← The Tony Kinnett Cast
The Tony Kinnett Cast
Ep. 562 - China Threatens Taiwan but Caves on Iran, Terror Bombing Avoided, HUGE Ruling on Trucking
01:35:52
As we pass the midway point in the Trump / Xi summit in China, the President of the United States celebrates a list of key victories, including getting China to cave on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, and major oil purchase agreements. Meanwhile, Xi threatens Taiwan—all bark, no bite. A major terror bombing avoided at a dam near Mobile, Alabama.
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Tony Kennett. Tony Kennett, host of the Tony Kennett cast. Let's have a show. You're listening to the Tony Kennett cast on 93WYPCV here on the Daily Signal. Good evening and welcome to the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated, first on 93 WIBC. We have got so much to talk about this evening. So without further ado, the big stuff in the presidential negotiations over in China are over. There are a few closeomonies, a few last minute ceremonial kids singing and waving the flags and the hoopla, but mostly things are done. And there are a couple of updates that we have to bring you because some of the unified statements I should say that, that both countries have publicly stated are now starting to be published. We're getting into some of the details, the claims, the promises, the tweets from President Trump. He's on Truth Social yet again. We're gonna cover some of those things before we do. Heading up to this, all of the headlines predicted doom, gloom and a baby in the tomb. It was awful. I mean it seriously, the way that the BBC and other outlets had proposed it, that Donald Trump was walking into the lion's den. It was all over. That was. And I mean everywhere from the BBC, the New York Times, articles like, Trump's China policy is weak in America. He's about to invite the biggest predator in the world. He's got shrinking ambitions on China. All of these cnn, an unfinished war could give Z the upper hand. Like 12 different outlets to all. We're talking about hands and cards. It was like I started hearing the gambler play in my head. And then the Wall Street Journal, little more relaxed. Reuters again saying that the Iranian war and inflation were weakening the hand. That all culminated with kind of your final warning, Degras from Chuckles Schumer, the Senate minority leader, announcing what a lot of the country's academic class was expecting out of this particular meeting between the President of the United States and the communist dictator Xi Jinping of communist China.
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There's an old saying that only Nixon could go to China, but soon they'll say only Trump could sell out to China.
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So I'd like to pose kind of a rule here to you right at the beginning, right here, if you were alive and in the class that made up the statement about Nixon going to China, you're not allowed to call it a really old saying. If you're a guy like Chuck Schumer and you've been in office since the ark was a sailing on the open sea. You don't get it. You don't get to do this.
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But anywho, Xi Jinping has Donald Trump salivating at the prospect of a trillion dollar Chinese investments in America that would threaten America's supply chains, threaten economic independence, threaten national security, strengthen China at the expense of American strength. Donald Trump wants a deal with China so badly, he could sell out on American manufacturing, he could sell out on chips, he could sell out on Taiwan,
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he could sell out in a boat, he could sell out in a moat, on a plane, on a train in Spain. And none of that came true at all. None of that came true. I was, we were all looking for it, all right. We saw the pictures. Oh, Xi has snubbed President Trump at the airport. He stepped off the plane and there are children waving flags, but there's no President Xi. And to be quite clear with you guys, what we ended up seeing out of this was a lot of posturing from both countries because that's what you do. Because when you are two rivals, when you are two geopolitical foes, we saw a ton of those particular posturing moments. Each one called each other like oh, a good leader and things and then when they kind of got into their own corners, kind of insulted the other ones countries and, and then they came back out swinging and shaking hands again and then they would go into their corners and tell various outlets different things. Here are the outcomes of the summit so far. So a big two hour series of negotiations in a, well, I guess the best way to phrase it would be a room with a really ginormous table. And I wish that I could tell you that there was a lot else to discuss about it, but no, really just one big honking table that they all gathered around. And aside from like a salon piece whining that there were no men at the, at the or there were no women at the table. Here's what you need to know. So China agreed to order 200 Boeing jets, likely 737 Max models. Now that's probably only, that's the only major manufacturing related investment and agreement made by at least in a claim by President Xi. So other than that we were talking about all of these big huge multi billion trillion dollar manufacturing infrastructure and supply chain issues. So far only end of product purchases from China on US Agricultural and energy purchases. The US cleaned house. So China placed orders for soybeans, beef, crude oil, liquefied natural gas. That's very, very big. This building on prior phase One style deals and aims that the White House is bragging helps American farmers, energy, energy producers. Now that brings us over to the big foreign policy stuff on Iran, because up until this point, China had been providing a bargain bin of bombs and explosives, drones and missiles through Pakistan to Iran. Also giving to Iran the diplomatic effort by Pakistan of begging for ceasefires galore. And on top of that, asking that Pakistan would hold a couple of Iranian jets for, well, to keep them away from US problems and trouble and then most importantly, keep China's interests in the Middle east open so that Iran could kind of keep things open as long as that regime can retain power. Now, what a lot we're expecting is that Xi would say, well, Mr. President, you need to just do all of these humanitarian things that we would call humanitarian in the Middle east in order to please me. We're going to be really hardliner on this. That is not what happened. China is hurting. China does not have all of the oil that was supposed to be getting from the Strait of Hormuz. China does not have the oil it was supposed to be getting from Venezuela. The Belt and Road Initiative has been a complete failure. It has been routed by the Trump administration. Whether or not you do or do not like Trump on the economy, whether you do or do not like various countries around the global stage, China's reach has been significantly diminished. And that was shown by Z pledging in kind of the communist promise here. This is the weakest one comes first to not supply any military equipment to Iran. Now, does that mean that Xi is not going to supply any military equipment to Iran? No. What it does mean, though, is that if Pakistan does deliver what China has already given it to the regime in Iran, this means the United States can strike assets in the region without the worry of some kind of a reprisal from China. Because after all, China, China did just promise not to be supplying anything down there. Not that their radar and anti air were doing very much good anyway. That brings us to number two through four. Both sides agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open. That means very little. An agreement that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon again, not really a whole lot. That's kind of a duh moment. And then Z expressed willingness to help broker and resolve aspects of the Iran situation. Again, that means remarkably little. And the reason it means remarkably little here is because, well, there's not a whole lot that Russia or China can effectively broker here on behalf of the irgc. We'll get to some of that stuff in a minute, though. There were a couple of key moments on the video and the media side here that are worth showing, I suppose. So a lot of the media is focused on a lot of body language talks, which is always very strange to me. They break out this green line saying, well, Xi is leaning over here, which indicates high levels of whatever bodybuilder astrology is essentially what it boils down to. So you had a lot of people going, wow, they're. They're walking together. I am so amazed. That's not what's important here. So you have the president's statement to the Chinese. He talks about President Theodore Roosevelt.
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He.
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He talks about a couple of key things here as a possible link to the country. There's a lot of flattery that came from Trump in his statement, and then there was a lot of pearl clutching, and then there was a lot of flattery between Xi and his statement, and then there was a lot of pearl clutching, and then that was over. So here was Trump's flattery.
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And across the centuries, this mutual esteem grew into a relationship that reflected the tremendous talent and potential of our two people. Chinese workers helped lay the railroad tracks that connected our Atlantic coast to the Pacific. American travelers to China helped spread literacy and modern medicine. And at the request of China's ambassador, it was President Theodore Roosevelt who provided the funds to establish President Xi's alma mater, Tsinghua University.
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Now, those kind of things are nice. They are. They're just nice in general. The speechwriter that cobbled a lot of those things together deserves a lot of praise. Honoring those particular bits and moments, that's always a nice moment of state. I don't care who you are. Xi got up and did a little flattery. Now, I am told by my producers that some of you don't speak Mandarin, so I'm going to do a little translation for those of you on the radio side before we send the radio crew over to commercial. This clip is provided by, I think, Bloomberg. So Xi says we should be partners, not rivals. We should help each other when we succeed and prosper together and find the right way for major countries to get along with each other in the new era. Okay. It's a lot of soft stuff. It sounds like the speech from the end of Despicable. Me too. When the little girl says she's excited to have a new mom. Just that kind of flat, like, flattery, just nice stuff at the end of the movie. That's really what a lot of this was. The actual points that are going to come after this are in the details and the announcements post the negotiation section of the trip radio crew. We're going to send you over to the commercial and get into some of those nitty and gritty details. We'll be back with a little Chinese takeout after this. It's the Tony Kinnit cast here on the Daily Signal. Now, those of you who watch the live stream know we don't just cut over to commercial break, especially if you're watching live. So let us press on. We get into the Post stuff. And the Post stuff is all of the questions are, you know, is. She said he's going to do this. You know, is. Is. Is he gonna call Karen? What's gonna happen? What'd she say? What's going on? Here's where the president and then the Secretary of State start opening up about some of the details before the White House then just flat out posted some of the negotiation paperwork from the actual meeting in Beijing. Here's the President of the United States.
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The issue, and you've been asked about it and you've spoken about it, and that is China's support of Iran. How big a discussion was that today? We discussed it. I mean, when you say support, they're not fighting a war with us or anything. No, he said he's not going to give military equipment. That's a big statement. He said that today. That's a big statement. He said that strongly. But at the same time, he said, you know, they buy a lot of their oil there and they'd like to keep doing that. He'd like to see Hormuz Strait opened. I said, well, we didn't stop it. They did it, then we stopped them. You know, sort of interesting, he joked. He said, you know, it's sort of if they stopped it, then you stopped them. But they'd like to see it opened. But they actually closed it. He didn't.
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So what you caught right then and there is the key moment. That's the key little factoid to pull out of it. Number one, it is that the, you know, obviously the joke about the blockade and the reverse that being mentioned by the Chinese president is an admission that what the United States blockade is doing is severely hurting China. Now, according to a little bit of sparse satellite footage that we have, again, the Chinese government is not exactly open about the depths of its petroleum reserves. They've been absolutely decimated, absolutely decimated by this. Over 55% of their oil imports are gone. And that's not even including Venezuela here. So moving forward, what does this actually mean for the Strait of Hormuz. So right now we have additional satellite footage that we're going to get into here in a minute in which Chinese tanker craft are being allowed to temporarily transit the Strait of Hormuz. It's on. It's unclear whether or not after this boat is finished filling up. And we'll get to that kind of in the next segment here. It's unclear whether or not that boat is actually going to be allowed to pass the blockade. But so far, things are kind of moving forward a little bit. That brings us to the big question on Taiwan. All of these promises that Z G was going to get out there and it was going to threaten world war and all that. We got the only statement after all of the basic negotiations were over, Xi came out and announced that someday, maybe, probably, kind of possibly, there just might be a reason to get into a conflict over Taiwan. I'm not joking. It was that lukewarm of a statement. China before has been very clear we are willing to fight, invade and overwhelm what is rightfully ours. And yet here we actually saw Xi kind of pussy footing this approach forward, which is rather strange. Now the media's tried to hype it up. China threatens war over Taiwan. A day ending in y sweetheart. But what we ended up seeing was really not a lot. Here is Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
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On that note, US Policy on the issue of Taiwan is unchanged as of today. And as of the meeting that we had here today, it was raised. They always raise it on their side. We always make clear our position, and we move on to the other topics. We know where they stand, and I think they know where we stand.
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It's perfunctory. It's gonna happen. Of course they were gonna bring it up. We're done with it. I don't have time for this kind of nonsense. I've got things to do Now. He followed that up with his clarification on the situation regarding Iran. Secretary Rubio, did he make a mistake when he told a reporter that America's financial situation isn't playing, quote, even a little bit of a role in his motivations to make a deal with Iran?
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No, I think what the President is saying is that Iran's not going to use that as leverage, as.
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Doesn't that sound out of touch, though? I mean, Americans are spending so much for gas.
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Because I think what the President is making clear is that we're not going to let Iran use that as leverage. Think about what the Iranians are thinking. The Iranians, and they watch this. Remember, there's no free press. There is no you in Iran. Right. There is, there is no press in Iran that can criticize the regime or say, you know, create any pressure on them. And I think what the president is making clear is if the Iranians think that they are going to, you know, use our domestic politics to pressure him into a bad deal, that's not going to happen. We've taken extraordinary measures to keep gas prices lower than they are in some other parts of the world. And it will go down. Those straits will be open and we will see those prices go down. And actually, I think you're going to see a dramatic reduction in oil over time because all of that pent up oil that's being held hostage by Iran, once that reaches the marketplace, it'll have a very positive impact.
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This is true, by the way. People are saying, well, it's gonna take so much time for things to step forward.
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A lot.
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The oil is still flowing and pumping. There's not a whole lot of places to store it. But we gotta bring the radio crew back from commercial. We'll get into a lot more of this here in a second. It's the Tony Knittcast here on the Daily Signal. This is the Tony Kennett cast on 93 WYBC. Come be the the man I need. Welcome back to the Tony Kennett cast. All right, boys and girls, let's get into some of the good stuff. So first of all, the international media was rather shocked this afternoon when it was announced that CIA Director John Radcliffe took part in a meeting in Havana, that would be the capital of Communist Cuba. So according to a ministry statement from the Cuban government, following the request submitted by the US Government that a delegation presided over by the CIA Director John Radcliffe be received in Havana, the Revolutionary Directorate approved the realization of this visit and the meeting with its counterpart from the Ministry of the Interior. So what in the world was this meeting about? Well, there are two takes on it. So one is from a very reliable Reporter over at NewsNation, Kelly Meyer, who spoke to a couple of U.S. officials. And the other is from Barack Ravid, who, you know, kind of depends on the day. So from Barack Ravid first, because we'll save the best for last here, said that CIA Director John Radcliffe went to meet with the Cuban minister of the Interior and the head of Cuban intelligence, which just means they had to throw their intelligence guy in there anyway because it was kind of an unprecedented meeting to discuss economic and security issues. So Barack Ravid cites that per the report, such cooperation will only be possible if, if Cuba makes a serious effort to deter US Adversaries from using Cuba as a springboard for various anti US Operations, which is a rather curious statement from Barack Ravid. Now coming from Kelly Meyer over at News Nation, I think this is probably a bit more accurate. He went to deliver President Trump's message that, quote, the United States is prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes. Meaning, hey, would you like to not starve? Would you like to continue existing, Would you like to continue retaining your independence and your regime, not get a little bit of that good old fashioned guillotine? I recommend that you make some changes that perhaps like Venezuela is now, for some special reasons, cooperating with the United States. You get with the picture here. And so very interesting to see that it was the head of the CIA that was sent down to deliver this message. The official tells Kelly Meyer, quote, he emphasized that the US Is extending a genuine opportunity for collaboration and as evidenced by Venezuela, President Trump must be taken seriously, end quote. So a very, very curious thing to send down the head of the Central Intelligence Agency for that. Now we'll get into some of the other rumors and outrage. Last night there were, you know, the statement made that, oh, the CIA had raided the office of Tulsi Gabbard. And then about exactly 3.6 seconds later, that was walked back and there was a little kerfuffle there. And we're going to get to that later because the more we hear about this supposed raid, the more that it wasn't at all. So again, we'll get to that here in a couple of minutes on the other side of the fuel and the international issue. But because this does matter, I said right before we came back from the commercial break that we have satellite footage showing that there are at least, there's at least one, excuse me, at least one Chinese tanker that appears to be fueling up outside of Kharg Island. Now, notably, there's a little bit of a problem at Kharg because there's an oil leak spilling into the Persian Gulf into the Strait of Hormuzza and it hasn't been stopped as of yet. So it's not quite clear what necessarily is going on there. But one Chinese tanker is currently filling up. It's not clear whether that will be allowed to exit the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians right now are literally in the middle right now, live during the show, 7:25pm Eastern time here are changing their, their rules and standards via several spokesmen as to whether or not they are going to abide not just by the United States decisions, but by China's. Now for the IRGC to get out throwing threats and, and jaded passive aggressive poo pooing at the Chinese regime. I don't, I don't know if, if, if I would be that brave my dudes that, that's, I mean I guess I wouldn't put it past them given you know, the whole throwing missiles at fellow Muslim countries. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have made it clear that there might be additional military strikes against Iran in the coming weeks. Additional. So again, as for the grand strategy playing out here, once that cork pops, there's nothing left for the regime to stand on And Commander, Admiral, Excuse me. The commander of centcom, Admiral Brad Cooper made this statement before Congress regarding the ability of the regime to continue carrying on in its present state. Their capability have been significantly degraded. If I just use my own professional
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experience and 100 transits through the Strait
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of Hormuz, you would typically see 20
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to 40 fast boats. And lately we've seen two or three.
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Same thing with the missiles again we were told they were huge. There were hundreds and now they've been reduced to a few boats, rowboats. I've seen the little mermaid singing in one Kiss, the girl across the Strait of Hormuz, that kind of a thing. And you can see this kind of borne out a little bit further. There was a seizure of a vessel by unauthorized personnel today near the United Arab Emirates. It was the Honduras flagged Hui Xuan which was operating as a floating armory. That's according to BBC Verify. I have to in transparency say, I have to tell you I know of this vessel. Now floating armory is a very flattering term for it, but maritime risk firm Vanguard and its ship tracking data reported that the stored weapons were for security firms, contracting agencies protecting ships at sea from pirate attacks. Again, that is very, very, very flattering. It's not clear whether this was an IRGC linked group or it was an extension group over from Yemen. Either way, there were, there were two separate responses from IRGC linked state media, both of which were later deleted. Meaning guys, things are getting a little chaotic over as far as the responses. Things are. We're getting into the last throws territory here. Now that said, we have heard for the first time in a couple of days from one of the heads of the Iranian parliament here, Golibov. And what is the big Iranian regime plan right now? To throw insults at Secretary of War Pete Pegseth. I guess, I guess that's, that's the plan. Okay, I guess that there you go, guys. There's the regime. It's, it's doing real swell. So we're going to see how that plays out here in the next couple of days. But if they were expecting, they being the Iranian regime, to get tough talk from China to the United States, they didn't get it. Just like when they flew up a crew of their foreign ministry to Moscow to get help. They got dasvidanya, Godspeed to you and all of your friends, and a bottle of our finest vodka. That's basically what we've seen coming out of their, their last stands and pleas here. So moving on from there, there are a couple of other news updates. The family, the freedom advocate Cece Abascol and her family, after being forced into exile, were released from Cuban detention. Again, excellent stuff. Over on that side from the Wall Street Journal, Cuba's government has now said they are completely out of all kinds of fuel and oil and anything else. So a good reason why that State Department report was reiterated yesterday, that offer. On a separate note, a post from the Department of Energy citing that the Trump administration's push towards opening refineries is starting to make a little bit of progress. We'll get into that. It's the Tony Kinit cast Radio crew. We'll catch you guys on the other side of the commercial break. All right. While that very fine radio crew is over. Oh, my. Well, we have some rather interesting and breaking news to share here with you. This just in from cbs. The United States possibly and most likely through the Department of Justice, is moving to indict former Cuban President Raul Castro over downing planes 30 years ago. Well, that's certainly a development. That is certainly a development. We will keep an eye on that. Of course, that's not the current president of Cuba, although the current guy is really just seen as a bit of a puppet. An interesting move. I'm, I'm rather, I'm, I'm rather curious to see how that's going to pan out. So if CBS reports the United States to the Department of Justice does move forward with, at least at this present time, attempting to prosecute the former el President Day of Cuba, that'll be that'll be something. Now onto the energy stuff because I wasn't expecting that. Thank you very much to producer Jen from for, for throwing that over in my direction there. According to the Department of Energy, the United States is now producing as much natural gas as Russia, Iran and China combined. And that's at least as far as the United States is concerned here. Natural gas production. The US produces 110 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. Russia is only able to produce 62 a billion cubic feet per day, followed by Iran at 27 and China at 23. So given the Chinese desire to import massive amounts of natural gas, which again is a lot easier to work with for a whole host of things than crude oil, especially for electricity, home heating and energy, which China is in desperate need to fill coal power plants can kind of only carry them so far. Right now it's pretty clear that the United States government is chomping at the bit to throw all of the regulations on energy kind of off to the side and start moving towards opening refineries. Now that depends on the place that you're at. It does. There is a very big it depends when it comes to how the United States federal government operates in a relationship with US Energy production. So for example, the United States has jurisdiction at the federal level over off coast oil refineries and oil, you know, infrastructure. Whereas up to a certain limit to the coastline, some states have tried to garner more state level control for offshore drilling and refining. California is an energy island. We're going to talk about that with Representative Fong from California, Vince Fong here in just a couple of minutes. But as far as the United States relationship with refineries goes, the president of the United States invoking the National Defense Production act for U.S. energy has not been fully realized into its impact from the Environmental Protection Agency and from the US Department of Energy on moving a couple of things forward regarding not just as Americans have been focused on for the last couple of years up over a decade, certain pipelines from Canada in through the United States that but also through refineries. Refineries are something that have been left out of the refurbishing, the upgrading and expanding because a lot of states, not just Democrat states but Republican states, have imposed some pretty heavy fines and several oil companies have just as one individual told me regarding for example, ExxonMobil has just decided not to build any new refineries anywhere because they just don't believe that it's financially feasible for them at the moment. So that means that the refineries that we have open matter a whole lot. We're going to talk about that in a second. Don't go anywhere. It's the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal. Is the Tony Kennett cast on 93 WIBC. Pleasure to be joined by Representative Vince fong of California's 20th. A lot of crazy stuff In California we could pivot to right now, right off the top of the bat. I mean, you have the Newsom administration that is trying to make a national scandal about Washington D.C. monument care and like the Lincoln Pool and things like that, and they're getting roasted in return because of the failed building projects of the Newsom administration. Give me a bit of a perspective on kind of what that's like out there in Cali.
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Well, you, you've kind of hit the nail on the head. I mean, California is probably the, the symbol of craziness right now. I mean, Gavin Newsom has no record to run on. He has no court, no core principles. He's a chameleon. And so the only thing he has is to deflect away from the consequences of his bad policies. So, you know, everything that is wrong with California is because of him and his policies, but he just wants to demonize the people he doesn't like and blame them for the problems. So, I mean, that's, that's, that's Gavin Newsom's policies and Persona in a nutshell. And I think that's the ultimate frustration that we have is that, you know, if we want to fix California, we have to undo the policies from, from, from, from Gavin Issa.
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Well, he claims to be solving a lot of problems or at least attempting to solve a lot of problems. Of course, we have all of the magical medi cal hospice care situations and, you know, free treatments here and there that are very concerning and disturbing. And then, of course, I'm told that he's working on fixing the energy crisis as well. Those are two things that Californians are supposedly facing. He's fixing. What's the reality, though? What are the problems you're seeing with your constituents and what's being done to solve them?
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Well, the reality is when it comes to fraud, I mean, it's structural mismanagement within California from galvanism, from the progressive left. I mean, when I was in the state legislature, I served in the state assembly for seven and a half years. You can't make this up. They dissolved one committee, and it was the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, and then they folded it into a subcommittee in the budget. So there is no. I mean, if you're going to look at just the clearest example of how Gavin Newsom and the Democrats don't take oversight seriously, it's that. But then you look at every audit that's been done, whether it's on high speed rail, when it comes to medical fraud, when you talk to unemployment insurance fraud, during the pandemic where billions of dollars went to people in prisons and went to, you know, to, to cartels and international crime syndicates. It's, it's all structural. I mean, there is no, there is no desire for, for Governor Newsom and the Democrats to, to keep track of money. So, you know, the homelessness problem has gotten worse. You got the, the unemployment insurance crisis where we're the only state in the union that still owes the federal government money and we have a massive debt that we owe on a loan that the federal government gave us to get through the pandemic. I mean, we haven't paid that back as a state. High speed rail is the ultimate example when you talk about mismanagement and fraud. You know, this project from the very beginning was supposed to be a high speed rail system from Los Angeles to San Francisco to be completed in 2020 at a cost of $33 billion with private investment, with, with, with, with, with passengers riding it. We're in 2026. There is no train that has been procured. There has been no track laid. The cost estimates now are, we're $126 billion. When I was on 60 Minutes, the most recent budget business plan that came out now has an estimate of over $230 billion.
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Great.
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This is, this is crazy. And so while President Trump and Secretary Duffy has pulled back all the money from the federal government, rightfully so, to finally prioritize the taxpayers, Gavin Newsom is going to spend a billion dollars or waste a billion dollars every single year. Try to trying to bail this project out, but just do the math right, we are $33 billion in though now the new estimates are 230 plus billion dollars. I mean, 200 years later, we're going to have some type of system that is going to be relatively functional. But I don't even think that we're going to see even that happen in our lifetime or in any lifetimes beyond that.
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So let's pivot to something that not only affects kind of your constituents in California's 20th, not only in the state of California, but the country at large. And those are the issues of water management and energy. Energy prices are skyrocketing. The supply and the availability of energy is very lacking. And so when you see the pitches made for 2026 in the midterms and then beyond that in the next presidential election, the call, as we talked about yesterday on the show, is to make America California, the state that has the worst water and energy management on planet Earth. What is going on and what needs to be done to fix it that doesn't involve ruining everyone's day in life?
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C
Well, and that was that. That was the second part of your question that you asked. I mean, I mean, when it comes to water in California, when it comes to energy, I mean, it's the ultimate contrast between Gavin Newsom and President Trump. California right now is in the throes of energy crisis. I mean, we are paying $2 more than the rest of the United States. We have lost two refineries. So that's 20% of refining capacity in California disappearing overnight. We have the, the, the, a major pipeline going from my community, Kern county, which is the energy production capital of California, going up to the Bay Area. That is at risk of shutting down in the, in, in a matter of months. You have no, you have no domestic production. Gavin Newsom has refused to allow permits to be approved to allow for, for our own California production. President Trump, of course, in contrast, energy dominance is his, is, is his focus. He's allowing for more domestic production. You know, we're trying to get production on some of the federal lands outside of my community that we have oil reserves. He's used the Defense Production act to allow for offshore production coming online. I mean, that's 55,000 barrels that are coming into our market right now in California. For every barrel that comes in from that operation is one barrel that we don't import. Just think about this. California is an energy island, right? We have our own blends. We can't bring in oil and gas from other states because we lack the pipelines and other requirements. So California now is importing over 65% of our oil supply from other countries. Ecuador, Iraq, Brazil. Not what we want to be, but because of what's going on around the world, California is more vulnerable to these international challenges. So if we can't get the oil from. From these countries, which is. Is which, we shouldn't be getting them in the first place. We should be developing on California. We are now going to import gasoline. So where are we going to import the gasoline from? We're going to import it from South Korea. We're going to import it from China. We're going to import it from India. This is craziness. This is absolutely insane. So that's Gavin Newsom's California on water. President Trump has invested over a billion dollars in California water infrastructure, the biggest water investment in my lifetime. Gavin Newsom is fighting us every step of the way. So, you know, President Trump is actually doing more for California than people realize.
- [36:33]
A
Just incredible. On the scale of the energy lack and with refineries closing, given the current national fuel situation, I mean, it's just shy of criminal. Shutting down those refineries, that's truly insane. Representative Vince Fong, California's 20th. Thanks for giving us a couple of minutes and kind of explaining the scope of the situation in California and then kind of the effects elsewhere.
- [36:55]
C
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Look forward to coming back.
- [36:59]
A
All right, radio crew, we're going to send you guys over to the commercial side of things and continue on the live stream. A ton to cover, especially when certain individuals call for the Constitution of the United States to be abolished. Oh, yeah, that was the lady running for president last time. It's the Tony Kinit cast. Radio crew, we'll catch you guys in a second. I'm really not joking now. Again, we just finished with California, so I did, you know, think it would be kind of nice to start off with a little Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom, Governor of California. The guy that, again, did all of the fun stuff we just talked about. He's getting hyped up for his presidential campaign here, and so he's decided to get all hyped over his presidential campaign by being a more energetic Chuck Schumer, claiming that all of this redistricting. It's Jim Crow 2.0. Ah, I. I sure do love the classics, Bob.
- [37:52]
G
This is Jim Crow 2.0. It's sick. Stone cold racism in a scale I never thought I'd see in my lifetime. Never have seen in my lifetime. It's all happening. Bring us back to pre1960s world.
- [38:05]
A
It doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't bring us back to a 1960s world at all.
- [38:11]
G
It's jaw dropping. What's happening? It was jaw dropping. What Governor Landry did. He suspended a primary election where tens of thousands of people had already voted. Why? To redistrict two districts to eliminate black representation.
- [38:23]
A
Oh, my gosh. He did. Oh, no, no, no, he didn't at all. Not. Not even remotely close. The Supreme Court of the United States said, hey, you can't racially gerrymander districts. You can't say there's a lot of black people here. They all probably think the same. Yeah, I mean, they could never be like white people. I mean, you know. You know, they give them a different district, different water fountain. I mean, what's the problem? I don't recommend this one there, Gav.
- [38:50]
G
I can't believe that we're experiencing this. My parents talked to me about This. I said the.
- [38:55]
A
The soap opera drama that I can't. My. My parent, my daddy once I was seven years old. Oh, the horror.
- [39:04]
G
Well, thank God it's not going to happen on my lifetime and it's happening in real time. Anti Woke is anti black. All these attacks on dei, it's anti black level racism is sick.
- [39:15]
A
Ah, yes, yes. Suggesting that people should be hired to positions because of their. Their skills and their merit. Instead of like Biden saying, I'm going to appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court and then ended up choosing someone who has embarrassed herself so badly that even her own liberal colleagues, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, are telling her in their own opinions that she needs to stop. There have been more lone dissents from this Supreme Court Justice Catanja Brown Jackson, than at any other time in US History. We've never, ever had that. It's why it's truly wild. And. And Anti Woke is anti black. So. So he's crying, he's mourning, he's weeping, he's sad. Now, again, you might think this is really hilarious, and you should think it's really hilarious because they never really mention that we're not even seeing, like, a complete loss of black representation. They said, oh, they're getting black voter. They're getting black representatives out. They're completely gone. That's AOC's claim. AOC has been crying up a storm from New York trying to make the case that, oh, man, all of these. I just can't believe. It's so sad. How could we get rid of all of them? Of. Of these black representatives? Well, no, because when you look at Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee. It just so happens that the white representative, the Democrat of Memphis, is likely to be replaced by a black woman and a Republican. So, gee, man, I'm. I sure am shocked. And it appears there are a ton of black Republicans who are running for offices. It almost is as though a lot of people in America are voting based on their principles in their party. Well, unless you're getting out the Sherwin Williams paint card for your ballot on the left side of the aisle, we have way more on this. Don't go anywhere. Hakeem Jeffries believes in ghosts. It's the Tony Kenneth cast. This is the Tony Kenneth cast on 93 WIBC. Well, I mean, you know, if you want to tell people that you're serious, you know, we demand to be taken seriously, you know, that. That good old Arrested Development mean you want to get out there and prove to people that you're, you know, you're really following the news and you're smart and you're not just a drama queen. Then what you do is you get out after some of this redistricting fight and you claim that the Virginia Supreme Court. Again, I will. I will remind everyone which the. The Supreme Court justice in Virginia who wrote the decision that you can't vote break the law regarding redistricting elections was appointed by Democrat Senator Mark Warner. But anywho, Hakeem Jeffries. He's. Who are you going to call?
- [41:58]
D
We know this unprecedented assault on black political representation, the likes of which we have not seen since the Jim Crow era. The ghosts of the Confederacy.
- [42:11]
A
The ghosts. The ghosts.
- [42:13]
B
Ah,
- [42:16]
A
the ghosts it is. Yes. If there's something weird in your ballot box, I love it. I do. This is the move. It goes to the Confederacy.
- [42:27]
C
Ah.
- [42:27]
A
Mmm. Yes. Nothing. The ghosts of the Confederacy getting black women elected in Tennessee.
- [42:33]
H
Ah.
- [42:33]
A
Those dirty Republicans. And saying that we should elect people not based on. They must be better or they must be all the same because they have this shade on their skin.
- [42:45]
D
Has afflicted the United States Supreme Court majority.
- [42:49]
A
And the one of which there are two black members of said Supreme Court, and the most conservative member of that Supreme Court is black.
- [42:57]
D
Is invading and haunting the nation right now.
- [43:00]
A
Ooh. It's haunting. Ah. Deep in the woods and the trees. The monuments are haunted. Luigi's Mansion. Four United States ballot boxes.
- [43:11]
D
And we take that seriously. And we know it's going to continue. Which is why Democrats are committed to launching a decisive and overwhelming response in advance of the 2028 election.
- [43:27]
A
A decisive and overwhelming response. Gee, Williker's Batman. What is it? It comes in two flavors. Now and later. So we're going to do a little bit of later first, because Kamala Harris is currently mud wrestling with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez for lead primary suggestee. Uh, it's a very crowded bench, but Kamala Harris, she's out here suggesting that we need to burn it all down and. And just get rid of the electoral college pack. The Supreme Court ad states. Remember all that stuff that Republicans said Democrats were gonna do? Well, now it comes with a Hallmark card, a kiss, and a promise. Here you go.
- [44:04]
I
Say, look, this is a moment where there are no bad ideas. No bad idea. Brainstorm is what I'd like to call it.
- [44:10]
A
Stop. I'm sorry. One thing really quickly. And this. I don't care if you say this is really rude or mean or sexist or whatever. I don't care. Guys, ladies, ladies. My dear ladies, please Stop wearing shirts from the Pirates of the Caribbean. It doesn't make you look political. It doesn't look impressive. It doesn't look professional. Stop it. Stop wearing Jerry Seinfeld's shirt. Okay? Come on, look at it. Look at it, Kramer. It's got puffs. Stop doing this. Stop it. You're. You're not going to Colonial Williamsburg, okay? They make normal shirts. I. I mean, again, I. I don't. I don't like. By the way, what. What's the equivalent of this for me? For guys? When guys wear their dress shirts buttoned all the way up to the neck, but they don't have a tie. Don't do it. Stop it. Stop it. Does that have anything to do with the news? Absolutely not. But it's just awful. So even before we start again, I don't mind the blazer choice from Kamala Harris, you know, but just the pirate shirt.
- [45:08]
E
Stop.
- [45:09]
A
Stop it. So anyway, sorry. She has some things that she wants to say after she's done telling us about the local blacksmith laws.
- [45:19]
I
And in that no bad ideas brainstorm, we talk about what we need to do and think about doing around the electoral college.
- [45:28]
A
Okay, so here's the plan, guys. We're going to get in a circle, and there's going to be no bad ideas. So in every single failing corporate whatever, by the way, this has been roasted so much in sitcoms from major Hollywood movies to Hallmark movies. SpongeBob SquarePants literally has an opening segment where the sales are way down, and Spongebob is sitting there telling Mr. Krabs, oh, here's what we do. We offer a pair of socks with every purchase. Mr. Krabs, like, ARR, I was thinking something more about live entertainment. We got a brainstorm. There's no bad ideas. And currently, the ideas that are being pitched to the Democrats, there are two things. Number one from Hasan Piker is burn it all down and kill people. Which, you know, nope, I don't recommend it. The other idea that is also being pitched is, as a lot of Democrats said in Virginia right after the 2024 election, hey, maybe. Maybe we go to church once in a while and go to a gun show and, you know, kind of moderate a little bit and focus on abundance. Kind of like the Bill Clinton kind of Democrat party, just without the Monica. That kind of thing. Nope, we're going to go with the first kind of Hasan piker, burn it all down option. Okay.
- [46:39]
I
We talk about the idea of Supreme Court reform, which includes expanding the Supreme Court.
- [46:46]
A
Ah, we're going to just put so many judges on the Supreme Court that like Katanji, Brown, Jackson, don't actually read the law. Just go, I feel this way stamp that it's not even going to be a Supreme Court anymore. It's going to become a legislative court. Which by the way, is why. Oh goodness. I mean, the French, the Dutch, the Thai, so many different powers over the last hundred years have expanded their Supreme Court endlessly ad nauseam. And you know what happens? People stop caring about the Supreme Court at all.
- [47:18]
I
We invite a conversation about multi member districts. We talk about, look, that, that you're
- [47:25]
A
going to like expand the number of con. Oh boy. Oh, no. That's just burning the Constitution. So I say that The House District 4 in California now gets 16 representatives. The House of Representatives going from 435 representatives to 8573 because they decided to give Washington D.C. 34 senators and 8,000 representatives. Yes, that's the plan. No bad ideas, guys.
- [47:55]
I
If we win the Senate, which we should, and we will.
- [47:58]
A
Bold statement to make there, Hillary, Kamala.
- [48:01]
I
Then the Senate Judiciary Committee should have rules that they put in place. So when these people come before as nominees to the Supreme Court and lie that they are held to account and consequence. Not just that somebody goes on cable news and says they lied, but that.
- [48:20]
A
What's really funny here is that Kamala Harris is not giving this statement on cable news. She's giving this on a zoom call. You can always tell when people get aggravated when they start like complaining about cable news. As a national correspondent for the Daily Signal during the day, my job is to go on cable news and to argue these kind of things. Kamala Harris doesn't actually do this roundabout thing because she says things like this that are really embarrassing. So we, we have to put rules in place with the Senate Judiciary Committee. Honey, sweetie, baby, darling. Um, that's not how committees work. No, there's not like a rule that the Agriculture Committee puts into place where like it's now federal law to sing. Old McDonald passed a law. E, I, E. I know every time we start the hearing, it's. This isn't the. The He Man Woman haters club from the Little Rascals.
- [49:12]
I
There are rules in place to actually penalize people for lying to a Senate Judiciary Committee.
- [49:18]
A
Please don't say penalize like that. Please don't. Please, please stop. Don't go to the Candace Owens school of vocabulary. I don't recommend it. Penalize phrasing. All right, anyway, going to move away from the weird ranting to actually something that I Said there was the later, there's the now. So what are we doing now? The latest Democrat governor has come forward to announce. Raise up your hands and rejoice. The latest gerrymandering effort. The governor of Maryland. This was one of their moderates alongside Josh Shapiro and Jared Polis. Pennsylvania and Colorado, respectively, Wes Moore was supposed to come out there and be the, the, the easier, easygoing, normal guy they were going to run for the president and will. No. Now, I, I mentioned this in the countdown to the beginning of the show. This is on a Politico podcast that I didn't even know existed until a couple of weeks ago, where they sit down in an abandoned diner and one reporter, like, looks at the guy and watches him eat breakfast, which is really creepy. If you're gonna do the comedians in Cars getting coffee, you're both drinking or you're both eating, that's fine. But like, don't stare down a man while he's trying to enjoy some waffles. That's really rude. But that's the least of the important things here in this, this interview. Radio crew, we're going to send you off to that beautiful final commercial break in the sky. We're going to continue over here on the live stream. It's the Tony Kitted cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated, first on 93 WIBC. Y' all take care. All right. Governor Wes Moore. He's got, he's got the plan. Ladies and gentlemen, here you go again. Awkward show. Interesting results.
- [51:04]
J
Explain to me how you got big majorities in both chambers in Annapolis, you're Democratic Governor. Why haven't you been able to get this reapportionment bill through both chambers, Especially in this moment, where for a lot of Democrats, this is a five alarm fire.
- [51:22]
A
It is a five alarm fire.
- [51:24]
K
It's a five alarm fire for this country.
- [51:25]
J
So why can't you guys change the maps in Maryland?
- [51:29]
A
I love this so much. I love this. He asks, so why can't you change the maps in Maryland? Now, for those of you who are from Maryland, hang on in the live stream chat, don't, don't break the news to everyone else just yet. When you ask a question like this, why can't you change, why can't you change the maps there in Maryland? The, the response, at least what's conjured up in people's minds is that there are a lot of seats for Jem, for Democrats to get out there and, and marry Jander. You know, I mean, I'm expecting, you know, quite a, an impressive you know, I'm expecting quite an impressive feat up here. I mean, aren't you?
- [52:04]
J
You're.
- [52:04]
A
You're expecting maybe four, five, six, seven seats that Democrats could lose, erased from existence, you know, could get rid of for Republicans here. Well, no, there is one. One Uno, according to this most recent map. Look at. I'm going to expand it out over my face here. That is the map of Maryland. So they have the huge freaking chunk over in the eastern part. The spot that has to butt up next to Delaware. Those poor people. That right there. Oh, there's a little spot for my face. That's real nice. That's the Republican area. And the rest are again, gerrymandered. I mean, look. Look at the shapes here. We have the. The. We have Croatia. We have our little resident Croatia. The darker blue furthest to the west. Then we have Bosnia. We have like a reverse Croatia out there. I think that's what. That's on the Chesapeake. And then you have awkward New Jersey. You have diseased pancreas. You have old McDonald's chicken nugget shape. We've got quite a selection here. Okay, so I really do enjoy right off the crack of the bat here. Right there. Westmore, why can't you change these maps? No. Okay. All right, now that that's out of the way, we'll let. We'll let the man continue. Here
- [53:25]
K
in Maryland, it's unique because we don't have the same luxury of a California or Virginia in some cases where you go to the people with it.
- [53:34]
A
Oh, oh, I get it. See, in Maryland, the. And please, please hear me out here, because I recognize it as your local and favorite independent, fundamental, little Indy Fundy Baptist, that it might be easy to think that I have no respect for kind of the other denominationals here. My highest praise of the Catholic Church in law. In law is not on the Supreme Court. It sure is not the alumnus, the alumni of Notre Dame, who are only special because they're Catholic. Sorry, shots fired. I know. And no, it is how they set up Maryland's constitution. The Catholics. Maryland was mostly Catholic there. When they set up Maryland's constitution, they were smart enough to recognize that the people should not just get to magically change the state constitution anytime they were feeling a little funky. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. Your state constitution should be changed via the legislature. If it's just whatever I want by mob rule, it won't be long until all of your state is eaten away and people are just voting on gimme things, even if all of the rules are broken, see Virginia. So I like how he's like, oh, we don't have the luxury of what, having a retarded state law. You poor sad man.
- [54:48]
K
This is a decision that exclusively has to be done by the members of the Maryland General Assembly. Frankly, I think it is the responsibility for Maryland, for our General assembly and for every other state who has the option to say why should certain states go through a process of determining in mid decade what their state's going to do, but then other states supposed to
- [55:09]
A
sit on the hand does the surplus. Okay, so aside he talks about again, he frames the General assembly in Maryland. That would be the Maryland State Senate and the Maryland House of Delegates as though they are these really contested bodies. Oh, thin margins indeed. The Maryland State Senate has 34 Democrats and 13 Republicans. The Maryland House of Delegates 141 seats, 39 of them are Republican, 102 of them are Democrats. So honey, sweetie, baby, come on now.
- [55:38]
J
Supreme Court opinion followed by the Supreme Court of Virginia striking down their redraw. Give you a new urgency and a new opportunity to get this done in Maryland?
- [55:46]
C
I think so.
- [55:47]
K
Yeah, I think so.
- [55:48]
J
The hold up is a state senator named Bill Ferguson. And I think most folks don't know this, but obviously in Maryland this is a big story.
- [55:54]
A
It's a big story, guys. It's holding up. It's holding up again. You know what the map looks like again. Behold. Oh wow. So many people in Maryland are calling for the maps to be redistricted. You have one more seat that you can squeeze out of that tube of toothpaste. That's it. They're making this out again. Virginia changed a large number of seats that have been again, the racial redistricting in the South. A lot of districts were gerrymandered based on race, which is wrong. It is morally unethical. I mean, because what, by the way, what does that encourage? That encourages the idea there needs to be racial separation, which again, I thought we had a whole civil rights movement against it. But alas, again, putting that aside to the moment, they make this appear as though this is big. Some rock em sock em robot fight to win a ton of seats. Don't get me wrong, I have pushed interviews to sound more important than they are before. Every broadcaster has. But dude, dude, don't, don't do this.
- [57:00]
J
And he's obviously on the ballot this year. You want to see him act, you're in negotiations with him. Has he found Jesus yet, do you think on the way to this map,
- [57:11]
K
you know
- [57:13]
A
I will be real with you. I appreciate, you know, Christian, you know, little analogies and idioms there, having to come to Jesus moment here. Um, it falls really flat because it doesn't. It doesn't really fit. There hasn't been a huge pressure campaign. It's just awkward. It's forced.
- [57:31]
K
I talk with him often and we still work very closely on a collection of different issues. But where I am before, with, with, with him on, this is where I've always been. We don't have a choice but to act. Particularly when we're watching the greatest assault on black voter representation around the country.
- [57:48]
A
That black voter representation. White. What are you talking about? What a black voter representation mean. That is a wildly racist thing to assert. Yes, it is. The idea that black people must all vote the same, that a black person could never be represented by a white person or a Hispanic person or an Indian person or a Chinese person or a Japanese person is so disgusting. It is disgusting. And by the way, it is this attitude. Is this attitude why the African American community in the United States is despised by continental Africans? Despised. But they're black. They all think the same. Ask a person in Ghana or in Botswana what they think about the African American culture, identity in the United States. They think they are whining children. And this is exactly what. Well, if we don't have representation, that's the dumbest thing anyone has ever heard. The idea that the Amish people are so fragile, that we need an Amish representative and then a Swiss representative and a German representative and a Chinese representative. We gotta divide everyone up into this balkanized way. Because Dr. King was apparently full of crap when he said that, you know, people could actually come together and build something. And again, there's never any mention of the Republican representatives or senators. There's never any mention of that. It's all just that black people are so pathetic and fragile and according to older white Democrats like Joe Biden, poor and stupid like Kathy Hochul, saying all these black kids in New York City have never even heard of a laptop or the Internet. Ha, ha, ha. Fake LAUGHTER that we have to do all of this for them. Yeah, that's really disgusting. But remember all of this posturing here where he's out here acting like black people are being as Joe Biden said, you could put y' all back in chains. No. And Republicans are putting forward black candidates anyway. They're winning primaries in which white and black people are voting for them because they're more concerned. As a Republican, what's your policy on the economy. What on about energy production? What about things like AI in data centers? What about gun rights? What about freedom of speech? What about health care? What about abortion and pro life issues? What about education? What about school choice? There are, there are really very few primary elections in this country where you actually have Republicans going. I don't know, looking a little brown to me. No, doesn't come up. And what is my case in point for this? The Hispanic integration into the Republican Party because the conservative Hispanic origin in this country that comes from predominantly Catholic countries, they come in and they're incredibly pro family. And the primaries are all about how they espouse those policies, not which of them is the whitest among them. Retarded. Retarded.
- [60:34]
K
We have seen in generations that we are watching a president try to manipulate and change the rules in the middle of the game.
- [60:41]
A
And again, this started with Kathy Hochul in 22.
- [60:44]
K
So I would urge him and his colleagues to be able to take this moment seriously.
- [60:48]
J
He's on the ballot this year.
- [60:49]
A
He's, I'm sorry I said this at the time when we were regarding Indiana stuff going on national programming to bring pressure onto a state senator is not the way to do it. It's not the way to do it. There are other ways to do it. And Turning Point USA showed that in Indiana, going to an obscure on the road, eating in a, in a diner podcast kind of a thing. Nah, nah. I don't, I don't think that, I don't think that's it, Chief. So, so moving, moving forward here, by the way, before we even get to this on this particular push. Yes. In case you were wondering, according to the NPR PBS affiliate in Maryland, the congressional map is absolutely to make Maryland 8 0. And it's already passed the, you know, the General assembly or it's passed to the House of Delegates. It's now heading over to the Senate. So again, enjoy your one more seat. Again, super impressive. We're all very proud. So that brings us over to a little bit on the last side of the national news, a little bit of law enforcement stuff and then a major, major Supreme Court decision, something that I don't think I've seen for quite a while to be clear here on the Tony Kennett cast. So first and foremost here we have a Supreme Court decision today. We're ruling, well, two of them. The first is a unanimous rule that federal law does not shield freight brokers from state negligence lawsuits when they hire unsafe trucking companies. Here's what's been happening for the last couple of decades, you have had major distribution platforms, you've had major suppliers. And what's the word that I'm looking for here? Those in both the services and the consumer industries that have. And the retail industries. That's what I was looking for. That hire more obscure trucking companies that we've already talked about here on the show that are these shell companies that hire individuals here on Chinese or Indian or Hispanic or Middle Eastern or African speaking language, individuals from those cultural regions of the world, they don't speak any English. And then they get California or Pennsylvania to rubber stamp a CDL for a shell company that hasn't passed safety standards. And then this larger firm, a big box store, again, a large retailer, some type of infrastructural or redistribution center, will then hire that obscure trucking company at very low cost because again, they're paying their workers nothing. They don't pay anything really in taxes. They're hiring individuals who have no business driving. And then that cheaper trucking company does all the delivery. Now, if you ask anyone who works in a factory, I'll say this all the way back in 2020, 2015, when one summer, to help pay for a little bit of college, before I found other ways to do so, I was working at Draper in Spiceland, Indiana. And when after burning my hands on the molten glue over in kind of the foam pad part of the place, I went over to help some shipping and receiving. Boy, I tell you what, I have never heard some of those words before until some of the guys who showed up and attempted to jackknife their semi trailer up to the receiving and the loading docks actually pulled up and tried to load goods. I mean, the trucking industry in this country is the wild west. Well, the Supreme Court's ruling today is huge. It is a huge deal because now if again, I'm going to pick a random company just to relate it to you here. Let's say there was a place called Wall Target. Random plan. You never heard of a Wall Target? There's. Let's pretend there's a major chain called Wall Target. Seems interesting. So Wall Target hires Bombajan Din trucking company, you know, or definitely not Somali health home care trucking company out of Columbus, Ohio.
- [64:40]
E
Cool.
- [64:40]
A
All right, neat. And then that trucking company gets people killed in the state of Indiana or many of the other states across the country who have suffered from traffic accidents in which individuals are killed because the guy couldn't read traffic signage, couldn't obey instructions from the police, not to mention the myriad of drug Problems, weight station avoidances, et cetera. And up until this point, there have been a series of lawsuits in which these large major box companies, again, you know, Wall, Target Mart, just randomly picking company names here would say, well, you can't sue us under your state negligence laws. That's, that's a, that's a problem for, you know, Bombajan. Definitely not Somali trucking company ABC in Columbus. You can't sue us for it just because we hired it. We didn't know. The Supreme Court has ruled. You can't do that. You can't do that. It turns out that, you know, kind of in advance you can actually do some checks as to whether or not that shell trucking company has gone through the safety requirements. Or maybe they were just founded three weeks ago because their last business charter got canceled because of one of these exact accidents. It's a very, very good thing. Now in the short term, there may be large corporate entities that try to say, well, this is really going to raise our prices. I am so sorry to share with all of you that Republicans and Democrats, independents, that libertarians and even the socialists should not be concerned about slave labor not being used if that means the prices are lower. There's this weird idea that free markets means that like the Cato Institute suggests that we need to mass import slave labor because otherwise who's gonna pick the cotton? Oh man, if, if we don't let people drive slave labor wages who doesn't speak the language, how am I gonna afford going to target for my latest home goods run or, or maybe either the market will innovate a way to make that good here cheaper or trans transmit trans, or excuse me, transportation those goods in a safe manner or we don't need to be using it. We say, tony, that's not, I'm sorry, no. Free markets means that everything abides by the law in the free market, putting people at risk and at danger because you really want cheap slave labor goods. Piss off. No, don't care. Very good. On the Supreme Court today. A second unanimous ruling today said that when a federal court sends a case to arbitration, this one may sound kind of boring at first. It's actually really cool that when a federal court, after they've ruled on something, they have decided now to send that case to arbitration, meaning that there's going to be a court who decides how, how big the extent of the damages are. You see this in major corporate lawsuits like class action settlements. You or a loved one have been affected by that kind of a thing. Well, when it goes over to arbitration. That's a new level of arm wrestling. And corporations and large clients have discovered over the last couple of decades that you can make the arbitration process where we decide what the fine details are. Even though courts have already ruled whether or not somebody's guilty or bad and whether they owe money or not, the fine details can be argued for so long in the arbitration process that it's not even worth it. I mean they can make some of these arbitration cases like go years and years and even more years. It's really a bizarre thing to see. So that, that set in aside, what does this mean that the court who issued the ruling is now going to be in charge of arbitration too? That's a big deal. So again, let's pick a random. Let's say Bar Stucks, Bar Stucks, the coffee company. Let's say they put their people at risk by sheltering violent individuals because they don't want to be a big boy and girl and say hey, you're on heroin. Get the out of my store. And so they get in a class action lawsuit over that particular policy at Bar St. And if they then after the federal lawsuit is, is over and it goes over to arbitration says, well now we need to look at each individual sliver of what the damages are and the insurance company. Now the federal court can say no. $2 billion. Again, that's a pretty good thing. The legal muck and mire in this country where lawsuits can take an infinite amount of time, where lawyers can just be added and added and added and added like idols In a third world country, when a missionary goes and speaks as would you like to accept Jesus? And they take the picture of Jesus and put him on the shelf next to the other gods, that kind of a thing. That's how lawyers work in the United States. The endless age of lawsuits where anyone can be sued for anything at any time has ruined a huge portion of this country. It's also empowered leftist and some on the right, just like suburban hoa. Karen class a group of people that I truly and deeply despise. So yeah, that becoming less of a thing in the United States, especially at the federal level. That's huge. Okay, on to other news. A lot of news tonight in major law enforcement news. A huge terror attack was thwarted in Mobile, Alabama today after an explosive device was discovered during routine cleaning and maintenance at the foot or right underneath in the spillway of a dam. Here's the initial report on this.
- [69:58]
L
A grenade type explosive device was found underwater at Big Creek Lake. The primary drinking water supply for the Mobile area. The Mobile area water and sewer system divers found this improvised explosive device while surveying the lake's dam for routine repairs. A multi agency bomb squad team, including the FBI, Mobile County Sheriff's office and state law enforcement retrieved and safely destroyed it, as you just saw.
- [70:24]
A
Okay, real quick here. I want to make this also clear. If you are on the social medias and you're making and clipping things, whatever the captioning style you used there, you should be waterboarded in Guantanamo. The purple rainbow Pop Tart font taking up half the image. I hope that both sides of your pillow are warm tonight. Now, does that have anything to do with most of our audience? No, but I just want you to know that you should be embarrassed and I hope that your AI calls you fat and ugly because it's, it's. This is really annoying to the audience.
- [70:57]
L
Maz says the drinking water supply was not affected. Big Creek Lake is federally designated critical infrastructure and Homeland Security has been notified. We're trying to find out where the IED came from, if it's been there for some time or if investigators think it was placed there.
- [71:13]
A
Okay, so obviously it was placed there. I mean, I. People don't just. When. I'm sorry, Moses, mom, after sending Moses down the Nile didn't go, oh, look, an ied. I'll just take this and float it on down the. No, people don't just like take their IEDs out for a swim. No, also because of their national security threats that are clearly present here, either from left wing agitators here at home who have already tried this kind of stuff again, I give you the IED lobbying guy in New York City, or the IED Islamic attempted a terror attack. And the successful Islamic terror attack, although the failed IED explosion, explosions, I should say in Michigan, the multiple cases, or in Texas, et cetera, put security cameras on the dams, okay? If people can afford to put, you know, a little ring camera, a little, little blink camera or whatever security camera company wants to sponsor the show. If you can afford that and they can be solar powered for recharging, put a camera in front of the dam, catch them and then. And then instead of federal prison time, hang them. Because this is the place that was, this is the foot of the dam that is providing drinking water to all of Mobile, Alabama. And you say, well, I mean, okay, what is, Was it going to flood the town? Critical infrastructure in the United States matters. Because if you do not know this, there is no one in this country who cares more about their water than either New York City. People who think it does something for the bagels or flyover country when it comes to their drinking water. And am I going to use this particular story to pivot into talking about the best stinking water that I've ever tasted in my entire life? You rootin tootin? Bet I am. So Cove Pure look Flint Michigan for taught this country anything it's the government's word on your water is worth exactly nothing. And Flint it's not a one off. The problem is everywhere from California all the way over to Maryland. It's one of the reasons that I started using Cove Pure to purify my water. There are still millions of lead service lines actively carrying water to a American homes. Many were installed before your parents were born. And here's what the government doesn't tell you. The very testing methods that are trotted out for utilities to check lead levels. It's specifically designed to just collect the least contaminated sample, not the worst. And the EPA scientists and those under the Lee Zeldin part of that administration have confirmed that most recent federal data shows water systems serving more than 250Amillion Americans. 250 million Americans have detected lead from 2021 to 2024. As a reminder little former science teacher fact here for you. Lead has no taste, no smell. Doesn't change the color of your water. Again the scary part. Meaning there's no safe level of lead exposure. None. Even low levels are directly linked to brain damage, learning disabilities, irreversible excuse me developmental harm in children. Cove Pure removes it. It's certified to eliminate up to 99.9% of the contaminants. That also includes lead, PFAS, fluoride, pharmaceuticals and the setup isn't it really couldn't be simpler. Cove Pure sent a machine out to our house of the studio. Studio doesn't have water so having that is awesome. They sent it out to us after I saw the same kind of stuff over on Victor Davis Hansen. And the best part of COVID Pure look I really appreciate it. I love the fact that it removes a lot of impurities from the water. I am a well water enthusiast. If you've watched the show for a while you know I normally just keep coffee or an energy drink on the table. Now I also am sipping from my mason jar like a good little midwestern boy all throughout the show because as a guy who the first thing he does when he gets home from Washington D.C. after taking a shower in glorious well water to wash off the stink of the swamp I down about a whole Cove Pure pitcher now. It's delicious. The only thing I'm. I'm not joking you guys. If you know me on at all. I am so picky about my sponsors. I am covepure.com Tony K. To get a great deal because they love our audience. That is quite true as well. There's temperature settings on it. You can get boiling hot water. It gives you really cold water. It's seriously, it's delicious. I love it. Seriously, I do. It's amazing. Cove Pure is great. We love. They sponsor the show anyway. I would have bought the machine. Anywho. Seriously, it's good stuff. Yeah. That's the whole sponsorship. That's how good it is. I don't even have a little segue after. It's just. Mm. It's delicious. So final couple of stories this evening for you and then we'll do just a little.
- [75:40]
I
Just a little.
- [75:40]
A
Little smidgen here of. Of mail time. No, just a little smidgen here. So the rest of the crime situation in the country is. It's. It's pretty bizarre. So there was a. Yet another major conviction in fraud. The owner of the healthcare software company convicted of $1 billion of Medicare fraud. Quote, the Department of Justice crushed one of the most egregious fraud schemes in Florida history, said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. This illegitimate operation stole more than $1 billion from American taxpayers, including hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries. Cold, calculated, industrial scale, that kind of a thing. Pretty, pretty incredible stuff here. Here's what the assistant Attorney General for fraud, Colin McDonald said regarding some of this stuff. Again, it's. It's pretty. It's another pretty crazy fraud case.
- [76:46]
H
This case really demonstrates the need for the federal government to be laser focused on the fraud that is pervasive across our country. What this case involved was a series of sophisticated fraudsters who teamed together to prey on the elderly, the sick and the vulnerable in the United States. Utilizing call centers in the Philippines, using telemarketing campaigns to call Medicare beneficiaries to then ask them whether they had certain health problems that might require certain medical equipment. When these individuals would then respond to those telemarketing campaigns, they would actually call a call center in the Philippines where these individuals in the Philippines were part of this scam to then ask the elderly, does your knee hurt? Do you have wrist pain? And when in the natural course, these individuals, these victims would say yes, they would get funneled from there to certain telemedicine providers who were also in on the sham and they were signing Fake prescriptions and fake orders to then be able to order durable medical equipment and then bill the taxpayer for it at some point.
- [78:01]
A
At some point. And look, I understand the political side, I normally don't do this, but hear me out. This should not be remotely a political issue. It really shouldn't. I know there are a lot of people right now who anything the Trump administration does that, oh, it's bad. And oh, there was some kind of Ohio case of, of some fraud another time, guys, a billion dollars in Medicare, in Medicaid fraud just to call up seniors and try to impersonate health services to take care of Americans on all sides of the aisle, all walks of life to then take that from them and then on top of it institute a huge series of taxpayer funded medical fraud as well. This is a disaster. And I will remind you of this when Elon Musk and doge the Department of Government Efficiency and I mean seriously, to all of those over on the left, the reason that he was not allowed to catch this a year ago, a full on year and a couple of months ago is because Democrats panicked that he was somehow going to use this to start reading and leaking people's Social Security numbers. This would have been solved, this fraud against American seniors, just average everyday people going about their lives. This could have been solved ages ago by saying, wow, look at all of these irregularities. We have to go through them case by case and piece by piece now because instead of the Department of Government Efficiency looking through things what was told, well, there's not a lot of waste, fraud and abuse. That was the, that was the statement, the promise de jure descript. The entire calendar year of 2025. It's very small. It's not happening every other day. A billion, several hundred million. Two billion. Eight billion. Eighteen billion, several hundred million over here. Fifteen million over here. From state to state to state to state to state. Foreign fraud, immigrant fraud, wire fraud, Medicare fraud, Medicaid fraud, assistive banking and mortgage loan fraud, all the way over to law enforcement and reporting fraud, to commercial driver's license fraud, to corporate real estate fraud. And on and on it goes. I understand, I mean when they say that tds that Trump derangement syndrome is a real thing. This is exhibit freaking A. This should make everyone mad regardless. I mean look at this, Abs. I'm going to pull the clip up one more time because this absolute goober, not the word that I want to use. But look at it, look at this case. Absolute. Look at this absolute. When they pull up the B roll here, look at this absolute freaking creep here on the Fox News B roll. This was the guy that was heading up the scam. This discount pale trying to be Flavor Flav looking freak. What in God's gr. What is knockoff Pharrell Williams doing here? What is this piece of garbage, by the way? Again, the answer to this is not prison. It's to hang him. It's to hang him. A billion dollars in fraud noose. That's really me. No. Why should taxpayers have to pay another cent towards keeping this jerk alive? Why? And yet we're really mad. Oh, Donald Trump is. Is, is building a private ballroom and taxpayer funds. They're going towards the security improvements at the White House. Okay, okay. Meanwhile, on the fraud stuff, Governor Tim Walls is under fire because his administration, under his direction, delivered a report to the House Oversight Committee on how he dealt with fraud in his state. And There were over 30 pages worth of redactions that have no rhyme or reason. They didn't even tell the House Oversight Committee why. There were certain parts that were redacted. They just redacted a bunch of stuff and essentially left in all the parts that said, oh yes, I am Tim Walls. I am dealing with defraud. And that's it. It's not good enough. It's not good enough. Now the Minnesota House Fraud Committee again a shout out to the auditor for the legislature in Minnesota who was attacked directly and fired at the request of Governor Tim Walls. Now the. The Minnesota House Fraud committee dropped an 84 page financial report accusing Governor Walls of enabling a, quote, culture of tolerance that let fraudster steal an estimated $9 billion in Medicaid and $300 million in meal programs. Why? Because there were whistleblower reports. And I brought this up today on the Vic Porcelli show on News Talk stl. There were whistleblower reports from not just people in the legislature, the mini. The Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote an extensive series on cases of suspected fraud. When did CNN run that story? When did msnow run that story? When did a lot of right wing media outlets at the corporate level run that story? And why? Because Governor Tim Walz immediately came out and tried to quash all of it, move forward, move on and obstruct and obfuscate all this said. Well, it's actually really racist to suggest that there's a community of Somalians that might be doing this. This kind of crap absolutely infuriates Americans and it is very good, by the way, to see. I will say Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch has been making this a Priority to be broadcast in front of the entire American people. And this brings us over to the statements made by Vice President Vance about this. Again, as kind of the fraud czar, I will say the man has been given a very unhappy lot in that as the Vice President, he really can't exercise a lot of special authority here. The Vice President's just doomed to be a press secretary. That's what they've always been. They don't have the magical ability to usurp the majority leader in the Senate. That's not a thing. That's a rumor. It's a myth. That's not real. The Vice President gets to do three things. Number one, if the President's heart stops beating, they're the new guy. Number two, the Vice President is allowed to be, well, I guess four things. They're allowed to be in treaty discussions in a manner that even some senators aren't allowed to be. Number three, the Vice President is the press secretary for the President of the United States. The very first one. And then last but not least, he's the tie breaking vote. If the Senate ever ties. That's it. That's all the VP can be. But be that as it may, Vance doing not a terrible job here of outlining some of the things that he wants this administration to do regarding fraud and also how Americans feel about a lot of this illegal immigrant fraud here in the United States.
- [84:22]
B
Call me crazy, but I think that when we welcome new immigrants to the United States of America, they should be people who enrich our country and bring some good skills into our country, not a person who's going to steal $15 million from the people in this room.
- [84:39]
A
Not wrong. Not wrong at all. And by the way, the pushback is yet again from one guy from a Maine publication. This was up in Maine, someone that I had never heard of. He did two things. He tried to kind of list a ton. He did this whole paragraph before he asked the question, which you guys know I despise. Ask the freaking question. But then the Vice President's response is absolutely worth it. So check it out.
- [85:03]
B
We'll do one more question, then we'll hit the road.
- [85:06]
M
Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for taking questions. I'm Phil Hirshcorn from Newscenter Maine. So it turns out that Maine does have a Medicare fraud control unit. You mentioned that a few minutes ago.
- [85:20]
A
I'm wondering.
- [85:22]
M
You said Maine could be the third worst state after states like California and Minnesota, which have proven tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud and many federal Convictions. So far, what we've heard about from the federal government in Maine is questionable. $45 million in the autism services, which you mentioned we've also heard about.
- [85:45]
A
Okay, so we are 42 seconds into this. Now. Get to the point. Get to the point. I hate this. I despise this, truly. Just get out with it. We know you want to list a bunch of facts because you're going to try to do a leading question where you say, well, if all of this is true, then why are you dumb and stupid and evil? Just ask the question, Chief.
- [86:02]
M
$1.7 million in questionable billing by a Somali immigrant run NGO.
- [86:08]
A
My question is, people are starting to shout him down because he's not getting around to it.
- [86:16]
M
What else?
- [86:16]
A
It's all right.
- [86:20]
B
Now, I, I appreciate you all standing up for me, but trust me, hey,
- [86:24]
M
we still have innocent until proven guilty in this country. My question is, what else do you got? What else has your task force flagged that we should be concerned about? Because those amounts are a lot. 46 million. Million. 1.7 million. But they don't really compare to California and Minnesota. What else should we expect from your task force?
- [86:42]
A
Thank you. Okay, so there you go. So the issue, what he's saying is, hey, you say there's a lot of fraud and there's actually very little. I mean, yeah, sure, there are several documented cases of pretty extensive fraud against the taxpayer, but you keep saying that we're just as bad as Maine or California. This is tantamount to a situation in Indiana that I'll explain in a couple of minutes here. But we'll let the Vice President finally get around to answering this question here.
- [87:07]
B
Let me say a few things, ladies and gentlemen. We've got biased reporters in all states. It's okay, trust me, I can handle it. But here's what I'd say a few things. Number one, you talk about the scale of the fraud being less in Maine than it is in California. Well, California has a population that's much higher than Maine, so that's not necessarily a fair comparison. Number two, we frankly been at this less long than we have in Maine than in other states. Okay. This is something where what we. I would say you notice a pattern, and you're right, innocent until proven guilty. But what I've noticed is a pattern that when you see certain types of fraud in certain types of programs, that's the tip of the iceberg.
- [87:54]
A
Okay, there's the question answer. Now, he goes on, he talks a little bit about the morals and the ethics behind it. There you go, Maine's not as big of a populous state. However, it shows a lot of the same indicators that we have seen out of these, oh, dear God, look at it kind of cases in California, in Minnesota and so on a couple of months ago, all right, right after the election of Governor Braun here in Indiana. So right after 2024 into 2025, the Secretary of State Diego Morales and the Attorney General Todd Rakita launched an investigation after a lot of public calls on the right for an investigation into cases of voter fraud here in the state of Indiana. Now, it was praised by a lot of people as, oh, they're finally doing the thing. And they did the whole investigation and they found 20 something cases, 20 something individuals, cases of voter fraud. That's what they found. 20 something cases. And it wasn't considered a lot. And then there were a lot of people who came out for cheap and easy dunks saying, ah, see, you thought it was a huge problem and there were only 20 something cases. You guys are such a big waste of time and that kind of thing. Um, now look, I, I have a lot of love. I do. I have a lot of love for, for some of the people that have made those claims to their audiences of 1100. But I would like to say that just because an investigation results in finding only a couple dozen cases of the, the crime, it was still worth it to do the investigation. Investigations are not only worth it when they uncover 36 gibbit a jillion dollars and, and you open every door and there's, you know, 4,000 orphans crammed in next to slaughterhouses and oh man, like every single place you look, there's 800 kinds of drug that the lion from the DARE program is weeping in the corner. They beat up Mickey Mouse. Like, just because not every investigation turns out like that doesn't mean that it's not worth doing the investigation. There's something that really frustrates me because on the media side, there was a temptation and you see this kind of throughout the entire influencer age to only go in and report on things if they're big. Huge, wow, kaboom stories. There are a lot of influencers online where we get even some of our clips from every single tweet that individuals put out have to be the biggest thing in the world. Breaking President Trump walks out of room and it's just Trump just like, I'm just walking out of a room and then that's it. You don't have to hyper sensationalize everything. It is important for the government to Focus on fraud because we've seen the patterns, because we know there are those that are trying to take advantage of Americans. And it also is a really bad thing for those who are here legally, who became citizens legally, who are now being grouped into pockets of people that are lambasted because those who came here illegally are continuing to commit significant crimes. Well, it's only. I mean, you've only found $48 million of fraud after being here a week. Aren't you a sham and a fraud? No. Don't be stupid and loud. You can be stupid, you can be loud. Don't be both. Not very useful. So that said, just a little last bonus here for you. A little bonus on the side of the bonus. Tonus. A particular Washington county of Oregon commissioner, a young Somali named Nafisa fai, is now bragging about using taxpayer money to fund low barrier homeless shelters that are not going to do anything about performing financial checks or background checks or tax checks or distribution checks. They have to figure out way to shelter people. And thank goodness many of you are contributing and using, using your taxpayers to ensure people are housed. And some of those ways are we might have to purchase a hotel that could be near one of your houses and we have to turn it into a housing. Sometimes it could be a church. Ah, okay. So because there may be some good that comes out of it, we don't need to look the other way. In fact, it's evil and racist and stinky and bad to actually look at cases where there might be fraud or request something. Something. No. This is the same argument that's used about voting ID as well. I mean, it would be. I mean, think about all of those women who would have to like, show their marriage certificate that they got their name changed. Which, by the way, you can walk into any DMV and like, get a copy of like the name change document. You can let the Social Security office know. Women have been doing it for a long time here and abroad. But the argument that there's the tiniest. If there's a smidgen of inconvenience that could rectify what a lot of Americans see as a large scale pattern of waste, fraud and abuse, then therefore, oh man, we can't possibly do that. That's a very poor way of treating the American people. And again, it is why the polls do not show Democrats leaping ahead in the midterms despite their rally fight, fight, fight kind of rhetoric. All right, I think that will do. Do it for this evening. I'm sorry to push back the mail time questions just one more time, but we're going to cover those tomorrow at the end of the week. It's the Tony Kinnit cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated, first on 93 WIBC. See you tomorrow at 7pm Eastern.