Mike and Mark dive into a whirlwind discussion, from the vibrant culture of Mexico City that neither traveler could ignore, to the fiery political debates that surfaced back at home. Concerns over Bill Maher’s recent comments draw sharp insights into media bias, while the duo spar over the potential implications of the Real ID requirement. This episode promises rich commentary on the collisions between culture, politics, and personal freedoms.
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 03 :
On the, I don’t know, what’s the big weekend show or something? I don’t really know the show very well, but it’s like one of those panel things they have on Fox. And the host, I think it was Joey Jones or one of them said, travel nightmare from hell, 300 passengers stranded in the Montgomery, Alabama airport. And then they played my clip of me talking about and kind of laying out. Well, we were on the plane for seven hours. They ran out of food. We were escorted by the Montgomery, Alabama Police Department into the airport for six hours. I mean, it was really, really bad. Can you imagine sitting on a plane for seven hours on the tarmac?
SPEAKER 04 :
I would have been clawing the walls and the windows. And for those who don’t know, Mike was coming back from Mexico City through Atlanta to Tampa. Weather in Atlanta meant a diversion to Montgomery, Alabama. So far, so good. But then they got to Montgomery, Alabama. There was no customs. There was no way to take you off. The storm thing ran way long. The crew timed out. They ran out of fuel. The gas, the fuel truck guy, that was my fuel truck reference. He vanished off the face of the earth. He just went home. So these guys were stranded well into the wee hours in Montgomery, Alabama. And it took you how long to get home?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, at the end of the day, I mean, it was probably 23 hours for a three and a half hour flight because I had to spend the night in Atlanta because they couldn’t get me from Atlanta to Tampa then because that flight got sold out because all the flights got sold out because of the weather. But I will say this, you know, kind of a happy ending within two hours of me landing finally in Tampa. I missed a call on the voicemail from a Delta representative. Mr. Gallagher, we are so sorry for what happened. We are fully refunding your flight. And I happen to use miles on this particular one as a lot of miles.
SPEAKER 04 :
Half a million miles.
SPEAKER 03 :
And not only that, but they paid the tax. You don’t have to pay taxes when you use miles. They refunded me the taxes. And then I kind of wrote him back. I’m not trying to get greedy here, but I said… I appreciate the refund, but can you do me a little better?
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, did you refund the entire round trip or just the coming home leg? The whole round trip. So you got a free first-class trip to Mexico City for your trouble.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right. Every penny of it was refunded immediately, by the way, which I love because when it’s their mistake, they can refund you in the blink of an eye. If it’s some other reason, it might take about a month to get a refund. But nonetheless, I don’t want to whine. They put all the money back in. They put it all back in. I don’t know. Am I greedy to say I think I want a little more?
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t know. I mean, another Delta story. We were in Boston, and I got to cool our heels in the Boston airport for six hours, and they wound up giving us some miles that probably were worth a couple hundred bucks. You know, it was not like it was a Sunday. We didn’t have plans. But I thought about what if you had a plan? What if you had a wedding? What if you had some business appointment? I don’t know the degree to which they need to make your life whole again, especially after something as disruptive and weird as this. You guys were in hell. This was a 20-episode episode.
SPEAKER 03 :
It was rough. It was the worst travel experience I’ve ever had. So, look, Delta has things called global upgrade certificates and domestic upgrade certificates. Neat. And when you’re at a stat, you know, like a tier, whether it’s diamond, medallion or platinum or whatever, you get some every year. So I’ve just requested, hey, why don’t you give me some global certificate upgrades? You know, next time I want to go overseas, I’ll get an upgrade certificate. Maybe they’ll consider that. But, you know, look, there’s this weird place where I’m also saying they refunded the trip. What are they supposed to do? I mean, they think there’s no way to know this.
SPEAKER 04 :
Do you think you were treated with a little more responsiveness because you were a platinum diamond grand poobah?
SPEAKER 03 :
Maybe. Yeah, probably. I wonder how they do that. If it’s me, I might not get that. Well, you know, this made some national news. I mean, it was on NBC, and the Daily Mail did a story about it. They showed my picture in their article of me, you know, glum-faced. Oh, no. Did you see that? No, what? Oh, yeah. They showed my picture on the cover of the article where I took a selfie all glum and tired-looking.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, did you then post it? Okay, good.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I had posted it on X, but then they lifted it from X and they put it in their story on the Daily Mail. And they quoted me. The political commentator, Mike Gallagher, was one of the passengers stranded on the boat. I mean, my phone was blowing up. People saying, oh, look, you’re famous. I saw you on the news. I thought, well, you don’t want to be famous for this.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER 03 :
It was rough.
SPEAKER 04 :
But anyway. 60 seconds. Let’s not bury the lead. Okay. Because I’ve done Cancun. Everybody’s done Cabo. Everybody’s done Puerto Vallarta. Mexico City itself, I haven’t. But I hear it is vibrant and fascinating in its own way. Big thumbs up for actual Mexico City.
SPEAKER 03 :
Had a great time. I want to talk for just a moment about how hard it is for us to really get away. And I don’t know if you have the same concern I do, but I thought if I miss this last week’s news cycle with the tariffs and the stock market and all the head-spinning stuff that happened, if you miss a week of that and you come back to work like today, Monday, April 14th, you’re in a hole as a talk show host. So I found myself… being I still was working I mean I was plugged in the whole time and and you kind of have to be these days you can’t ever get away and and you know my family my one of my kids said dad unplug take a week put your feet up I can’t do that because I’ll be you can’t because then I will be not I’ll be hobbled when I come back because there’ll be stuff that the world will know that I don’t know
SPEAKER 04 :
And you can’t just come back on Saturday, Sunday, and sort of retroactively get caught up. You need to at least, with a perfunctory, put a toe in the pool. This is what I do. It’s maybe no more than 10 or 15 minutes a day so that it doesn’t disrupt whatever Lisa and I are doing. But I do every day have to take a little bit of a temperature. What’s going on? What are people saying? How’s the reaction? Because stories live and breathe and graduate through time.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, there’s nuances. I mean, there’s the tariffs thing. Look, I’m not an economist. I don’t know.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
About tariffs, I’m just watching the stock market tank, and then the stock market soars, and then the stock market… I mean, I’m trying to keep up with that and understand it. But we did some sightseeing. I was really interested. I’ve been reading about some of the great artists of the Mexican era. You know the story, remember the movie Frida? Frida. And I went and saw her studio and her house. I took a tour of some of the famous artists from that era. There’s some beautiful architecture. Saw a show. You know me, Broadway Mike. I was going to ask, did you go to the Mexico City equivalent of Broadway? Are you kidding? Did I ever? One of my favorite little shows on Broadway ever was a show called Waitress. And you remember the musical was based on the movie. I think it was Keri Russell.
SPEAKER 04 :
Keri Russell was in the movie with Andy Griffith, I want to say.
SPEAKER 03 :
He was Joe, the owner of the diner. It’s a delightful musical. Well, they’ve got a Mexican version. That’s awesome. Every word is in Spanish. Now, understand, I’ve seen Waitress about 100 times. So you know what’s going on. Oh, I knew the whole dialogue. I thought, I don’t understand a word of what they’re saying, but I know what they’re saying. And it was a spectacular production. This cast was so talented, and they were so good. I mean, the vocals were great. The set was just like Broadway. It was a great thing. So anyway, I had a great time to get away, but here we are back to work, back to the grind. I’m so glad. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 04 :
No one’s going to say. Indeed, so here we are. So now give me… Let’s start with Bill Maher.
SPEAKER 03 :
Let’s start with Bill Maher. Let’s do it. I mean, they’re so mad at him on the left right now, they can’t believe he had the temerity to accurately characterize his dinner at the White House. And you know why? You know what they hate more than anything? The normalization of Donald Trump. He’s a nice guy. He’s gracious. He laughs. He listens. Maher said, I could have never had… the kind of meeting with Trump that I had with Obama or Kamala or Biden. And he’s right. I mean, look, you and I have been in the presence of Trump before. I’ve been in the Oval Office. I’ve talked to him one-on-one. What Bill Maher said is completely correct. He is gracious. He does listen. He is funny. He is warm. He is real. He is normal. He’s more of a genuine, authentic person than almost any politician of either party. Bingo. And they can’t stand that because they lose the narrative then. And they are losing the narrative, Mark. Whether they like it or not, they got nothing. I mean, even acts of violence, this horrific, horrific arson attack on the governor of Pennsylvania’s home in Shapiro. Have you read about the guy that did this? Not much. What’s his deal? Oh, you want to know why you don’t know much about him? No. If the reports are correct, the guy attended 39 Kamala Harris rallies. Okay. The guy’s got a picture on social media, F. Trump. and a picture of him giving Trump the middle finger. So what’s his gripe with Shapiro? His home was repossessed. He had some ax to grind with the state of Pennsylvania. But look, if he’d have been a MAGA, if he’d have been a red hat wearing MAGA supporter… Oh, that’d been the end. And that, but isn’t it fascinating? Here we go with the media coverage. You were, and I haven’t a hundred percent verified the 39 Kamala rallies that was on the internet and you never know. But, but I did see the picture of the guy with an F Trump. He’s not a Trump supporter. And that’s why the story goes away. Look at the guy that almost killed Trump and Butler. What do you know about him? Nothing. Precious little. He went away. That story went away. I mean, if a MAGA supporter had tried to kill Kamala, we’d still be talking about that guy in the legacy media. It’s preposterous how one-sided they are. Meanwhile, quickly back to Trump and the White House. Did you see Gretchen Whitmer?
SPEAKER 04 :
No, I didn’t see her face because she had a big binder up in front of her face. I’m not here. You can’t see me.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m not here. Mark.
SPEAKER 04 :
Was she really trying to hide from the cameras in the Oval Office? Probably not. Photographs capture, by definition, a hiccup of time. I don’t know. And I have a feeling if you’ve got something and you hold it up for a moment. I obviously knew she was there, obviously. And why was she there? Well, she didn’t want to be there. Well, so Governor of Michigan, a state filled with labor leaders and autoworkers who pretty well like Trump’s tariffs. That’s right. They’re thrilled with Trump’s tariffs. So she’s triangulating there and trying to glean some benefit from that. She’s stuck. But yeah, that was awkward for her.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, conversation starter for tomorrow because I know we’re almost out of time and I got so much to get off my chest. Like our boss, Phil Boyce, always likes to say, he loves it when a talk show host has a show to get off their chest. And I’ve been practicing in the hotel room in Mexico City. How about the debate over real ID? Have you followed it?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I have only to know that it’s a little star on my license. You either got to have it or you don’t in order to, if you present your driver’s license at the airport, you’ve got to have a real ID driver’s license or you don’t get on the plane, right? Whoops. Hello. Mike? Well, is that?
SPEAKER 01 :
Can you hear me?
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s very strange. Let me see if we can get Mike back. When Mike says we’ll package it and we will. Okay. That’s for tomorrow. He is not kidding. Hello, guys. 30 second window here. Anyway, real ID. Oh, there you go. You’re back. What in the world was that? You vanished. So I had said that I clearly want to go fast before both of us are vaporized. Right. I don’t.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. This is not harmless. This isn’t protecting us against terrorism. What it does is gather all your information, hands it to the government. It’s forcing you to carry your papers, quote unquote. And once carrying those papers, it’s accepted by the government. It’s digitized. The next thing that’s going to happen is we’re going to have everything digitized, digital ID. It’s my driver’s license. I’m telling you.
SPEAKER 04 :
This seems like slippery slope nonsense. I don’t know that it’s nonsense. This seems like there’s a filament in our cash. Remember cash? There’s a filament woven into the cash so they can track where you are. Listen, there are plenty of things that are real about government and surveillance and China. There are plenty of things that are real.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m not sure.
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t know if I’m twisted off about the real ID drivers.
SPEAKER 03 :
Let’s revisit it and let’s talk about it with the audience because, again, the concern is that real ID will inevitably lead to a digital ID.
SPEAKER 04 :
How? I mean, people have been twisted off about the – don’t we all pretty well have a national ID anyway or social security number?
SPEAKER 03 :
It reminds me of sort of the argument we got with the Patriot Act. You remember that years ago. It was the same concerns. But, look, do we want to give up some of our liberties?
SPEAKER 04 :
But all I want to know, and let’s do it. Let’s do some homework and come back and we’ll do a deeper dive tomorrow. All I want to know is what really about the Real ID driver’s license, its own self, what is it that the government knows about me that they didn’t know before? So they wouldn’t already know. Good point.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Happy Monday.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’ll see you tomorrow.
SPEAKER 02 :
Love you. Take care.
SPEAKER 04 :
Bienvenidos. Mike has returned.
SPEAKER 02 :
Download the podcast and hear all of Mike and Mark’s conversations at MikeOnline.com for the M&M experience.
