2.3.2025 -- NLS -- Protests, Trump’s Agenda, and Free Speech

On this episode with Neal and Julie, they dive into the hot-button issues of the day, from school choice and free speech to immigration protests and economic policy. They discuss the controversy surrounding banks “de-banking” individuals over political beliefs and how that could set dangerous precedents. Senator James Rusty weighs in on the First Amendment implications, while Neal and Julie explore how narratives about Trump—like the speculation over Greenland—are shaped to fit political agendas.

They also examine the effectiveness of protests, particularly the recent demonstrations against Trump’s immigration policies. Does public outrage help or hurt the cause? Neal argues that enforcing laws may feel like tyranny to some, but ultimately, it reinforces the rule of law. Meanwhile, they discuss Trump’s second-term ambitions, the potential for tax cuts, and how tariffs might serve as a bargaining tool rather than just an economic burden.

The conversation rounds out with a look at Idaho’s federal land use, the inefficiencies of the federal government, and why small businesses often bear the brunt of overregulation. Plus, they touch on the cultural shift away from identity politics and how merit-based hiring is making a comeback. It's a packed episode filled with sharp takes and candid discussions—don’t miss it!

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Transcript

Now exclusive bonus content on The Neal Larson Show podcast.

So during the Neal Larson Show, we often, especially the last few weeks, if don't get to some of the stories and the clips that we produce in the morning, we have them ready, because at any point in time, depending on how the show unfolds, we want to present that content to you. But I would say we're only using maybe two thirds of the audio clips that we have available to us.

So having said that, I thought it would be good to go through some of the clips we didn't share with you, during the regular show and just give a really hot take. So for our bonus content today, we play some of those clips, and then we spend a minute or two talking about that particular clip. Hope you enjoy.

We're going to start out with David Hogg of course. David Hogg is, he's been well tapped to be some higher up in the Democrat leadership. So let's get to it.

David Hogg and he's now one of the, muckety mucks in the Democrat Party. Or you need to go on the offense. Are you ready to go on the offense? Yeah. We have to win back our young people. I am the only candidate in this race for any of these positions that is under 30. We had a 20 point shift to the right of our young people.

We must show our young people. We give a damn about them, that we support them, and we invest in them. I have raised over $11 million in the past year to support the future of our party. Because I don't just tweet. I don't just talk the talk. I also walk the walk, and I knock the knock in doors across the country.

But I'm counting on you in this moment right now. I need your support. Please vote for me. Thank you so much. My question to you, Julie, does David Hogg have the cred, the connection with the young people to accomplish what he's implying? No. No. In fact, I think they would call him a badass. Yeah. I think that it.

And it's evident in his clip that he's trying to show a lot of bravado here. Yeah. And he invents some phrase knock the knock. I okay, good for you. Also, most of that fundraising he got was not from individual donations going door to door. Yeah. And he takes full credit for that. I don't think that plays well with young people.

Yeah. Okay. So it's going to be a flop. All right. This is Donald Trump Secretary of state. Rubio is in Panama Panama right now. And we're talking about the Panama Canal. What they've done is terrible. They violated the agreement and not allowed to violate the agreement. China is running the Panama Canal that was not given to China, that was given to Panama foolishly, but they violated the agreement.

And we're going to take it back or something very powerful is going to happen. We're going to take it back or something very powerful is going to happen. Obviously, Trump's detractors say he's going to launch a war. I think he's being deliberately vague. Yeah. Yeah. I just saw another hot take by Ben Shapiro that matches this, which is trade wars are hard to win.

Playing chicken with Donald Trump, that's hard to win. Yeah. So we're leveraging what might be a hard thing to win with an even quicker and bigger game of playing chicken with Trump. Yeah. And it's going to happen. I think you can transfer that to this. He's playing chicken with Panama. Yeah. And he's purposely vague. Just to see how they'll react.

And Panama has lost round one because they nixed the agreement with with China. Okay. This is doctor Quintessa Hathaway. She was one of the candidates to head up the DNC. MSNBC hosted a forum with all of the candidates. And listen to how this win just wants to give you all a little bit of something that's been on my heart here over the last couple of days.

Wait for it. You fight un, you fight all. You fight un, you fight all. When your government is doing you wrong, you fight on. Oh, you fight all. Okay. What do you think of that? Well, first off, I didn't even understand what this had to do with giving the DNC a good idea of who she was. I. And if you feel like you're going to saying come up with something a little more creative.

Eight ChatGPT could have helped you with this. I'm not sure what she's doing here, but for me it was just a continuation of the parody that was this election process process for the DNC. Yeah, I thought the same thing. And there were six you fit ons, and in the middle of it was one. When the government does you wrong.

Come on. Can't you do a little better than that. I have a question with Simon Kalish. Kicked her off the stage probably. Like she, her voice quality wasn't the worst I've heard but wasn't the best. The lyrical quality there. That's what I. Okay. A little closer to home. This is Jordan Redmond. He is in the Idaho Legislature. And here's his idea for a bill.

Chairman and committee. My name is Jordan Redmond, serving district three in Kootenai County. Rs 32096. Would require the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to add a photographic identification to new, EBT cards used to, and and develop a strategy to replace the current EBT cards. The intent of this legislation is put accountability and reduce fraud and misuse within our Snap program.

What we're really trying to address is if we have food security issues, we want to make sure that the food those problems are being addressed by the folks that have applied for that and that they are not being, sold or some other misuse of those funds. So I've kindly asked for a motion to introduce Rs 32096.

Okay. Your thoughts? Photo IDs on snap and empty. Look, if Costco can spit out in a matter of seconds a crappy photo of me so that I can walk around the store, and it can be on my card and on my app, on my phone. I don't know why this isn't possible, and it helps with transparency and with,

That's all we have talked about. When we're talking about school choices, there needs to be more boundaries. There needs to stronger regulation. We need to know this is going somewhere. If you're that person arguing for that in this in the Idaho Capitol, you darn well better be arguing for this. Now, I will say this. It's not going to eliminate fraud because the it's just that the fraud won't happen in the store.

They'll buy the stuff and then sell it when they get back home. To drop it off at their feet makes it harder. It does make it harder. And so I'm I don't think this is well off to used tech that you could probably even lease from Costco or, you know, whatever name you name is a stupid app. There probably is that you can go on and do this on your own in your own business.

Yeah. And it would print it on a credit card. Whatever. Yes. Yeah, I would agree. In fact, they could probably retroactively print your image on your current EBT card. Yeah, you could take it into the and they could just run it through the system. And we've got to do this. It's permanent ink and you're your your driver's license needs to match that photo here.

Yeah. Agreed. And you need to look like the person in the photo. Good with it. I like it I like if if it's not, if it doesn't come at a massive cost to the state and add a lot of bureaucratic layering, then, okay, I'm good with it. I like that a lot. So, all in favor. Okay, this is another clip.

This goes back 32 years. The Rush Limbaugh TV show from 1993. Because I'm wearing these ribbons, I care more than any of you about anything. And these ribbons say so. I want you people sitting at home and you people in the audience look down your lapel right now. I want you to do this. Put the camera back on me.

Do this. When you look down, what do you see? You don't see anything because you're not wearing any ribbons. It means you're a bigot. It means you're a racist. It means you're a sexist. It means you're a homophobe. It probably means you're a white guy. It probably means you're a European. And you and you alone are responsible for all the ills of America.

But I'm not because I'm wearing these ribbons. I care more than you. Okay, rush was prophetic with that. So? So a man before his time. So could you know. Also, can I add another adjective to describe him? So brave. Yeah. Yeah. He was saying things that were making people a little edgy that needed to be said and taken to heart.

Yeah, well, I go back to our discussion about the NFL, about, you know, put the feel good message. Love wins, whatever that means. No. Hopefully the Eagles win, but whatever. But, you know that that's the same thing. Like, now it's so expected. If you don't do it, you're the bigot. And then rush was exactly right there.

It's good. It's good. Okay. Should we do one more here? Yeah, let's do one more. This is Senator James Rusty, and he talked about banks being able to d bank people they don't like. This doesn't feel like, a respect for the free market. I do think these banks should be able to determine whether we're dealing with a hate or extremist group.

Is one they want to be affiliated with. And unfortunately, under the language of this, proposed statute, political activity and hate and extremist activity can be conflated into one and defended as such. If you had, you know, a Bundy who had an account, and he was, because of his own activity, was his now incurred, a lawsuit, and the bank just didn't want to be involved in any of that and didn't didn't appreciate the activity of the group with which he was affiliated.

They would be stuck with it and be caught in the middle of, whatever those legal consequences were, the litigation, they'd be caught in the middle of all that. Okay. It goes on for another couple of minutes, but he's basically saying, yeah, banks should be able to not do business with hate groups and extremist groups. And I'm like, like, okay, but who gets to be the arbiter of what, a hate group and an extremist group, the Southern Poverty Law Center called the Boy Scouts of America a hate group because for a little while, they did not allow gay leaders to to serve.

And their position on the LGBTQ issue was not what the Southern Poverty Law Center wanted. Do they get to decide that? And now the Boy Scouts of America can't do business at banks. I mean, if you want to argue that, then you could have conservative bankers that would say, you know what LGBTQ groups hate the word of God.

They're a hate group. We're not going to do business with them. Right. So. Right. My question to Senator Buckley would be the banks that you're talking about, about are they federally backed? If you're Elon Musk and you want to start your own bank and you're not federally backed, and you can that's a private business. Yeah, you can do whatever you want.

Just like the cake baker. Yeah. In Colorado. But if then you start taking the protection of the federal government to run your business, it's a different story. Yes. You're right, you're right. It once you've gotten in bed with the federal government then you do lose to some degree. You're right of associate. Yep. Yeah that's a good point.

Well it just could be so arbitrary arbitrarily applied even aside from all that. We would create a world. We would all kind of hate because your bank could just decide. We went on your Facebook account this morning and you said some things we didn't like. We're not going to bank with you anymore. Like it could turn into that.

Look, I have not. This is not a concept I've hidden here. I think we're headed that direction. I think we're gonna have to. Banking systems. Yeah, I think there will be a conservative leaning banking system and a left leaning banking system. I think that will be one of the first things that we divide out this country. I, I've also been worried that we'd have commerce that was separated.

I don't think we're that far from that either. Yeah. So I but I don't I wasn't there for the entire hearing. But it does appear that Senator Rusty would be okay with that. And maybe he would be. And and and maybe we're now maybe we're thwarting something that we can't thwart. So this is what Obama wanted to do.

In fact, it had a name. They called it Operation Choke Point. And Senator Crapo, I gosh, we interviewed him multiple times about this. And he said that you had banks that would not give financing to a gun manufacturer or businesses that sold guns. All of it was perfectly legal activity. But the banks didn't want to do it.

And the Obama administration was putting pressure on these banks to basically choke out these gun related companies. So it wasn't in direct violation of the Second Amendment, but it was going to make it harder for them to to function. And so there was a push back on this. You want Operation Choke Point for every everything, every bank. Because you're right.

It would get to that point where you would know. And I think the basic principle here is especially if they're federally backed, you can't deny service other than it if there's illegal activity, if there's money laundering, then you can refrain from that. Or if you know they're going to use the money to, you know, propagate child pornography or something like that, then yeah, then that can be, you know, you don't have to participate in illegal activity.

In fact, it would probably be illegal to do so at that point. But just because you don't like them politically, or you think what they're saying is hate, that that should not be enough because they're engaged in First Amendment activity. Just not liking it should not be enough for you to refuse service to them. Right? Right. Agreed. So.

Okay. Okay. And that's going to do it for our bonus content today. Let's jump right to today's Nielsen Show podcast. And by the way, thank you for listening. We really appreciate it. Thank you for downloading. The podcast means a lot to us. And.

You want to show us?

Good morning. It is 807 on Newstalk 179, Neal Larson along with Julie Mason. And it is great to have you on this Monday. A half an hour from now, Congressman Russ Fulcher will join us and we'll ask him about all things Congress. Of course, it's a new era in Washington, D.C., and Republicans run the executive and legislative branches.

And let's hope they well, let's hope they make the most of it over the next couple of years. So we'll talk with him about that. We also have a lot happening. And yes, I'm going to get to the protest here in East Idaho that drew hundreds over the weekend. And basically it was cheerleading for lawlessness. And I'll I'll address that in a moment, but I do before we go down that road.

I just want to praise our new secretary of State, Marco Rubio. And so often the left, the left hands out awards for intentions. And they treat good intentions the same way. They, they they can't differentiate between intentions and accomplishments. So Marco Rubio went to Panama and obviously that is a top priority for Trump to take care of that situation since 2017.

So eight years now, China has had far more influence and control of the Panama Canal than they ever should have. But through bad foreign policy. And a lot of it had to do with Obama's approach to this. We allowed the communist creep to happen into the the Western Hemisphere. Now, controlling the Panama Canal had a lot to do with that.

And Marco Rubio goes down. I'm sure that he had a set of expectations, guidelines and tools in his toolbox authorized by Donald Trump. And within hours, the you had Panama canceling their their participation in this effort by China to influence all sorts of things when it comes to trade all around the world. And they canceled their participation in it, apparently, Italy did the same thing a couple of years ago.

They said, this isn't really benefiting us. And they got out of this, this agreement. And now Panama is doing the same thing. Marco Rubio did not go to Panama seeking to understand root causes of anything. He didn't go there for photo ops, even though I'm sure there are those. He went there because he wanted to achieve a substantive outcome that was of benefit to the United States of America.

He didn't go there to spread some globalist, feel good ambassadorial message of anything. He went there and said, this is harming not just America, but the hemisphere. You're in violation. You've broken the agreement and we will not stand for it. And now and the fact that here's here's part of the issue, because Trump appeared ready to use military force if necessary to have Panama honor the agreement.

But in the same way that Karate Kid Danielson learned karate not so he could fight, but so that he wouldn't have to fight. This is why Donald Trump says what he says. Now there are tons of people speculating that Donald Trump wants to invade Greenland and use military force. Quote, because we need it. We need Greenland. It being Greenland for strategic reasons and for the betterment of the United States.

Now, do I think we're actually going to use U.S. troops and we're going to go in and invade Greenland and and claim it as our own? No, I don't believe that's going to happen. But I think the left needs to believe that about Donald Trump so they can fuel their their narratives about him being a dictator and the imperial presidency and colonialism and blah, blah, blah.

No. But here's what I do think the game Trump's playing is that he's very vague about it. He he's not going to use military force. And I'll eat crow if he ends up using military force. But he's not going to. But he's okay with people thinking he might because that makes Denmark, who controls Greenland, think twice. And so I think it makes the other side more likely to come to the to the table.

So you have that very consequential weekend. All right. Very, very consequential. And keep in mind we are not even quite we are just a couple of hours away from Donald Trump being the president for two weeks. And you look at him cleansing our our federal code of dry garbage, you look at the tariffs that have been implemented. You look at the US taking big steps to reclaiming, the Panama Canal, not for ourselves, but but ensuring that Panama honors its agreement.

You look at all that has happened and the left is in complete shambles. Still. Now, I hate to break it to all of you on the Democrats, David Hogg serving as the vice something, or rather in the Democrat, hierarchy is not going to save the Democrat Party. I will also say specifically because there was a 20 point shift among young people from the Democrats over to the Republicans, at least in the presidential race.

We may not have seen it quite that dramatically in congressional races, but we definitely saw it in the presidential race. David Hogg is not the young sub 30 year old figure that's going to win them back, as much as you would like to think. So there was also this this is what now you might hear this. You're going to roll your eyes.

You're going to be irritated. You're going to want to spit profanities. But this is this is very good news. Listen to this. This is a DNC League rules specify that when we have a gender non-binary candidate or officer, the non-binary individual is counted as neither male nor female, and the remaining six officers must be gender balanced with the results of the previous.

Okay, whatever the crap he just said non-binary gender mama blah blah blah blah blah. Keep it up. Democrats. Just please. For the love of all that is holy, keep this up. We must elect, one male, one female, and one notice. If you look at this, things over two minutes long and I certainly am not going to play two minutes of that nonsense just by itself.

All right. We might check in to ensure our process accounts for male, female and non-binary. Okay. Yeah. Like I said, it just keeps going. I don't even know what he said. I just know I kept hearing words male, female, non-binary, gender, blah blah, balance, blah blah blah. And I thought not once did I hear them talking about how qualified they are.

Not once did they speak about, if these people are our talented, their merit, what they can bring to make the the party stronger. Now, maybe that's happening in other conversations, but it certainly isn't this. And when they stay tied up in the gender morass of of this weird balance that they're demanding, they will continue to lose. This is not what America wants.

America has squeezed from that all of the juice of virtue that they're they're going to to squeeze. So that was a fascinating, development over the weekend. I got to stop this because still bleeding through. So you you have that and, I, I would I would hope that they keep doing it running on that note very quickly.

This was developing, I think Friday afternoon, Pete booted judge, deleted his preferred pronouns from his social media. Did you see this? And people were making a big deal out of it. Do you know what? Do you know how important and critical and vital it was that people on the left put their preferred pronouns and to lead with them?

And now that they have suffered some very, very painful electoral consequences and quite frankly, now cultural consequences because of it, they can't get rid of it fast enough. They cannot cleanse themselves quickly enough from the nonsense that or things like preferred pronouns. We're going to look back on this with the laughter and ridicule and mockery it deserved from day one.

Now really quick here, I want to take a little time and talk about the protest. We. I had heard a little bit about this midweek last week that there was going to be a protest on the Broadway Bridge, and we've seen some protests on the Broadway Bridge before. Usually, it's people that have, you know, purple hair and there's like eight of them and they're the, you know, usually they're, you know, precinct Democrat people, whatever.

This was very different. They had, by Eastidahonews.com estimation, about 350 people there. And this was a bigger protest and probably one of the biggest ones that the Broadway Bridge has attracted in quite some time. So this was bigger than I expected or anticipated. No, I, I guess I would have, question or two here. I, I saw some of the fallout backlash on social media from this protest, and I had to snooze a couple of people on my timeline because of their virtue signaling, because of of all of this lawlessness, mass lawlessness, I should say, is not acceptable.

In fact, that's the definition of the law, the behavior we accept and the behavior we don't accept. And, you know, you, you and I, I've said this before, when you are allowed to live in a lawless way for a period of time, and it doesn't really have to be that much time. When the law begins to be enforced, it's going to feel like tyranny to you.

When it's not, it's going to feel like authoritarianism. It's not. It's the law. You're just used to breaking it. And furthermore, these are not the people that are going to be deported. The people that a lot of the signs we're addressing are people who are working in ag jobs and not committing crimes and just trying to make a living and a life for themselves here in the United States.

Okay. They are so far down on the priority list, Trump may eventually get to them, but right now it's the it's the criminals and the gang bangers, the murderers, the rapists, the the, the thugs and the punks out there that are going to be sent back home. It's the people who are committing crimes back in their home countries that those countries didn't want.

And that's changing. They are being sent back and it's not going to be tolerated. And what I don't understand and would like to understand is why are people offended that we are lawfully, legally, morally ridding ourselves of murderers and rapists and drug dealers and gang bangers? What are you upset about? Are you arguing that we should keep them here?

Because so far, that's really the only people that have been sent back home. That's it. Now you don't if you don't let me state something that will sound absurd when I say it. But I really want you to think about it. If you don't have a right to be here, you don't have a right to be here. If you have broken our laws to come here, you don't have a right to be here.

Now. You have basic human rights. I don't believe you have a full slate of constitutional rights. You do have basic human rights. And I will stand up for your right to not be beaten. I will stand up for your right to not be harassed. And, you know, to to make sure that you're not, that your physical safety is taken into account.

But if you're here illegally, we want you here. But the right way, especially if you're here to work and to contribute and to work hard. But all of the signs that I saw skipped a really important detail. In fact, it's the elephant in the room that they did not address. And that is you broke the law to be here.

You broke the law. And that matters in a nation of laws. One of the reasons that America is so great and that you want to be here. And don't try to argue that it's not. Because if it's not, then you wouldn't want to stay here, is because we have traditionally had a system of laws that have largely been observed and laws that matter.

That is part of the greatness that is America. And we have many immigrants who have done it the legal way, the right way. In fact, those are the people who are probably the most offended by so much of this. You cut in line and you made it harder for people who do want to get here, the right way to come here the right way.

And sadly, we have an entire political party in America that invited it. They accelerated it and expedited the influx of illegal immigration. Last point before I break, and this is the part that truly, truly puzzles me. Why are you waving the flag of a country you are dreading having to go back to? If you think you're being deported, why are you waving the flag of the nation?

You don't want to go back to? If you love America so much that you want to stay here in violation of our laws, you are waving the wrong flag. That is truly the problem. I don't believe protests like this actually are going to accomplish much at all. And I further believe that this open advocacy of being lawless makes it harder for them.

The best thing that probably could have happened is, well, the best thing that could have happened is that they would say, you know what? I came here, I disrespected the laws of the United States. I'm going to go back home. I'm going to go to the immigration office back home and try to get here the legal way. That's the best thing that could have happened.

But that's probably not going to happen. But the best thing, if you're short of doing that, would just be continue to live your lives and work, but don't draw attention to this, because I will say, after all of the media coverage that we saw of this pretty sizable protest over the weekend, the tenor in the room is, they've got to go back like, this is a bigger problem than we thought, and it actually increases the support for deportation as opposed to the opposite, which is what I think these protests were trying to do.

I think it actually made it worse for them, usually a protest to better your situation. And I think it's actually going to to end up making it, making it worse. And it's sad. I love people, I love that people want to be here in America. But if we are an America that starts to just blatantly ignore the law, we lose the essence of what makes it so great in the first place.

I've got a break. It's 826 on Newstalk 179, or just about ten minutes away from Congressman Russ Fulcher. All right. It's 829 on Newstalk 178, Neal Larson, along with Julie Mason and, Julie, we are sort of under the gun to talk with Congressman Fulcher, but we do have a caller on the line. Let's take it real quick here.

Caller go ahead. What's on your mind today? Hey, Neal, big fan of the show. You know, I've heard you say, you know, that you you want you you love people and you want them to come here, and I, I totally agree with you. But, you know, we have to do it legally. That's that's the huge thing. But another thing is, you know, Trump or his administration or, you know, the government, they need to make it easier for immigrants to get their citizenship.

Because, you know, my wife is Hispanic and she's got family that has been trying to get their citizenship. And, you know, it takes years. What why is it taking years to get their citizenship? And that's why it's so hard, you know. Yeah, it's I don't I don't agree with this deportation. It's it's it's sad. It really is. And I understand we're trying to be lawful and have people understand that you can't walk over America, you know, and we need to do things, you know, legally, you know, abiding.

And it's just, I don't know, it needs to be more accessible, more easier to get your citizenship because, yeah, you know, America is the land of the free, and it's a great country to, you know, for opportunity. And that's probably why a lot of immigrants come here. But yeah, it needs to be easier. It needs to be easier.

Well, I think they do need to streamline it. But part of the problem is in America has only so much bandwidth. And when it's taken up by illegal immigration, that leaves less room for legal immigration. It. Yeah, absolutely. So it's that see, it's even more vital that we obey the law. We actually have Congressman Russ Fulcher calling in right now.

Here we go. We're just going to skip right over that bottom. Our news break. And welcome, Congressman Fulcher from CD1. Joining us from the nation's capital. Congressman, how are you this morning? You know, I'm doing great. It's just great to talk to you again. And, it's a I've been Boise Meridian for a few more hours, and we got a lot of snow here.

I'm not sure what you got there. Okay. Yeah, we got a little bit of a dump overnight, as well, over here. So you're still. You're still in Idaho, getting ready to head back to DC, then. So. Well, Congressman, we have not had a chance to talk with you since before the election. It was last year sometime, I think in the fall maybe, a lot has happened since then.

So give us your really hot take about the seismic shift in Washington these last few months. What a difference an election makes. My goodness. You know, I have to tell you from a DC perspective, it's almost like this dark cloud kind of got lifted over Washington, DC. And you know what? It's not just the GOP side of it, Neal and Julie, although they would never admit it, I think a lot of my friends on the other side of the aisle, they're relieved too.

And the reason is, is because for four years they've had to defend their administration from doing stupid, stupid things and open border policy, transgender surgeries on kids. These you these unrealistic, aggressive mandates towards electric vehicles, you know, taking on the the your washing machine and putting restrictions on what washing machines you get at. People are sick and tired of just doing stupid stuff, and we're not doing stupid stuff anymore.

And what a tremendous positive change it's been. I wanted to ask you one of the stupid stuff, policies that, you probably would agree with me on is this idea of breaching the four lower snake River dams. You have been very vocally against that under the Trump administration. Did he address that issue with his his first kind of blizzard of ideas that he signed, or have you gotten any indication of what the Trump policy will be on that particular issue?

He has not addressed that, to my knowledge. However, that does, in my opinion, fall in that category as well. And we've got now we've got these agency heads coming in as they become approved through the Senate channels and all that, that will actually listen, that will actually pay attention to the stakeholders in these circumstances, not just in that area, but in many others.

Neal and Julie, we've got a receptive federal government that we have not had in the last four years. So I, I think that those are going to be maintained. I think they're going to be protected. They produce incredibly efficient, cheap, clean hydro power and provide flood control and irrigation for the ag community and transport for barges to travel to, for commerce and all that.

It's crazy to tear them out, and I don't think that's going to happen. And I think we're going to get the support of the president to keep them. Yeah, let's keep talking about Idaho a little bit. I know you were part of a wildfire roundtable with agency heads from the BLM idle other local state holders. Why don't you give us an update on that and fire prevention in Idaho?

Julie, we burned almost a million, a million acres this last year. And it was it was virtually all on federal land. You know, we've got, I think, 33 million acres of federal land within the state. But we burned a million that up. And so what I wanted to do was just get the stakeholders at the table. As far as I know, first time at least a long, long time, face to face.

And so we did. We had the Forest Service and their regional management in, Bureau of Land Management. We had local loggers from the private sector. We had county commissioners. We had Idaho, Department of Lands. Everybody was at the table on Friday in Valley County. And one thing that I set the discussion up with was what the Forest Service has got a $741 million deferred maintenance backlog just in Idaho.

Now, what that means is they've got that many projects that are, there waiting to be done, but the resources aren't there to get them done. And similarly, the Department of Interior has a $359 million backlog just in Idaho now across the country. You know, it's it's it's billions. But just in Idaho, that's the backlog. And so my message was, look, we got to look at each other left and right around this table and figure out how to work together better because, and I don't want to break the bad news to our federal friends, but your budget is not going up.

It's going down because we're 36 trillion in debt. The resources are being reduced. We have to do more with less. And that means we leverage everybody's strengths here from the private sector, from the local government, from the state government. And so that was the genesis of this conversation. And I think, you know, maybe built a little bit of rapport and some progress.

There's a long way to go. But that was that was the purpose behind it. Congressman, let's talk about the keep act that you introduced that would eliminate income tax on overtime pay. Give us an update on that. Yeah. So we're hoping that we can get that into this reconciliation package, along with no tax on the tax.

It's, the president has adopted both of those positions. I think that that would help us a lot. And the idea, of course, is it's my bill called the Keep Act. And it's it would just remove the federal, income tax on overtime pay, would not touch payroll taxes or Social Security remains the same, but Medicare or Medicaid, all that you that's touched.

But, the idea is to allow workers to keep more of what they earn with the knowledge that they're going to take that money, they're going to reach it, they're going to spend it, they're going to invest it. They're going to do it better than a government program would do. And it's going to encourage work, which is something that especially in a post-Covid world, we discouraged for a long time.

And so that's the idea of reward the performers, let them keep more of what they earn. They're going to put it back in the economy. And and so it's it's gaining traction. We've got some good support for that in the Congressional Fund. I'll be honest with you. The easiest way to get it in would be through reconciliation. So that's what we're working on.

But, it's it's for the first time, I think ever that this has been proposed at the federal level. So we're excited and push too hard. Does there seem to be heartburn on the other side of the aisle with this? I mean, like you said, it's easiest to put it in, you know, tack it into that bill. But does there seem to be heartburn with the Democrats about this?

Yeah, because it reduces government control and they're all about government control. And so they don't want you to have the money that you are. They want to take the money you earn and they want to distribute it to various programs that they think are worthy. And that's just the opposite of what I and a lot of my colleagues are hoping to accomplish is know that shouldn't be the decisions of the of the left to decide where your money goes, you should decide where your money goes.

So that's of course, there's a lot of heartburn. And that's the argument. We're talking with Congressman Russ Fulcher. Congressman, I wanted to ask you this question. We know that Elon Musk's role in the Trump administration is pretty tall. Order. The Department of Government Efficiency wants to go through and really eliminate unnecessary government spending. And while I think conservative Idaho largely loves that, that's sort of a Republican limited, government ideal, sometimes you might get a regional impact on that.

And I thought of the Idaho National Lab. Is there a chance that in the effort to reduce government spending and government waste, places like the Intel or some other kinds of federal payments to the state may be impacted by this effort, not due to the lab. From anything I can tell Neal, you know, to the contrary, the importance of nuclear small modular and eventually micro reactor our is a very much part of the future of planning.

And, Musk is much aware that two days before the inauguration, I was one of the, I guess, fortunate invitees. Tomorrow, Largo in a small group, to go down and meet with the president. And I got to tell you, the access is unbelievable that he provided. We were there 2.5 hours, about 12 of us. Elon Musk was with us during that time.

So I got a chance to interact with him. Definitely a brilliant guy, no question about it. And and so as part of that discussion, we talked about the future energy portfolio, the future of warfare and what that might look like moving forward. And Musk was providing his perspective. And nuclear is a big part of where he believes that, our energy needs need to go.

The president certainly supportive of that. And, of course, that's the Gus of the Idaho National labs. So I don't think there's any risk there. To that front in terms of other things through federal channels. Yeah. I think that, the that everything is coming on the table in terms of that the inefficiencies of the federal government as it should be, we should be have done zero based balancing for, you know, for decades that really hasn't happened.

And these federal programs have just grown into behemoth fashion. We just can't afford to sustain that anymore. And so I'm glad that he's in the role that he's in. He's a brilliant guy. And, I think it's good to get an outside perspective. All right. Are you supportive of realigning the Department of Education? This is one of the programs that, Donald Trump has had mentioned that he would like to, if not just abolish at least diminish in some sort.

Are you supportive of that? Absolutely. You know, that was a role. The states should be the role the states, all the way. And there's a there's a great place to save about 100 billion. Julie I think it's I if I remember right, don't hold me to this. I think it's about 110 billion right there. And that should be the responsibility of the states every time the federal government gets involved with our education, like so many other things, they come up with a policy and they peanut butter spread it across 50 states and it just doesn't work.

The education needs and dynamics are different in Idaho than they are in New York. They're different in Idaho than they are in Florida or Texas. And so, no, get out of our education system. Let us handle that locally, save some money while you're doing it. So, Congressman Fulcher, maybe, react really quick over the weekend. It was a big weekend for Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Hours after he met with, Panama's president. They canceled their their deal with China, which was quite a remarkable development. You had that and, other. Well, a lot of a lot of things happened over the weekend. I'd love your thoughts on it. So the Panama situation, we didn't get a chance to talk to the president about that, too.

We we got his perspective early on, discussed that two components. And, you know, both what they are. One is commerce because of the importance of the of those trade routes, which you you basically got commerce, freight time and half when you can use that system versus go around the Cape. And the other one of course, is, is is our homeland security as a strategic defense channel as well.

And if we don't have, ready efficient access through there, if that's controlled by our primary adversary, then that's a problem. And so, we knew that was coming. I think that's for all the right reasons. Over the course of time, Panama, has has relinquished more and more authority to the Chinese because the Chinese are our, you know, they're they've, admitted they they've taken over payments for some of that maintenance and whatnot, but that's a breach of what was initially planned there.

I think the president's going to rectify that, do it in short order. And to be honest, he should. Similar thing with Greenland, by the way. That's, that's very strategic from a, from a defense perspective. We've got a lot of of adversaries around this world who, quite frankly, they don't like us. And if they can come up with ways to to block channels where you would need to have pathways for defense purposes or commerce for that matter, we've got to take that into consideration.

I think the president's doing that. He's looking forward. That hasn't been done for at least four years. And so we're making up for some lot of time there. One one question I have two. And, and, we'll let you go here in a couple of minutes. Congressman, pretty sizable protest over the weekend on Saturday in Idaho Falls protesting President Trump's deportation policy and enforcement of immigration.

What are your thoughts on this? Because it's a obviously a complicated issue, but there's a lot of emotion attached to it, too. So I'd love your thoughts on the latest on immigration in America and in Idaho. Well, I did hear about it, frankly. I was I was a little bit disappointed that it happened in my own state. But, here's here's the bottom line.

Neal, we have had an open border for the last four years. And as a result of that, somewhere in the neighborhood, we don't know for sure. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 15, 20 million people have come into this country. We have no idea who they are. And I'm sure there's a lot of good people, but there's a lot of bad people, too.

The bottom line is you've got to have some rules. If we were to have this conversation in 50 years from now, I'll bet that we would reflect back and say that policy of an open border is the worst of the, the previous administration. And frankly, I would say the biggest failure of Congress, because we will not be able to override that.

It's that devastating. And so to my friends who protested on the Broadway Bridge, you know what, follow the law, you know, and I'm sure there's a lot of good people that you're supporting and all that. But, you know, we have to look at the overall security of our nation. We have to look at the overall security and health of our state, and there has to be some rules.

And if you want to, you want to live here, you want to be here. Great. Follow the law and come to me and work with me on on how you can do that better. I know that there's some obstacles to to legalizing immigration. Okay, let's work on that. But that, just offer amnesty to all the people that are here.

The cost of that is enormous. And, I, I support what the president's doing is. And it's all unfortunate if you want to blame somebody for the circumstances we're in, look no further than Joe Biden and the administration, because that's why we're in the situation we're in. Okay. We'll leave it at that. Congressman Russ, Sepultura joining us this morning.

Safe travels back to the Capitol. Congressman. And as always, we'll be watching. Thank you Neal. Julie. Appreciate you. Bye bye. All right. We'll see. It's 847 now on Newstalk 1079. It's 851 on Newstalk 1079. Not, lot of time here. So we have a caller on the line. Let's take that call. What's on your mind, caller oh, oh, bye bye.

Okay. See ya. They left. They self deported from the U.S.. Not a lot of time. I'm out of here. I'm gone. I'm here. Your thoughts on Congressman vultures? Always a always a good interview with Congressman Fulcher. There's never a question that he's a patriot, ever, you know, in all that he does, always, forever grateful for that and the work that he's done over there.

It can't have been enjoyable for him for the last four years. So I have this moment of happiness for him that he gets to go back there and actually do work, that he feels as meaningful. Yeah. And, and hopefully it, it works with the slight majority that we have in both the House and the Senate. Like he said, he's probably going to have to, attach some of this stuff to like the keep act in order to let you keep some of your, your taxes that you would have paid on overtime pay.

Like he's going to have to attach it to something because it's never going to get through. On the merit of the idea. Yeah, that's true. That's true. It's to politicize, to do that. You know what? I would have asked him if I had more time. I mean, I went back to DC for several of the Trump years and a couple of the Biden years, and there was a noticeable shift in in DC under the two.

And DC, especially around the Capitol, was always pretty well kept. It was clean. It was safe. They had plenty of police. But I noticed after Biden took over and I think it coincided with sort of a nationwide trend of our urban areas just going into decline. Weeds would start growing, sell up more homeless. You saw trash everywhere. And it it it was a really, really sad development to see.

I'd like to know now that Trump's the president again, even though he's not the mayor, he doesn't deal with local municipal politics. If if there has been improvement in the nation's capital, it might just be too early. Yeah, maybe it hasn't had the time to regrow. Yes, maybe the question should be asked in six months or a year, but all right, it's 854 a Newstalk 179.

We'll wrap up the hour coming up. We'll also take your phone calls in the 9:00 hour. I'd love to hear from you. It's all ahead on Newstalk 179. It's 858 on Newstalk 179. Want to congratulate Beyonce? Say it's that which she deserves for winning Country album of the year for a subpar album she deserves. Congratulations, Julie. We all know she's a superstar country performer.

All right, it's eight 59 hour two coming up on Newstalk 107 nine.

907 on Newstalk 1079 so Julie, the approval rating. The popularity of the Democrat Party right now is slightly less than cockroach dung. It's not good. Yeah, no, it's not good. It's, it's not good at all. And apparently Jake Tapper asked Senator Tim Kaine why his party? These are the words that Jake Tapper used. Why is your party so staggeringly unpopular?

Ouch. That is that's rough. All right. Here's how the Democratic National Committee, picked a new, head, over the weekend, on the matter of the Democratic Party, we saw some stark numbers this week about how the American people view the Democratic Party. You see there this is a Quinnipiac poll, 57% of the American people have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, only 31% favorable.

This is the worst number for the Democratic Party since Quinnipiac University began asking the question. And it's not an outlier. A recent CNN poll found a 33 year low favorable rating with the Democratic Party. Why is your party so staggeringly unpopular with the public? Jake, you know me. I'm a Virginian. I know one state well and not not so well.

The other 49. In Virginia, we've gone from the one of the most ruby red states in the country to now having put electoral votes behind Democrats, five elections in a row. I just won my reelection by a sizable margin against Donald Trump's handpicked Republican opponent. And I'll tell you how we've done it. We focus on the economy. This is what we do in Virginia.

And I think sometimes national Democrats don't. We focus on competent government and running the economy in a great way that focuses on innovation and advancing. We call well, we have what we call a make, build, grow agenda while the Republicans, okay, he's just blah, blah, blah. He didn't answer the question why the Democrat Party nationally is so staggeringly unpopular?

I don't think this is rocket science, Julie. I think the cover up of a dementia ridden president has a lot to do with it. I think putting up a completely unqualified nominee who didn't have to earn the nomination is part of it. I think they're doubling down, tripling down, quadrupling down on all of the gender nonsense over the last few years is a massively big part of it as well.

And now I feel like they're furthering the mistake by not owning up to it. They're they're just they're just in complete disarray and they don't appear to want to change messaging much. For me, they're not changing messaging at all. One of the things that we've repeatedly talked about with the Democrat Party is that they do not have a bench, that there is no one on a, what we would consider youthful track.

Yeah. Up and coming in the Democrat Party and nothing could have screamed that more then choosing the vice. What are they, vice chair of the the DNC is David Hogg. Yeah. From the who, who is standing on the bodies of his dead classmates from the parkland shooting. Yeah, right. You don't have a bench, and you keep doubling down on these these, programs and these concepts that did not get you the votes that you wanted, and you refuse to look in the mirror?

Well, they're going to have to figure out how to become likable. And they're not right now. They're just not who in the Democrat Party that that is still in the good graces of the Democrat Party is actually likable to the general public. They don't have anyone there. Don't. They're out of it. Yeah. We tell them that's actually a bigger problem for them than them holding on to day.

If you're going to hold tight to that, you better bring somebody up who can sell it. Yeah, yeah. And there there is. No, I can't think of anybody, because anybody who's likable, they've kicked out. Yeah. Tulsi Gabbard, Joe Manchin now is out. So like, it's just it's just they're in disarray. Let's go to the phones.

(208) 542-1079 hi, caller. How are you today? Hi. Great. Great monologue this morning. Neal. I got to listen to a part of it on address. No, thank you, but I'm calling you. Welcome. I'm calling about the tariffs. I was against tariffs initially with Trump, but my thoughts have changed on that. Do you remember the fair tax proposal, Neil Bortz wrote a book on it.

But seller long time ago. Anyways, it's a consumption based tax and it would eliminate the social engineering of the income tax. It would replace the income tax and death taxes and things like that. And I'm all in favor of that. The tax incentives are the reason the health care is such a mess. Third party based health care is driven by tax incentives, and the tariff is a consumption based tax and a consumption tax.

Except it's even better because it's a consumption tax on items that are produced in other countries, but not American based. So I'm starting to think that we could get a big, huge decrease in personal and corporate income taxes, especially with a Maga, supporting Congress and Senate that Trump did not have his first time around. He was able to get decreases on the taxes with the Democrat Congress.

So he could probably get bigger decreases in income taxes now, and potentially getting rid of the death tax and shift it largely to a tariff. And that would be a huge improvement for the American economy. Yeah, yeah, I, I would too, I well, here's part and thank you for the call. It is kind of a complicated issue.

But you had Trump comparing to saying we used to fund everything with tariffs. Like we didn't tax the American people. You didn't have an income tax. We just funded the government tariffs. Our government has become so massive. I don't think you could fund it with only tariffs. I just don't I don't think there's enough there in terms of imports to be able to fund our government, because that was back when government had a very, very limited role.

You had to have a defense, you know, there might have been a few little, you know, agencies and functions. Now they do everything right. I don't believe that we can get to that place either. I love the concept, though, of chipping away at it, you know, using all of these various techniques to chip away at this deficit, to make it so that there's not an increase in taxes to make it possible for for states to have more control, like all of that will increase the ability for a just a better America and force to get back to what we used to be.

Yeah, yeah, I, I, I agree with that. I, I do think though if you structured it right, getting rid of the personal income tax could be within reach. Yeah. It would take a minute. Know we've got to clearly we've got to stay so strong and keep a hold of the House and the Senate in two years. The House I mean we barely have control of both.

And so one of my favorite things that Trump is doing is we're moving so fast. I have I have deep disdain for the government and how long it takes them to get things done. Trump is not functioning on their treadmill speed. Yeah, he's got that thing cranked so high and everybody's running. He's got these people that have already been put in their places in his cabinet, out doing things instead of people.

I know under the Biden administration, people were placed in their cabinet positions and then they took vacations right. That is not happening now. So if we can maintain the speed, we get a couple of things. We get more stuff through faster. We keep the mainstream media on their heels. Yes, because they can't keep up with the reporting.

I actually think that's the biggest reason why Trump does this. He loves the speed and the efficiency getting things done. I actually think it's by design that he he's creating a blizzard of change. So by the time they even start to craft a counter narrative, we're on to the next thing. And and they don't they cannot keep up with it because they don't operate at the same pace.

They just can't. Right? Right. They're used to sitting in their their little New York studio apartment and working for two days and getting two hours and getting paid for two days. Yeah. And in order to keep up with the news cycle, you've got to do more than that. Yeah, yeah, you got to operate at a much, much faster pace.

So yeah, it's great. It's really fun to watch, actually. Like I look at this and you know, for people who think, well, these things just take time. Yeah they do. If you have leaders that are of the same mindset and I don't I don't know if we've ever had a president like Trump. I don't think Reagan worked this quickly.

I think it is unique to Trump that on day one, he signs 200 executive orders. He gets Marco Rubio approved, and they've already got the tickets for him to go down to Panama and to reconfigure that. He's like it. It really is, breakneck pace. And I love have you heard these Democrats, Julie, that are saying he hasn't done anything?

Oh, I know they. What are they looking at? It has been two weeks and you guys are up ended. I'm sorry the price of your eggs have yet to come down. We don't even have a reporting system to know if the price of eggs is going down. Yeah, like we have to wait at least a month so we can see what has happened.

It's been two weeks. Let's also talk about what's happening with these people who've been put in their cabinet positions. We have a tragic plane crash in DC immediately. Hegseth is in front of the camera talking about it. Guess where else Hegseth is going to be? In front of the camera at the border today. Over the weekend, we had Noam in front of the camera at the border.

Over the weekend, we had Sean Duffy addressing both the DC plane crash and the Pennsylvania plane crash, and then the overall transportation organization and how safety has been put in the rearview mirror with the last administration. And we're going to bring it back to the forefront. You know, you I can't help but wonder when you see Duffy out there actually working and getting things done, what's going through?

Pete booted judge's mind like, is he like, oh, I wish I would have done that or oh, I wish I could have been that effective. Maybe he didn't even go to, East Palestine, for how many weeks was it? Three. Four? Yeah, it was something like that. Yeah. Guess who's visiting East Palestine today. Yeah. JD Vance, good for you.

And he's going to be on camera. Do you see how it's not just Trump this time? He has surrounded himself with people and he is going to flood the media with these people in front of the camera. And that will make them unsteady, I think. Julie Trump said one term, he knows the landscape, and I think it took him a minute to try to figure out he was there long enough to know how the opposition works, and to know how Washington and the swamp works.

And I think he, in addition to becoming president of the United States again, he spent a lot of time knowing what he wanted to do in this second term. As productive as his first term was, I think we may see a jaw dropping level of of accomplishments over the next four years. I think it's going to be stunning what we're able to witness.

Can I harp on the having them on their heels with the the mainstream media a little bit? There's only so many people they can employ and they're laying them off like crazy. Chuck Todd I mean, you're they're getting rid of them all over the place. Acosta like, so that means they're decreasing their force. We have so many individual content creators on TikTok on X that are using these video clips of all of these cabinet members being in all these different places, they're outnumbered.

It's not just the speed, it's the it's the military force behind it. They are outnumbered. Yeah they are. And and Trump is empowering. And I love this. This was I think last week when the white House announced that they were going to have a couple of seats for new media that come in, podcasters, influencers, you know, just absolutely new media.

And why not? I mean, they have audiences now that are rivaling the legacy media. In fact, in some cases, they're even more so. You might see Rogan sitting there, you know, like it. It's it's amazing to watch this. We we talked about how, in traditional broadcast channels, the the ratings were down for Trump and the inauguration, but once they compiled all of the streaming figures, it blew it through the roof.

There was over 80 million people watch Trump's inauguration. Yep. And that is what this is why, Julie, we put so much emphasis here on news talk, to listen to our streams, listen to it on our apps. People are just consuming stuff in new ways now, and we've got to be where they are. And and so that that because we see it migrating and it's migrating probably more rapidly than most people realize.

Well, I think the me, I think mainstream media is uncomfortable with how rapid it's happening because it's hard to keep up while you got to where else you're going to be in the cemetery. Well, they're losing their influence. Yeah, and I think I think they know it. All right, let's go back to the phones. I caller caller go ahead.

How are you? Hey, how are you guys doing? Good, good. What's up? Hey. So, just want to say happy, second to the second week of, you know, so the presidency just put something in perspective. Even before midterms, we have 102 weeks, before the midterms. And at this pace, I think that fight is going to be hard pressed to, keep pace.

Yeah, I think it'll be. It's too hard to tell right now. I, I don't think Trump will. I think Trump wanted this blizzard of things to happen in the early weeks. That will go on for 2 or 3 months. And I think after that, once he's accomplished some really big things between now and then, we probably aren't going to see that same number of executive orders every week and that that kind of thing, because he will have accomplished a lot of what he wanted to do.

A lot of time and effort will be spent in litigation defending his executive orders because they're already filing lawsuits. But but I agree with you. It's been it's been fantastic. And I think if we if we keep going, it'll be a pretty good midterm for the Republicans. Yeah. Yeah. That and you know, something else that I was thinking about as we were talking territory, you guys were talking tariffs.

What? I would love to see him, associate, these tariffs with, you know, cutting under, national debt like, that we have with the Chinese talking about being associated with tariffs, with paying that down instead of, you know, just paying down on our interest. I think that would be phenomenal. But that's just me. Yeah. All right.

Thank you for the call. One thing I wanted to point out, Julie, because there's something we try to I say teach that sounds a little condescending, but I feel like that's what it has to be. The Democrats come along and, usually led by Bernie Sanders, and they complain about how low the tax rates are, the corporate tax rates are.

And we try to tell them, well, if you raise corporate tax rates, that just raises the prices for the goods and services provided by these corporations because they just pass their costs through. They have to stay profitable. So if you raise their tax rates, they just raise the price of eggs, or they raise the price of, you know, whatever it is, cars.

Well, now you have these very same people who don't seem to be able to grasp that. That's what happens when you raise corporate tax rates that get it. Very much so when we talk about tariffs that if you raise a tax, we call it a tariff because it's a foreign country and and it's a tax on the goods they want to import.

They're like, well that's going to raise prices on everything okay. Try to understand try to understand. That's exactly what happens when you tax a corporation. But here's the difference. They cut American jobs when you raise their taxes that that harms Americans. And those jobs will then go overseas. So we lose that economic activity here. We lose those jobs to other countries.

The good thing about a tariff is, yeah, you might see an increase in the price of goods, but what's happening is it's it's pushing people to keep the jobs here and to keep the production here. That's why a tariff is better than a corporate tax, even though you might see for a while an increase in the price of goods and services.

Yeah. Well, you said you use the word teach. You said that was condescending. They don't want to learn the facts behind it. They just wanted to learn the talking points. Yes. So we can teach all we want. They're just going to use the talking points when it when it's beneficial to their argument. They don't want to learn about it.

They also don't want to talk about the smaller companies. They they they will be like, oh, the poor mom and pop shops, they're going to get destroyed, blah, blah, blah. When it suits their narrative, when it doesn't suit their narrative, they don't want to talk about these smaller companies, these companies that might employ 30 people that are going to now start doing their work in a state somewhere in America so that they can keep making their potato chips.

There was a company over the weekend that's going to move their operation from Canada to America, because Americans consume more of their potato chips than Canadians do. It's more profitable for them to be here. So they're moving their small operation, which is not going to be huge. Like I said, 30 to 50 employees, that's 30 to 50 jobs.

Well, and how many of those instances are we going to see? It's like it's just an America first approach that over time it accumulates into something significant. But they don't want to talk about that. They only want to care about the small companies when it's a beneficial talking point. They only want to care about raising taxes or corporations having to pay more money.

And it's damaging America when the talking point works for them. Yeah, yeah. Good point. Let's go to the phones. Hi, caller, you're on the you're on the show. How are you? I'm well, thanks so much Neal. Julie appreciate you guys. Great show. Great through the election I mean the new year here with the inauguration as well. I just wanted to say I really enjoyed this topic that you're working on.

I'm a small business owner, and if you take a look at the snowball that ends up coming from the Democrats, you know, they want to talk about the corporate tax or being taxed as a business. And the more that you do, the less you hire. Just the more. I mean, as a small business, you think about how much red tape do we want to run through?

Not a lot. But at the same time, they want to jump in and say, oh, everybody needs a living wage. Well, not every job is a living wage. And the fact that you can't do that. And then again, as you were saying, you know, previously about, well, you increase the taxes. Yeah, it rolls through into the end price for the buyer or the consumer.

And it's the same thing for us, a small business, if we're having to increase, you know, a living wage per se, then our consumers or our customers are going to pay a higher price, and it just continues to roll forward. But the tax side of it enables, if we're having a lower tax rate, enables us and wants us to hire more people, and increases the opportunity for more people to have a living wage or have a job and put food on the table.

Yeah, just my $0.02 this morning. But greatly appreciate you guys. Well, I think with Biden's inflation that's 3 or $0.04. So I appreciate it. And I know it's a good point. I love the support of small business that is East Idaho. How many times have we preach from these microphones? If you want to make a difference in America, start in your community.

Yeah, well, government policy is making it possible now for our communities to be stronger. Small businesses will drive the strongest economy in East Idaho that we've ever seen. Yeah. We need to be grateful for that. Yeah. We we do and and support our, our small businesses. And if we can't support them here, support them in America. And and I think that's sort of the thrust of what Trump is trying to accomplish with all of this is that let's look out for our own people first.

Yeah. All right. We're going to break 929 on Newstalk 179. We'll be back and continue. If you'd like to reach us on the stones Auto Group call and text line, that number is (208) 542-1079. We'll be back. Okay. I'll be right back. I had to talk to Marv during my regular break time, so I'm going to take a break.

Now, I won't lie to you and tell you I'm okay. None of these people care that you're going potty. You know it's true. If it's a report, I'm putting the pee in report. So that didn't make any sense.

How was your weekend, guys? How'd you do anything fun? I tried to not be agitated over the weekend, and then I got on social media, and it made me more agitated. But I'm doing better this morning. Talking it through is helping it. That's the bad part of social media. It always makes you feel pretty isolated. So today's been a better day.

Really grateful for that. I didn't go to the hockey game. My husband sold our tickets because we had other stuff going on. Apparently, I missed quite the fight. Five Spud Kings players in the sin bin. I. What, like I missed the game. I missed the one I should have been at. Yeah. John, Fulcher was saying they got way more snow than we did in Boise.

Interesting. So I've asked you guys what you did for the weekend. I've asked if anybody was at the hockey game. Also, what's snowmobiling been like for you guys this year? Because I don't snowmobile. Has it been good? Like has there been good snow to get out on the sleds? I could ask the same question of skiers, but they generate snow on the slopes so it doesn't work as well.

But for those of you who snowmobile, has it been a good year for that? And does this warming up increase the avalanche risk? I think it does. Try and remember all the scars again. I don't go out there, so I don't paint a whole bunch of attention to avalanches. Also, I need to ask Neal this, they finally released the name of the third pilot, the female.

She worked for the Biden administration for the last two years, and now that Trump is on board, she went back to flying. And before they released her name, they scrubbed all of her social media gone. Oh, yeah. That was weird. Just gone. Why? I don't know. Doesn't feel good. Doesn't feel good. I saw screenshots of her at LGBTQ events over the weekend.

A lot of people were then inferring this woman is a member of that community and she's a lesbian. You can't go there and tell. I mean, we don't know that for sure, at least in what I saw and how someone steps up and says, oh no, she had a relationship with this female or whatever, like, don't just make assumptions that just because she was at an LGBTQ event, that she's part of the community.

Yeah. I was also telling him we missed quite the fight at the Spud Kings. Five players in the sin bin. Really? Yeah. Haha. Okay, here we go.

It's 934 on Newstalk 179. We'd love to hear from you on the Stones Auto Group calling text line (208) 542-1079. Guess what Sunday afternoon dinner was? Julie, tell me, a chuck roast from Grand Peaks. Primates. They're so good, aren't they? It was, you know, prepped it, you put it in the crock pot. Then I went upstairs and lay down for my nap for probably longer than I should have on a Sunday afternoon.

But, when I woke up, you could smell the the roast wafting through the house, and it was tender and tasty. Yum, yum. It's so good. My favorite thing about ordering roast from Grand Peaks is that I actually call them and ask them specific, like, this is what I'm doing with the roast. Will you give me the best cut?

And they do. That's the kind of love you get when you go with a local company like Grand Peaks. So GG Prime meats.com phone numbers there, or you can just order online if you're ordering something very specific. Of course we love, their cuts of beef. They have bacon and pork. You can get pre-made meals like French dip or fajitas that you just warm up.

All of that's available at Jeep primates.com. When I was going through our garage freezer to find the the roast, I saw another package of the Grand Peaks fajitas. So we're gonna have that this week. Yay! Good for you guys. But I think we it may be time to get another order soon. I think we do need to restock the freezer.

All right GP Prime meats.com. Okay Julie, I have a theory about all things die. Okay. Do you wanna hear my theory? Yep. And I would lump into that even. It's not exact but it's it's related to the use of preferred pronouns. All of that. I believe that it is added complexity to organizations, most of whom would rather not have it.

But it has become sort of the social obligation to. You've got I just we just got to do it if we want to, if we want to be loved, if we want to be supported, if we want to avoid a backlash, we have to have a D program and you have to put him or she, her or G.G. or Jim, Jim or whatever it is on your LinkedIn profile.

And I think that once, because Pete Buttigieg got rid of his preferred pronouns. Did you hear about this last week? He got rid of those. I think once we sort of flush that out of the culture, nobody really, other than a really slim number of people, are going to want to go back to it because I think you had people that were making a living on it, and they were they were cashing in.

They were finding relevance plus a paycheck. They probably want to go back to it. But I think the culture at large is saying, why don't we just hire people who are qualified and would be a good fit? Why? Why does everything, everything have to run through these filters of gender and sexuality? I don't know, but I love the change that's happening.

I don't understand the fever that went through America in the last four years, but I love the change that is happening. I saw a picture of them painting over the mural that had all of these words that were associated with DEA at the FBI. They were just painting over it with gray paint. I'm like, that should have never existed.

The FBI doesn't have anything to do with this. Yeah. Why was there a mural in the first place? Get back to actually doing the work that you were you were hired to do? Yes, I would agree. And can I add one thing to it? I don't watch a lot of NFL football, but do you kind of get tired of the little messages that the feel good messages they're putting on their helmets and shoes?

Wherever I'm like, Josh, play football. Yeah, people can be their own person if they want to wear a button that says their their pronouns or if they want to, dress a certain way that establishes them as part of a community. Whatever. Do your own individual thing. These this this concept doesn't need to be part of corporations. Yeah.

Agreed. And I would also add if you want to proactively because that truly is your passion, go for it. Like if if the league allows it then do it. But it had gotten to the point where if you didn't do it, you were getting the side eye. You were looked at like, well, why don't they support this? Cause you're white and your non participation was interpreted as bigotry or or apathy or not caring enough.

And that to me is the toxic culture. I don't care if somebody wants to wear, a rainbow pin because it's truly is important to them. That's fine. But this sort of surrounding social obligation that almost required it or else there was something missing in you that was important. That is the that's the garbage that has to go by the wayside.

Yeah. Can expand on that a little bit about the compassion component of all of this. We got a really kindly written text. I don't have an issue with the text, but they were talking about two different situations with immigration and asking for some compassion around these people. Don't mistake talking about facts with immigration as lacking compassion. Yeah, you can talk about the facts surrounding immigration and you don't have to couch them with.

But I feel really bad for them. I can still feel bad for them. I do feel bad for the people who are scared. Yeah, I really do. I've also mentioned multiple times, just like the person who called in that the process to get to legal citizenship is pretty difficult. I have clients who have come from Mexico who have worked their way through that process.

They have spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to get there. Was it worth it to them? 100%, yeah, but they have to explain the process to me. And it's not as simple as some people believe it is. I think it can be improved. That's talking facts. I don't have to mention compassion there when we're talking facts about an immigration policy.

If you illegally came here, that's a fact. Yeah. If you are putting up the the flag of a country that you don't want to go to, we are expressing the facts of the protest. I don't have to couch that in compassion. Yeah, I do feel bad for these people, but it's okay that every time we have a conversation about immigration, we don't then talk about the the sadnesses that some people feel they do.

Yeah, they absolutely feel it. But we have been backed into a corner by the Biden administration. And to only focus on the compassion end of this is not going to fix the problem. No, you're right, it's not. Can I add one thing to that? I, I believe that immigration, illegal or illegal, should as much as possible not offer any material benefit to either political side.

Yes. So right now, if you're here illegally, you can't vote in a federal election. So if let's say our laws or are voting is secure, you, you can't vote, so you can't vote for the congressman. You can't vote for this senator or whatever the president, however, your presence is counted in the census, which in urban areas means we have more Democrat districts now because of the presence of illegals, then we would have otherwise.

That should change. We should not apportionment the census for voting purposes. If you want to measure for how many people live in an area, to to measure how much they tax services and all of that, then that's fine. But that shouldn't be the number that's used to apportion congressional districts. They shouldn't be counted in congressional district apportionment.

Only citizens and legal residents should be counted in congressional apportionment. If we could change that law, that would actually help somewhat stem the tide of them coming across, because, yeah. And tighten up our voting laws to to make sure illegals are not voting. If we did those two things, that would diminish the incentive that Democrats have to get as many of those people across as they possibly can.

Right. And I love the compassion component. When you're on a personal level, the compassion component shouldn't play into it. When we're crafting policy Medicaid expansion. Yes. Yeah, policy should be about facts, not about compassion. If the facts bear out that that a group will receive more compassion, that's where the compassion comes from. Yeah, but it should be fact based on your individual one on one it when you're talking to somebody or I have a client in my other business who's actually helped two different people get their citizenship, she's helped them work through the process.

That's amazing. Compassion. That's where it should be happening. Yeah. If you're an employer and you have some really great employees, help them get their work visas, that's where the compassion comes in. It doesn't come in in the crafting of the immigration law. Yeah. Because you are you are redirecting the resources of someone else in the name of your own compassion.

And that that should never happen. That's not compassion. That's that's faux compassion. Yeah. That's iron pyrite compassion. It's fool's gold and it's not real. Remember how mad people got at us when, Medicaid expansion was going through and we had to inform them this is not the, quote unquote, compassionate thing to do? Yeah, okay, you might feel that way, but it isn't that, again, you don't craft law based upon compassion.

I'll tell you what. You know what? You go down to the E.R. and say, I want to pay off the medical bill of someone who can't afford it. That's compassion. When you open up your own wallet and help an individual out, it's not. There's no such thing as ballot box. Compassion and words are really important. We craft law all the time based upon protection.

Yeah, that is different than compassion. Yeah. And your word choice is super important in all of your conversations. If you're having a conversation with somebody, make sure you're choosing the right words when you're talking about factual concepts. Yeah. All right. It's 945. We got a break. We have a call. We'll take that on the other side. Just ahead on Newstalk 179.

Yeah, I looked up at the clock. I'm like, oh, a do you have a Timberline? So beginning of the month? Nope. Okay, Robbie Starbucks said still can't get over the fact that Democrats had earmarked $50 million to buy condoms for Gaza. There's only like 2 million people there. The math is not math money laundering. Think about how much they have to hate us to spend our money on this crap.

So do I think that money laundering has absolutely happened? Yes. I saw some sort of report that they don't use the condoms for actual sexual activity. They're filling them with helium and. Yeah, either way, why is our money going to that? There's gotta be a better way, I don't know. Yeah, I don't understand. Yeah. However, you can launder money.

Go right ahead. So, I mean, that's everyone, but not everyone using one. No, I don't think so. Or multiples of one. But that's 25 bucks per person.

Man, I hope we have a full gym tonight. You all should go to the ASU game tonight. Northern Colorado top team in the league. Playing here at home Monday night seems like a weird night to play basketball, but it that does feel a little weird. It's usually a Thursday Saturday schedule but there's I just saw this on Twitter.

Yeah apparently the standoff with the tariffs with Mexico shattered this morning. Yeah. Two week delay I saw that on the. Yeah Mexico is good. Agreed to deploy 10,000 troops to the US-Mexico border in exchange for a one month delay on President Donald Trump's threatened tariffs, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday. It's c this is Trump's strategy. Either we get concessions in your help or we get your money.

Also, I read something yesterday. I need to do a deeper dive on it that the tariffs in Canada, that what Trudeau is threatening to do, he can't do yet because he has to call a special parliamentary session if he does that. And it screws up when he's leaving if he does that. Oh, really? So they're just threats at this point.

Okay. The actual inaction I need to do a deeper dive to see is that all tariffs. What can he put in place without calling a special session. Yeah. Yeah okay. Somebody said they have to shut this protest bass down before it takes its. You can't. It's the First Amendment. It's America. Look and I, I said this way early on today I don't really care that they protested I don't either I don't care.

I cared that the Mexican flag was being flown. Yeah. Because it doesn't match what you're protesting for. If you love this country so much and you want to stay, don't fly another country's flag. Yeah, I cared that there was racism accusations on the signs. That word they were holding. Yeah.

951 on Newstalk 1079 it's Neal Larson and Julie Mason and, we don't have a ton of time, but if you'd like to reach us on the program. (208) 542-1079 that is the Stones Automotive Group call and text line. And my computer's telling me this snow may be starting here in another couple of hours. So snow and rain. It says so.

Wet snow. Yeah. Really wet snow. Yeah. Let's. Shall we talk about what we just talked about with Mexico? Yes. Yes. So Mexico is agreed to deploy 10,000 troops to the US-Mexico border in exchange for a one month delay on President Donald Trump's threatened tariffs. This all according to the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum. This isn't Trump putting this out.

Yeah, this is coming from the Mexican president saying, hey, we've struck a deal. We are gonna not do tariffs for a month. We'll stick all of these troops at the border, help with the stemming of illegal and the flow of of illegal immigration. And hopefully we can come to a working arrangement. And tariffs don't have to be enacted okay.

It more winning like I, I look at this and I'm like okay well I'm not I'm not dead set on implementing these tariffs if we're extracting policy favorable to America instead like I, I don't I'm not I don't worship tariffs, but I love that they can be used as a threat to get countries to, to, to do the right thing.

And so this is this is great. Now here's another thing. It's a trust but verify approach. I want to make sure those 10,000 troops are actually going to be guarding the border and preventing illegals from coming across. Yes, that they could be doing the opposite. So we got absolutely we got to watch that really, really close. But I think we'll probably get a good handle on whether or not that, you know, that they're they're doing their job.

So. Right. Let's help. Yeah. Let's hope what do you think about the the problem with the drug cartels? Now, they've been designated terrorist organizations. There has been talk that doing so does allow, like, limited military strikes on them, if necessary, which would have been an unthinkable scenario with a Western Hemisphere ally not that long ago.

But if Mexico won't do some things about stopping these drug cartels from flooding our our communities with fentanyl, killing people, doing all sorts of nefarious things, I'm not opposed to this. I'm I think that there's some danger here. However, the threat of being designated like that will hopefully slow it all down, that there will be a portion of those drug traffickers that are like, yeah, I'm getting out of this business for a bit.

I am not going to be in this business under Donald Trump. I'm going to have to do this a different way. Whatever illegal illegal activity is illegal activity, and they usually find another way to make it happen. But I think the threat of it will help slow it. Yeah, I, I do too, I do too. All right. 954 on Newstalk 1079 quick break.

We'll come back and we'll wrap things up here on this Monday on Newstalk 179. Okay. We got a great text. First time the person's ever texted. Oh yeah. Says I am a Trump supporting DACA recipients that move to Southeast Idaho almost three years ago. My wife has deep family roots with the pioneers that came to this valley. Clearly my wife is a U.S born citizen and we have a seven year old daughter.

I was I was brought over as a four year old and all I know is this country. I absolutely love what America stands for. I am also in favor of the Trump administration stance on immigration. They go on to say they've enjoyed listening to the show ever since they moved here under, and they've learned that they align with us pretty closely, and they're willing to have a conversation if we want to.

I think that that's that's what the protest didn't show, is that there is equally as many people, if not more, that are just like this person. Yeah, they just don't go out and protest. Yeah. I love it. I think we should bring them on. I think it'll be that fascinating. Yeah, yeah, maybe just invite them to call in or, you know, message them.

Yeah. And Christine said on Facebook, she says I care about the protests that they're blocking traffic. I don't know what happened in LA last night. Oh that protest. Yeah. That's right. They were blocking traffic for hours and right before the police were going to start arresting people, they received an order to stand down and all of the police left.

The cops were ordered to stand down. I want the back story on that. I do too. Who? Who made that order? Did the Leah? Was it a federal agency that stepped in and said, we are. This is a ticking time bomb. We're going to have death get out of it. Was it the LA mayor was like, I want to know who gave the order to stand down.

Yeah.

I mean, why go in in the first place right. Okay. I think the ones that should be deported are being deported. To be honest, I'm a Latina. My family came from this country to this country legally. And I love to see rapists, human traffickers deported. I don't want to see them here. I want us to be free for all colors, for all people.

Like, that's what makes America great again. So we can create so we can live like as an artist, as a musician, I want to be able to walk at night and not think that I'm going to get killed by an illegal alien. And so those are the people getting deported. Those are the people that should get deported. All right.

That is Javier. She is a performer, singer, actress, I believe. And she was at the Grammys last night wearing a red cap. It was, quite the quite the scene for her, I guess. My question, Julie, when you look at how the Latino community showed up for Donald Trump, I mean, they're about 5050 now. It used to be they were solidly pro Democrat.

It has gone significantly toward Trump. They want immigration law enforced. And that's a fascinating thing. We don't have time to really dive into it here. But this is very much a winning issue for Trump among the Latino community, as much as they don't like it. So all right, everyone, have a wonderful Monday. Be safe. We got some slippery spots on the roads.

Julian, I will be back tomorrow. Right here.