DSA Platform Demands Sweeping Changes To U.S. Constitution

Your education is more than a path to a degree. At Regent University, it's an important step in God's plan for your career. It's where you'll be equipped to lead and serve with purpose. It's where 40,000 graduates have prepared to fulfill their callings, and so can you. Choose a top-ranked program from over 150 areas of study on campus or online and watch what God will do. Learn more at regent.edu. That's regent.edu. News, politics, entertainment. This is O'Connor and Company. And a very good Thursday morning to you from your nation's capital on our flagship station, WMAL. Good morning. It's Larry O'Connor here with O'Connor and Company. Got a busy three hours ahead of us as we start your day the right way here. Coming up in 30 minutes and a fascinating story about how the Navy under Joe Biden punished an officer who was just raising the red flag about real problem with recruitments going on. We'll talk about that pending lawsuit or really what the... Administration is going to do about it. Also, in the next hour, we've got Wyatt Sharp. He's a Canadian teen. He's a journalist, and he's talking about how there are countries around the world right now who are passing legislation that prohibits young people, teenagers, from engaging in social media. Is that something we should do here in the United States? France just passed that. Katie McFarland will also join us, and Congressman Andy Harris. Talk about some of the legislation that got through yesterday, including... a Defense Authorization Act that has moved through its legislative hurdles. We also have a continuing resolution as well as a reconciliation package. That reconciliation package has the Save America Act, and Mike Johnson did it again. Got the votes, and it's going to get through. So now what's John Thune going to do about it? We're going to talk about all of that coming up. But something's been on my mind, and I want to run it by you here because it's something that the American people should be talking about right now in the lead up to the election this November. As we've been discussing, and I want to hear from you, 855-784-4-2-55, it's a simple question. Whoever the Speaker of the House is, whether it's Mike Johnson, if he retains the majority or whether Hakeem Jeffries becomes the Speaker, they're going to be faced with a very interesting dilemma. It might not be a dilemma for Hakeem Jeffries, who knows. But it certainly will be from Mike Johnson. As we've discussed, there are a lot of candidates right now that are running as Democrats who don't actually pledge allegiance to that party. In fact, let's face it. They don't pledge allegiance to the United States of America. They are proud members of the political party known as the Democrat Socialists of America. And we've gone through many of the things on their platform. You know, when a political party organizes, they put out their statement of beliefs. They put out their platform. They say, hey, if you want to be a member of our party, here's what we stand for, here's what we believe. In other words, you know, for years, decades, I believe, right up until Roe v. Wade finally was thrown into the dustbin of history. the Republican Party had on their platform that we opposed Roe v. Wade, that we were a pro-life party, and that even if personally you believe that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, as we heard for so long, if you want to call yourself a Republican, well, you're aligning yourself with a party that believes that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. And there were a lot of Republicans, by the way, who's like, listen.

I think abortion should be legal, but Roe v. Wade was not the right way to go about doing it. I remember those people who made those arguments. It's funny, fascinating, trying to thread the needle, I guess, for certain voters. The point is, when you became a Republican, you knew that you were joining the party that was opposed to Roe v. Wade. So when you join the Democrat Socialists of America, when you throw it and you use their name and you use their brand and you present yourself as a Democrat Socialist of America, when you tell voters, this is who I am. When you vote for me, you're voting for what this party stands for. Well, you've got to own it. And what these candidates that are running as Democrats that call themselves a Democrat Socialist of America, what they own is abolishing the U.S. Senate. which would mean upending the Constitution, because that's not something you can just amend with two-thirds of the states. Every single state would have to agree, okay, we won't use senators anymore. The Constitution would be unrecognizable if the Democrat Socialists of America platform were brought to fruition. These candidates believe in that. They believe in eliminating the electoral college. They eliminating replacing the presidency with just an executive that you don't vote for, Congress. elects, sort of like the old Politburoes in the Soviet Union, picking their general secretary. They want to replace the current Supreme Court. They want to move toward a parliamentary system. They want public ownership of major sectors of the economy. This is what these candidates stand for. Here's the problem, if you're Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Here's the problem if you're Hakeem Jeffries. On the first day of Congress, You're going to swear all of these members in. They're going to swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, but they're already on record opposing the fundamental basis of that very Constitution. They will be lying. Now, I know it might be old-fashioned to think that oaths are important that you should be held to what you say when you put your hand on a Bible or whatever your holy book happens to be and you swear something and take that oath. But it seems to me that if you knowingly are overseeing a process where you're impaneling the brand new House of Representatives, and one of the important things in that impaneling and empowering of the House of Representatives is that they swear fealty to the Constitution, and you know for a fact. that there are several people there who are just lying to you, who are on record aligning themselves with the party, the Democrat Socialists of America, who wish to upend that constitution and they have no interest in protecting and defending it. How exactly can you allow them to become members of Congress? A lot of people don't know this, but the fact is the Speaker of the House actually has quite a bit of leeway there. The Speaker of the House could actually refuse to seat those members, just because when you're election in your district, that doesn't mean you automatically have a right to that seat. There are certain things that a party can do. There are certain things that leadership can do. So what should they do?

That's the question because they're not facing it. They're not talking about it. But it's important. And if it's been on my mind, I bet it's been on your mind too. So if they're not going to talk about it, we will. 855-7-884-4-2-5-8-5-8-5-7-84-4-2-5. Should the next Speaker of the House actually refuse to seat these anti-American, anti-constitutional, anti-democratic republic? candidates, the ones who align themselves with the Democrat Socialists of America. We know what their party platform is, and it is not in harmony with our Constitution. 8557-884-4255. You know, there's another concern that's happening with the most famous of these DSA candidates. That would be Zohran Mamdani up in New York City. We talked about his various statements recently, including this latest speech that he gave to the citizens of New York City telling them that, boy, he'd love to arrest a foreign leader, the Prime Minister of Israel, but he tried, he looked, but he couldn't find the legal basis of doing it. This is a guy who was born in a foreign country. He's only been a citizen for a handful of years. And he is systematically opposing our Constitution, favoring the international criminal court over our own judicial system. It's amazing how none of the media yesterday in that press conference that he held about this issue asked one fundamental question. Hey, pal, you're the mayor of New York. Surely the crimes you're accusing Benjamin Netanyahu of, you could certainly find a way to see a law that already exists on the books in New York and apply those to Benjamin Netanyahu. Call this guy's bluff. Are you telling me that there are no New Yorkers over in Israel who have been affected negatively? Are you telling me that there's nobody with any New York ties that ended up being harmed? by Israel's military incursion defending themselves into the Gaza territories? I bet there is. Forget about the international criminal court, you socialist coward. Why don't you press charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the mayor of New York? Why don't you have your DA do that? Lord knows the District Attorney of Manhattan has been able to invent laws against our own presidents as he attempted to and convicted Donald Trump on trumped up charges on made-up laws. So why doesn't Zohran Mamdani use his electoral power as mayor of New York and to influence the district attorney's office to find charges to press against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yahoo? He could. He absolutely could. Maybe I shouldn't give him any ideas. But he won't because, you see, he's a performative virtue signaling coward who likes to grandstand and say a bunch of stuff that everybody knows is incorrect or impossible. And he ends up being incredibly influential.

And I saw a lot of people yesterday on social media reacting to Zohran Mamdani saying, you know, this is a problem. People who obviously have allegiance to foreign countries who have ideas that are so foreign to those of us who were raised in America and understanding that this is the greatest country on the planet and that we hold our truths to be self-evident, not some foreign ideas. maybe they shouldn't be allowed to hold such high elected office. Maybe people like Zohran Mamdani shouldn't even be eligible to run for these. We have those provisions right now. You know, you have to be a naturally born citizen to be president. You have to be 35 years old to be president. You have to be 30 years old to be a Senate. We have these arbitrary constitutional guidelines on who is eligible to run for office and who isn't. Should somebody with the background and history and problematic beliefs of Zohran Mamdani even be eligible to put himself up for election. I mean, the original sin in this guy being the mayor of New York, of course, is the fact that the voters of New York saw fit to give them their vote. But our founders put these provisions into our Constitution and other founding documents to, well, protect us from ourselves, to protect us from the mob, to protect us, frankly, from democracy. There are checks and balances in there. And should one of those checks and balances be some sort of screening process so that somebody like this guy, Zohran Mamdani, can't actually make its way to the highest powerful level that he can achieve? All right. Let's talk about it. Should we not seat these Democrat Socialist congressmen because they don't believe in the Constitution? 855784-4255. Your calls next. For nearly 3,000 years, Homer's The Odyssey has shaped Western imagination. It tells the story of Odysseus as he faces monsters, shipwrecks, false comforts, and impossible choices on his long journey home. As one of the foundational works of Western literature, Homer's epic is more than mythology. It explores permanent questions about courage, duty, loyalty, family, leadership, temptation, and the search for home. In one of the epics defining moments, Odysseus rejects the offer of immortality from the goddess Calypso, choosing instead the long and difficult journey home. His decision reveals one of the central themes of the Odyssey that a life of duty, family, and home, is greater than a life devoted to comfort or glory. Achilles chose glory. Odysseus chose home. That's why Hillsdale College has released its newest free online course, the Odyssey. Taught by Professor Benedict Wayland, the course reveals why Homer's masterpiece remains one of the greatest works of Western literature. Find this free course at Hillsdale.edu forward slash start now. The Odyssey from Hillsdale College, go to hillsdale.edu forward slash start now. Coming up under Joe Biden, the United States Navy tried to censor a commander online after he called out the admirals for their poor recruiting performance. We're going to give you the details of that story. The daily caller was breaking. That coming up in just a moment. We're having a conversation, though, right now about a handful of well, they're nominees right now, but they're going to be in Congress. They're going to win their general election because of the gerrymandering that Democrats love to put in place. We're talking about Mila Keros in Colorado, Claire Valdez in New York, Dari Elisa Avila Chevalier, also in New York. They've already won their primaries. There's a couple more who are hitting primaries in either Michigan or Wisconsin or Minnesota yet to come.

They've sworn fealty to the Democrat Socialists of America. The Democrat Socialists of America have platformed positions that they have all voted on and agreed to that run contrary to the fundamental foundational principles of our Constitution. So when these people win their elections and they become members of Congress, when they raise their hand and swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, they'll be lying. So what should the Speaker of the House do? Whoever that person is, should they accept them as members of Congress? This also, by the way, applies to Ilhon Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, certain members of Congress that are currently sitting in their seats representing their districts. Maybe too late to do something about them, I'm not sure. But if there's really is the existential threat that many people believe that it is, the Speaker of the House himself, Mike Johnson, has said that the barbarians are in the Bill Gates right now. The president has said that these people represent communism, a completely different way of life in different governmental structure and philosophy that Americans have held on to for the low these 250 years. If that's true, how can we in good conscience allow them to take that oath when we know they're lying, when we know their actual political agenda is to upend that very constitution? We'll start with Mack in Pennsylvania. Mack, you're first up here. Thanks for calling in. Your Honor O'Connor & Company. Thank you so much for taking my call. You make so much sense. Glad to be listening to you is, again, retired Navy 20 years, having seen tyranny. You make a very excellent point. And I think we've already seen how the people can do this. Remember when California had a recall election and put Arnold Schwarzenegger in. Yeah. That's a weapon that we have that we can use, too. Yeah. Because I'm, I just get, it's nauseating to see what these people want to do to this country, and you are straight on point. How can they, how can they run for an office that they're totally not for? It's tantamount to just, you know, it's bringing in a malignant tumor. It's just ruining. You're coming in, lying. to take this country down the road that it was our founding forefathers have never intended it to go. And you know something that's crazy? Yeah. You'd set it in other programs, our school systems or sewer systems. Thank you, Mack. No, no, I want to stick on the one topic, but I appreciate your passion on this. And, you know, you're right. Certain states have recall elections. Now, I think most of those are just for state office. I don't think you can recall a member who wins a federal office. But this goes beyond recall. This is how can you in good conscience actually seat a member of Congress if you know if they're already on the record saying that they oppose the very constitution they're swearing to protect. Marco, Springfield, Virginia, listening on WMAL. Hey, Marco, what do you think? Hi, Larry, thanks for taking my call. Yes. I think we can thank the ignorant American voter for putting these people in office to begin with. Second of all, if you know that these people are Democrat Socialists, voters out there in those places like Colorado, you might want to try something new. Vote for the Republican candidate so they don't get elected in the first place. And...

There was a time, I don't know if you remember, but John Boehner did remove an elected congressman, who the first thing he did when he got into office, was go to some dating site and show his stuff, so to speak. So Boehner said, you're out of here. Oh, yeah. So I think our Speaker of the House could do that, too. They can do that for ethics purposes. They can do that for moral issues and things like that, violating rules of the House, taught relationships with people that they work with, things like that. But what about their fundamental political beliefs? There are going to be people who are going to push back and they're going to say, no, and listen, they won their election fair and square. The voters of their district knew what they stood for and they put them in the House anyway. That's fine. But again, I just want to reiterate, and I know that this isn't very popular because sadly our education system isn't always that great. And people actually have been raised in this country thinking that we just have a flat-out democracy, but we don't. We're a constitutional republic and the Constitution at the federal level and the state level have certain provisions that allow for the leadership who've already in office to be able to protect the system from the voters making a stupid mistake. You may not like that, but it's true. And one of those protections is the rules of the House where the Speaker can step in and say, yeah, you're not worthy of this chamber because you want to undo our Constitution, not protect it. You know, when it comes to supplements, two things matter most when you're evaluating them. Meredith told me this. My wife, she evaluates all the supplements that we have in our house and there's a lot of them. You want to make sure that it works and you want to make sure that you can trust it. Well, rather than just tell you about relief factor, I want to let our customers do it. We hear from people all the time, including Chris. Now, Chris spent years doing physical work. And it left his feet sore at the end of the day. He started taking Relief Factor, and he felt so good that he eventually ran a half marathon. Now, they make it easy to find out if you'll be the next person telling us Relief Factor gave you your life back because they're offering the quick start the first three weeks for just $17.76. Just go to Relieffactor.com or call 800, the number four, relief. You'll connect with our friendly local team, and they'll do everything they can to help you. And soon we'll find out if you'll be sharing your story with us. That's relieffactor.com 800, the number four relief. Your education is more than a path to a degree. At Regent University, it's an important step in God's plan for your career. It's where you'll be equipped to lead and serve with purpose. It's where 40,000 graduates have prepared to fulfill their callings, and so can you. Choose the Top Rings program from over 150 areas of study, on campus or online, and watch what God will do. Learn more at regent.edu. That's regent.edu.

It's O'Connor and Company here from your nation's capital. Unlike the ladies on the view, we are not facing major budget shortfalls. We're keeping the lights on. Everyone's still employed. This really makes you sad for the whole team behind that glorious production known as The View. We'll get into the details of that coming up in a bit. And also another successful day for Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday in the House of Representatives. They keep saying this guy can't get it done. And he keeps getting it done. We'll get into that in just a moment. But first, a story that caught our eye at the daily caller. U.S. Navy tried censoring commander online after he called out admirals. And what was he calling out the admirals for? Well, about some recruitment problems. This was during the Biden administration. And no, this wasn't during the pandemic where we were all getting censored by the social media platforms at the demand of the Biden administration. No, this was in the final year of the Biden administration right around the time when... Joe Biden was struggling with his ability to run for re-election in July. Right when he was dropping out, his Pentagon was running rampant on First Amendment rights. Yes, members of the military do have First Amendment rights. And this is a troubling, troubling story. Let's bring in James Fitzpatrick. He's the director of the Center to advance security. in America. And Mr. Fitzpatrick, thanks for joining us. Let's start with that, though, because a lot of people who are either former military or active duty military, they're going to say, well, you know, I'm not allowed to say certain things. I suspend some of my constitutional rights. So what exactly did this commander say? And is it within the standard guidelines that the military has to adhere to? Well, thanks, Larry. Great to be here with you. Well, look, I just want to take a step back really quick and just talk about the Biden administration overall and the lengths that they went to to really try to transform our military through woke policy, through all sorts of, you know, transgender nonsense, pronoun usage. LGBT pride days, you know, if you name it, you name a woke policy, the Biden DoD was engaging in it. And, you know, this was combined with weak action on the world stage. It was really a dangerous combination. But as you, as you mentioned, this most recent examples is really consistent with they're trying to transform the military and try to take away First Amendment rights from active duty soldiers. This was Commander Green in the Navy. He's a, he's a somewhat prominent ex. communicator. And he was simply calling out some of the failures of their recruitment strategy correctly. And they moved swiftly to really silence him and to block him from all Navy accounts. Commander Rob Green, he was using a X account, the former Twitter. And in July, he was posting a lot of criticism of the woeful recruitment numbers that the Navy and all the military was experiencing. And as you just pointed out, he was directing it back to these horrible policies. It was basically repelling your typical young man who wants to join the military and fight for their country. They're like, yeah, we don't want to be in that club because of all the changes they've made. So what happened to him?

Well, he's still an ex. You know, he was blocked, but, you know, I think they had to eventually unblock him. But, you know, the problem here is that the administration, it's always about, you know, crushing your opposition through censorship or lawfare or really this was sort of a combination. You know, they sort of made up these. internal guidelines that they used to block him and to silence him instead of engaging him and instead of addressing the problem that was that was horrible right even more so how about how about listening to him and taking his advice so how do you know that that the brass tried to censor him how do you know that this was something that was orchestrated Well, if your viewers go to the Daily Call article, it links to our email production that we got there through FOIA records requests. And there's just conversations that various officials had within the command that just talked about their desire to block him and how they felt that they had the right to block him and they went about doing it. And then one question about it, they couldn't even recall who the official was that did it and when they did it. So, you know, they just, they had. people acting, you know, sort of willy-nilly here to really take away someone's First Amendment rights. It's a very serious thing to block someone on exit, and they engage in it sort of in a carefree way. It's really concerning. So you found out about this from a FOIA request. Has the leadership at the Pentagon now under the new administration, have they done anything about those who were involved in trying to silence this guy's criticism? That's a great question. I do not know that. That could be something where our organization, the Center to Advanced Security in America, may flag for them and maybe potentially, you know, we could maybe engage in other requests for that sort of action. But I don't know if they've been punished or not or even if the officials are still there. That's something we could potentially research. So back to the crux of the issue that Commander Green was trying to point out, there was a series of decisions made. under Lloyd Austin and under President Biden that absolutely crippled recruitment numbers and morale within the military. Have we turned that around? I know I keep seeing headlines that we're hitting record numbers now. What is the track record here? And can we draw a direct line between these records and what the Trump administration has done to sort of reverse the direction the Pentagon was going? Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, look, in 2023, all five branches missed their recruiting goal. And over the course of the administration, of the Biden administration, we missed our recruiting goal by roughly 50,000 service men and women. The collective result of that is really devastating. It leads to smaller force, you know, a higher opt tempo for those that are in the force. meaning that there's more deployments for the smaller amount of soldiers there. And it also just increases the future cost of recruitment. But as you said, we have turned a corner. The Trump administration, fast forward to today, all five branches have met or exceeded their goal. Fiscal year 25 was the highest we've had in 15 years. And look, I think this can be attributed to many things, but it really comes back to President Trump and Secretary Hengsteth.

prioritizing and restoring the warrior ethos, getting rid of woke nonsense that I mentioned earlier in that weak attitude. I think it's sort of a soft putting forth the American power and the toughness of the American military. and getting back to war fighting and readiness and getting rid of the nonsense. And we've done that. And we've seen the problem, the problem be solved essentially overnight. This is James Fitzpatrick, Director of the Center to Advance Security in America. And you're a former JAG officer yourself. Is there, it seems to me that this is sort of a... a real legal problem for the military potentially. Could somebody face some sort of punishment for what they've done here? This trend in the Biden administration where if anybody is critical of policies, the immediate instinct is to call the social media platforms and try to censor them and silence their voices. I would think the military would want to hear from people who know what they're talking about and actually sort of open up some communications to fix the problems that they're hearing about instead of just immediately going to censor and silence anybody who's critical. There needs to be corrective action, I guess, as they say in the corporate world. I think, I think you're right. I think there is, look, put it this way. There's at least plenty of evidence to initiate some sort of investigation, whether the officials are still there or not, or they're still in those positions, I think is irrelevant. If they're not there, you could initiate potentially an IG investigation. There's various things you could do here to at least. attempt to try to punish some of the officials that were involved. We'll keep an eye on that. I appreciate you bringing this story to our attention, though. It's just another example of what we're, I think it's going to be years for us to learn exactly what this Biden administration was up to and all of the, sadly, ugly and anti-American activities that they participated in. Again, just scratching the surface, you know what they did during the virus and trying to silence critics of the policies of the administration then. It's truly remarkable. That's right. Well, thank you for bringing this one to our attention to. Give our best to Commander Green. Is he still active duty? You know what? I don't know. I don't know him personally. We just, you know, we were able to find this through the request, but, um, all right. Yeah, I'm not sure if he's still active or not. I know he's still active or not. I know he's still active on X, though. So they didn't succeed in silencing him there. Well, that's all that matters is it pertains to this story, I suppose. James Fitzpatrick, thanks for joining us, director of the Center to Advanced Security in America. You bet. Thank you for that.

A couple of quick items that I do want to clean up here and get to. First, I've been admonished that I don't tell you enough about the crews that we're taking this November. So real fast. I know that there's a lot of people who enjoy this program, who enjoy talking about politics and the stuff that are always on our rundown every single day. here on O'Connor and Company on this radio station. If you want to hang with us, go on a beautiful vacation and enjoy the Gulf of America. That's right, the Gulf of America. It's the Town Hall, Salem Gulf of America Cruise. I'm going to be there. My buddy Kurt Schlichter, who you hear on this show all the time, is going to be one of the speakers, as well as Scott Jennings from the Salem Radio Network and also from CNN. Mike Gallagher, Jennifer Horn. We're going to be hosting this week-long cruise. And my family is going to be there. Our friends are coming. It's really going to be a vacation. But it's going to be a working vacation because we're going to have daily events where all of we can get together. We Patriots, American loving patriots who love our country and hopefully we'll be celebrating the Republican Party winning the midterms early November. We'll be celebrating on this beautiful. luxury cruise line. So if you want to join us, there's only a few cabins left. Go to larrycruise.com. It's larrycruise.com. We're going to have a great time. We're going to celebrate our country. We're going to celebrate our values and our principles and celebrate each other. And, and by the way, get a tan because it's going to be the beginning of winter. And we're going to be in the Caribbean. So what more do you want? Go to larrycruise.com. Larry Cruz.com. And then finally, a quick word about our friends, the great Christian charity, Food for the Poor. A lot of folks have checked in with generous donations for our friends at Food for the Poor. Many men and women, just like you, are helping hungry children in 17 Caribbean and Latin American countries. Today, I want to tell you how bad some things are in the hunger battle. which is why we're asking for your help over at larry o'show.com listen to paul here paul is with food for the poor we saw a woman that for 30 years and she had an entire community she advocated for this was her mission that every one of these families literally just steps away from the garbage dump where like you talk talk with your mouth clinched because the flies. It's just horrific. I can't express it and explain it. You've got to be there to really understand. But this woman for 30 years, she fought through it to make sure that their little community that you will never find on the map gets noticed because the families need help. People are living in squalor through no fault of their own, and we are the most generous giving nation on the planet. We help people like this. We're called to it. So please go to lariosho.com. There's a give food banner right at the top of the page there where you can make a donation, or you can text my name, Larry, to 51555. That's Larry. Text it to 5155. And then they'll send you a link where you can make a generous gift.

We can help these precious children, the poorest of the poor, get the life-giving food and clean drinking water they need. Your gift of $80 or any amount brings hope to children in crisis by providing a year's worth of food for two children. That's remarkable. So just go to larryosho.com, click on that banner. Thank you. And finally, whether you're preparing for exams, juggling family and career, or you're just looking to stay as sharp as you age. Think Factor is here to help. It's created by the same company that makes Relief Factor. Think Factor supports sharper focus, stronger recall, and clearer thinking. It's a natural way to give your brain the daily nutrients it needs for memory, attention, and even vibrant vision. I use Think Factor every single day right before I begin the program, and I've noticed the difference. Do yourself a favor. If you want to stay focused during demanding tasks, keep your memory strong and maintain mental energy for whatever's ahead. Think Factor is for you. Call 800 the number four relief. Or you can visit Relieffactor.com to order Think Factor. Here's the good news. Your first bottle of Think Factor is only $19.95. So you can. Get started with Think Factor, and in that first month, you'll feel the difference. Call 800 the number four relief, or go to ReliefFactor.com to order Think Factor. 800, the number four, relief, think factor. Think clearer, perform better daily. All right. Keep it right here. Coming up, we'll give a breakdown of what the House did yesterday. A great day for Mike Johnson. And then we'll ask a simple question. John Thune, what are you doing over there in the Senate? What do you doing? Your education is more than a path to a degree. At Regent University, it's an important step in God's plan for your career. It's where you'll be equipped to lead and serve with purpose. It's where 40,000 graduates have prepared to fulfill their callings, and so can you. Choose a top-ranked program from over 150 areas of study on campus or online and watch what God will do. Learn more at regent.edu. That's regent.edu. I know how frustrated you can be. I get frustrated too. I know that you scream back at the radio or the television or your social media accounts because you get frustrated that people you elected to do things don't do things. It's one of the reasons why President Trump remains popular with the Republican base because after years of promises, how many Republican nominees for president said that they were going to secure the border? And President Trump actually took it seriously and he did it. The things like, how many Republican... nominees for president or actual Republican presidents said that they were going to nominate Supreme Court justices that would overturn Roe v. Wade. But it was Donald Trump who did it. And on and on and on. One of the reasons why Trump continues to be popular is because of the simple fact that he's actually done what he promised Republican voters to do, things that we've been promised for decades. That's a great thing. And it shouldn't go unnoticed by other politicians that when you actually do what you say you were going to do and keep your promises, we're going to like you. And you're going to be rewarded for that.

Now, you get frustrated when members of Congress, who are Republicans, who promise you things, then end up not doing anything. They read a strongly worded letter. They have a committee hearing. They get moments on television where they're really expressing themselves with passion, but then they don't do anything. And it's also frustrating for Republicans because Democrats don't play that way. They do stuff. It's very unpopular to impeach Donald Trump. They didn't care. Well, it wasn't going to go anywhere in the Senate. They didn't care. They use their power. And they use their power in an odious fashion, sadly, but they do something. Lord knows that they aren't saying they're going to impeach Donald Trump right now. But if they get the majority, even if it's by one vote, they are going to impeach Donald Trump. I'm telling you that right now. Their voters know it do. That's the thing. They're not campaigning on it because they don't have to. So Republicans who claim to care about, say, the Save America Act and want to make sure that only citizens are voting and that they're proving that they're citizens. Well, they say that, but then what do they do? Well, say what you will. But Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, for now I think the third or fourth time has rallied his troops working with the smallest of margins. In fact, with many votes yesterday, he only had a one vote margin to work with because of Thomas Massie. And he still got it done. Here is the Speaker of the House explaining all of the accomplishments and the successful votes. He's somehow miraculously in an election year facing recess. He got it done. And the budget resolution that unlocks our third reconciliation bill, which of course is Republicans' best shot to get as much of the Save America Act into law as possible, in addition to funding our national defense and our farmers. Republicans support our troops, our farmers, and election security. We're the only team in Washington that does. Many of you doubted our success. Many of you standing around me in the scaggle right now and said, let me read you a sample of the headlines. Quote, House Republicans face final week gauntlet. Another said Johnson's rocky sprint to recess. Another said it was Johnson's make or break week. Despite nearly every Democrat voting against everything I just read you, House Republicans delivered. Now, many of you like to say that major legislating can't happen in an election year. We just proved you wrong. This week, we continue to deliver for the people, and we're going to continue that streak all the way through the end of this year and into the next Congress. We're increasingly confident that we will hold and grow this majority in the House. We must, because you're seeing a demonstration of the two sides, the divergent views for America. All right, now here's how Fox News framed the entire thing. And they sadly had to show what John Thune and this Republican majority, a bigger majority in the Senate than Mike Johnson has to work with in the House, what they're planning on doing with this.

The House of Representatives trying to cure the legislative summertime blues. Save America Act. The Stock Trading Act. The Republican Reconciliation 3.0. The NDAA. The House approved a stopgap bill to avoid a government shutdown this fall. Let's just take this out the table. Let's get this through the election. The House sending the Senate a budget framework to pay for the conflict in Iran, tacking on the Save America Act. But there's GOP skepticism. I'm not 100% convinced that the save language is going to be held solid through the Senate. Senate Majority Leader John Thune may not even tackle the budget blueprint until September. We could pull that budget resolution passed by the House and use it to fund government. That package is immune to filibusters. Republicans could then cut Democrats out of the funding process. It's very ominous. The reconciliation process is an indication of failure on the part of the institution. Republicans hope the threat compels Democrats to help avoid a full government shutdown. I think Leader Thunbelief still have some reasonable Democrats in the Senate that will assist. The House also approving a plan barring members from trading stocks. If you want a day trade, there's a place for that. It's called Wall Street. But banning stock trades isn't in the mix in the Senate. That frustrates voters. They're not going to feel confident in this institution if they think that there's members of Congress can actively trade stocks. It's totally insane to me. Yeah, and we're losing faith in an institution of the United States Senate where there's a majority and the majority leadership doesn't actually do what the voters want to do, especially when the House hands them the bills. Just pass it. Just pass it. And yesterday, we started our day with a punchbowl article saying that John Thune was more inclined to negotiate with Democrats in the Senate over that continuing resolution that would preempt a potential shutdown in September. He'd be more inclined to negotiate with Democrats in the Senate than work with the House majority.

Make it make sense. It doesn't. And this is a chance for the Save America Act to get through and put a little bit of election security in there, and I'm not holding my breath. Sadly, I'm an optimist, and I am not holding my breath. This is Washington, D.C., your nation's capital. It's O'Connor and Company. We're on WMA, the flagship station for this national program, America's Morning Show. O'Connor and Company, thanks for tuning in. In 30 minutes, K2 McFarland. She's America's sweetheart. She's going to be joining us about the latest out of Iran, what the next steps are for the Trump administration, negotiations off the table, no more memorandum of understanding. Will we begin another bombing campaign? What about the political pressure? You know all those things. Katie McFarland joins us coming up in 30 minutes to talk about that. First, though, fundamental question, do... Do children, teenagers, have a fundamental right to social media, a human right, a constitutional right? Is it okay for the government to restrict their access to social media, which for many teens is their only forms of communications with other people their age? Sadly, and maybe that's part of the problem. France just approved this law. Excuse me. France just passed a law this week that would require apps like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube to enforce age checks for all of their users. That means you. If you're in France and you want to use YouTube, you've got to prove your age. That's how you enforce something like this. And there are other countries in Europe looking to follow suit, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain. They don't have a First Amendment, though. We do. Can we do this in America? Should we do this in America? Well, let's look north to our neighbors in Canada. Wyatt Sharp is a teen journalist, utilizes social media, and has actually been able to grow a burgeoning audience and career doing that. And it's not lost on me, Wyatt, that if you were in France a year ago, you wouldn't be able to do what you're doing right now. Yeah, or my home country of Canada either, because of course with all of these nations deciding that they want to ban social media for those under the age of 16, not only does it limit their expression, but I think it really speaks to something deeper. And that is we can have the conversation around whether or not young people should be on social media. But in this case, with what these countries are doing, is the mechanism behind what they're trying to do. just as super ineffective. If you look to Australia as perhaps the most notable example, over 70% of young people who theoretically should be banned on social media based off of what this ban is saying has still found workarounds to access forms of the social media platforms that they were using before. But what it does do is push young people towards unregulated, often darker parts of the internet. And so, you know, if you were a parent, for example, you would much rather your kid maybe use these platforms but be able to regulate from a parental perspective what they use, then the government saying let's put in place some form of a systemic ban like these countries are doing, but as a parent will have absolutely no control over what my child sees. Yeah. Do parents want this? Because it seems to me that if parents actually care this deeply about how social media is affecting their children, they can take matters into their own hands. They don't need the government to say whether their children can be.

involved in this or not, they can just make those rules. Yeah, I think there's kind of two camps. The first one is parents who can use this as kind of a scapegoat and explaining to their own kids why they can't use social media because it is a problem inside. That is exactly it. Oh, Jane, I'd love to let you on TikTok, but my hands are tied. The government won't do it. It's against the law. Exactly. So that is one camp, but I do think another camp, like if this were my parents, for example, looking at this, they would see that I had been able to use social media from like an entrepreneurial perspective to build kind of what I've been doing in the form of interviews and such. And they would very much recognize that it was useful to me. And they would not be, you know, an example of parents who would look to kind of try and prevent me from using some of these platforms. And that is the problem of a systemic ban or kind of a... a cross ban across all ages, poor people under the age of 16, is it eliminates any nuance and it eliminates the ability to say, you know, from family to family, depending on the circumstances, this is what each family is going to do. And it takes a... one-size-fits-all approach, which simply doesn't work. This is Wyatt Sharp. He's 17 years old. He is a podcaster-streamer on YouTube. He's already interviewed a former Canadian Prime Minister. Wait, it's not that guy dating Katie Perry, is it? Is that the one you interviewed? It is. Oh, all right. Well, I'd love to talk to you about that sometime too. But here's the problem, Wyatt, and I know that a lot of parents are listening to this right now, and they're probably saying, geez, I wish my daughter were dating Wyatt because he's got his act together. This isn't about you. It's about the kids who are maybe little less mature, who don't understand how to utilize social media as a tool, and they get addicted to this. And they get addicted at a young age. So something has to be done, whether it's an outright government ban, Maybe the companies need to be more involved in this kind of thing. Yeah, they definitely do. So I'll just kind of share what I have learned in my conversations with people. And that is, of course, social media is addictive, but that's not a problem just with young people. That's a problem across society. The best way to address it, though, is these companies' algorithms focusing less on showing addictive content and instead allowing people to just use the search feature and look up the types of content they want rather than recommending, you know, streams of content that kind of inform without enlightening in any... way. But I will share another piece from a psychological perspective that I heard when I was talking to a psychology professor, and that was it's kind of...

kind of similar to alcohol in a sense, and part of the reason that, you know, some people will criticize the fact that in a place like Ontario, Canada, where I'm speaking to you from today, the legal age is the age of 19. And that is young people, when they're kind of in the lead-up to 19, are thinking to themselves, oh, it's banned, but I would still love to get my hands on that. And it will be the same with social media. So young people under the age of 16 will have no access to social media. Once they turn 16, they'll have completely un- unfeathered access to social media. And so what the professor said was that the psychological impacts of going from absolutely no usage at all to have a complete access are almost more damaging than if you just allowed young people to have access to some of these platforms from the very beginning. White, it seems like this is one of those things where everybody agrees across the board that there's a problem and there needs to be some kind of solution, but what that solution is is impossible to reach. And, you know, our First Amendment, I think, children don't have the same kind of First Amendment protections that adults do in this country. But it will become a First Amendment issue in this country if they try to implement a ban on social media for people of a certain age. And one of the reasons is how do you do it? For instance, how do you verify your age in Canada right now? Yeah, so it hasn't actually been implemented yet. It's still before the House of Commons, which is our legislative branch, but it is very much the same as to what you were talking about in France. Everybody is going to have to upload an ID. And so you do have a lot of concerns of the so-called digitalized. that people are talking about because we're going to have people 40, 50 years old wanting to upload their ID and prove their age, it's obvious. Right. I don't want to do that. I don't want to let people know because then they can track your browsing with your identification. Other people can get a hold of my identification and they can be utilized for identity theft. By the way, what if you have an anonymous account? Some of my favorite accounts on social media that comment on politics and pop culture are anonymous. They're anonymous for a reason and you blow away that anonymity if you have to prove your identity. Somebody will hack that. 100%. And I think that just the way in which the government, not just in Canada, but across the board and how governments are going about this, they... are using this because they understand that it's popular with certain segments of the population in terms of banning social media, but they haven't addressed these issues, these underlying issues that we're seeing from examples like Australia who have been able to implement this, but who has been quite ineffective. I talked to a young journalist recently who does basically the same thing as me, but in Australia, and he says that amongst all of his friends who are, you know, ages 15, just turning 16, they have all found a workaround some for the people. who haven't. It's not because they can. It's just because, you know, they decided not to. But he said it takes one young person to find a loophole and then go out on the schoolyard, tell all of his friends. And then all of a sudden, the entire grade at his school has access to these platforms that according to the government should have been banned. Yeah. And by the way, moms, dads, trust me, my kids.

were raised pretty straight-edged and they were pretty good kids. They were very good kids. They still are good kids. I was shocked to learn years later that they had fake IDs when they were in high school and they were able. You know, it's such a reality. It's horrible. It was terrible, but it's no matter how good and straight and narrow you think your kid is. So let's wrap things up here, if you can give moms and dads who are listening some advice here, because you sound like you've got your act together, you sound like you've got a good relationship with your parents, you utilize social media. What's a parent to do when engaging with their 13, 14-year-olds who are demanding to use this stuff? And I recognize, especially for your generation growing up in the pandemic, that this may be one of the only avenues you've got for real social interaction and relationships. So what should parents do? I would focus on two things. The first is algorithms and making sure that if my kid is using social media, they're not using the for-you or recommended features on these platforms as much because that is kind of the component that is addictive and that will lead young people to spend in some cases hours upon hours just doom scrolling. But the second part of this is really taking a platform by platform approach because some platforms are more damaging than others. TikTok, for example, we know the information that they can take. you. We know how addictive it can be. Snapchat with the built-in map feature. That's obviously incredibly dangerous as well. Whereas a platform like YouTube is a lot less dangerous using it for informative content, educational content. So I think parents should just assess whether or not my kid should use a social media platform, what the benefits would be, what some of the negative outcomes might be. And again, it's all about a circumstance by circumstance approach. All right, White. Great job. You represent your generation and your country. Well, I'm just sorry you guys can't get your act together and win a Stanley Cup, but, you know, maybe you'll move down here and enjoy some victory. Thanks, Wyatt. Great talking with you. We're going to take your calls on this topic in the next hour if you have feelings about it as well. Katie McFarlane would join us coming up in just a few minutes, talk about the latest national security. But we got to just pause a moment and say a little prayer for our friends over at ABC News. Disney-owned ABC News because they're having some trouble with their big star-studded daytime news program, straight news, legitimate news program. The View. I know. And listen, I just want to be clear here. It's odious. It's a cesspool. It's horrible. It's toxic. It's everything that's wrong with the political discourse in this country. Frankly, everything that's wrong with... how women are being influenced by certain political views and political debates. That said, for the purposes of this program and really much of my website that I work with, Town Hall Media, we need the view. We don't want them going anywhere because they are great for traffic. I'm telling you, we get clips from the view. We start posting it on town hall social media. I do a segment on my town hall podcast at noon, and it's got Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny hosted and Joy Baher. It's gold, baby. They're, I mean, when you're in the business of political analysis and media analysis like we do here on this show and on this entire station,

oftentimes the easiest part of our day to figure out what to talk about is to just see what they were saying on the view and say, oh, well, we can slice these morons arguments apart. Let's do it. So we want the view to keep going. But we also relish and get excited about them having problems. It's... All been downhill since Megan McCain left that show. And now, according to page six at the New York Post, which is, yeah, a little gossipy, but I mean, we're not above that. They've got major, major budgetary concerns now. Apparently, they're bringing in as much money as Stephen Colbert was for CBS News, and we know what happened to him. Apparently, it's affecting the host's wardrobe budgets and their anticipated pay raises. Whippy Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny host, and Sarah Haynes, Anna Navarro, Alyssa Farah Griffin. Oh, yeah, she's the conservative. They've all taken pay cuts since the season 29 premiered this last September. Now, Whoopi Goldberg is making a mid-seven-figure salary. That means around $4 or $5 million, everybody, a year. to do what Whoopi Goldberg does. And was denied a big raise, though, when she asked. She came back for more. I need an agent like that. I love my agent. But I need an agent. who is actually willing to demand more money for 70-year-old Whoopi Goldberg, given what she does on a regular basis on that program. But beyond their pay raises, apparently the women's wardrobe budget was affected, according to the New York Post. A source said that they're all mad because they were wearing really expensive designer clothes, and now it's the same budget of a Wendy Williams-type show. Oh, that's mean. Leave Wendy out of this. She's been through enough. They keep downsizing and downsizing and downsizing according to the source. Well, that might be the ozempic factor. I've noticed whoope is definitely downsizing. And good for her. Unfortunately, more cuts are expected as the new season is set to begin this September, with some wondering when enough is enough. The show has downgraded its filming space and the fan favorite Halloween show will be scrapped. Wait a minute. What am I missing? There's a fan favorite Halloween show for the view. Do they all play dress-up? I need to investigate this further. Product integrations have become rare as advertisers have begun reaching out to competitors of the views. See, that talk about bearing the lead, second to last sentence in the article. That's what it's really all about. This is how we drive revenue for our companies, for our shows, for our employees, and for the companies that employ us. We talk about products and services and various things that we integrate them into our lineup, our show, our...

rundown. I'm sure you've noticed it across the board. Every single major corporation that is in the media and it involved in talking about news and politics and pop culture like we do. They've all done it. You go and watch Fox News, watch Fox and friends. They've got product placement and product integration and they've got products and services that are sponsoring segments. There's nothing wrong with that. You've got to do that. And that's how you stay competitive and that's how you keep everybody employed. It's a good thing. And apparently the sponsors are running for the hills when it comes to the view. Product integrations have become rare as advertisers have begun reaching out to competitors. That's the key. Not only are they no longer having their products sponsored by the ladies and the kids, who wants their product associated with Joy Behar and Sonny Hostin? And they're absolutely outrageous and odious and hateful political positions. Of course you don't. But it's not like they're leaving the format. They're going to their competitors. Maybe they need to recast the show. When it comes to supplements, two things are important, that it works and that you can trust it. And relief factor checks those boxes for me and for our family. I want to tell you about the people that we hear from every single day whose lives have changed like Doug. Doug took relief factor for nearly a year and then convinced his wife, a special needs teacher, to try it. Now, she'd been using assistance just to move through the long hallway at school. Now, she's back on her feet every day and never had to leave the job that she loves. And think about all of those great special needs kids. who benefit from Relief Factor as well. You know, they make it easy to find out whether you'll be the next person telling us Relief Factor gave you back what you love, because the first three weeks, they call it the quick start, is just $17.76. So call now, 800, the number four, Relief, 800, the number four, relief, or Relieffactor.com. I'm Larry O'Connor. It's O'Connor and Company. I was the 14-year-old ski ball champion on Balboa Peninsula, Newport Beach, California Fun Zone, just in case you were wondering. And I still got it. When my kids dragged me to Chequette cheese, I would clean up on those tickets, and then they would waste it on some useless toy. But I am a ski ball beast. I just wanted to share that with you. Yesterday, President Trump took to social media, the true social platform, and he said this. From this point forward, any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by missile, rocket, drone, or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy one bridge or power plant, including those located next to or in the capital city of Tehran. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump.

That's a new policy. Is it a smart one? And will it be effective and will it be followed through upon KT McFleman, former Deputy National Security Advisor, President Trump, author of Revolution, Trump, Washington, and We the People joins us now. KT, there's kind of a moving target there on a daily basis as to where we stand and whether we're really trying to move things back to negotiations or whether we've just had it and we're going to. hunker down on the blockade, keep the Strait of Hormuz open, or maybe even start even escalating the bombing of Iran. So you're the expert. Where are we right now? Well, I think it's all of the above. We want them to negotiate an end to this war, but to negotiate it on the terms that we demand, which is no nuclear weapons, stop your missile program, stop your terrorist proxies, hurting Americans in our allies in the region. And so far, they're not willing to do. any of those things. But I should say not all of Iran. To me, there are two Iran's going on right now. There's a one, the guys were negotiating who do seem to be willing to do those terms that I've just described. But then there's another Iran, which is the IRGC, which is their Revolutionary Guard, and they don't want any kind of a deal under any terms ever. And they are willing to become martyrs. to the cause and they're willing to take the entire 91 million Iranian people with them so the question is can we negotiate a deal with the guys that we want to negotiate it with and what ability do they have to prevail and what looks to me like Not a civil war, but a massive disagreement between the two leadership groups in Iran. So if I were in that position, I would want to negotiate with the people who have the weapons, otherwise you're wasting your time. Or if they're having their own internal squabble, you guys work it out and then come back to us. In the meantime, you know, you keep messing with our ships and you're going to feel the pain. But are they feeling the pain? That's what I'm not sure about. You know, all objective reality is that they've got to be experiencing the pain. They're getting no revenue. They're not paying their people. Their inflation rate is double, in some cases, 150, 200 percent of what it was a year ago or a couple of months ago. But they're fanatics. Do they care about that stuff? Yeah, well, you know, 91 million people? Are they all fanatics? They're all willing to die? No, look what happened a year ago, before the Iran were asserted, when hundreds of thousands, millions of Iranians took to the streets to protest what were far better economic conditions than they have today. So is there a group in Iran that maybe wants a deal? Yeah. I guess I'm so frustrated because I'm sure President Trump is this not the way it was supposed to go. They were supposed to have a group of people who were reasonable, rational leaders who would want to do a deal because it would be a good deal for them too. But they're being held hostage by this group of, let's say, 200,000 IRGC guys who are holding the whole country hostage to their ideological and messianic ambitions and quest for murderdom.

So at a certain point, Iran, you've got to get your act together. And until you do, we're going to just bomb you every night until it makes it, well, we're bombing you to the point where you may never recover. Can you shed some light on this announcement? Well, it hasn't been officially announced, but it hasn't been denied either. The reporting about a deal with Saudi Arabia. over the United States facilitating Westinghouse to work with them to develop a civilian nuclear program for, I guess, Saudi Arabia, to develop nuclear power. Why are we doing that exactly? Well, in the first glance, it does make any sense, right? And it seems even dangerous. I mean, why are we helping a Middle East country develop nuclear technology? Well, at the same time, we're going to war with another country in the Middle East Iran to stop their nuclear program. But if you look at it a little more carefully, it does make some sense. First of all, Saudi Arabia, why do they want it? They need vastly more energy to power their new technology and AI industry. The Kingdom Saudi Arabia is in the process of remaking itself, not as a petro nation, but as a high-tech power. And to do that, they need a lot of cheap energy. Nuclear energy is the cheapest. So number two, then you say, well, they have plenty of oil. Why do they need nuclear energy? Yeah. Well, they want to use their oil for oil exports and to make money. And they also know that in the future, especially now that the United States is energy dominant. that when the Iran war is over, the oil prices will go down to $60.70 a barrel. And that's not enough for Iran to do what it wants to do, take care of its population and become a high-tech power. And then there's another reason, which is they're going to do this. It made it really clear. And it better that they do it under our control and under our terms than having Russia or China. And those are the other two countries that would do it. It would not be good for our relationship in the whole region or our relationship of the nuclear proliferation if China or Russia were in charge. And, you know, I think the other thing is that the Crown Princess said many, many, many times, including in interviews. several interviews with Fox News that if Iran does get nuclear weapons, the Saudis are going to get them too. And they wouldn't even have to make them at home. They'll buy them from Pakistan, North Korea. So better to have it developed and overseen and actually done with participation of us so that we can actually be there and be in the middle of it. But again, it's civilian usage of nuclear power. But it's just a short hop, skip, and a jump to a weapon, right? Well, yes and no. But my concern with this deal is we haven't seen the fine print. Okay, it's a great opportunity for Weston House. But what are the preconditions? Are they going to join the Abraham Accords? As we've been talking to the Saudis about this for years, one of the preconditions was, well, we'll help you with your nuclear energy program, but you have to recognize this rule and join the Abraham Accords.

It does not seem that this is part of the deal, but again, I want to see the fine print. Yeah. And then what are the safeguards? Are we going to, okay, so we say we're going to be in charge of it? Well, we need to have some real guarantees of safeguards that Saudi Arabia, say under a different leader, 10 years from now, doesn't go the Iran route and try to turn it into a nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, KT, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Manila finishing up his participation in the ACN, A-S-E-A-N. It's about Southeast Asia. It's a summit of all of the Southeast Asian countries. And it's fascinating to watch him. He's a great diplomat on the world stage, obviously. But here he is dealing with Asian countries China looming large, just one week after the president accused China of interfering with our elections. And I have yet to see any kind of announcement about a tariff, a sanction, or any kind of punishment against a country that our president just said messed with our elections. Yeah, you know, to me, that was a missed opportunity in that speech. I've written speeches for the Oval Office and for presidents to give to the nation. And then there's a pattern they all have. Identify a problem. You want to tell the nation, here's a big problem we have together. Here's the plan to deal with it. And here's what I need you to do to help me achieve these hands. And so I thought President Trump did a great job of laying out here's the problem. But I never got to point two or three. You know, what are we going to do to punish them? What is the plan to stop? Chinese election interference. Maybe there is one coming, but I didn't hear one in that speech. As far as President, I mean, President, Secretary of St. Marco Rubio. Get ahead of yourself there, McFarland. I know, I'm going to get ahead of those skis. This is how rumors begin. But I think it's extremely important to have those, all our relationships and all our alliances and all of our friends in Asia. working with us because it's all a common threat. China's a common threat to all of us. All right, KT. I think we can wrap things up with you today because you've given us great information on pretty much every single hot topic I can think of, except if they offer you a seat on the view stage, would you accept? Oh, those ladies, if you are not ready for me. KT. Thank you so much for joining us, as always. Great talking with you. Thank you. All right. I'd take a quick moment here to tell you about our campaign with Food for the Poor. A lot of folks checking in right now with generous donations, you go to Larry O'sho.com and then click on the banner at the top of the page because the incredible angels of Food for the Poor, this international relief organization, they are bringing relief. They're bringing food. They're bringing clean water. They're bringing medical kits, sanitary kits.

to the poorest of the poor. Just listen to Paul with Food for the Poor. You can hear just how desperate things are. We saw a woman that for 30 years and she had an entire community she advocated for. This was her mission that every one of these families literally just steps away from the garbage dump where like you talk. talk with your mouth clenched because the flies. It's just horrific. I can't express it and explain it. You've got to be there to really understand. But this woman for 30 years, she fought through it to make sure that their little community that you will never find on the map gets noticed because the families need help. You need help, and that help is coming from you and from me and all of us working together. We're the most charitable nation on the planet, and people will starve if it's not for Americans giving from their generous hearts. So do that if you could. You can trust food for the poor. They're an incredible organization, and they do the Lord's Work. Go to Larry O's Show.com and click on that Give Food banner at the top of the page. Or you can also text my name Larry. to 5155.5.5. That's Larry, text it to 5155, and they'll send you a link where you can make that generous offer. Together, let's help these precious children, the poorest of the poor, get the life-giving food and clean drinking water that they need. $40 feeds a child for an entire year. Imagine that. $40, $80, two kids, but whatever you can give. Please help us today. Go to lariosho.com, click on that Give Food banner. And God bless you. Thank you so much for doing that. All right. Coming up, I want to revisit this legislation that was passed yesterday from the House. Mike Johnson got it done. He's put together now the path for a third reconciliation package. So John Thune can't say, oh, you know, I can't break the filibuster so we can't get anything done here. I don't know. Reconciliation package just needs 50 votes, not even 51 votes. Just get to 50, John Thune, and the reconciliation package passes. There's a lot of good stuff in there, but most importantly, Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, found a way through the budget process to embed the Save America Act in there, or certainly all of the elements of the Save America Act that can be tied to budgetary issues that make it fall in the reconciliation umbrella. So. Balls in John Thune's court as soon as the House passes this thing. What's he going to do? We're going to talk about that in a moment and why it's so important now at this point, especially in light of what we just learned out of New Jersey, where over 6,000 non-citizens, that's what they're admitting to, where they claim erroneously registered to vote. Many of them did vote. How can you stop that from happening? It doesn't take software, actually. It just takes a law. You know, we're still reeling from this revelation from Mikie Sherrill, the governor of New Jersey, who revealed a week after she had found out that over 6,000 non-citizens had been registered to vote in the Garden State. And our hunch is that it's probably a bigger number than that. This is damage control. This is getting out in front of his story when you know it's going to harm you. So you try to frame the narrative yourself. Notice how many publications, Wall Street Journal, the

CNN, New York Times, they all said in their headline, software error causes fluke accident, right? Which is buying into the narrative. You know, if it were Donald Trump making this announcement, it would be New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill claims without evidence that a software error caused this to happen. But that would be the fact, I haven't seen evidence of you. All we have is the governor's word for it. Well, last I checked, journalists aren't just supposed to take an elected officials' word for it and turn that into a headline, promoting and expanding on their narrative to help them with damage control. I'm sorry, last I checked, that's exactly what they do when it's a Democrat politician. But we're supposed to accept that it was just 6,600, and it was just a software error, and it was a fluke and nothing to see here. Funny thing, though, the company who actually runs the software that has been blamed for the software error, they say it wasn't a software error at all. The company is called Idemia. They say they work with the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission and has for 40 years to support the process through which eligible individuals may indicate their interest in registering to vote when applying for or renewing a driver's license or state-issued identification card. Our role is to transmit information. The voter registration information is transmitted to the New Jersey Department of State Division of Elections, which is ultimately responsible for verifying eligibility to vote. Exactly. Let me put it this way. Don't try this on your taxes. Don't submit a tax return and then have the IRS calling you saying, hey, you got some numbers wrong here. There's a lot of income you didn't claim. Some of these deductions don't make sense. You owe us money. Here's the penalties. Don't go back to the IRS and say, hey, it was TurboTax, man. It was just a software glitch. No, you are responsible. The state of New Jersey is responsible. There are bureaucrats who work for that agency who are responsible. We want names. We want to know who okayed this stuff. Somebody did. And while we're on the subject of taxes, because I want to move to the Save America Act, and as you know, the Save America Act has two very simple propositions. Number one, when you register to vote, you need to prove you're a citizen. That way, forget about this software glitch in New Jersey. If they were still working with paper and pencil, the problem of a non-citizen being registered to vote would be solved with this one simple act. Prove you're a citizen. Just like you have to do when you go working for any kind of job or any company in America, you have to fill out an I-9 form. And when you fill out that I-9 form, you have to show documentation, like a passport or a birth certificate. Even if you're a married woman, you have to do that. So let's do the same thing when you go to vote. That way there's no software problem. There's no human error. There's no paper and pencil problem. Prove you're a citizen. That's what the Save America Act does. Like I said, while we're on the subject of taxes, imagine if we paid our taxes in this country with the same kind of oversight we have for registering to vote. You know, ask your Democrat, your liberal friend who has the cubicle down the hall from you at work or the...

crazy white chardonnay drinking liberal soccer mom who lives down the street from you, who puts the, you know, in this house, we believe sign on the front lawn. Just ask her a simple question. What do you think is more vital to the functioning of our democracy? Go ahead and use their language. Call it a democracy. What's more vital to our democracy? Voting or paying taxes. And I guarantee you they're going to say voting. Voting is the most sacred thing of all. And the second they say that, you've got them. Because from that point, you can say, well, then tell me this. Why is it when we pay our taxes? We have to show all of these receipts and all of this backup. We have to prove A. We have to prove B. We have to prove C. We have to deliver mountains of paperwork to back it up. And we've got a very well-funded agency in Washington, D.C. And they hire tens of thousands of people whose sole job it is is to go back and look at us and make sure that we've added and subtracted everything perfectly and dotted every eye and crossed every T. And if they think we didn't, then we have to show up and prove our innocence and provide all of the paperwork to prove that our tax return was done properly. If voting is more important, why do we do voter registration on the honor system? Well, they said they were a citizen, so we should let them vote. That's it? That's all we do? Outrageous. Now, as you know, Senator Mike Lee is a champion of the Save America Act. He's been pushing for it. He said that you couldn't do it in the reconciliation bill. But now that it's there, well, he's had a change of heart. Here, take a listen. The advantage of the budget reconciliation process is that it allows you to take certain legislation. Legislation that's budgetary, meaning it brings about changes in revenues flowing into the federal government or mandatory outlays being spent by the federal government. It allows you to pass those things without having to go through cloture, and so you don't need 60 votes. I've opined in the past that the Save America Act is... A policy bill is non-budgetary, and therefore couldn't itself be passed under budget reconciliation. After the House passed its budget today, opening the door for a possible third round of reconciliation in which the Save America Act could be attached, I started looking more closely at this. I think I may have been mistaken. I think I may have been too hate... I love that so much. You know, now that I think about it, maybe we can put it in the reconciliation. We love Senator Mike Lee. We think he's brilliant. And yeah, absolutely, we're going to get this done. If John Thune. has the courage. If you're climbing the corporate ladder or you're launching a new project or you're just looking for that extra edge, your brain is the most valuable asset you've got. And now there's a way to support it every single day. It's called Think Factor. From the makers of Relief Factor, think factor is built to help you stay sharp, nurture your memory, boost your attention, unlock your mental clarity and precision.

and it keeps you ahead of the game, no matter the challenge. I take Think Factor every single morning, and it keeps me on the edge that I need. So if you're a go-getter who refuses to settle, Think Factor helps you perform at your best and keep your edge. Call 800 the number four relief or visit Relieffactor.com in order of Think Factor. That's 800 for relief or Relieffactor.com. Your first bottle? Just 1995. Think Factor. Good morning from Washington, D.C. It's O'Connor and Company. I'm Larry O'Connor on our flagship station, WMAL, coast to coast, across the nation and around the world on Salem News Channel, where you can watch our live video stream every single morning or catch up later in the day on our podcast, the video podcast, the audio podcast, all the things that we're doing. Just go to Larry O'Sho.com, Larry O'Sho.com. get all the details there. Also, earlier in the program, we had this conversation with a 17-year-old YouTube streamer out of Canada, where that nation is now debating whether they should have precautions, provisions, and restrictions on anyone under 16 years old on social media. France just passed this. Other European nations are looking at it. Is that something we should look at here in the United States? Where do you stand on having a law prohibiting anyone under 16? from participating in social media. Is that what we need, or do we need parents to be educated and engaged in their kids and make sure that they're protected at home rather than requiring the government to do it for us? We'll get into that. Give us a call 855-784-4255-855-784-4-2-5. Joining us right now, a Republican from Maryland represents the first congressional district, for now, Andy Harris. I say for now, Congressman Harris. Because they've called us. You must feel so honored and just so popular that an entire special session of Congress has been called next week in Annapolis. And it's all because of you. They want to district you out of existence. Are you flattered in a way? Look, I guess I should be. But, you know, look, the fact of the matter is that Governor Wes Moore's run-up for president, he can't be outdone by Gavin Newsom in California. So he's going to, and he failed at a redistricting attempt this year. So he's just going to keep on plugging away at it. And it's ridiculous. You know, they're going to create a double standard for drawing legislative districts in Maryland. One standard for them, a state legislator is another standard for Congress. It's just crazy, but again, I get it. You know, he wants to help do Gavin Newsom, and he's going to plow ahead. The crux of this constitutional amendment will be to reframe how a congressional district can be drawn in Maryland, where right now there is language that... specifically says that a natural geographic border cannot obstruct right down the middle of, you have to respect these geographic borders. And really what we're talking about when it pertains to your district is the Chesapeake Bay. If they were to redraw the district, right, basically you'd have to hop over the bay to be able to deal with your constituents over in Prince George's County.

That's right. And anyone who's done the Bay Bridge and rush hour knows that's a pretty big impediment. You know, it's the interpretation of the law. The Constitution of Maryland is actually silent on the issue of congressional districts, and the judge interpreted it in 2022, and they tried this last. The judge interpreted it as having to follow the same rules. You know, you only have one set of rules for redistricting in Maryland. Again, that's what the judge interpretation was. And the General Assembly is going to say, no, we actually have a separate set. for Congress. It doesn't have to be compact. It can hop across the Chesapeake Bay. It can look like the wing pterodactyl like it did before the 2022 redistricting when Larry Hogan insisted that those districts looked better. We were the laughing stock of the country. We were the most gerrymandered state in the nation. Look, I get it. You know, Wes Moore and the Democrats always want to be number one. I don't think average person says, yeah, we ought to be number one in how gerrymandered our state looks. Andy Harris is our guest, and we're talking about this gerrymandering. I want to get to some of the very, very important busy work that you did yesterday with this very slim majority that Speaker Johnson's working with. But one final question on this gerrymandering scheme. When they make the case there, and I'm guessing since Democrats dominate in Annapolis, they're going to be able to jam this through. I just wonder if some cooler heads might prevail because it seems to me if Maryland is interested in having a good relationship with our next door neighbor, Washington, D.C. and the federal government that has a whole lot to do with the thriving economy when it's thriving in Maryland because of employment and government spending, that you want at least one person from the other party in D.C. to be able to talk to people in Congress if they're in the majority or have a good relationship with a Republican president. That just makes good sense. Absolutely, but this has nothing to do a good sense. This has to do all of politics. And that's a real shame. And the citizens of Maryland would, in fact, suffer just for the reason that you said. All right. And Congressman Harris is our guest from Maryland, Andy Harris. And with the Freedom Caucus, you've been able to work pretty well with Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, especially considering he's got such a small majority at times just one vote to work with. But you got a lot done yesterday. Talk to me about the authorization for military spending, defense spending, and how that's going to be wrapped into reconciliation. Well, the NDAA, of course, is separate. It's an authorization bill. We were able to pass that. That's probably going to get hung up in the Senate for a while. Reconciliation is going to have around $70 billion for defense to rearm, you know, and to provide a newer weaponry and rearm following the Iran conflict. And that passed, and that passed with the Houses Save America Act attached to it. So it is going to be, it's got voter ID and it's got citizenship. It doesn't have anything on mail-in ballots because that, I don't think we could get the votes we need in the Senate on that. But this is going over to the Senate. You know, we've been talking with folks in the Senate who are very knowledgeable on the bird bath and what's allowed and what's not because we put in significant.

funding to implement voter ID and to implement the citizenship check. It now has a significant budgetary impact. So we believe there's a shot of getting this across the finish line in the Senate. We also passed the restriction on trading stocks for members. We attach voter ID to it and like 185 Democrats voted against a bill that restricts stock trading for members. and would require voter ID, both of which are 80% issues. You got to ask them why in the world they did that. And finally, we passed a continuing resolution that's... what we call clean, which would just extend government funding past October 1st that the Democrats, you know, want to shut the government down. Yeah. So that's all over in the Senate. It was a huge day in the House yesterday. You know, those were three big bills. We were three for three. Some of them very narrow margins, but it was a good day for the House. And now you get a couple of weeks off to go crabbing in the Chesapeake. So that's, no, no, you're going to be doing constituent work, I understand, and helping your colleagues. who are running for office this November, I'm sure. Let me just follow up on a couple of items that you just threw out there, because it's a lot. But let me just be clear on what provisions of the Save America Act are in this reconciliation package. Is it just those two items, the proof of citizenship for registering and then photo ID when you go to vote? That's right. And those are the two biggest ones. Well, those are also the two the Democrats claim, oh, sure, everybody's in favor of that, right? They give lip service to it and say, of course, we're in favor of those things. Well, that's right. And they've famously come out and said, yeah, voter ID might be all right. And then again, 185 of them voted against it in the House yesterday. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, what they say and what they, look, they don't want voter ID. They know, and just like the president says, you have to ask, why in the world don't you want voter ID? There's only one reason you wouldn't want voter ID. And that's so that you have someone voting who isn't that person. And it's just that the American people get it. They really want the Senate to take action on this. And I believe there is a path forward. In terms of tagging this to reconciliation, you just said there's a ton of funding embedded in there to help implement voter ID and photo ID for the states. Can states refuse? Let's say California says, yeah, we don't want your dirty federal money, and we're not going to implement any of these provisions here in our state, so keep your money. We're just going to opt out. Will states have the ability to do that, or will this be a federal mandate?

That's a little insidious when you find out what the plan is there. We'll get into all of that coming up, but I do want to hear your opinion. 855784-4-4255. If not a ban on children using social media, then what is the best solution on this? 855-784-4-2-55. In California, they're having a gubernatorial race. It's Steve Hilton as the Republican candidate and Xavier Becerra. Is it Xavier or? Is it Xavier Becerra? I hear lots of different pronunciations of this guy. Didn't Biden pronounce his name Bacaera? I think Joe Biden called him Xavier Becerra. Anyway, Xavier Becerra. He was the former Secretary of Health and Human Services under Joe Biden, where he was in charge of all of the detention centers and the relocation of children who had entered the country illegally and had been used as mules and were victims of human trafficking. Under his watch. Hundreds of thousands of children got lost in the system and handed over to people who were not members of their family, who had no direct relationship with them. And these children were used in sex trafficking rings, in child labor rings, in horrific, almost slave-like conditions. And only in America, when you're a Democrat and you are in charge of that kind of horrendous criminal behavior, do you actually get promoted and elevated to become the governor of California? That's Xavier Becerra. And, of course, as a Democrat in California, he is preying on class distinction, race distinctions, ethnic distinctions. He is promising that every non-citizen and illegal alien in California will be protected by their state police and by their state bureaucracy. He's doing exactly what Gavin Newsom has done, but he's doing it with a Latino flair. Take a listen to this statement that he was giving to a Latino organization and play close attention to his use of a Latino accent when necessary. Here, take a listen. Whether you are new to our state in visiting and we hope you do spend some money, and if you're going to buy a street taco, buy a real street taco, not something from one of these.

I'll leave it at that. All I know is that there's real food in California and there are real street tacos and you don't get them in some establishment that's been around for a long time. You get it on the street from the guy who's been making it for a long time in his little cart. We're going to defend everyone from that man and woman who make that street taco to the people who we call dreamers. to the people who have been fortunate to reach a point where they represent those vendors and those dreamers and need to be supported to make the big decisions. It's that moment in the state of the union where Democrats all sat on their butts when the president said, stand up if you agree that your primary responsibility is defending the citizens of this country instead of foreigners. There he is, running for governor saying our priority is going to protect people who aren't even citizens of the state, let alone of the nation, who just crossed the border. They've been here a month, and now they're selling garbage tacos on the street corner because that's America. By the way, why is it taco? And not taco. It's just weird. There's something that's very weird about that instinct to do that. But let's be clear, I used to live in California. There are street vendors and there are street vendors. You know, if you've got a food truck, you're established. You pay certain licenses to be there. You're subject to health inspections. You probably run a clean operation. And by the way, food trucks in Southern California are so ubiquitous that if you're not good at what you're doing, you're probably going to be out of business. But that dude who can't speak English who's just standing on the corner at Sepulveda and Olympic is selling you some mystery meat inside a tortilla, don't trust that stuff. I would rather eat every last shred of lettuce at a taco bell than I would have one of those tacos. Just saying. If you're taking supplements to be healthy and stay healthy and to cure what ails you, like I do, you want to make sure that you have a supplement that you can trust and that works. Now, not everyone as lucky as I am. You might, and I'll explain to you why I'm so lucky. I'm married to Meredith. Meredith is in charge of every little supplement I put on my body. But she approves up a lot of them. She checks them out. She looks at the ingredients. She does the research. And she gave the seal of approval to Relief Factor. And I'm glad she did. Because in May, when I had sciatica, I could barely walk, let alone run, let alone train for the Marine Corps marathon this October. I started up in my doses. I started maxing on relief factor. And now I'm back on the road. I hope I can get my mileage back in time for October. you're feeling chronic aches and pains and real problems try relief factor 800 the number four relief or go to relief factor dot com oh we have so much to catch up on here this stuff happens on this program

A whole lot news happens. The president is going to choose social. And I got to think he was listening to our show. I'll give you those details in a second. Also, as I mentioned, I want to hear from you about social media and especially children. I think we all agree that young people should not be on social media or if they are on social media, it should be controlled, it should be monitored, and it should be done in such a way where parents are involved or at least there are safeguards in place for those children. We can agree on that. Now, how do we do that? In France, they just passed a law where 16 years old, if you're under 16 years old, you can't be on social media. And the way they're enforcing that is that you've got to prove your age ahead of time. You've got to register. You've got to show ID. You've got to scan a picture of your idea, all that information. There's other countries who are suggesting that they can use AI to take an image of you and estimate how old you are, which is freaking me out as well. And what do they do with that information? And it's going to be tied to your usage of the Internet. It's going to be tied to your usage on social media. Will this also infringe on people's ability to be anonymous online, which is a whole other debate that we need to have? Focus on the children right now. Do we need to have a ban here in the United States of America? There's one leading presidential candidate. Well, I don't know if he's leading. Rahm Emanuel, who will be running for the Democrats, he's already put this out there. He wants this to be the law in the United States. Is that the solution? I want to hear from you, 855784 4255. I also want to update you on a couple of items, most specifically. We had KT. McFarland on the program one hour ago. During our interview, I asked her specifically about this plan to allow Saudi Arabia to work with the United States to develop a civilian nuclear energy program. And in that interview, she said specifically that this should be contingent on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, in other words, entering into a peace treaty with Israel. Well, I kid you not. Five minutes after our interview with KT. McFarland, President Trump posted on true social that the deal for Saudi Arabia to work with the United States of America, not on enrichment, but to actually have a program that's already been enriched with uranium that's enriched by us, not by them. They won't have the means to do that. But to utilize this nuclear energy program for civilian use, they will have to join the Abraham Accords. President Trump announcing that on true social just five minutes after our interview with Katie McFarland on that very topic concluded earlier this morning. That's kind of a big deal. Also, one other quick follow-up, and then we'll get to your calls. Xavier Becerra there on his taco tirade says that you shouldn't patronize any tacos in California. by an established company that's been there for many years. Let me just tell you something. As someone who used to live in Southern California, for half of my life, I lived in Southern California. When I go back to visit my family or my friends or for work, which I will be doing in about a week or so, there are two stops that I must make. First to In-N-Out Burger, of course. And secondly, to Del Taco. For those of you who don't live in California, who don't know Del Taco.

Fantastic burritos, fantastic tacos. Great stuff. Del Taco's been around forever. By the way, owned by a California-based company. So here's the guy who wants to be governor of California, trashing businesses and corporations that employ tens of thousands because he wants to protect the illegal alien selling garbage on the street corner. And he'll probably win. All right, back to your calls now. 8557-8-8-4-4-2-55. What about a ban on anyone under 16 using social media? Or should the ban go even further than that? Anyone under 18? How about Susan in Arizona? Your first up here on O'Connor & Company. Good morning, Susan. Thanks for calling in. You're welcome. Good morning. Person who feels your calls probably told you I'm in education. Yeah. Do I think social media platforms should be banned from 16 and under? Absolutely not. I agree with you. Parents should handle that. When it comes to the school... I think the school, public schools, or any school, has the right to limit the use. It does become a distraction. And I think that's a known, you know. Absolutely. The conversation about using your smartphone or devices in the classroom or on school grounds, that's sort of a separate issue and should be taken up as well. But it's just the usage of social media. People will say, well, you know, they're getting garbage out there. They're getting influenced, and they are. But guess what? Kids can also find Charlie Kirk's content and Turning Point USA content. They can find Ben Shapiro and the stuff that Young America's Foundation is putting out on social media to appeal to high school and middle school kids. They can find good stuff out there too. And something tells me that a lot of these people who want to ban young people from accessing social media. A lot of it has to do with keeping them from accessing that kind of stuff. Right. Yes. Yeah. When you consider the countries such as France that are implementing it or trying to implement it, we know that their countries have been overrun and taken over with left-wing-minded. you know, an agenda. And that's just, this is just another way to indoctrinate our kids by controlling, not letting the parents. raise their kids, but the government. When a left-wing liberal socialist government tries to limit access to information and the free flow of information, usually it's because they want to control the information from a left-wing socialist perspective. I think that's a big part of it, too. I really do. Susan, thank you for your insights. I appreciate it.

Let's get to Nicholas in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Nicholas, thanks for calling in. You're on O'Connor & Company. What do you say? Good morning, and thank you, Larry, for taking my call. You know, this is a really, I was listening to your comments with regards to the, you know, positive information, like from Turning Poor USA and the like. But you know what? If you look at social media as a whole, it truly is mostly evil. There are some bright spots like what you mentioned. You know, Amber alerts for missing kids, I get it. But on the whole, I think it needs to be curtailed. 16 and under is a no. Parents got to be wrangled in. They've got to have skin in this game here. And, you know, suicide rates are high with kids, with girls, boys. drugs, they're buying drugs, counterfeit pills on social media. It's insidious. As is the internet, in my humble opinion, it's mostly really evil. There are some bright spots, but, you know, the cat's out of the bag. We really got to wrangle it in, though, because the kids are really being hurt more so than being helped. That's my humble opinion, Larry. And I appreciate it. It's why we asked for it, Nicholas. I do. And listen, this is one of those topics that I love because it does kind of cut across political lines. I think that all of those hazards and dangers that you raise are incredibly serious and things that parents need to be involved in regardless of whether social media or the internet is a factor in it. Ultimately, I think that if a child is susceptible to this kind of thing, there's something else broken in the home that goes well beyond whether the government lets you on to TikTok or Instagram. I agree with you 100%. You know, parents, I've got to tell you, I'm sure you agree. They've relinquished their parental duties, you know, be to the public school systems. You know, yeah, you're going on your tablet and go in the corner and shut up. It's wrong. You know, the kids have been hurt incredibly so on many, many levels. We could sit here and talk for an hour on that. Something's got to be done. Nicholas, thank you. I so appreciate you, especially the last thing you said, something's got to be done. Because I think that's what most people in our society and our culture is we're seeing this transpired before our eyes. That's what we're feeling. That's the motivating factor. We've got to do something. And oftentimes when you know that there's a problem and he's like, well, let's just do something. That's when, sadly, we succumb to turning to the government and having them just banned stuff. And I think we should be very cautious before we walk down that road. Nicholas and Scranton, thank you for that. By the way, I just want to take a moment here because...

I don't want anyone to be under the misconception that I am a perfect parent. And that in some way, I have some higher moral or intellectual or philosophical platform thus to lecture you on. Because I've spoken about this publicly before. I am far from a perfect parent. And my two oldest daughters in particular, when they were in eighth grade, ninth grade, tenth grade, That was right around the time that their mother and I got divorced. And there was a time in that process where I was no longer the same kind of hands-on dad that I hoped to be when I first brought those children into the world just because of the logistics of not living in the house with them and not having day-to-day oversight over my kids. And my greatest regret as a father. that I still regret to this day, is not having a firm hand on their access to social media and to those platforms. Now, this was 12, 13, 14 years ago, and I don't think we saw at the time exactly how dangerous and how addictive and how harmful it could be. But if I had to do it all over again, they wouldn't have smartphones. If I had to do it all over again, they wouldn't be able to access Instagram and TikTok. And while TikTok wasn't around back then, Snapchat and Tumblr. Tumblr ended up being incredibly poisonous to my two oldest daughters. Now, thank God they got through it. Thank God my other fathering skills came into play when I realized that there were issues with my kids and they're great adult children right now. So I speak about this from understanding exactly what the hazards are, what the dangers can be, and I have empathy for every parent trying to navigate this. Let's go to Christina in Arlington, Virginia, right here in our backyard, listening on WMAL. Christina, what do you think about this? Good morning. I'm an educator of almost 20 years. Our kids were raised as military brats, so they didn't come to public schooling until middle school, but they're about. But I say today, this is the same thing as public education. The influences today, you and I are lucky. My kids are in their 30s, and we're not contending with the same things that parents today do. Parents need these tools to protect our children. from 24-hour access to strangers. The addiction was obvious years ago. It's like it is now. I can't believe the governor has just, or recently, you know, had controls for devices in the school. This is the same thing. And the other thing is, if my child is on social media, threaten somebody, commits a crime, I'm responsible. I have to come to their defense. It's all on me. So I'm responsible, but I don't have the rights. I think what France has done is a start because I think maybe not denying the children. I see what you're saying, your point, but my approach is...

It should be through the parents. A child cannot go today and open their own Verizon account. You have to be an adult. Right, right. So if they're going to have a social media account, it has to be done through connection. It need to be connected to a parent's account or an adult's account that has supervision over that child and that parent can have direct access to it. It's like everything else. Yeah. You can't, you know, they're administering medicine in schools without my permission. What? I'm responsible. I have to pay the medical bills. If something happens at child, I'm responsible. Same thing. Well said, Christina. And thank you for being an educator. Thank you for being a teacher. We need more teachers like Christina. All right, more of your calls on this. How do we solve this problem? Isn't an outright ban on social media? Give us a call 855-7844-255. France has banned social media for anyone 16 and under a ton of Canadian, excuse me, European countries are looking to follow suit. Canada is also debating this right now and it will be proposed in the United States of America either on a, well, it's going to have to be on a federal level. I don't see how you can do this state. I guess he can do it state by state because there are certain states that have different laws with regard to access to pornography online as well. But this is something that parents are grappling with. And anyone who cares about our youth and the future of our country should be grappling with because social media can be a cesspool. Social media can also be great. Social media can be fantastic, in fact, it can help connect people. And let's not lose sight of the fact that a lot of the kids that we're talking about, and they are kids, and a lot of the people that we see right now who have been affected by social media, they also grew up during the pandemic. A lot of them were told that they couldn't interact or play with their friends. They couldn't go to school. They couldn't get recess. They couldn't create relationships like any normal generation before them for the last couple hundred years. Their only connection to their peers, their only way to have conversations such as it is, was through social media. And so that's why you're going to have a lot of resistance on this as well and why we should be somewhat sympathetic and compassionate to the fact that kids do see social media as an extension of themselves, extension of their personality, who they create for themselves to present themselves to the rest of the world on social media oftentimes is a very real thing. That's a problem that an age limit is not going to solve. That has to do with what your morals are, your values, what you actually elevate. in your home and in your family to be what's most important and what your priorities are. And if how you look to your friends and how you present yourself on social media and how many likes you get and how many friends you have and how many interactions you get is one of those things you value, you've got some fundamental problems that an age restriction is not going to fix. But I'm asking you, we've heard from educators, we've heard from parents, we've heard some concerned Americans. Is this a good idea for the United States, or do you see some dangers and some hazards here? 855-7-84-4-2-55. By the way, my two biggest concerns about this are number one. Anytime you give the government the right to restrict something, especially something as fundamental as speech, seeing information, or delivering information, even if it's just an age limit, you've got to be wary.

Because anytime you're giving the government permission to infringe on the First Amendment, they will take it and they will expand it. I know it's just kids, but the First Amendment is sacred. That's number one is a concern. Number two is how they verify your age because they're going to gather information about you, information that normally you wouldn't have one of you. Just understand, this affects you because when you go to use these social media platforms now, you're going to have to prove you are who you say you are, which is kind of funny considering the same people who are supporting this, don't want you to prove you are who you say you are when you go to vote. But yeah, you're going to have to use your photo ID to use X or to use Instagram or Facebook or whatever it is you're using or YouTube for that matter. And they're now going to have or someone out there somewhere because the second you put it on the Internet, someone has access to it. They're going to have access to personal information. Your driver's license or however you use to prove you are who you say you are and there are dangers inherent in that. That's why as sympathetic as I am to this idea. I'm very wary. But how about you? We're taking your calls at 855-784-4255, keeping it in Arlington, Virginia. Sarah, what do you think about this idea? France has already passed it and it's going to be proposed here in America. Yeah, hi, thanks. Yeah, I agree with what you're saying. I think it's dangerous. I think it's going to lead to censorship. And parents need to be exercising control over their kids, not the government. That's my main point. Do you worry about the fact that kids, if they're on these social media platforms, they are targets for predators. They're targets for just horrible, evil people who can be praying on them. Yeah, no, I think that's a good point. And I do remember when my daughter first got on Facebook, she got on it. And as I recall, she wasn't, they weren't supposed to be able to get on it before they were, I can't remember what the age was. I think it was 14. I think 14, if I remember right. Yeah, because when my daughters got on to FACF, it's funny because as soon as my daughters wanted to be on Facebook when they were 14, they're on 14. We get them on Facebook and then they hated Facebook because Facebook is for boomers, they told me. Right, and my daughter got on it before she was 14, I guess by simply lying about her age. I have had the question of why people are allowed to, you know, express views and stuff. you know, on social media without identifying themselves. Yeah. That has been a question in my mind, you know, because people get on there. And more often than not, I occasionally am able to have civil conversations with people online, but more often than not, it's like they're being nasty to you if you disagree with that. Yeah, you know, Sarah, thank you. That is a great point, too. And I'll just wrap it up. Thank you for the call from Arlington, Virginia.

I've been torn on this forever since I've been working on the internet full time since 2009. When I first wrote on the internet, I used an anonymous name. I used a pseudonym. I was stage right. I worked in the theater business. I was a conservative. So that was my name. It lasted about a year. But if I weren't for my ability to stay anonymous, I wouldn't have a career right now. That was my entree point. And there are a lot of great accounts on social media that I follow that are anonymous. That's great. The problem is anonymity, and I know this from personal experience, anonymity provides you the opportunity and sometimes the courage to say things, sometimes outrageous things, that you never would say if your name was associated with it. And that's something we should grapple with too. It's complex, and I'm glad we had a conversation about it today. You know, the life moves fast and staying sharp focused and clear-headed isn't always easy. And that's why the same company that brings you relief factor has developed something new. It's Think Factor. Think Factor is made to help you think clearer and perform better daily. It's a powerful blend of nutrients that unlock mental clarity and precision, nurture your memory and boost your attention. With Think Factor, brain power and performance finally meet for lasting daily results. Supercharge your memory and mental sharpness. Your brain is... is your most valuable asset, powering your creativity, focus, and daily performance. And if you're feeling mentally foggy or not recalling things as quickly as you used to, Think Factor could be just what you need to reclaim your competitive edge. I take Think Factor every morning before the program, and I notice the difference. I think you will, too. Call 800 the number four relief or visit Relieffactor.com to learn more and order Think Factor. Your first bottle? Just 1995. That's 800, the number four relief, relieffactor.com.

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