Join us for an intriguing episode where we explore the transformative power of media through time, starting with the pivotal role of Diane Carroll in breaking racial barriers. Her portrayal in ‘Julia’ as a strong black female lead during a tumultuous era marked an evolution in television’s portrayal of black lives. Meanwhile, the charm of the 1960s television landscape is revisited as the hosts indulge in a spirited chat about Broadway memories and music icon Connie Francis. Turning towards contemporary matters, the episode delves into the complex debate surrounding Trump and the enduring Epstein saga. Through a critical lens,
00:00:00 Diane Carroll and Julia: Breaking Barriers
Look at you! The wonderful Diane Carroll. She would have been 90 today, passed away back in 2019. But I loved this show. And it was, you know, you could say racial tensions were a thing in 1968. But the crotchety old actor Lloyd Nolan, you remember him? It was Dr. Chegley or whatever his name was. And she was a middle class person, a nurse, a mom raising a kid. So before Cosby sort of normalized and de-stereotypified a black life, there was Julia. She was also the first black woman right into your world to win a Tony for Best Actress.
SPEAKER 01 :
Let’s talk some more. I want to talk the whole segment about obscure TV shows from the 1960s. Because there’s nothing going on.
SPEAKER 02 :
I think we need to talk about… Oh, like you don’t want to tell us about going to four Broadway shows yesterday.
SPEAKER 01 :
Let’s talk about Connie. I want to talk about Connie Francis. Yes, the death of Connie Francis. Now, that was a legend. Yeah, but… Let’s talk about her music. I want to talk about anything but Epstein. Oh, I get it. I want to do anything but Epstein.
SPEAKER 02 :
Flood the zone. Flood the zone.
SPEAKER 01 :
Fill it up. Look at the time. What a talent she was. Did I tell you about the time I went and saw her perform in upstate New York back in the day?
SPEAKER 02 :
Did you go backstage? Did you meet 14 people and tell me about all of them?
SPEAKER 01 :
I didn’t meet them. Oh, it’s okay, Mike.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s okay. It’s all right.
SPEAKER 01 :
What a mess. What a mess. I mean, I took the day off yesterday, did something fun. Don’t want to get into too many details, but I wound up in New York sort of the last minute for a trip on behalf of some friends. Back now in South Carolina, where I’m spending wonderful time here. I’m telling you, you and Lisa should come visit. It is a wonderful place.
SPEAKER 02 :
Just a great state.
SPEAKER 01 :
But I got my nose plugged into the interwebs. And I got my phone. And my eyes and my ears are bleeding. Because I’m trying to make sense of it all.
SPEAKER 02 :
Where were you when Trump went full flame on Truth Social yesterday at about 9?
SPEAKER 01 :
I was trying to crawl into a hole. I was finding an 8-foot… deep hole that I could crawl into when he seemed to flame his former supporters. Now, look, all right, so let’s stipulate a few things. He’s frustrated. He’s upset. He can’t believe that the Epstein thing is still lingering, that people are still fired up about it, and they are. Of course. Look, like you wrote in your Star Telegram piece, People have a right to demand accountability after being lied to over and over and over again. We get it, we get it, we get it. I want to do a deep dive on the phrase conspiracy theory because to me the more important of the two words is theory. We always focus on the conspiracy theory. But let’s not also minimize the impact of theory in conspiracy theory. You know what a theory is? It’s like, well, it could be this. It could be that. It could be true. It could be false. You know, to paraphrase your friend Tucker Carlson, I’m just asking questions here. It’s a theory. I’m just throwing it out there. That’s the whole DNA of a conspiracy theory. So… There could be a list somewhere that got destroyed or that they’re hiding or that implicates powerful people, or there could not be. You believe there’s no list. I kind of think there’s no list. I’m going to break this down and understand that you and I are going to play this exactly right. We’re not going to shut down the people who are frustrated by it, but we’re going to keep this in proper perspective. This is all about perspective here. Do you realize Republicans have been promising to defund public television and radio for decades?
SPEAKER 02 :
And we could never do it.
SPEAKER 01 :
Guess who got it done? We promised it over and over again. Again, the list of promises made, promises kept, is astounding in six months. We got all these victories. We got these enormous accomplishments. And people are bailing on Trump over Epstein. Now, here’s some perspective. If you’re bailing on Trump over Epstein, you weren’t particularly on board to begin with. There’s no way around this. I’d like to say there is. I’d like to say somebody changed their mind about Trump over Epstein. No, you didn’t. No, you didn’t. You think you’ve got cover now to come out of hiding and torch him because that’s what you’ve wanted to do all along. I really believe that.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m going to partially push back. Because I think generally you’re right. There are a lot of people who are saying that they were all on board, MAGA red hat wearing, and now I’m out. And I think those people are lying. But with a couple of folks that I’ve talked to and a couple of folks who maybe you’ve talked to or may yet talk to, there are some people who are 1,000% in for him. And the list of reasons is long. It contains all the things you just mentioned, fixing the border, gender sanity, environmental sanity, fiscal sanity, government efficiency, blah, blah, blah. But also on that list is this promise that he and his team seemed to make that you will get your client list. And having been denied that is, they feel, a betrayal of the highest order. So it’s not all faint followers or squishes.
SPEAKER 01 :
And I don’t know. And I don’t know how you resolve that, to tell you the truth, because that gets to the core of what I think has happened here. I think that the sharp-elbowed red meat members of Trump world, maybe President Trump himself, to some degree, overpromised. The whole Epstein story. And now they got under the hood and they said, well, there’s not a lot there. The bad guy’s dead. His pimp is in jail. There’s not a whole lot left here that we can do. Now, that’s not satisfying to people. No. But that’s what I think happened. Now, but again, that’s a theory, Mark. I could be wrong. Maybe Trump is in on it. Maybe he’s covering up for pedophiles. I know. Hardly likely. Hardly likely that even Pam Bondi is giving cover to pedophiles. Hardly likely that Kash Patel is protecting pedophiles. So something else is going on. So I don’t know. I mean, Miranda Devine wrote a piece in the New York Post. Here’s how Trump fixes this. And she essentially said… And going scorched earth on his supporters might not be the primary way to do it. But she does suggest somehow they’ve got to get a hold of this. But she doesn’t really say how. Now, part of that is a technical glitch because I think my team sent me a partial article of Miranda Devine. So I think when I got to the part where she said there’s a remedy, I didn’t get to the actual remedy.
SPEAKER 02 :
Here’s what he should do.
SPEAKER 01 :
It’s like, leave me hanging.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s an ad for a pool floatie.
SPEAKER 01 :
But the part where I got to, and Eric and Joey and the team are scrambling to fill – I bet they are now. Yeah, well, no kidding. Having been shamed. Oh, yeah, I’m reading this right before coming to you. I’m thinking, oh, good, I get to the cliffhanger. Here’s what he needs to do. But it was the beginnings of – Get a hold of this thing. Figure out how to get ahead of this. So what does that look like? Because that sounds great.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s the question. So let me put it in the form of a Q&A for you, Mike Gallagher. For you, Mike Gallagher. Mike Gallagher. Should Pam Bondi just release something? And I don’t mean just find empty pages. You can’t make something up. What if there’s nothing to release? I know. And then Trump puts it right in her lap. It’s not Trump sitting there saying, I call on Pam Bondi to release all this stuff. He clearly, for some reason, doesn’t want to do that. So he says to her, if there’s something valid, if there’s something confirmable, if there’s something reliable, go ahead and release it. So now the onus is on her.
SPEAKER 01 :
And if there’s not? If there’s nothing releasable, then what are you going to do?
SPEAKER 02 :
Then you have to say so. Well, he is. He is. He’s saying it’s a hoax. But yes, that the existence and what he means is not that there was no pedophile ring and no misbehavior or maybe not even some significant people involved in it at some point. But the notion that there is a tasty, salacious, sizzling client list that will be bombshell upon bombshell. That was the hoax. And the barrier here, not so much with Trump, but with some folks we really, really love, like Bongino and Patel, is they spend a lot of time mouthing off about, here it comes, don’t let this go, you’re being lied to. And now that they have real jobs in real government, they realize that they overplayed it exponentially, and they don’t want to say, we made a mistake.
SPEAKER 01 :
Let’s acknowledge that this is the one pitfall. This is the consequence of liking cable news stars to join your team. These are cable news stars. And they’re good at it. I mean, they’re very good at clicks. They’re very good at engagement. That’s dismissive, though. That’s kind of broadly dismissive. But it’s true. Is Judge Jeanine Pirro a problem? No. I didn’t say problem. I didn’t say that. It’s not a pejorative. I’m telling you it’s a consequence. These are people who know how to give good material.
SPEAKER 02 :
You and I know how to give good material.
SPEAKER 01 :
But if we were in the Trump administration?
SPEAKER 02 :
I know, but if let’s say you and I were named to White House posts tomorrow, I get tingly thinking about that. They’re not going to come back and find audio or video of you or me promising everybody a client list. You know why? Because we restrained ourselves. We didn’t do it.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I don’t know that that’s true. We do hours a day of provocative commentary. Well, I don’t know. But there’s things you could have said. You know how to deliver material to an audience. Most bureaucrats aren’t of that ilk. Most people aren’t Seb Gorka, aren’t Jeanine Pirro. Perfect example. Your example proves my point there.
SPEAKER 02 :
You just gave Dr. Gorka. They’re not going to find something Seb said on a show that he’ll have to explain or apologize for or wring his hands over in White House service.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, they’ve been doing it relentlessly. Tried but failed. Yeah, but these are provocateurs. And I don’t say that in a pejorative way. They’re not Washington bureaucrats. So all I’m saying is the consequence of hiring. a cable news star is that you’re going to have a body of evidence. Look, Trump never said he was campaigning on the Epstein files. No, that’s a lot of people have said that. Trump campaigned on this, but he didn’t. He was asked one time whether in one interview apparently on a podcast in September of 2024, he was asked specifically about it. He said, I’ll take a look at it.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s all he said. I’m leaning toward it. He absolutely never promised a release of the Epstein files.
SPEAKER 01 :
No. You know what he campaigned on? Reducing inflation. Fixing the border. The stuff he’s done. The stuff he’s actually done. And don’t you know?
SPEAKER 02 :
Don’t you know? Listen, you know him. You know him even a little better. You’ve spent more time around him than I have. This is driving him insane. Oh, he’s frustrated. And he deserves to be. I totally get it. My Star-Telegram column point this morning is… He and the team need to handle this a little better, navigate it with a little more skill. But I totally understand how it’s just putting his voluminous hair on fire, even more orange than it usually is, at the notion that all these successes are being eaten alive by Epstein mania.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I’m going to turn it over to the audience because I want to make sure, because I’m not real clear where the audience is on this. I thought I had it understood. I mean, when I left before I took yesterday off, basically I thought most people were saying, we’ve got to move on. This is a distraction. And most are.
SPEAKER 02 :
And most, if the definition of most is 50.0001% or more. Most, absolutely.
SPEAKER 01 :
Absolutely. I don’t know. I’m not entirely sure I agree with that. Here’s what I do know. Real quick note about New York. You know, we interviewed Curtis Lewa the other day. Yes. And this Mamdani character is such a fascinating, out-of-state donors are now flocking to the campaign. I mean, he is a dream for the AOCs of the world. Well, there’s a brand-new poll just came out from HarrisX. Look, in a four-way race, where do you hear these results? Mamdani is ahead 26%, right? He’s tied with Cuomo, essentially, 23%. Sliwa, 22%. Look at there. And you know who’s fourth? Eric Adams.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, Eric Adams, exactly.
SPEAKER 01 :
Eric Adams, the incumbent, he’s at 13%. So look, in a four-way race, it’s very competitive. I know one thing. If Cuomo and Sliwa somehow united, they win. They beat this guy. It’s going to come down to that. It’s going to come down to one of the two of them saying, all right, let’s coalesce, because they’re going to split the vote, Mark. I’m telling you, if it’s Cuomo and Sliwa, and maybe it is, and I love me some Curtis. I wish Cuomo would say, look, I’m kind of disgraced. I’ve had this terrible track record. I was drummed out of office.
SPEAKER 02 :
He’s going to do that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, he might be more inclined to do it than Curtis. Curtis ain’t going anywhere.
SPEAKER 02 :
And neither is Eric Adams, I don’t think.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, Eric Adams is almost an afterthought.
SPEAKER 02 :
You think somebody couldn’t use his 13%? That’s 13% in a close race. But if it’s 23 and 22, I like those numbers.
SPEAKER 01 :
I do, too. That’s 55. All righty, man.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, so here we are back in the upstate. It’s going to be fine. It’s all going to be fine. As you listen to the people.
SPEAKER 01 :
Connie Francis, that was a good one. It sure was.
SPEAKER 02 :
Here’s 47 details of her upbringing. But here’s the thing. You and I have talked about this a lot. You could fill the lines with people who say, I’m done with Trump because of this. It does not make them a majority. It makes them a voice worthy of hearing, no doubt about it. We’ve dealt with this our entire careers.
SPEAKER 01 :
I don’t think there are people who are actually saying I’m done with Trump because of Epstein.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, I’ve talked to two of them, at least. Diehard Trump supporters? Yep, yep, yep. There they are. And they’re done with him because of Epstein? It’s a moment. Oh, thanks for letting me say this.
SPEAKER 01 :
No, they’re not. That’s not real.
SPEAKER 02 :
It is a momentary tantrum.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s not legitimate.
SPEAKER 02 :
There’s no way that’s legitimate. They mean it. They mean it now.
SPEAKER 01 :
They’ll get better. Well, that’s how I’ll start the show. I’ll find out if there’s anybody really done with Trump because of Epstein. All right. Love you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Love you, Mike Gallagher from the Palmetto State. Ready to go as soon as we’re done. 10 o’clock right here on 660 AM. The answer for full shows live and on demand. It’s a news channel.
