Latest / The Bill Handel Show / California’s 1st Gubernatorial Debate | U.S. Housing Shortage
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
- 0:05Speaker 1: six forty.
- 0:09Speaker 2: I am six forty Bill Handle here, Good morning on
- 0:13Speaker 2: Aday Wednesday.
- 0:14Speaker 1: A couple of things I want to share with you.
- 0:16Speaker 2: First, CNN is reporting right now that Nancy Guthrie's pacemaker,
- 0:22Speaker 2: Savannah Guthrie's mom, who disappeared, that her pace pacemaker last
- 0:27Speaker 2: said sent a signal to the iPhone at two am
- 0:31Speaker 2: on Sunday, and that doesn't bode well at all.
- 0:36Speaker 1: So there's that.
- 0:36Speaker 2: Also, want to remind you that if you miss any
- 0:39Speaker 2: of our segments, for example, we had to kind of
- 0:41Speaker 2: fund this morning. I don't know how many people I
- 0:44Speaker 2: offended this morning lots, you can always listen to the
- 0:47Speaker 2: podcast because we podcast the entire show, and so just
- 0:53Speaker 2: well there's that, and then there's a rest of For example,
- 0:56Speaker 2: Jim Keeney is coming aboard at AY thirty, and if
- 0:58Speaker 2: you don't have the chance to listen into it, you
- 1:00Speaker 2: can podcast it.
- 1:01Speaker 1: Okay.
- 1:02Speaker 2: Last night there was the first gubernatorial debate here in California,
- 1:09Speaker 2: and I didn't watch it, and I have to admit
- 1:13Speaker 2: I didn't watch it. I was watching an episode of
- 1:17Speaker 2: Swamp People and their Siblings Unusual Families but I'll tell
- 1:22Speaker 2: you who did watch it was Amy, So Amy, I'm
- 1:27Speaker 2: gonna basically interview you because you are pardoned. No, no,
- 1:32Speaker 2: as you This were the six Democrats, one Republican and
- 1:38Speaker 2: the the landscape. I mean it's wide open as to
- 1:43Speaker 2: the primaries. Any breakouts in your opinion of the ones you.
- 1:49Speaker 1: Saw, not really?
- 1:51Speaker 3: I think, you know, I know that everybody's trying to
- 1:55Speaker 3: have their moment. I don't know that anybody really did.
- 1:59Speaker 1: I mean Steve Hilton.
- 2:02Speaker 3: Actually they did like a flash pole and I was like,
- 2:05Speaker 3: who's watching this? They did a flash pole afterward and
- 2:08Speaker 3: they were saying, you know who did the best in
- 2:10Speaker 3: the debate, who did the best on the immigration issues?
- 2:12Speaker 3: And Hilton killed it. He was like at seventy sixty
- 2:15Speaker 3: five to seventy percent for most of them.
- 2:19Speaker 2: Who describe who Steve Hilton is, because a lot of
- 2:21Speaker 2: these is nobody knows.
- 2:22Speaker 3: So he's a former Fox commentator, he's a businessman, and
- 2:26Speaker 3: he's the Republican who was on stage. The other Republican
- 2:29Speaker 3: is Chad Bianco, Riverside County Sheriff, and he wasn't there.
- 2:33Speaker 3: He said he had scheduling issues. So Hilton was the
- 2:38Speaker 3: only one on stage. He got booed a couple of
- 2:40Speaker 3: times in the audience by one very loud man. There
- 2:43Speaker 3: was a spattering of applause here and there. It was
- 2:47Speaker 3: kind of an interesting little debate. But the new guy
- 2:50Speaker 3: who just entered the race, San Jose's mayor Mayhem, he
- 2:55Speaker 3: actually was kind of interesting and I think for a
- 2:58Speaker 3: lot of people it might have been the first time
- 3:00Speaker 3: that they had seen him because he's just so new
- 3:03Speaker 3: to the race. So I think he did well for himself.
- 3:08Speaker 3: Via Rigosa was there. He was typical via Ragosa.
- 3:15Speaker 1: Yeah, also via Resa a million pothole and there.
- 3:20Speaker 3: Yeah, and then there was another guy, Thurman. See, this
- 3:24Speaker 3: is how much.
- 3:25Speaker 1: I watched it. But I mean that's against some of these.
- 3:28Speaker 3: Yeah, the candidates are not very well known. And the
- 3:30Speaker 3: one guy I've been like, I hadn't even heard his
- 3:32Speaker 3: name before.
- 3:33Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and you watched this thing.
- 3:36Speaker 2: And you, because you're a newsperson, not only has to
- 3:39Speaker 2: keep up with this, but you do keep up with this. Yeah.
- 3:42Speaker 3: Javier Abasera was up there. He didn't really Again, none
- 3:45Speaker 3: of them really said anything great. They did ask them
- 3:48Speaker 3: questions about like they did like a quick fire round,
- 3:51Speaker 3: and they said if you're elected, will you do the
- 3:54Speaker 3: high speed rail? And about half of them said yes,
- 3:58Speaker 3: and about half of them said no.
- 4:02Speaker 2: I think the fun part of this story is the
- 4:04Speaker 2: amount of money that they each have in their award chest.
- 4:09Speaker 1: Stire who is a billions Oh yeah.
- 4:11Speaker 3: Tom Steyer was there to well, let.
- 4:12Speaker 2: Me tell you, okay, yeah, of course, okay, Porter, she
- 4:17Speaker 2: raised six point one million. Hilton as you said, he
- 4:19Speaker 2: was at five point seven million. This is the war chest.
- 4:22Speaker 2: But Sarah has five point two million, and Bianco three
- 4:26Speaker 2: point seven million, via Ragosa three point two million, So
- 4:29Speaker 2: not a lot of money. Now, the one who has
- 4:31Speaker 2: the most is is a.
- 4:36Speaker 3: Stire and he's self funded.
- 4:38Speaker 1: He's just twenty eight.
- 4:39Speaker 2: Yeah, he has twenty eight point nine million dollars in contributions,
- 4:45Speaker 2: of which twenty seven million, nine hundred and ninety nine
- 4:50Speaker 2: dollars and ninety nine cents he put in and the
- 4:53Speaker 2: rest of it were contributions that he was able to
- 4:56Speaker 2: raise in twenty twenty five.
- 4:57Speaker 3: He even had ads running during the debate.
- 5:01Speaker 1: And he's not going to win. Why because California.
- 5:04Speaker 2: California has a history of resenting people who are trying
- 5:08Speaker 2: to buy the gubernatorial race.
- 5:11Speaker 1: Also, the mayor's race.
- 5:14Speaker 2: Paul Caruso put in millions and millions of dollars into
- 5:18Speaker 2: the mayor's race. Karen Bass put in almost nothing, and
- 5:21Speaker 2: yet she won. Member Meg Whitman, who was one of
- 5:25Speaker 2: the founders of eBay, she spent one hundred million dollars
- 5:29Speaker 2: Goodbye Huffington spent a huge amount of money.
- 5:34Speaker 1: No chance gone.
- 5:36Speaker 2: And so people put in so much money, So I
- 5:39Speaker 2: think it's it's a detriment to put in much money,
- 5:42Speaker 2: that much money. Although in New York Michael Bloomberg he
- 5:46Speaker 2: bought his race and became mayor.
- 5:51Speaker 1: So we'll see what happens on this. And the story
- 5:53Speaker 1: here is that that there.
- 5:55Speaker 2: Is no front runner. And according to Amy who actually
- 5:58Speaker 2: watched this, although that's swamp people and their siblings, unusual families,
- 6:04Speaker 2: they still there are very few people watch it. I
- 6:09Speaker 2: would love to see how many viewers they actually had
- 6:12Speaker 2: that debate have. And well, it's gonna get really interesting. Okay,
- 6:17Speaker 2: here's a question, and how big is the US housing shortage?
- 6:23Speaker 1: Now we know there's two things.
- 6:24Speaker 2: There aren't enough houses out there for the most part,
- 6:27Speaker 2: and they're way too expensive. A lot of it being
- 6:30Speaker 2: they're way too expensive because they're just way too expensive
- 6:33Speaker 2: to build. Also, since there is a shortage, that brings
- 6:37Speaker 2: prices up. So here is and this is such a
- 6:41Speaker 2: wonky topic because there are so many answers, I'm gonna
- 6:44Speaker 2: try to unwonk it. We do know that the US
- 6:47Speaker 2: is facing a serious housing shortage. Maybe okay, Moodies estimates
- 6:54Speaker 2: that it would take more than two million new homes
- 6:57Speaker 2: to resolve. At Goldman Sachs, their analysts put the number
- 7:01Speaker 2: at three million homes.
- 7:04Speaker 1: Zillow tops four.
- 7:07Speaker 2: Million homes to resolve the shortage. Congressional Republicans they're saying
- 7:15Speaker 2: it's closer to twenty million homes. So why Well these projections, well,
- 7:23Speaker 2: they reflect the challenge of even quantifying the housing needs
- 7:27Speaker 2: in this country, and it rests on a lot of assumptions.
- 7:30Speaker 2: How much should a house cost, how many people should
- 7:33Speaker 2: it hold, how big a footprint should it have, And
- 7:38Speaker 2: keep in mind, housing affordability is a crucial political issue,
- 7:41Speaker 2: and I think the midterm is going to show that
- 7:44Speaker 2: and housing is also increasingly out of the reach of
- 7:47Speaker 2: so many Americans. Bottom line, if you don't have a
- 7:50Speaker 2: house to sell, I think you're in a very hard
- 7:52Speaker 2: time buying a house because of down payment because they're
- 7:54Speaker 2: so expensive around here here in Burbank.
- 7:57Speaker 1: You look out that I've said this many times. You
- 7:59Speaker 1: look out the window.
- 8:00Speaker 2: You have these little cracker jack boxes of homes ony
- 8:03Speaker 2: eleven hundred square feet to three bedroom, one bath a
- 8:07Speaker 2: million dollars, which means you get to put down two
- 8:09Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars after tax dollars down payment, and then
- 8:12Speaker 2: an eight hundred thousand dollars mortgage. Hey mazel tov, Well,
- 8:16Speaker 2: it's out of the reach of so many people. So
- 8:22Speaker 2: determining the nation's need is very key to devising policies
- 8:26Speaker 2: that are going to solve the pro the problem.
- 8:29Speaker 1: Okay, a couple of stats.
- 8:30Speaker 2: According to the Census Bureau data, the US has one
- 8:33Speaker 2: hundred and forty six million homes.
- 8:36Speaker 1: Of those, eight point one million are.
- 8:38Speaker 2: Doubled up households, which really screws up the figure big time,
- 8:42Speaker 2: people sharing space with non relatives and Zillo their housing
- 8:49Speaker 2: estimates assumes that most of these people would prefer having
- 8:52Speaker 2: their own place, of course they would, and there are
- 8:56Speaker 2: three point four million vacant homes of available right now
- 9:01Speaker 2: to rent or buy according to Zillow.
- 9:03Speaker 1: Which has some pretty good figures. So here's what Zillo did.
- 9:08Speaker 2: Let me tell you how sophisticated Zillo economists subtracted the
- 9:11Speaker 2: number of available houses from the number of doubled up households,
- 9:16Speaker 2: and they came up with the country needs four point
- 9:18Speaker 2: seven million more homes. Okay, then you have an analysis
- 9:22Speaker 2: that zero is in on two questions, how many homes
- 9:25Speaker 2: should be vacant and how many consumers have delayed or
- 9:31Speaker 2: are out of luck because of the cost. Now here's
- 9:35Speaker 2: one that I found fascinating. That a healthy housing market
- 9:39Speaker 2: needs vacancies. Why because an empty property could signal it's
- 9:44Speaker 2: between tenants or buyers, that it's in the system or
- 9:51Speaker 2: under renovation, or it could be that the owner is
- 9:55Speaker 2: splitting time between two properties. Rich people right who have
- 9:59Speaker 2: a a couple of different homes. Well, the Association of
- 10:04Speaker 2: Home Builders says that six million homes about one in
- 10:07Speaker 2: twenty are secondary residents. And what constitutes a healthy level
- 10:12Speaker 2: of vacancies that's even harder to define. Maybe three percent
- 10:15Speaker 2: up to thirteen percent the original home number. The optimal
- 10:21Speaker 2: home number could be as simple as one home for
- 10:24Speaker 2: every household plus a certain number of vacancies. But is
- 10:28Speaker 2: that real housing costs prohibitive adult children. Here is a
- 10:33Speaker 2: stat It brings it really into perspective. Adult children tend
- 10:40Speaker 2: to reside with their parents longer. I mean, we know
- 10:43Speaker 2: that fair enough. Eighteen percent currently of adults twenty five
- 10:49Speaker 2: to thirty four were living in their parents' homes.
- 10:53Speaker 1: Eighteen percent are now living with their parents. This is
- 10:58Speaker 1: from twenty twenty three.
- 11:00Speaker 2: If you go back to the seventies, eight percent lived
- 11:04Speaker 2: with their parents. If that gives you an idea, and well,
- 11:10Speaker 2: I moved back to my folks house.
- 11:13Speaker 1: I was. I had.
- 11:16Speaker 2: Just reasonably finished law school, so I was out there
- 11:19Speaker 2: practicing law. I'm making a pretty good living, and I
- 11:23Speaker 2: had broken up with my girlfriend that i'd been with
- 11:25Speaker 2: for nine years. We had a home together, ended up
- 11:28Speaker 2: selling it, and I didn't know where to go. So
- 11:30Speaker 2: I moved in with my parents. To me, it was logical,
- 11:35Speaker 2: and I started dating and I would introduce myself. I go, Hi,
- 11:40Speaker 2: my name is Bill, I'm a lawyer, I'm reasonably successful,
- 11:45Speaker 2: and I live with my mom and dad. Now let
- 11:47Speaker 2: me tell you how I did that year in the
- 11:50Speaker 2: sex department.
- 11:50Speaker 1: Not well.
- 11:52Speaker 2: I had a hard time meeting people. But I was
- 11:56Speaker 2: one of the very few people that lived with their
- 12:00Speaker 2: parents in the seventies and now eighteen percent live with
- 12:06Speaker 2: their parents. So the bottom line is that all the
- 12:10Speaker 2: researchers are coming up with many different answers for the
- 12:14Speaker 2: housing shortage. So when you hear the phrase there is
- 12:17Speaker 2: a housing shortage in the United States, keep in mind
- 12:21Speaker 2: that virtually every single analyst of housing shortage, every single
- 12:28Speaker 2: organization that looks at this, has different figures. All it
- 12:32Speaker 2: really matters is can you afford a house? Are you
- 12:36Speaker 2: living in a house? Where are you going to live?
- 12:41Speaker 2: And a lot of people simply if they have to
- 12:44Speaker 2: live and own a house, they're not doing it in
- 12:45Speaker 2: southern California.
- 12:46Speaker 1: That's for sure.
- 12:48Speaker 2: Okay, Winter Olympics set to begin in Italy this week,
- 12:53Speaker 2: and the United Nations has called for a fifty two
- 12:56Speaker 2: day pause on all wars. Now that's kind of a
- 13:00Speaker 2: weird one, isn't it. Fifty two days? Well, let me
- 13:03Speaker 2: tell you why. There is a centuries old tradition, I
- 13:06Speaker 2: mean millennia old tradition that ensures safe passage of athletes
- 13:12Speaker 2: and officials who go to the games. And and Lisa Bayerbach,
- 13:19Speaker 2: President of the eightieth Session of the UN General Assembly,
- 13:22Speaker 2: Because this happens in the General Assembly, I call upon
- 13:25Speaker 2: all warring parties of current armed conflicts around the world
- 13:28Speaker 2: to boldly agree to true mutual ceasefires for the duration
- 13:35Speaker 2: of the Games, this Olympic Truce. So where did an
- 13:40Speaker 2: Olympic truce come about? You go to ancient Greece, where
- 13:44Speaker 2: the Olympics actually began. And the idea of this Olympic truce,
- 13:49Speaker 2: or Ikechadia is what it's called. Ekechadia goes back to
- 13:53Speaker 2: ancient Greece, as I said, when three warring kings signed
- 13:59Speaker 2: a tree allowing the safe passage of athletes and spectators
- 14:04Speaker 2: from their cities to the Olympic Games.
- 14:07Speaker 1: And by the way, the truce is documented.
- 14:09Speaker 2: To go back to ancient sources and it has endured
- 14:14Speaker 2: with varying degrees levels of observance. It was revived in
- 14:17Speaker 2: the nineteen nineties during the Bosnian War. And so the
- 14:22Speaker 2: reason it was is fifty two is because it goes
- 14:28Speaker 2: one day before the Olympics and the Paralympics and one
- 14:32Speaker 2: day after. That's where the magic number fifty two comes from.
- 14:37Speaker 2: And every two years, the UN General Assembly now adopts
- 14:40Speaker 2: the Olympic Truce resolution ahead of the Games. In two
- 14:44Speaker 2: thousand and one on the heels of September eleventh attacks,
- 14:47Speaker 2: the US, which was hosting the Winter Olympics and twenty
- 14:51Speaker 2: and two thousand and two introduced a resolution that called
- 14:55Speaker 2: for there will be no Olympic truce, and that was
- 14:59Speaker 2: base on what was happening with Afghanistan being attacked, etc.
- 15:04Speaker 2: And then more stats that are coming out at this
- 15:07Speaker 2: point dealing with the truths and wars. The UN figures
- 15:13Speaker 2: that a quarter of a million people died in conflict
- 15:17Speaker 2: related violence last year. This according to the Armed Conflict
- 15:21Speaker 2: Location and Events Data and as part of the UN,
- 15:24Speaker 2: and fighting has continued still going on in Gaza, Sudan,
- 15:27Speaker 2: Ukraine and all over the world. One point two million
- 15:30Speaker 2: soldiers Russian shouldiers have been killed, wounded or gone missing.
- 15:35Speaker 2: Ukraine six hundred thousand total losses. So how are these
- 15:41Speaker 2: warring nations sending athletes?
- 15:43Speaker 1: Aren't they involved? Yeah, they do. The Ukraine is sending
- 15:47Speaker 1: forty six athletes.
- 15:51Speaker 2: Russia after the invasion of Ukraine is not allowed in
- 15:55Speaker 2: the games. So how about Russian athletes, Well, they're sort
- 16:02Speaker 2: of allowed. So by the way, there is a truce
- 16:06Speaker 2: that began on Friday the Milan Courtina Olympic truce. No
- 16:11Speaker 2: party in any conflict has plans to observe it. By
- 16:15Speaker 2: the way, so more than thirty five hundred athletes from
- 16:19Speaker 2: ninety three countries are going to compete this year for
- 16:22Speaker 2: the Winter Olympics Italy, which well some of these athletes
- 16:32Speaker 2: and they're representing countries that are just in the middle
- 16:34Speaker 2: of these huge political violence, internal problems at civil war
- 16:39Speaker 2: Haiti sending two athletes, Guinea Bissau wherever they owe that is,
- 16:44Speaker 2: is sending one athlete, and that was following a coup
- 16:47Speaker 2: in November. Matta Gascar also had a coup, is sending
- 16:50Speaker 2: two athletes, and in the days leading up to the
- 16:55Speaker 2: first day of this Olympic truce would be Olympic truce,
- 16:59Speaker 2: Rush launches. It strikes on Ukraine's energy sector. I mean,
- 17:03Speaker 2: just to the point where Ukraine is reeling. There's very
- 17:07Speaker 2: little power in Ukraine. So what the IOC has done
- 17:11Speaker 2: is banned Russia's Olympic committee for participating in team sports
- 17:16Speaker 2: following what happened in Ukraine. So Russian athletes, and keep
- 17:21Speaker 2: in mind, these athletes have been training a lifetime for this.
- 17:25Speaker 2: Olympic Athletes don't just show up and have a good time.
- 17:28Speaker 2: They're not just fun purveyors of athletic competition.
- 17:34Speaker 1: They're not. Now, this is not weekend stuff. I mean
- 17:37Speaker 1: this is full time for a lifetime.
- 17:40Speaker 2: So Russian athletes who want to compete can do it
- 17:44Speaker 2: as individual neutral athletes. Thirteen of these neutral Russian athletes
- 17:52Speaker 2: are competing this year. They can't participate in the opening ceremonies,
- 17:57Speaker 2: they can't wear or display their team colors or flag.
- 18:01Speaker 2: And if a Russian athlete, a neutral individual neutral athlete,
- 18:05Speaker 2: wins the gold medal, then the music that's played is
- 18:10Speaker 2: the IOC Commission music, and it's the International Olympic flag,
- 18:16Speaker 2: you know, with the five circle, different colors than is
- 18:21Speaker 2: put up the flag stand, and any metal won by
- 18:25Speaker 2: a Russian athlete will not be included in the official tally.
- 18:29Speaker 2: And my favorite sport we'll be talking about a lot
- 18:31Speaker 2: about that, of course, is curling, and of course everybody
- 18:35Speaker 2: knows what curling is, and that is the stone that
- 18:40Speaker 2: with a handle on it, that is it's a lot
- 18:44Speaker 2: like bache.
- 18:46Speaker 1: The stone gets it's.
- 18:50Speaker 2: Not thrown, but it is moved down the ice and
- 18:54Speaker 2: you want to get to the closest possible center part
- 18:58Speaker 2: of the target red circle and you know, they bounce
- 19:02Speaker 2: off each other, et cetera. And the way that it's
- 19:06Speaker 2: moved faster or slower is a bunch of guys with
- 19:09Speaker 2: brooms that are sweeping the ice in front of the stone.
- 19:15Speaker 1: I mean, look up.
- 19:15Speaker 2: Curling, and I wonder why brooms, well, because they can
- 19:19Speaker 2: make the ice melt faster in front, because with the
- 19:23Speaker 2: friction of the brooms on the ice, the ice can
- 19:26Speaker 2: actually be softer and melt and be more slippery. And
- 19:30Speaker 2: now those guys who are practicing curling, they are not
- 19:36Speaker 2: only they not only practice the curling, but they also
- 19:41Speaker 2: work full time because they're janitors. And that's a big,
- 19:45Speaker 2: big advantage.
- 19:46Speaker 1: All right.
- 19:47Speaker 2: Hey, I was just thinking, I'm making my ham and cheese,
- 19:50Speaker 2: which I do, and I've been come July, it'll be
- 19:55Speaker 2: thirty three years that I have been doing this show,
- 19:59Speaker 2: and thirty four years and then broadcasting here at kfive
- 20:04Speaker 2: since nineteen eighty nine, and I have never asked this
- 20:07Speaker 2: question which I'm about to ask. And this is for
- 20:10Speaker 2: you guys here in studio, and it's a metaphysical question,
- 20:14Speaker 2: and I understand it gets pretty deep sometimes, but I'm
- 20:17Speaker 2: going to bring it to the table. Usually we don't
- 20:19Speaker 2: go deep on this show. But I want to ask
- 20:22Speaker 2: this question. When you make a sandwich, which I do,
- 20:28Speaker 2: would you rather cut it on the diagonal or down
- 20:33Speaker 2: the middle?
- 20:34Speaker 1: Amy? Your diagonal?
- 20:36Speaker 3: Definitely diagonal?
- 20:37Speaker 1: Huh cono diagonal down the middle? Okay? All right.
- 20:42Speaker 2: And Lindsay, who is sitting here, just came in to
- 20:46Speaker 2: do some work. She is a diagonal person and diagonal
- 20:52Speaker 2: or down the middle.
- 20:55Speaker 1: She has no idea what I'm talking. No diagonal. Oh
- 20:58Speaker 1: you're diagonal. So we have two diagonals. I'm down the middle, okay,
- 21:04Speaker 1: and Will diagonal are down the middle? Is not there? No.
- 21:11Speaker 2: Will is practicing his impression of Helen Keller for his
- 21:15Speaker 2: next stage appearance and doing a brilliant job, I might add,
- 21:19Speaker 2: And I am a down the middle person.
- 21:22Speaker 1: Okay.
- 21:22Speaker 2: We have now answered that question. And if anybody is
- 21:26Speaker 2: listening to the show for the first time, this will
- 21:30Speaker 2: be the last time you listen to this show. And
- 21:32Speaker 2: I clearly understand that the entertainment value of all that. Okay,
- 21:37Speaker 2: talking about entertainment. The Kennedy Center, which everybody still calls
- 21:42Speaker 2: the Kennedy Center. I don't know anybody who calls it
- 21:44Speaker 2: the Donald J. Trump Kennedy Center for performing arts like
- 21:47Speaker 2: give me a break. It's like the Department of Wars,
- 21:50Speaker 2: the Department of Defense, and it's the Gulf of Mexico.
- 21:54Speaker 2: Leave me alone. In any case, the number of people
- 21:58Speaker 2: who have canceled performances since Trump took over as chairman.
- 22:03Speaker 2: And I'm looking at the calendar of performances and half
- 22:08Speaker 2: of the performances that have been booked for February and March,
- 22:12Speaker 2: or half of the dates have been eliminated. The ones
- 22:16Speaker 2: that are still there, they figure half the audiences will
- 22:20Speaker 2: be gone. And why is that, Well, because of of course,
- 22:26Speaker 2: the politics of what's happening.
- 22:28Speaker 1: So what President Trump has said.
- 22:30Speaker 2: And two you have to give him not credit, but
- 22:35Speaker 2: you have to give him some veracity here, and that
- 22:37Speaker 2: is he has said for years that the Kennedy Center
- 22:40Speaker 2: is dilapidated and he's renovating, and I have not heard
- 22:43Speaker 2: a refutation of that. And so what he is doing
- 22:47Speaker 2: is he is effectively tearing down the Kennedy Center. Well, well,
- 22:51Speaker 2: not even the facade is going to stay the same.
- 22:52Speaker 2: The steel beams that hold up the structure, that are
- 22:57Speaker 2: the structure are going to be utilized, and that now
- 23:01Speaker 2: the rest of it is not. Now can you imagine
- 23:04Speaker 2: what it's going to look like. Look at mar A Lago,
- 23:08Speaker 2: Look at the end to pictures of the interior of
- 23:11Speaker 2: the Trump residents. Look what he did to the White
- 23:15Speaker 2: House with all the gold and Guilt Guild that's all
- 23:21Speaker 2: over the White House. And now we have the Kennedy
- 23:23Speaker 2: Center that is going to be completely renovated.
- 23:27Speaker 1: And it's going to be ready in two years. Now.
- 23:29Speaker 2: The question is is it because he simply wants to
- 23:32Speaker 2: make it in his own image, which I think is
- 23:36Speaker 2: part of it. Is he reacting to the complete collapse
- 23:42Speaker 2: of the artists that are there, and I mean Hamilton
- 23:46Speaker 2: canceled and it was going to be there to celebrate
- 23:49Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty years Philip Glass, So as a
- 23:53Speaker 2: renowned composer, he had written a symphony because the celebrate
- 24:00Speaker 2: actually his celebration.
- 24:01Speaker 1: This was kind of interesting.
- 24:02Speaker 2: It's to honor Lincoln's Lysium Address of eighteen thirty eight
- 24:09Speaker 2: that put Lincoln on the national stage. Washington National Opera
- 24:14Speaker 2: gone after seventy years. And the names I could throw
- 24:19Speaker 2: out at you, some you know, some of you don't.
- 24:21Speaker 2: With the Martha Graham Dance Company, Chow Baby, it's gone,
- 24:25Speaker 2: and the list just goes on and on and on, and.
- 24:29Speaker 1: You know, the politics are paramount here.
- 24:32Speaker 2: So is the reason that it's being completely redone because
- 24:38Speaker 2: of the reaction, and Trump is deflecting simply by closing
- 24:42Speaker 2: it down. Is it because it truly is the lapidated?
- 24:47Speaker 2: Is it a combination of the two? I don't know,
- 24:50Speaker 2: but I guarantee you since it is the President that
- 24:55Speaker 2: is creating a new center, I can't even imagine what
- 24:59Speaker 2: it's going to look like. As you know what he
- 25:01Speaker 2: did early on in his term. Is he actually just
- 25:06Speaker 2: a few months ago, is he fired everybody that was
- 25:09Speaker 2: on the board of the directors of the center. It's
- 25:12Speaker 2: a nonprofit, put himself and it's funded to some extent
- 25:17Speaker 2: for the federal money, and it's a quasi independent facility.
- 25:22Speaker 2: So the President fired everybody who was on the board,
- 25:26Speaker 2: put in his own hand pick board, put in his
- 25:28Speaker 2: own president of the Kennedy Center, and named himself chairman.
- 25:34Speaker 2: And in a unanimous vote, the members of the board
- 25:38Speaker 2: voted to put his name on the Kennedy Center. And
- 25:42Speaker 2: as he said, I had no idea it was happening.
- 25:45Speaker 2: I am honored to have that happening. You know, for example,
- 25:50Speaker 2: you have the Nobel Prize, which he desperately wanted. And
- 25:57Speaker 2: the recipient is the Venezuelan opposition leader Mashada or Mashato,
- 26:02Speaker 2: and she gave him her Nobel Peace Prize, gave him
- 26:07Speaker 2: the plaque, et cetera. And as he said, I am
- 26:11Speaker 2: honored to receive the Nobel Prize.
- 26:18Speaker 1: What do you do with that? Okay? This is KFI
- 26:21Speaker 1: AM six forty. You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
- 26:25Speaker 2: Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
- 26:28Speaker 2: and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app