12-18-24 *INTERVIEW* Latest Headlines with Leland Vittert host of 'On Balance' on News Nation

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hopefully in a second.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Here we're gonna have Leland Vindert, who hosts on Balance
with News Nation. And I've I've told listeners frequently that
not only should you be watching not only should you
be watching Leland every weeknight and if I be a
mountain time, but you got to sign up for you
got to sign up for war Notes.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
And Leland checked this out. And then because Leland and
I can see each other, can you can you see
that that's mine?

Speaker 3 (00:26):
It's a very very elegant yet.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, it's uh, it's my. It's my war Notes swag.
And I'm drinking some Earl Gray tea out of it.
So so that's pretty cool. So and I look at that.
It's got a little drawing of a profile of a
war reporter wearing a helmet and it says vinterd on
the side Leland before we first of all, thanks for
doing this, And I didn't know that. Yeah, I didn't

(00:49):
get a cancel notice. I just got we need to
move you a little later, and we did that. So
thanks for making this work. I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (00:56):
Well for you ross anything, and I'll give your listener
there's a little preview. Yep, we are doing a hour
long special with George Will. George Will on America, his
thoughts after fifty years of where America is, more importantly,
where America is going. He's one of my personal heroes.

(01:18):
So you get to spend a couple of days with
him has just been wildly, wildly cool. It's very rare
you get to do something really special in this business,
and this has been one of the more special a
couple of.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Days of my life.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
But for you, Ross, George Will wait and we will will,
We'll come and chat and then the special airs on
Christmas Eve, so make sure you DVR it.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Oh for sure, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
And I'll tell you I have a I have a
bad memory, and there's no reason that in general a
person might remember a particular meal. But one meal that
I remember with great fondness is breakfast with George Will,
just me and him, uh, several years ago in Washington,
d C. When I was visiting town, and just what

(02:06):
an what an incredible source of wisdom and a true gentleman.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
And I feel the exact same way about him that
you do. So that's cool.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
Yeah, we were we were shooting today out of the
National Mall and we went up to Lincoln and walked
through the memorial and talked about the second Inaugural Address
and talked about the monuments that are his favorite and why.
And we got to the hay Adams Hotel right in
front of Loafiette Park, in front of the White House,
and this man, older African American gentleman gets out of

(02:39):
a big Mercedes and he was the show for he
was waiting for his ride and comes out to say
hello to mister Will and says, mister Will, it's so
nice to see you. It's Michael, you know, on and
on and then he looks at me and the camera crew.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
He goes, do you know who you're with? You're with
a legend. This is the best journalist in America.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
At point George Will And says, I've been reading him
for forty five years.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
It was really remarkable.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Well, he's not wrong. He's not wrong on one.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Personal ish question before we jump into stuff you're talking
about on the show.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
So on my fabulous War Notes swag.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yetti container, there's a sort of drawing of you, right,
just a pencil drawing of the profile of a of
a war reporter wearing a helmet, and it says viterd
on it. Where in your career, as you know, international
reporter station in the Middle East and wherever else you went, what.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Was the time at which you felt at the most danger.

Speaker 4 (03:42):
I think probably in Libya running with the rebels before
the no fly zone, just because there was no law.
It was a small team of us, five guys, I think,
and the rebels could do anything to you. There was
no law, there was no control, there was no metavac.

(04:04):
You know, help was seventy two hours away. If somebody
got I'm hurt or blown up or whatever else. So
that was my first taste I think of real you're
on your own danger.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
And the best helmet.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
Story I have is I was on the air one
night during Gazza Gaza war.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
Hamas and Israel are shooting each other and.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
We're on the border, and you know, you're watching the
Hamas rockets go off and then the Iron Dome come
up in and intercept them, and they're going back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth. And at the time
I had my flat jacket on and a helmet sort
of clipped to my flat jacket because the helmet's are uncomfortable,
and nobody ever looks good in the helmet, just ask

(04:48):
Michael Dukakis. And I'm on the line with Megan Kelly
for a while. We're talking during her show, and things
sort of got slightly more rambunctious, if you will, and
Megan goes, I'm going to stop you l like Leland,
because your mother just called and she would like you
to put your helmet on.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
Please.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Was it a true story? You did your her? Your mother? Really?

Speaker 3 (05:14):
My mother did not call Megan?

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Okay, Megan, yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Knew what and did you knew what was needed?

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Did you do it?

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Of course?

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (05:25):
You don't really say no to Megan Kelly's what I
figured out.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
That's pretty funny.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
All right. I want to talk a little bit about
your main topic from War Notes yesterday.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
I haven't seen War Notes yet today.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
I don't know if it's out yet, but your main
topic yesterday about how business just keeps getting done in
Washington and this insane bill that maybe it's been released
now like fifteen hundred pages, but who's going to read
fifteen hundred.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
Pages before they're forced to vote on it this week?

Speaker 2 (05:57):
And you sounded very skeptical, slash cynical, slash frustrated all
emotions I share with you about how business is done.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Especially when it comes to spending. So can you just
talk a little about that.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
So the fifteen hundred page spending bill pre Christmas extravaganza
did not disappoint and included, among other things, a pay
increase for Congress, so we now know why all the
congressmen say you've got to pass it right now before
Christmas so we can all leap down. But it shows
a fundamental unseeriousness by Republicans of doing any of the

(06:34):
things they got elected to do, other than bicker on
table television about ending woke and maybe closing the border.
And then you've got Elon Musk tweeting out any member
of the House or Senator who votes for this outrageous
spending bill deserves to be voted out in two years.
So you're setting up a position where Speaker Mike Johnson,
who has a razor thin majority, is hell hostaged by

(06:57):
a couple of members of his caucus, which may be
a good thing. He's forced to work with the Democrats,
which means the Democrats are actually the ones in control,
so they get everything in the world that they want,
and Johnson's forced to go on TV and defend it,
and then Elon Musk is the guy who gets to
come in and sort of play king on social media.

(07:17):
And this is for warn Os today. That'll come out
two o'clock Denver time. So warnotes dot com has subscribed
to get this. But the Republican circus that is happening
on Capitol Hill right.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Now is like a.

Speaker 4 (07:35):
Minor preview to what is going to happen over the
next two years of Republicans just fighting amongst themselves, bickering,
and none of the meaningful reforms that they say they
have a mandate for are going to get done.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, so we'll call that skeptical at least.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
And I think a lot of Americans, maybe even a
couple of Democrats, are waking up to the idea that
debt and deficit are a huge problem and something really
needs to change. I think part of the problem is
it's in Donald Trump's first term.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
He certainly didn't care about that at all.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
It's unclear to me what he's making slightly better noises
now as if he cares about debt and deficit a
little bit.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
But I'm not sure I believe him.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
And as long as he doesn't care a lot than
all of these Republicans who don't want to take a
hard vote that involves cutting spending for somebody's pet project,
will hide behind.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Trump's skirt and not make the hard vote. They'll vote
like Democrats.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
Well, I think.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
There's a little bit more to it than that, to
be fair, And what I would say is that you
can talk about spending and ending PBS right, which is
one of the republicans big thing. We're gonna stop wasting
money on PBS. That is like an American family, the

(08:54):
average American family saying well, we're going to really cut
back and tighten belt. Therefore, we are not going to
over the course of the year by one happy meal.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
That's the one happy meal over the course of the year.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
Is the is the big the big cuts Republicans are
talking about. Unless you want to talk about Social Security
and Medicare. It is a fundamentally unseerious conversation. If you
want a visual, since this is radio uh, it is
moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
What about And I know I'm gonna sound very naive here,
I'm just gonna word it this way anyway, what about Doge?

Speaker 4 (09:38):
Well, it's interesting Doge has absolutely no power. They have
no ability to stop spending, they have no ability to
change regulations.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
They're not part of the federal government.

Speaker 4 (09:51):
They are an independent advisory board, if you will, which
is great.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
The power that Eon.

Speaker 4 (10:00):
And vivek Ramaswami have is they have a social media
account and they have the ear of the president. So yeah,
they may be able to put pressure. But again, government
programs are very difficult to kill because government spending is unpopular.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
Government spending that helps.

Speaker 4 (10:21):
You or your employer or your congressional district is very popular.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
I actually thought, and I don't say this very often,
but I actually thought Ted Cruz had a pretty good
point when you were sparring with him on your show.
Yet that was yesterday, right, I think he had a
pretty good point where he said, well, Leland, you're criticizing
Republicans before we're really in charge, and maybe you should
give us a chance to see what we can do
before you start saying Republicans can't get stuff done. And

(10:51):
I was actually it was a great conversation between the
two of you, and he was less unlikable than usual.

Speaker 4 (11:00):
Look at your peril, do you try to ever outsmart
tech cruise because it cannot be done. You knowing the
investment industry, everyone always goes past performance is not indicative
of future results or not a guarantee of future results.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Well, let me.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
Tell you everyone deserves a chance. Today, Mike Johnson is
complaining the reason that he has to push through this
massively unpopular spending bill that gives Democrats everything that they
want and more importantly, completely advocates anything they said they
stood for is because he has a razor thin majority.

(11:36):
He's gonna have a smaller majority next year. So, as
Joe Biden would say, good luck in your senior year.
And what this all it shows is is that Republicans
are fundamentally unseerious about taking on the things that they
have to take on and being willing to stand up

(11:57):
for something.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
And you know, Donald Trump is said the entitlements are
off the table. So if you're a member of Congress.

Speaker 4 (12:03):
Why should you stick your neck out and confront these
real problems if the President's not going to.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
Back you up.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
We're talking with Leland Vinderd.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
He hosts on Balance on News Nation, which is weeknights
five pm here in the Mountain time zone, and every
day he puts out an email blast a newsletter. It's
really his show prep. It's called war Notes. It's free,
and it's got just incredible insights, like the kind of
things you hear from Leland when we talk. So if

(12:32):
you go to Warnoes dot com, you can subscribe there,
and you should. It'll make you smarter and it doesn't
cost you anything as a media guy, Leland, what do
you make of the story of ABC News settling with
Donald Trump for fifteen million dollars over George Stephanopoulos having
said on the air that Trump had been convicted of rape.

Speaker 4 (12:56):
Number One, journalists make lousy media critics, So I do
not endeavor to ever be a media critic. Therefore I
won't be one, and I certainly won't be a bad one.
That said, I think it's pretty obvious, and the New
York Times had some good reporting on this. Most importantly,

(13:18):
the deadline to turn over the emails, the internal ABC
emails about that interview and about that day was I
think it was either Monday, Sunday or Monday or Tuesday
of this week. So whatever was in George Stephanopolis's emails
and the producers and the executives of ABC's emails was

(13:39):
worth sixteen million dollars to ABC News or to Disney
to not release.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
It's very simple calculation.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
All right, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Two very quick things here and then I'm gonna and
then I'm gonna let you go. First, Do you know
what is the national animal of Scotland? No, all right,
go look it up after we talk. Go look up
the national animal of Scotland.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
After we talk.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
The other question, and this is the burning question of
the day that I'm asking my listeners. It's a very
simple yes or no question, eggnog, yes or no.

Speaker 4 (14:18):
No.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
God loves you hot chocolate.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
That's why Leland is a great American.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
That was the right answer.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
The recipe, the recipe for God Loves You Hot Chocolate
will be in Friday's Warnos.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
Because of this conversation, or you were doing that anyway.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
Well, because of this conversation.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
I hadn't thought about it, but I feel as though
it is a recipe that must be shared.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Okay, Well, we'll read war notes on Friday and I
will make that hot chocolate shortly after seeing the recipe.
Leland Vender, thanks for making time for us as always,
and seriously tell George will I said, Hi, He's an
awesome guy, and that's so cool that you get to
hang out with him, a whole special with him. I'm
a little bit envious, and I'm sure it's I can't

(15:04):
wait to see it.

Speaker 4 (15:06):
Well, you know is George Way would say envy is
the only one of the seven deadly sins which does
not provide the sinner with even momentary pleasure. So I'll
let you go through the other six as you think
about it, and remember to DVR the George Will Special
on Christmas on Christmas Eve.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
Thank you, Leland, appreciate it. See ya all right, see
yam agnogue