BHS - 7A – Harris Clinches Majority Support | Crowdstrike Failure Fallout

Kamala Harris clinches majority of delegates to secure democratic nomination. ABC News national correspondent Jim Ryan joins the show to speak on the Crowdstrike debacle that led to a global technology metltdown. The short list of potential candidates for VP. Here’s what happened at the congressional grilling of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demandfrom KF. I am six forty oh
yeah, A little cough. It'sthe frekatas and the top of tea sauce
which every morning I coughed through those. I don't know why. And a
quick question, where do I getthe fretatas? Yes, that's true,

(00:21):
no other place. Matter of fact, yesterday I did a cost go run.
How unusual? All right, someof the big stories Bill Handle here,
by the way, you're listening toKFI. Just In Kiitsch, you
didn't know that. It's Tuesday,July twenty third, just In kiss you
didn't know that. And the big, big, big story that we are
following is Kamala Harris, who wrappedup the replacement for Joe Biden as the

(00:46):
Democratic nominee for president. And shedid it within twenty four hours or even
twelve hours. And I'm thinking,this is a woman who, and I
agree, has not earned her placethere. But there are plenty of presidents.
You can say the same thing aboutsome good, some great. Teddy

(01:07):
Roosevelt after the assassination of McKinley,Harry Truman, not great, but certainly
today considered a good president. Andso that argument while it may hold water.
That's just the way we work.And I was thinking of why,
because I think under normal circumstances shewouldn't be the strongest. However, two

(01:30):
things that put her in a goodposition. One is there's nobody else by
default, and that's more because ofthe circumstances. The Democrats can't take any
time to vet anybody else through aprimary or through the convention system, so
she has to have it. Shehas an enormous war chest. Also,

(01:57):
let's look at her as a candidate. She's effectively Joe Biden in address a
woman, by the way, becauseI don't want to indicate there's a man
in address, because that would bea very difficult sales sales job to do
with the American public. She's awoman, she's mixed race. She was

(02:23):
a former prosecutor, former or currentvice president of the United States, senator,
prosecutor, attorney general of California,and vice president, so she's got
the creds. And she is muchyounger than Donald Trump. All of a
sudden, that age thing has reversed, where now it's Donald Trump who's seventy

(02:46):
eight years old, and the Republicanscan't scream old and decrepit and doesn't have
the cognitive skills. She is agreat debater. I mean, she is
sharp as hell. She's much younger, and a couple of vulnerabilities, and
I think they can be overcome,assuming Joe Biden and the Democratic Party is

(03:09):
okay with that. The big oneis the attack on her with immigration.
She led the immigration charge against orled the immigration charge on behalf of Joe
Biden. She was it. Shewas the face of immigration, and I
think she can unravel that by saying, assuming Joe Biden and the Democrats sort

(03:34):
of allow this, and I thinkit would be a good move politically,
is that wasn't me. I workedfor Joe Biden, that was his program
that he ordered. I would havedone it much differently. Counter also,
she can argue, is Joe Bidencame to the table. We came to
the table, We had a bipartisanagreement until Donald Trump stopped it cold.

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Now is that going to register?I don't know. I have no idea,
And all of a sudden, you'regoing to see this debate in September,
which I don't think Donald Trump cansay no to. You're not going
to see a meltdown. I don'tbelieve you're going to see a meltdown.
I think you're going to be screaming. You're going to hear Donald Trump screaming.
Who is going to say to her, You're just Joe Biden? And

(04:26):
she can counter with are you blind? Let's bring your seeing dog out there?
Because what how am I Joe Biden? I'm not as old as you
are. I'm not the one thatordered the immigration process or the immigration policy.
That was Joe Biden. If youwant to debate Joe Biden, go

(04:47):
right ahead, but you're debating me, so don't pretend that's who I am.
And I think she can get awaywith that. I think she can.
And when you think of the excitementlevel in the Democratic Party that has
turned around completely too completely turned around, where now you have massive donations coming

(05:10):
in, massive donors, big timedonors writing checks. I mean, the
last few days, one hundred milliondollars has poured into her campaign as well
as Joe Biden's war chest. Wethink the Republicans are fighting that, saying
that has to be returned to thedonors. You'll see lawsuits on that one.

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And all of a sudden, theJoe all of sudden Donald Trump's followers
and Donald Trump I think are goingto be on the defense. He's always
going to be on the offense always, and I just don't know where he
is going to go. And ifhe gets personal with her, I think
that's going to be a problem forhim. If he goes strictly to policy,

(05:55):
I think that is a legitimate race. I don't think he can.
I don't believe that Donald Trump canstick on policy. We found that out
when he accepted the nomination. Wesaw that the first day of the convention,
when he became introspective, when hewas a changed man. We saw

(06:18):
that the guy had literally come withinan inch of his losing his life,
and that affects people well. Bythe next day, all that was gone,
and by the night of his acceptancespeech, he started that way for
the first ten minutes and then devolvedinstantly into the Donald Trump we know.

(06:39):
So in retrospect, I do thinkthat she is probably the best candidate to
go against Trump by default. Possiblyprobably, But let me put it this
way. If Joe Biden were tobe elected, then who would take his

(07:01):
place? And Donald Trump again runs? Because I think Donald Trump, as
long as he doesn't do his secondterm, There'll be overwhelming pressure in the
Republican Party and the MAGA people tokeep on running him until he's one hundred
because he's Donald Trump. Who wouldgo against him if he doesn't win a

(07:23):
second term. I think Kamala Harris. I think it's her both by default
and by she happens to be agood choice. And I'm not a fan,
not at all, but you know, I don't know which way it
would go otherwise, So it's goingto be a hell of a race.
I mean a hell of a race, Okay. Jim Ryan from ABC has

(07:47):
joined us talking about the CrowdStrike scamsthat are going all have started like crazy,
and how exactly this all happened.First of all, Jim, I
know you're spending the extra time youwere going to go home after your shift,
and thank you for joining us.You're welcome. You've been caught following
this and it's kind of weird.A couple of things. Why is I

(08:09):
don't know if you know that Deltais still involved with the other airlines I
have come back, and more importantlyfor us, unless you're a Delta passenger,
the scams that are going on baseon CrowdStrike and that is Boy,
that happened instantly, didn't it.Oh yeah, yeah, it was just

(08:30):
And that's what made me my gutwas to say, oh, now what,
who's done this? Who around theworld might be responsible for taking down
American the industry, the airline industry. It's more to know what CrowdStrike does
first build. CrowdStrike is a cybersecuritycompany. They provide what's called endpoint Detection

(08:50):
and Response to EDR to clients likeTarget, Amazon, Delta Airlines, American
Airlines, Alphabet. They have awhole list of clients that they provide this
eder to the endpoint detection response.It's a cybersecurity function. So Friday,
earlier in the morning, four o'clockin the morning Eastern time, I believe

(09:11):
they tried to update some of theirsoftware. So they load this update into
the system, and as soon asit was loaded in, it essentially broke
down. It collapsed, and ittook with it all those clients, the
Target of the world, the DeltaAirlines, the America, I mean,
the whole US air system. Ilooked at a map one of these the

(09:33):
flight aware maps, showing the countryand all the flights that are over It
looked like nine to eleven because itwas empty, it was scary. So
that was the result. I mean, it was an inadvertent mistake, it
was a problem, but it causedmayhem around the world, and it really
points out how shaky that whole cyberinfrastructure is and how dependent it is on

(09:54):
little things like one person or oneentity uploading an update, trying to do
something right and taking the whole systemout all right, So vulnerability is easy.
So I got two more questions asa result of this, Do you
think major changes are going to happenor more companies are going to be relied
on? And just a word ortwo about the scams that we may get.

(10:16):
Well, you're right, I meanthere's already there are people looking down
the road to say, maybe weneeded to take a closer look at that
whole infrastructure. Maybe there should bemore regulation, some more oversight over what's
happening out there. It's a privatecompany and it's as private clients like Target,
like all the rest of them,but should there be some kind of
oversight to see that this doesn't happenagain? So I mentioned some of the

(10:39):
clients, right, some of thosebig corporate clients, including Microsoft and these
huge clients that rely on this company. You don't hear a lot of individual
names because it's not something it's notlike you know, McAfee that you have
on your computer or some other cybersecurityendpoints system you have, because it deals
with client. So that tells mesomething that if you get an email bill

(11:03):
and it says, dear mister handle, I'm with CrowdStrike and your computer has
been infected because of the thing happenedFriday, and I need to get into
your computer and fix it. Socall me at this number and we'll start
to work on this. And that'sthe kind of thing that's going on now.
So there are always these sort ofthese tech support scams, many of
them originating from South Asia, butthis one has a special air of believability

(11:26):
because of what actually happened on Friday. So people might be inclined to say,
yeah, I heard about that.Maybe maybe this is CrowdStrike and they
need to get into my computer andfix this. Don't do it. Just
don't do it, okay. Soit's just so when one of these happened,
it becomes instantaneous. A scammers comeout because yeah, there's this air

(11:46):
of plausibility that goes with it now. Yeah, and I get I'm getting
these scams constantly. I just ifit's unsolicited, I just leave it alone.
I mean, there's no way Ianswer, I call, I click
on. I just don't. AndI just like the paper thing, you
know. I get these emails.Hey, your your PayPal account. There's
a problem with the billing. Weneed to get updated billing information. I

(12:07):
don't have a PayPal account. Bill, Yeah, neither do I. My
favorite one is the Philippines. Yourchild has been kidnapped and is in jail,
and we need to make bail.Right. Well, unfortunately that one
now is getting a lot of playtoo, because with AI and the ability
to spoof voices, to give adeep, vague fake voice, and they

(12:28):
call you up and say, hey, your son is in jail, and
it's your son calling. It soundslike your son, you know it's I
think we're on the losing end ofthis whole thing. Bill. Yeah,
I don't have to worry because Ijust say keep the kids. Probably,
by the way, that's let's lessof a joke than you think, Jim.
Thanks again, we'll talk and newscariscorrespondent. But now moving into what

(12:54):
Kamala Harris did, and she hascoalesced uh the entire Democratic Party and is
the nominee and did this within twelvehours. A lot of it has to
do with her and the way sheis viewed by the Democratic Party, and
a lot of it has to dowith it just broke that way. There
was no choice. So the onlyissue is who's going to be the VP.

(13:18):
That really is the issue in theDemocratic Party. Not that it really
matters, but it might matter.And here's a couple of things that you
are not going to see. NumberOne, Gavin Newsom, he's being touted
as a possible vice presidential pick.Ain't gonna happen. Just is not going
to happen. And I'll tell youwhy, because he is the governor of

(13:39):
California. She doesn't need californiaet She'sgot California. Adolf Hitler would have California
if he were a Democrat, sothat is not a problem. Also,
you're not going to see any senators. Mark Kelly is being touted I think
out of Arizona. That is notgoing to happen because the majority that Democrats

(14:03):
in having the Senate are razor thinand they can't lose a Democrat at all.
And of course his party lines,so there's no chance anybody other than
a Democrat would be selected. Soit's going to be a governor, that's
it. And it's going to bea governor in a swing state. It's
going to be a governor who isgoing to help the election, like Shapiro

(14:26):
out of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania very importantstate. So here you have a very
popular Democratic governor and add him tothe ticket and he is a favorite son
of Pennsylvania. And it's happened before, and it does happen where even personal

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relations don't really matter. Let's goback a little bit in history nineteen sixty
when JFK won the race, whenhe won the presidential and Lyndon Johnson was
his pit and I don't even knowwhat was his pick because they hated each
other, I mean from day one. But JFK needed Texas. Without Texas,

(15:11):
he was not going to win theelection. Lyndon Johnson delivered Texas for
John F. Kennedy. So ifit's Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, the
thought is he will deliver Pennsylvania.He went on a landslide, by the
way, in twenty twenty two,Roy Cooper of North Carolina, another critical

(15:33):
state. He won reelection in twentytwenty. He's term limited out and she
needs North Carolina desperately. Mark Kelly, as I said, out of Arizona,
I think he's gone. I don'teven know why they're bringing him up
because he is a senator and theycan't afford to lose any senator. She

(15:54):
can't. Kentucky Governor Andy Basher hasbeen floated, and he is a Democrat
who was elected in a deep redstate that Trump carried by twenty five points
in twenty twenty. Can he deliver? Probably not that much. So my

(16:14):
guess is it ain't going to happenbecause Kentucky is deep deep red. Illinois
another important state, Governor JB.Pritzker. By the way, if you
don't know who he is, haveyou ever heard of a Hyatt hotel.
Yeah, he's aired all of thatmoney and he is very popular in Illinois.

(16:36):
He is a big, big well. He is certainly on the final
shortlist. Transportation Secretary Pete Buddhajic myfavorite who I think I would vote for
it. I would pitch is acentrist and he is out of Indiana.

(16:56):
But he's only he was only amayor, right, that's his background,
Insportation secretary. He got that positionbecause he was an early proponent of Joe
Biden. And so when you're anearly proponent of a candidate who wins,
boy, there you go, youget great stuff. I don't think she
is going to pick him for acouple reasons. His background's mayor, that's

(17:18):
it. And he's gay and asAmerica ready for a gay president unfortunately,
no, No, I think weas American people would vote in a satanist
before a gay president at this point. So who are we going to see

(17:40):
governor Swing state? That's my guess, and we'll see if that's true.
Okay, we just got the newsthat Secret Service Director Kimberley Cheatle just resigned.
Yesterday. She was in front ofa Congressional congress or a congressional hearing,
and she just kept on stonewalling theHouse Oversight Committee trying to pry information,

(18:06):
and she just wasn't giving it up. It was a no, thank
you. Now. A lot ofpeople stonewall committees, and usually they're very
political whenever you talk about an investigativecommittee, because that's what these committees are.
They are there to investigate whatever issuesin front of them, and for

(18:27):
some crazy reason, everybody gets anopening statement. I'm talking about the congressmen
and women on the committee, andit's all politics. That's it. Rattle
rattroler politics. And then the questioningstarts. And if it's someone who is
a Democrat in front of the committee, then the Democrats give them softball questions

(18:48):
and the Republicans go nuts and attackingthem. I mean, that's just it,
and the other way around too.So yesterday Cheadle, who is in
a Democratic administration, got attacked likecrazy. But here's the difference. She
deserved it because she is head ofthe secret Service that screwed the pooch when

(19:10):
it came to protecting former President Trumpat that rally in which he was shot
and came within an inch of havinghis brains blown out. And here the
Secret Service, I mean, therewere all kinds of questions. The kid
crooks, they knew he was upon the roof, someone saw him,

(19:32):
The Secret Service knew he was someoneof interest walking around the building. There
was a drone that he had flownover the site of the rally. I
mean, it just goes on andon. And keep in mind that when
he took that shot. This kid, twenty year old kid, was four

(19:53):
hundred and four hundred fifty feet fromthe president on top of a building that
had lineup sit. I mean adirect shot to the president, and any
good marksman would have hit the target. He probably wasn't or went very quickly
and unload the shots, because itwas just a matter of seconds before the

(20:17):
police, and I think it wasa secret service actually said there's a shooter
up on the building, and theword went out. But within eight seconds
the shots wrung out. So it'snot how quickly the Secret Service reacted,
because I think they reacted pretty quickly. I mean they did their job by
jumping on top of former President Trump, protecting him, shuffling him over to

(20:41):
a waiting car, and so allthat was pretty good. It's the intelligence
beforehand, and Cheatle just would nottell the committee virtually everything. She was
stone walling, and the call forher resignation went across the board, I
mean bipartisan call, and she said, I'm not doing it. I am

(21:03):
not resigning. That was yesterday thismorning, She's resigning. And even if
it wasn't her fault, even ifand her argument is I relied on people
heads had to roll. I saidthat yesterday, and the buck stops here,
and the buck stopped there, andtoday the buck was spent and Cheetle

(21:27):
is gone. So now the investigationcontinues, by the way, whether Cheetle
is at fault, whether her administrativeabilities were horrible. There's all kinds of
arguments saying we've been wanting more resourcesthe Trump administration wanted where the Trump team
wanted more resources, wanted more protection, of which a secret service was not

(21:49):
giving. And she said, wegave them everything they asked for this time
in Pennsylvania, but we have heldbecause we don't have the resources, we
don't have the money. We relyon local law enforcement in many cases,
which is true. So are wegoing to get answers. Of course,
we're going to get answers, butwe're just not going to get them from

(22:11):
Cheatle because she is now lining upher next job and she has to learn
how to make coffee with those machinesat Starbucks. All right, this is
KFI AM six forty live everywhere onthe iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to
the Bill Handle Show. Catch myshow Monday through Friday six am to nine

(22:32):
am, and anytime on demand onthe iHeartRadio app,