Richard Helppie's Common Bridge
The problems we have in the country are solvable, but not solvable the way we’re approaching them today, because of partisan politics. Richard Helppie, a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist seeks to find a place in the middle where common sense discussions can bridge the current great divide.
Richard Helppie's Common Bridge
Episode 252- Viewer, Listener, Reader Mailbag! With Rich Helppie.
Is the media shaping your opinions more than you realize? Join us for a lively viewer mailbag session where we dissect the intricate relationship between policy, media, and public discourse. Hear our take on the actions of both Republicans and Democrats, including Trump's refusal to concede the election and the Democrats' strategic use of lawfare. We'll also unpack Mark Zuckerberg's revelations about Facebook's censorship, making a strong case for the need for honest media and independent thinking in a healthy democracy.
Why is Kamala Harris rising in the polls, and what does it mean for the 2024 election landscape? Tune in as we analyze voter fatigue with Trump and Biden and offer strategic advice for Harris's campaign. We'll navigate through the unpredictable terrain of Trump's political playbook and discuss how COVID-19 stimulus measures have influenced stock market trends. Is Biden's economic policy a driving force behind the market's performance? We've got a balanced analysis to keep you informed.
Ever wondered how media bias and vice-presidential picks affect public perception? We're breaking down the contrasting styles of the DNC and GOP and offering alternative sources for more balanced news consumption. Plus, step into the real world of the restaurant industry to uncover the truth about tipping and tax reporting. Finally, we'll explore the potential impact of RFK Jr.'s candidacy on Trump and the DNC, wrapping up with a call for more fact-based, nonpartisan discussions. Don't miss out on our latest insights and visit the Common Bridge's Substack for more engaging content.
Engage the conversation on Substack at The Common Bridge!
Welcome to this episode of Season 5 of the Common Bridge, where policy and current events are discussed in a fiercely nonpartisan manner. The host, richard Helpe, is a philanthropist, entrepreneur and political analyst who has reached over 4 million listeners, viewers and readers around the world. With our surging growth in audience and subscriptions, the Common Bridge continues to expand its reach. The show is available on the Substack website and the Substack app Simply search for the Common Bridge. You can also find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. The Common Bridge draws guests and audiences from across the political spectrum, and we invite you to become a free or paid subscriber on your favorite medium.
Speaker 2:And welcome to the Common Bridge. I'm your producer, brian Kruger, and we get to do this about four times a year and I love it. Rich, welcome to your own show. We've got a viewer mailbag today. Are you ready to go again?
Speaker 3:We're both going to find out together.
Speaker 2:Somebody wrote in after the last one that we did that says you guys calling it a mailbag cracks me up because it makes you both boomers, because nobody does mail anymore, and I will say this I mean, we call it an inbox, I guess right.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right Because nothing really does come in the mail. But this time too, we're going to leave out a few things. I'm going to take this from our sub stack, from our podcast. I've got a few from Facebook. I got a few from X. I'm not going to say where they came from because I think it will isolate the person too much, but I am going to give names, because they put their names on the question.
Speaker 3:We've got a lot of email too, Brian. Oh yeah, yeah, we've got a lot of emails and DMs and that type of thing too.
Speaker 2:I think the last six of these are all email, so all right, no-transcript.
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, there's a lot of good people doing a lot of good things in the country and you know, if we didn't have this established media infrastructure and people weren't on their phones and computers and shows like this so often, they'd probably know that as well. And computers and shows like this so often, they probably know that as well. And you know, when I was starting this, I said well, you know, if we get policy out there, then people will talk about policy and then we'll have discussions around policy, and some of that occurred. But also, you know, the discovery, or maybe the illumination, of three villains. So it's the Republican Party, it's the Democratic Party and it is also that established legacy news media that really is the linchpin because, when you think about it, if you're a political party and you're fighting for power or survival, it kind of explains some of the underhanded stuff and I'm not condoning it that you see both the Republicans and Democrats doing. But if you left in the check of an honest media, they couldn't do it. And now we know that they've effectively become stenographers for the party in power and they react as if they're afraid of the party in power and maybe we'll get to be talking a little bit about Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 3:So you know I've always been a bit of a contrarian. I'm a problem solver, I'm fiercely independent and I try not to like regurgitate the stuff from the media complex. And it's kind of weird because the people on the left assume I'm pro-Trump. I'm not, but the thing is the established media has so much negative on Trump and they're relentless and they've been at it. Cheryl Atkinson is a great writer, really highlighted that in a piece today. But the contrarian is going to sound positive and similarly that there's so much cheerleading and, you know, cover up frankly around the Democrats and the left that it's going to sound like you know you're hypercritical of them. I wish they both could do a good job and if we had a better media infrastructure then I think they would. What was the question? I forgot where I was going.
Speaker 2:That's the trick with these Rich. All right, noah didn't give a last name. Asks simply do you think democracy is at risk?
Speaker 3:I think that's a talking point, frankly, but I do think it's at risk, but probably not the way it has been portrayed. As you know, I'm an avid reader and I'm a pattern recognizer, and I note that the insurrectionist thing has dropped. You don't hear that word very often and my guess I don't know this is speculation that it's just not polling. Well, fact of the matter is no matter what happened at the end of the first Trump term, or the only Trump term, or whatever it turns out to be that we did have a transfer of power. The observable fact is that Trump did nothing for 187 minutes. An observable fact is that Trump did not welcome the incoming president to the White House, and an observable fact is that Donald Trump has never actually conceded the election. So is that a danger to democracy? Or is that just Trump being Trump? I mean? You know you make the call.
Speaker 3:On the other hand, the Democrats have waged lawfare vigorously and Andrew Cuomo called him out and said look, these cases would not be brought if it wasn't against Donald Trump, and it wouldn't have been brought against Trump if he wasn't running for office. I don't know how you define it any more clearly. Yesterday, although the New York Times as of last night had not covered this story. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook said the Biden administration told us to censor stories about COVID they didn't like and about Hunter Biden's laptop and where it might lead, and he expresses remorse for that. So censorship is a bad thing.
Speaker 3:The Biden administration has been having Air Marshals trail Tulsi Gabbard around as somehow a threat, and I'm more concerned about the people doing that. They've got a candidate now they claim about democracy, a candidate that has not received a single vote for a single delegate by a single member of the public. You know RFK Jr comes out and maybe we'll get to talk about that a little bit today, and I took note nobody's slamming the content of what he had to say about the party that he literally grew up in. The Republicans have a loose cannon they can't control at the top of their ticket and it looks like the Democrats have this organized program of trying to thwart democracy. Now can one counterbalance the other? We don't know. But if we had a better media, like what we're seeing on Substack, then I think we have a fighting chance. Who knows, people are pretty brainwashed at this point.
Speaker 2:I thought this was really good. This just came in this morning from Benjamin Carr and it came in on Substack. He said and I didn't fact check this, but I think he's right, I'm kind of doing it in my head he said that if you take Biden, harris and Walsh together, their entire age it's 200 years and in those 200 years, of all those three together, none of them have worked in the private sector ever and none of them has signed a paycheck and none of them have been a business person. Now what Benjamin is asking is he knows through watching and reading and looking at your writings and everything he knows that you're a businessman and you've signed a lot of checks over the years. Do you think it's important for the president of the United States how's he put it be the CEO of the largest company in the world, to be a businessman or have some sort of business person background?
Speaker 3:So first of all not necessarily a business background, but some familiarity about how the economy actually works. We can go back to John Boehner's story about growing up in his father's bar and watching a small business person struggle. Yeah, I think it would be good if they had some private sector experience and at least not be hostile to the private sector. And let me tell you the issue that I've experienced in my own life People that have only been in academia or only been in government in the public sector. They look at what exists today and assume that's always been there and they assume it's static. People are making this much money. We tax them. We get this much. They don't understand human behavior.
Speaker 3:That changes in policy change behavior. All right, and go back to the Reagan years. Reagan indexed the tax brackets to inflation. He removed a lot of the lower tax brackets entirely. He simplified it and receipts into the federal government skyrocketed because people took that money and put it back to work. It's got to go someplace versus being sucked into the vortex of the federal spending. The other thing I want to mention too is that more people move from the middle class to the upper middle class under Reagan than move from the middle class down. So when they say, oh, the rich got richer, it's like no, no, no, it's different. People seized the opportunity based on the incentives, and that's what a lot of the policy work for people that have never been exposed to the private sector seem to miss. And my two cents on it.
Speaker 2:Okay. Evelyn Granger asks what do you think about a Kamala Harris for presidency? What do you think about that?
Speaker 3:Well, first I think you should learn how to pronounce Kamala. I'm going to get fried. So look, I actually wrote a column called Kamala Harris for president. It really spoke more to the campaign strategy, if people want to talk about that than it did to the presidency. But you've got two Kamala Harris's, you've got her track record from decades in the public sector and you've got a 42-minute speech at the convention.
Speaker 3:I tend to think the DEI, left-coast liberalism, soft-on-crime calamities that really were the hallmark of what she's done and the you know ineptness around the border and such probably would you think that would be the thing to expect going forward. Her speech that she gave at the convention really it was George Bush's acceptance speech in content and no one better than I that she had completely gone 180 degrees. But that's pandering to get elected. So what do I think a administration would look like? I think there would be a fairly abrupt shift to the left, particularly if the Congress coming in is Democratic-controlled in both houses. That would be my guess, and that's who she owes and that's who's going to get rewarded.
Speaker 2:Okay, Grace, Bishop, and she comes out of Substack and to me and there's nothing wrong with this, but she seems to be a Harris supporter. She says Harris is now up in the polls. What are your thoughts about that swing and how she is now up in the polls? What are your thoughts about that swing and how she is now up in the polls, according to Grace?
Speaker 3:Yeah, ok. So first of all, it's not surprising that we came into this. 70 percent of the voters consistently said we do not want Donald Trump, we don't want Joe Biden, and Harris is not Biden and is not Trump. And I'd encourage people to go back and read the column I wrote on the 4th of July called Kamala Harris for president. That followed the one I wrote the week before that said a throat lodging is what was between Joe Biden and a great debate performance.
Speaker 3:But, harris, what I recommend is you keep the focus entirely on Trump and entirely on observable facts. And she started off in that speech with the lies that have been debunked, so that was the first time she was going off course. Then trying to recreate her as the second coming of FDR and Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King all at the same time is idiotic on the part of the Democrats. They should just be on message saying you wanted someone other than Trump or Biden. We've got that. Take a chance on us. And she's saying the right things about I want to be everybody's president, but I mean she could win the presidency. I think it'll be a dogfight. They have clearly the media on their side. There's some allegations that the polling is oversampling Democrats. We don't know. We don't know the status of some of the voting laws that require ID versus just let the ballots get shot out there. So there's a lot of moving parts here.
Speaker 2:Lucas Ramsey asks if Richard Helpy got to be the chairman of the Harris campaign, what would you advise her and that campaign to do from here until election day to assure that they win this? Going on the momentum that they have right now, I would strongly suggest humility and I would say look, we're not perfect.
Speaker 3:We want to guide the country out of the generational conundrum of a Trump-Biden. We're halfway there. Our geriatric, cognitively deficient president is not going to be in this. You've got another one over there. We're not going to get into what he says, we're not going to get into what he does, we're not going to react to his name calling and all that. All we're saying is that we're going to be an alternative and we welcome everybody and we're going to try to listen. Where they're screwing up is these false joy, this enjoy. That I mean. Come on. And I haven't looked in a few days, but they still have put no policies on their website Zero.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess maybe that changes tomorrow with that first kind of a softball interview it looks like, but I'm going to set this up so we have some parallel structure with this. What about a Donald Trump presidency? And can you finish that off? And actually James Porter said this kind of what Lucas was saying what does Donald Trump do from here until election day to win this? So I guess that's a combined question. I'm kind of throwing my own out there, but I'm ending up with this other.
Speaker 3:Okay, look, in a normal world, trump should be down 20 points, all right, because people don't like lawfare, they don't like inflation, they don't like the open borders, they don't like censorship, they don't like war. So that's what's keeping Trump in the game. It wouldn't really matter what you advise the Trump campaign to do, because Trump's not controllable and his greatest weakness is that he does things by the seat of his pants, this juvenile name-calling self-centeredness McTweeter calling self-centeredness McTweeter. Okay, so he had a better track record and more popular policies than the party in power, but the exaggerations, distortions, the idiotic statements are just exhausting and the stuff that he has to deal with from the media makes him sympathetic.
Speaker 3:If Trump would listen, I would say look, I went from an A-lister celebrity at the Clinton weddings on Oprah People came to see me to somehow I'm a pariah. Okay, hey, I'm not. I'm not the caricature that you've made me out to be, and Kamala Harris isn't the avatar that she's made out to be. And look, all kidding aside, here's the policies that we're going to put forward, that we think Americans, like you, know better border control, inflation by getting the price of energy down, which energy shows up every place in the economy, and so forth. So that's where I'd leave it.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think you're going to like this question. I think he's being tongue in cheek, but I kind of get it. It's from Daniel Monroe and he's it's gotta be. It's gotta be tongue in cheek, but it's fun. He says in my club we laugh and this is in my club we laugh about the money that we got during COVID and everybody got it. We all didn't spend it, we invested it. Do you think that had an impact on where the stock market has gone since then?
Speaker 3:Maybe, but the short answer is this when you flood that much liquidity into the economy, it goes someplace right and it's too many dollars chasing too few goods. That's why you have inflation for the essentials, you know, shelter, food, fuel but it also sloshes into assets, so real estate, stock market, etc. It's not that the companies are worth more, it's just the dollars are worth less.
Speaker 2:So this kind of mashes into what Julian Marsh says and this is from email that sometimes people type with numbers instead of OK, all right, said, the stock market is up. Do you think this is by dynamics? I guess it feeds into your last answer. Why do you think the stock market is up so high? A?
Speaker 3:couple of things. First of all, we're at the forefront of a technological change, and then you can go back to the history of capitalism. Every time there's a technological change, there is a furious amount of investment before it settles down to a handful of companies. Think about automotive companies. In the early 1900s, you know there were dozens of them, and now automotive companies. In the early 1900s there were dozens of them and now we're down to a handful. More recent times we had lots of companies doing search engines, ask Jeeves and so forth, and now we're down to a couple. So now we're at the threshold of AI. There's a lot of money flowing into AI and it's going to come down to a few winners. And, by the way, the other interesting place I've been doing some backgrounding on the legal marijuana business. It's the same thing. There's going to be a few really big winners and there's going to be a lot of money lost, and so that money is fueling the stock market right now and it'll settle out. One of the beauties of capitalism is that creative destruction.
Speaker 2:Let's see what do we have next here from Olivia Jennings, who lives in Pennsylvania. She wants to know what are your thoughts about the assassination attempt. And her question do you think it left the media's story mill too quickly? I guess she calls it the media story mill. I think she's asking why we don't talk about it anymore.
Speaker 3:That's a great question. Why don't we talk about it? I had the TV on with the sound off last night and JD Vance was giving a talk and he's surrounded by six feet tall bulletproof glass and I thought, oh, that separates him from the people he's trying to speak with, which was a little disturbing. Let me start at the end. I think that the assassination follow-up cost Joe Biden the presidency because up until that time, the negative ads and the viciousness and the vile things being said, that was the whole DNC playbook. And then, after the attempted assassination, biden said stop all that. And then he gets on national television and he calls Donald Trump. Donald, when he called him on the phone and I'm like, well, he just humanized him and you know, within days Joe's gone.
Speaker 3:I think we need to listen to investigative reporters. It's interesting to me I guess you know I'm a data-driven person and what are the odds All these things had to happen? A 20-year-old with virtually no social media footprint figures out where to shoot from. Media footprint figures out where to shoot from. That's the optimum roof and that just happens to be the one that doesn't have any security on it. What are the odds that he could get a ladder and a rifle into the situation without being stopped. What are the odds that no law enforcement reacted to the sightings of the guy on the roof and the calls from the crowd to apprehend him? And what are the odds that the site of the shooter's death was cleaned up faster than the Lincoln limousine that John Kennedy rode in? And what are the odds that a shifting story of a too steep roof or local law enforcement didn't cover or a guy was locked out of the building who was supposed to cover it at just the critical time?
Speaker 3:I look at this and go statistically. That is just really amazing. And if you really want to get into the weeds on this, cnn's there filming live. They're the same group that happened to be there when Roger Stone was getting arrested. And there's a guy from the New York Times shooting at a shutter speed that is designed to capture things moving in at a very high rate of speed. I talked to a number of photographer friends when would you set your shutter to 8,000 feet per second? And the answer one guy who regularly photographs NASCAR and other car races says he's at 2,500 frames per second. So you look at all that and you go okay, what went on here. It's a mystery, and the last thing I'll say is about the shot itself. I think I may have said this on an earlier time. We talked about this. That's not that hard of a shot. You could make that shot with iron sights. It's just amazing.
Speaker 2:You think there's something else there, and the reason I follow up on this is Rich. You've gotten over 130 different emails and messages and substat comments about this particular thing, and one of them said something I thought was really interesting. We had a president who was actually shot in the head only a couple of months ago and we're not talking about it anymore. We've been talking about the Kennedy assassination for 60-some years and breaking it down so far and we had cameras all over that thing and the media is not talking about it anymore.
Speaker 3:From a media standpoint it's very, very curious and we had cameras all over that thing and the media is not talking about it anymore. From a media standpoint it's very, very curious and again that comes back to my opening remarks If we had a honest legacy media. Notice that I am not drawing conclusions. I'm looking at observable facts that nobody disputes, right as of this point, that where that roof was, it wasn't covered. A 20-year-old guy with no military background figures out how to get in there and so forth, and you'd think people would be mildly curious about how all that came to be. That's, to me, the biggest thing. But I tell you what I talked to a person, a good friend of mine I've known for many years, who's very emotional. She hates Trump, hates him. She goes.
Speaker 3:I don to a person, a good friend of mine known for many years, who's very emotional. She hates Trump, hates him. She goes I don't hate anybody, but I hate him. And she says, like, did he actually ever get hit in the ear with a bullet? I'm like or was it a fragment? Like, what difference does it really make, you know? And I explained to her what the size of that actual round could be. Now they haven't said if it's a .223 or a .556 type of AR, but a .223 hitting something like an ear cartilage wouldn't leave a big gap. It would be a pass-through or a clip-it. That bullet is designed to go slow, impact and then move around inside the body to create wound channels. That's probably more than people wanted to hear about on this. But in answer to your question, I don't know why the media is not more curious. Had Joe Biden been shot at, he'd be a near martyr at this point. So who knows?
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, this is from Ava Caldwell and she says from a production standpoint or just pure television. I love that. What are your thoughts about both the DNC and RNC conventions? And Rich, I'll add on to this you and I, without telling our ages, we can remember the Chicago televised 1968 convention and what they all look like prior to this. What are your thoughts about what you saw in the last couple of months with RNC and DNC?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm glad that the question was about you know, the television, because that's really what we're talking about here and that they're not the conventions that actually decided the candidate and you know why the Democrats wanted to do a roll call was, I mean, that's complete theater. So I would say this neither the RNC or the DNC was for thinking people. The Republicans were doing a pretty good job until they brought out Hulk Hogan, and I'm not come on.
Speaker 3:I mean, these are the same people that brought an empty chair in Clint Eastwood before they had a candidate like Mitt Romney and like, really, with the country beaded in, you wanted Hulk Hogan ripping off his shirt to show that you're serious about leading the world for the next four years. Trump's speech charitably good, I'll say, or comparatively good for about 20 minutes, and then it became the same old Trump, same old lamentations. The DNC it was for the bipolar okay, we can't wait to throw the bums out for all the problems and bring in the joy of a new candidate. And it's like hello, they're the same people and they can't help but put in the lies to feed their base. But I will say this the Democrats rehearse their speeches and they stick to the script, and Trump, of course, does neither. He does not look like a guy that prepares, and if he is preparing, you know he's worse executive than I even have criticized him to be.
Speaker 2:OK, this one sounds like it comes from a school teacher. This is from Ella P. Didn't put her last name. Compare and contrast the vice president choices of both the Republicans and the Democrats. So, first of, all.
Speaker 3:I don't think either one is a real bad choice and arguably could there have been better choices. So, by way of example, had Donald Trump and Nikki Haley kissed and made up, it would have iced the election in their behalf. But again, trump being Trump, why did he pick JD Vance? Because he likes me is what Trump said about Vance, and I will say I didn't know anything about Vance, so I listened to his book, which he did in his own voice, and frankly, I can relate. There are a lot of people that I went to school with in blue collar Detroit that came up from the South and I saw the culture firsthand and JD Vance got a compelling personal story. No matter how you cut it, he's very excellent on his feet and I think he was brought in to give Trump a fighting chance where he needs it. You know, pennsylvania, possibly Virginia, possibly Michigan. So I think from a campaign perspective, vance, you know, is probably okay, because it's going to be the Trump show over on that side.
Speaker 3:And for the Democrats, look, I think Gretchen Whitmer would have been a much better choice. She's clearly getting ready to run. She looks good. Clearly getting ready to run. She looks good. She's got less of a COVID policy overhang than Waltz and her city's fared far better than Minneapolis and having two women on the ticket and particularly you know Whitmer's turned into a really good campaigner as well. And you know Waltz, of course, has got a lot of attack surface with his COVID policies, with his cities burning, with his not being truthful about his military record and such they're flawed VPs. I think I'll be watching when they get together to talk. I think they could have done better. I think they could have done worse in terms of the VP picks.
Speaker 2:Liam Waters asks from X what are your thoughts about mainstream media appearing to be an advantage to the? What do you say? Oh, I can't read. I can't say that on the air. Ok, what do you think about Liam Waters? Liam Waters comment about the press and he thinks that the press is leaning into the Democrats more than Republicans. There I cleaned it up.
Speaker 3:You're going to have to send that to me. Yeah, so first of all, they are leaning in. I scanned the news programs and you know, meet the press this past weekend. Harris has the burden of incumbency, being held accountable for things that happened during her tenure. Normally it's the benefit of incumbency, but they accountable for things that happened during her tenure. Normally it's the benefit of incumbency, but they were able to twist that.
Speaker 1:John Harwood who.
Speaker 3:I'd like to be really clear about is an idiot with no real world experience. I don't think he's ever been west of New Jersey in his life and I think he was that kid in kindergarten that wore a suit to kindergarten. But he said it was understandable for the Republicans to demand that Harris specify the policy details because they want to use them against her politically. You think they want to talk about policy. The Washington Post was talking about the conventions and they want to poll people about hey, how was the convention? And they polled people that didn't watch the conventions but watched news reports. Yeah, exactly. And Andrew Sullivan said I'm shocked by this new Kamala, she's not new. And then PBS during the coverage, they're chortling saying, hey, the Republicans only have 80 days and that makes it hard to define Harris negatively, like ha ha. So yeah, I mean it's clear that the media leans left. Now the good news is this they're losing market and I just want to tell my listeners, readers and viewers there's far better reporters on Substack than me.
Speaker 3:Ok, sasha Stone. There's a guy named Chris Bray that writes something called Tell Me how this Ends. There's Racket News led by Matt Taibbi. There's Just the Facts, with Gerald Posner. John Solomon writes. But there's some really solid journalism going on over there and bring yourself up out of line of the DMC left talking points. All of a sudden they're a pariah far left and it's getting pretty crowded over there. Okay, like, oh, it is Mark Zuckerberg's going to go over there for speaking the truth about what he was told to do.
Speaker 3:Okay, so, um, there's that, and of course, you know we have good old Fox, that is, Newsmax and places like that that you know they clearly lean right and but they make no bones about it. Everybody knows that's what they do. You're not going to get a full story from there. Go elsewhere to pick up the full story. And when you see a video clip, before you start reposting it, get online, go see the whole video clip. That's one of the favorite techniques.
Speaker 2:This is a good lead-in. Then we're recording this on August, the 28th, tomorrow, kamala Harris and her running mate sit for the first time in what should be a very friendly interview where they get to talk about policy and whatever. Let's say. I'm morphing Mia Donovan's email, but it's the same spirit. What are some questions you, richard Helpy, would ask Kamala Harris in that interview? Not CNN, but what would you ask? That would be fair, but still probing.
Speaker 3:I want to give the same thing about Trump as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I figured we'd do both.
Speaker 3:Sure, okay, good, all right. So if I was going to interview Kamala Harris, frankly, the first question I would ask her is when did you know that President Biden was not cognitively capable? Because the answer can't be he was fine until the night of the debate. The answer can't be. I knew it, but I covered it up. What would another answer be? I wasn't aware when it was so obvious. So I would like to hear her being held accountable for that.
Speaker 3:Another one, and it kind of goes back to the border and the twisting and turns about were you or were you not? The borders are, and the contemporary record says the assignment was go find out the root causes, which is true, and go find out what's going on there that we can stem this tide right now. But I'd also go a little further. I'd say what could we expect of a Harris presidency? Does that mean another 12 million people, unvetted, are going to come in and be dispersed around the country? I think it's a fair question. If you want to make it an acute angle, you say are you going to apologize to the border agents that you accused of whipping immigrants with their horse reins? But I do think it's a fair question to say what should we expect from you? And be specific. Other things is that you want to be law and order and help the audience understand why you fundraised bail for people who terrorized and destroyed our cities in 2020.
Speaker 3:Now the smart ass, cynical part of me said and here you go, you watch. Right now they're saying, oh, crime's down now than it was under Trump. And my question is are we including the statistics for all the stuff that went down in 2020? Yeah, trump was the president, but that was not Donald Trump doing that. That was no enforcement in Portland, in Seattle, in Minneapolis and even here to some extent in Grand Rapids. But I do think that's an important question. The other thing I would ask is this Look, I would probably preface it by saying look, people are leaving California by the tens of thousands and I'd say which of California's laws should become law of the land, seeing how there's no policies on your website? Should we emulate California, and to what end? And I think she got a number of cases off that, and I would be doing a real media job and you're not going to get that.
Speaker 2:Before we get to Trump. Mason Griffin had a question that he put in. It's not really a question, but I'm going to paraphrase him. He said that for the last 16 years, some combination of Obama, biden, kamala Harris has been in the White House. Only four of those years have been Trump. How can she come in and say we need to fix everything, everything needs to be fixed? Or does she say everything's been great and stay with it? And it's her, you know, and she helped?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that's the bipolar nature of the Democratic National Convention. Throw the bums out for more years. And you're talking about the same people. So you know interesting. I was watching James Carville speak and I think James Carville is brilliant when it comes to understanding elections. I've had occasion to meet with him over the years and he is really a savant when it comes to looking at election data and his hope is that Trump loses mightily 70 to 30. And he makes the following point. He says look, in 1964, the Republicans were crushed and they won in 68. In 72, the Democrats were crushed and they won in 76. He really makes a compelling case there. And the other thing that he says is that when you hear nationally, harris is up three, he goes. It really means she's down one. She has to win the popular vote by at least four is his cut on it. And again, I think the guy's brilliant in terms of this and he's rarely wrong and he's got great insight. I'd like to see the question asked of James Carville how would you run the Trump campaign?
Speaker 2:But Trump wouldn't listen to him anyway. Well, that brings us back to the flip side. What would you ask Trump if you were sitting down with him?
Speaker 3:My first question would be Mr Trump. Down with him. My first question would be Mr Trump, why is it you act like a child calling other people names? How do you think that benefits you and how do you think that benefits the people of the United States of America, and how do you think that makes you appear in the world? And then I would shut up like explain to me why you've got to come up with a nasty nickname.
Speaker 3:If I'm weary of anything, it would be that the other thing I'd ask him is this Brian, mr Trump, how old will you be on your next birthday? It's a real factor like this. The other thing I'd ask him would be this Mr Trump, what's more important to you your personal ratings or the welfare of all Americans? And see what he does with that question. And if I was really feeling chippy that day which is a real possibility, a real possibility I would say what color or what race do you think Kamala Harris is? Because this guy is his own worst enemy. He's had chance after chance to act like an adult. He's had chance after chance to act like an executive, and his ability to self-destruct is like no other.
Speaker 2:It's stunning. It really is. You know, this is kind of a throw-in on here. As we wrap this up, both candidates and Trump will tell you he came up with it first because he did, but the other candidate has picked it up, and that is taxes on tipping.
Speaker 3:And, by the way, nobody should take this terribly seriously, right, ok, but it'd be like they got the same memo from the IRS. Hey, this notion of taxing tips. Number one, we can't find them and number two, it costs more to get there. Then look when it was a more cash economy.
Speaker 3:I worked in a lot of restaurants. I cooked a lot of food. I bust a lot of tables, washed a lot of dishes. I saw people support their families on tips and they were supposed to report them. I guarantee you it didn't happen.
Speaker 3:I worked graveyard in a coffee shop that was on a street with five bars. It was really busy at night. I'm a kid bussing tables, washing dishes and the like. And there was one waitress. They were supposed to try to get people to report their tips and one woman. She says I don't get any tips because I'm a little old lady. They only like the cute young girls. She's got a lot of bills and her, her aprons about falling off with all the quarters and stuff that are in it and like she's not reporting that. So I'm looking at it as capitulation to the real world. Now, when it goes through a credit card, they got to have some way of tracking that and so forth but and sending out a 1099.
Speaker 3:But yeah, taxes on tips. And here's the other thing I would encourage people that are have the means to do this Tip your server in cash. It's between them and the IRS and it takes the pressure off the restaurant operator and it lessens the weight of bureaucracy. And you know what I will do most often. You know where the tip line comes in. I'll either draw a line through it or just put cash and I'll give them cash. And because I've watched busboys be real quick, I make sure the server knows that there's cash in there before I leave.
Speaker 2:This has gone way longer than I thought. Let's wrap it up with this particular question. This is from Charlotte Walton, who said she was going to vote for RFK. He got out of the race, supported Trump. She's not going to do that anymore. Let me just ask you a global question Does RFK help or hurt?
Speaker 3:Trump. He hurts the DNC big time because if people listen to what he said about what the Democrats have become about war, inflation, chronic illness, censorship, the borders, masks on toddlers and so forth not one person any place has attacked the substance of what RFK Jr said, and I happened to watch the entire talk. He was not, I did not appear, he was on a teleprompter. Now I don't know much about his past. They've been bringing up a lot of stuff trying to smear the guy who among us haven't chopped off a whale's head and driven it across, the guy who among us haven't chopped off a whale's head and driven it across. But there was someone saying like, let's prosecute this guy. Like you know, whatever the statute of limitations is for driving a whale head on the top of your car across state lines probably expired, but no, but seriously, I think that I think RFK Jr damages the DNC because the man has spoken the truth and again, my advice to Harris and Governor Walz would be really simple, would be have some humility, say you want to steer a better course.
Speaker 3:You realize the Inflation Reduction Act was jet fuel for inflation. You realize you misused the social media platforms. You realize that you listened to the wrong people on COVID policies. You realize that they had the border in pretty good shape before you got ideological about it and promised to do better. That would clear the field. It would make people go okay, they get it, and we're going to move past the era of Trump. But you know this notion of let's and I'm going to be repetitive, like all of a sudden, that this is divine providence that has brought us Kamala Harris with no votes. I mean, come on, I got to end on something other than come on, brian.
Speaker 2:Okay, go ahead and bring us home.
Speaker 3:Rich. Okay, all right. So listen, I just want to thank my readers, listeners and viewers of the Common Bridge. Please tell your friends I am not near the best resource on Substack or on other independent media. Please avail yourself of this. We have a great future if we start talking to each other, if we start staying to facts. Let's get the sound bites and the smears out of our dialogue. Let's try to solve real problems. My promise to you is I will try to be original. I will try to be well-researched as long as I'm going to do this program. That's where we're going. It might be futile, but together, if we quit buying what the Democrats, the Republicans and that established media ecosystem is selling, the faster we turn our backs on them, the faster we're going to get change.
Speaker 2:Sounds perfect, and let me do your sign-off, because I've never done it before, and so for the Common Bridge. This is your host, Rich Helpe, and his sidekick, Brian Krueger, signing off on the Common Bridge.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us on the Common Bridge. Subscribe to the Common Bridge on Substackcom or use their Substack app, where you can find more interviews, columns, videos and nonpartisan discussions of the day. Just search for the Common Bridge. You can also find the Common Bridge on Mission Control Radio or your RadioGarden app.