powerful than ever before. It is more powerful
than ever before, and by the way, it will remain
that way. We don't go in and out like other people.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
Will remain that way.

Speaker 8 (41:29):
I've come this afternoon to talk about the bright future
of the Middle East, but first let me begin by
sharing the abundance of good news from a place called America.
In less than four months, our new administration has achieved
more than most other administrations accomplish in four years or

(41:50):
even eight years. We've actually done, for the most part, more.
The day I took office, we inherit it.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Thank you.

Speaker 8 (42:00):
Okay, the day I took office, we inherited a colossal
invasion on our southern border, an evasion like you never
want to see here, nobody should ever want to see it.
But within weeks, we slashed illegal border crossings to an
all time low.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
Down right, I'll tell you what I want to do.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
I'm gonna step away from this just for a few minutes,
because I here's what I expect.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
I think he's gonna spend a bunch of time.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
Here talking about as he's talking about now, he's gonna
talk about what's.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
Going on in the US.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
And what I want to kind of keep an eye
on is when he starts talking more about the Middle
East and so I think the timing will work out
best if.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
We take a short break here.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
We'll keep an eye on what's going on with Trump,
and we'll probably come back to him when he gets
more to the foreign policy stuff, rather than just you know,
reciting his own accomplishments, which is fine for him to do,
but it's just not what we need to take our
time with it the moment. So we'll take a short break,
we'll be right back. Keep it with me here on Koa.
So let me just mention a couple of quick things,

(43:06):
some of which are a little bit challenging, some of
which are much more positive. So you know he's in Saudi.
There's a bunch of controversy right now surrounding Donald Trump's
apparent willingness to accept a gift from Cutter of a
four hundred million dollar I think it's a seven forty
seven to be used as a new Air Force one.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
And I gotta say, I have never in.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
My life agreed with this maga lunatic woman named Laura Lumer.
I think she's just a terrible evil influence. But she
said and in a tweet, and I don't have it
in front of me, but basically she said, I love Trump.
I would take a bullet for Trump, but he should
not accept this airplane. Cutter is a nation that has
that allows the leaders of Hamas to live there. They

(43:52):
fund the Muslim Brotherhood. There's some of the behind Iran
and well behind Iran, but still some leading supporters of
terrorism and antagonists to Israel. And they're not good guys, right.
They're not our enemies, but they're not really our allies either.

(44:13):
They're sort of in this neutral space. And Trump should
not accept an airplane from them. By the way, he's
talking about using the plane and then giving the plane
to his own like a Trump library or foundation.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
It's all really gross.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
And Ben Shapiro, who loves Donald Trump too, also said,
you cannot do this, and I don't know whether Trump
will change his mind. The other thing that I would
note that I hadn't really thought of, but I read
it in an article. If Trump accepts the plane, the
plane will not arrive in a state. It'll be beautiful,
but it won't have all the security stuff that you
need for Air Force one. And what I was reading

(44:51):
is that it's pretty likely that air Force one, when
it eventually arrives from Boeing which is, by the way,
had the contracts in twenty eighteen. Boeing is had this
order and they were supposed to be done last year.
What the bleep is wrong with Boeing. They get the
order in twenty eighteen, They're supposed to take five years,
and now they say they're still years away from doing it.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
It's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
But in any case, the security upgrades that would needed,
that would be needed to make the gift plane good
enough in a security sense to be air Force one
might take longer than just waiting for the Boeing plane.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
Yes, Dragon, and.

Speaker 7 (45:31):
Not to sound all heightey tody and pinkies up or anything,
but I don't want the president, no matter whom the
president is, to be riding on a second hand plane,
a used plane, especially one that was owned by another
a foreign country. Yeah, if it was used plane, you know,
like Delta owned it or something. Yeah, but even still
nine to one Delta to gift a plane to the

(45:52):
president of the United States, I want the first person
to ever step foot on that plane to be the
President of the United States of America.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Let's take another two minutes of Donald Trump right now.

Speaker 8 (46:02):
Abu Dhabi were not created by the so called nation builders,
neocons or liberal nonprofits, like those who spent trillions and
trillions of dollars failing to develop kabal Bagdad so many
other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East

(46:23):
has been brought by the people of the region themselves,
the people that are right here, the people that have
lived here all their lives. Developing your own sovereign countries,
pursuing your own unique visions and charting your own destinies
in your own way. It's really incredible what you've done.
In the end, the so called nation builders wrecked far

(46:45):
more nations than they built, and the interventionalists were intervening
in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.
They told you how to do it, but they had
no idea how to do it themselves. Peace, prosperity, and
progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage,

(47:07):
but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that
same heritage that you love so dearly.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
All right, posit there for a second.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Posit there, because we're just amount a time where I've
got to hit a break.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
I probably want to come back to him.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
But that was really really interesting, and I think that
was basically right. I mean, America should never have been
in the nation building business, and we were never supposed
to be in the Afghanistan war. Our goal, our mission
was to go in, kill people, break things, and get out.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
That's what a military is for killing people and breaking things.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
And it was never And at the beginning that this
conversation came up and George Shelby Bush said, we're not
doing nation building, don't worry about that, don't have any
fear of that. And then he turned to that and
all these people want to become heroes to the whole
world of making this country safer to myocracy or whatever.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
And Donald Trump just called him out on it.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
Iraq too, he mispronounced kabble regarding Afghanistan, but he he
just called all of them out on it. And he's right,
He's absolutely right if America needs to go kill people
and break things, and there are plenty of people who
need killing, right, I mean, we shouldn't look for every
opportunity to kill every person who offends us a little bit.

(48:23):
But Taliban they need killing. Who Thi's need killing although
we're not killing him right now. Plenty of Iranian Revolutionary
Guard need you know, are there are a lot of
people who need killing, not just because they're bad, but
because they're making efforts to kill us and our friends.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Right So, but then when that place does.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
All that does all that bad stuff to us, and
we go in and kill people and break things, shouldn't
be on us to fix it, and in fact that
that reduces the disincentives that we're trying to create for
those people to like attack us in.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
A first place.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
We're gonna say, you know what, we're gonna kill people
in break things. What about what are we telling them
we're gonna kill people in break things? And then we're
gonna come in and apologize and spend a trillion dollars
of our taxpayer money building it up again when you
were the ones.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Who started all this.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
No, Trump is exactly right on that, exactly right. All right,
There's there's much more to say, and there's gonna be
I think some more Trump audio. We're gonna take take
a quick break. We'll be right back on Kawa. This
is incredibly important the Middle East. On the one hand,
you're talking about a lot of countries with small populations

(49:34):
and no real industry except oil, which is a big deal.
The other thing, though, that's important, is that the Middle
East is This isn't like some secret stuff.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
I'm telling you.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Everybody understands this. I'm just laying out the framework. The
Middle East is an area where the difference between war
and piece is always a very close thing. And they're
you know, a lot of fighting and highlight levels of emotion,
and a lot of tribal differences and and and things
that Americans don't entirely understand very well. But for example,

(50:08):
Sony versus Shia, and as president of a bad analogy club,
I'll just give you an example. Just think how much,
especially especially in the old days, much more than now,
but especially, let's say, in the seventeenth century, in eighteenth century,
just how much Catholics and Protestants didn't like each other. Right,

(50:29):
It wasn't just like, you know, you'd prefer that your child,
you know, you're a Catholic and you'd prefer that your
child not marry a Protestant.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
It's not like that. Again, I'm not talking about now.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
It's like you're going straight to hell if you do, Like,
how could any good person actually be that? Right?

Speaker 2 (50:51):
And And so that's a lot.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
I'm not expert, but that's my understanding of sometimes the
difference between you know, how Sunni and Shia feel about
each other, the two major sects of Islam. There are
other smaller sects of isem as well, right, the Druz
and the Allo Whites and so on. So it's pretty cool.
And the biggest Chiite country is Iran, and most of

(51:17):
the other countries that you think about Aret are Sunni,
so especially the Gulf Arab States, Saudi Arabian all that
Israel is in the center of this area, kind of
a center and obviously is the flashpoint for a lot
of anger and aggression by Arabs by Muslims in that region,

(51:41):
but especially Iran and their proxies. Now, I talked yesterday
a little bit about how I think Donald Trump deserves
to be a serious contender, and in my opinion, probably
the leading contender. And I'm not saying he is or
will be but for the Nobel Peace Prize because he's

(52:03):
Trump and people won't go down that right. But if
you were really honest about who's doing the most to
try to stop wars, try to prevent wars of anybody,
you know, any.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Important person in the world right now. I think it's Trump.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
You don't have to love everything about him, and even
in the area areas regarding Warren Peace, you don't have
to think he's perfect like he was. He's been way
way too close to siding with Putin, or he'd been
siding with Putin. That's bad, But overall, the dude has done,
you know, more than anybody I can think of recently
now he has been a stalwart supporter of Israel's and

(52:40):
I'm very grateful about that as opposed to our non
compassment as previous president. You know, it's funny I shared
with you this morning in the first hour of the show.
I shared with you this story about it, just a
clip from an upcoming book that Biden was toiorating so

(53:01):
badly that there was talk amongst his aides about putting
him in a wheelchair, and they decided politically he just
couldn't do that. He's as much as he wanted to
be FDR, he couldn't get away with that. Even FDR,
by the way, hid the wheelchair for as long as
he could. So anyway, this is on Fox News now

(53:23):
about the whole the whole wheelchair thing. And then you
just heard it in our KOA News as well. I
have a feeling Jake Tapper's book is going to get
a lot of attention. Although for me, these these tidbits
are interesting, but I frankly don't want to read a
whole book about looking backwards at that stuff.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
So Biden was very tepid with Israel. He claimed to
support Israel, but then he'd hold back some weapons and YadA, YadA, YadA.
And Trump has been a full throated supporter of Israel,
including in his first term, where after after year, decade
after decade of American presidents saying that they were going
to move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
This had been by the.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
Way, people think that, oh Trump did this, and he
did it eventually, he was.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
The one who got it done.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
But I believe that moving the and I believe that
moving the American embassy to Jerusalem has been American policy
since the Ford administration. And I'm not exaggerating. I think
that's right. Somebody can tell me if I have it wrong,
and Trump did it.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
So the most important thing that could happen in the
Middle East would be a normalization of relations, agreement the
Abraham Accords, as Trump got done in the first term,
between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and that seemed like it

(54:40):
was close to happening at the end of Trump's term,
and then of course Biden came in and that was that.
And I think part of the reason that Trump is
in Saudi Arabia right now only part This is a
very complex thing. There's a lot of moving parts here,
but part of it is that he want to play

(55:01):
as nice as possible, as nice as Trump can with
the leaders of Saudi Arabia, say nice things to them,
say nice things about them.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
And I'm not saying he doesn't.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Believe these things, but you heard we played Trump's first
few minutes and it was very effusively praising of Saudi Arabia,
of the Crown Prince. And I know Trump likes all
these people who are richer than he is and who
are dictators and all that.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
But I think one of.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
His motives is to try to get the Abraham Accords
back on track, which was very very much pushed off
track by the war between Israel and Hamas because the
so called Arab street they don't love Hamas, but they
also don't love seeing what's happened to Gaza, and they
are by and large now and always against Israel. And

(55:56):
if the Saudi government is going to come to some
agreement with Israel, that's already a pretty significant lift for them,
and it's probably a heavier lift than they can do
right now. And what I think Trump is setting up.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
For here, I think is.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
To have Saudi Arabia come back to the negotiating table
with Israel absolutely as soon as possible. And I don't
know when that will be, but I think that's part
of what's going on. The Other thing that's going on is,
of course, and this is an ongoing thing, not a
new thing, and not a secret, is that these Gulf
Arab oil countries, these petro states, have billions, tens hundreds

(56:44):
of billions of dollars in free cash flow, even with
oil prices down where they are now, like in the
low sixties, they have an immense amount of money. And
Trump loves doing deals where he can talk about I'm
bringing x amount of money into the United States. I'm
bringing one hundred billion, I'm bringing it trillion dollars, I'm
bringing whatever I'm bringing Trump just to be able to

(57:04):
announce that he feels like he's winning. Whether or not
it ever actually happens is a different question. And I
do think with most of these things, if someone, if
you know, if the Saudis say they're going to bring
in X hundred billion dollars, I do think they'll bring
in some. I don't think they'll probably they'll probably bring
in as much as they're saying, but it doesn't really matter.
They're going to bring in some. And so I it's

(57:27):
a very very complex thing and there's a lot of
moving parts here. And I say over and over again
because I study this so my major and foreign My
major in college was foreign policy. Right, so I've been
studying this stuff for forty years and loving this stuff
for forty years. And what I can tell you is

(57:49):
the simplest stuff in international relations is more complex and
has more moving parts than the most common perplex part
of domestic politics in any country. And actually American politics
are relatively simple because we have a two party system.

(58:10):
Yes there are small parties, but they're not very important.
We actually have very simple politics here, which is good.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
I like that. I like that people can understand it.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
Mary, I like that I can understand it more easily
as a rather simple person. You start looking at the
politics of France or Germany or Israel or Italy or
you know, it's a mess. So anyway, I don't know
why I mentioned that last part. So Trump, Oh yeah,
because I was talking about complexity. So Trump is dealing
with a very complex situation. And again, I'm reading all

(58:43):
the text messages, you know, and there's people who text
me who say, oh, Trump is just you know, saying
he's gonna take the plane from Cutter because he's trying
to make Boeing look bad and make them move faster.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
And then I see.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
Other people who I get these texts all the time, right,
people who will look for any reason to defend Trump
even when he's doing something dumb and wrong, and texts
from people who will look for any reason to criticize Trump,
even when he's doing something smart or right.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
It's it's but and I see them all and.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
It's just like, you know, half the text is just
like I'm putting on Newsmax, and the other half of
the text is like I'm putting on MSNBC.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
And you know what, I don't care about any of them.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
I understand, I understand what's going on, and it doesn't
mean anything to me when I see a text where
I know I can I recognize the number. I don't
recognize a lot of numbers. But you know, like, oh,
this person just always defends Trump no matter what. And
I don't care about your texts because they're not honest.
And another one, this person just criticizes Trump no matter what.

Speaker 2 (59:50):
I don't care about your text either. They're also not honest.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
Why don't you start trying to be a little more
honest with yourself.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
I don't care about how you interact with me.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
It's no no off my back. But it's not a
good way to go through life. It really isn't.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
All right. So that was a very very long tangent.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
And I if we can, I want to take just
a few more minutes of Trump speaking at the US
Saudi Investment Forum in riadd Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
We'll see what he says.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
Today.

Speaker 8 (01:00:19):
The Gulf nations have shown this entire region the path
towards safe and orderly societies with improving quality of life,
flourishing economic growth, expanding personal freedoms, and increasing responsibilities on.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
The world stage.

Speaker 8 (01:00:35):
After so many decades of conflict. Finally it is within
our grasp to reach the future that generations before us
could only dream about. A land of peace, safety, harmony, opportunity,
innovation and achievement right here in the Middle East. So beautiful,
it's such a beautiful thing that's happening. I guess you know,
the people that are here can't even really appreciate it

(01:00:58):
because you see it happening. And it's when you come
to a place that you haven't seen in five years,
or ten years or twenty years, that it's even more incredible.
When I left office just over four years ago, that
future seemed almost impossible.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
What you've done together. We had obliterated the killers of ices.

Speaker 8 (01:01:19):
We wiped them out and terminated as founder and leader
albag Daddy. We had healed the divide and the Gulf
Cooperation Council it's a very big deal, and united the
nations of the region to stand against the enemies of
all civilization. We'd imposed unprecedented sanctions on Iran and starved

(01:01:42):
the regime of resources to fund terror. They were unable
to fund anything because they had no money left.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
They had no money. But the new administration came in and.

Speaker 8 (01:01:53):
Let them have a lot of money, and you saw
what happened.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
He's right about Buddy Wilson, right.

Speaker 8 (01:01:58):
And with the historic Abraham Accords that were so proud
of all the momentum was aimed at peace, and it
aimed very successfully. It's been an amazing thing, the Abraham Accords.
And it's my fervent hope, wish and even my dream
that Saudi Arabia place. I have such respect for, especially

(01:02:18):
over the last fairly short period of time, what you've
been able to do. But we'll soon be joining the
Abraham Accords. I think it'll be a tremendous tribute to
your country, and it will be something that's really going
to be very important for the.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
Future of the Middle East.

Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
I took a.

Speaker 8 (01:02:35):
Risk in doing them, and they've been an absolute bonanza
for the countries that have joined. The Biden administration did
nothing for four years.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
We would have had it filled out.

Speaker 8 (01:02:47):
But it will be a special day in the Middle
East with the whole world watching when Saudi Arabia joins us,
and you'll be greatly honoring me, and you'll be greatly
honoring all of those people that have fought so hard
for the Middle East. And I really think it's going
to be something special. But you'll do it in your
own time. And that's what I want, and that's what
you want, and that's the way it's going to be.

(01:03:08):
When I left office, the only thing still standing between
this region and its unbelievable potential was a small group
of rogue actors and violent thugs seeking constantly to drag
the Middle East backward and into havoc Mayhem, and indeed
into war. Unfortunately, instead of confronting these destructive forces, the

(01:03:30):
last US administration chose to enrich them and empower them
and give them billions and billions of dollars. The Biden
administration the worst administration.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
In the history of our country.

Speaker 8 (01:03:41):
By the way, spurnd our most trusted and longstanding golf partners,
and I can say partners worldwide. One of our great,
great partners, no matter who we look to, and we
have great partners in the world, but we have none
stronger and no nobody they like.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
All right, let's leave that there. That was interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
I just, you know, spent several minutes talking about the
Abraham Accords and what I thought the approach would be,
and then Trump says that, So I guess that was
a good call on my part, but not surprising.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
It is easy. And the one thing that I thought
was was.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
Very interesting in Trump's comments, or two things in Trump's
comments about the Abraham Accords and his clear nudge it
wasn't subtle.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
Towards Saudi Arabia to.

Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
You know, get back into the process of the Abraham Accords.
There were two things that jumped out. One he said
that the places that did the Abraham Accords already have
seen significant benefits in their own countries.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
I don't know if that's true, but it might be.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
I haven't really researched, for example, whether there has been
increasing Israeli tourism in Bahrain or.

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
The UAE, and there might be. There might be.

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
So, but that's an interesting argument, right. It's not just
an argument about peace in a sense, it's an argument
about economic development. The other thing that was interesting was
where Trump said, you know, you would you would honor me.
He made it, he made it personal, you would honor
me by doing this. And I realize that from time

(01:05:21):
to time, I and from time to time many other
people criticized Donald Trump for making everything about himself. In
this case, I actually think that was a smart play
because of where he is. You got to read the
room right. He's in a room of the Crown Prince.
I don't think the King was in the room by

(01:05:43):
the king. I think the King is still alive, but
not doing very well if I remember correctly, Sorry if
he's if he's passed away, whatever, But he's in the
room with the crown Prince. I think the Crown Prince
would be king. So uh, he's with people who care
about honor. Look Look where they are, Look how they live,
Look at what they value. They value power, strength, and honor.

(01:06:06):
And he's there basically saying to them, I'm the most
powerful guy in the world. I flew here to talk
to you, and not only would I appreciate if you
would do this, but I would consider it an honor.
And in a sense, he's saying, I want a little

(01:06:27):
reciprocity here. I've come to honor you by showing up,
and I expect you to honor me by doing this
thing that I want you to do that will.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
Also be good for you.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
I'm not asking you to take one for the team
and do something that hurts you for me. I'm asking
you to do something that I think will help you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
But also for me. And I think that's a very
interesting approach, very interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
I like it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
And then he said, I realize you're going to do
this in your time, and that's how it should be,
and that's how it will be.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
But everybody got the message and that was the right message,
and that was pretty good. That was pretty good. It's weird.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
It's it's weird for me to be so positive about Trump,
like two or three days in a row. But he's
mostly doing good things in the last few days. And
I call him as I see him. You know, I
mentioned yesterday I want I want every president to succeed,
and including Trump, of course.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
And I'll just clarify by.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Success, I don't mean that I necessarily want every president
to get done what that president says they want to
get done. Right, There are a lot of things that
Joe Biden wanted to do that I didn't ever want
him to get done. So in that sense, I didn't
want him to succeed at implementing the plan the policies

(01:07:59):
that he he said, or at least not all of
them that he said he believed in. What I want
is any and every president to succeed in doing things
that are good for this country and good for the world.
And because my goal is what's good for the country
and then a distant second good for the world, And
in keeping with the United States Constitution, right, I want

(01:08:21):
every president to succeed where they are trying to move
in that direction. And I don't care who the president
is Obama. You know, the problem is that we've had recently,
we've had democratic presidents whose goals mostly were goals that

(01:08:44):
I thought were actually bad for the country.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
So you know, this is when I say I want
him to succeed.

Speaker 1 (01:08:50):
When I want any American president to succeed, what I
mean is I want the country to succeed. And to
the extent that a particular American president is moving in
that direction, I support him. And when a president is
moving in the direction of you know, more peace and
less war, I support him on that too. And that's
certainly where Trump has been the past couple of days.
We'll be right back. Let's go right to our KOA

(01:09:12):
Commons Spirit Health Hotline, where I am so pleased to
be joined by Commander Justin Reeves. He is commanding Officer
of the USS Colorado for the for the Navy ship
nerds out there, that would be ss N seven eighty eight,
and that is a Virginia Class fast Attack submarine. And

(01:09:34):
I just thought it would be a lot of fun
to have Commander Reeves on the show because he's commanding
a ship, a sub named after our state, not the
first Navy ship named after our state.

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
By the way, Commander Reeves, welcome to Kiowa.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
I am the son of two US Navy officers, both
of both of my parents, and it's a pleasure to
have you on the show.

Speaker 3 (01:09:56):
Get there. Can you hear me?

Speaker 8 (01:09:58):
You?

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
I hear you very well.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Need to call me sir, although maybe difficult to break
you of that habit.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
You can call me Rod.

Speaker 4 (01:10:05):
It might be a little bit rott I've been in
the Navy for twenty two years and I got the
privilege to lead USS Colorado right now. And we got
a great relationship with the state and Colorado Association since
the ship was commissioned in twenty eighteen, and so they
organized for us to come out to Colorado, meet with

(01:10:27):
some of the local schools and talk about our experience
in the Navy and the Submarine Force and meet with
some of the people who live in Colorado and get
to tell them what we do. Since you know, it's
not every day you get to see someone from the
Navy out here. So I got myself, the chief of
the boat, and two of my high performing sailors that

(01:10:48):
got to visit the state and we're just loving this trip.
But I'm originally from Sterling, Virginia, near the DC area,
and like I said, twenty two years in the Navy.
This is my fourth submarine. I've served on submarines in
Pearl Harbor, Banger, Washington, which is right out of Seattle,

(01:11:10):
and up in Kittery, Maine, right at the Maine New
Hampshire border, doing a variety of missions, all nuclear powered
and just it's been a lot of fun. I love
every minute of it. I joined the Navy specifically to
be in the submarine Force. I was a mechanical engineer

(01:11:31):
in college, and when the opportunity came up to, you know,
operate nuclear actor and all the mechanical components on a submarine,
I kind of jumped on that. That's kind of what
got me excited about the Navy, the fact that submarines
are so cool. But really now it's morphed and it's
the people I get to work with every day. Just

(01:11:52):
phenomenal people that we recruit into the Submarine Force a
bunch of guys that are down there hard working every
day accomplish our mission. I learned from them every day,
you know. You know, even though I've been in maybe
twenty two years, there's always something that they are teaching me.
And so at this point it's just a pleasure to

(01:12:12):
serve with them and see them excel while I'm in command,
and you know that is my goal, is to create
an environment for them to be as successful as possible.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
So I won't I won't quiz you on history, but
you're probably already aware that your submarine is the fourth
Navy ship named Colorado, and, according to the Navy website,
the first since the battleship USS Colorado was decommissioned in
nineteen forty seven. So here's my one question for you.

(01:12:48):
How deep did you have to submerge to be able
to go underneath and then come up here in Colorado.

Speaker 4 (01:12:58):
Yeah, so, like you said, we are the forts to
be named USS Colorado. That was one of the great
things we got to do was visit the USS Colorado
Battleship Memorial in Adams County Regional Park. That was a
great trip and a great park that they've got there,
so like you kind of mentioned, you know, we can
operate depths of greater than eight hundred feet on speeds

(01:13:22):
greater than twenty five knots. USS Colorado was commissioned in
twenty eighteen and they were homeported in Groton, Connecticut, where
they did three deployments to the European Theater of Operations,
so doing port calls in Norway, the UK, and Spain

(01:13:43):
while doing submarine operations in that area. And then in
twenty twenty four we did a Arctic transit, so we
actually traveled up the east coast and traveled under the ice.
The ship surfaced at the North Pole, so our submarines
have the capability to surface through the ice, so we

(01:14:04):
had about a foot of ice that we were able
to literally punch through. Give the crew some opportunity to say, hey,
I've been at the North Pole. A couple of them
brought some baseball bats and baseballs and played a little baseball.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
My gosh, and.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
Let me jump in with a couple of questions because
we only have a couple of minutes left and I
have so many things I want to ask you, and
some of them would probably involve classified information and you're
just going to say, I can't tell you that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
So let me ask you one that's not classified.

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
Did any did any of your crew go off the
submarine and walk on the north Pole?

Speaker 4 (01:14:40):
Yeah, some of them had the opportunity to get down,
act did you that wanted to? So unfortunately, change of
command happened in last August. So so the boat got
the Pearl Harbor. I took over, and I did not
get that opportunity. And that is one on my submarine
bucket list that I haven't got.

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
For sure for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
All right, So when you're doing a run like that,
this will be a question you might not be allowed
to answer, and that's fine. But when you're doing a
run like that, is there any part of it where
a specific part of the mission is to see can
we go quietly enough around here that the Russians don't
know where we are?

Speaker 4 (01:15:21):
We don't necessarily exercise that. So that was just to
get from Rotten Connecticut to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. But stealth
is always a priority wherever we operate.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
So tell us a little and I've got about maybe
ninety seconds here. Generalize just a little about the Virginia
class submarine, Colorado's Virginia Class, Right, yes, sir, Okay, just
give us just a few seconds on what's special about
the Virginia Class.

Speaker 3 (01:15:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:15:52):
So it's our newest fast attack submarine, lots of great technology,
nuclear powered. It brought some increase sensor and processing capability
compared to some of our previous submarines. We've got about
one hundred and fifty officers and sailors that go underway
at any time, and that nuclear power really gives us

(01:16:13):
a endurance and stealth. So I can remain submerged as
long as I've got food to feed the crew. I
can make my own oxygen, I can make my own water,
and I can do all the other things I need
to sustain the crew for an extended period of time,
which gives our nation a great advantage during strategic competition.

Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
Okay, so I'm president of the bad Analogy Clubs. So
is the nuclear power sub is nuclear powered sub quiet
compared to a diesel sub in a way that an
electric car is quiet compared to a gasoline or diesel
powered vehicle.

Speaker 4 (01:16:53):
They can be about the same. You know, we build
our submarines very well, so we're definitely some of the
stealthiest in the world.

Speaker 1 (01:17:00):
Wow, very cool, right, So tell us I got time
for one one more question for you. What's been the
most fascinating memorable moment for you as the commander of
a submarine?

Speaker 4 (01:17:12):
You know, again, it's really seeing the sailors succeed. So
for us, we're repairing the submarine. That revolves shutting down
all our systems. So the crew has recently started back
restoring those systems. And every time the shipyard is ready
for us to do something, the crew is ready to

(01:17:33):
do it. They do it flawlessly. And right now we're
ahead of schedule, so we can get Colorado back to
see as soon as possible.

Speaker 1 (01:17:42):
That was That was a very team oriented answer, which
I would expect from a good commander.

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
It wasn't real.

Speaker 1 (01:17:48):
Necessarily the kind of story I was I was looking for,
but I but I appreciated any commander who you know,
cares about their crew that much, who answers a question
that's designed to get a personal story and and make
about the crew, that probably is what makes you a
guy who deserves to command the USS Colorado, one of
our most important ships on our navy. So thank you,

(01:18:10):
Thank you very much, Commander it's Justin Reeves. He commands
the USS Colorado as a as a Navy I didn't serve,
but as a Navy brat and the son of two
US Navy officers. I'm I'm grateful for everything you do
and for your time this morning.

Speaker 4 (01:18:23):
All right, thank you very much, and you have a
good day. And like I said, it's great to be
here in Colorado.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
All right, thanks for doing it. All right, we'll take
you a quick break. We'll be right back on KOA
rather dim witted talk show host this morning doesn't need an.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
Explanation for that one. You can win a pair of twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:18:37):
Twenty five Broncos home game tickets of your choice, meaning
you get to choose the game on our KOA Instagram
page right now, you can enter to win these tickets
Instagram dot com slash KOA Colorado and then you got
another chance to win tomorrow. That would be Wednesday from
six pm to seven pm during the Broncos.

Speaker 2 (01:18:59):
Schedule release show with Dave Logan.

Speaker 1 (01:19:01):
And that's actually going to be airing on our sister
station six point thirty k HOW tomorrow from six to
seven because the Rockies are going to be here on
KOA anyway you want your chance to win tickets, and
you get to choose the home game Instagram dot Com,
slash koa Colorado and you'll see the pinned post up
there that a Rod made that will have the instructions

(01:19:22):
on what you need to do to win. So go
ahead and do that. I want to just do a
couple of local stories for you. I feel like I
haven't quite been local enough today. Two things that are
dropping in Denver in recent months, the crime rate and

(01:19:43):
apartment rental rates, both good news, and I just thought
I would take a couple of minutes and share these
stories with you, ones from Axios, ones from Denver right,
and I'll start with the Axios story. Homicide rates continue
dropping in Denver. Preliminary data shows homicides in Denver and
Aurora fell in the first three months of twenty twenty five,

(01:20:05):
as overall violent crime continued it's post pandemic drop in
the nation's largest cities. Homicides in Denver fell by fifty
eight percent, significantly higher drop than the rate of the
largest cities in the country, which averaged twenty one percent,
according to statistics compiled by the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

(01:20:28):
The numbers indicate that the COVID era crime wave has
largely faded, even as some officials, including now this where
you get into some bias here in the reporting. I
guess I'll finish the sentence, even though it kind of
annoys mail.

Speaker 2 (01:20:41):
Finished the sentence anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
Even as some officials, including President Trump, falsely claimed immigrants
are driving increased crime rates. Oh gosh, like you had
a good article going, you had to put that in there.

Speaker 2 (01:20:51):
Anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
This year's drop continues a year's long trend of declining
homicide rates in Denver. Mayor Mike Johnston and police Chief
Ron Thomas spoke about the dip and violent crime during
the community event last month. Johnston said the data is
heading in the right direction, and he credited that to
thoughtful engagement and partnering with the community. Maybe it's just,

(01:21:13):
you know, more policing, more police, better policing.

Speaker 2 (01:21:16):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:21:17):
These things do seem to have some correlation with each
other anyway. I have no idea whether that fifty eight
percent number is right, but it's a big number, so
even if it's wrong moderately, it still would point to
a significantly declining homicide rate in Denver.

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
And I suspect that that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:21:38):
It seems like there have been right, the plural of
anecdote is not data. Nevertheless, it seems like there have
been fewer anecdotes, fewer news reports, fewer this and that
reporting of homicides in Denver. So that's good news. We
all want the city to be better. And I don't
think I have more to add on that one. Then
over at denverwright dot com, her rents are dropping for

(01:22:01):
the first time in fifteen years.

Speaker 2 (01:22:03):
Wow. Wow. They there's a lot of news stories.

Speaker 1 (01:22:07):
Do what they'll Sometimes they'll they'll pick a person and
use that person as sort of the avatar of the story.
So they have a girl named Cassie moved to Denver
in twenty twenty two.

Speaker 2 (01:22:16):
She paid fourteen hundred bucks a.

Speaker 1 (01:22:17):
Month for a bug infested rundown studio in University Hills,
the neighborhood she hated. Why did she move to a
neighborhood she hated? In a bug infested rundown studio apartment?
And to get a job. To get to her job,
she took a two hour bus ride each way. So
this actually sounds like sort of a stupid girl. I'm sorry,
that's not very nice. But I mean, Cassie paid fourteen

(01:22:38):
hundred dollars a month for a bug infested a studio
apartment in a university in the neighborhood she didn't like
where she had to take a two hour bus ride
to her job.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
What anyway, so she left that studio.

Speaker 1 (01:22:55):
Now she's in a bigger apartment, a one bedroom apartment
in Capitol Hill, and she's still paying fourteen hundred a month,
but it's for a bigger place in a neighborhood that
she likes.

Speaker 2 (01:23:03):
And anyway, they go on.

Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
To talk about how Denver rents are down, not massively,
but the median apartment in Denver is now seventeen hundred
and thirty three dollars a month. That's down sixty five
from the same time last year. That's a drop of
about three point six percent. And it is the first.

Speaker 2 (01:23:19):
Year since at least two thousand and six.

Speaker 1 (01:23:22):
And I don't know exactly what they mean by at least,
but maybe they weren't compiling the data before then.

Speaker 2 (01:23:27):
But it's the first year since at least two thousand
and six.

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):
That rents in Denver are down compared to the year before.
Even if it's a small number, It's still a very
welcome change. And part of the reason you won't be
surprised is supply and demand. More than twenty thousand apartments
have been completed around the seven county metro area in
the past year. Okay, and that includes Adams, Arapaho, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas,

(01:23:56):
and Jefferson counties. Right, But twenty thousand and new apartments.
Isn't it amazing how markets really work. It's a renter's
market now in the Denver metro area for the first
time in.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
A long long time.

Speaker 1 (01:24:12):
What I'll be interested to see is whether that has
any feedback, any follow through into the single home purchase
the single family home purchasing market. Usually there's a correlation
between those two things that would suggest to me that
home prices may come down a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
But we'll see. It's an issue that's been.

Speaker 1 (01:24:34):
Around, like very much in the forefront of news for
the better part of a couple of years now, and
I am talking about the participation of biological males in
girls or women's sports, and particularly particularly biological males who
have gone through puberty.

Speaker 2 (01:24:54):
As males.

Speaker 1 (01:24:55):
I don't care much whether six year old boys and
six year old girls are playing soccer against each other,
because I don't think there's really much unfairness about that.
But once somebody has gone through puberty or is going
through puberty as a male, they develop certain advantages of
strength and speed and some other things that, at least

(01:25:17):
in sports where strength and speed and those other things matter,
all of a sudden it becomes an issue of fairness.
And my listeners know that I'm not a social issues conservative.
I don't have anything against anybody in the LGBT world
at all.

Speaker 2 (01:25:33):
Go live your life and be happy.

Speaker 1 (01:25:35):
But when it comes to competing in sports, I am
just not okay with folks who have these physiological advantages,
essentially stealing the hopes and dreams of dozens or hundreds
or thousands of young women who have spent their lives
trying to get to the highest levels of a sport,

(01:25:58):
or even not trying to get to the highest level,
is just competing. So with that long introduction, I want
to welcome to the show Peter Hilts, who is superintendent
of Colorado's Spring School District forty nine. If you're from
around there, you might just call him D forty nine
for that district, and District forty nine has made some

(01:26:19):
news recently regarding implementing a policy about this issue and
then also filing a lawsuit to sort of proactively try
to stop government from preventing them from implementing the policy.
There's a lot of negatives in that sentence. Peter Hilt's
welcome to KOA, thanks for being here.

Speaker 3 (01:26:41):
Thank you, Ross. I appreciate the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (01:26:43):
Did I say anything in my overly long introduction that
you disagree with?

Speaker 3 (01:26:50):
No. I think you're right that this is a pretty
important cultural moment. We are trying to show some leadership
and seek clarity in the legal frame because we haven't
been able to get clarity from the administrative bureaucratic side.
And so when you can't get a good answer from
the entiteam, you've got to go seek relief and clarity

(01:27:10):
from the courts.

Speaker 1 (01:27:11):
Okay, So before we get to the lawsuit you just filed,
let's back up to the policy. Give us the most important,
the most salient points of the policy that you have
just passed, that the school board just passed.

Speaker 3 (01:27:27):
So our policy, JBA all refer to it as is
to protect well safety and privacy in sports, and the
language that we are using is fairness because it really
resonates people, resonates with people that the way that the
Chassa Bylaws and the Colorado Anti Discriminate Act are currently
set up, they actually require us to discriminate against female

(01:27:51):
students because they require us to make it a condition
of participation that girls be willing to compete directly again boys.
That's the way chassis bilaws and the Anti Discrimination Actor
currently set up. So this lawsuit seeks to clarify that
the district may reserve some sports activities exclusively for biological

(01:28:14):
female students that we call girls. It ensures that both
boys and girls have protection in their bodily privacy, so
whether they're competing or changing, or traveling or lodging together,
that they will be appropriately separated by their male or
female status. And then we believe that this absolutely sets

(01:28:35):
us up and shield the district from the potential of
legal action if we fail to take care of the
students that are entrusted to our care. So it's really
that those three things fairness, privacy, and protecting the district.

Speaker 1 (01:28:50):
So the policy, the new policy extends well beyond sports. Right,
So you were talking about, you know, just to you
put a colloqui with a field trip.

Speaker 3 (01:29:01):
So the policy is focused on sports, particularly sports that
would include either direct direct collision or contact, but it
also involves traveling, and so field trips aren't really a
focus of this policy. Okay, sports, travel, location there, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:29:23):
Got it, got it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:26):
And I just to follow up a little bit on
the legal point that you that you made I feel,
and I'm guessing you feel that We're in a very
blue state. You're in a fairly conservative district. And I
have no idea what your personal politics are and it
doesn't matter, but you're in a fairly conservative district. And
that's why this policy was able to be passed. Although

(01:29:47):
I think it was a three to two vote, it
wasn't a unanimous vote. It was And you're you're in
a blue state with a state attorney general who is
not only very liberal but is also running for governor,
and a lot of these folks like that, and he's
a friend of mine, but I, you know, I see.

Speaker 2 (01:30:04):
The situation for what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):
A lot of folks like that will want to make
a splash, and he's going to want to try to
win the Democratic Party by showing his left wing bona fides,
so maybe he will. Maybe you probably have a little
concern that if you do this thing, maybe he would
come after you. But you also have a concern that
if you don't do this thing, then you may be
violating federal law and federal policy.

Speaker 2 (01:30:28):
Is that Do you feel a little bit stuck in
the middle.

Speaker 3 (01:30:32):
Oh? Absolutely, And we particularly believe that there's an incoherence
or an incompatibility between Federal Title nine and both the
Anti Discriminating Act Anti Discrimination Act of Colorado COTTA, as
well as Chessa bylaws and RUSS. What's interesting is I
would invite people to go look up the chass of bylaws.
The Chassa bylaws themselves refer to the problem with letting

(01:30:56):
boys compete against girls, and I'm quoting here it creates
an in equity of skills and severely limits participation of
female students. Well, I've got a professional, personal, and moral
obligation not to allow that outcome to happen. I owe
it to the parents that have entrusted their daughters to

(01:31:18):
our school's care, to the care of the district. I
owe it to those parents that I will make sure
that we deliver on the promise of Title mind which
is equal access and opportunity for female students that is
at least as available to them as it is to
boy students.

Speaker 2 (01:31:37):
It is really kind of a remarkable thing.

Speaker 1 (01:31:39):
And it is more of a political commentary on my
part now, but it is a is a rather remarkable
thing that the the sector of American politics. And I
won't calle it before wokeness even but like the feminist
left in the earliest iterations of all this, we're so

(01:32:01):
pro women and good for them, right, and now that
same kind of aggressive aggressive, well, some of them are aggressive.

Speaker 2 (01:32:11):
That's not really the right word. A very active part.

Speaker 1 (01:32:14):
Of the left wing base of the Democratic Party is
suddenly anti woman, an anti girl.

Speaker 2 (01:32:20):
And again, you.

Speaker 1 (01:32:21):
Know, Peter, I've said up before, I'll say I don't
have anything against trans people.

Speaker 2 (01:32:25):
I don't. I really don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:32:28):
Live your life, be happy, right, I'm talking about adults
here primarily, But like why, I'm just I really struggle.
And this conversation came up yesterday in different context with
how the left wing has gone so far on the
twenty side of an eighty twenty issue.

Speaker 3 (01:32:52):
Yeah, and I will tell you, Rosie, in our school district,
it's not a twenty. It's it's ninety nine zero point
nine to one of our students are confidently identifying themselves
as a boy or a girl. They tell us that
when they register for enrollment in the district, maybe as
a four year old coming to preschool or kindergarten. They

(01:33:12):
tell us that again. When they participate in activities as
a boy or a girl, they tell us again, when
they register for sports. They tell us again when they
get a sports physical. So we know who boys and
girls are. We don't have to do any kind of
invasive tests or genetic assessment. We know who the boys
are in our schools, and we know who the girls are.

(01:33:33):
And all we're saying is we're going to reserve a
small set of athletic activities for girls exclusively. And just
to be clear, right, opportunities.

Speaker 2 (01:33:43):
Yeah, ye, sorry, I didn't interrupt you.

Speaker 1 (01:33:45):
Just to be clear, when I said an eighty twenty issue,
I didn't mean that twenty percent of kids identify.

Speaker 2 (01:33:50):
As another gender.

Speaker 1 (01:33:51):
I meant that in the public at least eighty percent
of the population, including I.

Speaker 2 (01:33:58):
Think most Democrats don't.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
Think males who have been through puberty should be competing
against girls in sports, and so that that's what I
meant by eighty twenty issue. I'm sure you know the
trans thing among kids.

Speaker 2 (01:34:14):
Very much of that is peer pressure.

Speaker 1 (01:34:16):
I've told the story before, and I'm sure you're closer
to it than I am. So why don't I share
this with you and you tell me if you think
it's still a thing. But some years ago, especially, I
heard this from my older kid when he was in
middle school.

Speaker 2 (01:34:30):
Five six years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:34:31):
He said, half of the kids in his grade claimed
to be l org or b or T because it
was cool. If you weren't one of those, you were
less cool, and God forbid, if you happen to be
a straight white guy, you were the lowest form of life.
And so you have all these So you have a
lot of just peer pressure to claim to be l

(01:34:54):
org or b or T.

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
I suspect two things.

Speaker 1 (01:34:58):
I suspect that's diminishing a little little bit, and I
suspect you live in an area that's a little bit
more conservative. So the number might not have been that high,
but I bet you still saw it.

Speaker 3 (01:35:10):
Sure, I mean, I think you book you're speaking to
a phenomenon we would we would generally call social compasion,
colloquially it's just things trend, right, they trend, they get
more popular. But here's a here's a really interestant observation.
Sports are contest of physical ability. So it's speed and
strength and stamina and coordination, and so you need a
physical standard. Well, what is the standard for physicality? The

(01:35:34):
standard is biological science. This isn't. Sports are not psychological
or sociological where you can tolerate a subjective standard. They're physical,
and so physical standard for a physical activity makes sense.
Now if we're talking about a social activity like student government,
where popularity and personal appeal, those really matter, And of

(01:35:55):
course we would want boys and girls to to engage
and compete on equal footing, because in a social setting
a social standard is appropriate. But in a physical standing,
we've got to adhere to the biological binary to set
our classifications. That's just fundamentally fair.

Speaker 1 (01:36:12):
Yeah, and actually that's probably a very similar conversation to
what is being had now at least and should have
been had all along regarding military service.

Speaker 2 (01:36:23):
I think it's quite similar.

Speaker 1 (01:36:24):
Peter Hilts is superintendent of Colorado Springs School District.

Speaker 2 (01:36:27):
Forty nine, D. Forty nine. A listener wants to know.

Speaker 1 (01:36:32):
How many instances of this being an issue have come
up in your district.

Speaker 3 (01:36:39):
So it's interesting because we don't track whether or not
a student arrives in the district representing other than their
biological their biological sex, and so it's not really about
the numbers, it's about the principle. What we do know
for sure is that our student have had to compete

(01:37:01):
against students that were unfairly physically advantaged because of their sex.
And while I don't control other districts, and I'm only
superintendent in one place, what I can influence or lead
is what we do, and we think it's the right
thing to do. Whether it's whether it's right for one
team and one girl or all teams and all girls.

(01:37:24):
We're going to do the right thing, not because of
the scale of the impact, but because of the principle
behind the decision.

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
Okay, two more questions for you. The first one comes
from a listener. Can you please clarify specify under the
new policy, what are the areas of sports that are
now reserved by biological sex.

Speaker 3 (01:37:50):
So what this policy tells us is that we can
have three classifications. We can have a boy's classification, a
girls classification, and a co ed classification. A lot of
people are surprised to find out, for example, that tackle
football is a co educational sport, and we have girls
across Colorado who sometimes try out and make the team,
often as a kicker, but that's not that uncommon. In

(01:38:14):
our middle schools. Wrestling is a co educational sport, separated
not by biology, not by sexual classification, but by weight
class but that's in our middle schools. Once we get
into our high schools, then we have boys and girls
wrestling teams as separate events. And so our high schools
offer fourteen sports. They are all either boys or girls

(01:38:35):
or co ed. I don't have that full Listen is
probably not a great use of our time, but our
job is to simply to clarify that a particular sport
is available to boys, or to girls, or to co
ed athletes, and then to defend those classifications.

Speaker 2 (01:38:52):
Okay, last question for you.

Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
Could you even have a policy that would be enforceable
and if so, do you or will you regarding whether
a visiting team from outside your district, let's say, comes
to play against in a girls category, comes to you
and one of their players is transgender and has clearly
gone through puberty as a male, and it's you know,

(01:39:17):
girls basketball, and they've got a player who is uh
six four two twenty.

Speaker 3 (01:39:24):
Sure, and so no, the district cannot create a policy
that that affects or or controls other districts.

Speaker 1 (01:39:32):
But the point of leadership, sorry let me just jump in, sorry,
just an interest time.

Speaker 2 (01:39:37):
I didn't mean can you control another district?

Speaker 1 (01:39:39):
I mean would your team go ahead and play the
game against that other team?

Speaker 3 (01:39:48):
So that's we have not set policy on that yet.
So I understand the question would our team compete with
our team forfeit that that is not under the purview
of this policy. We would rather see a system wide,
statewide standard that would prevent us from even having to
have that conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:40:09):
All right, that makes sense, and all right, last very
quick thing.

Speaker 1 (01:40:14):
It was a three to two vote on the school
board to go ahead with this policy. Two people, two
members of the board, voted against it. How do you
why do you think they voted against it?

Speaker 3 (01:40:25):
Well, I think every board has to decide what its
priorities are, where it wants to take positions, and where
it wants to refrain. And the two members that spoke
clearly against this policy did not believe this was the
right priority. They articulated that they didn't think it was
even necessary, and the three members that voted for it disagreed.

(01:40:47):
And that's what I like about local control and our
form of representative democracy within our constitule republic and within
our state system allows for that diversity of opinions. I
thought both sides of this issue were well articulated, and
ultimately the board spoke. And once the board has spoken,

(01:41:08):
we don't treat it as a three two or a
four to one. It's the board's decision and we will
now work to develop a regulation that implements their directive.

Speaker 1 (01:41:15):
Absolutely, and that's the only way to do it. I'm
going to five to four vote on the Supreme Court
is still the ruling, so I wouldn't have it any
other way. Peter Hilts is superintendent of Colorado Springs School
District forty nine. Thanks for your time, Thanks for your
courage on this issue as well, Peter.

Speaker 3 (01:41:31):
We appreciate it. Thank you for giving us a platform
to talk a little bit about it.

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
We thank you, all right, glad to do it. Hi
May hello. All right, So that necklace is not brought
us Lava were now.

Speaker 9 (01:41:42):
From this one is from my sweet husband, all right
to me. Yeah, it was a gift.

Speaker 1 (01:41:47):
But do you know geographically is from my Louisville, Kentucky.

Speaker 3 (01:41:51):
All right?

Speaker 9 (01:41:51):
This is actually other than my wedding ring, which I
never wear.

Speaker 2 (01:41:56):
Huh.

Speaker 9 (01:41:57):
It's the only piece of jewelry from like a normal
jewelry store that I own. All rightything else was like
made by somebody. Somebody from somebody made it. So you
know that I much prefer that its good way. I
didn't tell you Ross, I had your back this morning.

Speaker 2 (01:42:10):
What did I do?

Speaker 9 (01:42:11):
I heard your very funny, very dry question to the
submarine that went right over his head.

Speaker 2 (01:42:18):
Unders.

Speaker 9 (01:42:20):
I just wanted you to know I was there for you,
car I was so there for you.

Speaker 2 (01:42:27):
The dude was. I mean, I'm really glad I had
him on hed it.

Speaker 9 (01:42:29):
Super nervous he was.

Speaker 2 (01:42:30):
He was a little nervous.

Speaker 1 (01:42:31):
Yeah, he was a little nervous and he and he
just wanted to get the information in there. Yeah, and
just wanted to represent the brand of the navy.

Speaker 9 (01:42:40):
He was adorable that I love submarines.

Speaker 2 (01:42:43):
But yeah, I was like, oh that.

Speaker 9 (01:42:44):
Was like, I hate that too. When you got something
you're going to.

Speaker 2 (01:42:46):
Be really like singing.

Speaker 9 (01:42:47):
Then it's just just flat.

Speaker 1 (01:42:49):
But I didn't think of that question in advance. I
just thought of it as I was sitting there talking.

Speaker 9 (01:42:54):
Apparently you should have focus grouped it before you set
them off. Apparently, I just wanted to let you know
I was there for you.

Speaker 2 (01:43:00):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 9 (01:43:00):
Laughing in my car, and then it laughed even harder
because it just went nowhere. It made it even funny.

Speaker 2 (01:43:07):
All right, let's do this quickly. You're ready.

Speaker 1 (01:43:09):
Man survives on bread, cereal, and candy alone.

Speaker 2 (01:43:12):
Well, of course.

Speaker 1 (01:43:12):
Candidate for South Jersey Assembly selling feet picks online.

Speaker 9 (01:43:17):
I wish I didn't think that was true.

Speaker 1 (01:43:18):
Skydiver drops phone from fourteen thousand feet finds it in
perfect working condition on the ground, probably at an auto
box Global Summit on Climate change postponed due to delegates
private jet traffic champ.

Speaker 9 (01:43:32):
I'm going to go four, even though it might be
wishful thinking. I'd like to think it's two. I'm going
to go four. That was my gut, my gut, it's four.

Speaker 2 (01:43:43):
And dragon was Mandy Yettus. She has it right today.
Tickets to watch the submarine races.

Speaker 9 (01:43:46):
Nice. I learned about that on Happy Days, mister.

Speaker 1 (01:43:50):
The actual fake headline is Global Summit on Climate Change
postponed due to delegates private.

Speaker 9 (01:43:58):
I hoped that one phone it just because of theirs, probably.

Speaker 2 (01:44:01):
Because Alan Gore and.

Speaker 1 (01:44:02):
Leonardo DiCaprio showing up in their in their private.

Speaker 9 (01:44:06):
Problem was the Normies and effect the normies flying on
the big jets.

Speaker 2 (01:44:12):
Thirteen seconds on What you got coming up?

Speaker 9 (01:44:15):
I got a couple of things. I got our futurest
Thomas Frye coming up to talk about two things. We've lost,
our pop culture references being one of them, and the
second how AI is going to take over education and
it's already kind of happening in real life.

Speaker 2 (01:44:28):
Everyone stick around for Mandy's fabulous show. I'll talk with
you tomorrow