Larry Glover Live 7-15-26

590 WVLK, Larry Glover Live, Tray Watson. Jared Smith sitting in for Larry. Be with you today and tomorrow. Always have a good time when we come in and get the sub in for Larry. It's going to be part of the conversation. Stude Gaributor's sex line 253-959. And you can always get me and Jared and Jared's lovely wife, Abby Piper. on the Kentucky Politics Weekly podcast, KYPolitics Weekly.com, or wherever you stream your podcasts. And we got Rocky Akins coming up at 2.30. We'll talk to him about what he's up to now that he's a man without a job for the time being. Oh, yeah, I'm sure Rocky will find something. Jared. Are we ever going to get the road worked out in this city? Well, they finished Vine High Street. It looks good. I don't ask the water company. It's never ending. Fontaine is still just... It's summer. Oh, that's definitely the water company. One, like... Well, we see the water company lobby is going to call me in three, two, one. And like... And it's not even like you can plan around it because half the time you go and they have a flag person there and half the time it's open, you just, you don't. I, uh, I, road construction is frustrating. At least, at least they're doing it now and not when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, That seems to be a lesson that's been learned that maybe we shouldn't do massive road construction when we add another 25 to 30,000 people of the city's population for eight months of the year. Yeah, a lot of people out on vacation. It's summer. It's just road work. It's no fun. It happens everywhere. I live in a very small bubble, Jared. I want to get to where I want to go. You want good roads to do that, don't you? Yeah. Well, this isn't even the roads. You don't want anybody else to have good roads. They tore up good roads to do this because they're putting in the water. Yes. For a very good reason. Yes, yes. We'll say. Here at some place that they're tearing up things for not very good reasons. The controversy continues on the reflecting pool in Washington, D.C. This is, this story is just dumb. Oh, they drained it. I didn't see a big gash that somebody got charged with. Did it magically heal itself with the... Well, I mean, it looks like they've taken all of the liner that they laid down off of it, too. So I think the gash was in the liner that's now been removed, if I'm not mistaken. Gotcha. The Trump stories reach a point where it's like, okay, there's a lot of stuff going on in this country. There's a lot of stuff going on internationally. There are things that Trump has done that's good. Jared and I were talking during the break. It looks like the Trump administration is going to re-up an extension of their suspending of the Jay Jones Act. If you know what the Jay Jones Act is, it's a ridiculous law that dates back to the 1800s. It costs every single one of us money. It says that you can't, if you want to move a product from one U.S. port to another U.S. port, it has to be on a ship that was built in the United States.

owned by the United States company that is based in the United States. And it adds significant cost to pretty much anything that is shipped via boat that we as American consumers buy. That's good. They're going to suspend that again. There's... Iran, which Jared and I liked when we went in and before we realized that they didn't really have a plan and they didn't think about the potential of closing those strains of Hormuz. I guess the issue is that you learned that in undergrad. That is a tool that Iran has. Immaterial. My point is there's a lot of stuff going on. I would love to see numbers, Jared, from these cable news networks and from cable news networks and from... the different like the Hill and Politico and different news outlets online, I would love to see numbers because I have to believe that they're getting, that they're seeing action, they're seeing clicks, they're getting eyes with these ridiculous stories about stuff like the reflecting pool. That is it a, it's like it should be like a one day story. And it is just like perpetuated day after day. Because it's so silly. It is so silly. It is. It's silly. They charge somebody. It's silly that it happened. But it's also silly that like so much attention gets paid to do it. Well, there's lots of other stuff to talk about. Hey, I'm Chris Van Fleet. Go behind the scenes and beyond the headlines with the biggest names in pro wrestling and beyond. Jeff Jarrett, great to see you. In this business, the story behind the scenes, so much more entertaining than what you see on camera. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Paul Heyman. Mr. Heyman. You are a master at the little things. That's how you turn good into great. What does it take to achieve greatness? Whatever it takes I'm willing to do. That's an Emmy winning performance. How about it? Insight with Chris Van Fleet. Follow and listen on your favorite. platform. I would love to see the back-end data. I want to know the clicks. I want to know, like, what metrics are these news outlets seeing that is telling them, hey, we need to do more of this reflecting pool. I wonder if there are real metrics out there. Yeah. I just... There has to be the way... Either that or it was just every news update about the reflecting pool is a ridiculous update that nobody plants, nobody saw coming. By the way, a little update, Jared, on earlier in the show, we talked to State Representative Ryan Bivens. Pretty much right after he went, he got off air, news release came out this afternoon. Constitutional officers asked Supreme Court to reconsider Fair Board and Executive Branch ethics cases. The... Attorney General Russ Coleman, Ag Commissioner Jonathan Schell, Auditor Allison Ball, Treasurer Mark McCaff, Secretary of State Mike Adams, have asked the Supreme Court to rehear their arguments in the Fair Board and Executive Branch Ethics case. I'm reading from the press release to constitutional officers. Argue the Supreme Court should respect their statutory responsibilities that independently elected officers from the governor. They seek the Supreme Court to reconsider its recent ruling that struck down laws governing appointments to the Fair Board and the Executive Branch Ethics Commission.

And so we have from the text line, Pete, whoever thought a liner was going to work hasn't been around this type of problem before. Sounds like Pete knows his way around some pools. You know, the problem is that they're pumping swamp water into that thing. I think people forget that D.C. was built on, literally built on top of the swamp. People call it the swamp. It's not. It's literally built on a swamp. D.C's where New York Senate's politicians, they don't want to deal with it anymore to federal government. That's how Teddy Roosevelt got down there. Yeah, but no, but I mean, it's literally built on a swamp. Like it's a delta with the Potomac gets a marsh. So they're pumping swamp water up into the pool. You know, they just need to spend a bunch of money. They also don't want to put like a full on chlorinator on it because then that's bad for animals that may, you know, birds that may drink or dogs or whatever. And, you know, they don't want that either. So do you want clean water or do you want birds and dogs to get sick from drinking too much pool water? I mean, but again, like, there's so many other things to talk about, Jared. Can we? One of my favorite stories of the weekend that I thought was incredibly interesting, Jerry, was New York Times had a piece about former Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejohn. Apparently, they were like trying to cut a deal with him. I mean, apparently he's been sneaking abroad to meet with the Israelis for like three or four years. Yeah. And when they blew up his house. specifically to take out the Revolutionary Guard members who were keeping an eye on him. The Israelis were the ones that whisked him away. And then I guess he became uncomfortable with some portion of the Israeli plan to put him into power and snuck out. And apparently he is now under 24-hour guard by the Revolutionary Guard again, which I'm sure with this Near Times article. There's going to be an eBay sale of some members-only jacket. He can rock a member's-only jacket. He loved his members-only jacket. Like my dad in the 80s, Ockman Dinnodd rocking his member-as-only jacket. Anthony Texan says, Trey, Andy, just wants anything that will get him national coverage. He's bid for the presidency. That's exactly what it is. Again, I go back to all the fairboard stuff. I think he just, he is. He believes that picking fights with the Republican supermajorities in the General Assembly will be looked upon favorably by primary voters in New Hampshire or South Carolina or Iowa or Nevada, wherever he needs votes from. And, you know, I think for the next year, literally everything that Andy Beshear does, that's the prison that you're going to have to look at it through because he's, you know, he's got staff that are running the government, the state government now. He's running for president. He's going to make decisions that seem weird to us. We've got Texas. If LFCC can pick up a pool, so can the federal government are capable of rather... That's a very good point. And on the surface, that statement should be factually true. And then you watch people walk out with bottles of hydrogen peroxide and pour it directly into the... Which apparently was specifically bad, like a bad combo with the paint that they used to paint the liner.

Again, the dumbest story. But apparently it gets clicks? We don't know who's running Iran right now. We're going to spend all our time talking about something that could have been fixed by the Parks Department. But do you know what's not the dumbest story, Jared? What's that? We got one thing to talk about before Rocky comes on. We have not yet talked about our favorite story in global politics. It's the story involving royalty? Oh, no. Oh, no. Royalty from other planets, yes. Yes, yes. That's what I was talking about. Count Ben Face. Count Ben Face. If you're not following, Nigel Farage, a well-known kind of rabbleauzer in England. He's tight with Donald Trump. He's a very Trumpian. Yeah, he's a very Trumpian character in English politics. He got caught taking bribes from a crypto company. He was a man behind Brexit. Yeah, so he resigned his seat so that he could run again for his seat. Because he got beat. No, no, he didn't get beat. He got caught, taking $5 million from a crypto company. And so he basically said, well, I'll resign and we'll have an election. And if the people send me back knowing what they know now, then I'm absolved, basically. The public has absolved me. The other major parties in London, England have basically declared the election of farce and said they're not going to participate and basically acknowledge, I believe the conservative party literally called it a hissy fit. However, one brave intergalactic traveling soul has stepped up to run. His name is Count Benface. Count Benface. He hails from the planet Sigma Nine. Sigma Nine. He is the ruler of the Recyclons. The Recyclons, that's right. And he is a gentleman who appears to have a giant trash can for a head. He appears to be a knight in armor with a metal bin, trash bin, for a head. In England, they call Trashcan's bins. Ben's. Bens. So Count Benface. Yes. And he's here to save England from itself. He has quite the lofty platform. He's going to lower your taxes and raise everybody else's. He's going to build one affordable house. Only one. He is, if you listen to your phone on speaker in public place, you're conscripted into the military immediately. If you are a business that plays Christmas season before December 1st, he will take your business, close it, and turn into a public library. That's correct. There is a particular pub. that he is very angry at, and part of his platform is that he will relocate the hand dryer in a more sensible position. And we have seen a picture of it. The United States Soccer Federation presents the U.S. Soccer Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Klingerberg. One thing I promised you is an all-access pass that you wouldn't get on any other show. And we found out that whoever comes on scores a goal. Burhope, Freeman, trustee. U.S. soccer podcast magic is real people. We still got plenty. of coverage all throughout this World Cup. Okay, let's get into it. The U.S. soccer podcast, presented by Henkoe. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Joe, doesn't that make sense in that bathroom? Does that make sense. There's a men's urinal and then the hand dryer, and you're pretty much going to be like... Elboing the guy in the back. Elboving somebody in the back if you dry your hands using that dryer. There was another New York Times piece for this weekend about the pollution in the rivers and lakes in England and how people can't swim in them.

during a heat wave. He said that he will make the people in charge of water quality have to swim in the rivers and lakes. I mean, man's got a winning platform. He has a win. What's the thing we put you on a unicycle? If you're a bicycler who breaks road traffic laws while riding your bicycle, you'll be forced to ride a unicycle instead. I like working Wi-Fi on trains. Also working trains. Now, Count Benface may be new to the planet, but however, Trey and I have offered our political, combined political services for free to help him win the selection. I mean, he may not have to be the hero that we want right now, Jared, but he's the one we got. He's the hero we deserve. Maybe the one we deserve. And he's royalty. He's a count. But like, there's polls that's showing him. Polling like 35, 40%. Now he's run for... He's a professional comedian. He's not really from Sigma 9. Who does not like Nigel Farage. He's been attacking Nigel Farage since Brexit. Yeah. He's run, I think, nine times and gotten a total like 1,000 and 8 votes or something in all the various... But now he's polling... Sorry, 100,000 votes. All... He's polling at like 40%. And the parliament came out and said that they will not seat him in costume if he wins. It's boo on parliament. It's like when they sent Jim Traffkin into prison and we'll let him keep his toupee. Yeah. Not letting John Fetterman wear his hoodie in the Senate. Yeah, but if you have not watched any of the videos, I would highly encourage you to go check out. It's a professional comedian. Just Google what he looks like. But I mean, he is funny. Like he's very funny on his feet in the interviews. It's, it is. If you believe that that election is a farce, he is doing his best to make you know. He is all in. He's not laughing at us. He's laughing with us. Yes. All right. We're going to take a break and come back a little bit more. You're watching or listen to Larry Glover Live 590 WVLK, Trey Watson, and Jared Smith sitting in. 590 WVWK, Larry Glover Live, Trey Watson. Jared Smith sitting in. You can get us any time that you like. KYPolitics Weekly.com or wherever you streamed podcast. Get the Kentucky Politics Weekly podcast podcast. You can do with Jared's wife, Abby. You can also check us out on the Fox 56 app, Fox 56 Podcast Network. We do a show that airs throughout the weekend. You can get the air dates and download information, all that jazz, on the website as well. Jared, the Major League Baseball coming back in this weekend off the All-Star break. Come on, Reds. Find some inspiration, guys. It's not looking good. Dodgers are going to win it all again, and we're going to have a strike, right? At least one of those two things is probably true. Yeah, I mean, Dodgers just continued to look. And the Dodgers is they don't even, like last year, they... didn't have like, they played good. They were in cruise control for a while last year. Well, they had a lot of injuries. Like, they had a lot of injuries in their pitching staff. And they were like, we're still going to make the playoffs. So long we'll make the playoffs, then we'll get into the playoffs and all our pitchers will be healthy. And here we go. That's exactly what happened. You know, the interesting stuff to look at, though, is some of the stuff further down the standings. The Washington Nationals are only a game under 500.

I thought the Orioles were supposed to be good. Apparently they're not. No, they have been a failed experiment. Yankees figured out yet, or are they still trying to be the Mets? They're three games back of the race right now. But Judge has been hurt for most of the season. Yeah. You know, the Miami Marlins, over 500. The... Chicago White Sox are five games over 500. When you know the Pope's, you know, checking your box score every morning. That's 100%. The Pope's saying a little prayer. Yeah. The Pirates are three games over 500. Wow. So the red. Where are the sneaky Cardinals in the boroughs? Brewers leading the division. Burers lead in the division. There are five games up in the Cubs, eight and a half up on the Cardinals, nine and a half up on the Pirates. That Inlet Central is going to be fun. The wild card is going to be good, too. There's going to be a lot of really good races down the stretch here for the wild card. The Braves pulling away in the east? Yeah. I'm pulling up the standings now. Cubs and Cubs Phillies, Marlins, right down. Barlins have a one game lead on the Cardinals, two game lead on the Pirates, two and a half on the D-BACs, three and a half on the Padres, four on the Nats, and then you drop back eight game lead on the Reds. Right. Also this weekend we have the Belgium Grand Prix for all our F-1 fans out there, all three of you listening. They're not on here. Adam Haley's not listening to. All right, we're going to take a break. Then we come back, we're going to talk with Rocky Adkins. You're listening to Larry Glover-Law at 590. WV. Okay.

590WVLK, Larry Glover LiveRae Watson, Jared Smith, closing out the show. It's always a pleasure to be in with you. We will be back tomorrow. And I know we're going to talk a little fancy farm. We'll talk a little about what happens to this England-Argentina game and more, especially Congress, in D.C. doing things. I'm sure there will be things to talk about. We're going to go to Seagart Motors. Phone lines right now, and we're going to talk with former House Majority Leader, Democrat from the gentleman from Elliott County, just Rocky Ackins. Rocky, how are you doing, man? I'm doing good today. How are you guys doing? Oh, just dandy. We're doing great, sir. Thank you so much for calling in. Well, dandy, where I come from is good. So I'm glad to hear it. Are you like, Jared and I were laughing earlier, are you out fishing or are you sitting on a front porch picking the banjo? You're unemployed at the moment. Well, really not unemployed. You know, I'm still pretty busy. A lot of things going on in my life right now, but mostly good things. Yes, I did retire this past Friday from the governor's office. What a great honor it was to be the senior advisor of Governor Andy Beshear over the last six and a half years. And what a great honor it was to serve in the Kentucky House and all the different capacities that I have the opportunity to serve in. So, you know, public service has been really special to me and continues to be. And, you know, I've enjoyed it, and I continue to enjoy it. And, you know, I'm not done yet. Still looking forward to staying involved, still being in the arena and trying to make good things happen for Kentucky. Talk a little bit about, if you would, you know, I'm good friends and do a lot of work with the Cole County Judge Coalition, with the Mattress Commissioners Association, the County Judge Association. And, yeah, I know your party. I've got struggles at times in rural Kentucky, I think, would be a fair way to say it. But, you know, when I go to those groups, one Democrat that you'll never hear a bad word about there is Rocky Agons. Talk a little bit about your work. I know you've really kind of been the conduit for those guys, the county judges in the fiscal courts, kind of into state government. I know they've really appreciated all you've done for them. Well, I appreciate that. You know, since I've been in Frankfurt, you know, I've been on the ground, in the trenches kind of guy. I've been out there with them in their counties and watch their good work and I've been involved with them and what they do every day, which, you know, being a county judge and a magistrate is a tough job. That's the people that are on the ground. They're in the counties. They're the ones seeing the people every day if the road's not the way it needs to be or if they need... city water if they need something to happen at a certain place throughout their county. And, you know, to go to their conferences and have a chance to get to know them and a chance to get to speak at their conferences has been a great honor for me, being from rural Kentucky.

You know, being around the economies that have driven rural Kentucky from eastern Kentucky to western Kentucky and other parts of Kentucky, you know, I think I relate with what they do. And I think I relate to them as individuals. I mean, I'm one of them, to be very honest. And, you know, I just shoot straight with them. And, you know, I don't look to see what letter somebody's got out from their name. You know, I look to see who I can work with. how we can build this better Kentucky. And I think that the magistrates, commissioners, county judges, they sense that. And I think when people feel like that they, number one, they like you. Number two, they feel like that, you know, this guy is a whole lot like us and he's a person we can approach. And really, that's who I am and that's how I've worked. during my full time in public service. But, you know, I'm a on the ground in the trenches kind of guy. I'm not a behind the desk kind of guy. I think that's what public service is about, and that's exactly what, you know, the county judge association, the magistrates and commissioners association, when I go talk to those groups and I talk to local officials, I think they have a good sense that, you know, Rocky's been around this a while. He gets it. He understands it. He's a guy we can work with. And, you know, I feel that when I go. I feel I have a personal relationship with those folks that serve at the local level. And I'd say whether it's political. or policy related. If I got to go into battle with anybody, I'll take the magistrates and the commissioners and the county judges any day. They know how to move votes, man. They know how to move votes, then how to move votes, then how to organize people, and they know what's really going on on the ground. Could not agree more. Could not agree more because they're the people out there in the precincts. They're the people out there on the ground every day. You know, they're the folks that have the relationships throughout the communities. And that's who people in those counties really know. They know the county judge. They know their magistrate. They know their commissioner. And, you know, the calls I get from judges and commissioners and magistrates are calls that basically are coming from constituents through them. So, you know, this has been one of the things I've really enjoyed about serving the years I've served and is developing relationships, not only from a political standpoint, but developing personal relationships. I think what I've enjoyed as much as anything else is from being in the political arena. and being in public services, the thousands of people I met along the way that I would not have met unless I had been in the arena I've been in for the last several years. So really what I've enjoyed about it, you know, is like I said, going to these conferences and they give me an opportunity to get on stage and speak. And from that, you know, the folks you represent, the folks you're around, they know me. And I think if people really know who you are, then they...

are willing to trust you and develop friendships with you. And, you know, I believe trust and friendship's not given. I think you have to earn it. And those folks talk to you about me. I think I've earned their trust and I think I've earned their friendship. Rocky, it's Jared, real quick. You mentioned that you served in the administration just recently, and you're very proud of it. What are some of the top two, three things that happened while you were there that you're extremely proud of? Well, I'm going to mention the first I'm not proud of, but it's something that needs to be mentioned. You know, we face the most unprecedented challenges of any administration in my lifetime for sure. In office for three months, COVID comes, and I mean, it's a pandemic that nobody knows the impact and knows, you know, really what to do and had to make really tough decisions to try to protect our people. And then 15 now federally declared natural disasters from tornadoes to flooding. I mentioned that not of something I'm proud of, but I am proud of the way that we responded. I'm proud of the way the governor provided leadership to have teams on the ground and to be there that day the next morning and still there for the long haul. I'm just really proud of how we really got good at doing something that I wish we hadn't gotten good at, but we did because it's happened so much. But coming out of all of that, I'm really proud of the momentum that Kentucky has. I mean, we've experienced the most historic. economic development announcements in the history of Kentucky. We've had over 1,300 new locations and expansions of industrial complexes and businesses throughout Kentucky over the last six and a half years. Created over 70,000 new jobs at Kentucky's highest wages in the history of Kentucky. Then you turn the page and you go to the infrastructure part and the projects that are underway as we speak. And I'll mention three of those, and there's more. But the Brent Spence Bridge has now broken ground. It's under construction, a huge project up in the Coveyton, Cincinnati area, to open up that traffic flow on I-75. You know, down in Henderson, the I-69 Bridge approach project that's going on down there to connect I-69 Evansville over into Henderson to open up that part of Western Kentucky. And then, Jared, one I'm really proud of that's under construction right now is the Mountain Parkway. Oh, yeah. A major four-lane highway.

from all the way from Preston'sburg, back to I-64 at Winchester, to open up a region of Kentucky that helped build America without question, the folks that, you know, the region of America that helped build America, eastern Kentucky, and the folks that mined the coal that did all those things to help provide the power that created the industrial revolution that created the greatest middle class ever known to the world. But to see a major four-lane highway. and the opportunity of open that region up and a chance to diversify the economy of that region to bring hope and opportunity once again. I'm very proud of the things we've mentioned. There's more than that, but I'm very proud of those things that I just mentioned. Yeah, it was definitely a very, very, never a dull moment during this year's second term. No. So what do you think is next for Kentucky? When you look at the future of Kentucky five to ten years now, what do you see? Well, you know, I see a transformation in our economy, to be very honest. You know, the industries that we have recruited and the projects that we've announced, I mean, you look at Toyota. I mean, they've invested over two billion dollars over the last couple of years, but it's all about innovation. You know, the new vehicle they're building there and the line you put in to do it. So if you look at the innovation, just mentioning Toyota, and then you look at the... the metals industry across Kentucky, everything from Novellis to, you know, down into Logan Aluminum, up into North American Stanglist, New Corps, all of that. I mean, it's innovation. You don't see smokestacks anymore. It's innovation that's coming to Kentucky. And then, you know, you look at what's going on on I-65 and, you know, big announcements on I-64 from Shelbyville. But these industries that we've announced... You know, they're about the economy of the future. They're about the technology of the future that's going to need the workforce of the future. So, you know, I really see Kentucky being in an unbelievable position. Our logistics has a lot to do with that. I mean, we build out our interstate highway system the way nobody else has. We have two major airports that export globally 24 hours a day. We have river. We have great rail. And then the logistics are where we're located. We're seeing unbelievable expansion of the economy here in Kentucky. And to watch that grow to all regions, and that's the challenge to make sure it does grow to all regions. You know, it's about a hope and opportunity. And I think what people worry about more than anything else when they get up every day, do they have a good job to put food on the table on the roof over their head? Do they live in a community with good roads and bridges that's safe for their family? Do they have a good hospital, provide health care? if they get sick? You know, do they have good quality schools the best for their kids to go to? Do they live in a safe community? And I think that's what we need to concentrate our time on. But, you know, being a former athlete, the word momentum is so important. And when you look at what momentum means, if you look at what's going on in Kentucky right now, and you see the momentum of...

record-breaking job announcements, record-breaking economic development projects. You see the credit rating agencies upgrading Kentucky to positive, and what that means for us moving forward. When you see, you know, site selection magazine putting us in the top five when it comes to private sector investment and the environment in Kentucky. And I'd like to say this, you know, economic development's a team sport. And it's a team sport that there's enough credit to go around for everyone. The governor has provided unbelievable leadership in this area. He's built confidence in CEOs and others to make decisions. Our economic development cabinet and that team from energy and environment to housing, building, and all of these different agencies that are part of the team, you know, to help get those industries speed the market, which is so important. You know, the legislature, you know, I served there. The legislature is parked. and help you provide what's needed, incentives, infrastructure, money, and those kind of things to give us the ability in the executive branch to use that to help make us competitive in recruiting business and industry. And then from the local level, you've got to have strong leadership locally from judges and mayors and industrial authorities that work together as a team. And that's the reason I say when we talk about all of this excitement and we talk about all of this celebration that we've had and all this momentum, it's a team effort and it's a team sport. And we need to keep that moving forward because at the end of the day, we can talk about all these other things that are controversial, all these other things. But at the end of the day, it's about whether somebody has a good job. It's about hope and opportunity. And it's about bringing that kind of prosperity to Kentucky and continuing that momentum into the future. Rocky, you and I first met. 15 years ago doing coal industry stuff. I'm doing promoting industry and you out there's majority leader speaking up for the industry. You know, obviously East Kentucky, West Kentucky is taking a hit. Coal severance taxes are at all-time low and that takes money out of the operating budgets to those counties. You know, a lot of these projects, they're great and this is in the partisan knock. It's just factual because it's hard to put things in East Kentucky, especially. You know, those projects are going to Golden Trianglet areas that already have some jobs. Talk a little bit about what you see is the future for East and West Kentucky as we see these. We'd love Cole to come back. I know you would. I know I would, but it's not going to be back where it was. So, you know, what do we do to help those communities? Because they got bills to pay. So what I would say is rural Kentucky has seen some big celebrations, and they've seen some big announcements. I mean, if you start in West Kentucky, now it's hard for me to name all of them, but if you look... We don't have time for it. Well, I know. But West Kentucky, we've had some big announcements in the West that we're very proud of, and we're seeing a lot of energy in West Kentucky, especially around the Paducah area, down in Hopkinsville. I mean, you come up into Henderson and...

You go and you start naming and looking at some of the big announcements we've had there. You come on toward the East, and, you know, of course, I-65 has been one of the hottest economies in America. There's no question about that. And, of course, the Shelbyville area into Frankfurt and to Lexington. So let's talk about East of I-75. And if we look up in the Ashland area where I live, we're starting to see a lot of energy there. We're starting to see folks that are, when I say folks, we're starting to see industry really. eyeing, you know, that northeast Kentucky area where you've got good infrastructure or river and you've got good industrial property and you've got a good interstate highway system as well. You've got a good airport there close by. But the reason I mentioned the Mountain Parkway is that I believe that opens up the kind of infrastructure we've got to have in eastern Kentucky to really grow and draw the attention of CEOs, business, and industry. And let me tell you why. I believe that. I think both of you all know what our number one export industry is. Let me just say that our export industries broke every record the last two years, now over $50 billion in exports of things that are made here in Kentucky. But if you look what the Mountain Parkway does, and if we have build-ready sites, industrial sites, if you look what's going on in the Carolinas, and our number one export industry happens to be the airspace aviation industry. That's our number one export industry at about $16 billion. So the reason I mentioned that, the Mountain Parkway goes, it opens up U.S. 23. It opens up... back into I-64, you're in a very good location of the logistics. So look at what they do in the Carolinas. They do a lot of the same advanced manufacturing there that we do in Kentucky. And advanced manufacturing, as you know, is a tremendous employer for us here in Kentucky. I mean, I don't know the exact number, but I think it's 200 and some thousand people work in advanced manufacturing in Kentucky. But if you look at the Carolinas, And you look at what they do, they do a lot of the same things. And there's a lot of product moving back and forth, basically along that circle that you could draw. And from Kentucky, you know, we can be the two-thirds of the population and a 24-hour drive. But when I look at the supply chain that has to service these advanced industry locations, all of a sudden the center of supply chain. could be this area in eastern Kentucky where we're opening up this unbelievable infrastructure for industry to locate because of logistics. And I believe that we're going to see brighter days for eastern Kentucky. We've got great leadership throughout eastern Kentucky. County judges working hard. Industrial authorities are working really hard. We're establishing industrial parks that are build-ready sites. And when you get the logistics and you get, you know, you get the infrastructure into it, and then I want to mention one thing that we have that a lot of people don't mention that's key for economic development is our general aviation airports.

I mean, man, you go to Big Sandy Airport or you go to Pytbles Airport, you go to Hazards Airport, and you start looking at this general aviation, I think that the Mountain Parkway means more than just the four-lane highway. I think the Mountain Parkway means really a highway to hope and opportunity for the future and a chance to diversify the economy so people can stay in that region, raise their family in that reason. Put food on the table, a roof over the head. Let me tell you the goal. What really drives me every day is this. The only time anybody should have to leave any region of Kentucky, the only time is that they want to leave, not that they have to leave. And that's what we're trying to work for every day. And I really think that we have an opportunity to really do good things for every region of Kentucky, including the rural parts of this state. Rocky, we got two minutes left with you. Any comment on the Fox 56 News report that came out Monday that you may have, you may have something else to talk about your future here in the next week or so? Well, I will have more comments to make and more updates to make in the next few days. I would encourage you to stay tuned. I think when we started this interview, I told you that I'm not done yet. I still have fire in the belly to help build this better Kentucky. So you'll be hearing more from me in a few days, and we'll be updating folks on my... future plans for the future and my plans for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. All right, okay, because we'll hopefully see you at a fancy farm here in a couple of weeks. I'll be there. All right. Thanks for tuning. Thanks for tuning in Larry Glover live, Trey Watson, Jared Smith. We'll be back tomorrow, sitting for Larry 590W. LK. Cruiser's coming up next. Hey, I'm Chris Van Fleet. Go behind the scenes and beyond the headlines with the biggest names in pro wrestling and beyond. Mr. Sandman. All I ever wanted to be was a pro wrestler. So I got to live my life. And make people really happy. The heartbreak kid himself, Sean Michaels. Do you think there's anybody better than you were? I think I was great at what I did. And I think other people were great at what they did as well. Greatness is more of mindset, I think, than anything else. Mindset, motivation, insight with Chris Van Fleet. Follow and listen on your favorite plan. platform.