4.23.2025 -- NLS -- Labrador, McLean, and the Flag Fight

On this episode with Neal and Julie...

They kick things off with a preview of their big guest—Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador—who joins later in the show to talk about enforcement challenges with the state’s flag laws, particularly in light of Boise Mayor Lauren McLean's controversial decision to fly an LGBTQ flag in apparent violation of state law. Labrador explains the limits of his power in enforcing certain legislation and shares insights on collaborating with other attorneys general to challenge what he calls racially motivated policies.

Neal and Julie also discuss the broader implications of symbolic gestures like lowering flags to half-mast, triggering a flood of listener texts about whether they'd lower their own flags for figures like the Pope or Jimmy Carter. The pair reflect on the significance people place on flags, the selective outrage over symbolic decisions, and what those reactions reveal about personal values and politics.

Throughout the episode, Neal and Julie maintain their signature blend of serious commentary and tongue-in-cheek humor, including Neal’s quip about referring to Lori Vallow Daybell as “F. Lee Vallow Daybell,” and a running joke about calling Randi Weingarten “sweetheart.”

With plenty of opinionated takes, live listener engagement, and a high-profile guest, this episode dives deep into the tension between law, symbolism, and personal expression in Idaho politics.

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Transcript

You have actually very, very different parts of our heart. Sweetheart, sweetheart, listen to me. Please don't call my sweetheart. Who does? I'm sorry. My. My dad. Aren't they wonderful? Those lips. Welcome. Good morning everyone. So listen, sweetheart, we have a good show planned for you today, and we've got the attorney general joining us an hour from now, and there's a lot to ask him.

In fact, there's probably more questions than we'll get full answers to because some he either can't answer or we'll just have to be very limited. We know that part of the reporting and the shooting in Pocatello from, 2 or 3 Saturdays ago. So he is going to review the findings from the Joint Task Force. I'm guessing he probably can't comment too much on that particular case, nor should he.

So we'll ask him nonetheless. We'll also ask him about the legislative session, any laws that he's either excited about or that may have raised red flags. We also will ask him about the Boise flag display. He's been very publicly, vocal on that and clear that Boise Mayor Lauren McLean is clearly in violation of the law, and he doesn't have a lot of good tools to enforce that law because it didn't the law didn't come with anything to enforce it.

So, he shares the frustration that many of us do, which is how can this mayor of Idaho's largest city give her middle finger to the law, to the legislature, and there be no consequences for it? So we'll ask him about, that and maybe what civil options he might have at his disposal. So there's that. Also, he popped up in the news as well on a Dei issue.

Apparently there's a group called the Business Roundtable, and he is, and it's kind of a collaboration of businesses, and they're still up to their Di shenanigans. And he has joined, I believe, 14 other attorneys general in an effort to stop this, because it's blatantly racist behavior when they try to enact the, the, quotas racial quotas and, other things like that.

So we'll we'll table all of that for another hour until we have the attorney general joining us. And we'll have a, a good a hearty discussion, with the AG. I'm a big fan of Raul Labrador. We also want to talk today, about, Lori Vallow. Did I I'm sure that you, saw the news from yesterday.

State of Arizona versus Lori Daybell. See our 2020 1-001704001 verdict count. When we, the jury duly impaneled and sworn in the above entitled action upon our oath, do you find the defendant, Lori Daybell, as to the crime of count one conspiracy to commit First-Degree murder occurring on or about July 11th, 2019? Guilty sign for cursing. Okay, so this is not really a surprise.

I think most of us watching, although I have not been watching minute by minute, play by play, moment by moment, coverage of this, because I just can't anymore. I'll be honest with you, I tapped out and I really did about three fourths of the way through the last Dateline episode that they had with her, where Keith Morrison was in the jail in Arizona, interviewing her, and she was dodgy.

She was evasive, she was filibustering. She's doing all the all the things that people who want to cover up, the fact that they helped murder their own children do, she, I said, I think I'm done. Like, I think I'm other than it's important to report the latest to you, but sort of my personal investment and interest in this case, it came to a conclusion in that moment, I don't even think I finished watching the Dateline episode.

I might have maybe I did, I think I did finish watching it, but it it basically was just that this is such an ugly, tiresome story. And that's probably why we have not here been giving you the the play by play of every day. And in the trial it is for some people and there's no criticism at all.

For those of you who do follow it closely, for me it's just been this kind of repetitive thing and I just overexposure. And I got too much of it, and I just had to be done with it. This is probably the the ugliest crime story that, Well, you know what? We got Kielburger up in Moscow. That one's ugly, too.

That's a quadruple homicide. But the the Vallow Daybell saga is about to come to a close. There's one more trial later this summer for Lori in Arizona. I don't know how that's going to turn out. My hunch is, if I were a betting man, probably also a guilty verdict. And then she's back to Idaho, back to Pocatello in the women's prison for what is likely and hopefully the rest of her pathetic life.

And for most of us, that when she gets back and settles in and the only thing she has left is maybe an appeal or two, but no chance really of ever getting out. We can put all of this in the rearview mirror, and I look forward to that. But it certainly was newsworthy yesterday. Is the jury, after, what, three hours or so of deliberations delivered that verdict?

Sometimes I wonder, though, like what happens inside the jury deliberation room? Do they go in and do they have a discussion like this where they say, okay, she's totally guilty, we all know it, but we can't walk back out after three minutes and say guilty. So let's just hang out. We'll eat some snacks. Maybe we'll watch a couple of Seinfeld episodes on someone's, you know, device, and then we'll go back at it.

Okay, I'm probably minimizing it. I'm sure there's much more of a deliberation there. So I don't want to get the angry texts coming in saying, this is a serious process. Neil, you're. Yeah, I, I understand, but I, I'm just saying this verdict did not come down as a, as a massive surprise to anyone. I did think, though, in the limited amount of discussion that we were going to have about this case because Lori was acting as her own attorney, I thought I was going to refer to her as F Lee Vallow Daybell, but again, we haven't really talked about it.

Enough. Lots of politics, by the way, to get to I don't know if you saw Tim Poole in the press room at the white House yesterday. Listen to this. Many of the news organizations that are represented in this room have marched in lockstep on false narratives, such as the Very fine people hoax, the Covington smear, and now what's being called the Maryland man hoax, where an Ms13 gang member, adjudicated by two different judges, I believe, is just simply being referred to as a Maryland man over and over again.

Now, in an effort from the white House to expand access to new companies, you've created this new media scene. So I'm wondering if you can comment on, following this expansion, you've had numerous outlets to disparage the companies that you've had. Sit here as well as the reporters. I'm wanting to comment on the unprofessional behavior as well as elaborate.

If there's any plans to expand access to new companies. Sure. Well, we certainly welcome, diverse viewpoints in this room, which is one of the reasons we have you in here. And there's many new faces in this room in comparison to the previous administrations. We want to welcome all viewpoints into this room. We welcome, unbiased journalists who really care about the truth and the facts and the accuracy.

And you rightfully pointed out the Marilyn Mann story, which I from this podium when The Atlantic published it on that very first day, I came to this podium and said, this is wrong. The press in this room have this story wrong, and we have seen more and more evidence, come to the table that we have had all along.

We were always right. The president was always on the right side of this issue, to deport this illegal criminal from our community. And it is despicable to see the media continue to refer to this individual as someone who is, just a peaceful man living his life in Maryland. This is, was and always has been an illegal criminal, an Ms13 gang member and a designated foreign terrorist.

And the administration maintains our position to deport these individuals from our community. Okay. So, Tim Poole, which good for him for going into that room. And in that context, calling all of them out, this is the whole reason why the new media is so important now. The old media, the legacy media, they are still in complete denial.

Another clip, this is Rayne Wilson's podcast. Stephanie Ruhle from MSNBC was the guest. And Rainn Wilson asks a very good question. And it's about the distrust that the American people have right now. 40% of Americans don't trust mainstream media. Why is that? How do we get here? Listen, we are seeing a huge loss in trust of all of our institutions.

It's the media, it's medicine, it's banking. It's a huge problem because when you think about democracy and all of these pillars, they need to stand tall. They need to stand strong and sort of losing that trust is not by accident. It's by design. If you remember when President Trump was running the first time, Steve Bannon once said, the goal is to blow the whole thing up.

And so I think that you've got mistakes made, okay, blah, blah, blah. She instantly pivots to Trump world and says, this is why we have mistrust in the world. It's Steve Bannon, it's Donald Trump, which I don't know that Steve Bannon and Donald Trump are really all that close anymore. But whatever, I don't you don't ever see them together.

Like you see Trump with kid Rock and Dana White and, you know, all these other people I don't really see Trump with Steve Bannon anymore. Anyway, that's an aside. The point here is look at the track record of the the the legacy media, which she goes on to defend as the last bastion of, I don't know, integrity, the last bastion of holding our leaders accountable.

And my reaction to her assertion is, are are you kidding me? You told us that the origin of Covid was something it was not. You told us that January 6th was something that it was not. You told us that Hunter Biden's laptop was something that it was not. You told us that the Russia Trump collusion scenario was something that it was not, and in many cases, knowingly or at least easily discoverable.

But you didn't want to discover that because that discovery would counter your your narrative. That's I could add to what Tim Poole said, good people on both sides. The Covington smear the the and now you have them continuing in their exact same very predictable pattern that an Ms13 gang member, Kilmer Abrego Garcia is a Maryland man. He's a family man.

And this family man doesn't have due process. And it again, it is a long string of the legacy media telling us things that simply aren't true. And they're either no, they're not true, or they don't actually want to work hard to find out whether or not they're. And they wouldn't even have to work hard. They probably know instinctively what they're saying is not true.

So later, as Stephanie rules defending the pristine ethics of the legacy media, Rainn Wilson, who is no conservative, by the way, if you follow him on social media, I love the guy. The office is one of my favorite, TV series, and Dwight is epic. That character is epic, and I've always been a big fan, but Rainn Wilson himself, pretty liberal guy, which which is fine.

But he he called out in a very polite way. It wasn't highly confrontational, but he kind of called bull crap. On what Stephanie Rule was saying. This is where I would push back when I see this kind of insight and passion being directed at the current administration, and the lack of this kind of insight and passion being directed at the previous administration, where again, I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about left leaning news media organizations were kind of like, la la la la la.

Everything's fine. Look, the environments I mean, look, the economy is great. La la la immigration's not that much of a problem. And really, being Cleopatra, queen of denial. Thank you. Boom. I would be back on on immigration. Okay, so she picks the one thing that she can put push back on while avoiding the larger issue, which is for the four years of Joe Biden, that nightmare that we went through, the media lied about everything.

Everything. And they did lie about immigration. They never characterized what was happening is open borders. In fact, quite the opposite. They would parrot the Biden lie at least early on that, oh, the border is secure. Yeah, I promise you, you will find that they didn't hold him to account. They they told us that Joe Biden was sharp as a tack.

Joe Scarborough, best Biden ever. And if you if you don't believe me, roll the tape. I mean, you remember that clip. So now even Bill Ma, Van Jones, Brian Wilson we can add to the list now is saying no, you guys have been a part of the distrust and I'm not going down with this ship. I'm not going down.

I'm not sinking on your ship of false narratives and, but you got the hangers on there. They're still moving forward. And, you know, I don't know when it comes to an end. One last clip before I go to a break here. Jesse Waters was talking about this very phenomenon. This has become such a big elephant in the room for America right now, which is we have a thoroughly corrupt legacy media complex.

The the major news networks, the, the journalism complex that I think filters down even below the national level. We have regional journalists that just sort of kind of fall in line with the overall narrative and somewhat I don't know if they're fearful of telling the truth or that the truth is just that painful to them personally because they happen to hate Donald Trump.

I, I don't know what it is, but they're part of it. But here's Jesse Waters, a couple of mic drop moments in this. Jessica keeps on saying there's all these mistakes. First, she said, this guy was picked up because you had a bulls hat, and then he has tattoos on his hand that spell ms13. Yes it is. Read the symbolism.

Yes. Okay. What do you a gang detectives cut it up I just and then he's wearing paraphernalia that says the slogan for Ms13. And then he gets caught up in a gang sweep with ranking members of Ms. 13 as part of a murder investigation, then gets pulled over and is suspected of human trafficking, then gets accused of slugging his wife twice.

And she has it on video and suddenly his name isn't Marilyn dad. It's due process as you transition pretty quickly, Jessica, and just say this administration never admits a mistake. You guys never admitted you opened the border for four years. Yes, we took him on. You're saying this guy is right? You're saying this guy's afraid to go home because that's funny.

In 2019, when he was pop, he said he wasn't afraid to go home. Jessica, funny that you're in the due process now after bringing us the MeToo movement, cancel culture and the Trump trials, you can't break into the country and ignore the process of coming here. And then what a process to leave. You cannot put the line to come here and then ask to be put in the line to go home.

If you guys are going to be the defense attorneys for every criminal gang banger in America, after you've allowed the gangs to invade and now say all of them need lawyers, it's going to be an eternity, Jessica, to get these people out of here. Johnny went to Baltimore and the people of Maryland are laughing at you. Blacks, Hispanics, whites.

They think it's ridiculous. What Van Hollen has done to be able to defend foreign rights instead of the rights of the American people. And the slippery slope argument is this the slippery slope you've ever seen? If they deported ms13 terrorists, you're next. All right. He does finish the point, but we've got to break away. It's 827 on Newstalk 179 will continue coming up.

And please don't forget, if you have any questions for Attorney General Raul Labrador, text them in to us. (208) 542-1079. That's coming up just after 9:00 right here on Newstalk 479.

All right. 831 on Newstalk 1079 Neil Larson and Julie Mason, Supreme Court. So Fox had a headline yesterday, Julie, that said, and I think they were simply basing it on the questions and the tone from the Supreme Court hearing, over the Maryland case yesterday that the Supreme Court seems to be siding with the parents. So I didn't hear any of the audio of the liberal justices questioning that attorney, but I'm guessing if they're going to read into the tone, maybe they're very, very skeptical of this premise that Marilyn says, we get to teach your kids about LGBTQ stuff, and there's not a darn thing you can do about it.

Even the liberal justices may not be willing to go that far. I did hear a couple of clips from, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and she seemed to be. It was really muddled. So they wouldn't have been great to play. But the overall tone was similar to people who were trying to say no to the porn in libraries. Bill saying things along the line, well, this is just too high of a bar to expect librarians to be able to do this.

This is just too high of a bar to expect teachers to know what's inside every book. That's not even the argument. I know it was so muddled, but that was the tone she was giving. Is that how can you expect this? This is just part of our everyday culture. Now you're asking too much. The school cannot facilitate opt out when this is just this.

We just do this. We just talk about these things. That was kind of her tone. Oh, okay. Well, this coming from someone who thinks you have to be a biologist to know what a woman is. So I'm guessing her judgment of whether the bar is too high or low is what people are capable of. Yeah, her expectation is probably that the bar typically should be lower than higher.

So yeah. Yeah, I just give parents a list of books that you're going to be reading, and then parents can decide if they want to opt out or not. I mean, it's that easy. Yeah. Well, and I would challenge these individual states to try to do something like the porn in library bill, which is don't put these books on shelves that five year olds, six year olds and seven year olds can get their hands on.

Yeah, yeah. But when when people don't know what a woman is, it's easy for them to hide behind stupid and, like. Well, we we can't expect people to do that. We can't expect people to show up with an ID to vote. And we can't expect teachers to know what's in the books they're teaching the Democrat Party, the party of low expectations.

You know, all those black people in New York, they don't even know what a computer is, right? Yes. We can't expect librarians to know that cartoon depictions of explicit sexual activity. It might be a little too much for kids. We can't expect them to know that they have no way to determine what obscene material is. Yeah, I have not been in the local library for a while.

I wonder if you still have to have a sign, an affidavit to go to the top floor? I don't know, I haven't been in since last summer so I don't know. Let me go see. Okay. I'm curious if there's just a quick little stop a field trip. Yeah. Pack yourself a lunch. Sticking with the, the affidavit floor.

Yeah. Can we call it that? Pack yourself a lunch, wrap yourself a Shasta drink in tinfoil so it stays cold. Yes. Yeah, I'll consult my attorney about signing the affidavit and then try to get it notarized. And then, you know, we'll see what happens. This ain't gonna happen. It is so stupid. Is it? Is that really easier than just saying, okay, this book's questionable.

Let's put it on a top show. Is that really is that really easier? Yeah. It's not, but these are the kind of people that like to make life as hard as possible. Yeah, these are the the vegans who show up at the party and and then instead of, you know, going, I'm not going to make everybody else change.

Ali, Ali, something before I come because I bet there's going to be meat options here. And that's okay. Everybody else is doing their thing. They don't have to conform to me. No, it's the vegan showing up and going, how dare you not provide me a dinner option? Can you believe that it? Nope. It's almost like the vegans showing up and saying, I can't believe other people are eating meat.

Yeah.

Nobody should be able to eat steak. Which speaking up Grand Peak's prime meat says great steak. Okay, ten out of ten. Yeah, I said the Segway. Good segue. Okay. All right. Well, well, well good. Let's go with it, guys. Let's cross this bridge. It's it's time. You know what? For whatever reason, I deferred the fajitas, and I still have to eat the fajitas.

Get on it. All right. I know there's never a bad night for Grand Peaks fajitas. Oh, never. That is true. I can't think of a better. The only bad night is when you're having Grand Peaks ribs instead of the heat instead of Venus or Grand Peaks. French dip preserved. Ready for the Crock-Pot? Yeah, that were just a really great flavorful roast that you you slow cook for eight hours.

Yummy. Yeah. Super yummy. In fact, if you go to GG Prime meats.com, look around at their packages and specials. I promise you, if you're, well, a protein consumer, as Julie and I are, you will find plenty of items to stock your freezer with for the summer. There you go GG Prime meats.com. They're friends of ours. You should make them friends of yours.

Okay, we'll be back after this on Newstalk 117. Once again, half an hour away, we'll talk with Attorney General Raul Labrador. We'd love for you to text in your questions for the AG as we get ready to chat with him. You have actually very, very different. So, sweetheart, sweetheart, listen to me. Please don't call my sweetheart. Who does?

I'm sorry. My my dad. All right, sweetheart, what did you think of that exchange? It's your bad. Yeah. What would make you think you can talk down to her like that? What was that? I don't know, is that how Randi Weingarten handles slightly combative situations? Like, I'm going to use a denigrating term. I don't know, but you and I both, we we're going to just market when people do this.

How long have we said that's not the point Paul. I mean that's been four years of that's not the point Paul. And we're still using it. Of course it's never not fun by the way, that's so if Randi Weingarten is going to mock or like, denigrate her by calling her sweetheart. Now, every time we refer to Randi Weingarten, it's going to be sweetheart, I know I'm going to call the little lady whatever I want to call her.

And she's the not so little lady, I think. But, you know, whatever. And she's the little, not so ladylike lady like that. Like she's just I don't I don't know why does the left bring in these very, very unlikable people like Randi Weingarten? I think they feel like it's they're almost the type that they pay to belong to this religion.

Okay, okay. All right. There's so many there's so many jokes I cannot tell, but yes. Okay. It's it's like the, the the the token offering. Okay. Yeah. We have an obligation to put some homely women in front of the public. Yes. So that's what we'll do.

Oh I get nothing. We just stare at each other. You, you gonna, you're gonna take the next hour. Yeah. Are you gonna say the next thing. Or am I gonna say the next thing.

And then scream. Yeah. Well I yeah I, well, I was telling you, well, I, it just gets personal and petty, so I won't. But you know, the comment that I made to you earlier, this. Of course you can say it, I can't. Well, we have all the TVs up and the, the news personalities, the press secretaries, they're just beautiful women.

But that's not their only thing, right? They are smart, they are witty, they are driven. You know, on I'll also say all of them are mothers. That's true too. Yeah. Okay. So there are a few women who can do it all. And Fox seems to pluck those women out and make sure that that they are highlighted. I think that's a great move.

I the opposite seems to happen on some of the other mainstream networks that well, let's get the the one who doesn't want to wear any makeup. Let's get. Yeah. By the way, the men are wearing makeup on CNN, but the women don't like help me understand that. Are they really? Oh, all TV men. Okay. Makeup. Yeah. Got all of that.

Yeah. That's true. So I don't know. Well, why are you walking away from it like, oh, this is not real journalism. Whatever. The men are wearing makeup. Can maybe we dive into the psyche here. Have they been spending so many decades trying to destroy or degrade the idea of femininity, traditional femininity? Women looking like women that they almost feel that obligation or that tie.

There's you mentioned like I don't I'm a woman but I don't want to really look like a really feminine woman. So I'm not going to wear makeup and I'm going to look tired and haggard as possible. Sure. I think that that's, that's I guess we could call it a marketing strategy that I think fails them. I don't think it's that great.

I think like minded people attract like minded people, like like you are attracted to each other. And if that's the brand that you're presenting, it makes sense that Randi Weingarten links up to or matches with some of these anchors on these mainstream media outlets. Yeah. You chose your words very quickly. I'm a big girl. I'm 52 on off.

Yeah. Right. I, I you know what? For some reason, this popped into my head while we were talking about this. You have people who are on occasion, you still see people wearing a mask. They're perfectly healthy looking people now. Maybe they have cancer. Like, I'm again, I. I try to be, I try, I sometimes fail, but I try to give the benefit of the doubt.

But sometimes there are other signals. Oh for sure. And, the other signals are you like, sometimes you sense someone's just a lefty. And I really think that you have, it's a small sliver, but there's a small sliver of people still in the pandemic mindset. And for whatever reason, the mask gave them comfort, and they haven't given it up.

It's their blankie. Or their baby. Yes. And they haven't given it up yet. And they still feel the need to wear that mask as they got Donald Trump made fun of a reporter about 3 or 4 weeks ago because she was wearing a mask. Remember that I absolutely and I, I, I don't make fun of people. It's not to their face.

I will talk about them generically on my radio show. The voices in my head have a conversation, right? That's true. But I'm like, why are you wearing this stupid mask? Especially even on a case? I think I saw this like 2 or 3 months ago. One individual in a car wearing a mask, there is no there is no defensible reason to be wearing a mask when you're all alone.

Solo. Yeah. None. None. Then I, I just think that when I referenced it as tithe, I think that I purposely chose that to reference the way that they treat these movements. It's religion to them. Yeah. Instead of just being comfortable in their own skin, you have to. You have to portray something that represents your quote unquote, religion or the thing that you've sacrificed all for.

Yes. Right. And I that would be, for some people, a mask. That would be for other people. Will I need to have an unattractive haircut? The weird one that has happened over the last 4 or 5 years is women becoming very, gender neutral. You can't tell if they're a boy or a girl. Yeah. That's become quite popular.

Why I don't what why what? I don't understand why I, I don't know, I want to celebrate the differences between men and women. And in that celebration, I want to highlight there's some really awesome things about men. And they're really there's some really awesome things about women that are very different from each other. And that makes this world interesting.

Well, it it does make it interesting. But yeah, you know what's weird, too? This is sort of part of the contradiction of the left. They call themselves feminists, but yet they work to not appear feminine. Feminine. Explain that to me. Okay, let's go to the phones. Hi, caller. How are you today? Good. How are you guys? Doing pretty well.

Let's, Yeah, I started one defensible reason why someone might be wearing a mask in their car, and, that's. They're mentally ill. Maybe. All right. Thank you. The benefit of the doubt. No. That's true. You know what? Thanks for expressing this. That level of sympathy. All right. Okay, we'll be back. It's 852 Newstalk 1079. We'll have our wrap up segment coming up for this hour, but we also have Attorney General Raoul Labrador joining us just after 9:00, right here on Newstalk 179.

856 on Newstalk. 1079 Julie once in a while I'll wear a nun's attire, but I try not to make it a habit.

Okay, that's just your random dad joke. I had no idea that was coming. I know I did. I, I don't know why I thought of that like three minutes ago. Something I probably saw on the internet. I'm like, you know, now's the time for a made up dad. I wouldn't make it a habit. You're gonna get yourself arrested.

I know that's probably true. Yeah, that would be all sorts of offensive, wouldn't it? And that would just be. That would be. That's not just one line being crossed. Yeah. That's that. That's multiple lines. Cross. Stitch I just make a drink of the soda. Okay. All right, all right. We do have time, though. We should talk about town and country gardens.

I, like I mentioned earlier, Julia, I got my my sprinklers up and going, and I. I swear I made the comparison that, you know how it doesn't matter how careful you are caring for your Christmas lights when you plug them back in the next year, there's always a stretch that doesn't work. And, I feel like the same gremlins when they're not messing up.

Your Christmas lights are messing up your lawn sprinkler system. Yes. Like, it's like there's always a little something going on. That's their summertime job. I had a couple of things that I had to attend to and take care of, but I got it turned on last night, and I'm super excited because I put down step one of the lawn program here.

In another month or so, I'll put down step two. That's the first round of lawn food and fertilizer. And I got to tell you, I cannot wait for the lawn, which is already plenty green, but it turns sort of that deep, darkish, lush green color. Yeah. It's coming. You can have the four step lawn program also just head on down to town and country gardens there, south of Idaho Falls, across from the malting plant.

Make sure you ask lots of questions that are loaded with experts there, and they can help you get the lush green lawn as well. All right. That does it for this hour, but Julie and I, we will be back after the news. And joining us is the attorney general for the state of Idaho, Raul Labrador. We've got a few questions for him.

So stick with us and we are back. It's our two underway on Newstalk 179. And Julie, we are super pleased to be joined this morning by Idaho's Attorney General, Raoul Labrador. Attorney General, welcome to the program. How are you this morning? I am doing great and I'm doing better. Since you started with the speech, we have a rendezvous with destiny.

Yes. We get a lot of comments on the on the show open with, with Reagan. So we we, we love it. Well, how have you been? It's been a it's been a while since we've chatted with you, but we we see all the headlines, and you've been a very, very busy attorney general. You know, we have a lot of work to do.

I think it's been an exciting couple of years. I'm honored that the people of Idaho have given me this opportunity, and I think we've done some tremendous things for the state. So it's been fantastic so far. It size up for us. The legislative session obviously, if if laws get challenged in the state, get sued, it's your job to defend the state and to defend that law.

But there are also laws that aren't just a liability like that. There are laws that I'm sure that you were happy to see passed. And maybe just give us kind of a brief summary of how you felt this legislative session went from the perspective of an attorney general. Well, I thought it was an excellent session for Idahoans in general.

So I thought it was a very conservative session. I thought we had some great tax relief. We had some great, issues that were debated. We have a school choice bill that will be litigated at some point, because some liberal groups will try to litigate it, but I thought it was a good start on school choice issues. So overall, I thought it was a good session.

I don't look at every single, bill that comes through. You know, so I don't know everything that was passed because we're all so busy, as you know, in the attorney general's office. Yes, we deal with, like, the legislature, but the rest of my job doesn't go away. I still have to deal with all the other issues that the state has to deal with.

So I have 220 people who work for me, 120 lawyers, 100 staff. So we're pretty busy even during the legislative session. But I was very excited about the things that are happening. But the reality is that because we have such a conservative legislature and sometimes our judiciary is not, keeping up to speed with the things that, you know, with the wishes of the people of Idaho, we have a lot of challenges in the courts.

So we're going to be busy for the next year with some of the issues that were passed by the legislature. Attorney General, do you how can you explain if there are any specific concerns about the school choice? Bill, that was signed into law. I know our listeners were very, appreciative of that legislation that was brought forward by a representative, Wendy Horman.

So now it's your job to review it and make sure it can, you know, can stand the test of the courts. Do you have any deep concerns with that? No, I don't have any concerns. But what's going to happen is there's a couple of liberal groups that have already indicated that they're going to sue based on, on, constitutional provision, that we have that claim.

You know, it's an old constitutional provision that limits the money that can go to religious organizations, public moneys to religious organizations. But if you look at the trend in the US Supreme Court, that amendment, that provision of the Constitution has been challenged by different states, and the U.S. Supreme Court has said something and it's a pretty clear rule.

The states do not have to give money to religious schools or religious organizations. But if, religious school is doing the same job as another type of private school and the state's going to give money to that private school, they cannot discriminate against the religious schools. So it's it's, it's the Blaine Amendment that has been in our Idaho Constitution for a long time, and that has been challenged again and again in the US Supreme Court.

And the US Supreme Court has actually sided with religious institutions. If the state is giving money to a private institution that does the same thing that religious institution is doing, then the state cannot discriminate against the religious institutions. And I think we're going to be able to successfully defend that. One of the arguments that I heard, from the opponents of the bill, and I don't know if this argument will become part of any litigation against it, but you had lawmakers that were saying the Idaho's constitution provides a free, uniform general education, something along those lines.

I'm sure you know the verbiage better than I do. Yeah. And and my take on that, because I am a great legal mind, you know, but my my, my, my take on that I always come to you for my legal analysis. You do? Yes. That's right. We have we have a secret signal chat. Don't. Yeah. Actually.

So Pete had he'd have thought it through. That's true. But my take on it is okay. This part of the Constitution requires the state to provide something to the children of Idaho. When it comes to education. And Wendy Harmon's bill, the the parental choice bill does not stop Idaho from doing that. And it doesn't prevent any child from accessing what's guaranteed to them in the Idaho Constitution.

So even though it's an alternative and it's another option, it doesn't diminish or violate that portion of the Constitution. What what is your legal mind say, attorney general? I mean, simply all they did is they expanded the choices they did not take away anything from the schools, even though the public school unions all think that all the money of Idaho voters belongs to them.

But all they did is it expanded the choices that Idaho has. It did not take or diminish the ability of children to go to public education. It didn't take any money away from public education. So I think but yes, that's going to be one of the challenges to to the law. Okay. All right. I Neal, might have more, conversation about laws, but there was a situation I specifically wanted to ask you about that has concerned a lot of East Idaho, which is the shooting in Pocatello of the 17 year old boy.

And I know you probably cannot talk about specifics of the case, but you are now inserted into that. Will you give the listeners idea of what is required of the AG's office now, in the review of that shooting? Yeah. So there's the task force that looks at, the shooting, and they will go through through the review. They will decide, you know, whether all the decisions about what they consider, whether it was justified or not, they don't typically make recommendations for prosecution, but typically it's a local prosecutor.

So usually not the prosecutor obviously from the jurisdiction where the shooting happened, but from a neighboring jurisdiction in this case, the local prosecutor asked our office to review the findings and to determine whether there should be any charges brought. We haven't been brought, you know, we have been asked to do that. But the the initial review hasn't been finalized, so we don't have any information yet.

We are providing legal advice to to the members of that, that team. And if they have any legal questions, we provide legal advice. But this is something that's going to take a while, and we're not really making any any comment publicly about the process or anything like that. Okay. And so that sort of negates the next question I was going to ask you.

But then that's okay. I do want to go back to a law. This is another very high profile case. But the legislature passed a law about what flags are allowed to fly, on city property. And clearly, Boise Mayor Lauren McLean is in violation of the the legislature's or, well, the law of Idaho. You've made that very clear.

You've spoken about it very, very publicly. And you also wanted to clarify because you were catching heat for not prosecuting her. But the problem is you don't really have any tools to criminally prosecute her. It's not part of the criminal statute. But you did mention later on in your message, Attorney general, about there may be some civil options that you have at your disposal to to address this issue.

Can you elaborate on that? Yeah. So let's start out with the law itself. The law is really clear. And the law was actually a ditch. It's not a new law per se. It was an addition to the flag display statute that already existed. And the flag display statute just said, you know what? What flags could be flown and, and how they should be flown.

And they just added what it's sort of a limitation on the types of flags. And they said that it would, that you could only fly state, flag the United States flag, other countries flags. If you were celebrating something, you know, another you know another, you know, there were service that are coming from Canada or something like that.

I think it allowed a couple of other flags, but it said that no political or any other type of flags could be flown. The law is really clear, but it doesn't have a any kind of enforcement mechanism. Number one. And number two, it was under the Civil statutes. And I think that's where where a lot of the confusion has come in.

It's not under the criminal law. It's code which is section 18 of the code. It was under the civil code. So it was never meant as a criminal statute. And a bunch of people started, you know, saying, well, this is a criminal violation. Isn't this a misdemeanor? And the answer is no. If it was not in, if it was not a criminal violation or in the criminal Code, it's usually not a criminal, statute or there's a specific statute which is 18 315 that says that if an elected official or a an individual running up in government fails to do their due t, they are committing a misdemeanor.

The problem is that the flag display statute itself did not give the duty to a specific individual. They gave the duty to the city. So there's nothing that 18 315 you cannot prosecute under 18 315 because the mayor or the city council, no specific individual, had a duty to fly the correct flag. They gave it a general duty for the for the city or the county or the political organization.

So it's not there's no liability under criminal law. Now, there are some civil statutes and some civil, ways that we can look at it. They're a little bit more complicated. And we're doing the analysis right now, and I don't want to get into the details because it's not a specific statute. It's just sort of under the general, civil powers that the attorney general has.

And we're just looking at, at those statutes right now to see if there's anything that we can do. So I know the the left loves to use the judiciary against Donald Trump and, and basically, Trump, Trump and, and have a judge somewhere issue an order. And then if they don't comply, then they're in contempt of court. And I correct it.

Yeah. Is that a crime when you start defying a court order, is that a crime? Yeah. If if there's, there can be civil and criminal contempt and if we find a civil way to enforce the this statute and, and, and, and then they continue to defy the courts, then there could be both civil contempt, which is usually a fine, and there could be even criminal contempt where they could be found to be guilty of a crime.

Okay. Now, I don't want you to tip your hand at all because you're still looking into this, but is that a scenario that could come into play down the road? Well, We'll see. Okay. Yeah. Good. And let's do, let's do things one step. Okay. Good. Good answer. Attorney general. Yes. All right, Attorney General Labrador, recently you joined 14 other AGS from across across the country.

This in, you want to urge the nation's biggest companies to a completely abandoned DEA policies that harm America? Can you give us an idea of what does that look like as you coalesce with all 15 of you and and what your end goal is completely in Idaho? Yeah, this is a really interesting issue because corporations have a civic duty and they have a statutory duty, and a legal duty to their, to, to their shareholders.

And when they engage in these policies, they're actually doing things that could harm the share value, that could harm the community, that could harm society. And, so what we're urging them to do is to do the right thing, because attorneys general have the ability to protect the shareholders. And, and, you know, the of corporations and other things.

We've been dealing with these issues for a long time. And with these issues, we have sent some of these letters. And I think the U.S. corporations are learning that this, both by and other, other practices that they're performing, that they're actually harming their companies and, and that they're actually discriminating against certain individuals. So we're just reminding these companies of their duties and that they have legal obligations.

All right. We're talking with, Attorney General Raoul Labrador. What else is on the horizon that that you're looking at? I know the legislative session is over, but and you talked about potential litigation. What other battles are there, to fight and things that you feel need to be addressed in Idaho? I mean, there's always a lot of things.

There's been a big change since the new administration, if you recall them. My first two years in office, I was constantly battling the DOJ and the the Biden administration because they were doing so many things where they were taking away or trying to take away the sovereignty of the state of Idaho. Now we have a partner in the white House, and we are lucky that the white House calls us almost weekly.

They try to ask what issues we're working on. They want to partner with us on issues. So it's a much better relationship with the federal government. And, we get to talk to them. I get invited to I haven't been able to go yet, but I've been invited to the white House 2 or 3 times just in the last few months, to go to different events.

And, so it's been a very positive relationship, a positive change, maybe, size up, and I don't know how much you interact with the nation's attorney general or what kind of channels of interaction in there are there. But how do you feel Attorney General Pam Bondi is doing? You know, heading up the DOJ? I think she's doing fine.

I mean, it's just like anybody it's it's a new job for her. She she was the attorney general of the state of Florida. I've known her for a long time. And and she's a good friend. But, you know, everybody has to kind of get caught up with the new administration, the new job, the new roles and responsibilities. And I think she's doing a great job.

And she's won the, you know, her office calls us often and and we try to work with her very closely. So I think she's doing a great job for the United States. I think Trump is doing a great job. And I'm excited that we have new leadership in Washington, DC. All right. We'll leave it at that. Attorney General Raul Labrador joining us this morning.

We're big fans, attorney general, and we very much appreciate you taking some time with us this morning. Well, thank you very much. It's always great to be with you. All right. Quick break. 924 now on Newstalk 117. We'll be back after this. Okay? He's hung up already. So busy. Busy, man. Yeah, I know he was fitting us in between meetings because we initially tried to schedule this interview for 835, and that was a no go because he was already scheduled to be in a meeting.

So we appreciate him giving us some time this morning. Yeah, that was good. Yeah. I have a quick meeting I've got to go to. Oh sure.

Spurred on and fueled by, Diet Mountain Dew. Sponsored by Diet Mountain Dew, I stopped and gotten a soda this morning. The, gas station that is closest to my home, the one that's easiest for me to stop off at. They had the whole entire inside torn apart again. I don't even know what's going on in this gas station.

We went, we went for about, I don't know, 3 or 4 months ago, at least two weeks without fountain drinks. There was no soda available via fountain, which was weird. They finally got that fixed. And now when I went in there this morning to get him a Diet Mountain Dew, the whole thing is torn apart. Where you pay is all moved around.

I don't know what's going on. They have some drinks behind the counter now, so I don't know if they're having some thievery. Or maybe that's just a temporary spot that they're being stored. I was weird, but they're obviously still I think they got sold. So they're, enduring some transition pains. It's been going on for quite a while now.

How are you guys today? It's going to be a warm one. I'm just hoping there's no wind. That's the big issue in spring. You guys are quiet. Nobody has even texted anything. Where where where's my people? Where are you at? I told Julie about how my schedule one is messing with your schedule too. Yeah. Oh. Did it happen again?

No. Oh, we were just remarking. I did this to him last night when he came and told me that, I said, oh, shoot, let's just go. Yes, I know what it's like. Not again. That's a sock on the door. Yeah. Hey. That's true. Oh, or install a high powered exhaust fan or something.

Anyway, you guys are great. Thank you. Mark. Thank you. Yeah. All right, have a great one. See you. Tiffany. They had the energy drinks behind the counter. I don't know what that was about. I maybe the kids are telling them I could be I there would have been one more follow up to the flag question generically, as attorney general, does he wish that there every law that gets passed should have some kind of enforcement, whether it's civil or criminal?

Oh yeah, that would have been. I wonder how he feels about that. Yeah. Private cause of action, whatever the but since I am a great legal mind, I think I can answer that for him. Okay. Go ahead. Well, I don't know if I can answer, but I could speak to it. Julie and I were talking about the flag law that Lauren McLean, the mayor of Boise, is openly violating.

And I actually really liked Barb Hart's point. And I remember interviewing Democrat lawmakers in the past. They hate the private cause of action. That was an issue that came up during the library porn issue a couple of years ago, when a bill that ultimately did not pass had this private cause of action, which basically means if you're a parent, you take your kid to the library, and the library shows your kid porn or or they see porn, they haven't protected your kid, and you can then sue them and libraries.

You're like, you can't sue, blah, blah. Okay, so there has kind of been this understandable aversion to private cause of action, clauses in in a law. This is a good reason for it, because if you don't have that kind of enforcement, then you get rogue mayors like Lauren McLean thinking, you know what? Here's my middle finger and screw you, we're going to put the LGBT flag up on the flagpole, right?

You got to have something or else you you have these mayors who are sworn to uphold the law, not upholding the law. And they're doing it without consequence. So it's a great premise to introduce the consequence into the law. So often in lawmaking we talk about, precedents. And it's usually in legal cases. Right. The precedent of this is this.

So we're going to pass this law or whatever. Yeah. Well this is not typically the way you would use precedents, but can you imagine how many times this is going to be brought up in committee hearings and everything saying, oh, sure, you're mad we're adding a criminal penalty to this need I remind you what the bear and the the Boise mayor did last year or two years ago, it's going to be brought up over and over again.

Well, and you know what? If we have to endure 9 or 10 months of a mayor being lawless, but she gives us the premise to say, we can't trust you. We can't. The oath you took is not enough for you to actually keep the oath. We're going to be able to have your residents sue you into oblivion. If you violate this law, then then she will listen to that because she doesn't want to bankrupt Boise on on the back of her, projected virtue.

Right. You know, and along those lines of the civil lawsuit, you just triggered a mine. Something in my mind. What if some very wealthy person in the Boise area sues her civilly for not following the law? Does that get. I mean, we are I the premise of our question with AG Labrador was Will you sue civilly from your office?

But what if somebody else sues? What about your private residents of Boise who has a lot of money, says, I'm going to prove a point. We might not have to endure that ten months. Yeah, yeah, that that's true. That's true. And I think obviously when it comes to politicians, money speaks louder than integrity. Yes it does. So true.

I know that sounds jaded and cynical, but it's it's just true. If if it started costing the city a thousand bucks a day for them to fly that flag, they're not going to do it. They don't want to pay, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars to be able to fly that flag. The residents wouldn't want that to happen.

And what a waste of taxpayer money. So that will matter more to her than the oath that she took when she took office, saying, yeah, I'll uphold the law. It's quite a set of standards she's got going on. I you know what? I don't understand how you navigate that in in your mind if you're on the left saying, okay.

Yeah. I raised my arm to the square and I swore that I would uphold the law and the laws of the state of Idaho, except if I don't like them. But yeah, was there an except I don't know in in that. Now, like I said, everybody breaks laws, but it's just part is like everybody sins, right? But you and I have not taken the same oath that she has, right.

That's not saying it's okay for us to break the law, but she's at a higher standard. She's at a higher level than than most of us are. And she's the mayor of Idaho's largest city and the capital. And so her example shines brighter and bigger than the average person. It's also not a oh, woops, we didn't interpret the law correctly or because that happens, you know, sometimes you have to follow a set of standards for like in businesses to be accredited or whatever.

Yeah. You know, I'm sure there's things that that in their government offices fall through the cracks and, and they go, oh, wow, we did not even realize we weren't doing what the law said there. We will fix it. Now, from this day forward, it's going to be done correctly. Those kind of whoopsies happen. Yeah, right. This is not a whoopsie.

No, this is not a this is a very deliberate, overt. And, but apparently, you know what? I bet you if you go back, there's probably video footage of her taking the oath. I bet she had her other hand behind her back with crushed.

If you look close enough. I wonder what she had her hand on. Did she bring her own Bible that she, I don't know. Well, here's the thing. The nice thing is, and I know we have listeners in Boise, I can I have them all the time. I don't see who they are, but I can see the general location of our streaming listenership.

I just want to let all of you Boise ins know all of the laws in Boise are now mere suggestions. I mean, they're laws and many of them can. You could get prosecuted. But if you feel passionately against one of the laws, go ahead and break it. Especially if there's no enforcement attached to that particular ordinance or law.

Just it doesn't matter anymore. As per your mayor. Yeah, those who are paying, property tax in the Boise area. Like who doing property tax. Yes. And you know what? Building code. To heck with it. Does it? Oh, I need a permit for that. No, I don't know. I don't you really don't need a permit. So Skip the permitting in Boise.

You don't need it. Thank you. Mayor McClain. Yeah. I would be so ashamed. I'd be ashamed. Well, I I'm sure she considers it a, quite a triumph for herself. I would have to guess that that's how she feels about it. I think she probably does at this stage. However, it's not. I don't think it's going to turn out well for her.

I really don't, and I, I think that the attorney general, just based on his rather vague conversation about exploring civil avenues as a response to this, I think he's going to be getting the last word, and I think it's going to end with her having to remove that LGBTQ flag from the the flagpole. Yeah, and if not, the legislature will step in in January.

Yes. You know what I would also say as a stipulation? I mean, I can't dictate this, but whoever hoisted the flag must remove the flag. She can't leave that to a maintenance worker. She has to be the one to go to go out and publicly. Yeah. Like if you're going to if you're going to get the, the what you perceive as a political benefit from the optics of hoisting that, that rainbow flag, then you have to be the same person who takes it down.

Right? Right. What if, okay, we're in the middle of lowering the flags to half mast. It was asked for by, Donald Trump. Yeah. How would everyone feel if she went? No, I don't like Catholics. I don't, I'm going to leave it up like that's a basic flag request. There is no criminal penalty. Yeah. Let's go down this route.

Is there a civil or criminal penalty for not lowering the flag to half mast? I would highly doubt it. When both both the governor and Trump have ordered the flags. It has. Yeah, I would I would doubt there's a criminal penalty attached to it. It would. How would you feel if she turned her nose at that, you know.

Yeah. It's a good point. You do these things but out of respect. Yeah. You might not like the law or you might not like Catholics or whatever. I still do that. You know, here's the thing. I was not a the last time we did nationally, half mast was Jimmy Carter's death a few months ago. I didn't like Jimmy Carter as a president, was fine as a person, but I might split the difference and lower it to three quarters mast.

Shit. Where? Let's compromise. Three quarters mast. Cut the baby in half. Right. Here we go. No, but no, I mean, it's a former president. Of course, you lower it to half mast and you get that. But you could argue. What if you're. What if you are the mayor of the most conservative redneck town in Idaho and you're like, Jimmy Carter was a buffoon who didn't do anything for this country?

The economy struggled. We're not lowering our flag. We're flying at full mast. Thanks. We're going to raise it higher than the top of the flagpole, like you know, you could have a mayor doing that. There's no enforcement mechanism. You just split. Kind of like a dirt bag, you know, because you're you're doing that. But I yeah, I would look at that and go, I don't support it.

They can't. But here's the problem. And this Julie, this is another facet of this conversation. And this came up during the pandemic. A governor's executive order is different in nature than a law that was passed by both chambers of the legislature and signed by the governor and ensconced into state code permanently. That's a different level than, transitory temporary order by by a governor or by a president.

So I, I'm not saying that in every case it's okay to ignore an EO or whatever. I'm just saying there's a, there's a, there's a level there that if it's passed by the legislative branch and signed by the executive branch, you better pay attention to that, that that should really matter. That's that's like the gold standard of what a law is.

And that's what you raised your hand to, to uphold. And so it's different in nature. Does that make sense? Oh I do believe they're, they're they're different demands, requests. I whatever word you want to use, even though they both have the governor's signature on them, they're different. Yeah. I would also say those situations in Covid were different than what, the Boise mayors being faced with, which is, that was my private business.

Yeah, that was my leveraged bank account. That was my leveraged customer base. Yeah. And so I don't I don't need you involved in my private matter like that. Yeah. This law is public. It's a public. Yes, it's a public building. It's a government building. It's a government flagpole. It was paid for by taxpayer dollars. That's different. Yeah.

Yeah, it's it's not your decision to make. That's a that's a good point. Somebody texted in, said, sorry, but I choose when to lower my flag to half staff. Nobody tells me when to do that. Definitely would not lower it for the Pope or Jimmy Carter, that's what. Okay, well, they're not going to come get you know.

And again, if this is I like say they have a flagpole out front of their house. Yeah. A lot of lot of people in Idaho Falls or Pocatello or Shelly and I, you can drive around and see them all over the place. That's your private property. And I'm not going to. I'm not going to give you the kind of wrath that I'm going to give a public official for ignoring that.

So. Yeah. I, I want to. Okay. And I just looked it up because I was curious. An order to lower the flag does not applied individuals. So if you don't want to lower it, you don't need to. There's no there's no burden on you. It says the act of lowering the flag to half-staff is a symbolic gesture of mourning or respect, and is governed by specific rules.

Within the U.S. Flag Code, only the president of the United States, of the governor of any state of the state, may order the flag to be half staffed. It has no jurisdiction over how you fly the flag at your home or, you know, in your individual space. So that actually makes sense to. Yeah. So that's not yeah.

That's not I mean, what that caller said, you are being defiant against something that's not even applying to you. Right. Like so so yeah. Now there might be cultural pressure. You know, the the car dealers and I love this. But car dealers sometimes put up a big huge flag if they decide, you know what, I didn't like the Pope and I didn't like Jimmy Carter.

We're leaving our flag all the way up. You can. There's no law. There's nobody can sue you for that. You're not in violation of anything. However, you might get some bad press from that. You you might get publicly criticized because, if you ran a business right now and it had a flag out front, would you lower it?

I will, I would out of respect, I would too, and not so much because I loved Pope Francis. But I have Catholic friends and, you know, out of respect for them and I, I didn't care that much for Pope Francis. But the position of pope, it's like, you may not like the president, but you respect the title and and the position.

I think it's similar in this case. I would have lowered it for Carter. I would have lowered it for Francis. Yeah. And you know me in business, I have a lot of risk reward calculation. I use that phrase here all the time. People are probably tired of it. But when it came to the governor's order to close down during Covid, that was a far bigger risk to my business.

So I was going to defy that order. Unlike the the request to have the flag lowered to half mast that that's there's no risk there. I'm going to lower it, and be a peaceful participant in the request by the governor. Yeah. There's no there's not even any potential injury there. Yeah, yeah, that's that's true. All right. 944 Newstalk 179 it's Neil Larsen and Julie Mason.

We'll come back and continue after this. Any word back on the other interviews yet? Nope. Gotcha. We do have, Stevie tomorrow. Oh, good. Okay. Yeah. 830. We'll tease that. There's lots of China stuff. China. There's the Panama Canal. There's, tariffs. All Taiwan's always an issue. So we'll ask about. There's no way China would invade Taiwan, right?

I think that they can that Steve would also be able to give us an idea of how far along the trade talks, talks are. You know, this has been one of my criticisms. I feel like the days are limited where you can't say you have inked a deal with somebody. I think you gotta give some sort of in that nugget to the American public.

Yeah, that's true. And quite frankly, I think Taiwan would be a great one to give away. JD Vance previewed that, he went to India and he said they made strong progress with the trade talks with India. I did see though on CNN this morning in our first hour of the program. I thought this was hilarious.

On their lower third, they're running a headline that says Chinese social media calling, Trump a chicken because he backed out on the, on the, the trade deal. Okay. There's two problems in that lower third headline. He didn't back out. He said he was willing to negotiate. So, you know, you're you're really stretching the truth there. Yeah.

Second, when do we believe any media that comes out of China? Yeah. That's weird. Why would you even believe that? Whether it be social media, state media, whatever. I'm not gonna believe anything that comes out of China. I remember one time, a libertarian who was an isolationist, and and, didn't think that we should have foreign military bases and, and whatnot.

Okay. Called in. I can't remember if it was a personal phone call or he called into the radio show, but he basically was parroting the Islamic media, saying, our terrorist attacks are justified because you have your American bases in our in our country, in countries. And I pointed that same thing out to him. Like you're believing the the enemy's media.

That's almost always propaganda that they're always going to not tell you the truth. Yeah. They might as well have grabbed you by that ring in your nose. Yeah. Bled you long. Yeah. Yeah. That's. Yeah, that's true. And it's weird. Well it's like the the antagonize the Ukraine antagonist that we have who calls in and like, they believe everything that gets reported about Zelensky.

And it's weird because I don't think that person is a liberal. But he's he's buying the line that the the liberal outlets are selling. It's weird. Oh my favorite from the Ukraine color is that he's going to reference a general. It has massive stock investments in the war machine. And we're supposed to believe what that general that retired general says.

Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah. No kidding. No. You if you look up the term conflict of interest, there's a picture of that right there. If if 60% of my stock portfolio is leveraged into bear aspirin, how many people do you think I'm going to recommend Bayer aspirin to? Yeah. You know, I could edit you saying Bayer aspirin into something that sounds kind of crass.

Go right ahead.

Okay.

949 on Newstalk 1079 let's do a non call in, but text really quick flash pull. Julie, would you lower your flag to half mast for the death of the Pope and or Jimmy Carter. And I just want to see where our listeners are at on this. And it would be interesting to drive around town, look at people's private flagpoles.

You know, some homes have them and see how many of those are at half mast right now, because most people around here are conservative. They probably weren't big fans of the Pope. But I'm I'm curious like to see. Yeah. And so text in would you lower your personal flag to half mast for the Pope and throw in, the same question or answer rather for Jimmy Carter?

Just just curious. So the it would be oh, people are dividing it out. Somebody said they would for for Carter, but they wouldn't for the Pope. We've had a couple of yeses that they would lower it. Yeah. Okay. You know, the Pope. What is interesting, I and I'm going to ask this question of the person that just texted this in with all just like I'm not trying to cause conflict or anything.

He's not my pope. So is that the reason that you wouldn't lower it? Because he's not your pope, so you don't need to recognize him. He's not your religious leader. Or are you not? Lower it because you disagreed with his take on Christianity. Which one is it? Or maybe it's both. Well, I for me, even the Pope's not your religious leader.

The Pope has such an impact on the world on moral issues. With Francis case, he weighed in need and hesitate to weigh in on political issues as well. So I don't I don't know if you can be Pope agnostic. Yeah, yeah. Like, I don't I don't know if you can refrain from having an opinion on that because we're all impacted by the Pope, even though he may not be our religious leader.

Yeah. It would be interesting to know why people would say no to the Pope. Yeah. You know, it's I am a little surprised how many are saying. Yes, that lower it for Carter, but no, on the Pope, because Carter was an American president. And so maybe you feel like, my, my flag is representing our civic life.

And so it makes sense, for for Carter. Yeah. I mean, what their, it seems like when people are explaining why they would, they wouldn't lower it for the pope is that they feel like he's actually harmed America with the stances that he's taken. So. Okay. Sure. Yeah. Somebody asked, do you think that they would request that it would be lowered for the leaders of other churches like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints?

I guarantee in Utah it would be probably in Idaho, probably. I doubt other states, maybe. Maybe Arizona, maybe that's the corridor that. Yeah. Idaho you tires. Oh yeah. That's that's true. So yeah. And I think that it would be lowered in Arizona, in Utah or excuse me, in Idaho, in Utah without controversy. But I think beyond that I think it could be pretty controversial.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is somebody who's a former Catholic that says I absolutely wouldn't lower it for the Pope. Okay. Yeah, that's interesting that there such strong beliefs that he is harmed the religion and by extension the world because it's got such a massive world population. So, Cooper. Yeah, yeah. Here I yeah, somebody texted me, and I want to fact check this.

Apparently, they ordered and I'm guessing it was probably Obama at the time ordered the flags to be lowered when Whitney Houston died, but didn't when Nancy Reagan died. Is that true? Oh, I have no idea if that's true. That's horrible. Which means I'm not lowering my flag when Obama dies. Wow. I mean, is that weird that that feels to me like that is very much pulling the levers and and not wanting to actually bring the country together?

Yeah, if that's true, that's horrible. That's really horrible. This person said. The only person I've lowered my flag for was Rush Limbaugh. You guys are like, bro. Yeah, you and this person. It's true. Yeah, definitely do it for, for for rush. But all right, we do. We need to take our final break here. We'll come back.

I'm going to fact check that really quick, but we'll be back. Okay? Let's do ChatGPT. That's my new Google. Okay. Somebody said, don't sugarcoat it. The Pope took positions against biblical principles. I didn't feel like we were sugarcoating it. I know he didn't like me genuinely asking why people did not want to lower it for the Pope is not sugarcoating it.

Yeah, okay. See, this is why I have to fact check. President Barack Obama issued a presidential proclamation March 7th, 2016, ordering U.S. flags to be flown at half staff at the white House public buildings and grounds. He ordered it for Nancy, and.

Dealing, kneeling, leaning. We have had a few people send in. Why do we do it for somebody that's not a, an American citizen? Yeah, like that's their. They like. It's our flag. Let's only recognize the people who are citizens of this country. It's so interesting doing this job. And when Neil and I talk about what we're going to talk about, I feel like probably 80% of the time we read our audience really well, like, we know what's happening.

I would have never thought we were going to get that many texts about the flag. Right. There's probably four dozen texts in there. Yeah, there's a bunch. I every once in a while, something happens. I'm like, wow, I misread that one. Yeah, I, I didn't I didn't think we'd get that many. You know, we could tease the post show cause I have some interesting.

Okay stuff around around. Okay. So Steve Yates in the post show. Okay. And I will say it's not clear if it should have been ordered lowered for the Pope. Oh, it doesn't overtly state that prominent religious leaders deserve that deserve that honor. Okay. 957 on Newstalk 117 coming up tomorrow, we will interview Steve Yates. Lots of China stuff to address.

Of course, the tariffs. We also have the Panama Canal and Taiwan's always an issue. So he'll be joining us tomorrow. Julie, about 835. And also you want to be on the post show. Today and you can join that by texting live to (208) 542-1079 Julie and I have been pleasantly surprised and maybe a little bit overwhelmed at the number of people texting in with an opinion about lowering flags to half mast for different individuals.

And so I did an eye search of who deserves that honor. And there's actually a list here. There's not enough time because we have less than a minute. There's not enough time to really go through the this list of who is deserving of that honor. But I will tease it with this. It is not blatantly clear whether or not that is something that should have been done for the Pope.

There's no category that he clearly and cleanly fits into that would have warranted lowering to half mast. Super interesting. I understand why, they did it, but it's, it's not. Also, I want to correct a little bit of, something I relayed earlier. President Obama did, in fact, in March of 2016, order flags at half mast for Nancy Reagan's passing.

Okay. And, all right, everyone, have a great Wednesday. Julie and I back tomorrow.