Kf I Am six point forty.
You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand on the iHeartRadio app. If you listen to me during Later with Mo Kelly, my normal show from seven to ten pm here on KFI. But I appreciate the opportunity to talk about some different things with you. There's a lot that we need to discuss. We collectively, there are a lot of issues that impact us directly and indirectly, and hopefully I can give you just a little bit of a different take on this. Let me first say good
morning to Heather Brooker. It's nice to be able to work with you.
Heather. It's not often we get to work together.
I know this is such a tree for me.
Let's have some fun and also inform some people on the way and on the ones and twos. Elmer, what's happening to my friend? It's been a while since I've worked with you as well.
How's it going.
It's gone real well, So let's get to it. Two of the biggest stories right now in the United States have to do with floods. We know about the Texas flood, which is still in the rescue effort portion. You might have heard some audio, that we may not be in that rescue portion much longer and may move to recovery. That's the unfortunate reality where after a certain point, if
you're not finding signs of life, optimism may fade. But the latest numbers that at least one hundred and nineteen people are confirmed dead and more than one hundred and sixty people remain unaccounted for, and this is according to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and we know is in reference to the Camp Mystic tragedy the Girls Summer Camp. At
least twenty seven campers and councilors die. I want to put a pin in that and just think about those individuals and think about their families and think about what they may be going through at this moment.
I want to come right back to that. But we also now have.
To deal with the New Mexico floods, in which three people were killed in southern New Maya, Mexico, after heavy rains fell. A middle aged man and two children aged seven and four died after being swept away by flood waters. In addition, dozens of people trapped in their homes were caught in fast moving flood waters were rescued by emergency crews. Not all bad news, some good news, and I want
you to put a pin in this. Governor Michelle Grisham asked the federal government to send response teams and resources to help with repairs, and that's against the backdrop of a larger discussion of what FEMA's role is not only in these disasters, but as an agency going forward. You'll probably be familiar with what the President has said about FEMA and how he plans to eradicate the agency in the next calendar year. But I'll get to that in
the next segment. I wanted to talk about Texas and New Mexico and the idea of tragedy and this ongoing discussion as far as what we should or shouldn't be talking about. If you exist in the online space like I do, you see the discussions some people are talking about, Hey, we should only be offering thoughts and prayers for the victims. It doesn't matter what happened, it doesn't matter why it happened, it doesn't matter who's to blame. It should be about
praying for the victims and their families. That's generally one sentiment out there, and others will say, well, no, no, no, No, this happened for a reason. This happened to someone's negligence. This happened to someone's budget cutting. And that's another form of conversation out there, and seemingly they're competing. Now I'm going to tell you about what someone told me. His name is Carl McNair, and you may not recognize the name, but Carl McNair is a longtime friend of mine, known
him for more than twenty years. Carl is the older brother of Ronald McNair, who pairished on January of nineteen eighty six aboard the Challenger. And Carl and I have discussed that period of grieving and how he's dealt with the loss of his brother in a number of ways, and I'm going to share some of the things that
he told me. He told me that there is room for simultaneous conversations because as he was mourning his brother, he was mourning, he was questioning what and why it happened, and also he wanted answers as to determining who was responsible for the events leading up to it. In short, he was saying, though, talking to me, you can have
all these conversations at the same time. And we were talking maybe two weeks ago, because I'm helping him with the planning and preparation for events commemorating the fortieth anniversary. Imagine that forty years since Challenger exploded, but commemorating the forty years since Challenger and that disaster and all the memories and the emotions which come up in relation to it.
But he was saying to me that there's room for these simultaneous conversations about what happened, making room for mourning, finding out why, assessing blame simultaneously, not one at the expense of the other. And here's something that he told me that made it all made sense today. What's different today as opposed to nineteen eighty six is people, by and large start start with a conclusion formed by an already established worldview, and then people work backwards from there
to assess blame. In other words, you want to blame X or y person, be at the California fires, be at the Texas floods, be it the hurricane here or there, or the tornadoes. You start with a conclusion, and then you make sure that conclusion conforms to your worldview, and then you work yourself backwards to find the right person to blame to fit that worldview, you're not trying to find out what and why happened. You're trying to find a way to blame the right small r person for
the circumstances involved. If it's the fires, blame local officials and the state governor. If it's the floods, blame the president and his cuts to federal agencies, including FEMA. That was what Carl McNair was telling me about how we as a country have shifted in how we look at tragedy. This is someone who lost his brother on Challenger. This is someone who had to grieve publicly for the whole
world to see. This is someone who had to watch the investigations and in his words, why I can't say his words because there's certain things that he told me in confidence. Let me just say he told me and on this station back in January, that he never found out everything which happened with Challenger. The family's never found out. So oftentimes you're trying to grieve, you're trying to remain focused and understand, and you want those who are responsible to be held accountable.
And he told me, mother.
There's always room for these conversations simultaneously The problem is our intentions are not pure, our desires are corrupted by our own political biases. So if you get on social media, I know we got to go to break But if you get on social media and you say that this is not the time to assess blame, I will just tell you what someone told me and said, no, that's not true. If you can get to the heart of
the matter, get to the heart of the matter. If you say that, well, we should only focus on the families who are grieving and offer thoughts in prayers, I'm sure Carl would say no, No, you could do both. You can offer thoughts in prayers to the family, but also be an instrument to help find out what happened and why it happened, and then correctly assess blame, not whimsically, not politically, but correctly and accurately. But that's just what
Carl McNair told me. And he had to grieve in front of the world for years and documentaries and public discussions and conspiracy theories while he buried his brother and had to find out how to move forward. It's Gary and Shannon show mo Kelly, and for Gary and Shannon, we'll have more on this in just a moment k if I AM six forty.
We're live everywhere in the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
And as we continue our conversation about the floods and the appropriate response not only in how we talk about it, but how we pursue making people hold, how we make sure that people are safe in these recovery and other efforts which are being applied right now, there is an emerging discussion, i should say, a continuing discussion about FEMA's role, about whether FEMA should even exist. And this is how I just happen to look at it. I look at FEMA and I love analogies or metaphors. FEMA to me
is like car insurance. You have it around, you don't use it. By and large, you and other people pay into it. You don't want to use it, but in the event that you have to use it, you're glad that it's there. And states are like the deductibles states and that limited responsibility will pay the first portion, and then FEMA, the federal response, will pick up the rest of it. And there is a debate largely generated by our President. People weren't talking about eradicating FEMA prior to
President Donald Trump making it a central issue. My question is can states And this is really not even theoretical or rhetorical question.
There's an answer which needs to be given.
Canned states actually handle all these natural disasters and also mayn made disasters on their own.
I don't think so.
If you want or expect Alabama or Missouri to be responsible for the lion's share of emergency services when we have tornadoes, I think we're putting ourselves in a very dangerous position. And you could talk about California and its fires, and you can say, well, California should have done this, or California should have done that. There are things that aren't California's responsibility. There were a lot of areas which caught on fire which were not state property.
It was federal land.
Are you saying that the federal government is not going to be responsible for federal land in an emergency.
A lot of these conversations require nuance.
But just in case you don't remember what the President had to say, let me just very quickly.
Just reassess what you're saying.
I think that he was saying that FEMA needed to be gone inside of a year and that all this should be on the shoulders of governors. But here is the longer clip, so you have some context. How soon do you want to see team eliminated and what's your message to the governments about how much florid expense it's going to fall as state the.
I'm going to do so much to states. We're going to give out less money. We're going to give it out directly. It'll be from the President's office. We'll have somebody here, could be security, but we're going to give it out through a method where it's given out. As an example, I just gave out seventy one million dollars to a certain state. They were looking to do about one hundred and twenty. They were very happy with the
seventy one million. We did a little cutting and they were very happy with it.
So we're going to do as much North Carolina.
We think after this, Christie I say, after the hurricane season, we'll yes our Sally set.
Up a FEMA council over the next couple of months will be working on reforms and what FEMA will look like in the future as a different agency as under the Department of Homeland Security to the President's vision, and it will empower governors to go out and respond to emergency situations. And that what the president does best is to make sure that the taxpayers are only fulfilling the need to which is appropriate, and that people are responsible to respond to their own people closest to home.
So it's a certain state, as an example, gets hit by a hurricane, or to nick, that's what you know, governors should be able to handle it, and frankly, if they can handle it the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn't be governor.
I wholeheartedly disagree. I whole heartedly disagree. You're saying that if a hurricane hits a state or multiple states, the governor is supposed to be able to handle it. How does one presume that you can handle a natural disaster?
Not?
Natural disasters don't come in one size. Natural disasters don't only impact one particular state. Natural disasters oftentimes overwhelm the services and resources of a given state. Let me give you just an example. I think all of us can relatively remember just if you're old enough. It's hard to believe. I have to ask this question, you know, are you
old enough to remember? Nine to eleven. We're at that point where there are a lot of people who are probably listening who don't have an active memory of nine to eleven.
But let's just say hypothetically, you're old like me.
And you remember where you were on nine to eleven, You remember what happened to the state of New York. Are you saying, are you suggesting that a governor of a state like New York, if they were overwhelmed in a situation like that nine to eleven, that you would deem the governor incompetent or shouldn't be governor.
I'm just going off with the President said if.
They were overwhelmed and did not have the requisite resources available to deal with it. Now, I know what's politically expedient to say, well, Governor Gavin Newsom, he shouldn't be governor if he couldn't handle the fires. But a lot of the fires, if we look over the totality of less maybe five to ten years have been on federal lands, you're gonna blame the governor for the federal lands.
I understand there were mistakes made somewhere along the way, and.
That goes back to our conversation last segment about being able to mourn, being able to assess and blame at the same time. There's room for all of those conversations. But if you back yourself into a corner and say, if a state cannot handle a natural disaster, then you need to blame the governor. That's a very dangerous precedent.
Given that we have earthquakes every year, given that we have tornadoes every year, given that we have hurricanes every single year, given that we have floods, come to think of it, every single year. Are you saying that Governor Greg Abbot is less of a governor because twenty seven children.
That we know of have perished in the floodwaters.
Are you saying that if this tragedy is beyond the resources of the governor of Texas, the Governor Abbot possibly should be held accountable because of only just the resources not being available. That's why you have the insurance policy. To go back to that analogy, and that's why you
have the deductible. You have the states doing what they can and where they can how they can, right where they are, and then you have the federal government, hopefully theoretically come in and do what states can't do for themselves and Frankly.
If they can handle it the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn't be governed.
I don't know if those dots connect, because an act of God obviously usually possibly it's beyond the control of man as in humankind, and sometimes beyond our collective resources in a given state, and not all resources are created equal. California more resources, Louisiana fewer resources, What happens in Arkansas, what happens into a smaller and a smaller state. That's the whole idea of federalism, where you have the totality of the states, the federal government helping out those states
which may be in need and have fewer resources. California the fourth largest economy in the world. It's not the same thing in California as it might be in Oklahoma or Iowa. Just something to think about. It's Gary and Shannon. I'm o Kelly in for Gary and Shannon kfi AM six forty. We are live everywhere in the iHeartRadio app but we have to talk about the Jeffrey Epstein files, which now do not exist, and there are no John's and there's no one to prosecute, and there's no list to share anywhere.
We got to talk about that next.
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on Demand from KFI AM six forty.
Before I talk about Trump and Epstein, I'm going to back into it by asking some questions of some folks in the studio. Elma, who is the most famous person that you've met and taken a photo with?
Wow?
I've met some famous people, but I've never taken a photo with any.
Okay, who have you met them? Just met? Ah?
You need me to come back to you. Ye, Okay, I have the same question to you.
This is difficult for me, but for a different reason because I have met so many pashtag bragging humble brag.
No, that's okay, it is appropriate for this one.
I would say Steve Carell is pretty high up there on the list the rock right, I would say, my gosh, any major like movie star in the last like ten years or so.
Okay, Yeah, no, that's a great starting point, and I'm not gonna humble brag, but it's it's to highlight a point. I've met dozens of stars and Academy Award winners over the years. If I went through my photo album and found all the pictures I could find the Mariah Carey. I could find a Janet Jackson, I could find a Beyonce, a Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jamie Fox, the Rock. And they are pictures of me with all of them. And
there are pictures of me. Would President Obama, President Clinton, President George W.
Bush. I have some great stories to tell.
But if you were to put those in a collage and say, Aha, what's the common thread? If I, unfortunately were to be indicted for something, they would mean nothing.
Here's what I'm getting to.
In the first segment, I talked about how people usually want to assess blame according to their political worldview. One way in which people do this is they use pictures. In the discussion of Jeffrey Epstein bringing it all together, people will show a picture of Epstein with this person, show a picture of Donald Trump and that person, and or Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. Well, they'll show Harvey Weinstein and Oprah Winfrey. You know what I mean, what
I mean and where I'm going with this. The pictures don't mean anything. We just want to assess blame. And I'm quite sure you could find me in pictures with all those people, and I would have no idea about their sexual history, their predilections, and vice versa. We don't know these people, and we don't know what goes on in their bedroom. And there has been a haste, a rush, an obsession with Jeffrey Epstein and trying to ascribe blame to anyone seen with him or quote unquote link to him.
I have no idea who the Johns are my phraseology.
I don't know who was on this supposed Epstein list.
We've seen flight logs, okay, I've been on flights with Janet Jackson, for example.
That doesn't mean I.
Know anything about her personal sex life. Sometimes we want to connect which are not there. Jeffrey Epstein is dead. There have been plenty of conspiracy theories surrounding him. There have been theories that there is an exclusive client list. I believe yes, there are obviously people who were involved in criminal behavior with Jeffrey Epstein, if only because Gilaine Maxwell.
Is that how she pronounces her name, gi Laine.
Gilaine Maxwell is in prison, presumably for the rest of her life, and Jeffrey Epstein would have been in prison for the rest of his life had he not killed himself. Regardless of people's conspiracy theories. But the question is did we get here of.
Our own accord or were we told.
That there was more to Jeffrey Epstein than there actually was?
In other words, were.
These just people of power or is it something more that people want to hide to protect the people of power? And here's something else. I know it might sound a little bit convoluted, but I'm going somewhere with this. Powerful people know powerful people. That should not be a surprise. The question is whether powerful people were literally in bed with the powerful people in trying to protect the powerful people.
But we came to this administration, not to say this administration, because the Trump administration, the now Trump administration, told us that if and when Donald Trump was elected, he was going to release all the Jeffrey Epstein files.
He placed that bar up there. Our level of expectation was.
That upon election that we would learn about Jeffrey Epstein, we would learn about JFK, we would learn about MLK.
That is what we were told.
So we collectively as a country had a level of expectation that the government was holding something back, and if you don't deliver that, then it's going to feed the idea that there is some sort of conspiracy or there is some sort of cover up.
I don't mind answering.
I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question on at Epstein at a time like this, where when having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas, it just seems like a desecration.
Well, you can't have it both ways. You can't have it both ways.
You can't tell us in one moment that if when I'm elected, we're going to find out what actually happened, you were going to release all the Epstein files. You can't have the same Attorney General Pambondi tell us on one hand, I have all the je Epstein files right here on my desk and hold up a binder, and then three weeks later you're saying, Department of Justice tell us that there are no Epstein files.
To a reasonable.
Person, that makes no damn sense. It's got to be one or the other. Gelay Maxwell is in jail, in prison. Jeffrey Epstein was likely to go to prison. I know, Elm, I gotta go to break, but this is important. Got to get this off my chest. Those people are gonna spend the rest of their lives in prison for something that happened, that was done by someone at an island, and also in Florida, and also in New York. And yes, the public doesn't necessarily have a right to know.
We can file a Freedom of Information Act.
We didn't have a right to know, but damn it, we were told that we were going to know. You told us that there was a list. You told us that you were gonna release all the information and on the files. You told us that we're gonna find out all the names, whether it actually included Bill Clinton, whether it actually included stars and other celebrities.
You told us that.
So it's reasonable to be upset at this point as to why, all of a sudden none of that exists. It'd be one thing if you didn't honor your promise, but this is a one hundred hundred and eighty degree turn. You went from We're gonna tell you everything to there's no to tell.
You're listening to later with Moe Kelly on Demand from KFI AM six forty.
You can hit me on social media. Some people already have at mister mo Kelly. Some people have found me on Instagram and they're expressing themselves in you know the ways that they think they know. How now, I have not been disrespectful to you, So why would you be disrespectful to me?
I just don't get it. I don't get it anyhow.
This comes from Jeremy Leeb at Jeremy Leeb on Instagram.
He says, you suck bro. I'm not your bro.
Stop being so biased bias about politics.
We get it.
You love Joe Biden, but you're spilling a bunch of misinformation.
It's sad.
Jeremy Lee, First, thank you for your note, but uh, I have yet to talk about politics.
I talked about the floods.
I talked about how the president wanted to close FEMA, which is accurate.
I talked about how.
People want to rush to blame according to their worldview.
But I.
Have yet to even express any type of like of Joe Biden, much less love. And the word is biased, b I a s ed. Stop being so biased. If you're gonna insult me, at least use the correct conjugation of the of the word. Okay, it's biased, not biased. It just helps the power of your insult if you at least get that portion correct. But you know, thank you very much for your note, let's talk about Jeffrey Epstein.
And I was making the point just because you see a picture of someone, and I use the example of Donald Trump in the fitth of Donald Trump Jeremy Leeb, just because you see a picture of someone, it does not indict or implicate someone. Think about all the pictures you of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, and I have to remind people pictures don't mean anything.
Powerful people know powerful people.
You go to an award show, all the famous people take pictures with all the famous people. That's what they do. But talking about why Jeffrey Epstein is an issue right now, I make the point the level of expectation was set by only Donald Trump in his administration. Pam Bondy was the only person talking about we're going to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. I wish you were someone else, but she was the only one.
You call that misinformation, it's just a fact.
She was holding up the binder talking about I have all the Jeffrey Epstein files right here on my desk.
That's setting level of expectations.
And if you happen to be of the opinion that that's unaccept that now people are saying in the same administration, Pambondi and also President Trump has said, basically in so many words, to move on, that we're not going to talk about this anymore.
I was like, dude, bro, you're all were the only ones talking about it.
You told us that this was going to be released, you said you had the files, and now you're saying there are no files. That's just a statement of fact. Is what you said before, and that's what you're saying now. It's just a statement of fact that is on the public record. Me personally, I don't care one way or the other. I just believe, because you have powerful people who will always protect powerful people, that we will never know the full truth.
I said this in the first statement.
I was talking about my friend Carl McNair and the whole Challenger disaster.
He told me just last month.
Forty years later, he still doesn't believe he'll ever find out the truth regarding the Challenger disaster. Forty years later. Powerful people protect powerful people. I don't know who's on this Jeffrey Epstein client list. I do believe, as a rational person and a reasonable person that Geley Maxwell would not be in prison right now unless there were a client list, because she was the facilitator, she was the
go between, she was the madam if you will. Somebody was doing something with someone which was illegal, which led to Gelay Maxwell being put in prison.
So there is a list.
I'm quite sure Geley Maxwell had a list of her frequent clients, people that required her to preserve their anonymity, preserve their privacy. It wasn't like someone could just open a yellow with they had back in the day, or the White Pages, or just somehow just call for one and say, hey, can I come on over to Jeffrey Epstein's and hang out for a while.
No, it wasn't like that.
It clearly was a small society of people who knew and knew how to contact her and knew what to do to do whatever criminal thing that they were trying to do. That's known to the federal government because it had to be part of the evidence.
A reasonable person knows that.
I'm just trying to tell you, Jeremy Leeb and anyone else. The expectations were set by Pam Bondi. The expectations were set by a campaigning Donald Trump, who said, I would release the Epstein files. I would release the MLK files. I will release the JFK files. I didn't say that he did. And when you set the expectations that high and you not only deliver on them and you go in the other direction, that that is a problem that
you yourself have created. I personally never expected to see any of this, and I'm not in any way disappointed because low expectations, no disappointments. It's Gary and Shannon mo Kelly. And for Gary and Shannon KFIM six forty we live everywhere the iHeartRadio app.
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