Hour 4: Quarterback

But in your mind, you don't, what happens? I know, like, are you already mourning your mother? Yeah. What's so awful to think about? What happens if you give up hope and then? And then something, I don't know. There was a, this is a terrible shift, but it reminds me of there was, I can't remember the name of the, somebody will send me the, the name. There's a series, a streaming series about a Marine that in Iraq. And he is gone for like six or seven years. And everybody just presumed he was dead. Right. He was declared dead. His wife, his wife and two kids, his wife starts a relationship with his best friend. Oh my God. Believing that he's dead. Right. And there's nothing wrong. I mean, just believing that he's dead. Well, all of a sudden, somebody finds him in a hole in the ground somewhere in a prison. And he's brought home a hero. And the wife has to stop the relationship with the, and they have to try to move on with their lives. That's wild. But the idea of how they must have felt giving up, you know? Right. You feel defeated. And then all of a sudden your whole life has changed again. Right. That must be crazy. But this, the idea that this family is suffering this and nobody knows anything or at least nobody's talking. I know, and I wonder how just how much we do know, you know, as the public behind all those ransom notes and what they really tried to do and who knows. Yeah. Anyway, I did, I didn't mean, it's been this week, not today, but this week marks six months. Yeah, it makes sense. It was the beginning of February, so the beginning of August. Yep. Wow. So here we have, I want to get back to the topic at hand. And the topic is the Middle East. And so I'll give you the good news. Here's the good news. West Texas intermediate crude oil futures trading it under $83 per barrel. You're not going to believe this, Patricia. Tell me, Mike. Brent crude oil. the one we watched because that's there. It was around $83 we talked about. No, no, that was, that was West Texas. West Texas, okay. It was trading in under 90. It is now trading under $89. It's trading right now at 8873. It is down over 8% just today. And it's still going down. Right. Still going down. That's some hope. So, and I think the hope there and the reason why, if you listen, I harp on this is because this is the oil futures. And this is what the predictors are saying based on what they know today, that what we're seeing right now is this ceasefire, this pause that's been agreed to by both sides so that the negotiations and diplomacy can continue. How long will it last? And I don't know the answer to that. I do know that the message has been sent aloud and clear from America. And that is that we reserve the right to go back to a full scale war effort. And will they stand by a deal that they make? And I would guess, I don't know this, but I would guess that the reason why it is precarious at best is because.

You don't have unity. You don't have like we have a lineage of leadership. We have people that disagree in the Congress, but we don't have where one side's going to be, at least we haven't seen it yet. We haven't seen defiance, meaning we have a, the president still leads the policy on what we're going to do. And although there's disagreement and people talking of doing something different, you aren't going to see. captains of ships turn them around and just leave. Whereas there, if somebody comes up in leadership and says, all right, we are going to make a deal with the U.S., we are going to make a deal to open the Strait of Hormuz, that there aren't elements of the IRGC that aren't going to say, we're not doing anything like that. We're going to continue with the bombings. And that's the fear is that you're going to have factions that are going to act out because they can. And do you remember when we talked about this? This is, I think, stole along these lines. I mentioned last week, I said that Marco Rubio was answering questions and he was answering questions and somebody, this was kind of an off the cuff answer. Somebody asked him what his hope for America was. This answer to me is why Marco Rubio has got to be in everybody's mind, the frontrunner, to not only be the nominee for the Republicans, but in spite of everything else, probably be president of the United States. I got to ask you, what is your hope for America at a time such as this? My hope for America? And how do you personally deal with that? Yeah, look, I mean, my hope for America is what it's always been. I think it's the hope, I hope we all share. We wanted to continue to be the place where anyone from anywhere can achieve anything. where you're not limited by the circumstances of your birth, by the color of your skin, by your ethnicity, but frankly, it's a place where you are able to overcome challenges and achieve your full potential. I think that should be the goal of every country in the world, frankly, but I think in the U.S., we're not perfect. Our history is not one of perfection, but it's still better than anybody else's history, and ours is a story of perpetual improvement. Each generation has left the next generation of Americans freer, more prosperous, safer, and that is our goal as well. But it is a unique and exceptional country, and as we come upon this 250 years, year anniversary. I think we have a lot to learn and be proud of in our history. It is one of perpetual and continuous improvement where each generation has done its part to bring us closer to fulfilling the vision that the founders of this country had upon its founding. So at the risk of making people in my party even more angry at me than they get sometimes, isn't it refreshing to hear a message about American exceptionalism? That it isn't based on what party is in power? whether it is the political left right now that talks about what a horrible country we have and how they don't want to live here and how they want to go live somewhere else and there are people fleeing. But also, let's be honest, the Make America Great Again movement was because they believed that it was being destroyed under the Biden administration where you have Marco Rubio saying, we're the greatest country in the world. We're not perfect, but we have progressively, every generation, we leave it safer and more prosperous.

I just think that's a message that resonates with a lot of people. I think it's a pretty unique, remarkable message that resonates with many, many people. And I just hope that that message continues. All right, coming up, Patricia gets us caught up on the headlines. We call it, did you hear this? It'll happen in just a moment. It's Gatos. How big an issue will election denialism be in Arizona's gubernatorial race? Mondays with Megan. We'll ask Megan McCain that exact question. At 3 o'clock, outspoken with Bruce and Gatos, watch the interview on the KTAR YouTube channel. All right, time to catch up on the big headlines. Did you hear this? Did you hear this? Brumet reacts to today's hottest news stories. All right, we got a delicate pause in the U.S. around war as diplomatic efforts. intensify, though there's a growing concern that the war is once again expanding. ABC's Karen Hua reports from Washington. In the Red Sea, global shipping traffic is slowing after Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed attacks on Saudi oil facilities and tankers. Still, oil prices were down overnight, thanks to that pause and attacks between the U.S. and Iran. drivers here at home looking for release with gas prices in the last week, rising an average of 12 cents to 4.11 per gallon. All right. So I remember on Friday we asked what was going to happen. The weekend has come and gone. What about these developments? The pause. Was this the big event that you're expecting from the president? Yeah, I expected that there was going to be a pause. And I think we even talked about it on Friday that I think that we're going to have a lot more answers now because they are getting beaten down. And they've been saying behind the scenes they want to make a deal. But publicly. they say they don't, but they are not shooting back. I will say the other part of this that's interesting to me is now that the Saudis have been hit, not just ships in the water, but that the Saudis have been hit by the Houthis, the Saudis are reserving the right to respond. If you start seeing other neighboring nations outright engaging with the enemies, this could be a much bigger deal for the overall issue. It's going to send a much different message, which is it's not just the U.S. Now you've got neighbor states that are saying we will do whatever is necessary to protect our assets. I think that's going to go a lot further in the court of this whole idea of a settlement that they realize that it's not just the U.S., but the rest of the world instead of turning against the U.S. is turning against them. That may be the step we need. And the Trump family is drawing criticism over business ventures earning millions of dollars. Arizona U.S. Senator Mark Kelly says he's never seen anything like this. His sons. have business interests that are entwined with his administration. It is corruption like we have never seen before. So what can you say about the senator's remarks on the president's business ventures? Have you seen anything like this before? 10% to the big guy. Let's just go down the road where they denied anything was going on with Hunter Biden. This is the old playbook. Now, I will tell you this, just like Nancy Pelosi profited outrageous. amounts of money because of stop trades that coincided with decisions that were being made. At least that was the impression that was given that you're making business decisions knowing how legislation is going to go, that that shouldn't happen. If there's anybody in the Trump family that's doing the same thing, they should stop it as well. It should be stopped. But the idea that first of all, you said this weekend, you're considering a run for president, okay, I'm considering a career and talk radio. Let's just say we know it's going to happen.

This is, again, politics, never seen anything like it. We watched it happen where literally the son of the president was selling his name around the world. None of it's right. If it's happening here, it should absolutely stop. But to say you've seen nothing like it is turning a blind eye to what we just saw a couple of years ago. You are listening to Did You Hear This? We do it every day at this time to catch you up on headlines. So we're buying fewer groceries. Here's a little bit more from ABC's Wayne Cabot. A recent study by the consulting firm Bain & Company and the market research company Nielsen IQ finds shoppers are putting fewer things in their carts because of a 33% jump in grocery prices since 2019. Sharpest increase in 50 years. Food price inflation peaked nationwide in 2022, but hasn't reversed course. Economists call that, though. rocket and feathers effect. Prices rocket up, but fall slowly as firms resist cutting prices to avoid losing market share. How soon, if any, do you see a relief in grocery prices? And what is President Trump doing for this? I think that we, with the commodities part of this, you know, you are going to see some fluctuation based on supply and demand. And so I think that depends on what happens. Can the cattle ranchers ranch? Can they increase the size of their herds? What happens with the screw worm? What about water and grazing land? When it comes to vegetables, we have now we know about now. more cases of this cyclospora. So that all plays a big role in it. But as far as the long-term effects, we don't see deflation very often. What we need is wage increases and what that only happens when the market is booming. Grow, kind of grow your way out of those things. So until we start seeing significant hiring and that battle once again over employees, we aren't going to see the big jump in wage growth. The next big jump in wage growth will be the one that's getting us toward a solution to the high grocery prices because you're not going to see a significant decrease deflation just doesn't happen and yes speaking of food not only is it expensive it's still contaminated there are more cases of foodborne illnesses known as cycles fluoriasis caused by lettuce now health officials are trying to contain a salmonella outbreak caused by eggs there's more from elizabeth schulte this is also coming as we are seeing a salmonella outbreak the fda says almost 100 people people got sick with salmonella across 17 states and eggs are the likely source of that. Midwest poultry services issued a voluntary recall of eggs sold at Kroger and other stores. I know 100 seems like not that many people across 17 states. Unless you're one of the hundreds. I know I was going to say unless you're one of the sick ones. So speaking of on a scale of 1 to 10, how nervous are you for getting sick from something like this? Have you changed your diet at all? Have you been thinking about it? Listen, you know what? You know what doesn't give you this? What? Buster bars. Buster bars from Dairy Queen. Is that all you're eating? That's it. I am on an ice cream diet. Yeah, I'm on an ice cream diet. Little lactose intolerance maybe, but I don't, you know. It's getting you ready. Right, it's getting me ready. Candy.

Gin and tonic. Oh my gosh. Never heard anybody getting explosive diarrhea from a G&T. Margaritas. That's very true. Right? I still had a salad at dinner last night. I'm living dangerously. Look at you. See you, who says you're not living dangerously anymore? They're so good. Yeah, you party animal that you are. I'm the same way. Listen, I am absolutely the same way. I'm not afraid. I do, you know, I wash my vegetables. Right. You do what you have to do. Yeah, I was cooking with vegetables this weekend. I wasn't eating raw vegetables. But I don't worry about it. I've always washed vegetables. I know, right? And even if you can't get anything, you know, washed off, I mean, what are the chances? You have to eat. Right. I mean. It's sad, but hopefully you don't get sick. Yeah. Have you ever had food poisoning? No, but a diverticulitis and that was bad. You win. I don't know. You win. You win. You win. I've had food poisoning. Yeah, either one doesn't sound good to me either. It's almost lunchtime. Should I tell my food poisoning story? No, I don't know if you want to ruin people's lunch. Okay. All right. It involves sushi. Oh, no. People are getting sushi right now. I'm probably scared. And you should be. Yeah. Mike Broom had said it was okay. That's right. All right. Coming up, what we're going to do is we are going to talk about the economy. We are going to have to have that conversation. And I've got something else I think is important for us to get to before we get to our story Roundup. Mike Broomhead, KTAR News 923, and the KTAR News app. You know, I just thought of something. We're going to talk about the economy for a moment, and I found it interesting that your news report when you talk about food deserts, watching communities, and I've watched this happen in my lifetime, a couple of different places, where you see neighborhoods regress. and you see neighborhoods kind of fall apart. But then you see neighborhoods revitalized. And looking at it's very complex. It's not, I'm not going to have any easy answers to this. But there's intentionality in a lot of this. It has to do, I think first and foremost with crime. We talked earlier about this dramatic drop in crime, which is important. Long before you are here, but I know we've talked about it. 30 years ago, the worst, and I don't know that it's, it's got to be, it's got to be the worst. The worst street in downtown Phoenix was Roosevelt between 7th Street and 7th Avenue. It was prostitution. It was drugs. It was violence. It was the dregs of downtown. And I think most statistics and cops would tell you it was awful. And if you go down now, Roosevelt Row is one of the coolest downtown spots to go to. I love going there. And, you know, when they do, they do, was it, was it, they do art. They did like an art walk. They did every one month, one Wednesday a month. I think they did. Or maybe it was a weekend a month. Like a market, a little market out there sometimes, like a farmer's market. That doesn't happen until you clean up the crime.

So there had to be a focus on cleaning up the crime. With that, then you had to have incentives for businesses to put down roots. And then when they do and it works and the cleanup is taking place, then you have people that want to invest in new businesses that want to move in and those older houses that are now becoming the cool neighborhood, you know, historic neighborhoods. So that is an example of what can be done. When you talk about food deserts, I think they're horrible. And it's because a neighborhood falls apart. Crime ends up getting to a point where business owners can't keep their businesses open. One of the big reasons why the zone needed to be cleaned up, which if you're not familiar with the zone, it was a homeless encampment of thousands and thousands of people, that the Phoenix Police Department believed they were obeying federal law by not intervening until a... judge, a court judge in Maricopa County said, no, no, no, you've got to enforce the law. But there were businesses down there that were suffering dramatically because people didn't want to go as good as the restaurants were. You weren't going to fight the problems there to go there. So you can't blame it on businesses that pull out when. You look at 7-Eleven stores around the country that were closing down locations. And part of the reason was that a shoplifting had gotten to be so bad that there was no chance of making any money. They were losing money. And you can't, no business can survive that way. A focus on public safety. And that's both fire and rescue, but it's policing, especially in this regard. When you see the dramatic drop in auto theft, well, you know what that does? It helps everybody because when auto thefts drop. So do insurance rates. When they reassess their risk and they have people that are involved in risk management that set those standards. Every year, I get a new policy. I get new updated policy. And the people that I work with, they shopped my policy every year. And when the area where you're living is better than it was before your rates go down. And when it gets worse, your rates go up. So the investment in public safety, and I mentioned this because, you know, I talked earlier about the Democratic Socialists of America where their agenda seems to be catching on with some people. The idea that we're going to get rid of ICE and we're going to get rid of prisons and we're going to get rid of the Pentagon and all of these ideas are just so absolutely counterproductive and ludicrous. It's a policy that can never, ever survive. Ever. It won't survive. And yet for young people that believe in a utopian society where everybody's nice to each other and we're not going to keep people in prisons and those people that are not in prisons anymore are going to come out and be contributors to society. That's just not overall. And the evidence has never pointed that to happening, ever. But you take the areas of town. There are people.

I used to do quite a few ride-alongs with Phoenix PD and I got to ride along in places like Maryvale and Sunny Slope. And here's what's difficult. I live in an old neighborhood that was built in the 50s. I live in a neighborhood in Phoenix that was built in the 50s. And. I will tell you that my neighbors are the best people around. They are just awesome. I've talked about my buddy Paul and his wife next door and the people around me, we watch out for each other. And all those things are true. If I'm out of town, they watch my house. If they're out of town, I watch their house. It is a true neighborhood. And we've not seen this rising crime. There has been crime every once in a while like there is all over the city. But when you go to Maryvale or you go to South Phoenix and you think about the hardworking people. that go to work every day and they've lived in these, some of these people lived in these neighborhoods. Now they're retired and they live in their homes. And sometimes they feel trapped in their homes when there is a rise in crime. It's, we just had a couple of the gang cops in here from around the valley. The organization is called Asgia, the Arizona Gang Enforcement Association. And they're going to have their very soon, they're going to have their convention. And. I've been privileged to go and read the awards at the convention and I see the work that they do. If they are not out there keeping the lid on this from spreading even more, that's what takes over neighborhoods. It's not the people want to leave and it's not the businesses want to close. It's when they're forced to do it. No grocery store chain wants to leave a neighborhood. They would love to, they only leave when it's not profitable. And generally speaking, it's not profitable because of crime and the increase in crime. I would like nothing better than to see the blade, which is 27th Avenue, between Thomas and Glendale, or maybe even north of Glendale, northern. That's Glendale, I guess. that that cleanup could happen and those apartment buildings that are there could be nicer for families and families that have to feel trapped there, don't feel trapped anymore. But the economic impact starts and ends with the criminal element leaving when you clean up the crime. So for those that believe we have to divest a public safety and invest in these other things, you're getting it backwards.

And statistically, isn't just my opinion, go and look at how things have been cleaned up. Phoenix has done a phenomenal job with the cleanup of Roosevelt Row. It's it is phenomenal how different it is. And there is absolutely no doubt that the same thing can happen with a revitalization plan, whether it's Phoenix or other cities as well. You just have to have a plan and you have to be willing to be strong on anti-crime and punishment of people that are committing crimes and letting them know you're not welcome here, that your criminal activity is not welcome here. And is that something that we're committed to? And I just hope we are. I hope we are rededicated to hiring and allowing cops to do their jobs once they're hired and equipping them with what they need to do it. All right, coming up, final segment of the show for the first time this week. It's our story roundup. We'll do it next. He's your Huckleberry. He's Mike Broomhead. And this is another story roundup. It was a good one. It was a good one. It was like a supersonic one. What do we got, round them up, partner. Here we go. What do you make of the new Arizona Cardinal quarterback deal? Oh, what did you think about that? It came out over the weekend? Yeah. I like Jacoby Brissette. Right. But I really want to see Carson Beck play. I know. That's the good. But if you're going to pay. Jacoby percent, $15 million. I don't think it's to carry a clipboard. I was going to say, I don't think so. Hopefully. Yeah, if they, and I would love to see them come out and win and win, you know, surprise people. Right. But if they don't win, I think they've got to give Beck a chance. They've got to see what he can do. Yes. I feel like he's earned it. Yeah, and I don't want to wish them not to win so that my guy can play. I'm a fan. But we'll see. We'll see what they do. This one got me. This guy's name is Damien Kaspersik. He is from Poland. And on February 21st, the 41 year old, he said, my journey into extreme challenges deeply connected with people. This recent snow record was actually his third successful record attempt. Um, he laid in snow and covered his entire body with snow for, um, let me see. It look, I'm trying to see the exact time. Five hours in one minute. How do you not get hypothermia? I don't want to know. Is he Superman? Yeah. So he. I can't even stand being cold for one moment. Why would anybody want to set that record? What do you even do? I know. When you're sitting there? What do you get for that? What do you get for that? Just to say that you're the America's coldest person? You get some, you get some dope on the radio in Phoenix, Arizona to read your name and you live in Poland. Congratulations. Congratulations. Yeah. This one, I don't, she said, this woman says she didn't do this on purpose. I think she did. They always say that. I know. I think she did.

This mother from Vegas, her name is Kristen Brown, had triplets. Yeah, I know. Can you imagine? No. So her and her husband had to come up with three different names for their kids. I think it's two girls and a boy or two boys in a girl. So she said, I love the name James or Jamie. It looks like James, but it's J-Y, J-A-Y-M-E. So it's not Jamie. My sister-in-law spells Jamie, J-A-Y-M-E. I've seen that before. But the S got to be James, right? Yeah, I would think so. And so she loved that for a girl. She said we had to decide to spell it with a Y to give it a slightly more feminine feel. Yes. So she spelled it with a Y. I get that. Okay. They had one of their sons, they had a strong name preference. But anyway, they ended up naming their kids, Polly, Baskin, and James. P.B and J. Polly Baskin and James. So they're PBNJ. She said, I didn't do that on purpose. There's no way. You didn't come up with Baskin. Yeah. Come on. What are you? Baskin Robbins. So that's how they're going to remember the kids. PB&J. Name your kids after a sandwich. They'll all stick together. Right. Gosh, the puns could just write themselves. Right. So these two, for me, go hand in hand. In Thailand, a legislator in Thailand is lobbying to allow women to have four husbands. Nice. You think so? Would you want four husbands? I would want four incomes from four husbands. Okay, all right. Fair enough. Okay. All right. Why not? That goes right along. The more the merrier. This one goes right along with that. Here we go. Perfect segue, and you had no idea this was coming. Oh, no. The SK group chairman, Che Taiwan, is from South Korea, not to be confused with Taiwan. His name is Taiwan, W-O-N. He just got divorced. Okay. And was ordered to pay his wife $640 million. What did he do? And their divorce settlement. They called it the divorce of the century. No kidding. That's a lot of money. Was there a pre-nup? What's going on there? $640 million. Now, I complained about my divorce. Mm-hmm. 640 men. Yeah, you have nothing to complain about compared to that. Nope. Wow. Not at all. My last one I saved because this one is just too freaky. So there's a circus.

that was going out in New York, and I'm not talking about the mayor. There was a circus going on in New York. And if you guys, do you like, either one of you liked the circus? I mean, not like a big super fan or anything, but I mean, there's the circus. So I like the circus, but I'm not like, yeah, I'm not a super fan. So when I was with, real quick, when I was with my ex in Florida, her mother has a phobia of clowns. Oh gosh, clowns are scared. And we went to the circus. And I thought, why are you going to the circus? Let's go to the tour. When the clowns came out, she freaked out. And then the clowns ran into the crowd. And she ran screaming from the building. That's a true story. Yeah, that doesn't sound fun at all. All right. So this happened in New York. And a circus performer had to be airlifted to the hospital because they were performing a bow and arrow trick. And the person with the bow missed. Oh. And shot this woman in the neck. Oh my gosh. And she had to be airlifted. The arrow struck and injured. was airlifted to the hospital in stable condition. Wow, so I guess they are real arrows. The ringmaster in the traveling show later said the arrow hit, her last name is Cuervo, in the neck. She's lucky she didn't hit in the artery. Yeah. Holy moly. But who stands there for this nonsense? Clowns? I guess so. I just... What a circus. You don't want to say you get what you deserve, but if you're going to stand there while someone shoots arrows at you... Stop clowning around. Shut on my God. I'm done. All right, we're out of time. Back tomorrow morning. Have a great day, everyone. God bless.