1.16.2024 -- NLS -- (Exclusive Song: "Capital Meadows") Historic Shifts, Political Tension & Trump’s Return: A New Era in D.C.

 On this episode with Neal and Julie, they dive into the anticipation surrounding Donald Trump's upcoming second presidential term and the extraordinary number of people expected in Washington, D.C. for the event. Neal reflects on the historic nature of Trump's presidency and the significant global shifts that followed his 2016 election. He also touches on the current political climate, including President Biden's farewell address and the controversial actions surrounding Joe Biden's administration. The conversation explores the tension in American politics, highlighting the contrast between Biden and Trump, and speculates on the future of the Republican Party as they prepare for the next elections. Additionally, the duo touches on public figures like Pam Bondi and the ongoing drama in Washington, balancing political insights with some lighthearted moments about personal stories, including Neal’s recent purchase of a beta fish. The show offers a blend of political commentary and personal reflections, keeping listeners engaged with both serious and humorous discussions. 

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Transcript

Good morning, East Idaho. It is Thursday, pre inauguration. Thursday. Are y'all ready for Tuesday? So here's the deal. We are going to have full coverage of the inauguration on Tuesday. And I asked Julie earlier this morning like if you can swing it let's if you can stick around and, you and I will, we'll just pop in.

It'll be a light touch coverage from our end because we want to not miss anything. We don't want you to miss anything. We know that it will be a highly watched event on the internet and on TV, but if you happen to be in your car, if you happen to be in a in a work environment where you can't watch it, we are going to provide full coverage for you all morning long.

And, this I didn't really anticipate this when Trump won in November, but given the uniqueness of our situation with Trump serving a term skip and a term now serving a term again, it just doesn't happen like this in America very often. I think maybe there was one one precedent to it, but, the the numbers that they are expecting in Washington DC are staggering because people want to be there for this.

And I, I think there's just a sense and I'll get to the hostage deal in just a moment. But I think that there is this sense that Trump's presidency for the next four years is going to be a presidency of very, very deep consequence. And if you hate Trump, you think for me, that's code for he's going to be a tyrant, a despot.

He's going to take over and we'll never have another presidential election, you know? No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is, I believe in 2016, when he was elected, he thought he had eight consecutive years to get some some shiz done. I'll just say like that. And of course, it didn't quite work out that way. But when you consider how the moment Donald Trump was, the instant that it became clear that he had reached 312 electoral votes on the night of November 5th, the world then began to change calculations and formulas changed all around the globe for trade, for geopolitical relationships.

All of it changed. It wasn't long after that you had Justin Trudeau, Castro flying down to Mar-A-Lago to try a charm offensive on Trump didn't work. I'm sure Trump gave him the what for and publicly was probably cordial, but said, this is what we aren't going to tolerate. And it wasn't long before Trudeau announced his resignation. It was just a few weeks ago.

Donald Trump told him, us, if you don't return the hostages before January 20th, there will be hell to pay. Well, guess what was announced yesterday? A big cease fire, peace, maybe peace deal and a hostage release. So I will say it's not going to be all at once. There's like three different phases to this thing, and now it seems like it might be a question mark.

Netanyahu has put the pause on approving the deal overnight, because I think maybe Hamas introduced some additional conditions. So this is not a done, done deal. The deadline that Trump is imposing is still four days away. So they're probably both sides are probably going to try to negotiate as much as they can into this deal to benefit themselves.

Do I still think it's going to happen by the 20th? Yes it is. I think that Netanyahu is saying, look, we've still got time to extract even more concessions from Hamas. He's saying, I want them to back off. I want this war to be over. And if it's not, I also want to go back in time. Julian, I had a conversation earlier this morning about the world and Trump.

And of course, Joe Biden gave his farewell address last night from the Oval Office. And it really was a a rather sad display. It was ominous. He had these warnings about the future and die and social media, but at times it was clear that his brain was not functioning properly. Here's one of those times he talked about wanting the Supreme Court to keep in mind.

It wasn't that long ago you had lefties wanting to pack the Supreme Court. Then Donald Trump won, and now they want a term limit. The current Supreme Court. We need to enact an 18 year time limit term limit time in term for the strongest and strongest reforms for a Supreme Court. We need to ban members of Congress from paid from trading stock while they're in the Congress.

Okay, I'm not even going to go into the congressional thing, but let's talk about Scotus for just a moment. He wants to enact time term, term time time time time time term term time. Limits on Supreme Court justices. Look, that's a that's such a currently self-serving proposition. You know what would happen? I'll tell you exactly what would happen.

They would put the term. And I don't know when the term limits would kick in. Would every justice over 18 years get instantly kicked off? Who knows? Because the the details aren't it. It's not even a viable job. It's not happening. Okay, this is Joe projecting. This is Joe sort of preserving it. I don't even know why he's saying it.

He's he is not just a lame duck president. He's a lame duck, lame duck president. He's he's in the in fact, the time he has left as president of the United States is now measured in hours. It's it's coming very quickly in five days. What is that, 120 hours left of the Joe Biden? Doesn't that sound nice? Not as nice as 2 hours or 1 hour, but there's only 120 hours left of Joe Biden ish of Joe Biden's presidency.

It's really a beautiful sentiment, and I think that the whole country, it's going to be bipartisan or nonpartisan. There will be a collective, nonpartisan sigh of relief the moment Trump puts his hand on the Bible and other hand raises it and takes the oath of office and becomes 47, the 47th president of the United States. Now there will be new panics.

There will be new anxieties, but there will be a collective sigh of relief that the leader of the free world is not dementia addled and is able to fully function. That's the. I think even people who don't like Trump are going to find that refreshing, that when he gives a press briefing or when he holds meetings that, he won't have to be medicated, there won't be this limited time window in which we have to get things done and ask him questions and have him make decisions that will have a guy who is a workaholic and regularly is at it for 12 to 14 hours a day.

That's such a nice thought. Another nice thought I had this morning. I was sitting down and sort of absorbing, playing some sound clips and prepping for the show about this piece. So we're going to get there. I know we feel like we've hit a couple little road bumps here. We're going to get there. I'll make that prediction right now that these delays are just most likely negotiated gating tactics.

So, don't don't be too discouraged over this. But when I thought about this and my instant memory on this peace deal was Donald Trump days ago saying there will be hell to pay if we don't get those hostages back by January 20th. I my mind channel to Ronald Reagan. Now, Donald Trump speaks in a different way than Ronald Reagan, but he speaks the same language as Ronald Reagan.

He he speaks the same message as Ronald Reagan, which is, we have the power to make your life a living hell, and we're willing to use it, and we will use it if fill in the blank and the blank is always a virtue, the blank is always returned. The innocent hostages. It is fascinating the parallels that we're seeing right now this week, over the next few days, as the what was happening at this time of the year, all the way back in 1981, just weeks after Ronald Reagan gets elected and defeats the up to that point, worst president in history, you know what?

We can have this conversation now about Jimmy Carter. The funeral's over, and we've we've moved on. And I think we can start to have honest, candid assessments of his presidency again. So I'm not going to hold back, but Joe Biden is the new worst president, at least in our lifetime, if not in in the history of the country.

And I know, you know, it's funny to watch the Democrats, they continue to gaslight themselves over the quality of president that Joe Biden was. They really, truly believe the economy's amazing and that he has accomplished so much legislatively. Roll the tape. If you if you think that, if, you know, whatever Joe Scarborough said. Well, the great ones are named Joe, aren't they?

What Scarborough said, roll the tape. They are so good. They're so good at forcing themselves to believe things that are just flat out blatantly, demonstrably untrue. Like, I find it. I find it rather, rather fascinating. So Joe also said, Joe's upset that, that, Zuckerberg has gravitated now toward MAGA, but he's mad that Facebook's not fact checking anymore.

Six days like six decades later, I'm equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech industrial complex. It could pose real dangers for our country as well. Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. It are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.

We must hold the social platform accountable to protect our children, our families and our very democracy from the abuse of power. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time. Okay, so he pivoted kind of to AI. They're mad at Zuckerberg because Zuckerberg, let me tell you what Fact-Checking is. I'm I will tell you exactly what quote unquote fact checking is in the Facebook universe.

They call it the metaverse. Now, anyway, fact checking is narrative creation because the problem with fact checking is not that it's actual fact checking. It's just narrative fabricating that that's that's really it's. Oh, Joe, Hunter Biden's laptop is Russian propaganda. That was fact checking. Vaccines are safe and effective. That's fact checking. Or this shot is a vaccine.

That was fact checking. And it's interesting. We didn't have this clip. I don't have it for you. But apparently, Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan on the podcast the other day that white House officials called up Facebook. Yeah, I didn't even know you could call Facebook first of all. But they called him up screaming at them because they weren't completely in line on some of these narratives that the white House was trying to to put out there, this collapse of the press that, old Joe mentioned.

He's not wrong about that. The press is crumbling, but they did it to themselves. They did it because they became wholly irresponsible and a complete dereliction of their duty to simply inform the American public of what was going on. That's all their job is. Find out the truth and report the truth without fear, without favor. Just tell us what's going on.

They didn't do that. Okay? So it wasn't. It's not technology destroying the press. It's not AI, it's not Zuckerberg, not fact checking. Destroy the press. Is is being destroyed because the press destroyed itself. They had the power to maintain trust with the American people, and they threw it in the toilet because they wanted to push narratives. They hired activists in the disguise of journalists.

They hired political hacks, and they put a journalist costume on them. Of course, the press has been destroyed because they destroyed it. Something new will emerge, though. I'm hopeful that as we watch the development of AI, that because AI is a powerful, powerful tool that can be used for good or for evil. And so I think that we are going to see something new in terms of discovering and reporting and propagating the truth.

That may be very, very exciting in the in the coming years. And I'm hopeful that maybe this stretch that we've had the last 15 to almost 20 years now, of social media, letting it drive through algorithms, the flow of information in the world that maybe we will learn our lesson, that look at how that turns out. It doesn't it doesn't turn out so high.

And I believe that we have the power and the potential to actually restore trust, restore greatness, to restore strength. Will we do it? That's that's the heavy question. It's 824 on Newstalk 107. I got to take a quick break and we'll continue after. This is going to tell us who. It's 828 on Newstalk 179 Neal Larson, Julie Mason and, can I just I just want to say a really quick thank you to everyone.

So much birthday love. Yesterday I got, well, literally hundreds of people on Facebook through the texting. I got a lot of text messages yesterday we had phone calls come in and, truly felt loved. And I want to thank Julie. What a nice post on the Newstalk page. Thank you very much for that. You're welcome. So, all around it 52 was great.

Not not bad at all. Good. Now we'll see how the year goes. 364 days left. I know, I know, maybe another heart attack or hip replacement might be in the future. We'll see. That's when you go, no, let's not do that. Well, that was part of the gift. So that we can I gave Neal for those who weren't on Facebook Live, I gave Neal a pair of shoes.

Yes. That he's used before. Yeah. He has this brand before but it's really good for his hip. And, good for his back. Good to keep his gait correct with his legs not being exactly the same length. So. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. In other words, Julius noticed that I limp a lot, so I just taken care of. Yeah, yeah.

No, I appreciate it very much what we're doing there. My favorite pair of shoes. So they'll get used very much. Yeah. Okay. Julie, you let's let's reenact the conversation we had right before we went on because Pete Hegseth was answering questions from Tim Sheehy and said he did five sets of 47 push ups. And I said, that's a weird number.

And it didn't even register. That's how slow I am. But it you. It dawned on you. Yeah. I was like, he did 47 instead of 50. He probably does 50 on a regular basis, which would be, you know, 250. Yeah, push ups a morning. But he's been doing 47, I'm presuming because of Donald Trump being the 47th president.

Yeah. And that was his little wink nod in the middle of that testimony. I am certain that's why he he did did 47. So I good for him. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. By the way, just one more thing that not a single senator or most of them, Tim Sheehy might be able to, but most of those senators in that room who are giving him a grilling, saying he wasn't qualified, they can't do that either.

I would agree they might be able to do 4.7 push ups, but yeah, it's true. So Joe Biden did a little bit of bragging yet, last night in his farewell address. So much is a stake right now. The existential threat of climate change has never been clear. Just look across the country, from California to North Carolina.

That's why I signed the most significant climate and clean energy law ever, ever in the history of the world. You know, when Trump says stuff like this, the left loses it. It's off putting. Anything that Trump says, it's the biggest, best in the world, biggest in history, whatever. That's exactly what Joe Biden just said. It's exactly what he did.

And by the way, it's been proven that these fires aren't related to climate change in California. So I don't I'm not sure how he's making that leap. Well, you the thing that I find fascinating and this I don't even know if it's frustrating because we have the opportunity to just point out the hypocrisy. If if we talk about an ice storm that is the worst we've ever seen.

And you say, well, global warming, my rear end, we are told with a wagging finger in our face, you can't link a singular weather event to climate change, right? But they can you so. So Biden can have his farewell address and link climate change to North Carolina and the fires in California. And so they get to. But when it what doesn't work in their direction or it doesn't support their narrative, all of a sudden they they change their tune.

And I just have a question is in California on the, you know, the forefront, the, the frontier of implementing laws and rules for their residents to help with climate change. Yet they're the ones who didn't have enough water. There's the ones who couldn't mitigate any of this. Yeah. Good point. They couldn't take care of any of it.

But I'm supposed to listen to them about their ideas to stop climate change? Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. There was a story from a few days ago that Mike Johnson, Speaker Johnson, was considering putting some conditions on the rescue money that would go to California. And I look at that and I'm thinking that's absolutely should happen. And the tradition has been you're in crisis.

Here's a big pile of money. As long as you're using it to recover you can do what you want with it. That's been the tradition. But this is such bad mismanagement that I really don't have a problem with it. I, I feel like you're the ones that didn't have your reservoir full when it should have been. If that reservoir had been full, this would have been a whole different outcome.

You're the ones that have cut your fire department back, both on the state level as well as the LA level, the city level. They're they're the ones that made such horribly bad decisions. They're the highest tax state, at least among the highest tax states in the country. They should have enough resources to fight their fires and to be prepared for very predictable events like this where they have a fire season.

Yes, season means it comes around every year. Yeah. In other places that have a season like a tornado season or a winter season, they make preparations to handle large snow storms or tornadoes. They have places to take people to prepare for this. They have sirens. California's done nothing. Nothing except increase the fuel source that's able. That makes it possible for these fires to rage on.

Yeah, they're rather embarrassing, aren't they? Yeah, it's it's super embarrassing. And it was just one of the many lies that, that Biden spoke last night in this 18 minute speech that was so forgettable. I mean, you also had the quote about that. He's worried about tech and how it's going to become ultra strong. And we need to be careful of the the ultra rich oligarchs.

Yeah. This is the man who just gave an award to George Soros and George Soros, whose son had to come accept the award, the highest level of award we could give to somebody. Yeah. So it's okay when Joe Biden rubbed shoulders with the ultra rich. Yeah. Not okay when Donald Trump rub shoulders year shoulders with the ultra rich.

Yeah, right. That's a that's a really good point. Let's go to the phones. Caller how are you today? Good. Good morning. Neal. Sorry I missed your birthday yesterday. It's okay. I didn't get to listen to the show, so now I'm. I'm only 41 years older than you. Only 41 years older. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah, it's. That's great.

Anyhow, have a good day. Well. Thank you. She called just to wish you a happy birthday. Just a belated birthday. She's very sweet, I love that. Thank you. Thank you. So that would make her 93. That's great. Yeah, she's doing well. She's called before. We're so proud of her. She's our spunky little great grandma. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(208) 542-1079. If you'd like to join us on the program this morning. Yeah. So, Julie, let's. You know what? Let's take a break. We've got a, break for the news here, but we will come back. We'll take more of your calls on the stones Auto group call and text line (208) 542-1079. It's 842 on Newstalk 179. I just made a secret confession to Julie.

I relish watching the Democrats destroy themselves. You're the meme. You're the Michael Jackson meme eating popcorn. Yeah, I am, I am that meme. As I there's a story out now. This is what started the, confession process that Jill Biden is expressing disappointment with Pelosi. And she said that we have been friends for 50 years. And the text of this story, 50 years is italicized.

So that's the way the Washington Post wrote this, that she's emphasizing. We've been friends for a very long time, and that it was disappointing how Pelosi helped kick Joe off the stage. And, kind of a stab in the back kind of thing. And, and I, you know, I'm not proud of how much glee that gives me.

But they're going to remain in this that like they have very long memories. They hold grudges. They loved their political leader. They love and loved the the political power. They haven't had. And they I, I think the their love for power exceeds the value of the friendships that they've had, which is why Pelosi kicked old Joe off the stage in the first place.

And so, yeah, these these grudges aren't going away. And as long as they are distracted by the grudge, that is a massive opportunity for Republicans to continue to make gains. Yeah. Help Americans. And I probably shouldn't speak it so publicly, but I if I'm Mike Johnson, if I'm John Thune, if definitely if I'm Donald Trump, I would tell everyone in the Republican Party, now's the time to put your foot on the gas and keep going, because the left just continues in their dumpster fire.

That's when we can make big gains that might even be big enough. I mean, there's not an election coming up, but if they can, if they can get strong enough before the midterms, who knows? Maybe they hold on to their majorities in 2026. Maybe they do. I hear it's crazy to watch them because in what the what you were explaining power equals money.

They're the same thing. There's times when when those two things need to be, you know, separated out because people behave differently in this situation. Power equaled money because all the power that Nancy Pelosi has had in her time there has created a massive portfolio for her. Yeah. Massive wealth. Same thing has happened for Joe Biden. The massive wealth, the connections to Ukraine, the money that's come in from China that has all been equivalent to the power.

And for Nancy, it's never enough, obviously never enough. I think she thinks that she's got two more years of making money ahead of her for her and her legacy, I guess, I guess. What are you doing? Except for falling on marble stairs and breaking your hip at this point, like, yeah, don't live a life. Did she actually break her hip?

Yeah, she's got that little walker that she's going around with, I don't know, like, oh yeah. Okay. Henry. Man, it's not much of a retirement when you have as much money as she does. You know, at some point, we have to start calling it Capital Meadows. Because it's a it's like a nursing home. It's like a an assisted living facility.

Bingo hour is 4:00, Capitol Meadows. Can we just start calling it Capital Meadows?

I love it. Okay, let's go to the phone. Oh, they hung up. They hung up. That's that's okay. We'll keep making assisted living. Jokes about the Capitol crafts every Tuesday at 10:00. Yeah, that's. You can't schedule any hearings or any meetings for two 10:00 on Tuesday. It's craft hour. It's here making bracelets. Now, next week, we're just going to get on a bus and they're going to go to the zoo, and they're going to bring your.

Have you been trying to enhance your crocheting? Join us at three on Wednesdays at Capitol Meadows.

We could totally make a parody, Julie, about Capitol Meadows. Somebody yelling in the background, stop putting cinnamon in the applesauce. Yes. Right. Okay. If you'd like to join us. (208) 542-1079 you got more, don't you? I could keep going. Yeah, you could. You could go all day. So, Meredith, go back to your room. No one wants to hear it.

All you do is talk about 1960. And how was best decade.

That's good. Joe Biden, by the way. They're keeping track of polling. Least popular exiting president in history. Not shocked about that. While you were doing your monologue, he just had a conversation with a colleague who was listening to your monologue as well. So asked me, do you, who do you think's worse, Carter or, or Joe Biden?

And I think the numbers answer it. I don't need to. I obviously think Joe Biden's worse because I think he's worse of a man. Oh, yeah, I think his I think his destruction was intentional. I think that, Carter's destruction, what didn't have the then a Ferris tones to it that Biden did also, Carter didn't leave ultra wealthy the way Biden has.

It would be fascinating to go back like I am. I'm amazed at how good the Democrats are at pretending Joe Biden's presidency was a success. Then if you went back and you could find media reports and quotes by Democrats in early night, well, late 1980, early 1981, as Carter was leaving, did Democrats try to spin it that Carter had a great presidency and it was successful.

And and if you if you disagree and roll the tape like do they have that approach to this? I would say they probably did. I'm sure we could find those. I just don't think it would be as rampant. Yeah. And it was also a different time. A it could be published in the New York Times. And then everyone believed it as gospel.

Yeah. It's not the way it works now. No, that is so true. Let's go back. Let's go to the phones. Hi, caller. How are you today? I'm doing okay. I just barely turned the radio on, and I hear that, they're turning the, the Capitol in the Capitol Meadows. Yeah, that what I heard? Yeah. Okay, that's that's so out of line.

I absolutely love it. Yelling at him. Joe, put your pants on. I get any I cream. You guys are good. Okay, I had to make sure that wasn't fake because I was excited for it. No. Thank you for the call. I appreciate, although I am thinking we do have a window of time at the top of the hour.

I could probably manage to make an AI version of, musical commercial for Capitol. Oh, let's do it. Should we do it? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Okay. Well, speedy, we got this. Something to look forward to in about. Yeah. I don't know, 20 minutes from now. So. Yeah. We can do this. Yeah, we got it.

We can make it happen. (208) 542-1078 great moment in Congress yesterday, Congressman Clay Higgins called Social Security on his smartphone, was on hold for almost an hour and a half and was still on hold, when it was his turn to speak. For one hour, 28 minutes, 25 seconds. Phone number (800) 772-1213. It's a number for Social Security.

This is what I elders had to listen to. And these are elders, my man. These are elders, my man. This is what our elders have to listen to. And he paired it with, well, the at least the, the X that was sent out paired it with the fact that all these federal employees are working from home. And I'm sure they're trying to make the case.

Oh no, we're productive. We get things done. Not when you have someone calling up and they're on hold for an hour and a half. You're not getting things done right. Hey I don't know how the government can ever claim they're efficient. You have no proof. Zero proof. You're you're not efficient. No. Takes you double the time to do a road project.

Look, they they passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which is supposedly Joe Biden's biggest accomplishment. And they haven't done anything with that act. Yeah. We're not seeing fruits of that at all. They they tried to build Tesla stations with it. How many do we have? Eight charging stations. They couldn't even figure out if they had 7 or 8 like yeah.

And try to tell me you're efficient. Okay. Go ahead. Find a federal employee that has all ten fingers so you can count correctly and tell us how many stations you had built, but you got to wait an hour and a half before they can count correctly. I actually thought about that just earlier this week. I thought, I wonder how many Tesla stations they have built by now?

Because at the pace they were going, they're probably at nine by now. Yeah, they might have hit nine one every 3 or 4 months maybe. Yeah. And how. Well, how long ago was the Inflation Reduction Act. Two and a half years. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. That's efficient. Way to go. Yeah. Maybe Pete. Well Pete kind of did give a farewell thing, right didn't he.

Well did I miss that. Well, he had like a post-election speech in favor of, Joe Biden singing Joe Biden's praises. Okay. And I think it was just a that was his. Well, he probably hasn't been working since then. He probably gave that farewell speech a month ago and then said, I'm out piece. Yeah, that's true. Cheston and the boys were going to Europe.

We got the holidays to celebrate. See you guys. All right. We'll be back after this. On Newstalk 179.

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Our tale of the Neal Larson Show is coming up at 907 on Newstalk 179, Neal Larson and Julie Mason to do this now. Julie. Yeah, let's do it. As promised, Capitol Meadows, welcome to Capitol Meadows, where the legends come to stay. The heart and mind with wisdom. Well, what's left of it anyway? Joe shuffling with his ice cream cone.

Nancy's got her pearls in hand. Let just not being in the corner, dreaming of a filibuster. Down a Capitol Meadows for Golden great. We suffer through life in our own special way. From broken hearts someday. Nice lips, we laugh at it all. Capital letters, cherry, Africa bark.

Maxine still yelling, but nobody knows why. Patrick's reminiscing about when the Senate reached the sky. Bernie's preaching socialism in the bingo hall tonight, while Stevie and Jim argue, who left on the white? We've got walkers, we've got scooters and a chair for every view. There's a good income for dinner and a nurse to clean, though all memory care is top notch for those who've lost their way.

Even Mitch forgot Kentucky. He swears it's on the way. A Capital Meadows. We're all stars online. We're saving the world one night at a time for speech. It's the best. Can't we've done it all for the Meadows where the mighty fall toast at a press conference. It's in his head, of course. Nancy's many policies. And Bernie's a rocking horse.

We've got Patrick Lee's photo on the grand piano stand, and Mitch insists on keeping a gavel in his hand. So come join the party where the Tigers always try to put on that as well. Politics, Floyd. Die. It's a whimsical haven with no bills to pass. Capital Meadows. It's a cash grab that. All right. There's, capital may.

Not bad for year for about five minutes of work. Yeah, we put that together. I'll probably put that also right on the beginning of the podcast, even though it's. It'll be buried in the middle of it. We'll put the entire thing on the, on the front end of the podcast. Yeah, they really are getting old, Julie.

Like it's time we looked. Pat Leahy I thought he's been in there for quite a while and I'm thinking late 80s, early 90. No. He became a member of the U.S. Senate January of 1975, 50 years ago. That's too long. Yeah. Pat. Well, I did a quick internet search because we were kind of modifying after the first generation of of ChatGPT and, there was multiple current members of Congress in their mid 80s.

Multiple not well was a 1 or 2. Okay. That that means the power is to a degree, there's too much power. It's too addictive for them to to walk away. We got to re. Yeah. The legacy that they're creating with their money is the reason they stick around. Yeah. Yeah it really is. So all right. (208) 542-1079. If you'd like to join us on this Thursday morning edition of The Neal Larson Show, we had Pam Bondi, who I think I don't I wouldn't say she was timid, but she wasn't all that comfortable at the beginning phases of her her hearing.

She was doing fine, but she settled in and I think we saw more of why she is now being called to be an attorney general. Yes, I would agree with that. I think she got a little feisty, which is what you need to be with an attorney. Janet, you don't want an attorney general. That's lukewarm. No, that's not the that is not who you put into that position.

There's other cabinet positions. You want somebody very measured and relaxed, but attorney general is not one of those. Yeah. So I was actually very happy to see her start to spar a little bit with the senators, push back a little bit I liked that, yeah. I'm sure you've got clips to to play. A side note, Ron DeSantis named the replacement for Marco Rubio today in Florida.

Pam Bondi used to be the attorney general. The current attorney general is Ashley Moody, and that is who DeSantis just named as the replacement to take over Rubio's Senate seat. So yeah, hopefully she's as, a little bit spicy like Pam Bondi. And we need that in a senator. So I think all of this is a good everything that happened was good.

I feel like I trust DeSantis judgment to make a good pick. So that's good. But here's Pam Bondi I don't even know who this senator is, but she wasn't taking any of it. Here we go. Your job will be. I'm speaking. Your job will be to protect voters and election workers, not to undermine. And Duxton. Now, I know that earlier you agree that Joe Biden is, in fact, president, but many of the president elect's inner circle continued to spread the big lie about the 2020 election.

Then over to a different topic. And, Senator, you were speaking. May I, may I speak? You can ask you one question. You can speak. And I hope you answered Mr. Biden. Well, I know when we met yesterday. Yes. When, Senator, when we met. Yes. You pointed your finger at me. You did not speak for me. Let me let me answer my question.

I'm not going to be bullied because the 14th amendment of the United States of America, which was deeply disappointing, I guess, you know, my today, after I gave you an opportunity to study overnight. So can you tell me and this committee what the citizenship clause is given to her? The operative unity? I didn't catch that. How belittling is that?

And possibly a little misogynistic. Yes, that's what I was going to say. And definitely a little jerk. I'm gave you an opportunity to study overnight. I'm your teacher. Yes. I'm in charge of you. Oh, wow. What an o hole. Yes. All right. The 14th amendment says. Senator, I'm here to answer your questions. I'm not here to do your homework and study for you.

If I am confirmed, you're not asking for a confirmation. You cut me off. Can I. Can I please finish? What does the 14th amendment say? Senator? Senator, the 14th amendment, we all know, addresses birthright citizenship. I've been a state prosecutor. I've been a state ag. I look forward to even given your remarks today, working with you and the people of California.

If I am confirmed as the 87th Attorney General of the United States of America, I didn't take your homework assignment. I'm sorry. I was preparing for today. Good for her. Good for her. That's the feisty that we need it. I didn't really catch that little clip. I gave you an assignment to study overnight. Yeah. Little missy. Okay, I added the little messy part, but.

But now, if you could write a tone of how that was, that's what it was. It was like, hey, your job is to do what I tell you to do now it works. You know, again, Julian, our armchair nominee exercise here. I don't think she could have said this, but I would have said, look, I'm a Trump nominee.

I know you're not voting for me anyway. I don't have to take orders from you. I was never going to get a yes vote from you anyway. Yeah. So you want me to sit here and have you berate me? Yeah. Talk down to me. Yeah. Give me quote unquote homework assignments. I'm not going to do that. Yeah, that's that's infuriating.

It's a power move on his part though. Absolutely. Like for him he's like I'm going to tell her what she has to do here. Right. I wonder what his relationships are like in his life. Probably not good. Yeah I'm going to give you an assignment to find out what his relationships are like in these. Like okay, I'll get on that.

Well, you do that overnight. Well, you study overnight and get back to me and then make sure whatever. I am sorry that you talk over me. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Here's the here's to Pam Bondi with Adam Schiff. They had some sparring. Will it be your advice to the president? No, Mr. President, I need to go over them on a case by case basis.

Do not issue blanket pardons. Will that be your advice to the president? Senator, I have not looked at any of those files. If confirmed, I will look at the files. And will you be able to do you review hundreds of cases on day one? I will look at every file. I of course you won't. So will you advise the president?

Can I ask you the question? Well, my question I would have plenty of staff. You said. Of course you want. You'll be able to review. I'm not going to miss this body, nor you. I. Right, let me ask another question. You don't want to answer that you were censured by woman just like this. And so also that are so reckless.

That's my favorite part of that. Because Adam Schiff is reckless. Oh, he's totally reckless. The part I mean, I say, I don't like this. He did this exact same thing during the Russia, Russia, Russia thing where he actually manufactured a verbatim transcript of an imagined conversation that Donald Trump had. It went into record. He went and he put that into the record.

Yep. And he did get censured for it. He did the exact same thing about an imagined conversation that Pam Bondi would have with Donald Trump. Yeah. What is why does he have an imaginary friend. He well he doesn't have any real friends. So yeah, it's crazy to talk to. Yeah, right. His name's Wally. You've been friends? Yeah. And then they had the sparring over Liz Cheney.

I'm asking you, sitting here today whether you are aware of a factual predicate to investigate Liz Cheney. Senator, no one should asked you to investigate Liz Cheney. That is, the president has called for it publicly. You are aware of that, aren't you? No one has asked me to investigate. But the president has also the Presidents Cheney president has, you know what we should be worried about.

Miss Bondi, please answer my question for you right now. You are aware the rules, miss Bonnie, you're robbery. Bonnie 7% higher than the. Now, my question is this. That's what I my question is this nonsense. Do you have the power to say no to the president? I have a logistics question here. If you are the person, like creating the official transcript for this, doesn't there have to be two people?

Don't it? Doesn't somebody have to do Pam Bondi site and somebody? There's no way you can type all of this. There's no way you can put this together. Yeah. I don't know how you, how you, how that would read out. Yeah, yeah I because they're just now she has to because Adam Schiff wants to ask a question that she can't answer.

And in, in the and in that impossible answer is where he's trying to get a gotcha for he doesn't want to hear her answer. No. He wants to hear himself. Yeah. And then talk over whatever she says. Yes. Yes. And so and she knows that this is just the game they play it. It happened with that other California senator that was interviewing her earlier.

Yeah. It's the same thing. They don't want to let her answer the question. They just want to ask their their gotcha question that has no answer to it. And then make her try and look stupid. That's what they're trying to do. Yeah. I what I would like to point out is that as I was researching last night for This Morning show, that people really took all of this in stride, and probably what I saw the most was fun comments about Pam Bondi, comments like, it was anyone ever going to tell us this woman was 59 years old?

Like there, there. Yeah, right. Completely just taken back by how young she looks for her actual age. Yeah. I also saw an ex post that said, who cares what she had to say to all of these questions? Why did she not share her skincare routine? That's funny. That tells you right there nobody took what the Democrats were doing seriously.

No, they there was no no punches were laid. It it was just, they have to go through the routine. And it's really sad that they feel like they have to go through this, this routine, task. The impossible question. Yeah. Just let's just get this done. We've got a lot of work to do. We know that these people are going to pass work.

You're one. You're one chance. Pete Hegseth is not going to materialize for you. Let's be done. Yeah. Let's move forward and just take care of this. Yeah, that's that's true. I'd like your take on this text, Julie. Pam Bondi has the latitude to push back more forcefully than Pete Hegseth, as she doesn't have to worry about being dubbed a toxic male.

Oh, I actually said this when we were covering Pete Hegseth, hearings live two days ago. I think the best thing he could have done when those those women who were, being a little bit disrespectful, yelling at him, basically scolding him, that's what they were doing, is scolding him. I think the best that he could do for himself was to remain quiet.

Yeah. He starts to fight back against that. That's going to be played against him in the media, despite the fact that he had the op ed, he could have lied and and would it have been valid? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. You read the room and you play it the way it needs to be played. I felt like he did the best.

Yeah, I did too. I think he did well. So right now Anthony Blinken is talking about this Hamas, Israel agreement. Let's listen to see what he's saying. And also Western resolve and firepower. Ukraine repelled Russia's invasion and took back half the territory it originally seized. We marshal commitments from countries around the world that will help Ukraine deter and defend against future attacks and stand on its own feet militarily, economically, democratically.

We've also imposed the most ambitious sanctions and export controls ever on Russia, cutting off its biggest banks, reducing dramatically Europe's reliance on Russian energy, oil and gas almost to zero at this point. As a result of some of our latest sanctions, Russian oil tankers are piling up along the Chinese coast, unable to offload Ukraine. We'll continue to stand as an independent, democratic nation anchored in the West with the freedom to choose its own future if.

All right, so we went to that live as okay. So all right, we'll duck out because they ducked out and now's a good time to take a break. It's 922 on Newstalk 179. If you'd like to reach us on these Stones Auto Group call and text line, that number is 20854210790. You know what I think is happening? They're going to do a blitz of public events on this is real deal because they want it very much to look like a Biden victory.

They don't want Trump stealing this away. Well they're stealing it away from Trump essentially. That's their effort I don't it's not going to it's not going to work. But they're I mean they had a press conference with Biden and Kamala and Blinken. Blinken's doing his own thing. They had this State Department spokesman yesterday. They had Andrew Sullivan the like they're they're trying to get their people on on the face of it, Kamala Harris actually released an official statement about it on letterhead.

Really unlike no one cares about what you have to say. And you think that this too little, too late mess, too little, too late. You have no official statement about your horrific performance at the border, but something you had zero to do with. Yeah, right. You got to make an official statement about no, she's the Middle East. Peace is are you?

Oh my goodness. Okay, Ted Cruz, time to time to trim that beard up a little. Where do you go there. It was a really quick clip they had do you want to do Timberline? Yes, please. Right. When we get.

Through the cake. No. So we were going to make cheesecake, but then Emily and Ethan went to their day date, and somehow they had some extra cheesecake. They brought us, like, half a cheesecake. So we already had cheesecake. But then, Anna made some chocolate chip cookies last night, so. Oh, good. Yeah. Oh, good. It was good.

One of the gifts that I got was a two gallon beater fish tank for my office at home. Okay, it's got to, like, filter lights. Did you go by the fish? Yeah, I went last night. Okay. PetSmart bought an exotic mustard beater. All right. One time in high school, I had bought a beater for one of my friends.

Yeah, shout out to Jen. She's in East Idaho and we came to her house following school. We were probably juniors. Yeah, and the beater had committed suicide. It had jumped out of the bowl. Oh, no. It was on the floor. Oh 927 on Newstalk 107. And it's Neal Larsen along with beater killer Julie Mason. I didn't do it.

Yeah, he needed some therapy. I was well, you talk about Timberline home for a moment, then we'll tell the fish story. All right. Let's talk about Timberline home and their winter savings. Sell. If you've been looking to get maybe some furniture or mattress upgrade, don't wait any longer. This is a great time to do this. Timberline proudly carries brands like flex, Still, Best Home Furnishings USA, Premium Leather America, Ashley, so many more and just a big shout out to that beautiful regionally made leather furniture.

It's absolutely gorgeous. So if you're looking for that, this is the place that you need to visit. And right now you can take advantage of the winter prices throughout the store with many items marked down really at close out pricing things like recliners or accent chairs, sofas and sectionals, bedroom furniture, home entertainment, stress loss mattresses, dining stress loss mattresses.

Wow, we all need that in our life. Yes, that needs to happen. Sign me up. Yep, also the home office. So many other, pieces of furniture, even the decor is on sale there at Timberline Home, and they absolutely have your back covered when it comes to the cost, because they are offering 48 months interest free on approved credit.

The sell ends at the end of January. So get down there now. Timberline home, 711 East Anderson in Idaho Falls okay Julie I is Pat Leahy no longer in the Senate? I don't know. Did he get I think he might have. Well, I was on Wikipedia. It looked like he still was. Maybe it wasn't reading that right.

Okay. Are you can tell the beat his story. You left him hanging. Yeah, okay, I will, but just to correct myself from previously he was done in 2023. So he has exited so 48 years. He was there for 40 okay man we were overexaggerating I'm sorry. He was there for only 48. Short timer. The oldest, Chuck Grassley, is 90 years old.

Oh my goodness. And he's still there. He's a good guy. He is a good egg. But it you know, nine is a long time. That is a very long time. Wow. Very long time. Okay, beater. I was telling Julie that one of the gifts that I got yesterday was a beta and a two gallon tank that's illuminated and, you know, rocks and filters and all that stuff.

Anyway, for my home office that I've been setting up the last few weeks anyway, Julie has a very sad beta story. So when I was in high school, I bought a beta fish for my friend, and it was just an a regular bowl that you, you know, you take the beta out and clean the bowl like, once a week and everything.

And one day we came home to her house following school, and we walked down in the basement where her room was and where the beta fish was sitting on the mantel of the fireplace, and the beta had jumped out of the bowl and was dead on the carpeted floor in front of the fireplace. That is crazy. Was it filled like almost to the top?

Like it? I don't remember how high up the water was, but this was a really aggressive beta. Like if you came to the side of the bowl and talked to the beta, it would get fired up. So when a beta dies, does it become an Omega? I know where where it stands in the order at that point. That is the end.

Unless it's reincarnated. Come on. That's funny. Yes that's true. It could become Alpha 2.0. So, look, somebody is going to text in and they're either going to be a fish rights activist and they're horrified at our discussion about making dead baited jokes, or they're going to be an expert on the beta fish. Yeah, yeah. Well, you have been given some advice.

Okay? Don't overfeed the beta. You'll cut its lifespan, so make sure you feed it the right amount. Don't make it a chubby beta, okay? Or else it'll become a, couch potato beta. Yes. And then just die prematurely. Sedentary beta. Just. Yes. So don't do that. Sitting there binge watching beta. Netflix. And you're going to take your baby to the vet and they're going to tell you your beta is obese.

Okay. Do they have beta ozempic that I could put it on? I just wondered by the beta an Apple Watch to put on its spin would go be for babies and to track your calorie consumption, put on this device on your fin. Oh yes. Yeah. And no, it's it's, it's called a mustard beta. So is it yellow?

Yeah. It's like a blue and yellow. Okay. Which is weird because we're playing Montana State tonight. Oh. Yeah. Did you jinx it? I don't know the fish or the game. Both, maybe, but I didn't. They're not. Orange bait is like a you kind of. But not really any that jumped out at me. So maybe this is Freudian and deep in your heart you really want.

Oh, have to be a Montana. Whatever you're about to say or just did say no. Now, if it was like you were the one that chose the fish, if it was a Weber State purple beta, I would have been in PetSmart looking around, going, looking. Oops. It fell off the shelf. It it committed suicide to. Yes. Someone said that's good advice for a salt.

Yeah. I was thinking, I think there's a corollary there. If you overfeed humans, they don't. That's their lifespan, either. So. Okay. All right. We'll have the we'll have a slim trim beta. Okay. Yeah. Okay. My daughter has a beta in her room. Has it been alive a long time? Yeah, she's had it since it barely had any color at all.

It was like white. It had a little, little patch of red that was in the shape of a heart when it started out. Now, this is beautiful red beta, You know what, though? I need the audience's help. Because this office at home is largely going to be for writing. Okay, because I'm working on the sequel to the novel.

So in thinking of names for the beta, I came up with Hemingway, Orwell or Huxley. Okay. And I'm I can't decide among those three. So I might do something on social media and have people help me decide the name for my writing buddy, the beta fish. Okay. Do you need to pick somebody like you could pick. You need to pick.

Do you need to pick somebody that also writes dystopian so that you're, you're, you know, almost manifesting that, type of literature. So I sort of gravitate toward Orwell or Huxley. I could go a little more modern, like, Lois Lowry wrote The Giver. Of course, most, you know, Suzanne Collins wrote the, you know, Hunger Games series, but, but I don't I kind of like Orwell because he, for me is my gold standard dystopian for dystopian.

Is there a way on a beta to tell if it's a boy or a girl? Anna and I just had this conversation last night. She says, no, you can't. You can't tell by the way it's being reported. Bob, Euchre has passed away. The Hall of Famer broadcaster. Yeah, right. Hey. Yeah, yeah, he was a lot of things.

Like he he was a big baseball guy. Hall of Famer, legendary broadcaster. And he passed away at the age of 90. So. Okay. Thanks, to our texter for tipping us off. And I just confirmed it on on a search. USA today's reporting that now. So. Good guy. Good. Long life. I think he was. Well, he had a great persona.

He really did anyway. Anyway. Okay. We're good. Should we take our news break here at the bottom? Okay. I'm driving Julie crazy today. We'll be back after this. But you just got a glimpse of what Julia has to live with every day. Almost every day. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I was ready for something huge, like, oh, we're breaking news.

Well. Oh, okay. I mean, he's Bob Lukas, the guy. Everybody knows that's. And like, you know, Russia's dropped a new gun. Taiwan big. But they're right there next to each other though. Bob, you are dying. Russia nuke right here. 90 year old dies and right here. Stop this pressure, wasn't it? Stop the presses. It was. If I don't say it now, I'm going to forget.

So look, Fox News has it as breaking news. I'm not going to feel bad about that.

I am going to find the most mundane thing tomorrow and go. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I need we need to get this out before we carry on with the conversation. Tomatoes? Yes. Tomatoes are red and are in fact a fruit. Okay, okay. Go ahead. Let's go ahead and talk about the.

All right. I'll be ready. I'll be waiting for that tomorrow. That's funny. That's funny. Good old glade. He can't name is Fish Ford because that is most likely going to be the name of my grandson. So that one has to be removed. Yeah. He said in honor of who? From Huxley's Brave New World. There must be somebody in that bucket name Ford.

Yeah. Winston. I could name it. You could name it Winston. Yeah, yeah, that's out of it. 1984. Yeah. If it's a girl, you can name it Katniss. That's true. Lord of the flies. I could name him piggy from what's an animal farm? Because those are animals. I mean, I know this is a fish, but.

Right.

Did it do? Oh. Somebody sent you, a code to be able to tell whether you have a boy or a girl. A code? Yeah, the male can blow a bubble nest, so there will be more bubbles. If it's a now a male, they have longer, flatter bodies, a larger, more visible beard. So this thing that goes right here underneath and much longer fins, a female has short vertical stripes that come and go.

They change as they want to mate. Short, wide body, smaller, less visible beard. They have an egg spot between their ventral and anal fin and they don't blow bubble nests. It's individual bubbles. Okay, based on the way the fish looks, it's a male. For long, you picked long fins, big long fins, beautiful, beautiful fins. So. Okay, so you must have gotten a boy.

I think we did get a boy. Okay. That helps. Okay, this is off. No, Katniss. No. Katniss. So it's Hemmingway or Winston or Orwell or Huxley or what name do you like? Like what name is would be a cool name for a little writing partner. Bait a fish. Well, if I was thinking about the way that I talk to my pet so I would shorten it to Huck.

So that's why that one to Huxley. Yeah. Yeah. Like was speaking to me. Because we just do all nicknames in our house, so. Yeah. I feel like if you say if you do Orwell or Winston, you have to say them all the way out. Like you need to always call the fish Orwell or always call the fish Winston.

Winston. Yeah, yeah. Because. Or is a weird nickname for Orwell. Oh. Dub doesn't even work.

Yes. Oh. Dub is no shorter than Orwell.

Here we.

941 on Newstalk 1079 Neal Larsen along with Julie Mason and you, if you'd like to join us on the stones out of group Colin text line that numbers (208) 542-1079. Julie, you sent me a clip of Rachel Maddow. Did you know there are two Rachel Maddow? Yes. Yeah. Depends on the season. Right. And this is Rachel Maddow, 2020. Listen to this.

President Trump, as he winds down his last few weeks in office, is considering preemptive pardons for all his adult, adult children, including his son in law, Jared. What a mess. More as we know. Okay, that's Rachel Maddow, 20 2020 here. Rachel Maddow 2024. Yeah. Is the other Rachel Q all the hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth today about a president using his power, his pardon power, his powers as president to do something for our family member.

Tell me more about how outraged we all are about President Biden's pardon for his son. Which is it? Rachel and my twin or which Rachel is it? Yeah. It I when we play these clips, I always default in my brain to. No wonder they can't keep a network going because you're just not a genuine person. No you don't you can't call it like it is.

You can't figure out when your president, your current president is dementia ridden. You can't figure out when the powers that the president has have been pushed beyond their limits. Are you none of it? Yes. Does he have the power to pardon? Absolutely. The problem with the power, the pardon that he provided was it was all encompassing. It went further than a decade.

That's abusing the power. Yeah. Nobody we all thought he was going to pardon Hunter when he was lying and saying he wasn't. We were all like yeah, he's gonna. And then he did. And then he abused the power and expanded it beyond the, the scope of what anybody else has used it for. Yeah. That's the abuse. Rachel. Yeah.

Well you're right. And was Trump even actively talking about pardoning his kids, or was that just a ginned up fear by a bunch of Democrats? I don't remember him ever mentioning that he was going to. Now, could he have? Yes. Trump said bombastic things. Sure. Whatever. Again, I'm siding with her. It's a power that the president has.

The problem that Joe Biden did was that he abused it. Yeah, yeah. And it's one that I, I would not count out there being a challenge to at some point that you can you pardon for potential crimes anything you may have done. Yeah. Like I don't know. That doesn't make sense to me. I want to lobby for that with God can I?

It's like, can you give me a break from the time I was like, 16 to. Yes, like a can you can we work like a guy, get a decade, a free decade? Yeah, it's a good question. Wow. Yeah. I mean, that's sort of what Jesus did, but I'm just. Yeah. No, that's a separate discussion for a different day.

Maybe in a different setting. But yes.

Leave it to Neal to make it weird, but, you know, why not? Okay, so here's the State Department. Should we just move on to something else? Yeah. Let's go. Given Trump, a measure of credit more than I would have imagined, they they would have when it comes to the involvement of president elect Trump's team has been absolutely critical in getting this deal over the line.

And it's been critical because obviously, as I stand here today, this administration's term in office will expire in five days. And one of the things that we have always said about this deal is that when you get from stage one to stage two, that the United States, Egypt and Qatar are the guarantors of this deal, and Egypt and Qatar will push Hamas to stay at the bargaining table and to get from stage one to stage two.

And the United States will push Israel to stay at the bargaining table to get from phase one and phase two. So obviously, those are promises we cannot make on behalf of the United States for any longer than the next five days. And so it's critical that all of the parties to the agreement and the other mediator see that when the United States is in the room making commitments, those are lasting commitments that extend beyond this administration into the next one.

I mean, I would just say, lastly, I don't know if it's unprecedented to have envoys from an outgoing and an incoming administration sitting at the same table negotiating a cease fire agreement of this kind. But if it's unprecedented, is certainly unusual. And, we of course, thanked the Trump team for working with this on this cease fire agreement.

I think it's important that they were at the table. Okay. So hear me out on this. I believe that you simply cannot sustain the narrative that Trump wasn't instrumental in this. Yeah. So once you accept that, you kind of want to frame it to we're grateful he was at the table. As opposed to he wasn't anything because, you know, that's a more believable lie than to say Trump had nothing to do with it.

So they're still trying to craft the narrative that this was the Biden administration. This was a win for them. Joe was leading on this whatever, when in reality, we all know there was one thing that changed in recent days, and it was Donald Trump winning the presidency and then telling Hamas just a couple of weeks ago, release the hostages or there will be hell to pay.

That was the catalyst that led to this. I just want to remind everybody I quoted the days that that that have been going on here, about 474, 75 days will be how long those hostages have been held. If some of them are released on Monday. Yeah. Okay. There is no confusion right now about what the difference was.

If you could have done this on your own without Trump, you would have done it six months ago. You would have done it eight months ago. It would have been a big win for the political season. Yeah. And you didn't do it. And it happened after Trump came on board. That's just that's not Republican. That's not Democrat. That's logic.

Yeah. That's just that's just life. It's just what it is. Yeah. Also I have a question for you. Do you think the Biden administration, meaning the people closest to Biden, knew this guy was going to stand up and say this, that Trump was going to say it now? Oh, knew that this guy was going, oh, yes, stand up and give credit to Trump.

I would think they probably have coordinated their messaging on it. Yes. See, I, I'm thinking no, because I think he would have given a different speech last night that didn't make it look like there's competing concepts going on here. Well, they do that all the time though, like on things. And when Joe sort of came out and claimed credit with Kamala on one side, he did give some thanks to Trump and Trump's team for being a part of it, too.

Like he didn't he didn't crowd them out, which that's what makes me think that part of their talking points is we have to at least acknowledge Trump's role. But let's try to keep it minimalist, because it it was so obvious that Trump was saying what he said. So I, I don't I don't think this guy is going rogue, but it's very possible.

It's very possible. He is another reason why I would think that potentially Biden didn't know is I think some of these people want to keep their jobs. That could be to like they're done with Biden and they're thinking, yeah, yeah, me. Maybe you're right. They might. Self-preservation. Yeah, well, we'll cause lots of different things to come out of your mouth.

Yeah. Well, and I think, I think you, if I remember right, I could be wrong. I think it was actually John Kirby that was over at the State Department when Trump was president. And then they went with the, the DEA hire Karine Jean-Pierre and Kirby had to move over and sort of prop up that situation. Yeah. And so that yeah that's my read on it anyway.

Probably not a reflection a reflection on that right there. You just spurred a thought in my mind. You know, if you're if you're Joe Biden and you're of sane mind, which is not, but if you were and you're going to sit back and actually, honestly, honestly reflect on your last four years. What a mistake to not put John Kirby as your press secretary over here.

What an epic mistake. Among many. There were other mistakes but that was one among many that you could have had a better administration had you not had her at the podium. That was a massive mistake on, on their part. But you know what? There is a chance John Kirby would have said, I'm not going to be your lead.

Maybe maybe I did it. I don't that that's I mean, he's I think and I, I'm not a fan of John Kirby I, I feel like you want my nuanced take on PR. Almost everybody in PR has to you could say like if you're just sell your soul a little. Yeah, you do. And you have to convey things that aren't really matching up with reality.

Yes, everybody in PR has to do this from center because you got to look out for your company brand. You got to look out for your congressional boss you have to look out for. So when you go down that road, you just know that's going to be part of the expectation here, that you don't get the latitude of calling it like you see it because you're protecting a brand.

I don't, I don't I don't think I ever would have enjoyed working in PR. I have a background that I could have gone that direction, but every time. And the deeper I got into my career, I realized I'm not going to be happy over there doing that. I, I like coming here to this microphone and telling you what, what Neal thinks.

And so, if now if I had a boss that thought just like me, I'd probably consider something like that, but I but I couldn't do what John Kirby and Karine Jean-Pierre or other, you know, peppermint Patty. What was her name? Jen Psaki I don't I don't think everyone knows her. Is that name too? You can take that from my Patty.

That's true. Like, I don't think I could have done done that because they for Joe Biden, they had to blatantly lie. Absolutely. The American people. Yeah, absolutely. I'm okay putting a positive spin on things and maybe leaving out some selective details. I could not just gaslight and and blatantly lie. Yeah, yeah. Hey, there's so much behind the scenes that we have no idea what actually happened.

John Kirby might have said no to that. But I can. This is one thing I can guarantee. There was 40 more people qualified than Sean Pierre. So if John Kirby did say no, you had other choices. Yeah. You did. It was virtue signaling on their part. All right. 953 Newstalk 1079 we'll come back. We'll wrap up the show when we return right here.

Okay.

There are a handful of politicians I'd work for and be their spokesperson. But, you know how peppermint Patty got snatched up real quick by MSNBC? Do you think that will happen with, I don't think so either. Nope. Karine. Jean-Pierre. We watched her blossom in that role as much as she lied nonstop. She was good at it.

Yeah. Karine. Jean-Pierre. Lies nonstop. And she's not good at it. Yeah, she's really bad at it. And there was times where we were searching for ways that she got better, which was just being bold enough to walk away from the microphone. That's. That was her growth. Yeah. Right. Right. I walked away from the microphone. Did you see how much I've.

I've grown in this job? The one thing she did repeatedly, I never understood it. It's like a nervous tic. That she wanted to be Kaylie McEnany so badly. Oh, she's flipping the binder. Yeah. You know. Oh, you're asking me about this? Yep. I've got a tab. I've got a tab. She goes to it doesn't refer to the binder at all.

So was it just a prop like Kayleigh McEnany actually referred to the binder? Yeah. It was her detailed research notes about different things. And when someone would start talking about, say, Israel, she had a tab. Yeah. Let's talk about Israel. They'd ask the question. She looked down at the binder. You could see her reading it sometime. Sometimes she'd reference it and then talk about it.

The binder was so useful to her. Yeah. Was just a prop for Karine. Jean-Pierre? Yeah. It was. And I don't know if she meant it to be just a prop. I think she probably wanted to use it, but mentally, yeah, maybe she couldn't. It's. It felt like such a fight or flight hostile situation for her. Which, you know, there are times where I think, Kayleigh McEnany probably was constrained from telling the whole truth.

I think Trump saw Trump put her in some bad situations, but the thing she could always turn to was Trump was successful. There were policy successes that she just kind of had to move, kind of turn those talking points into that. That's something Karine Jean-Pierre did not have. There were very few consensus policy wins under Joe Biden that Karine could, could draw on and lean on.

And I mean, the whole last year and a half, all she was working with was a dementia ridden president. You're not going to get any. No. You can't you, you can't even lean on the lies that they tell because he told them wrong. Yeah. When he was delivering his speeches. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you kind of feel bad for.

It was just sort of a a perfect storm of bad situations for Karine. Jean-Pierre. Number one. If you look at her resume, she was actually. I don't know if I would say qualified for this job, but she's done some pretty important policy things. You know what she'd be really good at? Like, a large city. Yeah. Because you're not you're you're able to, like, crossover to some different concepts of, you know, did you did you see our win with infrastructure here?

We did so good here. Yeah. If she wasn't under that high pressure situation she's in a city that's like, say a million people. Yeah. She'd be awesome. But. But I think they put her in one of the most crushing jobs that you can have in the public eye. And. And she just. She didn't have it. Yeah. You have to do it for the worst president in history.

Yeah. Here we go. Yeah. We can have some feel bad for her.

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