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Speaker 1: J Merrow.
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Speaker 2: Damn.
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Speaker 1: Hi, this is Monks and Meryl.
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Speaker 2: So excited to have you on the radio.
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Speaker 1: Hosted by Michael Monks and Chris.
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Speaker 2: Merrill on KF I am sixty.
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Speaker 1: What a wild weekend.
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Speaker 3: Thank you for making KFI part of your day. We appreciate it. I'm Chris Merrill. He's Michael Monks back from his paid suspension. Not really, that's Gary and Shannon. We're on with that on Friday. So then I had to come on the here and say it's not he didn't get a paid suspend. He had a planned day off. But just the same Michael Monks did nearly destroy the radio station with something as simple as two hydrogen atoms and one.
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Speaker 1: Oxygen.
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Speaker 3: I mean, as powerful a station as KFI is. A fifty thousand watt flamethrower. One cup of water and I mean a little dixie cup of water is enough to knock things completely ruin my professional trajectory, that's for sure. There's a ridiculous photo of me hanging on the wall at Bravery Brewing also here. If you want to see it, you can go to my Instagram Mike Monks Media, Mike Monk's La M I C. M. O n ks LA. Everyone's having fun at my expense. I'm very sorry for what I did, grateful for the day off. You were great by yourself. But boy did we miss some news on Saturday. I don't think we missed no. I mean we were on it, but we were off. Thank God. Thank God Conway lives closer than we did. And so Tim Conway Junior came in and covered the shooting that happened in DC. Is we get this guy who traveled from Torrance to d C showed up at the Hilton in DC and.
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Speaker 1: Did his best to.
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Speaker 3: Create the kind of havoc that the world hasn't seen in a very, very long time. It's crazy how frequently the stuff is happening. It's also crazier that every time something big like this happens, Chris, you wait for the SoCal connection to roll out. Thirty one year old Cole Thomas Allen. He's from Torrance, and it didn't take long at all that news to start to trickle out that he was local and for federal agents to be visiting properties associated with him. He graduated from cal Tech in twenty seventeen. He's got a mechanical engineering degree. Then he earned a master's degree in computer science from cal State to Minga's Hills just last year. I mean, this was a guy who clearly had the intelligence to get this type of education. He was working apparently as as a tutor slash teacher here.
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Speaker 1: In the area.
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Speaker 3: Not really the makeup of the type of person that's been attempting these things in recent years, that Didinge seemed nearly as off kilter or radicalized by video game chat rooms or anything of that sort exactly.
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Speaker 1: And he was in court today.
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Speaker 3: He's been charged with three federal counts, which includes a pretty significant significant one called tempting to assassinate the president. Yeah, that seems like the kind of charge that kind of sticks with you on a permanent record completely. He was also charged with transportation of a firearm and ammunition through interstate commerce and discharging a farm during a crime of violence. Now, this White House Correspondence dinner had been sort of a thorn in President Trump's side, even back in his first administration, he was not one to participate in this. Typically, the White House Press Corps throws this event every year, and the president often attends whoever is in office at the time. There's usually a keynote comedian that roast the press, but also the president. The president also gets up and delivers a bit of a roast, but President Trump has that adversarial relationship with the mainstream press, and it was interesting that he was going at all.
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Speaker 1: But not only did he go, Chris, the entire cabinet was there.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the thing that struck me as being really odd. And incidentally, the Department of Justice is set to have a press conference addressing this and as soon as they take the dayist and we'll jump away to that. But that is the thing that caught me is really strange, is the level of security with the number of high profile individuals here. And as I was reading, I believe it was New York Times, I was reading about how this is not the top level security such as you would have if the President were attending the Super Bowl or the State of the Union address or something of that nature. And yet you had the highest profile individuals in all of DC. And I'm not talking about the news press, I'm talking about the cabinet. I'm talking about the president, the vice president. And it struck me that here you've got a lone wolf who's obviously deranged, you're gonna take violence to try to take matters into his own hands, whatever it is. Thank god the guy didn't have a bomb, no kidding, because imagine if this had not been somebody who was just heavily armed with firearms that the Secret Service could take out pretty quickly. But imagine if he had planted something or even just had a vest with a lot of sticks of dynamite in it, right, I mean, we could be having a completely different conversation today. Yeah, very very shocking scenes. A lot of video coming out of this. Obviously a lot of journalists are in the room, so you know, everybody immediately pulls out their phone and you see. But we've also seen clips of how he bum rushed some of those federal security agents. So what I thought was very curious related to the security was the first hand accounts of the press people who were attending the dinner, who came out afterwards and said it was very lax security. You had to pass through some checkpoints, sure, but it was very easy to get past those checkpoints. No metal detectors or any of that. I've seen members of the press say I could have walked in with last year's ticket. Interesting, that's how lax it was in checking your credentials to be able to get in. You also have to understand that this is at a Hilton hotel. It's got a major event room where more than a thousand people can attend.
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Speaker 1: It's also got more than a thousand hotel rooms.
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Speaker 3: And there were guests who were apparently just walking freely about the building as well. And I don't know how you do that differently unless you change the venue. And this is what the President was talking about as he said, you know, he wants the venue in the future to be at his new East Ballroom. Of course, it's been going on here at the Hilton for a very long time. Major events constantly go out of these DC hotels. I don't know if you changed. I don't know what the hotel does differently, because they can't simply not rent out a thousand rooms because the President's going to have an event there. I don't know how that changes unless they determine we're only going to do these events in government buildings, but not really not really that cocktail mixer vibe. If you're having the White House correspondent dinner, say, in the Halls of Congress. It's also a bit of a weird relationship between the press and the government, because well, it's not unusual for members of the press to have collegial and even friendly relationships with people in the government. They're still supposed to have that fourth wall that you know, that there's supposed to be a wall there where you're not complete allies. And so if you start to have your event on the grounds of the White House, it looks like a nice invitation. You know, it's sort of olive branch, but it's not something that that really makes a lot of sense for a journalistic organization, especially the prestigious White House Correspondence Association. So yeah, that feels more like neutral territory if it's at at the ballroom or something of that sort right now. You know, I have to say, though, as much as President Trump has expressed his disdain for the press and this event in particular, he comes to it this year prepared, obviously to give some remarks that probably would have been good. The presidents usually get some pretty funny jokes to lob and he's got an arsenal. He wanted to get back on that stage. You know, when this event broke out, this this shooting, he wanted the event to go on. Obviously, there was no way that could happen. You had to flush the whole building and make sure it was safe. It's interesting you said that. That's exactly what he said. And he was speaking very clearly to sixty minutes last night, and he was almost disappointed didn't get back to it.
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Speaker 1: That's why I think they say.
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Speaker 4: And he just went to it and then boom, he popped through it. I mean he ran like I think the NFL should sign him up.
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Speaker 1: He was fast. When you look at it and take it's almost like a blur.
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Speaker 4: And I try to get them to continue the event if possible.
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Speaker 1: You wanted to go back in? I did, I really did. President, Yeah, you wanted to go I did. I wanted to go back in. How would that have played off? Though?
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Speaker 3: If it's me, I say, you go on with the event. However, there was a Secret Service agent who was shot and had to go to the hospital and his recovering and was able to speak to the President that night.
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Speaker 1: Would it have seemed.
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Speaker 3: Insensitive had they decided to continue on with their party and their frivolity while someone was willing to lay their life on the line.
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Speaker 1: Is now in the hospital recovering.
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Speaker 3: Perhaps, I think in normal circumstances, yes, But then when you think back to twenty twenty four when the President was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, it did end up giving what will be an iconic moment, probably for the rest of American history, where the President stands back up, blood dripping from his ear, and he throws up his fists, founded by a Secret Service agent saying fight, fight, Fight. It might have been another moment like that, not as serious because the bullets didn't come close to him this time, but still a very, very frightening event. A local guy now charged in this case. We're going to find out more about the security lapse. We've got a live report coming up, but the Department of Justice in Washington is set to hold a briefing on this suspect in any moment. We'll also bring that to you live as Monks and Merrill continues on this Monday. You're listening to Monks and Merrill on demand from KFI AM six.
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Speaker 1: Forty more stimulating talk.
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Speaker 3: We will track your steps from the inception of your plan, and we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jennine Piro, who is a part of the dog press conference happening right now. I am six forty more stimulating talk on Chris, MARYL.
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Speaker 1: Michael Monks.
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Speaker 3: You just heard a great deal of that press conference. We're going to kind of jump out of it now as they've given a great deal of information, including that he had a shotgun. I believe she said he had an automatic weapon, but said that they were perch just in California. There's gonna be some discrepancy about that. How did he purchase an automatic firearm in California? Perhaps I heard it wrong, so my apologies if I did. He did travel from California to DC. He stayed overnight the night before he made his reservations, almost three weeks prior to taking action there in DC, and his intention was to take out as many high ranking officials as he could.
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Speaker 1: Expect that we're going to have more charges coming. Yeah.
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Speaker 3: He was in court today charged with attempting to assassinate the president and other charges, including transporting those weapons across state lines. He also had knives on him. He was definitely hell bent on reaching the president. According to federal prosecutors, there and federal investigators. You heard them say that he was starting with the top of the administration on down and would engage with anyone who tried to stop him from reaching the president. Hannah Bryant is a News Nation White House correspondent. Hannah, were you were you at this dinner last night?
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Speaker 5: I went to a dinner. Ye know, I was not at the dinner. I was actually at the White House reporting. You know, we have someone there every weekend, and I was. I was at the White House reporting as it all unfolded. But I was watching it live on the video, just really astounded by what I was seeing, because of course we were, you know, preparing to watch the president's speech, his roast of journalists, preparing to kind of talk about what he said on that stage. This is really a highly anticipated moment, the first time he was attending the dinner as president, and then we watched what happened unfold.
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Speaker 2: In real time.
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Speaker 5: We were getting information in from our News Nation journalists who were in the room and really were telling us about kind of all of the shocking things that they were seeing as people were tackled to the ground by productive detail. You know, there was a lot of chaos and confusion about what exactly was happening, whether it was gunshots that they heard or something else. And of course now we're learning a lot of new details about what it really was that unfolded, but certainly a lot of shocked, chaos, confusion in that room as this scene happened over the weekend.
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Speaker 3: What are we hearing about any lapses in security and any changes that might be coming in the future for events like this.
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Speaker 5: Well, the White House at this point is not ruling out security changes, but the line from the administration officials is that actually what we saw, they believe is everything went right with security. In fact, you just heard the Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche say minutes ago in that press conference, there were hundreds of agents between this would be assassin and the president. You know, you see that pretty extraordinary security footage of him rushing through that checkpoint, rushing past those Secret Service agents before they're able to get him down. But the distance between where that happened and the ballroom is what a lot of people, I think looking from the outside don't know. Those are on different levels of the hotel, so there was a bit of distance before he was able to enter that ballroom, and like Blanche said, there were Secret Service guards, you know, stations throughout and that's something we saw in real time in the ballroom as those Secret Service agents you know, swarmed a bunch of the leaders in the room. They got the President out really quickly, the Vice president as well. But like I said, they are not rolling out the potential for changes down the road.
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Speaker 2: We're told.
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Speaker 5: White House tup of Staff Sudie Wilds is calling a meeting this week with DHS official Secret Service officials, White House operations people, and they're going to talk about what went right over the weekend and what they may need to consider for future major events that the President will be at.
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Speaker 3: Hannah Brandt is News Nation White House correspondent. Hannah, we had hoped to talk to you a little bit longer before this press conference popped up, but hopefully we can connect again soon and we'll be looking forward to your reporting out of DC.
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Speaker 5: Sounds good, great talking with you, Thanks, Hannah.
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Speaker 3: Glad you're safe. Oh one correction I did miss here. It was a semi automatic pistol that was used, So yeah, just wanted to make sure I clarify it well done, I mean want to pass around miss misinformation. We've been discussing the happenings on Saturday night there to the sky from Torrance who traveled to DC and took a firearms with him and then tried to assassinate the president in the entire cabin and the DOJ doing a press conference right now. Joining us is our legal analyst Lu Shapiro. He's also a local attorney. Lou, thanks for being on the program. What's how big a.
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Speaker 1: Deal is it?
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Speaker 3: Because Jenine Pierro, excuse me, was kind of going on about him traveling interstate with firearms? Is that how big of an enhancement is that that she seemed she seemed to make it out like that was a really really big deal.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a very calculated offense. We're seeing that in the complaint that was filed just a few moments ago in court, which in Affidavid was prepared by a special Relasian and outlines the chronology of what happened here. And this is very calculated. This person planned this out over a good period of time, knew what he was doing. He even wrote an email where he outlines who he's after and who he's not after. So he's in a lot of trouble this guy.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, Lou, this is a lot of evidence already piling up publicly. I mean, in the immediate aftermath they id'd this guy. We knew he was from here in southern California, but we also knew that he seemed to be otherwise a pretty smart guy. He's got some pretty intelligent degrees. But now he's he's facing a charge of attempted assassination of the president. I imagine that's not a misdemeanor. What are the potential consequences that he's facing.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, he's definitely looking at life in prison on the fact that they added the most difficult charge for him, attempted to assassinate the president of the United States, in addition to the other charges like transportation of firearm, discharge of a firearm during the crime of violence. And keep in mind, on top of all this, he's shot at a secret service data and thank god he had a vest that saved his life at close range. But it really doesn't get worse than what this guy did.
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Speaker 3: Luke Shapiro is our legal analyst and our local attorney. So, Lou, where do you even start if you're trying to mount a defense for a guy like this, I mean, it seems pretty cut and dry from the outside looking in. Can you say, oh, no, he wasn't after the president. Can they even argue.
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Speaker 2: That, well, before I saw the complaint, I anticipated this could be some sort of an insanity defense where he may argue that he didn't know the difference between right and wrong at the time, that he was experiencing some sort of psychotic episode that would have contributed to it. Because, as we said earlier, this man is educated. He's an intelligent person, so there might have been those grounds to go along. But now that we've seen the email that he sent a family around the time that this was done, where he outlines exactly what he's doing. He even says, I'm not intending on hitting hotel security or Capitol police or the National Guard. I'm just looking to get administrative officials. So it shows you that he did know the difference between right and wrong in that time, because he's saying, here's who I'm trying to hit. Here's so I'm not trying to hit. And if I hit other people unintentionally, my apologies in advance. So I don't know which way he's going to go. They may still try to run an insanity defense, but it's going to be a much more difficult battle now and a lot of this email that he's sent out.
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Speaker 3: We're talking with attorney and legal analyst Lou Shapiro here on kfi's Monks and Merrill Cole. Thomas Allen was officially charged today, But what comes next? I mean, how quickly can we expect this federal case to proceed against this guy from Torrance?
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Speaker 2: I think it's going to go pretty smull in the defense side. Generally, the worse the case, the longer it takes, and that's because there's going to be forensic experts appointed to evaluate him psychologically and issue findings as to what his diagnosises are, if he has pre existing ones, if he was medicating at the time, where if he was maybe changed his medication at the time. So there's going to be a lot of forensic workup that's going to take probably six months to a year before we see anything significant happen on this.
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Speaker 1: So what can we look forward to is the next big thing?
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Speaker 2: Then, Lou, he'll have another bail hearing where he's going to try to obviously make some sort of request to be released. That's not going to happen, and then it's going to be set for a trial probably six months to a year from now, and between now and that date, we can expect probably some sort of a resolution being reached on this case.
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Speaker 1: This is obviously somebody who had a lot to say.
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Speaker 3: There's a paper trail a mile long of his intention, of his possible motives for this thing leading up to these, you know, as arrest and the allegations that are very very significant, these charges. Do you expect that we will hear from him at any point? Would that be wise?
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Speaker 2: I don't think we're going to hear from him, because now that he's been to court, he would have been appointed counsel who would have told him, I'm not letting you say anything. He's said enough already, So I don't think we're gonna be hearing much. But I think what this is going to lead to a discussion is mental health in America because obviously there's there's a talk about gun violence, and this person was able to get weapons very easily. But there's the other side also about how are people that have mental illnesses, Are they being properly treated, are they accounted for? Are we as a society doing enough to alert authority that this person needs help and is that help in place for them? And that discussion I think needs to happen more and more.
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Speaker 3: Lucia Piro, our legal analyst, local attorney, lou thanks so much. I appreciate your insight on that you got Shanks. Yeah, you know, I mean, this doesn't seem to be one of those on the surface, we don't know everything yet.
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Speaker 1: We know what we know so far, which is that this guy clearly.
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Speaker 3: Intended to call some very serious harm to the federal government and to the president in particular. But this is partisan insanity. I mean, this seems like somebody who was just driven to the brink by politics, not just by general distrust of neighbors and that sort of thing. Yeah, and I'm glad you said that, because when we start talking about mental illness, is being.
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Speaker 1: A wonk a mental illness?
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Speaker 3: If, for instance, how many times have we heard someone say, uh, if you're a member of the Republican Party, then you must have a screw loose, or if you're a member of the Democratic Party then and you're not mentally well.
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Speaker 1: Right.
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Speaker 3: We hear people on the left say that about people, and right people and right say that about people on the left, and I have to believe that the person's saying it is displaying more of an uneven keel than the person they're.
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Speaker 1: Ascribing it to. Right.
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Speaker 3: But is that mental illness? Is fanaticism mental illness? I think it's getting there, unfortunately, because I will tell you, in the immediate aftermath of this shooting, I go right to social media. Let's see what kind of news I can gather. But when I open Facebook, and that's where I see people that I know in my personal life, neighbors, people associated with the world, Yeah, that sort of thing. I couldn't believe their reactions. Now, I don't expect my former neighbors to go on a shooting spree anytime soon, but I am concerned about the statements they're willing to post openly with these conspiratorial suggestions, you know, And it doesn't matter which side of the political aisle they're on. There's fanatics on the left and the right. But what's surprise is how that is creeping into what would have traditionally been my mainstream Democrat friends, my mainstream Republican friends who weren't on the fringes. But now they seem to be.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, extremism seems to be main strange. Yeah, exactly, it's driving people mad. I don't know how you take something.
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Speaker 3: By all accounts, this guy seems like a pretty normal guy who was pretty invested in politics.
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Speaker 1: Obviously. I mean, we all know somebody's pretty invested in politics.
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Speaker 3: Do that mean that every crazy uncle is suddenly mentally ill and needs to have a fifty one to fifty on them?
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Speaker 1: I don't know how far do they slide? You know, how close to the line.
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Speaker 3: Don't get it is just the consequence of having three hundred and forty million people living in a country that you're gonna have one or two they're going to slide too far. Yeah, I think it's more than one or two that's the problem. Hey, maybe our listeners can help open up the iHeartRadio app. Click on the talkback button, let us know is everybody going crazy, and we'll continue to follow this story and bring you any late breaking details. Meanwhile, you paid premiums, you follow rules, and then your neighborhood burns Now. The insurance companies are learning excuse me, they're leaning hard on the fine print.
00:22:07
Speaker 1: But don't worry.
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Speaker 3: Your elected officials are here a little trip to the White House from a couple of local officials.
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Speaker 1: We'll get into that next. On Monks and maryl.
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Speaker 3: You're listening to Monks and Meryl on demand from KFI AM. It is Monks and Merrill on this Monday. Welcome back from the weekend. I'm Michael Monks alongside Chris Merril. We're with you till three o'clock every weekday. If you miss a moment, just go to KFI AM six forty dot com, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcast and listen to us at your leisure. We asked you before the break, is everyone losing their minds? Are politics driving us all insane? I kind of feel like the answer is absolutely Merril insanity.
00:22:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. See, Okay, so we get this talk back that talks about it.
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Speaker 6: Guys, Guys, let's be real, period, you don't go attempting to shoot someone and assassinate a president and not have mental illness. It's pretty obvious you're spending so much time nitpicking the word mental illness. Let's catch up to reality.
00:23:28
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a little bit of umbridge with that. I will join you in taking the umbrage.
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Speaker 3: And The reason is that I think there's a difference between being so deeply ensconced in your own self righteousness that you lose track of sort of good versus evil reality, that sort of thing versus what I genuinely consider to be mental illness that needs immediate treatment.
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Speaker 1: Right, so we.
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Speaker 3: All become obsessed with things. Is obsession a mental illness? If it drives us to take action in a certain way, then we might go, oh my gosh, they were out of their minds. But that doesn't mean I've lost comprehension with reality. Just means I've become so obsessed that I that I set aside any sort of any sort of a you know, a superego that would correct me on that. When I see someone a rooster at five point thirty in the morning screaming at the light pole outside of my apartment.
00:24:24
Speaker 1: That's mental illness.
00:24:25
Speaker 3: H That's somebody I would not allow near the president because they could be a danger to themselves or others around them. When I have when I talk to I've got an uncle that is like, there's nothing better than a red hat. Maga wear a maga red hat wearing you know, person, this is this is America at its best, and anyone who's liberal should be tried for treason, right, that's my uncle. I don't I think that's obsession. I don't think he's mentally ill. He still knows how to read a calendar and a clock, and he still knows how to drive to work. He's not Is he not on the road though? Is he on mental illness highway? I think a lot of people in this country hate other people because of the politics, because we are, as you authenticate, obsessed with politics. How do we decide what is not mental illness?
00:25:13
Speaker 2: Then?
00:25:13
Speaker 1: For instance, well, there is a clinical definition. I saw you lose your mind.
00:25:18
Speaker 3: You absolutely lost control of bodily function when Kentucky hit a buzzer beater during the NCAA champion. That is a mischaracterization of events. What you saw was jubilation, happiness, obsession. Yeah, okay? Is that mental illness?
00:25:34
Speaker 7: No?
00:25:36
Speaker 1: Okay? So what's the line between obsession mental illness? Is it action? Violent actions? Well? Incidentally, I think there is.
00:25:44
Speaker 3: Because now I'm concerned that someone who actually needs help, that has a mental illness that needs to be treated, maybe medication, maybe maybe they need to have some time where they're getting locked up, and now all of a sudden we're like, well, yeah, but now this person's mentally ill. We can't just label everyone who does things we don't like is mental illness. What about all the break ins that are happening in the valley, that's obviously a disconnect between good and bad. Are they mentally ill? No, they're criminals taking care of criminal activity because they had a goal. Yeah, but they were selfish. If you thought I'm better than everyone else, I'm going to You can't delineate between a burglary and a plot to assassinate the government. You don't think there are different degrees of what a person is feeling inside their heads.
00:26:25
Speaker 1: Absolutely, but it's not mental illness. It could be, No, it's not.
00:26:29
Speaker 3: It's very calculated from somebody who's got a long history of degrees.
00:26:33
Speaker 1: From cal tech. Smart people can go insane.
00:26:36
Speaker 6: It's not.
00:26:37
Speaker 1: Look at you. You're an educated man and you are absolutely losing it right now?
00:26:42
Speaker 3: What about what about this thing that make us crazy? Then that's the problem, it's you. No, Well, I'm sorry. Simply because someone wants to do something horrible doesn't make them mentally ey. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get what you're saying no, you don't the court.
00:26:59
Speaker 1: I mean, because there.
00:26:59
Speaker 3: Are precise definitions for mentally ill right now, we're just throwing the word around. I get what you're saying. There is a clinical definition, and I'm sure there are varying degrees of that mental illness and this person will be evaluated for that. But my question was, is the political climate in this country driving many of us in that direction. We're getting a lot of feedback. Maybe we'll play some more throughout the show. But as we mentioned, Washington, d C. Was also the site of an I don't know, I don't know. This was kind of a meeting that I wasn't expecting. I didn't expect to see Mayor Karen Bass in the Oval office. Not so surprised to see LA County Supervisor Catherine Barger there. She is a Republican and it probably has a better relationship with the federal government than Karen Bass does. But both Supervisor Barger Mayor Bass in the White House with President Trump last week. Mayor Bass gave him one of the Olympic torches from nineteen eighty four because I think as she and Catherine Barker were there to add ask for help in federal funding with the wildfire recovery, you can win Trump over even if he has said bad things about you. He does like flattery. Yeah, yeah, And I think Mayor Mom Donnie out of New York when they had that highly publicized meeting in the Oval office. Also, you could see that somebody who seems to represent the antithesis to Donald Trump's politics, suddenly they're paling around together and having this this great chat. They're complimenting each other. That is the path to Donald Trump's heart. It is flattery, and he seemed to have a pretty good meeting with Mayor Basson Supervisor Barger. So does that mean that everyone's going to have their homes paid for and we're going to bring the prices down on the fair plan and everything else. Well, I think we're closer to that than we were before the meeting, undoubtedly. But this is not just a photo op. I mean, these local leaders had to go there to speak to the president. They are looking for about sixteen billion dollars in federal fundings of the city and the county. You know, Governor Newsom has asked for nearly thirty four billion dollars from the federal government for wildfire recovery and it's still going really slow, and the President has been critical and other Republicans have been critical of the pace here. And if it gives President Trump the opportunity to come in here and make it look like now that I'm here, now that the federal government is here dunking, Uh yeah, that's a big win for him.
00:29:22
Speaker 1: I agree.
00:29:23
Speaker 3: And if you're if you're Karen Bass, I think you can make it look like a big win for you too, especially in an election year when you can say, look, it wasn't getting done.
00:29:31
Speaker 1: I did what had to be done. And many of you don't like that.
00:29:33
Speaker 3: I you know, a lot of her supporters aren't gonna like that she's talking to President Trump. But look, that's how you get things done. It's called working across the aisle. That's how it used to be before we all went insane. Stop it, you're insane. I don't understand why you would do that. It's uh, hang on. This is a good one from talkbacks.
00:29:52
Speaker 7: When my sister said that the fires in the Palisades and in Altadena were God's because we elected Gavin Newsome as governors, That's when I knew that she was mentally ill.
00:30:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's bring up Pat Robertson because I always loved Pat Robertson quotes. He was always good for the tsunami was because of the gays or something like that. Yeah, yeah, have you ever been to a tsunami party at a gay club, You'll understand where he was coming from.
00:30:19
Speaker 1: Good time. I haven't whip, when wet, I will. We'll find my reservation, no doubt.
00:30:25
Speaker 2: Hey.
00:30:25
Speaker 3: While the adults in the room are trying to figure out how to prevent wildfires and pay for them when they do have, and the usual crowd is undermining all credibility by wasting time, and you hat another long shot lawsuit to cast the blame on someone else. Well and tell you hear who they should be, who they say should be paying all of the fines for the fires. That's next Monks and Meryl KFI AM six forty five everywhere in the iHeart Radio app.
00:30:46
Speaker 1: KFI on demand.
00:30:49
Speaker 3: You've been listening to Monks and Merrill. Hear the show live weekdays from noon to three on KFI AM six forty at anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 1: J Merrow.
00:00:02
Speaker 2: Damn.
00:00:04
Speaker 1: Hi, this is Monks and Meryl.
00:00:08
Speaker 2: So excited to have you on the radio.
00:00:10
Speaker 1: Hosted by Michael Monks and Chris.
00:00:12
Speaker 2: Merrill on KF I am sixty.
00:00:17
Speaker 1: What a wild weekend.
00:00:20
Speaker 3: Thank you for making KFI part of your day. We appreciate it. I'm Chris Merrill. He's Michael Monks back from his paid suspension. Not really, that's Gary and Shannon. We're on with that on Friday. So then I had to come on the here and say it's not he didn't get a paid suspend. He had a planned day off. But just the same Michael Monks did nearly destroy the radio station with something as simple as two hydrogen atoms and one.
00:00:46
Speaker 1: Oxygen.
00:00:46
Speaker 3: I mean, as powerful a station as KFI is. A fifty thousand watt flamethrower. One cup of water and I mean a little dixie cup of water is enough to knock things completely ruin my professional trajectory, that's for sure. There's a ridiculous photo of me hanging on the wall at Bravery Brewing also here. If you want to see it, you can go to my Instagram Mike Monks Media, Mike Monk's La M I C. M. O n ks LA. Everyone's having fun at my expense. I'm very sorry for what I did, grateful for the day off. You were great by yourself. But boy did we miss some news on Saturday. I don't think we missed no. I mean we were on it, but we were off. Thank God. Thank God Conway lives closer than we did. And so Tim Conway Junior came in and covered the shooting that happened in DC. Is we get this guy who traveled from Torrance to d C showed up at the Hilton in DC and.
00:01:38
Speaker 1: Did his best to.
00:01:41
Speaker 3: Create the kind of havoc that the world hasn't seen in a very, very long time. It's crazy how frequently the stuff is happening. It's also crazier that every time something big like this happens, Chris, you wait for the SoCal connection to roll out. Thirty one year old Cole Thomas Allen. He's from Torrance, and it didn't take long at all that news to start to trickle out that he was local and for federal agents to be visiting properties associated with him. He graduated from cal Tech in twenty seventeen. He's got a mechanical engineering degree. Then he earned a master's degree in computer science from cal State to Minga's Hills just last year. I mean, this was a guy who clearly had the intelligence to get this type of education. He was working apparently as as a tutor slash teacher here.
00:02:26
Speaker 1: In the area.
00:02:26
Speaker 3: Not really the makeup of the type of person that's been attempting these things in recent years, that Didinge seemed nearly as off kilter or radicalized by video game chat rooms or anything of that sort exactly.
00:02:38
Speaker 1: And he was in court today.
00:02:41
Speaker 3: He's been charged with three federal counts, which includes a pretty significant significant one called tempting to assassinate the president. Yeah, that seems like the kind of charge that kind of sticks with you on a permanent record completely. He was also charged with transportation of a firearm and ammunition through interstate commerce and discharging a farm during a crime of violence. Now, this White House Correspondence dinner had been sort of a thorn in President Trump's side, even back in his first administration, he was not one to participate in this. Typically, the White House Press Corps throws this event every year, and the president often attends whoever is in office at the time. There's usually a keynote comedian that roast the press, but also the president. The president also gets up and delivers a bit of a roast, but President Trump has that adversarial relationship with the mainstream press, and it was interesting that he was going at all.
00:03:35
Speaker 1: But not only did he go, Chris, the entire cabinet was there.
00:03:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the thing that struck me as being really odd. And incidentally, the Department of Justice is set to have a press conference addressing this and as soon as they take the dayist and we'll jump away to that. But that is the thing that caught me is really strange, is the level of security with the number of high profile individuals here. And as I was reading, I believe it was New York Times, I was reading about how this is not the top level security such as you would have if the President were attending the Super Bowl or the State of the Union address or something of that nature. And yet you had the highest profile individuals in all of DC. And I'm not talking about the news press, I'm talking about the cabinet. I'm talking about the president, the vice president. And it struck me that here you've got a lone wolf who's obviously deranged, you're gonna take violence to try to take matters into his own hands, whatever it is. Thank god the guy didn't have a bomb, no kidding, because imagine if this had not been somebody who was just heavily armed with firearms that the Secret Service could take out pretty quickly. But imagine if he had planted something or even just had a vest with a lot of sticks of dynamite in it, right, I mean, we could be having a completely different conversation today. Yeah, very very shocking scenes. A lot of video coming out of this. Obviously a lot of journalists are in the room, so you know, everybody immediately pulls out their phone and you see. But we've also seen clips of how he bum rushed some of those federal security agents. So what I thought was very curious related to the security was the first hand accounts of the press people who were attending the dinner, who came out afterwards and said it was very lax security. You had to pass through some checkpoints, sure, but it was very easy to get past those checkpoints. No metal detectors or any of that. I've seen members of the press say I could have walked in with last year's ticket. Interesting, that's how lax it was in checking your credentials to be able to get in. You also have to understand that this is at a Hilton hotel. It's got a major event room where more than a thousand people can attend.
00:05:37
Speaker 1: It's also got more than a thousand hotel rooms.
00:05:39
Speaker 3: And there were guests who were apparently just walking freely about the building as well. And I don't know how you do that differently unless you change the venue. And this is what the President was talking about as he said, you know, he wants the venue in the future to be at his new East Ballroom. Of course, it's been going on here at the Hilton for a very long time. Major events constantly go out of these DC hotels. I don't know if you changed. I don't know what the hotel does differently, because they can't simply not rent out a thousand rooms because the President's going to have an event there. I don't know how that changes unless they determine we're only going to do these events in government buildings, but not really not really that cocktail mixer vibe. If you're having the White House correspondent dinner, say, in the Halls of Congress. It's also a bit of a weird relationship between the press and the government, because well, it's not unusual for members of the press to have collegial and even friendly relationships with people in the government. They're still supposed to have that fourth wall that you know, that there's supposed to be a wall there where you're not complete allies. And so if you start to have your event on the grounds of the White House, it looks like a nice invitation. You know, it's sort of olive branch, but it's not something that that really makes a lot of sense for a journalistic organization, especially the prestigious White House Correspondence Association. So yeah, that feels more like neutral territory if it's at at the ballroom or something of that sort right now. You know, I have to say, though, as much as President Trump has expressed his disdain for the press and this event in particular, he comes to it this year prepared, obviously to give some remarks that probably would have been good. The presidents usually get some pretty funny jokes to lob and he's got an arsenal. He wanted to get back on that stage. You know, when this event broke out, this this shooting, he wanted the event to go on. Obviously, there was no way that could happen. You had to flush the whole building and make sure it was safe. It's interesting you said that. That's exactly what he said. And he was speaking very clearly to sixty minutes last night, and he was almost disappointed didn't get back to it.
00:07:45
Speaker 1: That's why I think they say.
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Speaker 4: And he just went to it and then boom, he popped through it. I mean he ran like I think the NFL should sign him up.
00:07:55
Speaker 1: He was fast. When you look at it and take it's almost like a blur.
00:07:59
Speaker 4: And I try to get them to continue the event if possible.
00:08:03
Speaker 1: You wanted to go back in? I did, I really did. President, Yeah, you wanted to go I did. I wanted to go back in. How would that have played off? Though?
00:08:13
Speaker 3: If it's me, I say, you go on with the event. However, there was a Secret Service agent who was shot and had to go to the hospital and his recovering and was able to speak to the President that night.
00:08:22
Speaker 1: Would it have seemed.
00:08:25
Speaker 3: Insensitive had they decided to continue on with their party and their frivolity while someone was willing to lay their life on the line.
00:08:31
Speaker 1: Is now in the hospital recovering.
00:08:33
Speaker 3: Perhaps, I think in normal circumstances, yes, But then when you think back to twenty twenty four when the President was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, it did end up giving what will be an iconic moment, probably for the rest of American history, where the President stands back up, blood dripping from his ear, and he throws up his fists, founded by a Secret Service agent saying fight, fight, Fight. It might have been another moment like that, not as serious because the bullets didn't come close to him this time, but still a very, very frightening event. A local guy now charged in this case. We're going to find out more about the security lapse. We've got a live report coming up, but the Department of Justice in Washington is set to hold a briefing on this suspect in any moment. We'll also bring that to you live as Monks and Merrill continues on this Monday. You're listening to Monks and Merrill on demand from KFI AM six.
00:09:28
Speaker 1: Forty more stimulating talk.
00:09:31
Speaker 3: We will track your steps from the inception of your plan, and we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jennine Piro, who is a part of the dog press conference happening right now. I am six forty more stimulating talk on Chris, MARYL.
00:09:49
Speaker 1: Michael Monks.
00:09:49
Speaker 3: You just heard a great deal of that press conference. We're going to kind of jump out of it now as they've given a great deal of information, including that he had a shotgun. I believe she said he had an automatic weapon, but said that they were perch just in California. There's gonna be some discrepancy about that. How did he purchase an automatic firearm in California? Perhaps I heard it wrong, so my apologies if I did. He did travel from California to DC. He stayed overnight the night before he made his reservations, almost three weeks prior to taking action there in DC, and his intention was to take out as many high ranking officials as he could.
00:10:22
Speaker 1: Expect that we're going to have more charges coming. Yeah.
00:10:25
Speaker 3: He was in court today charged with attempting to assassinate the president and other charges, including transporting those weapons across state lines. He also had knives on him. He was definitely hell bent on reaching the president. According to federal prosecutors, there and federal investigators. You heard them say that he was starting with the top of the administration on down and would engage with anyone who tried to stop him from reaching the president. Hannah Bryant is a News Nation White House correspondent. Hannah, were you were you at this dinner last night?
00:10:57
Speaker 5: I went to a dinner. Ye know, I was not at the dinner. I was actually at the White House reporting. You know, we have someone there every weekend, and I was. I was at the White House reporting as it all unfolded. But I was watching it live on the video, just really astounded by what I was seeing, because of course we were, you know, preparing to watch the president's speech, his roast of journalists, preparing to kind of talk about what he said on that stage. This is really a highly anticipated moment, the first time he was attending the dinner as president, and then we watched what happened unfold.
00:11:26
Speaker 2: In real time.
00:11:27
Speaker 5: We were getting information in from our News Nation journalists who were in the room and really were telling us about kind of all of the shocking things that they were seeing as people were tackled to the ground by productive detail. You know, there was a lot of chaos and confusion about what exactly was happening, whether it was gunshots that they heard or something else. And of course now we're learning a lot of new details about what it really was that unfolded, but certainly a lot of shocked, chaos, confusion in that room as this scene happened over the weekend.
00:11:57
Speaker 3: What are we hearing about any lapses in security and any changes that might be coming in the future for events like this.
00:12:05
Speaker 5: Well, the White House at this point is not ruling out security changes, but the line from the administration officials is that actually what we saw, they believe is everything went right with security. In fact, you just heard the Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche say minutes ago in that press conference, there were hundreds of agents between this would be assassin and the president. You know, you see that pretty extraordinary security footage of him rushing through that checkpoint, rushing past those Secret Service agents before they're able to get him down. But the distance between where that happened and the ballroom is what a lot of people, I think looking from the outside don't know. Those are on different levels of the hotel, so there was a bit of distance before he was able to enter that ballroom, and like Blanche said, there were Secret Service guards, you know, stations throughout and that's something we saw in real time in the ballroom as those Secret Service agents you know, swarmed a bunch of the leaders in the room. They got the President out really quickly, the Vice president as well. But like I said, they are not rolling out the potential for changes down the road.
00:13:07
Speaker 2: We're told.
00:13:07
Speaker 5: White House tup of Staff Sudie Wilds is calling a meeting this week with DHS official Secret Service officials, White House operations people, and they're going to talk about what went right over the weekend and what they may need to consider for future major events that the President will be at.
00:13:22
Speaker 3: Hannah Brandt is News Nation White House correspondent. Hannah, we had hoped to talk to you a little bit longer before this press conference popped up, but hopefully we can connect again soon and we'll be looking forward to your reporting out of DC.
00:13:33
Speaker 5: Sounds good, great talking with you, Thanks, Hannah.
00:13:35
Speaker 3: Glad you're safe. Oh one correction I did miss here. It was a semi automatic pistol that was used, So yeah, just wanted to make sure I clarify it well done, I mean want to pass around miss misinformation. We've been discussing the happenings on Saturday night there to the sky from Torrance who traveled to DC and took a firearms with him and then tried to assassinate the president in the entire cabin and the DOJ doing a press conference right now. Joining us is our legal analyst Lu Shapiro. He's also a local attorney. Lou, thanks for being on the program. What's how big a.
00:14:09
Speaker 1: Deal is it?
00:14:09
Speaker 3: Because Jenine Pierro, excuse me, was kind of going on about him traveling interstate with firearms? Is that how big of an enhancement is that that she seemed she seemed to make it out like that was a really really big deal.
00:14:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a very calculated offense. We're seeing that in the complaint that was filed just a few moments ago in court, which in Affidavid was prepared by a special Relasian and outlines the chronology of what happened here. And this is very calculated. This person planned this out over a good period of time, knew what he was doing. He even wrote an email where he outlines who he's after and who he's not after. So he's in a lot of trouble this guy.
00:14:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, Lou, this is a lot of evidence already piling up publicly. I mean, in the immediate aftermath they id'd this guy. We knew he was from here in southern California, but we also knew that he seemed to be otherwise a pretty smart guy. He's got some pretty intelligent degrees. But now he's he's facing a charge of attempted assassination of the president. I imagine that's not a misdemeanor. What are the potential consequences that he's facing.
00:15:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's definitely looking at life in prison on the fact that they added the most difficult charge for him, attempted to assassinate the president of the United States, in addition to the other charges like transportation of firearm, discharge of a firearm during the crime of violence. And keep in mind, on top of all this, he's shot at a secret service data and thank god he had a vest that saved his life at close range. But it really doesn't get worse than what this guy did.
00:15:43
Speaker 3: Luke Shapiro is our legal analyst and our local attorney. So, Lou, where do you even start if you're trying to mount a defense for a guy like this, I mean, it seems pretty cut and dry from the outside looking in. Can you say, oh, no, he wasn't after the president. Can they even argue.
00:15:59
Speaker 2: That, well, before I saw the complaint, I anticipated this could be some sort of an insanity defense where he may argue that he didn't know the difference between right and wrong at the time, that he was experiencing some sort of psychotic episode that would have contributed to it. Because, as we said earlier, this man is educated. He's an intelligent person, so there might have been those grounds to go along. But now that we've seen the email that he sent a family around the time that this was done, where he outlines exactly what he's doing. He even says, I'm not intending on hitting hotel security or Capitol police or the National Guard. I'm just looking to get administrative officials. So it shows you that he did know the difference between right and wrong in that time, because he's saying, here's who I'm trying to hit. Here's so I'm not trying to hit. And if I hit other people unintentionally, my apologies in advance. So I don't know which way he's going to go. They may still try to run an insanity defense, but it's going to be a much more difficult battle now and a lot of this email that he's sent out.
00:16:57
Speaker 3: We're talking with attorney and legal analyst Lou Shapiro here on kfi's Monks and Merrill Cole. Thomas Allen was officially charged today, But what comes next? I mean, how quickly can we expect this federal case to proceed against this guy from Torrance?
00:17:15
Speaker 2: I think it's going to go pretty smull in the defense side. Generally, the worse the case, the longer it takes, and that's because there's going to be forensic experts appointed to evaluate him psychologically and issue findings as to what his diagnosises are, if he has pre existing ones, if he was medicating at the time, where if he was maybe changed his medication at the time. So there's going to be a lot of forensic workup that's going to take probably six months to a year before we see anything significant happen on this.
00:17:43
Speaker 1: So what can we look forward to is the next big thing?
00:17:45
Speaker 2: Then, Lou, he'll have another bail hearing where he's going to try to obviously make some sort of request to be released. That's not going to happen, and then it's going to be set for a trial probably six months to a year from now, and between now and that date, we can expect probably some sort of a resolution being reached on this case.
00:18:05
Speaker 1: This is obviously somebody who had a lot to say.
00:18:07
Speaker 3: There's a paper trail a mile long of his intention, of his possible motives for this thing leading up to these, you know, as arrest and the allegations that are very very significant, these charges. Do you expect that we will hear from him at any point? Would that be wise?
00:18:26
Speaker 2: I don't think we're going to hear from him, because now that he's been to court, he would have been appointed counsel who would have told him, I'm not letting you say anything. He's said enough already, So I don't think we're gonna be hearing much. But I think what this is going to lead to a discussion is mental health in America because obviously there's there's a talk about gun violence, and this person was able to get weapons very easily. But there's the other side also about how are people that have mental illnesses, Are they being properly treated, are they accounted for? Are we as a society doing enough to alert authority that this person needs help and is that help in place for them? And that discussion I think needs to happen more and more.
00:19:07
Speaker 3: Lucia Piro, our legal analyst, local attorney, lou thanks so much. I appreciate your insight on that you got Shanks. Yeah, you know, I mean, this doesn't seem to be one of those on the surface, we don't know everything yet.
00:19:19
Speaker 1: We know what we know so far, which is that this guy clearly.
00:19:23
Speaker 3: Intended to call some very serious harm to the federal government and to the president in particular. But this is partisan insanity. I mean, this seems like somebody who was just driven to the brink by politics, not just by general distrust of neighbors and that sort of thing. Yeah, and I'm glad you said that, because when we start talking about mental illness, is being.
00:19:45
Speaker 1: A wonk a mental illness?
00:19:48
Speaker 3: If, for instance, how many times have we heard someone say, uh, if you're a member of the Republican Party, then you must have a screw loose, or if you're a member of the Democratic Party then and you're not mentally well.
00:20:01
Speaker 1: Right.
00:20:02
Speaker 3: We hear people on the left say that about people, and right people and right say that about people on the left, and I have to believe that the person's saying it is displaying more of an uneven keel than the person they're.
00:20:13
Speaker 1: Ascribing it to. Right.
00:20:15
Speaker 3: But is that mental illness? Is fanaticism mental illness? I think it's getting there, unfortunately, because I will tell you, in the immediate aftermath of this shooting, I go right to social media. Let's see what kind of news I can gather. But when I open Facebook, and that's where I see people that I know in my personal life, neighbors, people associated with the world, Yeah, that sort of thing. I couldn't believe their reactions. Now, I don't expect my former neighbors to go on a shooting spree anytime soon, but I am concerned about the statements they're willing to post openly with these conspiratorial suggestions, you know, And it doesn't matter which side of the political aisle they're on. There's fanatics on the left and the right. But what's surprise is how that is creeping into what would have traditionally been my mainstream Democrat friends, my mainstream Republican friends who weren't on the fringes. But now they seem to be.
00:21:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, extremism seems to be main strange. Yeah, exactly, it's driving people mad. I don't know how you take something.
00:21:16
Speaker 3: By all accounts, this guy seems like a pretty normal guy who was pretty invested in politics.
00:21:21
Speaker 1: Obviously. I mean, we all know somebody's pretty invested in politics.
00:21:24
Speaker 3: Do that mean that every crazy uncle is suddenly mentally ill and needs to have a fifty one to fifty on them?
00:21:31
Speaker 1: I don't know how far do they slide? You know, how close to the line.
00:21:34
Speaker 3: Don't get it is just the consequence of having three hundred and forty million people living in a country that you're gonna have one or two they're going to slide too far. Yeah, I think it's more than one or two that's the problem. Hey, maybe our listeners can help open up the iHeartRadio app. Click on the talkback button, let us know is everybody going crazy, and we'll continue to follow this story and bring you any late breaking details. Meanwhile, you paid premiums, you follow rules, and then your neighborhood burns Now. The insurance companies are learning excuse me, they're leaning hard on the fine print.
00:22:07
Speaker 1: But don't worry.
00:22:07
Speaker 3: Your elected officials are here a little trip to the White House from a couple of local officials.
00:22:11
Speaker 1: We'll get into that next. On Monks and maryl.
00:22:14
Speaker 3: You're listening to Monks and Meryl on demand from KFI AM. It is Monks and Merrill on this Monday. Welcome back from the weekend. I'm Michael Monks alongside Chris Merril. We're with you till three o'clock every weekday. If you miss a moment, just go to KFI AM six forty dot com, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcast and listen to us at your leisure. We asked you before the break, is everyone losing their minds? Are politics driving us all insane? I kind of feel like the answer is absolutely Merril insanity.
00:22:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. See, Okay, so we get this talk back that talks about it.
00:23:00
Speaker 6: Guys, Guys, let's be real, period, you don't go attempting to shoot someone and assassinate a president and not have mental illness. It's pretty obvious you're spending so much time nitpicking the word mental illness. Let's catch up to reality.
00:23:28
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a little bit of umbridge with that. I will join you in taking the umbrage.
00:23:33
Speaker 3: And The reason is that I think there's a difference between being so deeply ensconced in your own self righteousness that you lose track of sort of good versus evil reality, that sort of thing versus what I genuinely consider to be mental illness that needs immediate treatment.
00:23:54
Speaker 1: Right, so we.
00:23:56
Speaker 3: All become obsessed with things. Is obsession a mental illness? If it drives us to take action in a certain way, then we might go, oh my gosh, they were out of their minds. But that doesn't mean I've lost comprehension with reality. Just means I've become so obsessed that I that I set aside any sort of any sort of a you know, a superego that would correct me on that. When I see someone a rooster at five point thirty in the morning screaming at the light pole outside of my apartment.
00:24:24
Speaker 1: That's mental illness.
00:24:25
Speaker 3: H That's somebody I would not allow near the president because they could be a danger to themselves or others around them. When I have when I talk to I've got an uncle that is like, there's nothing better than a red hat. Maga wear a maga red hat wearing you know, person, this is this is America at its best, and anyone who's liberal should be tried for treason, right, that's my uncle. I don't I think that's obsession. I don't think he's mentally ill. He still knows how to read a calendar and a clock, and he still knows how to drive to work. He's not Is he not on the road though? Is he on mental illness highway? I think a lot of people in this country hate other people because of the politics, because we are, as you authenticate, obsessed with politics. How do we decide what is not mental illness?
00:25:13
Speaker 2: Then?
00:25:13
Speaker 1: For instance, well, there is a clinical definition. I saw you lose your mind.
00:25:18
Speaker 3: You absolutely lost control of bodily function when Kentucky hit a buzzer beater during the NCAA champion. That is a mischaracterization of events. What you saw was jubilation, happiness, obsession. Yeah, okay? Is that mental illness?
00:25:34
Speaker 7: No?
00:25:36
Speaker 1: Okay? So what's the line between obsession mental illness? Is it action? Violent actions? Well? Incidentally, I think there is.
00:25:44
Speaker 3: Because now I'm concerned that someone who actually needs help, that has a mental illness that needs to be treated, maybe medication, maybe maybe they need to have some time where they're getting locked up, and now all of a sudden we're like, well, yeah, but now this person's mentally ill. We can't just label everyone who does things we don't like is mental illness. What about all the break ins that are happening in the valley, that's obviously a disconnect between good and bad. Are they mentally ill? No, they're criminals taking care of criminal activity because they had a goal. Yeah, but they were selfish. If you thought I'm better than everyone else, I'm going to You can't delineate between a burglary and a plot to assassinate the government. You don't think there are different degrees of what a person is feeling inside their heads.
00:26:25
Speaker 1: Absolutely, but it's not mental illness. It could be, No, it's not.
00:26:29
Speaker 3: It's very calculated from somebody who's got a long history of degrees.
00:26:33
Speaker 1: From cal tech. Smart people can go insane.
00:26:36
Speaker 6: It's not.
00:26:37
Speaker 1: Look at you. You're an educated man and you are absolutely losing it right now?
00:26:42
Speaker 3: What about what about this thing that make us crazy? Then that's the problem, it's you. No, Well, I'm sorry. Simply because someone wants to do something horrible doesn't make them mentally ey. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get what you're saying no, you don't the court.
00:26:59
Speaker 1: I mean, because there.
00:26:59
Speaker 3: Are precise definitions for mentally ill right now, we're just throwing the word around. I get what you're saying. There is a clinical definition, and I'm sure there are varying degrees of that mental illness and this person will be evaluated for that. But my question was, is the political climate in this country driving many of us in that direction. We're getting a lot of feedback. Maybe we'll play some more throughout the show. But as we mentioned, Washington, d C. Was also the site of an I don't know, I don't know. This was kind of a meeting that I wasn't expecting. I didn't expect to see Mayor Karen Bass in the Oval office. Not so surprised to see LA County Supervisor Catherine Barger there. She is a Republican and it probably has a better relationship with the federal government than Karen Bass does. But both Supervisor Barger Mayor Bass in the White House with President Trump last week. Mayor Bass gave him one of the Olympic torches from nineteen eighty four because I think as she and Catherine Barker were there to add ask for help in federal funding with the wildfire recovery, you can win Trump over even if he has said bad things about you. He does like flattery. Yeah, yeah, And I think Mayor Mom Donnie out of New York when they had that highly publicized meeting in the Oval office. Also, you could see that somebody who seems to represent the antithesis to Donald Trump's politics, suddenly they're paling around together and having this this great chat. They're complimenting each other. That is the path to Donald Trump's heart. It is flattery, and he seemed to have a pretty good meeting with Mayor Basson Supervisor Barger. So does that mean that everyone's going to have their homes paid for and we're going to bring the prices down on the fair plan and everything else. Well, I think we're closer to that than we were before the meeting, undoubtedly. But this is not just a photo op. I mean, these local leaders had to go there to speak to the president. They are looking for about sixteen billion dollars in federal fundings of the city and the county. You know, Governor Newsom has asked for nearly thirty four billion dollars from the federal government for wildfire recovery and it's still going really slow, and the President has been critical and other Republicans have been critical of the pace here. And if it gives President Trump the opportunity to come in here and make it look like now that I'm here, now that the federal government is here dunking, Uh yeah, that's a big win for him.
00:29:22
Speaker 1: I agree.
00:29:23
Speaker 3: And if you're if you're Karen Bass, I think you can make it look like a big win for you too, especially in an election year when you can say, look, it wasn't getting done.
00:29:31
Speaker 1: I did what had to be done. And many of you don't like that.
00:29:33
Speaker 3: I you know, a lot of her supporters aren't gonna like that she's talking to President Trump. But look, that's how you get things done. It's called working across the aisle. That's how it used to be before we all went insane. Stop it, you're insane. I don't understand why you would do that. It's uh, hang on. This is a good one from talkbacks.
00:29:52
Speaker 7: When my sister said that the fires in the Palisades and in Altadena were God's because we elected Gavin Newsome as governors, That's when I knew that she was mentally ill.
00:30:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's bring up Pat Robertson because I always loved Pat Robertson quotes. He was always good for the tsunami was because of the gays or something like that. Yeah, yeah, have you ever been to a tsunami party at a gay club, You'll understand where he was coming from.
00:30:19
Speaker 1: Good time. I haven't whip, when wet, I will. We'll find my reservation, no doubt.
00:30:25
Speaker 2: Hey.
00:30:25
Speaker 3: While the adults in the room are trying to figure out how to prevent wildfires and pay for them when they do have, and the usual crowd is undermining all credibility by wasting time, and you hat another long shot lawsuit to cast the blame on someone else. Well and tell you hear who they should be, who they say should be paying all of the fines for the fires. That's next Monks and Meryl KFI AM six forty five everywhere in the iHeart Radio app.
00:30:46
Speaker 1: KFI on demand.
00:30:49
Speaker 3: You've been listening to Monks and Merrill. Hear the show live weekdays from noon to three on KFI AM six forty at anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
