Latest / The Dry Line Podcast / Is “Kill. Bury. Print.” the Best Oklahoma Documentary Ever? Plus Munson’s Momentum and Blake Griffin’s Late Night Debut

Transcript

Is “Kill. Bury. Print.” the Best Oklahoma Documentary Ever? Plus Munson’s Momentum and Blake Griffin’s Late Night Debut · The Dry Line Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Dry Line Podcast,
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: where each week we discuss Oklahoma's strangely endearing culture,
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: its unbelievable weather,
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: sacred sports, nefarious politics, burgeoning food scene, and damn fine people.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: This morning, I published my review of the documentary Kill, Barry, Print.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: First, before getting into some thoughts about that movie...
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I want to start by thanking everyone who commented on TikTok
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: and Instagram imploring me to please watch this documentary before I talk
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: about McCurtain County and Southeastern politics again.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was an awesome movie and I don't think I would have come across this or
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: at some point I would have come across this but I wouldn't have come
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: across this like A month after it released onto Peacock.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you to everybody who made those comments.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was an illuminating watch.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just learning about these events that took place in McCurton County from 2021 to 2025.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was out of the state during those years doing my residency training.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I definitely was not in tune or even aware of what happened down there.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: But unless I'm missing something,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is probably one of the most important,
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: if not the best,
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: documentary of recent note that I can remember in Oklahoma about Oklahoma.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, yeah.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was just so well done.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, director Ben Klein, this was only his second movie.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And his first won a Sundance Film Festival for a grand prize winner in documentary.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this is his second, so obviously the guy has some serious chops.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so...
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: For those who could use a refresher,
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: or for those that haven't yet seen the documentary,
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: and you should watch it,
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: it's available now on Peacock,
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: the film is about the McCurtain Gazette,
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: specifically the father and son Willingham duo,
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Bruce and Chris,
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: and what happens after they begin reporting on the corruption and disorganization of
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: the McCurtain County Sheriff's Office,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: particularly its sheriff, Kevin Clarity, and its captain, Alicia Manning.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to summarize the whole movie here because, again,
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: if you have not seen this yet, stop listening to this and go watch it for real.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's a better use of your time.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I am going to break down my five biggest takeaways from Kilberry Print.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, first takeaway.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Of all of the absolutely obscene revelations in this,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: which included audio recordings of a county commissioner,
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the sheriff, Kevin Clarity, planning the assassination.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, planning is probably a little, that's a little too intense of a description for this.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: But discussing the possibility of assassinating Chris Willingham,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: a writer for the McCurtain Gazette,
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: including like Alyssa Walker Donaldson and how
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: the sheriff's department didn't even follow up on this case or do any investigation
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: into her death, which we're going to get into that in a little bit.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Of all these things,
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think the most ironic and obscene of all these revelations is the fact that
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: the McCurtain Gazette,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: McCurtain County's only newspaper,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: a print-only newspaper at the time,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: that only printed three times per week,
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: was capable of essentially taking down an entire county's leadership.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, also,
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: the film points out How rare it is now to have a newspaper that does all
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: of its editorial work in the same building that they print the newspaper.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the B-roll footage in this film is amazing.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: They start the film and you can see those blank white rolls of paper rolling through
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: the machine.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the machine is literally like caked in like decades of ink.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing that this machine even works.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you can tell.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just, I don't know, the way that they brought this all in.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: The way they planed the story inside of like a physical newspaper was really cool.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I just found that to be the biggest takeaway probably is the fact that
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: in this climate where more and more power is moving away from the populace because
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: the populace has less access to information than it ever has.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it has more access,
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: but it is reading information Less information than it ever has is particularly
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: about the news.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not because of the people's fault per se.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's just because of the way the algorithms work now and the way that Twitter
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: and Instagram and TikTok and Facebook send you only a select bit,
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: a select slice of the world.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to go out and find it anymore.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even have to choose what you want to go read or consume or listen to.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: It finds you.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Even in this environment,
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: it is so incredibly impressive how the McCurtain Gazette was still able
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: To hold accountable the sheriff's department and get some change across the county.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately,
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: their reporting led
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: to Sheriff Kevin Clarity not getting elected again whenever he went into the runoff.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: If they wouldn't have done this reporting,
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think it goes without saying that he would have been reelected more than likely.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a testament to the importance of journalism inside a democracy.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think this film...
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Makes you understand how dire and urgent,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: urgently we need good journalism about business,
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: industry,
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: and government just so we can stay informed and make good decisions when we show up
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: to the ballot box.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, second takeaway.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: This was an all-time example of an ad hominem attack.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: All right,
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: so ad hominem attack is when You're in a debate with somebody and you present
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: to them some kind of logical point about something that they've done, okay,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: that is probably something that they need to take responsibility for or
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: at least address, right?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like a criticism of a government official.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: They should probably address that, right?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: But ad hominem attack is whenever they don't address it and
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: then instead they assassinate the character of the person who is asking them
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: to address that thing.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so...
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: What happened in this film is Chef Kevin Clarity and his team ran
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: a very disorganized department, right?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: The McCurtain Gazette started criticizing that department.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then slowly but surely, oh, cut, cut, cut.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Whew.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: All right,
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: so what happens in this movie is Chris Willingham,
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: the reporter for the Gazette,
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: starts asking hard questions of the sheriff's department,
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: inserts some rumors that he's heard that Alicia Manning,
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: the captain, and the sheriff might be having an affair.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: He asks why the chain of custody in the evidence room becomes so disorganized.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Could this jeopardize how they prosecute murder trials?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: He asks why there's been nepotism in terms of promotion and how come they were able
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: to bring in Manning's brother, To be an undersheriff.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: How come one of Sheriff Clarity's good friends,
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Larry Hendricks,
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: got promoted to the jail administrator role whenever there were other people
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: that could have had that role?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: What led to the escape of three inmates right after that huge leadership change?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why are all these people leaving the sheriff's department and the county commissioner's office?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, he's asking these questions.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: They're not giving answers.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: They're not very happy about it.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so in response to that,
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: and I think this even happens after The death threats that come through.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's another part of this.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know if we're going to get into that.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: But this attack where Alicia Manning basically accused
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: or they start spreading these rumors on social media,
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: her and the Clarity family start sharing these rumors on social media
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: about how Chris is possibly a pedophile linked to the previously prosecuted
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: and imprisoned pedophile Ian Heifel.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: That is like a classic deflection of responsibility and accountability.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that is an ad hominem attack.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: How often do you see that?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Link somebody to something that you can't prove,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: spread some rumors behind their back,
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: and then everybody starts to doubt the credibility of that person.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you do this and you're a political figure,
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: someone who's in power just has extra impact.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think because of social media's role
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: and how government officials have equal access to the populace
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: and can send this stuff out and control the message,
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think it It just presented such an uphill battle for the Willinghams and for Chris
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: to be able to fight his case and to be able to continue living in the town.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, I think that's what led to him.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's obviously it's what led to him and his family moving to Tulsa.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just an all-time ad hominem attack.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: It reminded me a lot of what happened after the Signalgate issue or
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: the Signalgate group chat whenever,
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and several other cabinet level officials were having
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: a discussion about how they were going to bomb and when they were going
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: to bomb those Houthi rebels in Yemen.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: They accidentally included the editor of The Atlantic in the discussion and
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: then they printed it and The Atlantic was like,
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: hey, this is probably like a huge leak of national security.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then President Trump basically just like said that the editor was a sleazebag.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: So classic at hominem attack.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, takeaway number three.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: McCurton County is a dark place, man.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've traveled down there probably four or five times.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Each time, went to Broken Bow, took some family trips out on the lake.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And when you go there and you're a tourist,
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: even if you just stay on the lake,
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: even if you just go to those Hocha Town bars and restaurants,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: you can just feel that that place is really complex because the resort just doesn't,
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Appear the same as the rest of the county.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just, there's a lot of heavy industry in that area for sure.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the paper mill gets mentioned in the movie.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: The forestry industry, all the milling, all the lumber work in that area.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, has also been hit hard by methamphetamines.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's been reported on extensively.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I also, I thought it was cool that Ben Klein and his team didn't go into that heavily.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like they didn't dance on the grave of this thing that has been a really hard part
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: or a hard thing for the community to deal with.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I respect that they decided not to do that.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: But okay, let's get into the Alyssa Walker Donaldson case.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So this is mentioned briefly in the film and there's some reporting from
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: the New Yorker that clarifies what the film was trying to say about this case.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: So in the film,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: they mention Alyssa Walker Donaldson,
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: who was a previous Miss McCurtain County,
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: and how she disappeared one evening as she was coming home from the bars.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: She'd been drinking at the bars, and she just didn't make it home.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: through a community-led search effort,
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: her vehicle was located in,
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it was Broken Bow Lake, but a nearby body of water.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's basically all they said about it in the film.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: They insinuated that the Sheriff's Department didn't do
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: a thorough enough investigation,
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: but they didn't really say why they felt that way,
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: and they basically just jumped straight into these allegations
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: that Sheriff Clarity was using methamphetamines,
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: and they used the investigation and him appearing on camera talking about
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: the investigation as a way to explore that further.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: But they didn't talk about this case,
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: and I wish they would have,
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: because in the New Yorker's reporting,
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: they talk about how The car where it was found was by a boat ramp into this body
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: of water.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And to get to this boat ramp,
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: you had to drive miles of a winding road that was off of the main highway and
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: that this winding road was nowhere near where Alyssa Walker Donaldson was trying
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: to get home to.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: So she would have had to go out of her way to get the car into this position.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: They also reported that whenever they found her in the water,
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: she had the top five buttons on her pants were undone.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then they also mentioned how her shirt was pulled up above her bra.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that wasn't mentioned inside the movie.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: She was also in an on and off again relationship with one of the inmates
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: who had escaped from the McCurtain County Jail.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that was not mentioned in the movie either.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I think if they would have mentioned some of that,
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: it would have made us as the audience realize why it was so,
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: it was just such a ridiculous lack of like investigation by
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: the McCurtain County Sheriff.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the fact that that wasn't there, I think that that resulted in this plot hole.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I would have liked to see that.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that Alyssa Walker Donaldson case, there's just a lot more there.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, fourth take.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Ben Klein, the director of this movie, did a really good job of showing and not telling.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think he honestly probably could have done Oklahoma dirtier in terms
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: of its politics and some of the corruption, but he didn't.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: He really kept the scope of the movie locked into the events that were there
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: and didn't widen it too much.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes when you watch these really liberal,
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: progressive documentaries,
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: and I would not say this is one of those documentaries,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: When you watch those,
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: you get to the end and you've watched this really entertaining movie
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: for like 70 minutes.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Some fascinating facts in your head.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're starting to come to some conclusions.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a really interesting educational watch.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: But then in the last 10 minutes,
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: the director goes on this like soapbox monologue
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: where they tell you exactly how they want you to feel.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: They want you to have this firm moral conclusion about the story.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: I hate that because it's like they don't trust us to figure out what the story is
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: and how to come up with our feelings about it.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I love about this movie is it's complicated.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: People in the community,
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: because of alliances to Sheriff Clarity,
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: because of alliance to the Willinghams, have disparate views of what happened here.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Klein and the whole Kill Barry Print team Allow the audience to try
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: to figure out what it all means.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's not like this overarching message at the end,
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: like, hey, you should feel this way about what happened there.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, this is pretty crazy, huh?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I really appreciate that because it's complicated.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's complicated.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they interviewed people on all sides.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: They interviewed a former sheriff.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: That expressed some empathy toward how Sheriff Clarity was treated.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: They interviewed former deputies that were contrarians and I think John Moore was his name.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: They've interviewed him and he expressed some thoughts that he thought that
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: the McCurtain Gazette did the sheriff dirty.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't try to disparage all of these different...
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Perspectives.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I just thought editorially, man, they killed it.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was such a good movie.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Last takeaway about this.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: McCurtain County did not forget Gettner Drummond's failures to prosecute Sheriff Clarity.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the county commissioner was caught on audio recording by
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: a plaintiff Like microphone in the county commissioner's meeting planted
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: by Bruce Willingham.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, that guy has straight up guts and stones, man.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Bruce Willingham, man.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Insane.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Insane guts and determination to get to the truth here and also to protect his family.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: So in that recording that he caught on audio of the county commissioner talking
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: to Sheriff Clarity and Alicia Manning after the county commissioner's meeting,
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's mentions of death threats.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: They also allude to lynching of African Americans in the community.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: That is on the tape, too.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's widespread bigotry, misogynistic comments.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: But the notable part is their planning of the assassination of Chris Willingham,
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: which the county commissioner says, hey,
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know some hitmen,
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: three of them,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: down in Louisiana who I could get to come up here and basically take care of this
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: if you guys want me to.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there's like this back and forth like, yeah, yeah, that would make sense.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it'd be great.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the end of that conversation,
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sheriff Clarity says,
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: one of these days, I'm going to bounce that guy, alluding to Chris Willingham.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: All this is on tape, by the way.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is the sheriff of McCurtain County.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it all gets released.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's this huge blow up in the news.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like CNN's there.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: CBS News is there.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: 60 Minutes is there.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like everybody's there.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: So County Commissioner resigns.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: But then Sheriff Clarity does not resign and chooses to stay despite the protests.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then nothing happens.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Gettner Drummond refuses to prosecute.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Basically,
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Gettner Drummond says, hey,
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: there's nothing against the law in somebody just being a racist and a bigot,
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: is basically what he says.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, these remarks were horrible, but I can't really do anything.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't really break the law.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: But That part is true.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can't make people good human beings by the law.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: We have free speech for a reason.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the part about him saying that one of these days he's going to bounce a guy
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: after him and the commissioner talk about trying to hire some hitmen,
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: that part to me seemed like there could have been some kind of threat inside
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: of there.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: There seemed like there could have been something there to pursue.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess the people of McCurtain County felt the same way because the people
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: of McCurtain County,
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: whenever it came to that Democratic runoff between Gettner Drummond and Mike Mazie,
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: as we've talked about, heavily supported Mike Mazie.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that never made sense to me.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: People said the reason why Mike Mazie got all that support down there was because
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: of Trump's endorsement.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like,
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: why just in McCurtain County would Trump's endorsement mean more than
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: in Choctaw County and all these other counties nearby?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Why did they contribute 750 votes of the 2,000 vote margin that Mazie had
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: over Drummond in that runoff?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it was because they wanted prosecution.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And they remembered that Gintner Drummond did not pursue charges for Sheriff Clarity.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: So in the film, they also allude to...
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Good old boy politics being the reason why Drummond didn't pursue charges and
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: that Drummond had this goal of becoming governor,
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: so he wasn't going to pursue charges for this sheriff.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't really make sense to me.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't understand why that would have particularly helped him.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was only one county.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's 30,000 residents in McCurtain County.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't understand why he wouldn't pursue charges for this guy.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: So all that still doesn't really make sense to me, but McCurtain County does not forget it.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so that's enough with Kilbury print.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you have not seen it, go watch it.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's an amazing movie.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let us proceed into an interesting Oklahoma news roundup.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: First up, the Cook Report.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: A nonpartisan election analysis website shifted the Oklahoma gubernatorial election
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: to, quote, solid R, meaning Republican, to likely R.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Statewide,
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Democrats celebrated this like Oklahoma football fans celebrate completed forward
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: passes.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's a combination of like shock and ecstasy.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: As this news broke too,
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Politico reported that the Democratic Governors Association was chipping in $500,000
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: of support for Cindy Munson after a poll from the Oklahoma polling organization,
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Cross Timbers, showed that the race was in a quote statistical tie.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Note, this sample was 128 people.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Not exactly representative of our 3 million person electorate, but it was full of likely voters.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Still, Democrats celebrated this like Oklahoma fans do offensive touchdowns.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Pure dissociation into interplanetary travel between different planes of existence.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what does it all mean?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: In the Oklahomans' reporting on Munson's recent momentum in the race,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: They cited some commentary from Pat McFerrin,
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: who is the longtime pollster in this state,
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: who said that he sees all the data as telling basically the same story
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: that played out whenever Joy Hoffmeister ultimately got beat
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: by Kevin Stitt four years ago.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: There was some narrowing of the polls, but ultimately the fate was predetermined.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: A 10-point victory for Maisie and
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: the Republicans is basically what he was saying he expects still.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: In the political article, though,
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: They asked anonymous Republican strategists for their opinions on the race,
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: and they were quoted as saying,
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: because Mike Mazie is a weak candidate,
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: this will be closer than it should be,
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: but ultimately it should still be an easy win.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: I went back, and I reviewed polling from the Hoffmeister and the Stitt race.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: There was one from Sooner Poll, and it showed that that race was neck and neck.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: This was two months out from Election Day, back four years ago.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: A statistical tie, you could call it.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And again, Stitt won that election two months later by 13 percentage points.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Stitt was an incumbent, though,
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: and he was a Republican incumbent at a point in time when
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: the country wasn't exactly thrilled with Biden's leadership or
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: the Democratic Party's vision for the country,
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: which was essentially no vision for the country.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: So Stitt had some tailwinds as an incumbent.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maisie...
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: A weaker governor candidate,
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: per those Republican insiders, has significant headwinds now in 2026.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you got Trump's failures in the economy,
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: inflation,
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: the war with Iran,
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: the corruption conversation about Roger Stone and Trump's influence on Macy's flip,
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: the $65,000 payment, the Inola aluminum smelter.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: You got a bunch of fired up farmers who are tired of high diesel prices.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, what does it all mean?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Could we see Munson push this race inside of a 10-point margin?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's actually possible.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: It would be incredibly impressive if Macy only won by 9 points.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that would feel like an Oklahoma offensive touchdown, I think, for Democrats.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: But if we go back to that first likely R change that was issued by the Cook Report,
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: that designation,
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: per the Cook Report,
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: is meant to signify that the race still isn't even yet competitive,
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: but could possibly turn competitive in the future.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Munson's got some momentum,
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: but as we've discussed,
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: The 56% of Oklahomans who are registered Oklahomans are a massive mountain to climb.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Barring something crazy happening, I still just don't see it.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're Munson,
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: you will take all this positive press and all the insiders calling Maisie
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: a weak candidate repeatedly everywhere and try to get this to swing like another 10%
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: of the vote.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, if you can stand another bit of political news here,
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: There has been a divergence, a split between Oklahoma's two senators.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: So James Langford and Alan Armstrong, two senators.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: James Langford,
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: he went on to meet the press last weekend and defended President Trump's decision
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: to lift sanctions on Russian diesel.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile,
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Armstrong wrote a letter along with 11 other senators
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: that criticized Trump's decision to align with Putin and even help Russia
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: in their war against Ukraine.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he criticized it even in the face of lowering gas prices for Americans
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: because he just didn't like what it signified.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Langford came right back and said that the U.S.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: has unwavering support for Ukraine,
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: cited the intelligence that the U.S.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: gives them, citing all the weapons that we do too.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: I just thought this was interesting
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: because you do not see our Oklahoma senators ever out of lockstep with one another
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: on a big national Republican choice.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: This thing, very interesting.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think this is a continuation of a national theme.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: The only Republicans who criticize Trump are from one camp.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: They are outgoing,
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: retiring,
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: or have lost in the Republican primary and thus have no reason to stay aligned
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: with him and seem compelled to actually do what they feel is right and speak out
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: against some of these things that they don't agree with.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Which I think is what's going on with Armstrong.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna give up that seat that he inherited
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: from Mark Wayne Mullen whenever Mark Wayne Mullen took the DHS role.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: So at the end of this term, which is gonna end this year, he can't even run for the seat.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that seat's gonna probably get taken by Tolson, Kevin Hearn, the Republican.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I just think it's a pattern.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: I just wish that more Republicans,
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: while they were actually in office,
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Would be able to speak up and share some disagreement.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that's starting to happen a little bit more,
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: but the only people you ever hear about doing it are the people who don't have
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: a reason to say anything else at this point.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, would be nice though.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Next, Oklahoman and Edmunds Finest,
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Blake Griffin,
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: NBA All-Star,
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: slam dunk champ,
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Kia Advertiser, former OU great, launched his late night talk show this week.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Called The Step Back.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's on Amazon Prime and it's also airing for free on YouTube.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've always thought Blake is hilarious, subtle, intelligent.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's done an excellent job on Amazon Prime's coverage of the NBA.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited to see where it goes with this.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: He has said that he wants to create a John Oliver-like Last Week Tonight show.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: But for sports.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Where he interviews guests, does some stand-up bits...
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the first show, which aired on Tuesday, was received really well.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I watched some of it and Blake's funny and he didn't bomb.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think it's got potential.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: The whole premise is essentially a takedown of how stupid and insincere
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: the whole sports take world is and how it isn't at all representative
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: of how sports actually work behind the scenes.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Blake wants to fix that.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm down with that.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oklahoman as a late night talk show host.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is that our first?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oklahoma as a late-night talk show host?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, maybe.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go, Blake.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into OKC's win over the Spurs on Tuesday night.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: How sweet was that, y'all?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: The main takeaway from that game is when you watched us on the floor playing
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: that same Spurs team that we played last year, the game just looked different.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: We had more space.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: It felt like we had more answers.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: There was more aggression.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: There was more decisiveness from us.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: It just felt like we had a different kind of confidence behind us in terms
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: of our scheme and our understanding of who they were,
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: which makes sense because in that series,
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: if you remember,
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Dubb and AJ Mitchell didn't play much in the series,
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: so the team that we played them against is not the same team that they're seeing now
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: from us.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the team that they're bringing to us is the same team that we played seven games last year.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a long season.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's the first game.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: We beat them handily.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're up by 26 at one point.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: They made it close in the third quarter and went on a run.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Got kind of scared for a second.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Started seeing ghosts.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: But it's an encouraging sign to see that we,
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: and especially Shea,
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Just looked really comfortable on offense playing that Spurs team.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Also, shout out to Adai Mara.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Had an impact.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: That block of Wimby was probably the coolest introduction to a career that
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: a big man could possibly ever have.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go, rookie.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, good win.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Got the Nuggets coming up Thursday night at home.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: So excited about that game too.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Other loose ends in the news.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Ben Gamla,
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: the Jewish National Charter School that we talked about last week,
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Filed this week to hold the Oklahoma Board of Charter Schools in contempt of
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: the law.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: This was expected.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: The board's attorney predicted that this would happen last week.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: This just seems like the next step in this charter school,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: officially and inevitably getting its charter.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we will see if there will be some way to intervene in this process and see
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: if this gets taken back to the Supreme Court,
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: which I know the Democratic side of the law will want that to happen.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll see.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we will talk about that.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to get into the Frontiers reporting on the Diamondback Ice Detention Center
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: in Watonga and their discussion and investigation about where all
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: that money was going, but I just didn't get there this week.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to link that in the notes, though,
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: and I will plan to get into that reporting over the weekend
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: and report back next week.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, God.