Am, I Am six forty. You're listening to wake Up Call on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. It's time for your morning wake up call. Here's
Jason Middleton warding everyone. This is your wake up call. It's Thursday,
June fifteenth. My name is Jason Middleton. Just heard announcer man's stay is
his wake up call, So welcome in June fifteenth. I was doing some
prep for the show today, obviously, and sometimes we look back in history
and we say on this date kind of things, and we usually skip over
ninety eight percent of those, but there were two that happened on this date
that kind of relate to today's show. So real quick. Back in twelve
fifteen, early thirteenth century, King John of England puts his seal on the
magnet Carta. Now that that's the first document that put into writing the principles
that the king and his government not above the law. Later this hour on
wake Up Call, we're going to unpack a modern iteration of political power dynamics.
And in eighteen seventy eight, Edward my Bridge took a series of photographs
to prove that all four feet of a horse actually do leave the ground when
it runs, and that study becomes the basis of motion pictures. So for
that when we're gonna update the writers guild strike and when how and if motion
pictures and other productions are gonna restart. So both of those are coming up,
as well as other things this hour. A few quick headlines. New
polling out shows former President Trump is holding his lead among GOP voters for the
Republican nomination despite his arraignment this week. He's got a significant lead still over
Florida. Governor rond De Stantiff. Texas is sending more migrants to La.
Governor Greg Abbott there tweeted yesterday that forty two migrants were put on a bus
on their way to Los Angeles. And it's been grace, guys for this
Southland here a topic of discussion in most cafes and dining tables, as I
assume at least at my house. But in the eastern US, hundreds of
thousands are without power after severe weather continues to slam the southeast. Let's look
at some more stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. We
always lead local La City Council members stay they're looking into the criminal case against
councilman current Price. Price has been accused of a paid a play scheme with
developers. Council President paulker Corey and says officials are now looking at the real
estate projects Prices accused of voting in favor of for his own financial interests.
We're going to be looking at all of those to see whether there are any
reasons for concern about those real estate projects themselves. Price was hit with ten
criminal charges Tuesday. Yesterday, Emotion was introduced to suspend Price in La Blake
trolley k if I News. A former EMT from Long Beach has been sentenced
to more than twenty nine years in prison for selling fentonel to two of his
co workers. The co workers thought they were buying cocaine, and one of
them died from an overdose. The former EMT has been in custody since his
arrest in twenty nineteen. Authorities searched the man's house and found more than a
dozen illegal fire arms along with the drugs. They say he shipped across the
country and had been selling them locally for a long time. Also, pills
laced with fentanyl have been found in drug stores in Mexico from coast to coast.
Officials say the problem is bigger than previously thought and is hitting tourist hotspots
especially hard. An investigation earlier this year found some of the pills looked like
antibiotics and came in sealed bottles, others were unlabeled white tablets, and several
mimicked well known American versions of pills. At least a half a dozen Americans
have overdosed or died from taking those fake pills, but authority state it could
be way more because Mexico doesn't do routine toxicology tests. I believe the source
of that investigation was the La Times. The state Attorney General says he demands
answers from the state of Florida over the transport of thirty six migrants from Texas
to Sacramento. Rob says he sent a public records request for documents, communications,
and unredacted invoices related to the Florida funded travel of illegal immigrants earlier this
month. The migrants traveled in two groups. Both started at a shelter and
El Paso, then went by bus to New Mexico and finally by playing to
Sacramento. Banta said it was a political stunt that's both immoral and deceptive.
Florida officials say the migrants voluntarily signed a waiver and were excited to go to
California. Steve Gregory can off I knows a lawsuit claims an almost eight million
dollars settlement to save the Pacific Air Show is nefarious, while hunting Debeach as
its routine. Ocean View School District Vice President Gina Clayton Tarvin says the settlement
was made between France and should be made public. That reeks of all pat
your back, you pat mine, what is this? This is not their
personal kingdom. City attorney Michael Gates says full details cannot be released yet because
of pending litigation. Any accusation that there was some favorable settlement and that we're
hiding something, all of that is completely not true now. Gates says it's
a routine settle over the twenty twenty one oil spill which forced the Pacific Air
Show to shut down. ABC's Jim Ryan is on the line with us.
Good morning, Jim, Hey Jason. I'm certain this is a subject we'd
rather not have to cover. It's a fact in modern American though, and
that's active shooter situations. And you have a new FBI study in hand.
Yes, these shootings, active shooter situations are slightly different from mass shootings,
and that they take some time, they give police a chance to respond.
You hear police reports of active shootings and immediately they go rushing to a scene.
In many cases, mass shootings happen in just a few seconds. It's
over and people are dead and wounded. If you look back at twenty twenty
two, the FBI says that there were fifty active shooter situations in twenty five
states in the District of Columbia. That's fewer than we had in twenty twenty
one the year before, when there were sixty one of them. But at
the same time, you had more casualties last year than the year before.
One hundred people were killed, two hundred thirteen were wounded. Last year in
twenty twenty one, you had one hundred three people killed one hundred forty undred.
So last year three hundred and thirteen casualties, the year before that two
hundred forty three. Fewer active shooter situations, more casualties. Jason, Now
you did define active shooter or differentiate active shooter from mass shooter there and FBI
obviously it's harder to predict mass shootings. How precise is this toy though,
when it comes to active shooters, well, it's quite accurate. I mean,
it's based on police statistics and so, and it lays out just raw
details the when, the where, the who was involved, how many people
were heard are killed. And the difference here is that an active shooter situation
happens in a public place, first of all, and they sometimes happen at
more than one location. A person fires on someone here in one location,
moves to a different location, and the shooters actions weren't the result of another
criminal act. But very often you have mass shootings that fall into the active
shooters categories as well. You know, the situation that the outlan ball here
in Texas is a perfect example of shooting situation. Well, also was an
active shooter situation because it did happen in a public place, the victims were
kind of random in that situation, and that the shooter appeared to be hunting
for specific people. Man, the dynamics of this are fascinating and tragic at
the same time. One thing that was in the report that I think that
we can talk about is the FBI feels confident. It can it can estimate
the month in time of a likely shooter. How did they do that?
Well, they're an estimating. I mean these are based on raw statistics.
So the police report says that the incident happened on j June fourteenth at three
thirty in the afternoon, and so they can compile those statistics into one big
report. And doing that, the FBI has found that the greatest number of
active shooter situations happened in May of last year, when there were nine of
them. January, in September of last year, each month had only one
I say only one, only one, but each one had one active shooter
situation. By day of the week, Sunday appears to be the day that
you had the most active shootings last year. Thursday and Friday had the fewest.
Can I lean into your experience for a second, because active shooter situation
if you go back in time, I go to back to the University of
Texas. Yeah, Um, were there ones before that? Or was that
kind of like a popular culture Bell Weather moment? Well that you know,
you've seen film of that, You've seen video of that happening, and I
think that maybe how that one is slightly different. There were certainly situations like
this before, but you didn't have somebody with in that case. I believe
it was an eight millimeter camera capturing images. The local TV station ran out
there and had pictures of Charles Whitman up there in the in the bell tower,
the clock tower. Ut So I think that one may be different.
It absolutely was an active shooter situation happened in the public place as students were
being targeted. There were there incidents like that before, Yeah, absolutely,
but that one, I think you're right. That was probably the kind of
they mark and the calendar that one in Kent State. To mind, I
worked with somebody in Pittsburgh who was at Kent State during that active shooter situation.
Last question, kind of a logistics thing. Was the FBI doing this
internally? Was this coming out of Congress or request from the White House.
Well, it's part of the FBI statistical gathering, numbers gathering of every year.
So this report will be made available to police departments around the country,
and those departments then can do what they want with it. Then numbers only
go back to twenty eighteen. That's how fairly recent this whole phenomenon really is
I mean, I don't think I had heard the term active shooter before about
well Columbine really the late nineteen nineties, and then after that. It seems
to be kind of a flood of information. ABC's Jim Ryan always a pleasure
to speak with you, even about tough topics. Thank you very much.
Thanks Jason, get back to some of those stories coming out of the KFI
twenty four hour newsroom. Want to highlight this when supervisors in Orange County have
unanimously voted to make June Pride month, but it was not without some bickering
to celebrate and promote men who dresses women and who want me to lie and
call them women. Critics made similar arguments to last week when supervisors appeared to
ban the Pride flag. The hateful mean words by those of you who came
up to this podium and lectured us and told us to be kind. Are
you kidding me? Supervisor Katrina fully said, in response to someone asking for
stats, I'll tell you the stats. Eighty three percent increase in hate crimes
towards our LGBTQ plus community here in Orange County in the last year. Supervisor
Andrew do said, this week. The county has always supported Pride Month,
which he says, it's supposed to be about acceptance and tolerance, but Pride
Month and a pride community has been hijacked by a few with a political agenda.
Just because they disagree with all a volt, they twisted around and make
it a political statement. In Orange County, Corbin Carson k if I News,
the LA archbishop says he will hold a special mask for healing because of
the Dodgers honoring the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The team chose to honor the
self described drag nuns for their service to the community. Equality. California's Jorge
Selina says by holding a prayer session the same night the sisters are set to
be recognized, the archbishop is further dividing the community. I was raised a
Catholic and understood the word of the Catholic Church, and I still consider myself
a strong Catholic while being a proud gay man. The archdiocese says Friday's mass
will focus on community healing and renewed respect for religious beliefs. Chris Adler KFI
News. Quinnipiac University poll is showing that former President Trump leads Florida Governor Roda
Santis by thirty percent, with fifty three percent of respondent saying they'd vote for
the former president. President Biden holds a slight lead over Trump, forty eight
percent of support over Trump's forty four percent from that poll. While the Supreme
Court decides if President Biden's student debt forgiveness plan is constitutional, Republicans are rolling
out a plan of their own. The GOP has introduced the Lowering Education Costs
and Debt Act in the Senate. It's a package of bills aimed keeping down
the apparently ever increasing costs of higher education and right wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones
could face two more defamation trials over school shooting lies. The trials would set
the value of defamation claims if no settlement is reached now. The claimants include
parents of a child killed in the twenty twelve Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown,
Connecticut. At five thirty three ish, we're gonna get my take on the
FED and the pause and interest rate hikes that we got yesterday. We pulled
some sound from the news conference with FED Chair J. Powell. Those can
sometimes sound kind of business ee jargon. Ee Powell is better than past fed
chairs when it comes to speaking plainly. But still, we're going to try
to unpack a little bit more of that right now. When public figures make
questionable decisions while seemingly having it all from the outside at least when it comes
to stability, fame, or social standing, money, any combination, those
are head scratching moments for the rest of us. So through that lens.
ABC's Brad Garrett is on the line to talk with us about former President Trump
and a disclaimer, again, this discussion is not about guilt or innocence.
It's about character and personality. Welcome in ABC's Brad Garrett. Good morning,
Jason, Good morning, sir. So Trump held the single most identifiable job
on the planet. Basically, why does he seemingly behave so recklessly because I
think you know, wherever you go there you are right, And this is
how he's sort of functioned before he became a president. I mean, if
you believe Mary Trump niece, who has written this book that she's a psychologist,
it's a pretty detailed profile at which she thinks of why the president thinks
the way he does. And I mean one important point is that she claims,
and there's other people I think they have supported this, that he was
raising in a pretty sort of verbally or emotionally abusive household between his father and
his mother, and that you know, kids, they grow up in those
environments, now I'm generalizing, tend to go a couple of different ways.
They either get loving, caring empathy from other adults, or they sort of
become hardened and that they see that life is there for them to manipulate and
control. And maybe in his case, he's his father become quite wealthy by
maybe acting that way, and so some believe that's what he has sort of
picked up as a way of functioning. In other words, it's like ingrained
in this personality. And so the idea that just because you may have the
most powerful job may even give you more of a license in your mind to
do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it. And
it struck me Jason looking at this most recent indictment in Florida, is that
his own words, in his words to and direction of people around him that
work for him, that are loyal to him, including one lawyer who's now
got major issues, has become a government witness because of things that Trump said
to him. And then he turns around, of course, bashes the government
for saying this as a witch hunt, of which which is fascinating because it's
really of his own creation, right, and some of that has passed his
prologue. I get that absolute power corrupting, absolutely, but modern you know,
modern dynamics of somebody like this, What about confirmation bias is where I'm
going to confirmation bias. He's got close people, his coterie of yes people,
if you will further, does that further enable such behavior as this well,
of course, and I think in his case, or people like him,
they tend to get rid of the people who like disagree or are not
willing to carry out whatever you know that you and I and others may look
at it as pretty irrational or could be illegal, but certainly irrational way of
thinking, because they can't tolerate that. They can only really tolerate you doing
exactly what I tell you to do, whether it gives the law or not,
or ethically or royally maybe not a good thing to do, but you
do it anyway because if not, you won't keep your job. And people
who'd grow up and don't have any empathy and really are sort of driven by
their own immediate needs and desires. You know, can they don't see people
as that I need to take care of them, I need to help them.
Do they see the rest of us as a sort of tools to manipulate
and use? And then you know, if if they the person doing it,
becomes more wealthy, then that is a success. The rest of us
are losers because we're not with them and we didn't do what they directed us
to do. This may be an obvious question. You mentioned empathy there,
the E word, But does that come from is the manifestation of lack of
empathy dehumanizing others? Yes, that's exactly right. Basically, you don't see
people in a loving carrying way you use. You see people as tools to
use. And I mean there's a lot of examples of him doing that.
And you know, it's it's okay for you and I have this conversation,
but I think it's just important for you know, folks listen to this,
like President Trump don't like it, that's totally their call, of course,
but that you know, you need to think about if the people who do
think this way, how do you pull the country together. How do you
get us how do we get things done? If everything is a fight?
Right, and clearly there's no shortage of that going on today. Before you
jumped on the line, I was using some poll numbers out this morning from
Quinnipiac and they show that he's got a significant lead over Florida Governor Ronda Stantis.
But given the conversation that you and I are having right now, I
guess my last question has to be is Trump his own worst enemy or is
he just able to keep floating? Well, he is his own worst enemy,
but he also may be able to keep floating only because Jason, he's
continued to float right through all of this. I mean, he's even said
it at rallies that his poll numbers and you just quoted them have gone up.
And so that's really incentive to keep acting the way he acts, and
so do I an he's not going to change in his seventies away from that,
because that's how he's apparently been since he was a kid. I feel
to have another question because you use the word incentive there, what about disincentives?
Are there any of those in play that could change his behavior or change
the way he thinks about his next decision. No, because people who have
sort of this grandiosity about who they are and what they can do, and
who they can manipulate and who they can use. I mean that's powerful stuff.
You can see why placing a person who thinks that way in the most
powerful job in the world, it would be beyond intoxicating for them, right,
Yeah, because they literally could do anything they want and above right.
I mean it really goes down to these I think this document case, I
mean, it's obviously not the most important case of the world, but it
does give you a lot of insight as to his way of thinking that you
know, he turns it in that it's a witch hunt in the FBI and
dj have you know, been weaponized against him. Well, these are all
professional prosecutors. They just spent their life for prosecuting people. And they may
like or don't like President Trump, but that's not relevant. They have to
follow the facts. They have to get up in court and say the following
or witnesses say he said this, he did this, he directed me to
do that. All that stuff I think is probably pretty clear in this case,
but he will continue to turn that into it. It's us against them
because I think that's just how he you know, that's how he views life
and that I don't think there's not one thing that will change that. Thank
you so much for your time this morning. This has been a fascinating conversation.
Was I really loved it when we saw an opportunity to speak with you
today. So thank you. You're welcome. Have a good day, Sea.
Thanks. It's ABC's Brad Garrett joining us there. A man accused of
a chokeold death on a New York subway is being indicted by a grand Jerry
Daniel Penny was indicted Wednesday on a second degree manslaughter charge in the death of
Jordan Neely. Veterans suffering from PTSD would have access to experimental drug treatment under
legislation promoted by Congressman Dan Crenshaw, The Texas Republican, is a veteran serving
as a Navy seal in Afghanistan. His bill would create a seventy five million
dollar federal grant program to support research into both magic mushrooms and MDMA, which
is also known as ecstasy. I believe ketamine is also on that schedule.
Washington law makers are introducing a new bill to protect TikTok user information. Six
Senators and two members of the House of Representatives say the Chinese zonned app poses
serious security risks to the data of Americans. News is brought to you by
American Vision Windows. Now coming up at five fifty. The Writers Guild picket
lines started about six weeks ago, almost exactly six weeks ago. Projects underway
have halted production of course streaming and linear shows, stop shooting Golden Rod versions
of scripts, not landing and trailers. We're going to talk with a veteran
and accomplished writer about where things are today between the Guild and the studios and
what any possible negotiations or nuance might look like. That's coming up out around
five to fifty this morning. Yesterday, you may have noticed the headlines about
the Federal Reserve announcing it is not going to increase interest rates. The reason
not doing something becomes news is because they've been on a tear when it comes
to raising interest rates. This is the first meeting of eleven. They had
ten straight rate height. This is the first pause. Chairman J. Powell
does a news conference about once a quarter. He has to go on to
Capitol Hill to testify, but he doesn't always do public speaking after these votes.
They usually just let the minutes of the meeting speak. And then there
are analysts who have full time jobs to read the minutes that come out of
the FED just to kind of parse the language. Now. J. Powell
is a little more transparent with his language than past FED chairs. Janet Yellen,
who is now the Treasury Secretary, she was FED chair before J Powell.
They all get ten year terms, by the way, And and if
you go back to Alan Greenspan, they used to call him he was like
the He was like cryptic. I think it's the word that was used very
often with him. J Powell a little bit different. So we pulled some
sound yesterday from the news conference that Powell held. So I'm going to play
a bit of sound and then we're gonna unpack it. What are the rest
associated with commercial real estate as well as non bank financials and could you further
elevation those risks with higher still rates possibly for longer. We're trying to think
where to start. I'll start with commercial real estate. We of course we're
watching that situation very carefully. Uh, there's a substantial amount of commercial real
estate in the banking system. A large part of it is in smaller banks.
It's well distributed. To the extent it's well distributed than the system could
could take losses. We do expect that there'll be losses, but there'll be
there'll be banks that have concentrations and those banks will experience larger losses. So
we're well aware of that. We're monitoring and carefully. You know, it
feels like it feels like something that will be around for some time as opposed
to, you know, something that will suddenly hit and and you know,
work its way in a systemic risk. A couple of things to unpack there.
For sure. Commercial real estate is the silent but deadly killer when it
comes to the economy. Is specifically for this looming recession. I do a
show on the weekends called Macrowth on Sundays too, by the way, but
we've been looking at this for a while, and we talk about inflation a
lot, and that's what the FED is mandated to control. We talk about
the labor market, the other thing that the FED is mandated to control.
They're trying to get us to full employment at all times and keep inflation at
two percent at all times. But commercial real estate is a huge factor when
it comes to the macroeconomy in the United States, and it's in I won't
say crisis just yet, but if even if you look at the vacancy rates
in downtown Los Angeles, that is causing a crater in the economy downtown.
When it comes to companies that own those towers and all those office space units,
they're either not paying their bills, they're not looking to re up on
their loans, they're not looking to get more money to loan to grow because
well, the interest rates are so high that it's really expensive to borrow money
right now. So for j Powell to call that out, and the question,
by the way, was from friend of the show, Mark Hamrick.
He's the chief economist over at banquet dot com. For them to call out
it's a commercial real estate m is important. We talk about personal real estate,
housing and mortgage rates all the time, but we don't really look at
the CRI. And I think that was definitely pulling it out there. And
here's here's another clip, and we're going to talk about you'll probably be able
to hear, but we'll talk about why this one matters. You know,
if you look two and three years out with the forecast. First of all,
I wouldn't I wouldn't put too much weight on forecasts even one year out,
because they're so highly uncertain. But what they're showing is that as inflation
comes down in the forecast, if you don't lower interest rates, then real
rates are actually going up. Right, So it just to maintain a real
rate, the nominal rate at that point two years out, let's say,
should come down just to maintain real rates. And if and actually you know,
since we're probably going to we're having real rates that are going to have
to be meaningfully positive and significantly so for us to get inflation down, that
probably means that certainly means that it will be appropriate to cut rates at such
time as inflation is coming down really significantly. And again we're talking about a
couple of years out. I think, as anyone can see, not a
single person on the committee wrote down a rate cut this year, nor do
I think it is at all likely to be appropriate. If you think about
it, inflation has not really moved down, It is not so far reacted
much to our existing rate hikes, and so we're gonna have to keep at
it. We're gonna have to keep at it. He ended right there.
I left that one run a little bit because I wanted to show that j.
Powell can talk Turkey. He did that there as a donut though,
right at the beginning and right at the end, and in the middle again
us a little bit in the weeds, but in the middle he did talk
about. Nobody else on the Fed voted for a rate reduction this year.
Some analysts had been calling for that later this year. As a matter of
fact, we might even get another point two five percent rate hike in July,
and now September is on the table. So this is what they're calling
a hawkish pause, which means we're just going to wait, get some more
data. In it's summertime, things seem to lull except for the home market,
homesale market, so they're going to watch for that. But I think
July is definitely on the table. In September is about a fifty fifty shot
right now. One more quick one, and this one has to do with
the other mandate that the FAT has. Remember it's inflation two percent and full
employment, so wages will continue to increase, so we you know, what
we're talking about is having wage increases still at a very strong level, but
at a level that's consistent with two percent inflation over time. And so I
think we've seen some progress. All of the major measures of wages have moved
down from extremely elevating, highly elevated levels a year or so ago, and
they're they're moving back down, but quite gradually. And you know, we
want to see that that process continue gradually. Of course, it's great to
see wage increases, particularly for people at the lower end of the income spectrum,
but we want that as part of the process of getting inflation back down
to two percent, which benefits everyone. I mean, inflation hurts those same
people more than anyone else. People on a fixed income are or hurt the
worst and the fastest by high inflation. It's good for j. Powell as
a FED chair to notice that I pulled that one, because other FED chairs
don't normally pull this out. But it's true, and high inflation is basically
a paycut. You are having your buying power reduced by higher prices. You
still make the same wage. Now, he did mention that they are going
up, but they're not keeping pace with inflation. For the FED chair to
do this, and I've been covering the FED for about fifteen years. For
the FED to pull this out like this is heartening to see at the very
least. So just be braced for a little bit more volatility, if you
will, using a business word, for the rest of this year. Still
think a short, shallow recession is coming up sometime. The American consumers very
resilient, and it keeps pushing out that goal post. So it's either going
to be Q four this year or Q one next year. New polling shows
former President Trump is whole his lead among Republican voters for the GOP nomination despite
his arraignment this week. He's got about a thirty point lead according to this
poll on Florida. Governor Ron de Santis, Texas is sending more migrants to
Los Angeles. The governor there, we did yesterday that forty two migrants are
on their way and it's been gray in LA. But back east, hundreds
of thousands are without power after severe weather slammed the southeast and continues to roll
through the area. So now on wake up call, we have David Weddell
with us. Good morning, David, Good morning to you. Jason.
David. You are a WGA member. You were also a strike Captain,
some of your bonafide's here. According to IMDb, Battlestar galacticus CSI, Crime
Scene Investigation, Falling Skies, and I guess you're one that was in production
up until about six weeks ago was for All Mankind? Am I right on
that correct? So we finished production, we were post production, and we
were getting ready to convene the writing room for season five when the stri happened.
Very cool. We're about six weeks into this uh WGA strike. I
know, I think you were piketting just yesterday and you are a strike captain,
M industry veterans every day you do. So okay, Well give us
a review. What's what's your take take of the past six weeks? Um,
Well, we're negotiating, and we're negotiating with our feet. We're negotiating
by we're refusing to provide services to or justly compensated and morales very high.
We're very determined and we're going to win. Now speaking officially, are there
negotiations scheduled at this point? No, there's no negotiations scheduled at this point,
but but they'll come back to the table. It's just a matter of
when they calculate it is the right time for them. A lot of talking
about the studios, the streamers, the content companies. Yeah, I'm glad.
Okay, let's go right there. What are some of your concerns.
Let's pull those up to the top for people who may not be aware of
what the WA is worried about and what they'd like to negotiate around. You
mentioned streaming right there. You want to start with that. Well, we're
in the streaming area. We're moving to a place where everything will be streamed
and almost nothing will be broadcast in the next couple decades. And that's what
this battle is about. It's about the Future's about the economic changes and in
the industry. And to put it in a simple terms, I've written a
couple of books. Okay, So when you're the author of a book,
you own the copyright to that material for the rest of your life. You
see, anytime that book is sold anywhere in the world, you get a
percentage of the profits in the form of royalties because you own the copyright.
In the film and television and the streaming era, writers for those mediums,
we give up our copyright, We forfeit it in exchange for what are called
residual rules. So we create the content, but we also then participate in
the profits from the content we created in exchange for giving up our copyright.
As we moved into the streaming era, these big companies have found ways to
diminish those residuals. They're trickle compared to what we used to have a healthy
flow of residuals. And that keeps writers going because we go from show to
show to show and you have gaps and employment. And then during those times
when you have those gaps, those residuals and they enable you to stay afloat,
to keep a home, to keep a family, you know, economy
stable. And that's what this fight is about. It's about how the company
is gradually put a tourniquet to those residuals, reducing them and reducing them and
keeping more profits for themselves when we create the content, when we give up
our copyright, why should we do that? So that that's a big part
of it. Well, streaming didn't sneak up on as it's been around for
a while. When was the last contract and was any of this negotiated back
then? Well, when this was originally negotiated was in two thousand and seven.
So that was the last strike, and that that was the infancy of
streaming and we saw this coming even then. And so the strike then was
about they didn't want to give us any residuals, any form of profit participation
on the content that we created for streaming. And what the company said then
was, we don't know if this streaming thing will ever make money. Hey,
it's an experiment. We're losing money on it. Therefore we can't give
you any percentage. And it was kind of an absurd position because if you're
not making any money, why not give us a percentage of it? Yet,
so we won an important battle. Then, I work on a streaming
show for Apple. I get residuals, but they are they are a fract
on what I would have gotten when I started in this business twenty eight years
ago, writing for a syndicated show. So, but it was an important
precedent that we set. And then after that strike, we had other priorities
such as stabilizing our health fund and our pension fund, and then we had
to go through COVID and so we know we have been dealt with, you
know, in an unfair manner, and that we're not getting the profits that
we deserved, but we had to choose our time to go to go to
make a stand on this, and now we're making that stand. David,
you mentioned a little bit. Let me reintroduce you WGA strike captain and a
veteran writer here in the industry, David Weddle. Do you you mentioned earlier?
Morale is up on the pickets and within the guild itself? Is there
any word around the campfire about how things are playing out getting ready for the
next negotiating session? What I mean is, are you talking online or on
the picket line about shifting your positions? Are you guys firm as you move
into the next yet to be scheduled negotiation session. We have complete faith in
our negotiating committee and are that that lead this effort for the guild and participate
in the negotiations. Those those those members of that committee. Uh, they
they're on the picket lines with us, and they make a point of showing
up everywhere that we're picketing to explain you know, the situation. What the
situation is now is there's there's they just made a they just made a deal
the studios and the streaming content providers with the Director's Guild. Uh, it's
always in the Director's guild always negotiates uh behind or ahead of us, and
makes a deal ahead of us, and that's used by the studios as of
course sort of bludget. Look the DJA made a deal, why can't you
what's your problem? Uh now? But now they're facing SAG, which had
a very strong Screen Actors Guild strike authorization, but almost as strong as ours.
So I think what the studios are content providers are are banking on is
making a deal with SAG if they can before June thirtieth, which I believe
is the date that the contract expires with SAG. If they can make a
deal with them in averse strike, then they'll come back to us and they'll
say, look, here's the pattern or what the other guilds negotiated. Why
you know, why don't you adhere to that? And so we'll go along
those lives. They'll come back to us at some point. Right now,
they've offered no meaningful compromises, so there's nothing to negotiate until they, you
know, show some flexibility in their positions, which they will somewhere in the
next couple of months. Full disclosure. I am a member of SAG after
it, and we have and will continue to reach out to the Producers Association.
This is a new show, so we're going to get that side too.
A couple of quick ones before I have to let you go. One
actually one quick one. Disney announced this week that it has pushed back about
a year that really of Avengers, Star Wars and Avatar, although Disney CEO
Bob Iger also says this is a year of profitability. Is this internal business
or is this a strike response? It's I I you know, I would
guess it's a strike response, but I don't want I don't know all the
inner workings of Disney, so i'd be I can't. I can't act like
I know exactly the reasons for those decisions. But I do think the strikes
a huge factor. And what's going to happen where the squeeze on these content
providers is I know lots of young people and what they do is they join
a streaming service to watch a particular show, and then once they watch that
show, if there's nothing new on the platform that interests them, they cancel.
They cancel the app, Uh, they can't, and they go and
they go on to another well, if there's not going to be any new
content, it doesn't take a genius to see what it's going to happen.
They'll start canceling those apps right left, So the offitability of these streaming companies
will be in jeopardy. David Weddle, thank you for your time this morning,
and until last night I didn't realize this. You mentioned you've written two
books. One of them is a biography of Sam Peck and Paul. I've
paid for that and I've read it twice, so I bought once, read
twice. I guess I got one of these because of you. David.
Thanks for joining us necessarily. If you watch on my TV shows, which
by the way, the most reason ones for all mankind, and I have
seen it, it's really good. Um well, well you know what I
mean. So, David, thank you very much for your time this morning.
Maybe we could talk again with some better news later this summer, okay,
will be my pleasure. Couples absolutely a couple of quick more stories before
we get to the top of the hour and handle on the news. The
Orange County Mosquito and Vector Control Agency is using drones to control the mosquito population.
The county could be seeing its worst mosquito season yet with heavy rain from
winter storms. The OC Mosquito and Vector Controls Brian Brannon says the drones carry
about twenty pounds of natural mosquito pesticide that isn't harmful to animals. One way
to prevent the transmission of disease and keep mosquitoes at bay keep their populations down
is by using drones, Brandon said yesterday. The drones will be used in
non residential areas that are hard to access with traditional treatments. In Garden Grove.
Chris Adler KFI News we lead local live from the KFI twenty four our
news room on Jason Middleton. This has been your wake up call. You've
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