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And then
then
Colin Joest does a great Pete Hegseth on SNL.
He does.
But Pete says we're winning.
We are winning.
What did he call them?
Barbarians?
Yes, barbaric savages this morning.
Barbaric savages, that was it.
They all love the adjectives.
There's a lot of...
lot of adjectives in Pete's, Pete's saying a lot of pointing with his doing that.
They got less,
And I feel bad because there's Dan Cain, the head of the Joint Chiefs, and he's got to stand there next to next to Pistol Pete.
And really discuss what's happening.
So we'll keep you posted on any developments that comes out of that.
But close to home, if you've had to buy a concert ticket in the last number of years, you know, Live Nation has a lock on ticket sales.
And, you know, even though Eddie Vedder, how long ago was that, that they were going to fight Ticket Live Nation in the monopoly?
That didn't work out, Eddie.
Well, the U.S.
Department of Justice announced a tentative settlement in its antitrust lawsuits against Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, over allegations the company has an illegal monopoly in live events industries.
You think?
These are
Well, the government says that the agreement would increase competition in ticket sales and limit some ticket master control over limit their control over venues and events.
Yeah, because Live Nation pretty much runs the show.
Remember when there was ticket ticket?
Tron, yes, yes, but you could buy tickets at a couple places.
That's when you'd stand outside Sears for hours and hours trying to get in and find the window that was up behind the appliances to buy your tickets.
And
But under this new proposed settlement, venues would be allowed to sell a portion of their tickets through
competing ticket platforms rather than just exclusively through Ticketmaster.
At places that like amphitheaters that are owned, operated, or controlled by Live Nation, up to 50% of tickets could be sold through other ticket marketplaces.
Ticketmaster service fees at those venues would also be capped at 15% and attempt to limit the higher fees that a lot of us pay when
we're
And Live Nation would also be required to divest ownership or control of
13 amphitheaters across the country, including a venue in Milwaukee, interestingly enough.
Now, this agreement also calls for Live Nation to establish a $280 million settlement fund that would go towards state claims, civil penalties, and potentially compensation tied to this lawsuit.
And the deal would also extend the existing consent decree between the Justice Department Live Nation for another eight years, which essentially just left
federal regulation to continue so that they can monitor the company's business practices and ticket policies.
Another word saying, we know as soon as we take our eye off you, you're gonna go
I get they're trying to regulate some of this.
Is it really going to matter?
Because Live Nation still gets to keep most of the money.
The cap still isn't enough to basically offset a lot of what you're paying with all the service fees and things.
And
there's actually more than two dozen states that have rejected this settlement and they plan to continue to pursue this case in court.
Now, the attorney generals from these states argue that this deal that we're talking about right here, it doesn't go far enough to address the dominance.
that Live Nation has over a lot of parts of the live entertainment industry, including the concert promotion, the venue ownership and management, and those ticketing platforms.
In fact, a lot of critics say that Live Nation has used long-term contracts, exclusivity agreements, and threats of retaliation to discourage other venues from working with those competing ticket companies.
But these are just alleged monopolies that they have.
were talking about
the
And
You
the order.
his papers.
I have the
list.
Yeah.
I have the list.
We didn't care about your list.
We were there
to
get our tickets.
Honor the line.
Honor us.
There were, I remember, and a Ticketron was a little bit more foreign to me, but there were, I also remember the venues where you would stand outside their ticket booth outside, like literally outside.
If it was a
big show, you would camp outside for at least a night in line with other people because you wanted to be first to get in line for those tickets.
There was no holding back portions of tickets so that you could sell them at a bigger retail, resale value later on.
When they were gone, they were gone, and everybody paid the same amount.
It was
you while you used
This both sounds.
This both sounds horrible and fantastic at the same time.
It was fantastic.
It was both.
It was exactly both of
See, that's what
afraid of.
have
to get Willie
they were doing five nights in Chicago at the old amphitheater.
So I was at my local Sears and I was in line and there was the list and somebody must have left on the list because they start calling names because sometimes people would follow.
People are very...
Predestined to be sheep.
Yes, we follow.
Yes, if somebody somebody sounds official and you're on the list You're gonna follow it.
Well, my name was on the list, but it was way down.
Well, they kept calling somebody's name
who had either they left or they were asleep or they were dead.
I don't know what happened to them.
But either way, I became that person and I was like, that's me.
And I walked up and I got my number.
And then I went in and bought my tickets.
And I still was behind the stage.
And it was.
And it sure beats what Live Nation's been doing all these years by overcharging everybody as well.
In fact, when it comes to this particular
case, some of these state officials who want this to pursue further argue that the practices of Live Nation limit competition and also contribute to these higher ticket prices for fans.
And if you think about that, just think about the entertainment that we have in this state
in the
You look at all the concerts at Pfizer Forum, Alpine Valley, Summer Fest, even all of the smaller venues that you have to go purchase those tickets.
And by the time you get your tickets,
okay granted let's say they're a hundred bucks a ticket right you get those by the time live nation puts all their fees on you're looking
There's nothing we can do.
Hopefully this will change things.
And kudos, I'm bringing it back, Jamie.
We had gone off on a tangent.
And kudos to you for reigning me in.
It's good.
It's like, enough of the stories.
We must move back.
So we do.
And it is an important thing, because I was just looking for tickets the other day for something.
And I'm like, all right, well, in the summer, I only sit in the lawn, because those are
relatively, depending on the show, relatively
inexpensive.
And it's
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Here are the rules.
I'm going to read out some big pop culture headlines.
Brian and Jamie will have to decide whether they want to stay on it or swipe on to the next one in the event of a tie.
Parker will be the tiebreaker.
Let's move on to story number one.
A controversial musician was caught sleeping in court.
Now West had a luxury mansion on the beach that he bought for $57 million.
We ended up selling it for 21 million after gutting the entire house into a literal concrete shell.
I'm not exaggerating.
Go look it up.
It is literally just a concrete slab.
Bianca's in sorry.
Yeah.
Oh, here's the deal.
The contractor is suing him for unpaid wages after stripping down the entire thing.
Rolling Stone magazine reported that he repeatedly yawned.
closed his eyes for long stretches and at times seemed to catch his head falling forward.
My favorite part is the judge at one point looked over and said, is he asleep?
Magic City is a very popular Atlanta strip club.
Well known for its chicken wings.
I'm not as most strip joints are look up new Williams getting out of the NBA bubble back during COVID to go pick up a pickup order from Magic City for some chicken wings and fries.
It's a real thing.
So this caught.
They were doing a collab night.
They were going to have TI perform at halftime.
They were going to have their food there.
They had employees there, fully clothed, just putting it out there.
But there were a lot of people that spoke out against it.
San Antonio Spurs Center, Lou Coronet said the Knights sent a bad message to the women of the NBA community.
So Adam Silver ultimately shut it down.
Mr. Swift himself.
Travis Kelsey is returning to the chiefs for one more season.
Thank God.
He has not announced.
So his new Heights podcast posted on Instagram saying he's back.
This comes after the chiefs missed the playoffs for the first time in 10 years last season with Patrick Mahomes ending his season early.
Now, I don't know about you guys, but there was no, no way Travis Kelsey was going to end on that note.
Local voices state wide impact.
It's daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
According to a report from a National Coalition of Small Businesses, Wisconsin companies and their consumers paid approximately $3.5 billion in tariffs between March and December of 2025.
92% of the $426 million in tariffs Wisconsin businesses paid in December were levied by presidential action and were not approved by Congress.
To tell us about the real world impact of these tariffs and how the war with Iran might further complicate things, is Kyle LaFond.
He's the founder of Wisconsin Company's American Providence and Natural Contract Manufacturing.
Kyle, thanks for being here.
We appreciate your time today.
So tell us a little bit about your companies and how the tariffs have affected you in the last year.
Yeah, Brian, Jamie, thanks for having me here today.
As a manufacturer, the terrorists have been heavily catastrophic.
You know, when you're running a small business, you rely on certainties.
And the only thing this administration has given us is uncertainty and chaos.
The businesses I own operate, we make personal care and wellness products.
So any type of product you're going to put on your face or your body, and we make products for about 60 brands at this point, some athletes and some celebrities and influencers as well.
Unfortunately for us, you know, we're based here in Wisconsin and there's not a lot of palm trees around here.
I
seen any.
No, not recently.
we use a ton of coconut oil and shea butter and a lot of distilled oils that basically are manufactured overseas primarily in Asian nations.
So when these tariffs first hit
I took the strategy of trying to absorb those costs at first.
And I did that for maybe about six, seven months until it came to a point where it just was untenable.
It wasn't a sustainable business practice.
So we had to then, of course, relay those costs onto our clients, which then in turn, I get put on the American consumer.
Terrorists are nothing but attacks on the American consumer.
I said that time and time again, that's very basic.
And this administration doesn't seem to understand basic notions.
I think it's a glimmer of hope, but I don't know if there's any way to actually recoup those funds.
And so a lot of us are talking about, hey, did we band together and try to figure out a way to recoup those costs?
But realistically, I don't see a viable path forward.
I think that money is gone, and I don't know if there's ever going to be a way to get it back.
You know, the Trump administration has already talked about other pathways to terrorists, so it's just to be more of the same, you know, the same chaos and uncertainty that we experienced last year in 25.
We're going to have to do that all over again here in 26.
I'm not very optimistic about what's going to be coming down the pipeline here.
some people don't seem to get it yet that the tariffs are a tax on us.
Give us an example of what you were when you were importing say the coconut oil or how much has changed dollars wise for you because like you said you then had to pass the cost on to your suppliers who had to pass the cost on to consumers so we are paying for it but people sometimes don't get it and they need
a concrete example?
Yes.
So we had, if you take a look at all of our ingredients across the board, most everything increased by at least 30 to 35 percent.
We had some ingredients, some inputs that increased as much as 100 percent.
The other thing that's
unfortunate about tariffs is just timing.
So it used to be when we place orders for all our inputs, they'd arrive here, you know, in three to four weeks.
Now we're talking three to four months, because there's a lot more red tape and bureaucracy as well.
So you're not only increasing costs, but you're extending these timelines that our customers, they're not happy with.
And when the customers aren't happy, then the American consumer is not happy.
So when you're talking about anywhere from a 30, 35 up to 100% increase in inputs, of course that cost will be passed along.
You've seen that in all kinds of stuff.
A good example would be the cost of deodorant.
We make tons of deodorants here for all kinds of different brands.
If you take a look at deodorants, you're going to find a store shelf.
Two years ago, most of them were priced around $7.99, maybe $8.99, right?
You go in there today, you're looking at $13.99, $14.99, $15.99.
So it's very easy to see where these tariffs are impacting the American consumer.
You're paying more for them.
That's it.
Period.
Full stop.
He is the founder of Wisconsin Company's Natural Contract Manufacturing and American Providence.
He is also a U.S.
manufacturing advocate.
Now, after the Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs, this administration went ahead and didn't back down.
They imposed another 10% global tariff on imported goods under yet a different law.
So how much uncertainty does that create for companies that are trying to plan budgets?
You mentioned the supply chain.
We know that there's this impact in the Middle East now, which we'll get into a little bit more.
But how does all of that play into what you're trying to do on a daily basis?
Yeah, it just turns around to luck.
Hey, good luck planning anything.
This administration has shown such a complete lack of understanding and lack of long-term thought.
I've said since the get-go that there is a time and a place for tariffs.
If you're strategic and surgical with where you place those, I'm looking specifically at China.
We've ignored the China problem for the past 45 years.
There's time and a place.
But to come in with a sledgehammer and apply these tariffs across the board to everything, that's just stupid.
There's no other way to say it.
So again, these costs.
I had to shoulder them for a long time and of course I passed them on to the consumer.
And that's what pretty much every single company has done that imports from other nations.
So anything that's tariffed, guess what?
As a US consumer, you're paying for it.
You know, there are all kinds of stuff out there, all kinds of figures.
Some people estimate that tariffs cost the average American household somewhere between $1,100 and $1,500 last year.
I think it's on the low end.
I think it's actually much more than that.
You can really dig in and figure out where these costs were all absorbed.
I am.
Most businesses operate on razor thin margins.
A lot of folks here, we're not out to gouge consumers or to have prices that are exorbitant.
Everything from your coffee shop, coffee imports, they have been hit really, really hard.
You're going to see a lot of coffee shops raising prices, maybe smaller independent shops closing, which is terrible.
And that's where it really hurts when you talk about small independent family owned local businesses.
You know, they're the ones that are.
paying the brunt of these prices.
These global corporations, they can absorb some of these costs.
And of course they've got insiders and lobbyists in Washington to kind of ease the pain.
But for Main Street businesses, we're the ones that are bearing the brunt of this and taking it out of the chin.
And this administration has shown that they care more about international corporations and the billionaire class, the Epstein class, than working class folks like myself and other business owners.
Kyle, there's several Wisconsin companies, and as we talk about the different size companies from the smaller ones to the larger ones, we're talking the larger ones who have filed a lawsuit.
I mean, we're talking Kohl's, Milwaukee Tool, Ashley Furniture, and they're suing to get some of their tariff payments refunded.
What does that essentially say to you as a manufacturer when businesses feel that the only way they can possibly get their money back is when they have to go to court?
And obviously, I mean, you just mentioned a little bit of the impact of the small businesses.
They can't shoulder those types of court costs like these big companies can.
That's just it.
I'm not aware of any small business like myself that has in-house counsel that can take on these legal matters.
It's just not, it's not real.
reality.
So for a lot of us small business owners know we have to band together utilize organizations like Main Street Alliance to really kind of shoulder the burden there and make sure that our voices are heard.
Those large corporations, they're going to fight tooth and nail because they have the time, money, people, resources to get it done.
And that's great for them, but that's not going to trickle down to small businesses like mine.
We've talked again as a community about how these tariffs have been terrible for our businesses, but we don't know if there's any way for us to ever recoup those costs.
Yeah, it's going to take some extraordinary measures to get it done for small businesses and main street businesses like mine.
He's the founder of Natural Contract Manufacturing in American Providence.
If you go to Americanprovidence.com, you can learn all about the company based here in Wisconsin.
We're hearing now that with the Strait of Hormuz being closed and all the, you know, we know oil is not getting through, how much effect will this add to what you're going through already as a small business owner?
It's going to be very interesting.
Again, this administration, they've shown no interest in long-term planning or strategy.
Because of the sanctions that we've imposed on Iran for years, oil from Iran really doesn't come to the States.
Oil from Iran has been fueling China's growth for years.
So if you're cutting off oil from Iran to get to China, of course, Chinese inputs are going to increase.
So the cost I'm paying now for packaging, labeling, equipment,
All those are going to go through the roof.
So I'm not very optimistic about any type of breaks from China or other Asian nations here in the foreseeable future.
If there was a strategy, if there was any long-term thought to this quote unquote excursion that we have now in Iran, these things would have been considered and planned and thought about months in advance.
This administration just is so impulsive and operates
on just irrational thought all the time.
So, unfortunately, what the women are present is doing is going to affect businesses like mine more than I can even comprehend at this
With the energy prices, because we're watching the price of oil skyrocket kind of before our eyes, we're watching consumers have to pay more at the pump every single day.
What do those prices, if they stay elevated at that level, what kind of
industries in Wisconsin are going to see the hit first.
Is it going to be everybody across the board or will we see a domino effect?
You're going to see everybody across the board get hit.
You know, with these gas prices going up, shipping is going to be diminished.
You're going to have a lot of folks that are looking to cut back on spending.
you know, affordability is the biggest issue facing this nation right now.
And I don't understand why this administration feels it's right to keep on increasing prices when folks are begging for breaks.
It's just not happening.
So I think you're going to see a general slowdown in the economy because folks are going to be tight lipped and keep their pockets, keep the wallets in their pocket rather than spending a consumer goods.
So I'm really
I'm very tepid on what's going to happen over the course of the next six months.
I think the end of 2026 year could be disastrous for the American economy if things continue on this path.
Where do you think the breaking point might be for not not just you but other small businesses that you talk to because there is that you know you're paying more
the consumers paying more, the consumer doesn't want to pay, but even if they really support your product, there is that line where they say, I can't spend this much anymore.
So where does that tip?
It all will end up falling on the small business owner, correct?
Because if I stop buying your product, there's nothing you can do about it.
You can't lower the prices and go out of business that way, so you're in a no-win situation, right?
That's just it.
I look at consumer spending.
If you look at, I think it was Q4 of last year, 50% of all consumer spending was spent by the top 10%.
That's very, very troubling.
If you think about folks that are doing well are going to keep on doing well.
Folks that are struggling are struggling even further.
So for me, if I'm looking at consumer spending, and if we get to the point where consumer spending remains 50%, 60% by the top 10%,
then we're in a really, really bad spot because folks just don't have to suppose work and they're gonna be focused on necessities rather than on discretionary items like those that we
Speak up.
Call your politicians.
Reach out to your federal elected officials, those in Congress and the House and the Senate.
Tell them that, hey, this administration is out of control.
We need to reign in everything that this Trump administration is doing and plan to do in the foreseeable future.
Kyle LaFond is the founder of Natural Contract Manufacturing in American Providence, two Wisconsin companies, americanprovidence.com.
Kyle, have a great rest of your day.
Thanks for the information.
When we come back, there is more.
There always is on Daybreak.
This is The Civic Media.
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We have been following with great interest the Anthropic story.
You know Anthropic, they do Claude, the big very popular AI program that is, since this whole saga has started, has just exploded.
Everybody's talking
about
Well...
You also remember that Anthropic was put on the Defense Department's list as a supply chain risk because they refused to capitulate to some of the uses that the Pentagon wanted their program to be used for.
They said, no, we haven't done enough research.
It's not, we will not allow you to use it that way.
So then Pete Hegseth decided that they were too woke for the military and put them on that risk, canceled their contracts, which cost millions.
Well, now
As the saga continues, Anthropica is suing the Department of Defense and other federal agencies.
They filed that suit Monday over the Trump administration's decision to label the AI company a supply chain risk, which is basically the scarlet letter.
Once you're once you're labeled a supply chain risk, you are in your trouble not only with the government, but other other.
people who would purchase your product too.
The Pentagon issued the supply chain risk designation after negotiations to update its contract with Anthropic broke down over two red lines that Anthropic wants the Defense Department to agree to.
One that its AI tool won't be used for mass surveillance of U.S.
citizens.
good with that.
Right.
And that it won't be used for autonomous weapons.
And those are the two sticking points that Anthropic will not budge on.
And that made Pete Hegseth very mad.
And so that's where we are now.
I all joking aside, what I think is interesting about this whole thing is that this administration always likes to draw a line in the sand with certain certain organizations, certain companies, certain
people.
Companies and people in organizations that you probably wouldn't have paid any attention to any other time in your life.
amplify it to the point where Claude is now one of the hottest, most in-demand type of word systems, AI functions that anybody is even talking about.
You could have just let it die down.
Nobody would have even cared about Claude.
And now everybody wants to be involved with Claude.
And not to mention the fact that anthropic CEO, Dario Amade, is one of those guys who is actually taking on this administration and saying, I'm not going to bend the knee to you.
I'm not going
Yes.
The administration in its unthinking
need to have people obey them has now created a martyr a corporate martyr and Anthropic looks like the good guy like yay way to stand up for this and they may well be but
Boy, it has backfired once again like so many things for this administration.
And I think if you're somebody who's paying attention to what this administration does, you have to think about this as the fact that this is a private company.
And this is a private American...
technology company that is pushed back on how its tools can be used by the government because they don't trust this company and this CEO does not trust how this administration is going to use the tools that they have created.
They don't know who's going to ultimately be in charge of those tools.
They don't want them used for things like domestic surveillance or any sort of autonomous military systems.
So if you think about that for a minute and you're not just a little bit
Frustrated by this administration, if you're not a little weary of this situation, you should be because this is a company saying, no, we've been in the meetings and we know exactly what you want these tools for and we will not be a part of that.
That should make all of us take a moment and go, whoa, what exactly are they trying to do with these AI tools at this point?
And it's
So there, you know, they, they thrive on the misconception that the more cruel and punitive they are, the more people will bend to them.
And up until this point, we've seen it with media companies and other and some law firms.
People do bend rather than have to fight it in court.
Anthropic is saying, no, you've basically ruined our reputation.
You have made it look like we are a risk to the security of this nation and we are not going to have it.
And you are going to have to answer for this in court.
And I don't know who would want mass surveillance in this country that is not going to believe that Anthropic is doing the right thing.
Autonomous weapons.
I'm not a military expert, so I can't really speak clearly on that.
I think it's good that we can't just have AI making the decisions.
I think it's
I mean artificial intelligence is going to shape a lot of things going forward everything from our national security to our policing our health care our economy even elections I'm not naive to any of that But if companies can't trust the government with how that technology is going to be used They're going to start pulling back like we're seeing anthropic do right now And if the government starts laying labeling those companies as risk simply because they set ethical limits for themselves That's going to discourage innovation.
It's going to discourage
cooperation at the same time, technology is going to keep moving faster than ever.
And this is definitely something you're going to have to pay attention to going forward.
It's 7.59 right now.
You are listening to Daybreak.
I am Jamie Martenson.
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