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That's them.
Coffee.
Coffee.
Drinking lots and lots of coffee.
That's John Peterson.
I'm Gordy Young, along with Dominic Lee, our producer, and Matt Rothschild.
Still with us.
Yes.
And we've got a lot more to talk about.
Seven minutes past the hour.
clouds around the area today and maybe a couple of sprinkles here and there and highs just into the low to mid 60s going to stay nice and cool for today.
that?
Well, I mean, what's your take?
You know, every day it's something new, isn't it here?
I mean, it's just you don't want to wake up in the morning to see what horror Donald Trump has committed overnight.
And so
Yeah, I mean, he's acting like he can just go bomb any country, anytime, anywhere.
And take his
Well, this is the thing, you know, every time the United States or Israel, for that matter, attacks, it's always, oh, we got terrorists.
Yeah.
You don't hear about, you know, any civilians who are killed.
They're all terrorists.
Yeah.
And so it's it's just kind of horrifying.
But it's part what we're watching with Trump here is just part of this authoritarianism, part of this fascist.
leader who disregards laws, disregards the Constitution, is tearing things up left and right at a speed that even scholars of authoritarianism are shocked
Yeah, I was reading, sorry to interrupt, I was reading something by New York University scholar, Ruth Ben-Gee, who wrote the book Strong Men.
And she said, she is amazed at how fast this has gone compared to what Putin did for instance, even Putin didn't go this fast once he came into power.
And
Yeah, but he's always wanted to be a dictator, though, Trump.
So he's always fantasized about, you know, during the first term, you're saying about G of China.
He's president for life.
Wouldn't that be neat if that happened here?
So he's always been having this fantasy.
And he used the word dictator last week saying, well, some people think we should have a dictator.
It'd be good if we had a dictator.
It's just kind of warming the public up for what might be coming.
Well, the police union in Milwaukee is a right-wing union.
You know, they endorsed Trump.
Yeah.
You know, they've been the most reactionary group in the police unions in Wisconsin.
So it wasn't a shock to me.
It was pretty horrifying, though.
The mayor wasn't happy about it.
No.
you
You know, I'm scared to death about how this is gonna unfold whether it's in Chicago or whether it's in DC I think Before too long we're gonna have another Kent State in the United States that at some point the National Guard or ice or the military units that Trump is calling up will end up firing on US citizens and People are gonna die and and then what happens?
There'll be mass protests and what happens after that Trump will invoke the insurrection act
and will be under martial law.
So it's a real scary moment for our democracy.
You can't really exaggerate the threat that Donald Trump poses to us.
And I'm just hoping people who, you know, may have voted for Trump because they want a tax break, or they thought the economy was going to be better, or they said during his first term, oh, it wasn't all that bad.
How bad can it get?
We're seeing how bad it can get, right?
And I'm hoping some of those folks are going to come around.
And we do need.
nonviolent protest.
That's really important.
Well, I was thinking way back when, you know, maybe blockading the city, you know, it seems like Governor Pritzker would do something like that.
He definitely said he would protect everybody in Chicago to the end.
And I was thinking, Jesus, wouldn't they put a blockades and not allow the military, the National Guard from other areas to come into their city?
Wouldn't
that
be
war?
I mean, it's a crazy.
thing to contemplate that you've had, you'd have armed folks from the federal government facing off against armed folks from the local or state government.
Yes.
And not even civilians, which might happen too.
In Chicago, for
right.
So it's just, it's really getting way beyond the scary point right now.
Mr. President, do not come to Chicago.
Earlier today in the Oval Office, Donald Trump looked at the assembled cameras and asked for me personally to say, Mr. President, can you do us the honor of protecting our city?
I say,
Mr. President, do not come to Chicago.
You are neither wanted here nor needed here.
Hopefully the president will reconsider this dangerous and misguided encroachment upon our state and our city's sovereignty.
If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me, not time or political circumstance, from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law.
carrying out the orders.
But it might be easier with the people below Trump than Trump, because that horrible U.S.
Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity.
I mean, Chief Justice Roberts, along with Senator Mitch McConnell, are going to go down as the real villains of the story that's unfolding right before our eyes, because both of them could have stopped Trump.
And I think...
Wouldn't you think that if the Democrats at least went on the offensive and did threaten?
to go after the people who are going along with this, the appeasers, that maybe this would stop that or at least put some roadblocks in place by those people who are really worried about maybe, you know, being prosecuted some day for going
along with what Trump has ordered?
Except I don't think they have that fear right now because Trump has so much power and he would just issue pardons to Stephen Miller or whoever is the executive of all
Interesting.
Yeah, I'm very worried about what Trump's doing to try to tilt the election in 2026 in his favor, you know, all, you know, saying you can't have mail-in ballots and needing national voting ID, things, all this stuff.
I mean, that Scott Walker kind of previewed for us all back in 2011.
And so, yeah, I mean, it wouldn't surprise, nothing he
And what I've read was that violent crime is higher in Republican run cities and states than they are in Democratic run cities and states.
And yeah, we have a national problem.
My partisan
Thanks
I have a list of those cities.
Why not send the National Guard into Jackson, Mississippi?
72 out of 72% out of 100,000, 72% violent crimes.
Birmingham, Alabama, St.
Louis, Missouri, Memphis, Tennessee.
New Orleans, Louisiana.
And I mean, you know, way down on the list is Chicago and Los Angeles.
So they're actually just going after liberal cities.
And Trump has been pretty upfront about admitting that.
Yeah.
And it's a fact-free zone.
You know, we can say crime is up in D.C.
when it's at a 30-year low.
I mean, he doesn't care about the facts.
He just cares about the show and the show of force.
and him, you know, being the dominant person on your television
that pathological narcissist that you can read about.
Talking with Matt Rothschild here and Matt, what do you think about Gavin Newsom's pushback to all this?
I mean, he's been on a lot of social media mocking the way that Trump uses social media and going right after it and just saying, you know, don't come back to it.
I mean, this is
wrong and he's pushed back every step of the way.
Yeah, I think the trolling has been beautiful and
under Trump's skin.
The defiance is what we need.
The only thing I disagree with Governor Newsom in on is gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering is wrong whether Democrats do it or Republicans do it.
I don't want to see Democrats doing it right now in response to what's going on in Texas.
I think it turns off everyone but a diehard Democrat because they're going to look at this and say
Wow, the Democrats are as corrupt and dirty as the Republicans, to hell with both of them.
Well, here's the thing, and I disagree with you on that, and I think we have to fight fire with fire.
I've always said that, and my wife has always argued with me about doing that, at least picking up some of what they do.
They have a very offensive party.
But at the same time, I think that we have to do things like that, especially in this particular case, this one instance.
I think we have to do something like that because they are just going to steamroll us.
And we have to at least, you know, at least gerrymander the difference is that the Democratic Party wants to do away with gerrymandering completely.
They do not.
That's always something that we should we should stress when we're arguing this whole point where, well, you know, Illinois is.
is really gerrymandering, well, they want to get rid of gerrymandering.
We want to.
That's a hard sell, John.
It's a hard sell.
Democrats are against gerrymandering, but we're going to gerrymandering.
Democrats in Illinois are against gerrymandering because they've already gerrymandered.
No, I understand the rationale.
I just think you're not convincing folks, except those who are already deeply in your...
camp and what we need to do is convince people who aren't in our camp right now about the danger that Trump poses.
Well I just thought if we
emphasized the fact that we would we do want to do away with gerrymandering in this in many states we have done away with it and it proves our case and I think that's one way of you know saying look we'll go back to getting rid of gerrymandering once we take care of this problem of being defeated in Congress because we didn't
Yeah, but I think outsiders are going to say, yeah, right.
Well, I'm not convincing you.
I know that.
Matt,
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started.
Is that what you believe?
Okay.
Hey, let's get a weather check and see what's going on around our area.
We had some showers overnight and I don't know if we are in for maybe a little bit more of that.
Let's check in with WMDX meteorologist Brittany Merloge.
Good morning, Brittany.
What do you think?
Good
morning, guys.
going this morning?
Good.
same here woke me up the
rolled got out of bed i'm like darn it this is too early it
but yeah we still got a few more headed our way right now we've got some showers and thunderstorms in the area working its way towards you it'll be mostly cloudy today temperature is not changing much you're at 64 degrees right now you're only going to make it to 67 today so just a few degrees then we crash tonight down to about 40
So, stuck with the breezy conditions after that tomorrow, but the sun will be out tomorrow.
Highs at about 65 degrees, more rain rolls in late tomorrow, and then we stay dry Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Still cooler in the low 60s Friday, mid 60s Saturday, and Sunday, and back to 70 degrees by Monday.
go to tomorrow a few of
Are
It's an afternoon
Okay.
Okay.
Good stuff.
Yep.
Rain's gonna hold off until like 11 o'clock at night.
So you are good to go.
still be breezy in the morning, but those winds will die down by the afternoon highs in the mid-60s.
Nice and sunny.
Nothing but sunshine.
I am.
the flannel, probably.
Mid-60s, flannel, rather.
Yeah, death of flannel.
right,
course.
We can't be storming.
I can't get questioned.
Um, just thanks so much for that interview with Matt Rothschild.
He is a, um, he's a state treasurer.
Absolutely.
And I think it was so interesting that he was on today because talking about what Scott Walker had done is sort of mini Trump seem to be maxi Trump, um, that we're living through now.
Um, and it's, you know, the old line is the past is prelude.
And I would argue that prelude is happening.
Um, pretty, um, uh, hot and heavy today.
There is a media.
that's happening.
It's a bipartisan one with Representative Ro Khanna from the Democratic side and Representative Thomas Massey from the Republican side who are co-sponsors of a bill called the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
They want to release the Epstein Files.
At 1030 today, they're having a group of women and maybe as many as 100 who are victims of Epstein.
And so this is a big day in terms of getting some attention back on probably one of the most important points, which is Epstein.
What happened?
They were on the files around Pam Bondi's desk.
No, they didn't exist.
Then we had FBI employees spending how many hours taking out Trump's names out of the non-existent files.
So anyway, that is happening today.
The guy is so petty.
I don't know if this has been confirmed or not, but there are suggestions that the military has
Um, suddenly had a planned flyover Washington DC during the time that these women are going to be speaking.
So, um, you know, anything to shut them all that's
Yeah.
But it's perfect.
Isn't that perfect?
So I think today will be a high day of distraction,
um,
in terms of trying to keep attention away from these women who are bravely standing up.
It's a tough place to be.
It's a very tough place for them to be.
And I applaud their courage and I hope the rest of us.
listen to what they have to say.
Yeah.
Thank you guys.
Yeah.
Thank you.
All right.
And I always think of the video of the testimony of these young girls.
Right.
That were never used because they were threatened and they withdrew any kind of charges against Trump.
But that stuff is so clear.
It's so clearly.
Trump they you know they were talking about him and what had gone on and that's this is the kind of guy he is you know this is this was testimony that they didn't eventually you know follow through with but it's testimony nevertheless it's proof on video I've watched it it's just amazing stuff and it's good to see that all these victims are coming out today to talk about it
guys, um two things first one.
I'll piggyback off of Joe I am shocked that that they didn't blow up more than one boat yesterday I wouldn't be surprised if there's not another boat blown up before this press conference with these women Girls and Trump was there.
He knew all about it You don't have that many pictures and videos of him with Epstein and and he wasn't part of that whole
pedophile ring.
And the second thing is, I understand Matt's point, but I think that's one of the reasons why Democrat, their numbers are so low is because we don't fight back.
We allow them to slap us in the face and we take it and we need to fight back.
right.
point,
Our listeners, if they're listening right now, do that.
Order them online.
We'll meet you at our seats.
What's the app that you use for that ballpark?
Ballpark app, I think.
I think it's called ballpark, yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
We had a text here from Tom about the listener appreciation party that's happening at Doundrens Distilling on Saturday.
He wants to know, do you have any time details on that?
Yes, that starts at three o'clock.
Tom, three o'clock is the start time at Doundrens Distilling for our WMDX listener appreciation party.
Okay.
All right, let's get to Mike McCabe.
Good morning, Mike.
Good morning.
Good to have you with us.
We have you with us just about every Wednesday.
So good to see you again.
guessing he took the elevator and I took the stairs,
I was listening to you guys talking with him on the on the way on the way into the studio.
And I thought I thought maybe I would bump into him.
But but no,
you know, this thing, you know, where Trump wants to go into these cities because they're just out of control too much crime.
The crime is actually a gun problem.
And it's just an avoidance issue for them, you know, bringing into the National Guard.
It's all a side.
track.
It's all distracting us from the actual problem of guns being the problem.
And we had that recent shooting in Minnesota, you know, the two children killed in a Christian school.
And by the way, the shooter is, you know, like
He had every reason in the world that he wanted to go and shoot somebody.
He was against everything.
I mean, you can't nail him as a left or right person.
He had every one of the reasons why he wanted to go out and shoot somebody.
And that was the crazy part.
And they call him transgender as well.
And he's not really truly transgender.
He just was kind of curious about having some other way of referencing himself.
But that was it.
You know, so it isn't like another transgender individual going out there shooting people, which is, you know, another stereotype that the right wing would like to at least implant in our brains.
It's not true, of course.
But what do you think about your latest substack is in regards to these shootings?
Yeah, I, you know, just yesterday, I was talking to someone I've known for years and much to my surprise, find out that she actually went to that school.
as a child and has a close connection to that school.
And then I also heard from somebody, another longtime acquaintance who knows the family of one of the children who
was
killed and particularly has a close connection to the grandparents.
So here in Wisconsin, there are people for whom this hits really close to home because these are
these are personal connections.
But to me, that's the thing that our society has to come to terms with.
It's like people in America are taking a calculated risk that these things happen, but it won't happen at my child's school or in our church.
it'll be somebody else.
And so we rationalize this continued unwillingness to deal with the fact that we allow people to go in and readily purchase, easily purchase weapons that are only designed to kill large numbers of people.
And armor piercing bullets.
30 round magazines so that you can fire off a couple of dozen shots in a matter of a couple of seconds.
But our society still keeps rationalizing, and the politicians, of course, reflect this.
They offer their thoughts and prayers, but they offer no action.
But we've got a society-wide problem here that is at the root of the gun problem that we have, and it's this
this fact that America is armed to the teeth, we have had hundreds of millions of guns in this country, and people want it that way.
They want to be
heavily armed for whatever reason whatever they're scared of I don't know but it sure isn't just to go hunting because there's just no and I mentioned this in the article if you do if you need if you need an assault weapon that can fire off 30 rounds in a matter of seconds to kill a deer you're a you're a miserable hunter
you
are no darn good at it and you really should get out of the get out of the woods but you know it people people
want to be heavily armed.
And that's the cultural problem that we have to come to terms with if we're ever gonna solve this.
And every other nation in the world doesn't have the same problem that we have with all of these mass shootings and killings in movie theaters and churches and schools.
It's a uniquely American problem.
right
so I don't know why we can't regulate all of the paraphernalia and all the extras that go with firearms Why can't we regulate that stuff?
It doesn't prevent somebody from owning a firearm, which they're there.
That's their argument Yeah, it doesn't stop them.
Why can't we regulate this stuff?
You know, I remember hearing Tom Hartman mentioned at the end of a little
that he had about guns, and that is that some countries require a insurance policy.
And I just thought, wow, having private industry regulate guns would be a great way to do it, because they're not gonna give an insurance policy
to
risk.
There's nothing inconsistent with the Second Amendment and requiring gun owners to be licensed.
and guns to be registered and have an insurance policy, a liability insurance for gun owners in case something bad happens.
None of that is inconsistent with the Second Amendment.
The Second Amendment, those who believe that we should be free to bear arms, how extreme do you take that position?
Does it extend to...
weapons of mass destruction, should you be able to possess nuclear weapons because you have a Second Amendment, right?
That's preposterous, but that's just how ridiculous this debate has become.
Of course, it's no violation or infringement on the Second Amendment to say that you shouldn't be able to have a 30-round magazine.
to fire off all these rounds and that the bullet,
it's
not an infringement on the Second Amendment to say they shouldn't be armor piercing.
And you shouldn't be able to have a military-style assault weapon, which is only, its only purpose is to kill people and
large
numbers of people.
But there's a cultural unwillingness to grapple with the
with what's at the root of this problem.
down.
down.
And then when the assault weapons ban was lifted
They went up.
There was a huge spike, well over 100% spike in mass killing.
Why can't we
And you know, the reality again is that America is armed to the teeth and likes it that way.
And that's what we have to come to terms with is the cultural underpinnings of this problem.
No constitutional right is absolute.
The First Amendment is not an absolute right.
There are things you can't say.
And there are circumstances when you can't say certain things.
And that doesn't mean we don't have the right to free speech in this country.
it means that we have certain guardrails in place.
There are certain limits placed on the exercise of that right.
Why is the Second Amendment the only amendment that's immune from that logic?
Why do we allow this argument to be
To be foisted on us that the Second Amendment somehow means that there can be absolutely no limit of any kind.
There can be no constraint on the exercise of that right.
That is preposterous.
And that's America.
that's done.
And some people lose their voting rights.
do lose
Exactly.
And a
you know... And you have to show photo ID in order to exercise that.
A little
Well, there's a long list of reasons why I wouldn't run
that.
But I was candidate for governor in 2018.
And during that campaign, I took the position that there should be at least 16 steps taken.
to promote gun safety and deal with gun violence.
And none of those steps were an infringement on the Second Amendment.
But they created limits, reasonable and responsible common sense limits on gun ownership and gun use.
And I had people accusing me of trying to ban hunting.
And
they?
Bump stocks are simply a device that can turn an ordinary weapon into a semi-automatic weapon, a weapon of mass destruction.
And nobody needs a bump stock to go hunting.
Nobody
needs a 30-round magazine.
Nobody needs a military-style assault weapon.
All of these laws would be not only reasonable and responsible, but they would substantially reduce the likelihood of these mass shootings.
And when even one of these steps was taken by our country, mass killings dropped, and they dropped pretty dramatically.
And then when that law was repealed, they spiked again.
And I took 16 steps, not one, but 16.
And of course, the gun rights advocates wanted nothing to do with it.
But it also didn't lead to significant support for a campaign.
And that says a lot about our culture.
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You know, I say, guns are the problem.
And he comes back with, no, we have to change the hearts and minds.
people.
We can't take their guns away but if we can change their hearts and minds and then of course my comeback now is where are those individuals changing the hearts and minds?
Is that something the legislature put together?
Is that Congress?
Have they got those groups out there working to change the hearts and minds of people?
Of course not.
There's no one out there changing the hearts and minds of anybody.
That's their excuse.
And if there's somebody with such a warped mind and such a hardened heart that hates so much that they're willing to go into a Catholic school or church and shoot at children who are sitting in pews, why on earth would we want those people to have guns?
People are the problem like the gun at rights advocates always like to say exactly that it's it's not the guns It's the people but if they're
people that disturbed, why would we possibly want them to be able to own firearms?
And they
If we just work on a little bit again, there's no congressional legislation or laws and groups put together to go out there and fan our cities and try to change everybody's hearts and mind.
There's nothing like that out there.
So it's just an empty rhetorical
actually watching their morning news this morning when I got up.
Yeah.
And one of the victims now has had half of her skull removed.
Wow.
And she may or may not make it.
So there may be more than two children die out of this.
But, you know, and, you know, the vice president is coming into, you know, to Minneapolis today.
And so I, you know, he's been writing about this.
He's a news producer
at one
of the network affiliates in the Twin Cities.
And he's been writing about this since the incident occurred and then in all the aftermath.
And, you know, it's been a tough last few days for him, for sure.
I'm sure, yeah.
Just to...
to see it and see the footage.
And you know this, people in newsrooms see a lot of stuff that the public never sees because of the graphic nature of it.
And it's been a rough few days for
And there's footage that footage
never see that you don't want to show people Right and nobody should have to see right or at least that's that's our society's view of it But man sometimes I got to tell you sometimes I think maybe we should just have to see it
Because maybe that would be part of what would change some hearts and minds,
Right.
And remember the decision that Emmett Till's mother made, deciding to have an open casket so that people would see what was done to her son.
Right.
And that had to have been an excruciating choice for a mother to make, but that's the choice she happened to make.
I think a lot of mothers would not have done that, but she did.
And yeah, people don't understand when there were 17 people injured in addition to the two children killed, people don't realize the severity of those injuries.
those weapons due to the human body.
Yes.
We
Yeah.
But they have their interest for many years.
But yeah, just this morning, it was reported that one of the victims had half of her skull removed because the swelling on her brain was so severe.
And some of the wounds to extremities are just horrendous.
But the victims will survive because they're just wounds to arms
legs.
But
and the emotional damage to them as well.
Michael, you have
That deals with
And better than red flag laws.
And red flag laws were one of the 16 steps that I suggested for Wisconsin.
But I don't think that it's not enough to put that.
pressure on families to report, to sort of self-report.
There needs to be a really comprehensive response
There's no one law that will make all the difference.
That's why I thought that there needed to be 16 steps.
And I thought they were all reasonable steps and they were all within the confines of any reasonable interpretation of a constitutional right.
But then you have people, like I said, who just don't think that there can be any
any kind of guardrail put up with respect to the
got a number of things coming up this month, but one of them is local on the 27th of Saturday at 10 o'clock.
I'm going to be part of an author showcase at Wanna Keep Public Library.
So if people want to meet some local authors and me included.
Saturday?
No, it's Saturday the 27th.
So toward the end of the month.
Okay.
Saturday the 27th at 10 a.m.
keep public library.
Go to the sub-stack anytime.
That's gonna do it for us coming up tomorrow Paul Fanlin from the Capitol Times Publisher there talking about idea fest also Tim Slecker joins us They'll do it for us Stephanie Miller is next John.
Have a good day.
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