The Rod and Greg Show: Strategy to Win Elections Hasn't Changed; Congress Must Stop Climbing Debt; What Ancient Roman Cult Reveals on Trans

I could take the rest of this segment on some of the observations I made, but I don't know. How much you pay for gas? It was six, six, six, I think six, 40 or six 30 a gallon. And then, so all I know is 20, I paid $125. And my tank wasn't even on the red. Like I was low. When I put 125 bucks in that tank, I was, eh. Hey, I, this morning I paid $4.19 a gallon here. Yeah. It's getting up there. It is. Yeah. Hopefully he'll come back down. Don't worry, folks. He'll get down. I have, yeah. I think, though, that, you know, what's going on in Iran right now is, as we've seen over the weekend, I know we'll get into this later in the show, but knowing that they had 4,000-kilometer range, long-range missiles. Liars. That changes a lot of stuff about how safe or unsafe Europe was all this time. And I think that if it's time, it is time to deal with them. And if it is a bit of a sacrifice, I know I'm not a neocon. I know neocons like to say that all the time. But I think in this case, with this president, we can trust that his eye is keen and he is seeing some problems out there. And if it means that we're going to pay a little more in gas right now to stop them and send them about 40 years backwards, it's time to do it. That'd be just fine. Well, I want to start off. We've got a lot to get to today. We are going to talk about the... The Democrats' failure on the voter ID messaging. We'll get into the strategy to win elections a little bit later on. We'll talk about Congress. And the debt, it just – where are we now? $39 trillion. $39. It's $39 trillion. Absolutely amazing. And, you know, the whole debate over trans has dominated our discussion in this country for several years. But do you know, Greg, I did not know this. We'll learn more about this later on in the show. The Roman Empire had to deal with this. What? Yeah. A bunch of degenerates. My goodness. They just come up everywhere in history, don't they? It's disgusting. Really? Yeah. I don't lie to you. I'm not like the Iranians. I watch Gladiator. I thought it was a documentary. And I did not see any of that. Well, it was there. Apparently. We'll get into that. It's good to be with you if you want to be a part of the program today. 888-5708010 on your cell phone, dial pound 250 and say, hey, Rod, or leave us a message on our talkback line by downloading the iHeart Radio app. All right, we want to start the show off today, Greg. I don't know what happened this weekend, but I think, I'm just guessing now, that over the weekend, someone... Put a little more crazy into the Democrats drink this weekend. I mean, they got an extra shot of crazy. Well, yeah, that or we just got brighter lights on Looney Tunes. These rubber rooms they let them out of to go into that capital and pretend to speak about things. Did you see the immediate reaction to Trump when Robert Mueller died over the weekend? And his comment, basically good riddance. Yeah. No, I tell you what. The media went crazy. How dare he condemn or praise the death of another American? I will promise you this. If any of the members of the media that were clutching their pearls over his comments, and look, they were not kind and with what he did to him, what Robert Mueller attempted to do to him and put him through, there isn't one member of the media that if they had half or even a quarter of the chaos and the stress and the...

legal peril that Mueller put the President Trump through. If they went through a quarter of that, they would have nothing good to say. My goodness, you had to see the New York Times obituaries over people that are like Chuck Norris. They have nothing but contempt to share about him when it's his obituary. So what they would have said about Mueller, if they even had a slight sliver of what he put the president through, it wouldn't be nice. Well, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Almost, you know, Kristen Walker and Meet the Press tried to trap him into condemning the president, but listened to his response when she asked him about the president's comments on the passing of Robert Mueller. The death of an American citizen, someone who's a Bronze Star, Purple Heart recipient and who served in Vietnam. Kristen, I was with the president in the green room at Davos, and there was a video playing. of the what may have been an illegal raid on his home at Marlago. They are going through his wife's wardrobe. And I watch the look in his eye and I think that neither one of us can understand what has been done to the president and to his family. But to the question of the president's post, I mean, Robert Mueller didn't order that raid, is it appropriate for the president to celebrate the death of any American citizen, Mr. Secretary? I think that given what has been done to President Trump and his family, it is impossible for either of us to understand what he has been through. Scott Bessent, it is so good at not taking the bait. And oh, she was feeding him some bait, but he didn't take it. Yeah, he comes off as a pretty nice guy, so you would think. that would be easy bait that'd be low-hanging fruit to get him to say well I wouldn't say something like that but he doesn't I mean he and he's what he says is truthful I don't think any of us understand given what he went through we've never been through something like that so we don't know we don't understand what that would what that would have felt like and he's right on moral logo they were going through his wife's underwear Come on. I mean, yes. So you can't blame, though. I mean, the president is not going to lie about his feelings. And he's very honest with him. He said, I'm glad he's gone. Good. See you later. See you later. Can't hurt anyone else. Now, another bite I want you to hear, it's audio soundbite. I want our audience to hear today is the debate over voter ID. It continues, right? It keeps on going on. Everyone says, you know, the Democrats are trying to throw up every defense they possibly could. Well, over the weekend, on CNN, David Urban, who is a very smart conservative, laid the feet of this whole thing right at one person. Look, Congressman, you know, Tom Homan was up on the hill negotiating, trying to get this bill passed in the Senate. You've seen the White House give on lots of things, cameras, identification on ice. The White House is given and given and given. The fact of the matter is Chuck Schumer is just a chicken. I'll say it because he's concerned that he's not going to be the majority leader. He doesn't want to pass anything that doesn't just blow up ice. And so that's why we're stuck here. It's not anything to do. Everybody knows what has to be done.

Well, voter ID and yeah. So we would love to see Homeland Security funded, but then when we get to voter ID, which is already the law, well, how do we enforce a law? Yeah. This is like a Rubik's Cube or Da Vinci Code for the Democrats, or they act like it. Yeah, that's right. Well, what was it? That poll a couple of months ago, which said 85%, 84% of the American people are in favor of voter ID. Yeah. And now a new CBS poll out over the weekend, again, it's upwards around 70 to 80%. But the Democratic leaders, they're in Washington and saying, no, this is not good for the American people. I don't think their messaging is working. I would hope not. I think the people, American people have got to see how, how scammed up this is. Yeah, well, joining us on our newsmaker line, or any hour newsmaker line, to talk about that right now is Stacey Matthew. She is a contributor at legal insurrection. Stacey, you've taken a look at this, the messaging that the Democrats are using, obviously failing right now. What are your general thoughts? Well, my overall reaction is that they need to get this taken care of because these arguments aren't. holding water with the majority of the American people. We've seen it here in North Carolina. We were kind of a test case for Democrat arguments back in 2011 and going on for many years after that through the court system where Democrats tried to argue that this was racist, as discriminatory. And the arguments didn't hold up even back then when we took polls in North Carolina, a very broad demographic of voters supported voter ID and not just voter ID, but photo ID. You know, some places they have voter ID, but it's not necessarily a photo ID. North Carolina, we have photo ID when you go to vote. 80% of the American people support voter ID. You know, we have, we, this topic has come up on the show, as you can imagine. And so we've, we've talked about our good, Utah Senator Lee, he's fighting the good fight on this. And, you know, we had a caller calling. And his name was Robert. And he said, you know, when women get married, they're not going to be able to vote anymore. And we cautioned, Robert, that we're married and we have spouses and we have daughters that are actually able to vote. And it would be news to them that if you got married, your right to vote, women's suffrage would then cease, that you would never be able to vote again if you were, in fact, married. He said it sounds a little condescending. I don't know, Robert. I don't know if you want to be saying that out loud. We had a flurry of calls from listeners that are particularly offended by this stance that the Democrats have taken that there is some barrier. to not be able to vote if you in fact get married and assume the name of the person that you're marrying. Where does that rank? I mean, how much pushback or how much do you hear that? Because that's a particular, that hit a live wire as we've discovered.

Right. It's become like one of the more fresh Democrat talking points originally. It was all about racism, but now they've kind of added the layer of the woman maybe being disenfranchised because she's been married, which is complete horse pucky, as we say around here. And there's been tons of instances we've seen people on social media, conservative women who just have for grins and giggles. you know, have tried to go through the process of getting a voter ID and they're married women and they had no problem getting, you know, their, you know, photo IDs or anything like that. So it's just, it's just more scare tactics and fear mongering. And again, the polling shows that women, men. Democrats, Republicans, independents, white people, black people, Hispanics across the board. And I'm not just talking about bare minimum percentages. We're talking like 70s and 80s for percentages for all of these groups supporting voter ID. And not only do they support voter ID, but a crucial part of the State of America Act, which is the requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, a majority of Americans, a solid majority of Americans across, again, all demographics support it. So what's the hold up here? Stacey, I saw a comment over the weekend as well and analysts talking about what's really going on here. And it basically came down to his opinion that it comes down to Chuck Schumer because Chuck Schumer is just chicken poop when it comes to dealing. I'm saying that nicely. Chicken poop when it comes to making a decision. He's afraid he'll be primaried. He's afraid he'll lose his leadership role. In many ways, doesn't it really come down to Chuck Schumer? It may, but here's the thing that Chuck Schumer needs to think about. Somebody needs to inform Chuck Schumer of this. In New York City, we found out very recently that you need multiple forms of ID to be an emergency snow shoveler for the city, including photo ID. So if emergency snow shovelers in New York City need to have multiple IDs to be able to snow shovel, people should also need photo ID to be able to vote. An interesting part of the debate over the weekend, Democrats were trying to say, well, and this was their good reason, certainly not a real reason. You know, the items that you have selected to prove citizenship are just too arduous. We actually like voter ID or voter ID and having an ID card to vote, but we think that you Republicans have just made it too hard. So there was an amendment proffered by the Senate Republicans over the weekend that said, okay, we'll include a passport. We'll include some of these legal, not your student ID, but legal ID. You can, we'll include that in the Save America Act, and the Democrats still blocked it. So my question is, you know, we're getting past their good, good reasons why they oppose it. What is, what is, I mean, it doesn't make any sense election wise to oppose 80% of the, of the electorate. What is it that they're trying to achieve here? What is it they're trying to achieve is they're trying to make it easier for illegal immigrants to vote. I mean, that's what all of this is about is making sure that criminal illegal immigrants and not just criminal legal, just the ones that come across the border. And yes, they've committed a crime that they haven't committed a violent crime, presumably, but still they're illegal and they shouldn't be allowed to vote in our elections. And they've been getting by with it. Gavin Newsom has been openly admitting to illegal immigrants voting in his state for years. And he's proud of it.

So that's what the argument boils down to. You know, we saw here in North Carolina when we dealt with the voter ID arguments, some of the arguments the Democrats would make, you know, we tried to make concessions with Democrats in the state legislature about what they would be okay with in terms of nothing worked. You know, so there's no pleasing Democrats when it comes to this issue because they know the moment anything like this becomes law, especially on a national level, it's going to really hurt them with the... core group of voters that they want to keep, which are the illegal immigrants. Yeah, that's so true. Stacey Matthews joining us. She's a contributor at Legal Insurrection, talking about this, Greg, and the messaging, the Democrats. I'm waiting for the next appeal from the onion to fall away and see what next they're going to come up with. No, their arguments are just. So weak. Very, very, very weak. And I hope that the, I think the American people are paying attention. They know who's. They know who the hostage takers are in this scenario, and it's not the Republicans. It's these loony Democrats. Yeah, we're going to talk more about this in the 5 o'clock hour as well. All right, more coming up. It is the Monday afternoon edition of the Rod and Greg Show right here on Utah's Talk Radio 1059, K&RS. I don't know if we're going to get a chance to play this clip. And boy, old Harry Enten, he always entertains. He's showing us some real good poll numbers of these Democrats in Congress. It doesn't look like voters overall. Are real happy. Or the independent voters. Or real happy. They're very happy at all. I keep seeing minuses in front of the numbers that Harry Enton's showing. So CNN must really hate it when he. Yeah. when he starts telling the truth like this. You can see the anchors who are asking them these questions sometimes. They just cringe. You can see their funny language. They've stopped. They've actually taken that wide shot and they've narrowed it in because they can't hide how sad they are with what he's saying. So they just kind of zoom in on him so you don't see them anymore. No, you don't. Yeah. Yeah. Those little games they play. Well, speaking of elections, the strategy to win elections apparently hasn't changed for some 2,000 years. Really? One way, yeah, you know, I thought these campaigns were a bit stale. I think this is, this might be the reason why. Well, joining us on our any hour newsmaker line to talk about that is our good friend Hans von Spikovsky. He is a senior legal fellow at the Institute for the Rule of Law, which is part of advancing American freedom, Hans. Always great to have you on the show. So you're telling me that the strategy hasn't changed. Doesn't it really come down to just get enough votes, more votes than the other person? Yeah, it is. Yeah, but how you go about doing that, you know, going after all these different... different constituencies and different groups. Sometimes that requires different tactics and strategies. And, you know, I was just astonished when I got a copy of a letter translated from Latin written in 64 BC by the brother of the great orator Cicero. Cicero was running for consul.

In Rome, that was basically equivalent of our presidency in the old Roman Republic. And his brother wrote him a letter saying, here's what you knew me to do to get elected. And I swear to you, if you read through it, it is exactly the same kind of stuff that you pay political consultants today in Washington, D.C. to give you advice on. You know, I read it and I was unaware that this letter was written. And I've spent some time on campaigns and elections myself. And it is, it is fascinating, especially when there's no technology. All the things that you would think would inform a campaign for the last 40 years as it's changed. You don't see any of it back then, but yet it seems all the same. Two tasks. Hold your friends. Second one. persuade the public what are those two what did those two tasks look like today it's amazing and it's insightful sounds simple but hold your friends start with your mother work your way out that's what i always said and then persuade the public how do we see those two tasks uh how are they realized today Well, you know, the big change, look, obviously the change that happened, you know, 50 years ago was campaign starting to use television and radio. But what has really now happened in the last 10 years is a huge migration over to the use of the Internet. You know, everything from campaign websites to using texts. the social media platforms, that has been the big, really big technological change. But it's still got the same objective in mind, which is reaching friends, acquaintances, government contractors, special interest groups, and the general public. Hans, you talk about, you know, assembling a majority. But in today's country, as diverse as this country is, how difficult and how challenging is it to put a large enough assemblage together to win an election? How difficult is it to put those coalitions together in today's society? Well, I think it has gotten more difficult because I think if you look at all of the issues facing Americans, everything from domestic to foreign policy, I actually think that we are more divided today than almost any time since, I would say, actually right before the American Civil War. You know, we make decisions from a motion. We can have all the stat sheets with spreadsheets. We can have, we can have tax rates, you name it, inflation, all those numbers. But at the end of the day, this letter points out that people vote from a motion. It says, bring hope. The letter says, Quintus says to Cicero, his brother, bring hope to people and a feeling of goodwill toward you. I look at today's politics and I don't think.

that there is this um there's a downside to it where you you know maybe where the people going so i can lead them there but it is but this is i find that the democrats is but are are scolding us they are not trying to create goodwill they're actually trying to shame us almost into a into a into an agenda i don't see them bringing hope to people and a feeling of goodwill am i jaded or do the democrats do that uh to any degree Oh, no, no, I think you've called it exactly right. And I think that is one of the reasons why, if you look at the polling, the polling shows that support and approval Democratic Party today is the lowest. It's been since they started polling. And I think it's because of the negativity of the party. And frankly, their foolishness On so many issues, I mean, immigration is one of them. Look, it's one thing to say that you're in favor of immigration, that you want to increase, for example, legal immigration, but to come out against the pickup of particularly criminal illegal aliens. to say that, oh, we want to create a sanctuary for illegal aliens who have committed crimes and your local communities, and that we'd rather have them released back into our local communities instead of being picked up and deported. That makes no sense to the vast majority of Americans, no matter whether the Republicans or Democrats. And yet that's the kind of positions we're seeing Democrats take. Hans, okay, let's say you're a middle American. You want to consider both sides. On one side, you've got Donald Trump launching a war against Iran, which I think is very justified, but prices are going up because of that. On the other side, as you pointed out, you've got wacky Democrats who go along with almost anything. I mean, if you're a voter as you head into the midterms, where on earth do you go, Hans? Well, going back to what we were just talking about, the emotional appeals, look, I think Quintess Sincereux, the brother, who wrote this, I think he was exactly right about that. And I think, you know, most people, I think actually the majority of people, and they go into the voting booth. They vote with a gut reaction. You know, they have a gut reaction to candidates, whether they think one candidate is going to make their lives better or the other candidate will do that. And... I don't know what that gut reaction is going to be in the midterms. On the one hand, yeah, people will see rising gas prices when they go fill up their minivan or their truck. But on the other hand,

They have, many of them have seen the crimes, for example, committed in their local communities by illegal aliens. They have seen their local schools in many places overwhelmed by huge numbers of illegal alien children being brought in by the prior administration. That's kind of a balance. And what do they see? Well, they see Democrats. all for that, all for the kind of flooding of the country that occurred during the Biden administration. How is that going to come out? I don't know. You know, that's one of the huge biggest issues in elections is they're so unpredictable often. Hans, thank you very much for joining us. Hans von Spakovsky is an election expert joining us here on our Any Hour Newsmaker line. Welcome to the party, Hans. Welcome to the party. He gets that all the time, he says. An important hearing today, Greg, we'll probably get a ruling on this at the end of the terms sometime in late June or July, but the Supreme Court today heard arguments, oral arguments on a challenge about mail-in ballots. And the question is, I think it's the state of Mississippi or Missouri. I can't remember which one. But they count the ballots after Election Day. and the Republican Party and I think the Libertarian Party are suing the state over that. And there were interesting arguments today, but it appears the Supreme Court's conservatives appear skeptical of counting it after election day, list to what Justice Samuel Alito said. We have lots of phrases that involve two words, the last of which, the second of which is day. Labor Day, Memorial Day, George Washington's birthday, Independence Day, birthday, and election day. And they're all particular days. So if we start with that, if I have nothing more to look at than the phrase election day, I think this is the day in which everything is going to take place. Samuel Alito. And the other conservative judges basically expressed the same thing. Now, we don't know where Amy Coney Barrett is or John Roberts is on this. We'll have to wait and see. But counting mail-in ballots after election today. makes no sense to me and it's done in utah and it is done in utah so we we've had so when you go down ballot some of these elections do get decided by 30 votes yeah 40 votes less than that in some cases and you have you have these they say well if it's postmarked by election day we'll just keep collecting them through the week and then we'll keep counting and that is that is led to the outcome of elections from Election Day changing from one side to the other, from one candidate to the other, because they continue to count. That doesn't always play against the Democrats, by the way. Some Republicans have won with late ballots arriving, but I think there's something principally solid and defensible about Election Day. I think Florida does it this way, too, is you count everything on Election Day. That's it.

And I think maybe the legislature, I don't know if they passed a bill to make that the case. It sounds like they might have addressed that. But if they haven't, they should. And I suspect that the Supreme Court will rule that. We'll see. You can't just spread this out over a month. Yeah, the Mississippi law, it was Mississippi, by the way, allows mail-in ballots to be counted up to five days after Election Day. Uh-uh. Either they're counted on Election Day or else, in my opinion. Yep. That's why you don't want to mail. If you're south of Beaver County, you want to just mail your ballot from Beaver County into Beaver County, it goes all the way down to Vegas and all the way back up. So stop that. Makes a lot of sense. All right, we'll talk about the TSA Ice. What do you have seen in airports around the country? That's all coming up. Hour number two of the Rod and Greg Show. Stay with us. Dutton Ranch is, I guess, going to be filmed partly up here in Park City. Yeah, no, they have had a great history here in the state of Utah. They've moved to different parts of, like, they went to Montana after being in Utah for a while for Yellowstone. And then right now, I've been... my insight sources say that that new show Marshalls is going to be filmed in Utah. Wow. So I, and this Dutton Ranch, this is yet another spinoff. Well, he's got the landman. That's, but that's not about the Dutton's. No, that's different, but it's a Taylor Sheridan series. And Lioness. Lioness, and he's got a brand new one called The Madison, which E. Ray and I have been watching. It's pretty good show. He's setting up for a second season, as E. Ray was pointing out. So you guys have told me this is worth watching. And I like Taylor Sheridan. He did the movie Sicario, too, which I love those movies. But a little rough, so if you're easily offended, don't watch Sicario. No. But anyway. Not a family film. No. But Madison just looked like a big old docketrum, like a soap opera to me. So I didn't want to watch it. But you guys are saying it's good. It's a bit of a downer a little bit. See, I like, I like, I don't like. What I love about it, it shows Middle America, life on a ranch, life in Montana. and how they come together as a community. And they don't care about politics. It comes together as a community. Well, I think that was part of the appeal of Yellowstone. I did enjoy that. And I enjoy that part of Landman. Landman likes to put that contrast between the elitist and all the things they think versus what's going on in reality. You wait until you see this one. It is hilarious because you have these elites out of New York City trying to do it, adapt to life in Montana on a ranch, which is out in the middle of nowhere. They don't even have a toilet. They go to an outhouse, which is an experience in itself for these New York elitist. When I was young and I moved to Utah, I felt like I was in a footloose movie. I did. I feel it was a little different than Pittsburgh. I did. Just slightly. Just a little bit. All right, let's talk about ICE, the TSA at airports today. Word is, some reports are coming in today, Greg, that ICE agents are making kind of a noticeable change at the airports today.

Don't know what that means, but that's a headline I thought. Well, I think the ICE agents, you know, if you've wondered why ICE has been funded fully until the year 2029. Yeah, yeah. So when you hear that the Department of Homeland Security is not funded and you're talking TSA and you're talking about a bunch of different critical areas that does defend our homeland. You're not talking about ICE. So when the Democrats are shutting everything down and putting us all, you know, they want to shut down our transportation through airports. They want to do all this because of what they want to do to ICE. ICE is not impacted by any of this. They're fully funded. So they might be the agency that if in the absence of the Democrats allowing, instead of holding Americans that are at airports hostage to their political agenda, maybe it's time for these ICE agents who are, again, funded. to be able to man those stations and be in that spot just to keep Americans going through and be able to use the airports until time that Democrats would like to stop holding the American traveler hostage. I think it is the right thing to do. I think it was a brilliant idea from the president, even though there's a debate over whether the idea was the presidents or a caller into the Clay and Buck Show. I think KNRS. if you want to know, folks, was a major catalyst for this policy change. I think it was a caller to the Clemenbuck show that was her name. Linda. Linda. Was that Linda? I think it was Linda. She came up with it. Clay Travis loved it. I think he repeated it on a Fox News interview, but it just got some legs. Yeah. And there we are. It did. Well, of course, the Democrats are going crazy with this idea. Listen to what New Jersey Senator Cory Booker had to say about ICE and the TSA. And so what's happening today in America that should outrage everybody? He's taking the very same agency that has been bursting into our schools, into our churches. into our hospitals, into our courts, and even into the homes of Americans. He's taking that agency that is reckless is out of control and bringing them to our airports. Under the lie that somehow this is going to help deal with the long lines that he created in the first place. This is an outrage. That's Cory Booker. It's an outrage, Craig. Yeah, he says what is happening in America that should outrage everybody. And he goes on to say that ICE is, you know, taking the place of TSA because TSA has not been pledged for 34 plus days without any pay. What is happening in America that should outrage everybody, Senator Cory Booker, is that you have shut down the Department of Homeland Security to further your political agenda, which doesn't have anything to do with the American citizens. uh and and it actually not only are we more is it more dangerous to live in this country without the department of homeland security or why have it um it also it holds all of us travelers if you're in an airport hostage until and and they don't care they absolutely don't care and the day you negotiate with terrorists those that are hostage takers the day you negotiate with them you're going to get more of that kind of conduct so the day that the republicans

If they were to cave to this and somehow reopen up the ice budget and change it because Democrats are going to try and raise the misery index on American citizens because of it, then you're going to get more of it. Then now you've just given them the keys to the place because they're in the minority. They shouldn't have this kind of power. And they're trying to wield it at the expense of everyday people. And if it works, you're going to get more. If it doesn't. Maybe the American people are frustrated with the Democrats enough that we don't, they don't see the success in midterms that they're hoping. You shut it down. Tom Homan was on CNN with Dana Bash yesterday. She said, Mr. Holman, how can he implement such a plan that you're doing on such short notice? With respect, if you're doing this in 24 hours, how well thought out could it possibly be? Again, ICE has been at airports across the country for a long time. It's just expanding those things. Look, it does, how much of a plan does it mean to guard an exit to make sure no one comes through that exit? And we're talking about security options. And these officers are well-trained in security, and they're well-trained in identification. And look, we're going to do what we can to help TSA move those people to the line. I love that. How much planning and practice does it take to guard an exit? Yeah, and folks, I'm going to tell you, on Saturday I was at the airport coming back home. And I got the text that said from the airline saying get there three hours earlier, get there three hours before you take off just to make sure you don't run into this extra delay. And when I got there, I was able to get through very quickly. I didn't need the extra two hours. I usually try to get there an hour early. I didn't need it because we got through fast. interfaced with the TSA agents not knowing what their circumstances were, but thanked them for being there and thanked for such a fast process. But what you're hearing there is, Tom Homan saying, we're not going to take everybody and replace them. But there are things that the agents can do that could be at the monitors, that could be at the scanning the things coming through, where they could be the ones that are guarding so you don't walk in where you're not supposed to or walk out, we're not supposed to. That's all they're going to do. He's basically saying, look, You know, their sole purpose is to guard those screening machines and get you through the lines. Now, if there's other things we can do that they don't have to do, that's it. And that's what they're doing. Yeah, go walk out of the, when you're, if you're at a gate and you're in Salt Lake City Airport or wherever you are, and you walk out to the baggage claim, you can't turn around and go back the way you came in. And there are, there are TSA agents that ensure that that doesn't happen. And so that's, those are the types of things they can do. I love that. Was it Dana Bash that asked that question? Yes. Okay. When anyone starts a question with, With respect. No, there's going to be no respect. Okay, that is your tell that this will be no respect. Dot, dot, dot. So love to start with the question of with respect. Yeah. Now, these poor TSA agents, on average, they make, what, $45,000, $50,000 a year with that, I guess on average. They haven't been paid for a couple of weeks. And Sean Duffy, the Transportation Secretary, said another key moment is going to come this Friday. when they get another paycheck. So I think as we look forward to Friday, that's when the next paycheck should come. And if this Homeland Security funding isn't resolved,

I think you're going to see more TSA agents as we come to Thursday, Friday, Saturday of next week. They're going to quit or they're not going to show up. A lot of the starting salaries at TSA, they're right around $50,000. So if you live in one of the big cities of America, L.A. or New York or Miami, it's hard for these individuals already to make their ends meet. But with outgating paychecks, it's even that much more challenging. You know what, Greg? I don't know how they're doing it. I mean, to be real honest, these TSA folks, because, you know, when we come back, I want to get your reaction. We want to open up the phones to you. Maybe you've had to deal with standing in line. You are fortunate, not having to do it. I haven't heard much about lines here at Salt Lake International Airport. Maybe there are. But maybe others have been flying around the country and had to put up with a three-hour wait just to get through TSA. Yeah, and I don't have to do that, folks. I sound like a broken record, but I have to tell you that I found them to be exceptionally polite. And friendly. You know, 6.30 in the morning. If you can't be, like that. But they were. They were very nice. And there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of stress they're going through right now with the unknown. And yet they were, I thought that people that were looking to get through it were treated with incredible respect. Yeah. Your story's about dealing with the TSA. If you've been flying around the country, 888-570-10-1-3-0. On your cell phone, dial pound 250 and say, hey, Rod. or leave us a message on our talkback line by downloading the iHeart radio app more coming up on the rod and gregg show we're talking about uh donald trump he said now he claims it was this idea there is a debate over whose idea this was but donald trump said hey we aren't going to punish the American people for the lack of action on the part of the Democrats. So we're going to do what we can to speed up those TSA lines, those security checkpoints at airports around the country. So I'm dispatching ICE to help them out. And word is, there has been some improvement at airports around the country today. Well, I got to imagine that that would be the case. But the question I have is, So when you saw the Tesla take down, this was, you know, the leftist didn't like all the Doge was discovering and they didn't like that they were interrupting their little, you know, their side gigs that they had going. We learned about all this money, all the billions upon billions of dollars that were being washed through all these different NGOs and everything else. The way that they got, were able to compel. uh, Elon Musk to leave that effort was to attack his cars, to attack his dealerships, to attack individuals' cars that were Tesla's attack those. Uh, they vilified the man. And it seemed like the public sentiment was on the side of those attacking Elon Musk. And Elon Musk was starting to lose, uh, popularity or approval rating amongst Americans. And I was very disappointed by it because it's saying, look, it actually, you can be the, hostage taker or the terrorist and you can get away with this uh my question is so that so he left and you saw doge kind of quiet down they're still there but not in the fashion that they were when they started out the question here is will the american people really look at who's caused

this shutdown and refuses to fund the Department of Homeland Security and TSA. Will the American people believe the Democrats when they say, well, if they would just give us our way, we're in the minority, but we want our way. And if you don't, every person trying to go to an airport is now going to wait. And our safety as a country while we're engaged in Iran, well, that's going to be scarier too, because we don't get what we want. Do the American people digest that as, why don't the Republicans give them? what they want? Or do they point the blame where it is deserved? And that is the Democrats are using the American people as hostages to raise the misery index to try and compel the behavior of the majority of Republicans in the Senate to give them their way. Where are they going to go? Yeah. I know where our listeners are going to go. Our listeners are going to call spade a spade. That's a guarantee. That's what it is. But what do you think is going to happen across the fruited plane? Are Americans going to spot this and call the Democrats out? Or is this going to be a, the media is going to try and say it's the Republicans' fault? Well, there are three ironies here today, I think, Greg, on the Democratic side. First of all, we just heard Cory Booker. What are they using? Fear. Yes. Fear tactics. You let those ice agents. I mean, was it either Richard Blumenthal or Schiff, I'm not sure which crazy said over the weekend, you know what's going to happen? We're going to see Americans being killed at airports. Yeah. Yeah. Did you hear that? These guys are all interchangeable, man. They say the most outrageous things. So they're using fear. Point number two. Guess what, Democrats? ICE is funded through 2029. Yes. You can't interrupt it. You can't interrupt it, Al. And the other one is, here we are not funding the Department of Homeland Security. Let's see. We're at war with Iran. And Iran basically said, we're going to come get you. Yep. You know, through the... They're not hiding it. They are hiding it. So we don't have any money for security in this country. And the Democrats are concerned about the safety of the American people. Come on. And look, I read somewhere where they asked Democrats in Washington, what do you say about going and doing this airport? They think it's funny. They said, oh, good. Let's see what happens there. They live in this bubble where they don't think that the people that are going to be otherwise stuck at these airports. If there isn't a solution, I think the American people and the traveler is going to appreciate. that they're problem solving and getting this thing, getting people move through so they can get to their Bill Gates, go on their flights. The Democrats are gambling that they would sooner be in on that long line than have ICE helping guard, you know, entrances, exits, things like that. And that if they're not being given what they want in the minority of the House and the Senate, if they're not given their way, that is the Republicans' fault for not acquiescing and that they will, the American people will blame the Republicans. I hope that's not the case, but it's what I'd love to know. I'd love to know what to take is the collective wisdom of our listeners. Well, you have to realize the Republicans not only are battling the Democrats. They're also battling the legacy media. Yes. And is the legacy media telling the truth about what is going on here? Right now they are not. No. And the perception on the American people, let's just blame the Republicans. We always blame the Republicans for things like this, so we're going to blame them again. Did you see the study that Apple, Apple does an news aggregate?

the number of left of center stories versus moderate and then right of center. It was like, it was like on one hand, the number of conservative, like even Fox News or something, versus, you know, Axios and all the left of center things that Apple just pushes out in their news aggregate all the time. It's in the thousands over here. It's like five on the right of center. It's a real skewed worldview that a lot of these, you know, news aggregate and, I don't know, tech companies are pushing out. You know what I'm puzzled about, though, Greg? It's not happening at all the airports. I mean, I'm looking at New Orleans right now. Long lines, New Orleans. You're hearing about Atlanta, LaGuardia, you know, Washington, D.C., but not in Salt Lake City. I don't hear anything coming out of Texas. Yeah, I don't know. And in California, you don't hear. Well, I think it's L.A. and San Francisco. They private contract their security at airports, I think. So that wouldn't affect them. But San Diego, where it is now, you got out early, where it is now, it's not getting any better in San Diego. Oh, you're hearing it's bad now? That's what? I got lucky then. But I'll tell you what, this actually begs a question. And I think Jason Chaffetz, when he was a member of Congress, he used to really talk about this a lot. And that was privatizing. Amen to that. The airlines used to do this for 80 years or whatever before it was like the Persian Gulf War, whenever they did it. Then they turned that into a government agency. But for just keeping the Democrats from holding us hostage, we ought to be seriously now staring at going back and privatizing the scanning of passengers through that security area and making sure that people are, you know, that they don't have any weapons or anything when they go through. I think that now that we know that we, the American people are the pinata for the Democrats to try and hold up the federal funding for that, we should just. there was a lot of more reasons to privatize it, but I think that's the clincher right there. I am a big fan of privatizing it because I think it would work and I think it'd be a much smoother operation and the American people wouldn't be held hostage the way they're being held right now. All right, more coming up, the Rod and Greg show and your comments on all of this. 888-5708010 on your cell phone, dial pound 250 and say hey, Rod, or leave us a message on our Tartback line by downloading the IHeartRadio app. More of the Rod and Greg show coming out. I've got an update for you. I was mentioning what new excuse are the Democrats going to come up with now for voter ID and rejecting it. The Mike Lee bill. Yeah. Well, we have one now. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal says somebody would have to either get a passport or have a birth certificate and have to go through this rigmarole every time they want to vote. That's a lie. That's a lie. Total lie. It is. It's not, it's, it's people that are registering to vote for the first time. Yes. And, uh, and it's not every time you go to vote. I mean, it's just, again, I guess they just can say anything they'd like. It's, it's, it's just like that Senator Mason. We, you know, we want all these things open, but we just don't like giving ICE a blank check. They're not even in this discussion. They're already funded until 2029. You're not, it's not even, it's not even. I know they want to pull it back, but they, that's already been, that was voted in the big beautiful bill. Yeah. They already voted against that, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. All right. Another thing we wanted to talk about was apparently there was a protest this weekend at the Living Aquarium.

on the south end of the Salt Lake Valley. What's that big spider-looking thing they have there? Was that part of the Olympics? That was part of the YouTube concert. Concert. That's right. And they kept that. And then they were able to use that and keep it. And And COVID started like 10 minutes after they put that thing up. Did it? Which, yeah. But anyway, it has since had a new expansion, the Living Planet Aquarium. And it's a great attraction. And one of the things that they're doing, aside from having institutions of higher learning that have like science, like they have labs and they have different research going on there, but they have a they have a. reception area where you can rent out the public can we we did one time what was about a year ago we were down there meeting with potential customers yep we were in the one that they've had for a long time the new building has an even nicer one okay and and so there you can rent that for different events you can do uh reset wedding receptions but there's a lot in fact there's going to be a left of center heaven forbid a democrat event that's going to go to the the living plan requirement yes really The reason we bring this up, folks, is because it was reported over the weekend during the Salt Lake County Lincoln Day dinner, which, by the way, Lincoln Day dinners, 29 Lincoln Day breakfast or dinners. I spoke to one of them this year. You did. You were the keynote speaker. These have been happening for, I don't know, I mean, ever since I arrived in town, so we're talking. Yeah, they're kind of a big deal for Republicans. They are, and they're not overly controversial. They're just, they're the parties kind of, you know, annual. fundraising dinner. They usually have a good keynote speaker. Well, Salt Lake County's Republican Party had Nick Shirley, 23-year-old, but making a lot of waves, showing a lot of fraud out there as their keynote speaker. And you had just a few Democrats that came and they wanted to protest the Lincoln Day dinner. And the headline from one of the local media outlets was Living Planet Aquarium faces backlash over Republican Party fundraiser. Oh, no. Hold on at event event venue. Not backlash. There is, I don't know what this, what this backlash is, but it's not, I mean, there have been times where the Lincoln Day dinner was held at the Salt Lake. Community College Larry H. Miller Center that's in Sandy. It's been held at the Little America. It's been held all over Salt Lake County. And it's been held at the Convention Center? Convention Center, Long Island Salt Palace years years ago? Sure it has. It is just not, and it's never struck anyone as controversial. It never has been. But in the days, in the era we live in now, it was, it's now they're trying to say that this was a controversial event, the Lincoln Day dinner, which. Just is not. But anyway, so there's a controversial event. Is it the media describing it as a controversial event? Because 10 protesters showed up. That would be my guess. It is. It is. They're framing this. The Lovel and Living in Planet Aquarium is it's now facing backlash because they were able to, they hosted this, this Lincoln Day dinner. But it's, you know, you know, it's a tempest in a teapot. The backlash is from these loons in the Democrat side that are protesting.

The Lincoln Day dinner. I've been to so, you've been to so many of these. We've been to so many of these. And we've never seen protesters out there protesting a Lincoln Day dinner of all things. So are they protesting Nick Shirley or protesting a living aquarium, letting its facilities being used? Well, do they say? The article just wants to say that the aquarium itself is facing its backlash because it made its venue available for the event. It doesn't really even get into Nick Shirley in the story. But. Again, it's much ado about nothing because these events happen all the time. And you're going to find other people that will reserve this facility that will not be Republican. And I'm sure there will not be local media there or protesters from the left to protest it. And amazingly, the backlash will go away. It won't be there. How many hardworking Utahans have time to go to protest? I very few. Very few. I live through this. Okay, I was asked to protest. Ben McAdam's office after he voted to. You try. After he tried, after he did vote to impeach President Trump, I was asked if I would go out there and lead a protest. Folks, we just aren't good at this. We don't dress it. We weren't weather. We weren't dressed appropriately for the weather. We don't have chance that rhyme like the leftists do. We know slogans. We have a great sign. We have some NGO making all our signs for us. We were ill-prepared for any of this. So we were just not good protesters, and we were all doing it on our lunch break. It was like it was a workday. It's not like you could take the day off. So we, no, I don't think that the productive members of society have time for the nonsense of these protests. I don't think they do either. All right. More coming up. The Rod and Greg Show and Utah's Talk Radio 105.9. KNRS. Okay, let's go to our callers, the collective wisdom of our listeners. Let's tap into that, and let's go to George. She's in South Jim Jordan. George thanks you for holding, and welcome to the Rod and Greg Show. Yeah, thank you, gentlemen. Happy Monday. How are you doing? Good. Doing a while. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for your time. So I just want to say, although I don't agree with it, the Democrats are playing a very good game here, because although the big, beautiful bill does fund... ICE, CBP for a certain timeframe to 2029, what it doesn't provide is there are no appropriate funds to do operations. So when it comes to tactical enforcement or enforcing the law, there's no money to do anything in terms of traveling, spending money to buy things through confidential informants, by evidence, drugs, et cetera, to further investigation. Furthermore, all the administrative staff are not getting paid. Their salaries are not included in the big beautiful bill. So they are hemorrhaging at best to put up a good face, show up and do the work, all for what? So, again, although it's the big beautiful bill pays salaries, it does not pay day-to-day operational needs and necessities. And that is what hurts the workforce, but ultimately the security of the U.S. So, again, I think they're playing good baseball right now. George, can I ask you just a real quick question? So operationally, so if you funded the department, was it specific to the salaries that was funded until 2029? Because I didn't realize that, but operationally.

Is that a line item within that? Explain that to me because I thought that the ICE itself as a department or an agency had been funded, but it sounds like it's very narrow the way you're describing it. How does that work? Correct. So typically before you go into a new budget, you have to have line item approval for X amount of dollars that you want to expend it. So you'll have X amount of number, a number of dollars for enforcement operations, which is further line item to include. And I want to get too formal here, but investigative purchases for evidence, traveling for case investigative means, et cetera. So if you don't have appropriated funds during that fiscal year, you can't do it. Even though you have money in a different pot, it has to be the pot that it was appropriated through Congress. So maybe they're able to do some wiggle room here and there. At least they're paying salaries. But I know for a fact, Customs and Border Protection, their office of professional responsibility, which are by policy and law, to enforce internal issues regarding its workforce. They're not getting paid. And those are credentialed badge, gun holding agents that are literally 40 plus days without money. You can't sustain that. Well, you can't. Thank you, George. You didn't know that. But that's interesting information. Is that so on brand for our callers, our listeners, to call and give us that information? Because that's not been discussed. And that is, that is a different story. So thank you, George, for the input. All right. Let's go to our talk back line. See what one of our listener has to say. Rob, Mike, from Northern Utah. Sounds to me like the Democrats are trying to discriminate against Republicans using a facility, and so they want to discriminate against the facility. Is that all they are discriminators? They're very discreet. Yeah, they are prejudice. They are prejudiced against Republicans. I just thought about this. They're discriminating against the fish. I know. Those poor penguins. What did those penguins? There are a shark down there? Yeah, there are. Are there sharks down there? What did they ever do to those Democrats that they're going to try and hurt the aquarium and those poor penguins and sharks? Duh. You know, it is true that if there's a, there'll be left of center events that are hosted there just by, just by, you know, likelihood of having an event or an event center that's nice. It's brand new. There'll be no Republican protesting it saying that you can't have anything that's a Democrat, you know, event here. There's going to be none of that. There never has been any of that. They have, they do discriminate. They are prejudiced against anything right of center. And my son went to the Lincoln Day dinner. And. They just keep yon things like, you voted for a rapist and you did. I mean, they just, it's the same deranged, screeching and scolding, and it has zero substance to any of it. It's like Code Pink who went down to Cuba. Yep. They said the Cubans are doing really well. Of course, they stayed in a five-star hotel.

They had power, by the way. That had power. Imagine that. I guess they don't have anything to do with their life other than protest. Most Americans are busy and haven't got time to do that, folks. We have jobs. We have jobs. We have families. We like to take care of our communities. All right. When we come back, we'll talk about the debt and why Congress refuses to take a look at it. And what's going on? We're headed down a dangerous path, folks. We'll talk about that next. What's that old song? Rainy Days Mondays? I don't know, but I'm, yeah, I'm feeling a little. It's not rainy. It's beautiful outside. I would just yawn during the, you know, it's only, what, six and I'm yawning. So, yeah. Is it me? I don't know. But Monday's always, Monday, for some reason, I always feel sleepy on Mondays. Hey, real quick, before we go to our next guest, Donald Trump has done it again. I love it. He's installed a new statue of Christopher Columbus outside the Eisenhower Executive Office building in D.C. Good for him. We like Chris Columbus. You know, everyone got rid of Chris Columbus. Now Trump's on, uh-uh, we're bringing them back. Yep, every Italian American is saying thank you, Mr. President. As they should be. Well, this is ugly news, folks. It happened just last week or two weeks ago. The gross national debt broke the $39 trillion threshold. Back on March 17th, for comparison, the debt was $34.5 trillion in March of last year. That's an increase, Greg, of $4.5 trillion in just two years. How long can we sustain this? You can't. There's no example in written human history where this kind of government acceleration of spending, and you can go back to the Roman Empire. You just cannot do this. This is not a formula for success at all. Yeah, well, what is going on? Joining us on our newsmaker line right now is Brittany Maddeny. She's executive vice president of the Economic Policy Innovation Center. Brittany, how are you? And welcome to the Rod and Greg Show. Thanks so much for joining us, Brittany. Hey, thanks for having me. It'd be a heck of a lot better if we weren't $39 trillion in debt. I'll tell you that much. Me too. Two years, we climbed what, $4.5 trillion in debt? What on earth is going on, Brittany? Absolutely unbelievable. You know, before we even get into how we got here, I think it's useful if we talk a little bit about what that number even means. Once you get into the trillions, it's kind of hard to even fathom what we're talking about. I mean, I talk to my parents about it sometimes and my dad's eyes glaze over and he's a businessman. So if we're sitting here talking about $39 trillion in debt, what does that actually mean? If we break it down by household, because that's really who's holding this debt, right? I mean, it's the American taxpayer who gets stuck with the bill at the end of the day. You're at $289,000 in debt per household. And then you have to add on top of that another $578,000 per household for the unfunded liabilities in Medicare and Social Security. And then you add on another $77 hundred dollars per household just to cover the interest on the bill. So that gives you about $875,000.

as a single household bill to deal with the debt picture right now. So I'm confused by the trajectory. I, you know, when President Trump came in, he started Doge and we started to see where some of this money, but we're not talking trillions, but we're talking hundreds of billions at least, or, but we saw the waste, and we didn't know it, I didn't know what existed to the extent it did, but it looked like we were changing how we were spending or just writing those blank checks. You saw the Department of Education, some of the critical functions that, you would need are in different agencies. The Department of Education seems to be winding down. I would have thought this administration, we would at least see this chart that's going straight up. We would at least see it start to level off. Why are we printing money at a higher rate today than ever before? Well, I think a huge part of the problem is that so much of our spending is now being done on what's called the mandatory or autopilot side of the ledger. When we're talking about the budget fights that Congress is having, what we're actually talking about is only about 25% of the federal budget. The vast majority of spending of your tax dollars is not coming from those. discretionary appropriations bills. It's on autopilot. And that's really where the biggest drivers of our deficit and our debt are right now. So you have to look at the big welfare programs, Medicaid, food stamps, but you also have to take a look at social security and Medicare, which I know it's politically unpopular, but that's where the spending is. We're talking right now with Brittany Maddeny. She is with the Economic Policy Innovation Center talking about the huge debt that this country is now carrying. Brittany, you know, I look at this and I think of the old question, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time. Are there simple things? One bite that Congress could do or a series of bites that they could do to try and bring some sanity back to this, if that's even possible? Yeah, absolutely. I think it all starts with building the muscle memory in Congress to make cuts. You can't just say yes to everything when we're at a $1.9 trillion deficit. What that means is that we're spending $1.9 trillion more than we're planning on taking in this year. The solution to that is not to tax more because we don't have a revenues problem. Revenues are on the same pace that they've always been. The issue is that we have a spending problem. So step one, stop automatically increasing spending. We shouldn't be just assuming that our spending on government programs is going to increase every year. That's what we do. We should really be intentional with that. Step two, we need to be looking at all of these, quote, unquote, must pass bills in front of us and making sure that those are scrutinized. Is it really a must pass? What's in there? What are the priorities? Are there nice to have some there or there need to have some there? And start getting a handle on this.

So, you know, it is hard to get your head around. And I think you've done a great job in terms of landing it on the household debt. You know, what does 39 trillion really mean? My worry is that we are now at a number. And I think this is accelerated so quickly that I don't know how it would turn around. And my bigger worry is the global markets, the banks, the financial institutions. When does the United States, which, you know, has been the standard, it's, you know, our U.S. dollar is what things are clocked against, when does our precarious situation with spending start to impact negatively, even the global markets in terms of the dimming of the U.S. economic strength? And then where do they go from here if you don't have a strong U.S. economy because we have spent ourselves to a point where we're just dangerously teetering on disaster? Listen, that's the question on everyone's mind out here. And we're trying to figure that out. But the reality of the situation is, It could turn on a dime. We're now past the point of whether or not we're in a stable environment. We're not. It's entirely feasible to make the argument that we are already entering a fiscal crisis environment and that we have a very narrow window to change that trajectory before we get into a very serious problem. So let me give you one example of that. The social security trust fund is going insolvent in 2032. 2032 is not that far away. Senators who are running for office this year are still going to be in office under the same term in 2032 when the trust fund goes insolvent and benefits are automatically cut. So if you're voting for a senator this year, that senator is going to be sitting there because you voted this year at the same time that the trust fund is going in solvent. Now what that means in practice is this is not the next guy's problem. It's this guy's problem. We're finally at that breaking point. Boy, what a frightening thought that is, Brittany. Thanks for making our evening. Oh, happy Monday. Thank you, Brittany. Jeez. You ask me how I write me. I know. I know. I feel a lot better if not for this. Well, you're scaring me straight. I'm not going to spend anything. I'm going to start saving more. My goodness. Brittany, thank you so much. Having a little fun with you tonight. And thanks for your wealth of information. We sure do appreciate it. Absolutely. Y'all have a good night. Thank you for your work. Joining us on our newsmaker line, that's Brittany Madney. She is with the Economic Policy Innovation Center, the national debt topping $39 trillion. And boy, did that just wake me up. She said six years from now, Social Security will be insolvent. And the new senators you elect this year will be in office.

And that hits you, pal. Well, it's going to hit you. Well, I'm not. You're barreling toward it. I know I am, but you know, I, I, uh, you're on the clock. I mean, you're, you're enjoying all the fruits of your labor, you know? Maybe not for long. I know. That's kind of a raw deal. I'm all by me a little cabin up on the Madison River in Wyoming and just fly fish all the time. You know, that sounds like a good plan. I don't think you're going to, you better get a low cost of living wherever you're going. Just go there. Go like that Ted Kaczynski, you know, a little cabin in the middle of nowhere. I think you won't be spending a lot of money. Take a typewriter with you. Thank you. Write me a letter. It won't blow up. All right. More coming up, the Rod and Greg Show with you on this Monday evening and Utah's Talk Radio 105.9. KNRS. I just learned something about our friend Rod that is very disturbing. I'm just going to tell you, I don't know if I let him break it to you or if I'm going to narc them out. You need to come clean and tell our audience what you just told me. What did I watch? You cannot read signs. Yes, I can read signs. Yes, I can't read signs. You are like these illegals on the CDL licenses. You can't read signs. I need to be a little bit closer than I used to be. But I can read signs. Don't give me this. I can't read signs. You can't be that close. It's not safe. You're supposed to see it from afar. That's the whole point. How far? Well, whatever distance you say you can't see it, you're supposed to see it. Okay? That's the test. If you say, I can't read any of those signs, then you may as well be your illegally with a CDL license, driving on our roads, making us all, you know, threatening us. I wore glasses for a long time. Yeah. Okay. And got LASIC. Okay. Haven't needed glasses forever. LASIC has been wonderful. Haven't need glasses forever. Can't read a sign on a road, but I don't need them. I don't think you understand how that works. As you get a little older, your eyesight deteriorates a little bit, right? But then you are just telling me at some point it does level off. That's what my optometrist told me. Told you. Yes. So see, I think my... But drop has leveled off a little bit. I can read signs without my glasses on. What sign do you want me to read in here? You just, hey, you are the one that confessed this to me. I can't, I can't quiz you now. You said I can't read signs. You said it and I'm like, what are you talking about? You've got to be able to read signs. It's part of driving. You have to know what it says. I saw. I can see signs. If you're on a road trip, how do you know what exit to get off of? You know that you have a number sometimes. I have a little map. You know, your car map shows you how to get off. Exit 14. Are you going to see the 14? Yeah, because it directs you to it. Oh, no. This is a disaster. I'm doing just fine. Is she aware that you can't see? Oh, yeah. Yes. See? The way you said that shows that my concern is shared by others. We have a great male audience, great man, and we have some great women out there too. We do. How many of you men are like me when you're driving, you have a friend next to you?

You mean, spouse? Yeah. Who is telling you things about your driving. Yes, well. Now, does Queenby ever say something about your driving? I'm an excellent driver. Definitely an excellent driver. But she never says anything about your driving. No. No, no. Well, if you did, I'm not telling you. I'm not going to, I'm not admitting it to you. Now, my wife is very helpful, occasionally. She'll say something. Like, you can't see and I think that my life is in danger. No, she has never said that. She has never said that because her life has not been in danger. If you can't see the names on the signs, if you can see the words. I can see the signs. I know you can see the signs. You just can't see the words to read them. You're making fun of me. You said it. I'm just repeating what you told me. I was in shock. There are times or there are signs that you, but I know where I'm going around here. And when I don't know, I just got back from driving to California. right yes you have maps in your car now it just tells you where to go so you really you made you made it safely right am i here well i was just going to ask how about how about the cars around you oh they make it safely they were fine because maybe you made it but at the expense of no i did people around you are you asking me if i caused accidents yes or caused concern did you get off and exit late because you didn't see it coming i am a very safe driver Okay. I think being able to read road signs is kind of part of the gig. I don't know. Call me crazy. I can read road signs. You said you couldn't. Now you're telling you. You know what? You are just, you just, you embellish things. I just, I just said, I can't see all signs. This is an unplanned part of this segment. It came up right before we came back from the, right before we came back from the break, you said this to me, and it really colored my intro into this break because it was shocking to hear you say I can't read any of these signs. I can read, see the TV right now? We have guests that come on this program that talk about how we have illegals that are getting commercial driver's licenses. So you're comparing me now to an illegal? Well, one of the problems is that they're unable to read the signs. That's because it's not the issue of seeing them. They don't understand English. They don't understand English. If you can't read the sign, you're just like they are. They can't read it. You can't read it. I can read the signs. It's not what you said. I don't know what you can go ahead and rewrite history if you want, but it's not how you said. Have you ever noticed me not being able to read anything? No, you read fine here. Thank you very much. But I'm talking, you said it's the signs on the road. You want to ride with me down the road today and I'll read the signs. I would never get in the car with you now. Wow. No way. Got to read signs. You got to be able to do that. And you're the perfect driver. Okay, I've got a quick, quick quiet. Okay, where we're on this subject. When you drive your car, you've got a brand new car. Thank you. It's my cherry signer. Cadillac. Slick Cadillac. Yes. Why do you sit so low in your car?

I don't. Yes, you do. What are you talking? Your head's hardly above the window. Oh, that is not true. Denny, is that right? No, I like to throw my arm. Why does he ride so? I like you. I throw my arm up on top of the steering wheel like this. You got me. You're a low rider. Ride like a man. A man sits in the car and takes command of the car. You're down there. You're kind of wimpy. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. I sit normal in the car, but. You and girls like to put the seat up as high as possible. No, I don't put it up as high as possible. I like to be above and see things. I see it plenty. Down that low? You're hardly looking over the steering wheel. Now you talk about embellishment. This is total and total embellishment. I see perfect. I see perfectly out that car. That's a fast car too. I've never seen. I've never seen in Formula One, they're not sitting like they're on a, you know. A four-wheel drive monster truck. Well, they're in a Formula One car. Of course they aren't. Well, that's what my car is. A formula one. Yeah. What do you think? Remember I got a stupid ticket? Remember I got a stupid? You're out there being one of the F-1 driver? It's Verstappen. Oh, Verstappen. I like Van Stupin. But remember how I got a ticket like less than 24 hours after I purchased it? Yes, you did. Yes. Have you had any more? No, I can't. Oh, really? I went to traffic court. Would you have to go to traffic school? No, I went to traffic school. So I wouldn't get it. But then you have to have a clean record for a whole year. I bet you don't make it. I'm sweating it. I bet you don't make it. I'm trying. But you drive slower and I do, so you'll be okay. Thank you. I mean, you're. Well, because you can't see the speed limit to know if you're driving too fast. Oh, granny, going down the road. All right. Have we solved our problems? I think we have. Okay. Shall we break? Yes. Yeah, we have to pay your high salary. All right, more coming up on the Rotter and Greg show on this Monday. That was an engaging segment on Talk Radio 1059, KNRS. A lot of discussion in this country over the years and increasingly so, I think, Greg, is the debate over so-called culture wars. Yes. Would you agree? Yes, I would. Culture wars. It's identity politics. It's DEI. It's transgenderism. It's all. Gay rights. You name it. Critical race theory. You name it. Do you know that they had critical wars during the Roman Empire? Critical what? Culture wars, I should say, during the Roman Empire. You don't believe me, do you? I think that's fake news. It is not fake news. Yeah, I think you just made that up. I watched Gladiator. It wasn't, I don't, I didn't see any of it. So you, yeah. Well, that was, that's basically a documentary. You're basing your knowledge of the Roman Empire on Gladiator. Yes, all of it. Yes. It was very entertaining. A lot of education. Are you not entertained? Oh, you had to drop that one in, didn't you? I did. Well, let's find out about the parallels between ancient Rome and what is going on in America today and really around the world with the transgender movement, joining us on our newsmaker line, our good friend Tyler O'Neill, managing editor at the Daily Signal. Tyler, will you please tell my co-host that I'm not making this up? Don't say it's not so.

No, he's not at all. So they had both critical wars, as you mentioned, but they also had culture wars in ancient Rome. And in fact, the culture wars in ancient Rome feel a lot similar to what we have today. And, you know, there are a lot of reasons for this. A lot of people don't seem to don't remember. But the Roman Empire was a very culturally diverse. pluralistic society so i think it's it's interesting to think about it in these terms because you know atheists these days and christians don't see eye to eye but for a long period Christians were condemned and called atheists in the Roman Empire. And one of the main reasons why Christians were put to death was because they would not do the basic sacrifice to the Roman emperors who were considered to be divine. So you had this system. You know, this is common in the ancient world. Even from the days of Babylon, they had these systems where you had one God who was kind of in control of a pantheon of gods. And they all believed that each city could have had its own deity. And so when you had an empire like the Babylonian Empire or the Assyrian Empire or the Roman Empire, They said that whoever the head honcho god of the ruling city was, that god was the head of the pantheon. And the other gods all were kind of obeisance to that. ruler god and the unique thing in Judaism and Christianity was this claim that no there is only one god and you know we're not going to worship any other gods but the interesting thing is you know it's it's very similar in feel to the way we have these left-wing cultural issues that everyone is supposed to you know that everyone is supposed to Not quite worship, but, you know, I almost bend the need to. Because you have these Black Lives Matter flags, these LGBT rainbow flags. You know, I live in the D.C. area. And anytime I drive into D.C., it's almost unavoidable that somewhere you're going to see a rainbow flag often on, you know, often on a government building or in a public. place that is designed to send the message like this this territory of this movement and if you disagree you're you know you're not following that that's a similar feel to what they had when the christians had to worship the emperors or

be fed to the lions. Okay, Tyler, so you know, you're kind of shaking my understanding of all this. And that's fine, that's fine. I don't know what I don't know. So if we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it. What does history say or does it say anything about this? I'm reading, you know, that they had transgenderism or they had people that they saw that were men that they imagined as goddesses or women. And what did history tell, what does history tell us about this? you know this cult and this this movement that happened in rome Yeah, so this was one of the mystery religions. So in that pluralistic society, you had a lot of these different cults. And one of the cults was the worship of the Magna Mater or Sibley. And this goddess had, you know, was known for having a man who was infatuated with her, a priest who, you know, de-emasculated, emasculated himself, cut off his manhood in service of the priest and kind of dressed up like a priestess, or in service of the goddess, I should say, and dressed up like a priestess. And so there was this ritualistic castration that they would engage in. And, you know, Patalus, who's one of the Roman poets whose work survives to us, had a very long poem about one of the priests who would do this, and then envisioning that priest having regret. So we have this echo of the struggle of a detransitioner, essentially, all the way back in ancient Rome. And so the reason this came to my attention, you know, I have read Cautilus, but I hadn't read this particular poem until I spoke with the detransitioner, and he was telling me, that he was reading this because... You know, some segments of the transgender movement like to say that transgenderism has always existed. And one of the things they do is they point to this ancient Roman cult. The interesting thing about the cult is that it isn't from Rome. It was from Frigia, which was a land in Asia Minor. Frigia. No. Now, okay. The land now known as Turkey, Asia Minor. And so this. This land was very known for wealth. I mean, the old king Cresus, you know, you had Riches Cresus, and then the myth of King Midas also came from there. And, you know, this is the area that supposedly first invented coinage. And so they're immensely wealthy. And what we see from this...

you know this connection is this suggestion and i think it's a it's a very good suggestion that excess wealth can often lead people to you know, go down to very dark places in search of, you know, self-actualization. And so in ancient Rome, you had this culture war where a lot of people wanted Rome to return to the old ethic of the citizen farmer and the old Roman Senate. And unfortunately, you know, this is, they wanted to return to that, but they also had these. these very populist leaders like Julius Caesar, like Marius and Sulla, who were fighting one another. And, you know, over time, what happened was the old empire, which they associated with these citizen farmers, this virtuous history. this old republic fell to an empire and the rule of one man and unfortunately you know i i like a lot of what president trump has been doing i like a lot of um you know some of what we what we'd seen in a few previous administrations but what we're seeing in in america in general is this kind of breakdown of the institutions of the old republican system and you know this assertion of pure will and strength from the presidency and this this also really echoes Rome and you know some of us like to see a lot of what President Trump is doing but at the same time this growth of the presidency it's it's almost like shifting America in a similar trajectory to what we saw in the days of the late Roman Republic I've heard people talk about that before Tyler fascinating as always great to have you on the show thanks for a few minutes of your time tonight Yeah, thanks for having. Hey, thank you. All right. Tyler O'Neill, managing editor of the Daily Signal. Bread and circuses. Huh? Bread and circuses. You just think of Gladiator. That's it. There's more to it than that. I never saw one gladiator that was, you know, transitioned like this. They would not last long. Are you sure? Man, I don't think they'd last long in there. Did you see Gladiator, too? I did. I saw Gladiator, too. Okay. What about the two brothers who were emperous? Well, yeah, there was that. There was that. Tushay. Yes, Rod. But I don't, they wouldn't last long in the gladiator ring. I'll tell you that. That's not a place for them. No. Okay, that's, that's, mm-mm, ruffians in there. Yep. You're sure.

That's what I saw in the movie. Basin alone. Yes, absolutely. All right. Some final thoughts coming up with the Rod and Greg show with you on this Monday in Utah's Talk Radio, 1059, KNRS. Starting to realize, Greg, I think they are, that there are those within the Iranian leadership who lie. Yes. Their pants are full on on fire. I'm telling you, they are liar liars and their pants are on fire. Now, for how long did they tell us that they're only producing nuclear materials for to benefit their country? For power. For power. Yeah. Just power. Yeah. And then they said long range missiles. Oh, not us. We just like the medium. We like medium just to protect ourselves. Yeah, just to protect ourselves. So what happened this weekend? They fired a couple long-range missiles. You know what difference is 2,000 kilometers gives you a circle around Tehran or around Iran that, you know, they're looking at Israel, but they're looking at maybe they're Arab states. Protecting themselves. You double that distance to 4,000 kilometers, and now you're starting to, now you're looking at UK, you're looking at France, you're looking at Spain, you're looking at Europe in a big way. Well, they swore on their lives in February of this year of 2026. No. We're not doing any of that. Two of them went to Diego Garcia, 4,000 miles. So they absolutely have those rockets and the capability to send long ballistic missiles that far. And if you put a nuke on it, I mean, there's just, there is endless threats once you have that kind of long range capacity, of which they have proven on their own that they absolutely have. Now, here's what's freaky. When Barack Obama was in the White House, he was trying to negotiate a deal with Iran. Remember that? Yes. And Congress rejected it. But I want to take you back 11 years ago. This is then Florida Senator Marco Rubio talking about the threat of Iran and what it could mean for the United States. They'll also continue to build long-range missiles. Missiles capable of reaching the United States. Those are not affected by this deal. And they'll continue to build them as they've been doing. And then at some point in the near future, when the time is right, they will build a nuclear weapon. And they will do so because at that point they will know that they have become immune, that we will no longer be able to strike their nuclear program because the price of doing so will be too high. This is not just the work of imagination. It exists in the world today. It's called North Korea. He's right. So North Korea is to a position that the United States really cannot attack North Korea because of a guy with funny haircut, could unleash nuclear way. That's where Iran was headed. Yes, they were. And that's why Donald Trump stepped in. And it was Bill Clinton that signed the deal with North Korea. They said the same, they had the same story. We need nuclear because we need power. Okay, let's sign this pretty document that says you'll never use it for weaponry. And then lo and behold, they have, not only do they have nukes, but they have long range intercontinental missiles. They claim. And so now there's nothing you can really do about North Korea other than, you know, just warn them, which president's done. You know, I was just listening to that by, I was wondering.

How difficult it must be for Donald Trump and people like Marco Rubio to sleep at night knowing what's going on in the world. Yeah, there's a lot happening. And the threats against the United States of America. I mean, this was 11 years ago. Marco Rubio, I think, has done an unbelievable job. He really has. As Secretary of State. This was 11 years ago. And he saw this and warned the American people about it. And thank goodness, we told Barack Obama, you know that deal? Nah. We aren't going to take it. You know, and the mission has been three. It's been nukes, missiles, and terrorism. Those are the three. And I'm going to tell you that when those missiles go 4,000 kilometers instead of the 2,000 that they swore, that's all the further they could go. That alone tells you that something needed to be done pretty quick because that 4,000 kilometer missile range goes right after Europe. And this is a government, a regime run by clerics who do not. Mutual destruction does not dissuade them. No. They don't mind dying in the cause. It does not. All right. That does it for us tonight. Head up, shoulders back. May God bless you and your family. And this great, great country of ours. Enjoy your Monday. Craig and I, we're back tomorrow for. Have a good evening.