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You're listening to KFI AM six forty
the Bill Handle Show on demand on the

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iHeartRadio app. Another hot one hopefully
cools down by the end of the weekend.

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A couple of things before we get
into Joe Biden and his Big Boy

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speech yesterday. First of all,
the podcast is up and right now my

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podcast, the Bill Handle Show podcast, very different thing. I say things

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I can I explore topics a little
deeper in any case, that is up

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right now only on the iHeartRadio app
at this moment. It's going to be

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expanding in the next few days to
of course all the podcast platforms. But

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it's on the iHeartRadio app, the
Bill Handle Show podcast and well, for

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example, one of the stories I
tell in my background is how I got

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a job here at KFI without having
a job here at KFI. I actually

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learned and listen to both of them. I really loved it, and learn

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things about you that I didn't know. Yeah, and you've known me for

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thirty years, Neil, indeed,
yeah, you know basically everything about me.

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And also Neil and I are going
to be at the White House Anheim

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White House Sunday celebrating Bastile Day.
It's going to be an all French menu.

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It's celebrated. I don't know where
Bruno, chef Bruno connects with French

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bestial Day's Italian. So I have
no idea. And maybe it's because the

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only people the Italians ever beat in
a fight were the French. I don't

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know. In any case, the
bottom line is that it's all French menu.

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We'd love to have you there.
It's ninety five bucks ahead, but

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it's very high end food and we'll
spend the evening and my daughter is coming,

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my daughter Barbara and her fiance coming, and I'm going to celebrate that

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he's going to be taking care of
her. Ha. Okay, Dad,

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I don't need I won't need your
credit card anymore when I don't when I

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get married. Ha. All right. What happened yesterday at Joe Biden's Big

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Boy's speech and Washington at the end
of the summit at the NATO summit,

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Well everybody, of course, all
the reporters were ignoring what happened during the

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summit. Joe Biden explained it when
he first came out and gave it us

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prepared on the teleprompter speech, and
it was he is wonderful NATO is terrific.

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It will be destroyed under Trump.
I mean, just his normal stuff.

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Now, that was to his strength
when he answered questions, because foreign

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relations is his thing. I mean, forty years in the Senate and his

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specialty was foreign relations. The problem
became when he started talking and he was

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asking questions and that one and I
stopped listening after a few minutes because it

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was so painful. He refers to
President Zelenski as President Putin and then corrects

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himself, calls Vice President Harris vice
President Trump and corrects himself. He refers

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to taking advice from my commander in
chief instead of saying correcting himself, saying,

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the chief of staff of the military. That's no big deal. That's

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just a I don't think that's a
big deal. A right correction, though,

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yeah, it's that's not the end
of the war. He did not

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correct himself on the Trump vice president
Trump thing. He actually I'm trying to

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remember, I think because they,
oh, you know, you're right,

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you're right, and you're right.
He also taught now this is now we

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have the minutia and people are going
to Minutia. He said, I created

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two thousand jobs just last week.
Well, it was a report that two

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hundred thousand jobs had been created in
the last month. And then he did

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a few of the gaffs and the
big issue, and the big question,

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is this was going to either save
him or destroy him. If the gaffs

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continued and he showed that he did
not have the wherewithal to even figure out

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where he is what he is doing, of course that would have just solidly,

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solidly wrap it up for him and
the campaign. He wouldn't be a

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he would not be able to fight
the overwhelming move to get him out of

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the campaign. He didn't go there. At the same time, he had

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the opportunity to score big time by
coming up with a speech or answers to

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questions that were on point, that
were succinct, that showed cognitive abilities.

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Now it's hard for him to do
that because he is he does not do

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well under these circumstances. He's just
not good at it. And unfortunately,

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today you have to be good at
communications, or good at speech making,

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or good at press conferences, and
that somehow translates into someone's ability to govern

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the United States or govern a state
or a city. That's unfortunately, you

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can't be bad at communicating and still
be a good boss. Well, when

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you're talking about decisions that a president
makes, the fact that you're a bad

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or he's a bad speech maker.
And even if he makes mistakes, and

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I'll tell you, even if he
loses it for a minute or two,

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he actually pays attention to his advisors. Not necessarily now in terms of the

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run for the presidency, But I
think he gets a good solid cea yesterday,

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you know, passing. Yeah,
yeah, he passed. Did he

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score big? No? No,
I think it's being described as Democratic Party

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is still in the same purgatory that
it was a few days ago. I

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think that makes a lot of sense. And you can see how he actually

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how scared he is. And and
I know someone who is very, very

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smart, and she is just a
horrible test taker. I had a law

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clerk once, one of the smartest
people I knew, took the California State

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Bar six times, six times,
and she was and is brilliant, a

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phenomenal lawyer. She just was not
good at test taking. So can we

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have a president who is just not
good at press conferences or communicating or coming

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off you know, he's no JFK. You know who instantly would able to

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be come up with a quip.
He's no Barack Obama, he has no

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Bill Clinton. He's not even a
Ronald Reagan, who, by the way,

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wasn't quick, but he was a
communicator. He could do a teleprompter

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like no one else ever. Good. You don't think Reagan was quick.

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I don't think he was quick.
No, I begged it different. Yeah,

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I don't think. Yeah, And
they were all written, and they

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were all written for him. Oh
when a balloon pops and he says,

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missed me in the middle of a
speech that's written for him. No,

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but you know, if that you're
talking about one or two he was not

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known. How many of those can
you come up with? Very little,

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very few. And by the way, that one, oh you missed me

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that I'd like to see a little
bit more depth. Not that that wasn't

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the appropriate comment, don't misunderstand,
but when we're talking about coming back quipping,

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if you will, retorting replying on
something of substance. But anyway,

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that's certainly my take on it.
I didn't think that Ronald Reagan was particularly

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quick, but okay, on a
balloon popping incident, I'll take that back.

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The balloon incident he was Anyway,
the bottom line is I'm gonna go

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back and I'm gonna end it with
this, and that is he got C.

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That's it. Maybe a C plus
certainly, not a B minus.

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You know what, maybe a C
plus minus. It's like when I order

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a steak, I either have it
medium rare plus or medium minus. Does

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that work? Sure? Coming up? How France and I'm going to compare

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the two, and you don't know
where I'm going with this. France and

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Nazi Germany. How they're hand in
hand. And I'm talking about now I'll

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explain. You're listening to Bill Handle
on demand from kf I am six forty

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Neil. As we finished that last
segment about Joe Biden and how I had

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said his speech yesterday was press conference
that I had said, he's just not

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very quick, and I mentioned other
presidents and I had said Ronald Reagan,

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for example, was not very quick. And you immediately disagreed with me,

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and you said, yes, he
was great. Right. No, No,

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I didn't say that. I said
he wasn't quick. I thought he

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was a great communicator. But that's
not the point. That was what people

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called it. Okay, the point
I'm making here okay is from now on,

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and this is for Amy also from
now on. The response is Bill,

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I agree with you completely. Bill. That was very good insight.

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Those are the reply you know,
I'm talking to maybe changing up the show

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a little bit and talking about making
a little fresher here and there. That's

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one of them. That's one of
them. I'm surprised we get to call

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you by your first day, but
not mister handle your Hey, it's your

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show, yeah, yeah, or
your excellency. Okay. I want to

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do a little history now. I
want to do a little bit history going

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back to nineteen thirty six. Nazi
Germany. All right, Nazi Germany or

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Germany was hit by the depression,
probably harder than any other country, including

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the United States. I mean,
Germany was a mess, and into power

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come the Nazis, Adolf Hitler,
who turned around. I mean, the

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economy exploded. While the rest of
the world nineteen thirty six was really into

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the depression, we weren't out of
it. Germany was doing great and the

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nineteen thirty six Olympics were there,
and anti Semitism and all the crazy stuff

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was still happening. And so you
know what Hitler did let's put everything on

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hold, Let's make everything look great. Let's downplay the anti semitism, let's

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downplay the fact that this is a
dictatorship that kills people. We're going to

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put on a happy face to make
us look great. Okay, that's what

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they did and got away with it. By the way, now we move

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forward to the Olympics in Paris.
We've got to put on a pretty good

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face. And we have a lot
of homeless people, a whole lot.

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Paris has a huge homeless population.
So what is the government of Macrone doing?

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How does this sound familiar? They're
throwing homeless people on buses and moving

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them into outlying areas and putting them
in shelters, which really there aren't any.

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So they're taking homeless people saying we're
gonna put you in a shelter,

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we're gonna give you some help,
we're gonna give you some aid, and

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then on a bus and out they
go. Sounds a lot like what's happening

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here with illegal aliens from Texas,
doesn't it being bussed into New York,

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et cetera. Say hey, jobs
are waiting for you, this is great

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stuff. Here you go, And
that is what's happening in Paris as we

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speak, and by the hundreds of
thousands, because Paris has to look fantastic

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and it's a beautiful city. Paris
is the city of lights because they have

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lights. This is deep stuff,
Neil, once again, Bill, that

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was deep insight. Okay, mister
Handel, thank you for that wonderful analysis.

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And deep insight wasn't It was the
best thing I've ever heard. Top

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Okay, Okay, they want to
keep their jobs, but it's major cities

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still have a huge homeless problem.
But major cities don't have the Olympics coming

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up at the end of the month, and so they're scrambling and moving people

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out by the thousands. And the
New York Times picked this up and went

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out and interviewed some of these people, the illegal aliens, if you were,

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and most of them from North Africa, and they're going to these housing

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these encampments and saying what are you
doing here, and go well, yesterday

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we were in Paris and they put
us on a bus and we don't even

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know which where we were going.
They don't have I don't think they charter

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buses. I think they just give
them bus tickets. And a couple of

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guys interviewed said, we had no
idea where we were going. Oh I

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know, we had a bus ticket
and here it says Orleon, Orleans and

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that's where we went. And so
you're if you go to Paris for the

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Olympics, a lot of people are
going because one of the things the Olympics

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does is really good for tourism.
You're not going to see much homelessness,

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at least in the city. Maybe
in the suburbs, maybe out there in

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suburban land, but you're not going
to see much in Paris. No different.

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How they tell who the homeless are
in France? Okay, how do

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they tell Neo they're the ones wearing
deodorant? Oh that's the homeless people.

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Yeah, it's a joke because they
I just didn't get it. They're the

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ones wearing deodorant, the homeless people. Now you know how it feels when

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no one gets a joke. Coming
up, we're moving away from the homeless

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of France to anybody who lives,
and no, that's not gonna work.

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I was about to make an analogy
and it was so stupid. I can't

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even get halfway through it. The
Mirage Hotel is disappearing and it is was

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an icon of all icon started the
modern hotel trend in Las Vegas. And

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excuse me, Michelle, Michelle,
do you go to the Mirage at all?

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Or have you been to the Mirage
a lot times? Okay, so

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I'm gonna have Michelle jump into this
because she's our league, our Vegas whisper

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by a long shot. You're listening
to Bill Handle on demand from KFI Am

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six forty. The podcast is up, the Bill Handleshow podcast, and right

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now you can listen to it on
the iHeartRadio app. That's the only place

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it's on right now. We're working
on a few of the other platforms,

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but the Bill Handle Show podcast on
the iHeartRadio app. And Neil said he

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was he learned stuff about me that
he didn't even know. And we've known

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each other for the years. I
very much enjoyed it. Yeah, both

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episodes so fun. Yeah, two
episodes, and one of them, I

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have a job here at KFI and
I started having a job by not having

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a job, and there's a whole
story there, and that's a lot of

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fun. And then my family and
going back and just dealing with World War

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two with my grandparents is really interesting. Stuff and I'd love to have you

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tune in and try it out.
And that's the Bill Handle Show podcast on

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the iHeartRadio app. Okay, we've
gotten oh well for the Anaheim White House,

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go to Anaheim white House dot com
if you'd like to join us.

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There are a few tickets still available. They're very close to sold out.

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But come on down and say hello
and will and eat eat French food Fromage

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Cripe susette some It's gonna be good. It's gonna be good. Now a

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story that I wanted to do and
do a couple of segments on this,

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and Michelle is all over this personally, and that is about the Mirage Hotel.

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The Mirage Hotel is going away and
it broke thirty thirty five years old

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and it's gone, but the it
broke new ground. It basically reinvented hotels

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in Las Vegas. The guy who
did it is a man by the name

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of Steve Winn. And if you
look at the hotels that he was involved

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with, both in La and Atlantic
City or Las Vegas, the Gold Nugget,

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the Gold Nugget in Atlantic City,
the Mirage Treasure Island is his.

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The Belaggio one in Mississippi. I
mean, he has them all over the

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world. And of course Win and
Encore, right, the Win, the

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Encore. I mean that's all him. He's worth several billion dollars. Very

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interesting guy. Well, let's first
talk about that because I have a story

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that a lot of people don't know
about Steve Win. But Michelle, you

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were there opening day. I was. I was in. It was nineteen

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eighty nine, November twenty second,
nineteen eighty nine, we were in.

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I was seventeen. We were in
Vegas because we were visiting my grandparents who

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had lived there for many years,
and we were there for Thanksgiving, which

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was the twenty third, and so
when we were visiting, my grandparents were

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talking about this new hotel that was
going to be opening and it was a

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big deal and we got to go
see it, and oh my god,

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it's nothing like anybody's ever seen.
So we went on opening day and we

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it was a big crowd of people
to go in and just kind of look

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at this new kind of hotel that
nobody ever experienced before, and it was

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incredible. Like at the time it
was the volcano obviously was the pano out

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in the front yard. Yeah,
of the hotel, this exploding volcano.

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What's every hour or something, it
goes up and people line up to see

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it. Today you look at it
and you know, it's just pretty cheesy.

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Yeah, I mean then it was. It was just enormous. And

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you walk when you walked in,
I mean, they had the beautiful,

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this beautiful atrium that's in there,
and they had these aquariums that were behind

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where you check in aquarium, massive
aquarium, like a major aquarium size aquarium,

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like when you go to an aquarium. Uh, and just and that

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lobby is unbelievable at the wind and
that then he saw then you remember he

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had that the gallery of priceless paintings, Yes, that he put up there.

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No one had ever ever done that, and it was it was the

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restaurants were so amazing, and the
lighting in the lobby, I mean,

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he took it to a level that
no one had ever seen in Las Vegas.

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And then I can't remember if it
was right when it opened, but

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they also had eventually they had the
dolphin habitat, oh yeah, Freed and

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Roy and the white tiger right the
Zick Freed and Roy that they brought.

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I think that may have been the
first major act that was there permanently in

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Las Vegas right that they it's what
he is created or we did create.

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Was incredible. And I don't know
if you ever saw Zeke Freed and Roy.

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I loved Zeke. I loved their
show. Zeke Freed and Roy a

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couple of gay guys who lived together
for a zillion years. Headliners made a

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ton of money. And these white
tigers, very rare white tigers that they

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had, that they actually bred,
and they lived on their their grounds some

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time of Zeke Freed and Roy lived
on in there in Las Vegas. And

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this is huge enclosure, this walled
enclosure where they lived, and tigers would

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be in bed with these guys and
they would run around and it was terrific

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until the night that one of the
tigers ate Roy on stage. So obviously,

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when I was there at seventeen,
I didn't stay there. I didn't

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play there, But many many times
over the last twenty years have I played

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there. I've stayed there. I've
seen the I really think their Beatles show

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was one of the best Cirk shows. I don't buy that. I loved

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it. I've seen it. Yeah, Vente, I'll tell you, first

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of all, I didn't like it
at all. That means you have to

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agree with me. No new rules
here on the show. And we'll talk

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about that because I just want to
share that with you. And then diving

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more into the tiger or the roy
eating incident of one of their tigers and

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what ended up happening, and that's
that's a whole story onto itself. So

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a little bit more about the Mirage
because this is not only is history passing

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in front of us, the hard
Rock is buying that property, by the

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way, and it's going to be
a hard Rock hotel in Las Vegas,

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but also just some of the stuff. Oh Steve Wynn is blind too,

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he can't see. That's how you
defined blind. Right. Hey, once

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again, Neil, that's very deep, Bill, that is you are correct

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sir. That is excellent, excellent
analysis as always. Miss all right,

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So I'm going to come back and
spend a few minutes talking about this because

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it is He's amazing, the hotel
was amazing, and Lost Vegas well it

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is what it is today in large
part because of Steve Win and the Mirage

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Hotel. You're listening to Bill Handle
on demand from KFI AM six forty The

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Mirage Hotel thirty five years is history. It is closing. Michelle was there

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on opening day. Not only was
the Mirage itself reinvented basically all the high

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end hotels in Las Vegas. It
created the Las Vegas we know today.

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But Steve Wynn who actually created the
hotel, and he did so many others.

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I mean, he is the hotel
yure of Las Vegas. By the

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way, he no longer owns any
of that. As Michelle pointed out five

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years ago, he got caught in
a sexual harassment yeah, sexual harassment suit,

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improper or sexual advances or whatever he
did, and so he had to

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leave the hotel. So he's done, and so of course it's just a

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major corporation and we don't even know
who the CEO is. One of the

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interesting things about Steve Wynn is he's
blind. He is blind, and he

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had and Michelle, you remember this
story. One of the things he did

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was revolutionary in terms in the aquarium
behind the front desk, the volcano in

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front of the hotel. He had
this multi zillion dollar art collection. It

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was I think his personal art collection
that was put in the lobby or a

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part of the lobby or a room
in the lobby and people could go through

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it and see it. And there's
a great story, which is true.

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He's blind and he's walking along,
loses his balance and punches his elbow through

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a van go that was worth at
that time thirty million dollars. I remember

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that, and oops, that's a
big one. So Michelle's say, and

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you've been there, and you were
there opening day, well, and I

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have been there many times over the
years. I think the problem with the

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Mirage is it just didn't keep up. I mean, it didn't keep up

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after all these other big resorts started
popping up. It did update itself a

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few times, but after like two
thousand, it really stopped updating itself.

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So if you stayed there anytime after
like the early two thousands, it was

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kind of old, you know,
like it was just it was just looking

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kind of old. They didn't really
do any other advancements to it or renovate

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rooms or anything like that over the
years. And then of course you know

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the Zigfreedo and Roy thing. I
mean, it just it it brought people

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down. Now I stopped playing there
because I stopped winning there, so I

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started going to other casinos once I
you know was gambling, but it just

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didn't it if you went to see
it now, like the last time I

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saw it, I probably was there
maybe two years ago. Was the last

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time I was at Mirage, and
it just looked old and run down.

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If you walk into the luxword,
it's the same feeling. Yeah, Luxor

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is old. Circus Circus is a
thrill. Yes, yes, where originally?

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I don't know when Circus Circus opened. Was it prior to the wind

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or after the Circus Circus opened a
very long time ago. Yeah, I

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know they and they to save money. They still have the same area lists

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who were there, so they're eighty
years old and they're swinging a little tiny

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bit. I mean, Circus Circus
is I don't want to be unfair.

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Circus Toilet is what it is.
It opened in sixty eight, Circus Circus,

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and I don't think they updated it
very much except by adding the little

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theme park that the big theme park
that they did. Yeah, et servius,

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you go there, you gonna have
an all you can eat bfet for

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two dollars and sixteen cents. And
you know how buffets have seafood salad.

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This is cans of tuna for your
seafood salad. The great thing about Circus

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Circus back then, though, was
they had a whole area of four kids.

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They had like a midway area where
you coul wind stuff an animals veryly,

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and you have to keep up,
and it costs a fortune to keep

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up. Hotels in Las Vegas.
I mean, these are thousands of rooms.

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The Win for example, is three
thousand rooms, and so the staffing

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just running a hotel. It even
has the old time shower, the tub

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showers in the rooms. How do
you do that in a hotel today?

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I think at the time the Mirage, I think it had I want to

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say, seven hundred rooms, and
that was a big deal back then,

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Like that's how many rooms that has. Yep, it's not like the hotels

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now, like you said, like
Venetian, I can't even imagine how many

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thousands of rooms of Venetians. Yeah, yeah, and great stories because because

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Sheldon Aedelsen was a client of mine
and I helped him to create one of

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my surrogacy clients, and so I
was I was up there a couple of

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months before it even opened, and
it was pretty exciting to see hotel like

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that, and I tried to get
the restaurant wasn't open, and I got

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really pissed off, really pissed off
my bed. I don't know, I

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was thinking, the Mirage does have
three thousand rooms. I don't know why

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I thought it had less than a
thousand. All right, they started at

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three thousand. Yeah, that's what
it. It's okay, So that's another

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groundbreaker. Yeah, and so the
Mirage and people are going there and going

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crazy. It's like Disneyland memorabilia.
Disneyland were to close down, the disney

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freaks would go out of their minds. Well, much is the same happening

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with the Mirage again. Zeke Fried
and Roy the best act Las Vegas has

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ever ever had. Roy eaten by
one of the tigers that was in the

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Magic Act, and he never got
upset either. He said it wasn't the

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tiger's fault. He said the tiger
was helping him. Yeah, the tiger

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was helping him by ripping open his
throat and he almost died and ended up

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in a wheelchair. Not the tiger
but Roy, and they stopped the ass

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a lot. They don't give him
the credit, but the Mirage was actually

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the first hotel to have all you
can eat buffets, for Tigers, so

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that was also on the list,
yes, consisting of Roy, although Roy

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wasn't very big so there wasn't a
whole lot. There. We're done,

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guys. You've been listening to the
Bill Handle Show. Catch My Show Monday

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through Friday six am to nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app