The hosts engage in a reflective dialogue about the tragic death of Austin Metcalf, questioning the role of race and media coverage in national conversations. The episode also spotlights the controversial tariff policies affecting America’s economy, drawing parallels to political climates of past and present. Through vibrant storytelling and poignant analysis, the hosts provide thought-provoking insights on human behavior, societal norms, and national obligations.
Mike Gallagher. Every day, Mike visits with Mark Davis, morning host on 660 AM, The Answer in Dallas. Here’s today’s Eminem experience.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m guessing many Americans in 1963 heard this and said, hey, who’s this woman?
SPEAKER 03 :
No way people thought this was a guy. Nope. But it was. It was. Not only was it a guy. That, of course, is Wayne Newton and Duncan Shane from 1963. Wayne Newton is 83. And I remember that. And about a decade later, he had a kind of a heart-rending, or as they say in Maryland, heart-rendering. You remember Daddy, Don’t You Walk So Fast? Oh, yeah. A story about a dad that’s about to bail and the kids are going, you know. But here’s the thing about Wayne Newton. Listen, you’re just wrapping up one of the many Johnny Carson biographies. Wayne Newton, of course, clad in a tux, became king of Vegas, and also apparently king of intimidation because, boy, Johnny Carson was comically vicious toward the effeminacy of Wayne Newton. And at one point, apparently, Wayne Newton had some people visit Johnny to stop those jokes. Come on, really? Yep, and they did. Is that in the book? I think, well, I’ve read five of them. There’s the one that Bushkin wrote. Carson the Magnificent, are you done with it? I don’t know if it’s addressed in that. But it’s, yeah, I think Johnny kind of actually might have talked about it in his 60 Minutes thing. So do not mess with Wayne Newton. And so I certainly won’t. He’s 83 today.
SPEAKER 04 :
As much as I love Vegas, I hate that I’ve never seen him perform. I think it’d be fun. And I think he still performs occasionally. He lives out there and he’s had a residency there forever. It would be fun to see him on stage because he certainly is an icon and a legend. So happy birthday, Wayne.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know who Lisa and I saw? Circa two, we saw in one big Vegas visit, circa 02 or 03, Tony Bennett. And at that point, even there, he’s in his late 70s or 80s or something. And at one point in a in a hall that holds about 2000 people, he just puts the mic down and sings a song without benefit of microphone, because in filling that hall, his his voice was just that strong. Nice. Yep. And then we saw Jerry Seinfeld, I think, the following night. Seinfeld doing stand-up, still one of the great practitioners of the art, walks out. And again, this was over the holidays. Walks out and he says, wow, look at this. Vegas at Christmas, just like Jesus would have wanted. nothing like vegas i love vegas and i’m not a gay i’m not really a big gambler or smoker drinker or anything but i love the restaurants and the hotels and the shows and you gotta you gotta give me a list because i’ve sort of put the gambling thing in my rearview mirror i mean we at least and i spent some serious time at craps tables and it accrued to our great benefit some days not so much we wound up on the plus side which is great but i’m just kind of done with that it’s not the best stewardship of my money. But Vegas as an entertainment mecca, and the shows you can see, and the food, and the stuff, the Sphere. I mean, I still got to do the Sphere.
SPEAKER 04 :
I saw the Eagles at the Sphere, and that was a spectacular experience. And all the Cirque shows are great. I mean, it’s like they take a theater and they say, let’s have no budget. Let’s just build the biggest… stage and theater and sets we can build so anyway hey let’s get down to some business here and talk some serious stuff let’s talk about uh the horrific horrific stabbing of austin metcalf metcalf that you’ve been talking about all morning and doing such a a brilliant job as usual and you’re you have the right tone i love your prayerful attitude not only about uh the young man who was allegedly killed in cold blood but uh the alleged killer as well carmelo anthony um i You know, you are deftly avoiding the 800-pound elephant in the room. And I notice that you have not touched what is all over social media over this killing. And I am intrigued by this. Not by you, by the way. I know why you’re not even there, because it doesn’t even cross your mind, perhaps. That race is a national subject on this particular horrific tragedy. And I often wonder why. And let me tell you why. Let me give you an example. End Wokeness is an ex-Twitter account I follow. And the post shows both of these boys’ pictures. You know, Austin and this Carmelo Anthony. The Post says, say his name, Austin Metcalf, 17, high-achieving student, athlete, 4.0 GPA, killed in cold blood by Carmelo Anthony, zero national outrage. I don’t know if the zero national outrage is because this was a senseless killing, these were two kids, both of whom, well, I think I know. And it bothers me tremendously. If a white kid had killed a black kid.
SPEAKER 03 :
What national outrage are we supposed to have? The earth would stop spinning in its orbit. The reason I haven’t mentioned that is an angle. And first of all, your point is 100 percent well taken. It’s because there’s precisely zero reason to believe that race had anything to do with that. And that should be the default setting. But your point is 100 percent golden that if a white kid stabbed a black kid, we would have congressional hearings by now.
SPEAKER 04 :
And perhaps that’s why people are bringing it up now. Maybe they’re saying, look, it’s the end of the world if a white kid kills a black kid, but if a black kid kills a white kid, nobody pays attention. Well, I can assure you, people are paying attention to this case. And in this case, as you pointed out, both of these kids had bright futures. Both of these young men were promising athletes and scholars and spiritual. As you said, they both have Twitter X accounts, and they both invoke God and faith and faith. And like you said, the Anthony family now is gutted by what this kid allegedly did. And, you know, but as you said, at least he’s alive. He’ll probably be behind bars for the rest of his life. So two lives are ruined. Two lives are destroyed. And race, we’ve just got to stop, I think. And the only reason I want to just touch on it is because that’s the entire threat on social media. Oh, when a black kid kills a white kid. Look, we don’t have to get into Sigmund Freud here to know what happened. It’s the basis of road rage. Happens in the blink of an eye. You see these videos posted on social media all the time. Two people have a disagreement, and before you know it, one of them is dead. And that’s because we have these hair-trigger…
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
Atmospheres where everybody feels like the other person is out to get them. You cut in front of somebody on I-35. Boom. That’s the end of the world. I’m going to cut him off and I’m going to beat him up and I’m going to get out. Before you know it, somebody’s got a gun out and somebody’s dead. And that’s what happens. Allegedly, as I understand it, the one kid was in the wrong space or a wrong seat or a wrong place, and they got into a disagreement about that. And, Mark, you know how those things go. One thing leads to another, and they’re insulting each other. And before you know it, there’s a fight. And then this kid pulls out a knife out of his backpack, I guess. Like you said, what’s he doing with a knife in his backpack? But what are you going to do? Are you going to go through every backpack in an outdoor track meet?
SPEAKER 03 :
How do you prevent that from happening? Well, that’s one of the things I heard in the stories is now there may be focus on security at such events. Security at a high school stadium for a track meet? We’re going to have metal detectors there now? Oh, I know. That’s where we go.
SPEAKER 04 :
And God forbid if it would have been a gun. That’d be the end of the world on that one.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’d be gun control. Now we need knife control. Exactly.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s just, like you said, what we need to do is lean into prayer. I hope that both of these families, particularly the family of Austin Metcalf, who now has to be buried, I hope they take some comfort in knowing that, at least from his public postings, he was right with the Lord. And that should bring them some comfort, because as you said in your beautiful prayer this morning, He’s now in the loving arms of God and our Savior. The whole story, when that twin came out, I just had to almost pull the car over to the side of the road when you shared that about in the middle of the report with the mother. And incidentally, kudos to you for understanding why people give interviews. They want the world to know about their beautiful boy. Yep. They want the world – they don’t want people to forget Austin Metcalf. And if it means giving an interview – and as you said, everybody grieves in a different way. Some days I look back at my wife’s funeral. I didn’t want to have the receiving line at White’s Chapel afterwards. I just thought, you know, I can’t do this. I just can’t. And I felt terrible because I remember – remember Tom Leppert, the mayor of Dallas at the time? Of course. He showed up. It came to my wife’s funeral. And when we were pulling away in the funeral thing, I looked over and just trying to – I was numb. But I do remember the memory of Tom and some other people standing there looking kind of confused. Like, why is Mike and the family leaving? Why aren’t they standing to shake hands? Because that’s such a funeral tradition. And I couldn’t do it. I just didn’t have it. I just thought it’s all I could do to get through the service. I can’t believe she’s gone. And I just appreciated so much everybody being there. And I look back at that and think how rude I was in doing that in the moment because I should have been gracious enough to say hi to everybody and thank them. I think there’s special dispensation in a case like that. I hope so, and I hope Tom forgives me, because I remember I could see him. As we were driving away, he was looking kind of confused, like, why are they leaving? And I thought, you know, and it’s partly to do with what we do for a living. We have to be on. You know, when we’re with a crowd, when we’re on a cruise ship, when we’re at an M&M experience, you know, you’re shaking hands and slapping backs and kissing babies, and I just didn’t feel like doing that that day, and I hope people have some forgiveness in their heart. 100%. Hey, let’s take one minute, two minutes in the final time we have left to pivot on to the tariffs. Yes. I’m old enough to remember that Rush Limbaugh got eviscerated because he said something about, you know, I don’t want America’s agenda to succeed because it’s Obama’s agenda. Remember that? Remember there was a big drama? Well, now we’re witnessing this on steroids. Have you ever stopped to think about how all the legacy media and all the Democrats are rooting against America with these tariffs?
SPEAKER 03 :
They would love it if they did. the stock market totally tanked, if jobs were lost, and if America’s manufacturing sector suffered for a long time.
SPEAKER 04 :
Seriously, that’s what they’re doing. I mean, there’s not a sliver of optimism in any of the coverage except for conservative media. You go to Town Hall, you go to Salem News Channel, you go to 660 AM The Answer, you listen to newscasts. Look, this is a big, bold move. But, you know, Trump has talked about… I found an Oprah Winfrey interview he gave 35 years ago where he said our allies aren’t paying their fair share. And this is called fair trade. But you got people like Mitch McConnell’s lining up against it. Shocker. Murkowski and Collins.
SPEAKER 03 :
Shocker. And Rand Paul. The only guy, I’m going to give Rand Paul a special carve out of sincerity because he’s such an uber libertarian. He doesn’t want government intervention in the trade marketplace at all. He just sort of wants it all to kind of even out.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I understand that. He’s consistent, I guess. But how about let’s be united Republicans. How about we give some cover to the guy… Look, Piers Morgan had a quote that I thought resonated. He said, look, this is either going to be one of the biggest, most spectacular success stories in the history of America, or it’s going to be an abysmal failure. And, you know, I know he’s Captain Obvious there, but nonetheless… Can we at least have a little bit of optimism for America? Look, no matter what you think of Trump, I don’t care if you’re the biggest Trump hater on the planet. Do you really think he’s sitting around saying, let me figure out a way to tank the economy? Exactly. You know what I mean? These people lost their minds. So we’re going to talk, we hope, today to the great Stephen Moore and maybe Seb Gorka. Get some take from them. Yeah, these are great people and smart. And Scott Besson, what a smart, bright guy.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, we don’t spend a lot of time through our careers saying, hey, how about that Treasury Secretary?
SPEAKER 02 :
I know.
SPEAKER 03 :
Who even is the Treasury Secretary? Well, we know who everybody is in this administration because they’re all various shades of awesome.
SPEAKER 04 :
They sure are. And so let’s just keep praying for our country, see how it goes. All right. Good job. Happy Wednesday. Or what is this?
SPEAKER 03 :
Thursday. Thursday. It’s crazy. Thursday already, dude. You know what that means? Tomorrow is. Tomorrow is the couple of days early Mike Gallagher’s 65th birthday.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, no, no, no, no. Skip it.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, no. That’s right, everybody. It’s a moratorium. Get ready. It’s tomorrow.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’ve got a tech segment. A lady on X from Minnesota said, would you stop whining about turning 65? She said, I’m turning 65 in October, and you’re making me nervous. I mean, I’m just not.
SPEAKER 03 :
Your kids.
SPEAKER 04 :
Your kids, I tell you. Got here quick. It arrived quickly. All right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Happy Thursday, my friend. I love you. Great work. And great work today, Mark. Thank you. Great work on this. I appreciate it so very, very much. Great work every day for Mike, and it starts at 10 as soon as we’re done on 660 AM. He answers.
SPEAKER 02 :
Download the podcast and hear all of Mike and Mark’s conversations at MikeOnline.com for the M&M experience.
Cracker Barrel Goes WOKE