The Joyce Kaufman Show 3/23/26 - TSA shortages and chaos at the airports, The war in the Middle East, College basketball, Maxine Waters, Robert Mueller

This is the Joyce Kaufman podcast, honest, straight, and unapologelic with your host, Joyce Kaufman. Well, all I can say is the weekend was wonderful, but it's Monday. And everything that could possibly go wrong in the world is going wrong. No, I shouldn't say that. But the weekend wasn't long enough. How about that? I know many of you probably feel the same way. Had a nice peaceful weekend. It was my husband's birthday. I tried to make it a pleasant weekend for him, and I was successful. And then Monday came. Actually, it really started to go downhill by the middle of yesterday. His birthday started out great. But so be it. Do you realize that in Kentucky, you can go through four seasons in 24 hours? Really? Like, there could be snow on the ground at 6 o'clock in the morning, and it could be 80 degrees by 2.30 in the afternoon. I just have never experienced this kind of weather before. It's hard to get used to, hard to figure out. You wake up in the morning and you're thinking, oh, this is going to be a glorious day. The sky is blue and the sun is shining. And then by, I don't know, mid afternoon, it's 32 degrees. But again, you know, these are things that when I complain about them, I feel guilty because nobody's got it better than me. And that's just... the truth. So I should be much more grateful and thankful than I am today. So let's work on that together, you and me. My audience is always good at making me see things more realistically than I am on left of my own devices. Boy, I'll tell you. I don't know half of the celebrities that are out there in the world, and I'm glad I don't. Because I read these stories about these celebrities, and I happen to know that my granddaughter, Nixie, who just celebrated her 10th birthday, is a big fan of some singer who goes by the name of Chapel Rhone. First and foremost, that's an odd name, but okay, probably isn't her real name. And it's, I guess, is nice a name as anything else. But then I find out that apparently she made an 11-year-old kid cry. Yeah, just go figure this out. Days after the endorsement... For the person to fill Nancy Pelosi's seat, I guess I'm really trying to figure this out, it's the former chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a person by the name of Sycat Chakrabardi. I don't even know if that's a male or a female.

I probably should know these things, but I don't. Anyway, I'm just, I'm stunned that this person earned the endorsement of a drag queen by the name of Peaches Christ. So you get my drift? I don't know who these people are. I really don't. And I certainly... I don't know much about this Rhone Chapel, except that my granddaughter, I have a photograph of her wearing a Rhone Chapel fan shirt, T-shirt. And this Rhone Chapel apparently made some 11-year-old kid cry. You just, you can't figure any of this stuff out. I don't. I don't try anymore. I'm lucky if I can. realize which stories are true and which aren't. Like, did the restaurant really throw the governor of Arkansas, Sarah Mike Huckabee Bernie Sanders, out of the restaurant, with employees giving her the middle finger as she left, or did that not happen? Who are you going to believe? I remember when she got thrown out of the red hen. which I believe was in Virginia when she was the press secretary for Donald Trump, which resulted in the red hen, you know, not surviving. Now, I don't know if it didn't survive because of COVID or because of the way they treated Sarah Mike Huckabee Bernie Sanders, but this idea that employees in a restaurant, if they don't like the politics of the person who comes in. have the ability to have them thrown out of the restaurant? Like, that's just crazy to me. For the most part, all of these politicians and political pundits shouldn't be celebrities and shouldn't be treated like celebrities. And I guess maybe in the future, if you are a member of the Republican Party, you better plan on dining out only in restaurants that welcome you, which is crazy. But then again, it seems like that's where we're going. Now, I saw this horrific news story when I woke up this morning of a plane that apparently crashed into a fire truck. And this was at a major, probably one of the most major, you know, airports in the country. And of course, immediately you're trying to figure out, was this a result of TSA? But no, at LaGuardia Airport this morning, this Air Canada jet hit the fire truck. The two people in the cockpit, the pilots were killed, 41 people injured. And you listen to this video where the person in the control tower is first gives clearance and then is screaming stop, stop, stop, and actually admits on the audio tape having made a mistake. So you have control tower chaos at Newark, six-hour TSA lines in Atlanta.

And our politicians are still playing games with TSA. I don't get it. I really am having a hard time understanding how they can go back to their constituents and say this was okay. And then, of course, I didn't even get to the idea that the president told the... Ayatollahs or whoever is in charge in Iran, I don't think anybody even knows who's in charge anymore, told them that they better free up the Strait of Hormuz or he's going to start taking down power plants, starting with the biggest one. But then today, he reverses that and says, no, we're actually making progress. And I don't know who to believe. I certainly can't believe all the reporters that's coming out. especially when you hear things like the reporter saying, well, it's really not that bad because, of course, the narrative that reporters want about TSA is that it's not as bad and only because the Republicans are trying to upset the public. Are we saying it's that bad? And then you look at a line, a TSA line in the Atlanta airport, which is one of the biggest airports in the country, a big hub. And the line... is wrapped not just around baggage claim, but it's wrapped around the outside of the building. People that waited in line for six hours last night and still missed their flights. How much longer are they going to tolerate that? How much longer are we going to tolerate that is really the question? This is just so out of hand already. The idea that our elected representatives could care less what kind of pain we happen to be going through because of their political fight, because that's what it is at this point. It's a political fight. And they don't care. It's a particular time of year where there's lots of travel. And yet... There's not a lot of travel going on in some of these airports around the country. And the only headlines that I can read in the major news aggregate sites is Trump approval down to 34%. Well, particularly if you're going to showcase every negative story and make it look like they're not even negative. I just don't get it. TSA lines. are outrageous. March 27th looks like a make or break day for travelers. And that's where, you know, if you're an American and you had plans, I would seriously consider changing your plans. And by changing, I mean cancel.

Because who knows? I was just faced with having to make a decision as to whether I would be flying into the exact airport where you saw this crash take place, LaGuardia, this week, to fulfill an obligation, I'd have to be out of my mind. At this point, only life and death. wouldn't allow me to go to an airport of that size when I know that it's a total mess. But hey, don't worry, we're paying these guys close to $200,000 a year to make sure that we are going to have access to an airplane ride, but we're not. Ice agents have arrived. Now, I feel some kind of way about that. They're showing up at U.S. airports to help the TSA. Imagine. This is where we are today. And you would think that one man, Donald J. Trump, is responsible for every catastrophic decision that Congress has been making in the last. Four weeks now, amid this partial shutdown. I have no idea how it's affected the Coast Guard, but it has. We can see how it's affecting the TSA. I, you know, I just, I sit here and scratch my head because, again, I can't even trust the news reporting. I really can't. I had no idea what was the cause of this crash. And I still don't know. And I've checked nine different news sites. And I've seen three different versions of how this could happen. And none of them implicated the TSA. Okay. Let me take a quick break. Don't forget to download that 850 app. You can put it on your cell phone, your laptop, wherever. And that way, you would have podcasts. By the way, my podcast is not up yet. So don't look for it. I'll get it up as soon as I can. But that's probably not going to be today. It'll probably be tomorrow. So don't get excited. You still need that app. 850WFTL.com is our website. You can go there as well and check out all of the latest news. Let me take this quick break. I'll be right back. We do have a breaking news story. There's a helicopter that crashed in Boynton Beach, but we don't have all the details yet. So we'll keep looking for them, and I'll let you know. It happens, apparently it happened about two hours ago. A Robinson R44 helicopter crashed into a building in Boynton Beach, Florida, around 1230. Two people were on board. The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation. At the time of the crash, it crashed into a warehouse, apparently, and the warehouse was vacant.

There were workers there, but they were none inside. So we'll find out. They haven't updated the story yet where I could see it. But this is the stuff that's happening all around us. Every time I turn around, I see that I'm missing the next big story. I couldn't possibly keep up with everything. Now, for instance, you have a headline story. This I saw first yesterday, and then I saw it again today, about a Christopher Columbus statue that was crafted out of a Christopher Columbus statue that was torn down during those days when we were tearing down all these statues, not we, but the protesters were. Somehow that story appeared irrelevant to me. In light of everything else that's going on. TSA lines, that's a serious problem. Now, am I angry with the TSA agents that are not showing up to work? Not one bid. How could you expect them to show up? Am I grateful that ICE agents have started arriving at some of these airports? Yes. But watch and see how this turns into yet another story of bad ice. Ice is no good. We don't want ice there. It's going to make it worse for travelers, even though you couldn't possibly tell me that idea. And the reason that Donald Trump actually decided to do this. was a caller on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show said, I think I have a solution to the TSA problem. We need to bring in ICE agents. And Clay Travis said, I think that's kind of a brilliant idea. And then the next thing we know, President Trump is buying into that. He pitched the idea. Travis pitched the idea. on one of Donald Trump's favorite Fox News shows. And, uh, okay, I don't care where he got the idea. It's a good idea. During a Monday morning press gaggle, when he was asked whose idea it was to deploy ice to airports, Trump told CNN's Caitlin Susan Collins mine. That was mine. Who cares whose idea it was? It was a good idea. On Saturday, the Travis and Sexton show's Facebook page touted its influence. President Trump took the advice, way to go, Linda, if it was Linda, was the caller. You know, radio show callers are usually identified by their first name and state, so we have no idea who Linda in Arizona is. But she may ultimately get some credit. You never know. I think it's a... I think it's a great idea, first and foremost. Although every time we put together these hasty ideas that we think are going to be great and do the job, the rushing of something as major as airport security, you have to take a deep breath. You want TSA agents back on the job. Don't ease the pressure too much.

So that maybe congressmen and Congress, you know, the aides to these congresspersons will apply some pressure. Because you don't want ICE agents becoming a distraction in an already tense situation. You know, first and foremost, they're not going to be there to do immigration enforcement. But that's what they're trained to do. And that's, you know, that's, we've had enough problems with ice. I do like the idea, though, of putting Tom Homan in charge of the TSA problem right now. You know how Tom is so good at quieting storms. A lot of stuff going on. You know, I've been complaining the last year and a half about the Heritage Foundation, who I've leaned heavily on for experts over the last, I don't know, 15, 20 years. And now there's a whole lot of stuff going on there that I can't, I can't figure out. I really can't. I'm looking at basically a heritage standoff these days. And Mike Pence, of all people, involved in this. We do have a new top prosecutor being named to replace Alina Habba. Remember, they ruined that appointment by Donald Trump. And so we'll find out who that is soon. But again, I love when I get a breaking news headline from the Hill of all the publications telling me, oh, the new prosecutor being announced and then they don't announce it. Coming soon, new federal prosecutor in New Jersey to be announced. Well, then why send out anything until you have the information? Robert Frazier? Is the name? He's a career prosecutor, been in the office for 20 years, was tapped to lead the office by district judges, and the Justice Department confirmed the appointment in court filings just now. All right, well, we don't know. Alina Habba said it was a good pick. said that New Jersey deserves a great chief federal law enforcement official, and he is just such a person. You know, I was reading an article, and I have to share the thought behind this article with you. And we use the expression all the time, freedom isn't free. But one thing we know is that people like you and I, we pay our taxes. And when I hear that expression, freedom isn't free. I'm reminded of the fact that the only thing I feel good about when I pay my taxes is that government will strive at all levels to protect and defend, not just the Constitution, but the citizens of this country, regardless of where they are on planet Earth. Because in today's world, our country,

You know, we pay not just in blood and treasure. Right now, you look at Iran who's been responsible for death and instability throughout the Middle East and disruption of the world economy with a single goal to spread radical Islamism across the world by force. You know, you either convert or you die. And we've seen these kinds of initiatives before, in Russia, in Germany, in Japan. But as terrible as those tyrants were, they're nothing compared with the brutality of the Iranian regime, the radicals in Iran, who for almost 50 years have waged a quiet war on Western civilization. Quiet because its attacks are relatively infrequent, allows the world to forget the horror. Quiet because the attacks are mainly on Israel. And you're not going to get a fair shake when you're reporting anything about Israel. Quiet, because the attacks are mainly on Israel. And you're not going to get a fair shake when you're reporting anything about Israel. So with the rise of the mullahs after the removal of the Shah, there has been a steady, ever-threatening and deadly civilizational battle between the West and these religious zealots. Because there are two Iran's. The Iranian people are brilliant and proud and generally peace-loving. But then there's the bloodthirsty group of thugs. You know, the former, the Iranian people believe that life is precious and should be protected, but the latter hopes they get killed in battle. They think that's the only way they get to go to paradise, which is not the way I would define them. They're like humanoid warriors with no sense of personal survival. They're willingly blow themselves up to the glory of Allah. They'll blow up their children. Instinctively, they hate Jews like the Nazis did, but with way more intensity and a religious fervor. Then they extend their hatred to all non-believers. When they say things like little Satan and big Satan, we're all infidels, and therefore we all have to be exterminated. And the Europeans, they cower because they don't want to get swept into this ring of death. That's a quiet enemy that the whole world is facing, and that's the quiet war that they're waging against us. Soon enough, we'll all be infidels and targets of their rage. And then the worst part is that, you know, their goal of wiping out Western civilization is backed up by abundant oil that they sell to the world. And for over 50 years, they've been building thousands of missiles and exporting them to all their proxies who, you know, have missiles that could reach Europe. which is why I believe Europe has caved more than anyone. But now there's a long-range missile that can reach anywhere on Earth. And once they have a nuclear bomb, they will put it on that long-range missile. And they will use that threat to intimidate us. So it'll be radical Islam for all or die.

This is a grave threat. So when I get told by Joe Kent or anybody else that there's not an imminent threat, I cringe. The deals just delay the inevitable. And the bribes, when we gave them, you know, pallets of money, they just delay the inevitable. And they actually accelerated their nuclear ambition. The long-range missile was tested last year with a flight landing in Siberia. So is our homeland threatened? Absolutely yes. So here we are in Epic Fury. Our military, along with Israel, is engaged in a biblical battle. And the stakes are high. The West has to win. And I guess Americans really are not feeling the violence that Israel is feeling because missiles aren't raining down on us yet. So we feel high prices at the pump and panic. I don't know, no matter what you're hearing from the media, we have to win this war. Think of that when you're filling your tank at the gas station and you get shocked by your bill or your electric bill. It's a small sacrifice for an enduring freedom. Freedom isn't free. This is the cost of freedom. And you know what? I will gladly bear it. All right. Stay right where you are. I've got to take a quick break, and then I'll be right back. You know what's really strange? Most of you know that I, the one thing I still am very interested in, is basketball, and in particular college basketball. So for me, you know, this is the greatest month of the year, March Madness, right? And I can't even focus on it. It seems so irrelevant with everything that's going on. Like I tried. I watched a couple of games over the weekend, and, you know, now we have the Sweet 16. We know who they are. There are nothing but Power 5 programs involved, which is a frequent complaint about March Madness. Less mad. You know, there were a couple of buzzer-beaters and shocking results, and there are definitely some great players out there. But we don't have a Chattanooga or a northern Iowa or a St. Peter's. We do have Iowa and Texas and also Nebraska winning two more games in a weekend than in 85 previous NCAA tournaments. So, yeah, the teams at the top and the bottom of this ranking of the Sweet 16 in terms of ability to win the championship based on the qualities that typically form such a team are familiar. I guess we could still be surprised, but somehow I just can't, you know, it's Arizona, it's Michigan, it's Duke, it's Houston, you know, it's just not, I'm not as excited as I want to be. Because I could use something besides politics to think about. I'm sure you could do. Like I was looking at the Supreme Court dockets the other day because I like to go to the SCOTUS website, right?

But that makes perfect sense. Gorsuch, on the other hand, he sat out on this Glyn Environmental Coalition versus the Sea Island Acquisition, where some environmental groups asked the court to review a decision by the 11th Circuit that applied the court's 2023 ruling in another case in the EPA was involved in. And the case involved wetlands on St. Simon's Island, which is in Georgia, and raised questions about the scope of federal jurisdiction over waters of the U.S. What does that sound familiar? Like maybe Fain Lozman's case. But it's unclear why he didn't take part in that case and no publicly documented financial conflict or he wasn't involved in any prior judicial case. And he doesn't have a clear pattern of sitting out other cases. So we may never know. The Supreme Court is not bound by the same enforcement mechanisms that apply to lower federal judges, because in the lower federal court, justices, they can decide when to recuse themselves, but they have to explain what the conflict is. Not so at the Supreme Court. But see, that kind of stuff is fascinating to me, and I'd rather be spending my time looking at that than looking at some of this insanity. that I'm forced to. And boy, is there a lot of insanity. I mean, there's nobody going to sit out here today and tell me that you don't agree that you're unclear and certainly not comfortable. I'm not comfortable reporting stories that don't look as though they've been researched at all. You got these aggregate websites, and there are tons of them. You know, in the old days, where they were like CNN, Reuters, ABC, CBS, and then maybe you had NPR would jump in, and the Drudge Report, which at the time, back then 15 years ago, was a conservative alternative. Now, There are dozens of aggregate websites, and I can't figure out what the criteria is for reporting a story. I really can't. Because they would give as much time and energy to a story about, I don't know, Bill Cosby losing a sex assault lawsuit. Like, are we still talking about that stuff? Or the four or five richest people who have waterfront estates in Miami? Can we really afford to care about that as a news story? I'd rather hear about the four Jewish ambulances that were set on fire outside of London synagogues in what can only be called an anti-Semitic hate crime, right?

But no, that's not a story except a small, I think it was a small story I read in the New York Post. Four ambulances that belonged to a Jewish volunteer group and were parked by a London synagogue were set on fire. And an Iranian-backed militant group is claiming responsibility for the attacks. Did you hear about that? No. Was it reported by CNN or ABC or even Fox? Not that I heard. The terror organization, Ashab al-Yamin, the people of the right in Arabic, admitted responsibility in a video. It created, and now you've got the United Kingdom's terror, counter-terror cops, are investigating this. Could you come up with a better explanation for four? Ambulances belonging to a Jewish community being lit on fire? Man, get out of London. Get out of England. That's all. This has gotten to the point where there are a lot of not safe cities anymore for Jews to be sitting in. This feels awful. You don't have to be Jewish to feel pretty terrible about this. But again, that wasn't a major news story. Instead, you know, I'm reading news stories about, and believe me, I like Celine Dion and I've been curious about how she's doing. But somebody explained to me why at age 87, Maxine Waters is still a mouthpiece for the Democrat Party. Anti-Maxine. That's what the young progressives... call her, she won them over in the first Trump administration, but that was eight years ago. If the committee, the House Financial Services Committee that she sat on during the first Trump administration, if she ends up, if let's say the Democrats win a majority in November, she would be the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee again. Okay, at age, what is she, 87? She's plotting her political comeback at 87. That would make, she'd be the oldest leader in the history of that committee. In a time when that committee has to deal with things like cryptocurrency, when the Democrat Party is looking to ramp up. The oversight of this president, Donald Trump, of his family businesses and all these Wall Street regulations. And nobody wants to cross this woman. She's got the backing of all the senior Democrats on the panel. They want her leading the fights on the economy in the next election. And she said in an interview, if you take a look at my energy and what I do, I'm anti-Maxine. I'm the one who popularized reclaiming my time. I don't know who's got more energy or more concerned. And so Maxine Waters is doing all right. I'm telling you, she's got a point. You know, Donald Trump's old too. Some people stay very active. I remember.

A man who passed away about two years ago, Charlie Munger, from Munger Tolson Olson. My son worked for that firm. He's Warren Buffett's partner in Berkshire Hathaway. He was like in his 90s and still sharp as attack. But certainly, that's not usual. She hasn't shown any public signs of deterioration. Everybody says that she's sharp and she's engaged behind the scenes. But that's what they told me about Joe Biden, too. So who knows? Who knows what to believe? Gregory Meeks of New York said she hasn't lost this step and she's on top of her game. Hey, I'm 10 years younger than her. And I would more than 10 years younger than her. And I would not want to chair a committee of that magnitude. Anyway, don't forget coming up after me is the one and only Guy Benson, followed by Will Kane, and then it's Joe Pags, Lars Larson, the overnight guys until 6 a.m. when Jennifer Ross and Stephen Deiner come back with the South Florida Morning Show, followed at 9 by Brian Kilmeade at noon by Eric Erickson, and I get to come back at 3 o'clock. But I, I still have a segment left in today's show. So if you want to hear the news, you won't hear anywhere else. Stay right where you are. You know, I'd much rather have updates, to be honest, on this Guthrie kidnapping, if that's what it was. I mean, what the heck? This is crazy. She finally, you know, is making signs that she's going to go back to work, Savannah Guthrie. But she dropped a forward message. about her mother who's been missing for two months. She's been amplifying requests to help her and the authorities to find her 84-year-old mother who's been missing since February 1st. She's now taken to her social media handle to share an emotional forward message of hope and prayer. According to the mirror, she... shared a picture of a religious painting of Jesus with two angels. The words, I believe, I believe, was etched at the top of the painting. Now, she didn't put a caption on the post, but her friends are saying that, you know, they think she still thinks there's a chance. An individual was reportedly found to have fled the neighborhood within the days of, within days of the abduction. But after seven weeks, I mean, is there anybody who really thinks that there's a chance of finding her? Because I don't get that. And now I do have to weigh in on the, the... controversy that has erupted again because the president just can't help himself. He has been targeted so many times for so long by people that he just can't contain himself and he says some pretty unchristian things.

when, for instance, Robert Mueller's death was announced on Saturday or Sunday. And I think Scott Bessent said it best, said exactly what I planned on saying when I came on the air today. And that is that when you think about the investigation into Donald Trump from 2016. that Mueller conducted, which resulted in almost 450-page report, that found he did not conspire, he did not coordinate with the Russian government to influence the U.S. general election. He also didn't recommend prosecuting Trump. However, he did allow them to go into Mar-a-Lago. which was part of former counsel Jack Smith's investigation. And, you know, Donald Trump said I don't really, I don't have any sympathy for the man or his family. See, I don't want to ever be like that, even though I can understand it. I don't ever want to not have any charitable instinct left. What ended up happening to Donald Trump, which to me is much sadder than all of the things that he points to, which make his life difficult or miserable, but that they robbed him of some of that. you know, decency that all of us have. Look, you guys know that when people who I have large disagreements with, when they pass, I usually stay quiet for 24 hours. I don't go on the air and pretend that, you know, it's the sad day for me. I just don't say anything. And then a day or two later, I will say exactly what I'm saying now. I don't have a lot of compassion for people who did terrible things. And you can say that without, you know, being gleeful about anybody's death. And so Scott Bessent described Donald Trump's reaction to Robert Mueller's death in that same manner. You know, he's actually seeking a $230 million settlement from the Department of Justice over all those probes, all those federal probes into his conduct. You know, he's winning these lawsuits, too. There's only one problem. He's the one who was targeted unfairly over and over again.

Nobody stepped up to defend him. He's had to defend himself. And the proposed settlement in this case is being picked apart by all the legal experts who say that the requests for millions of dollars is unusual and it could actually be considered unethical. So we'll see how that turns out. But we'll see. And he did make a huge announcement again about the Iran War, and it will be a turning point for stock market. The stock market reversed some of the losses in the pre-market trading today. And now when the announcement was made that there's actually some movement in a positive direction, the news was accepted by Wall Street. And that, I guess, people judge so much by how the market perceives of these changes. As far as I'm concerned, if they do anything in the Strait of Hormuz, we should wipe the... Wipe the planet clean of them. Thank you for your time this time until next time. My plan is to be back here tomorrow at 3 p.m. if it be his will and he delays his coming. What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. So wherever you are, just be yourself. Everybody else is taken. And then as always, may God bless you. May God bless Israel. And may God bless the USA. See you tomorrow at 3. This has been the Joyce Kaufman podcast. Available everywhere you get your podcasts.