Caller of the Day and Chris Stigall, Missouri 6th Congressional District Winner | 8-5-26

Hey, Kansas City, I'm McGratham. Do you have trouble sleeping? He is one of the foremost experts on sleep, and he'll take your questions coming up at 8 o'clock only at 957 FM. Well, I just got an update, speaking to McGraw-Milhaven, who's going to be here in Kansas City for our America 250 events, along with Vims Colonnese and Guy Benson, who I'll be filling in for today. They're all coming to town. September 16th, there'll be a boulevard brewing. There are 33 tickets left. You can buy them now at KCMO TalkRadio.com. I'll be out there, Keatsman, working on John and Mark as always. Got to figure out what they're wearing and the outfits and the hats and whatnot. But we're going to have a great time. But there are only 33 tickets left. So buy them up. KCMO TalkRadio.com. Chris DeGall's coming up in less than five minutes. Right now, though. We have our caller of the day and a lot of conversation. On the bloodbath, that was Amendment 5, Missourians voting 83 to 17 against phasing out the income tax. Let's go. It's the Monday in the morning, caller of the day on 957 FM, KCMO, top radio. 913-4087-957. Brad is in Blue Springs next up. Brad, go ahead. Good morning. Good morning to you, Pete. Hey, listen, I'm one of those old guys on Social Security. And, you know, I spent 70 years in California, my friend. And I saw the crappola that politicians wrote into amendments. And it was like mind boggling to try to understand. And I just think Republicans, conservatives, if you will, did a piss poor job explaining how we're going to give up. I thought it was $9 billion. My chat bot told me it was $9.3 billion in state income tax that was collected. And, you know, even on that number. It's like how they're going to replace that? You can't, you can't as a state, you can't give up that type of money without going, here's how we're getting it back. You have to. And I'm the guy who voted yes on number one. Taxes are important. You can't run a state or a country. without taxes. So I'm willing to pay my fair share. Just tell me how we're going to do it. That's all I want. And that is something that was never well explained by Missouri Republicans. Really, this was a mistrust in government vote as much as anything else. It was people saying, listen, I like the idea, but how are you replacing 60% of the general revenue?

What's your strategy? What's your plan? Can you really grow your way out of it and through that? And it was a mistrust of politicians, not an anti-Republican thing or a pro-democrat thing. That's not what this is. I don't care what Quentin Lucas is trying to sell on social media. And he will be on the show tomorrow morning at 7.30 in his usual spot. He said to me he wanted to come on the show today. I said no. No, give people a breather, okay? I mean, give folks a day here. Calm down a little bit. Get some sleep. Take your chill pills. I appreciate the mayor always coming on every week. I didn't need that today. I really didn't. But he'll be on tomorrow and I'm sure he will have plenty to say and maybe he will announce his gubernatorial campaign. That would be nice because I am, you know, I know for a fact. If Mayor Lucas could have one political job in the world, he wants to be the first black mayor of Missouri. That's what he wants to be. And he thinks last night was part of a pathway to make Missouri purple again. He has said as much very loud, very clear on social media. And I just think that's the totally wrong interpretation of what happened last night. As I just said to one of the Kansas City star writers on X, I said, dude, until the Democrats can figure out what a man is and what a woman is, this party's not going anywhere in the state. The state's just got too much common sense. It does. And certainly last night in the sixth congressional district, they went ahead with Chris DeGall, a convincing win in that primary last night in North Missouri to replace Sam Graves. Chris now joins us on KCMO Talk Radio. Chris, good morning. Congratulations. How does it feel? Pete, it's wild. First of all, it's the honor of a lifetime. And I thank you. I thank you for your friendship. It meant a great deal to me when we had our kickoff event and you were there to emcee it. That was special to me. You know how much I love KCMO and this audience and how much I think of you. And to be here in this place today now is the recipient of folks in Clay County, Graham Platner County. Buchanan County, Clinton County to win, as this campaign did last night, particularly here in a backyard where our career talking about these issues started, it means more than I can really say. You know, you've covered these races, obviously, for 20, 25 years doing this on my side of the microphone. What is it like being on that side when the polls close yesterday? You know how oftentimes you'll look at your kids and they've grown up quickly and you say, where did time go? And a blink of an eye. Yeah. I would encourage everyone to run for office and then wait till election day. Wait till the polls open.

and then wait for 7 o'clock for them to close. That will slow time like molasses. You can bottle and sell that, man. I've never seen time crawl like I saw time crawl yesterday. Oh, man, and I saw that you voted very early. And I'm sure that you're trying to over analyze everything you had done over the last 90 days as these 13 hours are unfolding while the polls are open. When did you start to feel good about things last night? You know, the first big results that came in from Buchanan County, actually, they were the first, and we had a really nice lead in Buchanan, and that told us that things looked good, and then as results started to come in from Clay County and Graham Platner County. I mean, this is, you know, a district of 33 counties, but the population, obviously, it's no secret, is in Clay Graham Platner and Buchanan largely. And so if you're doing well in those large counties... the math starts to favor you pretty quickly. And so as we started to see the math stacking up for us and And really throughout all of northwest Missouri, all the way up to the Iowa, Illinois, or Iowa, Nebraska border all the way up in Massachusetts County. We had a good night. So it was, Buchanan County, Clay, and Graham Platner were really, once we saw those strong results, we felt pretty good. All right. I got to ask you because of how contentious this primary was, the phone call between you and Nathan Willett, how was that? You know, he was a gentleman. He called and congratulated me and said that he was eager to work with me for the good of the folks that we both will represent. I know the councilman still has a time left to serve his constituents, and he does so well. And look, Pete, here's the thing. In a primary, what I understand is when you look at the math, there's a good chunk of people that did not vote for me in the Republican primary last night. A lot of them voted for Councilman Willett and the other three gentlemen who ran. And I'm profoundly aware of that. And I want to earn their support too. So the hard work of primaries is these family food fights, they're never comfortable. Nobody likes them. We haven't had one in the sixth congressional district in 26 years. So these are naturally uncomfortable. I don't like them. I'm glad to be past it. And so the councilman was a gentleman. I extended my well wishes. He said he'd pray for my family. I said the very same for him. I'm a better candidate now. I hope I'll be a better representative now having run against. four other gentlemen who wanted this seat and who have families and ambitions and aspire to make the country better. I learned from them. And I'm glad for the experience. And I hope I can represent their voters well as we head toward November. Just a little behind the scenes. This was obviously, and nor should it have been a big part of any kind of campaign, but it's an interesting storyline that your campaign run by Jeffro, who got to start right here in Missouri in that district.

Was your fraternity brother, I believe it was? So how about life coming full circle 30 years later, a fraternity brother running your campaign? And obviously he's one of the best to do it. Yeah, it was wild, I must say. And he and I talked for some time last night. This is not someplace that I ever saw myself. In fact, Jeff, it's funny, when Jeff started getting into politics as a young man coming at Northwest Missouri State University, He knocked on my door as I was about to graduate and wanted me to come to work for him in politics. And I said, no, man, I wanted to get behind a microphone my entire career. And that's what I'm going to do. And I did. And I resisted it for the longest time. And I said, do you remember? I told him last night, do you remember 30 years ago when you told me to come work for politics? I didn't want to do it. Well, here we are. It just took 30 years. Well, you know what? Hey, listen, you're not the... Not the last guy, I think, who's going to be someone who ends up in elected office, and I believe that you will in November, who spent many years behind a microphone. I think the ability to communicate today is more important than ever. And whether it's yourself or Mark Alford, I mean, you know, you go back to Ronald Reagan, who obviously had media experience, President Trump had media experience, Mike Pence even had media experience. What do you think the connection is between the ability to communicate? and then how that translates to the job that you hope to have in November? You know this? This audience knows this. What people are so tired of is listening to politicians, say the same old platitudinal crap. It's never honest. It never seems sincere. It never seems rooted in the stuff that we feel. They talk in this sort of automatic way that doesn't communicate, doesn't connect. Look, the thing that I have to do, and I've told my team already, we win this thing in November. I have to be home as often as possible. I've got to get out of that cesspool in Washington, D.C., and come back home to be in my church, to be with my friends and neighbors, to travel the district. Because the more time you spend away from home, the more you become of Washington. And when you become of Washington, you lose the ability to talk to people like you do every day, like I have for so many years. What makes this so special, talk radio, is the fact that we get to talk to and with real people who are leading real lives, not these fake lives in Washington, D.C. So I never want to become of that. And I think as long as you can maintain that foothold connected to home, you're going to be better for it as a communicator. Well said. And hey, you always got a seat here in the studio right across from us at KCMO Talk Radio. Brother, it would be an honor sincerely. Anytime. Call me. I'm here. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, Chris, congratulations on last night. And we appreciate you being here on KCMO Talk Radio. Thanks so much. Pete, thanks to you. Your friendship means the world to me and your audience. And the folks that have been listening, maybe shared audiences between you and me over the years, their support. I can't say thank you enough. Thank you, Pete. You bet. Have a great day, Chris. Thanks, Pete. You too. Bye-bye. All right. Chris DeGall. Great to have them on KCMO Talk Radio.

Appreciate his time and congratulations on his win last night. The U.S. soccer podcast. I'm your host, Megan Klingeberg. And after interviewing so many dudes during this men's world cup, I'm so happy to be back with my U.S. women's national team players. I know the U.S. men's national team has changed how I think about myself, how I think about being an American, how I think about being on a team. It's one year out from that World Cup. And we're going to talk about the brightest prospects in U.S. soccer. You ready? I'm ready. Let's do it. The U.S. Soccer. Podcast presented by Henko. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Mike Drop, hosted by former Navy SEAL, Mike Ridland. What is your take? Was it what you expected? Oh, it was the best thing ever. It was something I always wanted to do. If you show me a clear goal, I'm like, okay, I can do that. Master Chief. He's like, you realize there's about 1% chance that you're making it through. 1%. That's all I need Master Chief. My platoon went home early, and I just went up to my chief, and I was like, I'm not going home. Turns out I'm staying. That's when we go to war. Yeah, I was like, okay, I could get used to this. Mike Drop, follow and listen on your favorite platform.