Painting the Wall Black  (Hour 1)

Transcript

Painting the Wall Black (Hour 1)

John & Gordy · Tue Aug 26, 2025

Kathryn Lake

You're listening to Civic Media.

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When the chips are down and democracy's back is up against the wall, two radio veterans step up to the microphone to right the wrongs, standing for truth, justice, and just because.

Hey, are they ready to go yet?

It's John

and Gordy on 92.7

WMDX.

It's

another Tuesday, isn't it?

It is.

I'm surprised Trump hasn't somehow stopped Tuesdays from happening in them.

Maybe.

Maybe the government can buy Tuesday and own a little piece of that.

Got to get a piece of the action

wherever you

can.

I am just so tired of this.

I can't.

How many days has this been?

I read someplace that they gave the exact days that were into this administration.

I don't know how we're gonna make it, you know, honest to God.

Well, this is just outrageous.

I watched a video this morning of this.

I guess he's the owner of Home Depot.

And he was talking about how he feels uncomfortable with Trump owning a little bit of Intel.

You know, he can understand what the government's doing.

I got it, but I don't know.

I feel a little... Yeah, you think you're feeling a little uncomfortable with the conflict of interest at all?

Or the government owning businesses or pieces of businesses?

Or do you think this snake in the grass is going to somehow all of a sudden make a decision for Intel that they didn't want to make?

I don't know.

I'm just a caveman.

God.

That's

John Peterson.

Good morning, buddy.

How are you doing?

I'm

strong there.

Oh yeah, haven't we introduced

the show yet?

No, zero to 90 in about 30 seconds there.

Yeah, he's John.

I'm Gordy, producer Dom.

Yes.

In the...

control booth.

It's eight minutes past six o'clock.

It's going to be another gorgeous day.

Beautiful sunrise on the way in just a few minutes.

Right now we have clear skies and we're at 50 degrees highs.

What do you have on your computer?

What the

hell

is that?

It's a countdown.

It's a countdown.

Trump's presidency.

There's only 1,243 days left.

Five hours, 51 minutes and 24 seconds.

That's awesome.

It's it.

There's confetti all over the place.

Wait,

I suppose

that'll activate once the end

is here.

Oh my

God.

Yeah.

So it's going to be a nice day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It

sounds like it's going to be a nice

day.

It was fun last

night

filling in for beat Schwabba.

Yes.

On the Nightlight program.

Yeah.

We're gonna be there again tonight.

That's right.

We'll have a UFO expert, Greg Sisko.

He's been with us before, but it's been quite some time.

And then you have somebody coming in, a ghost hunter, right?

Yes.

Mitch Gough, he

spent some time in haunted houses.

Is

that

right?

And he'll tell us his experiences,

or at

least, you know, the best.

experience out of all of them.

He's a novelist and he's doing these ghost stories in these ghost hunting.

That's pretty cool.

I think it's pretty cool.

I mean, I've always wanted to do it myself.

And

he's going to be in the studio as well.

So that's going to be even more.

That's going to be

scary.

Who's going

to be in the studio?

Mitch?

Yeah.

He's coming into the studio.

Turns out.

Is he

from our area?

I didn't know he's from here.

I thought he was from

Chicago

or

something.

Yeah, that's what, you know, Conrad was like, hey, he's coming in, so.

Okay,

here we go.

We'll see if that stands, but.

Let's bring some spooky music with us, just in case he starts telling ghost stories.

I have some.

I have some spooky music.

Yeah,

good.

It's a day the Earth stood still music.

So I was going to actually run that underneath a scary story about AI.

And I wanted to tell that story on Petrova's show.

We

might get a chance to

do that.

I'm not sure we'll see tonight.

Yeah, we'll be billing in from six until 8 p.m.

So tune in for that.

Let's see.

A little bit later on, we've got some Brewer tickets to give away.

We're giving away tickets all this week.

Got that happening.

And also our listener appreciation party.

We're all set for that, but that's going to be happening at Doundren's.

If you are one of our winners, you've been notified for the VIP portion of that get together.

And that is happening September, what is it?

September 6th, I believe.

Yes.

So that's good.

Got that going.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway,

man, our poll question's still up.

Yeah.

Still going strong.

That's right.

Thank you for

reminding.

Still going up.

Yeah.

Oh, we just put it up there.

So it's gotta

be on a

second week.

It needs to be.

We

won't even be here on Friday.

Well, we are, but we're taping ahead and that we will still be giving away brewer's tickets.

Yes, we will.

Yes.

Do you support legalizing recreational marijuana?

That's our poll question in has changed.

The answers are A, yes, but I forgot what was the question.

That's at 66.7%.

B, absolutely not unless the price is low enough.

That's 22.2%.

And then only if Trump lowers the price by 200%, that's 11.1% of

our

listeners.

We need a fourth, like none of the above or something.

It looks weird with just three answers there.

I agree.

Yeah, there

should be an answer

there, but

again, if you may have noticed that every answer so far is a yes.

Let's make it legal.

I'm all for a 200% price cut because then you get money back and a little high.

Well, there are dispensaries all up and down State Street every vacant store has been filled with a dispensary Wouldn't it be great

if we could if they were all open this early in the morning We could just

make a

visit to each one of them

kidding this early in the morning.

No way They're not open.

They don't open till 10.

That's true 10 at night.

We're the only ones that are on

State Street right now.

Yeah Okay

Do we have a what, what would you do, what would you rather do than the other thing that we would rather not do?

If we

just could understand.

If I could only understand the open up

state.

There we go.

Would you rather.

Alright, I got some cooking up here, so

get

ready guys.

Alright, first question.

Would you rather be confined in a tight cave for a whole week?

Alright, 24 hours a day, whole week, seven days a week.

In a cave?

In a tight cave.

Very tight cave?

Yes.

Not a whole lot of movement going on.

Okay.

Or fall through an infinite sky for a month.

That sounds fun.

I'm not gonna lie.

Infinite sky sounds fun.

And you know, you

can eat

for a month.

It

does.

It sounds awesome.

I mean that...

You know, I think I think dr. Strange did that in the movies.

So really yeah falling for a long long time Yeah, I guess I'd go with that one.

Yeah, I would like a

cave.

I don't even know why I decided to do that first

He went through a whole bunch of multiverses and he changed in each verse Yeah, I mean he would be affected by all of the different kinds of universes that are out there dr. Strange

Okay, that's why he's strange second question would you rather have seven hundred K a year or Know the location of every shipwreck in the world What's the first one have seven hundred thousand a year make seven hundred

thousand

Drifted away from us.

What's

there's

something in the last night

it bothered me too, and I'm just like Sorry I'm sorry about

that completely distracting

everything Okay, would you rather have 700 K?

Yeah, right off right off the bat right right now or know the location of every shipwreck ever

In the entire world.

Well, I'll take the 700k.

I don't

really care about the

shipwreck.

But there could be 700k in that shipwreck.

Yeah,

but there could be.

You gotta go get it.

Probably won't be.

You have to go get that.

Higher people are going to go down and get it.

That's would you rather?

Yeah,

really?

Yeah, let's get that out of the

way.

Well, yeah, it's good.

It's crazy.

When you listen to the news now, we're getting used to, in fact, normalizing this weird government that we have in place.

The strange people that are in the administration, none of them qualified.

All of them strange.

Crazy people with weird quirks.

Are

you used to it yet?

No, I'm not used to it It's just it's beyond description.

It really is and we're doing it

Just like every day normalizing this craziness that we have to put up with and all the weird ideas and all the bizarre cancellations of things that Society needs that the US needs that the American people need and they're canceling everything and they don't care about anything anymore Wow It just don't know and and then we you know we have you know the

The Megas out there, like CJ and my friend in Milwaukee, and they don't seem upset about it.

They don't see where this is all going to go.

They don't seem to care.

They may be one day in one of those FEMA camps that they're building all over the country.

Right?

Yeah.

They're just happy that liberals are upset.

They're just happy that that's turning our...

the rest of us upside down.

Right.

Right.

They're owning us.

Yeah.

Right.

They're just happy that this day has arrived.

Yeah.

That there's total confusion on our side of the aisle.

I'm going to

use a word here that we're not supposed to use.

What do you say?

I'm going to use.

Oh gosh.

Trigger.

Okay.

You know, that's been banned now by the DNC.

But they're triggering us.

And you know,

Yeah, you probably are, but at the very same time, we're making a good point.

You know, think about

it, you know.

Well, J.B.

Pritzker, Governor of Illinois, standing up to Trump, he's saying, don't come to Chicago.

Just period.

That's it.

Don't come.

Yeah,

we've got.

So there's

pushback happening.

We've got J.D.

by the way.

We've got a cut from him coming up here.

It's

J.B.

for Pritzker.

Oh, yeah, J.B.

Don't get J.B.J.D.

Confused.

Oh, you know,

I was driving in and we were talking about, you know, the president and the vice president, right?

And they say, J.D.

Vance, who's vice president.

What the hell?

Who's vice?

Really?

Is he?

I didn't know that.

Why do they have to describe who JD Vancers in the news?

You know, they did this to the Beatles ad-noising, right?

They did it all the time, right?

What?

Just like Beatles?

John Lennon?

Beatles.

And they always mention, you know, it's, you know, John Paul, George and Ringo.

And the fab four, the mop tops, the lads from Liverpool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The Beatles.

Yeah.

The Beatles.

Yeah.

We know

who you're talking about.

But they

always described them.

And I'm just, well, anyway, now,

now

we're describing JD Vance because we don't know he's the vice president.

I mean, and the other thing that's really bothering me more than anything is, is how all, all the other networks have to qualify their statements.

The stories they're telling us, reporting on, they're saying, we have

This story was reported on MSNBC.

We have not confirmed this story yet.

Right.

They're all doing this.

We haven't confirmed that story yet.

You know why they're doing it?

Because Trump soothes you.

They get sued.

And they're only doing it because Trump is going to sue them.

Yeah.

We're just standing over back.

We're normalizing this crazy stuff.

It is crazy.

It's 19 minutes past the hour.

We're just getting started on this Tuesday morning.

A little bit later on in the show, we're going to talk to Barry Levinson, the curator of the National Mustard Museum, back with more of John Peterson Gordian in just a moment on

Kathryn Lake

WMDX.

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It's all trending right here on WMDX, John and Gordy.

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Yes, we do.

John and Gordy, that's us.

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$50 gift card from Sugar River Pizza.

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So make sure you come back for more chances to win.

You can bookmark that page and enter weekly.

That's wmdxradio.com.

And again, thanks to our friends at Sugar River Pizza.

Yeah.

$50 gift card.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah, I like that.

That's good news.

Good deal.

Yeah.

Okay.

What

do we got here?

What is trending?

You know, I've been

sitting here, you know, kind of venting a little bit trying to get this off my chest.

Yikes.

You know, I was driving into work.

It's a tense moment for me.

I know.

I don't know how you get so wound up first thing in the morning, you know, every each and every day.

It's a new day.

You know, it wiped the slate clean.

Angry blood pressure.

I know skyrockets.

What's bothering me?

I still have a little bit of pain in my jaw from all the crown.

You know, they put in a new crown.

Yeah.

And so

was it was it a steel crown?

Yes.

I've never heard anything like that.

It's a metal crown.

I've never heard they call it metal.

You see it here.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So now you can eat

anything.

You can eat

anything.

I can eat anything before I couldn't eat anything.

Now you can be a villain in a James Bond movie.

Sure.

Yeah, it was fun.

You know, you get the Novocaine shots, you get four or five needles going.

I know that's always nice.

It's an experience.

But, you know, the dentist, well, our friend, Dr. Chris, you know,

Chris Cameron did a terrific job, you know, big thumbs up to everybody involved there.

Well, I'm gonna have to talk about metal crowns.

Well, you get a porcelain crown.

Yeah, those are more expensive.

Yeah, I figure, you know, why go with that?

It's way back in the back of my mouth.

Nobody's gonna see it.

Well, those are more those are pricier

porcelain.

Well, I don't know if what I got as a crown is

Really pricey, but it's a zirconium zirconium.

They're actually yeah instead of those cheap rings that are out there with zirconium Diamonds in them.

I'm wearing one in my mouth So

let's see

open up.

No, you can't see it.

What do you mean?

You can't see it.

It's just it

looks like a tooth It's not clear

But you know, I mean, it's just it's new technology because it's in one of those areas in your mouth that you use to really leverage pressure to crush things up, right?

So you have to have a strong tooth like metal steel like yours and mine is zirconium.

You know, a lot of people don't know this.

If they haven't gotten crowns, this is what happens.

But you know, a lot of people won't be getting crowns, right?

I mean, think about

it.

What

do you

mean?

You know, we were...

Born in an age where they didn't know too much about fixing teeth, you know Yes, that's true and they put big holes in the middle of your tooth and they put fillings in there right and those things eventually died out and you know fell out and yeah, and then your tooth kind of broke up into four pieces That's not the old days.

That's not happening

anymore.

No,

they don't do it like that.

Yeah,

I mean Chris

the rock and roll dentist, he's got a way that you don't even have to drill any of the teeth anymore,

just apply this liquid to it, and

it just, it neutralizes all bacteria, all decay.

Don, when was the last time

you were to the dentist?

Not in a while.

I could have like four cavities, I wouldn't even know.

I've never had a cavity though, before.

I've been very fortunate with that.

Good.

It's great that you're not knocking on wood at that point.

But with this, you know, this Red Bull that I have every morning around.

Is that what

you do, really?

Every morning, just to keep up with the times.

Yeah.

You don't drink coffee?

No.

I don't.

Wow.

So Red Bull tastes better than coffee, huh?

For me, it does, you know.

Help us all.

So is that carbonated?

It is.

Yes, it is.

Okay.

Yep.

Have you never had Red Bull?

No.

Me either.

See, that's our generation.

That's what it is.

Tomorrow,

I'll bring it in tomorrow.

You guys can have a small sip, okay?

And let me know.

Okay.

Can't wait.

All the kids drink it.

What worries me is they drink it and then they drink alcohol.

That's not good, is it?

No, not at all.

It doesn't seem like a healthy thing to do or a smart thing to do.

It's like an upper,

you know, and keeps the alcohol at bay.

You know, last night we were talking about the ads before movies.

Right.

Right.

And I mentioned that my sons know this and they wait till the very last minute so we can leave the house.

And I hate that because then we know time to buy popcorn.

Well, guess what, Mike?

My son was listening

last night

to that particular segment.

Yeah.

So now he hates me and we're not talking.

Sorry to hear that.

I blamed him.

Okay.

That's all right.

Did we ever get anything that was trending or not?

I thought, look, we got the trending thing out of my system early on.

OK.

All right.

All right.

It is 29 past the hour.

The Midwest Food and Farm Report is straight ahead.

Then we'll be back with Idiocracy for this Tuesday, August 26, 2025.

It's John Peterson, Gordy Young, Dom Lee, and the producer chair.

We're coming right back.

Stay with us.

As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point, a dumbing down, until humanity was incapable of solving even its most basic problems.

At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything

that could be considered a rational thought.

Just when I think you couldn't possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this.

We can duck and cover.

There's a fall each other right there.

There's no way to survive this, you idiot!

Idiocracy.

For the smartest guy in the world, you're pretty dumb sometimes.

This is like COVID, you know, we, uh, we hope we can survive the next three and a half years.

Right?

Yeah, with no vaccines.

Wow.

I don't know.

WMDX 92.7.

Only 1,243 days to go.

the Trump administration.

I know it's a great screen saver.

Keep that one.

Yeah, Andy.

Um, yeah, it is 6 36.

It's 50 degrees.

A chilly start this morning, a little cool out there, but we'll get into the upper sixties.

Again, beautiful sunshine all day long.

We got some texts coming in here, John.

Yes.

Uh, let's go to Mark here.

He, uh, texted amazing how the right was always complaining about government ownership of companies and industry, calling it communism, socialism.

Yes, that is amazing.

Now.

that it's Trump and MAGA, national socialism, aka fascism, that kind of ownership is just fine.

Even if it enriches Trump.

Oh my God, I have a story here about that too.

Boy, he's getting rich.

He

is really, he's making the

money.

That's all, that's what it's all about.

In fact, like he's doing,

investments that he starts off and everybody's invests and then he sells immediately.

He makes all the money, he leaves everybody to, you know.

Just fend for themselves.

Fend for themselves.

Okay, now let's get to- Well, we got another comment here from Mark.

Oh, we do.

He said, I want Trump to be in a little cave, a duplicate of the cell of little E's from the Tower of London.

All right.

We were talking about getting stuck in a cave.

And there's something one below that one, yeah.

Oh, Steve, Steve from Mount Horrib.

You're

filling, you're metal filling.

Well, it's not filling, it's a crown.

Oh, that's a crown.

Steve says from Mount Horrib, more prone to get struck by lightning with metal in your mouth.

Okay.

Well, yeah.

That's true.

What would Gordy out there as a lightning rod?

Look out.

Well, you know when they had brace, you know braces used to always be metal.

Yeah, they still do that, I guess.

Yeah, they do actually.

But now it's gone all to Invisalign and those kind of things which is much much nicer much nicer and not as painful.

I'm sure yeah participants Okay,

well, let's get to the Yeah

outrage that

I have actually saved here.

Okay.

You might have heard about this already the Trump administration is reviewing all

55 million foreigners in the country with US visas, and they're looking for any violation whatsoever.

55 million people who have valid US visas.

If they have one violation, they're out of here.

Wow.

This shows just how

friendly a nation we are.

How much of a cost is it to look through 55 million pieces?

Who's doing that?

They fired all the federal workers that would do those kind of things.

I don't think they're saving any money.

No.

Honestly, I do not think that.

What?

What?

Do you lose the story?

I want a story here.

This is one of the great stories of all time.

And that

is,

you know, they're painting the border wall.

They're

painting it black.

You know, I don't even have to look at the story.

But they're painting the border wall black, right?

To make it

hot.

And, you know, they've got rollers, right?

They've never heard of spray painters.

But

anyway, I thought immediately, by the time they're done painting the border wall black,

They'll have to go to the beginning where they started painting because it'll be peeling off by that time.

I mean, you know, it's not good to paint anything nowadays.

That's why they have vinyl siding on houses.

You don't want to paint.

So they're painting this and it's just going to peel off and look like hell.

And the story that I read was even funnier.

The fact is they can't let the paint.

Doesn't stick to

the border

wall

perfect

because it's rusty Oh, so they it's

dirty.

They haven't cleaned

they know they haven't prepared the service They

haven't put a primer on so the paint isn't even gonna stick to them somebody from Sherwin

Williams to go down there and assess the situation Well,

my comment was that you know wasn't there one at least one home handyman anywhere in the group of people deciding this

This is just outrageous.

Yes.

So

I

know.

Imagine the money they're gonna spend on just painting something where the paint is gonna peel off.

Yeah.

Oh my god.

What is wrong?

Okay, that's the story really.

I wanted to find that

thing.

I was

just

holding that in.

Let's take them forever to

do it.

I mean, right?

It's going to take them forever.

I think they're still going to use the rollers of their paintbrush, like Christy Nome was.

Yeah.

I mean, really?

Seriously?

Oh, she is such a poser.

My God.

And then they're not even priming the surface.

And they'll be back at it again in two years, maybe a year.

and they'll be painting it all over again and we'll be spending millions and millions of dollars dollars that could go to feed the kids paint for school maybe some cancer research

yes why are they even doing this why are they paint

what's what's the goal here well what i heard was that it makes the the the wall even hotter so somebody wanted to climb the wall oh it's it's too hot to even do that

Because it's black.

It absorbs the heat.

It doesn't cool off.

It doesn't cool off at

all.

It's such a stupid thing.

Honestly, God, we have to sit here and watch this kind of stuff for three and a half more years.

Oh, OK.

Take a breath.

And

now, you know, we're going to spend.

a whole lot of money checking the backgrounds of 55 million foreigners in this country.

Yeah.

Oh my God, please.

Oh, um, all right,

anyway, we

got there.

All right, let's move on to the next story.

Are you sure?

Yeah, I

think this is something I've been hoping to tell everybody.

OK.

This is from Bloomberg News.

They wrote, Trump declared a federal takeover of DC's law enforcement.

He framed it as an emergency order to crack down on crime and disorder.

But the broader vision for the aesthetic transformation of the US Capitol is a warning.

He promised to clean up the city by removing homeless encampments and graffiti and he talked about grandiose projects like his plan to build a new golden ballroom in the White House.

Well, Trump's twin obsessions with crime and ornament hark back to the gilded age movement known as City Beautiful in the

1890.

City beautiful.

City beautiful.

This was a big thing in the 1890s.

Urban reformers sought to reshape major U.S.

city centers, often raising poor and black communities to make way for gleaming gardens and plazas.

This is what he's planning on doing.

In the south, urban beautification came hand in hand with building memorials to the Confederacy.

Aha, the statues.

Trump's gilded age design style is gaudy.

Gilded figurines, plump cherubs were literally applied to every wall and surface in the presidential workspace, which is, have you seen pictures of that?

It just

keeps going.

They keep adding more and more gold crap to the walls,

yeah?

Yeah, one term used to describe this excess of guilt and glitter is Rococo.

An elaborate design style associated with pre-revolutionary France in the New York Times Emily Keegan called the new oval office a gilded rococo hellscape Wow, yeah, well Kate Wagner like it.

No Kate Wagner of the blog McMansion hell

Mark

these

down, visit them sometime soon.

Dub the presidential look, regional car dealership Rococo.

The row of gold urns along the mantle look less like a trove of priceless antiques than a set of beauty pageant trophies lined up for sale on eBay.

Oh man, it's getting ripped by the...

And if you check the

fashion people,

if you check YouTube, you can

see

the Rococo art right there.

That's kind

of what it

would

be.

That's

what it would look like.

Yeah.

But it's artistic.

Way back then, it was artistic.

It's just gaudy,

ugly.

It's really horrible.

It makes it, you know, be putting plastic covers over the couches.

You know, this...

So

they call that style Rococo.

Remember Rocky Rococo?

Yes, Rocky Rococo.

Jim Peterson.

He's

a great guy.

Italian and French, right?

Yes.

I mean, Rococo is a French term.

Ah, okay.

So...

Is it

really?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

But anyway... I missed that part, I guess.

Well, there's so

much to this

editorial for.

I know, for the words on this.

You know, I was thinking maybe the John and Gordy plates.

If we could

have

gilded plates, you know, just at least on the edges.

Okay,

John, good idea.

The anniversary collection.

That's right, our 500th episode is coming up in a couple of weeks.

Yeah, we should have something special for that.

The gilded plates.

We can always put them over the

mantle and take a picture and then send it to

us or at

least post it on Facebook.

That's good.

Thank you.

Must be a hell to have to clean up in the Oval Office, you know, every day on all that.

All that.

Okay.

The dust getting

inside

the group.

I know.

Yeah.

Hell for

the

cleanup crew.

You know, it's funny.

I was listening to Maddow last night and she was talking about how when Trump fires everybody, they are not kicked out of the

White House, they're not kicked out of the administration.

They become ambassadors.

All of them become ambassadors and he's found a way to keep them silent.

Still pay them,

let

them travel the globe

and they won't

say anything negative or write any books about the administration and the debacle that we're watching before our very

eyes.

Right.

Just send them

overseas somewhere.

Yeah.

What a plan.

That's great.

All right Boy,

I have time for another one

here.

You do yeah

Got

a couple of minutes.

All

right.

Here is the CBO and this is bad news Again, we brought this story up earlier CBO confirms GOP budget law the big bad bill will trigger

$500 billion in Medicare cuts.

Now they've confirmed this.

We reported last time and they were thinking that it was going to do that.

They've confirmed it now.

They're telling us all the obvious, of course, that they have to make these cuts.

Republicans knew their tax breaks for billionaires would force over a half trillion dollars in Medicare cuts.

They knew this.

They were warned by the CBO that this was a possibility.

Now the CBO has confirmed it and, well, will be left.

with the

huge with a

stripped down version of Medicare.

Yeah.

God.

I'm not looking forward to that.

Wow.

That's awful news.

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

It is 648.

And we have sunshine today highs in the upper sixties.

We'll come back with more of John and Gordy in the morning on WMDX.

Give us a call.

Phone lines are open.

608-879-8255 or text us on the Civic Media app.

Coming right back.

Kathryn Lake

You're listening to Civic Media.

You're

right, Christy Nome.

652, Stranagordy on 92.7 WMDX, downtown Madison looking bright and sunny.

In fact, it's nice and clear all across southern Wisconsin, highs today in the upper 60s, right now 51 degrees.

Yeah.

Yeah, we're playing, playing painted black by the stones, talking about the wall.

Needs to coat a paint.

Yes, right?

Oh, dude.

They want to paint it black.

Do they have a great idea or what make it too hot to even touch the wall?

Yes, right?

Why don't you just electrify it, right?

Well, that might cost a lot of money to just all the wiring involved and power.

Yeah, electricity.

Yeah, cables running everywhere.

Well, you know,

But you know bringing it, you know Good idea to bring to the table.

Why didn't they think of that?

Yeah in the

beginning You know they're talking now about the government Making just enough money to help pay a little bit for those tax cuts for the wealthy and Of course, you know, these are tariff dollars and these tariff dollars are paid for a pay by us rather Yeah, so I don't see a real deal in this at all

You know they're really they're really selling this stuff

and

people are just like you know okay all right you know this whole thing is this house of cards is gonna collapse and No one's

gonna be

surprised right John Deere is laying off 238 workers at three factories in Iowa the company's a terrace and lower commodity prices are to blame tariff costs in the quarter

We're approximately 200 million dollars, which brings John Deere to roughly 300 million dollars in tariff expenses to this day.

So they're having a hard time making ends meet John Deere So you look American companies and consumers are paying the price this

This is who's picking up the tab.

And every time Trump goes out there and says, oh, we're making so much money in tariffs.

This is incredible.

The government's going to be running on, you know, high for a long time.

No, it's our money.

We're paying this.

It is our money.

Well,

I'm just, you know.

We got another text here, John, on the painting of the wall.

This is from Gary in Madison.

He says, keep in mind that they can only paint the north side.

That is the cooler side that doesn't receive much sunlight.

And we've got Troy on the line here.

Good morning, Troy.

What's on your mind?

Go ahead.

Yeah, electrifying that fence instead of painting it isn't performative.

Yeah, that's right.

They can't do that on their own

for the TV cameras and stuff.

That's true.

That's true.

Oh, thanks, Gary.

Oh, that's

Troy.

No, Troy.

Here's the thing.

I want to bring this up.

You just brought it up, and that is paint the north side.

Right.

They can only paint the north side.

Yeah.

So the side where everybody would be climbing over would still be cool and not hot.

So it really doesn't make any sense at all.

painted.

What a great point.

I didn't even occur to me.

Now I talked about how crazy this whole administration is, you know, the nuttiest people are running this country at this point.

This is from MSNBC.

This is cut 193.

And it's called the far right agenda has taken over.

So it's become mainstream.

Let's listen.

Okay.

The far right has moved from the fringes directly into the halls of government itself.

The New York Times dropped this explosive new report calling out by name members of the Trump administration who expressed opinions that would probably get most people fired, like Darren Beatty, who previously wrote on social media, quote, competent white men must be in charge.

Unfortunately, our national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities and demonizing

moralizing, competent white men.

He's now a State Department employee and head of the US Institute for Peace.

And Paul Ingrassia, who has posted on social media, quote, exceptional white men are not only the builders of Western civilization, but are the ones most capable of appreciating the fruits of our heritage.

He is now Trump's pick to lead the Office of Special Counsel.

And Kingsley Wilson, who said, quote, the great replacement theory isn't a right-wing conspiracy theory.

It's reality.

She's now the Pentagon press secretary.

Yeah.

Yeah, they've got some real quality people in

there.

Oh, man.

Yeah, it's crazy.

It

really is.

And Gary, we got to give Gary credit.

He's the guy who came up with the painting in the north side, but not the south side of the fence.

I

get it.

I

get it.

Oh, man.

All right.

Well, let's get to this.

I think we have time for this.

A

couple of minutes here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is a preacher that really likes Trump an awful lot.

I just thought maybe we'd get to this.

Cut 194.

The crowd had no problem with a thrice married real estate developer.

Really?

Let's listen to this.

And the Lord raised up a thrice-married New York real estate developer to show American Christians what manhood and warrior courage looks like.

What?

There's somehow that all ties together in his mind.

But anyway, yes, sell that thrice-married real estate developer, please, if you can.

And you heard that.

They're clapping.

They're cheering.

I know.

Yeah.

So, you know, I guess, you know, for Catholics, you're not supposed to get divorced, right?

That's yeah.

We have Joe and we don't, well, Joe, Joe, go ahead.

We got a quick minute here.

Yeah.

Oh, well, it really doesn't need much more than that in the sense that this wall indicates anybody who's ever painted would tell you.

Boy, this does not sound good.

You don't want to scrape it first.

Boy, this doesn't sound good.

You're only doing one side.

Boy, this is going to cost.

Who's going to pay for this?

Who's going to do it?

And finally, I think it does really illustrate what was the term, competent white men.

Yeah.

Thank you so much, Joe.

Appreciate that.

$6.59.

got news straight ahead and in our next hour we're going to talk to Barry Levinson the curator of the National Mustard Museum that's coming up as well as your chance to win brewery tickets on John and Gordy in the morning WMDX Madison.

Kathryn Lake

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