Marty Griffin Show hour 02 070626

Hey, it's the sports junkies. If anybody knows about die-hard sports fans, it's us. We get to live and breathe the excitement of the season all year long, right alongside the most passionate fans out there. For advertisers, that passion matters. It's exactly why sports radio performs for brands. That passion, that excitement and engagement, you don't get that kind of dialed in attention anywhere else. People who listen to sports on the radio via streaming or on sports podcasts are nearly three times more alike. to consider a brand that supports their favorite team. If you're interested in reaching sports fans, we have the playbook for you. Check out our comprehensive e-book, State of Audio, sports fandom. Learn where fans spend their time, why avid fans drive stronger brand results and how categories like beverage, grocery, and quick-service restaurants are winning with sports fans on audio. If you want to reach the most valuable sports fans, check out stateofadio.com. Sometimes it feels like the news is full of things that have never happened before. And that is not exactly true. In fact, it may have happened this very week, hundreds or thousands of years ago. I'm Sally Helm, host of the podcast History This Week from the History Channel. Trade embargoes, Thomas Jefferson tried them. Rent too high? We've been arguing about that for a while. Each episode is proof. The past isn't that far away. Listen to History This Week, available now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. A phone blew up Friday with folks from Congressman Mike Kelly's office. Wow. Wow. Mike Kelly, front and center in the investigation of the shooting of Donald Trump in Butler in 2024. Wow. So check this out. The Secret Service missed more than 100 radio calls from local law enforcement in the lead up to the assassination attempt on Trump. That's unbelievable, including the initial sighting of crooks. and calls that he was armed. Wow. The agency Secret Service failed to establish a joint communications room with local officers who were the ones receiving reports about crook's suspicious behavior. Woo! Ron Layton served four presidents in the Secret Service. Ron, your initial reaction, brother. Wow. Thanks for having me back on kick.

So, first of all, the report that came out from the Inspector General is accurate. It's 64 pages. They identified five major findings, and, of course, the Secret Service concurred with those findings and things that needed to be fixed. What jumps off the page at me reading the report and knowing how these things work, two things. Thing number one, and Marty, if you remember, you had me in studio. immediately afterwards. I remember so hours that we did together. But one of the things that I talked to you about was resources. They just didn't have enough people. And so you end up saying, why didn't they have enough people? Well, guess what? If Barack Obama or George Bush or Bill Clinton came to Pittsburgh tomorrow, you know what you would see? You'd see a five-car motorcade. You wouldn't see any helicopters. And you know what else you wouldn't see? You wouldn't see things like ballistic glass, all those kinds of things. One of those, you know, the issues that I talked to you about and actually national media about is that the Secret Service does not protect former presidents with the same resource allocation as a sitting president. So, you know, some of this comes down, quite frankly, to budgetary constraint. So it costs about $3.5 million a day to protect everybody in the Secret Service. So when the incident and Butler occurred, Donald Trump was a candidate. The Secret Service has always looked at candidates as just candidates until they go to the nominating convention where you get a lot more resources. Now, there's a lot of problems with that kind of thinking, and that's one of the things that you've got to be able to adjust to if you're the Secret Service. You can't treat Donald Trump. like you treat George Bush for Barack Obama. Donald Trump is a figure like we've not seen before. That means we've got threats like we've not seen before, even though he was a candidate. And the agency just simply did not adjust to that quick enough. So you get things like inexperienced agents. They asked for things like ballistic glass. Those requests weren't granted because... Those are typically the purview of the president's detail. I mean, there are a bevy of problems here. But I didn't really disagree with anything in that report. But my man, I love you. And obviously you're right. But this is crazy stuff, ma'am. When they try to report to Secret Service, the suspicious person on the roof. The suspicious, the Secret Service supervisor didn't ask for the building's location. Hello. The Watchdog report said the Secret Service missed multiple opportunities to detect, prevent, and disrupt this assassination attempt. How the hell, my man, did they not get 100 messages? How'd that happen, brother? Well, you don't get 100 messages when you're not in the same room to get the message. Wow. So the point is this. Wow. This is what I talked to you about in terms of inexperience. You cannot have a secret service command post. And my understanding, and that command post was fire and PSP, Pennsylvania State Police. Yeah, yeah. But much of the things like the AGR building and those kind of things, those who are being staffed and managed by Butler. So in other words, the point is you can't have a joint command post. Like everyone has to hear the same thing at the same time. And here's a little pet peeve of mine.

If you report the Secret Service missed 100 radio calls, it's not that they missed the calls. Of course, they missed the calls, but why? They missed the calls because they did not construct a security plan that would allow them to hear the calls. Hold on, my man. Now, this goes to your point of incompetence. The Secret Service had a... This is crazy, man. The Secret Service had a counter-dron system on site the day of the rally. But it was manned by a single under-trained operator. Wow. Who didn't test the system ahead of the event. What to hell, bro? No, let's dig into that. Yeah. So let's see, okay, the report doesn't dig into the inside baseball. It doesn't. It doesn't. There is, there is a division within the Secret Service called TSD. Technical security division. You know what it is? It's full of geeks and nerds just like me. People with engineering degrees and all that other kind of stuff. They actually asked for assistance from TSD. And what ended up happening is those requests were denied. So they had to send someone that came from another division who, quite frankly, this was a collateral responsibility. The person was new. And they didn't know what to do. So the question becomes, it's not that guy. It's why didn't you get the resources from the people that you're right, man. Right. So, yeah, this is a surface level report. I agree with you. But there's so much to talk about here because, first of all, the Secret Service needs to better understand that the resource allocation for somebody like Donald Trump, even though he was a candidate, cannot be the same as a typical former, because I can tell you this. And I hate to put it this way, but this is the absolute truth, in my opinion. Had he been a sitting president, that AGR complex, it would have been within the protected perimeter. The perimeter was too small. So in other words, when you had asked Butler ESU to man that AGR complex, you should have never asked him to do it. You know why? Because you should have done it yourself. Can you hang? Can you hang? Because you didn't have enough people, of course. Bam, it's crazy stuff.

I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies. Just because we finished rewatching the Office does not mean we're going anywhere. Every Wednesday we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the Office and our friendship with brand new guests. Plus, you can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. So follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. This report from the Inspector General says the Secret Service in the lead up to Trump being shot. Wow. That they missed 102 radio transmissions. Wow. The report says that they failed to establish a joint communications room with local officers who were the ones receiving the reports. Hey, Ron, I mean, we can say they didn't have enough staff, but isn't that kind of incompetent not to even establish context, sir? It's absolute level of inexperience. Hey, Marty, can we cut the feedback in the background, please? I think we fix it now. Thank you. Right now, brother. So there are two lines of effort to put these things together. Number one is the advance, and number two is the management of the game day, as we call it. But in the advance, a major component of the advance is setting up the command post. It's communications. And communications is always the first thing that you're going to look at. So it really should have never been, quote, unquote, signed off on to have a command post and then have other guys that are working this event across the street. So in other words, if I'm in building one and I have a radio system there and you're in building two across the street and then you have a radio system, Marty, it could have been 500 calls that you'd admit because you're not in the same room to hear them. Jesus. Man. Hey, um. We could literally say, and it's a cliche at this point, that they literally dodged a bullet. Honestly, did they not, sir? I mean, for all intents of purposes, the lucky he's not dead, right? No, I got to tell you, there is a local family that lost the dead. That's true. And anyone who's been in law enforcement for the amount of time that I have, you're around a lot of tragedy and shootings and things like that. So, you know, this is something that should have never, ever happened. And it's very easy to look backwards and pick apart what should have happened. Secret Service has lots and lots of resources that something like this should have never happened. And there are multiple redundant redundancies here. But this is... You know, this is an absolute tragedy that, to your point, Marty, could have been much worse. They describe it as an operational failure. Help me out, sir. Are they doing better now? Well, they're doing better now in terms of footprinting, and the thing that's hard to make a determination of.

Marty, again, if George Bush or Bill Clinton or somebody like that shows up in Pittsburgh, it's five cars. But if a sitting president shows up, it's 25 cars. The resource allocation, there are so many more people. So the idea is that if you do Butler over again today, I can promise you there are secret service bodies on top of every roof. And that just didn't happen. So what happens is when you have fewer people, combined with a dose of inexperience, you can cut corners when you've got really, you know, you've got people, people who've got a lot of experience. It was seven years before I got to the president's detail in my first office, seven years. Wow. But guess what? We saw in Butler, we saw people that got at the Trump detail that had maybe two years on the job. It's not enough time. So there is nothing that you can, to get the level of experience where you need to, it's hard because you've got to make some cultural changes. It takes time. And I would tell you that when the Secret Service left the Department of Treasury, which had some level of extreme exclusivity, moved into DHS, and now all of a sudden you're at the bottom of the stack. So, DHS has always been around about transportation and borders and immigration. Let me give an example. So everybody knows who ICE is and who customs is. Yeah. Their budget is 20 times larger than the Secret Service. Wow. 20 times. So what that really means is that the Secret Service has to scrape for money and has to have, you know, done so for the last 20 years. Over time, it has a deleterious effect on an organization. to say nothing to morale but also personnel they just need more people bottom line today sir do they have the manpower are they still short no they're still short because in order to do this right people never talk about the smaller details Presidential detail, absolutely fine, locked down. Same way with the vice presidential detail. But for these smaller details, like the former presidents and something that nobody ever thinks about, the kids' details. Those kids are, you know, they're, they need more staffing there. Those details are always pretty small, pretty light. And what that means is that you don't have the same capability when you don't have enough people. That's what it means. Veterans like yourself who had decades of experience gone or they still have them there, sir. Uh, no, a lot, you know, and our friend Mr. Elon Musk, who you know, I have a certain feeling about he didn't help matters. No, a lot of the institutional experience, uh, see, people used to never leave the Secret Service. Everyone did at least 25 years. That's changed significantly because, uh, the lifestyle, you're always gone. Everybody is divorced probably twice. And it's just, it's a hard, hard, hard lifestyle.

So what happens is people end up leaving and going to wherever they go to. But the point is, it's difficult to maintain institutional experience. And I would tell you that it's, you know, they need to do better with retention. And if you had a son, sir, would you direct him to the Secret Service to serve? A hard question, but the answer is yes. I'm a kid from Homewood. This country and that agency was very good to me. I got a chance to see things. I spent more time in the Oval Office and around American presidents than pick a law enforcement officer to include anybody in an organization. It doesn't matter. I mean, I was very blessed, continued to be so, had experiences that you just, you can't imagine. And so, so yes, very, very lucky, very blessed. It's a great organization. They just have to do better. But I would. Where else are you going to get that kind of experience? Is he harder to protect Trump than previous presidents? So here's the way that you think about it. It's not that it's harder. It's more complex. One of the things that I've talked to you about now, the threat spectrum is different. So you've got professionals for $30,000 I can arm you with an Air Force of drones. That wasn't available 20 years ago. You've got computer technology and AI, which will now craft an attack for you. It's what the guy did at the Capitol Hilton. He did a lot of research, and he thought about how to actually use artificial intelligence to help him craft an attack. And we're seeing this more and more. You see targeted violence wherein people use artificial intelligence and computer technology to learn more about previous attacks. So those things were not present even 15 years ago, but now not only are they present, they are prevalent. Ron Layton, my brother. Thanks, ma'am. Marty, thank you to be well. It's absolutely unsettling.

Understanding power requires more than headlines. I'm Peter Hamby, host of the Powers That Be, a podcast from POC examining politics, economics, and media to provide context, analysis, and clarity without sensationalism. We ask how power operates, who benefits, and what's at stake. If you want to move beyond breaking news to deeper understanding, join us on the Powers That Be. New episodes every weekday, follow the Powers That Be wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, when I was growing up, I was obsessed with fireworks. We were obsessed, me and my boys. In fact, they were all illegal when I was growing up, and that made the obsession even greater for teenagers. In fact, we would go to Highland Park and buy illegal fireworks from this stoner. And the guy had long hair, the tattoos, he would open the door with a joint in his hand and sell us illegal fireworks. Truth, true story, I was probably 13 years old. And me and my boys would make the trek to Highland Park. And then because we were low IQ and idiots, we would start blowing up black cats. Remember those? The black cats? That was the prevalent, relevant firework in that day. And that's how I got arrested the first time. A noisy firework, by the way. Yes, sir. That voice, and that's why I wanted Raz to hang around for a minute. My man, two things. Thank God you're back. I missed the hell out of you. And how are you doing? I'm doing great. Thanks. I missed you guys, too. You know, not doing your job for three months. That's kind of torture, really. But, yeah, I'm doing much better. The foot's sore and swollen, and that's going to be going for a while because that's normal when you're recovering from this thing. But, yeah, I'm doing pretty good. Explain the thing. Explain to our listeners what you've been going through, brother. Yeah, I had a ruptured tendon on the arch side of my foot. So they had to open up a six-inch... incision on the inside of my foot, they had to repair that tendon. Then they had to take another tendon and move it to another part of my foot to help support the arch. They put a metal wedge in the top of my, in the top of my arch. And then they sawed my heel bone in half and then reattached it with two screws so that I can walk in a straight line again. Whoa. And that's the reason why. I had to sit around for six weeks with my leg in the air because you just don't, you got to let everything, you know, like fuse back together again before you start walking. Do you still have pain rest? Uh-huh. Yeah, just a little. It's nothing that you can't live with. I'm delighted to be wearing a shoe this week. This is really the first week I've been wearing a shoe. Wow. So, yeah, it's, you know, this is the first time I've been on the foot this long, back and forth from the studio and everything like that for about eight hours. So we'll see what happens when I get home. Probably break out a cold pack for it, but I'm on the road. And in a few months, it'll be, it'll probably not even be a thought anymore. Thank you, sir. Yeah. I love having you back. You know that. I miss you desperately. As a friend and as the man regarding news.

We got in a great detail with one of my boys, Bob Garvin, last week, about this lawsuit involving a Sewickley Hospital. A drug-addicted nurse was on the job, stealing medications, and impaired, and according to the lawsuit, resulted in the death of two patients, which is disgusting and frightening. But it gets worse. As my brother, Bob, has drilled down on this lawsuit. Tell us what you found as you're reading through this, my man. Good morning, Marty, and the same dear audience. And let me say, you're killing me here. On Chief Lando, Carlos, Anthony, and Ron, we're going to give it our best shot here. But very busy since the broadcast on Thursday. A lot of information. I actually was able to review the actual report. And this lawsuit, people have to understand, is a retaliation suit for whistleblowers of five nurses who reported this incident over two years ago. By the way, one of them was the guy's wife so people know. Go ahead. Absolutely. That is true. The actual, it's even worse than what we thought, the actual lawsuit, and let me say not uncommon, was filed in April of 2025. Okay. Now, in that during that period, with lawsuits, and lawsuits like this take two, three, even four or five years to come to fruition. But there's also a criminal investigation, if you read the report going on too. And in between these issues when they were being reported and investigated, the hospital apparently took retaliatory action against these five nurses that reported the wrongdoing. Whoa. They, in turn, they filed this lawsuit. How long did they keep them on the job, sir? How long do they keep them on the job knowing this stuff? From the time that lawsuit was filed originally, which they would have had notice, to three weeks ago, we're talking now 14 months. My God. Come on. My God. So a nurse who was a drug addict and stealing drugs to get high. And according to the lawsuit, killed two patients as a result, was left on the job treating patients for more than a year, sir, according to the lawsuit. Correct. And you have to understand. We've got to be clear here. That's the premise that someone was reporting that. as they're required to under the Elder Justice Act and various other laws because there's narcotics involved in this and, you know, I can't imagine how many different agencies are involved. But the hospital took retaliatory action alleged against the five people, including the guy's own wife. That's what this lawsuit is about. So they punished the people who wanted him to quit killing patients and get help for his drug abuse?

Marty, for three years we've been seeing this, and I haven't seen, these administrators and hospitals, the various businesses, and especially in nursing homes, are more worried about the person reporting the bad than the bad being reported. Why is that? Because that bad being reported has to be sent to various agencies, which it then goes public. And I mean, I'm just saying if you're an administrator and you have somebody killing your patients or your residents, that's some bad press you can count on. That's probably going to say people, I'm not going there. And if I have somebody there, I'm going to pull them out as fast as possible. And it's about the money. Less people come, less money they make. We have administrators out there making $400,000 a year in some of these nursing homes, which, you know, that's the top end of business. But still. That's a lot of motive to not have bad reported. Bob Garvin, how many cases involving homicide wrongful death in these facilities are you involved in right now overall, sir? How many? We have 10 suspect deaths that... Witnesses have come forth, have been interviewed, we've facilitated meetings with, and they're doing a fantastic job on my dad, is the Allegheny County District Attorney, Steve's Appalachians, Special Investigations detectives. They have 10. And all the people involved, and again, I caution because an allegation, a good investigator tries to clear the person as much as they try to show guilt. So they do take time. You have the biggest obligation to clear a person than you do to lock them up in most cases. Because you don't want to put a wrong person in jail. Let's put it that way. So that takes a while. But we have 10, and sad part is these take... two, three years to bring these kind of cases together. But in those 10 cases, all the participants, the alleged wrongdoers, are still working in these facilities or visit may. My God. He's gone now, though. He's gone now, right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, they did termin him three weeks ago. And, you know, it's not uncommon because the other thing is these... You file a lawsuit. There's about a year's period where they try to settle them. It's evaluated by the courts, whether it's frivolous, dismiss on that. So that's not uncommon that it would take that period in the court. However, once it moves into the discovery stage, you start having depositions, as Rob Pierce will tell you, all that information. The testimony first is under oath, which means that can revert to any other criminal matter or whatever. It can generate other lawsuits from the information it's created from those depositions. So that explains the time period and truthfully how they have to react. Bob Garvin, my brother, truth to power. Thanks, my man. You have a good day, Marty. It's unbelievable. The guy was on the job for at least a year and four months.

After his wife said, you know, my husband's a drug addict and he's killing patients. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Bum, bum, bum. Trevin. Trevin. Mom, ma'am, are you cool with this horrible 98-degree weather? Are you cool with it? Do you hate it? What? What do you do? You stay inside? What? You are talking to the wrong person, because I love it. You do? I do. I don't like the winter. I'm living in the wrong place, right? I don't like cold, but the summer is my time of year. My man, I, as you know, work out quite a bit. Oh, no. When it gets this hot, I have, on many occasions, put my bike, the Peloton bike outside. Yes. Because I nearly died a couple weeks ago, I've been told them not allowed to for a while. And if I want to kill myself, it's going to be under different circumstances. You can probably understand. Right, but you have to be careful, too, because of the humidity, whatnot. That's what I like. Our West Coast correspondent, kind of West Coast. Phoenix, Mr. Patrick, good morning, sir. Good morning, guys. What was, is that a real pick or a fake pick behind your head? It's a real pick, but it's not alive. That's beautiful. Okay, so I saw your wife. It's nice, isn't it? Sunbathing with a rat on her chest yesterday, and I assume that rat was one of those ugly-ass dogs. Two things. What was the temperature yesterday when your wonderful wife, Beth, was in the pool in Phoenix? It was 105 when we were in the pool. Damn. A little warm. And what did you tell me this morning? What's it getting up to this week in Phoenix? 116, I believe, is the high on Thursday? 116. Trevin? That's too much for me, brother. 116, bro. It's time to pack it in. Yeah, I don't even know. I've never experienced that, so I wouldn't even know what that's like. I think, as Patrick would point out, it's the humidity that would be the key in that. No, 116 sucks. Come on, man. 116 is hot. Okay, so it sucks. It's worse if it's 100, you know, when it's 100 degrees and it's 98% humidity, that's, you know, it's sufferable. Hey, Patrick, I'm so curious about this change for you. How do you adapt in terms of outside work, inside work? How do you adapt, sir, and that kind of heat and the rest of your neighbors and that sort of thing? Honestly, it hasn't been too bad for me. Yeah. I grew up in the South where I'm used to heat and humidity. So, you know, for me, it's really not that bad. You're lying. He's lying. But you have to be smart regardless. You got to make sure you stay hydrated. You can't stay out in the sun too long. I didn't see you. I didn't see you flopping around. I didn't see you flopping around that pool. Come on. I don't see you flopping around that pool. I don't see you hiking in those mountains. Come on, man. You're sitting on the couch. In this weather, no, you do not do that hiking. If you're going to do those walks and those hikes, you're going to do it when the sun comes up and it's still 75 degrees outside, which is what it is in the mornings. How does your son manage it? The heat.

Same way. He's learning now. He's not used to it as much like I am, but he's getting there. And Patrick, your neighbors, and you said a lot of folks do stuff before the sun comes up. Is that fair? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they get up. They're up early. So crack a dawn. So when I get up at 4.30 now, because we're three hours behind Pittsburgh. So when I get up at 4.30, If I pop outside, I let the dogs out, I'll see neighbors walk in their dogs 4.35 o'clock. And Patrick. They'll get out and they'll do their runs and their hikes. So we're in early July, brother. How hot, I mean, you probably know this scale. How hot does it get, sir, on the high end? On the high end here, it's going to be, well, it's going to be 116 on Thursday. Wow. The normal around this time of year, it's, you know, sometimes five or ten degrees less than that. But it's typically like 100, 205 somewhere in there. Does it ever cross 130? I've never seen it there. I don't know that they have here. Wow. I think their record last year was, I think, 119 at the same time last year. So you're approaching that this week. Yeah, we're getting close. I did have an air conditioning unit that went down yesterday. Oh, how does your wife manage it? Is she cool with it? Is she managing it? How is it? Knock on wood, she's good with it too. She's been out here, you know, visiting for a long time. You're right. And she's been out here when it's 110 degrees, you know, on girls' trip vacations. How about the dogs, the little rats? How do they manage it? They're doing better than I thought they would too. They mainly stay inside. So it's not really a big thing for them. But it's good. So we've been acclimating pretty well to it. Okay. I'm going to have to come out because I don't believe you. I think you're full of crap. I think it sucks. I think it's time to come home. Get a dose of reality and come on back. We'll be right back. Let's do it.

Life can feel overwhelming, but on my podcast, From the Heart with Rachel Brathen, we're in it together. Every Friday brings you a new story. Listen to From the Heart with Rachel Brathen, wherever you get your podcasts.