February 6, 2025 • 23 mins
KFI White House correspondent Jon Decker speaks on the latest out of the Oval Office. Google joins the list of companies distancing themselves from DEI. California EV sales flat in 2024. Can Newsom’s mandate be met? Researchers tested sandboxes and street dust for lead after Eaton Fire… Here’s what they found.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
On KFI AM six forty Handle Morning Crew on a Thursday,
February sixth as we are actually enjoying a gentle rain
coming down, which is exactly what we needed. And I
hate the rain, but I hate this rain less that
I hate other rain.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Rain's great. I like don't like getting wets. Why I
don't shower?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
This is why everybody just leaves me and I walk
down the hall and no one gets near me.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Actually, you're not a smelly guy. Okay, fine, no you're not.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
It's weird, I know because you you read like you'd
be smelly. Excellent John Decker, who is joining this conversation, John,
how often do you shower?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
By the way, what was the question?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
How often do I what exactly?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I'll always we're gonna get right into being in the
oval office before we start that.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
How often do you shower?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Oh? I shower at least once a day. You know,
if I'm working out in the afternoon that I shower again.
But typically I work out in the morning, So just
one shower o day.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
All right, Now, we don't know a little bit about
John Decker, who is kfi's White House corresponding. John, you
have been covering presidents for a long time, and you
are in the Oval Office usually when the president is
signing his executive orders, and he does it well, there's
never been a president that had reporters in the Oval
Office as much since FDR. Actually where he would sit
(01:30):
there and you know, talk to reporters. I'm not interested
in policy. What I'm interested in is what's the flavor
of the room.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
You know, what's it like?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
And I know you can't tell me what you think,
but what's the buzz like in the in the press
corps out there that you hear about the room and
Donald Trump? And it's a small room, I understand as
he goes on and everybody's screaming for questions.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Describe that, would you?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Well, I wouldn't say we were screaming for questions yesterday.
It was a small group of reporters that were in
the White House Oval Office yesterday. And the reason being
is because Pam Bondi, she's the new Attorney General. She
was sworn in yesterday in the Oval Office by Supreme
Court Justice Clarence Thomas. President Trump obviously on hand for this.
(02:19):
He made some remarks. The new Attorney General, Pam Bondi,
made some remarks, and then the President took two questions
from the small group of reporters while in the Oval Office.
I was one of those questions that he answered. And
to get to your initial question, I think you could
say it's there's a buzz. There's a buzz related to
(02:39):
being in the Oval Office, but particularly for President Trump.
There were probably about two dozen at least people in
that room yesterday, friends and family of Pam Bondi that
wanted to be on hand for her swearing in. And
this was the only event of a swearing in ceremony
that has taken place so far in Trump's second term
(03:02):
in the Oval Office. So I was fortunate enough to
be there yesterday.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Now let me ask you, the reporters who are give
credited to be in the Oval Office have done in
a lot of time you've seen President. Is there an
excitement level that doesn't exist or hasn't existed with other
presidents there.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
I'm sort of getting that feeling.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
No. Well, for me, I can only speak for myself.
You know, I'm always excited to be in the Oval Office.
My gosh, all the presidents that have occupied that office.
So whether it's a Democrat or a Republican who's in
the Oval Office at the time, I'm always excited when
I learned I'm going to go in there for bill signing,
signing of an executive voter yesterday, I swearing in, or
(03:44):
the president's meeting with his counterpart from another country. All
of that is exciting and you get ready for it,
you know. As it relates to President Trump, I had
about a dozen questions prepared for him, but he was
not in a talkative mood yesterday, and really the only
reason why he took my question was because it was
on point. You know. It was focused on why we
(04:04):
were in the Oval Office yesterday with Pam Bondi becoming
the new attorney general.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Does he give a preference to conservative reporters or is
he pretty even?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Stephen about that?
Speaker 1 (04:15):
He's pretty I think he's pretty even, Stephen, you know.
I mean, look, if he recognizes you and I covered
him in the first term, he's going to take my questions.
He certainly did so dozens upon dozens of times during
his first term in office, and he recognizes me first
on my interview. Donald Trump was way back in nineteen
ninety nine. So I've got a long term relationship with
(04:39):
him that goes back even before he was a politician,
which is longer than most people that cover the president
right now. So I think it helps you know if
you have that type of relationship with the president in
terms of being called on, but he doesn't discriminate. You know,
he'll call on anybody essentially as he's in other venues, like,
(05:00):
for instance, if he's walking on the South lawn to
board Marine one, he'll take some questions from reporters and
he's not really focused upon whether or not the reporters
from a conservative outlet or not.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Now everybody knows that he does not like the press
very much.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
It has described them as straight out enemies, and during
campaigns being covered, he would look at them, point to
them and go, that's the enemy over there, I mean,
and was pretty adamant about it.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Has that changed.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Do you get any negative because you're a press person
because you remember the press.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Well, it's a complicated relationship. I wouldn't say flat out
that he doesn't like the press, because he does like
the press. He loves the coverage. He actually enjoys when
I've flown with him on Air Force one. He enjoys
coming back to where the press sits on Air Force
one and chatting with us, you know, for twenty thirty
minutes off the record. So it's a mixed relationship. It's
(05:58):
the best way I would describe it. He likes to
be liked, He likes the give and take with reporters,
So it's not just as simple black and white. He
doesn't like reporters. I think at times he doesn't like
reporters and news organizations. But for the most part, I
think he likes the relationship that he has with the
press corps. And that goes back to his days when
(06:18):
he was a developer in New York and he sought
out the attention of you know, his hometown newspapers, the
New York Times and the Daily News and the New
York Post.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
One last question, as you guys are in the Oval
office and you're finishing it up, does he ever pass
out or dervs?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
No, No, he doesn't pass that. No, that does not happen.
I've never had that experience. I don't know why you
would have where Duras and the Oval office, because that doesn't.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
It's a social thing to do.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's okay all right, John, thank you as always. I
mean he is pretty close to the present, you know,
kf I is. You know, we're pretty lucky to have
John as part of the team. All right now, the
president is not a big fan of DEI, as you know,
and he has eliminated DEI programs as quickly as he
(07:08):
possibly can across the country. If we go back to
the murder of George Floyd. At that moment, I think
our world changed dramatically in terms of how we view
the police, how we view the way cities create policing,
and the Black Lives Matter came out of it, and
(07:30):
DEI to the extent that it was round before, exploded
inclusion diversity.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
We needed more minorities.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Google, by the way, had one of the strongest programs,
the DEI program, and it has just joined other tech
giants and going wait a minute, let's take a look
at this. And it has to do not with let's
take a look at this because of any sociological or
moral reasoning.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
It's the new.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Administration doesn't like this. We have contracts with the new administration.
We don't want to piss off this president, who, by
the way, is a bad president to piss off there
are people in government, then it doesn't matter. Boy, you
piss off President Trump, you're in trouble. So the killing
(08:22):
of George Floyd in twenty twenty set off a whole
target of increasing the proportion. This is goal, saying setting
a target of thirty percent the proportion of leadership representation
of underrepresented groups by twenty twenty five, by this year. Now,
even before the president became president this time around, a
(08:46):
couple of things happened. In his annual report it has
released that it just released, it omitted the sentence stating
the company was committed to make diversity, equity, and inclusion
part of everything we do and to growing a workforce
that is representative of the users we serve. That sentence
(09:08):
was included in twenty twenty one through twenty twenty four.
Twenty twenty five, sentence is no longer in there. And
here are some stats. Remember that Google in twenty twenty
said we have a target of thirty percent increasing thirty percent. Okay,
the twenty twenty four report from Google, five point seven
(09:30):
percent of the US employees were black, seven point five
percent were Latino, and four years earlier, the figures were
three point seven and five point nine respectively, not a
whole lot of representation. And now Google says, okay, let's
let's look at not even releasing annual diversity reports. And
it's been doing that since twenty fourteen. And why, I mean,
(09:53):
they're up front about it. The Google's representative said, it's
reviewing recent court decisions. It's reviewing executive orders by President
Trump aimed at curbing DEI by the government and federal contractors,
which the tech giants all have contracts with the government.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
I mean, good for them.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
At least they're honest about it, saying, hey, it's a
different world. Life has changed. Where it was one politically
mandatory to push the EI, especially after the George Floyd murder.
Now it's gone the other way, where you have a
Biden administration where inclusion is actually even more important than
(10:37):
anything else. This is one of the reasons that Donald
Trump won the election. This is one of the reasons
why the Democrats just completely misreaded because they thought this
sort of thing, inclusion, LGBT rights, etc. Was more important
than inflation, more important than immigration.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I mean, it's easy to look.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
At hindsight and say this is what happened, but this
is what happened. So Google is dancing and around saying
would maintain its resource groups for underrepresented employees. And it's
not a question of here's how they paint it too.
It's not a question of we want more blacks, we
want more Latinos. It's underrepresented employees that come from those areas.
(11:21):
This is how the colleges get away with it in
establishing quota systems. It is illegal for a university to
determine acceptance of a class or any student based on race.
Cannot do it one percent. It's illegal. However, it's not
(11:43):
illegal to look at poor communities. It is not illegal
to look at an underrepresentation. And how difficult it is
to get in college if a student comes from a
poor community, no matter white, red, blue, purple, whatever. Well,
if you look at in this country the number of
(12:07):
blacks and Latinos who live in poor or poorer communities,
effectively dei happens, there's no question about it. And where
it used to be sort of the flavor of the
law of the land. With this administration, it's going the
other way completely. And the tech companies who Trump hated,
and we're at the forefront of saying we believe in
(12:31):
black and Latinos and not so much Asians because Asians
are not particularly underrepresentative in tech or in school. But
we believe in minority management and employees. That's off the table. Now,
that's done, and you will see this Halloween. You know
(12:53):
when the big corporations throw Halloween parties and they throw
a big get togethers from morale. They don't give money,
but they give a big, big morale boosters. I guarantee
you you'll see a picture from Google and Amazon. You'll
see so many costumes, people dressed in white sheets and hoods.
It's just going to be a very very different way. Okay, guys,
(13:15):
we're done.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Now a word about.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
EV's and I have one. California EV sales are flat
in twenty twenty four. I mean last year it was great,
but demand has flatline in California and all kinds of questions.
Can automobile manufacturers meet the state mandates for zero emission
vehicle sales? Other than Tesla, which only sells evs, no
(13:44):
other manufacturer is going to meet the state's thirty five
percent threshold for zero emission vehicles in the upcoming twenty
twenty six model year. Demand just doesn't match, but the
mandate requires zero. Evs simply aren't selling that well. And
why is that? Well, it's really easy. Let me tell
you about my EV. I love my EV. I have
(14:08):
a BMW. I've had BMW's for twenty five years. I
love that car. I think it's the best driving car
out there. And I'm not blowing smoke here. I just
happened to love that car. And for as my lease
was up on my last car for some reason, I
obviously had a huge temperature and I was running a
fever at one hundred and nine degrees, and I went
(14:29):
out and.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Got a Tesla.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Lasted two weeks before I said I'm done with the Tesla,
went back to a BMW, of course, and bought an EV.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
But here's the problem. It certainly, in my opinion, I'm
not alone.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
The problem with evs, not hybrid straight evs is range anxiety.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
I am matter of fact.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
I live in Orange County and this morning I was
figuring out how many miles I have to go to
West Valley for an appointment.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
And I'm figuring out.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Okay, twenty five I was there, and I have to
go this and I've got these many miles to go home,
and I'm sweating bullets because there aren't enough chargers out there.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
There just aren't.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
The manufacturers are doing a great job, but more evs
are selling than they were able to put up chargers
and that and people said, okay, we're done. And hybrids,
by the way, hybrids have exploded. That clearly is the
wave of the future. My next car that I get
when my lease is up, I lease cars becuse every
three years.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
I want another one.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
It's going to be a hybrid EV. And what are
the chances of a BMW? Oh, I don't know about
one hundred percent? Okay, that sound like a commercial for BMW,
by the way, a little bit, it's not.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
By the way, that's well, how long have I been
talking about this, I mean twenty years, you know?
Speaker 1 (15:49):
So?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Okay, Neil, it's like a Trump prayer breakfast. Yeah, it
actually is when you think about it. Now, how do
you meet compliance? The manufacturers, how do they meet compliance? Well,
it's an average over the entire fleet that they sell,
So there aren't going to be enough EV sales clearly,
(16:12):
and by the way, failing to meet the thirty five
percent mandate means either paying penalties of thirty of twenty
thousand dollars per every non compliant compliant vehicle sowed sold,
everyone over the thirty five percent mandate or everyone under
(16:32):
the thirty five percent mandate twenty grand per car.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
That's the problem. So they got a couple ways of
doing it.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Manufacture fewer buy state issued emission credits carbon credits that
they can buy, or decrease the number of internal combustion
engines that are being sold and manufactured sold, particularly because
we don't do much manufacturing here. That's the way they're
going to do it, which means that the mandate. And
(17:04):
I thought the mandate was great because I love the
concept of evs. I mean, they do use energy, but
they save a pilot energy. I'm one of those people
that actually believes in fossil fuels, too many of them.
I believe that emissions are causing global warming. That's who
I am. And it's real simple. They're not going to
make the mandate. They're not, And so buy an ev
(17:28):
By the way, I did the math, and I have
to charge my car downstairs twice this week in order
to make it. Now, who does that when you have
a internal combustion car? And I got twenty buys there
and I got thirty miles over that one. And then
I've got to go over there, and I got to
figure out what's my mileage? What kind of range do
(17:50):
I have? It's range anxiety of the yin yang. Okay,
let's move on. Okay, a couple of shockers for you
and some uh all right before the rains arrived. And
this is after the fire. There's a USC professor Seth John.
He went through the Foothill neighborhood that was devastated by
(18:12):
the eating fire and he gathered street dust to.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Test for lead.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Another USC professor visited public parks and preschool sampling sandboxes
to test for lead because there was a lot of
concern following the fire because thousands of older buildings where
lead paint is present had burned down and raising a
bunch of questions about how far ash laden with these
(18:40):
toxic heavy metals spread across the region. Because now we're
looking at ooh, the dangers of that. And here is
the one that I'm glad they spent money on this.
The samples with the highest concentrations of lead were found
right in front of burned homes. That's where the biggest
(19:01):
problem was in terms of heavy metals and lead.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Gee, thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
So the two researchers tested nineteen samples gathered every half
mile or so from locking you out of flint Ridge
to Monrovia, some right in front of burned homes, others
from neighborhoods where the homes were spared but were blanketed
in ash. And they actually found a ton of viralbility variability,
(19:31):
and not just the further away you go, the better
off you are. So predictably the street does from the
middle of Altadeno, which so the worst damage showed the
highest level of lead.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Ooh, isn't that special. That's a shocker.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Samples ranging from just above the EPA soil screening limit
of eighty parts per million to more than twenty times that.
Now near blind neighborhoods had barely any lead present.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
And here's what's interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
They thought that nearby neighborhoods would show a substantial level
of thread of lead, but it really was limited. Neighborhood
by neighborhood, there was less and less lead to war
only half a mile or a mile away. Even though
there was ash, it was also almost negligible in terms
of heavy metals. They also went to no malasca and
(20:26):
under the snow at a school they found no lead.
Strangely enough, it's all a question of how close you were.
Of the seven playgrounds that were tested, lead levels were
low to nonexistent. Now we don't know at this point
how dangerous with the potential risks.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Are, but you have to find out. Testing has to.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Be done, and not just for lead either, but heavy metals,
including chromium and arsenic. How do you find arsenic in
a home who has arsenic? Well, arsnake is used in
lumber to treat lumber. It's an anti rot what element mineral? Yeah, Actually,
(21:10):
arsenic is found in food naturally, Yeah, apples.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
You wear arsnake, especially if you wear old lace.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
After debris and the ashurekill cleared, the researchers recommend test
your properties multiple samples. You have to average everything that's
going on. And the good news is the rain should
help wash away a lot of the street dust. Well,
of course it's going to so we now have rains.
They're going to test after the rains, and this actually
(21:43):
is better news than we thought in terms of the
amount of lead and toxicity. And they got the heavy
metals that's the big one because you also have batteries.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
And we've had that big deal in Malibu.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
At Roger Beach, Will Rogers Beach, Yeah, good old Will Rogers.
I never met a man I didn't like and he well,
he never met you, did he? I'm sorry, No, he
never did. Okay, he never did.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Yeah. It was a very interesting guy.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
You know who's uh, you know where he broadcasts from
in his radio days, Will Rogers Kfi KFI mike. Some
of his great statements were made in front of a
KFI mike and that's his uh, that's his tombstone. I
never met a male. A man I didn't like. Neil's
tombstone is gonna read I never met a meal.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
I didn't like. Amen.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
All right, Uh, I guess we're done for this segment.
Coming up, we have Joel Larsguard how the money? Uh?
And then kind of a fun topic at the bottom
of the hour eight thirty Biden has well it has
to do with the federal use of private prisons and
how that's changed from Biden to Trump. And then we're
gonna finish show with Moe Kelly. Alec Paul has a
(23:00):
new reality show. Alec Baldwin to talk about the trailer.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
I saw the trailer.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Let me tell you some weird stuff about that trailer.
Number one with a bullet that's right, very strong. We'll
be back kf I am sixty.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Catch my Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
On KFI AM six forty Handle Morning Crew on a Thursday,
February sixth as we are actually enjoying a gentle rain
coming down, which is exactly what we needed. And I
hate the rain, but I hate this rain less that
I hate other rain.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Rain's great. I like don't like getting wets. Why I
don't shower?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
This is why everybody just leaves me and I walk
down the hall and no one gets near me.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Actually, you're not a smelly guy. Okay, fine, no you're not.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
It's weird, I know because you you read like you'd
be smelly. Excellent John Decker, who is joining this conversation, John,
how often do you shower?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
By the way, what was the question?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
How often do I what exactly?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I'll always we're gonna get right into being in the
oval office before we start that.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
How often do you shower?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Oh? I shower at least once a day. You know,
if I'm working out in the afternoon that I shower again.
But typically I work out in the morning, So just
one shower o day.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
All right, Now, we don't know a little bit about
John Decker, who is kfi's White House corresponding. John, you
have been covering presidents for a long time, and you
are in the Oval Office usually when the president is
signing his executive orders, and he does it well, there's
never been a president that had reporters in the Oval
Office as much since FDR. Actually where he would sit
(01:30):
there and you know, talk to reporters. I'm not interested
in policy. What I'm interested in is what's the flavor
of the room.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
You know, what's it like?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
And I know you can't tell me what you think,
but what's the buzz like in the in the press
corps out there that you hear about the room and
Donald Trump? And it's a small room, I understand as
he goes on and everybody's screaming for questions.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Describe that, would you?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Well, I wouldn't say we were screaming for questions yesterday.
It was a small group of reporters that were in
the White House Oval Office yesterday. And the reason being
is because Pam Bondi, she's the new Attorney General. She
was sworn in yesterday in the Oval Office by Supreme
Court Justice Clarence Thomas. President Trump obviously on hand for this.
(02:19):
He made some remarks. The new Attorney General, Pam Bondi,
made some remarks, and then the President took two questions
from the small group of reporters while in the Oval Office.
I was one of those questions that he answered. And
to get to your initial question, I think you could
say it's there's a buzz. There's a buzz related to
(02:39):
being in the Oval Office, but particularly for President Trump.
There were probably about two dozen at least people in
that room yesterday, friends and family of Pam Bondi that
wanted to be on hand for her swearing in. And
this was the only event of a swearing in ceremony
that has taken place so far in Trump's second term
(03:02):
in the Oval Office. So I was fortunate enough to
be there yesterday.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Now let me ask you, the reporters who are give
credited to be in the Oval Office have done in
a lot of time you've seen President. Is there an
excitement level that doesn't exist or hasn't existed with other
presidents there.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
I'm sort of getting that feeling.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
No. Well, for me, I can only speak for myself.
You know, I'm always excited to be in the Oval Office.
My gosh, all the presidents that have occupied that office.
So whether it's a Democrat or a Republican who's in
the Oval Office at the time, I'm always excited when
I learned I'm going to go in there for bill signing,
signing of an executive voter yesterday, I swearing in, or
(03:44):
the president's meeting with his counterpart from another country. All
of that is exciting and you get ready for it,
you know. As it relates to President Trump, I had
about a dozen questions prepared for him, but he was
not in a talkative mood yesterday, and really the only
reason why he took my question was because it was
on point. You know. It was focused on why we
(04:04):
were in the Oval Office yesterday with Pam Bondi becoming
the new attorney general.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Does he give a preference to conservative reporters or is
he pretty even?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Stephen about that?
Speaker 1 (04:15):
He's pretty I think he's pretty even, Stephen, you know.
I mean, look, if he recognizes you and I covered
him in the first term, he's going to take my questions.
He certainly did so dozens upon dozens of times during
his first term in office, and he recognizes me first
on my interview. Donald Trump was way back in nineteen
ninety nine. So I've got a long term relationship with
(04:39):
him that goes back even before he was a politician,
which is longer than most people that cover the president
right now. So I think it helps you know if
you have that type of relationship with the president in
terms of being called on, but he doesn't discriminate. You know,
he'll call on anybody essentially as he's in other venues, like,
(05:00):
for instance, if he's walking on the South lawn to
board Marine one, he'll take some questions from reporters and
he's not really focused upon whether or not the reporters
from a conservative outlet or not.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Now everybody knows that he does not like the press
very much.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
It has described them as straight out enemies, and during
campaigns being covered, he would look at them, point to
them and go, that's the enemy over there, I mean,
and was pretty adamant about it.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Has that changed.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Do you get any negative because you're a press person
because you remember the press.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Well, it's a complicated relationship. I wouldn't say flat out
that he doesn't like the press, because he does like
the press. He loves the coverage. He actually enjoys when
I've flown with him on Air Force one. He enjoys
coming back to where the press sits on Air Force
one and chatting with us, you know, for twenty thirty
minutes off the record. So it's a mixed relationship. It's
(05:58):
the best way I would describe it. He likes to
be liked, He likes the give and take with reporters,
So it's not just as simple black and white. He
doesn't like reporters. I think at times he doesn't like
reporters and news organizations. But for the most part, I
think he likes the relationship that he has with the
press corps. And that goes back to his days when
(06:18):
he was a developer in New York and he sought
out the attention of you know, his hometown newspapers, the
New York Times and the Daily News and the New
York Post.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
One last question, as you guys are in the Oval
office and you're finishing it up, does he ever pass
out or dervs?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
No, No, he doesn't pass that. No, that does not happen.
I've never had that experience. I don't know why you
would have where Duras and the Oval office, because that doesn't.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
It's a social thing to do.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's okay all right, John, thank you as always. I
mean he is pretty close to the present, you know,
kf I is. You know, we're pretty lucky to have
John as part of the team. All right now, the
president is not a big fan of DEI, as you know,
and he has eliminated DEI programs as quickly as he
(07:08):
possibly can across the country. If we go back to
the murder of George Floyd. At that moment, I think
our world changed dramatically in terms of how we view
the police, how we view the way cities create policing,
and the Black Lives Matter came out of it, and
(07:30):
DEI to the extent that it was round before, exploded
inclusion diversity.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
We needed more minorities.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Google, by the way, had one of the strongest programs,
the DEI program, and it has just joined other tech
giants and going wait a minute, let's take a look
at this. And it has to do not with let's
take a look at this because of any sociological or
moral reasoning.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
It's the new.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Administration doesn't like this. We have contracts with the new administration.
We don't want to piss off this president, who, by
the way, is a bad president to piss off there
are people in government, then it doesn't matter. Boy, you
piss off President Trump, you're in trouble. So the killing
(08:22):
of George Floyd in twenty twenty set off a whole
target of increasing the proportion. This is goal, saying setting
a target of thirty percent the proportion of leadership representation
of underrepresented groups by twenty twenty five, by this year. Now,
even before the president became president this time around, a
(08:46):
couple of things happened. In his annual report it has
released that it just released, it omitted the sentence stating
the company was committed to make diversity, equity, and inclusion
part of everything we do and to growing a workforce
that is representative of the users we serve. That sentence
(09:08):
was included in twenty twenty one through twenty twenty four.
Twenty twenty five, sentence is no longer in there. And
here are some stats. Remember that Google in twenty twenty
said we have a target of thirty percent increasing thirty percent. Okay,
the twenty twenty four report from Google, five point seven
(09:30):
percent of the US employees were black, seven point five
percent were Latino, and four years earlier, the figures were
three point seven and five point nine respectively, not a
whole lot of representation. And now Google says, okay, let's
let's look at not even releasing annual diversity reports. And
it's been doing that since twenty fourteen. And why, I mean,
(09:53):
they're up front about it. The Google's representative said, it's
reviewing recent court decisions. It's reviewing executive orders by President
Trump aimed at curbing DEI by the government and federal contractors,
which the tech giants all have contracts with the government.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
I mean, good for them.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
At least they're honest about it, saying, hey, it's a
different world. Life has changed. Where it was one politically
mandatory to push the EI, especially after the George Floyd murder.
Now it's gone the other way, where you have a
Biden administration where inclusion is actually even more important than
(10:37):
anything else. This is one of the reasons that Donald
Trump won the election. This is one of the reasons
why the Democrats just completely misreaded because they thought this
sort of thing, inclusion, LGBT rights, etc. Was more important
than inflation, more important than immigration.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I mean, it's easy to look.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
At hindsight and say this is what happened, but this
is what happened. So Google is dancing and around saying
would maintain its resource groups for underrepresented employees. And it's
not a question of here's how they paint it too.
It's not a question of we want more blacks, we
want more Latinos. It's underrepresented employees that come from those areas.
(11:21):
This is how the colleges get away with it in
establishing quota systems. It is illegal for a university to
determine acceptance of a class or any student based on race.
Cannot do it one percent. It's illegal. However, it's not
(11:43):
illegal to look at poor communities. It is not illegal
to look at an underrepresentation. And how difficult it is
to get in college if a student comes from a
poor community, no matter white, red, blue, purple, whatever. Well,
if you look at in this country the number of
(12:07):
blacks and Latinos who live in poor or poorer communities,
effectively dei happens, there's no question about it. And where
it used to be sort of the flavor of the
law of the land. With this administration, it's going the
other way completely. And the tech companies who Trump hated,
and we're at the forefront of saying we believe in
(12:31):
black and Latinos and not so much Asians because Asians
are not particularly underrepresentative in tech or in school. But
we believe in minority management and employees. That's off the table. Now,
that's done, and you will see this Halloween. You know
(12:53):
when the big corporations throw Halloween parties and they throw
a big get togethers from morale. They don't give money,
but they give a big, big morale boosters. I guarantee
you you'll see a picture from Google and Amazon. You'll
see so many costumes, people dressed in white sheets and hoods.
It's just going to be a very very different way. Okay, guys,
(13:15):
we're done.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Now a word about.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
EV's and I have one. California EV sales are flat
in twenty twenty four. I mean last year it was great,
but demand has flatline in California and all kinds of questions.
Can automobile manufacturers meet the state mandates for zero emission
vehicle sales? Other than Tesla, which only sells evs, no
(13:44):
other manufacturer is going to meet the state's thirty five
percent threshold for zero emission vehicles in the upcoming twenty
twenty six model year. Demand just doesn't match, but the
mandate requires zero. Evs simply aren't selling that well. And
why is that? Well, it's really easy. Let me tell
you about my EV. I love my EV. I have
(14:08):
a BMW. I've had BMW's for twenty five years. I
love that car. I think it's the best driving car
out there. And I'm not blowing smoke here. I just
happened to love that car. And for as my lease
was up on my last car for some reason, I
obviously had a huge temperature and I was running a
fever at one hundred and nine degrees, and I went
(14:29):
out and.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Got a Tesla.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Lasted two weeks before I said I'm done with the Tesla,
went back to a BMW, of course, and bought an EV.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
But here's the problem. It certainly, in my opinion, I'm
not alone.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
The problem with evs, not hybrid straight evs is range anxiety.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
I am matter of fact.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
I live in Orange County and this morning I was
figuring out how many miles I have to go to
West Valley for an appointment.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
And I'm figuring out.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Okay, twenty five I was there, and I have to
go this and I've got these many miles to go home,
and I'm sweating bullets because there aren't enough chargers out there.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
There just aren't.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
The manufacturers are doing a great job, but more evs
are selling than they were able to put up chargers
and that and people said, okay, we're done. And hybrids,
by the way, hybrids have exploded. That clearly is the
wave of the future. My next car that I get
when my lease is up, I lease cars becuse every
three years.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
I want another one.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
It's going to be a hybrid EV. And what are
the chances of a BMW? Oh, I don't know about
one hundred percent? Okay, that sound like a commercial for BMW,
by the way, a little bit, it's not.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
By the way, that's well, how long have I been
talking about this, I mean twenty years, you know?
Speaker 1 (15:49):
So?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Okay, Neil, it's like a Trump prayer breakfast. Yeah, it
actually is when you think about it. Now, how do
you meet compliance? The manufacturers, how do they meet compliance? Well,
it's an average over the entire fleet that they sell,
So there aren't going to be enough EV sales clearly,
(16:12):
and by the way, failing to meet the thirty five
percent mandate means either paying penalties of thirty of twenty
thousand dollars per every non compliant compliant vehicle sowed sold,
everyone over the thirty five percent mandate or everyone under
(16:32):
the thirty five percent mandate twenty grand per car.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
That's the problem. So they got a couple ways of
doing it.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Manufacture fewer buy state issued emission credits carbon credits that
they can buy, or decrease the number of internal combustion
engines that are being sold and manufactured sold, particularly because
we don't do much manufacturing here. That's the way they're
going to do it, which means that the mandate. And
(17:04):
I thought the mandate was great because I love the
concept of evs. I mean, they do use energy, but
they save a pilot energy. I'm one of those people
that actually believes in fossil fuels, too many of them.
I believe that emissions are causing global warming. That's who
I am. And it's real simple. They're not going to
make the mandate. They're not, And so buy an ev
(17:28):
By the way, I did the math, and I have
to charge my car downstairs twice this week in order
to make it. Now, who does that when you have
a internal combustion car? And I got twenty buys there
and I got thirty miles over that one. And then
I've got to go over there, and I got to
figure out what's my mileage? What kind of range do
(17:50):
I have? It's range anxiety of the yin yang. Okay,
let's move on. Okay, a couple of shockers for you
and some uh all right before the rains arrived. And
this is after the fire. There's a USC professor Seth John.
He went through the Foothill neighborhood that was devastated by
(18:12):
the eating fire and he gathered street dust to.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Test for lead.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Another USC professor visited public parks and preschool sampling sandboxes
to test for lead because there was a lot of
concern following the fire because thousands of older buildings where
lead paint is present had burned down and raising a
bunch of questions about how far ash laden with these
(18:40):
toxic heavy metals spread across the region. Because now we're
looking at ooh, the dangers of that. And here is
the one that I'm glad they spent money on this.
The samples with the highest concentrations of lead were found
right in front of burned homes. That's where the biggest
(19:01):
problem was in terms of heavy metals and lead.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Gee, thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
So the two researchers tested nineteen samples gathered every half
mile or so from locking you out of flint Ridge
to Monrovia, some right in front of burned homes, others
from neighborhoods where the homes were spared but were blanketed
in ash. And they actually found a ton of viralbility variability,
(19:31):
and not just the further away you go, the better
off you are. So predictably the street does from the
middle of Altadeno, which so the worst damage showed the
highest level of lead.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Ooh, isn't that special. That's a shocker.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Samples ranging from just above the EPA soil screening limit
of eighty parts per million to more than twenty times that.
Now near blind neighborhoods had barely any lead present.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
And here's what's interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
They thought that nearby neighborhoods would show a substantial level
of thread of lead, but it really was limited. Neighborhood
by neighborhood, there was less and less lead to war
only half a mile or a mile away. Even though
there was ash, it was also almost negligible in terms
of heavy metals. They also went to no malasca and
(20:26):
under the snow at a school they found no lead.
Strangely enough, it's all a question of how close you were.
Of the seven playgrounds that were tested, lead levels were
low to nonexistent. Now we don't know at this point
how dangerous with the potential risks.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Are, but you have to find out. Testing has to.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Be done, and not just for lead either, but heavy metals,
including chromium and arsenic. How do you find arsenic in
a home who has arsenic? Well, arsnake is used in
lumber to treat lumber. It's an anti rot what element mineral? Yeah, Actually,
(21:10):
arsenic is found in food naturally, Yeah, apples.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
You wear arsnake, especially if you wear old lace.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
After debris and the ashurekill cleared, the researchers recommend test
your properties multiple samples. You have to average everything that's
going on. And the good news is the rain should
help wash away a lot of the street dust. Well,
of course it's going to so we now have rains.
They're going to test after the rains, and this actually
(21:43):
is better news than we thought in terms of the
amount of lead and toxicity. And they got the heavy
metals that's the big one because you also have batteries.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
And we've had that big deal in Malibu.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
At Roger Beach, Will Rogers Beach, Yeah, good old Will Rogers.
I never met a man I didn't like and he well,
he never met you, did he? I'm sorry, No, he
never did. Okay, he never did.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Yeah. It was a very interesting guy.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
You know who's uh, you know where he broadcasts from
in his radio days, Will Rogers Kfi KFI mike. Some
of his great statements were made in front of a
KFI mike and that's his uh, that's his tombstone. I
never met a male. A man I didn't like. Neil's
tombstone is gonna read I never met a meal.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
I didn't like. Amen.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
All right, Uh, I guess we're done for this segment.
Coming up, we have Joel Larsguard how the money? Uh?
And then kind of a fun topic at the bottom
of the hour eight thirty Biden has well it has
to do with the federal use of private prisons and
how that's changed from Biden to Trump. And then we're
gonna finish show with Moe Kelly. Alec Paul has a
(23:00):
new reality show. Alec Baldwin to talk about the trailer.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
I saw the trailer.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Let me tell you some weird stuff about that trailer.
Number one with a bullet that's right, very strong. We'll
be back kf I am sixty.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Catch my Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
The Bill Handel Show News
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com