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. I'm sitting in traffic, said traffic and listening to John and Deborah, and they were talking about the unisex bathrooms and Congress and fight over having transgender women, and everyone's lost their minds about this on both sides, and something struck me. You'll have to follow me on this one. Stick with me, follow the breadcrumbs.
Do you remember the hypothetical would you rather see a bear.
Or a man in the woods?
Yes, and all the people who lost their minds and said, I would much rather see a bear. Men are scary. I'm so scared of men. I never know when they're going to attack me. Men are awful, yuck men. I'd rather see a grizzly bear. The same people that we're saying they'd choose the bear are the same people that now are okay with penises in their bathrooms. Those are the same people you are so terrified of that same penis two months ago with the bear or a man
in the woods hypothetical, so terrified of that penis. But this one you're allowing into your bathroom. You're fighting for it to be here, fighting for it.
You're dying on the hill to put it in your bathroom. Isn't that crazy?
I don't think people see the logic, the logical speed bumps in that.
I don't think they realize it.
Yeah, but isn't I mean, it just it struck me and I'm like, oh my god, like that is that is such a glaring, highlighted hypocrisy.
Yes, I totally agree all the time.
Huh.
I have them in my bathroom all the time.
I know, you know, it's funny. I was listening to Valentine this I've been listening to a lot of our radio friends. Good Valentine this morning, was talking about I meant to go up there and talk to him about it. He was saying to the people on his show that you know the older security guard, the one who I encountered in the elevator, who told me I had a nice shape.
Oh yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, the guy with the really thick ac accent.
Right.
Valentine's like, hey, you guys, you know the older security guy. And they're all like, yeah, he's a really good guy. He's got good vibes.
A whole bit.
And he's like, yeah, I just saw him in the bathroom. I was in a urinal.
He was in a urinal and he said and clear, like he's learning English or it's a little bit not fully developed or what have you. And he says, uh, you know, good morning, And I say good morning.
How are you. Oh, I'm good. I'm a little tired.
And ten seconds go by and he says to Valentine, you have a nice shape. No, he said, do you feel good after your peepee? Like two grown men? Do you feel good after your peepee? And I was like, that is so in line with my interaction with him in the elevator.
That's great, Like you know, when you're.
Learning a length to be trying to be like clokwheel and.
Just he's like, he was very complimentary to you, Leullie.
I appreciate it, but you know, you just you got it a little bit wrong, right, you gotta just.
Have it a little bit wrong. Very funny. Uh well, listen, Jesse Smolet, I will never be the man that this did not happen.
To God, nobody woke up this morning and wanted Jesse Smolette news.
The Illinois State Supreme Court has overturned Jesse Smolette's conviction on charges that he staged that attack against himself in downtown Chicago five years ago and lied to police about it. But and this is important, he's gonna walk around saying, see, I told you it really happened. That's not what the
Illinois Supreme Court decided in this case. What the Illinois State Supreme Court said was that a special prosecutor should not have been allowed to intervene because the state's attorney for Cook County initially dropped the charges and made a deal with just Smollette ten thousand dollars bond, something like eighteen or twenty hours community service, whatever it was.
And the ruling.
And the appeal did not address any of the continued claims of innocence, because remember after the deal was struck, that's when the special prosecutor came in and they put him on charges and they found him guilty of a felony and you know, one hundred and fifty days jail, whatever it was.
It's a legal loophole. It's a legal loophole.
And this is the thing that I think people forget about or people are lazy about when it comes to legal cases like this. This is not a determination that Jesse Smolette did not fake that whole thing and make it up. It's a determination that the prosecutors went about prosecuting him.
In the wrong way to do process violation.
It's similar to other court cases, high profile cases. Take the classified documents case involving President Trump down in Florida. It's it's a similar decision in that judge, A Lean Cannon in that case decided that Jack Smith was appointed incorrectly, not that former President elect Trump should not have had those classified documents and violated law. It was that the prosecution due process portion of this case was done incorrectly.
So does not forget that these are not we're not exonerating who wrote that on your computer?
Who left you these notes?
These the notes that say things like Shannon smells or your show sucks, yes, or your TACKI and everybody knows it.
Yeah, do you know who wrote them?
Yeah, let's just say it's retribution. I started it. See, it's always the second punch. It's always the one who throws a second punch that gets in trouble.
I didn't see the first one.
So this goes back to.
When I wrote a bunch of post its on left a bunch of post its on Oscar's computer. This was like, I don't know, a year ago. Now, Oscar sucks. Oscar is the worst of you. Upset you upset people who are not Oscar. People lost their minds, like HR was called in and there was you know, bosses contacted about this. And I've known Oscar for five hundred years and this is our love language.
This is how we speak to each other.
You suck, No, you suck.
And the people that saw the notes thought that this was just like workplace bullying or something that they don't understand the relationship.
Someone would actually write that intending to be mean, right, yeah, okay.
So now that everyone's been fired, I can go back to being a bully to Oscar outwardly.
And he is and he is dishing it back.
That's oh okay. So you're saying Oscar did it? Yeah, okay, well that's good. At least I feel like I didn't know who it was and I was cons you were offended for me, you were aggrieved.
No, I just didn't.
I didn't want there to become another weird controversial, the non existent fight conflict between shows or whoever it was.
Oh, you thought it was the Woody show that these.
I actually did. I thought I thought it was Morgan. That's so funny.
No, they just leave pickles. Yeah, well pickles.
They don't know there were dill and bread and butter pickles on the oh count Well, it's funny that you bring that up, because we were making sliders the other night at home and I had the bread and butter pickles or whatever, the butter pickles, and my husband, who's not particular about food, said, why don't you get the real pickles, get the dil.
We only have the other pickles.
And I was like, I didn't know that that was going to be a big differentiation between the butter pickles and the kosher dill pickles. But apparently it was a sticking point some time. So now I've got a bunch of pickles.
Ters, it's not about the pickles. Oh really Yeah, maybe he had something else going on. Wow, he felt like you weren't paying attention.
I don't think so.
How would you know if you weren't paying attention.
I'm always paying attention except for when I'm here.
Can I talk about the awful forecast for Democrats right now. If this polling is accurate, which I don't know.
You never know, do you, But listen to this.
My head exploded when I read this. This is a poll from Puck News slash Echelon Insights.
So I've never heard of that.
I've heard of puck.
Okay, Well, this poll says most Democrats want Kamala Harris to be the presidential nominee in twenty twenty eight.
What are you doing?
They're ignoring the.
They are dumb dumbs. Why aren't you learning from your mistakes?
They say?
Forty one percent of likely Democratic voters said that they would choose Kamala Harris over Gavin Newsom.
Well set the bar high.
And Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Despite her loss, Newsom came in second with eight percent support. Now keep in mind that's quite the divide. She had forty one percent support, he had eight percent. Shapiro came in third with seven percent. Tim Walls and Pete boot Edge Edge both got six percent in the survey, about sixteen percent. We're still not
sure who who they would choose. We're a long way away. Obviously, more names will service, but the fact that forty one percent of people polled in this particular survey would roll the dice with her.
Again, is insane to me.
I mean, to take an optimistic look at it. You figure what she did in one hundred days of campaigning. She came in I was gonna say she came in second, but they were.
Voting for her. They were voting against Trump, right, find someone to vote for.
Well, that's what I'm saying is they have the mentality of, look what she did with one hundred days and a billion dollars.
Maybe if we did it over the course of a year and a half of.
A billion dollars, come on.
Well, that's that's why they got, That's why they lost. I mean that kind of mentality.
And we've talked about Nate Silver before, the guy who started five point thirty eight this polster. He wrote on Twitter today that Biden should resign. Yeah today, I know, is there any particular reason to assume Biden is competent to be president right now?
Oh, it's a very difficult job. It's terrifying what's going on.
He said, It's a dangerous world, extremely high stakes decisions in Ukraine. He should resign and let Harris serve out the last two months.
I mean, that's a real ding dong there between the two of them. But yeah, this is a he can't take questions when all of this is going on. He's not taking question because he can't. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's not knocking them, man, but he's it's just an acknowledgment.
That acknowledgement.
There comes a time in a boy's life when they start losing your brain. So the Gates reports, Yeah, the House Ethics Committee did not agree to release this report on Matt Gates yesterday. Republicans have apparently been insisting that it's not done, but a couple other people familiar with
the process have said, yes, it is. Some Republicans in the Senate specifically, are now suggesting that Gates consider withdrawing his nomination to save himself a wrenching ordeal of this embarrassing confirmation heary hearing that one Republican senator told The Hill, it would be Cavanaugh on steroids. You remember the yes, the fiasco that was, I like Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing, and it's it would.
Be wildly entertaining and awfully embarrassing.
And Mike John and we've said the Speaker of the House, has suggested he does not want the report release for a couple of reasons. Number one, he is also one that says it's not done, but he also said it's it would break precedent because of the fact that Matt gets resigned from Congress. The Washington Post editorial Board today points out there's plenty of precedent for releasing reports.
Mark Foley is one of the more recent ones.
Mark Foley was the guy who was sending inappropriate text messages to house pages. You talk about the time that I wore that mesh shirt and pink hotpants on the stage, it was because we were doing a spoof song on Mark Foley nexting these pages.
Right, it's a it's a complete Tara diddle that day two days in a row with the Tara Diddle.
No, that was Monday.
Is that Mondy.
It is a Tarra Diddle because there's no way it's about precedent. It's about protecting asses. It's about everyone covering their ass in Washington. Start going. I hate to side with that woman whatever her name is, with the three names Marjorie.
What I but she's right.
I mean, they're just terrified of their own dirty laundry getting aired.
It's possible, that's all.
It's about the name Anthony Wiener has cropped back up in circles because he's potentially looking at another political run. I don't know exactly what office he's looking for, but the Ethics Committee was looking into Anthony Wiener when he stepped down in twenty eleven. But then, of course he ran for New York mayor. He was still transmitting images to women that he shouldn't have been, and even after his attempt had comeback, he got sent He got caught sending explicit photos.
Waite High school girl in.
Twenty sixteen, soon after you asked him if you could look at his phone, and he said no, hell no.
The gut never lies. The gut never lies.
Your decisions about men have been correct, That's right.
I was wondering when he was going to pull out and Matt Gates.
Pull out his name from the who's going to withdraw his name?
Withdraw his name from because this was going to be a mess. Matt Gates wasn't going to sit there and let everyone comb through his dirty past, which could be present. He was withdrawing his nomination for Attorney General.
He just wrote on Twitter about ten minutes ago, I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday.
Remember he went with JD.
Vance to go discuss this with Senate Republicans. He says, I appreciate their thoughtful feedback and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump Vance transition. There's no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington's scuffle. Thus, I'll be withdrawing my name from consideration to service Attorney General. Trump's DOJ must be in place and ready on day one.
He said, I remain fully committed to see that Donald J. Trump is the most successful president in history. I will forever be honored that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice, and I'm certain he will save America. Do not forget. He resigned from Congress last week, so that seat is open. Senator Marco Rubio of the Great State of Florida has been chosen as the Secretary of State for the next administration.
There's two very important.
I mean, obviously the Senate seat is more important than Matt Gates's congressional seat. But now Ron de Santis has some decisions to make about who he's going to put in those places a.
Lot of power, and.
What if what if he appoints Matt Gates to fill out Marco Rubio's Senate term.
I don't think he would.
DeSantis is not I don't think he's a curious guy.
Well, I was just going to say, I'm curious to see what that relationship is like, because listen, Ronda Santis is a Trump supporter now, but I don't I don't get the impression that he's beholden. You know, It's not like Donald Trump is going to ge on the phone with the Florida governor and say, hey, Matt is looking for a job, maybe you put him in Marco's seat. But there is there is all of the political machinations that exist.
Now Matt Gates is replacement, not chosen by Ronda Santis. Now is that a special election will be held in Florida to fill the vacancy left by Matt Gates. Contrary to reports that say Ron de Santis can appoint a replacement, but he.
Will be appointing, he will be appointing.
Marco Rubio's yes, Yeah, it'll be a special election.
All right. Well that's that is pretty significant.
Breaking news again, Matt Gates has decided that he's going to withdraw his name for consideration to be.
The next Attorney General of the United States. We have one right now, we have them one. Oh cool.
John Dekker joins us from the White House only attorney in the White House Press Corps. And got to believe that this is going to send shockwaves.
Not of such big shock waves.
I mean, I kind of thought that this was going to happen at some point, with all the talk of all the dirty laundry that would be exposed.
Well, that's right. I was speaking with Amy King this morning about this, and I told her the writing was on the wall. This is not a nomination that would last. And I also predicted that mack Gates would withdraw his name from consideration, sparing Donald Trump what could potentially have been a really messy confirmation process. So not a surprise. I think the only thing that may be surprising is
the timing of it. That had happened just today after he was lobbying Republican senators on Capitol Hill to support his nomination. Obviously that did not go well, and as a result, he dropped out of consideration to be the next Attorney general.
Does this speak to anything regarding jd Vance? He took those meetings with Gates the power or that he may or may not have to sway those minds. Well.
Jd Vance has only been in the US Senate for two years. He's not like this wise old senate Republican. He's a freshman senator. People forget that, and so it's not like he had the juice to get him over the finish line. In fact, what jd Vance was doing in these meetings was just simply making introductions and letting Matt Gates do all the talking. So it yeah, I
wouldn't blame it on jd Vance. Having said all that, it was Matt Gates that had really an uphill battle based upon the allegations, the serious allegations that had been made against the number one and then number two, the fact that he had said such unkind things about the very Republican senators who are ultimately going to pass judgment on his nomination.
So we know that last week President Elect Trump no need Todd Blanche to be Deputy Attorney General. Todd blanche being one of Trump's criminal defense attorneys, does he immediately just in common think, does he jump to be the nominee for attorney general?
Or are they going to start this process over?
You think, well, that's a great question. You know, whether or not the number two and number three people that Donald Trump is already named at the DOJ, whether they step up one rung in the ladder. That's up to Donald Trump to decide that. I know there are a number of individuals who would describe themselves and are loyal Republicans to Donald Trump who could serve in the same capacity that Matt Gates would have served in, but they don't have the baggage that Matt Gates brought to the table.
John Decker, of course, White House correspondent we're talking to right now. How does it work? What does the conversation look like? Does Gates call Trump and say I'm going to do this or how does that work?
And how does that go over on Trump?
Well, I think he does give feedback to the President elect to let him know how those meetings with these Republican senators went yesterday. And although Matt Gates speaks in this post on social media, that momentum was on his side. That was not the case. There was no momentum whatsoever. There wasn't one Republican whose army could have twisted, who had already raised reservations or doubts about about Matt Gates being the next attorney general. So I can't tell you
for certain you know who made the call. But Matt Gates put out the social media post indicating that he was withdrawing his name from consideration.
And then finally, does this have any spillover for the nomination of Pete Hegsath as a Secretary of Defense because of the potential because of the allegations that were made against him from twenty seventeen that it sounds like the Trump team might not have known everything about.
It out Here's what I will say. And if you don't know Washington, I know it very well, having covered the White House going all the way back to Bill Clinton. It is a pack mentality. And now the focus is no longer on Matt Gates. The focus of this pack will now turn its attention to Pete Hegsett so he
can now prepare for being in the limelight. And that's not in a good way, as it relates to allegations that have been made against him, and now the spotlight will turn to him as to whether or not he can survive of these allegations and be the next leader at the Pentagon.
Yeah, we're getting a lot of fresh, new graphic details about what happened in that Monterey hotel room back in twenty seventeen, So probably going to be hearing a lot more about that, as you predict.
John, Thanks for your time today.
Absolutely, thanks for having me talk you real soon.
Absolutely, John Becker there from the White House Press Corps. My point about Rohn DeSantis and the potential to fill Marco Rubio seat Senator Gates is now trending on Twitter.
Well, dig I dug into their relationship because we were wondering about that because we knew that they did have a close relationship years ago. Gates was the one who kind of orchestrated DeSantis's transition team when he was elected governor, called him the best governor in the country essentially, But that was before all of Matt Gates's Matt Gates stuff came to the surface. So I don't know if DeSantis has excommunicated him or what happened there or if he maintains a friendship.
All right.
Breaking news that just came in a short time ago is that Matt Gates has withdrawn his name from consideration to be the next attorney general. Already speculation as to who might be the favorite now to replace as that nominee, and I mentioned Todd Blanche just last week had been named the nominee for Deputy Attorney General because he was
one of Trump's defense attorneys through different criminal cases. But again, we'll get some more information as we get closer, perhaps some information reaction from mar Alago and what's going on with Donald Trump. The problem that dogged Matt Gates were the allegations or the investigations into potential human trafficking, sex with underage girls, hinky money stuff, etc. Again, no criminal charges have ever been brought against him, and he's denied
those allegations the whole time. There's a problem with the Secretary of Defense nominee.
Also, graphic new details in a Monterey City police report have been released.
They were released last night.
Involving a twenty seventeen sexual assault allegation against Pete haig Seth. They detail a boozy night, a pool side argument, and two conflicting versions of what took place inside the hotel room of Trump's pick for Deaf sec SEC Deaf sect Deaf.
I this twenty two page report, and they said that it has some conflicting information in it, at least the portrayal of what exactly was going.
It is classic, he said, she said, matter right.
He did and has admitted to.
This is Pete hag Seth paid this woman as part of a non disclosure agreement.
When she was asked about this, by the way, by I think CNN, she started crying this week.
At the time.
So there's a twenty two page police report that cites video, surveillance footage, text messages, interviews with witnesses, and a detailed, lurid and conflicting portrayal.
So it's October twenty seventeen. He and the woman still unidentified, Jane Do, were attending a party after a conference held by the californ A Federation of Republican Women. This is up with the Higatt Regency Monterey and Hegseeth at the time was a Fox News commentator.
He was the one who gave the keynote address to this group.
After the party, she went to the hotel's bar with a group of women. She says that's when things got fuzzy. The reason that this police report was filed is because she went to a hospital four days after this happened for a sexual assault exam, and at the time she told the nurse at the hospital she thought something had been slipped into her drink. So anyway, she's at the hotel bar, she says that's when things got fuzzy.
She said to police that she saw Pete Heggsth acting inappropriate and including women rubbing women on their legs, and after they left the bar, they got into an argument about the behavior towards women at the conference.
It was loud enough to spark a complaint from other guests about a disturbance near the pool. When the employee went to respond to this, haig Seth began to swear to curse, saying he had the freedom of speech. No boy, and the woman intervened she apologized for hag Seth. According to the report, the employee told police that hag Seth.
Was wasted, yeah, but that the woman was standing on her own was very coherent. Now, haig Seth told police, yeah, I had a couple drinks. I was buzzed but not intoxicated. So they go to the mostological thing is they go to his hotel room.
They go to his hotel room, and the woman told police that haig Seth asked her who she was texting and took her phone. She was texting her husband, who was staying at the hotel with her and their small children.
That's weird, she says. She tried to leave the room, that he blocked the door. She recalled saying no repeatedly, but not much else.
At the time, I should say, he was in the midst of getting a divorce from his second wife after fathering a child with a producer at Fox said it was a consensual, consensual encounter. They both acknowledged it was something they should not be doing.
She told him she would tell her husband that she had fallen asleep in another hotel room her cops. Her husband told the cops that when she stopped responding to texts and calls, he went to look for her, but came back to the room after he couldn't find her.
She says she returned to their hotel room in the early morning hours, which to me, I don't know. I guess if she was trying to hide it and pretend that she just fell asleep. But why would you stay with somebody who assaulted you for longer than?
I mean? I don't know how it works.
Again, she says that he was blocking the door.
I don't know if he continued to block the door, but that was the way that she described it.
Also, doesn't it kind of make it go away? If you were assaulted and didn't choose to have an affair on your husband when your two small children earth in the hotel room?
Doesn't that make it kind of go away?
What do you mean?
Well, it's like that show, Oh you haven't finished that show? She cheats on her husband with this guy, right, and then it's not cheating.
Has remorse about it or yeah? Of the story?
I don't know.
Well that's and again this this is from the police report. The prosecutors in Monterey County decided not to charge him with anything. Right because of those the wiggle room, the discrepancies in the stories.
Who knows.
So 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,