The episode pays tribute to the late Jeff Williams, weaving memories of friendship and collaboration while simultaneously tackling broader societal themes. As political discord looms large, the hosts urge listeners to prioritize human connection over ideological divides. The discussion transforms into a motivational narrative encouraging listeners to foster peace, understanding, and compassion while cherishing the community and collective action.
00:00:04 Pete Seeger’s Legacy and Political Parody Song
00:00:38 Condolences and the Passing of Jeff Williams
00:01:24 Mending Friendships Amid Political Differences
00:13:36 Reflections and Memories with Jeff Williams
SPEAKER 04 :
I thought I’d keep this in people’s heads for exactly 24 hours. Because, Mike, as we mocked the latest weird drunken frat party of Democrats, they were singing this at an anti-Doge rally, anti-Elon rally, right? Was that the event? It’s a real song. It’s a real song with history. Pete Seeger recorded this in 1941. Stone-cold communist Pete Seeger. So good source material for these people. But that’s a real song, and so there’s a real history.
SPEAKER 03 :
I thought they might have gotten their creative juices flowing. Well, they did rewrite the lyrics.
SPEAKER 04 :
Because we’re up against Elon, up against Doge. We’re going to walk up, punch him in the nose. I mean, I don’t even know.
SPEAKER 03 :
Before we dive in, let me, of course, extend my deepest condolences to you and Lisa and the whole team. When you hurt, we hurt. And you said something about the loss of your friend Jeff that really resonated with me. Jeff would love nothing better than to see people support Jeff. your efforts to feed starving kids. And what a beautiful gesture that would be. And I’ve gotten even a couple of texts saying, how can we help? And of course, I said, look, you could make a donation to Mark’s Food for the Poor campaign.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s 660antheanswer.com. Click Give Life, and there’s a little line item you can put in there. Do it in honor of Jeff Williams. In honor of Jeff Williams. I think it’s just a beautiful thing to do, and thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
And in honor of Mark Davis, because I know you’re hurting. In fact, I know it’s weird to connect these two stories, but I think it applies. You and I talked about a friend of mine that we had kind of a fracture in our friendship over Trump, as so many people do. And this friend who lashed out at me a little bit and really hurt me, frankly, in terms of a position, because I didn’t see it coming from him. He’s a good, good man. And I was hurt, and I stewed about it and talked to you a little bit about it, and you stewed about it. And then overnight, he wrote me a note that was as gracious and loving and wonderful as I would have expected from him in the first place. Hey, I’m sorry I handled it this way. I would have liked to have done it a different way, and I should have. And I’m sorry. And I treasure our friendship and hope we’ll always be friends. Now, I shared that with you. And when I first shared it with you via text, you were a little abrupt. And then you shared with me the loss of your dear friend. And your point was… In this short time we have on Earth together, we don’t need to be snipping at each other over politics, even something as important as the direction of the country. Look, it’s politics. We’re Democrats. We’re Republicans. We’re right. We’re left. But, you know, in a blink of an eye, a years-long friendship – and I’ve had a years-long friendship with this person, too, that I’m referring to – can be gone just like that. What, because you’ve got a fit of pique? Because you’re not happy with the way the election went? You don’t like Doge? Come on! And then you said that. This is typical Mark Davis, and I’m ripping the curtain back so the audience can hear this. You said to me, forgive me if I’m a little less gracious than I normally would be because of the loss of my dear friend Jeff. I think about that, frankly, with divorces. You know, if you’ve lost your partner to death, when you hear about people who kind of give up on their marriage, I always think, wait a minute, I’d give anything to have five more minutes with her. So hold the people you love in your life close to you. You’re going to have disagreements. You might not like Trump. You may love Trump. But don’t dispatch with abandon your lifelong friendships or family members or sons or daughters or husbands. It’s not worth it, Mark.
SPEAKER 04 :
You just never know what’s going to happen. You said that it’s kind of a disconnect. No, it’s not a disconnect at all for you to bring this up. It’s exactly the kind of thing that I’d be happy for people to carry with them as we talk about this is don’t let little things rob you of one moment of a friendship, a family relationship.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
And here’s the real tricky thing. I’m going to ramp it up a little more if you’re going to go down this path. Sure. Be the peacemaker. Swallow your pride. Be the peacemaker. Well, they really said something mean to me or, you know, they really dissed me or they really shut up. I don’t care. I don’t mean grovel to somebody who’s horribly mistreated you and is unrepentant. But if there’s been a long estrangement. There’s just bad blood. Be the person who steps forward and says, look, you’re my brother, sister, husband, whatever. You’re my brother. You’re my friend. You’re my whatever. I don’t want this to define whatever time we have left together, whether that’s one minute, one year, or 15 years. Let let’s heal this. Be the healer. Be the peacemaker. Don’t let you. Well, he wounded me. Screw it. I don’t care. Be. And listen, if they tell you to go take a hike, at least you tried. You did the right thing. But I wonder how many relationships could heal today or how many fractures could be amended today if people did that. And I hope that happened.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, look at what happened with this friend of mine. I mean, he sort of let me know how he felt and how different we were in terms of what we believe in and kind of was sort of closing, sort of trying to close the door on an aspect of our relationship. And when I expressed how, frankly, how hurt I was and how, look, if you ever change your mind, I’ll be here. I’m your friend. Well, that’s what I think did it. And so that’s the peacemaker. That’s saying, look, You know, I get it. And that doesn’t mean abandon your principles. That doesn’t mean you stop believing what you believe in. Agree to disagree, but be a bigger person. Absolutely. But we’ve stopped agreeing to disagree. That’s what kills me. It’s like it’s my way or the highway, and you’re evil. No, I’m evil. No, you’re the devil. No, you’re a fascist. And it’s like, come on. I mean, we’re… You mentioned about you and Jeff going through 9-11, and I remember that, of course, like it was yesterday. I was in the Empire State Building the morning of 9-11. And in the weeks and months after that, we weren’t bickering about who was the Democrat and who was the Republican. We were unified, Mark. We really were. Even in New York, where honking the horn at one another is just like a wave. I mean, it’s like a tip of the hat. You do that in Dallas, you might get shot. You lay on the horn at the red light. But nobody even honked their horns at each other for weeks and weeks. Denise pointed that out. She said, did you notice? Nobody’s even honking. I thought, I know. It’s different. It was something. I would long for that. And you know what is the worst irony of all? Trump wants that unity more than anybody. Of course. He does.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
He talks a lot about unity. They ignore him. They don’t believe him. But he means it. He wants unity. He wants us to be greater together. He wants this country to be great. He wants middle class people to pay less at the grocery store. He wants everybody to pay less in taxes. He wants the roads to work. He wants the border secure. He wants us to be a proud, vibrant, prosperous nation again. Why would anybody be against that? This Doge thing. How is anybody against government efficiency?
SPEAKER 04 :
You know. It’s a grift. You know the answer. Of course it is. Because half of America or whatever, half of our political system loves the grift, loves expansionist, collectivist government, needs for it to be this big. And so when Trump and Elon roll in and actually do something about it for the first time in, let me check, my lifetime, you bet it’s going to be a shock to the system. It’s a shock to my system in a hugely positive way. It’s like, wow, these things we’ve dreamed of for years actually making government smaller rather than just breaking our arms, patting ourselves on the back for reducing the size at which it grows. These are different times, and I’m thrilled. So the people who have fed at the trough of that government largesse, you bet they’re going to be testy.
SPEAKER 03 :
You bet. You bet. And they don’t like it. But see, they’re not even just testy. And that’s the tell. That’s the giveaway. They’re hysterical. Hair on fire. Raging, screaming little housewives from Oregon who are congresswomen. Oh, I hope my kids don’t hear me saying F Trump. Well, then don’t say it, dummy. What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you? Meanwhile, here’s Trump talking to Putin about maybe ending his war in Ukraine.
SPEAKER 04 :
Here we go. Is he going to go there? Are they going to maybe meet in Saudi Arabia? Will we have Trump in Moscow, Putin here, sitting down with Zelensky? I don’t even know what that looks like, what the settlement, what the compromise would look like. But if this happens, and I certainly hope that it does, And on Saturday, he lays down the line in the sand about if we don’t get the hostages back, all hell will break out. At first, Hamas had said, we’re not giving you anybody because you’re threatening us with lifting the ceasefire. Now it’s like they’re blinking a little. Now they say we’re going to give back the people who we had originally said we were going to give back on Saturday. What do we got? About 48 hours or so. I think we may be getting more people than they say.
SPEAKER 03 :
You got that right. And meanwhile, the former Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, struggling to explain his sad, pathetic, lone, no vote on Tulsi Gabbard. Malcolm Ferguson over at New Republic wrote, Mitch McConnell has gone from being one of the most powerful men in the GOP… the face of conservatism, to failing to convince – this is the way the New Republic, the lefties look at it – to fail to convince a single Republican colleague to vote no with him on Tulsi Gabbard. The only Republican to vote no on Tulsi, Mitch McConnell.
SPEAKER 04 :
This is virtue signaling. It’s posturing.
SPEAKER 03 :
It is. It is.
SPEAKER 04 :
It took me until a couple of days ago to go back to 60 minutes of last week or the week before to see the profile they did about him. And they talked to his biographer. And listen, all biographers should be fawning and sycophantic, I guess. So it’s, of course, it’s somebody who thinks well of Mitch. And the interviewer asked, I think it was Norah O’Donnell, asked, what is Mitch’s most courageous moment? I know what my answer would be, because there have been some.
SPEAKER 01 :
I can answer it. Supreme Court.
SPEAKER 04 :
Keeping the Supreme Court seat open in 2016 when Scalia died so that the people could decide which president would fill that. Nope. It was his finest moment. You know what the biographer said his most courageous moment was? Condemning Trump for January 6th. Sticking up for funding for Ukraine. Oh.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you. Unbelievable. Hey, by the way, you mentioned Norah O’Donnell. This just shows how disconnected I am from broadcast TV. I don’t really watch a lot. Have you seen it? I watched it on its first night.
SPEAKER 04 :
I kind of like it. It looks like a really high-toned local newscast. That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
A weather guy with a weather map? I mean, it’s bombing, apparently. The trades are all writing about how it’s not very successful so far, but it’s a week out of the gate. You know, I like that Maurice Dubois. Maurice Dubois is good? He’s a New York City-based anchor, and I remember when I lived there, I enjoyed him. But CBS has always been sort of the also-ran, haven’t they?
SPEAKER 04 :
Especially in the mornings, wherever the morning battle was today versus GMA. I remember Harry Smith, they had a CBS this morning or something like that. They’re a big, powerful network with a legacy.
SPEAKER 03 :
And now Gayle King, because it pays to be Oprah’s BFF. When you’re Oprah’s BFF, you get all kinds of perks. Yes, it does. Gail King. My goodness. Oh, well. Anyway, hey, look, hang in there, and we’re praying for you. We’re praying for your family. We’re praying for Jeff and his beautiful wife and kids. I met Jeff, and what a great guy. Just a prince. And you know what? I know it hurts now, but you remember something. As time heals, and it does, all those warm memories of your trip to Israel and all the stuff you guys did together, they will fill you with joy and gratitude. And believe me, he knew what a blessing Mark Davis was in his life. His wife knows what a blessing you and Lisa are to their lives. And that’s a gift, Mark, that you give without even intending to give it. So I’m with you.
SPEAKER 04 :
He was a blessing in ours. And so let’s all be blessings in each other’s lives and do all those wonderful things. It’s funny you mention about there’s an old saying that when time heals, and of course it does, There’ll be a time when your tears will be replaced by smiles, when remembering won’t make you cry as much anymore, but you will smile. And I’m already doing both kind of at the same time. My buddy Jeff Petroulis, who used to work with us in the BAP realm, said everybody’s got pictures of me and Jeff and our whole posse. They’re all trading them back and forth, you know, like teenagers now. He sent me a picture of me and Jeff in the BAP studio. And Jeff is festooned in TCU purple because, of course. And we’re both wearing big orange and white elephant ears because I guess it was the promotional stuff from Horton Hears a Who or something like this. And we’re just looking so matter-of-factly into the camera wearing massive cloth elephant ears with big smiles. That was my buddy.
SPEAKER 03 :
That was Jeff. Well, you look at the pictures on your social media, you can see the twinkle in his eye. You see that mischievous kind of that big smile and golly, I mean, you know. What a man. Just cherish those memories, my friend. I will, Ben, and I cherish you, and I love you so much. And we love you, and we’re hurting with you, Mark. Hang in there, my friend.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you, man. That’s what a friend is, too, by the way. That’s Mike Gallagher, a friend to all, and he’ll begin his friendly show at 10 o’clock as soon as we’re done on 660 AM The Answer.
