Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Clay Travis. I'm sure you know him. You see him
on Fox News frequently. He's founder the hugely successful sports
website OutKick, and he is co host of The Clay
and Buck Show, which is one of the very top
nationally syndicated shows in the entire country. And he's got
a new book out just came out yesterday called and
I love the title Balls and there's a basketball or
(00:22):
two basketballs actually on the cover of the book the
subtitle How Trump young Men and Sports Saved America.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Clay Travis, Welcome to Kowa. It's good to have you. Hey,
great for y'all having me appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So before we jump into the book, I just would
love to get your take on what happened yesterday in
elections around the country. I imagine it'll be almost everything
that you're going to talk about on your show today,
but what's on your mind.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah, Look, I'm in New York City right now, so
let's put a pin in that. I'll come back to it,
because I think there's two different stories really being told
in New Jersey and in Virginia. The same voters who
showed up for President Trump in twenty twenty four did
not show up for either candidate. In twenty twenty five,
Trump got more votes in New Jersey than the winning
(01:09):
Democrat candidate did by two hundred thousand votes. Trump got
more votes in Virginia than the winning Democrat candidate did
In the election last night, there were around six hundred
thousand less Trump voters that showed up in twenty twenty
five then showed up in twenty twenty four. So the
(01:31):
story here, and it's not a new one, but I
do think it's something that is ominous somewhat for Republicans
going forward next year, is when Trump's on the ballot,
tons of low propensity voters show up to support Donald Trump.
When he is not on the ballot, those same voters
are very, very difficult to motivate to turn up. And
(01:54):
I think that's the question going forward for a year
from now, as we prepare for the midterms, and for
three years from now, as we think about what America
will look like without Trump on the ballot.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I think you're exactly right, and I want to just
follow up with you on the very last thing you
said there. I suspect, but obviously I don't know that.
Whoever the next Republican presidential candidate is even if it's
a candidate that is perceived as very maga, even if
it's jd Vance, I suspect that that candidate will have
(02:28):
a very hard time getting, you know, getting all, let's say,
or close to all of President Trump's voters, because there's
something unique about Trump, and there's something unique about Trump's
appeal to his voters that I have a feeling will
not fully translate to anybody else.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Well, that's the concern, and I don't think that's a
crazy I don't think that's a crazy take at all. Now,
the question is to what extent is Trump's motivation of
Democrat party voters also an outlier, because let's say we
had a Gavin Newsom versus jd Vance twenty twenty eight
presidential election, that would be what the betting markets would
(03:10):
tell you is the most likely matchup that we would see.
To what extent does Trump's connection to jd Vance as
his vice president translate to votes? And also to what
extent does Trump's connection to jd Vance motivate Democrat voters?
Because Democrats The analogy I would make is Democrats, in
(03:32):
many ways are the most die hard of the political
universe supporters, and I was using this because I come
out of the world as sports. As an analogy, if
you think about a college campus, people show up in
big numbers for football games. Football games kind of like
a presidential election. You know, one hundred thousand people, eighty thousand,
(03:52):
whatever it is. That fan base for that school can
still be substantial, but maybe only ten thousand people show
up for a basketball game, and then by the time
you get to women's softball or baseball, it might be
a thousand or even less. People care their fans, but
as the significance of the event declines, the number of
(04:12):
people who are willing to show up for.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
It declines as well.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
The Democrats are the diehards, and so that is why
I think Democrats should be a favorite in the twenty
twenty six midterm elections, because they hate Trump so much
that even when Trump is not on the ballot, they're
willing to show up. People who love Trump are not
as willing to show up and support other people when
(04:36):
Trump's name itself is not on the ballot. So I
think that's one of the big challenges going forward.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I agree with that as well. I'll say one last
thing and then I want to talk about your book.
I think that President Trump is perceived as not just
not succeeding, but also to a certain extent, not trying
hard enough when it comes to cost of living issues.
And cost of living is not down, and that's what
he ran on in addition to the border. But people
(05:01):
care about cost of living a lot more. And I
think for Republicans to have a decent chance in the
midterms next year in the presidential election two years after that,
Trump and Republicans generally are going to have to do
more and appear that they're doing more when it comes
to that most important issue.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Do you want to say anything.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Real quick on that, so we at least get a
several minutes to talk.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
About your book.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
But I think the biggest challenge that Trump has when
it comes to cost of goods is Biden was so
bad on inflation that everything costs more than we think
you should.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Oh, that's exactly right. So if the slow.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Rate of growth or the rate of growth has declined
on cost of goods, which it has, every time I
go to Chick fil A, I still think I can't
believe I'm paying fifty dollars to feed my family at
a fast food place, and most people in America, I think,
feel the same way no matter who the president is.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
We're talking with Clay Travis. His new book is Balls,
How Trump, Young Men and Sports Saved America. So you
start the book talking about Leah Thomas formerly Will Thomas,
and I think everybody knows the story about the you know,
male swimmer dominating female collegiate swimming. My question for you
(06:08):
on that one was, were you surprised at just how
big an issue that became in the presidential election?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
No, because I think presidential elections are complicated and sometimes
issues need to be crystallized. And when you tell me
that a man is now a woman because he has
told me that, that's a bridge too far for me
and for most people. Look, if you want to dress
up in women's clothing or men's clothing, and you want
(06:39):
to change your name and that makes you happier, and
even you want to have surgery to try to reflect
that in some way, I think adults should have the
ability to pursue happiness as they see fit. But it
is different me saying that than hey, well, certainly we
don't even need to get into kids that shouldn't happen
for kids, but I'm just talking about adults here.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
But it's different.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Then.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Hey, not only am I a woman, but I should
be able to become a women's sports champion. Most men
and women out there, even a huge majority of Democrats,
see this as just being wrong. And so it also
requires me to be a liar because you have a gender,
and you then are saying that I have to accede
(07:24):
to your gender to such an extent that you can
become a women's champion. Having a dude in a women's
bathing suit winning a women's sports championship is patently absurd
to most people.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
And Trump saw it because he's got an.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Intuitive sense for sanity and ran the ads which we
write about in the book Kamala is for they them,
Trump's for you.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
One of the great ads, one of the most effective
political ads, right, one of the most effective political ads
I've seen in years and years and years. All Right,
I got about two minutes left. Let me try to
get through a couple other things with you. And for
those just joining or talking with Clay, his new book
just released yesterday is Balls, How Trump, young men and
Sports saved America. So you, along with your co host
(08:09):
Buck Sexton, are among the very few people who talk
a lot about Trump and actually know him. A lot
of people talk a lot about Trump, we never met him.
What's something that you think most people don't understand or
misunderstand about him?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Trump is just a grandfather and a really nice guy.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
There's a little anecdote in the book where we interview
Trump at mar A Lago and he won't let us
leave because he's insistent that we get the mar A
Lago milkshake because they make the best milkshakes anywhere in America,
in typical Trump hyperbole, and I remember saying, boy, you know,
I bet Hitler didn't do interviews, and then insists that
people take a strudle with him, you know, right after
(08:47):
they were finished, because where he was made the best
strudles in anywhere in America. And I think that is
probably what would stand out the most. My wife has
met Trump several different times. How great, accommodating and willing
to share credit he is. They get cut out a
lot of times in his speeches, but go look at
(09:07):
the number of times that he will name twenty or
twenty five different guys and gals that are there at
his rallies. I think the idea that he is domineering
and a jerk is maybe the biggest lost element of Trump.
He's actually just an incredibly likable guy in a one
(09:28):
on one setting.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Okay, last thing, and this is one we could talk
for an hour about, but I need you to keep
it to less than a minute. There's a lot in
this particular sentence in your book that I want you
to just elaborate on a little and I'm quoting you
now to me. The collapse of sports as a unifying
source across race, sex, preference, gender and political divides is
inextricably intertwined with the rise of social media.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So there's two big things there.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
The collapse of sports is a unifying thing and the
social media part. But say anything you want that you
can you know, get out pretty quick.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
Well.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Look Kaepernick, the protest of Kaepernick, and the rise of
Michael Sam and everything else. Identity politics is inextricably intertwined
in my mind, with the rise of social media because
it led to people saying as a black woman, as
a trans of Asian midget, whatever you want to say.
Look at how often people preface their opinions by describing themselves.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I always say, it's like we've gone.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Back in time to the divine right of kings, which
is ironic because.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
They say, no kings.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But your argument is premised on your identity, not the
quality of the argument. To me, the quality of the
argument is all that matters. Look at Karee Jean Pierre.
Every time she gets questioned on anything, she says, well,
I'm a black lesbian. Well, what the heck do I
care about that? What I care about is can you
or can you not do the job? When you use
your race and identity, your gender preference as both sword
(10:54):
and shield, it dilutes and distorts overall American conversation and debate.
And I think that's why, overall we're seeing so much
anger emanating, and I think social media has certainly accelerated that.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Clay Travis is founder the hugely successful sports website OutKick.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
He is co.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Host with Buck Sexton, of the incredibly successful as well
Clay and Buck Show, one of the top radio shows
in the country. In his new book, just out yesterday
is Balls, How Trump Young Men in Sports Saved America.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Glat to talk. Great to talk to you for the
first time, Clay, Thanks for doing this. Okay, great, appreciate y'all.
All right, we're gonna take a quick break. We'll be
right back on Kowa.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Over the course of the show, I am going to
have a lot to say about what happened in yesterday's elections,
and I'm going to.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Start on that now. I'm going to do a few
minutes on it.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Now. In the next segment of the show, I'm going
to have Leland vinderd from News Nation. We're going to
talk about the elections more as well. But over the
course of the show, I really have a lot to say.
I also want to encourage you, or at least or
ask you to go to Rosscominski dot substack dot com
check out my note this morning, which is the first
time I've ever done a video for a sub stack.
(12:04):
It also gets posted to my YouTube. But it's a
video where I talk about many thoughts about.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
The elections last night.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
And of course, if you go to Rosskominsky dot com
and you check out my blog note today, my Wednesday blogcast,
I have a ton of thoughts and analysis in there
as well.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Let me talk right.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Now about just a brief, big picture thing and then
spend maybe a minute and a half or two minutes on Colorado,
and then later in the show we'll do more of
the of the national stuff.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
The macro overarching point to.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Make about yesterday's elections, not just in Colorado, but in
so many places, is that there was a massive reaction
against Donald Trump. There was a massive reaction by Democrats
and many unaffiliated voters against Donald Trump, and on the
Republican side, as Clay Travis noted, a lot of Republicans
simply didn't turn out. And we can debate about whether
(13:00):
that's because they're only motivated to vote for Trump or
they were demotivated because they're not very happy with the
job Trump is doing. But in any case, across the country,
it's not just the Democrats did well, it's that they
did exceptionally well now here in Colorado every place I looked,
and I have not looked at every election, but all
(13:21):
the ballot measures I looked at, with all the ballot
measures I looked at, including Propositions LLL and MM, and
the Denver Vibrant Bonds and the Denver ban on flavored
tobacco and VAPI wells. Actually it was a measure to
overturn the ban. So the ban overturn failed, so the
(13:41):
ban remains in place. There were lots of proposed tax hikes,
mill levy hikes. Everyone that I looked at past, everything
that I saw so far in Colorado that involved raising taxes,
raising spending, borrowing money.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Everyone I have seen.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So far past and passed by wide margins. And then
on the candidate side, again, I have not looked at
every election, okay, and I know that there's some stuff in.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Some more rural parts of Colorado.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
A listener sent me a note about Montrose, where I
guess the Republican won an election there.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
But it was much closer than you would have thought.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
But around here in the Denver metro area, it looked
to me like an absolute wipeout of whatever remaining Republicans
and Conservatives were. If you were a Republican or a
Conservative up for election in the Denver metro area, you
probably lost.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
And everyone that I looked at lost.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
So, for example, school board races, and in Denver there's
no Republican, right, but the in Denver all of the
Union backed candidates for school board appear to have won.
Same in Cherry Creek, same in Douglas County. All right,
And I assumed Jefferson County, I didn't go look, but
Jefferson County is pretty liberal county these days.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
But Douglas County.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
All the candidates who appear to have won were the
union backed candidates, really really something. And in Aurora, it
appears that Daniel Jurinsky has lost her seat.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
And it appears that all of.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
The ones that I from my political bias, from my
political perspective, the members of the city council who I prefer,
who are incumbents, it appears at the moment that they
have all lost and that there has been essentially a,
like I said, a wipeout of remaining Republicans and Conservatives
(15:39):
in the elections that were held yesterday. As for what
that means going forward for next year's midterms for twenty
twenty six, if I were a Republican, I would be very,
very scared right now and wondering what I could do
to try to make things better. We're going to talk
about that more later in the show when we come back.
(16:00):
Leland Vitter joins us. I mentioned that every tax increase
I had looked at so far in the state of
Colorado past, but there was one that I talked about
on the show a few weeks ago where I encouraged
people to vote. Know, and it does look like it failed.
And that was Manitou Springs wanting to raise their excise tax,
basically tax on tourists and tickets and all kinds of things.
It looks like that one failed. Okay, last night I
(16:23):
watched election coverage entirely on one network, and that was
News Nation, which is my cable news home these days,
not least because of my friend and frequent guest Leland Vitter,
who joins us now despite having stayed up late with
election coverage. Leland, thanks, thanks so much for being here.
Appreciate it as always.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Always good Ross.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I should mention I should have mentioned this before. Leland's
show was called on Balance and it airs on News
Nation at seven pm Mountain time weekdays. And you can
sign up for his daily email, which is really his
show prep at war notes dot com. Uh, and you
can buy his book at born Lucky dot com. All right, Leland,
I think neither one of us is surprised that the Democrats.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Did well last night. Were you surprised at how well? No,
not particularly. I was surprised a little bit.
Speaker 6 (17:18):
In New Jersey, I think is the place that I
would pick out is the is the place that you know,
if if there was going to be an expansion of
the MAGA coalition and if somehow the shift of working
class voters to Republicans was gonna get sticky, that was
(17:39):
where it was gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
And it did not.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Indeed, and Chittarelli did five points worse than he did than.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
He did the last time. Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
And here in Colorado, by the way, and for those
who don't know, Leland used to be here. He used
to be on on Fox thirty one right here in Denver,
so he he likes his place a lot, and he
knows a little about it. Here it was just an
absolute wipeout of you know, whatever conservative or Republican candidates
were on the ballot in a race that had any
chance of being close to Democrats. The Democrats won. So
(18:08):
it seemed like there was just out performance everywhere. And
I wonder how much of this do you think is
a negative reaction to Trump. How much do you think
is MAGA voters who historically don't turn out for anyone
except Trump doing that? But even more, what else do
you think we're the key factors in what we saw.
Speaker 6 (18:31):
Well, the economy, the economy, the economy, that there's not
a lot for Republicans to be excited about right now.
There's an awful lot for Democrats to be angry about
right now. There was a desire by Democrats to turn
(18:52):
this into a referendum on Trump, but a desire for
Republicans to try to make it about something different with
which disincentivizes Trump Republican voters or you know, Magaga voters.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
So I think you put all of it together, it
makes it makes sense, you know.
Speaker 6 (19:10):
I think the lesson to me from this is that
things change, you know, and I spend a lot of
time listening to you know, people Republicans be so upset
today in the same way I listened to Democrats be
so upset a year ago.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
You know, there's a lot of Republicans.
Speaker 6 (19:26):
Today feeling about the country and everything else the same
way Democrats did a year ago.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
And the lesson is things change in America.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
I think what is also noteworthy is how the extremes
in America are becoming far more powerful. You know that
that Donald Trump, and especially Trump two point zero represents
an extreme of the Republican Party, and how it's in
how he's doing things. And Mendami represents an extreme of
(20:00):
the Democratic Party. And those who would say Abigail Spamberger
and Mikey Cheryl are moderates just don't know who they are.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Right, Okay, So I agree with all that, but I
would add that Cheryl and Spamberger positioned themselves as moderates
and for people who don't not really well not really okay,
you want to elaborate by Spambor.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Spamberger couldn't say.
Speaker 6 (20:23):
Spamberger was asked multiple times, can you say no boys
and girls sports?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
And you couldn't even say that.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
That's not a moderate. That's not a moderate position in
any way, shape or form to me.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Actually, one thing that surprised me at least a little
was that Jay Jones won the VA at the Virginia
Attorney General's race.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And you talked about this a lot.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
On News Nation last night as well, you know, with
you and styr Walton and that whole crew that I
was watching all night long. That one, I have to say,
surprised me a little bit. And I think shows how
much people think of politics these days as war and
the other guy is the enemy, and you're and you
will not say anything bad, like Republicans have no enemies
(21:08):
on the right and Democrats have no enemies on the left.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
And I gotta tell you, as an American, I hate it. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
Well, so you're talking about Jay Jones, who won in
Virginia as the attorney general, the definition of sort of
an empty suit just with a party affiliation next to him,
who openly fantasized in text messages about killing members of
the other party, about the Speaker of the House, and
actually was texting members of the Virginia State Legislature about
(21:42):
how he would like to see the Republicans Speaker of
the House's children die in their mother's arms. And the
text messages came out and it made a difference, but
not that much of a difference. You know, before, you know,
twenty years ago, this kind of stuff disqualifying. And I
think what you're getting to ross is the point that
(22:03):
really now in America, nothing is disqualifying. You're voting for
a party one way or the other. And that just
the way it is, especially in an election like this,
as you know, especially in sort of what you call
it off off your election, that's very.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Much just about the base.
Speaker 6 (22:19):
This isn't This isn't about getting out, you know, sort
of voters on the margins.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I feel, and I think I've felt this way for
a long time since the rise of Trump, that Republicans
can't win with Trump and they can't win without Trump.
Trump can win, but other Republicans, even going back to
the last congressional election, Yeah, Republicans have the majority, but
there was a lot of thinking going into the twenty
twenty four elections as you well know that they might
(22:46):
have a twenty seat majority or something like that, and
they've got a three or four seat majority, and I
I don't know how Republicans are going to manage a
situation where in order to win a primary some Republican
probably needs to move way towards Maga.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
But if that sticks with him in the general election,
they're going to lose.
Speaker 6 (23:06):
This is a problem for both parties that the extremes
of both parties have gotten more and more powerful.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
And you know.
Speaker 6 (23:15):
In certain in certain places it doesn't matter because of
Jerry Manderin and everything else, especially Congress. But we're at
a we're at a weird place politically in America, and
we have we have gotten there through uh, entirely of
our own fault as a people, and I think the
(23:37):
market for politics will self correct.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
That's the George will.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
Axem that you know, there is this desire for a
transformational candidate in the center, and when that happens, that
that will move America back to the center.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Right if such a person can get through the primary
and actually end up in a general.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Well true and well pointed what I would say.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
And I have, you know, my own personal feelings about
mam Dami that he's you know, terrorist adjacent and a
radit you know, embraces sort of the tenets of radical
political Islam and on and on and on.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Those are my own personal views.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
But if you watch him as a politician, he is
a generational talent. He is a extraordinarily talented politician, and people.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Are not giving him that credit.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
And I think the lesson is ross that Americans are
hungry for someone who inspires them, even if the way
that that person inspires them is not necessarily what their
own views would be. I mean, you think about the
idea that mam Dami, who you know, embraces Gaza in Hamas,
(24:57):
and we know what Gaza Hamas does to women, or
what Hamas does to women in Gaza and what the
Islamist you know, the hardcore Islamists do to women, And
yet eighty percent of millennial women voted for Mandami. There's
a cognitive disconnect that goes on in some of these situations,
and it can be explained by people who are just
(25:19):
desperate for someone who inspires them. Now the dot dot
dot is someone who also tells them it's not their fault,
they don't have to work that hard, they're the victim,
on and on. But that's kind of part of being inspired.
It's no different than what Donald Trump did.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Also, I do think Mom, Donnie could have been beaten
if there were a decent alternative. It's hard to think
of a more flawed alternative than Andrew Cuomo. And I
know his brother works with you and is a friend
of yours and all, and I like him too, But man,
I mean, if Andrew Cuomo is your savior, you're in trouble.
Speaker 6 (25:57):
Well that that is part of the reckoning that the
Democrats are.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Going to have to go through.
Speaker 6 (26:01):
And I would argue that what we saw tonight is
not dissimilar to what we saw in two thousand and
nine with the Tea Party in the rise of this
movement in the Republican Party that ended up becoming magna
there there and that.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
That that was the beginning. That was the.
Speaker 6 (26:22):
Beginning of John You know, the end of John McCain
Republican politics. This is the end of Andrew Cuomo, Chuck
Schumer democratic politics.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
We're talking with Leland Vindor. His brilliant show is called
On Balance. It's on News Nation at seven pm Mountain Time,
replays at.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Ten pm our time, and.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
If you go to warnotes dot com you can sign
up for his free daily email. All right, I have
I have two last questions for you. Are you really
having ginger shots at breakfast?
Speaker 6 (26:57):
Well, I was really having ginger shots at breakfast. This
is when my wife and I were in California, and she,
when we got there on the first day at breakfast,
ordered a ginger shot and I didn't know what it was,
so I ordered one and then filmed myself taking it
(27:18):
because what came I thought would be a shot. Instead,
this was like a diet coke can size portion of ginger,
I guess. And I took that, and then I subsequently
took four more days of it. I can't tell I
(27:38):
feel better now that I'm not taking them, but I'm
trying to figure out if that's because I took them
before and now it's.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Just the effects.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
I'm still confused as to what the.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Real effects were.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Okay, I mean, I think ginger tastes kind of gross.
Do you like it?
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Was it?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Was it something you enjoyed or was it more like
a mantilla elf?
Speaker 2 (28:03):
No?
Speaker 7 (28:03):
No?
Speaker 6 (28:04):
And the the videos of me like almost gagging was
not ai?
Speaker 2 (28:08):
That was real?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Okay, last question for you, and it's the question I
always make my last question with you. So other than elections,
what's going to be an interesting and important topic on
your show tonight?
Speaker 6 (28:24):
My favorite topic tonight, I think is going to be
talking to a realtor from the suburbs of New York
because of what interests they're now seeing and whether whether
that really is whether that really is actually happening or
or not.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Cuomo has a Riley.
Speaker 6 (28:43):
Tonight, which I think is going to be a really
interesting interview and one that I'd like to I want
to watch. But I think that that's going to be
the most interesting thing. The other thing is I think
that the stuff that is going on right now legally
with the Supreme Court and Trump and tearor is going
to define the next year in a way that we
(29:04):
don't quite appreciate right now when we can talk about
the shiny shiny objects.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
And you know how much of a nerd I am.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I spent most of much of this morning with my
earbuds in listening to the Supreme Court oral arguments on
the tariffs case because it is incredibly important. Leland Viitter's
show on Balance seven PM weeknights on News Nation, best
show on cable news. Thanks for making time for us
in the middle of your travels Leyland, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Always fun ross, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
All right, So all right, I'm gonna keep talking here,
and yeah, his show is the best. It really is
the best, and I'll say second best, although close second,
close second would be Brett bher special Report on Fox
News or maybe they're even tied, but for anyone to
be even tied with Brett Behar is a pretty remarkable thing.
Leland's show is really fantastic. Let me talk about tariffs
(29:55):
for a minute, because I did spend time this morning
listening to the oral argum at the Supreme Court at
the time that I happen.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
To be listening. All of the.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Questioning was of the Solicitor General of the United States.
Last name is sour I think saue Er if I
remember it correctly. Anyway, all the questioning was of him.
He was making the argument in favor of why a
particular law called IEEPA, the International Emergency International Economic Emergency
(30:24):
Protection Act or something like.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
That ie PA.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Why that law, which does not use the word tariffs anywhere.
He's arguing that that law nevertheless allows the President.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Of the United States to impose tariffs.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
I think it doesn't, but I think that it's not
a slam dunk at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Trump should lose just as a matter of law.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
I'm not saying because I don't like the tariffs, even
though I don't, But I'm saying, as a matter of
reading the.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Law, I think Trump should lose the case.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
I think it's clear that the three liberals will vote
against him.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I think it's reasonably likely.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
That Alito and maybe Thomas will probably vote for Trump
having this power, And.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I just have no idea where the other ones go.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Because it's a very interesting case in the sense that,
on one hand, there are conservative members of the Supreme
Court who don't mind increasing executive power more than I
would prefer, but you know, they do what they're going
to do. But on the other hand, some of these
same conservatives generally object to reading a law beyond the
(31:37):
clear meaning of its letters in a way that expands
the authority of government to do something. It's sort of
the Major Questions Act, right, so that you generally the
Supreme Court is saying, if it's unclear whether a law
allows the government to do something that's really big. And clearly,
(32:01):
tariffs are really big, right, We're talking about tens of
billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes
taken from Americans and brought into the United States treasury.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
That's huge.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
And so the Major Questions doctrine from the Supreme Court
would suggest that when the government is looking to do
something that big, you cannot assume that the authority is
there for the government to do it unless it's clearly
spelled out in law.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
And this isn't.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
So there's really a tension there for some of these
conservative justices, and we're gonna have to see how that
all plays out, and oral arguments are today, but I
don't think let's see I don't think we would expect
to get a result until spring, probably until March or April,
and in the meantime, these tarifts are going to stay
(32:54):
in place. By the way, one really interesting question about this,
and I don't know if this will play into how
the justices decide the case, but a really interesting question
would be if the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Rules against Trump.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Will they also rule that the government needs to refund
all of the illegally collected tariffs. That would really be
something and it would be interesting to see what that
does to financial markets and to bond markets, which are
you thinking a little bit about this tariff revenue being
there somewhat offsetting the deficit and national debt. So anyway,
(33:38):
very very interesting case, incredibly important case when it comes
to executive power, and we'll see how it all plays out,
all right. I still have a lot more to say
about the elections in Colorado and elsewhere, and also some
more about the ongoing government shutdown and what I think
(33:58):
is some pretty outrageous hypocrisy, even though you know that's
kind of a normal thing among politicians, but some pretty
silly hypocrisy from Democratic members of Congress here in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
We'll talk about it next here on KOA. But I
do want to invite.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
You to text into me right now at five six
six nine zero, and I have a very broad kind
of question for you, and that is, what is your
reaction to what happened in the elections yesterday?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
What's your reaction?
Speaker 1 (34:24):
I have a lot to say about the elections yesterday.
I spent some time earlier on the show talking about
what happened here in Colorado and basically here in Colorado
and especially in the Denver metro area. And you hear
some of the details just you heard some of the
details just now from Intrepid Chad Bauer in the news
broadcast there, with some names of candidates and so on.
(34:46):
But as far as I can tell, around the Denver
metro area, all or close to all of the furthest
left candidates and the union backed candidates in school boards,
for example, they all won, and Conservatives and Republicans all
lost in every race that I saw.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Now I'm not saying I saw every race.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
I'm sure some Republican or some Conservatives somewhere in the
Denver metro area won something, all right. But with those
things I've seen, right the Denver school Board. Now there's
no conservatives there, but the further left people won the
Denver school Board.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
The union backed.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
People beat the conservatives in the Douglas County school Board
in all four seats as far as I can tell.
Cherry Creek School District. The two conservative women both lost.
You get the idea, I mean, think about Douglas County, right,
Douglas County. All four of those candidates who were, you know,
let's say, on a policy basis, the candidates who I
(35:41):
would prefer, they all lost in the union back candidates won,
and I did.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Not yet very involved in that.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Ben Albright had a couple of those candidates from the
Douglas County School Board on the show on Monday when
I was out. Mandy was at an event with all
of them, with the conservaiveatives and the union backed ones,
and Mandy told me off the air that she thought that,
separate from policy, just how good are you as a candidate,
(36:11):
regardless of what you support or what you believe. Mandy
thought the union backed candidates were just better, and the
conservative candidates weren't really ready for prime time, and they
didn't lose by a lot. You know, I lose by
five points six points seven points. I mean, you know,
but in Douglas County, for conservatives to lose by like
that seems like a lot. But I do think there's
(36:31):
something to be said about candidate quality. A few people
have mentioned something to me about the dysfunction of the
Colorado Republican Party. That is certainly true. The Colorado Republican
Party has been a mess for a long time. Britta
Horne is trying to make it better, but I don't know.
I'm not paying close enough attention to the ins and
out to that to know whether she's doing a good job.
There does seem to still be some controversy around that.
(36:54):
And then you have these ass hats who go by
Rhino Watch and people like that who are from the
Dave Williams part of the party, and their gadflies and trolls,
and they lie a lot and.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
They have very.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Strange ideas, but they make it their mission to keep
dividing the party because that's how they make a living.
So in any case, I still I don't think that
a more functional Colorado or Republican Party would have made
much difference. This is a blue state that's getting bluer,
and yes, it's possible the pendulum might swing back toward
the middle at some point, but that point is not now,
(37:32):
and that point is not soon. And when the pendulum
does swing back, what will that even look like? Right,
maybe that'll look like a Republican winning the state attorney
general's office one day, or the secretary or a treasurer. Right,
maybe it'll look like that, But it's not gonna look
like a Republican majority in either chamber or the state
(37:54):
legislature for quite some time. This is a blue state
getting bluer.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Now.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
To be clear about one thing, many many people in
this state who might be kind of moderate really hate
Donald Trump, and that might make the state seem a
little bluer than it actually is. But even if you
adjust for that, it's hard to see Republicans doing well
in Colorado. Every tax hike that I could see that
(38:20):
involved raising property taxes and you know, raising tabor, de
brusing and stuff like that, they all seem to pass.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Now.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
I did note a listener said that the tax on
essentially on tourism items on tickets in Manitowo Springs failed
and that's great. That's great because they didn't want to
kill the tourism business there. But you know, it's interesting,
that's a very different kind of tax. That's a tax
that would have hurt business and employment in that town.
(38:50):
It wasn't an income tax and or a normal sales
tax or whatever, almost all of which that I saw passed.
So now let's talk about big picture a second. What
happened yesterday. Lots and lots of Republicans simply did not
turn out. And we've known this for a long time now,
many many Trump supporters, whether or not they're Republicans, but
(39:13):
mostly they are only turn out in elections when Trump
is on the ballot, and they don't turn out in
other elections. This is a huge problem for Republicans, including
in the next presidential election where Trump won't be on
the ballot. And sure, maybe his vice president will be
on the ballot. Maybe jd. Vance will will be the
(39:33):
Republican nominee. I have to say, I hope not. I
don't like him, but maybe he will. But even so,
what percentage of Trump's MAGA voters are going to turn
out for jd Vance who simply does not have Trump's
force of personality. I'm not trying to, you know, insult
Jdvance with that particular thing, although I'm happy to insult JD.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Vance on other things. Like I said, I.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Don't like him, but it's more of an observ rather
than a criticism to say Vance doesn't have Trump's charisma.
In fact, I don't know any Republican potential candidate right
now who has Trump's charisma and Trump's voters, his base
voters love him, and I don't know that that's going
(40:19):
to be transferable even to somebody who Trump endorses. And
when you're talking about elections that have been as close
as our last three, at least presidential elections, it's entirely
possible that you have someone whose policy positions are identical
to Trump's.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Just as a hypothetical, let's say JD.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Vance adopted every single Trump policy position, but he's still
not Trump. And let's say Trump gave his most aggressive
possible endorsement of JD. Vance in the general election, in
the primary and the general election going into twenty twenty eight,
and let's say JD.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Vance is the nominee.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
What percent of Trump's voters from twenty twenty four do
you think will turn out to vote for Vance in
twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
I don't mean some of them are going to vote
for the Democrat.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Right. I'm not saying they're gonna switch and vote dem
I'm saying, well, they bother to take the time to vote,
and if there's a drop off there of even just
a few percent, the Democrat's gonna win. I have a
lot more to say about this, you know. This is
one of those days I like to work in lots
(41:29):
and lots of other stories.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
I don't want to be very political for.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
The vast majority of a show, but this is a
day when we need to be. So I have more
to say on this, although I do also need to
tell you when we come back about some cool movie
stuff up for sale. We'll be right back on Kiowa.
I want you to text me anything you want to
say about your your reaction to the elections last night.
(41:54):
I should note I did not look at results in
l pass So County and El Paso County has been
pretty good lately on school board elections. One listener said
that there was one election there in D thirty eight
where somebody beat a Union candidate, so I hope that's true.
(42:15):
And also apparently Vicky Tonkins lost her election for El
Paso County Commissioner, which is great because she's insane and
she represents everything that's wrong with the Republican Party. So
there's that. In any case, text me at five six
six nine zero and tell me your thoughts how you're
feeling today after yesterday's elections, and I will read some
(42:36):
of your some of the listener texts, and respond to
them in the next segment of the show. Also, please
do me a favor and go to Rosskominski dot substack
dot com and if you want more of my thoughts
on elections, my piece today, which kind of says it
all in the title, I guess, is called Wipeout and
the subtitle is it's hard to imagine how Republicans could
(42:59):
have had a worse And so that's up at Rosskaminski
dot substack dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Please do subscribe. It's absolutely free.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
I try to write once or twice a week and
hopefully you will find it worthwhile.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
I mentioned some movie stuff to you.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Let me just interject something a little lighter before we
get back to politics and the Supreme Court and all
this stuff. So one of many people's favorite Christmas movies
is Elf with Will Ferrell, and I'm sure you're well
acquainted with it and well acquainted with his his green
suit and his little pointy hat and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
So I wanted you.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
To know that that suit is going to be up
for auction next month in London a group called the
prop Store. Well, the auction is called the prop Store
Winter Entertainment Memorabilia Auction, and they are going to start
the auction for that Will Ferrell suit at sixty five
(43:52):
thousand dollars, but it's estimated that it might go like
a quarter million dollars or something like that. And if
you buy this this suit, you will see that mister
Ferrell right for the actor has been written on the
belt and the top and the stockings, and then there's
(44:13):
a handwritten Hero three on the inside of the tunic.
According to CBS News, what else is going to be
up for sale the foam hoverboard from the Back to
the Future sequels, Marty McFly's foam hoverboard that's expected to
get at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars or so,
(44:33):
despite it, you know, having a little wear and tear.
And then this thing's pretty cool for Star Wars fans.
And I'm quoting from newser dot com the original Boba
Fet rifle from the Empire strikes back. What do you
think a rod you got to guess? What's your guess
as to the auction estimate for the amount that that
(44:58):
particular item will get at auction? The original Boba Fet
rifle from the Empire strikes back. What do you think
they're guessing that'll that'll get? I'm gonna be more upset
if I lowball it. So I'm gonna go seventy four
thousand dollars. Okay, let me word it a different way.
I low balled at big time, didn't I If you
(45:19):
had any amount of money, okay, how much would you
pay for that? Any amount of money like limitless? I
mean maybe not Elon Musk money. But if you had
one hundred million dollars?
Speaker 3 (45:31):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (45:32):
How much would you pay for that? Because you're a
big Star Wars guy, I am, but I probably would
only pay like thirty grand. But I bet it's probably
the way you looked at me. I'm gonna guess it's
two hundred and seventy thousand dollars, okay, So the estimate,
and of course it could come in lower, it could
come in higher. The estimate is nine and fifteen thousand.
(45:53):
Oh man, Yeah, but you know that's legendary and it's
the Empire strikes back, right, So it's one of those
first original movies.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
It's not the sort of bogus later stuff.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Okay, you know, I feel like that would be for
like the one of the Lightsabers. Though I didn't even
know who Boba Fett is, and I've seen those movies.
But which one is Bony Hunter the Mandalorian. Oh, well,
he's not really a Mandalorian.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
I mean today his name in the first movies.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
If I never saw the Mandalorian and I never saw
that stuff, if I only had seen the first few movies,
meaning the really good ones, what.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I know is name they ever say.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
I don't remember ever hearing his name until much more
recent But now I see a picture of them, I
know he is, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
A genetic clone of his father. Only one time did
they say it. Both of the original films.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Boba Fett was one of the most feared bounty hunters
in the galaxy, a genetic clone of his father, bounty
hunter Django fe Hmmm, yes, okay, both look like Mandalorians,
not actually Mandalorians. They just have the armor. It's some Mandalorian.
It's a race of people. It's this is the way,
so it would be like the space version of the
(47:08):
Spartans or something like that. Yeah, a culture of people.
Is it a race or is it a culture? I
think it's kind of both. Mandalorian a race or culture.
It's definitely a culture, but is it also the race?
You tell you the culture not a race? Okay, all right, yeah,
plant the plans or some Pandaloria. Yeah essentially, huh yeah,
(47:31):
all right. Not to be confused with Mandy listeners Mandylorians.
Maybe we'll start a little gofund me so that they
wo to try to buy this rifle you did hear
about like the dirty I don't like it.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
I need a better name for my new listeners.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
When we moved the show to six am to nine
am next Monday, all right, when we come back, I'm
gonna read more of your texts about yesterday's elections, and
I also have I got a lot to do still.
This show has is just jam packed, so keep it
here on Kawa. Thanks for spending some some more time
with me today, and I want to take a little
time before I get back to some of my own
thoughts about the elections. Actually, I'll tell you what I
(48:07):
changed my mind. I'm going to do one quick thought
of my own, and then I'm going to go through
and read a lot of listener texts on the air
and talk about them one quick macro point. And I
want to do this now, just to make sure I
get it in there at some point during the show.
President Trump campaigned on a bunch of issues, but the
(48:29):
two biggest were probably immigration and the cost of living.
He's done a very good job with immigration as far
as controlling the border. But when you watch some of
the scenes on television with ice enforcement against people who
(48:50):
have not committed crimes while in the United States of America,
right guys looking for work in front of home depot
or hotel worker or restaurant workers or that kind of thing.
And of course the so called mainstream media who doesn't
like Trump, they will amplify that. But that's the world
we live in. It might not be fair, but it's reality.
(49:13):
I think a lot of these scenes are things that
have many Americans uncomfortable, including many Americans who want the
administration to be very aggressive getting illegal alien gang members
and illegal alien criminals.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Out of the country.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
And I know that among show listeners, there are plenty
of people who say, any illegal alien is an illegal alien,
and if they get caught, they gotta go.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
I'm not going to debate that point with you. We
can debate that another day. My point is a purely
political one, and that is there are a lot of
people out there who feel really uncomfortable with some of
the aggressiveness that they are seeing from ICE.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
And as I've talked about on the show in recent months.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Part of what happened, Remember, Trump campaigned on getting the
criminals out, and the criminals doesn't mean an illegal alien, Okay,
that means someone who committed a crime while in the country,
not just committing a crime or a civil offense by
being in the country illegally.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
So those are different things. I think this has become.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
So what happened was Stephen Miller, who is one of
Trump's main henchmen, pushed the government, pushed ICE to meet
a quota of around three thousand a day illegal aliens
get them out of the country. Now they're not close
to meeting that there at last I read somewhere just
under two thousand. But the point there is, if you're
(50:54):
trying to meet a purely numerical quota. You're gonna go
where you can find them people the most illegal aliens.
And where are you going to find the most illegal aliens?
Is you know where people have jobs doing agricultural stuff
or hotel stuff or construction stuff. And of course you
start going over after those people. Now you start interfering
with the ability of those businesses to do get done
(51:17):
the things they want to get done, picking food, cleaning
the hotel rooms, and so on. Now, again, I'm not
making an argument here that it's right or wrong to
deport whatever illegal aliens you can find. What I am
saying is many Americans don't like it. And so Trump
has turned what would be very much a winning issue
(51:40):
for him into a sort of a break even issue
for him right by having ice in the minds of
some go too far and be too aggressive. Again, a
purely political point. I'm not debating the policy with you now,
and he did pulling yesterday. They asked voters what's the
(52:03):
most important issue to you? And the most important issue
for a plurality of people in the forties was the
economy and cost of living.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Right, And I don't remember what was.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Second after that, maybe crime, and immigration was I think third,
but long by a wide, wide margin, is.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
Way way behind.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Okay, So if the economy or cost of living was
let's say, the main issue for forty something percent of people,
immigration was the main issue for like eleven percent of people.
So now let's talk about the big issue cost of living.
Trump ran against the Biden inflation, and of course he
should have. Joe Biden caused massive inflation with terrible economic policy, terrible,
(52:47):
and Trump ran against it as well. He should have,
and he campaigned on getting the cost of living down, which,
to be fair to Trump, is something that would be
exceedingly difficult for a president to do, but nevertheless must
he would do it. And not only has the cost
of living not come down, it keeps going up at
a faster rate than the Fed once right. The Fed's
(53:10):
target rate for inflation is two percent, and it's still
pretty sticky around three percent, in part because there's still
so much money in the system due to the Biden
inflation and the expansion of money and all that during
that time, but also in part because of Trump's tariffs,
which increase prices on lots and lots and.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
Lots of things beyond the tariffs.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
When you think about what President Trump has been busy
doing over the last well over ten months of his presidency,
and I'm trying to be really just analyst here, I'm
not trying to be unfairly either praising or critical of Trump.
(53:58):
Just look at and think about what do you think
he's been busy with. Well, he's definitely been busy with immigration.
He's definitely been busy getting the DOJ to go after
his political opponents, which he said he was going to
do and then he said he wouldn't do, but you know,
we all knew he was going to do it to
some degree. He's been very, very busy with foreign policy
(54:19):
and gush, what an amazing achievement with the ceasefire that
could not have been achieved between Israel and Gaza without him,
And I have no idea whether it will persist, but
even where we are now with all the live hostages
out of Gaza could not have been achieved without Donald Trump,
and he deserves incredible credit for that. But he is
spending an immense amount of time on foreign policy, which
(54:42):
his base definitely did.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
Not vote for.
Speaker 1 (54:46):
His base America first, they don't care much about a
ceasefire here or there, They don't care much about the
Ukraine War. And yet President Trump is spending an immense
amount of time on foreign policy, traveling around the world.
So what has he And again that's not criticism, Okay,
I'm just kind of talking about what do people how
(55:08):
do people picture what Trump has been doing. He's been
doing immigration, he's been going after political enemies, He's been
doing a ton of foreign policy, and I don't know,
you know, and and the big beautiful bill passed. What
else can you think of that isn't kind of grasping?
What else can you think of that you could honestly
(55:30):
say the average voter would think Trump has been busy
doing this. Here's one thing I feel very confident saying,
the average voter does not believe that Donald Trump has
been spending much time, much less having any real success
at getting the cost of living down. And I think
that's part of the reason that the election results were
(55:51):
not just bad for Republicans and conservatives yesterday, but worse
than any polling.
Speaker 2 (55:57):
Right.
Speaker 1 (55:58):
The democrat one in New Jersey, by more than any
poll in the past month, had her ahead, and the
average of polls wasn't even close. You know, she massively
outperformed that, and then the same thing in Virginia. The
Democrat won there by much more than the real Clear
Politics average of polls. And I think a lot of
(56:21):
it has to do with the fact that Trump campaigned
on economics and cost of living.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
And has not delivered.
Speaker 1 (56:29):
And this, my friends, is going to be a huge
problem going forward for Republicans in next year's elections, a
huge problem. Republicans have been perceived as better on the
economy than Democrats, and surely Joe Biden was the worst
president for.
Speaker 2 (56:46):
The economy in a long long time.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
And Trump is better, but I think he's not better
enough because people in their minds think anybody other than
Biden would have been better. Maybe even Harris would have
been better. So Trump is better, but not better enough.
(57:09):
And if people feel poor, they're gonna either Republicans are
gonna stay home and Democrats are gonna be highly motivated.
And twenty twenty six, a year from now, is going
to be a repeat of what we just saw, but
on a national scale, with Republicans getting clobbered in the
House of Representatives, and that will be the end of
(57:29):
Trump's ability to do anything that requires the approval of Congress.
And if you think he's doing a lot of foreign policy,
now wait till you see what he does when he
can't get anything through Congress, because that's all that will
be left, which is why so many second term presidents
actually turn to foreign policy. So I think Republicans who
(57:50):
are in a lot of trouble, I think they can't
win with Trump, and I think they can't win without Trump.
Speaker 2 (57:56):
Now the good the upside for Republicans.
Speaker 1 (57:58):
Actually, I'm gonna save that there is a way to
think about the overall macro situation that isn't a complete
disaster for Republicans, even though yesterday was. But I promised
you I wanted to spend some time going through some
listener texts, So I want to do that right now.
Ross I'm not surprised blue places voted blue. I'm not either,
(58:20):
But that's not the point I was just making. The
surprise is not that New Jersey elected a Democrat. The
surprise is not that Virginia elected a Democrat as governor.
The surprise is that the Democrats won by so wide
a margin, wider than polling suggested, and even to the
extent that the really disgusting human being who was the
(58:43):
Democratic candidate for Attorney.
Speaker 2 (58:45):
General in Virginia won that election, won that election. What else?
The state is in a tail spin? And what happened
in New.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
York is astonishing. Colorado is in a tail spin, although
it's not showing up in economic deay yet. I do
think it will at some point. I'm not rooting for that,
but we have bad policy in high taxes, and we
have politicians who seem determined to impose laws and policies
that are not business friendly, and Colorado is dropping rapidly
in the rankings of business friendliness. What happened in New
(59:17):
York is astonishing, The listener says, is it?
Speaker 8 (59:20):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (59:21):
Really?
Speaker 9 (59:23):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (59:24):
New York City, which, by the way, check this out.
I want to make sure I say this very clearly.
New York City has more Jews than any country in
the world except for Israel.
Speaker 2 (59:41):
I didn't say that wrong.
Speaker 1 (59:43):
New York City has more Jews than any country in
the world except for Israel. Some of those Jews voted
for Zoron Mamdani, who is a communist anti Semite, and
that is not hyperbole. He is a communist anti Semi
(01:00:04):
But is it astonishing that he won?
Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
Maybe not as much as you think.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
He is young, very well spoken, good looking, has a
great smile, and spent the election talking about things.
Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
That people care about.
Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Now, his policy ideas are nonsense, you know. He says,
I'm gonna freeze everybody's rent. Your rent will never go up.
He's not gonna be able to get that done right.
But he talked about things that people care about. He
talked to young adults, he talked to millennials, saying, your
rent is too I remember that guy who ran on
the rent is Too damn High party. That was the
(01:00:41):
actual party, the rent is Too damn High party. That's
a real thing in New York. It's been a real
thing and for quite some time. Part of the problem,
I note is rent control, because you have all of
these apartments where people are are locked into their old rent.
Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
So they never give up the apartment.
Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
So the actual supply of rent apartments is much lower
than it should be, which drives up the cost of
rent for people who don't have an apartment already.
Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
And he wants to do this on an even bigger scale.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
But look, he's young, he's good looking, he's extremely well spoken.
He talked about things that people care about. And who
was the alternative Andrew Cuomo? Are you kidding me? An ancient,
disgraced establishment dude who killed a bunch of senior citizens
by requiring nursing homes to take in senior citizens with
(01:01:35):
COVID That was not a legitimate alternative. Zoramandani won with
fifty percent of the vote.
Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Now, I will say that or just over fifty percent.
Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
So Cuomo and the Republican Kurtis Sliwa together had something
like forty seven percent some number like that, and a
few percent went to some other candidates. So you can't
even say that in the absence of the Republican Andrew
Cuomo would have won. If you were going to beat
Mom Donnie, you needed a much more appealing candidate. So
(01:02:10):
I don't think that what happened in New York. And
also keep is absolutely astonishing, as the listener says, And
keep in mind, that's a city where an enormous percentage
of the electorate and voters, now all right, I'm talking
about citizens. An enormous percent there are foreign born and
(01:02:30):
very left wing. And it doesn't mean much about the
Democratic Party outside.
Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Of New York. It means a little. It means a little.
Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
I won't say it means nothing, but anyway, a listener text,
any repudiation.
Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
Of Donald Trump brings me joy.
Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
I'm a lifelong Republican, and I'm very happy this morning.
Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
I get that. I get I fully get that, and
I share some of it.
Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
The problem is that the pain that is going to
be caused by this repudiation of Trump.
Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
Might be really significant.
Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
And it's you know, there's a good chance that it's
going to hurt a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
On the other hand, my son's middle name is Rand.
Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
That's for the author Ein Rand, and Einrand's most famous
book is called Atlas Shrugged. And the theme of Atlas
Shrugged is that government slowly, steadily evolves or devolves to
this point where the people running it are these kind
of soft socialists, not as socialist even as Zorn Mandani,
but in that direction, and they start raising taxes on.
Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
The rich, so called rich. And this is what's.
Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
Happening here in Colorado with the passage of Proposition LL
and MM, which raises taxes on people making three hundred
thousand dollars a year or more in order to fund
quote unquote free school lunch.
Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
For middle class kids and rich kids.
Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
It's a really stupid policy, and it passed easily again
past the first time prop ff they ran out of money,
so now they're coming back to raise taxes even more.
And this passed easily because Colorado is full of leftists.
It's full of former Californians anyway. The theme of at
(01:04:15):
La Shrugged is that the government just becomes so punishing
of success that the talented, entrepreneurial, inventive people, the people
who are really the engine of economic growth. In the book,
you write, today's equivalent, today's equivalent of the character John
(01:04:39):
Galt in the book at La Shrugged is probably Elon Musk. Now,
imagine if Elon Musk and everybody even vaguely in the
direction of Elon Musk in terms of creativity and willingness
to take risk and ability to create new products that
people want and transform people's lives. Imagine that everybody like
(01:05:03):
that said, you know what, I'm done just letting you
tax me, and I'm done with you looking at me
the way a leech looks at the vein on your ankle.
Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
I'm done.
Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
I'm leaving. Try to do it without me, Try to
do it without us. That's the theme of Atlas shrubbed
that the productive people, the brilliant people, the entrepreneurial people,
the risk takers say, if I can paraphrase Cartman, screw
(01:05:36):
you guys. I'm going home, and they disappear, and I
feel like we're moving in that direction.
Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
I feel like we're moving in that direction.
Speaker 1 (01:05:47):
And you know, to me, if you live in that world,
the lesson of that is, things do not get better
until they get much much worse. Things do not get
better until the average person, the person who voted to
raise taxes on the ridge, until they start suffering. And
(01:06:12):
when we have people voting to raise taxes on not
on themselves, but on other people who they perceive as rich,
so they can force those other people to pay for
school lunch for their kids. Right even though they, as
a family make one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars,
they want to punish the person who makes three hundred
(01:06:33):
or four hundred thousand dollars to make them pay for
your kids' school lunch. There's no other way to put it.
I'm just going to say this very directly. I hope,
I hope that the people who are voting in proposition
LL and MM I hope they suffer financially. I hope
(01:06:55):
that productive people start leaving these states, including Colorado. I
hope that Colorado has a very very difficult time and
brain drain much the way New York has, much the
way Illinois has. And the reason I hope that Colorado
(01:07:16):
suffers that way is it's the only way to recover
Colorado to what it was and to.
Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
What it should be.
Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
I note that in Atlas Shrugged, when these productive people,
the elon Musks of that fictional world, the elon Musks
and the people who run oil companies, and the best
judges in the nation, and all kinds of people like that,
the people who run the most important metal metals companies,
(01:07:47):
when they vanish, they vanished to Colorado.
Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
That's what people used to think of Colorado.
Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
Colorado was the place that had a Western self reliance,
and now Colorado is just turning into the worst of
a leftist day dream. I had the opportunity to attend
a really wonderful event, Jewish Colorado's annual fundraiser. They had
(01:08:20):
a fantastic speaker, and I saw a bunch of folks there,
saw a bunch of friends there, and one of the
folks slash friends. Who I saw was State Senator Barb Kirkmeyer.
Has great to see Barb at an event supporting the
Jewish community, and then Barb said, Hey, I'd love to
be on your show. I'm like, all right, let's do it.
I'd love to have you on the show. So Barb
(01:08:41):
is a state Senator from Welld County. She's also seeking
the Republican nomination for governor. In my opinion at this moment,
based on who's in the race, I think Barb is
by far the best Republican candidate for governor of the
people who are in now. And so, with that long introduction,
(01:09:02):
good morning, Barb, thanks for being.
Speaker 4 (01:09:03):
Here, Good morning, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
Hey, good Two things I want to talk to you about. First,
Senator Michael Bennett, who has a decent chance of being
the Democratic nominee for governor, made some comments about affordability
in Colorado. And I'm not going to play the audio,
partly in the interesting time and partly because he swears
in the middle of it and I didn't want to
have to deal with bleeping that out. But I'm kind
(01:09:26):
of I'm wondering your thoughts as you have a Democrat
in a state that is run by Democrats criticizing affordability
in that state.
Speaker 4 (01:09:40):
I just think that it was amazing and I'm like,
what is he doing and what kind of pulling is
he looking at? And why is he cussing at everybody?
But you know, basically what he said was is that
what's been going on here, affordability is the issue. I
think we all know that. I've been talking about it
a lot as well. That he talked about how, you know,
we're one of the most unaffordable states in the nation,
(01:10:02):
both for housing and for childcare. I did find it
kind of odd that he didn't talk about that were
the second most dangerous state as well in the nation
that type of thing, and the most regulated, one of
the most regulated states in the nation. He didn't mention those,
but he talked about this other stuff and then he
just said that, I mean, essentially, he condemned the Democrats
and the Polish administration for what they've been doing. You know,
(01:10:24):
our one party control here over the course of the
last seven years, I mean, one party control has led
us to this. And he basically said that they were
a disgrace, that they were a disgrace and he was,
you could tell him was very upset over it, and
I'm thinking to myself, well, I went through and read
what he put out on his web page and what
he put out as far as his housing plan, and
(01:10:45):
it sounds a heck of a lot like what this administration,
the police administration, and the one party controlled Democrats in
the Senate and the House have been doing for the
last seven years. So is his plan of disgrace? Because
that's what it sounds like to me.
Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
I do think that a sort of inside baseball political
point that you started that answer with is really fascinating.
Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
I get everything you're saying. I mean, I think it's.
Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
Obvious to everybody, right if you don't like what's happening
in a particular state, to whatever extent that you think
it's being caused by politicians. Here in Colorado, there's nobody
to blame, accept Democrats. Now, some of this stuff is
out of their control, but still to have a Democrat
complain about a Democrat run state is a bit of
(01:11:29):
an odd thing. And you said, I wonder what polling
he's looking at. I wonder why he's doing it. Maybe
he's trying to make an argument that he would do
something different. I don't know, but I mean, you want
to just touch on that sort of in the weeds
political point a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:11:46):
I mean, again, you've got a US senator who's set
there for seventeen years and nobody can really point to
what he's accomplished. Come in and I think he's trying
to set himself apart from the rest of his party,
like to me, and complaining about all of them that
they haven't done anything. And he didn't even just.
Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
Say that they hadn't done anything.
Speaker 4 (01:12:08):
What he said they had done is just disgraceful, like
he've gotten this to this place of unaffordability, and you're right,
he wants to try and make himself look like he's
being different or doing something different. But I heard his
housing plan and it's already all been done in this
state and that's what got us to the fifth most
unaffordable state in the nation, as he was ranting and
(01:12:31):
raving about. So he's complaining about trying to set himself apart,
but he's just liked them. So where's his You know,
I don't see where he's going to make any changes.
I mean, if we were to elect a Michael Bennett
to governor, for example, I think we would just have
four more years of what we just had, and that's
what he's complaining about. It is kind of amazing that
(01:12:53):
he's going after this administration as hard as he did,
and he went after him really hard. This administration and
the one party controlled Democrats that we have in the House,
in the Senate, he went after them all.
Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
Very interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
All right, I've got about two minutes left with you,
and I want to switch gears for a minute. Yesterday,
at least in the Denver metro area and even a
little beyond that, this was an absolute wipeout of Republicans
and conservative candidates, and then also on the ballot measure side,
the vast vast majority of ballot measures that increased taxes
and spending and borrowing all past like this was as
(01:13:28):
bad a day as Republicans could have had. Some of
it I think was a rebuke against Donald Trump, which
is not new in Colorado. This is not a trumpy
state by any stretch. But as you who are seeking
to win an election as a Republican next year, look
at what happened yesterday in Colorado. What lessons do you
(01:13:51):
take from that that might impact how you think about
your own campaign.
Speaker 4 (01:13:57):
Sure, and first of all, you know, I obviously I
am like you know what happened yesterday, But I was
not surprised about healthy males either of l L or MM.
I mean, people have essentially voted now twice for healthy
mals for kids and all they've been hearing about. And
I think I think what we saw some yesterday was
just frustration with the inactivity, frustration with what's going on.
(01:14:20):
But who is who would vote against It's like they're
not getting taxed. These people aren't getting additional tax. It's
a fact on the wealthy to feed kids, right.
Speaker 2 (01:14:30):
I get that. I get that it's fact.
Speaker 4 (01:14:32):
When they when they've already voted for it twice.
Speaker 2 (01:14:34):
No, for sure, at the top of the ticket, for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
But also then you look at things like all of
the you know, conservatives, well i'll call them loosely losing
in the Douglas County school board race, all of them, right,
And and Danielle Jerinsky losing her seat uh in in
the Aurora City Council is a bloodbath for Republicans.
Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
So what lessons are you taking from this?
Speaker 4 (01:14:57):
I'm taking the lesson that unaffiliates have spoken. They've said,
and we've seen it in the polling even as recently
as just a few weeks ago, that they're tired of
the social issues. They're tired. I think they are tired
of the ranting and rating by both sides. And when
they when in napolling, when they're saying that they're not
just talking about Democrats, they're talking about Republicans, They're talking
about everybody. When they say the legislature is going the
(01:15:20):
wrong way because it's focused too much on social issues,
they're saying the legislature. They didn't say the Democrats in
the legislature. Are the Republicans in the legislature? I think
they mean everybody. So that's why for me and I
have continued to do this, I'm focusing on the affordability
issue because that's what is most concerned. I think it
doesn't matter if you're an affiliated Republican or Democrat. Everybody's
(01:15:43):
like it cost too much to live in Colorado. We're
concerned that our kids aren't going to be able to
afford to buy a house. Maybe we're concerned that we
can't afford to buy a house, right And it's the
affordability issue. So you know, yesterday was local governments. I
don't know what's going on in those local governments. It
was about school boards. I think they're just saying, look,
we're you know, I think the voters were saying, we're
tired of the ranting and raby, Okay, last quick, give
(01:16:06):
me just right too far left and bring it right
back home and be reasonable and be thoughtful. And I
think that's the kind of person that I am and
able to bring people together. I've been able to get
a lot done even being in the minority, as far
as you know, the affordability question about cutting taxes, you know,
and proving that up. I mean, so I think there's
(01:16:28):
a lot there.
Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
It's for me to work on.
Speaker 4 (01:16:30):
But I think I'm still in a pretty good position.
Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
So I will just say, I hope you're right that
that's what the voters were saying. But I think in
this state, uh, they're they're still as long as Donald
Trump is in office, I think there is a huge
bias against Republicans that are going to be difficult to overcome.
All that said, a lot of people in Colorado really
feel like this state is going in the wrong direction
(01:16:55):
and there's nobody to buy in for it except the
Democrats who run absolutely everything.
Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
So I do think it's possible.
Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
That a Republican could have a chance, but it's not
going to be easy because at this point Donald Trump
is a headwind and not a tailwind for you and
other Republican candidates. Senator Bob Kirkmeyer is I think the
likely Republican nominee for governor.
Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
We'll see who she ends.
Speaker 1 (01:17:20):
Up running against, currently a state senator from Weald County.
Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
Thanks for your time as always, Barb.
Speaker 4 (01:17:26):
Thank you appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
Have a great day you too. We'll be right back
on Kowa.
Speaker 1 (01:17:29):
I want to just spend a few more minutes talking
about some listener texts regarding the election yesterday, because I
feel like, if you're gonna, if you're gonna spend time
texting me, the least I can do is spend some time,
especially when I ask you to text me, is to
spend a little time, you know, sharing some of your texts,
(01:17:51):
some of the best ones on the air and responding
to them and that sort of thing. So I'm just
gonna go through some of these and will respond and
I'm reading them for the first time, right, So we'll
just see how they go ross. It's New Jersey and Virginia.
Republicans never do well there. That's kind of true. But
(01:18:11):
I will note that the Republican candidate in New Jersey
did five points worse than he did last time. And
I would note that in New Jersey and Virginia, Democrats
won the governor's races in both of those by much
more than the polling had shown, much more. And so
this isn't just about Democrats winning in blue states. This
(01:18:36):
is Republicans getting blown out. I'll give you another example, actually, Virginia,
Virginia in their House of Delegates, which is, you know,
the state legislature there in the lower chamber, I guess city,
and I think they have two chambers in that. There's
at least one state that has a unicuitt in Nebraska
as a unicameral legislature.
Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
Anyway, Democrats as.
Speaker 1 (01:18:57):
Of today have a fifty one to forty eight lead
in that chamber.
Speaker 2 (01:19:02):
Fifty one to forty eight, right.
Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
So really in that situation, you would only need to
flip two Democratic votes to a Republican position in order
for the Republican position to win.
Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
It's really really close.
Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
After yesterday's election, when the New session comes in of
the House of Delegates in Virginia. At this point, based
on what I'm reading online, Democrats will have at least
you're ready for this now, sixty four seats. At least
sixty four seats. It'll be almost almost a two to
one Democratic majority, whereas today it's almost tied. That's incredible,
(01:19:43):
That is absolutely incredible. What is one thing Trump could
have done to significantly lower inflation? All right, So again
I want to be really fair to Trump here. Presidents
don't have a lot of ability to do this, especially
when they come in to a situation where the previous
president has done so much damage. But what could Trump
(01:20:03):
have done to lower inflation? One not imposed tariffs, that's
one thing. And another thing, maybe be a little more
aggressive on cutting government spending, although the Big Beautiful Bill
was somewhat better than Trump was in his first term.
But those are really the main things. Reduce government spending
and then don't impose tariffs.
Speaker 2 (01:20:25):
So Trump is, in a sense, he's a victim of
his own success, right.
Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
He campaigned against He campaigned against biden Omics, biden inflation,
all this stuff, which is what you should have campaigned against,
because that was the worst stuff that Biden did, but
it did put him in a position of having to
make stuff better that is somewhat out of his control.
But when you see inflation stuck around three percent when
the Fed wants it a two percent, I do think
(01:20:50):
a legit part of that is tariffs.
Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
I do think it is tariffs.
Speaker 1 (01:20:57):
Another listener text, I won't vote next year out of
so blue. Even an independent like me won't make a difference. Look,
you definitely won't make a difference when it comes to
the governor's race, when it comes to the big statewide races,
But I want to encourage you to vote anyway for
a couple of reasons.
Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
First, just to participate.
Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
I feel like it's important to vote if you want
to then complain about it later.
Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
And I know that's not entirely logical.
Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
You're perfectly free to complain about it even if you
didn't vote, but still I feel better about it that way.
Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
And then the other thing is, you never.
Speaker 1 (01:21:29):
Know with some of these smaller elections, the municipal elections,
the city council elections, things like that, where it really
is possible for an election to be decided by a
small number of votes, it's probably not going to happen
in a congressional race. Maybe CD eight, but I remember
years ago in CD seven with Bob Bo Pray he
(01:21:49):
won his election. I forget the exact number of votes,
but I think it was a two digit number, not
a three digit number. So I would say, vote anyway,
vote anyway, right, I just.
Speaker 2 (01:22:01):
Think I think we should vote. I think we should vote.
Speaker 8 (01:22:06):
Ross.
Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
You're on point about the Ice situation and the backlass
is hurting not only Trump but the whole party. Yes,
I think that's true. Rosso was wondering when you would
blame the election results on Californians. What I mean by
that is we've had hundreds of thousands of people move
here from California and bring those voting patterns, and is
absolutely true. It's not some conspiracy theory on my part
that the importation of people from California and from some
(01:22:28):
other blue states and from Democrats in conservative states, right
like Democrats moving out of Texas and coming here, and
we're seeing it not just in Colorado but many many
places in the country. What you're seeing is a certain
kind of political sorting where the blue states are getting
bluer and the red states are getting redder and I
(01:22:50):
don't think that's very good either.
Speaker 2 (01:22:53):
All Right, we're going to take break here when we
come back.
Speaker 1 (01:22:56):
I am so excited to have Charlie Gasprino on the show.
He is one of my favorite writers, one of my
favorite people on TV, and he wrote a brilliant piece
about sports gambling in which he talks about his dad,
old school Italian mafia adjacent dad.
Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
It's going to be a fun conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:23:14):
I don't know if intrepid Chad Bauer is listening out
there in the newsroom.
Speaker 2 (01:23:18):
Right now, but if you are, Chad, I.
Speaker 1 (01:23:20):
Have a listener text and it says, Ross, can you
ask Chad if he wants to join me and my
friends for Queen's Reich and accept this Friday? So there
you go, Chad, let me know if you want to
go to Queen's Queen's Reich with with some listeners and
and you can respond to them.
Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (01:23:37):
I want to do a political thing here for a minute,
but not the elections. I might come back to the elections.
We'll see, but I want to I want to do
this other. This other thing is a little bit it's
a little bit in the weeds, but I think it's
important and this has been going on kind of within
within Republican or conservative circles in recent days, and and
(01:24:04):
I think it's I think it's very interesting. So you
first let me kind of set the stage a little
while back, maybe a week ago or something like that.
Tucker Carlson, who has not turned into a full Nazi
but an enabler of Nazis. He hasn't become a full
Nazi the way Candae Owens has become an actual Nazi.
(01:24:24):
But Tucker keeps putting people on his show who are
defending Hitler. You know, he had this so called historian
on who said Hitler really wasn't a bad guy in
World War Two.
Speaker 2 (01:24:36):
It was really Churchill who was the bad guy.
Speaker 1 (01:24:39):
And then and Tucker has just been getting kind of
worse and worse and worse and more aggressively anti Semitic.
And it's a little bit hard to understand, but I
guess that's where the grift is right now.
Speaker 2 (01:24:48):
And so about a.
Speaker 1 (01:24:50):
Week ago, Tucker had this guy, Nick Fuentes on the show.
So Nick Fuentes is an overt Nazi, right, I mean,
I don't mean he has a swastika on, but he
is overtly anti Semitic hates Jews.
Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
Oh look, it looks like we got we got Charlie.
So I'm gonna do this and then I'll come back.
Speaker 1 (01:25:08):
I'll come back to the political thing here if I
if I have time.
Speaker 2 (01:25:12):
So let's do that and that.
Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
And that, all right, and then we'll hit this little
button here. Okay, all right, it's time we got him.
We got the man. We got the man who once
fought Evander Holyfield to a split decision. I have to
say Charlie lost the split decision, but still to go
fifteen rounds with Evander Holyfield standing up at the end
(01:25:38):
and lose on a split decision says a lot about
this man's toughness. Charlie Gasperino is senior correspondent for the
Fox Business Network and a columnist for The New York Post.
Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
And I just I just love his work on TV
and in writing.
Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
And he wrote a wonderful article that I'll tell you
about in a second.
Speaker 2 (01:25:55):
But Charlie, thanks for being here. It's good to see you,
good to see you. Let's do what Yeah, yeah, no, A.
Speaker 1 (01:26:02):
Lot is new and I'm not going to drag you
into politics today. What I want to talk about is
your really really interesting article entitled how woke NBA executives
got mixed up with the mob in an epic gambling scandal.
Speaker 2 (01:26:16):
So part of what.
Speaker 1 (01:26:17):
Fascinated me about this is, you know, getting into the
management of the leagues and how they might be dealing
with this situation.
Speaker 2 (01:26:25):
But what really got.
Speaker 1 (01:26:26):
Me was you're talking about your dad, and I wonder
if you can kind of start with that part of
the story.
Speaker 9 (01:26:34):
Well, my dad gambled a lot, and like he grew
up in a neighborhood in the brons On. It's different now.
It was an old Italian neighborhood on Gunhill Road in
White Plains. He actually grew up on two thirteenth Street,
which is Gunhill Roads to ten.
Speaker 8 (01:26:51):
So it's right that area where White Planes Road is
and it's.
Speaker 9 (01:26:55):
Called Williams Bridge if you go on Metro North, that's
kind of where it is. And it's an old fashioned
Italian neighborhood. It was rife with gambling and there there
was the mob. One of the interesting sort of side
notes is that that's in that neighborhood was the famous
Louise Italian American restaurant from the Godfather. That was a
(01:27:16):
real place. I actually ate there when I was a kid,
So it's, uh, you know, it's that type of place.
And you know, he gambled a lot, and you know
he used to take me to the gambling joints.
Speaker 8 (01:27:29):
I mean, I went to all these places. And I
will say that, you know, gambling.
Speaker 9 (01:27:34):
I don't understand why, like, college educated, rich people are
trying to get so many working class people hooked on
this disgusting vice for a.
Speaker 8 (01:27:46):
Lot of reasons.
Speaker 9 (01:27:47):
At the college educated rich people are the heads of
the NBA in the NFL. I mean, this is a
bad vice. I mean, this bankrupts people. It causes family ysfunction,
which it did to mine, and it's it's and it's like,
I mean, there's no difference between having a bad gambling
habit and being addicted to drugs or alcohol. It often
(01:28:09):
leads to the same sort of places. They often feed
off each other. My dad wasn't into drugs and alcohol,
but you know, we had some rough times because of
this gambling addiction of his.
Speaker 8 (01:28:20):
So now it's being mainstreamed.
Speaker 9 (01:28:23):
And what I find fascinating is that sports figures, and
this is something else that's interesting. There are always sports
figures around those gambling dens in the Bronx. Back then
it was like Italian American boxers like ro Rock, you know,
the various Rockies so to speak, and and others they
(01:28:43):
were involved in this.
Speaker 8 (01:28:44):
They liked to gamble.
Speaker 9 (01:28:45):
It's part of their it's part of their mo and
the same sort of risk taking personalities that brings them
that they use in the courts or on the football field,
on the baseball field kind of transfers over to their
directational activities. And you know why Roger Goodell and Adam
(01:29:06):
Silver don't understand this is beyond me other than they're
just like hooked on.
Speaker 8 (01:29:10):
The money and it's it's sort of a disgusting money play.
Speaker 9 (01:29:14):
And so you got the combination of the mobs always
in gambling. You you're you're hooking like people on a
horrible ice. And on top of that, you know sports
sports stars, aren't they like to gamble. I mean, you
know this, and we we've written, we've read all the stories.
(01:29:35):
So I mean not just the illegal type, but the
legals type. Why they want to force force of that is,
you know, make it easy on people's beyond me other
than they're just so addicted to money and their.
Speaker 8 (01:29:46):
Whole woke.
Speaker 9 (01:29:48):
Bullshit that they that they throw at it all the
time about how they don't want to make the world
a better place.
Speaker 8 (01:29:55):
Dei equity, you name.
Speaker 9 (01:29:57):
It is just a cover for their their greed. And
I think I made a good case that that's that
that is that that's what's happening here.
Speaker 2 (01:30:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:30:08):
Well one quick thing on broadcast radio, just watch your
language a little bit, uh, because it's not cable, so
we got to be careful.
Speaker 2 (01:30:15):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:30:16):
One of the things that really got me so much
about your story and the dad. Your dad is a
big part of this, and you touched on it just now.
But you know what, from you usually write about things
that you you know a lot about. You know a
lot of people. There's lots of great information, but it's
rare that I've read a piece from you that felt
(01:30:39):
as personal as this, and and even the way you
talk about with some of the language you use, you know,
like this disgusting vice and hooking people and and all
this stuff. And you can feel it when I'm reading you,
when I'm reading this, like you're you're not just mad,
You're you're you're disgusted.
Speaker 8 (01:30:59):
Yeah, because it's a disgusting habit. I don't gamble by
the way. I one of the reason why I don't gamble.
Speaker 9 (01:31:06):
Is because you know, my dad's gambling ruined a lot
of dinners, and you know, ruined a lot of my
childhood and and I and it's it's and and you
know he would even admit it. The house always wins,
almost always wins, right, So you know you're not gonna
it's it's it's a business that makes a lot of money.
(01:31:26):
They just makes a lot of money because because the
house usually wins. So why would they entice people to
get involved in something like that that they know that their.
Speaker 8 (01:31:38):
Fans are gonna lose money on? Think about that.
Speaker 9 (01:31:40):
You have a clientele, your fans, yet you tell them
to engage in an activity that's going to cost them
money and and you know, and by the way, a
lot of money. It's not just fun. I mean, it
might be fun for some people, but for a lot
of people, it's it's an addiction. Because this is an
addictive thing. It's like saying, it's like, you know, legalizing cocaine,
(01:32:03):
why don't you just un we just go all out
of legalized drugs, And because this is kind of a
drug and maybe we should do that, but don't tell me.
You know, I've seen the rationalizations they've used for legalizing
the stuff. Oh, gets it out of the shadows. What's
the difference to whether it's in the shadows or not.
By the way, it's never going to leave the shadows.
Speaker 1 (01:32:24):
Right, And I think it's never going to leave them,
not shadows. I don't think we're going to put this
genie back in the bottle. But to directly answer your question,
and of course you know the answer. It's not like
you're actually asking me or anybody else why are they
doing this. They're they're doing this because on the margin,
they will get people who who like gambling more than
they like sports, probably, and now that they have the
(01:32:46):
opportunity to gamble on the sport, it will cause them
to tune in and watch the game, so they'll have
more viewers, so they can sell advertising for more money,
and in the league and the teams and the players
and all of them can can make more money.
Speaker 4 (01:33:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:33:00):
It's always about the money. Am I missing something?
Speaker 9 (01:33:05):
And yes, and it's fan engagement as you're pointing out,
But also as I pointed out, they make a lot
of money through advertising and deals and sponsorships with these
sports books. Right, So, I mean there's a whole ecosystem
here and they and when I say a lot of money,
the whole business itself for sports gambling is worldwide, and
this is a course of globe.
Speaker 8 (01:33:26):
It's something like one hundred billion.
Speaker 9 (01:33:28):
The US Sports League's Major League Baseball, basketball, football, they
take about a thirteen fourteen billion dollar cut out of that,
which is not insignificant. And by the way, you can't
measure the fan engagement part that you know, that's you know,
you don't know whether someone's showing up to the game
or tuning in because of gambling or whatever.
Speaker 10 (01:33:50):
Right, It's just it is and it permeates the entire game.
I mean, have you noticed I have noticed. And by
the way, just I'm on.
Speaker 8 (01:34:00):
TV, I mean it's just pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2 (01:34:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:34:03):
Well, these days, you know, you'll watch you'll watch some
sports coverage and in the in the in the chiron
at the bottom, it'll show that the lines on the
game not just you know, the the information you used
to have, and it'll have you know, the Patriots, you
know minus four and a half and it's and it's everywhere.
And then you also even have the people who are
talking on the screen advertising just the way they might
(01:34:26):
advertise for anything else, I guess, but advertising for usually
one of these large gambling companies. I won't use I
won't use any names, but it's clear that there's an
immense amount, an immense amount of money involved there. And
and just so you know, Charlie, I I really really
like betting on football. But I'm not exaggerating when I
(01:34:48):
tell you that my average bet on a weekend is
somewhere around forty cents.
Speaker 2 (01:34:54):
And I might make ten bets and.
Speaker 1 (01:34:56):
I might lose a dollar or two dollars on a
week end. So while I'm not falling into that kind
of addiction and very damaging thing that you talk about,
you hear these stories, and now I hear the stories
about your dad, and it it it paints a very
different picture and it makes you think about it differently.
Speaker 9 (01:35:17):
Yeah, I mean, listen, not everybody. Most people can. A
lot of people can it sut of control their habit
by my dad. I mean, we didn't go without food,
thank god. You know, wasn't that bad.
Speaker 8 (01:35:31):
But you know, this this stuff builds on each other,
It builds on itself. You know what I'm saying. It's
not a harmless vice you know what I'm saying. You know,
it's it's you know, scary stuff.
Speaker 9 (01:35:43):
And you know, I'm just wondering, Okay, they make some
money out of this, they get.
Speaker 8 (01:35:49):
Some fan engagement, but isn't really worth it in the end.
Speaker 9 (01:35:53):
And I think, you know, these guys, you know, they're
they're making a financial decision that it is because they
a shit about his excuse. The language you really care
about is the money. But and they're greedy, and you
know what they are like also hypocrites, and their hypocrisy
is if you're gonna tell me that I live in
a country in the United States of America that's been
(01:36:15):
systemically racist, horrible place for years, treated people horribly.
Speaker 8 (01:36:20):
That that that.
Speaker 9 (01:36:23):
You know, we should take multiple national anthems because the
place is such a horrible place. And then on on
on top of that, you feed of ice like gambling. That's,
in my view, hypocrisy. H So that's what they you know,
they you.
Speaker 8 (01:36:37):
Know they do that.
Speaker 2 (01:36:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
Charlie Gaspriner's piece in the New York Post how woke
NBA executives got mixed up with the mob in an
epping epic gambling scandal. It's a it's a very fascinating
piece because it goes way beyond just reporting about the
scandals themselves and and really gets you to think about,
as Charlie just described this conversation, the harm that it
(01:37:03):
seems like sports leagues and the people who are running
sports leagues, the harm that they are willing to submit
their fans too in order to make some extra money advertising.
Speaker 2 (01:37:15):
And it really is a piece that made me think
a lot. Charlie, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (01:37:19):
Thanks so much for your time as always.
Speaker 2 (01:37:24):
So yeah, you got it all right. That's a great
Charlie guest.
Speaker 1 (01:37:26):
Brino from Fox Business and the New York Post. Let
me do one thing real quick, and then I want
to bring Mandy. And I didn't get to get significantly
through this topic that I had started because I thought
Charlie maybe had forgotten about our conversation, so I started
it and then jumped in with Charlie, I'm just gonna
do like a minute here and maybe I'll come back
to the details of it tomorrow. But Tucker Carlson had
(01:37:48):
this Nazi on his show, and then the head of
the Heritage Foundation came out and said, you know what
a rod, can you put my audio up I just
want to play this bit. The head of the Heritage
Foundation came out and said this.
Speaker 7 (01:38:04):
Always defend Trush, We will always defend America, and we
will always defend our friends against the slander of bad
actors who serve someone else's agendas, that includes Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 2 (01:38:17):
Now, now let me just pause there for a second.
Speaker 1 (01:38:19):
When he said we will always defend our friends against
people who slander whatever in the service of someone else's agenda,
and then.
Speaker 2 (01:38:27):
He said Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 1 (01:38:28):
I thought what he was saying was that Tucker Carlson
is the one serving someone else's agenda, but he wasn't
saying that.
Speaker 7 (01:38:34):
Who remains and as I have said before, always will
be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation. Talk about Tucker,
the venomous coalition attacking him are sewing division. Their attempt
to cancel him will fail.
Speaker 2 (01:38:46):
Okay, So that.
Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
Should get Kevin Roberts fired as head of the Heritage Foundation.
And for this jackass to come out and say, after
Tucker Carlson has a Nazi on his show that the
people who are sowing division are the ones who are
criticizing Tucker and not even can't try to cancel him
just saying you shouldn't do that, saying that the people
(01:39:12):
saying Tucker shouldn't do that are the ones sewing division.
This guy is letting his personal friendship with Tucker and
maybe his fear that offending Tucker's fans will reduce donations
to the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 2 (01:39:24):
Or something like that.
Speaker 1 (01:39:26):
It was absolutely braindead, It was immoral, it was disgusting.
There was a lot of pushback against him. And I'll
just read one other thing to you and then we'll
bring Mandy in. But Young Americans for Freedom quite a
good organization posted this on Twitter. YAF works with and
fights on behalf of conservative students across the country who
face obstacles from campus leftists every day. We work with
(01:39:49):
students to spread America's founding ideals, including the belief that
all people are created equal and endowed by our creator
with certain unalienable rights. We have not and will not
give a plat to those who believe some people are
less than equal due to their race or sex, nor
do we give a platform to those who seek to
propagate vile anti semitism or Holocaust denial.
Speaker 2 (01:40:11):
Supporting and vigorously defending free.
Speaker 1 (01:40:13):
Speech, something YAF has done countless times from the Supreme
Court to the court of public opinion for more than
six decades. Does not mean endorsing or platforming every viewpoint,
especially those that contradict core conservative values. The times may change,
but our values do not. And that there was a
lot of that pushback against the guy at Heritage, and
(01:40:36):
I've been kind of waiting to talk about this seeing
if it would go away. It's not going away, and
I'm glad it's not going away. There's a lot of
turmoil within Heritage now because a lot of people there
don't want to be associated with this stuff. And I
do wonder how long Kevin Roberts can maintain his position there.
Speaker 2 (01:40:53):
Hi, Mandy, what.
Speaker 5 (01:40:55):
Kevin Roberts has done to the Heritage Foundation is almost criminal.
He has taken an organized that worked for decades to
establish itself as the thought leader of the conservative movement.
I have interviewed scholars from Heritage over the years that
were absolutely brilliant people making arguments for conservative solutions to
big problems.
Speaker 2 (01:41:13):
Yeah. Yeah, Kevin Roberts has turned.
Speaker 5 (01:41:15):
It into a political hack organization arm of the Trump presidency.
And this is for me, the final straw. And I
put out a sternly worded post on X he's got
to go, He's gotta go. Heritage is destroyed, in my
view right now, completely destroyed. And they used to be
a brilliant organization.
Speaker 2 (01:41:36):
They're just couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1 (01:41:39):
And just so you know, there's a little inside baseball,
But at Heritage they have a policy that if you
work there, you're not allowed to disagree with the institution's
stated position, and so that's causing a lot of turmoil
there too. Yep, you're not allowed to disagree. Pretty crazy.
What you got coming up, Mandy?
Speaker 5 (01:41:55):
Obviously we're going to talk about last night's election. We've
got whether Wednesday coming up. I have something else on
the schedule that oh, the people from KOFA. It's time
for the annual turkey shoot for the kids. So it's
going to be politics, nonsense and possibly food for aw.
Speaker 2 (01:42:12):
Wait what was that last one? For aw? Can you
use that in a sentence? I just did.
Speaker 5 (01:42:17):
It'll be positively nonsense and food forar aw.
Speaker 2 (01:42:21):
Can you spell it?
Speaker 5 (01:42:22):
F O O F F A R A y r
A W foo for raw.
Speaker 8 (01:42:29):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (01:42:29):
No, it's an H at the end all right now,
it's a W at the end. Now that I'm thinking
about it. Well, crap, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:42:36):
Don't do You do have a great word, but you
don't win the spelling a commercial.
Speaker 5 (01:42:39):
Wait a minute, who wait, Yeah, I spelled it correctly.
F O O F A R A W.
Speaker 2 (01:42:48):
S poo for aw. So you didn't make that word up. No,
it's a real word. Have you never heard this?
Speaker 5 (01:42:53):
It means a great deal of fuss or attention given
to a minor matter, showy frills added unnecessarily. That's the thing,
you know.
Speaker 2 (01:43:00):
Now, everybody stick around for Mandy's foof for raw
Clay Travis. I'm sure you know him. You see him
on Fox News frequently. He's founder the hugely successful sports
website OutKick, and he is co host of The Clay
and Buck Show, which is one of the very top
nationally syndicated shows in the entire country. And he's got
a new book out just came out yesterday called and
I love the title Balls and there's a basketball or
(00:22):
two basketballs actually on the cover of the book the
subtitle How Trump young Men and Sports Saved America.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Clay Travis, Welcome to Kowa. It's good to have you. Hey,
great for y'all having me appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So before we jump into the book, I just would
love to get your take on what happened yesterday in
elections around the country. I imagine it'll be almost everything
that you're going to talk about on your show today,
but what's on your mind.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah, Look, I'm in New York City right now, so
let's put a pin in that. I'll come back to it,
because I think there's two different stories really being told
in New Jersey and in Virginia. The same voters who
showed up for President Trump in twenty twenty four did
not show up for either candidate. In twenty twenty five,
Trump got more votes in New Jersey than the winning
(01:09):
Democrat candidate did by two hundred thousand votes. Trump got
more votes in Virginia than the winning Democrat candidate did
In the election last night, there were around six hundred
thousand less Trump voters that showed up in twenty twenty
five then showed up in twenty twenty four. So the
(01:31):
story here, and it's not a new one, but I
do think it's something that is ominous somewhat for Republicans
going forward next year, is when Trump's on the ballot,
tons of low propensity voters show up to support Donald Trump.
When he is not on the ballot, those same voters
are very, very difficult to motivate to turn up. And
(01:54):
I think that's the question going forward for a year
from now, as we prepare for the midterms, and for
three years from now, as we think about what America
will look like without Trump on the ballot.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I think you're exactly right, and I want to just
follow up with you on the very last thing you
said there. I suspect, but obviously I don't know that.
Whoever the next Republican presidential candidate is even if it's
a candidate that is perceived as very maga, even if
it's jd Vance, I suspect that that candidate will have
(02:28):
a very hard time getting, you know, getting all, let's say,
or close to all of President Trump's voters, because there's
something unique about Trump, and there's something unique about Trump's
appeal to his voters that I have a feeling will
not fully translate to anybody else.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Well, that's the concern, and I don't think that's a
crazy I don't think that's a crazy take at all. Now,
the question is to what extent is Trump's motivation of
Democrat party voters also an outlier, because let's say we
had a Gavin Newsom versus jd Vance twenty twenty eight
presidential election, that would be what the betting markets would
(03:10):
tell you is the most likely matchup that we would see.
To what extent does Trump's connection to jd Vance as
his vice president translate to votes? And also to what
extent does Trump's connection to jd Vance motivate Democrat voters?
Because Democrats The analogy I would make is Democrats, in
(03:32):
many ways are the most die hard of the political
universe supporters, and I was using this because I come
out of the world as sports. As an analogy, if
you think about a college campus, people show up in
big numbers for football games. Football games kind of like
a presidential election. You know, one hundred thousand people, eighty thousand,
(03:52):
whatever it is. That fan base for that school can
still be substantial, but maybe only ten thousand people show
up for a basketball game, and then by the time
you get to women's softball or baseball, it might be
a thousand or even less. People care their fans, but
as the significance of the event declines, the number of
(04:12):
people who are willing to show up for.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
It declines as well.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
The Democrats are the diehards, and so that is why
I think Democrats should be a favorite in the twenty
twenty six midterm elections, because they hate Trump so much
that even when Trump is not on the ballot, they're
willing to show up. People who love Trump are not
as willing to show up and support other people when
(04:36):
Trump's name itself is not on the ballot. So I
think that's one of the big challenges going forward.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I agree with that as well. I'll say one last
thing and then I want to talk about your book.
I think that President Trump is perceived as not just
not succeeding, but also to a certain extent, not trying
hard enough when it comes to cost of living issues.
And cost of living is not down, and that's what
he ran on in addition to the border. But people
(05:01):
care about cost of living a lot more. And I
think for Republicans to have a decent chance in the
midterms next year in the presidential election two years after that,
Trump and Republicans generally are going to have to do
more and appear that they're doing more when it comes
to that most important issue.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Do you want to say anything.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Real quick on that, so we at least get a
several minutes to talk.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
About your book.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
But I think the biggest challenge that Trump has when
it comes to cost of goods is Biden was so
bad on inflation that everything costs more than we think
you should.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Oh, that's exactly right. So if the slow.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Rate of growth or the rate of growth has declined
on cost of goods, which it has, every time I
go to Chick fil A, I still think I can't
believe I'm paying fifty dollars to feed my family at
a fast food place, and most people in America, I think,
feel the same way no matter who the president is.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
We're talking with Clay Travis. His new book is Balls,
How Trump, Young Men and Sports Saved America. So you
start the book talking about Leah Thomas formerly Will Thomas,
and I think everybody knows the story about the you know,
male swimmer dominating female collegiate swimming. My question for you
(06:08):
on that one was, were you surprised at just how
big an issue that became in the presidential election?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
No, because I think presidential elections are complicated and sometimes
issues need to be crystallized. And when you tell me
that a man is now a woman because he has
told me that, that's a bridge too far for me
and for most people. Look, if you want to dress
up in women's clothing or men's clothing, and you want
(06:39):
to change your name and that makes you happier, and
even you want to have surgery to try to reflect
that in some way, I think adults should have the
ability to pursue happiness as they see fit. But it
is different me saying that than hey, well, certainly we
don't even need to get into kids that shouldn't happen
for kids, but I'm just talking about adults here.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
But it's different.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Then.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Hey, not only am I a woman, but I should
be able to become a women's sports champion. Most men
and women out there, even a huge majority of Democrats,
see this as just being wrong. And so it also
requires me to be a liar because you have a gender,
and you then are saying that I have to accede
(07:24):
to your gender to such an extent that you can
become a women's champion. Having a dude in a women's
bathing suit winning a women's sports championship is patently absurd
to most people.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
And Trump saw it because he's got an.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Intuitive sense for sanity and ran the ads which we
write about in the book Kamala is for they them,
Trump's for you.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
One of the great ads, one of the most effective
political ads, right, one of the most effective political ads
I've seen in years and years and years. All Right,
I got about two minutes left. Let me try to
get through a couple other things with you. And for
those just joining or talking with Clay, his new book
just released yesterday is Balls, How Trump, young men and
Sports saved America. So you, along with your co host
(08:09):
Buck Sexton, are among the very few people who talk
a lot about Trump and actually know him. A lot
of people talk a lot about Trump, we never met him.
What's something that you think most people don't understand or
misunderstand about him?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Trump is just a grandfather and a really nice guy.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
There's a little anecdote in the book where we interview
Trump at mar A Lago and he won't let us
leave because he's insistent that we get the mar A
Lago milkshake because they make the best milkshakes anywhere in America,
in typical Trump hyperbole, and I remember saying, boy, you know,
I bet Hitler didn't do interviews, and then insists that
people take a strudle with him, you know, right after
(08:47):
they were finished, because where he was made the best
strudles in anywhere in America. And I think that is
probably what would stand out the most. My wife has
met Trump several different times. How great, accommodating and willing
to share credit he is. They get cut out a
lot of times in his speeches, but go look at
(09:07):
the number of times that he will name twenty or
twenty five different guys and gals that are there at
his rallies. I think the idea that he is domineering
and a jerk is maybe the biggest lost element of Trump.
He's actually just an incredibly likable guy in a one
(09:28):
on one setting.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Okay, last thing, and this is one we could talk
for an hour about, but I need you to keep
it to less than a minute. There's a lot in
this particular sentence in your book that I want you
to just elaborate on a little and I'm quoting you
now to me. The collapse of sports as a unifying
source across race, sex, preference, gender and political divides is
inextricably intertwined with the rise of social media.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So there's two big things there.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
The collapse of sports is a unifying thing and the
social media part. But say anything you want that you
can you know, get out pretty quick.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
Well.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Look Kaepernick, the protest of Kaepernick, and the rise of
Michael Sam and everything else. Identity politics is inextricably intertwined
in my mind, with the rise of social media because
it led to people saying as a black woman, as
a trans of Asian midget, whatever you want to say.
Look at how often people preface their opinions by describing themselves.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I always say, it's like we've gone.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Back in time to the divine right of kings, which
is ironic because.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
They say, no kings.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But your argument is premised on your identity, not the
quality of the argument. To me, the quality of the
argument is all that matters. Look at Karee Jean Pierre.
Every time she gets questioned on anything, she says, well,
I'm a black lesbian. Well, what the heck do I
care about that? What I care about is can you
or can you not do the job? When you use
your race and identity, your gender preference as both sword
(10:54):
and shield, it dilutes and distorts overall American conversation and debate.
And I think that's why, overall we're seeing so much
anger emanating, and I think social media has certainly accelerated that.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Clay Travis is founder the hugely successful sports website OutKick.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
He is co.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Host with Buck Sexton, of the incredibly successful as well
Clay and Buck Show, one of the top radio shows
in the country. In his new book, just out yesterday
is Balls, How Trump Young Men in Sports Saved America.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Glat to talk. Great to talk to you for the
first time, Clay, Thanks for doing this. Okay, great, appreciate y'all.
All right, we're gonna take a quick break. We'll be
right back on Kowa.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Over the course of the show, I am going to
have a lot to say about what happened in yesterday's elections,
and I'm going to.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Start on that now. I'm going to do a few
minutes on it.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Now. In the next segment of the show, I'm going
to have Leland vinderd from News Nation. We're going to
talk about the elections more as well. But over the
course of the show, I really have a lot to say.
I also want to encourage you, or at least or
ask you to go to Rosscominski dot substack dot com
check out my note this morning, which is the first
time I've ever done a video for a sub stack.
(12:04):
It also gets posted to my YouTube. But it's a
video where I talk about many thoughts about.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
The elections last night.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
And of course, if you go to Rosskominsky dot com
and you check out my blog note today, my Wednesday blogcast,
I have a ton of thoughts and analysis in there
as well.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Let me talk right.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Now about just a brief, big picture thing and then
spend maybe a minute and a half or two minutes on Colorado,
and then later in the show we'll do more of
the of the national stuff.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
The macro overarching point to.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Make about yesterday's elections, not just in Colorado, but in
so many places, is that there was a massive reaction
against Donald Trump. There was a massive reaction by Democrats
and many unaffiliated voters against Donald Trump, and on the
Republican side, as Clay Travis noted, a lot of Republicans
simply didn't turn out. And we can debate about whether
(13:00):
that's because they're only motivated to vote for Trump or
they were demotivated because they're not very happy with the
job Trump is doing. But in any case, across the country,
it's not just the Democrats did well, it's that they
did exceptionally well now here in Colorado every place I looked,
and I have not looked at every election, but all
(13:21):
the ballot measures I looked at, with all the ballot
measures I looked at, including Propositions LLL and MM, and
the Denver Vibrant Bonds and the Denver ban on flavored
tobacco and VAPI wells. Actually it was a measure to
overturn the ban. So the ban overturn failed, so the
(13:41):
ban remains in place. There were lots of proposed tax hikes,
mill levy hikes. Everyone that I looked at past, everything
that I saw so far in Colorado that involved raising taxes,
raising spending, borrowing money.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Everyone I have seen.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So far past and passed by wide margins. And then
on the candidate side, again, I have not looked at
every election, okay, and I know that there's some stuff in.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Some more rural parts of Colorado.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
A listener sent me a note about Montrose, where I
guess the Republican won an election there.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
But it was much closer than you would have thought.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
But around here in the Denver metro area, it looked
to me like an absolute wipeout of whatever remaining Republicans
and Conservatives were. If you were a Republican or a
Conservative up for election in the Denver metro area, you
probably lost.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
And everyone that I looked at lost.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
So, for example, school board races, and in Denver there's
no Republican, right, but the in Denver all of the
Union backed candidates for school board appear to have won.
Same in Cherry Creek, same in Douglas County. All right,
And I assumed Jefferson County, I didn't go look, but
Jefferson County is pretty liberal county these days.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
But Douglas County.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
All the candidates who appear to have won were the
union backed candidates, really really something. And in Aurora, it
appears that Daniel Jurinsky has lost her seat.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
And it appears that all of.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
The ones that I from my political bias, from my
political perspective, the members of the city council who I prefer,
who are incumbents, it appears at the moment that they
have all lost and that there has been essentially a,
like I said, a wipeout of remaining Republicans and Conservatives
(15:39):
in the elections that were held yesterday. As for what
that means going forward for next year's midterms for twenty
twenty six, if I were a Republican, I would be very,
very scared right now and wondering what I could do
to try to make things better. We're going to talk
about that more later in the show when we come back.
(16:00):
Leland Vitter joins us. I mentioned that every tax increase
I had looked at so far in the state of
Colorado past, but there was one that I talked about
on the show a few weeks ago where I encouraged
people to vote. Know, and it does look like it failed.
And that was Manitou Springs wanting to raise their excise tax,
basically tax on tourists and tickets and all kinds of things.
It looks like that one failed. Okay, last night I
(16:23):
watched election coverage entirely on one network, and that was
News Nation, which is my cable news home these days,
not least because of my friend and frequent guest Leland Vitter,
who joins us now despite having stayed up late with
election coverage. Leland, thanks, thanks so much for being here.
Appreciate it as always.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Always good Ross.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I should mention I should have mentioned this before. Leland's
show was called on Balance and it airs on News
Nation at seven pm Mountain time weekdays. And you can
sign up for his daily email, which is really his
show prep at war notes dot com. Uh, and you
can buy his book at born Lucky dot com. All right, Leland,
I think neither one of us is surprised that the Democrats.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Did well last night. Were you surprised at how well? No,
not particularly. I was surprised a little bit.
Speaker 6 (17:18):
In New Jersey, I think is the place that I
would pick out is the is the place that you know,
if if there was going to be an expansion of
the MAGA coalition and if somehow the shift of working
class voters to Republicans was gonna get sticky, that was
(17:39):
where it was gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
And it did not.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Indeed, and Chittarelli did five points worse than he did than.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
He did the last time. Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
And here in Colorado, by the way, and for those
who don't know, Leland used to be here. He used
to be on on Fox thirty one right here in Denver,
so he he likes his place a lot, and he
knows a little about it. Here it was just an
absolute wipeout of you know, whatever conservative or Republican candidates
were on the ballot in a race that had any
chance of being close to Democrats. The Democrats won. So
(18:08):
it seemed like there was just out performance everywhere. And
I wonder how much of this do you think is
a negative reaction to Trump. How much do you think
is MAGA voters who historically don't turn out for anyone
except Trump doing that? But even more, what else do
you think we're the key factors in what we saw.
Speaker 6 (18:31):
Well, the economy, the economy, the economy, that there's not
a lot for Republicans to be excited about right now.
There's an awful lot for Democrats to be angry about
right now. There was a desire by Democrats to turn
(18:52):
this into a referendum on Trump, but a desire for
Republicans to try to make it about something different with
which disincentivizes Trump Republican voters or you know, Magaga voters.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
So I think you put all of it together, it
makes it makes sense, you know.
Speaker 6 (19:10):
I think the lesson to me from this is that
things change, you know, and I spend a lot of
time listening to you know, people Republicans be so upset
today in the same way I listened to Democrats be
so upset a year ago.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
You know, there's a lot of Republicans.
Speaker 6 (19:26):
Today feeling about the country and everything else the same
way Democrats did a year ago.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
And the lesson is things change in America.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
I think what is also noteworthy is how the extremes
in America are becoming far more powerful. You know that
that Donald Trump, and especially Trump two point zero represents
an extreme of the Republican Party, and how it's in
how he's doing things. And Mendami represents an extreme of
(20:00):
the Democratic Party. And those who would say Abigail Spamberger
and Mikey Cheryl are moderates just don't know who they are.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Right, Okay, So I agree with all that, but I
would add that Cheryl and Spamberger positioned themselves as moderates
and for people who don't not really well not really okay,
you want to elaborate by Spambor.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Spamberger couldn't say.
Speaker 6 (20:23):
Spamberger was asked multiple times, can you say no boys
and girls sports?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
And you couldn't even say that.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
That's not a moderate. That's not a moderate position in
any way, shape or form to me.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Actually, one thing that surprised me at least a little
was that Jay Jones won the VA at the Virginia
Attorney General's race.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And you talked about this a lot.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
On News Nation last night as well, you know, with
you and styr Walton and that whole crew that I
was watching all night long. That one, I have to say,
surprised me a little bit. And I think shows how
much people think of politics these days as war and
the other guy is the enemy, and you're and you
will not say anything bad, like Republicans have no enemies
(21:08):
on the right and Democrats have no enemies on the left.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
And I gotta tell you, as an American, I hate it. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
Well, so you're talking about Jay Jones, who won in
Virginia as the attorney general, the definition of sort of
an empty suit just with a party affiliation next to him,
who openly fantasized in text messages about killing members of
the other party, about the Speaker of the House, and
actually was texting members of the Virginia State Legislature about
(21:42):
how he would like to see the Republicans Speaker of
the House's children die in their mother's arms. And the
text messages came out and it made a difference, but
not that much of a difference. You know, before, you know,
twenty years ago, this kind of stuff disqualifying. And I
think what you're getting to ross is the point that
(22:03):
really now in America, nothing is disqualifying. You're voting for
a party one way or the other. And that just
the way it is, especially in an election like this,
as you know, especially in sort of what you call
it off off your election, that's very.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Much just about the base.
Speaker 6 (22:19):
This isn't This isn't about getting out, you know, sort
of voters on the margins.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I feel, and I think I've felt this way for
a long time since the rise of Trump, that Republicans
can't win with Trump and they can't win without Trump.
Trump can win, but other Republicans, even going back to
the last congressional election, Yeah, Republicans have the majority, but
there was a lot of thinking going into the twenty
twenty four elections as you well know that they might
(22:46):
have a twenty seat majority or something like that, and
they've got a three or four seat majority, and I
I don't know how Republicans are going to manage a
situation where in order to win a primary some Republican
probably needs to move way towards Maga.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
But if that sticks with him in the general election,
they're going to lose.
Speaker 6 (23:06):
This is a problem for both parties that the extremes
of both parties have gotten more and more powerful.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
And you know.
Speaker 6 (23:15):
In certain in certain places it doesn't matter because of
Jerry Manderin and everything else, especially Congress. But we're at
a we're at a weird place politically in America, and
we have we have gotten there through uh, entirely of
our own fault as a people, and I think the
(23:37):
market for politics will self correct.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
That's the George will.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
Axem that you know, there is this desire for a
transformational candidate in the center, and when that happens, that
that will move America back to the center.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Right if such a person can get through the primary
and actually end up in a general.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Well true and well pointed what I would say.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
And I have, you know, my own personal feelings about
mam Dami that he's you know, terrorist adjacent and a
radit you know, embraces sort of the tenets of radical
political Islam and on and on and on.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Those are my own personal views.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
But if you watch him as a politician, he is
a generational talent. He is a extraordinarily talented politician, and people.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Are not giving him that credit.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
And I think the lesson is ross that Americans are
hungry for someone who inspires them, even if the way
that that person inspires them is not necessarily what their
own views would be. I mean, you think about the
idea that mam Dami, who you know, embraces Gaza in Hamas,
(24:57):
and we know what Gaza Hamas does to women, or
what Hamas does to women in Gaza and what the
Islamist you know, the hardcore Islamists do to women, And
yet eighty percent of millennial women voted for Mandami. There's
a cognitive disconnect that goes on in some of these situations,
and it can be explained by people who are just
(25:19):
desperate for someone who inspires them. Now the dot dot
dot is someone who also tells them it's not their fault,
they don't have to work that hard, they're the victim,
on and on. But that's kind of part of being inspired.
It's no different than what Donald Trump did.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Also, I do think Mom, Donnie could have been beaten
if there were a decent alternative. It's hard to think
of a more flawed alternative than Andrew Cuomo. And I
know his brother works with you and is a friend
of yours and all, and I like him too, But man,
I mean, if Andrew Cuomo is your savior, you're in trouble.
Speaker 6 (25:57):
Well that that is part of the reckoning that the
Democrats are.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Going to have to go through.
Speaker 6 (26:01):
And I would argue that what we saw tonight is
not dissimilar to what we saw in two thousand and
nine with the Tea Party in the rise of this
movement in the Republican Party that ended up becoming magna
there there and that.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
That that was the beginning. That was the.
Speaker 6 (26:22):
Beginning of John You know, the end of John McCain
Republican politics. This is the end of Andrew Cuomo, Chuck
Schumer democratic politics.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
We're talking with Leland Vindor. His brilliant show is called
On Balance. It's on News Nation at seven pm Mountain Time,
replays at.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Ten pm our time, and.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
If you go to warnotes dot com you can sign
up for his free daily email. All right, I have
I have two last questions for you. Are you really
having ginger shots at breakfast?
Speaker 6 (26:57):
Well, I was really having ginger shots at breakfast. This
is when my wife and I were in California, and she,
when we got there on the first day at breakfast,
ordered a ginger shot and I didn't know what it was,
so I ordered one and then filmed myself taking it
(27:18):
because what came I thought would be a shot. Instead,
this was like a diet coke can size portion of ginger,
I guess. And I took that, and then I subsequently
took four more days of it. I can't tell I
(27:38):
feel better now that I'm not taking them, but I'm
trying to figure out if that's because I took them
before and now it's.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Just the effects.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
I'm still confused as to what the.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Real effects were.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Okay, I mean, I think ginger tastes kind of gross.
Do you like it?
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Was it?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Was it something you enjoyed or was it more like
a mantilla elf?
Speaker 2 (28:03):
No?
Speaker 7 (28:03):
No?
Speaker 6 (28:04):
And the the videos of me like almost gagging was
not ai?
Speaker 2 (28:08):
That was real?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Okay, last question for you, and it's the question I
always make my last question with you. So other than elections,
what's going to be an interesting and important topic on
your show tonight?
Speaker 6 (28:24):
My favorite topic tonight, I think is going to be
talking to a realtor from the suburbs of New York
because of what interests they're now seeing and whether whether
that really is whether that really is actually happening or
or not.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Cuomo has a Riley.
Speaker 6 (28:43):
Tonight, which I think is going to be a really
interesting interview and one that I'd like to I want
to watch. But I think that that's going to be
the most interesting thing. The other thing is I think
that the stuff that is going on right now legally
with the Supreme Court and Trump and tearor is going
to define the next year in a way that we
(29:04):
don't quite appreciate right now when we can talk about
the shiny shiny objects.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
And you know how much of a nerd I am.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I spent most of much of this morning with my
earbuds in listening to the Supreme Court oral arguments on
the tariffs case because it is incredibly important. Leland Viitter's
show on Balance seven PM weeknights on News Nation, best
show on cable news. Thanks for making time for us
in the middle of your travels Leyland, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Always fun ross, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
All right, So all right, I'm gonna keep talking here,
and yeah, his show is the best. It really is
the best, and I'll say second best, although close second,
close second would be Brett bher special Report on Fox
News or maybe they're even tied, but for anyone to
be even tied with Brett Behar is a pretty remarkable thing.
Leland's show is really fantastic. Let me talk about tariffs
(29:55):
for a minute, because I did spend time this morning
listening to the oral argum at the Supreme Court at
the time that I happen.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
To be listening. All of the.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Questioning was of the Solicitor General of the United States.
Last name is sour I think saue Er if I
remember it correctly. Anyway, all the questioning was of him.
He was making the argument in favor of why a
particular law called IEEPA, the International Emergency International Economic Emergency
(30:24):
Protection Act or something like.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
That ie PA.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Why that law, which does not use the word tariffs anywhere.
He's arguing that that law nevertheless allows the President.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Of the United States to impose tariffs.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
I think it doesn't, but I think that it's not
a slam dunk at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Trump should lose just as a matter of law.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
I'm not saying because I don't like the tariffs, even
though I don't, But I'm saying, as a matter of
reading the.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Law, I think Trump should lose the case.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
I think it's clear that the three liberals will vote
against him.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I think it's reasonably likely.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
That Alito and maybe Thomas will probably vote for Trump
having this power, And.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I just have no idea where the other ones go.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Because it's a very interesting case in the sense that,
on one hand, there are conservative members of the Supreme
Court who don't mind increasing executive power more than I
would prefer, but you know, they do what they're going
to do. But on the other hand, some of these
same conservatives generally object to reading a law beyond the
(31:37):
clear meaning of its letters in a way that expands
the authority of government to do something. It's sort of
the Major Questions Act, right, so that you generally the
Supreme Court is saying, if it's unclear whether a law
allows the government to do something that's really big. And clearly,
(32:01):
tariffs are really big, right, We're talking about tens of
billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes
taken from Americans and brought into the United States treasury.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
That's huge.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
And so the Major Questions doctrine from the Supreme Court
would suggest that when the government is looking to do
something that big, you cannot assume that the authority is
there for the government to do it unless it's clearly
spelled out in law.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
And this isn't.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
So there's really a tension there for some of these
conservative justices, and we're gonna have to see how that
all plays out, and oral arguments are today, but I
don't think let's see I don't think we would expect
to get a result until spring, probably until March or April,
and in the meantime, these tarifts are going to stay
(32:54):
in place. By the way, one really interesting question about this,
and I don't know if this will play into how
the justices decide the case, but a really interesting question
would be if the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Rules against Trump.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Will they also rule that the government needs to refund
all of the illegally collected tariffs. That would really be
something and it would be interesting to see what that
does to financial markets and to bond markets, which are
you thinking a little bit about this tariff revenue being
there somewhat offsetting the deficit and national debt. So anyway,
(33:38):
very very interesting case, incredibly important case when it comes
to executive power, and we'll see how it all plays out,
all right. I still have a lot more to say
about the elections in Colorado and elsewhere, and also some
more about the ongoing government shutdown and what I think
(33:58):
is some pretty outrageous hypocrisy, even though you know that's
kind of a normal thing among politicians, but some pretty
silly hypocrisy from Democratic members of Congress here in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
We'll talk about it next here on KOA. But I
do want to invite.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
You to text into me right now at five six
six nine zero, and I have a very broad kind
of question for you, and that is, what is your
reaction to what happened in the elections yesterday?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
What's your reaction?
Speaker 1 (34:24):
I have a lot to say about the elections yesterday.
I spent some time earlier on the show talking about
what happened here in Colorado and basically here in Colorado
and especially in the Denver metro area. And you hear
some of the details just you heard some of the
details just now from Intrepid Chad Bauer in the news
broadcast there, with some names of candidates and so on.
(34:46):
But as far as I can tell, around the Denver
metro area, all or close to all of the furthest
left candidates and the union backed candidates in school boards,
for example, they all won, and Conservatives and Republicans all
lost in every race that I saw.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Now I'm not saying I saw every race.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
I'm sure some Republican or some Conservatives somewhere in the
Denver metro area won something, all right. But with those
things I've seen, right the Denver school Board. Now there's
no conservatives there, but the further left people won the
Denver school Board.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
The union backed.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
People beat the conservatives in the Douglas County school Board
in all four seats as far as I can tell.
Cherry Creek School District. The two conservative women both lost.
You get the idea, I mean, think about Douglas County, right,
Douglas County. All four of those candidates who were, you know,
let's say, on a policy basis, the candidates who I
(35:41):
would prefer, they all lost in the union back candidates won,
and I did.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Not yet very involved in that.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Ben Albright had a couple of those candidates from the
Douglas County School Board on the show on Monday when
I was out. Mandy was at an event with all
of them, with the conservaiveatives and the union backed ones,
and Mandy told me off the air that she thought that,
separate from policy, just how good are you as a candidate,
(36:11):
regardless of what you support or what you believe. Mandy
thought the union backed candidates were just better, and the
conservative candidates weren't really ready for prime time, and they
didn't lose by a lot. You know, I lose by
five points six points seven points. I mean, you know,
but in Douglas County, for conservatives to lose by like
that seems like a lot. But I do think there's
(36:31):
something to be said about candidate quality. A few people
have mentioned something to me about the dysfunction of the
Colorado Republican Party. That is certainly true. The Colorado Republican
Party has been a mess for a long time. Britta
Horne is trying to make it better, but I don't know.
I'm not paying close enough attention to the ins and
out to that to know whether she's doing a good job.
There does seem to still be some controversy around that.
(36:54):
And then you have these ass hats who go by
Rhino Watch and people like that who are from the
Dave Williams part of the party, and their gadflies and trolls,
and they lie a lot and.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
They have very.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Strange ideas, but they make it their mission to keep
dividing the party because that's how they make a living.
So in any case, I still I don't think that
a more functional Colorado or Republican Party would have made
much difference. This is a blue state that's getting bluer,
and yes, it's possible the pendulum might swing back toward
the middle at some point, but that point is not now,
(37:32):
and that point is not soon. And when the pendulum
does swing back, what will that even look like? Right,
maybe that'll look like a Republican winning the state attorney
general's office one day, or the secretary or a treasurer. Right,
maybe it'll look like that, But it's not gonna look
like a Republican majority in either chamber or the state
(37:54):
legislature for quite some time. This is a blue state
getting bluer.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Now.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
To be clear about one thing, many many people in
this state who might be kind of moderate really hate
Donald Trump, and that might make the state seem a
little bluer than it actually is. But even if you
adjust for that, it's hard to see Republicans doing well
in Colorado. Every tax hike that I could see that
(38:20):
involved raising property taxes and you know, raising tabor, de
brusing and stuff like that, they all seem to pass.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Now.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
I did note a listener said that the tax on
essentially on tourism items on tickets in Manitowo Springs failed
and that's great. That's great because they didn't want to
kill the tourism business there. But you know, it's interesting,
that's a very different kind of tax. That's a tax
that would have hurt business and employment in that town.
(38:50):
It wasn't an income tax and or a normal sales
tax or whatever, almost all of which that I saw passed.
So now let's talk about big picture a second. What
happened yesterday. Lots and lots of Republicans simply did not
turn out. And we've known this for a long time now,
many many Trump supporters, whether or not they're Republicans, but
(39:13):
mostly they are only turn out in elections when Trump
is on the ballot, and they don't turn out in
other elections. This is a huge problem for Republicans, including
in the next presidential election where Trump won't be on
the ballot. And sure, maybe his vice president will be
on the ballot. Maybe jd. Vance will will be the
(39:33):
Republican nominee. I have to say, I hope not. I
don't like him, but maybe he will. But even so,
what percentage of Trump's MAGA voters are going to turn
out for jd Vance who simply does not have Trump's
force of personality. I'm not trying to, you know, insult
Jdvance with that particular thing, although I'm happy to insult JD.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Vance on other things. Like I said, I.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Don't like him, but it's more of an observ rather
than a criticism to say Vance doesn't have Trump's charisma.
In fact, I don't know any Republican potential candidate right
now who has Trump's charisma and Trump's voters, his base
voters love him, and I don't know that that's going
(40:19):
to be transferable even to somebody who Trump endorses. And
when you're talking about elections that have been as close
as our last three, at least presidential elections, it's entirely
possible that you have someone whose policy positions are identical
to Trump's.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Just as a hypothetical, let's say JD.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Vance adopted every single Trump policy position, but he's still
not Trump. And let's say Trump gave his most aggressive
possible endorsement of JD. Vance in the general election, in
the primary and the general election going into twenty twenty eight,
and let's say JD.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Vance is the nominee.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
What percent of Trump's voters from twenty twenty four do
you think will turn out to vote for Vance in
twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
I don't mean some of them are going to vote
for the Democrat.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Right. I'm not saying they're gonna switch and vote dem
I'm saying, well, they bother to take the time to vote,
and if there's a drop off there of even just
a few percent, the Democrat's gonna win. I have a
lot more to say about this, you know. This is
one of those days I like to work in lots
(41:29):
and lots of other stories.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
I don't want to be very political for.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
The vast majority of a show, but this is a
day when we need to be. So I have more
to say on this, although I do also need to
tell you when we come back about some cool movie
stuff up for sale. We'll be right back on Kiowa.
I want you to text me anything you want to
say about your your reaction to the elections last night.
(41:54):
I should note I did not look at results in
l pass So County and El Paso County has been
pretty good lately on school board elections. One listener said
that there was one election there in D thirty eight
where somebody beat a Union candidate, so I hope that's true.
(42:15):
And also apparently Vicky Tonkins lost her election for El
Paso County Commissioner, which is great because she's insane and
she represents everything that's wrong with the Republican Party. So
there's that. In any case, text me at five six
six nine zero and tell me your thoughts how you're
feeling today after yesterday's elections, and I will read some
(42:36):
of your some of the listener texts, and respond to
them in the next segment of the show. Also, please
do me a favor and go to Rosskominski dot substack
dot com and if you want more of my thoughts
on elections, my piece today, which kind of says it
all in the title, I guess, is called Wipeout and
the subtitle is it's hard to imagine how Republicans could
(42:59):
have had a worse And so that's up at Rosskaminski
dot substack dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Please do subscribe. It's absolutely free.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
I try to write once or twice a week and
hopefully you will find it worthwhile.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
I mentioned some movie stuff to you.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Let me just interject something a little lighter before we
get back to politics and the Supreme Court and all
this stuff. So one of many people's favorite Christmas movies
is Elf with Will Ferrell, and I'm sure you're well
acquainted with it and well acquainted with his his green
suit and his little pointy hat and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
So I wanted you.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
To know that that suit is going to be up
for auction next month in London a group called the
prop Store. Well, the auction is called the prop Store
Winter Entertainment Memorabilia Auction, and they are going to start
the auction for that Will Ferrell suit at sixty five
(43:52):
thousand dollars, but it's estimated that it might go like
a quarter million dollars or something like that. And if
you buy this this suit, you will see that mister
Ferrell right for the actor has been written on the
belt and the top and the stockings, and then there's
(44:13):
a handwritten Hero three on the inside of the tunic.
According to CBS News, what else is going to be
up for sale the foam hoverboard from the Back to
the Future sequels, Marty McFly's foam hoverboard that's expected to
get at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars or so,
(44:33):
despite it, you know, having a little wear and tear.
And then this thing's pretty cool for Star Wars fans.
And I'm quoting from newser dot com the original Boba
Fet rifle from the Empire strikes back. What do you
think a rod you got to guess? What's your guess
as to the auction estimate for the amount that that
(44:58):
particular item will get at auction? The original Boba Fet
rifle from the Empire strikes back. What do you think
they're guessing that'll that'll get? I'm gonna be more upset
if I lowball it. So I'm gonna go seventy four
thousand dollars. Okay, let me word it a different way.
I low balled at big time, didn't I If you
(45:19):
had any amount of money, okay, how much would you
pay for that? Any amount of money like limitless? I
mean maybe not Elon Musk money. But if you had
one hundred million dollars?
Speaker 3 (45:31):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (45:32):
How much would you pay for that? Because you're a
big Star Wars guy, I am, but I probably would
only pay like thirty grand. But I bet it's probably
the way you looked at me. I'm gonna guess it's
two hundred and seventy thousand dollars, okay, So the estimate,
and of course it could come in lower, it could
come in higher. The estimate is nine and fifteen thousand.
(45:53):
Oh man, Yeah, but you know that's legendary and it's
the Empire strikes back, right, So it's one of those
first original movies.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
It's not the sort of bogus later stuff.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Okay, you know, I feel like that would be for
like the one of the Lightsabers. Though I didn't even
know who Boba Fett is, and I've seen those movies.
But which one is Bony Hunter the Mandalorian. Oh, well,
he's not really a Mandalorian.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
I mean today his name in the first movies.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
If I never saw the Mandalorian and I never saw
that stuff, if I only had seen the first few movies,
meaning the really good ones, what.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I know is name they ever say.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
I don't remember ever hearing his name until much more
recent But now I see a picture of them, I
know he is, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
A genetic clone of his father. Only one time did
they say it. Both of the original films.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Boba Fett was one of the most feared bounty hunters
in the galaxy, a genetic clone of his father, bounty
hunter Django fe Hmmm, yes, okay, both look like Mandalorians,
not actually Mandalorians. They just have the armor. It's some Mandalorian.
It's a race of people. It's this is the way,
so it would be like the space version of the
(47:08):
Spartans or something like that. Yeah, a culture of people.
Is it a race or is it a culture? I
think it's kind of both. Mandalorian a race or culture.
It's definitely a culture, but is it also the race?
You tell you the culture not a race? Okay, all right, yeah,
plant the plans or some Pandaloria. Yeah essentially, huh yeah,
(47:31):
all right. Not to be confused with Mandy listeners Mandylorians.
Maybe we'll start a little gofund me so that they
wo to try to buy this rifle you did hear
about like the dirty I don't like it.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
I need a better name for my new listeners.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
When we moved the show to six am to nine
am next Monday, all right, when we come back, I'm
gonna read more of your texts about yesterday's elections, and
I also have I got a lot to do still.
This show has is just jam packed, so keep it
here on Kawa. Thanks for spending some some more time
with me today, and I want to take a little
time before I get back to some of my own
thoughts about the elections. Actually, I'll tell you what I
(48:07):
changed my mind. I'm going to do one quick thought
of my own, and then I'm going to go through
and read a lot of listener texts on the air
and talk about them one quick macro point. And I
want to do this now, just to make sure I
get it in there at some point during the show.
President Trump campaigned on a bunch of issues, but the
(48:29):
two biggest were probably immigration and the cost of living.
He's done a very good job with immigration as far
as controlling the border. But when you watch some of
the scenes on television with ice enforcement against people who
(48:50):
have not committed crimes while in the United States of America,
right guys looking for work in front of home depot
or hotel worker or restaurant workers or that kind of thing.
And of course the so called mainstream media who doesn't
like Trump, they will amplify that. But that's the world
we live in. It might not be fair, but it's reality.
(49:13):
I think a lot of these scenes are things that
have many Americans uncomfortable, including many Americans who want the
administration to be very aggressive getting illegal alien gang members
and illegal alien criminals.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Out of the country.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
And I know that among show listeners, there are plenty
of people who say, any illegal alien is an illegal alien,
and if they get caught, they gotta go.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
I'm not going to debate that point with you. We
can debate that another day. My point is a purely
political one, and that is there are a lot of
people out there who feel really uncomfortable with some of
the aggressiveness that they are seeing from ICE.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
And as I've talked about on the show in recent months.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Part of what happened, Remember, Trump campaigned on getting the
criminals out, and the criminals doesn't mean an illegal alien, Okay,
that means someone who committed a crime while in the country,
not just committing a crime or a civil offense by
being in the country illegally.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
So those are different things. I think this has become.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
So what happened was Stephen Miller, who is one of
Trump's main henchmen, pushed the government, pushed ICE to meet
a quota of around three thousand a day illegal aliens
get them out of the country. Now they're not close
to meeting that there at last I read somewhere just
under two thousand. But the point there is, if you're
(50:54):
trying to meet a purely numerical quota. You're gonna go
where you can find them people the most illegal aliens.
And where are you going to find the most illegal aliens?
Is you know where people have jobs doing agricultural stuff
or hotel stuff or construction stuff. And of course you
start going over after those people. Now you start interfering
with the ability of those businesses to do get done
(51:17):
the things they want to get done, picking food, cleaning
the hotel rooms, and so on. Now, again, I'm not
making an argument here that it's right or wrong to
deport whatever illegal aliens you can find. What I am
saying is many Americans don't like it. And so Trump
has turned what would be very much a winning issue
(51:40):
for him into a sort of a break even issue
for him right by having ice in the minds of
some go too far and be too aggressive. Again, a
purely political point. I'm not debating the policy with you now,
and he did pulling yesterday. They asked voters what's the
(52:03):
most important issue to you? And the most important issue
for a plurality of people in the forties was the
economy and cost of living.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Right, And I don't remember what was.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Second after that, maybe crime, and immigration was I think third,
but long by a wide, wide margin, is.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
Way way behind.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Okay, So if the economy or cost of living was
let's say, the main issue for forty something percent of people,
immigration was the main issue for like eleven percent of people.
So now let's talk about the big issue cost of living.
Trump ran against the Biden inflation, and of course he
should have. Joe Biden caused massive inflation with terrible economic policy, terrible,
(52:47):
and Trump ran against it as well. He should have,
and he campaigned on getting the cost of living down, which,
to be fair to Trump, is something that would be
exceedingly difficult for a president to do, but nevertheless must
he would do it. And not only has the cost
of living not come down, it keeps going up at
a faster rate than the Fed once right. The Fed's
(53:10):
target rate for inflation is two percent, and it's still
pretty sticky around three percent, in part because there's still
so much money in the system due to the Biden
inflation and the expansion of money and all that during
that time, but also in part because of Trump's tariffs,
which increase prices on lots and lots and.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
Lots of things beyond the tariffs.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
When you think about what President Trump has been busy
doing over the last well over ten months of his presidency,
and I'm trying to be really just analyst here, I'm
not trying to be unfairly either praising or critical of Trump.
(53:58):
Just look at and think about what do you think
he's been busy with. Well, he's definitely been busy with immigration.
He's definitely been busy getting the DOJ to go after
his political opponents, which he said he was going to
do and then he said he wouldn't do, but you know,
we all knew he was going to do it to
some degree. He's been very, very busy with foreign policy
(54:19):
and gush, what an amazing achievement with the ceasefire that
could not have been achieved between Israel and Gaza without him,
And I have no idea whether it will persist, but
even where we are now with all the live hostages
out of Gaza could not have been achieved without Donald Trump,
and he deserves incredible credit for that. But he is
spending an immense amount of time on foreign policy, which
(54:42):
his base definitely did.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
Not vote for.
Speaker 1 (54:46):
His base America first, they don't care much about a
ceasefire here or there, They don't care much about the
Ukraine War. And yet President Trump is spending an immense
amount of time on foreign policy, traveling around the world.
So what has he And again that's not criticism, Okay,
I'm just kind of talking about what do people how
(55:08):
do people picture what Trump has been doing. He's been
doing immigration, he's been going after political enemies, He's been
doing a ton of foreign policy, and I don't know,
you know, and and the big beautiful bill passed. What
else can you think of that isn't kind of grasping?
What else can you think of that you could honestly
(55:30):
say the average voter would think Trump has been busy
doing this. Here's one thing I feel very confident saying,
the average voter does not believe that Donald Trump has
been spending much time, much less having any real success
at getting the cost of living down. And I think
that's part of the reason that the election results were
(55:51):
not just bad for Republicans and conservatives yesterday, but worse
than any polling.
Speaker 2 (55:57):
Right.
Speaker 1 (55:58):
The democrat one in New Jersey, by more than any
poll in the past month, had her ahead, and the
average of polls wasn't even close. You know, she massively
outperformed that, and then the same thing in Virginia. The
Democrat won there by much more than the real Clear
Politics average of polls. And I think a lot of
(56:21):
it has to do with the fact that Trump campaigned
on economics and cost of living.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
And has not delivered.
Speaker 1 (56:29):
And this, my friends, is going to be a huge
problem going forward for Republicans in next year's elections, a
huge problem. Republicans have been perceived as better on the
economy than Democrats, and surely Joe Biden was the worst
president for.
Speaker 2 (56:46):
The economy in a long long time.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
And Trump is better, but I think he's not better
enough because people in their minds think anybody other than
Biden would have been better. Maybe even Harris would have
been better. So Trump is better, but not better enough.
(57:09):
And if people feel poor, they're gonna either Republicans are
gonna stay home and Democrats are gonna be highly motivated.
And twenty twenty six, a year from now, is going
to be a repeat of what we just saw, but
on a national scale, with Republicans getting clobbered in the
House of Representatives, and that will be the end of
(57:29):
Trump's ability to do anything that requires the approval of Congress.
And if you think he's doing a lot of foreign policy,
now wait till you see what he does when he
can't get anything through Congress, because that's all that will
be left, which is why so many second term presidents
actually turn to foreign policy. So I think Republicans who
(57:50):
are in a lot of trouble, I think they can't
win with Trump, and I think they can't win without Trump.
Speaker 2 (57:56):
Now the good the upside for Republicans.
Speaker 1 (57:58):
Actually, I'm gonna save that there is a way to
think about the overall macro situation that isn't a complete
disaster for Republicans, even though yesterday was. But I promised
you I wanted to spend some time going through some
listener texts, So I want to do that right now.
Ross I'm not surprised blue places voted blue. I'm not either,
(58:20):
But that's not the point I was just making. The
surprise is not that New Jersey elected a Democrat. The
surprise is not that Virginia elected a Democrat as governor.
The surprise is that the Democrats won by so wide
a margin, wider than polling suggested, and even to the
extent that the really disgusting human being who was the
(58:43):
Democratic candidate for Attorney.
Speaker 2 (58:45):
General in Virginia won that election, won that election. What else?
The state is in a tail spin? And what happened
in New.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
York is astonishing. Colorado is in a tail spin, although
it's not showing up in economic deay yet. I do
think it will at some point. I'm not rooting for that,
but we have bad policy in high taxes, and we
have politicians who seem determined to impose laws and policies
that are not business friendly, and Colorado is dropping rapidly
in the rankings of business friendliness. What happened in New
(59:17):
York is astonishing, The listener says, is it?
Speaker 8 (59:20):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (59:21):
Really?
Speaker 9 (59:23):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (59:24):
New York City, which, by the way, check this out.
I want to make sure I say this very clearly.
New York City has more Jews than any country in
the world except for Israel.
Speaker 2 (59:41):
I didn't say that wrong.
Speaker 1 (59:43):
New York City has more Jews than any country in
the world except for Israel. Some of those Jews voted
for Zoron Mamdani, who is a communist anti Semite, and
that is not hyperbole. He is a communist anti Semi
(01:00:04):
But is it astonishing that he won?
Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
Maybe not as much as you think.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
He is young, very well spoken, good looking, has a
great smile, and spent the election talking about things.
Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
That people care about.
Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Now, his policy ideas are nonsense, you know. He says,
I'm gonna freeze everybody's rent. Your rent will never go up.
He's not gonna be able to get that done right.
But he talked about things that people care about. He
talked to young adults, he talked to millennials, saying, your
rent is too I remember that guy who ran on
the rent is Too damn High party. That was the
(01:00:41):
actual party, the rent is Too damn High party. That's
a real thing in New York. It's been a real
thing and for quite some time. Part of the problem,
I note is rent control, because you have all of
these apartments where people are are locked into their old rent.
Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
So they never give up the apartment.
Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
So the actual supply of rent apartments is much lower
than it should be, which drives up the cost of
rent for people who don't have an apartment already.
Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
And he wants to do this on an even bigger scale.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
But look, he's young, he's good looking, he's extremely well spoken.
He talked about things that people care about. And who
was the alternative Andrew Cuomo? Are you kidding me? An ancient,
disgraced establishment dude who killed a bunch of senior citizens
by requiring nursing homes to take in senior citizens with
(01:01:35):
COVID That was not a legitimate alternative. Zoramandani won with
fifty percent of the vote.
Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Now, I will say that or just over fifty percent.
Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
So Cuomo and the Republican Kurtis Sliwa together had something
like forty seven percent some number like that, and a
few percent went to some other candidates. So you can't
even say that in the absence of the Republican Andrew
Cuomo would have won. If you were going to beat
Mom Donnie, you needed a much more appealing candidate. So
(01:02:10):
I don't think that what happened in New York. And
also keep is absolutely astonishing, as the listener says, And
keep in mind, that's a city where an enormous percentage
of the electorate and voters, now all right, I'm talking
about citizens. An enormous percent there are foreign born and
(01:02:30):
very left wing. And it doesn't mean much about the
Democratic Party outside.
Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Of New York. It means a little. It means a little.
Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
I won't say it means nothing, but anyway, a listener text,
any repudiation.
Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
Of Donald Trump brings me joy.
Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
I'm a lifelong Republican, and I'm very happy this morning.
Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
I get that. I get I fully get that, and
I share some of it.
Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
The problem is that the pain that is going to
be caused by this repudiation of Trump.
Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
Might be really significant.
Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
And it's you know, there's a good chance that it's
going to hurt a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
On the other hand, my son's middle name is Rand.
Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
That's for the author Ein Rand, and Einrand's most famous
book is called Atlas Shrugged. And the theme of Atlas
Shrugged is that government slowly, steadily evolves or devolves to
this point where the people running it are these kind
of soft socialists, not as socialist even as Zorn Mandani,
but in that direction, and they start raising taxes on.
Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
The rich, so called rich. And this is what's.
Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
Happening here in Colorado with the passage of Proposition LL
and MM, which raises taxes on people making three hundred
thousand dollars a year or more in order to fund
quote unquote free school lunch.
Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
For middle class kids and rich kids.
Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
It's a really stupid policy, and it passed easily again
past the first time prop ff they ran out of money,
so now they're coming back to raise taxes even more.
And this passed easily because Colorado is full of leftists.
It's full of former Californians anyway. The theme of at
(01:04:15):
La Shrugged is that the government just becomes so punishing
of success that the talented, entrepreneurial, inventive people, the people
who are really the engine of economic growth. In the book,
you write, today's equivalent, today's equivalent of the character John
(01:04:39):
Galt in the book at La Shrugged is probably Elon Musk. Now,
imagine if Elon Musk and everybody even vaguely in the
direction of Elon Musk in terms of creativity and willingness
to take risk and ability to create new products that
people want and transform people's lives. Imagine that everybody like
(01:05:03):
that said, you know what, I'm done just letting you
tax me, and I'm done with you looking at me
the way a leech looks at the vein on your ankle.
Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
I'm done.
Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
I'm leaving. Try to do it without me, Try to
do it without us. That's the theme of Atlas shrubbed
that the productive people, the brilliant people, the entrepreneurial people,
the risk takers say, if I can paraphrase Cartman, screw
(01:05:36):
you guys. I'm going home, and they disappear, and I
feel like we're moving in that direction.
Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
I feel like we're moving in that direction.
Speaker 1 (01:05:47):
And you know, to me, if you live in that world,
the lesson of that is, things do not get better
until they get much much worse. Things do not get
better until the average person, the person who voted to
raise taxes on the ridge, until they start suffering. And
(01:06:12):
when we have people voting to raise taxes on not
on themselves, but on other people who they perceive as rich,
so they can force those other people to pay for
school lunch for their kids. Right even though they, as
a family make one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars,
they want to punish the person who makes three hundred
(01:06:33):
or four hundred thousand dollars to make them pay for
your kids' school lunch. There's no other way to put it.
I'm just going to say this very directly. I hope,
I hope that the people who are voting in proposition
LL and MM I hope they suffer financially. I hope
(01:06:55):
that productive people start leaving these states, including Colorado. I
hope that Colorado has a very very difficult time and
brain drain much the way New York has, much the
way Illinois has. And the reason I hope that Colorado
(01:07:16):
suffers that way is it's the only way to recover
Colorado to what it was and to.
Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
What it should be.
Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
I note that in Atlas Shrugged, when these productive people,
the elon Musks of that fictional world, the elon Musks
and the people who run oil companies, and the best
judges in the nation, and all kinds of people like that,
the people who run the most important metal metals companies,
(01:07:47):
when they vanish, they vanished to Colorado.
Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
That's what people used to think of Colorado.
Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
Colorado was the place that had a Western self reliance,
and now Colorado is just turning into the worst of
a leftist day dream. I had the opportunity to attend
a really wonderful event, Jewish Colorado's annual fundraiser. They had
(01:08:20):
a fantastic speaker, and I saw a bunch of folks there,
saw a bunch of friends there, and one of the
folks slash friends. Who I saw was State Senator Barb Kirkmeyer.
Has great to see Barb at an event supporting the
Jewish community, and then Barb said, Hey, I'd love to
be on your show. I'm like, all right, let's do it.
I'd love to have you on the show. So Barb
(01:08:41):
is a state Senator from Welld County. She's also seeking
the Republican nomination for governor. In my opinion at this moment,
based on who's in the race, I think Barb is
by far the best Republican candidate for governor of the
people who are in now. And so, with that long introduction,
(01:09:02):
good morning, Barb, thanks for being.
Speaker 4 (01:09:03):
Here, Good morning, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
Hey, good Two things I want to talk to you about. First,
Senator Michael Bennett, who has a decent chance of being
the Democratic nominee for governor, made some comments about affordability
in Colorado. And I'm not going to play the audio,
partly in the interesting time and partly because he swears
in the middle of it and I didn't want to
have to deal with bleeping that out. But I'm kind
(01:09:26):
of I'm wondering your thoughts as you have a Democrat
in a state that is run by Democrats criticizing affordability
in that state.
Speaker 4 (01:09:40):
I just think that it was amazing and I'm like,
what is he doing and what kind of pulling is
he looking at? And why is he cussing at everybody?
But you know, basically what he said was is that
what's been going on here, affordability is the issue. I
think we all know that. I've been talking about it
a lot as well. That he talked about how, you know,
we're one of the most unaffordable states in the nation,
(01:10:02):
both for housing and for childcare. I did find it
kind of odd that he didn't talk about that were
the second most dangerous state as well in the nation
that type of thing, and the most regulated, one of
the most regulated states in the nation. He didn't mention those,
but he talked about this other stuff and then he
just said that, I mean, essentially, he condemned the Democrats
and the Polish administration for what they've been doing. You know,
(01:10:24):
our one party control here over the course of the
last seven years, I mean, one party control has led
us to this. And he basically said that they were
a disgrace, that they were a disgrace and he was,
you could tell him was very upset over it, and
I'm thinking to myself, well, I went through and read
what he put out on his web page and what
he put out as far as his housing plan, and
(01:10:45):
it sounds a heck of a lot like what this administration,
the police administration, and the one party controlled Democrats in
the Senate and the House have been doing for the
last seven years. So is his plan of disgrace? Because
that's what it sounds like to me.
Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
I do think that a sort of inside baseball political
point that you started that answer with is really fascinating.
Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
I get everything you're saying. I mean, I think it's.
Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
Obvious to everybody, right if you don't like what's happening
in a particular state, to whatever extent that you think
it's being caused by politicians. Here in Colorado, there's nobody
to blame, accept Democrats. Now, some of this stuff is
out of their control, but still to have a Democrat
complain about a Democrat run state is a bit of
(01:11:29):
an odd thing. And you said, I wonder what polling
he's looking at. I wonder why he's doing it. Maybe
he's trying to make an argument that he would do
something different. I don't know, but I mean, you want
to just touch on that sort of in the weeds
political point a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:11:46):
I mean, again, you've got a US senator who's set
there for seventeen years and nobody can really point to
what he's accomplished. Come in and I think he's trying
to set himself apart from the rest of his party,
like to me, and complaining about all of them that
they haven't done anything. And he didn't even just.
Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
Say that they hadn't done anything.
Speaker 4 (01:12:08):
What he said they had done is just disgraceful, like
he've gotten this to this place of unaffordability, and you're right,
he wants to try and make himself look like he's
being different or doing something different. But I heard his
housing plan and it's already all been done in this
state and that's what got us to the fifth most
unaffordable state in the nation, as he was ranting and
(01:12:31):
raving about. So he's complaining about trying to set himself apart,
but he's just liked them. So where's his You know,
I don't see where he's going to make any changes.
I mean, if we were to elect a Michael Bennett
to governor, for example, I think we would just have
four more years of what we just had, and that's
what he's complaining about. It is kind of amazing that
(01:12:53):
he's going after this administration as hard as he did,
and he went after him really hard. This administration and
the one party controlled Democrats that we have in the House,
in the Senate, he went after them all.
Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
Very interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
All right, I've got about two minutes left with you,
and I want to switch gears for a minute. Yesterday,
at least in the Denver metro area and even a
little beyond that, this was an absolute wipeout of Republicans
and conservative candidates, and then also on the ballot measure side,
the vast vast majority of ballot measures that increased taxes
and spending and borrowing all past like this was as
(01:13:28):
bad a day as Republicans could have had. Some of
it I think was a rebuke against Donald Trump, which
is not new in Colorado. This is not a trumpy
state by any stretch. But as you who are seeking
to win an election as a Republican next year, look
at what happened yesterday in Colorado. What lessons do you
(01:13:51):
take from that that might impact how you think about
your own campaign.
Speaker 4 (01:13:57):
Sure, and first of all, you know, I obviously I
am like you know what happened yesterday, But I was
not surprised about healthy males either of l L or MM.
I mean, people have essentially voted now twice for healthy
mals for kids and all they've been hearing about. And
I think I think what we saw some yesterday was
just frustration with the inactivity, frustration with what's going on.
(01:14:20):
But who is who would vote against It's like they're
not getting taxed. These people aren't getting additional tax. It's
a fact on the wealthy to feed kids, right.
Speaker 2 (01:14:30):
I get that. I get that it's fact.
Speaker 4 (01:14:32):
When they when they've already voted for it twice.
Speaker 2 (01:14:34):
No, for sure, at the top of the ticket, for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
But also then you look at things like all of
the you know, conservatives, well i'll call them loosely losing
in the Douglas County school board race, all of them, right,
And and Danielle Jerinsky losing her seat uh in in
the Aurora City Council is a bloodbath for Republicans.
Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
So what lessons are you taking from this?
Speaker 4 (01:14:57):
I'm taking the lesson that unaffiliates have spoken. They've said,
and we've seen it in the polling even as recently
as just a few weeks ago, that they're tired of
the social issues. They're tired. I think they are tired
of the ranting and rating by both sides. And when
they when in napolling, when they're saying that they're not
just talking about Democrats, they're talking about Republicans, They're talking
about everybody. When they say the legislature is going the
(01:15:20):
wrong way because it's focused too much on social issues,
they're saying the legislature. They didn't say the Democrats in
the legislature. Are the Republicans in the legislature? I think
they mean everybody. So that's why for me and I
have continued to do this, I'm focusing on the affordability
issue because that's what is most concerned. I think it
doesn't matter if you're an affiliated Republican or Democrat. Everybody's
(01:15:43):
like it cost too much to live in Colorado. We're
concerned that our kids aren't going to be able to
afford to buy a house. Maybe we're concerned that we
can't afford to buy a house, right And it's the
affordability issue. So you know, yesterday was local governments. I
don't know what's going on in those local governments. It
was about school boards. I think they're just saying, look,
we're you know, I think the voters were saying, we're
tired of the ranting and raby, Okay, last quick, give
(01:16:06):
me just right too far left and bring it right
back home and be reasonable and be thoughtful. And I
think that's the kind of person that I am and
able to bring people together. I've been able to get
a lot done even being in the minority, as far
as you know, the affordability question about cutting taxes, you know,
and proving that up. I mean, so I think there's
(01:16:28):
a lot there.
Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
It's for me to work on.
Speaker 4 (01:16:30):
But I think I'm still in a pretty good position.
Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
So I will just say, I hope you're right that
that's what the voters were saying. But I think in
this state, uh, they're they're still as long as Donald
Trump is in office, I think there is a huge
bias against Republicans that are going to be difficult to overcome.
All that said, a lot of people in Colorado really
feel like this state is going in the wrong direction
(01:16:55):
and there's nobody to buy in for it except the
Democrats who run absolutely everything.
Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
So I do think it's possible.
Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
That a Republican could have a chance, but it's not
going to be easy because at this point Donald Trump
is a headwind and not a tailwind for you and
other Republican candidates. Senator Bob Kirkmeyer is I think the
likely Republican nominee for governor.
Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
We'll see who she ends.
Speaker 1 (01:17:20):
Up running against, currently a state senator from Weald County.
Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
Thanks for your time as always, Barb.
Speaker 4 (01:17:26):
Thank you appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
Have a great day you too. We'll be right back
on Kowa.
Speaker 1 (01:17:29):
I want to just spend a few more minutes talking
about some listener texts regarding the election yesterday, because I
feel like, if you're gonna, if you're gonna spend time
texting me, the least I can do is spend some time,
especially when I ask you to text me, is to
spend a little time, you know, sharing some of your texts,
(01:17:51):
some of the best ones on the air and responding
to them and that sort of thing. So I'm just
gonna go through some of these and will respond and
I'm reading them for the first time, right, So we'll
just see how they go ross. It's New Jersey and Virginia.
Republicans never do well there. That's kind of true. But
(01:18:11):
I will note that the Republican candidate in New Jersey
did five points worse than he did last time. And
I would note that in New Jersey and Virginia, Democrats
won the governor's races in both of those by much
more than the polling had shown, much more. And so
this isn't just about Democrats winning in blue states. This
(01:18:36):
is Republicans getting blown out. I'll give you another example, actually, Virginia,
Virginia in their House of Delegates, which is, you know,
the state legislature there in the lower chamber, I guess city,
and I think they have two chambers in that. There's
at least one state that has a unicuitt in Nebraska
as a unicameral legislature.
Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
Anyway, Democrats as.
Speaker 1 (01:18:57):
Of today have a fifty one to forty eight lead
in that chamber.
Speaker 2 (01:19:02):
Fifty one to forty eight, right.
Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
So really in that situation, you would only need to
flip two Democratic votes to a Republican position in order
for the Republican position to win.
Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
It's really really close.
Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
After yesterday's election, when the New session comes in of
the House of Delegates in Virginia. At this point, based
on what I'm reading online, Democrats will have at least
you're ready for this now, sixty four seats. At least
sixty four seats. It'll be almost almost a two to
one Democratic majority, whereas today it's almost tied. That's incredible,
(01:19:43):
That is absolutely incredible. What is one thing Trump could
have done to significantly lower inflation? All right, So again
I want to be really fair to Trump here. Presidents
don't have a lot of ability to do this, especially
when they come in to a situation where the previous
president has done so much damage. But what could Trump
(01:20:03):
have done to lower inflation? One not imposed tariffs, that's
one thing. And another thing, maybe be a little more
aggressive on cutting government spending, although the Big Beautiful Bill
was somewhat better than Trump was in his first term.
But those are really the main things. Reduce government spending
and then don't impose tariffs.
Speaker 2 (01:20:25):
So Trump is, in a sense, he's a victim of
his own success, right.
Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
He campaigned against He campaigned against biden Omics, biden inflation,
all this stuff, which is what you should have campaigned against,
because that was the worst stuff that Biden did, but
it did put him in a position of having to
make stuff better that is somewhat out of his control.
But when you see inflation stuck around three percent when
the Fed wants it a two percent, I do think
(01:20:50):
a legit part of that is tariffs.
Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
I do think it is tariffs.
Speaker 1 (01:20:57):
Another listener text, I won't vote next year out of
so blue. Even an independent like me won't make a difference. Look,
you definitely won't make a difference when it comes to
the governor's race, when it comes to the big statewide races,
But I want to encourage you to vote anyway for
a couple of reasons.
Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
First, just to participate.
Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
I feel like it's important to vote if you want
to then complain about it later.
Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
And I know that's not entirely logical.
Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
You're perfectly free to complain about it even if you
didn't vote, but still I feel better about it that way.
Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
And then the other thing is, you never.
Speaker 1 (01:21:29):
Know with some of these smaller elections, the municipal elections,
the city council elections, things like that, where it really
is possible for an election to be decided by a
small number of votes, it's probably not going to happen
in a congressional race. Maybe CD eight, but I remember
years ago in CD seven with Bob Bo Pray he
(01:21:49):
won his election. I forget the exact number of votes,
but I think it was a two digit number, not
a three digit number. So I would say, vote anyway,
vote anyway, right, I just.
Speaker 2 (01:22:01):
Think I think we should vote. I think we should vote.
Speaker 8 (01:22:06):
Ross.
Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
You're on point about the Ice situation and the backlass
is hurting not only Trump but the whole party. Yes,
I think that's true. Rosso was wondering when you would
blame the election results on Californians. What I mean by
that is we've had hundreds of thousands of people move
here from California and bring those voting patterns, and is
absolutely true. It's not some conspiracy theory on my part
that the importation of people from California and from some
(01:22:28):
other blue states and from Democrats in conservative states, right
like Democrats moving out of Texas and coming here, and
we're seeing it not just in Colorado but many many
places in the country. What you're seeing is a certain
kind of political sorting where the blue states are getting
bluer and the red states are getting redder and I
(01:22:50):
don't think that's very good either.
Speaker 2 (01:22:53):
All Right, we're going to take break here when we
come back.
Speaker 1 (01:22:56):
I am so excited to have Charlie Gasprino on the show.
He is one of my favorite writers, one of my
favorite people on TV, and he wrote a brilliant piece
about sports gambling in which he talks about his dad,
old school Italian mafia adjacent dad.
Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
It's going to be a fun conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:23:14):
I don't know if intrepid Chad Bauer is listening out
there in the newsroom.
Speaker 2 (01:23:18):
Right now, but if you are, Chad, I.
Speaker 1 (01:23:20):
Have a listener text and it says, Ross, can you
ask Chad if he wants to join me and my
friends for Queen's Reich and accept this Friday? So there
you go, Chad, let me know if you want to
go to Queen's Queen's Reich with with some listeners and
and you can respond to them.
Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (01:23:37):
I want to do a political thing here for a minute,
but not the elections. I might come back to the elections.
We'll see, but I want to I want to do
this other. This other thing is a little bit it's
a little bit in the weeds, but I think it's
important and this has been going on kind of within
within Republican or conservative circles in recent days, and and
(01:24:04):
I think it's I think it's very interesting. So you
first let me kind of set the stage a little
while back, maybe a week ago or something like that.
Tucker Carlson, who has not turned into a full Nazi
but an enabler of Nazis. He hasn't become a full
Nazi the way Candae Owens has become an actual Nazi.
(01:24:24):
But Tucker keeps putting people on his show who are
defending Hitler. You know, he had this so called historian
on who said Hitler really wasn't a bad guy in
World War Two.
Speaker 2 (01:24:36):
It was really Churchill who was the bad guy.
Speaker 1 (01:24:39):
And then and Tucker has just been getting kind of
worse and worse and worse and more aggressively anti Semitic.
And it's a little bit hard to understand, but I
guess that's where the grift is right now.
Speaker 2 (01:24:48):
And so about a.
Speaker 1 (01:24:50):
Week ago, Tucker had this guy, Nick Fuentes on the show.
So Nick Fuentes is an overt Nazi, right, I mean,
I don't mean he has a swastika on, but he
is overtly anti Semitic hates Jews.
Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
Oh look, it looks like we got we got Charlie.
So I'm gonna do this and then I'll come back.
Speaker 1 (01:25:08):
I'll come back to the political thing here if I
if I have time.
Speaker 2 (01:25:12):
So let's do that and that.
Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
And that, all right, and then we'll hit this little
button here. Okay, all right, it's time we got him.
We got the man. We got the man who once
fought Evander Holyfield to a split decision. I have to
say Charlie lost the split decision, but still to go
fifteen rounds with Evander Holyfield standing up at the end
(01:25:38):
and lose on a split decision says a lot about
this man's toughness. Charlie Gasperino is senior correspondent for the
Fox Business Network and a columnist for The New York Post.
Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
And I just I just love his work on TV
and in writing.
Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
And he wrote a wonderful article that I'll tell you
about in a second.
Speaker 2 (01:25:55):
But Charlie, thanks for being here. It's good to see you,
good to see you. Let's do what Yeah, yeah, no, A.
Speaker 1 (01:26:02):
Lot is new and I'm not going to drag you
into politics today. What I want to talk about is
your really really interesting article entitled how woke NBA executives
got mixed up with the mob in an epic gambling scandal.
Speaker 2 (01:26:16):
So part of what.
Speaker 1 (01:26:17):
Fascinated me about this is, you know, getting into the
management of the leagues and how they might be dealing
with this situation.
Speaker 2 (01:26:25):
But what really got.
Speaker 1 (01:26:26):
Me was you're talking about your dad, and I wonder
if you can kind of start with that part of
the story.
Speaker 9 (01:26:34):
Well, my dad gambled a lot, and like he grew
up in a neighborhood in the brons On. It's different now.
It was an old Italian neighborhood on Gunhill Road in
White Plains. He actually grew up on two thirteenth Street,
which is Gunhill Roads to ten.
Speaker 8 (01:26:51):
So it's right that area where White Planes Road is
and it's.
Speaker 9 (01:26:55):
Called Williams Bridge if you go on Metro North, that's
kind of where it is. And it's an old fashioned
Italian neighborhood. It was rife with gambling and there there
was the mob. One of the interesting sort of side
notes is that that's in that neighborhood was the famous
Louise Italian American restaurant from the Godfather. That was a
(01:27:16):
real place. I actually ate there when I was a kid,
So it's, uh, you know, it's that type of place.
And you know, he gambled a lot, and you know
he used to take me to the gambling joints.
Speaker 8 (01:27:29):
I mean, I went to all these places. And I
will say that, you know, gambling.
Speaker 9 (01:27:34):
I don't understand why, like, college educated, rich people are
trying to get so many working class people hooked on
this disgusting vice for a.
Speaker 8 (01:27:46):
Lot of reasons.
Speaker 9 (01:27:47):
At the college educated rich people are the heads of
the NBA in the NFL. I mean, this is a
bad vice. I mean, this bankrupts people. It causes family ysfunction,
which it did to mine, and it's it's and it's like,
I mean, there's no difference between having a bad gambling
habit and being addicted to drugs or alcohol. It often
(01:28:09):
leads to the same sort of places. They often feed
off each other. My dad wasn't into drugs and alcohol,
but you know, we had some rough times because of
this gambling addiction of his.
Speaker 8 (01:28:20):
So now it's being mainstreamed.
Speaker 9 (01:28:23):
And what I find fascinating is that sports figures, and
this is something else that's interesting. There are always sports
figures around those gambling dens in the Bronx. Back then
it was like Italian American boxers like ro Rock, you know,
the various Rockies so to speak, and and others they
(01:28:43):
were involved in this.
Speaker 8 (01:28:44):
They liked to gamble.
Speaker 9 (01:28:45):
It's part of their it's part of their mo and
the same sort of risk taking personalities that brings them
that they use in the courts or on the football field,
on the baseball field kind of transfers over to their
directational activities. And you know why Roger Goodell and Adam
(01:29:06):
Silver don't understand this is beyond me other than they're
just like hooked on.
Speaker 8 (01:29:10):
The money and it's it's sort of a disgusting money play.
Speaker 9 (01:29:14):
And so you got the combination of the mobs always
in gambling. You you're you're hooking like people on a
horrible ice. And on top of that, you know sports
sports stars, aren't they like to gamble. I mean, you
know this, and we we've written, we've read all the stories.
(01:29:35):
So I mean not just the illegal type, but the
legals type. Why they want to force force of that is,
you know, make it easy on people's beyond me other
than they're just so addicted to money and their.
Speaker 8 (01:29:46):
Whole woke.
Speaker 9 (01:29:48):
Bullshit that they that they throw at it all the
time about how they don't want to make the world
a better place.
Speaker 8 (01:29:55):
Dei equity, you name.
Speaker 9 (01:29:57):
It is just a cover for their their greed. And
I think I made a good case that that's that
that is that that's what's happening here.
Speaker 2 (01:30:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:30:08):
Well one quick thing on broadcast radio, just watch your
language a little bit, uh, because it's not cable, so
we got to be careful.
Speaker 2 (01:30:15):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:30:16):
One of the things that really got me so much
about your story and the dad. Your dad is a
big part of this, and you touched on it just now.
But you know what, from you usually write about things
that you you know a lot about. You know a
lot of people. There's lots of great information, but it's
rare that I've read a piece from you that felt
(01:30:39):
as personal as this, and and even the way you
talk about with some of the language you use, you know,
like this disgusting vice and hooking people and and all
this stuff. And you can feel it when I'm reading you,
when I'm reading this, like you're you're not just mad,
You're you're you're disgusted.
Speaker 8 (01:30:59):
Yeah, because it's a disgusting habit. I don't gamble by
the way. I one of the reason why I don't gamble.
Speaker 9 (01:31:06):
Is because you know, my dad's gambling ruined a lot
of dinners, and you know, ruined a lot of my
childhood and and I and it's it's and and you
know he would even admit it. The house always wins,
almost always wins, right, So you know you're not gonna
it's it's it's a business that makes a lot of money.
(01:31:26):
They just makes a lot of money because because the
house usually wins. So why would they entice people to
get involved in something like that that they know that their.
Speaker 8 (01:31:38):
Fans are gonna lose money on? Think about that.
Speaker 9 (01:31:40):
You have a clientele, your fans, yet you tell them
to engage in an activity that's going to cost them
money and and you know, and by the way, a
lot of money. It's not just fun. I mean, it
might be fun for some people, but for a lot
of people, it's it's an addiction. Because this is an
addictive thing. It's like saying, it's like, you know, legalizing cocaine,
(01:32:03):
why don't you just un we just go all out
of legalized drugs, And because this is kind of a
drug and maybe we should do that, but don't tell me.
You know, I've seen the rationalizations they've used for legalizing
the stuff. Oh, gets it out of the shadows. What's
the difference to whether it's in the shadows or not.
By the way, it's never going to leave the shadows.
Speaker 1 (01:32:24):
Right, And I think it's never going to leave them,
not shadows. I don't think we're going to put this
genie back in the bottle. But to directly answer your question,
and of course you know the answer. It's not like
you're actually asking me or anybody else why are they
doing this. They're they're doing this because on the margin,
they will get people who who like gambling more than
they like sports, probably, and now that they have the
(01:32:46):
opportunity to gamble on the sport, it will cause them
to tune in and watch the game, so they'll have
more viewers, so they can sell advertising for more money,
and in the league and the teams and the players
and all of them can can make more money.
Speaker 4 (01:33:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:33:00):
It's always about the money. Am I missing something?
Speaker 9 (01:33:05):
And yes, and it's fan engagement as you're pointing out,
But also as I pointed out, they make a lot
of money through advertising and deals and sponsorships with these
sports books. Right, So, I mean there's a whole ecosystem
here and they and when I say a lot of money,
the whole business itself for sports gambling is worldwide, and
this is a course of globe.
Speaker 8 (01:33:26):
It's something like one hundred billion.
Speaker 9 (01:33:28):
The US Sports League's Major League Baseball, basketball, football, they
take about a thirteen fourteen billion dollar cut out of that,
which is not insignificant. And by the way, you can't
measure the fan engagement part that you know, that's you know,
you don't know whether someone's showing up to the game
or tuning in because of gambling or whatever.
Speaker 10 (01:33:50):
Right, It's just it is and it permeates the entire game.
I mean, have you noticed I have noticed. And by
the way, just I'm on.
Speaker 8 (01:34:00):
TV, I mean it's just pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2 (01:34:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:34:03):
Well, these days, you know, you'll watch you'll watch some
sports coverage and in the in the in the chiron
at the bottom, it'll show that the lines on the
game not just you know, the the information you used
to have, and it'll have you know, the Patriots, you
know minus four and a half and it's and it's everywhere.
And then you also even have the people who are
talking on the screen advertising just the way they might
(01:34:26):
advertise for anything else, I guess, but advertising for usually
one of these large gambling companies. I won't use I
won't use any names, but it's clear that there's an
immense amount, an immense amount of money involved there. And
and just so you know, Charlie, I I really really
like betting on football. But I'm not exaggerating when I
(01:34:48):
tell you that my average bet on a weekend is
somewhere around forty cents.
Speaker 2 (01:34:54):
And I might make ten bets and.
Speaker 1 (01:34:56):
I might lose a dollar or two dollars on a
week end. So while I'm not falling into that kind
of addiction and very damaging thing that you talk about,
you hear these stories, and now I hear the stories
about your dad, and it it it paints a very
different picture and it makes you think about it differently.
Speaker 9 (01:35:17):
Yeah, I mean, listen, not everybody. Most people can. A
lot of people can it sut of control their habit
by my dad. I mean, we didn't go without food,
thank god. You know, wasn't that bad.
Speaker 8 (01:35:31):
But you know, this this stuff builds on each other,
It builds on itself. You know what I'm saying. It's
not a harmless vice you know what I'm saying. You know,
it's it's you know, scary stuff.
Speaker 9 (01:35:43):
And you know, I'm just wondering, Okay, they make some
money out of this, they get.
Speaker 8 (01:35:49):
Some fan engagement, but isn't really worth it in the end.
Speaker 9 (01:35:53):
And I think, you know, these guys, you know, they're
they're making a financial decision that it is because they
a shit about his excuse. The language you really care
about is the money. But and they're greedy, and you
know what they are like also hypocrites, and their hypocrisy
is if you're gonna tell me that I live in
a country in the United States of America that's been
(01:36:15):
systemically racist, horrible place for years, treated people horribly.
Speaker 8 (01:36:20):
That that that.
Speaker 9 (01:36:23):
You know, we should take multiple national anthems because the
place is such a horrible place. And then on on
on top of that, you feed of ice like gambling. That's,
in my view, hypocrisy. H So that's what they you know,
they you.
Speaker 8 (01:36:37):
Know they do that.
Speaker 2 (01:36:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
Charlie Gaspriner's piece in the New York Post how woke
NBA executives got mixed up with the mob in an
epping epic gambling scandal. It's a it's a very fascinating
piece because it goes way beyond just reporting about the
scandals themselves and and really gets you to think about,
as Charlie just described this conversation, the harm that it
(01:37:03):
seems like sports leagues and the people who are running
sports leagues, the harm that they are willing to submit
their fans too in order to make some extra money advertising.
Speaker 2 (01:37:15):
And it really is a piece that made me think
a lot. Charlie, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (01:37:19):
Thanks so much for your time as always.
Speaker 2 (01:37:24):
So yeah, you got it all right. That's a great
Charlie guest.
Speaker 1 (01:37:26):
Brino from Fox Business and the New York Post. Let
me do one thing real quick, and then I want
to bring Mandy. And I didn't get to get significantly
through this topic that I had started because I thought
Charlie maybe had forgotten about our conversation, so I started
it and then jumped in with Charlie, I'm just gonna
do like a minute here and maybe I'll come back
to the details of it tomorrow. But Tucker Carlson had
(01:37:48):
this Nazi on his show, and then the head of
the Heritage Foundation came out and said, you know what
a rod, can you put my audio up I just
want to play this bit. The head of the Heritage
Foundation came out and said this.
Speaker 7 (01:38:04):
Always defend Trush, We will always defend America, and we
will always defend our friends against the slander of bad
actors who serve someone else's agendas, that includes Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 2 (01:38:17):
Now, now let me just pause there for a second.
Speaker 1 (01:38:19):
When he said we will always defend our friends against
people who slander whatever in the service of someone else's agenda,
and then.
Speaker 2 (01:38:27):
He said Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 1 (01:38:28):
I thought what he was saying was that Tucker Carlson
is the one serving someone else's agenda, but he wasn't
saying that.
Speaker 7 (01:38:34):
Who remains and as I have said before, always will
be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation. Talk about Tucker,
the venomous coalition attacking him are sewing division. Their attempt
to cancel him will fail.
Speaker 2 (01:38:46):
Okay, So that.
Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
Should get Kevin Roberts fired as head of the Heritage Foundation.
And for this jackass to come out and say, after
Tucker Carlson has a Nazi on his show that the
people who are sowing division are the ones who are
criticizing Tucker and not even can't try to cancel him
just saying you shouldn't do that, saying that the people
(01:39:12):
saying Tucker shouldn't do that are the ones sewing division.
This guy is letting his personal friendship with Tucker and
maybe his fear that offending Tucker's fans will reduce donations
to the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 2 (01:39:24):
Or something like that.
Speaker 1 (01:39:26):
It was absolutely braindead, It was immoral, it was disgusting.
There was a lot of pushback against him. And I'll
just read one other thing to you and then we'll
bring Mandy in. But Young Americans for Freedom quite a
good organization posted this on Twitter. YAF works with and
fights on behalf of conservative students across the country who
face obstacles from campus leftists every day. We work with
(01:39:49):
students to spread America's founding ideals, including the belief that
all people are created equal and endowed by our creator
with certain unalienable rights. We have not and will not
give a plat to those who believe some people are
less than equal due to their race or sex, nor
do we give a platform to those who seek to
propagate vile anti semitism or Holocaust denial.
Speaker 2 (01:40:11):
Supporting and vigorously defending free.
Speaker 1 (01:40:13):
Speech, something YAF has done countless times from the Supreme
Court to the court of public opinion for more than
six decades. Does not mean endorsing or platforming every viewpoint,
especially those that contradict core conservative values. The times may change,
but our values do not. And that there was a
lot of that pushback against the guy at Heritage, and
(01:40:36):
I've been kind of waiting to talk about this seeing
if it would go away. It's not going away, and
I'm glad it's not going away. There's a lot of
turmoil within Heritage now because a lot of people there
don't want to be associated with this stuff. And I
do wonder how long Kevin Roberts can maintain his position there.
Speaker 2 (01:40:53):
Hi, Mandy, what.
Speaker 5 (01:40:55):
Kevin Roberts has done to the Heritage Foundation is almost criminal.
He has taken an organized that worked for decades to
establish itself as the thought leader of the conservative movement.
I have interviewed scholars from Heritage over the years that
were absolutely brilliant people making arguments for conservative solutions to
big problems.
Speaker 2 (01:41:13):
Yeah. Yeah, Kevin Roberts has turned.
Speaker 5 (01:41:15):
It into a political hack organization arm of the Trump presidency.
And this is for me, the final straw. And I
put out a sternly worded post on X he's got
to go, He's gotta go. Heritage is destroyed, in my
view right now, completely destroyed. And they used to be
a brilliant organization.
Speaker 2 (01:41:36):
They're just couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1 (01:41:39):
And just so you know, there's a little inside baseball,
But at Heritage they have a policy that if you
work there, you're not allowed to disagree with the institution's
stated position, and so that's causing a lot of turmoil
there too. Yep, you're not allowed to disagree. Pretty crazy.
What you got coming up, Mandy?
Speaker 5 (01:41:55):
Obviously we're going to talk about last night's election. We've
got whether Wednesday coming up. I have something else on
the schedule that oh, the people from KOFA. It's time
for the annual turkey shoot for the kids. So it's
going to be politics, nonsense and possibly food for aw.
Speaker 2 (01:42:12):
Wait what was that last one? For aw? Can you
use that in a sentence? I just did.
Speaker 5 (01:42:17):
It'll be positively nonsense and food forar aw.
Speaker 2 (01:42:21):
Can you spell it?
Speaker 5 (01:42:22):
F O O F F A R A y r
A W foo for raw.
Speaker 8 (01:42:29):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (01:42:29):
No, it's an H at the end all right now,
it's a W at the end. Now that I'm thinking
about it. Well, crap, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:42:36):
Don't do You do have a great word, but you
don't win the spelling a commercial.
Speaker 5 (01:42:39):
Wait a minute, who wait, Yeah, I spelled it correctly.
F O O F A R A W.
Speaker 2 (01:42:48):
S poo for aw. So you didn't make that word up. No,
it's a real word. Have you never heard this?
Speaker 5 (01:42:53):
It means a great deal of fuss or attention given
to a minor matter, showy frills added unnecessarily. That's the thing,
you know.
Speaker 2 (01:43:00):
Now, everybody stick around for Mandy's foof for raw
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