8/11/26 Panel

I met my old lover on the street last night. She seemed so glad to see me, I'll just smile. We talked about some old times and we drank ourselves some beers Still crazy after all these years. Oh, still crazy after all these years. I'm not the kind of man who tends to socialize. I seem to lean on old familiar ways. And I ain't no fool for love songs that whisper in my ears. Still great

So some of you are going to say, oh, okay, that seems about right. And some of you are going to say, wow, I feel really old. And some of you are going to say, oh, who is that? Paul Simon. Come on, everybody knows Paul Simon. Don't say that. You know that's untrue. It's true. And if it's not, I don't want to know about a joke. But that album, still crazy after all these years, released this date 50 years ago. Ouch, okay. Wow, 50 years ago. Okay. My kids would definitely be like, who is that? Yeah, who is that, right? So, but even though he's still, you know, he's still very active, he's out there, is performing, is, is, is, uh. vital and in fact coming up in a couple of uh because in a couple of weeks graceland turns 40 years old wait is he still performing i thought he had a retirement tour he had a retirement tour okay well you don't you don't take rock stars a retirement tour seriously now do you i went to the who's farewell tour at the carrier dome in 1982 so yes i take your point so he uh he was having hearing issues and he figured out a way to sort of deal with those issues on stage and he wrote this incredible, I will refer to it almost as a mass. And he has been touring that in theaters and now outside he did Tanglewood in June and he's been around and he does it with this incredible band. And the first of it is this piece that he did, which is about 40 minutes long, intermission and then just. A barrage of hits. Of the hits. Yeah. It's really good. I've never seen him. I'd like to go. I think he's 84. Wow. And so, and sounds great. The band sounds great. And it was lovely to see him. Anyway, good morning, all. Welcome. We welcome you to the program and are so glad you are here with us. It means a lot to us. Let me introduce the group to you and we'll get started. We have a lot to talk about it, as we always do. Fatima Gilliam is here, an author, lawyer, consultant, public speaker, and entrepreneur. Her most recent book is Race Rules What Your Black Friend Won't Tell You. Good morning, Fatima. How are you? I'm doing well. Happy to be here with everybody and hope people have air conditioning in this heat that we're experiencing. Me too. Me too, or that, you know, whatever we talk about just sends chills through your veins and cools your body temperature down a little bit, one of the two. But yes, hopefully air conditioning, that would be much easier. Executive Director of Communities for Local Power and former White House advance lead Anna Markowitz is with us. Good morning, Anna. How are you? I'm great. Thanks for having me. It's wonderful to have you, as always. What a good day to have you, Anna. As opposed to other days? Well, there's a specifically good story to have you here. Oh, yes, yes, yes. You've got so expertise that I don't have. Secret service. I love talking about secret service. I know. I, well, okay. No spoiler. It's remarkable. I think that I.

I couldn't stop reading those stories. I was just, I couldn't, every scrap of information I could find. And the thing I just, and if you don't know what we're talking about, you will. Spoilers ahead. But I just couldn't imagine for a moment. them putting the president into a food truck. Oh, I could. I'm so... I mean, it's just is amazing. I mean... But did it have burgers and fries, is the question. Well, I don't know, but I mean, those burgers would still be, you know, smaller than the bruises on his hand, for God's sakes. You mean, his little hand? Little hand? And away we go. Good morning. And Anna, thank you for being here. The Empire Report's J.P. Miller is with us. Good morning, J.B. Good morning. Thanks for having me, Joe. One of the best concerts I ever saw was at Forest Hill City and Paul Simon. You can't. You just, it's infectious music. You can't help, but people didn't want to dance, and by the end they were dancing. Well, you can't not. Yeah. Can't not. And I was before, as we were talking about, you know, some people not knowing, I have to say when I saw Paul Simon in June, there were many, many. teens there who are going out of their minds and throwing like he was he was taking requests and they were just screaming out you know mrs robinson you know it was it was great it was really cool but yeah it's it is infectious and and very cool so we'll be we'll be playing that um Robert Pondissio is with us. He is senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Good morning. Robert, always a pleasure to be in your company. And apropos of seeking out air conditioning, I did something last week. I was in New York City for a few days that I have literally not done for six years since before COVID. I went to the movies. Oh. Did you see The Movie? I saw Odyssey, The Odyssey. Yeah, that's the movie. Well, somebody asked me, did you go see Spider-Man or The Odyssey? And I said, well, which one's longer? Because I'm not kidding. The air conditioning was really a large part of the appeal. But, man, if you haven't been to the movies in that long, the whole vibe, as the kids say, is just different around going to the movies these days. Well. They're in color now. Ouch. I'm not that old. And they give you comfortable seats these days. That was the big thing. I felt like, why can't airline seats be like this? Yeah. Like my dad's recliner in there. Oh, my goodness. They got rid of the organs. It's cool. Yeah. It's pretty neat. They're the talkies now, right? Well, good. I'm glad you got that moment. That's a good movie. I enjoyed it.

in the chill. All right, let's get to the news of the day. We welcome your letters panel at wamc.org, panel at wamc.org. So we might as well start with the story that we were just referencing a few moments ago. This is a story that broke yesterday last night and started as an exclusive from the Washington Post and then obviously was picked up all over. President Trump said to have secretly used military jet to leave Turkey amid threats. President Trump hid in an airport catering container and was taken to a military jet for a secret flight out of the country after the NATO summit last month. Catering containers alongside Air Force One were brought to the tarmac. So it was quite a show. The New York Times uses the word, no, I'm sorry, I think it was the Washington Post that used the words. ruse a lot. But it is, they put them up. So if you remember this correctly, the NATO summit ended, and then he had just brought the Qatari plane, the Air Force One guitar jet that was gifted to the American people. Yes. And was gifted to us, and then they went over to the NATO summit. Then the Secret Service said, we don't feel comfortable because there are threats. We don't feel comfortable with the president traveling back. So we're going to bring them back on the old Air Force one, the previous Air Force one. So that comes over. Then there's all kinds of stories which we can or cannot get into, but there are a whole bunch of stories that the president said that he wanted to send the Qatari plane over to Britain so the troops could see it, which isn't even legal. And then he said that he wanted to share it with the world, and he wanted to take the other plane for old time's sake, even though it only used the other plane twice. Okay, whatever. So then... We find out in the last 24 hours that what they did is they had him go up the stairs of old Air Force One, go across the bridge, then go down a lower stairs and into a catering container brought him to a military... jet and got him out of there and sent him off to Britain where he met the guitar jet, which is what he brought home. Now, what is interesting about this story, too, is that so who's left on the second plane, on the old Air Force One, the reporters and a lot of the members of the cabinet who assume that the president is on the plane they are on, but He is not on that point. Too dangerous. Yes, too dangerous, although not for the reporters. Oh, dear, what happens if they got blown up? So that is part of the story. Now, I have to say, as I was reading this last night and looking at different aspects of this, the one thing that struck me was from a...

a Secret Service official from previous administrations, from, he worked with both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. And he said that, quote, the Secret Service. has used decoy motorcades and flights in the past to move presidents secretly. Anytime the president is in a theater where there's potential combat danger, the Secret Service has employed protective countermeasures, including the use of a decoy. He added that the agency has long prioritized the security of the president over transparency with the public. So there is that aspect to it. There's also the aspect of it from the Washington Post and the New York Times that are writing and saying, but we have a right to know at all times where the president of the United States is. And at least people within the administration should know where the president of the United States is. Mr. Trump arrived in Britain. He was secretly moved back to the older version of Air Force One. He then disembarked in view of reporters, walked across the tarmac to the plane donated by Qatar, which he flew to Washington. The elaborate plan appears to have been developed in a matter of hours after officials determined that a threat against Mr. Trump from Iran was credible. It came after years of threats against Mr. Trump from Iran, and amid the war he launched against that country. And it was an unusual instance of the public being deceived. about a president's whereabouts. That again from the New York Times. Anna. So there's a lot to unpack here, and I love talking about the weird quirks of Secret Service. I just want to remind people you worked in this field for a long time of being a White House advanced person and working out logistics, working out details, and working out things just like this. Yeah, yeah. could have very easily under, you know, Obama or Kamala Harris or Biden been one of the people trying to figure out how to get the food cart to the plane. So. But by the way, can we just say it was not a food cart. People are imagining the president being stuffed into the little drink cart. It was not that. It was one of those giant things. No, it was the culinary trucks. Yeah, that they pull up along the side of the plane. Yeah. Well, as I said, it has like 500 of those meals, those airport meals, that. Either way, I hope it was uncomfortable. Well, you know, I don't know, but it was a short, it was a short jaunt anyway. Go ahead, Anna. So I've never been a part of a decoy mission. Would you have known if you were? I think as the lead on the trip, I would have known because I would have been working with Secret Service to organize the cart. I probably also would have been telling. people that they needed to put their windows down. They said that they had to put their shades down because they didn't want the reporters looking out the window and seeing him get into this container. Right. So although and interestingly for the remainder of the flight, which I think also may have been an attempt to keep them safe from whatever or.

Whatever the case may be. Security measure. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. So it is definitely very normal for them to try to obstruct the view of the president. We are often going through tents whenever we're disembarking from a motorcade. The amount of... backhaul kitchens I have seen just to get through buildings without being spotted by the public. I mean, it actually brings like a visceral scent of kitchen grease. That's where you live for the most part. Yes, I lived in a smelly kitchen for most of my life. So that is all very normal. And in fact, One of my first jobs as an advanced person was organizing motorcades. And this is a weird fact, but there are volunteer drivers that normally drive the press and the senior staff. So at the beginning of every motorcade Secret Service will set aside our, you know, five to ten drivers and they say, listen. The president is in a real vehicle that is secure. And if there's a threat, we're going to leave you. And don't try to keep up. Like, we're going to do defensive drivers. We have, like, you know, we have a plan. You're a volunteer driver. You don't know what you're doing. Just, you know, leave us behind. So it's not the first. time that I've heard of, you know, the reporters and the senior staff kind of being left in peril while the president is whisked off to safety because, you know, the Secret Service, they don't, it's their job. It's their job. They care about the president's safety. They don't necessarily care about the reporter safety as much. So, um, that part is all kind of standard. Um, but I've, I've never. had anything like this happened before. And also, I'd be really curious what those people thought on the plane. For the 40 minutes, it took for him to disembark on the way off the plane, when they had to, they snuck him on. And then 40 minutes later, he exited the plane. Normally exiting the plane at... an airport for the president takes maximum 10 minutes. I mean, you know, the reporters come off through the back door. They get stationed under the wing to like take the photo of him coming down and greeting the prime minister or president of Yadda. And then they all get in the motorcade and they go. And so I'd be really curious as to the conversations had by everybody on that plane for the 40 minutes being like, what is happening? What are we doing here? And why can't we open these window shades? So let me ask this question before we go to other members of the panel. The fact that this is a front page story weeks after it happened, are we making too much out of that or is this a legitimate story that...

is because I think there's two ways to look at it. It's a legitimate story that is of great concern as to we don't know where our president is at all times. Okay. There's one take. Or two, that the press got ticked off because they didn't know where the president was. And now they're... But they're only finding out weeks later. So, Anna, to your point, it's not as if they were wondering what was going on. They clearly didn't know what is going on. Well, I don't know. I will... I will I'm not corrected. I will say to you that even in the reporting and both the Times and the Post last night, and even in the Wall Street Journal, there was a great deal of speculation. Yeah. And I think it took them this amount of time to put the pieces together. Because obviously when the Washington Post went with their story, and it seemed the key to that story was what plane they used to get out, then within... less than an hour, the New York Times had their story done and out. So I assume that that had all been had been worked on because obviously the New York Times had been doing so much about the plane. And wasn't that what got them, correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I believe that was the story that they were sued over. for the information that they were providing about the Katari jet. Yeah, I mean, I do know that Secret Service is very particular about... releasing any details of their security. When I would allow my volunteer drivers to like take pictures in front of the limo, they were always like, you can't have the door open because we don't want anybody to know how thick the doors are because we don't want people to be able to engineer missiles that go through the door because the whole point is to keep the president safe inside this car, which like the car weighs as much as like a fire engine. So. So I think that, you know, I think it's fine that on occasion, if there is a real threat to the president's safety, that he be whist away in secret. I think that that is okay, personally, but it is very unusual. I mean, I've been... on many a plane to, you know, war zones, and they've been on there. Obama used to like to play basketball at like 6 o'clock in the morning, and the press would complain about it, but they would get in the van and they would follow behind and they'd sit in the van while he played basketball in case like World War III broke out while he was playing basketball and they needed to cover it, you know? And so they're kind of used to just being along for the ride, whether it's like...

job. Probably going to be useful or not. So it's definitely highly unusual, but I mean, we are at war with Iran and, you know, desperate times come, call for desperate measures. JP, I have, sorry, I have more questions for Anna. Anna, as the White House advance lead, are you? Do your earbuds connect with what the Secret Service, or are they on a separate frequency? And how many White House advance staff? Like, what I'm wondering is, do you think the entire White House advance, or whoever was on the trip knew about it, or maybe only one or two people? So there is a different channel for the White House staff versus Secret Service. So probably most advances didn't know. As the lead, you sit in the front car of the motorcade with Secret Service. And there is a radio that is kind of just blaring whatever's on the Secret Service channel. So as the lead, I would have at least heard that as it was happening, but probably would have been conferring with Secret Service just so that. that at least the very senior people on the ground knew what was happening. And anytime the president makes a movement, there's who is going to be with the president, right? Yeah. And so how do you, do you have any thought about the conversation of, well, is this? Is the chief of staff going to go with him? Is his body man going to go with him? That kind of a thing. Yeah. Typically, I mean, I've spent days manifesting elevators to go up to events because every, you know, it's like, all right, we have room for 10 people in this elevator. Who are the 10 people that are the most important to have immediately the whole time? So there's a lot of conversations about this. And I'm sure there was some about, you know, should we? Should we bring a chief of staff? Should we bring, you know, the, you know, Pete Hegseth or, you know, whoever? I would guess that that would have been part of it. Well, even in the article that I, the reporting that I read from the New York Times, it said that this was a plan that was developed over hours, which was more time than I would have thought that it was taken given the threat. I mean, I knew they brought the plane in and they knew a lot, but obviously, which is good, I think, right? How much do we know about the nature of the threat, by the way, Joe? Well, I think I don't know that I'm here's what I know about the threat. I know that the president has talked a lot about the threat. I know that the press has investigated and found the threat to be.

valid and concerning and then as far as you know but but again I think that threat has been going my understanding is that threat has been going on even prior to the actual war in Iran but obviously has been elevated as a result Sorry, more questions, Anna. All right. So if you, as you read this story, did you, is there a way that they could have done this better vis-a-vis, okay, they've shuttled the president out of the military plane now, right? Could they have conceivably? you know, moved the cabinet and or the press onto some other not a target plane. I think that a lot of what the criticism is is, well, if there was a credible threat, they're the decoy, they could get blown up. Why not once the president leaves? they disembark and go on some other plane that's not the big target that Air Force wanted. But JP, that's why I was asking about the nature of the threat. In other words, was it a threat against the aircraft or was a threat against the individual? Your tactics would surely be different based on the nature of the threat. Well, I think if it was regardless, they would be going for that aircraft because they would think that the president was on there. Yeah, that's a good question. I'm sure, like, for the... safety of the president, the most surefire way to make sure that they didn't pick up on anything changing is just seeking him off. I'm sure that people would have noticed if the reporters in the entire plane disembarked and got on some other plane, and that would have taken like another 40 minutes or something to shuttle everybody onto another plane. I'm not saying that they shouldn't have done that. That could have been, you know, maybe everybody would just be so confused while it was happening. They'd think the president was getting on the other plane, and then they wouldn't be able to catch the plane that really had him. You know, I'm not a Secret Service agent. I just play one on TV. I know that's not the Secret Service's concern, but I think the criticism is that, gee, if there was a threat enough for him to go into a food cart. onto another military jet, that they had a legitimate concern that that plane was going to somehow get shot out of the air. And there's all these innocent people that are playing decoy and they didn't necessarily need to. And I understand that's not the Secret Service is concerned, but maybe the White House team could have said, well, hey, look, after the president is off on the military plane safe and secure, let's get them on a different point. And had they known, maybe the press probably would have been concerned. If I could chime in on some of the things that we've been kicking around here. Like the initial question, like I don't think that we, the people, the press, need to know the president's whereabouts at every second of the day when there could be like a national security issue. But I do think we need to know within a reasonable time frame given the circumstances. Right? So if there's no threat, sure. People should know. If there's a threat, then obviously they have to take certain.

measures. But to me, you know, whether this is like a nothing burger story or not, it really boils down to a couple of key issues. To me, it's like non-consensual bait and decoys, right? Like the Secret Service signed up as being willing to trade their lives for the president. But not all these other people, right? They didn't sign up for that. And, you know, when I read this story, it, like, made me think of, you know, like, when you see these movies, you know, where there's, like, the president and there's, like, a plane takeover and there's, like, a hostage situation. And then there's always somebody that, like, who's not in the Secret Service that trades their life for the president, so the president can live in that movie. I am not that person. Right? I'm never going to be that person. I'm never going to trade my life for anybody else's unless they're a relative. And I've made that choice. The people on the plane did not make that choice. And so to me, one of the core underlying issues is... how the government thought it was okay to make all of these people unwilling participants in the potential demise of their life. Now, arguably, you can say, when anyone travels with the president, they might be assuming some kind of risk. But in this specific instance, they made the choice, the government, the president, the secret service, to put those people's lives in threat, right? So that's issue number one. Issue number two is, why is the life of the president under threat? In that instance. And it's because we're going to war with countries and we're attacking people unprovoked. And that is why he had to get into a little cart like a little kid being pushed around by their little cousin, you know, going from plane to plane, right? That is a core issue. And then the other issue is the issue number three is why we shouldn't be accepting random planes from countries. Right? So people are put in threat. He's under threat because of his decisions, and we shouldn't be exposing the government and our system of government to threat by accepting planes that don't go through the procedures to make sure that they have the defense capabilities to protect the president. To me, those are the core issues. Yeah, I mean, the third one you mentioned seems to be really the key one, because that's what started all of this as to that the plane. clearly was not ready. The Qatari jet was not ready for the activity of which it was involved in. As for, I don't know, as far as unwilling participants, you know, the people who lost their life, was it one or two in Butler, Pennsylvania, who were behind the president who died. I mean, you could say if you're going to stand behind a president who is always a target, then okay, and you're an un... willing participant, but you're there. I don't know. I mean, I don't know how you ever could figure that into the calculus. We also don't know. We don't know what security measures were taken for those aboard that point. And I think of... Well, we can assume that the president doesn't care about anybody themselves. Like, even if it were a situation as like... I'm not comfortable. No, no. If you were to get away...

for like to save his life and the only other people on the plane were his children, he would get off the plane. Well, I'm not going to know with that. We is a plural pronoun, Joe. It implies all of us. All of us do not agree with that. Yeah, I don't, I have problems. Look, I think, because again, we don't know what security measures were taken for that plane. Why do people give this man so much credit? He is a terrible human being. He's a narcissist. He's selfish. He would totally jeopardize and choose his life over the lives of his children. To me, that is just obvious if you go based on his past behavior. But we don't have to debate that. I actually have a question for Anna. This is what I'm curious to know. Like, given your past experience and all of the things that you've done, what would have happened or what do you think would have happened if people that were sitting on the plane, you know, not knowing what's going on for 40 minutes, decided to raise up their window shape? What would happen to them? Well, I think they would have seen the president being snuck on to the plane and probably taken some pictures and maybe broken the story before today. No, but I mean, what ramifications? Like, would they suffer any consequences if they were like, yeah, okay, I heard you, but I've been here a minute, and I'm about to race. And there's no way they would have had him in plain sight on the tarmac. I mean, again, you've got to visualize that gigantic food cart. It's not the little food cart that goes up the aisle. It's a big catering truck. It's not a cart. Right. So at no point would he have been in plain sight. That would have completely defeated the purpose. Right. But they would have seen, like, a cart. They would have seen a huge thing being loaded to a door. I would assume meals were coming in, just like we do when we fly Southwest. I don't think so because normally there's not a food cart that is coming to the plane because they have food already on the plane. They have like a separate system. So it would have definitely been unusual and they would have been like, I'm going to take a picture of this unusual thing that never happens. I don't know what kind of repercussions would have happened. You know, every administration is different. I don't work for this one. I worked for Biden and Obama and Kamala Harris. I mean, this administration does seem to reprimand press more than prior ones. So maybe they would have been like temporarily removed from a beat or like replaced or I'm not sure. But. Yeah, this honestly has never happened. Joe, can we take a step back here for a second? Because we can kind of Monday morning quarterback this and yuck it up about, you know, the president being secreted off a plane until the cows come home. But my goodness, the threat against the president of the United States was apparently... credible enough that the Secret Service and the military thought they had to smuggle him across an airport in a catering vehicle, put him aboard an unmarked military aircraft, and send the usual Air Force One on its way as a decoy. Whether you like Donald Trump or despise him that should disturb us as Americans.

that the threat exists. Well, that these extraordinary measures were, in other words, it was clearly a credible enough threat that this extraordinary action had to be taken. Yes. That's troubling. Well, we could just assume that Iran is going to come for him all the time, right? They already have. Because we're at war with another country. We are undermining our negotiations with them at all time. Iran is increasing its position with leverage. But we just have to assume, like, we've taken, we have killed. so many of their leaders. Let us not assume that history began in February. As long as there have been presidents of the United States, they have been under physical threat. How many have taken bullets? This is not a new phenomenon. Yeah, I mean, going back to George Washington, they're under threat. Yeah. So this is, this is not something that just happened, has never happened before. This is, this is, there's 200 years of precedent for this. So. But it's an increased threat because we're at war. Yeah, I mean, and I also go back to your, the question about the, you know, what got us to this moment. And I do think it, and I'm sure much more will be reported on this. But as far as. the Katari jet not being ready, right, of not being, not being equipped in the way of the secret. It was the Secret Service who called that off, who said, who said, this is not safe. By the way, Joe, that's why I was asking about the nature of the threat, because the traditional Air Force One has all manner of advanced electronics to thwart missile attacks, et cetera. Yes, which makes that even more interesting, right? That's right, because that plane. Yeah, I have no idea. I have no idea what level of security the Qatari jet has. I just don't know. But it's not even that their Qatari jet wasn't ready. It's that we should have never even taken the jet from them in the first place. Well, yeah. That's the initial step before was it even ready. We shouldn't be taking these kinds of gifts, these emoluments problems, all kind of that. But I do want to backtrack to. to one thing that we were talking about a little bit earlier. Because, I mean, obviously, we know, like, when I come on this show, I have no love for this president. But, and so, like, that's an obvious situation. However, I do find it, like, challenging that there isn't always enough, like, fair critical analysis of who this person is. And what I'm talking about... is like when I was talking about how, like, I think he would let a plane go down if his children are on it, if it meant that he would be safe, and then getting pushback on that. And I think there are too many times that we give too much deference.

to this person and give him the benefit of the doubt. His go-to position is always going to be a selfish position, something shady, something nefarious. And I believe that one of the reasons why we are in the position that we're in in this country right now, in this moment, with fascism on the rise, is because not enough people are willing to just come hard and call, you know, call it like it is. And I just have to throw that out there. Well, I, okay. Let's take a break. We'll take a break and we'll be back and continue this conversation. We'll include letters too. All that and much more. First this. inside your head she said to me the answer is easy if you take it logically I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free there must be 50 ways to leave your lover she said it's really not my habit to intrude furthermore I hope my meaning won't be lost on misconstrued but I'll repeat myself At the risk of being crude, there must be 50 ways to leave your lover. 50 ways to leave your lover. You just slip out the back, jack, make a new plan stand. You don't need to be coyroid. Just get yourself free.

Get yourself free. She said it grieves me so to see you in such pain. I wish there was something I could do to make you smile again. Good morning. Welcome back to the roundtable and to our panel discussion. Very nice to have you with us. And we welcome your letters, panel at wamc.org, panel at wamc.org. We do have a few letters. Tim writes and says, do the reporters that travel... with Trump have to sign anything. I wonder if there is something in fine print that says they, the reporters, may be put in life-threatening danger. I don't know that. I mean, I know that there is a presidential correspondence association. I know that there is an agreement between they are, they are, they're bound, right. They're bound to a set of rules and for them and for their protection as well as for. Others, right, Anna? Is that something like that? I didn't work for the communications and press division, so I'm sure that they handled all of that paperwork, and I just dealt with the people when they got to the ground and had to include them in everything. But, yeah, I'm sure that there is... some sort of documentation. I just don't know what is in it. I've never worked as a White House correspondent, but I have covered campaigns before, and I don't recall ever being asked to sign anything. So I think it's just understood. This is just to the point you made earlier, Joe, if you're going to be around the president at some level, you're in harm's way. Right. The being pointed out that the journalists who travel. with the president, it's referred to as the protective pool. Right. And they are, it is organized and as a tight-knit group of print, wire radio, and TV reporters. We should explain what a pool is for those who don't know. In other words, you don't have room even on Air Force One for every news organization that wants to be there. So some number of journalists are acting as what they call, quote, pool reporters, meaning what they file is available to everyone. Right. And it is up to, I think, the administration that they can have a say in where a reporter sits on the plane. And if you, you know, if you have row one, seat one. that if you tick off the president, you're suddenly in row R, you know, C5. I mean, that happens by all administrations. But you're still on the plane. Yeah. You're still getting the same shots that everybody else is getting. Okay. Let's go to another letter and we go to...

Following up on Fatima's point about the moral and ethical values of the president with such a credible threat to the safety of everyone on the Katari jet, what would have happened if the jet were attacked and any of the other passengers died, what would the inquiry of that dreadful event reveal? Well, thank God that didn't happen, but obviously... It would have been investigated, and we may or may not have known what happened. You invoked Butler, Pennsylvania. It sort of happened there, and frankly, I don't think we've ever had a satisfying investigation into the nature of that attempt, which cost someone his life. That's correct. Yes, and two people, if you count the shooter. That's right. Yeah. Teresa says, let's see. Michael, how can this happen? Maybe have Doge get rid of the competent people and replace them with people who look smart on Fox News. What could go wrong? That is from Michael in Saratoga. Let's see. And then we go to... this from Carol. I think there are much more profound topics to discuss than Trump crawling into a catering truck and gorging himself on bonbons. We have no proof that happened. Seriously, I changed the channel because I couldn't take it. Okay. Well, I asked the question. Is this an important story? I do think it's interesting in the sense of that we've been able to look at it in a way of, especially with Anna's expertise. I don't. If we didn't have that, we wouldn't be spending as much time on it. But I do think that it is a fascinating thing to look at, and especially an example, because this story, again, from the moment of that press conference at NATO, the NATO press conference, in which a New York Times reporter said, why are you not going home on the Gattari jet? to the second question asked by another New York Times reporter, why are you not going home in the Qatari jet, that that has been something that has been followed from that moment and continues to be today. My view also in response to the letter writer is that we talk about government and policy and political stories all the time, and this is, in my view, a story about the president that... Even someone that's not that interested in politics, I was speaking to someone last night who's not that into politics, and I brought up this story, and they were like, their eyes wide, and they go, he did what, he got into the, you know, and. I think it's, like you, Joe, I think it's a fascinating story. It's a quintessential Trump story that you kind of wouldn't believe it would happen to any other president that they're going to get shuffled away like that. And so I think it's, my view is it's very newsworthy, especially to people that aren't necessarily into politics. I guess we'll see what Lego video Iran drops next of Trump being pushed around in a little food cart.

I mean, I just find it interesting from a perspective of like, everybody thinks that the president has so much autonomy to do anything that they want. And this is the kind of thing where like when safety is the primary concern, Secret Service is actually the one in charge and they're the ones making the decision. Back when I worked for Obama, I was in Iowa. We were doing a, like, a bus tour of Iowa. And there were a ton of people that were outside the hotel that he wanted to go out and shake their hands. It was the end of the night. He's like, these guys, these people, like, they never have a president in their town. This is so exciting. I want to go out. And Secret Service was like, Absolutely not. They're not magged. You can't just go onto a street. Like, who do you think you are, the president of the United States? Like, and he didn't go out, and he was sad about it. So, you know, I think that people don't realize kind of what happens behind the scenes with this kind of stuff. It's an awesome responsibility. Yeah. That's also a real bummer for the president who's giving someone. I saw a former president speak to some people on a street, and it. made like they their eyes popped out of their head it made their day he just walked up to their like oh my and um it's and they do do that sometimes but they'll send secret service out there in advance to like wand them and and then they'll put them in a pen yeah yeah yeah just make sure that um nobody has a gun yeah we Here's what bothers me by the sort of the undercurrents of the conversation. And admittedly, I'm reading letters that I'm not, we don't have time to share all of them. But, I mean, I would think we'd all be in agreement. I hope we're all in agreement that we want our president of the United States to be safe. Let us hope. Yeah, whoever the president of the United States is should be safe. And Secret Service, they work for Obama. They work for Trump. They work for whoever. They are lifelong. This is their career. And I think that's how it should be. We will take a break. We will continue our conversation. We'll move on to other topics. So for those of you that complain about that topic, don't worry, we'll come up with the next topic. And you can complain about that one too. Panel at wamc.org. We'll be right back.

There were two men down, and the score was tied in the bottom of the eighth when the pitcher died. And they laid his spikes on the pitcher's mount, and his uniform was torn. And his number was left on the ground. Then the night turned cold. Colder than the moon. The stars were white as bones. The stadium was old. Older than the screams. Older than the teams. Older than the teams. There were three men down and the season lost. And the toppling was rolled.

Good morning. Welcome back to the roundtable and to our panel discussion. I'd like to have you with us, and we thank you very much. So nice to talk about these issues and have you along for the ride. Panel at wamc.org, panel at wamc.org. Let's talk about other stuff. The other big story to talk about is the executive order that the president signed yesterday, actually a pair of them. The calling for fewer childhood vaccinations and for the third time in less than a year, President Trump on Monday issued an executive order that calls for American children to be routinely immunized against fewer diseases as they are in countries like Denmark. This from the New York Times. The latest version embraces more explicitly than its predecessors, a revised schedule that recommends. immunizing children against 11 diseases rather than the 17 that are currently recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The order also directs the Attorney General to advance legal challenges against states that violate children's rights to religious or medical vaccination exemptions. Speaking in the Oval Office before signing the executive orders, Mr. Trump said he was motivated in part by concerns over whether vaccines were tied to autism, even though dozens of studies have found no link between the two. It is unclear whether the order... Has any legal power? Vaccine recommendations in the United States are made by a committee of experts who advise the CDC and are then adopted by the agency's director. But only states can require vaccinations for children to enter school or daycare. The administration's previous attempt at implementing a shorter vaccination schedule was... Already frozen once by a federal court, that ruling in part of a continuing lawsuit brought by medical organizations that argued that the administration did not follow a proper procedure and then it made, quote, arbitrary and capricious decisions. A judge agreed with that claim saying the government had bypassed the careful evidence-based practice that is traditionally underpin vaccine recommendations. This is not likely to address the court's concerns and is not a legally valid way to fill the statutory requirement about vaccine recommendations. It's just not, said Dory Rice, who is an expert, excuse me, expert on vaccine policy and law at the University of California College of law in San Francisco. Fatima. Well, to me, this is just par for the course. I mean, I just find it routinely problematic that we're engaged in self-harm and that we're actively as a country undermining confidence in our institutions and our experts.

Anna? Yeah, I mean, I agree with what everybody's saying, and I think it is hugely problematic to have large communities, perhaps unvaccinated from things like measles that are very preventable. And, you know, in Texas, we've recently had outbreaks, and it's because people have been using religious... exempt and medical exemptions to to not have that and we used to have that in new york state and uh recently um just within the last 10 years it we we can no longer use that and my son miles was actually at a preschool montessori um preschool and when that those rules changed they lost like half of their enrollment because uh people did not want to get the the vaccines and at the time i was like oh my god half the people in this school like weren't vaccinated for measles i mean my kid was you know why um i think because they were afraid of vaccines and they used the religious exemption as a way to um not have them Why? I think because of the autism concerns, but which are not valid. And there are studies that show that it's not valid. But people, there are conspiracy theories out there and people get concerned and it's their child and it's their child's safety and they don't want to risk it. You know, if I could add, I also think it's, you know, just adding to the point of, of sure, you know, there are obviously these false conspiracies, right? This fake link between autism and vaccines and conspiracies that have now infiltrated the mainstream and guiding our policies. But I also think there's another thing going on, too, not just fear, but an increase in selfishness. Right? Like we're at this me, me, me, me, me culture, right? Like people don't want to be their brother's keeper. They're not caring as much about the people that are around them and our collective well-being. And I think that's an undercurrent and a thread. And when I, you know, heard this, it just brings me back to a story, a personal story. When I was in law school, I remember I was in class and for people that, you know, aren't familiar with, like, law school heads. assigned seating and you're supposed to be in that seat like all semester long. And so I'm sitting in class in Columbia Law School. And this woman comes in and she sits next to me. She comes in late and I was like, oh, what, you know, why are you late? And she goes, I just came from the health center. And I was like, oh, okay, are you okay? And she goes, I have chicken pox. And I'm like, why are you here? Right? Because this is highly contagious. And I was irritated because I've never had chicken pox. I tried to get it as a child. My sisters, we tried to get. We did not get chicken pox. And so I wasn't vaccinated. And this was immune. And this is before the government, you know, had come up with the chicken pox vaccine. And I was outraged that she was so selfish.

knowing that she had this contagious disease. She just came from the health center. They told her she had chicken pots, but she thought it was going to be okay for her to come to class, sit there, and expose all of us to chicken pox. And it was this undercurrent of selfishness. And I, you know, I ran immediately and then found out, oh, now there's a vaccine. So I got the vaccine. And then I told her that she needed to leave class. And I know that was her assigned seat, but I never, ever wanted to see her seated next to me ever again for endangering me and the class. And it's just this selfishness that runs through whether people believe that vaccines are useful or not, when they do understand that they're helpful and they choose not to do it. And they endanger people that have... immune compromise situation because they just care about themselves. There's... I want to be careful, Joe, because I don't want to come across as an anti-vaxxer. I'm not. I'm quite pro-vaccination. But, you know, when we talk about issues of public trust and believe the science, for example, well, science is not something that you just swear loyalty to. It's a method for examining evidence. And the point I was trying to raise earlier about the damage that the public health system has done to itself. most recently through COVID, I think, is worth examining. There was a story just yesterday, and I may have the facts wrong because I don't have it in front of me, where, you know, the Senate panel, it's been, Rand Paul's panel, it's been going through Anthony Fauci's emails or texts or whatnot, that apparently, and somebody will correct me if I'm getting this incorrectly. they were talking among themselves about the risk of the COVID shot or a vaccine with miscarriages and making public pronouncements about how it's completely safe before they knew it was. Now, it turns out that there is no link, I believe, between the COVID shot and miscarriages, but they were going out on a limb. Like, this is not what responsible people do in science. You don't get out over your skis like this. Now, in this case, they happen to get it right. But when the perception exists that you've got public health officials who are making decisions for political purposes, for other reasons, you know, the noble lie, if you want to put the best gloss on it, it just doesn't redound to the public confidence in public health. I don't disagree with most of what you just said. I will say then you don't cut. science funding and you don't cut research funding and you don't cut money that's going to universities who are studying exactly that. No, I don't dispute that at all. I'm making a simpler point, which is it's not binary. It's not trust the science. Don't trust the science. But I also, I mean, and my gut reaction to what you just said is, okay, but I would rather see it play out than...

then be interpreted through somebody's texts from six years ago. Fair enough. I'm just wondering out loud how we got to the point of a country, as a country, where we don't trust the American people with the information that we have. We can't tell them everything we know because they may behave irresponsibly. But, you know, that's why we have policy, right? The reason why we have policies is to help guide the better choices of people. Because if people are left to their own devices, sometimes they'll make the best decision, sometimes they'll make a poor decision. And so to control for the fact that sometimes people make poor decisions, we come with policies that move people in the direction towards the better decision. And I'm not saying that we don't, you know, the government doesn't make bad choices. at times, but that's broadly why we have things like policies. And I'm also not going to say that science always gets it and doctors don't get it 100% correct, right? Or sometimes people think that, you know, if they say something like, you know, this is 90% effective, well, then that means that it's going to be ineffective for 10% of the people, right? And so that means that some people are going to suffer a negative consequence. An example. Years ago, my mother and I were going to be traveling to West, to East Africa together. And to plan for the trip, we had to get a series of vaccinations, one of which was the yellow fever vaccine. I got it, no issue. My mother got the vaccine, and then it triggered an autoimmune disorder that my mom now has that had, you know, very uncomfortable and painful ramifications. that means that she was not in the hump of the bell curve of the majority of the people that have an okay reaction. She had a negative reaction. But the consequence of that, yes, she has this immune disorder and it's impacted her health, but her takeaway was not, now I don't get vaccines. And that's the problem is for some people, that's their takeaway. But to your broader point, we have policies to guide people in the right direction. J.P. Miller.

I guess we've all kind of witnessed this explosion of antivax behavior and antivax sentiment since COVID. And there were, I think, some things during COVID that, you know, forced people to try to do some of their own research. And, you know, that research was, you know, it seemed like. critics of, let's say, the mRNA vaccine, where they had had that technology for many years before all of a sudden they're going to allow it and say all the sudden it's safe. And it turned out to be safe for many people. It turned out to be not safe for some people. But that movement, I think, the anti-vax movement is growing. I think that's an unfortunate thing. I think the vast majority of people would benefit from having vaccines. I also think that, you know, I've had children over the last couple years, and it is interesting that the baby comes out and takes its first couple breaths and has hopefully... milk from the baby's mother. And then five minutes later, they say, all right, we'd like to give this baby the hepatitis V shot, you know, vaccine. And you say, can you wait till tomorrow? Well, yes, we can, but that's a decision for you to make. And it's a weird thing for a parent. You know, when I was asked that question, I didn't know, you know, I didn't do any research on it. But of course, we said yes. We don't want to be anti-vaxxers. But what I would think. What I do think also politically for the Republican Party right now is up for re-election in a couple months. And Congress is at stake. The Senate is at stake. And they can choose to be talking about whatever they want. And they are talking about Anthony Fauci last week. It seems like a story from five years ago, Anthony Fauci. The vaccine thing. They're talking about vaccines today. That seems also like a story from five years ago from COVID. And they're talking about Iran. Three things that, in my view, the vast majority of American people don't care about. They don't care about Anthony Fauci. They don't care about vaccines. They don't care about Iran. What they care about is the cost of gas. that they're pumping into their car every week, seeing that price go up. They're seeing affordability. They're seeing inflation. They're seeing their dollars going less far. They're seeing their kids are graduating college and have no chance of buying a house. And there are a lot of pocketbook issues. They're seeing in New York State half the kids that are in third to eighth grade are not reading. at an appropriate level for third to eighth graders. So there are a lot of pocketbook mom and pop kitchen table issues going on. And the Republicans are choosing right now to talk about Anthony Fauci vaccines and the war in Iran. And it is they are just.

kicking themselves out of Congress and out of the Senate by talking about these, in my opinion, silly issues. Can I push back on one aspect of that, JP? Because I'm broadly in agreement with you, but in the world of K-12 education where I work, Anthony Fauci's a real issue. And you just alluded to why. the test scores from third to eighth grade, those are the kids whose education was most profoundly disrupted by COVID. And there were a lot of us who were like, okay, wait a minute, we knew by the fall of 2020 that kids were not at risk of transmitting the disease. If you were a morbidly obese teacher, yeah, you probably should be doing something else. But that generation of children will never catch up. I'm not exaggerating. I mean, we know this from test scores. We lost 25 years of progress on a test called NAEP, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, in one fell swoop. It was the COVID generation. Those kids' lifetimes earnings will be affected, and their parents, right and left, are really upset and rightly upset at the disruption that was done to their kids' education. And Anthony Fauci, whether you agree or not, has become the poster child for that. I would argue only I agree with you for the most part of with both of you. The one thing I will say, JP, is that I think, and this is where I thought you were going, Robert, but vaccinations as far, I remember a vaccine, I remember vaccination discussions when I was in. fourth grade you know i mean this is this is a this is a thing and and it always has been a thing and it seems like it always will be a thing and i think Duh, parents care about their kids, right? And they care about what is put into their bodies and what they're exposed to and so forth. Mix, stir and enjoy that little, you know, debate. But as far as, so I do think that that is something that is always going to be an issue. and something that people care about. But I do agree, and unlike Robert, I do agree, I think, you know, you look at the extraordinary amount of time and resources spent on the Anthony Fauci hearing and contempt and all of this. Like, yeah, okay, that was six years ago. Like, really? And we have nothing else to. What are you going to do? It's weapons of mass distraction. Yeah, I mean, what are we going to do? And what's the result going to be? Well, I mean, and again, I'm not here to relitigate COVID or Anthony Fauci, but the larger picture that I'm trying to paint, Joe, is we have a crisis in this country, and I think Fatima agrees with me on this, in the loss of trust in public health. Well, you don't get past that without a reckoning. Now, sure, you can say that the Republicans are doing it. But is this a reckoning? Well, I don't know.

You tell me. I mean, it doesn't feel like it's... I mean, just putting an 85-year-old into jail for what? Well, he's not going to go to jail. Well, I know that. But I'm saying that's what they want. They said that. But, and again, I don't want to belabor the point. When he sat there and took the fifth, the hundred and however many times, when he's under immunity, that was infuriating to a lot of people. And I don't think there was. He wasn't under immunity for that specific situation, though. His immunity applied for the past. wouldn't apply while he was testifying. And the reason why he did it was because he feared and was advised by his lawyers that they were trying to entrap him. So from a legal perspective, he did exactly what he should have been doing, which was following the advice of his lawyers, to not get sucked into some BS trap. that they were trying to lay for him. And then for them to turn around and say that they want to come for him for taking the fifth when that's his constitutional right. Like, how many times do we see these Republicans go up there and take the fifth when we know they're guilty? You know, but that's their right. That's their right. And I'm not saying that Anthony Fauci is guilty, but I do agree with you that this is broadly speaking with this vaccine thing. It's undermining the trust. in institutions, but I also believe that that's part of the broader project, right? Isn't that the plan with Project 2025, with a lot of this dismantling and the ability to go in, whether it's going to be a grift and a plucking and privatization and sending business to their unqualified friends and no-bid contractors? All of it is a part of this broader plan and objective. which is to make people not trust the government, not believe in the government, so they can dismantle it, and then they can get away with whatever it is that they want to do. My only comment on that, Fatima, is that, you know, PR 101 is you admit to a negative, you get credit for a positive. So we have not had the reckoning that we need over public health at large and over COVID in specific. If it's not Anthony Fauci, that's fine, but it's overdue. And the broad subtext for this entire story is the lack of trust in public health. And I don't disagree, and I don't disagree that we shouldn't, like, study and try to, and so, okay, this is what we did well during COVID, and this is what we did poorly, and this is what we need to, you know, change and tweak and revise. But that's not the zone that this government is currently in. They're not trying to fix things. and make things better. They're just trying to gotcha people. But also to your other point, which I do think is really important about the education piece and the decline that's taking place with children and that we may have this lost generation, I mean, that is something that the government should be recognizing, targeting, and coming up with plans on how to counter that to make sure that these people can thrive in their adulthood and down the line. But I also think the decline in education. 30-second warning.

Okay, the decline in education was already happening well before COVID, right, with reading and math on the decline. I'll be quiet. I know you want to take a break. No, we're going to take a break, and then we'll be right back right after this. Seemed like I ain't never had so many friends before. That's because you're good. You're so good. Why you don't treat me like the other humans do. It's just mystery. Good morning. Welcome back to the roundtable and to the panel discussion this morning. So we're going to now talk about a topic that I think most of our panelists are excited to talk about and one that I find to be very interesting. I will give full credit to Fatima for bringing this up as I always do, ask the panelists if they have any stories that are on their minds that they would like to talk about. This is one that Fatima had mentioned. And there is a lot of, there's, this is a huge topic. And it's, it's something that is really, well, we'll talk about it. But it is, I think, something that you are affected by or you're not. And if you are, and you realize what's happening, it is somewhat, if not, incredibly infuriating. My team is the Philadelphia Phillies. My team is the Philadelphia Phillies. I love this team. I have been a fan of this team for my entire life. They are playing in the Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, Iowa. on Thursday. Wow. There is nothing more than I would like to do than fly to Dyersville, Iowa, and go see this game. But the ticket would cost you more than your airfare. I asked, I got spousal approval for this. Really? Well, until I looked at the price of the tickets. Okay. I will do this during the course of, but as of last night, the cheapest ticket I could find was $3,500. Oh, my gosh. Okay. And I think you have to serve hot dogs when you do. I wanted to go to Buffalo Bills. I wanted to go to the Buffalo Bills practice last weekend to be one of the first people in Highmark, and it was many hundreds of dollars. for just to watch a scrimmage. Well, and interesting, and this is a completely different subject with the New York Post, as I'm sure, I think if I saw this on Empire Report, maybe I'm wrong, but of the people who went there, of how many seats were actually blocked and the sight lines were obstructed because of the weird way that they...

They've constructed the upper tax. My governor spent $3 billion, and all I got was this lousy obstructed view. Okay, so here we go. You know the feeling. Your team isn't a critical game. You've decided that you're going to splurge. You know it's going to cost you, but hey, you only live once, right? So you get prepared for the ticket to go on sale. You track down your ticket site password. You log in. You use the special presale code. You get from being a fan of the team forever. You wait in a queue. You get your chance to buy the ticket. And then you see, holy black. Tickets are how much? And then you decide that maybe you can watch the game on TV after all. That way you still have money to pay the rent. You've seen it everywhere across sports and entertainment. Teams, leagues, promoters have ditched the old entertainment model of packing the house at lower cost to generate both energy and ancillary revenue. Think beer, merch, long-term fandom. Instead, everyone's looking to extract the maximum immediate revenue from premium customers, those most willing... an able, keyword, able to pay high prices. We're here because of a confluence of circumstances, the rise of data collection and tracking the post-pandemic desire for attending live events, the use of variable pricing strategies, plus a healthy dose of short-term cash grabbing have jacked the face value ticket prices into the stratosphere. This is from Yahoo News and Jay Busby, who is their senior writer who is writing this. And I'm going to go to Fatima first because she was the one that brought this up. I think this is fascinating. The one thing I would just like to say is if you go to, let's say you buy a ticket and then you go to sell it on a marketplace because you can't go, whether that be Stubhub or Seek or any of the... many others. At some point, they will ask you what the face value of the ticket is. And that's the part where I'm always like, I have no idea. Because, well, I don't know. It changes hourly. And that's, no, I know what I paid for it, but what the face value is at any given time? And it's not on the tickets when you get them. It is not on the tickets anymore. Fatima, go to it. Thank you so much for letting me talk about this one because I have such a bone to pick with the sports industry and I love sports and entertainment and some of my clients are in sports. But I wanted us to discuss this because it's time for regulation. The only solution for what's taking place right now is an intervention. And the sports entities and these entertainment companies, they control the supply and they're creating the demand. We don't have a free market when you have, you know, these sports and ticket monopolies. Then they lobby the government for preferential treatment. You know, they're getting tax breaks. We're paying for their stadiums through bonds. And it's a lot of this, you know, privatize the gains and socialize the losses. And I want to share some, you know, price points with folks listening. So, like, I have a friend who went to the Olympics.

Literally today is like dropped two of Olympic tickets, okay, starting today or started yesterday. And, you know, I have a friend who paid 500 euro, like, you know, splurge on 500 euro track and field seats to be really close to the finish line in Paris at the 2024 Olympics. And that ticket costs 500 euros and had a 1.5% service fee. That same class of ticket for the LA Olympics is over $2,000. This is face value, $2,000 with a 24% service fee. It is astronomical. And then you have, like, for example, yesterday was supposed to be like a ticket drop for the U.S. Open. And now the U.S. Open has implemented dynamic pricing. So when you're talking about, like, I don't know what the price of this ticket was, that's because they start out with a certain price, and then they change it. Like if you buy an open ticket ground pass for the U.S. Open, it's supposed to be $65, but they may sell it to you for as high as $130 based on demand. But they create the demand. because they control when they release the tickets. Then you have the bots that are buying everything up. Like literally the ticket drop can happen. You wait on a queue. You're like number 10,000 in line virtually trying to buy a ticket. You get your moment to finally get on. You get on. And instantly the only thing available is what's for sale on the resale market. So that clearly implies that you have people and entities that are going in there, gobbling up tickets so that they can immediately monetize it, jack up the prices, which is then fueling the broader rise of ticket prices because the companies, the teams, are looking at that and saying, oh, I can charge more. But it also begs the question, something like the U.S. Tennis Association, that's allegedly a nonprofit. that's making all this money, but yet has a $275 million annual profit. And so I say all of this to say, like nobody's happy with how all the joy is being privatized and sucked out, and maybe it's the private equity foxes that are just making life terrible for everybody. But it's time. for an intervention. And what I mean by that is we need to control the price of tickets. We need to control how much the service fee can be. We need control how much you can resell a ticket for. And for these entities that are allegedly tax-free or getting tax-free land or getting bonds from the people and then getting all the profits, we need to take away their tax-free status. And the only way for that to happen is for people in Albany and people in different cities to start control. what these prices are and what the market is because it's time for a market correction. Joe? The market will not do it. I'll shut up. Go ahead. No, Robert, go ahead. I don't view this as a tax or policies story or an economic story at all, although I'm not disagreeing with what Fatima just said. To me, there's a social or societal question here, which is why I'm so eager to talk about this.

Sports is, I think, I'm correct in saying this, the last best piece of common ground that we have as Americans. We don't watch the same TV shows or movies. We don't read the same books if we read books at all. We don't listen to the same music. We root for the same sports teams. I can walk around any city in America. Your team may vary. Go ahead. In my Buffalo Bills cap. And invariably, somebody I'll pass on the street will say, go Bills. Go Bills. Years ago, I was in Tallahassee, Florida, the day after the University of North Carolina, where my daughter was attending, pulled off a stunning last-minute upset against the Seminoles. And I was driving in a cab with an elderly... black cab driver, had to be in his 70s, and we started talking about the game. And then he actually diverted the cab to drive past the stadium. He said, you want to see the stadium? Like, heck yeah, I want to see the stadium. So we just bonded over this. And it's not just sports as a luxury good in general. Think of cable. Think of streaming. You just don't have the experience that I had as a kid. Maybe you did, too, Joe. The Mets were terrible in the 70s. I could buy an upper deck ticket for $4, you know, and get on the Long Island Railroad and go with my buddies. And it unites us across lines of race and class and income. If we allow that last best piece of common ground, if we price everybody out of the market, except, as you just said, those who can afford it, shame on us. This is the last bit of civic glue that we have in this country. I want to get to our other two panelists. But Fatima, I mean, another part of this, too, though, to me is I agree with you on the regulation. I agree with you on all of that. But we, we the people, also have to stop paying the money. I mean, isn't that the problem? I mean, if they, if... I don't think that's just the problem because you have people who have, you know, a lot more money than other people, right? So the people who are trying to gain access to the $50 ticket, the $60 ticket, they don't even have like the entry point to get there if you're going to have... you know, dynamic pricing, if you're going to have bots that go in and suck things up and then instantly put it on resale. So, sure, you have people that have more money that are driving up the price, but you also have market manipulation taking place or a market that's been allowed to be formed in a certain kind of way. I know. Driving up price. I do one day. But I'll say this, I totally agree with the point about... common ground and bonding experiences and being able to touch grass. That's why I think it's really important, and this isn't just about sports. It's also about, like, concerts, right? Like, it's cheaper to fly to Paris and see Beyonce and Taylor Swift there than it is here because the price of the tickets in the United States is astronomical, right? They have controls in place in some places in Europe. Like, if you're going to go to an away game for soccer, it's capped at, like, maybe 30 or 40 pounds.

So you can't pay more than that price. We need the controls here, but I'll just say this last thing and then be quiet because other people want to talk. But, you know, when you're saying about, like, this common ground, it made me think of this story about, like, the connections that you can have to people. I went to go to the basketball All-Stargaden years ago when it was in Vegas. And at the time, Prince had a residency. So I bought tickets to go see Prince perform. And one of my, you know, wealthy friends and I were, like, on the dance floor, met these two guys. who loved Prince George, we did. And they apparently had a hookup. And they said, hey, we can see that you like Prince just as much as we do. We have access to this private thing that's happening after. We were like, we're going to have the best night of or not. We're going to end up dead in the desert somewhere, but we'll go with it. And we ended up in a room with like 50 or 60 people where Prince... Your phone's unfortunately disintegrating before us. Sorry. Sorry. I'll be quiet if my phone is acting up. Yeah, go ahead. Finish the last part of it. I was just going to say, like, that was one of the most epic nights of my life to be in a room with Prince jamming. And that only happened because I went to an event and met some other Prince lovers on the dance floor. And you can't replicate that kind of experience. No. I think that live events, concerts, and sports have become a big social media flex for people that have disposable income. And they go and they take the selfie on the field. And look, I'm the big dog. I'm down in the field. They're also because of the markets, there's no such thing as a sellout anymore, is there? Do you remember? There used to be, hey. Rolling Stones, it's sold out, can't get in. I might have to go to the parking lot and try to get in. Now, there's no such thing as a sellout. The Knicks are in the playoffs. If you want to pay, you can go, right? There's no such thing as a sellout anymore. You used to have to pay the scalper of the parking lot, remember? Right. Yes. And I would also... Now it's a scalper in your computer. I would also say that... I'm no fan of Stubhubb and Seek. I... I have spent thousands and thousands of dollars that I shouldn't have on concerts over the years. But they also do work the other way in that this year the Mets happen to not be very good. I want to take my kids to a Mets game. You can get down on the field. If you want to wait until the day of the game, you can get the best Mets ticket you could imagine. Eight dollars. Eight dollars. And so it works the other way. And so instead of I want to go to the Olympics or I want to go to Game 5 of the Knicks, which is obviously. a high demand ticket. Try to use those ticket markets to your advantage and go to something less desirable and you can have an amazing experience seeing amazing professional baseball and an amazing...

seat and a great price. And by the way, if you're a Mets fan and you bring a glove to the game, you can play first base. Yeah, it rotates. You just stand in line and your time will come. Don't you worry. I have to say the other thing. Although I'm seeing rankings tonight. Yeah, it will go good. Good for you. Oh, that's fun. You know, the other thing to me and I'll get to Anna, but it strikes me as well. I just had an experience where earlier this year, I think January, tickets went on sale for this big name comedian. who was coming to the area. I got tickets. I don't know. I was in row R and I paid, well, I paid $300 for the ticket, okay, which is expensive to me. I think that's a lot of money for the ticket, but it was, you know, it was selling out and there weren't many. And obviously tickets like closer were like $1,500 or $2,000. And I was like, all right, well, $300. Okay, so I go. So I buy the ticket. Then I'm thinking, do I want to go to that? Because I was in January. Now it's August. So I go on and I look and I see the market. Then I notice front row ticket, front row ticket, front row ticket, $110. And I'm like, oh. Now I want to go. So now I want to go. And now I'm going to buy the front row ticket. But then my ticket is never going to be worth $300 again. No. No. And... Wait, did you buy two tickets? You did. Don't judge me. Don't judge me. Did you give a friend that you don't care about the other? No, I gave a friend. I gave a friend who I care very much about. Who might be listening, Bob? Who happens to work here? The opportunity to gave them the ticket. Oh, a $300 ticket. I just gave them the ticket. Because if you look at it together, I was like, all right, well, that's not that. I paid $400 for a front row seat. And I did a solid for a friend. Right. And maybe you had dinner beforehand. We did, and we had an amazing evening. It was great. Anna. So I totally agree that regulation would be hugely beneficial. This is exactly the kind of thing that policy should fix. And I also want to say that I think it's particularly bad in New York because we have such income inequality. My 11-year-old is obsessed with the Knicks. And even before they were in the finals, I just wanted to see like a regular game. I was like, I want to bring my kid down to the city. I live two hours from the city. We'll take the Metro North down. We'll make a day of it. And I looked and tickets were like $500 a piece for like nosebleeds. And I was like, is this is it like this everywhere? Is it just $500 to see an NBA game? I've never looked. So then I looked in Miami. And they are $60 for the same nosebleed seats. And I was like, wait, I could have, I could buy tickets to Miami. I could go there. I could have like a long weekend in Miami for the same price as taking me and my two kids for $1,500 to see a Knicks game that's, you know, a Metro North ride away. Best mom ever. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So now we're going to go visit family next year, I think, to Charlotte, which I'm guessing that the tickets will be even cheaper than.

in Miami. We're going to game the system. But I shouldn't have to do that. I shouldn't have to fly to another state to see a game with my kid. You're in a tough situation because the Knicks have gotten good. You could have gotten a few years ago Nick's tickets for like nothing. It shouldn't matter. Well, there's demand, right? Right. There's demand. I mean, I remember, again, going back to the Phillies and prior to all of the dynamic pricing and all of that, the Phillies would be, they'd be maybe going to get into the playoffs. And you would put your name into a lottery and they would pick out and they would say, okay, you have the opportunity to buy tickets at X amount of money. Okay. Like, that's fair to me. That's fair. They don't do that anymore. That's done. That's completely done. And that doesn't happen. The one thing, Fatima, that you didn't mention that I think add to it, I think it was implied, but not specifically mentioned when you were talking about manipulation. The other part of this, too, to me, is that the venue or the, let's say, the ticketing company. is then also in the secondary market. So if you go and you want a ticket, And they say, well, it's sold out, wink, wink, but here are all of the seats that are available in the secondary market. Unless you want a platinum. Well, you're right, but who owns those tickets? And then, and they're selling them for whatever price they're selling them at. And the other- They're still making money. They're making money either way. But it's their tickets. One is their ticket, but like, for example, if you buy something on Ticketmaster, right? Yes. And it's the part of the resale market. Then Ticketmaster made money the first time the ticket was purchased at, you know, face value or dynamic pricing value. And then the person that then sells the ticket or the entity that then sells the ticket on the Ticketmaster platform, Ticketmaster's still going to make another fee, a second fee off of the resale now. So for whatever you sell that ticket for, whatever you bump it up for, they're still making money on the spread. So they made money the first time, and they're going to make money every single time that ticket is resold on their platform. So for them, it's a win. And that's why we need to regulate this. And if people don't like it, then they need to start calling their representatives and put heat on elected officials to get control under these, like the resale market, the dynamic pricing, not just surveillance pricing, the service fees that are charged, the fact that these bots are jacking everything up. And then these entities that are making money hand over fifth but somehow are getting like tax-free land, bonds, stadiums built with taxpayer dollars,

Tax-free entities, I feel like we need to come for all of that because it's jacking up this market. And I'll just say this last thing. I love the fact that in New York City, there are all of these free events that happen outside. They may not all just be like sporting events. But like with the World Cup, I mean, Zohran Mamdani tried to come up with a whole bunch of free options for people outside to engage in watch parties. There are concerts and things like that that happen outside in the summer. And so I think those are great things to sort of like... equalize access to having fun, but we need regulation to control how much, you know, plundering is happening of people's bank accounts to be able to enjoy these fun events. I would only say I think it's even more insidious than you just described because I think, and I have, there is some proof to this, but I don't always know that there is proof for this, but that tickets are held back by... by the ticketing organization and by the team or the artificial scarcity. Right. And they're the ones who are then you're going up against. And if I try to sell my ticket, they're only going to offer me what I paid for it. Less, less. Less. And then they will double the price. And they know you, Joe. They know what Joe is willing to pay. They know what Robert's willing to pay. They know what Ann is willing to pay. They know what Fottom is willing to pay. And they know what J.P. is willing to pay. And they dynamically price it that way as well. Absolutely. They create the supply and the demand. And then as soon as they sell you the ticket, they go, are you sure you want to go? You can sell that ticket on StubHub. So, wait, if I'm sitting in the parking lot at Yankee Stadium. I go on Stubhub, and it's the top of the first inning, the game has already started. Do the prices collapse? Yes. Well, it depends. If you want to play that game, you can play that game. And sometimes they do collapse, but sometimes there's a hundred John Roberts in the parking lot, and they're all competing, and maybe they go up. Interesting. I have found also. And don't forget if you go there and the seats are empty to the sold-out event, those are the corporate seats. Right? Or the industry seats that are not the true fans that kind of kill the vibe in the stadium anyway, right? Because they've held back all these great seats so that you can sit there and cheer by yourself. Yeah, true fans is my point, Fatima. In other words, if we price the true fan out of the market, then we're going to do damage to the civic infrastructure. You know, all this goes on, we just ask for a donation three times a year. And look at the value. Yeah, look at the value. No, no. Can I say, can I say my one? Fatima. This was an excellent topic to suggest A. And B, your point about the watch parties, I think a free watch party, you're going to have more fun at a free watch party with all the crazy fans watching it on the big screen than hanging out in the nosebleed and paying 30 bucks for a beer and, you know, 18 bucks for a hot dog. The most fun I've ever had at a sporting event is watching a UNC game at a bar.