Scott MacFarlane on the CBS Exit, Danielle DiMartino Booth on AI and Financial Risks, Judd Isbell on the Mount Vernon Trail

This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking. Maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home. With agents who close twice as many deals, when you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started at redfin.com. Own the dream. America at Night. Here's your host, McGraw-Millhaven. Music All right. Good evening everybody. It's Tuesday night here on America at Night. And I've gotten a great show in store for you tonight. It's Tuesday night and that means we're going to check in with the National Parks, our 250th celebration of this great country each for the month of April anyway. We are talking every Tuesday night with the National Parks Foundation. And tonight's featured park is going to be Mount Vernon. Yeah, just south of Washington DC, Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. And we will find out if the man actually did shop down a cherry tree. And are there cherry trees where you can make furniture out of from Mount Vernon? Put into all that in our number two. A little bit later on, there was a story that came out earlier, I guess late last week at some point, where the Federal Reserve and banks are worried about artificial intelligence and Anthropics new version of artificial intelligence. So much so that they're not releasing it to the public because they are afraid that it might fall into the wrong hands. We're going to talk to somebody who was well versed in the Federal Reserve and well versed in financing and get their thoughts as they listen to this story. This first hour, we are going to be checking in with one of the most respected newsmen in Washington DC. His name is Scott McFarland. He was with CBS News for a long, long time. Recently, he left CBS News with all the turmoil going on there. And he struck out on his own to become an independent journalist. His name is Scott McFarland. And Alex, we haven't hooked up with him yet, have we? Not yet. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to take a quick break and then try and hook up with Scott. We got some technical difficulties. We're going to try and hook up with him and get a chance to talk with him. One of the things that I want to talk to him about, and I am really just kind of disgusted over this Eric Swalwell story. So we come to find out that this Eric Swalwell, this Democratic Congressman from California, was going to run for governor. And apparently, it was the worst kept secret in Washington DC that this guy was a bit of a creepola. And that I heard a couple of people say that it was an open secret to keep your staff, your young women, your young staffers, any woman, any daughter away from Matt Gaetz and Eric Swalwell. And it was a dirty little secret. And everybody knew about it. It was a whisper campaign. And yet they allow these people to roam the hallways. They allow these people to go on TV. They allow these people to do what they did. It is outrageous that it was a dirty little secret. And this is supposed to be, and shame on the Democrats. Shame on the Democrats. Shame on the Republicans. It took them so how long to get rid of George Santos? This Tony Gonzalez only resigns because Swalwell resigns? Really? I mean, what a cesspool draining the swamp. That's hilarious. To think for one second these people are draining the swamp. If I was a congressman this evening, I would be embarrassed. And even if you're not Eric Swalwell, I'd be embarrassed that you allowed this and your organization to continue to allow this. Ethics committees, ethics violations, give me a break. What an embarrassment. These people live in a different world than you and me. The rules don't apply to them. The laws don't apply to them. We're standing two, three, four hours to go through TSA and they can sneak through and go through the back door and get special treatment. I'm sorry for people who love to carry the water for one party or another, a pox upon both their houses. These people come and tell us that they're fighting for the American people. It's laughable. You knew that this guy was a dirt bag and you somehow continued to look the other way or didn't call him out. I mean, it's outrageous. It's an embarrassment. And the more I see this Eric Swalwell story, I had no idea. I mean, I saw him out there, you know, carrying the water for Biden and the Democrats and whatever. I just thought he was another talking head congressman. No idea that behind the scenes everyone was saying stay away from this guy. Tony Gonzalez, right? This guy, George Santos, all these other, it's a shame on all of them. So there's my two cents. That's what I think if you're asking me what I think. Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox. We're going to try and hook up with Scott McFarland, former CBS Newsman. We'll try and do that here in just a minute. We are getting started. America at Night, back in a moment. America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. Music playing Music playing Join the Nightly Conversation, America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. He's considered one of the most respected newsmen in Washington, DC. And recently he has left CBS News with all the turmoil and he's gone out on his own and independent journalist. Now, Scott McFarland, Scott, welcome to America at Night. Oh, this is great. Thanks for having me. What's it like being free and free and unencumbered from corporate media? Well, I'm free from corporate media, but we're never free from the unsolicited feedback we get at home for what we could do better around the house. Are we? Never. It's independent media and all these social media platforms with these so-called influencers. You know what they're doing? The ones who do it well, they're using, they're stealing our radio skills. I mean, those of us who came up in radio and I'm a radio guy, we spent all this time kind of figuring out how to communicate one-on-one with people, how to talk personally to people, conversationally, just straight to the point, not the frills and, you know, extra technology. It's just, it's the most intimate medium radio is. Social media has stolen that from us. And I guess I'm trying to use my radio skills towards getting an independent career going now. Well, we know that we were the radio were the first influencers. We were the people who sort of created it. Yeah. This is podcasting, right? Talk radio, talk news is podcasting. Just they didn't realize it. It's the original social media. They're stealing all our stuff. Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk about where we can find you and read you and see you. But I want to get to some of the news of the day and this Eric Swalwell story has really captured a lot of people because I guess we're now finding out that it was the world's worst kept secret among House members that he was a piranha and people should stay away. So you have two different resignations at once. Eric Swalwell has now mounting sexual misconduct allegations. And yeah, you're hearing now that others had heard whispers for years or maybe quiet calls for years. That's not exactly new in Congress. There's been a bit of, been a horrible tradition of that through the years. I think two members quitting at the same time has two different angles to it. It's never too late to do the right thing and the political system is different than a court of law. You don't have to wait for due process in your, if you're accused of sexual misconduct, you really can't serve your constituents right anymore. You do need to stand down from that assignment because politics involves a lot of credibility, trust and negotiations. And you can't win trust while you're accused of sexual misconduct. So they had to go. But it really is going to raise some cynicism that they had to do one of each party at the same time. It's such a Congress thing to do to have it paired up one party and one party doing it simultaneously. It makes it look less like the right thing and more like a politically balanced, expedient thing. Yeah, they were, they were whipping the votes and they said, okay, Tony Gonzalez, you can retire now. You can't resign until we get a Democrat to resign because we have to maintain control of the House. It looks like that doesn't it? And by the way, that may be in fact what it was, so nobody would, is going to cop to being, you know, to negotiating politically, but it sure looks like it. And if there's anything Congress can do to lose more of its trust and more of its popularity, this is a good thing to try. Because this may, this may so even more distrust in the body. Yeah, crazy stuff. Pam Bondy didn't show up today for, for her hearings. You think that's going to be any backlash? I mean, what's the next step now? Well, the survivors are ticked off. The Epstein survivors are enraged at her and about this. So that's a bad starting point for Pam Bondy at the House oversight committee, the panel she was supposed to sit down with. They're not going to stop asking her to show up. Democrats are on fire about it somewhat predictably, but they're enraged. They say that they're going to try to have a contempt vote against Pam Bondy. Republicans are not coming to her rescue here. They're not really saying much of anything. They're kind of equivocating about this, but that doesn't help her. Here's the bottom line though. If Congress tries to use a contempt of Congress finding to force her to sit down, that's not really much leverage. Sounds powerful, but it's not because contempt of Congress is a recommendation Congress would make to the Department of Justice for a prosecution. There are better odds that you and me jumping over Mount Everest tonight than Todd Blanche prosecuting his mentor and his former partner, Pam Bondy, for a contempt of Congress. That ain't going to happen. So it's really a political issue now. They don't really have legal leverage over her, but they sure can raise it as an issue. And this is one of those rare issues. It's not the only issue of its sort where there's a bipartisan coalition that has formed demanding answers about the Epstein file. So they really can apply some political leverage, especially ahead of the midterm elections. Scott McFarland with us, former CBS Newsman, well respected, well trusted. Now part of the independent media and CBS's losses, our game. You've done a lot of reporting on the Epstein files. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, Scott McFarland, but if I were, this would be the one I'd be a conspiracy theorist on because everyone's acting guilty. I don't know if they are, but they sure are acting guilty. It sure does help fan the flames of conspiracy theories just the way they're conducting themselves. Let me give you the bottom line numbers. There's an estimated 6 million pages in the Epstein files for public release and there's a lot of us past mandating every piece of paper that can be released be released. Of the 6 million, only 3 million have been released so far. Now the Department of Justice is going to make the argument that other 3 million pages they're keeping confidential need to stay confidential, but that's a lot of freaking paper to not put out there. And all that's going to do is advertise people towards throwing around conspiracy theories. And they're not really being forthright about what's in the 3 million pages they're holding back. They're not explaining why so much needs to be kept confidential. That's not to say that there's anything hidden that shouldn't be hidden, but it doesn't help the process and it certainly fuels those theories. Yeah, it also doesn't help that they moved her to a minimum security prison either. I mean, they're just inviting people to be convinced you're hiding something. And they haven't explained that. I mean, they've gotten the question, you know, why did Galeen Maxwell get transferred as a sex offender to a low security prison camp? The Bureau of Prisons does not put sex offenders in low security prison camps by rule or by policy. And they did and nobody's explaining it. And when you don't explain it, you leave yourself vulnerable for conspiracy theories. No matter where you are in the political spectrum, this one is just cutting differently because it was a 434 to one vote in the U.S. House to demand the release of the Epstein files. You can't get 434 members of the house to agree that cookies are yummy and cats are cute. Like you can't do it, but they got on the same page on this thing. So there's a political ramification to it. Scott, what happened to Marco Rubio? Where has he been in all of this Iran negotiations? So he was, I think he was rain-sided the UFC fight this weekend when the peace talks were underway. I don't know if that's where you wanted to be or didn't want to be because the peace talks weren't going to succeed. And maybe he knew that didn't want to own that defeat and wanted to give that to the vice president. Yeah, Marco Rubio, if you remember, way back when in the historic old time days of 2025 was overwhelmingly confirmed. He's a member of the Trump cabinet that got Democratic support by the droves. He picks his spots. He's pretty judicious about what he speaks out about when he makes a public face. Perhaps he's got the best calculus of the entire cabinet because he's not taking ownership or assuming any ownership of some of these big defeats. Maybe there's a judiciousness there. Maybe there's an aspiration for 28 that he's starting to think about. Yeah, interesting. Okay, Scott McFarland, I want to make sure we give you plenty of time to tell us where we can find you, where we can see you. You've now signed up with Midas Touch, but you got a sub stack and podcast. Tell us where people can find you now. Most importantly, I'm on the radio a lot. I want to say that unequivocally. That's the most important thing. When you have that radio bug with you and I have, you never lose it. You hear me in Washington, DC, Milwaukee, Atlanta and Los Angeles every week on the radio. YouTube is where you go now apparently to watch things. I know that because my kids told me. So we have a YouTube channel, Scott McFarland reports. It's got a better quarter of a million people watching it. We need some more. And on sub stack, which I just taught my mom how to use. So he is teachable. A daily newsletter that is exclusive with enterprise and exclusive news. You can't find anywhere else. Okay, good. And then you're also on Midas Touch too. I guess you're also involved there. Yeah. So that's, that's, that's where it gets crazy in the year 2026. That's when you're on seven platforms at once. Cause there's no single one. So you're like, Oh my God, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Blue Sky, Twitter, Facebook, you do all of them. It's, it's really a lot, but that's how you reach Americans now. You have to be everywhere. Do you consider yourself now, are you going to venture out into more opinion pieces, more investigative journalism? Where do you see yourself going? Hell no on the opinion pieces because that, that lane is saturated with people. There's too many people in that lane and respectfully, even at home, my opinion doesn't count for much. So I'm not sure we're going to pay to hear my opinion. I was a newsman from the CBS ilk. I, we know how to tell the news and we'll figure out a way to do that independently. So people can, you know, know that they're not hearing platformed lies and conspiracy theories and the whitewashing of history. There's an appetite for that across America. And again, it doesn't matter where you are in the political spectrum. Don't platform liars and you're off to a good start. Yeah. Scott McFarland is our guest. I hope you come back. You are always welcome here. I've always been a big fan of your work on a CBS and I was thrilled when you agreed to come and join us. So please come back and we'll be watching you and reading you. Book me anytime. Scott McFarland. Thank you very much. Scott. Have a good night. Thanks for checking in. He's on sub stack. He's also on YouTube, former CBS newsmen, well respected, well trusted, 20 plus years in the business. And he's right. The opinion is saturated, but the newsman, the man who's out there pounding the pavement, uh, working the shoe leather, those are the guys. Give me those guys all day long. Scott McFarland plus is a radio guy. How can you not go wrong with a radio guy? So thrilled to have him on. All right. Look, we're just getting started. Next hour, we're going to talk about the national parks. That's right. The 250th anniversary of America and Mount Vernon. That's going to be the topic next hour, but stay right there. We're going to talk to a woman who was part of the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Dallas. She helped the president there through the financial crisis. What's going on with this new artificial intelligence, the banks, the Federal Reserve? What's going on with the Strait of Hormuz? We'll talk a little bit about the economy and the banks and the oil, all of that straight ahead. America at night, just getting started back in a moment. This is America at Night with McGraw-Milhaven. What's going on? I'm Arch Manning, a Viori athlete in college quarterback. Whether I'm running, training, traveling, or just unlining at home, I love doing it in my core shorts from Viori. With a breathable boxer brief liner, they're quick to dry, super versatile, and stand up to even my most intense training sessions. Plus, they come in three inseams and a ton of colors. Ready to try a pair? Go to Viori.com slash Arch and get 20% off at checkout. I think you're going to love them as much as I do. That's Viori.com slash ARCH and get 20% off your first order. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any U.S. orders over $75 and free returns. Have a great day. Chat? I think it's time to book that trip to Walt Disney World Resort. You know, you work so hard. I think it's time to give yourself a little TLC. Like, when's the last time you had fun? We could hop on a light cycle, eat food from all over the world at Epcot. We could even build those lightsabers you've always wanted. Like, let's make plans for real this summer? Find your moment at Walt Disney World Resort. This is America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. Let's talk about the economy in lots of different ways because there was a story out that anthropic artificial intelligence, their new model, is so powerful and so dangerous that they had to bring Scott Besenden, Treasury Secretary, and Jerome Powell, the head of the Fed, in to give a primer. Also, it's only being released to a few major companies because they're afraid of what it could do out there. Daniel D. Martino Booth joins us. She is a chief strategist and CEO of QI Research. It's an independent research firm. She was also with the Dallas Fed back in 2008. Danielle D. Martino Booth, welcome to America at Night. Thank you so much for having me. Delighted to be here. Let's first talk about this artificial intelligence and the banks and the Fed. What are you hearing and how worried should we be about this new generation of artificial intelligence? Well, I mean, I think what concerns me the most is that we've come to the point and we knew where we were going to get here, that AI is able to, it's able to pre-consider what risks might be to it being quote unquote found out and make its way around them. And that is put in the hands of the wrong people and we know that the world is filled with them could potentially cripple a financial system. And that is something that is, it kind of goes a step beyond what we consider to be systemic risk. And systemic risk is risk that cannot be contained and is global in nature. It seems like we're awful blasé with this. They just kind of release it and on their own they say we're not going to release. I mean, there doesn't seem to be government oversight on something that is so powerful and correct the financial system. You would think the feds would be a little more interested in this. Well, you certainly would. And there are many vulnerabilities right now in the financial system that in my view at least the regulatory authorities are playing catch up on when a lot of us who have been observing these risks, these potential consequences for months have been warning about. And it seems that now regulators are just now kind of putting their listening ears on. And so yes, it's very concerning when emergency meetings are being called because in my experience throughout the great financial crisis at the Federal Reserve, by the time emergency meetings were being called, it was too late. What are some of the other things you're looking to and worried about? Well, so what I've been working on for months now is the connectivity between the big conventional banks that we think of as JP Morgan City Wells Fargo Bank of America, the fact that they're lending their funding, the shadow banking system that now dwarfs in size the conventional banking system and that because they are the conduit, if you will, to risks that regulators cannot by law see or regulate that we're in kind of a very dark no man's land, not knowing what the blowback to the conventional banking system and to the American public could be. What do you mean by shadow banking? What do you mean by that? When I say shadow banking, when Dodd-Frank was passed and the vocal rule was part of it, and a lot of the conventional banks were basically informed that the regulatory authorities would no longer allow them to play with the house's money, so to speak, as you would think of as a casino, that they simply said, well, that's just fine. We'll just take that into the private banking sector, into private equity, and now into the $1.8 trillion private credit sector. So if we're not allowed to make loans, if we're not allowed to speculate on this market or that market in the conventional banking system where the regulators can keep an eye on us, we'll just take it outside of their purview. But the problem is, some of these institutions have become just as big as some of the world's biggest banks. And I refer to anything that begins with the word black, black, rock, black stone, KKR, Carlisle Group, they're enormous financial entities, but they really don't have the same regulatory oversight as our banks, and yet their footprint in the financial system is bigger than that. Danielle DiMartino, both interesting. What do you make of the current economy and the current oil prices? How much of a shock do you think this is going to be, and how long before we start to see some real bad numbers come down? Well, you know, I think we actually saw a pretty bad number come down with the most recent consumer price index. We obviously, we saw gasoline prices go through the roof. But what I was paying attention to at the time was that food at home inflation flatlined. It was a goose egg, 0.00%, meaning our American families who are kind of living on the edge, they're getting by on buy now pay later. Are they actually starting to spend less on food because their budgets are being so quickly and in a shocking way constrained by what they're paying up for at the gas pump. So you think that there's so much money going out in other ways that they're cutting back on their actual food costs? Again, I'm what you call a data agnostic economist. I try and look through a very unbiased lens into the data and what we're seeing, what we're seeing from the lowest consumer confidence in the University of Michigan, which is the oldest consumer confidence survey in existence in the United States. When you see something like these headlines that 68% of Americans perceived the unemployment rate is going to be higher six months from now. These are very alarming numbers that historically speaking have only ever been seen, not just in a pre recessionary environment, but indeed during a deep recessionary environment. Then how do you put in that latest unemployment number, which was actually much better other than people thought? How does that square with all that? Well, it's interesting that you use the word square. March, as it turns out, March of 2026 was the warmest March in the history of the United States. And yet somehow the statisticians at the Bureau of Labor Statistics conjured 79,000 Americans who were out of work because of weather, which you would normally consider with Nor'easter's blizzards, which made absolutely no sense. And then another model that they use to adjust the numbers called the birth death model came up with another 100,000 jobs. That's 179,000 jobs alone in an environment that we're seeing bankruptcies at the highest level since 2010. Assuming, so there's a model assuming that there are all these companies being created at the same time that we know the opposite is actually taking effect such that you're seeing economic models create data that simply does not agree with what we're seeing on the ground when you hear anecdotes like, gee, my kids baseball coach who works at a great school in the Northeast had a lift, a lift sticker on his car, meaning to get by he's working a side gig in addition to his regular day job. And that is where we are with nearly 80 million Americans in some way, shape or form working in the gig economy. Why is that happening? Is that happening because of tariffs because of oil because of just a natural slowdown? What's going on? What's the backstory here? Well, there's certainly a very, very natural slowdown. If you listen to any consumer staples companies, whether it's Kraft Heinz, anybody that is in direct contact with American consumers in grocery stores, they're saying that they're having a very difficult time passing along price increases of any kind to American families. And that is highly problematic. It's indicative of the fact that we're seeing wage disinflation. If you look back to where we were in 2019, prior to the pandemic hitting, wagers are growing at a slower pace than they were at that point. And that means that if you're talking about the quote unquote K shaped economy, those at the bottom of that K are struggling more than they have for any time in the post pandemic era. We know that household debts are eating quite a few families alive. We know that whether you're talking about the cost of renting a home or buying a home is the unaffordability crisis is completely off the rails. But again, these we're talking about the essentials of life. We're talking about putting a roof over the head, putting food on the table, putting gas in the gas tank to get back and forth to work. That just the cost of those essentials has become prohibitively high such that we're seeing rising default rates in by now pay later and American families using by now pay later in 2025 to pay things like dental bills and medical bills. We're also hearing credit card debt is on the rise. Is that continuing? My goodness. Yes, we've never seen credit card debt at these levels. And when I mentioned by now pay later, that is in addition to record levels of credit card debt that's been taken on. And so you see the headlines after the big monthly jobs report and they appear to be benign in nature. But then you look at the linkancy rates for household credit and they're at the same levels that they were during the great recession during 09010, excuse me, 09 and 2010. And you say there's a disconnect here. Something in the data is not lining up. Something does not make sense. If this many American families are in distress. What's the bond market saying? The bond market I consider to be the most honest arbiter of all of the information. And right now with the benchmark tenure treasury yield at 4.24%. It's telling us that if you look at the scourge of stagflation, stagflation, meaning prices are rising and the economy is slowing. What the bond market is saying to us, the message it's conveying is that the danger is more in there being a growth shock right now than there is in there being an inflation shock. And that is again a reflection of families having to cut back on their spending because they can't keep up with their wages with the cost to cover what we consider to be essential. Danielle D. Martino Booth was an advisor to the president of the Federal Reserve of Dallas to the 2008 financial crisis. She's also the CEO and chief strategist at QI Research. It's an independent research firm. Let me take the last couple of minutes with you, Danielle, and talk about Jerome Powell. His term is about to end and his successor is not being confirmed. Talk about that, what you expect and how much of that is going to unsettle the markets with this unsettling of the new federal chairman, whoever it may be. So we're in a very unique time in Federal Reserve history. There have never been criminal charges placed against a sitting Fed chair. We know that the Eccles building was constructed in 1937 and that getting a building up to Washington DC code could possibly go over budget. All seven members of the committee that would push Kevin Worsh through to the full Senate vote have said we do not believe that J Powell perjured himself that these criminal charges should be dropped. The fact that they have not been dropped, allowing Kevin Worsh to go through the confirmation process in my view at least is a huge downfall of the current administration. So I think that the administration, if they want to get somebody in the seat that is going to be a little bit more cognizant of the plight of Americans at a time when the head of the Federal Reserve feels that he is under incredible public assault and therefore is not stepping down. There is no pathway. Senator Tim Scott today of South Carolina said that there were going to be hearings in front of the committee, the Senate banking committee on the 21st of this month and that they were going to listen to Kevin Worsh. There's no doubt that somebody who was already a sitting Fed governor is going to get through committee and is going to be confirmed by the US Senate. That is not what is in dispute. His neighbor to the north, Senator Tom Tillis, however, is saying nothing is getting through committee until these criminal charges are dropped. And so we're in a holding pattern. We're in a state of paralysis in terms of the next generation of leadership at the Federal Reserve, which adds just another layer of uncertainty to what is already plaguing so many small, medium and large size American businesses. Real quick with about a minute or so left, Danielle, is the Fed, with all of this, they've got to monitor everything and raise and lower interest rates. What are they saying? What are they thinking now that they see this world economy and the markets and the oil prices and the straight up form moves? What are they even thinking about raising or lowering when it comes to interest rates? Well, historically speaking, when households are hit with a shock of the magnitude they have been because of this energy price increase, Federal Reserve regulators, monetary policymakers are beginning to be very concerned that there's going to be a growth shock, and that follows that there are going to be layoffs that follow. They should be talking right now behind closed doors about lowering interest rates. But again, the Federal Reserve is under a political assault. So it's very difficult to follow through with the right thing to do in a situation that's the one that they're faced with right now. Daniel D. Mortino, booth CEO and Chief Strategist at Q1 Research. Thank you very much for your insight. Thanks for coming in on a very busy day. Good luck to you and thanks for checking in. Thank you. You got it. America at Night, back in a moment. From the heart of America, this is America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. It's Toyota Truck Month. Time to get a truck that works as hard as you do. Tacoma, Tundra, built for the work site, ready for the trail, and packed with tech that makes every drive smarter. Available with 360-degree panoramic cameras for perfect visibility in tight spots, powered tailgate for easy loading, and a high-tech connected screen to keep you on the grid no matter where you are. All backed by the brand known for its legendary reliability, the rugged Toyota Tacoma and the full-size Tundra are built to handle it all. And right now, your local Toyota dealer has great financing and lease options available to qualified customers, meaning there's no better time to test drive the Toyota truck you need. Find a great Toyota Truck Month deal today when you visit buyatoyota.com. That's buyatoyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. This NBA playoffs with FanDuel, you're not just watching the playoffs, you're a part of them. Steve's got the phone, opens FanDuel, and he's going for threes! You're listening to America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. All right, we've got a couple minutes left to finish up our number one and then our number two. We're going to talk about Mount Vernon, George Washington's home, Mount Vernon with our National Park Foundation series in honor of the 250th anniversary of America. Programming note tomorrow, Ed Martin, Donald Trump's US attorney, and then of course, Donald Trump's pardon attorney. Ed Martin's going to join us next hour, excuse me, tomorrow on the show. And on Thursday, we're going to have former Senator John Danforth on the show. So that's coming up the rest of the week. Can I ask a very silly question? I mean this from the bottom of my heart. The last thing I want to do is pick a fight with any of the other nationally syndicated talk show hosts. I know they're all fighting with each other and yelling at each other. I don't want any part of that. They don't know I exist. That's fine. I know with me. We do our little show here. I don't even know if Westwood One really knows we exist. We do our little show. We mind our own business, which is A-OK with me. But I don't understand why some people in the MAGA universe or the conservative universe are they really that upset over Donald Trump picking a fight with the pope? Is that really that? Is that the thing that's crossed the line? Not that he wished Muller would died or any of the other things he said about inappropriate and rude and writing a check to an adult film star from the Resolute Desk? I mean this is what they're upset over after all these years. I don't buy it. I don't get it. Yes, he picks a fight with the pope. The people who love him. I mean that's part of the course, right? That's Donald Trump being Donald Trump. The people who don't like him. OK, I get that. But these MAGA enthusiasts are somehow coming out against President Trump now? Really? That's what threw you over the edge? I don't understand it. I don't get it. Why now? After all the things he's done that's been inappropriate and insensitive and rude and immoral and unbecoming a president, this is what you're going to die on? I don't know. We can come back and talk about it in hour number three with open phones. We're just getting started at National Park Foundation next. Our executive director is Alex Hinton. Our engineer tonight is Richard Good. I'm McGraw-Millhaven. This is America at Night on Westwood One. Thank you. Hey there. I'm Paula Pan. I help people make the smartest money decisions possible. Do not ever worry about your salary. You need enough to make sure that you aren't in a bad financial position. Once you have that, your salary becomes a little bit more than a little bit more than a little bit more. Remember, you can afford anything, just not everything. Afford anything. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Thank you. Westwood One presents America at Night. Here's your host, McGraw-Millhaven. Wow. I thought I knew about Yellowstone. I thought I knew about Rocky Mountain National Park. And when you learn something new, that's always really exciting. So tonight, in honor of the 250th anniversary of this great country, we are exploring Mount Vernon with the National Park Foundation, Judd Isbell, president of the Friends of Mount Vernon Trail. Judd, welcome to America at Night. It's like for me, I'm the girl. That's all right. That happens all the time. Don't worry about it. I'm so nervous. Oh my goodness. Do not be nervous. If I can do this, you can do this. So you're totally fine. First, first question, Judd. So I, when I, they took me to Mount Vernon when I was a little kid, so I don't have a very good memory of it, but George Washington's house and his estate is the National Park. Is that correct? No. So the Mount Vernon estate is owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. So they were a group that formed in the 1850s. And the Mount Vernon estate had fallen into disrepair. So they, those women came together, they bought the estate and have run it as a nonprofit since then. But the Mount Vernon Trail, which I'm a Friends group that supports the Mount Vernon Trail and the George Washington Memorial Parkway are both part of the National Park Service. And they arrive right at the doorstep of Mount Vernon estate. So you can ride your bike to the Mount Vernon Trail. The George Washington Memorial Parkway itself was built as a way to honor George Washington and be a gateway to the Mount Vernon estates. And it was built in the 1932. Gotcha. So the trail leading up to the estate is the actual National Park. It's part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, which is part of the National Park Service. Gotcha. How long is the trail? The trail is 18 and a half. Yeah. It's not wide enough, but the trail is 18 and a half miles long. And it goes from Arlington, Virginia, in the Roslyn neighborhood all the way to Mount Vernon estates and travels through Alexandria on the way. That must be a heck of a ride. Bikes, motorbikes, e-bikes, strollers running, jogging, all of that. We got every kind of person you could ever imagine on the trail. So bikes, e-bikes, strollers, DCs, often one of the fittest cities in the world and rankings. And so you'll see people out there running and training and exercising, but also lots of people just out enjoying the trail and out enjoying some of the views. You mentioned Arlington. Does Robert E. Lee come into this at all? Yeah. So Robert E. Lee, the trail goes right past Arlington National Cemetery and the Robert E. Lee house is part of the National Park Service, although the cemetery itself that surrounds it is operated by the Army. Interesting. So it's, even though you're not technically Mount Rushmore or excuse me, Mount Vernon's a state, you're obviously working in conjunction with them all the time and sort of know, but I mean, it's hard to determine when you're in the National Park. And, and when you're in the estate. Yes. The parkway is kind of interesting because it's a long and narrow parkway and it's very urban and suburban. So it goes through cities. It goes through neighborhoods and then arrives right at the doorstep of the Mount Vernon estate in Fairfax County. How many people visit the trail on any given year? Well, our best estimate is about 1.5 million, which is a lot. The parkway itself estimates that it has about 6.7 million recreational users per year. That includes lots of parks, several historic sites along the way, but the Mount Vernon trails, one of the busiest multi-use trails in the nation. I could imagine. How did you get involved with the Friends Group? So I'm fortunate to be one of the founders of the group. And part of that was I moved to DC in 2013 and there's a lot of really great trails here. It's kind of expensive to own a car here and very difficult to park and traffic is notoriously terrible in DC. And so I started riding my bike to work and the Mount Vernon trail was the way that I got to work every day. It was just sort of the best way to start the work day and the best way to finish the work day. An incredible diversity of sites and getting to enjoy nature and just some open air every day. It just sort of resonated with me and made me fall in love with it and want to care for it. So the Friends Group is relatively new, I would think, right? That's what I heard you say. No, no, no. So the Friends Group is new, but the park itself, when did the Mount Vernon trail become a national park? So the parkway was authorized by Congress in 1930 and the first segment of the parkway was built in 1932. It's actually one of the first modern highway designs in the nation. So it has a historic tie to highways. And then the trail itself, the very first segment of it was started in 1971. And it's itself a volunteer story. So there were two women in Alexandria who were both housewives, Ellen Pickering and Barbara Lynch. Barbara Lynch's husband at the time was like riding his bike on the parkway. You could ride your bike on the parkway still. And she didn't like how dangerous that was to the woman. So they gathered a petition and presented it to the park service and said there should be a trail here. And they were able to convince the park service to provide gravel for it and some blading, some preparation of the turf. But volunteers actually built the very first five and a half mile segment of trail through the winter of 1971 and 1972. A six foot wide gravel trail. There's a great picture from the Washington Post of just like people with rakes and shovels spreading gravel. So it was hand built initially and it was a good idea that that getting expanded, fortunately. Judd Isbell is our guest use president of the Friends of the Mount Vernon Trail. He said he was nervous. Judd, I could never tell you sound fantastic. So take a deep breath. Grab a drink of water. We're going to take a quick break when I come back more on the National Park Foundation series here on America at night. It is the Mount Vernon Trail with our good friend Judd Isbell, president of the Friends of Mount Vernon Trail. America at night back in a moment. Celebrating the natural beauty of the United States. This is America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. You're listening to America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. Judd Isbell is our guest. He's president of the Friends of the Mount Vernon Trail. It is an 18 mile trail from George Washington Mount Vernon Estates and Garden and then north all the way up to Arlington. And you go by quite a number of historic places. We'll get to all of that. But Judd, it also apparently, does it parallel the George Washington Parkway? Is that, give me a sense of, does it parallel or how does that work? Yeah, so it does parallel the parkway. It's sort of nestled mostly in between the parkway and the Potomac River. So, and wood it for a large portion of it. So it's, it's pleasant for the most part. Couple spots where there's a lot of car traffic on the parkway, but yeah, parallels the parkway. You must get some unbelievable views of the river along the other trail, I would think. It's pretty amazing just that we're in an urban area in the middle of DC. And you can see sweeping views of the Potomac. There's several bald eagle nests along the way. My favorite animal is the beaver. So there's a couple beaver dens along the trail in the river. So every time I get to see one of those, I'm just super tickled. But I've seen foxes deer. So it's really interesting that we can be in the middle of a city and still have great views of nature and the Potomac and great parks and recreation areas and tons of historic areas along the way. Now you mentioned you could write, you ride your bike to work and you could ride your bike to the park and ride up. Can you ride your bike to Reagan's Washington National Airport? You can. So it's, I've heard that you can also ride your bike to the Portland airport, but every time I catch a flight, I either walk or ride my bike to the airport. You can take a little side path right off the trail. They have excellent bike parking there. You'll often see when you're on the trail, flight crews will stay at the hotels in Arlington. So it's not uncommon to see a pilot dragging his luggage down the trail to get to work. So they literally walk to work at the Reagan National Airport? It is. It's pretty amazing to see people with their little captain hats on and ties walking to work to fly a plane. Okay. So it's an 18 mile bike path, as we said, from Arlington up north all the way south to Mount Vernon, 18 miles right along the Potomac River. The Potomac River. Thank you. I'm the one who's nervous now. Okay. So there's a lot of historical points along the way. And so I'm going to get, I'm going to ask you a couple of these sort of historic points along the way. You mentioned Robert E. Lee's house. So on this trip, Robert E. Lee's house was where Arlington National Cemetery was, right? And so you passed through Robert E. Lee's house. You can stop off and see the house. You can. Yep. That's a National Park Service site. They've got an excellent ranger there named Chris that will tell you all about the house. And the cemetery is definitely worth visiting. You can, you can't bike through the cemetery, but you can, there's bike racks right at the cemetery to visit. So that's a great way to get there. So tell me about Lady Bird Johnson Park. Yeah. So Lady Bird Johnson Park's part of a manmade island. It's a main honor for the former First Lady and honored a lot of her work to beautify the island and beautify DC. And the island also, the park contains LBJ Memorial Grove, which is a living memorial to LBJ. And it was a place that he and Lady Bird would go when they needed to get away from things and quiet. So now today it's a really quiet place right next to the parkway. It's sandwiched in between the Pentagon and the parkway. It's got these really great tall pines and benches to sit on. And then it's just got this fantastic view of the Washington Monument. And it's a place that I wish that more people would go to. It's really under visited, but I just love going there and just like sitting on a bench and imagining like LBJ being there with like the weight of the world on his shoulders and the presidency and like the war in Vietnam and like feeling that same way of like just all that stress is like comes off of you when you sit there and look at you. Yeah. Lady Bird Johnson Park on the trail. What is Old Town Alexandria? Tell me about that stop on the trail. Yeah. So Old Town Alexandria is one of the oldest cities in Virginia. Lots of George Washington sites there. So if you want to go see Gatsby's Tavern where you'd stop in for a beer every once in a while, you can see that. Multiple shopping things along there and multiple wonderful parks that are along the waterfront in Alexandria and tons of historical tours. You could spend days just doing historical tours in Alexandria. Can I visit Clara Barton's house along the tour? You can eventually. Right now it's undergoing renovation. So for those who don't know, Clara Barton is the founder of the American Red Cross. And so Clara Barton House was the original headquarters of the American Red Cross. And it is in the Parkway. You can't get there by the trail, but it's a great site. There's actually another friends group, one of our sister groups that is just established to help support that site through the renovations and when it opens. And so really excited for it to reopen to go in and see it. It's got this amazing stained glass window in it that people should Google. It's just beautiful. So really looking forward to that reopening. We've heard a lot about the Potomac River, the Potomac River. Why can't I say that word? The river. Is it coming back? What's the health of that river and or can you go fishing along the way? It is. I've listened to the last episodes and I was like, McGraw always asks about fishing and I don't fish. So I need to do some research. George Washington himself actually had a very successful fishing operation along the Potomac at his estate. So lots of herring and shad. The river itself really suffered from a lot of industrial pollution. In the 1960s, LBJ actually called it national embarrassment. So if you look at like satellite photos or overhead photos from the 60s, it is just like brown and very gross looking. But thankfully it is on the mend. There's a lot of really great groups like Potomac Conservancy, the Potomac River Keeper that have really invested a lot in bringing the river back. So shad is sort of the health indicator species. So that's back. There's a lot of people that fish in it. You can catch bass in there. And then the big thing that people love fishing for is catfish. So the Maryland record was caught in the Potomac nearby. It was an 87 pound catfish. So if you want to get the hogs as they call them, the Potomac River is your place. Is there, is there a plaque where George Washington used to fish? I don't think there's a plaque for where he used to fish, but we got to get a plaque out there. Yeah, we got to get. I got to talk to the friends of the Mount Vernon trail and get a plaque out there for George. We're at George Washington fished. McGraw, I cut us a big enough check. We'll, we'll get it. We'll even put your name on it. Hold that thought. Judd, Isbell, our guest president of the friends of Mount Vernon trail. It's an 18 mile trail goes from Arlington cemetery up north, all the way down south to Mount Vernon, a state and garden. And it is a historic ride of epic proportions as we were talking about more in a moment with Judd and the friends of the Mount Vernon trail. America at night as we celebrate America, 250 years strong with the National Park Foundation. America at night back in a moment. Relax, you're listening to America at Night with McGraw-Milhaven. Let's take a stroll through the park on America at Night with McGraw-Milhaven. Not your typical national park. When you think of national parks, you think of Yellowstone, you think of the Grand Canyon, but Mount Vernon trail is an 18 mile trail. From Arlington National Cemetery, all the way down the Potomac. Thank you. Landing and finishing 18 miles later at Mount Vernon. That's right. President George Washington's state and garden along the way. A whole lot of historical sites and a great way to talk about it is with Judd, Isbell, president of the friends of Mount Vernon trail. Judd, a couple more places along the way. Tell me about Dangerfield Island Marina. Dangerfield Island Marina is a great place to go. There's a marina there and then tomorrow it opens is a place called Cat Boat Pizza. So it's a great patio to grab a beer, slice of pizza, watch sailboats. And it's right by National Airport. So you can see planes take off and land and just a pleasant way to spend an evening. Tell me about some of the monuments and some of the some of the honorees we'll see along the way. Yeah. My personal favorite is the Navy and Marine Memorial, which is a memorial that's dedicated to Americans that were lost at sea. It was built after World War One when, you know, there's a lot of submarine warfare and lots of merchant ships that were lost at sea. And it's just like this very beautiful monument that's unlike most of the monuments in DC. In DC, a lot of the monuments are either a statue of a person or it's a big stone building. But this is a very romantic statue with like seagulls. It's called waves and goals. So it's got seven seagulls representing the seven seas and this big wave that's sort of evocative of people being swallowed by the sea. It's just a beautiful monument that's really unlike anything else you see in DC and also sadly, I think under visited. So I would love for more people to go see it. And it's an honor of the soldiers who were lost at sea. And then here's a note here that says, was it finished? Was it ever completed? No, unfortunately not. The original design of it was going to have these beautiful green granite steps that sort of mimicked waves coming down. And unfortunately, a lot of things happened. One was sort of the bureaucracy of the Commission of Fine Arts in DC, which has to prove statues. Multiple members of the Commission hated the design because it was romantic and not like any other statues. And then unfortunately, the Great Depression happened. And so they were in the middle of finishing fundraising for it and the money ran out. And thankfully, the Works Progress Administration finished a base for it, but it wasn't the original design. As you approach Mount Vernon Estate and Garden at the end of the trail down south, are there cherry trees down there? I've always wanted to know if there are cherry trees on the Mount Vernon Estate. I don't think I've seen cherry trees in the Mount Vernon Estate, but the great thing that just happened at the Mount Vernon Estate that they're very excited about is they were doing some extensive renovations. And while excavating in the basement of the Mount Vernon Estates, they found two jars of cherry preserves from George Washington's time. So it was like the big archaeological sign that they were super excited about. So there were cherry trees at one point on the Mount Vernon Estates at least. Well, yeah, well, because George Washington chopped them all down, right? That's the story goes. That was probably his last act, I think. Talk for a minute about the Friends Group. What are you trying to do and what are some of the things that you're raising money for? Yeah, so we're an all volunteer organization that supports the trail through trail maintenance. So every Saturday we have volunteer events on the trail where we invite people out to experience the trail and be stewards of the trail. No experience required. We provide all the tools and the training you need for it. And so our volunteer work does everything from removing invasive species to fixing benches, removing a lot of graffiti, unfortunately. And so we support the trail primarily in that way, but also we do fundraise to help support the trail. So our biggest latest accomplishment was getting new water fountains installed on the trail. So the old water fountains were, I think mid-80s models and starting very much at the end of their life. So we've got these great new water fountains that have bottle fillers and dog bowls and our wheelchair accessible. And the best part is that they are freeze resistant. So they're on year round. The old fountains were shut off during the winter time to protect the pipes. And so when you had one of those days in early March that was like 80 degrees and you're out on the trail and didn't bring water. It was bad news. So we fixed that, thankfully. Yeah. So there are trailheads. There are places to go and rest and lock up your bike and take a walk and sort of sit and hang out and sort of enjoy nature. What about renting a bike or the places to rent a bike or the places to stay, places to grab lunch, places to go into town? Tell me about some of those things. Yeah. We're very fortunate that there's lots of places to rent bikes and to visit and rest along the trail. So we always recommend go see our friend Todd at Pettigo in Alexandria. He will rent you an e-bike and also sell you a ticket to Mount Vernon at the same time. So you can ride from Alexandria to Mount Vernon. A couple other bike shops as well. We love Columbia Island Marina and Dangerfield Marina for stopping and having a beer and some food. And then Crystal City is right off the trail. It's called National Landing now after Amazon moved in. But there's tons of restaurants. There's a great water park just exactly right off the trail there. And then Roslyn and Virginia, there's just so many places to stop and eat. And Mount Vernon State, you can go down there and eat as well. They have a great restaurant at the Mount Vernon State. I got to tell you, I sit in St. Louis here. I'm lucky enough to sit on the Great Rivers Greenway Board, which is an organization that is building trailways to the arch from the arch. And it is a Herculean. People don't realize how hard it is to build one mile of a trail. Because you go through power lines and gas lines and electrical lines and sewers and right of ways. And some old farmer owns this land and six people own that land. And it's just a Herculean task. And for you guys to have an 18 mile trail, that's a national park from Arlington Cemetery, you can go to Washington D.C. and see the sites, rent a bike, and then bike down to George Washington's estate for the day. That sounds like one of the most fun days you can have in this country. Everybody should visit and do it. So hopefully you'll come out and... Yeah, I mean, it just sounds like so much fun to go take a...let's go take a bike ride. You would not...right? If you went to D.C. and you said, all right, I want to go see George Washington's house. You know, how we get the...well, you got to get in the car. We got to fight the traffic. Oh, let's just rent a bike. And an e-bike is great for everybody. So you can write...you get a little pedal assist going and you go down and spend a day and see the sites and bike up and down the river. Sounds like a great day. Holy mackerel. Judd, real quick, tell me your...tell me a spot on the 18 mile trail that is your little hidden gem that no one knows about. What's your favorite spot? Oh, boy. There's so many great places. I'd say two things. One is if you can go to Dyke Marsh during the sunrise, it is just like the best sunrise. And it's fantastic. The other place just off the trail is the Netherlands carillon. And the carillon is Bell Tower. So we have a Bell Tower in the parkway. It's near Iwo Jima Memorial. That was a gift from the people of the Netherlands as a thank you for liberating them after World War II. And it's a great place. It has concerts in the summertime and people playing the bells on Sunday afternoons. And we just had a great tulip festival there. They have beautiful tulip beds by it. And there's just a sweeping view of DC of the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. So that's another great gem that I wish more people would visit. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Judd, what is the website for people to find out more about the friends of Mount Vernon trail? It's mount Vernon trail.org. Mount Vernon trail.org. Judd, are you still nervous? I feel so much better. So I'm glad you got Potomac. I got McGraw down. So we're both doing pretty good today. It took us an hour, but we finally arrived at the end. There you go. You'll have me back and we'll nail it next time. There you go. Judd Isbell, president, friends of Mount Vernon trail. I got a lot of grief for the last time I said this. I had no idea that Mount Vernon trail existed and I had no idea that Mount Vernon trail was a national park. So you have enlightened me and told a lot of people about a great strip of America that they didn't know much about. And they probably inspired a whole bunch of people to go and take a bike ride and go see the sites because America at its best with the National Park Foundation. Judd Isbell, president of friends of Mount Vernon trail. Thanks for checking in. Thanks and growing. We hope to see you on the trail. You got it. Judd Isbell, president, friends of Mount Vernon trail. America at night back in a moment. From the heart of America. This is America at night with McGraw Millhaven. Music And we're back in the miller's yard. Despite the heat, their true green lawn is thriving. They got a lawn like a golf course here in Maryland without wasting a weekend. And PJ to a golfers started showing up. Like this, bro. Amaze this grass looks this good and this heat has to clear the patio furniture and the sandbox. Oh, perfectly struck. True green. The easiest way to get a golf course quality lawn. Don't wait. Click the screen now to sign up at truegreen.com. Exclusion supply. See truegreen.com for details. Music Join the nightly conversation. America at night with McGraw Millhaven. All right, let's do a little text. 18442 McGraw. 18442, 6247, 29. We love me some texts and text. By the way, everything we do on the show magically appears as a podcast for you youngsters out there who only listen to podcasts. Poof. This is a podcast. And so download it. We're all podcasts are found. You can subscribe and it gets sent straight to your device instantaneously. So you can listen to it whenever you want, however you want. And even if you're riding your bike or taking a walk on the Mount Vernon trail, you can listen to this show about the Mount Vernon trail while walking on the Mount Vernon trail. It's a podcast sign up. Also, when you text ask for the lineup, ask for the link and Alex will send you the link and then you sign up for the link. And when you sign up for the link, you get a menu review headlines of what we're going to talk about each and every night. So texture comments to 18442 McGraw. 18442, 6247, 29. Here's one. I live in Virginia. That show was great. What you just did was awesome. Thank you very much. Here's another one. Jim in Oregon. CBS News Radio is closing shop next month after about 98.5 years. Yeah, that's really sad news. Cost cutting reasons, but it's still a loss of an institution. The CBS radio network was built by CBS television network and CBS radio news is what CBS television is what built CBS television is the place where Edward R. Murrow did his main work. It's going to be gone. The CBS radio network is already gone. It has been sold already. Yeah, that was huge news. Last week, two weeks ago, whatever was announced that CBS radio is closing shop. You know, it's like CBS has got just bought what Paramount or Paramount bought CBS or whatever. Somebody bought somebody and someone's got to pay off a huge banknote. And so unfortunately, when you have those leverage buyouts, you end up having to fire a whole bunch of people. CBS radio was probably making money, but they weren't making enough or they had to cut resources or right. And so, yeah, very disappointed, though, I wouldn't be shocked if you started to hear other news organizations pick up the slack. A news nation, a CNN, maybe one of the other ones. I could definitely see those guys getting into the radio news business, but you're right. That was a sad, sad story for all sorts of reasons, just the institutional memory of it all. Another one from Pennsylvania. I'm in awe of your program and your guests. It's informative, educational and great radio. I appreciate your show and thank you. Thank you very much. It's very sweet of you. We work very hard to try and bring you interesting, informative information experts, people who have been there, people who have done that. And then we usually do a feature hour where we have something interesting that has nothing to do with politics. And no, so I thank you for coming along for the ride because it has been, it has been a whole lot of fun. Let's see here. Here's another one. Jim in Kentucky. Let's see here. Side note, saw a girl with a Cardinals t-shirt. I asked her if she knew McGraw and America at night. Nope. She replied. So I asked, where in St. Louis? She had just above the bat between the two birds. I think that's supposed to be a joke. Fox News said that the Pittsburgh Post Gazette is back in operation. I sure hope that news bit is true. And I agree with, with a recession ahead, even a depression. We're going to see large companies are starting to let go of many. Yeah, that Pittsburgh Post Gazette news. We covered that story a couple of weeks ago where we had some people on from Pittsburgh talking about the newspaper was going to close up shop again. You don't want to get your news from somebody who posts from Facebook. Okay, maybe an apple pie recipe you can get from Facebook, but I wouldn't necessarily trust the news gathering services of Steve at XJ five nine trooper. Okay. You need a little bit more context. You need a little bit more professionalism. And the fact that the Pittsburgh Post Gazette was purchased. I think the story went that it was purchased by a nonprofit and they're going to continue. It is great news for Pittsburgh and great news for the people of Pennsylvania. And I'm guilty as charged. I love newspapers. Love them. I miss them. I miss newspapers. I miss magazines. I used to lie. I would, I was at a love affair with, with magazines and a love affair with newspapers. And I loved the comics. I loved the news. I love the sports. I loved the, I loved looking at the stock ticker prices, even though I didn't know what I was looking at. I would read the horoscopes and the cartoons and the wordy girdies and I loved, I loved it all and nothing better than a Sunday morning reading the Sunday newspaper. I read the newspaper every day. I, you know, now you read your phone. It's not the same. It's all different. But no, I think, I think we've all lost a little bit because the newspapers have taken a giant hit. But that's just me. Let's see here. A lot of people were in on my Eric Swalwell rant. They agreed. Eden in Florida agreed with me. Let's see here. There was another one here in Illinois agreed with me as well. So we had, we had all of that. All right. So we got to take a break. When we come back next hour, it's going to be open phones. We'll talk about whatever you want to talk about. We can't talk about Eric Swalwell. And now we're starting to find out that it was an open secret that they told to keep your daughters and your young staffers and your interns away from Eric Swalwell. After a woman now comes out and says she was drug raped and choked in 2018 and they allowed this guy to be the face of the party. Shame on the Democrats. Shame. Come in and talk about all of that next hour. Take some phone calls. Talk about anything you want. It's open phones. Stay right there. Alex Hinton is our engineer. No, Alex Hinton is our director, executive director. Richard Good is our engineer. I'm McGraw-Milhaven and this is America at Night on Westwood One. Westwood One presents America at Night. Here's your host, McGraw-Milhaven. Tuesday Night. Tomorrow Night. Don't forget on the show we got Ed Martin, former U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C. Also Donald Trump's pardon attorney is going to join us tomorrow night. Also, and then Thursday we have former Senator John Danforth is going to be joining us. And then Dan Mandus is going to be back in the hot seat. I'm taking Friday night off. I've got Daddy Daughter duties. Daddy Daughter dance. And I love you guys, but Daddy Daughter takes precedence over everything, right? We had donuts with Dad a couple of weeks ago. Had to take off the morning show. And then Friday night, Daddy Daughter dance, right? Got to do that. She's grown up way too fast. All right. Phone numbers are as follows. 1-844-2 McGraw, 1-844-262-4729. The text line, Scott is, where is Scott? Scott is in Missouri. He says, Dems fired Swalwell. Yeah, they made him resign, but they only made him resign after it came out. I'm sorry. It's just, it's bad. This Tony Gonzalez should have been gone a long time ago. These other two knuckleheads who are hanging around waiting for a six year ethics investigation. I mean, if you wait for the Congress to investigate you on ethics, you've got a long leeway. I'm sorry. It's just, it's a terrible look. And it is the corruption in Washington drain the swamp. Don't, don't, don't try and convince me they're draining the swamp because they're not. Okay. They're just, they can't even pass. They can't even pass a bill that says you can't, you can't buy stocks with insider information. They can't even do that. And we're supposed to sit here and trust these people to pass our laws. Because they, they, they, they rigged the system so they, they incumbents have an overwhelming influence on elections. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. The system is broken beyond broken. And we keep fighting liberals, conservatives. That's what they want. They want us to fight liberals, conservatives. The system is designed to keep them in power. They don't care which party you belong to just as long as you stay in power and they're playing us for the fools. That's what I think anyway. All right. Phone numbers 18442 McGraw 18442 6247 29 text lines open phone lines are open. Let's go to Eduardo in Tampa. Eduardo, welcome to America night. Yeah, good evening, McGraw. I wanted to run a couple stats here. See what you think. I don't think there's any surprising, but $50,000 for a new car. 39% are living with their parents and 66% think that health costs are more important than some of the other stuff like utilities, food and housing. Half can't even pay their credit card bills. So it's pretty disturbing numbers there. Yeah. Carp. I mean, a lot of that is, you know, we're still dealing from, I mean, shoot, we're still dealing from the economic crisis, the downturn of 2008, right? A great recession. We just haven't built the homes that are needed to sustain our just normal population growth over the last, what, 15 years. And so we're $4 million down in the housing stock. And so yet it's not surprising housing prices are through the roof because that we just haven't built enough. And we do not do a good job of building low income housing. We just don't. It's more profitable for the market to build higher end homes, which is great for higher end homes. But for people who are looking to buy a home, it's getting harder and harder to build. And there's got to be some type of, I don't, the last thing I want to do is have some type of, you know, government planning commission. But there's got to be states, local counties have got to do something to, to unlock some of these builders to start building, you know, starter homes. Because it's, it's, it's just not getting any better. So that's an issue. Cars, supply chain issues being what they are. You know, the other thing too is a car is not just a car anymore. It's a, it's a luxury condo. It's like a computer in the car. Yeah. Have you seen, I mean, I saw a car the other day, I have like 17 screens on it. It had a screen in the passenger side, had a screen in the, in the two middle seats. And then, then in the back seat, it had a screen, you know, for your, for your, for your backup camera, for your front camera, for your side views. I mean, it was unbelievable. And it, it, it washes your clothes for you. It cooks your breakfast. It gives you a massage. It's just crazy what these cars can do and all that costs money. So if you want to buy a car to get from, from, from point A to point B, okay, fine. But do you really need a massage in the process? You know, the other thing too about that luxury is a lot of the American car companies have stopped building entry level cars, right? They make more money when they build the suburban and all the bells and whistles. And so they've given up a lot of the car market, if you will, to the foreign car, right? The Toyotas of the world and the, and the Hondas of the world where the American car companies, they want to build trucks and SUVs all day long. So it's, you know, it's, you know, the market's got to correct itself somehow, but it's a pickle. If you want to get into a starter home, it's awful hard to do. You're fighting against, you know, six other offers and not enough inventory. Right. You also, you also have people sitting on 3% mortgages and they, they never move it. They don't want to move. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I got a good mortgage and you, you got enticed me with a pretty good deal to let me give up my mortgage just because it's, it's, it is such a sweetheart deal. So, yeah, you know, even, even if I don't get into the trades, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. People get into the trades though, because also some people are having trouble with finding jobs, but get into the trades. Healthcare is number one at the top of the list for jobs. So, you know, one of the, one of the other get in there and if I had to do it all over again at Eduardo, I wish somebody would have slapped me upside the head and said, you know what, learn a trade, become a carpenter, become electrician, become a plumber and learn the trade. You'll be learning right out of high school. And then once you learn the trade, then you can open up your own plumbing or your own electrical or whatever else. You're your own boss. They can't ship it over to China. Artificial intelligence cannot, you know, replace you and, and you'll have work for all your days. You got it. Thank you, my girl. Thank you very much. You got it. There's a great movie called Brooklyn. Did you ever see that movie Brooklyn? And at the end of the movie, it's a wonderful story about this Irish girl and she comes over from Ireland and she meets this Italian American family and they end up, you know, it's a nice romantic, you know, sort of old time story. It's called Brooklyn and it's with Cersei Ronan, the Irish actress, and is a great scene at the end where he, the young Italian boy who's now fallen in love with this Irish immigrant girl is standing in a field in what is presumably to be Long Island. And it's set in like the 1950s, shortly after the war, late 50s, I guess early 60s. And he's standing in this field. And at the end of the, at the end of the movie, he says, you know, I think I'm going to go into my dad's plumbing business because they say, you know, all this land here is going to have all these houses built here. And all these houses are going to need plumbing. He's, he's like standing in the middle of Long Island. Oh yeah, there's going to be a couple of houses built. Oh yeah. If you're a plumber on Long Island in 1955, yeah, I would say you've got a pretty good history ahead of you. So there's something to be said for that, right? Going to college and getting a liberal arts degree. I don't want to knock it. That's what I did. It served me beautifully. I had a great experience. I loved it. And college is important and learning about catcher in the rise important and learning about the great Gatsby is important and learning and reading Faulkner and all those, all very important. But working with your hands and learning a skill somewhere along the way, there was a portion of America that somehow decided that was not appropriate or not working with your hands was somehow less than and somehow we got sideways and we need to get back to some of that. Let's go to David in San Francisco. David, welcome to America at night. Well, hey, McGraw. Well, I was originally told the screener I was interested in what was going on in the Middle East. You're probably aware by now that when Trump was negotiating a month ago before he dropped the first bomb, he said he had the translators that were working for the State Department and also the arms control division. He had them fired people that were experts in the field and they not only were experts in the sciences of radioactivity and isotopes and whatnot, but also in the language, the scientific Farsi language. And so when Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and his partner in real estate crimes, Wittkopf went into due to the negotiating for America, they didn't know a squad of what they were doing. They had fired the translators. And so when the Iranians made an offer that was basically we give up, they didn't take it. They were too stupid to take it. And so they dropped bombs. And of course, they killed all those girls at the same time. And by the way, you're aware that they didn't just drop one bomb on them, one missile, but 15 minutes later, they dropped another one on it. Well, I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this, David, David, I saw an interview with Hillary Clinton the other day, and I was really interesting because she said in this interview that she agreed with Trump when it came to the bombing raid, whatever that was, six, eight months ago. And she said she was all for it. She she applauded Trump with the bombing mission. She said this time around, he's off the reservation because she then went on to criticize him for doing the bidding of Benjamin Netanyahu and not having a plan to get in and get out. And now we're in this plan and we're halfway in and we can't get out. But she was very much in favor of the first bombing mission to sort of destroy the nuclear arsenal and or whatever else. She also went on to say that they had, to your point, numerous national security professionals with expertise in nuclear and uranium and all of these experts. So they had them at the table so they could actually negotiate and know what they were negotiating. And when they negotiated the Obama deal, they had all those experts at the other table. Trump's got Kushner and Whitcoff and JD Vance apparently who, yeah, if you're trying to build a hotel somewhere, sure. But if you're trying to get a nuclear deal done, I'm not so sure that's the best. It's a good point. David, thanks for the phone call. I got a break. Back in a moment, American Night. The floor is yours. Call or text 844-262-4729. That's 844-2-Migra. Text lines open at that same number. 1-844-2-Migra. Also, phones are open. Tim in Washington. Tim, welcome to American Night. Tim, are you there? Tim, I can hear you breathing. Tim, put Tim on hold. See if he calls back or see if he wakes up or see if he comes back from the kitchen. Tommy in California. Tommy in Marin County. Tommy, welcome to American Night. Hey there. Hey, I don't normally listen to 510-KSVO. I thought it was kind of off for a while, but I remember there used to be a guy by the name of John Rothman. It was on there for a while. But anyway, so I was browsing through, I think, trying to get to 860. And so I heard you again. And so I was just curious. I just listened to this comment from the first caller, David from San Francisco, the chronic TDS patient, that he was asking you and you seemed to agree that you were doubting the efficacy, the ability of Trump's negotiating team. The efficacy? The efficacy you mean? The ability. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I would just ask you a question. I would just ask you a question. Yes. In general, would you bet your life or anything that you really care about most of the time? Are you going to go bet against Trump? No, I wouldn't bet against Trump. No, I wouldn't bet against Trump. So I don't really need to say much more, do I? I don't know. Well, what's your point? Well, same thing on whoever he picks to go do his negotiating. I mean, these comments about like they... Well, I mean, hold on a second. What do you mean by what do you mean by bet against him? What do you mean by bet against him? What am I betting on him for? You mean... Well, like he's not, he wouldn't have a good negotiating team. He wouldn't have, you know, he doesn't know what's going on. I don't think... Well, he might be a great negotiator. I don't know if JD Vance is a great negotiator. Where has he proven to be a great negotiator? Well, for one, we weren't... The thing that was being referenced wasn't even the most recent negotiations. It was prior to that. So either one. I'm just saying that basically that you don't think he gets an update like what's going on? Oh, no. Oh, no. President Trump gets updates. Oh, there's no question about it. He gets updates. Yeah. We even asked him what's going on in 21 hours. How many times... You don't think that he was in contact finding out exactly what was going on? Yeah. Well, look, look, Donald Trump can absolutely find a crack in the thread to weasel out of to get this done. But he hasn't yet. That's why I want him doing pretty much everything for us. It's just that we needed this... But he hasn't done it yet. Yes. We needed this whole, I-re-hint thing addressed. I know. Look, I know. I know. We had to go and get the weapons in Iran, Iraq. We had to take care of Vietnam because of the domino theory. When in doubt, claim they've got some type of weapon that will destroy us as a reason to go in and invade. That's the way to do it. That's the way to do it. You want to go in and invade a country? Say they're on the brink... The say they're on the brink, Tommy, of some type of destruction and world domination is moments away and we have to go in and stop it. A lot of people don't believe that, Tommy. A lot of people do, but a lot of people don't. America at Night, stay right there. It's just getting started. Back in a moment. This is America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. Get Internet Plus Mobile from Comcast Business. It can save you hundreds of years on your wireless bill over T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon, and help turn your business into a money-saving, gig-speed, hotspot-harnessing, fully-mobile, modern business. Comcast Business, powering possibilities. But not available in all areas. Comcast Business Internet required. Compares to unlimited intro lines and lowest price 5G plans of top three carriers. Taxes and fees extra. Reduced speeds after 30 gigabytes of usage. Data thresholds may vary. Gig-speed available via hotspots to Comcast Business mobile customers only. Actual Wi-Fi speeds vary, not guaranteed. This episode is brought to you by MGM Plus. From and its whores returns for Season 4. Centered around a town that traps all those who enter. Terrifying creatures that come out at night. Horrors some wished had stayed buried. Where desperate hope leads to darker truths. Dangerous new arrivals. A sinister figure. A shocking revelation. From Season 4 premieres April 19th on MGM Plus. Some doors should remain closed. Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up on Up Never bet against the house. The house always wins. The house runs the house. The house sets the rules. Never bet against the house. That's how I was raised. Never bet against the house. He's writing the rules. He's running the show. He's calling the shots. He's making it up as he goes along. Never bet against the house. Um, from the, uh, text line in the sixties, you can find a two bedroom, no frills box home everywhere in Long Island. Builders don't do two bedroom homes anymore. You know, they do not as much as they used to. No question about it. Counties need to make only two bedroom homes subdivisions allowed to be built. So first time home buyers can purchase a home. New homes always have that luxurious flair so builders can get top dollar, but that knocks us low income folks out of the home buying market. That guy's spot on. Let's go to Tim. Tim's back from Washington. Tim, welcome to America at night. Yeah, I, I mostly hit the mute button so I didn't hear you. But anyway, first of all, I want to say your comment about newspapers and magazines. Yes. I used to love to sit down at the kitchen table and spread out the newspaper with a hot cup of coffee and just read the whole thing front to back. Yeah. And it was something about the physical presence of it. I don't know. But I mean, think about it. They, they, they delivered the world to your front door for 50 cents. What a, what a, what a great deal. Yeah, right? Right. I mean, it was what a, what a great deal. And then, you know, the other thing I missed, Tim, the other thing that I really miss TV guide. I loved me some TV guide. Wow. Don't take George Pistons as dead TV guy. I loved me the TV guy and not the TV guide, you know, but the TV guide of the came in the Sunday newspaper. That one I would do. Oh my goodness. That was the best loved it. Loved everything about the TV guide. And their sports sections were pretty good. Oh my goodness. The sport sections were the best. That was, I would look over every box score. Yes. The box score you would, I love the sporting news. I would get it once a week and they had all the box scores from all the games, from all the week and you'd go and you'd see how all your favorite players did. And it was, it was the best. It was the best. Yeah. Yeah. So I agree with you. But you had to add a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning and you could pretty much waste the whole day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else then? So yeah, I'm going to say I'm glad you called us while well. I'm really glad you called out Gates. Gates was a creep from the beginning. I don't know how people didn't notice him before. So I'll, well, but whatever. I'm sure there's a few of them. And, and I think people should start calling out the, the financial gains of some of these people in Congress. Well, but, but they see this is what kills me. Right. You would rather call your fellow American a name. You're more worried about where some transgender persons going to the bathroom. You're more worried about some, some book on a shelf in a library, but you don't have a problem with your elected official doing insider trading and making a mint off of their, their work in Washington, DC. What, what's the most offensive thing of those three things? Right? I mean, do you really care where somebody goes to the bathroom or you're more offended by your representative in Washington, DC robbing you blind? What's more offensive? It's all offensive. It's all very, I don't really, I don't really care, Tim, where you go to the bathroom. But if you were my representative and you were robbing me blind in Washington, DC, I'd probably be offended by that. That's kind of weird. Really? That's weird. I mean, do you really care? So you don't mind if you don't mind if I go into the women's bathroom? If you're a woman? No, I don't know. This is what I really get confused about. Yes. Maybe you can, maybe you can steer me in the right way. Go ahead. Okay. So as a now, what is sex? As a now as a now, what is gender? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what you're getting at. What's your point? You should think about that for a little bit. You should think about that for a little bit. I will tell you this, Tim, Tim, Tim, I will tell you this. You really haven't lived until recently. I'm an older, I'm an older dad and I have a little daughter, right? She's the apple of my eye. She's the world to me. And she's two, she's three daddy. I have to go potty. Okay. And in this world of monumental fights over where to go to the bathroom, I have a two year old daughter. We're out in public. Where do I take her to the bathroom? Do I take her to the men's room? Or do I take her to the women's room? What do I do? If you're with her, yeah, if you're with her, I wouldn't go into the women's room. If you're with her, I'd go ahead and take her in the men's room. Yep. Let her go potty and be on. So, so, so, so in other words, the point, the point I'm making is either one of those has to be treated with delicacy because I've gone into the men's room sometimes and I've gone into the women's room other times and I've knocked on the door and I'm like, hey, single dad coming in here or dad with daughter coming in, everybody okay. And you know what the women, the women are like, hey, all good. Come on in. I do the men's room. Hey, I got a daughter coming. Men, they're all don't really care. They're all like, Hey, we get it. We figure it out. Under the front of having a child with we don't need federal legislation to figure out how to figure out how to go to the bathroom. We can all we're all grown up enough to figure out how to go to the bathroom. That's the point I'm making. And Tim, thank you very much for the phone call. The bigger point is what's more offensive is there's still get us arguing about where people go to the bathroom so they can keep robbing us blind with insider trading in Washington DC. That's the point I'm making. Thank you for the phone call. Scott and St. Louis. Welcome to America night. Scott, you there? Scott's online three. Scott. Hello, anyone? Catherine. Bealer. Anyone? Catherine. Dave. Dave in Mexico, Missouri. Are you there? Yes, I am. Go ahead, Dave. You're on the air. First time caller. I've been listening to you since the first day you were on. Oh, well, thank you very much. Thank you for calling. We love first time callers. Hey, I wanted to tell a little story. You had a little story episode there last week sometime. It's nothing to do with politics or anything, but it was kind of a way I reached across time. Okay. In 1985, I met a man named Archie Smith in Kansas City. I lived in Kansas City at that time. Archie was a very elderly man, took care of his own life. He was born in 1896. I'm making four years older than the century. So when I knew him, he was 89 years old. Okay. Still living at home, taking care of his life. I lived next door to him. That's how I got to know him. And he told me we'd sit on his porch in the summer evenings and he'd tell me all kinds of stories about watching how time and things changed in Kansas City over the years. You know, the first bridge built across the Missouri River had a race with Topeka. I think it was. Anyway, he told me a story once and I'm a big history buff. And he told me a story about how when he was a boy, he got to go see the Buffalo Bill Wild Westo when it came to Kansas City. He said that at the end of the show, Buffalo Bill would ride around the arena and about every fourth or fifth boy, he would stop it and shake hands with Archie. He told me that he was the one of the lucky guys that got to shake hands with Buffalo Bill. Okay. I'm sitting on the porch listening to this and I'm thinking, wow, this is great, me being a history buff. And I stood up and I said, Archie, shake my hand. And he said, why? And I said, because I want to be able to tell everyone that I shook the hand of a man who shook the hand of Buffalo Bill. That's my reaching across time story. That's a great story. What happened to Archie? Well, I kind of lost track of him after I moved, but like I said, he was 89 years old in 1985. I was only 20 something and I'm sure Archie's long gone by now. I think those Buffalo Bill shows, I want to say Geronimo also appeared in those Buffalo Bill shows. I don't know about Geronimo, but it was sitting bull. I know that. Yeah, one of them. Yeah, it might have been sitting bull. Yeah, that they came out and sort of, yeah. So I mean, imagine he saw Buffalo Bill and sitting bull. Yeah. What an amazing, yeah. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. Yes, it was. And I just love talking to that old man. I mean, he told me stories about how the Barnum and Bailey circus come into town before they rode around on the railroads. He said the circus coming into town, there'd be horses and noxious and elephants and everything pulling the wagons. And he said, and that line would be about three or four miles along. Yeah. Coming into town. Yeah. Imagine, I mean, there's no video of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. Imagine, imagine that. Yeah. Good stuff. Hey, Dave in Mexico, thanks for checking in. Thanks for listening. Call back anytime. Sure. Thank you. You got it. We love first time callers. Catherine in Vancouver. You're on America at night. Hey. Hi. Oh, cool. It worked this time. I had a funny story when you, when you had the trail thing for Mount Vernon and my dad, he was sitting here. I was looking after him in his late seventies and he burst out laughing and I'm going, I'm looking at him, giving him the side eye and he helped us and he's crying. He's laughing so hard and I go, what the heck? What's going on? Right? He tells me the story when he was little. This guy used to just tease him all the time with his choke cherries. He called him choke cherries. He would tease them and never, never share them. And so, so dad, dad went at nighttime and chopped his cherry tree down and dragged it home and ate all his cherries. Oh my goodness. Catherine, I gotta move on. Catherine, Catherine, stop, stop with the laughing gas. We're going to have to start drug testing our callers here in a second. Danny and Rala, Danny, welcome to America at night. Hey, what's going on brother? How you doing my friend? Doing all right. I, uh, unfortunately, because the way my radio station does, they preempted your show so that they could broadcast the same little cardinals. That's an outreach. I know. All right. Well, yeah, I love you, but I love my cardinals too. I'm teasing. No, it's the nature of the beast. Nature of the beast. All good. All I wanted to say is, uh, um, the cardinals came from behind spy forward bottom of the eighth. They came back, tied it in the ninth and we won an extra inning. So, uh, glad to talk to you. Go cards. Have a good night, brother. See you. All right. Danny with the cardinal update, uh, for the night. Yeah. Cardinals are, um, Cardinals are playing well and well, Cardinals are holding their own. I should say, but Jordan Walker, the young, uh, right fielder leading the league in, uh, home runs and hopefully he can find his way. He's, uh, struggled since he's come up from the minors, but a well, well respected prospect. And hopefully he's able to sort of, uh, find his footing and, but so far so good with, uh, Jordan Walker. Good news. Uh, the, uh, Mets, by the way, haven't, uh, scored. I don't think the Mets have scored since, uh, we started bombing Iran. Um, the Mets are, uh, yeah, 300 and something million dollars and the cardinals have more wins than the Mets, which means that money doesn't buy you wins in a major league baseball. All right. Uh, let's do this. Let's take a quick break. Actually, you know what? Let me do this. Uh, let me call out, let me call out, uh, the Democrats one, one more time. Did anybody see Ruben Gallego's news conference today? Ruben Gallego, Senator from Arizona, went out and talked to, uh, a reporter today and admitted said, yeah, I'm, I was, I am friends with, Eric's, uh, Swalwell. And, um, I never saw anything on tour. I never knew any of this, but I heard the rumors. Yeah. I heard the rumors for a long time. We probably should have done something about it. I feel bad that I did. He said, look, we've all heard the rumors in Washington, D.C. about Eric Swalwell for many years. He says, no one ever thought that the accusations were of the nature that came out. I don't know what that means. Um, he says, he says, we have to be honest with ourselves. Like I think a lot of people in D.C. treat these kinds of rumors as just like part of the course of playing, you know, here or something like that. We should have figured out how to approach it. Yeah. You're talking about, I mean, Tony Gonzalez, he had an affair with a staffer and the staffer died. Can somebody explain to me in what other universe, in what other job could you have an affair with somebody who is supposed to report to you and keep your job after it's been exposed, you couldn't get a job at the local pizza parlor as a manager and, and, and have some type of allegations with, with the, the front clerk and still keep your job. But if you're a congressman by golly, you can keep your job even after the staffer kills herself because well, well, I mean, uh, you know, ethics and all we, we just heard the rumors. I mean, think about that for a second. If Eric Swalwell had any other type of job, he was a teacher, if he was a truck driver, if he was a CPA, an accountant, a talk show host, you name it. HR would have hauled them in and said, what's going on? We've heard these rumors, right? Any other job you have an affair with, with a subordinate who ends up killing themselves, you don't get to keep your job. But in Congress, you get to keep your job until the women finally have to come out and, uh, press charges. I mean, the whole thing, it's just embarrassing. We'll come back and wrap things up. America at night, back in a moment. Miss a portion of tonight's show, not a problem. Go to America at night live.com to find a replay of every show. All right. We are officially done, but I'll leave you with this text to the day. Let's see here. McGraw, you are the best out there. Of course. Thanks, mom. Appreciate that. All right. We are officially done. We magically turn this whole show into a podcast. It's not just talk radio. It's magically a podcast. So those who don't like talk radio, you love a podcast. Oh, we've got it here for you. All right. Let's do this. Um, don't forget, you can download this podcast, wherever fine podcasts are housed. And of course, if you want to follow along each and every day, we send out a lineup headlines of the things we're going to talk about. And you can sign up for that part of the show. Uh, just text your uh, phone number to 1-8442 McGraw, 1-8442 McGraw and Alex will take care of you. That's going to do it for us. Uh, Ed Martin, Donald Trump's part and attorney tomorrow on the show. And on Thursday, former Senator John Danforth from the great state of Missouri. So all that's coming up the rest of the week. Thanks for listening. Thanks for putting up with me. Alex Hinton is our executive director. Our engineer tonight is Richard Good. I'm a grime millhaven and this is America at night on Westwood 1. Yeah. Vince Colonaze is redefining news talk. I'm Vince Colonaze host of the Vince podcast. I'm bringing you the truth beneath the headlines of all of the nation's top stories in depth interviews. We feature newsmaking interviews with the top guests on the whole planet. And I'll ask the questions you only dream of other interviewers asking. And a front row seat to the most important conversations of the day. It's a show with an obsessive focus on what's good for America. You are going to love Vince. The Vince show. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.