The Mark Arum Show 07-07-26 HR 3

No, I'll run this town to be near you. 1104 on an extremely busy Newsday Tuesday. Welcome back, friends, Mark Aram and crew with you till noon. We are monitoring the big NATO summit. Will Graham Platner end his campaign for the main Senate seat? And we're expecting another court appearance in the assassination suspect of Charlie Kirk in Utah. A couple of big stories we're going to monitor throughout the day here on 95-5 WSP. I should mention in 30 minutes, Deborah's got a pair of tickets to give away to see Train. Where is Train playing, by the way, Deborah? They're playing in America. Ameris Bank Amphitheater. We actually have two pair to give away. So four tickets in to tow, your chance to win coming up in 30 minutes. And right after that, travel expert, Peter Greenberg is going to join us live here on the Mark Aram Show. Right now, though, checking in with CNN's climate reporter, Andrew Freeman. Andrew, good morning. Thanks so much for your time. Good morning. Thanks for having me. So much to cover with you. Let's start with the heat wave we've been dealing with here in the United States. I couldn't believe the number. 25 people in the state of New Jersey alone died because of the extreme heat. What has been going on in the United States of America? Well, we've had these repetitive extreme heat events that really expanded across the east last week. Now it's kind of shrunk a little bit to the southeast and building back in the southwest US. And what you find oftentimes is that it's very difficult to count heat-related deaths. But after an event happens, they do calculations of excess deaths as to what would normally be expected over a period of time versus what has actually occurred. So I think you're going to see those fatality numbers unfortunately increase, especially in the urban corridor between Boston and DC based on how hot it was last week. Yeah, it's just, it's almost incomprehensible to me, Andrew, in a first world nation that we have at people losing their lives because of heat-related issues. How hot has it been? Are we looking at historic heat wave the last couple of weeks? Where does it fall on the thermometer, if you will? Yeah, the last couple of weeks, especially the last week, really did break some all-time records. It broke all-time records for overnight. This sounds weird for hot overnight low temperature.

So the temperature didn't get below 84 or 83 degrees in a couple of cities, including Washington, D.C. where I am. So that doesn't give people who don't have access to cooling, for example. It doesn't give people time to rest and withstand the heat of the next day. So when you have lows that are that high, that can make it a bigger public health threat. There were also many daily records that were set and many monthly records that were tied. That's really what we look for, what meteorologists look for is How, what are the records that are falling? Are they just daily records? Are they monthly or are they all time? And in this case, we actually had monthly and all time records being broken. Andrew Friedman from CNN joining us live on the Mark Aram show. And this on the heels of, you know, a massive deadly heat wave across Europe. Is this the same system that we've been dealing with? Is this all attributed to an El Nino or a Lanina? Like, what is the cause behind these record heat waves? Well, the heat wave in Europe has been conclusively tied to climate change in the sense that. Without climate change, some of those temperatures that were reached, and these were all-time national records, so the hottest temperature ever recorded in France, the hottest temperature ever recorded in modern recordkeeping in Germany, for example. Those would not have occurred without the influence of human emissions from fossil fuels. However, we do have a burgeoning El Niño in the tropical Pacific that is going to become quite strong. That is going to influence our weather coming up, especially in the fall and the winter. But so far, most of the studies into these events are showing that the El Niño link is pretty weak. and that this is more having to do with weather patterns getting stuck, these huge heat domes building. And then you end up accelerating these heat waves and making them climate change makes them worse than they otherwise would have been. Andrew, I don't know if there's any causation correlation, but we're in severe weather season here down at Atlanta. With these increased temperatures, can we also see an increased risk in severe weather, whether it's just severe thunderstorms or tornadoes, et cetera?

You can. What happens is there's weather patterns called the Ring of Fire pattern, where if you have a heat dome, around the edges of that heat dome, where the air is still hot, but the atmosphere is a little bit more primed for thunderstorms, you can have wave after wave of severe weather sweep through. And we've seen that happen last week and into this weekend and early this week in parts of New England and the Mid-Atlantic. We've seen that happen in the Midwest and the plains. But once you have that heat dome kind of located over you, it really stifles those storms. So once the heat surges back in the southeast, for example, we're not thinking that that's going to be particularly a good time for severe weather. But somewhere else in the country will probably be feeling that. Andrew Freeman, climate reporter for CNN. Andrew, great stuff, as always. Really appreciate your time. Stay cool up in D.C., my friend. Thank you, you too. All right. And obviously, WSB meteorologist, the best in the biz, Christina Edwards, will be all over the heat waves, the severe weather threats, and the El Nino. He kind of downplayed the El Nino, Deborah. You know, I read about it and then I think I have it and then I don't. So I just need Chrissy to kind of give me the easy version. Yeah. Her Christina's full five-day forecast will be updated, of course, at the bottom of the hour. All right, continue our team coverage on the main Senate race. Join us from the nation's capital back to D.C. ABC News is Stephen, Stephen, have we come to the end of the road for the campaign for Graham Platner for that main Senate race? It certainly feels like it. What a rapid run for the exits here. When Politico reported late yesterday that a woman had come forward to say that Graham Platner forced himself on her in a drunken stupor in late 2021, and then she appeared on CNN for an extensive interview. The list began to rapidly grow of prominent Democrats who said they could no longer support Graham Platner and urged him to drop out of the race. Of course, this is the main Senate contest that pits the Democratic nominee Graham Platner against the entrenched Republican incumbent Susan Collins, who's running for re-election. Well, the allegation yesterday that Graham Platner committed sexual assault, which he denies, has led him to say that he's taking time to reflect on the best path forward, which is being read as a signal that he is on the cusp of dropping out of the race. He had a point in his video yesterday referred to his run in the past tense. We'll see what happens. It happens that next Monday is the deadline in the state of Maine for a candidate to drop out in time for his party to name someone else to appear on the ballot in November. If Graham Platner were to decide to stay on the ballot, he could, and then he'd be locked in after July 13th. But if he leaves the race before, there's an opportunity for the party in Maine to put somebody else up. And that's why progressives.

are very loud in saying to the establishment in the state that this is not their moment to choose what they might see. see as a safer bet against Susan Collins in November. They want someone who will advocate for, for example, Medicare for all and some of the other ideas that you're hearing progressives all across the country town. Now, Stephen, you mentioned that if, again, a lot of ifs yet. If he drops out, the party can renominate someone. Would that automatically be the sitting governor of Maine who already dropped out and was running previously for that Senate seat? There's been conversation about Janet Mills, but there's also a sense. that she's not the strongest candidate against Susan Collins. There's the idea that they should choose someone who is either younger and or more of the political moment. The sense is that to win, just as we saw with Donald Trump's candidacy in 2016 and in 2024, you need to motivate your base. And if you can motivate your base, the other side, you know, Susan Collins doesn't exactly inspire tremendous support among MAGA types. But if there's a Democrat who can do that for Democrats, well, then maybe that's the best path to victory. That's the calculus. The other side of the argument is that it becomes a referendum then on some of these policy ideas, which would give the Republicans an opportunity to poke holes in those ideas and say, wait a minute. Some of these concepts may sound great, but there's a risk here. And here are the potential negative outcomes. And that's part of what the president is doing as he campaigns for Republicans this cycle. The whole gambit here on the part of national Democrats is to try to win control of the Senate. They feel they have a pretty solid chance of taking back the House. But their hopes of winning the Senate run through the state of Maine and a couple of other places where they see Republican incumbents as vulnerable. They'd have to really run the table, though, to do it. And the sense is... that this Graham Platner situation, this Plattenor episode, doesn't necessarily work in their favor. Stephen Katie Porter from ABC News joining us here on the Mark Aram Show. Folks that are calling for Graham Platner to step down include both Georgia Democratic senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, they both issued statements. I think a question that I and a lot of listeners have is what took Democrats so long to separate them from Graham Platner? Because this isn't the first, you know, Mark on his resume. There's been a number of issues leading up to... this general election that maybe should indicate that Graham Platner wasn't the right guy at the right time and maybe not a good guy at all. And there are moderate Democrats in the state of Maine who are sort of taking a I told you so kind of stance the same way that national Republicans have. There's the Nazi tattoo which he claimed he didn't know was a Nazi tattoo because it's a skull and crossbones and he didn't he says he didn't know. Then there was the report some weeks ago in the New York Times that looked at his texting of women other than his wife while he's been married. And all of that was sort of met with shrugs and, well, never mind all that. This guy stands for what progressives want and he's our guy. He won the primary, don't you know, and he's the choice. But yesterday's new allegation.

Vin, I'm not going to ask your personal business, but with this influx of foreigners in Atlanta for the World Cup, have you fired up the old Tinder machine and try to find some international ladies? It's been up, yeah. When I get bored. He was looking for something today, right? Egypt and Argentina. Have you seen an influx of foreign ladies on? I have, yes. All right. Well, I've got to see what your parameters are. Let me go through the parameters. By the way, I did some research in Kentucky. The governor does not appoint. vacancy for the Senate, there will be a special election if, God forbid, Mitch McConnell has to step aside. So not a government appointee, a governor appointee, there will be a special election. All right, news, weather and traffic, and then travel expert, Peter Greenberg joins us live next on the Mark Aram Show. 1137 on the Mark Aram Show. Coming back to one of the many hits that Train has accumulated during their illustrious career because we are, well, Deborah, is about to give away tickets to see Train. What can you tell us, Deborah? Train going to be at Ameris Bank Amphitheater July 11, so that is just a couple of days from now. You'll be at the show. And I believe Butch Walker is now their guitarist. Shut the front door. Which makes it even better. I saw Butch Walker in Athens before he was a big deal. Yeah. All right. And we have two pairs? We have two pair to give away, so two callers. Let's do the 11th and 12th callers to gentlemen, Jim, at 404-8720. Even Vinny likes this song. Callers number 11 and 12, gentlemen, Jim, to 404-8720750, win a pair of tickets to see Train, courtesy of the Mark Aram Show and 955 WSB. All right, I've been champing at the bit to talk to our next guest ever since I got back from my Peruvian vacation, joining us live from New York City. With his own intro music and everything, travel expert, Peter Greenberg. Peter, good morning, my friend. How are you, sir? I'm very good, sir. So just every time I went to Peru for the week, had an amazing time. And I kept thinking, oh, I've got to ask Peter about this, he got to see about this. First off, have you been to Peru, Machu Picchu, Kusco, Lima, etc. Not only if we've been there, we did one of our royal tours with the president of Peru as our tour guide. And we went to all those places. It's pretty amazing. It was a bucket list trip for sure. And I was prepared for a lot of things, like the elevation sickness and don't drink the water. But here's something I was not prepared for, Peter. I was going to play some audio here, Ben. Let's try it again.

Not flushing toilet paper in the toilet in Peru. Yeah, well, you know what? In much of Peru, they have a septic tank system and not to show your sewage system, and you've got a problem there, yeah. Is that rare, or are there other places that I have not traveled globally where it is not, you know, it's required that you don't flush the TP. You put it in a wastebasket instead. A majority of places in the world do not have a proper sewage system. And you're dealing with wells or septic systems and they can get clogged, yeah. They didn't put that in the brochure. I was not more, I mean. Mark, that's your next guidebook. The next thing. By Mark. By Mark, Aram, where you can, it cannot flush. I mean, it's just, you know, it's muscle memory, Peter. I've been flushing for 52 years. But by the end of the trip, I did get used to that. All right. So it's not just Peru. There are other nations around the globe where you're not supposed to flush the TP. You know what? You just gave me the title of your new book, Flushing for 52 years. I love it. Peter Greenberg, joining us live on the Mark Ham show. So I flew back, I flew down on Delta, and I flew back on Latam, Latam. I'm not sure how to. La Tom. First off, the lounge, the La Tom lounge in Lima was elite. It was better than the Sky Club here in Atlanta. It was phenomenal. I'm spoiled, though, because on the La Tom flight, there was no Wi-Fi. Is that a general thing on international travel, other airlines outside? of the U.S. domestic carriers that you don't get Wi-Fi on a flight? You see, everybody wants Wi-Fi on the planes, and the airlines want to do it too, but they're not going to pull a plane out of service. to install a router. They're only going to do that Wi-Fi system when the plane comes in for its major C and D maintenance checks, where they really rip the plane apart and put it back together again. So that's when an airline announcers, we got a new Wi-Fi system. You know, that doesn't mean overnight they're on every plane. They're cycled in when the planes come in for service. So right now, those are top planes. have to stand in line before they install that system. It was great service, though. I had a very enjoyable experience. And the Lima Airport, I don't know if it's new, but it's, it's, it reminded me of Haneda Airport in Tokyo. It was phenomenal.

Yeah, they've done a great job. And by the way, Haneda in Tokyo, so much better than, you know, the other one. Yeah. I mean, Narita pales by comparison, and they used to ignore Haneda. And you know what? They do a much better job now. Absolutely. So I'm assuming, well, since you got a tour with His Royal Highness in Peru, did you go up to Machu Picchu? We did. We went all in the top. And, you know, we did it like we went up the night before. We camped out. And then we were up there at five in the morning. We were up there for the dawn. It was amazing. For the sunrise. That was, I mean, it was an exhausting. Kusko, by the way, I fell in love with Kusko at the city. It was, it was phenomenal. But it was such a pain in the neck to get from Kusko to Machu Picchu, hour and a half sprinter van ride on gravel roads. And then you got to take this. bus all the way up to the top it was i was like white knuckling it the whole time and then not even to mention the hiking you could have done the train oh we did take we took the train from cusco uh to the the no not we took the van from cusco to the train station and then the train to the the city below machu pechu so i was on the train that was pretty cool the train experience was cool There you go. Okay. I feel better now. Yeah, all right. All right. So I've been talking nonstop about my Peru trip, and I know a lot of listeners want to go and check out the seventh wonder of the world that is Machu Picchu. Are we going to see any relief now that, you know, we're seeing oil prices drop? Do you think jet fuel prices will drop and we'll see some fares that drop as well? Well, jet fuel prices will drop with the trend continues. Airfares will not. The airlines are doing everything in their power to try to recoup their billion dollar losses in the increase of fuel prices. That applies to Delta, United American, Southwest. Every airline. And every airline CEO, including Delta Zed Bastion, said, don't expect prices come down. We've got to recoup these losses. Now, how are they going to recoup them? Not just airfares, but ancillary fees, baggage charges, you name it. But I'm not expecting fair to drop them all, except for next month. Next month, there's some softness in the business. We're seeing airfares mark that are 6% below what they were last year, which is unexpected. And we're also seeing some availability of frequent flyer award redemptions for August, which never happened. So if you see them jump on them now, they won't last long. And the fares don't expect them to come down before the end of the year. Do we know what the cause of that drop is? Yeah. People are holding back. It's just too expensive. It's affordability. And so they're staying home. Interesting. Interesting. All right. So jump on board if you see the deals. Travel expert Peter Greenberg joining us live in the Mark Aram show. So we flew from Atlanta to Lima. And my wife's brother and his wife. flew to Atlanta and we're on the same flight with us to go down. And full disclosure, my wife had the global upgrade certificate. We sat in the front of the plane. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law were in the back of the plane, but there were like eight empty seats in Delta one going down. And I was like, well, there's got to be something I can do to, you know, to get my brother-in-law and sister-in-law up front with us. So I went to the Delta counter.

And basically they told me to kick rocks. Is there any secret to getting someone upgraded onto a flight where there's so many empty seats up front? Oh, you went to the kick rocks counter. I did. I did. No, listen, it's all about revenue. You know, you can bring a box of chocolates if you want, but it won't make a difference. The fair disparity between coach and first is huge. If you want to go today from Atlanta to Johannesburg and coach, it's about $2,000. You want to go in business class? Try $16,000. Wow. No favors, no waivers on that one. I was hoping that the lady at the delt, she was kind of in my demo. I was like, maybe she recognized me and maybe she'll, but even if, you know, I pulled the, I didn't pull the, hey, I'm Mark Aram card, but even if she recognized me that she couldn't do anything. If you had pulled the Mark Aram card, she would have given you a free Biscop cookie. Well, that's what you get at, the kick rocks counter. Peter, you're in New York now, but not for long. Where are you heading, buddy? I'm actually heading tonight to Africa. We're finishing the shoot on our one-hour special, the next royal tour called the Royal Tour of Lusutu in Africa and with the King. And here's the fun part. It's now July. The reason why I'm going tonight is because in two days I'll be with him. skiing in Africa. Wow. That's amazing. Southern hemisphere and they're so high up, we're actually going to be on the slopes. That's phenomenal. Do you have to get shots every time you go to Africa or are you grandfathered in from the last time you were there? No, no, no. It's up to your own physician and your own medical needs. I don't need a yellow health card to go. It's up to each individual to make those decisions. Wow. All right. Lesotho, I can't wait. Peter, safe travels. Always a pleasure, my friend. Thank you so much. Kick rocks. There you go. Peter Greenberg, headed to Lesotho. He should have dropped Peter's name in Peru. Like if he knows the king, right? Peter Greenberg said I could flush the toilet paper, ladies and gentlemen. You're right, Deborah. It's not. I feel like I've, well, I've been to places in Mexico where that's quite normal. And I know people from other places of the world where that's quite normal. Yeah, I just give me a heads up. That should, when I get through passport control, be like, by the way, you can't flush the toilet paper, Gringo. Gringo is not a word that they, I was called down there. Nobody uses that word. Especially after I got my, my Lima Peru. Was it essay? Yeah, essay. Congrats to winners. Someone won. I don't know their names, but we'll find out. Two people won. A pair of tickets to see Train, courtesy of the Mark Aram Show at 955. WSP.

When you don't drink, people always need to know why, too. They're like, you don't drink? Why? It's never happens with anything else. You don't use mayonnaise? Why? Happy 60th birthday. One of my favorite comedians, Jim Gaffigan turned 60 years old today. Welcome back to the Mark Aram Show. Looking for relief when it comes to grocery costs. Apparently, Walmart is going to step up and slash some prices, Deborah. Walmart's going to be cutting prices across all of their items. It doesn't specifically say, like, if it's groceries or household or clothing, but they start. their lowering prices on hundreds of items. And the president said this was his request. That's he said Walmart should cut it. Walmart's already cheaper than a lot of stores. So the fact that you're going to go in there now and find them even cheaper. Maybe your baseball cards. You never know. They'll never cut the price. No, they'll never cut the baseball card. I'm just like like ground beef and chicken and everyday essentials, like shampoo, laundry detergent, things like that. Emborghese con queso. Pollo con queso. Oh, speaking of chicken, McDonald's has some new chicken dishes they're about to announce. Yeah, a place known for hamburgers. Really getting into the chicken business. Emburgueso. Emburgessa. Yeah, so they're offering some new chicken items, chicken sandwiches, barbecue, bacon, grilled, grilled, grilled chicken sandwich. Pass. I've never had, well, I haven't had any of these anyway. I'll tell you what, Vinnie, back me up here. The regular, like the cheap McChicken sandwich at McDonald's is, it's really good. Got a distinct flavor. Yeah. I do like. Yeah, and it's not too expensive, like too fitty. Along with the sandwiches, they've got McChrispy strips. So, like, instead of nuggets, it's the bigger strips. Okay. So there's a bunch of different ones there, sweet chili glaze, terriaki glaze, and kick and barbecue, and a bunch of sauces to go with it, and then mix spicy, bone and wings. You're like grimacing reading the story. It's just, no, wait, boneless wings? Boneless wing. I didn't know they had that at, at McIntyreux. Nuevo pollo. Nuevo. New chicken dishes. I don't know what dishes is. Well, yeah. All right. Sorry, Deborah. I won't make you read the fast food stories anymore. I like the, listen. Chick-fil-A, yes. But the OG chicken sandwich is still the original chicken sandwich at Burger King on the Oval Bun. Like that was the first one. I still tip my hat. Like a sub-bun. Oh, okay. Yeah, like a round bun. Anyway, all right, I'll check it out. I like the OG chicken sandwich at Burger King. It doesn't get a lot of credit, but it broke boundaries. It was the Jackie Robinson of chicken sandwich. Now you know, because of the Mark Aram Show. So some of the video evidence that came in, the judge said, I'm not going to allow this because it's been manipulated. Essentially, he said, I'll let the raw video come in, but I don't want this edited stuff. So they've got to come back and do it today. A lot of legal ease included in this hearing. So it's not necessarily must-tee TV. Correspondent, Rory O'Neill, updating the latest in Utah, the preliminary hearings in the assassination suspect of Charlie Kirk. Now you know. Two ships going through Hormuz were hit, both loaded with fuel. They were going the Omani route. So as they go out, you either go through the Iranian route, which is where Tehran says that you should go through, or the Omani route, which is where the U.S. suggests you go through. And you're supposed to have cover from the U.S. Navy. But clearly that wasn't the case. Stephen Chapanek from Bloomberg. Join us live in Singapore with a couple of strikes on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Really good stuff there. Now you know.

The woman had come forward to say that Graham Platner forced himself on her, and then she appeared on CNN for an extensive interview. The list began to rapidly grow of prominent Democrats who said they could no longer support Graham Platner and urged him to drop out of the race. Yeah, those calls now coming inside the House, Stephen Portnoy, on the Graham Platner candidacy. Will this be the last day? He is actually a candidate for that Senate seat in Maine. Now you know because of the Mark Aram show. And now, are you guys ready for the Mark Aram Star of the show? I thought I was leading the pack for star of the show today, but Kimokio on Twitter called me out. Hawaii's statehood was granted in 1959, not 1949. So I am out of the running. Me despiace. Lo Siento. Yeah, my second most use word in Peru. We were all over the globe. Gosh, we went to Singapore. Seattle, Brooke Griffin from Cairo, Scott Slate, Andrew Freeman, Peter Greenberg, Portnoy, O'Neill. I'm going to go to the guy from Bloomberg in Singapore. That was pretty cool, right? Yeah. And he called us, not collect. So we saved money and everything. Vinny almost had it. You almost had it, buddy. You almost had Star of the show. Pictures of Soba in her, her Inca gear is up on my Instagram story if you want to check it out. At Mark Aram, M-A-R-K-A-R-U-M. Stay safe. Have a great Tuesday, Atlanta.