This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Let's talk about hurricanes.
Hurricane Helene will's strengthen into a hurricane. It's right now tropical storm, but eighty mile an hour sustained winds hurricane force gusts have been measured in some places. They're talking about this right now, still northeast northeast, say of Cosamel, but making its way through the Gulf of Mexico up towards the Florida coastline. We're expecting parts of the western part of the Florida Panhandle is where it's it's expected to make landfall some point. The Big Bend area is
what they're calling it. The vast majority. I think sixty seven counties in Florida, and sixty four of them are under some sort of watch or warning as a result of this. Some of those early bands of rain have already spread as far north as South Florida as a result of this.
Hey, Gary Trucker branded here. I remember going to an A's game up in the Coliseum. Had the best time Craft stadium.
Great game.
Also remember going to see Aretha Franklin and Prince over at Oracle Arena back then and had the best time. Gonna miss those people, gonna miss those places. It was a great time.
Yeah.
Well, there is a new report that details a stunning Secret Service leadership mess.
That's where we kick off swamp watch.
Swamp is horrible, The government doesn't work.
Make it like a reality TV sho bad deus.
Always a pleasure to be anywhere from Washington, d C. Hey, Joe.
A town hall too, clearly built on a swamp in so many ways, still a swamp to watching.
Malarkey said, dream the swamp. I said, Oh, that's so, I'll keep you know the thing.
So there was a mypartisan Senate that released a report today that says Secret Service agents failed to take charge of decision making for security at the rally where Trump was shot in July. There were key lapses in preparation and communication that day. The locals were on a separate frequency than the Secret Service. The guy running the drones had no experience and was on the phone with tech support. It's a what is it called the Keystone cops.
That's what this sounds like.
Some of the problems.
They also pointed out the failure to set up visual barriers around the rally that might have blocked the view from the rooftop all the way to.
Where the president was.
Joe Cahill is on the story and joins us now with more details about this report.
Joe, how are you say?
Good?
How are you guys great?
We're just going through some of these things, some of the very very simple measures that appeared should have been taken that weren't taken.
So who's the one person to blame?
You know, I don't think that there is any one person.
I think it was.
You have to look at the leadership, generally, the advanced team that goes in ahead of time before any other major event and tries to do the pre planning. We've heard that the acting director of the Ciccret Service actually told me last week that there were some people who are going to be held accountable. And we pressed, is that is that being fired? And he said held accountable. So we think that that's going to happen. But look,
it's really hard to point to one thing. That's why lawmakers that we talked to are so surprised shot appalled by this because they look at it and say, if there were one mistake or two mistakes, it's something they would more easily digest. But this was a failure on multiple levels before the event, during the event, and in those crucial moments ahead of the time that Trump got shot. That really makes this almost hard to believe.
One of the things that the Senate did was voted to make sure that protectees will get the same level of protection that an active president or an a sorry, an actual president would have. So if you've got Protection Equality Bill that make sure that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have the same kind of protection that Joe Biden would have as the sitting president. Is that going to impact the campaign and the ability of candidates to actually move about the country.
That's a great question. So the Secret Service says no. They say that doesn't mean that their lifestyles or that their campaigning events are going to change. What that means is they do what they want to do, and it is on us to figure out, no matter what their activities are, how we can protect them. Now, if you're wondering, well, we don't have much faith in the agency to do that at this point. You know, that is also a
concern that many lawmakers. We brought up. The Secret Service says, no, that they're not going to You know, they can do what they want, and the task before the agency is you got to protect him at all costs. Here, I want to point out one thing in the report, if I can, that really amazed me. It jumped out and I read the whole thing this morning, cover to cover. The thing that stood out most was in the middle
of it. If you're reading the reports, about page fifty five fifty six, I think they have an interview with the sniper teams lead that day, and he basically describes the moment that local officers on the ground saw Thomas Crooks climb this building and get into position with a gun. He saw officers local officers reacting to that. He says, I was watching as they put their hands on their
guns and ran towards the buildings. And so the Senate committee, who's asking this team lead these questions, says, at that point, wasn't it enough that you knew there was something concerning to pull Donald Trump off stage? And he said no, because we didn't know. It could have been a medical emergency, could have also been a man with a gun. And the committee asked, well, if it was even a possibility
that it was a man with a gun. You wouldn't even consider calling off the former president from the stage he was on. And the response was, well, it didn't even cross our mind to do that.
That amazed me that there.
Wasn't even a consideration and that he said so much to the committee. It just blew me away reading that.
And why isn't there a separation of a medical emergency versus someone with a gun? Those should be two different alerts.
Yeah, and you know therein lies another problem, which was communication. There were law enforcement on the ground at the local level that were flagging there is a person with a gun climbing the roof, and they were on their radios, but the Secret Service was not on the same frequency as the local officers on the ground out and I'm told that is actually a regular thing. They don't want to clog up each other's communication. But usually what happens
is there's one command center that's hearing all of this. Yes, and if the command center says, hey, the local guys see a man with a gun, that immediately gets to the Secret Service agents who are around Donald Trump. And that didn't happen in this case. Instead, of one command center, they had two separate ones which were not communicating with each other, another major failure of many that is laid out in this report today.
All right, Joe, thanks for your time. We appreciate it, of course, happy to do it.
Joe Khalil again, Washington correspondent there for News Nation on the heels of what we talked about in the first segment of Swamp Watch, which was this congressional report that came out that detailed some of the failings of law enforcement and secret Service in the Butler, Pennsylvania assassination attempt on former President Trump. He also spoke about that today while he was doing a rally in North Carolin.
Really, why is it that the father of the shooter in the Butler instance has one of the best and most expensive lawyers in the entire state of Pennsylvania. How did he get to this expensive lawyer, big big law firm, the biggest in Pittsburgh. Where did he get this big law firm from? It's so strange. If I were president and a former president and a leading candidate, I'm the leading candidate by far to be the next president.
And hold for applause, please jeez.
That leading candidate was under threat. I was president and the candidate was under threat, any candidate, Republican or Democrat.
And by the way, I want to thank the.
Democrats because they just increased funding for the Secret Service, who worked very hard. They increased funding for the Secret Service. And nobody will believe this. It was a unanimous vote. Republicans, every single Republican, every single Democrat president voted in favor. That was a first unanimous vote.
Get what would you do if you were president.
And that's to increase the funding, yes, of the Secret Service. So I thank everybody.
Back to the teleprompter, please, But if I were the president, I would inform the threatening country in this case Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smitherines.
We're going to blow it to smitherings.
You can't do that.
I was wondering how he's gonna end that sentence.
He also said big threats on my life by Iran. The entire US military is watching and waiting. He wrote that on truth Social He said moves were already made by Iran that didn't work out, but they will try again. Not a good situation for anything.
I'm surrounded by more men, guns and weapons than I have ever seen before. Okay, So, and Biden told the co hosts of the View that he did not sense an overwhelming reluctance from Democrats about his reelection effort.
Says he was confident he could have beat Donald Trump.
Wow.
Sarah Griffin asked about Pelosi and about the pressure she put on Democrats to urge him to drop out, and he actually had pretty natural moment of everything's fine, and then he just goes.
It makes sense. There are some folks who would like to see me step aside so they have a chance to move on. I get that that's just human nature. But that wasn't the reason that I stepped down. I stepped down because I started thinking about it.
He again, I don't know if you're a candidate like that and you're surround I know he's the president, but if you're a candidate and you're running for president or any major seat like that, you've got people around you who are going to lie to you about your chances of win. After the debate, after the assassination attempt, Joe Biden was going to drop so precipitously in those polls that it wasn't It was not going to be close.
It was not going to be anywhere close to what he imagined an actual what he imagined the election was going to be, because you could not argue that all of the momentum was behind Trump after those two events, all of the momentum had Joe Biden gone into Chicago at the convention and tried to deliver the closing argument, tried to deliver the speech that was going to rouse all of the party and draw all of those independent voters who didn't quite want to vote for Donald Trump
but thought that there was a better He's completely delusional at that point. And I'm surprised that he's doing interviews. Yeah, I mean, Kamala Harris has finally apparently decided she will do an interview. I'll let you guess which network it is.
CNN, no ABC, no CBS.
Get more obscure and left than that, I don't know, MSNBC.
Ah, they're going to do.
Stephanie Rule is going to be the one who interviews her, and it's going to be a lot of like Drew Barrymore's we need a Mama La, Right, now it's going to be that kind of interview.
I heard some recent clips of her, and she's back into word salad mood.
Because no one asks me.
No one's replaying it.
If Oprah's the one asking her the questions, Oprah's never going to press in and go wait a minute. Okay, you said a lot of things in forty five seconds, But what exactly are you.
Going to do?
Right?
Would you like your Jeopardy question? How about that? Cheer you up a little bit.
Right there? Oh?
Why isn't that all? We're going to be ready?
Time to fall into autumn for one thousand dollars fall from the Latin.
For fall off.
This adjective describe trees that lose their leaves in the.
Fall, trees that lose their leaves in the floor.
Missus Twillager is not happy now.
Trees that lose their leaves?
Why are you mad at me?
Deciduous?
What is it? I didn't I'm not you.
Can't at the answer when.
The something right away from Missus Twilliger. And now she's rolling over in her graves somewhere.
I think I just saw my first glimpse of miss Patricia.
Justin Worsham is host of the Dad podcast.
I like that, and I was waiting for you to see.
What I was.
I'm like everyone everywhere.
I'm still in my head about our off air conversation, just just imagining such a manly Justine exists there.
It's altered the universe. It's just this.
If they if they're going to remake that movie Multiplicity with.
Michael exactly, I need to revisit that. I've revisited mister Mom. And that's a that's a good one.
Problem right there.
That's what I never had. Mister Mom was such a good movie.
Did you and your wife talk about childcare? Like, how are you guys going to handle it?
Or No?
It was never because I was so unemployed, that's true. No schedules allowed for no, honestly. I mean when they were infants, Yes I was.
I was.
I was building my stand up career at that point, and anytime I had a road gig as my schedule is getting busier. Natalie was so successful working at the bank that they would let her work from home before that was even a thing, and so and then eventually we started taking the kids to like a preschool, and weirdly enough, though not because.
Of the cost our preschool.
At most for two kids to go there, I think it was five days a week for a few hours, was like nine hundred bucks a month. I did some research and the average cost here in LA because this article that I found is saying that people are spending eighty thousand dollars fifty thousand dollars for two children, eighty thousand dollars for triplets, fifty thousand dollars for two children.
In different areas like Chicago and the Carolinas, on average, people are spending twenty percent of their annual income on childcare. But here in Los Angeles it ranges from two hundred and sixty bucks a month up to four thy two hundred and twenty dollars a month, which averages about fifteen hundred a month, which and they're saying it. It's also people are paying more for childcare in America than they are for their rent, which is.
Kind of sense.
I know what makes sense, But it shouldn't right, Like that shouldn't we shouldn't be so like yeah, get well.
And I remember this would have been early inn our parenting career, so it's twenty plus years ago. But we watched Dateline or twenty twenty or something like that, one of the larger news magazine programs, and they discussed that cost of childcare versus the cost of one of the parents that come home.
Yeah, and.
Almost without fail, it was cheaper for a parent to be home, lose that income from whatever job it was then to have both parents working, and then shoving all of that money into childcare. That's still true because you've got the I'm sure I shouldn't say because but and you have the impact of having a parent around all the time.
I have a friend whose husband she out earns him, she's the breadwinner, and her husband did that he stopped working because they would save money he wasn't making as much, and they would save a bunch of childcare for two kids, and recently has gone needed to go back to work.
Because that's a hard thing to ask. That is a really hard thing to ask of a mother or a father to stay home with the kids and not have that satisfaction of earning money, going somewhere, having adult interactions all the things right, especially for a man, I think biologically speaking, and I don't know that's probably sexist to say, but especially for a man to be able to bring home money. I think it's even harder for them, not you justin but every other man in America to be the state.
Did use a keyword there what you said. I don't think it was empty dome.
I'm sorry, but you did open the segment.
Choice.
But anyway, recently he went back to workship because he did need that, like he needed he needed to go back to work and and there, and they're paying through the nose. I mean, the kids are older now, so it's not as you know, labor intensive as when they were little, but still.
It's just so driving them around to practices and things is.
Just well, and that's all.
We could talk even more about that, I think in the next segment, because they're about the other article about just people being way too stressed about parenting.
But I think this is part of the childcare thing.
Definitely is a thing in my experience when the kids are younger, as they get more into school, it gets a lot easier. I personally, this is what's weird about me. I loved being the stay at home mom, like I love that, like the whole thing about the role.
I love everything about the gig.
But I still wrestled with the idea that I was a sandback to my wife that I wasn't a real man because I couldn't bring home the majority of the money. Now things have completely reversed, and I don't know that I like it. I'm I don't know, being the man in the relationship. That kind of sucks a little bit.
But a little bit of pressure.
Can I make cookies and bread at home? I'm really good at it, all that pressure.
Whenever she wants to, By the way, I am a very yeah, whenever she wants, guys, she barely.
We'll come back.
There is a new reports on the state of parenting in America. It's like sixty minutes.
Yeah, you dailed it. You're doing great, thank you. Everybody's stressed. This I think goes off the heels you.
We didn't get a chance to talk about it because when I came back, I talked about my debt's passing and then no, no, why I giggled at that. Sorry that but anyway, then the next week, you guys are gone, and so we kind of hit on a little bit. But the Surgeon General is basically put out like a warning like they put on cigarettes, saying, hey, maybe you shouldn't be a parent if you're not like up for it because it's very hard, which is fascinating to me
on so many levels. But now they're talking about this new data that's showing the forty percent of US parents report that on most days they are so stressed they cannot function, which is interesting to me.
Go for it.
I want to push back on this too, because I mean, I'm not pushing back on the findings of the study. I am pushing back generally that we have allowed people to say things like I can't function.
No, no, you can. You clearly can't.
Your heart still beating, you're still drawing breath, You're not frozen in fear or ineptitude. You just want to say something that makes it sound like you're the victim of how awful your circumstances are.
Yeah, we want to talk about how hard everything is. And there's there's trust me, there's lots of societal benefits of people being open about their struggles.
Why is that that used to not be the case? It's a it's is it contagious too? Or people want to just struggle and they want to.
That's yes, I think that they're they're definitely in the mindset that is now like, I really feel like there's I don't like it. I don't like the words that my brain tells me to use. But I do think that there's a lot of like a victim mindset of like I'm a victim of everything, and I think it's unfair to actual victims.
That's right. My genuine opinion is that they're my kids.
I have teachers tell my kid that they have ADHD, and I'm like, my kid doesn't have ADHD.
He just doesn't want to do your garbage social studies assignment. That's it. That's not ADHD, And that's wildly.
Disrespectful to people who actually struggle with ADHD or depression.
It's just being a little boy.
Yes's and again, you could call me an insensitive father.
So you're blue in the face. I don't care. Yeah.
But it also I mean that that labeling of something, or mislabeling perhaps of what your kid's behavioral issue is or lack of desire to do a homework assignment, then gives them the excuse for the rest of their adolescents where they're like, well, I I mean fourth grade, my teacher told me I was ADHD, and therefore I don't have to do the work because I can't.
I famously ridiculously wrong.
I famously got in trouble at a PTA meeting when my son was in kindergarten because we had a psychologist come and they were talking about kids who are experiencing stress in elementary school. And I was just sitting there like shaking my head, going but what like in elementary school?
And they as long.
As you have food to eat and a roof over your head, there's no stress.
You don't have perspective, right, Like I've told my kids this a couple of times where I've just said, I go, Unfortunately, you've had a pretty good life and so therefore it's hard for you to understand what real struggle feels like you have to go through some adversity.
Well.
And there are parents who will put their stress on their kids, right, And I don't know if it's because they feel like they're keeping their kids informed about what life is really like, but they'll they'll use their kids to, I don't know, share their burdens, perhaps when the kids are not equipped to do that. So there I think there could be some instances where kids do have stress, but not from elementary school.
I remember my mom working crazy hours as a nurse manager, and I remember her saying, you know, on more than one occasion, like, oh, I'm just so stressed.
I'm just I've got to get this done. I've to get this done.
And I never remember that permeating my my psyche or what have you. I remember thinking, oh, it.
Sucks to have a job like that's how that was my takeaway adult.
Yeah, I will take away.
I will talk for a living. So I this is my personal theories. I've read a lot of books on parenting everything, and in the seventies there was this self esteem movement in parenting where the idea was to make your kid feel good about themselves. Those kids then grew up and found out it was hard to always feel good about yourself. And then it became about we've all heard the it happens a lot in TV and movies
where it's like, oh, my father was emotionally unavailable. He never told me he loved me, he never told me he was proud of me, and even like, I've had conversations with my brother and my mom since my dad's passing, and it's shocking to me, but my dad's perception of that if he showed emotion as far as like sadness or tears. He saw that as weakness, which is not the man that I thought.
I knew. That was not who I was. It's clearly not who I am. That's a father.
But I think it starts there, right like if you're coming out of this, if you're being raised by somebody who doesn't feel things and sink thinks that if they had, because I felt this as a father, where if I start to feel like I showed them the chinks in my armor, then what I feel like I'm doing is I'm enabling them.
I'm saying it's okay to not try hard.
I'm saying it's okay to give up a little in any incident, which.
Is not what I want.
I want to hold them accountable in every possible way, to try to push them to be their best in a way I think a dad becomes a coach like that only twenty four to seven and there.
Is a balance.
But I feel like we've overcorrected and now everybody wants to talk about their feelings and their weaknesses, and then that becomes the thing to be proud of. But then nobody's really got this, Like pulling it up by your bootstraps and just suck it up. Buttercup mentality. It seems not nobody, but you know what I mean, Like the majority seems to be let's talk about our feelings and speak truth to power.
M I don't like it like this.
The examples of what to do in this article are take responsibility for telling your truth. Consider asking someone to look out for you. Consider group based intervention versus family based interventions, like you're you're pulling away from your family members for fear of judgment.
Get in touch with your limits.
I like any of this.
Reframe your role as a parent. What the hell like?
I honestly, and all of the experts that I talked to on the podcast would say, calm the f down, like just cut yourself flat, thinking you're overthinking it and this whole thing they can always say. The first line in most of these articles that I read about parenting is like in today's high demanding schedule of kids, and they're over like whelmed, Like scheduling stop, just stop. Your kid doesn't have to do everything. You know what they
need to do. They need to sit down and have dinner with you and screw around and get to work at school.
That's all. They don't have to do much more than that.
But what is your truth?
He up and get to work. There we go.
That's what I want to hear.
Read that the power there you get your chemistry work done.
Son, I feel like we've done real work here today.
I'm gonna go home and watch mister Mom Multiplicity first. Watch Multiplicity First. Not as good as mister Mom, but still I think, I think an underrated Michael Keaton vehicle.
Yes, I will say that we lost her.
She's staring at a corner of the clock. She's literally staring at the second tap.
No, please, let's do more, Michael Keaton and so please.
You've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show.
You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.