08-18-25 - *FULL SHOW* Trump-Zelenskyy-EU meeting; Major in Mariachi; Death Dinners

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My wife really enjoys using a chainsaw, and it's hard
to stop her when she is using one. And so
much of my weekend was taken up with carrying dead
and not so dead branches that she had cut off
of one thing or another from wherever she cut them
over to the dumpster. And I was not wearing long sleeves.

(00:21):
So my arms are all cut up this morning. But
it's fine. I feel like i've what no, not that
kind of No. No, it's not from any kind of
intravenous drug use. I promise it's from tree branches and twigs.
And it's self arm the worst self arming ever, Oh
my god, the most incompetent self harm in the history

(00:45):
of the world. Oh that's not funny at all. No,
it's that is definitely not something to joke about. So anyway,
that was that was my weekend. Oh and I went
to the Broncos preseason game, which was which was a
lot of fun, even though it was preseason and and
we didn't play our starters, still a lot of fun.

(01:05):
And I actually Shannon actually went with doctor Opperman and
and we went down on the field before the game,
not not during the game, before the game and We're
watching some of the warm ups and stuff, and it
was it was really cool. It was just it was
it was a lot of fun and the Broncos are
looking all right. Yes, does he yell during the game.

(01:28):
You know, Opperman is not a huge sports guy. He's
kind of a moderate sports guy. So he's not someone
jumping up and down and cheering like the way I
am sometimes, although you probably won't catch me doing too
much of that during the preseason anyway. Well, he's always
looking out for his for his voice. Yeah, and if
he heard me jumping up and down and yelling, he'd probably,
you know, grab a ruler and whack me on the

(01:49):
knuckles and say stop that. So, uh, he he told
me that I'm too dehydrated and I need to drink more.
He can tell from the sound of how I talk
that I need to drink more. Anyway, we had a
lot to do on today's show. Light on guests. Today,
only one guest, well probably only one guest on a
very unusual topic. I saw something over at Westward Magazine

(02:14):
about Metro State University offering Colorado's first ever degree in
mariachi music.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
So I've got a gal named Isaha.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Mendez Flores on the show, who is one of the
big players pun intended in the world of mariachi music
in Colorado, including running the Colorado Youth Mariachi program. But
I think she's involved with this mariachi music major at MSU,
and I just thought it was kind of a fun topic,
kind of cultural, kind of local all that.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
So we'll be doing that in a couple of hours.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Lots of stuff to talk about before then. I will
note that President Trump has been very busy on social
media this morning. Seven posts on his truth social account
just in the last few hours, seven in the last
three hours, of which six are in the last one hour,
and very interesting stuff, some.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Stuff about Hamas, some stuff.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
About the media and these various negotiations. I want to
just talk a little bit for maybe maybe five minutes here,
maybe less actually about what's going on today and the
thought regarding President Trump meeting with Ukrainian President Zelenski and
a whole bunch of European leaders as well. And I
would like to just start with the aftermath of Fridays

(03:28):
meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska. And I think
there's some good out of it, some not so good
out of it. The bottom line is, I think the
whole Alaska thing is too early to judge, and I
think that most of what you're getting on both sides
is just kind of partisan talking points. Right. You have
Chris van Holland, this ridiculous Democrat senator from Maryland, who's

(03:49):
coming out and saying, you know, once again, Trump got
played and this is a huge failure, and that's nonsense, Right,
it's too early to judge. And then you have Republicans
coming out saying this was an amazing success and we're
making huge progress, and that's nonsense too.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
I think that the probably the most.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Interesting and honest messaging over the weekend was Secretary of
State Marco Rubio, who was on all of these Sunday shows, right,
he was on for sure, he was on Fox, NBC, CBS,
and I'm sure he was elsewhere that I didn't see.
And he was really very clear about this stuff. And
I'll have some audio on that a little bit later
in the show. I'm not going to do audio right now,

(04:26):
but basically he was saying, look, we think we made
some progress, but we certainly didn't make enough progress to
you know, to crow about anything. We maybe got a step.
We're two closer to a deal, but that doesn't mean
we're close to a deal, and we're just doing, you know,
what we can. And I thought, I thought that was
pretty honest and strong. I like I've looked. I've liked

(04:50):
Marco Rubio for a long time. He hasn't always been great,
but overall he's been better than average, and I think
he's good at this job, and I think he's he's
one of the best foreign policy people that Trump has
around him at this point, maybe the single best. So
that was pretty good. Now, let's just talk briefly about
the Friday meeting. The best moment by far on Friday

(05:11):
was when Trump and Putin were walking down this red
carpet from maybe it was from Trump's from Putin's airplane
perhaps to go wherever they were going. And if you
watch the video of them and only of them without
seeing the sky, it's really interesting. So you see them

(05:32):
walking and you see Putin look around like he hears something,
maybe looks up a little bit. Then he's back to
focusing on Trump for another few seconds, and then they
both look up. They both look up and what they're
looking at and you can't see it in that shot.
You can see it in a different picture where someone
was filming what's going on in the sky is a
flyover of a B two bomber flanked by two on

(05:57):
each side. I think they're F twenty two's and so
these are stealth fighter stealth bomber, and this is the
bomber for sure. And I think the fighters too, were
used to take out Iranian nuclear facilities.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
And this was just a brilliant little bit.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Of of psychological warfare, of a psyop of a flex
by by President Trump. Yeah, that too, Shannon, I'm not
gonna say that on the air by President Trump saying
to Putin, don't forget we have this stuff and you don't. Now,
Russia certainly has some weapons. They're probably ahead of us

(06:38):
in hypersonic missiles and stuff like that. But the thing is,
it's not just that President Trump showed this stuff flying.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Over Putin's head.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
It's that it's that we just used that same stuff
to take out key nuclear facilities in Iran. So President
Trump was reminding Putin in a way that is very
different from anything that we had during Biden and Obama
that not only do we have the cape, the capability

(07:06):
the military capability, but in the right circumstance, we also
have the will, which we never had before. And Trump
demonstrated the will just similar I've talked about this a lot.
Barack Obama drew that red line with Syria using there
he said, it'll be a red line if Bashar Asad
uses chemical weapons on his own people. And Bashar Asad

(07:27):
did and Obama did nothing, And the reaction to Obama
doing nothing was putent taking crimea. And then Trump came
in I'm talking about twenty sixteen now and reiterated that
red line, no chemical weapons Asade and Asad used him again.
And then Trump not in the most aggressive way, but
Trump launched a bunch of missiles at Syria and took

(07:50):
out some buildings. I don't think he you know, killed
a member of the of Asad's family, but it was
it was a message, and Aside didn't do it again.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Right.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
So, Trump, as anti war as he is, is clearly
a firm, firm believer in peace through strength, and sometimes
through strength means showing not just that you have the equipment,
but that you have the will to use it. And
Trump has done that, and you are reminded, putin of
that with that flyover. So I thought that was the
very best moment. I thought that was the fantastic moment.

(08:21):
The press conference at the end was kind of interesting.
Putin spoke for nine minutes, most of which was long,
rambling antihistorical nonsense trying to butter up Trump, and then
Trump spoke for three minutes, and then they left and
didn't take any questions, and Trump was.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Clearly not happy.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Now, Trump had said he wouldn't be happy if there
was no ceasefire coming out of that meeting, but there
was never gonna be a ceasefire coming out of that meeting.
And Trump kind of knew that he had been lowering
expectations for a while, which is a proper thing to do.
So nothing much came out of it, I would say,
came out of that press conference. So I would say

(08:56):
the bad moment, I told you, the good moment is
the fly The bad moment is that Trump seemed to
buy into a little bit of Putin's spin and a
little bit of Putin's goals, saying, all right, we're not
going to go for a ceasefire. Now, We're just gonna
go for a full piece deal without a ceasefire. But
that's gonna take a long time, and so that means
that could be another year of Trump giving Russia permission

(09:17):
to kill Ukrainians and try to take more territory and
all that.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
And it did feel a little.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Bit like Trump got manipulated by Putin. But we'll have
to see how it plays out today, because in a
few hours Trump is gonna meet with Zelenski first and
then a whole bunch of the top leaders in Europe.
We are gonna come into the meeting and they're gonna talk
about all this, and there is a sense out there
it's been around for a long time, that Trump is
highly influenced by whoever talked to him last. So we'll
see how that plays out. I think the main thing

(09:44):
to take away right now is it's just much too
early to judge any of this with any confidence. Let's
do more of a local story here, although it might
have some national implications. There's a there's a big group
called net Choice. It's kind of an industry group for
social media companies. And I've had some of their folks
on the show from time to time, and they are

(10:06):
filing a lawsuit here in Colorado. It's a federal lawsuit,
although they're filing it at federal court in Colorado, and
it's called net Choice versus Wiser, Wiser being our Colorado
Attorney General Phil Wiser.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
And what this lawsuit is about is House.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Bill twenty four TOSH eleven thirty six that was passed
last year and is scheduled to take effect about four
months from now January first of next year. And let
me go to a good news website that I like
called vcentersquare dot com, the centersquare dot com.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
So I'll just read a little of this.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
In addition to requiring the Colorado Department of Education to
maintain educational materials on the health effects of social media,
this bill, well, now it's law. A law would also
require social media plan platforms to display a pop up
notification every thirty minutes, every thirty minutes to any user

(11:08):
who is over eighteen years I'm sorry, under eighteen years old,
all right, so seventeen or under, who has been on
the platform for a cumulative hour during any twenty four
hour period, or who is on the platform between the
hours of ten pm and six a m. So, basically,

(11:31):
it's the government telling social media companies to put a
kind of every half hour pop up warning label on
their own websites to any any person under eighteen who's
been on there for an hour or more in any
twenty four hour period, or is on the platform between

(11:52):
ten pm and six am. And the lawsuit argues that
this is a violin the First Amendment. And let's see
who is this person?

Speaker 2 (12:03):
Task?

Speaker 1 (12:04):
I guess this guy is the Okay, this guy Paul
Task or task eat, I don't know how you pronounce it. Taskee.
He's co director of the Net Choice Litigation Center. And
here's what he's saying about it as part of bringing
this lawsuit. The First Amendment protects free speech, free expression,
and free thought. Colorado law violates all three of those issues.

(12:25):
Net Choice is always going to be fighting back against
these sorts of overreaches to protect the principles of free speech.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Online and a vibrant internet.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
He says, the government is free to espouse whatever view
it wants to the problem under this law is that
the government can't compel others to speak for it. So
I do wonder about this. You know, the government does
require warning labels on alcohol on cigarettes. Sometimes those things

(12:54):
show up as if they are voluntary from the industry
because the industry agrees to put such and such a
thing on there as part of a larger overall settlement
with government so that government doesn't sue them for more
money about other things. But in any case, that's going
to be an interesting lawsuit, State Rep. Judy. I never

(13:16):
pronounce their name, right, am a bla, am Abl. I
don't know Amabil. She's a Democratic Boulder, she says. I
should know how to pronounce her name. I'm sorry, I don't.
This bill works to give parents and teens the resources
they need to make informed decisions about excessive social media use,
especially the dreaded doom scroll.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
She says, we're working to encourage healthier.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Social media habits among our youth by giving them the
tools they need to make smart decisions about their own
social media usage and prompting our kids to take a
break from their phones. So look, even living in the
mind of a nanny stater like that, I'll say, Okay,
I get it.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
We don't want kids.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
It's a nice idea to remind kids, Hey, you've been
on the social media platform for a while, Well, maybe
it's time for you to take a break, or maybe
it's time for you to go to bed, and child
safety is an important thing, but that doesn't mean that
the government can compel speech by private companies.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
So it's gonna be a very interesting lawsuit.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
Again. Colorado is the test case here. There have been
a couple other social media related laws around the country
that have come in front of courts, and one or
two have been upheld and one or two have been
over overthrown. That Choice seems to feel very confident that
they're going to win this case. I think they're better
than fifty to fifty to win it, actually, but I
don't think it's a slam dunk the way they think

(14:35):
it is. I think I'll sit down. I've been I've
been standing so far the whole show. Don't know why
I like standing. So I'm going to ask you a
question real quick, and then I'm gonna move on to
other things. Okay, but I'm just gonna ask you this question.
I'm gonna come back to to it later in a
little bit later in the show, but I just want
to throw this out there right now. Tell me one

(14:59):
very famous, this popular musician who you really never want
to see in concert, just like even if you were
offered a free ticket, and I'm talking about a popular person,
popular musician, popular band. Somebody offered you a free ticket,
you say, eh, no thanks. I want you to text
me at five six six nine zero and tell me

(15:21):
your answer to that. You can pick you can pick two,
but don't send me eight, just one or two. The
other thing that I want to mention is I'm gonna
be out Wednesday, Thursday, Friday this week for some stuff.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
And so normally we do.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
The Flat Irons Fire giveaway, the entry into the giveaway.
Normally we do it on Fridays. We're gonna be doing
it tomorrow, so make very very sure you're listening tomorrow
so that you can try to gain one of the
only twelve entries there will be into the final giveaway
for this twenty five twenty six hundred dollars barbecue grill

(15:58):
that Flat Irons is giving away. So we're gonna do
that tomorrow. All right, A lot of small stories I
want to share with you. Let's and this is in
no particular order. Now, I just saw this story this
morning and I just loved it. Shannon, listen to this.
You'll appreciate this story. And this is from the UK Telegraph.
Check this out. A Ukrainian sniper has killed two Russian

(16:25):
soldiers with a single bullet from a distance of two
and a half miles or four thousand meters, in what
is believed to be a record distance for the longest
shot by a marksman. The sniper from Ukraine's Elite Ghost

(16:45):
unit used a fourteen point five millimeter caliber SNIPEX Alligator rifle.
Fourteen point five five millimeters. Let's translate that fourteen point
five five millimeters to inches point five seven. Okay, so
fifty seven caliber. You probably know this already, But caliber

(17:06):
is one hundredth of an inch, So forty five caliber
means point four to five of an inch, a little
less than half an inch, So this is point five seven.
That's pretty big. It's pretty big bullet diameter right point
five to seven of an inch. But the key at
that with this kind of thing is not so much
the diameter of the bullet is as how much powder
is behind it to be able to shoot in a

(17:27):
straight enough line that you can aim at two you know,
at two and a half miles out right, And of
course you gotta compensate that no matter how much power
you put behind it in a bullet it's going to
be dropping a lot by then, so you got to aim,
you got to adjust for all of this stuff. And
imagine you might even have to adjust left and right
for the wind.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
I mean, just you can't even imagine this stuff anyway.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
Footage shows two Russians collapsing inside an occupied building after
being struck, according to local media reports. The video was
published by Ukrainian journalist who wrote on telegram, incredible accuracy
and a new world record for the longest range. I
love it all. These guys should go for new world
records every single day in this war. So let's see

(18:10):
the It was reported that the shot was made with
the support of an unmanned drone, So that would be
a drone like looking for targets probably and artificial intelligence
systems and just like four days ago, okay, and I'm
guessing that the AI is is somehow helping these guys

(18:31):
with their targeting. Right, how's the wind, what's the distance?
How do you need to adjust your you know, your
your aim vertically for a shot of that distance? It's
pretty nuts. If confirmed, the unnamed shooter will have surpassed
a record set by somebody named Vayatschislav Kovalsky, a fellow Ukrainian.

(18:51):
In November of twenty twenty three, mister Kovalski, was then
fifty eight years old, killed a Russian soldier from thirty
eight hundred meters using a Ukrainian made rifle that has
the absolutely fabulous name You're ready for the Shannon. The
rifle name.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Lord of the Horizon. How great a name is that?

Speaker 1 (19:10):
At the time, Ukrainian special forces said their fighters were
rewriting the rules of global sniping. Prior to that, the
record had been held by a Canadian sniper who shot
an Islamic State fighter in Iraq from three thousand, five
hundred and forty meters in twenty seventeen, And before that,
the world record was held by a British sniper named

(19:33):
Craig Harrison, who shot a Taliban guy in Afghanistan in
two thousand and nine from a distance of two thousand,
four hundred and seventy eight meters.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
So how about that the record in two.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Thousand and nine was not beaten until twenty seventeen, But
when it was beaten, it was beaten by a thousand meters,
going from about twenty five hundred to over thirty five
hundred's that's incredible. A kilometer, six tenths of a sixtens
of a mile. I say that again. It's not that

(20:06):
the record is sixtens of a mile. The record was
beaten by six tens of a mile, and now it's
been beaten by another almost another half a mile.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
How do you do that?

Speaker 1 (20:18):
How the heck do you do that? I just oh,
this is fabulous. The two meter alligator rifle used in
the latest feet was designed as an anti material weapon,
meaning it's designed to attack jeeps or cars or airplanes
or you're pretty not going to attack a tank from
that distance. But it's designed to destroy hardware, not soldiers.

(20:43):
And its official range is two thousand meters, but the
guy took the shot at four thousand meters and took
out two Russians with one shot. That's your feel good
story for the day. All right, let's keep going. Let's
see I told you about the social media story already.
Oh here's a here's another feel good story, but in
a very different kind of way. A young woman named

(21:07):
Emily Souvesjo caught a show hey Otani home run at
Coursefield on June twenty fourth, and someone contacted her saying,
you know that ball that you caught actually was Otani's

(21:31):
three hundredth home run between his time in playing in
Japan and his time playing in America. Was his three
hundredth home run. And they said to her, you know,
you probably get a little money for that ball if
you put it up for auction. She did put it
up for auction. The auction house was estimating somewhere around
or just over one hundred thousand dollars. It didn't come

(21:53):
in nearly that strong, but nevertheless, she got forty four,
three hundred and twenty two dollars from her ball that
she caught on June twenty fourth, So not a bad
payday for catching a ball. This was she attended. She's
a big Rocky span. She went to her first game
when she was seven months old, and her dad has

(22:14):
had season tickets since nineteen ninety nine. And by the way,
Emily herself is a gold Glove first baseman for Adams
State girls softball or women's softball. So there you go.
Good for her forty four thousand dollars payday. Let's talk
about another bit of money, a much bigger number. And

(22:35):
this is quite a thing. So you've probably heard of
Phil Knight. Phil Knights was for many many years the
CEO of Nike, and he was the founder or co
founder of Nike. Right, so this dude has a lot
of money. Nike is based in Oregon, has been the
whole time.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
And this is.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Actually a story from from Oregon Health and Science University.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
And let's the ohsu dot E d U.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Phil and Penny, that's his wife Night announced today and
what was what is today?

Speaker 2 (23:13):
When did this come out? Four days ago?

Speaker 1 (23:15):
A record breaking two billion dollar gift to the Oregon
Health and Science University's Night Cancer Center to transform the
future of cancer care INSTET a new standard globally. Statement
put out by the institution said, we're grateful for the
opportunity to invest. Actually, no, this is a this is

(23:35):
a statement from from mister and missus Knight, not from
the cancer center. We are grateful for the opportunity to
invest in the next stage of the Drucker led and
I'll tell you about that in a second revolutionary vision
of cancer research, diagnoses, treatment care, in someday eradication. We
couldn't be more excited about the transformational potential of this
work for humanity. We're confident that establishing the Night Cancer

(23:57):
Institute as a self governed identity within o HSU will
help them, will help Knight and Ohsu reach these goals.
And Drucker who they mentioned there is a guy named
Brian Drucker. He is the head of the Night Cancer
Center or Night Cancer Institute's team.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
And he currently he he was.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
I don't know if you remember this far back, but
some years ago a drug was created called gleevec g
l E e V e C, and it was a
drug for chronic myeloid leukemia. And if you got diagnosed
with that drug, with that disease before the before this
drug came around, your typical life expectancy would be less

(24:46):
than five years from the time you got diagnosed with
that disease. Once gleivac came around, now the diagnosis is
usually a normal lifespan.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
Remarkable.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
Anyway, this guy Drucker, who is heading up this cancer Institute,
was the primary inventor of that drug. So he's the
real deal. And in any case, I just wanted to
share that story with you.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
I don't think I have more to add to it.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
All right, let's talk a little bit about open AI's
newest model. I'm fascinated by AI, and it has so
many different aspects. I talk frequently about how I believe
it is going to be as transformational as the Internet.
Probably now, of course you need the Internet to have this,
so in that sense you might say that the Internet

(25:35):
is more important in that you can't have AI without
the Internet. Nevertheless, I think it's going to be as
transformational as the Internet has been. It's still in its
early days. Even though it is developing very very quickly,
it's still early days. And these companies are putting out
new models, and of course sometimes these models come out

(25:55):
and they've got problems, and it's unsurprising. These systems are
so complex that oftentimes the developers of the systems themselves
cannot explain why a system is doing what it's doing,
which is remarkable. Right In a sense, it's it's learning.
You teach a thing to learn, and at that point
it's a little bit outside of your ability to control

(26:19):
or even fully understand what it's doing. You just know
it's learning, but you don't really fully understand how it's
learning and how it is implementing what it thinks it's learning.
So chat GPT recently released GPT five, and it's better
in a lot of ways. It's much faster, it's much bigger,

(26:41):
but it also has its share of problems. And of course,
in the world that we live in, the problems get
all the attention, and I'm going to give the problems
a little bit of attention now as well. But just
keep in mind these things, even as they have problems,
are huge advances. I'll give you a bad analogy because
this is what I do for a liming, But imagine
you've got a car and you have a version of

(27:03):
this car that was released in you know, five years
ago or ten years ago, because this stuff is developing
much faster than cars, so I think it might be
more fair to say a car you're comparing to a
car from ten or fifteen years ago, and you've got
all of these advances in safety equipment and how it'll
try to prevent you from getting into an accident and

(27:25):
helm and maybe it's more fuel efficient because it's not
got some new technology there, and it's just got all
these huge advances. And so you released this new car,
and more often than not, the first version of a
really new car has all kinds of problems. And in fact,
when i'm if I'm going to look for a used car,

(27:46):
because I like to buy lightly used cars. That if
you go look for it, what you often want to
do is you find out what is the first year
of this model, and then you avoid it because it
got problems. But usually the second year of the model,
and almost always by the third year of the model,
they've they've sorted it out, and they've updated the software

(28:06):
and made a couple of small changes to the hardware,
and this thing is great now and much much much
better than the ten or fifteen year old version that
it was replacing. But that doesn't mean you wanted the
very first version of the new version.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (28:22):
So let me share a little bit of this with
you from from axios open. AI's newest model remains pretty
easy to trick into sharing things that break its own guidelines,
like a Molotov cocktail recipe. According to new research, in
many cases, GPT five actually performed worse than its predecessor,
raising questions about how model maintainers are prioritizing safety in

(28:46):
new model releases. Researchers at AI security startup SPLX.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
I don't know who those guys are, but anyway.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
Said last week that GPT five, which OpenAI released on Thursday,
is nearly unus usable for enterprises right out of the box.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
And what does that mean. It means that.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Businesses may not be willing or able to take the
kind of risk involved with using GPT right now, because
businesses have rules and they have no fail no fail
missions within the business, and you just can't take the

(29:27):
risk yet with chat GPT five of it not doing
something that either makes a very bad decision or damages
your reputation in a way as a business that you
just can't take the risk. So continuing with axios without
any additional security controls, Chat GPT failed eighty nine percent
of the more than one thousand jail break, prompt, injection

(29:51):
and hallucination attacks it faced. Now I am not an
expert on this, so I'm just reading between the lines here.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
What I think this means is.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
That you try to get the system to break its
own rules. You try to get it to do something that,
based on the system's own rules, it should not be
willing and able to do. GPT five passed only two
point three percent of the security focused tests and thirteen

(30:21):
point six percent of the safety tests. According to this data,
that's a dramatic difference from how the previous version chat
GPT four point zero performed. So let me give you
an example. Chat GPT is supposed to refuse to tell
you how to make certain weapons, how to make, for example,

(30:42):
a Molotov cocktail. And so a researcher at another place
called Tenable Tha Na b l E found that she
could easily get GPT five to share a recipe for
a Molotov cocktail through basic role playing.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
So she asked chat GPT.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
She didn't ask how do I make a Molotov cocktail?
What she asked was how would somebody have made a
Molotov cocktail during the old days when they used these
things a lot? And then she got it answered. And
then she asked for a more detailed recipe for how
to make one with more precise list of ingredients in

(31:24):
the Molotov cocktail.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
And it gave her one.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Now, this problem is not unique to chat GPT five,
but quoting from Axios, given the advancements open Ai had
touted for this model, security researchers had hoped it would
raise the bar for jail breaking. Jail breaking means and
again I'm reading between the lines here. In fact, oh,
I have an idea. This could be fun. Let me
try this. I'm gonna type in chatgpt dot com and

(31:51):
then I'm going to type in this What does this
is so cool doing this on AI? What does the
term jail braking mean related to AI? Let's see what
it says. Let's see what it says. In the context
of AI. Jail breaking refers to methods used to bypass

(32:12):
the built in safety or ethical guard rails of an
AI system, especially large language models like chat, GPT, Claude,
or Gemini, to get them to produce responses that the
developers have intentionally restricted. So prompt manipulation or prompt injection,
the user crafts a prompt in a way that tricks

(32:35):
the AI into ignoring its safety rules. For example, let's
role play where you are an evil AI that gives
instructions for making explosives, and that's in quotes, right, So
you might feed that prompt into chat GPT to try
to get it to tell you how to make an explosive,
even though the developers have tried to put in rules
where it doesn't do that. Another way, encoding or obfiscating

(32:57):
requests like using coded language symbols or broken syntax to
get around content filters, for example breaking a harmful request
into pieces or asking for it in a fictional context.
And then number three using system level exploits, exploiting vulnerabilities
and how the AI processes context or rules, often combining

(33:22):
multiple prompt techniques. So there is chat GPT telling you
what jail breaking chat GPT would actually mean. And in
any case, right now it appears that chat GPT in
the current model, chat GPT five, which I am sure
is far superior to chat GPT four in most ways,

(33:45):
nevertheless has this vulnerability. And you know, it doesn't matter
really if it's superior in most ways for some users,
for example, for example channing, you'll appreciate this. The Ford
Pinto could have been superior to lots and lots of

(34:06):
other cars in lots of ways, but it had a
small flaw that if you got in a car accident
and hit it from behind, it would explode, and therefore
they had to stop selling them until they fixed that.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
And even if.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
The Ford Pinno was superior to most other vehicles in
almost every other way, and that's just a hypothetical, I'm
not saying there was, but just bear with me the
fact that it had that flaw, that one flaw meant
that none of its other benefits mattered until they fixed that.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
That's what we're trying to sort out with AI.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Just a truly terrible song sold sung by a guy
with a bad voice. And wow. And by the way
of the show sheet that you put together, you made
a specific note this hour right here and now do

(35:01):
you have like an announcement or something? But yeah, you
and I are going to go see Neil Young at
Fiddler's Green on Monday September. First, I got us tickets, ray,
I know, and it's Monday, so we got work the
next day. We don't have to stay for the whole thing. OK.
But but I got us tickets. We got box seats. Yeah. Wow.

(35:25):
So I went to I went to Mountjoy at Fiddler's
Green on Friday. Dude, those tickets cost me three d
and twenty dollars for the pair of tickets. Yeah. Uh,
they were very good. But I don't really know their music.
I know it a little bit, a couple of songs
on the radio here and there. My wife really loves
them and she wanted to go. I you know, in
any other situation, I would not have spent that kind

(35:45):
of money on that ticket, but my wife really really
wanted to go, and I got to say. Mountjoy in
Greenwood Village gotta be the whitest audience I've ever seen.
Coming out of there. It was like a little scattering,

(36:05):
a little albino ants making their way to their rithans
and whatever in their pmw's actually so anyway, but it
was a good show. It was. It was just remarkably white.
And Neil Young will probably be like that too. Except
the thing with Neil Young is like you and I

(36:30):
are going to be some of the youngest people there
at Mountjoy. At Mount Joy, there were there was a
huge range. I would say, I'd say there are more
people younger than me and Kristen, but but also quite
a few people older. You and I, especially you, because
you're young and I am. You're going to be like

(36:50):
the baby at the Neil Young. I don't know who's
opening for him, neither do we care. No, I don't care.
Don't even know if I need to be there for
the open But the opening and whoever it is, is
gonna be better than Neil. I mean, the opening band
could be somebody who like like a folks singer I
don't even like folk music.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
Could be a folk singer who.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
Gets up on stage, sits down on a stool in
front of front of a microphone, strums one coln, a
minor chord on the guitar, has a heart attack, falls
off the stool, dead on the stage. That's gonna be
infinitely more entertaining than Neil Young, I asked listeners earlier,

(37:33):
and I will ask you again to text us at
five six six nine zero and tell me tell me
the name of a famous popular rock star or band
who you do not want to see in concert, like
a famous popular musician, where if somebody offered you a

(37:55):
free ticket, or even a free ticket to go with
your friend, not just a free ticket to go on
your own, you would say no, thank you. And I
asked that earlier dragon, and by far the most common
answer was Taylor Swift.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
I shouldn't say by far actually Taylor.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Because Bruce Bruce Springsteen was right up there with Taylor Swift,
which I think is interesting. I've seen Bruce bing Bruce
Springsteen twice. It's about his music, though, what is it?
This is politics?

Speaker 3 (38:31):
Right?

Speaker 1 (38:32):
That could be right? So I've seen him twice, but
once was in the eighties, before all this political stuff matter,
right was it was a thing.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
And then the second time I saw him, I didn't
like it very much.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
It was more of an unplugged Joe. And there was
one point during which he he was doing some song
and then and then he paused, but it seemed like
it was the end of the song, and the audience applauded,
including me and my wife. The audience applied, by the way,
I think this was at the Belco Theater. It was
a small ish venue for for Springsteen anyway, and so

(39:07):
we were applauding, and Springsteen shushed the audience like, wow, yeah,
was there like a point behind it or anything. No,
he just wasn't done with the song, but we all
thought he was, because he paused and then waited for
a second or two, and it seemed like the song was.
It seemed like he was waiting for applause. We applauded,

(39:28):
and then it turned out it was just some sort
of dramatic pause and he was planning and continuing. So
he shushed us. And we know, Kristin and I have
not forgiven him since then. Don't shut us, Just move
on with the song continue playing.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
I know, I know, all right.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Look, let me ask you, people who are saying you
don't you wouldn't go see Bruce Springsteen, even with a
free ticket. Why is it his music? Is it his voice?
Is it his politics? Dragon thinks it's his politics that
has people saying you wouldn't go see him.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
There's a hater of the chart Daniels band.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
I wouldn't see Charlie Daniels if I got a ticket
in five hundred dollars. Let me just say this in
case any of you are thinking along this line, and
there's some some strange billionaires listening to me right now.
I will go see anyone except Roger Waters for a
free ticket and five hundred dollars. You pay me five

(40:21):
hundred dollars, I will go to any concert except Roger Waters.
In fact, a listener just texted in Roger Waters, yep,
I'm with you, But anyone else you're gonna pay me
five hundred bucks to go waste a few hours of
my time and listen to some music that I might
not enjoy very much. Yeah, listener says, I love how

(40:44):
you can talk about how white a crowd is, and
why don't you try flipping that around and talking about
how black a crowd is and see how it goes over.
I'm not that dumb. I didn't say everything is fair
in this world. Plus I also can't say that I've
been to a concert where almost every everybody was black.
I just haven't been to one of those shows. We
hit the agism thing here too, So why don't we
give me a yell at that? Yeah, why don't you

(41:06):
give us give us a hard time about making fun
of whatever. Oh my goodness, some people are a little
bit sensitive this morning.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
So anyway, Dragon, you and I are going to Neil Young.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
We'll probably need to talk to maybe an emergency room
doctor before we go about preparations, you know, things to
maybe soak up blood coming out.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Of our ears, or some kind of portable defibrillator or or.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
Like an EpiPen or whatever you like, in case we
need to get pen for music. Yeah, yeah, it's the first,
you know, just to get you like it's it's a
little short of a defibrillator. But if something goes wrong
and you need to like jolt your heart rhythm again
or something you know will But but we're gonna try
to survive, so dragon and I are going to do
that on September first, we're gonna go see o Neil Young,

(41:50):
so you don't have to That was that was live,
and I saw him at RFK Stadium in Washington, d C.
Where the Redskins played at the time. I'm talking about
like mid eighties or something like that. It was really great.
Maybe he was born to run, maybe he was raw.
Since you're gonna go to the Neil Young concert, I
think you need to wear a stuffed blue cheese bell

(42:11):
pepper necklace just to make the experience complete. Is that
like garlic and vampires? So you can have something?

Speaker 2 (42:19):
Wouldn't that put me in a quandary?

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Oh? How about this? How about this?

Speaker 2 (42:23):
What if? All right?

Speaker 1 (42:25):
What if if I wore a necklace that had either
bell pepper or blue cheese or both, through some magic
of the universe, I would never have to hear another
Neil Young song as long as I, as long as I,
you know, wear that, I would never constantly or just
once you just put it on, you're cleansed forever, or

(42:49):
you have to wear it forever. I have to under
under the rules of this game that we're making up,
I have to wear it for you'd have to wear
it for the rest of your life. I'd have to
wear it. I don't know, like you can't wear it
for when I'm out of the house. I'd have to
wear it when I'm out of the house, because obviously
I'm mostly in control of the music in my house.

(43:09):
But I mean, if I have radio one, you never
know where someone might be crazy enough to play Neil
Young crew. But if it were possible and never hear
Neil Young again, but to have to have Bell Pepper
or blue cheese right near me, would I do that?
And I think the answer is I probably rather take
my chances with here accidentally hearing Neil Young. Oh that's

(43:31):
how much I hate those other things, especially blue cheese.
I can't even smell blue cheese without feeling sick. So
and Eric Clapton does a listener text. Eric Clapton still
owes me seventy five bucks. I saw him in Chicago
when he was a heroin junkie and they wheeled him
out on stage and he just drooled on his guitar.
They put bb King and Buddy Guy on both sides

(43:51):
of him to try to make him look good. I'm
glad he's still alive, but he owes me seventy five bucks,
and if I ever see him again, I'm gonna make
him pay up.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
It's a good story. I like that story a lot.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
All right, let's do a little bit less time wasting,
but only a bit. Let me share an international story
with you that I think is a very cool story
and you're probably not going to hear any other local
radio host mentioned it. And I'm going to talk about
the politics of Bolivia, Bolivia. Now, if you recall if

(44:23):
you have followed Bolivian politics, I know, and I'm not
saying this sarcastically, but if you've even caught little bits
of the news of Bolivian politics for the past couple
of decades, you might have heard the name Evo Morales.
Evo Morales, and he has been president of Bolivia for

(44:48):
every year except one since two thousand and six. And
he is an outright socialist. Right, I don't mean he's
to my left. And I'm just calling him a socialist,
call himself a socialist. He's terrible and he kind of
like what happened in Venezuela, has destroyed that country's economy,

(45:10):
and he for reasons I don't entirely understand, was barred
from running again and is now hiding out in some
area of the country where they grow coca, which is
the plant that you make cocaine out of. There are
other uses for it, I guess, but oh, I know
why he went. He went. He went to hide and

(45:32):
was barred from running again because he's been charged the
statutory rape of a fifteen year old girl. And I
don't know. In those countries, you never know whether those
accusations are real. Right, these banana republics, anybody will make
up anything, and whoever is in charge at that moment
will try to enforce.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
Anything in YadA, YadA, YadA.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
But from the Wall Street Journal inflation Bolivia inflation hit
twenty four percent in June, its highest level in three decades,
shortages of everything from diesel to cooking oil.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
And what I want to.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Share with you here is there was the kind of
the initial round of voting in the Bolivian presidential elections,
and the top two finishers were both either conservative or.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
Center right.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
The guy who came in first with thirty two percent,
he's described as a as a centrist and the son
of a former president. And then the guy who came
in second is a conservative who is a former president,
but from a long time ago. So in any case,
it looks like Bolivia is going to maybe start drifting

(46:39):
slightly at least toward the direction of Argentina, which is
doing things right and trying to break out.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
Of the economic.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Disaster that is socialist rule, and moving away from Venezuela,
which still, unfortunately is under the brutal dictatorial thumb of
former bus driver Maduro, who is the dictator there.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
I thought I would share a little.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
International news with you, because you're probably not going to
hear that anywhere else. And I think it's a cool
story to see another country in South America start moving
away from socialism just finding the hated music. Yeah, that
was the only thing that came to mind. Dragon doesn't
like you too.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
I'm like, is he playing you.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Two just so he can torture himself a little bit
since he played Neil Young to torture me a little bit?

Speaker 3 (47:22):
Is that?

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Is that what that was? It wasn't just me. I
saw multiples of you two on the text line. Oh
they wouldn't go to a YouTube? Okay, Yeah, I actually
think that's a great idea for listeners. Right, we've been
asking name a very very popular band or musician whom
you would refuse to go see even if you got

(47:43):
a free ticket. Please do send some of those into
us at five six six nine zero, and Producer Dragon,
out of the kindness of his heart, will bombard us
with that music throughout the rest of the show. I'm
nice like that. I want to remind you folks, normally
we do the fla Irons Fire giveaway entries on Fridays.

(48:04):
I'm not going to be here this Friday, so we're
gonna do it tomorrow. Make sure you're listening tomorrow to
have your opportunity to get one of only twelve entries
into a drawing that we will do a little less
than a month from now, where Flat Irons Fire is
giving away a spectacular Napoleon Phantom Prestige five hundred barbecue

(48:27):
grill that retails for somewhere around twenty six hundred dollars.
So we're gonna do the entry into the giveaway tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
All right, what do I want to do here?

Speaker 1 (48:37):
I want to spend a little bit of time now
and maybe a little bit of time later just on
what's going on today with President Trump, meeting with Ukrainian President.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Zelenski at the White House.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
What we've been seeing on TV over the past our
ish is kind of a slow, steady arrival of various
European leaders who have been invited to the White House.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
And we're talking.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
About the head of the EU, and I think the
head of NATO and the President of Finland, and I
think the Prime Minister of the UK is coming. I
think Macron is coming from France. I think Maloney is
coming from Italy. I don't know who else, but a
lot of European leaders are coming to talk about the
whole Russia thing. And it'll As I said earlier in

(49:22):
the show, it's way too early to judge how significant
the Friday meeting was with Vladimir Putin. I'm not going
to go through all that stuff again that I said
earlier in the show. There was both good and bad
that came out of Friday's meeting, But the bottom line
is you got all these people on the left saying
it was a huge failure and just a massive win

(49:42):
for Putin, and they're overstating that it was probably a
small win for Putin. And then you have people on
the right who are saying like it was the greatest
meeting ever and all this, and we just don't know.
It's not even so much that one side or the
other is lying. I mean, everybody lies a little bit.
We just don't know. It's just too early. What we

(50:03):
do know is, no, you can't trust Vladimir Putin at all.
You just you can't. So, actually, you know what I
would like to do. I would like to can you
put my audio up please? Dragon, So I have a
few audio clips from Marco Rubio, but I'm gonna start
with Steve Whitkoff, who was President Trump's special envoice, so
he sends Witkoff around the world to negotiate stuff for

(50:25):
him in difficult situations. And Witkoff was on CNN's State
of the Union with Jake Tapper, and Witcoff really made
some news that I thought was interesting and worth noting
and maybe worth talking about a little further.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
So have a listen.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
President Trump called this an extremely productive meeting and said
many points were agreed to.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
You're in the room.

Speaker 4 (50:51):
Can you give us two specific points that were agreed to.

Speaker 5 (50:54):
We agreed to robust security guarantees that I would describe
is game changing. We didn't think that we were anywhere
close to agreeing to Article five protection from the United
States in legislative enshrinement within the Russian Federation not to

(51:14):
go after any other territory when the peace deal is
you know, codified legislative enshrinement in the Russian Federation not
to go after any other European countries and violate their sovereignty.
And there was plenty more.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
That's really interesting if it's true.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
Now again, all of this has to come with a
caveat that I probably don't need to say every time,
but I might just remind people that you should never
ever ever trust Vladimir Putin, and that no agreement with
Vladimir Putin is worth is worth anything for more than
maybe five minutes, right, because Vladimir Putin has he always

(51:53):
violates every peace treaty that he ever makes. So let's
talk about these things in reverse order from how Witkoff
mentioned them. The second and third things, basically they said,
was legislative enshrinement. So that would mean the Duma, which
is Russia's version of Congress, passing a law saying that

(52:16):
Russia will not try to take any more Ukrainian territory
once the peace deal assigned. And he also said that
Russia will pass a law that Russia will not try
to take any territory from any other country, or at
least any European country. And it's an interesting talking point,

(52:41):
and it could even happen, but you need to remember
that it doesn't matter because Putin would would not be
restrained for thirty seconds, for three seconds by the existence
of a law. Right, if Putin thought that something will

(53:03):
if Putin thought that a change in circumstance would allow
him to capture all of Ukraine or the Baltics, He's
not gonna even think for a moment about the existence
of a Russian law. It's utterly irrelevant to him. It's

(53:23):
just a thing that he's showing slightly gullible Westerners. Oh,
we'll pass a law that said, I don't think very
many people in the West will put much stock into that.
So so the other thing, though, that's really interesting and
worth talking about, is when Witkoff said Article five style

(53:47):
or Article five like guarantees.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
So what is article five? Article five is.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
The provision of the NATO treaty that essentially he says,
an attack on one is an attack on all, and
that if a member of NATO is attacked, all the
other members of NATO are bound by treaty to come to.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
Their assistance defense, whatever it might be.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
President Trump, especially in his first term, not so much
in the second term. In his first term, he put
a lot of pressure on Article five, saying he might
not abide by it because he's a little upset that
the European countries aren't spending as much on their own
defense as they should be. And let's just be real
clear about that wording. President Trump often talks about it
in the way like Russian companies aren't paying enough or

(54:37):
paying us enough, as if they have some amount of
dues that are supposed to be paid, like into NATO
or to the United States or anything. It's not how
it works. The NATO commitment is they're supposed to spend
at least two percent of their GDPs on their own defense.
If they don't owe anybody money, they're not in arrears.
It's not like they had dues that they were supposed

(54:59):
to and didn't and they got to make up for
it now. But what they do have, and I heard
a great comment on it this morning. You may recall
shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union in nineteen
eighty nine. Bill Clinton became president not too long after that,
and if you're of a certain age, you may recall.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
A phrase the peace dividend, the peace.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
Dividend, and this was primarily talked about in the Clinton years.
The peace dividend was this idea that we live in
a time of peace, a time of low risk, and
a time where we did not need to spend much
money or a military, so we could take the money
that we would normally be spending on our military, and

(55:49):
maybe our intelligence services as well. And our intelligence services,
especially human intelligence like actual spies, famously just decimated under Clinton.
We lost so much intelligence capability under Bill Clinton. But
the idea was we could take these billions and billions
of dollars that normally we would be spending on defense

(56:12):
and spend it on, you know, whatever, of social stuff,
of welfare, roads, healthcare, whatever, everything else, everything else.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
And it did lead to.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
A certain amounts of kind of hollowing out of our military.
Europe did it even worse because Europe was living under
the protection of the United States of America and they
were kind of free riding on that. All these countries
are spending something on their own defense, but not enough
and not their treaty obligations, and it wasn't Trump makes
it sound like they owed America money, which isn't true,

(56:48):
but he's right that they weren't living up to their
treaty obligations. And he said, look, if you we're not
going to spend American taxpayer money so that you can
free ride on us for your defense, you people in Europe,
and Trump didn't say this quite this explicitly, but this
is what it is.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
You people in Europe are.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Spending so so many billions of dollars on your overly
generous welfare systems, on France allowing people to have thirty
four hour work weeks or whatever it is, on letting
government workers retire really early with huge pensions, and redistributing
money on socialist healthcare systems and all of this stuff.

(57:28):
You guys are are spending your money essentially buying votes
and turning your economies into these weak, socialist, squishy, gross.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
Little things that.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
And you're doing that by essentially taking a peace dividend.
Trump didn't use that term, but that's basically what it is.
It was kind of halfway a peace dividend and halfway
living under the American security umbrella dividend and free riding
on us. And Trump had had enough of it, and
he's absolutely right about that.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
And so what happened and Trump really pressured them.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
They started spending a little bit more, and then Trump
came back in and they didn't want to pick another
fight with him because they believe him when he starts
making noises about reducing his commitment to NATO and they
are very afraid of that, and so many of them,
even before Trump really started picking that fight again, kind
of proactively said hey, we're spending more. And it made

(58:24):
Trump very happy. He knows they're saying that because of him,
and they are. And so so now you've got Trump
is not making bad noises about NATO anymore, or bad
noises about Article five. He's not suggesting that he wouldn't
come to the aid of a NATO member. So that
was kind of a big tangent. So what Steve Whitcoff

(58:45):
said was Article five like security guarantees for Ukraine, because
Ukraine is not in NATO and it's not likely to
be in NATO anytime soon. And in fact, President Trump
just sent out something on social in which he and
this was I thought a really bad move by Trump.
He said Ukraine is never getting Crimea back and Ukraine

(59:08):
is never joining NATO. And you know, those things might
be true, but the President of the United States shouldn't
be saying them because he's just giving Russia negotiating leverage.
There's a really dumb move by Trump, who does that
a little too often.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
Whenever he meets with.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
Putin, talks to Putin, talks to someone who likes Putin,
he'll come out and say some really stupid pro Russian
thing like that, that that gives Russia negotiating ammunition. And
I wish he would stop. But an Article five like
guarantee means that the United States, the Trump administration, is
saying out loud that they may be willing to enter

(59:47):
into agreement that would that would lock the United that
would that would contractually, maybe not in a full treaty
and certainly not through NATO, but maybe in a treaty
obligate the United States to go defend Ukraine if Ukraine
were attacked by Russia again. And it's fascinating to hear

(01:00:08):
Witkoff say that Putin agreed to that. I don't know
what that means, and I think what Putin will say
eventually is, yeah, I'll agree with that as long as
I get all these other things that I want. And
what Putin is probably going to say that he wants
is not only every bit of Ukraine that he's taken,
but maybe even more of Ukraine that he hasn't taken.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
So we'll see. But that was a very interesting thing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
I also think part of it is a bit of
a trial balloon, because if you think about what Donald
Trump promised his supporters, Trump is not as isolationist as
many of his supporters are. He has isolationist tendencies, but.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
He's not all the way there.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
He is willing to get involved when he thinks it's
worth it, for example attacking Iran, So he's not really isolationists.
But he doesn't want the US to have these foreign
entanglements except in situations where it's clear to him that
we have an important interest, and it's unclear to him
that we have an important interest in Russia and Ukraine.
I think we do, but I think it's indirect. I

(01:01:13):
think our interest with Ukraine is to make sure the
world understands that the US canon is willing to project power,
Canon is willing to stand by our friends. And I
think the primary thing here is to show China that
they should not expect to be able to go take
Taiwan without having a problem with the United States of America.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
I think this is the main reason.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
But really, and Trump has made this very clear that
Russia Ukraine thing is a European problem, It's not really
an American problem. Trump is trying to solve it, and
I think it's good of him to try to solve it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
And I think he wants a Nobel.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Peace Prize, and which is a fine motivation. I don't
begrudge him that at all. I'd look at a Nobel
Peace Prize too, but I'm not in a chance. I'm
not in a position where I may ever get one.
But he is. And he's actually done an immense amount
for peace, and yeah, he reminds us of it all
the time, but he's done an immense amount for peace
and lots of places around the world and should already
probably have gotten a Nobel Peace Prize if he does this,

(01:02:10):
then if he doesn't get a Nobel Peace Prize, if
Trump is an important part of solving of ending the
Russia Ukraine war and does not get a Nobel Peace Prize,
then nobody should ever again care who gets a Nobel
Peace Prize. It's already a somewhat it's in somewhat of

(01:02:33):
disrepute compared to other Nobel prizes, this science prizes and
so on, because they gave it to al Gore right
for his lies about climate change, and they gave it
to Yasir Arafat with a couple other people at the
same time, for this fake peace process where the Palestinians
pretended to want peace. But when people like that get
a Nobel Yeah, and there's other people have gotten who

(01:02:54):
really deserved it. But if he does this and doesn't
doesn't get that prize, and nobody's should ever care again. Anyway,
These Europeans are showing up today. Macrone just arrived a
couple of minutes ago, the President of France. And the
what we think is going to happen today is that
Trump is going to meet first with Zelenski. We think
any of this could change at any point and then

(01:03:18):
and then the European leaders will join in. It might
not work out that way. Maybe they'll just all meet
together from the very beginning here's a small stupid point
that I want to make, but kind of kind of amusing,
kind of amusing. President President Trump found it disrespectful. The
first time Zelenski came to the White House, when Zelenski

(01:03:41):
was wearing that military gear and not a suit or anything.
Last time, Zelenski wore a sport coat and I don't
know that he wore it the whole time, but he
wore at least a suit jacket kind of thing. And
Trump basically said, Okay, I can live with that. That's
that's better. Trump found the original thing to be disrespectful.

(01:04:01):
Trump does not like being disrespected. Trump sees disrespect to
him in this context as disrespect to the entire to
the United States of America. And I can see that
in a way. Right, Zelensky has this brand where he's
always wearing military stuff and he's a wartime leader and
all that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
I get it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
But it's going to be interesting to see what Zelensky
is wearing when he shows up today. If you made
me bet on it, he'll be wearing the same sport
code war last time, with probably some kind of T
shirt underneath, not a button down shirt. That's my guess.
It's a small thing, but it's kind of, I think,
kind of an interesting thing. All right. One other small
story I want to share with you in the minute

(01:04:40):
or so i've got here, and then we've got a
guest on a very different topic in the next segment
of the show. If you've got a flight on Air
Canada today maybe tomorrow, go check that before you go
to the airport. Their employees have been on strike for
a few days now and they're basically canceling everything. They've

(01:05:01):
got over ten thousand cabin crew on strike right now.
And one just small interesting thing here is that there's
a minister in the Canadian government, jobs minister named Patty
Hajdu Hjjdu, and she, understanding the damage is doing in
Canada and to tourists, ordered the workers to go back

(01:05:25):
to work, and the workers said no. The workers went
to a judge saying, you have to overrule this government minister.
She doesn't have the authority to send us back to work,
and what she's doing is unfair and biased and siding
with the company over the workers, and YadA, YadA, YadA.
But anyway, it appears that at least for today, our
Canada is not operating. So if you've got a flight

(01:05:47):
on Air Canada anytime in the next few days. Make
sure you check that before you go to the airport.
When we come back for the first time ever, there
is going to be a particular college may you're offered
in Colorado. I saw a piece over at Westward, and
then suddenly I started seeing this same kind of news

(01:06:08):
story at a bunch of different Colorado websites. I saw
one at the Colorado Sun and so on. But the
Westward one is MSU so Metro State University MSU Denver
offers Colorado's first mariachi degree. There's another article I was reading,
Colorado's first Mariachi degree is shaped by students experiences. And

(01:06:30):
then Colorado Sun Mariachi is strumming back into Colorado schools,
led by a new generation of teachers.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
And so I.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Think this is all pretty fascinating, and I dig mariachi music,
and so joining us to talk about it is a horr. Mendez,
she is executive director of the Colorado Youth Mariachi Program,
is hor Thanks for thanks for doing this, good to
see you, good to have you here, and welcome to
kaa way, so.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
You guys, sorry for the there's a little delay.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
Are you. Are you part of the program with the
college major in addition to what you do with the
with the youth mariachi program. I want to talk about both.
But if you don't have much to do with the
college part, we don't have to do much of that.

Speaker 6 (01:07:19):
We're in partnership uh in to some extent. A lot
of our students feed into MSU Denver. So yes, but
nothing formal yet, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
Can for those who don't know, and Dragon, I don't know,
can you find a little mariachi music to drop on
us here? I don't know, but can just tell us
for the I think most people know, But what is
mariachi music and get into the details, like you know,
some of the intricacies of it that people might not understand,
like does it normally have X number of guitars? And
why number of something else? And what's it look like?

Speaker 3 (01:07:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:07:54):
Absolutely so. Madiacci music is UH is originated for Mexico.
We have the the classic standard music instrumentation includes violins,
trumpet guitars specifically the Spanish classical guitars with nylon strings,
and then the two most authentic Mexican authentic Madiaci instruments,

(01:08:18):
that are unique to the madiachi, which are the guitar,
n and.

Speaker 7 (01:08:23):
UH.

Speaker 6 (01:08:23):
Standard instrumentation can include six violins, three trumpets, one guitar,
n one la usually one guitar, but you can have
more guitars based depending on the situation.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
All right, tell me again the names of those two
instruments that you said are very specific to mariachi, and
describe those instruments. What are they?

Speaker 6 (01:08:45):
Yes, of course, the guitar n is the is a
acoustic string bass. It is the heart of the madiachi.
It's played an octaves and is large, round, round belly.
Looks like a guitar except for the round belly. That
is that is played against your stomach and you're they

(01:09:08):
have really fixed strings that you pull to to but
other than that is like an acoustic bass. The viguela
is a small version of this tita. It looks exactly
the same except miniature, also has a round stomach. It
has five strings nylon strings, and it's played mostly like

(01:09:29):
the guitars. It is part of the rhythmic session section
of the madiaci. It is just how it's a higher
pitch than the guitars normally.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
Is there is there any standard for how many people
in the group are singing or is it standard that
everybody in the group is singing or how does that go?

Speaker 6 (01:09:48):
Yeah, it is if it's a madiachi group. There's a
difference between a mediaci ensemble group and a madiachi singer.
A mediachi singer will be the ones usually like vicent,
the bedvandez that's their career, right, But in a madiachi ensemble,
it is the it is the group effort to sing
all gotos. Everyone should be singing gottos, which are the

(01:10:09):
chorus parts, and the groups, especially in pieces where madiacis
sing together. And then usually the singers will take turns
depending on the vocal quality, vocal styles and strengths of
each group member. So if we have a person in
the group that is fantastic in singing like falsettos, then

(01:10:32):
they should be the one singing most of those most
of those type songs, so they'll take turns in vocal
and vocal solos, but the entire group will sing gottos
together when they need to.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
Very cool and folks. If you have any questions about
mariachi music, text us at five six six nine zero,
I don't promise to ask every question. If I get
a good question or two, we'll ask you as a
heart of those is a hard mend As is executive
director of Colorado Youth Mariachi Program. So I've see all
these new deadlines and is there is there a resurgence

(01:11:05):
in interest in mariachi or is it more that there's been,
you know, a fairly high level of interest for a while,
but it's just just kind of perked its head up
by getting a college major kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:11:21):
I think in the early in the early two thousands,
we had a lot more Madiaci's attempts at the school
in this in the school regions. Adam City High School
is where I started, and they were just starting up
there Madiachu program around two thousand and five. I started
in two thousand and eight, and that's also the time

(01:11:42):
where Brion Webster had started their elementary Madiaci group here
here in Colorado. But unfortunately, yeah, we haven't seen much
grope from that. I think that it was really hard
to sustain, maybe not enough funding support in these programs,
or just not enough advocacy for it. So there it

(01:12:04):
is coming up coming back. I think that's thanks to
the work that my friends and I did at MSU
Denver for their student club, because that student club has
turned into it was such a grassroots organ project and
it grew with to UH to this degree. Now we
have all these people that are passionate about the work

(01:12:27):
and are investing their time, their talent into madiaci education,
and we're seeing this this boom in the growth for
mediachi education.

Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
So separate from kind of the more obvious things like
playing these couple of instruments that you described that are
specific to mariachi, or singing particular tunes, singing in Spanish,
whatever that might be, what are what are technical things
about about playing mariachi music. Getting a degree in mariachi
music that would be really different, different from getting a

(01:13:01):
degree in any other kind of music.

Speaker 6 (01:13:05):
I think the biggest difference is the amount of listening
and involvement that one has to do or participated in
madiachi because madiashi music is traditionally an oral learned orally
by by ear, and there requires a high level of
participation in just listening, listening to so much madiaci music

(01:13:29):
and then getting involved more into madiachi as playing with
different groups. Part of maybe different types of song, learning
the types of songs, being able to hear the different
types of styles. So you really do have to be
very strong and listening, have really strong oral uh listening,

(01:13:55):
ear dictation, and being able to listen, to listen to
a lot of things, and also be able to read
music and think and understand some basic theory. So I
think that's the key feature in being able to degree
it to be in a degree for mediaci music.

Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
We got about a minute left and I got a
couple of listener questions. Is there sometimes or usually an accordion?

Speaker 6 (01:14:25):
Yeah, you can add accordion, you can add flute, you
can add mostly any instruments. I think the key role
is that as long as you have a guitar on
and a viuela, you can make anything into madiaci. So
it's very adaptable. But yes, accordion is common. Is common,
It's not one of the standard instrumentations, but you can
adapt to it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
Is there a Grammy award for mariachi music?

Speaker 6 (01:14:47):
There are Grammy categories. I know a few groups that
you have Remmy have been awarded Grammys.

Speaker 1 (01:14:54):
Yes, I have a listener who was absolutely obsessed with
the rush song. Tom Sawyer and he would like to
hear a mariachi version of the Rushhong Tom Sawyer. Perhaps
you can arrange that last thing. And I have this
from multiple listeners.

Speaker 2 (01:15:08):
I want to work. I want to word this carefully.

Speaker 1 (01:15:10):
But is this a degree that somebody could take and
make a living with it?

Speaker 6 (01:15:18):
I believe so. I mean I starting from I went
to college to study to be a Mediaci teacher, and
I was told that it might be difficult, and it
is difficult. However, there are I do see many many
pathways from a degree like this, whether it's teaching, performing

(01:15:39):
historian h and coaching. There's there's so many different ways
we can use this degree in this training to make
a living and get to make a feasible career out
of a passion.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
Yes, I do. It's a har Mendez is executive director
of the Colorado Youth Mariachi Program. You just a couple
of seconds. If folks maybe have kids who might be
interested in getting involved in your program, how can people
learn more?

Speaker 6 (01:16:07):
Absolutely? Yeah, we have a Facebook, Instagram or our website
at www dot co Youthmitiacchi dot org. Uh just look
us up Colorado Youth Madiat Program. We our season just started,
but we do have these fundraisers and a lot of
events coming up. We have a concert in November. We
happy to share more information, but follow us on Facebook

(01:16:29):
is where we say share most of our information.

Speaker 1 (01:16:33):
Very good and folks, if you forget any of that,
if you just look up Colorado Youth Mariachi program, you'll
find it's a horror in her program.

Speaker 2 (01:16:38):
Thanks for your time, Thanks for doing this is horror.

Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
That was fun. I appreciate it. Yes, it's just Axl's
just got a terrible voice. But then there's Slash. I mean,
Slash is pretty good, but then there's Axel, And I'm
a little surprised by that. I'm not a fan. I'm not.
I'm neither a fan nor a hater of guns n' roses.
I don't care very much one way or another. It's fine.
He's gotta you who's got a worst voice, Axel Rose

(01:17:02):
or Neil Young for you, that's a coin. That's almost
a coin toss. Really gosh, it's not a close call
for me. I think Axel wins in the suckiest department
just because of his personality behind it all. I mean,
he just had the arrogance and would make people wait
out in the crowd for an hour, hour and a
half just because he could. Really, it's I never followed

(01:17:25):
any of that stuff. He was, Yeah, huh, all right,
I want to share with you just for a few minutes.

Speaker 3 (01:17:31):
Here.

Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
Oh, I should note Zelensk. Oh, let's see if we
can take some of this dragon. President Trump is in
I'm not sure if it's the Oval office here and somewhere,
and I'm guessing Zelenski is with him right now. Zelenski
showed up just a few minutes ago wearing a sport code.

Speaker 2 (01:17:48):
I told you I thought he'd be wearing. Let's have
a quick listen as.

Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
You listen to Russia and Ukraine, which side has the
better cars?

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
Well, I don't want to say that.

Speaker 7 (01:17:56):
I'm just gonna I'm just here to be if this
isn't my war, this is Joe Biden's war. He's the
one that I a lot to do with this happening,
and we want to get it ended, and we wanted
to end good for everybody. We wanted to end good.
The people of Ukraine have suffered incredibly, President.

Speaker 1 (01:18:15):
Are you prepared to keep sending Ukrainian truths to their
deaths for another couple of years or are you.

Speaker 3 (01:18:22):
Going to re draw fasts? Thank you for your questions.

Speaker 8 (01:18:27):
So, first of all, you know we live under each
day attacks.

Speaker 3 (01:18:31):
You know that today has been a lot of texts
and a lot of wounded people.

Speaker 8 (01:18:35):
And the child was that a small mom one one
year and a half. So we need to stop this world,
to stop Russia, and we need support. American and European
partners will do our best for this.

Speaker 3 (01:18:51):
So and I think.

Speaker 8 (01:18:52):
We show that we are strong people and we supported
the idea of the United States of personal President Trump
to stop this warp, to make a diplomatic way of
finishing this war. And we are ready for try lateral
ask process. This is including about. I think this is
very good.

Speaker 3 (01:19:12):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
Right away, Lensky is wearing a button down shirt, so
he got the memo, like, do it right this time.

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
Let's listen to another question.

Speaker 7 (01:19:27):
But we're going to work with Ukraine, We're going to
work with everybody, and we're gonna make sure that if
there's piece, the piece is going to stay long term.

Speaker 3 (01:19:34):
This is very long term.

Speaker 7 (01:19:35):
We're not talking about a two year piece and then
we end up in this mess again. We're going to
make sure that everything's good. We'll work with Russia.

Speaker 3 (01:19:43):
We're going to work with Ukraine. We're going to make
sure it works.

Speaker 7 (01:19:45):
And I think if we can get the piece that's
going to work, I have no.

Speaker 3 (01:19:49):
Doubt about it. You go ahead.

Speaker 9 (01:19:54):
Your team has talked about security guarantees quit that involved
US troops.

Speaker 3 (01:19:57):
Would you roll out in the future. U.

Speaker 7 (01:20:00):
We'll let you know that maybe later today we're meeting
with seven great leaders of great countries also and we'll
be talking about that.

Speaker 3 (01:20:09):
They'll all be involved. But there'll be a lot of uh,
there'll be.

Speaker 7 (01:20:12):
A lot of help when it comes to security. There's
going to be a lot of help.

Speaker 3 (01:20:15):
It's going to be good.

Speaker 7 (01:20:17):
They are a first line of defense because they're there,
they're pure.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):
But whether it helped them out also, we'll be involved.

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
All right, I'll tell you what just I want to
try to keep us on schedule here, but maybe we
pause that, maybe we'll come back to it. This is
super interesting. Let me just one quick comment, then we'll
get a few brief words and then we'll come back.
But this idea of potential American security guarantees is by
far the most interesting thing to come out of the
conversation over the last few days. And this is something

(01:20:46):
that I think a lot of the most hardcore of
like the Ultramaga Real Isolation is Trump based, which is
not all of the Trump base, but a lot of
those folks are probably going to be a little upset
and probably saying, no, we shouldn't ever even come close
to guaranteeing to committing ourselves to doing anything in Europe

(01:21:09):
or anywhere else.

Speaker 2 (01:21:10):
This is their mindset.

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
I don't agree with their mindset, but it's not an
insane mindset.

Speaker 2 (01:21:16):
It's just it's one I think misses a lot of
important things.

Speaker 1 (01:21:19):
But the key point I want to make is a
big part of Donald Trump's base does not want any
of that. But it's also worth noting that Trump has
shown himself to be very good and this is not
surprising at getting a lot of his base to change
their minds after he tells them what he's doing.

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
For example, most of the Trump base.

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):
Was against United States attacking Iran until Trump attacked Iran,
and then they were for it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:43):
We'll be right back. They're not bad, No, they're not bad.

Speaker 1 (01:21:46):
By the way, a lot of people did say earlier
that they wouldn't go to Springsteen because.

Speaker 2 (01:21:50):
Of his politics.

Speaker 1 (01:21:51):
There were people who also say they don't like his
voice and all that, but I think it was more political,
as you had said, than not. So I think just
because this is a big deal, is very historic. I'd
like to listen in a little bit more to the
news conference going on at the White House right now.
It's Donald Trump sitting next to Ukrainian President Volodimir Lensky,

(01:22:12):
who showed up today not only wearing a sport coat
a suit jacket, which I did predict, but also wearing
a button down shirt buttoned all the way up to
the top, but without a tie. But I did not
predict that. I thought he might show up in some
kind of military T shirt under a sport jacket.

Speaker 2 (01:22:29):
And he's wearing a button down shirt.

Speaker 1 (01:22:31):
It looks good. It's black on black. Yeah, it looks sharp. Yeah,
it looks sharp. And I think Trump appreciates that. And
I know this sounds like small stuff, but you know,
the first time Zelenski showed up just wearing a T shirt, essentially,
Trump took it as a sign of disrespect. And as
I mentioned earlier in the show, yes, Trump want personally
wants to be respected.

Speaker 2 (01:22:51):
He's got an ego that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:22:52):
But I really think more of this, honestly, I think
more of this is Trump took as a sign of
disrespect to the United States of America. I think if
Trump very sensitive on some things, but I think in
this one he took he took it more as a
slight of America. And clearly Zelenski got the memo and
he showed up dressed better today. Anyway, these are very

(01:23:14):
very important questions and answers. Just before Trump and Zelenski
and the European leaders, a whole bunch of them who
came to the White House for this today goes sit
down for a critically important meeting.

Speaker 2 (01:23:25):
Let's listen a little more.

Speaker 3 (01:23:27):
Do you have him ending? What are the root causes
of this war? But look, the war's going to end.

Speaker 7 (01:23:33):
When it ends, I can't tell you, but the war
is going to end, and this gentleman wants it to end,
and Vladimir Putin wants it to end. I think the
whole world is tired of it, and we're going to
get it ended.

Speaker 3 (01:23:45):
It was. You know, I've done six wars.

Speaker 7 (01:23:47):
I've ended six wars, and I thought this maybe would
be the easiest one.

Speaker 3 (01:23:51):
And it's not. The easiest one. It's it's a it's a.

Speaker 7 (01:23:54):
Tough one, a lot of a lot of reasons for it,
and they'll be talking about it for a long time.

Speaker 3 (01:24:01):
But they'll be talking about the others.

Speaker 7 (01:24:02):
Look, India, Pakistan, we're talking about the big places. When
you look at you just take a look at some
of these wars. You go to Africa and take a
look at that Rwanda and the Congo Republic of the
Condo Congo.

Speaker 3 (01:24:17):
That's been going on for thirty one years.

Speaker 7 (01:24:21):
And so we've done a total of six that we
really have six, not including the fact that we obliterated
and it's turned out to be a total obliteration. The
nuclear in as you said, the nuclear the future nuclear
capability of Iran, and.

Speaker 3 (01:24:37):
This one, I think we're going to get solved. Also,
I think I feel confident we're going to get us.

Speaker 9 (01:24:41):
Solfas resident, can you tell us about your conversations with
European leaders and what they need to seem to support
and into the war.

Speaker 7 (01:24:54):
Well, we're going to be meeting with a great representative
group and have been very powerful, very big countries. They're
great people, all friends of mine and friends of yours,
and we're going to have some suggestions made. They want
to see peace.

Speaker 3 (01:25:10):
They would like to see peace in the red Do
you think it's pair to.

Speaker 10 (01:25:22):
For Ukraine and for Russia to achieve the lasting and
doable peace if Ukraine see it starts that Russia hasn't
yet conquered, do you think it's it's paid peace for Ukraine.

Speaker 3 (01:25:34):
We're gonna have a lasting piece.

Speaker 7 (01:25:35):
Just to answer the first part of your question, We're
gonna have a lasting piece.

Speaker 3 (01:25:40):
I hope it's going to be immediately. I hope it
doesn't have to go on.

Speaker 7 (01:25:44):
And I think people of the whole world is going
to be very happy when that's gonna answer you.

Speaker 11 (01:25:50):
You posted on social media and mister President a very
touching letter from the First Late and the letter was
hand delivered to President Putin and it calls an end
to the war essentially because of the children and the
children's future. Why did the first Lady feel that letter
was necessary? Was it because she believed that mister Putin

(01:26:11):
is the aggressor in the war? Is a similar letter
being to hand delivered to President's a list?

Speaker 3 (01:26:16):
So the first Lady felt very strongly.

Speaker 7 (01:26:19):
She's watched the same thing that you watch and that
I watch I see things that you don't get to see,
and it's horrible. But when she's got a great love
of children. She has a wonderful son that she loves, probably.

Speaker 3 (01:26:35):
More than anybody, including me. I hate to say it,
but she loves her son. She loves children, and she
hates to see she hates to see something like this.

Speaker 2 (01:26:44):
All right, let's end it. Let's leave it there for now.
Interesting stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:26:48):
That was a fairly bad question by that reporter, you know,
asking are you so Milania Trump wrote this interesting letter
and you can go look it up online Millennia Letter
torm and it is all about children, talking about how children,
how they should have these right futures and it shouldn't
be stolen by you know, adults doing these terrible things.

(01:27:11):
And it was a very interesting letter, I have to say,
and somewhat touching at least, but certainly very interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:27:20):
And for that reporter to say, well, are you gonna.

Speaker 1 (01:27:24):
Give so the implication giving that letter to Putin is
that Putin is the one doing great harm to children.
And then the reporter asked, well, are you going to
give a letter like that to Zelenski? That was an
exceptionally stupid question, like beyond the level of stupidity that
normally you'd be okay with for a reporter that actually
sounds like a reporter who is a stooge for Putin

(01:27:46):
asking a question that's stupid. Yes, war is bad for everybody.
War is certainly bad for children. And it's not just
who started the war. Obviously Putin started the war. That's
not the main point. The point is, and I think
what Millennia is getting at Putin for three and a
half years now has been kidnapping Ukrainian children and stealing

(01:28:08):
them and taking them to Russia and essentially adopting them
into Russian families. He's been stealing Ukrainian children, right, I
mean so that I have to say, that was one
of the dumbest questions I've.

Speaker 2 (01:28:20):
Heard in a really long time.

Speaker 1 (01:28:22):
And I wonder what reporter that was, and I wonder
what organization he works with, and I wonder, I just
wonder that was an exceptionally dumb kind of Putin propaganda.
Is such a strange question that you have to wonder
what the purpose of that person in the room was

(01:28:44):
really really dumb. The other thing that I've so separate
from that, now, Trump is Trump answers questions directly more
than any president of my lifetime, with the possible exception

(01:29:04):
of Ronald Reagan. Normally, when Trump has asked a question,
he answers it. You might or might not like the answer,
but that's irrelevant. Normally you ask him what do you
think about A? And he'll say, well, about A I
think this what we heard over and over and over.
There was he was asked a question and he deflected.

(01:29:26):
And I'm not criticizing him, I'm just noticing this. He
would be asked who started the war, and of course
that's trying to get him to publicly go after Russia,
but he didn't take de bait. Everybody knows Russia started
the war, but he didn't take the bait. Instead, he said,

(01:29:47):
we're focused on ending the war. And there was a
lot of stuff like that. It's very interesting. Was it
kind of felt like he's trying to avoid negotiating in
public basically, which is odd because he has been negotiating
in public when he said, just yesterday he said Ukraine's
never going to get CRIMEA back in Ukraine's not going
to be in NATO. So in those statements he made

(01:30:11):
sort of pro Russian negotiating points in public, taking away
potential negotiating points that Ukraine might be able to use
in a negotiation, even if Ukraine would end up in
the same place, not getting CRIMEA back, and they won't,
they won't Trum. I'm not saying Trump's wrong about the
facts on the ground or whether they're going.

Speaker 2 (01:30:32):
To be a NATO.

Speaker 1 (01:30:33):
I'm saying he was wrong to say that out loud.
But today it seems like he's trying to avoid that.
He's really not answering questions where the answer would tend
to put a finger on the scale really in either
direction of how he would like this all to work out,
and rather he's just focused on trying to get something done.

(01:30:57):
And I think that's right. I don't think think he's
wrong to deflect these questions. I think he was wrong
to do what he did yesterday, you know, saying they'll
never be in NATO when they'll never get CRIMEA back.
I don't think he should have said that stuff out loud.
In any case, it's going to be a very interesting meeting.
We'll see who says what I mean. Remember the Friday meeting,
there were just six people in the room, three Russians,

(01:31:19):
and three Americans. Right, there were just six people in
the room and the Americans, I think it was Witcough,
Trump and Rubio. I think those were And at some
point Scott Bessett was around to the Treasury Secretary, but
I don't know that he was in the room for
the main negotiation. In any case, the Americans didn't say
very much. Rubio said a couple of things. Actually, let

(01:31:40):
me get to this dragon, if you could put my
audio up. I do want to share a couple of
things as we get into some of this. So first
Rubio was on what was it Sunday Morning Futures with
Maria Bartiromo on Fox News. He did a whole bunch
of Sunday shows, and that might have been the first one,
at least it was the first one I saw, and.

Speaker 2 (01:32:00):
He made one sort of macro point that I thought
was interesting and useful.

Speaker 4 (01:32:04):
We made some progress, we believe, and now we'll have
to follow up on that progress, and ultimately where this
should lead is to a meeting between the three leaders,
between Zelenski, Putin and President Trump where we could finalize.
But we got to get this thing closer before we
get to that point.

Speaker 1 (01:32:19):
Okay, And that makes perfect sense. And actually Trumph just actually,
Zelenski just made almost the exact same point. He said
he would like to have that trilateral meeting, and Ruvio
is right. There's no point in having Putin and Zelenski
and Trump sit down in a room together until there's
a reasonable expectation that maybe there could be some kind

(01:32:44):
of real negotiation, some kind of deal.

Speaker 2 (01:32:45):
You got to remember who Vladimir Putin is.

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
He's a KGB colonel who hates the West, hates the
United States, and has a deep seated belief. He wrote
a seven thousand word essay a couple of years back
explaining from his already confused perspective why it was one
of the great historical failings of Vladimir Lenin at the

(01:33:09):
time of the Russian Revolution to create what was then
called the Ukraine. Putin deeply believes that Ukraine has no
right to exist and is just part of Russia, and
that's gonna be a hard thing to overcome. You'll never
change his mind. The question is can you hurt him

(01:33:29):
enough to get him, or can you hurt him or
scare him enough to get him to stop trying to
achieve that particular ambition and Rubio is right that you.

Speaker 2 (01:33:39):
Got to get a little closer to.

Speaker 1 (01:33:43):
Having a reason to believe that Russia will negotiate in
whatever is the closest to a good faith negotiation you
can get with Russia in order to end this thing now.
In that same interview with Maria Bartiromo, he also said this.

Speaker 4 (01:33:58):
You can't have a piece deal but two warring factions
unless both sides agreed to give up something and both
sides agree that the other side gets something right. Otherwise,
if one side gets everything they want, that's not a
peace stale.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
It's called surrender.

Speaker 4 (01:34:11):
And I don't think this is a war that's going
to end anytime soon on the basis of surrender.

Speaker 2 (01:34:15):
I think he's right. I think he's right.

Speaker 1 (01:34:17):
It's absolutely true that Russia is bigger, Russia has more people.
Russia is willing to have lots and lots and lots
of people die because Putin doesn't care how many people die.
He couldn't care at all. They're just pawns on a
chessboard to him. They mean less the Russia. The dead
nineteen year old Russian soldier. I'm not being hyperbolic here.

(01:34:38):
If you were playing a game of chess, and your
opponent took one of your pawns, pawns.

Speaker 2 (01:34:49):
That would bother you more.

Speaker 1 (01:34:52):
Than the death of one or one hundred or one
thousand nineteen year old Russian boys fighting this war bothers
Vladimir Putin.

Speaker 2 (01:35:02):
He doesn't care. I don't know how you overcome that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:10):
I think to overcome that, he's got to be afraid
of you. And what this really comes to now is
what can the United States and Europeans and the Europeans
present Putin with that he will be afraid of enough
to stop this war. And I don't know if there
is such a thing. There might be, There might be,

(01:35:30):
but I don't know what it is, because at the moment,
my mindset is that as long as China is going
to keep buying Russian energy, Putin will keep going. I
don't think there's a threat that Putin will take seriously.
I don't think the Europeans are going to threaten to

(01:35:52):
put European boots on the ground in Ukraine. Certainly the
US won't. And I just I don't know, I really
really don't know. One other thing that was very interesting
going to this Ukraine thing. Look what the cat drag
did didn't know you were driving yet. All right, let
me finish this thing and we'll talk about Mandy driving. So,

(01:36:13):
going into the Friday meeting, President Trump had said if
there's no cease fire, I'm not going to be happy,
and Russia is facing severe sanctions, and then yesterday on
Meet the Press, Marco Rubio said this, the.

Speaker 4 (01:36:28):
Minute you issue new sanctions, your ability to get them
to the table, Our ability to get them to the
table will be severely diminished. That moment may arrive, but
when it comes, which are basically signaling is there is
no opportunity for peace at this point. So just let's
put on more sanctions and allow more people to get
bombed and more people to be killed. And that's what
we're trying to stop.

Speaker 1 (01:36:48):
So at this point you've got the Trump administration explaining
tactically why they're not going to go ahead at least
right now with the sanctions that Trump threatened just a
few days ago. This last thing I'll say on this,
and I've made this point over and over, there's nothing
more unpredictable in the area of human activity than war.
And then you add into that a master or manipulator

(01:37:12):
of Vladimir Putin and then all of these European personalities
and Trump's own mercurial personality where you don't know what
he's gonna do, and and what that leads me to
is that anybody who tells you with any confidence what's
gonna happen next is a liar or an idiot.

Speaker 2 (01:37:30):
There is no way to know. Hi, Mandy, it's good
to see you in person.

Speaker 1 (01:37:37):
Had lunch with someone who a couple who listens to
you and me, and they just love the Kenichi wis right,
it's so friendly.

Speaker 2 (01:37:43):
It is so friendly. Hell are you?

Speaker 12 (01:37:45):
I am really good? Although I am rethinking a waistband
right now. I'm not gonna lie uh huh, because I
might have been too aggressive.

Speaker 1 (01:37:52):
You say your alternative would have been like a sun
dress or something.

Speaker 12 (01:37:56):
Yeah, There'll probably be more skirts in my future because
these genes are not.

Speaker 1 (01:38:00):
Getting it done right now because a star.

Speaker 12 (01:38:02):
I have four five incisions on my abdomen really yeah,
little ones, they're little, but they're there, And.

Speaker 1 (01:38:09):
Uh, did you know there were going to be more
than one? Yeah?

Speaker 12 (01:38:12):
Yeah, I mean that's how the robot goes in the
robot with all the the robot.

Speaker 2 (01:38:17):
Yeah, the whole robot thing sounds amazing. It is really cool.

Speaker 12 (01:38:21):
I mean when you it's a it's an amazing time
to be alive right now. When it comes to the
medical advances that are happening right now, it's it's absolutely incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:38:29):
What and did you tell me that you saw the
video of the robot operating.

Speaker 2 (01:38:34):
On you after I did the surgery.

Speaker 12 (01:38:36):
After I did the surgery, and then I got hit
with the gas pains that were the worst part of
the whole thing. Yeah, the gas that they inject into
your belly, it stays in your body, and they well,
I was a little bit underprepared. It caused horrific pain
in my left elbow. And when you're knowing that nobody
operated on your left elbow and all of a sudden,
your left elbow feels like you want to cut it off,

(01:38:58):
it's very confused.

Speaker 2 (01:39:00):
Say, what's what's the purpose of the gas?

Speaker 12 (01:39:02):
The gas expands your abdomen so the robot has room
to work.

Speaker 2 (01:39:05):
So basically, it creates a.

Speaker 12 (01:39:06):
Little poof wow balloon in your belly with CO two,
and then your body absorbs it and expels it, you know, burping, farting, whatever,
breathing wow, so that you watch moves around your body
and it hurts. It sits on nerves. That's, by the way,
why your elbow hurts. That's a free nick nerve pH
ri e. And I see, I'm lucky. I'm an internet doctor. Yeah, Ross, Yeah,

(01:39:27):
for sure other people would not be as well adapted
as that.

Speaker 1 (01:39:30):
You watched the video of the robot operating on you?

Speaker 12 (01:39:32):
No no, no, no no.

Speaker 2 (01:39:34):
Oh okay, no, I don't want to see that, all right, although.

Speaker 12 (01:39:36):
I did get the pictures, so I do have pictures
Norma's final close up. I actually have the photographs of that.

Speaker 1 (01:39:42):
That's pretty cool, isn't it.

Speaker 12 (01:39:43):
It is interesting, And I was like, very happy to
see my liver looks super healthy.

Speaker 1 (01:39:48):
Oh, it's so funny that you say that, because what
I was about to say was this years ago, I
had pretty big abdominal surgery, like a big incision, right right,
and they took pictures of everything while I was open,
and so I have the like.

Speaker 12 (01:39:59):
A picture am my liver. There you go, super sexy
li liver looked very healthy. And I was like, oh,
look at me with the healthy liver after all that
hard living.

Speaker 1 (01:40:08):
That is fabulous. So let's do this real quick, Okay.
Scientists discover that house plants can be impacted by Wi
Fi signals and may affect growth patterns. South Korea now
using life size holographic police officers to fight crime. Someone
in Raleigh has been building Frankenstein cars from stolen parts.
Australian man says he's the world's only coffin confessor.

Speaker 12 (01:40:32):
Oh wow, that one is tough. I am gonna go.

Speaker 1 (01:40:35):
What was the second one?

Speaker 2 (01:40:36):
Raleigh?

Speaker 1 (01:40:37):
The second one was South Korea now using life size litter.

Speaker 12 (01:40:42):
Because because I mean, they have robots at the airport,
but they just.

Speaker 1 (01:40:46):
Take you places. The holographs these aren't even I don't
even know how you're gonna do that.

Speaker 3 (01:40:51):
Dragon.

Speaker 1 (01:40:51):
If Mandy has it right today, what does she win
a holographic victory? Nice? And the actual fake headline is
scientists discover that house plants can be impacted by true
I wanted to be what do you got to? What
do you got?

Speaker 12 (01:41:05):
Coming up, we are going to talk to some people
about the next Disabled American Veterans event coming up this
weekend where they're helping disabled vets get their benefits. And
Guy Benson, I'm not only a huge fan, He's also
going to be at this year's Freedom Conference, which I
am missing because of the stupid surgery.

Speaker 1 (01:41:21):
But he's gonna be out there. We're going to talk.

Speaker 2 (01:41:23):
About that awesome. He's one of my favorites as well.

Speaker 1 (01:41:25):
I know, how could he not be? How could he
not be? Everybody stick around for Mandy's fabulous show. I'll
talk to you tomorrow.