Hey, I got
it man!
Good morning and welcome to the Earl Ingram show.
As always you can join us at 855-752-4842.
That's 855-752-4842.
You can text us at that same number.
Good
morning to you, Cardi.
How you doing, man?
Man, er, I'm feeling pretty good.
I just looked at the weather forecast.
I just realized today was Friday and we gonna get some of that 60 degree weather today, man.
How you feeling about that?
Well, you just realized today is Friday.
Yeah, I've been living in the in the
week.
Hey, man.
Anyway, I don't I don't want to touch that.
You just realized that today is Friday, especially a young man.
But it is what was yesterday.
But
it is.
But it is Friday.
And that means my co-host Sandy Williams is on board.
Good morning to Sandy.
How you doing, my friend?
I'm doing well.
It's a, you know, you're right.
This spring maybe has sprung.
If you look at the weather forecast going forward, it's, we've turned a corner.
Well, you know, Sandy, don't say that.
I know.
Hey, I always remember back when County Stadium was still around.
And April 15th, I'll never forget it.
how cold it could be.
No, there was a
major snowstorm at County Stadium opening day for the Brewers.
I don't know.
We got about 14, 16 inches of snow.
I'll never forget that, you know, but anyway, you know, back in those days, they didn't have a roof sandy and so.
No, I know people used to tough it out and it was the day off of work Everybody apparently had tickets for the game whether they did or yeah Workplaces were empty the stadium was full, but the numbers didn't add up quite right.
Well, you use the verb.
It's tough it out We used to tough it out, right?
Oh, yeah, I toughing it out for sports was that's what the Packers are all about actually That's I think 50% of the mystique of the Packers is
You've got to be a real fan to go to a Packers game in late December.
Well, let me, using that verb, it's tough it out.
Sandy, speaking of toughing it out, things that are happening, we're going to have to tough it out.
Well, that's you know to me what the frightening thing that's going on right now is that Apparently the people who speak up against the government Now people are beginning to say people have to have the courage to speak up against the government That's the way you talk if you live in Russia That's the way you talk if you live in a place where the government is a repressive regime it used to be
easy, and it used to be considered a normal process for Americans to stand up and criticize their president about the things they...
president was doing they disagreed with you know it was easy and it was considered normal patriotic fever and fervor to talk about the ways in which you thought your government was doing things correctly as well as the ways that you thought they ought to do them uh indifferently and and you people were you know it was normal you know that's what that's what the news media was for that's what
everyone did, they were able to easily express their opinion.
And suddenly the climate for that has changed.
And people are now congratulated when they have the courage to stand up and speak their opinion.
Yeah, Sandy, you
said it used to be, hey, a couple of months ago, we could say that Joe Biden was president and you could say those things.
It's only been here recently that you can't.
Well, just think the thing that happened a couple of weeks ago when Vladimir Zelensky was humiliated by the president.
And the reason for the humiliation was that he hadn't expressed enough gratitude to the president.
He hadn't been respectful enough to the president.
And so he was banished from the White House, aid to his country was shut off, military aid was shut off, vital intelligence was shut down.
And this was
This was a public display not just, I don't think, to have an impact on Ukraine and Vladimir Zelensky, but it had an impact on me, it had an impact on Tom Dick and Mary, because it demonstrated the extent to which this government could turn on you if you didn't show proper deference to an individual, Donald Trump.
You know, in fact, you know, the vice president of the United States went around for days talking about how this man came to the White House and was disrespectful to the president.
And disrespect to the president apparently extends all the way to those who might speak out in public, contrary to the president, because, you know, the tools of government...
In a repressive government, what happens is the leader of the government can sick the dogs of government on anyone who opposes him, and he can call the dogs off for his friends, okay?
Well, what we're watching right now is a president who is sicking the dogs of government on people who oppose him, and he's calling the dogs off for Eric Adams.
He's calling the dogs off for the...
Jeff the guy who was head of Binance who was accused and convicted of laundering money and now he's talking about bringing both the company and the man back to the United States and actually his family is looking at making an investment in the business so what what we're watching is personal aggrandizement by the president going on left and right have a Gaza the Trump Gaza You know, we've got a president whose
family has made massive investments now in cryptocurrency and the president has paved the way for the increased value of cryptocurrency.
It's
just, it's frightening.
So Sandy, you, you, you have just painted the picture of and now saying this is officially a repressive government.
Whatever happened to weed the people, whatever, whatever happened to weed the people.
Well, apparently there's a bunch of people who are applauding the notion that the president ought to be able to control the Department of Justice in a manner in which the White House has never controlled the Department of Justice before, that the president ought to be able to control local U.S.
attorneys like the ones who were
pursuing Eric Adams or other of the local prosecutions that have either been turned on or turned off in the first 52 days of this presidency.
We've had the example set by what's going on so that we understand that a business person who runs a business who stands up and speaks out against
President Trump might find the EPA at his gate the next day to investigate, might find the FDA at the gate to investigate.
It's much like the crooked mayor who had the building inspectors in his pocket.
And if someone stood up to oppose the mayor, then the building inspectors would come and look at their properties.
And sure enough, they'd find lots of violations.
And people who own property learn very quickly that you don't take the mayor
on.
You know, Sandy, the frightening thing.
So what about the citizenry?
I mean, should we be afraid ourselves?
Well, you know, this is the way it is in repressive regimes, too.
Tom, Dick, and Mary don't have businesses that would put them under the direct gun of the government, because all that Tom, Dick, and Mary have to do is keep their head down.
Not talk and not speak out in a manner that would make them notorious and it's hard for a Tom Dick or Mary to be notorious in the eyes of the president in any case And so what happens is Tom Dick and Mary just learned to keep their head down hope for the best and understand that
getting involved with an organization in which they might be prominent could get them banished in some fashion.
We're watching and there are plenty of cheerleaders now for the notion that this fellow who was the leader of the Palestinian students should in fact, contrary to the law, be
picked up, arrested, and deported.
This is not a person who's simply having a student visa withdrawn.
He had a green card, which gave him permanent residence here.
And the only grounds for banishing a green card member essentially is the commission of a crime.
This guy has never been charged with a crime.
He has simply had the temerity to stand up and speak out against policies that were in disagreement with the policies of the United States.
That has never been an appropriate ground for legal action in the past.
But Sandy, you're basically saying that, well, you're not saying it, but people should shirk their constitutional rights.
Well, yeah, I mean, the Constitution be damned.
I mean, the Constitution didn't really contemplate having a president that could sick the dog of government on you and could call the dog off whenever he chooses based on his personal whim.
The Constitution had contemplated that presidents would behave like Teddy Roosevelt, and yes, they might try to implement the antitrust laws, but they would do it in a manner that was equal.
The Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution is there to be sure that everybody has the law applied against them equally.
And so if a government decides they're not going to prosecute a particular kind of law, then that government shouldn't prosecute it against anyone.
They can't pick and choose who to prosecute.
And what's happening now is that the...
Project 2025 called for this and the president has quickly embraced the notion that the U.S.
Attorneys of various all the districts around the country as well as the Department of Justice are his to own and his to operate and he can call the dog on and he can call the dog off and that that's the policy that the United States citizenry when they elected him Decided they wanted to have not that wasn't the mandate
of this election.
And I hope that the citizens who are watching worry about the notion that the dog could be sicked on them as well.
8-5-5, 7-5-2, 48-42.
It's Friday.
That means Fridays are my co-host Sandy Williams.
And boy, do we have a lot to discuss and a lot to talk about, your calls.
Welcome, you're tuned in to the Earl Ingram show.
You can join us at eight five five seven five two forty eight forty two eight five five seven five two forty eight forty two Texas that same number It's Friday.
It means Friday's my co-host Sandy William Sandy your music selection
Yeah, I've chosen music that relates to
people's ability and right to speak out if they want, the notion of government repression.
There's lots of music that's been written that relates to that, and it's always been a fear of people that...
I mean, government has a lot of latent power, and we all knew during the period in Vietnam, when you stood up to express your opposition to the war in Vietnam, there was a certain outcast nature that you realized sociologically, at least, but not politically.
I mean, people weren't being put in prison for speaking out against the war.
If they committed acts of violence, yes.
And today, it appears that
speech itself has become a serious problem and a serious issue.
And when you look at the things that are going on, you know, then the executive order that was directed specifically at the Perkins Coy law firm and that the Covington and Burling law firm, these are two of the revered big law firms in the United States.
These are firms that were being having the dog of government sicked on them solely because of who they had who they had.
allow it to be their clients.
You know, lawyers are required by the bar to basically take on clients left and right.
They aren't supposed to...
choose the clients they pick based on the kind of notion of whether or not they were for or against the president's policies.
But the president himself has decided to try to destroy these two law firms to the extent that he and the power of the United States government could do so.
And that's the kind of chilling.
a prospect that has businesses of all kinds, I think deciding that they, the leaders of those businesses, must keep their head down for fear that speaking out will cause the dog of government to be sick on them.
It's a terrible thing.
I don't think that this kind of thing has happened very often.
Woodrow Wilson implemented a law which was quickly deemed to be unconstitutional, which made criminals speaking out against the policy of the United States with respect to World War I. And the Supreme Court quickly took that matter on and threw that law out because it was so terribly un-American.
You know, Sandy Reuters, I was looking it up this morning,
Donald Trump has 47% favorability.
You and I spoke earlier and you were talking about people who still support this.
Do you think they're supporting it and not understanding the magnitude of what is transpiring here?
I think they're supporting it because what's happening, what he's doing, they appeals to them with respect to the policies.
There are lots of people out there who would like to see Mahmoud Khalil not in the country because they disagree with the pro-Palestinian position being expressed by Mahmoud Khalil.
But they don't understand that that opposing position could be them, right?
They could be the minority.
It could be them who is deciding that
that what's going on in government is improper.
We have experienced for the four years of Joe Biden, a lot of conservatives calling in and expressing their opinions without any fear whatsoever that Joe Biden would come down upon them, that their businesses would become the focus of the government dogs.
That's not the case now with respect to, you know, you look at people like Jamie Diamond and the head of the Chase Manhattan Bank, one of the biggest banks in the world, and he's changed his tune dramatically because he understands that banks get, you know, get controlled by the government.
And if the government, if the president has complete control over all of the, all of the wings of government, all of the tools of government, and if those tools can be deployed against you, then the
The honorable thing as far as you and your business is concerned is that you not express your personal political views to the detriment of the business that you run and all the employees that reside within it.
Well Sandy, to threaten universities and say, if you allow this freedom of speech on your campuses, and so I'm opposed to that,
So we're gonna sanction you.
And what is
this, man?
Yes, I mean, taking $400 million in a year away from Columbia University is an extreme sanction.
They're doing it based on paying lip service to the notion that the school might have countenanced some form of anti-Semitism that was troublesome.
But there's been no actual investigation.
No.
There's been no criminal...
proceeding brought, there's been nothing more than the arm-waving politically associated with a legislative committee calling people in and talking to them for several hours and then reaching conclusions.
Now, what went on on campus and lots of campuses across the country was
probably troublesome, difficult for the campus leaders to figure out how to handle, but the notion that you would take your government gun out and shoot it at...
Columbia, and we'll see what the other universities are.
You know, the president was proud to say, and his White House staff was proud to say that this is just the first of many of these grants that are going to be withdrawn.
And Mahmood Khalil is just the first of many people who can expect to be deported for speaking their opinion.
You know, Sandy, it is a message that they're sending a shot across the bow.
because other universities.
And so if you say we're doing it because you're Jewish students are being threatened, what about Palestinian students and others?
So we do the same thing for them if the shoe was on the other foot.
That's what's at stake here.
Well, I mean, if you could make a finding that a university was turning its eyes away from and countenancing,
substantial anti-Semitic behavior on its campus, then there ought to be an investigation that proves that, and then the proper sanction for that could be considered.
But this is all just political arm-waving, and it's interesting that the institutions that are under the eye of the government here are all liberal
institutions.
Hello darkness my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains
In the sound of silence, in restless dreams I walked away.
Now the streets are color stone, near the hill of a street lamp.
I turn my collar to the cold and damp, when my eyes will stand.
All
right, welcome back to the Earl Ingram show as always you can join us at 855-752-4842 855-752-4842 Texas that same number it's Friday means Friday's my call Sandy Williams and Sandy I forgot the name of that group.
I used to love
that song Simon and
Garfunkel.
Yeah, right,
right.
Yeah, and and that was before they broke up That was one of the early ones and it was really about the silence
of non-descent, you know, that silence is a cancer that grows.
And so I thought that was particularly poignant with respect to the subject that I wanted to talk about.
Let me... Concern about government shutdown.
You have always been one who, over the years, I would talk about government shutdown and you at all, and I was absolutely...
sure that there was going to be a government shutdown, then you would always say, no, it's not going to happen.
Not going to be a government shutdown.
I mean, I was almost absolutely certain that there were going to be government shutdowns.
You always said, no, they always worked it out.
You were always right.
Um, so in this instance, uh, Democrats and many of us who support them wanted to see the shutdown happen.
and Chuck Schumer has said, now we can't do it because if we do, I guess the president then has control over, you know, what facets of government, you know, he can keep open and support.
What are your thoughts about the conversations about the government shutdown?
Well, I think Chuck Schumer thought a week ago that a shutdown was just exactly what the Republicans deserved based on what they were doing to government, and that a shutdown of government would be a further display to the American people of many of the good things that government does, that government is not just a bunch of paper pushers who push things from one corner to the other, that in many ways we're dependent on the government for our day-to-day activities.
and a shutdown could prove that.
So I thought that, you know, a week ago that a shutdown probably would happen if the Republicans couldn't get their act entirely together.
But I think that Schumer has come to the same conclusion that maybe I have, which is that a shutdown would play into Elon Musk's hands and the whole doge operation and that with no workers in place,
this Doge team would be able to get into each and every one of the agencies and have their way and have their way in some ways that would not receive any of the kind of resistance that simply having workers there would give them.
And so my belief now is that the Democrats will not participate in the votes that would require a
shutdown.
You know, Sandy, it with all the different things that are going on.
I mean, your head is spinning because the uncertainty is just nonstop.
And so let's say, OK, so the government stays open.
The Republic and here's what I keep hearing, you know, they won't give Donald Trump a win.
Sandy, why are they referring to this as if this is some kind of sports sporting event and Donald Trump has to get a win?
I mean
Well, I think it's a projection of what was their policy starting with Barack Obama.
I remember Mitch McConnell basically announced that it was their policy that Barack Obama should never get a win.
And they were going to block him in every direction that the president wanted to go.
The Republicans' job was to keep it from happening.
And so I think they're projecting that same strategy now to the Democrats in the face of Donald Trump.
But what's going on now?
If you were somebody who wanted to create a recession in the United States,
by taking charge of the government and doing all the things necessary to basically assure that the economy would tank.
You could go to the playbook that Donald Trump has just used for the last 53 days, and you could follow that playbook and be absolutely sure, I think, that you are driving the country into a recession.
And in fact, Donald Trump's unwilling to deny the notion that maybe a recession is around the corner.
And there are people in the administration who talk about a recession as being an opportunity that this is all part of the normal business cycle.
We had one of our listeners.
Last week send in a text message to the extent that a recession is a normal part of a business cycle and it represents an opportunity.
Well, who does it represent an opportunity for?
It represents an opportunity to those who have mountains of cash who are very wealthy and are in a position to wait the recession out so that they can bottom feed as what it's called and buy up all the things at an opportunistically low price and
It's further an opportunity for people who trade in the market because when you know there's going to be a recession and maybe the rest of the world doesn't, you can sell stocks short.
You can bet on the notion that the stock values are going to go down and you can make much more money in that kind of a bet than you can on buying stocks and waiting for them to go up.
And so my suspicion is that if someone went out today and really investigated with a fine tooth comb,
and used all the powers of government for the investigation, they could find that somewhere in the Trump family enterprises, they've sold the market short.
And Donald Trump is too sanguine about this recession to not be thinking that he's going to personally profit from it.
And however, the way government is currently organized,
Donald Trump and his his operation will never get investigated, not by a Department of Justice that he controls, not by an FBI that he controls, not by an SEC that he controls.
And so, you know, sauce for the goose is not sauce.
So Sandy, you talk about with the imminent recession and the fact that Donald Trump and the people who are in the stock market and those people who.
who are able to benefit one way or another.
But recession to the average American means dire times and dire straits and lean times, Sandy.
It's
fine.
As far as Tom Dick and Mary are concerned, a recession is blood.
Yes.
It's blood that they spend because they're the ones who get pinched.
They are the ones who lose their jobs.
They're the ones who get laid off.
And lose their homes and everything
else.
Yeah, absolutely.
And so, you know, the notion that this is a little bit of pain, we'll find out just how much pain it is because my belief is that we're headed on a, you know, watching a freight train and it's going into a wall and it might be moving at a pace, but at some point it hits the wall.
And you know what I'm saying?
Especially where it didn't have to happen.
Yeah, this is quite self-inflicted.
You know, the kind of...
business cycle that our listener wrote in about is the kind of business cycle in which business itself accomplishes the cycle based on the normal trend towards equilibrium.
But this business cycle is going to be a government inflicted wound.
It is.
So historically, Sandy, as we continue to watch this.
And it almost appears to be no way to stop it.
Let me let me ask you, is there any way that you see right now that can stop our nation headed towards this this train wreck?
Well, I don't know if it was in the Wall Street Journal, but it's a news source that I read a great deal.
But I just recently read somebody who said, well, there's a way to stop this.
Donald Trump would simply have to say that I'm completely wrong with all the policies that I'm implementing, and we're going to revert to a much more normal course of action.
Can anyone picture Donald Trump saying those words?
I mean, can anyone picture the notion that he's going to back off from tariffs when tariffs are the toy that a president can actually play with unilaterally?
And it's one of the reasons why he thinks they're so magic.
It's because it's his magic wand.
No, I think the the only way we can back off from the course of action We're on that is leading us to a recession is for Donald Trump and his various peers around him to say, you know, we're we're wrong We're headed the wrong way tariffs aren't the answer Smashing government isn't the answer
we need to attend to the interests of Tom Dick and Mary, and we need to make sure that there is a predictability about the government so that the business environment can have stability underlying it.
But predictability is not Donald Trump's game.
So Sandy, I was reading this article in the New York Times this morning by David Brooks.
And David Brooks,
This is the title of it.
It isn't just Trump's Trump America's whole reputation is shot That's what's at the that's what people need to understand Sandy They see this one guy the people who support him They're willing to sell out the reputation of the entire nation globally To protect
this one man
Well, this is a man who announces to everyone that he's transactional.
But he's not the businessman with whom you can have a transaction on a handshake.
The handshake is not to be trusted.
Mexico and Canada found that out when they renegotiated the North American trade agreement in 2018 and set up a whole new agreement, which Donald Trump has simply...
unilaterally decided to defy and to ignore.
So there's no such thing as trusting the United States going forward.
Vladimir Zelensky understands that.
Everyone who looks at the United States as a trusted ally understands we're not to be trusted.
And the notion that you can use the big stick of America.
to smack everyone into shape by withdrawing from them and withdrawing from aid so that you are no longer a country upon which anyone depends suggests that what you're really doing is breaking that big stick because America's influence in the world has long been premised on the notion that we are magnificent and about the way we spread our aid.
We are abundantly available to our allies in a manner which does not require a great deal of a pound of flesh from them.
And so we have a bunch of allies around the world.
We have a bunch of Western leaning.
people, countries around the world, all of that is going to be destroyed quickly when we partition the world back into what it was in 1890, this gilded age that Donald Trump wants to talk about, when the United States was not the most influential country in the world, and when wars were commonplace.
You know, Sandy, it is, as David Brooks said in this article,
David Brooks, a great writer.
He's always been a great writer.
And the way he put this, you know, together, Sandy, all it made me stop and think was there's no way out of it.
The damage is already done.
And so there will be presidents afterwards.
You know, Donald Trump certainly is not going to be the last president.
But how do you rebuild the reputation?
Because.
And we'll let you after eight by five respond after eight by five seven five two forty eight forty two It's Friday.
That means Friday's with my co-host Sandy Williams and you on the earling room
show
streets of cobblestone.
If a hill or a bay street land, I'd turn my collar to the cold and damp.
When my eyes were stamped by the flash of a neon light, slipping down.
Now there's trouble bussing in from out of state.
All right, welcome back to the Earl Ingram Show.
As always, you can join us at 855-752-4842.
855-752-4842.
Texas, that same number.
It's Friday.
It means Friday's with my co-host, Sandeum.
Send you the music.
Well, the music's about sort of the kind of conduct that is repressive.
Now, that's a particular song by...
Bruce Springsteen about Atlantic City and the activities of the mob and the way they kind of control behavior on it in Atlantic City, which is ironic.
Atlantic City is the scene of four of Donald Trump's casino bankruptcies.
Well, you know, Sandy, the Simon and Garfunkel tune in.
And I remember as a young boy listening to that never really.
Got to listen to the lyrics But after listening to the lyrics just now because Cardi played it just you know man powerful powerful in Apropos for what's happening today.
No question
Yeah, I mean, you know, that's what's basically happening as a government that wants to scare us all into silence.
If we aren't going to be supportive, at least we better shut up.
And, you know, we were talking before the break about the David Brooks article, opinion at peace in the New York Times, in which he talks about how it is that the reputation of the United States is damaged, maybe for a very long time.
And it's the same way that a businessman damages his reputation by
or business person damage the reputation by not keeping their word, by going back on a deal.
And, you know, Donald Trump has thought nothing of doing that.
He has not a good reputation as a business person.
If you're in the real estate business world, you notice stay away from Donald Trump.
It's not a deal.
It's not to be trusted.
And so for the United States, it will take a while because, yes, the next president might be a totally honorable person, but the country itself...
has demonstrated that our political process can install in leadership positions.
People who will go back on the treaties that the United States has signed will ignore any of what has been the norm of dealing with the United States.
And so how can you rely on the United States?
And if we set up a government in which the pendulum of power swings so dramatically with each new president, then the rest of the world can't really trust the stability of the United States either.
Foreign policy for the United States used to be quite a stable part of public policy.
It no longer is, obviously.
We turned on a dime about two weeks ago, Thursday.
We can all point at the day.
And so, yeah, I think David Brooks is right.
Donald Trump is spending a part of the American currency, which is very, very dear.
And I'm afraid that he squandered it.
You know, Sandy, too.
to to be stupid and make stupid statements like he did with Kenny, still saying Canada should be our 51st state.
I mean, it's one thing to say that tongue in cheek, Sandy, and then it's forgotten, but he's still talking about
that today.
Well, to the point where there are those in Canada who believe that his tariff war is all designed based on that.
They bring Canada to its mercantile knees so that it can be annexed.
And, you know, we're in the process of, clearly, we've got a president who is expansionist in nature.
He wants Greenland.
I mean, he talks about it regularly and says, it's going to happen.
You know, we're going to get it done.
He's also commissioned his military in a manner that has been leaked to the public, probably for the purpose of having the public know.
that he's asked the military to investigate how we could take over the Panama Canal using military.
You know, you know, Sandy, you just, you're frightening, man, his military.
Yes.
I mean, once again, by the end of Project 2025's playbook,
They're digging deep into the military, firing generals, replacing them with people who are sympathetic to the policies of the president.
But the policies of the president appear to be to involve demonstrating great respect for reverence to and to abide by the whims of the president.
You know, because of Valdemir Zelinski found out what happens if you don't treat the president just so.
Sandy, did you?
ever in your wildest dreams and I know the answer is no.
Ever believe this could happen in this nation?
No, I guess I never thought that someone would be elected president who has
the kind of ambitions personally that this president has that would ignore the norms so completely.
And we would end up with a political movement that is dedicated to that person and to the views and whims of that person.
So yeah, it's all together unexpected because I just didn't.
see it.
You know, it's the truck that is hitting me as I step off the curb because I didn't see it.
Well, there's no way you or anybody else could have seen it.
There's no way we could have thought that our nation could wind up in the perilous condition that it's in now.
855-752-4842.
We're going to take your phone calls on the other side.
It's Friday.
That means Friday's my call.
Sandy Williams and you.
That's a fact.
you can join us at 855-752-4842.
855-752-4842, it's Friday, that means Friday's with my co-host Sandy Williams and Sandy.
We've talked about a lot of things, the music.
Yeah, the music's about, that one's called The Cult of the Personality.
It's music that reflects my concern about the notion that we're installing a government that can
control us in a very repressive way by controlling all the tools of government and deploying it in a way that causes each of us to be afraid to stand up and speak our mind.
So we've been waiting.
We've got people on the line, been waiting for a while, Sandy.
Let's go to them.
Let's go to Mike from Kenosha.
Good morning to you, Mike.
Thank you very much.
You say what, sir?
Happy Friday.
I got to say the biggest thing that that just is
I can't get out of my cross, so to speak, is the fact that, just like McCarthyism in the 50s, this unrest, this division and worry and suffering that the American people are right in the midst of is absolutely manufactured.
It's totally unnecessary, and it's all about greed.
They don't want to pay their fair share.
That's it.
That's how simple that if we could just pigeonhole these right-wingers and get them into the town halls or in front of the people and have them account for what they're doing.
It seems to me, Earl and Sandy, that there's a way that we can corner them and get them to see things
Through clear eyes, to the people out there, this is all manufactured conflict.
This is easily explained as such.
There's plenty of examples and evidence to show it.
It's totally unnecessary.
It's all because of greed.
A question, with education, apparently trying to become a profit center,
Is it possible for we the people to roll back our land grant college, a program that we offered all these universities, what 70 or so university back in the day, since education is no longer going to be perceived as a necessity and to be offered at the public at as close to free as possible.
Can we.
We send the land grant college program.
Mike, thank you very much for the call, Sandy.
Well, I think he's asking that question tongue-in-cheek.
But, you know, the fact is that the land grant college program was a demonstration of how very much the American public revered education and understood it's the centrality of it to the success of the country.
And now we seem to be backtracking on that rather dramatically.
What really mystifies me is when I looked at the numbers and realized that our government workforce is no bigger today than it was in 1980, that the size of our,
The scale of our government as compared to our GDP is actually a little bit smaller than it's been in the past and the level at which we tax ourselves as a percentage of GDP is at the low end of what we've experienced over the last 80 years.
There's nothing that's changed about our government over the last 50 years in a material way.
However,
The American mood about the government apparently has shifted a great deal.
And today there's an upwelling of feelings, certainly amongst the people who backed Donald Trump, that our government is way too big when none of them were alive when our government was any smaller.
and that our government is behaving in a manner that it hasn't behaved in the past when none of them were alive when our government behaved much differently than it currently behaves.
So they've had a lifetime of experience in a government that they now want to dismantle.
as if something has changed in the government in the last four to six years.
The notion that Joe Biden's administration had a material effect on the scale of government, it didn't.
As if it had a material effect on the way in which government intersects with the people, it didn't.
So, I mean, somehow we've got a leadership that has persuaded a bunch of people.
that our country is in tatters and that things have changed dramatically when, in fact, there's no data to support that whatsoever.
All right, let's go to Robert from West Atlas.
Good morning to you, Robert.
You say what?
Good morning, guys.
I haven't been up this upset in a while.
It just reminds
me of the
old Joe Manchin, Kristen Sinema stuff.
I mean, I think the problem right now is we have ineffective leadership with Chuck Schumer.
he's going to go along with this stuff, which to me is the rubber stamp, and he just needs to go.
We need AOC to primary him.
She's got about 12 million followers.
I think she can take him out of office.
We look at Hakeem Jeffries.
He holds his whole caucus together, except for Josh Golden, who also needs to be primaried.
You know, big cuts, Medicare, Social Security,
Medicaid, the VA, the FDA, the Department of Ed.
Are you kidding me?
Do you think Tip O'Neill or Ted Kennedy would have went along with this?
Chuck Schumer needs to go.
We need to start having purity tests in the Democratic Party to get some of these people out of there because if they go along with this, what's next?
You know, I'm so tired of hearing with these guys.
They have their leverage and they constantly give it away.
So any senator that votes for this, including our own, they need to go.
If Tammy Baldwin votes for this, we need to get out and replace her.
I mean, Republicans are not running away from town halls because this stuff is popular.
And that's really what I have to say.
So Robert, Robert, Robert, Robert, you're going
to shoot herself in the foot.
Robert, hang on a second.
So Sandy, you, we talked earlier about why Chuck Schumer is making this decision clearly.
with all his experience.
He knows that this is a fight that is going to he's going to he's going to receive some his eyes are going to be black and his nose is going to be bloody.
But he's doing this again, predicated on the fact that he thinks that Donald Trump can do more damage.
If the government is shut down
well, I think I think the color Robert is talking about more than just this notion of the shutdown of the government and whether it happens or not on the 14th I think he's talking more about day-to-day political activities in Congress and the extent to which the Democrats are putting up an effective opposition in in the environment today and
I will have to agree that the opposition so far has been quite ineffective.
It looks like each one for yourself and each one for yourself is essentially succumbing to the divide and conquer prospect.
And so, you know, I do think the Democrats and the opposition need to find a way to illuminate to the American public what's going on and what the dangers are, whether you agree or not with.
the immigration policy or whether you agree or not with the tariff policy, how it gets implemented and how our government behaves are exceedingly important things in the arc of history and will be exceedingly important things to the extent that we install a process into our government that makes our president a monarch who can exercise the power of government against each, against or for each one of us according to WIM.
Let's go to Tom from L.A.
Good morning to you, Tom.
You say what?
Yeah, the problem is, in my opinion, is that, you know, when FDR was in power, we said government was good.
Since Ronald Reagan came along, we said government is bad.
Democrats need to come back and say, let's make government great again.
like it was in the 30s.
And I'll tell you one problem that nobody knows about is that this is not a clean CR.
So we do need to shut it down because there's a little poison pill in this thing that says that if the government doesn't shut down that
The Congress, the Republicans in Congress have now seated the power to the President of the United States, which means all of these people that have been fired and all of these government employees, it will no longer be illegal for Donald Trump to be doing what he's doing and they will lose every court case possible.
Everyone needs to read the CR.
because the Republicans keep saying it's a clean CR.
It's a clean CR.
It's not.
This thing is riddled with things in it that will give Donald Trump more power than he has right now, because Congress basically will cede their power to the executive branch, which is exactly what Project 2025 is all about.
What do you think about that?
Thank you for the call.
Well, I haven't read it, I should have, but if you're right, that is a dramatic problem.
And I wouldn't put it past the Republicans and the Trump administration.
The fact is that they're attacking these Ivy League institutions, but there's a lot of Ivy League folks who have decided to drink the Kool-Aid, the Trump Kool-Aid.
And there's an intellectual conservative movement that should not be underestimated in terms of its capacity to use.
innovative approaches to accomplishing an awful end, which is to create an autocracy that defeats the principle of democracy that most of us believed was the epitome of what our government stood for.
You know, we are a republic, we aren't a democracy per se, but the way we have operated for quite a long time has been to honor the interests of the individuals over the interests of others.
And what we've got today is a government that is running roughshod over individual interests in order to accomplish an objective, which is to reframe our government in a way that is horrifying.
All right, 8-5-5-7-5-2, 48-42, 8-5-5-7-5-
5248 42 guys hang on it's Friday that means Friday's my call saying the waves are coming right back to the phone
lines.
all right welcome back
to the early show as always you can join us at 855-752-4842 855-752-4842 Texas at that same number send you the music
Well, just it's about that the cult of the personality was the last one You know, it's just the concern I have about the the nature of the government were creating and music that was talking about such things
You know, I just want to say this before we go back to the phone lines, you know, Sandy I don't know how people who somehow believe that Donald Trump is doing these things For the benefit of the American people all these things he's doing somehow supposedly
He's doing this to benefit the American people.
I don't see any of that.
Well, you know, I think the people who are these tariff hawks have this ill-conceived notion that by partitioning the country off from the rest of the world with tariffs, that we will bring back to the American shores all the manufacturing jobs to manufacture all the goods that are purchased in America.
And, you know,
If you repartition the world and you were willing to tolerate all the pain that that will cause over a period of 10 years, you might actually get to something like more manufacturing jobs in the United States.
But those more manufacturing jobs would be in an economy in which all the prices were higher, in which the standard of living was lower.
in which a world that was endangered by being partitioned off from one another, and it defies the basic economic logic of how you allocate resources based on decision-making by each of the people.
tariffs aren't a smart policy, but those who are hawks for it will tell you that it's designed to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States and to fix their economy.
It's ill-conceived and it's an experiment that is experimenting with an economy that isn't broken, that the economy needs tweaking, it needs fixing.
We need to deal with the interests of Tom, Dick, and Mary and make sure they're participating in our economy.
But this
a particular experiment that they're pursuing is designed to increase profits for manufacturers and to put all the pain on Tom Dick and Mary in the process.
All right, let's go to Cassandra.
Good morning to you, Cassandra.
You say what?
Hi, Errol and Sandy.
Thanks for taking my call.
I will have to agree with Robert who
called in and spoke a few minutes ago.
If the Democrats, if they are not willing to take a stand against Donald Trump and the Republican Party now, when are they going to do it?
As you know, I am a former Democratic who voted for the party for well over 30 years and I
I, like many people, we are just frustrated with the Democratic Party not taking a stand on anything.
Now, the last caller talked about the poison pill.
I was not aware of that.
I will have to do some research and look that up.
But I just want to make this the last comment, and especially if members of the Democratic Party leadership are listening.
For over the last four to six years,
You have talked about how how Trump is a danger to our democracy is But when he has been reelected You fold and run away and give him exactly what he wants That is just a very ill logical argument and activity so
I I am very displeased and I think the Republicans are going to be a Majority Party for a very long time if the Democrats do not get a backbone and Hey Cassandra,
I have to say to you That for somebody to vote for Donald Trump and say Joe Biden them weren't doing this and so I don't support the Democrats the Democrats let me down
to vote for Donald Trump and watch the dismantling of our nation.
And instead of you challenging the people you voted for who are doing this, for you to turn around and then say, well, you're disappointed in the Democrats, I have to say to you would all do respect.
I don't follow that way of thinking.
The people who are destroying this nation is Donald Trump and the Republicans.
Why is your eye or not directed at them?
As opposed to the Democrats, the Democrats aren't in charge.
You guys made sure of that.
You put the Republicans in charge.
So why aren't you saying these things about the people you put in charge?
Yes.
Oh, okay.
Wonderful.
The activities of the Republican Party did not start recently.
The Democratic Party has been folding and giving in and making concessions for decades.
And there is a point where many of us, we're just tired of it.
We're tired of the excuses.
Well, what about, what about, what about, I know, but Cassandra, what about what is happening now?
Why are you not focusing on the people who are doing this?
Oh, the Democratic Party, they had an opportunity to use whatever leverage that they had.
The leverage that they had was to shut the government down, and they chose not to.
Now, there are arguments that this would have given Donald Trump the opportunity to do whatever he wants.
Well, I don't know about that.
The stock market is tumbling right now.
The business corporations, they are not going to continue to support Donald Trump and watch their profits go down the drain.
So when there is a reaction there is the counter reaction and the Democratic Party did not want to take a stand to see what the repercussions would truly be but they just decided well they decided to take the safe route and
It's not going to work.
Sandy, I can't wait until you respond to that.
Hold the thoughts, Sandy.
8-5-5-7-5-2-48-42.
Thank you very much for the call, Cassandra.
You're tuned in to a Friday edition of the Erlingham Show.
My co-host Sandy, will you?
All
right, welcome back to the Erlingram show as always you can join us at 855-752-4842 855-752-4842 text us at that same number You know Sandy Our phone lines are full and so I just we just heard Cassandra.
Do you understand that reasoning?
No, it's kind of dog in the manger, you know, she's against Donald Trump So she thinks she's for him because the Democrats haven't done a good job good enough job of opposing him Doesn't make sense to me But I but I fear that there's lots of people out there trying to explain to themselves Why it is that they supported Donald Trump and many of them are probably mystified by it because I think that
Many of them are, it's some emotional tug that they're responding to rather than an intellectual one.
My hope is that people will wake up.
There are elements of what's going on that could be good.
I think peace in Ukraine is a very good idea.
And I think our policies in Eastern Europe have not been very smart over the last 50 years.
So I'm not in total disagreement there.
But process makes so much difference.
And how we get there makes so much difference.
And the process that we're utilizing there vis-a-vis Zelensky and Ukraine is obviously very disruptive to the trust that any ally can play.
place in us.
And so that's a matter where process matters.
In the United States, you know, maybe there could be policy.
We possibly need to work on efficiency in government.
But how we do it and what we do to the relationship between people and their government is very important.
And, you know, we need to follow the rule of law or we've lost it.
All right, let's go to David from Mekwan.
Good morning to you, David.
You say what?
Good morning gentlemen.
So I would just point out to a article from CNN on Tuesday about 655 Eastern Standard Time by Tammy Luby.
And really what this bill is, and Tom said there's poison pills and everything else, all this really, this new bill that's been submitted that the Senate is going to vote on, are to keep the spending levels exactly the same through the rest of September.
That's all it is.
And there's some earmarks.
There's like 13 billion decrease in non-defense spending, but they're earmarks.
So basically, it would not affect the money directed to the projects in the last fiscal year, but it would not repeat the funding of the same projects.
No earmarks are included in the continuing resolution.
The increase in pay, you know, for the troops that Biden signed off,
the 14%, that's included in this bill.
It goes on to talk about all the other things that are going to be fully funded completely.
And so at the end of the day, there was one Republican, I think it was Mass, I think out of Kentucky.
He was upset that there wasn't really any cuts because when you have a continuing
resolution at the same spending levels, that's not a cut.
That's just keeping everything kind of level rather than an increase.
We're keeping it as the same as it was last year.
I believe you're right, but I think the problem is that the issue of impoundment still exists.
And I believe that the Trump administration has indicated that whereas the bill might authorize the expenditures, it's up to the president to decide whether he will actually carry them out.
And so, you know, they've said, in fact, in response to that bill that they expect the Supreme Court to answer the question of whether they can impound expenditures and not make
them.
All right, Dave, thank you very much for the call.
Let's go to Cam.
Good morning to you, Cam.
You say what?
Good morning, Earl.
Okay, so I'm not gonna do math on the radio, but I was doing math before I called in and the math that I was doing was my taxes versus for year 2023 versus how much goes into each of the federal programs.
And I gotta say, man, like,
This stuff is peanuts the things that really fuck is the fact that I see about two grand plus now if with the tax cuts that Republicans are putting in an additional $400 put into how much that interest my federal taxes pay for That's two and a half grand every year.
I mean it's gonna go up every year, right?
But two and a half grand that's gonna go towards just debt.
That's it
So your point is that the deficit that the Republicans are proposing to carry forward based on their tax decreases will end up eating up your tax bill in the future.
And I think you're right.
I think that they're proposing something like if you total everything up that Trump talks about.
$9 trillion over the next 10 years, including the continuation of the ongoing tax reduction.
And so they're only proposing $3 trillion of expenditure reduction.
So they're proposing to increase our deficit over the next 10 years by $6 trillion.
Hey, Cam, thank you very much for the call.
Let's go to Cindy from Appleton.
I'll send you Europe next.
Hey, Earl.
Hey, Sandy.
Well, I just want to say that Cassandra has been sucked into the propaganda machine.
There's just no if ands or buts about it.
But one thing that nobody's talking about that's got me very disturbed is the Pope.
I mean, the Pope Francis right now, 88 years old with pneumonia, probably not a good sign.
The thing is, I'm afraid he's going to pass away soon.
And what's going to happen is he's going to be replaced by a very right wing...
National white nationalist type Pope and the whole world is going to be affected by that and so this is something that scares me because I mean let's face it Pope Francis is no Reverend Willie Barber But he's probably one of the most liberal down-to-earth popes we've had in a lot of years so my concern is about him passing away and us getting stuck with somebody even worse than they've had in there in the past and the whole world is going to be affected by
it well you do know Cindy that
You know, all of us are going to pass away, right?
I know that, but I'm just saying this is not a good time for him to go because he will be replaced by a white Christian nationalist right-wing pope.
That's what's going to happen.
And then it's going to affect the whole world and the whole world's going to become even wackier right-wing than it is now.
And this is my fear.
Hey, Cindy, thank you very much for the call.
Brendan, you're up.
Yeah.
Yeah, I want to go to process that Sandy's been talking about, the process of cutting government waste.
While Elon and his 20-year-old underlings are running around, I just noticed that if I was really going to cut waste, would I want to go to the department that hasn't passed an audit in years?
The government?
Oh, well, we can't go there.
That's what's made him rich.
All of our tax dollars has made this moron rich.
He's not a genius.
And that is for the last comment just made about the pope changing.
Here we go again with tying religion into government.
If the pope passes away and you get a more right wing pope, I don't care.
That's the church you go to.
It's not the church I go to.
So let's keep that out of the equation completely.
But you know this whole thing is just all flash and flare and and you know everybody's sitting around and Schumer is wrong.
I believe he's wrong.
Okay and if there is a pill in there and it explodes you know and then and then you got Cassandra who is the typical voter who voted for Trump.
She gets on the air and she states that we're tired of the things the Democrats haven't done but she has a name one.
Okay, try to be specific, folks, when you call up and you're talking about complaining about the Democrats, tell us what they can
do.
Hey, Brendan,
have a great
weekend.
Thank you very much for the call.
Let's go to Ann.
Good morning to you, Ann.
You say what?
Morning, Earl.
Yeah, I don't know what Cassandra is smoking.
But seriously, she voted for Trump and now she wants the Democrats to fix it.
I think Chuck Schumer should say no.
This is the Republicans issue and to blame Democrats after she voted for Trump.
I don't know where she comes off saying that, but.
That was just my comment.
Thank
you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I don't either, you know, you know, you voted, you voted for him, the Democrats of the Republicans.
This is all of what they're doing.
And so it's not up to the Democrats to stop him.
It's up to the Republicans who are sitting there and watching him do what he's doing.
Let's go to Larry on line five.
Good morning to you, Larry.
This is Jean Somo-Claire.
All
right, Jean, go ahead.
Yeah, good job, Ann and the other lady.
You know, this is very serious stuff and it's called projection.
Blame the other party for what your party's doing and try to make them look like they're the guilty ones.
Unfortunately, they are not and we're well aware of it because people are rising all over the country.
Democrats, Republicans, independents, this is the most ridiculous thing that I have ever seen.
This is a poor excuse for a leader.
going in, beating us up from the inside out, making enemies of our neighbors.
I mean, this is sickness.
And Schumer better say, no.
Because what they did, they didn't do the typical CR, sir, that called in and said, everything's the same.
No, it is not.
They want a 30-day CR to go.
And then they work on the bill together.
They work on this together.
And they keep...
those people from flashing the jobs of the people that provide the services to the people in our country.
And people then maybe might not die as they're waiting for disability or social security, the things that they paid into.
Wake up folks, stand up, have your voice heard, call your representatives and say no giving Elon Musk the key to everything in our country.
This is nuts.
Thank you.
All right, Gene.
Thank you very much for the call.
Let's go to Mark.
Mark, you're up next.
My name is Mark.
Yes.
Go
ahead.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Yes.
Um, I wanted, uh, uh, Sandy mentioned, uh, kind of a glimmer of hope about Ukraine in the sense of Trump and I'm no fan of Trump.
Please understand.
And I agree with that glimmer of hope.
Um,
There's been a lot of misinformation about the Ukraine war.
And let me be clear, I'm a pacifist.
War is the enemy, and I endorse no one's invasion.
But the corporate media kept repeating how it was unprovoked, and it very much was provoked through NATO expansion, through not negotiating Putin put forth some proposals before he resorted to invasion, and those were not addressed.
UN principles require negotiations.
It's provocative to refuse to negotiate.
And I could go on.
And again, I'm not defending Putin.
And now we have our own president with ambitions, apparently, for Greenland and Canada, et cetera.
And that's one more thing let me touch on.
People are concerned.
Oh, Putin, what's the who's he an invade next?
Well, if he invades, say the Baltic states, if he invades any NATO country, all of NATO comes down upon him because the NATO that's part of the military alliance is that they come to the aid of one another.
That would be World War Three.
Is Putin that stupid?
I don't think so.
Thank you very much for the call.
Sandy, you want to weigh in on Anita?
Well, I agree with much of what he said.
I do think Putin, in his negotiation over Ukraine, will try to get NATO to back off with respect to the manner in which, for instance, the Baltic republics that were part of the Soviet Union and are now part of NATO.
how the military is stationed there, who is stationed there.
I think he's going to try and get his fingers into the operation of NATO with respect to the ways in which NATO was expanded beyond its borders.
As everyone points back at the promise made by Secretary of State Baker to Gorbachev in 1990 about we won't go one inch to the east.
And then, of course, they did with Poland and Romania and the Baltic Republics, et cetera.
So I think we'll see some negotiation over that, but I don't think we'll see an invasion.
Well, Sandy, how far are we willing to go to prevent any of those things with Donald Trump?
855-752-4842.
Guys, hang on.
It's Friday.
It means Friday's on my coast, Sandy
Williams.
I was at this carnival just a few years ago.
No big deal, Ferris wheel, same old stuff, you know.
And I wanted to round the grounds until I found this little tent.
The man outside made a speech and this is how it went.
the same old line.
All right, welcome back to the last few minutes of the early show.
Sandy wanted to get into the music, but the phone lines are jammed.
And so let's go back to the phone lines.
Uh, let's go to Eric from Tulsa.
Good morning, chief.
Eric, you say what?
Good
morning, girl.
Good morning, Sandy.
Um, and TGIF.
Um, I'd like to say the old, uh, the Democrats forced me to vote Republican is not real.
It's an age old plane made by closeted GOP years in an attempt to evade responsibility, their own personal responsibility and what's happening and also to avoid actually identifying themselves as Republicans.
I would ask anybody that says that to just go ahead and, you know, identify yourself as a Republican, get it over with.
Um, and with all due respect.
Who gives a beep about the leader of the Catholic Church right now?
You know, and them picking a righty tighty whitey poke will only further illustrate their irrelevance in the world.
And as for the Senate vote, how is how is stopping those going right now?
You know, I mean, so why bother?
They're already destroying the government.
And and with all due respect, what does Sandy know that the rest of us don't that leads him to believe this administration is going to follow any of the court orders they're not currently following?
Um, the courts have zero enforcement that doesn't go through the DOJ.
Actually,
I don't think he will follow the order.
So you, you and I are together on that one.
All right, let's, let's go to Tom from Richland center.
Tom, you quickly.
Yeah, guys, listen, yesterday we had a thing to talk about financing and that if Democrats would go for public financing, but the Republicans always say no, so we didn't do it.
We had the majorities in the Senate.
The assembly, we had the governor in 2009.
We could have prevented gerrymandering, put it in healthcare for all.
So I'm not saying I vote for Republicans.
I'm saying that the Democrats got to get their act together and go after what people need.
All right, thank you
very much for the call.
Thank you very much for the call.
Ali from Northwoods.
Hi, I would like to first start with two bits of information.
W-W-W.
Schumer.gov and the capital switchboard is 202-224-3121.
If it's not too late, get a hold of your Democratic Senators and let them know how you feel.
I spent all night up calling everyone I could to let them know
to not just take that proposal, but try to get a new proposal where there are compromises on both sides.
We need to get the people together, working together rather than just following
Mr. Rump and Elon
Musk.
So thank you very much for the call, Ollie.
So Sandy, I'm looking, Elon Musk's favorability is 35%, but that doesn't matter.
Elon Musk is not elected.
Why are we wasting time with that?
I don't know maybe to persuade Donald Trump that he ought to turn his back on him.
But I think, I think Elon Musk and his opinions are more important to Donald Trump than Tom Dick and Mary and the polls that would be taken that would reflect their opinions.
I think Donald Trump thinks of himself as this is his last term.
We don't know if it'll just be four years or not.
But I think he understands this is his last election.
And so he doesn't care much about the electorate anymore.
He's all interested in getting his, his head.
carved into the into the mushroom, not Rushmore.
And
And I think he's listening to the people around him to figure out what sort of legacy it is that he's going to leave.
And I think leave, and I think part of it is the next expansionist president since the 1800s.
I think he thinks it's going to be the guy who changed the economy and brought jobs back in the long term with tariffs.
I mean, people are whispering in his ear things that
He thinks will will create the legacy.
The problem is that number one there it's Not not well thought out the overall strategy.
It's not it's ill guided number two and and number three He's not gonna get his head on
his head
and
his legacy is already cemented But not in the manner that that he's thinking
right
Well, we'll see.
I think that his legacy could go downhill, quite frankly.
The more he tries to get it onto Mount Rushmore, the more likely it is, I think, that his legacy is going to slide.
Because people are going to see him.
Certainly historians are going to see him for what he is.
But also, we have to figure out what the country is going to look like and what our government is going to look like 40 years from now.
after this presidency, because any president who is elected going forward is gonna try to seize all of the reins of power that are created during this period of Donald Trump.
And so we can expect to see a Democrat exercising much the same kind of power.
And in the long run, that leads to something that doesn't look very much at all like a democracy.
You know what I'm saying?
Robert Brooks was 100% correct.
David Brooks.
David Brooks.
It's Robert Brooks play for the Packers.
It's it's all of us.
It's it's the United States.
That's going to suffer and that's going to be his legacy.
He'll never be able to get away from that.
Sandy.
Great as always, my friend.
We'll talk soon.
Up next, J. Matt and Greg Bach.
Have a great weekend.
