[upbeat music] You're listening to the Oklahoma Memo podcast, the fastest way to get smart on Oklahoma news, politics, business, and sports. Welcome to the Oklahoma Memo podcast. My name is Ryan Welton, the founder and creator of Oklahoma Memo, and this is our weekly conversation with Grant Herms of Make It Make Sense with Grant Herms. How you doing, man? I'm good, man. I'm a little sick.
I caught, like, a little bit of a late spring, early summer cold here, so I'm sorry for anybody who's got, like, noise-canceling headphones on because I'm sure this is gonna sound great, but, like [laughs] yeah. Well, between you and me, I- allergies, you know, breath- I tried those Breathe Right strips. They just... I, I don't know. My nose is too puggish or something. They don't work, and so I had to go back on the Flonase.
I don't... I always get a summer cold, and I just hope it doesn't happen when we're on vacation. At least you're getting yours at the... little before we get to summer. Yeah. At, at the cusp of this thing, yeah. I'm, I'm always afraid to use those Breathe, Breathe Right strips because I'm always nervous that, like, when I was a y- a kid, I stuck a Lego up my nose or something, and, like, because of the...
You know those stories about people who, like, put the strips on their nose- Yeah... and, like, a Lego head falls out? Like, I- Yeah. [laughs] Like, I, I don't wanna be the guy that, like, that happens to. Like [laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I, I don't know what's up there. Um- I don't, I don't need to know what's up there, yeah.
[laughs] So bef- as we always do, we talk about the, the week's events and what we've both been doing. There are so many things. We're not going to have a chance to get to all of them, I'm sure of it. However, I was intrigued by your post yesterday that sort of details the latest in the Iran war. We went from a situation where, yeah, it was definitely a war.
We're definitely negotiation, uh, negotiating, and then all of a sudden, we're in peacekeeping mode, which led me to ask the question, is this a war or what? That is the question that I have asked, I think at this point, like, five times across the course of the, the last six weeks of this war. It's actually, I think it's nine weeks at this point. We're, we're closing in on.
Uh, although the White House says six weeks because they don't count the ceasefire as part of the war, which is, like... L- like, listen, [laughs] like, just because we've all agreed to, like, not shoot at each other, which also hasn't happened, by the way.
Like, the, the president, after we talked on Friday, I, I think actually as we were talking, sent a letter to Congress last week saying that the war had been terminated, uh, because he ran up against the 60-day War Powers Act deadline, which is the law that they were using to run the war, and that was Operation Epic Fury.
So that, he said that we've, we had not exchanged fire since April 7th- Hmm... which wasn't true. Yeah. Because on April 19th, we had fired on an Iranian ship and boarded that ship. There had been Iranian ships that had fired on other smaller boats that were in the Strait of Hormuz. We were still running a blockade, which is, like, no matter what the N- like, the US wants to call it or Iran wants to call their side of the blockade either, there's still military operations. So, like, we're...
They're a naval blockade. It's not like we're sending a bunch of fishing boats out there to blockade the, the, the strait. So we are not technically at, in war right now. Uh, technically, the White House is saying the ceasefire still holds, but i- there's no end to the conflict because that hasn't been negotiated with Iran. The problem here is that we have no actual authority right now for the president to, to, to be operating in any mi- military way. The, the War Powers Act has expired.
They haven't been authorized by Congress to use any kind of military force. There's no AUMF, Authorize Use of Military Force. Uh, and, and now we don't know what's going on. Uh, so, uh, y- there's,
there's just no way to know what's happening here. So, like, I talked to the Yale Law professor, Oona Hathaway, about this a little bit, uh, off- offline basically this week because I was like, "What's going on here?" The Department of Defense says that this is a separate and distinct mission, which is Project Freedom, which we'll talk about in a second, and then Operation Fe- or, uh, Epic Fury is over, but, like, what are we doing now?
And she was like, "It's a war. It's n- the ceasefire never actually went into place because fire never ceased, [laughs] basically. We never stopped firing. And it's a, you know, a, a war by any other name still drops as many bombs," kind of a thing. Hmm. She's like, "They're just, you know, playing with the, the legal wording of it on paper, and that's, that's it." So that's, that's kind of where this is right now.
They'd like to believe that we're not in an actual war, but we absolutely still are, and likely at this point, it is one that is extra legal, if not wholly unconstitutional. And there was also in your reporting and, uh, in the video, our... not our neighbors, but Iran's neighbors, um, pushed back against the United States this week. Yeah. Uh, so basically Project Freedom, which is what came after Epic Fury, was this humanitarian semi-peacekeeping mission that the president said was going on now.
That's what the blockade that we have at the Strait of Hormuz is underneath, and that was to guide oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, which has mines all over it still, right? These, these marine mines, these sea mines, that when you're driving a oil tanker full of, you know, hundreds of barrels of oil on them, the last thing you want is to be blown to smithereens or the side of it to blow up.
Like, y- it's a, you know, it's full of oil. Like, it's a Hindenburg on the water. Right. Right. Like, I, it, yeah. It, it w- it would be a massive ecological disaster. Yeah. So Project Freedom was supposed to guide these ships through, and the president made it sound like we were gonna be physically escorting these ships through. That's not really what happened here.
It was that we're basically calling, the US military Central Command, or CENTCOM, is calling these boats, and these shipping companies will be like, "Hey, it's safe to go through this specific lane. Here's some GPS. We've got drones up. We've got some planes up that can help you guide through, but we're not escorting you." So, like-If the Iranians fire, you're still gonna get shot at but, like, here's the, here's the map, basically.
And like, you know, I, I guess that's something, but it's not what the president made it sound like. Uh, and clearly any threats of, like, "Well, if, if you fire on a US flagship, you know, all hell's gonna break loose on Iran," like that's just not convincing to Iran anymore. So,
uh, you know, there's, there's nothing there that, that, that was gonna hold water. But what you're talking about is that when the president releases that plan on Sunday, and so it's gonna start Monday, Monday goes through, and by Tuesday, uh, afternoon-ish, so basically it's not even... it's just over 24 hours old, uh, Saudi Arabia says, "Hey, you can't use our airbases or our airspace to run this operation."
And it was basically because we didn't ask Saudi Arabia or the Gulf States if, if we could move away from the actual military position we were doing into this other thing for the Strait of Hormuz because Saudi Arabia, UAE, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman are our closest allies in that region, and they have been getting hit really hard in this war.
They have been targets of Iran. They're easily within range of Iranian drones and Iranian missiles. And we saw just this week that the UAE had one of its major oil ports and oil hubs basically get hit with a missile that they said they intercepted, but it doesn't actually seem like it was intercepted 'cause a, a fire broke out on this, uh, running this oil depot on the water.
But they were like, "Hey, you can't just switch gears and downshift when we're still at risk." And so the president has to, on Tuesday again, like do an about-face and back out of this plan. And so Project Freedom is suspended. And so then now we really are just, like running some kind of military operation that has no actual name in the Middle East, in the Persian Gulf, and we don't know what is going on with that and under what authority.
There is a bill that got filed in Congress yesterday morning by a Michigan, uh, representative, Tom Barrett, who's a Republican, who wants to give the president an authorize use of military force that would extend to the end of July, so the next 90 days, um, which is
kind of wild for a couple reasons. The first one is that it starts, technically would be retroactive to May 1st- Mm... so before the president said the war was terminated, so there's some weird, I don't know, legal gymnastics that would have to happen about, like, well, like, what are we talking about here?
Does, like, Epic Theory restart? Or does, like, Congress and the Senate and the president just decide that, like, the president never actually sent the official letter ending the conflict? Like what, what happens here? But then also it would give the president another three months, basically, which would put this war at 16 weeks, which is four times as long as he said it was gonna last in the first place.
Uh, so, you know, not great if you're Donald Trump either, uh, in that aspect, uh, because the war is as unpopular as, as Iraq at, at its height, uh, uh, height of the violence and Vietnam at the height of the anti-war movement and seeing dead soldiers on the evening news. So maybe that goes through. Politically, that's difficult. Um, Tom Barrett is from a fully toss-up district right now, so some questions about, you know, is he asking for help from the president in doing this?
Is he trying to send the White House a lifeline for this so they don't run afoul of the Constitution, uh, and, like, actually get the United States in a, a true domestically illegal war in a way that, like, a lot of Americans aren't gonna be on board on?
And as you look ahead to the midterms, like, that's ammunition for, you know, impeachment trials basically against the president from Democrats who might win the House back and could potentially win the Senate. Um, and, and, or is it seen as, you know,
a member of Congress, uh, who is in a toss-up district who needs to pull people over to his side to say, like, "Look, um, we are gonna try to rein in the president here in Congress on the back half of this term," and then it's a, you know, a poison pill for a lot of people in Congress.
We don't know yet. The House doesn't come back to work basically until next Tuesday. They're not back in session, so a lot of things could happen there. Uh, but, like, yeah, it's... E- everything is just up in the air. And then we get this thing right now where there were supposed to be peace talks that were happening, and they had been happening for the last week and a half or so, uh, behind the scenes. And,
and Pakistan, who's brokering the deal, uh, in Islamabad, said that the US and Iran were closing in on a deal maybe within 48 hours. That was Wednesday. We could get something today. On a Friday, it seems unlikely at this point. The deal that was on the table, according to Axios, who got their hands on a one-page memo, is basically a watered-down version of the Obama-Iran nuclear deal from 2015. Ah.
Yeah. So what it is is, is that Iran would agree to not enrich any uranium or build a nuclear weapon for an undetermined amount of time. Likely it's about 20 years. That's the number that's been bandied about in all these deals. So they agree to that for 20 years. That's longer than the original Obama plan. But the Obama plan was sort of meant to, like, be staggered and be re-upped and renegotiated.
Uh, and in return, the United States would be freeing up Iranian assets that have been frozen and a lot of money that we've frozen and locked up and lifting some economic sanctions, which is exactly what the Obama deal was. The thing is that with this Trump deal, the number that has been on the table is somewhere between giving Iran back $6 billion to maybe $20 billion at its most because of interest.
The Obama deal was $1.7 billion.So we're talking about a lot more money, and this is the same money under Obama that Trump has criticized for the last, you know, decade at this point, just about. Um, it's the, the pallets of cash flown to Iran kind of a thing that Trump likes to say, green, green cash- Yes... or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.
So we're talking about a deal that is more expensive for the US, and then in the deal that Obama had, international atomic inspectors were allowed to go into Iran unannounced to look at their nuclear facilities, and that doesn't appear to be the case in whatever the White House is putting up now. It- it's not been reported. It could be in there, we just don't know. But as it stands now, that feels like a thing that would be reported, uh, if, if it was seen by a reporter, right?
So that's not in there, so it's both a weaker and a more expensive deal with Iran when it comes to nuclear power, and it also seems like Iran doesn't actually wanna have the conversation about their nuclear arms because they're ki- kind of in a better position than they were w- before this started. Yeah. I wanna ask you about that- Yeah... because there is, uh, reporting this week, I think before we started talking, you said it was from The Washington Post- Mm-hmm...
that Iran is more resilient than what anybody would believe. Yeah. I, I, and I don't know if it's what anybody would believe. It's just that- Yeah... what the White House has been telling, I think- Uh... us and, I think, more importantly itself. So The Washington Post put out a, a really good report yesterday basically talking to US intelligence officials and officials within the White House and the Pentagon all saying that Iran has 70% of its mobile missile capability still.
It has 75% of its overall missile stockpile still that they were able to rebuild or recover, including, like, its bunkers, uh, that were underground that we said that we collapsed and decimated, and they've been able to build some new missiles and missile systems that they didn't have previously. So on the whole, let's average that out and say that probably somewhere, you know, around 72% of Iran's missile capabilities are still intact.
That is a far cry from what the president has been saying, which is their capabilities are down to, like, 18 to 19%. That is wildly different.
And then we also learned that the intelligence community within the US believes that Iran can last another three to four months before they really feel any major economic effects, uh, some significant effects is what they call it, which is likely around, like, a 10 to 20% shrinking of their economy because of the blockade, which means they can outlast the United States' blockade in this moment.
Because if we have to continue this blockade for the next three to four months, we are going to see national gas above $6. It is just... The way this is working, it is just inevitable at this point. Peop- countries around the world are running out of oil. When oil starts getting scarce in, mostly in Asia, in places like China, but in, in our own, you know, allies as well, that need all this oil that usually comes out of the Strait of Hormuz,
it's gonna get scarce other places, and there's just not enough places that can fill that gap. We've talked about this before. Just for, just for the context, it's not just filling up your tank. Yes. It impacts the supply chain, impacts the prices of retail, everything. Yes. Yes. I mean, like, and i- it's, it's places that make plastic products, that make clothes, that, that make, uh, you know, l- lubricants, that m- make things that make things, right?
Like, it's, it's the downstream effect of, of those. So it's, it's all of that, and we are looking at, you know, four months from now, three months from now, so that's July. Uh, and they, that then puts out when the Strait of Hormuz could open up again because, again, our intelligence community thinks that it could be seven months before the Hor- the Strait of Hormuz would operate normally.
So that puts normal oil levels and transportation back at January to early February of next year at this point, which would be almost a full year of this war then. And then it would take another maybe month to month and a half for oil prices to stabilize back to maybe where they were before this war started.
But at that point, the global market might get used to, I hope not, but I- might get used to, you know, $4 a gallon gas or 120 to $130, you know, per barrel for oil, and that's just the new norm. And then, and then at that point, things even out. Oil companies are making money hand over fist that way, and it's like, "Hey, the market's gonna bear this, so I guess this is our new business."
Well, a- and typically in Oklahoma, the saying goes that the higher the gas prices are, the better the economy does for Oklahoma- Sure... except that r- that really only impacts people who are in that upper echelon of income. Right. And there is that, like... And I know that, like, there's that Landman clip that's going around right, right now that, like, I think it's, it's succinct. I think actually at this point we're kind of beyond that. We're outside of what that's talking about.
But, like, I, and we talked about this before we were rolling a little bit too, but, like, American Muscle, the car magazine, put out a, actually a very good poll this last week. Uh, a- actually it was at the end of, of last month. But, like, it... I had to look through the methodology on this 'cause I was like, what is a car magazine doing doing polling here? But, like, it was done really well.
It was done through a good firm. Like, it, it, it was good. Uh, and this is the stuff that I do, and, like, I was like, "Okay, great." So I talked about this in the show this week, but, like, they found that the price point at which people start changing their routines is 4.40 for a gallon of gas.
We are closing in on that in a lot of places around the country. I think, what did you say it was in, in Oklahoma? It, it, Costco, mind you- 80?... three, yeah, around 3.80. Okay, so not that far off. Yeah. I mean, like, 60 cents off. Uh, we are still, you know, in the midst of, of, of, of what is going to be some of the price shocks of the worst of the oil spikes that are gonna roll through a lot of these gas stations.
You're also gonna see a lot of oil and gas companies start to maybe not lower their prices as fast because the oil is... has been all, all over the road. So like the, the gas at the price you pay at the pump is going to stay a little higher because these gas stations and those companies are trying to figure out what's happening with the overall market, and they can't take the, the waves that are coming here.
So like if we start hitting 4.40 a gallon across the country nationally, which we are above right now, uh, it- that's a real problem. And that, that does hurt Oklahomans, that does hurt the economy in the state there because, because oil and gas are a much larger economy than just the state economy.
So, um, you noted as part of that story that 4.40 was like the demarcation point for people to change their habits. What was the price per gallon where people just stopped driving? 7.08. Uh, and- Could you imagine that? There's just- people just say, "I- it's too expensive for me to drive to work. We're gonna have to go back to wor- " Yeah, I mean, we- we're hearing about the hantavirus. Is this the start of COVID again?
God, I didn't even... I want... Yeah, I don't know. I mean, like w- right now in that same poll, like about a sixth, one in- out of six Americans has moved to working from home because their commute is too expensive. Um, and then they're, they're... CNN is actively looking for people right now to see if people are changing their jobs because they can't afford their commutes anymore. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
That's where we're getting to, and that's, that's just not a story that you do if, if things are going well, you know? Well, and, and one note about Oklahoma, there is a question, uh, at the ballot box about, uh, minimum wage. Sure. And think about min- who... They almost... There's no work from home for minimum wage. No.
You're working at a fast food place or something, uh, relatively menial. Important work, but, but still you're only making minimum wage. How are they going to afford to get to work? Right. And, and that's the kind of thing we're talking about here. That's... And generally speaking, that's- those are the kinds of people that we're talking about who are gonna be the people who stop driving, who are gonna have to really change their routines.
Uh, I think it's like one in five people say that they're about to forego getting certain groceries or necessities because of gas prices. Uh, it's like something on the order of like 45% of Americans have cut back on eating out already. They are rethinking summer vacations and taking trips. Uh, that is not great for a lot of places around the country where tourism is like bread and butter for them. Um, a lot of states, like that is a lot of their money.
Uh, otherwise there's not a lot else to do in those places. Um, it's like 45% have stopped doing entertainment things. Uh, we're... Like we are on the edge of, of a thing where people are gonna have to restructure their lives because of gas prices that are too high for them to live the way they wanna live because of a war that the United States entered into that we did by choice. Which I think is the important part of this here.
Like you're gonna hear the ph- you hear the phrase a war of choice a lot, which I feel like doesn't ring true to a lot of people, or like it doesn't hit the way that it should. But it just means that like we, we volunteered to do this thing. Right. We- it was- Right... unprovoked. Right. I- Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941. Right. The United States didn't have a choice. Right.
And so th- this is largely a s- a self-induced, uh, it's, it's a, you know, a- it's an own goal. Right. A self-induced error. Right. And it's that thing that we, I was talking about too, uh, when I said like it kind of seems like the White House itself has convinced itself, and the people in it have convinced themselves that like Iran is worse off than it actually is.
And I think that's, that's part and parcel to the reporting that we got, um, from The New York Times about how the president was talked into this war m- by Benjamin Netanyahu, the, the president of, or the prime minister of, of Israel after a s- a series of very slick PowerPoint presentations and like- Right... videos and like, you know- It's... Or as I described it- [laughs]... "Hey, I brought a deck." Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And like despite the urgings of, of people like tr- you know, uh, the joint chief of staff, Dan Cane, General Dan Cane, uh, like it, it just... We are in this thing now, and, and the president isn't being told these things or is actively ignoring these signs. And it does seem that Trump wants to get done with this war as soon as possible.
Um, that's been reported too, that he wants action to be taken here, and he doesn't understand why like we can't just blow Iran to smithereens, uh, which, uh, like I, I mean, I, I suppose we could. Uh, but like that's gonna be extremely unpopular and also probably a war crime. Um, and, and there's that.
And then like there is now some things that like, uh, Wired has put out that the behind the scenes the people are urging the president to agree to a deal he doesn't want to agree to. And, you know, I don't know. Uh- By, by, by the way, Wired magazine doing some of the best reporting in the nation. Yes, ab- the... Yes, absolutely. Them and 404 Media right now, some of the- Yeah... best reporting on this White House. Oh, 404.
Yeah. 404 is excellent. I wanna ask you about something that I don't think either one of us have had the chance to, uh, dive into, but the jobs numbers today were pretty good. Do you know what, what that's- Yeah... about at all? Uh, yeah, 150,000 jobs added to the economy, a much better economy than we were expecting, uh, to get in the last month. Um, I, you know, I don't know. I haven't looked at those in depth yet.
Some of that, uh, can be attributed to a, a rise this time of year especially. Think of these as seasonal jobs. You bet. We- it's like construction season, and so more people coming in, uh, and getting those jobs. You get also like, you get sort of an uptick in people getting hired, specifically kids getting hired for summer jobs- Yeah... around this time of year too. So like...
But also like that's April, so like that's maybe a little early for some of those things. It's hard to tell with the jobs numbers, and it's hard to tell what fluctuates and what doesn't. The more important thing is to, I think, look at like w- 'cause we're talking about net jobs when you look at a jobs report.
And so it's is it that the baseline of jobs stayed exactly the same and we added 150,000 jobs, or is it that our overall jobs maybe-... lowered, and so, like, the, the math evens out to that thing, but there's actually a, a bottom that fell out, which has been the case in other months, and that actually what we're looking at is a, a math answer, a sum total that looks positive for the White House.
But when you dig a couple steps deeper, it's like, oh, we get to that number because more people than we expected have stopped looking for work altogether. And then people who, like, aren't looking- are looking for work versus who got jobs, like, then they don't cancel out in the same way. So, like, there is some economic math there.
Uh- Well, hey, you are Make It Make Sense with Grant Herms. Just a reminder to everybody, you can find him on Substack and YouTube, Memes Pod, Make It Make Sense. Do you find... 'Cause I've always found that with this particular number that comes out whenever it comes out, that, uh, y- uh, local TV news, local news, even national news is just, uh, they all want to, uh, just sort of, like, regurgitate the press release, the press release saying, "It's 115,000, 150,000 new jobs."
Yeah. "Hey, great news." And really, what you're indicating here is, uh, not so fast. Either way, good or bad, you really have to dig in this to understand the numbers. Yeah. I think of this stuff like I think of polling numbers, to be honest. I think about it, um, in that you often hear jobs numbers and polling numbers as, like, horse race numbers. Are they up? Are they down?
What was it compared to last month? What was it compared to six months ago? Uh, who's winning? Who's behind, kind of a thing. And that's not... That's easy. That's the easy way to report these numbers, and, like, that is regurgitating the press release, but it leaves out a lot of context. And, like, it's just kind of like then the numbers themselves become the story, and it becomes fodder for this thing. That'll be the fodder over the weekend, right?
The, the White House is gonna, is gonna ride high on this over the weekend, and they're, they're looking for anything right now to do that. Because the thing we didn't talk about in Iran is that as of yesterday afternoon, uh, UAE hit some targets in Iran. That caused Iran to fire on American ships. That caused American ships to fire back on Iranian boats, and Trump is calling them love taps, but, like, certainly were not...
And then says the ceasefire is still intact, which I don't know how that's possible, that, that it's obviously the opposite of a ceasefire. Manifesting. Right. But, like, so that was gonna dominate the news for the weekend, and then we get these jobs numbers, and so that's what the White House is gonna be focusing on. And just for folks to know, the White House is...
Don't they get kind of tipped off whether these are gonna be good or bad a little bit? Yeah, g- generally they do, and so that they, they have their people ready for these things. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if, like, right now, like, their people are all over places like CNBC and Fox Business and Fox News and, and those places, and The Wall Street Journal and all those things, right?
But, like, the, the point I was gonna make, too, is that, like, with all these things, with the jobs numbers, with the polling numbers, the numbers become the story, and that's actually the opposite of what you want. They shouldn't be their own story for their own sake. You should dive a little bit deeper and understand what this means, what people are thinking and feeling, and it's, it sort of stakes, not odds, reporting is what I call it. It's...
And I'm, I'm taking that from Jay Rosen, the fantastic former professor now of, of- You bet... Columbia Journalism Review. And, and, yep. At NYU, yeah. Uh, and, and the jobs numbers should be reported and thought of like that.
So it's worth when you hear people talk about that going past the top line number and thinking about what this means for the overall economy, what it means for certain job sectors, what it looks like in that way, and that'll give you a better picture of actually the, the health of these things. It's also not for nothing, but, uh, month-to-month job changes are hard. They're hard to nail down. They're hard numbers to know with a lot of, a lot of accuracy.
We're pretty good at it, but, like, they're hard, and they fluctuate a lot. And they get revised, uh, because again, like, numbers are numbers, and the economists are doing the best they can, but, like, it's a tough job. Right. Well- So, like- Yeah... you know. You know, uh, economists are part of that brain drain in Washington. Mm-hmm. So how do we know we have the best?
I was just checking over here at the screen to see if what you were saying was true about the, the talk. We've got, uh, Governor Kevin Stitt on the couch with Lacey Lowry and, and Colby Thielen on News 9. They're just having a, just a very c- [laughs] Kevin Stitt is sitting in a very casual position on that couch, by the way, I should note. We have Virginia court re- uh, rules redistricting on Fox News. Yeah.
We have Kash Patel in panic mode on MS Now, and a cruise ship hantavirus outbreak on CNN. It is a potpourri of headlines. It is. None of which, none of which are about jobs. None of which are about jobs. And, like, uh, also, like, because the jobs report numbers get a little muddy and get a little, I don't know, math-y, a lot of reporters are gonna stay away from those things unless it's, like, actually their jobs.
Uh, and so, like, you'll get it on the national networks, but, like, you're not gonna get a big breakdown of those things unless you're looking it out or seeking it out on places like Fox Business or s- CNBC or, or, you know, Business Insider or whatever. Yeah. Actually, I'm a huge fan of CNBC. Um, they, yeah, they, they do a, you know- Anyway, they do a good job. They really do. Yeah. They always have. They, they, they really do. Yeah.
Um, quick aside, and I may have lost my train of thought as I went on that aside. Um, but, um, let's, uh, talk about the ballroom. We talked a lot about the ballroom- Yeah... last week after the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. This is the reason we need a ballroom, that conversation, but more money was funneled to this project this week, wasn't it? Yeah, or at least the Senate Republicans want to funnel money to this.
They want to funnel a billion dollars to what they're calling the East Wing renovation project or remodeling project, and it's a part of the reconciliation funding bill that the Senate is trying to pass now that is a part of funding Border Patrol and ICE. Because in the DHS funding that was holding up, uh, the DHS, the government shutdown basically that ended last week, CBP and ICE were not a part of that. So now this is to fill that gap.
Uh-The weird thing is that, like, they h- they are funding CBP and ICE because they have a mandate to do that but ICE and Border Patrol are technically funded out through 2029 because of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. So it's a little odd that they are adding money to their budgets here, and it's a lot of money. I mean, it would make, you know...
It, right now DHS as a whole has, I think it's like the, if you put it up next to, two global militaries, it's like just underneath China or something. Like, it's, it's hu- it's huge. It's like, it's a, it's massive. It's $170 billion, something like that. Uh, and like, it would put, it would put ICE specifically, uh, also ranked in the top 20 militaries in the world.
So like, we're, they want to add 34 billion to, to ICE and another 3.4 billion to Border Patrol, and then a billion dollars for the ballroom, and it would only be for security improvements, nothing, you know, cosmetic or whatever. Now, a billion dollars is a lot of money.
It is more than double the amount that the president has said the ballroom is gonna cost right now, uh, which for starters, the president said the ballroom was gonna cost $100 million, and then it was 200 million, and then 300 million, and then $400 million is what the cost is right now.
So they've, they've got that money, I guess. They've, they've raised that money, and then the Senate wants to add, or Senate Republicans want to add another billion on top of that. So we've- Is it one, a- as a gift?
Uh, it, I'm not sure. I, it's, the reasoning for this is tricky. Uh, it's, it's for security apparatus measures, right? The, the president's had very public assassination attempts. Uh, but the idea that like, like we talked about last week, like, the president would then only use this ballroom for public events because it's, it's more secure than another place is just
an odd vision for the presidency, uh, in a way that we've never seen before. It, it does feel to me like they really, whatever's happening below the, not that we t- be all tinfoil hat about this, but like, whatever's happening below the ballroom, this top secret military bunker that we know about, the, the president divulging the fact that there's a, gonna be like a state-of-the-art hospital down there all of a sudden, uh, and some other things that are down there.
Like, that seems to me the thing that the Senate really wants to build up and the thing that Trump is very, very concerned about. Uh, now, does this mean that, like, we're gonna spend some of this money on seven-inch-thick bulletproof glass like Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, said this week on Fox News? Probably.
Are, you know, are the marble columns gonna be reinforced for drone strikes? Probably. Like, you know, it's not for the cosmetic stuff, but like, it's probably gonna get used for the cosmetic stuff if it goes through. Um, and on top of that, like, it rings completely... I, I shouldn't say rings. It, it is exactly the opposite of what the president said this ballroom was gonna be and what it was gonna do when he tore down the East Wing back in October.
Um, it- We think he, do we, do we think he was just itching for a construction project? You know, I don't know. I, like, I have been, and I was gonna do something about this maybe this weekend, 'cause I haven't done a bunch of looking into this, but like, there's this thing, this story about Walt Disney at the end of his life as he was trying to build out Epcot, that he wanted Epcot to be sort of this, like, company town of the future kind of a thing, and it was never finished.
He, like, had plans, and he was, like, drawing it constantly, and even in, like, his final days in, like, hospital beds, he was, like, drawing it out in his mind on the ceiling tiles kind of stuff. I'm sure that's apocryphal, right? But, like, he was hyper-focused on this thing and as he was older. And, and, like, I, it just feels like that's what Trump is doing here.
He, this is the thing that he wants and cares about, and it's, it's where every conversation that is had with him goes back to. He is constantly thinking about it, and, like, I don't know, um, I don't know if he was itching for a construction project or if he was itching for this private hospital underneath there, which like- It's a good, g- good, good segue. Yeah.
Um, but I, I should note it also sounds like part of the plot of Paradise, where he's gonna be- Yeah, no, I, I, like, and some of this stuff is like h- because there's so much we don't know, like, it does sound sort of tinfoil hatty here, right? But like, but, like, there are, like, narrative through lines here and things that we're worth talking about. And, and to be clear, there could be situations in the future where this is absolutely very necessary. Mm.
So, but, but talk, I, you know, I can't even... Hospitals are big. I drive by Mercy and what they have on the Kilpatrick Turnpike. It's massive. How do you- Yeah... have a hospital underneath the White House? Well, it's a hospital- One... Yeah... it's, it's a hospital for one or for- Okay... you know, a dozen, right? It's not like a hospital hospital.
Like, it is, it is more or less a hospital for, like, one person, and that's the president. And, and, like, you know, I, it's, it's just one of those things where we don't know what would be in that hospital, and it would be one thing if the president was gonna say, like, "Hey, the medical suite that's in the White House," which is a, a fully staffed, fully stocked medical suite, right?
And it is its own, to an effect, this kind of hospital situation. Like, if he was to say, "Hey, this thing is out of date. We need updates to it. It needs to be more secure," and, like, went to Congress and said, "Hey, I want to build this underneath what will be a, um, a ballroom," and, like-That's a different conversation. That's a different project here.
That is something that most people would probably get behind, frankly. Most people would see the value in having a state-of-the-art 2026 secure hospital for the president to use. Uh, especially having, you know, our oldest president in office when he's- Right... 80 years old. Right, right. Who will be our oldest president, right? Like- A, a hospital turned into a geriatric unit. Yeah, basically, right? Like s- sure.
But I think most people are like, "Yeah, it, it would make sense to me that, like, you don't want," whatever, uh, in a day and age of, of mass shooters in which hospitals are soft targets for these things. Like, yeah, okay, that makes sense to me. So that... He could've done it that way, but he didn't. Uh, but he seems very focused on this thing, and, and we don't know a lot about the hospital plans down there.
It could also just be, like, part of the bunker. Like we... uh, you know, whatever. Like we don't know a lot about it, but, like, this billion dollars the Senate wants to set aside for this thing is just... It's our money that we were told wasn't gonna be used on this ballroom in any way, shape, or form, and now all of a sudden, here we are.
It's almost as if lawmakers are serving the president instead of serving the people. I know that's a, a very simplistic way to think about it, but they, they might... I just...
I sense that they listen to words from constituents, but their behavior is more in servitude to the commander in chief. Yeah. I, I don't know at this point, like, if you're... I mean, if you're a Republican in Congress, uh, and, and you're, you're not one of the members of Congress who's leaving because of Donald Trump, you're...
'Cause you know that the writing's on the wall that you're gonna lose your seat. You're trying to outlast this presidency. You're trying to figure out, like, what happens in the next two years. You're gonna win your cycle and then, you know, figure out what happens next. Because, like, the Congress and the Senate outlast the president all the time. It's kind of the nature of how they're designed, and I, I, I think that that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to appease him in this way.
They're trying to keep their, their own base voters happy because as we talk about redistricting and gerrymandering and those things, like, they're talking to their most extreme base voters who are the most MAGA of MAGA people in a lot of these Republican districts. And so they have to keep the president happy to keep those people happy to keep their seats, and to outlast this president, and then maybe they think some sort of equilibrium will happen on the backside of this.
That's four years out from now. That's six years out from now. They are thinking that long. And, and, you know, maybe that's what's happening here in the Senate. I, again, as we have frequently talked about, it's 100 people who envision themselves one day sitting in the Oval Office, and they're also afraid of what a rise in political violence in the United States might mean should they be president one day.
And h- the idea of having a very secure ballroom that the American people have paid for, uh, s- might seem like a good idea to somebody who wants to be president someday. So I could see all those things being a part of that plan, too. Uh, they also could know that, like, it might not go anywhere, right? This still has to get through a lot of things.
And, and no, you know, either no money or some of the money or whatever, you know, get... That gets all held up by Democrats or by Republicans in the House who don't wanna spend this money. And then you've got a fight over, "Well, they don't wanna keep the president safe," and that becomes this other thing.
So, like, it could be, you know, Chuck Grassley, the senator from Iowa, is the president pro tempore of the Senate, who put up this reconciliation bill. Uh, you know, he's goading that fight maybe. But either way, we were told that in no way, shape, or form would the American people be paying for this or be asked to pay for this, and now we are to the tune of 1000% of what it was supposed to cost in the first place.
And, like, I, you know, it's just- You know-... I- In, in, in a world where gas is going to be above $4, maybe- Right... five, six in places, in a, in a world where, um, you know, wages haven't kept up with inflation, period, even if we don't, you know, even if we- Right... do raise minimum wage, it's just, it's really, it's really bad optics. I wanna go back, though, to what you were talking about in terms of the enormity of the Department of Homeland Security. Yeah. Um,
of course, Mark Wayne Mullin- Mm-hmm... very well known to Oklahomans. He's leading the department now. Mm-hmm. And now there is reporting, I believe this actually came from KWGS out of Tulsa, Public Radio Tulsa, um, that, uh, Vic Regalado, who is the Tulsa County sheriff, I hope I said his name right, Vic Regalado- Mm-hmm...
um, may be in line to become ICE director. So Mullin looking to Oklahoma perhaps to put his man in a top position. Interesting. I, I had not heard that until you told me that this morning. Also, Vic Regalado sounds like a pasta sauce company. That would be like a banger pasta sauce company. I bet he, he pitched- I had like- He pitched that to Trump- Yeah...
and he's like, "That sounds like a man- Yeah, yeah... with some power." Like spi- like a spicy pasta sauce. Yeah. Vic Regalado, Spicy Pasta. Yeah, yeah. Uh, but like it... [laughs] Like, you know, I, I think it's somebody within DHS, uh, and in a, a major capacity that Mark Mullin knows and trusts, which is reporting out this week that Mark Mullin is having a hard time getting his arms around the, the enormity of DHS- Right...
as a department in itself, right? And to be fair, I think as anybody would. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. Uh, and, and, like, this is the thing about both Kristi Noem and Mullin that people had questions about m- I think most importantly, maybe not most importantly, but, like, importantly to running the job, like doing the actual secretary job, administrating a department the size of DHS.
Like, like I said, $170 billion budget. Uh, is that... Do they have the experience in that kind of a thing? I suppose Kristi Noem was the chief executive of her state. It was, you know, South Dakota. South Dakota? North Dakota? No, South Dakota. No, South Dakota. South Dakota, yeah. Yeah. Um, sorry. South Dakota, so that's the cold meds talking. Um- Do, do we, uh, really need two Dakotas?
I don't think so, but every time someone brings it up, they like threaten to secede or something, and it was like, I don't know, you... Canada can have them. Uh, give us Mount Rushmore back, fine. Uh, but like, like, you know, it-Like she maybe ran a state, but there's kind of no one there i- in that state, and Mullen has no administrative experience. Um, you know, I guess ran a small plumbing company. Um, s- we're like, "Okay, fine," but like it's not this thing.
So having, you know, Brigagliano as the ICE director, because Todd Lines is leaving at the end of this month, is somebody he can trust and someone that he knows. Because a lot of people in DHS are
struggling with loyalty at the moment- Yeah. Yeah... uh, because Kristi Noem ran that place like her own little monarchy, and so they had all sort of lined up to like either be loyal to her, but more often than not, just like not be in her direct path, basically, and that set up a lot of levers that need to get pulled and undone and a lot of these things.
And Mark Win Mullen is running into a problem there, and they're... and that ship is leaking like a sieve right now. But can I ask you, is it, is it such a bad thing for... I, I, I don't think it's a bad thing. I think you should, once you're hired in that po- you should be able to put people in who you know and trust. I, I think at least some. I'm, I'm like, I think about just regular middle management jobs.
Why aren't most middle managers allowed the, uh, capacity to pick their own people? Yeah, no, I, I don't think there's anything wrong with Mark Win Mullen like having an input in this thing. Uh, it's, it's more like, you know, is the sheriff qualified to run something on this scale? Hmm. Uh, it's... It is...
It's one thing to have somebody that Mark Win Mullen might know and trust who's got, you know, real national immigration experience. It's another thing for him to put a buddy of his who is the sheriff out of his c- you know, former congressional district, uh, who, yeah, I guess works with DHS and ICE probably fairly frequently, but also like
is also the sheriff of Tulsa County, which is the- Right... second most populous county in a state that's not very populated. That, which is not shade to Oklahoma, it's just the reality of this thing. It's also, you know, not a border state, so it's not like he's got- Yeah... run-ins with that all the time. Like- Wonderful city, wonderful area. Yeah. Tulsa's a gem, but this is...
I mean, this is be like going from A ball to the majors. Yes, absolutely, a- and maybe even like Little League to the majors almost, right? Like it is, in terms of like what the sheriff would have to do and like... You know, I don't know if Trump would go for this or not. I'm not sure the Senate would. Uh, although I don't think ICE needs Senate confirmation, but like, like they're, like it's...
The sheriff would get dragged across coals in hearings, so like there's that. Uh, so it's... You know, I don't think it's odd that Mullen would choose somebody that he knows and trusts in this position. It's just a matter of like e- how much, how much more humiliation can DHS and ICE take to continue doing what the president wants to do, which it seems like in the next year is ramp up mass deportations. Tom Homan is talking about that. Stephen Miller is talking about that. Uh, and is...
Would, would Brigagliano be somebody who would follow in those things in a way that wouldn't muck up the, what the administration is doing in bad headlines? Mullen this week said, you know, they've been working just as hard as they were before. They've just been less public about it. They've been quieter about it, which was like a dig at Kristi Noem.
But like, and like one that I, I think is kind of why Mullen is, was brought in, was to be like, "Hey, you're gonna take a backseat and you're a figurehead to this thing, and like we are gonna let, let this thing be on the rails." And it's like, well, like then you probably don't want somebody who is gonna be, you know, in over their head immediately. Right.
Like- Well, the good news is, is that if mass deportations do ramp up and gas prices stay as high as, uh, they will be, you'll have volunteers. You'll be like, "Can we... How do we sign up, and do we get to pick where we go?" Right. [laughs] Exactly. Like it'll, it will be a real problem then. Toronto is great in the summer. I know. I...
But God, we were, we were just joking about that the other day because, because the Detroit Pistons could have been in a series against Toronto, and we were talking about like skipping the border to like, uh, the... Not illegally for anybody listening. Yeah, yeah. We were gonna go through the toll and everything, uh, like, uh, to go catch a game, and I was like, "Toronto is nice in the spring and summer."
Toronto's nice, and I will tell you, I love the Thunder. Watched the game last night. I get really fired up. I get fired up for very few things sports-wise. Oklahoma football, Oklahoma athletics in general, but football, and the Oklahoma City Thunder, edge of my seat, clapping out loud, yelling at the TV.
But I will tell you, my wife and I were in Toronto for our honeymoon in 2019, the year the Raptors won it all, and I've, uh, developed very much a love for the city of Toronto and the Raptors and Jurassic Park, that whole Scotiabank Arena. Yeah. I feel like I know the city. Yeah. It's a wonderful, wonderful city. It is. It is... And like of...
Like this is a crazy tangent, but like o- of the Canadian cities that I, I have been to, like it is one of my favorite. Yeah. I like Montreal too. Yep. But like, uh- It's just different... it's just different. It's fun. I, I, I... People in Montreal I think are a little bit more rude. Uh- Yeah... but that, that's the French-Canadian in them.
My, my trip to Montreal is when they say, "Bonjour-hi," you better say hi unless you can speak French. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You should not just say bonjour back 'cause you could- Yeah... you know bonjour. Then it- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. [laughs] So, so, uh, but, but, uh, uh, alas, I wanna touch on one more thing before we get out of here because I think it's a big deal, um, and it's impacting kids and young adults across the nation.
Uh, the hack of Canvas, and for folks who don't know what Canvas is, and I forgot the name of the company if it's Instructure or Infrastructure.
There's a company that owns them, and they, they've been hacked by somebody. We don't know who. But this, this company that it... or this ins- this, these lawbreakers who have hacked them, that if you went to OU's Canvas page yesterday, for example, and universities across the nation, there was this message basically saying, "You've been hacked, and if you don't pay up,...
the university, the institution, uh, that we're going to release data about, uh, educators, about students- Mm-hmm... um, about, you know- Yeah... the gamut. It's, it's really, really scary because it doesn't just impact one institution. It's impacting, um, you know, all of them nationwide with no sense of a game plan for how these schools and how Canvas will get out of it.
And I will tell you, having worked, um, at large corporations, uh, whether it be Love's or Griffin, Griffin Media, not, not large, small there, but Love's is huge. We always used to have tabletop discussions about security, and we need to give our IT folks a break because they, they, they do yeoman's work, but you are only as good as your weakest link.
The 2013 Target hack, it started because of a, a hole, some, some, uh, you know, a, a weakness in whatever the connection between the HVAC system and Target. And is, could this... I mean, does this, uh, sort of like show some weakness here in terms of like if they can hack this, could they not be hacking things- Yeah... that are within the government? Yeah, and like, we don't know who these hackers are.
Um, I, I read about this at the start of the Iran war that like the, the real threat from Iran to the United States mainland is, is Iranian hackers, and they're pretty good at this stuff. So w- we've seen some of that happen already. There was a, an attack on, on the Stryker Medical Facility, uh, company right away. Um, and we don't know who is behind this thing with Canvas.
But the, the thing here is that a lot of this stuff with Canvas would have gone through the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency, which is CISA for short, C-I-S-A. And CISA has been gutted, uh, since 2025, since, since the start of the second Trump administration. About a third of it, uh, is gone. A lot of their funding has been hobbled in a lot of ways. Um, part of that is because
the president, uh, has a... He's vindictive about it because CISA as an agency said the 2020 election wasn't stolen because it wasn't stolen. Uh, but like, you know, even though he created this agency during his first term, uh, like he's out to get it now. But like- He turned on it quick. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but like it, it would've helped shore up a lot of these things. I'm not saying that the absolute... We know for sure that the absolute failures or lack of people at, at CISA led to this hack.
This hack could just be a hack that happens, but like, you know, losing a third of that staff is not good. Uh, it means that states and localities and individual schools and school systems, the way that we're talking about this hack, then have to pick up the pieces of where CISA left off or the holes that it's left behind where CISA is not anymore.
There's no funding for those things and, and it's hard to do that. Uh, and, and you know, I, I think that there are constant barrage attacks like this against government agencies. You hear that a lot of times from government officials. Uh, and so, you know, are these kinds of hacks en masse happening at the government level? Br- no, definitely not. Um, I, I,
I, I would say with, you know, 95% certainty that like are... those things are being taken care of. That's not the problem with this. Right. It's that these downstream effects, right? Ri- right, and don't you think that there, there is or should be conversation happening at the federal level today to say, "Let's start looking into what happened here and make sure that we're not vulnerable"?
Yes, and a lot of times those, those conversations will be happening between Department of Defense, DHS, and Department of Education. And Department of Education, which s- is a lot... was, I should say, a lot of times the through line for a lot of these major schools in these ways and, and had best practices on these things for schools, was more or less shuttered by the Trump administration.
So that lifeline isn't there anymore for these schools, and that's also a problem. And you know, we're talking about, yes, OU, we're talking about private schools, high schoolers, smaller schools than that.
We are talking about massive school systems like Harvard with massive endowments that have government contracts, by the way. Also, a lot of these schools, UPenn is one of them too, like these schools aren't just places of learning, but they also have contracts with the government and, like, that this kind of thing then does make them a vulnerability to a backdoor into our actual national security systems, which CISA would have backstopped here.
So- And, and, and if... I'll tell you, man, if you've ever been privy to the conversations about, uh, uh, data breaches- Yeah... it's the backdoor, man. Right. The, the backdoor is the real danger. Right. So yeah, this... like, this is a thing that should make people wake up. It, again, kind of like the other stuff that we were talking about with jobs numbers, I'm not sure this is gonna break through in the same way.
But if it prevents kids in the next couple weeks from doing their finals, from graduating- Yeah... you get, you know, you get a couple thousand kids at, you know, a, I don't know, a school anywhere that like all of a sudden can't graduate, that takes off. That's a story, right? You get a school that, a school district in a place with a lot of kids, uh, relatively close to a major network or, um, major paper or whatever that can't close, they can't go to summer break because- Yeah...
Canvas isn't up and running- Well-... the school can't get the kids out... or, or can't, can't finish their college plans. That's what I mean. Oh, yeah. Right. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. Right. Yeah, not... Yeah, right. I mean, it just, the downstream effects of this, uh, are potentially horrendous, and by the way, gives all the leverage to the hackers. Why do they need to rush into a deal?
Re- exactly, and then you're talking about, you know, w- what, what do they want? How does this work? How, how do those things happen? And that's a law enforcement thing that happens on the back end of this that like I'm, I'm, I'm just not a reporter who plays in that world, right? That's not the thing that I do.
But like, that's also complicated and, and again, like leaves doors open in places that you don't want them open or leaves windows open or cracks in the foundation or whatever metaphor you want for cybersecurity that should be closed, and they're not. Uh, and not that this thing isn't a constant war because it is, and every cybersecurity expert will tell you that.
It's just that we have supremely weakened ourselves in this way and-You know, again, would CIS being at full power have blocked this thing? Uh, it's hard to know that. But it certainly can't hurt [laughs] to have it at full capacity, and like, uh, you know, it certainly is probably correct to say that without CIS being at full capacity, more things like this are, are likely to happen.
Yeah. Well, I mean, the, uh, the experts in the hacking world I'm sure are studying how this was done. Sure. Um, and how to, you know... And, uh, so it, it just, it, it's, uh, like, I'll just tell you how it impacts us. Um, you know, high school kid here, uh, Olivia. Yeah. She's off to class. Uh, they can't access Canvas, although they are in, in person. But I will tell you, I teach a class at OU, and I, I can't...
I'm a little behind in grading. Um, but I can't do anything with it. They can't do anything with it. And graduation's coming up, I believe this weekend, and the, the semester is, is ending, and people gotta go and start their jobs, start their internships. And, and folks, I mean, just the, the, the hackers' timing could not have been more per- perfect for nefarious, you know, for, for this to happen for them. Yeah. And it's just, uh, it's, uh,
that is the thing that could bring people to their knees. I mean, c- could you imagine, um, them hacking things like, uh, you know, Capital One and your Bank of Oklahoma- Yeah... and just basically freezing your funds? Yes. Well, and, and I was on- I was actually only thinking about, like, the timing of this, right?
Like, so all of a sudden you've got, uh, plans that have to get delayed because, because hackers hacked your college, and all of a sudden you can't go on that trip, and you've gotta cancel a flight. And then in two weeks, because the price of oil is higher, that flight is m- a lot more expensive, and all of a sudden you can't go on that trip, and now all...
Like, the, the cascade of this in the world that we are in right now that is more or less completely self-made, right? Like, th- this isn't happening to us. It's happening kind of because of us. S- s- Capital US... students who have, uh- Yes... um, you know, already been accepted to, uh, whatever university they're going to out of state, and, you know, if they don't have their graduation papers, you know, uh, uh, the...
It's just, I mean- Scholarships that is, that is, bursar funding, that is all that stuff that has to get done now for the fall. Like, it is all, it is all, uh, a cascade and a domino effect from these things happening.
And, and like, like I said, again, do we know if CIS had, if it hadn't been gutted, like, would it- Yeah... would it help? I don't know. We don't. But, but I- But I know... I- I would just say thematically our conversation today, Grant, really boils down to the need for expertise- Yeah...
the need for serious people, and the questions that, you know, come from the press and from the public, uh, about, uh, uh, appointments and whatnot, and the reduction of the, the, you know, the, uh, intelligence in... Not like, uh, spy intelligence, but just, like, the brain drain that's happening in Washington. Um, I think most folks could stand to raise their level of respect for the work that folks in government have always done.
I would agree with that, and I, like, I've tried to, like, bore that out or bear that out in my reporting, too, that, like, a lot of these people by and large are serious people who just wanna do this job, and they believe in the work that they're doing. More often than not, uh, vastly more often than not, the civil servant in that job believes in the work that they're doing, and a lot of them take it very seriously from a very patriotic standpoint. Mm. Yeah.
That they, they aren't doing this in a private sector gig that pays five times as much. They're doing it this way, especially in the people that we're talking about currently right now, but in this specific story. They're doing it because they think that it is good for the country and good for their fellow Americans and their fellow man, and that is important, and they see that. Same thing with the people who do Bureau of Labor Statistics stuff.
Like, it is, you know, it's across the board that's those people, and there are a lot more of them than there are of the other people that we focus on a lot when we have these conversations, and I think that's also important to keep in mind. It's, uh, why most teachers teach, and by the way- Yeah... why most of us go into journalism. Yeah. It is, it is for the public good. It's definitely not for the paycheck. Yeah.
Um, but tell me, hey, what's going on with Make It Make Sense this week? What, uh, you know, let, let us know what's happened this week, what you got coming up today, and, uh, next week. Yeah. Uh, so today I have got a fantastic conversation with the former campaign manager of the Castro campaign, uh, in 2020, and, uh, now she's a Democratic strategist called Maya Rupert. Um, she is got a new book out called The Real Ones about authenticity in and among politicians.
But we, we talk about that, and we also talk about the state of the Democratic Party right now because they are unable to find their way out of a paper bag with a map. Like, it is, it is dire straits on the left side of the aisle. Uh, and they've got six months for the midterm. Um, and there's a lot of infighting.
And so we talk about what's going on in the party there, what it would mean to have a true oppositional, functioning oppositional party against the president right now, because that's important no matter who's in office. Uh, and, and what she thinks her vision should be going forward. It's a really fascinating conversation because the Democratic Party is changing and growing, and we're seeing a lot of growing pains among them right now, and we're just...
That's not being talked about a lot because a lot is going on. So it's a, it's a really, really fascinating conversation, and she's fantastic. Um, and then- And you said the, the Castro campaign. Are- it was it Julian Castro? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's, uh, former Secretary Castro, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um- I'd, I'd forgotten about him. Yeah, I know. I know. Yeah. Uh, uh, and then she also went to go work for Senator Liz Warren, and, like, like, she's been around for a minute.
Um, and then this week I finally put out that major story about hate and extremism connections to the White House. Uh, it's called The Company They Keep. It is up on the Substack right now. You can get it for free. Actually, you've just gotta become a free subscriber, so it doesn't cost you anything, just an email sign-up. Uh, and it is...
Frankly, it was shocking to me, uh, about how deep these ties were and how many people were tied to this thing. We're talking 23, almost 24 different... And I've stopped at 23. There are likely more, and I was also-... combining some things too. Um, but, you know, four of these people that have these connections are in the Oval Office daily. Nine of them are cabinet meeting members.
11 of them run departments, and they have serious ties to white nationalist, neo-Nazi groups, anti-LGBTQ hate groups, anti-immigrant groups. Um, some people that I wasn't expecting to be on this list are on this list. It is one of these things where in the wake of the Southern Poverty Law Center case that the DOJ is bringing, that they, their arraignment hearing, their very first hearing was yesterday, I, I found myself thinking about
w- who wins when anti-hate groups lose. Right. And- And who, who has something to gain when an organization like the Southern Poverty Law Center is shuttered? Right. W- shuttered or just discredited, right? And even if this case likely will go nowhere, but even if it does go somewhere, but if it goes nowhere flat, uh, this will be something that hangs around their neck, and that you will hear conservatives all over the place who don't like the SPLC point to nonstop.
And so now there's this thing, and who benefits from discrediting the most storied anti-hate group in the country? People with ties to hate groups. Yes, and they just happen to have a lot of ties to the people in the White House. Uh, it is... It's w- well, some of the most in-depth reporting I have done in, in a quite a while.
Um, and so it's, it's a piece I'm personally very proud of. The White House did get back to me on this thing. Um, did not answer any of the specific questions. Is, uh... Do you email help@whitehouse.gov? [laughs] Yeah. I, I should. I should, yeah. Uh, [laughs] but, like, it was... I was actually curious who was gonna get back to me too, because it was... 'cause Karoline Leavitt's out of town. She's- Yeah...
not out of town is the wrong way to- She, she's, uh- 'Cause I'm maternity leave... brand new mom... she's out on vacation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, yes. Uh, w- the baby looks adorable. I hope everybody's happy and healthy. But, like, uh, you know, she'd... She, like, isn't there, so it was like, "Am I gonna get Abby Jackson or Amanda-" You're gonna get DJ Marco Rubio. Yeah.
Am I- Am I gonna get DJ Rubio? Yeah. Uh, I didn't. I got Abby Jackson, which was fine. Uh, but, you know, she chose to not answer that question. She chose to attack the SPLC and me and not talk about these connections- Wow... which I thought was interesting. What did she say about you?
She just, uh, said that I was smearing the members of the administration, and I should make that make sense instead, and I was like, "All right, sure." Uh, like- Oh, oh. [laughs] Make that make sense. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. It was like, "Oh, got me." Uh- Yes... so, like, sure. See you. Yeah. Seeing you. [laughs] Like, I just sent you a big, long list of all these connections, and you're not gonna talk about any of them? Like, okay.
So it... I, I think it's a fascinating story. I think it's one that we should be talking about right now, and, like, obviously, a lot of other things are happening in the news. But, uh, it is... It's an important thing to, to have this conversation. You do a great job of actually, uh, making things make sense.
I will tell you, in some of the original reporting that I'm doing more of right now, I, I largely borrow from your mindset and how you approach things in terms of, like, trying to make things, uh, more granular, palatable, understandable. Um, so I always wanna make sure that people know how to find your work, uh, because I think it's a, a great example of what newsrooms should be doing across the country. Magid & Associates. Yeah.
Magid & Associates, if you remember them, a consultant from local TV news days. They say the era of breaking news is largely over. We are in our context era now, meaning that, uh, all reporting needs to be accompanied by, "Why does this matter? What do we need to know? Give us some context here. Give some..."
Uh, you know, even if people aren't really, uh, carrying an appetite for constant learning, it should be available to them. Yeah, they should have it, and more people are up for that than you think. They just, they don't- I agree... think they are. Yeah. But more people want that, and that's why I feel- They, they are when the subject is interesting to them. Yeah. It doesn't have to be for everybody.
I tell students at the University of Oklahoma, uh, in a saturated world, y- you are still invited to come into the public sphere and do your reporting face forward because you have perspective. You have perspective, Grant. I have perspective. We're in dem- different demographics, different demographics age-wise. Everybody has a perspective.
Um, and so, uh, we just need more of that, and I wanna make sure that people know how to get to you. Make It Make Sense with Grant Herms. Just put that into your YouTube. YouTube knows where to take me now. And then you have, uh, mimspod.substack.com. Do I have that right? Yeah, mimmsnewspod.substack.com. Mimm's Newspod. I just- Yeah... yeah, I forgot that. Mimm's Newspod.substack.com. Bookmark that.
You can find Oklahoma Memo at oklahomamemo.com, but I also have a Substack, oklahomamemo.substack.com, and you can find both of us on the Tikky Toks and the YouTubes- [laughs]... and the Facebooks and the, uh- It's all there, yeah... doing it, doing it, doing it for the grams. [laughs] Uh, so until next week, man. I hope you feel better. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. I will, I will next week.
I'm sure I'm gonna just blow through it this week, and, like, this cold will be behind me. It's the last one I'll have for the summer. Yeah. Knock on wood. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Until next week, for Grant, I'm Ryan. We'll talk to you later