09-09-25 - *FULL SHOW* Israel Strikes; Crime & Politics; Coloradans Against D and R

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Producer, Shannon and I have just determined that Chef Boyard
is not just for breakfast anymore, but Chef Boyardy is
a fine breakfast. I note that because Shannon is having
Chef boyar Dy for breakfast, and I have to say
I am slightly jealous. I wish I had thought of that.
In particular, Shannon and I both believe that beef and

(00:23):
roni is the top of the stack there when it
comes to Chef Boyard. In any case, please let's start
our morning together by wasting a little time. I just
want you to text me at five six, six nine
zero with a number from zero to ten, with zero
being the worst food in the world and ten being

(00:44):
the best food in the world. Where do you rank
Chef Boyard? And you can pick whichever is your favorite
Chef Boyardy and then rank that one. If you like
the lasagna better than the beef roni, or if you
like the ravioli, whatever the best chef boy Rd, how
does it rank?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
From zero to ten?

Speaker 1 (01:01):
I will give Chef boy r d Bferroni a seven,
which is a remarkably high number for canned food chef Board.
For me, Chef boyar dB Faroni gets a seven. It's
it's kind of comfort food in a way. I wouldn't
want eat it every day. But when you want the
bee Feroni, there's just it's it's like Kraft mac and cheese. Right,

(01:22):
Anies makes good mac and cheese. But I grew up
with Craft and so I like them both. But when
I want comfort food, it's the Craft. Same with Uh,
same with Bferoni. So you text me at five six
six nine zero and tell me what you think.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Now let's talk about something.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Only slightly more important, and that is this remarkable strike
in Doha, the capital of cutter by the Israeli defense forces,
by the Israeli Air Force effectively, and I also kind
of fog of war, but what we believe has happened,
which is similar to what happened and in Tehran when

(02:01):
when Israel took out Hamas leadership in that that were
visiting Tehran at the time. We believe they hit a
residential building. We don't know how many Hamas leaders they
took out. I saw some reporting that they may have
been meeting with a senior Iranian official, but I haven't
seen anything further on that to suggest that an Iranian died.

(02:25):
But it wouldn't bother me if a senior Iranian official
who was there to consult with some of the world's
worst terrorists, I mean, basically the world's worst terrorist terrorist
supporting nation consulting perhaps with the world's worst, single worst
terrorist group at the moment. So if they all, if
they all, you know, bought the farm, that would be fine.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
So we don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
We don't know how many Hamas leaders were killed. We
don't know how many, if any, civilian casualties there were,
which would probably play a big part in how the
world reacts to this.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Right if there were zero or one or two.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Civilian casualties versus ten or twenty or fifty, the world
would react very differently, especially if there's zero. Keep in mind,
Cutter is an interesting place, and I don't necessarily mean
interesting in a good way, all right. Cutter is a
place that is ostensibly a US ally and the Aludaid

(03:30):
Air Base near Doha is one of the biggest airbases
in the world. And it's actually it's got a few
different militaries on it. It's not only an American base,
but America has a big portion of it. Cutter has
their own air force there the United Kingdoms has assets there.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
It's absolutely huge. So that's in Cutter.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
So in that aspect they sort of function as an
ally in that they're hosting an American base there. But
they also have been for many years some of the
primary financial supporters of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, which
is kind of the older like almost century older. Maybe

(04:13):
it probably is about a century old umbrella organization that
a lot of these other groups kind of come out
of Hamas. I'm sorry, Cutter funds them. So Cutter is
playing its own game, you know, in the spy world.
I guess you might call it a double game. They
pretend kind of like the Pakistani Isi, right, they act

(04:34):
like American allies in one side, and then they and
then they fund the.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Terrorists on the other side. So Prime Minister.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Netyahu of Israel came out with a tweet this morning
saying this was entirely an Israeli operation. What he's saying there,
even though he doesn't mention the United States, is he's
saying the United States didn't take part in the operation.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
But for sure President Trump knew.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
And this is interesting because yes, just yesterday I mentioned
on the show that just the day before yesterday, President
Trump had sent out yet another warning, and he had
done this a few times before, and I had the
feeling that he was losing credibility.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Trump does not want to lose credibility, but.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
I had the feeling that he was losing credibility a
little bit because more than once previously he had said, Hamas,
you need to make a deal, and otherwise that it
will be hell to pay. I think that was That
was his exact wording the first time around. So he's
done this two or three times before. And I mentioned
it yesterday and Trump said there would be hell to pay.

(05:41):
And what I said was that, first of all, I
hope there's hell to pay for Hamas, but also the
US really can't get involved in Gaza because it's a
no win situation for the US.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Right.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, the US of course can supply and does supply
sell weaponry to Israel, but the idea of any American
official combatants on the ground in Gaza is just an
absolute non starter.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Who can't do it.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
There's no political upside, there's no military upside, it's all
downside for the US right to get involved with that.
So I'm kind of wondering, like well, what does Trump
mean if he's doing that kind of threat, like, you know,
this is your last chance Humas, Because it sounded a
little bit.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Like he was threatening that America would do something.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
But I guess now looking back on it, what he
was threatening was he'd give bb the okay to go
do this, to go do what.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Israel did today.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
And I have to say, when I heard the news
that Israel attacked Hamas leadership in Cutter, I think my
first reaction was to cheer out loud, and then I
thought about it a little bit more and like, oh,
you know what, let me just ponder this a little
make sure I'm getting it right. And then after that
my second reaction was to cheer out loud. This is awesome,
This is awesome. We need to take out the Islamo, fascist,

(07:02):
murderous barbarian Hamas leaders Hamas members wherever they can be found,
and Benjamin Netanyaho was on a mission to do it
one last quick thing. Net Nyaho is really really focused
on defeating Hamas once and for all, even if it
means prolonging the war. Much of the Israeli public has
turned against that now, kind of like how much of

(07:23):
the American public turned against the Vietnam War at some time.
Although this war against Amas is more justified than the
Vietnam War was, the public is turning against it. The
public wants the war over in Israel, I mean, and
they want the hostages back.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
And net Yahoo, of course he wants.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
The hostages back, but he wants to defeat Hamas first.
And to the extent that these people in Kutter could
have been part of negotiating some bad ceasefire deal. And
it is being reported that these Hamas leaders were meeting
and Cutter to discuss an American ceasefire proposal. To the
extent that this delays that or anything like that, it

(07:59):
plays right into what netnya, who wants to continuing the
war to defeat Hamas. And if these Humas leaders all
met in the same place when they normally don't, if
they all met in the same place to discuss the
potential ceasefire, I want to thank Donald Trump for creating
the incentive for them to all meet in one place.

(08:21):
And I want to thank the Hamas leadership for meeting
all in one place to give Israel such a target
rich environment. All right, let me just do a little
bit of local ish stuff here because we've got a
lot of national international to cover as well today. But
Axio Axios Denver has an interesting piece about Mayor Mike

(08:41):
Johnston and kind of comparing him with former mayor from
a long time ago before I moved to Colorado, Federico Pina.
And this is kind of interesting, so too, Denver mayors
forty years apart, similar budget woes, same bold bets on
the future. Again, this is from axios dot Com. Mayor

(09:02):
Mike Johnston is steering down a fiscal crisis, two hundred
and fifty million dollars budget shortfall, city staff layoffs in
a skeptical public while trying to pass the largest bond
package in Denver history. To help sell it, He's turned
to the one person who's been here before, the seventy
eight year old former mayor, Federico Paenia. And I should
mention that although although Mayor Penia hasn't been very much

(09:26):
in the public eye for a while, he is still
quite a significant player in Denver politics behind the scenes.
I'm not really at liberty to say more, but the
guy is very, very active still. Johnston handpicked Pania, the
driving force behind Denver International Airport and the Convention Center
to co lead the bond steering committee.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Johnston told Axios.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Denver in a joint interview with the former mayor who
most understands what it means to lead with courageous, big
projects in a moment of economic certainty. Other than Penia,
there's no one alive who has more profoundly shaped the
constitution of modern day Denver than Federico. So, as we've
talked about on the show, and we talked about with
Mayor Johnston on the show, Johnston is pushing a nine

(10:11):
hundred and fifty million dollar infrastructure bond package just as
his administration is making these big budget cuts that we've
also talked about, including with the mayor, and there are
questions about whether the city can afford this. Paynia says
that the city can't afford not to.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Do it the way.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Axios puts it as tough economic times are when you
double down on dreaming big.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
The mayor Pania.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Former Mayor Pania said, I had people saying, don't do anything,
let's wait for the recession to go away, and I said, no,
we have to claw our way out of this with
these investments. Johnston is doing the same thing now Paenia,
He did the convention center, laid the groundwork for Dia,
redeveloped what is now Lo Doo and Riverfront Park. At

(10:59):
the time, six hundred acres of abandoned land generated just
forty thousand dollars a year in property taxes. Today, Johnston
estimates that figure is exponentially higher. I'm sure it is,
as that area has transformed into a massive economic engine,
which includes Union Station, cours Field, Ball Arena, and Elitch Gardens.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
So look, I'm I'm I'm torn on this.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Mayor Johnston says they can do this without raising taxes.
I don't know if I believe that. I think it
depends very much on what happens in the economy overall.
The other thing that I would note, and I'm not
saying this is necessarily better or necessarily worse, but a
lot of the stuff that Penya was doing was big
new things, a big new airport, a convention center, all
this stuff.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
What Johnston is doing, I'm.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
Not saying it doesn't need to be done, but as
much more behind the scenes stuff, right or you know,
it's not stuff that's gonna bring more tourists, bring more business,
bring whatever to Denver.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
It's more infrastructure to.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Benefit this or that neighborhood with different roads, a different bridge,
maybe upgrading community centers and stuff like that. Again, things
that need to be done arguably, but is it stuff
that has to be done right now?

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Is it stuff that has well?

Speaker 1 (12:06):
So look, I'm Denver's gonna have to vote on this,
Denver Rights, who in a recent poll support socialism more
than capitalism. You know, this is what you're gonna get,
and we will see. Still, I did find it was
it was very interesting to see this comparison between the two.
They were both state legislators that became mayors. They both
have big budget problems. They both are, you know, proposing

(12:29):
these these massive spending programs. So we'll see how it
all plays out. We'll take a quick break on KOA.
When I asked to start the show from zero to ten,
how highly do you rate with zero being the worst
food ever and ten the best food ever? How highly
do you rate Chef boy r D? Because Shannon was
having it for breakfast and I thought, I'm a little jealous.
I should have thought of that, And I would like

(12:50):
you to know we had a lot of people giving
the Chef boy r D scores around eight, which is
pretty remarkable. One person says, I'll give it a six.
Quite the standard of jalapeno flavored Vienna sausages. Now those
are some excellent animal byproducts.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
So there you go.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Feel free to text in at five sixty six nine zero,
as I always like to waste your time a little
bit in between serious topics. But you are more than
welcome to text five sixty six nine zero and tell
us how you feel about Chef boyr D.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
My next conversation is not.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
About Chef boy r D, although doctor Tim Curry is
welcome to give me his opinion on it. Tim is
CEO of Nova provides on shore and near shore IT
services and talent and things like that, and he's written
a very interesting book called Swift Trust about how organizations

(13:44):
develop trust, especially among themselves within their own teams, especially
as so much of the population now, the working population
is working either fully remote or hybrid. And we got
some stuff to talk about there as well. So Tim Curry,
welcome to Kaoa. Thanks for being here.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
Great to be here, Ross, Thanks for having me jan you.
Thanks for let me know what I'm going to have
for lunch today.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, do you want to opine a zero to ten
Chef boy r D.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
You know I'm gonna give it.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
I'm gonna give it a I'm gonna give it a
five on food and nutrition when I'm going to give
it an eight or nine on the nostalgia scale.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
There you go, all right, that's a very very good answer.
And let me just kind of frame what we're going
to talk about here. Based on a new Gallup poll
that asked people where would you like to work? Would
you like to work in the office, would you like
to work fully remote, or would you like to work hybrid?
And I thought the results of this were kind of

(14:43):
interesting in that I thought the older workers might want to,
you know, be be hybrid more, be around some other
people more because it's what they're used to. But it
didn't turn out that way at all. I don't know
if you've taken a close look at this survey.

Speaker 3 (14:59):
I have, and I found it interesting as well. I think,
you know, with the with the younger gen Z entry
level or early career employees showing a propensity to want
to return at least in part to the office and
have a hybrid hybrid work environment. That based on my
research and my experience that doesn't really surprise me, and
we can talk about why.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
And in the older the older workforce.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
You know, valuing family life, home life, autonomy and flexibility
more than in the office, really doesn't surprise me either,
predominantly because as we get older, our social circles become smaller,
we become more specialized than an expert in what we do.
We don't need as much, we don't need mentoring, we
don't need as much support and scaffolding, and we can
be a little more autonomous. And that trade off is

(15:45):
really important to folks who as they get older, family life,
what have you is, family life or personal life or
home life is a little more more important to them
than all the things that when you're twenty five and
you know you want to be in an office, you
want to mentor you want to how the world works.
You want to build long lasting interpersonal relationships, and that
just doesn't happen when you're stuck at home, you know,

(16:08):
zooming and swiping and gaming, right right.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
And let me just elaborate a little more on the
Gallup poll folks. So the gen z which are nineteen
ninety seven and later, I realize there's another gen after that,
but the gen after that isn't old enough.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
To be in the workforce.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
Gen Z seventy one percent said they would like to
be hybrid, whereas gen X and baby boomers are both
around fifty five percent.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
So the gen Z people as they don't want.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
To go back to the office full time, by the way,
they want to go back to the office part time.
And Tim, I guess the reason that that surprised me
is because my thought process is probably too cynical, and
I think right, So, I think it surprised me because
I think of gen Z as people who don't know
how to have a conversation because they don't have conversations.

(16:58):
They do everything by tex and by Snapchat and whatever.
And probably the younger part of gen Z is maybe
worse on that scale, but I think of them as
unable to communicate and uninterested in communicating. And so I
didn't even really think about the idea that, oh, maybe
there's actually a gen Z worker who wants to be
a good worker and wants a mentor and wants to

(17:19):
do well in the office. That didn't even occur to me,
which probably unfair to gen Z probably a bit. I mean,
I think we're you know, we paint with a broad
brush when we talk about gen Z. Yeah, I mean
we talk about you know, but I think when look,
these guys watch television, I mean, for two hundred plus years,
we had a thing called the office, like since the
invention of the typewriter, when like really the modern office

(17:42):
became a thing, what we would what we would consider
the modern business office became a thing for two hundred
plus years, that's how people made some portion of the
organization of the of the society, made a living right.
And so they're not immune or or unaware that that's
how life used to happen, right, you know, one at
least one third of your life was spent in an

(18:04):
office book at a company or an organization. So I
think what they've found is maybe it's a big as
big a surprise to.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
Them as it is to us.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Ross and that Hey, I do want mentorship, Hey, I
do want all these things that I see on television
and I read about and I hear about, and that
people talk about. That actually sounds a little bit better
than being holed up in my you know, in my
one hundred square foot apartment on zooms for ten hours
a day. Yeah, and part of that might have to

(18:33):
do with the type of work that they're being assigned
and doing and engaging in. Very task oriented, you know,
very very like transactional. So you know when you're when
you're very transactional. We talk about swift trust, which is
the name name of the book that I wrote. Swift
Trust is a very provisional type of trust, very transactional. Right,

(18:54):
It's we're on this project together. I trust you to
do what I asked you to do. You trust me
to pay you if you do it. And that's a
very sort of like shallow transactional world that isn't very
fulfilling and is easily replaced on both ends. Right, So
I think I think gen Z is like, hey, maybe
there's more to life. And if I am going to

(19:14):
have a career and have a job, I want someone
to I want someone to you know, actually mentor me
or I want I want to be part of something.
I want to identify with something. I want to get
some fulfillment out of it. And you know, we're generally
is as bad a rap as gen Z gets around this.
We're all still three dimensional beings and it's human nature

(19:36):
to want to interact with people and look like there's
there's a downside to the return to office if it's
done poorly, you know, where people are commuting hour and
have to get in an office and in zoom with
somebody that's that's working from home to some other part.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Of the country.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
But I mean, in general, what they want is what
I think a lot of us, you know, older generations
got when we were in the office, right, And and
the appeal of that is is getting them outside of
this sort of like chain of command, task oriented world
that they're around all day long with their you know,
zooming with their camera off right.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
The other thing that I would say that, you know,
if I had thought about it more, more thoroughly, that
would point to gen Z perhaps wanting to be at
least hybrid more is that younger people really took the
major brunt and the major psychological pain of the social
isolation during COVID, right. I mean, it wasn't great for anybody,

(20:31):
but these are you know, younger people want to be
out with their friends, you know, I think it was.
I think it was a lot harder for a twenty
five year old than for me, I think.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
So, I mean, I mean, I have two teenage daughters
and and it was a disaster for them.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, like so social.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
Emotionally, you know, as well as probably some aspect of
their academic performance and what they learned.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, they both, they both you know, rebounded well.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
But you're right, like if we think back to you know,
there's still this uh, there's still this fomo when you're
a teenager or an early in early twenties of wanting
to be out, wanting to be with other people your age.
There's something going on you're not a part of. Like
there's you know, that sort of human human emotion and

(21:16):
human impulse hasn't changed, right, And I think they, you know,
like I said, they might be just a surprise to
learn that it's a really unfulfilling life. And you know,
we are if you're just sitting there on a screen
all day and you're not having the type of human
interaction that we would call, you know, like building quality
inter personal relationships.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
We're talking with doctor Tim Curry. His book is called
Swift Trust and you can go to swift trustbook dot
com or you can just go online and type in
Tim Curry that see you R R I E Swift Trust.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
And I was looking at will.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
I am still looking at the book website, and I
wanted to ask you to elaborate a little bit on
a very interesting line. You right, I was thirty eight
thousand feet over the Atlantic when I realized everything we thought.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
We knew about remote work was wrong. So we only have.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
You know, maybe four minutes left here just to talk
a little bit about what you think people misunderstand about
remote work, and maybe talk to managers as well, like
what do they need to think?

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, So, like.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
Like trust building, organizational trust within within within a company
or a business, or you know, whatever organization you might
be part of, is really important. It builds, It builds
the kind of like connective tissue that helps an organization
get through hard times, get through tough struggles.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
People can work remotely.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
And be be good at delivering on tasks on time,
on budget, under budget, like you know, the sort of
like really sort of pedestrian aspects of of work, you.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Know, and of business.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
But the things that I that the things that make
an organization thrive, make them innovate, make them make them
persevere through you know, what are minimally very changing and
fluid times and market conditions, and you know potentially, you know,
very disruptive if we talk about AI and all the
things that are going to be flowing out through through
our society today.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
Is trust is organizational trust.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
And so while on paper, on a spreadsheet, you can say, hey,
you know we're we're really productive, We're fine. You know,
we can we can work remotely. We save a lot
of money on real estate and travel. Yeah, that's true,
But what are you really accomplishing? What are you building
that's going to last? And I think that's the big
misconception we have around you know, sort of like the
productivity studies that come up around remote work, And that's

(23:40):
that was I was actually on a trip to meet
my Uh it was during CODE. It was like the
end of COVID and the world was just opening up again.
And I was on a flight to Europe to meet
my country managers in in you know, Germany, France and
the UK, and I hadn't met them in person, and
we've been managing through a very difficult time and uh,
and it was the first time we were going to
get toe other, break bread, have a glass of wine

(24:01):
underneath the in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, and
it was like, okay, I was looking forward to this
because I knew, I knew we needed to like have
that human human interaction to get to get over the
home pier.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
One other thing I want from your web page, and
I want you to talk about a little bit you right,
consider this shocking reality. Microsoft's internal research found that eighty
seven percent of their remote employees believe they're highly productive,
while only twelve percent of their managers agree that that
is a pretty stunning thing.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
So why is that important?

Speaker 1 (24:38):
And if you're on either side of that, the worker
side or the manager's.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Side, what would you try to do about it? Yeah?
I would so this.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
Microsoft did some amazing studies during the pandemic right across
a really broad swath of their employee base, And this
is one of several that are really really telling and
really revealing. And I think one is when you're this
was a group that was largely used to being in
the office, right, So you had a management structure that
was based on having people around right, being able to

(25:09):
reach out and touch them and see them and see
them and interact with them.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
You also had a lot of other like sort.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
Of scaffolding you know, that was based on was based
on wellness based on inclusion, based on you know, your
career path, based on like activities. So those managers, although
they might have in their heart been like task managers
and maybe even micromanagers, they had all this other stuff
around them to kind of shield them from that or

(25:35):
shield the people that worked with them from it. And
when they had to operate in a purely sort of
like outcome based world where everything was done remotely, they didn't.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Make that transition very well. And so that's a huge perception.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
Obviously, it's a huge perception gap twelve percent versus eighty seven.
And so you know, any good studies should just make
you ask more questions and say why, Like, you know,
maybe some of the eighty seven and weren't being completely honest,
and maybe some of that's some of the twelve some
of the people that didn't say yes on the management side,
uh you know, weren't you know, we're being a little
uh you know, reflecting some stress they were having and

(26:12):
having to work in a completely different new paradigm, right,
And I think I think if you had that same
that same poll today would be a little different. But
what it brings out is organizational design is really important.
And I talked earlier about you know, with this return
to office, how many people have you have you talked
to ross that are like, Yeah, I got to return
to the office, and I get there and and I

(26:33):
end up having to be on a meeting with Zoom
or no one from my team is there or my
manager is working from home. I mean that's like that's
like the kiss of death right there. And so we've
become this really virtual world where, you know, especially in
the pandemic, like I can hire great talent from anywhere.
I don't have to hire them in San Francisco's Silicon Valley.
They can live in Colorado, you know, they can live anywhere.

(26:55):
And we kind of have to unravel some of that.
And I think in the future, in the not too
distant future, we might see companies getting hyper local where
it's like, yeah, you got to be in the office
part of the time, but you're going to work. You know,
the people in that office are going to be on
your team or or or on a set of teams
that you got to interact with, and leadership's going to
be there and you're gonna be talking about, Hey, I
got to go to the Chicago office or the Denver offs.

(27:16):
I'm going to talk about Chicago clients and Denver clients, right.
I think that's that might be one potential outcome of this,
of this kind of like Impeden smithsmatch, where we have
around expectations of the workplace.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
Doctor Tim Curry's book is called Swift Trust. You can
go to swift trustbook dot com or just you know,
look him up, Tim Curry. That's CU R R I
E and type in swift Trust and you'll find the
book that way as well. I think it is a
super interesting area of what management has to deal with now.
I used to own and run a business. We had

(27:51):
eighty or ninety employees, and I got to tell you,
I'm so glad I am not running a business now.
Going through all this, it just seems rightibly difficult, incredibly challenging,
and and not necessarily even that much fun, even though
it's something you've got to do to make your business run. Right,
I'll give you the last twenty nine seconds because I
like prime numbers.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Prime numbers. It is. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
Look, I mean, look, there are some organizations absolutely thriving
in this environment. They tend to be very small, they
tend to be cloud native and nature, and they tend
to be they were operating on borrowed trust right, like
they all knew each other and the before times they
can finish each other's sentences, and they were able to
impart a level of trust and and and engagement with
their employee, their remote employees.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
That that gets gets past all of all of that,
all of that sort of uh, you know, mismatch. Right.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
The larger organizations, though, to your point, are having a
hard time. They're trying to just take you know, all
the old ways of doing things. You know, there's that
that's saying.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
You know that that.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
Meeting could have been an email, that email could have
been a text, and they're not really getting they're not
figuring it out, and they're leaving their workers with with
the feeling like they wasted most of their time. So
let's just compart mentalize it and move on with our lives.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
Oh, that is a great line. That meeting could have
been an email, that email could have been a text.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
That's fabulous.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
By the way, Tim go check out at Axios Today
axios dot com. They've got a really interesting story or
couple of stories about how slow the adoption of AI
is in large businesses because they're having a hard time
figuring out how to implement it and all that.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
It's super interesting. Swift Trust.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, indeed, thanks to your time, Tim, we'll have you
back for share. That was great, Thank you absolutely Ross.
Take it easy, take it easy, all right. So there
you go, Tim Curry, c U r ri E. The
book is Swift Trust.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
All right.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
So yesterday the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released
a bunch of stuff from the so called Epstein files,
including this I don't know, some people call it leud to,
like I don't know, a little line drawing. I mean,
the whole drawing is just a few lines, really, and
it's basically the outline a woman's shape from the neck

(30:02):
down to the hips. So the outer lines are these
two lines that you know, curve in and out to
make the outside of the shape of a body. And
then there are two not quite semi circle maybe quarter
circle lines that you know, like a very wide flat
you to, you know, look like the woman's breast basically.

(30:23):
And there's some silly writing in there that that is
it's not quite a poem, but it says so it
says voiceover, there must be more to life than having everything.
And then under that, it says Donald, Yes there is,
but I won't tell you what it is. Under that,
it says Jeffrey, normal I, since I also know what
it is under And that says Donald, we have certain

(30:46):
things in common. Oh wait, hold on, hold on, I
take it back. I'm doing this in wrong order. Okay, voiceover.
There must be more to life than having everything. Donald says,
Yes there is, but I won't tell you what it is.
Jeffrey says, normal I because I also know what it is.
Donald says, we have certain things in common Jeffrey. Jeffrey says, yes,
we do. Come to think of it, Donald says, enigmas

(31:07):
never age. Have you noticed that? Jeffrey says, as a
matter of fact, it was clear to me the first
time I saw you. Donald says, a pal is a
wonderful thing. Happy birthday, and may every day be another
wonderful secret.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
And then at the bottom it's signed Donald J. Trump.
And then there's the hand signature on this thing.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Now, there are a few people out there who are
comparing Trump's signature on this to his signature on more
official documents in much more recent years.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
This is more than fifteen years ago.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
But as you look at signatures by Trump on personal
notes where he only writes his first name from around
that timeframe, this looks like his signature. It doesn't mean
it's not fake, but I don't think it is. I
think this is probably real. But here's my guess as
to what happened. Somebody made this thing, Somebody put it
in front of Donald Trump, and he signed it, like can.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
You please sign this? And we're gonna put it in
Jeffrey's birthday? Can he sign it?

Speaker 1 (32:00):
That's my guess as to what happened, because there is
zero chance that Donald Trump had anything to do with
writing this. He does not talk this way, he does
not think this way. It's just it's wildly, wildly out
of character from anything that we have known about Donald Trump,
not just as president, but for as long as he's
been in public life. But the Democrats have put this
thing out and their goal, I mean the Democrats in

(32:24):
the Oversight Committee says Trump talks about a wonderful secret.
The two of them shared what is he hiding? Release
the files? So in something that is a bit of
a circular firing squad. So many Republicans campaigned on getting
all the Epstein information out now. For whatever reason, Trump
doesn't want it out. I think it's primarily that he
thinks it's a distraction, and I think he's right about that.

(32:47):
I don't know if he's got any other motivation. But
now the Democrats are putting this stuff out with the
very special Democrats never cared about this at all, never
cared about it at all. They only care about it
now because they see that it's dividing Republicans.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
And it is.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
But in any case, Trump, when the Wall Street Journal
reported on this thing, he immediately sued them. He said,
this thing doesn't even exist. Most important conversation going on.
So when I got here this morning, producer Shannon was
about to have his breakfast, which was a can of
Chef boy r D something or other, and I thought,
I thought, that's awesome. I'm a little jealous. I should
have thought of that Chef boy r D. It's not

(33:21):
just for breakfast anymore. And I asked people how they
would rate Chef.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Boy r D.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
And the rain just seems to be between three and eight,
but a lot of people kind of giving it fairly
high numbers. And our previous guest gave it a five
for food and an eight for nostalgia. And I would
like to know where you are on the Chef Boy
r D ranking.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
No, you're you're not there. You go hit the button
button send me a professional radio go ahead. I've been
doing this for twenty years.

Speaker 4 (33:52):
I would say it would depend on what Chef boy
or D product we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Yeah, so bfer Roni is probably the top of the
stack for medos.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
Is that I think that's that Chef Boy Ardy.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
And they've got the lasagna, and they've got the mini
Ravioli's and maybe the big raviolist.

Speaker 4 (34:09):
They've got like some like boxed pizzas that you can
make too, So there's a there's a world of products
from Chef Boyarty.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
I'd give it.

Speaker 4 (34:16):
You know, SDOs are Campbell, Oh no.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Which and originally Franco American, remember that? And then and
then they merge into Campbell. So okay, sorry to interrupt you.

Speaker 4 (34:26):
No, that's fine because now I know that they're not
Chef Boy r D's. Yeah, doesn't change much.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
So what's your number from if you had, you know,
if taste wise, Yeah, I'll give it a three or four.

Speaker 4 (34:38):
But as the as your guests just previously stated, that
nostalgia factor is you know, eight nine.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah, and it's way up. And this is actually a
sort of serious question. Now, even though I am also
intentionally wasting people's time, this next question is a little
bit serious, don't you think because I do that if
there's enough nostalgia in the thing you're eating, it tastes better.

Speaker 4 (35:03):
Oh yeah, it doesn't matter. Is the homemade foods that
my mom made? Yeah, she doesn't. Pepper is an exotic
spice to this woman. So her spaghetti sauce like canned
tomatoes and water glorious. I love it because it's just
something that she made. Yeah, i'll throw out my child's
is the only thing she made. So it's glorious and

(35:24):
I love it when she makes it.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
But it's utter crap.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
This listener has a what I think is a bad take,
but I'm going to share it with you anyway, Ross,
I would take Neil Young over chef boy r D anytime. Wait, no, no,
you got that backwards. Yeah you got it wrong, You
got it wrong. A listener suggests that I'm happy that
and we don't even know. But I made a comment
earlier about potential collateral damage.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
Although I don't know that I used those words. He did, but.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
I said I didn't know if there were civilian casualties
in the Israeli strike on Doha. Cutter, and then the listener,
who I, I think this is a person who texts
in kind of frequently and you know, likes to you know,
jab at me a little bit. But I haven't blocked him,
implied or didn't imply like said that I'm happy about

(36:15):
civilian casualties. So first of all, I never even implied.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Anything like that. Why would you suggest that I would.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
I don't want I don't want civilians to die, especially
over there.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
It's very different from from Gaza.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Right in Gaza, most of the population.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
There would kill me if they had a chance.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
Because I'm Jewish, so I am, I have to say,
much less sympathetic to bad things happening to adults, at
least in Gaza.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
I don't want bad things happening to children.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
But in this particular attack, where Israel is just going
after Hamas leadership and Cutter, I of course I wouldn't
want any non combatants, any non terrorists, to be hurt.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
And I do think.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
The listener said, your happiness, my happiness about the attack
indicates that I don't care if people who weren't the
targets got hurt or killed, And I just think that's
not a fair thing to suggest, and it's not true, right,

(37:14):
And it's not true.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
I don't want innocent people to be hurt, did you.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Sometimes in war, innocent people do get hurt, and it
is war. And if the Hamas leadership cared about not
having civilians get hurt, then they should not have started
the war, and then once they started the war, they
should have ended the war. So I also think that
this listener is kind of missing the point as to

(37:39):
whose fault it is.

Speaker 4 (37:40):
Did you buy any chance go into this texture's history?

Speaker 5 (37:44):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (37:44):
No, I didn't. I didn't, did you?

Speaker 6 (37:46):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (37:46):
Now, and you've responded to him before.

Speaker 4 (37:49):
I'm not going to read his comment, but you wrote back,
that's one of the dumbest things that I've ever heard of.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Okay, Yeah, not surprised. Not surprised.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
Let's see ross I pet sat an Amazonian parrot who
loved Chef boyar d spaghetti and meatballs. If he did
not get them, he would yell the parrot. Apparently the parent.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
I like it. I like it. Here's a big local business.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Story that I didn't get to yesterday, and I should have.
So if you live in Colorado, especially Front Range.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
You certainly will have seen First Bank, right.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
Usually it's like white letters in an orange background, and
it's one the number one st bank First Bank. First
Bank is actually one of the few that maybe the
only that I can think of large bank in Colorado
that isn't publicly traded.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
Right.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
Most banks these days are big companies because for years
the federal government has been putting regulations on banks that
are too onerous for many small banks to comply with.
So where big banks, they have some economies of scale
and they can comply easier. So big banks don't mind
the regulations because the big because the regulations put small

(39:08):
banks out of business or or make small banks sell themselves.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Two big banks.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
First Bank was one of the few rather large banks
that I that I can think of at least around here,
that was privately held. And what I want you to
know is that PNC Bank PNC Financial Services Group, which
is a large regional bank based in Pittsburgh, actually PNC
well it stands for two different things, but one of
the things that stands for is Pittsburgh National corporation PNC Bank,

(39:36):
which happens to be where I banked. But PNC is
buying First Bank, which is based in Lakewood, for just
over four billion dollars, and the guy who's CEO of
First Bank is going to stay in a very senior
management position in the merged organization now. But in any case,

(39:57):
you will soon see these First Bank locations turn into
PNC Bank locations. It's a very big deal for Colorado
business and for Colorado banking.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
And well, I just thought i'd.

Speaker 7 (40:09):
Let you know.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
I got to go to the supermarket and buy some.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
Be FERRONI today. I might have one at home. Here's
another nice thing. How old is it?

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Though? Though? See, that's just what I was going to say.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
I said I might have one at home, And if
I that means if I do have one at home,
I probably bought it a year ago. And I'm sure
it's exactly the same as it was a year ago.

Speaker 4 (40:26):
Did it travel from like two previous houses ago?

Speaker 2 (40:29):
No? No, No, it wouldn't be. It wouldn't have been
that long.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
But if it had, it wouldn't stop me from opening
it at least, right, I'd at least have a sniff
and make sure, it still.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Seemed still seemed good.

Speaker 4 (40:42):
It's fine as long as the can doesn't ex right
exactly so.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
So in the last segment, we mentioned a text from
a listener who said that he pet sat a parrot
who loved Chef boyer d spaghetti and meatballs. The listener
texted and again, yes, dragon, the parrot demanded Chef boy
or d spaghetti and meatballs. I did bring some homemade
spaghetti and meatballs the last time I pet sat him.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Not what was that? Sorry mebia and dum okay.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Not only did the parrot refuse the homemade spaghetti and meatball,
he screamed until I gave him the very fine canned
cuisine from the famous Italian chef. The bird put me
in my place. Yeah, how about that? Is cool?

Speaker 2 (41:31):
The idea that a bird can.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
Tell the difference between the Chef boy or d spaghetti
and the homemade spaghetti and and what even separate from
the fact that he prefers the you know, the one
dollar canned food, just the fact that the bird can
tell the difference is pretty awesome. Actually, all right, I've
been putting this off because I don't want to talk
about it. I'm going to talk about it now, because

(41:54):
if I talk about it now, then I only have
to talk about it for two or two and a
half minutes. And that is this absolutely horrendous, horrendous murder
of a Ukrainian refugee to the United States of America
on a on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her
name is Irena Zarutska. And this has been all over

(42:17):
the news. I'm sure you've seen it. I'm gonna I'm
gonna go along with some of what you're getting from
conservative media these days. They don't usually go down this
road with them, but I am right now. The degree
to which the so called mainstream, you know, somewhat left
leaning or very left leaning media avoided talking about this

(42:42):
story was really something, even after it was clear that
it was becoming a big story. I realize that there
are lots of murders in America and they don't all
make the news and so, but this was clearly turning
into something bigger. And The New York Times didn't write
about it until yesterday. They got sort of publicly shamed
in writing something about it. CNN didn't cover it for

(43:03):
a while. Most of these places they just didn't want
to say anything. To twenty three year old Ukrainian refugee,
a lovely young woman who was just sitting on a train,
scrolling through her phone, and this deranged, mentally ill, lifelong
criminal African American man. And I mentioned that for a reason,

(43:25):
and I'll get back to it, sitting behind her, looking
rather insane, and clearly he is. He pulls out, and
there's video of all this. Most of what you're seeing
on TV stops at a particular point, right, but he
pulls out the knife, stands up, raises his arm above
his head like.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
You'd see in a slasher movie.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
And then in the news reports they stop there, but
he goes on to stab her in the throat I
think three times. And then they pick up the video
again where he is walking down the train car, walking away,
and actually people aren't really doing anything.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
It must have been very quiet because they didn't really.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
Seem to be Possibly, or maybe he walked between train cars, right,
that's the other possibility.

Speaker 4 (44:10):
I've seen that to him, questions like why is nobody
doing it doing anything?

Speaker 1 (44:14):
So maybe he walked between train cars. I was wondering
that too, But in any case, there's blood dripping off
the night as he's walking through the train car, just split,
blood dripping on the floor. And this has turned into
a massive political thing.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Donald Trump is all over it.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
The mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, really stuck her foot
in it when in her first comment, the primary thing
she did was express sympathy for homeless people in the
mentally ill and didn't even mention the name of the victim.
And this is turning into a massive political problem for Democrats.
They Trump set a trap for them, They walked into it.

(44:50):
They don't know how to talk about crime because their
primary instinct right now is not to do what's right
or what they believe or or anything like that. It's
simply to oppose Trump. And so if Trump is saying
crime is bad and we need to do something about it,
they're not saying crime is good. But they're basically they're
mostly saying it's you know, things are fine, and we

(45:13):
don't need to do anything more. It's a huge political
loser for Democrats. We'll talk about that more a little later.
But I also want to make sure that we keep
our eye on the main thing here, and that is
that a completely innocent twenty three year old young woman
was murdered by a deranged, lifelong criminal, and we need

(45:34):
to remember the victim at least as much as we
need to think about the politics and policy. I want
to respond to a couple listener texts, and then I
want Dragon to talk a little bit about his reaction
to the Charlotte thing. Let me just do a couple
quick things here. First of all, listener text Chef Boyard
has a half life of fifty nine thousand years. That
sounds about right, And that's a feature, not a bug.

(45:58):
Another listener and the Dragon, and this one, this is
a listener who clearly knows me really well. This is
someone who's been paying attention, understands the nature of ross.
Would you still buy Bferoni if it weren't on sale?
And the answer is yes, But I'd only buy one
if I wanted to eat one right now. If I

(46:20):
really needed BEEFERRONI I would buy one even if it
weren't on sale, because it's so cheap even when it's
not on sale. But if I were going to buy
extras to have later so I could have it at
home another time, I would wait.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Until it's on sale. Isn't it always on sale? It
does seem like it's on sale a lot, doesn't it.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
Can you imagine, by the way, how little it must
cost the Chef boy r D company, whatever the parent
company is of Chef boy r I think, Gosh.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Who owns them?

Speaker 1 (46:46):
General Mills or I forget, But can you imagine how
little it must cost to make a can of chef
boy r D? If after all the transportation and everything,
and their profit and then the supermarket's profit and all that,
they can still sell a can for a dollar or
a dollar in a quarter. I mean, I wonder what

(47:07):
that And I'm going to put this in air quotes.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
Now meat is made out of I.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Don't know if that were real beef, There's no way
you could still sell that can for a dollar, right.
Another listener says, it's like the booty call of food.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
It answers the call after midnight. Okay.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Then one other thing, going back to the Charlotte thing
for a moment, even though I really don't want to
talk about it much, but I did note when I
was discussing that this Ukrainian.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Refugee was killed by an.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
African American man, and I said that African American point
is relevant. I'm not just saying it to throw that
in there, and a couple listeners have asked this same
question or made the same comment, And I believe it
is true that the main reason that, even after this
story clearly started blowing up into a huge news story,

(47:58):
the reason that the you know, formerly mainstream now i'd
say largely out of touch media didn't want to talk
about it is that in this case, the perpetrator was
black and the victim was white, whereas, for example, in
the George Floyd case it was reversed. Although to be fair,
you know, there are a lot of people who are

(48:19):
making the comparison with that case. I think the George
Floyd case had an additional thing in the sense that
the assailant, in addition to being white, was a police officer,
So that kind of brought it into a different issue,
not just white on black crime or black on white
crime or whatever. But I think there's just there are
just a lot of people who are not willing to

(48:40):
engage in a conversation even it's a big conversation about
crime where the perpetrator is black and the victim is white.
And yes, there's a lot more black on white crime
than white on black crime, but most of.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
The well, I.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
I think it's most I have to go look at data,
but I think most of the crime in America, violent
crime kind of stuff is black on.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Black crime right black to the victims.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
But in any case, this has become a huge story,
and yet you can see so many places don't want
to talk about it now. When we talked about it before,
I described how the killer walked through a train car
and I don't know if it was the train car
where he did the crime, or if he walked through
the next train car and kept walking and there was

(49:27):
blood dripping from I guess from I think he's still
holding the knife in his hand, and Dragon.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
You had a thought about that.

Speaker 4 (49:34):
I just found that very curious that, Okay, we were
speculating and saying the fact that he crossed over into
a different train car, so.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
He is actively bleeding.

Speaker 4 (49:43):
He looks like he is actively bleeding because you can
see the blood trail coming from his side. He goes
to the door, turns around, and it's just kind of
pooling there. Not quite a very large puddle or anything,
but it kind of shocks or amazes me that nobody
in that car, granted they may not know what happened,
in the other car with the stabbing itself, right, but

(50:04):
nobody is helping this man who looks like he is
actively bleeding.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
Yeah, and that kind of shocked me.

Speaker 4 (50:13):
Okay, even if they if nobody knew that he if
if nobody knew that this insane guy stabbed and murdered
a woman one train car over, two train cars over
or whatever, yeah, nobody's so.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
You might have expected someone to, you know, walk towards
him and say, are you okay?

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Exactly.

Speaker 4 (50:31):
It's not like people didn't know or see that there
was blood, because you can see people step over the
blood droplets that he is actively creating. So it's like
nobody is. Nobody's trying to help this man who is
actively bleeding. And I know he probably he does not
deserve that kind of help because of the heinous act that.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
He just did.

Speaker 4 (50:50):
But they they didn't know that, and nobody is helping him,
and that just seems kind of huh, all right.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
I do think it's an interesting point.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
I do think that people want to retreat into their
own little cocoons, you know, and on public transit, especially
these days, right, you just the world is so crazy,
you never you never know, and and that's a good point.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
I don't know. I mean, if you saw someone bleeding. Now,
let's say, if.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
You saw someone who looked like that guy looked, and
I won't describe exactly how that guy look you you've
all seen probably the newscast.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
Would you dragon have gone over to.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
That guy in that circumstance, the guy who looked like that,
which is to well, in my mind, look kind of
deranged and was acting very strange, would you have gone
over and asked him if you needed help?

Speaker 4 (51:41):
I would like to think that I would come up
to him and ask him. If I did not see
a bloody knife. I just saw the blood droplet, says
he's walking around. I would like to think that I
would have gone up and hey, man, you okay, something's
going on here?

Speaker 2 (51:54):
Ye are right? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (51:56):
Well, I don't know what I do after that, or
right he says, or what he does. But they didn't
see anybody do that, right, And.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
It's probably lucky that they didn't, right, because they he
might have stabbed him if he still had the I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
It's hard to end.

Speaker 4 (52:09):
Or maybe I'm thinking speculating here. Maybe he cut himself
as he was getting the heinous Act. So he was
actively bleeding. Yeah, I don't know, but nobody asked him anything, right,
Everybody clearly saw that something was going on.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
All right, I'm gonna do uh several kind of random
short stories that I want to share with you. You know,
I'm kind of a foreign policy nerd. I love talking
about things that are going on in the world, and
I want to talk about France for a second. France
is an unusual situation in that they have a president
and a prime minister. That itself is not unusual. There
are a lot of places that have both a president

(52:46):
and prime minister, but in most of those places, the
prime minister has the power. Right in in France, the
president has more power. In fact, you hardly ever hear
about the French prime minister. The France has been through
four prime ministers in less than two years, and they're
about to get their fifth because their current prime minister,

(53:09):
a guy named Francois bay rue b a y r Ou,
just lost a confidence vote in the National Assembly, that's
sort of their version of Congress.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
He lost the confidence vote and it wasn't it wasn't close.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Okay, all right, I'm I'm told that intrepid Chad Bauer
has some Broncos breaking news. So intrepid Chad Bauer, wouldn't
you jump right in telling me.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
What you got?

Speaker 7 (53:35):
Yep, there's an announcement, no surprise.

Speaker 6 (53:37):
The preferred site of a new Broncos stadium is the
is Burnham Yard. I was a joint announcement for what
they described as a privately funded, world class stadium. The
Broncos Mayor Mike Johnson Governor Polis had a joint letter
this morning. Maryor Mike Johnson says the Broncos are staying

(53:58):
in Denver. We will finally open up the historic burner
Yard neighborhood for development, and we get to reimagine the
mile high stadium site as a thriving community in West Denver,
and that the ownership group's investment into building a stadium
in the heart of Denver will open up new possibilities
not just for Burnham Yard but across the city. And
as part of the process, they say they're going to

(54:19):
work with residents to create a small area plan for
Burnham Yard and to ensure economic and community benefits extend
far beyond game day things like housing, parks, childcare, other.

Speaker 7 (54:33):
Amenities and so that's that's what we know so far.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Well, that's fantastic, and that neighborhood is has been kind
of run down, like not much going on, So this
could be some serious well, to use an older term,
urban renewal, that could be a very big deal.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
I assume.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
I don't know, but I assume that a stadium, a
new stadium, may have a retractable roof.

Speaker 6 (54:58):
That is I'm just reading further because it's like an
OKAYNG release. Yeah, it says they will privately fund the
purchase of the land and the creation of a retractable
roof stadium. Yeah, which will uh that means we could
get a Super Bowl here, super Bowl Final four concerts.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (55:14):
They say hundreds of millions in economic activity.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
I love the fact that they are emphasizing privately funded
that right, So there's nothing in there that says they're
going to come to the people for bonds or a
tax hike or anything.

Speaker 6 (55:27):
It says the Walton Penner Ownership Group will privately fund
the purchase of the land and the creation of that
retractable roof state.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
Fantastic, fantastic. I gotta seriously thank you.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
I'm quite grateful you have the billionaires all around the
country who you know, own these sports teams and then
go burden the taxpayers like, oh, I need you to
subsidize my stadium, and too many cities go along with it,
and it's it's nonsense, And it's so cool that the
Denver Broncos ownership, who obviously incredibly wealthy, this is Walmart money,

(56:00):
aren't going down that road at all. And it would
cause a lot of controversy too, and potentially a lot
of bad blood if they they did, or at least
a little upset about it. So it's smart of them,
and I'm very grateful for.

Speaker 7 (56:11):
That, especially with the current budget situation.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
Oh ye going through Yeah yeah, oh, that's fantastic, all right.
Not a huge surprise that choice, but.

Speaker 6 (56:19):
We've heard that's the area, and a retractable roots stadiumld
be kind of cool to hold the microphone in.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
Right, Oh yeah, I can't even imagine. Oh my gosh, wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
That be I hope they leave it open most of
the time, including if it's snowing.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
You know, I like football and snow is awesome.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
But I wonder how they will I wonder how they
will decide when to close the roof.

Speaker 6 (56:37):
Well, it sounds like part of this release is it
means the Broncos will continue to have the home field
advantage playing snow games versus rivals like the Chiefs and Raiders,
so that legiti believe maybe the when it's snowing, the
leave it open.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
Yeah right, I mean maybe you close it, maybe for
big rain, maybe for lightening, for concerts and stuff in
the winter where you really want to be more like indoors. Absolutely,
that's cool. Love it. Is there anything in there? I
know you just got it. Is there anything in there
that gives any sense of timeline?

Speaker 6 (57:08):
They say they're going to be getting the planning process
in twenty twenty six, and the least I think ends
in twenty thirty.

Speaker 1 (57:16):
Right, so they've got basically they have five years to
get the stadium open, and I bet they'll take all
of that.

Speaker 6 (57:22):
It's amazing how I mean, such a giant project, how
relatively quickly that other cities have managed to build those.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
Yeah, giant for sure.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
Well, there's so much money at stake, yeah right, and
everybody wants it.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
It's not just that the Broncos ownership wants it.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
The Denver and state governments want it too, and the NFL,
and the NFL wants it, so when all these incentives
are aligned, they can move fast when they really want.

Speaker 7 (57:46):
Pressure putting on them to get it done.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
Yeah, all right in trepid Chad Bauer, thank you, you
bet good news. All right, I like that story, very cool.
All right, you heard it first on KOWA. Well, let
me go back to this France thing for a second,
and if you want to say anything about the Broncos Stadium,
you're welcome to text in at five six six nine
zero if you got anything to say on that. So anyway, France,
they just they're they're booting their current prime minister. And

(58:11):
the reason I wanted to mention this to you, I
know you don't care too much about French politics, but
there's a very specific reason I wanted to mention this
to you, and that is the reason that this guy
is in trouble is that he has been talking about
the national debt and the budget deficit in France. France
has the third highest national debt in Europe as a

(58:33):
percentage of GDP, after Gosh, who's first. I think Italy
and Italy and Greece, and Italy and Greece are both
moving in the right direction. I know, you'd never think
you'd hear about smart financial moves in those two countries,
which have historically been fiscal basket cases.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
But they're both moving in the right direction. Yes, they
both still run.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Budget deficits, but the budget deficits are getting smaller.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
Greece has really turned around quite a lot.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
And this the sort of center maybe slightly conservative, only
slightly Prime minister was looking to slightly reduce.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
France's national budget.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
God, I'm sorry, budget deficit well, and budget I suppose
looking to cut just a little bit to start bringing
the budget deficit down over time. He wasn't going for
a balanced budget in year one, but you know, go
from some and I don't know the percentages, but just
hypothetically imagine going from you know, a deficit of five

(59:36):
percent of GDP to a deficit of four and a
quarter percent of GDP or something like that. And this
guy has been talking here. Let me quote from the BBC.
He spent the summer in speeches, interviews and social media
posts warning of the existential threat to France if it
didn't start to tackle it's three point four trillion euro

(59:56):
national debt. But he was quickly disabused of any hope,
that is, prophecies a financial doom would sway opponents. Lacking
any majority in the National Assembly, he saw the left
and the hard right unite against him and his fate
was sealed. So you've got the far left, well the left,
all of the left, and then the far right voting

(01:00:17):
against this guy who is just trying to get his
country back on the path of fiscal sanity. And the
reason I wanted to share it with you is we
have kind of similar conversations going on here in the
other United States.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
Not as bad as France, though, right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
I mean, if you thought we have bad time like
with with politicians refusing to even talk about debt and deficit,
go look at France where they're firing a guy where
members of Congress throughout the Prime Minister because he wanted
to talk about getting some fiscal sanity in France. Is
quite a remarkable story, right, all right, So let's look,

(01:00:55):
So where is Burnham Yard? So an expert can tell me,
but here's where I think it is. Do you know where?

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
You know where?

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
Oh? Gosh, brain cramp. What's the old State restaurant? Buck,
It's the old stake restaurant in Denver Buckhorn Exchange. Right,
it's it's near. It's near the buck Horn Exchange, kind
of central Denver, near like eighth Avenue, kind of thing

(01:01:22):
west of Eye, west of Spear. Let's get it exactly right.
Let's get it exactly right. It's Leicester of Spear, east
of twenty four, west of right, west of Spear, east
of Eye twenty five and south of Colefax and north
of Sixth Avenue. Does that sound right, dragon, Yep, that's
just kind of from memory, but so bordered on east

(01:01:44):
and west by Spear and I twenty five, bordered on
north and south by Colfax and Sixth Avenue more or less,
and old train yard area in in there, so not
really all that far from where Mile High is now.
It's on the other side of I twenty five but
not and it's a little south but in an area
of Denver that's pretty uh, it's it's been it's been

(01:02:08):
run down, right, It's not like it's mostly unpopulated, not
much going on there, and it's just sort of not
quite a band in but just not what it could be.
So anyway, there you go. Is Burnam Yard big enough? Yeah,
that that area. The area itself is is it's very
very big. It's very very big.

Speaker 4 (01:02:30):
Plot on Google looks much bigger than I don't know
exactly what they had purchased, but the plot where Burnham
Yard is looks much larger than the entire plot from
my high end parking.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
And I think, based on just vague recollection of reading
some prior news stories, that they've been buying that ownership
group has been buying some other properties on the edge
of Burning Yard, so that their whole footprint will be
even bigger than Burning Yard, even though, as you say,
the rail yards themselves that area are already quite big.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Yeah, So all right, I hope, I hope that answers
a question of folks who are asking where that is.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
And again I do, I do want to say, truly,
I am so grateful that the Broncos ownership is not
asking for taxpayer funding, taxpayer subsidies as anything for building
the stadium it is, so it is such a breath

(01:03:28):
of fresh air.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Right. I think there were some.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Kind of taxes, and I wasn't here when Mile High
got built, but I think there were some kind of
city involvement with taxation, and so on to do that project,
and it happens in lots and lots of cities.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
Even with huge billionaires.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
Who are you know, going to have these football teams
that are going to make them tens or hundreds of
millions of dollars a year and they themselves have massive
net worth and they don't need the subsidy, but hey,
if they can pill you know, if they can pay
bucket from other people rather than having to go into
their own pockets, they go do it. And the Walton
Penner group here in the Broncos ownership is not doing that,

(01:04:09):
and I just I am so grateful for them for that.
I think that's fantastic, absolutely fantastic. All Right, we still
have a ton of stuff to do on today's show,
including near the end of the show, David Flaherty from
Magell and Strategies on a fascinating new poll they just
did about political opinions in Colorado. Some of that is
going to surprise you. That's coming up in about thirty

(01:04:31):
five forty minutes. Plenty of stuff to do before then
as well. Keep it here on KOWA. I don't think
it's a big surprise to anybody that they picked Burnham
Yards and thanks to Chad and to Connor from Kawa
News desk and giving us some interesting updates. And I'll
mention one or two other quick things that Denver Post
had an interview with Greg Penner and Mike Johnston and

(01:04:54):
Penner who's basically running the team day to day, not
as coach, but you know, the running the operation overall presidency.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
No, Demani Leech is president.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
I don't remember what Greg Penner's title is. Somebody can
tell me that. I think he's CEO. Yeah, he's CEO
as well as co owner. But anyway, he said, let
me just find this. We wanted something that's true to
our roots here and we looked at dome stadiums as
an option, but we just thought that wouldn't enable us
to take advantage of Colorado sunsets and mile high views

(01:05:23):
and playing in the elements if we choose to. That
being said, we really liked the idea of a retractable
roof that allows us to have events year round and
if weather is to a degree that we want to
close the roof, we can do that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
So I think that's great.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
The other thing they mentioned in the Denver Post piece,
and this doesn't surprise me, but I'm just glad to
see it is that it will be grass, not turf.
So that's an excellent thing. And let's see what else.
Oh here, Governor Polos focusing in on one of the
things I was focusing in on as well, and he says,

(01:06:02):
right from the start, the Walton Penner Family ownership group
made it clear that they were not going to be
seeking a publicly financed stadium, and I said, we appreciate
that because those have.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
A checkered track record.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
Sometimes they fail at the ballot box and people don't
feel good about it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
It can turn a town against a team.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
The Penner said right away they were going to do
a do this through private investment, so we said, great,
how can we help.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
So there you go, so very good all the way around.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
And as Chad said, and as you may know already,
the current lease for Mile High goes till twenty thirty,
so the Broncos have quite a long time to finish
a new stadium. And obviously you have to do the
plan that's going to take a long time. They're gonna
be all these studies and you know, not just the
design but the environmental stuff they have to do, and

(01:06:52):
figuring out the traffic and figuring out the parking, and
figuring out what's the rest of the neighborhood gonna look like.
So there's a heck of a lot to to do there.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
And Connor touched on this already, but.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
I'll just mention again and again this from the Denver
Post piece. The club has reached conceptual agreements to purchase
the fifty eight acre rail yard from the state, along
with twenty five acres on the south end of Denver
Waters Campus to the west of the yard. Additional private
and this is the thing I was talking about. Additional
private real estate acquisitions made over the past year have

(01:07:29):
brought the total footprint to more than one hundred acres,
and the team is currently exploring additional real estate in
the area. The Broncos didn't comment on the total cost
of the land, construction and work beyond calling it a
multi billion dollar private investment, but the final price tag
is expected to be at least four billion dollars and

(01:07:49):
potentially considerably more. And again, the team and the city
say that no new tax dollars will be involved in
the plan, and the entities are in the process of
exploring ring city led infrastructure improvements in the area, as
well as the possibility of urban renewal tax credits.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
So all right, I think that's enough for now. But
very cool story.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
Uh, I just want to mention this briefly because it's
sort of an annoying story, but you are aware, I'm
sure of. This woman named e Jene Carroll who a
few years back accused Donald Trump of having sexually assaulted
her in a dressing room in an upscale clothing store

(01:08:34):
many years prior. And this went to a civil trial
and President Trump was found liable for sexual assault. So
it's it wasn't a criminal trial, and it also wasn't rape.
And I'm really not gonna I'm not comfortable kind of
getting into the details beyond saying she accused him of

(01:08:56):
doing something with his hands, not with a different body part.

Speaker 2 (01:08:59):
I'm going only it at that. So she won and.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
She was awarded I think it was five million dollars
and President Trump wouldn't stop talking about it in public
and calling her a liar and saying she made it
all up. And he was warned, like, stop this, stop

(01:09:29):
defaming her by calling her a liar in public, and
he he that was part of the first case that
he lost and he lost five million dollars, and then
after he lost both in the both the sexual assault
claim and the defamation claim, he still wouldn't shut up.

(01:09:50):
And even though he was told to by a judge,
and I'm sure he was told to by his lawyers,
he just kept going saying, she's making it up, it's
a hoax, YadA YadA ya, all the usual stuff that
he says. And by the way, I believe she was
telling the truth. I mean, we know what Donald Trump
said on that bus about you know, you can grab
him by the whatever. We know that's the kind of

(01:10:11):
guy he is. He's open about it. Well, he didn't
intend to be open about it. But we know what
Donald Trump's character is when it comes to this stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
We know that he's cheated on every wife and so on.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
But he wouldn't shut up, and he kept in public
saying she's lying, she's making it up. So she sued
him again and in that second lawsuit. Essentially what they
argued was five million dollars that Trump lost in the

(01:10:47):
first trial was obviously based on his behavior, not enough
to get him to stop defaming her in public, and
therefore her side argued to the jury, you need to
make the penalty much bigger because he doesn't understand anything else.
For Donald Trump, five million dollars is a very small number,

(01:11:09):
so you need to find him much much more you need,
and they did, and they did. It was eighty three
million dollars. Don't remember if it was eighty three between
the two cases or eighty three and the second one
by itself, but it doesn't matter because the first one
was five million, so the second one was either eighty

(01:11:29):
three by.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
Itself or seventy eight. Either way, it's a huge number.

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
And she so she won that eighty three million dollars
in damages. And the new news is that yesterday a
federal appeals court upheld the eighty three.

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
Million dollar defamation award.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
And they wrote, and I'm quoting from the Wall Street Journal,
that Trump never wavered or relented in his public attacks
on Carol, including by accusing her of lying and claiming
her lawsuit was part of a conspiracy to interfere.

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
With his election.

Speaker 1 (01:12:05):
And the panel wrote, the three judge panel, it was unsigned,
so we don't know who wrote it, but apparently they all.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
Agreed with it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
We agree with the district court that the jury was
entitled to find that Trump would not stop defaming Carol
unless he was subjected to a substantial financial penalty. So
that's basically what happened. Trump lost five million dollars. He
wouldn't shut up because the penalty wasn't big enough to
make him change his behavior. So they sued him again
and he lost again. He lost real money this time, right,

(01:12:37):
And now an appeals court has upheld it. So I
wanted you know that the appeals court upheld it and
is probably going to be the end of it. And
if Donald Trump is smart, he will never say anything
about it again, all else being equal, would you rather
see talking heads or Neil Young talking kits a couple
of listener texts on the stadium Ross?

Speaker 2 (01:12:57):
With it being privately.

Speaker 1 (01:12:58):
Funded, it takes a lot of the politics out of
the equation. Bronco's ownership will probably have it built quicker
with their own money.

Speaker 7 (01:13:05):
I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
Let's see Google says you can walk from empower Field
to Burnham Yard in twenty minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
That sounds about right. This next thing, I think is
where the city is.

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
Going to be involved. I don't know if the state
will be involved, but Ross Burnham yard area has terrible access.
There will have to be an enormous effort to improve
that to the extent it's possible. I'm surprised they chose
that over trying to expand their current site to the
south and west.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
For sure, they will have to deal with that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):
You want to make it so that people who are
driving to the game can easily get in and get out.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
When I was, you know, it's always.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
The same when I go to the games to you know,
do the microphone stuff for KOA or even when I'm not.
If I go to a game, you know, it's going
to take you a heck of a long time to
get out through those very small streets. And even though
the even though law enforcement turns a two way street
into a one way street, so they're using both lanes
to get out at least where I'm normally coming out,

(01:14:02):
which is on the north side of the stadium, it's
still really really slow and that may be inevitable. You're
talking about fifty thousand people all leaving one place at
one time, and yeah, not everybody's you know, in a car.
Some people are on the light rail and so on,
and of course there could be two or three or
four or five people in a car. So it's not
like there's fifty thousand cars, but it's still a lot.

(01:14:22):
And they definitely will have to that'll be a big thing.
And I guarantee you they're thinking about.

Speaker 4 (01:14:27):
And how soon after it's opened do you think we
can expect a super Bowl?

Speaker 1 (01:14:31):
Probably not the year it opens, Pretty soon, I bet yeah,
two three years?

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
Yeah? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:37):
Wouldn't that be cool to have a super Bowl here?
Even better if we were in it?

Speaker 5 (01:14:41):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:14:42):
Wouldn't that be incredible at Denver super Bowl with Denver
in it?

Speaker 2 (01:14:45):
I mean it's not impossible.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
Oh, this listener says, David Byrne from Talking Heads is
coming to Denver soon. All right, email me a link, please,
whoever you are, email me a link at ross at
what's the easy ross at iHeartMedia dot is fine? Or
ross at koa Denver dot com. Those were two with
no silent three no silent three.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
In that dragon.

Speaker 1 (01:15:05):
Do you know that I own koa Denver dot com.
I personally own that url?

Speaker 6 (01:15:11):
What?

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
Yeah? Oh, I found that it was available.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
I offered it to the station to buy it and
they said no.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
So I bought it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
They got KOA Colorado, right, Yeah, got right, They've got, but.

Speaker 2 (01:15:24):
I don't think they used.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
Koa Colorado for for everything. So I've got I own
Koa Denver dot Com. Do you think Empower Stadium will
remain or be knocked down? And definitely be knocked down, absolutely, positively,
one hundred percent going to be going to be knocked down?

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
Ross?

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
What about a train station at the stadium? I don't know,
I ain't.

Speaker 4 (01:15:43):
The one that's still there is probably a good bit.

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
Is there a light rail near there.

Speaker 4 (01:15:48):
Within a fifteen minute walk? Yeah, okay, so that's probably
and it's roughly the same spot you'd you've been in
a fifteen minute walk to Burnham.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
Ross.

Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
I saw a Neil Diamond album at the thrift store
last night, and I was going to get it for you,
but I figured you might already have it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
Did I mess up? So?

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
I have one or two Neil Diamond albums that I
think I got maybe from a parent or a brother
or something. I liked Neil Diamond, but Neil Diamond is
not necessarily some I'm just gonna sit down and listen
to unless I get this some weird. I will say
that I really liked the jazz singer album It's called
which is the soundtrack to a movie about Eastern European

(01:16:27):
Jewish immigrants coming to the United States. If I remember right,
it's pretty good. So no, you didn't mess up. I'm grateful.
I'm grateful that you thought of me when you saw
an album, that you thought of buying it for me,
and I appreciate I appreciate the thought very very much.
I won't say you messed up by by not buying it,
but anyway, yeah, I do very much appreciate the thought.

(01:16:48):
All Right, we still have a ton of stuff to do,
but I'm not going to get to all of it today.
I'll have I'll just try to catch up tomorrow because
what we're gonna do in the next segment of the
show is talk with David Flaherty from Magellan Strategy, which
is a Colorado based polling company, very high quality polling organization,
and they just did a new survey of Colorado voter opinion.

(01:17:11):
And it won't surprise you to know that the majority
of people in this blue state.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
Don't like Donald Trump very much.

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):
But there is actually some stuff in this survey that
I think is interesting, surprising, and should have Democrats concerned.
I'm very pleased to welcome back to the show my
friend David Flaherty, who is president of Magellan Strategies, which
is a very top quality polling firm based right here

(01:17:39):
in Colorado. And sometimes you will see some of their
work in public and other times you won't know what
they're doing because they're doing work for private clients.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
They just put out a very interesting public poll.

Speaker 1 (01:17:54):
It just came out a few days ago, and the
Colorado Voter Opinion Survey. I wanted to talk with David
about it because while there is some stuff in there
that is not surprising, you know that there are more
Democrats than Republicans in Colorado, or that Colorado doesn't love Trump,
there's plenty of stuff in this polling that is I

(01:18:15):
think really interesting, somewhat surprising, and that's the stuff I
primarily want to talk with David about. So David, welcome
back to the show. Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (01:18:26):
Absolutely, Ross, thanks for having me. Yeah, there's there's a
lot going on. There's a lot to cover, and it's
been a while since we put out some research around
opinions on federal issues as well as state issues, and
there was there, like you, there's some things that wasn't
surprised by, but there were some things that definitely caught

(01:18:48):
our attention, you know, and one being just the Democrat
party here in Colorado. I'm not saying the state's going
ruby red, you know, next November, and that's a long
time way off, but Theocrats clearly have some brand issues,
what they stand for issues. It's really really really excuse
me revealing, but that's just one of several things that

(01:19:09):
I found really interesting about this really wide ranging survey.

Speaker 1 (01:19:12):
So let's just dispense with the Trump stuff early on
because it's not that interesting, but it does sort of
set the framework. And you asked about a bunch of
different policy areas do you approve or disapprove of how
Donald Trump is doing on things like immigration in the
border and other things like that, And there's no issue

(01:19:33):
where in the state of Colorado where Donald Trump has
more approved than disapprove on any single issue in this
state as far as I could tell. So basically, I mean,
the state doesn't like Colorado doesn't like Trump, and we've
known that for a while. So then let's get to
the next thing, where, surprisingly to me, you asked favorable

(01:19:55):
or unfavorable about the Republican Party and the Democratic Party,
And I thought these results we're fascinating, especially given how
much the state doesn't like Trump.

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):
Can you talk about that? Absolutely. We did two questions.

Speaker 5 (01:20:09):
One was a measurement of job approval of the job
the Democrats were doing in Congress as well as Republicans.
But then we also asked, you have a favorable or
unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party, and really not since
two thousand and nine, ross you know, during Obama's first
couple of years in office, have we ever measured the
negative ratings of the Democratic Party, especially in Congress. Being

(01:20:33):
as high as seventy four percent disapprove of the job
they're doing in Congress, that's pretty fascinating and it really
tells us as well as their image right where Republicans.
Great Republicans aren't like seventy five percent approval, but they
are slightly better than the Democrats right now, and that's
that's pretty revealing, and it clearly I think political observers,

(01:20:55):
people that follow politics know that the Democratic parties had
a a really hard time coming together with an alternative
message and alternative strategy to the Trump administration, and they're
really flat footed right now, what people are seeing, they're
not liking, and I just we consider it more or
less a wake up call for you know, Democrats. You know,

(01:21:18):
I'm not going to talk about at this time right now,
but the governor's race, you know what we may find
next year. However, they have a lot of work to do,
and those national bad numbers seem to be really having
an impact as well here in Colorado. That this, you know,
for them to be successful in twenty six, this needs
to be addressed.

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):
So one of the other areas you ask about, we're
gonna tie all this stuff together, but you asked about
economic questions.

Speaker 2 (01:21:44):
How do you feel about.

Speaker 1 (01:21:46):
You know, is the economy going to get better, stay
the same, get worse? And I'm seeing in your polling
results fifty seven percent of people say that the economy
is going to get worse. That's kind of split almost
evenly between probably going to get worse, definitely going to
get worse. Only thirty five percent say it's probably are
definitely going to get better. So your survey shows a

(01:22:09):
significant amount of negativity about the economy. Tying it back
to what you just said, what I wonder about, and
this may be a little further than what you're trying
to do with your work. But if you have an opinion,
I would like to know it. If people think the
economy is not good, and assuming that the economy is
normally the number one thing people vote on, we've got

(01:22:32):
the Republicans in charge of everything at the federal level
and Democrats in charge of everything at the state level.
Who do voters blame when they feel that their number
one issue isn't going the way they want it to go.

Speaker 5 (01:22:46):
Well, that's an excellent question. Rossis in the way to
look at this. All incumbents should be on their guard
because voters in Colorado have a very sour opinion not
just of the national economy. They'rell with the tariff policies.
They do believe it will make them cost more goods.
The number one issue on the economy is obviously controlling

(01:23:09):
the cost of living and inflation, which is front and
the center, which did help out you know, Donald Trump
in twenty twenty four to defeat you know, Joe Biden.
But sure, I mean Governor Poulis we all know is
moving on. But for Michael Pennett, Phil Wiser, whoever the
Republican nominees may be for governor. You know, typically when
you see these kinds of numbers being so bad on

(01:23:30):
the economy, let alone whether it will improve in twelve months,
that usually sets up well for an alternative candidate than
the party in power. And that's what we're going to
be watching, you know, and who knows who the Republican
nominee may be. But does it mean we're going to
go and have a surprise and Colorado has elects a
Republican governor. We're not saying that. And the generic measurements

(01:23:52):
we measured did not straight really from our typical d
plus ten to twelve point advantage ever since twenty sixteen ish.
But yes, excellent observation there ross where. Typically when the
economy is this bad and people's opinions of the economy
that bad, it sets up opportunities for alternative candidates that
are currently not in power. And like you said, we

(01:24:15):
have a federal Republican Republicans and control as they battle
to maintain control, especially in the House, and then here
in the Democrats, you know, they've been in control for
a very long time now, maybe people are ready to
look at some alternative solutions to addressing the state's problems.
That they want to address.

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
That's a really interesting point.

Speaker 1 (01:24:34):
So so what David is saying is, rather than think
about it as they're going to blame the Republicans or
they're going to blame the Democrats, if they're feeling bad
about what's going on, they'll blame whoever's in office now.

Speaker 2 (01:24:47):
And it could be a very anti incumbent mood.

Speaker 1 (01:24:50):
David, it seemed to me from time to time we
get very anti incumbent moods, and probably the first election
of Donald Trump, and actually both elections of Donald Trump,
we're significantly about anti incumbent, anti incumbent moods. I wonder
what and this is not so much straight from this survey,
but just from your experience, can anti incumbent moods really

(01:25:15):
trump people's tribalism, like, you know, just voting for the
party that they always vote for. How many people who
are Democrats would vote for a Republican because they're in
an anti incumbent mood.

Speaker 2 (01:25:28):
I mean, some clearly did for Trump.

Speaker 1 (01:25:30):
And in this state we have a lot of unaffiliated
so it might be a little interesting in that realm too.

Speaker 5 (01:25:37):
Absolutely, in one thing that we always look through a
lens in Colorado the unaffiliates are going to decide, really
who's going to you know, be in power. They are
nearly fifty percent of registration now and in the twenty
four election they finally voted in those numbers. It's not
going to be common in our current politics where a
Democrat will feel, you know what, the inflation is so wrong.

(01:26:01):
Especially younger Democrats eighteen to thirty four is an incredibly
important subgroup of voters that really determined twenty eighteen where hey,
if you ever wanted a whole elective office, if he
ran as a Democrat in twenty eighteen, you're gonna win.
And that's exactly what happened. Those younger voters turned out
at presidential levels where they made up nearly one out
of four votes cast. However, in twenty fourteen excuse me,

(01:26:22):
twenty twenty four, they did not vote as strongly as
they did in twenty twenty. In fact, one hundred thousand
few of them voted. They were clearly not as jazz
to either vote Donald Trump out in twenty twenty or
they don't have a champion. You know. The gold standard,
which for Democrats is Barack Obama, where him he was
such an exciting candidate. You have both sides where not

(01:26:44):
only were there like I really do not feel comfortable
with the Republican candidate, but I'm super excited about who
we have. Are the Democrats going to have a candidate
that is making them super excited so that twenty twenty
six perhaps comes similar to what happened in twenty eighteen,
And I would say, right now that's not the case.
You know, they don't seem to be as excited, even

(01:27:04):
though they are frustrated about inflation. They can't buy a home,
they can't get a job. He's taking their jobs, like,
there's a lot of headwinds for that age group. Are
they going to turn out to make out one of
four votes in twenty twenty six. We don't know, but
right now it doesn't appear to be because they're not thrilled,
you know, with what the Democrats are serving up right now. Anyways,
not to say that whoever the dem nomine is here

(01:27:25):
in Colorado. That's kind of how I put it all together.
Is to answer your question.

Speaker 1 (01:27:31):
We're talking with David Flaherty from Magellan Strategies. The website
is Magellanstrategies dot com and if you go to the website,
you can find this fascinating research that we're talking about,
the Colorado twenty twenty five voter opinion survey. So I'll
just follow up on a couple of things you said. One,
in twenty twenty four, Donald Trump made huge inroads with

(01:27:52):
young voters.

Speaker 2 (01:27:53):
He didn't win them.

Speaker 1 (01:27:54):
I think he didn't win them, but he did much
better than he did before, which is I think a
very very interesting thing. And you know, it seemed to me,
especially in twenty eighteen, I got the sense that just
because voters are unaffiliated, it doesn't mean they're all really
swing voters. There are plenty of unaffiliated voters who are
basically hardcore Dems and some who are Republicans. But you

(01:28:16):
don't need to be registered with a party in Colorado
because you can participate in the primary without it. But
it seemed like in twenty eighteen, as you mentioned, lots
of voters just voted for every Democrat they could find
because they hated Trump so much. And I think that
I think that dynamic still exists to some degree, but

(01:28:36):
I share your expectation that it's to a lesser degree.

Speaker 5 (01:28:42):
I agree, Yeah, I feel like it's kind of more
biked in and that Donald Trump's frame. You're right, and
that's the other thing that's also you cannot just dismiss
younger voters are really feeling inflation. They're the ones with
lower incomes. They're the ones that are trying to start
their lives. They're the ones that are trying to buy
a home. And just like I have, Donald Trump one

(01:29:02):
in twenty sixteen and won pockets of Democrats in rural
areas where economic growth and opportunity was just not even
in existence. There are shades of that, and like you said, Ross,
you know, caution this year, he didn't win a majority
of them. But I feel that those younger voters were like, look,
I'm not thrilled about the way this guy goes about

(01:29:23):
his business. However, I'm looking to lower inflation, and I'm
going to give him a try, just and cross my fingers.
I do think it's somewhere in that.

Speaker 2 (01:29:30):
Vein yea, And that makes sense to me as well.

Speaker 5 (01:29:34):
You know, it's it's and until they really have a
champion that's going to come along, and we will see
if that kind of candidate evolves. We don't know yet,
but that's what makes this interesting to political observers and
people that you know follow politics in our state in nationally.

Speaker 1 (01:29:48):
So I say this next thing as observation and not
as criticism. The two leading Democratic candidates candidates for governor,
Michael Bennett and Phil Wiser, neither one of them is
an exciting candidate. And Phil and I are actually pretty
good friends. I don't know Michael Bennett. Phil and I
are pretty good friends. He's a very smart guy, he's
a very nice guy. He's wrong on a lot, but

(01:30:11):
he's not exciting. He's very much of an academic kind
of persona, and Michael Bennett is too in a way.

Speaker 2 (01:30:20):
And every once in a while.

Speaker 1 (01:30:21):
Including maybe a week ago, when Michael Bennett was questioning
RFK Junior, you know, he started yelling at him, and
you kind of get this feeling like Michael Bennett sometimes
feels like he needs to yell in order to.

Speaker 2 (01:30:33):
Get people to pay attention to him or something.

Speaker 1 (01:30:35):
You could see a republic Republicans put out a candidate,
maybe Barb Kirkmeyer, for example, who might be a little more,
a little more energy, a little more excitement. But man,
that's a big hill to overcome in a D plus
eleven state.

Speaker 5 (01:30:53):
I would agree Ross and in conventional wisdom, just to
touch on first about the Republican generic bell, we did
ask that quiet. I think conventional wisdom is that any
Republican that runs the best campaign, and you know, their
stealing of support though is still around forty five forty
six percent, and they will always struggle to get those
additional four or five points. Ken, Barbara Kirkmeyer or one

(01:31:15):
of the other primary candidates get out there and do it.
We will see the environment set up perfectly for them,
you know what I mean, to make an alternative case
on how they're going to address the problems facing people
in Colorado. But getting back to the Democratic candidate, You're
absolutely right. I see Attorney General wiser at you know,
I go to a lot of you know, CCI conferences.
He's very approachable. He's very much a guy that I

(01:31:38):
think in his term has gone across the isle just
from my own personal work that we do with county
governments and that conservative county governments appreciate how he has
showed up on sex trafficking, fentanyl, and just law and
order issues.

Speaker 2 (01:31:51):
I also, I.

Speaker 5 (01:31:52):
Do not know Michael Bennett, you know what I mean. Either,
it's tougher when you are a US senator at the
Senate level, but his presidential campaign I thought was perhaps
a little bit more interesting in the things he has
fought for. I agree, he's always been kind of known,
you know, when he was like working at Denver Public
schools as more of a technocrat, if you will. But
his twenty years in you know, nearly twenty years in

(01:32:14):
the Senate right there, Neither of them are Barack Obama.
And I'm just saying Barack Obama, nobody's going to just
replace that. But I do agree with you know, Attorney
General Wiser and Senator Bennett right now or projecting their
their way. They go about their business and try to
achieve their goals and represent Coloraden's is is different. It's
kind of more problem solving and keep their heads down
to maybe not as exciting. But again, but getting to

(01:32:38):
Barb Kirkmeyer a very long time you know, Well County commissioner.
She's done some very great things in the Senate, I
believe as non you know, not blocking everything great. She's
still from Well County, so you know, long record, but
I agree it makes this the sort of setup very
interesting for twenty six.

Speaker 1 (01:32:57):
All right, last question for you, David in your New
Colorado twenty twenty five voter Opinion survey and folks Magellan
Strategies dot com to see this is there something that
we haven't talked about yet that really surprised you and like, wow,
this is this is interesting.

Speaker 5 (01:33:13):
Two things ross one, you know, and I know I
need to add this just to the blog post, but
it's in our presentation. Is that you know, we did
an image rating question for you know, former Vice President
Kamala Harris, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Congresswoman Alexandria Acossio Cortez,
and I hope I got her name right AOC as

(01:33:34):
she's properly known, and that AOC, you know, with thirty
thousand people come to hear her speak in our state
earlier this year, that's pretty amazing. Her image rating was
the best of all of the Democrats measured. And I
feel that even independence will give her the time of
day of like, tell me about your brand of populism
without her being so tied to Bernie Sanders or just
so far left. And I'm not saying she's becoming a moderate,

(01:33:56):
but her having a better image rate than Kamala or Gavin.

Speaker 2 (01:34:00):
Newsom is pretty surprising.

Speaker 5 (01:34:02):
Second most important thing the question on Ukraine and aid
to Ukraine. I find it absolutely fascinating that Donald Trump
in ten years has turned Republicans or a majority of
Republicans into more of an isolation party when it comes
to projecting strength in the kind of George W. Bush
neo conservative thing, and that Democrats are the number one

(01:34:25):
party when it comes to going as far as possible
and supporting the Ukraine. I find that amazing that Donald
Trump has actually changed, you know, the Republican party that
used to be. You know, after nine to eleven, we're
going over there and boots on the ground, and we're
projecting world strength everywhere where Donald Trump and his party,
and we know, Maggie has been like, I think we

(01:34:46):
don't need to do that anymore. I don't think we
need to do that. And there's a great discussion around that.
But how many Republicans are like, yep, I am an
isolationist Republican which harks back to the days of like
nineteen thirty. I find that utterly fascinating that Republicans are
much more reserve about foreign eight in all its forms.

Speaker 2 (01:35:03):
Fascinating.

Speaker 1 (01:35:04):
Yeah, that's a great insight, and you know, probably part
of a potential bigger conversation that I'm sure political scientists
will look at of just how much the Republican Party
has changed in recent years.

Speaker 2 (01:35:15):
That's a very jarring example. Free trade.

Speaker 1 (01:35:18):
Also Republicans turning against free trade because of Trump. Another
very interesting one. David Flaherty runs Magellan Strategies. You got
to check out this Colorado twenty twenty five voter opinion survey.
It really is fascinating. It's up at Magellanstrategies dot com.

Speaker 5 (01:35:34):
Yes, to make sure that it's under the blog section.
It's not front and center in case some people go
to Magellan Strategies. I just if you go to our blog,
you'll see it's posted right there. It's the most recent
post and it's all in there for you to download view,
make up your own mind. We covered a ton of
stuff because there's a ton of stuff going on, but
I just really appreciate having the opportunity to discuss it,

(01:35:55):
and I appreciate that you appreciate the research. There's a
lot of interesting things in here.

Speaker 1 (01:35:59):
Absolutely Okay, Magellan Strategies dot Com. Click where it says
blog and you will find this. David, thanks for your time.
Really fascinating research and a great conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:36:07):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (01:36:08):
Good to see your ros Startisians.

Speaker 2 (01:36:10):
All right you two Hi, Mandy can thank you are
oh h? Dave Tepper said, I need to mention a
few Yes, Garrett Bowles coming three pm. We've got Demani
Leech fifteen.

Speaker 8 (01:36:24):
Got mayor Mike Johnston at three thirty. Why do we
have them all coming on ross? We're getting a new stadium.

Speaker 2 (01:36:29):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (01:36:30):
And then five pm Rod Smith former obviously big time
wide receiver star for the Broncos.

Speaker 2 (01:36:35):
So during KOA Sports Today three, three fifteen and three thirty,
you hat Garrett.

Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
Bowls, Demany Leach and Mike Johnston talking about the new
stadium that'll be at Burnham Yards, although it probably won't
open for at least I would think four years and
maybe maybe thirty one, maybe all five Yeah, maybe right.
Maybe it's because the least at the current stadium goes
to twenty thirty so maybe maybe maybe.

Speaker 8 (01:36:56):
They'll go month month at the current stadium.

Speaker 2 (01:36:58):
Here's the thing, this is a project, isn't that the best?

Speaker 8 (01:37:01):
We'll be done on time. Yeah, it will be done
without cost overruns. It will be like the miraculous thing
we've ever seen, and I'm here for it. This makes
me like this ownership team even more, said, I need
to have to sit here and argue against a tax
increasing for a stadium.

Speaker 1 (01:37:16):
Yeah, but I would have Yeah, me too, because he's never.

Speaker 8 (01:37:19):
They never meet the projections in terms of the economic
impact that they tell taxpayers are going to get.

Speaker 1 (01:37:24):
And and you know, I like rich people, but there's
something quite offensive about one of the richest people in
the country coming with his handout to taxpayers saying I
want an extra quarter cent on every dollar that.

Speaker 2 (01:37:38):
You buy stuff that you spend at the store. What
do you got?

Speaker 8 (01:37:41):
Coming up, we're going to talk a little bit about
NAPE scores, the National Associate or National Assessment of Economic dang.
I used to know what NAPS stood for, Basically, students
cannot read or write, and we're going backwards with those numbers.
I gotta I think I know what it is.

Speaker 2 (01:37:57):
Ross.

Speaker 8 (01:37:57):
I'll tell people during my show.

Speaker 2 (01:37:59):
Everybody stick a for Mandy's Fabulous Show. Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:38:02):
A listener says that Axios has Barb Kirkmeyer's announcement as
news thirty two minutes ago, so maybe she's officially in officially.

Speaker 8 (01:38:10):
She's filed, but she'll make the big announcement today.

Speaker 2 (01:38:12):
Okay, all right, very good.

Speaker 1 (01:38:14):
I think there's a lot of Republicans going to be
running for governor, but my gut instinct at the moment
is she'd be the one I'm leaning towards.

Speaker 2 (01:38:21):
But I need to think a little more. Not crazy, yeah,
not crazy, all right, stick around for Mandy.