Transcript

Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host Ed Vitagliano

>> Ed Vitagliano: Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Ed Vitagliano. And welcome back. Ed Vitagliano sitting in for Tim Wildmon. This week, I'm joined in studio by Tony Vitagliano, remotely by Dr. Alex McFarland. And now joining us in studio, Steve Paisley Jordal, or I should say Steve. Floral print.

>> Steve Jordahl: Jordahl.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Today definitely looks, floral.

>> Steve Jordahl: It is.

>> Tony Vitagliano: I don't think you did, though.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, I think, I think we have, I think we have some towels.

>> Steve Jordahl: this is the. Whatever is clean in my closet. Yeah, I've been there before.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Oh, yeah.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Whatever fit, whatever works out color wise.

>> Steve Jordahl: Gonna go home and do some laundry.

>> Tony Vitagliano: There you go.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Whatever's clean.

After September 30, every Social Security payment will be made electronically

All right, Steve, let's get started here.

>> Steve Jordahl: All right, so we wanted to talk real quickly just to let our listeners know something that's going to be happening that may be affecting, a number of you. listen up. On September 30th, which, if my calendar is correct, will be, two weeks a week from next Tuesday, that will be the last day that the federal government will be sending out Social Security checks by paper. After September 30, every Social Security payment is going to be made electronically, direct deposit to your bank account. Now, I know a lot of you, probably your eyes just glazed over, but, if you are, ah, an elderly person that, kind of has trouble getting around your computer, you're going to need help on this. And this is what I suggest you do. Give a call to one of two people. Either your bank, if you have a good relationship with your bank and you know, the manager there or whatever, ask them to walk you through. How do you access what bank account, how do you look, make sure it's there and they will be glad to walk you through that or call your grandkids, have them come over, or somebody.

>> Ed Vitagliano: In your family, somebody in your family.

>> Steve Jordahl: Can help you do that because it's happening. This is something President Trump, unleashed here where he did an executive order that says that everything's gonna be electronic. It's gonna save some untold millions of dollars in printing, and mailing fees. So it's gonna save some money to a social, security, which we know is already a little bit on the. Need some financial help. It's on life support. but just know that on September 30th, after September 30th, your Social Security payments are going to come electronically deposited.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Or not at all or. Well, well, what I'm saying is if you don't make this change you won't get a check in the mail.

>> Steve Jordahl: You're not going to get a check in the mail anymore.

>> Ed Vitagliano: All right?

>> Tony Vitagliano: Yeah. And just to encourage our listeners who this might apply to, we encourage you to go out and contact your bank or the Social Security administrator, administration office. Just be very careful about people from the Social Security office contacting you. I know it says that they have been reaching out, and I'm sure the ssa, has been reaching out to people legitimately, but always, please, please be careful when you're contacted by someone from the Social Security.

>> Steve Jordahl: Absolutely. They will never call and ask you for a Social Security number. For example. You're, gonna, or your bank account.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Number, I would guess.

>> Steve Jordahl: Or any of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> Tony Vitagliano: So.

>> Steve Jordahl: All right, Alex, you got that down. Now you're going to be able to get your Social Security check in the mail.

>> Alex McFarland: Well, I'm not quite there yet, Steve. Thanks a lot.

>> Steve Jordahl: But,

>> Tony Vitagliano: I'll never be there, so.

>> Alex McFarland: I am so old. I'm so, I still write checks.

>> Steve Jordahl: Oh, yeah, I remember that.

>> Alex McFarland: Yeah. And, I was at a place, you know, because, there's a lot of reasons. but anyway, I don't want checks to totally go away because sometimes you need that paper inch instrument. But I wrote a check. I was at a major hardware store chain the other day and they take checks. I was writing a check and the person at the register was, I'm going to say, 27, 28. They said, wow, a check. I have never seen one of these.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Oh, man.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Hey, look, just say this and then we'll let Steve do, do his thing.

Steve Martin: I think we should keep checks and keep cash available

since we just talked about Gen Z and Gen Alpha oversharing, I'm going to overshare for just a second. A confession to make. And only my wife knows this. Every time I have to write a fill out a check, which is like once a quarter, maybe. Yeah, I have to Google how to fill out a check.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Really?

>> Tony Vitagliano: Yes.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Well, I mean, I don't do it. Didn't you used to do checks? Or you, oh, you've never.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Well, no, I mean, I have before, but I do it so infrequently.

>> Steve Jordahl: Did your dad give you any good financial education?

>> Tony Vitagliano: I mean, my generation is you get a debit card and, and that was it.

>> Ed Vitagliano: So you might, you might very well have been in that age group where the first thing you did was get a debit card. I, I, yeah, it was so.

>> Steve Jordahl: You ever seen these posts on social media? The boomers do this. You, you know, you're old. If. Have you ever, like, written a check.

>> Alex McFarland: Reconciled a check or dialed a rotary.

>> Steve Jordahl: Phone or answered a, answering machine? All these things that, I always check off 100 of 100.

>> Ed Vitagliano: But, yeah, I will just say this and just add, Add my two cents in here. I hope cash never goes away. They talk about cashless society. I, do not think, here's the thing. There are businesses, there are major corporations, there are huge departments in the federal government who've been hacked. And there are mistakes that are made. And we went through a period of time where my wife's debit card had gotten hacked at, at some store. I do not want to rely solely on a cashless economic system because nobody can do it. Right. And, and I think we should keep checks and keep cash available, because you, you don't want something to crash and you not be able to go to your bank and get any money or be able to buy gas. You should.

>> Steve Jordahl: People.

>> Alex McFarland: Electronic banking is not fail safe.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yes.

>> Steve Jordahl: And I think you're worried for nothing. You know, you're gonna be. You're gonna be able to scan the back of your hand, your forehead, and get all the money.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Right wing extremist over here.

>> Ed Vitagliano: All right, Steve.

>> Steve Jordahl: All right.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, Steve, go ahead. Let's get us.

Conservatives are calling for Donald Trump to let Pam Bondi go

All right, us on a different, path.

>> Steve Jordahl: Conservatives, en masse right now are calling for Donald Trump to let Pam Bondi, our Attorney General, go. She said some things. she's made several missteps in the last. Well, since she's been in that position. But just recently, there have been two in the last week that have come to the forefront. Number one, she said that the Department of Justice was going to be going after hate speech. Let's listen to what she said. Cut 10.

>> Pam Bondi: There's free speech and then there's hate speech. And there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie. In our society. Do you see more law enforcement going after these groups who are using hate speech and putting cuffs on people? So we show them that some action is better than no action. We will absolutely target you, go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything. And that's across the aisle.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Oh, it's all right now. I had not heard that whole quote. I just read some things about what she had said. that's pretty stunning. I. When as you're bringing this up, Steve, and talking about conservatives, in my thought, my mind I was thinking, well, I'm. I'm going to, I'm going to be the voice that says M. Maybe. Maybe not Pam Bondi. You know, maybe we give her some more time. That was frightening.

>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah. Yeah.

>> Ed Vitagliano: To hear her say that she should. I don't know. I don't know where she gets her constitutional training, but this is what they're doing in the uk, right? They're arresting people for things that they tweet or things that they, have posted on Facebook. This is absolutely against. Tony, we'll go to you first. This is absolutely against the plain meaning of the First Amendment. The government can't put you in handcuffs for. What she's calling hate speech is simply saying firmly what you believe about a controversial issue.

Steve King: Pam Bondi misstated two issues regarding free speech

>> Tony Vitagliano: Well, Steve, do we have the clip about, the Office Depot poster? Well, let's. I mean, because it gets, to me, it gets even a little worse.

>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah, it does get. So the second thing, that second misstep that she said was she was talking, about, someone going into an Office Depot and saying, I want to. We got a memorial, vigil for Charlie Kirk. We want to put these posters up. And the employees there said, no, we won't do it. We don't print political posters.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Propaganda.

>> Steve Jordahl: Propaganda. Which Pam Bondi then said, no, you have to print whatever they bring you. Let's, listen to cut 11.

>> Pam Bondi: Businesses cannot discriminate. If you want to go in and print posters with Charlie's pictures on them for a vigilante, you have to let them do that. We can prosecute you for that. I have Harmeet Dhillon right now in our civil rights unit looking at that immediately that Office Depot had done that. We're looking at that.

>> Ed Vitagliano: All right, go ahead, Tony.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Yeah, I'll just say this. If this was a Democratic administration, and their attorney, general was saying this, I would feel the same way about it. So it is not. This is not. Well, our people are in. So this is. This is okay. And we're going to go. This. This would disturb me regardless of what administration was in office, because free speech. We just got through talking about the misclassification of free speech. Free speech is the anchor, constitutionally to our society, no matter what. hateful, you know, disgusting, disturbing thing that. Opinions that people want to express out in the public square, they have the right to do so. Now, I'm obviously excluding threats of violence. Right. I mean, we all. We all can all set that aside, but they have the right to do that. Because I'm just going to tell you, anybody who's, supportive of this, and it sounds like from what Steve is saying a lot of conservatives are actually against this, which is a good thing. But anybody who's supportive of this, just because it's a republic, Trump's in office and it's our people, the pendulum always swings back the other way. And, this could always, always and probably will come back on, conservatives in some way.

>> Steve Jordahl: That second statement about posters, and having to print that, that would undo everything that we've been seeing in the court, starting with Jack Phillips on and all the Christian bakers and the florists and the photographers that would. Obviously you'd now have to print or bake the cake or whatever. Right, Alex? Yeah.

>> Alex McFarland: Like, if you go in any fast food restaurant, like for instance, McDonald's, I like McDonald's coffee, so I go in there a lot to get coffee as I'm on the road. But in every McDonald's, somewhere in there there'll be a little plaque on the wall that says, we reserve the right to refuse service. and it's almost like an at will employment situation where an employer or an employee may terminate the relationship with or without cause. Now obviously a business can't, and most, I don't think would say, oh, I'm going to refuse to serve you or do business because of race or something like that. But it could be a lot of things. They are too busy to fulfill the order right now or they're, you know, businesses have the right to refuse service. And Jack Phillips, you know, successfully, won his case that he didn't, as a Christian, have to create art that violated his sincerely held religious convictions. But, I like what you say there, Tony, that, you know, we Christians, we don't want to, overreach with the law because that pendulum will swing back on us. We want fairness, constitutionality for all. You know, we don't want our rights suppressed. And at the same time, I don't want the rights suppressed of those that I ideologically disagree with.

Matt Walsh says businesses should be free to refuse service based on race

>> Steve Jordahl: It's interesting you brought up the race thing. I wanted to play you love a clip. I was listening, to Matt Walsh and his podcast, and he brought up in the perfect world scenario, if we were, if we had a perfect world and we were defending the Constitution like we should, this is what might happen. If you say, for example, said, you owned a restaurant and said, I'm not going to serve Black people. Cut 14.

>> Matt Walsh: If you let them refuse service for a gay wedding, then what happens if, you know, next thing you know, you have a restaurant that says, we're not going to serve black people. What has our response been to that? You know, they said, well, should a restaurant be able to refuse, service to black people? Yeah, they should actually. They should have that right. You should be able to refuse service to anyone. You do not. You should not be compelled by the government to provide service to anybody. It's your company, it's your business. You can do what you want. However, what, what have we always said? It's like. Okay, well, first of all, it's not going to happen.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Okay?

>> Matt Walsh: No, no restaurant is going to say, we're not going to serve black people. It's not just not going to actually happen. And if it did, that restaurant would be out of business in like 50 seconds. Okay? By the end of the day, they'd be out of business because, many other people in the free market using their free speech would, would, would be, you know, calling attention to that and that that company would be out of business almost immediately. You know, that's how these things would work, which is why you don't need the government stepping in. So you have to, you know, litigating these sorts of issues.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Is he done?

>> Steve Jordahl: I don't know. Yes, I think he's done. Okay.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Matt Walsh is in the room with us.

>> Ed Vitagliano: That's right. Okay, so I'm going to take just a slightly different tack here. I understand what Matt Walsh is saying. He's saying in a country with that, is run solely by the free market, then he's making the argument that, every business owner should be able to do whatever he or she wants. Okay. That, to me, that's a separate issue from the world we actually do live in, where the Civil Rights act has a short list of people that you're not allowed to discriminate against. And, and, on the basis of race, I think in gender, age. I think may. There may be some of those. I don't remember the whole, whole list.

>> Alex McFarland: Because these are immutable characteristics.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yes, they are. So, but I understand what he's saying that, that the free market would. And, and, and in this day and age, it probably would result in a company going out of business. But in the 60s it wasn't that way. And so, so that's why the law was passed. So anyway, anybody else want to make a comment on that? That's. That's fine. That's. That's my take on this.

>> Steve Jordahl: Is, it, The definition of what is included in the civil rights thing, that's been at the heart of some of these disagreements, though, for Example, we talked about, Jack Phillips. He, was charged by Colorado's civil rights community, who said, someone's sexual orientation should be folded into the civil rights thing, and therefore, you shouldn't be able to discriminate on someone's sexual orientation. Like you shouldn't be able to discriminate on someone's race. So that's. That whole thing is in the middle.

>> Ed Vitagliano: I m. Understand. But at the same time, the argument on the. On behalf of Jack Phillips was that the First Amendment is. Supersedes even the Civil Rights act in considering that freedom, of religion and freedom of speech was something that could not be, under coerced. So, either Alex or Tony. You guys have anything you want to add to it?

>> Alex McFarland: I got to say this. The. The thing about that, making homosexuality protected under the umbrella of the Civil Rights Act. We've got to be very careful. A behavior is not an ethnicity.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Right, right.

>> Alex McFarland: See, Caucasian, Asian, those are ethnicities. But homosexuality and transgenderism, those are behaviors that are mutable. They change. And, you know, the Harvard Law Review recently put out the. Somebody wrote an article, and it's scary, folks. The case against immutability. See, our natural rights are based on immutable characteristics and situations. I mean, we've interviewed many former homosexuals. You'll never meet a former Hispanic or former Caucasian.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Right.

>> Alex McFarland: But anyway, we're a nation that needs. On the legal level, I'll put it this way. We need to affirm moral m. Truth. On the spiritual level, we need a revival.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Amen. And I think we can all. I think we're all in agreement that Pam Bondi's just wrong on both of these. And I. I'm. I'm gonna. I'm gonna say yes after I. I was. I was, hesitating to say that. But if she doesn't know something this basic, I think she's in over her head in her position. So we'll have to wait and see what happens to her.

Jerry Greenfield, co founder of Ben and Jerry's, has resigned

>> Steve Jordahl: All right, let's dial it back a little bit. Get a little less serious here. I have really bad news for all woke ice cream lovers. Jerry Greenfield, the co founder of Ben and Jerry's, has resigned from the company. This is what he wrote. It's with a broken heart that I've decided I can no longer, in good conscience and after 47 years, remain an employee of Ben and Jerry's. I'm resigning from the company Ben and I started back in 1978, standing up for the values of justice, equity, and our Shared humanity has never been more important. Yet Ben and Jerry's always has been silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power. It's easy to stand up and speak out when there's nothing at risk. The total test of values is when times are challenging and. And you have something to lose. So all, right, Ben and Jerry's, in the, year I think it was 2000, was sold to Unilever. They're the same people that like. So they have so much of different things. Big, huge corporate thing. And for a long time, and in fact, written into the contract was. You could say whatever you want to say. Well, it's being bad for business now. I think Woko. Woko broke and Unilever has pulled back, and that is what Jerry Greenfield is upset about.

>> Ed Vitagliano: All right, so, Tony, this is a leftist. This has been. Ben and Jerry's has been a leftist. I really like ice cream. I would never, never buy Ben and Jerry's.

>> Alex McFarland: Amen.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Because they have just been so leftist. I get a kick out of the fact that these kind of socialist people. I think they're based in Vermont, or they were originally. They. They sell who knows how many. What. What they sold one of the whitest.

>> Tony Vitagliano: States in the country, by the way. Vermont.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Yeah. They look. They, For those of you don't know, their. A lot of their flavors were politically inflammatory. You know, they had some blm, some BLM flavors. I don't know telling what they've done. You can go look up a list of. And they're all very on the nose, pointed, political, politicized flavors.

>> Ed Vitagliano: They were proud of that.

>> Tony Vitagliano: They were proud of that.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Well, my hope. My hope is that, you know, the pendulum is talking. Talking about the pendulum swinging back the other way. Cracker Barrel had to go back and change their logo. I hope Unilever starts going with some right, wing flavors.

>> Ed Vitagliano: I wish I could think of.

>> Tony Vitagliano: I've actually taken the liberty of thinking of a few. So,

>> Steve Jordahl: Have you.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Yeah, I want to. I want to try Patriot, day Pistachio, ice, I, C, E. Lemon custard. Oh, I like Terrific Turtle. Terror.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Terror.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Terrific Turtle. that one didn't land too much. I look forward to, Kimmel's salted caramel and tears. No more S' more for Ukraine. They get. They get a little bit worse as the list goes on. Border, walnut green. Magnificent Choco chunk.

>> Ed Vitagliano: These are great.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Yeah, Burma. And the last one, Perma Mint Tax cuts.

>> Speaker G: Look at you.

>> Steve Jordahl: You got a marketing career ahead of you listen.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Those are. Those are fantastic.

>> Alex McFarland: You just won the Internet.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure Greenfield would be thrilled if Unilever was like, we need to kind of balance this out. Let's go with some.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Oh, those would be some great flavors. I would buy Ben and Jerry's if we. If we could have, traditional values.

>> Alex McFarland: Vanilla.

>> Steve Jordahl: Yes.

>> Ed Vitagliano: There you go. That's right.

>> Tony Vitagliano: It would be vanilla. Yes.

>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah.

Because it's just tradition. Regular. I like. I love those. Uh, Steve, what else you got?

Because it's just tradition.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Tradition.

>> Steve Jordahl: Regular. Yep.

>> Ed Vitagliano: I like. I like. I love those. Steve, what else you got?

Air traffic controller having trouble communicating with Spirit Airlines flight over Boston

>> Steve Jordahl: All right, let's, I got another thing. There was a. I have cleaned, this up a little bit, made, it a little easier to hear, but, the Air Force One was taken off out of Boston, and there was a Spirit Airlines plane that was taking off kind of the same time, a little bit of the same, path. And the air traffic controller was having a little hard time communicating with the Spirit Airlines thing. I just.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Getting too close to Air Force One.

>> Steve Jordahl: We're getting too close to Air Force One, too, close, in this case being eight miles, which isn't that close, but literally got 13.

>> Speaker G: New York, Air Force 1 300-clocking, 3, 2 0. Air Force 1, New York Center. Roger. Air Force One, Contact Boston Center, 124.5212, 4, 5 2.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Air Force One, G'.

>> Speaker G: Day. Spirit 1300, ascend a fly level 330330. Steer 1300. Spirit 1300, turn 20 degrees right. Vector traffic and defense. Pay attention. Spirit 1300, turn 20 degrees Right here at 1300, turn 20 degrees right now. Spear wings. 1300, turn 20 degrees right immediately. 20 degrees right. Zero wing. 1300. Pay attention. Delta 2951, Boston Center, 134.0. Spirit 1300, traffic's off your left wing by six mile, or eight miles, 7 47. I'm sure you can see who it is. The fly level 320. Maintain three three zero. I'll keep an eye out for him. He's white and blue. Spirit 1300, Boston Center, 134.0. I gotta talk to you twice. Every time. Spirit 1300, Boston 13 4.0. Pay attention. Get off the iPad.

>> Ed Vitagliano: So this was a Spirit Airline flight that was not responding? Or they just weren't doing it?

>> Alex McFarland: Just.

>> Steve Jordahl: It was ignoring. they weren't responding.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Sounded a little upset.

>> Tony Vitagliano: Trying to save a few bucks, trying to catch a tailwind off of, Air Force One. And cost, folks.

>> Ed Vitagliano: It costs. All right, Alex. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

>> Alex McFarland: God bless you all.

>> Ed Vitagliano: Tony, thank you. our thanks also to, MD Perkins, who is on Chris Woodward. Steve, thank you, sir.

>> Steve Jordahl: My pleasure.

>> Ed Vitagliano: And, we look forward to maybe some conservative flavors coming from Ben and Jerry's. Kind of heaving things up. I love those ideas. All right, folks, that is all we have for this edition of today's Issues. Guess what tomorrow is Trivia Friday. We'll be back, Lord willing, for that.