And definitely not the show that we set out to do. At the time, I hit send on all the prep that I sent ross yesterday only only to uh, you know, flip on just a little little something to just kind of wind down the mind and nerd out with some documentaries and flipping around, and then all of a sudden,
here we go, the phone starts banging away. I really do make an effort to disconnect once I'm out of it, but with the with the events that transpired up at d c A Reagan Reagan Airport yesterday, obviously.
That was impossible.
And if I sound a little rough, it's it's not fully from a lack of sleep.
Uh.
Ross had a cold, then Trevor had a cold, and now I have a cold. But it didn't feel like it's a yeah, bad things. You'll just have to bear with me today. Uh So yesterday evening here is here is I guess the reader's digest version of what we know, and then we'll start getting into more details, or at
least the details we have. This is tough, and for any of you who are regular fly regularly, especially with American Airlines, I have long American Airlines is the airline that I hold the most status on They just have the most convenient routes. Obviously Charlotte is a hub for them. The then the Miami to Raleigh. I'm on that, and I go to d C pretty I don't know. I don't say regularly, but I'm there at least once a year, and very very often.
I'm thinking about all the routes.
The Miami to Raleigh route, there's two in the afternoon, and one of is on this particular size aircraft. It's the later one, and this particular aircraft I have flown almost every time I have flown from Raleigh to DC because I fly into Reagan. I had to fly into Dulls this year, but every other time I avoid Dulles
and I fly and so you get these small commuter jets. Now, while this flight was apparently from Wichita, Kansas to DCA, we're just gonna call it Reagan for the purpose of the discussion on the show, just to keep things smooth.
I think most.
People understand it is that, okay, rather than the airport code. I I wonder, I don't do we know where the flight crew is from, because a lot of the crews are North Carolina based it's a lot of Charlotte based flight crews on this particular size aircraft. Now, this is one of the subsidiaries you know, when you book and it'll say American Airlines VIA and then another slightly different, like American Eagle is one of their big other ones.
So look, I don't know, and I don't want to talk out of turn, but one of the first things is like there's a couple, especially on that Miami route and sometimes they fly to DC as well, because you know, you can see where your plane's coming in from. There's a few crew members with American Airlines on this size aircraft that I I don't know, Like I don't know their kids' names, but like we nod if we see each other, which is cool because how many people they see on the regular.
And so like there's that added element like what happened.
And then if you fly, if you fly in and out of that airport or if you fly that particular size aircraft, it has another emotional connect to you, you know, because like that's the These are the tiniest of tiny, right, These are the two by two, the one by two, and the two by twos. So if you're up in business they have that one seat, which by the way, is not the same size as the two other business
class seats. And then you know, you have your standard two by two through there holds but sixty ish people, and you have an incredibly interesting, different and busy air space. We talk about obviously New York, the you know, the intersection of LaGuardia, JFK, Newark, and you know a few others just due to all other proximity and how busy and insane that airspace is. ThEC is pretty busy because
you're dealing with three big airports. I don't know if Reagan, don't know if Reagan Counts is big, but a substantial airport that sits right in kind of in the middle. Of course, you got Dallas off to the west, and and you have what is for all practical purposes a third Washington, DC airport straight north with BWI Baltimore's airport. And I have for one of those radio rows flown into Baltimore and we're with a group of others that were going to it. And then you know, you take
a van down there. It's about an hour, but sometimes for scheduling or pricing, that's the decision that you make and the approaches on Reagan are like nothing in the world.
They're their own thing.
In fact, one of the folks who listens to the show he's called in before, is a retired airline pilot. His name is Joe, and he was kind enough this morning to send me a rather lengthy email. And I spoke to this man over the years. I don't doubt any of his credentials, and what he's telling me in here makes perfect sense. And I also know and have been texting this morning with a friend of mine who, for his mility, Terry Servis, was a crew chief for
black Hawk helicopter. And he's been educating me because here is what the scenario looks like. Okay, it looks like and you can you can go. And I've listened to the air traffic. It's it's pretty choppy. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna play it, but I'll tell you what it says. Basically, everything is just normal. You have this American Airlines flight, it has already it has already set up for a unique approach. Hold on, let's see a visual circle to land maneuver.
Let me read this.
I've operated, this is this is the retired commercial pilot Joe. I've operated into and out of DCA hundreds of times. The CRJ seven hundred was doing a visual circle to land maneuver, which is not a maneuver anywhere but at DCA basically, and for those of you who have flown this this will sound familiar. It's truly one of the most fun approaches were allowed to do. The maneuver helps increase traffic flow into d C. So if you've flown into d C, especially from Raleigh, there's a couple different
ways they'll stack you in there. The coolest one is what Joe is talking about because it allows you a visual of a lot of the stuff there in d C. You can see the Jefferson Memorial when you make that final turn. You can see Rock Creek Park where Hillary Clinton's associates go to end themselves, and you have you have the Washington Monument off your off your left side, and there's another approach where you kind of go out over the swamps or I had like a damn duck go by my window, which.
Was pretty crazy.
And but you know, you're you're there in d C. You're looking at the skyline, you're looking at the monuments and then boom, you're You're there, You're in, You're into Reagan Man and and I think it's one of the
funnest airports just do to it's proximity to everything. And so in this case, the approach is you you would fly, you would you'd go towards landing like you're gonna land on one, and you would fly off that final at the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, right, so you know what I'm talking about where they have those on the right side, they have those shops and condos and stuff down there.
Just visualize it in your mind.
Fly along I two ninety five, turn over the Bowling Air Force Base, and then you're on final for runway thirty three. And if you listen to the ATC, this plane had completed all of those and was literally on final. And then you hear and it's it's kind of hard to hear. You hear the ATC interact with the Blackhawk and they do something that is pretty which is really common. They ask a pilot if they have a visual on another aircraft. Now I flip over to my conversation with
my black Hawk crew chief Buddy or retired. He's been retired for a while, but he talks about how those
visuals are required. If you've ever sat in the cockpit of an airplane, depending on the equipment you're in, there's only a certain periphery of view, and spotting another aircraft is I've had the opportunity because I have friends that have small planes to you know, sit there in the up in the cockpit obviously with them, and it's interesting as somebody who's not a pilot trying to pick these things out, and like the pilots are good at it. My buddy Tim is who I spent the most time with.
He has a SR twenty, which is a serious if there's any pilots listening, wondering, and that has a pretty good field of view. I I don't know what the
Blackhawks is. However, what my friend was telling me is it's not just the pilots, the crew chief is also or perhaps primarily Again, I'm just having a quick conversation this morning, trying to educate myself they have a responsibility for doing this spotting and not just spotting aircraft because ATC at A, you know, in this case in d C said hey do you see the do you see the seven hundred and they have a unique system too. They got to language all their own. I didn't know
what discs were. So this is a measurement device the black Hawk crew would use to tell a pilot. So when you see, like if you see a helicopters flying information, part of his job is to you know, call out distances for the pilots. So if you've got a formation of black Hawks and you want to tell somebody, then another Blackhawk in the formation is five discs. What that means is the diameter of the rotor, which I don't
know what that number is, but they do. So there's a lot there's a lot of moving pieces here and where this can go sideways, and both Joe suggests it in his email and my Blackhawk buddy suggested in his email.
Their suspicion seems to be that a member of the Blackhawk team misidentified in aircraft and it could be busy airspace obviously with those three plus you've got you have some regional airports there, and we're human and if you misidentify, obviously, and the call is so close to the impact that again people are running around with conspiracy theories and all the rest people are trying to make political hay.
Out of this.
See, it is these situations when the best people and the worst people all have to emerge. Right the best people are digging around in the Potomac River right now, in incredibly cold water, and immediately we're on it trying to figure out who can we rescue anybody? And they're going to work and they're talking over the radio and they're saying thing they were finding people literally still seat builded in upside down in the fuselage and seven feet
of water. And then the you know, the media is out running with it and deciding, all right, well, how can we go ahead and blame the incoming administration. So the best of people who would snap into action and attempt to conduct these rescues on a moment's notice in a really horrific situation, in a very dangerous situation. I mean, they had boats rush into this thing when rotors were still turning. Probably you don't know what's going to happen.
Plus you're dealing with the fact that it's not just a plane, it's a helicopter. It appears by some some of the witness statements that there was a there was an attempted bank so you know, I'm sure an alarm is screaming.
Proximity alarm is screaming. There in the seven.
Hundred and off of that final the plane does a really hard bank and then witnesses described sparks going across the bottom of the plane, which is likely the rotors from the Blackhawk, which is going to cut it in
half or is going to slice it up substantially. So at this point, based on again my own imperfect knowledge and communicating though, you know, real quickly with the military side, and I rather detailed email the thankfully one of our listeners sent that sounds like the most common or that that sounds like the most probable unfortunate human air There will be questions why are we flying blackhawks? But let me tell you what I've seen Blackhawks in the air.
I've seen in the air Blackhawks and Ausprey's literally flying in and out of Reagan Man. And then of course when you're on the ground, you know you may see the if you've been in DC a few times, you might even have seen the president flying with his his marines there. So let's not go crazy. Let's figure out what happened and if something has changed, fine, and let
me tell you what. And and there is a political angle here, and that is you have a you have an aviation accident that involves both commercial standard, civilian and military. Sean Duffy, who I have met once when he was would he very what? He was very first elected as a congressman from Wisconsin, he happened to serve western Wisconsin. I was at an event it was on it was literally right on the river, so he had congress people from Minnesota and Wisconsin and I met he was super young, dude,
very uh, I don't know, very nice. Came across as very nice. Other than that, I don't know anything about him. He's been in change, he's he's he literally is in this job hours. He's been in the job hours hours and Pete Hegseth days. And if there is any time to put aside the garbage and to have you know, I I don't even know who was the FAA director at the time during our last commercial aircraft crash here in the US.
It's been so long.
But whether it's Seany as Secretary of Transportation or the Pete Hegseth over at Department of Defense, can we just cool it for a few minutes? And it's okay to ask for help. We're gonna dive deeper into this. We're trying to round up some guests. We'll get to it all coming up case O Day Radio program.
I was just saying it to be a jerk, and I'm not.
I'm really not, and I'm not saying it to be some arrogant person who's been in media for a long time. I know that Elon said you're the media now. We're the media now.
Meaning people on social media, and.
That is true. But not everybody needs to be the media on everything, do you know what I'm saying. So if most of your posts are crap posts, or you're a yoga account or muckbang that weirdness or an only's cruel, you don't all need to post it because you're not providing new information. I balance it because I balance with this. If you're a big account that every single thing on my timeline last night is something about what was going
on with this this crash, and that's fine. But the problem is I'm fishing through trying to find information that others don't and I'm just getting incredibly frustrated because a lot of it is unattributed reposting, like people are cutting and pasting, and then I'll read it. I'm like, oh, this person just cut the other thing. And then you look at their account and they got like, you know, eleven hundred followers, which is fine, I'm not making fun of follower numbers.
But everything they post is about yu gi. Oh, so it was. It made it really difficult.
I've told you, I love x Twitter, whatever you want to call it. For breaking news, it's fantastic. It's fantastic. And the evolution of it to be more non breaking but investigatory is fantastic. All this is great. But I finally just kind of gave up and then I'm what am I doing? I'm back on NBC, CBS, ABC, Fight. I mean the normals right there, because I need concise information, and when people who don't do breaking news are are doing it, there is there is a possibility that they're incorrect.
I saw people reporting that the Blackhawk was in some sort of blackout mode and so, and it simply wasn't. It's it's it's literally doing Oh and its transponder wasn't on. Obviously it was atc is talking to the plane. They're talking to the helicopter. This the everything here sounds like somebody gave a false visual acknowledgment. Not intentionally, they messed up. They messed up here. By the way, here is that ex shape again. It's hard to hear, but but listening.
Change the Sturt roadway three three from way three three clear flant?
All right. So I when I mentioned earlier what this approach looks like. The Woodrow Wilson Bridge is where they're turning. You hear the pilot acknowledge that he's making the turn there, okay, And once he makes that turn and then pops right along there, you know this is this is when the good visuals are this portion of that particular landing. And this thing's almost in. People are already holding their cell phones getting ready to turn off airplane mode. You know.
The drill.
Change the Sturt roadway through three from way three three clear flant.
Okay.
That's the a T air.
That's the ATC telling him coming from there that you're you're clear, you're good to go.
That memorial that's.
Pod serge in flight.
A aircraft all right.
So there you hear the aircraft inside and it's.
Fortunately American left and two positive clment on.
TC notices something's wrong obviously that they're they're on a collision course. Again, I'm not a pilot. I don't know. I don't know if ATC should have noticed it earlier. And I'm not trying to sit here and lay blame one way or the other. I'm just trying because look the possibilities when you have UH aircraft colliding over our
nation's capital run the gamut. Admittedly so, admittedly so, everything from terrorism to a disgrunt told military member or a disgrunt told American Airlines member, like, all of.
That's out there. And I'm not saying that that we may.
Not find out something else, but you gotta you got to try to get a handle on this with what you can see, and what you can see sure sounds a lot like the pilot or the crew I should say of this Blackhawk misidentified the aircraft because if they had a visual which is pretty wild, and I'll be curious to see what the altitude differential was on them at the time of the impact of obviously wasn't that
high off the ground. You've probably seen the video of the explosion from the I think the Kennedy Center had a camera pointed over there. So that's where we are. We have reached out to Senator Bud this morning. We're reaching out to Brad not David Rouser. I think we have a third transportation community. I think it's Addison McDowell, the new guy, and hopefully we can chat with one or more of them. But unfortunately we find ourselves sitting
here in the first in a presidential transition. So there will be people trying to make hay off of this, and of course CNN was one of the first Mary, I.
Have one more question for you. Look, it's January twenty ninth. We are just nine days out from a presidential transition and administrative transition. The FAA administrator resigned at the end of the Biden administration, so there is no permanent, confirmed FAA administrator.
Right, Okay, well there isn't acting and the FAA administrator. And this is where it gets a little insulting here. The guys in the the guys do an ATC just because their bosses in there didn't forget to be how they did it a week ago. Okay, they didn't forget what they were doing. The folks that handle air traic control in in a particular geographic area like this are among the best of the best because it's such a crazy airspace with its everything and things that are so unique.
The idea that you're landing commercial airliners in that proximity to all of the nation's power is pretty incredible. And you know, just having you know, big airports flanking you creates these unique situations. These are not rookies. And let me go to the other side, because I see people that are going, you know where they they say that
this was a training thing for the black Hawk guys. Yeah, maybe you know why, because whether it's their first day on that black Hawk crew or they are among the most elite and longest serving in that capacity, they do training. That's what. What do you think the military does all day? What do you think? What do you think they're banging around La June where you see them running around in the trucks out to all those different woods. What do
you think having a picnic? They're training? Everybody's training. Why do you see the ospreys if you go hang out at North TOPSI over why when I was I saw a formation when I was down driving through Havelock past Cherry Point to go to that event. Down in Beaufort over the weekend. It's never not cool. Guys are training, that's what that's what they do. So so don't attempt to gauge if they've described it as a training fight flight, U don't don't attempt to gauge that that means it's
a bunch of inexperienced people. Some of some airline crashes have involved very experienced pilots. It's a it's an inherently dangerous thing you're doing. It's magic for I mean, for all practical purposes. The idea that you can take something that ways I think the I remember seeing what the gross tonnage is supposed to be on the new air Force one, and it's like it's almost a million gross tons and you're gonna put that in the air.
Hold on I's probably check what that is.
But but but uh, air Force one weight and because the new one is quite a bit bigger, and you're and you're making that fly around in the air, and that's incredible, that's absolutely incredible, and so.
And to accomplish that you have to do things. This is so stupid.
I want the air Force one weight ross and it's giving me the shoe weight.
Thanks Google.
Thanks predictive search on Google. Why do you think people would be checking plane.
Weights this morning?
Yeah? So current? Yeah, so that is correct. So the current one is eight hundred and thirty three. The new one the Boeing's building slowly is right around a million pounds. And you put that in the air and you have to keep it depending on what kind of aircraft it is. How it's built at a at a speed, and if you don't maintain that speed, you're now just a rock falling off of a cliff man. And one hundred and
one other things they're having to think about. Don't knock on pilots just because there's so much avionics now and automation. The reason you have them in there is when the computer goes, I don't want to do this anymore, and they got to do it. And don't knock on these
guys in the Blackhawk. They're sitting there and they have to when they want to get a visual, they require members of their crew flight crew to literally stick their head out the window so that they can gauge a disc distance and rotor distance between them and they can help with visual And I don't know exactly how the process and where the responsibility lies. But in talking to my buddy, it was a chief. The crew chief has a lot of very important jobs when it comes to
identifying and spacing and positioning aircraft around it. But it doesn't mean everyone's a rookie here. It's far more likely, by the way, that these are experienced pilots or an experienced crew at least. So you know CNN wanted to cut in here, Well, we don't even have an FAA director.
Well you know, even if you did, you could not convey if the FAA director was still in there from Biden and between the transition of Trump to what happened yesterday, there is not a single ATC member there that likely would have communicated in any way, shape or form with them, nothing would be different. So can we not go here? Can we please please not go here?
Now?
Let me give credit where credit is due, And I don't even mean this from a political reason. Oh I'm sorry, Let me play the rest of the CNN thing.
Hold on, now, this is going to be a time when there's going to be a lot of public communication and a lot of investigation of what happened here. What do you anticipate this transition period? Is going to mean for what happens today and tomorrow and in the coming days as we find out what happened here.
Okay, all right, and then that's a fair question at the end, all right, what is this going to look like? And yes, you have a transition. I just pointed out, you got Duffy Dot, you got heg Seth. A military. Obviously, because you're dealing with a civilian and military, this is it will be more complicated. There will be more chiefs, so to speak. But I also would like to think because they are new in this job, there will be you know, you don't get as entrenched in your particular
part of the executive branch. And I hope that that means everyone works better together. Remember after Dine to eleven, what was the big thing? Why weren't any of our agencies working together? So let's not predict that it's going to be that. Why don't we hope for the best And and to the to the Trump folks there, I I would say the same. If there are people from
the last administration who swapped out. If Pete Boodhages has anything that is helpful, he never he never did one of these that I that I can remember so, but if and and and then I want to see those guys on the phone together or in an office together. We can we can be better than where CNN and some are going. And credit to the White House Press Secretary has been there for you know, a few days who immediately was out there and.
Talking to the public.
Here she is on the thought breaking news.
I have called over to my counterparts at the White House, and I can confirm that President Trump has been made aware of this situation. And tragically, it appears that a military helicopter collided with a regional jet at DCA Airport right here in Washington, d C. That's all I can confirm at this point in time. And I can just say that the thoughts and the prayers of the entire
Trump administration are with all those that are involved. And we ask the public in this area to please stand by for guidance from law enforcement and allow them to do their jobs as they attempt to save lives.
Right now, Okay, all right, And you know she's not given big details, but she's there.
She's there, and she's telling folks what they know.
And now now it's time to digest the news and investigate and figure out and tally up rescues versus loss, the folks involved figuring out exactly what happened. There's cameras, which is you know, that's kind of an unusual part here. You have cameras a lot more just because there's so many around DC, and you have also whatever monitoring apparatus
the military has. So let's let's just take it down a notch for people wanting to flip around the edges before we accuse them of silent running spy blackhawks.
And then also a Trump.
You know, somehow Trump screwed it up, and I think we'll all be better off. They are saying there's going to be a press conference at seven point thirty. I'm gonna have Ross listen in while around the air and if it's a you know, if there's anything there, he can either communicate it or.
We'll put it up.
But we'll hopefully be chatting with our members of the NC delegation. Hopefully we can get a hold of one of them that serve on either of the transportation committees. So stay tuned. Lots to get to. We got a few other stories. We are going to talk about the RFK thing from yesterday.
We just we have to.
I've already seen weirdos, conspiracy weirdos saying that the crash was to distract from that. Just stop it, just stop this, take a day, touchgrass, as the kids say, okay, and we'll be right back. A lot of changes in the news cycle from you know, right around that seven o'clock mark.
For sure.
I actually sent prep a little early to Ross yesterday. I won the cold contest that everyone else has been having. But with this, this tragedy out of Reagan Airport, a small commuter jet from American Airlines, one of the seven hundreds. This a little tiny one, and I'm sure many of you, if you fly, especially if you fly to DC Miami short you know short routes around here, you've been on one.
They've got a lot of them.
Collided with a black Hawk helicopter military helicopter in very spectacular and deadly fashion over the Potomac River, directly adjacent to Reagan on final pro the Woodrow Wilson Bridge is if if you've made the the Wilson Bridge, if you don't know, is the one that uh uh wait, hold on, I want to be. I want to be is al is where Alexandria connects, but I think there's two of them,
so I just want to be clear. It's well, obviously it's the furthest south one, and so if you've made that approach, you go, the plane does a big turn. You can see the Jefferson Monument, you can see in the distance, the Washington Monument, Rock Creek Park, all that, and you come in and you know, it's a fun if if you love watching stuff from the air, it's a really fun airport because you know, you recognize all the stuff from DC.
It's great.
I love it. And I've been on that exact size plane with that company, American Airlines and their subsidiaries, probably a dozen times up to DC. And it's not my favorite aircraft because it's it's just it's so tiny, but you don't care. It's nice, short, little flight. And this one was originating from Kansas. I would point out that a lot of the crews I've seen on those regional American carriers are especially for American or North Carolina base.
There's a lot of Charlotte based cruise. There's even some Raleigh based crews.
And.
So if you fly a lot for business and a lot of these regional commuters. I mean, there is every chance in the world that maybe a crew member you would recognize. So just you know, prayers for everyone there. I know everyone gets whipped up for thoughts and prayers, but it's what you can do right now, and what Washington can do, and what this new administration can do is understand that, yes, you walked in here, you are your days into it. The Transportation Secretary's hours into his job.
It's not quite you know.
Obviously Bush had a little more distance, but you know it was very early in his career when nine to eleven happened. I'm not comparing the two things. I'm just pointing out that you out of scramble, and I hope that you know yesterday while members of Congress are screaming at nominees over baby onesies and if you miss that, we.
Will play it.
You all can just just cool it today and if there are people with it because.
I looked it up. So do you know the last.
Legacy carrier or partner I shouldn't say legacy carrier but large aircraft crash was in the United States two thousand and nine, two thousand and nine. That's amazing. That's an amazing record. In fact, somebody sent me an email and did the math here. Yeah, here we go. So in the United States, between the two thousand and nine crash and what transpired yesterday, here we go, we averaged thirteen
million commercial flights per year. That means between the last major accident and this, we have had one hundred and ninety five million flights commercial flights here in the United States without well without crashing. Obviously there's incidents. I was, we had a tire blow, I mean, just stuff like that.
And then the procedures are so good even when those things happened, Even when me and my other passengers were literally braced against our seats landing in Atlanta after we blew a mad dog tire taken off out of Tampa and we didn't know if the other one was blown. They make it work through procedure and training. And on the military side, same thing. So also it's important because these things do have that effect. It's important that the
investigation comes out. They are open with it because it is more complicated because it's civilian and military, and you know, the Trump administration, one of the things they need to do is every step of the way, let people know what's going on, because one of the net effects of a crash and under it's understandable is there is a dip in air traffic. People go, People who are already nervous of flying go, you know, I'll take the train or the bus or I won't go, and and and
we get over it and then people more. But transparency is going to get us there. And with people in charge at DOT and at the Secretary of Defense being hours or days into their job, it's going to be important to draw on that. And the narrative of the media to once to put out is that they fired everybody. There's nobody knows what they're doing and some you know, basically people didn't know what they were doing. Are are it fouled here? And I don't believe that from it
doesn't make sense. They didn't just swap the air traffic controllers at Reagan in the last week. So don't don't take the bait on that stuff. All right, Like I said, we've got a few things we got to get to. We have invitations out to several elected officials who sit on transportation committees. North Carolina has four or five, well, they have four Republicans and there's a reason I'm leaning into Republicans. I will gladly talk to a Democrat who's
on the Transportation committee. But this is going back to where people are on Twitter and everyone's a reporter on the same story.
That clogs up the timeline.
One of the things you learn early on when you do reporting, or you do this version of it that we do. And I used to be a straight reporter, Now I do this. You have to prioritize, and if you're young, you make a list who is the most valuable person to talk to. Well, the most valuable person in this case would be somebody who was on one of those aircraft that's not going to be possible, than the air traffic controller probably that's not going to be possible.
Then a witness who's in the proximity of this who may have experience of either military aircraft or commercial or both. Right, you rank all these things. That's what you acquire. And when you go on the political side, you want to talk to people who are on these committees, or you want to talk to people within the departments secret you know, in the Defense Department or in the Transportation or somebody at the FAA.
And then who's in power. You lean into.
Their elected group because they likely will have more access to more things. And I can do this in my head now, but when I was younger, I used to make a list for this stuff, and then you get to work what's worth your time to track down and and so for those of you out there, and there's a lot of you who listen who also do the news stuff, that's that's how I approach this stuff, okay, And that's how we get new, interesting or useful information out quickly. Like I said, there is a press conference
coming up. We'll see what's there. Ross is gonna listen in while we do what we do. But let me flip back to yesterday, where I hope the antics of yesterday are a little tempered because I turned into that RFK hearing and literally, as RFK is reading his opening statement, the moonbats where.
I am neither I am pro safety.
By the way that person is interrupting an official proceeding at the Congressional building. So was it a fifty dollars fine or are they in jail for eight years?
I don't know.
I think they probably just got the fine. So with that, let's go ahead and get into the the insane portion of it. I normally I knock on like the the some of the women senators who have been screaming in some of these hearings, and of course Liz Warren will make an appearance, but even some of the dudes were in on. Even the Colorado Congressman Bennett was just absolutely unhinged at the beginning of this.
Did you say on a podcast and I quote, I wouldn't leave it abortion to the states. My belief is we should leave it to the woman. We shouldn't have the government involved, even if it's full term. Did you say that, mister senator?
I believe every abortion is a tragedy.
Did you say it, mister Kennedy?
It just matters, It doesn't matter what.
You come here and say.
That he's screaming at him, and I don't. I don't understand this tactic of screaming at like because you're not adulting anymore. You're the You're no different than I am neither. Well, hold on, you're no different than this.
I am neither.
I am pro safety.
You're the same thing. When you do that isn't true.
That's not reflective of what you really believe. That you haven't said over decade after decade after decade, because unlike other jobs we're confirming around this place, this is a job where it is life and death for the kids that I used to work for in the Denver public schools and for families all over this country that Bennett's own political party, including the mayor of Denver and others, have decided that they are going to stand between accessing.
In any public governmental setting, school setting or whatnot for the purpose of the federal immigration enforcement right.
And remember this whole.
Mess, as I've told you, this by design thing of the Biden administration with immigration has led to widespread suffering and death. So the hypocrisy from the is it was driving me nutty watching this yesterday.
That are suffering from living in the richest country of the world that can't deliver basic health care and basic mental health here to them, it's too important for the games that you're playing, mister Kennedy.
And and I'm gonna stop him.
There is anybody unclear that Kennedy's been a a has been pro abortion. That's that was one of the things that the Trump administration had to explain that this is not because now it's the state's issue, Like nobody thinks that RFK Junior is one hundred percent pro life, and in fact that that's why there's some very conservative folks who don't want him in there a little waste of time. But then Elizabeth Warren and I want you to pick up on what she's doing here because it's that insane.
I'm asking about sees from suing drug companies. Will you agree not to do that? You're asking me to not sue drug companies.
I'm not going to agree to companies as much I want.
I'm not going to agree to not sue drug companies or anybody.
What what is Elizabeth Warren is that she claims that's not what it is. But when you when you talk about fees for it, well, what lawyers are you going to get to sue drug companies if they're not extracting fees. So in essence, you're arguing that they don't sue drug companies, that that's a Democrat position is wild to me. I mean it's not because I understand where we are now, and COVID entrenched a lot of this, and and Bennett is one of the largest recipients. The other guy played
of pharmaceutical donations. Damn near a million dollars in the last cycle. I mean, what are we doing here? Why is any elected officials saying, well, you're not going to sue drug companies. I'll let you figure out why that may be. Now, that's not where Bernie Sanders went. Bernie Sanders he went in a very different direction.
He had beef with.
Merch, specifically an organization that Kennedy is no longer with, however, was part of, was one of the founders who sells merch on their website, specifically baby merch, baby onesies. And Sanders just can't deal. And he has like a picture of the onesies.
Just listen to this.
They are telling me what's called onesies, these little things clothing for babies.
By the way, when he says the word babies, he sounds like you say. He says it this with disgust. It's just his delivery, like a babies. Puh.
They are telling me what's called onesies, these little things clothing for babies. One of them is dialed on facts on a frame. Next one of the sold for twenty six bucks a piece, by the way, next one is no vas.
No problem.
Now you're coming.
Before this committee, and you say you're pro vaccine, just want to ask some questions, and yet your organization is making money selling a child's product to parents for twenty six bucks, which cast.
Fundamental doubt on ut on the usefulness of vaccines. Can you tell us now that you will, now that you are pro vaccine, that you're.
Going to have your organization take these products off the market?
Senator, I have no power over that organization, not your heard of it.
Resigned from the board.
That was just a few months ago. You founded that. You certainly have power you could make that. How are you supportive of this?
I've had nothing to do.
With your supportive of these onesies?
I'm supportive of that will be one of the greatest political lines ever. Are you supportive of these onesies? Thank you?
Bernie vaccines?
Are you supportive of these this clothing which is militantly anti vaccine? I am supportive of vaccines.
Well, I want good science and I want to protect But you.
Will not tell the organization you founded not to continue selling that product.
Thank you, bro.
It's a onesie.
By the way, if it was militantly opposed, they would be puncture proof.
Right.
Is this now the thing if you have troubling onesies in your past, I mean, Ross, do you have any troubling onesies in your family's past with Lincoln? I mean anything I need to know because apparently this is a no now that you know of. Okay, that's weird. I think I had a Duke's a hazard onesie, So I s probably pack up all the stuff right because I was baby and couldn't not put it on. I think there's a picture. I think it's Dukes. It has the
same color. I don't know, it's been so long since I've seen it, but yeah, like this, this is where we are. So that's where we were, and then six hours later, obviously we're we're dealing with the story literally just down the street, a very tragic loss of life there. So yeah, I'm gonna need everyone in DC to adult for a few days. Okay, and you can get back to the stupidity, but you need to and stop whinding about blueberries and smoothies and everything under the sun. Figure out.
I mean, I understand you got to deal with the nominations and go forward, but you're screaming about onesies. Bro, And I remember seeing a girl dressed as Sluttie Bernie Sanders for Halloween, so I don't want to hear it.
We'll be back.
I have a quick intro. The press conference has begun. Mary O.
Bowser, Washington, DC Mayor speaking right now. Let's go to it events last night.
I'm joined by US Transportation Secretary of Sean Duffy, DC Fire and the MP's chief John Donnelly, American Airline CEO Robert Eisen, the MLONG, the Washington Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority CEO Jack Carter, you A United States Senator Mark Warner, United States Senator Tim Kine, US Representative uh Don Bayer, as well as the treats of the Metropolitan a Police Department.
Pamela Smith UH. And we are joined.
By first responders from across the Metropolitan Washington region. I speak for all of us when I say it's certainly all Washingtonians. How very sad.
We are, UH, for.
American Airlines, for the United States Department of Defense, and for all Americans for the loss of life that happened with the collision of these aircrafts. We know, UH that includes families from across our region as well as in Kansas and across the country. UH. This morning, we all share in the profouncis of Greeed. I do want to thank the first responders who acted quickly last night, who ran towards danger, went into a very frigid river, and
have worked throughout the night. Uh. Chief Donnaly reported and last night l last night's briefing that we have a strong mutual aid agreement in our region and those teams have worked together throughout the night and really tough and heartbreaking conditions, and we should all thank.
Them for their heroic affirts.
So we'll have several updates today. I'm first gonna Chod turn to the Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, and Uh then you will hear directly from achieved John Donnelly with a situational updates.
And just remind her Duffy has literally been on this job.
And Homer again, Uh shown Duffy here, Uh, Secretary of Transportation. Uh we wish uh we were gathering for different purposes. Uh today we just won't let you know that.
Uh.
The the Department of Transportation, the FAA, along with the White House, President Trump, local state and federal partners all working together on this incident in Unison. I couldn't be prouder of this team that's been assembled working tirelessly.
May want to thank you specifically for your work.
A few details I'd like to give all of you, and some of you reported this, but last night. If you live in the DC area, you would know that this was a clear night last night.
The helicopter was in a standard pattern.
If you live in the DCRE, you'll see helicopters up and down the river. This flight pattern is seen oftentimes when you live in DC. This was a standard flight pattern last night as well. The American Airline flight coming into land was in a standard flight pattern as it was coming into DCA, So this was not unusual with a military aircraft flying the river and aircraft.
Landing at DCA.
And again if you live in the area, you'll see that equally with those two aircraft working together as you were. Many group reported. We have located the two aircrafts. The fuselage of the American Airline plane was inverted. It's been located in three different sections. It's in about waste deep water.
So that recovery is going to go on today. As that recovery takes place of the of the fuselage of the aircraft, NTSB is going to start to analyze that aircraft, partner with the FAA with all of the information we have to get the best results possible for the American people.
Would to say that.
Safety is our expectation. Everyone who flies in American skies expects that we fly safely, that when you depart an airport you get to your destination.
That didn't happen last night. And I know the President Trump.
His administration, the FAA, the DOT we will not rest until we have answers for the families and for the flying public. You should be assured that when you fly, you're safe.
Thank you all right here as we're going to the DC Fire and Rescue cheat.
Thank you Secretary, Thank you Mayor. I'm joined today by with.
Fire Chip Bonnet from the Metropopit and Washington Airport's Authority, and I'm John Donnelly, chief to the District of Columbia Fire and MS Department. Last night, at eight forty eight, the control tower sounded an alert which alerts responders to respond to a report of an aircraft crash on or near the airport. That sets off an immediate response from the airport authority, Fire Department from the District of Columbia and Metropolitan Harbor Control fireboats and other fireboats on the
river in order to support that type of operation. Very quickly this call escalated. It became the responders realized that they had a plane crash and immediately escalated to a response that ultimately included about three hundred people. Last night. These responders found extremely frigid conditions, they found heavy wind, they found ice on the water, and they are operated
all night in those conditions. I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the agencies that responded, in addition to DC Fire and UMS in the Metropropital Washington Airports Authority, Montgomery County Fire Department, the Prince George's County Fire Department, the Charles County Fire Department, the Baltimore County Police Department, the an Arundel County Fire Department, the Alexandria Fire Department, the Arlington County Fire Department, the Fairfax Fire Department, the
Prince William Fire Department, the Baltimore City Police Department, the Maryland State Police, the Maryland Natural Resources Police, the Department of Defense, the Joint Base in Bowling Fire Department and the staff there, the US Army and the US Coast Guard, the United States Park Police, the Metropolitan Police Department, the FBI, and the NTSP. Despite all those efforts, we are now at the point where we are switching from a rescue
operation to a recovery operation. At this point, we don't believe there are any survivors from this.
Accident, and we have the twenty seven between people from.
The plane and one from the helicopter. The District Office of the Medical Examiner has lead on reuniting these bodies and these people with their loved ones, and we will continue to work to find all the bodies and collect them and reunite them with their loved ones. We should also acknowledge that the Virginia Metaical Examiner and the Army Medical Examiner are involved in this operation and a very important part of getting people identified.
So here comes the merri again.
Our hearts are certainly with all of the crew and American Airlines, and we'll hear from the CEO.
I say thank you, Marra, good morning.
I'm Robert eis from the CEO of American Airlines.
I want to express my sincere condolences for the accident that happened at DCA last night. We're absolutely heartbroken for the family and loved ones of the passengers and crew members, and also for those that were on the military aircraft. Our focus right now is doing everything that we can to support all of those involved and also the PSA Airlines team.
This is devastating, it's we are all hurting incredibly.
We urge any family and friends looking for information about their loved ones to call our designative helpline, and that's one eight hundred six seven nine eight two one five one eight hundred sixty seven nine eight two one five.
But here's what I can share at this early stage.
American American Eagle Flight fifty three forty two, operated by PSA Airlines, traveling from Wichita, Kansas to Reagan.
National Airport, was involved in an accident.
Just before nine pm local time on final approach into Reagan National they collided with a military aircraft on an otherwise normal approach.
At this time, we don't know why.
The military aircraft came into the path of the PSA aircraft. Fifty three two a CRJ seven hundred, was under the command of four crew members. They carried sixty passengers, as you know, for a total of sixty four people on board In addition to local resources already here in DC, American Analyis has activated our Care Team, and that's a group of specialists that are trained to support.
These types of responses.
These team members are on site, are arriving soon, and additionally, we have members of our Go team that are on the ground here in DC and they're being deployed with resources to do everything that we can to take care of the needs of the families and the loved ones of the passengers and crew members, and that is our sole focus. We're so grateful for the first responders. They've
been working through the night courageous efforts. But we're actively working with local, state, and federal authorities on emergency response efforts.
And closely coordating with PSA Airlines.
As they cooperate fully with the NTSB on the investigation.
I know that there are many questions that in this early stage.
All rights will go ahead and come out of this. So we'll we have it up here and we'll continue to watch and see. I wanted to hear from the American Airline CEO for two things. One his description of it was the black Hawk crossed into the path of I don't know that that's official but that is what I think a lot of aviation people are thinking. Why
that happened, We don't know. And I was hoping he'd say where the crew was based, because there are many many crew members that fly American airlines these regional jets that are North Carolina based. I've flown enough of them over the years, so we'll keep an eye on that. Let's go ahead and grab raced Agic from the weather
Channel and that's you know, weather plays into this. At the top of the press conference, they said it was an absolutely clear, beautiful night in in d C. And and still this happened, so yeah, and.
Dragging in on that man, but no, a little, a little yeah, a little breeze certainly irrelevant now now that we heard it. It's a recovery effort. But the Potomac thirty six degrees, so yeah, unfortunately, and we was going to go downhill to rain tonight, rain probably tomorrow in the recovery area, and temperatures will stay a well but freezing, so we don't have to worry about any frozen precipitation. But the weekend looks like dry weather returns and probably
dry weather it'sill about the middle of next week. There, So, yeah, unfortunate. Doesn't look like whether it's a factor at least at this time, Casey, I mean, as you said, it was.
Clear, So yeah, it was clear, and uh, but where the factor is and you and you pointed it out is and I kind of stepped on it and I didn't mean to. They said that there are still several bodies missing from the civilian craft and one from the military craft. And so you start stacking rain in there with the cold weather, and it does make things more difficult.
So yeah, it does. Yeah, we'll see some of the rain too, not today, tonight, tomorrow, especially tomorrow. The weekend's going to look good here as we'll be back in the upper fifties, low sixties, warmers days to come though. Early next week they see a couple of days we get close to seventies, so little rain, but most of the next five to seven days is going to be dry, mild.
All right, thank you, we'll talk in an hour.
They are now they've now switched over to the politician portion, So the first of the Virginia senators, Mark Warner's up there. We'll keep an eye and report back in just a few and coming up on the show, eight oh five, Stephen Kent will join us our NERD correspondent, and we have some stories obviously we're going to talk about with him.
We got some other news stories we're going to get to as we're watching this.
But Stephen wasn't going to be with us today, and I'll explain why coming up next here on the CaCO Day Radio program. Again, just a visual for you if you're driving this morning, if you've ever flown into rain, but just you know, just think of it. North to south with the Potomac there basically runs north to south. Reagan is on the left side, Joint Base Anacosta's on the right. This particular approach which is thirty three, which
if you don't you should be. If you're a pilot, you can visualize that or you understand why they label them that way. But it is the plane comes in in the and it's flying northwest in the direction when it lands, so it literally goes, it approaches goes down by the Arlington Bridge, Woodrow Wilson Bridge. There you make that big turn. I like this approach. You make a big turn there, you're flying along the east side of
the river. You got it, two ninety five down there, and then when you make that last final turn so that you're pointing northwest, if you're on the right side of the aircraft, Like I'm one of these weird people who pick sides of the aircraft.
Because I like windows and stuff.
But and it's clear you're going to get a glimpse of the Jefferson Memorial. Prior to that, you'll see the Washington Monument in the distance. It's very cool approach, as is the northerly approach there. Reagan is a very unique airport.
So currently what we were able to learn is that they have recovered two of the three military passengers on the military aircraft and just twenty seven on the commercial and if you remember the souls on board, as they say, was sixty four if you include crew, so more than half of the people who were on the American Airlines flight as of this point are still unrecovered, and multiple
people have sod we don't expect any survivors. We did run a little of that, but they reiterated that several times Thursday morning, And obviously, if you've listened to even a moment of the show, or been on social media, or I don't know, just not been under a rock. You realize there is a big story continuing to unfold
up in DC. We just carried some of the press conference there with the mayor and the American Airlines CEO, some elected officials, some other bureaucrats, and at this point about half the passengers the American Airlines flight have been recovered.
They don't expect survivors, and two of the three on the military aircraft that of course shut down what is very busy, albeit one of the smaller airports, but still a busy one in a very busy air space surrounded by Dallas and BWI, and really one of my favorite airports, to be quite honest with you, just because of the views you get there. That is expected to reopen at eleven. And one of the folks that actually was impacted by that because he was supposed to be on a flight
this morning. He lives in the DC area, as we've mentioned, and that is Stephen Kent. Good morning, Stephen. How are you doing, sir?
Good morning? Case doing about as good as we can do. It's a weird day in DC.
Absolutely which time you were flying out of Reagan, right.
Yes, sir, Yeah, I was headed out of Reagan this morning on American Airlines here in just about an hour. So I just woke up to this really uncomfortable and unsettling news.
And I'm curious what not, because this is not me picking on American I'm just curious. What are they communicated to you, as one of the people now who's obviously your flight isn't going to leave in an hour because they're not real open at eleven. Did they send you, guys an email? What did it say or is it just standard let's get you rescheduled?
Uh?
Yeah, just just notification of canceled flights overnight while while we were all sleeping. So that's That's about the long and short of it. You have to call in in situations like this to get your your flight rebooked, so they don't allow for it to be done online right now.
Okay, well I wish you were here under better terms, man.
But.
Yeah, you know this is a this is a bad one for DC.
Yeah. Yeah, And you you fly a lot, like you're you're mister International, You're James Bond going over to Poland and stuff, But like, are you are you a comfortable flyer? Do you like flying?
I I am a comfortable flyer. I enjoy it very much. And you know, just thinking about the landing on the Potomac, it's it's always a it's a it's a side splitting one. You start to feel a little bit uncomfortable, and you see that river coming in, and you think the plane that's going to land in the water every time, and my heart just kind of breaks for these these people who were at that moment of ah, we made it.
And and seeing and seeing the light on the Washington Monument probably like it's a cool approach for on the right side of the aircraft there, so yea, yeah, probably taking pictures. I mean, it's just you think about all the stuff you do, so I don't want to dwell upon it, but I just want to give people a sense of kind of how those impacted. Secondarily how that's how that's looking for you guys. So all right, well
let me uh, let me. There's no easy transition here, but I do have to get to a few things since we have you, one of which is, uh, really the net effect of a lot of things we've seen with various actors deciding to go ahead and sit down and do a little Q and A, and for the most part, like we only see the stuff that goes horribly right. Really, the fans only see the good stuff.
You know. To chew that up is you have to have somebody say something crazy, or you have to have a guy at BlizzCon mock the Diablo developers before you go viral. And Anthony Mackie is an actor. I like Anthony Mackie, who is the new Captain America, was doing a pretty innocuous Q and A. And he made a statement the other day and I'm gonna play it and immediately Ross is like, oh my gosh, you see this, and yeah, here is Mackie talking about his role in the New Captain America.
For to me, Captain.
America represents a lot of different things, and I don't think the term you know, America should be one of those representations, Like it's about.
A man who keeps.
His word, who has honored dignity and integrity, of someone who is trustworthy and dependable.
You and I think to some extent you might have helped me shape the way that I handle this because we've had so many of these conversations. I then think, have I ever heard Anthony Mackie say really crazy stuff? What is and if not does he mean something else. I'm having a hard time one. I've never heard him say crazy stuff. I like Anthony Mackie. But secondly, I don't know how that you'd think that that doesn't sound bad. So help me out.
Yeah, you know, I try to be charitable in situations like this. I think this is someone who's dealing with just a little bit of post election fatigue and disappointment, which is fine. It's not a crime or wrong to be a Democrat in Hollywood. And what he is saying here is America or Captain America is supposed to represent honesty, honor, dignity, integrity, and he says that, you know, America doesn't necessarily embody all of these things. And this is a pretty boiler
plate for Captain America as a character. The character since its inception has always had to deal with disillusionment, skepticism about whoever's empowered any guan time, I'm reminded of Captain America one seventy five. This goes back to the Nixon years.
In nineteen seventy four, Captain America just goes rug and becomes this guy named Nomad after he becomes disillusioned with what's going on with the US government, and you get all the way up to the two thousands and the War Hunt Terror era, and similarly, you have the Civil War movies where Captain America resists the Superhero Registration Act and breaks with the government because they are no longer
embodying the ideals at which he stands for. So Anthony Mackie's saying this, I mean, this is basically election fatigue, but it does kind of go to the core of who Captain America is as a character. I just I just really wish he hadn't said this, because the movies had nothing but good press up until this point.
Yeah, it's ross and I were talking about this the other day. There's reasons some people won't see it Captain America Steve Rodgers purist, right, which is, you know, that's just that's that's fine, that's that that's a fan thing.
And then they may not see it on the superhero movies. But it's like.
Marvel is is trying to with the upcoming Avengers continuation. They're clearly trying to get back to what got them here, and Captain America is one of the you know, the series one or the first Fly. What is the term I'm looking for the first grouping. Yeah, first Avenger, but I mean the first series of movies, the first bundle of movies that made them an ungodly sum of money.
And yeah, that's clearly what they're leaning back into. So it's like you you have to separate the ones where fans are still like, yes, we really want to see them from what they've been fed most recently, which included controversy. And this just kind of drags it all along. Yeah, it does.
And his clarifying statement has been quote, let me be clear about this. I'm a proud American and taking on the shield of a hero is the honor of a lifetime. I have respect for those who serve and serve the country. And Captain America has universal characteristics that people all around the world relate to. I mean, this is obviously true. The ideals of Captain America are something that the entire world is supposed to look towards. It's just like the
American flag is meant to be a beacon. But of course we have a situation, well a political situation where people don't always agree that America is living up to its ideals. And you know, we can all agree to disagree on that. This is just sort of bad promo practices for any movie Hollywood actors, producers. They go out and they say things that polarize people. And you know, back in the day, he didn't really have this problem in the twenty four hour news cycle.
No, I would agree. And to your point with Captain, as you go through the generations, you know, you talk about when was the first Captain.
America comic book? Oh, how far back does that go?
I don't even I don't even know when he came on the scene, but like you're right, he's World World.
War two, nineteen forty.
Yeah, yeah, I didn't know how far after if it was actually during. My point is that was the attitude of the country for World War Two was very raw, rod different. We had the whole period where we're fighting the Communists. So Captain America's leaning into that. I understand the evolution there. But in each of those instances, would it never what it never gave, never yielded, was that
Captain was the superior model. Right, It's very obviously it's very patriotic, the colors the name to everything, even if what they were doing messing with Central America or Vietna or whatever.
Maybe wasn't the right thing.
They still had the they still had the ego with it.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Yep, yep, you got to have a little chest bumpery there and uh yeah. You know, to say that Captain America doesn't necessarily represent America is obviously just a foot in mouth moment of epic proportions. What Anthony Mackie should have just said is, you know, I'm concerned with the trajectory of America. I'm not sure we're living up to our ideals, but Captain America obviously represents America.
Or hey, this is great.
Uh, I'm glad I'm getting a much bigger paycheck than I have for the past movies. How many of these actors, though, are worried about it. There's one of the voice actor by the name of Hudson Tames Thames Tames, and we pronounce it yeah yeah. So he is part of an upcoming animated Disney series, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man, and he's in an interview so that his biggest fear about the project is it would be woke, annoying and woke
is what he said. Uh, how many actors think that because they can see what's happened to the wocust other versions of their colleagues. How many think it versus verbalized And I'm impressed he verbalized it. I'm sure there's a lot of actors who have thought it. They're the ones who just do standard press interviews and don't get into this stuff.
Or do you think that?
Do you think that what's happening politically in our country freed this guy up to feel comfortable enough saying that and more will maybe behind the scenes try to dewoke projects they're on because they want to make money.
Yeah, you know, I think it's not a coincidence that Hudson Thames is a pretty young actor thirty years old, really represents I think a younger generation that is pretty exasperated with a lot of the politicization and wokeness that goes on with a lot of Gen X actors and older millennials. You know, one of the things that drove the Trump election was just noticing that people under the age of thirty are are pretty tired of this kind of stuff. And it's pretty notable that Hudson James was
comfortable saying this. Now one of his colleagues, the showrunner Jeff Tremmel, who is a kind of an older black guy. He mentioned that, you know, I love Hudson, and I'm trying not to focus on what he said. I believe he misspoke. That's a funny way to put it. I believe he misspoke when he said that. Later, Yeah, he was pretty clear. I thought this show would be woke and lame, and it turns out it wasn't. He didn't misspeak at all. And then he's urging the showrunner people
to still go and give it a shake. So he's basically saying that leftists on Twitter are angry about this. But here's the thing, Casey, a spider Man show, the Friendly Neighborhood spider Man and cartoon on Disney Plus is not going to succeed or fail based on adults on
Twitter being angry or happy about a show. A spider Man animated series is going to succeed if people under the age of fifteen, also known as children, happen to get on Disney Plus, watch the show randomly tell their friends it's awesome, and then they all watch it organically. These shows are so driven in the press cycle by the opinions of adults, and they don't matter. They are
the minority of the audience. It has to appeal to kids organically, and so I think we get often, like very derailed on adult conversations about the politics of movies. Kids either think it's lame or they think it's awesome. And we'll see if Friendly Spider Man is actually enjoyable.
Well. And obviously parents to some extent who pay very close attention also pay attention to the news cycle. But you're right, your eight year old doesn't give a crap Jesus, like this is cool or it ain't cool.
No, And it reminds me of when I was chaperoning kids at the boy Scout camp I go and do work at over the summer, and you know, all the kids at the Gaga ball pit, we're all just sort of laughing about the state of Star Wars and like, hey, have you seen like the New Acolytes show. No, no, no, I'm not watching that. Dah dah dad, I'm watching this.
And all the kids are watching anime, right, They're just talking about anime and one Piece and what's going on on YouTube, and they're just sort of knee slapping over the state of Star Wars because nobody cares. It's just adults yelling at each other about the state of this old ip and I love Star Wars, but you know, kids are going to do their own thing independent of who's happy and who's mad.
On Twitter Ubisoft, this is when we're looking for tales of you know, changing changing landscape. Obviously, video games get a lot of discussion, and now the video game studio says it will laugh one hundred and eighty five staff speaking of Star Wars, that was one of their big misses. They've had a few, but they've had a lot of success too, So how quickly the tables have turned?
Here? What's going on with this?
Is it just a restructuring a summer saying, or is this this is going to be something we're going to see a few more times.
You know, I'm really curious what you think on this one casey, but to me, this looks like there's going to be a private sector wave and I think Meta and Facebook was sort of leading the way on this where everybody feels a little bit more comfortable with the political wins changing and pressure from Washington d C alleviating in the election of Donald Trump, and sort of the new attacks on DEI infrastructures to do things like say, oh my god, we have one hundred and eighty five
useless people at this company who we hired to check boxes and do nothing except change the hair color of our characters when we put them into our video games. And we're going to tighten our belt until we actually make money. I think we're going to see a return a lot of companies towards making money and moving away from sort of an ESG mindset where they're supposed to
be socially responsible versus be raw capitalist profitable ventures. That's what I'm seeing here, But it just really comes out of Ubisoft producing one failure of a game after another.
Yeah, and we don't have time to get into it.
Yeah.
I take the same approach on everything as like yesterday, Netflix is doing Little House on the Prairie. I'm so nervous, and I know a lot of our folks are, and I'll get into more of that ten seconds. Should we be nervous or patiently wait and see?
It's always patiently wait and see. Don't get caught up in the negative hype cycles. Enjoy your life, watch shows and soucide for yourself.
Okay, all right, Steven Kent, appreciate it. Thank you for joining us this morning. We'll talk soon, sir.
Take care.
All right, There you go Stephen Kent with NERD News and obviously an update from DC that he's dealing with. So we really appreciate that and we'll be back. How many of you loved you? Some little house on the prairie, some Michael landing back in the day. I don't know why there's still for some reason in my mind I can there's like I have a really weird photographic memory that sometimes is really good at stuff and most of
the times is cluttering. Somebody would We had a guy who was like, was complimenting, complimenting me on describing that landing at Reagan. If it's if it's a navigation, I can go somewhere some like one time, and I can get myself back there and it doesn't even have to be in this country, could be in any country. It's just I don't know. I don't know why that is.
And so I happen to be a window sitter on a plane, so like my brain knows the approaches at airports I've flown into several times I can tell you all the Raleigh approaches, obviously, and the Miami ones, and I like pick to see which ones I like. I can't remember people's names. I meet him three minus minutes ago, so but I remember one of my I just just dawned upon me. I remember because we had reader digest in the house that I remember for a long time.
We had one, you know, in the bathroom you got the little bucket with the magazines. Back in the day before phones. There was a copy with Michael Landon on the cover that sat in there forever. I don't know why I remember that, but I do, you know, in his Little House on the Prairie, get up. Unfortunately, this is how the press release reads. Little House on the Prairie, A reimagining of the Laura Ingalls Wilder book series.
Is coming to Netflix.
Part family drama, part survival tale, and part origin story, the series will offer a kaleidoscope view of the struggles
and triumphs of those who shaped the American West. Now was the interactions between settlers and let's say, natives or soldiers even, you know, a lot of people don't realize that there was a lot of shenanigans with soldiers that we had out there in their interactions, like they could be conscripted or bought for mercenary purposes, and some ranchers would hire soldiers to go and hurt other ranchers or
hurt their livestock and stuff. There's a lot of crazy, serious stories that obviously weren't part of it because That's Little House on the Prairie was a drama targeted a families and there were a lot of relatable things, even if you've never donned a bonnet hat in the middle of you know, the prairie prior to the dust Bowl and everything that they had to deal with, it wasn't about that. It was in the same way The Waltons wasn't necessarily about the era it was set. Annie Griffiths Show.
We see it that we see that retroactively, but well Annie Griffith Show really took place kind of a very similar, closer timeline, but like it wasn't about all of that. Unfortunately though, it means that a lot of the interactions are not historically accurate, but there wasn't an expect for them to be. And so that's where I wonder, well, what are you going to do? How do you keep this a family appointment. It was appointment watching had less options.
But still Little House on the Prairie was immensely popular. In fact, I called let me grab this. I called up literally the uh oh oh, where here we go?
A Little House on the Prairie.
Yeah, when it first aired, actually just cracked the top twenty five. And then year after year it gets more and more, all right, So yeah, I mean, this was an immensely popular show. However, I'm just on the cusp of remembering Little House on the Prairie. So if you're under the age of forty, I'm sure you don't remember it much at all, so I guess you have nothing to base it against. But yeah, that's I just want
to give you the full rundown there. It doesn't have necessarily a timeline on this, but I can see why people are wondering, oh my gosh, what's well Hollywood going to do to this?
How dare you?
You didn't even necessarily think it was a sacred calf until now, But who knows. Maybe they get something up there that's enjoyable, not too far deviated. And most importantly, you you can't break up that family dynamic. Man, I have to think they won't. But it was the core
component of the show. It was look out the family that is strong in the face of adversity, which settlers fet my own family faced, getting in a wagon and going to Wyoming where they hadn't even fully established Fort Phil Carney's surveillance, if you will, or where they would go around to make sure that there weren't skirmishes with natives there.
Like, that's crazy.
I remember growing up there. I'm like, this is nuts, this is great what you came out here and none of this was here except people who really the crow were very aggressive along that portion of the Bozeman Trail. That's why they established those bases. That's why you have the the you know fort Whatever's along there, which by that was the base Custer came out of.
Like you said, there was some stuff going on.
But but with with with family and love and yes even religion, which was portraying that show, you you could overcome the adversity. That was this insane decision that that people made.
So I really hope they stick with it.
Oh what is this? Have you watched American Prize? Yes, I have watched American Prime Evil. I am down with that. I'm still I don't know. I just haven't talked about it in the areaet I got a I got a weird range for stuff. All right, let me hit a few other things. Go back over your one house, a little house on the prairie. I will tell you this. I saw this clip yesterday, thought this was incredibly interesting.
So the former president of Kenya is speaking, and they've got a bunch of different African leaders, both current and former, at this gathering there, and he actually did this in English, and he's talking about what is everyone's been talking about, and that is the funding freeze, the funding pause, because there is almost not a nation in Africa that doesn't receive some sort of financial assistance or partnership with the
United States. And most of the leaders were whining and moaning and complaining over this, and then this dude gets up and let me tell you, Yeah, I'm not an isolationist, not at all. I think that there are way too many things were involved in doing you know, fifty four million to Burma for I don't even know what that was for, essentially for college or something. But there are a lot of things that make sense, and strategic alliances and partnerships are important, and I think that the Trump
administration understands. I don't think they're isolationists, but these are the kinds of world leaders that if it makes sense for the benefit of America and for their country for us to have strategic partnerships, to have trade deals that are more favorable than others.
I don't have a problem with it.
And that's what we want, and it was good to see somebody who gets it in a room of people complaining about it.
People the other day crying, Oh, I don't know. Trump has removed money. He said he's not giving us any more money.
Why are you crying?
Is not your government, is not your country.
He's giving some applause too.
He has he has no he has no reason to to give you anything. I mean, hey, you don't pay taxes in America. He's appealing to his people, should he any one? This is a wake up call for you to say, Okay, what are we going to do.
To help ourselves?
Instead of crying to to to you, Liza, what are we going to do?
Hi?
Am a true are you?
I'm not gonna Jamin?
What are we going to do?
Yeah?
To support ourselves because nobody is going to continue holding out a hand there to give you.
It is time for us to use.
Our resources for the right things.
We are the ones who are using them for the wrong things.
Okay, all right, And there's there's so much complex there. I don't pretend to fully understand it. You have Chinese exploitation with a lot of these companies. It's pretty crazy, but that's true. And it actually speaks to the larger philosophy of setting up welfare that is so high that it doesn't incentivize people to who can go out and work, create safety nets that ever increase so that we have
the highest state of welfare. If you're on welfare in the United States, you are richer and make more money than almost every country in the world. To think about that, and it de incentivizes people. And so I'm good on this, dude. He's absolutely right, And shame on only about a third and half of the room applauding them. So you know, it's like the money is all going to dry up.
There's going to be programs and there are countries strategically in Africa that we partner with for a variety of reasons, whether it's bases, could you know, terrorism concerns, shipping right with Egypt and also shipping lanes further down that are controlled in many cases by things like HOOTI rebels or some only pirates, So good on him. All right, let's get ray stage. You can hear from the weather channel.
And.
We're looking forward to those higher temps. I like that you're snagging around the weekend. Unfortunately, there's gonna be a little rain in here, so let's figure out the timeline so we can plan accordingly.
So yeah, yeah, I mean, and then I look back, yesterday wasn't terrible. Try ed sixty nine and Raleigh. It was seventy two, not records, it's mid upper seventies. But the message has been this week it's been much milder, has been much pre sip, and over the next seven days there won't and it's going to get maybe a little bit milder into early next weeks.
So clouds will continue to.
Increase today upper fifties, low sixties, and tonight and tomorrow's the best chance of showers.
I think it's later.
Tomorrow's to get into the afternoon towards dinner time, so your Friday evening could be impacted, might be a little bit warmer, we're low to mid seventies tomorrow, so we'll see how close we get to records, and then over the weekend we kind of take it down. After this low pressure system passes Saturday Sunday, still lots of sunshine, close to sixty. You'll probably be on either side of sixty Saturday, depende of where you are. Load to mid fifties on Sunday, and then back close to seventy or
above early next week through midwek next week. No precipitation at above average tempertures even the nighttime low's case are going to be in the forties. So pretty good run a weather coming up here.
Okay, all right, appreciate it. Well, chat tomorrow, sir, have a good one.
Okay.
We'll come back with Jeff Bellinger next. Hang on, Jeff, what's going on? Is this DC situation making any ways for you guys this morning?
Well, it's the people on our DC bureau have been at the scene all night. They've been covering this from the start, and as far as business is concerned, American airline shares or under some pressure pre market. We got word in the last hour that Reagan Airport will reopen at eleven o'clock this morning, but people flying into d C are still advised to check with their carriers. It turns out the economy slowed more than expected at the
end of last year. The government says the gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of two point three percent in the fourth quarter, compared to three point one percent in the third quarter. Economists were looking for a growth rate of two point six percent. New claims for unemployment benefits fell sharply two hundred seven thousand last week. Two hundred twenty three thousand first time applications were counted.
The prior week.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell indicated it could be some time before the Central Bank makes the next change in interest rates. Powell said the Fed needs to evaluate President Trump's policies and their impact on the economy. The Fed's announcement in Powell's comments did cost some volatility on Wall Street yesterday. The major averages all lost ground, but they closed off their session lows. At the moment, the futures
are mixed. S and P and Nasdaq futures are a little bit higher than Dow futures are a bit lower. Starbucks shares rose eight percent yesterday, after the coffee company posted orderly results that were not as bad as feared, investors gave a vote of confidence to CEO Brian Nichols
turnaround plan. Tesla's fourth quarter profit fell short Wall Street estimates, but shares of the electric carmaker rose, and after hours trading, CEO Elon Musk told investors advances and vehicle autonomy and new models will lead to an epic period of growth for the company. Another bullish CEO, as Mark Zuckerberg. He predicted twenty twenty five will be a really big year for meta platforms. Shares of United Parcel Service under considerable
pressure pre market. UPS posted fourth quarter revenue that was in line with estimates and its profit top forecasts, but the company's twenty twenty five guidance fell well short of expectations. A major customer, thought to be Amazon dot Com, is going to cut back sharply in the second half of the year, and UPS says other customers are trading down from premium services to economy delivery.
Casey, all right, Jeff, do appreciate, And yeah, I saw the CEO at the press conference there of American airlines, so lots to get to them.
We'll stay tuned, thank you very much.
Okay, well, okay, Also, yeah, a lot of the officials too in charge from the government are all new to their offices, so this is.
Yeah, yeah, we talked about that.
The Transportation secretary is literally less like hours hours. So let's hope they all stop, you know, being that for a minute and just all work together.
Man.
So yes, absolutely, all right, thank you, Jeff, I appreciate it. And there is let's see here, there is one story, one more story on this. The likelyhood from the reporting I'm seeing is that many of the passengers are figure skaters or families or coaches of figure skaters. And we know this because and the imagine the survivors guild. This guy is going to be dealing with and I hope
he's got people around him if it hits him. John Meravilla, an American figure skater, actually was supposed to be on that flight. He was not. He was denied boarding because his dog was too big. So he had a dog he thought was And the problem is with that particular aircraft is it's so small. If you've ever flown on one of those seven hundreds, like there's there's not even if you're in business class, finding bin space can be a problem, and the slot under the seat is smaller.
It's just it's that tiny. So it's a gate check of Paloosa.
In fact, I.
Flew when I flew Greensboro to d C a few months ago, it was that was un a United, but it was the same type of aircraft, and they just they just said were gate checking everybody. Everybody's getting gate checked unless you had a business ticket. I did not, so, And I point this out because sometimes even what is a legal size, if something doesn't work on a seven hundred. So in this case, he had a dog that probably if he was on a three, seven, eight hundred or
nine hundred max would have been fine. But since he's on this small one, they said, well, your dog's too big. Well, unlike that weirdo who went and flushed her Gerbil down the drain that one day, this guy, he thought about booking a different flight. He ended up renting a car and driving fourteen hours