The Joyce Kaufman Show 5/7/26 -Paul Renner joins the show! A study on Aging, President Biden involved in Jan 6 prosecutions, intelligence community downplaying China risk, Hantavirus and more

This is the Joyce Kaufman podcast, honest, straight, and unapologelic with your host, Joyce Kaufman. Good news and all that. Which one would you like first? No, no, no. I'm just kidding. All news is bad for the most part. I don't have any joyful things to report today. I do have some things that it's about time. I could use that as a caption. And that's important, you know, that things are moving, if not fast enough for my liking. At least they are moving. So when I see this study that they published today, and the headline, it was in one of these like, you know, science and wellness magazines, which I check in every now and again, why some people age faster. Financial stress may play a big role. is a 15-year study of more than 15,000 older adults. Look, growing old is unavoidable. Growing old and struggling to pay your heating or your air conditioning bill, having to skip meals or cut your medication pills in half. or worrying about something that's unexpected coming up and there's no there in the safety lane for you. A large study tracking these 15,000 older adults over nearly 15 years has found that everyday financial and social pressures are tied to a greater physical decline.

It contributes more to a physical decline than income or education alone. Because that used to be what I would think of if you'd say, well, how does it manifest itself? What ways has your physical decline? been most apparent and that you might possibly be able to control, I can always, you know, I was able my life to get the right education, to understand the things that I wanted to talk about. So, you know, that stuff I can control. I cannot control aging. So I'm trying to do this. relatively gracefully. And some days, yes, some days no. So researchers have developed what they call a later life precarity index. I can't. Who thinks of these things? Anyway, it's like a scorecard of the various risks and insecurities that pile up as people get older. And it covers everything from not having a steady financial. picture, you know, if your finances are unstable, that's not good. If you don't have a social security or a pension or something like that and you were, you know, determined that you would be able to survive on that money one day and you don't have it or you've not able to survive on that amount, then I'm betting. that you're going to have some physical issues. Because this study says the results are dramatic. And if you throw in the burden of caring for a sick loved one, which is a full-time job, actually it's like many full-time jobs, all rolled into one. And if that's in there, and look, most wives... end up taking care of a husband into their 80s and 90s, and they still are caregivers. People with substantially higher precarity scores, you know, they are obvious. Women between 50 and 80 wear you out. You get worn out by everything in life. So I don't know why I shared that with you because I don't want to be the only person who knows that, yes, some of my physical frailty, some of my lack of balance. I'm sure many of you have the same issue. It's not like the old days where, you know, I just spring up and I can walk in gravel pits and not fall down. No, now I can't get from the kitchen table to the sink to put my dish in there sometimes without literally falling over my own feet. Thank goodness, I'm a great faller. I don't know if that's a word, but I know how to fall. And I save my face first, my head, my brain, because that's kind of important. But if you have to spend a good deal of your time trying to figure out how you're going to pay your rent, you are going to have some physical issues. That's all I know. Food insecurity.

So now she has a boy and a girl. And while Marco Rubio is doing a nice job standing in for her, he has enough jobs, okay? And what we really want is her back. I think she has proven to be one of the best. And Donald Trump's been lucky in that area. Kaylee McEnany. He has definitely had some way above average or better than par. Press secretaries. So when you've got to have the Secretary of State stand in, you know, that's a pretty large position requires someone who can handle it. And thank goodness, you know, Marco Rubio seems to be able to handle everything. He's got a hundred different hats that he wears, and he seems to wear them all pretty well, which is nice, you know. But I want to know if... Evidence now is going to be made public because I haven't read the letter that Chuck Grassley and Johnson sent to Kash Patel and at the time, Pambandi. But according to that letter, they took their cell phones, the president and the vice president's cell phones, personal cell phones, because the White House. was able to, you know, through the White House counsel's office, they were able to get them because no prosecutor, not even a special prosecutor, would have had access like that. Certainly would have had to go through court. Nothing. Nothing. So I'm grateful that right now the DNI, the Tracy, Tulsi Gabbard, Tulsi Gabbard. She is also looking into evidence that Congress and President Trump were fed a lot of lies, not just about J6, but the evidence continues to stack up that the intel community used to downplay certain things when they were reporting them. For instance, China's actions in 2020 when Donald Trump was running for re-election in the second election. The fact that China had interfered with that election was only a couple of pundits, a couple of people on the radio thinking that out loud, but nobody really said it. Well, now... You know, Kelsey Tulsi Gabbard is going to do a deep dive into this. And along with CIA director, John Ratcliffe, they kept telling the public the White House at the time, really was complaining. They didn't think there was enough election security. Donald Trump was concerned about the election and they kept downplaying it and they kept saying, oh, Russian interference. There's Russian interference. But it wasn't Russian. It was China that was interfering with the election. They were giving us a false impression. Spy agencies were trying to alert.

The White House, but it was interfered with. Messages weren't even getting through to the administration. So now there's memos. And in one case, a whistleblower said that a CIA officer was asked to alter evidence of China meddling. Yeah. And that President Trump and the Congress were intentionally kept in the dark about the concerns and also concerns about Venezuela. And this is according to these now unclassified memos that John Solomon got his hands on. And the memos tell you quite clearly that... Tulsi Gabbard first learned about the evidence, because much of it is still classified, by the way, last year as part of a review that was being conducted by her now, they had a group called the Director's Initiative group, and that's been disbanded. So all this evidence was referred to the new Intelligence Committee. which is actually called the IC, the intelligence community. I don't think that sounds important enough. And the inspector general involved is Christopher Fox. So this could eventually lead to us, me and you, the ones who are supposed to be in charge, is the government by the people, for the people of the people. We should finally get public access. We should be able to see at least the declassified versions of some of this evidence. It's amazing to me how the intelligence community at the time was trying to bury evidence of Chinese government efforts to undermine Trump's candidacy. This is highly political and so wrong. You know, the National Intelligence Council. concluded in 2020 that China had hacked or gained access to several state voter registration databases. But that information was hidden from us. And it was hidden from the state election officials and it was hidden from Congress. I know they were going to hide it from Donald Trump. That went without saying. But all these others? The new memos that were just reviewed by John Solomon at Just the News. say that China may have gained access to between 12 and 18 states voter registration databases in 2020 alone. That's a far larger infiltration than anybody has even ever suspected. How about that? And they also chronicle efforts to suppress the extent of China's malicious activities. Not just election related. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is currently in possession of allegations made by one or more intelligence officers arguing that foreign interference efforts by China were de-emphasized, deliberately, or omitted entirely from the analytic assessments that were, you know, that's what the president gets in the daily brief. Hidden from him, hidden from congressional oversight.

Come on, man. It's about time that they are shining a light on these cockroaches because that's what they are. And Tulsi Gabbard's the right girl for the job. That's all I'm going to say, right? woman for the job. Don't forget to download that 850 WFTL app and put on your phone, your laptop, wherever. You can listen to podcasts and all breaking news there, and you can participate in any contest that are going on. Let me take a quick break. I will be talking in the, not this segment, the one after with Paul Renner. He's got another interesting thing. I like the guy, and he wants to talk to the public. And with me, that makes him ace number one. We'll be right back. My friend Tracy said there, you get rewarded when you listen on that app that I'm always asking you to download. And even know you get rewarded just for listening. But you do. Chief Justice John Roberts said something very interesting yesterday. He was speaking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. It was some kind of conference. And... Chief John Roberts said that it might be time for the Supremes to reconsider the way they are handling the caseload. Because right now, they have this oral argument format. And it has ended up in the last couple of years just becoming so unbelievably lengthy. Sometimes you can have an oral argument which are scheduled for one hour, 60 minutes, and they're all running overtime. He said, I think it has blown up a little bit. It's too long, he said, referring to the court's questioning process. I think we'll have to look at it over the summer. And he did say that any changes would be made collaboratively with the other justices rather than his, he's not just going to impose them. ostensibly he has the right to do that he you know the comments though point to the fact that the court over, you know, they just have been taking way too long to come up with decisions, but it's because the whole process is so slowed down. Before the pandemic, oral arguments were, you know, they were like rapid fire exchanges. I was there at one of the Supreme Court. hearings on Fain Lozman's case, and I got to see that, and it was fast. You know, the rapid fire questions, rapid fire answers, and the justices would interrupt attorneys, and they'd interrupt one another. I watched, you know, a judge, Ruth Bader Ginsburg interrupt, I think it was Breyer. It was amazing.

And that was when the court had to shift after that to remote hearings in 2020 because of COVID, they had a much more structured format put in place. And each justice had an uninterrupted opportunity to question lawyers in order of seniority. So the oldest would start and they'd work their way down. And although the court has returned to in-person sessions, much of that structure still remained in place, the COVID-era structure. And the result is that you have significantly longer hearings with some major cases stretching well beyond that one-hour limit. And the court is good. They've got to seek a balance between legal examination being thorough and maintaining concise and focused arguments. Because legal analysts have noted that while it's thorough and maintaining concise and focused arguments. Because legal analysts have noted that while extended questioning can help maybe clarify complex constitutional issues, it can also. produce repetitive exchanges and diminish the efficiency of these proceedings. And a lot of them are not juniors anymore. They're all seniors. And even maintaining attention is more difficult as we age. And certainly having things go longer is not advantageous at the Supreme Court. Not a bit. You know what? I ran a little late in that last segment. I do have a guest coming up shortly. So let me take this break right on time. And when we come back, after I speak with Speaker Renner, I want to talk about this judge that... I don't know. There is a good case for impeachment. We haven't really seen that since I'll see what I can steal Hastings was in office, but I think we may be coming up with such a thing now. Stay right where you are. I'll be right back. All right. I'm sorry. Welcome back to the program. I have just been, unfortunately, wrestling with some technological issues, but we are all right now. Paul Renner is my guest. I've always referred to him as Speaker Renner because he was the former Speaker of the Florida House and did a heck of a good job. But now he's running for the governor's seat. And I obviously have taken a particular liking. to this candidate. And you know how I am when it's primary season. I try to keep my nose out of it as much as possible. But I haven't felt the need to do that in this case. I think this race has been lopsided from the very beginning and that people are not paying as much attention to it as they should. And I'm all about...

leadership qualities. And I, you know, Paul Renner has the qualities that I'd be looking for in a governor. So pretty early on, I've given him an ample opportunity to talk on this program. And I have a question for you, Speaker Renner, because apparently all the governor gubernatorial candidates are being asked, are you for the recreational use of marijuana? When did that become an issue? I don't know, but the answer is no. And I supported the opposition to that in 2024 and would support it again and campaign against it. Should it come again? Yeah, it just seems like it came out of left field that there's so much talk about it. I mean, we have medical marijuana. I presume that that's okay with you. Yeah, I mean, it's in the Constitution. If you want it, you can get it. There's a smokable version of it. It's really, there's really just not a lot left there unless we want to really empower big cartels of marijuana growers to have enormous political power, much like you see in Colorado, much like you'd see with casinos in Nevada that run Las Vegas, run that state. I just think it's a bad idea. And, you know, let's leave it the way we have it and not expand it. Anything Goes. It actually wasn't anything goes. It was really you had to go by from the cartel. You know, if you were a libertarian wanted to grow it in your backyard, it's illegal under their amendments. So it was really kind of a gross money grab by the big pot companies. And that's what you'll get again if they bring that back. Oh, I agree. You know when you see the amount of money spent lobbying in D.C. on this issue that it's going to be corrupt. from the top to the bottom or the other way around. All right, good. Now I have you on the record. Let's hope that nobody continues asking these silly questions. But I have something else to talk to you about. I have so many of my listeners and just the general public who I speak to on a regular basis. Affordability isn't a Democrat issue. It's a huge issue for all Americans. And I feel as though the Republican Party is behind the eight ball on this one. What can we do? What would you do to help Florida families? They're struggling. Well, you can add another difference between me and my opponent. Good leaders listen, and I'm listening. And you're absolutely right. And some of these conversations are hard to have. I was with... Peggy, a lady by the name of Peggy in Tampa yesterday, who has lived here for 30 years. She and her husband are on Social Security and fixed income. They were teachers and small pension or what have you. And they're considering moving to North Dakota where they have some family.

because it simply can't afford the taxes, the insurance, the electric bills, the cost that has really just skyrocketed here and Florida. We've been victims of our success, and so my number one day priority when I get into office is to bring those things down, our taxes, insurance, electric bills. I've got plans for all three, and now we're going to get after it, and I've got the receipts to prove that I can take on big problems like this and solve them, and that's exactly what we're going to do. Yeah, because, you know, you mentioned utility bills. They're literally just choking people all over the country. And I think when people think about heating, they don't think about Florida. But we run our air conditions 12 months a year. We have high utility bills just like people who live in seasonal temperatures. Yeah, maybe even more so than some of those folks up north. We're big users because of the heat. And what we have in our system, you know, the companies are highly regulated and the way the regulation and the business model works is they get paid based on how much they spend to generate power. And it's a perverse incentive that would make them spend so they can make more. And so they're spending on, for example... solar, these massive solar farms you see that are gobbling up farmland in Florida and making land prices even more expensive, which compared to natural gas, coal, nuclear, other forms of energy is not as efficient in total when you count in the batteries that have to store that power. So we're paying more to build all those solar farms. than we should. We're relying on China because 85, 90% of solar panels and solar equipment batteries and support lithium ion batteries come from China. They dominate the market clearly. And it's not as reliable because it's not available 24-7. You've got to store that power. And the peak sunshine periods are, you know, a small part of the daytime, much less the nighttime when it's not shining at all. It really is not the way to go to have a balanced and reliable grid. And that last piece of reliability is a real concern. Because we saw it during the cold snap where people, Duke came out and said, hey, don't use your power, reduce your power between 5 and 10 a.m. Well, I got two young kids and it's 20 degrees outside. What am I supposed to do? So if that's where we are, that means we shouldn't be continuing to invest in solar only, which is what they've been doing. And we should certainly avoid these AI data centers and these big, huge consumers of electricity. Well, I agree, and you and I have talked about that before. I was just reading an article that apparently they've discovered a whole lot of, you know, lithium. Whoops, I got a live computer here. Anyway, that they found a whole lot of lithium in Appalachia, and it just takes too much time to get it on.

like 29 years because of all the regulations to get a mine started and into operation. And so we're dependent on China for lithium. And I don't think that's a good idea. No, it's not a good idea. And in fact, you know, they have our intelligence agencies from somebody that I've talked, I consult with it that knows a lot about power and has spent his whole career in it, that they brought over one of the transformers that China had sold to us and it had a kill switch in it. So in a hot war, they could literally just say lights off and kill our electricity. And so same is probably true for our solar panels where they put little hidden devices in there to compromise. our ability to keep our lights on literally. And without energy, we have no national security. And so it's important that we never, ever, ever depend on China or any other foreign adversary for anything, especially our energy. Right. And there again, it's this insane regulation. I think it's an Obama era, probably something to do with the environment, that has made it prohibitive for us to even access what's underneath a number of states. So that's something that... Governors, individual governors, have to place pressure. We need you when you have the opportunity to tell our congressmen, senators, that this is an issue that's important to us. You know, I see how much sway governors have these days. Lots of times they're meeting in Washington with the president who seems to have a tremendous respect for those of you that are able to administrate. You know, and that's what a governor does. It's not, it's a different office than the ones that you've held before. Right. No, it's a big leadership role. And again, you pointed it out at the beginning is 20 years in the military. I served in two wars. Was a prosecutor there in Broward County. Just leadership under pressure throughout my life and positions of trust. And, of course, is the leader in the legislature through two of the most consequential years we've ever had in Florida. That's what the governor, Ron DeSantis has said about it while I led the legislature. It's important we have somebody in that very, very important role who knows something about leadership, who can get results done, who has a bold vision for eliminating property taxes and getting after sex trafficking and, you know, stopping AI data centers and lowering costs, all these things we're talking about and have talked about on your show, and he's going to show up to the fight and win the fight. And there's nobody else in this race that comes close.

We are getting continued momentum as we go around the state, and I hope your listeners will be supporting us and going to Votrenner.com to volunteer and help us out. Absolutely. And as I said earlier in my introduction when you were coming on the show. I usually stay far away from primaries because that's really, I think, an opportunity for everybody to vet candidates. But I have never seen what I think is a lack of interest in this race. It's almost as if the media doesn't find anything sexy enough about the race. And I'm concerned. I need to know that the media is covering the candidates fairly. and not, you know, it's all now a popularity contest, and that's not what leadership is all about. So you know you're always welcome on this program anytime. Well, thank you very much, Joyce. It's always a pleasure. I appreciate it. All right, thank you. And listen, we've got to take a quick break right now. But this guy has spent his life defending freedom. I mean, he was like a mind destruction guy in Operation Desert Storm. He was in Afghanistan and his former assistant state attorney, Speaker of the House. It's time to start paying attention to this race. I'm really distressed that I have people asking me the silliest questions about this race. It's almost as if they thought that the primary had already taken place. Well, no, it hasn't. And you are going to have to get out and vote. That's the truth. I won't tell you who to vote for, but if people don't want to appear on this show or don't take time to come on this show, then you're going to, you know, you have to dismiss them. Why wouldn't they come on? All right. Let me take a quick break. You stay right where you are. So now we find that two Texans and one Virginian, do we call them Virginians? Yes, are being monitored after being identified as passengers throughout the cruise ship. that had the incidents of the fatal Hanta virus outbreak. And these tourists were aboard the M.V. Hundius when the sickness broke out last month, and they got back to the States before anybody knew that that's what it was. And they don't have any symptoms. They're being monitored. Because right away, you know. First and foremost, Haanta virus spreads much more easily than people think. I remember the last time I heard anything about hauntar virus was that's what the wife of Gene Hackman ended up having died from. And who knows how long she was dead before Gene Hackman died. And so... At the time, I was reading a little bit about Hunter virus, but you don't really, it's not one of these things that you spend a lot of time worrying about. Well, guess what? We should be worrying about these things because I don't know about the rest of you, but the last time we had a pandemic, everything went haywire. You know, somebody from Holland got sick on that cruise and died on April 11th.

He only had a couple of days of being sick, and then his wife died two days later. And that's what they say, that the symptoms from hanta virus, they typically show between one and six, seven, eight weeks after exposure. So this was a Dutch ship. So we're seeing predominantly the people that were on this ship were from Holland or parts of... You know, apparently a lot of people on there were from Argentina. And the Argentine governments, they're telling everybody, their hypothesis, is that the Dutch couple had actually gotten the hunter virus during a birdwatching outing at a garbage dump in Argentina, where the ship had left on April 1st. Texas Authority said contracting the hunter virus typically required close, prolonged contact with a person who is actively sick with the disease. It is not known to spread through casual contact, such as shaking hands or being in the same room for a few minutes. And there have been no documented cases where someone spread it to somebody else without symptoms. Usually you do see the symptoms. Americans got off that ship on the island of St. Helena, and it was about a week or two weeks after the first death on board. And the CDC said that this was yesterday, that both it and the State Department were monitoring the status of these passengers, these U.S. citizens. The Department of State is leading a coordinated whole of government response, including they made direct contact with passengers and they have diplomatic coordination and I need Marco Rubio needs he had another job. Now he's got to be a health director. Officials have confirmed that two people in Georgia and one person in Arizona and an unspecified number of people in California are being monitored. The Georgia Department of Public Health said the agency was monitoring two residents but didn't say where in the state they were located or how long they'll remain under monitoring. And Canadian authorities said three individuals they're monitoring. Now, it's apparently spreading around the world. When was the last time we saw something like this? Yep. And I don't know about the rest of you, but we must refuse to comply. That's all I'm going to say. I'm already hearing this, you know, masks and stay out of, you know, indoor gatherings of more than X, Y, Z people. I will never do that again. I really, I just, I am still so angry. at not just our government, but at the world. And all of these health officials and the United Nations and everybody else who raised such a ruckus over the virus that they literally impacted the futures of entire generations of people.

Look, I'm not going to sit and weep over somebody who didn't get to go to the prom, although I think that's a substantial, you know, mistake that we made. But I am noticing that we have an alarming rate of young children, you know, the pre-K through K group. who were deprived of, you know, a lot of normal interaction because of the insanity that Dr. Anthony Fauci and the rest of them imposed. And Donald Trump doesn't get a pass on this one either. I know they were all trying to do the right thing. Well, I don't think Anthony Fauci was trying to do the right thing, but I think certainly most of the leaders and Donald Trump being one of the world leaders, they didn't know. And they figured we better err on the side of caution. This is looking like a pandemic. And we are looking totally unprepared was what it looked like. And so they went to extraordinary lengths and they insisted we do extraordinary things and treat everybody the same. Even though we quickly found out within two or three months, people like me were reporting that this was dangerous for old people. It was dangerous for sick people, you know, people with chronic conditions. But it wasn't dangerous for children. And the shutting children out of life the way we did didn't only impact their emotional and intelligent. You know, it was more than they missed out on socializing. Some of them didn't get to see grandparents. And those grandparents may have, you know, died during that period of time. Some of these kids really missed out on so much normalcy. that I'm still pretty angry about it. And every time I hear someone raise the specter of a pandemic or some chronic thing that's ripping through the world, because that's how they get you every time. Oh, it's not just here. It's in South America. It's in Europe. It's in, you know, they'll find every place that there's an individual. And then it'll become a pandemic. And before we know it, they want you to wear masks. I was laughing the other day. I found a box of disposable masks. Don't ask me. They were in the bottom of a trunk, a trunk that I keep seasonal garb in, you know, so it was something that I really just don't go into that often. And at the bottom of this box was a box, at the bottom of this trunk, was a box of disposable face masks. And I took one out and I held it in my hand and I thought, It was as bad as they were trying to convince us it was. If it really were the pandemic to end all pandemics, this mask wasn't going to protect me, you know? And the fact that we walked around with cloth masks, the same one for like, you know, three months or it was just think about all of the insanity that we tolerated and that we accepted. And worst of all was the fact that it really, I think, was it.

A dry run of sorts. Just how far can you go in controlling people's lives? Terrible, really. I just never want to see that again. So. Don't forget coming up after me is the one and only Guy Benson. He'll be followed by Will Kane and then it's Joe Pags, Lars Larson, the overnight guys. 6 a.m., Jennifer Ross and Stephen Deiner will be back with the South Florida Morning Show. My plan is to be back here at 3 o'clock if it be his will and he delays his coming. Remember what lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. So wherever you are, just be yourself. everybody else is taken. And then may God bless you. May God bless Israel and may God bless the USA. I'll see you all back here tomorrow. This has been the Joyce Kaufman podcast. Available everywhere you get your podcasts.