Latest / 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary / Dems Take Aim at Gunmakers Over the Cost of Gun Violence

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Dems Take Aim at Gunmakers Over the Cost of Gun Violence · 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Grab a stool next to Greg Karambas of Radio America
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: and Jim Garrity of National Review.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Three martinis coming up.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: So glad to have you with us for the Wednesday
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: edition of the Three Martini Lunch. Jim Garrity is away
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: here in his place. Scott Bertram, who is the general
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: manager of WRFH, Radio Free Hillsdale on the campus of
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Hillsdale College, 101.7 on the dial if you're near there.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: He also lectures in journalism at Hillsdale, directs the Hillsdale
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: College Podcast Network and hosts many of them of the
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: podcasts on that network, including the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Scott,
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: great to have you back.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Greg, good to be here.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Now, just like Jim wanted to talk Jets on Monday,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Scott would love to be talking about the White Sox
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: hanging on by their fingernails to first place in the
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: American League Central or the Bears racking up 59 points
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: on Sunday, which I would also love to talk about
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: as well. But we do have intervening business. And let's
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: start with whether Americans are valuing the First Amendment or not.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: The Pew Research Center, through the Pew Knight Initiative, finds
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: that Americans broadly value press freedom, but many are open
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: to certain limits on it. It says most Americans, meaning 73%,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: say press freedom is extremely or very important to the
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: well-being of society. However, when asked to prioritize press freedom
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: or accuracy, 53% say preventing inaccurate reporting is is more
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: important even if it limits press freedom. So the actual numbers,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: is press freedom highly important to society? 73% say extremely
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: or very. 18% say somewhat. I love to talk to
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: those people. And 8% just say no, no, not at all.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: And then whether they support limits to press freedom in
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: some cases. 45% say for the press to be free
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: to report news even if some reporting is inaccurate. And
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: then 53% to prevent inaccurate reporting even if it limits
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: press freedom. And Scott, this is a huge debate going
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: on over in Europe right now, just at the EU,
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: the Chancellor of Germany, whose name is Friedrich Merz, but
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: I just call him Fred Merz because, you know, from
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: I Love Lucy. But he's far less smart than the
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: guy from I Love Lucy. But I mean, he's basically
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: out there saying, I don't know, we love press freedom.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: We love freedom of speech. But, you know, it's more
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: important that people don't get inaccurate speech or inaccurate information.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: And so it's really important. In fact, that's even more important.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: He says we must protect citizens from false information, from
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: personal put-downs even, and from discrimination. So you can see
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: how some, especially on the left, are trying to water
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: this down between the absolute freedom in the First Amendment
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: and what they want to see in the press, I think.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: It's a bit of a mess, Greg, because... People from
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: both sides, both perspectives, have different reasons to sort of
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: answer in the affirmative for restrictions. On the left, people
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: see social media and people see inaccurate information and misinformation
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: and say, well, we've got to clamp down. We've got
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: to restrict who can tell American citizens what's going on.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: And on the right, people see mainstream media outlets and
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: institutional bias and say, well, it'd be good if we
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: could stop them from being so biased and have other
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: things maybe spring up. And so it's an odd question
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: to ask because people from both sides have different reasons
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: for their particular answers. I thought inside this concern about
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: 44% of Americans think the press has become less free
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: during the second Trump administration. less free after an Obama
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: administration that did more than almost any other administration to
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: clamp down on the press between prosecuting Stephen Kim, between
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: seizing phone records for the Associated Press, going after both
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: James Risen and James Rosen. If you're James out there,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: be very careful in the Obama years. And what we've
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: seen mostly under Trump is just a lot of noise
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: and back and forth and yelling and Trump saying he
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: doesn't like certain people and that's not necessarily the press
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: becoming less free. What we've seen is more people reporting
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: more news. We've seen the White House press briefing room
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: being opened up to new and different voices. So I
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: think we've seen a lot of the opposite of that.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I think we've seen a lot more press get involved.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: But again, that's where the left isn't happy. The left
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: would say, well, that's too many people, too many voices.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Are they trained journalists? Are they really journalists? Dick Durbin said,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: a senator from Illinois, hasn't been talked about recently, but
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: for many years he pushed this idea that journalists needed
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to be licensed. You had to have a license to
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: be a journalist under... this plan that Dick Durbin had
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: thought up. And there was some support for it out there. Again,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I haven't heard about it for a number of years
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: at this point. So the left, a lot of times,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: want to restrict only professional, only the people we trust
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: will tell our side of the story, essentially get these
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: licenses to be journalists. And I also thought interesting in
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: here was a number who say that news organizations are
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: influenced a great deal by government officials and political interest.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: That was 49%. California, I believe, is about to start,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: if I recall the story correctly, and Illinois already is
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: doing this, which is literally subsidizing journalists in the state
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: through tax incentives for local news organizations to either hire
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: or retain journalists in what they call news deserts. Now,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: food deserts, that was big for a time, and now
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: even the New Yorker says there's no such thing as
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: food deserts. It's a myth. But now we have news deserts,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: where there's Apparently, no one reporting on anything, even though,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: as we've talked about, there are more people reporting on
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: more stuff than probably ever in the history of mankind.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: It's out there. It's everywhere. It's on YouTube. It's on TikTok, unfortunately, too.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: But when California and Illinois now are literally sending state
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: taxpayer money to news organizations, well, yeah, then you might say, well,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: will they continue to cover the government fairly? They're getting
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: money from the government to report. Do they want that
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: money to stop in some way, shape, or form? So
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: that's only injecting the further possibility of more government interference
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: in the way news is covered in at least those
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: two states.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, who says there is an objective to
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: begin with? But that's where this runs into a huge problem.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: And we saw this during the Biden administration with the temporary,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: it wasn't designed to be temporary, but the disinformation governance board, remember,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: that they had going on there briefly until so much
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: pressure came on, they shut it down. where basically they
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: were going to decide what was true and what was false.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: So who gets to decide what's false? Who gets to
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: decide what's inaccurate or what's discriminatory or that sort of thing?
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: It's always going to be, you know, the government gatekeepers.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: And more often than not, it's going to be people
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: in various agencies, whether it's a Republican or a Democrat
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: in charge. You got these lifelong bureaucrats. The Democrats are
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: going to clamp down probably more than Republicans. And if
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: we didn't have this broad diversity of journalism right now,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: just think of the stories that wouldn't be discussed at
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: all much less discussed in a way that leaves it
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: up to the viewer or the reader to decide what's
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: true and what's false looking at the evidence provided by
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: the different ways the story is covered. Now, I wish
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: people were more objective and they were looking for ways
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: to make sure that all the information got out there
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: on both sides of an issue, but We don't have
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of that anymore, so that means we have
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: to be more discerning, but the answer is always more,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: not less.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: And as Jim, I'm sure, is well aware, the stories
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: that are inaccurate today can all of a sudden be
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: accurate tomorrow, thinking about COVID coverage from some years ago,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: and particularly things that Jim had written about. But now
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: we know We're completely accurate. And so, yes, who says
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: it's inaccurate and what are the parameters used to determine
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: the inaccuracy? You're never going to have a great answer
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: for those two questions.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Now, and then, you know, Chancellor Mertz here says we
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: need to protect citizens from personal put-downs. Scott, I personally
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: take that as an assault directly on Gen X. I mean,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: if we didn't have personal put-downs, I mean, half of
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: our discussions each day would go away. That's very sad.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: You know, that's actually a lot of talk about equal
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: time these days. And well before this discussion about equal
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: time entered the picture, my favorite day of the year
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: in my classes was teaching about the Fairness Doctrine, which
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: is no longer in effect, and equal time, which is
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: still in effect. And now there's all sorts of real-world examples,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: so it's fantastic. You will hear people saying, we've got
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, too, which is different
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: from equal time, different discussion, different day. But one of
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the provisions inside the Fairness Doctrine originally was if— You
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: were a news organization. You were not a news organization.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: You were, you know, a licensed radio station or a
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: TV station. And someone on your station said something bad,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: was critical of a public figure, a politician. You had
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: to go to that public figure and tell them, we
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: need to give you a chance to respond to this
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: thing that someone said on our airwaves. So, again, it's
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: another reason why bringing back the Fairness Doctrine to non-starter
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: and also why it was such, there was such a
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: paucity of political power ideas, coverage, things being discussed in
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: real ways when it was in effect.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: And props to President Reagan for scrapping the Fairness Doctrine,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: which opened the gates to Rush Limbaugh and the era
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: of talk radio and so many other things. The left,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: of course, hates that, which is why people like Dennis
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Kucinich are constantly trying to bring the Fairness Doctrine back.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: But what it really brought was diversity of opinion and
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: not just being spoon-fed or force-fed what the New York Times,
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: the Washington Post, and the major TV networks wanted you
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: to to know about, so the diversity of stories, the
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: diversity of opinions, it's all for the good. Now, there's
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: a lot of poor journalism out there, but it's, again,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: up to us to separate fact from fiction. All right,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: let's talk about your home, and you've got folks, just
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: like we talked about yesterday, Troy Jackson, Mamdani, saying that
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: maybe the state should just take it over if you're
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: charging too much rent, in their opinion, but for the
• 9:50
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• 10:02
  Speaker 2: whatever it is. And when that happens, and of course,
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• 10:07
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• 10:11
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• 10:24
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• 10:27
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• 10:28
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• 10:31
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• 10:48
  Speaker 2: All right, Scott, on to your home state of Illinois,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: which of course is always pursuing far left legislation because
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: the Democrats control everything. And the Chicago Sun-Times reporting a
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: first of its kind state law would force gun manufacturers
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: to pay for a portion of the financial toll of
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: gun violence in Illinois. Gun violence costs the state about
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: $ 20 billion annually, according to estimates based on data from
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That figure
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: includes direct costs like emergency services, medical care, law enforcement resources,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: and funeral expenses. It also includes indirect costs like mental
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: health treatment, loss of income, and childcare. This bill is
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: the RIFLE Act, the Responsibility in Firearms Legislation. They couldn't
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: come up with an E word, so RIFLE is misspelled
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: in this acronym. Everybody's got to have an acronym now.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Plus legislation and act are the same thing. But anyway,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: the argument here is that from the sponsor is, well,
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: when cars are defective and they lead to accidents, they
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: can get sued. When pharmaceutical companies have a bad product
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: and people die, they can get sued. Same thing should
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: go for guns and Scott, I'm listening to this and
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: I'm like, well, the guns aren't malfunctioning. They're just in
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: the hands of evil people. So I'm not sure the
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: logic coming here. But of course, it's much easier to
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: sue gun companies than it is to crack down on
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: crime in Chicago and elsewhere in the state.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Sure. And look, Illinois is broke. Illinois has no money.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Illinois wants to have money to spend on these far
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: left daydreams of both Governor J.B. Pritzker and the legislators
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: in Springfield. So just take this as the equivalent of
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: that guy in the corner saying, with the pencil and
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the cup, trying to find some money from some sucker
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: somewhere who's going to help him out, or a nice
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: slip and fall lawsuit. Oh, goodness, it was icy, and
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: it's your fault, and you've got to pay me because
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I need money. This is what Illinois is doing with
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: ideas like this. You rightly point out, you know, when
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: a car is defective, the automaker pays. Sure, but that's
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: not the comparison to make here. Because the gun is
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: not defective. The person using the gun is defective in
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: these situations. And so this, you know, we don't ask
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: automakers to pay when cars are used in terror attacks.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Like in Michigan, where I live now, we had the
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: attack on Jewish school children where the guy took his
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: car and rammed it into the building back in March.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: This Hezbollah terror attack, Hezbollah connected terror attack. No one's saying, well,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the car manufacturer should pay. No, because the guy was defective.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: The terrorist decided to use the product in a way
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: that was not designed to be used. You don't design
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: a car just so it can be ran into a
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: building to try to kill Jewish children. Later in the story, Greg,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: this is my favorite part, and it sometimes, of course,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: buries it way at the end. The law would require
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: the state's law enforcement agencies to provide the Illinois State
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Police with the name and manufacturer of firearms recovered from shootings,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: which would include homicides, suicides, non-fatal injuries, and unintentional shootings.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: So we're not talking about only murders. We're not talking
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: about only suicides. any shooting where a gun is recovered
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: would be added to the list. And then the gun
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: maker would make an annual payment to the state treasury
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: fund to support victims and violence prevention efforts. The amount
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: a manufacturer pays is proportionate to how many of its
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: guns are tied to shootings in the state. So again,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: it's not just about murders. It's not just about anything
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: like that. It's any shooting anywhere in any category that
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: puts you on a list and then send you a
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: bill later on to the, uh, to the Illinois treasury department.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, and the ultimate goal here, of course,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: is to put gun makers out of business. It's not
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: some sort of, uh, you know, deep responsibility situation here.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: They want to put gun makers out of business because
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: they hate the second amendment. If they can't put them
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: out of business, they're going to sue them for so
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: much that the prices of guns are going to be
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: out of, uh, out of reach for many people who
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: would otherwise have firearms for self-defense. So that's their, that's
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: their ultimate goal here. Uh, cloaked in the, uh, very
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: thin veneer of, uh, of responsibility for all these homicides, suicides,
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: and whatever.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: And again, not going toward or not going after the
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: source of the violence, meaning not cracking down on crime,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: not trying to find those shooters, but after the fact,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: assigning blame to the manufacturer of a gun perhaps used
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: in a shooting. It's a backwards way of trying to
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: address the problem that Illinois faces in some of its
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: larger cities.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: And we're going to talk about how cracking down on
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: crime actually works a little bit later in the podcast.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: So stay tuned for that. I'm sure that'll shock you,
• 15:37
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  Speaker 2: Now is the perfect time to plant. Let's grow together.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Use the code MARTINI to save today. Well, Scott, as
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: you know, a lot of Senate races are getting the
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: lion's share of attention right now. Michigan is certainly one
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: of them. Abdul El-Sayed against Mike Rogers. We've also got
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Troy Jackson and Susan Collins up in Maine. Before Jackson,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: it was Graham Platner. So that got a lot. Tallarico
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: versus Paxton in Texas is a big one. So one
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: of the ones that, you know, usually doesn't get a
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: lot of attention because Minnesota is a deep blue state.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: is that race right now. Right now, Tina Smith is retiring,
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: and the Democratic nominee is Peggy Flanagan, who, as Jim
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: would say, is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. She is a
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: radical on a number of issues. She's the one who
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: was sporting a t-shirt a little while back that said,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: protect trans kids with a knife on it. So I'm
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: not sure whether she's doing the surgeries or whether she's
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: killing people who don't want to see kids get trans surgeries.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: But she is running against Michelle Tafoya, who many people
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: know from prowling the sidelines for ESPN and NBC and
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: CBS for a while, a sideline reporter for many, many
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: years for the NFL and other sports. And now it
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: looks like this is actually a very tight race. The
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: latest coefficient poll, which I think leans right, but still,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Peggy Flanagan leads Tafoya 43-42 with others at 4%. Flanagan's favorability,
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: minus 9%. Tafoya plus four. And some people are saying, well,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: the samples are a little skewed there. I don't know
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: if that's the case. But even if they are, there's
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: other polls. Qantas Insights from September 11th has it at
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: a four-point lead for Flanagan. Again, under 50%, 48-44. And
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: then another one taken just after the primary last month.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: This was on August 18th from SurveyUSA, 46-41 Flanagan. So
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: the bad news is that Michelle Tafoya is losing in
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: all these polls. The good news is she's closer than
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: a lot of people expected. And given where Democratic resources
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: are probably going right now, Michelle Tafoya, with kind of
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: her bread and butter, you know, let's not let boys
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: play in girls' sports, and just hammering, hammering, hammering Flanagan
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: on the fraud issues, and she's Tim Walz's lieutenant governor,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: seems to be keeping this thing pretty close.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Greg, I don't know what's going on here. I'm supposed to.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I know this. I don't know what's going on here.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: This is three, four polls in a row that has
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: this Minnesota Senate race very, very close. within the margin
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: of error in a lot of places. And it would
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: seem to counter the narrative of Donald Trump being very
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: underwater in polling, of gas prices being a reflection of
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: where people will be in November. Now, by us, it's
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: four four almost 450 a gallon at this point diesel's
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: even even higher and just an overall sentiment that you
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: know the middle part of a second term of a
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: president you're going to have a wipe out in favor
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: of the opposing party uh given the that environment you
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: wouldn't expect this race to be very close and i
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: had made a comment i was guesting on a different
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: show not you know not my favorite show to guest
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: on this is my favorite show to guest on but
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: um I wasn't sure how deeply the fraud issue resonated
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: with Minnesota voters. We paid attention to it, national attention,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: no doubt about it. Minnesota voters had put those people
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: in office and kept putting those people in office. And
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: though it was new to a lot of people on
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: the national stage, I don't think a lot of this
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: was a secret inside the state of Minnesota. At least,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: At least everyone had a good sort of feeling that
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: this sort of fraud might be going on inside Minnesota.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: So I wasn't sure how upset the electorate would be
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: even with those revelations. Is that what's driving these numbers? Possibly.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: We'll find out Election Day. You know, also inside this poll,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Amy Klobuchar only gets 47 percent of the vote. And
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Amy Klobuchar has been around in Minnesota for a long time.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Her family's been in politics for a long time. and
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: for her not to break 50% in what is, you know,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: kind of, I guess I'd call it a light blue state,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: not a deep blue state like Illinois, but a light
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: blue state. That's surprising, too. And we say all this
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: in the context of saying, polling stinks. You can't trust
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: polling anymore. Who knows what's going to happen? Just go vote.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: That's still true, of course. Some states are easier to
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: poll than others. Michigan's a very tough state to poll.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know where Minnesota falls on that list. But
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: you know, we're still what, less than two months out
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: from election day, though voting will start in some places
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: at about three weeks or so, early voting in certain places.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Or Friday in Virginia. Is it Friday in Virginia?
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Friday.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, goodness gracious.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: And Minnesota's pretty early too. They'll start sometime this month.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I really don't know. Now, Michelle Tafoya is
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: a good candidate to be making this case. She's had
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of FaceTime on television. She's a, I want
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: to say she's a moderate voice, but she comes across
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: as a moderate voice. She's a reasonable person. She's been
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: on network television for a long time. She's not someone
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: entrenched inside of Minnesota politics or someone who people are
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: tired of seeing on a ballot, which happens in some
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: of these cases, fresh face, at least when it comes
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: to the political scene in Minnesota. So maybe she is
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: the right person to try to win this race. We've
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: had a history of tight elections in Minnesota, the Al
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Franken Senate race against Norm Coleman from some years ago, where, heck,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: found some votes and trunk of cars and all of
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: a sudden Al Franken's winning. So you might want to
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: win not just by a half percent or one percent, but,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: you know, two or three percent. If it's not close,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: they can't cheat. That's the Hugh Hewitt book, I think.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: But man, I know I'm supposed to have a real
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: hard sort of opinion. I don't know what to make
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: of this. National opinion polls, Trump approval would say this
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: sort of thing isn't possible at this time in that
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: kind of state. And yet now we see a few
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: polls in a row that say, well, this is really tight.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: This is margin of error. This is a race that
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Republicans might win. And depending what happens in Texas, say again,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: you might win in Minnesota, but you might lose in Texas.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: And yes, candidate quality matters. I understand that. But that
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: would be pretty weird. That'd be pretty strange if that
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: were to happen. So I'm not sure what stake to
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: put in polls these days. I'm not sure accurate polling
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: can be in certain places, but it's nice to dream.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: It's nice to dream. And Minnesota is one of those
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: states where Republicans always think they got a shot, and
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: in the end, it's taken away. I think the Oregon
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: gubernatorial race is won in the same manner. Oh, we
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: got a shot. Nope, we're going to lose by six.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: And I just saw a poll today that said that
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: race is like a three-point race. Oh, we got a shot. Oh,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: we're going to lose by six. We'll see. Long way
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: to go. Still a long way to go, even if
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: early voting starts soon.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt about it. But you're right that it's
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: sometimes competitive, but it's been a long time since Republicans
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: have won major statewide races. Tim Pawlenty, won the governor's
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: race for re-election in 2006. And that's the last time
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: a Republican has won the governor's race. The last time
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: a Republican won the Senate race, the aforementioned Norm Coleman,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: when he beat Walter Mondale in 2002 after the death
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: of Paul Wellstone, giving Walter Mondale the dubious distinction of
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: losing statewide in all 50 states. The only American to
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: ever do that because he lost all 49 out of
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: 50 to Reagan, except for Minnesota, and then lost Minnesota
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: to Norm Coleman. So anyway, we will keep an eye
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: on that one. That would be an amazing race for
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: At least the Democrats have to spend a ton of
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: money to keep and keep that money away from other
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: races because Republicans, if they don't have anything else, they've
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: got the money edge this year. And so that could
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: be one place that the Democrats have to divert some
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: resources to play defense. So anyway, we will see what happens. Well,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: one place you should not play defense is with your business.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: You want to go on offense to keep those existing
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• 25:26
  Speaker 2: All right, Scott, we talked about crime in Illinois. Let's
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: talk about crime in Memphis, which had seen a lot
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: of crime. And so the Trump administration decided, to send
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: in the Memphis Safe Task Force. And the task force
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: is now reporting that it's made more than 12,000 arrests
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: and seized more than 2,100 illegal firearms in its first
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: year on the job. Furthermore, statistics show the operation has
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: led to a 36% decrease in overall crime year over year,
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: with motor vehicle thefts down 57%, robberies down 43%, aggravated
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: assaults down 27%, murders down 44% in the first half
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: of 2026 and overall is down 35% in the past year.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: In 2025, overall crime in Memphis was down 28% compared
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: to 2024 after this program was instituted. And so Scott,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: as other people have said, certainly actually cracking down on crime,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: arresting people, charging people, actually prosecuting people makes a big
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: difference because in the end, the percentage of your population
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: that's doing most of the crime is pretty small. So
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: if you get them off the streets, things improve pretty quickly.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we see that, too, in public transit numbers, too.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: You start enforcing the law in public transit, make people pay.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: The number of people who are actually causing problems is
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: very small. If you can eliminate them in some way, shape,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: or form, either by getting them off trains, putting them
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: behind bars, then you're likely going to be safer, at least.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: I was talking to Todd Starnes, who has a new
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: book out. And Todd's a Memphis guy. He was born there.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: He owns radio stations there, hosts his radio show there.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: And I think Todd takes a little credit for this,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken. He had a conversation with President
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Trump and said, you've got to come to my town.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: You've got to help us. We've got a crime wave
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: happening in Memphis. And the results are clear. Look what's
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: happened in Washington, D.C. We look what's happened in Memphis,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: where there has been this surge of law enforcement to
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: help against violent crime. And the same question now occurs
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: to me that occurred after the success that New York
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: City had under Rudy Giuliani, which is, why doesn't every city...
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: take this template and use it. Call up Rudy. How'd
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: you do it? Let's execute it. And now there'd be
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: stop and frisk issues, I understand. But with this sort
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: of thing, all right, you did it in Washington, D.C.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: You did it in Memphis. Slightly different tactics, I think,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: in both places. But what was the key? And the
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: key is simply, we arrested a lot of people. okay,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: you can do that where you are too, depending on
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: your prosecutor, Soros-backed or not, I guess is one of
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the questions that pops up. But this sort of template
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: that improves the lives of residents, that makes it safer
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: for people to be in your city, more welcoming to visitors, tourists,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can just go down the line of
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the benefits that come when you have this massive drop
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: in violent crime. And again, it's not just Murders. Murders down? Fantastic.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: But motor vehicle thefts. Motor vehicle thefts going down means, theoretically,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: depending on state laws, you're going to have auto insurance
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: rates fall as well because there are fewer vehicle thefts
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: in that area. Robberies down 43%. Aggravated assaults down. Any
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: time you can bring those numbers down. There are ancillary
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: tertiary benefits, not just for the people in that immediate area,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: but people around, people who are visiting, people who are
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: driving through, people who are paying taxes, people who are
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: paying insurance rates, all good things. So what's the template?
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: How can we take it and use it in our
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: city and make things safer?
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And I wish they would just do it.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: I don't necessarily want a big federal presence going on here,
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: but maybe the feds are more coordinating here. But this
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: is only happening outside of D.C. You know, it's happening
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: in Tennessee because it's a red state and the Republican
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: government there is cooperating. The Memphis government is not Republican.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: But the blue, all blue areas would rather defy Trump
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: and say that they defied Trump rather than actually address
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: the problem. And that's why you're seeing good results in
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: places like this rather than following this template and seeing
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: better results, which they claim to want. And I hope
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: they actually do. But Scott, always great to have you
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: with us. Thanks for your time today. And we'll catch
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: you down the road.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Go Bears. Thanks, Greg. I gotta catch this White Sox-Guardians game.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: First place on the line today.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: It's going to be tough for Scott to concentrate. So
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: good luck to the Sox.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: You know, is this what it's like when you have
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: baseball teams who are constantly close to making the postseason?
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: This is terrible. This is awful, day-to-day living like this. Now,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: for years, it doesn't matter. White Sox are never in contention.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: By May, they're out. But this, this is bad. This
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: is bad on my stomach. I got to bed angry
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: last night after they blow a lead in the ninth inning,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: a walk-off for the Guardians. I think about it all night,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: thinking about it this morning. Man, goodness gracious.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, super tight in the division, super tight in the
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: wildcard race, too. So a lot of drama in the
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: american league he's scott bertram general manager wrfh radio free
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: hillsdale 101.7 fm on the campus of hillsdale college he's
• 30:25
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• 30:29
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• 30:32
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• 30:34
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• 30:37
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