3.27.2025 -- NLS -- Trump, Hegseth & The Media’s Agenda

 On this episode with Neal and Julie, they discuss the latest political controversies surrounding Trump allies, the media’s role in shaping narratives, and the unexpected leak of a journalist’s number into a classified chat. They break down the implications of this security mishap, questioning whether it was a mistake or something more deliberate. The conversation also covers the political maneuvering in Washington, including the scrutiny of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Republican senators' reactions. Plus, they touch on the ever-present political bias in media coverage and the evolving strategies of politicians preparing for future elections. Amidst the serious discussion, they also share lighthearted moments, including humorous takes on mistaken texts, music preferences, and the importance of personal responsibility in political discourse. 

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Transcript

Good morning. It's 807 on Newstalk 1079. Welcome to the Nielsen show. It's a Thursday and a beautiful one at that. And boy, the last couple of days spring outside, bike rides, the whole thing and hopefully you're getting some good outside time. But we have news to get to and we have. Every day is a new adventure and the fight for sometimes I have to make a little confession here.

Sometimes I get into a mode where I have to remind myself there are other things in the world besides politics, and I don't know what they are, but there are other things besides politics. Theoretically, there are things in the world besides politics, but, it's it's sort of all consuming, this signal. You know what? Who? You know who?

I want to talk to you. I don't want to talk to the Trump supporters about this, because maybe some of them are sycophantic and they think, well, Trump does no wrong. I think many of us who support Trump strive to just put things in perspective. We've been conditioned to have the mainstream media take whatever little thing thing Trump does and turn it into a big thing, and impeachable thing, a felonious thing.

The worst thing that's ever happened in the history of the world kind of thing. So when there is a real mistake to put that in perspective, when you have one side saying it was nothing, and then you have another side saying this was the worst security breach in the history of history. You're like, okay, I just got to rely on my own internal instincts here.

And I look at the this signal that because the media is forcing us to talk about this endlessly because they think this is their silver, silver bullet, maybe not to take down Trump because he wasn't involved directly, but to take down some of his top picks, like Pete Hegseth and Mike Waltz. So they I have compromised motive. So I discount their level of alarm.

And I have for a long time never, ever, ever trust the outrage of the left. It's broken. And I look at it and I'm thinking, well, that was stupid. Have you ever let me ask this question? Have you ever? And I know the answer to this is yes. Because it happens to everyone where you're you're texting something to the wrong person, and sometimes the thing you're texting to the wrong person, you don't want them to know what you've just texted.

And there's that oh, crap moment that you send, you press send, it goes out, it's too late. You can't bring it back. Which that would be a nice feature. Like when you press send, maybe a standard ought to be. You know what? You have 15 seconds to reverse this. Like, I'd like to be able to turn that feature on, because sometimes I'll send a text to someone like, oh, they weren't supposed to get that whatever.

And I'm sure that if we open up the phones, many of you would have embarrassing stories of how the wrong text went to the wrong person, and then you had a little problem on your hand. So that would be probably a fun conversation. But in this particular case, I don't know. I'm not sure anyone knows at this point how Jeffrey Goldberg, who had absolutely no business being on the inside of an important security operation, how he made it into that chat, that is something that we all agree needs to be investigated.

And in fact, on from some corners of the right, they're suspicious that Tim Walsh may have done it deliberately, that he might be a mole. And I thought, well, that doesn't really pass the smell test. Not that Tim Waltz wouldn't leak. I don't know the guy well enough. All right. I know a little bit about him. I don't know enough about him to be able to say definitively that he can be trusted implicitly.

So there is that. And, but it doesn't pass the smell test to think that he would just overtly include a journalist on this chat. You would get the information and then you might screenshot it and discreetly send it to a journalist that you wanted to have leaked. That could happen, but I don't think any of the people who are in those capacities are stupid enough to actually add a journalist deliberately on it, so I don't I don't really that that accusation doesn't really, pass muster for me.

So that that's a, that's an angle on this that I think we, we have to look at. Is there a chance there was hacking? Maybe, I think maybe it's a more simple answer that they went to add someone who has the same initials and that got put in. But I do think there are some, questions and answers that are needed.

This guy's a, This guy's a slime bag. This Atlantic journalist is a a compromised, dishonest, willing narrative peddler. And that's all he's done. Whether it's Russia, Russia, Russia, the the weapons of mass destruction, destruction in Iraq. In fact, Carolyn Levitt put out a pretty good resume for Jeff Goldberg. Listen, here are the facts. The National Security Advisor has taken responsibility for this matter, and the National Security Council immediately said, alongside the white House counsel's office that they are looking into how a reporter's number was inadvertently added to this messaging thread.

We have said all along that no classified material was sent on this messaging thread. There were no locations, no sources or methods revealed, and there were certainly no war plans discussed. The Atlantic has even admitted this themselves. Their release of these internal messages validates the truth, which we have been saying all along. If this story proves anything, it proves that Democrats and their propagandists and the mainstream media know how to fabricate, orchestrate and disseminate a misinformation campaign quite well.

And there's arguably no one in the media who loves manufacturing and pushing hoaxes more than Jeffrey Goldberg. Goldberg is an anti-Trump hater. He is a registered Democrat. Goldberg's wife is also a registered Democrat and a big Democrat donor who used to work under who Hillary Clinton. This is the same Jeffrey Goldberg who infamously lied about weapons of mass destruction to get us into the Iraq War, which cost trillions of dollars and thousands of American soldiers.

And how else has Goldberg discredited himself by absurdly claiming that President Trump was Vladimir Putin during the 2016 campaign by peddling the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax that tried to hijack President Trump's first term by inventing the suckers and losers hoax to help Joe Biden in the 2020 election, by peddling a hoax about President Trump involving Gold Star families to help Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, which our campaign at the time vigorously denied.

Jeffrey Goldberg didn't care. There's more, but we don't have all day, and we can now add this signal hoax to this very long list. Okay, so you you have this. And still lots of questions unanswered there. There are now sub narratives happening. Addendums to the current narrative and the next sort of sub narrative that these despicable and dishonest and hypocritical and how many other modifiers could I add to that that they're now peddling that Pete Hegseth was drunk, but they're not saying Pete Hegseth was drunk.

They're just asking, just just asking if Pete Hegseth was drunk. This is I've never heard of him before. Now I know who he is. Representative Jimmy Gomez, Democrat, and he's quizzing Tulsi Gabbard and, I almost said Daniel Radcliffe. That's Harry Potter. The the other, director Radcliffe. Yeah. About Pete Headset's sobriety, to your knowledge, you know, whether Pete Headset had been drinking, before he laid classified information.

I don't have any knowledge of Secretary Headset's personal habits. Director Radcliffe, same question. Yes or no? You know? No. I'm going to answer that. I think that's an offensive line of questioning. The answer's no. I find it interesting that you want to feel like. No, I'm going to answer you after reference. Wrong answer. No. Listen, I don't want to focus on the good work that the CIA is doing that the intelligence community director, my time director, I reclaim my time here.

I have huge respect for the CIA, huge respect for men and women in uniform. But this was a question that's on the top of minds of every American. Is it, though? Is it? First of all, you lied in your question and said that it was classified information. It was not. Now it was a sensitive conversation, but it wasn't designated as classified information.

So that inference, when you asked Tulsi Gabbard, when was he drunk? When he leaked classified information. The second inferred lie is that it was a leak. Now a leak traditionally is a deliberate maneuver by someone on the inside to get info out to the media and for public dissemination. So you're assuming that it was Pete Hegseth who leaked the information.

Now, you might have an inadvertent, release of information that can happen. That's exactly what happened, I think, in this particular case. So this guy just lies left and right, whether it's an overt lie or an inferred lie. He lies and you can't. You can't trust him at all. And now the inferred lie. Let me ask you a question.

It's not quite the same as the question of have you stopped beating your wife? But if I were to ask you the question, have you beaten your wife? Just the mere asking of the question would cause bystanders to wonder. Wait a minute. There's a reason why this person is getting asked if they beat their wife. They must beat their wife.

And it's not true at all. Now. Yeah. Pete Hegseth has had his, his struggles with the bottle in previous eras of his life, but there's no indication that he currently has a has an alcohol issue. Now, again, I don't know his personal habits, but there's not any evidence to suggest that that was the that was the case.

Meanwhile, the this is the Democrat Party who chose Kamala Harris, the vice president, as their nominee to be the be the president of the United States. Our extraordinary president, Joe Biden.

And he's going to speak in a minute. But, there's a lot of love in this room for our president. He's getting to speak in a minute. Like I gotta say for sure, that she's plastered, but, boy, was she plastered. Can I ask, why was Kamala Harris plastered for?

By the way, this is a different clip I'm talking about. Cause it's about you. It's about your family. It's about you. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. I'm pointing to the direction of what I believe is the capital.

And what needs to happen in terms of people who otherwise have evidence themselves being having a feckless quality to show some courage to reject the false notion that suggest are either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone's guns away, when in fact, it's just reason why I support the Second Amendment. But it is reasonable to say we need an assault weapons ban.

But it's reasonable and I think it all weapons ban, this is the notion deserve it now. So here's what I do. Here's a little, inside backstage. Look at how I prep for the show. Julie sends me lots of good clips, the night before I come in in the morning and I produce those clips, I make sure I listen to them, and I play them back.

Every clip gets a title. Who was speaking, or at least who is the subject of the clip, and then a dash and then a description. So when they're inferring that Pete Hegseth may have been drinking slanderous, false at this point, at least an inference, I thought they ignored obvious signs of public drunkenness by our vice president, who wanted to be president.

So I went to the folder where I keep it's now years and years worth of clips. There are thousands of audio clips that I have produced in there, and I simply in that main folder did a search for the word drunk. No less than seven clips of Kamala Harris popped up of her sounding drunk. This is an ongoing issue now.

It's easy to Monday morning armchair quarterback what people say. And I think director Ratcliffe did it just fine. In retrospect, it would have been fireworks and fantastic if he simply did not answer the question from the congressman and looked back and said to him, for four years, you ignored dementia in the president of the United States. We had an abundance of evidence that he was losing it beginning prior to day one.

And you've said and done nothing. He's the commander in chief, and it's dementia, and you have a drunk vice president. And now, without evidence, you're going to infer that the secretary of defense may have been drinking. And that's where you get upset. That's when you decide that this is an issue. This is a problem. Look, I'm saying that there is so corrupt, and these people are so devoid of any integrity whatsoever, and it is shameful.

And we have to continue to pointed out, we have to continue to defeat them and to display the clowns that they are not just they're despicable, but their ridiculousness. And what makes me sad, really, is, I think otherwise good people and otherwise smart people, they get their emotions compromised because they have been programed to hate Donald Trump. I don't care if you don't like Donald Trump, I get it.

He's a he's a controversial, personality. But if you're hatred for the man and his administration is so deep that you believe any narrative that challenges him, you should check yourself. Don't fall for this. Don't just give in because it feels good. It scratches your Trump hating itch. There's zero evidence that Hedges Seth was drunk. They're trying to destroy him, and it's what they do.

It is character assassination, and it's the they don't like the changes that he's making politically in getting the military back focused on lethality, and he's dismantling the DEA structure that they've put in place. I have no idea why that happened. But they've dismantled as much as they can, and they are not people that can be trusted. So I don't think we can reform them.

I don't think that we can even we can't change them. We can't shame them into being honest. We just have to defeat them. And we have to point out who they are, what they are. And hopefully, we we have people who are, smart enough to even overcome their own anti-Trump bias and recognize this for what it is.

It's 826. I've got to take a break, but I'll be back.

All right. It's 831 on this Thursday on Newstalk 179. All right. I have a question for everyone. If you really think about it, do you know somebody who doesn't sleep in their bed? They either sleep in a recliner or has sofa? Well, the actual statistics are that 10% of Americans don't sleep in beds. So Timberline Home in Idaho Falls is the home for easy, cleaner recliners.

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But like I said, it's only a limited time, so you need to get down there as soon as possible. Again, 7-Eleven in East Anderson in Idaho Falls, or you can go to shop timberline.com. Speaking of sleep, when when I finally pass from this life, Julie, I hope to go, like my grandfather did, quietly in his sleep. But unlike his four screaming, terrified passengers.

So your grandfather died? No. Oh, it's. That is so sad. It's it's just a meme I saw on the internet, so I thought I'd share it here. I am, being a good friend and fill in some emotion for you. I know, and really, it was just a setup for a joke, so yeah. All right, let's go to the phones.

208542 179 Caller thank you for waiting. What's on your mind today? Well, you're like, first of all, thank you for what you do. You provide a great service to our community. And, and there's a lot of us that are really grateful for what you do. Oh, thank you, thank you. And, just secondly, I know this is not really a popular thing to say on the radio, but.

But there really are almost two forces in this world. One is good and one is, good. And and we see ourselves faced every day with decisions that we have to make about who is and who isn't and what is and what isn't. And, it's sort of a disservice when we don't acknowledge where that light comes from and that it is light and it is there for all of us.

And I'm not trying to be preachy. I'm just trying to be proactive and say, there's a reason that we know what is right and what is wrong. And, and the more we personally, acknowledge that, the better we are at saying things like, P that is drunk and it was a scandal and not true. That was a blunder.

That was a big black eye for everybody. But it was a blunder. And it didn't matter who a hill of beans at the end of the day. Yeah. So that should that have been different. Sure. But we happen to be human beings and we happened to make mistakes. And, and to say that that was any more than what it was is a lie.

And if you choose to lie, if you follow the lie, you don't follow the light. Yeah. And it and that's if I don't like I say I don't want to be preachy. I don't want to get out of line. I just want to acknowledge that we can all have that. Yeah. Well, you know, in, in a as you were speaking, you, you brought something to my mind.

And in a perfect world, we would look at this and say, this is a learning moment. And it's just about being more careful with our technology, with the information flow, with all of that. But sadly, because we live in a very imperfect world, some people saw it as an avenue for personal destruction, a political opening, an opportunity to harm Trump, to harm the, you know, the reputations of people around Trump.

And to me, that's that's really sad. And they make it much, much bigger. And much worse than it really is. It's true. And they don't serve themselves. You know, it is self-serving. But honestly, at the end of the day, it didn't make them better. It made it worse. And that brings that darkness to all of us. So. Yeah.

Yeah, I just, again, I appreciate what you guys do, and I just hope that everyone out there will take the personal responsibility to step up. Just like you said. We can't. We can't say that. Oh, gosh, that was too bad. And, just let it go at that. We have to. Yeah. They what it is. Yeah, yeah.

So anyway, well thank you. I appreciate you bringing that that message of, of just sort of rational sanity to this that let's identify things for what they are. Yeah. I, I have said since we started reporting on this that this was a mistake. Yeah. It and that is exactly what the Trump administration said. This was a mistake. But there were some very positive things about this mistake.

No one was harmed. Not a single person. The operation went off and and was successful. Okay. That was good. We have the capability of learning from it and tightening up our security. That was good. We understand the passion and the desire of these leaders in the cabinet to have America be militarily successful. You know, there were good things that came from this mistake, and we should look at all those good things and go, now we fix the mistake and we don't get caught up in this.

Yeah. In a different form where potentially maybe a soldier was killed. Yeah. Or potentially somebody was put in harm's way because, something was understood. That was a conversation between two leaders. Yeah. So there were there were good moments in this. We just can't choose to look at them in American politics. No works. No, I don't think so.

And I think, yeah, we all are prone to our biases. So it's really hard to go into a situation and resist the temptation to ignore certain things. On one hand, or exaggerate certain things on the other. It's hard to do that because you like your team. So when you see the ref give a travel call, you agree with it.

If it's the opponent you you're you're hoping it's not true. If it's your your person or your your team. We all do that. And I think we have to, to, sort of calibrate ourselves to that reality. But I think your approach is spot on. Yeah. This was a mistake. Let's not act like it wasn't. But the consequences of it, thankfully, we're we're not there.

I mean, with the operation went off, none of our people died. We got the bad guys. We. I mean, everything happened. It did not affect the desired outcome of the operation. So let's breathe a sigh of relief that that did not happen. But let's reverse engineer what led to it. I think we still don't know. And I do think we have to ask all the questions.

And there seems to be a little bit of contradiction with what Mike Waltz is saying. I don't think he deliberately put this guy into the chat, but this guy's number was in his phone, even though he said, I've never met him, I don't even know who he is. So I'm not saying he's lying. I'm saying, then why was he in your phone?

And why are there pictures of you standing very near to him in, events, at public events? And I think you do have to look at that. And and figure it out. Find out if he is on the up and up. He may well be, but but you got to ask the questions. And he got to go through that process because right now, as vicious and as, despicable as the left is, you can't afford to have anyone in your orbit who's not loyal to you.

Right. I would caution our listeners if they have seen on X, if they're they peruse acts or whatever. There were there were some reports and I saw it in a couple of different places last night that this was an aide of Mike Waltz, who has a connection to this journalist. They actually named the aide. Now, one of the people that was reporting this is Laura Loomer.

Well, Larry's as as wrong as often as she's right. Yeah, she's a little sketchy. And so when you see these reports, you need to be hesitant. Don't run with that information immediately. That might end up being true. This might be one of the times that Larry's right. She is right about 50% of the time at best. So be careful.

I think the most important thing, like what we were saying, is that we actually figure out the truth and fix the problem. Yeah. Yeah, I, I would agree I would agree with that. And if Mike Waltz is the problem then you remove Mike Walsh. Yeah. You got a, you got to make a change there. For, for sure.

So yeah, I again I mean, we're talking a lot about this, and I feel like we're kind of letting the media create that environment, and we're finding ourselves on defense, and I don't think we need to like them. I don't think we need to be on defense. Yeah, they're the ones making this a big deal. And I think we need to throw it right back in their faces.

Of all the lapses in judgment and security and the well-being of the American people during the Biden administration that they ignored, these are not people that have any kind of moral authority to be lecturing us about lapses in judgment or security to the American people. Let's talk about Butler, Pennsylvania. That just happened this summer. Another example, Biden administration in charge of that Secret Service and the prepping of that location.

And our president, our current president, was almost killed within centimeters. Yeah. Talk about lapse of judgment. Yeah. Right. And that was Biden's administration in charge of the secret services. Absolutely. So yeah, we're and most of these Democrats have been silent about that. Yeah. I mean, when forced to address that, they're like, yeah, this is not acceptable, blah blah blah.

But now they're proactively making up stuff about Pete Hegseth to try to attach sub narratives to the to the overall narrative. Yeah. All right. Let's take a break. It's 842 Newstalk 179. It's Thursday on The Neil Larson Show. If you'd like to reach us, the number is (208) 542-1079.

So, Kamala Harris has a new single out, right? It it. Right. Not really. I can get the old drunk, drunk girl thing going on. Welcome back. (208) 542-1079 Stones Automotive Group call and text line. If you'd like to join us on the program this morning. The NPR chief was in the hotseat yesterday. Oh, lots of audio about that.

She is a she's a wreck. She has a very prolific Twitter history of hating Trump and being a far left liberal. And the Republicans are holding her to account because guess what NPR and PBS do they come groveling to Congress every year. Please send us money. Please send us money. This is Representative Brandon Gill. He's a freshman lawmaker handling itself very well.

It's addicted to white supremacy. I believe that I tweeted that and I as I've said earlier, I believe much of my thinking has evolved over the last half decade. It has evolved. Why did you tweet that? I don't recall the exact contact service. I wouldn't be able to say, okay, do you believe that America believes in black plunder and white democracy?

I don't believe that, sir. You tweeted in reference to a book you were reading at the time, apparently the case for reparations. I don't think I've ever read that book, sir. He tweeted about it. You said you took a day off to fully read the case for reparations. You put that on Twitter in January of 2020. Read the book.

I apologize, I don't recall that I did. I'm okay. Note I've no doubt that your your tweet there is correct, but I don't recall. Okay. Do you believe that white people inherently feel superior to other races? I do not you don't. You tweeted something to that effect. You said I, I grew up feeling superior. Ha! How white of me.

Why did you tweet that? I think I was probably reflecting on what it was to be to grow up in an environment where I had lots of advantages. It sounds like you're saying that white people feel superior. I don't believe that anybody feels that way, sir. I was just reflecting on my own experiences. Do you think the white people should pay reparations?

I have never said that, sir. Yes, you did said it in January 2020. You tweeted? Yes, the North. Yes. All of us. Yes. America. Yes. Our original collective sin and unpaid debt. Yes. Reparations. Yes. On this day, I don't believe that was a reference to fiscal reparations, sir. What kind of reparations was it a reference to? I think it was just a reference to the idea that we all owe much to the people who came before us, that that's a bizarre way to frame what you tweeted.

Okay. How many, how much reparations have you personally paid? Sir, I, I don't believe that. I've ever paid reparations, okay? Just for everybody else. I'm not asking anyone. Seems to be what you're suggesting. Do you believe that looting is morally wrong? I believe that looting is illegal, and I refer to it as counterproductive. I think it should be prosecuted.

You believe it's morally wrong, though? Of course, of course. Then why did you refer to it as counterproductive? The very different, very different way to describe it. It is both morally wrong and counterproductive. As well as being tweeted, it's hard to be mad about protests. In reference to the BLM protest protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression.

You didn't condemn the looting. You said that it was counterproductive. NPR also, promoted a book called In Defense of Looting. Do you think that that's an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars? I'm unfamiliar with that book, sir, and I don't believe that was that. My tweeted that you read that book, but I don't believe that. I did read that.

Okay. She can't remember anything. She's read. She can't. And obviously she's serving two masters right now. Her her liberal audience is the master that she serves on her X account and her Twitter account. And then she comes before Congress and all of a sudden she has a different master. Well, and you could sense her discomfort because she's going to have to say she doesn't believe in reparations, but she's probably spent most of her political life telling her liberal friends she does believe in reparations.

She clearly does. Oh, I bragged about it on Twitter. Yeah, yeah, I this was probably an I loved it. This is one of the those cringe moments where she's just simply being held to account. The, the words that she said in the past. Do you know, what I liked about it is that we see so many of these hearings where people are yelling over the top of each other.

The clip you played during your monologue, you can hardly hear each other. Kash Patel had a great moment. You can hardly hear him, but in this one it was the exact kind of questioning that should happen. Yeah, he gave her time to dig her hole and boy did she. Yeah, yeah. Here's some rope. Yeah yeah it was it was very good.

All right. 855 on Newstalk 179. Quick break. We'll come back. We'll wrap up this hour just ahead.

All right 9:00 hour two coming up on Newstalk 179. Stick with us. You're right. Welcome back. 907 on Newstalk 179 Neil Larsen, Julie Mason. And if you'd like to reach us on the Stones Automotive group, Collin Text line that numbers (208) 542-1079. And, you know, it's interesting, Julie, we did a unfair comparison of Caroline Leavitt with Karine Jean-Pierre. No comparison.

Listen to how Caroline Leavitt handled Caitlin Collins. I've now been asked and answered this question three times by the both of you, and I've given you my answer. The president feels the same today as you did yesterday. Okay, so I'm sorry. I might follow up on what you would know. Go ahead. Philip, I have a feeling I'm not taking your follow up.

I have a follow up on something you just said, though. Caroline. That's Caitlin. I'm not taking your follow up. Philip. Go ahead. I have called on you. Vice president. Boom, I you know, what I love about this is we all know about Caitlin Collins and that there's a level of, just she's always talking down to you. There's just a tone to her voice.

Yeah, yeah. And she does it in the clip. Yeah. She completely ignores her and says, no, but I'm going to need to follow up with you. Right. And Caroline Lovett shuts her down. You love it. There's an age difference there. I don't know how old Caitlin Collins is, but she's older than 27. Yeah. And Caroline Lovett does not allow that to come into play.

She's the one dictating what's going on. Well, yeah. She's in. She's in charge of the room. Yeah Caitlin Collins is 30, almost 33. So I love it. Yeah well and she this is why Caroline Lambert was a great pick. I think she was an amazing pick. It's interesting because Trump really knew and we didn't know a ton about Caroline Lovett.

But she had worked around him for some time. Yeah he saw exactly what was there. I think she's far older than her years. She is not your average 20. Well she's married to a much older man. Yeah. Like it's as if she's. She's just an old soul in a young body. Yeah. And you get that from the pulpit.

Can I also I'm going to introduce the idea Julie. But I want you to elaborate on it. Okay. I feel like Caroline Leavitt is a great example. Margaret Thatcher was this way very, very strong but still very, very feminine as well. Like, there she she has the softness of femininity, but she has an iron spine too, like it's really just a good combination.

In that moment she just said, Caitlyn, I'm not answering your follow up question. If Philip, it's your turn. She had to do it three times, but finally it got through. No, I think you're exactly right. And there's not very many women who can walk that line. I've mentioned that before. There's a wider latitude for men to get a little angry or be a little dismissive, or that those margins are more narrow for women.

And that's just reality. I'm not saying, oh, poor women, because there's some there's some good things that women get for being women, right? They get away with a little bit of, in some arenas because they're women. So this just happens to be one of the areas where the margins are more narrow than it is for men. So to find a woman who can walk that very, you know, balance beam line to not come off wishy but still be feminine.

But be in control and be firm to still be beautiful, but not too beautiful because then they'll mock you like they mock Melania, like they're. It is such a narrow, narrow margin. Caroline Leavitt has it. Kayleigh McEnany had it. I believe Sarah Huckabee Sanders had it. Yeah. And the horrible press gave her nothing but flak about not being pretty enough.

That's true. They were disgusting. So if you're really pretty, they ridicule. It's too much. If you're not that attractive, then they mock that too. They're just terrible people. Julia. Yes, I go back to Benny Gomez. He's a terrible person. Much of the left is is just terrible. Yeah. That's a that's a good point. I don't think I have this clip but I did watch it yesterday.

The view chastised Jasmine Crockett for mocking Governor Abbott. Okay I haven't seen this. Yeah. Sunny Hostin went on for a couple of minutes and she said that was wrong. Like she she should have known better. I think she criticized her because she kind of doubled down and tried to gaslight that Hot Wheels was not a reference to the wheelchair when clearly it was.

And so I you know what little bit of kudos to go to, to the V.A., which is really hard to say, but I guy appreciated that they at least had that much honesty. But you know what I think? And maybe I'm giving them a little too much credit. Jasmine Crockett, they may view her as a sinking ship, like she's.

She is whatever metaphor. You want to plug in a dumpster fire. They don't want to be attached to that. And so one way to do that is to call them out when they're clearly, clearly outside the bounds. That is basically a clip that I watched of Megan Kelly yesterday. I didn't send it to you. You would have had to have bleeped out too many words.

And I don't like to make that much work for you in the morning, because Meghan could get a little colorful with her language, but that's what she was saying is that this girl is not your ticket. And as long as you guys keep hitching your you to her star. Yeah, her star is falling already. Yeah. And you have three more years to go before we're going to change things around.

But essentially, for you Democrats. Yes. Why would you want to do this now? Well, you know, it's it's weird. I'm going to try and find this view audio because it's worth playing. Wait. We criticize the view enough. I think when they do get it right, maybe we ought to play a little bit of that too. But, it's clear to me that Jasmine Crockett is an asset of somebody.

She is, AOC was, like, they're they're there because somebody has backed them. And there are expectations that come with that backing. She's she's reinvented herself to fit a certain mold. And I think that it would be interesting to know who who's paying for that, who's backing it, who's who's putting all of that, behind and advising her.

Yes. Yeah. Because I believe that somebody has got to be advising her for her to change her persona that much. Yeah. All right, here's the view. There is like 3 or 4 examples from her time as governor. Hot. Oh, then they do an ad two seconds in. Is it rumble standby. No, it's it's Fox's video module, which isn't much better than Rumble.

It's really not. It's really not, you know, can we gripe for a moment? Rumble. If you could just create the functionality of YouTube without all the garbage political. Why is that hard? I don't know, because it's not just the fact that Rumble plays all those videos all the time through the clips. Yeah, their site is hard to even visualize with your eyes.

You're not sure what video you're playing, you don't. There's never a tagline or a description like it's a really bad site. They interrupt you with an ad every 10s. Yeah, yeah. All right, here it is. Said it's a yeah, I think I, I think that that's the idea. Yeah. It's not just you just don't mock people with disabilities.

I mean, you don't just you don't mock people. If I was gonna say you just don't mock people at all. And and I admire Jasmine Crockett. I do think she's an effective messenger. I think this was a mistake. And I think when you make a mistake, you have to own it. You have to do that because it gives you a lot more credibility when you do that.

I did not know that Governor Abbott was a paraplegic. I had no idea that he went around and the people, no audience, all saw shaking their heads. I didn't know that. I didn't know he was a tree fell on him when he was 26. A lot of his photos are, taken from the step down, from the waist up.

But she is the representative from Texas, so she very much so must have known that he is in a wheelchair. And so I hope that she does the right whatever they want to censure her, whatever it that way. That's not appropriate. But it is appropriate if if you want me to take everything you say when he talks about different people, you said, no, no, I was just joking, okay?

Searching for him. Okay. It goes to an ad. What? What be said isn't worth waiting to hear. So. Yeah. Okay, I appreciate that. They're asking Jasmine Crockett to not come up with some fake excuse. I like that, but really, you didn't know governor Abbott was in a wheelchair who's been prepping your material? Because basically, then you're just a talking head.

Someone's giving you material because you're not doing it on your own. Because if you see him all the time in that wheelchair. Oh, yeah, you do. And if if your head is in politics, you know that he is a paraplegic. It's not like he came on the scene seven months ago, right? The man's a staple of Texas. Well, he's a staple of American politics.

Yeah. So however, I will say this because I had the same reaction. I'm like you, didn't you? You come to that table and microphone every single day and talk about politics, but you didn't know the governor of one of the largest states in the country has had a disability for 40, however many years. Yeah. I mean, that's a that that does show a level of ignorance.

But I would temperate with this. Governor Abbott doesn't make it central to his identity. Oh no. He never elicits sympathy because he's in a wheelchair, never ever. Not once. That's the playbook of the left. Let's take a singular reason why I'm disadvantaged and make that the core of my identity and and, leverage sympathy from all of society for me.

Abbott doesn't want to do that. He's he's he's great as a guy. He's a fantastic governor. Aside from the fact that he's a paraplegic like and is in a wheelchair, you. And so I thought, you know what? Yeah, I think it's sort of ridiculous. They didn't even know that he was in a wheelchair. But in a way, it's to Governor Abbott's credit that they don't know he's in a wheelchair because he doesn't he doesn't make that the centerpiece of who he is.

He it's exactly how he responded to what AOC or excuse me, to what Jasmine Crockett said. See how I got those two confused in my mind because they're both outrageous beyond belief. Yeah. To what Jasmine Crockett said, he he basically said, I don't I don't care what she says. I agree, it doesn't matter. So he completely dismissed her, which is I'm not going to make a big deal of this because I've got way more to stand on now to talk about the fact that they didn't know Governor Abbott was in a wheelchair.

He was a mainstay of their conversations a couple of years ago when it was Governor Abbott and Ron DeSantis who started putting illegal my, immigrants on busses. Oh, that's for shipping them to Martha's Vineyard and other places. So yes, they talked about him extensively. It's not like he wasn't in their mouths. Yeah. So I'm back to who's prepping your material, and maybe you should be a little bit more genuine about it because I would hope that you had watch some video somewhere.

Yeah. Yeah. You, you you would think now Jasmine Crockett is hiding from like, she will not answer questions about calling Governor Abbott. Governor hot wheels. Yeah. Just apologizing. Just make it easy. I know it's hard to apologize. And it may just feel beneath you, but your life gets easier if you just say, okay, I'm going to make a statement in three hours.

If you want to be there, media, be there. It'll be on the Capitol steps and say, I need to choose my words more carefully and deal. And I'm sorry, I didn't mean any harm by it. And a lot of people wouldn't believe it because it wouldn't be believable. But a lot of the media would probably stop talking about and move right on.

Yeah, at least give the Sunny Hostin some shred of a reason to to stop talking about you. Yeah I, I like I said I believe she's being advised by somebody and that person has clearly been advising her incorrectly because it's not playing well and that person is probably still or those people are still advising her. And that's why we haven't gotten an apology.

So can I throw out my potential conspiracy theory? Maybe the far left. And I don't mean just Jasmine Crockett, but like the AOCs and some of the others, the squad. Maybe you always want a spectacle that makes you look reasonable. And right now, Jasmine Crockett is actually making AOC look somewhat reasonable. And it might be a way of moving the Overton window.

It's a very sinister way to do it. But if you can bring someone on the scene like a Jasmine Crockett and normalize the AOC in the Nancy Pelosi's and although Nancy Pelosi's even more reasonable than AOC and completely unreasonable in the same vein. But if you can create a spectacle to the left of you, then your particular brand of leftism may seem reasonable to a bigger swath of America.

Possible. Yeah. Hey, I absolutely believe that that could be part of why they've been pairing AOC and Bernie together, because Bernie kind of does make AOC look a little more normal. Yeah. So yeah. So maybe it's happening on two fronts. Yeah. Billionaires. Yeah. Where's your mittens, buddy? Oligarch I gotta work on oligarchy. People still don't know what that word means.

Little. It was bad branding. It was really bad branding. Yeah, it was it was it, Chuck Schumer that said he loses sleep at night, worried about the oligarchy? Yeah, I think it was. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, you're going to say. So what does it say? Look how quickly the tour ended. The oligarchy tour ended. They did, like, two tour dates, and then, we're out.

They did it because, look, if you go back and you find three, 4 or 5 year old clips of Bernie Sanders, he was moaning about the oligarchy back then. Yeah, they just didn't call it that. Right. And so I think in the absence of actual Democrat leadership right now, they're in meltdown. Maybe Bernie's chosen talking points rose to the surface for a minute.

Like it's like, okay, now it's my chance to put the oligarchy out there. And maybe that will take hold with the American people. Do you think his diaphragm hurts after he gives his speech? Well, mine does now. So probably.

But shared misery is at the core of our communism. Collectivism. Is that a Freudian slip? Did you say communism here? Yeah, cuz he doesn't say that. It doesn't say that. You know what? His word for communism is? Shared responsibility. Yes.

That's reproductive tissue. Yes. Right. Yeah. Exactly. The products of conception. You know, they're really good at the word player. Yeah. They are all right. 923 on Newstalk 179. Quick break. We'll come back after this. Hello Facebook.

Peter, I don't think it's that weird that you didn't know Governor Abbott was in a wheelchair. But you don't go on national TV five days a week and complain about the man. So that's why I think it's weird. Yeah, I think there's a lot of people who wouldn't know. Governor Abbott's in a wheelchair. Average people out there.

I would not expect them to. And absolutely. But when your job is to show up every day in the media to talk about politics, you should know, you should probably figure it out. Yeah. Okay. In the next commercial break, we are going to try three of the five items that we talked about last week. So we've got Harry Potter Butter Beer, goldfish Milano Coconut white chocolate cookies and then Post Malone Oreos.

Did you get the picture? I did, yeah I've already got the picture. So we're good okay. And you know, we weren't sure who brought us the Oreos. Yeah, I think it might be James. Oh, okay. Well, James, if it was you. Thank you. Yeah I just saw him on my desk yesterday so I'm excited. Oh yeah. Fish crackers.

The one we couldn't find that it really wanted nail to try was the dill pickle crisps from goldfish. But. Right. Or is it Cheez-Its. It's a goldfish or cheese. Goldfish. Goldfish. Dill pickle crisps. But I couldn't find them. Okay, do you know what I get to eat? Because I have to. I have to watch my carb intake.

Yeah, I can eat half a milano, half a Post Malone Oreo and two of the butter. Okay, we'll share the Oreo because I don't want the whole thing. I just want to taste it. You want to taste. Okay. All right.

I did so good yesterday. I bet I didn't have more than 10 or 12 carbs all day yesterday. Good job. So, you know, and given the portions I just described, I'll eat about that many. And in this sitting 14 seconds. So I have to confess, when I see somebody these days wearing a mask, I am judgmental. But I appreciate that you put yourself in check while you were in the national park, right?

Yes, I did, and I'm like, if you're doing it because you're getting chemo, more power to you. And shame on me for having a thought. But if you're doing it because Covid so help me. Another day has passed you. But actually was the night before the hearing. Now that another day has passed, you believe that it's now time potentially for the FBI to open an investigation into this?

I'm not going to comment on that because you're the director of the FBI. You don't believe it's appropriate to comment on that because there's a process in place. There's an ongoing litigation, and the National Security Council is reviewing this matter, and I'm not going to discuss any open or closed an ongoing investigation. Literally, the lawsuit happened today or yesterday afternoon.

And the idea that you don't have an opinion on this at this point is frustrating to me. No it's not. I'm not going to prejudge any matter. I might, women of the FBI will reclaim all the files and claiming my time. Aren't you, sir? Mr. chairman, I'd like to. Gentleman's recognized you have four seconds remaining. No, I have more than that.

Two seconds remaining. Would not that your time has expired? I'm Mr. Scooby boom. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Gabbert, were there any sources? So Cash Patel got the headline, but I think the committee chair actually handled that. See, you got four seconds left. No, I have more time. You have two seconds left, and boom, your time's up.

And she just went on and on. She expects the FBI director to comment publicly on an open investigation. Well, I wanted to look at her and go, you guys can't even get anything done in Congress. And you're mad at him that it was filed yesterday and he's not ready to comment in less than 24 hours. You feel like you should have a comment for you?

Well, but you can't could do your job in it. You guys. Yeah. What did I what was it? They took 100 days off last year. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Really? Maybe sit this one out. Yeah. Did they and the bankers take the same time? Just kidding. All my banking friends out there, you know, however, I do need to call attention to this because I started laughing because Kash Patel said the FBI calls the balls and strikes, not you.

And I'm like, is. Lawrence was in communication consulting now for the FBI. Is that.

Remember all that? Yes I do, yeah. I remember you pulling little tiny action figure out of your pocket. Yeah, I do remember that. Balls and strikes, balls and strikes. Okay. That was a quite a contentious primary period there. Oh, absolutely. That was it was vicious. That was a tough race. That was. Yeah that it was. But the percentages weren't even really close.

In the end. It was just a lot of back and forth a lot of money spent. And yeah, Raul Labrador came out on top. Yeah. And I think that Raul Labrador is still getting the raw end of the deal in Idaho. You have the left leaning media over there in Boise that just they do absolutely everything they can to talk about the negative things that like if he if he loses a court case or if a judge only ruled on one of three things that were in favor of what the attorney general is bringing forward, whatever, they turned that into food for their public sessions for the next week and a half.

You know, they never report on the wins. I'm never a Labrador. Never. And if they must, they always temperate with something. Some. However, it wasn't a complete victory. Whatever. Yeah, there they are. Well, I think they see what the rest of us see over the horizon. Yeah. He's had plenty of wins. Yeah, well he's had plenty of wins.

But they know that he's one of the most formidable forces in Idaho politics. And the governorship is very much, I think, in, in play. And, they do not want Raul Labrador to be the governor. So they're it's all in, in fact, can we talk about this for a moment? Because I think that we have seen Governor Little move solidly to the, to the right.

He's always been pretty much a centrist kind of guy. He is clearly, clearly shoring up his right flank. And I think playing a is to cause Labrador to decide not to run against him. And if that doesn't work out, he wants to win enough of the right to be able to to win. He's going to get the vote of the Democrats and the centrists no matter what.

I mean, this is it's probably just a good political strategy move on his part. But it's interesting if you look at the shift in tone when it comes to I'll just choose one example, but there are multiple issues that we could plug into this. The school choice issue. In his state of the state, it was a very cautious tone about school choice.

He recognized it. However, he, he put forward the figure of $50 million, which, oddly enough, is exactly the amount Wendy Harman's bill called for. And I think that he recognized the political reality. It's time. This is an issue that's ripe and to put it into play. And then when it came time to sign the bill, because it passed overwhelmingly in both chambers, he was all in.

He paired it with his lunch program, which is of all the things he's done as governor, he's probably most proud of the lunch program, and he paired it in with that. That's how proud of it he is. So it's been an evolution in rhetoric from caution to now being all in on it, which I find very fascinating.

And I think that to me that's slam dunk evidence. He he's running again for governor. Yeah. There's one of the things that's so much of evidence for me that he's running again for governor is that we went for long stretches last year, winter time, everything not much from Governor Little on his social media channels. Yeah, the last three months.

Wow. We have beef that up tremendously now. Could be explained away that he had maybe staff who weren't so interested in social media. That's possible. I don't think that's it. I think it because the social media he is putting up is very conservative, showing that he's been to the white House several times now, met with, with Donald Trump.

He's aligning himself with Donald Trump. Hey, I think there is very clear ideas that, hey, look at me, I'm a conservative. Yeah. And that's what's being, broadcast on his social media posts. It's making some people mad. The Democrats feel like they've been stabbed in the back. But who else are they going to vote for? Paulette Jordan?

Yeah. I mean, who are you? There's no Democrat. There is no statewide electable Democrat. Julie. They don't there's not a single one in Idaho that can win statewide even even if a close race. Yeah. It's not even not even close to viable. Yeah. In a statewide race that I don't think the Democrats in Idaho understand how non-viable their party is.

Yeah. If they do, they won't admit it because that's a really painful. Yeah, that's being very vulnerable and admitting that. And that's pretty painful for them. I don't think they're going to miss it. While you were gone, there were some social media posts. Do you remember who Doctor Cole is? I believe that's his name, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. He is threatening. Run for the governor's office against Brad Little, okay? No, I know, I know, I know, I'm not warm to the idea either right now. Why do we do this? I'm just letting you know that that is out there. Stay in your lane, okay? He was great. Oh, and he's got baggage, so there is fine.

No, Julie. No no no. Why why why did you say was a perfectly good morning? I'm just trying to keep you abreast of what's going on in Idaho politics. You know, Julie, sometimes you have to have really candid discussions. And I appreciated Doctor Cole's courage. That doesn't mean he should be the governor of the state of Idaho.

I don't think he's a good candidate for governor, either. I think he did some great things. But the problem is his presence will peel off the support that you need for a true, solid conservative to win. Yes, it will. It muddies the race. We are so stupid sometimes. He's not all the way in yet, so maybe someone's working on him to change his mind.

Oh, he's a doctor. Hopefully he's got enough IQ points to stay out of the race. Hopefully. I mean, I think I can see his value. Like, I think he can absolutely be utilized in different areas. He's not of no use, but he's not of that use. So all right. 935 on Newstalk 170 you didn't really ruin my day, but it's okay.

I'm not happy about that. It well, I'm not warm to the idea either. So we can share in that sentiment and. All right. 936 on Newstalk 179, we'll be back. Okay. Should we do this one first? So I've got it recording. So we'll show. All right. So these are the coconut white chocolate melon LS made with premium white chocolate.

Let's see if there's a description somewhere. Delicious coconut flavor paired with sweet creamy white chocolate hidden between delish kit cookies. Okay, okay, so I don't remember what number this was on. The list was at number three, I don't remember. I think it was number three. And those were number four. And these were the honorable mention for number one okay okay.

So we'll do those first. I'll there's no fancy description on these but.

Okay okay. This is what they look like. Are we going to split that. Yep. Okay. Do you not want my lipstick on it I don't care it doesn't matter okay. All right. Yeah. Wait and smell the coconut. It's very fragrant I love that. Okay. That's a yummy cookie. That's really good. That is a yummy cookie. Five out of five stars.

Yeah that's really good. If that was on a little tray at a tea party or whatever I would totally that I if, if I was at a contest to see how many melons you could stuff into your mouth, I would do that. Oh, that's really good. Okay. Are we ready? I'm looking up the, description for Post Malone Oreos, so thanks.

By the way, to James. He just happened to drop these off to us yesterday. Hopefully you can see that. And, several little packages of it. So it's a limited edition swirled salted caramel and shortbread flavor cream between chocolate cookies. Okay, I mushed it a little bit, I don't care. Okay, okay, here we go. Here we go.

Post Malone Oreos. Oh, yeah, that's pretty good okay. That's good. That was I kind of thought oh it's just going to taste like an Oreo. But no, it's there's lots and lots of caramel there. Lots of flavors. Yeah. I don't like the cream in Oreos. Like, I'll, I'll typically scrape out the middle cream. If I have an Oreo.

I wouldn't scrape that out. That's really good. Yeah. Okay. I pop this open. Yep. Okay. This is the goldfish. Harry Potter butter beer, fish crackers.

I've never had a butter beer. Anything. I've had better beer. Oh, it smells good because I've been to. It's very butterscotch. Kind of. Yeah, like. Oh, here, take some of those off my hand. All right. I'll take three. Okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that is like a really, butterscotch kind of flavor. I like the, the texture.

It's more like a it's like a crown. It's like a cookie. Not like the hollow, crispy gold fish. It's not cracker. It's like a graham cracker and like a traditional graham cracker. Butterscotch had a baby. Yeah, like a teddy Graham. So. Yeah. Yeah. You know what the texture is very Teddy Graham ish. But the flavor's good.

Okay. I need all of those. Yeah I'm a fan. Okay. Hey. Thanks. All right. The list that we found was accurate apparently thanks to Julie. You bought the goldfish in the millennium. Okay. I love it. We're going to find the dill pickle ones somewhere. We'll find them. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Last five minutes. What do you mean, last five minutes?

I'm taking that video. Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah, I've timed 63 300. I was going to say 3000. That would have been way too much. Yeah. I don't think it had me. Pick a time. Hold, please. We're going to do it again. Okay.

All right. 941 on Newstalk 179, Neil Larson along with Julie Mason. And you, if you'd like to reach us on the Stones Automotive group. Colin text line (208) 542-1079 and Julie, the headline on Drudge right now under a picture of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is one word. That word is pressure. And she's the Hill has. AP Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is under close scrutiny as Republican lawmakers criticize his handling of sensitive military information in a group chat with officials that inadvertently included a journalist.

Republican lawmakers have stopped short of calling on Hegseth to resign, but they're warning that his decision to share sensitive details about a pending military strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen over signal, a commercial app, is a clear strike against him. But Obama and Clinton and lots of people at high levels in the government have been using signal. It's even been referred to by the Atlantic magazine as the gold standard of secure messaging apps.

I also want to remind everyone again, it was Secretary Lloyd Austin who went out for surgery not once or twice and didn't inform anybody. Yeah, but but what Pete Hegseth did was more damaging to America. No. You know what this is? This is the Hill. Exactly. Everybody has concerns about that. About this. So the hill takes that and they'll exaggerate, they'll amplify, they'll they'll magnify the sentiments of these Republicans, even though the natural person just says, yeah, that wasn't so great.

So they quoted Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. He's on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I think they should make sure it never happens again. I wish that tell us it will never happen again. It's the first strike in the early stages of an administration. Don't let it ever happen again. I don't know how many strikes you get in baseball.

You get three. Maybe this is worth two, he added. If mistakes like this continue to happen, we'll deal with them as it happens. My hope and expectation is that it won't. First of all, it's not your call, This is Donald Trump. You're not the one counting the strikes.

They just want to be cash. Patel. I mean, yes, balls and strikes hate I why this? Look, Senator Cramer is a good senator, but why does he think he's the one that can remove Pete Hegseth or that the Senate can now remove Pete? I mean, maybe they could in a dire, dire circumstance. But that's a weird thing to say because that's not your call.

And I hope Trump smacks him down and just tells him the same. I hope so too. And I want to point out, just because Senator Cramer might have a little bit of a, like of a measuring contest between him and Pete Hegseth, I think that some of these senators do. I think that they're a little they feel like he's got too much bravado.

Yeah, whatever. Get over yourself. The soldiers love him. Love him. I sent you a ton of video of J.D. Vance with Marines yesterday. Yeah, they love him. So if you're a senator, you got a you got to check that a little bit because it's time for us to build back up our military. And these two men are doing a great job of doing that.

Yes, he made a mistake. Demand that he fix it and move on. So I want to talk about, the. Well, I'll just throw it out there. I feel like when Donald Trump won in November, overwhelmingly landslide. And yes, I'll use that term. And then his inauguration super successful. All Republicans were on board. But were they I mean, publicly, they had to be their statements to the press.

They had to be. The press releases had to be. But have they been waiting for that first misstep by the Trump administration so they can now begin to distance themselves? And they were never loyal in the first place? Is that the scenario? I think there's a potential there for some of them. Yeah. So and and I'm not saying you shouldn't ever, criticize, question or criticize.

I'm not expecting blind loyalty, but what I am expecting is that you recognize people are not perfect. So don't wait for the first crack, the first sign of an imperfection, and then pounce on that and say, this is your first strike. And it might be worth to like what? What is that? That's what I meant about. I feel like this was his way of maybe puffing his chest up against the measuring contest between Hegseth and Trump.

I feel like that happens there in Washington, that they're all out to prove that. Yeah, well, I'm the tougher dude or I'm the stronger politician or I. I have more power or whatever because they all, let's be honest, they're all power hungry. Yeah, they want to be president. And so I think that this was a chance for him to maybe potentially puff his chest and any whatever if you feel better, okay.

But you don't get to decide. Apparently this is another part of this piece from the Hill. Republican senators said privately they could not imagine how his predecessors, like former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates and Jim Mattis, making similar mistakes. And while white House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt on Wednesday sought to draw a distinction between war plans and attack plans in criticizing The Atlantic's reporting, Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker told reporters that the information, however it might be described, should have been classified.

The information as published recently appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that, based on my knowledge, I would have wanted it classified, Wicker said at Capitol. Okay, I want I want you to honestly answer that question. You've read the texts. I read the text. Did you not feel like if you were going to put this on a scale, that the texts were much closer to how politicians talk in interviews about the, the potential conflicts that we're going to have, then how the actual war is, is carried out.

So I don't know if I explained that very well. So what I'm what I'm saying is the texts for me lean far closer to what politicians say it. Microphones. Yeah. Then they do towards exact war plans or. Absolutely. I mean it is what was in those texts is barely more than what is said at microphones. All the time.

The scope of war plans could stretch months. Yes, this was one little operation and not a picture of the entire thing. So yeah, there needs to be a distinction between the plans for this particular attack and the war plan, because they're very, very different. Well, and I've mentioned this before, it was very, generic what they said they were going to do.

There weren't locations, there weren't coordinated. So they you talked a little bit about the military force that they would use. It wasn't these detailed plans also for those who haven't seen the texts, it's a handful. We're not talking about hundreds of texts. No. Well, can I talk about process two for a moment? Because I think that if Senator, what's his name from North Dakota, the one I just read.

I don't have a problem if he's saying that directly to Pete Hegseth privately, but to go to the media or to say it in a public meeting and in a public forum, that's a very different thing. You can have those sentiments, but don't undermine the president of the United States and his administration by saying it publicly or discreetly to a reporter or whoever they are not your friend.

They are. They are the enemy. They hate Trump. And a lot of those journalists hate America, and they're not looking out for our country, and they're looking to utilize situations just like this. You cannot trust them to not take your comment and exaggerate it into something bigger than it is. So if this is something, that they're saying publicly, they should know better.

I would agree with that. Take their own advice, know know who's listening and what to keep classified. Yes. Well I, I put air quotes around classified there but what to keep private. Yeah. Okay I'm gonna ask you a question about all of this, which is annoying because we've talked about it too much, but I want to put at ease any concerns that people have about this.

Did you think it was weird that someone within the Trump administration had this journalist's phone number? Yes. Okay, I it's a little odd that someone that close to Trump, I actually talked about this in my monologue a little bit, and I said, weird, but not incriminating. It's more like you need to ask questions. There may be a perfectly innocent and benign answer.

Maybe they inherited a whole bunch of journalists contacts from someone you know, I like it. It doesn't mean that they're best friends. They barbecue together, and then they plot the overthrow of the Trump administration together. So I again, I don't I don't want anyone to read into that, but it might be a little bit odd, especially when Mike Waltz said, I don't know this journalist.

I don't know who he is, but it was his phone that pulled in the him into the chat. Do you know what I think is weird about it? I don't think it's that weird that the journalist's number was somewhere in the signal database. Whether it be by somebody else's or Mike Waltz or whatever. Yeah, what I think is weird is it's not his full name.

It's his initials only. Yeah, that for me leads. I don't use signal, so I will preface it with that. But it leads me to think someone was trying to keep enough discretion there or secrecy there that they didn't type out the person's whole name. So question is the avatar just the initial? But if you click on it, you get the full information.

Do you know what I'm saying? I absolutely I understand your question. I am taking this from the Morning Wire update when I listened, and I believe that even when you extended and asked for information on that bio, it was still just the initials. Oh, okay. I don't like that. Yeah, yeah, that's a little weird because a lot of people have the oh, it's just initials, you know, I mean, your mind is going to make up a name with our initials, but, like, there's millions of people out there that have your initials, so I don't know how that could be, but you'd be able to identify someone with confidence at that point.

So. Yeah, it's a point. All right. We do have to take a break. We're up against clock. Let's do this. We'll be back (208) 542-1079 okay. Let's see. Do you want to do your, other timberline? Sure. Here. We'll get you kind of chilly. Not going to be here tomorrow. I'll join via phone in the 6:00 hour. In the 7:00 hour.

But I'm on the road tomorrow. Driving on signal, the person sets their name on the app, not the person creating through the group. So. And I'm okay with that. But doesn't that mean this guy wanted to create some secrecy? Yeah. Yeah. I mean yeah, I mean me that that's how the signal app works. Okay. But like I said, I don't use it, but there's still secrecy there.

So you're saying maybe Goldberg presented himself? Maybe. Is somebody. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I just think if there's only the initials there, there's an intended secrecy component. Whomever intended the secrecy, I'm not saying who did. I just think it it it speaks of secrecy. Well, and how does it feel like more than an innocent, coincidental mistake that's such a Trump hating journalist made his way into this chat.

That, to me feels like there's there's a deliberateness to it. Okay. I would completely expect that almost all of the cabinet has Peter Dorsey's personal phone number. Probably. Yes. Totally expect that Kayleigh make Kayleigh McEnany personal phone. Yeah totally expect that. Yeah. This I don't know why somebody would have that number. And then the secrecy level of it just being initials.

That's what I like. Okay. 5556 okay. Yeah you'll have about a minute or so and then I'll tease tomorrow. We should if you keep it to a minute, that'll be enough time to tease Wendy Harmon and and Andrea. Yeah. Andrea. Lonzo okay. And the chick's traveling soldier I like that song. I like that song too. I hope our listeners are nice that it's a cover.

The chicks. Yeah it'll be fun. I actually really like the chicks. I'll play them sometimes it's just hard. Yeah. Post their post. Bush rant. Yeah. And music is which we didn't talk about this but. And Wilson of Heart said something very similar that she's embarrassed to be in American and she's like it was like during the 70s in Vietnam.

It's like. And why, why even say anything? Do you like her? I loved, loved heart. In fact, if I had a rocker chick crush, it was an Wilson. Really? Yes. Was it? No. Is Nancy, Nancy Wilson, Nancy Wilson? It was Nancy Wilson. I had the crush on. My thing about heart is I feel like a lot of her music all sounds the same.

And I get bored of it very quickly. Yeah, I get, I don't know, I'm playing Marvin Gaye, but I'm playing well because we're talking about going to bed. That's true. It's just the wrong kind of going to bed, right? That's true. This is getting better sleep. And yeah. So at Timberline Home, they sell a product called AC Kleiner.

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Tomorrow I do want to let our listeners know, Julie's going to join me early from the road. So six, 7:00. After that, I'll be solo, but not really, because Wendy Harman's going to join us at 730. We'll get her take on these closing days of the legislative session. And then, of course, we have a studio for cover.

Andrea Alonso will be, covering the chick's traveling soldier tomorrow at 835. I really like that song. I think it's going to be great. So her and her guitar. All right. And, we're, we're going out without bumper music, so it happens every once in a while. That's true. And, I hope we have a commercial here in three seconds, too.

So, I'd love to help you, but I have the red.