Mike and Mark examine the depths of contrived accusations of racism, share stories of witnessing it for real, and wrap up with a story of a character test ending badly.
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SPEAKER 05 :
Welcome to a meeting of the minds crafted from decades of talk show experience. An extension of the magic they’ve created together on radio in the phenomenon called M&M. Hot topics in the news and wisdom from life. It’s Mark Davis and Mike Gallagher. This is M&M Extra.
SPEAKER 09 :
You would think, and logic might dictate, that after our respective three-hour shows and a big chunk of it spent in overlap talking to each other.
SPEAKER 08 :
Not three. Don’t say three.
SPEAKER 09 :
What?
SPEAKER 08 :
Don’t say three. I got a three-hour show. You got a three-hour show? I have a two-hour show on AM 660 The Answer in Dallas-Fort Worth because of you.
SPEAKER 09 :
You take away one of my hours. And so it begins.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I mean, look, I know you’re the big star. I’m under no illusion that I’m a Mark Davis level of fame and fortune in Dallas-Fort Worth. You know what I’ve got to do? I’ve got to go into a mode where I sort of pretend that it’s two hours in a market like Dallas, but then I can acknowledge that it’s three hours in a market like Tampa or somewhere else. A lot of markets only take two of my three hours, and that’s building into the case. So, I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but I’m not bitter about it or anything.
SPEAKER 09 :
But can I can I can I reset what I was going to say? And then I will actually explain what Mike’s talking about, because it because it is important. And if we’re all about pulling the curtain back, he’s right. I actually cost one hour each to three shows, three shows. So I better doggone well be worth it. So you might think after our respective three hour shows and a good chunk of that spent in each other’s company in the Eminem experience on radio that we’d be about done. We’ve pretty well like covered what we need to cover. Man, what in the world else could there be? Are we discovering the opposite as it is a fountain of stuff just rising up out of us? And so here comes today’s version of we’ve done stuff in the news today. Trump on the way to China, all kinds of stuff. We got clips you want to play. I have my daily fascination of Democrats who might run and blob. It’s like a daily exercise. So here’s the deal. Let’s say before I arrive in June of 2012, we’re coming up on 14 years in this building here in Salem land. You have the Bill Bennett did the morning show. That was three hours. Mike Gallagher had three hours. Dennis Prager had three hours. Well, they come in. They bring me in for some crazy reason. And I’m on from seven to ten central time, which means you’re only going to get two hours of the early, early, early show. And it means what in Mike, we’re going to only get two hours of Mike. And since I’m on till 10 and so we delay broadcast you for an hour, which means by the time you are off, it’s noon Eastern time. And that leaves only two hours to run the show that runs after you, which is Prager. Of course, no, which is now Scott Jennings, et cetera. So, yes, I cost the three hours of me are one hour off. cold, lifted, extracted from three existing high-gloss network shows. And I hope on balance that it’s been a worthy exercise.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s worth it. It’s totally worth it. And let me kind of explain, you know, again, since we love pulling the curtain back and sharing kind of the inside baseball stuff of what we do. My show, which is heard on about 360 stations now around the country, which we’re real proud of, I am live 9 to noon Eastern. But that only applies to a percentage of stations because many stations like KSKY in Dallas don’t take it that way. And that’s why my show by design, every hour, for example, is modular, meaning we do every hour as its own independent show. We don’t tease ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
I don’t refer to something that happened the hour before because if we do that – No, I know, because it could be in any order.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, it’s out of order. We get in trouble. We’re out of order in – you’re out of order. We’re out of order in Dallas. We’re out of order in Houston, New York. We’re in order, but we’re only the last – so it varies from station to station. And that’s actually a plus. in the syndication world because we can pitch it that way and we can say, hey, Mike’s show can plug in any hour you need. There’s some markets that take us late at night. In Akron, we’re on a powerhouse station in Akron, WNIR, which is a big FM talk station. We’re on the air, I think, from midnight to 3 a.m. And we’ve been that way for years.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, I’ll take it. I’ll take it.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, you can’t call the show live, obviously, but you can you can hear the show. So that’s kind of the behind the. So let’s go. Let’s start with today and me. I’ve sprung something on you and I could tell and I always hate it. I should always try to give you a heads up. But sometimes your spontaneous reaction is better.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s the fun. I would I would assert that that’s the fun.
SPEAKER 08 :
So I shared with you how there’s a representative in Virginia, a Republican congresswoman named Jen Kiggins, who is in a very tough reelection battle in Virginia. And Democrats are looking for anything they can find to try to get an upper hand on her as she runs for reelection in that particular congressional district in Virginia. So she gives an interview to a fellow by the name of Rich Kagan. Herrera. Rich is the host of something called the Richmond’s Morning News. He’s the morning host on WRVA, which is a big powerhouse radio station.
SPEAKER 09 :
Capital city of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
SPEAKER 08 :
You bet. And he’s interviewing this congresswoman, and they’re both bemoaning the way Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries are poking around and sticking their nose into other states’ redistricting efforts. And this redistricting thing, I mean, this is, let’s face it, this has turned into World War VII. I mean, this is DEFCON 1, state after state now. The Democrats started it. Republicans want to finish it. The Democrats pretended that Republicans, namely Texas, started it and that they have to finish it, which was a lie, by the way. Texas didn’t start this. But so she’s given a radio interview. And I saw this headline as I rolled out of bed this morning. Virginia congresswoman faces calls for resignation. for her appearance on a radio show. I want to play for you, Mark, the exchange between Rich Herrera, the host on WRVA, and this congresswoman, Jen Kiggins. Listen to the exchange and what got her in a world of hurt today.
SPEAKER 06 :
If Hakeem Jeffries wants to be involved in Virginia politics, then I suggest he does what a bunch of New Yorkers are doing. Leave New York. Move down here to Virginia. Run for office down here. You can represent us. If not, get your cotton-picking hands off of Virginia.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s right. Ditto. Yes.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes to that.
SPEAKER 08 :
Now, that’s what got her in trouble for giggling and saying, that’s right. Ditto to that. That’s correct. And what she was agreeing with was that Hakeem Jeffries needs to butt out of Virginia. But, of course, the phrase, get your cotton-picking hands. as applied to a black man, turns into a massive scandal because it’s racist to say cotton-picking hands about a black man. Mark, I told you this story this morning, and you looked at me like I was completely out of my mind. But it’s true. It happened. And I even had some callers who said, well, it was probably a little incense.
SPEAKER 09 :
What? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We can’t live that way. Don’t ever surrender to the terrorists.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Ridiculous. We cannot surrender to the language terrorists, to the race baiting terrorists. Absolutely not. Cotton picking is a universal term been used forever. It has no racial tinge whatsoever. Certainly no racist motive. Everybody needs to go. And as we discussed earlier in the interview, m&m radio version this is all they have since this is largely all they have are these false reflex accusations of racism it’s it’s gonna come this is how you get elon musk with the you know you’re in my heart not or is it a nazi salute or the who knows what might get twisted next time somebody misspeaks or does something that by somebody somewhere can be spun negatively as racism when it is not
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, this is exactly why I love your spirit and your attitude, because frankly, we should give no quarter to these race baiters and these race hustlers. And now look, she kind of apologized. She said, well, I wish he shouldn’t have used the phrase that he used. I mean, instead of just standing up and saying, no, this is nothing racist about this. It’s a phrase. It’s just a normal. But this is, look at realtors. You’re not allowed to say master bedroom anymore. Yep. The master key. If you have a set of keys, which one’s the master key? Ah. It’s unbelievable. Now, there are some realtors who – one guy, a buddy of mine who heard our conversation today on your show, and he’s a very successful realtor. He said, I’m not going to back down. It’s master bedroom. I’m going to say master bedroom. Think about this. Now, Mark, think about the reason behind it. Master bedroom is – It evokes images of a master of a slave in what?
SPEAKER 09 :
Like the larger bedroom is is putting the other bedrooms in shackles and whipping the other bedrooms as they engage in involuntary servitude. What kind of nonsense is this?
SPEAKER 08 :
But that’s where we are. This is where we are. I mean, and it’s got to stop. I mean, there was a list. You know, the New York theater community is as woke as any community you’ll ever come across. And they put out a list of politically offensive phrases like you can’t even talk about, what was it, the balcony and the cheap seats and all this stuff you can’t say anymore because it’s offensive to somebody on some level. I am so sick of this, Mark. And guess what? There are political analysts who think that this could have cost her the election. Do you remember Serena Williams? In the hotel with the lovely cotton plant. The cotton plant. It was a cotton plant, Serena Williams, and it was a five-star luxury expensive hotel. And it was a cotton plant. She was offended by that. She took to her Instagram and showed a video saying, I’m not really all right with this. As a black woman in America. What?! ! Are you wearing any cotton clothes or clothes made out of cotton? Thank you. I mean, Mark, this has got to stop. But I do like what you said. This is all they got. They’re desperate.
SPEAKER 09 :
It’s a good sign. It’s a good problem to have. I mean, it’s not easy if you’re her or if you’re the host. Or the radio host. Or the radio host. I would feel terrible for him. Management had better stick up for him. Management had better defend him.
SPEAKER 08 :
I wonder what they’re going to do to him. I think he’s Hispanic. His name is Herrera. That’s Hispanic, right? H-E-R-R-A-R-A. And it turns out he’s got connections to Tampa Bay where I live. Apparently he used to be involved with the Tampa Bay Rays. I guess he was a former sports guy. So I was thinking about getting him on, but then I thought, well, if I put him on my show and ask him about it, does it make it worse? I don’t know.
SPEAKER 09 :
I’ll tell you what. Ask. All he can do is accept or decline. I’d listen.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I would think it’d be a good segment to find out what he’s going through. But again, I don’t want to make it worse. And let’s talk about this for just a moment, about trying to afford grace. And I told you about this horrific case of a man who was shoved to his death in New York City the other day, 76-year-old man. And I want to play this report for you from Fox News because this is very telling about where we are culturally, where we are as a society. There’s a guy, and it turned out he was a Broadway dancer. The guy was the dance captain for a musical that I happened to love, Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark. Did you remember reading anything about that ill-fated Broadway musical?
SPEAKER 09 :
I remember the name and that it lived in some type of infamy, but I don’t remember why.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, the infamy was people were getting their feet crushed and legs broken. People were getting hurt. It was this really huge production about Spider-Man, Peter Parker and Spider-Man. And but they had all the villains and Spider-Man was flying around in the theater. They had a huge rigging system in this particular theater in New York. And but it was so technically overwhelming that actors and ensemble members were getting injured and they were getting hurt all the time. And in fact, one night there was a guy up on a giant ledge way up in the in this up in the air. And his harness broke and he fell like 50 feet in front of a live audience. And they saw this poor guy fall. He broke just about every bone in his body. He lived. And I think he got a nice huge paycheck.
SPEAKER 09 :
He owns him a theater.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yep, yep. But that was the infamy to the show. And I loved it. It was a rock musical. I think Bono, I don’t know, I forget who was involved in it, but it was really, I thought, well done and well put together. In any event, this guy was the dance captain for that particular production. supposedly COVID made him snap. He took a leave from reality during COVID and he became mentally unwell and COVID turned him into basically a, a raving lunatic. And he was, and the way it manifested, um, it was a kind of a big athletic looking guy. He was going around assaulting people, strangers in the streets of New York repeatedly, repeatedly. Okay. So he’s assaulting people over and over and over again. The last time he got called into account, he was in a psychiatric evaluation, and they let him out in an hour. Within three hours, he comes upon a 76-year-old retired teacher, a beloved grandfather who was a volunteer social worker who reached out to at-risk youth. He worked with kids who were in trouble. Probably young people, not unlike the man who shoved him from behind down a flight of steps, and this 76-year-old suffered severe neck and head and brain injuries, and he died. Listen to this report. Bill Mellugian from Fox News introduces Alexis McAdams to tell you about this repeat offender and listen toward the end what Alexis says about why this guy was was free to roam the streets of New York only to kill a 76-year-old man.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yet another disturbing story out of New York City. That’s where a man has been charged with murdering a 76-year-old teacher. Police say the suspect shoved him down the steps of a subway. Alexis McAdams joining us live in New York with a story on this. Hi, Alexis.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, Bill, yeah, a terrible story. And right now, this family of the 76-year-old is planning a funeral after he was shoved right down the subway steps in New York City behind me as he was just trying to get home. And listen to this. The guy who did it, according to police, was just released from the psych ward hours before police had just picked him up. Take a look here on your screen. It actually made the cover of the New York Post over the weekend because… He’s grinning at the judge as they go through the long list of charges against him here. They’re naming it there on the post, killer smile. He’s charged with the murder of this man, Ross Falzone, after police say Burke shoved the retired teacher down the subway steps on Thursday night. And surveillance video actually captured the moment of the attack. I want to warn you, it’s graphic here. You can see Falzone pushed with a lot of force. So he froze the clip right before impact. He was left with both severe brain and neck injuries and later died at a local hospital. Investigators say Burke was released from a mental hospital in New York just hours before the latest attack. Brought in for a psychiatric evaluation at hold after police here saw him acting erratically. So they picked him up and brought him in. But he was back out on the street bill within minutes. One hour, one hour. He was out so fast that sources tell me he actually still had his hospital wristband on when he was arrested for murder. This case, one of four murders on the subway system just so far this year. Back in March, you might remember this story. This 83-year-old veteran on his way home was killed, shoved onto the subway tracks. NYPD data shows subway murders are up by 300% already compared to last year. Back out here live, we can tell you we’re learning more about Burke’s criminal history. Just the other week, Bill, investigators tell me he assaulted two people on the subway. But when they tried to talk to those people, they said they didn’t want to cooperate with police because they didn’t want to put another black man behind bars. Now the girl tells the New York Post she wished she would have cooperated because he wouldn’t be out on the street, Bill.
SPEAKER 07 :
And smiling in the courtroom when you’re accused of killing somebody says all you need to know.
SPEAKER 08 :
Mark, we don’t want to put another black man behind bars. Now, how are they going to live with that? Because you realize, had they pressed charges… and not have their stupid social justice warrior mindset, this asinine, bleeding heart crap about not putting another black man behind bars, this 76-year-old man would probably be alive. I mean, is it a stretch to say his blood is on their hands, Mark?
SPEAKER 09 :
Completely, completely. And how many cases like this will we hear? How many stories like this? Are these the kinds of things that only resonate with one side? I’d like to think there’s some human brainstem in everybody that would hear something like this and go, wow, it is time to hit a pause button. It’s time to check ourselves. It’s time to reevaluate. It’s time to introspectively sort of look where we are. And identify things that are right and things that are wrong, and that is just so horrifically, horrifically wrong. Does anybody in any universe think that a blow was struck for justice by doing that, that some universal wrong was somehow righted?
SPEAKER 08 :
I would lose my mind if my loved one was killed and I learned that the reason the killer was on the streets was because of a social justice warrior who didn’t want to be responsible for putting another black man behind bars. I’d lose my mind. I don’t know how people survive it. I often think about Ron Goldman’s Remember Fred Goldman? And incidentally, it’s the exact same thing. The jury in the O.J. Simpson trial knew he did it. In fact, one juror came out and just pretty much admitted it. Yeah, we just wanted to stick it to the white man. Jury nullification. We wanted to give a verdict that we knew was wrong, but we wanted to correct bigger transgressions, past sins of slavery and Jim Crow and too many black people committing falsely accused and incarcerated. So we took a brutal murderer, a filthy, cowardly monster like O.J. Simpson, and we said, not guilty, even though we knew he was guilty. It’s the same thing. It’s the same thing. It’s like, let’s try to fix the system. And like you said, try to right past wrongs with this hopeless, ridiculous mindset. And I often thought about Fred Goldman as O.J. was playing golf in Las Vegas and signing autographs and living the high life all those years after he murdered Fred Goldman’s precious son. How do you survive that, Mark? Do you know how strong you have to be to just get out of bed every morning knowing that your son’s killer got away with it? gosh, it’s got to be a terrible feeling.
SPEAKER 09 :
It does. And it’s funny, as you mentioned, the notion of being alive and free to wander the golf courses in search of the real killer. It kind of informs, you know, to go back to our case locally here in Texas of this monster who was properly given the death penalty for killing little Athena Strand. This is what made me a firm death penalty supporter after being ambivalent in my early 20s that I saw an execution in the Florida State Prison and saw these family members of his victims who were relieved, if that’s the right word, that they were just glad that something, that some symmetry of justice had happened and that they were not going to have to think about this guy getting three hots in a cot, nice reading library, you know, some cable. He was a young man for another 60 years. At least he would have been on death row, or at least he would have been in a prison. But for these people who are out, and for people to knowingly do that, that somehow we’re going to rise up and strike a blow because there was slavery, there was Jim Crow. And listen, I think we may every five or six episodes stipulate and admit that as well-to-do white guys, we will never know firsthand, not only what it’s like to have that happen, But what it’s like to have that happen to your ancestors might have a good size chip on my shoulder, too. But I would do my utmost to make sure that it did not inform my behavior here in 2026 to the extent that I did things like that.
SPEAKER 08 :
I have a friend – I mentioned this friend who’s married to a person of a different race. This person – and I want to be very careful here because this is somebody in the area. So I don’t want anybody to be somebody we know. But this person is married to – This is a white person married to a black person. Man, woman, help me out. I don’t want to say that. I don’t want to identify anybody. So it’s a white person married to a black person. And this white person has said to me that they noticed when they go into restaurants how different that the spouse and this other person are treated. Now, I want to give you a caveat to this, which is I think maybe very telling. And race is so complicated, but I’m glad we’re trying to tackle this together. So this friend of mine says, you know, I feel it. I experience it. I see it all the time. It’s the way waiters treat my spouse. It’s the way other patrons treat. I feel like sometimes the restaurant is just looking at us. Now, this same person has a belief. that the redistricting that’s going on right now is going to send her spouse, this person’s spouse or his spouse, back to Jim Crow and change. It’s 1952. It’s 1852. This person has told me that the Voting Rights Act, is the only thing that allows this person’s spouse to go into a restaurant without – allows them to be the right to go out to eat. The Voting Rights Act gave that to this person’s spouse. And I’m looking at the phone like I’m talking to like a crazy person. Like, no, it doesn’t. And the Voting Rights Act has been manipulated in a way that it was never intended to be manipulated. But you can’t – so the reason I tell you all this is that there’s a back story and there’s a context that I think is necessary. When somebody thinks the restaurant is looking at them – Chances are the restaurant’s not, Mark, but they’re so ready for it that they think that, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER 09 :
And it might not be that they are front loaded with hostility or resentment. It may just be that they’re wondering. I had a basic question of human psychology as you were telling that. Let’s say that you are the racially mixed couple. And that’s funny. I wonder if it matters if you’re a racially mixed couple in Boston versus Atlanta or Los Angeles versus Portland, Maine. I don’t know. But let’s say that you just are. And you go in and maybe it’s a city you’ve never visited before, so you’re not in the comfort zone of knowing the neighborhood. And you go in and you’re getting a restaurant, a hostess stand, whatever. And you’re just thinking, oh, man, because maybe it’s happened X number of times. And you did know that there was somebody looking askance at your situation. So you’re kind of. on guard against that, which I could understand that someone would be. And maybe that colors, pardon that verb, colors your perception of, maybe somebody looks at you just to look at you, but you instantly think, there we go, there we go. They’re checking, it’s a disapproving glance when it was nothing of the kind. And I have empathy for those who have to tiptoe through life. Maybe you don’t have to tiptoe as much as you used to. I’d like to think this issue in 2026 is not like walking around being a racially mixed couple in 1966 or something like that.
SPEAKER 08 :
I’m sitting in a studio in Greenville, South Carolina. The next town over is a city called Spartanburg, South Carolina. Many years ago, decades ago, in fact, I think I was working here at the time. Maybe it was shortly after that. There was a group of Secret Service agents who went to a Denny’s restaurant to get dinner or lunch, and it was in Spartanburg. Now, this group of Secret Service agents were black. It was a black group of U.S. Secret Service agents. They maintained that they got bad service at this particular Denny’s. They sued. They upended Denny’s for many, many years. They cost Denny’s many, many millions and millions of dollars. They made Denny’s change all these policies. And I remember delving into this story and trying to figure out What it was that they experienced that they claimed was racism.
SPEAKER 09 :
Did they see countless white parties seated ahead of them? Did they see a bunch of other white folks treated with respect and dignity while they kind of went, what do you want? Was there some demonstrable difference? Or maybe it was just a crappy Denny’s. I love Denny’s. Maybe it was just Denny’s. It was just bad service for everybody that day.
SPEAKER 08 :
I was going to say, it’s Denny’s. It ain’t exactly La Bernardine or whatever it is. I mean, this ain’t exactly per se on Central Park West. This is Denny’s in Spartanburg, South Carolina. And to answer your question, because I was looking for that. Was there like a horrific N-word? Was there an epithet? Was there something thrown around? No. No. There were people that got served ahead of them, and that ticked them off. And they said, look, you’re seating the white people before you’re seating me. There was never any proof of any kind of explicit racism. But it gets back to the whole thing we were talking about with the word cotton and cotton picking hands. There are people who find – and I always thought – I just bristled at the thought that those Secret Service agents – and God bless the Secret Service. They’re law enforcement. I love cops and all that. Of course. But what a stupid… And look, they won. They prevailed. And they upended Denny’s.
SPEAKER 09 :
Was it a South Carolina jury? Was it a bunch of guilty white people who did this?
SPEAKER 08 :
I don’t remember how… Or an all-black jury?
SPEAKER 09 :
Maybe an all-black jury saying, yeah, here we go again.
SPEAKER 08 :
I don’t know. I just remember they prevailed, and they successfully got… Huge changes, and it impacted Denny’s bottom line and its parent company for many, many years to come, and I always thought that was outrageous. Go back for a moment.
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, it’s funny, but before you leave, the exact geography of where you are, and I don’t know if the vestiges of this, because people listening or watching, whatever, anybody who’s a history buff, hello. Greenville, hello, 1960, I want to say the lunch counter sit-ins were literally, and it’s not like it was 1,000 years ago. It was 66, right? But still, you couldn’t eat at a lunch counter because you were bored. And just a few years earlier than that, Rosa Parks, you you had to move to make room for a white. I can’t believe I was born into I was born 1957. You were born in 1960. I a couple of months, couple of months before I was born. President Eisenhower had to call in the National Guard so a little black girl could go to school in Little Rock, Arkansas. I can’t believe I was born into that. Justice delayed is justice denied. We’ve made amazing progress. Could we have done it faster? I don’t know. But I just wonder, and listen, you’re there a lot. Do the slings and arrows of that still wrap around the conscience of the local community, or am I way overanalyzed?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, no, you know, I was a guy from Ohio who got a job in Greenville, South Carolina when I was a young man. I had never been south of Cincinnati. I mean, I was never below the Mason-Dixon line. And look, this is the deep south. And so there was a little bit of a culture shock for me. I never got used to grits. Oh, end of podcast. End of relationship. Sorry, could never do it.
SPEAKER 09 :
Grits are from God.
SPEAKER 08 :
I know, but I’ve never developed a taste for grits. And I was raised a Catholic. Well, there’s one Catholic church in South Carolina for every 500 Baptist churches. And there was an anti-Catholic sentiment that I recognized when I first moved here. So there’s things culturally about the South. And I will say this. Greenville was the only place where I ever absolutely witnessed racism. A tangible example of a man being discriminated against, and I’m convinced it was because of the color of his skin. And it happened, I’ll never forget it, on Stone Avenue. There was a gas station, and that was back in the day when you used to have to have your vehicles inspected. Remember when you have to go and get your car inspected by the gas station or the service center, and they give you a little sticker, and you’d get your car inspected. Well, I went in to get my car inspected one day. I’ll never forget this. This is so vivid. And it’s why I always remember.
SPEAKER 09 :
And the year is?
SPEAKER 08 :
I’m going to guess 91, 92, early 90s. I’m getting my car inspected, and I go in, and the guy’s like, sure, no problem. We’ll inspect your car, and he’d put it into the stall or whatever, and I’m sitting there waiting. A guy drives in behind me, black guy. In a nice vehicle, he gets out and said, hey, I’d like to get my vehicle inspected. The service station attendant says to him, sorry, sir, we’re not inspecting vehicles anymore. The time is out. We’ve stopped inspecting vehicles. This gentleman is going to be the last one.
SPEAKER 09 :
Maybe you were the last person.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. No problem. The black guy was like, oh, no problem. I understand. I’ll come back another day. He gets in the car and drives away. A white guy pulls up five minutes later. Hey, I’d like to get my vehicle inspected. You bet. Come on in. We’ll take care of you. And, Mark, it hit me like a ton of bricks. And I remember thinking, I know what I just saw. I know I just experienced firsthand racism. And I was so upset. I started shaking. And I went up to the guy like a… Yeah, like an idiot. I mean, I’m lucky I didn’t get my nose broken. Did you make an issue? You better believe I did. I said, I know what you did. I said, I know what you did. I said, why did you turn that black guy away, but you just let the white guy come in and get his car inspected? And you’ll never forget, his answer was the proof that I was suspected of. He said, why don’t you mind your own damn business, Yankee?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, there you go. Well, boy.
SPEAKER 08 :
Mind your damn business, Yankee. Call me a Yankee. But there you go. But you know what? So there are instances. And you know that black guy could have seen from a distance that the guy after him got served.
SPEAKER 09 :
I know. Oh, no.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, I can’t imagine. So let’s not pretend that we fixed it. But on the other hand, on the other hand, let me just go back. We have made – we had a president for eight years, a black man. We’ve had Supreme Court justices and CEOs of companies. And, you know, racism, is it eradicated? No. But is it – do we have racism lurking around every corner the way the race hustlers want us to think we do? We do not. We do not. It’s way better –
SPEAKER 09 :
There’s a sentence I want to run by you. I think I say it sometimes, but I’m vetting it. That there are, in 2026, there are more false, reflex, phony assertions of racism than there are actual examples of racism. I totally agree with that. Of white racism toward black.
SPEAKER 08 :
I totally agree. Well, look at my worldview and the things that I’ve experienced. And I had that experience in 91 or whatever. But look at this friend of mine who thinks that everywhere they go, they’re being victimized by racism. And I’m not kidding you. That person is of the mindset that everywhere they go in public, they’re experiencing it.
SPEAKER 09 :
Because there’s a whole political party telling them so. There’s a whole media culture telling them so because leftist America desperately needs for America to be a continuing racist cauldron hellhole so that they can ride in and make it all right. When there’s no longer any need for that, they’ve got to go find other things to do.
SPEAKER 08 :
You bet. Hey, let’s not get out of here today without covering something that I think is really, really worth observing and talking about. You remember months ago Mark Kelly, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, participated in a video that became known as the Seditious Six. And these were six elected representatives led by Mark Kelly. And I’m trying to remember who the others were.
SPEAKER 09 :
Elissa Slotkin, a senator from Michigan. Yep. Some other members of the House, a guy from Colorado. All of them Democrats who had happened to serve our country.
SPEAKER 08 :
Correct. They had served their country. They had been in the military.
SPEAKER 09 :
And God bless them for their service, by the way.
SPEAKER 08 :
Amen. But their message was to members of today’s military, disobey orders or commands that you disagree with. Disobey what you feel are unlawful commands from your military. You have a responsibility, they said.
SPEAKER 09 :
We’re just here to remind you. You have a responsibility to turn away and to disobey unconstitutional, unlawful orders.
SPEAKER 08 :
Fast forward to this past weekend on television, and I think it was Meet the Press. Mark Kelly does it again. And I want to – this is unbelievable. And I was watching. I was packing, getting ready to go to South Carolina. And I think – I’m almost positive it was Meet the Press. But he’s a guest. and he is complaining about how the Iran war is depleting our munitions. He’s saying that, and he’s saying that. That’s good.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s a good thing for an American to be saying while the Iranians are watching.
SPEAKER 08 :
Mark, based on intelligence, classified intelligence briefings that he was given, he said to the host, it was Margaret Brennan, I’m sorry, I keep saying Chris, it was CBS. Based on intelligence. It was Face the Nation, and he’s telling – and Margaret Brennan says to him, oh, you got this information through classified briefings? He said, yes, yes, I have. And then he starts to recite all the specific types of weaponry that are being depleted because of Trump’s – I’m paraphrasing, but Trump’s folly in Iran, the idiotic feudal war in Iran. And he went through this whole litany of weapons that are supposedly all based on classified military intelligence that he was given as a senior ranking U.S. senator. I want you to hear our friend Scott Jennings and our Salem colleague. who goes into battle every night on CNN. Here he is on one of those round tables pointing out that in normal times, a sitting U.S. Senator revealing information he was given in a classified briefing would be a scandal, but not so much when it’s a Democrat. Check this out.
SPEAKER 04 :
Every single day that the Trump administration takes on Mark Kelly is a good day for the Kelly potential presidential campaign. He goes up in stock, not just in money, but also people paying attention to this.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I’m glad we have an admission of what’s going on here. Mark Kelly’s partisan interests are what’s most important. This man is a United States senator. He’s getting classified briefings from the Pentagon, and then he goes on television and tells our enemies around the world in great specificity which weapons systems are depleted, which need to be restocked, setting aside the legal issues, which I’m with Molly. I’m not a lawyer either, and I don’t know what the future of that holds. Did he ever stop to ask himself what is in the best interest of the United States of America and not just my own political future? Because it’s obvious that he did not. A sitting senator going on television and telegraphing to our enemies and our threats around the world what we may or may not have. It’s extraordinarily irresponsible. Let’s not let that get in the way of a presidential campaign.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I mean, Scott, but to Molly’s point.
SPEAKER 02 :
Amen.
SPEAKER 08 :
How good is that, Mark? How good is he? That’s tremendous. How great is Scott Jennings?
SPEAKER 09 :
And a colleague of ours. We got him. We got him.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, not only that, but my cruise partner, too, in November. In fact, I might as well remind everybody here on the M&M Extra podcast that we’re going on the Gulf of America cruise. And by the way. Full disclosure to the audience who loves Mark Davis.
SPEAKER 09 :
The slide ready to go. She’s ready. Nobody saw this coming.
SPEAKER 08 :
And I did not. Well, you know what’s funny? I didn’t give Yasmin a heads up on this. She was ready.
SPEAKER 09 :
She is that good. You bet.
SPEAKER 08 :
No, she is. I’m not kidding you. You think I’m kidding? No, I’m not kidding at all. I don’t even know how great she is. I think she’s a wizard of some kind.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s you on the horse and riding there on the beach.
SPEAKER 08 :
She pulls up B-roll and stuff ahead of time. I don’t even know how she even does it. But, Scott, and incidentally, for Mark Davis fans, full disclosure, I have begged Mark to come with us on one of these cruises, and he will not do it. I’ll get to one. You refuse. I hope. We might have to do an M&M cruise someday if this thing takes off. In any event… The Gulf of America cruise, you can go to mikeonline.com to get details. Seven days of sunshine, white sandy beaches. I’m going to be with Scott Jennings. Mike Gallagher and Scott Jennings are your headliners. And then we’re going to be joined by Larry O’Connor, our new early morning guy. Kurt Schlichter. Well, that ought to get lively.
SPEAKER 01 :
There you go. Now it’s a party.
SPEAKER 08 :
And Jennifer Horn from L.A., who I love dearly. She’s amazing. So November 14th through the 21st, we set sail out of Fort Lauderdale. And you go to MikeOnline for details. And to the podcast audience, I promise you, one day I’m going to talk Mark into doing a cruise. Because it’s fun. It’s a blast. You unpack one time. And you’re with hundreds of like-minded patriots that are having a great time. And every night we have this world. Now, they work our butts off. I mean, we do a lot of events. But we do this company called the World Stage on the Euro Dam. And it’s a Holland America cruise ship. And they’ve got a state-of-the-art theater. And everybody comes in.
SPEAKER 09 :
There you are. There’s everybody.
SPEAKER 08 :
Look at that. Larry Elder back. That was the Patriots Alaska cruise. We had so much fun. And by the way, a word of the wise here. I like to warn everybody. Go ahead. This is so funny.
SPEAKER 09 :
People may try to do something. Here’s Mike to dissuade you.
SPEAKER 08 :
Go. Don’t. Try to book around us. A few years ago, Seb Gorka and I co-hosted a Patriots Alaska cruise.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes, you did, Mike.
SPEAKER 08 :
It was wonderful. There’s Dr. G. And I get on the ship and people are like, hey, Mike, how are you? Can we take a picture? And I’m like, well, yeah, we’ll see you tonight. They’re like, no, we’re not in your group. I’m like, what? Well, it dawned on me. A bunch of people try to book that itinerary thinking they can get into our events. Well, here’s the dirty little secret. You’ve got to have a badge to get in. You will be tackled and tased if you try to get in. You don’t get in. You don’t get in because there’s a little conference fee. It’s a few hundred bucks, but it’s worth it. You pay a little extra, but it’s because you’ll be given. But please don’t try to book directly with Holland America. You’ve got to go through us. Go to MikeOnline.com and Inspiration Travel. Mark, they are the best of the best, and they’ll take good care of everybody. So we hope to see you in November on the Gulf.
SPEAKER 09 :
This is November what? So the departure date is November what?
SPEAKER 08 :
November 14th through the 21st.
SPEAKER 09 :
Eleven days after the election, what will the mood on that boat be, Mike? It’ll either be the celebration and all celebrations.
SPEAKER 08 :
Or the Titanic meets the Lusitania. Jumping off. We’ll be going off the poop deck. We’ll be diving off the poop deck. Please, please let it be.
SPEAKER 09 :
Please let it be celebratory. Part of the compliment of this, I lose so often complete control of clock time. Are we about done?
SPEAKER 08 :
We are about time. We are at time, I think. Yes, sir.
SPEAKER 09 :
Two minutes for a thing that was a big deal on the show this morning. I want to see if you and I and the audience morally align on this. A gentleman of, let’s stipulate, we love firefighters. People run toward a burning building. That’s a stretch of character I ain’t got, and God bless the firefighters. So a guy was a Dallas firefighter for one year, from the middle of 22 to the middle of 23, and then left, moved to Florida, in fact. and uh city of dallas continued the retirement paperwork did not clear it did not kick in he continued to draw paychecks from the city of dallas and did not well he either did nothing here’s the thing all i know is three years pass to 2025 city of dallas says Yeah, hey, his name is Ivan, Ivan, I don’t know, Gonzalez. Yeah, Mr. Gonzalez, we’d like our $127,000 back. Oh. He told them, take a hike. Nope, that’s my money. No moral leg to stand on. I would think no legal leg to stand on. What if he spent the money? Wah, wah, too bad, so sad. But just as if the city had stiffed him, if he discovered that the city had stiffed him for $100 per paycheck for a year, the city would owe him that. Clearly, he needs to give them that money back. And I… I was just kind of stunned. Because here’s the thing. It’s ridiculous we even got to this stage. If he moved and he got one additional paycheck, okay, maybe you let one. But by the time you get the second one, you’ve got to get on the phone and go, yeah, guys, I left and you’re still paying me. Either he didn’t do that. I had one caller say, what if he tried to tell him ten times? It is the city of Dallas, not the picture of efficiency. Maybe he told him, like, guys, stop sending me this money. And eventually he just said, screw it, I’m keeping it. So anyway, that was that story. Do you think he has any leg to stand on? He’s clearly, clearly going to lose in court, I would think.
SPEAKER 08 :
There’s a man who lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex named Greg Anderson who was my mentor from an early age. In fact, he was my general manager when I worked here in Greenville, South Carolina. He was here when I started in 2014. 2014. Forty-plus years ago, okay, so that’s how far back I go with Greg. He wound up with Salem Media, and he was my boss for many years before his retirement. He meant so much to me that he was the best man at my wedding. He taught me a lot about life, and there was a lesson he taught me that is so profound, and it seems trite, it’s clichéd, it’s simple, but it’s true. Whenever you’re faced with a challenge or a conflict, do the right thing. He said he taught me you do the right thing in business. You do the right thing in your personal life. You do the right thing. You do what you know to be the right thing to do, especially when nobody’s looking, especially when nobody’s aware.
SPEAKER 09 :
The definition of character is doing the right thing.
SPEAKER 08 :
And you always do the right thing. In this case, of course, the right thing is to return the money. And the poor guy, he’s going to have to beg, borrow, or steal. He’s going to have to figure out a way to get that $127,000. He may have to go on a payment plan. It wasn’t his money. It’s not his money. But you do the right thing and return the money. And the right thing for me is to call it a wrap on a busy day because we’ve had a big day, my friend.
SPEAKER 09 :
That we have, and every day provides just, who knows what we’ll, quite literally, who knows what we’ll do tomorrow. That’s the definition of this whole thing, because I don’t know. I know you don’t know. All I know is everybody’s welcome, and we hope you’ll come join us wherever you find us, because we love you. See you tomorrow.
