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. There was a foreign policy expert who went on Fox News and said, something is very, very wrong in Beijing right now.
It's where we kick off swamp watch.
Oh I'm a politician, which means I'm a cheap and a liar. And when I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops.
Yeah, we got the real problem is that our leaders are done.
The other side never quits.
So what I'm not going anywhere? So that is how you train the swap.
I can imagine what can be and be unburdened by what has been. You know, Americans have always been going a president. They're not stupid.
A political plunder is when a politician actually tells the truth.
Havether people voted for you were not swamp watch. They're all countering.
So we have been following this standoff between the United States and China when it comes to tariffs. China has advanced this year's stimulus plan, but it's holding off on fresh measures. It's trying to maintain composure, betting on Washington blinking in the first protracted trade war. They pledged on Friday, the Communist Party's elite to support firms and workers most affected by the triple digit US tariffs on Chinese goods,
but stop short of announcing additional deficit spending. So they're going to bolster the industries hit hard, but they're not banking on being put in the red over this. There is a as I mentioned, and a foreign policy expert. His name is Gordon Chang. He's calling this end of regime conduct. He went on Fox News and said, as is time when China needs friends, because it's not selling goods to the US. It's going out of its way to antagonize not just the Philippines, not just Taiwan, but
also South Korea and Australia. Chang is a senior fellow with Gatestone Institute. He said this shows that this is end of regime conduct because Shi Jinping he can't appear to be giving into the US now. Trump, for his part, on Friday, told reporters from the White House lawn he has spoken to Shijinping many times, and when.
Pressed on it, well, what have you guys talked about?
He said, you know, when the time comes, I'll let you know at the appropriate time, is what he said.
Let's see if we can make a deal.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yee said on Friday that Beijing backs international rules when it comes to tariffs, and that the US levy show extreme egoism and that they're going to be looking China is for solidarity with other countries. It's a very delicate dance between we're looking for solidarity and antagonizing them at the same time. I mean, I.
Guess it's you have to do to be a world bully.
I was just going to say, that's the dance that's been called for, that that's the way that they've been doing it for.
Aijing has publicly denied any ongoing negotiations with Trump.
Yeah, and I don't know.
No one seems to be holding his feet to the fire about that. About okay, well, then what was in the phone call. I mean, you're he has said, in the appropriate time, they'll give out the information.
But it seems a little strange.
Today, President Trump is planning to sign an executive order directing the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security to identify within a month the cities and states that do not comply with federal immigration laws. Last week, a judge blocked Trump's administration from withholding federal funds from more than a dozen so called sanctuary jurisdictions that have declined to
cooperate with the hardline immigration crackdown. That was one of the big headlines today was that the administration was deporting children. And I don't know if you saw the story specifically, but the borders are. Tom Holman is saying that due process was applied when a two year old US citizen
was moved to Honduras along with her mother. A Louisiana judge wrote an order Friday that there was strong suspicion that the government deported a US citizen with no meaningful process because the two year old was sent to Honduras. But the two year old was sent to Honduras with her mother and her eleven year old sister, so she
wasn't going alone, among other things. And in fact, Tom Holman this morning, in a very bright and early news conference before you woke up, said it wasn't us that made the decision to kick out a two year old.
If you choose have a US citizen child knowing you're in this country. Legally, you put yourself in that position, you put your family in that position. What we did is removed children with their mothers who requested the children to depart with them. This is a parmal decision parenting one on one. The mothers made that.
And then a quick wrap up the big Washington Post poll that suggested that President Trump is facing growing opposition, that he's underwater in a lot of the campaign issues that he had been campaigning on in terms of approval ratings, that he is at the lowest approval rating we've seen among presidents for the last one hundred years or so when it comes to one hundred days in office. And I saw a graphic that, again that's a Washington Post
ABC News pool. I saw a graphic that said that the highest recorded rating of a president approval rating for a president at the one hundred days mark was John F.
Kennedy.
So, if if Trump is right now below fifty percent, below forty percent, what do you think Kennedy's was at one hundred days?
What was Kennedy's approval rating? Give it a guess.
Forty eight, wrong, thirty two wrong, oh higher, seventy six.
Close, eighty three I feel like you can't compare.
I can't, and I wanted to say, I wanted to point.
The way the news works. It's like the news cycle used to be months. Right now it's ours.
And I think part of part of what has changed between Kennedy and Trump, I mean just the decades that exist between those two is people are a lot more comfortable. I'm assuming here because I wasn't alive in nineteen sixty one, but people are a lot more comfortable criticizing the president vocally. It's not just a thing you do in your kitchen thing. People are doing it publicly now. Whereas before the office itself was respected, the office, the title, the character that
was somebody who became president. There was a lot of a respect that went into it. And for over the course of decades that has been sort of chewed away by I don't know, by public says however you want to put it, Yes, but that eighty three percent, some of the automatic respect that's built in is just built in because remember, Kennedy was criticized for being a Catholic. Of all things, you're the first Catholic president and people didn't like that, and he still got eighty three percent.
All right, we come that Laboo boo. But is that how you say it?
I think you're going to really take to the Labubu sensation.
Is there a picture of him?
Yeah?
Oh there it is. It's a man Chi chi.
I don't know what that is.
Oh, well, we're about to bridge generations.
Yeah, you're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
There were hundreds of people in front of the pop Mart store in Los Angeles at four forty five am on Friday. Who gets who gets out of bed at quarter to five to already be in line at a store?
What are you buying?
Some people brought stools chairs to sit on. They brought snacks and drinks. Some people had been there since ten pm the night before. What did they want? Well, they wanted to get their hands on the latest series of a new key ring doll called the La Booboo.
This this is how China is winning.
This is the Hello Kitty universe, is it not?
I don't think so.
Yes.
The dolls belong to a tribe called the Monsters. These are the latest in a long line of iconic collectible characters from Asia, including Hello Kitty.
Oh, which is.
They're not in the Hello Kitty universe. She's the matriarch. They're calling her of these other little monsters Sunny Angel, Guda Tama. They're fuzzy.
The Lububoo dolls are fuzzy little Nordic elves with snaggletoothed, mischievous grins and impish ears. They're all female. I'm out kind hearted with the female thing.
Oh, I time that wrong.
Sorry, you like your stuffed animals to be little boys?
Okay, he made it weird. They're all female.
They're kind hearted, but sometimes as they go about spreading joy, they get into trouble, well intentioned trouble, though it's never malicious. They were conceptualized back in twenty fifteen by an artist born in Hong Kong, Casing Lung. Began as characters in a children's book series, and then they decided to turn the storybook elves into collectible designer toys. When it says designer,
how much of these things go for? Oh, thirty dollars? Yeah, but listen, thirty dollars for one of these things?
What? They're ugly little troll thing. They looked like a teletubby and a troll had.
A baby beanie babies went for cheap until you bought it, and then you could resell it for a ridiculous amount of money.
I remember covering those stories.
One of the first few stories I did when I moved to Seattle was someplace in h I don't know, a Federal way or rented like that.
Was that around the mid nineties, something like that.
Late nineties, late nineties, And I just remember that, did you have interviewing the yes, the whole time, interviewing these grown people, at least physically grown people standing in line
for this stuff. Now, I actually, because I have never heard of la boo boos before, I was watching a video about this and it described that one of the things that makes this so collectible and has generated such a buzz is you don't know which lub boo boo you're going to get when you buy it comes in a box that you don't get to see what it is, Almost like I don't know baseball cards for the last hundred years, you didn't know which ones you were going to get, and that's why you went and got all
the different packs and the hard pink gum that would.
Crush your teeth.
M h.
They despite the fact that these are produced now in China. Those mystery boxes have been outlawed in China because they consider it a form of gambling. And kids have been cutting school in China to go to their PopMart stores or whatever the equivalent there is in China and buy these boxes and hope they get the right l boo boo, whether it's Spooky or Potto or Zimomo or Taykoko.
Which one do you like? I knew you'd like Taekoko most.
Masculine enough, though, speaks to me for you. But this is this is like Manchiici. And I know you didn't never know what man Chichi was, but that was a that was a good eighties character. They didn't have a bunch of them, but they had some of them. It's a it was a stuffed monkey toy back released in seventies in the first place, licensed by Mattel. In nineteen eighty five, they produced five television.
Shows based on Manchici. Wow five.
Think about what we could do with mister bumber Puss.
I can't imagine. You can't. I can't. I don't want to.
I think you're going to look back when you're in your deathbed and your great regret. Regret in life is going to be not capitalizing.
It's gonna be a couple of surprises on our retirement.
You're like, I call it bumber puss. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Now, okay, now I came.
Up with that name, so that makes it weirder and nobody does what we talk about.
Uh, and that's good.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Some neuro divergent non neurotypical people have abilities that you and I don't have.
I had never heard that, and I've seen this podcast pitch to me before on you know podcasts you may like popular podcasts, the Telepathy tapes. I did not know that they involved a group of non speaking autistic people that are reading minds of dead people.
Is that right? No? Of everybody?
Oh?
Of everybody?
Is there dead? Are there dead people involved?
I don't.
I don't know.
Oh I said I see dead people because of the thing that I wrote.
That's the only one you said I see dead people. I thought both included them talking to dead people.
I just mean it's that much of a realization for somebody that goes through this. I see so this this podcast, the Telepathy Tapes about the telepathic abilities of non speaking autistic people, and has been gaining a lot of publicity and therefore a lot of listenership. And there these are people. These are families uh with non speaking autistic people who believe that they're non speaking autistic family member, son, daughter, brother, whatever,
can actually read minds. And they are saying things through different vehicles of language. They're saying things that are raising questions of how in the world would they be able to know things?
I mean.
Katie asher Is is the main player here. Katie has a son named Houston. When he was seventeen years old, he was a big boy. You're talking six feet two hundred pounds man sized, seventeen year old and out of control physically.
He couldn't speak.
He smeared his pooh everywhere. He bit on his own hands so hard that Mom could hear bones grinding. He would grunt, he would tantrum all night long, no one in family could sleep, and he would run everywhere he
went around the house away from Katie. At the age of three, he ran into the street and was hit by a pickup truck, to the point where she had to install locks on her doors, and she, as a mother was coming to this very dark realization that her son was dangerous and she was the caretaker for the rest of his life.
But then came one day when she's in the living room and he says the first sentence he has ever spoken.
And what is that sentence? Mama, I love you.
Now you can imagine if that is your child's first sentence, and that is the sentiment of the sentence, that you're going to do everything in you in your power to see how we can get him to communicate more, communicate again.
And she did.
She went through everything, integration therapy, music, there, biofeedback therapy, different methods, went to all the best speech and occupational therapy clinics. Then a friend suggested that Katie and Huston, her son try a form of communication in the autism world known as spelling. It has them work together as
a team. Mom's role was communication partner, so she held in the air a board or a stencil covered with letters of the alphabet and numeral zero to nine, and his role is a speller where he used a pencil to point to letters on the board to make words he wanted to say.
Kind of like a Ouiji.
Board, Yeah, or somebody who's also noncommunicative for whatever reason. Als is probably an example of that, where you have a computer where that person can spell, either using their eyes or a straw or something like that to spell out individual words. Very very slow, painstaking process, but it allows them to commute Kate. She would do this for hours at a time, and she would read a topic.
She'd read something and then ask a question. So she'd read about stars and she would say or astronomy and say a constellation is made up a group of what? And he would spell out stars.
So they became one instrument, like the cello and the bow. Now, three months before Houston's birthday at twenty two, she held a letter board and he spelled I'm special, and she said, of course you are, and then he spelled this I can hear thoughts.
What Now.
That's particularly terrifying because remember she had had some pretty dark thoughts.
She had been run down.
She had been terrified at the prospect that she was going to have to caretake for this boy that was never going to mature mentally into a man that could take care of himself. And it was hard, probably a struggle that very few people could ever wrap.
Their heads around.
And she thought that this was the end of it, because if he really could see and hear the doubt that was going on in her mind, what was his life going to be like?
The telepathy was a huge asset for mom. It turned out he'd hand her her purse if she forgot it while she was running out the door, or he'd spell something insightful like those are rotten thoughts, and he'd be right.
She said, The big news is not the fact that he could read minds in her mind. She said, the big news was that thoughts are real, that thoughts abide by natural law. Thoughts can be received by someone else like we would receive visual information or audible information. Somehow Houston was receiving this brain thought information, and she said that. She asked him how it felt to go through the
world in his body. The reporter asked him that, and Katie picked up the letterboard and as he pointed to the pencil with his letters, she would call them out, and she said, having to hear is being present with feelings pain, cruelty, and love, and loss and faith and weariness and loneliness. When asked about how he felt, about the word telepathy. He spelled the word bold.
So the Telepathy Tapes highlights people like Houston. It's a podcast documentary project and it claims it explores the claims of this telepathic ability and non speaking individuals.
It's interesting, particularly those with autism.
And it's interesting because you know where you can't speak, You know, when you lack one sense, your other sentences are heightened. So in this case, you can't speak, So the muscle of you being intuitive maybe is takes on that much more strength, to the point of it's not intuition. It's not you're in you're noticing what somebody is feeling or thinking.
It's just that on steroids.
I did it a vent in Seattle one time. Friend of ours has a son with autism, and she described to me what she thinks was is going on in her son's brain. And she described it as if it's a fully functional person, fully neurotypical person that is then caught in some kind of a chef. She actually used the term box, and they can't interact with their surroundings
the way you and I would. We don't have that box around us, so we can interact with we can talk to we can see, we can hear, we have the sense sense of touch and smell, and he doesn't. He didn't have those same capabilities that we did, which made it difficult for him to read verbal cues or nonverbal cues for him to interact with friends at school. He didn't quite get the same thing because he was
dealing on a detached level from everybody else. And if that's the case, if somebody who's autistic is neurotypical somewhere down deep inside, and you're able to unlock that in some way or at least get into it in a way where in this case, Houston is able to spell things, and it may take some time, but he can have those thoughts and thought processes that we just assume they didn't have.
A lot of people are calling bs on this podcast, and the idea of this that if you have autism, at least some people who have autism have the ability to read minds. They've actually had a bunch of naysayers on said podcast, as I understand it as well, But hey, if you're looking for a miracle in what is a very difficult life raising your child, embrace that love that I love that for you who cares.
What anybody else thinks.
Yes, I do.
You have that relationship with your kid.
And your kid can read minds at least to some degree. Who cares if it's a phenomena, if it's something that other people think is.
Real or not? All right, up next, very eating that.
Woman's life raising him was incredible. Oh my goodness.
University of North Carolina has a new plan to get some of its athletes new notoriety. There is a varsity influencer team will explain.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Do you have an idea who Alex Earl is? Sure? Who doesn't? I don't.
I didn't either until I read this article.
Alex Earl hot young girl woman? Sorry, make it clear On Instagram. Vicky Sager is working with University of North Carolina a group of seven students at the diving board the pool there starting to explore the world of name, image and likeness right through social media, and Vicky Sager asks do you does anybody follow Alex Earl on social media? And everybody laughs because they way they write this up is that's like asking somebody if they've ever heard of Beyonce.
She is a TikTok megastar.
She rose to fame with those confessional style videos beauty college life things like that, where it's like how to and like listen to the intimate moments of my life. And she earns four hundred and fifty thousand dollars per Instagram story.
That seems like a lot. That is a lot per story, per story.
Uh huh, that's why the kids all are doing this eventually, like the kids that open the toys on YouTube.
Okay, here's the thing I want to point.
Out though, I always bring that back, yeah, because I.
Could have been that kid.
This is this is a thing that I think are being is being a little bit ignored in a story like this, right. The University of North Carolina wants their student athletes to be able to have their piece of the pie here, so they bring in somebody like Vicky Seger to pitch them into turning their TikTok at Instagram accounts into cash cows. They've encouraged students and coaches to work with different social media companies and they'll also be part of this pitch. Will also be part of the
student orientation for freshman athletes at the school. Now it's important to point out I referred to the students that she's talking.
To are all on the swim team. That's important.
Olivia Dunn just wrapped up her college career at LSU as a gymnast.
Why is that important?
Because they're selling, They're selling their looks is what they're selling?
Oh hol la.
Second, my point is they don't refer to that here in this article. They just talk about they're making money as young people on social They're.
Not talking to the female rugby team about this. Is that what you're saying. No, well, you don't need to be a college athlete to sell your body on Instagram.
No, they do.
But now this door has been opened to them right where they can make money.
Using where they can sell their athleticism and body and all of it.
Yeah, but even their athleticism face.
I just think that this is, uh, this is going to become passe if it hasn't already. Which part Instagram, the selling of the stories, the product, the product unveiling, it's all very trite now it's all on set.
It was very believable.
When somebody was into a product and they're open up at the box on Instagram or what have you and you're like, oh, that's cool, that's cool. Oh so and So's into that. That's cool. But now it's just you know that people are getting paid to say they like something, and it's just kind of takes the the allurea out of it. Be smart enough and also and just like the hotness. It's kind of like that Twilight Zone episode Do you want to be?
Yeah? Do you want to be?
Do you want to be the two or the seven? I forget the numbers? Would you want to look like the two? Or do you want to look like the seven? And if everybody is beautiful and everybody looks alike and everyone's body looks similar, then then what is beauty?
And that's kind of where you're at.
If you scroll through Instagram, it's like, well everybody looks great and so what no, Now nobody's special kind of a thing. So and that if that's your If that's your your ruler on special or popular or what have you?
Is?
Which filters can you use? And how big can you ask it? Why are you looking at me like that?
I didn't I'm not looking at anything.
Big asses are very in on Instagram, you know, that's very it's very happening.
I learned that on hacks. Did you watch the latest episode.
Of hats I don't know idea?
Yeah, and the and the guy is talking to Deborah Vance and he's like, listen, when you're in.
LA, you've got to do more.
You know, you can be a you can be a ten in Chicago, come to LA and you're a four. And he said, I need an ass that's bigger than you know, a house, right, Debraah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, there's a lot of competition, a lot of in LA.
You need muscles, you need a big ass.
Yeah.
And you need to know famous people. You need to have famous friends, right.
Maybe I didn't see that.
Do you remember when we were pitched to host some or we were pitched for some sort of event and they wanted to know what famous friends we could bring with us. Oh yeah, that was so funny.
We were like, what, that's the difference between this floor and that floor.
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.