This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI A M.
Six forty, The Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. If you're working today, I think it's President's Day. I think there's a holiday for some people. So if you're working today but you're still listening, thanks, thanks for making the effort to.
Get out here for us.
A lot going on today, Shannon's out. We are going to talk a lot about what's going on with Russia and Ukraine and these ongoing or beginning i should say, peace negotiations that are going to happen in Saudi Arabia. That'll be here in a few minutes. We got great weather for the rest of this week. And guess what, ladies and gentlemen, Baseball comes back this week.
That is a glorious thing.
In fact, the Cubs and the Dodgers will play the first spring training game on Thursday. Of course, those two teams get to start the season a little early with the series in Japan in the middle of March, so they get a head start on some of those things. So that's all good. We'll do tape Monday coming up late in the show. Some of the world of music news. Part of it was the SNL fiftieth anniversary from last night, three hours worth.
Of nice nostalgia.
There were a couple hiccups along the way, because Saturday Night Live can't do one entire show and have it be great, So there were a couple of hiccups, but it was a good show and if you were a fan of Saturday Night Live, even if you were a fan, at times they hit all the right spots, and they hit all the right notes and some of that. So Shannon would ask me what I did I should say? If she were here today, she would ask me, how it went this weekend?
How did it go this weekend? It went? It went well.
For those of you who don't know, I buried my parents this weekend and Mom died in October of twenty two. Dad died in December of twenty three. Listen, we're not on a tight schedule my family. But they were both cremated if anybody was curious, because people are weird, and
we finally found the right time. It worked out for everybody in the family, worked out for a couple of sisters and aunts and uncles and the close friends that could make it all showed up to this tiny little cemetery in central California where literally from their gravesite you can see their house across the river. I mean, it was a great setting, beautiful setting. The weather turned out to be spectacular on Saturday, a little cloud cover, but it was just sixty two degrees or whatever it was
and warm. And the thing about burying your parents, both of them, is that you enter this weird club. And I've had a lot of time to process it. This isn't a therapy session, trust me, but there are things that change in your life, specifically.
When you bury your parents like that.
And there was a very weird feeling yesterday driving home that it was sort of the end of this era, the end of the closure. And like I said, I mean, this all started when Mom got sick in twenty twenty two, and then she passed away, and then Dad, by himself, lived a little more than a year after that, and we as myself and my two sisters have learned to deal with life without parents, which is weird. So there's a lot of material possessions for us to go through.
I mean, they were kind of horder I like to say collectors. They were collectors of many, many things, so that meant that the cleanup was long and will continue. I mean, we have filled dumpsters with stuff that really would have no value to anybody outside of the family. And even in the family, we were like, what are we going to do with all this stuff? But in the conversations that we had on Saturday after we do
a little graveside service. We have aunts and uncles and family and friends and a couple of close neighbors that had come over to my parents' house and just did this simple buffet style dinner thing. And it was more about just telling the stories, and there were a few things that resonated with a lot of people. Everybody had
stories about my parents, which was nice. Everybody could tell happy things about it or funny things that we didn't know about, and I've shared a lot of the stories on the air about probably for well over a decade. My parents slept outside their marital bed, as my wife likes to say, was out on the back porch. Even in the wintertime, they would move it under an awning so that it wouldn't get rained on, and when the temperature dipped down into the teens in some nights, they
would turn on an electric blanket to stay warm. But that's that's what they did. They slept outside. And there were stories about Dad not having a lot of words. He never was a big speaker, but when he did he was like a sniper sometimes with his sense of humor. And my mother had the loudest clap of any of the moms at the little.
League games or.
When our kids were old enough to grow into sports, Grandma still had the loudest clap in the world. Dad had a sneeze that would rattle the windows. For some reason, she would always have this very weird and very stern business tone when she would be in charge of a meeting. Part of that was because she was an elementary school teacher for a long time and then became a principal, so any meeting she was involved with ran like clockwork. And then Dad, every time you would come into the door,
he would yell out, who's in my house? Like I don't know the giant from Jack and the beanstalk, And it was those things. Those were the stories that we told each other on Saturday to remember because all those material things that we have or will find or have had or keep close to us, those are nice, but it's those other things that are going to be the the memories I think that people are going to hold. So it was tough. It was it was not easy,
but like I said, it was their wish. They were buried together in a plot that my dad's family has had for a ridiculously long amount of time and buried next to his parents and my mother's side of the family, she has a cemetery that's acrossed the river as well and just kind of up over a couple of hills.
So that's what they wanted. That was their that was their final wish.
So the stories about these two people who obviously had, you know, somewhat of an impact on my life, you know, bringing me into this world. Those stories will continue. And if anybody has lost parents, parent, single parent, both parents, whatever it is, I get it. It's an awful club to have to belong to. But the meetings can be fun. For that club, we can get together and we can continue to talk about memories and the fun stuff. So
that was my weekend. That being said. Mayor Karen Bass of La realizes the trip to Africa was a bad idea. She talked to the Great Conan Nolan about that we'll talk with what we'll hear from that interview coming up right at ten o'clock at eleven thirty. Speaking of fires, one of the options for people to rebuild is allowing
contractors to permit their own projects. We'll be talking with Dean Sharp about this, you know, the only guy who's actually probably built a house on this staff, about what that process means and what it could mean going forward. Are there dangers to this or is it really something that we should brace in terms of trying to get Altadna Pacific Palisades back up on its feet and in
the process of rebuilding those great communities. So that a lot of other stuff going on in the show today, and you may have heard Handle mention this at the end of his show. There's a great article in the La Times about bumper stickers. I love bumper stickers, but only if they make me laugh. I want to know
what your favorite bumper sticker is. If you're driving around today you happen to see one, hit us up on the talkback feature on the iHeart app and tell us what it is, or if you have one that you think needs to be shouted out. The greatest bumper stickers ever and as a caveat, I will allow a license plate holder if it's funny. A couple stories that are going on today. The storms that rolled through the South killed at least eleven people over the weekend. Most of
the deaths occurred in the state of Kentucky. They said, I think it's ten people died in Kentucky, one in at outside of Atlanta, severe storms rupted because the ongoing flash flood emergencies Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia on Saturday, where the places that were hardest hit more than sixty seven people still underwiter weather alerts yesterday as this thing moved into Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi, and then again this week, we're going to see at another polar vortex.
They said.
About sixty million people from the Midwest to the northeast expected to experience sub zero temperatures. From montanaa Maine, they said, as far south as Oklahoma you could see sub zero temperatures. Now, we on the other hand, are going to have a great it's going to be you know, seventy five degrees probably this week. Russia and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are going to be holding talks with US officials in Riod,
Saudi Arabia tomorrow. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is on the ground there, as is Mike Walls, the new National Security Advisor, and Middle East Envoy Steve Whitcoff. All of these are these guys are supposed to be meeting with Russian officials tomorrow. Now they're going to be talking about whatever peace process Ukraine and Russia need to go through to put an end to this now three year old conflict war, whatever term you want to use. Russia invaded
Ukraine to try to steal its territory. This is not as easy as it appears, although it has.
We are more optimistic now than we ever have been.
Part of that is because President Trump did what he said he was going to do. He didn't end it in twenty four hours, which he said he was going to do, but he did get on the phone with Vladimir Putin and said what do we need to do to end this thing? And then he got on the phone with Vladimir Zelenski of Ukraine and said what do we need to do to end this thing? Ukraine's president, by the way, is in the Middle East right now. He's in the United Arab Emirates, but he says he's
not part of these negotiations, at least not yet. Now there's a couple things about that specifically. First of all, Mark Wayne Mullen is the Center out of Oklahoma and he's on the Armed Services Committee. On one of the Sunday talk shows, he said, Hey, that's okay right now. We need to figure out what each side needs. And it's okay that they are separated. That we don't have Ukraine and Russia at the talks table together just yet.
That's putting both people of getting them in separate rooms talking about what they will.
Accept, and then finding out a negotiation path forward before you bring them to the table.
Now, Zelensky has said, to his credit, hey, I'm optimistic about this. If Vladimir Putin is in fact ready to talk, maybe this thing does work.
If pushing is ready just for you know, just for his father, and if Trump is ready to push him to reel piece, I think we can find it some two steps of solution.
So there's more sound. I'll get to this in just a second.
But there are a couple of things to remember about how this peace process would go. We the United States obviously have a huge interest in what goes on in Ukraine, not just because of sort of the footprint that it gives us a strong ally in that part of the world. There's a lot of stuff in the ground that we could use. Now one of the sticking points, it appears, is going to be whether or not the United States gets a bunch of critical minerals in exchange for the
continued aid that we would provide to Ukraine. No boots on the ground, that doesn't appear to be one of the options, and at least not American boots on the ground as any sort of peacekeeping force, but we would then bankroll a lot of the peacekeeping process that would happen after some sort of a ceasefire. So that's one of the issues that's up. The other one is the territory itself. Where does Ukraine end and Russia begin. Since
twenty fourteen, Russia came in and they took Crimea. In twenty twenty two, they came in and took sections of the eastern and northern parts of Ukraine and continue to occupy them right now. Ukraine meanwhile, has gone into the cursed region of Russia and says this is going to be ours. We need to figure out or they need to figure out, what is the footprint of both of
those countries. And Russia right now occupies about a fifth, about twenty percent of Ukraine and claims that it's always been Russian territory and claims that it's run by Nazis and claims that the wolf whatever. But they currently occupy twenty percent of Ukraine. Is Ukraine willing to give up that twenty percent, most of it again in the east and the north, in order to have some sort of a lasting peace and Russia willing to give up things like Crimea in order to get that eastern section and
have some sort of lasting piece. The lasting piece, then, of course, comes with peacekeeping. Once we get to the ceasefire place, at least the negotiations. There is a foot on the gas pedal for Russia, and there is some concern that you're going to see that in the next
couple of days and weeks. Major Mike Lyons told CNN today, while we're doing this process, it's very likely that Russia tries to grab even more territory so that their negotiating position is even better once they actually sit down across the table from Ukraine.
It's the rates against time as Russia tries to gain more space. It's all about leverage from their perspective as they look to control the twenty percent of the LAMB mess that they've had really since twenty fourteen. And I wouldn't be surprised if you saw offensive operations in from Russia on their aviation assets that land masks the north
that Ukraine still hangs onto, especially in the south. The more that they can get until they finally have to say ceasefire and stop will give them much more leverage when that time finally comes.
Okay, So one that time finally comes and there is a ceasefire, who protects that ceasefire? Who ensures that it is in place? Is it a group of European nations or is it specifically NATO? Shannon's out today. California's insurance Commissioner, Ricardo Lara, has rejected State Farm's request for an emergency rate increase, at least so far. He's been urging insurance companies to write policies in the state again despite the
increasing wildfire risk. He said in a letter to State Farm, he's going to need more information before he can approve the twenty two percent rate increase. So he's asked them to show up next week. I believe it is to the insurance Department's office to answer questions and what he referred to as a as an informal conference of some kind. Pope francis battling a complex and clinical medical condition. The Vatican says that he was admitted to the hospital after
suffering from a polymicrobial respiratory tract infection. It will require extensive drug therapy and an appropriate hospital stay. We've been talking about what's going on with the push now by the Trump administration to begin some sort of talks between Russia and Ukraine to put an end to this conflict that began in February of twenty twenty two when Russia
invaded Ukraine. Joining us talk more about this is Brett Samuels, one of the reporters for The Hill who has written about this and about some of the European and angles to all of this.
Brett, thanks for taking time for us today.
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
One of the issues that has cropped up is whether or not Ukraine would be allowed membership into NATO, and it's kind of hard to determine what the Trump administration feels about that. I mean, all indications are that that would not be part of the negotiations. But then JD Vance, the Vice President, said, it's clear when my boss goes to the negotiating table, everything's on the table. So what is the likelihood that Ukraine joins NATO as part of this ceasefire?
Yeah, certainly, to your point, some sort of mixed signals out of the gates from the Trump administration last week. But I think, you know, the takeaway as far as NATO membership goes, I think is that the Trump administration, trump officials view it as unlikely at best. I think that Ukraine, you know, will end up as a member of NATO, you know, certainly as they go to the
negotiating table here. You know, obviously we heard pet Hegsas, who's the Defense secretary kind of you know, came out and said that it's unrealistic for you crane to expect to join NATO. You know, he says, some criticism from folks who suggested that that was essentially giving away bargaining ships before they even went to the bargaining table. As you mentioned, Jadie Vance, the Vice President, try to kind
of walk that back. But we've heard Trump himself sort of say that he's skeptical of Ukraine joining NATO, has suggested, you know, echoing Russia essentially, that maybe Ukraine wanting to join NATO was a reason for Russia invading in the first place. So, you know, all indications right now from the Trump administration are that that Ukraine joining NATO certainly seems unlikely. The question is whether they fully take it off the table before these negotiations begin in earnest.
At that Munich Security conference over the weekend, other leaders from places like Iceland, like Great Britain expressed at least some consternation that they're not involved in these talks despite their geographic locations. Does that impact does that does that complaint move the Trump administration at all to include them in these talks?
Yeah. I think it's an interesting point you bring up, because, you know, one of the sort of core arguments that Trump and his team have made is this idea that because Europe closer to the conflict, Europe should have a greater responsibility or a greater role in supporting Ukraine. But at the same time, as you mentioned, you know, there's this question of whether Ukraine or Europe as a whole will really have a seat at the negotiating table here.
So you know, certainly, I think, you know, we've again gotten sort of mixed signals, whereas some Trump administration officials have said, you know that Ukraine will have a say in negotiations here, but at least initially, the talks appear in Saudi Arabia happening this week, appear to just be
between the Trump administration and Russian officials. So, you know, Europe, I think is sort of preparing for the potential that you know, they may have to sort of move forward here without US support for Ukraine or without US support for sort of Europe's role and back in Ukraine. Certainly, I think there the folks in Europe are preparing for that, for that reality and then contingency.
The other thing is that Zelensky is in the Middle East. I think he is supposed to arrive in Saudi Arabia tomorrow, but he also is not a part of these talks. This is just as of right now, Russian officials and American officials, and I to the layman, it almost looks like they being Ukraine. Ukraine doesn't have a lot of say in what's going on or is it just this is step one? Step two would be to meet with Ukraine. Is there a way to figure that out?
I think certainly what you're getting at is I think one of the big concerns from uh, you know, from Europe, from Ukraine, certainly from Democrats this is this is maybe the biggest shift I think from what we saw for three years from the Biden administration was this idea of you know nothing about Ukraine, with how Ukraine, that everything was in lockstep with European allies. You know, every aid package or announcement about Ukraine was announced sort of in
unison with with folks in Europe. And now with Trump, it's sort of this shift where you know, he spoke to Putin's and then he spoke to Zelenski on the phone. You know, they're meeting with Russian officials, and then they'll sort of loop in Ukrainian officials. I think there is a sort of concern, certainly from Zelenskin from Ukraine that they're sort of being uh maybe boxed out a bit here and that they're sort of going to be you know, brought in after the fact, just sign off on whatever
may be negotiated. Certainly, I think, you know, there'll be public pressure from Ukraine and from Europe for for Ukraine to have a greater say and a greater seat at the table. So we'll see certainly if that happens moving forward, but it does seem initially for these these initial talks tomorrow that that it's going to be Russian in the US, and then we'll see kind of where Ukraine stands and how much how much influence they have moving forward after that.
And do European countries, especially those that you know currently border Ukraine, whether it's Romania, Poland, do they have the mill terry's strength to provide a peacekeeping force in the event that it's as in the event that that is part of a ceasefire deal.
Yeah, I think you know, that's that's a good point you bring up, because I think that is something that has sort of been discussed among various European leaders, is this idea of how do they enforce in eventual peace agreement or ceasefire agreement. And we've we've seen you know, the Prime Minister of Britain's here Starmer, actually came out just recently and said, you know, that the British troops could could be used on the ground to sort of
enforce a peace deal. Dealers can talk obviously that if Russia were to you know, go back on a peace deal or reinvade Ukraine, that you know, whether that would trigger some kind of NATO response, even though they're not a member of NATO. That's been sort of floated by Lindsay Graham the Center from from South Carolina, for example. So certainly, you know, I think that is the question because those those neighboring nations, especially those Baltic states obviously smaller,
smaller militaries. That is a big question I think looming over this is how will a piece agreement be enforced to ensure that something like this doesn't just happen again, you know, in a decade.
Brett, great stuff, Thank you appreciate it.
Yeah, thanks having me on.
Brett Samuels from the Hill and you can check out his stuff at the Hill dot com. European leaders, meanwhile, are meeting in Paris for emergency talks on how to react to our diplomatic pushes towards Ukraine. Just before the meeting, the French President of Manuel Macron spoke with Donald Trump, but Macrone's office didn't disclose much about what was said in that twenty minute conversation that took place.
There's also.
There's a woman who claims that she's given birth to Elon Musk's baby. This would be baby number thirteen, twenty six year old woman. She's what they refer to as a conservative influencer. Firebrand made the announcement on Valentine's Day, said that her is now five months old. So award season full swing as a preview for the upcoming Academy Awards, the British Academy Awards the BAFTA Awards have been handed out.
Conclave won Best Picture Adrian Brody star The Brutalist, one Best Actor Brady Corbett one Best Director for The Brutalist, and then Mickey Sorry Mikey Madison, star of Honora, won the Best Actress.
One of the big.
Issues that's going on, obviously with the Department of Government efficiency and Elon Musk and Donald Trump, is there are hundreds and thousands of federal employees who if they have not taken the retirement they will be fired or they have been fired, and in one case, termination letters were sent to employees across the federal government, specifically the National Nuclear Safety Administration, which maintains and refurbishes and keeps safe
our nuclear warheads, about three thousand of them. The agency is actually within the Department of Energy, it's not the Defense Department. In twenty seventeen, after accepting an offer to serve as the Energy Secretary, then Rick Perry was bewildered that the job actually included maintaining and producing the nuclear weapons. So on Thursday, about three hundred of the probationary employees
that the Nuclear Security Agency were fired. A spokesman for Energy Department didn't say that that was how many of The spokesman for Energy said it was fewer than fifty people that had been fired. Most of them had administrative roles or clerical roles. On Friday night, at least some of those between fifty and three hundred people were told to come back to their jobs. NBC reported that the agency was trying to reach out to some of the
employees that it wanted to reinstate. They were unable to find contact information for those workers after they were shut off from their federal government email accounts, so looking for some clarification on that if in fact it was a Department of Government efficiency move. The Conservative majority that is on the Supreme Court right now could be receptive to the argument that a president has unlimited power to remove
leaders of what would be independent agencies. This is going to be the first real case to go to the Supreme Court since Donald Trump took office a month ago. The administration's emergency application yesterday was filed to ask the court to vacate a federal judge's temporary restraining order that
reinstated Hampton Dellinger. Hampton Dellinger was Slash is Slash was or will soon be not the head of the Office of Special Counsel, and he leads this agency, this independent agency that's charged with safeguarding government whistleblowers and then enforcing some of the ethics laws that are on the book. It is not related to special counsel appointed by the Department of Justice, like Jack Smith. Not related to that sort of thing, although it does have the similar name.
According to the administration, Trump's lawyer said, this court should not allow lower courts to seize executive power by dictating to the president how long he must continue employing an agency head against his will. Now, the whole reason that Dellinger filed a lawsuit. Is it says that the Special Council, again part of the Office of Special Counsel, can be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty,
or malfeasance in office. When he was fired back on February seventh, it was a one sentence email that fired him, and it didn't give any reason for the termination. It just said pack your s and go now. He sued. A district court judge in d c. Entered a temporary restraining order that allowed him to keep his job for a couple of weeks while she was considering whether or not to enter a preliminary injunction the temporary restraining order.
Usually you don't get to appeal that.
But the judge said that the statute that protects that guy, that protects the Special Council's office, expresses the clear intent by Congress to ensure the independence of the Special Council and to insulate his work from being buffeted by the wins of political change. And the government's only response to this inarguable reading of the text is that the statute
would be unconstitutional. Now, the judge on Saturday, a three three judge panel on Saturday rejected the government's emergency motion for a stay, and that's why the Trump administration and his lawyers decided to go straight to the Supreme Court and said, it's going to go to you eventually. Why don't we put our foot on the gas and see
if we can get a decision on this quicker. So one of thes of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was she wasn't even in town on January seventh when our massive fires started, the one in the palis As which would be her jurisdiction, and the one in Altadena, which was the county's jurisdiction. That she knew there was going to be a very dangerous windstorm coming, and she still left the country. She now admits that was a complete mistake. We'll actually hear it from her own words in an
interview she did with Conan Nolan from ABC four. Coming up in just a minute, Gary and Shannon will continue. You miss any part of the show, I always go back and check out the podcast All You Go To Go, All You Gotta Go to All. You'd just go to KFIAM six forty dot com, slash Gary and Shannon or anywhere you find your favorite podcast type in Gary and Shannon.
We'll be back right after this. You've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show.
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