Handel on the News

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I actually I don't think I I don't have an email address well that would explain it I do not have an email that's where the invitations were sent out oh okay I'm sure you're invited Bill Handel yeah I don't know when is it today like at 11 which is why I'm wearing the ugly sweater as in 11 o'clock in the morning yes I didn't know that. And so what kind of food are they going to have that they trade it for? Because they'll actually spend any money so it's all trade for. Well, listen to what kind of commercials, what commercial products are we now hustling? Well, let's see. It says... Panera? I don't know. It says fun activities, delicious food, open bar, and raffle prices. Okay, open bar, shastacola. Okay, you won't see any name brand... open bar. Well, they can't, they can't have anybody drink because that's out of the question. No, they've had people drink at those things before, haven't they? No, no, they don't do alcohol. Do we have to sign a waiver? I don't even think signing a waiver. It says open bar, though. I know, but I don't think. Here's the problem. Soft drink station. Yeah. So I think it's open soft drinks. Because here's the problem with alcohol. And this is a legal issue is that the station is responsible for under the Dram Act. If someone gets drunk and goes out and kill someone, it gets legally a little bit sticky. So no. When I have a party, there's no alcohol, but that's more a question of spending money on alcohol than anything else. And we cut a deal. Oh, my little one is here. Your budget is pretty much drank up by your wife. No, my budget is calling up everybody I've ever known and seeing if I can get it for free. And someone's on. Someone has to mute, by the way, over there. That's me. All right. So there's Amy, there's Neil. Cono, good morning. Good morning, Bill. And Will the Kohlschreiber man, how are you? Good morning, Bill. Don't feel bad. I was not invited either. Good. That makes me, and you have an email address, which is even better. And good morning, Ann. Good morning. I'm not going. You see, that was my next question, all right? Ann is not going. After she heard, it's not an open bar. That's correct. Neil, are you going? No, you and I have a meeting at noon. Okay. Kono, are you going? No chance. See, this is a... Yes, I'll be representing the morning show. You'll be representing everybody with your ugly sweater. Yeah. You know, yesterday we were talking about Africa. I'm trying to put together an African trip. It's like a bucket list trip. You know, once in a lifetime. And I have gone, but Linz has not. So we're thinking of going to Africa. And...

We talked about a balloon ride over the Maasai Mara or the Serengeti, which you took, which is a magic ride. And I said, I don't want to be with 20 people in a balloon. So I got quoted yesterday, a private balloon ride for two people. And when the quote came in, I called them back and said, no, no, you don't understand. I just want to ride in the balloon. I'm not buying the balloon. And, okay. And the people that work there get like $2 a month, you know, the folks that work at these camps. So anyway. Well, basically, wouldn't you be paying like, I don't know, they're supposed to be 20 people on it? Wouldn't you be paid? No, no, they have smaller balloons. It depends on the size of the basket and the size of the balloon itself. Okay, how much was it? The envelope. Come on. You know what? I. $20,000, $10,000? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. It's, I think it was between $2,000 and $3,000, but that is still a fortune. That's why you go with 10 or 20 people because it's like 400 bucks each. Then it costs you $400 each. It's worth it. No, I'm going. There's no question I'm going. I just don't want to be with a bunch of unwashed people that are getting air sick and puking all over me. Nobody got sick and puked while when I went on my ride. And the last one that I did go on with 20 people on it, there was a Korean pilot who thought he was a comedian. And he was doing nothing but bad jokes in a Korean accent. He was a Korean who immigrated to Africa, very strange anyway. So I'm trying to figure out, I'm trying to put it together, and I don't know. It's getting a little pricey. But it is a once in a lifetime. It's a bucket list thing. So I'll report more later on, I think. You're funny the way you spend money or where you don't spend money. It's weird to me. You know, a lot of people have said that. How is that not, I mean, you will never remember that cost versus the memory. Oh, yes, I will. Oh, I can tell you exactly how much. I can tell you what a meal cost me when I went out 22 years ago to a restaurant in Italy or in France. I once paid $1,500 to have real snow. Well, man-made, snow. Put in my front yard for Christmas Eve for my nephews and nieces. Very cool. Wow, that is cool. On the hottest Christmas of the year. Now, I once spent $1,500 on snow, but not quite the same snow as you're describing. During law school, totally different. Matter of fact, we went out in the front yard. I put down a mirror. Took my razor blade and cut it up. All right. Enough guys. Let it snow. I did say good morning to you, didn't I will? Yes, good morning. I have to tell you, your memory is, you are etched into my memory. You really are. Okay, guys, let's do it. It's time for Handel on the news on this Thursday morning. Amy, Neal, and me, and lead story.

Well, no surprise. Yesterday, the Fed did cut interest rates, although, again, is usually unanimous. It wasn't. There definitely is dissension in the Fed. And the chair said that he is looking at rate cuts because the economy needs some help. And I'm going to do a story later on that really talks about. what the job rate is. And it's sobering. It really is. And it has to do with, or I think maybe later on in the news, it has to do with understating the unemployment numbers. And there are a lot of politics there. Okay. Get out. That's the order from a judge. They said any remaining National Guard troops in Los Angeles need to leave? And also the control of the National Guard needs to go back to the state. This was from District Court Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco, granting a preliminary injunction against the use of the National Guard troops by the Trump administration to secure federal buildings and protect federal officers following the immigration raid protests back in New. I will tell you what's going to happen on this one. Of course, the feds are instantly appealing yet. It's going to go up to Supreme Court, this among many other issues. And if you look at this court has done, this court has viewed the presidency, not necessarily the Trump's presidency, the presidency of having virtually unbridled power. If the president calls an emergency, it is an emergency. During one of the previous ones where the president was arguing he is immune from prosecution, and the Supreme Court said he is completely immune from prosecution. And Elena Kagan asked the Solicitor General, who was arguing complete immunity, does that mean that the president can order the assassination of a rival based on his declaration that it's national security? And he said yes. The president has absolute immunity power as long as he's arguing that it's some kind of national emergency, and he decides what it is. You know, this is reminiscent of during Watergate, John Mitchell, who was the Attorney General of the United States, who was grabbing money in cash for CREP, the committee to reelect the president. And he said, straight out. When he was asked, you are the attorney general of this country. Do you believe that the laws are subservient to the president getting elected? He said, absolutely. Richard Nixon getting reelected is more important than any law in this country. He did four years, by the way, for that one. All right. He's going to have the ability to bring out the troops simply because he says, I think this is an emergency. If there's a demonstration, I think it's an emergency because it's his call is the way it's being interpreted. This is where we could really use some compromise. You've got the Senate poised to reject legislation to extend the Affordable Care Act, the tax credits there for millions of Americans.

This keeps escalating and you have to give me insight, Bill, as to where this is going. No, it's up. It's just this sheer punishment for Maduro. The president is right. Maduro is as sleazy as the president says he is. The guy is corrupt, beyond corrupt, is in bed with all of the drug cartel people. The problem is what do you do with it? And he's going after Venezuela where Colombia is the problem, where it really is China. The issue is fentanyl. There's no huge death rate from cocaine. That is Colombia and Venezuela. Venezuela also is cocaine. So, yeah, he's escalating. And they just grabbed it. You saw the video of the attack? I mean, you know, the helicopters, the Navy helicopters and the Navy personnel, the seals repelling down. It was really interesting. And then when he was asked, he said it's, It was a big tanker. No, it is the biggest tanker. He did. He said it's the biggest tanker ever. That's right, the biggest tanker ever in the whole wide world. Bill, do we manufacture, meaning in America, do we manufacture crack cocaine here? Do we get the cocaine in? No. Well, yeah, I know I think crack is. There's labs that do it, but cocaine usually is in powder form. when it comes over. Then it's cut and recut and recut. Because crack cocaine is a bigger problem than even cocaine is, right? You know, if you smoke crack cocaine, I don't know. I don't know. But it is, there's all these politics and racial overtones to crack cocaine. And it is, I don't think it's done overseas. I think crack cocaine is manufactured in the United States. The powder comes. Powder comes over the border. I don't know if that helped or not, but it sure sounded good, didn't it? It did. It sounded great. A win for the mountain lions. Well, maybe. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has recommended granting threatened species status to about 1,400 mountain lions who are roaming around the central coast and in Southern California. They say that they want that designation because of the threats posed by freeways, rat poison, and, of course, wildfires. It's not a final say, but it does. signal a possibility that several clans of the iconic cougars could be listed under California's Endangered Species Act. Yeah, I'm jumping into that at 720 because there are a lot of moving pieces on that one. Not everybody's happy about it. No, not everybody's happy. And then that wildlife across over the 101 freeway up near a girl, oh man. It's going to open pretty soon. Yeah, and it is the largest in the world. And that's kind of neat. Yeah, it's kind of pretty, too. Yeah, it is. They did a nice job with the wooden infrastructure on it. It is very neat. Yep. All right. This story's about as horrible as it gets. You got eight members of the Anaheim High School running team, and they are between the ages of 16 and 17 years old. Eight of them were hurt. Three people required immediate transports, including a 27-year-old driver that hit them. And it looks like it's a possible DUI. Hop the car. Plowing into a group that were just, well, you know, the high schools, they have the running. Yeah, they were at an intersection. They were at an intersection and he plowed right into them. Wasn't there another case that was considered DUI, but then it was kind of controversial. A couple years back, Amy, where someone maybe in.

in Los Angeles did that, hit a group of runners from maybe the police department. It was the police department. They were training. Yeah, that was just last year, I think. Wow. Oh, there goes my phone. Amy Neal, me. Phone. I thought we lost you. No, no, no. Must be nice to have this money, much money to donate. Jeff Bezos's ex-wife, philanthropist McKenzie Scott, has donated $63 million to CSU Northridge. Cal State Northridge. Yep. She donated $40 million to the university in 2021. So do the math, that's $104 million. The largest donation in its 67-year history. She's worth a ton of money. 33 million, a billion rather. Yeah, when she divorced. When she divorced Jeff Bezos, she basically got half of the stock that he had or they got half of what they both had. So it is, it's obviously grown from there. I think she took a chunk and took it out. And she gave him all the voting rights, too. She doesn't vote. Yeah, in 2019. She committed to give away most of her wealth. Yeah, unlike Jeff Bezos didn't. Ellicons didn't. You've got Warren Buffett who has. You have Bill Gates who has Bill and Melinda Bill Gates. She's smart. She's beautiful. She's caring and giving. And rich. Yeah, but and I don't understand that. I never understood that divorce. That's a big deal, C-San, in the hopes that C-Sin turns into a school of good reputation. They're trying to get the stink of the 60s out of there. Were you in there in the 60s? Hmm. I was, yeah, I was there in the 60s. Still trying to clean it up. Yep, I was there. 60s, early 70s, I was there. This sad story, Jeff Garcia, he's a voice actor, 50 years old died. He had complications of pneumonia and he was taken off life support by his family. But he was known for shows like Jimmy Neutron, which is great. The voice character he plays is Sheen Estevez. Does he pick up on that handle? Sheen, Martin Sheen? Martin Sheen. Martin Sheen's original name is Martin. And Charlie Estevez? Yeah, no, and his son. Right. But they, but they. No, not Charlie Sheen. Emilio Estevez, yeah, who didn't want to use his dad's name. The character's name is Sheen Estevez. But he played on many different shows, Happy Feet, Barnyard, Rio, a bunch of other, the proud family. But unfortunately, he passed away. Right. This is a good story. It's a new take on driverless delivery. A woman has delivered her child in a Waymo robot taxi while she was on the way to UC San Francisco Medical Center to have the baby. Waymo says that its rider's support team detected unusual activity in the car. That's kind of screaming at the top of her lungs. Yes.

And she delivered it herself. There was no one else in the car. It was just her, right? Nope. She was alone in the car. And then when she got to the hospital, she was with her baby. She beat police there. Why didn't she call an ambulance instead of a Waymo? Because it was already on its way and someone was probably talking to her. And saying, we're going to, you know, we're changing the direction of the car. And then she went into the doctorless obstetric department of the hospital. You love that. And the car's like, if you're going to have a second rider, you will have to pay more. I know. It's actually a terrific story. I love the technology when it works. You're going to find that driverless cars are not only the future. It's also going to be, and that's generational. I mean, it's going to take 25 years. But this cars, and that's not only the technology, just the time it'll take to switch over. But it'll be far, far safer. And it will, you won't see gridlock. It just won't be neat. Have you taken one yet? I have not. Have you? No, but they're buzzing all over my neighborhood. Yeah. They're everywhere in our hood, Amy. I see them three times a day easy. I've taken them a bunch times in San Francisco here. Really? The driverless ones? Wow. I did it in San Francisco a bunch in July and then I do it here too. They take a little longer or they were taking a little longer to get to hail one than an Uber or Lyft. But they're great. I love it. You can even watch how on the screen how it scans the area. Huh. Yeah, I've taken my family in them too. Okay. And they speak, and they speak English with nobody speaking. As opposed to Uber. There's no body odor, nothing. Yes. Yeah, none of that. I've never had an Uber with a body odor. No, but he's thinking of old taxi jokes from New York. I am old taxi jokes. And, of course, one of the best Seinfeld episodes ever with the B.O. from the parking. Oh, they couldn't get it out. They couldn't get out. And they tried to get it stolen. Okay. Story, Bill Handel is going to remark that this is vindictive and he's going to be exactly right. Holy smokes. So you've got President Donald Trump inserting himself directly, by the way, into this control battle for Warner Brothers Discovery and all of this. And the first thing he says is it's imperative that CNN be sold after he be raided all of their, you know, their horrible news and... Earlier in the week, the Wall Street Journal reported that David Ellison recently offered assurances to Trump and his administration.

that if he bought Warner, he'd make sweeping changes to CNN. How can that be legal? It can be. Nothing can be legal. I mean, you know, you'd throw it all up. How about this one for a conflict of interest? Okay, part of Paramount's purchase, their hostile bid for Warner involves a fund that Jared Kushner... is up to his eyeballs in. Trump's son-in-law is involved in the purchase of a word, the hostile takeover. I mean, it's, all of it is crazy. You know, originally Trump was against crypto until a family company was created to deal with crypto. And Jared Kushner was involved in that. Now crypto is great. And he is pardoning people in the crypto world that have been committed, that had been convicted of massive fraud. It's just, it's so blatant. It's just ridiculous. It is so blatant. This is comical, though, because essentially he's going to have to bless some, or his administration and some of the Alphabet Soup organizations are going to have to bless this merger, right? Yeah, it's his. So they're saying we'll get rid of. Yeah, we'll get rid of people at the CNN. Oh, that's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, he's, it's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed piece, the journal ran an op-ed piece saying, all you have to do is talk about his magnificence to him. That's the word. You talk, your magnificence, Mr. President, and you get what you want. It's just, I don't understand it. I know I keep on harping on this. I do not understand it for the life of me. Someone's got to explain this to me because I just don't get it. So we'll see. Fear weakness in the Republican Party? Yeah, there's that. But I'm talking about the whole. Yeah, there's that. But the whole. Well, is it that or is it that people actually follow him? I mean, I think that there is a percentage of people who are true believers. Yeah. Like the people who go against him, like you're saying they're, they have no spine. Well, it's because that's where the attention is. And the people. No, it's who was in Marjorie Taylor Greene, she just had a 60-minute interview. And she's gone somewhat against him. Not some basic political views, but certainly on the Epstein business and on women in the Republican Party being marginalized. And she was asked, you know, the Republicans all line up in logstep. What goes on behind closed doors? And she goes, you can't believe it. They're just so frightened. And number one, they're frightened. And there are tons of Republicans saying, my God, are we really moving in this direction? But publicly, the president has to be backed up. Now, wait till the midterms. And you're going to see what happened with Joe Biden. Anybody who associated himself or herself with Joe Biden,

politically in the Democratic Party got nailed. And I believe the same thing is going to happen to Trump. And the longer the president says prices are down, prices are down, a plus plus plus economy. You guys don't know what you're talking about. If you think you're paying too much for meat, you're not. It's just not true because prices are down. He didn't say that about the meat. But he has said prices are down. And people just don't buy it because they're not buying. We'll see. And then the story I'm going to do later on about what happened with Fed chair, Jerome Powell. All right, let's, we have to do some more real quickly because I've been going off on my soapbox here. Can we skip to Neil's next story? Yeah, absolutely. Neil. All right, Star Wars. The original painting that we all feel in love with became the iconic movie poster 50 years ago. I sold at auction for 3.875 million, almost 4 million bucks. It's acrylic and airbrush painting. The movie poster designer, just brilliant, Tom Young. first appeared in newspaper advertisements back in May 13th of 1977, two weeks before the movie opened. This is one of a kind. This should be in the Smithsonian. Yeah, I agree. But when you can get $4 million for it, screw the Smithsonian. It belongs in a museum. There's some that do.

An AI ad is backfiring on McDonald's. McDonald's had to take down an AI-generated Christmas commercial from YouTube after some customers said the AI slop-filled tongue-in-cheek take on the holidays was just distasteful. The ad was titled, It's the Most Terrible Time of the Year. It showed a series of short, chaotic clips of people braving the winter, tripping while carrying overloaded gift bags, getting stuck in tangled lights. Burning homemade cookies and starting an unexpected cooking fire during a family gathering. That sounds normal. So what? I mean, that's, yeah, and that's cute. You know, and therefore he's going to McDonald's. So people are upset that it was AI. No actors were harmed in the making of that commercial. Very well said. Very well said. No fingers were actually burnt, right? Right. All right. We are done. By the way, Neil, did it look perfect? It was AI, but it looked excellent. Yeah. Okay. Here's the thing. Somebody knew what they're doing. You have to prompt. It's like a director. You're just not using actors. There are, there's actual humans interacting with it to get it to do that because it was very well done. It just, you know, turns people off right now. Fair enough. This is KFI AM 640. You've been listening to the Bill Handler Show. Catch my show Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and anytime on demand on the Iheart radio app. Saturday, July 25th. I know I will be the best welterweight in the world. An undefeated phenom. Bad man is a rising star. And a frightening force. What a win for Shemiel Musayev. Ascend on the nation's capital to fight for gold. Thad, the silverback jeans. Silverback nation makes them noise. Versus Shemil Mousayev. Oh, it's over! For the PFL welterweight world title. Saturday, July 25th and 10 p.m. Eastern on ESPN. Entertain clients, reward employees, or enjoy a first-class race weekend with VIR's premium MSA hospitality experiences. August 21st through 23rd, enjoy exclusive viewing areas, premium amenities, food and beverage options, and access that puts you close to the action. Whether for business or pleasure, elevate your weekend at Virginia International Raceway. Explore and upgrade your tickets at VIRVIP.net. Vital doesn't always mean visible. Across America, advanced technology is working behind the scenes, strengthening our nation. It protects our warfighters, advances life-saving healthcare, combat cyber threats, and defends the critical infrastructure that keeps our country moving. At GDIT, we power the systems that help America operate, connect, and stay secure. Every hour, every mission, every day. GDIT, behind America's invisible advantage.

If you're someone who's tracking your sleep, your steps, and your macros, then you already know that what you eat is kind of everything. You should also know that Sprouts Farmer's Market can help make eating for longevity easier. Sprouts has all the high-quality, nutrient-dense, organic foods and cutting-edge supplements you need. So whether you're focused on protein, gut health, or optimizing how you feel day-to-day, it's all there. And here's what no other grocery store can offer, an in-store wellness expert to help you find exactly what you need. So whether you're after longevity or on any other health journey, it's easier at Sprout's Farmer's Market.