8-14-26 - *FULL SHOW* EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin; Denver Mayor Mike Johnston; the Fox's Rick Lewis on Broncos Preseason; Trump and the Kennedy Center; Flock Shock

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A few moments from the greatest movie of all time Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Right, Gina? Right. So I heard you talking earlier about spam a lot. Uh-huh. And my wife says I've seen it. Oh. She says that she and I went and saw it on Broadway in New York way back in the day. Nice. And I don't, and I don't remember. And I don't remember. Must not been pretty memorable for you. I wish I had a memory. I wish I had a memory. My goal, I have one goal today. Okay. And that is to convince you. To go watch Monty Python in the Holy Grail. It's a movie. Here's the thing. Oh, there's a thing. We saw Spam a lot earlier this week. It was amazing. We were supposed to watch Monty Python the weekend before because Kyle said, you have to see it. You're not going to get the references. If we see Spamelot and don't watch the movie. And then the weekend got hectic. There's too much going on. And we were unable to watch it. So I do have Monday off. Maybe I will try to watch it then. You have a staycation? Kind of. It's, I mean, we're heading out to the mountains. Oh, yeah, you're going to the music festival, which is why it's raining. We, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Don't remind me. Yes, it rains at every music festival that I attend nowadays. And then, yeah, we'll be heading back Monday. So maybe I'll unpack and watch it. Excellent. But Spamelot was so good. Highly recommend if you have an opportunity to see it. That'd be old this weekend. Love it. All right. That's still my goal to get you to watch that movie. Although it sounds like you're on your way already. We have lots of stuff to do on today's show. Great guests, including Rick Lewis. We've got the head of the EPA, Lee Zeldin. We've got Mayor Mike Johnston. I don't know what the silly question will be for him today. We have to work that out. You know, if you have a silly question for the mayor. You can text us at 56690 and maybe we'll ask him your silly question. One of the interesting things that's been going on in the rural or agricultural economy in Colorado is this work stoppage at this large Cargill meatpacking plant up in Fort Morgan. Cargill, if you don't know, is almost every year and currently the largest private company in... the United States of America. Maybe the largest private company in the world. Private means that its shares do not trade on a stock exchange. Public means trades on its stock exchange. Public doesn't mean owned by government. Anyway, so you can't just go trade the shares in Cargill. So they employ something on the order of 1,700 meat packers at this plant in Fort Morgan. And interestingly, they had not voted to strike. There was a little bit of unrest, some rumors like maybe they're thinking about striking. And then Cargill locked them out. So they hadn't voted to strike.

Cargill heard the rumors. Cargill says, I don't know if I believe them or not, I guess it doesn't really matter. Cargill says that they were concerned that if some workers went on strike or otherwise started behaving badly or not doing their jobs carefully, that there was risk of people getting hurt because that's a very dangerous environment. So they claim that they locked the workers out as a safety measure. Now I'm not entirely sure I buy that, but whatever it is, what it is. Now, they have been locked out at this point. For almost three months, for about 85 days. What's interesting about this story is that maybe a week and a half ago, the union and Cargill seemed to have reached an agreement. And it seemed like they were going to sign this contract and the workers would get a raise and a couple other things. I don't remember the details. They don't really matter to me. And then the people would be back to work. And then to everybody's surprise, the workers voted down the contract. They voted not to accept it, so they've stayed locked out. Now, oftentimes what happens with unions is they save up money out of dues for a period of time so that when the workers go on strike, they have a fund that they can use. to help the workers cover their basic cost of living, rent and food and things like that. It's not going to pay them a full salary, but it's going to pay them enough not to starve and not to lose their apartments or homes or whatever. But at some point, when these things go on a long time, they start running out of money, and that appears to be going on here as well. So there's a new story over at the Colorado Sun. Cargill Meat Packers and Fort Morgan expected to take another vote on contract they rejected. And what's really interesting about this, and I'll paraphrase rather than quote from it, is that. Some union leaders are saying now that what they think happened is that the union members who vote on it, almost none of whom are American, and many or most of whom don't speak English or at least not very well, did not understand what they were voting on. And many of them voted no because they just had no idea what they were voting on. And so now they're bringing translators in and explaining this stuff to them and trying to get to a to a revote maybe with some very small tinkering by the, in the negotiation between Cargill and the union. But they hope to get. back to work. Cargill is offering something like $1,250 a week versus a previous rate of $992 a week. So that's a pretty big jump. It's about a little more than a 25% jump. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. In the meantime, I don't think I've ever heard that before, though. A labor union that voted down a contract because its members literally did not understand what they were voting on. Let's hope they sort it out.

No imprints. I'm not dead. What? Nothing usually, no, Prince. I'm not dead. Yeah. He says he's not dead? Yes, he is. I'm not. He isn't? Well, he will be soon. He's very ill. I'm getting better. No, you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment. Oh, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations. I don't want to go on the car. Oh, don't be such a baby. I can't take him? I feel fine. Well, do it's a favour. I can't. Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes. He won't be long? No, I've got to go to nine today. Well, when's your next round? Thursday. You think I'll go for a walk? You're not fooling anyone, you know? Look. Please know something you can do. I feel happy. I feel happy. Thanks very much. Oh, Joel. See you fantastic. Right. The best. Absolutely the best. All right. Gina and Keenan were talking some ski stuff this morning. And I want to follow up on that with Gina a little bit. Sort of a business story. Let me start with this. The Colorado Sun has this headline, drop in winter spending, has Colorado mountain communities cutting budgets. And what I thought was interesting about this is there was a really, really big drop in the number of tourists who went. to the ski towns last year, unsurprisingly, because the snow was so bad over winter. The amount of revenue that the ski towns brought in was only down modestly. Like revenue was down maybe 5% while the number of visitors was down 20% or something like that. And part of the reason was, first, they're diversifying their economies a little bit. So it's not all about just bringing in skiers. The other thing that a lot of the ski companies have been doing is really emphasizing getting people to buy their lift tickets way in advance or buy the annual passes. And so at that point, you're kind of stuck regardless of whether the snow is great or terrible. You've paid for the ticket already and you can't do anything about it. Now, we know Gina is an epic girl. And I would, I'm curious, Gina. And we might have talked about this already. But, um, yes. Have you bought? A pass for next ski, this coming ski season already? Yeah, so while I'm epic, I think I'm in like a toxic relationship with Vail Resorts because I just have my epic pass on auto renew. Oh. So literally it could be the worst ski season in the world. And I'll be like, I'm never going back. And then I'll be like, all right, I guess I'll pay for it now. Because it is the cheapest option, like they will give you the lowest price if you set it up for auto renew. And I know that even if it's.

as terrible as the ski season as we saw this past season, I'll get my money's worth a couple visits. So I'm like, I'm always going to auto renew it for sure. That's, that's the, so approximately how much. Are these things like $1,000 or something? Yeah, it's probably around. I think it's just under $1,000. Yeah. But these days, a one-day lift ticket, if you buy it the same day is getting close to $250 or maybe even over at the top resorts, right? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. It's crazy how much they make sure that they're really good at Nicolin and Diming people that show up. just to get a lift ticket for one day while they're there. Or people that come in from out of town by a four-day pass and say, skiing's great, I want a fifth day. They're almost paying more for that than they paid for the first couple of days on their four-day pass. Right. Right. So, like you said, if you go. four or five times you've paid for the Epic Pass. Pretty much. Yeah. Noah Con at his show in Coorsfield over the weekend also called out Vail Resorts. Really? Yeah. What do you say? I can't say what he said because there was an expletive involved. But he did call them out because he's from like the New England area and he was very also very unhappy with the way that they like took over a local mountain. Yeah, they own at least one of the big ones in Vermont or New Hampshire or one of those. Killington or something like that. Yeah, he called him out too. And there was a lot of rock his applause for that. Yeah. Anyway, I just, I thought it was interesting also as a business story, right? I mean, the, the revenue in these ski towns was down, but it wasn't down nearly as much as you would have thought given how many fewer people came to town. And I think that's, that, that says good things about these, these towns figuring out ways. to make their budgets a little less dependent on people coming there and buying lift tickets the last day. So whether it's getting more people to come in the summer, whether it's getting other things going out there beyond just skiing and all that. And then also with skiing, getting people to buy the tickets ahead of time and buying the annual passes, it's all pretty clever. They're still having to cut budgets a little bit, but not as much as you might have guessed. What a strange person. Now look here, my good man. I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough whopper. I fart in your gender direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. Is there someone else? See, I get these references now. I saw spam a lot. I don't have to see Monty Python. I've already seen it, right? In reverse order, it still counts. It's still absolutely fine. So.

I want to do a quick market thing. Gina mentioned what stock index futures are doing today. And I just want to, I want to broaden it out a little bit. The stock market, considering what's going on with fears about inflation and not knowing, you know, who's going to, which party is going to take control of the House and Senate. And we're, oh, by the way, we're in a war, right? The market's been really boring. For like a few weeks now, you know, we've had a couple of big days, but basically we've just been in this range and even oil has been kind of bounded between, you know, mid-70s to low 80s. It's been really boring. And I was thinking that before the show this morning. And one of the substacks that I subscribe to, he goes by FX, which is an abbreviation in financial markets. FX is an abbreviation for foreign exchange, so meaning people who trade foreign currencies against the US dollar. But he goes by FX poet or FX. poetry. And he writes little market-related poems, which are really amusing to me. I'm a nerd. But it does go to show you that you can find a nerd absolutely anywhere, everywhere in anything, right? So as I was thinking this morning about how boring the stock market has been for the past couple weeks at least, then I get this email right when the show starts this morning. And I'm going to read it to you because I'm a nerd. Here we go. The doldrums have finally arrived as interest in markets nosedived. While stocks still creep higher, the marginal buyer is sleeping and must be revived. But it seems unlikely today is going to show us the way. I think till Kevin Warsh speaks, and that's in two weeks, excitement will be held at bay. What do you think, Gina? Pretty good poetry? It's beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. It's almost Shakespeare. All right. Anyway, I just needed to nerd. I mean, how often are you going to get financial market nerdiness to that degree? Felt like I owed that to you. I want to follow up on something that was just in Gina's newscast, this Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center thing. This bums me out. Okay, so. There's actually a law that says the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center is for John F. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a memorial to John F. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., only a memorial to John F. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and pretty much any changes to it have to be approved by Congress. So Donald Trump, who can't get out of his head, this idea that he wants his name on everything. He wants the massive ballroom. He, you know, redo the reflecting. pool which which needed it that's fine he wants to do this stupid triumphal arch you know he it's just one thing after another he's got to have his name on it just like his buildings and the trump hotel and the trump tower and the trump this and the trump that and it gets a it gets a i mean at some point you would think all right you're president of the united states you kind of made it you kind of don't need to

prove anything to anybody anymore, and you probably didn't need to before anyway. But if there's anything, maybe you could just decide to leave alone. It's the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center named for, you know, the most recent president to get assassinated by an act of Congress. So he tried to put his name on it. They put up a tarp. They put his name on it. And then a judge said, you can't do that. It takes an act of Congress to rename it, to do anything like that. So you got to take it down. So they took it down. Now, Trump has named... a board of directors for the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center. And this was before, not just now, but he named a bunch of people. I don't know who they are, but most of them are just Trump lackeys. And they're just pandering to him in a way that I got to say I don't entirely understand. Like, who are these people? And what does it say about our country that there are people who think that it's a good use of their time or taxpayer dollars or anything else to create controversies about renaming the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center? or adding to the name of the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center, the name of the guy who happens to be the current president, and also happens to have, I think, the lowest approval ratings of any president for at least a generation. And they insist on pandering to this guy's insatiable ego. So the judge said, you can't add his name. And so they had to take down this kind of sign they put there. And now what they seem to be wanting to do is to actually like carve his name into the rock. and not not renaming it. So this is how they're going to try to get around it. They're not going to rename it like the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Trump Center or something. What they're going to, what they want to do is carve into the rock an inscription that says something along the lines of that it was renovated. and rehabilitated by President Donald Trump. Like, they are just so desperate to pander to this man's ego. It's really frustrating. Aren't there any adults in Washington, D.C., who can just say to Donald Trump, like, you got your name on a lot of things. You're probably going to get your ballroom. You've got your hotels and you've got Trump Tower and you got all this stuff. The Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center is for John F. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. by an act of Congress. He also, apparently, there's a plaza there that is named for John F. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. And they're going to try to rename that for Trump as well. And again.

It sounds like I'm mostly criticizing Trump. I'm really not. I mean, I am criticizing Trump, but that's not where my focus is. My focus is, how can there be a board of directors for this organization? Like a whole bunch of people who are willing to vote to carve Donald Trump's name into a building after a federal court said, you can't change the name of the building. Just trying to find some way around it to pander to this guy who's just, he's just president. And I don't mean that sarcastically. I really, really mean it. He's just president. Presidents are around for no more than eight years as president. They're temporary. He's temporary, just like the guy before him was temporary, and just like every president before that was temporary. There's one building named for the most recently assassinated guy. How can there be a board of directors who are just so determined to put the new temporary guy's name on it? I find it really frustrating, really frustrating. One other thing I want to mention just briefly, and Gina talked about this a few times yesterday. is this new plan from ice to give their agents these electric gloves. The device is known as the glove in all capital letters, which stands for generated low output voltage emitter. And as the Associated Press says, they are normal patrol gloves until an officer presses a button to activate its electrical mode. They must be applied directly to someone's skin to produce a voltage that causes pain, which is intended to gain compliance from people who are resisting. Unlike tasers, they do not leave burn or contact marks. Now, let me just say, I can imagine a world or a scenario in which having this kind of tool would be valuable as a de-escalation tool. someone is behaving badly and you don't want to tase him or or you don't want to shoot them even with a non-lethal thing maybe you zap them with this thing which is a little less than a taser but still in the world we live in now with many of these federal agents seeming to lose control a little bit, let's say, and cause some harm and just being in a very bad place in public opinion at the moment. This just seems like kind of a dumb move as far as PR. But if I'm going to try to give them the benefit of the doubt here, maybe their thinking is, all right, we'll take the PR hit on the electric gloves. But because that's better than the PR hit that we would take if we shot somebody else. So maybe this is a good de-escalation tool. So I don't know. I do think just.

Having this pop up in the news, at the same time that we're getting news that the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution to investigating, actually eliminating ICE if Democrats get control again. It's a very interesting confluence of events. It is Arthur, King of the Britons. What is your quest? To seek the Holy Grail. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? What do you mean? An African or European swallow. I don't know that. Awesome. Who do you know, so much about Swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and Epic, when I ask Dragon to count how many locations of Rocky Mountain Men's Clinic there are. Go ahead, Dragon. One, two. Five. That's also. That's also Holy Grail. One, two, five is also Holy Grail. Yeah. Yeah, they're just so, you're just going to understand us both so much better. So much better, which I'm not sure if that's really upside for you. No. It's not. Gina, where are you going to make it rain this weekend? Oh, I am heading to Univista, which we say that place wrong. Yeah. But they wanted us. They insisted that we say it wrong. I know. Does it still bother you to say Buna Vista instead of Buena Vista? Yeah. Yeah. For the Field of Vision music festival, which is King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizards music festival. So I've heard of the band, but I don't know that I've heard their music. Can you describe their music? Yes, everything. Really? Name a genre and they do it. Okay. They are a bunch of nerds that love to play. Every album they release is a different genre. Wow. If you like a genre, you can likely find something that they've created. They're kind of in now of a... EDM-esque house music type, but they have made pop albums. They've made metal albums they've made. And that's why they're able to do every night headlining because it will sound likely like a different band every single time they're on stage. Australian. Very fun. Yeah. Wow, that sounds like fun. And the artist that played at the Ogden last night. The one on Broadway? The one on brought up. Yes. That our boss brought up when we were in our meeting that I cannot pronounce, but I call them the polka dot people. Angine de Poitrine. Nailed it. We'll be there as well, playing today. Wow. I went and listened to some of their music. But you look this stuff up, folks, Angeen, A-G-I-N-E, which actually, as I was reading about it, like came from angina, like a heart attack. And Poitrine, I don't know where that came from, but they're from Montreal, I think, Anjina Poitrine, and they wear these crazy costumes. And it's kind of, it's sort of a rock, the rock end of jazz almost, or the jazz end of rock or something. Almost no vocals, just some kinds of sounds. It's very interesting.

I like it. I don't know that I, that I, I don't know that I'd want to go to a whole concert of it. Okay. The, and I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll be the judge of that. Yeah, you will. I've never, I've never seen them live. Yeah. They wear very odd polka dot costumes. Yeah. In white and black polka dots. And, um, math rock is what math rock. People have said because just the time signatures and the things that they do, people aren't really able to like comprehend how they're really putting it together. But two people. And I actually, I want to say maybe it's a girl and a guy, but they have these giant like long nose and this really, really tall hat and things like that. So you can't really tell who they are. So after you and I and Dave were talking about this and you went on about your business and I was in the hall and Nerf came by. So Nerf is the program director for KTCL and KBCL when he's on air on KTCL. And he knows an impossibly large amount about music. And he knows this band. And we were talking about that math rock thing. And they will do these time signatures like 19, 8, you know, instead of three, you know, these crazy stuff. And. And. I assume he's right that he said one of the reasons they do, those crazy time signatures, is that they are basically impossible for AI to recreate. And if AI were to train on their music and then use that within AI's... intelligence as far as what's involved in creating music, it would wreck the music that it creates for everybody else because this kind of music is so close to impossible and can't be blended in with normal music that you would create for normal people. If that is true, if that's true, yeah. That's genius. Right. That's so cool. That was what I thought too. Wow. If it's true. Don't know if it's true, but I like this story. Let me do a quick political thing. I've talked about this a fair bit. And I want to stick with it for a minute because I think it's important. Headline over at axios.com. Older Democrats walloped by midterms anti-establishment revolt. We talked about this the other day. And this is before. I think this was before the Wisconsin thing. And I don't recall if any incumbents got knocked out in Wisconsin. But 10 members of the House have lost their primaries this year. Seven of them have been Democrats. One of them was this guy Larson from Connecticut, who I mentioned the other day, who's 78 years old. He lost to a 47-year-old. And the 47-year-old's primary campaign message was, this guy is too old. It wasn't, we differ a lot on policy. Their policies were pretty similar. And the younger guy won by a lot. Diana DeGette, who lost here was, or is, 69 years old. Malaciros, I think is 30 or 29, something like that.

A guy in Michigan, Shreith Anadar, who lost his primary is 71 years old. Another guy in New York, 71 years old. Al Green in Texas, the guy who likes to shake his stick at Donald Trump in the State of the Union. He was 78 years old. He lost to a 38-year-old. That was a somewhat different situation with redistricting. Still, this is a big thing. And I just want to make one quick point. It's a bigger problem for Democrats than for Republicans because even though there is also somewhat of an anti-incumbent mood on the Republican side, the real hardcore, intense, anti-incumbent feeling, the people who really feel like government has been letting them down is among young people and young adults. And young adults tend to lean Democrat and tend to vote. Democrat. And that's why this is a bigger problem for Democrats. And it's not going to stop this year, by the way. This is going to happen again in 2028. For sure, there will be more older Democrats who lose their seats just because they're older. We're going to do some news, weather, and traffic, and then we're going to be joined by Rick Lewis, who is color analyst for the Denver Broncos, as well as host of the morning show on the Fox. But color analyst for the Broncos, he joins us from Atlanta, where he'll be calling today's Broncos first preseason game. Hey guys, Lady Luck here. Are you going on any road trips this summer? I know I'm going to be going on a bunch of road trips. And being that I'm going to be passenger princess, I love playing on SpinQuest.com. SpinQuest has all of my favorite slot games, live blackjack, live craps. Head on over to SpinQuest right now and get yourself a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. If you run a business, you've probably heard plenty of AI promises. But here's one thing we know for sure. When consumers hear an ad for your business, 90% want to know it's a real person talking. And that's what you'll get when you advertise with iHeart. We're guaranteed human. That means real voices, real connection, and trusted audio that helps businesses drive results. Learn how easy it is to tell your story through our voices. Call 844-844-I-Hart today. That's 844-844-I-Hart. Vital doesn't always mean visible. Across America, advanced technology is working behind the scenes, strengthening our nation. It protects our war fighters, delivers mission-ready intelligence, advances life-saving healthcare, and defends the critical infrastructure that keeps our country moving. At GDIT, we power the systems that help America operate, connect, and stay secure. Every hour, every mission, every day. GDIT, behind America's invisible advantage.

Bubba Wallace here from 2311 racing. On the track, my car's look is everything. But today, I'm talking about more than just paint schemes. I'm talking about my favorite games at Chumba Casino. Check out exclusives like Stampede Fury and my own King Crock Theory. It's just as wild as my car looked in Texas. With over 200 games and new ones weekly, play for free at chumbacasino.com. Let's Chumba. Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group, voidware prohibited by law, 21 plus, terms and conditions apply. From Hotlanta, Rick Lewis. He is, of course, the morning show host on 103-5 The Fox, but not this morning. And he is color analyst for the Denver Broncos. And he, along with the other voice of the Broncos here on K-OA. Dave Logan, will be calling the game this afternoon or this evening Atlanta time. Rick, good to talk to you. How's Hotlanta treating you? Good, man. You know, I've only driven through Atlanta. This is the first time I've actually spent a night in this city, and it's a pretty cool town. I don't know if you guys have ever been here. We're in the Buckhead District. which is kind of like the, it's kind of like their Denver Tech Center. It's almost like a second downtown area. But a lot of money here, the Sacks Fifth Avenue right across the street, you know, and Gucci and Versace stores. It's pretty, pretty impressive area. And a ton of trees here. There's a fun fact for you. Atlanta has the densest urban tree coverage of any major city in the country. Trees everywhere. It's green, really thick woods all around. I love it. It's great. Can we just keep talking Atlanta fun facts? Because I'm learning so much. I was going to say you're like still 20 minutes north of the Coca-Cola Museum, which is a must-see. Yeah, at dinner last night, pretty funny. Our engineer, Jesse Trejillo, ordered a Pepsi. And the waitress looked at him like, are you kidding me? Nobody orders a Pepsi in Atlanta. Oh, my gosh. That's like walking through Denver wearing a Raiders shirt. We don't do that. Exactly. No, you just don't do that. You don't do that. All right, Rick, how are you watching this game? What are you looking for today? Well, you know, it's not a meaningless preseason game for most of these guys out there in the field tonight. They're battling for their NFL careers, hoping to put out some good tape for the rest of the lead to see and obviously make this team. But I'm going to be watching to see how efficient the offense looks under new offensive coordinator Davis Webb. Will we get the play call in early enough for the quarterback? You know, that was a big problem last year. with Bo Nix. And you can see the frustration throughout the season last year with Bo that he just couldn't get the play call in a time. I'll be looking to see if the tight ends are involved in the passing game. You know, that's been an issue for this team the past three years. We have a feeling that Davis Webb will incorporate more targets for the tight ends this season. We'll be looking for that. You know, one rookie that I'm really excited to watch tonight, rookie running back Jonah Coleman.

He's shown that he has the tools to have an impact on this running game this year and potentially a three-down back. And they certainly need one because J.K. Dobbins is great when he's healthy, but when he's not healthy, and that's just about every year, they need somebody who can pick up the slack and be a true three-down back. Jonah Coleman has that potential. Defense, there's still a couple of battles, basically, for second and third team, like inside linebacker, safety is another position where they're not really set yet for the twos and threes at those positions. We'll be watching guys like J.L. Skinner, Tason Anderson in the safety position, Karenne Reed, Rookies Red Murdoch, Toreen, York, and more at Inside Linebacker. Another one, a guy that I like out of Michigan State in his second year, he looks like he could be a player too. So, you know, it's fun to watch these guys. Most of these guys won't make the team, unfortunately. But it's always fun to watch because they're so competitive. Like I said, these guys are playing for their NFL lives tonight. Rick, I think I want to go back to the Davis Web Play Calling real quick. Curious, your thoughts on that. And A-Rod has talked about Coach Sean Payton's reference to driver's training, where it's like, okay, the instructor has the emergency break where at some point he could go, oh, okay, no, no, no, stop, stop. Do you think we're going to see any of that with Coach Payton? Yeah, and that's a great analogy that Sean Payton used. It's an analogy that pretty much everybody can understand. Yeah, he's a. He'll be standing there next to him. You know, I don't know how long of a leash he's going to give Davis Webb, but I'm assuming a pretty long leash. And especially here in preseason to kind of let him get comfortable and get his feet wet, Colin plays. But you know, Sean Payton's there if he needs him. And I'm sure Sean will have a few suggestions, at least a couple suggestions throughout the game of what maybe they should be doing here on third and long or third and short or whatever. I think it's going to be pretty tough for a guy like Sean Payton's just give up control. because he's such a control freak. That's also going to be quite interesting to watch guys. We'll see how uncomfortable Sean is giving up control. I don't know about preseason, but once we get into the regular season, I'll certainly be keeping an eye on that. All right, one more quick one for you, Rick. I saw a piece from USA Today. I don't even know how to pronounce this guy's name. But the Broncos apparently signed a guy named Lacedus. I don't know how to pronounce his first name. Smith, as a somewhat veteran, he's 20 years old, to come play center because we've been having so many injuries at center. Do you know anything about this?

No, but I'm not surprised because their top three centers are all hurt and will not play tonight. I think tonight what you're going to see is, again, Calvin Throckmorton, great name. Calvin Throckmorton is probably going to be the primary center tonight. He's normally been a rotational guard on the team, but he did start a game or two at center when he played at Oregon in college. So, believe it or not, he's the most experienced center that we have left here on this team, which is going to make it a little bit tricky. And I think that's one reason why you're not going to see Bo Nix tonight. They don't want to put Bo Nix out there with a fifth string center. I don't think that does anybody any good. I don't think it provides any real insight into how well these guys are playing because your timing is going to be off. Chemistry is going to be off. You know, the blocking schemes, all of that. So Calvin Throckmorton, I think will be the guy tonight. And there's another guy, I think his name is Galvin Ortega, who's a rookie that's been kind of rotating in as well. Probably those two guys in particular. Well, have fun tonight, Rick. You're getting into football season, which is such an exciting time for all of us, but especially for you. I mean, stupidly busy, but stupidly exciting, too. I love it, man. You guys know how much I love this. You know, I love being busy. I love doing multiple things and multitasking. Right now, I'm working on a Gillette Razor deal for you. and a shampoo and hair conditioner deal for Gina. I'm a busy guy. That's awesome. That's awesome. And among the many things that Rick will be doing will be going to the Rush concert with me in October. Rick Lewis will be calling the game with... What? Okay, cool, man. What? Bought me tickets. Yeah, yeah, we're going. We're going. You know what? I'll tell you what. How about this? How about this, dude? This ticket's going to cost me around $300, something close to $300. If you'll go with me, I'll pay for your ticket. Oh. How about that? Okay. Let me check my schedule and see what I'm doing that night. All right. I think it's a little too far down the road for me. All right. We'll sort it out. Rick Lewis joins us from Atlanta. Listen to him and Dave Logan on K-O-A this afternoon and evening for the Broncos in Atlanta. Thanks, Rick. All right, guys. Love it. Oh, knights of me, we have brought you your shrubbery. May we go now? It is a good shrubbery. I like the laurels, particularly. But there is one small problem. What is that? We are now no longer the knights who say knee. We are now the knight who say ecky, ekey, etky, etky, but tang. Therefore, we must give you a test. What is this test, O knights of knights who till recently said knee? Firstly, you must find...

Another shrub. Another shrubbery. Then when you have found the shrubbery, you must place it here beside this shrubbery. We can do this all day long. We should do this all day long. Probably be better than whatever I'm going to say. The Spamelot spoiler is I love that when they do the Knights who said neat sketch, they add a bunch of Colorado references to the new name. We are now and then they have a bunch of references. They must change it everywhere they go on tour. It was very, very fine. Really good. All right, we still have lots of stuff to do on the show today. Don't forget the 8 o'clock hour, we've got 804 Lee Zeldin, who runs the EPA, the entire Federal Environmental Protection Agency. So he's going to be on the show. And then 834, we've got Mayor Mike Johnston. We may still be seeking a silly question for him if you want to suggest. a silly question for Mike Johnston. Let me do just one or two very, very quick things here. First, I want to mention, and Gina had this in the news, Luigi Mangione, this guy who executed in cold blood, the CEO of United Health Care on the streets of Manhattan, is going to court today. And there have been rumors that he is going to change his plea to guilty in the federal case. And one of the things that's interesting about this is that the federal prosecutors are saying that there is no deal. So they're not saying they're offering him some, you know, shorter prison sentence or something like that in return for pleading guilty. If he pleads guilty, the reason would likely be that he would then use that as an argument to claim that based on double jeopardy protections. He can't be tried for the same crime in New York state court. Maybe he is trying to, well, he'll probably, he'll be in prison for the rest of his life anyway. But maybe some of the thought process by his attorneys is they've got you. you're going to be found guilty and you should probably, well, number one, maybe just try to avoid going through a whole second trial, which isn't any fun, but also maybe try to ensure that you go to a federal prison instead of a state prison because it's probably a little nicer. So I'm guessing that's what's going through their minds, but look, I'm not a lawyer. I haven't done that for a living. I'm just guessing, but still it will be rather interesting if. If Mangione pleads guilty. The other thing I wanted to mention quickly, on this day in 1945, the Japanese surrendered to the United States, essentially marking the end of World War II. Now, we had previously what was called VE Day, Victory in Europe Day. This then became known as VJ Day, victory in Japan or victory over Japan day.

It's not, we don't actually celebrate it on August 14th, even though it's the day that the surrender was announced. We celebrate it to the extent that anyone thinks about it anymore on September 2nd, which was when the formal surrender occurred on the battleship, the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay in Japan. So, in a, this is. Kind of VJ Day in the sense that this is the day that Japan, that the surrender of Japan was announced in the United States. So we won that one, and let's hope we never have to fight another one like that again. You know what? It sucks to be bored. But when I get on my phone and play real casino games on SpinQuest.com, the time flies by. That two-hour wait at the DMV seems like 10 minutes. Play your favorite slots. Live blackjack, live prep, with a live dealer. New players, $30 coin packs are on sale for $10.00. Play SpinQuest.com and you'll never be bored again. SpenQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit spendquest.com for more details. When it comes to your business, great promotions should do more than just get your name out there. They should drive action. And that's exactly what your business will get from a partnership with IHeart Media. Imagine your business connecting with music fans and future customers through sweepstakes, ticket giveaways, listener contesting, and local media. Attach your business to high-energy music moments built to help grow awareness, engagements, and leaves. Getting started is easy. Learn how today at iHeartadvertising.com. That's IHeart Advertising. Thank you.com. Vital doesn't always mean visible. Across America, advanced technology is working behind the scenes, strengthening our nation. It protects our warfighters, advances life-saving health care, combat cyber threats, and defends the critical infrastructure that keeps our country moving. At GDIT, we power the systems that help America operate, connect, and stay secure. Every hour, every mission, every day. GDIT, behind America's invisible advantage. Hey, this is Ryan Sechrest here, and I have discovered a fun to escape from the daily grind Chumba Casino. Chumba Casino has hundreds of social casino-style games as all free to play anytime, anywhere, with daily bonuses. So get to chumbacasino.com. No purchase necessary. VGW. Boy, we're prohibited by law. See terms and conditions, 21 plus. And the Lord spake, saying, first shall thou take out the holy pin. Then shall thou count to three. No more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count. and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shall thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number be reached, then lobbies thou thy holy hand grenade of Antioch towards thy fail. Who being naughty in my sight? Jail Snuffet? No, man. Amen. Wait, can you keep going? Or does it, does the clip stop there? That is the end of the clip there. Okay. Because right there, then we get one of the examples of King Arthur, who's supposed to count, like, we just got the instructions. And he counts one, two, five. Just immediately after B's old, five is right out. Gene, I want to share this with you.

This is probably an old joke, but I haven't heard it before. Okay. But I thought you'd like it. Okay. Because I like it. My wife, this is from listener Mark, my wife and I were crossing Southern Colorado en route to visit my sister-in-law in Delores. We were debating the correct pronunciation, Buena Vista or Buena Vista. Mm-hmm. To resolve the issue, we agreed that we would stop at the first retail outlet when we pulled into the town and asked the clerk. Several minutes later, we arrived, we pulled up. I went in first. I asked the clerk to wait for my wife to come in and then to slowly say the name of the place, clearly, so that we both hear the same answer. He looked bewildered, but he agreed. A few moments later, my wife walked in. Honey, are you ready? Here's the answer, I said. Then I said to the clerk, okay, my friend. Say the name of where we are, but say it slowly. So finally we're going to get the answer. And the clerk looks at us and says, Texaco. Fool. It's a terrible joke. Isn't that great? Isn't that great? I just, I love that joke. I assume it's a joke. I can't imagine that's a true story. I assume it's a joke that many people have used in other contexts. So, so there's that. Can I ask you a gun question? Because we have a text or asking. Oh, I'll try. Okay. So we have that story about a what they call a live bullet that was found on a United Flight that stopped that flight from Denver to San Diego. What is a live bullet? Okay. So this will be the different. This will be a kind of thing where serious gun nerds will differ from just the way normal people talk about things. Right. So if you are a. a real gun person and you want to talk with precision about things. The bullet is just the piece of lead or copper coated lead or whatever it might be, the actual projectile that comes out of the gun when you pull the trigger, right? So the entire cartridge that has the brass case and the powder in it and then the bullet on the end. But in ordinary conversation, People will use the term bullet to mean cartridge, to mean the whole thing. So in that case, when someone says a live bullet, they mean a cartridge that still has the powder in it and that could be fired if it were put into a firearm capable of firing that size cartridge. With multiple? Multiple what? Like when it says live bullet, does that mean there's multiple? Bullets? No. Or there's still just one? They're just one. Okay. It's just the whole thing, though. Got it's the whole brass. You know, people use the terms interchangeably. A hardcore gun person would only talk about bullet as the lead or copper coated lead or whatever at the end. But most people will use the term bullet to mean the whole cartridge, the thing that you would put in the gun, you'd pull the trigger.

And the bullet would come out the end and the brass would stay. Because back in May, we also had a story of a officer that was on a frontier flight who left their gun magazine. Right. Right. So the magazine holds the cartridges. Right. The cartridge has the bullet on the end. But a lot of people use bullet and cartridge interchangeably. Ah, okay. Okay. And I'm guessing I'm, so I don't know whether that listener, whether that's kind of a someone who just really trying to get clarification or whether that's. A hardcore gun person trying to say you shouldn't call it a live bullet because there's really no such thing as a live bullet. Yeah. So they said specifically, was it a bullet as your news stated or a round of ammunition? Yeah, you could call it around. You call it a round of ammunition. They said they're not the same thing. They're not. They're not. But in most people's minds, unless you're really into guns, they would be the same. But if you're really into guns, they're not. If you're really into guns, the bullet is just a piece of lead at the end. And there's no such thing as a live one. Got it. Right? It's just a piece of lead. Okay. Make sense? So I would call it a round of ammunition or a cartridge or something, but I do think 99% of people will understand if you say a live bullet. And it's just the hardcore gun people will say don't talk about it that way. Got it. Okay. Okay. Yep. All right. Thanks. Sure. Sure. All right. Let me do this story. This is kind of interesting. This is a press release from. the Department of Justice, or actually more specifically from USCIS, so citizenship and immigration services, so the agency that has ICE and stuff like that. So they indicted 11 people, I think it was yesterday, two days ago, two days ago, they indicted 11 people for running this massive marriage fraud ring. And so what they would do is they would arrange Basically fake marriages, fake in the sense of these people had no real relationship. They would go through usually with some kind of marriage ceremony and get a marriage certificate, but everything else about it was fake. And they would take pictures to pretend they had a relationship and they would open joint bank accounts and they would get insurance policies together. But the only reason that this quote unquote marriage happened was that. People wanted to become American citizens or green card holders at least. Most of the customers apparently were from China. They would pay tens of thousands of dollars up to $100,000 per sham marriage. They would get married to an American who got $10,000, $30,000 for participating in the sham marriage. This apparently has been going on for about 10 years.

Most of the people running it were Chinese or Chinese Americans and a few who weren't. And these people now have been indicted. The USCIS thinks that the folks who were running this sham marriage scam for the better part of a decade made millions of dollars doing this. And I'm glad they caught him. I'm glad they stopped them. We need to keep finding more of these people doing this stuff. This is not what our immigration system is for. I'm very glad they've been caught. I'm very glad they've been stopped. I assume that there are plenty of other groups doing this exact same thing. And I'm glad to see that the U.S. government is on the case. So, yeah. Pretty big arrest. That is a good thing. All right, Gina's got a couple of school stories for us. Let's do some of that news updating right now. Guards, make sure the prince doesn't leave this room until I come and get him. Not to leave the room, even if you come and get him. No, no, until I come and get him. Until you come and get him, we're not to enter the room. No, look, no. You stay in the room and make sure he doesn't leave. And you'll come and get him. Right. We don't need to do anything apart from just stop him entering the room. No, not. Leave in the room. Leave in the room, yes. All right? All right. Oh, if, if, uh, if we, uh, if we, oh, look, it's quite simple. Uh, you just stay here. I'll make sure he doesn't leave the room. All right? Oh, I remember. Uh, can he leave the room with us? No, no, no, you just keep him in here. I'll make sure. Oh, yes, we'll keep him in here, obviously. But if he had to leave and we were with him. Just keep him in here until you or anyone else. Not anyone else. Just me. Just you. Get back. Get back. I love that the other guard keeps hiccuping the whole time. How many times have you watched it that you can recite it word for word? 20-ish. All right. It is my favorite movie of all time. It really is. I truly love it. Okay. So I want to run this story by you, Gina. I think this story is really interesting. And I actually think it makes sense. It's just one study. And with any one study, you know, you got to be careful to see if they can, if they can replicate it. But. The headline is why improv theater may be the social skill booster anxious teens need. And they went through, I forget where this study was, they would think it was in Europe some more. Yeah, in Switzerland. And they had a bunch of students. And they tested them for levels of anxiety and the ones who were kind of anxious, they divided them into some groups. One of them was improv theater. Then they did a meditation group and they did a social and emotional board game group. And then they did as kind of a control group, computer-based office skills. And what they found was those first three ones kind of helped some, but the one that really helped a lot was improv. And I...

I like it. I mean, I'm not giving you a ton of information here, but here, I'll just read this. Let me find this here. Researchers, no, no, that's not the part I want to read. Improvisation theater produced two gains that neither mindfulness nor board games matched, a better ability to understand another person's point of view, and a stronger willingness to work with others. Both are foundational social skills and both showed up across improv participants, no matter how anxious these students were going in. So, I mean, I've got, you don't have kids yet, and I don't know if you ever will, but these days, young people, And I mean younger than you, it just seems like they're on their screens all the time. My younger kid actually said to me that he doesn't feel very confident having face-to-face conversations with people, even though he's actually fairly good at it. So I don't know, I saw this study and I really like it. You got thoughts? Yeah, it's an interesting one. I mean, I would definitely pick the meditation group over the improv theater group, even just saying if you told me I had to do improv theater right now, that gives me anxiety just thinking about it. So that was a little outgoing. Like I almost want to see like what would they have done if it was a co-ed sport, you know, like a non high stakes co-ed sport or something that still involves collaboration, but not something that truly is that. out there because introverts not even people that have problems socializing but introverts might be like improv theater really no that's not that's not me but um i think it is a good it's interesting to see it because you're totally right i mean the younger generation you want to ask anybody who just ask them if they pick up a phone not text you pick up a phone and call someone And that was just very eye-opening for me to be, oh, no, no, no, no, I could just look up the restaurant and see if they're open. No, no, no, call them. See if you can place the order. See if you can book a table. No, no, no, I could just do it on my, you know, they have the website. It's just, it's really interesting to see any opportunity to avoid, even if it's not face-to-face interaction, but any communication nowadays. I once heard a comedian say. that a phone is a rarely used app on somebody's phone. Yeah. Which I think is such a great, an absolutely great line. I like this. I agree with you completely that if you were an anxious person to begin with, being put into improv would scare the bejesus out of you. Right. But I can also imagine that that would be one of the best things you could do, even for someone who isn't anxious, just the skills. I kind of wish I had done it.

You know, I was pretty shy as a kid. Yeah. You know? I remember going into college. I wanted to join a theater group because I did a lot of stage managing behind scenes in high school. Right. And then I realized that this theater group was all theater kids and you had to do improv and a bunch of other things in this theater group. And I went, no, thank you. Because I wanted to still be a part of it, but I wanted to be the behind the scenes part of it and not on stage and doing things like that. Yeah. That's scary. So let me just ask you, listening to the show, have you done improv? Would you have your kids do improv? Any thoughts at all about doing him? Not going to improv. Thoughts about doing improv. Would you do improv? Or does it sound scary? I will say, you know, both... Both Gina and I talk for a living, and we're talking to thousands of people right now, but we don't think about it that way because we're just sitting in this room looking at each other, looking at producer dragon, and it doesn't feel like that. And in fact, when I'm thinking about doing radio, the way I think about it as if I'm talking to one person, not like I'm talking to lots of people. I feel like I'm having a conversation with you. But anyway, my point is, even though it probably seems like Gina and I are both doing this thing that is. kind of sort of extroverted, both of us would be a little nervous at the prospect of having to go do improv. But I think it would be great. I don't think I'd be very good at it, actually. I don't think I'd be very good at it. But who knows, maybe I'm selling myself short. So this next hour is absolutely jam-packed. And the first guest coming up in just a few minutes is the head of the federal EPA, Lee Zeldin. Keep it here on K. Hey guys, Lady Luck here. Are you going on any road trips this summer? I know I'm going to be going on a bunch of road trips. And being that I'm going to be passenger princess, I love playing on SpinQuest.com. SpinQuest has all of my favorite slot games, live blackjack, live craps. Head on over to SpinQuest right now and get yourself a $30 coin pack for just $10.00. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. If you run a business, you know the value of trust. It's what keeps your customers coming back. And it's what you get when you advertise with IHeart. More than 75% of listeners consider iHeart hosts their friends and trust their recommendations. Now take that trusted influence and combine it with iHeart's massive reach and scale, and you've got the formula for growing your business. Learn how easy it is to tell your story through our voices. Call 844-844-I-Hart today. That's 844-844-I-Hart. Vital doesn't always mean visible. Across America, advanced technology is working behind the scenes, strengthening our nation. It protects our war fighters, delivers mission-ready intelligence, advances life-saving healthcare, and defends the critical infrastructure that keeps our country moving. At GDIT, we power the systems that help America operate, connect, and stay secure. Every hour, every mission, every day. GDIT, behind America's invisible advantage.

Tyler Reddick here from 2311 racing. The rush of racing, nothing beats it. But Chumba Casino comes close. Chumba's got fast spins, fun games, daily bonuses, and all the action you can handle. Now that's a run. Ready to hit the throttle? Get in the driver's seat and head to chumbacasino.com. Let's Chumba. Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group, voidware prohibited by law, 21 plus, terms and conditions apply. I'm incredibly excited for this conversation, my first time ever speaking with Lee Zeldin, who's done many things politically, but now he is the administrator, which means the head honcho of the Environmental Protection Agency. They've done some enormous things. We have a lot to talk about with endangerment findings and on and on and on. There's so many things. It's hard to know where to start. But Lee, first, good morning. And thanks for joining us on K-O-A. It's good to talk with you for the first time. Same here. It's great to be with you. Okay, so with all these various things we need to talk about, I got to start with this question. If you poured yourself a bowl of raisin brand and got to the refrigerator and there was no milk in the refrigerator, what other thing, if anything, would you put on your raisin brand? I mean, that's the only liquid that would work for me. I can't think of any other liquid that goes with the raisin brand. And I'd reluctantly, I mean, I wouldn't let it go to waste. You know, I'd eat it dry if I had to, but wouldn't be too thrilled about it. All right. Gina can't believe I asked you that question to start. She's just shaking. You just can't believe it. Okay, let me ask you a... The other huge question, I was so happy because I'm a nerd and I follow these things with what you guys did regarding the endangerment finding. And I have a feeling most people don't even know what that is. Can you please explain briefly because we'll only have about seven or eight minutes, but what that is and what you did and why it's so important? In 2009, the Obama EPA signed off on this endangerment finding, saying that greenhouse gas emissions, carbon dioxide, when mixed with a bunch of other well-mixed gases, greenhouse gases. that it contributes to global climate change, and that global climate change endangers public health and welfare. And therefore, the short version of it, all these many years later, would be the argument that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, and we have to regulate the heck out of it, and it's bad. The consequence was trillions of dollars. worth of regulations on mobile sources, on stationary sources, targeting oil and gas, airplanes, you name it. It was the target of trillions of regulations, dollars of regulations that followed. So this past February, we finalized the decision to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding all of the greenhouse gas emission standards on light, medium, and heavy duty vehicles that followed, as well as all off-cycle credits.

including the one, the federal incentive that was given to car manufacturers to make your vehicle die at every red light and stop sign the start stop feature. We got rid of that climate participation trophy to boot is the largest active deregulation in the history of the United States. I do hate the start stop feature. I always press that button to turn it off when I'm driving my vehicle all the time. I am curious of how you find the balance between deregulation, cutting programs, attempting to save Americans money, but also focusing on those health and environmental concerns that a lot of Americans have. We believe strongly that we can protect the environment and grow the economy that is not a binary choice or we have to pick one or the other. We want to fulfill all of our statutory obligations and we want to apply the best reading, the single best reading of the law. My message to members of Congress who may disagree with something that I do is I encourage them to change the law because I'll follow whatever the law says. And in the case of the endangerment finding, as an example, what you had in this country for a long time was something called the Chevron deference doctrine. The EPA administrator, for example, would have the ability to look at federal law and say, well, this law doesn't say I can't, so therefore it must mean that I can. The Supreme Court in recent years, in the case of Loper Bright, overturned the Chevron deference doctrine. and requires us to apply the single best reading of the law. And in this case, Section 202 of the Clean Air Act doesn't say anything about EPA having the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emission standards to combat global climate change. At the same time as we're seeking that balance, we also have proudly been, and every day we work on it, Notching important environmental wins. For example, on the one year anniversary of President Trump's term in office, we released a list of 500 environmental actions that we had taken in the first year. We've continued to put out further announcements of other environmental winds. So we believe you can pursue cleaner, safer, healthier land, air, and water, while also helping to unleash energy dominance, apply common sense. follow the law and heed that economic demand that we've heard from so many Americans during that election in November of 2024 and also since. We're talking with Lee Zeldin, administrator of the EPA. Lee, give me some quick answers on a few things. We've got about four minutes left. A couple of my friends, I told him I was talking to you today and I'm talking about the endangerment finding. A few of my smart friends, one of whom I mentioned to you off the air, had the same question. Do you have any concern that eliminating the endangerment finding through an act of your agency versus an act of Congress leaves it in a position where the next...

Liberal administration can just put it back. No, as I just referenced it with Loper Bright, which was a change that wasn't around when the endangerment finding was first put forth in 2009. Every law that is out there has a single best reading. That is an objective standard. And when I said nothing in Section 202 of the Clean Air Act says anything about combat and global climate change, until you change the law, you cannot. have these greenhouse gas emission standards on light, medium and heavy duty vehicles to combat global climate change. So this doesn't require a change of law in order to be able to make the decision that we did this past February. We were actually simply applying the law and no longer taking that discretion of trying to read between the lines, giving ourselves discretion the law didn't give us. So let's just say in a future election, someone was elected where the pendulum was to swing and it was... you know, President, you know, Zohran Mamdani or whatever, you know, running, picking their person to run the EPA, they couldn't just bring back the endangerment finding at that point. Because regardless of whoever's in, whoever is the president, whoever is in charge of EPA, the Clean Air Act says what the Clean Air Act says. And it does not authorize EPA to be slapping all of these trillions of dollars of regulations to combat global climate change. And the other Supreme Court case, by the way, there's a principle called the major questions doctrine, West Virginia versus EPA, other cases, is that when you want to impose trillions of dollars of regulation. You can't just as a member of Congress, when you lack the will and courage to get something passed into law, just call your friend down the street who's running an agency and say, hey, do it anyway. That's what happened in the past. But the Supreme Court said no more that it requires a debate and a vote. It requires congressional authorization before you're imposing such expensive regulations on the American economy and the American people. Only about a minute, but I do want to get your take on AI data centers. Obviously a very hot topic. Here in Colorado, we have some places that are creating moratoriums, other places that are giving tax rebates. Even a recent story out of Texas claims that the Amazon new AI data center will become the largest single source of pollution in the United States. So EPA's position on where we stand with data centers and how do you feel about the communities who are concerned about some of the energy demands or some of the environmental impacts?

Most Americans want to make sure that the United States wins this AI race. They have concerns about these data centers, and they ask questions that they're right to ask about. I view this with three prongs. One, and the president's ratepayer protection pledge gets at this. It's important when these projects are built. If there's any movement on anyone's energy bills, those bills should go down, not up. That's prong one. Prong two, as you talk about the energy needs, it's important that these projects are a net giver onto the grid, not a net taker. So the behind-the-meter work generating their own energy, that's important. And on the waterfront, It's important that they are engaged in water reuse. If you use a closed loop data center, it's 100% recyclable. That is the more responsible way of utilizing water. So asking those questions in these local communities all across the country are it's important. The idea of just doing a moratorium and saying, hey, China, you win. You could just build all the data centers where you are. We give up. That's something that's really hard to try to catch up if it may be impossible later down the road. So asking the questions are good. There's a big range of data centers from the good to the bad. And the reality is that these data centers can and are. I've been to groundbreakings across the country where energy bills are going down, the projects and net give her onto the grid, and they're using 100% recyclable water. They're checking all the boxes in the local community's thrilled to have the billions of dollar investment in all the jobs that come with it. That's why there are a bunch of communities that are absolutely embracing it. There are great projects that should be held up as the model of how to do it. Lee, give me just the very quickest answer you can on this, because we're at an enormous station, and because of the reach, there's a lot of truck drivers listening to us and farmers as well. So can you just very briefly talk about this DEF thing and the deratements and what you did there, which is a huge benefit to those people listening right now? Yeah, diesel exhaust fluid deratements is probably the number one issue that I heard about when I was traveling to all 50 states after I was sworn in as EPA administrator. We have a proposal out right now to permanently eliminate all diesel exhaust fluid deratements altogether. That means, you know, for that farmer with a tractor that stopped four times during harvest in the last year, no longer would they have to worry about that with their equipment. We heard from the haul truckers in Alaska. all across the entire country. We already last August significantly reversed the diesel exhaust fluid death deratements, but now we're proposing to get rid of it all together and we're coming out of a public comment period right now from that proposal. I love that you're doing that and I think the many, many farmers and truckers who'd be listening to us on our 50,000-watt signal right now are cheering as I hear you say it. Lee Zeldin is administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Great to talk to you for the first time. Keep up the good work. Thanks for being here.

Thank you. Great to talk to you. You too. All right. That was great. So good to talk with him for the first time. There are lots and lots and lots more issues, but we got to what we could after I wasted some of his time asking about dry cereal. We're going to do a little news update here with Gina and we got weekend events and we got the mayor. Still got a lot to do this hour. Keep it here on K-OA. Gina's got a news update for us right now. Weekend events taking place in and around the Denver area for what will be likely a... Cooler, rainy weekend. But for all the art lovers, the 36th annual Golden Fine Art Festival will be running tomorrow and Sunday at Parfit Park in Golden. It's a juried art show that will have art life, performances, beer, and wine gardens, as well as food vendors, 100 artists selected to showcase and sell their works. That will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. this weekend. You don't have to go all the way to Palisate to enjoy Colorado Peaches. Here's Kayways, Carrie Mack. Enjoy a peach pie, peach cobbler, or even a peach beer and peach margarita at tomorrow's Fort Susan Collins Peach Festival. There's also live music, food trucks, and craft brewers. It takes place tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Civic Center Park. Entry is $10 for adults, kids 12 and under, or free. Learn more at Fort Susan Collins Peach Festival. Fort Susan Collins also hosting its Comic-Con weekend. That runs today through Sunday at the Fort Susan Collins Senior Center featuring plenty of artists, writers, creators, and vendors. Cash in at the Colorado Money Show this weekend. Coin collectors can buy, sell, and trade with over 60 dealers and 100 tables of United States collector coins, currency, world coins, gold and silver at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Golden. Free admission, free parking, doors open at 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. today. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow, but one hour early bird entry can be purchased for 10 bucks at the door. Littleton's Western Welcome Week continues through Sunday. The 98-year tradition features a grand parade at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning through downtown Littleton. You'll also find arts and crafts, a kid's zone, and carnival games. August 19th, Mark's National Aviation Day, but Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum is celebrating early. Here's K.O.A's Mindy Stone. Their National Aviation Day event features special activities, including open cockpits, science demos, crafts, talks from the curator and volunteers, kids' zone, and pedal planes. You can also get a close look inside select aircraft at the museum and learn all about the history of the aircraft. and controls. The celebration is tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Grand Lake getting into the Colorado Western spirit with the 79th annual Buffalo days that running today through Sunday. The Denver Parade of Homes continues this weekend. K-O. Sam Speck. It's the largest showcase of the latest in home design along the front range. And it runs through Sunday, August 23rd. You can take a tour of newly designed model and custom homes located in neighborhoods throughout the Denver area. You'll see unique homes and floor plans, beautiful communities, the latest in interior design trends and home technology. You may also get some new ideas about landscaping. The parade has expanded into winter park with new mountain homes. There are a ton of run and walks to support local organizations this weekend.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving has its move with Mad Northern Colorado Walk tomorrow at Boardwalk Community Park at Windsor Lake in Windsor. The event brings together victims, survivors, families, first responders, and community partners to remember those impacted by impaired driving while also raising funds to support Matt's free victim services program. Registration opens at 7 a.m. tomorrow, ceremony at 8, and the walk at 8.30. And the Cancer League of Colorado... presents its 30th annual Race for Research, that taking place on Sunday, the 5K run walk at Denver's Wash Park. The Cancer League of Colorado is an all-volunteer nonprofit dedicated to funding cancer research in Colorado. You can register at raceforresearch.com. Of course, the musical comedy spam a lot back in Colorado for a two-week engagement at the Buell Theater. In sports, it's time to go bananas at Coorsfields because the Savannah bananas are here. They're going to be taking on the Indianapolis clowns today and tomorrow. And the type of baseball is certainly unique. Dance routines, acrobatics, and fan participation all sprinkled in. And plenty of concerts. Zach Bryan has one more show tonight and in Powerfield and Mile High. Tickets Available through Ticketmaster. Mount Joy has another show at Red Rocks tonight before their show at Fiddlers tomorrow. LCD sound system has two shows at Red Rocks tomorrow night. And at the mission, ISOXO tonight. Holvey is at the Ogden tomorrow night. As always, you can let us know what you have going on this weekend by texting us. I appreciate those who have been sending me weekend events by emailing me at Epic. At iHeartmedia.com, we spotlight weekend events twice on Fridays. Once in the 5 o'clock hour on Colorado's morning news. Once at 817 here, Ross Kaminsky on the news with Tina Kotek. Now stand aside, worthy adversary. Tis but a scratch. A scratch? Your arms off. No, it isn't. But what's that then? I've heard worse. You liar. Come on, you, pansy.

We can do this all day long, but we probably won't. We are joined as most Fridays by Denver Mayor Mike Johnson. First, did we wake you up? You got me? Are you there, Mike? I got here. All right. Did we wake you up or were you awake already? That was awake already. Okay, I have a question that's going to sound totally out of context, but you probably just heard the sound that we played. So here's your wacky question. And it's a very difficult question, so it's okay if you don't know the answer. If Gina weighs the same as a duck, what would that mean? That she's part duck? I don't know. Okay. It would mean that she's made of wood and therefore a witch. Oh, I should have thought about it. You should have. I never suspected that about Gina, so I didn't go immediately to the witch explanation. No, no. I know you're a Monty Python guy, but that was a hard one. All right, I actually want Gina to ask the first question, because if she's going to ask the one that I think she's going to ask, it's a thing that's been a pet peeve of hers for quite some time. And it seems like it's a pet peeve of yours now, too, Mike. Mr. Mayor, these scooters, what is what is going on here? Now we heard that. There's the possibility of VO breaching its contract because the E-bites, e-scooters still all over the place, no proper docking areas. Are we planning on anything being done in the time being or is it just waiting until VO? I think they said it could be until later this year until they have all the infrastructure ready in order to properly dock these scooters. Yeah, it's really frustrating. It's not just a breach of the contract, it's a breach of the city ordinance. And we established a new ordinance in the city that required that any new scooter contract would not allow scooters to ride on sidewalks. And so that's a breach of city ordinance. It's not something they're going to be able to do and keep doing. And so we're... We're in conversations about them, but if they're in breach of city ordinance, then there are consequences, their fines, their requirements to change the policy and the technology. And so we've currently told them it has to get better. That didn't work. And so we're going to have to take more aggressive strategies to make sure they comply with the law. And we're looking at that now and we'll have an answer in the days to come. I don't know if you would answer this question. You can just tell me you can't talk about it. But are you already in conversations with the previous providers in case VO can't comply?

We haven't done that. I think our belief is that they should be able to comply, but the idea is they're going to have to comply. They're going to have to face consequences because we're not going to keep saying, please. They're going to have to do what they committed to do and do what the law requires, or they have to take the consequences to the law requires, which is to start paying daily fines for the failure to comply. So we're going to try to make sure they get this fixed quickly. Yeah, if there's a situation where... They couldn't meet the terms of the contract ever. We know there are plenty of other providers who would love to provide here in Denver, but we think they still are the best partner. You know, these scooters we have now are much safer. They're more stable, less risk of accidents. They've have great commitment to community benefits. So there are real reasons why. We selected them, but one of the reasons why we selected them was that they had the technology to make sure we didn't have scooters on sidewalks. Okay, let's stop appropriately. Let's switch gears for a second here. What's the limiting principle regarding your lawsuit against tobacco companies for paying? for cigarette butt litter. And by which I mean, why wouldn't you then just go sue water companies and, you know, water bottle companies and Coca-Cola and Budweiser and Starbucks and everybody else that makes a product that ends up in the gutter or on the sidewalk or whatever? Yeah, in this case, there are two issues about this. One is that the cigarette companies made two deliberate choices in the 50s when they started manufacturing these filters. The first was that they knew the filters had no actual health benefits, but made them anyways, knowing they would be a huge problem for cities in the second. is that they had an option to make them biodegradable knowing they would be often littered or non-biodegradable, and they chose the non-biodegradable option as a way to save costs for them, but to drive up massive costs for cities. So right now about... 25% of all litter that we collect as waste cleaning up along the streets are filters. And so it is a disproportionate impact on cities, and about 65% of all of these costs get handed on to cities. They're not run by the state government, not by the federal government at all comes to us. And so just a huge impact on taxpayers by corporations that knew exactly what those costs would be, and we're happy to pass them on to taxpayers. We don't think that's a fair resolution to that on something that they knew. they could have handled directly themselves. And so I think that that's the reason why we think that it was clearly fixable. That's the reason why they knew the cost and they handed them on to us directly. And that's...

not different than some of the decisions they made about health impacts than they passed on directly where we've seen successful lawsuits. So I think that's why it's a unique circumstance. That's why we think they owe us a chance to make that right. 20% sounds like a pretty large number when it comes to these filters and the littering. But I am curious of your thoughts of the tobacco companies saying, well, it's the smokers who are responsible. I mean, how many people are actually fined or caught littering with cigarette butts in the city? Not often, because as you can imagine, the likelihood you have an officer standing by someone when they're on a cigarette break and where they decided to dispose that cigarette is pretty low, but we're looking at more what the structural decisions are made. As you can imagine, right, if it's still, it's a going to partly still be on fire when you're done smoking it. And so the ability for it to be thrown into a trash receptacle with other things that are paper-based, you know, has potential fire arrest or others. And so we think in part... smokers have responded to the fact that there could be different risks if they threw that into a trash can, and that they're generally, you can't smoke inside, so you have to be outside. So a lot of the conditions have made it likely that that's what people will do, and we think they clearly know that's what people do. They've been doing it for 50 years and have not changed their practices. All right. Let's talk about something different. You've had a vision, a plan for rehabilitating downtown 16th Street Mall, which we just call 16th Street now and other things. And I saw a piece of this that I think is kind of part of your plan. And I'd like you to elaborate on a little bit. And that is... See you buying Independence Plaza. I saw a piece over at the Denver Business Journal that they actually bought it for a couple million dollars less than expected. And it was something like a fifth or a sixth of the price that the building previously traded at, which is kind of remarkable as well. But tell us a little bit about the importance of this transaction from your perspective. Yeah, the reason why we're so excited about this is this means thousands of students on 16th Street every single day. And so that's Independence Plaza. It's one of the key anchors of 16th Street that we really wanted to activate. We were working on this site for two years. And that's 600,000 square feet of empty office space that are now going to acquire and fill. What we love about it is, you know, we have a focus on residential downtown, converting more apartments. We got exciting new retail places. But one fun, great addition to 16th Street is having, you know, thousands of students there every day that are using that building. And so we're thrilled about having them as a partner, you know, one of the only cities with a major research institution like that in the middle of downtown. So huge win-win for us, and we're delighted that we were able to land to see you as the partner there. And real quick, I know that Denver selected a search firm to conduct the global search as we're looking for the next CEO of the Denver International Airport. I'm curious if you have a short list of names or people that you already have in mind as maybe some good options. I know we still have some time as the search continues, but maybe on your preference if there's anybody that you're looking at.

I mean, we've gotten multiple handwritten letters in crayon suggesting Ross as the applicant. Those are from me. Yeah, yeah, that was good. No, we don't. You know, I say that to me this search feels like, you know, being the president of the Broncos looking for a coach or being the athlete director of Alabama looking for a coach. Denver is such an amazing airport. It's one of the busiest ones in the world. People love to live in Colorado. We know this is going to be a hugely sought after role, and we know it's really consequential for us. It's the largest economic driver for the state. And so we want to make sure we get the best candidate, wherever they might be coming from. And so this allows us to make sure we can search far and wide for whoever might be the very best pick for us, but we are excited to see who will show up on our applicant list. Well, if you get stuck and you need someone, I might be willing to apply, but only if you promise I can meet the lizard people. You'll have to have weekly check-ins with them. That's part of the job. It's part of the job. It's not in the contracts. Denver Mir, Mike Johnston, always such a good sport. Thanks so much. Have a wonderful weekend, Mike. Appreciate it. You're a vet, y'all. Thanks for having me. Okay. He really is a good sport all the time. You know what? It sucks to be bored. But when I get on my phone and play real casino games on SpinQuest.com, the time flies by. That two-hour wait at the DMV seems like 10 minutes. Play your favorite slots. Live blackjack, live craps with a live dealer. New players, $30 coin packs are on sale for $10.00. Play SpinQuest.com and you'll never be bored again. SpenQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit spendquest.com for more details. If you run a business, you've probably heard plenty of AI promises. But here's one thing we know for sure. When consumers hear an ad for your business, 90% want to know it's a real person talking. And that's what you'll get when you advertise with iHeart. We are guaranteed human. That means real voices, real connection, and trusted audio that helps businesses drive results. Learn how easy it is to tell your story through our voices today at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. Vital doesn't always mean visible. Across America, advanced technology is working behind the scenes, strengthening our nation. It protects our war fighters, delivers mission-ready intelligence, advances life-saving healthcare, and defends the critical infrastructure that keeps our country moving. At GDIT, we power the systems that help America operate, connect, and stay secure. Every hour, every mission, every day. GDIT, behind America's invisible advantage. Hey, it's Ryan Sechrist here. And if you're looking for some serious fun, head over to chumbacasino.com. At Chumba Casino, you can play all your favorite social casino style games for free anytime, anywhere. It's the most fun you can have on your phone or computer. No purchase necessary. VGW. Boy, we're prohibited by law. See terms and conditions. 21 plus.