All right, let's get it started. Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome in to Kentucky. And it's morning news here on News Radio eight forty whas Nick Coffee.
That is me. The full crew is here.
We've got Scott Fitzgerald, John Alden, John Shannon, the crew has assembled and fellas, I see no reason why this can't be a phenomenal Thursday.
Thursday's the new And who says this can't be our day?
Scott, it is our day. It's John day. John, tell me why we can't own this day.
We absolutely will own this Thursday. I love how Also, whenever you announce this, you let us know that we're here, you kind of make us selling the Avengers. Whenever you letus know the whole crew is here.
Well, of course, I mean, I believe it's my look, it is my duty to make sure people know not only who is here, in the significance of your presence.
That is, that's my job.
In fact, I feel like if I this is not a career that I'll ever see myself in, but I would be like I'm a good hype man. I don't know if I have the personality for it, but like I will. And John you know this one. I would bring on guests. Sometimes I would just get slap happy and be obnoxious, and I would introduce a guest and I could tell they felt like, Wow, he's right. I'm a pretty big deal.
They feel good when you bring him on.
That is a big deal in this business, is introducing guests that will set your tone for your interview. I can't tell you how many legends I listened to in radio that do it that exact same.
Thing, and not only that, and I do that too, So I'm a legend, Thank you, Scott. But there's certain interviews that you do that you're one of, maybe five to six in a day, sometimes depending upon the day. If we bring on someone to discuss a national news story, like Rory O'Neil, I mean, Rory has let me know we're not exclusive. Like you know, he's seeing other people. He's doing radio hits across the country and I don't
take it. It's just part of his gig. But when you give him a question that might be a little bit more I guess down the path of him sharing some personality, it lights him up a little bit.
Yes, you know what I mean.
And it's not just Rory it's just a people because it just becomes very routine. And I think, whenever you can, and that's one of the things that I worried about whenever I shouldn't say worried about, because I mean, it wasn't as if I thought this would be such a change that I couldn't be myself. But in general news and I guess it really depends upon the format. Like let me give you an example. I'm watching WLK wise newscast right right behind Scott here on television. It's on
every morning. There are there are news partners, and think about how little time they have to really put any of their own flavor on anything. It's not opinion based really at all. And that's just what the gig is. And with radio, we of course do news, talk sports, we talk about anything, and that's what gives us sort of free rein to where we are a rare medium when it comes to a lot of I guess, just
mediums where in which you get your news. You know, there's not as much opportunity to kind of, you know, put your own put your own twist on it, or.
Well it's the theater of the mind.
That's why I love baseball announcers so much because you get somebody like Sean math at U of L he can sit there and wax poetic by.
Himself for almost three hours straight.
And for what radio does, to your point, it forces listeners to create image in their mind and then they kind of to me, you have more of an intimate relationship with the host with the people because you're not staring at a television, you're not looking at what they're wearing.
You're not jumping around from image to image.
And for folks that may be listening in their car and the way to work or to your point, Nick and I had some email me a couple of years ago that said the same thing. You know, they lay in bed until we're done with a wrap session and then that's when they're that's their cue to get up. But they're probably laying there listening right now and you're.
Just kind of morning if that's you, right.
You're just kind of in that presence, and I think you're spot out with your take there, and that is you know, we just have free rein to kind of entertain you and and also inform you.
Yeah, and I you know, this is one thing that took a while for me to really get is that there'll be people that listen just because that's what they do, and they may not have any strong opinion one where.
Or the other.
But yeah, what we get to do is pretty awesome. And it's five ten am, which is very early, but again, this can be our day. We're we're probably up. We're one of probably not very few people. But I'd say a lot more people around here are sleeping right now than they are awake. But if you're with us, you're gonna have a good Thursday too.
You can get your when I find out, you get your good folks like out at Ford, you get your folks at eups that.
Are on their way into the third shifters ending work, that kind of stuff.
I know so many people through this five o'clock session that I'm still friends with some twenty years later, because they listen at five o'clock.
And you can just feel that it's a different it's a different audience than what we get at eight o'clock and seven o'clock and Whatnotly, so let's have a day, fellas.
Shall we.
Absolutely let's do it all right.
We've got an update on trafficking weather coming your way here in just a moment.
Also, what I want to get to in about five minutes is we'll let you know what iHeart is doing to help you help those that are in need in Kerr County, Texas with the flood relief. So we'll get to that in a lot more. It is Kentucky and his Morning News here on news Radio wait forty whas. It is five point fifteen Here Kentucky and His Morning News with Nick Coffee on news Radio eight forty whas. Don't forget take us with you wherever you go. You
can listen live on the iHeartRadio app. Also listen live
at whas dot com. And obviously, something that we've been talking about throughout the week is the tragic situation in Kerr County, Texas, as they are still looking for many people who I think a lot of folks assume at this point did not make it, did not survive when it comes to the just devastating floods that really I know, unfortunately a lot of the talk has been about what could have been done to prevent it, and those conversations I think, in certain contexts make a ton of sense.
But some of the conversations as far as just wanting to play the blame game here is just I mean, it kind of leaves me speechless that even comes to mind. But maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. Maybe I was naive to the world prior to making the move here, which,
by the way, not to get sidetracked. But as much as I don't like the fact that that's been as big of a talking point, meaning you know, is somebody to blame here, is this Trump's fault for removing real sources that could have helped and all that kind of stuff. There is a certain way to go about it and addressing that specific thing. And man, the Governor of Texas, I don't know how I missed this yesterday, but I want to play for you in an analogy he made
that I thought was I thought was AI generated. I thought, wow, AI has come a long way already, because there's no way the Governor of Texas said this, but man, it looks real. It turns out it was real. But anyways, back to what I was getting at. When it comes to the Kerr County area and really just that community, they need help. They need help in a big way. We're talking about countless residents that have been impacted, some losing their life or losing loved ones. People have lost
their homes. I mean some communities have been completely changed forever. Children are still missing. So again, the need is urgent, and right now the communication found the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country. They've launched the Kerr County Flood Relief to support this response, relief and long term recovery efforts for that area. So what we're doing here at iHeart is making sure you know where to give money if you want to give money, if you're able to
help out and support right now that community. They want all donations to go directly towards local organizations to provide what's needed right now.
Food, shelter, healthcare, and hope.
So join us today here at iHeart and donate to the Kerr County Flood REALLYEF Fund at Communityfoundation dot net. So again that is the website. Community Foundation dot net will take you directly where you need to go in order to make sure that what you're donating goes directly to those that actually need it and not scumbag scammers who are trying to put up a fake site that just makes it look as if you're donating to something legit and you're not. You're just maybe making that scumbag wealthy.
So probably shouldn't give I don't know, it's double. Probably shouldn't give those people the attention. But then again, maybe they need the attention. So people don't just think, well, surely nobody out there would try to profit off of this tragic situation, will they? Well, they do. Unfortunately there's a segment, I hope it's a very small segment of society that does things like that. So again, Community Foundation
dot net. We'll talk to Rory O'Neil coming up at five forty five of NBC News and see if you can give us the latest as far as just to guess where they are, as far as not necessarily getting their lives back together, but accounting for everybody that is missing.
As we discussed yesterday with.
Rory, they're learning of more missing people sort of as this as this moves on. So again, just a tragic situation all the way around. All right, We've got sports coming your way here soon. And I won't be a liar and a phony and tell you that I'm a big golf fan because I'm not. But the ISCO Championship gets under way today here at the Hirstboyne Country Club in Louisville. Of course, it is a PGA Tour event, and you can just feel that there's there's some big
event energy here in Louisville. Maybe that's why I'm just feeling so good to get the Thursday started. But I know a lot of folks are going to make their way out there today or at some point this weekend, and I'm hopeful that the weather cooperates because we do a lot of things well here in Louisville. I'm biased, but I believe it. But man, we are a big time sports event city, and I know some people will bring up, well, then you know, why are there empty
seats at the UMP Center? Sometimes, well that's just society. I mean, it's pretty convenient not to go to certain games. But when there's a big event and you can feel that there's something that you know is not just a random one off event. But we're talking something like this a PGA event here here in Louisville, I think there's gonna be a really big crowd on hand. So we'll keep you updated as best we can on that and
keep this thing rolling along again. Scott's got an update on sports coming your way, But first we'll take a look at traffic with Bobby Ella's, get an update on the forecasts from Matt Melosovitch of WLKY, and keep this thing rolling along. It's Coffee and Company. Feel about Thornton's Actually,
I did it. I did it. It is and by the way, we need to address that at some point because now I've now learned that our sales team is selling this show as Kentucky and His Morning News with Coffee and Company.
What's the name of my show? What's the name of it? Who are we?
What do we call this? A?
Yeah, we have an identity crisis here, all right? Stick with us again. Trapping weather coming up right here right now, Hot fresh and ready to go. Hell yeah, thank you, John Shannon. Can you at least buy me dinner first? Goodness, gracious, it's five point thirty five in the morning. But yes, hot, fresh and ready to go. That's that's what we are
doing here. That's that's a good representation of our vibes here at Kentucky and This Morning News on News Radio eight forty whas Rory O and' neil set to join us coming up in about ten minutes and I'm not really sure where we're going to go. There's a lot of things that could throw at Rory, and I know
he's going to be ready. But one thing that I probably won't but I certainly think it's worth mentioning, is the news that we got yesterday that there have been six Secret Service agents that have been suspended because of their I guess, lack of doing their job when someone attempted to assassinate Donald Trump last summer. So yeah, nearly a year after the attempted assassination of Trump that was in Butler, Pennsylvania, by the way, the Secret Service has finally taken some disciplinary action.
And I guess.
Maybe this is a process that took this amount of time to end up getting to this decision to suspend six Secret Servance agents, six Secret Service agents without pay.
But I don't know.
To me, it seems like it's again I don't know the process that goes into investigating this internally and then determining if you're going to have a punishment or not. But the suspensions are going to range from ten to forty two days, and again it's following an internal review into major security failures. So these suspensions are personnel that include supervisors and agents from counter snipers, and then just I guess a team that they call the Site Advanced Team.
So the Homeland Security report from the end of last year painted the picture is this the shooter was apparently spotted twenty minutes before firing, and no local police were warned. There was no evacuation or stage lockdown that was initiated, and obviously that's an issue. So the victims families, they've been on record saying that I get that this punishment is a step forward, but they're requesting more of a
culture shift and overhaul essentially within the agency. Now, one thing I didn't realize, but I'm not totally surprised that the names of these suspended agents are going to remain classified, and that's just protocol that's for security reasons within the
Secret Service. But I don't know if is that something that it's a balancing act here, because I think there are certain things that you just regardless if it's for any reason, when it comes to the Secret Service, I think discretion is certainly important, and also it's just something that you just assume in a way, because again it's the Secret Service. Quite literally, the name Secret is in the Secret Service, therefore keeping things secret if it's part
of it. However, I also think the Secret Service is an agency that transparency is certainly appreciated by those that you know, realize what.
The Secret Service actually is and what it is that they do.
And I'm not saying that these agents should be outed and we need all their information. It's just when this day and age, it's hard for anything to remain private, even if that's protocol. Now, maybe the Secret Service is the kind of agency that could keep something private this day and age.
But I wouldn't be shocked at all if we find out.
In the next maybe it's even out there now. I just haven't seen it that, like somebody has has leaked who these people are in some form or fashion. And that's where it does get risky, because I mean, this is in no way a political opinion, because there are lunatics on.
All sides of politics.
But if you like, again, nothing should shock us this day and age really with anything, right, I mean, just think about where we are here in twenty twenty five. And I don't mean that to sound so negative as if like the world has gone to hell, but there've just been things that have taken place in the last I don't know decade, that just almost don't seem real.
But anyhow, if someone is just that obsessed with Trump, and clearly there are a lot of people that are, they make it their personality, and they knew the name of somebody that they believe was not doing their job and it nearly cost Donald Trump his life, Like that person may do anything, right.
I mean, that's true.
So again I don't you know, so again, I'm not advocating that back the more I think about it, I understand why names should be private. But there are certain jobs though that I feel like, if you knew it was going to be more of a public thing, you probably wouldn't want to do. And maybe that is maybe this is one of those this is one of those jobs. So anyhow, I'm not gonna be shocked really with anything. But if somebody finds out who these people are and
and out some that's just that's just society today. But he gets six suspensions have come down a little over
a year since it happened. But I guess that's that's some type of accountability, which, by the way, the shooter I mean that, I mean, have we heard anything else about this guy, like his story is background, like he's one of the every now and then I'll see somebody post a picture on Twitter or Facebook, or somebody will post a TikTok video just asking questions like, hey, we know, the only picture we have of this guy is the one that was that was showed to everybody right after
we realized he was the one who, of course tried to assassinate Trump.
And I'm not I'm not insinuating anything. It's just this day.
And I mean, look the guy who I mean, the people who commit heinous crimes the Internet. There's a lot of sluice out there that within twenty four hours we'll know everything. We'll know, we'll know the dating history of some of these people, and this person like we know nothing about, at least that I've seen. All Right, let's take a quick time out and get you caught up
on traffic with Bobby Ellis. We'll get a weather update from Matt Melosovich, and we'll bring in the one and only Rory o'eal of NBC News right here on news RADIOA forty WSAs. Good Morning, Kentucky, Anda. It is Kentuckyanah's morning news here on News Radio eight forty whas Nick coffee with you, and we've got Rory O'Neil of NBC
News joining us. And Rory, it's been something we've discussed throughout the week, and I guess we'll start with another update here as far as the situation in Texas, obviously, still many unaccounted for, and it sounds as if maybe there's more in which they realize are missing as the days move on here.
Yeah, the numbers keep going in the wrong direction, the depth toll topping one hundred and twenty. The search continues now for about one hundred and sixty. You know, thankfully the weather has improved, but this really is a recovery operation now. The sheriff told us the other day they haven't found anyone alive since Friday, and sadly now it
looks like they won't find any more survivors here. But the governor has committed to finding all the bodies and recovering all the remains of the missing and making it a twenty four to seven operation. You know, the destruction spans six different states and a lot of it involves an awful lot of debris that now they're asking people, look, don't clear off large parts of debris until police can get there, until the search can be done to make sure human remains aren't trapped underneath.
Wow, it's probably not something a lot of folks think of when it comes to clean up efforts for a devastating flood.
But that's that's the situation. Just tragic overall.
Now, when it comes to the warnings as far as emergency alerts that could have been sent out, not playing the blame game by any means, but as far as the information you've obtained, Rory, is there anything that you've seen that does stand out as okay that should have maybe been sent out earlier, or maybe they should have done this and they did. Not blaming anyone, but that continues to be a talking point.
Well, and also it's not necessarily blame. You're also saying, well, how do we do better next time?
Right? Is really the focus?
And you can say it does seem that the Weather Service did what it typically does.
Nothing out of the ordinary from them.
I know there have been criticisms about the staff was cut and the coordinator was gone and all that stuff, but it seems that their normal warnings went out as they normally do, as the information came in. There may have been a drop here, a break in the chain when it comes to the local awareness of the situation. Even the mayor said he was not on a call that it was not asked to be on a call in Curveville about the potential for flash flooding even though
it is relatively calm there. So you know, the action that followed the warning may not have been taken, you know. So all the warnings may have been there, but if you don't take some sort of action on it doesn't really matter, right.
Well said, And it's it's to your point. It's not necessarily blame. It's more so learning from experiences like this, And you don't want to go through an experience like this by any means, but when you do, you can take a lot from it to where moving forward you maybe know how to handle it a little bit better. But it's certainly been the continued talking point. Rody and Neil is our guest joining us here on eight p.
Forty.
Whas so the Big Beautiful Bill has mostly taken taxes away from gratuity. Do we expect this to lead to folks maybe not being as generous when it comes to gratuity.
So this was a great online discussion that the Food Critic over at the Washington Post started saying, well, look, if they get to deduct their tips now up to twenty five thousand dollars, do we have do we get to tip less? Because that server is keeping more of their money. So it really is just an online debate. This was the first, you know, the food Critic was the first, I think, to raise the idea of like, oh wait.
A minute now.
So most of the feedback though online has been oh, they worked too hard, they're underpaid anyway, and you know, and many people won't even take advantage of that deduction if they don't itemize their taxes, so it's uh. And then others will say they never claimed that money anyway, it went straight into their pockets. So it really is sort of an underground economy. But it did start an
online discussion which I thought was pretty interesting. What do you think should we tip the same or can we maybe fifteen percent rather than the twenty.
I would never have even thought about tipping less, just because I mean, it just it's not something that would have been on my mind. But I will tell you this, and I'm sure you've noticed this over your many years in the business.
Tipping getuity.
Tipping and gratuity is something that regardless of someone's opinion, people seem to always have a strong opinion on it one way or the other.
Well, right, well, especially too, because we got to the screen. We're in that screen life. Now we have to tip ranted thing. We're like, wait a minute, I took the bottle of water out of the counter and I put it on the thing, and all you do is ring me up, and I'm supposed to tip your ten fifteen percent with the screen you know. So yeah, we're already over sensitive to all those tips that were being asked to give. But now for these primary tipped workers, it's
an interesting discussion. I know, I'm still going to be pretty generous to my local barkeep, but yeah, I thought it was an interesting topic.
No doubt.
Rory, you're the best. Is always appreciate your time. Have a great day, my friend.
Hey thanks Nick?
All right, that's Rory and Neialed NBC News always appreciate his time. Yeah, when it comes to gratuity, I mean again, everybody's got a strong opinion on it, and I always try to tip well and certainly if I've got exceptional service that then that'll be considered when when a tip is added. But he mentioned just the option to tip.
I mean, it's not insulting, but I bet there's some that work in the industry that are uncomfortable noing that when they hand someone like the digital pad to check out, that it gives them an option to tip, because this is an awkward exchange.
It's not even exchange. It's just like, why would I wait a second, no, why would I tip?
Am I supposed to tip? Because it wouldn't shock me if one day we show up to a place where everything you do, the entire business transaction is all digital, you don't even see a human, and yet if they ask you to tip, like that wouldn't shock me at all. All Right, we've got an update on trapping and weather coming your way, as well as an update on sports with Scott Fitzgerald. Right here on there's Radio eight forty whas