The Rod and Greg Show: Senator Mike Lee on Shutdown; Is Trump's Use of National Guard Legal?

We're here for you, folks. We're going to unpack it all and have some great discussions also with Senator Mike Lee. That's coming up in this hour. So if you're listening, you don't want to go far because that's a good interview. And we want to hear what the center, good center has to say. A couple issues right front of center with him and the Senate. For sure. And the Army Major General, he's retired now, now a member of the Utah House of Reps, Representative. Jefferson Burton will join us, and he'll be talking about National Guard troops, going to Illinois, going to Portland, and if the President has the authority to do that. I think he does, by the way. Yeah, and I think this is what we'll hear from Representative Burton, but I think having led the National Guard here in the state of Utah and been that person, he knows when you're answering to a state versus when you're a National Guard and answering to the President, he will know those details. in a way that I think can describe it better than what we've heard from others try to do. So that's going to be a great conversation as well. Yeah, he'll join us at the bottom of this hour. In the 5 o'clock hour, the president, he loves to stir things up. Oh, does he? He is now floating this idea out there. And like you said, it's pure brinkmanship, which it is, but the possibility of not giving federal employees back pay. as a result of the government shutdown. Well, won't that turn up the heat a little bit? If people think that they're not going to get the back pay, they're not on some unplanned vacation, but this is their personal time, unpaid personal time. Who? Might turn up the heat a little bit, but I thought we were going to see some furloughs. I don't know if that's happened yet, but I thought there was... No, he threatened that again today. Three to five days, he made a side. Yeah, because, I mean, I thought this was a great opportunity for him to, you know, thin out the herd, so to speak, of that bureaucracy, that swamp, which I wouldn't be upset if he did. Well, the question of the day, I think, as we start the show off on this really gorgeous Tuesday afternoon, there on the outside, is who put something in Pam Bondi's coffee or cereal this morning to make her so upset? She came in the Senate hearing loaded for bear. She did. She didn't mince words, did she. Yeah, no, she did not. I mean, she went after every Democratic senator on that panel, including Dick Durbin, Richard Blumenthal, and Adam Schiff. And she was not going to let them get away with anything, right? Well, it started with Dick Durbin. And she basically, she got some question from Dick Durbin, who honestly had no idea what he was getting into, I think, when he ran into Pam Bondi. But first of all, they talked about Chicago, crime in Chicago, and what's being done. And she laid it out pretty heavily about the crime stats in the windy city. Your city has a murder rate five times higher than New York's. 571 homicides. last year. If you were serious about protecting your people, you would be asking this administration for help. You're saying that we're coming into your state and your city. We're there to help make America safe and Illinois safe, whether or not

that kind of reform. Senator Richard Blumenthal, I find it so interesting that you didn't bring any of this up during President Biden's administration when he was doing everything to protect Hunter Biden, his son. And I think you just saw what Director John Ratcliffe just released. You know, this is an effort to be positive. If I can finish answering the question, I'm not going to yell over you. I'm not going to get in the gutter with you. But information. information that the Biden administration told them not to investigate Hunter Biden's involvement with Ukraine. And I'm not going to be lectured to you about integrity by someone who lied about being in the military just to be elected a senator. Oh, wow. She laid it on pretty thick today. She did. And, you know, Congress actually deserves this because they don't actually work. There's not actually any work being done. All of this is, this is all political kabuki theater. It is. It is. And it's, and I hate saying that all the time. But really, they don't have committee hearings to move the needle to forward legislation or budget considerations. This is all for tonight's, you know, just for sound bites and for social media. That's all that's going on here. You know, and. There is no decorum, but you can't lay it at the Attorney General's feet, Pam Bondi. The Democrats left the issue of John Roberts or Mason Rules of Order, whatever they're supposed to use in that committee and decorum. All those things have been, they left that long ago. Yeah. And so. You know, you reput yourself. And that's why you get committee hearings like this. You sure do. One exchange that was today. All right, more coming up. Utah Senator Mike Lee. We'll join us. We'll talk about the latest story about the FBI spying on U.S. senators and the shutdown. What's the status? Will thou come up next right here on the Rod and Greg show? Chuck Grassley late Monday, he released some redacted documents. Basically what they showed, Greg, was that Jack Smith. Special prosecutor in the Justice Department under the Biden administration spied on eight U.S. senators, all Republican senators, during, I guess they called it Arctic Frost. I guess that was the name of the investigation. Yeah, I think we're going to start, we're going to talk about this with a good senator, Senator Lee, but I think we're starting to get numb. Some of these things are so shocking and wrong that you're surveilling are United States senators and that they're acting this way. But how much of this can your mind absorb before you start to become numb to it? So it's pretty serious. And we have to really talk about it. Senator Mike Lee joining us on our newsmaker line right now to talk about us. Senator, thanks for joining us. What do you make of this story on the FBI spine on Republican senators? Yeah, look, this is crazy. It's just been revealed to us that the Biden administration spied on members of the legislative branch, including eight Republican U.S. senators, in a scandal rivaling water date. The next time you hear a Democrat asking about these amorphous threats to, quote-unquote, our democracy.

Ask them what they said about this particularly dark episode in American history. This is not cool. Look, your government takes money from you, from all taxpayers. In this circumstances, in this circumstance, it's using it to lie and spy on law-biting citizens, including elected officials. This is completely unacceptable. They're not supposed to be doing this. They know they're not supposed to be doing this. It's a good reason to clip the wings of any agency that's involved in this. Why did they do it, Cinder Lee? Why did they do it? Because they could. Because they could. In the days following January 6th, there was a sentiment that developed in the days, weeks, and months following from that, that all is fair when investigating anything under the cover of January 6, anything having to do with January 6th. And keep in mind, this wasn't the first time this has happened. We certainly would be hopelessly naive. if we believe that it would be the last, absent some real repair work. And so Congress needs to fix this. It is apparent to me that we need more reform of the deep state. The deep state's not going to reform itself. We've got to gut this apparatus like a fish. We've got to reform authorities like FISA 702 and clip the wings of government so that it can't abuse its authority this way. You know, Senator, I think a human instinct is to try and normalize the things around you. You're just trying to get your equilibrium, so you're trying to – so the volume of information we're getting, any piece of it should be enough to do everything you're saying in terms of the reform and just take it apart and rebuild it into something that has integrity. You're talking 250, at least somewhere around that number of FBI agents that were in the crowd of January 6th, which is news to us now that – doesn't feel comfortable. I'm not comfortable with that and what their role necessarily was. You have the experiences that Tulsi Gabbard went through where she was being followed during the Biden administration and the way she was treated. And now you find out that eight senators were being surveilled after January 6th. I don't see Bernstein and Woodward run around interviewing you. Maybe they have. But if how to quantify what you said about how we have to do something about this. share with our listeners what's the first couple steps i mean we really do have to do something and i think that we can it can just overwhelm us in terms of the draconian nature of the biden administration and the democrats what real things can we look at when we see happening know that we're making progress to to to address these what's happened First and foremost, people need to talk about it. They need to talk about it openly and honestly and express how they feel about it. Most Americans that I know, regardless of their party, aren't okay with this sort of thing. They're not okay with the law enforcement and surveillance apparatus of the U.S. government being weaponized politically to fight political battles against the foes, the political enemies of the incumbent administration. This is not at all acceptable. Meanwhile, you've got the news media. Many people within the mainstream news media doing their darkness to either not report on this or to undersell it or to do as Politico did just in the last couple of hours are running a story.

accusing my colleague Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri for referring to it as a wiretap. Okay, fine. Wiretap technically refers to something else. I mean, technically we don't tap phones these days with fiscal wires. There are other things. And in this circumstance, it wasn't necessarily, what we know about is not necessarily the collection of content of conversations, but rather what we call metadata. Who called who when they... spoke, how long they spoke, where they were when they spoke, and so forth. Even that is something they weren't supposed to be doing. But instead, Politico, when reporting on it, prefers to refer to it as, oh, Josh Hawley was wrong because they didn't use the right word. Give me the biggest break. Let's move on, Senator. Let's talk about the shutdown. Give us a status report on the shutdown where you think things are headed right now. Okay, so Democrats have shut down the government demanding more of your tax dollars to support illegals, and they can't pretend otherwise. Now, we are now fully into, we're about halfway through day seven of the Chuck Schumer shutdown. And the Democrats fig leaf proposal to stop the shutdown failed because, well, it was designed to fail from the outset. They know that it never had a chance. For whatever reason, Democrats want the Chuck Schumer shutdown to continue. So meanwhile, they're refusing to pass a so-called clean CR, supported by Republicans, one that would keep everything open and running and funded. And they're holding government hostage that turned back the clock on policy victories. We made in the one big beautiful bill, which would enable illegal aliens, once more, if Democrats have their way, to benefit from American tax dollars. So we have to remember this. We can't forget the fact that ultimately, the reason Democrats lost seats in the House and then it's Senate and then lost the White House. They lost control of all three of the political levers of the two political branches, meaning the House, the Senate, and the White House. They lost that because their policies were out of touch with the preferences of the American people, and they were harmful. Now that it's being apparent that that's the case, and we have now, once in the majority, we have secured significant policy victories to undo some of the hellish harm inflicted by the Democrats over the last four years. They're trying to reverse even those, but they're overplaying their hand. It's not going to work. So that's my question, Senator. Do your colleagues hold strong? Do they capitulate and go to the COVID years and make that a new baseline for health care, whatever it is that they're going to ask for, that Chuck Schumer is going to demand? Do you give into those demands or any of those? Or do you hold strong and ask for a clean CR and get a clean CR continuing resolution through the Senate? Look, we're going to hold strong. No, one could argue that what we've offered them is on the side of generosity. And it certainly does. I mean, we're talking about Biden-era spending levels that were on the table that they themselves rejected in order to keep the government funded. And so they're saying, no, we're not going to let you fund anything in government.

Unless you're willing to undo policy victories that you Republicans have secured since winning the November 2024 elections, resoundingly, we're not going to let you fund anything in government, unless, among other things, you're willing to undo changes in law that made it so illegal aliens can't continue to get free taxpayer-funded health care in this country. The same illegal aliens that 15 million or so that Biden let in. in fighting this full-scale invasion across our southern border. They're saying that unless we undo those changes in law, they're not going to let us fund anything in government. We're not giving into that. No way. Utah Senator Mike Lee. Thank you, Senator Lee, for joining us on the Rodham Greg Show and Talk Radio 105-9, KNRS. Is the President's decision to dispatch the National Guard to Washington, D.C., to Chicago, to Portland, and boy, there are Blue City mayors who are none too happy with what he's trying to do. That's right. There's a lot of controversy. Now, You know, you would think that public safety and the assistance of the National Guard would be appreciated. And I think it is in, what, Memphis? I think, you know, I think there's a better relationship there. Anyway, to join, you know, to join our show and to give us some clarity from the man who would know would be State Representative Jefferson Burton, who also served as the lead of the Utah National Guard. And so, I don't know, General... Representative Burton, what's proper salutation should I greet you with, sir? Anything works for me, Greg. Just happy to be with you and to talk about this topic that is non-controversial. I know. You know, we're lucky to have you because you've worn a lot of different hats and you've been a leader in this state in a bunch of different capacities. One is leading our National Gardens. So you know the relationship between... The President of the United States, and when he calls, you know, our National Guard, I saw this during the Gulf War. I saw the deployments for Utah National Guard, but also the relationship with the governor and what happens there. Maybe share with our audience. Does President Trump have the authority to deploy the National Guard if the governor of the respective state has not asked for them? Yeah, yeah, Greg, absolutely he does. You know, Article 2, Section 2, the Constitution makes the president, the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces and of the state militias when called to serve a federal purpose. And so if you look at the statutory authorities that are out there, and I know them well because, you know, I was called up several times. Our forces were for different actions. The president has the authority under the Title 10 of the United States Code to call up the National Guard without the governor's consent in certain circumstances. And from my perspective, President Trump has followed the law. He's gotten good legal.

counsel. Now, you may argue, well, why are these judges overturning some of the actions that he's taking? It's a matter of opinion. When you look at that Oregon judge's finding, she just simply said that this situation wasn't strong enough for him to have called in the guard in this situation. So it's a matter of opinion. But constitutionally, he has the right. Does he have the right to call National Guardsmen from other state like they're doing in Illinois? They're calling him up, I understand, from Texas. Matter of fact, they may already be there. Does he have a right to do that, Representative Burton? Well, if he does it for the purposes that he's describing, which is to protect federal facilities and federal agents, then he absolutely does. If, in his opinion, the leader in that state is not taking care of business. I mean, what is government's responsibility? It's at the basic level is to provide safety and security for taxpaying American citizens. And there's just a disagreement, obviously, between the governor of Illinois and... and the governor of Oregon and the governor of California on these on these matters so representative here's my question I you know it wasn't it's been discussed for some time the National Guard coming in the homicide rate and and the the just the yeah the homicide rate in Chicago is a war zone and it's in it doesn't have a comparison New York City is not that bad a lot of sit a lot of our metropolitan areas in the country or not however You know, talking about whether the National Guard can be there and there being an emergency and constitutionally doing it, I've always believed there need to be a federal nexus. Because they've been talking about this, be it J.B. Pritzker or the mayor of Chicago, didn't they just walk right into this when people started boxing in with vehicles, ICE agents? If federal law enforcement's trying to enforce federal law and you have the chaos and the violence that's going on in Chicago right now stopping. the federal agents from doing it. Doesn't that give a clear path for the National Guard to go and assist? Are those federal agents and the duty that they're trying to perform? Well, from my perspective, it does. And Greg, I mean, to your point, the largest police union has come out very strongly condemning what the city of Chicago did. And as you said, Chicago looks like Baghdad. In fact, it's worse than Baghdad was in some periods of the war. And to have elected officials, it's pure malpractice, in my opinion, to not, you know, make sure that good citizens are protected from the violence that's going on in that city. It's rampant.

And it blows my mind that judges out there are making decisions based on, they don't think it's a high enough level for the president of calling troops. So from my perspective, these folks are committing malpractice. And the president is just trying to restore order. Yes. Representative Burton, what exactly is the role of the National Guard in these cities? Are they there? just to protect federal property and federal employees, or can they do things to help fight crime in other areas of the city? Are they restricted as to what they can and cannot do? It depends on the code the president uses, and to my understanding, he's been using 10 United States Code 12406. And that one is for, this one is for repelling invasion. And so the president has said this is invasion. He's using that as his premise. Some disagree with that. But when law enforcement isn't performing the duties, the National Guard can be brought in. And in that case, Posse Comitatis Act, which simply means that the military cannot perform law enforcement activities. It doesn't apply. So what that means is under 12406, yes, the guard could do more. They could assist in law enforcement duties. But I think to this point, they've just been used to protect and dissuade some of the bad activities. Representative Burton, love your insight. Thank you very much for spending a few minutes with us. Thank you. All right, have a good day, guys. Hey, thank you. All right, that is Representative Jeff Burton, one time retired military general. Yes, I worked when I was speaker. He was running the National Guard, and we work together, and he's a patriot. He's a soldier, but he's also now a great state lawmakers. So he's doing, like I said, he's worn different hats, and he's always done it very well. All right, we appreciate his insight. All right, more coming up. It is the Rod and Greg Show on this Tuesday, and talk radio 1059, KNRS. You weren't a country music fan, are you? No, not really. I mean, I don't. hate it but it's not a it doesn't show up on my playlist let's just say that i just wonder if country music stations around the country are playing this latest song from zach brian do you hear about this song no very anti-ice Now, you think country and country music, very patriotic, right? But he's written a new song and just goes after ice like you wouldn't believe. Really? Yeah, and a country artist doing that. I mean, here's some of the lyrics, don't wake up dead or in jail. Some out-of-town boys being given us hell. I got some bad news. I woke up missing you, my friends, and all the degenerates, but that's all I've got. The generational story of dropping the plot. I heard the cops came. That's why, I mean, it calls them Maffirs, you name it.

Who's Luke, Zach Brian? Zach Brian. I don't know Zach Brown hardly at all, but. Well, that's what I, the one thing I have liked about country music is how patriotic everybody is. Not this time. But not that. Yeah. It's like when the Dixie Chicks, didn't want to be Dixie Chicks anymore. Well, remember they got after Bush when they were out of the country at a concert. Yeah. And that kind of sent them packing. Yeah. Anyway, too bad. I mean, I don't know where they, again. If you are breaking the law, you are not oppressed. If you are enforcing federal law, you are not an oppressor. Okay, it's not oppression to enforce federal law. That's why we have laws. It's an upside-down world when you say otherwise. Yeah. One of the note, remember the story we talked about yesterday, this was that a little girl, little boy who wanted a, she went to build a bear and wanted Charlie Kirkson and they wouldn't do it, right? Well, now we have another story. Apparently, a MAGA hat has triggered a card player into allegedly being banned from a champion, a championship entering tour tournament. He can't play because he wore a MAGA hat. What kind of a card game? It was a poker tournament. Poker tournament? Poker tournament? Oh, please. Yeah. Yeah, that doesn't... They said you can't play because you're wearing a mega hat. Make America great again. Isn't that offensive? Isn't that terrible? At a poker game? Come on. Really? Is it that bad, folks? I don't understand it. I really don't. But I don't know. Sometimes these people come to their senses once a little bit of scrutiny has come their way and people know what they're doing. It doesn't really, you know, stand under the bright lights and they kind of change their direction. Maybe that'll happen with the build of bear and... whatever this if it's the only poker tournament i know that's a big deal is a world series of poker the down in Vegas is it yeah it's a big deal i wonder if they banned maga hats i would hope not i have i used to watch that tournament though i don't watch that anymore i get i'm bored of it now did you learn anything no actually you'll never learn anything watching it because they take hours they take 12 hours of a game and down and narrow it down to an hour so you think every hand's hot when you watch when you watch it on tv it's a total it's not how it's played all right when we come back the president is floating yet another controversial idea yes yeah we'll get your take on that coming up right here hour number two of the rod of gregg show is on this way I think we take this hour, Rod, and we delve into the concept that President Trump is, you know, he's got some trial balloons out there. He's just seeing, you know, throw things to the wall, see what sticks. Yeah. He wants to say, hey, how about we not? back pay we don't provide back pay he's kind of sprinkling that idea over the scrambled eggs yeah you know how that tastes i mean it's a memo that's in circulation yes but apparently the president claims are they're looking at the possibility that there is legal standing that he and the federal government we the american taxpayer do not have to pay federal employees any employee who is being shut down as a result of the shutdown the government shutdown right now so we wouldn't have to give them

back pay it's an interesting concept and i'll tell you i just i love it because uh for a couple reasons one anything he says the left just loses their mind i mean he can just put a he could just put a trump 2028 sign or hat on it on a on a they lose their mind they just go nuts i mean they just they are just he control them like nobody's business and maybe this is just to maybe put a pep in their step on the democrat side and say look we're if If all these federal employees think they're on a paid holiday, they're not. And boy, would the stakes rise if that was the case. But it might be just a negotiating point. Who knows? Yeah, well, here's the memo. This is what the memo points out. This is the memo that's circulating in the White House right now about what the president is thinking about doing. It points to amended language in the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, otherwise known as GIFTA. Okay. Okay. And it says compensation for furloughed employees is subject to the enactment of Appropriations Act ending the lapse. Okay. Goes on to say, in other words, the Office of Management and Budget argue in its legal analysis the bill only guarantees back pay if Congress passes a bill providing it. If they don't pass a bill to provide it, then the Trump administration may be thinking you haven't passed a bill that we don't have to pay. And I don't think Congress knows how to pass bills. So I think that they're doomed. Because if it takes Congress to pass a bill, have we seen it? I mean, it just doesn't really happen, does it? Especially when you need 60 in the Senate. That pretty much shuts it down. Yeah. the Democrats don't want to work. And that's why we're shut down, literally, because you can't get 60 votes in the Senate for it. Now, as expected, Greg, the Democrats and even some Republicans are howling over this idea. Why the Republicans take the bait. They should just let the Democrats howl on their own. It's just a trial balloon, but of course there are some Republicans right into it. But not all of them. I mean, look at this comment from Representative Derrick Van Orden. He's a Republican in Wisconsin. He believes the government should have no non-essential employees. just as a private company, wouldn't pay for staff, it doesn't need. He mentioned that. You know, so if you have a non-essential employee, that basically, how would you only be considered a non-essential employee? Yeah, I can't even comprehend it. I'm so essential. I just can't even believe the world would work. If I'm not, if we're not here, what would happen? Well, here's what you get. If we're not here, here's what you'd get. That's silence, at least in Utah. I mean, I don't think we have an equivalent here in Utah. Maybe I'm bragging. There aren't other conservative voices out there. But apparently, again, like you said, this is just, I think, some gamesmanship on the part of the president trying to bring a look. Now, he hasn't announced the permanent layoffs yet, which we've been, he's indicated he has the authority to do that. And the OMB director. has the authority to do that. He hasn't done that yet. He's now floating this idea. He's trying to put some pressure on the Democrats to come to their census. Well, I'll tell you what, brinkmanship aside, if you look at the increase in number of employees over the last 10 years in the swamp, it is unjustifiable. And this was, I believe, the moment where he was going to be able to thin the herd and clean out the swamp a little bit of all over the, you know, there's just too many employees. They've just, they've bloated themselves beyond belief. So I hope that happens no matter what.

But I have a trial balloon. I'd like to just float right now. Okay. Okay. Related to this? Absolutely. Okay. Nashville. It turns out that Nashville is announcing that their air traffic control towers are going to go dark for five hours tonight due to a severe staffing shortage. And this is the second FAA facility in just two days to shut down because of a lack of personnel. Here's my trial balloon. Who's more essential? Who's more of an essential employee? Is it our air traffic controllers? or members of Congress. I think if you can't get a bill passed that you aren't essential, and I would take every dime sent to every member of Congress, send it over to those air traffic controllers, give them double pay because they're working so hard and they're overstaffed, you know, they have a lack of staffing. They're essential. I would say Congress is not. Let's do that one. I like that idea. Huh? Would you see what the president did today? I mean, he took a lot of money is coming into the country right down because of the tariffs. Yes. Right. And he said today we're going to take some of that money and pay for, is it a meals program for kids and families who need help? We will keep that going because we'll use this money. that came to us from the tariffs. Yeah. Yeah. So that that story is that Trump just saved the women and children's food program from losing money during the Democrat shutdown. Why? Because we have 200, the federal government has collected 200 billion in tariffs and that money he can use to bridge because it's not accounted for. The more than 200 billion coming into the coffers from the tariffs will preserve the women and children's food program, Chip. uh so it will not be cut off while the government is shut down good for the president so chip is alive and well because uh there was money there was revenue that the federal government was receiving that hasn't been spoken for in the tariffs and he was able to put that towards chip to keep it from shutting down such a such a fascist and a nazi and a terrible man isn't authoritarian doesn't care about people at all so so terrible all that protecting public safety and trying to keep people from being murdered in these cities yeah it's just so so you know yeah tyrannical. Yeah. Well, we'd like to know tonight what you think about this idea. Now, it's just an idea. It may be brinkmanship, as Greg explained, maybe a little game playing going on here to get the Democrats to, you know, open the government up again. But what about the idea of not paying employees affected by the shutdown back pay? 888-5708010. Let's quickly go to the phones. And Ron is in late in tonight. Ron, weigh in on this. What do you say? Well, I think there's another aspect of this that you should look at real quick, and that is that there are a lot of employees for the state of Utah that are federally funded. For an example, my son-in-law went over to workforce services, and they're closed. And the reason they're closed is because they get a lot of federal funding. for grants, and I think they have to shut down. And so if you don't pay back pay, then those state employees aren't going to get paid either. I used to, I used to work for emergency management, and my paycheck for 21 years was from FEMA.

FEMA didn't pay me, but every year the state negotiated with FEMA and they gave us a pot of money that paid my salary. Ron, you bring that's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. No, Ron brings up a good point. There are, you know, so our state of Utah, I know this, at least part of this, is that we don't want more federal bureaucracy and offices and employees coming in here. So the state will make an arrangement with the federal government where they'll administer those federal programs and there's money that comes with those. I think that's what Ron was talking about. Yeah. And I, and so that ripple effect of not paying the back pay. It might be, it might ripple out a little bit further than people think. 888-570-80-80-10-10 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. More of the Rod and Greg show coming up. Our members of both political parties are kind of bristling at this idea, but apparently the White House has a memo out there arguing that the federal workers who've been furloughed as part of the government shutdown are not necessarily entitled to back pay. Interesting. And then we learned from one of our callers. And it is absolutely true that some of the state employees that we have in the state of Utah where we didn't ask for the federal government to come in and set up offices and get us more. Our state offices or state government actually does that federal role for them, which I like. I actually like keeping our state guys with their eyes, guys and gals, their eyes on it. So this would impact them as well. Certainly would. Let's go to the phones. We begin in Ogden tonight. Tom wants to weigh in on this on the Rod and Greg Show. Tom, how you doing? Thanks for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me. Just one quick comment. I just thought it should be interesting. It's really the federal funding streams. I don't mean federal employees. Obviously, they get paid by the government. I mean, federal funding streams that reach down at the individual level in terms of a benefit. Like, what do you call the major stakeholder in a company that owns 51% of stock? You call them the primary stakeholder, right? Uh-huh. Oh, interesting. So you're saying that if there was a... Tom, you're saying that if there's a benefit, it just comes straight to the taxpayer. Yeah. Well, I'm saying the fact that we have federal funding streams to the individual taxpayer, it allows the federal government to drive the train and puts us in the situation that we're in. I mean, you don't do, if you're going to accept federal money at 51% level, you're going to accept federal direction and control. Good point. It is true. We do. And we do. And, you know, that's why I find all those lawsuits where, you know, Harvard thought they could sue because they were entitled to the federal money. It's like, no, when you take the federal money, you take the deal. And the deal is that the feds get to the side. And it is. It's disproportionate. It's why they give you federal money. Okay, let's keep going. Let's talk to Julie in South Jim Jordan. Julie, thank you for holding welcome to the Rod and Greg Show.

Hi, Rodden, Greg. I love you guys and I love your show and thanks for all you do. I just wanted to say that I'm tired of the government holding our American people hostage and those who should get back pay are really only those who are making the vote to shut down the government. If we held back their pay and didn't pay them any back pay. they'd probably vote differently. So you're talking about every Democrat in Congress, both in the House and Senate, right? No, there are three Democrats who've gone along with this. Every single one. There are three Democrats who've gone along with this. I'm with Julie on that. I think they definitely should. Again, I was back in D.C. at the end of July, and I was, is there with the family. But I, the pep and everybody stepped to try and get things done, big beautiful bill, rescissions act, everything. So they could enjoy their August recess was a bit much. It seemed like, yeah, like. Kids last day of school type stuff. Everybody just wanted to get out so bad, they'd vote on anything. Well, how can we come up with that kind of self-interest to get them to vote for the American people? Because, boy, that August recess had a lot of weight. Yeah, sure did. Sure did. All right. Getting your calls, 888-57080-1010 on your cell phone, dial pound 250 and say, hey, Rod, or leave us a comment on our talkback line. Let's check in with our talkback line and see what our listeners have to say. Hey Rod and Greg. Love your show. I'd like to see a different mental circulating that the Senate can't go home until the government reopens. Getting sick and tired of them taking all these breaks. Have them negotiate, get a deal, and maybe they can get paid. But they shouldn't shut down until it's resolved. That's what I'm talking about. Has anyone ever looked at how many actual days lawmakers work? I saw it on a calendar once. Would it frighten people? Well, I think they get a week off until they get their months off. So I think they work three out of the four weeks. But remember this too. There was a time when people in Washington, Congress and also the Senate, resided almost full time in Washington and went back to their districts irregularly. Yeah, yeah. And people frowned upon that. So they then wanted their representative or their center to live mostly at home or try to. Well, what that ends up being is, and I don't know which was better, which scenario is better, but you fly in on Monday. You get to work, you know, you get in, you show up Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Thursday, you're heading to the, you know, you're either going to the airport Thursday night or on Friday you're in travel. So you're getting about three days of the five of that you're actually working. But let me ask you that. Do they come home and work? uh so you know that's a good point so are they are they meeting with constituents are they trying to get things done you know it's like here in this day i'd like to know what they do i think the trend really is during their times of recess they probably have more town hall meetings so in august say okay members of congress probably have more town hall meetings uh with constituents in august than they do while they're in session yeah so i i don't know if they're meeting uh they i'm sure there are occasions where they are but

You get three days on, four days off. You get two travel days in the week, and you get it at the weekend. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know that the back and forth is getting us. Getting us anything done. Any sweat equity coming out of there. I don't see a whole lot getting done to begin with, do you? All right. We've got a lot more calls to get to in your comments on our talkback line. You know, the president floating the idea of possibly federal workers who've been furloughed by the shutdown. Not get back pay. What do you think of that idea? More your comments. Coming up on the Rodenegreg show. People, federal employees who were impacted by this government shutdown, and normally they would get back pay. As a matter of fact, I think there's a law. It's called GIFTA that they have to get back pay. But apparently the president and the director of the OMB, Russell Russ Vought, is that his name, have found maybe a way around this not to pay him. Now, this may be gamesmanship, just kind of forcing the Democrats. to get back to work, but we don't know as of yet. We don't. It's an idea. It's being floated. I think he's trolling the Democrats. I think that there is a desire for people to take it seriously. But to put the pressure on the Democrats to just vote for the – all this thing is is the status quo. It doesn't actually add anything. And they should just do what they've been doing in the past. They're not trying to add anything to this. Anyway. No, they aren't. And as a matter of fact, Greg, before we go to our callers, a new poll out tonight finds a large majority of Americans want COVID-19-era policies. done away with yes and that's what they were they don't want this massive government this is this is a biden budget that is as senator lee pointed out that they're they're voting against it doesn't it doesn't shrink the budget like we need it's actually just going status quo and still the democrats don't want to see it so let's go to to our smartest listening audience and all the land let's go to uh penny in farmington penny's been on hold penny welcome to the rod and gregg show what do you think about this uh laying off the uh or not giving back providing back pay for federal employees because of the shutdown. Do you have any stretching? Hello. Penny, are you there? Are you there, Penny? I think. Obviously she's not paying attention. Let's move on. Okay, let's go to Jean, who's been waiting in Salt Lake City. Gene, welcome to the program. Hi. I've worked for different companies in my career. When those companies are struggling with payroll or benefits, what happens is that the people who are the most talented, experience, and capable, they jump because they can. They can find another job somewhere. And so what happens when you go through that, And the government would be no different is that your best employees, hardest workers motivated ones, they'll jump because they can, and you'll be left with your less performing employees. So it's an unintended consequence.

Well, you know, that is such good insight. It's true. You get stuck with the Deadwood is what Gene is saying. Yeah. Because they have nowhere to go, whereas people that have some skill sets, they're like, you know, this looks a little too chaotic to me, too uncertain. I'm just going to go ahead and get a steady check and get out of this. Yeah. And there are a lot of employees, Greg, who do that. They look at it, say, eh, company's kind of, hmm. Maybe I'll go elsewhere. I'll test the waters. And sometimes they test the waters and land in something better. Sometimes they test the water and say, nah, I think I'll stay right here. Yeah, no, it's, I think that's an important observation because we do want to thin the herd, but we don't want to lose the good ones and keep the bad ones. Okay, how about Austin and Riverton? Austin, thank you for joining us on the Rod and Greg Show. What do you think about all this? Yeah, thank you, guys. I've played a little bit of ignorance on this one because I'm just barely kind of getting into politics and following it. But my wife is about to get a job at the Veterans of America here in Salt Lake. And my understanding of furlough is that they still get their pay. So this might not apply to back pay, but the point I'd like to make is the fact that, you know, the federal government. Senate, Democrats, specifically in this case, they are the one shutting the government down, which would affect the VA, and they would all have to go home and not get paid. I'd venture to bet that most of these people, regardless of what side of the aisle, they just want to go to work and help people and make a paycheck for their family. You're absolutely right. And it's a good – and it actually, I think, points to an observation made by a caller that the people that should really be losing their pay right now and no back pay are the members of Congress in the Senate specifically who have shut this government down. And it's on them. And they have. And I think there should be a consequence to that. And I think, you know, that's where the blame directly lies is with those that can't – just keep the status quo, keep the budget as it is. The president said we can negotiate going forward. You just can't do this brinkmanship and you can't try to erase what was in the big beautiful bill. They're trying to get rid of some policies and that's why they're shutting the government down. But to the, our callers point, you've got people that work in the VA hospital, wherever they work. They want to help people. That's why they're in that job. They're just trying to do that job. Our soldiers. Yeah. The one thing I'm curious about is I remember in 2013 when the government, I was in the state house when Obama shut the government down. And he purposely found areas of the government. You don't have to shut every single thing down that you can choose or you can prioritize. But Obama wanted to make it really, really painful so that the American people would be particularly angry at the Republicans. And so that's the part that. I don't know how much like our military, I would hope that they could stay on the job without, that's national security, without losing pay or even having it interrupted. So we'd have to see. All right. More coming up. Your phone calls. Here on the Rodin' Greg Show in Utah's Talk Radio 105.9 can't arrest. To workers who've been furloughed because of the government shutdown now in its first full week as of today.

What say you about this? 888-570-80-1010 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. Let's go back to the phones. Let's go to Matt and Kahnash. Matt, thank you for holding. Welcome to the Rod and Greg Show. Hey, Greg. Remember that special adventure on Delta? I told you the Wednesday show, Rodden Greg was the winner. Was it? You know what, brother? I do remember this. I remember that exact comment. That was me. Hey, we need to cut off the former president's salary. You know, that's like $400,000 a year or something like that. I like that. If the government shut down, they got to stop Pan Obama and everybody else. Yeah, you know, I think they get a little bit of a pension or something, don't they? I think they get a full pension or a full pay. I don't know. I like where he's going with that. I mean, Jason Chaffetz once said, you know, like look at Obama. He's getting his money, but he got $20 million for his first book. Yeah, he doesn't need any. Like $15 million. Why is he on the public dole? Why is he still getting that public money? Now, Joe Biden. Poor Joe. The stories are he can't raise any money for his library. No. Nobody wants to buy or is interested in a book. Poor old Joe's having a time. He's refinanced out. Well, he was president. It showed that he had refinanced his primary residence 24 times, which is a bit odd. Yeah. So, yeah, he might need it. He's struggling. He might eat, though. And do you, have you seen any pictures of that monstrosity? that Obama is building in Chicago for his presidential life. It looks like an evil empire. That thing looks like straight out of a Star Trek, like the Borg or something. It looks like the bad guys in a science fiction movie would build that. That is the ugliest thing I've ever seen. Yeah, I don't know what he's, yeah, that's, I don't think it's going to age well at all. Yeah, if you haven't seen it, folks, look it up on site. Take a look at this. I don't know what you would call it. You could put like that Darth Vader's music behind it. I mean, honestly, it looks like it's bad. It's not, it's not welcoming. Yeah. I don't, does that have windows? I don't even, I couldn't find windows in it. You couldn't tell. No, it's just, it's black. It's just weird. It's like a block. It's Obama. Yeah, it's weird. All right. You know, I don't know, I don't think, like you said, Greg, I don't think the president is going to move forward on this idea. But I think he is just trying to get Congress to come to their senses. The Democrats to come to their senses. I think one more indicated today he may jump ship. I think it was Angus King, who's an independent, but he's going to do what? Vote. Vote along with the Republicans. Oh, okay. Good. So one more has come across. Now, there is Word, you know, apparently behind closed doors, word is that they are negotiating, trying to figure out something to do with these health care subsidies. Democrats are Republicans.

Don't do it. No. Stand your ground and say, no, we are done with this unrealistic spending that you want us to bank. And I think the first step for that is going to be that they have to resume, open to government and then have those negotiations. They can open up and then they can talk again. But while the government shut down, I don't think they're going to budge for those dumps. Well, I think it was Chris Cooney's from Connecticut said over the weekend. Someone asked him, if you had a promise. that we would address these subsidies but allow the government to open with a promise that you would he said i think there's some wiggle room well that depends on what the word promise means because i'm telling you that it's all health care costs are 80 percent more than when obamacare passed everything costs more there's nothing and if breaking the bank even more to try and keep it alive is how we keep the government open that's a that's a road to nowhere or worse yeah All right, coming up on hour number three of the Roddy Greg Show here on Utah's Talk Radio, 1059, K&RS, they did it. Hard to believe, but apparently, in an editorial, The Washington Post, even admitted that Obamacare is not working. Yes, finally. Wow. Yeah, we knew this, but good to they found out. New York Times. I could have told you that day one it wasn't going to make it work. All right, more coming up. Third hours on this way.

Interesting point. You know who Caitlin Susan Collins is, right? Yes. CNN likes to agitate. Well, she apparently was doing a podcast today, and she revealed why Stafford's dread traveling with Donald Trump. You know why? Why? He doesn't sleep. That's funny. She says he's up all hours. He'll wake up staff members when they're trying to get some sleep to talk to him. He'll wake up reporters because he was, she said, the man does not sleep. And that's why people don't like to travel in Air Force One. He keeps them up. That's a superpower. Do you know how much I would love not having to sleep? I would love that. You might extra hours you would have? I'd hate losing, not sleep. I love so. No, you're saying if you're retired. What if you're just, you're like him? You don't feel tired. That man doesn't get tired. It's not like he's walking around, you know, needing sleep. He doesn't need sleep. That is a superpower. Yeah. I wish I had. I'd love that. You know, Preston to Russell L.M. Nelson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Dade Saints. It was laid to rest today. He said he never ate breakfast all his life. That's what I've been told. Wow. He just conditioned his body. He said, you condition the body. You know, I love breakfast, by the way. I like, I like breakfast food. That's my favorite menu item, but I don't eat most mornings I don't eat breakfast. I don't. You don't? Oh, I have to. Most mornings I don't. I'm okay with not eating in the evening. which is fine with me, but I've got to have something to get me gone. I'm, for some reason, I don't wake. I woke up hungry this morning, but usually I don't wake up hungry. And if I'm not hungry, I don't want to eat. Well, that makes sense. Yeah. If you're hungry, don't eat. All right, let's continue our talk about the government shutdown. Of course, we're into the first full week of it so far. No signs of things letting up. But are there changes that should be made that would protect us from these government shutdowns? Joining us on our newsmaker line right now is Nan Swift. She is a resident fellow at the R Institute. Nan, thanks for joining us tonight. What about these government shutdowns and what kind of changes? Budget restructuring should we take a look at, Nan. Yeah, I know for a lot of us, we're like, oh, another shutdown. What's new? Big deal. I thought we did this every year. Yeah, big deal, right? Well, it actually is a big deal when you think about it. While a lot of people might not be feeling the direct results right now. We're like the only government of a developed country, I think, that. Has government shutdown so we can't pass a budget? So we're kind of an anomaly around the world when you look at other countries that are similar to us.

But also, I think, you know, people who haven't noticed that the government is shut down are people who should consider themselves lucky. I worry about what happens if there's an emergency, like a natural disaster. It's still hurricane season or a wildfire. It's really dry in a lot of areas. And we don't have the people and the resources in place to respond. It's really not normal for a government to just not operate. And... We're lucky that the consequences haven't been worse so far. You know, Nan, here in the state of Utah, we ran into some, our state legislature ran into maybe some brinkmanship with the governor of our state in years, years past. And what the legislative branch decided to do is to change their rules where they would pass a base budget early in their general session that would really reflect what the budget was last year. so that when the new revenue or the new negotiations for new projects were to come to a head, if there wasn't an agreement, they could leave the session and know that government would not be shut down. A member that I served in the legislative branch and a former colleague Mike Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now Congressman Mike Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and he has a bill similar to that he's presented to Congress. Could a concept like that ever gain traction with Democrats and Republicans to be a nonpartisan bill just to keep this brinkmanship from stopping? interrupting lives and doing all the things you described. Is there any chance a bill like that could pass where you could have a base budget going forward? I think this is what you're really talking about. It seems common sense. It seems like something that should earn support from both sides of the aisle. That is a great idea. I've seen a couple different suggestions, but I haven't seen that exact one. And I think that's really, really smart. And the other similar suggestions like the prevent government shutdowns act, which would kind of keep things in place. We'd keep going with a continuing resolution that over time, there'd be some incentives for legislators to act like it would be decreased by a small percent. And there's other variations on this theme. Like, you can't go out of town while you haven't passed the budget and things like that to keep everyone working. But I think having a... you know, a base budget in place, it'd be just like a continuing resolution that would happen automatically. Just, you know, this is how it's going to be. And if we want to make changes, we've got to do our jobs. But that would provide a lot of certainty, but also incentives, especially if the governing party has changed to get things done in a timely fashion. I think that's...

Super smart. Dan, what about some of the structural changes you have mentioned? I mean, how difficult would it even be to try and get these through and make them part of the process? Are you looking at a real uphill battle here? Well, you would think that this would be easy, but you'd also think that, well, passing a clean CR like Republicans have put on the table would be easy, too. Even the smallest things that have bipartisan support are really difficult when you have just kind of an atmosphere where no one can give anyone else a win, even if it would be good for both of us or just or also entrenched between our various lines that we can't. We can't imagine anything that would be good for everyone. So here's a concept I saw in August. It seemed the vim and vigor, the motivation to get something done so they could enjoy their August recess seem to be otherworldly. Okay, I don't know why there's three to four weeks of vacation time that motivates Congress as much as it did, but it did. So my question is, if you can't agree on a base budget, if you can't agree on something like that and not shove the government down, is there something that says like you mentioned? You'll stay in town until you get it done. You're non-essential, basically, if you fail to keep the government open so you don't get paid. Something that would, I was surprised at how many people really wanted that August recess and did a lot more work because they wanted to get to it. It seems like those kind of carrots should be available for Congress at least an even rule to put in place to get something done. You would, again, you would say so. These are all common sense ideas, I think, to most people, but something happens in the air when you get to Washington. It must be where these things aren't top of line anymore. But there's been a lot of suggestions like that in the past. There's bills like the no budget, no pay act. There's no budget, no recess. No budget, no campaigning. No budget, no lunch. You know, you name it. No, you know, you're going to be grounded for the weekend and no phones or screens. All of those are on the table, but no one's been able to get. you know, enough support behind any one of them. And now, sure, there's some serious questions about, say, no budget, no pay, because technically in the Constitution, Congress, you know, one Congress can't change its own pay to try to keep people from giving themselves a pay raise. Any changes have to bite at the next Congress. So sure. Although, you know, I would say put it in.

an escrow account or something like that for a little while until you get your job done and then you get your back pay. But also, I mean, Congress went so far in the past couple of years is to bring back earmarks, which are basically bribes for Congress to do its job saying, you know what, if you, I was told over and over by people who support. The wasteful spending of earmarks that, man, this is the skin in the game that members of Congress need to be part of the process. Or this is what brings people back to the table. This is the grease. This greases the skids. But the outcomes have been no better and they weren't before. So at the end of the day, you need political will and you need to elect. better people willing to do this. And if you don't have enough of them, Well, you know, how do you move an immovable rock? I just don't, I don't know. Yeah, how do you move an immovable rock? Thank you. You don't? Nan Swift. Yeah, thanks. Don't get excited. Nan is, she, that's not Taylor Swift. You sell the name Swift and you thought Nan is related to Taylor Swift. She's with Arts Street Institute. She may sing, but I don't know about that. You asked? She doesn't. You know, before we got to, we booked this. You asked her if she was related so you could get an autograph. It was awkward. Yeah. Very awkward. All right. More coming up. The Rod and Greg show on Talk Radio, 1059, KNRS. One real quick note I want to bring up, Craig. You know, the media is going to be blaming Republicans. They always do. They have ever since when. I don't know since we had shutdowns, I guess. Everything's always the Republicans. Well, there is a poll out tonight, and this is done by Harvard Harris. And it found that a majority of registered voters believe Republicans will win the shutdown fight. Good. I hope, I do. I hope, I hope, I feel that even when I saw the polls, we played, or last weekend it was the Harry Enton's poll that said that Americans were blaming the Republicans. And that's, that's always on script, on brand. But I have sensed something different, at least in the Republicans' ability to out the Democrats and what they want. to open up the government again. And it's stuff that doesn't really serve the American people. It's not for it on behalf of the American people. It's for, and I don't care what they say. It's Medicaid for illegal immigrants. I can show you the receipts. The websites on the state. They can't deny it. I mean, it's in their bill. It's in print. They keep denying it. It's 100% true. And I think even now they're doing a better job of showing that they want that work requirement that was restored in the big, beautiful bill to receive the Medicaid. that used to be in up till Clinton and they took it out during COVID, they want that back out again. And that's something that should be non-negotiable for the Republicans. You know what I love, Greg? And I think it's because of Donald Trump. But remember last week, the answer from the Democrats was that the Republicans are aligned about medical, you know, health care for illegal. They're lying, they're lying. And I love the fact that here's John Thune and here's Mike Johnson coming out together with actual showing posters.

with the actual language in the bill. Yes. That they are not lying. No. That this is what the Democrats want to put in the bill. And I love that because here's, Greg, in previous years, Democrats would have curled up. Republicans would be, yeah, we're sorry, Republic. Oh, we're sorry. Now they're standing up and fighting. And that's what I love. And I do believe you're right. And I do think that that courage is contagious. It starts with President Trump. And I think it has finally landed in Congress where, you know, and I think Mike Johnson, Speaker Johnson has a tough job in that house with a, what, three or four member majority only? It's the thinnest in history. But they seem more united than years where they had more of a majority, but they couldn't get on the same page. I think that's also the leadership of President Trump. They've stayed together. They have, which we always were saying. Democrats under Nancy Pelosi didn't dare get out of money. No, they walked. They knew how to do things. They knew the game of addition. And we as Republicans have not, but we have as of late. And I think it's because give this president his chance to do the things he's promised to do. And so Congress doesn't want to get on the wrong side. And I think that they feel he's got that mandate. So I think it's going good. His biggest issue, of course, was the border. And this is an amazing story. Unlawful crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2025 have dropped to their lowest annual level since the early 1970s. Nearly 50 years. That is amazing. And it's... And it didn't take a new law like the Democrats said it was going to take. It didn't take, you know, all these different things they tried to game up in their Senate bill that they were trying to push and hustle on us. And we had Republicans that were buying into it. Turns out you didn't need any of that. You just need to follow the law. Yeah. And by the way, I've heard someone say, why don't, you know, now that we see that the border was manageable and how bad it was, that's treasoner. We should, they should try Biden for it. Well, the Congress did impeach. Majoricus for all of this. Nothing was done. And the Senate majority run by the Democrats, it's the first time in American history. They did not try the impeachment articles that were delivered to them from the House to the Senate. They said no. The only other time the Senate hadn't done it was the person that was being impeached died, so they didn't do it. But this time they broke all precedent, would not hold that hearing. And you can see it now by the numbers. Majoricus deserved to be impeached and removed. in the Senate, convicted in the Senate, but they never even had to trial. They never did anything with it. The U.S. Border Patrol recorded nearly 238,000 apprehensions this year, okay? That's the lowest since 1970 when they reported roughly 202,000. My guess is, Greg, over the next three years, you'll see that number drop, drop, and drop even more. Yep, I do too. As we get the wall built, as we get the technology that the Border Patrol needs, guess what? That number is not going anywhere. And then the American people, I'm going to tell you the workforce, we need to start looking at those visas and seeing if we need as many. Because I think that it's one thing to have unskilled labor coming from one side for jobs that supposedly Americans won't do, which I reject. But now you're going to tell me there's skilled jobs that you've got to go and get your workforce from India and everywhere because you don't have the qualified workforce here in America. So then what job is our workforce supposed to do? We're getting squeezed out. So that has to...

be stared at as well. All right. Coming up, The Washington Post, believe it or not. Has a comment about Obamacare. We'll tell you what it is and talk to someone about that. Coming up next here on the Rodden and Greg show. They call them shackets. The shacket. A shirt and a jacket combined. A shacket. Yeah. It's that kind of weather. Very fetching. Thank you. Thanks for noticing. I thought you'd like that. All right. I want to read you something, Greg. This was in a major national newspaper. Are you ready for this? Yep. The real problem is that the Affordable Care Act was never actually... affordable. The architects of the act actually assumed that risk pools would be bigger than they turned out to be. As a result, policy costs more than expected. Okay? Pretty harsh about Obamacare. Yes. Came from the Washington Post. Is that an editorial in the Washington Post? The editorial in the Washington Post. The editorial in the Washington. The board itself said that. The board itself wrote that editorial. They must be so uncomfortable in their own skin. I can't even believe they would make such an admission. But it's true. Well, yeah. That's why they shouldn't be comfortable on the skin. That's not what they typically do. Well, let's dig into what they actually said. Joining us on our newsmaker line right now is Joseph Vasquez. He is associate editor of the Media Research Center business. Joseph, how are you? Welcome to the Rod and Greg Show. Good to be here. Thanks for having me. And I'm going to have the word shacket on my mind from the rest of the evening. Joseph, you sound like you're very fashion forward. I like that. Good. Let me encourage you, don't buy one. They're all the rage. But I'm inspired now. That's it. Look them up. They're worth it. There you go, Joseph. All right. Did the Washington Post actually write this when it comes to Obamacare that it really is just, it was never actually affordable? It's hard to believe, yes, and I had to rub my eyes a few times before I actually saw that this came from the editorial board itself. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. You know, now that there's all this talk about the Obamacare subsidies and Democrats wanting to spend $1.2 trillion above what is already being spent, I mean, they just let that flip in there. That wasn't even the main focus of the story. They buried that part of the story of their editorial. in a paragraph and i was just reading the story like another like the washington post editorial board was playing both sides of the shutdown game and lo and behold i came across this admission about obamacare and i could not believe my eyes because the washington post was one of the very outlets along with a slew of others that was selling obamacare as like the solution god

gift to the American health care system 15 years ago. And now they're like, well, now that's entrenched in the system. And now it's probably impossible to get rid of it. Now it's like, oh, yeah, by the way, that stuff we were telling you all those years ago, yeah, that was a lot of bunk. I mean, are you serious? It's unbelievable. You know, and it is. So what does, I guess, the strategy for them is now that they can admit it doesn't work, now you've got to pay more. You know, that's what government does. If something doesn't work, you just have to subsidize it more. So is it, are they admitting also that these COVID, you know, they, people weren't working. So they wanted to, you know, we had to pay more or you didn't have to work. Whatever those, whatever they had to do to insert more money into Obamacare during the COVID years as pandemic. They're now saying that's a baseline with no pandemic in sight that they, that this ACA doesn't survive without it. Is that, is that what they're arguing, the Democrats? Well, that's essentially what they're admitting, but I'm going to give you another captain obvious moment. I mean, they. In critiquing Obamacare even more, this is what they said, and I almost fell out of my chair laughing. This is what they said, quote, this is how entitlement programs work with reference to Obamacare. Once you habituate people to some generous government handout, they grow dependent on it. And it becomes politically perilous, if not impossible, to fully claw it back. Thank you, Captain Avi, for saying that we've been saying for 15 years. Yes. I can't believe they said it, though. I mean, they must have been, were they on gunpoint? Who got them to be so truthful? I honestly, it's shocking that they even described entitlements that way. And Joseph, didn't they just give away the entire Democratic playbook when it comes to entitlement programs make them so big that people love them? And then when you try and cut them back, even though they aren't working, people get angry and call you a racist. Yeah, exactly. The only way that the Democrats can save it is by putting more money into it. Oh, you're admitting it's a failure and now we need to put more tax dollars into it. Sure, that's going to work. You just admit the whole law sucks and the only thing is to keep that machine well oiled. I mean, come on. That thing is a trash heap. It should have been delegated to the Ashman of history a long time ago. But we're dealing with it now because a lot of these policies, what is that? When Nancy Pelosi said, you've got to pass the bill to find out what's in it. Yes. I mean, yeah, yeah. So now we find now the Washington Post editorial board apparently found out 15 years later that that bill was a big mess. And now, guess what? They don't have to worry about it. The rest of us plebeians living on planet Earth. have to deal with the disaster of Obamacare. They can get bent as far as I'm concerned. I mean, they were a part of that problem. You know, you're a very nuanced, man. I don't know where you're coming from. You're very, a lot of layers to you. I can't figure out where you're at. Cards close to the chest, Joseph, I don't know what you're trying to say here. No, I'm with you. I'm picking up what you're putting down. Let me ask you this. Is it true that I didn't know what was this extreme, but 80% increase in our health care premiums since Obamacare became law for every American? Is that tracking? I mean, is that, because I think I've never seen anything go anywhere but up in terms of health care costs. But is it really 80% more since ACA passed?

Something around that. I know the Paragon Health Institute, one of our friends, Phil Kerpen, was actually part of this study. He said that the pro-enrolley cost of Medicaid expansion from the Obamacare changes is nearly 60% greater than what experts had projected originally. I mean, we saw that coming from a mile away what was going to happen. Once you give this one-size-fits-all standard to Obamacare, you're going to destroy the health insurance market. And you know what? This one tick me off personally because it kind of hit closer to home. And around 2014, when the revisions were first rolling out, my mother was going through breast cancer. And she was originally on a private insurance. But then what happened was that once we, once that insurance expired and she went on Obamacare, she was getting treatment at the Cancer Institute of America and Pennsylvania. As soon as the insurance changed to Obamacare. her doctor, they kicked her off her care and she went months without the necessary treatment for the cancer that she was battling. She was in remission. It took months before she was finally able to find another provider that would be able to give her the medication that she needed. So that personally ticked me off. When I read that, I'm like, that hit me close to home because we didn't know if she was even going to survive that. And she had to go months precisely because. She lost her insurance and was forced under these Obamacare subsidies. So that's what we're dealing. So the fact that now retconning the whole Obamacare, you know, drama from years ago, I mean, it's like a slap in the face. Like an info, oh, yeah, you know, by the way, we actually, we actually lied straight to your face. We didn't believe what we were telling you. We just come clean now. Hey, Joseph, we have one more request. The next time we have you on the show. We'd like you to be a little bit more excitable. Yeah, you're very docile. I don't know where you're coming from. I tell you what, it's a Puerto Rican energy in me, man. I love it. Listen, man, that shacket, when you come back on the program, because I'm sure you've got more stuff coming, we don't want to cover. Tell me about that shacket you picked out. Oh, I'm already looking on Amazon right now, brother. Good man. All right, Joseph. You have a great day. Shackets. Yep, shackets. They're all the range. That's Joseph Vasquez. He is with the, he's the associate editor of the Media Research Business Center. And I tell you what, you know, just a year ago, 2024, just a year ago. Yeah. The Post was praising Obamacare as one of the most brilliant pieces of legislation ever. A year later, they're going, it's a piece of crap. Yeah, and as he said, they buried it in the bigger story that was supposed to shame Republicans, but they had to put that admission out there. It's just rubbing it in our nose in it almost. All right. More coming up on the Rodden Greg show. It's a shirt and a jacket. Oh, okay. A shacket. Where did you find this thing? Queen Bee found it for me. Oh, did she? Yeah. So if I make funny view, I'm making fun of Queen Bee. Well, you haven't made fun of it. You've actually complimented me on it, and you want one. I know you do. I did the other day. I did the other day. I did. Don't know why, but I did. Follow up on that unbelievable story about the FBI spying on U.S. Senator. Disgusting. Part of this Arctic Frost operation that Jack Smith led. Well, guess what has happened? What? The FBI agents who are involved in this process are no longer FBI agents.

And I heard that we found this out through whistleblowers. This was adequately hidden from anyone, even the new administration or those in charge of finding out. And it was whistleblowers who came forward and said some bad things have happened here and we need to get this right. Yeah. So thanks to them. Well, apparently that unit that was set up to spy on U.S. senators is gone. As they should be. Kash Patel said no more. Okay. Journalist, Nick, is it sorter? Yes, Nick Sorter. Nick Sorder. You got roughed up in, was it in Portland? Yeah, in Portland, outside the ICE facility there where all the demonstrations of violence has been taking place. He was charged by Portland police, not by ICE. Remember Portland police charged him because he was speaking out against him and they arrested him? Yeah, you remember that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, by Portland police, not by national guards because they didn't like what he was doing in support. Well, the charges against have been dropped. Yeah, because they weren't really charged. He's the one that got roughed up and manhandled, and then he gets arrested for it. Yeah. Yeah, that was. Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Yeah, and there weren't, I'm sure those charges would have been hard to pursue any further there. So I got up this morning. Play early pickleball. It was cold. It's like 45 this morning playing outdoors, right? You're ambitious. I am. It's a drug. It is. It must be. It's addictive. It's a drug. But that moon was huge. Oh, beautiful. Even yesterday, after yesterday's show coming over the last century? Oh, it was huge. Did you see? Well, apparently, apparently tonight, the first super moon of the year will appear tonight. I don't know how much more super it can get than it was this morning. But, yeah, it's the first of three this year. happens when a full moon is closer to the earth in its orbit that makes the moon look up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter. When I was a kid, in Amish country, I met some Amish people. They told me that that is so that they can keep doing, they can do their farmwork finish up for the season, and they can work at night, keep it light out. Could I mow my long? Yeah, it's so bright. You cast a shadow. It does, really. No, it does. I looked out the window getting ready. And to me, because it was casting a shadow, I thought we had snow on the ground. Yeah, isn't that something? That's kind of weird. Yeah, the Amish told me that whole thing is so they can finish up their harvest. And that's why they can work at night. So it makes sense to me. It's pretty bright out there. Yeah, it is. So the big Supermone of the year. tonight that'll be i'm telling you there'll be some good photographs that will emerge on social media well when the moon comes over these mountains it is it's gorgeous it really is it is gorgeous all right that does it for us tonight head up shoulders back may god bless you and your family and this great country of ours enjoy your tuesday we'll be back with wingman wednesday it all starts at four we'll talk to you there