To be the iHeartRadio AP take that wherever you want. You also stream it, but also podcast that. We're here for you, especially if you're driving and stuck in god awful traffic this morning. Yes, we had rain and we've had some significant rainfall today and tomorrow. And you know what that means. We're going to practice driving like morons. All of us are going to drive stupidly. So we have accidents and backups and all that stuff as well. So hang type, be patient, and it is what it is.
So we jump in this morning with news a governor a shutdown of course, approaching the thirty day mark, and it's starting to become a growing liability for both the Democrats and Republicans. So Republicans passed the Continuing Resolution, which is basically kicking the can down the road to fund government.
We do.
That's all we do now is continuing resolutions and then address it later on. And the threat of shutting the government will happen in another seven weeks. So Democrats have blocked it. They want enhanced Obamacare subsidies and want Medicaid funding, and now with forty two million people set to lose flo's assistance with snap benefits, on Saturday. Is anyone feeling the pressure at all to get this thing wrapped up?
And I'll know too that congressional approval rating has plummeted from twenty six percent, which is awful, to fifteen percent in the past month. A fifteen percent approval rating. To put that in perspective, the Cincinnati Bengals defense has an eighteen percent approval rating.
That's how bad it is.
Kevin Burton is a political analyst at Crosstown Consulting in northern Kentucky.
Kevin, welcome back. How are you?
Thanks for having me, sloney.
Appreciate it.
Before we get into the national politics of this, I want to put our local head on and I know you isn't a keen observer of both sides of the Ohio River. We have an election coming up in seven days. Mayor aft Ted Pureval has fired but not fired Chief Thiji Terry Thigi, the police chief. They're going to take until the end of the year. They've hired Frost Brown, Todd and Company to poke and prod and find out why they fired her. If that makes any sense, that
that doesn't have to make sense because it's politics. I suspect that Aftab will not pay a political price for this, and he'll get reelected. But you wonder about members of council. Somebody's gonna have to pay the price, and not just Terry Thiji. I think would you agree or disagree?
So yeah, I mean for as mayor Aftabs going to win reelection, you you know, you have about as good as chances getting a date with uh Plly Berry as astab Pas is losing, like it's not gonna happen, He's going to win. The real question is going to be there's a lot of legacy family names on the ballot this time. Uh you know, you have a Mallory, you have a dree House, Uh.
You know, Lukta Cole is a well known name.
So the question really is how many people vote, you know, let's say six incumbents, two or three of the you know, non incumbents, and is that enough to get someone like a Chris Smitherman.
Or Liz Keating through the finish line.
So you know, we can all speculate, but I would say Chris Smitherman unless Heating are the two best to break the stronghold of the Democratic All Council.
And then you wonder who loses.
I think last time it was council Member Anna Oldby is the one who I think she was just above that the threshold, right, the nine papose person to get it. And you wonder who it is going to be this time for sure, But somebody's going to pay some price. There's just too many people running and there's too much upheaval, and namely with this crime issue that's polarizing everybody. Aftab will be just fine. But at the same time, politically speaking, in seven days and I think he's pretty much a
lock at this point. No such thing. You never know, But I just don't see the demand by people who live in Hamlin County, specifically Cincinnati's saying, yeah, we got to get rid of him. I don't know if the alternative is better or not. I know a lot of people are lobbing, but I'm not sure that works in all blue Hamlin, deep blue Hamlin County. But I would think he's going to be on somewhat of a short lease with the new council coming in and go correct.
Isn't that what he's going to have to pay politically, is he's going to have to probably be a little bit more in tune with what's happening and doesn't have as much wiggle room as he used to.
Well, I mean, first off, the city of Cincinnati voted roughly seventy five to twenty five percent for Harris versus Trump, So you can suffer a lot of defections and still be completely fine, you know. For Astab, I think the bigger issue is going to be the posturing of council candidates after this election, because he's term limited out for mayor and what's what's the number one thing politicians do?
They try to make themselves look better.
So I think for the next you know, two four years, you're going to see a different council because now the stakes are you know, there's more at stake because all of them want to be mayor. So I think you're going to start seeing more pushback, more, you know.
Different thought processes.
So it'll be interesting to see does the dismissal of Terry Thiji play with the electorate. You know, we tend to be a little more newsy and news cycle. I mean I can smell BS a mile away. Uh you can too. I think most people listening have a good sense of that as well, because you look at this makes no sense whatever, But the typical voter doesn't pay that close attention. Do the optics of her dismissal or I guess her suspension while I investigate what is it
she did wrong? Which is completely backwards? Does that actually play with voters?
Well, we will see in seven days. Historically, no, I mean, you know, everyone always talked about how they're tired of the status quo, you know, and all this. Ninety one percent of the time, the better finance candidates win, ninety percent of the time, you know, the incumbents win.
Right at the end of the day, it's up to the voters.
And time and time again, voters for just have apathy and they just keep voting for whoever's in office. Yeah, and no real change ever really happens.
Well, and then first of all, it's deep blue, so it favors after pure vol has incombinated favors in. But also the the money. He's over three hundred thousand dollars, I believe Corey Bowman, the challenger has less than sixty. So that kind of tells you what he's up against THEREA. Let's shift to what's going on the federal government. Kevin Burton, political analysts with crossdown consultings, upholster with the shutdown itself, and now we're as I said at the beginning, I
think I hate you on to it's all theater. For the first few weeks of the shutdown, it's nothing but theater. Because eight percent of government is shut down. The other ninety two percent is doing just fine. It's like letting the receptionists go home early, turning the lights out in the front office. But people are still working behind the scenes. It's just you don't see the forward facing stuff like
parks and trash pickup and stuff like that. There are forty two million people, forty two million families set to lose food assistance with SNAP shutting down on Saturday because there's no funding. I asked, who's feeling the pressure at all? Fifty percent blame Republicans, forty three percent blame Democrats with independence.
It's about fifty one to thirty four Republican. And obviously the reason why is because Republicans controlled the White House, the Senate in the House, so that makes them the more vulnerable party. But the numbers starting to shift relative to people blaming Democrats with US.
So yes, in the last three weeks it was substantially more. It basically went from thirteen points now down to seven. You know, so the Republicans have closed the gaps, but at the end of the day, I don't know how much lower it's going to go because they do control both chamber, and you know, frankly, both parties are gambling with forty two million lives, which I mean, I think that's the bigger issue that we should be talking about. That Just get the job done. Like you guys are elected,
you are still getting paid. But if you're trying to fly with TSA or anything, it's a nightmare. And I just think the American people just want it done. Just get the deal done. That's what you're elected, right.
Democrats will say, well, we're getting some traction here because you know, we're on the right side with healthcare. Americans favor us and our plans with healthcare. Republicans really don't have a plan. And we just had seven million people will show up to attend a No Kings rally, whatever the hell that was, that has no impact whatsoever for them. To look at the No Kings rally go A million people showed up this week in the protest. They all protested Trump for different reasons.
Yeah, you know, no, and sometimes when you're the loudest, it doesn't mean anything. It's you know, it's an echo chamber. The real question is how many new people did you get? Because at the end of the day, Trump has figured out that his model of it's fifty plus one, So every single election is fifty percent of the vote plus one more person. And he knows his basse, he knows how to turn him out bigger than everything.
And there is a lot of silent Trump voters.
So you know, at the end of the day, Democrats need to play the smart and frankly, you know, jakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer have looked kind of like a deer in a headlight. Regardless of what you thought of Nancy Pelosi, she stood on she was a fighter, right, Can you say the same about those two?
No?
No, The thing is if this shutdown extends in November, we're closing in thirty five days is the longest period we have with a shutdown. That's largely because of the real cuts. We start to see the theaters at the first few weeks. Now you're starting to see the real results of the shutdown. People not getting food, and food is instance. And like, if this extends into November and we see the Obamacare premiums hit millions of Americans, which
party's better position to capitalize on that. You want to say the Democrats, But with the leadership and lack of direction they have, I don't think that's necessarily true to you.
I would still favor the Democrats just because healthcare is kind of their number one thing. And frankly, you just said Obamacare. So if Obamacare goes up three you know, three times under a president, you're going to be like, well, under.
Obama was this.
But I just think it speaks more of just how in the last twelve years you can't get anything done anymore.
No, it's so polarizing.
That, you know, frankly, both sides need to concede a little bit and if it's good for eighty five percent of the country, just get the deal done.
And if you're complaining and you're part of the no Kings movement, which I know, we have a king because he just does what he wants with executive order, it's because of what we're talking about. The Congress is so ineffective, so gridlocks and dead luck that they you know, we certainly, Joe Biden had his share of executive orders. Now Trump has exceeded that for sure, but that that's the new reality.
Congress isn't doing their job. They're not legislating anymore. They're just leaving good to the president and their guy via executive order.
And this is why we should have term limits in Congress. I mean, frankly, you have people in there who's been in all like their careers have been thirty plus years in Congress.
Get out, you're too old, right, like sorry, Like I just you know, it boggles my mind that we have.
Term limits for governors, we have term limits for presidents, but heaven forbid, senators and representatives have terms now.
Pilots, truck drivers, there's all sorts of occupations in the real world where you can't work past a certain age, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I don't understand how an eighty plus year old lawmaker is relevant. And you know, you got to explain them how an iPhone works before you can actually address the issues of legislating what that looks like, and no idea whatsoever. They're completely clueless. And those are the most senior people in leadership positions.
The Shoomer's the world. There's just so many of them right now, and I think we can do better, and term limits are certainly part of that. Kevin, regarding this, at some point, do you think that there's going to be cool or heads like, is it really going to get to the fact that forty too many people won't get snap benefits starting on Saturday? That's kind of like overplayed, but that hits home for a lot of people, especially with you know, go to the grocery store and seeing
like the cost of beef. You know, I'm nowhere certainly near, thank god, receiving public assistance. I go to the store and I see ground beef. I go, yeah, you know what, I like ground beef. But I'm good I'm not paying those kind of prices right now. That that's really got to hit home for these lawmakers. Do you see this thing ending before Saturday that they're going to come to a conclusion And if so, let's get down the path of what that looks like.
Well, and that's that's the billion dollar question.
I mean, gambling with forty two million lives is a risky proposition for both sides. I don't have the data of where those forty two million.
You know, voters are, but it's kind of like a kid.
You know, when you have an exam, you're going to push it off, push it off, push it off. Well, you know, Friday is kind of the date you have to get it done by, and if you don't, then there's actual serious consequences. And this keeps going longer in November. You know, the busiest time of the year to travel is during Thanksgiving, so you're going to create even more of a headache with TSA and the air traffic. So to your point, starting Saturday is when you know it really hits home.
And we're seeing a fifteen percent approval rating. Fifteen percent that has got to be close to an all time low for Congress.
Yet you know ninety percent of the incumbents will still win. It is you know, it's the complete It's just amazing that, you know, we all agree that Congress isn't effective, but then you know everyone turns around and just rubber stamps
them again. And I think the interesting thing is, and you're kind of seeing this with up in New York with Mindani and that in a lot of ways, the Democrats are kind of going through what Republicans did you know ten years ago that they felt like, you know, party apparatus has sailed them, and there's kind.
Of a revolt. You know, so like the neo liberals, I want to be shocked if.
He starts seeing maybe even Chuck Schumer and all these older ones and get primaried because you know, because that's exactly what Trump and you know, the Maga movement kind of really did that, you know, simply they said that we are tired of the status quo and you kind of let us down the road and we've gotten nowhere.
Thomas Massy a great example of that where you are in Kentucky. To get out of this mess, they'd have to strike a deal to save face. And I guess if we're looking at the Democrats are talking about, you know, we've got seven million Americans losing their healthcare. We're trying to prevent that. We we forced Republicans to back down from gutting Obamacare, and this is what we're fighting for, Republicans to say, you know, we want a targeted relief,
we don't want more socialism, socialist expansion. We save hundreds of billions of dollars, uh with you know, but by gutting the by stopping this and restored responsible governance and ended democratic obstruction cent So that's what both sides will say. Which is the winning messaging?
I mean, on paper, it should be the Democrats, but they've played everything wrong against Trump for the last decade.
However, So you know, if I was.
The Democrats right now, I would say, aren't we raking in billions of dollars in tariffs? And then that helped pay for this? But they're incompetent. Their leadership is incompetent. So if you ask me, I think Republicans will come out of this probably, you know, absolutely, fine.
Yeah, I would think so.
It's just because the idea is and I think most people realize, like, well, we're subsidizing something.
Okay, great, and I need it. I need it today.
I don't care it's going to bankrupt the country because we're just borrowing more money. It's way too ex healthcare is way too expensive. We're subsidizing that. That's other people's tax money that you're subsidized with. But you know, if you can't afford to get cold or your fear that, you know, my chronic illness is going to come back, And I can't get coverage, and I'm going to fall between the quack cracks and what happens. Everything I work for is is gone.
Right.
I get the urgency, that's a different matter entirely, and I could see where both sides everything, but but yeah, I think they just come to a conclusion. Go listen, this has been too you know, if you get the speakers together, the length and the pain of the shutdown, it's been too long. It's probably we're gonna we're gonna do something for thirty day, seven weeks, whatever it is. We've proved our point. It's time to govern at some point.
Somebody's got to do that, or both sides got to do that, don't they.
He would think, So go to your job. Everyone else has to do their job.
I mean they're still collecting paychecks, so you know, it's.
The rule for the but not for me. And that's just the story of our Congress.
Where they can do insider training, where they can basically do whatever they want and not actually have consequences.
And yeah, I mean they need to get to work. I know that today.
And Ohio, there a meaning about the constitutional convention of all things, which is a whole political you know a whole different matter entirely, but about getting control and our arms back around our government that they work for us.
Uh.
You know you talk about no kings, but that would apply to Congress as well based on what you just said. Kevin Burton is with Crosstown Consulting. He's a political Anamson polster in northern Kentucky. Kevin, thanks to the inside is always good stuff. Thank you, Flney, appreciate it. By the way, real quick, what if you're going to put odds on this thing as a political guy, the odds of this thing ending, the shutdown ending by Saturday is what what would you put money on?
I would say sixty five seventy percent?
Okay, so seven out of ten chance that this thing is done by Saturday, they fix it.
I just think that you know, there's elections, you know, in a week from now, so there's real consequences, and you know you're gambling with forty two million lives.
I think both sides will blank. You just have to.
The optics on that are terrible. Kevin, all the best, Thanks again, brother, Yeah, appreciate you. Right, let's get a time out in we got a news update. Traffic is an absolute disaster still in areas. Chuckle, have an update for you a real time on that one as well, And it's going to just continue to be wet here
for the next couple of days. Weekend for the little trick or treat is looking pretty good though, uh, full details in that in news in just about four here and when we return, a case has been made with an untimely death. As far as talk about bodily autonomy, I'm going to make the case for being allowed to sell your organs. And it has something to do with
the news happening over the weekend here. Local news for that matter, just add sloanely seven hundred wlw it so bearing down a Cat five storm headed right for the mainland there and then breaking. I don't think we're gonna it's gonna go to the US, but yeah, that's the price. People go, Oh my god, Jamaica and the Caribbean, it's so nice. I would love to live here, it'd be amazing because of weather's so good. Then you get these events and you know again there is a price to pay,
even in paradise so to speak. So to speak, our paradise paying the price of paradise here in Cincinnati involved sitting in some bumper to bumper traffic occasionally. I don't know a little bit of Ryan shouldn't be doing this, but it does.
But it does.
I just say, Kevin Burton on Political Analyst and Upholster with Crosstown Consulting and the fifteen percent approval writing Congress is approval writing down from twenty six to fifteen percent in the last month, coinciding with the government shutdown. That's completely unnecessary. And what it gets is, I don't know what the point of this whole thing is. I'm not sure, but you feel like, you know, people start not getting their benefits and people who are in getting us a snap,
which I think that's misconstrued. I still thought some people think that's this you know, well, yeah, today we get those welfare queens off. Yeah, that models kind of changeable. But most of the people that are on this are are people who have one or more jobs at least they're working the working port for the example, veterans, seniors. So it's not who you think it is. Large, it's
still a sizeable group of people. And to think that because of this posturing and the gesticulating on part of Congress, the in effective Congress that people are going to go without starting on Saturday. Now, I would think that at some point here congressional leadership I both say said, look, you know what, we can settle this thing. We'll kick the can down the road, as we often do. But once people stay cake at their food benefits, it's a
different story entirely. So I feel that real quick. I'm sure you heard the story if you watch football this weekend, and obviously you know watching that. I was watching the Jets a little bit that Nick Mangold, and you may know the name Nick Mangold is a retired two time All Pro center from Centerville, Ohio. Stepped throwing day in Centerville. And Nick Mangold had forty one died of kidney disease, And you go, how is that possible? Did someone forty
one years old die of kidney disease? I don't know the whole story, but it seems to me it highlights the problems faced by the What over one hundred thousand America is waiting for organ transplants, organ donations, And I look at this whole model and go, okay, we've got we know that you can live quite well, just fine on one kidney, Okay, it's yeah, there's some risk involved there. Most people go and I'm good with my two kidneys. But why wouldn't you give up a kidney? We see
signs alongside the road hell where I live. I saw there's a bunch of signs out someone else looking for a kidney. Can you donate a kidney? All blood times welcome, get your kidneys? Can you give a kidneys? I mean stuff from kidney failure in life without kidneys is now it's not sustainable. And even dialysis is a really really tough, long, painful,
horrible process. But if your kidneys fail, you either got to get a transplant, which you can get another what twenty years out of someone like Nick mangled can die an old man with a new kidney, a replacement kidney, or you're on dialysis for four to five years. You're health of to Tier eight until eventually it die. Because that is a descence. Even the machines can do what
the human kidney can and we lose. You know, there's like we're short more than I think forty fifty thousand kidneys a year in the United States, and that number along I think forty thousand is that's how many people die.
More that kills more people than die in motor vehicle crashes in the United States, I believe to put that number to context, and the question is, oh, how do you solve this instead of roadsides and the charity and courage and kindness of others and strangers and the horrible thing that Nick Mangold went through and died relatively young.
It gets back with the shortage is because in nineteen eighty four we passed the law that said it's unlawful for any person to require receive transfer any human organ for valuable consideration, meaning money to be used in a transplant. That you can't sell your organ. You can't sell a kidney. Now you go, wait a minute, we need more kidneys, not less. Hold on just a second, or let's apply what is true well to a large degree, although Congress
strikes to change. Is the fact that it's a free market. Okay, you have something that someone else wants. What is the price for that good or service or kidney in this case? And I've said this for a long time, and now Nick Mangold is dead, and it's a reasonably current story that the organ markets. If you sold stuff on a free market. Think about the pain and expense of sitting on dialysis or waiting for a kidney and not knowing.
I think you'd be flushed with kidneys quite us to a certain point that if you legalize in this case, organ markets are kidneys for that matter. You know, first of all, it wouldn't be like you're out on eBay or something like that Facebook marketplace looking for a used kidney. You know your healthcare providers would buy this up, just like they do with any durble medical equipment or medical supply. Blood for that matter. You know, you go donate blood.
It costs the Red Cross, it costs hawks Worth money in order for you to donate blood. You go in and you should because we're always in a blood short especially now, and it costs money to transport the blood. It costs money for the labor supplies, utilities, rent storage alone, refrigeration. All that stuff or something that's perishable cost a small
fortune in the billions of dollars. And what they do is they would charge the hospitals who then mark the blood up and charge you in your insurance if you need a blood transfusion. Cost money to get blood because it costs the people getting the blood. Now, am I suggesting you charge people for blood? Well, we already are. How is that any different than we're talking about this way you're eliminating in the middle man. You do that with plasma for example, I don't understand that.
You know, you can't. I can't make money off of giving you blood.
But if I go down to the plasma center and roll up my sleeve, I can donate my platelets and somehow get paid for that. That doesn't make any sense to me. And if we can do that with plasma node bats and I what about your organs? Now you're going, well, that's just just something wrong about that, is it really? Because why? Well, because typically it's going to be poor people that are going to do this. Okay, so you're exploiting poor people, like maybe the ones who are talking
about people are on snap. Yeah, yeah, absolutely poor people. Well, the risks of you know, you can live a perfectly fine life with one kidney. Plenty of people do. You can live normal lives and there's some minor risk. There's always risk in well, but there's some minor health risks. It's not like you can't you know, you gotta stop drinking alcohol or and they're like, no, you can and the life expectancy is about that with if you had two kidneys. So if you're not paying out a pocket
and the LL risk is low, what is prevented? Well, yeah, it's just you know, it's so exploitative though, because it's going to be poor people. Well, I mean, we assume minor risks all the time in exchange for pay. Here's a grample for it. We're talking about Nick Mangold from Centerville, the two time pro bowler who died because he couldn't get a kidney because a kidney disease.
He's an halfl player.
Most professional athletes, most players in the National Football League come from poor backgrounds.
Okay, can you make a case and say.
That Nick Mangold, every single time he put that helmet on risk his life risk serious injuries. We know that in the course of a career, players in the NFL lose about what three years of life with expectancy every season they play because of what it does to your body. Look at Chris Henry right, the CTE and things like that. So should we then saying well, you know this is exploitative of the poor people. Is anyone arguing that poor people should be banned from playing football or basketball or
baseball or whatever it is. No, that's not exploitative. They're getting because of what it does they bring to the table. They're getting money, and well have a lot of money in exchange for That's where I think it's not exploitative at all. So they asked to make something like eighty thousand lives in the US could be saved by legalizing the organ markets, particularly kidney mark kidney's a big one.
I don't find that exploitative at all. Let's say, I don't know if you can get one hundred thousand dollars for a kidney, Let's say one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for that, I don't know what a kidney would go for one hundred thousand dollars. So there's someone who needs money we're talking about, you know, the snap benefit cuts,
healthcare and all that stuff. Wouldn't that go a long way into lifting them out of poverty, all for the minimal risk of donating your organ It seems to me like that the kidney market would benefit poor people more than it would harm them. I don't think that's flawed logic. If I got a fifty grand for kidney, and it probably be more than that quite honestly. Now you've got something you need, which is money. I mean we all
need money, right, but especially if you're poor. You're looking, ah, okay, healthcare. How am I going to pay for this? If the snap benefits going, How'm gonna pay for this? I could sell an organ? Now it sounds again, it sounds cruel. It's like, oh my god, you had to sell an organ basically, see the give up your organ or eat. Yeah, but let's fase it that hundred grand. You'd probably go to Disney, you'd probably buy a better car, probably buy
some night clothes, maybe go on vacation. I maybe go to the casino.
I don't know.
It's your money. And if someone like that reason believes the risk is worth it, why should the government force that person to choose otherwise? I mean, you know, we don't say, well, you shouldn't get a tattoo, you shouldn't get a piercing, you shouldn't cut your hair that way. You say, you know that's the nanny stay talking. Well, you know it's it's ungodly. Well again, that's your business and what you worship or choose not to worship is
your business? Quit good foisting that on me. What your sense of godly morality is is wrapped up in your own thing, not mine. And if I look at it, going wow, that's all well and good. But I think God wants me to give up a kidney for one hundred thousand dollars part of the prosperity gospel, right, same thing. So I just don't see how this argument works out that somehow it's exploitative and only poor people. Did I know a lot about probably middle or upper income people
go huh under grant for a kidney. I always wanted that bigger boat. I was wanded that country club membership. I was, I'm gonna go on that trip to Dubai. I've been wanting to go on. For one hundred thousand dollars and one less kidney. You're helping somebody out, You're sustaining their life. You feel good about that, You feel great when that one hundred k hits your bank account. Who the hell loses in this whole situation Because the way it is right now, you've got forty thousand people
waiting on the list. In eighty thousand people essentially dying from this Minnick Mangold's forty one. He's leaving behind a wife and some kids. And I don't know the full details of Nick Mangold and from the Jets and of Center of the Ohio the football player, two time Pro bowler, but it certainly made news this weekend, like how can someone that young die so quickly from diagnot because his kidneys failed that quickly. There's nothing they could do for
him save a transplant. But you got to get on the list.
You gotta wait.
And even then, it's a crapshure that makes no sense to me. It seems to me that it's your body parts. If you want to sell them off, you should be able to do that. This is some busy body government over each crap to protect whom I'm looking at the nineteen eighty four National Organ Transplant Act NODA, it shall be unlawful for any person nor only acquire, receiver, or otherwise transfer any human organ for valuable consideration for use
in human transportation transplantation. If the transfer affects interstate commerce, why are we regulating that? I mean, you know you shouldn't be doing it in a back alley or something like that, and unlicensed doctors taking your kidney out, like those old internet memes from back in the day where I went to Vegas. Next thing, I woke up on my bathtub and my kidney was gone, Like yeah, that
never really happened. That's just scaring people. But doing a clinical setting and I take one hundred grad I think about it, going I could help somebody make one hundred grand.
I've got a problem with that.
I don't know about other bodily organs, but the kidney is one you could live quite a healthy life on with. Just the one. Makes a lot of sense to me. Why are we fighting this? And it would because it's market forces. The more demand there is for a kidney, the more money you could gain from donating said kidney or selling the said kidney, as opposed to waiting for someone out of the kindness of their heart to donate it. So I mean as well, you hear the stories and
you know it makes it happens locally. I had someone in my show not long ago, Same Things, save their lifecause they got a kidney. It's a great story, but how many, how many thousands of people die who never get that kind of attention. It seems so just so hit or miss quite honestly, I don't know anyway. It's loanly here on seven hundred WLW coming up in about ten minutes. It's a complete and full news update. Jason Philibaum, attorney at law, is here. What to expect from the
law firm investigating Terry Thiji. So the timeline, of course, as you know in this this stumbling, bubbling mess that is our city government that Cincinnati is not paying forty thousand dollars to Frostbond Tadde are really really well respected law firm, but they've got forty grand and to the end of the year to come up with reason as
to why they fired Terry Thichi. So you take someone, you place them on paid administrative leave, meaning she's collecting every bit of her two hundred thousand dollars plus salary. So the taxpayers are foot and full bill for that, and then they're footing the thirty thousand dollars for this law for them to come in and investigate why they
fired her in the first place. Normally, you build your case and you go, you know what, we're putting you on leave until a final determination is made because we have reason to believe, Terry Thig that you're incompetent. You're grossly in competent. It could be malfeasans, misfeasans, all the feacens is.
Who knows what it is. But we've had enough of you. You're done.
Instead, out of the blue, they just go, well, we're gonna put you on paid administrative leave and name an interim chief, not a temporary but when you go interim that is the chief who might become the chief or maybe the chief between chiefs. But just calling it the interim police chief is wrong. If this is a suspension, right, wouldn't the adjective you're looking for be like the temporary chief or acting chief. There's a difference in acting and interim.
And they even chose the wrong words. They made a I mean, this seems like a hell of a lawsuit on Terry Thigi's part too. If they do can her and that wait a minute, essentially, no, no, we didn't we suspend. Then why did you use the word interim because interim basically means the stop gap between the old and the new acting as well, this person is on sick leave where they're out or something. Okay, they're acting
until that person gets back. You know, when the Reds or well of the Bengals never do this, But when the Reds fire managers, it's the interim manager. Okay, we've fired Brown Prices out. Now the interim manager is you're the bench coach until you get Terry Francona. If David Bell would have gotten sick, and that sometimes happens, it'd be the acting manager, not the interim manager. So even choosing these words is stupid. It seems like you're setting
yourself a even greater lawsuit. And now you're looking at the reasons why you let her go or suspend her. I guess, and you're going to pay forty thousand dollars. And now they have to the end of the year to come up with the reasons why they fired in the first place, So it's going to be months later the reasons come out as to why she is the wrong person for the job and some of the scope of the investigation. Are the questions to be asked according
to the inquirer. Is she an effective leader and manager
of the department, including personnel and resources. Is she a leader within the context of city government, meaning furthering the broader goals and objectives of the city administration, Well, that's easy, and that's a stupid question to ask to put in their scope, because the broader goals and objectives of the administration are simply to put up with crime, not put people in jail, release them on low bond or no owner cognizance, and essentially trust the criminal that they're going
to report back when the When they don't, you just go, well, we'll go we'll get them eventually.
It's no big deal.
So those are the goals and objectives of the administration that Terry will probably lay out. And if that's the case, and you are dancing to the piper, being after to have purevoll and sure along, then you absolutely are furthering the broader goals and objections to the city administration. Unfortunately, when the broader goals and objectives are just drunk ass stupid, as they had Ben at her aftab and cheer along, she is the one that winds up drawing the short straw.
The music ended and she's without a chair. So she did what they wanted them to do, I wanted her to do. And then when they realized the policies don't work, and it may sound good in theory and a piece a whole bunch of community activists. Well, then guess what, It's her fault, not mine.
And so it goes.
That is the price you pay when you kneel at the altar of politics, as Terry Thigi's learning. Unfortunately, because she had a long, great career thirty five years, nothing in her jacket, nothing in her file indicates anything negative or anything seriously negative has been done under thirty five years as a cop in Cincinnati. And now after the fact, we've got to find in thirty five years something wrong she's done to bring it to light to justify this
dumpster fire. Jason Philibaum, Attorney law, breaks that down and tells us just how much more of the city's going to be on the hook for meeting you taxpayers all while after Ed gets reelected, probably just ahead on the home of the Best Bengals coverage seven hundred WWD Cincinnati.
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Thanks for joining Scott's loan here on seven hundred ww and V the iHeartRadio app Take is Wherever You Go. So the news breaking not long ago that the City of Cincinnati is paying a local law firm, Frost Brown Todd forty k to investigate police Terry Fiji's performance after they fired her. Normally, you investigate the performance, go okay, they got to go. This is completely backwards, and they expect the law firm to be finished by the end
of the year. So it's going to cost us forty grand and the city is still shelling out the full salary and benefits to Terry Fiji of in excessive two high hundred thousand dollars. Because of this nonsense, she hired her own employment lawyer, Stephen m and he has no intention of allowing her to resign because she said there's nothing negative thirty five years on the job to the
date when she was removed. Thirty five years, nothing significant, nothing minor in her jacket, pretty exemplary thirty five year law career that she's had.
So why now?
And also there's some developing news overnight regarding the scope of the investigation, what the law firm is going to look for. Specifically, joining the show is attorney Jason Philibaum who's been around the block a few times.
Jason, welcome, how are you good morning? Thank you doing well?
Yeah, this whole thing right away, it just just screams like wrongful dismissal in a sense, because before we get into the intricacies up at Jason Phillibom, I look at this and go, Okay, I've been on the job for thirty five years, and on my thirty fifth anniversary, I get noticed that I'm now on paid administratively. If I'm in Denver, Colorado, I get summoned back from this conference to Cincinnati because I'm probably gonna get fired. And she
wasn't technically fired. She's unpaid leave. And it wasn't because of something happened. I mean the Fountain Square issue. It happened days a couple of days after she left for Denver, so nothing new was going on here. And then furthermore, they come in and go, okay, we're gonna put you on leave. We're going to name an interim chief. By the way, not a temporary position, but interim generally means
between the past into the future. If it was someone let's say that God forbid she were sick, there would be someone temporarily there, right, So that would be someone who is not an interim chief. There'd be another adjective for that, it'd be acting chief. And so they even chose the words incorrectly here. If you're not firing, she's not fired, then why I have an interim chief? Does that not help the legal case against the city from Terry Thiji?
Yeah, I think so. I think this looks like a witchhut.
It reminds me of this guy that had one hundred arrows in the side of his barn and he was asked how he did it, and he said it was easy, an arrow into the side of the barn, and then I go ahead and paint the bull's eye around it. And you know what I think you have here is you have a situation where you know they they want are gone.
I mean that's clear.
And instead of just terminating her and worrying about whether they have to pay out a contract or not, they then hire a law firm, you know, approximately one hundred to one hundred and twenty hours.
Of work to essentially investigate her.
And you know, I can tell you, you know, being around the block, as you say, you know, if you start investigating someone that has thirty five years of experience. You know, you may not find something illegal, but I'm pretty sure you're going to find some policy that's been broken that everybody breaks, and then that's going to be their linch pin. But it sounds to me like there's some issues in Cincinnati and they're using her as a scapegoat.
Well, it's not easy to dismissible gig.
Well, we investigated and we found this in your jacket, which should be you know, essentially it's already something that's known but didn't rise the level of termination. As a matter of fact, the argument, Steven m would be, well, not only did you know this because it's part of you also promoted her in rank to the chief of police, So you're complicit in this whole thing. You're fining her for something you had no problem that she did at the time. You can't that's revisions.
You can't do that.
I mean that that's going to cost the money, isn't it.
Yeah, And that's the process I think they're they're going down here that I'm not sure is going to be wise what they're trying to do. I mean, they want her gone, like you said, They even use the word interim, so she's gone, she's not going to resign, and so.
They're going to want a terminator.
Now, in Ohio, we'ren't at will state, so you can terminate someone as long as it's not based on some you know, legal reason, race, gender, national origin, et cetera.
But she is probably under a contract.
So if that's the case, then they can only terminate her from that contract for just cause there's.
Got to be a good reason why.
And it could be policy, you know, some type of policy being broken. Obviously, it could be something illegal, or it could just be mismanagement of the you know, the city. So those are things that they're going to be looking for. And you know, the the issue with that too is, you know, we do know that crime is up, and
we know that violent crime is up. But her Herney said the other day that she's offered to sit down with the mayor and the judges to talk about, you know, these these bonds that are being given because that could be one situation that why crime is up is essentially, if someone gets arrested for a violent crime and is back out on the street, you know, a few days later, you know, crime is not going to go away, and and it looks like, you know, an election year, you're
now having a situation where the that's let's get rid of the police chief, and that's why there's all these problems going on in Cincinnati instead of may be you know, leadership.
I don't think you have to be a political analysis, simple political mind like like a Willie Conningham, James Carvill or something that right where they for the regular voter, for the rank and five or the typical construction to what they see this they see right through. And I think every man and woman who doesn't have a jurisd doctorate is not educated in law like like you are, Jason Phillibaum. I mean I look at it and go, they're doing a dirty.
Yeah. And I think that's what a lot of people are thinking. Now. You know, play Devil's Advocate for a second.
You know, crime is up. We talked about that. Is there something she should have been doing that she's not? I mean, is she not you know, putting the police in the right position. Are her subordinates telling her that, you know, you should you should put police here, you should maybe do some kind of burst here, And then she just decides she's not doing that and as a result, you have this issue on Fountain Square, you have these other issues.
Now that might be a legitimate thing. I mean, and maybe that's something we don't know.
Again just playing devil's advocate, But even if you look at what her attorney said, is the FOP I think is backing her. So I would think that if her subordinates were telling her to do things and she was just flat out of ignoring them, I'm not sure that they would have that backing that she has.
Yeah, he is attorney Jason Philibaum, the very latest involving territory THIJI. Now we're hiring a law from a local law from Frost Brow Todd, pretty good firm that they're going to do some deep diving and try and find out the reasons why they fired her before. Yeah, as you said, you know, this is shoot first, asked questions later. I guess the Inquirer came out with this this morning.
The scope of the investigation. This is what the lawyers, the team for the city outside Council is going to investigate. And now there are four prongs to this thing. Is she an effective leader and manager of the department, including personnel and resources. Is she a leader within the context of city government, meaning does she further the broader goals
and objectives of the administration. Has she committed any infraction or positive violation while serving as police chief, and did she disregard best practices in the running a CPD to the detriment detriment of public safety and crime prevention. Well, let's start with the first one. Is she an effect leader and manager of the department, including personnel and resources?
That seems like an open ended question, like if there were problems with her management personnel of the previous chief notoriously had issues with that when I guess it was before Craig Notoriously had problems with that too, and it was public. So but believing I heard of that at Chief Thiji, you know, the rank and file really split on it, really didn't care for her all that much. But once they did what they did to her, they realized they could come next. And now everyone, even her detractors,
are supporters, so they rallied them. So to look at this and say is she an effective leader or manager? You can say that of any boss, can't you?
Right? Exactly? And I call that fuzzy math.
You know, that's the law school exam where it depends on who's paying me. That's the answer I give you. Know you're paying me on this one side, I tell you why she's an effective leader. If you're paying me on the other.
Side, I'll give you all the reasons why she's not.
I mean that's again I don't think that's what this is going to fall down on, because again you said that it is so vague, it's so fuzzy that you know, if they want to decide that she's not a good leader, they're gonna they're gonna find reasons to justify that, just like if you want to find that she's a good leader, you'd find the reasons. So you know, the first two that you mentioned, those prongs that those both both are very fuzzy, math fuzzy sort of law school exams where
anyone can answer anything. I think the crux is going to be number three, which is is there an infraction? You know, is there something that she did that she not follow a policy. I don't think there's any allegation of criminal wrongdoing, So it's going to be something something you know, so minor that and that's where she's gonna then get into court and say, look, other people have done. You know, other people forgot to call in on day that they were taken off and they were allowed to stay.
But I'm getting fired things like that. And then of course number four, I mean, that's that's I think the one that's a little bit more serious. You know, there's a problem in cincinnat with crime. Whose fault is it? Is it the mayor's is it? The judges?
Is that the police chief? You know? Is it society? I mean, what's the problem?
And I think it'd be interesting to see if there's something that she should be doing or something like you said, best practices that she didn't do. That would be the one that would you know, sell me yes or no, as opposed to the other three prongs that you know they can find out of anybody.
Now, Jason Philibel' attorney at law, relative to the four pillars of this investigation by outside Council for the City of Cincinnati to towards Terry Thiji, you mentioned number three, is she's committed any infraction policy violation while serving as a police chief. If she had and it rose to the level of an impeachable offense, wouldn't we have heard that? I mean, typically you know, when someone commits a crime. Let's look at what happened with the NBA recently. What
happened was Cashpattel. The FBI held a press coomf if they had the evidence, they made the charge that Okay, here's we're coming at these individuals. We're going after Chauncey Belcher, going after other individuals because this is the evidence we have in this case. They're going, well, it'd be like them going, yeah, well we're suspending Chauncey Develops and now we're going to do an investigation to find out what
he did wrong. That's the problem with this is that if you in any other case, with due process, and I think it applies you to a degree that if you committed an infraction, you make those charges allegations, you suspend them all, you investigate the scope and the depth, and then eventually you terminate that person because now you've gathered the evidence.
This is completely the opposite of that.
Right, And that's why I think a lot of people look at this and say that's not fair. You know, you don't arrest somebody and say go find me a crime. The crimes committed, then you arrest them, and then you either investigate further or prove or disprove that it happened. What's not fair is to essentially take someone out of a position and look for something.
That they did wrong.
And you know, I would think, you know, if they did something wrong, you wouldn't have the city manager talking about what a great thirty five years, what a great.
Person this is, and we wish you the best.
I think I think that was the statement when they put her on leave, is you know, what a great sellar career. If there's truly an infraction worthy of dismissal, that's not the statement you.
Put out there.
So that tells me they probably don't know if there's one, and they're now looking for one so they can hang their hat on it.
Yeah.
Yeah, our tires at nineteen ninety eight, we're touching a handicapped spot. Accidentally, she didn't close the cover before striking when she was trying to light a candle some matches, and she tore the mattress tag off of her seiling. Those don't rise to levels. The reason you get fired because everyone does that.
Right exactly exactly, and that's what that's what they're looking for now again so they can find it.
For cause.
Now I think again the legitimate, legitimate investigation would be number four. But again that's not something that I would do post termination or in this case just suspension.
Is what is is she doing wrong?
Why is the city?
You know?
And maybe that's a good investigation, you know, find tell me why Cincinnati crime was going up? And see if we but to sit there and take the police chief out and then do that investigation. That seems again putting a little bit of the cart before the horse.
Well, it seems like, you know, they're turning under a stone, the stone over, but when they kick the stone, a lot of things are going to run. I wonder how much of those those bugs come back to bite after a puerval. Because two and four of this four pillar investigation by Brown Frost Todd is she too is is she a leader within the contextas city government, meaning furthering the broader goals and objects of the city administration? Number four is did she regard best practices in the running
of CPD? I don't know if that's just best practices by police standards. No pot of standards or best practices is set forth by number two the administration because that's the sticky part is when she interviewed for this job three years ago, Jason Philbamma was looking at some of the interviews she did. She said her biggest priority was to continued diversity, equity and inclusion within the Cincinnati Police Department,
how to lift people up. And she also had to get the blessing and interview essentially with Iris Rawley, who we've seen in recent time investigated and get herself involved between a suspect a subject who was being arrested for violating probation and was essentially interfering with the business of a police officer. She had an interview with her to
get this job in the first place. So when I hear that and then see what's happened with owner cognisance people cutting their ankle monitor off and there's no repercussion from the court for that, essentially doing what they say they weren't going to do. Literally within minutes of leaving, the people who have been jammed up and all this high profile violence, save maybe the brawl, there's other factors
in there. And now that was handled as a nightmare that wasn't on the chief, but everything else was Like people who had violent prior criminal offenses that were precluded from having a gun because they're under disability by law, it's not her to set those policies.
That's on the mayor.
So they're doing this investigation. I wonder how much this is going to come back and implicate have to apeer volunteer loan.
Yeah, I agree, And if you look at I think the mayor put out a statement. He put out a statement that he had nothing to do with his firing. Again, I find that to be maybe a little disingenuous, because why in the world would a city manager three weeks before an election terminate your female police chief without talking to the mayor. That would be a very dumb move. So I would think that there was a discussion ahead of time. But like you said, there's a lot of
factors to consider. You know, is she pushing dei and that's why there's not enough police on the street. Maybe that's a legitimate decision to, you know, talk about whether that's the appropriate way to handle policing. You know, but recently the city also engaged in a federal settlement where they are changing the way they're policing.
I mean, that's that could be a.
Very real reason for why things are going up, you know, having bonds, like you said, someone that commits a violent crime and has let out, Hey, that's that's not on the police issue.
That's not on her exactly.
I could see when she's falsifying reports and people aren't showing up, and she's backdating payroll. I mean, those are the things you're definitely going to get you and should get you fired. But essentially the vision by this administration is criminals are victims too, has led us to this point.
That's not on Terry Thiji. That's on the people who hire Terry Thiji.
Exactly.
As I said at the beginning of this talk, it sounds to me like a skateboat. It sounds to me like, you know, we're two weeks out from an election, and I've got to tell the people that there's a problem, and I fixed the problem. And now, by the way, that's hired these really good attorneys to go in there and find out what the problem was, and then I can match it up and say, hey, did a good job,
which of course won't come out until after the election. Anyway, it's going to take two three months to do a thorough investigation whether it's legitimate or whether it's brought up after the facts, so I.
Don't think we're going to know anything. We'll probably January after the election.
Of course, that's what this is about, buying some time for the election. But it really doesn't because it makes them looking competent and stupid. Uh and not the first
time either. I would also add this finally, Jason Philibam, attorney at law, if you're representing, if you're on Team Fiji, are your eyes now glazing over with the millions and millions of dollars should possibly be getting in because quite honestly, the way this whole thing was executed, it's seemingly, in addition to the two hundred k she's making, could wind up getting a help of payout to sign a non disclosure agreement because if she doesn't sign an ndayn'enforce an NDAH,
then then she can roll over on this administration and really let the go south.
And they don't want that.
Yeah.
Yes, her attorney's firm is well known for suing cities and municipalities and going after them and then you know that's been a lot of expensive lawsuits and if they if they end up getting, you know, something that they can hang their hat on. Then you've got attorney fees in play, and that's a pretty penny that the Cincinnati have to pay out.
So yeah, there's there's a I guess is there's going to be.
A settlement some way through the process, because otherwise it's going to be expensive for somebody.
Yeah.
Yeah, if the Finny law firm were like the Bengals defense, we wouldn't be having conversations about not making the playoffs and firing coaches, if you know what I mean, because they are tenacious. If anything, he is an attorney, Jason Phillibaum a private practice of course, attorney himself, just kind of a different view, a different set of eyes on this issue right now because it doesn't pass my sniff test,
and it certainly doesn't pass Jason's either. Jason, all the best, buddy, thanks for jumping.
On this morning.
I appreciate it.
Thank you over at Jonas and Phillibaum, Thanks again. Quick time out, we'll get a news update. And the controversy that they wish, we're kind I hate when we've got enough controversy in the world. What is controversial about what's happening at the White House relative to the East Wing Because it feels like people are pushing this narrative like we should be all worked up into a froth about this, and I just maybe it's just me. I don't see it,
and I'll tell you why next seven hundred WLW. One of the big stories this week is the demolition of the East Wing of the White House.
With the government.
Shutdown, with the snap benefits then getting cut and FAA and executive orders and effectless Congress and our deficit and debt growing exponentially and so much more going, does anyone actually give a flying bleep about the East Wing demolition? I mean, you talk about a story to me that is just I don't know. It feels like it's like the no Kings people impressing this entire story. You see
what he's doing, you see I don't know. As you know, I have some issues with Trump specifically, you know, the executive power, the spending of money we don't have, the tariffs and where they're going, what's going on with healthcare. There's like a thousand other questions out ask Trump and question what he's doing and the motives behind it. So much with the East Wing, like I just legitially don't care.
I know the timing sucks. With this cutdown and the shutdown and the cuts and all that time, you get the timing sucks. But you know, when you signed a construction demo contract and you get as you know, after the anchors dried, you know, you move forward with the project.
You don't really have a choice. I carry you.
There's a lot of things with the executive branch and executive power I care about more, much, much more than the East Wing. This is not on the radar, but I'm fascinated by all the gnashing of teeth and crying about it. Is that, Well, what are they upset about? Well, they're taking this historic part of the it's the people's house, it's the people's and they're destroying it. They wiped out the entirety of the historic East Wing. Is it really
that historic? Because it was Teddy Roosevelt that built the Easting It's not exactly going back to Washington, it's not going back to seventeen ninety two here now. Granted it has a lot of history occurred in there, and they had to cut some trees down there named after President's I get that, but is it really like you're destroying it? Didn't like take the White House and coolly level of put a Trump Hotel up. Okay, that would be outrageous, But the East Wing in and of itself put into context,
here's a sillinity argument. So the White House is about fifty five thousand square feet fifty five thousand square feet, which is like the size of.
I mean, I was gonna say, like it's.
Smaller than a wal Mart for crying out loud. It's six stories, there's one hundred and thirty two rooms. There are thirty five bathrooms. So if you got a pee, White House would be a good place to be. Comparatively speaking, if you look at comparable places, I guess in democracy, Buckingham Palace comes to mind, grants the Palace the King, but that is essentially fifteen times larger than the White House.
Now there is ten Downing Street. Downings Street is where the PM is, and that's about thirty eight hundred scrive. It's an apartment, basically, it's townhouse. It's about less than ten percent the size the White House. But again that's the figure out. That's a prime minister, primeacy, important job. But you know it's about royalty, the British throne. So bucking and you know, Okay, you've got Downing Street, but you think of that as the center of democracy for
the government of the UK, for the British government. But Buckingham Palace, if you've ever been there, I've toured it on the outside anyway, changing the garden all that, it's massive. It's fifteen times beside the White House. The Rostrapati of Bevon in India is about two hundred thousand square feet.
So what's that?
Four times? Four times is the large of the White House. So comparatively speaking, the White House is kind of like in the middle. It's very mid as far as the size of the executive branches of government. But it's hard to compare to you know, I don't know the Kremlin. It's hard to compare to other forms of government and what their I guess their palace would be the version of their white House, if you want to call it that. So it's kind of hard to compare because you have
different types of governments. So here the White House kind of like modest size. It's like a modest sized building. And okay, I put this in perspective right because in America we thought we love space, you know, so they'll remodel pay Course Stadium. Were they gonna they're gonna put
smaller seats and know they're gonna put bigger seats. If you've ever gone to a place where I mean it's old, old, and they haven't updated on anything, you realize so quickly how uncomfortably crowded it is because it's built for smaller people. Today we get you know, when Teddy Roosevelt puts this in, then the population was much much less and therefore fewer
people would be gathered to the White House. And so if you just look at some and I'm like, here's what we've lost at the East Wing, I'm looking at pictures going that place was way overdue to be blown up. Then the East Wing had a movie theater, the Presidential theaters there, and there's pictures. Oh my god, look at this historic area that for the last roughly one hundred years.
It's one hundred years old. The theater itself is like literally four seats across, and then they have like some folding chairs in the back.
It looks janky as hell.
They have this image they keep showing Obama is running bow his dog at the time when he was a puppy and they have another image there, I guess from that would be looked like the sixties or seventies where they had all these garish looking red Christmas trees up and then the main Christmas tree mult they call it Christmas tree at the end.
Of the hall.
But if you would have walked down the middle of that, you'd have to kind of swivel your hips. You'd have to kind of do the side by side wall, you know, like swing your hips through to not hit the Christmas tree on your left and right to get down that hall like it's that narrow, Its like could only be maybe twenty twenty five feet across. The real problem is
hosting an event. And I talked to someone who used to work in the White House in news and news media and said, yeah, you know, you don't really see it on TV because all the airs of the White House. You may get the tour and everything, but the day to day, the operational the executive mansion is different than what we're talking about. Where stuff gets done and it isn't aoriously cramped like there's a room for nothing there. It's so small and you've got so many people. We've
added bodies, people have gotten bigger. You've had a more job, more titles and jobs, and that adds to the bloat and size of government. And the White House essentially functionally has stayed the same. And so I kind of get that that if you add on this which dwarfs the White House, it does look it does make it look
like a double take. But you have a ballroom that size seems about right in a sense because you're hosting all of these world leaders and all these events, where in the past you could have a few of them in there, but largely you had overflow and the tents on the outside. It was just it's not laid out very well. And so if you have a building that's that old and that small, I kind of get it, you know. And the other element here too is Truman is the one who really brought this thing into the
twentieth century. It was a huge renovation that lasted like four year, made major changes. But even since the true renovation, because the White House was starting to fall apart, you know, Jackie Kennedy put the Rose Guard, Trump leveled the Rose Garden, But okay, well what was the Rose Garden before Jackie Kennedy or you know, Gerald Ford added a swimming pool. Okay, what was that before? He had to knock some trees down to do that. Nixon converted the swimming pool into
the briefing room. So he changed that and added a bowling alley. By the way, I don't know. I think the bowling always there and something else now. So each administration is coming and done something sizably markedly different. Then now this is huge compared But if you think about those changes in context, this looks about right. Like I can't help but think if you know, there's another term of Biden, let's say, or come on and they decid, Yeah, you know what, It's just it doesn't serve our needs.
We need to We didn't make this place bigger because we're having a lot of state dinners, we're having events that require a lot more people there.
We need more space.
And even in our daily lives as Americans, you know, look at how the size of the house you grew up in verse unless you live on the West side, doesn't matter.
It's the same house.
But the house you grew up in, how much different in your house is today, how much more space you have? When I first uh started dating Michelle, and I think where I actually married at the time. She and I grew up in Buffalo, New York, and so we were back visiting and like you know, showing around, you know, you do that thing you show you grew up and stuff like that, and literally the house that we grew up and I was a kid like, man, Okay, this
is the house I grew up in. We drove past it because I knew the addressing, k know exactly where it was, and I drew past it because I didn't recognize it. I'm like, wait a minute, hold on, just a second. Like my mom, my dad, me and my brother and my little brother three three we lived in that house, Like how did we fit in there? In the backyard, I remember me a massive, huge backyard.
It was tiny. And so that's true.
Right, we move on, we would get bigger things. Americans like bigger. We like more space. I don't understan on how this is in the play to the East Room of the White House, and you know, it's one of those things where and I've been critical of Trump, but I get critical of things like he can control and what he told us and what he's not doing, and the government getting bigger and being more irresponsible, not more responsible and doing stupid things and missteps and all those things.
That's all fair, but this apocalyptic coverage of the dismissed the we're just mantling them destroying the White House, the East wing of the White House. It's the worst thing ever. It's a it's just a remodel. It's an architectural decision. Like there's many of the things I won't worry about more in this administration and in politics in general, like the shutdown, and the East Wing doesn't even meet that. And I get, you know, it's like, well, we're going
to make a small change. It turns out next thing, you know, two days later, the entire East Wing has gone.
And I get it.
The excuse was that while we decided, once we got in there, it's just going to be cheaper and easier to knock the whole thing down to build this ninety thousand square football room is in addition, okay, and I think they probably knew that going into it, but shows selectively to go, oh, yeah, we got in there and it was a mess, and they said this is the easiest thing to do. So it's too late, because you know, if you'd said that weeks prior, someone to come in
and try to stop. You know, somebody was Chuck Schumer would have chained himself to the east wing to send a message and over my dead body are going to do this kind of you know thing. We've seen the taper tantrums before, but it's a three hundred dollars may face. And the other element, too, is the concern that corporations are footing the bill for this, and how wrong that is it really? Because you know, I recall every other administration, Republic Democrat, they get stuff done by going to their
donors and benefactors in order to get stuff done. To me, this is a little more refreshing and though, okay, how much is this costing? Three hundred million dour? But we already have two hundred million dollars from big companies that
want to do business with the government. Now if they get a fat contract or something, they certainly there's quid pro crow there and it doesn't look good, but countless and this is how things work in Washington, is how things work in our government, sadly, is that you got to pay to play. You got to get paid it just because you donate I don't know, ten or twenty million dollars to this cause doesn't mean you're gonna get that in return. And most of the experts say, yeah,
it's kind of an on'mgoing process. Like the big boys continually throw money in, which is why they donate to campaign You look at the campaign financing. Why do they give equal amounts to Democrats and Republicans or a little more a little less to the side of that Side's because they got to keep everybody happy. They got to streat spreading the fat cash around, so they keep everybody happy. This is nothing different. I guess the relieving part is like, man,
we don't have to pay three hundred million. And I would also point out too that from those progressives out there that think this is the worst thing ever and why this is so wrong because these companies are paying in office, how often do we often we hear about these big companies and the CEO of fat cats, the fat cats, how they get those money? They don't pay any taxes? How did they give it anything back? They're a drain on the system. I got to pay tax
they don't have to pay taxes. Okay, well, if you're giving back this money essentially to build a white House, that will be there or he's doing that will be there in the future. Isn't that kind of giving back? So is it hypocritical for you to talk about the breaks these companies get. These corporations get and they get hand out of hand and they don't do anything, but they know they're not paying tax and not paying their
fair share, and they do something like this. You're also against that, Like, it's not like me and you and a bunch of poor people handing money out. It's not like all this three hundred million is going to come from the tax revenue that we don't have to pay for this. It's being paid for by private donations. Now do they want some trying to ingratiate themselves with this administration? There's no question about it. But it's not like Trump
invented this. This has been going on since day one and in Congress and in the White House, Like, what, how is this any different than what previous presidents have done? You know, give to my foundation, It's well, okay, if I'm giving to the I don't know the Clinton Foundation or the Obama found or the Biden whether foundation is how am I not getting special treatment there?
Okay?
Yes?
And then then when Republicans do it, Democrats yell, and then when Democrats do it, Republicans yell. I get that, but you know, to me, it seems like we're winning because literally the companies are paying for this, the same companies who say don't pay their fair share.
Don't understand.
I'll get a news update in about five here on seven hundred wwho, Scot's Loan Show and Winter Turn eleven oh seven. Here's a conversation that normally I would not want to have with this person. Nick Crossley is the Hamlin County director for the Emergency Management Association or agency.
I guess it would be here in Hamlin County.
Uh.
Normally, if I have Nick Crossley on it's because all halls breaking losts we have a flood, we have tornadoes, an earthquake, we have a forest fire. I don't know if we have a forest fire, maybe the mount Airy Forest, I don't know. But nonetheless, he is the guy who heads up our emergency management agency. Don't want to have Nick Crossley on the radio because that means stuff's going down, if you know what I mean.
This time I did, though he's in d C.
And here's how jacked up FEMA is speaking of things we should pay attention to, not so much the East wing in.
The White House.
Did you know this that.
A lot of areas of the country who have to get FEMA money. Now we've got some from flooding and stuff like that, but they're like, I think like a third I got the numbers here in a second or there. I think it's almost like a third of the counties in the United States something like that get a billion dollars or more in FEMA relief last year or the last couple of years. Goes to show you just how many problems we have when it comes to natural disasters and the like that we need the money for that.
A lot of these communities, and this would be Hamelin County, Butler County, Warren County, and Campbell and Canon Counties for that matter, of Switzerland County, that if you had natural disaster, you'd actually have to go borrow money, borrow the money to foot the bill for the for the emergency relief from FEMA until the FEMA check comes in, and then you'd pay the bank back with interest. So wait a minute, double hit, I gotta pay interest to the Mario A.
Barer.
I thought FEMA was there for that.
They're looking to reform the whole system as the point, and he's in d C four that's important. It's one of those things where like I don't really care, well, you know what, if it hit the fan, then you'd care. And now's the time. And we talked about government being reactive not proactive. Fortunately, people like Nick and the other people that are on this task force going to d C. And he's in DC right now. As he will tell you, this is important. We got to do this now because
FEMA is really screwed up. We got to make the process easier, not harder, if and when a natural disaster hits our area here in southwest Ohio. He is next on the show right after News on the home of the best boundals coverage seven hundred WWT since then towards
the US. If you look at it, go back in the year that we have all the numbers, and on twenty twenty three, about a third of all US counties, a third of US counties experience at least one federally declared disaster exceeding a billion dollars in damage.
That is incredible.
Think about that a third of all counties in the United States of America every year. We're pretty lucky here in southwest Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky. But if and when we need help, there's horror stories about the process of getting relief from FEMA. Nick Crossley is the Hamlin County Director of Emergency Management. He is in DC right now, part of a task force meeting with federal leaders about disaster reform.
Nick, Welcome, how are you.
Oh, I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Good morning.
All right.
On this topic, this may be the one time where I would like to talk to you.
Typically in the course of your job as the head of the emergency management of Hamlin County, I would not want to talk to you. So if I ever have to talk to Nick Crossley, We've got problems, you know what I'm saying.
I do, I do.
Wait, We're pretty lucky.
I mean, you know, the weather's pretty temperate here is save maybe some tornadoes, I suppose, earthquake, But as far as the rest of America goes, we don't have to worry about fires and hurricanes and stuff like that.
We're pretty good.
Well, we do, although we do have what are called duratio events, which are highland you know, several years ago around eight.
It caused a power.
Outage of over one hundred thousand people. That we have the river flood. It flooded just this last March, caused several hundred thousand dollars worth of damage along the river. And then of course we're starting to have more higher impact snow events and then of course extreme heat. So it's pretty much it's pretty much year round for Hamilton County.
But comparatively with those third of counties to get a billion dollars some damage, we're not anywhere near that amount, thank god. What is the doomsday scenario that you prepare for? Maybe flooding, extensive flooding. I suppose a big wind event, but that's kind of temporary blizzard And okay, we might get a blizzard as we did back in the eighties. But what's the one thing You're like, Wow, if this hits, we're in trouble.
What would it be?
I think the biggest thing is similar to what happened in Montgomery County a couple of years ago on Mother's Day, which would be that large scale, multi vortex, multi county
tornado that would come through. Because of our population density, you're we're pretty much completely developed in Hamilton County almost and so if anything like that happened in Hamilton County, we would have incredible both initial the initial response would be intense with trying to help rescue people, and then of course the short term stabilization if we have Friday and temporary housing, and then of course long term recovery,
which would be one of the most challenging things. And long term, both short and long term recovery is where working with our state and federal partners comes really into play to ensure that we have a system nationally that can assist the county in its recovery.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was thinking as you're talking there, Nick, the seventy four Xenia tornadoes. Some people like a xenio iiO flattened to decimated, but there are several touching down in and around cbg SO and much less populated than seventy four than it is today. But imagine having those kind of tornadoes in Hamblin County. The results would be
absolutely mind boggling as far as the death and devastation go. Nick, You're in DC right now with this task force, and it's the reform or introduced I guess reform, but it's the FEMA Act.
What is that?
What's that do?
So the FEMA Act is really an attempt to work with Congress, and it is they're looking for a companion bill in the Senate, but so it has passed the House committee. It's an attempt to fix the system, reform the system, not do away with the system, both including
FEMA and the system as a whole. And so what it would do is, oftentimes counties post disaster have to find the money, borrow the money, funt the money to pay for a disaster recovery, and then eventually, within months or years, you finally get reimbursed by.
The federal government if you get a federal declaration.
And so what this would do is it would turn it more into a Once you create the estimate of what it's going to cost the recovery, FEMA would provide grants immediately, so that because every government struggles depending on I mean you're talking hundreds of millions of dollars that the government would have to find to pay for these
projects upfront. So would reform that process. It would also for survivors of as is, create one application for all There's there's dozens of programs available to people post disaster. So this would create one application that would go to all the agencies and the other entities that assist so that they don't have to go to multiple websites or
multiple phone calls. Another thing that it does is it provides a loan interest payment release, so if a government does have to take out a loan, that you can claim that interest as part of the reimbursement from the federal government. And then and then finally it works with FEMA to create a public facing dashboard. So this is the accountability piece, the transparency piece, so that people can see where the funding is going, what their government is receiving,
and what their government is spending and on. So that's really really important with public assistance.
Yeah, and you're advocating for universal disaster application, that makes sense. You should be a portal. You go in, you fill it out, and all the agencies go to there to get the information they need. The fact that you have to go to each individual agency for aid is at this day and age, which is insane.
Correct with with the advent of speaking candidly with AI and other things that can analyze data and really help you walk through which programs you're eligible for whether it's a loan or it's a grant, that's critical.
To residents, and and and our our citizens are already.
Stressed out from having their property damage or maybe that maybe they've gotten hurt or family members have died in the disaster. So this is one way that the federal government can assist with relieving that stress and trying to help our residents recover.
Does this suggest the fact that we've got to reform this, Nick Crossley, that counties don't know where their applications stand in the whole process right now, Are you just like kind of left in the dark.
It's it's a it's a tedious process to be to be candid, and it always has been. And I don't know that that's if anybody's fault per se, because you know, you have to have accountability while you're asking for these funds. But I think one of the key things to point out is that federal declarations are the are the are the one percent, if you will, of declarations handed out across the country. Most disasters in the US never qualify
for state or federal assistance. And so when you're when you're talking about this kind of event, this is the extreme This is the Montgomery tornado on Mother's Day a few years ago. This is the both Montgomery County a few years ago on Mother's Day, and then of course the city of Montgomery tornado a few years several years ago. What a couple of I think, yeah, ninety nine, you're right.
And so these are that level of disasters. So you have both extreme impacts to your residents and your citizens, and you have extreme impacts to the local governments. And a major disaster can cripple a local government. And so this is an attempt to work with Congress on a reform process because there is a role for the federal government in helping our communities recover from disasters. I mean, as you know, these are our tax dollars that we're
using to help communities recover. And and in my belief this is this is why one of them we formed a union, you know, two hundred and fifty years ago for many reasons. One of them was in bad times as well as good And this is why this declaration process is critical and a FEMA is really critical to the country's resilience.
Does this and FEMA is one thing, but what about mutual aid? Does that impact that at all.
It's it's not really impacting this.
So mutual aid is that initial response I was talking about, and that's where we all come together, our forty nine communities, in our in our local neighboring counties, and also the states that if we need that immediate response, that mutual aid is virtually automatic to make sure that we can rescue people and get them out of harm's way. This is more looking at the short and long term recovery so that so that communities and our residents can recover hopefully as quickly as possible.
Nick Crosley's the Hambling County Director of Emergency Management Director Emergency mand for on the county's in DC, part of a task force to try and reform FEMA. Because third of all US counties experienced this is twenty twenty three, one third of all counties in the United States experience at least one federally declared disaster that exceeded a billion dollars in damage. To put that in perspective in today's dollars, these Xenia tornadoes from seventy four would be well over
one point five billion dollars today in today's dollars. To show you the scope of this thing, and that's happening a third of all counties, which is mind boggling itself. And it sounds like, based on a whole bunch of factors, weather change included, that these things are getting more frequent and more intense.
Oh, definitely, And I think again also the density of Hamilton County today versus the Montgomery Twitter ninety nine versus other disasters that we've had. Everything is impounded. And then of course in today's world, with the cost of goods and other things going up, in the cost of flavor, it's even more increased. And so it'sticle that we share this recovery process with our federal and state partners.
Well, Nick, you're calling for this reform right now, but disaster damages are closing in on two hundred billion dollars right now, and that number continues to climb for the reasons we talked about.
Is FEMA even equipped to handle all this?
Oh, I definitely think because when you think FEMA, you think of the entire federal goverment.
It's the same thing with the county has an Emergency Management agency, but that's that's ten people the county. The agency works with all of the other agencies and departments in county government and state to respond to a disaster. It's the same thing with FEMA. So FEMA has X amount of staff, X amount of programs, but it works with the entire federal infrastructure and then of course with the Congress to allocate the funds. So I think they're
more than capable of it. I think that it is definitely time for some when we've been calling these for these reforms for many, many years, that we have an opportunity here with the Fixing FEMA, Fixing Emergency Management for Americans Act, the FEMA Act, that to make these changes and make the process more streamlineding more helpful to at the end of the day, the local residents and governments of the United States in.
The reality is we just said, I think it was Michigan and Wisconsin. I believe that had their FEMA disaster claims denied long after the event occurred. And is that because of the reform we want here?
Is that part of it? So you know they if you're talking about the recent denials, I mean, so it's either one of two things. It's usually because the the you have to reach a certain level, So there's a dollar amount you have to reach and damage and affects the citizens residents, and if you don't hit that, then you don't qualify for the federal decoration. Which is why most disasters are not assisted by FEMA. They don't they
don't receive federal dollars for the recovery. For example, the flood we had in March did not did not reach the level of federal assistance. But I think that here recently there has and more of a push to push
that responsibility down to the local government. And obviously that's debatable whether or not whether or not they should do that, but but I think again there's a role that if we meet the statutory requirements to receive a federal decoration, that we should states should receive that federal declaration.
Nick Crosley, head of the Hamlet County EMA here is in d C lobbying the federal government to approve the FEMA Act FEMA Reform Act that is going to streamline the process here to make it easier and quicker to get relief from damages. When indeed we have a natural disaster, and that could be here in Hamlin County, tornado flood, possibly an earthquake, who knows we're near a fault line at any of that could possibly happen.
But you're doing it a the same time the government shutdown.
Does that?
How do those two things work well?
So you know, while the members are not in session, they are on the hill, and so I have meetings set up with Sanator Marinos often and Centator Houston's office, and we'll be stopping by and chatting with them about the the FEMA Formact. So they're all still here working and so we just wanted to have that conversation while we were here.
Yeah, and we've had criticism about FEMA's response times in bureaucracy. And that's one thing for a government to Hamlin County, City of Cincinnati, State of Ohio. But when it's me, it's my house, my domicile and it's damaged that that's the taxpayer right and you again, I'll have these agencies looking out for you. But that's that's a concern. It's the big bottleneck. Have you experiencing things personally in the course of doing your job.
I have, I have seen it as part of my job. I have not personally had you know, my home damage right right by a major disaster. But I've through my career, I've worked from Kansas to California too. I've been here in Hamilton County for ten years. I've seen the impact of the slow response and slow recovery and the bureaucracy, and so I think we're trying to speed that up with with accountabilities built in so that funds are used correctly.
And I think again, the whole folks of this entire thing is so that residents can recover faster.
And the other element of this is shocked me, Nick, is that there's a provision in here for a loan interest payment payment really from love. Our counties currently have to take out loans to cover disaster costs wile waiting for FEMA money and then have to taxpayers have to foot the bill.
Of the interest. Is that a thing?
Yes, so yes, So Again, when you're talking these billion dollar damages, these billion dollar disasters, then in some cases counties have had to take out loans in order to because you have to you have to get moving right,
so to speak. You've got to recover bridges and roads and water treatment systems and sewer treatment systems, and so this is the kind of it's the backbone infrastructure that they're trying to fix, and so they've had to take out loans, and so this has been an ongoing argument discussion with with FEMA about helping with those interest costs because we're simply waiting on the money that we have been awarded, but it's takes so long that they have to get moving because you can't leave a sewer or
water treatment system or a bridge.
Out forever, right, Right, If this act passes, the FEMA Act passes, what's the timeline for handling countency changes? Specifically, what would be your top priority? Then they do what they're supposed to do or what you're asking them to do. What do you need to do at your end?
I think our end would be educating. Once we both educate ourselves on what's the new process, right, what changes have come into play, make sure we understand them, Communicate that to our elected leaders across the county. So I have forty nine communities with forty nine councils, so to speak,
and so we'll be educating them on the process. So we know that if a disaster happens and we receive a federal declaration both for that can help residents as well as local governments we can get them into that process as quickly as possible, and so it's our job to make sure we're that bridge between the victim so to speak, and the resources that are available.
Yeah, something the easiest thing to do is make this grant based rather than reimbursement based.
Right, I mean, it'll be you know, they'll once the FEMAC passes, they'll have to put in the face their policies and procedures. But again, the key that we'll be watching for is to make sure that when it's done that it's speed The intent is to get the money out sooner and speed up the process. And so we'll be monitoring that with the National Association Accounties and our state partners to make sure that FEMA does that.
What's the level of support like on the Hill for.
This, So it's bipartisan. So the Infrastructure Transportation Infrastructure Committee in the House passed it I think fifty sixty three, so it's bipartisan support in there. And so again they're working on that. You have to have the companion bill in the Senate, so they're working on getting sponsors for that.
And so I think disasters are a political disasters affect all states, all communities at at a given time, and so it does not know political boundaries, and so I think that hopefully we have a really good chance and also working with the administration because they have definitely called for for FEMA reform since before President Trump was elected. So we hope to well to line right up with with his with his efforts.
Who are the three clowns that voted?
I have no idea. I was looking at that some boys get.
Them to buy fors and go at it. You know what I'm saying doesn't make much sense there. What's the timeline for getting to implemented?
I don't know.
So again I think they're, you know, in the shutdown doesn't help, but I think that they're they're working to try to get the Senate Companion bill done and then it just has to go through the process. And you know, things are interesting in Congress right now, all right, as quickly as possible.
Nick Crossley, Hamley County Director Emergency Management, I hope to never talk to you in your professional capacity when you've got your helmet and your state of Ohio, your county jacket on and stuff like that. God forbid, it's going to be a bad day. But Nick, I'm glad you do what you do and I appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Great to chat with you, Nick Crosley. Yeah, kind of a.
I mean, it's interesting to think that God forbid we have a natural disaster that we now have to borrow money and pay interest on that just to you know, give people money in order to live, to survive. That is a huge hole. And fortunately you have bipartisans support for this whole thing. I mean, if we got money for foreign countries and you know, redoing the White House, Okay, great, awesome, Well how about fixing FEMA? You guys, no wonder Congress
has such a low approval rating. Scott's loan seven hundred ww.
Willy gives me hope, and these days we can all use some hope. Willy is here for you, no matter how lousy my day is. I know I can count on Willy to turn things around here, to soothe your fears. I wish I could find a man just like Willie, like the great.
American that I am.
He uses lots of big words. I use lots of big words too. It's almost like we're twins.
All you have to do is listen to me the great amountic Bill Cunningham today at twelve noon on seven hundred w l W.
Have you taken your family to dinner recently?
Have been shop stack? This is all Worth Advice with Andy Shaffer. Oh man, you smell that. It smells like money. It smells like money. Has just come in to the conversation here, Andy Shafer from all Worth Financial.
I can smell the money through the microphone this morning. I can smell it.
I thought that was just false.
Scott.
Well, I'll tell you what you'd have some you're in high cotton if you've got money skinning the game. Of course, a couple few days of records or market highs right now, it's been incredible.
What's driving all that?
Well, I mean a lot of things are going on right now. You know, first of all, we're pretty you know, we're getting some decent inflation numbers. We had the CPI last week on Fry with a consumer price index, which
is a measure of inflation. And you know, we haven't been able to get a lot of data since the government shut down, but the CPI is one of those where the government says, well we need this number to be able to adjust the cost of living adjustment for Social Security and they're certainly going to keep an eye on that and make sure that they have that in place. So, you know, we're kind of looking at what data we have available to determine what the FED is going to do.
The Fed's meeting today, we're going to get a decision tomorrow at two o'clock and the FED Chairman Powe has a press conference immediately after that, and it does seem likely we're going to get a quarter percent cut. Investors enjoy that because what that means is when you start to cut rates, that encourages spending, It encourages borrowing. You know, it makes companies a little more flexible to be able
to hire. And so what the FED is doing is they're starting to attack the labor market to make sure that it stays pretty healthy. And you know, in addition to that, you know, we're seeing you know, from a political standpoint, we're seeing some going on tariffs, and you know, with Donald Trump meeting with President g at the end of the week this week, it seems like there's some
positive progress there. And so all of that, you know, leads to investor optimism, and that's kind of where we are right now.
Yeah, all right, and it's been a hell of a stretch right now. For sure, we'll see what happens. And I know those the numbers you're talking about were delayed because of government shutdown.
Yeah, they were delayed a little bit.
Now, we did have headline prices rose point three percent on the core, which excludes food and energy. But that's really what the FED looks at because they don't believe that they can impact food and energy prices. And so when you see these numbers that say, okay, well you know raised point three percent year over year, Well that's still higher. Yeah, but you have to understand how inflation works. It doesn't mean that prices are coming down. What it
means is is that they're going up less fast. And so, you know, the FED at this point feels pretty good that inflation right now is you know, it really hasn't been significantly impacted by the terraffs and things are starting to cool. The other thing that I thought was really interesting is we're finally seeing shelter, which is the largest comport component of the core inflation continue to cool. You know, we saw that that rents just rose point one to
three percent. Primary rent increase just ato point two percent, and so you know, when we start to see housing prices come down, and I think the fact that we're going to see rates cut again is going to cool.
It even more. You know, that's pretty optimistic from the fence perspective.
And people see this and go, how can that be that the market's doing so well?
And let look at they're going to cut SNAP benefits pretty soon, and the cuts to SNAP and the Americans the Affordable Care Act and people are going to have to pay you know, twenty eight percent more for their health insurance or the same cran we're in benefit season. How can all those things be true at the same time. And it illustrates I guess for everything and try and I that this is a disparity between the haves and the have nots, the rich and then everybody.
Else to some To some extent, I think that it is challenging.
You know.
You know, when we go to the grocery store, you see prices that are, you know, pretty high. That's probably one of my biggest bills. We cook at home all the time. We go to the grocery. Meat prices are particularly high right now, and so you're thinking, you know, how is all of this possible. Well, people continue to have jobs and there haven't been significant cuts in the labor market at this point. So if you have the ability to continue to earn a way just going to
translate to spending. And furthermore, you know, people that have investments in those that have retirement plans and retirees and their accounts are continuing to grow at fifteen percent every year. That generates a decent amount of wealth to where you can continue to draw an income stream and continue to spend. So, yes, prices are continuing to be higher, but people are still able to earn a wage and the job market is fairly stable at this point.
Yeah, you look at that and go, okay, well that that makes sense right now because it's a small percentage of the America and three hundred million people you're talking about, you know, one point to one point four people or I'm sorry, forty two million on snap benefits right there, and there's three hundred million Americans and say, okay, well, as a percent it's not that much, but it does have an impact on economy and you're in a personal
economy too. If you look at the price of things you just mentioned b for example, For the first time I can remember, I was at Costco of all places, I looked at some beef and when I'm not paying that right, I'm not paying that well. And I think there's a there's a point to that, Scott.
You know during COVID, when certain products were a little bit higher in price than others. You know, I enjoy a bot sandwich, but when bacon is eight dollars a pound or whatever it was during that period of time, yeah, I'm going to go without. And so, you know, people still have the ability to make decisions on their spending, and that's really where it comes to play. Just because prices go up, you still have the option and choices to make smart decisions with your spending.
Yeah, I did see this that AI is now starting. Well, we've seen it cost jobs. But Amazon's going to cut fourteen thousand people, and online education company CHEG is going to cut half of its eight hundred employee workforce all because of AI. And so the looming threat that it poses is starting to become reality.
There is some cuts that are going to be coming because of AI. I think there's a lot of industries that are going to be affected more by AI. However, we're continuing to see AI also developed jobs. We have a lot of jobs that are increasing because of AI and the tech sector. We also have a form in Saudi Arabia right now where the Oracle co CEO Mike Cilia basically said, hey, the next stage of private data with AI is private data and merging them with leading
AI models. And the thing about it is is that, yes, we've been through industrial revolutions, We've been through different work revolutions. When the Internet was originated, we thought that that was going to be a collapse of a lot of jobs and we weren't going to be able to you know, find work and things like that. The reality is is that it also creates a lot of opportunities and additional jobs.
So where one one sector might be thinning out a little bit, where are adding jobs to other sectors as well.
All Right, Andy Schaeffer from all Worth Financial, you mentioned the numbers come out the CPI core inflation shelter is the largest component of that.
That's cooling off a little bit. Believe it or not.
Food We mentioned that that's moderates up but still kind of just pulling steady. Things look fairly normalized in flat right now, but the inflation rate is still a sticky three percent. That's above where the FED wants it to be. Therefore, interest rate cuts are coming.
Yeah, because the Fed has the ability to either attack
inflation or pay attention more to the labor market. And the Fed right now feels like, yes, it's a little bit higher than where we want it, but we're comfortable where it is, and the trends are going in the right direction, so they can switch their focus from attacking inflation to basically attacking the labor market and making sure that it remains healthy by cutting interest rates, which we're going to get a rate cut here tomorrow, We're probably
going to get another quarter percent cut in the summer, and it's likely we get another one or two quarter percent cuts next year. And so you know, as an investor, you're looking at it, you're saying, okay. You know, with interest rates starting to come down, that loosens the strings for people to be able to spend because borrowing becomes cheaper,
and not only individuals but also businesses. And so that's where the optimism is from a market standpoint, and that's why we're at our all time highs right now.
Andy Shafer explained to me, because I'm not an economist, most people listening article and I'm kind of stupid too, Why can't you cut it?
Why is it either or inflation or jobs?
Well, think about it this way.
If prices go up and they become you know, we were just talking about the price of bacon, if you increase interest rates, that makes it tougher to borrow, and so if you have less borrowing ability and it becomes more expensive, then that reduces demand. And if demand starts to reduce, then prices come down and follow along with it. When you cut interest rates, that increases demand, which allows for businesses to continue to thrive and hire more workers and help the labor market remain strong.
So that's where it is.
It all comes down to interest rates and how that affects the economy in general. If you continue to raise interest rates, which we did when prices were significantly higher, people aren't going to be willing to spend as much. And that's what it's all about. It's about demand and supply and your basic you know economics there.
The balance of finances.
What this is in the economy basically is that you can't serve all masters you've got to pick the crisis and deal with that and uh and then when the other one we go the other way.
So and that's why it's.
It's it's a certainly a delicate balance. And that's why you know, we talk about soft landings all the time, and you know, the FED can't be too quick with
it and they can't be too slow with it. And the challenge for the FED is is that when they implement either you know, interest rate increases or interest rate decreases, it takes about eight months for that to weave through the economy, so it's not instantaneous, and so they have to be a little bit patient, look at the data, see how those decisions affect the economy, and then adjust from there.
And that's what makes it such a tricky and Denver.
All right, let's get into the weirdness and the imbalance and also the whiplash nature of trade, Andy Schaeffer from all Worth Financial US in China, looks like they made progress towards a deal deal that would pause more terrifikes, start to store normalized trade and I guess more more trades stability. I guess I want to say that is similarly really good news. I think the markets reacted as such.
Yeah, I mean, who knows, you know, I mean right right, well, you know this is what we get. You know, Donald Trump likes President G and then he doesn't like President G. And you know, there's you know, you know a lot of bluster, and you know it sometimes it feels almost personal. But basically where we are with this is that it
seems like cooler heads are starting to prevail. Things are loosing up, and most importantly, I think that both sides are focused on reaching an agreement before the end of the year. You know, this week's progress. It's not a breakthrough, but we have a meeting on October thirtieth between President Trump and President G for the first time in months. And so the fact that we're you know, at sitting together and talking is positive. And again, you know, China
needs our markets. There are supply side type of economy, so they need people to buy their goods, and you know, and and there's a lot of things that China supplies us that is important, you know, to to our path forward from an economic standpoint. So we we do need each other and it seems like things are starting to cool, and that's why the markets have responded.
Then there's Canada that's at the other end.
Of oh yeah, well, you know with Canada, there's there's also a lot of name calling and a lot of bless are there and and the mood is a little bit different there. You know, we we had some trade talks, you know, with Canada. Recently, Ontario ran an ad here in the United States criticizing American tariffs and basically urging a return to the Reagan style uh economic trade balance. And you know, and and that, you know, kind of upset the White House and an upset Washington. Ottawa called
the ad unfortunate but stood by its message. But basically, you know, that irritated the United States, and so it halted progress on steel negotiations, aluminum, agriculture and those are the big things that we trade with Canada. And and and that relationship remains important and hopefully we'll be able to have some cooler rhetoric moving forward there too.
All right, there seems no end to the government shutdown. It's obviously not affecting markets. And how much are that weighs on our lawmakers to get something done? I mean, the markets start to suffer as all the shutdowns that's a different story, but clearly the opposite is happening. How much is it do you think that weighs in their decision?
I think there's a timeline on that. Right now, it doesn't very much.
You know, there hasn't been a lot of official economic releases, so it kind of keeps us in the dark to where the economy is now. If you start to see the limited amount of data that we have, start to move sideways on that and we need a lot more clarity, you know, politicians will start to get together and make a deal. However, you know where we stand right now, there is not a lot of urgency for the government to get back open.
You know.
Right now, you know, Wall Street's going to focus on corporate profits. We're starting to move into earning season. We have one hundred and sixty two large cap companies that are going to report earnings this week. We have a lot of heavyweights out there. They're going to report Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft,
and so we'll see where that is. So right now, investors are focusing focusing on, you know, what are the earnings of companies, how are they performing, and looking at the limited data that we get to make decisions as far as you know, where am I going to invest? And how is the how is the economy continuing to progress?
All right?
What do we got week ahead here?
Uh?
Well, you know again we're a limited, a little bit limited. The big one obviously is the FED meeting today and in the conference tomorrow. We're going to get you know, some trade information as well. We're going to get pending home sales on Wednesday. Thursday, we're going to get our GDP numbers hopefully right because a lot of this is still you know, on the sidelines. Friday is normally a big day where we get personal income, consumer spending, producer
price index, a lot of those bits of data. But as long as the government we're hearing shut down, we're not going to get those numbers.
So we'll see what we get. We just don't know at this point.
He's Andy Schaeffer with all Worth Financial simply Money. That show airs at six o'clock weeknights, that would be tonight on fifty five KARC. Every Tuesday morning, he pops in and kind of check what's going on with the markets and money. So Wall Street looks really really good right now. Government looks to be inapt and all is right with the world. I guess if it comes to your investments now,
the day to day's different story. So keep your eye on the long term prize, which is getting the hell out of your workplace with a little bit enough hopefully saved, to be able to retire at some point in your future. I hope that's true for all of us, sooner rather than later. All the best, Drew, thanks again, have a great one.
Thanks Scott, look forward to talking to you next week.
Willie is standing by. He has returned, he's ready to go. He's champing at the bits. More Cherisa Thiji stuff on the way. We've found out the law firm that's going to look for her reasons that she's been fired after she's fired, and we're going to pay them like forty grand to do that and get a result by the end of the year.
So that's awesome.
You have a police chief who essentially has been fired and now we've hired a law firm to look for the reasons as to why she's fired. It makes sense to you, No it does not. Does it make sense to those high a top city hall, Yes it does, Yes it does. And we have an election coming up, makes it more interesting Scott's loan, home of the best Bengals coverage seven hundred WWDE Cincinnati