Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty.
Speaker 2: On KFI AM six forty Handle Morning Crew on a Thursday,
Speaker 2: February sixth as we are actually enjoying a gentle rain
Speaker 2: coming down, which is exactly what we needed. And I
Speaker 2: hate the rain, but I hate this rain less that
Speaker 2: I hate other rain.
Speaker 3: Rain's great. I like don't like getting wets. Why I
Speaker 3: don't shower?
Speaker 2: This is why everybody just leaves me and I walk
Speaker 2: down the hall and no one gets near me.
Speaker 3: Actually, you're not a smelly guy. Okay, fine, no you're not.
Speaker 2: It's weird, I know because you you read like you'd
Speaker 2: be smelly. Excellent John Decker, who is joining this conversation, John,
Speaker 2: how often do you shower?
Speaker 3: By the way, what was the question?
Speaker 1: How often do I what exactly?
Speaker 2: I'll always we're gonna get right into being in the
Speaker 2: oval office before we start that.
Speaker 3: How often do you shower?
Speaker 1: Oh? I shower at least once a day. You know,
Speaker 1: if I'm working out in the afternoon that I shower again.
Speaker 1: But typically I work out in the morning, So just
Speaker 1: one shower o day.
Speaker 2: All right, Now, we don't know a little bit about
Speaker 2: John Decker, who is kfi's White House corresponding. John, you
Speaker 2: have been covering presidents for a long time, and you
Speaker 2: are in the Oval Office usually when the president is
Speaker 2: signing his executive orders, and he does it well, there's
Speaker 2: never been a president that had reporters in the Oval
Speaker 2: Office as much since FDR. Actually where he would sit
Speaker 2: there and you know, talk to reporters. I'm not interested
Speaker 2: in policy. What I'm interested in is what's the flavor
Speaker 2: of the room.
Speaker 3: You know, what's it like?
Speaker 2: And I know you can't tell me what you think,
Speaker 2: but what's the buzz like in the in the press
Speaker 2: corps out there that you hear about the room and
Speaker 2: Donald Trump? And it's a small room, I understand as
Speaker 2: he goes on and everybody's screaming for questions.
Speaker 3: Describe that, would you?
Speaker 1: Well, I wouldn't say we were screaming for questions yesterday.
Speaker 1: It was a small group of reporters that were in
Speaker 1: the White House Oval Office yesterday. And the reason being
Speaker 1: is because Pam Bondi, she's the new Attorney General. She
Speaker 1: was sworn in yesterday in the Oval Office by Supreme
Speaker 1: Court Justice Clarence Thomas. President Trump obviously on hand for this.
Speaker 1: He made some remarks. The new Attorney General, Pam Bondi,
Speaker 1: made some remarks, and then the President took two questions
Speaker 1: from the small group of reporters while in the Oval Office.
Speaker 1: I was one of those questions that he answered. And
Speaker 1: to get to your initial question, I think you could
Speaker 1: say it's there's a buzz. There's a buzz related to
Speaker 1: being in the Oval Office, but particularly for President Trump.
Speaker 1: There were probably about two dozen at least people in
Speaker 1: that room yesterday, friends and family of Pam Bondi that
Speaker 1: wanted to be on hand for her swearing in. And
Speaker 1: this was the only event of a swearing in ceremony
Speaker 1: that has taken place so far in Trump's second term
Speaker 1: in the Oval Office. So I was fortunate enough to
Speaker 1: be there yesterday.
Speaker 2: Now let me ask you, the reporters who are give
Speaker 2: credited to be in the Oval Office have done in
Speaker 2: a lot of time you've seen President. Is there an
Speaker 2: excitement level that doesn't exist or hasn't existed with other
Speaker 2: presidents there.
Speaker 3: I'm sort of getting that feeling.
Speaker 1: No. Well, for me, I can only speak for myself.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm always excited to be in the Oval Office.
Speaker 1: My gosh, all the presidents that have occupied that office.
Speaker 1: So whether it's a Democrat or a Republican who's in
Speaker 1: the Oval Office at the time, I'm always excited when
Speaker 1: I learned I'm going to go in there for bill signing,
Speaker 1: signing of an executive voter yesterday, I swearing in, or
Speaker 1: the president's meeting with his counterpart from another country. All
Speaker 1: of that is exciting and you get ready for it,
Speaker 1: you know. As it relates to President Trump, I had
Speaker 1: about a dozen questions prepared for him, but he was
Speaker 1: not in a talkative mood yesterday, and really the only
Speaker 1: reason why he took my question was because it was
Speaker 1: on point. You know. It was focused on why we
Speaker 1: were in the Oval Office yesterday with Pam Bondi becoming
Speaker 1: the new attorney general.
Speaker 2: Does he give a preference to conservative reporters or is
Speaker 2: he pretty even?
Speaker 3: Stephen about that?
Speaker 1: He's pretty I think he's pretty even, Stephen, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, if he recognizes you and I covered
Speaker 1: him in the first term, he's going to take my questions.
Speaker 1: He certainly did so dozens upon dozens of times during
Speaker 1: his first term in office, and he recognizes me first
Speaker 1: on my interview. Donald Trump was way back in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine. So I've got a long term relationship with
Speaker 1: him that goes back even before he was a politician,
Speaker 1: which is longer than most people that cover the president
Speaker 1: right now. So I think it helps you know if
Speaker 1: you have that type of relationship with the president in
Speaker 1: terms of being called on, but he doesn't discriminate. You know,
Speaker 1: he'll call on anybody essentially as he's in other venues, like,
Speaker 1: for instance, if he's walking on the South lawn to
Speaker 1: board Marine one, he'll take some questions from reporters and
Speaker 1: he's not really focused upon whether or not the reporters
Speaker 1: from a conservative outlet or not.
Speaker 3: Now everybody knows that he does not like the press
Speaker 3: very much.
Speaker 2: It has described them as straight out enemies, and during
Speaker 2: campaigns being covered, he would look at them, point to
Speaker 2: them and go, that's the enemy over there, I mean,
Speaker 2: and was pretty adamant about it.
Speaker 3: Has that changed.
Speaker 2: Do you get any negative because you're a press person
Speaker 2: because you remember the press.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a complicated relationship. I wouldn't say flat out
Speaker 1: that he doesn't like the press, because he does like
Speaker 1: the press. He loves the coverage. He actually enjoys when
Speaker 1: I've flown with him on Air Force one. He enjoys
Speaker 1: coming back to where the press sits on Air Force
Speaker 1: one and chatting with us, you know, for twenty thirty
Speaker 1: minutes off the record. So it's a mixed relationship. It's
Speaker 1: the best way I would describe it. He likes to
Speaker 1: be liked, He likes the give and take with reporters,
Speaker 1: So it's not just as simple black and white. He
Speaker 1: doesn't like reporters. I think at times he doesn't like
Speaker 1: reporters and news organizations. But for the most part, I
Speaker 1: think he likes the relationship that he has with the
Speaker 1: press corps. And that goes back to his days when
Speaker 1: he was a developer in New York and he sought
Speaker 1: out the attention of you know, his hometown newspapers, the
Speaker 1: New York Times and the Daily News and the New
Speaker 1: York Post.
Speaker 2: One last question, as you guys are in the Oval
Speaker 2: office and you're finishing it up, does he ever pass
Speaker 2: out or dervs?
Speaker 1: No, No, he doesn't pass that. No, that does not happen.
Speaker 1: I've never had that experience. I don't know why you
Speaker 1: would have where Duras and the Oval office, because that doesn't.
Speaker 3: It's a social thing to do.
Speaker 2: It's okay all right, John, thank you as always. I
Speaker 2: mean he is pretty close to the present, you know,
Speaker 2: kf I is. You know, we're pretty lucky to have
Speaker 2: John as part of the team. All right now, the
Speaker 2: president is not a big fan of DEI, as you know,
Speaker 2: and he has eliminated DEI programs as quickly as he
Speaker 2: possibly can across the country. If we go back to
Speaker 2: the murder of George Floyd. At that moment, I think
Speaker 2: our world changed dramatically in terms of how we view
Speaker 2: the police, how we view the way cities create policing,
Speaker 2: and the Black Lives Matter came out of it, and
Speaker 2: DEI to the extent that it was round before, exploded
Speaker 2: inclusion diversity.
Speaker 3: We needed more minorities.
Speaker 2: Google, by the way, had one of the strongest programs,
Speaker 2: the DEI program, and it has just joined other tech
Speaker 2: giants and going wait a minute, let's take a look
Speaker 2: at this. And it has to do not with let's
Speaker 2: take a look at this because of any sociological or
Speaker 2: moral reasoning.
Speaker 3: It's the new.
Speaker 2: Administration doesn't like this. We have contracts with the new administration.
Speaker 2: We don't want to piss off this president, who, by
Speaker 2: the way, is a bad president to piss off there
Speaker 2: are people in government, then it doesn't matter. Boy, you
Speaker 2: piss off President Trump, you're in trouble. So the killing
Speaker 2: of George Floyd in twenty twenty set off a whole
Speaker 2: target of increasing the proportion. This is goal, saying setting
Speaker 2: a target of thirty percent the proportion of leadership representation
Speaker 2: of underrepresented groups by twenty twenty five, by this year. Now,
Speaker 2: even before the president became president this time around, a
Speaker 2: couple of things happened. In his annual report it has
Speaker 2: released that it just released, it omitted the sentence stating
Speaker 2: the company was committed to make diversity, equity, and inclusion
Speaker 2: part of everything we do and to growing a workforce
Speaker 2: that is representative of the users we serve. That sentence
Speaker 2: was included in twenty twenty one through twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty five, sentence is no longer in there. And
Speaker 2: here are some stats. Remember that Google in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: said we have a target of thirty percent increasing thirty percent. Okay,
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty four report from Google, five point seven
Speaker 2: percent of the US employees were black, seven point five
Speaker 2: percent were Latino, and four years earlier, the figures were
Speaker 2: three point seven and five point nine respectively, not a
Speaker 2: whole lot of representation. And now Google says, okay, let's
Speaker 2: let's look at not even releasing annual diversity reports. And
Speaker 2: it's been doing that since twenty fourteen. And why, I mean,
Speaker 2: they're up front about it. The Google's representative said, it's
Speaker 2: reviewing recent court decisions. It's reviewing executive orders by President
Speaker 2: Trump aimed at curbing DEI by the government and federal contractors,
Speaker 2: which the tech giants all have contracts with the government.
Speaker 3: I mean, good for them.
Speaker 2: At least they're honest about it, saying, hey, it's a
Speaker 2: different world. Life has changed. Where it was one politically
Speaker 2: mandatory to push the EI, especially after the George Floyd murder.
Speaker 2: Now it's gone the other way, where you have a
Speaker 2: Biden administration where inclusion is actually even more important than
Speaker 2: anything else. This is one of the reasons that Donald
Speaker 2: Trump won the election. This is one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why the Democrats just completely misreaded because they thought this
Speaker 2: sort of thing, inclusion, LGBT rights, etc. Was more important
Speaker 2: than inflation, more important than immigration.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's easy to look.
Speaker 2: At hindsight and say this is what happened, but this
Speaker 2: is what happened. So Google is dancing and around saying
Speaker 2: would maintain its resource groups for underrepresented employees. And it's
Speaker 2: not a question of here's how they paint it too.
Speaker 2: It's not a question of we want more blacks, we
Speaker 2: want more Latinos. It's underrepresented employees that come from those areas.
Speaker 2: This is how the colleges get away with it in
Speaker 2: establishing quota systems. It is illegal for a university to
Speaker 2: determine acceptance of a class or any student based on race.
Speaker 2: Cannot do it one percent. It's illegal. However, it's not
Speaker 2: illegal to look at poor communities. It is not illegal
Speaker 2: to look at an underrepresentation. And how difficult it is
Speaker 2: to get in college if a student comes from a
Speaker 2: poor community, no matter white, red, blue, purple, whatever. Well,
Speaker 2: if you look at in this country the number of
Speaker 2: blacks and Latinos who live in poor or poorer communities,
Speaker 2: effectively dei happens, there's no question about it. And where
Speaker 2: it used to be sort of the flavor of the
Speaker 2: law of the land. With this administration, it's going the
Speaker 2: other way completely. And the tech companies who Trump hated,
Speaker 2: and we're at the forefront of saying we believe in
Speaker 2: black and Latinos and not so much Asians because Asians
Speaker 2: are not particularly underrepresentative in tech or in school. But
Speaker 2: we believe in minority management and employees. That's off the table. Now,
Speaker 2: that's done, and you will see this Halloween. You know
Speaker 2: when the big corporations throw Halloween parties and they throw
Speaker 2: a big get togethers from morale. They don't give money,
Speaker 2: but they give a big, big morale boosters. I guarantee
Speaker 2: you you'll see a picture from Google and Amazon. You'll
Speaker 2: see so many costumes, people dressed in white sheets and hoods.
Speaker 2: It's just going to be a very very different way. Okay, guys,
Speaker 2: we're done.
Speaker 3: Now a word about.
Speaker 2: EV's and I have one. California EV sales are flat
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four. I mean last year it was great,
Speaker 2: but demand has flatline in California and all kinds of questions.
Speaker 2: Can automobile manufacturers meet the state mandates for zero emission
Speaker 2: vehicle sales? Other than Tesla, which only sells evs, no
Speaker 2: other manufacturer is going to meet the state's thirty five
Speaker 2: percent threshold for zero emission vehicles in the upcoming twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six model year. Demand just doesn't match, but the
Speaker 2: mandate requires zero. Evs simply aren't selling that well. And
Speaker 2: why is that? Well, it's really easy. Let me tell
Speaker 2: you about my EV. I love my EV. I have
Speaker 2: a BMW. I've had BMW's for twenty five years. I
Speaker 2: love that car. I think it's the best driving car
Speaker 2: out there. And I'm not blowing smoke here. I just
Speaker 2: happened to love that car. And for as my lease
Speaker 2: was up on my last car for some reason, I
Speaker 2: obviously had a huge temperature and I was running a
Speaker 2: fever at one hundred and nine degrees, and I went
Speaker 2: out and.
Speaker 3: Got a Tesla.
Speaker 2: Lasted two weeks before I said I'm done with the Tesla,
Speaker 2: went back to a BMW, of course, and bought an EV.
Speaker 3: But here's the problem. It certainly, in my opinion, I'm
Speaker 3: not alone.
Speaker 2: The problem with evs, not hybrid straight evs is range anxiety.
Speaker 3: I am matter of fact.
Speaker 2: I live in Orange County and this morning I was
Speaker 2: figuring out how many miles I have to go to
Speaker 2: West Valley for an appointment.
Speaker 3: And I'm figuring out.
Speaker 2: Okay, twenty five I was there, and I have to
Speaker 2: go this and I've got these many miles to go home,
Speaker 2: and I'm sweating bullets because there aren't enough chargers out there.
Speaker 3: There just aren't.
Speaker 2: The manufacturers are doing a great job, but more evs
Speaker 2: are selling than they were able to put up chargers
Speaker 2: and that and people said, okay, we're done. And hybrids,
Speaker 2: by the way, hybrids have exploded. That clearly is the
Speaker 2: wave of the future. My next car that I get
Speaker 2: when my lease is up, I lease cars becuse every
Speaker 2: three years.
Speaker 3: I want another one.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a hybrid EV. And what are
Speaker 2: the chances of a BMW? Oh, I don't know about
Speaker 2: one hundred percent? Okay, that sound like a commercial for BMW,
Speaker 2: by the way, a little bit, it's not.
Speaker 3: By the way, that's well, how long have I been
Speaker 3: talking about this, I mean twenty years, you know?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, Neil, it's like a Trump prayer breakfast. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: actually is when you think about it. Now, how do
Speaker 2: you meet compliance? The manufacturers, how do they meet compliance? Well,
Speaker 2: it's an average over the entire fleet that they sell,
Speaker 2: So there aren't going to be enough EV sales clearly,
Speaker 2: and by the way, failing to meet the thirty five
Speaker 2: percent mandate means either paying penalties of thirty of twenty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars per every non compliant compliant vehicle sowed sold,
Speaker 2: everyone over the thirty five percent mandate or everyone under
Speaker 2: the thirty five percent mandate twenty grand per car.
Speaker 3: That's the problem. So they got a couple ways of
Speaker 3: doing it.
Speaker 2: Manufacture fewer buy state issued emission credits carbon credits that
Speaker 2: they can buy, or decrease the number of internal combustion
Speaker 2: engines that are being sold and manufactured sold, particularly because
Speaker 2: we don't do much manufacturing here. That's the way they're
Speaker 2: going to do it, which means that the mandate. And
Speaker 2: I thought the mandate was great because I love the
Speaker 2: concept of evs. I mean, they do use energy, but
Speaker 2: they save a pilot energy. I'm one of those people
Speaker 2: that actually believes in fossil fuels, too many of them.
Speaker 2: I believe that emissions are causing global warming. That's who
Speaker 2: I am. And it's real simple. They're not going to
Speaker 2: make the mandate. They're not, And so buy an ev
Speaker 2: By the way, I did the math, and I have
Speaker 2: to charge my car downstairs twice this week in order
Speaker 2: to make it. Now, who does that when you have
Speaker 2: a internal combustion car? And I got twenty buys there
Speaker 2: and I got thirty miles over that one. And then
Speaker 2: I've got to go over there, and I got to
Speaker 2: figure out what's my mileage? What kind of range do
Speaker 2: I have? It's range anxiety of the yin yang. Okay,
Speaker 2: let's move on. Okay, a couple of shockers for you
Speaker 2: and some uh all right before the rains arrived. And
Speaker 2: this is after the fire. There's a USC professor Seth John.
Speaker 2: He went through the Foothill neighborhood that was devastated by
Speaker 2: the eating fire and he gathered street dust to.
Speaker 3: Test for lead.
Speaker 2: Another USC professor visited public parks and preschool sampling sandboxes
Speaker 2: to test for lead because there was a lot of
Speaker 2: concern following the fire because thousands of older buildings where
Speaker 2: lead paint is present had burned down and raising a
Speaker 2: bunch of questions about how far ash laden with these
Speaker 2: toxic heavy metals spread across the region. Because now we're
Speaker 2: looking at ooh, the dangers of that. And here is
Speaker 2: the one that I'm glad they spent money on this.
Speaker 2: The samples with the highest concentrations of lead were found
Speaker 2: right in front of burned homes. That's where the biggest
Speaker 2: problem was in terms of heavy metals and lead.
Speaker 3: Gee, thank you for that.
Speaker 2: So the two researchers tested nineteen samples gathered every half
Speaker 2: mile or so from locking you out of flint Ridge
Speaker 2: to Monrovia, some right in front of burned homes, others
Speaker 2: from neighborhoods where the homes were spared but were blanketed
Speaker 2: in ash. And they actually found a ton of viralbility variability,
Speaker 2: and not just the further away you go, the better
Speaker 2: off you are. So predictably the street does from the
Speaker 2: middle of Altadeno, which so the worst damage showed the
Speaker 2: highest level of lead.
Speaker 3: Ooh, isn't that special. That's a shocker.
Speaker 2: Samples ranging from just above the EPA soil screening limit
Speaker 2: of eighty parts per million to more than twenty times that.
Speaker 2: Now near blind neighborhoods had barely any lead present.
Speaker 3: And here's what's interesting.
Speaker 2: They thought that nearby neighborhoods would show a substantial level
Speaker 2: of thread of lead, but it really was limited. Neighborhood
Speaker 2: by neighborhood, there was less and less lead to war
Speaker 2: only half a mile or a mile away. Even though
Speaker 2: there was ash, it was also almost negligible in terms
Speaker 2: of heavy metals. They also went to no malasca and
Speaker 2: under the snow at a school they found no lead.
Speaker 2: Strangely enough, it's all a question of how close you were.
Speaker 2: Of the seven playgrounds that were tested, lead levels were
Speaker 2: low to nonexistent. Now we don't know at this point
Speaker 2: how dangerous with the potential risks.
Speaker 3: Are, but you have to find out. Testing has to.
Speaker 2: Be done, and not just for lead either, but heavy metals,
Speaker 2: including chromium and arsenic. How do you find arsenic in
Speaker 2: a home who has arsenic? Well, arsnake is used in
Speaker 2: lumber to treat lumber. It's an anti rot what element mineral? Yeah, Actually,
Speaker 2: arsenic is found in food naturally, Yeah, apples.
Speaker 3: You wear arsnake, especially if you wear old lace.
Speaker 2: After debris and the ashurekill cleared, the researchers recommend test
Speaker 2: your properties multiple samples. You have to average everything that's
Speaker 2: going on. And the good news is the rain should
Speaker 2: help wash away a lot of the street dust. Well,
Speaker 2: of course it's going to so we now have rains.
Speaker 2: They're going to test after the rains, and this actually
Speaker 2: is better news than we thought in terms of the
Speaker 2: amount of lead and toxicity. And they got the heavy
Speaker 2: metals that's the big one because you also have batteries.
Speaker 3: And we've had that big deal in Malibu.
Speaker 2: At Roger Beach, Will Rogers Beach, Yeah, good old Will Rogers.
Speaker 2: I never met a man I didn't like and he well,
Speaker 2: he never met you, did he? I'm sorry, No, he
Speaker 2: never did. Okay, he never did.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It was a very interesting guy.
Speaker 2: You know who's uh, you know where he broadcasts from
Speaker 2: in his radio days, Will Rogers Kfi KFI mike. Some
Speaker 2: of his great statements were made in front of a
Speaker 2: KFI mike and that's his uh, that's his tombstone. I
Speaker 2: never met a male. A man I didn't like. Neil's
Speaker 2: tombstone is gonna read I never met a meal.
Speaker 3: I didn't like. Amen.
Speaker 2: All right, Uh, I guess we're done for this segment.
Speaker 2: Coming up, we have Joel Larsguard how the money? Uh?
Speaker 2: And then kind of a fun topic at the bottom
Speaker 2: of the hour eight thirty Biden has well it has
Speaker 2: to do with the federal use of private prisons and
Speaker 2: how that's changed from Biden to Trump. And then we're
Speaker 2: gonna finish show with Moe Kelly. Alec Paul has a
Speaker 2: new reality show. Alec Baldwin to talk about the trailer.
Speaker 3: I saw the trailer.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you some weird stuff about that trailer.
Speaker 2: Number one with a bullet that's right, very strong. We'll
Speaker 2: be back kf I am sixty.
Speaker 3: You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2: Catch my Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
Speaker 2: and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.