4.7.2025 -- NLS -- Pocatello Shooting Fallout, Biden Doubts, and Idaho GOP Tensions

On this episode with Neal and Julie, they dive into a wide-ranging, emotionally charged discussion, starting with the controversial police shooting in Pocatello that has gained national attention. With a deep sense of caution and respect, they examine the complexities of law enforcement response, the impact on the autistic young man involved, and the broader implications for public trust and police morale. Neal and Julie stress the importance of withholding judgment until the full investigation is complete, while acknowledging the disturbing nature of the widely circulated video.

They also tackle Idaho politics, expressing frustration with East Idaho lawmakers for failing to uphold conservative principles, and praising legislators from other parts of the state for advancing key conservative issues. Neal highlights how primary season tends to influence Republican behavior more than general elections and suggests some current lawmakers could be vulnerable to primary challengers.

The conversation shifts to national politics as they critique President Biden's fitness for reelection and speculate on internal Democratic Party strategies, including potential alternatives like Kamala Harris or Tim Walz. They reflect on a revealing moment between Obama and Trump that hints at political calculations behind the scenes.

From local outrage to legislative analysis to presidential predictions, Neal and Julie keep things grounded with personal reflections, honest disagreement, and calls for nuance in an era of snap judgments and viral videos.

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Transcript

Hello, East Idaho, and welcome another workweek underway. We have so much today that we could talk about, and we'll try to get to a good chunk of it, but I feel like we're going to have some lots of leftovers. So I'll just say that if topics were food, the fridge will be full at the end of the show today.

So the legislature is done. We'll talk about that later. We also have a lot happening on the tariff front. Good good good. Good news for Donald Trump as dozens of nations reaching out, wanting to negotiate. We'll talk about that. But there's a story that is taking over right now here in East Idaho. You probably know exactly what I'm talking about.

And I, I don't on days like this, it's this is this is a this is a situation that sometimes is is hard to talk about because 97% of the time I am in support of law enforcement. And I would say in general, I absolutely am in favor of and in support of law enforcement. But as the video of that shooting out of Pocatello went viral all over Facebook and TikTok, all over social media, I watched extending everything that I could to give the benefit of the doubt to the law enforcement responding to that situation in In the Gate City and I, I'm going to preface everything that I'll say and comment about with this before

you arrive at any solid, hard core conclusions, I would hope that you'll wait for the investigation to happen for more information to come out that we won't take up, vigilante approach to this. And that will, give as much room in your mind and in your perception to get a full picture of what happened. That being said, as I watched and I've seen the full three plus minute video where a couple of minutes, even before the police arrived, everything appeared to be fairly stable.

You had the young man lying down on the grass. He had a knife and a woman was trying to to get the knife away from him, but she would step back because he would turn and pointed at her. You had some crosstalk. You had the man on the other side of the fence. He was there, and I think they were genuinely trying to to de-escalate.

And you also could hear the chatter that was not irresponsible at all of the people taking the video. One of them was on with dispatch and another one was kind of describing what was going on. And then you hear the sirens in the distance. And like I said, everything at that point, nobody's life was in imminent danger. It was just a situation that needed to be handled.

It's easy, and it's literally Monday morning to Monday morning. Quarterback these situations in that. And I will like I said, I want to double down on my disclaimer in talking about this because maybe we will find out more information that sheds greater light on this and will have, brighter and broader understanding of what's going on. But the sirens are heard in the distance, and before too long, the police show up, they park their cars, they get out and almost immediately the guns are drawn.

Multiple officers, guns trained on this young man lying down with a knife, and they yell at him to drop the knife. Well, he's autistic, and it's unclear whether or not police officers knew that this young man was autistic. But he gets up and starts walking toward the police and they open fire. Multiple multiple shots and I'll warn you, some of this audio may be graphic to some of our more sensitive listeners, but I'm going to play just the lead up, up to this, for just a few seconds here.

And, this was, the lead up to the shots that were being fired. Now, listen, you know, you can.

Oh, yes, sir. And you know that. Get in your brain. Yeah. I'm watching from you. Yep. Okay. Oh, no. No, no, I saw oh, right.

You. Shots fired. You can hear the screaming in the background. And the young man who was shot, the suspect immediately goes down, as anyone would, with nine shots going in to them. Now, I know quite a number of law enforcement, and I appreciate the relationship that I have with law enforcement. And when I talk with them and you ask them about hypothetical situations all the time, and they would tell you the first effort is to try and de-escalate a situation to lower the level of danger.

And in a situation like this where you had a fence, you had a barrier, you those cops lives were not in immediate danger because you did have that fence there. There's also something about a 28ft radius that someone can come at you, and if they get within 28ft, they can even with a knife, they can be right there and be a lethal threat.

Well, but when there's a fence in between, that complicates that 28ft rule of thumb. I don't even know if it's 28 rules. You read a lot of things on social media, and I'm not a police officer. But I would also say, and I actually texted a law enforcement friend last night, asked him about this video, and he said it was the police officers that closed that gap.

They they were the ones that got within that radius because the young man was lying down on, on a lawn. So the proximity was entirely determined at that point by the police officers. I also wonder at what point what in what situations do you use a Taser? And don't you use a Taser? In what situations do you use a beanbag gun or not use a beanbag gun?

I think there are other non-lethal options as well. Again, I want the full truth. I want everything to come out. But everything that I've read, even from people heavily involved in law enforcement or with a law enforcement background who have watched this, they've said this was a bad look. My heart goes out to the family of this young man.

Clearly, they've struggled with him. I think that he's, it's been challenging for them. And, they're going to have medical costs that they have to worry about now. Still probably worrying about this young man's life as of last word last night. Did I read that he was in critical condition? I have not seen an update on his condition this morning.

And, let's hope that he survives this. And, also, this may sound a little weird. I would say include in your prayers the families of these officers, because it's very likely this story is probably going to be a national story. Already the independent out of the UK has picked this up. And, I as we see lots of police shooting type stories, they, for whatever reason, go very viral.

And I don't know why that it I could, I could guess, but not today. That this will probably be something that the department and the city is going to have to deal with. And a lot of people who are totally innocent are probably going to be feeling the the pain of this one. I don't like telling somebody else how to do their job.

I really don't, and I'm not going to tell the any police officer how they should do their job. But I will say there are justifiably a lot of questions about this, and a lot of people watch this and think, I don't think it had to turn out this way. There did not appear to be any other threats that they needed to worry about.

Young disabled man who did not really appear to be all that athletic and, yeah, like I said, I don't want to tell them how to do their jobs, but this is a very, very tough situation. And I also think it's very important that those of us who have a generally very favorable posture toward law enforcement, and I do I do not envy the situations that they get put into, including this one.

But at the same time, if if we want to have credibility in supporting law enforcement, we can't just blindly support them in absolutely everything they do. There still needs to be oversight, there still needs to be scrutiny, and there still needs to be honesty about when they mess up. And that is super important for for those of us who do care about law enforcement, how they do the job that they do, that when they do screw up, that they don't get a free pass because that doesn't do anybody any good in the long run.

So again, we'll wait and see. I'll reiterate what I said earlier. I'm hopeful that we don't take on a vigil. I mean, social media is sort of vigilante anyway, but what I'm talking about is that we don't, you know, call for there. I mean, there was rumors out there that they had murdered this kid and that, you know, that they know.

Stop it with that. Okay? We know what we know, and we see what we see. And let's really strive hard to not jump to slanderous conclusions. And I do see some of that on, on social media. So let's let the process play out, get as much information as possible, and hopefully we can process this in the coming days and weeks with level heads.

So and we will open up the phone lines later in the hour, because I know many of you probably want to weigh in on this. In other news, great phrase. In other news, the Idaho legislative session has come to an end. That's something I think we can all celebrate. This one was a marathon this year with a significant amount of accomplishment.

And I will say that this was a grand legislative session with multiple accomplishments when it comes to water. When it comes to medical freedom. Well, now I hold back. One of those got vetoed, but the legislature actually passed two bills in behalf of medical freedom, which is great. We had bills that dealt with DEA. We had bills that dealt with parental choice in education.

That may be the piece of legislation I was most emotionally invested in. And watching it passed this was, quite frankly, a legislative session for the ages. And if you are a conservative, you should be happy. This is a in my mind, you know how Reagan had the well, half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. Remember that we got way more than half a loaf.

We probably got 80% of the loaf, and there's always more to do. So don't don't be disappointed that there's more to do, because it's like laundry. There's always going to be more to do. But this was a very, very productive three months and change for the Idaho Legislature. And now actually right around three months, considering when they started in January.

And this, I believe, is the result of Idahoans choosing a more conservative legislature, now we have some things to talk about and to address. And I want to say that if you were to look among the very solid Republican majority and I mean numerically solid Republican majority, there was not a lot of help given from East Idaho's lawmakers.

I don't know why that is. I'm not sure why the concentration of Republicans who vote with Democrats quite often comes from one particular part of the state, and that part of the state happens to be our part. They're not terrible people. They're not immoral. They're not evil. I certainly want to temper my language here, but I will say they are not representing their constituents well, and they're not representing what they say they believe in by their affiliation with Republican Party.

Well, either now, I said early on, and I think it was even before the legislative session that we're we're not going to get conservative votes. They say they're conservative. They might even think they're conservative. But they warm up to the left. They play footsie with the left, they vote with the left sometimes, not all the time, but but quite often they do.

And they're not conservative at best. They're moderate at best. So I don't know what to tell you. Quite frankly, I would say that you get what you deserve when it comes to the ballot box. These are the lawmakers that East Idaho, elected. And I would say, let's do a little hypothetical here before I take a commercial break.

If Idaho at large, the the voting body could vote on all the pieces of legislation that passed this session, they probably would have voted with the majority in nearly every single one. Their representatives did not, meaning they really weren't that well represented. I don't know how to fix it. I really don't, because incumbency plus money plus religious affiliation, all of those things add up to an advantage that's very difficult to overcome.

In fact, I will say the electorate will forgive not being representative or not being represented. I should say if the incumbent has money and goes to the right faith, and to me, I belong to that faith by the way. But to me it's a it's a sad reality that our nearly sole metric, it doesn't have to be all of it.

I think that that that that's a that's a to me, it's a nonstarter. If you aren't going to vote the way your constituents want you to vote, you're fired. At least that's if you could fire them in the traditional way. But that doesn't really matter. And that, I think, is what's frustrating. But I will end this segment with gratitude.

Gratitude to the good, solid conservative Republicans from other parts of the state that were able to overcome the moderate votes of East Idaho's lawmakers. Now, that's hard to say, because these are people that largely I like, that we interview, that we have on. We're going to take a break. We'll come back at 826 on Newstalk 179, 831 on Newstalk 1079, Neil Larson along with Julie Mason.

And if you'd like to reach us. (208) 542-1079 Julie, your thoughts? So we've heard it's actually 21ft that that's that's the I wonder what 21ft. What's magic about that I don't know I had seen that number reported as a couple of different probably three different ways. And I don't my my question to that is does it vary from police department to police department.

It might. Yeah. I don't know. I was thinking about it while you were doing your monologue and when you and I texted about this yesterday, I had a pretty firm stance after us talking through it this morning. My two firms, my two firm situations have not changed at all. Okay. First one is the fence makes a difference.

Yeah, I, I said that from get go. If there was no fence there you have the ability for that suspect to lunge at you. And but this fence made a difference. My second thing is the silence by the Pocatello Pocatello Police Department is not helping this situation. Yeah I would agree. And the the press release that came out immediately following the shooting was very thin very, very thin and in fact has some details wrong in it.

Continues to call the suspect a man. Yeah. When the suspect is being reported to be 16 or 17 years old. Yeah. So which one is correct. It is his family that's saying he's got h on on social media. So I if you have I mean there's a couple reasons to make a follow up statement a because this is blowing up.

Yeah. B if you got things wrong in the initial statement correct them. Yeah. Get out ahead of it too. Yes. You know yes. That's yeah. So those are still my two things that I am just very dissatisfied with. So I would you know, I don't know if it's the mayor I don't know if it's the police chief. I don't know if it's a Pio.

I'm not sure who you have do this, but they do need to have some kind of public press conference and even lead it with. You might be disappointed with how little information we can share with you right now, because this is going to be investigated and we need to be careful. But then say what you can. Let's clear up a couple of that.

Yes. Yeah. And then you just say that. Yes. Yeah. But yeah. And look this is not a good morning for anybody. It's not a good weekend for anybody. As far as this situation goes. But these are the moments when I agree with you. I think they've got to step up and they've got to address some of this because it is blowing up.

And, we understand if you have to be careful about what you say or that there are things you can't say, absolutely. But at least be there. And you and I are there very congratulatory and thankful. We have an attitude of gratitude towards our law enforcement. They do amazing work. They do things I would never want to do.

And and to be honest, they're understaffed in all areas. Yeah. So, all of that being said, there is a requirement. It's the same requirement we have in other jobs. I if you're a teacher, you can be very unhappy with your salary or the contract that was negotiated in your district. You still show up and teach kids.

Yes. Okay. So despite the issues of maybe being understaffed or maybe being undertrained or whatever, you still need to show up and do the job to the best of your abilities. I also want to address the people who said, well, you don't understand. They didn't know anything that was going on other than there was aggressive person in the previous hours.

I have talked about that. I made sure I was very objective and listening to what was being communicated to dispatch. And then you can hear on the video that dispatchers then communicating that to the officers. Absolutely, 100%. They were coming in hot. Yep. Absolutely. With the information they had, they were doing that. But you had time to assess also.

Yeah, you had 15 seconds before you started shooting. And there is a fence between you and the suspect. That's that's the question I need answer answered is why did you go so close to the subject when there was a barrier between you and the subject? Yeah. Somebody else messaged in and said, well, their duty is also to protect the surrounding people.

Okay, well, there's a fence between the suspect and the surrounding people as well. Yeah. And so I, I agree that is their duty. Absolutely their duty. But that leaves a lot of unanswered questions about the choices that they made. Well, and someone texted in what about pepper spray? Because they have pepper spray that can shoot a stream, you know, 20ft, 30ft, I don't know, but, lots of non-lethal, options prior to and again, I don't know what the policy is.

It's Pocatello police. I don't either. You know, Julia, I, as I watch this, I think I was disturbed along with everyone else just watching the video because it's hard to watch. And my my first thought was sympathy for the young man. Just, you know, he's got autism. He's not had an easy life. I understand there's a language barrier there as well.

And English is not his first language. So that could have created a problem. But I also tried to find reasons to have grace and sympathy for the police officers. In recent years, they've had a couple of their own get shot. So maybe the morale inside the Pocatello Police Department is a little different, that every single officer wants to be able to go home to their family at night, and when they've seen 1 or 2 of their own get shot could have easily been life threatening and and taken their lives.

Maybe you approach these volatile situations in in a different way now that that doesn't excuse what they did, but it might help explain why they approached it the way they did. I think there's plenty of reasons why they approached it the way they did. I think you can absolutely find those reasons. Like I said, they were coming in hot with the information they had.

Yeah. And and I would rather them come in hot than come in flat footed and have someone die. I also and this is another part of it, we the fact that the young man had autism garners a lot of sympathy, understandably, for people who understand this story, I don't know that police officers should be expected to behave differently.

A threat is a threat that they have to neutralize. I just think that there were other ways to neutralize the threat without using such a dramatic, option is for handguns, you know, emptying, you know, nine rounds into the kid. So, but but I, I look at it and I'm thinking, that's a that's a point to me.

That's that's less relevant because officers have the right to defend themselves as well, whether a person, whatever condition a person has. Right. Does that make sense? Oh, totally. Yeah. Totally. I it makes the story more tragic. Yes. It doesn't change the elements of how the officer should have reacted. Yeah, right. A threat is a threat. So it does make the story more tragic.

But if they don't know this young man has autism, all they're viewing him is as a threat. That's it. Yeah. And and so that's one of the, you know, the grace, the portions of grace we have to give. I think for me, there's a lot of questions about the policy and how they are. They are trained. I, I think you have to really ask those questions.

What's the policy on when someone has a knife? Do you use other options besides? Again, I want to know that policy. Yeah. Other policy is is when you approach a situation, do you ever use the car as the barrier? Because they didn't in this situation. So I would love to know how they're trained with that. Other situation, like there's so many questions going into this, like a big one.

A big one for me is was there a lead officer and if there was a lead officer, did he act appropriately and make the calls or did they just react and all? Shoot, even though there's nine bullets and four guns drawn, we don't know where all those bullets came from. Some of those officers might not have shot. Maybe two of them didn't shoot.

Yeah. So we need clarification on that. And we need to know if there was a lead officer and did he make the call or was it just gut reaction? Yeah. Yeah. All questions hopefully that get answered in in an investigation. So tough situations. Again my thought as much criticism is has been leveled and we've criticized the police at the same time, I don't envy the situations they have to show up and within seconds have to decide how they're going to handle it.

Yeah, that that's a job I don't think I'd ever want to have to do, because the the implications can be so dire and dramatic. Absolutely, absolutely. And, just as a quick update, the young man is in the hospital as of last night, was listed in critical condition, and they have amputated his leg. Yeah. Due to the entries received in the shooting.

Yes. Okay. All right. Well, I'll pray. Pulls through. Yes. So. All right. (208) 542-1079 quick break. We'll come back after our news break here and we'll take your phone calls. We'll talk about the legislative session. Trump and the tariffs are bringing dozens of nations to the negotiating table. It's working. Even though the media won't tell you that it's working.

We'll be back. All right. It's 846 on Newstalk 107. I, Neil Larson along with Julie Mason. So Julie just had a call off the air from. I'll be careful how I phrase this, property owner who owns property very nearby and had a loved one who lived in one of the nearby areas and, asked him. We asked him if the police had been called there a lot before, and he said, no, not not really like that, not that they knew of or anything, but, it was just pretty shocking.

They initially thought the young man was dead because I think he was just lying there in the, in the yard after he had been shot, but then later found out that they got him to the hospital, got him some life saving treatment. And I guess he's still it's it's hard to know how he's doing. So. Okay. Did this caller mention at all there loved one watched this go down.

Well, he said they were actually going to get some, some pizza, some food and saw the police cars. Okay. And that's when kind of everything obviously went down after that. So they didn't watch the actual, shooting happened, but they later watch the video and they were shocked at how quickly the bullets started flying with no, no real attempted de-escalation.

Okay. Interesting that you would be directly connected to the area, getting in your car, going to getting pizza and obviously it wasn't so crazy that you, you weren't alerted by a screaming and everything else that was going on. Yeah. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. I think people who haven't watched the video, because we have received a few texts, and I'm wondering if people haven't seen the video.

They've referenced things like, well, when there's a whole bunch of people standing around that you have to protect, there's not a whole bunch of people standing around. Yeah, I, I would challenge anyone who is just quick to make a judgment here to actually listen to the video and really pay attention and make sure you do have the sound turned up, because it does give you, context about what's being said to the dispatcher.

It gives you context about the lack of yelling. One of the one of the big, takeaways for me at the beginning of the full video is the man who is leaving the yard. He is not in a hurry at all. No, he does not appear to be worried, imminently worried. And when they show up the he may he used to just stand there.

Well he he does. But the 17 year old Vincent is his name. Is that right? No. Okay. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. I got to remember Victor year. Yes. Okay. So Victor's lying. He's lying down. And look, we can all like I said we could all Monday morning quarterback this. But what if you had officers standing by ready to take care of something.

But yet another officer saying hey bud what's going on. Rather than showing up drawing guns and screaming drop the knife. Like I feel like there could have been a much gentler approach to this saying, hey tell me what's going on here. What, what what's happening. How come we got a call and I, I just feel like there were a thousand different ways to handle this.

And they picked the very worst one. Yeah. The man who leaves the yard shuts the the chain link fence gate. Yeah. And then just stands there against the fence so he doesn't even try to create more distance between him and the and the suspect during that time frame. Cops pull up. Man still stands there against the fence. He's not even worked up when the cops pull up.

No, I think there's a lot to be understood by just watching the video. One paying attention. Yeah, yeah. Agreed. Let's go to the phones. Caller. Welcome to the show. How are you? Hi. Good. My name is Kurt. I have a question. There's been a legislative issue. Sorry to change the subject here. Legislative issue on vaccine mandates. And I understood the governor vetoed that.

And then I understood there is another updated bill, and I haven't had time to follow that. And I just wonder if you could give me a quick update on that situation. Well, the follow up bill passed, and I think it's pending it. The governor could still decide to sign it or not. I believe that's where we're at. There was a lot happening over the weekend.

But that follow up Bill did he did he end up signing it? I we're not Julie's not sure either. I was going to I was going to counter you on that. But now I'm wondering if. No if it's not quite signed yet, but they have he has five days. They have the agreement of the governor to do it.

Okay. And I just wondered what his reasons were for vetoing that. Well, he what he said when he vetoed the first one because he did he did issue a statement and he said that the way it was written, his understanding was that schools could not send sick kids home, that he felt like part of the medical freedom was if parents wanted to to have their sick kid at school, they could have that.

And I, so that's why he said he vetoed it. The new bill that was passed addressed that issue. And so we you know what? I actually had the same thought earlier this morning and I thought, okay, I don't know that he's signed it yet. They've signed he died. But but the clock's ticking on him being able to sign it now.

Okay. Thanks a lot for updating me on that. Appreciate it. You bet. Thank you. But again, I think I've updated you. But we're going to we're going to I just did a real quick search. It it references three news articles that says Idaho lawmakers have passed a bill prohibiting medical and vaccine mandates across the state. It now awaits Governor Little's signature to become law.

All right, so it's sitting there waiting. We'll see. It's 853 on Newstalk 1079 final break. We'll take more of your calls when we come back.

It's 856 on Newstalk 107 nine. Julie, I'm going to hop on over to Town and Country Gardens today to get the four step lawn program and apply the Hue Mates to my lawn, probably this afternoon. The Hugh Mates are already doing the bow chicka wow well on my lawn because there you go. They got applied on Saturday. Well, good.

So yeah, excited because we've hit that spot. It's a great time to go get it. Go ask questions. They will give you complete directions that you can then put reminders in your phone. And you also get a discount if you buy all four steps together. So show up with a good idea of how much lawn you need. Covered.

Yes. And, while you're there, check out their seeds, check out their hanging baskets. And they also have, like an entire room. They call it the jungle room with, all their house plants in there. It's just great. It's great spot out there. Yep. X experts there at Town and Country Gardens. Go ahead and visit them south of Idaho Falls.

Yellowstone highway, across from the beer plant. Okay, let's go to the phones. We have a caller. Caller? We have about one minute. Go ahead. Yeah. The shooting, regrets. What happened? I tried to use as a teaching moment for my son. I want to say, I said, hey, your first warning is the sirens. You know, you you stop doing anything remotely, you know, that may seem, you know, out of character or you know, what you're shouldn't be doing it.

You know, when they say you need the officer directions, do anything. You know, there's no surgeon. Okay, you know I don't agree or I don't anything. It just rattling. I live here in Pocatello and, you know, when everyone was say anything like this happened to their kid or anybody. No, no, no you don't. Yeah. You know what it is.

I, I don't know how well you can teach an autistic kid to take that kind of advice, but, but again, it is good advice that, you know, not I don't think you should view cops with abject fear and distrust, but I like this caller said, I think it it can be a teaching moment. It absolutely can for for kids who could listen.

I mean, we talked a lot with our son about putting his hands on the dash. If he gets pulled over. Yeah. All right, that's our one. It's 859 or 2 coming up. Our two underway. 907 on a Monday on Newstalk 1079, you are fully invited to call in to talk about what is on your mind to the Stones Automotive group calling text line (208) 542-1079.

Obviously, the Pocatello shooting over the weekend has been a very, very big topic, not just here, but online on all the local and regional media outlets. I see that AOL now has a story about it. I didn't even know AOL was still around, but it's a national outlet. Yahoo had a piece the independent out of the UK has one as well.

And, I fear it's only ramping up at this point. But if you want to talk about that, you can, if you want to talk about the now concluded legislative session and maybe how you feel about it, if you were to give a letter grade, Julie, to this legislative session, what grade would you give it? Oh, I think it's been one of the more successful ones in our time frame together.

We've been doing, what would this be? The seventh legislative session that you and I have covered together? We're almost at eight years. So this would be the seventh legislative session. Yeah. And, I, I would put this one right up there, maybe the top when it comes to independent freedoms being secured. Yes. Okay. We've had other big things happen in other sessions.

That's where if I was going to do independent freedoms being secured you get an A. So I'm giving them an A as well. I think it was spectacular. I'm thankful for the conservatives in other parts of the state, for them being numerous enough to come through and deliver the kinds of legislation I think East Idahoans want when it comes to parental choice and all of the other, other issues.

And I would say it positions Idaho really, really well in the in the coming years, there was a story I don't even have. The headline doesn't really matter. But the head of the IEA was groaning and griping about the legislative session. That usually means good things for your kids. When the IEA is griping about something, it means your kids are have a better, better chance at doing well educationally.

So I would agree with that too. And I would say the conservative conservatives are doing their job. If the IEA is complaining. Yes. So we have that and so many other issues too. People reminded me there was one that came in about, well, you forgot about the pedophile death penalty. Bill that that got passed, that one probably is going to get a court challenge.

But I like the bill and I like the law. It's now a law. And so we don't have to call it a bill anymore. So I like that. It just overall you're like, oh, yeah, it's like that Christmas that you had when you were a kid and you got about everything you wanted, and then some stuff you didn't even really fully expect.

I feel like that was this legislative session. We got parental choice and education pretty good. Solid. Bill. We we got the pedophile bill. We got the medical freedom bill passed. And our understanding from Carrie Hanks is that the governor has agreed that he will sign it because the legislature was going to sign or would not signing day if they didn't have that assurance from the governor.

So we're expecting a signature on that bill, as well. Does that somewhat negate the argument that I and the pharmaceutical companies own Brad Little? The fact that he's going to sign this bill? I don't know, because you never know how much of, another run at the office is playing into this. I don't know, I would hope so, though I don't want to always come to this microphone and be cynical.

And I think I am a lot and I think that it's a warranted response because there's plenty of things to be cynical about. Yeah. However, I do want to give, Governor Little the benefit of the doubt because he has done some things that perfectly align with conservatives. And so I maybe this is a shift in his ideology a little bit going, I got to move away from big pharma.

They they're, they're not, what the residents of Idaho want and I need to represent them. I am just going to have hope that that's what it was. Well, and maybe the initial veto was what he offered them, saying, okay, look, I, I tried this, but where they address the, the publicly stated concerns that I have and I've got to sign this second bill.

So, I just heard from another lawmaker, that lawmaker says, that they feel like this was, an an A session. An A-plus session. I do too. Like, I look at it, we had great. Sometimes I think there's fiscal bills, and sometimes I think there are social and cultural bills. I think we won on a lot of it.

Massive tax relief, hundreds of millions of dollars in tax relief this, this year. So I, yeah, we shored up the concept of no DACA at universities. That was a big win. I know that there was a federal push for that, and I totally get that. But the states need to control their their own interests. Yeah. Oh go ahead now.

And there was also the the flags not in classrooms that were just going to have limited propaganda in classrooms. I think that's a win. Yeah. There also and this was a law from a previous year. But the judge that upheld our abortion trafficking bill, that was one that Barbie Heart was heavily involved in that, that the judge said, yeah, you can absolutely characterize that as kidnaping a kid and taking them across state lines.

So that's a that's another it was a judicial win, but it was a judicial win for legislation. So good. Three months, almost four. And super, grateful to the lawmakers for their hard work. I'm also super happy for them that they now get to go home for a minute. Yes, I I'm sure they were tired. I'm sure they're ready to be done in just a minute.

Yeah, I'm sure they were too. So, Julie, the question I wanted to ask you, though, and I think this is a pretty important discussion for us to have, and I've mentioned it before, and I'm not a guy that wants, like, I don't try to control, like, I don't a feather, but it's live and let live. When you're talking about lawmaking, that vote doesn't belong to you as a lawmaker.

That vote belongs to your constituency and you are in good faith supposed to represent your constituency. There are a number of East Idaho legislative seats that did not happen, that if the voters at large could have voted on these bills, they would have voted the other way than their own lawmakers voted. That's problematic to me. And that's when I, I guess I get more interested in this when I see a lawmaker not acting in good faith.

That and maybe they're compromised in some way. Maybe they're benefiting their own industry or their own pocketbook. Maybe they have ideologies that are just different than their than their constituency. I don't know what the reason is. And maybe there are times when your constituency is so dramatically different than when then where you are, you could explain a vote that's counter to that.

But we had multiple lawmakers casting multiple votes that, I promise you, were counter to what their legislative districts would have wanted or voted. They did it in a non election year. So a year and a half from now, when it's time for another reelection, many of them will have forgotten. And I'm I look forward to the even numbered ledge.

I look forward to even numbered legislative years, because that's when Republican lawmakers vote more like Republicans, because they know they have a primary coming up. They know they have a general coming up. They're never really threatened in the general, but in in the primary, they've got to vote a lot more like, like their constituents want them to.

So I guess you could argue maybe we get them about half the time. Yeah, I would say this I will never ask for, consistency at a level where you're not allowed to to stray. You might have a bill that you just feel is going to be challenged in court, so I can't vote for it. Or you don't like the wording so you can vote for it.

But what I don't appreciate is the frequency at which these East Idaho lawmakers are voting with Democrats. And that's a really easy one for you to look at. If you're the lawmaker and go, yeah, why am I doing that? Maybe it's time for you to check your ego, because we know several of them have an overinflated ego, and it's time to check that ego and start going.

Am I doing what I've been hired to do? You know, because look at how I voted this this session. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true, that's true. I, I had a thought because we have this interesting story out of Montana where nine lawmakers. I, I don't think they've technically been censured, but their party voted to say, look, we can't force them to not call themselves Republicans, but they won't get any party support.

They won't get any funding from the party. And we encourage the media and others to not report them as Republicans. They did as much as they could, legally. So I guess my hypothetical question would be, you have Republicans, and our definition of that is anybody who wants to call themselves a Republican, but we have blue checkmark Republicans, like like Republicans that are like, okay, you can call yourself a Republican, but it's the party that can put the blue checkmark, like, like X does, but put the blue checkmark to to verify you as not only are you a Republican, you're a party supported Republican.

I like USDA certified beef like I. Yeah, but because I'm I'm tired of the of of these Republicans that often vote with Democrats, but they're feeding at the trough of advantage that an affiliation with the Republican Party brings them. Like that's not a trough you should be feeding from. If you're not going to align yourself with the party and the ideas of the party.

What I also don't understand is how the voters can't see at what level of arrogance they're feeding at the trough. Yeah, man, they're arrogant about it. It's not like they're doing in hiding. They're doing and celebrating. Yeah. And at some point the voters have to wake up. Yes. Yeah. They do have to wake up. I, I would think part of the issue, Julie and I, I, I don't know if you heard this part of my, my monologue, but there are layers to electability.

Being an incumbent is a really important layer. Having lots of money is an important layer in this quite religious region. Being of the right faith is another layer of electability, and that may be an uncomfortable thing to talk about, but we have to talk about it because it's important. It's relevant, right. And then having the R behind your name is another, another layer to that.

And, but you don't have to vote like a Republican to call yourself a Republican. That's frustrating to me. Yeah. What I would say is I don't know if people will forget next year when the primary season starts you and I won't forget. And we've got the internet that lasts forever. Yes it's true, it's true. Now I think that we and I want to be careful how I phrase this in the wake of what I just said.

I believe that we need to run good, solid ed people that have funding behind them. I don't expect that they be of any particular faith. Okay, I don't for me, I'm going to be agnostic on that. I think you can win being of any faith, but you got to have the other other ducks lined up, okay? You got to be a true conservative.

You've got to have good funding. You're not going to be an incumbent. But that's okay. I think that all of these East Idaho lawmakers are pretty vulnerable if they're challenged by the right. Cannot. Do I say it? Do I say it? Sure, sure. I think we have to be careful about running candidates that are too closely aligned with the Idaho Freedom Foundation.

That, sadly, is a liability. And even though I agree with a lot of what they believe and what they put forward, if that's your alignment, just know that's probably losing you more votes than it's gaining you. Right. And it makes you almost unelectable against a more mainstream moderate. So I have no problem with you saying it. And if it's uncomfortable for some people, I would I would challenge you to ask why that's uncomfortable.

Start reviewing what the if has done and and ways that they have clearly helped the party. But there have been ways that they have harmed the party. And so you have to take that into account. Okay. Also, I want to say to those who want to run, be prepared to work your tushie off. Yes, that is what's going to be necessary.

We there are races that were barely lost, won in the upper valley and one in in Bingham County. Both of those the moderate candidate won. Yes. I appreciate how much hard work was put into those races. That's what it took to have the race be that close. Yeah, I understand you're going to have to put in that level of hard work if you choose to run.

Yes. Yeah, you you are you're going to have to you're going to have to put a lot into it. But it can be done. We just have to attract really good. Yes. Solid candidates. Yes. And whether it's deserved or not Julie I'm, I'm going to state something as it is not as it should be. I believe that if you are, if aligned you are easily put into the nut job category.

And that makes you harder to elect. Yeah. Even if it's not earned you, it's. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. It's I'm not saying it's earned. I'm not saying it's not earned. I'm just saying the fact that you are, if aligned for the love of all that is holy, please do not put your Freedom Index score on your brochure.

In most neighborhoods. I think that's a wise campaign advice. Can I, can I? I know we're going to get hate for that. We are. But I think it's wise. Campaign advice. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Should we take a break? Sure. 923 (208) 542-1079 if you'd like to join us on the program this morning, we'll be back after this. Hey, guys, how are you?

Why is if a bigger deal than I actually, Is it a bigger deal, or do they just message and have more out of state funding? Is it the out of state funding? Yeah, I mean, that's part of it. I will say this, I think the IAF has been fractured because we're now seeing a rift between, like, Ron and Marie and Nate and Heather Scott, and like, there used to be a core, you have people who are livid at Tammy Nichols because they feel like she's sold out, because she's not as closely aligned as she used to be.

I think Brian, Lenny also like so there's been this rift there, because I think you had a certain segment that required near, unanimous compliance. If that makes sense. Like, like you, there was this expectation that you were just always compliant with what we wanted. And if you didn't, they may give you one mulligan on an issue, but more than 2 or 3 things and you're on the outs with them.

And I think I Aki's not, not like that. They play the PR game a whole lot better than that. I would also say that there is this deep, deep desire. And if for you to be a superstar and to have your name thrown everywhere, that's not always the best word. No. Sometimes it's far better to be a little silent in your leadership.

Yeah. So I think, the offense stepped in the wrong direction that way. And then the demand of obedience. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's all star level. Well it is and, and I that's, that's the issue that, that I have is you know who I think the smartest lawmakers are, are the lawmakers that are just tolerable to the offense.

And there aren't very many of them Barbie hearts a good example I think Julianne Young was a pretty good example of that too. She was not even though they tried to characterize her as this far right whack job. She didn't have the highest if score. Wendy Harman is a good example of that too. Like she's delivered on big, big issues for the conservatives.

But she's conceded some ground on, on I would say lesser issues and I don't, I don't think you want in, in some districts, some districts that you're fine. If you're an incumbent you're going to get reelected no matter what. But I think in certain districts, it's better off if you, you're if you have an 83% with the freedom Index, that's going to be way better for you than if you had a 98 or a 99%.

Yeah. I would agree with that. That's not every district though. And that's not us hating on the the fundamentals of the if meaning we share a lot of conservative values. Yeah. With the if we don't share leadership style. Yes. And we don't share the I don't want to say extreme because that has been so negative in it's just the excessiveness.

Yes. Of the position. Yeah.

928 On Newstalk 179, Neil Larson. Julie Mason (208) 542-1079 is the number if you'd like to join us this morning. Julie, I thought this was hilarious. Brooke Rawlins, who's the ag secretary or. No, she's heading up the USDA. Is that right? Anyway, here's what she had to say. She was talking with Jake Tapper. You've got two days of data.

Everyone, especially on your side on the left is not on the left, but at the end of the day, listen, this whole concept. All right? Thank you. This whole concept is about rebuilding an American economy around. And the video was even funnier to watch. Was she? She openly laughed at him. That he would say, I'm. I'm not on the left.

Okay. Jake, you know, Jake didn't have that crate of a weekend. I the clips that I sent you from him. Yeah. Weren't that awesome. We had this clip where he tries to pretend, like gaslight and say, I'm not on the left. Yes, you are so clear. Stop. Gaslight. You know, here's all I know. You have more to say, but just because, as every 10th question you ask is a hard question to a Democrat, or it's a journalistic sounding question that doesn't make you not on the left.

Yeah, right. Okay. Don't. Yeah. Don't even pretend with us. We all know you're on the left, so just let her make her little. It was a little jab. It was a jab. Better make the jab. Don't gaslight the American public. But he did it. He gaslit the American public in his interview with Tim Walz as well. Yeah. Pretending like, well, it was you guys who were looking at Biden and saying he was perfectly fine.

Oh shut up. You didn't call him out? No. What did he say? He was a egg tapper. Characterized it as a stutter. Yeah. Yep. But now that he's in, you know, now he's interviewing Tim Walz, and all of a sudden it's the Democrat Party that ran cover for Biden, not the journalist. Surely you talk for a minute. I'm going to find the stutter clip because, yeah, that I you know what?

That's a really good point. He was part of the gaslighting operation. Absolutely. And you know what? They the journalists call each other out. Did he play the clip of Joe from Morning Joe? Saying, and if you don't f and believe this or whatever he said, you're a, you're, you don't you can't handle the truth or I can't even remember how he said it, but said it was the sharpest and keenest Biden he's ever seen.

And now we have these books coming out that he couldn't even walk without fluorescent tape on the floor to tell him where to go. Yeah, sharpest and keenest. Sure. Y'all lied about it, and and but now you're going to gaslight the public and blame it on the Democrat Party. It was actually actually Jack Nicholson that said you can't handle the truth.

Yeah, but yeah, but but Scarborough was something a city. Yes. And if you if you don't. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So, wait a minute, I swear. Wait. Yeah. No, I don't have the Jake Tapper stutter clip. Hold on. I'll find it. I'll find it. But let's play the Tim Walz clip. Really, really fast. Here. This is, Yeah.

Here's what Julie was talking about is horrific, don't you? But we don't do a good job of telling that. Don't you think your party needs to acknowledge that President Biden was not up for the job of running for reelection, and that this was a major mistake? He made that decision. I know, but you all went along with he not that he was up for it and he wasn't.

And everybody saw it and the country rejected it. Yeah. Well, I look history will tell us to go back on that, that that very well could be the case. Jake. What I'm concerned about is learning from those lessons. I would hope we would never do it again. Make a mistake, make sure we go through, get someone. But I don't know where it helps us going forward.

I certainly am deeply concerned that Donald Trump is going to lead us down. A horrific look, thank God it's tariffs that he said Donald Trump listens to. No one remember Donald Trump has statements about I don't think nuclear war would be that bad. I guess we're lucky that he went after tariffs instead of that route. We have an issue in this country that is going to impact us.

And okay, so annoying right there. So incredibly annoying. Not just because Jake Tapper is not taking responsibility for covering for Biden, but here you've got walls. Who's saying, oh, yeah, history will tell us we should have done it differently. But I don't want to talk about that. Let's talk about big bad orange man Trump and that he wanted to put us in a nuclear war.

Okay, well, that's not the question you were asked. I guess that's the only dodge that you have at this point. Yes. Yeah. It is. I don't understand this Tim Walls thing, because all of the polling suggested one of Kamala Harris's biggest of her many liabilities, one of her biggest liabilities was Tim Walz. We just didn't like him. But here he's he's out acting like he's going to be running for president in in 28.

And I'm like, we already told you we don't want you. We already see how weird you are. Remember that projection when you were saying JD Vance is weird? And then we started looking at you and went, oh who's the weird one? Yeah, we know you're weird, Tim Walz. Nobody wants you as their leader. You know, it's funny. If you went to I won't say a name of a restaurant, but let's say you went to a local smorgasbord and they had rancid, putrid pork.

And nobody ate it and nobody wanted it. Well, they aren't going to want the rancid, putrid pork in four years either, so it can revitalize it. Yeah. There's, there there's just some things you don't rehab. And I think that Tim Walz is one of those guys. There's not there's not people can't change themselves dramatically enough or quickly enough to become likable after being that unlikable.

Yeah. He's just not up for prime time. I've also wondered, okay, I just thought this are they going to just put Tim Walz out there right now while they're struggling so bad just to fill air time? They know he's not there. Guy. But we've got to have somebody fill air time right now. So we'll throw Tim Walz out there, let him take all of the bullets.

And then as we get closer to 2028, we just completely discard him, throw him out like trash. May. And maybe maybe and maybe there is that element of put out all the crazies right now so that when Gavin Newsom or somebody else shows up, they look like a grown up. Yeah, it seems logical compared to them. It could be.

And I also think that, then the Democrat Party would be the let's face it, the Republicans would be too. They would be devious enough to go to Tim saying, Tim, we're we're thin. You you're going to be the guy, I think. So we need you to go out on a on a campaign style tour for the next year, or to get your name out there and introduce yourself to the American people, because we just don't have a deep bench like they would deliberately groom him to do that, so they could bring someone much more likable along.

Absolutely. I think they would. A and they have to do it with Tim because you can't do it with Kamala. You're right. There's there's no no one's going to buy that. Kamala is running in 2028. People are going to buy that. Tim Walz could potentially run in 2028. So he can be your your cover for right now. Yeah.

So speaking of Kamala, let's play this clip. This is Jonathan Allen. He's an NBC news reporter. And he's openly reporting that Barack Obama was actively working behind the scenes against Kamala Harris. So, so, President Obama absolutely, did not think that Joe Biden should continue, according to our sources, close to President Obama. And, he also didn't want Kamala Harris, to, to be the replacement for Biden.

He didn't think, that she was the best, choice for Democrats. And he worked really behind the scenes, for a long time to try to have, a mini primary or an open convention or mini primary leading to an open convention. Did not have faith in, her ability to win the election. So, and as it as it turned out, she she didn't win, but, he was really working against her.

In one moment, he had set up a phone call with Congressman Clyburn from South Carolina, on the day that Joe Biden handed off the baton to Kamala Harris and Obama had set up a call with Thorburn for, like, 530 that afternoon, and Clyburn thought to himself, this guy's going to try to rope me into the open convention thing.

I better get my endorsement of Harris out there fast. So this is a short conversation. So that's. And when Harris talked to Obama on the day the Biden handed off to her, Obama was unwilling to give his endorsement that, well, you know, Amy. Okay, so this is fascinating because not only does this show because you had Barack Obama, working against Kamala Harris, you know why Barack Obama is not stupid?

Like I think we all came to know Kamala Harris and what she was like. She wasn't likable. She never had a positive relationship with the American people in terms of the polling. And Obama is not stupid like he he knows how elections work. However, I think it's telling. And this reporter didn't reference this, that Obama's opinion is held in such little regard that Clyburn decided to preempt his conversation with Obama by getting out and endorsing, Harris first, like Obama is a former president.

Like he I mean, that's a weird move by Clyburn. If he respects Obama, which I don't think he'd it just shows Julie what a dumpster fire the Democrat Party is right now. Yeah, the the discontent of the own members of the party with how how Biden was put in and who they chose to put in. And why didn't they do it so much quicker than what they actually chose to do it.

It does lead you to believe that there was potentially a plan A that felt maybe the, the attempted, assassination on President Trump was plan A. I'm I'm not I'm not pointing fingers at anybody. But it makes you wonder if a plan A failed and they had to go to plan B, which was boot Biden and Kamala and and Obama was never on board with plan B a yeah, ever.

Yeah. Okay. Correct me if I'm wrong because I might be having, like, the wrong remembering of what happened here. President Carter dies. Obama and Trump sit next to each other at the funeral. Yeah. A lip reader says that Obama said something to Trump along the lines of, yeah, we knew it wasn't good, but what were we going to do?

Do you remember this? Okay. I didn't know that he said that to Trump. I thought he said that to Joe Biden. After Biden got out. Is that when the lip reading happened? Okay, that's the situation. Yeah. It's when Obama was talking to to Biden. I think the Obama Trump thing was they were talking and then they both laughed because I think Trump said something funny.

And Kamala turned around and looked at at Obama like she's irritated that here two guys yakking it up and one is her mortal enemy. You know, like she was irritated with Obama, that he was being friendly and even joking with Donald Trump. Yeah. So in either one, if the if the lip reading happened with Biden and that happened with Trump, because that definitely happened about them laughing together and Harris having that look on her face.

It all of it goes to show Obama is not that freaked out that Biden is the or excuse me that Trump is the president and they both go to show it's almost like he expected it. Well, I think so. And I remember that kind of being the common headline that all this rhetoric about Trump being a threat to democracy, it was all a lie.

You you wouldn't sit and yuck it up with, with a dictator, a threat to democracy at a at a state funeral, like you just wouldn't do that. So, it was all a narrative. They were trying to craft yet another in a long line of false narratives about Donald Trump that they and and I think at that point, Barack Obama knew Trump's going to be the president.

You can't stop him at this point. Yeah. So all right, let's go to the phones. 285421279. Hi, caller. How are you today? They're, Well, I'm doing fine. I, have a few comments about that 85 mile an hour speed limit. Something over tea time pass. Had cars coming towards this car behind me. Broke out to get around and came back in line about 15ft in front of my founder.

And I now have a beautiful rock chip in my windshield because he was in a big ass hurry. And I think the speed limit, if you were in charge of of of of determining what the speed limit should be, do you set it at 80 miles an hour, hoping that everybody's going to be comfortable at 85? Or do you say that this is a rule?

Well, thank you for the call. We're actually not talking about any of that today. But I appreciate you calling in. We've got to take a break for the news, but we'll be back after this. Hello, Facebook. You did it again. He did it in Thursday's interview. He said hello to ma'am and he said hello, ma'am. Hello? Hello, Newman.

Hello, Newman. You just did it again. Hello, Facebook. Yeah. Oh, it was so nice yesterday. So instead of having a family get together for every single birthday. Because now the family's big enough with grandkids and kid in-laws. We're like, you know what? Every couple months we're just going to have a birthday get together. And we'll celebrate everybody's birthdays around that time.

Anyway. That was yesterday. And I think the kids spent far more time outside on the trampoline. I put a slide. I, I retrofitted a slide on to our apple tree treehouse. So the little boys love to climb up the ladder and then slide down the slide up the treehouse. So they had so fun doing that yesterday.

And yeah, it was good. Anyway, it's just really nice. Did a bike ride yesterday. You walked like 43 miles. Yeah, it's six and a half, not 43, but same thing. I, I didn't do one of my standard loops. I ventured out yesterday because I wasn't on a time limit. So I knew if it took me longer, it was fine.

Which was fun. It was fun to go somewhere different. So good. And it was beautiful. And I was just one of many out walking. Oh, yeah. There were our our neighborhood was a hive of activity. People walking by. So. Yeah. It's good. I like this weather. I mowed my my front lawn on Saturday. Good. It was ready.

Yeah. Yeah. It was. I'll probably turn on the water this week. I don't know that I need to yet but I want to turn it on so it, it so that the you mate settle down into the soil. Yeah. I'm surprised I don't have that stutter clip in. Yeah, because we have used that before. I found it on an old media eight story.

I'm kind of glad we're not focusing exclusively on that Pocatello shooting. Like, that's a I. I think the fact that we're not focusing on it, for me, because I was thinking about this in the last commercial break. Yeah. I think that that shows how conflicted everyone is. If you were set, set, set on an opinion, you'd be willing to call up and say it.

But I think they're really conflicted. They want to give the cops the benefit of the doubt. But if they've watched the video, they're like, I know, like, I'm just tough. I'm looking for things to give them the benefit of the doubt. And I just. It's hard. It's difficult. Yes. David, Dave Portnoy is going after Trump because he's lost 20 million in the stock market.

And I'm like, just write it out. It's the stock market always rebounds. It will. Well, what a what a financial analyst would tell you is it looks on paper or on your computer screen like you've lost it. But if you don't sell you haven't lost yet. Right. That's true. Just don't sell. Yeah. In fact, try to buy something during this time.

Yeah. Okay, so we gotta go back, and here we go. Here we go. 947 Newstalk 1079 and, the Town and Country Gardens for step loan program. That's all you need to know. So just stop it with the YouTube videos, hoping that you find the right little piece of advice that's going to help you, stop looking all the stuff up on Google.

It really is this easy. Figure how much, lawn you have square footage wise. Go to town and country gardens with that amount, and then they will help you with however much of the four step program you need. Hum a couple of rounds of fertilizer and then a winter Icer. That's what your four steps are, and they'll help you get the right amount.

For most average sized lawns, it's going to be between 150 and 200 bucks. Once it's all said and done, which is far, far cheaper than experimenting with a bunch of different stuff or hiring an expensive lawn service. I mean, this is very, very easy. And then you apply it according to the schedule. They give you a sheet of when to do it and how to do it.

And it's that simple. It's so simple. Really, really, really simple. I don't even know if we can say that enough really in front of simple for that. Also, they've done a great job of figuring out exactly what works with the Idaho climate and soil. And so you might see something on YouTube that's really great for Kansas. But at night it's different soil in Kansas, it's different temperatures.

In Kansas, it's all of it's different. Different pollen, different everything. And so trust the experts who have put together this program that has absolutely helped both of our yards. Mine especially because it was on it was dying. It was on life support when I bought that house. And so I have really revitalized the lawn with the four step program.

Yes. Yeah. You'll not just find that they've got, all the seeds that you need to plant your vegetable garden, your flower garden, they have, they have hanging like house plants. I'm not sure how full their greenhouse is quite yet, because it's still a little bit early, but once it's in full swing, that's where you're going to get all of that stuff as well.

Town and country garden south of Idaho Falls on the Yellowstone Highway across from the beer plant. So. Okay, Julie, the media clearly is highlighting any Republican, any conservative who will criticize Trump for the tariffs. Like that's what they're what they're doing. Trump already said we're going to go through some turbulence here. This is not going to be easy.

We're going to see the stock market fluctuate here. But when we get on the other side of this, we are going to be poised for an incredible economy. Already, it was announced and I'm going to play this clip. This is Kevin Hassett that over 50 countries now are wanting to negotiate with America when it comes to the tariffs.

I got a report from the USTR last night that more than 50 countries have reached out to the president to begin a negotiation. But they're doing that because they understand that they bear a lot of the tariff. And so I don't think that you're going to see a big effect on the consumer in the US, because I do think that the reason why we have a persistent long run trade deficit is these people have very inelastic supply.

They've been dumping goods into the country in order to create jobs in China. Okay, all of these countries know, Julie, that America is a massive global customer of their goods. This is clearly bringing them to the table. I, I have issues with people that that flail and cry and scream and run around with their hair on fire when the stock market drops and we can directly tie the stock market drop to Donald Trump's tariffs.

Okay, there's no getting around that. That's just what's happening. However, when the stock market climbs back up and it will in the coming months, they're going to be very, very quiet about it. We won't see the other side of the coin where they're saying, you know, I was wrong about that. I'm glad to see it coming back up.

So a couple of things don't don't get all worked up about social media videos that you see. I saw one circulating on TikTok over the weekend of a woman who said her grocery bill doubled. That's just a lie. That is what? Yes, but there will be people who will believe that. So. So make sure you you approach things with some common sense.

I would absolutely say that. And then I would also recommend, you know, if you have money in the stock market, which by the way, not very many people do. Yeah, it's actually a much smaller number than you would think. Yeah. But if you have money or retirement in the stock market, take a breath. Were you retiring tomorrow if you weren't.

Calm down. Yeah. And if you have the ability and you like to play the stock market, now's a great time to buy is bargains everywhere. So yeah, I mean, common sense dictates that it's gonna come back up. It always does. We've had big crashes before and you know, the people they tie their emotional state to the Dow and like it's like that ought to be on the ticker.

You know when the Dow drops and the S&P drops, my level of happiness drops like this is these people, they're they're tying their well-being to this. And I'm like, just relax. As Julie said, just take a breath. It's going to come back. I would recommend just don't look at it. I got a statement on some money that I have invested in the stock market.

It wasn't, it was like 4 or 5 days ago. I didn't even open the statement. Yeah, it's not going to do me any good right now. I'm not going to open the safe because you've got it in there for the long term. So yeah, the daily fluctuations. All right. 953 Newstalk 179 quick break. We'll come back. We'll wrap it up after this.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Hey, what's going on over there with you today? Nothing. Okay, guess what, you guys. I want to do twin. But they didn't. And Houston won. And there was some controversy with that game, especially with the final foul that was called on Cooper flag. Yeah, whatever. But I leapt up to number two in our author's pool with that Houston win.

So Euston place Florida tonight. If Euston wins I win March Madness in the office pool. And you were like two thirds of the way. My gosh I was so ugly. Yeah. It was so ugly. And yeah that one. And it wouldn't have, it wouldn't have happened if there had not been all four number one seeds in the final four.

I wouldn't have been able to leap. But the fact that all four seats were in number one seeds were in the final four meant that those were the people who were picked to win. Yeah. So we all kind of leveled out at where we were. Yeah, there were only two people in the entire 17 brackets who picked Houston, and I picked far better than the other Houston bracket bracket.

And so I am sitting at number two. Yeah. Now, who do I think's going to win Florida? But if you'd like to cheer for Houston in behalf of Julius, here's the thing, though. I also thought Duke was going to win. I totally thought Duke was meant to win and it looked like they were going to. So anything can happen.

That's the beauty of March Madness. Anything can happen. One of our listeners pointed out that Euston coach coached Montana Tech back in the 1980s, so he was the head coach there. See? So if you need a reason, he's a regional guy. Yeah, yeah, hit. That program has been completely revamped at Houston, too. It was not a thriving program for several decades, and they have brought it around through the last couple of years, like 5 or 6 years.

And pretty amazing to go on and beat Duke like that. And yeah, they're a really good come come from behind team. It does take them a minute to warm up. Yeah. They're not quick out of the gate. It takes them a minute to warm up. So if you're watching tonight and they get down early, don't let that discourage you about a good finish.

So because of I'm about to be a twerp here, but because it's Houston and Florida, can we call it the Gulf of America game or the Bowl? Yeah, the Gulf of America Bowl. Sure. I don't care. Go right ahead. Although Florida's probably on the other side of this peninsula. But yeah, you know. Yeah. I did a quick look up to see how big these schools were, because sometimes you get schools that make it a quite a ways, that aren't even the size of, like, BYU Idaho.

Yeah, right. But these two schools are huge. Yeah. So it's it's fun for their fan base, big public schools, you know. Yeah. Small schools like I think Villanova's pretty small. They've had good years before. Let's do Grand Peaks. Welcome back okay. We'll have just enough time. I'm not really going to be able to eat dinner tonight. It's going to be a weird dinner.

Yeah, but whenever that happens, we still have Grand Peaks meatballs. Okay. In the freezer. Gotcha. So, yeah, that's on the, the agenda.

Ooh. Eating protein. That's sad. That didn't work, did it? Anyway, hey, I'm all down, though. Let's eat some protein and beer. Protein from Grand Peaks is just better. Julie. It is. I bet you have an Easter dinner coming up. So quick reminder. Yeah. Grand peaks has got some specials going on on their ham right now, so if you need a ham for Easter dinner, make sure you get one that is high quality and Grand Peaks is where to get that at Jeep Prime meats.com.

If you just go there you can see all that they have. There's also a very friendly voice behind their phone number. If you call and you need help placing an order, they are going to treat you like gold and it is grilling season full stop. So make sure you look at all the all that they offer with their grilling and all of their packages and get yourself all set up for this summer to eat protein.

All right. That's going to do it for the show today. Everyone have a great Monday. Julie and I will be back tomorrow right here. We're going to talk with Ryan Spoon tomorrow. He's the guy that called ice on Stephanie Mickelson's family. So that's a seven 3730. All right. See you tomorrow.