Unmasking Media Narratives, Border Realities & Trump’s Next Moves
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Welcome to Baking Battlegrounds. We are today taping our show from a 670 AM in Miami. Chuck Gordon and Kylie Kipper here with you today. Our first guest today is the executive editor of The Free Bacon, Colin Anderson. Mr. Anderson, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. So you had a great piece come out this past week on basically the astroturfing liberals are doing in Ruby Red congressional districts. Specifically, you posted, wrote an article that said Red District Dodge protests cited as proof of broad Musk backlash were organized by left-wing groups. Can you tell our audience a little bit about that and how you discovered they were organized by left-wing groups?

Sure. So these protests took place at town halls across the country during the recent House recess. And what was so interesting about them is when they picked up coverage in the mainstream media, they were cited, as you just read, as sort of bipartisan and broad backlash against Elon. Well,

What was interesting about that is that the groups that organize these things, in this case, the two primary groups are Indivisible and MoveOn. They are very well-funded liberal groups. They've been organizing these types of protests for a very long time. They very publicly advertised and touted that they were going to be organizing these protests ahead of the time. They released press releases, toolkits, all sorts of materials telling their members, here's

here's how you find these protests. Here's, you know, what you should say and the sort of materials that you should bring to them and messaging and all of these things. And they did this again publicly on their own accord. They also got coverage in the Associated Press ahead of the recess that said,

These groups are going to be doing these protests in the upcoming congressional recess. And so that's what was so stunning when we were then going through some of this mainstream coverage is they were very, very open in what they were planning. And yet when you read these articles about these protests in the mainstream media, you do not see mention of these groups that took very, very public credit for what they were doing ahead of the time.

Colin, what does the mainstream media not understand about this? Do they understand when they go and promote this type of behavior, which they know is occurring, that this is what causes them limited availability to the White House and so forth? I mean, I remember when this happened last time before Jason Chaffetz retired. He's in a plus 15 or 16 red district. And they had the same type of thing in his district. And he called me after and said, just like no one was there for my district.

Have you seen any mainstream media press cover this and say, well, this is just all astroturfing organized by liberal groups or they just want like this is dissatisfaction with Dodge?

It's mostly the latter. When you read through these pieces, you will get often a lot of sort of bigger picture descriptions of how, oh, we talked to this organizer who said that she brought people to the protest who are not fans of Donald Trump necessarily. Okay, well, that's a description that can mean a lot of different things, right? You see descriptions like that.

you see descriptions like, oh, there were lots of Democrats who attended this, et cetera, et cetera. It's a lot more vague. It's a lot bigger picture. They're not naming names. They're not naming groups. They're not naming funders of these groups. And again, I think what's so interesting and stunning in this case is that the information as to the groups, their plans, their funding was all very much out in the open ahead of time.

How much do you think George Soros and his groups like Invisible, Indivisible put into these type of activities annually across the country? It's difficult to put a dollar amount on what they're putting behind these sorts of protests specifically because they have certainly a very wide-ranging scope in terms of the sorts of things that they are organizing. What I will say is that

you know, these are, this exact playbook is the sort of thing that Indivisible, for example, has run for a very long time. And so one of the media narratives in the case of these protests is that they are proof that there is a sort of unique backlash to Elon Musk

that Elon Musk is firing people up to show out and protest and take issue with the administration in a way that maybe they would not have been motivated to before. Maybe that will be the case going forward. We'll have to see. I find it a little bit difficult to believe that that is the case now, only because when it comes to indivisible,

They had planned these exact types of rallies, protests, targeting town halls, local congressional offices, et cetera, for years. They did so extensively in 2017 and got all sorts of attendees to come out to those protests. And obviously, Elon Musk was nowhere near the administration in 2017. And so we'll have to see.

How is, do you feel, the press right now misleading people about the Department of Government Efficiency? I mean, all you hear is, you know, it's raining dogs and cats. People are losing their jobs everywhere. It's going to crash the economy. People are starving in every continent. How can we change the narrative on that? Because it's clearly, it's the worst case scenario, everything they report, if it's even true or not. Yeah.

I think you're right that the worst case scenario is often what gets attention here. I think you see this a lot when you're talking about USAID, for example, which is to say the question is not whether USAID does anything about you. The question is at least the intent of what you hear Secretary of State Marco Rubio talk about, for example, is getting USAID to a level in which what they are doing are the good things and what they are not doing are sort of the waste, fraud and abuse issues.

uh... that you hear the administration sort of rail again and indicate u_s_a_ they're all sorts of examples very very public uh... you're backed up by uh... disclosures funding disclosures think that we've covered in the free beacon for a very long time that are very clear examples of this waste rotten abuse money that's gone in the ended up in the hands of of terrorist organizations et cetera

And so, to me, at the very least, if you are going to give a full picture of what is going on here, these are the sorts of things that you need to mention. And I think too often, as you stated, the worst case scenario is put forward. And the sorts of things that have prompted these foreign funding reviews don't get as much attention in the mainstream press.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, you're right. As we noted in an editorial published yesterday, we have had issues with obtaining these sorts of credentials. And the reason that the congressional side is important here is because in order to be a part of

of the White House Correspondents Association, you need to have a congressional pass. In most cases, in order to obtain that pass, you need to go through a similar organization that deals with Congress. And you have to jump through a number of hoops and meet a number of qualifications to do this. Qualifications that some outlets simply do not meet. And so the question becomes then, well, if you have these limits in the first place,

And the defense of, say, the White House Correspondents Association, when these sorts of the power to pick a pool, for example,

is rolled back. And the response from the association is that, you know, our work is to, you know, facilitate the inclusion of new and emerging outlets. And really what we want is free and open access here. When you go back to Curtin and get into the details, I think, you know, the broader American public isn't super aware of as to how these sorts of things work as they shouldn't be. It's a little bit more complex of a situation and of a story. And so,

At the very least, I think what I would say is that if you want to ensure that this sort of organization can retain power and continue to play a role in organizing these sorts of pools, that you should take that claim of wanting inclusion and wanting sort of free and open access here very seriously.

and peel back some of these sort of hurdles that have remained in place to try to keep out, you know, outlets like ours. I'm going to go back to the Department of Government Efficiency led by Musk right now. Do you feel, I do, I have this theory that Kyle and I were talking this morning, there's just some fundamental shifts that are going to happen. And I think the Department of Government Efficiency is going to change the way a majority of voters look at government funding going forward, not only on the national level,

but the state and local level. Do you think that theory is correct? It has some, you know, you know, strength to it. Well, we'll have to see. I think at the very least it's true that there has been government spending that has gone on for some time and certainly accelerated under the Biden administration. I think a lot of the foreign funding that we briefly talked about earlier is probably the best example of this. That,

When you sort of describe some of these grants and what they're for and the amount of money put behind them, they almost sound too absurd to be true. Yes, yes. More immediate reactions to say, well, this surely cannot be the case that the United States is spending such an amount of money on these sorts of things. We've covered a lot of them in the Free Beacon about, you know, environmental justice and climate inclusivity and all these sorts of things. And they're real. And the American government is spending money on them.

And, you know, at the very least, I think having sort of a spotlight on these sorts of spending disclosures and efforts that I think to the average American, it's like that just can't be the case. But it is. I think that that could very much change, you know, sort of the general perception of what government has ballooned to.

I do think we'll have to see how much it sticks and where Doge kind of stops and starts in the sense of where their priorities lie, you know, having initially started with USAID and foreign funding and where they go from there as to, you know, how effective it's going to be going forward.

If you were asked for advice on Doge, what advice would you give them how to implement it better? I mean, I understand what they're doing. They're spotlighting things. People can go to the website. People like that. But what do you think they could do better? So, for example, if they're cutting jobs, should they say, you know, you have six months? I mean, does it seem like they could do things a little more –

less drastic on the human resource side? I do think that there could be room here to, you know, I wouldn't certainly say to go as far as to say take things slow. I understand that there, that those have an expiration date and that they need to, you know, sort of achieve things and show progress. At the same time, you know, I do think that if you want to have, you know, for example, we've

reported not too long ago on the State Department and Secretary of State Marco Rubio's foreign funding review, which encompassed all of the foreign aid that the State Department was sending out the door, as well as foreign aid that USAID was sending out the door. And when you break down the numbers of all of the funding, the amounts behind them, and just the sheer number of grants,

it's fairly staggering, right? We're talking about around 15,000 grants worth around $60 billion that they pegged for elimination. Well, when you're talking about that drastic of a number, it obviously takes a good amount of time

to sort through what that money is going to, what the effect of cutting it is going to be, et cetera. In Rubio's case, the Trump administration implemented a 90-day freeze to try to review these sorts of things. The State Department identified the cuts that I just outlined in about a month.

I think that that's a period of time that the American people can see as still a pretty quick move when you're talking about something that staggering. And I do think that that gives a little bit more of an ability to sort of ensure that you're targeting the right things rather than, you know, moving in a week, let's say. Well, Colin Anderson, executive editor of the Washington Free Beacon, tell our audience, where can they follow you? Where can they follow your work?

I personally am at C. Anderson Mo, M-O on X, and Free Beacon is just that. It is at Free Beacon on social and our website, freebeacon.com. I love your Twitter handle. It's still pushing your Missouri roots. So thank you for joining us on the show, and I hope you'll join us again sometime in the future. Thanks so much for having me. Always happy to. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. Our next guest is Anna Giertelli. She is the Homeland Security Reporter for the Washington Examiner. You can follow her on X at Anna, A-N-N-A underscore G-I-A-R-I-T-E-L-L-I. Anna, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. One thing you've done since you were on our show last, you're doing a lot of video reporting now. I love it. Great, great. How are you getting a good response to it?

Yeah, we have. Our YouTube channel for Washington Examiner gets a lot of attention now. That's fantastic. So what is the biggest difference that you're seeing? You've been to the border 60 or more times. What is the biggest difference you're seeing now that you visit the border versus, say, September 2024?

Yeah, I mean, it's night and day, right? I mean, at the height of the Biden border crisis, we saw in one day more than 14,000 people get arrested. And that's just the people who border patrol agents were able to intercept. When I was there just a few weeks ago in what was historically been one of the busiest parts in South Texas,

Did you ask the border patrol, like, is there another area you can take me to so I can see someone crossing? Oh, right.

We gave them strict instructions. We want to see crossings. We need to see crossings for video, you know? What is the story without people crossing the border? But that sort of became the unexpected story. And it goes with the numbers. I mean, they're having days in that region. There's nine regions of the southern border. But in that region where they're apprehending, there's a couple dozen people per day.

So now the entire southern border has gone down to 200 arrests in a single day, down from over 14,000 at the height of the crisis. So it's really, it couldn't be more night and day. And as a result of, I think, President Trump's rhetoric as well as his policies. Is there any immigrant that drives across the southern border that does not paint a coyote?

No, no, no one. Can you tell? Yeah, every part of that border is controlled by the cartels and the cartels fight with each other to control more territory because they know if someone's crossing, they're going to get paid for that.

And so, you know, the cartels have people all throughout all 2,000 miles of the southern border monitoring things. So they know exactly who is going down to the riverside. And if they do catch you trying to get across, you know, they will fire at you. It's raw stuff. It's really... So how do the cartels...

make up this income. I mean, they're in the money-making business. It's all they care about, right? So how do they go? Do they have a plan B, do you feel? Or is this like, we'll find some other avenue to make money?

Yeah, yeah, that is what we're waiting to see because right now they can really push drugs across the border. That's going to be even more difficult. We saw during the pandemic when border crossings went way down that the amount of drugs being intercepted at the ports of entry went way up because customs officers didn't have as much traffic flowing. They were able to pay better attention and look for suspicious items and vehicles.

So I think we can expect the cartels to be smuggling more drugs into the country. But at the same time, they don't want to overflood the U.S. because then the value goes down and that's not good for their bottom line. You know, someone I spoke with, the federal law enforcement, was saying that they can really only afford to not smuggle people for two to three months before it really gets up.

They can't do this long term. And so, you know, we did see a group of larger group of immigrants attempt to cross yesterday. I believe it was in Texas. I'm thinking by spring, we're going to start seeing groups attempt to cross.

And the cartels are going to try to surge people and see what the, you know, when you push over a couple thousand in a day, how does the new immigration system respond under Trump's changes that he's made? And will people end up getting released into the country? That's what they want to figure out.

We're with Anna Giertelli. She is the Homeland Security Reporter for the Washington Examiner. You've been to the border 60 times. You've got to know, I'm sure, many Border Patrol agents and management. What do they say they need now? So the flow is lessening. What do they think they need to truly do their job? What more do they need from Congress? You know, a lot of them will still tell you a wall.

There's less than half of the border has a significant barrier to impede people. Parts of the border that do have walls, they have holes in the wall that need to be filled. Other parts have holes in the wall where gates are to open and close. And those are there on purpose to funnel people. So it's not entirely the wall meant to block people from coming in.

It's meant to push them to areas where they can enter, and they will certainly be apprehended. They can't get away. But agents also want to see, you know, pay raises. They're still behind compared to other federal agencies. Do you feel that the administration is going to push for those pay raises to keep these experienced people at the border? You know, I think right now that's a really good question. It's really going to come down to how hard the union pushes for that.

I think that with the Republicans in House and Senate, it's a great opportunity for the Trump administration and the White House to move on these things. But like we saw eight years ago when Trump came into office the first time, Republicans had the House and Senate. They failed to get that wall funding and they really failed to get a start. I believe it was 20 months in and they had two miles of border wall funding.

And so I think what he's doing this time is really prioritizing the biggest stuff, really, really making a lot of changes at the border and other stuff. You know, maybe once you get out of year one, the border patrol raises and overtime and things like that can get taken care of, you know, once we're through it.

We've got about two minutes left in this segment. I want to go back to the wall. I think people think the wall is just this, you know, like a big barrier at a castle, right? And it's to keep people out. But you made an interesting point that there's interest sense along the wall that they can funnel people through. Will you explain to people what the wall looks like and what the intentions of the wall is?

Yeah, the wall is, it's actually a fence. So it's a slatted steel so you can see through it. And the way it was built is so that you can see through it from certain distances that help Border Patrol see, you know, from a distance, but don't allow others at certain points to see.

It's to their benefit, right? Correct. You want to see what's on the other side. It varies from 18 to 30 feet tall. And the Trump administration put up over 450 miles of wall in its four years in its first term. A lot of that replaced dilapidated wall. So not even wall, but like, you know, eight foot wall.

Backyard fencing, basically. Yeah, terrible. Stuff that I could get over, probably. So, yeah, making it a lot more difficult. And, you know, immigrant activists will always tell you that, you know, the wall doesn't stop immigration. And no, there's always going to be people who you see go over it. But it certainly...

If I'm looking at that versus the 8-foot fence, I'm certainly not. You can't get over this thing without considerable effort and outside help. So the wall is in different parts of the border based on the biggest issue for the federal government in building it and why we've had so many delays.

is getting land access from landowners on the border. Oh, that's right. You have a lot of eminent domain issues and things of that nature. We're with Anna Diotelli. She is a Homeland Security reporter, the Washington Examiner. We're going to take a commercial break, and we'll be right back with her to finish talking about the border and her reporting.

Support American jobs while standing up for your values. OldGloryDepot.com brings you conservative pride on premium, made-in-USA gear. Don't settle. Wear your patriotism proudly. Visit OldGloryDepot.com today. Welcome back to Breaking Bad Grounds. We are finishing our interview today with the Washington Examiner, Homeland Security Reporter, Anna Giertelli. Anna, welcome back.

Thank you. You have an interesting note on something you wrote, noting that 90% of fentanyl seized at the border was at ports of entry. So enhancing the Custom Border Patrol's ability to spot and interdict it is a key. What is that ability? What do they need to go and be able to identify it better?

So they need, when you come to the border, typically being smuggled in smaller vehicles or regular vehicles or commercial trucks.

And just two grains of fentanyl, think of a grain of salt, is enough to put someone in a coma. So this isn't like marijuana where you have bulk. It's tiny, tiny, tiny is all you need to get across and get a big dollar map. They need, when trucks and vehicles are coming to the border, these secondary machines.

can screen. It's like a massive x-ray that you drive through and it's, you know, it's emitting a safe amount on the driver and it's screening the vehicle to be able to see because right now you have such a low percentage of all vehicles being screened and it's supposed to be 100% of vehicles being screened when really it's

It's a very low rate, low percentage. And so Congress is trying to find, and this is something that Democrats and Republicans want to find, is technology. It's not a wall. Technology that can better detect fentanyl, that can better detect any kind of drugs, guns, people, any sort of thing that's illegal, out of the ordinary, and be able to know what is coming into the country and not have to, you know, hope for the best in a lot of cases.

And that's it. That's is that the bill by Senator Lankford and Kelly and Cornyn trying to hire more and train image detect detect techniques, technicians for this whole purpose of identifying and reviewing images of cars. Is that what it is? Yeah.

That is. And we've seen Trump and Biden both pass, you know, a good amount of funding for these machines. And I thought Lankford's bill, which, you know, Washington Examiner was first to publish, we spoke with him about it. And he, you know, he was really excited because it's going to create specialists. So not just...

People who are every day, you know, going back and forth from inspecting cars and doing paperwork and then looking at images of x-rays. But people who are, you know, like when you or I get an x-ray, you don't want just a random nurse looking at the result. You want the x-ray expert because they know what the normal is going to look like. And so he wants to staff those x-ray centers, which are all over the country, you know, 328 ports of entry around the country.

have five regional hubs where you can go through the results and really be able to tell you in real time, you know, pull this one aside, let this one go, et cetera. How much would that bill cost, by the way? You know, there was a cost, but he reintroduced it, and so he changed a number of things in it, and so we don't have a dollar amount yet. The Congressional Research Service has not provided a dollar amount on it. One final question before we have you take off here.

The White House has announced that 29 Mexican cartel members were extradited to the United States. That seems somewhat historic. Is that a fair characterization of it? And what does this mean for the American public? You know, what this means is Mexican cooperation with the United States. Certainly, it's come with a lot of pressure. The Trump administration yesterday just said the tariffs were going to go back on.

starting in early March. And so Mexico is unfortunately beholden by the United States, unfortunate for Mexico, to cooperate more and turn over these cartel members. Just this week, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, announced six Mexican cartel organizations

deems them officially terrorist organizations. And so with that comes more power to control their finances and money and assets flowing through the country. And I think enhanced cooperation with Mexico, who realizes the U.S. wants to take down these organizations and is going to do it one way or the other. Let's do it one way and not find out the other.

We've got about a minute left with you here. My question is, have you looking forward, what are things that you feel, some key points that people should be looking at regarding the border and immigration here the next year? What are some key points you think we should be looking at? So, you know, two things. I think the border, we're going to see a push by the cartels to try to get people across sometime this spring. I think it's their breaking point. They're going to do something.

The second thing is the number of arrests going on within the country. They're going to explode, I think.

Because right now, what we've been seeing are the one by one arrests. But when you start going to work sites, you start rounding up 20 people, 100 people, 1,000 people at once. Those numbers really explode. And I guess the third thing would be that the Trump administration is looking at removing children who came over the border by themselves, who have been through the entire court process and were found to not be a trafficking victim, which means they need to go back to their country of origin. Right.

How is that going to really impact schools at the end of the day? You know, this could be a real, real, real major issue that divides Americans. Well, Anna, thank you so much for joining us today, folks. Please follow Anna Giertelli on X on Instagram and LinkedIn. Anna, we hope to have you back on soon. Thank you for all your hard work. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds for our final segment. Today we have a friend of the show and a personal friend, Ryan Tyson, the president of the Tyson Group, well-known pollster. His numbers are always spectacular and spot on. Ryan, welcome to the show. Hey, Chuck. How are you today? I'm doing good down here in sunny Miami, you know, doing the show from here today. And Kylie and I are in a pretty good mood, so thanks for joining us. Welcome to the great state of Florida. Yeah, thank you indeed. All right.

So how quickly does Trump need to get things like egg prices and so forth down to people feel it fits their pocketbook? I mean, how much time, how much leeway will people give him?

It's hard to forecast. It's obviously still tier one. But let's also remember, too, that the issue grid for voters these days is a lot more spread out than it has been in the past. It's probably been that way for the past decade or so. There's not one issue that unifies the American people or even President Trump's base, by the way, for that matter. I think that it was very smart of him to get out on what he could control and

with executive orders to show movement on immigration. But I think we both know that as it relates to the economic issues, there has to be some movement on that soon, but there's macro factors that'll all get tied into Congress and global issues and things of that nature. So hard to nail that issue is what I'll answer it with, but it's going to have to be something that they work to address at some point, obviously.

Based on your polling, and you're in a lot of battleground states as well, what are the three things or two or three things that you feel Trump needs to have victories on for people to view his first year in office as being a success? You know, I'm going to answer that question by kind of by looking at his his

His victory coalition, the way that I see it. I'm not sure how his team sees it, but the way that I see it is that he put together a couple of different unique segments of the country to make this happen. Obviously, base Republicans is one of them. I think that he also was able to bring in a segment of moderate Democrats. I'm going to say centrist Democrats.

as evidenced by the likes of Tulsi Gabbard and JFK. Those voters are looking for us to stay away from social issues by and large. They're looking for us to make movement on transparency, which is why I think that yesterday when they were trying to make some headway on the Epstein releases, there's a chunk of under 40 voters

Right, right. Right.

I think that I think that so those are so believe it or not, I do think he's got to continue to show victories on upending government in that regard and uncovering the corruption and that people do that a good chunk of the country does believe there. So I'll throw you a curveball on that one, because I do believe it's real. And I believe it's probably the fuel that got him that record ballot share for under 40 voters.

across the country and especially in battleground states so that's one piece of it i think also he's got all he's got to continue the doge piece of it helps yes for a lot of independents and libertarians

So it's a completely separate piece of this. I mean, I would not tell you – you can't fool yourself into thinking that the country is driven by we need to go – we need to make it a priority to go and eliminate all this government waste and spending. They know it needs to be done, but people are like, but not my stuff, right? Eliminate someone else's waste, right? But I will tell you that there's a segment of the electorate that he pulled together that are not traditional Republicans –

that are enjoying watching what Elon is doing. These are voters, in my opinion, that are podcast voters. They listen to the Rogans of the world. They love Elon Musk. I mean, they're a unique sentiment of the electorate and likely, yes, they're mostly 40 and under.

And they want to see some successes on that. And then, of course, immigration is stuff that the base Republicans want, and then eventually inflation. So I kind of give you those four food groups because I feel like that's the coalition that Donald Trump pulled together. And I think that's what he's got to continue to move in that direction on. Well, I want to go back to these voters under 40, even under 30. I talked to some of them. It's like they feel like –

We toss around the word a lot, populist. And I wish there was a better word because I don't think it's a populist coalition for Trump. I think it's the government don't work worth a crap coalition.

We need somebody new. It needs to be blown. I mean, it's not true. I mean, it's just like it doesn't work. It's broke. And so yesterday's, it was an impotent release on the Jeffrey Epstein stuff, period. There's no other way to view it, right? It was just sort of this, oh, my goodness, this is happening. You have these influencers walk out. It was a big, big strike, big swing. I think you're right because until he can show he can actually release those things that they give every reason in the world for not releasing –

People are not going to feel he's really blowing things up in Washington, which is what they want. That's right. I think Doge is kind of giving him a little bit of that. But more work is going to have to be done on the front that you're describing. It's it. These younger voters, Chuck, if you look right now at that, the president's job approval.

by age cohort. OK, right. So if I was if I was drawing, if we were on a podcast or video and I was drawing this out, I want you to think of his job approval on the left axis and then the bottom axis would be the age cohort. It's a bell curve right now. The president's doing best with voters that are middle aged up till about 65. Yes. Down till about 30. He's doing he's doing historically well and right side up with voters 18 to 29.

which is crazy. He's not as well as past Republicans have been with 65 plus voters, but everything he may have arguably lost with 65 plus voters, he's more than made up with that 30 to 64 cohort. And I think that when you look at that middle of the road voter, I mean, that middle aged voter, if you would, I'll use that generic descriptor for him.

they are motivated by blowing up the government. They're disruptors. I use the word blowing up the government in quotation marks. I understand. You know what I mean? But they want to see that. So that's why where the media is missing the forest through the trees...

is that they're not realizing is why they think they're making Doge something that's a negative. It's actually continuing to keep the Trump coalition happy. It's the reason why there's even enough center-left voters in this country right now that typically they behave Democrat,

But they can't tell a pollster right now they disapprove of the job he's doing because they actually like this stuff. Right. They actually like what he's doing. So I think that's what sticks out to me right now early on in this term. And I would also argue to you now, I don't know if you have a TV in studio, but for whatever anyone may argue went wrong yesterday with Epstein,

What's going on in the Oval Office as we speak with Zelensky more than excites every one of those voters that we're talking about. They're loving seeing this theater that's going on up there right now because think about it, Chuck.

Conversations like these historically in American politics stay behind closed doors. This administration is historically open and transparent, and they're having a very high-level important conversation in front of the entire world to see. So I think while someone could be critiqued about how something like Epstein's release went yesterday, today comes right back and more than overcomes that concern. Well, it goes to the point they're talking about Trump's taking 1,000 questions.

So far in this administration, the first month. I mean, that's remarkable. People love that transparency. So when the reporters go out and plead and beg and yell that they're not having free access to the press and they say, well, the man's taking a thousand questions. Biden took 159. They don't believe it. You know, I think that's the point that legacy media misses all the time. So why they're going and talking on the Department of Government Efficiency is.

People are going to say, but you have to cut things. So they're just so carrying the torch of liberal propaganda that they're really losing the ears and the hearts of the American public. I totally agree with that. The disconnect between the Acela Media and the American people, that chasm has never been as wide as it is today. And it's probably widening even more. It's insane to me that they don't see how they've lost...

the assumption of objectivity amongst the American public and very small corners of the electorate on the far extremes are the only people who tune into this stuff anymore. It's fascinating, Chuck, to watch. I mean, you and I talk all the time about this, the disconnect between the average American and how these media talking heads think is insane. Well, the best thing these legacy media types could do, we're talking about moving departments out of D.C.,

Yeah. Sure. Sure. Yeah.

I think people aren't afraid to speak their mind anymore. I think that's something that you're going to see, which is a good thing. Number two, regarding the Department of Government Efficiency, I think that this will have the most lasting effect of anything Trump does because I think from there to the state level, to the county, to the local level, you're going to start seeing a group of taxpayers saying, I want a line item report of what you're spending money on. And I think you're going to start seeing this in town hall meetings. I think you're going to see it at county commission meetings.

And I think it's going to outlast Trump and Vance. What are your thoughts on that? I pray for the future of the country that it happens, is my answer to that. I think that the beauty of what Elon has done with Doge is exposing not just the wasteful spending and the corrupt actions at the federal level, but it's existing all the way down to the local level as well. All you have to do is look through some of these local government's budgets, if that's the specific of what you're asking. I mean, this is...

Government has been growing and spending money on things that are not core services for far too long. And it's grown to the point that people can't afford it anymore. And what's insane, what's incredible, I mean, and it's great to see is that the younger electorate, and I don't mean 18 to 29, I mean the electorate that's starting to have kids and get into the workforce, they see it. They're reacting to it. And I think it will be the last. I agree with you wholeheartedly. There's going to be a new culture.

It may at first be more evident in red states because you're seeing red state governors begin to push this idea down to the lower level. And then purple states, you could see breaking one way or the other based on how successful those efforts are. I totally agree with that. We're with Ryan Tyson. He is the president and founder of the Tyson Group, a national consulting and survey firm.

Yeah, I mean, look, you have a lot of young people right now who are trying to figure out how they can buy a home. So they're actually looking at their budgets, and they're saying, well, if I have to do it, you sure in the hell should have to do it. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah.

As you've polled, what is one thing that has stood out to you that would surprise people about the American public's mood right now? That's a tough question to answer because we are divided. That goes without saying. I think that...

I think media consumption is perhaps one of the drivers of that sentiment. I mean, we just, we used to all get our information from one, one or two, three different places. And now it's just everywhere. It's hard for me to, I don't know that I could put my one thing, you know, my finger on one thing other than to say the one thing that might surprise Americans. If you, if to your question, I would say it's, it's that the biggest story to me in the,

first several days of this administration, weeks, months, whatever we're at right now, it's that the biggest driver, biggest mover has been lethargy on the left.

I don't think I see signs of the left remotely like they were in 2017 as you started seeing the left wake up and try to be this loyal opposition, this fervor image, you know, fire eating, you know, burning themselves in the streets trying to go after Trump. I actually see enough of their base kind of lethargic because they like what he's doing.

That would be my take. That would be the thing I see in data that I don't think is reported enough. I think pollsters a lot of times when they do a job approval, they do what we call in our industry, they push

uh, uh, unsures to make a decision. Uh, and when they do that, I think sometimes you miss the nuance that I'm describing to you, which is that enough voters that are center left are kind of like, Oh, I don't really, I don't really know. Uh, I kind of like some of the stuff that I'm seeing, but I don't like him. That's the thing that you see. So I would answer your question with that. That's the thing to me that sticks out. And anecdotally, I think all of us probably know some friends that are independent or center left, uh,

that say, you know, I kind of like the stuff that I see. Yeah, I kind of like that he's up there making people squirm. I like that he's up there shaking things up and making people justify their existence. So that would be the thing that I see right now that is not reported at all. Well, it's, you know, the old saying, only Nixon could go to China. Only Trump could do what he's doing on government spending right now. I agree. That

That's it. One minute left here. What do Democrats need to do to be competitive statewide again in Florida? Anything? We've got to get out and touch some grass, number one. And I think otherwise, the biggest answer to that, the biggest single variable is they have no federal presence here, meaning no federally qualified funds.

The DNC has wrote this state off, and as long as that's the case, the state is gone. It's a Republican state until that changes. And then when that changes, we're talking a decade plus to try to make up the losses. Well, Ryan Tyson, founder of the Tyson Group, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate your time today. Great to talk to you, Chuck. Y'all take care. Thank you. This, folks, is Breaking Battlegrounds. You can follow us on BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. For those who are excited, jump on your podcast. You can hear Kylie's Corner and elsewhere. But have a great weekend.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds, the bonus edition, the podcast edition. And we're going to start off today with Kylie's Corner. Kylie, tell us, what's happening in the world? Talking about crimes and the ones committed, murder and mayhem in a world of sin and awe. Kylie's on the roll.

Kylie's got a corner and she's gonna start spilling out all the true crime in the world we're living in. So come and take a spin and listen in.

So did you see P. Diddy's lawyer dropped his case? I did see that. What was the reasoning for it? Oh, I wanted to look into it because I thought that was kind of crazy because in case you didn't know this, his lawyer represented Osama bin Laden after 9-11. Yeah, I saw that. I think New York Post made that a very big thing. Yeah, so I'm like, what would make this lawyer drop him? And his only comments were, although I have provided Sean Combs with a high level of legal representation expected by the court, under no circumstance can I continue to effectively serve the

as counsel for Sean Combs. So it's his only statement. That's like a total guilty. So I looked up videos trying to figure out what, what this could mean. So I saw one from this lawyer who was saying there's only, this guy has also represented other high profile. He does a lot of terrorists. Right.

He said he went into becoming a lawyer to really go after people who were getting the death penalty. So he'll take death penalty cases and then get them to just have life in prison. That's his whole thing, to prevent the death penalty. Yes. And a lawyer was basically saying for someone of this profile, for someone who's not afraid of cases...

One, he would leave because a client can't pay, but he doesn't think that's the case. No, no, no. He was trying to go after Joe Tacopina, who just represented ASAP Rocky, who also said no to Sean's case. And his other one was the so a lawyer would leave because the client knows or he knows his client is guilty. And furthermore, they can't handle the weight of the evidence against them.

Yeah. No, I'm just saying I'm throwing my hands up. By the way, how long do you think you took this lawyer to not call him P. Diddy but to go by his Christian name? It's God-given birth Christian name. Probably a little while. No, I mean, that's what I thought immediately. He looked at all the evidence and said, oh, my gosh, really? I'm going to spend a couple years of my life on this? There's some – he has more than 120 lawsuits against him, and there's ones that are – And they're pretty vile. Oh.

I don't even know if we could talk about them on any form of public. No, no. I think they're pretty vile. I mean, bad things happened. Yeah, and there's still people defending him. Well, sure. There's always going to be people defending him. And I'm sure he has some good friends. I mean, I'm sure there's some people who he's not voted to be— I don't even know if it's his friends defending him. Really? Who's defending him? The Internet, I think. The Reddit crew? Yeah, you have, I think, just the community of people who—

Think the government's going to conspiracy to get a black man, basically? Yeah. Well, that's interesting about the... I mean, once you defend Osama bin Laden... You think there's nothing else. Your bar's not too high. No. So now you're just saying... I mean, he just may say, my soul can't take this. Which is insane. Yeah. If he did, he could be worse than a terrorist. Yeah.

Well, I mean, what he's done is probably mentally and crippled a bunch of people. Yeah, yeah. Well, my other story, I kind of want your take on it because there's kind of a story that's starting to brew in the finance world about their long hours and deaths. Have you heard of any of this? Yeah, yeah. And they go. They have to work 100-hour weeks. It's sort of a Wall Street thing.

Right of passage. You work these 90, 100-hour weeks, seven days a week. You're always working. And they take tons of caffeine, pills, whatever the case may be. Yeah. So there was Carter McIntosh. He was working at Jeffries, the finance firm. And he just passed away. How old was he? 28 years old. Oh, boy. Yeah, they've had a couple of those the past year, it seems like. Yeah. So this is...

bringing up a lot of talk because there's been reports from Jeffries that he was working more than 100 hours a week, leaving the office at 5 a.m. His boss would make him refer to him as father.

And supposedly he overdosed on Adderall. It's not confirmed. But that a lot of guys say that Adderall is... People have to use Adderall to get through. Right. Working these hours. Because you're looking at screens and reports all day. I mean, it would drive almost anybody nuts. Yeah. But I think what the crazy part is about the insensitivity about this is the next day, the day after his death, Jeffries posted his job. Oh, yeah. No, no. Look...

There was a great line when we first did the show from Pretty Woman. And Richard Gere was playing with blocks. And Jason Alexander was saying, we've got to close this deal. We've got him where we want him. And Richard Gere, in his role, just simply said, we don't build anything anymore.

And these folks, and they would come on, we can bring them on, they would argue the point, but they don't build anything. It's purely about numbers. Can I make X amount through these algorithms? Can I look at these reports? Can I take advantage of it? A perfect example. So Utah has a ski resort, Park City Ski Resort, quite famous internationally. And it's part of a parent company that owns a bunch of ski resorts, including those in Aspen and Vail. The skiers...

went on strike because I think they were simply asking to be paid in the ski patrol $20 to $25 an hour. Whereas the previous year, this ski resort conglomerate made hundreds of millions of dollars in profit and

And, you know, this is where I don't ever want to sound like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, because they're grifters. But there's a point you need to take care of your people. I was talking to a friend in Vegas, you know, and the casinos are now doing a bunch of interviews and training for the pool parties, right? And so they're making these people come out for training every day, clear up to next week. And I said, what are you getting paid an hour, right? Now, look, they make great money when they're there, like a thousand bucks. I mean, they make great money. I go, what are they paying you? Eight dollars and 50 cents an hour.

These clubs can literally pay these people $20, $25 and not even miss the money. And there has to come a point. This is the problem right now with America. When you take sort of religion and values out of the public domain,

are not considering those who are working. And I think that's what's happening. And these guys here, it's like, look, you're just looking at reports and they're on Adderall, they're not working out, they're not sleeping, they're pale. Nothing's good about it. All pale. They're not having their orange a day, which the article I sent you this morning beat depression 20%. So yeah, no. There really needs to be some repercussions against these firms for making these folks do this. Yeah, so J.P. Morgan moved their cap to working 80 hours max a week. They

They haven't had a death that's been reported, but they did move to do that. But no other bank. Bank of America, they last year lost a former Green Beret, died of a heart issue. A guy that had to literally stay up 36 hours to train. Yeah. And he died because of a heart issue. Yeah. It's...

It's just pure greed. And again, I'm all for people making as much money as possible. But you got to remember there's other people around you. You need to take care of them. And making these young men and women, but I do think it's still sort of a bro culture. Yeah, no, it's definitely a... But making these folks work 90, 100 hours a week and just give up, you know, there's no money worth that. Yeah, and I'm all for working your way, getting, you know, like putting your hours in. We both are. We all do. Put your hours in. Because essentially for years, 100 hours a week.

Yeah. I mean, well, and for JP Morgan to do that, I think they expected other people to follow because it really is an industry white. People will just go to another firm. Like you have to keep up and do that. Otherwise they'll just go somewhere else. Um, but yeah, until others, I think start moving their hour cap to 80. So we've got P Diddy's lawyer quit. Yeah.

We've got Wall Street basically running people to the ground. Yeah. Anything else? That's all for today. All right. Well, folks, we hope you have a great weekend. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. You can follow us on BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. You can follow us on Substack. We are now on Sirius podcast platform. Is that correct now? Yeah. Yeah. Sirius. Yeah. Wherever you get your Apple. Spotify. Pandora. We're there. Join us. Yeah. Have a great weekend. Bye.