'BradCast' 4/13/2026 (Another Mad, Mad, Mad Weekend: Vance fails in Iran; Orban crushed in Hungary; Trump attacks the Pope; Swalwell resigns)

All right, I'm not sure why we're all still having trouble with this. Let's try it again from the top. This is a victory for the U.S. because our goal from day one was for Iran to open the strait that didn't close till after we attacked, which was completely controlled by their military. We had total dominance over. And it was a waterway that we could have taken over, but instead asked for help that we didn't need, but we'll remember that our allies did not give us. All because of the negotiating power of a FIFA Peace Prize. recipient's threat to annihilate a civilization in order to liberate them from a regime that changed, which was not our goal, but we will take credit for, from an old man who hates us to his younger son who hates us for those reasons and that we killed his father. And while it is not clear the status of Iran's nuclear capabilities that we obliterated last year, but we're going to be a problem in two weeks, one thing is for sure. They now have more money and control of the straight than they had when they... made the old deal that we ended because it was terrible. Now, I think that is enough about authoritarian propagandistic regimes. Does anybody have any questions about the Trump Library Golden Statue? I do. I do. Will it be solid or will it be hollow? Like Donald Trump himself. Well, I don't know why I came here tonight. Just wondering. I know it ain't.

don't still From Pacifica Radio on Los Angeles, this is the broadcast as heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A., 98.7 in Santa Barbara, 93.7 in San Diego, 99.5 in Ridgecrest and China Lake, California, elsewhere in the Golden State, in Red Bluff and Reading on KFOI and Round Mountains, KKRN, up in Oregon on the Central Coast, on K-Y-A-Q, Cottagegroves, K-O-Go, Eugene's, K-E-P-W. Lanchester, Pennsylvania's W News, Maui, Hawaii's K-A-K-U, in Columbus, Ohio, on W-G-R-N. Palinville, New York, and they're celebrating their 10th anniversary, I think. 20th? Anyway, Palinville, New York's W-L-P-P, Rochester, New York's, WRFZ, down in New Orleans, on W-H-I-V out in Gallup, New Mexico, on K-N-I-Z. Concord, New Hampshire's WNHN, Fayetteville, Arkansas's K-PSQ in Seattle on KODX, Richmond, Virginia's WR, W.K, Fairmont, West Virginia's W.E.F.R. Janesville, Wisconsin's W.A.D.R. and Minneapolis, St. Paul's, AM-950, KTNF. We also stream coast to coast and around the globe every day on the internet to the Progressive Voices channel, Netroots Radio, Radio for Humans, Nicole Sandler.com, Radio Free Brooklyn, No Lies, Radio, Detour, Talk, Del Marva FM, and most of your favorite podcast sites. Blanketing, Planet Earth, I'm Brad Friedman, your friendly, investigative, blogger, journalist, troublemaker, muckraker. All around swell fellow says me from bradblog.com. What says you? Welcome to the broadcast. Delighted to have you here with us, delighted to be here with you. We do have some breaking news. I'll get to momentarily, but allow me to begin this way with David Kurtz at morning memo today, smartly summing up at least some of the weekend's madness. Writing today, if you spent the weekend enjoying spring, you'll be forgiven if you're a tad disoriented this morning since we last convened on Friday. Viktor Orban conceded defeat in Hungarian elections. President Trump decided to shut down the Strait of Hormuz for Iran. Eric Swalwell's political career abruptly flamed out after serious sexual misconduct allegations emerged. Trump openly beefed with the Pope while portraying as an American Jesus. And yet he writes, stating things plainly like that doesn't begin to capture the bonkers nature of the weekend's news. Just asked JD Vance, who emerged as the biggest loser after an ignominious trip abroad that included a last-ditch campaign appearance for Viktor Orban and...

the quick collapse of negotiations to end the Iran conflict that he reportedly quietly opposed. We will pick up on several of those items, including just now breaking news regarding Eric Swalwell, Congressman Eric Swalwell, Congressman from the Bay Area, who has, it seems, Desi Doyen, just minutes ago, am I right about this? Yes, yes, you are. He has resigned from Congress. Yes, he announced that he is resigning from Congress. That is following a series of sexual misconduct allegations. made against him. Now, this is Washington Post. I'm reading from here. In a statement, Eric Swalwell, who has vehemently denied any accusations of sexual assault, said it was wrong, quote, for my constituents to have me distracted from my duties. I will fight the serious, false allegation made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make. End quote. So, Washington Post continues, the allegations against Eric Swalwell in include sexual assault accusations from a former staffer reported first by the San Francisco Chronicle. Several other women also alleged sexual misconduct in interviews with CNN and other news outlets. The multiple accusations resulted in Eric Swalwell abruptly ending his gubernatorial bid in California on Sunday. And AP continues and says that Eric Swalwell's planned departure will trigger a special election in his district. located outside San Francisco, which he won by over 30 percentage points in 2024. In California, the governor is responsible for calling a special election, which he must do, quote, within 14 calendar days of the occurrence of the vacancy. We will have more on that and what it means for the California gubernatorial race momentarily. And otherwise, previously, frankly, all too sleepy gubernatorial. contest with primary election day set for June 2nd in the Golden State. That suddenly woke up over the weekend for some odd reason with all of this news. We may also, if time allows, open up our phone lines, as we like to do at the beginning of the week, to listeners in our live Southern California listening area who may have thoughts on the gubernatorial race or anything else going on in the news. Or to anyone, by the way, listening around the globe via our KPFK. dot org live stream. Anybody want to call in from Hungary today? We'd love to hear from you. We'll put you right at the top of the list. Our phone number, as always, will be 818985-5735. That's 818985 KPFK. If you want to queue up right now on anything you would like to talk about. But we do start quickly overseas where after a grueling marathon. One days in a row of negotiations, peace talks between the U.S. and Iran collapsed on Saturday night when U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who has no experience negotiating anything, along with Donald Trump's real estate friend, his buddy, and his son-in-law, who is actually on the payroll of Iran's enemy, Saudi Arabia, well, JD Vance declared an end to peace talks in Islamabad.

Pakistan amid what was supposed to be a two-week ceasefire. He declared that was declared by Donald Trump just moments before his threatened deadline last week around this time, promising that, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again, unless Iran had agreed to open up the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic, as it had been fully opened. Before Donald Trump began his war, effectively shutting down transit of a fifth of the world's oil and gas supplies, well thought through, Mr. President. The failure of peace talks on Saturday night couldn't have been all bad, I guess, because even as those marathon one-day talks wrapped up in failure, Donald Trump... And Secretary of State Marco Rubio, I believe, had a great night out at an Ultimate Fighting Championship event. Lots of fun for everyone. So I guess we're all just fine and having a great time. No need to worry about any kind of wars or anything. Yeah. So the Secretary of State was not even involved in these negotiations as the U.S. is at war. Well, there was that UFC championship thing. He had tickets, you know, by a little long in advance. So you can understand. Oh, and as of Monday morning, the U.S., not Iran, but the U.S. is now blocking the straight of Hormuz, as ordered by Donald Trump because Donald Trump is mad that Iran was blocking the straight of Hormuz. If all of this is not the art of the deal. by an anti-war peace president who pointlessly attacked the nation that posed no imminent threat to the U.S. other than its ability to shut down the world's oil and gas supply if it were ever attacked. Well, if that's not the art of the deal, then maybe there is no such thing as Donald Trump being the world's greatest dealmaker. Perhaps he is the worst dealmaker of all time. But I'm sure that's not the case, right? Donald Trump's failure as a human being, however, and his gaslighting as president, well, that also continued on Monday, even as oil prices once again shot up above $100 a barrel, promising to lock in newly inflated gasoline prices for Americans at the pump for weeks, if not months. All of that comes as Gabriel Rufayan, a deputy in the Spanish Congress of Deputies, Riley noted last week, quote, how lucky is the United States that every time they look for democracy in other countries, they find oil instead.

Viktor Orban and his party cemented his power by restructuring the judiciary to funnel appointments to the bench through party loyalists redrew legislative districts to make it much harder for the party to lose elections and helped Hungary's media companies to be sold to tycoons who were allied with Viktor Orban. Sound familiar? Quote, oppositions can win despite a tilted playing field, said Steve Levitsky, the political professor at Harvard and co-author of the book, How Democracies Die. He says, quote, democracies are facing many challenges in many parts of the world, but so are autocracies. Viktor Orban's defeat has immediate global implications because he was the European leader closest to Russian president, Vladimir Putin, speaking of autocrats, and had blocked European Union aid to Ukraine. which is defending itself after Russia's 2022 invasion. So Viktor Orban was close to Vladimir Putin, yet he is part of the EU, part of the European Union, and they were able, by and large, he was able, by and large, to block aid to Ukraine for his best buddy in Russia. Matt Schlapp, the chair of the American Conservative Union as part of the wing of the American right that had embraced Viktor Orban. The Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, which Slap's group hosts, held its very first European session for CPAC in Budapest and has made Hungary a regular destination, all because of Viktor Orban. He was a featured speaker at CPAC's conference in Dallas back in 2022, where the autocrat and Trump ally was met with a thunderous reception. Quote, he was essentially doing what Donald Trump is trying to do here in the U.S., said Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. The people of Hungary rejected that, just like people in the U.S. are rejecting that here at home. Said Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group that says it combats authoritarianism, quote, Most importantly for American voters, even a guy who rigs the system can be defeated when the people unite and turn out against him.

But Levitsky of Harvard, the author of How Democracies Die, said defenders of democracy should not take too much comfort from Viktor Orban's loss, noting that in some ways Trump has been more oppressive than Viktor Orban. He cited Trump's use of the Justice Department to investigate political opponents and the shooting deaths of protesters by immigration officers, steps that even Viktor Orban's government never took. Responding to the weekend's election news in Hungary, where JD Vance stumped in person for Viktor Orban just before heading to Islamabad to fail to secure a peace deal with Iran, California Governor Gavin Newsom's press office mocked the vice president, noting, quote, JD Vance is so good at his job he somehow lost the election for the authoritarian in Hungary who literally rewrote the election rules and eroded democracy. Going on to add the quote, we kindly implore Donald Trump to put JD Vance in charge of health care talks next. It would be a real tragedy if America accidentally. Got universal health care coverage after those talks. For his part, Trump made absolutely no public comment on Sunday, at least about the election results in Hungary, about which the University of Michigan law professor Leah Littman quipped on Blue Sky, quote, Viktor Orban still has a chance. if Mike Pence has the courage to do the right thing. Thoughts on any of that? 818-985-5735 is our phone number. Would love to hear from you. Thoughts on what all of that means in Hungary for our elections here in November. In the meantime, what was the president of the United States doing while throngs of Hungarians were partying in the streets of Budapest all night, celebrating the democratic downfall of their longtime autocratic leader, U.S. Republican role model, Trump endorsed ally. Well, Donald Trump was publicly attacking the Pope. Of course, in an unhinged screed on his failing social media side, and he was posting an image of himself in the role of Jesus Christ healing the sick, naturally. And I think I need to stop here for a moment to recognize how I could not have even imagined. 10 years ago that I would be reporting stories like this today other than as some sort of twisted satire. But in any event, all of this is true. As Washington Post reports this afternoon, President Donald Trump's posting of an image that appeared to depict him as Jesus Christ.

drew rare criticism from the religious right, prompting allegations of blasphemy and calls for him to take down the post before it, yes, was finally deleted on Monday a day after he had originally posted it on his own social media account. Shortly after posting a screed against Pope Leo the 14th on Sunday night as Trump returned to Washington from Florida, Trump shared an image that appeared to be AI generated in the style of a painting, depicting him with a long white robe with a red cloak draped around his shoulders in one hand was... An orb glowing with light. Trump's other hand rested on the forehead of a man in what resembled a hospital bed. A man, by the way, who somewhat resembles Jeffrey Epstein. Just saying, just saying, a friend of mine said, is he trying to bring Jeffrey Epstein back to life? Maybe. I don't know. It might be better news for them than what is going on elsewhere. Anyway, the light is beaming from the man's head in this painting that the president of the United States posted, with Trump appearing to pray for his healing, patriotic symbols, including eagles, fireworks, and the Statue of Liberty, I think that is, fill the frame. Unlike the post that criticized the Pope, in which he described the Pope as soft on crime and soft on nuclear war. And Trump said he didn't like him because he is too, quote, liberal. The image evoking Jesus drew swift criticism from some evangelical Christians and even conservative Catholics who have otherwise expressed near constant support for Trump. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. about Trump's intent in posting that image. But following the backlash, after appearing on the president's true social account for more than 12 hours, the image was finally deleted. Asked about the post on Monday afternoon, Trump said that he posted it and he lied, quote, I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with the Red Cross as a Red Cross worker, which we support. Sure, sure you do, Donnie. That's what it was. The post observes that in the photo, Trump's clothing is reminiscent of clothing worn in Jesus' time, does not appear to be an outfit that a modern doctor would wear, and there is no reference whatsoever in the photo to the Red Cross.

It's supposed, quote, it's supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better, Trump said. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better. He's not even trying that hard with his lies now. It's like he's slipping, I guess. Oh, he's slipping, all right. Trump said, quote, only the fake news like Desi Doyen could suggest that he was depicting himself as Jesus, ignoring the criticism he received from his very own religious supporters. Other than that, only the fake news. The latest post was taken down during a scheduled meeting of Trump's Religious Liberty Commission, which was set to feature. Several high-profile Trump-appointed Christian leaders. Any thoughts on the latest madness of King Donald? 818985-5735. Remember, since we believe here in diversity, equity, and inclusion on this program, because we believe in DEI, we will put both women... And Donald Trump supporters right to the top of the call list right behind anyone who wants to ring in from Hungary. 818985-5735. And if Trump wasn't having a lousy enough weekend failing on every front. Other than enjoying himself on that trip to the ultimate fighting championship in the middle of negotiations with Iran in a war on Saturday night. Well, late last week, the state of California, specifically the governor's office announced that no matter how Trump and Republicans and Fox News like to claim that California is failing and the people and businesses are moving out in droves, it's a disaster. Well, the state's economy. continues to dominate, growing 5% to reach a record nominal GDP of $4.25 trillion in 2025. That notes the governor's office means that California outperformed. every other state in the union continuing a 16-year growth streak growing faster than the second largest state of Texas in 2025. I know if you watch Fox News they tell you something very different about the state of California, but the numbers and many of those of us who actually live here might tell you something different. This represents 13.8% of the entire U.S. economy generated. here in California alone, gaining more GDP than any of the other 49 states, including, yes, Texas or Florida or New York. As is his style of late, Governor Gavin Newsom took to Twitter to mock Donald Trump with the latest numbers after they were first reported by Bloomberg last week, writing in all shout caps, quote, wow, Bloomberg, real news.

Just reported that I, Gavin Newsom, built the fourth largest economy on Earth, growing faster than any developed nations since 2019. America's economic dominant is because of California, he wrote, You are welcome, USA. Meanwhile, quote, little D. crashed the economy, botched COVID, jacked up your gas prices, and can't stop making everything worse. Sad, little D, it's not too late to learn, I will teach you the art of the deal as a professional, Governor G.C. N. But it wasn't the California, the California governor as much as the California governor's race that we mentioned at the top of the show. The race to fill the seat of the outgoing term limited Gavin Newsom that made the most Golden State news over the weekend. Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell first suspended his campaign for California governor on Sunday. Following sexual assault allegations that he continues to deny. And then, just moments before airtime today, Eric Swalwell announced he was resigning from Congress. Democrats, after the news broke, quickly abandoned him late last week and over the weekend after allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman twice, including when she worked for him. That was originally published on Friday by the San Francisco Chronicle and then later CNN reported assaults of various kinds of three more women as well by the married congressman and the outspoken opponent of Donald Trump. The reports came as Eric Swalwell began to emerge as a leading contender in the very crowded governor's race where polling last month showed two Republicans each tied with 10 percent. at the top of the polls. With so many Democrats in the race, they split the rest of the 80% of the support in advance of the state's June 2 top two primaries. By way of reminder to folks who live here in California and certainly for the rest of the country, in our top two primaries now, all the candidates of all the parties, they all run against each other in the same race and the top two vote getters of any party. go on to the November election. This year's so-called jungle primary or Cajun primary, as these are sometimes called. a system that was foolishly adopted by state voters back in 2010, not that we told you so at the time, but we did. All of this has many Democrats concerned now that there is no Democrat in the otherwise very, very blue state that could end up on the ballot, the way this thing is structured on the ballot in November with so many Democrats right now splitting support.

And two Republicans otherwise leading that pack with about 10% each. That was at least the case until Donald Trump last week may have done a huge favor for California Democrats by endorsing one of those two Republicans. Former Fox News contributor Steve Hilton endorsed him in the primary, perhaps, allowing for another Democrat to slide into second place as Steve Hilton takes some of the support from his fellow Republican. We will see. Meanwhile, Eric Swalwell's exit from the race, that comes less than a month before ballots go out in advance of the June 2 primary. Eric Swalwell's Democratic rivals were among those who... swiftly urged him to leave the race, but his support also created among allies in both Congress and out here where labor unions have withdrawn their endorsement of Eric Swalwell. Some Democrats also urged Eric Swalwell to resign his seat in Congress. Which Eric Swalwell did finally on Monday. I say finally, in fact, it was three days after the news broke. Meanwhile, how many years has it been since Donald Trump has been alleged to have committed sexual assault? Dozens of times? Anyway, all of this, this 48-hour period between the initial reports and Sunday marked a huge reversal for a candidate who had appeared to be gaining momentum in the packed field to replace the Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who cannot seek a third term. Former Congresswoman Katie Porter and billionaire Tom Steyer are now in the two top slots, essentially, for Democrats. enough support will solidify behind one of them or one of the many other Democratic candidates currently in the race like State Attorney General Xavier Becerra, whether enough any one of them will get enough supports to move into the second spot overall in the June 2 primary. Well, that remains to be seen. I'd love to hear from you guys about that. If you have any thoughts among our California listeners here. If you're living live, if you're living live, if you're listening live and living live today here in Southern California, I'd love to hear from you. Got thoughts on California's wacky and maybe getting wackier gubernatorial race or maybe getting less wacky, I guess, depending on the way you want to look at it. Got thoughts on the Eric Swalwell matter? How fellow Democrats, a number of whom have been calling for Eric Swalwell to resign ever since Friday, to resign from his Bay Area seat in Congress as he has now done, how they, how those Democrats have dealt with all of this, how Donald Trump, who has targeted Eric Swalwell as a personal mortal enemy, and yet has for some reason said nothing.

As far as I know, since the report about Eric Swalwell first surfaced on Friday, saying nothing about a candidate running for office with a background of alleged sexual assault. I wonder why Trump didn't jump in on that. Want to make your pitch for your own favorite candidate running in the June 2 primary race out here in California? Love to hear from 818. 985-5735. Or do you want to ring in on what happened on Sunday in Hungary? Because it was kind of amazing. And I think the parties are still going on in Budapest today after a raucous night of celebration on Sunday following the electorate. The electorate, the voters removing their dictatorial leader at the election booth on Sunday. Despite fears, by the way, from some that Viktor Orban might try to block the election or its results. Or got any thoughts on Trump's ongoing war with Iran? Or the Pope or anybody or anything else? 818-985-5735. That's 818-9-85-K to join me over your public airwaves, as we like to say, use them before you lose them, more than you already have. 818-985 K-P-FK. I'm Brad Friedman, and you are listening to the Brandcast.

What the public hears on the public airwaves matters. At the broadcast, we do our best to bring you accurate news and analysis on the issues that actually matter, and we do it all independently without corporate or political influence. But we can't do it without you, now more than ever. Please help us stay on your public airwaves by going to bradblog.com slash donate to help keep us going. That's bradblog.com slash donate. And thanks. Yep, raucous celebrations throughout the night on Sunday in Budapest. Fides Square, the area around the ruling Fides's headquarters. Now, I guess, the opposition party with folks celebrating the landslide defeat of authoritarian leader, Trump ally, U.S. Republican Party hero and role model, Viktor Orban by voters on Sunday after 16 years. of autocratic rule. The voters did it. And if you thought that was a big celebration, I bet we will be seeing an even bigger one here in the United States and likely even around the world. In the hopefully not too distant future, for, I don't know, some reason or another. We'll see. Just a little something to look forward to. Welcome back to the broadcast. Brad Friedman of bradblog.com. Love to hear from you. We'll get to our phones momentarily. I've got a little bit of breaking news, but our phones 818985 5735. It looks like... Let's see here. An update from the... Iran war negotiations, again, the marathon one single day negotiations that JD Vance had to run away from after a few hours. Well, apparently, Iran had offered to suspend the enrichment of uranium for up to five years entirely. That was not good enough. Vice President JD Vance wanted a 20-year suspension in the weekend negotiations. But that was not agreed upon by the Iranians. And so I guess JD Vance just left. Yeah, it does appear that when JD Vance was saying that, hey, the talks of collapse, he said, we gave them our terms and they refused to accept them. In other words, they dictated the terms. That's not negotiations. Exactly. And then there's another factor as well that Iran, at least in the previous agreement with President Obama, that one was where Iran was still allowed to develop a small.

amount to enrich a small amount of uranium for nuclear energy. Energy and only to 3.67 percent, I believe, was how much they were able to enrich it. In the meantime, after Trump... destroyed that agreement, well, they've, Iran has said, well, the hell with it. If they're going to break the agreement, we'll go ahead and enrich up to 60%, which puts them very close to the essentially 90% that is needed to make any kind of atomic weapon. Exactly. It's generally considered that, you know, a country doesn't have the right to prevent another country from developing an energy source like nuclear energy. And that's what they seem to be trying to do by saying, you can do nothing for 20 years. Because, by the way, they probably would have offered 10 years. But you know what? That was how long the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran had gone. And Donald Trump, you know. characterized that as the worst deal ever made in the history of mankind. And those are like actually his words. That's not me overblowing what he said. That's actually what he said about the Iran deal, which he, I suspect, would give Ivanka's arm and leg for at this point. 818985-5735. Let's get to some folks on the phone. Keith. And once again, I ask where all the ladies at, where all the Trump supporters at. Love to hear from you. 818985, KPFK. Hey, Keith, welcome to the broadcast. Sir. Oh, Keith, are you there? Are we going to do this again? Trouble with the phones again. Hey, Keith, can you hear me? I think so. All right, you can. I can hear you just fine. You are on the air, my friend. What's on your mind? Great.

Of course, naturally. That is too bad, unfortunately. So I will just repeat what Keith's question was, which he told me that he is an independent voter and wanted to know, can independent voters vote in California's primary? Yes. Everybody can vote in California's primaries at this point in the open primaries for governor. And I think for actually all the races that are on the ballots that have primaries, I think. Well, I shouldn't say, because I'm not sure. I was going to say, I think they're all top two primaries, but maybe not the House races. I'm not actually sure of that. Before the governor's race, yeah, you can absolutely vote. 818985, 5735. Don't know if that's a problem with our phone system, are with yours. I will keep checking the phones. All right, yeah, did we reboot them before the show? Yeah, okay. All right. Well, 818985, KPFK. Well, let's find. now let's go to lioness lioness in los angeles hey lioness welcome to the brandcast what is on your mind madam hi thank you so much for having me sure is your actual name a lioness or did you just give us that name no that's my name pretty cool all right what's on your mind lioness Well, I'm just thinking about how all this is going on and new countries are coming out saying, hey, you know, Israel. And the U.S. is bombarding our civilians and bombarding our health workers and our press. And it's almost like, well, yes, that is their tactic. They've done this to indigenous communities. They've done this in Palestine. They're currently doing this deal in Gaza. And I don't understand why there's a surprise. You know, Israel continues to manipulate anger as much as it manipulates guilt. You know, and continue to do away with people's civilians, you know, non-lethal. part of the so-called war when it's really criminalized and doesn't get scrutinized at all. Goes over the radar where the attention is on America for the most part. You're saying that nobody is, well, I don't think anybody is surprised about what Donald Trump and Israel are doing at this point. Were you speaking about what they're doing specifically in Iran or what they're doing here in the U.S. because the way you described it sounds similar in both cases?

Yes, well, yes, because it's been a tactic that colonial entities have perpetrated since forever, you know, just... reduced civilization to rubble. Yeah. And this has been the cry that all these communities have echoed numerous times. And now every time it's done to a new civilization that was once the ally of the oppressor, they're like, oh no, you know, it's like, I guess a leopard ate my face situation. But instead of waiting for them to get to that point, why didn't we all these band together continually even at this point? It's still early enough yet, but we can band together and do something about it more actively. Yeah, well, let me speak to that. Because I know a lot of people before the 2024 election. I know a lot of people were really, really mad at Joe Biden. They called him Genocide Joe. And they sort of took it out a little bit on Kamala Harris. And there is reason to dislike what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, what their policy was on Israel. No question about that. That said... You know, Joe Biden was trying to get the just outrageously criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to do something, to do less. He was, you know, not allowing him to have certain bombs. Now, I know for a lot of people, that was not nearly enough. I know for me, it was not nearly enough. But guess what? You can talk to Joe Biden. You can talk to Kamala Harris. You can try to get them to do the right thing. Donald Trump is not, will never, has never done the right thing, period. And no matter what you say, no matter how angry you are about him, he will never do the right thing. You had a chance with the Democrat, but a lot of folks were so mad at... genocide Joe that they refused to vote for Kamala Harris and thus opened the door for Donald Trump. I think that was a terrible idea by the voters. That's what they wanted to do. That's what they did do ultimately. But listen, democracy ain't perfect. Nothing's going to happen overnight. I think voters, I think we all need to be a lot smarter when we're thinking about what we're doing, what we're doing at the voting booth, etc. Not let the, you know, perfect be the enemy of the good, et cetera. Did that respond to what you're saying, Linus? It does in the sense of, I think what I'm saying is people are asking surprised, like, oh.

You know, this one happened to me and then it does and they're like, oh, no, maybe if I try to sound the alarm like people before we have, you know, and I get it, you know. But even with us as a civilian here, you know, I feel like we need to be a lot more active, more alarmed than just waiting for it to be at our door set. Yeah. Well, the amount of alarm people are or are not, I can't speak to. I don't know that anybody is really surprised about what's going on. I think we are all appalled. And I just think we need to be smart in our response to what we do about it. Being angry is swell. Being able to focus that anger into change, to actual change in some way. I think that makes a big difference. That's just me. Linus, appreciate your call. I appreciate your thoughts on all of this today. 818985-5735, 818985, K-P-F-K. I told you we were going to, DEI, put ladies first, I'm sorry, put ladies and Trump supporters first, but the Trump supporters apparently are too. Cowardly to call in 818985, 5735. Erica in, there we go. Erica in Los Angeles, welcome to the broadcast. Hello, thank you for taking my call. Yeah, so Gavin Newsom's been doing a great job of kind of trolling Trump online. Yes. I listened to the tweet that you read out earlier about the economy. California is the world's fourth largest economy, but if he really wants to trump Trump, he would make good on his 2018 gubernatorial promise. to pass the bill to guarantee health care for all California residents and lead the nation for Medicare for all. I mean, he sweeps the presidency. The California nurses, this is their third attempt under Gavin Newsom's leadership to have this bill, Assembly Bill 1900, and it's stuck in rules. We have a Democratic supermajority. We don't need one Republican vote. I am concerned if Gavin Newsom can't pass Calcare with a supermajority, he can't deliver the president. Fair enough. And you said that you think he would sweep, that he would walk straight into office if he was able to pass Medicare for All or universal health care for folks in California. You think that would work in his favor in a presidential election? Bernie swept California on that back in the day. Bernie swept California. Bernie swept California, but Bernie did not win even the Democratic primary. Well, that's debatable. We won't go there. It is not debatable.

He didn't win. And I like Bernie. Nothing against Bernie? He did not win. He did not win even the Democratic primary. Not to say he shouldn't have, not to say I didn't want him to. I'm not talking about that at all. I'm just saying he didn't win. So the notion that adopting universal health care as much as I would love to see that, not just here in California, but everywhere. But the idea that, you know, passing it in California is a ticket to the White House. I'm not saying it's not. I'm just asking you if it is because I'm not so sure. And when I was talking about, you know, being smart voters, I think this is part of that conversation, Erica. All right. Good point. But that point aside. Gavin Newsom ran on this as a campaign promise. And this is the third time. It's kind of under his leadership. So keeping one's campaign promises will resonate with a lot of people because we are so tired of Trump. I mean, what campaign promises has he kept? Just horrible ones. So we need somebody where they have a track record on keeping their campaign promises. And this is one that he made. And he's going to keep. All right. Fair enough. Good point, Erica. That said, that's for the presidential race in two years. Before I let you go, Erica, you got a favorite in the governor's race? Oh, my gosh, I don't. See? Did you? Well, even if I did, I wouldn't tell you about it. That said, I think that's what we need to be thinking about, at least out here in California at the moment, because early voting starts in, I think, about a week or two. So let's focus. Eyes on the Prize. Thanks, Erica. And by the way, right now, it could well be two Republicans you get to choose between in November. So... Please pay attention. Thanks, Erica. I appreciate the call. 818985, K-P-F-K, 818-9-855-5735. Oh, we have a Trump supporter. All right. Here we go. Andrew in downtown L.A. Hey, Andrew, thanks for calling in. What's on your mind today, sir? Well, I'm Andrew. I just wanted to be listening to you for quite some time in my car. Thank you. But I must say that, yes, I used to be a liberal until Trump came in the second time and I said, well, I got to go with this guy. Okay. Yeah. The truth is that Trump is not Jesus Christ, okay? He makes mistakes, but this guy has been so good for us. What business is in downtown California? He's been a mess. Hang on, hang on. Andrew, let's go back and forth here because you're hitting a lot of points. So you said he's not Jesus Christ, and I just wanted to say, well, he posted a photo of himself as Jesus Christ. You feel good about that?

I support him 100%. Even when he posts himself as a photo of Jesus Christ. Okay. I don't care. Okay. What matters to me to have peace and having my business and doing the right thing. I don't care what it puts, but if it can help me in terms of security in LA downtown, that what matters for me. And how did he... Yeah, Andrew, how did he help you and your business downtown in L.A.? Well, ever since became a president, before Trump became a president, there was just crime everywhere in downtown. The police were arresting people, put them behind the wall, take a picture, and the guy is released. But ever since became a president, nowadays, arresting people, and these people are trying to do their job. But we cannot continue complaining about the guy. You know, who's, who's arresting, Andrew? Hang on a second. Who's arresting people in downtown L.A.? I'm saying that the police are doing their job now. Before that, they were just relaxed that. They nobody gives it down. You, looking at all this. Okay, so you feel that local police here in Los Angeles is doing their job now because of Donald Trump at the federal level? Yes, yes, because they feel right now that they have someone who supports their back. Okay. Who supports their back? Where do you get the idea that? nobody supported their back before that they weren't doing the right thing because Donald Trump wasn't in the office. I'm trying to figure out how one thing has to do with another, Andrew. No, no, no. What I'm trying to say that before Trump came in, I think the police in downtown lost completely focused because every time they try to do something, this gets released within it hours. But I think everything changed when Trump became a president. Now these guys are doing their jobs. They feel like a president, in the federal side, they have someone to support them. Like, you have to do your job. Yeah. So it's not like those days. Here's the thing, though, Andrew. Mayor Karen Bass is actually in charge of the... No, she's the worst mayor ever. I voted for her, and I regret a lot. It will never have to again. Except that under her... the police are suddenly doing their job. Why is that to the credit of Donald Trump, not to the credit of the actual mayor who is actually the boss of the police? I feel like that at a federal level, these guys feel like they have someone above who can actually, even if anything happens, it would be on the news. But before that, it was really bad. It was really, downtown was horrible. I'm not even going to argue with you, Andrew, as far as how good or bad Los Angeles was or wasn't. What confuses me is why I guess I don't see the connection between having Donald Trump in office in the White House and the police changed the local police in the city of Los Angeles under a new mayor, Mayor Karen Bass, who only came in to power a few years ago. how their behavior has changed, why Donald Trump gets credit for that in any way, shape, or form when he has nothing to do with local policing? What I'm trying to say that, I think what they're doing now, they're working with the federal government, the FBI, whatever, drug, whatever, in all those agencies, working together as a unit. Where do you get that impression? Based on what? Where do you get that impression?

I live in downtown LA. And I interact with these people all the time. Okay. I talked to the police. One time there's something happening in front of me and I took the police of what's going on. And they just kept quiet. And sometimes now you can see them doing something. Like, you know, say, hey, something happened. Everybody's running there. But before that, everybody was just, nobody was doing anything. Okay. All right, Andrew. Listen, I got some other folks I want to get to. I really appreciate you calling in. Hopefully it didn't hurt. Hopefully you'll feel free to call back and we can continue the conversation because I think it's an interesting one. Thanks, Andrew. I appreciate it. 818-985, K-P-F-K. Let me go to Bill in Riverside. Hey, Bill. Welcome to the broadcast. Well, hello there. How are you doing? I'm doing okay yourself. I'm doing great thanks for asking just on my way home from work. Okay. Drive safely, sir. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So I just called in. You said you had maybe wanted to talk to some Trump supporters and get their view on something or maybe I'd give you my opinion or what. Yeah. Well, have you heard any of our conversation here today? Yeah, I've heard about the last 20, 30 minutes or so, give or take. All right, and I assume you've got perhaps a complaint with me. You see something a different way than I see it. Not necessarily a complaint. I guess just a change of opinion or a difference in opinion. But I guess my thing is maybe why so many people voted for Trump versus the Democrat Party, you know, even though he has that rhetoric to him and there are some favorite side to him, obviously. Democratic Party, but yeah. Go ahead. Well, actually, I wasn't asking why they voted for him because I think we're sort of beyond that point. But if you want to go back to that point, we certainly can as far as if you'd like to ring it. Let me ask you this real quick. Do you support what he's doing in Iran right now going to war against Iran? So I'm not necessarily against it or for it. I'm really not educated on the war in Iran. It's just been something I've been hearing since I was a kid and I'm 50 now. And it just seems like it's always been talked about. And it was always under the impression that if anything ever happened, that it would be World War III. Something has happened already, right? We've been bombing them along with Israel. Donald Trump attacked. Well, Donald Trump attacked them, and they attacked a whole bunch of nations in the region. We've got about, I don't know, seven or eight at war. The country has, the Iran has shut down global shipping of a fifth of the world's supply of oil and natural gas. It seems like it's kind of bad, and yet you don't have an opinion on it.

that? You think it was a good idea that we attacked Iran? I don't think it was necessarily a good opinion. I just don't know enough about the politics itself, you know, besides what I'm seeing on the mainstream news and whenever I choose to look out on my own. But I know right. I don't know if it's going to be as bad as they said, right? We've already initiated conflicts, so if World War III doesn't come, then what? You know what I mean? Well, I mean, there's a lot of... There's a level between, you know, where we are now and World War III. And, you know, are you happy to pay if it comes to a $10 or $15 a gallon for that gas? Definitely not, but I'm in the same boat as everybody else, obviously, so we're all going to have to figure it out. But I just think that things aren't necessarily as bad as what people see on TV and hear on the radio because things that are going on in the Middle East right now, it's nothing new. All of a sudden, everybody's mad at this president because he's supporting Israel. No, no, no. Hang on. Hang on. The last 30 years have supported Israel. Correct. They all support Israel. And I have to get out because it's the end of the hour here, Bill. Okay. But very quickly, he vowed last Sunday to destroy an entire civilization would be dead forever. You support that, I guess. Yes or no? I didn't interpret it the same way as you. I interpreted it into the Trump language. That's what I interpreted. So I didn't take it literally. All right, Bill. Thank you. I appreciate the call. Sorry, we have to get out. Let's stay in touch. Everyone let's stay in touch. My apologies. To those on hold who I couldn't get to today, we will keep the conversation, I hope, going in the days ahead. Thanks for tuning in. And again, sorry for those I couldn't get to today. Thanks also to our producer, Desi Doyen, to our board operator, Will, and to all of you for spending a portion of your day or night with us. If you missed any portion of today's show or any other, you can download all of them for free at bradblog.com. You can also drop me email. I am Bradcast at Bradblog.com. And on the... social media, especially blue sky. You will find me at The Brad Blog. See you there. Until we see you here next time, hopefully tomorrow. I'm Brad Friedman. Good luck, world.

You're listening to the Bradcast. We are 100% listener supported thanks to listeners like you who drop by bradblog.com slash donate.