In this riveting episode, join Mike Gallagher and Mark Davis as they delve into the shocking recent events at the Reagan National Airport. The duo discusses the complexities surrounding the airport’s precarious location and the political implications of such incidents. They reflect on personal experiences and pilot stories, providing an insightful backdrop to a tragic event that has left many questioning safety and politics in aviation.
Mike Gallagher. Every day, Mike visits with Mark Davis, morning host on 660 AM, The Answer in Dallas. Here’s today’s M&M experience.
SPEAKER 05 :
Look, we got a lot to cover today. And of course, just our hearts are so heavy. We all went to bed last night with the grim, grim news that this unthinkable thing happened at Reagan. You know, I was obviously those of us went to the inauguration. We just went out in and out of Reagan. And you I know you’ve gone in and out of Reagan many, many times. There is an issue about its location, its proximity to the district, and how really harrowing every approach is into Reagan National. And it has to do largely with the lawmakers who love the airport being right where it is.
SPEAKER 04 :
It is a badly placed house. harrowing i don’t say dangerous airport but it’s it’s it ain’t ideal it’ll never move because the other the other washington airport uh option is dulles which is 45 minutes out to the west which would make perfect sense but nobody in congress hello or anybody in the cabinet or anybody at the white house wants to schlep all the way out to dulles they want to go across the bridge and be at national in 15 minutes which you can do
SPEAKER 05 :
I was talking to my seatmate going into Reagan last week for the inauguration, and I said, now watch this approach. It’s going to be really intriguing. And it is. They bank one way. We’re going to get pilots on the show today as well. I’m going to catch up with my buddy Captain Will Smith of Will Smith Aviation here in Tampa Bay, Florida. He’s gone in and out of Reagan many times. And your pilots, I’ve been listening to your pilots talking about their experience. And I’ve been struck about North Texas because, as I understand it, the community that Denise and the kids and I called home, Southlake, was largely built because of the presence of American Airlines at DFW.
SPEAKER 04 :
From Southlake to ULIS to, you know, DFW, I guess, kicked off circa 1971. The number of human beings that were going to be employed there, it is its own city. And so it, of course, affected development within a 10 mile radius, to be sure.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Yeah. Let’s talk about the ugliness of this awful, awful catastrophe. And that is the politicization of an airplane crash. I mean, and look, our side isn’t immune from it. Let’s just stipulate we had people, we had knuckleheads on our side saying, oh, DEI, DEI in the control tower. Not the time. The bodies aren’t even out of the river yet. And to weaponize an event like this, to try to score political points one way or the other, I’m not trying to be holier than thou, but knock it off. And, you know, from the Nashville journalist who was blasting Trump, and then he took the Post down to… What did he say?
SPEAKER 04 :
What are you talking about?
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, same crap about Trump’s policies, hiring freezes and all this nonsense. I mean, the man’s been in office nine days. There’s nothing Trump has done in a week and a half that could have anything to do with what happened last night.
SPEAKER 04 :
And yet, because I think you’re going to go to one post and I’ll let you share it because you very kindly attached me to it. And as an example of Trump hatred, making nice people mean and smart people stupid. But as I went to bed last night, I had a political thought of my own, and I had a thought about the aftermath of this under Trump and Pete Hegseth with the Department of Defense and Sean Duffy at Transportation, and I found myself grateful that we do have an administration that I believe in the fog of speculation and with the mystery of an impending investigation and so many questions, I have the confidence that we have an administration that will shoot straight with us, and that’s confidence I have not had for four years. We talked about this a couple of days ago. It took Caroline Leavitt like 30 seconds at the thing to say, oh, the drones were totally ours, yet the FAA knew it, and they just didn’t tell you. And why didn’t they? And why didn’t they?
SPEAKER 05 :
What could possibly – I’m not asking that as a rhetorical question. Why would they keep that from the American people? No. I mean, the Trump administration took five minutes to say, here’s what this was. The Biden administration kept us in the dark. Why? Why?
SPEAKER 04 :
or anything that we learn that’s nefarious or weird or strange. We have an open and transparent administration, at last, that will shoot straight with us. And now here’s Mike with someone who feels differently. You want to go ahead? And I hate to give idiots like this attention.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I don’t even like to give it a lot of oxygen. In fact, the problem is I’m really making some editorial decisions today. For example, when I take to the air with Salem News Channel and the video side of what we do, not unlike what we’re doing right now on X, I refuse to let my team, play any video of the actual impact. And I thought about this when I went to bed last night, and I’ll tell you why. Somebody’s wife was on that plane. Somebody’s husband, somebody’s dad, son. There are loved ones. There are at least, it sounds like there are 68 souls that died that moment. I don’t like playing that. I don’t want to show that impact. I understand we are in the information business and we can analyze and we can break things down. But I told Christian, no video of the crash. Because of where it is, there are already tons of videos that have been released. You know, there was a webcam from the Kennedy Center. And admittedly, I will tell you, and you and I talked about this last night, One of the videos appears to show the helicopter streaking across the sky directly into the jet. Like one of your pilots said, you don’t have a lot of leverage on how you’re doing the approach. In fact, did the pilot, incidentally, quick diversion here, and pardon me for, I digress. Did the pilot tell you, I refuse to go in on runway 33?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, he said, I don’t want to do 33 at Reagan National Park.
SPEAKER 05 :
They’re allowed to do it. The pilots can do that?
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s what I said. You get to wave off somebody.
SPEAKER 05 :
Wow, the power of pilots, too. Look, I don’t want to question his veracity there, but that seems like a really hinky system. Well, I don’t feel like flying in on runway 29 today. Give me 27. What? You go where they tell you to go or else you’re going to have chaos.
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t quite understand that. I don’t think you get to do it on the fly, so to speak, like with 30 seconds to spare, but maybe well in advance. Maybe he picks it out. On the imagery, you brought up something really important that I support you on 100%. Is such a video newsworthy? Of course it is. So if you have a news network, and obviously Salem News Channel is a news network, but we’re running talk shows all day like yours and others, et cetera. So does it – is it –
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
Is there justification in showing it on a CNN, a Fox News? Yes, there is. And for loved ones, I might say don’t watch cable news because you might see your loved ones die on TV 14 times. Now, the thing is, though, however, but it’s the decision you’ve made. Here we are morning after. You’re showing B-roll alongside your discussions. Do you need to show it 35 times? No, you don’t. And that is a very thoughtful and proper decision that you have made.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I’m also not going to play the interview, a heartbreaking interview. And I just got emotional when I saw this poor young husband who was interviewed by a reporter at Reagan who was getting texts from his wife on the plane moments before they landed. And he’s showing the reporter her texts. And I thought, I can’t even begin. Look… All of us have had loss in our lives. We’ve all experienced heartache. This poor guy is telling the reporter, I haven’t heard anything. I hope they’re pulling her out of the water. Now, I’m not going to exploit that. I’m just not going to play that. I told Christian, every day we go through a process of what videos we’re going to show, what we’re going to air, what we’re not. I’m not airing that. Rightfully so.
SPEAKER 04 :
But I’m just not going to exploit it. I would throw in, as Journalism 101, I would throw in, does a reporter get to ask somebody that? Yes. Yes. And the guy, the guy with a loved one on the plane can say, you know, get lost. Or if he does talk to the cameras and the microphones, that is something you can run.
SPEAKER 05 :
But like you said, let’s, but wait a minute, real quick, this let’s stipulate. And you said something that’s important. And I want to reiterate this. We’re, we’re kind of, we’re different. We’re a talk show. We do cover breaking news, what to make of it all. But it’s our show, and we can make editorial decisions. And I’m just going to respect the families right now. There are 68 families right now that are going through the unimaginable, and I just want to respect that.
SPEAKER 04 :
And they deserve better than this. I’m not even going to mention the guy’s name. He shows up on social media every once in a while. Shocker. Trump hater. So whatever. And shares this. Mm-mm. Needless to say, at a time like this, you really wish you had some confidence that the head of the DOD, Department of Defense, had some clue of how to lead an organization. A Blackhawk right on the Pentagon’s back porch and in the approach path of a major domestic airport? We need answers. Shut up, you moron. Taking this moment to bag on what all Pete Hegseth has done is said, look— Prayers for everybody. We’re going to get to the bottom of this. Investigation’s underway, which is exactly the proper thing to do.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s the Mark Davis rule.
SPEAKER 04 :
Nice people get mean. Pray for people who are this bent. Pray for people whose petty, stupid political hatreds lead them to post garbage like this.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and they should largely be ignored. Yesterday, also in Washington, D.C., of course, Bobby Kennedy Jr. I’ve got a little bit of a different take than you do. I sense a little bit of reticence on your part. I thought he was spectacular.
SPEAKER 04 :
He was great. Oh, good, good. He batted it down with enormous skill. They tried to poke at him, and he was hitting home run.
SPEAKER 05 :
How about Bernie with the onesie? I know.
SPEAKER 04 :
Look at these onesies. It says, no vax, no problem. Do you support these onesies?
SPEAKER 05 :
Do you support the onesies? And Megyn Kelly was in the background. She was over Bobby Kennedy’s right shoulder. And it was classic because you saw Megyn just laughing hysterically. Now, Bernie Sanders thought that was such a good idea. He had signs made and everything of the onesies.
SPEAKER 04 :
Do you like the onesies?
SPEAKER 05 :
Will you take these off the market? Will you take them off the market? My gosh. If that doesn’t guarantee his confirmation, I don’t know what does. But here’s the problem. We’re going to go back to Mitch McConnell. We’re going to go back to Susan Collins. We’re going to go back to Lisa Murkowski. And it’s only going to take one more. And he doesn’t make it. And that’s going to be a big, big blow.
SPEAKER 04 :
And you know who it might be? Republican Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who is a doctor. and has that doctor’s ego thing going. And by the way, if you are a doctor, you deserve to have a pretty big ego. But this, I don’t know. I think that I don’t trust these people.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, but let’s admit, doctors always have outsized egos.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know what? If you survive medical school and you have life, in fact, and pardon this quick aside, I mentioned The Pit, the show that’s on, I don’t know what, the PITT with Noah Wiley from ER. Oh, yeah. Third episode of that. It is so incredible and it gives you the thought, this is people’s lives every day. Life, they save lives. They see life end. There’s an older gentleman. Oh, please.
SPEAKER 05 :
I put my life on the line every day with this show.
SPEAKER 04 :
Come on. I’m risking life and limb. P-I-T-T. I think it’s on HBO Max or some such. Noah Wiley. It is fantastic.
SPEAKER 05 :
And the Kennedy thing comes down to one thing. They just don’t trust him on his vaccine skepticism. And he shares the same skepticism we all do. I did a thing yesterday. Should I get a flu shot or not? 98% of people on social media said it’s got the mRNA.
SPEAKER 04 :
in it.
SPEAKER 05 :
You’re going to have an eyeball. People don’t like that, and I’m not getting it. You know what I did yesterday? I was in the chair. I got my IV treatment. I got my flu kicker.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m in the red room.
SPEAKER 04 :
I got laser beams.
SPEAKER 05 :
I got laser beams. I got light. No, I’m not doing the flu shot. That’s for me. But, you know, hey, like they say, my body, my choice.
SPEAKER 04 :
So you’ll do that witch doctor chelation stuff, but no flu shot. And I’m kidding. I’m half kidding. Half kidding. You’re half kidding.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now, today, this week, we’ve got to get ready for Tulsi Gabbard. Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
The secret vote. How’s that going to go?
SPEAKER 05 :
I think it’ll be… I don’t know. I got doubts about that. Kash Patel, get out the popcorn. What are your doubts about Tulsi’s worthiness or doubts about whether she’ll succeed? As I understand, the Tulsi Gabbard vote is the one that will be held in secret. Now, why that is, I don’t quite fully understand that. But no one’s going to have to answer whether they voted or not. Yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’d better know exactly how my senator and every senator deal on everything.
SPEAKER 05 :
We got a new administration with a ton of transparency, and you nailed it. Trump posted something on social media last night. It’s like he’s just like a guy. He’s not the president. You talk about the people’s president. I mean, we were all doing this, speculating about what did this look like. And that’s what he did. He said the helicopter went straight for the plane, and why didn’t it go up? Why didn’t it go down? But that’s a normal, average American asking, how could this happen? And it’s our president. Sorry. We love that. We love that about him. So here we go. All right. Well, prayers out for everybody involved and the first responders who are doing an amazing job. So God bless them all.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Hang in there, Mark. Appreciate you. Mike, show starts as soon as we’re done at 10 right here on 660 AM. The answer.
SPEAKER 03 :
Download the podcast and hear all of Mike and Mark’s conversations at MikeOnline.com for the M&M experience.
