WBAP Friday Morning News 8.14.26 6am

News Talk 820, WBAP. And now, new on FM at 93. Last month, President Trump played a little shell game when he was departing Turkey among our top stories. A lot of folks are now pushing back on media spin on that little shell game he played on getting on Air Force One being taken off on the other side in a catering truck and put on another plane because they believed there was a missile threat against Air Force One. Buzz Patterson, his lieutenant colonel, he's retired now, but he used to carry the nuclear football for President Clinton. He said, we did this multiple times when President Clinton, when I was with him. This is not unusual for a president to do that. Here's what he had to say. I was the military aid, the Air Force military aid for President Bill Clinton for two years, and I was intimately involved in these programs. It's alarming to me that... when people like my ex boss, Bill Clinton did it, and we did it a few times for exactly the same reasons. There was no outrage. And then when President Trump does it, for all the right reasons, there's outrage. So yeah, a lot of what is being spouted on social media and in our mainstream media is factually incorrect. And it's actually troubling because it's going to endanger not only President Trump, but future presidents to come. I hope that they prosecute this to the fullest because whoever leaked that, in my opinion, and having been involved in this, was highly placed in that process. There's only a few people who actually know exactly what's going down, and that's by design. So if somebody leaked it, it was somebody involved in the process, and that scares the hell out of me. You know where all this leads to? It's the press. The press's feelings were hurt because they weren't included and didn't know what was going on. But no one told us. But no one told us we were doing that. Yes, it's the media. Yeah. That's all it is, is the media. Well, I thought he very politely said, shut up, dummies. It was a very nice way to say that. He did not use those words, but yes. And one of the questions asked of him the other day was, well, how come it was unsafe for you, but it was safe for the press? Yeah, but my response, I don't know that I could have held back, you know, but just the look on Trump's face. Are you kidding? Exactly, exactly. I would have snapped back without thinking about it, and I would have said, nobody cares about you. Yeah, exactly. You know? You know, Russia doesn't go on high military alert if something happens to you. Now, the leaker that did that, what do they should they do with him? He's out. He's out. But to do that, I would consider that being not, what's an unpatriotic? What's the word I'm looking for? A treason. Yeah. Well, he definitely leaked state secrets, so yeah, there's definitely a problem there. And this makes no difference if it's Trump or Obama or whoever it is. You don't do that to presidents. No. And that's horrible. And the people that are bad are the media because we didn't know. Yeah.

Well, there's, you know, there's all this pushback on Air Force One because President Trump accepted that plane. Exactly, yeah. And flew it. And they said, well, you can't get everybody, this is the part that just makes me crazy because nobody will report it correctly. They say President Trump's, they gave him a plane a 740. Why don't they report to give him a plane? No, they did. The United States government's a plane. Now, people are going to say, well, but he's going to put it in his library. Well, so what? Who cares? He's not flying on it. Yeah, I know. But I do have to agree with that. He shouldn't go into his own personal library. You know, Air Force One is in Reagan's library. Yeah, but they quit using that one. Well, they're not using this one. This, the one that he got from, was it a cutter? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're not going to be using this one. It's not equipped yet. So, I mean, he flew it a couple of times, but it'll just go in the library. If they turn it into a restaurant. I like that idea. I like that idea. I like that idea. Yeah. The flying wing. Yeah. And it's a wing play. Soul plane. Get snoop dog come in and sell soul food. I like it all the time. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. See, we're solution people here. Thank you very much. Call me when you need me. Coming up at 617, how is the grid going to hold up during this heat wave we're having? David Holt is the president of Consumer Energy Alliance, and he is here to tell us if the grid is going to hold up during this tropical heat wave that we're having. It's a heat wave, David, a tropical heat wave. It sure is. I mean, we keep setting records for energy use, for sure. Brad is setting records for length of his weather forecast with nothing going on exactly. So, yeah, it's a miracle. Now, is the grid hanging on here? Because I remember the governor said he kind of staked this political future on it that we would never have a 2021 with hot or cold weather again. Well, you know, I think we're right on the edge. It's the Texas is growing so fast. Demand is growing so fast. All the data centers, industrial growth, manufacturing growth. You know, ERCOT, which is the grid manager for the state of Texas, is predicting record demand growth. We've never seen something like this in the state of Texas. So. Just last week, we set another all-time record for energy use in the state. We're probably going to beat that record here with the new heat wave. We need transmission. We need polls. We need more interconnection to bring the energy to the markets where all the growth is occurring, Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, all the metro areas. It's really going to be about getting things built as quickly as we can, and that begins for electricity. It's going to be a lot of the transmission we need. We've done a great job. The governor's right. They've done a really good job of adding more energy, but we need to connect that energy now, and that's transmission lines and things like that. But natural gas, wind and solar are the dominant energy resources in Texas. Nuclear is on the horizon. Nuclear will be a big part of it going forward.

But right now it's a transmission problem. We've got to build out the infrastructure. You know, David, we've got our own grid here in Texas because we in Texas, as my teacher used to say, don't share with others very well. But I would think that while that can be a great thing for Texas, could it potentially work against us as well? You know, my teacher used to say it's because Texas is the best. That's right. You know, you went to the wrong school. Well, you know, it's the only school it would take me, David, okay? It's a, it's a blessing and a curse. You know, Urquot is, I think, doing a really good job of now thinking forward, managing these issues. They've come out. If you get on the ERCOT website, ERC-C-O-T, you can see a lot of their projections in the forecast. So they're. They're trying to predict as best they can based on what growth is going to look like. And it's eye-opening. We've never seen a growth forecast like this in the state of Texas. This is probably going to be historic, the biggest growth in the history of electricity for the state of Texas. And we're seeing similar growth all around the country. So it's about managing that, getting ahead of it, making sure that we have enough natural gas, natural gas pipelines for electricity. We've got to have transmission lines, high voltage transmission lines. Really, that's the issue. I think ERCOT has predicted it pretty well. They've sent their warnings to the Texas legislature, to the governor, others. Right now, it's about getting the permits issued. finding the spots to build these transmission lines and having the political wherewithal to get it done. All right. And bringing the communities along. We got to let communities know what's going on. David Holt is the president of consumer energy alliance. The president. We don't talk to vice presidents here or general managers. We go right to the top. We go to the top. What would you do if your online store converted 36% more shoppers? You could take 36% more vacation. Another pinacolada? Yes, please. Open a new retail location. With 36% more square feet. Fantastic. Hire 36% more help. You're hired and you're hired. Shopify has the world's best converting checkout up to 36% better than other e-commerce platforms. What you do with those extra sales is up to you. Switch to Shopify today at Shopify.com slash listen and get a $1.5.com. The U.S. Soccer podcast. These players are... battered and exhausted, but you don't hurt like this if you don't care about this team, about this country, about this game. I think you can feel the intensity, the goals, the energy that, wow, look at us. Here in the U.S., I have got some news for you. There's so much more to come. My name is Megan Klingberg, and we're just getting started. The U.S. Soccer Podcast, presented by Henkel. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. David is with us. I want to ask you this. I'm not forced shutting down downtowns at night or anything. Everything needs to be lit up a little bit. What if the entire state? Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, all the big ones, just cut back on power at night a little bit. You still want things lit up somewhat for safety reasons and everything. But could the state save a tremendous amount of money if it wasn't so lit up?

You know, it's difficult to do that in a kind of a system-wide basis because, you know, you've got manufacturing, you have industrial processes, you have other things that are running at night. From a consumer standpoint, you know, cutting back a little bit on our home use would save us all a little bit of money. You know, that's something, you know, individual home use, making sure your windows aren't leaking. Oh, yeah, yeah. Things like that, you could save individual money. Shutting down different parts of the system like that, it gets real hard to do. You've got electrons going in a lot of different directions. It becomes you risk, you know, power outages if you're trying to ramp up and ramp down a little bit too much like that. So it's a really good idea, but harder to do in practicality. Now, when you said electrons going in different directions, you went way over my head there. I'll leave that up to Marty and earn it. Stay off the cellular level with hell. Okay. David, let me ask you this. Now, the governor said the other day that the idea of all the data centers coming to Texas is going to be very, very difficult. It's going to need four times more generation than we've ever generated at one particular time. Are there plans to create that much generation for these new data centers if they, in fact, are built? You know, there are. They're talking about a lot of different ways to do it. Some of the data centers would like their own kind of mini microgrid that just powers that data center. A lot of these data centers need 24-7. uninterrupted power. So they cannot have a power outage for any reason. And there's a lot of great technology, a lot of great reasons for all the data centers to come here in the state. I think the legislature is very excited about it. The governor I think was probably right to set just a little bit of a pause here to say, you know, guys, we got to do a better job of communicating to the communities. There's been a lot of questions among the communities where these data centers are going in about. water usage and the price of electricity, noise, things like that. To me, the benefits of the data centers, telemedicine, better logistics, improved farming, all the things that we all kind of need. We're all in an information society. So we probably need to do a little bit better job with communicating and make sure everyone understands all the benefits, including tax benefits, including national security, all these things. So I think that's why the governor set that. Let's take a beat. Let's making sure we're all on the same page. But the bottom line, gentlemen, is we need the data centers. It's a great opportunity for Texas. It's bringing jobs. It's bringing growth, bringing more money for the economy. This is David Holtz. He is the president of Consumer Energy Alliance on the Clarity Windows and Doors Newsline. David, thank you so much for your time this morning. We'll definitely have you back. Appreciate it. Coming up at 637, getting a school voucher in Texas is one thing. Using it is another.

News Talk 820, WBAP. And now, new on FM at 933. Among our top stories, more than 20,000 students in Texas have returned their school vouchers, over two-thirds previously enrolled in public schools. Now, this is something actually we talked about it quite a bit when they were talking about the voucher program. I thought I had read this wrong. No, you read it right, but this is something that we had a long discussion about one morning. We talked about the fact that just because you get a voucher for a certain amount of money. does not mean that you have enough money now to go to a private school. Oh, no. Because tuition could be much more than that. And the private school doesn't have to accept it. That's right. That's true, too. And that's exactly what's happening with a lot of students, is getting the voucher was one thing. 122,000 students have gotten vouchers, but using it is a little bit more difficult than I think some people realize. Do you think the state counted on that when this whole thing started? Probably. I think they did too. They had to know that was going to happen. 100%. They had to know some of that money was going to come back. But then what do they do with the money that goes back? Does it go to another kid? Good question. I don't know. I don't know what happens for the money when they bring it back. I would assume that they would put it back in the program. So if they get a voucher, if they get a voucher, they can't use it. To stay in the school they're in? Or to move to a different public school or whatever it may take. They might be able to move to a different public school, but I don't know. I don't remember all the ins and outs because there are a lot of ends and outs. So in other words, they didn't write the parents or the family or whatever. They just didn't mail them a check. I guess not because if they had them. I don't know. I see that's the thing is I don't know how the whole process I'll tell you who knows we should bring him in at some point is Jay Clayton Neville yeah yeah he's actually his kids are on him yeah he's got two or three kids that are on him yeah He probably knows better than I do, but there's so many little subtle nuances to the program, and I don't know what all of them are, but I think you can... So if you don't, the story is basically saying if you don't use it, you lose it. Yes, I believe that's correct. Well, bottom line is the students who return their vouchers, they're looking at the statistics on this, 28% white, 26% black, 25% Hispanic. and those who confirm their participation, 40% white, 13.6% black and 28.2% Hispanic. Bottom line is these are given out usually in basis of needs, disabled kids first and foremost. But trying to find a new place for the student has been challenging for many. So they've been giving them back simply because they haven't been able to find the place they wanted to go. So it sounds like people just put in for the vouchers before they even really had a plan as to where they wanted to send the kids. They just wanted to get their kid out of here and try to get him out of here, but I don't know where I want to put them.

Which is probably something you want to think about before you put it into the voucher. Maybe they didn't know. They just couldn't get them in. Yeah. That's a possibility too. But that's a parent should be thinking that way. What can I do? What can I do to get my kid in a better situation? Yeah. If you're going to do a voucher program, you have to offer enough money that will be taken by virtually anybody, you know, especially public. But you have to offer enough money, and this is a kind of a partial payment. Public schools, you live in a district, though, and it's very hard to, you can do it, but you have to apply to switch districts because you don't like the school you're in. I want to move to this school. Districts are doing this now. Yes, they are. Yes, they are. You know, Frisco, I have been reading, has been getting a lot of applications from people who were in D-I-SD or in other schools, and they just want to. They think that this is going to be a better deal for them, and they bring their voucher money there. Schools within the same district. Kids are wanting to switch schools in the same district, too. I mean, you know, that's true. Yeah, you just, I don't like North Carlin. I want to go to South Carolina. Yeah, that kind of thing. Well, it's interesting. I wonder if that's going to change the way they administer the program in the future. I would think so. I would think they're going to have to do some tweaks anyway moving forward. I mean, this is the first year they've done it. So you would definitely expect some things to change moving forward. And that's probably one of them is let's look at... how we're, you know, how we're actually getting this money out. And maybe we should tell people, hey, before you come and apply. This year has divided the teachers and the governor a lot. I don't know if that changes any. I wonder if the teachers are not saying, see, we told you it wouldn't work. Oh, I'm sure they are. I think it's working. I just think that there's, I mean, you're talking about what 20% of the people are giving their vouchers back. Start your day with the morning jolt of Drake C. Toll. See, now it's on demand. My podcast is kind of a radio thing, I think, but also it's a bit of a TV show, and it's about whatever I want it to be. It's listening live as it happened, when it happened, with the instant reaction. Your home for talking sports. We go back, the Drake Toll Show, Westwood One Sports Network, and there will be on demand on your radio. Anywhere in the country, I'll see you. Westwood One Sports Talk. Your home for Drake C. Toll. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. I think that's not a bad percentage. Okay. Think about how many people put in for those vouchers to begin with. I mean, wasn't it a couple hundred thousand that were basically vying for a fraction of those positions? Just wanting the scraps. Yeah, exactly. I remember I was living in Seattle, and Seattle School District was just a horrible school. One of the worst in the country. I can imagine. And they built a brand new school.

Brand new state-of-the-art school. First school they had built in 100 years. I mean, these buildings were ancient, decrepit. They were terrible. Yeah. And I think the numbers, the news story, the breathless reporting was something along the lines of 90% of students applied to get into that school. That's how much. Really? I mean, the entire district said, get me the hell out of this hellhole and let me go to the new place. I want to go to the new place. Yeah. Carla will be back on Monday, is my understanding. I haven't talked to her this week, which is weird. I haven't heard hide nor hair from her. Usually it's every single day. She wants to share a recipe or something. I say, I don't cook. She used to just call you and just go, what are you doing? Yeah. So, what are you doing? See, they're laying on the floor, you know, the record player in the background. You hang up. No, you hang up. No, you hang up. You know. Twirling the phone course. All right. Now, Plano is considering a special election, which is the best kind, by the way. Uh-huh. To vote on a package of taxes to fund a potential new arena for the Dallas Stars, including a motor vehicle rental tax, hotel occupancy tax, event parking tax, admissions tax, venue facility use tax, and a tax tax tax. And thumb tax as well. I'd vote knowing all of it. Yeah. This is where you stick the tourist. And because Plano is known for their tourism, the proposed taxes would include... You never leave. Well, that's true. I do live there. I drive all the tourists to wait. Professional teams. Take the Lakers just yesterday or two days ago. $12 billion. Why do they need the public's help? No, this is your deal. You've got the stars. I don't know what the stars are worth, but you're on your own here. We'll pay the price to come watch a game, but don't tax us so you can move. Am I wrong? This has been the argument about building arenas for sports franchises for years. It worked for Jerry Jay Jones. It worked for Jerry Jay Jones. And it has worked out great for Arlington. So, you know, I'm probably wrong about what I'm saying. I don't want my taxes raise so I could. No, you're not wrong. We're not playing what you're wasn't. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. That was uncalled for. I know it was. I apologize. I thought it was funny. If you go back to when they were building the American Airlines Center. Yes. Yeah. And Ross Perot Jr. was kind of the lead guy on that. Yes, he was. This was before Mark Cuban entered the picture. But I remember taking calls, we were talking about this on the air, and I remember people saying, I don't want to give any tax money to a guy with the last name of Perrault. They've got plenty of money. Yeah, exactly. They can afford their own arena. Well, you know, people are probably going to say the same thing about the Adelson's who owe the Mavericks now. They're loaded. Yeah, because they don't just own the Mavericks. Yeah, they're doing just fine, thank you. But Plano would probably look at this. I think cities look at this and say this is an asset for the city. That's what they do. They're not listening to us. They're wanting the best for the city. And the best for the city is going to bring in more tax revenue. And I will simply point out that Arlington seems to be doing fine. Thank you. Without it with.

out and it's worked out for arlington both with the uh the globe life field and with at t and with the original uh ranger stadium that they're all paid off so therefore what i said just now forget it just yeah just play like i didn't say any of that all right so yeah You know what you should have done? Remember how you got and you said it's 647 and that's all I have to say? Yeah. That's where we should have left. We should have left it there. Right there. Yeah. Before how noticed we were on the air? Boy, how can you just talk yourself out of something you just said within two minutes? How the red light means we're on the air. It does, doesn't it? Yeah. This is, no, actually how you bring up a very valid point because people have been struggling with this for a long time when I was living in San Diego. The Chargers left because the people of San Diego voted down a new stadium multiple times. You got the money, build your own damn stadium. Well, they left. And they said, nope, we're not going to do it. See you. But if you're the mayor of Arlington. Your decisions aren't based upon the guy next door's taxes. Your decision is what's best for Arlington. Yeah, for the entire city. And I think that's what Plano is going to have to figure out. Plano is going to do the same thing. I mean, this is not going to be a 99-1 vote. I mean, you know what I'm saying? If it goes to the voters, it's probably going to be split. I'm really curious how that's going to play out. I am too. I can't wait to see it playing out. Yeah. I'm really, I can't, I couldn't tell you which way it would go. I can't either. All right, Hal's Got Gas is on the way. That's grammatically incorrect, but we give you the information anyway. 6.53, it brings us to Hal's got gas in which Hal will take the time to tell you where you can buy the cheapest gas in DFW. You darn right. And none of it's cheap. No. Is it? No. It didn't seem like it. It's all relatively speaking, isn't it? It is. And it's not changing is what bothers me because now we're at all three stations I monitor driving in. 385 a gallon. I paid $3.85 yesterday. I paid $3.85 this morning, $3.85 and then $3.85, and there was a $3.65 that was $3.85 yesterday. I don't have no idea why it went down $0.20, but the other one went up $0. Don't hate me. Okay. What did you do? Oh, you went to Costco. He went to Costco. I was Costco Southly. Yes. Okay. 317. 317. That's great. That's not great. It's not fair. It's terrible. Because in South Lake, they could afford $10.17 cents. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Would it cause a ripple. But anyway, 317 to Costco. Well, you had, but you have to pay for the Costco membership, so you need to apply that as to what you're saving on the Costco. 65 bucks. You're going to save that. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Hal, I'm on the inflation calculator here. Okay.

We paid $1.50 a gallon back in 1990. That is $3.83. This is going to surprise. I know where are you going with this. We are paying 1990 prices for gasoline right now when you count in inflation. That's where I went. See. Ernie, people are going to just beat the hell out. You keep doing that kind of stuff. Starting in this room. Because that way makes too much sense. Remember, guys, we're also getting 1990 wages. That's true. Yeah, that's true. That's a problem. There's a 62-cent price spread in Dallas and Dallas County, 323 to 385 being reported at the GasBuddy app, Fort Worth. Let's see, Fort Worth and Tarrant County. Looks like there's an even bigger spread. As soon as it stops from buffering, here we go. 307 to 385, a 78 cent price spread to Tarrant and Fort Worth. All right, but Brad's got the secret. Go to Costco. Yeah, go to Costco. Sign up, go to Costco, yeah. If you haven't signed up yet. Was there a big line? There's always a line. They've expanded their gas pumps. They used to have, I think, just two rows. Now they have four rows with three pumps in each row. They've got a dozen pumps. You didn't answer the question. They do get you in and out of there pretty quick, though. No, I... Yeah, I wanted to park in the shade. So I didn't go to the end pump. I'll confess that. Brad, these questions are going to get a lot harder as the only goes on. He seems to be not wanting to answer the question. They didn't have any more. They would have a study for the 755 quiz. This was midday. All the cars were at pump. Okay, good. Very good. Thank you, sir. There you are. All right. Coming up at 707, Road Rage on I-20 takes a life. The U.S. Soccer Podcast. These players are battered and exhausted, but you don't hurt like this if you don't care about this team, about this country, about this game. You can feel the intensity, the goals, the energy that, wow, look at us. Here in the U.S., I have got some news for you. There's so much more to come. My name is Megan Klingberg, and we're just getting started. The U.S. Soccer Podcast, presented by Henkel. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.