July 24, 2026 | The Jon Justice Show | Return of the Justice

The Jon Justice Show: Presented by Center of the American Experiment

Watch the show live on American Experiment's YouTube, Rumble, Facebook, X, and Instagram every Monday - Friday 6-9am!

July 24, 2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_17 0:01

It is the John Justice Show presented by American Experiment and AmericanExperiment.org on a Freedom Friday, and I'm glad that you are with today's broadcast.org. The show will, of course, officially launch coming up on Monday morning, 6 until 9 a.m. But you already know that because you listened to or watched Thursday's dry run show in the wake of the announcement taking place at the State Capitol on Saturday for the Center of the American Experiment, America 250 blog party. So you're aware of all of those things. I am your host, John Justice, and with me is uh Isaac, the producer, who is helping us navigate all of making sure that the equipment works appropriately. This is why we test. This is why we test. This is why we test. 612-584-4565. That is the comment line. If you'd like to uh leave us a uh comment at any point uh throughout the show, we're looking forward to sharing those with you. And that will be, apart from the email, john.justice at americanexperiment.org. That will be the primary way to um interact with the show through our comment line at 612-584-4565. So be sure that you uh lock that in. I think that we um decided yesterday that uh speed dial was antiquated, nobody uses that anymore. Correct. So create a new contact in your phone. Yes. There you go. That sounds lame. Create a new contact in your phone to make sure you're gonna leave a contact. It's not very flashy. It's kind of like comment line.

SPEAKER_16 2:52

But then everyone can have your contact in their phone.

SPEAKER_17 2:55

All right.

SPEAKER_16 2:56

That feels fun.

SPEAKER_17 2:57

You know, I'm liking you. I mean, I like you already. We haven't worked together a lot. Right? I like you already. But I'm liking you more and more every day. Well, that's good after our technical day. We're on the same wavelength. Yeah. So jokes on everybody else. We're gonna have to go longer after nine o'clock this morning because we're about uh 45 minutes behind. You see, now that I'm no longer working for a me muscle, I can go and actually mention when we have technical difficulties because apparently we did a whole half hour of the show and uh nobody could hear me. I thought you sounded good. Thank you. I thought it was great. I really did. You know, um I thought uh specifically um you probably appreciated all of the wonderful comments I made about my beautiful wife during that. During that. I mean the whole segment was about my wife Melinda and just what a fantastic uh wife and mother she uh mother she is. I'm only saying that because she's one of the individuals who's listening while we do this. I did bring her up earlier, but more talking about the fact that she wanted me to bring multiple shirts today to decide which one looks best on camera. To my point that I was talking about with Isaac earlier, it is a great idea. I appreciate that my wife is looking out for me. That being said, um, I told Isaac, I got bigger fish to fry, and boy, that was the case this morning. No doubt about that. Right, right. If my uh okay, good. She's my wife sent me a smiley face because I could have gone either way. That could have been a red-faced emoji and that that could have gotten that could have gotten uh ugly. So uh speaking of shirts though, I did uh bring an extra shirt today because if you are watching uh the live stream, I'm wearing uh an Alex Bowman NASCAR shirt. And uh that's because my uh favorite driver since Dale Earnhardt Jr. retired some ten years ago is Alex Bowman, who announced yesterday that he is retiring from NASCAR following next season. So it's a little bit a bittersweet for me. You know, like any a fan of any sport when uh when a player that you love leaves the game, when a driver that you love decides they're going to retire, um it's always one of those things that, oh man, what a bummer. But I get to enjoy him for another year and a half. An individual who I feel a kinship with because of how he came up in his racing career, he suffered a lot of physical uh ailments, concussion, broke his back, uh Vertigo earlier this year, and there was a lot of question marks surrounding uh whether or not he would return to NASCAR. Another aspect of that, by the way, uh that um that I wanted to mention is we were discussing this uh earlier, but uh there there's this thing in fandom now, and it's not exclusive to pop culture. You see it within the news as well, um, but you see it in sports. There's this nasty turn in terms of fandom where people want to root for things to go wrong. Like people are rooting for Avengers Doomsday to fail. I mean, it's just a movie, but this is where fandoms are. I mean, social media perpetuates this within the cultural zeitgeist. And the same thing rings true for NASCAR, and Alex Bowman has been sort of a favorite whipping boy among NASCAR fans for a number of uh of different uh different reasons. So there's a relatability for me as well, uh, especially and I'll I can use the example recently where we've been making the announcements in the run-up to the official launch of the show coming up on Monday, and the foes of the show have been coming out of the woodwork online as of late. Which is really fun. You know, I don't care about you and your show, but let me go ahead and randomly comment completely unprovoked on the fact that you shared a logo on X yesterday. You loser. Weird. For somebody who says they don't care, you certainly act like you like you care. And it's a nice logo. It's a beautiful logo. Somebody asked me if I made it yesterday, I said yes. I'm just kidding. I did not like even though I did not say yes. I would not steal that thunder from you.

SPEAKER_16 6:55

Isaac was the one who took care of our uh uh who uh took care of our uh if they don't like it, then go ahead. That's true.

SPEAKER_17 7:04

Uh we will be talking about uh uh Mike Lindell and um why he's decided to tackle this amnesty plan. Because that's what it is. They can spin it all they want. They can absolutely spin it all they want, but it is absolutely an amnesty plan. So we have some audio of Mike Lindell that we'll share coming up also in just a moment. Uh Trump weighs massive uh new strike on Iran. I have some audio to share, comments from uh Marco Rubio uh to get into. Uh when it comes to Mike Lindell, just just uh just really quick, when it comes to Mike Lindell, here's we'll get into the details of his plan and how they they simply can't run from the fact that this is um amnesty. But the other part to this, and I may have found the answer, is I also don't understand why he's dealing with this at all. We've got half a dozen to a dozen issues to to to take care of, to talk about, to handle here in Minnesota. Why is he bringing up anything regarding illegal immigration that cannot be handled at the state level? Because even as governor, he has no control over that. In the midst of my research, I think I may have stumbled across the answer. And I'm really looking forward to sharing that with you coming up a little bit later on in the show, and probably when our uh guests uh join us uh in uh in studio on a Freedom Friday, we'll have uh Grace Keating and uh Catherine uh Johnson from the American Experiment podcast. And to that point, you know, they've been focusing, and American Experiment has been focusing on the key issues facing Minnesotans and what's most important for voters in making their decision of who they end up voting for in the primary and of course in the general election coming up uh in in November, which just goes and sort of reinforces this thought in my mind and question that I have of why is why is Mike Lindell's campaign uh even bringing this up. And like I said, I think I may have the uh the answer for you. I'll share that with you uh coming up a little bit uh a little bit later on. Uh I do have a clip speaking of those issues here at Center of the American Experiment that uh they're focusing on. And um Catherine and Grace have been talking about it and posting clips online. I have a short montage of a few of those clips from the American Experiment podcast that I'll share with you here in uh in just a moment. Before I do though, I want to make one quick comment that I didn't make yesterday when talking about what happened with the former my former employer who shall not be named uh Me Muscle. And I just want to quickly say, and I didn't say it yesterday, that uh I don't have any animosity at all to what happened with my former employer. I knew when I first got into radio and throughout my the entirety of my 30-year career, I made a choice to to get into entertainment, to doing that thing with my fingers. No, we need that t-shirt, by the way. We need a doing that thing in my fingers. Because are you familiar with the doing that thing with my fingers in the show? I don't know I know you've listened somewhat on Fridays, but you're a little newer to the show. A little newer. So early on when I started doing talk radio, you know, I would go through stories like I have them, you know, the one here about Iran and a massive strike on Iran and all this stuff. And you would get into the story and there would be things that were quoted. And I d I for some reason I didn't like saying, you know, as was quoted, so I just I started doing doing that thing with my fingers. Whenever I reach a quote in a story, and so now it's become a it's become a it's become a thing, doing that thing with my doing that thing with my fingers. No, but when I got into when when I got into radio, I knew that I was getting into an industry that was volatile. And that if the company who was relying on me to make money decides that my services are no longer needed, and that's exactly what they said to me for whatever reason, and this was not a local decision. In the early part of my radio career, you could control your destiny. As long as you had great ratings and you were successful, you were bringing in money, revenue, endorsements, it was great. That times have changed. I was having a tremendous amount of success. Probably the most success that I had had at Meme Muscle in the time that I had been there, and certainly in the time that I had taken over as host of the show in the wake of the passing of my dear friend uh Drew Lee, who was doing the the show with me. The show had been as successful as ever. But with Mi Muscles dealing with their own financial issues under a mountain of debt, some corporate bean counter, and I'm not even using that as a pejorative, it's just the reality. Some corporate bean counter decided that I was one of those uh individuals who they could cut in order to balance their budget seats at the end of a quarter. And that's budget sheets, not seats. Is budget seat even a thing? I don't think so. No. Um thank you for thank you for that. So let's just start, let's start over again. We're gonna stop the feed. Just kidding. Now that we got everything up and working, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do that. So I just again I just wanted to make sure that I mentioned because throughout talking about the story yesterday, um I didn't uh I didn't bring up the fact that I really harbor no ill will. And certainly not for anybody in the offices in St. Louis Park, because none of them even knew um that uh that was the case. And even if it was an internal decision, and it wasn't, but even if it was, that's okay. Hey man, I chose to be in this job. That's on that's uh that's a hundred percent on me. Now it's a completely different ballgame here at Center of the American Experiment because you let me go here and I'd use your burn it all down. Just joking. Everybody's just like, what? What is happen what is what has happened? I was uh I was joking with uh with Grace yesterday because we have to connect our program to do the show to multiple streaming outlets. Because you I made a list. You're gonna be able to listen or watch the John Justice show presented by American Experiment on no less than ten different feeds. Which is pretty incredible. This is what you can do now. It's amazing. Uh and I firmly believe this is where radio is going, as I mentioned on the show, on the show yesterday. But I I but I had to get access to all of the Center of the American Experiment social media accounts, and I was joking with Grace because this was all big, one big ruse so that I could just get access to all of the social media accounts, and I'm gonna sell them off to Drechostay Humanos and let them go and take over all your feeds. Alright, coming up. We do have our guests in studio. Trump is weighing a massive news strike on Iran. Could be larger than Operation Epic Fury. And we'll continue the thought of why the media's gotten bored with the uh with the war, and then we'll dive into the issue of voting. Why is Mike Lindell tackling illegal immigration? I do not understand. But speaking of the American Experiment uh podcast, uh, here is a uh montage of a couple of moments you might have missed from some of the more recent American Experiment podcasts with uh Catherine Johnson and Grace Keating available at AmericanExperiment.org here on the John Justice show presented by American Experiment.

SPEAKER_08 14:20

The legislature passed a new social media warning law that requires social media companies to display a mental health warning label to users on their sites. The label's text must warn the user of potential mental health impacts from using social media and provide additional potential mental health uh resources, including the National Suicide Hotline number and website. So the law also bars platforms from allowing a user to disable the warning label or like provide it in the terms and conditions, basically do anything so that it's not super higher, right? The Trump administration has actually sued Minnesota in order to get them to hand over their SNAP records from the last five years. Minnesota has refused to share this information voluntarily, so the administration took them and some other states to court. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it's pursuing the data to check for fraud and waste and is seeking the program's eligibility and benefit transaction records. As Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement, the American people deserve a government that is transparent about how it spends their hard-earned tax dollars.

SPEAKER_09 15:22

We wanted to start off this week's episode with a little update from something we talked about last week, which was, of course, the Minneapolis bathhouse situation, which it sounds like are now legal in the great city of Minneapolis, right, Catherine?

SPEAKER_08 15:36

It was legalized, fully legalized, signed off by Mayor Jacob Fry on Pride Weekend. We even have a clip of it to show you guys. Go ahead, Isaac. And that city hall, by the way, that's Minneapolis City Hall are struggling to get by, especially in our inner middle class families across the state. You would think that the city council would be doing something about this, right? Well, sort of, here's what they are doing: they entered into a $1.4 million contract with the firm to provide coaching and counseling between council members and Mayor Fry's office.

SPEAKER_09 16:18

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_08 16:19

For executive coaching and mediation to improve teamwork. The city council is also continuing to reduce main roadways like Hennepen Avenue to one lane in each direction and eliminating parking to enhance bike and mass transit access.

SPEAKER_09 16:33

That should be great for businesses, right? That's really for economic activity.

SPEAKER_08 16:38

They oppose ordinances uh on enforcement of livability issues, such as loitering, begging, spinning on sidewalks, possessing drug paraphernalia, and what they call urban camping. Wait, so they stopped people from passing rules against those things, like ordinances uh on enforcement of livability issues, such as loitering, begging, spinning on sidewalks, possessing drunk paraphernalia and what they call urban camping.

SPEAKER_09 17:03

Wait, so they stopped people from passing rules against those things? Like they're pro-loitering, they're pro-drug paraphernalia's encampment. I'm not kidding. Again, great for economic activity. That's probably gonna make Minneapolis like a thriving hub that people with children want to visit and spend their money in.

SPEAKER_08 17:19

Last but not least, they hosted the first ever transgender drag show in Minneapolis City Hall to honor Pride Month in 2026. I think good here when um you talk about you know fewer regulations on childcare centers is people worry about safety because there are issues with safety in childcare centers. It's not frequent at all, but you you know, it always hits the news when there's an incident that happens, and it's sad, it's awful, it breaks your heart, you know. So if we were to reduce regulations, would that make childcare centers less safe? Or how do you balance those two needs?

SPEAKER_13 17:54

Yeah, that's a really good point because uh a lot of that fear really goes down to what is happening uh, you know, in that center when the when the parents leave their children. What uh some of the studies found though was that out of the um places where those kinds of incidents happened were uh providers that weren't following the rules that were on the book. So you didn't have to think you just didn't have a lot of people.

SPEAKER_17 19:14

And uh I've oh my gosh, how many radio stations have I actually had to do a transition from one, two, three, four, five, six, seven? Seven different times I've had to go through this. Well, it's been 30 years, so you know start doing the a lot of those were in very quick succession in the first like seven years of my career. The past twenty have been a lot more a lot more stable. But when you when you start a new show, you become so accustomed to the call letters or the phone number of the previous show that you worked for. I'm I'm always I'm always paranoid when I start a new show that I'm gonna go and say something something wrong. I'm gonna give out the wrong call letters, right? Because it's one of those little things that other people don't really care that much, but they will mock you incessantly for it. It's the same thing when it comes to like guests titles, military rankings. I get the most embarrassed when I go and screw up somebody who's been elected to office, and I put him in the house instead of the Senate, or I put him in the Senate, and I just age I had that happen with Eric Lucero about a year and a half ago. Probably longer than that now, time all runs together. But he had redistricting that took place, and so he wasn't in the house anymore, he's in the Senate, and he corrected me on air. I was like, ah So yesterday when I was doing the show, I thought I don't need to go and write my email address down. John.justice at AmericanExperiment.org, and I just kept screwing it up, so I made a little note. See, it's all about it's all about the test John.justice at AmericanExperiment.org. All right. Um yesterday we spoke a bit about, and again, you're gonna be uh enjoying uh this podcast and show uh after the uh America 250 block party at the state capitol. This will be posted on Saturday afternoon. So who knows? We may have, you know, bombed the bejesus out of Iran by then, and this story about Trump weighing a massive news strike might be completely irrelevant. You could be listening right now to me giving you uh details on how President Donald Trump told Axios on Thursday that he's considering a massive attack that could be even larger than Operation Epic Fury. You could be listening to this right now in the wake of having us dropped a nuclear bomb on Iran. I really hope I didn't just will that into existence. I want to see us take out Iran no less, but we need to keep the infrastructure in place for the good people of Iran. So there's some there's some uh there's some concern there. Uh but Trump is getting tired of Iran, and this time they have rejected the latest ceasefire agreement yesterday. Trump said that while Israel would quickly join a renewed campaign if asked the United States has the uh capability to act alone. Israel would join in two minutes if I asked them to, Trump said. Adding, we don't need anybody. Trump also warned that Israel's participation could trigger additional Iranian retaliation, underscoring the stakes of any expanded military operation. The comments came as U.S. officials told Axios, no final order has been issued, despite mounting military preparations throughout the Middle East. Now the Wall Street Journal did report on Wednesday night that the Pentagon has surged special forces, fighter aircraft, bombers, aerial refueling assets, and medical personnel to the region. Now, the buildup also comes as some Republicans have expressed concern about the financial cost and duration of the conflict. While the administration officials maintain that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon remains vital to U.S. national security objectives, Secretary Marco Rubio said that Iran has shown little interest in reaching a negotiated settlement, reinforcing the administration's argument that maintaining military pressure may be necessary.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

I think I thought Rachi, the foreign minister the other day, policy is an eye for an eye. The president's policy is a head for an eye. I mean, honestly, that's what it's going to be. I mean, they will pay a very heavy price. I mean, everybody had a country and even countries here. I mean, if I just speak to the Iranians, they want to do a deal. Every time these people do a deal, they either break it or after they make it, they want to change the deal. So they're probably not ready to do a deal yet, but they will be soon because the price they're paying is very high despite their tough talk and their flowery language and their stupid Lego videos they put out. I've never seen them, but they put these things out on social media. Despite all that bravado, they are suffering tremendously, and they're gonna suffer more until they come to their senses. They're not there yet, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_17 24:38

Now there's a very interesting thing that's been taking place, and I uh again, I talked about this a little bit yesterday, but I want to I want to expand upon it um a bit, and that is the media's lack of interest in the ongoing war in Iran. Um I talked about how this happened with the war in Iraq. That was a much longer period of time. But the reason and the rationale is the same, even though the dynamics of why the media's gotten bored with the war in Iran um have have changed. It's just the process of the media moving on to other things happens at a much faster rate. So with with the war in Iraq, we didn't have all the social networking that we have now in terms of X and Facebook and all of it. And so your primary source of getting information was still uh your local news, but in this case the the the mainstream, the the mainstream media. And they were covering at length a war in Iraq and had correspondence. We had a correspondent. As a matter of fact, uh member of uh congressman uh Don Bacon uh used to be in the military. He was um in the first few years of working in Tucson, he was my Iraq war correspondent at the time. We would check in with him once a week to find out, you know, how are things with the war going on? So it wasn't quite that silly, but he now serves in in Congress. My point being that eventually the media, but it took a couple of years, got bored with the war in Iraq. And it was in large part because the media in really any content creator for the most part, even I try to do that. They want to tell a story. They want to tell the story that's got a beginning, a middle, and an end. And the media likes to go and cover that. And in this case, um they simply they don't have a beginning, middle, and an end. And and the when it comes to the to the war in Iran, they keep acting like, and because Trump keeps letting everybody know, hey, we're working on a deal, there may be a new deal. They keep acting like it. But at the same time, we know that ceasefires get rejected, the military operations uh grow and continue, and then we're right back where we started from again. Because of that, the media has gotten bored with covering the war in Iran, and that's a benefit to the administration and what they're trying to do. Now, of course, Democrats and some Republicans have been attempting to seize on the energy implications of the war in Iran, especially the gas prices. But I'm really of the opinion that that's not nearly as effective as the left might think because when was the last time the gas prices like truly plummeted to a point where you went to fill up your car and you went, boy, this is way cheaper than it used to be. I mean, they've really kind of been there and they've been high for a while. Now, trust me, when I was on the road traveling for my road trip, I was definitely aware of the gas prices because they were stupid expensive in other states. There's nothing you can do about it, you know? And my and and Monty likes to drink the good stuff. I tried feeding feeding, I tried, I tried, he was thirsty. I tried to give him some of the more inexpensive stuff. Here's some bubbly, right? It's water, but it's got some flavor, but it's got no calories. He didn't like that. He's like, I need Coke. I need Coca-Cola straight into my tank. Which means there's more moolah coming out of my account. But I'm I I don't think that it really is having that big of an impact. Where for the whole reason I bring this up is because I was doing prep this morning and I saw that Laimi Clobishar had put up a post, meaning somebody in her campaign went and put up a post. And it will, you know, as a matter of fact, let me just go ahead and we'll do this on the we'll do this on the fly as our guests uh get uh settled. While I look this up, I'll go ahead and do introductions on a dry run Freedom Friday. Uh joining us in uh studio. Uh may look like they're in a completely different room, but they're not. They're right here in front of me. We've got uh Catherine Johnson uh and uh and uh Grace Saketing. So while I look up Amy Clobishar's uh comment here, uh good morning. Good morning, welcome to the show, you two.

SPEAKER_09 28:57

Good morning. So happy to be here.

SPEAKER_17 28:59

And everything's working. And you can and you can you can hear me just fine.

SPEAKER_09 29:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 29:02

Yeah, we couldn't see it.

SPEAKER_09 29:03

As it has been all morning, John. What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_17 29:05

That's right. I'm gonna be like my former boss. Don't ever complain. People that are tuning in now don't know you had a problem.

SPEAKER_08 29:11

That's a good point, actually.

SPEAKER_17 29:13

Oh, here it is. I found it. Lamey Clobishar. As Trump continues his illegal war with Iran, Minnesotans are paying the price of the pump. Higher prices mean higher costs for family, small businesses, and farmers. We need leaders focused on lowering costs, rights, somebody within the Senator of Small Things camp. So am I completely off the mark here? I just I don't I I feel like this is this is believed to be a good talking point to push back against Trump. But at the same time, I don't know about you guys for me. I haven't seen like a dramatic drop at all. Not in a negative way, but in terms of gas and all that. Go like, okay, I haven't really noticed the change of the price of the pump, so I don't know how effective those those types of criticisms are. Do you guys have any any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_08 29:59

I haven't really either, but I do think in general, everyone is feeling higher prices, their income is going not as far. I mean, and a lot of that when we're here in Minnesota has to do with our state policy, right? You know, and people don't necessarily know that, you know, they just see what's happening in their wallet and they blame the president. And, you know, yeah, he takes some credit for some of that as well. I mean, I think a lot of what happened during COVID really takes the credit, you know, pumping all that money into the economy. But um it is a point that I think lands with some people that things feel less affordable than before. But honestly, no, I haven't seen a huge difference in gas prices on my end anyway.

SPEAKER_17 30:38

Grace, did you have any thoughts on that as you're as you're putting fuel in your car? Are you even looking at the uh at the pump and the price, or are you just kind of putting it in there and I'm paying for it?

SPEAKER_09 30:48

I try not to look. Okay. If I'm being honest. You know, ignorance is bliss a little bit.

SPEAKER_17 30:54

Well, you know, and that maybe I'll uh I'm I'm actually gonna kind of contradict myself here for just a moment because uh Catherine, you you brought up a good point. I think for those that are paying attention, for those that are engaged in politics on a somewhat regular basis, I mean, not like all of us, we're kind of all, you know, wonks about all this because of the nature of what we do. But for those that would listen to a to a show like this that do pay attention, I think you're right. I think the issue of the the the uh the rise in taxes, um, the fraud that's taking place, I think that all supersedes it. But again, and I'll push back, I'll just I'll self-push back a little bit on what I said. You know, what Amy Klobishar is pointing to is something that resonates more with what I noticed when I was out on my travels, and that was it, you can easily disconnect from the news and not really know what's going on. And then when you do hear commentary, it's typically commentary like that on the surface level, wherein you're not really engaged in the state politics here in Minnesota. If you're disconnected from all that, you may not even know there's rampant fraud, and that because of the policies of the DFL, we're all having to pay more than we should. But when you see a comment like that, it may hit closer to uh to home. So maybe it's more effective than I than I let on in the in the first place.

SPEAKER_08 32:09

I think maybe. Um, a more general question do you guys ever envy those people, or are you glad that you're very aware of everything that's going on? Or do you ever think, man, I chose the wrong line of work and I'm just like more stressed than I need to be, or more concerned about the state of things? Because there is something to be said for distancing yourself, you know, taking a week off like you did and going on a road trip and disconnecting, and um, you realize, wow, we still have beautiful parks, we still have this amazing country, you know. And sometimes when you're so engrossed in it, you just it stresses you out, you know. So do you ever get jealous of those people? So the ignorant ones, you know.

SPEAKER_17 32:43

Uh Grace, uh Grace, let me have you answer first and then I'll give my answer because I'm probably gonna go long on this.

SPEAKER_09 32:48

So I'm gonna be really short. Yeah, I do envy those people. I think I'm learning about myself this morning that I very much subscribe to the ignorance is bliss viewpoint, and I'm very jealous of people who I I think especially um you can definitely go through life and still notice that things are, you know, bad or or not as good as they used to be. But I think knowing the reason and knowing that it's out of your control makes it so much worse. I think that that's especially what's difficult about being in in this space for me.

SPEAKER_17 33:21

It dep I I I would qualify it and say I think it depends on what you do in life. So it was interesting for me in those essentially two weeks. Because that was and it was it was the first time in years that I had disengaged fully from anything news related to where I just wasn't paying attention, um, only got updates when we were watching the Fourth of July celebrations uh at my mom's house in in Prescott, Arizona. But I also know that that's that's not the reality in the moment. That's vacation. I'm on a special trip. When you go and engage back with work, like that that you're not paying attention to or someone's not paying attention to the media is probably replacing that with something else in their life. There's probably something else that also was bringing their that is bringing in their attention.

SPEAKER_08 34:16

That's insightful.

SPEAKER_17 34:17

The larger point, I think, for me is when I retire, completely different ballgame. I think when I retire, I'll be able to step away fully and just be like, you know what, I'm done. I spent my entire, you know, career as a talk show host covering the news. I just want to retire and do whatever it is I want to do. And, you know, I've dreamed about writing more, you know, more books and selling books is hard that not a lot of people will go and will go and buy. Um so I look forward to that moment. But in this moment right now, um, I can't imagine having the family that I have, even if I wasn't in radio, and the amount of involvement that I have just if I was doing a different job, I think I would have to be engaged. You know, I don't think I would want to be completely checked out like that. I don't think most Republicans are that way. I think that's something that kind of, as I steer this a different direction, I wonder if it's I wonder if that's more in line with those on the left that are easier to go and check out from politics than than other in than other individuals. I I could be, and again, I could be wrong on that, but it just seems to me that that that I it would be more likely for Democrats to go and not pay attention to what's going on than it would be for for Republicans.

SPEAKER_08 35:31

I think that's probably right. They're certainly more likely to pick up on a narrative and just run with it, you know, or believe what they hear maybe. Um I think they are more typical to fall in line with, you know, what the the party dictates of them. Um but I think my own answer is like somewhere in between. Yes, maybe, but also when you meet those people in real life and you try and have a conversation with them, it can be so frustrating. Like, how are you so ignorant about what's going on? I firmly believe people should not be ignorant of what's going on, you know, that's why I do what I do. Um but sometimes they do seem happier.

SPEAKER_09 36:09

I think um, especially when you look at people, you know, my age in their 20s, um, it's more of more of like an interest, something that they're opting in. Because for all they say about, you know, the high stakes and we're in a fight for, you know, our very country and democracy is crumbling and, you know, oh, the Republicans don't want certain certain people to exist, you know, for all of the drama attached to their side to the left, I think that it is much more of something that they're they're choosing to get angry about, especially when you're young. It's cool and you want to feel important and it's it's very it's popular in the media and socially. Um, so in that sense, I think it is much easier for them to uh tune out or choose to step away or choose to not get upset about certain things, um, just because it's not. I generally don't think that, especially when you're younger again, that those convictions are as deeply held as for conservatives.

SPEAKER_17 37:04

I want to bring it back full circle because we started talking, I started to bring I brought this up because of Lamie uh Klobuchar's uh post. It's just second nature now. Like I can't not like if I say Amy, I feel like I'm saying it wrong. That's just how that's just how that's just how it is. But you know what? Her post and and to both of your points, um, you know, I think her po her post does play to the base, but those are individuals who I don't think are checked out, but they're only checked in to a very narrow, they're they're they're looking at a very narrow set of outlets that are feeding them all the same information. So a post like that, I'm looking at it now that I now that I really think about it, I'm looking at it from the perspective of a conservative Republican. And not even so much as a talk show host, but as a conservative Republican, I look at that and I kind of go, you know what, right now I feel like there's bigger fish to fry than what it is you're focused on. There's a larger issue regarding Iran that we need to go and take care of. So I'm okay with it costing me more, you know, to go and put gas in uh in Monty. But for the vast majority of those on the left, posts like that, it feeds that that idea of what the Democrat Party has simply become, a party that's against President Donald Trump, and it just feeds into that that narrow thing that's been very effective for them. They just they hate Trump, and that helps to go in and fuel that hatred.

SPEAKER_09 38:28

The more we talk about this too, I think back to um 2020, and I think that was such a big wake-up call for how you can live in a city like Minneapolis. And yes, like you know, the riots were an unusual time. But other than that, there were people who could live right in Minneapolis and not know how bad crime was and how much the city was struggling just because they were only listening to the news outlets that refused to cover stories like that. That was and that reminds me of of this very much.

SPEAKER_17 38:57

So I want to switch over to um to Mike Lindell and whatever the heck is going on with this whole situation. I have audio to share here uh in uh in just a moment. But before we do that, though, let's drop back a little tiny bit. Let's go, let's go back. This is a dry run show, so we kind of have a lot more freedom to do what we want to do, even if it means starting late because nobody can actually hear me talk. Which we figured that out earlier. Thanks to them. I had no we were just la la la la la. We were having a good time. We were having a great time. I was so excited. The show's going great. And it's like, I can't I can't hear John.

SPEAKER_16 39:34

I don't know what John is, I don't know what John is saying. You have to pay extra for that now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 39:39

Yeah. That's that's a subscription service. Yes. You can watch the videos, you can see the feed, you can see Showgrew. Who had to move because he was dominating the camera yesterday, but you can't hear, you can't hear me. Um, no, let's back up, let's back up a little bit. First question that I have for both of you uh it's gotta be nicer to be able to do a Freedom Friday and just come to work and do Freedom Friday as opposed to having to go to the offices, you know, the studios at uh at Mee Muscle in St. Louis Park.

SPEAKER_08 40:06

It's nice, it's pretty nice. It's a little closer for me. I like it. We can just stay here afterward. Although I used to always drive through Caribou afterward. And um, one thing about caribou is there's always like a agendered, a non-gendered person who is like working the drive-through. And I just always felt like, wow, what a cap on my Freedom Friday is like some person who is like you just you can't determine their gender or anything about them tells me to have a nice day. And I and I liked that, and I got that cinnamon bread, you know, and I'm gonna miss that. But I'll I'll create a new routine.

SPEAKER_09 40:37

What I'm liking most, I do like the shorter commute for sure. I'm really enjoying I I've I'm watching the the stream on YouTube over here, and I love the idea that you, John, are at your desk and you're popping over every time we speak, and it's us on our American Experiment podcast set, and it's like a merging of the two shows. I love the visual of that.

SPEAKER_17 40:57

Yeah. It feels like when you're because I've I have the I have the I have an image up on my screen over here as well. It feels like we're in two different places. Yeah. I need a I need uh we need a side shot.

SPEAKER_09 41:07

We need the the above you know, see looking down from above ceiling shot. Well, we do need that, but we need to clean up a little before we get it, I think. Yeah, not yet.

SPEAKER_17 41:15

I keep I keep telling everybody we need rugs. Rugs will solve all will solve all of this.

SPEAKER_08 41:21

There are more cords on the floor than you could even imagine possible.

SPEAKER_09 41:25

There's more listening audience. There's more cords than carpet on the floor curtain.

SPEAKER_17 41:28

Yeah, it's the more it's like in it's like Indiana Jones when he when they when he goes into why is the why is the floor moving, Indy? Snakes. Why did it have to be cable? Why did it have to be cable uh cable snakes? So uh I want to take this moment and just say thank you to the three of you and everybody for uh helping to put this uh this together. And when I say this too, I really mean this behind me as well because holy cow, that was uh that was a project.

SPEAKER_09 41:51

That was a labor of love, is what that was.

SPEAKER_17 41:54

Yeah, so no, it's all it's all fantastic.

SPEAKER_08 41:56

It's beautiful now, by the way.

SPEAKER_16 41:58

That's great. If I do say so myself on my glue wings, we taught Grace how to use a cock gun. That was pretty fun.

SPEAKER_09 42:03

That was a learning experience.

SPEAKER_08 42:05

Oh, there are some listeners that will love that. She bought the and I throw no stones, okay, because I would do the same thing. But she bought the glue that goes in a cock gun, but not the gun. So we had the glue bottles and screwdrivers, and we're trying to mash the glue out of it without a gun. We finally got guns, and it was like a million times easier.

SPEAKER_17 42:28

Okay, so I gotta back up, Grace, here though, because I because I was just gonna say that I probably that was probably a major man moment on my part because I because we were talking about what we needed. You were ordering the liquid nails, and it's I think multiple times people had come to me and said, you know, aren't you supposed to go in a gun? I'm like, we're fine. It's fine. We'll just squeeze the bottom and we'll just make do. And I was completely and totally, totally wrong.

SPEAKER_08 42:58

Okay, so it's your fault. That's that's worse. It's all that's worse, John.

SPEAKER_17 43:02

It's a hundred percent my fault. It's a hundred percent. I'm the one that initially stuck the screwdriver into the top of it to get it to come out. And I'm like, you just push it up like you know, like the yogurt push-ups.

SPEAKER_09 43:11

Just push it on up from the bottom and use a oh we tried valiantly, but that that was not gonna get us through the 150 plus panels were on this wall.

SPEAKER_17 43:19

It didn't, it didn't, it didn't work. It didn't work. So I meant I had mentioned that if all this goes south and everybody can just become carpenters, we already have all the tools necessary um to uh to go and uh to go and do that. Um all right, let's take a let's take a real quick break. Uh I want to share some uh some audio. If you follow me on uh social media, uh J O N John Justice, whether it's Instagram, uh, TikTok, or on X, I have been putting up uh some uh some clips throughout the month that you might have missed. I would encourage you to head online and uh follow and subscribe to all of us, especially Center of the American Experiments uh social media um accounts as well. But here is a a short montage of some clips from over. The month that I posted online in the middle of not only traveling uh but also preparing to launch this show, The John Justice Show, uh presented by American Experiment. I'm looking at a headline from Fox 9 here in Minnesota. Through the years, a decade's worth of investigating fraud in Minnesota. That's the problem. It's been going on for a decade. And yes, there's been a lot of investigations. And yes, a lot of media outlets have done investigations. Typically, they wait until the peak outrage is over. They ignore the louder voices against this because they don't want to amplify any negative messages for Democrats. But what happens is you have some people that are held accountable. Feeding our future was just too big to be ignored. The federal government had to come in and go and handle that particular fraud program. $250 million, which at the time was the biggest COVID-era fraud that has been perpetuated across the country, and it is a pittance compared to what we are faced with now. So what's happened in the 10 years, the decades worth of investigating fraud? Nothing. It's exploded. It's gotten even larger despite a handful of individuals being held accountable. And that's the point. Because, see, whenever these different fraud stories in various government-funded entities emerges, typically you'll have a Democratic Governor Tim Walls come out and assign some new task force or some new czar or some new individual that's holding only to him. All of it is just enough to stop the coverage. Just enough to quell any outrage that might be occurring on the Democratic side, because the outrage has always been there on the Republican side. And the cycle just continues over and over and over again. Right now, we are looking at a watershed moment here in Minnesota. We're beginning to finally realize the scope of the problem, which is even larger than I think most people even realize, beyond our wildest fantasies of how much this fraud has grown. If we're gonna tackle it, it needs to be tackled now, this year, or else the state is done for. The hot takes on the recent news regarding Minnesota's paid family medical leave are about as stupid and ridiculous as I would have expected. Now I've been checked out a little bit. I'm currently on vacation. We're getting ready to uh hit the road from uh sunny uh Southern California, heading back to Minnesota, so I'm re-engaging in local news, and I see the paid family medical leave is running 19% over projections. Now that's better than what John Phelan at Center of the American Experiment had been projecting and was running at about 32%, but it's still not good, Representative Max Reimer said months ago on the show that it's probably already out of money, and it's right, it's right! And the hot takes that I'm seeing are individuals going, well, these projections show that this is filling a need for Minnesotans. No, it's not. It's redistributing the wealth of hard-working individuals like you and like me to individuals who are taking advantage of the program. And that's not to say that everybody that takes advantage and uses paid family medical leave is doing it nefariously. But the truth is, individuals that need to take time off already had options to go and do that. Options that didn't take money out of my paycheck and your paycheck and redistribute it to go and give to somebody else's big days, vacation days. I know I've had three open heart surgeries, and I was able to go and take time off through my various jobs. I never needed paid family medical leave. This isn't filling a need. No, this is a Democrat scheme to keep people voting for Democrats in order for them to go and continue to retain power and grow their power. That's it. And this is why you need to make sure that you do everything that you can personally to support the candidates and the issues that matter like this, so that we can get real change in Minnesota later on this year and put people in positions of power that'll do something about this horrible scheme to redistribute the wealth of hardworking Minnesotans. This is a joke, and ignore those ridiculous hot takes. This isn't a need that Minnesotans had. This was a need of Democrats, of Democrats, in order to continue to try and win elections. Hey, make sure you're in the John.justice at AmericanExperiment.org. And the comment line is 612-584-4565. That's going to be the primary way for you to uh communicate with the show. It's a dry run show, and it's a dry run Freedom Friday in uh studio and completely unaware. We will be talking about news items today is uh Catherine Johnson and uh Grace Keating from uh Center of the American Experiment. Hold on.

SPEAKER_08 49:45

It's a dry run, everyone.

SPEAKER_17 49:47

Isaac's over here pushing buttons. Pushing a lot of buttons. Still figuring them out. Working out all the bugs. You know who else is working out the bugs? Um that would be uh Mike Lindell and uh and uh his campaign. What the heck is going on? I do not understand why I feel like Mike Lindell didn't expect that his amnesty plan was going to raise such a ruckus. I have audio to share, I have the story here, and we'll give you the details of what this plan entails. But for some and I I could be wrong because I I think I may have found a I think I may have uncovered. I just was doing my prep. And I found some stories relating to the fact that apparently there are multiple congressional Republicans that are pushing various types of amnesty bills, just like Michael Lindell is. So I feel like this is a much there's something larger at play in all of this, but at the same time, I also wonder if this was just something that he had in his head during this interview, made the comment, this is what I want to do, and not realize that this was going to go and cause major consternation among Republicans. And so before I get to the uh to the audio, I want to let uh uh Grace and uh Catherine sort of weigh in on this. Just what do you think happened here? Do you think this was supposed to be a major policy plan and idea for Mike Lindell's gubernatorial campaign? Or do you think that this ended up exploding and now he's kind of stuck in a moment and he can't get out of it?

SPEAKER_08 51:22

I don't know. It's the definition of unforced errors. I mean, why did he say anything at all about this issue? But I think you might be right, Sean, because he was in that interview, I think, with Esme Murphy, maybe? Was that right? Yeah, I have the audio here in just a moment, just talking about it, and by the time it caught on, it was maybe weeks after the interview actually aired. And so I don't know what else he said in this interview. Maybe people just seized on this moment and he felt like he had to respond. But he should have just said, you know, as governor, I'm not gonna have an immigration plan. I'm gonna follow what the federal government tells me to do, right? Like that's what you should do. But instead, he was like, no, no, I will launch my whole own plan. It'll be generated by AI, it'll be beautiful. It's like, what are you doing? No, shut up. Just say Trump's in office, I'm gonna do whatever he says.

SPEAKER_09 52:13

That I agree with that wholeheartedly. If nothing else, this should be a lesson to every state-level candidate to just stay in your own lane. Don't verge into issues that you don't have to deal with, that you don't have to talk about, and open yourself up to saying something that I would consider a little dumb. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:31

Here's what I propose is um, I want to make uh condition. Here's what I propose is um I want to make uh conditional non-resident visas. And this would be, I'm gonna actually talk to the president about this, but I want to start with Minnesota. These conditional non-resident visas, you would have six months. Any anyone here that is an illegal immigrant comes in, you get you get you get checked in the courthouse, you get fingerprint, you get checked in to get this conditional non-resident visa. You have six months to do that. You're not a citizen, but you don't have to leave ever. And as long as a couple of things happen. Uh one is you can't commit a crime from a gross be convicted of a crime of a gross misdemeanor or better. Right now we have 1,300 people in Minnesota that are in our prisons that are illegal. We pay $110 million a year to house them. They need to be shipped out. Okay. Let me finish the plan, as me. So so you have this, and now at the end of the six months, these people are we get in what world are we suddenly getting giving Esme Murphy credit all of a sudden?

SPEAKER_17 53:39

You you gotta be, and I just I have the video still up and I'll and I'll continue it here in uh in just a moment, but yeah, you gotta be a special kind of Republican if you actually end up making like Esme Murphy coherent. You're doing something you're doing something wrong. And let me just say before I continue, because I'm sure there are people that are getting really upset right now there's a couple of things that can be true here. Okay. You can support Mike Lindell and his run for governor and not be in support of this plan. You can criticize this plan and still support President Donald Trump, even though he gave his endorsement to Mike Lindell. You can disagree with the endorsement of Mike Lindell and still be a fan and a supporter of President Donald Trump. Because a lot of times people want to divide all this up into being, you know, exclusive. Well, if you are not for this plan, then you don't like Trump and you're not MAGA.

unknown 54:31

And that's just simply not the case.

SPEAKER_01 54:32

If they want to go get a driver's license, they can go get a driver's license. But just like when I used to get DWIs, there were conditions on my driver's license.

SPEAKER_17 54:40

They will have to Did he just he did he just say just like when I used used to get DWIs?

SPEAKER_09 54:46

I mean, was that plural? Was that the best thing to bring up in an interview? Unprompted? I mean, if you're asked, that's one thing, but I mean that's my favorite part. All right, let's let's continue.

SPEAKER_01 54:58

Have to get a drive license, but they will have to learn to speak English and to read our signs here. Okay, that's gonna be one of the conditions, okay? If you want to drive it now, if you go to the line to be to be a legal citizen, then you go to the back of the line. But here's the thing that line's gonna be short and there's gonna be no cost. How are we gonna pay for that? Here's how we're gonna pay. During the six months, the employers that are paying cash at the end of that six months.

SPEAKER_17 55:24

Okay, let me stop here because I don't care how we're gonna pay for it be because it's never gonna happen because it's stupid. Let me just say that up front. I don't care how we're gonna pay for it. This is this is a dumb plan. So let's get into just a few of the details here. I I know he laid it out. But uh the My Pillow Founder, working off a story here from from AlphaNews, uh the Minnesota candidate for governor facing scrutiny, saying amnesty for illegals will only make Minnesota more of a target. This was a comment from um gubernatorial candidate Lisa Damath in the wake of this. I would expect this from Amy Clobishar and Tim Walls, but I'm surprised to see it coming from a fellow GOP candidate for governor. She was referring to the Washington Examiner article, of which Esme Murphy was dovetailing off of, in which Lindell discussed his plan to institute a six-month more uh deportation moratorium in Minnesota to give illegal aliens the opportunity to get conditional work visas that never expire. According to the Washington Examiner, Lindell's plan would only give visas to illegal aliens without criminal records. Lindell explained, now you're not a citizen, you can't vote, but you can have this card that now you can work and you can go and pay taxes and be functioning in society. Lindell told the outlet that he is a person of second chances, and I'd like to see the whole United States do this. But let's say I did it here in Minnesota. This is a Democrat idea. This is not a Republican idea. This is just another version much larger of, say, driver's licenses for all. You shouldn't be able to have a driver's license, but we're gonna go ahead and give you one anyways, even though you're here in the country illegally. And what's so amazing to me is there's no other way to describe this other than amnesty, and yet he and Philip Parrish are both pushing back saying it's actually no, let me take that back. Lendell's not saying it's not amnesty. He's saying, call it whatever you want. You want to call it amnesty, go for it. I have a post here from Philip Parrish saying, and I like Philip Parrish. He's a friend of the friend of the show, and again, you can disagree with people's ideas and still like the individuals and even go and support their campaigns. But he's the he's actually going so far as to push back, saying the claim circulating is that this supports six months of amnesty. This is fake news. Before I get into the to the details uh here, let's go back to Grace and uh and Catherine. Did you have what are your just your your current thoughts on what you heard from Mike Lindell and of this plan?

SPEAKER_08 57:56

Well, I think to give him the most amount of credit, maybe he's coming from the perspective of um a business owner, maybe, who is relying on the work of possibly illegal immigrants, as a lot of business owners do, and shouldn't. But then to take that seriously, and there are some like libertarian types who will say, we need that, our workforce is going to be in big trouble if we deport all of these people who are uh in our workforce, it could collapse. But the problem with it is that in the America First movement, which I think we all consider ourselves to be part of, and we thought Mike Lendell may have been part of, the problem here is that we're prioritizing Americans and American workers. And what he's saying is he wants to replace American workers with people not from America. And so fundamentally, that's not American First. It's clearly amnesty. He said in that interview that these people can stay as long as they want, is actually what he said, which is crazy. Um they can get IDs, they can do all sorts of stuff, but that is amnesty. There's no other way around it. And everything I've seen from Philip Parrish trying to describe how this isn't amnesty, is just a long explanation of amnesty.

SPEAKER_09 59:07

I uh I'll be honest, I'm still stuck on how he could because what he's saying is this is what he would do for just the state of Minnesota if he became governor.

SPEAKER_17 59:18

Now he's gone he's gone back, and you can leave it, you can leave it on uh on Grace for a moment because I'll be I'll be quick. He's gone back and actually said that he understands now, because somebody probably went and told him that he can't do this as governor. So he's clarified on that, on that point.

SPEAKER_09 59:33

So he's he's saying he's gonna go pitch this to President Trump. And okay, so a gubernatorial candidate for Minnesota is gonna sell the president on this brand new federal policy that affects all 50 states. That's his plan.

SPEAKER_17 59:49

Yeah. That's the idea now. That he would like to see it adopted. Now that apparently he's been now that apparently he's been told that he cannot do this as as governor here in the uh in in the state of Minnesota.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:01

Because that that was my unforced error. That was that was my sticking point. Exactly. Is why why bring this up? Because it's not the same thing as you know, giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. You know, it's it's it's affecting their status here in this country. I don't understand. Well, and but who in his campaign said that this was even a possibility or a good thing to go to campaign on.

SPEAKER_17 1:00:24

The concept of what he wants to do. So let's let's let's drop back. Let's let's let's let's drop back and look at what he's trying to address. We have illegal aliens in this country, and we have way more than we've ever had, even despite Trump's deportation efforts, because the Biden administration let all of these individuals into the country illegally intentionally because they wanted to create another voting block. This is not conspiracy anymore, you know, this is this is not rumor, this is what happened. There's no denying that. Okay, Trump's been doing his best to go and take care of this. So, first off, under Mike Lindell's plan, it just exacerbates and sets up a scenario to do exactly what the Democrats want. You can move forward on this, and let's say they implement it. You don't think for a second that suddenly now this non uh this non-resident, non-citizen resident visa that illegals who didn't commit acts of crime aren't gonna be a focus of Democrats in power to remove the non-voting part of it? You've now established a baseline where you have a Republican or Republicans who have justified individuals coming into the country illegally, oh, but we're not gonna go and let them vote, just like we're not gonna give them driver's licenses and then we did anyways.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:47

And then they are automatically registered to vote when you're in Minnesota and they get a driver's license. I mean, it's things like that, you're exactly right. It legitimizes their status here, even if it's not as a full citizen.

SPEAKER_17 1:01:58

So, how do you go about addressing the problem? And I think Trump has been on the right track. First off, you remove the criminal illegal aliens here in the country, right? And we saw the pushback, we know what's ensued since then. But that's what you do, and I continue to be an advocate of the forced attrition approach. We are a nation of laws, and a lot of those laws pertaining to the security of the country focus on individuals who came into the country illegally who disrespected the sovereignty of this nation. If you enforce those laws to their fullest extent relating to what illegal immigrants cannot take advantage of because they did not respect the laws of our country, you do that on a long enough period of time and you're gonna see the problem remedy itself. For individuals who decided to come here illegally, they're gonna find it no longer advantageous to be here. That's the point. It's like anybody else. It's like any business. You have doors locked for a reason on your business, so people just don't go and walk in. And if they walk into your business and the doors are locked after hours, you're gonna have them arrested and booted. You're not gonna give them, well, listen, I'll give you a right to come into my store. Just make sure you don't go and take it. Okay. It makes it that's how it's a long-term gain. But all this does is go and establish a baseline of justification for individuals who did not respect the laws of this country in the first place, which makes it so ridiculous that they're even attempting to go and spend this as anything other than other than amnesty than amnesty. And again, I don't know if this was an unforced error and he's stuck in a moment he can't get out of, or whether, as I have here in a couple of stories, um one from the Daily Wire, new Republican amnesty bill ignites the ire of hardliners. This is one relating to giving visas to those who are working in agriculture, to what you were saying a moment ago. Then there's an editorial out of also the Daily Wire from Ryan Gurduski, who says earlier this year I formed a homeland PAC, a federal super PAC, with the goal of holding politicians accountable for supporting amnesty for illegal aliens. I was almost immediately dismissed by the members of Congress and Washington, D.C. insiders because they believed the PAC was redundant in the age of Trump. Yet we are ten years into the Trump Revolution, and still Republicans who waived signs claiming they support mass deportation are still campaigning for amnesty. Every two years, a block of Republicans in Congress quietly put their names on bills that would legalize those same undocumented persons in direct contrast with President Donald Trump and the American people's agenda. So like, did he come up with this on his own, or is he getting this from some other from some other place? Because I feel like there's evidence here that this was not an idea born of Mike Lindell, but something that somebody handed to him because some focus group said, hey, this is something that's gonna be really popular among some group of individuals, but clearly, I mean, not Republicans that are gonna go and elect a Republican governor here in the state of Minnesota.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:13

Yeah, well, take the the farm example. I think that was, wasn't that Don Bacon? I think it was his bill, and he is trying to defend his farm owners and really big agriculture in his state of Nebraska, I believe. But what that means is he's justifying these farm owners hanging under the table for low-wage workers to work at in their farms. And I understand that this is a hard thing to get people to work these days. I mean, we have made the economy is in such a place that, yeah, it can be hard to find workers for uh things like farming. But we cannot rely on people being paid under the table low wages. This kind of lower class sort of thing that is that is not moral whatsoever. And so for people on both part of the right and the left to be defending that, I think is really kind of crazy. I mean, we can we could maybe address those problems in other ways, but seriously, this is what they're fighting for: a lower wage in underground work environment where these people are being paid under the table. That's what they want.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:24

Yeah, it is interesting. That struck me as well the more I thought about this. It feels uh it starts to feel a little exploitative or underhanded to give to give migrants a way to stay in a country, you know, legally to benefit solely for the purpose of benefiting from their labor and then not give them the benefits of citizenship. And then painting that as a as a better thing for them. Um I I I I I was thinking of a similar of a similar line, Catherine.

SPEAKER_17 1:06:54

You know, it's and and you both are probably too young to remember this, but if we were living in a different dynamic here in America, right, where you didn't have one of the major parties looking to take advantage of because this is an issue that used to cross party lines. When it came to illegal immigration and the desire to go and do something about illegal immigration, there are plenty of clips that you can go back and find, not all that long ago. I mean, from your your your Clintons, your Obama's that were sounding and talking like the Republicans are today regarding President Donald Trump's plan. Individuals coming into the country illegally. What this reminds me of, though, is going back to Reagan and '84, when Reagan was focused on the individuals coming into the country for agriculture and offering a pathway for individuals in an exchange for shoring up security at the border. And once again, back then, we didn't end up getting security at the border. It's very similar to now. A plan like this, maybe I I personally wouldn't want to examine it, but I can understand examining uh examining it if it were a dynamic of we were confident that the individuals who came here illegally are gonna end up being majority, one, contributing members of society, and that two, they're not gonna be exploited for political gain. The Democrats have gone so far to the left, they need and they're going to need, if they continue to go on this path, at least I'm hopeful that they're gonna continue to need that. They're gonna need a new voting block in order to continue to win elections, and they're banking on illegal aliens to be that to be that voting block. And so with the dynamics in play, like I said, he's feeding right into that. And I there's gotta be people around him that understand how stupid this idea is, but yet they're still in support of it. I'm I'm I feel like there's a piece of this puzzle that's missing because, as I talked about at the start of today's show, and as you guys have focused on, and Center of the American Experiment has focused on, the key issues facing people here in Minnesota. You know, immigration is certainly one of them, but not in this form. You know, when I have a list of crime stories right now, they're talking about shutting down parks because of Somali gangs and issues like that. You look at the fraud issue, 90% from the Somali community. So, sure, we have issues here, but this is a whole other thing that is not top of mind or needs to be addressed by the individual who wants to become governor of the state.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:33

Yeah. Mic drop. I mean, seriously. I I completely agree. And I think, I don't know, it's frustrating because you feel like I think Mike Lindell was framed as a candidate that was going to be like really on the right, really representing Trump, and Trump endorsed him. And you know, whatever. Trump is uh a loyalist to his core, he will stay loyal to the people who stayed loyal to him. I think that that's just part of his personality and who he is. And I think it served him quite well, honestly, um, because he was burned so many times in his first administration by people who weren't loyal to him, that now he says, okay, you know, like we're if we're loyal to each other, I got your back. And Mike Lindell has has done that for him. But to this to me feels like a major betrayal of the people who voted for Trump, of the people who have been America first, who have cared about what Trump's platform stood for. And you mentioned Reagan. I mean, that is the number one thing that Reagan is criticized for now is that amnesty. And one of the number one things that kind of failed, right? He gave amnesty to all these people, and like you said, we didn't get border security. So why would you take that and think, okay, well, now let's let's try that again? I I don't get it at all.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:38

You're right, it's very confusing from a brand perspective because Mike Lindell and his and his campaign is very much branded as, you know, kind of a Trump surrogate for Minnesota, you know, Trump at the state level. We know they're friends, you know, he's endorsed now. Um, and so to go and break away from, I mean, basically Trump's trademark policy, one of his his found, you know, foundational pillars of his campaign and his his presidency, to to to choose excuse me, to choose that to go and break out on your own is so confusing to me. When you're thinking about selling yourself to voters, I I I can't make sense of it. I do feel like I'm missing something. In a primary situation. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_17 1:11:21

Yeah, which is why I keep going back to either there's something bigger at play, right? And I know he's doing well in in some of the polling. Um, I question whether or not he can still win this primary. Maybe it's you know, maybe it's possible. Um if anything was going to doom those chances, it would be this particular uh issue. Or again, if it was just something that he talked about that that people grabbed onto and that suddenly exploded before, and now he's just doubling down on it. Won't relent from it. I I'm I'm not I'm not sure. And it's interesting to me because and as I mentioned before, Philip Parrish, you know, he's a friend of the show. I I've had him on the show. I know he I know he listens. Hopefully he'll listen to the new version of the show as well, despite what I'm about to go and and say. Um, but in this post that he put up overnight, let me just let me go through this really quick. Uh, it says the claim that is uh the claim's circulating that Mike Lindell supports six months of amnesty, doing nothing with my fingers. He says, This is fake news. What he actually said says was fingerprint them, document them, vet them, so the government finally knows who they are. So amnesty. Because why are you doing all of that and then letting them go into the country, right?

SPEAKER_09 1:12:36

Right.

SPEAKER_17 1:12:37

That's amnesty.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:38

Right. I'm not so concerned about knowing who they are. I would just like them not in the country unless they want to apply to come in legally.

SPEAKER_09 1:12:45

Yeah, doesn't that seem like the government is endorsing their presence? Yes.

SPEAKER_17 1:12:48

So he goes on to say, right now we don't even have their fingerprints. That is the chaos that has enabled the tragedies, the trafficking, the exploitation, and the underground economy for decades. Criminals, immediate deportation, no pathway to citizenship ever, no voting rights. Again, so amnesty. You're just talking about you can be, and and what I would say to Philip, and what I would say to I actually think Lindell, when he made the comment, call it whatever you want, was probably on a better path. Because Philip here saying that he's supporting six-month amnesty is fake news. All I'm reading is justification for calling it amnesty, because that's what it is. You're deporting criminals, but not individuals who came here illegally that aren't criminals. You're letting them stay. What else do you want to call that? And what's interesting though, he puts towards the end of the piece, and I want to get through the middle part here, but let me jump to the end because he says you come into the United States legally after he breaks down these other different points of why he believes this is fake news. What they're trying to do here is an attempt to redefine what it means to be in the United States legally. That's what they're trying to do. So it's like this magic trick. That's usually what Democrats do, which is why I don't understand any of this. He's trying to go and play with the words saying, no, this is you're they're here illegally. No, they're only here legally because you went and made them legal through this new Kakamami plan. First time I've ever used Kakamami on a radio show. It's a big day. It is a big day. Mike's position has not changed. America first. This is not America first, in my opinion. Minnesota first. No. Our families first. No. The biggest part of this, it's a slap in the face to all of us here that have to follow the laws every single day. Every single day. I actually, in the stack that we'll get to, we have all the new laws that are starting on August 1st. I've I've highlighted some of the funner ones because most of them are just boring and dumb. But these are all laws that we have to go and and follow. You know? You suddenly don't get a free pass because a politician just decided, well, this group of individuals doesn't have to go and, you know, as long as you don't vote, you don't have to go and, you know, you would we'll we'll we'll we'll make you we'll give you the ability to go and ignore these ignore these laws.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:12

Don't vote doing that thing with my fingers.

SPEAKER_17 1:15:14

Don't vote doing that thing. Yeah. That's sure, Mike. We're gonna give legal status to all these illegal aliens, but we're gonna make sure that they can't vote. Because, you know, there's no illegals that are voting now in our elections. No, there's no countries out there that are trying to take advantage of us, you know, like Trump didn't hold a press conference last Thursday talking about China's influence here in the United States, that everybody just conveniently ignored the fact that we had uh a major foreign adversary that has been directly peddling in propaganda, stealing voter information data, you know. But don't worry, we're gonna legalize millions of individuals who came here illegally, but they'll never be able to vote. Give me a break. Give me a break. Getting back to Phillips' uh post here, he says clearly, he said clearly, no pathway to citizenship ever, and you can't vote. But isn't that again they're trying to redefine what it means to be you're a resident, but you're not a citizen, and we're going to allow you to stay.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:21

And again, it just starts to feel exploitative to me. I I uh you're keeping people here again, just for their labor and not giving them a path to sit. It's it's exploitative on both sides. It's unfair to the American people who now have to have that, you know, dream of secure borders and and law-abiding citizens only in our country ripped away from them by someone who is supposedly, you know, America first. Um, and then it's also unfair to the people who are here illegally being taken advantage of for their cheaper labor and are never gonna actually have a path to citizenship. This is I I can't compine this at all.

SPEAKER_17 1:16:55

I have more uh audio. This is um so in the wake of all of this, uh Mike Lindell went on a uh on another show to further explain.

unknown 1:17:04

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_17 1:17:05

To further mistake number one, to further go and explain what this plan is here on the John Justice show.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:11

Isn't it isn't it if you're explaining you're losing?

SPEAKER_17 1:17:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:15

Isn't that the saying?

SPEAKER_17 1:17:16

And that's exactly what you're gonna hear in this clip presented by American Experiment.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:20

Mike Lindell's a liberal now. Mike Lindell's running out to the other side. Um, yeah, for once Steve Bannon did a big post going, you know, um, I have to look into this. This is uh, you know, it hit me from every direction. It was trendy. I'm doing a big speech. I was up in uh Sox Center, Minnesota with one of our biggest rallies with Steve in there, which they probably thought it was funny. It's out there going, Michael, and I can't even I can't even defend myself and talk about it because I'm at a rally and I'm there and I'm going here. I explained the whole thing in detail. I wanted to work out where we could get these illegal documented fingerprinted and stuff because if you have them in the system, are you ready, everybody? And they can't vote. If they vote, they and they you you've got them right there, you've got them fingerprinted, you've got their other other info in the system. All of a sudden you got they show up on the motor roll and they vote, you're out of our country. You don't get to get you don't get to be your working here as a privilege. So when I had um outlets like um Ezmond Murphy, that was a month ago. There's somebody clips out of there when I was asked what I would do with ice in Minnesota.

SPEAKER_17 1:18:30

And uh let me let me let me pause it. Let me pause it here really quick. Like I I understand the concept, but he's complete he's completely missing again. One, it's amnesty. Two, the majority of Republicans are never gonna go along with this, and three, the Democrats would go and exploit this in a heartbeat, even for as admirable doing that thing with my fingers as this might be. I understand his point. He wants individuals coming out of the shadows, he wants them documented. That way he believes we can stop them from voting in our elections. But that ignores those other three points. It's completely void of reality. It's if he it he's looking like maybe he's completely disconnected and in his own bubble where he simply does not understand that what he is proposing does not in any way, shape, or form fit into the paradigm of modern politics relating to illegal immigration.

SPEAKER_08 1:19:32

Yeah, also like in theory, if we just know who these people are, we can make sure they don't vote. Don't we know who all the citizens are? And then we could just look at the voter rolls right now and be like, all right, if you're not a if your name's not one of our citizens, you don't line up, get out of there. Like, how is this? Don't we have the reverse information of this right now in his plan? And this would I don't understand how this solves that problem.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:54

I also don't understand. It sounds to me like he thinks that when you go to vote, you get your fingerprint taken, and like that's how they identify you. Like, if that was the system, this this proposal would make more sense to me. I would like that.

SPEAKER_17 1:20:06

Well, and you know, if we passed this thing called the Save America Act, this is all null and void. And so let's just go there, dude. Quit wasting your time talking about illegal immigration, running for the governor of the state of Minnesota, of which you have absolutely no power over anybody's immigration status. And why don't you instead, if you want to talk about national issues, start talking about how John Thune needs to get off his tukus and go and get the Save America Act passed? Because if you pass that, then everything that he's proposing here for as ludicrous as it is is completely unnecessary. Exactly. I'm I'm I'm lost on all of this, and you know the other aspect of this that is driving me baddie is the fact that individuals seem incapable who talk completely different regarding illegal immigration of changing their tune on this. So again, I mentioned Philip Parrish. I know he's a part of his campaign now, but I'm shocked this is coming from him. I heard what he was talking about on the campaign trail before he decided to join Mike Lindell's campaign. He wasn't speaking like this. I never would have thought in a million years that Philip Parrish would have gone on uh and supported a plan like this. You look at a guy like Royce White, who's Mr. Mass Deportations, mass deportations, mass deportations. What about Mike Lindell's plan to give amnesty to everybody? Oh, you're not listening to it correctly. Oh, you're not that that's not what he wants to do. That's exactly what he wants to do. So, you know, to a guy like Royce White, dude, where do you stand? Do you stand for anything? Because you're talking out of both sides of your mouth and you're sounding like a hack, which is why he's doing as bad as he is in the in the polling. Let's get back to uh to the uh to the clock.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:46

Um and obviously it doesn't work to go door to door when you have at least not in our state, we have you know, because of the tragedies that happen, we have a big problem that needs to be solved. But in the meantime, we have employers paying illegal.

SPEAKER_17 1:22:01

So is he suggest. So this whole thing we can't go or to door or door to door, so we've seen the tragedy. So is he now on the anti-ICE? Is he taking now taking an anti-ICE angle? Because he's obviously referring to good and pretty in all of this. So is he saying, Well, you know, we know what happened when that happens, and and it is this the stance that he's taking now?

SPEAKER_08 1:22:23

Yeah, Ice can't do their jobs, we can't enforce the law. Yeah, I don't like that.

SPEAKER_17 1:22:29

I feel like somebody told did somebody tell him you need to appeal to Democrats?

SPEAKER_08 1:22:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_17 1:22:33

Is that is that is that where you're gonna be able to do that? That's the only way I can make sense of this, which is so confusing.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:38

He's in a primary. Mike Glendale, you're in a primary. Everything I'm getting from, the only candidate in this race I'm really getting content from is Lisa Damath. And it is clearly geared towards Republicans, right? It is like she is trying to get me to vote. It is hardcore, it is good, and that's because she's running in a primary, right? That's just basic election politics. Why is the content we're getting from Mike Lindell like, oh, I'm I'm moderating on the issue of immigration the most important issue to the base?

SPEAKER_09 1:23:05

The only the only way I I can make sense of this of this strategy is he thinks that the Trump endorsement is getting him through the primary, and so he's already moved on mentally, and yes, now he's trying to appeal to middle of the road and left voters. That I mean, that's my only uh guess.

SPEAKER_17 1:23:21

But what an incre okay, so let's let's go with that for for just a moment, okay? There's more to this, we can play a little bit more here in just a moment. But let's go to that for just a moment. Because I think you're on to something. Because he is up in the polling, right, when it comes to the primary, all right? And it Damon's been closing the the gap, and uh Kendall Qualls has been sort of at a distant third in all of this. There's still time to make up ground, but this is where the polling is for his for whatever stock little or or a lot you want to put you want to put into it. But let's go with this idea that he feels like he's gonna win the primary and he needs to appeal to Democrat voters. Why are you bringing it up now? Wait until you get past the primary and then go and talk about this plan. I'll if Mike Lindell gets the get is the nominee, I'll vote for him. I'll vote for uh pretty much any Republican over Lamy Clobichar, okay? So, I mean, maybe this goes back to the unforced error uh angle, Catherine, that you were making because that makes more sense to me. So you won that you're you're now the nominee for the state for governorship of the state of Minnesota. You need to rally Republicans to your cause. Now you may tick off a lot of them doing so, but you know they're still gonna vote for you. And a lot of individuals will rationalize it in their mind, right? In the wake of having to a choice between voting for Amy Klobuchar or voting for Mike Lindell. You don't want Amy Klobuchar, you know it's it could, if you're not a supporter of Mike Lindell, it's a lesser of two evils, then bring up your plan because you maybe could appeal to some Democrats who maybe aren't fans of the Senator of Small Things. And they're like, oh, looks at Mike's got an open idea regarding giving amnesty to illegals, and he's a Republican, you know. Maybe I'll go and vote for him. I can get behind that. But instead, he brings it up months out from the from the primary. Again, that makes no that makes no logical rational sense to me.

SPEAKER_08 1:25:15

No, I agree. He must think he's running in the general. I think that must be what's going on, which is interesting.

SPEAKER_17 1:25:20

That he's gonna win the primary regardless?

SPEAKER_08 1:25:21

Yeah, yeah. That must be it, right? Because it's just the most confusing strategy. And again, like I just am so confused why the only person I'm hearing from on my end, on my social media, coming to my house, is Lisa Damath. Where are the other people trying to win over my votes? I've been undecided for a while now about, you know, both of these races, and and I really like basically all of the candidates that are involved. And I feel like the only person who is asking for my vote has been Lisa Damath. And I don't know if that's a money thing, and I don't know if that's what that is, but she's running a good primary, and I don't hear anything from these other people. Mike Lindell's never sent me anything, he's never tried to get my vote, and now he comes out with an amnesty plan. Completely confusing. And I think uh obviously for me, disqualifying. Um that's all excuse me, just briefly.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:10

Just briefly. What is so mystifying to me about this, again, just going back to the very basics, you have so many winning issues. If you are running as a Republican here in Minnesota in 2026, you have so much that you could be talking about that is so broadly so that has such broad appeal from fraud to our failing education system to our economic struggles. Why are you talking about immigration? Just say you're going to follow the federal government.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:42

Then you have $110 million worth of illegals sitting in our prisons here that have committed felonies and crime and rape and get them out of here. The mainstream media, they're not reporting this. They know that there's clips and they know that it's an attack, and they if they report it, they'd probably go. For some reason, they're not reporting it on this NFC. It's all social media. And it's all bots and trolls attacking me. People on the right, people and my friends. I got podcasters out there. I got Steve Getting.

SPEAKER_17 1:27:12

I'm not a I'm not a bot, by the way. I just wanted to point that out.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:15

I don't think I'm a troll.

SPEAKER_17 1:27:16

No, I'm not really big on trolling, and that's not really my not really my not really my brother.

SPEAKER_16 1:27:21

Remember that we do.

SPEAKER_17 1:27:21

That's okay.

SPEAKER_16 1:27:22

Remember, we don't have a uh all human guarantee or whatever.

SPEAKER_17 1:27:26

Oh, that's right. That's right. We are not guaranteed human here on the John Justice show. Presented by American Experiment. Yeah, we established that yesterday. That's a really d was a really dumb thing that me muscle did, the whole guaranteed human nonsense.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:38

Well, and it's a good thing you got rid of that because now one of the people in the studio is not a human. It's a it's a it's a Oh Shogru.

SPEAKER_17 1:27:45

It's a Shogrew. Yeah, Shoguru. Here I'll widen out. We're done.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:47

It's a baby Yoda. What what species is Yoda?

SPEAKER_17 1:27:50

We don't know.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:51

Oh, well, he's that.

SPEAKER_17 1:27:52

Yeah.

unknown 1:27:52

He's cute.

SPEAKER_17 1:27:53

He's that. I know. That's show that is that is Shogrew. We had to we had to we had to move him. And now he's got an American experiment button. Um, keeping with the theme of what we're talking about, though, uh, there was a big rally that took place. This wasn't the I don't think this was the recent one with Bernie Sanders. I think it was there was a rally for Democrats about a week a week prior. Um, but Minnesota Attorney uh General, uh Thief Ellison, uh was making comments recently about non-citizens voting, and uh here is what he had to say.

SPEAKER_11 1:28:22

Let me tell you, there's a whole lot of people who were not 18 years old in the last election. There's a whole lot of people who were not naturalized citizens in the last election. There's a whole lot of people who stand it out because of whatever reason in the last election. But you know what? We're gonna get them all this election.

SPEAKER_17 1:28:40

He's gonna, he's gonna, it's like Pokemon. We're gonna get him, we're gonna get them all. We're gonna legal, legal, and illegal, the citizen and and non-citizen voters.

SPEAKER_08 1:28:49

What did he mean by that? Really? What did he mean? He literally meant we're gonna have illegals voting for us in this election. Just that shameless? Like, what are you what?

SPEAKER_17 1:29:01

Yeah, it just it under it underscores just how stupid that whole that whole plan that whole plan is.

SPEAKER_08 1:29:08

This is so frustrating. And then you have our media in Minnesota will still come out and be like, no, no, Democrats don't want illegals voting in elections. They aren't voting in elections. Meanwhile, Keith Ellison is saying this, other states are finding that they have thousands of illegals on their voter rolls. I mean, that's great. And they keep gaslighting us.

SPEAKER_17 1:29:27

It is a uh dry run of Freedom Friday here on the John Justice Show presented by American Experiment. We have lighter fare to talk about. I have local Costco news. I'm so very excited about this. It is Costco Friday, by the way. It's kind of a bummer though, because I haven't been eating. I can't, I've been I've been on a you can I'm getting Svelte. Um so I've been trying to eat better, so I have not been partaking in the Costco thing. Svelte? What is thin? Svelte? Have you not heard that before? I think Svelte? No? Catholic? I'm familiar with Svelte. Okay, so we got the age gap there. We figured it out. There we go. We figured it out. Right. So it's about ten, there's a there's about a decade. There's about a decade right in there where Svelte fell by the wayside and the the younger 20-somethings are unaware what's what's going on.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:16

I'm a 20-something for a couple more days. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_17 1:30:19

I apologize there. All right. Uh so we have Costco News. We also know why uh driving the speed limit may be the key to saving the planet.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:28

Oh that's what I thought this whole time.

SPEAKER_17 1:30:31

I knew it. Plus new Minnesota laws that uh take effect on uh August 1st. So we're gonna get into those in just a moment on the show. First off, though, uh let's revisit uh some more social media posts, and these specifically. There's one here regarding um attorney general uh thief uh Ellison. Again, you can follow uh me and Center of the American Experiment on multiple social media outlets. And since you're listening to this prior to the official launch of the show on Monday, remember that you can listen to the show live at americanexperiment.org. There'll be a link available right there at the uh website. Also on the Mix L R app, M-I-X-L-R, it is completely free. You already deleted the Me Muscle app. So just replace it with the Mix L R app and just search for American Experiment and John Justice. You will find it there. Plus, we will be live on uh multiple YouTube channels, on uh Instagram, uh Rumble X, and Facebook as well. So you're gonna have a lot of different locations, no matter where you are, on the internet or in your car, or just walking around. You can listen Monday through Friday, 6 until 9 a.m. to the John Justice show presented by American Experiment. President Donald Trump threw his uh endorsement behind my pillow founder Mike Lindell in the gubernatorial race here in Minnesota. And I want to talk about specifically the problems that this causes. First off, I'm not surprised that Trump threw his endorsement behind Lindell. Uh he and Mike Lindell are friends, but Trump is not on the crowd here in Minnesota to know the specific dynamics of the GOP candidates for governor here in Minnesota. So it doesn't shock me at all that Trump went through his for behind the Michael Founder. I wish he had because the problem is going to be regarding the commentary around the existing oral candidate who may be better than Michael Lindell, and maybe more collectible than Michael Lindell. You see, up until this point, if you're critical of any of the candidates, we're heading towards the primary. We already had controversies coming out of the GOP convention and a month or so ago regarding the ridiculous endorsement process. And so we already have a lot of division within the GOP because of that controversy relating to the endorsed candidates and or candidate and the individuals that are gonna take this to a primary. President Donald Trump's endorsement of Mike Lendell, it really just goes and comes up the machine even more so than I've already thought. If you were critical of Mike Lindell before, it wasn't that big of a deal. There are already divisions, and people support who they support and will sort it out in the primary, and I will certainly vote for Mike Lendell if he ends up being the nominee for the GOP. Unfortunately, now, with President Donald Trump's support, a lot of individuals are going to go and look towards Mike Lindell. And if you're critical now of the My Fellow founder, unfortunately, a lot of people are going to immediately say that you're anti-MAGA, you're anti-Trump if you don't support Mike Lindell. And that just simply isn't the case. So my encouragement to anybody watching right now is support if you want to support. But as I always say, do not go and criticize, or overly criticize, or get angry with somebody if they don't support the same GOP combinatorial candidate or any of the other candidates in the GOP race for later this year. Do not go and throw the baby out with the battlefield. Encourage everybody to vote for whoever the nominees actually are after the primary, but let's not get bloody in our frustration. And go to battle with individuals simply because they don't support your candidate. And it especially rings true if you don't support Michael Hell, it doesn't mean that you're anti-Maggab or anti-Trump. It just means you have a differing opinion over one, who's more electable and two, who would be a better Republican governor. Alright, big announcement coming up on July 25th on the steps of the Capitol. The American Experiment, uh, America 250 block party taking place. I'll be speaking there and making that big announcement regarding the future uh of the uh of the show. I can't wait to share with you the details. So hopefully, uh hopefully you're at the event. Head on over to AmericanExperiment.org and you can get more details. And of course, if you're not able to make the event on the 25th, I will be putting all the information. All this together. But like we said, if uh if this were easy, everybody everybody would be doing it at this point in time. I'm really I I am uh I'm not even joking. It's I feel I'm reluctant to go and make comments like this because it's so stereotypical of an individual who has sort of shifted course within a career to prop up the thing they're doing now versus the thing that they were doing before. And I don't want to sound cliche in in in what I'm saying here, but I really legitimately believe, and I was having uh a conversation with Katrin Wigfall yesterday out in the uh in the in the hallway about this, that radio is changing. And what we're seeing regarding terrestrial radio is very much in line with what we saw when it came to your over, you know, your over-the-air television, where it all shifted over to streaming. I think radio has taken longer to deal with this particular issue, but now it has arrived. Um I know a lot of people that still work in music radio, but I can tell you firsthand, my son, like I was talking to Kyle, he doesn't own a radio. I don't think he's ever turned on the radio in his car. Listen, his father was a conservative news talk show host on an AM station that had an FM, and he's like, What's AM? Like he didn't even know. And I thought I, you know, I really had an expectation that talk radio would would last a little longer and that it would be music radio that would be the first to go. And what I kind of failed to realize about that though is that the music radio side of things has already changed considerably because the only real radio music radio hosts you have left are those that are hosting successful morning shows. And right now I actually think that like country morning shows are probably the shows that are going to have the most longevity, but I think there's even a shelf life on that because there's this, especially major major country morning shows. Because if they're well connected within the community, and especially here in Minnesota, there's a vibrant country community, that there's a direct connection there that kind of establishes the country community with this country morning show, even though you know I I couldn't tell you the last time I listened to traditional radio for music. Right? And now you don't have all those other hosts throughout the day that are hosting shows. They're all one person that's piped into a gazillion stations, which is what ended up happening with me and talk radio. But what we're doing here in providing a podcast, providing a video element, but also that live element Monday through Friday, 6 to 9, that was crucial for me to replicate. I really do think that this is where you're going to see um talk content be in the very near future. And I'm just excited to, I don't know they're not the first ones to do it, obviously, but I'm just excited to kind of be at the forefront of uh of being able to do this as I continue my career. And I cannot thank uh Center of the American Experiment enough for um, you know, for bringing me on board and having the same vision that uh that I had.

SPEAKER_08 1:39:12

Yeah, it has been uh I will just say personally, John, such a joy to have you in the office. And also from my perspective, I've been at American Experiment for six and a half years now. Um seeing it grow has been incredible, and just seeing the way that conservatives have been able to find their own kind of footing in this media landscape in Minnesota where not that long ago we had really no options, we had a far left uh mainstream media that was um the only way to get your news. And now you look at the options that we have been able to bring conservatives, and it is incredible. Finally, people can get real commentary and news that they can rely on. And that was one thing that people trusted you for, John, of course. And so it's an honor to have you bringing that to American Experiment. We knew it was crucial that people continued getting that news, and I'm just glad that they can keep getting it through uh through us.

SPEAKER_17 1:40:09

I am really, really curious. I don't know what your guys' uh I don't know what your thoughts are. Um to uh Catherine and uh and Grace as she makes her way back in and and and Isaac. I'm really curious what the listener's response is going to be. I've been sharing logos online. Some people were clever enough to go and figure things uh think figure things out, and of course by the time you're listening to this, everybody will know it at this point in time. Um but they don't know the specific details. A lot of people don't know that we're gonna be live Monday through Friday and how we're going and facilitating all this. So I'm really curious what the listener's response is going to be. There's a part of me that believes the listener understands the reason for the change and that the radio element is not going to be important to them anymore. But there's also a possibility that that might be the case. I just don't know yet. And I think we'll know a lot more. Well, again, by the time you're listening to this, we'll know a lot more. But come Saturday, come tomorrow. Um Oh my gosh, it's tomorrow. I gotta finish my speech. That is crazy. Holy cow, I just forgot. Um I'm really curious to see what the response is from those when they find out exactly what it is um that we're doing. Uh Gracie, uh your expectations of how do you think the people are gonna respond?

SPEAKER_09 1:41:23

I think people are going to be uh thrilled. I mean, I think most people's fear when you, you know, went off the radio was that you weren't gonna they they just simply weren't gonna hear from you anymore. And so the fact that you are continuing the show, that you are continuing it in a live format, doing this, I mean, kind of you know, pioneering uh just a show that we're that we're doing right now, where it's a podcast, but it's live. And you know, we really are trying to to keep it as much the same as possible. And I think that people are are going to really appreciate that. I would be shocked if there was a sizable group who was who were upset that you weren't on, you know, strictly on on the airwaves anymore. Uh I think that people are going to be relieved and really excited to see, you know, how much has stayed the same and yet also the cool new things that we're doing now.

SPEAKER_08 1:42:10

Yeah, and I'm excited for the people who will find your show because they know how to go on X and open up their X account, but they don't like yeah, I didn't know the radio in my car and how it worked until I started, you know, listening to your show. And then I was like, I gotta figure this out, I gotta figure out how to get radio in my car. So I think there's a lot of people in that category, especially younger people. I think you can reach a brand new audience in addition to hopefully keeping that entire incredible community you've already built up that are really dedicated to the show and it's incredible, incredible to see.

SPEAKER_17 1:42:42

Yeah, it um this has been a you it's been a unique experience going through all of this here. I went through something similar before I came to Minnesota because I was in I was in Tucson for for nine years. But I left. You know, I mean I just got up, I mean I just I came here, you know, I left I left the state and it wasn't uh there wasn't a thought about staying at the time. That was the plan uh that was the plan all along. And this has been a unique uh experience and a response that I did not anticipate when the when Mii Muscle came in and said your services are no longer you're no longer needed. There is such a divide over Mii Muscle, by the way.

SPEAKER_09 1:43:25

I can't get behind it. I am sorry.

SPEAKER_17 1:43:27

Every time I hear it, I just it's a male-female thing, I think is what it is.

SPEAKER_09 1:43:32

Isaac, are you are you pro-Me Muscle then, Isaac?

SPEAKER_17 1:43:36

I think so. I'm undecided. Yeah. Jeff O'Brien was pro-Me muscle. My wife is not pro-Me muscle.

SPEAKER_09 1:43:42

Yeah, see.

SPEAKER_17 1:43:43

Well, never mind.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:45

We'll leave it at that.

SPEAKER_17 1:43:47

Never mind.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:48

Wait, I don't know if I get it.

SPEAKER_17 1:43:51

Okay, so you know my former employer. Yeah. It's blank blank. John Justice used to work for blank blank.

SPEAKER_08 1:43:56

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_17 1:43:57

I was trying to think of a different way to say that.

SPEAKER_08 1:43:59

Oh, oh, oh, oh, blank blank. I was thinking blink blank blank, and then I was like, where are the Okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_17 1:44:04

So I could say me I could say Me Muscle Radio.

SPEAKER_08 1:44:06

Okay, no, I get it.

SPEAKER_17 1:44:07

You deleted the Me Muscle app.

SPEAKER_08 1:44:09

I get it.

SPEAKER_17 1:44:11

I just can't get behind it. Okay, give me a different way to say heart. I'll I'll I'll workshop it. What's a different way? Because heart's a muscle.

SPEAKER_16 1:44:19

Do you remember the Nickelodeon shows where they used to have the paraphones? Does anyone remember those? Instead of an instead of an Apple phone, it used to be the shape of the phone.

SPEAKER_09 1:44:27

Oh my gosh, I do. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_16 1:44:29

This kind of reminds me of that.

SPEAKER_09 1:44:30

Yeah. Same thing. I'm I'm behind the concept. Don't get me wrong. I just am reacting negatively to the phrase me muscle being uttered so frequently. There's something better for heart.

SPEAKER_17 1:44:42

Me kidney? Well no, but it's not a kidney. Just give me another word for heart. What's another what is another word? You know what? Smart? Hold on. No, I it needs to it needs to really. Me smart, me, good. Let's go to let's go to Thesaurus, okay? This is we're just gonna do this on the fly. Me soul. Hold on.

SPEAKER_13 1:45:07

Oh, me love.

SPEAKER_17 1:45:08

Okay, okay, alright. Uh let's see. These are all stupid, by the way. These are all advocates. Okay, so these are the so the the strongest the strongest synonyms for heart. Character. Feeling, love, nature, and soul.

SPEAKER_08 1:45:26

Oh, no, no, no. We need like an actual heart, right?

SPEAKER_17 1:45:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:45:30

Not like doing something with heart. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_17 1:45:35

Oh, yeah. So yeah, the physical. Oh, that's right. So Thesaurus is is is is not extrapolating. Oh, here we go, here we go. Um, no, none of these work either. I could just say iHeart and be done with it. I guess I just I suppose I just I suppose I just did. So Alright, let's go here. Uh I was doing my prep this morning for the show. And I saw this. And this is funny to me because I've been wondering what in the world's gonna happen to this location, and now I have an answer. So are either of you familiar with the Costco in Coon Rapids at all? No, sir. No, none at all. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 1:46:09

Costco? I've been to the one in chat.

SPEAKER_17 1:46:11

Sure, okay. So the Costco in in Coon Rapids, it's uh it's got there's a lot of infrastructure around it, like most Costco's have, right? There's like a shopping center and outside stores and all this. There's an orange gym and there's a cold there and and all this. There's an empty TGEI Friday that's right there on the corner next to Costco. Which always surprised me. Like it's like that is a that is a very busy business district, and yet TGE Fridays couldn't couldn't survive.

SPEAKER_09 1:46:40

That's kind of a dying breed of restaurant, though, isn't it?

SPEAKER_17 1:46:46

All the TGI Fridays went under?

SPEAKER_08 1:46:48

Well, I don't know. The one in St. Louis Park didn't. It was just this empty building that looks exactly like a TGI Fridays, you know? But you they just stripped off all of the branding. But I just thought, like, I think a restaurant bought it.

SPEAKER_17 1:46:58

So well, like they opened a golden corral on just down the street in that same area, and it didn't last either, which just blows my mind because I love me so much Golden Corral.

SPEAKER_08 1:47:08

You're not a Golden Corral fan. What is a golden corral?

SPEAKER_17 1:47:11

What do you mean, what is a golden corral? Alright, Grace Golden Corral?

SPEAKER_07 1:47:16

Like one of those buffet places.

SPEAKER_17 1:47:18

Wow, yes. Isaac, Golden Corral Path. I think I got a picture of the cards. Now I know why Golden Corral did not make it in Coon Rabbits.

SPEAKER_16 1:47:27

I can get behind a buffet though.

SPEAKER_17 1:47:29

It's fantastic. So good. It did not penetrate to this channel. Okay, what about Sizzler?

SPEAKER_08 1:47:35

What? I think you're doing like a Southern thing, maybe? I don't think we have these up here.

SPEAKER_17 1:47:42

Oh my gosh. I'm surrounded by young people. Alright. Did you guys know TGI Fridays, I'll stick with my story. Costco's purchase of the former TGI Fridays building in Coon Rapids for 5.5 million, which is shocking to me because it's not a very big building.

SPEAKER_09 1:47:56

That's a lie.

SPEAKER_17 1:47:57

The purchase is going to allow Costco to combine the plots. They tell great stories of Costco. Nothing? I lost the plot. It's a good thing this is a try-run show. I'm just going to make a list. Don't do those. We're going to cut that. At least not with this audience. We'll put that on the show that didn't that didn't occur the first hour, right? Uh it's going to double, and then what they're going to do is they're going to double the size of its gas station, which is good news because the gas station is located right at the entrance. And if you go there on a busy day and like everything gets backed up. They're adding 128 parking spaces. The TGI Friday's building will be demolished and the gas station will be relocated to the southwest corner of the property. This is completely self-serving, but I could not be happier about this news.

SPEAKER_09 1:48:48

That is awesome.

SPEAKER_07 1:48:49

They paid five and a half million dollars for more parking spaces?

SPEAKER_17 1:48:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:48:53

And better gas station gas station location. That's critical. That's critical.

SPEAKER_17 1:48:58

This is what the song was named after. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

SPEAKER_09 1:49:01

That's what I'm doing I get. I don't know if that's worse that I got it and didn't. Very polarizing song. I like it. I don't know. But I but I've I hear that reaction a lot of people who think that's not in my genre.

SPEAKER_17 1:49:18

It's not really. I think it's Joni Mitchell, right?

SPEAKER_09 1:49:20

Well, I like the Counting Crows version. Didn't they do it? Yes, they did.

SPEAKER_17 1:49:24

Yes. Yes. Yeah, you're right. 100%. Yeah, their version's better. Yeah. Their version's better than the than the than the OG. We've lost Catherine and Isaac. Isaac, no? No? Okay. All right. Speaking of fueling up your car, let's go here. Study finds. A study analyzing over 120 million vehicle trips found that speeding costs the US over 18 million and 50,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution daily. I don't care.

SPEAKER_09 1:49:56

Already you've lost because that quant I have no concept of like the Quantity of carbon that we're talking about. That could be not that much carbon, for all I know. You know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 1:50:04

I think we need more carbon. Yeah. I'm pro-carbon.

SPEAKER_08 1:50:07

Pro carbon. I'm pro-carbon. Good for breathing, right?

SPEAKER_17 1:50:10

Sticking to speed limits, it is good for breathing. Truer words will probably not be spoken on this dry run Freedom Friday show. Sticking to speed limits could save over six million gallons of gasoline daily, with only a 54 second increase in average travel time. The study highlights the negligible time savings of speeding compared to its significant environmental economic skills. Okay. 15 seconds. 54 seconds. Oh. 54 second increase. Only a 54 second increase in average. 54 second increase in average travel time. I am not interested at all in the global warming carbon output aspect of the story. What I do find fascinating, and it's very self-serving because of the trip that I just went on, but what I do find fascinating is I've learned because my algorithm ended up I I watched a couple of videos on this on social media, so my algorithm started spitting at me a bunch of other videos. I didn't realize how little you did actually gain by speeding to a location even on a long trip. When you break down the math of increasing your speed even by like 10 miles an hour, like the length of time that you end up cutting out to meet your destination, like it is it's like not it's they're basically it's not worth it. Give me numbers. We're talking minutes.

SPEAKER_09 1:51:36

Like over 10 minutes?

SPEAKER_17 1:51:37

No, like less than that. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 1:51:40

But that's not what you're gaining from speeding. Like what I gain from speeding is a sense of calm. You know, like if I have to be somewhere and I'm just kind of slowly chugging along, I just uh my anxiety builds and I I get stressed. So if I'm speeding, I feel like I'm doing everything I can to get there, you know?

SPEAKER_17 1:51:58

Okay. Oh, I have not heard that take before. I have not heard that take. Oh I'm sorry, you wouldn't agree? That's the correct take, though.

SPEAKER_16 1:52:05

No, I think that is the correct take. I haven't heard that take, but I agree with that. If you're late and you're not speeding, yeah, you don't care about being there.

SPEAKER_09 1:52:13

Right. Now, so see, I agree, I agree with that. I think I think it's the proposition that like I speed not to get there faster, I speed to calm myself.

SPEAKER_16 1:52:22

Yes, that is where you're losing the advantage. Like that's the weirdness. No, but it's like you're doing everything you can.

SPEAKER_08 1:52:27

Yeah, I know. I just mean I know that I'm not gonna get there that much faster because I'm trying to beat my GPS, and you never really do, you know, like your GPS ETA is pretty much always gonna be when you get there, even if you're totally speeding the whole time. Right. My experience. However, and so I know that. However, if I'm not speeding, I'm just anxious about not speeding, and that, you know, and so yeah, that's why I speed.

SPEAKER_17 1:52:50

So we were so we're on our we're on our travels, because I got a lot of I got a lot of little elements to add in here, right? So we're 10 states, 10 days, here to Arizona, to California, and back two different routes, somewhat southern, somewhat northern when we came back. We left my mom's house in Prescott, Arizona, and we were heading to Southern California. It's about a six-hour drive. Now we were pulling like 12 to 15 hour days driving. I mean, there was a moment every single time we did a leg of anything over 10 hours. By the time we hit like hour 11, this switch got flipped in both me and my son Kyle, where we just went to Loopieville. I don't know if it was just the road going by, just sitting there behind the wheel, but there was this moment where we both suddenly were just not making sense. We were we weren't angry, but we weren't coherent. And this is the moment where I'm trying to figure out where we're gonna stop and what hotels we're gonna use. And I'm on the phone in the car with Melinda while she's looking ahead to try to find places, and we're just in here cracking jokes and all this, and she's like, Why are you guys laughing? We're trying to find a place for you guys to stop.

SPEAKER_07 1:54:01

Every story about your wife, I'm like, wow, a woman's insane. I know.

SPEAKER_17 1:54:05

She's so she's so incredible. She's so incredibly patient.

SPEAKER_07 1:54:08

You can deal with this yourself.

SPEAKER_17 1:54:10

Are you crazy people? Oh, that happened. Oh, that absolutely happened. There was there was a moment where she's listening right now, and she goes, Oh no, I remember that happened because she was done. She didn't want to help me anymore. So Kyle and I are heading to California, and I wanted to get there as as quick as possible, and we were trucking, right? We're on back roads, desert roads, just just flying. And we had a whole routine worked out, you know. I've got Kyle was able to figure out, I hadn't messed with any of it, but uh Monty's got all those driver assist items, right? I'm sure you have it. I know you have a new car, you probably do them in your car as well. But the lane assist and the cruise control that keeps you at a certain distance of the vehicle in front of you so cool. I'd never mess with any of that. And Kyle, in the first like couple of hours, is like, you know, he's looking at the manual. If you do this and you do this, we can do this. And he gets in the car and he's utilizing all this stuff. I'm in the back trying to sleep at one point. I don't even think his hands are on the wheel. What are you doing? He's like, I'm on cruise control and it's Linusis. He's like, Monty's got it. I'm not gonna do anything. I'm just yeah, Monty's got this all taken care of.

SPEAKER_08 1:55:16

You guys, I just got this new car and it has all of that, but they've added this little like doodad where it watches you.

SPEAKER_06 1:55:22

What?

SPEAKER_08 1:55:23

It like it's not a camera, but it like it does sense you to make sure your eyes are paying attention.

SPEAKER_09 1:55:29

Oh wow. Mine gets mad if I take my hands off the wheel. Monty, I don't think it gets mad at me too. Tracking eye movement.

SPEAKER_08 1:55:35

My it's I don't know. That's all the guy really told me. He was like, oh yeah, that just makes sure you're alert and like your eyes are focused.

SPEAKER_17 1:55:41

I'm like, hmm, the Monty told me when I when it when Monty decided I needed to take a break. And I had a little, I'm not even kidding you. I had we were we hit, I think it was like hour like 13 one of the days. Oh my and I'm driving and suddenly my my speedometer goes black, right? The screen, it goes black. This little coffee cup pops up with Steam Cup, a little steam graphic, and it says, you should probably take a break.

SPEAKER_09 1:56:13

Seems like good advice. None of this happened. This was all a hallucination induced by the 13 hours of driving. Happened twice.

SPEAKER_17 1:56:23

Monty's telling me to take a break again.

SPEAKER_09 1:56:24

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_08 1:56:25

That's like my aura ring. You have one of those, like a watch, aura ring, anything like that. You got a watch. Okay, yeah, it'll be like time to stretch our legs a little bit after I've been watching TV for a while.

SPEAKER_09 1:56:34

I I listened to those for the first like month of having my watch, and uh it still tells me, but I've not listened to it so I had a mood ring growing up, but I never had an aura ring. Mood rings.

SPEAKER_17 1:56:44

I know I miss my mood ring. So we're flying down. We're flying through the desert, trying to make good time, right? And and this was probably the part of the trip where we were where we were where I thought we're we're just we're gonna make it, we're gonna make it there so quick, right? It's gonna be fantastic. And the the arrival time would not budge. Would not budge. I'm like, what in the world is going on? And then at one point it started to go in reverse. I'm like, why am I going the wrong direction? What is happening? Well, I realized that we were cutting through the desert before we got on I-10, which is a major major thoroughfare between Arizona and California, and there was bumper-to-bumper traffic on a Sunday morning that I was completely unaware of. So we stop. I'm like, ah. My point is, all that time speeding, completely irrelevant. Didn't didn't didn't matter what so whatsoever. What surprised me though was the number of highways in rural America where the speed limit was 80. Have you guys driven on those roads where it's 80? The promised land.

SPEAKER_08 1:57:56

South Dakota. You've been to South Dakota. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's 80, but everyone goes 100.

SPEAKER_17 1:58:01

So here's okay, so here's the question that I have. Do you have, we'll go around, we'll go around. Isaac will start with you and then Grayson, we'll go Catherine. So when you're driving, do you have any self-imposed speed limit rules to your to your driving? What are your self-imposed speed limit rules? I keep it under 100.

unknown 1:58:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_16 1:58:24

No, that's my only one.

SPEAKER_17 1:58:25

Now what I mean. That's my only one. Now what I mean. If you are going to speed, is there a max over the speed limit you're gonna travel?

SPEAKER_16 1:58:33

I've heard like yes. I try to keep it 10 miles an hour. Okay. 10 to 12.

SPEAKER_17 1:58:38

10 to 10 10 to 12? Okay.

SPEAKER_16 1:58:40

I start getting nervous around 12. Okay.

unknown 1:58:42

Great.

SPEAKER_16 1:58:43

Depends. For a highway, that's what I think.

SPEAKER_09 1:58:45

My my sweet spot I would say is like seven over, maybe ten over if I'm feeling crazy. And if the speed limit's already pretty high. Um, but I real I really don't like to go much beyond that. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 1:58:56

Uh yeah, I mean, like in theory, I try and stay within nine. Um, but that's in reality not always what happens.

SPEAKER_17 1:59:03

So here's the debate that Kyle and I got into. And that is if the speed limit is so the so the the conventional the conventional wisdom is that law enforcement's not gonna pull you over if you're under if you're going under 10. If you're doing eleven, you're gonna get busted. I think it's all just a myth anyways, but that's sort of depends where you are. Right.

SPEAKER_08 1:59:20

No, I think that's true.

SPEAKER_16 1:59:22

I've heard 10% of the speed limit.

SPEAKER_17 1:59:24

Well, that's way too much math. I'm in the middle of driving. It's 10%. Yeah, but your super smart car should be able to figure out. Yeah. Whatever's looking at you in there, just ask it.

SPEAKER_16 1:59:34

Speed limit's 60, it's just six. It's not that hard.

SPEAKER_08 1:59:36

Okay, what if I'm what okay, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_16 1:59:41

65, then it's 6.5.

SPEAKER_17 1:59:43

So if if the here's my question though. If the speed limit is 80, does that still apply? Because see, my argument is, and this is so the reason why the reason why I bring it up is because Kyle and I gotten into the into this debate, because this is how we were conducting our trip. I was I was putting it like about seven or eight miles over. So when he was in control, when he was driving, it's funny how I worded that when he was in control. I hate being the passenger in an automobile. So when he was driving, that that was the standard that I said, listen, if you want to set the cruise control, seven over, but don't go any over than that. Seven. It's a sweet spot. Yeah, right. Well, I was pushing like more like nine, but if I get a tick, if I get a ticket, I'm responsible. If he gets a ticket, I still have to pay for his. So, but I was thinking, and he was like, Well, why can't I go seven over if it's eighty? And my thought was, well, if I was a law enforcement officer and you're doing seven over, if you're doing 87 and an 80, if I was a cop, I'd pull you over and be like, look, dude, the state already increased the speed limit to 80. You don't need to go much faster than that. Is my logic not no? You are a bone in that. No, huh? You still think the the the the the 10 over more faster, more.

SPEAKER_16 2:01:00

Is the way of the government to tell you they don't care how that is correct. They're like, we don't care. Yep, we just have to give you a number. Yep. Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_09 2:01:09

Like, as long as you're not racing, you're good.

SPEAKER_17 2:01:12

Yeah. That's that okay.

SPEAKER_08 2:01:13

And that's how people, I think, take it. My only experience with this is really in South Dakota, where no, seriously, if you're not going 100 on some of those highways, uh, you're gonna get, I mean, people are on your rear end. Yeah, and then you cross over the Minnesota state line down there, and it's like slow down.

SPEAKER_17 2:01:29

Interesting.

SPEAKER_08 2:01:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 2:01:30

So you think it gives you more of a you think you're you're still, let me just make it simple. You think you're still justified with the 10% ruled Isaac. 100%.

SPEAKER_09 2:01:41

If not expected to. I'm genuinely, yeah.

SPEAKER_16 2:01:44

I would be more worried about getting a speeding ticket. Speeding, like going 75 or 77, I guess, in a 70 rather than 87 in an 80. There's no chance you get a speeding ticket going 87 in a conviction over there. Really? Really? I'm not willing to test that theory. And it's Qatar, not cutter.

SPEAKER_17 2:02:04

I know that. I know. We got it. We covered that up yesterday. So I'm dri so check this out. I wonder if I can do this with visual aid. I can't. I have my cars here, I can do it. I've never seen this happen before. Okay? I've never seen this happen before.

SPEAKER_09 2:02:17

I kind of want the visual aid. You want the visual aid? Well, you've got the cars right there.

SPEAKER_17 2:02:21

All right, I'll do the visual aid. Hang on. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_08 2:02:23

Look at them.

SPEAKER_17 2:02:24

I got my cars.

SPEAKER_08 2:02:25

All right. Well, he's he's got the cars.

SPEAKER_17 2:02:27

My driver, my d my my driver, Alec, I don't know if you guys heard it. My driver, Alex Bowman, uh, made an announcement yesterday that he is retiring from NASCAR racing after next season.

SPEAKER_09 2:02:37

So hence why I'm wearing my Wait, is this like a Tom Brady announcement where it's like not really?

SPEAKER_17 2:02:42

No, no, it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:02:44

No, he's- Am I thinking of the right person who's retired like four times? Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 2:02:47

Yeah, no, no. He's absolutely no. Bowman's absolutely retiring.

SPEAKER_09 2:02:50

Oh.

SPEAKER_17 2:02:50

So I am, but I get to watch the rest of the season and next season. And the guy that I plan on following may be taking over his car, so that's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_18 2:02:59

Oh.

SPEAKER_17 2:02:59

So I left yesterday.

SPEAKER_16 2:03:01

Don't pretend you don't know what that means.

SPEAKER_17 2:03:02

The cars aren't like, I don't pretend you know what that means. No, I watched F1, okay. Okay, so Alex Bowman, right? His car's here. Okay. He drives for Hendrick Motorsports. Hendrick Motorsports has four different drivers under their banner of Hendrick Motorsports, okay? Each of them has their own numbers. So you've got Kyle Larson drives the five, you have William Byron drives the 24, Chase Elliott drives the nine, and Alex Bowman drives the 48. Okay. Okay. So if a driver retires, they have to find somebody to fill the seat of that car.

SPEAKER_08 2:03:36

Oh, interesting. I always thought it was more the driver was attached to the car, but you're saying it's the sponsor who's attached to the cars?

SPEAKER_17 2:03:42

It used to be like that in the early part of NASCAR. They were just one car teams, and so it was more, but now these are like franchises where drivers will go in and will go in and out. So it's it's it's not unlike um, you know, uh uh a quarterback being traded from one team to another. Now he's in another uniform, probably got a different number. Okay. I leave work yesterday and I'm heading up. What and you gotta forgive me. What's the what's the freeway going up to Maple Grove? The big one. The with all the lanes right here.

SPEAKER_09 2:04:10

494?

SPEAKER_17 2:04:10

You pull out and go right.

unknown 2:04:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_17 2:04:14

Okay. So I got my visual aid, right? I did this yesterday with Melinda. She was not, she was so enthused. So I'm this is this is me and Monty, okay? So I'm here. Let me move my laptop.

SPEAKER_09 2:04:27

This is gonna be great on audio.

SPEAKER_17 2:04:29

I know I know this is fantastic for the for the podcasters, right? Good time to plug the YouTube button. That's right. Thank you for doing so. Okay. So I'm in the center lane. There's a car just ahead of me to the right in the right-hand lane, right? Okay. There's a woman in an SUV who's kind of splitting the difference. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 2:04:50

Feels like you didn't need to say the gender, but carry out.

SPEAKER_17 2:04:53

She was. So we're kind of she she's a I gotta remember, she's a little bit ahead of me as we're coming up on this car in front, right? And she starts speeding up, clearly with the intent of trying to switch and go into my lane. But she's running out of room because I'm closing the gap to the woman in front of me. You follow me? Yeah, I love getting this to people. So I'm watching her hedge her bets. I had, I'm like, I'm, you know what? There are circumstances wherein I would have sped every time and been like, no, no, lady, you're not getting, you're whoever I didn't know was a woman at the time. So you're not getting in front of me, but I didn't. I was trying to be good, right? I maintained my speed, even though I was closing the distance to the car that was ahead of me in the right-hand lane. And she keeps hedging her bets and hedging her bet. And at some point, there was no room for her to get in front of me anymore. And she decided to go for it. And in that moment, she for some reason she realized like there was maybe half a car length between the two of us in separate lanes. I have never seen anybody have to go and slam on the brakes to keep from hitting the car that was in front of her. Because she floored it to get in front of me, realized she couldn't make the lane switch, and then had to slam on the brakes and on the freeway to keep from hitting the vehicle that was in front of her. Oh wow. And it was so funny. She must have been embarrassed because after that, I just watched her car slowly fade at a distance as she slowed down, realizing that she made a stupid, stupid mistake. That's humbling. That's I've never ever seen that happen before.

SPEAKER_09 2:06:35

That is really scary.

SPEAKER_17 2:06:36

It was really, really funny. So don't speed over 80. That's the takeaway.

SPEAKER_09 2:06:41

That's a bad takeaway. That's a bad takeaway.

SPEAKER_17 2:06:43

Wasn't that visual aid? Wasn't that visual aid fantastic?

SPEAKER_09 2:06:46

Visual aid was great. I understood this much more.

SPEAKER_17 2:06:49

We did not get a single ticket on our trip. I was so proud of us. Nice. We burned the wheels off the car, but we did not get a single trip, single, a single ticket on the trip. I was very I was very, very excited about that. So you guys do you guys speed, just generally speaking? Are you speeders? Just like a little bit, just like a little bit. Yeah. Would you consider yourselves good drivers?

SPEAKER_16 2:07:09

I would, but I was voted probably third or fourth best driver in my family. Of four. Is this an annual thing? Just every once in a while we do a little check-in. Alright. My mom is the worst by far.

SPEAKER_08 2:07:23

I'm a great driver and I speed. I'm a great driver because I'm aggressive. And so, you know, sometimes if you're driving.

SPEAKER_17 2:07:29

Oh, that's a that's a that's all just in your head. No, I that's just that's all. I'm a great I'm a great driver.

SPEAKER_08 2:07:36

I'm a great driver.

SPEAKER_17 2:07:37

I know I'm a great driver. You can't tell me any different.

SPEAKER_08 2:07:42

I am. I'm a great driver because I'm aggressive and sometimes speed.

SPEAKER_17 2:07:47

I will um do my best to never get into the car with my 24-year-old son Logan ever again with him driving.

SPEAKER_09 2:07:56

There's people like that in this office. Yeah. If I'm being transparent.

SPEAKER_17 2:08:00

When I so we I I mentioned it on the show yesterday, but I did. I literally burnt the wheels off of Mani. The right rear tire down to nothing, just fried it, even though we checked it because the roads were just so hot and just the amount of miles that we drove. So when I had to go drop the car off, uh Logan drove me home. And the the place is only like five minutes from my house. I'd never been so terrified. I mean, I just did 10 days, 5,000 miles with my son Kyle, who's 19 years old. And I it not not not a moment was I as terrified as I was in the four minutes it took us to get home, because I'm sure that Logan cut a minute off the drive because he was driving like such a lunatic. And this is the guy that wants to be a pilot. I just keep thinking, dude, get into a plane. Go as fast as you want. Yeah. Because you're driving like a like an absolute crazy person. All right. Speaking of driving, this gives us an opportunity. Uh, let me take a quick break here on the John Justice show presented by American Experiment. Uh coming up, I do want to get into some of the new Minnesota laws taking effect. Uh also I did have another story that I wanted to uh dive into, but it eludes me as to what happened to it. It's like, oh yeah. Did you guys hear the comments from Mick Jagger from The Rolling Stones? No. No. Okay. Cool. They have a new album that came out. I'm not a Rolling Stones fan. Really? By any stretch. Yeah, they're still making music. That's right. 25th studio album. How old are they? Oh, there he's got it. I think he's in let's we'll be in the 80s. He's got to be in his 80s. Yeah, we'll take a look during the break. Um, but he was making the rounds doing interviews, and it's I'm not surprised you guys didn't see this clip because it's not one that's gonna make it on mainstream media. But he had some very interesting comments about um rock and roll icons that fall into the Rolling Stone genre and how political they've become.

SPEAKER_08 2:09:48

Like him? Isn't he political?

SPEAKER_17 2:09:50

No.

SPEAKER_08 2:09:50

I might have I might have seen that.

SPEAKER_17 2:09:52

Yeah, he's not political. That's the point. So uh we'll get into the Minnesota laws. We'll share that audio here on the show. Remember, if you want to leave a comment on the comment line, 612-584-4565, 612-584-4565. Uh Jeff O'Brien, lawyer extraordinaire. Uh he uh he texted me earlier, by the way. He said that there is no uh other alternative for um for heart than muscle. So he still is a big proponent of me muscle. I just want to point that out.

SPEAKER_08 2:10:19

Yeah, I don't mind it.

SPEAKER_17 2:10:19

I will say the show grew went over a lot better than me muscle did. So I am I am happy about that. All right. So let's take a quick break. But since we're uh talking about driving, it gives us an opportunity to uh to share with you one of my favorite uh montages here on the John Justice show, presented by American Experiment in American Experiment.org. Along with uh Facebook and X as well. So uh the idea from the start was if anybody were to ask where can I go and listen or watch the show to be able to say, well, everywhere. We're trying to put it on as many uh platforms as uh as possible. And it really has been a group uh a group effort. As I mentioned, Grace has been handling a lot of the website stuff. Uh Isaac's been um uh just uh incredibly helpful to say the least in setting all of this up and also taking uh care of a lot of our uh our graphics. And uh, Catherine, speaking of graphics, everybody in the old show was always like merchandise, where can I get a hat? Where can I get a ticker? Where can I get a t-shirt? Well, I didn't have any of that. Now we do. As a matter of fact, the mugs over here.

unknown 2:14:22

Is it right here? I got it.

SPEAKER_17 2:14:24

We got we got mugs. We got a whole bunch of other items though, too, right? Uh right, Catherine?

SPEAKER_08 2:14:28

Yeah, we will. Although the first thing we're gonna have is hats. Now, unfortunately, our samples have gotten lost in the mail. Oh no. So um hopefully we'll get them by Monday. But if you donate $35 or more to AmericanExperiment.org to support our launch of the John Justice show, uh you will receive an exclusive John Justice hat. It is beautiful. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_17 2:14:51

And uh, you know, I want to say too that when we as we go about launching the the show, um, you know, grant us a little bit of patience as we work through all of this. I think we've got all of the bugs, the bugs worked out. Um we did deal with a major um a major technical uh snafu. But as somebody who believes that everything happens for a reason, there's uh one, I'm glad that it happened because we were able to figure out a couple of things that we needed to make sure that we took care of going into it. But it also helped me a bit with commentary because I joked to uh to Isaac that I think we started the show over like three different times. And and the first time, by the third time when I opened the show, I said in probably about five minutes what took me, probably twenty-five in that opening segment. So it helped me out as a as a talk show host. So I was very pleased about that.

SPEAKER_08 2:15:44

Yeah, you gotta get back at the groove. It's been a month.

SPEAKER_17 2:15:47

It's been a month today. It was one month today when the uh door opened at nine o'clock and management walked in, and that's never happened. And I knew that they were there, just basically said, Your services are no longer needed. See you later.

SPEAKER_08 2:16:00

I heard that just happened to a guy at uh ESPN. Did you hear about that where they did all these layoffs at ESPN and they laid off a guy during a commercial break who was on TV? What? Apparently, apparently I actually heard Michelle Defoya talking about this on morning work. Um apparently it was being told to them by reporters that they were gonna leak it, and they freaked out and said we don't want him to look down at his phone while he's on air and realize he got fired. And so they just during a commercial break were like, we gotta do it now so he doesn't find out from someone else. And they fired him during a commercial break.

SPEAKER_17 2:16:30

I I feel like the And I have no basis to I have no basis to to to uh this is just a gut feeling. But I feel like the protocols around letting people go have changed a lot. I and I and I my my get my guess is because it's happened more often, to your point, um Disney, which is affiliated ABC, is affiliated with ESPN, they just went through a massive round of layoffs. I was reading about this about this yesterday. I mean, this is indicative of the world changing and entertainment changing and the whole, you know, the everything that I talked about before regarding radio changing and the dynamics around that. And no media outlet is immune to all of this, but I feel like the the standards of letting people go have really gone down to where it's just like very unceremoniously, and a lot of them done in mass waves, and like you said, even letting somebody go in the middle of doing their their gig for crying out loud.

SPEAKER_08 2:17:31

Well, I will say, on the other hand, too, I think people are less committed to their jobs than ever before. Like you'll see, you know, everyone in my generation thinks like, oh yeah, if I spend like a year at a job, that's good, you know, that's probably what I owe them. And, you know, maybe two years, you know, before you can go on to something else. And that job hopping is really common. And I think that is actually a way you can sometimes make more money over the long run, but it's not as maybe respectful to your employer as um it could be. And so those standards, I think, on both ends have changed, employer and employee.

SPEAKER_17 2:18:05

Well, it's uh you know, there's a it's a there's a gig economy, especially with you know with younger with younger generations. Um Yeah, I mean I think everybody here, this is all this is all our these are all our jobs, right? So this is this is probably uh probably not a good uh a good example. But I it's a testament to center of the American experiment. But I know for the producers on the on the show, when when Robbie got let go um from the previous show, which was through a round of layoffs. That situation, by the way, you know, I can go and tell the story now. This is kind of funny. So when when so this this happened during uh presidential election week in 2024. Okay. And uh same thing. Meme muscle was going through a round of layoffs, and they started at the beginning of the started on Monday? No, no, no. Yeah, they started on Monday. That's right. They did it into the election, because the election was Tuesday, right? So they did this mass layoff and everyone was like, oh, you know, Mii Musc went and used the election as cover to do this mass firing of a bunch of their employees. But what was funny about it was none of it was associated with talk radio. It was all the music personalities that got let go. And much like the joke I made to Chris Carr when I got let go, that if management showed up at my door after work, I knew I was gonna be in trouble because we were going through layoffs. At that point in 2024, I made the comment that, you know what, I bet me muscle is waiting for the election to be over. And sure enough, it was the following day when they came in and let Robbie go after the show, and I found out that that's when all of the all the all the talk, the news talk talent across the country had gotten the people that they had targeted got let go. So they waited, so they made sure that they had all of them for election night and election covers, and then they cut them all, they cut them all loose. That's crazy. But as I said before, you know, I I I don't have any animosity and I feel bad for people that that get laid off. But at the same time, we all chose to do this job. You know, I chose to be I chose to be a talk show host, knowing that it was going to be to be um you know a volatile uh situation. It's really interesting too, just as a side note, and um again, so glad that we can do these dry run shows so I can get all of this out of my system now. Uh but with my driver Alex Bowman that I was talking about, right? He's a favorite sort of whipping boy among NASCAR fans. They like to pick on him because he's very quiet and reserved and deals with anxiety and stuff like this. He's not um he's he does he doesn't have a big personality like a lot of like a lot of NASCAR drivers do. Um and there was all this speculation that Hendrick Motorsports that that he drives for was they were gonna fire him, they were gonna kick him out the door, they didn't want him there anymore. Well, it turns out that actually Hendrick this whole time had been wanting him to stay. He had told them that he wanted to retire by the time he was 35, and they had been encouraging him and encouraged him to stay another year with the team because he was going to retire this year, and he's going to be keeping a role at Hendrick Motorsports when when he retires from actually driving the race car. So he still has a gig. And I made the point online yesterday, and one of the reasons why I like him, and it relates to what I was talking about, and that is you know, if you just are a really good worker, if you work hard, you do what you're supposed to do, and you're just generally a good person, you'll end up earning that appreciation and respect that you were never looking for in the first place. And that goes such a long way. And I think it's something that gets lost among a lot of generations, you know. And it's something that I've tried to subscribe by. I I made a comment to you guys that my goal is to make sure that, you know, whoever's employing me, I give them as little as possible to go and complain about, you know. Sometimes it doesn't save you. I think I actually lasted longer at me muscle because of my work ethic than anything than anything else. But that whole idea of work ethic and working hard and just being nice and being a good person and not getting wrapped up in the politics of the day and and and taking sides and divisions and dividing even inside of a workplace. Um, I think it's a lot of reason why there's so many gig jobs out there for young people because they don't have that work ethic built in. And if you just apply yourself and be a good person, you can go a long way, a lot longer, a lot farther than you probably thought that you that you could.

SPEAKER_08 2:22:32

Yeah, for sure. And I think a lot of uh young people in particular don't have that kind of they don't have the mentality that if they are loyal to the company, if they put in extra work on behalf of the company, that they will be um paid for that in in various ways. You know? And I think that but I I think that's still true. You know, and and and I think that that's just something we've lost to some degree. People are and you can see why the incentives are there to care only about yourself in a job environment. But if you do care about your co-workers and you're a good person to work with, that goes so far.

SPEAKER_17 2:23:02

You know who a really good uh real-world example of that of this in politics is? Um JD Vance. I would put JD Vance in that category. I think JD Vance made it as far as he did less so on his accomplishments and more so on just his character and his character as a as a as a person. Um and you know, that it's it's people like that and even Marco Rubio who we played earlier. Um that when you know we talk about the the Republican Party, especially compared to Democrats, as we sort of move back over into news items. You know, the Democrat bench isn't that deep. But I'm excited about the future for Republicans, especially presidential um prospects, because you know, you look at the age of Marco Rubio or JD Vance, and these are two individuals who have really had and continue to have amazing moments in incredibly controversial times to show how effective they are as leaders. And I know everybody's focused on Trump. He's the president, we're dealing with all of these different issues, but we got these group of individuals that are a part of that apparatus right now that are gonna be around you know, way, you know, you know, much longer after Trump is is Trump is gone. And um the Republican Party's future is bright with individuals like that. Totally.

SPEAKER_08 2:24:22

And look at how the people who are successful now and clearly going to be successful over the next um many years are the people who decided to become team players when you know Trump made fun of Margo Rubio all the time when they were running against each other. But Marco said, now I'm a team player for the party, as one should be, to get things done. And now he's uh he's what maybe the most likely person to be uh our next, you know, Republican presidential nominee. Think of the people who just went after Trump and and left that um debate stage in 2016 and could never come to terms with getting on board with the Republican Party. Has anyone said the name like John Kasich or whatever that name guy? Like Kasich? Kasich? Kasich? I don't even remember. Like that guy, he was awful, and yeah, he disappeared because he wouldn't he wouldn't join the team. So I think it it's actually a really good example of that.

SPEAKER_17 2:25:10

I'm glad it's it's funny, just to um to dovetail off of something you said. Everybody got wise to Trump and his name calling. Like it's not even a thing anymore. And I think even to the people like you like, I mean, you know, he yeah, JD Vance didn't support Trump in the first place, and he's explained his lack of support in the beginning. I didn't support Trump when he first arrived on scene.

SPEAKER_09 2:25:31

Yeah, same. Most people didn't. I mean, early on, yeah.

SPEAKER_17 2:25:34

I voted for Rubio in that primary. I ended up voting for Trump in the in the general, but I voted for Rubio, and famously, it's still in my playlist because it pops up every once in a while when I have it on shuffle. I have my anti-Trump show in my playlist on my phone where I opened the show in complete Trump voice and almost did the entirety of the show. Oh, it really made the audience mad. This was long before like MAGA had even erupted. This was just heading into the primary and you know, I was but I changed my tune on that. But you're right, he used to, you know, Little Marco. Yeah, but everybody began to understand that's just Trump's style. Right. And it doesn't care. And so to that point, I don't know, is Trump even calling people names that much anymore? I don't even think he I think I think even he has realized that it doesn't have the same sort of effect, or people are wise to his sort of game of throwing those names out there. I don't know. Does he have names for the Iranian leaders other than dead?

SPEAKER_08 2:26:28

Yeah, he used to do like Rocket Man. Oh, that is funny, sorry. Uh he used to do like Rocket Man or, you know, he used to be like.

SPEAKER_17 2:26:34

Oh, that's right, for North Korea for for Kim Jong-un stuff.

SPEAKER_08 2:26:37

Yeah, the only person still doing names is you, John.

SPEAKER_17 2:26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:26:41

I think you should bring it back.

SPEAKER_17 2:26:43

I'm just carrying on the tradition. Yeah. Lamey Clobishar is the one that made made me happy. I hadn't landed on that one in a while. What was I doing for uh Peggy? Oh, Petty Flanagan, but but there's nothing really to point of her being petty. She's more just a clown.

SPEAKER_08 2:26:57

Uh yeah, we can work on that one.

SPEAKER_17 2:26:59

Did you see her video dancing at the rally to I wanna dance? I wanna dance with somebody.

SPEAKER_09 2:27:04

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_17 2:27:05

We're talking about cringe worthy. What's worse, that or me muscle, Grace?

SPEAKER_09 2:27:09

Uh sorry, me muscle. Okay. I'm sorry. I don't know. I have such a negative reaction, but I'm getting outvoted. I'll I'll come around on it.

SPEAKER_17 2:27:15

No, no, no. I'm I'm gonna retire it after today. I'm just gonna this is just for the dry run shows. I'm not gonna introduce this coming up on Monday. Because I get the feeling a lot of people are gonna be in your camp. All right, Minnesota Governor Dim Walls signed a bill that raises the age limit for purchasing and possessing Kratom. We do Kratom, right? Is it Kratom? You guys know what I'm talking about? What? Oh, you guys don't know what Kratom is? No. Oh, okay. We'll get in, we'll get into this. I have a story here of the Minnesota, new Minnesota laws that take effect on August 1st. Um we're gonna save Kratom for the last. Kratom is one of those um synthetic uh drugs that you can purchase in gummies at like convenience stores. It's supposed to get you high and it's legal, but it's incredibly dangerous.

SPEAKER_06 2:28:02

Oh.

SPEAKER_17 2:28:03

Yeah. Because they've had this around for a while. They have all these different synthetic uh chemicals that they've put in these products that you can purchase that are supposed to be like this where like simulate simulating what you would get off of like marijuana.

SPEAKER_08 2:28:16

So like simulating THC, but it's not at all from a marijuana plant.

SPEAKER_17 2:28:20

Yeah, so here, let me uh, you know, while while we're on it. Again, I know I'm gonna save it for later, but since you guys were unfamiliar with this, you can buy these at convenience stores? Yes, Kratom is an herbal supplement known to trigger opioid-like effects in higher doses. It's sometimes referred to as gas station heroin due to comparisons to opioids that have been tied to cardiac arrest in rare cases.

SPEAKER_08 2:28:45

Why have I never heard of that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 2:28:47

In Arizona, Kratom is legal but heavily regulated under the state's Kratom Consumer Protection Act. We'll go ahead and go there. I was saving it for the end, but since we're here, let's go here. Because one of the new laws is now regulating Kratom. So they've raged the age limit on this. So it's not a drug. Or it is. It is a synthetic, I believe it's a synthetic herbal supplement. Okay. Yeah. So the age to purchase or uh possess Kratom has now increased from 18 to 21. Okay, so it is a plant that can cause stimulating and sedative effects. The FDA warns, though, that kratoms, especially, here we go, it's synthetic derivative 707-0H, which is classified as an opioid, can cause adverse effects. Health officials also warn that the substances can be addictive despite the fact that they can be bought at some gas stations and smoke shops.

SPEAKER_09 2:29:44

That's crazy. What?

SPEAKER_17 2:29:46

Yeah. Well, people have gotten injured on this. So Amanda Goodsell, 27 years old, had to be placed on life support after a severe reaction to Kratom. And nearly a week after after after nearly a week of use, she suffered a cardiac arrest and was hosp hospitalized with heart failure. Although her heart function improved, she will require a defibrillator and heart medication now for life because she took this. It's just not worth it. So she'd never taken Kratom before, her family said. And after experiencing persistent leg pain, her husband suggested that she try a gummy supplement. Okay. If you're gonna do that, you gotta do the stuff that's safe for you to take. Right. You know, I still do the night gummy. Actually, I need to get more. The night gummies from many leaf are just they're fantastic. But they're made with all natural ingredients. I've gone and asked my doctor, because I have a cardiologist, that they say absolutely they're safe for you to take, and they're really, really effective. This, not so much. Um, she started experiencing persistent leg pain, said you should take a gummy supplement. So everybody knew what kratom was. So I was like, well, okay, here, just take this. You can just buy it at a gas station. It's not going to hurt you.

unknown 2:30:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_17 2:31:00

Those two things should not be put together.

SPEAKER_09 2:31:02

Oh man.

SPEAKER_17 2:31:03

You should never be put, you bought it at a gas station. It's not gonna hurt you.

SPEAKER_09 2:31:06

You know, you can buy cigarettes at gas stations.

SPEAKER_08 2:31:08

I mean, well, people, yeah, that's the problem with like legalizing marijuana and all these different things. It's like, well, yeah, people assume that if it's legal, it's safe. Right. And it's definitely not in every circumstance.

SPEAKER_17 2:31:19

Um, nearly a week after taking the product, Goodsell found his wife unresponsive in their bed. She was she's like, she was red, her lips were blue, and she was foaming.

SPEAKER_08 2:31:32

So, but she's like 27, right? Yeah. But now, so we've raised the age limit to get it.

SPEAKER_17 2:31:37

To 21.

SPEAKER_08 2:31:38

But like, how does that help? Like that would not have helped this specific case. Right.

SPEAKER_17 2:31:42

No. No. Yeah, I I I think we need to re-examine this particular drug and making it available at all. But I'm sure there are a lot of sort of libertarian, you know, libertarians out there going, no, no, no, no, no. But um and I don't know what the I don't know how often this happens. I know we talked I talked about this uh before on previous shows, because there was a circumstance here that took place. Um but you're right. I mean, her being 27 with raising it to 21. I mean, I guess it's moderation, just like you would alcohol, I suppose. Uh so I jumped out of bed, I grabbed her, and I was trying to wake her up. I thought she was dead. You freak out a little bit, I thought she was gone. Um, she was transported to the hospital, placed on live support with her heart barely pumping. Uh I do I do wonder if there wasn't some sort of other pre-existing condition that Kratom went and exacerbated.

SPEAKER_09 2:32:31

That's what I'm expecting to hear or to find out eventually. Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 2:32:35

They had to have her on a ventilator to help her breathe, and then they had to put her on a bunch of medications because her heart percentage was at 15%. Mike Goodsell said. Doctor said Amanda Goodsell was suffering from heart failure and would need a heart transplant. After two weeks in the hospital, she did begin to recover. Her heart kind of liked it. A miracle turnaround, and the percentage came up to a stable point. It was a sense of relief. They told me that she didn't need one. Yeah, it's frightening. It's frightening. But this is, I mean, this is one of those things where I like I understand. I I I agree with the raising the image the uh the age limit to 221. Because if this is something that in high doses is going to cause this kind of effect and it's available to 18-year-olds, yeah, it's a really, really dangerous situation.

SPEAKER_09 2:33:21

And I mean, if only so you're raising the age limit so that the people making these decisions have more fully developed brains and can better make decisions about how much to take and whether you should take it and when you should take it.

SPEAKER_17 2:33:33

Yeah, no, I totally agree. All right, let's get into some other laws here though. You guys ready? Uh food banks and egg donations. A new law allows food banks to accept egg donations past their quality assurance date.

SPEAKER_08 2:33:46

Oh, yeah, no, but I think that's I think that's cool. I think they're good. Eggs are good for a while after the quality date, right?

SPEAKER_17 2:33:51

Well, according to this article from Fox Nine, eggs are still good past that date.

SPEAKER_08 2:33:54

Yeah, I just Googled this actually not that long ago.

SPEAKER_17 2:33:56

Did you really?

SPEAKER_08 2:33:57

We uh Yeah, my husband was throwing away eggs by the sell by date. And I was like, well, that's stupid. You you the the sell by date is not, you know, like the date, but but then I was like, well, I don't know how maybe it goes lasts another two days or something. If you Google it, it'll claim they last like three weeks, which I find a little suspicious.

SPEAKER_09 2:34:12

Well and you can test it, right? If you put it in water and the egg like floats a certain direction, now they know if it's still good. Huh? No, seriously, yeah. What? Like if the egg floats or if it sinks determines whether or not it's rotten. Really? I'm serious. Now do I know which is which? No.

SPEAKER_17 2:34:26

I had never heard that.

SPEAKER_09 2:34:27

I think if it floats, it's gone bad.

SPEAKER_17 2:34:29

What? Interesting. I've heard that relating to other things that I don't want to get into on the show. Where they have but that's a little grosser. I've never heard that regarding you never oh. There's a you never heard the term like sinkers or floaters?

SPEAKER_08 2:34:45

Uh just stop talking.

SPEAKER_17 2:34:46

Okay. You know, we're not on terrestrial radio. We can get away with this now. But I would rather a guest not leave at the moment here. Although they are at work, so where are they gonna go? Uh refrigerated eggs are typically safe to eat for about a month after their pack date. However, they begin to lose their flavor or quality. Wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. So, quality, I mean, flavor I'm with you, but quality is where I start to get concerned if you're using that kind of language.

SPEAKER_09 2:35:15

About perishable food. Especially eggs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 2:35:19

Donated cartons must be labeled with distribution date, program name, and a uh not for resale notice.

SPEAKER_09 2:35:26

This seems good. This just seems like uh an attempt to reduce food waste and give these eggs a second chance at getting used before they end up in a what?

SPEAKER_17 2:35:37

No, I'm totally I'm totally listening to you.

SPEAKER_16 2:35:39

A second chance of being used? That was just a very funny word. What? We gotta give these eggs a second chance. Yeah, we're giving them another opportunity.

SPEAKER_17 2:35:46

No, she's not she's not wrong.

SPEAKER_07 2:35:48

In terms of laws that have been passed in Minnesota, like there's been worse.

SPEAKER_17 2:35:52

What how do you so when you get to do do you all get like deli meat at home? Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 2:35:57

No.

SPEAKER_17 2:35:57

So you don't really?

SPEAKER_08 2:36:00

I just like go to pop belly. Like, I don't buy deli, like you are such an anomaly.

SPEAKER_17 2:36:05

You're so boo. Fascinating.

SPEAKER_08 2:36:07

Absolutely fascinating. I don't eat enough deli meat to justify, like, maybe we'll have a sandwich, like are you having sandwiches every day?

SPEAKER_17 2:36:15

Well, there's four of us in the house, and I've got two growing boys, so I guess that's I'm probably not.

SPEAKER_08 2:36:19

That's different, you know. I think.

SPEAKER_17 2:36:20

Yeah, they get very excited when they make sandwiches.

SPEAKER_08 2:36:23

Okay, one thing about us, like, we don't buy extra food because like we'll both eat it, you know. So I it's like our our meals are planned out, our food's planned out, not a lot of extra stuff. So I don't just keep like sandwich materials on hand, you know.

SPEAKER_17 2:36:33

Are you cooking?

SPEAKER_08 2:36:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 2:36:35

Okay, all right. You a good cook? Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_08 2:36:38

I can make like tacos, meatballs.

SPEAKER_17 2:36:42

Like a taco kit? Like you can ground the beef and add the little exactly the the shaker, like the the old what's it called?

SPEAKER_08 2:36:49

I forget, but old paso el paso. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_17 2:36:52

Yeah, El Paso, yeah, the El Paso taco kit. Have you tried the ones, by the way? Have you s I don't like them. But have you like they tried to get too clever with the taco shells and they made them flat on the bottom? Oh, I haven't tried those. Oh, yeah. But you can't they're too they don't I don't like hard shells.

SPEAKER_08 2:37:09

You can't get what?

SPEAKER_09 2:37:10

I don't like hard shell anyway.

SPEAKER_17 2:37:11

Oh, you don't like you don't do hard shells. Partly for that reason.

SPEAKER_08 2:37:13

You don't need to do that. You need to do a bowl and then just take the tortilla chips and then put them and then you're not dealing with the mouth issue, and you're getting too much chip when you do the hard shells. So that really just spreads the chip out.

SPEAKER_17 2:37:25

See, I'm not I hard shell, soft shell. So given the choice, if I can only have one, I'll probably go soft. But a lot of times it just comes down to mood. We had a whole conversation about hot dogs and ketchup and mustard yesterday. It was sort of the same thing. Sure. Isaac, hard shell, soft shell?

SPEAKER_16 2:37:41

Soft shell if I soft shell if I had the choice. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 2:37:44

Yeah, but but flour.

SPEAKER_16 2:37:46

Both work. Well, will you go both? Okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_08 2:37:48

Flour, here's my ranking. Flour, hard shell, corn. I'm sorry, like corn is authentic. Not my fave.

SPEAKER_16 2:37:56

Had a corn taco the other day. Same thing.

SPEAKER_17 2:37:59

Corn is good for bringing it back to Costco, because we always should. Um they have a taco, they have a street, they call it street taco kit.

SPEAKER_09 2:38:08

Great kit.

SPEAKER_17 2:38:09

It's so great.

SPEAKER_09 2:38:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 2:38:10

It's fantastic. And those are those are corn, those are corn tortillas.

SPEAKER_09 2:38:14

And those are good.

SPEAKER_17 2:38:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:38:15

But if they were flour, they'd be better.

SPEAKER_17 2:38:16

It's got everything in it. They're fit. It's fit. I'm doing this because that's the shape of the carton. It's like a couple of cards.

SPEAKER_09 2:38:20

It's a long, right? It's a very distinctive shape.

SPEAKER_08 2:38:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_09 2:38:22

It's long and rectangular.

SPEAKER_08 2:38:24

I got that once. I was out of town and I got that for my husband. And I was like, Do you think this is enough for you? And he was like, I think that'll be good.

unknown 2:38:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:38:29

It's shockingly full of food. Yeah. That'll last you.

SPEAKER_17 2:38:32

A hundred percent. You get it and you think there's not nearly enough meat in here. And then you start making go, oh, there's plenty of meat in here. It's gonna last for a few days, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:38:42

I should renew my Costco membership, I guess.

SPEAKER_09 2:38:44

You let yours lapse? Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 2:38:46

Well, no, you know, the Coon Rapids one, they're gonna bulldoze the TGI Fridays and put in a parking lot to make more parking space.

SPEAKER_07 2:38:53

Yeah, they're probably looking for new members so they can pay for that.

SPEAKER_17 2:38:55

In case you hadn't heard before. So let me get back to the question. So you're out on this question because you don't do deli meat because you're weird. So when it comes to so they have the sell by date from the store. So how often are you referencing that and how long are you keeping the deli meat after the sell by date? Or do you have like a method? Like you sniff in the ham to make sure if it's gone if it's gone bad.

SPEAKER_13 2:39:19

Can we clip that? Can we please clip that?

SPEAKER_09 2:39:23

Um I work very hard to um not let it get to the point that I need to, you know, sniff my meat.

SPEAKER_17 2:39:34

You need to clip that.

SPEAKER_07 2:39:38

As it exited my mouth, I such regret.

SPEAKER_08 2:39:45

We gotta build the database.

SPEAKER_17 2:39:46

I completely forgot what you I completely forgot what your answer was. Isaac, how long are you how long are you keeping your deli beat before you throw it away?

SPEAKER_16 2:39:56

It doesn't matter anymore. I can't even focus.

SPEAKER_09 2:40:01

My whole point is that I use it very quickly. I usually use it so I don't have to do that. Because I don't trust myself to discern.

SPEAKER_17 2:40:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_16 2:40:09

You know what I mean? The quality? Yeah, I feel like meat. I I try to stick pretty close to the sell by date.

SPEAKER_17 2:40:13

Yeah, we do too. I mean, usually it's a day or a day or two, you know? And it depends on the kind of meat you're dealing with, too. Usually you can tell. Usually you can tell. There was one, there was one time where I had some steaks and they were past the sell by date. Man, it was so borderline. It was like, I cooked them anyway. I'm still here to tell the tale. Okay, but probably shouldn't have.

SPEAKER_08 2:40:35

John, sell by. You got days after that. Best buy. Yeah. Don't eat after. Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 2:40:42

Are you aware of the stuff? Oh, okay. I guess I'm always going by the sell by date. Oh, dude.

SPEAKER_08 2:40:47

Well, no, they only ever have one. But but if it says sell by, you got like three days.

SPEAKER_17 2:40:53

Right, right, of course, of course, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just wondering that that was my whole point was that you have a sell by date. Yeah, how long are you done? How long are you?

SPEAKER_09 2:41:01

Yeah. Depends on the product, but I'll try to get out of here.

SPEAKER_17 2:41:03

How long are you pushing that meat?

SPEAKER_09 2:41:05

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_17 2:41:09

These are questions that need that need answers. I had another point, and now I've completely lost.

SPEAKER_08 2:41:15

We need a talk back. Let us know how long you're pushing your meat.

SPEAKER_17 2:41:17

Let's get to let's get to a f get to a few more. A few more on this, uh, on this on the gosh darn it, what was my thought? I know you guys have no idea. We're talking about the sell by date, the meat, how long do you keep it? I don't remember now. Let's go here. Um paddle wheel prize. You guys ever do paddle wheel prizes with any Center of the American Experiment events? What?

SPEAKER_09 2:41:40

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's like our our trademark. That's what they are, right?

SPEAKER_17 2:41:45

That's what a paddle wheel is, right? That's what that is.

SPEAKER_09 2:41:47

I've never heard it called that, but just a wheel.

SPEAKER_17 2:41:50

They are increasing um the max the prize maximums uh will increase to $200 and the maximum ticket price will increase to five. The law also changes the maximum that can be deposited into the consumer protection restitution account to ten dollars. The law adds that the card game uh Hasenfeffer. Oh boy. Boy, the look on Catherine's face. She's like, I might as well be speaking Portuguese. I might as well be speaking Portuguese. Um anybody familiar with Hasen Pfeffer? No? I have no idea what that is. Um it's now there the the card game Hassenpfeffer to list the social skills game for tournaments and contests. So apparently you could not use play the game Hassenpfeffer for tournaments and contests, but now you can't.

SPEAKER_09 2:42:37

Why are we why were we ever regulating these things? Is kind of my question. What's so bad about Hasen Pfeffer? And also winning more than $200 on a spin wheel.

SPEAKER_08 2:42:47

It's like a gambling thing because remember, we have, we once last year, and I think we're gonna do it again, have given away a scholarship, a $7,000 scholarship to a kid in private school to help fund their education. And let me tell you, that was a B-word to r figure out all of the legalities around having to do that kind of thing. But I think in Minnesota, even if you give maybe it's over $200. If you give away even a pretty small amount of money, you gotta do all you gotta jump through all kinds of hoops.

SPEAKER_17 2:43:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 2:43:17

So maybe that's what it is. They're saying if you have a card game where you win some money, you have to it's now gambling. Then it counts as like a lottery. I'm sorry, is what it is, a lottery.

SPEAKER_17 2:43:25

I don't know how we compare to other states, but my gosh, it feels like we overregulate.

SPEAKER_09 2:43:29

Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. Yeah, this feels so unnecessary.

SPEAKER_17 2:43:33

I'm sure there are reasons for it, but um, all right. We also have the nudification technology access banned. This law prohibits owning, controlling, or advertising software, applications, or websites designed to nudify images or videos. So everything that does that now?

SPEAKER_08 2:43:53

I mean all AIs, can't they? Or maybe they won't, actually. The may the major ones have guards against that, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_09 2:43:59

Like Chat GPT and Gemini, I'm sure they have some guardrails.

SPEAKER_17 2:44:04

I wonder if I know. I don't know if Grok, I don't know if Grok will allow that.

SPEAKER_09 2:44:07

Oh, Grok was allowing that for a while. That's why people were mad at them, right?

SPEAKER_17 2:44:12

I don't think they do now, because I've not seen that. And usually I will go, like, have you what do I want to say? What do I want to say? All right. So there was this is this is somewhat innocuous and benign, so I'll just say it. So I was on X the other day, and there was a picture of Sydney Sweeney and another young fetching woman. Okay. It's not gonna go anyplace weird, don't worry.

SPEAKER_07 2:44:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_17 2:44:40

So Sydney Sweeney and uh one of her friends, right? Both attractive women. There's no denying that. I mean, it's all subjective, but come on, Sydney Sweeney. And they asked Grok to put them both in Spider-Man outfits. Okay. So I see this a lot. I don't see individuals going and asking Grok to make them nude.

SPEAKER_09 2:45:01

Good point.

SPEAKER_17 2:45:02

Well that's the point that I'm trying to make.

SPEAKER_09 2:45:03

Now hang on. If if individuals were doing that though, that content would not be then posted.

SPEAKER_17 2:45:09

Well, X allows all that stuff now. That was the that was so I think the controversy that you're referring to, Grace, was how X used to go and ban a lot of that uh explicit material. They don't anymore. Thankfully, the algorithms don't feed you any of that if you're not going and looking for any of that. But that material, I know there are some there's some rules involved, but it used to be an explicit ban on anything, it used to be a complete ban on anything explicit on X, and that changed, I think, a year, a year or two ago. And I think it was a lot, I think it had a lot to do with the fact that people were skirting around it. And again, if you don't want to be exposed to any of that, as long as you're not going and seeking it out, it doesn't feed it to anybody. I think that's what that's the change.

SPEAKER_07 2:45:52

But if you search on X like porn, you get porn? Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_09 2:45:57

That feels that feels interesting. That feels wrong to me. That feels like maybe a step too far. That seems like a good law in general. I I've this seems this seems like a good change to me.

SPEAKER_17 2:46:06

But I I I yeah, victims can file civil suit civil lawsuits, violators would face a penalty up to $500,000 each for unlawful access, download, or use. I I'm with you, except I I'm with you. I I I'm fearful of stuff like this, though, because where's the slippery slope come in? We've already seen the ridiculous laws relating to election cycles and oh, there was a recent controversy with Peggy Flanagan and um who's the who's uh Angie Craig. Where Angie Craig had a pack that went and created that Peggy Flanagan uh attack ad, and they ended up using AI because you can still Photoshop people. So there's a I mean, there's a I'm I'm I'm with the law in theory, but at the same time, there's plenty of ways that that can still be utilized, and I'm worried about over-regulation on this technology that could go and limit the advancements of it.

SPEAKER_08 2:47:00

Yeah, I'm with it on uh I just heard this really creepy story that basically was involving this kind of uh uh thing and children, and I it was like very disturbing. Okay, so I'm with it on that.

SPEAKER_17 2:47:12

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_08 2:47:12

Can't be doing that. But uh for adults, I don't know. I mean, I I don't know, whatever. I it doesn't impact me, frankly.

SPEAKER_17 2:47:19

And I try and avoid AI, so grooming a minor made a she are you so I I'm just gonna back up really quick. Let me just reverse reverse here real quick. So so you're on board with the guaranteed human then. Is that the is that the idea? Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_08 2:47:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 2:47:38

But this pushes back on my theory yesterday.

SPEAKER_08 2:47:41

I keep getting like kind of trapped by AI. Like, do you ever send something to someone and they're like, you know, that's AI, right? And I'm like, crap. It's happened a couple times lately, and so now I'm starting to be like, this is I have I gotta Oh, maybe I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_09 2:47:54

I'm getting crazy AI ads now on some of my platforms where it's like it'll be for like a prescription drug or something, and it'll be like a green alien skeleton creature, and they've got this like bop in AI music singing about the prescription drug. It'll be like a three-minute produced movie song, and they're catchy, and it's it's really weirding me out. So I would like to opt out of those.

SPEAKER_17 2:48:16

Wait, did you just mention catchy AI songs?

SPEAKER_06 2:48:20

Is that a good thing?

unknown 2:48:41

I have this is a banger's been too long.

SPEAKER_07 2:48:43

I have the great use of A.

SPEAKER_17 2:48:44

You know, we'll go about it. We'll go we'll we'll we'll go about with it when we wrap this when we wrap the show up here shortly. We'll do that. Nice. Because I actually have the full three-minute version uh and I made a little video for it for those that are watching. So um I can share it with everybody when the show has uh when the show has uh wrapped up. All right, uh, let's see. Just a couple of other laws here, and then we can uh hit a few more points and uh wrap up uh the last dry run show before Monday's uh debut. It's real. Uh this is serious. Uh grooming a minor is now made a felony. This creates a felony offense for someone who engages in a deliberate pattern of behavior to manipulate a child into future sexual conduct. Mandated reporter training for educational staff must be updated by August 27th to cover identifying, mitigating, and reporting groom uh grooming behaviors. You know what's funny, I I looked at this earlier, I highlighted it to share on board, but then suddenly I'm reading this going, who's making the decisions on this? And what is this, and how is how is this going to be applied? Like, I certainly understand the desire to go and tackle this issue. It is a it is a problem, especially in light of what we've just gone through with the Tulu Vang deportation pardon situation. Um, but also, you know, they have the mandated training to sta to you know to educate individuals on how to identify this stuff. I'm just wondering what the what the conditions are and how this will be applied.

SPEAKER_09 2:50:12

That's that's definitely a question. It feels like it could be well intentioned, but it does it does feel like it could be very subjective.

SPEAKER_17 2:50:19

What laws didn't we have in place already to handle situations like that?

SPEAKER_08 2:50:23

That's a question. I would have thought, isn't grooming a minor already illegal?

SPEAKER_17 2:50:27

Well, yeah, when you could, I mean, and and so let's look at this from a conservative viewpoint. I mean, there's a lot of us, myself included, that consider a lot uh much of what's put inside of our public school system for minors relating to LGBTQ um you know, imagery, uh just to be, I'll just focus on that. There's other examples I can give, but I would argue that there's a grooming that's involved in that's involved in that. I mean, when you talk about those particular issues, you're talking about human sexuality, you're talking about relationships of individuals, that's the determining factor. And so when you have that inside of uh a learning environment for underage kids, I would go and say that is grooming those children, especially if you're from a household that doesn't agree with a particular uh chosen lifestyle.

SPEAKER_08 2:51:12

That's a really good point. And uh in that house hearing the other day where they were talking to the people from the Smithsonian museums, they showed some of the imagery that was literally in the Smithsonian museums, and it was adults in bondage and things like that. Very disturbing. Clearly, I think could be, yeah, grooming. You have all kinds of kids coming through those museums. So that's a really good point. I mean, at what point does it become grooming?

SPEAKER_17 2:51:37

I wonder, yeah, I'll have to do a little bit, um, I'll do a little bit more digging on that because I'm interested. I wouldn't be surprised if that was actually something that was put forward by if it was a bipartisan bill that was passed, and perhaps there were there were some Republicans within the legislature that were looking at that them uh themselves. So those were the most interesting ones. There were several other um uh there were several other items, a lot of a lot of new laws.

SPEAKER_08 2:52:00

Um there's that interesting social media one that Grace and I have talked about before on the podcast. I think it was in a clip you played earlier, but like the social media mental health warning, that's still they're undergoing this, you know, lawsuit. And so I haven't seen it anywhere on my social media, but you're supposed to get in Minnesota, as of I think it was July 1, you're supposed to get this big notification that says social media can impact your mental health. Here is a number to the suicide hotline.

SPEAKER_17 2:52:25

Oh, interesting. Kind of like Monty telling me to take a break when I'm driving along.

SPEAKER_08 2:52:29

Kind of a weird big brother thing, I would I would say.

SPEAKER_17 2:52:34

Um, you know, since you brought up uh AI, just really quick, and then we'll play some Mick Jagger and we'll wrap up uh today's show. Uh I had a couple of stories here from uh, and I'll I'll be bringing back David Gartenstein Ross for our artificial intelligence uh discussions, but I had a uh I had a couple of AI stories that were sitting in the stack that I never got a chance to cover with uh David. And because Catherine, I know what a big uh artificial intelligence fan you are, I figured I'd bring this up. Uh this one, a 22-year-old Indian scammer using the pseudonym Sam, created an AI-generated influencer named Emily Hart. Do you guys remember this? A little bit. To target conservative men on social media. The account featuring content tailored to appeal to the MAGA demographic gained significant popularity and generated substantial income for Sam. Despite the removal of the Facebook and Instagram accounts, Sam expressed no regrets about the scam. How is this a scam?

SPEAKER_09 2:53:33

They must have been, they must have been soliciting. Well, they were either monetized or they were soliciting, like, you know, donations from from if they were if they were on TikTok at least.

SPEAKER_17 2:53:42

He said, uh Sam said he used his Google Gemini chatbot to identify the target audience. And actually, it was funny because we talked about this in our house. Because Kyle and I had looked at it at uh at Emily. I think she had like a like she had like purple, she was wearing like a purple outfit, and they had her like in a union jack outfit and all this, and she was talking a lot of conservative values. And we had a whole I remember having a whole discussion with him about new media, emerging media, using this technology to reach new voters and getting young people involved. And apparently this was all uh a scam by this dude the whole time. Uh he said that he used the Gemini chatbot to help identify the target audience, claiming it suggested the mega conservative niche could be particularly lucrative because the conservative audience, especially older men in the U.S., often has higher disposable income and is more loyal. He tailored the account content accordingly, depicted Emily as a nurse taking part in activities like ice fishing, drinking coors light, and shooting off rounds at the rifle range. Uh Sam told Wire he didn't expect much from the account, but it kept growing in popularity. Every reel I posted was getting three million to five million to ten million views. The algorithm loved it.

SPEAKER_09 2:54:57

Wow. How was he making money? This I I do have that question.

SPEAKER_17 2:55:00

If he has it on TikTok, he's had to have been on TikTok. Yeah, he's making money. I saw I saw it on X, but if this was on TikTok, he was making money hand over Facebook.

SPEAKER_08 2:55:08

Yeah. Can you say the name of the person again? I need to look it up and discuss it.

SPEAKER_17 2:55:12

Emily Hart.

SPEAKER_08 2:55:14

I need to decide if this is like a legitimate thing or if people are being dumb and it was obviously AI.

SPEAKER_17 2:55:19

I still don't understand why they're calling this a scam. If you ended up making an AI character, you were making social media content, you have a deal made with the platform in terms of revenue generation based on the number of views you're getting. I mean, is it are they simply calling it a scam because he's not a conservative and yet he created a conservative character and therefore made money off it? I don't find that a scam. I find that as being an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_09 2:55:44

I think I think it's a scam if you are doing it specifically with the intent to deceive people and to get their money. Which it sounds like this was interesting.

SPEAKER_17 2:55:52

But how would that, okay, but how would that relate to somebody who, say, was doing, let's say that I was secretly uh Democratic. This whole time and I'm putting up social media content appealing to conservatives, but I'm being disingenuous that people don't even realize it. I mean, is that I guess again, that's where I think you can call it a scam, but it's not like a l it's not a scam in legal terms.

SPEAKER_09 2:56:16

Again, though, I seriously, if he was doing the thing on TikTok where you can solicit money and you're not not I'm not talking about monetization now, you can solicit money from your followers.

SPEAKER_17 2:56:25

Absolutely. Absolutely. You're not talking about getting paid from the views. Right. You're talking about soliciting donations from individuals.

SPEAKER_08 2:56:35

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_17 2:56:36

There was no doubt it was AI. I don't think there was I think everybody knew it was AI. I think it was more what what what Grace was saying.

SPEAKER_07 2:56:45

I don't know if everyone knew it was AI. I'm gonna agree with that, yeah. But you know about older people?

SPEAKER_17 2:56:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 2:56:55

Well, I think women too, I don't know, you know, I guess for that generation, that is like That's true.

SPEAKER_17 2:57:04

That's very true. You know what AI doesn't do well? They don't do tears well. Every time I every single time I see an AI generated picture of somebody crying, it just looks creepier.

SPEAKER_09 2:57:13

I wish we could go back to the days when AI videos were first starting, and it would just be a picture of like a message off to teddy bear, and it it would just kind of like uh do the it would like shudder a little bit, and it's like that's AI video. And that was as far as it had advanced. Everything after that was a mistake. And that was creepy in and of itself.

SPEAKER_17 2:57:29

But you cannot tell. Alright, let's wrap on this. I want to get your thoughts. Um Mick Jagger, Rolling Stones, brand new record, 25th studio album. 64 years together. Their first album since 2023, Hackney Diamonds was that album. Fantastic record.

SPEAKER_09 2:57:48

They're not talking about.

SPEAKER_17 2:57:51

They're still drawing crowds, and Mick Jagger still has the moves like Jagger, but um, he is very, very old.

SPEAKER_08 2:57:57

But that is the only song I know by him. Or not by him at all.

SPEAKER_17 2:58:02

He's 82 years old. So he was making the media rounds talking about the Rolling Stones. Uh also got on the topic of other uh rock icons and had uh some uh very interesting words that uh actually made me want to listen to some Rolling Stones. I didn't. I'm not a Rolling Stones fan, never been a pop, never been, you know, never been my style of uh of music. But I tend to tended to agree with some of what he had to do.

SPEAKER_10 2:58:26

And my question is to do with sort of how you understand your relationship with your audience. This actually maybe speaks to the politics stuff in a way too, because uh and let me give two counterexamples to sort of triangulate the question. So so uh on one poll we have somebody like Bob Dylan. Yeah, if you go see him live, he's great. It almost feels like the crowd is incidental. Like he were he's gonna be doing whatever he's doing, whether or not people showed up or or not. On the other end of the spectrum, you have somebody like a Bruce Springsteen who clearly sees his job as engaging in a meaningful back and forth with his audience. It means something different to him. What does your relationship to the audience mean to you? What do they represent, all those people out there?

SPEAKER_12 2:59:18

Well, it well, first of all, it depends where you are and what kind of event it is. Like the the the one the New Orleans event. That's a festival. They don't come to see you necessarily. You know, they they they bought their tickets before they knew you were coming. Right.

SPEAKER_10 2:59:35

You play the New Orleans Jazz Festival.

SPEAKER_12 2:59:37

You know, we we played that. Then we do summer in the park in London. You buy those tickets, you Glastonbury, you buy those tickets because you like their festival. You always think something's good's gonna happen, but you don't know. So they're not necessarily coming to see, they're not your biggest fans necessarily. I'm not saying that they hate you, otherwise it probably wouldn't be there. There's different levels of these kind of people, and you have to treat them in a slightly different way. My m my the bottom line of F first off, just re just real quick.

SPEAKER_17 3:00:07

Um I have a trem I again, I know very little about McJagger. I just know the hits, right? Okay. Um I don't think I've ever even watched an interview with McJagger until I've until this one. But I had a li I just based off of what he said, a tremendous amount of respect for what he said there. Because he's right. He's absolutely right. It's like it's that whole know your audience and from a content creator standpoint, listening to that going, yeah man, he's a hundred percent correct. You've gotta know the audience that you're playing for. And if you're in this case, if you're uh you know at a big festival, you want to start preaching to the crowd, well, you've got a whole bunch of people there that aren't there, you know, to to to see just you. They're here there to see other individuals. But here's where he makes the uh the interesting statement.

SPEAKER_12 3:00:49

The bottom line of my thing is really is that I my my job in uh in a live music world is is just those people that come is to uh might have the best time they possibly can and and for for two hours or whatever it is to forget all their problems and problems of the world and their mortgages and their whatever. And and and and if they have problems or just just to give them they can have just the best time. It's it's similar going to a sports event, really, because you you you everything else is shut out, you're just watching that who's gonna win, you know, you're not worrying about everything else, you know. You know, those things are out of your mind. I know you're still on that you're on the phone, everything oh my little Danny has uh hurt his tooth, but you know, I know you can still have that, but I know you can still have that, but in the old days you never had that, really. So so uh so my that's my job, so it's to make them have the best time they possibly and some audiences want to go completely nuts, you know, and and you so then you encourage them to go more nuts, and so you can play to some places in the world, it's different, you know. You you play in Finland, it's not the same as playing in Argentina, you know? It's a different cray they don't want to go completely so nuts, mate. Maybe they do. I'm just using as possible. But so you you don't want to be trying to churn them up into like get frustrated that they're not being demonstrative or you don't think they're having a good time, but because they might be quite relatively calm, they might be relatively you know, they they're having a good time in their I always say to everyone else they're having a good time in their own way. So so and your job is to make them more apeshit. That's the only one apeshit, but let's go ape shit, you know.

SPEAKER_10 3:02:51

So I I want to dig a little deeper on that question.

SPEAKER_12 3:02:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 3:02:54

So you're you're you're talking about what your job is in those events, is to make people have a good time, to make to you know, they want to leave the concert feeling like it was worth it and they can forget their troubles.

SPEAKER_12 3:03:05

And you don't want to lecture them.

SPEAKER_10 3:03:06

You don't want to lecture them.

SPEAKER_17 3:03:08

That was the part that ended up garnering the most attention. Because it completely pushes back on what your Bruce Springsteens have done as of late. And there's a host of other of other artists out there. And I can't help you know, and I really I think there's a British element to this where I think that when it comes to we'll just focus on Bruce Springsteen and then we'll wrap up the uh the show today. You know, I bet there was a point in time when Bruce Springsteen probably felt exactly the same way. And if you had interviewed Springsteen, he probably would have said exactly the same things that Mick Agar was saying. But Bruce Springsteen, like so many others, you go back to that turning point of Trump, and I think it broke a lot of people. I was watching an interview yesterday with um the guy that played the actor uh who plays uh Reacher on the Amazon show.

SPEAKER_09 3:03:54

That big uh Alan Alan Rich yeah, Richter Richer Richmond or Richmond Richter Richter or something like this.

SPEAKER_17 3:04:01

He was doing an interview just yesterday, and he was railing on Trump again, calling him a racist pedophile, and and I feel like that Bruce Springsteen fell into that category where his brain got broken, and now they go to their shows because they're gonna kind of get preached at. But I just I really I personally really appreciated McJagger's uh comments there as an individual who's been around for decades entertaining audiences and even at age 82 hasn't succumbed to the woke mind virus and understands he's still just there to entertain the masses, and that's his job.

SPEAKER_09 3:04:35

That's exactly it. The guy knows what he's there for. He's there to entertain people and give them a good time for a few hours.

SPEAKER_08 3:04:42

Yeah, it comes across as very humble too. It's like it's like he knows his role. My role is not to be a policy expert, a political pundit. That's not why people come to me. It comes across as just very um confident in who he actually is and not having to pretend to be.

SPEAKER_17 3:04:57

That's not my role either. My role is to just be able to have a good time. I'm not here to give any sort of opinions or takes on it.

SPEAKER_09 3:05:04

You might be wrong there.

SPEAKER_17 3:05:04

I know, right? Hey, that wraps up uh the second uh dry run uh show. We've got a lot of faces that I think they're all wondering why we've gone long. Yeah, there's a lot of oh there you guys don't know yet. There's been a lot of people that have been circling around the doorway here in the American experiment, and I think they were like, I thought the show was done at nine. Well, it is, unless we end up starting late. But that is the luxury and what is amazing about what we're doing now. And I I realized that later when we had our little technical snafu when the show started. I was like, I was still in my radio mindset. And I'm like, oh no, no, no. I want to start on time, don't get me wrong, but you know what? We have the luxury of being able to go long, and thank you both to Catherine and Grace, my captive audience, because they have to work here uh anyways the rest of the day. So uh this was your dry run Freedom Friday show. Guys, I'm excited for the future, and I just uh let me just take a moment while I have while I have you all here. Thank you so much for the opportunity and for helping to make all of this uh happen. It's been uh the most team of group and team efforts to go and pull this off. And it'll continue to be that. Uh we're heading into tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to the America 250 block party. Of course, you will be watching or listening to this after that uh that event. And the show starts officially on Monday, um, right at 6 o'clock, 6 until 9 a.m. I think we got all the bugs uh worked out on the Mix LR app. But of course, uh head on over to AmericanExperiment.org, uh, hit the link there, and then you'll be able to find it on uh YouTube, uh Instagram, uh Facebook, uh Rumble multiple pages, but head on over to the American Experiment social media pages to watch and uh and listen. And thanks you guys so much for coming in. I'm so excited for uh to get the show officially launched next week and it won't be this loose! We have that luxury. We won't we won't, you know, we're gonna we're gonna get back to the meat and potatoes that you guys all expect and keep our Freedom Fridays to uh to have our fun. But again, thanks so much guys for making all this uh for making all this happen. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_08 3:06:59

Thank you, John. I'm so happy to be back. I mean, I did feel a little rusty, but what a joy to be back for it.

SPEAKER_17 3:07:05

Yeah, this is a great scenario. So thank you, Grace.

SPEAKER_09 3:07:08

And we are all so excited to have you on our team, on our experiment team now, John. I think I think we are all so excited for what we're doing.

SPEAKER_16 3:07:15

And Isaac will get a camera on you eventually. Eventually, but the audience will clamor for it.

SPEAKER_17 3:07:23

You can uh leave your comments early if you want to uh drop them into the comment line. 612-584-4565. Again, 612 uh 584-4565 and email me. John atjustice at AmericanExperiment.org. So as promised, we'll go out with this. Uh, this is uh ZimaFizz, the full version, and we'll talk to you guys on a Monday morning right here on the John Justice show, presented by American Experimentes.