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Speaker 1: Can if I am six forty.

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Speaker 2: You're listening to the John Cobel Podcast on the iHeartRadio app.

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Speaker 3: I'm Phil Schuman from Fox eleven News in for John

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Speaker 3: co Belt this afternoon one to four. Thanks for the

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Speaker 3: opportunity to sit in John's chair. It's a big task

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Speaker 3: and hopefully we'll be up to it. Over the next

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Speaker 3: few hours. We have a lot to talk about, what's

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Speaker 3: the latest in Washington, what that means for us here

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Speaker 3: in Southern California, as always, the issue of homelessness, which

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Speaker 3: is at the top of almost everybody's list of concerns.

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Speaker 3: Breaking news there, We're going to talk to one of

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Speaker 3: the reporters and editors that broke a major story, which

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Speaker 3: unfortunately is not a surprising story about the state of

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Speaker 3: care for the homelessness and homelessness funding here in Southern California. Also,

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Speaker 3: as we speak, I'm keeping an eye on a couple

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Speaker 3: of the monitors hear in the KFI News studios. Officials

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Speaker 3: are on now with a live update from Santa Fe,

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Speaker 3: New Mexico, into the mischief various deaths.

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Speaker 1: Their words last week of.

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Speaker 3: Gene Hackman are suspicious, Perhaps is more accurate of Gene

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Speaker 3: Hackman and his wife. We're keeping an eye on that

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Speaker 3: and we'll have that information for you as soon as

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Speaker 3: we get a chance to summarize it. I want to

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Speaker 3: talk with you today over the next few hours about leadership.

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Speaker 4: Who is it.

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Speaker 3: Here in southern California that we look to for leadership,

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Speaker 3: The way our governments work with local government, county government,

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Speaker 3: city government, and of course look into Gavin Newsom in

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Speaker 3: state government. There's a lot of opportunities for people to lead,

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Speaker 3: and I don't know that anyone has really risen to

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Speaker 3: the task. Now, say what you will about Donald Trump,

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Speaker 3: he does seem to be exerting a strong leadership role

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Speaker 3: with his co president Elon Musk. So much news is

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Speaker 3: about the Department of Government Efficiency DOGE, and we're going

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Speaker 3: to start off this afternoon talking about that. The Republicans

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Speaker 3: have a plan to make the DOGE cuts permanent, at

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Speaker 3: least as permanent as anything can can be until the

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Speaker 3: next president takes office. So joining us now to talk

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Speaker 3: about that is ABC News correspondent Ali percorn Ali.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for coming on.

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Speaker 5: With us, Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 3: So can you give us an update and where things

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Speaker 3: stand again? The headline is that the Senate Republicans are

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Speaker 3: pitching a plan that would make the funding cuts, the

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Speaker 3: DOGE funding cuts permanent.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right. So the thing that's been a little

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Speaker 5: bit tough for DOGE and the efforts that Elon Musk

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Speaker 5: has been having so far is that no matter what,

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Speaker 5: no matter how much they try to do, ultimately in

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Speaker 5: this country, Congress controls the power of the purse. And

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Speaker 5: so well DOGE has been going through and slashing a

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Speaker 5: lot of these fending cuts, they've run into some legal challenges, right,

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Speaker 5: because Congress has already appropriated a lot of that funding

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Speaker 5: for these the federal agencies that go to trying to slash.

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Speaker 5: So we've had at least one instance where the Supreme

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Speaker 5: Court this week actually ruled that the teperal government has

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Speaker 5: to pay out some of those cuts, including cuts that

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Speaker 5: were made to USAID.

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Speaker 6: Right.

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Speaker 5: So Senate Republicans this week hitch Elon Musk on a plan.

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Speaker 5: It's a little bit wonky, but basically it would allow

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Speaker 5: them to make the cuts in line with congressional spending

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Speaker 5: and so that would make the cuts, in their mind

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Speaker 5: a little more permanent. What that would look like, it's

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Speaker 5: something called a recision package, and it's a little bit

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Speaker 5: procedurally heavy, but basically what it involves is that President

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Speaker 5: Trump would send the Congress a proposal for what he

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Speaker 5: wants slash out of their budget. But as Congress could

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Speaker 5: get on board with it, they can actually pass those

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Speaker 5: cuts with a simple majority of votes in the Senate.

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Speaker 5: That's really important because that means that if all Republicans

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Speaker 5: get on the same page about this, they can actually

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Speaker 5: pass that cut package without any Democratic support at all.

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Speaker 5: But it is going to require almost all Republicans to

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Speaker 5: be working in locks of on this. It's not clear

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Speaker 5: yet whether all Republicans will agree with it.

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Speaker 3: So what's the next step in this process? And have

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Speaker 3: we just all accepted the fact that DOGE is is

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Speaker 3: legitimate agency because there's even questions about whether it's an

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Speaker 3: official department of the government.

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Speaker 4: Well, that's a.

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Speaker 5: Really good point. And so the reason that Senate Republicans

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Speaker 5: went ahead and pitched this idea to Elon Musk is

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Speaker 5: that it sort of allowed DOGE to do this quote

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Speaker 5: unquote advisory works that they're doing. They'll still bring it

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Speaker 5: in line with like recognized ideas of how Congress operates. Right,

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Speaker 5: Because you asked what the next step is? The next

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Speaker 5: step that they decided to go forward with. This would

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Speaker 5: be President Trump sending Congress this recision package, sending Congress

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Speaker 5: this proposal for what he wants to have cut, and

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Speaker 5: so in a way, Doe just sort of sitting on

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Speaker 5: this side of that. They're not actually involved in the

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Speaker 5: legitimate process of legislating the cuts of law. So the

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Speaker 5: first step would be Trump sending them over this proposal,

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Speaker 5: and then Congress would not to consider it and pass

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Speaker 5: it through both chambers if they wanted to actually get

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Speaker 5: it into law.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we're talking with ABC News correspondent Ali Percorin about

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Speaker 3: the Republicans plan to make the so called Doge cuts permanent.

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Speaker 3: But when we say permanent, President Trump's only going to

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Speaker 3: be in office for four more years unless he changes

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Speaker 3: the constitution and gets re elected. So permanent is really

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Speaker 3: a word that we should maybe put in air quotes.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, as you mentioned when you and first

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Speaker 5: introduced me, it's as permanent as anything can be in

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Speaker 5: this government, right. I mean, the whole structure of the

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Speaker 5: United States government system is that if the voters don't

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Speaker 5: like something that's been put into law, they can elect

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Speaker 5: new officials to try to change it. When we say

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Speaker 5: permanent here, though, what we mean is that right now,

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Speaker 5: DOGE is sort of acting on its own authority. It's

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Speaker 5: kind of like moving through the federal government and.

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Speaker 3: Slashing these right with either a sledgechamber measures first a sledgehamber,

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Speaker 3: then a scalpel exactly.

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Speaker 5: And so what we mean by it here is that,

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Speaker 5: unlike the Doge cuts, which can be challenged in court

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Speaker 5: and kind of batted around, if Congress passed this package,

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Speaker 5: it would be kind of irrefutable that it was legal,

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Speaker 5: as the argument here, at least as long as Congress

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Speaker 5: continues to allocate spending at the levels that are consit

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Speaker 5: with what DOGE wants to do, it would be permanent. Now,

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Speaker 5: if a new president came into town, or Congress was

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Speaker 5: suddenly controlled by Democrats, maybe in the midterms this year,

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Speaker 5: you could see all of that changing.

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Speaker 1: So how long have you been doing this Capitol Hill correspondence.

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Speaker 5: I've been covering Congress for like four or five of years.

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Speaker 3: Now, So is it markedly different since President Trump came back?

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Speaker 3: So you were there probably for the entire Biden administration

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Speaker 3: and now the Trump readministration takes over.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like a whole different reality, right.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I started covering Congress towards the tail

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Speaker 5: end of Trump's first tournament. Off it okay, that was

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Speaker 5: colored very heavily by the coronavirus pandemic, though, so it

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Speaker 5: wasn't like a super typical experience regardless. Obviously, anytime that

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Speaker 5: you have a Congress controlled by the president's party, you're

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Speaker 5: going to see them moving a lot more aggressively. So

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Speaker 5: in the first two years of President Biden's administration, you

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Speaker 5: had Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate, and

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Speaker 5: they too were moving very aggressively to try to pass

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Speaker 5: President Biden's policies into law. The difference, I would say

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Speaker 5: between what Republicans are doing now versus what Republicans were

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Speaker 5: doing during President Trump's first term is that there were

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Speaker 5: a number of Republicans in President Trump's first terms who

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Speaker 5: were outspoken in their opposition to President Trump's sort of

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Speaker 5: a typical operating style. In our newer Congress, you're seeing

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Speaker 5: a lot of Republicans, for the most part, fall in

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Speaker 5: line with the way that Trump is operating, and largely

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Speaker 5: that's because they see Trump's resounding victory in the election

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Speaker 5: as a mandate from the American people that their voters

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Speaker 5: really like what Trump is doing, and so they want

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Speaker 5: to give him the broadest latitude they pop probably can

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Speaker 5: to allow him to operate under the campaign promises that

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Speaker 5: he made the American people.

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Speaker 3: Well, that seems to be the moo the marching orders

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Speaker 3: at this point. Appreciate your insight. Ali Percorn from ABC News.

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Speaker 3: We're gonna move on and give you an update on

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Speaker 3: the latest on the Gene Hackman death investigation into the

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Speaker 3: suspicious death of himself and his wife, which was a

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Speaker 3: week ago, of course, became a much bigger story because

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Speaker 3: of the proximity to the Oscars.

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Speaker 1: Two time Oscar winner.

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Speaker 4: You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM

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Speaker 4: six forty.

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Speaker 1: I love listening to those promos from doctor Wendy Walsh.

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Speaker 3: First of all, her voice is incredible, and then the

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Speaker 3: question she always asks, you know, and the teases right.

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Speaker 1: Always listen to her show on Sunday Night.

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Speaker 3: And I knew her a little bit, you know, years

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Speaker 3: ago when she was a TV reporter, and I'm just

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Speaker 3: I've always told her how impressed I am with her

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Speaker 3: that she went back to school. Has you know, these

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Speaker 3: degrees as actual, real profession now, not just us that

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Speaker 3: come in here and talk on the radio without really

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Speaker 3: any qualifications or skills.

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Speaker 1: And then to hear.

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Speaker 3: Handle is one of a kind. And he had the podcast, right,

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Speaker 3: he had the Bill Handle Show podcast. And then he

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Speaker 3: by his own admission, if you listen to Handle in

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Speaker 3: the mornings, uh you, he said, I don't want to

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Speaker 3: do it anymore. I guess it was too much work.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, people have said to me, you should have

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Speaker 3: a podcast. I'm like, why who wants to hear what

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Speaker 3: I have to say in a podcast? I'm happy to

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Speaker 3: be here to say what I have to say here

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Speaker 3: and the opportunities opportunities that I get to to sit

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Speaker 3: in here on the microphone behind the microphones a KFI.

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Speaker 3: I've always loved AM radio, talk radio audio. I know

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Speaker 3: half the folks listen on the iHeartRadio app, which is fantastic.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, it seems like there were so many podcasts

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Speaker 3: out there. My wife said something interesting yesterday. She said

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Speaker 3: podcasts are kind of like the new newspapers. I'm not

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Speaker 3: sure that I one hundred percent agree with that, but

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Speaker 3: I understand what she was saying. But there's so many

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Speaker 3: podcasts out there, and it's so difficult to break through

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Speaker 3: on one of them to get sort of a wide audience.

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Speaker 3: But hey, there's lots of ways to get information, lots

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Speaker 3: of ways to entertain yourself, lots of ways to inform yourself.

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Speaker 3: One of the things we're going to be talking about

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Speaker 3: over the next few hours. There was a really interesting

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Speaker 3: article that we printed out from the Washington Post talking

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Speaker 3: about the White House's new media strategy. So the politician,

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Speaker 3: the office, the entity, they are now the content creators

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Speaker 3: and the news providers.

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Speaker 1: In other words, it's not just the White House.

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Speaker 3: Does something, City Hall does something, the Condye Border Supervisors

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Speaker 3: does something, and then we report on it, and you,

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Speaker 3: as a news consumer, get the understanding or the information

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Speaker 3: from that. It's like now the newsmakers are now creating

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Speaker 3: their own content. This is not a brand new concept,

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Speaker 3: but the Trump white House seems to be refining this

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Speaker 3: or taking it to a whole new level. I mean,

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Speaker 3: Caroline Levitt seems like a nice person, but she clearly

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Speaker 3: has an agenda. There's no such thing as a sort

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Speaker 3: of unbiased or neutral press representative anymore. I guess that's understandable.

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Speaker 3: Their jobs to make their boss look as good as possible.

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Speaker 3: Whether you're representing the president, whether you're representing the mayor,

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Speaker 3: whether you're representing the police department, the fire department. There's

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Speaker 3: just so much in the news these days. And now

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Speaker 3: the like I mentioned, the news organization is not the

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Speaker 3: conduit information. It's just one conduit of information. You can

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Speaker 3: get it directly from the source. Follow Mayor Bass on Twitter,

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Speaker 3: Follow you know, Lindsay Horvath on Twitter, Follow Donald Trump

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Speaker 3: of course on Twitter, on X on whatever platform it is.

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Speaker 3: And so I think it's a good thing in balance

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Speaker 3: that there are more sources of information now myself coming

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Speaker 3: from what.

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Speaker 1: Would be considered quote unquote mainstream media.

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Speaker 3: Obviously I'm biased in favor of using organizations with credibility

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Speaker 3: and a track record of, you know, telling truthful, fair,

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Speaker 3: unbiased stories as one of your primary sources of information.

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Speaker 3: But hey, what I think is not necessarily any more

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Speaker 3: valid than what you think. But what I what I

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Speaker 3: do in reporting a story, I think has more value

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Speaker 3: than you know, your average blogger who might be sitting

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Speaker 3: at home on their computer, because we have years of

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Speaker 3: experience in doing this, whether it's going to a press conference,

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Speaker 3: whether it's interviewing officials, whether it's respond to disasters, you

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Speaker 3: pick your news story. The quote unquote professionals I think

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Speaker 3: deserve a little bit more credit and a little bit

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Speaker 3: more respect than perhaps we were getting. If you listen

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Speaker 3: to me here when I have the opportunity to fill

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Speaker 3: in on KFI, you know that I've often mentioned how

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Speaker 3: I think President Trump just really hurt so.

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Speaker 1: Many of us on the news media.

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Speaker 3: I don't mean emotionally, I mean the credibility wise when

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Speaker 3: he coined that term fake news, because so many people

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Speaker 3: then jumped on that bandwagon that they can't trust what

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Speaker 3: they hear. And sometimes you can and sometimes you can't.

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Speaker 3: And that's why I'm saying, as a news consumer, you

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Speaker 3: have a responsibility to be selective and choose well in

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Speaker 3: what you are deciding to fill your head with. So

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Speaker 3: that's a little bit of a sermon. I don't know

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Speaker 3: if I want to call it that. I'd also maybe

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Speaker 3: call it common sense advice. I'd feel much better if

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Speaker 3: I'm looking at Deborah Mark in Newsman and she was

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Speaker 3: like at least nodding her head, like occasionally understanding, maybe

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Speaker 3: even agreeing with what I'm saying. We're gonna talk more

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Speaker 3: about this and a lot of other issues that affect

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Speaker 3: our day to day life, day to day struggle here

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Speaker 3: in southern California. To get by two months ago, life

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Speaker 3: change for thousands of people, and really for all of

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Speaker 3: us going forward with the fires, We're gonna update what's

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Speaker 3: happening in the Palisades, We're gonna update what's happening in

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Speaker 3: Alta Dina.

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Speaker 1: Some great news from the Dodgers.

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Speaker 3: They're gonna be making a major contribution in the Alta

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Speaker 3: Dina community.

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Speaker 1: But first, you're.

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Speaker 4: Listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI, a.

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Speaker 1: Six forty iHeartRadio app.

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Speaker 3: I would love it if you would click on the

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Speaker 3: microphone icon on that app and record a comment on

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Speaker 3: the talkback feature. I'd love to hear some of your

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Speaker 3: thoughts as we move through Friday afternoon, beautiful day today.

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Speaker 1: I'm so tired of.

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Speaker 3: Storm watch and then more storm watch coming next week,

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Speaker 3: and we can't make light it, and we shouldn't make

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Speaker 3: light of it because of the potential for disaster in

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Speaker 3: the burn zones. But I just feel, and maybe it's me,

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Speaker 3: because I watch too much news and listen to too

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Speaker 3: much news, and read too much news. It just feels

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Speaker 3: like we're just getting bombard and we just finished with

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Speaker 3: this rain, and there's a chance of rain at the

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Speaker 3: end of next week, and then a month from now

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Speaker 3: we may get some more rain.

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Speaker 1: It's like, I don't like the rain. I don't want

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Speaker 1: the rain. You can keep the rain.

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Speaker 3: You heard in Deborah Mark's newscast a brief update from

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Speaker 3: Santa Fe, New Mexico on the Gene Hackman and his

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Speaker 3: wife death investigation. There was just a live update from

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Speaker 3: that scene from the Sheriff's department, from medical examiner and

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Speaker 3: so forth. And this is kind of a strange one

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Speaker 3: because remember the story Betsy Arakawa Betsy Hackman, sixty five

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Speaker 3: years old, was found on the floor of a bathroom

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Speaker 3: in the couple's home. And then Hackman was found dead

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Speaker 3: in what they call the mud room, which is like

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Speaker 3: sort of an East Coast term for like sort of

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Speaker 3: the back door in your house and maybe the laundry

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Speaker 3: is at So what seems weird is that she supposedly

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Speaker 3: died of hantavirus, which is a pulmonary infection that you

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Speaker 3: typically get from like the droppings of rodents. She dies

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Speaker 3: on February eleventh, at least that was the last time

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Speaker 3: she was seen alive or sent out any emails or

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Speaker 3: any communications, and then he dies from apparently heart disease,

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Speaker 3: complications of cardiovascular disease a week later.

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Speaker 1: So what does that mean? Does that mean Ray's joining

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Speaker 1: us now?

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Speaker 3: Does that mean that he lived with her body for

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Speaker 3: a week in the house, or does that mean that

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Speaker 3: he was gone and came home to discover the body

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Speaker 3: and then coincidentally died. In the next segment, we'll be

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Speaker 3: talking to ABC News Brian Clark about all this. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: but I mean the timeline is unusual, right, I mean,

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Speaker 3: she dies in Februar eleventh, he dies Febuer eighteenth. So

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Speaker 3: this is something if you're going to be listening to

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Speaker 3: the news and watching the local news on TV. We're

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Speaker 3: going to be talking about in detail this afternoon, and

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Speaker 3: we'll save this discussion till we get Brian Clark. At

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Speaker 3: one point fifty I was able to watch some of

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Speaker 3: the captions of the news conference that was carried live

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Speaker 3: on some of the cable networks here while I was

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Speaker 3: talking to on the studio, and it was a sheriff's apartment,

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Speaker 3: and it was a medical examiner, and it seemed like

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Speaker 3: a ton of sort of medical terminology without much explanation,

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Speaker 3: but we'll get into that. But at least it confirms

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Speaker 3: what they had pretty much told us at the beginning

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Speaker 3: that there wasn't any obvious signs of foul play or

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Speaker 3: trauma to the bodies or anything like that. But this

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Speaker 3: timeline seems very weird, all right, So it was two

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Speaker 3: months ago today that the world changed for us for

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Speaker 3: so many of us here in Southern California. We've of

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Speaker 3: course been through fires, mud slides, earthquakes many time before,

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Speaker 3: but nothing on this scale of devastation. I've often talked

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Speaker 3: about how sort of we're going to remember pre January

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Speaker 3: seventh in Southern California and post January seventh in Southern

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Speaker 3: California for the rest of our lives. Some good news

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Speaker 3: today is that today's the first day that you can

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Speaker 3: drink the water without health concerns in the Palisades area.

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Speaker 3: Mayor Karen Bass made sure to announce that loudly on Thursday,

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Speaker 3: and she's, you know, she's trying to she's trying to

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Speaker 3: do the right thing. She's trying to be a leader,

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Speaker 3: she's trying to make people feel better. She said that

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Speaker 3: she's committed to rebuilding this community. At Lightning speed she

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Speaker 3: draws comparison. For example, in the campfire, remember that one

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Speaker 3: said it took it took eighteen months for them to

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Speaker 3: clear the water supply for use.

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Speaker 1: Here, they did it in two.

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Speaker 3: And there was also a comment from Janice Canone's the

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Speaker 3: chief engineer and chief executive of the d WP, that

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Speaker 3: they've been working seven days a week, that they flushed

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Speaker 3: the entire system. Now, this is the same person who

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Speaker 3: allowed that one hundred and seventeen million gallon reservoir that

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Speaker 3: could have made a huge difference in fighting the Palisades

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Speaker 3: fire to be offline, and the person that I believe

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Speaker 3: should have gotten the acts from Mayor Bass as soon

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Speaker 3: as she came back from Ghana. Now, if I'm Mayor Bass.

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Speaker 3: When I land and I was questioned by that Irish

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Speaker 3: reporter and remember who was just berating her in the jetway,

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Speaker 3: and she kind of stood there without saying anything, which

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Speaker 3: he has later told Alex Michaelson from Fox eleven and

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Speaker 3: others that was a mistake. But we have sympathy for

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Speaker 3: her as a human because she just got off of

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Speaker 3: like a twelve hour flight and been stressed the entire time.

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Speaker 3: At any rate, I'm Karen Bass, I'm getting off the plane,

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Speaker 3: I'm firing the fire chief, and I'm firing the head

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Speaker 3: of the DWP. She didn't want to do that at

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Speaker 3: the time, she said, because we're in the middle of

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Speaker 3: the crisis, which makes a certain degree of sense. But

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Speaker 3: since then she's been playing catch up. I think most

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Speaker 3: anyone would agree. Being in the news biz, I'm on

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Speaker 3: the email distribution list of the Mayor's office, of County

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Speaker 3: Supervisor's office, of basically all of the city and county

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Speaker 3: state agencies who send out a NonStop barrage of press

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Speaker 3: releases designed, as I mentioned in the previous segment, to

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Speaker 3: tout the accomplishments of their bosses, make it look like

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Speaker 3: how they are on top of everything, and they even

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Speaker 3: send out press releases.

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Speaker 1: Now, Debra, you'll appreciate this.

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Speaker 3: I'm sure you've seen him where what others are saying,

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Speaker 3: where they sort of enlist positive comments from other leaders

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Speaker 3: and politicians to chime in and give compliments to the

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Speaker 3: person who's leading the battle. So Karen Bass, I mean,

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Speaker 3: she's fighting for her career as at least as the

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Speaker 3: mayor of Los Angeles. It's hard to imagine, but next

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Speaker 3: year is the primary for both the mayor's race and

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Speaker 3: the governor's race. We've talked about that here before, and

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Speaker 3: obviously she's in a lot of trouble. And significant news though,

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Speaker 3: is that and Rick Caruso, who is either going to

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Speaker 3: run for mayor or for governor.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure which announced this first.

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Speaker 3: Is that the DWP has agreed to place on the

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Speaker 3: electric lines in the Palisades area underground, at a huge expense,

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Speaker 3: which we haven't figured out who's going to pay for

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Speaker 3: it yet.

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Speaker 1: Each check this out.

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Speaker 3: Each mile of subterranean electric lines can cost from one

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Speaker 3: million to four million, So if it says one million

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Speaker 3: to four million, it's probably three million to eight million.

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Speaker 3: So that's going to be hundreds of millions of dollars

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Speaker 3: just to place the electric lines, the power lines underground

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Speaker 3: to eliminate the risk of fires in the future.

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Speaker 1: That should be everywhere.

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Speaker 5: It should be everywhere area where there are possibilities of wildfires,

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Speaker 5: not just in the Palisades but everywhere else.

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Speaker 1: Right, we don't know what the plan is for Alta Dina.

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Speaker 3: I mean, that's a relatively small section of a huge

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Speaker 3: power distribution line that southern California Edison is already being

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Speaker 3: sued as the likely cause of the fire, because we've

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Speaker 3: seen this over and over again with the you know,

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Speaker 3: the high tension power line spark and the fire starts

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Speaker 3: right underneath them. So at least initially, everyone is saying

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Speaker 3: the right thing and trying to do the right thing,

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Speaker 3: both in clearing the debris and record speed getting the

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Speaker 3: water usable, although we haven't heard that yet in the

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Speaker 3: Altadena area, expedating the permit process and the rebuilding process

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Speaker 3: as much as possible.

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Speaker 1: It's just the.

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Speaker 3: Scope of it is so huge that even though it's

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Speaker 3: happening fast er than normal, I don't think it's going

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Speaker 3: to happen fast.

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Speaker 4: You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI A sixty.

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Speaker 3: One of the hardest working reporters slash and I've ever

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Speaker 3: been around. You remember Patrick Healey from Fox eleven, from

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Speaker 3: Channel four News.

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Speaker 1: That's where I spent about fifteen years of my career.

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Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, in the building right across

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Speaker 3: the street from the studios here at KFI. I can

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Speaker 3: look out the window and see what used to be

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Speaker 3: the old KNBC news operation. Now it's the Burbank studios.

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Speaker 3: I believe they've Channel four news has moved over to

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Speaker 3: the universal lot. At any rate, Elex is the new

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Speaker 3: inventor of the eight day work week. What I used

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Speaker 3: to tease Patrick Heey about when he'd be doing his

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Speaker 3: twelfth story of the day and making the rest of

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Speaker 3: us look bad by comparison. At any rate, Elex has

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Speaker 3: really worked hard to cultivate his relationship with politicians with elected's.

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Speaker 1: I know that he and Gavin Newsom have spent a

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Speaker 1: lot of time together.

439
00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:54,000
Speaker 3: Ellis has a show, The Issue Is on Friday Nights

440
00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:57,639
Speaker 3: at ten thirty, which airs I think statewide now, in

441
00:23:57,720 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 3: which he interviews politicians, newsmakers and others. And he has

442
00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:10,359
Speaker 3: a really good, unique, fun, fair, engaging style. He's not

443
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:13,720
Speaker 3: afraid to ask tough questions. He doesn't show any favoritism,

444
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 3: he doesn't have an agenda, And so if you're new

445
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:20,880
Speaker 3: to him, or to Fox eleven or to The Issue

446
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 3: is Friday Night's at ten thirty, and I then gets

447
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 3: rerun on Sundays on Channel thirteen I think at noon.

448
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 3: At any rate, there's so much noise out there. As

449
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 3: I mentioned earlier, we're talking about podcasts, it's difficult to

450
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:37,440
Speaker 3: find something that breaks through. But if you want some

451
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 3: real political insider knowledge. Check out Elex and his work

452
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:45,000
Speaker 3: and then he'll be on this afternoon and we can

453
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 3: talk about it with Tim a little bit. So headline

454
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:51,720
Speaker 3: today out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and this is

455
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:52,480
Speaker 3: a strange one.

456
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 1: Gene Hackman lived with his.

457
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 3: Dead wife's body for a week before succumbing to complications

458
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:03,440
Speaker 3: from heart problem and Alzheimer's. That is according to officials

459
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:05,800
Speaker 3: in Santa Fe, which they had a news conference this

460
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 3: afternoon with an update on their unusual deaths. And joining

461
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 3: us to talk about that a little bit more right

462
00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 3: now is Brian Clark, ABC News correspondent, Brian, I know

463
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:19,120
Speaker 3: you follow that update from Santa Fe closely.

464
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 1: What are the headlines and then the explanations, Yeah.

465
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 6: And they kind of go hand in hand there. So

466
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 6: the first thing we know is going chronologically is that

467
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:32,919
Speaker 6: Betsy Hackman died first. That's Geen Hackman's wife, and they

468
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 6: think she died around February eleventh, and her cause of

469
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:41,480
Speaker 6: death was a very rare condition called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.

470
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 6: It's transmitted by infected mouse droppings. That's what killed her.

471
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 6: But Gene Hackman they think lived for up to a

472
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 6: week later. They think he died sometime around February seventeenth

473
00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 6: or eighteenth. He's ninety five years old. He died of

474
00:25:55,640 --> 00:26:00,040
Speaker 6: hyper intensive cardiovascular disease, and they also listed Alzheimer's a

475
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 6: significant contributing factor. But yeah, you can draw fill in

476
00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:06,639
Speaker 6: the blanks that he was in the house for up

477
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 6: to a week with his dead wife's body. It's a

478
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 6: really sad story, but at least we're getting a little

479
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 6: bit more of a clear picture as to what happened.

480
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:18,680
Speaker 3: So were officials in Santa Fe and it was a

481
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:21,159
Speaker 3: sheriff's and it was a medical examiner and a few others.

482
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 3: Were they questioned about that what happened between the eleventh

483
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 3: and the eighteenth.

484
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 6: They were and they essentially said they don't know, which

485
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:33,720
Speaker 6: I think what they're not saying tells you all you

486
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 6: need to know. And that's it doesn't seem like this

487
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 6: man was really capable of caring for himself. It seems

488
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 6: like she was the caretaker. There was nobody else coming

489
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:44,440
Speaker 6: into or going out of the house, and that once

490
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 6: she died, he was on his own to spend exactly,

491
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 6: And the sheriff was asked, you know, he was fat

492
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 6: when when Gene Hackman was found, he had kind of

493
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:58,680
Speaker 6: they said, like his sunglasses and a jacket on, like

494
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,399
Speaker 6: almost he's going to go outside. And they asked was

495
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 6: he maybe going to get help? And they said they

496
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 6: really couldn't go that far in speculating as to whether

497
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:09,399
Speaker 6: he was trying to leave the house or what was

498
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 6: going on. But it does Paine just a really sad picture.

499
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:17,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, So did they they support this with I think

500
00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:23,439
Speaker 3: phone calls, text messages, video camera surveillance from the community. Right,

501
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 3: this isn't This is pretty definitive in terms of the timeline.

502
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 3: And I know that earlier there was a headline about

503
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 3: his pacemaker stopped working and that was an indication of

504
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 3: when he might have died.

505
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:37,800
Speaker 6: Yeah, and that's still what they're going for with him,

506
00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 6: because it stopped working or the last recorded activity there

507
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 6: was something on the seventeenth, and then there was a

508
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:46,399
Speaker 6: little bit more of like an irregular heartbeat message on

509
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 6: the eighteenth, So they think it was sometime in the

510
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 6: seventeenth eighteenth window where he died. And then what they're

511
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 6: using to try to track down her time of death

512
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 6: is just kind of outgoing contacts in terms of getting

513
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:01,440
Speaker 6: in touch with people from the outside world, and that's

514
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 6: why they think that she had not been heard from

515
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:05,240
Speaker 6: since February eleven.

516
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:09,359
Speaker 1: So from what you heard today, is this sort of

517
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 1: the end of the story or is there more to come?

518
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 6: So the sheriff was asked that as well, and he

519
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 6: said that this pretty much answers a lot of questions.

520
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:22,440
Speaker 6: He said, there's a few pieces of information relating to

521
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 6: the cell phones that are still outstanding. They're hoping to

522
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:28,119
Speaker 6: get some of those results back, but in terms of

523
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 6: maybe drilling down a little bit more into what happened

524
00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:34,920
Speaker 6: and when, it doesn't seem like we'll ever know. But

525
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:37,399
Speaker 6: I think just being kind of the clear outline of

526
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 6: what happened and when I think we got maybe as

527
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 6: good as we're going.

528
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 3: To get, cause you know, the story that's been reported

529
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 3: for the past week. Is that cliche that a lot

530
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 3: of us in the news business fall on. To myself included,

531
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,600
Speaker 3: is that more questions than answers. So we still have

532
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 3: a lot of questions, but we may never really get

533
00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 3: the answers.

534
00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 1: It sounds like what they.

535
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:01,040
Speaker 6: Said exactly right. Yeah, I think we're all guilty of

536
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 6: that in our business. It was that and it's also

537
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 6: we may not like the answers because I think there's

538
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 6: just really sad at the end of the day when

539
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 6: you when you consider how this went, and that seems

540
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 6: like is what we're going to have to, you know,

541
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:15,720
Speaker 6: think about as we move forward here.

542
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, and apparently nobody reached out to them during that

543
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 3: week's time. I mean, Hackman obviously has adult children, and yeah,

544
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 3: it's it's kind of it's kind of a sad story,

545
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 3: you know, in so many ways, isn't it.

546
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 6: Absolutely, And you know, there was some when when we

547
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 6: first heard this, I think we all thought of this

548
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 6: sounds like carbon monoxide, you know, called in New Mexico.

549
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 6: They were both negative for carbon monoxide. And then we

550
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 6: heard that there were pills found alongside his wife's body, right,

551
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 6: and they clarified those today. They said that that was

552
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 6: just regular thyroid medication she was taking as prescribed, and

553
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 6: it seems like maybe she was taking her medication when

554
00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 6: she was stricken and that's what happened. So all these

555
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 6: kind of the sarious things that we thought about, they've

556
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 6: gone away, and now I think we're less than just

557
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:06,160
Speaker 6: kind of a sad reality here.

558
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, and apparently they were very private. We've heard a

559
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 3: lot of the news coverage in the past week talking

560
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 3: with people who lived in the general area. They had

561
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 3: a large piece of property that was fairly secluded. They

562
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:21,920
Speaker 3: were they were, they kept to themselves. There are apparently

563
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 3: no video cameras or security cameras on their property that

564
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 3: would have maybe recorded things like so many of us

565
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 3: have security cameras or you know, doorbell cameras. So yeah,

566
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 3: so it just seems like it was just an unfortunate

567
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 3: sort of series of events that you know, the hantavirus thing.

568
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 3: The hantavirus thing, I think is going to provoke a

569
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:47,719
Speaker 3: little bit more discussion than what happened with him. I mean,

570
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 3: ninety five heart disease, Alzheimer's, that makes sense. But how

571
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 3: in this day and age you get you die from

572
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 3: something like a infection in your lung seems you know,

573
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 3: one of those things might be worth exploring a little

574
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 3: bit more.

575
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,760
Speaker 6: Absolutely, they had the County veterinarian out there just at

576
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 6: the press conference as well, giving people an update. There's

577
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:11,800
Speaker 6: a pretty high fatality rate or mortality rate with it,

578
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 6: maybe up to the highest fifty percent in some cases,

579
00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:17,479
Speaker 6: but it's so rare. That's why we don't hear more

580
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 6: about it, so she was just giving and they did

581
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 6: say there was evidence that there had been some rodents

582
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 6: in the house, just mice or whatever they were. But

583
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 6: I think we all dealt with mice at one time

584
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 6: or another and don't think this is going to happen.

585
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:31,960
Speaker 3: Well, you know, a week or so after the oscars

586
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 3: and we look back on Gene Hackman's life with the

587
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 3: two oscars and this incredible inspirational body of work that

588
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 3: you entertained multiple generations of people. He lived an incredibly long,

589
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 3: full life going out of Hollywood quote unquote on his

590
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 3: own terms about twenty years ago apparently with this new

591
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 3: love of his life, and they had pretty cool sounding

592
00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 3: existence there out of the limelight in Santa to Faye.

593
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 3: It all has to come to an end one way

594
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 3: or another. This one's more bizarre than most. But Brian Clark,

595
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 3: thanks from ABC News, thank you so much for an

596
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 3: update on that. And we're going to keep an eye

597
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 3: on this one see what else if anything comes out

598
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:17,920
Speaker 3: during the day. But first let's get some additional headlines

599
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,320
Speaker 3: from Debora Mark and the KFI twenty four hour newsroom.

600
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,400
Speaker 2: Hey, you've been listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast.

601
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 2: You can always hear the show live on KFI Am

602
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 2: six forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,

603
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 2: and of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app