Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: Neil Savadri here, Bill Handled back on Monday, and the
Speaker 2: whole gang will be here. Happy to be with you
Speaker 2: this morning. Big day, tariffs coming our way, possibly liberation day.
Speaker 2: Dun dun duh. Kfi's White House correspondent John Decker is
Speaker 2: with us. Hey John, good morning.
Speaker 3: Hey, good morning to you. Hope you're doing well. That's right.
Speaker 3: Today is the day that the President will announce his
Speaker 3: tariff plan. What it will look like? Will it be
Speaker 3: fifteen percent tariffs across the board for all goods that
Speaker 3: come into the US. Will it be targeted to specific countries,
Speaker 3: specific industries. We don't know. The President making that announcement
Speaker 3: four pm Eastern Time today one pm Pacific, and it
Speaker 3: will be in the Rose Garden. I'll be in the
Speaker 3: Rose Guard, in the President's full cabinet will be in
Speaker 3: the Rose garden as well. And I have to tell you, Neil,
Speaker 3: financial markets as well as America's trading partners are on
Speaker 3: pins and needles because they do not know what this
Speaker 3: tariff plan will look like.
Speaker 1: It's been weird because it's.
Speaker 2: Sort of a snowball that started, you know, and then
Speaker 2: it picked up speed and we thought something was going
Speaker 2: to happen, then it didn't. Then we finally got a
Speaker 2: date April second, aka Liberation Day. So today is supposed
Speaker 2: to be that big tell all this is what's going on,
Speaker 2: as you say in the Rose Garden. But do Originally
Speaker 2: it seems like who's gonna be tit for tat right?
Speaker 2: You know, you do to us, we'll do to you.
Speaker 2: There were you know, enemies in the pot at first.
Speaker 2: Now it's allies. And is there any expectation that you've
Speaker 2: heard that has any real weight to it or are
Speaker 2: we really flying blind?
Speaker 3: Well, what I can tell you is that America's strongest
Speaker 3: allies in partners are ready for a trade war. They
Speaker 3: have retaliatory tariffs already ready to go, ready to essentially
Speaker 3: pull the trigger on these retaliatory terriffs. And we've seen
Speaker 3: this playoff before. The President had a tariff policy that
Speaker 3: he instituted back in twenty eighteen. The European Union responded
Speaker 3: with retaliatory tariffs focused on agriculture goods manufactured goods. Harley
Speaker 3: Davidson was one of those companies that was impacted in
Speaker 3: a negative sense by those tariffs back in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: It's one of the reasons, Neil, that Republican US Senator
Speaker 3: Ron Johnson is very much against the President's tariff policy
Speaker 3: because those tariffs hurt his state a lot, because it's
Speaker 3: got a large agricultural sector, a large manufacturing base Harley
Speaker 3: Davidson based in Milwaukee, and he fears the same thing
Speaker 3: is going to happen again to his state.
Speaker 2: Well, John, we know you got a busy day today
Speaker 2: and we appreciate you taking time to come on. No doubt,
Speaker 2: we'll talk tomorrow. John Decker, kfi's White House correspondent there
Speaker 2: at the White House today in that Rose garden soon
Speaker 2: with the news conference coming up today our time at one.
Speaker 1: Thanks John, Thank you.
Speaker 2: So when you think about these tariffs and how they're
Speaker 2: going to hit us, you got to look at the
Speaker 2: possibility that it's been proposed, which is Canada Mexico. And
Speaker 2: although we have the US Mexico Canada Trade Agreement looking
Speaker 2: at agricultural products, clothing, fruits, vegetables, even dairy and with Mexico,
Speaker 2: Trump says that the tariffs really on Mexican goods are
Speaker 2: intended to crack down on drug drugs coming over border
Speaker 2: policy stuff Canada.
Speaker 1: It's a little harder sell on that.
Speaker 2: Not a lot of drugs come over from Canada, not
Speaker 2: a lot of issues come over from Canada.
Speaker 1: In the same way, in the same sense.
Speaker 2: The reciprocal tariffs are the stuff that made the most
Speaker 2: sense to me right off the top. It's like, Hey,
Speaker 2: if you're gonna hit us, we're gonna hit you back.
Speaker 2: We're tired of being the welcome matt and constantly well
Speaker 2: where America, you guys are bigger, you guys have a
Speaker 2: strong economy, and we're going to take advantage of that.
Speaker 1: That stuff should be over.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean we got to be d's about it
Speaker 2: or anything like that, but there's a point where you go, hey,
Speaker 2: we can't be the world's tea anymore. What you know,
Speaker 2: if you've got these groups, organizations and countries saying, hey,
Speaker 2: stop being the world's police, stop going in and supplying
Speaker 2: arms and weaponry to X, Y and Z all these
Speaker 2: well you know what, then we shouldn't be supplying money
Speaker 2: either unless it benefits us. Unless if we're going to
Speaker 2: be lenders, what are we being paid back? What do
Speaker 2: we the whole America. First thing, I'm I'm often confused
Speaker 2: why Americans have a problem with doing what every other
Speaker 2: country does on the planet, and that is, hey, we
Speaker 2: got to take care of our home first. I love
Speaker 2: the people on my block where I live, but I
Speaker 2: got to take care of my house first.
Speaker 1: I have to protect them. I mean, I.
Speaker 2: Maybe shouldn't say this, but I do get some supplies
Speaker 2: in our earthquake stuff. I pat it a little bit,
Speaker 2: knowing that my neighbor's flanking me or things like that that,
Speaker 2: you you know, be neighborly and think, hey, if I
Speaker 2: can put other stuff in here that might help my neighbors.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't tell them that. I guess I
Speaker 2: might have just told them that. But that's one thing.
Speaker 2: But you have if we all take care of ourselves,
Speaker 2: then we won't need help from everyone else.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So it's one of those things that at some point
Speaker 2: you got to say, hey, we have to look after ourselves.
Speaker 1: Maybe not do it.
Speaker 2: In the current tone, but we'll see how this plays out.
Speaker 2: I'm sure tomorrow is going to be a big day.
Speaker 2: As far as what comes after this, I can imagine
Speaker 2: it's when does the when do Amy King. When does
Speaker 2: the stock exchange close.
Speaker 1: At the hard time?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Because I was gonna say, doesn't that hit at the
Speaker 2: same time this information is going to be coming out?
Speaker 4: No, they delayed the ceremony, so it'll come out after
Speaker 4: Actually I think, hold on, let me get a final.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I was just curious that I always remember
Speaker 2: it as one. So I'm like, well, wouldn't that hit
Speaker 2: at the same time that this announcement, so we won't know.
Speaker 4: The announcement's going to be at four pm, which is
Speaker 4: at one pm, so it'll be right after the stock
Speaker 4: market right to that.
Speaker 2: I'm getting East Coast and West Coast. I'll screwed up,
Speaker 2: all right. Val Kilmer passed away. What you know, I
Speaker 2: know that he's gone through a lot, but when you
Speaker 2: think he's he was only sixty five years old and
Speaker 2: he had an interesting attitude and energy. If you haven't
Speaker 2: seen the documentary Vow, I encourage you to do.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: It's this is a guy who video and probably.
Speaker 2: Filmed I'm trying to think how early on a lot
Speaker 2: of his life and so put it together in this
Speaker 2: documentary and it tells you a lot about him. But
Speaker 2: you know, depending on your age, you may have certain
Speaker 2: favorites of him as far as his films, Oliver Stone's
Speaker 2: The Doors, which was wonderful. I loved him in this
Speaker 2: bizarre role. He played Elvis, kind of an imaginary Yoda
Speaker 2: type figure that shows up in True Romance with Christian Slater,
Speaker 2: and I love that film. True Romance, Violent as hell,
Speaker 2: very dark. It was written by Quentin Tarantino, but not
Speaker 2: directed by him. It was directed by Tony Scott. I
Speaker 2: think fabulous film. But he plays you know this, if
Speaker 2: I remember correctly, he's kind of blurry in the back,
Speaker 2: sort of you'd never really see.
Speaker 1: Him defined, and I liked him a lot in that.
Speaker 2: I also liked him in the you know, silly stuff,
Speaker 2: the slapstick stuff like Top Secret or Real Genius. In
Speaker 2: like Real Genius, he was sort of like Ryan Reynolds
Speaker 2: before Ryan Reynolds was Ryan Reynolds kind of dead panty
Speaker 2: smart ass in those movies, and I always enjoyed him.
Speaker 2: Thought a handsome guy. The you know they say that
Speaker 2: a true actor that really captures the audience is whether
Speaker 2: they're male or female. If they're male, every guy wants
Speaker 2: to be him and every girl wants to be with him.
Speaker 2: And if it's female. Every girl wants to be heard,
Speaker 2: every guy wants to be with them, that type of thing, right,
Speaker 2: And I thought he had that kind of magnetism about him.
Speaker 2: He's fun to watch, seemed to imbibe himself in the
Speaker 2: character and the fact that his life took a turn
Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen with throat cancer. And if I remember,
Speaker 2: he was kind of on the verge of a comeback
Speaker 2: of sorts. He had started doing Mark Twain on stage,
Speaker 2: a one man show, and I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people raise their eyebrows, remember raising my brows to him
Speaker 2: playing Moses on stage. And I remember they approached me
Speaker 2: as the producer of the Jesus Christ Show to maybe
Speaker 2: do a sit down with him or something, and I
Speaker 2: have a vague recollection of maybe talking to him on
Speaker 2: the phone. But you know, he was really going back
Speaker 2: to the stage. I believe he was trained at Juilliard
Speaker 2: and here he has this timing where he was putting
Speaker 2: his own money into this stage show of him playing
Speaker 2: Mark Twain. I think he did a couple.
Speaker 1: Of them and.
Speaker 2: Then started like coughing blood or having issues and then
Speaker 2: found out that he had throat cancer. So he was
Speaker 2: at this point where he was putting his own money
Speaker 2: into himself. He was reinventing himself. He was charging ahead
Speaker 2: with this new opportunity that he believed in. And then
Speaker 2: right then and there, twenty fourteen, is diagnosed with throat
Speaker 2: cancer surgeries, all of those things took his voice away
Speaker 2: from him. He used one of those devices that you
Speaker 2: put up to your throat that can get to help
Speaker 2: you make some sounds as a whole in his throat
Speaker 2: as well. But I remember watching the documentary val it
Speaker 2: was very interesting to see how he went through that
Speaker 2: time period and still found some positivity in those things.
Speaker 2: In his children, he was divorced but still had a
Speaker 2: relationship with his ex wife and you know, as co
Speaker 2: parents and all of that stuff. But what a way
Speaker 2: to go somebody who was so versatile, so talented, handsome,
Speaker 2: you know, a striking fella, to have that kicking the
Speaker 2: balls later in the career, and then to die of pneumonia,
Speaker 2: which still is one of those things like you know
Speaker 2: it's serious, but it always seems like you'll get better. Right,
Speaker 2: you got pneumonia, you're gonna be you can get better.
Speaker 2: But it's a sad end to an illustrious career, and
Speaker 2: one that you saw in so many different ways playing Batman,
Speaker 2: although I'm not saying he is the best Batman or anything.
Speaker 2: I think I was looking at a earlier I think
Speaker 2: it was Entertainment Weekly or something like that, and they
Speaker 2: were listing them all. Let's see, I'm gonna scroll through
Speaker 2: this real quick. Okay, So Keanu Reeves was number ten.
Speaker 2: I guess he played Batman in DC League of Super
Speaker 2: Pets of.
Speaker 1: It's a cartoon. George, I know, I didn't know about
Speaker 1: that one either.
Speaker 2: George Clooney was number nine, and if I remember Will Arnett,
Speaker 2: who does the lego Batman, who I love by the way,
Speaker 2: is number eight, and then Val Kilmer hits number seven. Now,
Speaker 2: if I remember correctly, Val Kilmer was the first time
Speaker 2: they put nipples on the batsuit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I just saw it at the Warner Brothers.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Tour weird, I think.
Speaker 2: And then I think that extended on to Clooney as well,
Speaker 2: and then it went away. I don't know who said,
Speaker 2: you know what this suit needs nerps, Let's throw some
Speaker 2: nerps on there. But God bless him rest in peace.
Speaker 2: Val Kilmer passed away at the age of sixty five
Speaker 2: due to pneumonia.
Speaker 1: Sad.
Speaker 2: Sad said, Now avocados today one o'clock our time. Of course,
Speaker 2: we are going to be hearing from the President. It
Speaker 2: is liberation Day, as he has called it. He is
Speaker 2: deemed this liberation Day. We're looking at the possibility of
Speaker 2: sweeping new tariffs, how that affects us. So you're going
Speaker 2: to be hearing that throughout the entirety of the day
Speaker 2: here on KFI. Of course you will hear Gary and
Speaker 2: Shannon talk about it leading up to the announcement, and
Speaker 2: then you'll have John Cobelt at one.
Speaker 1: So stick around go nowhere. So what is this going
Speaker 1: to mean?
Speaker 2: Well, we haven't looked at these types of tariffs or
Speaker 2: hits with Mexico and Canada. But how it's going to
Speaker 2: hit us in Mexico is with avocados.
Speaker 1: Now do we have California avocados? Yes, we do. Are
Speaker 1: they fabulous? Yes they are.
Speaker 2: The difference between US and Mexico is the regions in
Speaker 2: Mexico are set up in such a way that they
Speaker 2: can grow avocados year round.
Speaker 1: We cannot. So we.
Speaker 2: Technically have an avocado season here in California, but in
Speaker 2: Mexico they can squeeze out longer periods, which makes them
Speaker 2: a larger producer of this wonderful fruit. So if you
Speaker 2: love avocados, you got to be going not again. We've
Speaker 2: gone through problems with limes before. Avocados are one that
Speaker 2: gets nailed. Some of them have been for weird reasons.
Speaker 2: I remember the limes at one point, and this might
Speaker 2: have been with avocados as well. Had to do with
Speaker 2: the cartel. So the drug cartel's getting involved, and so
Speaker 2: there's all kinds of messes that have happened before. But
Speaker 2: this would be self induced with the tariffs that could
Speaker 2: be slept on Mexico today and will I'm guessing we
Speaker 2: just will know as to what that will be. So
Speaker 2: this threatens this trade fight with Mexico, which accounts for
Speaker 2: ninety percent of US avocado imports.
Speaker 1: That's the imports.
Speaker 2: You got to read the language there, properly ninety percent
Speaker 2: of US avocado imports. We do have our own avocados
Speaker 2: here as well. So you've got companies like Chipotle who
Speaker 2: have been preparing for this for seven years. They go back,
Speaker 2: they're always looking because in a supply chain. And again
Speaker 2: I you know, listening to the promo for Gary and
Speaker 2: Shannon and then a conversation I had with Shannon yesterday
Speaker 2: about car parts, not just the cars, but the parts.
Speaker 2: You get this global system going, and it's not just
Speaker 2: about having something produced or made here in the United States,
Speaker 2: because some the parts can be made somewhere else. It's
Speaker 2: a long process, that's the reality. But when it comes
Speaker 2: to a business like Chipotle that has, you know, a
Speaker 2: butt ton of location. They have thirty seven hundred locations,
Speaker 2: that's a lot of locations, and guacamole tends to land on.
Speaker 1: Half their orders.
Speaker 2: So half the order is coming out of each of
Speaker 2: those restaurants are going to have guacamole in some form.
Speaker 1: On there.
Speaker 2: So they constantly have to think, well, one, we got
Speaker 2: to start scouring the Americas the Caribbean.
Speaker 1: We need to seek out.
Speaker 2: Farms and suppliers that satisfied their intense demand. This California
Speaker 2: based fast casual restaurant that we love so much. Chipotle
Speaker 2: estimates that it bought around five percent of all avocados
Speaker 2: consumed in the US last year. I butt the I
Speaker 2: consumed the other ninety five personally, one sitting, So that's
Speaker 2: a crap ton of avocados. And so they're looking everywhere.
Speaker 2: Now if you remember back in March there was like
Speaker 2: a twenty five percent tariff slapped on Mexico just for
Speaker 2: a few days, and they were bracing for that. Now
Speaker 2: they're looking all over the world, well not everywhere, because
Speaker 2: not everywhere can grow, but they're looking everywhere to be
Speaker 2: able to find a more consistent path so that they
Speaker 2: don't have to raise that cost or passing on to us.
Speaker 2: And they have looked in other areas that have Like
Speaker 2: Peruvian and Colombian avocados are a little different. They're often lighter,
Speaker 2: little greener, and it confuses sometimes when they show up
Speaker 2: at the door of a particular location of chipotles, because
Speaker 2: they're like, well, this doesn't look right, let's send them back.
Speaker 2: They're like, don't send them back all and this is cool.
Speaker 2: All avocados that show up on the doorstep of your
Speaker 2: local chipotlet are ripe. They're ready to go, so they
Speaker 2: don't let them sit there or anything like that. They're
Speaker 2: ripe and ready to go, and they you know, have
Speaker 2: the recipe and now I want now, I want guacamole
Speaker 2: so bad, the smooth What what the the difference in
Speaker 2: the avocado, Well, there's fort day, there's bacon, there's hass
Speaker 2: or hass hass. There's different kinds of avocados, the different strings,
Speaker 2: and was asking me, well, the smooth and the bumpy,
Speaker 2: So it depends on, uh, the smoother, the smoother, slick
Speaker 2: one waxy ones. I think that's fort day, which are
Speaker 2: the better ones. Has is what we're used to. Our
Speaker 2: hass is what we're used to. I can't remember if
Speaker 2: it's a long it's two a's, but I think it's ass.
Speaker 2: That's what we're used to. That's what we eat. They're
Speaker 2: very creamy, fuerte, like the name implies, is a little
Speaker 2: more hearty, little denser flash. But really for your guacamole
Speaker 2: and all that stuff, we tend to stick with that hass,
Speaker 2: which was locally discovered I think in Altadena area, all right,
Speaker 2: headlined very powerful cancer researchers, opioid abuse analysts, infectious disease experts.
Speaker 2: Layoffs at the HHS begin to take shape, some twenty
Speaker 2: thousand employees, it looks like at this point, as they
Speaker 2: continue to they being the current administration, Trump and of
Speaker 2: course Doze going through with Elon Musk and picking apart
Speaker 2: what probably should have been done a long time ago.
Speaker 2: I mean every administration should every four years, if there
Speaker 2: is an new administration, they should go through and cut
Speaker 2: the fat. You know, have you ever changed you know,
Speaker 2: it's tax time. Have you ever changed a CPA or
Speaker 2: your tax.
Speaker 1: Preparer?
Speaker 2: And they say, hey, we want to look at last
Speaker 2: year's as well to see if we can save you
Speaker 2: any more money. They tend to do that, and they
Speaker 2: can say, hey, listen, there's a couple of things the
Speaker 2: last person miss will do this. That should be like
Speaker 2: the standard to me anytime a new administration comes in,
Speaker 2: not just to play tit for tat in the whole Okay,
Speaker 2: they did this, we're going to eradicate that, but to
Speaker 2: go through and say, hey, is there anywhere where we
Speaker 2: can cut? That should be first and foremost of any administration.
Speaker 2: Not always the case, I think, you know. Obama certainly
Speaker 2: had said, hey, listen, we're going to make some cuts,
Speaker 2: and it's going to be the things that you care about,
Speaker 2: and it's going to hurt.
Speaker 1: That's what cuts are. So as you.
Speaker 2: List the names or of the jobs, or the titles
Speaker 2: opioid abuse, now analyst, cancer research, I know those are
Speaker 2: scary things to be cutting, but if you go to
Speaker 2: the what they refer to as the rank and yank
Speaker 2: approach made popular by the philosophy of former General Electric
Speaker 2: CEO Jack Welch, which people think is, you know, the
Speaker 2: god among gods when it comes to business. He referred
Speaker 2: to it as stack ranking or forced ranking. And they've
Speaker 2: even done that stuff here at iHeart. Maybe it was
Speaker 2: clear channel at the time, but I remember them testing us,
Speaker 2: quizzing us, and going through all these things because the
Speaker 2: thought is that you should identify and remove the bottom
Speaker 2: twenty percent of twenty percent of employees to improve overall
Speaker 2: performance and of course productivity.
Speaker 1: Any chance you.
Speaker 2: Get the bottom twenty percent. So when you have about
Speaker 2: what is at eighty thousand people that work in these
Speaker 2: departments together and you're cutting twenty it's a little more
Speaker 2: than twenty percent there.
Speaker 1: But I will say this, don't get caught.
Speaker 2: Up in the emotional aspect. Aspect aspect, that's the word
Speaker 2: I'm looking for of it, because that's what we do.
Speaker 2: You hear opioid abuse an analyst during this time, infectious disease,
Speaker 2: these are all trigger words that are going to make
Speaker 2: us go, oh my god, the cancer is going to
Speaker 2: go rampant, and opioid abuse is already rampant, and COVID
Speaker 2: Part two comes.
Speaker 1: It's like we're going to get in that mindset. We
Speaker 1: still have to look.
Speaker 2: At why people will let go, if the system will
Speaker 2: run on what is left over and what it saves us.
Speaker 2: The balance of these things are what's going to be important.
Speaker 2: So I keep trying to want to insert the little
Speaker 2: reason into the emotion of everything. Yes, it's scary when
Speaker 2: people get fired. Yes, there will be people that get
Speaker 2: fired and brought back. That happens even here. They do
Speaker 2: wide sweep, sweeping stuff sometimes and then they go up.
Speaker 2: We cut a little too lean. We're gonna need X,
Speaker 2: Y and Z bag. That happens in any business. But
Speaker 2: this isn't new to Trump or anyone else. The well
Speaker 2: praised ge CEO Jack Welsh was very much along the
Speaker 2: lines of that twenty percent stack ranking, forced ranking, rank
Speaker 2: and yank, whatever you want to call it. You get
Speaker 2: those bottom twenty percent and you get rid of them
Speaker 2: because things will work better. We'll have to see. This
Speaker 2: is a KFI heard everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
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