transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Hattaday presents, in the red corner, the undisputed, undefeated Weed Whacker Guide. Champion of hurling grass and pollen everywhere. And in the blue corner, the challenger, extra strength, Hattaday. Eye drops that work all day to prevent the release of histamines that cause itchy, allergy eyes. And the winner by knockout is Hattaday. Hattaday, bring it on.

Speaker 2:
[00:35] Westwood One presents At Night. Here's your host, McGraw Milhaven.

Speaker 3:
[00:43] Jump right into it. We got lots to get to tonight, including the story of capitalism and the Muppets. We'll talk about that in hour number two, not to mention open phones. But this first hour, there's been a lot of talk about vaccines over the last couple of months and the last couple of years. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was testifying in front of Congress earlier this week. And we thought we had a chance to talk with Heather Simpson. Heather Simpson was once the poster child for the anti-vax movement. Today, she has started an organization called Back to the Vax. It's a movement and a support network for parents who are transitioning from vaccine hesitancy to evidence-based medicine. Heather Simpson, welcome to At Night.

Speaker 4:
[01:34] Hi, thank you so much for having me on.

Speaker 3:
[01:37] You got it. Let's start in the beginning. When did you start to question vaccines and how bad was it? Did you, let's start there. When did you start to question your doctors and your pediatricians and the efficacy of vaccines?

Speaker 4:
[01:52] I was looking at trying to start a family with my ex-husband and we figured we need to keep our future children alive and that's going to involve medical decisions and vaccines. It was like the Internet read our minds and we saw an ad for a nine-hour docu-series about vaccines. It promised to have both sides, the pro and the con for the anti-side. It was basically just anti, but we watched all nine hours. We didn't know because it was a lot of doctors that were claiming wanting safe vaccines, but they ended up being anti. There were other people heavily involved in politics on it and lawyers, and people that really found it logical. By the time we watched the whole thing, we were like, well, we're not monsters. We're not going to vaccinate our kids because it simply seems like you could avoid everything bad and negative under the sun.

Speaker 3:
[02:53] And so, how many years ago was that?

Speaker 4:
[02:56] That was 2016.

Speaker 3:
[02:58] 2016, so before COVID. And then, did you then, when you went to the pediatrician, and when you had your children and the pediatrician told you about vaccines, what was your response then?

Speaker 4:
[03:12] So, I tried to bring up the docu-series to my pediatrician when I had my daughter, and she just shut down immediately, and she said, I won't talk about that. I'm not going, I know the docu-series, I'm not going to discuss it. And I just, I remember being so red hot, embarrassed, and just mortified that I asked, and I just, I learned very quickly not to ask questions, and just to figure it out on my own. And that's when I turned to the internet and kind of researched and found kind of the anti-vax world online that welcomed me in.

Speaker 3:
[03:46] Interesting. And so did you hold off on vaccinating your children then?

Speaker 4:
[03:51] Oh, yes, yes. And I just have one daughter, she's eight now, and definitely she had some health issues, and I felt like doctors, you know, I had to fight tooth and nail just to get her to sleep at me and diagnosis at the time. So I already had a ton of trust issues, and then just feeling glossed over by doctors when I did ask questions, and just so embarrassed to even have these questions, but I didn't know what I was asking. I was asking about ingredients I had heard about and read about from Anti-Vax World, from the docu-series, and they were just like, they asked if they had never heard of polysorbate 80 or aluminum, and they just were so annoyed that I was asking. So yeah, there was no way. I wasn't even worried about autism. I was worried about death, like the night after she got a shot. That's how scared I was.

Speaker 3:
[04:40] Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because I think all the anti-vaxxers, it's a great point that you bring up. You want to do what's best for your child. Everybody wants to do what's best for your child, and it seems like they were somewhat dismissive of you, which pushed you further into the anti-vaxx world.

Speaker 4:
[05:01] Yes, yes, and I felt so misunderstood, and I think a lot of anti-vaxxers are misunderstood because they ultimately want their kids to live. They want their children to live. We want them to thrive, and I felt like the pro-vax world was saying, oh, so you're okay with your daughter dying. You're supporting. The joke was, you're supporting the baby coffin industry. It was a very dark, horrible joke, and I could not do anything further from the truth because I just wanted to desperately for her to be okay. It felt like there's such a disconnect.

Speaker 3:
[05:37] Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So just real quick, what about the COVID vaccine? When the COVID vaccine came around for your young daughter, did you then reject that as well?

Speaker 4:
[05:47] So I was initially horrified at the thought of the COVID vaccine, and that was when I found the anti-vax group online, and I felt very much at home. I made a ton of friends really fast, had a big support group. I remember that was when I dressed as the Measles in 2019, trying to think of the least scary thing I could think of. So I became the Measles. It was a terrible thing, but I got really popular in that world, and I had so much support. And that was all I was wanting, just to feel heard and supported with trying to raise my child. And then COVID hit, and we were all scared all at once. It was kind of a weird time because I also, at the same time, I was still very scared of injecting anything in our bodies, but I was watching my friends, my anti-vax friends, you know, stand up for their right and not to wear a mask. And, you know, they have all these conspiracy theories about masks, and I just kind of said, hold up, guys, that's kind of crazy. You could wear a mask. It's not being injected into your body. And that could save a whole life. And when I said anything about masks, basically, I was kind of exiled out of the anti-vax world and left no man's land. When I was in no man's land, I was kind of adopted by a few pro-vax scientists and doctors that actually took the time to talk to me. And it break down my fears and I ended up getting the COVID shot. And nothing had happened. I remember freaking out that day, but I had some really sincere people reach out and say, hey, what are you actually worried about? And they broke everything down for me.

Speaker 3:
[07:36] Interesting. So it was the fact that the anti-vax movement shunned you because you questioned them about masks. That was the impetus, you're saying, to sort of look up and look the other way and sort of find out more information?

Speaker 4:
[07:53] Yes. It seems very weird that that could do it. But I've noticed that both sides are a bit like this. They're very all or nothing. You can't sit with us if you don't believe exactly like us. So they already didn't love the fact that I used Tylenol and antibiotics and things like that. I would talk about it. They already thought that was not okay. If you're going to be anti-vax, you can't do all those things. You really need to believe everything that they believe. And so the fact that I stood up against them, they tried to say they didn't believe in, they were just they were not okay with it. Because on principle, I didn't like it. I felt very entitled. Wearing a mask is not being ingested into your body. We live in a society where you can help other people. This is not infringing on your actual internal health. I was very unnerved by it and they did not like it. I just remember thinking, why can't I have my own thought? And that's the same with ProVox views too. I'm not a huge fan of certain food dyes and things like that. And I've actually spoken out about that now, being on the ProVox side and I've been shot down. You can't think that way. Well, why?

Speaker 5:
[09:10] I don't know, that's weird.

Speaker 3:
[09:12] Heather Simpson went viral when you dressed up as the measles for a Halloween costume. You went viral and you were the poster child for the anti-vax movement. Now you started this organization, Back to the Vax. I want to talk about that, but real quick, any part of your anti-vax philosophy rooted in politics, in other words, you liked a certain politician, therefore you felt like you had to be anti-vax?

Speaker 4:
[09:46] I wouldn't know. It wasn't directly rooted in politics per se. It's a little bit, it is and it isn't, because when I was watching the docu-series, it ultimately swayed me to become anti-vax. One of the main characters at the time, and this was 2016, so they filmed it before then, was a well-known lawyer and a political family. I remember thinking, this is just a lawyer, this is not a medical professional, and he's saying, I'm not anti-vax, I'm pro-safe vaccines, and I was thinking, he's so logical. He has a famous political family, and they are kind, logical people, and he is saying this stuff. And I remember that pushing me very much in the anti-vax direction, and I would tell my friends, like, this guy's gonna have influence one day, and they're like, nah, he's just a lawyer. He's an environmental lawyer. He's not, he's, nah, you're fine. Yeah, he ultimately probably pushed me more than all of the doctors combined on that docu-series. He wasn't a medical professional. He's just a kind-hearted guy.

Speaker 3:
[10:54] Who was that? Was that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?

Speaker 4:
[10:57] Yeah, so I'm not sure if I could say that, but yeah.

Speaker 3:
[10:59] Oh, yeah, yeah. So, right, so, so, so, so, so listening to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in this, in this documentary was one of the most influential things to make you anti-vax.

Speaker 4:
[11:12] Yes, absolutely, because he wasn't a doctor.

Speaker 3:
[11:16] Right. Oh, because he wasn't a doctor. Yeah, interesting.

Speaker 4:
[11:19] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[11:20] He was very logical about it.

Speaker 3:
[11:21] So, when you embraced vaccines, is it true, Heather Simpson, you started to get death threats?

Speaker 4:
[11:31] Oh, yes, yeah. I would get a ton of messages saying, I just detailing how I should end my life and just horrifying things. And it was very, I got it from the pro-vax side when I was anti-vax too.

Speaker 5:
[11:50] So, it was very much people are not okay with it.

Speaker 3:
[11:54] You got death threats from the pro-vaccine side and then when you switched, you started getting death threats from the anti-vax side.

Speaker 4:
[12:02] Yes, yes, it was all in well. People are not okay with you disagreeing with them.

Speaker 3:
[12:08] And so you embraced it and you're all in and now you've co-founded this organization called Back to the Vax. We've had a number of measles outbreaks around the country and we're starting to see some people who were like you sort of switch over. What are you starting to see with this organization? Are you seeing other people now sort of come back to vaccines?

Speaker 4:
[12:29] Yeah. So I've seen this happen here and there over the years. We've started also a Facebook group for parents that we screen heavily that are trying to vaccinate and come back to the medical and science world. And it's, I've seen people freak out over measles. I've seen parents freak out over COVID and the flu and, and just realize that they are a product of COVID immunity and benefiting from it. And, oh, if that's starting to be removed, this could directly impact me and can I live with myself if my child gets this disease? It doesn't take away their anxiety when they start vaccinating. No, that anxiety they had as an anti-vaxxer is still very heavily present while they're doing the things and getting vaccinated anyway, getting their kids vaccinated. And so they need that support system because they're already completely stressed out. And a lot of doctors won't let them start slow and do one shot at a time, which is so key. And we talked about this a lot when we speak, me and my co-founder Lydia, that being allowed to start slow is better than nothing. And just getting that confidence like my kid's fine, this vaccine was okay, we're going to do more. And just building that confidence and having a support system has been key.

Speaker 3:
[13:46] Interesting, because there is a schedule for vaccines. And the doctors say that you should follow the schedule. And you're saying, even if the doctors tell the anti-vax patients, let's slowly ramp up this vaccine schedule, that's better than nothing. And that will then sort of lead them to confidence in the vaccines.

Speaker 4:
[14:06] I will say yes, I have been criticized for this view, but I do believe that doctors should allow the slow schedule, because if you shun a patient for not following the schedule, they can run off and then find a community online of anti-vaxxers or a different type of holistic medicine. And then you have an unvaccinated five-year-old as opposed to a slowly vaccinated five-year-old. So I think it's just better than nothing.

Speaker 3:
[14:34] Heather Simpson, we have just about a minute left. Your organization, Back to the Vax, there's somebody listening to this, a mother who loves their child very much, and she was afraid, just like you were, what would you tell this mother about getting your child vaccinated now?

Speaker 4:
[14:51] I would say to try to identify exactly what you're freaked out about, not just the scary stories you've heard. It took me actually naming, I'm scared of aluminum. And why am I scared? Okay, it actually can't cross the blood brain barrier. And researching that, and I realized this fear cannot physically happen. And I had to go that deep and not just tell myself it was fine, but actually read and learn about it.

Speaker 3:
[15:16] Interesting. What's the website at Back to the Vax to find out more?

Speaker 4:
[15:21] Yeah, backtothevax.com. And then we have a Facebook group. But yes, that's Back to the Vax Facebook group. And then we had to say fax on the Facebook page. So it's Back to the Facts.

Speaker 3:
[15:33] Back to the Facts on Facebook. Heather Simpson, thank you very much for your honesty. Thank you for your courage to tell your story. Thank you very much. Good day. And we'll have you back in the future. Thanks for checking in.

Speaker 4:
[15:45] Thank you guys so much.

Speaker 3:
[15:47] You got it. Heather Simpson was once the poster child for the anti-vaccine movement, now has switched. And she's the co-founder of an organization called Back to the Vax. And you can find that on Facebook. At Night. We're just getting started. Back in a minute.

Speaker 2:
[16:02] At Night with McGraw Milhaven. Where the nation comes to talk. This is At Night with McGraw Milhaven.

Speaker 3:
[16:24] Hey, thanks for checking in. It's a Thursday night, and we're just getting started. We had a chance to talk with Heather Simpson. She was fascinating and a very brave woman to go on and talk about how she was an anti-vaxxer, and now she's a pro-vaxxer with this new organization. Coming up in just a minute, we're gonna talk to a man who was part of the Merchant Marine Academy. He's a professor at the Merchant Marine Academy. He is also the go-to guy talking to the Associated Press, CNN, NewsNation, as well as others about the US blockade, and what exactly does it mean, how is it working, and what is the strategy. We're gonna talk to that professor coming up here in just a bit. Next hour, we're gonna talk to a Harvard professor who wrote a book about capitalism. As a matter of fact, he wrote the book on capitalism. He went all the way back to the beginning. And when did capitalism actually start, and how did capitalism actually start? We're gonna talk to him coming up next hour. He's got a brand new book. And then Bill Clevlen, Bill on the Road. It's Thursday night. He checked in earlier than night with me. He wants to talk about the Muppets. And you know Bill, where did you end up finding the Muppets? In fact, he says there's a place where you can go to see the Muppets in person. In Plot Thickens, yep. We're going to talk about the Muppets, Capitalism and the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Now how's that for a potpourri of topics? Plus text messages and phone calls in the third hour. At Night, we are just getting started. Stay right there. Lots more to get to back in a moment.

Speaker 2:
[18:05] You're listening to At Night with McGraw Milhaven.

Speaker 6:
[18:35] Hey there, I'm Paula Pan. I help people make the smartest money decisions possible. Do not ever worry about your salary. You need enough to make sure that you aren't in a bad financial position. Once you have that, your salary becomes moot. What matters from that point forward, upside gains. Any type of ownership stake or ownership potential, that's the money. Remember, you can afford anything, just not everything. Afford anything. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

Speaker 2:
[19:23] Welcome to At Night with McGraw Milhaven.

Speaker 3:
[19:27] Basically blocked. You've got Iran and the United States blocking ships from going in or out of the Strait of Hormuz. Oil, natural gas, helium, fertilizer, all at a standstill. What is going on? We're gonna talk to the man who can explain it all to us, Dr. Sal Mercogliano is a professor at the US. Merchant Marine Academy in Long Island, New York in Great Neck. He is also the preeminent expert on maritime logistics and naval strategy. You've seen him on the Associated Press, CNN News Nation, and he is one of the go-to experts. Dr. Sal, welcome to At Night. Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 7:
[20:07] Oh, thanks for having me, Graw.

Speaker 3:
[20:08] Talk about what exactly is going on now in the Strait of Hormuz. What is Iran doing and trying to do, and what is the US doing, and what is the US trying to do?

Speaker 7:
[20:18] Well, I mean, we've got a case here of dueling blockades. The Iranians have basically shut everything down. Yesterday, we had a trio of container ships from a company called Mediterranean Shipping try to come out, and two of them were fired upon and forced to stop, and then were subsequently boarded, and are now being held by the Iranians. Meanwhile, out in the Arabian Sea, the US blockade kicked up a notch. We had already seen a stopping of an Iranian container ship coming inbound. That ship was actually shot at and boarded by the US Navy. Then we had two tankers that were foreign flagged under dubious registries were boarded and seized by the United States, and a large number about five or six Iranian tankers were turned around and directed back into Iranian waters. Basically, the strait and shipping coming in and out is at a standstill. It's kind of a mutual, kind of a Mexican standoff here right now.

Speaker 3:
[21:22] What is a ghost fleet and what's going on with ghost fleets?

Speaker 7:
[21:28] The ghost fleet, shadow fleet, dark fleet, this is something that actually came about years ago, is actually originated with Iran. These were ships that were moving cargo under Iranian sanctions. Basically, they were operating under sanction rules, and so they were trying to avoid getting caught. That fleet has since expanded tremendously. When Ukraine invaded Russia, the G7, the EU imposed large sanctions across the Russian fleet. What we've seen develop over the past four years, really, has been a growth in the size of that fleet, a fleet that operates kind of outside the bounds of the normal rules. They don't come into ports, they don't get inspections. Some of them are sailing without proper registry or insurance. What we've created is this kind of dual fleet, fleet of vessels, large majority that operate under the standard rules, and then this shadow fleet, this dark fleet, this ghost fleet, that's operating under its own set parallel to everything else.

Speaker 3:
[22:30] Are they bringing goods, services and oil to and from just sort of under the radar?

Speaker 7:
[22:36] It's not so much under the radar, but they're just avoiding the rules and laws that are out there. Normally, what you would have is these ships would come into ports and they'd be inspected. They would found to have fraudulent flags or insurances, but because they're operating from Iran, going to countries that desperately need Iranian oil or buying it under the table, they're not getting the full inspections. Or they go to anchorages. For example, a lot of Iranian ships load oil, they sail out of Iran, they go to an anchorage off the coast of Malaysia in Southeast Asia and then offload their fuel into other tankers. And those tankers then proceed into ports around the world and try to hide the fact that they're carrying Iranian oil. So the Iranian ship never goes into port, never gets inspected. It just sails from Iran to an anchorage and back out again.

Speaker 3:
[23:27] So it's been reported that Iran basically shut down the Strait because of the fear of somebody being hit. And so the insurance companies, everybody else said, we don't want to chance it. So they virtually shut it down just by the mere threat of something. The United States comes along and says, all right, you're letting your own ships through. We're going to now block your ships from coming through. Is that sustainable? Is that a blockade that is possible? And does that type of US blockade have limits?

Speaker 7:
[24:02] Well, that blockade, that reaction by the United States is one that the US can do, and it can sustain this. I mean, the US is conducting this distant blockade. They're out in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, and they are turning around Iranian oil tankers. The hope here under the Trump administration is they're hoping to cause Iran to come back to the negotiation table. They're hoping that this is going to force them to negotiate because Iran has a finite amount of oil tankers and storage facilities to put oil in. And what Iran doesn't want to do is shut down oil wells because if they start shutting them down, they're very difficult to get them back up again. Iran is trying to put economic hurt on the globe, but that's a longer process. So the Trump administration thinks that Iran will blink faster than the rest of the world will.

Speaker 3:
[24:55] So it's a question of mercy. Who's going to blink first?

Speaker 7:
[24:59] It's one of the big ones. Unfortunately, what we're seeing take hold on the global economy is those tankers and cargo ships that would have been arriving, having sailed after the start of the war, one March, they haven't arrived. And that means we've got this huge kind of donut hole right now in global shipping that is materializing, where ships that should be offloading in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa are not there. And now what we're going to start seeing is really the shuffling for resources and material. That's one of the reasons why we're starting to see the incremental increase once again in gas and oil prices in the US.

Speaker 3:
[25:37] Dr. Sal Mercogliano is an adjunct professor at the Merchant Marine Academy in Great Neck, Long Island. He is the go-to guy. He also has a YouTube channel called What's Going On With Shipping and it has over a half a million subscribers. He is the go-to guy on this blockade. Dr. Sal, I know the blockade has been in effect for a while or the strait has been closed for a while, and I know gas prices have gone up, but I'm shocked that they haven't gone up more considering the strait has been virtually closed for all these weeks.

Speaker 7:
[26:09] Well, I agree, and it has a lot to do with the fact that if you look just prior to this event, global oil afloat and ashore was at record numbers. I mean, one of the things the oil market foresaw was this shock coming. And so we hit these record numbers afloat and ashore. And what that meant is when all of a sudden the war did come in those first kind of month, what we started to see was them start draining that oil. There's usually about 100 million barrels of oil just to float off Singapore, for example, waiting to find the right market to go to. Right now, we're still at levels that we have seen in the past. We really haven't dipped down. The scary moment here is the rate at which that oil is being depleted. That curve downward is a very steep one. That's the concern, is that we're going to dip below that, and then all of a sudden, we're going to see those shortages. The issue, I would argue, that isn't so much oil right now. It's things like liquefied natural gas, which is being cut off because we're not getting the LNG out of Qatar, and then some items you're not going to see an immediate impact to later, helium for use in chip manufacturing, and more importantly, fertilizer, which is needed to get into the soil. You're not really going to see that shortage until we have low crop yields in the following months.

Speaker 3:
[27:31] Can this blockade that the US has keep Iran and ships from, friends of Iran, from traversing the strait?

Speaker 7:
[27:43] Well one of the issues in the blockade is just the pure geography. While the US does a good job and has enough forces to cover the region, some of the ships are running along the coast of Iran under their territorial waters and into the territorial waters of neighboring countries, Pakistan and India. And the US is not going to violate territorial waters of Pakistan and India. So some oil is going to be able to get out, some ships are going to get out, there's going to be attempts at evasion, hiding ships, masking them, but that's going to be a very difficult thing for the Iranians to do. The US has a pretty good satellite system that observes this area. They will now have two aircraft carriers with the arrival of the George Bush and a large fleet of vessels, including a large amphibious unit that's being used to take down vessels.

Speaker 3:
[28:34] Will that leakage help Iran sort of survive this game of uncle?

Speaker 7:
[28:43] I think the decision by the US to implement the blockade, remember they didn't do that initially. What we saw was a lot of efforts to keep oil prices low. One of the things that was decided was to allow Iranian oil to flow, to let it get out in the marketplace and even to allow it to be de-sanctioned. The Trump administration has gone 180 on that. Now this campaign is designed to force Iran back to the table to get in negotiation. As you mentioned before, it's really going to be a question to see who blinks first here. Iran has a limited time frame in which they can fill up oil tankers and shore side facilities. They don't want to be in a position of closing those wells. And so what the Trump administration is hoping, get back to that table, hammer out an agreement and open up the strait. Or there's always the option too that the administration could walk away and just leave it and let the rest of the world handle the situation in the Persian Gulf.

Speaker 3:
[29:40] The nightmare scenario is the USS Cole, where these small boats or a mine that's been dropped in the strait can do massive damage to a billion dollar ship. How worried are you about something like that happening?

Speaker 7:
[29:54] I think the US Navy has trained for a long time to deal with a lot of threats. It is extremely well equipped to handle the flock of birds heading to them. The problem is, as you mentioned, is the swarm of gnats. Whether it's mines, unmanned surface, unmanned aerial, or their fast speed boats. And that's a concern. And I think one of the issues is going to be, at some point, the US is going to have to go into the strait. We saw them run two destroyers through the other week, but we haven't seen any visible presence of them since then. One of the things that the ships are looking for, and I've talked to mariners out there, is they're looking for some sort of security out there. There are concerns about the missile and drone attacks. There's a lot of concerns about mines. Even though there's no indication of mines, it takes a total of zero mines to create a minefield. You just need the threat. And the Iranians are doing everything they can to facilitate that threat.

Speaker 3:
[30:53] Where does China come in on all this?

Speaker 7:
[30:56] Well, China is the big beneficiary of Iranian oil. They receive about a third of all that Iranian oil that comes out. And China has been really benefiting from that, you know, consumption of low-cost Iranian oil for a long time. Now, the issue with Iran, with China, is they have multiple sources for oil. They can shift. And we just had a report come out from the EIA, the Energy Information Agency, that says that China's stockpile of oil is about 1.4 billion barrels. Consider that the US has about 400 million barrels. China is in a good position to kind of sit this out, wait and see what happens.

Speaker 3:
[31:40] We're also hearing Europe is running low on oil. Is that a possibility? I mean, how close are we to seeing not just long lines at the pumps, but actually the pumps run dry?

Speaker 7:
[31:52] Well, I think in the US we're in a much better position here because we can refine, we produce our own oil, and even though we do export and import oil because of our refinery configuration, I don't think you would ever see that. Now, Europe is in a much different situation because they are so energy dependent on outside sources. They've been able to get a lot of it from Russia, but there's issues with that because of the Russia invasion of Ukraine and the fact that Europe is trying to wean itself off Russian oil, gasoline, diesel fuel and liquefied natural gas. This becomes a big issue and one of the things I get concerned about is gas and diesel in the United States being exported out over to Europe because the cost demand in Europe is going to be so high that if I'm an energy exporter, if I'm an oil trader, I'd much rather maybe sell a tanker load of gasoline or diesel in Europe because I'm going to make more per gallon than I would in the United States and that will drive up the cost in the US.

Speaker 3:
[32:57] One of the fears is now that Iran has blocked the strait with just the fear and the insurance companies have said, you're not running that ship through the Strait of Hormuz with our insurance over you. The fear is that even when this concludes, it will be a constant cat and mouse game with Iran because they can squeeze that strait anytime they want.

Speaker 7:
[33:21] Oh, I have to agree and I'll even go a little bit further and sit there and say, if for some reason tonight, Bibi Netanyahu, President Trump and the Ayatollah of Iran come to an agreement, you're right. Number one, you're going to have shipping companies, you're going to have a lot of people going, well, wait a minute, these are the same people in charge. Do I trust this situation to go back into this region? And second, this disruption is going to take months, if not a year, to reset and reconfigure. If you go back to 2021, whenever Given got stuck in the Suez, that ship was stuck for six days, it took six weeks to three months before everything was resettled because of that blockage. We're dealing with something now going into week nine, and the situation is such that it's a much bigger scale than even what the ever given touched.

Speaker 3:
[34:09] Dr. Sal Mercogliano is an adjunct professor at the US. Merchant Marine Academy. I'm going to change topics, doctor, for just a moment. Talk about the Merchant Marine Academy. It's a wonderful place, beautiful part of the country, right there on the coast of the north shore of Long Island. But I heard that you guys are looking for Merchant Marine people. Is that true?

Speaker 7:
[34:31] Well, the Merchant Marine is under this kind of new renaissance. There's a lot of emphasis right now on rebuilding the US. Merchant Marine. At the end of World War II, the US. Merchant Marine was the largest fleet in the world. It was hauling 63% of global trade. Today, the US. Merchant Marine is 23rd in the world. You look around the world, the US was the biggest shipbuilder in the world in World War II. Today, we build about 0.1% of global trade in ships, whereas China builds about 230 times what we build. So there's a big issue about rebuilding the Merchant Marine. But the US. Merchant Marine Academy and the six state maritime academies scattered around the United States from California to New York to Texas to Michigan to Maine and Massachusetts is producing Merchant Mariners, great Merchant Mariners, well trained, well educated, absolutely ready. What they're looking for is for the jobs and for the US flag to be flying from ships again. Right now, we have about 190 ships in the deep draft fleet operating in the world. There's one Chinese shipping company, Costco, the Chinese overseas shipping company that has nearly 2,000 ships just in that one fleet. So, I think it's really important and one of the things I hope we get from these issues that have been happened since the Ever Given five years ago is a realization that we probably need to be doing more on the water and on the oceans with US ships, building them, repairing them, crewing them so that we have some safety valves put in place when these events take place.

Speaker 3:
[36:07] I forgive my ignorance. I got a minute. Is the US. Merchant Marine Academy part of the Navy, part of the Armed Services or an independent organization?

Speaker 7:
[36:16] It is a separate service academy. It's the equal of the Navy Academy, the Military Academy, Coast Guard and all the other academies that are out there, the Air Force, but it's very unique. I'll give you the one unique thing about the US. Merchant Marine Academy. It's cadets go out to sea and actually serve during wartime. Right now, there were cadets of the US. Merchant Marine Academy out in the Persian Gulf who are stuck on ships out there. 142 merchant mariners died during World War II. The US. Merchant Marine Academy is the only academy that's allowed to fly a battle streamer saying that its troops, its cadets served in combat. None of the other ones can do that and it is basically a civilian agency under the Department of Transportation.

Speaker 3:
[37:02] Dr. Sal Mercogliano is an adjunct professor at the Merchant Marine Academy. Doctor, thank you for your great insight. Be safe and thanks for checking in.

Speaker 7:
[37:10] Thank you for having me this evening.

Speaker 3:
[37:11] You got an At Night back in a moment.

Speaker 2:
[37:13] From the heart of America, this is At Night with McGraw Milhaven.

Speaker 3:
[37:33] Hey, we're out of time for this hour. Next hour, we're going to talk about The Muppets with Bill Clevlen, and Where Did Capitalism Actually Start? A Harvard professor wrote a new book at it. That's coming up straight ahead. Our executive director is Alex Hinton. Our engineer tonight is Richard Good. I'm McGraw Milhaven. This is At Night on Westwood One.

Speaker 2:
[38:14] Westwood One presents At Night. Here's your host, McGraw Milhaven.

Speaker 3:
[38:23] We're going to talk to a Harvard Professor about capitalism. He did a little research. Where did it come from and how did it start? An interesting conversation about the beginnings of capitalism. And a little bit later on in this hour, Bill Clevlen, it's Thursday night. Bill's on the road. We'll be talking muppets, believe it or not. Let's see what Bill got himself into a little bit later on. Though this hour, there's a sad story coming out of Washington, DC., a US. Army Special Forces soldier who helped capture Nicolas Maduro as Venezuela. He's been charged with using classified information to bet on the mission on Polymarket. That's a prediction market. Federal authorities said today the soldier, Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who was stationed in North Carolina, made more than $400,000 by betting on different outcomes related to Venezuela after learning of the operation. Now, according to this indictment, he was involved in the planning and the execution of the seizure of Maduro and was making bets up to January 2nd, the day before the raid. The sergeant bet on events related to Maduro 13 different times, including bets on timing and outcome. What a sad story. So this was reported that somebody somewhere made a bet last minute and it was suspected that it was insider information. Now, this Master Sergeant Ken Van Dyke, who was stationed at Fort Bragg, has been charged with using classified information to bet on that military mission. Sad story. Stay right there. We're just getting started. We'll talk about capitalism and Bill on the road. At Night, back in a moment.

Speaker 2:
[40:12] Coming to you from the heart of the nation, this is At Night with McGraw Milhaven. Welcome to At Night with McGraw Milhaven.

Speaker 3:
[40:55] Well, time to talk about capitalism. The word is thrown around quite a bit, but where did it come from? Our next guest has written a book about capitalism, but who is he? He's Sven Beckert, and he wrote a book a couple years ago called The Empire of Cotton, and it talked about how the world changed because of the Empire of Cotton. He's now back with a new book. The new book is called Capitalism, A Global History. Sven Beckert, a Harvard Professor, joins us. Sven, welcome to At Night.

Speaker 8:
[41:25] Great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3:
[41:26] So capitalism talks about you go back all the way in history. I thought capitalism started with Adam Smith and the wealth of nations. What happened?

Speaker 8:
[41:36] No, I mean, Adam Smith was an important commentator on the logic of capitalism and the history of capitalism, but the basic argument of the book is that we live in capitalism, that capitalism structures our lives in profound ways today. And but but capitalism is not the state of nature. Capitalism is something that emerged at a certain moment in time historically, and it has changed drastically in the past a few hundred years. And the book looks for this strange revolutionary new logic that capitalism is, and it finds it first to emerge among communities of long distant merchants all around the world in the first half of the second millennium. In the years between 1000 and 1500. And then at this moment, capitalism, this logic that capitalism does exist, but it's very marginal to economic life on planet Earth. And of course, if we fast forward now to the present, we see that this logic structures almost everything about our lives today. And the book is basically an effort to trace the story and to explain how this radically new logic to economic life, how this move from being very marginal to being at the center of our economic lives and our lives more broadly today.

Speaker 3:
[42:50] Okay, so you're saying capitalism, you found that capitalism first started to appear in the year 1000?

Speaker 8:
[42:59] You can see in those years, you can see that this logic that capitalism is namely that privately owned capital is productively invested for the further production of capital. So this is the core logic of capitalism. You can find that logic among merchant communities a thousand years ago. And you can perhaps even find it a little earlier. So the point is not so much that capitalism emerged at this particular moment in time, but the point is that this logic existed, but was very marginal. Because most people on planet Earth at this point were either feudal lords who pressed their peasants in order to gain wealth, or they were subsistence farmers who produced for their own use and for the uses of their families and their communities. So these have two very different logics. And in a thousand years ago, we can observe among these communities of long-distance merchants, this capitalist logic, but again, it's marginal to economic life. And it only becomes more important than about 500 years ago, around the year 1500, and then it slowly spreads and it extends in space and in social life. And now it dominates almost everything about our lives today.

Speaker 3:
[44:06] Sure. So for example, what are some of the early examples of capitalism and how it got started?

Speaker 8:
[44:12] So the book starts, as I said, it starts with communities of long-distance merchants in many different parts of the world. And I start the book with a bunch of long-distance merchants in the port of Aden and present-day Yemen in the year 1150. And these people were, you know, like, just like merchants today, they were buying things and selling them in distant locations. And they traded extensively with the Indian subcontinent, with East Africa, and throughout the Arab world. So this is one example. It's not that capitalism emerged in this particular place at this particular time, but it's an example that allows me to illuminate how this kind of logic emerged. And one of the most striking things about this is if you look at the letters that these merchants wrote thousands years ago, they seem strikingly modern. You understand immediately the lives that these people lived. And that tells us something about how this logic that they embraced is still with us to this present day.

Speaker 3:
[45:14] I thought capitalism was all about supply and demand. Is that true back in 1100 in Yemen as it is today?

Speaker 8:
[45:21] I mean, capitalism is, you know, I think supply and demand is a way of looking at capitalism, but I think this is not the core of what capitalism is. I think the core of what capitalism is that there is a privately owned capital, and that capital is productively invested, let's say in trade or in agricultural production or into machinery, into industrial production with the goal of producing more capital. That, I think, is the fundamental logic of capital. And that goes along with other things such as the existence of markets. This goes along with the existence of the ability to purchase things for to organize production and then to sell the products of production onto markets. This goes along with the existence of a medium of exchange, namely money. So it's complicated. But the main point here is that this logic is a radical departure from prior economic life on planet Earth. It's really a revolution in economic life. And it is the revolution that has impacted our lives throughout the past few centuries and impacts our lives today more than I think any other revolution that has occurred in human history in the past millennium.

Speaker 3:
[46:41] Do you see it grow from Yemen and the Middle East, or do you see it sprout up in different parts and sort of merges altogether at some point?

Speaker 8:
[46:50] No, that is an important point. It does not emerge in the port of Yemen and then spread all over the world. It does emerge. This logic emerges in various parts of the world. It emerges in China, it emerges in India, and it also emerges in places perhaps more familiar to most of us, such as the city of Florence, the city of Genoa, the city of Venice, Amsterdam, London, and so on and so on. So it is kind of a globalist. One of the main arguments of the book is that you can understand this capitalism only from a global perspective. You need to take into account things that happen all across the planet in order to understand this emergence of capitalism. And when it comes to the very beginnings of capitalism, that already is a very global process. Indeed, I argue that capitalism was born global.

Speaker 3:
[47:40] Okay, so you mentioned Sven Beckert, the book is Capitalism, A Global History. You mentioned that it's very different today than it was back then.

Speaker 8:
[47:50] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[47:51] What do you mean?

Speaker 8:
[47:52] So today, capitalism is very different today because it structures so much of our lives. Almost all of our lives are deeply embedded in markets. We sell our labor power in markets, we purchase the things we consume, our food, the things that we wear, we purchase that on markets. So this was not the case a thousand years ago, and this was certainly not the case even a hundred years ago. So this is kind of a really novel arrangement of how we live. And then, a long time ago, this logic first expanded within the word of long-distance trade. But of course now, capitalism is not just about trade, but it's about all those cotton fields producing agricultural commodities. It's about industrial production. It's about the provision of services. It's about the internet. So it just expanded drastically into new spheres of life. And again, this is what makes it so revolutionary, this kind of expansionist tendency of capitalism to spread into ever more spheres of life. And of course, what we see today, unlike in a word before capitalism, we see tremendous and more or less ongoing economic growth, something that was not the case in previous history. And we see also a kind of general tendency for productivity to increase over time, again, something that we did not see in earlier histories. And that is directly related to the logic of capitalism itself.

Speaker 3:
[49:36] Okay, let's talk about a couple of things here, the distortion, whether it's slavery, right? Cheap labor being brought in. And even today with sort of tax incentives and sales tax and things like that and putting your thumb on the scale of sort of capitalism. Talk about that for a moment and how that is good or not good for capitalism.

Speaker 8:
[50:00] I mean, the book, you know, tries to not so much engage in saying, okay, this is good and this is bad, because it's always hard to judge people who lived many hundreds of years ago. But the book tries to explain this capitalism. So the basic setup is that we live in capitalism today and we need to understand this capitalism in order to be able to navigate our world today. And so the book is principally oriented towards enabling us to understand this capitalism. And of course, if we look at this capitalism, you know, we already mentioned one of the results of the capitalism revolution was this enormous increase in economic growth. It was the enormous increase in human productivity. But then we also see things such as the enormous expansion of coerced labor. And one of the ways of how coerced labor expanded in the history of capitalism, which was quite decisive at a certain moment in the history of capitalism was the advent and then the spread of plantation slavery in the Caribbean, in South America, and then also in North America. So slavery is one of the arguments of the book, actually plays an important role at a particular moment in the history of capitalism. We cannot think really about capitalism without also thinking about the history of slavery at this particular moment in time. Of course, by the late 19th century, that form of course labor becomes much less important to the history of capitalism. So that's the first point. The second point is, the book argues that capitalism is one of the most statist economic civilizations that have ever been created on planet Earth. That might sound weird to you and to your listeners, because often we think capitalism is opposed to the state. Now this is two different logics. The more state we have, the less capitalism and the less state, the more capitalism we have. But if you look at the long history of capitalism, it turns out that the state has played an enormously important role at every moment in the history of that economic revolution. And you can see that in the importance of the state very early on to develop trade infrastructures, to provide legal regimes. You can see that in the state protecting domestic industries through tariffs and other forms of protectionism. You can see that in the kind of industrial policies that many states embraced at various points in time. You can see that, of course, in the colonial expansions of states, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. So you can see that in the emergence of the welfare state. So I think in the end, if you look at that less through ideological eyes, but if you look at it by just trying to come to terms with the actually existing history of capitalism, then you see that the state always played a crucial role in that history. That there's really no contradiction between the state and capitalism. Of course, the way how the state and entrepreneurs and capital have interacted has changed drastically over time. And there is also great variation all around the world. But the principle idea that capitalism is a status civilization is, I think, very much demonstrated in this book.

Speaker 3:
[53:17] Sven Beckert joins us. Did this book come out of The Empire of Cotton? Or was this...?

Speaker 8:
[53:24] Yeah, very much so. Because basically, when I wrote The Empire of Cotton, which is a global history of this absolutely essential commodity and industry in the 18th and 19th centuries, I slowly morphed... the book slowly morphed into also making arguments about global capitalism because cotton was so important to the history of capitalism at a certain moment in time, mostly in the 19th century. But then some critics pointed out that there is more to capitalism than cotton. And reluctantly, I agreed that there is more to capitalism than cotton. And so I tried to tackle the whole thing and to write the history of the entire history of capitalism over the course of a thousand years and across the entire planet, from all parts of the world appear in this book and somewhere in that. But it's a history that is, and maybe that's important to mention, it's a history that is, I don't tell this global history from a satellite perspective, that I hover over the planet and just talk about the very big processes and big structural changes. But the book is very much told from a local perspective. So I find particular places that illuminate particular moments in the history of capitalism, that tell us something important about the history of capitalism, such as the merchant community of Yemen that we noticed and discussed earlier. And I tell the story, the global story, I tell that global story from multiple local perspectives. And so we learn a lot about, let's say, the island of Barbados. We learn a lot about typewriter production in India. We learn a lot about modern car manufacturing in Northern Italy. We learn a lot about plantation labor on sugar plantations on the French colonial island of La Réunion. We learn a lot about culture when we look at the city of New York. So the book takes a lot of, takes us into a very, very many very local and sometimes even biographical stories in order to illuminate this important history.

Speaker 3:
[55:31] The book is called Capitalism, a Global History. Sven Beckert has been our guest. Of course, the author of Empire of Cotton, a Harvard professor getting a lot of attention and a lot of interesting nuggets, a lot of things you think you know and you want to know where they came from. Well, he finds it and tells you all about it in the book, Capitalism, a Global History, Sven Beckert. Sven, good luck with the book. Thanks for checking in as always.

Speaker 8:
[55:56] Thank you so much. Great to be here.

Speaker 3:
[55:57] You got it. Back in a moment, At Night.

Speaker 2:
[56:00] Relax. You're listening to At Night with McGraw Milhaven.

Speaker 9:
[56:19] It's only getting every customer's order right. It's only a point of sale system connected by Spectrum fiber-powered business internet, helping you track hundreds of secure transactions. And it's all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based customer support and local technicians. It's only everything. Get business internet advantage free, forever, when you get four mobile lines from Spectrum. Visit spectrum.com/free for life to find out how. Restrictions apply, service is not available in all areas.

Speaker 2:
[57:02] Let's join the nightly conversation At Night with McGraw Milhaven.

Speaker 3:
[57:07] All right, it's Thursday night, and we go on the road every Thursday night. We check in with Bill Clevlen, who was our traveling correspondent here at At Night. Bill Clevlen, welcome back to the show, my friend.

Speaker 10:
[57:19] I can't believe it's already been a week. I mean, I guess people, you know, they say when you get older, time flies. And I remember as a kid hearing that thinking, you know, your parents say that, and you're like, you don't know what you're talking about. And now the older I get, it is absolutely true. I cannot believe it's already been a week since we've chatted.

Speaker 3:
[57:36] You know, it's amazing when you're 10, you're like, man, I'm 10, I'm old. That's a long time. And then you turn 50 and you're like, where did the last 10 years go? I thought I was 40. What happened to, what happened to me? Yeah, I know. You're right. It's a thing. It is wild. All right. What are we talking about tonight? Where have you been?

Speaker 10:
[57:52] Well, you know, I was just chatting with your producer, Alex, and we were talking about the Muppets, you know, and I'm a huge Jim Henson fan. And I thought I'd just mention this tonight. In the news in the last few months, the Jim Henson Company, they were located in Los Angeles inside the old Charlie Chaplin Studios, if you happen to know where that is. And they were there for, I don't know, 20 years, 30 years, they were there a long time. And they have this gigantic Kermit the Frog that was on top of the building. And it was made to emulate Charlie Chaplin. He was in a tuxedo and everything. And when news broke that they had sold the studio and they were moving, one of the big stories around Los Angeles, because I was there when this was going down, was what happened to Kermit the Frog? Where's the giant Kermit going? Because it was a pretty gigantic statue that sat on top of this building and was there for many years. Well, it turns out it's going to a place called the Center for Puppetry Arts, which is in Atlanta, Georgia. And so that's what I'm going to kind of talk about tonight. There are a handful of places where people can go, especially if you grew up watching and loving The Muppets, maybe The Muppet Show, loved The Muppet Show. If you or your kids watched Sesame Street growing up, there are actually a few places around the country that you can go and visit and see these puppets in person, which to some people listening, you're rolling your eyes and you're thinking, why on earth would you want to go and see a puppet? But if you grew up with these things, I'll give you a great example. I went to the Center for Puppetry Arts. I've been there a few times. It's a wonderful museum. It's in Atlanta and it's all about the role of puppets in popular culture, so movies and television, theater, stuff like that. And it's an amazing building, some really great exhibits and artifacts. And so Jim Henson was instrumental in getting this museum built when he was alive. He was there at the ribbon cutting with Kermit the Frog. They cut the ribbon and everything. And when Henson died, his family donated, I want to say it's about 500 pieces of just stuff that Henson owned. So we're talking muppets, like actual puppets. We're talking his office, like his original office and his workshop where he used to build these puppets and things, and boxes, I mean all kinds of stuff, donated them to the Center for Puppetry Arts. So the first time that I went there, I was interviewing one of the curators and we're talking, and I said, kind of joking, I said, do you see grown men like me here in the middle of this exhibit, just kind of looking around or is this kind of a weird thing? And she said, I have to be completely honest with you. She goes, I have seen both men and women standing in here and just completely in awe, even crying because it reminds them so much of their childhood. And when you're standing truly, when you're standing next to Big Bird, I mean, you're looking at this and it is unbelievable. So yes, Center for Puppetry Arts. And I'll stop there because I'm sure you want to say something.

Speaker 3:
[61:43] I have a couple of questions. Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. That's one of them. Yes, sir. First off, you said that, because this is actually very important, you mentioned Muppets and you mentioned Sesame Street. The Muppets are the Muppets. The Sesame Street puppets aren't Muppets. There was only one crossover and that was Kermit the Frog.

Speaker 10:
[62:05] That is correct. But they were Jim Henson creations. In this collection, you have a mixture of both. I can't believe I know all of this. Just remember last week, I knew all about presidents, so I can multitask. I can know a lot of stuff. You have Big Bird, of course, and then they had the Cookie Monster and the Count, and all these characters from Sesame Street. But around the corner, they have got from the, oh my gosh, what was the name of their band, the Dr. Keith band. I can't remember what the heck they called themselves, an animal, and all these characters that you would remember if you watched the Muppet Show in the late 70s and into the early 80s. It really is fascinating to see this stuff in person. There are three spots for people who are fans, and you really want to see some of this stuff. I would call it TV and film, history, whatever. And the Center for Puppetry Arts, they've got the biggest of the collection.

Speaker 3:
[63:11] All right, that's one. There are two more. What's number two?

Speaker 10:
[63:16] So the other place is in New York City, and it's called the Museum of the Moving Image. And I remember this place distinctly because it was the very first time I got lost on a New York City subway. And if you've never had that experience where you duck out of the subway and you go, oh my god, where am I? Yeah, one of those deals. So that was my first experience of getting lost on a subway. But yeah, it's a really cool museum. It really dives into a lot of film history and stuff. But they have another section of Jim Henson's collection or part of that collection. And some things that maybe the Center for Puppetry Arts that they don't have. So they had things like, if you remember, the old guys who were up in the balcony, Statler and Goldorff were their names. Both named after famous New York hotels. They're there. You got the sweetest chef was there. But then they also have things like, if you can think, I don't know, did you watch the Muppet Show when you were a kid?

Speaker 3:
[64:23] Yeah, well, the Sesame Street saved me because my mother, I was a terror of a kid. Then one day I was in front of the television watching Sesame Street and my sisters were going to change the channel and they were, don't touch that channel, he's sitting quiet for a minute. So I was huge, Sesame Street and then of course everybody watched the Muppets.

Speaker 10:
[64:41] Yeah. So then you've watched the show. So one of the things that they have on display, when you watch the Muppet Show, the very first scene was this gigantic sign that came down from the ceiling in front of the big red curtains. And it says the Muppet Show and Kermit are one of the guys, they'd pop their head through the thing. Well, they have that on display, which is pretty cool to see if you were a fan. But also cue cards and scripts and different things that Henson and that team would use for notes and to keep track of certain characters or who was going to play what. And to me, one of the coolest things to see were these archived photographs of them doing that show. And so to see them all looking down at monitors while they have their hands up in the air, and they're doing the puppets and they're doing all this and that. These people were very, very talented that did this show. And so yeah, Museum of the Moving Image, that's the second one and they've got the second most stuff.

Speaker 3:
[65:47] Where is the Museum of the Moving Image? You don't know because you were lost on a subway.

Speaker 10:
[65:52] I was lost in New York City. So it's in one of the boroughs and I can't remember which one it is off top of my head.

Speaker 11:
[65:57] But it is in New York City.

Speaker 3:
[65:58] Were you planning on going there or did you get lost in the subway and look up and say, oh, hey, there's the image of moving, there's the museum.

Speaker 10:
[66:07] No, I was headed there and I got lost on, I was determined to get there by the subway and I made it.

Speaker 3:
[66:16] All right. All right. Good. All right. That's number two. Where's the third place?

Speaker 10:
[66:20] The third one is the Smithsonian. If you've never been to the Smithsonian's American History Museum, they've got a handful. Of course, they have one of the original Kermit the Frogs and the original Miss Piggy. I should also mention there's this traveling exhibit that pops up here and there at certain museums around the country that also has 15 or 20 of these characters. Again, all that you would remember if you watched that show. But I think it's really neat to see this stuff. Again, it's just nostalgia. It reminds you of your childhood. The Muppets are starting to make a comeback again. Disney bought them and they didn't know what to do with them. If you follow entertainment a little bit, Disney, they're rebranding their, for example, the Rock and Roller Coaster at Disney World and I guess Disneyland also. They're getting rid of Aerosmith and putting in the Muppets. So they'll be there. And I've heard there's maybe a new Muppet show on the horizon. So yeah, it's kind of cool for those of us that grew up in the 80s that watch this stuff.

Speaker 3:
[67:35] A couple years ago, I think it might have even been during COVID, there was a documentary on television that I stumbled across about the history of Sesame Street. And I thought it was going to be a puff piece and just sort of a walk down memory lane. It was riveting and they had a whole segment on, do you remember the Muppet, Roosevelt Franklin? Remember him?

Speaker 10:
[67:57] Oh, sure. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[67:58] Yeah, Roosevelt Franklin, bar, elementary school. Remember that guy? So he was a black Muppet, I guess, African-American Muppet. And they went into, in this documentary, about the angst they had with this black Muppet that was an inner-city struggling poor African-American Muppet who went to this sort of inner-city school. And they decided, as an organization, to take this Muppet out of the rotation because it was too stereotypical, and they didn't want to propagate the stereotype of a poor African-American kid going to an inner-city school. And then they switched to like famous black comedians of today saying, I was heartbroken when they took Roosevelt Franklin off of the screen because I was a poor black inner-city kid going to an inner-city school, and he represented me. And so they took it away because they thought they were doing cultural harm, and it turned out by taking it away they were doing cultural harm. It was a fascinating conversation about the Muppet Roosevelt Franklin from the 1970s on Sesame Street.

Speaker 10:
[69:16] Well, yeah, I mean, and it's all relatable, right? So, you know, for me, I loved Kermit the Frog when I was, I remember, you know, five, six years old, whatever, and that to me was someone that, or a character that I latched on to. And because of, you know, Kermit the Frog and doing shows and being an emcee and things like that, that got me interested in doing essentially what I'm doing now. And so, yeah, I can totally understand how people could latch on to a particular character. For me, it wasn't, you know, necessarily cultural, you know, no cultural ties, but I will tell you one of the people sometimes, you know, they'll say, do you have any regrets in life? I don't have many. Here's one that I have. I wrote a letter to Carol Spinney. Do you know who Carol Spinney was?

Speaker 3:
[70:06] No idea.

Speaker 10:
[70:07] Carol Spinney played Big Bird on Sesame Street forever, like since it started and he passed away, I don't know, eight or ten years ago. It's been a while. And I wrote a letter and I just said, you know what? Is there any chance that I could visit Sesame Street? And it's one of these things like, hey, you can ask, they're probably going to tell you, no, why not? And to his credit, he sent me a letter back. This was, I guess, email was around, people were still writing letters, if you remember letters. And he wrote me a letter back and it was really nice. And he said, thanks for reaching out. And he said, yeah, absolutely, you can visit. And he said, reach out to me again. I can't remember what the month would have been when we start taping. And yeah, we would, McGraw, I never wrote him back. And I regret this to this day. I could have gone to Sesame Street, McGraw.

Speaker 3:
[71:01] You could have gone to the street. How old were you when you wrote this letter, 42?

Speaker 10:
[71:06] Yeah, last year. I don't know, in my 30s. But you know, what the heck? I have a long history of just, I ask for things. And you know, most of the time people say no. But occasionally people surprise you and say yes. And you don't know until you ask.

Speaker 3:
[71:20] That's a great story. I was a Oscar the Grouch guy. I loved Oscar the Grouch.

Speaker 10:
[71:25] He's there in the museum in Atlanta. Oscar the Grouch is there.

Speaker 3:
[71:29] And then as I was getting just a little bit older, they introduced Snuffleupagus. And years later, and I don't know how true this is, but years later I had a friend who worked at Channel 9 or PBS or the Children's Television Network, whatever was the organization. And they told me that the reason why they introduced Snuffleupagus was because they wanted, remember it was Big Bird's imaginary friend. And they wanted children to tell their parents about their imaginary friends because just in case there was somebody abusing the child and said, you know, don't tell mommy about your friend. Well, they wanted the children to tell. And so that's why Big Bird kept telling, you know, Mr. Grover and all the others about his imaginary friends, Snuffleupagus, to encourage young children to tell their parents about their quote unquote imaginary friends. So I mean, there was a lot going on with Sesame Street that clearly we didn't realize.

Speaker 10:
[72:38] Yeah, you know, these shows, and one day we'll have to do a segment on Mr. Rogers because I went to his hometown and got to go into the archives and see all the stuff from that. That's a whole other thing. But very similar to his program, you have these educators, you have these people who are really doing deep dives on these topics and very smart people who are trying to convey to children in a way that, you know, grown adults can't do. Exactly.

Speaker 3:
[73:09] Yeah, whether it's whether it's the death of a parent or growing up with a handicap or a disability or yeah, no, it's really very fascinating. And and you know, God love them, right? Because oftentimes these are the kids, right? Kids oftentimes are raised by the television. And this is the only sort of parenting they get. Bill on the road, taking us down the muppets and a little history lane. Bill on the road.com. Do you have any book signings? I got about 30 seconds. Any book signings we should know about?

Speaker 10:
[73:37] No, I'm taking taking the week off, man.

Speaker 3:
[73:40] All right. Good. By the way, you should listen to last night's show. We had Tom Geno on. He wrote the Esquire magazine that the Mr. Rogers neighborhood movie was based on. He was on last night.

Speaker 10:
[73:54] Tom Hanks.

Speaker 3:
[73:55] Yeah. Yeah. He was he was talking about the article last last night. So download the podcast and get a load of the interview last night. That's Bill on the road. Bill on the road.com. Every Thursday, Bill, blink your eyes. It will be next Thursday. Until then, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.

Speaker 10:
[74:14] Okay, see you later.

Speaker 3:
[74:16] Bill Clevlen, ladies and gentlemen, the website, Bill on the road.com. At Night. Back in a moment.

Speaker 2:
[74:21] Live from coast to coast, this is At Night with McGraw Milhaven.

Speaker 3:
[74:43] Hey, from the text line, Bill Clevlen, keep on multitasking for us. Your spot on my radio brings a fresh of, a breath of fresh air and a break from the depressing news. You are a joy. That is from Illinois. I agree, Bill Clevlen is great. We love having him. His website is billontheroad.com, and he joins us every Thursday. He's our At Night traveling correspondent. That's his official title, and he joins us every Thursday. And when they gave me the job, it was one of my first phone calls to say, Bill, what are you doing? Come join me. And he said, let's do it. So he's been great from the beginning. Stay right there. Open phones next hour. Our executive director is Alex Hinton. Our engineer tonight is Richard Goode. I'm McGraw Milhaven. And this is At Night on What's With One.

Speaker 2:
[76:03] Westwood One presents At Night. Here's your host, McGraw Milhaven.

Speaker 3:
[76:11] It's Open Phones, it's hour number three. I just want you people to know how hard it has been to actually do a show while trying to watch the NFL Draft. All right, that's not easy, okay? I'm trying to watch who the Jets pick, and you know how hard it is, but I muddled through, I survived. I'm here for you people. I do what I can, but very difficult to try and one eye on the show, two eyes on the show and one eye on the Jets. So there you go. Phone numbers are as follows, because quite frankly, as a Jet fan, you really have nothing else to root for except the draft. And so this, right? I mean, other teams and other fans, you root when you go to the playoffs, you root when you have a chance to win, you root in the fourth quarter when you're coming back, all the things normal fans do. But for Jet fans, we don't really get to enjoy the game that way. We usually end up half with the season rooting against the Jets for draft position. And so our sort of, you know, fun season is the off season, where we can hope and dream that this next year will bring some, some new luck and some new players. So the draft is extra special for Jet fans. So I almost thought about taking the night off, but then I thought that might insinuate I have a problem. And the last, the last thing I wanted to insinuate. So I did the show and may or may not have peaked at the results from time to time. Phone numbers are as follows. 314. No, that's not the phone number. I almost gave out my cell phone number. The phone number to the show was 18442 McGraw, 1844262-4729. We had a couple of interesting guests earlier in the evening. We had on a lovely woman named Heather Simpson, who was very much an anti-vaxxer, who has now started an organization called Back to the Vax. And then we had on Dr. Sal Mercogliano, who was a Merchant Marine Academy Professor, and broke down what's going on with the Strait of Hormuz, was quite fascinating. If you missed it, I would highly recommend going back to the podcast and taking a listen to it, because it broke down what Iran is doing, broke down what the US is trying to do, how successful it is, how unsuccessful it is, who's getting through, who's not getting through. It was quite informative and I highly recommend it. Just remember that this whole show gets turned into a podcast. We just sprinkle a little pixie dust on it, and it becomes a podcast. And you can get it where all podcasts are housed or found. All you do is subscribe to At Night, and it gets sent to your device, and then you can listen to it whenever you want. I know people who do this, they love it. So if you miss an hour of the show, or you want to go back and listen to something else, or you want to send it to somebody else, the podcast is a great way to sort of make sure you don't miss anything. You know, this anti-vax thing is really interesting. And people forget that President Trump is the godfather of the COVID vaccine. All right, he was the one who was in office. He was the one who pushed to get the vaccine done. And he was in office when the vaccine was finally approved. And if you go back before COVID, people's heads explode when I say this, but this is actually true. When you go back before COVID, the anti-vaxxers were very, very liberal people. I mean, extreme left-wing people. How do I know this? I know this because I knew some I was friends with or knew her with or acquaintances with people who were severely anti-vaccine and they were the ultra liberals. I mean, you think of the ultra liberals today, they were very much anti-vaccine and they wouldn't have their children vaccinated and they didn't want to have the polio vaccine and forget the measles vaccine and forget the flu vaccine, right? They didn't want anything to do with it. And then COVID comes along. Donald Trump creates the vaccine. And if you remember, Kamala Harris was asked, it might have even been 60 minutes actually, she was asked, once the vaccine is approved, would you take it? And there was, remember there was the scare of the October surprise. They were going to rush the vaccine and get it out before the election. And the Democrats were worried that if Trump was able to get the vaccine approved before the election, that would then propel him to victory because he was able to get the vaccine. And that shows that he's working and he's an efficient legislator and he knows what he's doing. And so he's navigated this once in a lifetime pandemic. And now he's allowing us to leave our houses once again. And they were afraid of the October surprise. And Kamala Harris was asked, would you take the vaccine? And she even said, oh, well, if he rushes it, I don't trust anything Donald Trump does. I wouldn't do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And she basically said, I wouldn't take it because it will be tainted because he rushed it for his own political gain. Then the vaccine came out in December after the election. And then of course it was allowed because there was no October surprise and Biden wins and Trump loses, but Trump gets the credit for the vaccine. And so then at some point, the vaccine became, anti-vaxxers became very right-leaning. And now I don't know where it is now. There are still some ultra-lefts who are very much anti-vaxxers, but I think the majority of them are very right-wing anti-vaxxers. It's interesting, the journey of the vaxxer to the anti-vaxxer. But everyone forgets that Donald Trump deserves all the credit for the COVID vaccine. Anyway, those are the, those, I thought that was interesting. Anyway, phone numbers, 1-844-2, McGraw, 1-844-262-4729. Let's go to the phones here. Scott in St. Louis. Scott, welcome to At Night.

Speaker 12:
[82:49] Yeah. Yeah, the Anti-Defamation League, they had a program that was similar to the Southern Poverty Law Center. They would recruit and pay people to infiltrate the Nazis. But this was, it was after World War II in America, and it lasted until 1970. This is, or this is 1970s, this is according to NPR. And this guy wrote a book about it. You know, it was, yeah, so the only thing is they told, they told their informants not to break the law. They could do anything else, just don't break the law. They could take notes, you know, they can spy, but don't break the law. So I mean, I don't know how the Southern Poverty Law Center did it. You know, maybe they did it definitely.

Speaker 3:
[83:55] Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't know. Did the Southern Poverty Law Center hire Ku Klux Klan members, or did they hire people to pretend to be Ku Klux Klan members?

Speaker 12:
[84:10] Well, that's the thing. I think maybe they, you know, they just found some, some greedy...

Speaker 3:
[84:20] You think that, you think, I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't think we know. I don't think we know. I find it, I find it hard to believe, but in this day and age, anything is possible, that there is somebody who is a devout, anti-Semitic, Ku Klux Klan member who gets wind that the Southern Poverty Law Center is giving them money to go spy on their dear friends at the latest chapter. And so they take the money and then fulfill their promise of spying on their dear friends from this organization they believe in. I find that hard to believe.

Speaker 12:
[84:56] Apparently, well, I mean, this one person said, well, a lot of them are criminals. You know, I mean, the Aryan nation.

Speaker 3:
[85:07] But no, no, no, I understand. Well, it's not criminal to be a member of the Aryan nation. It's criminal to do, you know, things that break the law or whatever else.

Speaker 12:
[85:15] What I'm saying, the Aryan nation, I think it started in prison.

Speaker 3:
[85:20] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 12:
[85:21] Or whatever. As a response to...

Speaker 3:
[85:22] Right, I understand it. But informants, right, there's two types of informants. There's somebody who was in and is now out and is now a true convert and wants to help. Or there's like police who, you know, they got busted with with drugs. Hey, go in and wear a wire and we'll get the leader of the drug gang with your help and and we'll drop other drug charges. Well, the Southern Poverty Law Center doesn't charge people with anything. So they didn't have that going on. You know, they couldn't hang that over somebody's head. So who who did they pay? Did they pay people who will pay you to infiltrate the KKK? Or or did they get somebody from the KKK and said, we'll give you a bunch of money? And then they were true to their word with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which, again, I find hard to believe.

Speaker 12:
[86:12] Well, the ADL, when they did it, they it sounds like they recruited good people and had them. You know, some of them were even former police and they did pay them, no?

Speaker 3:
[86:26] And I don't think we know enough. I just, I don't think we know enough.

Speaker 12:
[86:32] Well, I don't trust. I mean, the Department of Justice now has no credibility at all. So, you know, I mean, this is Trump's lawyer, you know? These are people, he picked all loyal people that kiss his you know what, and they don't care about. They just care about their own career, you know? They don't give a hoot about the truth. Yeah. Trump doesn't care about the truth, and the people he hires don't care about the truth.

Speaker 3:
[87:04] I, Scott, thanks for the phone call. I truly believe that both parties love to play fast and loose with the facts. That's just my experience over the last 59 years of being on the face of the earth. Everybody loves to skew the facts for their own benefit. That's why I don't really trust anybody in politics, to be honest with you. All right, we've, let's do this. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back. 1-844-2-McGraw, 1-844-262-4729. At Night, back in a moment.

Speaker 2:
[87:38] Call now, 844-262-4729. That's 844-2-McGraw. Welcome back to At Night. Call now, 844-262-4729. That's 8442 McGraw.

Speaker 3:
[88:16] Phones, don't forget the text line, 1-8442 McGraw. We got line one, Danny Inralla. Danny, welcome to At Night.

Speaker 11:
[88:25] Hey bud. The previous caller was talking about Trump being untruthful, but if you look at the Biden administration versus the Trump administration, I'd put money on Trump telling the truth way over Biden or any of his administration. What's odd is that sometimes perception can become reality. It's just like 125 years ago, if there was a perception that a bank was weak, there would be a run on the bank. Now, this of course is before the FDIC. However, that perception, that thought, that rumor could turn into reality. So a lot of times when Trump speaks, he may really take a positive outlook on things, maybe even embellish. But to say that he's not truthful, I don't think that's anywhere close to accurate. Let's say you.

Speaker 3:
[89:28] Donald Trump, let's say, has an interesting relationship with the truth. And to say he's better than Biden, I don't think Biden or any politician should be the standard bearer of who's better or who's worse. That shouldn't be your guidepost. Look, all politicians lie. Donald Trump is really good at it. And he can shave and he can tell you all sorts of things. And he can, you know, is he I don't care how big of a fan you are of Donald Trump. He ain't that he ain't that schooled in telling the truth and being honest.

Speaker 11:
[90:08] I'm not believe it or not. And, you know, kind of share this standpoint, I'm not that big of a fan of his. But compared to some of the alternatives, I think that Donald Trump has done a better job. And I think part of that's because he's not a politician. He doesn't go about things in the same way. And it doesn't take him 20 years or two years to get something done. He wants to get it done. He goes in and does it. And that's unlike it.

Speaker 3:
[90:40] All right. All right. Hold on a second. We've never had day. You've said this now a couple of times. You're not necessarily the biggest fan of of Donald Trump. And yet you call up on the show every time defending Donald Trump. What are you not a fan of? What what what what policies? What policies are you not a fan of when it comes to Donald Trump?

Speaker 11:
[91:02] As far as policy, I think that shutting the border down, I think the I think that most of his policies I would probably agree with.

Speaker 3:
[91:11] Okay, so what's your problem with Biden? What's your problem with Trump then? If it's not his policies?

Speaker 11:
[91:18] He said something on the campaign trail. Of course, it was a private conversation about grabbing actresses and whatever.

Speaker 3:
[91:25] Yes, yes.

Speaker 11:
[91:26] And I just thought you idiot. I also think that much of the time he should take the same advice that I've given some of your listeners, record yourself, listen to it before you say it. Because some of the things that he says are just, they sound bombastic. Biden couldn't record anything because he couldn't get a sentence out. So I don't really agree with the way Trump communicates. But I think overall, and I think that the economy in his first term, and you can blame all that you want to on COVID. But I don't know, man, I can see some of it, but not all of it. And I think we're headed in a better direction now.

Speaker 3:
[92:16] All right. Danny, thanks for the phone call. Appreciate the comments. Yeah, no, you know, there's Joe Biden has been president in, I don't know, whatever, year and a half, whatever it is. Joe Biden is, you know, whatever. It's like, can we turn the page from Joe Biden? Anyway. All right. Here's what we got to do. Oh, the text line is alive and well. Here you go. I thought, let me see here. Where are we going here? I thought, oh, here you go. Hold on. Text line is coming in. Let's see. This is from Utah. Danny's got a fan. Danny from Rolla is hilarious. Here's another one. There was a couple of others here that sort of came in that I want to get in. We've got a couple of seconds here before we go to a break. Oh, I made a mistake last night. Somebody in Virginia corrected me. That TARP program was 700 billion, not 700 million. I said million by accident last night. So I apologize. Here's one from Pennsylvania. I'm in awe of your program and your guests. I appreciate you every single night. Thank you. Here's another one. Would you please give the spelling of that author who you had on last night for the book. It was Tom Junot, J-U-N-O-D, the D is science. Tom Junot and the book last night. And all right, music says we gotta break. Stay right there. We got phone calls, text messages, all straight ahead. At Night, back in a moment.

Speaker 2:
[93:50] This is At Night with McGraw Milhaven. The floor is yours. Call or text 844-262-4729. That's 8442 McGraw.

Speaker 3:
[94:32] All right, don't forget we have the text line. Don't forget you can text us any comments from that same number, 1-844-262-4729. Don't forget you can turn this whole show into a podcast. Download and listen whenever you want. Paul in Pennsylvania, welcome to At Night.

Speaker 13:
[94:52] I want to talk about the vaccine thing. Okay. It's of big interest to me. My wife and our daughter is a pediatrician. She and her husband, who's also a doctor, they've encountered difficulty. At one point, more or less felt they needed to leave a church that they like because there are a number of so many anti-vax people. She's a pediatrician. But that aside, opinions run very high on it. I'm wondering, maybe talk about how you get people to be more vaccine friendly and willing to do it. I have managed, in Pennsylvania where I live, very conservative people around and you commented, yes, boy, a lot of people around here are very much, we're very much afraid of COVID vaccines. I felt real good I was able to talk a number of people into going and getting vaccinated. Here's a couple of perspectives. One, people are worried about science. I love science. I've always been a fan of it, runs in our family. But I understand the worry. It gets more and more power. I think that's just very frightening to people. They know that they don't know all about it. One of the things I've found, the interest in your thoughts is I ask people when the subject comes up, what do you know about vaccines? Not why do you object? Because that becomes polarizing. They say, what do you know about vaccines? Usually then they will talk about what bothers them, and often in a more open way. Strange stuff. Have you heard about the enzyme luciferase? No. This is a reality, okay? The word lucifer in the Bible, I'm a pastor, okay? That is not really in the Bible in the name for the devil, but it's associated with it, and it means brings light. There is an enzyme called luciferase, and what it's used for in the production of various biological products is sometimes vaccines. It was not used with the COVID vaccine, it was not. But it's used to get a product as they're working on it to light up, and then you can see what's going on. I know there are people around here that were like, well, you know, they've used luciferase, and then they make the association to see the vaccines are, you know, from the devil from the dark side or whatever.

Speaker 3:
[97:39] Here's what I think, Paul. Here's what I think. And I know the woman we had on earlier in the night was fantastic. And I truly believe that the people who are anti-vax come at this, the people, not the people making money off the anti-vax, not the pushers of the anti-vax, but the citizens who believe the message. I think they come at this from such a good place that they don't want to do anything to hurt their child. Who in the world, right? So they're coming from this at a good place. But they have been given false information. And the people who are pushing the anti-vax, it's a cottage industry. They make money. They make money, right? Clicks and ads and all that stuff. And so the more clicks they get, the more money they get. So there's a financial incentive to push anti-vax while their message is, oh, the pharmaceutical companies are just trying to make money off vaccines, while they're pushing anti-vax propaganda, which they're making money off of. And I also think that the science community should do a much better job of, instead of insulting these people, explaining to it. And science is scary if you don't understand it. And that's why they put leeches on people back in the Middle Ages, because they didn't understand science. And so you have to explain it to them. And some people took science classes, other people didn't. And you have to explain a double blind study, you have to explain cause and effect, you have to explain just because the light goes on and it starts raining, that doesn't mean the light's going on.

Speaker 13:
[99:22] The light and cause, yep.

Speaker 3:
[99:23] Right. So there's all those things that I think the more traditional medical community should do a better job of explaining. Right.

Speaker 13:
[99:33] And for instance, one of the things I've said, I said, look, I understand, you know, years ago, they said, don't drink coffee. It's bad for you. Then coffee's good for you. You shouldn't eat butter. It's bad for you. Then butter's good. And the trouble is people, science is not, the science community is not distinguishing between that and vaccine realities and more serious stuff.

Speaker 3:
[99:55] Yeah. No, it's a good point. Paul, thanks for the phone call. I gotta go on. Let's try, let's see here. Let's go to, let's go to Gil on line one in San Antonio. Gil, welcome to At Night.

Speaker 14:
[100:07] Yes. I enjoyed the first hour with the anti-vax, pro-vax lady. Back during COVID, I was living in Manila, Philippines, and I'm a medical professional, and a lot of friends there were medical professionals, older people like myself. There was research that came out of Britain from Cambridge, Dr. Gault, and he explained why younger children did not get COVID. If you recall, very few young children got COVID. And that's because there was what they call cross-free activity with the MMR vaccine. So if, but that cross-free activity didn't last forever, it was something that lasted for a few years. So I took the two doses of the MMR vaccine before there was anything available, and I subsequently took five doses of Pfizer. But if you look on the internet, there's a part of the United States territory, American Samoa, and just prior to COVID, they had a vaccination program of the MMR there, and they had virtually no COVID on an island. It's American Samoa. And if you look at Samoan people, genetically they are more predisposed to type 2 diabetes and obesity than any other people in the world. And of course, those co-factors of diabetes and obesity were supposed to be predictors of your motor ability to develop COVID if you were exposed to it.

Speaker 3:
[102:39] All right. Real quick, Gil, finish up. I got to move on. What's your ultimate point here?

Speaker 14:
[102:47] Well, I'm just saying that science ain't perfect.

Speaker 3:
[102:53] No, and I don't think anybody would say science is perfect. And doctors are not always right. And it is good for the patient to be informed. It is important for the patient to ask questions and to be included in and to ask questions and to be skeptical. Absolutely. But be skeptical across the board. Don't just be skeptical of one. All right? Be skeptical of all. And, you know, don't get your information from Facebook. Get your information from a wide variety of sources. Gil, thanks for the phone call. Appreciate it. Let's go to Tyson in St. Louis. Tyson, welcome to At Night.

Speaker 14:
[103:41] Hey, thanks, McGraw.

Speaker 15:
[103:43] I just touch on the vaccines.

Speaker 14:
[103:44] That's not why I called.

Speaker 15:
[103:45] But I always thought the anti-vaxxers were the right wing religious people, like the Mennonites and the Mormons and the...

Speaker 3:
[103:51] Well, it's so funny you say that as a Catholic, I've met Catholics who say that they have a religious problem with the vaccine. I'm like, yeah, but you're Catholic. And they're like, yeah, exactly. I'm like, well, I've been to Catholic school. I've been to catechism. I've been to church for 50 years. Never once, anywhere, did any Catholic priest or anything ever say to me, you know, vaccines are bad. So I don't know why some people have religious objections. I'm like, you're a Catholic. What Catholics are OK with vaccines? What's your beef? So anyway, what's your other point?

Speaker 15:
[104:29] I wonder if you're following the Mike Vrabel saga.

Speaker 3:
[104:32] Is that the coach of the Patriots and the reporter from ESPN who got fired?

Speaker 14:
[104:38] Yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 3:
[104:40] Just a little bit. She used to be a Jets reporter. So I've been following it just a little bit. I guess there were some compromising photos in where she had to resign or get fired and they both had to deny or he had to say, I've had some interesting conversations with my wife, so it's a little bit of a scandal. Yeah, I've been following it a little bit.

Speaker 15:
[105:03] A new photo came out today of them kissing in 2020 in a bar, in 2020. And she had a child in 2021 and guess what she named her child?

Speaker 3:
[105:13] What?

Speaker 15:
[105:14] Mike.

Speaker 3:
[105:19] Now, that's a good conspiracy theory.

Speaker 15:
[105:22] It kind of goes along with what we've been talking about. I bet if they could pay a dollar or $130,000 for this to have never come out, she's lost her job. Brave went into counseling today. He might lose his job too.

Speaker 3:
[105:35] Oh, he went into counseling today.

Speaker 15:
[105:38] Yeah, he's going to miss the third day of the draft or second day of the draft now because he's going to counseling.

Speaker 3:
[105:44] I'm reading from page six from The Post. No greater source than that. Mike Vrabril and Diana Rossini were all over each other at a secluded bar in New York City six years before they were caught holding hands. The exclusive obtained by page six, the New England Patriots coach and the NFL reporter were spotted together outside a dimly lit Tribeca Tavern in March of 2020. He had a ring on and they were kissing and they were all over each other. He's been married, each has two kids with their respective partners. Then there's the picture. I've seen these pictures. Is it really? Can you really tell it's him and her? It looks like him, but can you tell it's her? I guess you can.

Speaker 15:
[106:27] There's some clear photos out there. When you try to zoom in, it's difficult to tell, but they're not denying it.

Speaker 3:
[106:34] Well, I will say this, no matter what you say about Mike Vrabril, he wasn't visiting the Asian Day Spa in Palm Beach like his owner was before the AFC Championship Game.

Speaker 15:
[106:47] Good one. Yeah, you're right. He wasn't. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[106:50] Tyson, thanks for the phone call. Tony in Montreal, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to At Night.

Speaker 16:
[106:57] You know, McGraw, every time I call in, I'm trying to try to speak to my original game plan, but I always get sidetracked by your callers. The fellow in St. Louis, I think his name is Scott. I just want to maybe give him an idea of what I think of lawyers being trained as one and now retired after maybe close to 40 years and that. I basically never trusted any lawyers, and most of the time they're lying when their lips are moving. So like, why is one set of lawyers better than another? Depending on the circumstance, it's like Charles Dickens. I was leaving high school and one of the old masters, they called him headmaster, said, why don't you read this book, Charles Dickens? It might be something interesting. He got paid by the words. So it's a very descriptive novel. And you know, it was Oliver Twist and Tale of Two Cities, et cetera, and all that kind of stuff. But I like great expectations. So it's kind of like the people in the United States should understand that lawyers get paid by the word. They also get paid by the procedures that they file. They also are much like Charles Dickens when he wrote Great Expectations. We all have great expectations. We all expect the presidents that we like to be great. But let's go back to the Rosenberg trial. 1951, the Truman government said that those two people were spies for the Soviet Union and transferring atomic secrets, right? That was a Democrat president. But they were not executed until 1953 under Eisenhower, who was a Republican. And he said they got enough justice. So he denied them clemency and so did Truman. So who's better, Democrats or Republicans? But at the end of the day, Danny Downen-Rala, I support Trump. Yes, Trump has some warts, but I still support him because he's the leader of the free world today. And I think the rest of the United States should do the same. You should get behind your president. And when Biden is sick, don't mock him. He's the president because you're mocking the office of the presidency. And the people that you guys should be angry with are the cabinet that surrounded Biden and his family and his son and his wife who put him through that crap. So that's the people the Americans should be unhappy with and the media that covered it up.

Speaker 3:
[109:31] It's always the media's fault.

Speaker 16:
[109:32] The ones who are blamed to go around.

Speaker 3:
[109:34] Tony, thanks for the phone call. Tony, I gotta go. I want to try and sneak Joe in here. Joe, I got about one minute. Joe in Arkansas, welcome to At Night.

Speaker 17:
[109:42] Thank you. To Tony, I'm not going to get behind Trump. I hear on the Internet he's incontinent. I'm not staying anywhere near behind him. Now, this lady that went back to Vax, that's the first I've ever heard of anybody going from natural and homeopathic back. I had all the childhood vaccinations. My dad made us get them for school when I was a kid and I had every one of the diseases. So you're better off with what God gave you, your natural immune system, keep them white blood cells up, get a blood test once in a while. And doctors like to do that and see how good you are and you're immune.

Speaker 3:
[110:24] So you suffered from polio?

Speaker 17:
[110:28] I'll pray for her because she's going to need it if she's going back to pharmacia. That's a religion in itself.

Speaker 3:
[110:35] Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, did you suffer from polio?

Speaker 17:
[110:41] It's rough.

Speaker 3:
[110:42] Joe's not listening.

Speaker 17:
[110:44] I got it.

Speaker 3:
[110:46] Joe, I got a break. Joe's still talking. Joe, I got a break. At Night back in a moment.

Speaker 2:
[110:52] Want to know what's coming up on At Night? Text RUNDOWN to 844-262-4729. 8442 McGraw for your daily show preview delivered straight to your phone.

Speaker 17:
[111:12] Let's go.

Speaker 18:
[111:17] No one goes to Hanks for his spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately, though, the shop's been quiet, so Hank decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks Copilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs and help him see if he can afford it. Copilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the dollar slice work. Now Hanks has a line out the door. Hank makes the pizza, Copilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more at m365copilot.com/work.

Speaker 2:
[111:55] You're listening to At Night with McGraw Milhaven.

Speaker 3:
[111:58] Couple from the text line. Most politicians that get the greed bug and they develop an insatiable desire to gain power and never let it go. Very few politicians remain squeaky clean and greed free. Ain't that the truth? Here's another one from New Mexico. Hey, do you ever consider limiting time or topics on your callers? Tony went from vaccines to the Rosenbergs. Yeah, that was an interesting weave that Tony had from vaccines to the Rosenbergs. But if anybody can connect vaccines to the Rosenbergs, I believe is our friend Tony from Montreal. Hey, that's going to do it for us tonight. We are officially out of time. Remember, if you want to follow us each and every night, Alex puts out a rundown of the show. Just text the show 1-844-262-4729. We'll send you a link, you sign it up, and you are automatically enrolled in our show. And we will send you all the texts on all the upcoming shows. And then we turn every single show into a podcast. It's a great way to follow along. If you miss something, if you want to hear another, if you want to hear it again, or you missed a show or the hour was preempted, it's a great way to listen to the show. Download the podcast where all podcasts are found, and you can download it right to your device every single day. Thanks for listening. We're back tomorrow with another show. Our executive director is Alex Hinton. Our engineer tonight is Richard Goode. I'm McGraw Milhaven, and this is At Night on Westwood One.

Speaker 6:
[113:35] Hi, I'm Joe Salcihi, host of the Stacking Benjamins Podcast.

Speaker 19:
[113:38] Most economists agree, small amount of inflation is actually good. 2% is what you're going for. But why is everybody freaking out? Oh, because it's the fallout.

Speaker 9:
[113:46] People don't track their budget.

Speaker 7:
[113:48] You have this slow slipping that happens every month.

Speaker 19:
[113:51] So all of a sudden you go, man, I don't have any money.

Speaker 9:
[113:53] The reason is now two people go to a restaurant.

Speaker 7:
[113:55] The bill is 60 bucks for two.

Speaker 3:
[113:57] Two guys walk into a restaurant.

Speaker 11:
[113:58] They start screaming. Isn't that hilarious?

Speaker 7:
[114:00] $60.

Speaker 6:
[114:01] Stacking Benjamins.

Speaker 9:
[114:02] Follow and listen on your favorite platform.