11.20.2024 -- NLS -- Election Integrity, Cultural Battles, and the Fight for America's Future

On this episode with Neal and Julie...

Neal and Julie delve into a wide-ranging discussion about current political dynamics, election integrity, and cultural shifts. They reflect on past political events, such as Ronald Reagan's presidency, and draw parallels to recent years, including the unexpected outcomes of midterm elections and the challenges of the 2020 race.

The conversation turns to controversies in election administration, including a Bucks County official accused of unethical practices and broader concerns about securing the electoral process. Neal emphasizes the importance of accountability and restoring faith in elections, while Julie shares insights into the cultural battles around fairness, women's sports, and societal norms.

They also touch on the growing influence of independent media figures like Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson compared to traditional outlets, signaling a shift in public trust. Neal and Julie agree on the need for a renewed focus on protecting democratic processes and advancing policies that resonate with the American public.

The duo's analysis highlights the intersection of political strategy, cultural attitudes, and grassroots movements as they look ahead to the next election cycle.

Transcript

It's 807 on Newstalk 1079. It's Neal Larsen along with Julie Mason on a Thursday morning. And joining us from the nation's capital is US Senator Jim Risch. Senator, how are you this morning? I am great. Neal, this is a great time to be a Republican. Okay. This week on how the tides have turned and waned. And I remember going through this when, you know, and, Ronald Reagan was elected and, of course, and we had ups and downs.

I remember when Nixon left, we all felt bad. And, anyway, it's, this is, this is just a great time. It really is. We're looking forward to making America great again. You know, I remember two years ago, Senator, when the red wave that was supposed to happen didn't really. It had a barely pink hue to it.

This this kind of makes up for it because you're going to have Trump in the white House. The Republicans control the Senate now, and we're going to get to that in just a moment. They kept control, narrow control of the House. And of course, we have a a conservative Supreme Court. It really is a good time in Washington to be a Republican, isn't it?

Yeah, it really is. And and of course, the sword cuts both ways, because obviously when that happens, there's high expectations of us because we do have control of all those things. And we're going to do our absolute best to perform. We're going to get right behind Donald Trump. And, and, he has a mandate, it's him that is responsible for this.

And, you know, I, I like to say, and not many people might have done more for him than I have. I worked with him when he was president, before I was ranking member and then chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, getting his appointments across the line. And, I'm going to do the exact same thing this time, already working hard at it with, he and his team.

Well, let's talk about the new majority in the Senate, because obviously that changes, a lot of things. We'll have a new majority leader in John Thune, and now you're one of your next biggest tasks is to take up the president's nominees. Everyone from Matt Gates to all the cabinet members that that he's putting forward. How do you think that's going to play out?

I feel like over the last 24 to 48 hours there, there is a kind of a shift. Marsha Blackburn and Lindsey Graham have both said they are in support of Matt Gates as AG. Do you do you feel like even though he's a controversial pick, that there is a growing level of support for him? Yeah, I do, and, and look, this this is not unusual.

There are thousands of pets that the president has to make. When that happens, you're bound to have, one or more persons in there that have, idiosyncrasies that people might have a problem with, but, but, look, we're going to get behind these, I have voted for every single appointment that Donald Trump has ever made.

I've carried him on the floor. I, yesterday I met with, JD Vance. For quite a while. I met with Marco Rubio, who is his a good friend of mine, of course, but also, one of the most important picks that he makes to be secretary of state, in line for the presidency and runs the State Department and so I look, we're we're at this we're working hard at it.

We're going over the list, we're moving the, the things forward as they, as they should be. And and we'll get through these things. You know, I mean, the process is a good process. You know, the Founding fathers set it up to where the president picks and the the Senate does a, has to, advise and consent.

And it's worked really, really well. I think people have a tendency to focus on one of these and ignore the thousands of others that, that are out there. But we'll get through it. We'll get through them all. All right, well, let's keep talking about the wins that have happened. Yesterday, it looks like Senator Sanders, Bernie Sanders, bill to a restrict the sales of of, like weapons to Israel was not just shot down, but very soundly defeated.

And and we've got just this tumult going on in the Middle East, and we haven't spoken with you for a little bit. So can you get us caught up on that and about what happened with you? Sanders? Yeah. You know, I led the fight on that against, Bernie Sanders. Well, I'm obviously, the the, senior Republican on the foreign Relations Committee.

So I led that fight. And, look, the the Democrats have have done this all along. They've got this tepid support for Israel, and they claim they're in support of Israel, and yet they're wringing their hands about, oh, this is they shouldn't be doing this, and they shouldn't be doing that. Look, you either supported me. You don't support this business.

I look, I, I'm like everybody else I don't like in, the, the civilians, that, get killed in Gaza. But this is not Israel's fault. These cowards hide behind women and children in schools and hospitals and beget them. Israel's got to do what they gotta do to get through them. And, so this Sanders in the, in the left, is saying, oh, well, we should we should stop this and have a ceasefire.

Well, what if somebody would have tried to stop us when we were on our way to, Berlin and World War two? We made the same decision that the, that the Israelis have made, we made the same decision regarding the Nazis and that they could not exist as a, as a military force, as a political force or a cultural force.

We went in and destroyed them. We killed them. And the ones we didn't kill on the battlefield. We hunted down and tried them. And, and then, they were executed. Israelis go through the same thing. They have made a decision that for their their existential survival, they cannot have Hamas on their doorstep. So they're going out to get Hamas.

We need to back we we need to give them what they need. And, and stop this hand-wringing, because if you don't, this is going to happen again. If you stop right now and let them reconstitute, it's going to happen again. It's and it's time to, give them the full support they need. And good news is that we got every republic.

I think maybe one, voted the other way, but, there were about half of the Democrats voted the wrong way. But we want it. We want to be speaking of Israel. Let's talk about a development this morning. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as a Hamas leader. And Israel issued a statement, of course, rejecting it.

They said that it was absurd. Well, what happens in a situation like this? Obviously Israel is one of our most important allies, and we, certainly defend Prime Minister Netanyahu. What happens now? Nothing. The international court has really no, no teeth to it at all. And, there'll be certain places I can't travel because the, the, you know, the enemies of Israel would arrest him, under this, under this, false, document.

But they have no jurisdiction over Netanyahu. We are not a member of the International Criminal Court for this very reason. You get this, you get this business where they try to have one foot on each side of the fence. You know, I can understand them issuing a warrant for the leaders of Mohammad. They started this war on October 7th.

Are they. They're arresting the head of that country because he's defending his country. That's nonsense. There's nothing going to happen on that. I there's a lot of things that he turned in bed about, but that's not one of them. Okay, so there's really no no teeth to this at all then. Yeah. That that thing has it it it is, it is is talk.

That's all it is. Yeah. Just set that aside. Move on. All right, Senator, let's shift to something more domestic. Let's talk about your bill with the leverage project. Delaying it. Ultimately, you want that thing just killed put to bed? I do, and, with the election, the president Trump, I'm, optimistic we're going to get that done.

It opens up a number of. There's a lot of ways to kill something when it's, on the track to, to be done. And so, I, what this does is just open up more avenues for me. We're going to get this done. I, this this thing is just absolutely nonsensical. Nobody in Idaho wants it except those that have a financial interest in it.

And, we're going to stop it, okay? Right now and again, closer to home, we were informed that you were sent a letter to the Mountain West Conference regarding title nine and, the concerns of males playing under the guise of being a female in women's sports. You sent that on Monday. Would you, kind of give us an update on what that letter was and and do you feel like members of the Mountain West Conference are going to shift their opinion and start to comply?

Well, you know, I guess it remains to be seen. This is one of those issues that's in flux. But I really feel like I know how it's going to come out. This is an issue that's probably, 95% issue with the American people that this all this stuff has reached. I think it's boundary. I got a lot of liberal friends who say, this is crazy, you know, saying that the, boys can compete against women in sports.

What? Where's the fairness there? I mean, if you if you truly believe in fairness and women's sports and want to promote women's sports, you say, okay, well, we're going to let guys who decide they want to wear a tutu and, and, and, compete against them, do it. We got rules. You just can't do that. So and then and using the then going into the locker room with the girls it guys how you know, I mean that long ago we put people in jail for that for men going into a women's locker room.

So anyway, this is just nonsense. It needs to stop. We need to get, we need to get, sanity back into this. Kudos to the, Boise State University for, their, volleyball team refusing to play, a team that's got it, trans, gender person on it, a male. They're they're a women's team.

They want to play a women's game, not a women's team that's salted with, players that have a physical advantage because they're, their male. Senator, I want to ask you, we have. Yeah, for a couple more minutes here, but I saw something interesting and anticipated for me, it was unanticipated happened with the Trump win. And that's almost this cultural embracing of Donald Trump.

If you watch the NFL, you've got players left and right that are doing the The Trout dance. It's become this thing we're seeing Comcast. They'll probably announced today that they're going to try and sell MSNBC and some of their other properties. You have problems going on with The View and ABC. And there's some deep discussions behind the scenes.

Their layoffs at major media outlets like Associated Press and others. And I almost feel like we didn't just win an election. We gained a whole bunch of cultural ground on November 5th, and it became okay for millions of Americans to just love America and to even support Donald Trump. Do you do you feel that shift as well? Isn't it wonderful that you there is that shift that there's no question about it and it and you know, this happened to bit after Reagan.

One, two that this country is the center right country and, the, the we we get our mind is, is warped because of, this constant, constant, anti-Trump stuff that we saw on the, national media. And, and it turns out that it's, that that it was them. It's the national media. I, I tell you, I, I felt is I really felt this election beat NBC, CBS, ABC and MSNBC and the other the other I think we beat them.

I mean, they and and you have a look. These are multi-billion-dollar corporations with tremendous power because everybody in America let them into their home. And they preach hour after hour after hour against Donald Trump. And so, you know, you start thinking that is there is there anything left? And then here we win this. We didn't win it just a little.

We wanted in a landslide. So this it is it's a it's it's it's liberating really, to for people now to say. Yeah, you know, I voted for Donald Trump. We're going to make this work and we're going to make America great again. We're moving away from work. We're moving away from left. This is a good time to be an American.

Well, and I would add to not to steal a talking point from the Kamala Harris campaign, but I feel like we are turning a page of, of some kind when you have Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson, neither of which have any national TV presence at all, being bigger needle movers than anybody on TV. It's a it's a fascinating shift.

It is. And it's and it's, it's credibility. I mean, I they we all know that they haven't had credibility. Now in the, in the public square, the public marketplace, they have been defrocked and it is clear their, credibility does not exist. Yeah. All right, Senator Risch, we always appreciate your time. And we especially, have been lifted by your optimism.

It's been a long time since I've asked you how things are, and you've answered that positively. It feels good. Believe me. It feels good. Yeah. Senator ish, somebody sent in a text and it says, wow, it sounds like somebody had their caffeine this morning. They can hear your excitement. Well, when you live, you know, I've. I've lived back here for a long time, under, the Democrats, and, it's, it again, I say it truly is the liberating feeling.

It really is. And we're we're going to work really hard to get Donald Trump and his agenda, pushed forward as much as we can. Like I said, I have voted for every appointment he's ever made. I have every intention of, pressing the ones that he's made. And I'm working at it hard for eight hours. All right, on that note, Senator, we'll leave you till next time.

Hopefully we'll chat with you in a couple of weeks and have a wonderful Thanksgiving. You guys too. Thanks so much. Bye. All right. 821 now on Newstalk 179.

I want to go to a sock hop. They don't use that word anymore, do they? They didn't use that word when you were born. I know they didn't. I know, I know, I've never said the word sock hop. I just have seen movies and stuff and stuff. All right, well. Welcome back. You know, it's funny because, we interview Senator ish typically every couple of weeks and out of habit, I reflexively say, how are things?

And it got to the point where I got the question halfway out, knowing that the answer from Senator Rish in the past is going to be they're terrible. Haven't you been paying attention to the news? I'm like, oh, you asked it again. Oddly enough, have you ever done that at a at a viewing or a funeral? How are you?

I don't know how they're doing. I can't imagine so anyway, similar to that, but it was really nice to have him say they're fantastic and you're looking at that is the most excited we've seen Senator, in a long time. We interviewed him just prior to the election. He was actually here in Idaho Falls to, congratulate Representative Eckhart on her work with the, Fairness and women's and girls sports.

Yeah, we were able to interview him live, during that time or in person, I should say. And we saw glimpses of that excitement. But he was being measured. Yes, it was just before the election. He felt pretty positive that, ranked choice voting was going to fail. Yeah, but he was he was dialing it back a little bit.

This was the not dialed back version of Senator ish. Look, we had been through 2020 and 2022. We were all twitchy. Yes, about about the election. I mean, we knew there were some encouraging signs. But we were all going, we're going to get stabbed in the back again. Yes. By something. And, no, it turned out it turned out better than I anticipated.

Better in the following weeks than we thought it was going to be. Yes. We potentially thought there would be writing. There wasn't writing because it was such an overwhelming win. Yeah, we potentially thought like the left was going to make this as difficult on us as possible. Now they have given it a good try. Yeah, but people have gotten brave.

Yeah, that's my favorite thing about this election. People are brave enough to say how they feel. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they are, they are. And I see, I love that. I love that. Do you remember Julie? There was a window there where we would come to this microphone, and we felt like the margins of what we could say, not from our bosses, just from the culture was really narrow, or else all hell was going to break loose because you had too many people in the culture.

If they heard the wrong syllable, or if you misgendered someone or you said the wrong pronoun, they they lit their hair on fire and started running around screaming. Those people are so fringy and irrelevant today, and I feel like for the most part, we can be ourselves. Yeah, they, the margins are wider for us now. Absolutely. Yeah.

There were days where I felt like multiple times during the day, that little back part of my brain was tingling, going. You probably shouldn't have said that. Somebody can cut that tape, and you and L are going to get in trouble. And I don't feel that pressure as much as I used to. Yeah, I don't either. And and I feel like we have learned it's taken us a while to adapt to it.

The way you respond to it is don't give a crap. I also love the way that you respond to it. Is you just authentic to your personality? You mentioned in the interview that the NFL players are dancing. That's who they are. They guess what, they end zone dance. Yeah they do. After they get a sack, they dance. Yeah.

It's one of our favorite parts about the NFL. Yeah. Let them dance like Trump. Absolutely. There's. You shouldn't be embarrassed about that at all. It's not hurting anyone. You're not harming little kids. You're not doing anything wrong. Yeah. By celebrating your amazing play in the NFL. By dancing like Trump. Yeah. Those are the best ways to react. You're not being.

You're not, like, shoving in anybody's faces. You're just being authentically you. Yeah. And I feel like for the last, 8 to 10 years, we've all had to sit there and let the vegetarian at the party determine the menu. And now I don't care if the vegetarian wants to bring their own tofurkey. That's it. There's DoorDash vegetarian.

Right. You get your own thing. You're not going to determine our menu. Yes. Do your thing but don't tell us what we're doing. And you can Uber Eats just like everybody else. Yes. Yeah exactly. All right. (208) 542-1079. If you'd like to join us on the program this morning, and, someone said Senator Rich sounded different. Like a giddy little boy.

Love that. Yeah. That's true. Like there was a spring in his step. Yeah. There was. It was fun. Yeah. I feel like the greatest outcome from the election was showing the world just how many of us there really are, that the crazies are not in charge of the asylum anymore. And I this really was unanticipated, Julie, when when I see all the media rethinking what they're doing because MSNBC and CNN, their ratings completely collapsed in the wake of Donald Trump's win.

And they know that their business model cannot move forward if they try to keep doing what they're doing. And I mean, AP layoffs. You have big newspapers owners who are either selling or they're firing their editorial boards or I my take on this, and maybe this is too simplistic and too optimistic. But my take on it is for the last few years, they have thrown everything that they have that they can.

They have taken financial losses. They have tarnished their own reputations. They kept paying this price to try to get an electoral outcome that they did not get. And they said, we can't keep paying this price. And it didn't pan out anyway. So we have to give up our strategy that we had of gaslighting the American public, bullying the American public in order to get our person in power and our agenda in place.

And and they just decided we were done, that they're quitting. You know, I just had a thought about this. Do you know what's really boring for most people? What an echo chamber. You know, and you might go to an app like if you're trying to go, I know this diet's the best diet I can do for myself. You can find that echo chamber on the internet, right?

Yeah. If I'm going to do the carnivore diet, I can find 30 website hits within three seconds that tell me that's exactly the best diet you can do. Yeah. Okay. There's a time and a place for that. I think we've been drowned by the echo chamber for the last little bit. And people are craving to actually have conversation, to repair problems that I don't need to pat me on the back anymore.

Yeah, we've got major problems to fix. Let's have some tough conversations. And I think that's part of this, this pushback that they're like, nope, you can do you I'm going to do me. I'm going to do me boldly. I'm not going to interfere with you. And we're going to have some good conversations about how to fix the problems in America.

Yeah, that's so healthy. It is very healthy. In fact, as you were talking, it reminded me of the Scott Jennings clip. I want to play that. It's a great insight. I do think we have a crisis of especially young men in this country. And they're, you know, many ways disconnected from the rest of their families, disconnected from their communities, just disconnected from our political culture, disconnected from our civil culture.

And that's a real problem for a society that depends on all of us to be engaged and working together to make it as good of a country and as good of a society as it is it can be. I think the Democrats in this election, made men feel like that. The patriarchy is over, boys, and we're going to put you in the back seat for a while, and you're going to have to accept it without any thought to the ramifications of telling people who are out honestly trying to make a living, provide for their families.

Be good husbands, be good fathers. When you tell people who are doing their level best that either A it's not good enough or b you're part of the problem. What do you expect? And then finally, as a political tactic, you know, the attempt to put walls on the ticket and that was going to somehow solve all of the problems that have been built up for years was ridiculous, because it turns out walls was the last person that men wanted to hear from.

And I remember at the beginning of that whole campaign when they put him on, I sat right here and people are like, oh, they got camouflaged hats. They're going to be wearing them in the deer stands this fall. And I think to your point that you just made that was not that that idea that it was not formulated by a bunch of dudes who actually go deer hunting.

It was come up with by a bunch of people who've never met a dude that actually goes deer hunting. But when you try to put that kind of window dressing on a real communications problem or a real relationship problem, it gets exposed immediately. He is spot on on this that the the Democrat Party has been offending America's intelligence for a while.

We're not stupid. You look at Tim Walls. He's not what he's portraying him or he's trying to portray himself. He's everything but a man's man. He's the opposite of what he's trying to portray. I mean, he's I mean, there's lots of words I could put to this, but he and everybody saw right through. It was so transparent. And I really believe that you have these people in the media, in the upper echelons of the progressive movement that truly look out at America, and they think where we all have IQ of about 75 and that we will believe everything that they put forward on their network TV shows or on their blog, whatever, whatever their, their

medium is. And we just said we're sick and tired of you being so damn condescending to all of America. We're not going to put up with it. You need men to be timid. Men are not going to be timid. Okay. We're you know, we're not going to be abusive, but we're not going to be timid the way that you're trying to subjugate them.

I think back over time, Julie, about the things that Michelle Obama has said about how boys need to be subdued and we need to to elevate girls above boys. And and she's very she's she seems to hate men and but that's indicative of so much of the progressive movement. And I think Scott Jennings point here is that men were tired of being talked down to.

We were tired of being told the you should be ashamed for being a man. In the same way, white people should be ashamed for being white. We're sick of that and we're not going to just take it anymore out of politeness. We're not going to be angry or violent over it, but we're simply not going to listen to you anymore because your ideas are toxic.

They're damaging to our our culture. They're damaging to our dialog. And we've had it. We're going to get back to common sense and traditional values in America. Do you remember the the the transgender guy or the just the guy that dresses up like a female? I don't know his name, but they did the whole, social media push with him, and he's got like the Four Inch Nails and he's walking around with his phone and he's talking about what's happening in the white House and everything.

The media tried to portray that as that voice has more value than the diesel mechanic. That voice has more value than the farmer. That voice has more value than the long haul trucker who's bringing the food to your Walmart so that you can eat. And that's what men were tired of. They go out there, they do the jobs that aren't glamorous.

They do the jobs that get them dirty. They do the jobs that bring home a paycheck for their family. And when you look at them and you tell them that's not enough, when you look at them and say, you should be embarrassed that you do that for work, because this guy with the Three Inch Nails talking on the phone is so much important, more important than you.

There's going to be a backlash. Yeah. Well, there there is going to be a backlash. And I am hopeful, Julie, that the downstream effects of what we've seen these last few weeks in the wake of the election, I think there are even regional phenomenon that we're seeing, like with proposition one, the utter rejection of that. We're tired of these elites lying to us.

And I think prop one was as much a rejection of lying as it was of the idea itself. They were playing dress up, right. Tim Walz was playing dress up. Prop one was playing dress up. They were pretending like they were for veterans. They were just using them. It was a dress up. Yes, it was Comic-Con for their for their agenda.

People are tired of it. Do you remember through the entire debate about porn in libraries and you and I, how many times did we say we don't get that? How it's controversial to simply put that material out of view and easy reach of kids. It's not controversial. And you had all of these people, I think they truly felt like they were the enlightened ones, that it's okay to put this material so kids can read it and access it.

We have to marginalize them. And I'm not a fan of marginalizing people, but those ideas have to be marginalized. And they felt emboldened in their irrationality. And it's our job as common sense people. People who love our kids. People who have a grasp. And I don't mean you and me, Julie. I just mean as a collective body, traditional, common sense Americans.

We've got to be the grownups, and we've got to be back in charge and say, no. It's absurd to put highly sexual material in front of children. I don't care how enlightened you feel or how virtue driven you might be. We need these basic, safeguards in place. Now, you might have local librarians that that pout and overreact and require affidavits and put up signs and and all sorts of things.

But we have to keep pushing forward. We have to be on offense on these issues. And I feel more optimistic today. I think I share the same sentiment as Senator Risch, if we will be on offense and stay on offense, we can reclaim and recapture the culture in America. Absolutely, absolutely. And to double down on the playing dress up concept, this is where the podcast became so important.

During the election, you had Donald Trump on Rogan, you had Donald Trump, Trump with Lee of the of on. You had him on other podcasts. You had JD Vance on Rogan. You had JD Vance doing radio programs, just random radio programs with it in whatever state he was in. You know what they weren't doing during all of that playing dress up?

Yeah, they were who they are. Yeah. We're getting the same person in office that was on those podcasts. Guess who was playing dress up the whole time. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris. She was playing such big dress up. She put out big money to revamp the set of the podcast that she went on, because it had to be pretend.

So not to add to the pressure of this Julie, but what you just said triggered a thought in me. When you have an ideology that believes men can be women and women can be men, is there an inescapable result of that that you don't know who the hell you are? Oh, absolutely. You have to play dress up.

If you if you want to be Tim Walz and appeal to the good old common man, good Ole boy out there. You know he doesn't. The guy has has spent tons of time in China. He is a Marxist. He couldn't load a gun. He he didn't know how to load a gun. And he thinks if he just puts on some camouflage and goes out there, deepens his voice a little bit and, and, rattles off some jargon about guns that all of a sudden the men of America are going to rally around him.

That's the problem with them. They don't know who they are. Great point. I think that's a perfect point. They don't know who they are. They're searching so badly to be relevant somehow. They play dress up in all forms. Sometimes it's in men playing dress up in women's clothes. Sometimes it's I'm going to pretend to be this person today.

Sometimes it's Kamala Harris doing an accent when she's in front of a certain crowd. They're so busy trying to figure out who they are that everybody's going, I don't want that in my life anymore. You've been lying to me for years. I'm done being lied to. They are. And my hope is that the entire left is actually having the identity crisis that they need right now.

I don't want people in misery or pain, but I do think it's a very important step to recognize I've been living in this delusion for a long time. We all knew when Kamala Harris was not the nominee that she was a fake and a fraud and a desire. We all knew it. Nobody liked her. She didn't have high approval ratings.

I don't think anybody really took her seriously. Every major task that she was given by the administration, she botched it. Every foreign trip that she took. And then suddenly, what happened in the media literally overnight when they gifted her the nomination, there was a segment of the the, the public and a segment of the media that pretended none of that was true.

It was the new dress up, and they pretend it was the new dress up. And they pretended she had gravitas and she had merit, and she had substance. And we lived watching them undergo that charade for about three months. And we're like, she is not it. That's not it. And I think we're seeing the left in crisis right now because they're realizing their strategies are failing.

Their messaging is failing. They don't know who they are. They have to play dress up. And now you have Jinkx Yuga and Allan Lichtman screaming at each other. They both hate Trump, but they're screaming at each other. You have Sunny Hostin and Alyssa Farah. They both hate Trump, but they're screaming at each other on the daily now. You have Mika and Joe groveling to Trump at Mar-A-Lago.

This is an incredible development that we're seeing, I think culturally in the media and politics today. I couldn't agree more. And long overdue. Absolutely. All right. It's 845. We got a break. We'll come back and continue after this. On Newstalk 179.

Sunny. You have a little. I do have a legal note. Thank you for be. Matt Gates has long denied all allegations, calling the claims, quote, invented and saying in a statement to ABC news that this false smear following a three year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism. The DOJ investigation was closed with no charges being brought.

We take requests here on the show, so if you have a sound clip you want to hear, it will play it for you and Sunny Hostin having to read a legal statement was beautiful. Yeah. The way that this played out is it appears that they were in the middle of excoriating Matt Gates and someone, a producer, somebody went.

You can't do that. And so that was put up on the teleprompter. What he was told in her ear. Sonny needs to read this. Well, not only that, I think they may be worried that they may get sued by the bakery. Lupis misstep. And they're trying to put out as many fires as they can. Because I think that bakery has a really good case against will be.

Do you know how often they do this? They actually have a name for it. And I'm surprised he didn't say it there, but I've heard them use the name and it's something like, you've got a bit of legal housekeeping or it's legal corner time. Like they, they actually kind of make a joke of it, you know, that they have to go to these places all of the time.

Yes. And I was a little surprised when I initially played this clip a couple of days ago. It might have been last night. I can't remember when Whoopi didn't go that direction. And then I went. I think the reason she didn't go that direction was because this was so on the fly. Yeah, it was quick, quick. We're not even going to go out of this segment before she reads this.

Just do this. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Let's go to the phones. Caller. Welcome to the show. How are you today? Hi. I'm doing great. I've noticed a an enormous level of optimism and confidence in America since the election. I'm really excited about that. Things like even even the price of gold is down. Meaning that people are betting on the dollar and not having to rely on putting it in gold because of expecting the dollar to fail.

I think we're going to see investments start to really boom. There's a term in the investment world called dry powder. It means money that's been committed by investors, to to firms that are looking for investment but hasn't been deployed yet. They don't have good investments to deploy it in. The amount of that dry powder in this past year has been staggering, like $2.6 trillion in private equity.

Dry powder. That's hard to believe. It could be so high. I think we're going to see a lot of that start to get deployed. We're going to see lots of investment. I'm confident we're going to see big booms in free market health care. I've got something I'm hatching and, you'll hear some big things for me, but we'll hear big things from a lot of people.

America is going to take off. I think now that we've got this confidence and we won't have to pay 15% of the gain in a business and some unrealized capital gains tax, that would put grief, that would kill business. And that shouldn't be in somebody that you have an idea, you put your all into it, all your money, all your time.

You're not drawing a lot out of it. It comes from worth nearly zero to become worth $100 million in a few years. And then you have to pay 15 million or possibly more in capital gains tax because the government says that's what it's worth, that it's reached 100 million and you don't have it. You have to sell the business.

And who do you sell it to? Very wealthy people that would concentrate wealth in the hands of the already wealthy. We're not going to have that. We're going to have business taken off. America is going to just surge forward. Yeah, well I'm excited. I like your optimism. And and I would agree with you. I think we've got some sunshine ahead.

And it's been a while since we've felt that way. And and it looked like that. So I'm looking forward to it. My only my only suggestion is we don't drive 25mph through that sunshine. We keep we keep the gas going. We stay in the fast lane. Yeah, absolutely. All right, quick break. We'll come back. And, we do have another hour ahead here, and we'll be on Facebook Live.

And we look forward to more of your phone calls coming up on Newstalk 179. That's our one hour two straight ahead. Please welcome back. It's our two on this Thursday morning. 907 our time on Newstalk 179, Neal Larson and Julie Mason and Julie and I spent the entire newsbreak listening to what's being cut. Excuse me, called an apology by, what's your name?

Diane Ellis. Marseglia. She is that county commissioner, that and election official that said she, people break the law all the time and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, once there, big time calls for her to resign. And because she was the one that wanted to keep counting the ballots to make sure Bob Casey could win this. The illegal ballots?

Yes. Illegal. Clearly illegal ballots. She wanted to keep counting those as part of the total and doubled down on it and was sort of emboldened. Well, a lot that the tide is turning the other way. This fits right into our earlier discussion here where you had a Trump official saying, we're going to put you in jail because you are committing election fraud and creating an an insert at the at the very least, creating an insecure election in Pennsylvania based on your behavior and with her comments demanding that she was going to break the law.

Yes, she openly said, I am going to break the law, and everyone does it now, and I'm going to do it, and we're going to count these votes basically, it was a confession. Yes. Right. You have a confession on tape. Everybody saw it. So now she issued, she said my my comments were taken out of context. Well that didn't that didn't go over well.

It didn't go over well. Now she's issuing an apology and this video is making the rounds this morning. But I want to go to something. This is Scott Pressler. This is the hero in Pennsylvania who spent the last couple of years working very, very hard to get Republicans registered to vote in Pennsylvania. You can thank him for McCormick being the senator.

You can thank him for Donald Trump winning Pennsylvania because he has been very active. In fact, it's one of the ways that we're starting to operate the way the other side has. Yeah, there's several things about Scott that are identifiable. He's like 65 or something. Very tall man. He has long hair longer than mine along, and it's kind of straight.

And he wears it down all the time. And I believe he's gay. Yeah. And he's a Republican. So he's a very identifiable person. And the people of Pennsylvania just fell in love with him, especially the Amish community. Yeah, he worked with the Amish community one on one, helping them understand how they needed to get out and vote. Made a difference in Pennsylvania.

Yes. And I think when you have these Democrats that are just so used to winning and operating the way that they want to, and they're Bob Casey's win and and everything, they they've panicked because they're about to lose their power. So Scott Pressler went to one of these commission meetings. I'm not going to play the whole thing because it was, almost four minutes long.

But this is the the money clip here. This is what he said to Diane Ellis. Smart up. And I have a message. Peacefully, peacefully. We are coming for your seat in 2027. If you don't resign today, I get it. I am coming for yours. She said have at it. So she she went right back at him. Does it sound like somebody who's very apologetic?

Not at all. Peacefully. And Harvey, Commissioner Harvey, this goes for you too. You are complicit, Mark. Allies and his cronies must be disbarred from practicing law in Pennsylvania. Any of his cronies for the misconduct that they did. I want you to know that I am going to spend all of my time in bucks County for the next three years, making sure that we take back this county.

Thank you to every single patriot that showed up today. You just. You all right? So big support for him. Well, now you have this commissioner, Diane Ellis. Marseglia and I. I'm going to warn you, the audio on this is terrible. They had their mic turned up way too hot. So it's distorted. But you can certainly hear what she's saying.

And here's a portion of that for the upset and the confusion that I have caused the citizens of Bucks County and the hard working employees of this county, and my family and those who share my last name, anyone who knows me knows that I care a lot about elections, and I have been involved in them all my life, virtually.

And like all of you and all Americans, I want this election and every election to be fair, to be honest, to be just. And when we can have confidence in. I'm not going to hold things up when you talk. If you could just put them down for a minute. I'll be through this quickly. Last Thursday, when I spoke at the meeting that you're all here about the passion in my heart got the best of me.

And I apologize again for that. That was a hearing, and we were talking about provisional ballots. We were specifically talking about the fact that there were certain provisional ballots where a judge of elections did not sign and did not make sure that the voter signed on the outside envelope. To me, it was frustrating and unconscionable that we would have to take away somebody's vote, not because they made a mistake, but because of an employee.

One of our members or one of the judges of elections didn't know what to do or forgot or made a mistake. Okay, you don't get to violate the law because you feel bad about a situation. Yeah, yeah. Well, and she claims at the very, very beginning that she wants true and just and fair elections. That's completely opposite from what she said in her comments a week ago.

Yeah. That's true, that's true. She's, she's trying damage control right now. Which one is showing up today? Yeah. That issue that I spoke on has now gone viral from my comments. It was genuinely, not the best words. I would do it all again. I feel terrible about it. I should have been more clear. I please, I will be more clear in the future.

I am, thank you, I will, I will be done. I mean, it is an apology, so bear with me. That's not like I'm not saying anything against any of you. I don't think I mean all of you. Shut up and listen to my apology. It's an apology. So that means you should sit down and be quiet. I in the frustrations I had that day, many counties get confused and confounded by the Supreme Court rules because they have changed different times.

I looked forward to the court taking a stand on this, and quite frankly, that was about provisional ballots. And that court hearing hasn't even been held yet. It's today, and that has to do with the 207 provisional ballots that the judge of elections did not quite monitor correctly. But okay, if this is true, Julie, I got to stop here.

Wouldn't you simply set those ballots aside and wait for the court to rule on them? Yeah. I would also ask her if she was sitting right here in this room with us. You leveraged your political career over 207 ballots. Yeah. No kidding. It wouldn't matter if they all went for Bob Casey. It wasn't going to change the I wasn't going to win.

So you went that manic. If we're to believe you now in your apology. Yeah. You went that manic over 207 ballots, which I think is actually it's much more likely she wasn't talking about the 207 ballots. Exactly. You would not say something that bold and defy the law over such a small number of ballots. That cannot change the outcome.

I don't think she's telling the truth. I don't think so. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court did on Monday was rule once again, and one time they were another way that undated mail in ballots should not be counted. There were 407 of them in the United States Senate race. That clarity came because we rely on the court and we will not count them, and we have not counted them.

Okay. I also want to point out she's all over the place with the courts in this apology. At first she says, well, the Supreme Court said one thing, then they said the other. So she says that in part of the apology, yes, she throws an election judge. So that's not a true court, but she throws an election judge under the, the, the, the bus here saying it was their fault.

And that's why I lost my patience. And then she says, but they are the highest. They're the ones that we're going to, we're going to default to. And that case hasn't even happened yet. Yeah. Where are you with the with these people who make the rule? Great point. You're everywhere. You are everywhere. You're everywhere. You have nothing consistent about what you're saying.

My comments were not about those ballots. My comments were about the provisional ballots. And even as I say this, I know it's confusing and it's no surprise to me that these issues have gotten conflated. It was my poor choice of words. They did get clipped, they were out of context, and they had been shown over. And then she shushes them.

Because that's always a winning. You know, when you're telling your spouse you're sorry. I was just going to say I would recommend shushing them. I will always go for well, I always shush my wife when I'm apologizing. It turns out great. They have been shown over and over and over again on social media, national media, and I have literally been contacted by hundreds of people and I'm being honest with you, all of them involved.

Horrible, horrible. Okay, here's the problem too. I this is making it worse. You don't give an apology. That's 20% apology and 80% you should have sympathy for me for all these reasons. I'm getting this some here. I mean, emails that are coming in and I can't know if you did something wrong, apologize and let it be it. But she's trying to elicit sympathy for herself about expletives.

Many involved threats, not just on my life, but on the people who work in this county, the things that were said to members of my family and people who don't even know me but share my last name are horrendous. We don't have to treat each other like that. It's heartbreaking. Some of the things that people invoked about my daughter who died, we're not fair and we are not going to do that to you.

So I just want to tell you it has I have certainly heard from everyone. So she's going to, at the end of this apology, say, you shouldn't do that. It's not fair. But the comments that got her into the hot water were she wasn't going to be fair in the election system. So she says, you can't do that to me.

It's not fair, but I can do it. To all you people who voted. I'm going to break the rules because I'm going to make my own kind of fair. And there's no way to know this too. But on top of that, what if Bob Casey was ahead? Would you have freaked out and he had the race in the bag.

Would you have been so willing to violate the law at that point and leverage your political career. Yeah I kind of doubt that. I'll so you know what? I feel bad if she's gone through all these things. Oh, absolutely. But that doesn't belong in an apology, It doesn't. It doesn't belong in it. Maybe you do a media interview in a couple of weeks or whatever, but you don't say that while you're giving in an apology.

It doesn't make sense to me to do that. If you're really apologizing, do you want to embolden bad behavior. Shush people. Yeah I mean you're not responsible for their behavior. It's still bad behavior. But if you're tired of them them enacting bad behavior in your life, I would recommend not shushing them. Yeah. All right. Here's a little more.

I apologized profusely to the employees of this county and to the people who were called in my name, because all of that rage was directed at me. But I remind you all that we all say things that are out of turn. We all make mistakes. I made a mistake, and because I am an elected official now, she's mad.

Why are you mad? She might need. I made a mistake. She might need a mood stabilizer. I don't know, I'm not a physician. Also, another sentiment that doesn't belong in an apology, right? I am held to a far higher standard than everybody else. So to the citizens I serve, I apologize. And I will continue to work hard for you and endeavor to make not make such a mistake again.

I will also clarify one more thing. When I, in artfully spoke and used the word precedent when I was talking about provisional ballots, I was referring to the United States Supreme Court and the precedent that has been lost on many issues, including Roe versus Wade. Now she's just gaslighting and won't listen to the audience here. They know she's lying to them now.

There is no way.

If you would just bear with me for one more minute. Unfortunately, you.

Unfortunately, I also gavel my wife when I'm apologizing to. Sometimes, in addition to shushing, I should just carry that gavel in your back pocket. It's going to help you in all situations. Absolutely. Straight up. Straighten out on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, many of whom are friends of mine and who I respect and whose decisions are complicated and difficult and important, we are all going to learn lessons from this new media landscape.

And most of all, I am. I am a small fish in this big pond. I do not have a megaphone on Twitter or CNN or I am not a secretary of state. I don't run a presidential campaign. This is the only opportunity I have had to set the record straight. Thank you for listening to me. Today is the only chance I have to stop this snowballing, and I don't really think I could apologize any more, but I am truthfully sorry.

Okay, no no no no, I'm. You know what? Here's how she makes us go away. Resign today. That that's the that's the way you solve this. Because there's no way people can trust her. Now, can. You ran for this job. You ran for this job. You were elected for this job. That puts you at a standard that you are going to do the job at a level that the voters want to keep you.

They're telling you they don't want to keep you. Yeah, because you didn't do the job up to that standard. Go ahead and do this apology that rambles all over the place. Demand time of people, shush them. Tell them, bear with me. I have one more minute. I it was all about her. Did you recognize, too, that in her apology, the only people that she specifically named were the people that she worked with?

Yeah. She didn't apologize to the voters. She said, I'm doing an apology. But she didn't specifically name the voters in her apology. That's true. That's true. Hey, she's got to be done. You know what? I don't. And, I know the next elections in three years. Right now, I'd recall her if you can. If they have that in Pennsylvania in that county, I, I, I think she's got to be recalled.

Because here's the thing. Part of this restoring America, this larger narrative that you and I are talking about, we have to be able to trust our elections again. I think November 5th went a long ways to us saying we can have secure elections. It may require the army of tens of thousands of lawyers as poll watchers, to make sure and from both sides, whoever wants to be there.

But you need qualified, smart people that understand election law to make sure we don't get late night ballot dumps, that we don't have rogue election commissioners that are counting ballots, that are clearly illegal. I mean, I think Trump can accomplish it, but that has to be priority one in my mind for us to continue believing in this country and and believing that we truly are a self-governed people.

Okay, let's look at this landscape, because there's a whole bunch in play here. If we're going to compare 2020 to 2024 and how we have what you say is a portion of regained respect for the election system, here's why. In 2020, there were plenty of people like this woman in Bucks County. Yeah, but they didn't. We didn't have a platform to highlight these people.

Yeah, there was no way for people to see that this kind of behavior happens in with election officials, with county commissioners, with whomever is causing the problems in the elections 2024. What's different? The platform X is primarily primarily the reason we even know about this woman. Now, mainstream media has had to cover it because it became so big on X.

Yeah, but there was no place to expose these people in 2020. Like there is in 2024. And understand there's way more than her. Yeah, she just was stupid and got herself caught saying she was willing to cheat and lie. Yeah, there's a whole bunch more. But this is how we get back to restoring faith in elections is you expose people like her.

I feel bad that she has to be the poster child for this, but somebody has to be. Yeah, maybe you should be looking at all the other people who are cheating and going, why did I have to take all of the fall? Yeah. Well, I you know, here's the thing. I mean, she did a lot of things to invalidate her own quote unquote, apology.

But the point when she said I was talking about Supreme Court precedent, including Roe v Wade, like. And the whole crowd just groaned in and booed her at that point because that's again, it's the left insulting our intelligence that we know that's not what she was talking about. It was clear that's not what she was talking about. Yeah, well, she had already insulted them in the in the audio before that, telling them I know it's a really complicated, situation and hard to understand Pat on that.

Yeah. Which is a her saying, I know you're too stupid to know what I was talking about, but this is what I was talking about. Yeah, I do you think she survives this? You know, I don't know, I don't I think you would have to know the the actual, like, the flavor of Bucks County. I don't know, I, I wouldn't want to go up against Scott Pressler.

I wouldn't either. I wouldn't either. She she baited the bear. Yes. Yeah. Someone texted in and said she's getting the Donald Trump media treatment. This is precisely what Donald Trump's been dealing with for eight years now. Yep. And is just a I. But in Trump's case they really did mischaracterize what he said and done. So yep. Someone said you asked for this job.

Someone else said I tuned in late. Who's this person? She is the lady that was counting ballots illegally in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. And there were three other commissioners that were doing the same thing, which I believe is why she's getting so much time here, because she's sitting at the like at the the county table with the other commissioners.

I think they're like, let this lady take the heat. I don't want to face anything. So go ahead and give her as much time as possible. Yeah, yeah. You know, and here's the thing. Here's the good news, Julie, because I don't know if this leads to any new laws. I don't know. You know what all of this leads to.

But I don't think that we can quantify how important it is for people who want to cheat in an election to be very afraid about it. Yes, we need environments that are hostile to cheaters. We need in the same way we want an environment that's hostile to criminals, hostile to illegals, hostile. Whatever the case may be, we need an environment where the cheaters feel afraid or the people who want to create an environment where cheating could happen.

They should feel very afraid. Now there's two different things happening here. She should never have death threats made against her. So for those people who called in and did that, that is not the way to do this. The way to do this is libs of TikTok. Yeah, yeah, they're a national treasure at this point because all they do is put up what you say.

Yes, they let you hang yourself. And with a platform like libs of TikTok, it will go viral and people should be scared. Yeah, of libs of TikTok. Basically, the one rule about staying off of of libs of TikTok is don't be an idiot. Yep. That's all you got to do. They can't highlight you if you don't do something stupid.

Yeah. Agreed, agreed. So it's a good day to be an American. It's 928 on Newstalk 179. Quick break. We'll come back and continue if you'd like to join us. (208) 542-1079 okay. You know, I don't know, maybe she is lying. Somebody sent in. Is she lying about the death threats I don't know. Yeah. The thing is that she's a liar.

I mean, that's one thing that you can figure out from this whole thing is that she bounced all over the place. And when you're. When you're doing that, the truth. Does it need those tentacles? The truth just has one. One main artery. Yes. Lies have tentacles. Lies have all those offshoots. And that's what was going on there. So I, you know, maybe the death threats aren't real.

I will say I think they probably are just simply because we get voicemails. Oh yeah, we get people that will leave us voicemails telling us, dropping the F-bomb multiple times, telling us what idiots we are. So, I, I would guess they're probably real. I don't love it. Yeah. Townhall.com. Which is a very conservative leaning up, outlet said Bucks County Democrat apologizes for trying to steal the Pennsylvania Senate race.

Yeah, someone said, speaking of lives of TikTok, what about that teacher in Pocatello? What happened with her? I have kind of watched peripheral to see if there's any underground talk about her. I have seen nothing. Yeah, I haven't either. And maybe it's a personnel issue that they're not going to say much about. It might be. I covered a story on Rise in Crime.

It actually came out today about oh, I'll, I'll give the detail later. Yeah.

A 931 on Newstalk 1079 Neal Larson, along with Julie Mason and Julie. One point that I made, I think it was in my monologue yesterday was I. And I still believe that the 2020 presidential race is an unexercised demon in America, and we've got to figure out what happened. I know people say, oh, that's been debunked. Well, no, it has it, though.

I mean, the media keeps saying it's been debunked or that the claims are unsubstantiated or whatever, but I don't know that that's true. I almost feel like that's just an echo chamber. And because someone else said it, now I can say it. Does that make sense? Absolutely. So I guess my question is when you have election officials like this woman and was it Stalin who said, it doesn't matter who wins the most votes, it matters who counts the votes?

That is specifically relevant to this kind of a situation. And you have these people that think that 2020 was a pristine election. Nothing wrong with it at all. And if you think otherwise, if you even deviate a 10th of a degree from that, you're a moron and a conspiracy theorist weirdo. And you probably think Sasquatch never went to the moon.

Okay, I just mixed my imagine how smelly that spaceship would have been if Sasquatch was on it. Yeah, that's that that would have been nasty. But you know what I mean. Like, they they put you in this category where where you're, like, going. Wait a minute. Was there a water pipe leak or not? In Georgia? You can't even ask that question without somebody putting you in the conspiracy corner.

Right. We know how long it took in Arizona. Nevada, Pennsylvania still is, by the way. It is. Yeah. That's right. They're still counting votes in Alaska. How do you ranked choice voting people like that? Here we are, what, two and a half weeks after the election? I think there has been ways that it's been exercised. I don't I don't think we're at a complete stalemate there.

Yes. Well, let me finish my point really quick here. Are we to believe at what point did we get to this woman saying, I'm going to break the law and I don't even care, about this, that they felt so brazen in their willingness to count ballots that are clearly illegal. And these people have been in counting ballots for a long time.

She she said it right there in her quote unquote, apology. She's been doing this almost her entire life, that everything was on the up and up in 2020. So at what point between 2020, the pristine election where nothing bad happened and today where she's been saying, I'm going to count ballots illegally and I don't care. I mean, here's a middle finger, Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, where was the turn?

Where was the shift? Right. Tell me if it just happened. Yes, yes, I totally get what you're saying, that this has obviously been something that's been going on, and you were to carry on with our our concept today. You were playing dress up all these years, and now you just you just took all the clothes off and showed everyone exactly what you were doing in the 2024 election.

I think that there is still a portion of the people who believe you can't question 2020 at all. I, I would say one of the ways that we have exercised that demon is that did you see a difference in how Georgia behaved this four years later is a pretty big difference. Yes, yes it is. They counted much quicker.

They allowed people to watch the counting. It was done differently. They cleaned out their rolls a little bit. I think they could still clean them more, but they cleaned out their rolls a little bit. How did Georgia turn out on that night? It was a very fast decision. It was quick. Yeah. We weren't waiting forever. There wasn't. Oh.

We're shutting down the office in the middle of the night concept going on in Georgia. And so I do believe some states did took it take it seriously. And they are in the process of revamping their election system. Arizona could learn a lesson because they're not. But they're also being led by some pretty shady people in Arizona right now.

So yeah, it makes sense that they're not. But I think that the more eyes on everything, the better it is. I've always believed that transparency is important. That was our conflict with the vote for the Senate majority leader. Yeah, there's a reason they do it secretly. There's parts of that we don't love because transparency is good. Yes. Okay.

So I think in the election system transparency is premier. Yeah. I don't even know if I can argue for they should count in secret. That's not how it should work. Oh no. Never. Never. I can't even come to a place where I can argue the point for you. Yeah, on an intellectual level, I can't argue that, you know, and so the more eyes on it, the better.

And in 2024, we had more ice. Yeah, with social media, with poll workers, with people who had been burned enough that they were going to start watching it. That's just a good transition. And I like your analogy of hitting the gas. And I hope Trump does something like this. There may be problems with this idea, but let's I'm brainstorming for a moment.

What if the federal government gave out generous grants to any state that will have a common sense voter ID law? Yeah, well, he's already proposed. Yeah, that he can require it for federal elections. Yes. He has no control over state election. Well, true. That's true. No, but what I'm saying is you could incentivize would this. And, you know, I don't like the federal government just imposing it at will.

But I think for federal elections, you could do that. Right. And and if anything, Congress could probably pass a law that would say, we will not seat any member of Congress. And they unless they were elected via these standards. Yeah, yeah. You I'm sure they could do that. And so you're just not going to be represented if you're elections on the federal level are not legitimate or we will not count your electoral votes unless you meet these election standards requiring ID.

Illegals can't vote, but whatever. You know, what I would like to see is a concise body of law that articulates the Florida standard of elections. They do it very, very efficiently. It's transparent. It's fair. They've got it down to assign it since 20 to the 2000 election, when they were the embarrassment of the country with the pregnant chads and the hanging chads and Bush v Gore, all of that.

They said, we've got to get our crap together. And they got their crap together. And DeSantis has solidified. They're the gold standard. Really. They really they really are. And I think that should be the country's gold standard for trusting elections and and election outcomes. When a state that large can count this quick, that quickly, like they did on Thursday, on that Tuesday I you all states should be copying what they're doing.

Yeah. If you're a secretary of state you should be meeting with Florida. Yes. And saying how did you implement it. Yeah. What's the most efficient way. Yeah. How did you get your your individual counties on board so quickly. Yeah. No. Agreed. But I do like I'm okay with if we're going to do some cost cutting with Doge.

Yeah. I'm okay transferring some of that money and saying if you'll go to required voter ID, we'll pay for the training of your election officials, the government, the federal government will pay for the training of your election officials will pay for whatever you need to do to switch that over, to change your voter rolls, to hire a couple more employees.

What I mean, whatever needs to be done to bring that in if we're going to cost cut somewhere, we can transfer that money. Yeah, I can absorb people I like losing. I just want to know they lost. Yeah. We deserve to know if they lost. Yeah we do. So okay. 939 (208) 542-1079 we're going to break and be back after this.

Okay? I'll be right back. Okay. So what I was going to tell you guys about the teacher in, Pocatello. Is that on Rise Crime today? I covered these three teachers. It's a heartbreaking story. These three teachers in Delaware. Way to go, Joe Biden state they were, teachers or aides in the special needs classroom last February. They were caught on camera throwing items at the special needs kids.

Like, for fun. They thought it was cute and hilarious. Then they were caught feeding a specific special needs child, Takis. And that child had digestive issues, and so it was incredibly painful for that child to eat Takis. They even dipped them in hot sauce. They made him hotter than what they would be. So these teachers have been caught.

Of course, people were outraged, especially because it was a special needs classroom. The school districts did exactly what Pocatello Chubbuck 25 did. They punted the whole thing. They said, this is a private matter. We do not have to disclose what happens with these people. They won't even confirm if the three are working in the school district anymore. The only thing they would confirm is that there, if they are there, they are not on, they're not in a position that directly affects children.

So can the school district in Pocatello not tell you what's going on with this teacher? Absolutely. They kind of have that built in to their contracts and their the way that they structure everything. So I don't know if we're going to hear anything out of Pocatello. I think the only time you're going to get it is through the underground of parents who have kids in that class or whatever, see this woman move, or maybe take a hiatus or something.

That's what you'll hear. But I don't think we're going to hear from the I'm, I'm I'm just guessing we're not going to hear from the school district at all. And if we do, it's going to be a very bland, probably vanilla statement, which is what a lot of PR statements are. Yeah. Okay. What else? Okay.

I'm not in the mood to fight about this. Just not I, I all I would say paddling down is that's a really bold statement to say dead people are not voting because every single election, they prove that that people voted. So you can do whatever. Killing Dan doesn't think that dead people vote. Okay, then over and over and over again, let me let me ask a question.

I don't even really care what paddling Dan's answer is. But you have Democrats trying to stop governors from cleaning the voter rolls of dead people. They filed suit against the states for cleaning up the voter rolls. So why? Why would you get in the way of cleaning the voter rolls of dead people? What other reason is there? So I'm now paddling.

Dan's only point might be in this is that voter fraud is kind of difficult to prove. It's very hard. So. But just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not. I mean, we know we've seen these precincts where, And you know what? Look up Chicago. Chicago. They don't do it so much anymore. Absolutely. They became famous because they were having ballots for people who died.

Yeah. I've never talked to a dead person who's voted, so therefore it's not happening. Also, I would I would encourage people to actually look at how counties compare signatures. Some counties have a very high standard of what the signature has to look like. Some counties, they look at it and go, well, there is a swoop there, okay.

And it's done. Yeah. So it varies county to county how they compare the signatures. And if you have a county that's really okay with having some loose standards. It gets through. Yeah. You know.

944 Newstalk 170 Neal Larson and Julie Mason. And you, if you'd like to reach us, the number is (208) 542-1079. That's the fall River propane call and text line. We love hearing from our listeners. And let's go right to the phones. Hi, caller. How are you today? I have a good day. Just wanted to remind all the women that the honorable county Republican women are holding their biannual vote for leadership tonight.

That's at, 6:30 p.m.. It's a potluck, so you can come and have dinner. Two. And that will be held at 3920 East Sunnyside Road. And we hope everyone comes and hears all the candidates and their great ideas and picks and good leadership for the next two years. So you say there's a potluck. Can men come watch and eat and can actually come and be members?

They just can't vote, but we'll feed them. Oh, gotcha. Okay. Is there going to be a pumpkin roll? Because I might be in for the potluck. If there's a pumpkin roll, you know, I will bring you a pumpkin roll. Just one Julie over. Yeah. Okay. Say all that again. It's located where? It's at the Skidmore building off of Sunnyside.

That 3920 East Sunnyside. It's at 630, and we'd love for the women to come in. Here's a great idea, as we have for going forward. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you. That's Bev. She's like her friend, so yeah, she's awesome. She texted me saying, hey, can I say this on the radio? And then I that she called. I'm glad she just did it.

Okay. Yeah. Good. Good. All right. So, the headline on town hall, Bucks County Dem apologizes for trying to steal the Pennsylvania Senate race. Did I say that on air or just off air? Okay. I can't remember it on air. I know I told you, but I can't remember. Yeah. Anyway, they said the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that counting illegal votes like those without proper signatures, dates and improper residency must be disregarded.

Marseglia said this was the outcome she wanted. When she declared her defiance of the law. It forced Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro to weigh in. But mercifully, his apology was crap and someone should tell her where she can shove it. Voters aren't idiots, lady. Something your party discovered the hard way. I don't know who wrote this, but wow. Matt Vesper is the writer's name on this one.

So anyway, okay, so. And some editor signed off on that. So there we go. A town hall's kind of a wild, wild west corner of the internet. I will say that, you know what? I think you know what my read is on this. When I watched her apology, she's worried she's going to jail. Oh, you know what?

I didn't think about that. But you could be. That could be the unsteadiness of where she's moving all over the place in her life. Yes, I think she's trying to reframe the context of her comments out of the criminal realm, and that's going to be hard to do. And so I think that she is in hot water.

She knows it. And I think this kind of helps explain. Now, Shapiro's kind of a kind of a weenie because he he waited until after the third ruling to finally say, we need to uphold the law. Okay, that's that's a denial. Yes. Yeah. Like, you seem to be on board with this until it was clear it's not defensible anymore.

Well, and I think also till it was clear that, it was signaled from the Trump Vance administration that they're going to go after this stuff. Yes. And when that signal happened, every time everyone kind of went, oh, yeah. Like we're we're in their crosshairs. Well, here's part of the issue. And I don't know if it's their local DA's AG's or if there's a federal role in this.

I mean, it's a US Senate seat. So you might actually have the Department of Justice getting involved with this if they're if they were trying to flip a Senate seat and I think she's realizing it's very likely Matt Gates is going to be the AG. And if I'm a Democrat trying to steal an election, I may not fare very well in that environment.

Yes, I was that one of the most pleasing parts of the interview with Senator Risch today. He committed right there, committed that he is going to vote for every one of Trump's picks. He said it in the interview and he said, I'm working every day right now to make that happen. Good. Yeah, that's what we need there was a senator yesterday that held up a big sign with zero on it, and then said, this is how many Democrats went against Joe Biden's picks.

Yeah, we need to support Donald Trump. Yeah, yeah. And I hope those senators heard it loud and clear. Yeah. That that it is time to stop getting swamp rats into these positions. It's all right for somebody who hasn't worked in Washington for 30 years to take a position because you can learn these skills somewhere else. Yeah, yeah you can.

So let's play a couple of these. We have a little bit of time here. This is Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. I said, you know, when I met with Matt Gates and Vice President elect Vance today, I asked Mike what his expectation was, and he wants to be able to have a hearing. He says he will answer any question that anyone asked him.

And we have to keep in mind President Trump has a mandate from the American people, and he has pushed forward with nominees for these positions that will help him to carry out that mandate. I'm going to support each of these nominees, and Matt wants to have a hearing, and he wants the opportunity to answer all of those questions.

And I will add, I ask him what he would do if he were to be confirmed armed as attorney general for the United States. And he was very specific. Dealing with the weaponization of the DOJ is at the top of the list, dealing with the illegal immigration and the border security issues, dealing with fentanyl. All of these are items on his to do list.

Okay, so big supporter of Matt Gates. This is Harriet Hagman who of course slayed the Cheney dragon. And here's what she had to say. I've worked with Matt Gates for the last two years on the Judiciary Committee and the weaponization committee. He's an incredible, brilliant legal mind, and he is someone who I think would go in and stir up the DOJ, which is what we need.

We have uncovered a substantial amount of information of how the Department of Justice and the FBI have been weaponized against the American public. And Matt Gaetz has been instrumental in exposing that and trying to hold people accountable for the decisions that have been made. Okay. So that's Harriet Hagaman. And here's the floor speech that you talked about.

Tommy Tuberville A majority of voters decided that the America First agenda championed by Donald Trump and JD Vance is a playbook for American greatness. As a part of that playbook, President Trump has already put together a strong, very strong list of qualified cabinet members at defense. He's tap. Pete Hegseth, a veteran who served two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, is Ivy League educated businessman background.

That's what we need in the Pentagon right now to restore order in our finances. Anyway, he goes on, we're kind of limited on time, but he goes on to support gates and the others. Yeah, yeah, I want other Republican senators to rally each other like this. Get everyone together and say it is time we use the power that we've been given.

Don't apologize for the power that was handed to you by the voters. Use it. Yes. Use it to benefit the conservative movement. Yes. I mean, Trump won a mandate for the country, and we need to utilize that mandate in big fashion. Yeah. All right. 953 we'll come back. We'll wrap it up after this on Newstalk 1079. Okay. We'll have a couple minutes soon to get back.

Okay. They can buy us a little time here. Oh, the parts of America people look so sad. Whoa, whoa. Yeah. They kind of do. Like, he's been crying a little bit here. Looks sad. Eyes are puffy. A little. So did you see a New York Times columnist is now saying Trump has the opportunity to be a very historic president.

Like oh he hates Trump. But he sees Trump's capabilities and I think he's Jewish. And so Israel's really important to him. But he's specifically talking about peace in the Middle East. And you don't hear that very it almost reminded me on a much, much smaller scale. Joe and Mika go into Mar-A-Lago where you're like, okay, is it going to make sense to just be Orange Man bad for the next four years?

Or should we try to weigh the good in the bad along with the bad? Do you know what's funny is that it became so partizan like my side, your side, my side, your side. And it's just weird to me that you have Democrats who are defending terrorist activities just so they can be on their side. Yeah. So it's got to be something different than Orange Man bad.

Oh my goodness, this is just dumb. You're defending terrorist activities. What are you doing? Yeah. Hey, we've got to get to the point where we actually start to think instead of just pick a place, just pick a side, right? Yeah, I, I hope we can get back there. And I hope that's part of his legacy that we helped people realize.

There's very logical conclusions to things. There's there's plenty of argument to be had over taxes, plenty of argument to be had over how to handle health care, plenty of argument to be had over what benefits a student must in the classroom. Yeah, we could argue about that forever. Allowing illegal immigrants who are criminals, encouraging foreign countries to dump their prisoners in our in our country.

And you're defending it. Yeah. Yeah. No. 956 on Newstalk 1079I feel like this is a very appropriate place to play. Sunny Hostin there you go. Should I do that? Sure. Okay. We played this earlier, but it's worth, repeating. Sonny, you have a legal. I do have a legal. No, thank you, Whoopi. Matt Gates has long denied all allegations, calling the claims, quote, invented and saying in a statement to ABC news that this false smear following a three year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism.

The DOJ investigation was closed with no charges being brought. I'm sure it hurt her. I'm sure that hurt her. Can we talk about what they did over the last few hours to Matt Gates? They released his Venmo transactions. I don't know if they got those off of his public page. I'm not sure where they got those, but the some of his Venmo transactions have been released, and there's.

They don't show you to whom. Yeah, but they claim it's to these women that he's paying off. Okay. That's not illegal. If he throws a woman what you you're not even showing me who he's paying. Yeah, but if he shows up, if he throws a woman $300 and he says for your vacation or whatever on the in the memo.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I like you. I mean, the left is acting like this is damning evidence that people I have seen mothers give kids Venmo money because they wanted to help them pay for dinner. Yeah. And they'll put a I mean, people put the stupidest thing in the in the memo part of Venmo. It's kind of an ongoing joke to put dumb stuff for the great, timeless.

No. Yeah, yeah, I seen that. Like, like, my, my son in law, I paid or he paid me for something and he say he wrote something like baby daddy in the memo. Like he was just teasing me. Yeah, but they act like this is slam dunk evidence. Well, it. But if you don't know who it went to.

Exactly. And you can write anything as a joke, like there's not a verified, the nature of it is not a verified transaction. It's stupid. So dumb. All right. That's going to do it for the show today. Everyone have a wonderful Thursday. We'll be back tomorrow for a Friday edition right here on Newstalk one. 079. Of course, up next it's Mark Leave and Camp and Robbins.